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

[vampire]

If you opened a long position at 4.30, your position is closed at 4.30.
If you opened a short position at 5.30, your position is closed at 5.30.

Using this approach, the only loss for customers will be opportunity cost. Sounds reasonable?

Personally I think that how would any other company would decide, simply cancel all orders. But longs will be pissed, at least they should get their balances in BTC if they had them in BTC.

[1713572957]

1713572957

[1713572957]

1713572957

[dancingnancy]

Sorry if I missed this, but I haven't seen anyone post on here that has actually received 50%.  Is this correct?

Genjix - with the password submittable page we did a couple days ago through e-mail, if our password was found, can we assume those are going to be refunded next?



Thanks.

[hatshepsut]

Of course we haven't heard from anyone that's received 50%. There isn't anyone.

What is this new Payment Instructions form on the claim page?

[elux]

If you opened a long position at 4.30, your position is closed at 4.30.
If you opened a short position at 5.30, your position is closed at 5.30.

Using this approach, the only loss for customers will be opportunity cost. Sounds reasonable?

Personally I think that how would any other company would decide, simply cancel all orders. But longs will be pissed, at least they should get their balances in BTC if they had them in BTC.

Yep. Sure.

Disclosure notice: This proposal would put me at a ~100 USD loss, compared to closing my long position at current market rate.
But this would be the same outcome as if I had no BTC/USD position and simply sat on my dollars for a month. Ah well.

Expecting Bitcoinica to close positions at the 'most favorable price', sounds unreasonable.
Additionally, closing positions at current market price would certainly wipe out many leveraged shorts.
They would not be happy. They would likely pursue legal action.

Closing positions at (for example) the market price from the day of the hack (with spread or without) seems arbitrary.
Closing  at 4.94 - 4.98 would put me, and others holding long positions, at an unreasonable loss. I would not be happy.

I would not take legal action, but I think it likely that someone with more on the line would want to.

Two separate settlement prices is more complicated, and creates more room for discontent.

I imagine that any other settlement proposal than opening price == closing price makes legal action more likely,
which in turn would put a halt to any hope of timely and reasonable settlements.

[naima53]

Zhoutong's opinion was "all short positions can liquidate at 4.94".
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81045.msg897877#msg897877

Current positions will all be liquidated at a settlement price. We haven't decided the price yet, but my personal estimate is 4.98 / 4.94. (All long positions can liquidate at 4.98 and all short positions can liquidate at 4.94, we pay the spread for you.) All unrealized P/L will be settled in USD. If you don't have sufficient USD balance, we will use your BTC to settle, with the mid-point exchange rate (again, we pay the spread).

I suggested the team to pay spread to customers to make everyone happy. At that time the highest-lowest difference was 4 cents. Now it's 1 dollar. So I'm really not sure how the liquidation will be handled.

I have a proposal for an amicable solution to the liquidation price dispute:

Close all open positions at the exact value they were placed. No loss for open positions.

If you opened a long position at 4.30, your position is closed at 4.30.
If you opened a short position at 5.30, your position is closed at 5.30.

Using this approach, the only loss for customers will be opportunity cost. Sounds reasonable?

Sounds good. But excuse me .. You do not understand how it works. They did not have enough money, that would do so.

5 - is a fair decision. (I'm a long, several thousand). And I willing to accept any loss of profits (of course a pity . .)

[hatshepsut]

5 - is a fair decision. (I'm a long, several thousand). And I willing to accept any loss of profits (of course a pity . .)

5 is out of the question when we're sitting here a month later staring at 5.90.

Liquidate at 5 and Bitcoinica will be in court for the rest of their lives.

Close all bets, give us our money back.

[Mushoz]

If you opened a long position at 4.30, your position is closed at 4.30.
If you opened a short position at 5.30, your position is closed at 5.30.

Using this approach, the only loss for customers will be opportunity cost. Sounds reasonable?

Personally I think that how would any other company would decide, simply cancel all orders. But longs will be pissed, at least they should get their balances in BTC if they had them in BTC.

Yep. Sure.

Disclosure notice: This proposal would put me at a ~100 USD loss, compared to closing my long position at current market rate.
But this would be the same outcome as if I had no BTC/USD position and simply sat on my dollars for a month. Ah well.

Expecting Bitcoinica to close positions at the 'most favorable price', sounds unreasonable.
Additionally, closing positions at current market price would certainly wipe out many leveraged shorts.
They would not be happy. They would likely pursue legal action.

Closing positions at (for example) the market price from the day of the hack (with spread or without) seems arbitrary.
Closing  at 4.94 - 4.98 would put me, and others holding long positions, at an unreasonable loss. I would not be happy.

I would not take legal action, but I think it likely that someone with more on the line would want to.

Two separate settlement prices is more complicated, and creates more room for discontent.

I imagine that any other settlement proposal than opening price == closing price makes legal action more likely,
which in turn would put a halt to any hope of timely and reasonable settlements.

What about people with a long since $2? I'm not one of them, but I can image people would be pissed if their long would close at 2$...

[naima53]

If you opened a long position at 4.30, your position is closed at 4.30.
If you opened a short position at 5.30, your position is closed at 5.30.

Using this approach, the only loss for customers will be opportunity cost. Sounds reasonable?

Personally I think that how would any other company would decide, simply cancel all orders. But longs will be pissed, at least they should get their balances in BTC if they had them in BTC.

Yep. Sure.

Disclosure notice: This proposal would put me at a ~100 USD loss, compared to closing my long position at current market rate.
But this would be the same outcome as if I had no BTC/USD position and simply sat on my dollars for a month. Ah well.

Expecting Bitcoinica to close positions at the 'most favorable price', sounds unreasonable.
Additionally, closing positions at current market price would certainly wipe out many leveraged shorts.
They would not be happy. They would likely pursue legal action.

Closing positions at (for example) the market price from the day of the hack (with spread or without) seems arbitrary.
Closing  at 4.94 - 4.98 would put me, and others holding long positions, at an unreasonable loss. I would not be happy.

I would not take legal action, but I think it likely that someone with more on the line would want to.

Two separate settlement prices is more complicated, and creates more room for discontent.

I imagine that any other settlement proposal than opening price == closing price makes legal action more likely,
which in turn would put a halt to any hope of timely and reasonable settlements.

What about people with a long since $2? I'm not one of them, but I can image people would be pissed if their long would close at 2$...

yep.  but I think there is no such

[dopamine]

I'm long with btc and closing position @ 5 starting to look like a scam, I'm sure bitcoinica will not survive if they plan to do business again.

[genjix]

Close all bets, give us our money back.

No database, a huge mass of data (much of it useless) and a number of false claims that could push out legitimate claims. The data makes sense only as a whole which makes payouts difficult (you have to build a case and gather evidence based on the known data). Being careless and paying people without being sure is stupid as you cannot reverse payments if more evidence later ends up contradicting your early guess.

That's why the initial payouts so far have been for only 50%. And only for people we're highly certain of. I support extending that to more, but the others are understandably taking more caution. If people are paid out, then it's realised there is a mistake in our assumptions, that means legitimate people will not get paid (the pool of money for payouts is limited). $1 erroneously paid out, is $1 of someone else's money. The honest and correct decision here is being as certain as possible for people you pay out, and no amount of shouting will speed up the process. The records for making the payouts are incredibly bad and inefficient. It might take 15 mins to check a single person before you realise that the records on hand for that person are useless/contradictory. Now multiply this by 100s of people.

Someone earlier mentioned hiring people but that's not an option here. I would not trust a relative unknown with this data and the time/effort involved with finding a new person who would be competent does not make it a positive tradeoff.

[genjix]

Sorry if I missed this, but I haven't seen anyone post on here that has actually received 50%.  Is this correct?

Genjix - with the password submittable page we did a couple days ago through e-mail, if our password was found, can we assume those are going to be refunded next?

Thanks.

If you email me from your Bitcoinica email, I can tell you the status of your claim.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Close all bets, give us our money back.

No database, a huge mass of data (much of it useless) and a number of false claims that could push out legitimate claims. The data makes sense only as a whole which makes payouts difficult (you have to build a case and gather evidence based on the known data). Being careless and paying people without being sure is stupid as you cannot reverse payments if more evidence later ends up contradicting your early guess.

That's why the initial payouts so far have been for only 50%. And only for people we're highly certain of. I support extending that to more, but the others are understandably taking more caution. If people are paid out, then it's realised there is a mistake in our assumptions, that means legitimate people will not get paid (the pool of money for payouts is limited). $1 erroneously paid out, is $1 of someone else's money. The honest and correct decision here is being as certain as possible for people you pay out, and no amount of shouting will speed up the process. The records for making the payouts are incredibly bad and inefficient. It might take 15 mins to check a single person before you realise that the records on hand for that person are useless/contradictory. Now multiply this by 100s of people.

Someone earlier mentioned hiring people but that's not an option here. I would not trust a relative unknown with this data and the time/effort involved with finding a new person who would be competent does not make it a positive tradeoff.

I am still confused as to who is doing the actual verifying since it's on record that only one person has control of the verified documents--ZT.

My husband loss 250K in the Pacquiao vs. Bradley fight. It is not our life savings, trust me.

Before you did not have a database, now you are making up accounts and balances. Zhoutong, I understand its hard to pay out such amount especially when you probably do not have it. Which would explained why all other bitcoinica users that did verify have still received anything. You seem to have most of the forum on your side, waiting and trusting in your words, without realizing that you sold their documents without their consent. Your illegal sale was the cause of the hack and people seem to ignore this. You first denied who I was, then you say you "found" my account. News for you Zhoutong, because of daily limits and red flags triggered by big accounts, I had 7 accounts, all accessed via TOR.

My point of showing you the screenshots was for you to remember since when we have been doing business. I NEVER thought you were going to pretend who I was or denied my claim.

I am going to ask this question one last time because I think it is super important and you are ignoring it for some reason.

How much money did you make, how much Tihan Paid YOU when he bought from you, when you sold all of our emails, passports (expensive in the black market),Drivers license, utility bills, financial tranasctions history, First Names, Last Names, Phone Numbers... Home Address?

If the money never came out of your pocket since the first loss, that must mean your "Tuition" is there untouched. That is magnificent, it truly is. Your 1000 Gold Coin, your playboy shirst, your gucci glasses, your Ipad..true baller in Singapore. All your little buddies must be like yoooo通州什麼該死的人，你是老闆！

Maria.

Just one thing you want to know. Tihan didn't get any of the documents, and the AML was implemented after the sale.

Tihan gave me sole access to the documents because people don't know him. I didn't betray your trust (if any).

Bitcoinica Consultancy has not requested for access either. So no one, other than me, could ever touch the verified documents.

Therefore, it's safe to say that you alone will be processing all the refunds, for clearly nobody else has a way to matching up who-is-who. If some other entity representing Bitcoinica request a photo ID from its clients to verify their account, I ask, prey tell, what could they be matching said photo to, since they have no other verified documents at their disposal?

~Bruno~

Re-asking:

Therefore, it's safe to say that you alone (ZT) will be processing all the refunds, for clearly nobody else has a way to matching up who-is-who. If some other entity representing Bitcoinica request a photo ID from its clients to verify their account, I ask, prey tell, what could they be matching said photo to, since they have no other verified documents at their disposal?

~Bruno~

[dancingnancy]

Sorry if I missed this, but I haven't seen anyone post on here that has actually received 50%.  Is this correct?

Genjix - with the password submittable page we did a couple days ago through e-mail, if our password was found, can we assume those are going to be refunded next?

Thanks.

If you email me from your Bitcoinica email, I can tell you the status of your claim.

Sweet.  Thanks (Hzang12345_at_gmail_dot_com)

EDIT: Whats your email?

[tbcoin]

Zhoutong's opinion was "all short positions can liquidate at 4.94".
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81045.msg897877#msg897877

Current positions will all be liquidated at a settlement price. We haven't decided the price yet, but my personal estimate is 4.98 / 4.94. (All long positions can liquidate at 4.98 and all short positions can liquidate at 4.94, we pay the spread for you.) All unrealized P/L will be settled in USD. If you don't have sufficient USD balance, we will use your BTC to settle, with the mid-point exchange rate (again, we pay the spread).

I suggested the team to pay spread to customers to make everyone happy. At that time the highest-lowest difference was 4 cents. Now it's 1 dollar. So I'm really not sure how the liquidation will be handled.

I have a proposal for an amicable solution to the liquidation price dispute:

Close all open positions at the exact value they were placed. No loss for open positions.

If you opened a long position at 4.30, your position is closed at 4.30.
If you opened a short position at 5.30, your position is closed at 5.30.

Using this approach, the only loss for customers will be opportunity cost. Sounds reasonable?

NO

[MelMan2002]

If you are going to liquidate my position at $5 then I demand that you also exchange my USD account for BTC at the same $5.  This is outrageous.

[nrd525]

There is probably a standard practice for how to deal with assets in an insolvency.

I don't care too much what option they choose as I see the logic in all three (sell at 4.95, sell at current market price, cancel all open positions).

I'm happy that my small short position is still in the money =)

[proudhon]

Close all bets, give us our money back.

No database, a huge mass of data (much of it useless) and a number of false claims that could push out legitimate claims. The data makes sense only as a whole which makes payouts difficult (you have to build a case and gather evidence based on the known data). Being careless and paying people without being sure is stupid as you cannot reverse payments if more evidence later ends up contradicting your early guess.

That's why the initial payouts so far have been for only 50%. And only for people we're highly certain of. I support extending that to more, but the others are understandably taking more caution. If people are paid out, then it's realised there is a mistake in our assumptions, that means legitimate people will not get paid (the pool of money for payouts is limited). $1 erroneously paid out, is $1 of someone else's money. The honest and correct decision here is being as certain as possible for people you pay out, and no amount of shouting will speed up the process. The records for making the payouts are incredibly bad and inefficient. It might take 15 mins to check a single person before you realise that the records on hand for that person are useless/contradictory. Now multiply this by 100s of people.

Someone earlier mentioned hiring people but that's not an option here. I would not trust a relative unknown with this data and the time/effort involved with finding a new person who would be competent does not make it a positive tradeoff.

Here's what I'm certain of, the bitcoins I had in bitcoinica were not in any active positions for weeks prior to the attack.  I'm also certain I had more than 150.  I think it was between 165 and 180 (it couldn't have been more than 180), but I hadn't logged on for quite some time to check.  If anything, I'm sure your records show that I had 180 from two 90BTC MtGox transfers from a long time before the attack (I provided the MtGox transaction IDs in my claims).  

I'd be happy to get back 150BTCs and accept the remaining loss as a donation to a pool to compensate others' losses from the incompleteness of your records.  I have a feeling, however, that in the end if I get anything back, it won't be 150BTCs.  Whether I get anything back or not, lessoned learned loud and clear.  I store my own bitcoins now.

[guruvan]

So - from everything I see here

1 - I'm not on the friends list, so I have not been paid anything yet.

2. The liquidation price was announced, so people are super pissed (me too, I had a long)

3. That's likely to involve more lawyers, and make it less likely that I see ANYTHING, including my original account balance.

4. That leaves most of us just screwed like we have been since the get go

5. It's yet another in an endless delay, and again it starts to look really like we're not being treated with 100% honesty. That will get more lawyers to come out of the woodwork

So - I guess my "cautious optimism" was poorly placed. I'll go back to presuming I got ripped off.

[proudhon]

So - from everything I see here

1 - I'm not on the friends list, so I have not been paid anything yet.

2. The liquidation price was announced, so people are super pissed (me too, I had a long)

3. That's likely to involve more lawyers, and make it less likely that I see ANYTHING, including my original account balance.

4. That leaves most of us just screwed like we have been since the get go

5. It's yet another in an endless delay, and again it starts to look really like we're not being treated with 100% honesty. That will get more lawyers to come out of the woodwork

So - I guess my "cautious optimism" was poorly placed. I'll go back to presuming I got ripped off.

tl;dr = Win for lawyers!

[naima53]

I'm long with btc and closing position @ 5 starting to look like a scam, I'm sure bitcoinica will not survive if they plan to do business again.

Mmmm ... I think they will become stronger and smarter, you'll see in a year - and bitcoinica will bloom and smell better than before ..