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

[teflone]

One thing is clear..


HIRE HELP!!!!!


I have to agree with a lot of what Loupgaroux is saying to a point..

Dont turn this into the first issue of bitcoin mag..  lol

[Transisto]

... It is a net loss considering I'm worth $50+ per hour. I charge $200 per hour for consulting work, and here I am spending 20 mins at a time researching claims and answering emails for sums less than $10. ...

Is there something/anything you could outsource by hiring someone ?
...

I think there is a sense of scale missing.  This is like paying 1000$ to fix a problem with 5 000 000$ in collateral damage.

Deepwater Horizon come to mind.

[teflone]

... It is a net loss considering I'm worth $50+ per hour. I charge $200 per hour for consulting work, and here I am spending 20 mins at a time researching claims and answering emails for sums less than $10. ...

Is there something/anything you could outsource by hiring someone ?
...

I think there is a sense of scale missing.  This is like paying 1000$ to fix a problem with 5 000 000$ in collateral damage.

Deepwater Horizon come to mind.

Could you explain this further ?


Im under the impression this is a HUGE problem..

How will hiring help, not help ?

[Transisto]

... It is a net loss considering I'm worth $50+ per hour. I charge $200 per hour for consulting work, and here I am spending 20 mins at a time researching claims and answering emails for sums less than $10. ...

Is there something/anything you could outsource by hiring someone ?
...

I think there is a sense of scale missing.  This is like paying 1000$ to fix a problem with 5 000 000$ in collateral damage.
Deepwater Horizon come to mind.

Could you explain this further ?
Im under the impression this is a HUGE problem..
How will hiring help, not help ?

Let's collectively pay Donald / Genjix something better than an old laptop to work on this.
Hire someone to feed and towel wash him while he's working on this 19h/24.
Hire mercenaries to hunt that hacker and recover that DB !!!

Sorry I lack imagination, but it's not like money's missing we're all loosing money every days that passes.  What's missing IMO is someone in charge giving a fuck.

Tihan has also offered up his personal details.

I'm interested in having this.

[Vod]

Hire mercenaries to hunt that hacker and recover that DB !!!

There was no hacker.  That's why they haven't involved any authorities.

[Transisto]

Hire mercenaries to hunt that hacker and recover that DB !!!

There was no hacker.  That's why they haven't involved any authorities.

You said that already, please stick with what you have proof of.

[genjix]

... It is a net loss considering I'm worth $50+ per hour. I charge $200 per hour for consulting work, and here I am spending 20 mins at a time researching claims and answering emails for sums less than $10. ...

Is there something/anything you could outsource by hiring someone ?
...

I think there is a sense of scale missing.  This is like paying 1000$ to fix a problem with 5 000 000$ in collateral damage.
Deepwater Horizon come to mind.

Could you explain this further ?
Im under the impression this is a HUGE problem..
How will hiring help, not help ?

Let's collectively pay Donald / Genjix something better than an old laptop to work on this.
Hire someone to feed and towel wash him while he's working on this 19h/24.
Hire mercenaries to hunt that hacker and recover that DB !!!

Sorry I lack imagination, but it's not like money's missing we're all loosing money every days that passes.  What's missing IMO is someone in charge giving a fuck.

Yes, I work for way below my pay bracket on Bitcoin stuff. Point is that I wouldn't be living like a pauper if I had scammed lots of money. You can check my entire history since 2003 on the internet, and you'll see that I've been working on Free/OpenSource software as a dayjob for 10 years. Those jobs pay far less than proprietary/normal commercial jobs and it's always a struggle. I've never been money oriented or concerned with earning money.

Don't believe what I'm saying? Then google my name 'Amir Taaki' or my nickname 'genjix'. Several times I was living as a squatter, homeless or living out of a backpack. All my programming history is on OpenSource projects.

Also there's many people who can say what my true character is like:

My CouchSurfing page: http://www.couchsurfing.org/people/genjix
Hackathon I organised: http://crystalspace3d.org/main/La_Fibra_hackfest_report (most of those people are on IRC)

Here's a picture from 2008, when I was still a leftist. I was always against greed, but at the time did not understand economics. That control of money is another form of fascism.



My other pics for anyone who wants to play detective: http://www.flickr.com/photos/genjix/

Here's some writing of mine before getting into Bitcoin: https://n-1.cc/pg/blog/read/44422/jb
https://n-1.cc/pg/blog/read/44421/fss

You can decide yourself whether I am a scammer. A scammer would not be posting here. Also if you read some of the forum posts, some people say they were answered by email that they are accurate, and some were told they were at the end of the queue. A scammer would tell everyone they are marked accurate.

Now it is slow, but the data is incredibly bad. But at the very worst, payouts will be completed within 2 months (or at least the large significant portion of them done). We only have the funds for the site. Mistakes that get made will cost people real money. Mistaken payments will not be refunded (hence the 50% first solution).

I'm inviting people to dug up dirt on me because there is none.

Tihan has also offered up his personal details.

I'm interested in having this.

Show me the police report. I'd rather not give people's personal details in public.

[ninjarobot]

There's something with Tihan going on, but I am not following that because it's unneeded drama for me - it seems he got fired, although I'm not sure for what.

Who replaced Tihan as the point of contact for the Limited Partner?

We had to sort out the legal issues with Tihan (who has legal control over the funds)

Who now has legal control over the funds?

USD payments are slower since Donald doesn't have direct access to them (goes through a second person).

Who is the second person?

20:48 <phantomcircuit> wendon bought bitcoinica in like october and knew immediately that there were problems

Who is Wendon? What is his role in Bitcoinica LP?

20:49 <phantomcircuit> when we got involved in what was it like march? they had been operating for months without a major overhaul
20:50 <phantomcircuit> the paperwork was wrong and tihan was rushing because i think he realized how fucked the situation really was

If you guys new things were fucked up from the start, then why you did you mislead the general public with posts like these:

http://bitcoinmedia.com/first-licensed-advanced-trading-platform-for-bitcoin/

depositors can also make a sizable return on investment in the form of interest. The current yearly interest on Bitcoinica for Bitcoin deposits is over 6 percent.

Encouraging people (like me) to put their deposits in Bitcoinica while at the same time you guys knew that things were seriously fucked up is not a moral or ethical thing to do. Also this post made by Donald gave the impression you guys were in control and that the transition had been completed.

Mistaken payments will not be refunded (hence the 50% first solution).

Unacceptable. Basically you are saying: If we make a mistake you pay for it. I did not read this in the Bitcoinica Terms of Service that I agreed to.

[Transisto]

Genjix, I have great respect for you, I personally think you should aim higher in life.
Your long term reputation is worth much more than what you can expect to gain from being associated with this.  It may not be obvious that you're protecting them but given that they've been dead silent on the matter ... If it wasn't for your semi weekly forum posts, with no update at all, we'd have surely engaged into coercive means already to get "Tihan" & al. to get a grasp of the urgency.

[ninjarobot]

I agree with Transisto.

With great challenges come great opportunities - If you are able to fix this difficult situation (no db, dysfunctional organization) to your customers satisfaction, then it will only bolster your reputation. After all, you have been one of the few people willing to stand up and take the dirt from the public, who are understandably angry. Please don't take angry posts personally: In the end it is just business and people want to see their money back. Nothing more, nothing less. So please talk business and act business, that is all that is required here. No need to go on personal witch hunts.

That said... Genjix - you *do* realize that your profile on http://www.couchsurfing.org/people/genjix states:

occupation:    bullshit specialist

;)

[LoupGaroux]

Amir-

Please, I am not challenging you as a person, or your commitment to the cause of smashing the State or eliminating debt. A person is paid what he values himself at- if you want to be paid more for your development time, stop coding in industrial squats, promote your skills and work with people who value your ability. Sounds to me like the murky cabal of unknowns behind Bitcoinica has made you their code-jockey and are giving you the crap duties. Yes, you have been more communicative than the other alleged owners, but your communication has not addressed the issues. Stories have changed, directives have been announced that contradict earlier plans, new players have been introduced throughout this disaster... I am not going to humor you by dredging up all the inconsistencies in 65 pages of dialogue, anyone who has been following along at all knows exactly what I'm talking about.

When Zhou was the spokesperson, you were not heard from, now you are the spokesperson but you still can't give an OFFICIAL or CONSISTENT or ACCURATE answer to any of the questions.

Why are you not paying out in full for the funds that you have good clearance on?

What about the US$ funds you are holding- they have never been disputed?

Who is truly in charge, and more importantly, what business entity has taken on the legal responsibility for the fiduciary responsibility of all of the many tens of thousands of dollars in value you hold in trust?

Instead you keep offering up these little teases of a couple of pennies to this person, a minor payout to another of your select friends on the inside, and you maintain a smoke screen of silliness that you hide behind.

Do you really want anybody in the community to believe that the speed of your laptop is the reason that you haven't made good on 95% of the payouts in bitcoin yet? That's nonsense. I use a ThinkPad 43 as my main laptop for work every single day, and I would be embarrassed to suggest that the reason I couldn't initiate a simple transfer of funds is because that machine is slowing me down. Get Tihan, if he is the leader of this gang, to come forward and speak for his plans and the approach they are taking. Your group makes all sorts of forward looking statements about your knowledge, abilities and financial strength, but all anyone sees is strawmen coming forward to sling the next line of bullshit.

Its been said very well- this is just business. Act that way. Do the proper ethical, legal and moral thing to do and be honest. Don't play the little bluffing game of go ahead and sue me, I'm available... start making some payments, speak only the truth, and if your partners are not willing to empower you to act then out them for it, and demand they come and take the heat. This is the marketplace that you have chosen to work in- you have an obligation to this marketplace to act with integrity and transparency.

[BadBitcoin (James Sutton)]

hey genjix, I just PMed you something you may want to take a look at.

[zhoutong]

Amir-

Please, I am not challenging you as a person, or your commitment to the cause of smashing the State or eliminating debt. A person is paid what he values himself at- if you want to be paid more for your development time, stop coding in industrial squats, promote your skills and work with people who value your ability. Sounds to me like the murky cabal of unknowns behind Bitcoinica has made you their code-jockey and are giving you the crap duties. Yes, you have been more communicative than the other alleged owners, but your communication has not addressed the issues. Stories have changed, directives have been announced that contradict earlier plans, new players have been introduced throughout this disaster... I am not going to humor you by dredging up all the inconsistencies in 65 pages of dialogue, anyone who has been following along at all knows exactly what I'm talking about.

When Zhou was the spokesperson, you were not heard from, now you are the spokesperson but you still can't give an OFFICIAL or CONSISTENT or ACCURATE answer to any of the questions.

Why are you not paying out in full for the funds that you have good clearance on?

What about the US$ funds you are holding- they have never been disputed?

Who is truly in charge, and more importantly, what business entity has taken on the legal responsibility for the fiduciary responsibility of all of the many tens of thousands of dollars in value you hold in trust?

Instead you keep offering up these little teases of a couple of pennies to this person, a minor payout to another of your select friends on the inside, and you maintain a smoke screen of silliness that you hide behind.

Do you really want anybody in the community to believe that the speed of your laptop is the reason that you haven't made good on 95% of the payouts in bitcoin yet? That's nonsense. I use a ThinkPad 43 as my main laptop for work every single day, and I would be embarrassed to suggest that the reason I couldn't initiate a simple transfer of funds is because that machine is slowing me down. Get Tihan, if he is the leader of this gang, to come forward and speak for his plans and the approach they are taking. Your group makes all sorts of forward looking statements about your knowledge, abilities and financial strength, but all anyone sees is strawmen coming forward to sling the next line of bullshit.

Its been said very well- this is just business. Act that way. Do the proper ethical, legal and moral thing to do and be honest. Don't play the little bluffing game of go ahead and sue me, I'm available... start making some payments, speak only the truth, and if your partners are not willing to empower you to act then out them for it, and demand they come and take the heat. This is the marketplace that you have chosen to work in- you have an obligation to this marketplace to act with integrity and transparency.

I'm not involved in verifying the claims or refunding customers (if Bitcoinica wants me to I would be glad to dedicate some of my time), but I'm following this thread continuously.

I may not be able to give you some official information, but based on all the sources I have (including some big customers who have close contact with people at Bitcoinica), I can answer some of your questions:

> Why are you not paying out in full for the funds that you have good clearance on?

The team is quite skeptical in making payments. Because the amount of funds is limited (Tihan has exceeded his legal responsibility as a Limited Partner by chipping in *personal* funds, and no more such kind of contributions is available or expected), every cent extra paid to claimants means one cent less for other honest customers. AFAIK Donald doesn't want the team to consider the reputation of the customers so it's assumed that all the money paid out cannot be recovered if it's found to be wrong later.

> What about the US$ funds you are holding- they have never been disputed?

The funding account has sufficient funds to cover the vast majority of the claims. Whether Bitcoinica LP is still solvent depends on the claim verification. After removing the scammers from the list, they may have the funds to cover all the claims. But it's also possible for the company to become insolvent. In that case, Bitcoinica should make fractional payments to customers with less evidence or verifiable data. Again, this is just a suggestion based on my personal value judgement. It's not official.

> Who is truly in charge, and more importantly, what business entity has taken on the legal responsibility for the fiduciary responsibility of all of the many tens of thousands of dollars in value you hold in trust?

Based on government records, Bitcoinica Consultancy Ltd is the General Partner of Bitcoinica LP. AFAIK the owners of Bitcoinica Consultancy Ltd are Donald, Patrick and Amir (or possibly Bitcoin Consultancy Ltd). Tihan is a representative of an investment group, which is the Limited Partner. He is never in charge of the company after the corporate reorganization.

I have not received any official information from Bitcoinica for more than a month. So there are nothing more I can comment on. The whole thing is very complicated and I do believe that the team has good reasons for the delay.

[ninjarobot]

> Who is truly in charge, and more importantly, what business entity has taken on the legal responsibility for the fiduciary responsibility of all of the many tens of thousands of dollars in value you hold in trust?

Based on government records, Bitcoinica Consultancy Ltd is the General Partner of Bitcoinica LP. AFAIK the owners of Bitcoinica Consultancy Ltd are Donald, Patrick and Amir (or possibly Bitcoin Consultancy Ltd). Tihan is a representative of an investment group, which is the Limited Partner. He is never in charge of the company after the corporate reorganization.

See, I'm not so sure about that. Take the following quote for example:

Now the thing is that for payments to be processed, we need legal authorisation from the person in charge. Tihan denies being in charge, which means his parent company (Core Credit) has to authorise the payments. However Tihan is saying we don't need that.

This seems to indicate that BICOINICA CONSULTANCY is the GP (Intersango guys) and CORE CREDIT the LP (Tihans fund)

However a few weeks after the hack, on May 30 this happened:

New Company Name BITCOINICA CONSULTANCY LIMITED
Previous Company Name CORE CREDIT LIMITED
Effective Date30 May 2012 12:56:36

The original Bitcoinica Consultancy was withdrawn from government records and Core Credit became Bitcoinica Consultancy (See: http://goo.gl/Lch6E). So who is the GP now? Sure it is still Bitcoinica Consultancy but it appears that behind the curtain there has been a change of guard. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I asked Donald about this over skype 2 weeks ago but he could not answer the question due to the NDA he is under. And other Bitcoinica LP members have largely ignored the issue. e.g:

But it does not matter who is legally in charge right now as the way forwards is clear and everyone is in agreement about what needs to be done. We will make the payments, we now have consolidated all the records and the money.

So it would be good to get an official answer on the question LoupGaroux posed earlier: "Who is truly in charge, and more importantly, what business entity has taken on the legal responsibility for the fiduciary responsibility?"  

[LoupGaroux]

Thank you, Zhou, for continuing to try to offer what clarity you can. Appalling that you are doing this without the support of the folks who are sitting on your creation, I hope you were paid well, and in advance for your interest in this thing.

And how truly pathetic that the only clarity we have is from the very guy who Bitcoinica is dumping the blame off on! Tihan threw in a few personal bucks? Big deal. Bitcoinica is worried about fraud? Why? The increase in value of the bitcoins they are sitting on represents a paper gain of over 58% since the alleged event happened. Spend that 58% gain, and they still haven't touched one satoshi of the principal at issue here! They claim that they have liquidity to cover all legitimate claims, okay- start covering them. Hell, the interest on a CD at a traditional bank for a half million US$ would have made you solvent in the past 50 days, in addition to the gains on the bitcoin side of the equation.

Step up and tell the truth. Be honest about when folks are going to get their money. Stop telling these outrageous stories about he said, then he said, then he forbid... it's a load of crap, and nobody believes you any more. Pay out the US$. There is no question about that. You can easily verify those records, BECAUSE YOU HAVE NEVER CLAIMED THERE WAS ANY PROBLEM WITH THE US$ RECORDS! Loads of good folks have given you clear documentation since the alleged hack concerning their deposits with you, and since you have done absolutely nothing with those funds- the US$ are still sitting there, right? So pay them out.

Otherwise, is there really any other rational avenue of thought than the fact that you are scammers and you intend to make off with the funds? You have no reason to hold anybody's money in US$ at this point. Come clean about what exactly you are doing about the bitcoins, and get this ugly chapter behind you so you can try to rebuild your reputations here.

[dancingnancy]

And how truly pathetic that the only clarity we have is from the very guy who Bitcoinica is dumping the blame off on! Tihan threw in a few personal bucks? Big deal. Bitcoinica is worried about fraud? Why? The increase in value of the bitcoins they are sitting on represents a paper gain of over 58% since the alleged event happened. Spend that 58% gain, and they still haven't touched one satoshi of the principal at issue here! They claim that they have liquidity to cover all legitimate claims, okay- start covering them. Hell, the interest on a CD at a traditional bank for a half million US$ would have made you solvent in the past 50 days, in addition to the gains on the bitcoin side of the equation.

I personally don't like the way you have brought up many things in this thread, but I am wondering the same exact thing.  If BTC price has jumped this amount AND everyone is getting paid back at the price 50+ days ago there should be plenty of coin to pay all BTC back, shouldn't there?

My only guess is that they have never liquidated the majority of positions.  Or they are in the process of doing it slowly.  That's my best guess, I really don't care anymore as long as I get my coins back.  I would be interested in hearing the real story some time in the future, but could care less now.  I know it was dumb, but for some people like me that was pretty much all of my money :/

[dopamine]

I'm feeling like I just got Don't Get Zhou Tonged!!! and lost all my bitcoins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdvTkddp1F0

[Phinnaeus Gage]

And how truly pathetic that the only clarity we have is from the very guy who Bitcoinica is dumping the blame off on! Tihan threw in a few personal bucks? Big deal. Bitcoinica is worried about fraud? Why? The increase in value of the bitcoins they are sitting on represents a paper gain of over 58% since the alleged event happened. Spend that 58% gain, and they still haven't touched one satoshi of the principal at issue here! They claim that they have liquidity to cover all legitimate claims, okay- start covering them. Hell, the interest on a CD at a traditional bank for a half million US$ would have made you solvent in the past 50 days, in addition to the gains on the bitcoin side of the equation.

I personally don't like the way you have brought up many things in this thread, but I am wondering the same exact thing.  If BTC price has jumped this amount AND everyone is getting paid back at the price 50+ days ago there should be plenty of coin to pay all BTC back, shouldn't there?

My only guess is that they have never liquidated the majority of positions.  Or they are in the process of doing it slowly.  That's my best guess, I really don't care anymore as long as I get my coins back.  I would be interested in hearing the real story some time in the future, but could care less now.  I know it was dumb, but for some people like me that was pretty much all of my money :/

Correct me if I'm wrong. If Somebody had 100 BTC in Bitconica before the hack, they will not have returned to them the full 100 BTC (50% now/50% later)?

If I gave somebody a 1oz gold bar valued at $1,500 USD and they lost it, but promised to give me a 1oz gold bar in return but since the price went up to $1,800 USD, I will now only receive $1,500 USD in gold, I don't think that would be fair.

~Bruno~

[naima53]

Amir, just a guess ... Maybe we should vote (poll) "to convert all USD balances to bitcoin." ? Payments will be slow, so there is time for a good investment .. This should affect growth prices and after a while, it will be easier for people to return their USD balances.
 In my claim, I wrote that "I want to get the USD balance in the form of Bitcoin (convert to bitcoin at market price)
 Maybe it's a good idea? (who was the $ 1,000 requirement, also receive $ 1,000, but the growth rates for the B - increase the value of in-kind.)

[genjix]

~35% of claimants are marked accurate
~86% of total funds are marked accurate
~25% of total funds have been repaid

[12:45:25] Amir Taaki: if we spend a whole day doing claims over skype
[12:45:33] Amir Taaki: we can maybe finish 50 of them in a day
[12:46:14] Incitatus: dude I have so many lined up for patrick to do
[12:46:21] Incitatus: where all the work is done
[12:46:49] Incitatus: he spent from friday to monday working on trying to automate withdraws
[12:47:04] Amir Taaki: i can do withdrawals
[12:47:14] Amir Taaki: we need those bitcoinica payments out
[12:47:16] Incitatus: you can build code to automate it?
[12:47:19] Amir Taaki: no
[12:47:19] Incitatus: you can't do withdraws
[12:47:47] Incitatus: everythign you touch that has to do with money blows up in our face
[12:48:08] Incitatus: we cannot fuck up
[12:48:12] Amir Taaki: ok
[12:49:47] Incitatus: looks like a good article
[12:49:53] Incitatus: can't read it now
[12:58:56] Amir Taaki: so what's happening with bitcoinica payments?
[12:59:05] Amir Taaki: why doesn't patrick give you some mtgox USD?
[12:59:58] Amir Taaki: i see lots of claims marked as accurate though. very nice.
[13:02:06] Incitatus: yea idk, too busy i guess. As long as mtgox wouldn't lock my account down then that would be cool but that's very possible. Techinically we'd have to get permission i think that's why
[13:02:23] Incitatus: but yea there are many that patrick himself has to do and we're just waiting on that
[13:02:26] Incitatus: obv he's uber busy

(about blow ups, I am careless/irresponsible and not security conscious - hence I don't have admin root access on Intersango.)

Zhou is totally correct in what he says. We (Bitcoin Consultancy) have taken on responsibility for the payments. In order to do that, we had to complete the paperwork for the formation of Bitcoinica Consultancy. He's also not directly involved, but has been helpful with the odd query when needed (despite not being involved).

About converting the balances: if you prefer USD, then you can specify it on your payments option for the claims.