some bitcoins site questions

[shamgaroxgoad]

Forgive me, I'm new around these here parts. I'm not sure I'm doing this right. Let me know if I'm not....

Anyways! I've been messing around with bitcoins. I don't really have any cash to invest in anything. I'm not sure I'd trust bitcoins with my spare cash if I had any. Instead, decided to spend a couple of hours on a bitcoin work site (think mturk) instead of playing some video games on a rainy day. I made a whopping 0.1 bitcoins when the price was around $100 per bitcoin.

To play around with my new monopoly money (I'm kidding...please don't be offended) I decided to invest 0.03 bitcoins in ultimafund and 0.07 bitcoins I've kept at bitfinex .

For now, I've found that I can't withdraw my bitcoins from ultimafund. I've emailed the "owner" of the fund with no reply. It's been months. It was just an experiment so I'm not too worried about it, but I'd love to know if there's any suggestions on what I might do to get my "money" back. The "fund" has done nothing for me, but the value of the coins has quadrupled to the value of a dollar....as I post this....it might topple any second, of course.

When it comes to bitfinex, I've been "lending" the bitcoins to "investors" It has given me approximately 5% return, for now.... If I ever do come into any spare lunch money, I'm tempted to wire it into bitfinex. Have I foolish dreams?

Any thoughts? In your own, possibly useless, opinion; Is it legal to "lend" cash and gain interest without being a bank? Am I allowed to ask for opinions on the legality of something, on here? Are you really still reading this?

[shamgaroxgoad]

errrr.....is this something I should have privately emailed sooltauq [at] gmail.com, about?

[Number Six]

If a legally registered business ignores your request for your funds, contact the state AG and they should point you in the right direction.

[shamgaroxgoad]

I'll see if I can figure it out myself, but is there any easy way to check if a business has been legally registered?

I tried checking their whois but they went through domainsbyproxy, so I can't get any info on the registrant of the website.

I did find on domainbyproxy that the email address listed on whois should forward to the site owner, so I'm going to try that next.

Thank you for your reply!

[wserra]

I decided to invest 0.3 bitcoins in ultimafund ... For now, I've found that I can't withdraw my bitcoins from ultimafund.

I thought I would poke around, beginning with ultimafund's own site. My browser (fully updated Firefox) advises against it: "This Connection is Untrusted ... http://www.ultimafund.com uses an invalid security certificate". Suspicious, especially combined with registration by Domains by Proxy. Why would any reputable financial firm not have a secure site? Why would any reputable financial firm want to hide who they are? In case it's not obvious, these are rhetorical questions.

I'll see if I can figure it out myself, but is there any easy way to check if a business has been legally registered?

Any old company: the Secretary of State of the state of incorporation or where they do business. For example, New York's shows a dozen firms beginning with "Ultima", but no "Ultima Fund". Financial firms: many other places as well, depending on what they do. My guess is that you won't find these guys.

[Lambkin]

I thought I would poke around, beginning with ultimafund's own site. My browser (fully updated Firefox) advises against it: "This Connection is Untrusted ... http://www.ultimafund.com uses an invalid security certificate". Suspicious, especially combined with registration by Domains by Proxy. Why would any reputable financial firm not have a secure site?

Funnily enough, the reason the cert doesn't validate is because they didn't renew it. It expired on Sept 29. That pretty much demonstrates their inability to run services on the Internet (for anything, not just banking).

[shamgaroxgoad]

That's strange. I've never had that issue and have tried it from up to date Chris and Firefox, in the past. I am getting it now, though. Maybe a bad site certificate will wake up whoever is in charge. I wouldn't have posted the link if it was giving a bad certificate at the time. Sorry about that and thanks for the reply.

[notorial dissent]

Not to pour too much cold water on the party, but a couple of things come to mind.

• First, ANY broker/ broker dealer who accepts or deals in bitcoin is highly suspect in my mind, and anything they are selling, doubly so. Little things like currency reporting violation and money laundering violations immediately spring to mind, as well as just plain outright fraud.
  
  Second, dodgy website, not a good sign at all. No way to contact, even louder warning buzzer.
  
  Third, and most important, if they are selling anything that looks like a security/fund, they, meaning the company, and the broker, have to be registered/licensed with the SEC, and their own states Securities registrar. If they're not, run, don't walk to he nearest egress.
  
  Fourth, if they are doing the above they almost certainly have to be registered either as a corporation, or a corporation doing business in your state, if they are not see all sorts of bells and whistles going off.

My considered opinion, is that one way or another, you can kiss your .03 bitcoins buh bye.

[Burnaby49]

Bitcoin seems to be gaining traction on the west coast of Canada. Links below for some articles in the Vancouver Sun, our major daily paper. One reports how a mining company is paying contractors with bitcoin and a couple of others about a bitcoin ATM in Vancouver which is apparently doing very well.


http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Mi ... story.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/Vancouver+b ... story.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Fi ... story.html

[shamgaroxgoad]

Yeah, I'm assuming my monopoly money is gone...it was only $3 worth at the time I "invested" it. At the time, the site was active and the owner was active in many forums and bitcoin news sites. Now he/she/it seems to have disappeared. I guess that just reaffirms that having a digital presence and giving interviews doesn't make a site even the least bit legitimate. I doubt anyone in the bitcoin world is looking to get licensed with the SEC until lots of questions are answered first.


Of course calling it monopoly money is becoming more of a joke and less of a reality each day...for now... Our local Subway just started accepting bitcoin payments.

[Number Six]

Too bad you can't redeem that moon money, Bitcoin went over $1000 on one of the exchanges: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-2 ... -tops-1000

[shamgaroxgoad]

Yep! My 0.01 (it was 0.007) coins is still going strong, though. I've made back the loss....for now.

It is sad, though. The current, listed, size of that fund is 807.80 coins. If that's true it's currently worth over 807,000 dollars.

That could pay off a mortgage or three.