Topic: GPUMAX | The Bitcoin Mining Marketplace - page 7. (Read 215558 times)

It is possible since you have to sign up to rent hashing power they hope people will want to try it. Novelty factor or whatever. I know no one wants to hear this but it is possible this is actually intended to be a business. Anyone who gambles by buying shares pays the house. Everyone who mines for the house gets paid. People aside from pirate have paid and sure it seems to be around  bitminter races. Whoever got the most shares or found the most blocks got a prize. Two prizes last weekend. Before it got too long in the que several people on the thread used it.  I only know that because they complained the delays cost them money. Even some new users last week.

With the no to low delays I am actually suprized more people aren't trying to gamble on prop.

 Got a bunch of invites. Useless now anyway. 

I also got my invite today... looks like somebody needs more power

WTF I just got an invite I don't even remember signing up because I don't know how I'd lease out my hashing.

also got invited and dont think i'll be using it cool idea and all but i'll pass

I got invited too. Meh, won't participate in laundering.

Apparently I missed a carrige return Sorry for the inconvenience. Paragraphed up for you now.

Got one too!

Possibly. As far as I'm concerned it doesn't really matter. There aren't enough purchases running these days for GPUMax to be a big deal, I've just been negotiating contracts via PM...

Why doesn't bitcointalk shut these threads down?
They are a community voice and should set up stickied warnings.

So do I. It seems a bunch of people have been invited.

Worrying? 

I think I had the same dream.

Me too!
But I had a bad dream about pirateat40 

Yay I finally got invited!

Eugh.....

So, who's going to be the first to develop a GPUMax clone that allows purchases to be activated instantly?

Because that'd be a fantastic tool for hoppers 

yeah, and you forgot about abstract, introduction, conclusion and bibliography of course 

PLEASE WRITE in PARAGRAPHS instead of a single longgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg statement.

That's the thing. It likely would wind up with inquiries. Providing some DA actually has enough proof to get warrants. I don't know about where zuxor is but where pirate claims to be from or appears to be from there are certain legal protections. For example until convicted in court he has done nothing wrong. He isn't guilty yet. Could he be, sure. Would I say he is no.
I have theories about what happened.
1. legitimate business gone wrong. Pirate used buying and selling bitcoins to control bitcoin prices. He makes money off the volitility and people who lent him money get paid for their part. Downside, A run on his trust causes him to buy back coins at likely a higher price then he sold them for. Everyone loses money. When the trust closed up the price of bitcoins stopped heading up up and away. Market swings got much much greater from my watching.
2. Ponzi/other scheme. Paid people with money he took in from other investors. Downside once enough accrues the scam is over and scammer leaves. Proof None as no money went out to do anything for making money with. Looking for it requires that little to no money got used for anything that would make money directly and then paid people back. Proving is far harder. If the funds where cashed out then it is a matter of getting enough proof together so that documents could be seized.

Assuming there are many more ways of making money but to be honest I doubt that laundering money was the MO. Yes for a scam the overall thought put in is usually far from exceptional. Even assuming that the person running the scam had an accident that left them severely brain damaged I doubt they would miss that they are getting maybe 70% of the money back. Yes bitcoins could be traced and clean ones are clean but the exchange wouldn't stop the sale of he dirty ones either way. If you sell dirty coins before anyone claims the are dirty you have plenty of time to make off with them before any legal proceedings would seize you monies. Why wash coins that you can sell for cash? You could argue so that you keep the cleaned ones and no one is the wiser and that could be. Usually washing money well laundering money is to keep the government from proving how you made that money. Yes if you sell ~70% of the value in cleaned money I suppose it would be harder to prove how they where paid for. But no one uses a single stage washer to clean them. Yeah the exchange might let law enforcement know who withdrew the "frauded?" coins. But can they prove that the coins where stolen? Pirates bank undoubtedly mark a large deposit as any large transaction would be likely flagged. The problem is did they get sold or did they get used or did they get lost in business gone awry.

So far I hear theories but never see anything resembling proof. It would be hard to prove everything a person says. It isn't that I know his business was legit but I see several correlations with legitimate businesses that did fold up under similar circumstances using a similar method of making money. Just look at the hedgefunds that closed up during the financial crisis because of excessive withdrawls during down tape. Or banks closing during the great depression. People wanted more then was on hand and with an inability to get enough cash together businesses tend to collapse. Proof of a crime is did people take money out knowing there wouldn't be enoug to pay back their investors or did people run a legitimate business with insufficient cash on hand for a 50% or greater withdrawl rate. Every 1% you keep on hand for withdrawls means you need to make more on what is left in the fund to pay for the liquidity. If 50% is out in a safe wallet you would have to average 14% to pay people 7% and make no money. If on the other hand you kept 10% out you only have to make more then 7.7% to pay off your investors and make money. Most businesses do not keep all their money in cash on hand. You can't make money on it to pay people for keeping it on hand.

So in your mind because some of the same bitcoins moved into BTCST and through gpumax it is a fact that only pirate of zuxor could have moved them? I ask because I got more then enough in payments from BTCST to put a couple of small runs on GPUmax. I also got out early enough that I had no issues and feel sorry for those that did. What you hint at but never actually say is that you have links to funds from a wallet only used for deposits by BTCST depositors paying out money for gpumax payments if I understand your shadow of a doubt correctly. Besides shadows of doubt not being the legal requirement, at least in the US a REASONABLE DOUBT is all that is required.
You can find no reason why pirate could reasonably have put a run through on GPUmax? Someone with a lot of say in purchase timing (manually triggering them) couldn't hop a prop pool? I hear that you can make 30% from that. So if Pirate paid out 7% and hopped for ~20% he should wind up ahead like 13%. Now there are some expenses to concider that being the miners extra profit over PPS. I would assume that pirate could actually type in his own price. Maybe he can't but I would bet that he could. I don't know about you but I do doubt that there isn't a reasonable doubt as to how someone trying to make money with enough control to time when his purchases go through and what he paid could use GPUmax to hop.
I do understand how co-mingling the funds may look bad but apparently they didn't deny or hide that it was happening. That doesn't sound like fraud. Fraud is "deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage." Sourced from dictionary.com. Not denying it says that deciet and trickery are out. Breach of confidence unlikely as apparenlty it was public knowledge. Perpetrated to gain a dishonest advantage, (over who?) the investors they aren't competing, the miners they got paid. Dishonest advantage again who is the competition. Sharp practice.... overly acute or cutting practice... Ahh crafty or decietful dealings. Crafty, yes getting people to invest into a trust with no insurance is a little crafty. Decietful, again it sounds like most of what was done is rather in the open. Assuming one could prove a Ponzi scheme then sure it would be fraud. Pirate played the exchances it looks like (took credit for) and made money off the swing (price differential low to high). That isn't deceptive at all. He even admitted to doing it. As far as the co-mingling money goes would it legally matter if 10 BTC goes into the wallet for a GPUMax purchase then 10BTC goes out of said wallet from monies that where intrusted by the trust? Technically money (loosly since it isn't a recognized currency) is fungible. Legally it tends not to matter where the specific money you paid out came from only that the books balanced. That having been said if something illicit was the source of said money anything paid for with illicit funds would be seized. But so far it doesn't sound illicit.
 Do you know where every BTC you spend came from before you send them? With the exception of sending all I truely doubt it. I paid my BTCST gains to BFL through bitpay for an upgrade on my FPGA hardware. I can't easily prove that none of those gains would be in my wallet. Heck could the passthrough operator have changed what coins got sent to me? I think it is possible. It doesn't mean that I stole from anyone. I generally have less then 100% proof where each bill in my wallet came from. I bet a lot of people couldn't say where a specific single in their wallet came from assuming it wasn't marked. Even then it would be fairly unlikely when they went to spend money that a bill from one place didn't get paid at another.
As an aside since bitcoins are not a currency and technically BTCST didn't actually legally exise as a bank or savings and loan or any sort of financial institution. Also since it was not a financial institution technically I find it likely that no insurance was applied for on the not legal tender contained there-in. Add to that that prior to 1930 most banks in the US did not have any insurance for the funds they contained and when a run on them happened most banks of that nature folded up. To say that a run on uninsured coins closed up a non FDIC unsured non financial institution seems the opposite of suprising. As a matter of fact it sounds like the start of the Great Depression. I know everyone that lost their money likely has a Great Depression right now but unlike actual banks this trust was not insured, had no oversight and likely the people who put money there should have expected 100% losses. I doubt anyone actually had never recieved a single payment. It is possible but new accounts closed months before so only the people in a uninsured passthrough after the interest rate drop being their timing for a first deposit would be in that boat. I am not trying to make light of others losses. I know that people likely needed that money badly. I know that the temptation for incredible gains outweighed their security in their personal wallets too.

Don't get me wrong I hope that everyone gets paid back. I wish you luck.

Do you mind keeping the forum up to date on your case or post it here when the case is closed?