(TL/DR version: POSW Holdings LLC,, the owners of poswallet.com, thru intent or accident, have defrauded the developer of GAYcoin to the tune of nearly ONE MILLION DOLLARS USD.)
Id like to preface this by stating that I was an early adopter and booster of poswallet.com. With the push towards the more environmentally conscious Proof-of-Stake type currencies available, it was a great place to be able to start looking into a number of different alt-currencies I wouldve otherwise ignored, being able to stake them in a pooled setting. I began staking a little bit in a whole lot of different coins, POS wasnt a very comfortable concept to me, my experience being working with the EVM as one of the developers of SOILcoin. I used poswallet.com for months, not a single problem. I became an unpaid promoter, talking up the project online, to my friends, etc.
Fast forward to April 23rd of this year, and the events that have now led to the reason behind this open message to the cryptocurrency community. Without warning to the poswallet community, during a spate of announcements related to currency delistings scheduled for a few weeks down the road, one currency was simply completely and suddenly delisted from the exchange and the online staking wallet, without explanation. This was the currency GAYmoney.
Owing to the fact I had about 500 GAYcoins in my possession on poswallet.com, I wrote to the poswallet_admin on the slack channel to ask what had happened. I was informed that they had decided to delist the currency, and that they had credited user accounts with POSWcoin as a form of compensation. 500 GAY coins may not have been much, but Im not a rich investor, im on a small disability pension and cryptocurrency, even thru my own project's development, its never been something that was going to make me rich, but there is a principle involved in the matter which Ive been very vocal about in the past. I mentioned that there wasn't any record of POSW being credited to my account, and was informed it had been done "internally", so there was no transaction record per se.
Cryptocurrency exchanges NEED to be held to a higher standard, we the public have to put trust in them in order to hold our funds. When we place our digital assets on an online exchange, or pooled staking service like poswallet.com, you are placing trust in a group of people, in this case - a directorship that has publicly chosen to remain anonymous - to hold your funds and not to misplace them, or do whatever they want with them.
I communicated this to the developer and admin of poswallet on their slack channel, and he agreed, finding a way to make sure that in the future, with currency delistings that could not be withdrawn in a typical fashion by whatever reason, that compensation would be verifiable and with transparent transactions. They agreed that open and honest communication between the exchange administrators and both supported currency developers and the community of users that use the service was a fundemental aspect going forward. poswallet_admin even commented that the exchange could use someone like me on board, working for them, and that they were going to be looking at their staffing needs going forward very soon.
All seemed fine, I even began reaching out to the developers and communities of the currencies that were on the delisting chopping block, to see if there was any way to save those currencies. For some, it seemed, poswallet had become a last refuge other than yobit, which has become notorious for its poor customer service. For others, they were abandoned by the developer, and didnt have a sustainable community - theyll be listed only in the necronomnicon threads going forward unfortunately, but still - i believe in supporting a healthy cryptocurrency ecosystem, and every project CAN have its merits.
I also got in touch with the developer of GAYmoney, GeorgeL. I just wanted to understand what the problem had been and to offer a bit of compassion, as a developer who has found the road to getting listed on reputable exchanges to be an arduous one, and having been delisted (due to volume) from the only exchange we were on... I understood the frustration from a personal level. I wound up having a great conversation with him. We talked about his plans giong forward for his project, how he wanted to rebrand it and start making good on the locked reserves he set aside during luanch years ago - to provide a philanthropic legacy for LGBT and HIV/AIDS advocacy and research as those funds became available. He had very ambitious plans going forward and a deep passion for his project. After talking with him over a few days I agreed to come on board to help build a community base for the project on the cryptocurrency side of the equation, and was also presented with a problem....
George had requested the funds he had deposited into poswallet.com in GAYmoney be returned to him, and the admin at PoSWallet returned a pair of private keys to him, one of which was connected to his account, the other one to was an empty, unused account. The private key to the GAY wallet he owned on poswallet, to which he requested the funds from, contains 2,483,738 GAY, a large part of his personal holdings, was not included. George sent me the private keys they had sent so that i could verify, and his problem was very accurate.
As he explained the situation, he had begun to withraw his large stake on the website, and very suddenly, the exchange simply deleted its listings for GAYmoney on its dashboard and on its exchange (although they left the market running for days afterward, via the link at coinmarketcap). He was accused of "forking the wallet" by the admin, and then was offered 30,000 POSWcoins in compensation for the currency that was now unaccessible. George sent me screen captures of his few deposits onto poswallet.com, as well as his withdrawals (and tx hashes) and current balances. There was record of his own deposits, but no record of the POSWcoin deposit. There was NO RECORD of him withdrawing the bulk of his wallet, although there were two confirmed withdrawals of a smaller amount of GAY. There was no current balance of POSWcoins in his current balance to support his having received any POSWcoins in compensation for the 2.4 mln GAY account.
He gave me permission to speak with poswallet.com's support and administration staff on his behalf regarding this, and while i have provided both entities with the transaction record of the initial deposits made by Gaymoney's dev onto poswallet.com AND the private keys they had sent to George as well as links to the wallets they own AND provided them George's email to contact him with the correct private key or to do the proper thing, rebuild their GAY wallet with the backup data that any responsible exchange would keep, and simply send a verifiable transactin from the wallet they have control of to a wallet address that we have provided.
A week of consistent contact on my part has been completely ignored by the admin of poswallet, and the support staff member on the slack channel assured me days ago that this problem would be taken care of right away but then maintained no further communication. When I finally mentioned a likely complaint to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a subsiduary of the US Treasury Department, I got a response from the administrator on the slack channel. I was informed that they didn't own the GAY wallet the coins were in, that they were "somehow sent to an external wallet - either via a technical bug or via hacking". When I pointed out that it was his exchanges responsibility to maintain security, and if there had been a hack, they were duty bound to have reported it to the userbase rather than trying to cover it up. I insisted that GeorgeL be returned his funds, and was finally told "I think PoSWallet.com will have to shut down because of this. We only have 1.2 BTC in funding (this project was a labor of love) - we can not afford to fight something that we have already settled."
I need a moment to put this problem into a monetary perspective, regardless of anyone's political beliefs regarding the currency itself. Currently the 7-day average price for GAYcoin has maintained a valuation between 16.000 and 22.000 satoshi... between USD$0.35-$0.45. The assumable value of the currency, based on the last transaction in BTC on the markets is 17.128 satoshi (approximately USD$0.39 based on a $2260 USD bitcoin at the time of writing) Presented as a value in bitcoin, the wallet being held by poswallet.com is worth 425.4 BTC. In US dollar value, this represents an assumable value, using the same unit price above for BTC, of USD $961,404. JUST UNDER A MILLION DOLLARS U.S.
George has been very upset about this, he has proof of deposit thru the blockchain, he has the public address to the wallet poswallet stored his funds on, supposedly securely, and has provided everything they would need to ensure that his assets, deposited in good faith, would be returned to him after the exchange arbitrarily and without notice, removed the currency from the exchange and dashboard, preventing him from retrieving the assets as would be his right, as would be ANYONES rights we should assume, in dealing with a supposedly reputable cryptocurrency exchange. Again, the spectres of Mt.Gox and Cryptsy rear their heads, and should we be surprised, dealing with an administration staff that chooses to remain anonymous. This is a stark reminder that the only coins you OWN are the ones you maintain the private keys to the wallet for. You can exercise evidenciary channels to prove ownership, but when dealing with a dishonest entity who maintains those keys, you have NO CONTROL over your own funds.
I have communicated the urgency and the value of this problem to both poswallet's admin and support staff on the slack channel and can provide saved copies of what has been sent to them, as well as the links thru the GAYmoney block explorer to the deposits made, and LEFT in stasis, I can provide screenshots of the GAYcoin developers poswallet.com account showing his deposits, his withdrawls and his balance, all of which can be independently verified thru the blockchain. PoSWallet has yet to provide any documentation to support their claims.
I have remained professional and looked for ANY SORT of constructive communication with the staff at poswallet in finding out, firstly: what went wrong, and secondly: how to fix it. This is a million dollar mistake on their part, and one might assume, something they would devote some time to soving and some constructive communication both to myself as the authorized representative for GAYmoney's developer or to GeorgeL, who held the account on poswallet.com in the first place.
They have failed to answer any question, they have failed to provide any documentation, they have failed to send any logfile requested showing the investigation they supposedly did to find out how George's funds were transferred to "an outside wallet" withough any transaction record (something that could only be done through an internal transaction, which admin already showed a capability of in supposedly sending POSWcoin compensation to currency holders in compensation without any transaction record), they have failed to send the private key to George's GAYmoney wallet that was removed from his ability to access by poswallets injudicious delisting and deletion of GAYmoney from their services without any prior notice. This is THEFT.
poswallet.com is registered as PoSWallet Holdings LLC in Youngsville, NC; and thus subject to the financial regulations enforced within the United States, and complaints regarding this situation will be filed with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). A lawsuit against PoSWallet Holdings LLC and its directors (Colin Blakely, Nathan Faust, Michail Douranos, and Petros Anagnostou) may be launched.
poswallet's terms and conditions state "PoSWallet makes no representation and does not warrant the safety of the Platform and is not liable for any lost value or stolen property, whether or not PoSWallet was negligent in providing the proper security." Yet, when poswallet ITSELF is behind the problem by deslisting the currency without warning, trapping every users funds originally placed into their care - when they misrepresent the private keys sent to the owners of those wallets - this isnt an issue of negligence in security, it begins to look like a case of actionable and possible criminal neglect on the part of the staff employed by poswallet, if not outright criminal enterprise. This contumacious action should be a simple fix. The adress in question:
http://104.236.2.124:3001/address/gNWMUpHjwEvDEGZ2z56FdotCc4HgPQNfo6 must have its funds released by PoSWallet Holdings LLC back to the rightful owner, George Lawin. If these funds have been made unavailable because poswallet's staff irresponisbly did not maintain proper backups, they are responsible to rectify the situation by fully reimbursing the owner in another currency that is agreeable to that developer. (In this case - 425 BTC)
In fairness to the other side of the story, a short history of GAYmoney is helpful. It is a long extant cryptocurrency project, launched in 2014 by "GeorgeL", the developer. He set aside in the genesis block, and then locked up, a premine of 5 billion GAY coins that would be released in the future to LGBT and HIV/AIDS awareness, advocacy and ativism groups and individuals, with the plan of sustained philanthropic funding that will last decades. He has referred to this as his "legacy" and wants to help address social issues related to his currency's target market. This is less a simple cloned altcoin and more of a social endowment coupled with a specialized digital currency targeting one of the most diverse markets on the planet. That reserve account remains locked and untouched in the GAY.foundation wallet (which is non-participatory in the staking consensus). link:http://104.236.2.124:3001/address/gLsrjEbo31wmXZQssAeGyrw4CwBZgxafev
While the project has remained under-the-radar for a long time - George faced initial resistance and bigotry when he made his original [ANN], a new one will be set out soon - there is a great deal of development underway for a sort of re-launch with new website, wallets, storefront partnerships, and a large scale philanthropic movement via the assosciated GAY.foundation to be ready by 3rd quarter of this year. A GAYmoney dedicated gateway for fiat and major cryptocurrency exchange markets is being investigated, which will eventually maintain an altcoin exchange dedicated to a strong sense of community with both developers and users and a focus on showcasing cryptocurrencies with socially consicious agendas. We will focus on building connections between the cryptocurrency community and the LGBT and HIV/AIDS aweness communities worldwide.
GAYmoney remains a tradable asset on Cryptopia, against BTC, LTC, DOGE and UNO and George is interested in pursuing further exchange integrations, although he wants to set the bar high for the reputation of the exchange, and has expressed great interest in co-operation on decentralized "atomic-trading" exchanges. We are presently taking the first steps in setting up an active community network on both sides of the digital divide to help make GAYmoney a stable and long-term humanitarian cryptocurrency with well established usage in the real world. If anyone wants to get involved with GAYmoney, and in helping build a decentralized, globally social-conscious network, please dont hesitate to contact me here on bitcointalk or via email at
[email protected]. The lead dev, George, can be reached at
[email protected] as well.
Im hoping that in making this issue public that poswallet will be pressured into releasing George's funds to him in a timely and responsible manner, as any exchange would do given the unique circumstances of this situation, one that they themselves set into motion with their own actions. Please share it widely, and if you agree, please write to poswallet_admin and poswallet_support on the poswallet.slack.org channel, as well as on their website.
I dont know the full reasons behind the delisting of GAYmoney by poswallet, despite asking the admin why and not getting a response, and I wont put any political motivation behind those decisions without evidence. I wont engage in FUD because this situation could simply be a glitch on their part that they are trying to solve, but hoping to preserve pulic trust by remaining somewhat elusive while they put things back together. I can hope thats whats happening.
Beyond writing this, and informing the cryptocurrency community as a whole about the distressing lack of real support and also regarding the possible criminal behaviour by the administrators of poswallet.com and executives at PoSWallet Holdings LLC, I hope this impels the public to remove their funds held on or trading on a service that shows a consistent trait of financial irresponsibility and a failure to live up to its promises until such time as the executives come clean regarding the missing funds in GAYmoney that they have thus far refused to release to its RIGHTFUL LEGAL OWNER.
I will be forwarding a complaint to FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network), an agency of the US Department of the Treasury, to whom poswallet.com has applied for certification to operate as a MSB (Money Services Business). In this PoSWallet Holdings must, as both a virtual currency exchange and the administrators thereof are considered money transmitters, and must comply with rules to prevent money laundering/terrorist financing and other forms of financial crime, by verifiable record-keeping, accurate reporting and mandatory registerion. A Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) or Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) will be made, as the transactions by PoSWallet Holdings, and its exchange are very unusual for this particular sort of business, and appear to be done only for the purpose of hiding or obfuscating transactions or in-house negligence. By rights, the support staff should have ALREADY submitted an SAR as the transaction in question is aggregated to above $25.000, which is applicable to values of stocks, mutual funds, etc... and inclusive by definition with digital or virtual currencies.
PoSWallet has failed to provide any documentation regarding the deposits they supposedly made, or the log files for debugging the issue that would have been done. These funds were entrusted to them, and as operators of an exchange, they have failed in their fiduciary duties to safeguard them, and have acting grossly negligent and with criminal irresponsibility. A "constructive fraud claim", as defined by statutes in North Carolina is being investigated, as a cause of action exists, PoSWallet Holdings LLC and GeorgeL were in:
(1) a relationship of trust and confidence,
(2) that the defendant took advantage of that position of trust in order to benefit himself, and
(3) that plaintiff was, as a result, injured.
Owing to it's registration as an LLC (Limited Liability Company) in North Carolina, PoSWallet Holdings is governed by the "North Carolina Limited Liability Company Act", as well as the Articles of Organization governing all LLCs in North Carolina. Colin Blakely, the registerer of POSW Holdings LLC (
http://www.sosnc.gov/Search/filings/12639858) as manager and controlling shareholder, legally owes a fiduciary duty to minority shareholders. This fiduciary duty by a majority shareholder manager of an LLC is defined in North Carolina as the contract "to exercise reasonable care, skill, and diligence in the transaction of business entrusted to him, and he will be responsible to his principal for any loss resulting from his negligence in failing to do so."
Its time for exchanges to be held accountable, for the registered agents to be held responsible for their actions and neglect when acting as financial agents, and should not be allowed the comfort of anonymity. Ive also experienced smaller disappearances on poswallet.com, not for any amount approaching the theft of the GAYcoin wallet in question, but in the eyes of an exchange operator each single investment whould be equal as each represents the actual funds of a user placing trust in them. Im sure theres a thousand more tales of mismanagement at poswallet, from what ive seen on the troll box in the last few days, things are unravelling there in a hurry. Me, im taking every coin i can off that exchange before it closes its doors. And then, Ill be investigating the mechanisms required to begin actions, criminal and civil, against Colin Blakely and any other named manager of POSW Holdings LLC, on behalf of George Lawin, the lead developer of GAYmoney.
Sorry for the lengthy post, folks, but in cases like this, the facts must be presented in total to defer the oncoming FUD and insanity. Ive spent weeks trying to solve this issue with poswallet.com's staff, only to be gven excuses that might mollify someone new to cryptocurrency, but sound a whole lot like the first steps of an exit strategy to someone seasoned.