Topic: [BitFunder] BTCINVEST - Low risk investment fund | Market cap: 2000+ BTC - page 4. (Read 45626 times)

Any G.AsicMiner-PT shares held by any of TF's known accounts are currently not claimable.
As far as what will be done with these shares, I do not know yet. Looking over the history of the shares they are in a very questionable state.
TF had multiple accounts. I will probably hand the shares to FriedCat to work it out because the AM asset needs to be wrapped up.

-Ukyo

This is EXACTLY why regulating bitcoin is good.  This is why we need AML and KYC.

It makes me sick there is so little recourse in the BTC world. Where have all the decent people gone?

Ukyo if your out there?  These shares are the property of BTCINVEST shareholders and not TF, they should be distributed as such.

I messaged him on December 14th. He's failed to respond. So has Friedcat.

The shares belong to the holders of BTCINVEST. What action could be taken if Ukyo and Friedcat, in full knowledge of this, allow TF to transfer and sell our shares?

He is butt buddies with theymos, this sites operator.

Ukyo is about to open a portal for the withdrawal of asicminer shares in bitfunder. I think it's likely that TF still has our shares in bitfunder.

I wrote to Ukyo asking him not to allow TF to withdraw his shares. You might want to ask him as well.

Tried to warn the community that TF was a thief and the site admin (theymos) banned me.

For me, it's hard to fathom how BTCINVEST could be construed as anything resembling a hedge fund -- let alone a legitimate one -- or, even if it were a hedge fund, how that would offer any opportunity to "cook the books". (I do recall that when I pointed out to TF, in private, several errors in BTCINVEST's public reporting of NAV, TF thanked me for bringing the matter to his attention and promised to look into it.)

What is certain, however, is the timing of the following reply to my enquiry about requiring distributions to occur via CoinLenders, given that CL was already known not to maintain cash reserves sufficient to cover its obligations to depositors:


What was not disclosed was that the alleged hack had already occurred at the time of that reply.

That's the thing, tradefortress also had a massive advertising drive.  Lots of forum users getting paid (but through inputs.io)  Like I received 0.12 BTC for on inputs.io and I was able to cashout a few days before shut down (but I lost more from the BTCINVEST shutdown).  And he was also giving dividend payments for coinlenders and BTCINVEST.  Also because BTCINVEST was a hedge fund, he could have easily cooked the books.  With all these payments he was probably running a ponzi scheme or he actually got hacked and he somehow was extremely profitable which is why he had such large advertising payouts. 

Dooglus of Just-Dice is the first to respond:


This is unfortunate to say the least, but in Dooglus' defense it was around a time when TradeFortress was still responding and making some limited repayments, and at least we have a clearer view now of the situation. I've thanked him for his quick response and left it at that.

wow then i was really lucky. i received the first payment of my btcinvest shares and could withdraw it from coinlenders. i think we still hold a lot of ukyo and graet shares. if they are able to pay we might get a bit of our bitcoins back.

one or two line summary: TradeFortress either got hacked or stole more than a million dollars worth of BTC from users of his three services BTCInvest, Inputs.IO, and Coinlenders.com.

The slighly longer description follows (I am writing this from memory, so some dates may be a little off):

TradeFortress ran the BTCInvest investment fund on BitFunder, as well as Inputs.io web wallet and CoinLenders (which promised interest of 20%-30% annually on deposited balances).

When it was time to liquidate BTCInvest (October 23?), TradeFortress insisted on depositing the liquidation proceeds into CoinLenders accounts only, claiming that the reason was so that he could screen for some people (Graet, Ukyo) who owed him money and who hadn't paid it.

Then about a week and a half or so later, when users started noticing problems with their balances, unable to withdraw, etc.., he finally announced that supposedly a little earlier in October (October 21?) Inputs.io had been hacked and 4100 Bitcoins stolen. He claimed that he had not reported the theft to the police because it wouldn't help, and because they would likely confiscate the wallet with what little BTC was remaining.

TradeFortress claimed that CoinLenders was affected because it used Inputs as its wallet. BTCInvest was affected because of TradeFortress' decision (AFTER the date of the supposed hack) to put the BTCInvest liquidation payouts in CoinLenders accounts. So, in the end, users of all three of TradeFortress' services got screwed out of some to all of their bitcoins (based on comments on the forum, some Inputs users were refunded about 70% of their BTC, and a few "lucky" CoinLenders users were refunded the amount of USD they had originally deposited, and then he fell silent and stopped responding to people around November 21. So, most CoinLenders users, including BTCInvest holders, lost everything; for most of them, it is still showing in their account, but there is no way to withdraw it).

Some people early on I think were inclined to give TradeFortress the benefit of the doubt, since at that point he was still responding to people and doing some partial refunds. The people with this position preferred to think that TradeFortress made a huge mistake by claiming to have the majority of coins in a cold wallet and not actually doing so, but really did get hacked, and then panicked afterward and put the BTCInvest money into the hacked system in an attempt to keep it going as a type of fractional reserve until he could figure out what to do.

However, since that time, some damaging revelations have been trickling out about TradeFortress. For example, that a day before the supposed hack, he started logging into old accounts of his that he hadn't used in years and started deleting his old posts, account information, etc. A person who had borrowed money from CoinLenders said that he expected to be contacted by TradeFortress in an attempt to collect that debt in order to settle things, but that TradeFortress had not attempted to contact him. There have been claims he was mixing his funds with investors' and using it for gambling. Also, TradeFortress settled with several large CoinLenders creditors by paying them back the original USD they had deposited. It appears that with the several large settlements he made for pennies on the dollar, even if the hack actually took place, he should have enough BTC remaining to pay the remaining creditors all or most of what he owes them, but he has fallen silent since around November 21, despite continuing to log in and posting a few days ago in an unrelated thread. I think at this point, most people believe the hack was likely a hoax used as an excuse to steal the BTC from the users of all three services. They believe that the small number of partial refunds he made were likely a stalling tactic to buy him time before disappearing.

These are some useful threads:

inputs thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/inputsio-instant-payments-offchain-api-secure-wallet-235k-btc-transferred-248803
coinlenders thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/coinlenders-script-bitcoin-bank-borrowdeposit-software-demo-available-283756
TF scam accusation: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/scam-accusation-tradefortress-inputsio-theymos-326879
TF dox thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--327178

Hi guys I'm completely unfamiliar with trade fortress.

Could someone give me like a one or two line account of what happened here? 

On a side note the amount of scams in Bitcoin is really getting ridiculous. After my latest scamming, losing money deposited to bitfunder, I'm given up trading and any exchange or security and won't be back until a decentralized market is set up, I recommend folks to do the same. Can't stand scammers they drive me crazy.

I expect they'll be liquidated long before now, but it can't hurt to ask. AsicMiner & Just-Dice are the biggest holdings, I've sent their owners a message asking for help.

Which of these assets can be seized from TradeFortress by their issuers since he appears to be trying to steal everything from BTCINVEST investors? For example, would friedcat help seize the 260 directly held ACICMINER shares if they have not already changed hands?

Yup!

So TradeFortress ran off with our Bitcoins?? He has only made one post in 2 weeks and has completely ignored this thread. Putting our BTCINVEST payouts on coinlenders and then shutting off withdrawals is complete bullshit.

That sucks, I'm glad TF scammed me for 27 BTC back in January so I knew not to use his investment "service".
Too bad you didn't see my thread on him that I linked to in my signature. VVVVV

I followed all steps to claim my shares weeks ago, but nothing has been credited as of yet. Sigh

I didn't, but haven't updated my feedback yet. The positive trust was from my experience buying BTCINVEST directly from TF without escrow. I'll have to update my trust based on the communication that was promised but is missing.