Bitmark

[Androidicus]

I am 'on vacation' effectively but received a notification of Mark's post ^^^

Reading it and taking it in the spirit with which it was written, I have one quick response; Respect

I fully agree with Melvin's points here and elsewhere around courtesy and respect for the community - however, understanding & empathising fully with where Mark seems to have got himself, I respect that at last he has made such a frank and open appraisal and disclosure of his actions.

If holders want to dump; so be it. I continue to believe in the spirit and intent of this project and sincerely hope for all the many reasons stated here and elsewhere, that it can move forward.

[victorteoh]

well. This is terrible. I used alot of my funds to buy BTM. but it seems that it's going down the drain for now. Dump is imminent. When other people's wallet coins are fully confirmed in polo's wallet, then we will see blood

[ethought]

well. This is terrible. I used alot of my funds to buy BTM. but it seems that it's going down the drain for now. Dump is imminent. When other people's wallet coins are fully confirmed in polo's wallet, then we will see blood

Got to agree, this is the last thing BTM needed right now.

I hope it is not the final nail in the coffin.

[coinsolidation]

I hope I have not conveyed things incorrectly.

I personally am committed to seeing Bitmark to fruition. Many others are also committed.  The status change is that rather than me being reliant on the project, I'm going to be doing it in spare time (which will be far more productive), with others from the community taking a lead and joining in.

To me this secures Bitmarks future, rather than destroying it.

[82ndabnmedic]

- I am working on a business plan for possible angel investors...I will provide additional details at a later time.

FYI: This Project is going to be structure & run much differently than before...I am no longer completely constrained by Marks timeline and development practices. We will gather and work with what we have, and Mark is required will commit code ASAP.  I am working on the project's SWOT as well as gathering Baselines ATM. I am open & happy to suggestions

This Project is not doing anything besides restructuring...the goal & objective laid out are alive and well and are primary actionable tasks will be developed and Launched 1st.

[vuduchyld]

Total respect for the accountability.  Anybody who claims they have not screwed up something at least this badly in their lives is either full of shit or young.  Coinsolidation is simply in a place where there is not just private accountability, but public, as well.

Ask yourself:
--Do you still believe in the technology?  I do.
--Do you still believe in the vision?  I do.
--Is the community in a better place with only vague clues about what was going on?  Or is the community in a better place with more information and a plan to move forward?  Clearly, this is a MUCH better place.

Coinsolidation is being a LOT harder on himself than almost anybody else in the cryptoworld (or Wall Street, or the rest of life) would be in this situation.  It would be SOOOO easy simply to say, hey, these people did what they did knowing there were risks.  But that is not what I see here AT ALL.

Coinsolidation, I thank you for the courage to step up and for the accountability.  I bought more BTM today and I am shocked the price isn't shooting up more right now.  Not sure what people think they are seeing, here, but I'm going to transfer funds and buy more.

Armstrong said that a small step for a man was a big step for mankind.  Similarly, a VERY difficult day for Coinsolidation, a day of owning some shit, seems like a very good day for Bitmark.

[kjadB]

Total respect for the accountability.  Anybody who claims they have not screwed up something at least this badly in their lives is either full of shit or young.  Coinsolidation is simply in a place where there is not just private accountability, but public, as well.

Ask yourself:
--Do you still believe in the technology?  I do.
--Do you still believe in the vision?  I do.
--Is the community in a better place with only vague clues about what was going on?  Or is the community in a better place with more information and a plan to move forward?  Clearly, this is a MUCH better place.

Coinsolidation is being a LOT harder on himself than almost anybody else in the cryptoworld (or Wall Street, or the rest of life) would be in this situation.  It would be SOOOO easy simply to say, hey, these people did what they did knowing there were risks.  But that is not what I see here AT ALL.

Coinsolidation, I thank you for the courage to step up and for the accountability.  I bought more BTM today and I am shocked the price isn't shooting up more right now.  Not sure what people think they are seeing, here, but I'm going to transfer funds and buy more.

Armstrong said that a small step for a man was a big step for mankind.  Similarly, a VERY difficult day for Coinsolidation, a day of owning some shit, seems like a very good day for Bitmark.

I agree 100%. Everyone makes mistakes, especially under pressure. Not everyone can 'own' their mistakes, and Mark most definitely is owning up to the errors of judgment he made!! The BTM community is still strong, the project direction is still on target ... probably a good time to buy!!

[Kora]

Dear Community,
.
.
.

Dear Mark
You've shown tremendous courage and strength of character to speak now. Take stock of what happened and move on with dignity. Don't dwell on past mistakes any longer than what is needed to learn any useful lessons. You have set the record straight, and now it's time to think positively about the future. Set your mind on your plans and goals and move forward without guilt or further stress. This experience can help make each of us better people, if we choose to think about what happened, and learn from it. Good people stumble, good people get back up

I'm proud to be a BTM supporter!!
regards

[melvster]

Thanks for the update.

My interest in crypto currency is as a long term endeavor.  When bitmark was presented as an alt to me, I was not convinced that it offered anything that bitcoin didnt.

What persuaded me was a capable dev saying they would code marking, get users and stick with the project long term.

I can only think of one daily active user, and that's me.  The person that invented the concept doesnt yet use it daily.

The marking code didnt appear, only coin related code, which frankly, may have been better off with coingen or simply another coin.

The kicker for me is the long term future.  I put dozens of solid hours of work into this project, and I feel stupid, if its not clear there's going to be someone pushing it forward, either in the short term or the long term. 

So bitcoin is the coin for me at this point in time.  I'll still follow this project as I can in the hope that it could become more webby.  But without mark, that's not realistic, imho.

Why am I saying this?  It's not to spook anyone, but I came to a realization.  That is that for users to have a balance on a global ledger, it's really hard to do with multi currency.

e.g.

<#me>
  amount 12
  currency mark

Now how can you do 2 currencies?

<#me>
  amount 12
  currency mark
  amount 123
  currency bits

Problem is that you dont know which amount goes with which currency.  You need a whole other layer of accounts, then lots of work to hide that complexity.  I dont know if I want to prioritize building that right away, probably in future, yes.  So I have to pick a currency to work with.  So it makes sense to switch to bits for this as the global default ledger currency.

This post is just FYI: I do not guarantee to be supporting klaranet going forward.  It has been a large loss making endeavour for me.  From support, to server costs, to development costs etc.  Then I get people in the project area politely asking about deposits which I happily have actioned, and others taking it for granted 'spam melvin about deposits' one person said -- I dont appreciate spam.

All funds are save and accounted for.  I'll be possibly sunsetting klaranet, all the fund have been sent to the foundation (26 btm, less than a $, and all balances are with the devs and available online) which is less than it costs to run the server for one day.

While I'd love to continue to support bitmark, I'll just have to do it as time allows, and will start to focus on bits.  Wish everyone the best.

[melvster]

Update: having thought it through more ive realized that the withdraw fee for bits is quite high, and I havnet built that into withdrawals yet (all withdrawals and send have always been free)

So .... I'll think it through a bit more ... the service will run as normally at least for a couple of weeks more

[kjadB]

SuperNET owns 10% of BTM, has anyone reached out to jl777 and co. for their thoughts? They have a vested interest in seeing bitmark continue, and they have many capable people in their community, not just James. Maybe they can help get things back on a solid footing.

edit: maybe one of jl777's funds owns the btm, sharkfund or jlhodl, can't remember now. Either way jl777 has a stake in btm and has influence and the  ability to make things happen

[klopper]

could kickstarter.com be an idea for funding?

[Este Nuno]

SuperNET owns 10% of BTM, has anyone reached out to jl777 and co. for their thoughts? They have a vested interest in seeing bitmark continue, and they have many capable people in their community, not just James. Maybe they can help get things back on a solid footing.

edit: maybe one of jl777's funds owns the btm, sharkfund or jlhodl, can't remember now. Either way jl777 has a stake in btm and has influence and the  ability to make things happen

Yeah, not SuperNET itself. Probably Sharkfund if I were to guess.

could kickstarter.com be an idea for funding?

Yes, someone else also suggested that recently. It's a good idea and definitely worth looking in to.

[melvster]

Sounds like coinsolidation was a good man with some short term money problems who made a bad decision in the moment. That bad decision doesn't make Mark a bad guy, just a regular person juggling priorities with limited resources. If the trades he made with the community funds went in his favor then things would be different. For him to 'borrow' from the community funds isn't such a fall from grace IMO. How he acts from now on is all that really matters. I suspect he will try his best to make good and get things back on track.

Can someone post the statement/explanation he made in full?

+1 I think after what has happened full transparency is the way forward.

Coinsolidation aka markpfennig aka nathan aka webr3 aka wolfdev aka insanitydev aka ... aka ... aka ...

Has been involved in a number or coins, none of which seeming to know about the others.  Mentioned already were BTM and GMC but there seems to be a growing list including WOLF.

The work on marking which we were told was ready in November, December and onwards, but in private repositories, were due to be checked in this weekend, there is no evidence that exists.

The work on getting 1000s of daily active markers with a music site m8, which I think his wife helped to organize, there is no evidence that exists.

Lots of money (coin and fiat) disappeared from lots of people over a long period of time.  We know coins went missing from the foundation when it was at 100k+ and replaced it when it was around 10k.  The reason we are told was living expenses, we're also told he bought a new dog and new computer. 

He knows this was wrong, is prepared to face the consequences, and says he wants to put things right.  Nathan has told us he is working a 400eur a day contract and intends to pay people back, and get the project on track.

I've asked for everything we know to be posted here.  I only know a small fraction.  Hope others can help here ... maybe the project can become 100% transparent and get back in a good way ...

[82ndabnmedic]

-------- Following Post -------

more Information to follow

[82ndabnmedic]

markpfennig [12:51 PM]
I have done two projects in the crypto space.
1. InsanityCoin
2. Bitmark

The first InsanityCoin was an 8 week trading game on Poloniex, which went very well to start.
I held the funds for the game, with all my details held in escrow by multiple parties including poloniex.
Every week I transferred the funds to poloniex, and the game was executed. Indirectly the fees from the trading volume (often 1000 BTC) was used by Tristan at poloniex to pay back people after his website was hacked, counterparty hack I believe.
During the course of the game, three parties, BlockChains, MsCollec, and another worked out an exploit for the game, where they would buy huge amounts and dump for marginal profit, making everybody else dump to save losses, where they would collect it cheap and make a bigger profit the next week.
After a few weeks of the game, we had to stop it to save people making losses.
I came up with alternative proposals for the game to make it less open to being exploited, but these were never approved.
On the final week of the game 5 BTC was in the pot, which wasn't enough to play it.
After many counter proposals, and then trying to (and failing to) create the first web coin, to give value to those holding it, I was ultimately left owing 5 BTC to three parties.
One party elected not to take it back, since they'd already made a big profit.
Another party wanted it back, Aybora, and was fully paid back.
A final party never appeared back on bitcointalk and never said anything.
Another developer called NewWolfDev took over the development of the coin, and I stepped back from it.  Since it was only ever supposed to be a short term game, and not a long term project.
So before anybody gets the wrong idea about anything with InsanityCoin, or assumes the use of an alias means I scammed people out of huge amounts of cash, I'm afraid that's just wrong.  I was transparent throughout, all legal details lodged during the process with escrow agents and trustworthy parties, and all BTC funds used in the game, and all coins, accounted for.

markpfennig [12:53 PM]
Following that project (1), I took a break, and decided that there needed to be a fair currency with value and usage, which led to Bitmark, which you are all aware of. As you are here.
During the process of developing Bitmark,  incurred some debt for living costs (transparently), and then made my biggest mistake, which was using some trading funds (not bitmark funds), from a trading account Neleonele and I were using.  It's left me owing him quite a lot, and I'm working with him to resolve this, in communication daily.

markpfennig [12:55 PM]
As for Bitmark foundation funds, I used some on one occasion, I secured a personal loan against them, then when the loan was repaid the funds were sent back, a large portion of the funds in the foundation at that time were sent from me, and given to it, and following that another 2500 btm from me again was sent to it.  Of all the funds in the foundation I have contributed the majority.  I don't hold them, and transferred them to Medic to look after.

markpfennig [12:56 PM]
I am in communication with anybody I owe, as I've stated before, and am working with them to resolve things.

markpfennig [12:58 PM]
However, there appears to be a lot of here say going on, saying this is just the tip of the iceberg, and insinuating that there's far more going on, when there simply isn't.
I ran one short term trading game, and ran i fairly and well with no wrong doing, it didn't work out, I owed a small amount of the back of it and paid it back.
I then ran Bitmark, got in to a personal mess with it over the past few months, and am working to put that right.
There isn't anything else.

[Hulk Hobo]

markpfennig [12:51 PM]
I have done two projects in the crypto space.
1. InsanityCoin
2. Bitmark

The first InsanityCoin was an 8 week trading game on Poloniex, which went very well to start.
I held the funds for the game, with all my details held in escrow by multiple parties including poloniex.
Every week I transferred the funds to poloniex, and the game was executed. Indirectly the fees from the trading volume (often 1000 BTC) was used by Tristan at poloniex to pay back people after his website was hacked, counterparty hack I believe.
During the course of the game, three parties, BlockChains, MsCollec, and another worked out an exploit for the game, where they would buy huge amounts and dump for marginal profit, making everybody else dump to save losses, where they would collect it cheap and make a bigger profit the next week.
After a few weeks of the game, we had to stop it to save people making losses.
I came up with alternative proposals for the game to make it less open to being exploited, but these were never approved.
On the final week of the game 5 BTC was in the pot, which wasn't enough to play it.
After many counter proposals, and then trying to (and failing to) create the first web coin, to give value to those holding it, I was ultimately left owing 5 BTC to three parties.
One party elected not to take it back, since they'd already made a big profit.
Another party wanted it back, Aybora, and was fully paid back.
A final party never appeared back on bitcointalk and never said anything.
Another developer called NewWolfDev took over the development of the coin, and I stepped back from it.  Since it was only ever supposed to be a short term game, and not a long term project.
So before anybody gets the wrong idea about anything with InsanityCoin, or assumes the use of an alias means I scammed people out of huge amounts of cash, I'm afraid that's just wrong.  I was transparent throughout, all legal details lodged during the process with escrow agents and trustworthy parties, and all BTC funds used in the game, and all coins, accounted for.

markpfennig [12:53 PM]
Following that project (1), I took a break, and decided that there needed to be a fair currency with value and usage, which led to Bitmark, which you are all aware of. As you are here.
During the process of developing Bitmark,  incurred some debt for living costs (transparently), and then made my biggest mistake, which was using some trading funds (not bitmark funds), from a trading account Neleonele and I were using.  It's left me owing him quite a lot, and I'm working with him to resolve this, in communication daily.

markpfennig [12:55 PM]
As for Bitmark foundation funds, I used some on one occasion, I secured a personal loan against them, then when the loan was repaid the funds were sent back, a large portion of the funds in the foundation at that time were sent from me, and given to it, and following that another 2500 btm from me again was sent to it.  Of all the funds in the foundation I have contributed the majority.  I don't hold them, and transferred them to Medic to look after.

markpfennig [12:56 PM]
I am in communication with anybody I owe, as I've stated before, and am working with them to resolve things.

markpfennig [12:58 PM]
However, there appears to be a lot of here say going on, saying this is just the tip of the iceberg, and insinuating that there's far more going on, when there simply isn't.
I ran one short term trading game, and ran i fairly and well with no wrong doing, it didn't work out, I owed a small amount of the back of it and paid it back.
I then ran Bitmark, got in to a personal mess with it over the past few months, and am working to put that right.
There isn't anything else.

Fucking wow. Im wondering, Medic ... Others ... Where you aware of this months ago?

[Este Nuno]

Fucking wow. Im wondering, Medic ... Others ... Where you aware of this months ago?

Insanitycoin? I wasn't aware of it until it was brought up recently. But between this explanation and reading the OP of the ANN my initial impression is that I don't see anything wrong particularly. Assuming the explanation above is an accurate description of what happened. I don't know though any more than this though and I'm open to hearing differing viewpoints and/or information.

Foundation funds issue we covered here in the thread a few months ago and Mark added another 2.5k BTM or whatever to bring the total up to 7k. I thought we had resolved that issue satisfactorily before.

[tdokta]

Fucking wow. Im wondering, Medic ... Others ... Where you aware of this months ago?

Insanitycoin? I wasn't aware of it until it was brought up recently. But between this explanation and reading the OP of the ANN my initial impression is that I don't see anything wrong particularly. Assuming the explanation above is an accurate description of what happened. I don't know though any more than this though and I'm open to hearing differing viewpoints and/or information.

Foundation funds issue we covered here in the thread a few months ago and Mark added another 2.5k BTM or whatever to bring the total up to 7k. I thought we had resolved that issue satisfactorily before.

agree Este .. good to see an added deposit to the foundation payback . that's positive.

[Hulk Hobo]

Fucking wow. Im wondering, Medic ... Others ... Where you aware of this months ago?

Insanitycoin? I wasn't aware of it until it was brought up recently. But between this explanation and reading the OP of the ANN my initial impression is that I don't see anything wrong particularly. Assuming the explanation above is an accurate description of what happened. I don't know though any more than this though and I'm open to hearing differing viewpoints and/or information.

Foundation funds issue we covered here in the thread a few months ago and Mark added another 2.5k BTM or whatever to bring the total up to 7k. I thought we had resolved that issue satisfactorily before.

agree Este .. good to see an added deposit to the foundation payback . that's positive.

After a great deal of the value was extracted ...