Topic: Charlie Shrem Is Home From Prison and Moving ‘Onward’ (Read 504 times)

He said this : “I’m excited to move forward onto new projects and looking forward to seeing what everyone has been working on!”
I wonder if this project related to bitcoin since BitInstant lets people buy/sell bitcoin easily at that time and help raise bitcoin price.

Maybe it's just the bad luck thing. I like to stay away from people with too much bad luck.

(@QuestionAuthority) I missed this one, is the Shapeshift incident lost investor funds, not customer funds?
Their primary service does not hold any customer funds, since you are automatically sending to an external address.

Well shapeshift is a different bag altogether in my opinion. There are lessons to be learned for sure but the blame lies mostly on the rogue thief and a little on the company for not vetting their staff properly

Are you kidding? This community gives the same guy dozens of chances to lose/steal people's money. Even (or especially) if they're bad businessmen and not crooks they should be avoided.

Don't forget Erik Voorhees and his FeedZBirds ripoff. He was also involved in an IPO that lost thousands of bitcoiner funds because it was illegally operated and involved with the former illegal BitInstant who bypassed laws to help fund the Silk Road consignment store.

He is also the creator and CEO of the instant bitcoin and altcoin exchange ShapeShift.io, having founded and operated it under the alias Beorn Gonthier, until revealing his true involvement with the company and ShapeShift just lost a bunch of money. He was hiding his identity because he knows his name is shit with a lot of bitcoiners. He was involved with Coinapult which lost $43,000 in bitcoins. Either bad luck follows this guy around like flies on shit or something else is going on.

 Trendon Shavers ran an illegal security. Voorhees ran an illegal security. Just because Shavers wasn't crafty enough to return a bulk of the funds to investors right before he was caught doesn't make his crime different. It just means Voorhees was more crafty than Shavers and had a better legal team. That makes him even more dangerous.

The difference between Shavers and Voorhees is a matter of semantics. They were both selling unregistered securities. Shavers became a Ponzi when he failed to return at least a bulk of the money. Voorhees was bright enough to get legal advise. I think they should have gone after him for FeedZeBirds too. He's obviously got a great legal team. Where's the 2,600 Bitcoins for FeedZeBirds Erik?

Though the SEC investigation alleges that Erik Voorhees profited over $15,000 from his sale of unregistered offerings, the total settlement cost more than $50,000.  In the conclusion to the SEC investigation, Erik Voorhees agreed to pay a full disgorgement of his profits of $15,843.98 plus a penalty of $35,000.  Additionally, Voorhees has committed to not participating “in any issuance of any security in an unregistered transaction in exchange for any virtual currency including Bitcoin for a period of five years.”  However, it is important to note that Voorhees has consented to the SEC ban and the SEC monetary penalty “without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings". FeedZeBirds is another Bitcoin security that Erik Voorhees offered on the Bitcoin Forum prior to his fundraising for Satoshi Dice.  Like his Satoshi Dice IPO, FeedZeBirds was advertised on the Bitcoin Forum and raised 2,600 bitcoins in May of 2012. Unlike Shavers he was also crafty enough to run away to Panama (a non-extradition country for financial crimes) just before he was arrested and indicted. Nothing says guilty turd like running from the law.

He keeps making one business after another that loses people's money and the Bitcoin community laps up anything that squirts out of his ass like a dog in heat. Does the Bitcoin community give second chances? I'd say they do in a big way.

I agree, he can be the poster child for the way you are not supposed to do it. I would write a book and stay in the shadows for a while and then start something small, just to put you on track again to start your life over. I doubt that he would enter any scam business again, with his criminal record.

Do we give second chances in this community?

Good for him and his family. His incarceration was a complete frigging travesty to begin with. He should never have been in jail in the first place.

Actually now that he is out of prison he has higher chances for being hired by serious company than before.
He is kind of famous known cryptocurrency celebrity - in kinda bad way, but still recognizable by general crypto crowd.
Maybe he will start his own company? Kevin Mitnick at some point spent 5 years in prison and now he is very successful computer consultant.

I'm glad he didn't have to pay for his stupidity with more of his life. He got off pretty light considering he was the compliance officer of a company that worked as a banking exchange and turned a blind eye to illegal activity. It will be interesting to see what company hires him at this point. It will also be interesting to see how many people are willing to use a company that hires him.

As far as I'm concerned Erik Voorhees should have joined him in prison. Now Voorhees is running yet another company that has lost a bunch of customer funds (shapeshift). Even bitcoiners must eventually have a limit to their compassion and will stop giving their money to people that have proven themselves to be disreputable.

Charlie Shrem has been released from prison and is quite happy to be out. In a blog post written on his personal website, he thanked the hundreds of people who showed him support while being locked up in Lewisburg Federal Prison Camp in Pennsylvania.

Charlie Shrem, co-founder of the now-defunct BitInstant, is out of prison and spending time with family and friends in the state of Pennsylvania.

Shrem was sentenced to 24 months in prison for aiding and abetting an unlicensed money transmission that derived from the Silk Road marketplace. On March 30th, 2015, Shrem surrendered himself to the authorities and entered Lewisburg FPC after being under house arrest for 14 months.

https://news.bitcoin.com/charlie-shrem-home-moving-onward/