{"id":35435,"date":"2023-10-20T14:38:34","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/bitcoin-exchange-business-embroiled-in-non-payment-scandal-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:38:34","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:38:34","slug":"bitcoin-exchange-business-embroiled-in-non-payment-scandal-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/bitcoin-exchange-business-embroiled-in-non-payment-scandal-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin exchange business embroiled in non-payment scandal – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A number of users of an online forum, LawAnswers, claim to have paid over $10,000 to Queensland-based crypto-currency exchange bitXoin for bitcoins they never received.<\/p>\n

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bitXoin\u2019s online shop is now closed.<\/p>\n

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One user Jamesq, who says he lost \u201c2500\u201d of an unspecified currency (which StartupSmart<\/i> assumes to be AUD), posted a letter that appears to be from the owners of the exchange acknowledging that there was a problem, and offering equity provided by an obscure Hong Kong company in an unspecified \u201cbusiness\u201d. It did not indicate that requesting a refund was possible.<\/p>\n

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The email explained that the exchange had just been acquired by Aureus Prime Factor Limited (APF), a company \u201cestablished as a cryptocurrency investment manager and business incubator\u201d. It said that Aureus Prime Factor Limited was owned by Hong Kong-based Roosevelt Group International Limited.<\/p>\n

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It says that as the company did not wish to see \u201ccounterparties\u201d suffer financial losses, APF would \u201cmake it up to them\u201d through issuing \u201ccrypto-securities in the revamped bitXoin.com business to disaffected customers\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEffectively, this means you will gain equity in the business in the form of saleable crypto-securities,\u201d the email says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe units issued to you will be split out to disaffected small customers in proportion to their loss and they will be pegged at a valuation lower than subsequent issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The email is apparently signed by David Collinson, who is identified in the email as the Managing Director of RGI and related Australian entity Roosevelt Group Pty Ltd<\/a> (RG).<\/p>\n

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StartupSmart<\/i> contacted David Collinson via email, however he declined to comment on the state of bitXoin for this article.<\/p>\n

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StartupSmart<\/i> can find no web presence for APF, although it does appear on a Hong Kong government document, \u2018List of Newly Incorporated Registered\/Companies and Companies which have changed names<\/a>\u2019, and the Hong Kong Companies Registry.<\/p>\n

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The Hong Kong Companies Registry<\/a> says APF was incorporated on December 13, 2013. Roosevelt Group International Limited also appears on the registry and was incorporated two days earlier on December 11, 2013.<\/p>\n

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According to ASIC<\/a>, RG was registered in Queensland on July 19, 2013.<\/p>\n

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A user under the name DavidC, claiming to be David Collinson, says the forum thread \u201clead to several large volume orders not being completed\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTo be precise, orders for $70,000\/week, $108,000, $50,000\/week and 134 bitcoin were made or enquired about and none completed,\u201d the user says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cA couple of these would have made the difference needed to guarantee solvency and allow me to continue allowing the Company to trade.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHad I been able to keep trading the company. Necessarily, all the orders would have been filled.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The user says the company has ceased trading, according to government records<\/a>, BITXOIN PTY LTD\u2019s ABN status is \u201cactive\u201d. A status of cancelled would mean the business had ceased trading<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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In a later post that same user says there is little to salvage of bitXoin because of various reasons.<\/p>\n

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The user alleges embezzlement by a former business partner, bank error, international wire problems, missing wire transfer amounts, coding error resulting in trading at a loss, timing losses resultant of missed orders and interim movement in market prices and failure of large orders to complete.<\/p>\n

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In addition to being \u201cset against the backdrop of regulatory and taxation ambiguity, the decision to cease trading the entity became unavoidable\u201d.<\/p>\n

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It states that APF will \u201cconduct activities in Australia via licence agreement with XOIN PTY LTD and a revamped version of the site will launch as soon as a capital is secured to fund working capital needs\u201d.<\/p>\n

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One user, Norm, who claims to have lost almost $7000, says that David Collinson requested he sign a confidentiality agreement, which he plans to do.<\/p>\n

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<\/i><\/p>\n

StartupSmart<\/i> reached out to a number of the users on the forum claiming to have lost money, including Norm. None were willing to comment on record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A number of users of an online forum, LawAnswers, claim to have paid over $10,000 to Queensland-based crypto-currency exchange bitXoin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}