...Keep gear. Trade in for newer asic gear and keep itfree and clear....
Given the depreciation of the current hardware, especially given the anticipation of Bitcoin-specific ASICs, it seems unlikely that this course of action would really be very profitable for Giga.
A gentlemans agreement and plan that does not require a lawyer if a person just keeps his side of the bargain....
...
...we have the operator running to a lawyer which is always a bad sign in my book when involving something of this size.
It screams, to me, i have no idea how to deal fairly with others in a time of crisis...
I hope that someone scams you badly, and then pulls out a lawyer to fu*k you over again. Then I will come to comment on how silly are you.
This point of view seems like it could come from one of two places.
(1) You don't think you should have to comply with the law as now explained by lawyers, and you are mad at Giga for bringing the law into this when you think everybody could have just gotten away with doing the payments as "gentlemen" without needing to involve the pesky notion of tax and sanction compliance steps. In your mind, you agreed to do something whether it was legal or not, knowing that it might turn out not to be and not really caring about that. You were under the impression that Giga had the same mentality, and so now that he's telling you he will only do things in a way he thinks is strictly legal, you are angry.
So you then (a) mock him for not being on board with your idea that Bitcoin contracts should exist in their own plane outside of secular law. And/or (b) you declare that he must actually
have the same mentality as you, and so his moves must have nothing to do with his desire to be legit but must just be convenient, cynical ways to cheat you out of your money.
You are wrong because (a) from the entire record, there seems to be no evidence that Giga ever had or expressed the perspective that he was committed to his scheme whether or not it was legal. You are projecting your own view of Bitcoin onto him, and so long as you incorrectly do that, his moves will continue to baffle you.
And from my own personal perspective, you are further wrong because (b) tax and sanctions compliance are positive moral imperatives that you should embrace regardless of anything that Giga says or has said.
(2) You do care whether or not something is legal, and maybe you recognize that paying dividends without tax information turns out not to be legal. But you blame Giga for this -- basically, he should never have agreed to this in the first place, and it's his duty to take a big hit in his liquidity -- or even destroy his business -- to buy back from you rather than demand that you do
anything, even something that costs you nothing, like providing extra info. On principle.
You are wrong because (a) both parties to these contracts are responsible for any failures in initial due diligence in this matter, and both parties share responsibility for acting reasonably and equitably to work things out once due diligence finally gets done by someone later. It's irrelevant whether it was eventually his lawyer telling him he needed to issue 1099s, and then him putting demands to you, as opposed to your lawyer telling you you were owed a 1099, and you demanding action from him.
You are further wrong because (b) the initial counterparty that would have needed to do the tax compliance due diligence was not even Giga at all -- it was GLBSE, because exchanges and brokers are normally the ones responsible for producing the tax documentation, not issuers. Remember, Giga never even had your BTC withdrawal address or any other kind of payment information while GLBSE was operating: it was only GLBSE that would have been in a position of setting up the proper reporting procedures for documenting payments. This burden only shifted to Giga once GLBSE shuttered and put him in the position of being the actual payer of counterparties.
From what I can tell, Giga went to his lawyer and did his due diligence
immediately once his obligations extended into this arena. That is in contrast to
you, who did not do your legal due diligence when it was GLBSE on the other side -- never ensuring that the exchange was provided with all of the information needed for tax compliance, and never bothering to learn from your own legal advice that that should have been the case.
So if either party bears a greater burden in making things up to snuff at this point, it's might actually be you and not Giga, even leaving aside the fact that what he's asking you to do is free, and what you're asking him to do (buyback) is potentially very expensive. Note, for example, this:
*) Giga may not have the liquidity to do a buyback. I know on LTC-MINING it'd be pretty hard for me to do a buyback on all of them at once. All the proceeds of the sales went into hardware. That hardware resale value is probably not more than 60% of what I paid for it new.
