I hope this post does not get deleted, because my posts were getting deleted.

I am making this post on my behalf, has nothing to do with NiceHash and NiceHash is not aware of it. This is my personal view and NOT a statement from NiceHash.

Let's start with timeline several months ago, before the big BTC hype, when BTC was still just around 10k. Who was mining back then? Old school miners. People that know how to mine, people that use dedicated rigs, are well aware NOT to store any personal data on these PCs. Keep private keys away. Minerstat for example, is actually well aware of this, and they made a suggestion
source: https://minerstat.com/help/how-to-secure-your-mining-environment

So, generally, it is well known that it is simply too risky to just mine on your own PC. You need to have a dedicated rig for that, if you wish to mine.

What happened then? BTC started rising and with it all other altcoins and ethereum. NiceHash made some campaigns and there will be more - to get general population (especially gamers into mining). Let's put out this fact: these people DO NOT have dedicated rigs for mining, they DO MINE on their personal computers. The thing that everyone here knows is very risky to do.

But everything is fine, when each person decides for himself. If you are prepared to take the risks and you do install close source miners from anonymous developers, that is on you and nobody else. Nobody can be blamed for your choice, right?

Now, this things becomes way more complicated, if there is someone else who installs this on your PC - like NiceHash. And if you didn't notice the total ignorance by the majority of people towards this problem, to the point of even making jokes of "stealing my porn collection". These things are not something you make fun of. These things can destroy a company and put people behind bars. Yes, NiceHash is aware of this problem, was aware of this BEFORE phoenix saga happened, that is why there were certain threads opened and posts made. There were plans to inform public better about this issue. NiceHash started solving this issue from two perspectives: first was to inform the public and second was to create alternative that would at least come close to the closed source solutions made by anonymous developers.

Until last weekend, everything was calm. Then NiceHash started getting reports about PhoenixMiner Mega.nz download issue. Okay, it can happen, developer would surely fix the issue and upload new bins, inform us about new link. But nothing. We decided to write to developer - no response. After no response, we started getting worried. Is that an exit scam? Did we just distribute malicious software from anonymous developer and will be held responsible for installing malware on 300k computers worldwide? This was the main question in the company. How would ANY reasonable person react to this speculation? Keep it quiet and hope that this is not true? Well... hope is not enough, hope doesn't absolve you from responsibility. Yes, NiceHash do have 3rd party EULA that every user has to confirm, but like I mentioned before, nobody was reading that. People gave jack shit about it and really didn't care. They were under complete illusion that "NiceHash is a big company, they surely must have taken care of what I am installing, no?". Perhaps if this happened and there was a court case, NiceHash could win, but that doesn't mean NiceHash would survive.

And when we took a deeper look - developer gone for 1.5 months, constant attempts to push 5.5d bins, someone was doing hash checks and said these don't match (not sure why that was but as later found out - probably because of different zip files), it was just a big panic and a race with a time - if there is a malicious attempt, we need to inform users ASAP and reduce possible damage. Considering how long developer did not react (it must have been like 3 days), we were sure he/she/they are not coming back and the only question remaining was: is there an exit scam or not? Why did we think so? The reasons cannot be simply explained with one sentence, but I have made explanation available here: https://www.reddit.com/r/NiceHash/comments/lzsheq/phoenixminer_howwhywhat_statement_from_it_expert/

But on Monday morning, look, developer is back! I was sure, we need to make an apology now. Even though, we never said that there is malware, we only warned users there COULD be, people panicked and simply overlooked our "COULD" word. So, my belief was to make a sorry statement at least for this indirect damage. And if you ask me, I am still sorry for this. I know what it means, if developer intentions are not harmful, and until there is name to be kept, I am sure, intentions are not harmful. I know how much damage from reduced income this must have caused. But I cannot decide for the company what statements to give out. This is not in my power and voting was against doing this. If it helps you PhoenixMiner, personally, I am sorry for this, truly I am.

Now, let's also debate the other very suspicious events that were going on before developer reappeared and which do not make much sense and were completely unnecessary and must have been related to something else, which made the whole disappearance even more suspicious. I believe, if there were none of these activities, things would probably go into different direction, perhaps even towards official sorry statement.

So, after the announcement was made, there was immediate FUD by Josip Juhas, that NiceHash has pushed malicious 5.5d binaries to all NiceHash users and that this is just a campaign to fix own mistake. I have asked Josip to take this statement down, because it was not true. It was not true according to the source code, which is publicly available and everyone can analyze and confirm that this could not have happened unless the real developer pushed these bins on Mega.nz. Also, not a single user reported getting 5.5d bins and nobody reported anything about being infected. But Josip Juhas continued pushing this FUD to the point so others have copied his statement, including Alchemy from RedPandaMining and this statement was then spread by RedPandaMining all around the community through his YouTube channel. Besides that, someone (definitely not developer) also started massive shill campaign on all social media posting either this exact same FUD about 5.5d binaries being pushed or diversion - some events from NiceHash's history to discredit NiceHash warning as false and as something you really don't have to worry about. I cannot prove who was behind this campaign, but if developer wasn't available, then I would guess it was definitely NOT the developer. And the developer would be the only one having interest doing that. So who else would be doing that? I still don't know, but if I'd have to point my finger I'd say Josip Juhas. It fits his profile. Why?

Let me tell you something about Josip Juhas, aka minerstat owner. Josip Juhas was convicted two times in Slovenia and spend some time in prison. First time, he was convicted for planned murder. With some other people, they had a plan to hire a young woman, insure her for large sum of money (2.5mil EUR) and then murder her to get this money. So, basically, to make insurance fraud. He got 1 year of prison for this (because it was never executed and was only planned). Second time, he was convicted for extorting women. There were 3 guys, one had sex with women and they taped acts. After the act, there was extortion for money so they would keep quiet and not tell their husbands. At least 3 women were the victims. Not much was revealed publicly, because identity of victims was hidden. He got around 3 years of prison for this crime. Sources (unfortunately in Slovenian, but you can use google translate):
https://www.vecer.com/kronika/do-grla-vpleten-v-dogovor-o-umoru-bo-terjal-odskodnino-zaradi-pripora-10075458
https://old.slovenskenovice.si/crni-scenarij/doma/za-nacrtovani-umor-sta-dobila-po-10-let
https://old.delo.si/novice/kronika/kljucno-prico-cakajo-na-sodiscu-in-v-zaporu.html
There are a lot more sources available, I just listed few. How do I know this? Josip Juhas once worked for NiceHash. He resigned somewhere in the middle of 2017. He wasn't fired, he resigned, let me make this very clear. Also, he is well aware of dangers of mining on personal computer - he has this text I quoted before on minerstat webpage. So, why would he do what he did then you may ask yourself? Deep inside, he must know the dangers, deep inside he knew that NiceHash distributed PhoenixMiner on many PCs around and deep inside he knew that this could be the end of NiceHash if it turns out to be true - that there is an exit scam. But if NiceHash makes a big warning, and it turns out to be true, then NiceHash would survive, because people were warned and they could have reacted fast enough to prevent damage. Do you see reasoning now? Josip Juhas wish that NiceHash would die since 2017 when he resigned. He created kinda competitive service - minerstat, so of course, he wants NiceHash gone, obliterated. And by spreading malware, that would be the perfect way. So, making any warnings, that is actually bad - he doesn't want NiceHash to make warnings, he wants NiceHash to make mistakes, so he could take over with minerstat. You can go search his history of comments here and you will notice that he was constantly bad mouthing NiceHash for no apparent reason. I have contacted Josip Juhas at the end of 2020, was expecting to get bad mouthed but was surprised that he was being very polite. Now I see, it was all only the act. His plan was to sell minerstat to NiceHash for 5 million EUR. Of course NiceHash turned that down. There was no reason for him to talk to NiceHash anymore after that. He was so convinced that he was building "something" for NiceHash for the past 3 years, but when we told him that we don't need his service, he was very disappointed. And this is what you get if you don't pay... Basically, if he had a sex tape, it wouldn't be a question "can you please buy this for 5mil?" but rather statement "give me 5mil or I release this sex tape to the public!".

So, be very careful when you deal with him. Never make any business with him. Better not even talk to him. And I am sure he will come up with some bullshit about me being the owner and that nobody likes me and that I am alone and that people are leaving NiceHash. NiceHash has about 50 people and is growing, getting more people every month. What he talks "supposedly about me" is actually his own personality. Josip Juhas has only his girlfriend and one guy from 2017. That is whole minerstat. Only brainwashed people can work with/for him. Sooner or later, anyone realizes that it is impossible to do business with him or impossible to work with/for him.

So, what will happen now in the future? NiceHash Miner will introduce some way of putting PhoenixMiner back in, it just isn't going to be automatic download by NiceHash. That is just way too risky. When people manually insert miners in, then NiceHash cannot be responsible for anything malicious if it ever happened. Similar destiny awaits all other anonymous miners. We don't hate PhoenixMiner and we did not want to destroy PhoenixMiner. This is just malicious talk. There was a risky situation and we had to take extraordinary action to protect NiceHash.

And regarding Josip Juhas. Well, we can just hope that he doesn't murder us all... because after all... he could be capable doing that. I know he will be fighting hard and try to delete this post I made. He was able to reach with mods somehow to delete my other posts. Let's see if he get's so lucky this time too. If he does, then mod, whoever is deleting this post, perhaps you should think twice - isn't this bitcointalk, a forum where free speech is guaranteed?