Topic: Jonathan Ryan Owens locked Rebate, Zip.A, Alberto & BDT thread (Read 10225 times)

JRO is not "Anon." JRO does not have coins with Pirate, AFAIK. That'd seem as absurd to me as the person giving me the debt cover proposal, though, so I guess it's possible.... not a reasonable possibility. Incidentally, before reading this, I managed to contact JRO today for the first time in over a month. Sounds like they're busy. The progress report was mostly going over stuff we already went over last month but with exact, soon dates this time, and a new potential investor. 20M is off to the side (but coming along well - waiting on habitation license so they can advertise publicly), and they're focusing on another idea, which is unsurprisingly hyper-ambitious, inspiring, and dependent on a butt-load of outside funds for starting capital. The idea is not new (well - it's new, but it's something they've talked about and prepped for months), so it's not raising too many red flags.

I'm on burn-out vacation, though. We might talk again in a few hours, then I'm going back to sulking and ordering a bunch of specifically-sized boxes and other tediously-specific working capital for a different venture until next Monday, a task which itself loses novelty very, very quickly. - And then I'm pretty much free, I think - just doing quiet, honest work every day at a machine.

On a totally unrelated note.... If anyone smokes cigarettes in Cook County, gimme a buzz.

from [GLBSE] BDK, Monthly Profit Split from Lending Operations

I wonder who this Anon is and why they care to pay off JRO's debt.
Does JRO have all the BTC with Pirate? It could explain why the $3xK debt would be paid if Pirate pays.

Did this progress at all in the last couple of weeks?

In the whole BS&T trouble it's easy to loose focus... Any updates from the issuer JRO?
Or is it safe to assume the money is down the drain? Really didn't expect ZipConf to end this way...

Cheers

Even if those funds were collected as a business, protection from liability can be lost if funds were co-mingled.  "Thous shalt not co-mingle funds" is the first commandment of limited liability entities.

Generally, when you deposit coins somewhere, you have to wait for 6 confirmations. This usually takes something like an hour, and if you're going to be busy soon, or are looking to do a time-sensitive trade, that restriction's a pain in the ass. ZipConf would have whitelisted BTC addresses with various exchanges, where there's trust established. Gox, for example, would accept ZipConf transactions with zero confirmations. ZipConf, in exchange, would take on the risk of a double-spend, which, as you imply, is very low -- but, by allowing zero-conf transactions, ZipConf would be a huge target for nefarious individuals, so it better work.

ZipConf wasn't for businesses, it was for customers who are annoyed by the 6-conf wait -- especially when many businesses don't even bother to confirm they've seen the transaction, so you pretty much see nothing on their end until the funds suddenly poof in your account anywhere between 30 minutes and two hours.

For some reason they thought they could do transactions with 0 confirmations and apparently dividends were being paid so it looked like there were businesses using it. However if it never worked then where did those dividends come from ? The most likely explanation is that they came from IPO funds and it was a ponzi scheme in the end which might have lasted longer if funds werent stolen from Kronos.

tl;dr embezzlement

How was Zipconf supposed to make money?  

I saw some marketing and buzz, but still don't understand how a business could make money solving a problem (double spends) that has never been seen "in-the-wild" (as far as I know).

What was their business model?  Who are their customers?

Would be pointless until 20Mission is proven self-sufficient. We'd basically get a portion of a lease, which isn't much of an asset. Maybe some convoluted contract could be made up by a judge where everyone owns Ringcoin IP rights. If JRO is indeed keeping money to himself, this would be totally different - but I'm unaware of hard evidence in favor of this. If there's a source for the 5kBTC in JRO's Gox account, everything changes -- but, a court obviously isn't going to award gov't funds on behalf of JRO's debt. Jared, as far as I can tell, has no responsibility in this at all. He's still busy with the Dwolla lawsuit, which may also indirectly result in a payment. So, as I see it, it's just a waiting game. Days, weeks, years - who knows. It's not like with Bitcoinica where they had funds, and then *poof* they disappeared. We're post-poof. If good stuff happens to them, good stuff possibly happens to us. If bad stuff happens to them, bad stuff happens to us. I'm hoping for good stuff. For everyone involved, there's been a lot of frustration, sweat, and tears. Some reversal of luck, I think, would be well-deserved, though unexpected.

I mean, basically - that going to kick down 20M's entry-way and putting a knife to JRO's throat would probably do less good than taking a shit at home, drinking an alcoholic beverage, and enjoying the company of family. I also think filing a lawsuit would do an equal amount of "less good" -- unless it's proven that JRO has 5kBTC sitting in Gox. 20M's address is public. I have no intention of driving from MI to SFO, but if someone wants answers, that's where to go. I think they use some smart-phone app to prevent unauthorized access into buildings, so better bring a crowbar if they refuse entry.

All that said -- 20M is in a high-demand area for their service, and their dorm-style rental units are not too uncommon in that area. The business plan seems solid, and they have delegated appropriately. A successful 20M could effectively result in a "successful" REBATE and Zip.A. I don't think JRO's a scammer, I think IceHill has just been a failure due to mistakes unable to be foreseen, and some mistakes which were a result of not being hardened vets in the field of site design and team management. With almost all Bitcoin-centric businesses, most of us are way out of our comfort zone, and learning as we go along. Though, I'm open to being proved otherwise.

I'm wondering if this would be something that might be brought up to prevent action against an issuer:
 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto_corporation_and_corporation_by_estoppel

This exact scenario is one that I've been thinking about -- wondering how it would play out:
 - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.888787

Its got nothing to do with a judge. However 20mission might need to employ extra security guards. People wont accept JRO getting rich from it while he screwed over past investors.

Perhaps you can talk to Jared and any profits from 20mission that are due to go to JRO can be put towards a buyback untill such time as it is paid off.  This hinges on what if any stake JRO has in the project.

If he didn't accept funds as a business he isn't protected from liability. Of course you still have to prove it was him collecting the funds.

None, I would think. Maybe it could be argued that since no legitimate companies raised funds, and that they were personally issued by JRO - JRO is personally responsible. I have no idea, though. JRO happens to have access to a lawyer. I do not.

Perhaps I'm missing something (and please point out where that might be if I am), but on what plane of existence do you believe that a judge sitting on a government court would agree with you that because you traded bitcoin credits for "shares" in a cyber equity (i.e., not registered as a corporation) that you would have any claim against future income from a person or other company?

I agree that suing probably isn't the best course of action.
If getting a stake in 20mission should turn out to be the ONLY way to get back our money, then I guess we don't have much of a choice. Though based on his latest business track record, we would probably end up having that default too and ending up being transferred into shares of yet another business venture of his... 
So if possible I would prefer a buy back at a reasonable price. Is JRO intent on paying investors back or has he simply "moved on"? Would you say there is any chance of getting our money back?

20Mission is registered in California. He sent me the ID # and it was on there, but it's no longer in my logs. You might be able to find it doing a search just for 20Mission on CA's business page. Fwiw, Jared didn't have any involvement until 20Mission, AFAIK, and I have no idea if any money was actually spent on 20M, or if Jared paid for everything. However, there was definitely development going on for projects like Kronos before it received any actual funding. I'm guessing the idea was that the funds would be loaned to "Kronos" until fundraising completed. Their rent contract doesn't start collecting until early January since they were doing improvements, IIRC - so the only money that could've been spent would've been fairly minimal... sprinklers, minor furnishings, paint, maybe some lumber... I know JRO was doing a lot of physical work over there, and I believe that's why he has an equity stake.

Everything's hinging on 20Mission, it seems. So... maybe you could get a lien on his dividends, a stake in 20Mission, or imprison him... dunno what beneficial result suing could have unless he really does have 5kBTC in Gox, though that'd be contrary to when he told me he moved what he had to USD something like 6-10 weeks ago.

Was the company actually formed ? I mean is there a link to the registration page anywhere ?

What are the chances people can sue JRO or Jared Kenna because money from bond issues was spent on 20mission ?

I mean if JRO is broke where else did the money come from to build it ? I think there needs to be a full accounting before they open because they risk being sued.

Edit: What I am saying is that it might be an acceptable thing to convert REBATE and/or ZIPCONF bonds into "20mission" shares or bonds. Its one possible way out of this mess that prevents a total loss.

From ZipConf.A contract on GLBSE:

Each bond has a face value of 0.5 BTC and gives the holder the right to 1/50,000 of all fees collected by the ZipConf service (“Issuer”), paid weekly (Friday) based on the prior week's earnings. Bonds have no voting rights. The Issuer has the right to terminate the asset in the event of insolvency by liquidating any company savings and pay out a final dividend. The Issuer has the right to buy back, at any time, all bonds issued for twice the price of the previous 120 hour average market price.

---

So paying dividends, from 05/07/12 to 07/30/12, would indicate to holders that fees were being collected. Not sure what kinder spin could be made of paying dividends for 2 months and then having it come out that the service never left the design stage. Have yet to hear of an orderly wind down due to "insolvency" nor of a buy back.

There is obviously a difference, though there's a similarity in that equity's being removed (maybe not in your case) to pay dividends at a loss, which is where the Ponzi claim was coming from, I assumed. I wasn't trying to defend the lack of communication, and lack of transparency.

To me, the difference between ZIP.A and the examples with Goat and yourself is that Goat and you were open about what you did. ZIP.A was not. Nowhere did anyone say that the dividends were not coming from fees, so I was led to believe that the business was generating fees, which it was not. Needless to say, if I had known that dividends were not coming from operating fees, I would never have bought.