Bruno, BitPay isn't and never has been an exchange. They are more like "Bitcoin power of attorney" than an exchange. A merchant authorizes BitPay to trade at an exchange on the merchants behalf and BitPay locks in an exchange rate at time of sale and deposits the fiat into the merchants account. I don't think it matters how much BFL used BitPay as long as BitPay reported per the AML/KYC law.
This thread was sparked by the following post:
I'm too lazy to figure out what you are ranting and raving about this time, but I don't see why BFL selling bitcoins to Bitpay would be considered illegal or fraudulent. Merchants exchange bitcoins to fiat through Bitpay all the time. Why can't BFL? Those TOS that you quoted may apply to you, but they don't have to apply to everyone.
Here we have a seasoned Bitcoiner, odolvlobo, not seeing why BFL
SELLING BTC to BitPay for fiat would be considered illegal, claiming to be too lazy as to figure out what I'm ranting and raving about. Hence this thread, to show him and the rest of the world that what took place on a grand scale was indeed illegal, and it all started virtually exactly a year ago when BitPay first put out the press release depicting that HashTrade paid BFL $1M USD for Monarchs using BitPay, in turn BitPay deposited $1M USD into BFL's bank account. The bitcoin wallet address that was used per documents that BitPay, themselves, indirectly depicted was
https://blockchain.info/address/1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs as seen in the following press release:
BF Labs, Inc. Processes $1 Million Bitcoin Merchant Transaction for Institutional Bitcoin Mining Hardware Purchase. BFL's Jeff Ownby following up BitPay's press release with one of his own.
The
https://blockchain.info/address/1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs bitcoin wallet address was created and used prior to HashTrade ever having a web presence and is mostly funded from EMC's bitcoin wallet addresses directly and indirectly, ergo it truly belongs to BFL and not HashTrade. The maneuver was probably orchestrate by BFL to launder their ill-gotten gains from mining bitcoins using their customer's miners as can easily be shown. The PR stunt was designed solely to liquidate said BTC to fiat deposited into BFL's bank account to be extracted ASAP as the FTC has declared and shown as proof that that was exactly what BFL did. In fact, BFL was in the process of liquidating the rest of the BTC in the 1QAH wallet successfully converting $5M+ prior to the raid. Unfortunately, there was ONLY $1.2M USD left in the Harris bank account when the FTC finally was able to freeze it with a court order. Over $5M USD was also converted to fiat via different wallet addresses.
BitPay was 100% privy to the supposed HashTrade deal last year, for they're the ones that released the first press release, not BFL, for BFL's Jeff Ownby is on record in stating that they wished BitPay had not jumped the gun, but no damage was done in that regard in his eyes, thus a moot issue.
TAINT has nothing to do with what I've uncovered and presented in this thread as proof that something illegal on a grand scale transpired that involves BitPay and BFL, thanks to the latter's money laundering attempts with some success, again halted by the FTC so that BFL's customer base may be able to get some of there monies back.
BFL's EMC should be shut down as well, for very few, if any, regular customers are using that free service 100% overseen by Josh Zerlan. I contend that those who are mining there now are BFL's industrial clients and BFL themselves, at the very least over 90% of the 2,000+ miners currently using the EMC pool.
Further, EMC was using Dwolla to convert to fiat when its customers opted for such. It'll be interesting to find out if EMC was using BFL's name or Josh Zerlan's, since EMC customers were under the impression that Josh was the owner and not BFL all the way up to the spring of this year. If in Josh's name, then there's another issue that BFL will have to contend with thanks to KYC laws.
#ASKFTC
