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Showing 20 of 21 results by Mihai Alisie
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Board Meetups
Re: Free copies of Bitcoin Magazine for Meetup groups
by
Mihai Alisie
on 24/11/2013, 00:11:17 UTC
Hi there,

Please send an email to help@bitcoinmagazine.com with the shipping/purchase details and we'll figure out what went wrong. We want everyone to receive their purchased magazines and enjoy the work and passion we're putting into it. Thank you for your support!
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: What to expect from Bitcoin Magazine
by
Mihai Alisie
on 09/12/2012, 03:17:31 UTC
During the period of November 13-15, Bittalk had 293 GBP in the bank account, which I could not access.  The company had $58 in our PayPal account, which also I could not access.  Both accounts were under the sole control of former employee and former Director Mr. Vladimir, after he resigned.

We were already late for the printers which needed cash in advance to print issue 5.  Failure to print and deliver issue 5 to Barnes & Noble would jeopardize and possibly put us in breach of contract.  We did not have enough bitcoins to sell to pay the printer either.  As of this day (nearly 1 month later) no person currently employed at Bittalk (including myself) has access to our bank account or to the PayPal account.  Mr. Vladimir is still in full control of these nearly 1 month after resigning, despite repeated requests to relinquish control. 

On the 16th of November, as the only remaining director of the company, I sought and received approval from shareholders representing 75% of the voting interest of Bittalk Media to sell company assets for the purpose of raising cash.  This was handled properly under UK law by a UK attorney.

While the terms of the deal are undisclosed, I was able to receive a fair price for selling the surplus magazines, iMac computer, and other intangible assets.  In addition, all revenue from Barnes & Noble for issues 3, 4, and 5 would remain property of Bittalk Media.

Looking forward to issue 6, the company was in a weak financial position to fund the writers, illustrators, layout, printing and shipping.  I worked without a salary on issues 1, 4 and 5 to help the company conserve cash.  I would have been willing to work without a salary again on issue 6, but if money was committed to starting on production, there would likely be another shortfall in a few weeks.

To maximize the cash value to shareholders, I decided to stop all production on issue 6, not incur any more expenses at all, and return as much cash as possible to our shareholders.

This process will be handled by a liquidation attorney to make sure all revenue and cash is properly accounted for and distributed.  This will include the Barnes & Noble revenue for issues 3, 4, and 5.  All shareholders of Bittalk Media will receive a cash dividend payment once this process is complete.

Bitcoin Magazine will live on, and is now owned by a very talented group of persons in the bitcoin community with very good business experience.
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: What to expect from Bitcoin Magazine
by
Mihai Alisie
on 09/12/2012, 01:53:53 UTC
I have no opinion on the financial matters regarding Vladimir, as I've not been privy to relevant information, but I can confirm that the transfer of ownership was done in a misleading way and one which I consider to be either dishonest, or severely lacking in communication at best.

As an *extremely* minor shareholder due to some work on Issue 1, my signature was obtained to approve asset sales *but* - this was in the context of the recent  written resolution which stated that they would be raising capital "for further development and production of our core product Bitcoin Magazine"

Really - my financial interest in the matter is so trivial as to be irrelevant..  frankly, I don't know if it's pennies or pounds.

The point is - it appears to me that the 'asset stripping' of bittalk media was done in a way that was possibly negligent if not outright fraudulent.



Please sign in to your Skype account and read the chat history before making such statements. Several solutions were discussed and the majority of the shareholders approved the current solution.
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: What to expect from Bitcoin Magazine
by
Mihai Alisie
on 09/12/2012, 01:23:45 UTC
Vladimir, I have prepared an itemized invoice with regards to services rendered to you. You can view the invoice here. The dates are not ordered, but (for a fee) can be corrected by me. Prompt fulfillment of your obligations would be appreciated. I am willing to accept BTC payment at GoxLast. Should you choose to pay with BTC, I can receive payment at 179bVt2N36ozpk1vutFfBeVfj75uN4vGF8 -- please sign a message using the address you sent payment from to confirm you were indeed the sender.

And again -- Thank you!

LOL
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: What to expect from Bitcoin Magazine
by
Mihai Alisie
on 09/12/2012, 01:16:44 UTC
Quote
Mr. Vladimir fails to explain what caused this transfer of ownership.
(...)
I would also like to point out that since the beginning of the company, he has included his wife as a Director and has awarded her equity for taking care of the accounting. To this day, I am still patiently waiting, to receive the income statements, balance sheets and the statement of cash flows of this company.  During the course of due diligence, the new owners discovered that in fact these accounting documents did not exist.

If Mr. Vladimir wants to perpetuate this drama on the forums, I can publicly disclose the invoices sent by him to BitTalk Media as well as the shareholder signed documents.
(...)

The words highlighted above as bold are false statement of facts, defamatory and misleading. And I do not mean minor technicalities like 100BTC or 1000$ I mean either very significant misrepresentation or just outright lies. (...)

Also, since it seems that Mr. Vladimir has some problems with his memory regarding his wife shares and position in the company I am attaching the following:

http://i.imgur.com/pAZyp.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/v13bp.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/gnlLx.jpg]http://i.imgur.com/gnlLx.jpg
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: What to expect from Bitcoin Magazine
by
Mihai Alisie
on 09/12/2012, 01:04:48 UTC
In order to refresh Mr. Vladimir’s memory also regarding the over $3,000 payments for the digital edition software expenses I am attaching the following bank statements:

http://i.imgur.com/A49dJ.jpg
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=1921.79&From=GBP&To=USD
http://i.imgur.com/FgG91.jpg
 http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=529&From=GBP&To=USD

Regarding the denial of the fact that he blocked the $65,000 investment in the company I will let the other shareholders speak.
 
Unfortunately I cannot show the expenses that he has failed to explain because there are no accounting logs (surprise).

Why wasnt there a company secretary ? If the company is a legal entity who were the company officers responsible for accounting and invoices ?

Vladimir and his wife.
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: What to expect from Bitcoin Magazine
by
Mihai Alisie
on 09/12/2012, 00:58:27 UTC
Quote
Mr. Vladimir fails to explain what caused this transfer of ownership.

(...)
 
(...) and for over $3000 in software for “digital publications” of Bitcoin Magazine that never produced any digital publications.

(...)

If Mr. Vladimir wants to perpetuate this drama on the forums, I can publicly disclose the invoices sent by him to BitTalk Media as well as the shareholder signed documents.
(...)

The words highlighted above as bold are false statement of facts, defamatory and misleading. And I do not mean minor technicalities like 100BTC or 1000$ I mean either very significant misrepresentation or just outright lies. (...)


In order to refresh Mr. Vladimir’s memory also regarding the over $3,000 payments for the digital edition software expenses I am attaching the following bank statements:

http://i.imgur.com/A49dJ.jpg
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=1921.79&From=GBP&To=USD
http://i.imgur.com/FgG91.jpg
 http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=529&From=GBP&To=USD

Regarding the denial of the fact that he blocked the $65,000 investment in the company I will let the other shareholders speak.
 
Unfortunately I cannot show the expenses that he has failed to explain because there are no accounting logs (surprise).
Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: What to expect from Bitcoin Magazine
by
Mihai Alisie
on 08/12/2012, 22:21:47 UTC

This is the first I am learning about him paying himself 80GBP/hr to do only part of my job. Part of the reason for my resignation was due to Vladimir paying himself $1000/month director salary while refusing to pay anyone else who has been working on the project for the last year. I would like to point out that I never received a salary or any other payment for my 1 year of services. What I did get was a disproportionally small share percentage that was kept so low on Vladimir's advice. This share value will result in a final payout significantly lower than Vladimir's "exit bonus" and far less than he would have received in month salary. I think this goes without saying that this is what ultimately led to my resignation.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=115305.0

Shame on you Vladimir for destroying all of our hard work. As Mihai pointed out there was a deal that would have seen 65k of capital injection that would have kept the magazine running under its previous ownership for another year without any additional revenue. For reasons unknown to this day, Vladimir refused to let the deal go through and it also resulted in a precipitous drop in share value. If there is any legal action to be had it is against you Vladimir.

I will add one correction to my post for accuracies sake. Vladimir and Mihai both paid themselves 100BTC cash advance before i left. It was registered as $1000 in our accounting system. So one of the other directors did receive a payment but none of the other shareholders did. This was part of my irreconcilable differences.

you see, when I say their statements are false they are indeed false.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exdK7Lirngg / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5vzCmURh7o
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: What to expect from Bitcoin Magazine
by
Mihai Alisie
on 08/12/2012, 20:30:45 UTC
It is my understanding, based on what little information I have, that the transfer of ownership of Bitcoin Magazine has been done improperly and highly likely fraudulently (if the article about new ownership published on bitcoinmagazine.net is true). It might be potentially classed as fraudulent because no proper shareholder vote was done and they have attempted to conceal this matter from at least some shareholders. It is my understanding that Mihai Alisie as sole director of the company acting dishonestly and in conspiracy with a number of third parties has potentially fraudulently transferred assets from other shareholders (the company) to himself and his co-conspirators without shareholder vote being properly done.

I own a significant amount of shares in Bittalk Media Ltd and I am not aware about any shareholder votes related to any significant property transactions nor have I received any consideration for any property of the company or for my shares. The third parties involved in this transaction ought to have known that they are very likely dishonestly assisted in director's breach of fiduciary duty and therefore very likely will be liable themselves.  Not to mention that annual employment contracts received by some look too much like bribes.

It also appears that Mihai Alisie has transferred ownership of domain bitcoinmagazine.com to himself (see whois) while the domain was bought by him acting in capacity of director of the company, following instructions of myself (Managing Director of the company at the time) and using company money that were specifically transferred to him for purpose of purchasing the domain. He also claimed in private conversations that that domain somehow belongs to him and that he himself somehow owns a lot of "intellectual property" which rightfully should have been owned by the company.

I will pursue this matter legally in due course.






Mr. Vladimir fails to explain what caused this transfer of ownership.

Mr. Vladimir decided of his own free will to resign from the Director position in Bittalk Media, and resign from all duties at Bittalk Media.  After this decision, he awarded himself, without any consent from the Board of Directors or consulting anyone, an exit bonus that has brought BitTalk Media on the brink of collapse. The money was critical for the magazine’s printing, shipping and distribution. His actions pushed me towards looking for ways to save the magazine, since obviously this was not in his agenda. Vladimir himself brought Tony in to mediate this dispute and after trying on numerous occasions to come to an agreement it was clear that other options should be taken in consideration.

Mr. Vladimir failed to turn over access to the company’s bank accounts, PayPal accounts, and other assets under his control.  He also started to charge BitTalk Media at a rate of 80 GBP per hour for the time required to respond to messages and emails that asked for clarifications and actions regarding these company assets.  Even more, he was paying himself for the time that was required to pay himself. All these actions lead towards considering him as a rogue/hostile shareholder.  As the sole remaining Director in Bittalk Media I had a meeting with the shareholders, where we discussed our options.

The sale of assets was handled by a licensed UK attorney specialized in Commercial Law, Contracts and Company Law and all the papers were signed by shareholders representing approximately 75% of the voting interest in Bittalk Media.

I think that Mr. Vladimir should stop posing as a victim and he should take full credit for reducing the value of BitTalk Media with his greed and ethically questionable actions. Regarding the fiduciary duty that he keeps bringing about, I would like to remind him that while he was a Director he repeatedly threatened the shareholders to block an investment that would have brought over $65,000 in new capital and probably would have saved the company.

More than this, and probably the reason for deciding to resign from the Director position, he has failed to explain more than $20,000 in expenses for items such as $8,000 in IT fees for 8 months for hosting a wordpress blog on a server which he owns, and for paying 300 GBP per month (full rent) in rent for office space which is also utilized by other businesses owned by Vladimir, and for over $3000 in software for “digital publications” of Bitcoin Magazine that never produced any digital publications.

I would also like to point out that since the beginning of the company, he has included his wife as a Director and has awarded her equity for taking care of the accounting. To this day, I am still patiently waiting, to receive the income statements, balance sheets and the statement of cash flows of this company.  During the course of due diligence, the new owners discovered that in fact these accounting documents did not exist.

If Mr. Vladimir wants to perpetuate this drama on the forums, I can publicly disclose the invoices sent by him to BitTalk Media as well as the shareholder signed documents.

Vitalik, Matthew, Adam and the rest of the shareholders support this action and signed the documents to solidify their support of the asset sale.  All shareholders will receive a dividend payout from the sale, which will be handled by an attorney.
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Topic OP
What to expect from Bitcoin Magazine
by
Mihai Alisie
on 08/12/2012, 01:36:45 UTC
Hello everyone,

If you don’t know me (Mihai Alisie), I have been involved with Bitcoin Magazine since its original conception and creation with Vitalik, Matthew, Adam and Vladimir over 1 year ago.  While Matthew and Vladimir were the outspoken ones in the community, I have always been in charge of the creative content that everyone reads and sees.  

Since issue #1, we have continuously improved the quality and originality of our content. As Editor in Chief, I am in charge of all the writers, illustrators, web content, layout, and the entire creative team.  I am remaining in this role and the people on the creative team will be staying also.

From our original small staff, which included Vitalik Buterin and Justin Porter, the creative team has expanded and now includes members such as Jon Matonis, Teri Buhl, Nicolas Mendoza, Wendy McElroy, Frank Braun, David Perry (CodingInMySleep) and S3052 (BitcoinBullBears) among others. All of our writers are independent thinkers and journalists, and I can personally assure you that all the articles and reviews will be as unbiased as possible. As a matter of fact I believe that the writers would be offended if they are asked to write something that does not reflect reality.  

I should add that none of our investors are involved with writing or any of the creative content.  Our investors are active bitcoin enthusiasts who see our magazine as a great marketing tool to expand and educate the bitcoin user base.  There are actually 10 owners of Bitcoin Magazine now, including myself and Vitalik, and everyone is 100% dedicated to the growth of the printed publication, digital publication, and some exciting expansions that will come next year.

We are also planning to open the magazine more to the community, and have you more involved in the topics and interviews that will be featured in each issue of the magazine. I remember that a while ago there was a thread where the community was nominating the persons that Bitcoin Magazine should interview. I encourage these styles of actions and so far I think that we have already interviewed a couple of persons from that list.

Aside from this, I want to tell all of you that recently Bitcoin Magazine has become a place where journalists are coming to learn about bitcoin, and to ask for advice or clarifications. We have received questions from publications such as BBC and from Emirates Airlines’ Open Skies magazine. I think that it is a good thing for the community, and in fact this was one of the first reasons for founding the magazine - to have an accurate and accessible source of information regarding Bitcoin, not focusing on all the scandals but on the real economic, political, and social impacts of this new technology.

The new owners are bringing strong business experience, new capital, and new excitement to our team.  We now have more resources to improve our website, improve our writing, expand our distribution, publish digital editions, and even do a little advertising for Bitcoin Magazine around the Internet.

The goals of the magazine remain the same, regardless of this change of ownership. Everyone wants the best for the magazine and that translates in the best for the community as well. We will continue to improve, as we did with each issue starting from issue #1.

If you order a Christmas bundle, or if you already have all the issues, align them one next to each other and you will see the continued improvement. Starting from issue #5 you can also see that we have decreased the clip art/photos ratio and we will continue to go in that direction until we will find the perfect balance between the two of them.

I think that we are heading in the right direction and to support this claim I am posting one of our readers’ feedback message:

“Dear Editor(s),

I just wanted to say that I use your magazine as a tool when I'm presenting Bitcoin to people who haven't heard of it or don't know much about it and want to pass along the feedback I'm getting from the field. Before that, I want to say thank you for all of your hard work! I do really enjoy the publication and look forward to many future issues!

So here's my feedback: When I am showing the magazine to people who are unfamiliar w/Bitcoin, there is a pretty significant difference in interest shown between the magazines that I have (Issues #3 & #4) and even between the articles that people seem willing to read and are interested in.

You may already know where I'm going with this... Issue #3 - People seemed to totally dismiss. They looked at the cover, saw a comic of a gorilla & a shark driving a car and the conversation took a turn as if they weren't really interested in teenage kids games. They sat the magazine down without opening, or if they did look in it at all, they seemed to see more of the same style graphics and even a couple said "What is this a comic book?". At any rate they did not take me or Bitcoin seriously - at all.

Issue #4: With it's more corporate looking cover and some professional looking ads (IE: back cover, Bitpay inner cover, BFL, and Bitcoin Wireless Ad) they seemed to tend to believe me that Bitcoin is a viable up and coming technology. The more mainstream graphics like "Bitcoin for Beginners" and the "Int'l Payment Svcs Comparison" were of particular interest and door openers to further questions and conversations. They spent much more time perusing the magazine and talking with me about BTC further.

(...)

Since the latest current issue (#4) seems to be positively received by people new to BTC, I plan to buy about 8 copies to give to family & friends as Christmas gifts. (also serves to give them more info on what I've been telling them about)

Thanks for your time & all of your hard and important work!”



To conclude, I would like to assure you that the magazine’s integrity will not be affected in any way by the change of ownership, and that the changes will definitely be beneficial both for the magazine and the community as a whole. Also if you have any suggestions please send them to help@bitcoinmagazine.com and we will take them in consideration.


Thank you all for your continued support!
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Topic
Board Beginners & Help
Re: BitTalk.TV Interview with Zhou Tong of Bitcoinica.com [Newbie-friendly thread]
by
Mihai Alisie
on 17/01/2012, 19:42:39 UTC
We will no longer be receiving questions for the Zhou Tong interview.

We'll announce the interview in this thread and on http://bittalk.tv/.

Thank you for your participation!
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Topic
Board Beginners & Help
Re: BitTalk.TV Interview with Zhou Tong of Bitcoinica.com [Newbie-friendly thread]
by
Mihai Alisie
on 16/01/2012, 19:19:57 UTC
Hello all,

Just wanted to remind you that there is no more than 24 hours remaining before we will no longer be recording questions asked in this thread for Zhou Tong’s interview that will take place on BitTalk.TV.

Please, if you have any questions to address to Zhou Tong, post them within the next 24 hours!

Thanks!

Mihai Alisie
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: BitTalk.TV Interview with Zhou Tong of Bitcoinica.com
by
Mihai Alisie
on 16/01/2012, 19:18:58 UTC
Hello all,

Just wanted to remind you that there is no more than 24 hours remaining before we will no longer be recording questions asked in this thread for Zhou Tong’s interview that will take place on BitTalk.TV.

Please, if you have any questions to address to Zhou Tong, post them within the next 24 hours!

Thanks!

Mihai Alisie
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Topic
Board Beginners & Help
Re: BitTalk.TV Interview with Zhou Tong of Bitcoinica.com [Newbie-friendly thread]
by
Mihai Alisie
on 10/01/2012, 14:21:14 UTC
BitTalk.TV will interview Zhou Tong this week regarding the now famous Bitcoinica.com.

We’ll probe his mind on the making of bitcoinica, the issues he faced, the success of it, and his future projects.  During the interview, Zhou Tong will be announcing some very important news that you won’t want to miss.

If you have a question you’d like Zhou Tong to answer during our interview, please post it below.

If it makes it on air, we’ll give you a free issue of BitTalk Magazine, the new digital magazine made for bitcoiners, by bitcoiners.
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
BitTalk.TV Interview with Zhou Tong of Bitcoinica.com
by
Mihai Alisie
on 10/01/2012, 13:59:01 UTC
BitTalk.TV will interview Zhou Tong this week regarding the now famous Bitcoinica.com.

We’ll probe his mind on the making of bitcoinica, the issues he faced, the success of it, and his future projects.  During the interview, Zhou Tong will be announcing some very important news that you won’t want to miss.

If you have a question you’d like Zhou Tong to answer during our interview, please post it below.

If it makes it on air, we’ll give you a free issue of BitTalk Magazine, the new digital magazine made for bitcoiners, by bitcoiners.



*This thread is live! That means that the topic will change and all future announcements will be posted directly here. You might want to subscribe!
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Board Beginners & Help
Re: Whitelist Requests (Want out of here?)
by
Mihai Alisie
on 10/01/2012, 13:36:06 UTC
Hello,

My name is Mihai Alisie and I'm a member of the BitTalk media team https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=57219.0 .

I need to be able to post in other areas of the forum so we can connect better with the community and offer you guys finally a quality media channel that reflects what YOU want and what you're interested in. I have 5 posts and over 4 hours of total time logged in, but at this point it seems that I can't "get out of here", so if you can whitelist me that would be AWESOME!

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: Seems to work now Grin, nevermind Roll Eyes
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Topic
Board Archival
Re: Bitcoin Party
by
Mihai Alisie
on 09/01/2012, 17:16:04 UTC
damn, I thought there was a party somewhere  Embarrassed
Angry ..same here
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Topic
Board Offtopic
Re: Română
by
Mihai Alisie
on 09/01/2012, 16:23:31 UTC
Salutare!

Inca un roman pe forum  Grin, care e pragul care trebuie trecut pentru a avea un board in RO?
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Topic
Board Beginners & Help
Re: I have a new idea about decentralization
by
Mihai Alisie
on 09/01/2012, 16:06:06 UTC
Money are the special example, many other limited resources could distributed by this way.
Could you some other examples?
Aha, Grin I think the world should be managed by this way.

From what I can tell from the very short "proposal" is that people with money make all the rules. Congratulations! The world IS managed this way already!
Where is the democracy then?
Post
Topic
Board Beginners & Help
Re: Introduce yourself :)
by
Mihai Alisie
on 08/01/2012, 22:06:02 UTC
Hello!

My name is Mihai and I'm a member of the BitTalk media team Grin