[ANN] Bitcoinica Consultancy abandons customers. Bitcoinica to enter Liquidation

[Coinoisseur]

Funny thing is, steal enough actual monopoly money and legal consequences might follow. The surprising thing to me is how many people seem to think virtual items are still completely nebulous to legal principles.

[Vod]

I agree. The often repeated BS that there's no law against bitcoin theft hurts common and legal sense.
But in practice there are difficulties, like having to prove possession first, and pursuing theft of bitcoins in court may be harder than more physical crimes.

I don't think proving the theft of bitcoins in court would be hard at all.  The thief admitted to the evidence against him, but blamed an associate.  If he can't produce the associate, wouldn't he be found guilty?  He also cannot claim the forum account is not his, because he posted specific pictures of himself using it.

[repentance]

Take this with a grain of salt, because it's unsubstantiated rumour at this point, but if it's true it would be enormously helpful to the liquidation process.

Wayne Lee-Archer 2:55 AM
MagicalTux will be travelling to NZ to talk to the recievers regarding
Bitcoinica/Intersango

https://privatepaste.com/5241fafb45

[Maged]

Take this with a grain of salt, because it's unsubstantiated rumour at this point, but if it's true it would be enormously helpful to the liquidation process.

Wayne Lee-Archer 2:55 AM
MagicalTux will be travelling to NZ to talk to the recievers regarding
Bitcoinica/Intersango

https://privatepaste.com/5241fafb45

KEEP THIS ABSOLUTELY CONFIDENTIAL

Huh.

[repentance]

Take this with a grain of salt, because it's unsubstantiated rumour at this point, but if it's true it would be enormously helpful to the liquidation process.

Wayne Lee-Archer 2:55 AM
MagicalTux will be travelling to NZ to talk to the recievers regarding
Bitcoinica/Intersango

https://privatepaste.com/5241fafb45

KEEP THIS ABSOLUTELY CONFIDENTIAL

Huh.

Wasn't sent to me.  The link has been posted in every BDT thread over on reddit.  Someone in the JRO loop obviously thought it needed to be made public.

[naima53]

Patrick (or whatever), you can answer simple questions - on what date appointed bankruptcy process? Which country will be the hearing? What is the probability of a refund? (not all, but how much is left) Was the interview with the judge? The judge has already been assigned ?(known?)

BDT also hacked, and I decided to sell my investment. I'm disappointed. This is a community of thieves. (no offense, but there's a lot of thieves). It simply can not get development. (public recognition) I will sell parts. It will be a long time, leaving only about 50k and does not invest more in any one company associated with Bitkoin. And discourage all my friends in their best interest. I'm sorry, but the year of participation disappointed me. More and more I think that it's intended for, that would steal money. I do not believe in hacking. This is how it was originally intended. Just my opinion.

P\S  Mavrodi, You do not waste time in prison.  Your doing? World pyramid ... Funny ..like that time  - after the collapse of the Russian beta test. Amerikans believe again. And you will destroy anyone who tries to use Bitkoin as a medium of exchange. (the money) is quite clear.

[Herodes]

Patrick (or whatever), you can answer simple questions - on what date appointed bankruptcy process? Which country will be the hearing? What is the probability of a refund? (not all, but how much is left) Was the interview with the judge? The judge has already been assigned ?(known?)

BDT also hacked, and I decided to sell my investment. I'm disappointed. This is a community of thieves. (no offense, but there's a lot of thieves). It simply can not get development. (public recognition) I will sell parts. It will be a long time, leaving only about 50k and does not invest more in any one company associated with Bitkoin. And discourage all the friends in their best interest. I'm sorry, but the year of participation disappointed me. More and more I think that it's intended for, that would steal money. I do not believe in hacking. This is how it was originally intended. Just my opinion.

Bitcoin is at this time a high risk investment, and so is any Bitcoin business.

Realizing this means that any investment anyone does could be lost. This everyone needs to keep in the back of their minds.

"If I lose the money currently invested, would I recover from this without severe problems?"

If the answer is no, then one should extract as much of one's investment till one feels comfortable with the investment you make.

Of course, with high risks comes also possible high profits, so it could go both ways.

Doing due dilligence never hurts either, and if there are warning signs, or your gut feeling says that an investment is too risky, then do not invest.

If you have 10K USD to invest in Bitcoin or Bitcoin related ventures, then spread the risk, and don't put it all in a single project. I understand
some people get emotional and discouraged when they lose a lot of money, and that's understandable, but don't advise others against investing in
bitcoin related ventures, let them make their own decisions.

As for new bitcoin services, it could be smart to wait a while to see if everything works fine, before putting any bitcoins in that project.

As a part of the dd, the operators of a service should also be able to respond detailed to any though questions you may have about their business,
and if they don't it might be raising warning signals.

So: "Don't risk more than you can afford to lose!"

Too many people are greedy and just see the promises for returns, and blindly invest and hope for the best.

[repentance]

Too many people are greedy and just see the promises for returns, and blindly invest and hope for the best.

Users are constantly pushing services to rush to market, too.  People demanded a Bitcoinica and then when that failed they demanded a replacement - and look what happened.  The lead time on so many of these projects has been far too short, not to mention that they're grossly under-capitalised to boot.

[markm]

Too many people are greedy and just see the promises for returns, and blindly invest and hope for the best.

Users are constantly pushing services to rush to market, too.  People demanded a Bitcoinica and then when that failed they demanded a replacement - and look what happened.  The lead time on so many of these projects has been far too short, not to mention that they're grossly under-capitalised to boot.

If you are actually interested in something that has been and still is taking its time to try to get it right, check out https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=53329.0

-MarkM-

[Herodes]

Too many people are greedy and just see the promises for returns, and blindly invest and hope for the best.

Users are constantly pushing services to rush to market, too.  People demanded a Bitcoinica and then when that failed they demanded a replacement - and look what happened.  The lead time on so many of these projects has been far too short, not to mention that they're grossly under-capitalised to boot.

Agree with you. My personal opinion is that it's better to use more time to 'get it right' than to rush it. Users demand, yes, but there ain't users yelling at the back of developers to have services launched, this pressure the operator puts on themselves.

[naima53]

Patrick (or whatever), you can answer simple questions - on what date appointed bankruptcy process? Which country will be the hearing? What is the probability of a refund? (not all, but how much is left) Was the interview with the judge? The judge has already been assigned ?(known?)

BDT also hacked, and I decided to sell my investment. I'm disappointed. This is a community of thieves. (no offense, but there's a lot of thieves). It simply can not get development. (public recognition) I will sell parts. It will be a long time, leaving only about 50k and does not invest more in any one company associated with Bitkoin. And discourage all the friends in their best interest. I'm sorry, but the year of participation disappointed me. More and more I think that it's intended for, that would steal money. I do not believe in hacking. This is how it was originally intended. Just my opinion.

Bitcoin is at this time a high risk investment, and so is any Bitcoin business.

Realizing this means that any investment anyone does could be lost. This everyone needs to keep in the back of their minds.

"If I lose the money currently invested, would I recover from this without severe problems?"

If the answer is no, then one should extract as much of one's investment till one feels comfortable with the investment you make.

Of course, with high risks comes also possible high profits, so it could go both ways.

Doing due dilligence never hurts either, and if there are warning signs, or your gut feeling says that an investment is too risky, then do not invest.

If you have 10K USD to invest in Bitcoin or Bitcoin related ventures, then spread the risk, and don't put it all in a single project. I understand
some people get emotional and discouraged when they lose a lot of money, and that's understandable, but don't advise others against investing in
bitcoin related ventures, let them make their own decisions.

As for new bitcoin services, it could be smart to wait a while to see if everything works fine, before putting any bitcoins in that project.

As a part of the dd, the operators of a service should also be able to respond detailed to any though questions you may have about their business,
and if they don't it might be raising warning signals.

So: "Don't risk more than you can afford to lose!"

Too many people are greedy and just see the promises for returns, and blindly invest and hope for the best.

Thank you, it's obvious. I invested 2.5% of my portfolio. It was a good chance to use the money, which can not legally be invested by Russian law. But even that - too much. At first it was not so obvious that this is a scam. With the advent of "funds" (and the approval of their main developer) - all shit floats to the surface. Now I have to withdraw money before it is too late. Feeling my mistake.

[MelMan2002]

Take this with a grain of salt, because it's unsubstantiated rumour at this point, but if it's true it would be enormously helpful to the liquidation process.

Wayne Lee-Archer 2:55 AM
MagicalTux will be travelling to NZ to talk to the recievers regarding
Bitcoinica/Intersango

https://privatepaste.com/5241fafb45

KEEP THIS ABSOLUTELY CONFIDENTIAL

Huh.

So does anybody know more about this Cartmell guy and his case against Bitcoinica?  I wish he would have invited the rest of us in the suit...

[repentance]

So does anybody know more about this Cartmell guy and his case against Bitcoinica?  I wish he would have invited the rest of us in the suit...

He's a New  Zealand based venture capitalist who has set up a number of Bitcoin related companies.

http://www.business.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/3701996/directors

http://briancartmell.com/

http://about.me/briancartmell

You can find out more information about the lawsuit here.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_ECG6JRZs-7dTZ5QS0xcUkxQjQ/edit#

[game137]

What's the progress now and when will we get our money back?

[repentance]

What's the progress now and when will we get our money back?

Patrick Murck posted a couple of days ago that USD 100,000 and 20,000 BTC retrieved from "Chen" have been placed in Bitcoinica's MtGox account awaiting transfer to a receiver.  When a liquidator takes over from the receiver, they'll make a preliminary report to creditors which outlines the assets available for distribution to creditors and when the liquidation should be complete.  

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=97272.msg1098303#msg1098303

[Bitcoin Oz]

What's the progress now and when will we get our money back?

Patrick Murck posted a couple of days ago that USD 100,000 and 20,000 BTC retrieved from "Chen" have been placed in Bitcoinica's MtGox account awaiting transfer to a receiver.  When a liquidator takes over from the receiver, they'll make a preliminary report to creditors which outlines the assets available for distribution to creditors and when the liquidation should be complete.  

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=97272.msg1098303#msg1098303

I hope they changed the password 

[disclaimer201]

Very important to know is how we have to claim our funds with the liquidator now. Does anyone know? Merci.

[repentance]

Very important to know is how we have to claim our funds with the liquidator now. Does anyone know? Merci.

When the name of the liquidator is announced (it's usually a chartered accountant), people will need to lodge a claim form with them. The claim forms are pretty basic.  The liquidator will set a cut-off date for lodging forms and after that date they'll give creditors a rough estimate of the percentage they can expect to receive.  How long the process takes depends on how complicated the liquidation is.  In this particular case there aren't lots of different assets to be sold but there are quite a few creditors. 

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Very important to know is how we have to claim our funds with the liquidator now. Does anyone know? Merci.

When the name of the liquidator is announced (it's usually a chartered accountant), people will need to lodge a claim form with them. The claim forms are pretty basic.  The liquidator will set a cut-off date for lodging forms and after that date they'll give creditors a rough estimate of the percentage they can expect to receive.  How long the process takes depends on how complicated the liquidation is.  In this particular case there aren't lots of different assets to be sold but there are quite a few creditors. 

September and Gavin come to mind.

~Bruno~

[realnowhereman]

I've lost track a bit of exactly what's been lost and recovered.  From memory (please correct me):

Linode theft; X BTC (losses covered by investors I believe)
Rackspace theft: 20% of BTC; 0% of USD
MtGox API theft: 40,000 BTC; 200,000 USD

Is this right?  Does anyone know where that puts all the creditors as a percentage of their deposit?

Are we working on 50% of balances returned?  70%?  80%?  100% seems unlikely.