I'll start this off by saying I'm done with Twitter. All it has done is lost me money and created drama in my life. I don't need either. I really didn't want to do this but I had to go out telling my beloved community the truth. The time and effort I put fourth in writing this damn thing isn't worth the $500 I lost. But somebody told me QTM had an IPO of 25k (this is unverified) and I feel the community should know a bit about who these people are, or specifically one person. I consider myself a type of Robin Hood in this fucked up community. I have been involved in Bitcoin for quite some time now. In 2011, a friend and I started one the the first USD/BTC exchanges ever,
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcoinbuxcom-great-service-cash-depositwumgxoom-etc-buysell-btc-25978. I've also developed an altcoin,
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.4455918, with the name Kushcoin (months before Potcoin by the way), just do show how easily it is to rip off Bitcoin! Around the time Mt Gox declared insolvency, I regained interest in Bitcoin once again. I felt it might be a good time to buy. Here is where my dealing with @Altcoinace (AKA Andrew Lee) begin. Now, I was very familiar with Bitcoin / Litcoin, but I didn't know much about all these "new" altcoins. Additionally, I'm not a day trader, I'm not experienced in technical analysis. I'm a programmer. So, I was on Poloniex troll box one night, hoping for some inside info when I saw an individual who called himself Altcoinace. I don't remember exactly what it was but he made at least two profitable calls and suggested that I join his twitter, which I did immediately. Shortly after joining twitter, (this was around the time MZC and AUR were having their hayday's) Altcoinace suggested creating a private group. At the time, I was doing pretty bad on my own. Hell, I was new to trading! So I said "what the hell, .01 for trading advice, I can afford that." So a handful of other's and I joined the group. 18 people or something, if I recall correctly. Things started terribly. Here is his first email to our group.
Mar 15
"I am in my early 20s, began trading/speculating at the age of 16 via online games. My first big profit was also at the age of 16 when I was able to sell my account for over $2000 by accumulating rare items via trading/speculating the game market with only having put $200 in. I bought my first BTC this past summer, bought a total of 11 before august but unfortunately lost majority due to Mt.Gox."
-Okay that should have been my first red flag. Forget about the fact that Mt Gox had an extremely dubious beginning as a mechanism to exchange magic the gathering cards. I didn't lose one dollar in the Mt Gox fiasco. But I made the stupid mistake of giving my money to somebody who couldn't see in the beginning that they weren't a legitimate organization, and that they lacked the technical sophistication necessary to run an exchange of their size. This is the first example of his extreme lack of judgement and trading ability. Here's his first suggestion for the group.
Mar 16
"SPA - A
Definitely showing signs of AUR trends, will probably not hit as high but I expect an easy 0.01 pending media coverage and world interest."
Mar 16
"One word = SPA. This just may make alot of ppl very rich. Expecting 0.01 - 0.02 range."
Mar 17
"Hello everyone, quick update here.
"I'm aware that many of you are holding SPA and have expressed concern at the drop. As I said before it is most likely a shakedown but in order to make sure I spent the last few hours keeping an eye on it just to be sure of myself. I am pretty convinced SPA will follow AUR trends and there are some solid indicators such as market cap, pulling and placing of buy/sell walls. Manipulation into panic sells. The next few days will determine the fate of SPA. Provided that SPA recieves media attention as AUR did, 0.01 should be easy with a cap of 0.02 (conservative numbers)."
Mar 17
"Everyone, I am officially balls deep in SPA and hope for the best.
I may delay updates on other markets since most of you including me have a heavy stake in SPA.
I accumulated a large number of SPA in the midst of some heavy buying competition with others when SPA dropped down to 900-750 levels. I also point out how strongly AUR is holding so far.
I appreciate your trust in me and hope for the best.
Getting ready for blast off."
-Long story short, I lost .5 BTC due to Altcoinace's poor judgement. This is just the beginning. For what ever reason, he decides to terminate the group. After two weeks he announced the group would be closed and he would be moving on to another project. I developed a bit of a friendship with this guy over the two weeks, and didn't worry too much about the .5 BTC I lost due his bad advice. We all make mistakes, right? So, he announces he's started a fund of sorts. It's actually exactly what he's trying to do now. He calls this fund Ace & Company or A&C for short. So let's forget about his lack of judgement in the Mt. Gox situation and SPA situation and focus of his outline for A&C for a moment.
Mar 27
"Hello,
This is a mail sent to those interested in participating A&C. I would like to clarify certain points. Regarding transparency,
I will be issuing a receipt of BTC received along with an estimated USD worth of the BTC."
-I never received a receipt.
Mar 29
"Hello, a quick update regarding A&C.
Here is a breakdown of how I allocated funds.
50% as BTC, untouched.
20% turned into USD in order to buy up during loss/prevent loss in crash
30% used for margin trading.
Due to the volatility of BTC numbers have been flying all over the place, a few big gains cut down by several small losses. I will be approaching it with a different method to avoid such losses and still obtain optimal profits."
Sincerely,
AltcoinAce
-This is an email I sent him on Mar 28. 1) What will be my initial investment date? Is it today, 03/27/2014?
2) Will we, the investors, be receiving weekly reports? If so, do you have an expected time table of when you will be providing them?
3) Here's a hypothetical, what if the price of BTC skyrockets or free falls. Is this considered a loss / gain on my investment?
4) You mentioned that if you get 10 BTC, you won't be able to utilize all of it at one time, which is understandable. How do you decide which investor funds are going to be utilized.
-Look how he answer's number 2.
Mar 28
"2) You will receive more than one report per week. Any substantial gains or losses, you will be notified of along with a summary every week. I will not be providing details of what I did and such, which I hope you understand. Although I will be happy to account for any losses."
-I NEVER received any report. The guy was so shady and nontransparent I was beginning to think he was trying to pull a fast one. And I wasn't the only one thinking like this. Everyone else jumped ship and pulled their money out. Altcoinace was losing money and didn't want to tell his investors and it was pissing people off. A gentleman named Ryan, one of the other investors apparently, emailed me and asked me my thoughts on Altcoinace.
Apr 4
"Yeah I asked for the status of my funds yesterday- as it had been one week. He did not tell me if there were profits or losses but that he would send an update once btc dips, because thats "where the money is". Then I asked for my funds back (or just the profit if there is any) about 10 hours ago, because I want to do some trading myself with it. Have not heard back."
"Well one hour after I sent to him last week he said he lost .1 so almost 1/3. But said he would make it back."
"No, he is claiming that because he lost .1 literally immediately he covered it with his money and otherwise of my .35 he has only made .02 profit. So of that he is sending me .01.
"He has ignored my request via skype to have the .35 back and on kik keeps insinuating the big money is to come. What sounds sketchy is only making .02 in one week ...Now he is saying he filled that loss with his own money and made .02 and is sending me .01."
-So even in the very beginning he's losing people money, not following his promise of providing weekly reports, acting shady, and I am still fucking sticking up for this guy! I actually still trusted this guy. I think I actually even invested more BTC! I must have been drunk or something. My total investment came out to 1 BTC. So, let's look back on his allocation of funds and his poor judgement, this all ties together. Remember:
I allocated funds.
50% as BTC, untouched.
20% turned into USD in order to buy up during loss/prevent loss in crash
30% used for margin trading.
Then this happens....
Apr 11
"Hello everyone... I'm sending out this email with a sincere apology. On the run down I had a short position which filled while I was sleeping... when I woke up I found out that I went from being up 300$ to now having a loss of 500$... during my sleep I lost 800$ :/
This is my fault. I failed to expect a trend reversal at new lows for btc and like an idiot I couldnt beat sleep :/ anyways I'm not sure which direction to take now since this was a heavy and unexpected loss. Anyways I'll attatch a screenshot for proof and get back to you when I figure something out. I sincerely apologize once again."
-Ok now let's fast forward for a second so we can do some math together. He eventually returns .35 of my original investment of 1 BTC back to me. How did he lose %65 of my investment over night? I thought only 30% would be used for margin trading? How did this happen? I'll tell you how. This kid, Altcoinace is inexperienced and reckless. He is a liar. He has NO idea what he is doing. He can't even follow his own set of rules. Who puts in such aggressive sell orders then goes to bed? Somebody who doesn't give 2 shits about you or your money. I felt the best play for me at this moment would be to act cool, tell him it's not a big deal, get him back on that horse so he can make my money back. So that's what I did. He thought we were friends. This is when he began asking me for additional funding (LOL). I told him I may be able to find more BTC to invest. He actually sent me a KIK message GUARANTEEING profits. LOL. What kind of fool would do such a thing. I even told him after he said that, that was a bad idea to give out guarantee's. Why would he guarantee me profits while asking me for money? I wonder....Anyway, I start saving every single KIK message I have with this guy. I also found his facebook and saved some pictures of what he looked like, travel documents, anything I could find in case I needed it one day. Weeks go by and I hear nothing about him recovering any of his losses. We speak causally from time to time, and i'll ask him the how fund's doing and he says how busy he's been, hasn't had time, friends are moving away, ect. Then he decides to start this QTM thing. And I'm over here thinking, what the fuck, I though we had Ace & Company, I mean, I invested in HIS company and now hes abandoning it? This was obviously troubling to me. So I was nice about it (didn't want to piss him off and have him run away with what little money of mine he had left) and asked him how QTM would effect Ace & Company. He said it wouldn't. That it was two separate entities and that Ace & Company was just for me and him to "get rich" Sounds good, right? I thought at the time, "He'll work both funds, he just needs a little time." I mean fuck, what choice did I have? I wanted him to at least TRY and make my money back. Months go by. I hear nothing. No reports, no hello's. Finally I message him one day because I saw him post something stupid on Twitter about Zetacoin. This fucking guy actually thought Safaricom would somehow implement Zetacoin. Now this is when I began to lose my temper. Ever since I have know this guy, all he has done is shown a complete disregard for common sense and a complete lack of competent judgement. And do you know what his reasoning was? He though he had inside information! Hahah. This guy is off the charts! It's like he's living in some sort of fantasy land. He is out of touch with reality. Very troubling to say the least. He lost 65% of my money on April 11. He promised to make it back, even guarenteeing it! He made NO attempt what so ever to do so. Altcoinace is a scammer. He should not be trusted with people's money. I don't know how involved he is in QTM but it is to my knowledge he is a very integral part, if not the majority partner. I have saved every email I have from this person. Everything I posted here today is true and I have proof. I have saved every single KIK message with this individual and would be happy to share with anyone who has invested in QTM. I am not here to ruin anybody, just telling the world what happened to me. They say history repeats its self. Maybe I can save someone from losing some money. That would be a win for me in my book