{ANNOUNCEMENT} WBX Exchange Frozen

[bitcowok]

Yep, I check in every few days.. I would have thought that people interested in getting some of their money back would be a bit more involved here tbh..

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[dooglus]

Yep, I check in every few days.. I would have thought that people interested in getting some of their money back would be a bit more involved here tbh..

I'm still here, and still have the bitcoins.

I still don't have a complete list of creditors and have had no luck in contacting Andre to obtain such a list.

In short nothing has changed recently.

I can't in good conscience divide up the bitcoins to the creditors I know about since there may be some I don't know about, so I don't know how to proceed from here.

[MPOE-PR]

I'm still here, and still have the bitcoins.

I still don't have a complete list of creditors and have had no luck in contacting Andre to obtain such a list.

In short nothing has changed recently.

I can't in good conscience divide up the bitcoins to the creditors I know about since there may be some I don't know about, so I don't know how to proceed from here.

If any one creditor is owed over 100 BTC you could perhaps arrange to be sued before the Rota. With a little luck/if at all practicable you might be ordered to follow some program, follow that and be off the hook.

[bitcowok]

Dooglus, I thought you had a backup of the site's SQL database?  Could we not use that as a guide for what is owed?

When is the point when we decide that nothing more is going to happen about this and the remaining funds should be distributed as fairly as possible?  Another year from now? 5 years?

I guess I'm in no rush really. At least bitcoin is most probably going to be higher in value in 5 years time.

[dooglus]

Dooglus, I thought you had a backup of the site's SQL database?  Could we not use that as a guide for what is owed?

When is the point when we decide that nothing more is going to happen about this and the remaining funds should be distributed as fairly as possible?  Another year from now? 5 years?

I guess I'm in no rush really. At least bitcoin is most probably going to be higher in value in 5 years time.

I do have the SQL database.  The problem is that the database doesn't necessarily reflect reality due to the following two scenarios:

* Some people claim to have sent money to Andre's bank account but never had it show up on the site.  The database won't have any record of these deposits.

* Some people claim to have made withdrawals from the site, but never had them show up in their bank accounts.  The database records that the withdrawal was made when it wasn't really ever carried out.

It's possible that some people fall into one of the above two cases but didn't yet tell me about it too.  They may later come forward claiming that they are owed money too.

The generally increasing value does help to make the eventual payouts bigger for everyone, since it causes the missing dollars to become relatively less significant compared to the Bitcoin that I'm holding.

[XTremeEd]

As impressive as the improvement of the bitcoin exchange rate has been, we can't count on that forever.

As far as I understand, it sounds like the dollars are still there, just frozen because they're fraudulent. My understanding is that the dollars are a completely separate issue to the coins, as the path for getting the money back is through the Australian court and/or by registering yourself as a debtor.  There is also other procedures to help people find lost money.

By sitting on them, you're essentially making or losing people money, as some people have them as investments. Currently its fine because youre making people money. Would you still be doing what you're doing if it fell to $2 again though?  I suggest you seek legal advice somehow, or just bite the bullet and divide them to who you know needs to be owed.

My suggestion (Assuming you have enough bitcoins): For each account, get the bitcoin address that deposited the coins (if available), and use the last known balance to deposit back into that address.  If there's coins left over then you're still where you are now, but with hopefully so few it doesn't really matter.

If people have been dealing in Wbx vouchers since then, it's really irrelevant, as the exchange is frozen/closed. It's more of a tech glitch that they were able to do that at all.

[dooglus]

As far as I understand, it sounds like the dollars are still there, just frozen because they're fraudulent.

I'm not privy to any extra information, but as I understood it Andre pretty much told us that the dollars were gone.

My understanding is that the dollars are a completely separate issue to the coins, as the path for getting the money back is through the Australian court and/or by registering yourself as a debtor.  There is also other procedures to help people find lost money.

By sitting on them, you're essentially making or losing people money, as some people have them as investments. Currently its fine because youre making people money. Would you still be doing what you're doing if it fell to $2 again though?  I suggest you seek legal advice somehow, or just bite the bullet and divide them to who you know needs to be owed.

Given the recent price rises it would be possible to pay everyone back a much higher percentage of what they're owed than I previously calculated.

My suggestion (Assuming you have enough bitcoins): For each account, get the bitcoin address that deposited the coins (if available), and use the last known balance to deposit back into that address.  If there's coins left over then you're still where you are now, but with hopefully so few it doesn't really matter.

I have exactly the amount of bitcoins that are owed to WBX clients, and none of the dollars.  I can pay back all the coin holders in full, so long as the dollar holders are happy to lose all their dollars.  I doubt that's the case.  I expect there are some bitcoin holders who never deposited, and only ever obtained their bitcoins by exchanging for dollars on the site, although I've not checked that.

Even if I could find an address for each bitcoin holder, it's not safe to assume that (a) they owned  the address that was used to deposit (they could have deposited directly from mtgox, say) or (b) they still controll it now (perhaps they made a new wallet on a new computer, transferred over their balance, and deleted the old wallet).

What needs to happen is for Andre to respond to my attempts to contact him with clear details of exactly what dollar transactions did and didn't really happen.  I have the WBX database, but it includes dollar withdrawals that were never actually put through his bank account, and doesn't include dollar deposits which did actually arrive in his bank account.  Without knowing the details of these I can't divide up the bitcoins correctly (although I can probably get reasonably close).

[sonba]

What needs to happen is for Andre to respond to my attempts to contact him with clear details of exactly what dollar transactions did and didn't really happen.  I have the WBX database, but it includes dollar withdrawals that were never actually put through his bank account, and doesn't include dollar deposits which did actually arrive in his bank account.  Without knowing the details of these I can't divide up the bitcoins correctly (although I can probably get reasonably close).

Well, I think the chances that Andre actually responds to anything are nearly zero. So, I'm not too much in favour of waiting for that reply. Hence, I'd propose to do the best approximation possible. As in regard to wires: one possibility is for instance that someone proves with a live show session of some remote client (e.g. teamviewer) that he wired the money / didn't receive the wire (or the bank confirms it never received / did send the wire). I would rather go with a reasonably close division than with no division at all. We are currently waiting for already one year without having anything happened. So rather do it reasonably close than in 10 years

Cheers,

sonba

[XTremeEd]

My concern is that you use the bitcoins to pay back the dollars, and then they manage to get the dollars back through the courts. You would then have a bunch of people with too much aud and not enough btc.

I understand that you're between a rock and hard place, but something needs to be done, and if Andre won't reapond, I would figure you need to either A: find a way to contact him, B: seek legal help, or C: do something.

A year with zero progress is a bit ridiculous.

[sonba]

My concern is that you use the bitcoins to pay back the dollars, and then they manage to get the dollars back through the courts. You would then have a bunch of people with too much aud and not enough btc.

I understand that you're between a rock and hard place, but something needs to be done, and if Andre won't reapond, I would figure you need to either A: find a way to contact him, B: seek legal help, or C: do something.

A year with zero progress is a bit ridiculous.

Debts are debts - no matter whether its BTC or USD. You can go to court for either one. However, as this thread has shown: so far noone has gone to court as lawyer costs are too expensive in relation to what people lost (plus: even with lawyer its not clear whether you get anything back). Hence, any debt should be treated the same.

Just in general: please don't blame dooglus - if it wasn't for him, we would have lost pretty much everything, I assume. Seeking legal advice for him is in that respect difficult that you need to pay for that. How do you pay for that? WIth the remaining money. Makes it kanda tough for him to spend our money for this. I wouldn't mind if he spends a little part of our money for it but what with the others? And I'm highly against him spending his money for it. He is already doing all of this without any monetar incentive so we cannot expect him to pay for it itself. One alternative is that if someone wants legal advice (you?) he pays the lawyer and asks the lawyer to forward the findings to dooglus.

Just out of experience I would assume that this won't happen. Hence, I still vote to pay out the money pro rata after 1 year has passed of Andre telling us about his exchange being closed (see 1st post).

[dooglus]

Thanks for your words of support sonba.

Hence, I still vote to pay out the money pro rata after 1 year has passed of Andre telling us about his exchange being closed (see 1st post).

This seems reasonable.  I can't keep holding the BTC indefinitely, and one year seems like long enough for Andre to have responded to my attempts to contact him.  After a year I can only think he has abandoned the exchange and its users.

Here's the email announcing WBX's shutdown.  That seems like a good time to count as the official end.  I'll note the last traded price on the USD MtGox market at the first anniversary of that time, and use the mid-market AUD/USD exchange rate on http://www.xe.com/ucc/ to convert to AUD to get the rate at which I'll calculate the percentage of balances to return.

Note that the timestamp quoted below is in the PDT timezone, so I'll be using the price at 3:39pm PDT, Monday 11th March 2013.

On Sun, Mar 11, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Andre Jensen <gorkalitus@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Clients,

Effective immediately World Bitcoin Exchange (WBX) will be shutting down trading / deposits and returning all client funds. [...]

[Seal]

Thanks for your words of support sonba.

Hence, I still vote to pay out the money pro rata after 1 year has passed of Andre telling us about his exchange being closed (see 1st post).

This seems reasonable.  I can't keep holding the BTC indefinitely, and one year seems like long enough for Andre to have responded to my attempts to contact him.  After a year I can only think he has abandoned the exchange and its users.

Here's the email announcing WBX's shutdown.  That seems like a good time to count as the official end.  I'll note the last traded price on the USD MtGox market at the first anniversary of that time, and use the mid-market AUD/USD exchange rate on http://www.xe.com/ucc/ to convert to AUD to get the rate at which I'll calculate the percentage of balances to return.

Note that the timestamp quoted below is in the PDT timezone, so I'll be using the price at 3:39pm PDT, Monday 11th March 2013.

On Sun, Mar 11, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Andre Jensen <gorkalitus@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Clients,

Effective immediately World Bitcoin Exchange (WBX) will be shutting down trading / deposits and returning all client funds. [...]

I'm also in support of this action and share similar views to XTremeEd. With the days and months going by, the chances of hearing back from Andre are going to reduce. This'll also depend on how good his record keeping is, which I do not have any faith in given how he handled the situation.

The one thing I am most grateful for is your call dooglus to hold on to the BTC when Andre asked for it back. Good call  . Given I get a semi-decent amount back eventually, I'll be sending a few btc your way.

[mOomOo]

This seems reasonable.  I can't keep holding the BTC indefinitely, and one year seems like long enough for Andre to have responded to my attempts to contact him.  After a year I can only think he has abandoned the exchange and its users.

Here's the email announcing WBX's shutdown.  That seems like a good time to count as the official end.  I'll note the last traded price on the USD MtGox market at the first anniversary of that time, and use the mid-market AUD/USD exchange rate on http://www.xe.com/ucc/ to convert to AUD to get the rate at which I'll calculate the percentage of balances to return.

Note that the timestamp quoted below is in the PDT timezone, so I'll be using the price at 3:39pm PDT, Monday 11th March 2013.

Thanks Dooglas.  I'm fully supporting this move and it will be good to have some closure after this long year!  
Fingers crossed the exchange rate doesn't crash when the Asic's come out!

What are the thoughts on how things are going to be distributed? eg.  Where to send the bitcoins?

[dooglus]

What are the thoughts on how things are going to be distributed? eg.  Where to send the bitcoins?

I'm thinking I'll put up a very cut-down clone of the WBX software which will allow you to log in using the same OpenID credentials as you used at WBX, and will ask you for a bitcoin address for the funds to be sent to, and will allow you to make additional comments about your account, and upload supporting documentation.

What's not clear is how long to wait before distributing the funds.  I guess the first set of funds can be distributed immediately upon the 1 year anniversary, which will be calculated with the assumption that everyone will put in a claim.  But I doubt everyone will, so there will be some funds left over - and I don't know what to do with those.  Some people will presumably find out about the repayments late.  I want to still be able to refund them up to some point in time and not have to tell them "sorry - you're too late".  But I don't want to be holding funds indefinitely hoping for claimants to come forward.  So I guess some kind of cut-off date is needed.

Ideas?

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

What are the thoughts on how things are going to be distributed? eg.  Where to send the bitcoins?

I'm thinking I'll put up a very cut-down clone of the WBX software which will allow you to log in using the same OpenID credentials as you used at WBX, and will ask you for a bitcoin address for the funds to be sent to, and will allow you to make additional comments about your account, and upload supporting documentation.

What's not clear is how long to wait before distributing the funds.  I guess the first set of funds can be distributed immediately upon the 1 year anniversary, which will be calculated with the assumption that everyone will put in a claim.  But I doubt everyone will, so there will be some funds left over - and I don't know what to do with those.  Some people will presumably find out about the repayments late.  I want to still be able to refund them up to some point in time and not have to tell them "sorry - you're too late".  But I don't want to be holding funds indefinitely hoping for claimants to come forward.  So I guess some kind of cut-off date is needed.

Ideas?

Honestly, it's being over a year and most people have less than $5 worth. I'm pretty sure that after the first week there's going to be zero new claims anyway.

[mOomOo]

How about distribute as if everyone is going to make a claim.  Then 6 months later whatever is left over is distributed between those that claimed to make up what was lost with some reasonable amount given to Dooglas for his hard work and honesty?

[dooglus]

How about distribute as if everyone is going to make a claim.  Then 6 months later whatever is left over is distributed between those that claimed to make up what was lost with some reasonable amount given to Dooglas for his hard work and honesty?

Also, it's quite likely that some of the funds are in scammer accounts.  People who made fraudulent bank deposits which were later reversed.  I guess those people shouldn't be able to get any of their funds back.  There are some users who never uploaded identity documents and so didn't get their accounts verified.  What happens with their funds?  Chances are some of them are fraudulent accounts, and some belong to people who just want to remain anonymous.

[mOomOo]

Also, it's quite likely that some of the funds are in scammer accounts.  People who made fraudulent bank deposits which were later reversed.  I guess those people shouldn't be able to get any of their funds back.  There are some users who never uploaded identity documents and so didn't get their accounts verified.  What happens with their funds?  Chances are some of them are fraudulent accounts, and some belong to people who just want to remain anonymous.

Because the original site required the uploading of identifiable information before any cash withdrawal.   My opinion is it should be fair enough to request this information if you the user had cash sitting on the site and had not previously provided this information (I had a very small amount of cash and had provided this information, and would be happy to provide it again if required).

[dooglus]

Because the original site required the uploading of identifiable information before any cash withdrawal.   My opinion is it should be fair enough to request this information if you the user had cash sitting on the site and had not previously provided this information (I had a very small amount of cash and had provided this information, and would be happy to provide it again if required).

I think WBX required your account to be verified before you could make any kind of withdrawal (cash or BTC) didn't it?

[mOomOo]

I think WBX required your account to be verified before you could make any kind of withdrawal (cash or BTC) didn't it?

Well then it should be fair enough to request everyone to provide these details to help prevent anyone who tried to scam deposits from receiving funds.  Should you want this extra authentication Dooglas I guess it's up to you, or if someone wants to chime in and have a definitive opinion?