Quote from: darnth on April 15, 2013, 05:17:57 PM

Just adding some information I collected in various threads and on reddit:

Bitcoin24 is pretty much dead, mainly for the second of two problems:

1) The admin/owner TAiS46 does not seem to have the necessary experience to run a big trading platform. As evident from a few slightly worrying questions he asked in coding forums the last months, bitcoin24 was a bit of a learning-by-doing thing. As we all know due to a problem of the trading engine to deal with multiple requests of the same trade (that was already discussed on a php forum two months ago) too many BTCs were credited for a number of trades (the list can be found online), but to my best knowledge we dont know whether significant BTCs were removed by users exploiting that bug.
I personally think this is the reason TAis46 took the site down and he is now supposedly working on rolling back the double/triple/quadruple orders that happened (to his expense) and fixing the trade engine. He still has 16k+ bitcoins in his cold storage (1GcWYgqbdtzZAGsX2iSVBS74cPBiQjCiRg, 1AnixjBYxpTzAmfSa8kRdBiUaSGV2e9d26) and an unknown number in user deposit addresses I guess.
Whether he will pay that out or be able to is anyones guess, also see 2).

2) There are strict regulations in place for any bank/currency exchange/... operating in europe, to hinder money laundering:
- the operator has to identify every customer, e.g. mtgox verification before entering a significant (withdraw/deposit amount) business relationship
- any transactions above 15k euro, or even below if suspicious (e.g. anonymous savings account) has to be reported to the authorities
Hence bitcoin24, from the start, violated anti-money laundry regulations, probably strongly.
From a post on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/user/TAiS46 he still seems to think thats not his responsibility, but thats wrong and naive.
He even admits having had trouble with his german account from the start, as known stolen (phishing/hacked) accounts transfered money to his account, but despite that didnt think it through but instead just used a polish account.
bitcoin24 was very convenient for legitimate users, but for the same reasons the perfect money laundering tool. Considering his success, he managed to fly under the radar for quite some time, but that wont work infinitely (hindsight Sad

).

Its not clear that the current legal trouble is due to accusations of money laundering, but it seems very likely. Either someone in administration noticed the amount of money going through his site and reopenend investigation, or the investigation was started by following the money that disappeared from known stolen bank accounts again. The german administration requested assistance from the polish, and they were just faster in freezing the account. The german account is on very low transaction limit, not completely frozen yet, but is expected to soon be (all according to TAiS46, and I think he might actually say the truth)
Due to being in violation of regulations from the start of bitcoin24, I dont see him having any chance in the legal battle, though Sad

(edit: problems 1 and 2 are probably not directly connected, as he changed the account for international deposits the day before the site went down, but might be both connected to the preceding price boom)

The big question is I guess now whether the administration asks him to freeze bitcoin assets also, and if not, whether he'll actually be able to/allow withdrawal of BTC. The fiat is probably tied up in the legal battle for quite some time. Fines for money laundering (even if not that intentionally) can also be rather high (its not the US where a big bank had to pay a 1.9 billion dollar fine, but still).

In any case bitcoin24 is dead, the admin in deep trouble, what he will do with the BTC is anyones guess now.

TL;DR version:
bitcoin24 ran a multi-million euro business
-without anyone having the technical competence to run such a big platform
-without any legal advice
All else follows logically from these two.

P.S.: Hindsight is of course cheap Sad

That sums it up pretty nicely. Cheers for the post.