Quote from: psy on September 27, 2012, 01:46:43 AM

How much of those ~$225million will be left after the "authorities" take their cut?
I suppose as much as what will be left of Bitcoinica's funds after the liquidator takes his cut... Roll Eyes

"The authorities" have already taken their cut. He was fined $4 million. There are over 1 million investors in Zeek and over 200,000 affiliates. The amount of work it's going to take to begin unravelling it is astronomical. Someone has to be paid to do that work and people would whine like babies if it's was team of government employees using tax-payer money in order to facilitate Mr Average America getting a refund of $5.

I'm pretty familiar with the NZ liquidation process. If what we've been told is essentially true - that the MtGox intrusion caused a shortfall of about 30% in the amount of outstanding claims valued at the date Bitcoinica stopped operating but that a significant portion of the funds lost in the MtGox intrusion have been recovered - then the two key issues for liquidation will be adequacy of records and any preferential payments which were wrongly made.

Preferential payments shouldn't be an issue if the value of Bitcoins has risen sufficiently to cover the outstanding claims (which were based on Bitcoin being valued at around ~USD 5). Even if they become an issue, subordinating the claims of creditors who have received preferential payments is an option which the liquidator can use as an alternative to claw back and I've read case after case where NZ liquidators have chosen that option (sometimes in conjunction with demanding the return of an agreed portion of funds).

The biggest problem with the Bitcoinica liquidation is going to be the adequacy of records. Tihan has indicated that Wendon intends to waive its right to be regarded as a secured creditor. Under NZ law, Wendon would still be entitled to be treated as a preferential creditor due to its role in recovering the funds from the MtGox intrusion, but Tihan has given no indication that it intends to pursue such status or even that it intends to lodge a claim as an unsecured creditor (secured and preferential creditors can choose to waive that status and be treated as unsecured creditors).

There are some wild cards regarding Bitcoinica and the adequacy of records is one of them. It could make the process of validating claims time-consuming and costly. But liquidators don't formally validate claims until they are ready to distribute funds, so there'll be a reasonable indication of the likely pay out by that point. The existence of a currently unknown major creditor could also drastically reduce the return to users, but no-one has even hinted at the existence of such a creditor despite some pretty public slanging matches.

Bitcoinica users have far more reason to be optimistic about receiving some eventual pay out than Zeek Rewards "investors" do at this point.