I honestly don't understand why AurumXchange continues to evade my very important questions, questions that would obviously help put this entire argument to bed. I think it's important that we solve this issue.
AurumXchange is listed as a partner of Bitcoinica's competitor for margin trading/futures. I hope this doesn't have anything to do with their interests in attacking Zhou, but even Charlie Shrem told me that it was intended to be a private investigation and not public. Weird.
Roberto, if you could be so kind as to answer the questions below I've already ever so politely asked (twice!), I would be ever so grateful. I have never run an exchange before myself, so I understand there are some things I might not be aware of. I look forward to your explanation! Thanks!
The matter of the fact is, we have never released any personal, sensitive, and/or confidential information regarding Zhou Tong that has not been previously and compulsory disclosed by himself to the public.
* To my surprise, upon further examination of our order system, I found an order from Zhou Tong to sell Liberty Reserve to us for the amount of USD 40,000, requesting a wire to his bank account in Singapore. The amount for the order closely matches the total USD exchanged through us (after fees) using the MtGox USD codes stolen from the Bitcoinica account.
1) Shouldn't the amount of the active order be covered by the customer's privacy agreement?
2) Shouldn't the location of the customer's bank account be covered by the customer's privacy agreement?
1. Here is the information Zhou Tong released BEFORE any statement from us:
- He acknowledge that he performed an exchange with our company for 40K LR:
I have also placed a single $40K AurumXchange order during the same period.
Note that he neither mentions it being frozen nor active, and does not give a specific date, just vaguely refers to having made a transfer.
* This order was placed the next day the hacking attempts occurred.
1) Shouldn't the time of the active order be covered by the customer's privacy agreement?
* Mark replied stating that there was activity on this account, that the account was opened using an IP address belonging to Microsoft Singapore, that Zhou Tong was known to have worked for said company at said location, that the email
[email protected] have been verified, and that ALL
activity on this account is linked to the MtGox account belonging to Zhou Tong.
1) If there is an active AML investigation, wouldn't providing this information publicly be against the law for both parties?
At this time, it appears that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence linking Zhou Tong personally to the Bitcoinica account hack at MtGox. Our legal department has advised us to freeze the funds for the exchange order mentioned above until further investigation by the authorities and/or legal proceedings are concluded.
Anyone can understand that as an exchange, you wouldn't want stolen funds running through you. What you have repeatedly failed to answer (and I mean -repeatedly-) is whether or not it is true in the operating country of AurumXchange that discussing details of an open investigation (which had been going on for over 10 days, correct?) publicly is in fact illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in prison. If it was not an open investigation, then you'd have to change a lot of what you've been saying.
By making this information public, and by begin the question of why his funds were being withheld on a public forum, we are well within our rights, both from a legal and ethical stand point, to make an statement regarding the situation. I will invite anyone to challenge this under the laws of the Commonwealth of Dominica.
Not even Charlie Shrem agrees with you on that.
So Matthew, Vitali et al, would you be so kind as to point out what specific sensitive information we have disclosed that was not compulsorily offered by Zhou Tong previous to our statement? Could you also indicate how have we broken our own terms and conditions specifically?
I believe I have above, thank you for being so cordial. I still invite you to contact Vitalik Buterin directly if you have any issue with the article he wrote, but in the meantime, most of us will still like an answer to the question that has been repeatedly unanswered.
Our legal department has advised us to freeze the funds for the exchange order mentioned above until further investigation by the authorities and/or legal proceedings are concluded.
Is it not illegal to discuss openly an active AML investigation with the public, including freezing their accounts for the purpose of an AML investigation regardless of what the customer in question has posted on a public forum?
Is it not illegal to hold funds for longer than 7 days if there was no investigation?
At this time, it appears that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence linking Zhou Tong personally to the Bitcoinica account hack at MtGox.
Is it not unlawful as an exchange to publicly insinuate that one of your customers is a thief without empirical conclusive evidence provided by authorities care of an AML investigation?
Thanks for helping to resolve these confusions. Feel free to answer when more information is allowed to be revealed. I am confident we can get to the bottom of these confusions that are causing us to butt heads so long as both parties are willing to answer questions openly and transparently.
Cheers
P.S. For anyone interested in the Bitcoinica debacle, we've interviewed the major parties involved and compared it with publicly available information. You can read the balanced and consolidated results of our findings in
Anyways, its not my territory so carry on! 
