Topic: Alitin Mint Coin Breach - page 2. (Read 6088 times)

Interesting stuff there...

You echo my thoughts exactly.

Being left with a raided (but intact) coin that was a favourite out of all my coins sucks. Majorly.

Nice to have a face value refund, but what about the other chunky premium I paid on top back in '14?

Besides all of that, the only people being paid back as those who have noticed the disappearance of their funds. What about those not on the forum and may not notice for months/years?? Are they screwed? It would seem that way.

To quote you, zanzibar:

Would be easy to empty 100 coins, pay back 20 people and walk away with 160btc.

Hate to say it, but the sheer lack of transparency is disturbing.

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If you have nothing to hide, Alitin/Richard Forsythe, publish the list please so the total number of coins affected is visible for EVERYONE.

Edit: Thank you Ticked. That is certainly news worth knowing. Appreciate that.

I'm not yet certain it was the founders, though I agree there is something suspicious going on.

I must imagine that insuring this kind of business would be prohibitively expensive if even possible (I truly do not know). So that makes Alitin's options: 1. Disappear 2. Repay immediately 3. Hope the perps are found and funds retrieved.  1. destroys their professional reputations in the cryptosphere and beyond.  2. If BTC price continues to rise, this is the smartest, cheapest option.  3. Funds retrieved is just so very highly unlikely and may leave them personally on the hook for the sum anyways.  They may be scamming us all or they may be taking the best option they have at the moment, though some more transparency would certainly help.

I'm still fairly certain that BTCINVESTOR is involved in all this somehow if not a Forsyth himself. His account post history, and statements made are eerily similar to private comms I've had with people at Alitin. 

At the very least, Alitin did not do their due diligence in having coins produced.  On the edge of a coin you can read "2013 Medallic Art Company".  This company was purchased years earlier by Northwest Territorial Mint. By the time Alitin had made the request to have these coins pressed there was already a slew of fraud and felony allegations and later convictions against Northwest Territorial Mint, some of which involved security issues.  For a physical BTC that was to be "the new standard" wouldn't you at least vet the process/company used to mint your coins? This took all of 5 minutes and some googling.   I'm not certain it was a Forsyth directly, but they have certainly directly profited from this whole thing. Fairly disgusting.

I'm still highly suspicious. I think the founders emptied the coins. The fact that they paid everyone back before the investigation is definitely suspicious. If I were the founders I would wait to pay anyone back until we try to recover some of the coins or find out who did it. Would be easy to empty 100 coins, pay back 20 people and walk away with 160btc

I have spoken with Mr. Forsyth. The following are two bits from him:

we sincerely want to win back lost trust--not just for ourselves, but for the community.  Bitcoin was founded partly on the notion that trust is too hard to come by, but I am certain we are all worse off without it.  When we first started, we realized we weren't just selling physical crypto.  We also knew we represented Bitcoin as ambassadors, and that many people we came in contact with would be initiates.  So this breach has hit us financially, but also on a very personal level.  We love the Cryptocurrency community for what it has and will accomplish, and we still believe in it.

We also hope that we can find anyone at all who has been effected by the breach so that we can make amends as best we can, and we hope for forgiveness from the public.  Though we strenuously assert our innocence in the matter, we are taking responsibility.

With this, I'm willing to give Alitin the benefit of the doubt and not jump to conclusions. As has been shown to me personally, hackers can be extremely cunning. I do believe that Mr. Forsyth and Alitin can come out of this with high levels of respect from the community. This is not Mark Hamilton of Coinographic infamy.

This tough decision (whether to break open cases with BTC still on them) was made for me (all mine were empty).  I would probably break them open too.

I agree with the fleeced ones, no need to open now but the ones that are loaded i would peel.  What if btc goes bananas and goes to  $10k  plus, dont think fleeced ones will ever command that much, but that is just me.

This.  Mine are still in the cases.  They have no BTC and it is not safe to put any BTC on them but they are still beautiful works of art, mint in the case, and they still have the silver value.  So as a collectible they still have value.  Not worth selling at this point so I will just keep them, in the cases, for now.

You are absolutely right but i had no intentions of selling. They were heirlooms for my 2 daughters in 20 years time.  Who knows if they will be worth anything.

So you cracked 1 open and are leaving the other one unopened.  Its gonna be a tough resell if you ever want to part with it. 

Communication from Richard has been very good ever since the breach and he promptly refunded the BTC for my Adam Smith.  I didn't have the heart (or sense) to crack open the remaining Adam Smith and my 2 x Joans and they have remained funded.

If we ever receive the list of Alitin coin addresses how easy is it to set up a analyser like the one for Casascius?  This would be so useful.

Thanks for clarifying

Since the FBI is involved you should not expect any statements that are not approved by his lawyer. Saying nothing is certainly what his lawyer has advised. People talk when they should shut up and incriminate themselves all the time.

He should at least say why he isn't releasing the list. Otherwise it seems very suspect that he is dodging the question altogether.  We've also heard very little about where the breach may have occurred.   

Which product are you referring to, if you don't mind? The Joan of Arc Coin, or is there something else that none of us are aware of..?


I have a feeling we will never see this list of 600 addresses. Enough requests have been made now.

To me it's starting to look like the founders were involved and assume that most buyers haven't checked their coins or aren't present here.

I agree.  I've tried to push for this to be the standard for quite some time now.  Buyers should really consider things like this when making their purchases.  If you can't trust the coin maker to be transparent about their liability, how can you trust them to keep your funds safe?

actually he waits til you received the coin and confirmed it was in good condition. I had one in the mail and received it two days after the theft. Thankfully cryptodechange refunded my 2btc immediately after we saw the thread.

ah ...; thank you for those clarifications then..

Edit:


yup: you're right , was missing this part :




so: it become urgent to finaly have a clear listing...

cryptodechange bought those directly from Alitin unfunded. He was sending BTC to the address before sending the coins out to people who purchased them. I think he is selling some of them unfunded if interested.