[Payout Updates] Bitcoinica site is taken offline for security investigation

[zhoutong]

In the meantime, if this is true, wouldn't there be some type/kind of legal ramifications involved in regards to Mt Gox, i.e., having minors trading on their platform?

~Bruno~

Who knows - you're talking about someone resident in Singapore trading with a company based in Japan.  Often contracts made with minors aren't enforceable by the other party, although minors can be bound by certain types of contracts in some places and other types are absolutely illegal in some jurisdictions.

Just show us the money shot.

I may need to apology to psy, kinda, for I stated that xwaylab.com was not the name, for I didn't double check his provided email address prior to claiming otherwise. I still stand my position, though, that the account was/is under the name of Zhou Tong with him giving xwaylab.com as the email address ONLY. As you can clearly see below, the account in question was established prior to the leak, possible late May of last year at the very latest, making him only 16 years old at the time, regardless. Now, if owning a website excuses the age requirement expressed on Mt Gox's TOS, then I'm going to have my 10 year old nephew sign up to Mt Gox with his website iliketurtlebutter.com (currently in development). He's going to be selling Turtle Butter and only accept Bitcoin as payment. Since he's to young to open his own bank account without an adult co-signer, he wishes to put his funds in a safe place, coupled with the ability to trade them. The kid is a fuckin' genus, BTW, for he came up with the Turtle Butter idea on his own while on a 4 day holiday at Wally World. I may have to check to see if it's legal for him to register a domain name in his name, though, since he is under age. First, I'm going to have to help him get a credit card so that he can do that, too.

5125,zhoutong,ryan@xwaylab.com,$1$...

Now, I'm going to ask again: If this is the case, were any laws broken, or is there no age requirement to trade on a commodity exchange?

~Bruno~

I'm not sure about the laws. My banker told me the age requirement is related to credit, so I can't own a merchant account (because they can't recover the funds from me when I have chargebacks) but I can own a foreign currency account (which is generally even more tightly regulated).

Almost all brokers don't accept minors because of credit involved in margin trading. But I have two OANDA accounts (one in US and one in EU) with all the AML verification without any problems.

In both Singapore and Australia, a minor can't be a director of a company. It's highly likely that share ownership isn't permitted either (unless in special circumstances such as inheritance). But in Delaware, the identity of the directors is withheld at the registered agent and not the state.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Excuse me, but why are we letting CoinExchanger and his sockpuppet account Maria continue to spam this thread with utter bullshit?

They don't have any claims at Bitcoinica. In fact, CoinExchanger has gone out of his way to make fun of Bitcoinica, calling it a scam and saying he's glad that Bitcoinica was hacked, even accepting coins from the Linode hack with a smile on his face.

CoinExchange and sockpuppet Maria: Please go to hell. Thanks.

[rjk]

Excuse me, but why are we letting CoinExchanger and his sockpuppet account Maria continue to spam this thread with utter bullshit?

They don't have any claims at Bitcoinica. In fact, CoinExchanger has gone out of his way to make fun of Bitcoinica, calling it a scam and saying he's glad that Bitcoinica was hacked, even accepting coins from the Linode hack with a smile on his face.

CoinExchange and sockpuppet Maria: Please go to hell. Thanks.

+1

[zhoutong]

Also, Bitcoinica's Terms of Service should also be prohibiting minors from using the site. They are welcome to freeze my account and withhold my claim, too.

Our services may only be used by individuals or entities who can form legally binding contracts under the law applicable to their country of residence. If you do not qualify, please do not use our site.

[zhoutong]

Some accounts like mine for example have not had any significant transactions for many weeks. What is the problem with verifying those? Do you have any backups at all, even if two month old?

There were no backups.

Yes. We have three different backups, all with a complete list of all users with balance and position.

You guys need to tell the same story or else it doesn't stick

I can only provide some highly redacted screenshots. The gist is, there's no point to cheat for claims. Bitcoinica has almost everything.

[dancingnancy]

Thanks for info...

[realnowhereman]

With the price of bitcoins moving up again and still no word on when payouts will begin, or what the policy on liquidating open positions is; I'm wonder what Bitcoinica expects us all to do while they're pissing around with their internal legal wrangling?

Fine, you want to cover your arses, but how many meetings do you need and how many days of research?  How much financial loss are we, your customers, meant to take on the chin while you fart around?

The price of bitcoins is going up and up (possibly because there is no shorting facility available now), and as far as I can see:

• The arbitrarily chosen liquidation price they eventually settle at is going to leave me out of pocket as they'll close lower than my position, despite current price being higher.  I could have taken that loss on the chin on day 0; but it's now getting painful to watch.
• Given no early indications (i.e. before the price started moving) of what the position closure procedure was going to be, I couldn't use other funds to hedge losses.
• My coins not being released means I can't even sell my coins when I think the current price is too high.  That's an opportunity cost on top of any adverse closure policy.

It's quite possible that the delay while bitcoinica quibbles internally is resulting in a situation where we lose more in market moves than was stolen in the first place.  e.g. 5.66/5 = 13% -- it doesn't have to move much more and we'll have a greater than 20% move.  If Bitcoinica had (and I'm certainly not saying they should have) gone long with their USD holdings, they would have made back the stolen coins; surely that demonstrates the lunacy of sitting on deposits for this long?

[Mushoz]

Cool story bro,

So where are the refunds?

Hopefully they get done soon I think. One of the points outlined today by Tihan was:

"This is what I need from each of you today:

1) A sign of life that the claims processing has begun -- an announcement to that effect and/or actually paying people back

..."

So things are moving forwards now after the hiatus. Most people involved are in agreement on what needs to be done.

So? Can we have an update on what happened yesterday? Tihan said he wanted there to be an announcement or to see people start getting paid back. I'm seeing neither.

It's unbelievable how little we hear from you guys. Communication is mandatory! And for the 1000th time:
How are open positions going to get settled?
We can't even hedge our own freaking positions due to a lack of communication from you guys.

I'm glad we still have Zhoutong giving us information. He's handling this a whole lot better than you guys. Too bad he's no longer in charge, or this mess would have been solved already.

[waspoza]

If u have database, why we cant login and widthraw funds?

[Mushoz]

If u have database, why we cant login and widthraw funds?

That's either an (incomplete) reconstruction or old data used to check if claims are potentially fraudulent.

[waspoza]

If u have database, why we cant login and widthraw funds?

That's either an (incomplete) reconstruction or old data used to check if claims are potentially fraudulent.

Ok, thanks.

[ninjarobot]

I can only provide some highly redacted screenshots. The gist is, there's no point to cheat for claims. Bitcoinica has almost everything.

You stated yesterday that there are 3 accounting records. Also we know they are incomplete and outdated.

From what I see:

* One of the records provides postions up to 6/05/12 (recent)
* The other record shows USD and BTC balances but there are only a few 2012 records in the screenshot suggesting this document might only cover a period up to Jan/Feb. (outdated)
* The 3rd record is unknown.

So the big questions is: Which accounting records do you have and up to which date are these records current?

I am concerned that there might be major blindspots in the data. For example I only committed significant funds to Bitcoinica after April 24 when it became a licensed financial service provider and provided a ToS. Also I came for the interest on deposits, so did not have any positions. I'm sure I am not unique in this respect.

The data from the screenshots suggest that accurate information for late users with significant deposits but no positions might not be present in either of the documents you presented. This worries me.

[Mushoz]

Posting this again, so hopefully we'll get some answers.

Cool story bro,

So where are the refunds?

Hopefully they get done soon I think. One of the points outlined today by Tihan was:

"This is what I need from each of you today:

1) A sign of life that the claims processing has begun -- an announcement to that effect and/or actually paying people back

..."

So things are moving forwards now after the hiatus. Most people involved are in agreement on what needs to be done.

So? Can we have an update on what happened yesterday? Tihan said he wanted there to be an announcement or to see people start getting paid back. I'm seeing neither.

It's unbelievable how little we hear from you guys. Communication is mandatory! And for the 1000th time:
How are open positions going to get settled?
We can't even hedge our own freaking positions due to a lack of communication from you guys.

I'm glad we still have Zhoutong giving us information. He's handling this a whole lot better than you guys. Too bad he's no longer in charge, or this mess would have been solved already.

[zhoutong]

I can only provide some highly redacted screenshots. The gist is, there's no point to cheat for claims. Bitcoinica has almost everything.

You stated yesterday that there are 3 accounting records. Also we know they are incomplete and outdated.

From what I see:

* One of the records provides postions up to 6/05/12 (recent)
* The other record shows USD and BTC balances but there are only a few 2012 records in the screenshot suggesting this document might only cover a period up to Jan/Feb. (outdated)
* The 3rd record is unknown.

So the big questions is: Which accounting records do you have and up to which date are these records current?

I am concerned that there might be major blindspots in the data. For example I only committed significant funds to Bitcoinica after April 24 when it became a licensed financial service provider and provided a ToS. Also I came for the interest on deposits, so did not have any positions. I'm sure I am not unique in this respect.

The data from the screenshots suggest that accurate information for late users with significant deposits but no positions might not be present in either of the documents you presented. This worries me.

We still have Mt. Gox account logs, deposit and withdrawal emails, etc. We are unable to disclose exact dates of these reports (not May 6, I just showed two recent ones, but the date is more recent than that.) If someone made a large withdrawal after that date and didn't claim it, we can still find the evidence in the email. (So far no one could disable withdrawal email due to a bug preventing mass assignment of the options.)

Breach of trust will be heavily penalized, I guess. So just be careful with the claims and you should be fine.

EDIT: If someone submits claim at this stage, 99% it's fake without valid explanation of the delay. So send an email of explanation to verify@bitcoinica.com if you didn't manage to submit within the first week.

This is my suggestion though. I'm just trying to help the team (so that everyone can get funds back faster).

[proudhon]

Ok, well, here's where you should send my coins:

16pDN85h2aVq7oRMw4pt9kvstmYL4Qscbz

K, thnx.

[zhoutong]

Ok, well, here's where you should send my coins:

16pDN85h2aVq7oRMw4pt9kvstmYL4Qscbz

K, thnx.

Just send everything to the email verify@bitcoinica.com.

At least I keep all copies of the email securely. Also I have indexes so it's easy and fast to search all the claim emails.

[kokjo]

Ok, well, here's where you should send my coins:

16pDN85h2aVq7oRMw4pt9kvstmYL4Qscbz

K, thnx.

Just send everything to the email verify@bitcoinica.com.

At least I keep all copies of the email securely. Also I have indexes so it's easy and fast to search all the claim emails.

...and you think we believe that!

[Maria]

I can only provide some highly redacted screenshots. The gist is, there's no point to cheat for claims. Bitcoinica has almost everything.

You stated yesterday that there are 3 accounting records. Also we know they are incomplete and outdated.

From what I see:

* One of the records provides postions up to 6/05/12 (recent)
* The other record shows USD and BTC balances but there are only a few 2012 records in the screenshot suggesting this document might only cover a period up to Jan/Feb. (outdated)
* The 3rd record is unknown.

So the big questions is: Which accounting records do you have and up to which date are these records current?

I am concerned that there might be major blindspots in the data. For example I only committed significant funds to Bitcoinica after April 24 when it became a licensed financial service provider and provided a ToS. Also I came for the interest on deposits, so did not have any positions. I'm sure I am not unique in this respect.

The data from the screenshots suggest that accurate information for late users with significant deposits but no positions might not be present in either of the documents you presented. This worries me.

We still have Mt. Gox account logs, deposit and withdrawal emails, etc. We are unable to disclose exact dates of these reports (not May 6, I just showed two recent ones, but the date is more recent than that.) If someone made a large withdrawal after that date and didn't claim it, we can still find the evidence in the email. (So far no one could disable withdrawal email due to a bug preventing mass assignment of the options.)

Breach of trust will be heavily penalized, I guess. So just be careful with the claims and you should be fine.

EDIT: If someone submits claim at this stage, 99% it's fake without valid explanation of the delay. So send an email of explanation to verify@bitcoinica.com if you didn't manage to submit within the first week.

This is my suggestion though. I'm just trying to help the team (so that everyone can get funds back faster).

Are you saying my claim is 99% Fake? All because I did not submit a claim form during the first week of this mess?

I explained to you why I patiently waited behind the scenes like others because we had faith in you and your service.

Very Briefly, We do NOT TRUST you anymore so we will NOT submit passports or any Identification to you.  We have been doing business with you since the beginning and you NEVER ask me for any type of ID. You were content with my HUGE deposits and trading activity and I'm sure you didn't want to bother with little stuff like that. Now you are starting to bother me Zhou Tong.

Maria.

[rjk]

Very Briefly, We do NOT TRUST you anymore so we will NOT submit passports or any Identification to you. 

Too bad, no money for you!

[zhoutong]

I can only provide some highly redacted screenshots. The gist is, there's no point to cheat for claims. Bitcoinica has almost everything.

You stated yesterday that there are 3 accounting records. Also we know they are incomplete and outdated.

From what I see:

* One of the records provides postions up to 6/05/12 (recent)
* The other record shows USD and BTC balances but there are only a few 2012 records in the screenshot suggesting this document might only cover a period up to Jan/Feb. (outdated)
* The 3rd record is unknown.

So the big questions is: Which accounting records do you have and up to which date are these records current?

I am concerned that there might be major blindspots in the data. For example I only committed significant funds to Bitcoinica after April 24 when it became a licensed financial service provider and provided a ToS. Also I came for the interest on deposits, so did not have any positions. I'm sure I am not unique in this respect.

The data from the screenshots suggest that accurate information for late users with significant deposits but no positions might not be present in either of the documents you presented. This worries me.

We still have Mt. Gox account logs, deposit and withdrawal emails, etc. We are unable to disclose exact dates of these reports (not May 6, I just showed two recent ones, but the date is more recent than that.) If someone made a large withdrawal after that date and didn't claim it, we can still find the evidence in the email. (So far no one could disable withdrawal email due to a bug preventing mass assignment of the options.)

Breach of trust will be heavily penalized, I guess. So just be careful with the claims and you should be fine.

EDIT: If someone submits claim at this stage, 99% it's fake without valid explanation of the delay. So send an email of explanation to verify@bitcoinica.com if you didn't manage to submit within the first week.

This is my suggestion though. I'm just trying to help the team (so that everyone can get funds back faster).

Are you saying my claim is 99% Fake? All because I did not submit a claim form during the first week of this mess?

I explained to you why I patiently waited behind the scenes like others because we had faith in you and your service.

Very Briefly, We do NOT TRUST you anymore so we will NOT submit passports or any Identification to you.  We have been doing business with you since the beginning and you NEVER ask me for any type of ID. You were content with my HUGE deposits and trading activity and I'm sure you didn't want to bother with little stuff like that. Now you are starting to bother me Zhou Tong.

Maria.

Until today, you still haven't told Bitcoinica even your username or email address. And I can't find anything with "Maria". What do you want?

You should sue Bitcoinica LP and feed your lawyer well.