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

[Mushoz]

I can provide anything you want: Mails, ID, deposit numbers, withdrawal numbers.
Just please help me out. The wait is killing me.

[1714055676]

1714055676

[Sysrq]

I only have USD in my account. Mtgox code is good with me. If needed, I can supply the mtgox code that I used to fund my account. I also have the emails of the few small withdrawals I made in BTC.

Same situation here.

[tseale]

30 May 01:52: Consensus seems to have been reached. Waiting for final confirmation from Tihan to move ahead so we can work out the actual payout implementation specifics.

As a rep for the limited partner, I don't have a vote in this process. I do hope my input has been helpful, but the decision on how to proceed belongs to Donald, Patrick and Amir alone. I'm happy to hear they'll soon be ready.

[genjix]

Sorry about the above. It was a slip up by me. Tihan is correct.

30 May 23:30: We're going to proceed with payouts of the few people we have verified hopefully tomorrow for 80% of their claims (the remaining 20% will be refunded later). A more lengthy process will be applied to everyone else.

EDIT: I was under the impression he was acting strictly on behalf of the decision makers due to our conversations and the decisions that have been made thus far. I will confirm that we indeed have the ability to make this decision regarding the claims.

[yochdog]

Sorry about the above. It was a slip up by me. Tihan is correct.

30 May 23:30: We're going to proceed with payouts of the few people we have verified hopefully tomorrow for 80% of their claims (the remaining 20% will be refunded later). A more lengthy process will be applied to everyone else.

And how were they verified?  Were they given preferential treatment?  I am sure all of us would love to find out how to become one of the few verified individuals. 

[WhatsHappening]

Sorry about the above. It was a slip up by me. Tihan is correct.

30 May 23:30: We're going to proceed with payouts of the few people we have verified hopefully tomorrow for 80% of their claims (the remaining 20% will be refunded later). A more lengthy process will be applied to everyone else.

Transparency is not your strong side. Why a few people (how they got verified, by claim form ?).

We want to know rules!!

[bulanula]

Did you actually use zhoutong's 100 point system

[genjix]

Were they given preferential treatment?

Yes. People with a high rating within the community. These people are having their process expedited.

Originally Zhou favoured simply paying people out based on reputation (trust-based approach) whereas we (me and Patrick) supported divvying funds up accordingly among people (pro-rata). That was the nature of the disagreement and why Zhou was saying he could do immediate payouts quickly if we handed over the process. We did not think this was fair despite people calling for him to handle the process. The final method that's been mutually agreed upon by all is a hybrid method - using both approaches.

That's why I said one method is fast but inaccurate, while the other is slower but more accurate. It's a difficult decision though. And despite the criticism, I'm going to perform the payouts in the way that I personally think is most fair for all. There are a lot of people on this forum who don't have a voice so it would be unfair to simply payout to people based on reputation alone.

[ninjarobot]

Define 'A high rating in the community'

What community are we talking about and how is this relevant to bitcoinica?
How is this rating calculated?
How is this verified?
How is this fair?

Smacks like favoritism to me.

[BadBitcoin (James Sutton)]

Were they given preferential treatment?

Yes. People with a high rating within the community. These people are having their process expedited.

Originally Zhou favoured simply paying people out based on reputation (trust-based approach) whereas we (me and Patrick) supported divvying funds up accordingly among people (pro-rata). That was the nature of the disagreement and why Zhou was saying he could do immediate payouts quickly if we handed over the process. We did not think this was fair despite people calling for him to handle the process. The final method that's been mutually agreed upon by all is a hybrid method - using both approaches.

That's why I said one method is fast but inaccurate, while the other is slower but more accurate. It's a difficult decision though. And despite the criticism, I'm going to perform the payouts in the way that I personally think is most fair for all. There are a lot of people on this forum who don't have a voice so it would be unfair to simply payout to people based on reputation alone.

excellent, please keep this thread updated, I'm checking it twice a day at least.

 if you guys would like wire transfer numbers I have mine somewhere for nearly the exact amount in my account (minus fees), if that helps speed up the process I'll gladly send that along.

EDIT: and to be honest, all the people crying over favoritism, what did you expect? Hes saying they now have a system in place to pay everyone back, thats better than where we were this morning.

[genjix]

Define 'A high rating in the community'

...

Smacks like favoritism to me.

You're totally right. I dislike this too, but it is the most amicable solution available.

if you guys would like wire transfer numbers I have mine somewhere for nearly the exact amount in my account (minus fees), if that helps speed up the process I'll gladly send that along.

If you have anything that can help, then email verify@bitcoinica.com

There's an internal system being used to collate and organise all this information.

[BadBitcoin (James Sutton)]

Define 'A high rating in the community'

...

Smacks like favoritism to me.

You're totally right.

if you guys would like wire transfer numbers I have mine somewhere for nearly the exact amount in my account (minus fees), if that helps speed up the process I'll gladly send that along.

If you have anything that can help, then email verify@bitcoinica.com

There's an internal system being used to collate and organise all this information.

sent a couple emails there asking if they want any info that I have, I thought it was a standard email instead of a database, I'll send the AML files along then.

[realnowhereman]

No part of the claim form asked for a link to any other community.  Please explain how you are securely linking claims to "community reputation".

Please tell me you aren't using "username on bitcoinica = username on bitcointalk".  And "high post count on bitcointalk".

Do you people know anything about security?

[repentance]

Sorry about the above. It was a slip up by me. Tihan is correct.

30 May 23:30: We're going to proceed with payouts of the few people we have verified hopefully tomorrow for 80% of their claims (the remaining 20% will be refunded later). A more lengthy process will be applied to everyone else.

So this means that you're with-holding 20% of people's USD deposits as well as 20% of Bitcoin deposits?  I think that you need to define "later" in that case.  Given that people are expecting you to replace the missing Bitcoins by buying them on the open market, it would be wise to provide evidence of doing that.  People want to be confident that you actually have the 20% of both BTC and USD which you're intending to with-hold.

And yes, people need to realise that no matter what system is in place, someone's going to get paid first and someone's going to get paid last.

[Maged]

Smacks like favoritism to me.

If it makes you feel better, what Bitcoinica is doing is essentially issuing loans to people that are backed by their reputation. Anyone that doesn't have a reputation can't really be trusted to pay them back if Bitcoinica over-pays them.

And in case you were wondering, anyone who refuses to pay Bitcoinica back if they ask because Bitcoinica believes that you are owed less than you were paid will almost certainly get a scammer tag here. Please keep that in mind.

[BadBitcoin (James Sutton)]

Smacks like favoritism to me.

If it makes you feel better, what Bitcoinica is doing is essentially issuing loans to people that are backed by their reputation. Anyone that doesn't have a reputation can't really be trusted to pay them back if Bitcoinica over-pays them.

And in case you were wondering, anyone who refuses to pay Bitcoinica back if they ask because Bitcoinica believes that you are owed less than you were paid will almost certainly get a scammer tag here. Please keep that in mind.

good call maged, hopefully this helps move things along.

[genjix]

No part of the claim form asked for a link to any other community.  Please explain how you are securely linking claims to "community reputation".

We aren't doing that though. We are not using a trust metric, but simply extraditing the process for people with a high degree of certainty.

Also if you do have a forum nickname, and somehow feel it helps you then feel free to email it to the claims email.

[ninjarobot]

Reputation is more then a pseudonym and a high post count on some forum. The assumption here is that this equals honesty. I'm not so sure myself, especially when money is at stake. I paid for my ticket on this titanic. There was only 1 class when I signed up.

I would like to see some (relative) numbers:
* How many claims has Bitcoinica received? How does this stack up against the total amount of customers?
* Does the amount of claims exceed the amount of deposits? If so by what margin?

[genjix]

* How many claims has Bitcoinica received? How does this stack up against the total amount of customers?
* Does the amount of claims exceed the amount of deposits? If so by what margin?

I don't know since I don't have full access to Bitcoinica's records (Tihan has those). But I can see the claims and the total net value is $1.1 million. I don't know what the full amount previously was (Patrick or Zhou knows) but I do know it is a few times less than the total claims.

[zhoutong]

No part of the claim form asked for a link to any other community.  Please explain how you are securely linking claims to "community reputation".

Please tell me you aren't using "username on bitcoinica = username on bitcointalk".  And "high post count on bitcointalk".

Do you people know anything about security?

Since I have not yet resigned, I still have access to the moderation system and the accounting reports. From what I know, most of the claims, and almost all high-value claims have records present in at least one of the accounting reports that we have. These reports have various degrees of currency.

I have moderated a few accounts, and it seems that some claims are really trustworthy, because of the claim details exactly matches our records and the account owners were extremely co-operative. Some people even sent us their full Mt. Gox logs and bank statements. I personally have no reason to delay payments for these people. I believe that what they are trying to do is to find more cases like this and refund them immediately.