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

[naima53]

Bitcoinica owners, you got my email message naimaonline@ymail.com (proof of ownership account, transaction history)? My data is in the process? I'm sorry for the translation.

[zhoutong]

LOL Matthew is involved in every single shady biz in the bitcoin space, however unrelated it may seem.

That must a record.

Given his tendency to wildly troll, I'm not surprised he tried to leave the impression he's involved with bitcoinica. If he was, zhoutong would've mentioned it (zhou has been forthcoming about everything else and the "anonymous investor" / buyer has already been outed as Tihan).

Matthew used to get loans from Bitcoinica for dialcoin and stuff. Matthew was involved with bitcoinica. How much involvement and how official was it, I do not know. I asked him to tell us but he did not want to, I don't know why.

It's just a few personal loans. They aren't even tied to Bitcoinica. When the site was acquired, the creditor becomes me as an individual.

Matthew was very familiar with the Bitcoin community and he offered a lot of help to me at early stage of Bitcoinica development. I really appreciate that. And I also donate a significant sum to his projects after the sale.

These are all entirely personal so I didn't talk about it at all. He did advise me to incorporate in Singapore and I followed his advice for a month. The acquisition happened just when I'm about to form Bitcoinica Pte Ltd with two partners who have experience in this field. So I wouldn't think it's any kind of involvement or even CEO.

[genjix]

Matthew N Wright is not involved with Bitcoinica (from what I know). That's not to say him and Zhou Tong did not ever have friendly relations. It's common among Bitcoin people that we all speak and share ideas despite being 'competitors'. For instance I advise Andreas how to improve his Bitcoin client despite that I'm working on a different client. We all want Bitcoin to succeed, and better services = better community for all.

For instance I gave advice to Matthew about his magazine despite writing for BitcoinMedia. I think it's a cool project and want it to succeed.

Anyway I'd prefer to keep this thread on topic. Make a separate thread for periphery topics.

[Maria]

LOL Matthew is involved in every single shady biz in the bitcoin space, however unrelated it may seem.

That must a record.

Given his tendency to wildly troll, I'm not surprised he tried to leave the impression he's involved with bitcoinica. If he was, zhoutong would've mentioned it (zhou has been forthcoming about everything else and the "anonymous investor" / buyer has already been outed as Tihan).

Matthew used to get loans from Bitcoinica for dialcoin and stuff. Matthew was involved with bitcoinica. How much involvement and how official was it, I do not know. I asked him to tell us but he did not want to, I don't know why.

It's just a few personal loans. They aren't even tied to Bitcoinica. When the site was acquired, the creditor becomes me as an individual.

Matthew was very familiar with the Bitcoin community and he offered a lot of help to me at early stage of Bitcoinica development. I really appreciate that. And I also donate a significant sum to his projects after the sale.

These are all entirely personal so I didn't talk about it at all. He did advise me to incorporate in Singapore and I followed his advice for a month. The acquisition happened just when I'm about to form Bitcoinica Pte Ltd with two partners who have experience in this field. So I wouldn't think it's any kind of involvement or even CEO.

Again Matthew, After you advised Zhoutong to sell our private documents without consulting, how much money did you make after the sale was completed?

@Zhoutong How substantial was your donation after the sale?

Maria.

[zhoutong]

LOL Matthew is involved in every single shady biz in the bitcoin space, however unrelated it may seem.

That must a record.

Given his tendency to wildly troll, I'm not surprised he tried to leave the impression he's involved with bitcoinica. If he was, zhoutong would've mentioned it (zhou has been forthcoming about everything else and the "anonymous investor" / buyer has already been outed as Tihan).

Matthew used to get loans from Bitcoinica for dialcoin and stuff. Matthew was involved with bitcoinica. How much involvement and how official was it, I do not know. I asked him to tell us but he did not want to, I don't know why.

It's just a few personal loans. They aren't even tied to Bitcoinica. When the site was acquired, the creditor becomes me as an individual.

Matthew was very familiar with the Bitcoin community and he offered a lot of help to me at early stage of Bitcoinica development. I really appreciate that. And I also donate a significant sum to his projects after the sale.

These are all entirely personal so I didn't talk about it at all. He did advise me to incorporate in Singapore and I followed his advice for a month. The acquisition happened just when I'm about to form Bitcoinica Pte Ltd with two partners who have experience in this field. So I wouldn't think it's any kind of involvement or even CEO.

Again Matthew, After you advised Zhoutong to sell our private documents without consulting, how much money did you make after the sale was completed?

@Zhoutong How substantial was your donation after the sale?

Maria.

I also donated pretty much the same amount to Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Alright, Wikipedia was the de facto owner of Bitcoinica back then.

[zhoutong]

For those questioning my identity or existence:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=86594.msg953155#msg953155

I don't think these photos will affect the image of someone else, Bitcoin or my bank. So I posted them.

[ninjarobot]

Neither Intersango nor Bitcoin Consultancy is involved in bitcoinica.

Some of the Intersango/Bitcoin Consultancy team members are, however posting about that in this thread is wildly inappropriate.

That is funny because Donald Norman, the CEO of Intersango/Bitcoin Consultancy claimed the following on 2012/04/24:

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

This platform announced today, a new contract signed with the Bitcoin Consultancy Ltd. Bitcoin Consultancy will be taking a dominant role in the operations of Bitcoinica, ushering forward its continued safety and stable operation.

Tihan also claims otherwise:

Bitcoin Consultancy was first retained to perform a comprehensive security audit on March 27 and they became owners and operators of Bitcoinica LP on April 24*. As General Partner, they have exclusive legal authority to manage the company.

And Zhou:

https://www.bitcoinica.com/posts/joining-forces-with-bitcoin-consultancy

The Bitcoin Consultancy team will be responsible for the daily operations of Bitcoinica, including customer support, compliance and new features. We have some amazing improvements in the works that we know our customers will love.

I'm starting to suspect some serious corporate switcharoo here.

Searching NZ companies I don't see a "Bitcoinica LP".  I do see a "BITCOINICA CONSULTANCY LIMITED":
 - http://www.business.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/search?q=bitcoinica&mode=standard

So around April 21 there were the following entries in the NZ register:

• "BITCOINICA CONSULTANCY LIMITED"
• "CORE CREDIT LIMITED" (30/01/2012)
• "BITCOINICA LP" (FSP) (22/03/2012)

However on May 30 the following happened:

• "BITCOINICA CONSULTANCY LIMITED" > registration withdrawn.
  
• "CORE CREDIT LIMITED" > namechange >  "BITCOINICA CONSULTANCY LIMITED"
  

So correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that:

• Intersango guys were the original BITCOIN CONSULTANCY LIMITED (General Partner)
• Tihans investment fund was CORE CREDIT LIMITED. (Majority Limited Partner)
• On May 30 the LIMITED PARTNER changed name (but not liability?) to that of the GENERAL PARTNER and the GENERAL PARTNER dissolved itself.

This would also explain genjix statement:

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.

Color me confused. What is going on and how does this benefit customers?

[MrTeal]

Again Matthew, After you advised Zhoutong to sell our private documents without consulting, how much money did you make after the sale was completed?

Maria.

Jesus, are you 15? Sales of businesses happen all the time, within the last year I've gotten letters from my pharmacy saying it's shutting down and my records are being transferred to another company along with my dentist retiring and selling his practice. That's just my medical records being transferred, I'm sure there's dozens of businesses I deal with that have had changes of ownership in the last year. Zhoutong does not have to run his business in perpetuity because you don't like change.


Do you go whine on the internet when the banks you deal with merge or get bought out?

[naima53]

I also donated pretty much the same amount to Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Alright, Wikipedia was the de facto owner of Bitcoinica back then.

What fuck is this?  Related things (one charterer?)? http://z-filez.info/story/wikileaks-tehnologii-informaciya-obshchestvo

[zhoutong]

I also donated pretty much the same amount to Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Alright, Wikipedia was the de facto owner of Bitcoinica back then.

What fuck is this?  Related things (one charterer?)? http://z-filez.info/story/wikileaks-tehnologii-informaciya-obshchestvo

I guess you mean "character".

Yes. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is a non-profit that owns Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikiquotes, Wiktionary, and other assets. Not Wikileaks though.

[proudhon]

Neither Intersango nor Bitcoin Consultancy is involved in bitcoinica.

Some of the Intersango/Bitcoin Consultancy team members are, however posting about that in this thread is wildly inappropriate.

That is funny because Donald Norman, the CEO of Intersango/Bitcoin Consultancy claimed the following on 2012/04/24:

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

This platform announced today, a new contract signed with the Bitcoin Consultancy Ltd. Bitcoin Consultancy will be taking a dominant role in the operations of Bitcoinica, ushering forward its continued safety and stable operation.

Tihan also claims otherwise:

Bitcoin Consultancy was first retained to perform a comprehensive security audit on March 27 and they became owners and operators of Bitcoinica LP on April 24*. As General Partner, they have exclusive legal authority to manage the company.

And Zhou:

https://www.bitcoinica.com/posts/joining-forces-with-bitcoin-consultancy

The Bitcoin Consultancy team will be responsible for the daily operations of Bitcoinica, including customer support, compliance and new features. We have some amazing improvements in the works that we know our customers will love.

I'm starting to suspect some serious corporate switcharoo here.

Searching NZ companies I don't see a "Bitcoinica LP".  I do see a "BITCOINICA CONSULTANCY LIMITED":
 - http://www.business.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/search?q=bitcoinica&mode=standard

So around April 21 there were the following entries in the NZ register:

• "BITCOINICA CONSULTANCY LIMITED"
• "CORE CREDIT LIMITED" (30/01/2012)
• "BITCOINICA LP" (FSP) (22/03/2012)

However on May 30 the following happened:

• "BITCOINICA CONSULTANCY LIMITED" > registration withdrawn.
  
• "CORE CREDIT LIMITED" > namechange >  "BITCOINICA CONSULTANCY LIMITED"

So correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that:

• Intersango guys were the original BITCOIN CONSULTANCY LIMITED (General Partner)
• Tihans investment fund was CORE CREDIT LIMITED. (Majority Limited Partner)
• On May 30 the LIMITED PARTNER changed name to that of the GENERAL PARTNER.

This would also explain genjix statement:

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.

Color me confused. What is going on and how does this benefit customers?

This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that we seem to be getting inconsistent reports of what's going on.  I'm content to let the claims process take as long as it needs to take, within reason, for claims to be as accurate as possible; but all this other stuff is eroding any faith I have that anything is really being done.

[naima53]

I also donated pretty much the same amount to Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Alright, Wikipedia was the de facto owner of Bitcoinica back then.

What fuck is this?  Related things (one charterer?)? http://z-filez.info/story/wikileaks-tehnologii-informaciya-obshchestvo

I guess you mean "character".

Yes. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is a non-profit that owns Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikiquotes, Wiktionary, and other assets. Not Wikileaks though.

there is an assumption that all these projects have one owner (a secret investor, a new political force)

Maria, I'm trying to find information on the parts of this thread,information about refunds, I was really hard to do this using graphic ..

[zhoutong]

Well, one guy says they have less than 10% verified. A second guy says over 75%...

Less than 10% by the number of claims verified.
About 50% by the value of claims verified.
*At least* 75% of funds (without adjusting for fake entries) are present in an account that I can access.

[naima53]

Bitcoinica owners, (Zhou can be), you got my email message naimaonline@ymail.com (proof of ownership account, transaction history)? My data is in the process? I'm sorry for the translation.
EDIT Also, I apologize for any (possibly) inaccuracies in the data.

[ninjarobot]

For the sake of transparency - This morning I received a verification confirmation over email:

Your claim has been reviewed and deemed accurate but payments cannot begin until we've gone through more of them to get a big picture.

Has anyone else received similar confirmations?

[genjix]

This would also explain genjix statement:

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.

Color me confused. What is going on and how does this benefit customers?

You should quote the entirety of my post:

It's pretty easy, Genjix, what are you working on today?  Right now.  What is Patrick working on?  What is Donald working on?  You are all hard working guys, and can't be just sitting around drinking coffee.  What exactly is it that you've spent the last four weeks doing?  Even if the answer isn't "writing cheques to repay you", just tell us.  It's not like you can be "incorrect" or "inaccurate" about what you're doing.

Until Saturday (or so), I was working on helping process the claims. Since then I've been working on libbitcoin and Electrum.

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.

The problem is that Bitcoinica Consultancy only begun the process of being formed when the attack happened. The paper work was not completed and we weren't acting as GP. Tihan is asking us to finish completing the formation of Bitcoinica Consultancy first, while we are asking for legal authorisation to conduct payments on their behalf.

But I think the issue may be resolved now although I'm not sure of the specifics (I'm not a lawyer). Hopefully someone acting on proper legal representation can respond.

Anyway I'm going to avoid posting now, since the technical problems have been resolved, and the remaining things are legal. I've probably made a bunch of mistakes or inaccuracies above as I don't have a complete understanding of this and don't have a legal background.

Bitcoinica Consultancy registration was never completed. I for instance had not signed and my documents weren't notarised. Similar things for others. So there is no clear ownership here.

Tihan was asking for completion of the registration for Bitcoinica Consultancy, whereas Donald was asking for legal authorisation from Core Credit.

Tihan sent this email:

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

2) An email reply that you are acting as directors for the Bitcoinica LP general partner.

3) An email reply that you will supply the NZ Companies office with valid docs to reflect your director status at your earliest opportunity

I must consider anything less to be an abandonment of your legal obligations.

Donald, since you are the only one not in favor of moving forward, I will look for you to respond first.

Donald:

I've tried to contact Andrew Thornhill but haven't been able to. Do you have his contact? The question in my mind is if you had the authority to hand us the claims process and what that extends to- does it extend to actually making payments? I think your speculative judgements or opinions are worthless in this regard. You cannot say that we have the right to make them and that you are an advisor. We need to determine if we do have the right. It could potentially be a lengthy process but if you provide me with Andrew Thornhill's contact it can be resolved immediately.

Tihan:

I never had the authority to hand you the claims process. By my recommendation, that authority was handed to you by the legal owner (the investment fund) when you accepted responsibility as General Partners.

Quoting from the Bitcoinica limited partnership agreement...

"
4.1 Management
(a) The General Partner has exclusive responsibility for the management and control of the business and affairs of the Limited Partnership
...
4.2 Authority and Powers
Subject to and without prejudice to the generality of clause 4.1, in respect of the Business, the General Partner and its agents and delegates and their respective delegates have the full powers and the authority of the Limited Partnership and the power to bind the Limited Partnership without prior consulation with any of the Limited Partners
...

(And then this goes backwards and forwards with Donald asking for Andrew Thornhill's contact details, and Tihan saying we don't need them, as we are in charge. The issue being of course that Bitcoinica Consultancy is a non-existent/unformed company)

He also sent me an email asking me for the documents to complete the formation of Bitcoinica Consultancy, which is a bit weird as we're paying people back, and I don't have a spare day or two to go get my documents notarised.

Anyway I'm not sure who's right between Donald (being excessively "by the book") or Tihan (trying to limit his perceived involvement). 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.

[bitcoinBull]

Thanks for the update genjix. At least I now know who is at the top of my shitlist (Andrew Thornhill).

[dancingnancy]

For the sake of transparency - This morning I received a verification confirmation over email:

Your claim has been reviewed and deemed accurate but payments cannot begin until we've gone through more of them to get a big picture.

Has anyone else received similar confirmations?

No.  How did you fill the claim form out?  Did you put all "exacts" or "approx."?  I filled out "approx" because I had no idea if I had like .005 BTC added on to any of my transactions and BTC total's in my account.  I just couldn't fill out "exact" b/c I didn't want to  be off by any amount.  

How large was your BTC holding if you don't mind me asking?

[Maria]

(And then this goes backwards and forwards with Donald asking for Andrew Thornhill's contact details, and Tihan saying we don't need them, as we are in charge. The issue being of course that Bitcoinica Consultancy is a non-existent/unformed company)

He also sent me an email asking me for the documents to complete the formation of Bitcoinica Consultancy, which is a bit weird as we're paying people back, and I don't have a spare day or two to go get my documents notarised.

Anyway I'm not sure who's right between Donald (being excessively "by the book") or Tihan (trying to limit his perceived involvement). 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.

6325 + 9449 = 15,774 BTC

Current Mtgox Price is 5.60

USD 53,244  = 9449 BTC

Send My Money To: 1HJc5VLMpFCQJg2maP9wGuCo3NAgwaCJQj

Maria.

[kokjo]

why do you people not just kick Donald out? he seems like a jerk, first fighting with Zhou on the forum, then with Tihan by email.
what is wrong with this guy??? he is counter productive!