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Topic: [Payout Updates] Bitcoinica site is taken offline for security investigation - page 78. (Read 156693 times)

hero member
Activity: 661
Merit: 500
Seriously, so since I don't use this message board my shit is less important?  I don't get it.

OK, so like are people going to get replies in their E-Mail that they listed on the claim form?

legendary
Activity: 1526
Merit: 1001
Just sent an email with BTC refund address, transaction log, and email copies received from Bitcoinica. Screenshots of wallet transfers and AML papers available if necessary.
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000
Reputation is more then a pseudonym and a high post count on some forum. The assumption here is that this equals honesty. I'm not so sure myself, especially when money is at stake. I paid for my ticket on this titanic. There was only 1 class when I signed up.

I would like to see some (relative) numbers:
* How many claims has Bitcoinica received? How does this stack up against the total amount of customers?
* Does the amount of claims exceed the amount of deposits? If so by what margin?


The number of claims received is about 25% less than total number of paid customers.

The value of claims exceed the total assets by 35%. However, taking into account the original insolvency resulted from the hacks, the margin is only about 15%.

It's manageable and I think they can handle it very well.

How much do those missing claims represent?  While it's likely a lot of people won't bother making low-value claims, from an accounting viewpoint you need to make provision for them.  If you add that value to the other numbers, how do they change?

Also, do you mean that the value of claims exceeds the total deposits by 35% rather the total of Bitcoinica's assets (which should be more than just the total of user deposits-whether user deposits could even be classed as Bitcoinica assets is an interesting question in itself as generally speaking they would be regarded as a liability from an accounting viewpoint)?

I know that you're talking somewhat informally, but just be careful about using terms like assets and insolvency - it could really bite you on the ass down the track if people are unhappy with the way this is ultimately resolved. 
hero member
Activity: 761
Merit: 500
Mine Silent, Mine Deep
Thanks for the clarifications. This system seems fair.
vip
Activity: 490
Merit: 502
Reputation is more then a pseudonym and a high post count on some forum. The assumption here is that this equals honesty. I'm not so sure myself, especially when money is at stake. I paid for my ticket on this titanic. There was only 1 class when I signed up.

I would like to see some (relative) numbers:
* How many claims has Bitcoinica received? How does this stack up against the total amount of customers?
* Does the amount of claims exceed the amount of deposits? If so by what margin?


I also wonder about the ratio of USD to BTC deposits.  While we know that they're going to be holding back 18k+ Bitcoins, there's no way of knowing how much in USD is being held back (it could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars if significantly more people have USD on deposit).

Both USD and BTC deposits are highly concentrated to a few people. The ratio is mostly determined by these people's deposits.
vip
Activity: 490
Merit: 502
Reputation is more then a pseudonym and a high post count on some forum. The assumption here is that this equals honesty. I'm not so sure myself, especially when money is at stake. I paid for my ticket on this titanic. There was only 1 class when I signed up.

I would like to see some (relative) numbers:
* How many claims has Bitcoinica received? How does this stack up against the total amount of customers?
* Does the amount of claims exceed the amount of deposits? If so by what margin?


The number of claims received is about 25% less than total number of paid customers. (We have a huge number of long-tail accounts with less than 1 USD value. So no problem with this number of claims.)

The value of claims exceed the total assets by 35%. However, taking into account the original insolvency resulted from the hacks, the margin is only about 15%.

It's manageable and I think they can handle it very well.
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000
Reputation is more then a pseudonym and a high post count on some forum. The assumption here is that this equals honesty. I'm not so sure myself, especially when money is at stake. I paid for my ticket on this titanic. There was only 1 class when I signed up.

I would like to see some (relative) numbers:
* How many claims has Bitcoinica received? How does this stack up against the total amount of customers?
* Does the amount of claims exceed the amount of deposits? If so by what margin?


I also wonder about the ratio of USD to BTC deposits.  While we know that they're going to be holding back 18k+ Bitcoins, there's no way of knowing how much in USD is being held back (it could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars if significantly more people have USD on deposit).
vip
Activity: 490
Merit: 502
No part of the claim form asked for a link to any other community.  Please explain how you are securely linking claims to "community reputation".

Please tell me you aren't using "username on bitcoinica = username on bitcointalk".  And "high post count on bitcointalk".

Do you people know anything about security?

Since I have not yet resigned, I still have access to the moderation system and the accounting reports. From what I know, most of the claims, and almost all high-value claims have records present in at least one of the accounting reports that we have. These reports have various degrees of currency.

I have moderated a few accounts, and it seems that some claims are really trustworthy, because of the claim details exactly matches our records and the account owners were extremely co-operative. Some people even sent us their full Mt. Gox logs and bank statements. I personally have no reason to delay payments for these people. I believe that what they are trying to do is to find more cases like this and refund them immediately.
legendary
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1076
* How many claims has Bitcoinica received? How does this stack up against the total amount of customers?
* Does the amount of claims exceed the amount of deposits? If so by what margin?

I don't know since I don't have full access to Bitcoinica's records (Tihan has those). But I can see the claims and the total net value is $1.1 million. I don't know what the full amount previously was (Patrick or Zhou knows) but I do know it is a few times less than the total claims.
hero member
Activity: 761
Merit: 500
Mine Silent, Mine Deep
Reputation is more then a pseudonym and a high post count on some forum. The assumption here is that this equals honesty. I'm not so sure myself, especially when money is at stake. I paid for my ticket on this titanic. There was only 1 class when I signed up.

I would like to see some (relative) numbers:
* How many claims has Bitcoinica received? How does this stack up against the total amount of customers?
* Does the amount of claims exceed the amount of deposits? If so by what margin?
legendary
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1076
No part of the claim form asked for a link to any other community.  Please explain how you are securely linking claims to "community reputation".

We aren't doing that though. We are not using a trust metric, but simply extraditing the process for people with a high degree of certainty.

Also if you do have a forum nickname, and somehow feel it helps you then feel free to email it to the claims email.
donator
Activity: 452
Merit: 252
Smacks like favoritism to me.
If it makes you feel better, what Bitcoinica is doing is essentially issuing loans to people that are backed by their reputation. Anyone that doesn't have a reputation can't really be trusted to pay them back if Bitcoinica over-pays them.

And in case you were wondering, anyone who refuses to pay Bitcoinica back if they ask because Bitcoinica believes that you are owed less than you were paid will almost certainly get a scammer tag here. Please keep that in mind.

good call maged, hopefully this helps move things along.
legendary
Activity: 1204
Merit: 1015
Smacks like favoritism to me.
If it makes you feel better, what Bitcoinica is doing is essentially issuing loans to people that are backed by their reputation. Anyone that doesn't have a reputation can't really be trusted to pay them back if Bitcoinica over-pays them.

And in case you were wondering, anyone who refuses to pay Bitcoinica back if they ask because Bitcoinica believes that you are owed less than you were paid will almost certainly get a scammer tag here. Please keep that in mind.
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000
Sorry about the above. It was a slip up by me. Tihan is correct.

30 May 23:30: We're going to proceed with payouts of the few people we have verified hopefully tomorrow for 80% of their claims (the remaining 20% will be refunded later). A more lengthy process will be applied to everyone else.

So this means that you're with-holding 20% of people's USD deposits as well as 20% of Bitcoin deposits?  I think that you need to define "later" in that case.  Given that people are expecting you to replace the missing Bitcoins by buying them on the open market, it would be wise to provide evidence of doing that.  People want to be confident that you actually have the 20% of both BTC and USD which you're intending to with-hold.

And yes, people need to realise that no matter what system is in place, someone's going to get paid first and someone's going to get paid last.
hero member
Activity: 504
Merit: 502
No part of the claim form asked for a link to any other community.  Please explain how you are securely linking claims to "community reputation".

Please tell me you aren't using "username on bitcoinica = username on bitcointalk".  And "high post count on bitcointalk".

Do you people know anything about security?
donator
Activity: 452
Merit: 252
Define 'A high rating in the community'

...

Smacks like favoritism to me.

You're totally right.

if you guys would like wire transfer numbers I have mine somewhere for nearly the exact amount in my account (minus fees), if that helps speed up the process I'll gladly send that along.

If you have anything that can help, then email [email protected]

There's an internal system being used to collate and organise all this information.

sent a couple emails there asking if they want any info that I have, I thought it was a standard email instead of a database, I'll send the AML files along then.
legendary
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1076
Define 'A high rating in the community'

...

Smacks like favoritism to me.

You're totally right. I dislike this too, but it is the most amicable solution available.

if you guys would like wire transfer numbers I have mine somewhere for nearly the exact amount in my account (minus fees), if that helps speed up the process I'll gladly send that along.

If you have anything that can help, then email [email protected]

There's an internal system being used to collate and organise all this information.
donator
Activity: 452
Merit: 252
Quote
Were they given preferential treatment?

Yes. People with a high rating within the community. These people are having their process expedited.

Originally Zhou favoured simply paying people out based on reputation (trust-based approach) whereas we (me and Patrick) supported divvying funds up accordingly among people (pro-rata). That was the nature of the disagreement and why Zhou was saying he could do immediate payouts quickly if we handed over the process. We did not think this was fair despite people calling for him to handle the process. The final method that's been mutually agreed upon by all is a hybrid method - using both approaches.

That's why I said one method is fast but inaccurate, while the other is slower but more accurate. It's a difficult decision though. And despite the criticism, I'm going to perform the payouts in the way that I personally think is most fair for all. There are a lot of people on this forum who don't have a voice so it would be unfair to simply payout to people based on reputation alone.

excellent, please keep this thread updated, I'm checking it twice a day at least.

 if you guys would like wire transfer numbers I have mine somewhere for nearly the exact amount in my account (minus fees), if that helps speed up the process I'll gladly send that along.

EDIT: and to be honest, all the people crying over favoritism, what did you expect? Hes saying they now have a system in place to pay everyone back, thats better than where we were this morning.
hero member
Activity: 761
Merit: 500
Mine Silent, Mine Deep
Define 'A high rating in the community'

What community are we talking about and how is this relevant to bitcoinica?
How is this rating calculated?
How is this verified?
How is this fair?

Smacks like favoritism to me.
legendary
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1076
Quote
Were they given preferential treatment?

Yes. People with a high rating within the community. These people are having their process expedited.

Originally Zhou favoured simply paying people out based on reputation (trust-based approach) whereas we (me and Patrick) supported divvying funds up accordingly among people (pro-rata). That was the nature of the disagreement and why Zhou was saying he could do immediate payouts quickly if we handed over the process. We did not think this was fair despite people calling for him to handle the process. The final method that's been mutually agreed upon by all is a hybrid method - using both approaches.

That's why I said one method is fast but inaccurate, while the other is slower but more accurate. It's a difficult decision though. And despite the criticism, I'm going to perform the payouts in the way that I personally think is most fair for all. There are a lot of people on this forum who don't have a voice so it would be unfair to simply payout to people based on reputation alone.
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