Payments processor EgoPay which has been troubled since at least December recently issued a blog post stating that they have fired employees likely responsible, and that the source of their problems was likely internal to their company. The full text of the post is preserved below for posterity. Continue reading
Category Archives: Fraud
Theymos Claims Josh Garza Is Sending Him Legal Threats To Have Content Removed
Theymos, owner of bitcointalk.org and a moderator of /r/bitcoin, is claiming that he has been on the receiving end of legal threats from Josh Garza and his legal team. Garza is claimed to be demanding the removal of things from /r/bitcoin and the bitcointalk.org forums although it is not known which content Garza specifically takes offense to given much of what is being posted – such as claims of a $20 floor for Paycoin set by Garza and his $100 million backing in private funds – are known to have been said by Garza despite his attempts to re-write history by modifying previous posts. Continue reading
Japanese Newspaper Reports 99% Of Bitcoins At Mt.Gox Lost Due To Fraud
Yomiuri Shimbun, one of five national Japanese newspapers, is reporting via its English 'The Japan News' website that of the 650,000 bitcoins that went missing in the aftermath of the Mt. Gox collapse, 99% of the coins have been lost due to the fraudulent activities by an unknown individual or party. An additional 7,000 bitcoins are reported to have been stolen due to cyber-attacks. Continue reading
2014 Story of the Year: Mt Gox Finally Dies
This year's biggest story in Bitcoin actually predates the founding of Qntra. Back in February Mt Gox finally closed its doors. Since Jed McCaleb opened it for Bitcoin Trading in July of 2010, through its astounding three years of incompetence and mismanagement under Mark Karpelès Mt Gox had served as a central source of drama and uncertainty in the Bitcoin space. Continue reading
Collected Points From the NSA's Recent Document Dump
Numerous media outlets are going deep into the NSA's recent Christmas Eve document dump while Der Spiegel is supposing itself to cover new Snowden documents.In addition to the unsurprising post-Snowden revelation that NSA analysts routinely acted outside of their legal ability to monitor, a number of technical revelations came out about the NSA's surveillance abilities as they care to disclose them two years ago. As this document dump was an official agency disclosure take it with a grain of salt or several trucks full of salt as you feel necessary. Continue reading
While Some Ponzi Schemes Implode, Other Fraudsters Double Down
As this year draws to a close, so too have a few of the ponzi operators masquerading as cloud miners in the Bitcoin and altcoin space. Given the concept of cloud mining lends itself to being an ideal means for scammers to conduct fractional reserve mining or straight up ponzi schemes involving no mining at all, you can expect to see such shenanigans continue in 2015. Three 'cloud miners' which appear to have gone belly up this past week are Hashie.co, LTC Gear and Hash Profit. Continue reading
Butterfly Labs Motion To Dismiss Denied, FTC Suit Survives
The Kansas City Business Journal reports that the Federal Judge overseeing the case, Brian Wimes, has refused Butterfly Labs motion to dismiss the ongoing suit by the Federal Trade Commission. Earlier this month the Judge had allowed Butterfly Labs to fully reopen under court supervision, and in November the court ordered the company to transfer its Bitcoin to a court appointed receiver. after earlier being allowed a limited reopening under receivership. The current Federal Trade Commission lawsuit against Butterfly Labs has been ongoing since September 2014. John Humphrey, the Attorney for Butterfly Labs originally filed the motion to dismiss on their behalf back in October.
Butterfly Labs Allowed to Reopen
The Kansas City Business Journal is reporting that the judge in the Federal Trade Commission's case is allowing Butterfly Labs to continue business operations under court supervision. From the court order of Judge Brian Wimes:
"Plaintiff fails to show any continuing violation of the alleged misconduct. Plaintiff argues defendants' past conduct suggests they are likely to return to this business model and related representations in the future. But, as previously discussed, the court disagrees."
Butterfly Labs will be required to submit monthly reports to the court outlining progress in shipping products, processing refunds, and improving corporate governance. Other litigation against Butterfly Labs continues including cases in both Missouri and Kansas.
Vice Fingers Alleged Silk Road 2.0 Mole Account
Vice Motherboard is alleging that the account used by the FBI inflitrator into the Silk Road 2.0 was named 'Cirrus', and that the user had notably at one point been a staff member of the original Silk Road. This conclusion was reached through a process of elimination. Vice also reports that some people involved in Darknet markets had suspicions about this user for some time.
VirRansom, The Latest Ransomware
Naked Security has news of a new piece of ransomware which is unlike more recent ones in that it is not simply a variant of CryptoLocker. Sophos have named the virus VirRansom and it differs to CryptoLocker in that it infects other files instead of just encrypting them in order to hold a user at ransom. Continue reading