Have there been any updates to the case at all?
~2-3 months ago, I asked someone involved. No tangible progress. 
Topic: Dwolla's Response to TradeHill | Lies and Defamation? (Read 6317 times)
Have there been any updates to the case at all?
MPOE, i'm not sure why you have such a visceral reaction to the sale of domains, internet traffic and ad revenue, when it seems you don't have much knowledge or understanding of the business.
i don't have any information about the current revenue of sex.com, but at the time of the sale, in the court proceedings it was estimated to be generating between $50-500,000 per month.
i don't have any information about the current revenue of sex.com, but at the time of the sale, in the court proceedings it was estimated to be generating between $50-500,000 per month.
Quote
Those domains get what is known as type-in traffic - and such traffic is considered extremely valuable.
Excuse me, I have trouble keeping track of time. In what year is this conversation taking place?
Quote
Those domains get what is known as type-in traffic - and such traffic is considered extremely valuable.
Excuse me, I have trouble keeping track of time. In what year is this conversation taking place? Sex.com and porn.com "actual dollar values". Get out, would you? Unless you want to buy a bridge or something.
Has anyone every actually gone to sex.com, porn.com? People go to google.com, facebook.com, amazon.com. Those domain names had no value before a team of people built a business around that brand. Paying an outrageous amount of money for a domain name marks someone as having little business sense. Instead of wasting that money they should have hired lawyers to read terms of service, or hired programmers to make a better website.
Sex.com and porn.com "actual dollar values". Get out, would you? Unless you want to buy a bridge or something.
Has anyone every actually gone to sex.com, porn.com? People go to google.com, facebook.com, amazon.com. Those domain names had no value before a team of people built a business around that brand. Paying an outrageous amount of money for a domain name marks someone as having little business sense. Instead of wasting that money they should have hired lawyers to read terms of service, or hired programmers to make a better website.
I've had an account with Dwolla for testing purposes since the second week they were online and just noticed I never did receive any notice of TOS changes, which is usually standard for everybody. Unless it notified you when you logged in.
Lol ninja editing the TOS then pretending nothing happened. Who in their right mind is going to allow their financial insitution to integrate FiSync, the supposed instant Dwolla loading and withdraw if there's rampant ACH chargebacks.
Lol ninja editing the TOS then pretending nothing happened. Who in their right mind is going to allow their financial insitution to integrate FiSync, the supposed instant Dwolla loading and withdraw if there's rampant ACH chargebacks.
I think the ducks come where the bridge is. I'd have to check.
Do the domains come with their websites? The sex.com one is particularly fetchy and could justify the price. What do you starstruck folks call the worthless things, "virtual real estate" was it? Well, if I had a piece of real-real estate worth 13 million real-real dollars (as opposed to play-pretend circlejerk dollars in the latest and greatest ponzi scheme) I probably wouldn't keep a fucking $575.50 outhouse on it. Just my 2 cents.
Do the domains come with their websites? The sex.com one is particularly fetchy and could justify the price. What do you starstruck folks call the worthless things, "virtual real estate" was it? Well, if I had a piece of real-real estate worth 13 million real-real dollars (as opposed to play-pretend circlejerk dollars in the latest and greatest ponzi scheme) I probably wouldn't keep a fucking $575.50 outhouse on it. Just my 2 cents.
Does it come with the ducks?
Sex.com and porn.com "actual dollar values". Get out, would you? Unless you want to buy a bridge or something.
you don't pay much attention to the news do you? the legal wranglings over the sex.com domain were well covered by traditional media outlets. hell it even had a book written about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex.com#Highest_price_paid_for_domain
so about that bridge...
Sex.com and porn.com "actual dollar values". Get out, would you? Unless you want to buy a bridge or something.
Quote
wait... someone gave up a $1 million equity stake for a domain name?
Doesn't add up now does it.what doesn't add up? here are actual dollar values paid for domains (adjust for inflation if you want to see where bitcoin.com fits in):
http://www.domaining.com/topsales/
wait... someone gave up a $1 million equity stake for a domain name?
Ummm, this is somehow news, it's happened many times before with much more than $1M dollars, it's a risky bet in either case but the basic throught process is that if you own the domain that is easily identified with the thing then you will pickup a huge amount of traffic.
Quote
wait... someone gave up a $1 million equity stake for a domain name?
Doesn't add up now does it.
wait... someone gave up a $1 million equity stake for a domain name?
#2 According to the article, Tradehill sold off Bitcoin.com. For $1M. Which is part of what they're suing Dwolla for. What???
My understanding from what I've read and reading between the lines is that Tradehill got control of the Bitcoin.com domain for a $1million equity stake in Tradehill (don't know what % stake that was or what Tradehill was valued at) and control of the Bitcoin.com domain was contingent on using it to run an exchange. When the exchange business ended the control of the domain had to go back to the original owerners.
Anyone know who owns the bitcoin.com domain? When was it first registered?
take from it what you will:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9442.0;all
domain tools has a pay service that lets you see the past registrar information as well.
http://www.domaintools.com/research/whois-history/?page=results&q=bitcoin.com
Whoever owns it, has it redirecting to bitcoin.org.
#2 According to the article, Tradehill sold off Bitcoin.com. For $1M. Which is part of what they're suing Dwolla for. What???
My understanding from what I've read and reading between the lines is that Tradehill got control of the Bitcoin.com domain for a $1million equity stake in Tradehill (don't know what % stake that was or what Tradehill was valued at) and control of the Bitcoin.com domain was contingent on using it to run an exchange. When the exchange business ended the control of the domain had to go back to the original owerners.
Anyone know who owns the bitcoin.com domain? When was it first registered?
take from it what you will:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9442.0;all
domain tools has a pay service that lets you see the past registrar information as well.
http://www.domaintools.com/research/whois-history/?page=results&q=bitcoin.com
#2 According to the article, Tradehill sold off Bitcoin.com. For $1M. Which is part of what they're suing Dwolla for. What???
My understanding from what I've read and reading between the lines is that Tradehill got control of the Bitcoin.com domain for a $1million equity stake in Tradehill (don't know what % stake that was or what Tradehill was valued at) and control of the Bitcoin.com domain was contingent on using it to run an exchange. When the exchange business ended the control of the domain had to go back to the original owerners.
Anyone know who owns the bitcoin.com domain? When was it first registered?
100% correct, I'm assuming that they will at some point come forward so don't worry about it too much, nothing weird going on.
It's not another big Satoshi mystery.
Jered
Anyone know who owns the bitcoin.com domain? When was it first registered?
looks like it was first registered 12 years ago, and has gone through a few hands:
http://www.hosterstats.com/historicaldns.php?domain=bitcoin.com
#2 According to the article, Tradehill sold off Bitcoin.com. For $1M. Which is part of what they're suing Dwolla for. What???
My understanding from what I've read and reading between the lines is that Tradehill got control of the Bitcoin.com domain for a $1million equity stake in Tradehill (don't know what % stake that was or what Tradehill was valued at) and control of the Bitcoin.com domain was contingent on using it to run an exchange. When the exchange business ended the control of the domain had to go back to the original owerners.
Anyone know who owns the bitcoin.com domain? When was it first registered?
From what I can read about this story, Dwolla has joined the pack they claimed they would "disrupt": banksters
how do you disrupt the banksters while having a cozy relationship with the fed?
From what I can read about this story, Dwolla has joined the pack they claimed they would "disrupt": banksters
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. 
From what I can read about this story, Dwolla has joined the pack they claimed they would "disrupt": banksters
Quote
Rather than doing the honest thing, covering the losses and changing the business so it could move forward, they instead just passed the costs of their mistake onto their customers and began spreading lies (we always said we would charge back ...) and smears (when a merchant is a constant source of fraud ...) to cover their tracks.
That pretty much sums it up I'd say. For shame.Quote
why was mt gox seemingly unaffected by this?
Maybe they're behind it. They were trying to sink Bitcoinica earlier with account limitation and all, Dwolla is a tiny start-up, who's to say MtGox didn't get in touch and made a little side deal to crush competition? Not like they've ever done anything to actually foster competition in their existence so far. 
Dwolla has always had a peculiar business model with loss-leader pricing that doesn't scale. Sensing a future acquisition, they are going for market share and mind share more than profits. I predict that they save legal fees and settle it for $300k.
I stopped using Dwolla after Paxum ran away.
What happened at Tradehill was a shame and a circlejerk of dickishness from a bunch of parties and ignorance for others, but if Mt. Gox is still playing nice, Dwolla can't be comfortably evicted from the Bitcoin network, nor does it want to be, as indicated by it keeping an open conn with Gox. So, if we can assume that Tradehill wasn't an act of malice for the lulz, why can't we just wait until Dwolla settles under the table for a bundle of undisclosed funds, salvages the new startup smell and put this thing behind us. They are still the best way to get bitcoin from a checking account, and until or unless someone comes up with something better made for passing Bitcoin, they are a valid part of the system, we are not forced to use them, and we shouldn't go off on a bloodfrenzy because they done goofed, right?
Correct.
What happened at Tradehill was a shame and a circlejerk of dickishness from a bunch of parties and ignorance for others, but if Mt. Gox is still playing nice, Dwolla can't be comfortably evicted from the Bitcoin network, nor does it want to be, as indicated by it keeping an open conn with Gox. So, if we can assume that Tradehill wasn't an act of malice for the lulz, why can't we just wait until Dwolla settles under the table for a bundle of undisclosed funds, salvages the new startup smell and put this thing behind us. They are still the best way to get bitcoin from a checking account, and until or unless someone comes up with something better made for passing Bitcoin, they are a valid part of the system, we are not forced to use them, and we shouldn't go off on a bloodfrenzy because they done goofed, right?
Because if TH suffered $100k in losses and MtGox did 7x the volume, well, do the math... so either MtGox worked something out with Dwolla that TH didn't have the muscle to work out, or they ate it and they aren't revealing how much they lost because on the whole Dwolla is still a profitable and necessary source of inbound currency.
Or the fraud was largely the result of one coordinated group and they preferred TradeHill for some reason. Perhaps they just tried TradeHill first, it worked, and they had no reason to try anything else. Perhaps TradeHill processed things faster. Or perhaps Mt. Gox had faster/better cash outs, so they wanted their money in TradeHill so they could buy Bitcoins to cash out at Mt. Gox.Quote
#2 According to the article, Tradehill sold off Bitcoin.com. For $1M. Which is part of what they're suing Dwolla for. What???
Where are you seeing this? I was under the impression they bought bitcoin.com (and a few other domains) for $1 million. 
...
Let's use the Wayback Machine to see Dwolla's TOS on July 3rd, 2011
http://web.archive.org/web/20100730001213/http://www.dwolla.org/help/terms-of-use/
...
Let's use the Wayback Machine to see Dwolla's TOS on July 3rd, 2011
http://web.archive.org/web/20100730001213/http://www.dwolla.org/help/terms-of-use/
...
Now my question is this. How many members of the bitcoin community are going to save a copy of the above archived TOS onto their own computers around the world just in case Dwolla manages to pressure archive.org to remove said archive?
I did it before even seeing your post lol
PDF on my desktop. 
Two questions.
#1, This:
#2 According to the article, Tradehill sold off Bitcoin.com. For $1M. Which is part of what they're suing Dwolla for. What???
#1, This:
why was mt gox seemingly unaffected by this?
Because if TH suffered $100k in losses and MtGox did 7x the volume, well, do the math... so either MtGox worked something out with Dwolla that TH didn't have the muscle to work out, or they ate it and they aren't revealing how much they lost because on the whole Dwolla is still a profitable and necessary source of inbound currency. Not that I blame them, they probably saved all of us and saved Bitcoin from total devastation by keeping the lid on it back in August and quietly absorbing the damage... and in that case MtGox are the real heroes here.#2 According to the article, Tradehill sold off Bitcoin.com. For $1M. Which is part of what they're suing Dwolla for. What???
the amount for damages requested in the suit don't correlate with the losses that can be attributed to dwolla though. dwolla can change their policy at any time. maybe dwolla should be on the hook for the reversals and the funds they still have held (total under $100k) but blowing that total into a two million lawsuit reeks.
The legal system can't work that way. Dwolla should have eaten those losses. If the lawsuit just makes Dwolla pay the amounts they should have paid anyway, then all the harm they caused is unaddressed. There is no reason Dwolla should not be responsible for the consequential damages their fraud caused. And given that was seems to be an intentional and considered fraud, there should be punitive damages as well.Quote
it is like if a retail business launches to sell this widget that it can buy at a discount from a certain supplier and then that supplier stops carrying that widget. it isn't the supplier that is responsible if the retailer then incurs losses and eventually goes out of business as the result.
No, that's true. But if a thief steals the money they would have used to buy the widget and they lose profits as a result, the thief should be liable for those losses as well.Quote
plus, we saw what happened at paxum. this gives banks and competitors even more reason to keep their distance from bitcoin. this isn't france. we are not guaranteed a bank account. if a bank suspects a customer will be a risk for litigation, they'll opt for not establishing or severing any banking relationship with that customer.
Yes, and had Dwolla simply severed its relationship with TradeHill, the situation would have been completely different. They certainly had every right to do that. Sadly, that's not the choice Dwolla made. But they have to live with the consequences of the choice they did make.
why was mt gox seemingly unaffected by this?
I said it before and I'll say it again, Dwolla simply forgot to consider how they would cover fraud losses. At 25 cents a transaction, you can't pay for them yourself. So you have to pass them on to your customers. There is no other way. The problem is, Dwolla specifically said they wouldn't do that. Then when the losses piled up, they realized their business plan was fundamentally fatally flawed. Rather than doing the honest thing, covering the losses and changing the business so it could move forward, they instead just passed the costs of their mistake onto their customers and began spreading lies (we always said we would charge back ...) and smears (when a merchant is a constant source of fraud ...) to cover their tracks.
The issue is what they did to TradeHill, and they have to pay.
the amount for damages requested in the suit don't correlate with the losses that can be attributed to dwolla though. dwolla can change their policy at any time. maybe dwolla should be on the hook for the reversals and the funds they still have held (total under $100k) but blowing that total into a two million lawsuit reeks.
it is like if a retail business launches to sell this widget that it can buy at a discount from a certain supplier and then that supplier stops carrying that widget. it isn't the supplier that is responsible if the retailer then incurs losses and eventually goes out of business as the result.
plus, we saw what happened at paxum. this gives banks and competitors even more reason to keep their distance from bitcoin. this isn't france. we are not guaranteed a bank account. if a bank suspects a customer will be a risk for litigation, they'll opt for not establishing or severing any banking relationship with that customer.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.387567
"We got in June a total of $6,824,168.53 of funds moving around (16640 transactions in both deposits and withdraws) over Dwolla, equivalent of $227,472.28 per day, or $1,592,305.99 per week. Should be noted that the site was closed on June 20th, so in reality amount per day/week is higher."
"We got in June a total of $6,824,168.53 of funds moving around (16640 transactions in both deposits and withdraws) over Dwolla, equivalent of $227,472.28 per day, or $1,592,305.99 per week. Should be noted that the site was closed on June 20th, so in reality amount per day/week is higher."
We made these people.
Can you guys believe what you are seeing?
Can you guys believe what you are seeing?
I agree with the assessment that Dwolla didn't assume responsibility for people scamming their system and instead placed the blame on the customer, this is something one accepts if they accept credit cards but the sole reason many in the community use Dwolla and one cannot fund Dwolla with credit cards is the risk a merchant assumes, in addition to the fees of course.
I currently use Dwolla to move money between Mt. Gox and my accounts but as of today I'm going to pull back, primarily because I think Dwolla did some underhanded things to try and cover up what happened. In the end they might have done it for survival reasons but it demonstrates a real lack of character and integrity.
I currently use Dwolla to move money between Mt. Gox and my accounts but as of today I'm going to pull back, primarily because I think Dwolla did some underhanded things to try and cover up what happened. In the end they might have done it for survival reasons but it demonstrates a real lack of character and integrity.
http://www.siliconprairienews.com/2011/06/bitcoin-what-is-it-and-how-is-dwolla-involved-in-its-marketplace
SPN: As a follow up the previous question, is the traffic from Mt. Gox due credit for Dwolla's recent uptick in traffic and usage, including the hitting of a $1 million a week mark?
SPN: As a follow up the previous question, is the traffic from Mt. Gox due credit for Dwolla's recent uptick in traffic and usage, including the hitting of a $1 million a week mark?
Not only did they change their TOS, they specifically advertised "absolutely no chargebacks" at the time.
this fiasco is a damn shame. it sure seems like dwolla is pulling something seriously shady, but what exactly? how could there possibly have been $100,000 in chargebacks all around the same time? are they just trying to straight up steal TH's deposits?
Actually I believe the chargebacks are real. Criminals found a weakness in DWOLLLA'S account verification system that allowed them to link a (possibly fake) name and address to a real and unrelated REAL bank account. This is in my opinion a Dwolla security problem, not a Tradehill security problem. At that point the criminals simply moved stolen Dwolla money into Tradehill, bought BTC, moved them to another exchange and sold em. Later the real owners of the bank account saw the charges and disputed them.
Of course the above is my opinion but I am pretty sure it is spot on.
...
Let's use the Wayback Machine to see Dwolla's TOS on July 3rd, 2011
http://web.archive.org/web/20100730001213/http://www.dwolla.org/help/terms-of-use/
...
Let's use the Wayback Machine to see Dwolla's TOS on July 3rd, 2011
http://web.archive.org/web/20100730001213/http://www.dwolla.org/help/terms-of-use/
...
Now my question is this. How many members of the bitcoin community are going to save a copy of the above archived TOS onto their own computers around the world just in case Dwolla manages to pressure archive.org to remove said archive?
http://www.siliconprairienews.com/2011/07/as-bitcoin-exchanges-drop-dwolla-milne-says-company-stays-focused
This news concerning TradeHill, one of the top two Bitcoin exchanges — Mt. Gox is the other — comes less than one week after Dwolla reached its $1 million in transactions per day milestone, a portion of which can be credited to Dwolla's use in the Bitcoin market. "Given Bitcoin’s recent explosion," The Next Web's Brad McCarty wrote on Thursday, "it would stand to reason that at least part of Dwolla’s explosive growth is being caused by the ease of compatibility between it and the Bitcoin currency system."
According to a TradeHill blog post on Tuesday, TradeHill was one Dwolla's top two customers (Dwolla declined to comment on this fact), but now it is no longer.
This news concerning TradeHill, one of the top two Bitcoin exchanges — Mt. Gox is the other — comes less than one week after Dwolla reached its $1 million in transactions per day milestone, a portion of which can be credited to Dwolla's use in the Bitcoin market. "Given Bitcoin’s recent explosion," The Next Web's Brad McCarty wrote on Thursday, "it would stand to reason that at least part of Dwolla’s explosive growth is being caused by the ease of compatibility between it and the Bitcoin currency system."
According to a TradeHill blog post on Tuesday, TradeHill was one Dwolla's top two customers (Dwolla declined to comment on this fact), but now it is no longer.
this fiasco is a damn shame. it sure seems like dwolla is pulling something seriously shady, but what exactly? how could there possibly have been $100,000 in chargebacks all around the same time? are they just trying to straight up steal TH's deposits?
Your right, it really sucks.
I like Dwolla, and we use their services. In fact, they do in fact work with merchant and we are friends with their staff.
The issue is what they did to TradeHill, and they have to pay.
this fiasco is a damn shame. it sure seems like dwolla is pulling something seriously shady, but what exactly? how could there possibly have been $100,000 in chargebacks all around the same time? are they just trying to straight up steal TH's deposits?
Doubt it. Venture firm invested $5m in them about a month ago. Too much at risk to throw away a business for $100k. Seems like the chargebacks were of incompetence, the latest BS of panic.
this fiasco is a damn shame. it sure seems like dwolla is pulling something seriously shady, but what exactly? how could there possibly have been $100,000 in chargebacks all around the same time? are they just trying to straight up steal TH's deposits?
Old Dwolla news articles are neat.
I'm sure someone here will be contacting the Mars Cafe to turn them to Bitcoin now
Quote
As Dwolla grows, one of the areas in which the company will have to invest is conflict resolution, or what happens if merchant A fails to ship a product to customer B, who refuses to pay. To date, Milne said that this hasn't been a problem, in part because the small number of customers itself restricts the number of potential problems.
"There have been a lot of discussions with a third party who would assure transactions," Milne said. "Right now we go to the authorities" and let them investigate any disputes, he said.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362282,00.asp"There have been a lot of discussions with a third party who would assure transactions," Milne said. "Right now we go to the authorities" and let them investigate any disputes, he said.
Quote
Dwolla has applications for brick-and-mortar businesses, too: a Des Moines restaurant called Mars Café is using the program as part of a new in-store payment system. Customers can pay by logging into their Dwolla account on their smart phone and sending the money instantly to the merchant—all from their phone, and all without cash, checks or credit cards.
http://www.creditcardguide.com/creditcards/credit-cards-general/credit-card-alternative-online-purchases-dwolla-418/I'm sure someone here will be contacting the Mars Cafe to turn them to Bitcoin now
Quote
Why could Dwolla be BIG?
There is no internet version of cash like there is a retail environment. There is no unified way to electronically exchange funds for consumers/businesses that bypass the traditional interchange fee. We built a solution to a $40B+ dollar problem.
http://www.discoveringstartups.com/dwolla-com-paypal-without-the-fees/There is no internet version of cash like there is a retail environment. There is no unified way to electronically exchange funds for consumers/businesses that bypass the traditional interchange fee. We built a solution to a $40B+ dollar problem.
Quote
Native Iowan Ben Milne thought the financial and banking industry needed a little disrupting. “I was sick of feeling like they were taking a percentage of my money without deserving it,
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/01/24/move-over-paypal-online-payments-just-got-social-with-dwolla/
no question; they had nothing about chargebacks back then, that i remember.
i also remember they having a small staff unable to answer basic phone calls and being unable to handle new deposits any sooner than 4d. the poor guy who answered the phone was overwhelmed by new Bitcoin accts being setup en masse after Bruce Wagner highlighted them on one of his shows.
they grew initially b/c of Bitcoin.
i also remember they having a small staff unable to answer basic phone calls and being unable to handle new deposits any sooner than 4d. the poor guy who answered the phone was overwhelmed by new Bitcoin accts being setup en masse after Bruce Wagner highlighted them on one of his shows.
they grew initially b/c of Bitcoin.
Has TH served the court paper to Dwolla in person? Not sure about the process, but it would be interesting to post this paper on Dwolla's post.
LOL@ the TOS on Wayback machine, they didn't think of checking there first, did they.
LOL@ the TOS on Wayback machine, they didn't think of checking there first, did they.
EDIT: I have nothing against Dwolla, just pointing out the facts. We use Dwolla and work with their staff on a daily basis to eliminate fraud, and from what I gather, they are cleaning up their act.
As most of you know, TradeHill served Dwolla with a $2m lawsuit (http://www.betabeat.com/2012/03/06/dwolla-was-just-sued-by-bitcoiners-for-2-m/)
A few minutes ago, Dwolla responded with a release: http://www.betabeat.com/2012/03/06/dwolla-releases-statement-on-that-bitcoin-lawsuit/
Quote, Dwolla CEO Be Milne
Just for anyone who might be new or who might have missed the controversy between TradeHill and Dwolla last summer, this should give you an idea. According to the datestamp, I made it on July 27th 2011. That was after reading this thread posted by TradeHill, explaining their side of things.
As most of you know, TradeHill served Dwolla with a $2m lawsuit (http://www.betabeat.com/2012/03/06/dwolla-was-just-sued-by-bitcoiners-for-2-m/)
A few minutes ago, Dwolla responded with a release: http://www.betabeat.com/2012/03/06/dwolla-releases-statement-on-that-bitcoin-lawsuit/
Quote, Dwolla CEO Be Milne
Just for anyone who might be new or who might have missed the controversy between TradeHill and Dwolla last summer, this should give you an idea. According to the datestamp, I made it on July 27th 2011. That was after reading this thread posted by TradeHill, explaining their side of things.
Jump to: