[Emergency ANN] Bitcoinica site is taken offline for security investigation

[Bigpiggy01]

Ummm,

There seems to be some confusion here as to who the owner is. Afaik. Intersango haven't bought Bitcoinica but have been retained to take over the daily operations.

Before people start spreading FUD about respected members of the community they should at least have their facts straight, which it looks like quite a few peeps here don't.

@ Zhoutong/ Intersango could you guys clarify this issue so some of the idiotic mudslinging in here can get a rest.

[BadBear]

Absent while there is an ongoing security incident in their company is completely unacceptable. Leaving the response to a major security incident to the 17yo former owner is, um....pretty pathetic, at best, and probably suggests that there is something more going on than meets the eye. This should raise serious red flags IMO.

I mostly agree, I probably won't be using it anymore (haven't in a while). I'm disappointed that there is no communication beyond Zhoutong posting on the forums. What happens next time it happens? They take the servers down and we spend a week speculating about what's really going on while no emails are sent out to customers, no updates on the website, no nothing?

There are too many businesses that rely on the forum to communicate with their customers, but yet a lot of them don't even have accounts here. I see newbies posting all the time needing to be whitelisted just so they can communicate with x business whenever there is trouble. Don't even get me started on the fact that bitcoinica.com just redirects to the forum.  

Zhoutong/ Intersango could you guys clarify this issue so some of the idiotic mudslinging in here can get a rest.

That's the problem, we can't get a straight answer, kinda hard to get facts straight when there are no facts.

[Raoul Duke]

Yeah, my take on the subject is that it really doesn't make any sense whatsoever to close a profitable(?) operation and take the loss when they could just recoup it given enough time.
Makes even less sense when the security problem was an external mail server and not Bitcoinica's codebase, or so they say.
But one should also know that thinking too much it's bad for one's sanity. Ignorance is bliss, after all.
Just be happy if you get your money back, I guess. Or at least that's what everybody will think and all of them come out on the top, like the honest dudes they are that made everyone whole.

PS: Nobody should listen to what I say! Everybody knows I'm wrong all the time. Just look at my Ignore button color.

[guruvan]

claims that Bitcoinica has been bought out by Intersango at this point is pure speculation and highly doubtful tbh

Past announcement  hinted that Intersango team was brought on board for dev and or management/administrative position only

IIRC, they have been asked point blank if they have an ownership stake, and have answered this in the affirmative.

I will stand down if corrected, but I believe I've seen this here and on IRC.

[imsaguy]

@ Zhoutong/ Intersango could you guys clarify this issue so some of the idiotic mudslinging in here can get a rest.

Zhoutong already stated it doesn't matter who the current owners are and refused to answer who it is.

[Stephen Gornick]

We are building an account claim page. You can submit your account information, financial information (balances) and trading information to verify your identity. We will then match with the records we have.

If only there were some technology that used a second form of authentication, perhaps a one time password delivered to a mobile, as sufficient verification of identity.  Oh wait .... there is.

[Serge]

if their mailserver was compromised surely it's a bad idea to use it to notify their clients of the issue before the issue with mailserver clears, but at least put up a message on the site for the time being

[N12]

IIRC, they have been asked point blank if they have an ownership stake, and have answered this in the affirmative.

I will stand down if corrected, but I believe I've seen this here and on IRC.

It was me who asked genjix in #bitcoin on Freenode about this, iirc, so I confirm.

We have new (old) information on this, though:

In November, an investor approached me to acquire Bitcoinica. Due to regulatory concerns, I agreed to the deal and signed the agreement. Bitcoinica was sold for a good price. However, since the investor is unable to arrange for a replacement team, I continued to become the sole operator until Team Intersango took over two weeks ago. The investor let me keep all profits until late January, the official handover time. After handover, he continued to offer generous salary and performance bonus every month. The investor demands his identity to be protected so I won't share more information on this.

This does not sound like Intersango hold most of the shares. I fully disagree with guruvan’s sentiment, in my view at the very least genjix (Amir Taaki) and phantomcircuit (Patrick Strateman) are some of the most trustworthy people around here. I would distrust this ominous investor if I was you. I would also distrust zhoutong for selling the financial business he created in 4 days (a wonder it did not go kaboom earlier) and not disclosing the CHANGE of ownership for half a year. It could have been easily stated without violating the investor’s privacy.

[imsaguy]

We have new (old) information on this, though:

In November, an investor approached me to acquire Bitcoinica. Due to regulatory concerns, I agreed to the deal and signed the agreement. Bitcoinica was sold for a good price. However, since the investor is unable to arrange for a replacement team, I continued to become the sole operator until Team Intersango took over two weeks ago. The investor let me keep all profits until late January, the official handover time. After handover, he continued to offer generous salary and performance bonus every month. The investor demands his identity to be protected so I won't share more information on this.

This does not sound like Intersango hold most of the shares. I fully disagree with guruvan’s sentiment, in my view at the very least genjix (Amir Taaki) and phantomcircuit (Patrick Strateman) are some of the most trustworthy people around here. I would distrust this ominous investor if I was you.

Especially since he demands privacy.

[Serge]

claims that Bitcoinica has been bought out by Intersango at this point is pure speculation and highly doubtful tbh

Past announcement  hinted that Intersango team was brought on board for dev and or management/administrative position only

IIRC, they have been asked point blank if they have an ownership stake, and have answered this in the affirmative.

I will stand down if corrected, but I believe I've seen this here and on IRC.

they might have been given a stake in the company but i still highly doubt they have full ownership or controlling 51%


Zhou, do you have any idea who will be public representative of Bitcoinica after you leave?

[Clipse]

This is going to look like a massive troll post but here I go: Is there any way for us to verify all the bitcoinica trading numbers corresponded with actual trading that occured on mtgox(or other exchanges that they may have been using)

Just thinking bout bitscalper makes me wonder(out of the box) that the bitcoinica numbers could have been fudge simply looking at mtgox current trading volume and matching it in part within bitcoinica numbers.

I would love to be able to verify the numbers, if that is allready verified by someone knowledgable then please let me know.

[imsaguy]

In November, an investor approached me to acquire Bitcoinica. Due to regulatory concerns, I agreed to the deal and signed the agreement. Bitcoinica was sold for a good price. However, since the investor is unable to arrange for a replacement team, I continued to become the sole operator until Team Intersango took over two weeks ago. The investor let me keep all profits until late January, the official handover time. After handover, he continued to offer generous salary and performance bonus every month. The investor demands his identity to be protected so I won't share more information on this.

and you say

Who is the owner isn't important. [...] I apologize for the lack of transparency. But it really has nothing to do with legitimacy.

and now a "hack" happens and the only one to publicly post anything substantial is the former owner who's announced this is his swan song.

Where's senbonzakura's "hmm" when you need it?

[Stephen Gornick]

USD balance with unrealized P/L to your email as a Mt. Gox code.

Sending a Mt. Gox redeemable code through e-mail is not secure.  SMTP is sent unencrypted, thus anyone between the sender and the recipient has the technical ability to redeem the code.

Bitinstant can do deposits directly to a designated Mt. Gox account (and customer accounts at several other exchanges).

Perhaps that method or other approach is better than sending redeemable codes through e-mail?

[imsaguy]

I know all the owners of Bitcoinca personally, in fact I spoke to one of them not a few hours ago.
They have families, live in house, and are not going anywhere.

Are you empowered to speak for them?  How do you happen to know them all personally when its been the ultimate secret for 6 months?  Did the BitInstant trio buy Bitcoinica?

[splatster]

I know all the owners of Bitcoinca personally, in fact I spoke to one of them not a few hours ago.
They have families, live in house, and are not going anywhere.

Are you empowered to speak for them?  How do you happen to know them all personally when its been the ultimate secret for 6 months?  Did the BitInstant trio buy Bitcoinica?

I guess I wouldn't be too shocked if they did.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

I know all the owners of Bitcoinca personally, in fact I spoke to one of them not a few hours ago.
They have families, live in house, and are not going anywhere.

Are you empowered to speak for them?  How do you happen to know them all personally when its been the ultimate secret for 6 months?  Did the BitInstant trio buy Bitcoinica?

Only God empowers me  

I've spent alot of money and time traveling around the world meeting most of the owners of exchanges, merchants, and platforms. Since Bitinstant works with them all, we take risk and I'm required to do my own due diligence.

I can confirm that we did not buy Bitcoinica. We have no intention of becoming or owning an exchange at this point.

I can confirm I do know the current owners and the team running Bitcoinica. I know their families, have eaten meals with them, have hosted them when they came to NY. Intersango is running Bitcoinica in conjunction with the owners. Anything else I'm bound legally to keep within our company walls.

Oh, Bitinstant is not a trio- there are 6 of us now  

[jaminunit]

I'm really sorry that this has happened but I just want to ask the community somthing.

Andre from worldbitcoinexchange had an intersango email address. his site goes down and no money is returned. I loose 500AUD  then intersango buys bicoinica and 2 weeks later it goes down! I dont know these guys and dont know what they do and presume they are big on these forums is there a dodgy connection here or am I connecting dots that dont exist?

Sorry, but i don't think Andre had anything to do with the intersango you are thinking of.
https://www.worldbitcoinexchange.com/?page=help says his email address is support@intersango.com.AU <-- notice the AU there? More: http://intersango.com.au redirects to https://www.worldbitcoinexchange.com
I would say he just found it appropriate(?) to register that domain because he was using the Intersango open source code in his exchange.
Also I don't remember seeing any mention of Andre or World Bitcoin Exchange in the Bitcoin Consultancy website or on Intersango.com. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks for clearing that up man.

[Clipse]

I know all the owners of Bitcoinca personally, in fact I spoke to one of them not a few hours ago.
They have families, live in house, and are not going anywhere.

Are you empowered to speak for them?  How do you happen to know them all personally when its been the ultimate secret for 6 months?  Did the BitInstant trio buy Bitcoinica?

Only God empowers me  

I've spent alot of money and time traveling around the world meeting most of the owners of exchanges, merchants, and platforms. Since Bitinstant works with them all, we take risk and I'm required to do my own due diligence.

I can confirm that we did not buy Bitcoinica. We have no intention of becoming or owning an exchange at this point.

I can confirm I do know the current owners and the team running Bitcoinica. I know their families, have eaten meals with them, have hosted them when they came to NY. Intersango is running Bitcoinica in conjunction with the owners. Anything else I'm bound legally to keep within our company walls.

Oh, Bitinstant is not a trio- there are 6 of us now  

Do you think this discussion is funny in any way? You have an absolute smug approach to serious questions posed which I find distasteful at best.

Since you have so much contact with the owners and partners and whatnot, get them to be proactive and post about the shitstorm they put their clients in and stop hiding behind their pseudo-criminal anonymity.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

I know all the owners of Bitcoinca personally, in fact I spoke to one of them not a few hours ago.
They have families, live in house, and are not going anywhere.

Are you empowered to speak for them?  How do you happen to know them all personally when its been the ultimate secret for 6 months?  Did the BitInstant trio buy Bitcoinica?

Only God empowers me  

I've spent alot of money and time traveling around the world meeting most of the owners of exchanges, merchants, and platforms. Since Bitinstant works with them all, we take risk and I'm required to do my own due diligence.

I can confirm that we did not buy Bitcoinica. We have no intention of becoming or owning an exchange at this point.

I can confirm I do know the current owners and the team running Bitcoinica. I know their families, have eaten meals with them, have hosted them when they came to NY. Intersango is running Bitcoinica in conjunction with the owners. Anything else I'm bound legally to keep within our company walls.

Oh, Bitinstant is not a trio- there are 6 of us now  

Do you think this discussion is funny in any way? You have an absolute smug approach to serious questions posed which I find distasteful at best.

Since you have so much contact with the owners and partners and whatnot, get them to be proactive and post about the shitstorm they put their clients in and stop hiding behind their pseudo-criminal anonymity.

I don't think its funny in anyway, in fact I answered every question with as much detail I'm legally allowed to, so you should be saying Thank You.

Funny? I have over $20,000 held up in my Bitcoinica account and I won't be getting it back anytime sooner then you will. We are all in the same boat pal.

Smug Approach? I think you forget how we helped all of TradeHill's customers withdraw their money when TH closed down. We actually lost money on that gig. Please don't lecture me about Bitinstant's contributions to this community. I'm actually insulted by your condescending attitude towards me right now.

I can assure you the Intersango team is working around the clock to get this resolved as soon as possible. I think Zhou said he will update everyone on Monday and today is Sunday.

[cryptoanarchist]

As some people have said, there should be a hold on large or unusual withdrawls from a hot wallet.

Then it wouldn't be a hot wallet at all.

A hot wallet would be btc immediately available for withdrawl. In this case, how often would a transaction moving 18k btc or even just 1k btc be exucuted? Almost never. So you could have transactions past a certain limit be manually approved.

Except a hot wallet must store enough coins for many users to withdrawal in a reasonable time frame.  A reasonable time frame is up for debate of course.  And given the size of Bitcoinica, and the supposed profits it made (since they CLAIM that the previous theft was covered by their profits up to that point), the volume is likely very high at peak times.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if they were exaggerating their volume. Nor would I be surprised if Bitcoinica was a banker operation all along. I already don't trust people who talk about "regulating" bitcoin. If they took off with peoples coins to create a false argument for regulation, that would certainly be their MO.

I just don't buy that these guys would be dumb enough to keep enough coins to put them out of business in a hot wallet.