z

[znort987]

z

[hazek]

I've answered your question, Pirate.

Now you answer mine please.

Is there any hard evidence of any value producing economic activity of your operation except taking deposits, paying "dividends" and converting BTC into USD?

i.e. marketing, PR and damage control do not count.

I think it is a simple and fair question that any legitimate business, even anonymous one, should be able to answer quickly and easily.

If I pulled all my influence on the market things would be much different.  Everyone assumes I'm always applying the brakes (ask walls) in the market but the door swings both ways.  I've been present in the market since day one.

Not a shred of hard evidence, just some cheap rhetoric, unfortunately. I've been absent in the market since day two, so what?

You want evidence? LOL, if you knew what I know, I'd be hounding you.

fixed the quotes for ya. np.

How mysterious. Still only cheap rhetoric, though.

let's be objective.

- plenty of evidence of taking "deposits"
- plenty of evidence of paying "dividends"
- no evidence whatsoever of any economic activity and no any viable hypothetical biz models even.
- ALL the signs of a ponzi scheme in abundance.

In any case, we will know everything soon, right, was it 27th of July?
It could fold quicker, though, some unexpected newsflow and change of market conditions could force the matter before that perhaps.

The tide will go out eventually.

Right it's a ponzi you WIN.  Take out all the money you have in my operation.  RUN FOR THE HILLS!!

You don't have a shred of evidence or even an idea of what I do.  I truly don't think I could think as slow as you if I tried.

Keep up your good will!!!! TEACH FEAR!

[vokain]

good job znort you're a wizard with data

[sadpandatech]

Right it's a ponzi you WIN.  Take out all the money you have in my operation.  RUN FOR THE HILLS!!

You don't have a shred of evidence or even an idea of what I do.  I truly don't think I could think as slow as you if I tried.

Keep up your good will!!!! TEACH FEAR!

Assuming pirate was truthful about controlling said
address, I guess we now have a small shred of evidence.

Sorry if I am not following the implications correctly. Does all the money just sit there at those addies as if to suggest it is not being circulated as we would be led to believe would be neccesary for said entity to function as stated?

[niko]

and has this got something to do with the recent spike in the number of transactions?

[Maged]

Well, cat's out of the bag on this one. I'm glad that you're on board with helping us analyze this, though.

Assuming pirate was truthful about controlling said
address, I guess we now have a small shred of evidence.

I can confirm that he wasn't lying about controlling that address. The comment I made in that thread was done after I had Google'd the address during my manual analysis that I was able to do after I received a bunch of Pirate deposit and withdrawal addresses.

[hazek]

Important arguments:

Lets review the facts:
-pirate borrows large quantities of money from his investors
-pirate claims to use this money for 'local transactions, market arbitrage, and private loans to network members.'
-pirate does not reveal exactly how he makes money, and in return pays a high interest rate
-pirate has done this successfully for over 8 months

To the people in the anti-pirate camp, these facts somehow prove pirate is running a ponzi.

Yeah they do. Please explain to me how is he able to "successfully" do what he hints at that he is doing..

No, I need no details. I just want to know why you don't have enough BTC to continue without investors by now. Exponential growth is pretty neat, and I don't see why these peoples' BTC should be better than your own.

If there's one thing I found out by now, then it's that you joke a lot less than it seems. I trust you can fulfill the promise above, and you'll have a laugh at a lot of people when you do.

I can't remember how many times I've explained this, but for you I'll do it again.

Bitcoin is not fiat yet.  That doesn't mean it won't be at some point nor does it mean I don't believe in it. There's simply no reason at this time for me to risk market movements with my converted fiat > bitcoin when there's hundreds of users that will let me make money with their coins.  I don't need them, I just prefer them.

My operation is funded by my lenders and I do hold a few personal coins myself.

.. even after the recent significant BTCUSD exchange rate increase! Why I'm asking you this? Well this is precisely the event he claims he is using other people's money rather than his own as a hedge against losses ergo his "investors" should have lost money since BTCUSD went up about 30% in the last 30 days and even spiked almost 20% in just a span of 4 days.

So either his clients lost money with their "investments" in the last 30 days but they are keeping quiet or lying about it and he is legit, or they didn't in which case it's him who is either lying that he is using their money as a hedge where if he is legit he himself took the loss or he is lying and isn't doing what he hints at that he is doing.

Point is someone is lying, now you tell me who is lying about what.

If you're asking me if I believe an experienced trader can consistently make 1% a day trading one of the more volatile markets in the world, when he controls perhaps the largest bitcoin wallet of them all, the answer is obviously yes.

Some of us know those returns are possible. During my best I made 40% per month return for 8 months. Made a killing and haven't had to work a day since then. But the thing that makes absolutely no sense is sharing those returns with strangers. Even with a small amount invested by now if he was running anything legit he would buy back most of the investments and just keeping profits for himself. It has passed the point where the explanation of "hedging risk of volatile btc market" makes any sort of sense. As the interest payouts far exceed what would have been lost by now. When you get these types of returns you keep it private, because it won't last long, and you make a nice life for yourself. You don't payout to strangers.

One other HUGE HUGE problem with pirate's story:

Well, after some of the clues pirate posted, having big influence at Mt.Gox or some other large exchange, he might be doing Front running which is extremely profitable. ...

Front-running that continuously yields several percent per week? Front-running with the help of Mt.Gox? Come on ...

If anybody could do some front-running, then that would be Mt.Gox themselves. But even they would not make several percent per week while staying inconspicuous.

I can do several percent per week on trading at Mt. Gox + some other exchanges, though not very often and not on such scale as pirate does with his business (whatever it is). And yes I think he might have his stakes in Mt. Gox or in some other big exchange.

It doesn't make sense. How was he able to manipulate the market rates at the beginning, before he found investors? He offered 7% right from the get-go. Gox volume per day is 45,680 bitcoins roughly. Pirate did not have anywhere close to that amount invested in his Pirate-Pussy-Fund.

[R-]

Znort, great job. I believe you are helping people to make the right decisions. I really hope Pirate has enough morality not burn the entire community.

[vokain]

unless he's been constantly liquidating it wouldn't be wise for him to do so. if he has has his worth in btc denomination, he's kind of in the same boat as all of us. of course, since he has so much more he could burn the community and get more bitcoins for himself through market manipulation

[sadpandatech]

Znort, are you able to tell just how much transaction volume has taken place on those addresses for a given period of time?

I'm not expecting to see anything there, since a few of the larger investors actively track that kind of stuff anyhows and hav enot noticed anything funky. But I'm curious as always, none the less.

[Sukrim]

I'm not expecting to see anything there, since a few of the larger investors actively track that kind of stuff anyhows and hav enot noticed anything funky.

I would be seriously surprised if some of the "bigger investors" really have set up tools to track 1000+ addresses, calculate money flows etc. Maybe they looked a bit here and there, but actual analysis is mostly done by academics so far.

I can by the way also confirm that that cluster of addresses belongs to pirateat40, though I'd say it at least belongs to the same wallet with BTCS&T too, GPUMAX actually seems to use a different wallet. Maybe/probably it's an deposit address of pirate's and he uses different coins to pay back interest/mining earnings.

Take 1Nz2HXJb6r8SUXh2YQRRTwvWpHTRtjkhez for example, which is used to pay http://blockchain.info/fb/1gpuma regularly (seems to be a vanity address of a miner) as well as other payout addresses from GPUMAX. It isn't linked to the address mentioned in the OP but most likely is one of the main GPUMAX payout addresses and has it's own cluster with 208 others...

What I'd like to have:

An input file where I can enter "1bitcoinaddress:MtGox, 1otheraddress:GLBSE, 1differentone:pirateat40, 1otherone:GPUMAX..." and I get in the end:
MtGox: [list of addresses]
GLBSE: [list of addresses]
GPUMAX = pirateat40: [list of addresses]

Balances per block for a cluster (block 1: 0, block 2: 0...)

Total blockchain clustering, similar to toolongdidntread.com where this guy seems to have already clustered the whole chain into entities.

Graphs with gephi!
[/list][/list][/list]

[copumpkin]

I'm not expecting to see anything there, since a few of the larger investors actively track that kind of stuff anyhows and hav enot noticed anything funky.

I would be seriously surprised if some of the "bigger investors" really have set up tools to track 1000+ addresses, calculate money flows etc. Maybe they looked a bit here and there, but actual analysis is mostly done by academics so far.

Who says larger investors and academics are disjoint?

[sadpandatech]

I'm not expecting to see anything there, since a few of the larger investors actively track that kind of stuff anyhows and hav enot noticed anything funky.

I would be seriously surprised if some of the "bigger investors" really have set up tools to track 1000+ addresses, calculate money flows etc. Maybe they looked a bit here and there, but actual analysis is mostly done by academics so far.

Who says larger investors and academics are disjoint?

hehe, aye lots of smart cookies about here.  I should have narrowed down my phrasing a bit to suggest more that some of the large investors track their own coins through the system. Maybe not so much tracking is being done on much else. I am not familiar much past that.

I'm also well behind the curve when it comes ot transaction analytics. I am interested in anything you all come up with though.

[Sukrim]

A csv with timestamps + balance would be neat to make a cool chart. Damn, now I really need to set up Ubuntu to get your thingie running...

[Tachikoma]

Great job znort, keep it coming

[ErebusBat]

You should run this on the latest Bitconica hack.

[sadpandatech]

You should run this on the latest Bitconica hack.

What's the TX id ?

I was trying to figure out why this graph had screwed up today: http://blockchain.info/charts/my-wallet-transaction-volume

But it turns out the huge volume is from this transaction http://blockchain.info/tx-index/11999735 which looks suspicously like it could be from the latest Bitcoinica hack. I don't know if the Bitcoinica hacker was using a My Wallet account or just choose to relay the transaction through our server but it is interesting none the less. Btw as far as i'm aware none of these funds were sent through the mixer.

this is the only lead thus far on it. Not verified yet.

edit; a lot of the reporting IP's invloved when following some TX from there are localhost and Russia.... ;p

[ErebusBat]

You should run this on the latest Bitconica hack.

What's the TX id ?

I was trying to figure out why this graph had screwed up today: http://blockchain.info/charts/my-wallet-transaction-volume

But it turns out the huge volume is from this transaction http://blockchain.info/tx-index/11999735 which looks suspicously like it could be from the latest Bitcoinica hack. I don't know if the Bitcoinica hacker was using a My Wallet account or just choose to relay the transaction through our server but it is interesting none the less. Btw as far as i'm aware none of these funds were sent through the mixer.

this is the only lead thus far on it. Not verified yet.

^^^  This.

Also appreantly, assuming this is correcct, the hacker donated 100 to Zohu's fund.

[sadpandatech]

this is the only lead thus far on it. Not verified yet.

^^^  This.

Also appreantly, assuming this is correcct, the hacker donated 100 to Zohu's fund.

I'm poking through it now trying to find a 100 tx   though I'm not very good at it..

[ErebusBat]

this is the only lead thus far on it. Not verified yet.

^^^  This.

Also appreantly, assuming this is correcct, the hacker donated 100 to Zohu's fund.

I'm poking through it now trying to find a 100 tx   though I'm not very good at it..

It is all conjecture at this point... it could be coniciendce as well.