Well, you take Mr. Brewster's statements at face value:


Even assuming that this message and the previous one are indeed from Mr. Brewster, he makes several allegations that should require proof:

* there were threats against his daughter.
* he contacted the police about the threats but they did not even file a report.
* the Cyprus police was told how they could contact him, but did not.
* ditto for the Cyprus Mail reporter.
* the people who complained to the police had failed to provide him with deposit addresses.

Also, suspicions of fraudulent management are quite pertinent, since he failed to deliver the promised financial statements.  Fom that moment, the burden was on him to prove that he is innocent of that.

By the way, what is defintely known about Mr. Brewster's background, before he went to Cyprus? (I mean schooling, jobs, etc.)

Needless to say, it would be, er, extremely unwise to believe ANYTHING that is said or written by a person in the situation of Mr. Brewster.  Especially when there is no reason to believe that it actually came from him, and plenty of motivation for others to impersonate him.

Even if we were to believe those allegations by this alleged "Danny Brewster", we would conclude that, among other things,
* he is still away, in an unknown country, with no way for investors, employees and creditors to reach him;
* those people who complained to the police about the missing bitcoins still haven't got their bitcoins;
* he fled Cyprus because of threats against his daughter, leaving his daughter behind;

and many other interesting "facts".

I hope that potential investors who are interested in providing funds to salvage the company can find a competent shaman or spiritual medium who can get in touch with him.


Dear Mr. @NanoAkron, I respect your desire for hard evidence in this and other forums.  However, since your requests seem to be rather asymmetrical, perhaps you could clarify whether you are a friend of Mr. Brewster, or a close relative.

(Whatever your answer, I hope you will provide solid evidence to back it up.)

That is interesting.  Have you any evidence of that?

Well, there have been at least four or five instances of banks closing the exchange accounts to deposits, confirmed by the exchanges themselves on their websites.

Curiously, Huobi had a note dated April 11 on their website reporting the account closures, but they seem to have pulled it. The newest note there is dated April 10.  They seem to be revamping their home page, and even the link to the latter seems to be gone.

EDIT: the note is still there: http://www.huobi.com/news/index.php?a=show_notice&id=308

It may be that the banks were over-reacting to some PBoC vague note, or to the Caixin article itself (although some of the closures were communicated to the exchanges well after the article came out).  Or it may be that the exchanges
managed to convice some of the other banks.

One important point in Huobi's April 11 note, IMHO, was a paragraph which I understood as follows: "We believe that the goal of the PBoC's 'Strengtening the December decrees' circular was to combat money laudering and other crimes.  We have done a lot in this regard and we are ready to cooperate with the authorities, hoping that we can reach a compromise that will let us keep the bank path open."  Again. this makes me belive that the 'Strenghtening'  circular saw by Caixin was not a PBoC decision but came from law enforcement and national security agencies.

EDIT:
Maybe...

In spite of what the CNBC article says, there has not been, to my knowledge, any denial by PBoC of the Caixin article.  Bobby Lee did not say that (did he?).  If there had been such a denial, it would be in block letters all over the place.  I found no new announcements on the Huobi and OKCoin websites. (Are there any?)

On the contrary, it seems that all major Chinese exchanges except BTC-China have had at least one bank account closed to client deposits, and they remain closed.  However Huobi and OKCoin still have accounts on other banks that (according to the exchanges) have not yet received any orders in this regard.

One of the two banks used by Huobi that did block client deposits has set an April 18 deadline for blocking withdrawals too. So the only part of the Caixin report that was proved wrong, so far, was the date of the final deadline (which Caixin reported as April 15).

The market may be assuming that the bank situation will not get any worse.  If that is the case, all exchanges should be able to function normally.  (As long as they have one bank account open for deposit, the closure of other accounts should not make much difference, should it?)

We'll see.

I have been doubling my BTC holdings every day since December. 

Be sure to keep this one too (note the date):

Chinese Slumber Method prediction for Tuesday April 15

A trivial prediction:

Prediction valid for: Tuesday 2014-04-15, 19:00--19:59 UTC (not before, not after)
Huobi's predicted price: 2919 CNY.
Bitstamp's predicted price: 469 USD.





Plot legend

This was an obvious break in the trend. We have a single data point for the next trend; and a mediocre one, since there was substantial volume in the three hourly intervals 18.00--20:59 (2020, 511, and 1710 BTC;  S = 0.0058, W = 0.515).  The only reasonable guess is the trivial one, "tomorrow will be like today" - namely 2919 CNY at Huobi.

The Bitstamp prediction, as usual, is the Huobi prediction divided by the currency conversion factor R, which was assumed to be 6.22 CNY/USD. It was 6.38 6.21, 6.24, 6.32 at the last three Slumber Times.
 
Checking the previous prediction

Prediction was posted on: Sunday 2014-04-13, 23:11 UTC
Prediction was valid for: Monday 2014-04-14, 19:00--19:59 UTC (~20 hours later)

Foiled by the devious Chinese:

Huobi's predicted price: 2575 CNY.
Huobi's actual price (L+H)/2: 2919 CNY
Error: 344 CNY (~55 USD)

Bitstamp's predicted price: 414 USD.
Bitstamp's actual price (L+H)/2: 457 USD
Error: 43 USD
 
NOTE:
  "Never underestimate the joy people derive from
  hearing something they already know." -- Enrico Fermi

Like, invite Daniel Brewster to restart Neo &Bee in Brazil?  (Although he may one day turn up here uninvited, like Biggs.  )

So instead of a currency controlled by the Brazilian government with 6% inflation I should tell them to use one controlled by Huobi's traders, with 350% inflation?  Er, can we wait until the BTC value stabilizes, before discussing that?


Actually we have been fortunate enough for the past 25 years to enjoy a fairly good level of freedom of speech, arguably better than Americans.  There are cases of libel laws used to silence journalists and bloggers, but they usually come from corrupt lower officials, mostly opposition, and private citizens.  The federal government (from both parties) has been admirably tolerant of criticism (and the main media have used and abused that freedom against Lula and Dilma). 

In fact, most of my public testimonials and press interviews about electronic voting have been criticism of the equipment which is the joy and pride of  the Electoral Justice,  whose president is a Supreme Court judge; and the criticism basically implies that the Electoral Justice is incompentent if or worse.   And in my tweets I have often and harshly critized both the São Paulo education secretariat,  the Federal education minister (now Dilma's Chief of Staff) and several other ministries, the Supreme Court and the Judiciary in general, and several other miscellaneous authorities.   I have been mostly ignored, of course, but I never felt any pressure to shut up; and ditto for uncountable other critics.  (Hm, after writing this list I am now starting to worry...  )

Hint: I am a professor of computer science.   Guess where the idea of bitcoin came out of? 

And methinks that if I could prevent a few folks here losing their life savings to scammers, Brazilian or otherwise, that may already justify my salary.   Which may be more than I deserve, but is not exactly taken at gunpoint from them, 

Nas duas últimas semanas aparceram artigos sobre bitcoin nos principais meios de comunicaçãodo Brasil - Folha, Estadão, Globo, Correio Braziliense...  No geral positivos, esses artigos omitem os podres - MtGOX, Neo&Bee, preço em queda, restrições na China e outros países, ...

Em outros threads deste forum li várias refrências à América Latina (algumas bastante ofensivas até) como o último grande repositório de "bobos ricos" que poderiam trazer novo dinheiro para o mercado e levantar o preço do Bitcoin, compensando a perda gradual (e talvez, em breve, súbita) da China.  E infelizmente já estão atacando: ja há muitos "vendedores" de bitcoin no Brasil prometendo mil e umas virtudes, só falta curar câncer e trazer de volta a namorada.  Saiu até no Wall Street Journal, por exemplo, que na Agentina tem uma dona prometendo que bitcoin vai valer um milhão de dólares algum dia.

Quaisquer que sejam as virtudes reais do bitcoin, hoje ele é  um péssimo investimento.  O preço não está amarrado a nada (porque é 450 dólares, e não 4.50 ou 45000?) caiu mais de 60% desde novembro,  e tem caído continuamente desde fevereiro.  A taxa de "inflação" do bitcoin desde janeiro foi de 350% ao ano, muito mais que a do Real (6.5%), a do Peso argentino (11%) e até mesmo do Bolívar venezuelano (53%).  As razões da queda são conhecidas (estrangulamento do mercado da China, falência de exchanges, ...) e não há previsão de fatos positivos que possam reverter essa queda -- exceto a possível exploração dos "bobos ricos" na América Latina.

Mesmo a longo prazo, o sucesso do bitcoin está mais nebuloso que nunca.  Muitos países estã banindo ou restringindo seu uso comercial.   A maioria das bolsas e outras empresas baseadas em bitcoin opera fora de qualquer estrutura legal, e ninguém sabe como regulamentá-las sem estragar a idéia.   Sua suposta imunidade contra interferência do governo foi desmentida.  Sua suposta escassez foi negada pelo surgimento e sobrevivência das moedas alternativas.  A mineração está ficando concentrada empoucas empresas e está cada vez menos rentável.  E por aí vai.

Todo adulto que não seja incapacitado mentalmente tem direito de fazer o que quiser com seu dinheiro, inclusive jogar fora.  Se alguém quiser apostar nessa loteria doida que é o preço do bitcoin, conhecendo os fatos e os riscos, tudo bem, é problema dele.  Mas tentar vender bitcoin a pessoas sem conhecimento avançado de computação, como "bom investimento" -- sem avisar o freguês sobre todos esses problemas e podres, e mentindo sobre as chances do preço subir às alturas -- isso é vigarice, pura e simples. 

Aí apareceu um inglês em Chipre com  projeto de abrir um "banco bitcoin", chamado Neo, e um serviço de e-pagamento baseado em bitcoin, chamado Bee.  Coletou 12,000 BTC de investidores, fez uma baita campanha na TV e jornais da neo&Bee, prometendo pros coitados dos cipriotas que bitcoin protegeria seu dinheiro dos bancos, alugou uma sede, montou uma agência, contratou funcionários, comprou um Bentley de 70 mil euros, uma casa de luxo, e aí ...

(Adivinhe.  O que a palavra "bitcoin" mais lembra?)

I am a full professor of computer science at a public university, with a fixed salary, light teaching load, a few grad students, no admin duties at the moment, a foot in a slow-going research project,  and freedom to choose my research topics.  And also occasional public advocate on social things like electronic voting.

I believe that bitcoin is a terrible investment at this time.  I think I owe to the people who pay my salary to tell them so, and why.  But unfortunately the salesmen are knocking at the door (in the last two weeks, warm "news" articles about bitcoin suddenly appeared in all the major media - usually without mentioning MtGOX, Neo&Bee, China bans, the falling price, ....)   

I doubt it.  An exchange in Hong Kong (GBL)  tried it and the owners got caught by the Chinese police.   http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/131203/china-exclusive-china-detains-bitcoin-fraud-suspects 

Are there other cases of goxers going to jail for goxing?

Oops! Thanks for the tip, I didn't even think of that.

Uh, yes, the probabilities I posted are based on the assumption that you folks will not manage to drive me away from this thread.  If I were to stop posting here, bitcoin would immediately shoot to the moon and beyond, of course. 

My probabilities are mine! ALL MINE! If you want to have probabilities too, go get your own!


(paraphrasing an old email signature by billco@clark.net, about "opinion" )

Indeed, I should have put more thought into those numbers.  I agree that the chance of staying in that range until december is almost zero.

I saw that thread a while ago.  Congratulations for doing that work; I wish that there was more data like that.

I already posted a full complete graph of that. Twice.

"FUD" as in "Facts and Undeniable Data"?

EDIT: rm bougus "/quote"