On the subject of UseD... it occurs to me that they had a website which must have been hosted... and paid for... probably in fiat. A few bribes might jog a few memories. Perhaps a reward fund for information leading to the discovery of the perpetrators (I'm sure Moolah would handle the excrow to guarantee honesty). All information to be delivered to the appropriate authorities, of course.
BTW an anyone confirm the transfer of the proceeds from Bittrex? I'm not much good with block explorers. Shouldn't be too hard, unless the coins are being siphoned off slowly to avoid scrutiny... in which case Bittrex still have time to launch an investigation.
Lets see
Emails
BitcoinForum
Pools
CCEx
Bittrex
Web hosting
Escrow
Maidak will be escrowing the IPO/Pre-sale for UseCoin, see instructions below!
ip addresses
there must be enough breadcrumbs to follow.
No, none of that will work. Servers can be purchased with BTC, IP addresses can be masked behind VPN's and botnets. You would totally be wasting energy for NOTHING. I seriously doubt any real crime has been committed and that no authority would even take on the case. Why? You are trading a non-regulated currency system on an exchange where the TOS state no one is responsible for your money except yourself.
Seriously, I'm out around .12 BTC roughly a tank of gas on this scam. I can afford that, having invested in other coins and made money on the IPO upswing. I would have made .3 or .4 BTC on this upswing had I set my sell orders a little bit lower. Greed struck me this time. My sells were at 4000 sat, setting them to 3500 or so would have gotten me out and put some BTC in my wallet. Lesson learned.
Tell it to silk road. These altcoin scams are becoming more frequent and audacious, so they're bound to attract the attention of the authorities. They're enacted with the tacit cooperation of Exchanges and other online service providers, who are vulnerable to having their premises raided, their servers seized, their businesses disrupted, and their clients financially inconvenienced. Thgey're no longer sole traders or small gangs operating independently behind a wall of pseudo-anonymity.
Take Syscoin, for example. I had my fingers slightly singed when trading opened on Mintpal, but I managed to bail out with most of my funds intact. Many others have lost substantial amounts. The coin was released with a laughably dysfunctional wallet, by any altcoin standards, because the developers had no intention of delivering a working product. Moolah handled the escrow, and the developers claimed to have returned the released funds. So now Moolah are holding the spoils and the developers are screaming that they need the funds to deliver a working product. Moolah have offered their support in this endeavour, and meanwhile the price has tanked and the volume has dried up. Mintpal supported the release, and they've taken a big hit on volume as a consequence. Moolah operate out of London as a legitimate financial services provider. So if the Serious Fraud Office come knocking on their doors demanding to know the whereabouts of the 'Devs' and the escrowed funds, Moolah will turn them in without batting an eye.
In the meanwhile the 'investors' are growing more angry because the escrowed funds are neither being returned nor used to develop a working coin. And the whole sorry tale is documented in the pages of Bitcoin Forum. You may think it's all a storm in a teacup, and the 'devs' broke no laws. But people are being conned to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, which makes it a matter for the authorities; and investigations could destroy the whole altcoin scene, by targeting the exchanges. Shouldn't surprise me if one or two of the big players are MtGoxed before the end of the year if this continues.
Of course the best time to begin investigating these scams is when the coins are first announced, and the 'devs' are active online. So mark my words, there are fun times ahead.