~
I had the chance to check my DAI account this morning. Everything received. Thanks a lot @Hhampuz and @minerjones for handling this so smoothly.
Really appreciated.
Topic: [ANN] Whirlwind.money | ⚡No Fee⚡ | Ultimate Privacy | Anonymity Mining 12% APR🔥 - page 8. (Read 12718 times)
August 21, 2023, 04:35:14 AM
I had the chance to check my DAI account this morning. Everything received. Thanks a lot @Hhampuz and @minerjones for handling this so smoothly.
Really appreciated.
August 20, 2023, 07:12:25 PM
Thanks to all those involved for the prompt solution and to all those affected in pending deposits, who have given their opinions and/or reflections about the w.m, I think it is a "big" triumph within all the worst that means an exit scam.
Very good tools to execute a scam, but to make things even better, you can just pretend that you don't even care about the 40k in escrow, it makes people think that you have way too much money to attempt a scam -- since you are spending tens of thousands of dollars on ads, left 40k in escrow when nobody asked you to, you must be sitting on a ton of money to scam my 0.01 BTC, so you are likely to be trusted.
...//...
I remember that I deposited in the first days of June and in those days I asked a question in the thread in question, but I also added that an escrow should be used in the equivalence of the amount of deposits that were arising, and to be honest, I'm not attributing anything to myself, but it's not as you say, at least someone had an opinion about it, and if you look at it from that point of view, these guys were evaluating all the edges that were presented.
__
In any case, believing that one is inviolable or "they are not going to scam me," it is the first mistake that we can make, regardless of the level of experience one has. Since the scam that is going to "fuck" us is the one that we do not know about and yes, such an assertion may seem inconsistent, but then what happens?... as now, is that we see lights, indications where before all it was "normal".
I do not feel lucky for the escrow that was there to save my deposit. Although of course, come on!, obviously thanks that existed, but also lucky to keep me on the idea: " I risked money that I could afford to lose".
But! honestly I must say that if two users whom I have a lot of confidence, they would have been part of the SC, I would have put more money, but also under the same previous premise.
That is the question of the matter here and of any scam in which we find ourselves involved under our own interests, we can not surrender all the confidence of our money at the risk of the trust of others.
Then...! Although there is a debate there in that sense, I think this thread should be kept in order to preserve the idea that any project is safe only under your decisions in the capacity of what you can risk.
And! that those in charge of it here in the forum (for any project that arrives) are a way out and not a guarantee of the risks involved in losing money.
Regarding the $40,000 DAI, they were no obligation to leave that money in an escrow.
...//..,,,Very good tools to execute a scam, but to make things even better, you can just pretend that you don't even care about the 40k in escrow, it makes people think that you have way too much money to attempt a scam -- since you are spending tens of thousands of dollars on ads, left 40k in escrow when nobody asked you to, you must be sitting on a ton of money to scam my 0.01 BTC, so you are likely to be trusted.
...//...
I remember that I deposited in the first days of June and in those days I asked a question in the thread in question, but I also added that an escrow should be used in the equivalence of the amount of deposits that were arising, and to be honest, I'm not attributing anything to myself, but it's not as you say, at least someone had an opinion about it, and if you look at it from that point of view, these guys were evaluating all the edges that were presented.
__
In any case, believing that one is inviolable or "they are not going to scam me," it is the first mistake that we can make, regardless of the level of experience one has. Since the scam that is going to "fuck" us is the one that we do not know about and yes, such an assertion may seem inconsistent, but then what happens?... as now, is that we see lights, indications where before all it was "normal".
I do not feel lucky for the escrow that was there to save my deposit. Although of course, come on!, obviously thanks that existed, but also lucky to keep me on the idea: " I risked money that I could afford to lose".
But! honestly I must say that if two users whom I have a lot of confidence, they would have been part of the SC, I would have put more money, but also under the same previous premise.
That is the question of the matter here and of any scam in which we find ourselves involved under our own interests, we can not surrender all the confidence of our money at the risk of the trust of others.
Then...! Although there is a debate there in that sense, I think this thread should be kept in order to preserve the idea that any project is safe only under your decisions in the capacity of what you can risk.
And! that those in charge of it here in the forum (for any project that arrives) are a way out and not a guarantee of the risks involved in losing money.
August 19, 2023, 09:42:40 AM
There is another hypothesis, which is that the developer of the service has a relationship in one way or another with Tornado Cash. Both services are very similar in terms of name, design, logo and a lot of things. On 10 August 2022, Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev[1] was arrested.
tornado.cash >> Whirlwind.money >> The same logo >> same UI design
I noticed the similarities to Tornado Cash too in terms of web design, but I just took that as they sort of copied Tornado Cash's design because they looked up to it. Their specialties were in the backend programming stuff for sure, and it seemed that they didn't have anyone rocking and rolling on the web and graphic design stuff, so if that's the case, it's easy and smart to just match the site design to a well known mixer. No need to reinvent the wheel, at least not when they were first starting out. I think if there was any actual relation between Whirlwind and the Tornado Cash team, we would have seen things pan out a little differently and more successfully.
August 19, 2023, 05:31:18 AM
There is another hypothesis, which is that the developer of the service has a relationship in one way or another with Tornado Cash. Both services are very similar in terms of name, design, logo and a lot of things. On 10 August 2022, Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev[1] was arrested.
tornado.cash >> Whirlwind.money >> The same logo >> same UI design
I read similar post a while back somewhere. Was it in the topic where someone was predicting who will shutdown after Chipmixer or the guy who lost 200 and wanted attention to recover his balance? tornado.cash >> Whirlwind.money >> The same logo >> same UI design
August 19, 2023, 03:54:43 AM
Regarding the $40,000 DAI, they were no obligation to leave that money in an escrow.
You are right in saying they were under no obligation, but my guess is, they used that as a reason to gain more trust, it was an important eliminate to compete the circle.If anything would make me doubt that this was a scam plan from the get-go would be something like what @hugeblack mentioned above, a single person running this whole thing, and something bad happened to him, and it's game over. Again (nothing better than being a scam as far as everyone who lost funds is concerned), so ya, it's not the money they spent that makes me think this might have at least 5% of being a failure rather than a scam, it's the efforts and the intelligence of the person that could have otherwise been used into making a good mixer that would last for years and make a lot of profit.
Keeping the single person operation possibility aside, the earlier post showing a similarity between Tornado Cash and Whirlwind could also have some relevance but we do not know for sure. What I do remember is that the Whirlwind forum representative was intelligent and when reading his posts you knew he was an articulate developer. It has been a huge disappointment to see how this came to an end after such a promising start.
August 19, 2023, 03:19:42 AM
Did you read that as 2023 instead of 2022? Otherwise, it doesn't make sense.
One thing he got right though, they do share a very similar visual style. That guy got arrested year ago though so it doesn't seem likely its the same person behind it. What are the odds this guy started talking about his plans the day ChipMixer was seized?
If you check his very first post on bitcointalk, you will notice that he started talking about his new mixing service on March 9th, 6 days before CM was seized. Did he maybe knew that CM will be gone in a matter of days and he already started preparations? Or maybe this was just a coincidence.Then again, it doesn't seem like a smart thing to do, to start a new mixing service when you are on the run and trying to hide.
August 19, 2023, 02:49:59 AM
I haven't been keeping up with the recent news on this... So, we have another bitcoin mixer go out of business? Exit scam?
Has anyone managed to come up with a ballpark figure for the total amount they scammed?
Has anyone managed to come up with a ballpark figure for the total amount they scammed?
Given the nature of the scam, I think it's a lot of money.
The multisig pool address has 12.7 BTC in it, somewhere around 350k USD, judging by how much they spent on their review campaign, the other campaign, the leftover in escrow, the website, the code, the design, and all that, it makes me doubt that they would settle with just 350k, also, it's almost sure that the 350k sure includes some of their own funds.
We may find out eventually if a large deposit was made, someone might come here and tell the story, also to anyone that might say "Oh it was obvious, I knew it" I'd call b.s on that, it was a "masterpiece", the guy/guys behind it were pretty intelligent, far more sophisticated than the average "send me your 1 BTC and get 2 BTC tomorrow".
There were signs, but giving them the benefit of the doubt is better than tagging for something they may or may not do.I've been advertising and recommending this shit for months, in such a way that I'm practically part of this scam. And it's just feels awful.
It makes you question the integrity of the service you're currently carrying in your signature.
Not enough members here seem to realize that whatever is in their signature reflects back to their own image here. It's always good to question the integrity before you advertise something.It makes you question the integrity of the service you're currently carrying in your signature.
What are the odds this guy started talking about his plans the day ChipMixer was seized?
There is another hypothesis, which is that the developer of the service has a relationship in one way or another with Tornado Cash. Both services are very similar in terms of name, design, logo and a lot of things. On 10 August 2022, Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev[1] was arrested.
Did you read that as 2023 instead of 2022? Otherwise, it doesn't make sense. 
August 18, 2023, 07:51:15 PM
Regarding the $40,000 DAI, they were no obligation to leave that money in an escrow.
You are right in saying they were under no obligation, but my guess is, they used that as a reason to gain more trust, it was an important eliminate to compete the circle.
They/he/she had
1- A very smart person using the forum account
2- A lot of money spent on the review campaign
3- A lot of money spent on signature campaign
Very good tools to execute a scam, but to make things even better, you can just pretend that you don't even care about the 40k in escrow, it makes people think that you have way too much money to attempt a scam -- since you are spending tens of thousands of dollars on ads, left 40k in escrow when nobody asked you to, you must be sitting on a ton of money to scam my 0.01 BTC, so you are likely to be trusted.
Also, keep in mind, they did NOT risk those 40k, they were in safe hands, if the plan works fine and they get a lot more than 40k+whatever they spent, great, if not -- they could always get those 40k back, so it's not like the gambled with 40k and had a chance of losing them should things have not worked in their favor.
If anything would make me doubt that this was a scam plan from the get-go would be something like what @hugeblack mentioned above, a single person running this whole thing, and something bad happened to him, and it's game over. Again (nothing better than being a scam as far as everyone who lost funds is concerned), so ya, it's not the money they spent that makes me think this might have at least 5% of being a failure rather than a scam, it's the efforts and the intelligence of the person that could have otherwise been used into making a good mixer that would last for years and make a lot of profit.
August 18, 2023, 05:24:02 PM
Same here
Thank you for being fair with us
Ratimov, thanks as well
Thank you for being fair with us
Ratimov, thanks as well
August 18, 2023, 09:30:53 AM
i can also confirm that i got the DAI tokens. these reflect the full value of satoshis i still had on my ww-note
big thanks flying to @Hhampuz @minerjones
big thanks flying to @Hhampuz @minerjones
August 18, 2023, 08:41:38 AM
Didn't say that CM scammed. What I mean is that we don't have an idea what their overall plan is — to continue being a reputable service, or to gain high reputation then scamquit when there's so much money in their vaults.
tl;dr we can only hope that these mixers don't end up scamquitting. Because no one knows what their plans are.
Bitcoin is decentralized and if you want mixers that will not scam and quit, using decentralized mixers will be the best. There are many decentralized mixers on self hosted wallets like jointmarket if you have full node wallet, or the ones like whirlpool on Samourai and Sparrow bitcoin wallet. Another one is Wasabi but which I can not point to again because of privacy concern.tl;dr we can only hope that these mixers don't end up scamquitting. Because no one knows what their plans are.
I also confirm that I received my DAI tokens.
@Hhampuz @minerjones, thanks to both of you.
It is good to see this. I thought that Hhampuz fucked up, but he continues to prove himself as one of the best campaign managers on this forum. @Hhampuz @minerjones, thanks to both of you.
August 18, 2023, 08:33:48 AM
I also confirm that I received my DAI tokens.
@Hhampuz @minerjones, thanks to both of you.
@Hhampuz @minerjones, thanks to both of you.
August 18, 2023, 07:48:22 AM
We did not heard that Chipmixer scammed anyone, what happened was that the site was taken down by the government becuase the mixing site was linked to mixing of illegal coins. But that Chipmixer was linked to scamming its customers, there is nothing like that. Whirlwind is nothing but directly scammed its customers.
Didn't say that CM scammed. What I mean is that we don't have an idea what their overall plan is — to continue being a reputable service, or to gain high reputation then scamquit when there's so much money in their vaults.
tl;dr we can only hope that these mixers don't end up scamquitting. Because no one knows what their plans are.
August 18, 2023, 07:26:08 AM
Please fill out the below form and send it as a PM to me if you have a whirlwind note with a balance or if you made a withdraw after the 9th of August and never received the funds.
Code:
Bitcointalk Profile Link:
whirlwind note Private key | LoG of withdraw:
Amount owed in BTC:
DAI (ERC-20) Address for repayment:
August 18, 2023, 07:15:44 AM
The only valid excuse would be that this whole service is run by a single person, and that person is dead, in jail, hospital, or anything that stops him from physically operating the mixer, and that won't be any better than the whole service being a straight-out scam.
There is another hypothesis, which is that the developer of the service has a relationship in one way or another with Tornado Cash. Both services are very similar in terms of name, design, logo and a lot of things. On 10 August 2022, Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev[1] was arrested.
tornado.cash >> Whirlwind.money >> The same logo >> same UI design
If this is true, then the US Treasury Department has blacklisted the service[2], and therefore either he was arrested or tried to hide himself, especially since the service did not seem profitable and he did not withdraw $40,000.
If this is the case, it is best to forget about this service (or trying to receive escrow payments) and consider you lost your money.
[1] https://www.fiod.nl/arrest-of-suspected-developer-of-tornado-cash/
[2] https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/recent-actions/20220808
August 18, 2023, 06:52:01 AM
The problem now (as you rightly put it) is that even if it were a one person behind the project somehow a message could have been relayed to explain what was happening. If he were to return to the forum Whirlwind will not be able to recover from the loss of trust even if something happened to physically stop him from operating the Whirlwind website.
The Whirlwind forum representative was active during the early days and was definitely knowledgable, you could tell by the posts he was making he knew a lot on what he posted. He answered questions and made comments. There were no real signs anything untoward was going on or was going to happen. The 12% APR anonymity mining maybe was the first opportunity to guess they could be stretching it a bit but again the word hindsight is apt here.
With the lack of proper email support going back months and lack of withdrawal for both signature campaign participants and customers mixing on their website (along with silence from Whirlwind), it will be impossible to repair any damage even of it were one person running the business who was unable to physically operate the mixer.
Regarding the $40,000 DAI, they were no obligation to leave that money in an escrow. Yes we can call it an exit-scam but there seems to be more to this than meets the eye. I cannot understand why they would do it when other mixers using the forum did not deposit funds in that matter but please correct me if I am wrong. Scammers do not usually behave that way. Why would they walk away from Whirlwind knowing they would lose the $40,000 DAI especially when it seemed as though Whirlwind was not profitable with it being a new mixer.
The Whirlwind forum representative was active during the early days and was definitely knowledgable, you could tell by the posts he was making he knew a lot on what he posted. He answered questions and made comments. There were no real signs anything untoward was going on or was going to happen. The 12% APR anonymity mining maybe was the first opportunity to guess they could be stretching it a bit but again the word hindsight is apt here.
With the lack of proper email support going back months and lack of withdrawal for both signature campaign participants and customers mixing on their website (along with silence from Whirlwind), it will be impossible to repair any damage even of it were one person running the business who was unable to physically operate the mixer.
Regarding the $40,000 DAI, they were no obligation to leave that money in an escrow. Yes we can call it an exit-scam but there seems to be more to this than meets the eye. I cannot understand why they would do it when other mixers using the forum did not deposit funds in that matter but please correct me if I am wrong. Scammers do not usually behave that way. Why would they walk away from Whirlwind knowing they would lose the $40,000 DAI especially when it seemed as though Whirlwind was not profitable with it being a new mixer.
The only valid excuse would be that this whole service is run by a single person, and that person is dead, in jail, hospital, or anything that stops him from physically operating the mixer, and that won't be any better than the whole service being a straight-out scam.
Even if they have temporarily lost access to everything, they could have created a new account on the forum and said something, this could be done using a mobile phone anywhere on the planet where they have internet, there is no excuse to
- Not show up on the forum for a month.
- Not Reply to any e-mails for weeks.
- Not Fix your service for weeks.
A 10-word post by a newbie account claiming to be affiliated with Whirlwind would make things seem a lot less scammy, but this silence leaves no questions.
So even if they come back with whatever excuse and compensate everyone, how would anyone trust them again? it's game over for Whirlwind, if they plan to do another scam or relaunch their "legit but terrible service", they would need to start fresh, using a different name, style, and everything.
Even if they have temporarily lost access to everything, they could have created a new account on the forum and said something, this could be done using a mobile phone anywhere on the planet where they have internet, there is no excuse to
- Not show up on the forum for a month.
- Not Reply to any e-mails for weeks.
- Not Fix your service for weeks.
A 10-word post by a newbie account claiming to be affiliated with Whirlwind would make things seem a lot less scammy, but this silence leaves no questions.
So even if they come back with whatever excuse and compensate everyone, how would anyone trust them again? it's game over for Whirlwind, if they plan to do another scam or relaunch their "legit but terrible service", they would need to start fresh, using a different name, style, and everything.
August 18, 2023, 05:49:54 AM
The thing that sucks is we can't even know for sure if a service is going to end up being a scam. We liked ChipMixer due to their reputation and long-running service but who would've know if they end up wanting to scam anyway.
We did not heard that Chipmixer scammed anyone, what happened was that the site was taken down by the government becuase the mixing site was linked to mixing of illegal coins. But that Chipmixer was linked to scamming its customers, there is nothing like that. Whirlwind is nothing but directly scammed its customers. August 18, 2023, 05:33:20 AM
It is time to learn from the mistakes. One mistake was to rely on the change from self-hosted wallets to public key note.
So what options do we have to avoid this in the future? Can we demand from the campaign owner that we insist on the payout to personal self-hosted wallets? Or would the campaign owner insist on his right as payer according to the motto. "I pay, I make the rules"?
What would happen if he did not comply with our demands? Quality posters would not be in his campaign and other user with shitposting quality would fill up the slots? Would the campaign owner do that? Does he care about the quality of the users/posts or it is all about advertising on the forum for him? Would we want to advertise this behaving?
In many campaigns, the Bounty Managers have a wallet on which the funds of a campaign are stored. And this wallet is fulled at regular intervals. We need to demand more of such securities. A new campaign owner must build trust first. Why should we trust a new service? They have to trust us.
So what options do we have to avoid this in the future? Can we demand from the campaign owner that we insist on the payout to personal self-hosted wallets? Or would the campaign owner insist on his right as payer according to the motto. "I pay, I make the rules"?
What would happen if he did not comply with our demands? Quality posters would not be in his campaign and other user with shitposting quality would fill up the slots? Would the campaign owner do that? Does he care about the quality of the users/posts or it is all about advertising on the forum for him? Would we want to advertise this behaving?
In many campaigns, the Bounty Managers have a wallet on which the funds of a campaign are stored. And this wallet is fulled at regular intervals. We need to demand more of such securities. A new campaign owner must build trust first. Why should we trust a new service? They have to trust us.
August 18, 2023, 12:19:21 AM
Is there a chance some really big shit is going on in their lives, and they are incapable of going online? For like... A month? I really can't believe this is an exit scam. The service seemed legitimate.
I'm really pissed off, and not because I lost money; fortunately, I had grasped that "don't leave coins to third parties" cliché. I'm so pissed off because I've been advertising and recommending this shit for months, in such a way that I'm practically part of this scam. And it's just feels awful.
It makes you question the integrity of the service you're currently carrying in your signature.
I'm really pissed off, and not because I lost money; fortunately, I had grasped that "don't leave coins to third parties" cliché. I'm so pissed off because I've been advertising and recommending this shit for months, in such a way that I'm practically part of this scam. And it's just feels awful.
It makes you question the integrity of the service you're currently carrying in your signature.
The thing that sucks is we can't even know for sure if a service is going to end up being a scam. We liked ChipMixer due to their reputation and long-running service but who would've know if they end up wanting to scam anyway.
August 17, 2023, 11:21:11 PM
One of the main developers for JoinMarket is going through long covid and was offline for many months yet the service still continued running smoothly but these guys can't process withdrawals because they were on a trip? Did that trip include meeting with law enforcement because otherwise this makes no sense and just looks like a typical exit scam.
I don't have a problem with mixers existing and advertising their business but considering how often they shut down due to scam or government seizure on top of being centralized, closed source, and custodial they are at the very bottom of privacy services that I would consider using or recommending.
There are no doubt left that it is not an exit scam. If you need to save a thousand dollar business which you are willing to continue, you will find a way to send a message no matter what position you are in except you are no more breathing.I don't have a problem with mixers existing and advertising their business but considering how often they shut down due to scam or government seizure on top of being centralized, closed source, and custodial they are at the very bottom of privacy services that I would consider using or recommending.
[1.] Asking to send coins [invest] and giving 12% APR.
[2.] Sending marketing payments in notes and motivating everyone to keep their coins with them.
[3.] Not responding support email [excusing some BS]. No one heard the accuser though at that time.
[4.] Totally gone inactive from the community which you consider your biggest customer base.
These were good red flags but unfortunately most of us never considered it flag as they were manipulating everyone with the hype. People forgot that "too good to be truth" is always meant to scam.
A typical mixer should perform fast, lightening fast. Like Chipmixer used to be.
Deposit > 1 confirmation > withdraw
The distance should be only 1 block.
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