Topic: [BTC-TC] Deprived Mining Speculation (DMS) - page 11. (Read 198958 times)

OK guys, I'm not dead - and am back active.  Unfortunately will be away again from later today until late tomorrow but will make a start on sorting this mess out on the weekend.  As far as assets are concerned, the BTC I hold for the fund remain intact and untouched - as anyone can verify from the address.

Not sure what's happening with Ciphermine.B1 - but if Kate's paying dividends to Ciphermine then it looks like it may be a scam.  I say that because common-sense suggests Ciphermine is making a huge loss (its liabilities - denominated in BTC - are rising far faster than it can conceivably be mining coins).  If she's pretending its making a profit and paying dividends, hence increasing the extent to which it has negative equity, then that is defrauding bold-honders (paying dividends to equity holders when unable to service debt is basically fraud/theft).  The conflict of interest I referred to previously (in respect of me becoming invovled in her exchange) was basically that point - that it would be unwise for me to increase financial links with her with the likelihood of me having to initiate civil and/or criminal proceedings against her in respect of the bonds.

I'll give a more detailed update on the weekend and try to get the dividend calculation done in full by then - then decide how to proceed with the fund going forward.  After this week I don't expect any lengthy absences until at least May.

It'll take a bit longer to sort out relisting - as I'm now totally out of the loop on which exchanges are functional/trustworthy etc.

If anyone incurred costs taking legal advice in respect of my absence then please PM me and I'll look at reimbursing it (copies of invoices would be required).

Thanks. I've read threads that show he was a software developer (he wrote his own bot to profit out of other bots) but it's nice to get another data point. If you get any other tidbits of info send 'em in.

She might, I've also put that idea to her. We'll have to see what response we get, if any. It can get messy legally trying to get Ciphermine out of a contract, which is essentially what we'd be trying to do.

Kate could do something as Usagi suggested he would do before, exchange the debts. She could buy DMS SELLING with CipherMine.B1. Basically erase the debts by exchanging her debt to deprived with deprived's debts to us.

:??

I do not know what is more shocking - Me just reading through the last 30 pages for an hour or what has happened here to the investors.
This Kate woman seems to hold the key to unlock the puzzle.

Well, if we don't try it certainly will be gone forever.

By all means we should ask Kate about the bonds. In fact, I just did it:

https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=4582.msg138988#msg138988

I'm expecting her response will be "Deprived is the legal owner of the bonds, and he's not around, so I can't help you." She'd have a point, actually. What if he turns up?

I think we've got to find Deprived, or find out what happened to him.

Nice summary.

Your suggestion is great, but I still think to contact Kate and negotiate with her about the bond is relatively easier. In case of death of deprived, most likely that 150 BTC is gone forever anyway.

OK, here's my take on where we should go from here, if anywhere.

There's about 410 btc in assets legally owned by Deprived. 150 in a wallet, 260 in bonds. Even at today's prices that's about a quarter of a million dollars. It is not unrealistic to think it could be worth a million dollars or more sometime in the next year. So it's worth going to some trouble to retrieve it, or even part of it.

Even though we have no legal right to these funds, we do have an equitable right. Essentially that means in an English Court of Law we should be able to apply to be recognized as having a claim on Deprived's estate (if he is dead), or sue for breach of contract (if he is alive).

My worry is that if Deprived has died, his estate may be going through probate now and his executor is either unaware of the assets he owned or is aware of them and is hoping no one will come forward to place a claim on them. So we can't afford to delay for too long.

While we don't have a name for him, ThickAsThieves had a throwaway gmail account for him.

As we all know, even throwaway account emails often have interesting things in them, that might be used to trace the real account owner. I'm interested in engaging a lawyer in the UK to apply to the courts there for a 'witness summons' (what would be a subpoena in the US and Australia) so we can ask Google to identify Deprived. Conceivably we could also ask for a court order for bitcointalk.org or another entity to reveal his identity, if they have it, but Google might be easier as they would have a registered subsidiary company in the UK.

I am not in the UK but I have used a lawyer there in the recent past. I'm prepared to foot the cost myself to get some initial advice from her on how we might proceed, but if it needs to go further there will be more costs.

Anyone else interested? TaT, are you prepared to provide that gmail account?

Disclosure: I am not a lawyer (I am a law student, though). I don't claim to be an expert on debt recovery and this isn't legal advice.

P.S. No one should be getting their hopes up at this stage. Even if we identify Deprived, and find out that he has died, contesting estates is not a straightforward matter, and is usually a drawn-out one. Accessing the assets of Deprived may also be problematic for obvious reasons.

So I have about 1000 shares of DMS and haven't checked in on this thread in a while. Is the short of it that the whole thing was basically a scam? Has there been any process initiated to recover any part of the value of investments? Is anyone buying Deprived debt?

Honestly, I don't expect anything now.
As far as I'm concerned, she's just another scammer.

To my surprise, Kate keeps silent on Deprived and DMS this time. DMS contributed more than 280 BTC to Ciphermine.B1 and she just pretend there's nothing happened. I think she at least should bring out a proposal about how to handle the situation if deprived never shows up.

Kate's public comments have strongly suggested that she does not understand (or perhaps merely does not want to acknowledge) the fundamentals of capitalising a business, and in particular the seniority of debt over equity. This basic feature of debt financing was thinly papered over at the time the bond scheme was created, so it should not come as a surprise now to find that bond holders have been placed second in line.

One of the many things that mystified me at the time Deprived decided to back these bonds in such a big way was that he and Kate had a public discussion about this, right here on the forum (not going to bother looking it up, but it's out there), and Kate never did address the basic question about the senior claim of bond holders. Given the gaping chasm of elementary financial confusion which appeared to have been embodied in the bonds right from the get-go, I concluded at the time that something must have been hammered out in private between the two of them to address the issue, and since I didn't personally see any value in the bonds as an investment anyway, I didn't bother to follow it up.

If the bonds-that-don't-behave-like-bonds are now coming home to roost, I don't think it would be at all unreasonable to expect a full and complete explanation and a public commitment to observing the fundamental seniority of debt over equity.

is she paying in to the public wallet on BTC-TC.  I dont use that wallet anymore.  If Kate comes around again  Is there a way I can prove my shares and change my public wallet in case DMS gets started again?

Thanks

Given that the CIPHERMINE.B1 bonds are effectively in Deprived's name rather than individual DMS.* asset holders, this point may be moot, but anyone here who holds out any hope of ever getting anything out of DMS should be aware that Kate has started paying dividends to CIPHERMINE shareholders again, but at time of writing nothing has been paid to bondholders since October.

I've posted something on both the litecoin forum and the CIPHERMINE.B1 thread here that Ciphermine should be paying their bondholders (who after all are their creditors) before paying dividends.

For the record I own CIPHERMINE.B1 bonds directly, as well as indirectly through DMS.SELLING.

Much true.
Trusting your money to someone who is known to "just disappear" sometimes is not very wise, to say the least...

Oh thanks! : )

Here is the DMS address: https://blockchain.info/address/1CzJY7pVkCqDjUtycHzFgeTTbbWokqYuXo

Deprived's last report showed just over 260BTC held in Ciphermine bonds-

Are you sure?

IIRC there was a little more than 100 BTC in the wallet, plus the cyphermine bonds... or were those bonds worth almost 300 BTC?

Kate's erratic behavior and frequent periods of absence seriously make me wary of any dealing with her ventures. This is a shame, because CT's mockup looks good - though it is now two months behind.

Just did some calculations and it looks like back dividends are something close to:
   0.0003412014 per Mining or Purchase
   0.002000772  per Selling or Purchase

As of October 25th there were 163054 "Effective Units" outstanding.  That means DMS is about 382 BTC behind on dividend payments.

I own a few CIPHERMINE.B1 bonds directly. I think I've been patient with Kate's travails (which I don't doubt are genuine) but now I need some certainty:

https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=4582.msg133811#msg133811