Bitfinex: Bitcoinica Rises From The Grave
After the collapse of Bitcoinica six months ago, the business of margin trading, a service which at Bitcoinica's peak attracted a trade volume almost as large as that of MtGox itself, disappeared from the Bitcoin ecosystem almost entirely. Since then, there have been a number of disparate efforts to bring margin trading back. Almost as soon as Bitcoinica....
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Bitcoinica site as it looked in 2011. Grabbed from Wayback Machine. Did Bitcoinica founder Zhou Tong steal funds, return a part of them, then pay someone to keep it quiet? Well that would seem to be the impression created by the latest revelation contained in a Youtube video discussed on Reddit. Bitcoinica - Some Background. Zhou Tong founded Bitcoinica in 2011 at the age of 17. Bitcoinica was an online trading company that enabled users to speculate on contract-for-difference market against the Bitcoin to USD exchange rate. In March 2012, Bitcoinica reported that they had lost 43,554 BTC....
The last few days have unfortunately brought one piece of grim news after another to the Bitcoin community. As if the 43000 BTC Linode theft in March was not enough, another 18457 BTC was stolen from Bitcoinica's reserves, and Zhou Tong was barely able to prevent the thief from getting his hands on 30000 more. Unfortunately, given the financial stress that Bitcoinica was already in after the Linode theft two months ago, even this smaller loss turned out to be the straw that broke the camel's back. The site was immediately shut down for security reasons, and less than one day later Zhou....
Bitcoinica has fallen far in these past four months. The margin trading service that was once hailed as a revolutionary margin trading service and a shining beacon of success in the Bitcoin economy has become a locus of scandals and thefts, as skilled online intruders continue to peck at the now defunct service's diminishing million-dollar supply of customers' funds and its operators continue to struggle to pay users even a 50% share of what they are owed. Bitcoinica's downfall started on March 1. Linode, a web hosting provider then used by Bitcoinica, Slush and the Bitcoin Faucet, was....
BitFloor and Bitcoinica Refunds Showing Signs of Progress. The Bitcoin exchange platforms BitFloor and Bitcoinica, the two largest institutional victims ofdigital theft in Bitcoin history, have finally shown their first signs of genuine progress toward repaying their clients. On October 31, a court filing made by Tihan Sealein August to place Bitcoinica into a formal state ofreceivership for liquidation finally came before a judge, and Anthony John McCullagh and Stephen Mark Lawrence were appointed as liquidators. Three weeks later, the liquidators sent emails to select members of the....
As was previously reported, Bitcoinica was shut down on May 11th, 2012 as a result of a hackerstealing 18,547 BTC (then worth about $92,500) from the service's hot wallet. Two months later, while the service was in the midst of rebuilding user data to issue refunds, a malicious entity was able to gain access to Bitcoinica's MtGox account and withdraw 40,000 BTC (then worth about $310,000) and $40,000 USD. After Zhou Tong, the creator of the service, sold Bitcoinica to Wendon Group, the Bitcoin Consultancy was hired to be responsible for maintaining the service. Once the service was shut....