Welcome to this bitnews….unfortunately we’ve got some breaking news this time that is unfortunately, in a word, awful.
The ship has sunk. Former Moolah.io CEO “Alex Green” whose identity has been in question this past week has confessed. He is indeed formerly known scam artist Ryan Kennedy and a slew of other identities he had changed his name from over the years.
Even more horrible than discovering that he has indeed been fooling everyone is the realization at this later hour that as the story develops further, Alex Green has just today, Sunday, October 19th, 2014, made a blog post titled Recent Events. In it he announced that he “will not be commenting on the majority of the allegations surrounding him, other than to say that some of the latest ones are,” according to him, “getting rather ridiculous” and that he “denies the vast majority of them.”
This initially sincere gesture is then tainted with disbelief with him admitting and confessing, that he had indeed legally changed his name from Ryan Kennedy to Alex Green to quote “attempt to start [his] life over and have some peace.”
Umm….okay. Hold on to your seats folks cause that’s not all he’s admitting….
Alex err Ryan…let’s just call him Green from now since that seems to be the most recent personality and identity he is claiming, goes on to say “it recently came to his attention that moolah.io had been bleeding funds from the core platform. The audit process did not trigger on this, because the audit process looks for a difference between the sum balance of consumer accounts, and what is reported on the platform. Because of what is a giant technical oversight by myself, it did not take into account any additional funds held on the platform, including funds managed on behalf of MintPal Limited, and funds held for third parties.
The bug itself seems to have manifested as people being able to arbitrarily double their balances on a whim. This was reported when Moolah V2 was launched (both privately and in public), and was rapidly resolved – but it appears now that there was another vector to do this that we were unaware of. I am currently digging through the withdrawal history, and building a full picture of events to provide to the relevant authorities as required.”
Uh oh…you can bet where this is headed next….he goes on further to say he investigated the issue while he was overseas (WHEN AND WHERE ALEX? WERE YOU SPENDING TIME WITH MT GOX CEO MARK KARPELES TO GET ADVICE? That’s what everyone in the Bitcoin industry is assuming) and all systems relating to it were shut down immediately as soon as it was noticed that large amounts of capital were missing.
Because, the next sentence where you then backtrack (AGAIN!) and say that while you stated a VC would invest to cover the losses after you “tentatively” stated that Moopay was going bankrupt, has now pulled out of the investment due to the PR backlash that suddenly exploded.” C’mon now.
Amazingly…he then goes on to say he is now wondering if he should have waited until after the investment closed before hastily “doing the right thing” and announcing bankruptcy so that the backlash would not occur.
But the backlash occurred because you were indeed LYING about who you are and that means the alleged checkered past may also be true Alex. All of this is not very confidence or trust inspiring!!
And then folks, Green announces Moopay LTD is now insolvent with no choice but to enter into liquidation following the passing of a winding-up resolution. In plain speak, as he explained it, in the United Kingdom, this is known as a creditors’ voluntary liquidation. Meaning, the company becomes insolvent and registered as unable to pay its debt, much like when a company files for bankruptcy in the US.
Green goes on to say “a creditors’ meeting will be announced shortly in relation to this and explains that the company was running out of reserves to operate on based on [their] records, and [they’ll] be making full details of their expenses available to their investors in the very near future. This will include a full breakdown, and receipts/invoices where available.” Interestingly Alex goes on to say that Moolah will likely have still gone out of business this month regardless. Yep. If you’re following this, it’s hard to argue against folks who are pointing out and speculating that these all sound like “hacked excuses” and that this feels like Mt Gox and moreover especially in light of the fact, regardless of Alex Green’s insistence that he is innocent of allegations of late that he is Ryan Albright, Kennedy, Gentle or any other name – taking a second here, which allegations are you denying specifically Alex…err…Ryan? The scams? Perhaps you call them something else? – these feel, look and if actions could smell, definitely reek of SCAM. WHERE IS EVERYONE’S MONEY ALEX?
Yep….this is Mt Gox unfolding right in front of our eyes folks. To translate for a second, all employees of Moopay LTD, MintPal and Moolah are now fired. Most notably and this is something he did not mention in the blog post, roughly $2 million dollars in Bitcoins are now gone. Really Ryan? It was a glitch you didn’t notice? The storyline is a bit too much of a coincidence to every other story you have been accused to have spun.
It’s likely MintPal is now over as well. Moolah tweeted just last night, October 18, 2014 that Torihiki LTD has ended all association with MintPal Limited right after they tweeted their last blog post. If the folks’ watching the story closely have their math on point, which I’m sure they do, there’s $2 million in Bitcoin out there that should not have been “mismanaged” if that is the truth or lost and unattached to either Moopay, MintPal, Moolah or any project touched. Alex Ryan, as we shall call him, insists balances that
“were not stored with Moolah have not been subject to the same exploit.
As of so far, MintPal has processed 2597 BTC worth of altcoin withdrawals since the platform was fully shut down. A large number of withdrawals (both BTC and altcoin) were processed prior to this event.
XMR withdrawals will follow shortly.
Some funds are floating around in the old wallets (having failed to be imported), and [he is] currently trying to reclaim these in order to strength exchange reserves.
Withdrawals will continue to be processed until all wallets are depleted.”
Well, I know for certain and users across Reddit and the Bitcoin industry can definitely be described as being in shocked, horrified, disbelief. Folks industry wide and the historical pattern of the chronicled accounts on EncyclopediaDramatica detailing “what Alex claims to be alleged” exploits of Senshimedia and more of Alex Green or Ryan Whatever The Last Name is would point to a pattern where whoever he is has continually done this over and over FOR YEARS. Start something, get money from innocent folks, things go awry and are claimed to mismanaged, then POOF claims that the money is somehow is no longer and it seems the money along with Alex disappears. Coincidence? Probably not. Money disappears because someone enjoys it.
Oddly Alex goes on to assert that “further details on the exploit and how it occurred, will be provided as soon as everything has been fully explored and all records investigated.” Interesting that the term exploit is used.
Alex’s Final Words In His Blog Post:
“I do not believe I can ever apologize enough to customers of MintPal, investors in Moolah, third parties who trusted us, and the general digital currency community at large. This situation should have never occurred, and I intend to never again take a position of leadership in a financial related company of any kind. Then again, I never expect to work in anything financial related full stop. I have zero intent of ever going into business for myself, ever again.
I do not expect that the general populace will believe anything I have said here, and as the sole director of Moopay LTD, I fully intend to cooperate with any and all law enforcement and regulatory agencies as required. Contrary to rumours, none have reached out to me as of yet, but I await any contact in light of recent events. I am not in hiding, and it would be very easy for any official body to find me.
I fully expect that the Insolvency Service will find that I poorly managed the situation, and likely have me barred from being a company director for 15 years. I will cooperate with them fully in this situation.
There has been no criminal wrongdoing on the part of any employee or shareholder in Moopay LTD, and while I can understand the general sentiment against myself, please don’t attack my former employees. They were as surprised by this all as I was, if not more; and they never would have had access to the information that could have prevented it.
I am shocked and upset that this has happened, and I am fully aware that I deserve the general sentiment in relation to me. Again, words cannot express how sorry I am. I will be taking any and all possible action in order to mitigate the damage caused by this event, in turn likely caused by poor management by myself.
And yes, I know sorry isn’t good enough. I know I have fucked up on a catastrophic level. There should have been better procedures in place.”
SIGH.
An apology. Is surely appreciated but not enough. That’s the thing folks. Be dishonest, scam folks and misrepresent yourself and trust in any good faith is hard to come by and frankly, even if he is telling the truth, it would be difficult for anyone to believe that he may as some speculate be the one getting away with $2 million of folk’s money and further likely to disappear and reappear perhaps with another name and identity once more.
We suppose that the public can only agree with a statement, Jackson Palmer, the creator of Dogecoin has shared with Follow The Coin in which he says:
I’m happy that the truth has finally come to light after a stressful week for everyone involved. People who have been impacted by Ryan Kennedy / Alex Green now have a clear path to seeking legal action regarding the missing / alleged stolen funds. My personal hope is that this criminal is met with justice, after the damage he has inflicted upon Dogecoin and the digital currency community at large” – Jackson Palmer, creator of Dogecoin
Just yesterday, October 18th, Reddit user Lleti, also known as Eoghan Hayes, now former Systems Administrator of Moolah.io, had made a thorough post that can be found on r/dogecoin detailing personal first hand experiences with Ryan Kennedy as a person and as a friend; and their time with Moolah/MooPay. He spared no details from the time period and duration and the details are pretty scary and revealing. Including a confirmation that Ryan Kennedy and Alex Green are indeed the same person. In the post he asserts he will be “referring to this individual as Ryan Kennedy. Ryan Kennedy is the name that I saw on his passport. It is the name I call him. It was the name I made fun of when he booked me a ticket to the UK via RyanAir. It was the name he told me he had changed via deed poll, to Alex Green.”
Further, Landon Merrill, now former Chief Operating Officer of Moolah, also made a reddit post going over his account of the events unfolding and his time at Moolah. He asserts in his own words that he has “done everything 100% legally and in good faith in the United States. I have broken no laws, deceived no one, and scammed nothing. My name is listed on the MooPay LTD paperwork, but the shares were never legally issued to me, nor a contract, or hell a single piece of paper was signed between myself and “Alex Green”. Nothing was signed between myself and “Ryan Kennedy”, or any other name he might have used in the past.” He then goes on to also support as Eoghan does that they did not know anything about Alex Green’s past as possible scam artist though they do acknowledge that he was known to them as Ryan Kennedy.
It goes without saying, that they no longer work with Moolah, Ryan Kennedy, or any associated company. Apparently, “Ryan Kennedy” who is speculated as being “Alex Green” the now former CEO of Moolah.io, had two distinct personality profiles that can be distinguished. One was “kind, captivating, a wordsmith, highly intelligent, and a good friend to me. The second person is what I can only at this point, describe as a comic book villain; someone who has left a wake of destruction in their path, through various alleged cases of deception, fraud, intimidation, and abuse.” This second person is described by Lleti as being like “a comic book villain; someone who has left a wake of destruction in their path, through various alleged cases of deception, fraud, intimidation, and abuse.”
So here we are, with the latest update on what is going on with Moolah, Moopay, MintPal and Alex Ryan Green Kennedy, has issued a public apology and statement as to the mismanagement of funds associated with Moopay and that he is indeed someone who was or is known to be Ryan Kennedy. He is asserting he is innocent of most of the claims occurring of late, though he is not specific about which while many accounts and details are published and surfacing otherwise that do speculate and allege that he has scammed and taken advantage of innocent people and may be getting away with perhaps over $2 million this time around. It is probably also getting lonely out there for Ryan Alex Green Kennedy with former employees, friends and the general public being shocked and while still having the courtesy to not hurt feelings too badly, going on record or in quiet accounting for disappointing behavior, to that effect both Hayes and Merrill’s posts on Reddit can be read in full below. Eoghan’s is especially detailed.
And as of this Sunday morning, October 18, 2014, Syscoin has announced via Twitter that they have served legal letters to all involved parties, as well as Moopay LTD itself by the Syscoin legal counsel. According to CryptoArticles they approached Moolah directly and also kept publicizing their efforts to get their funds returned in light of “all the drama and confusion surrounding the Moolah/MintPal situation” since SysCoin could very well be the largest if not one the larger victims “with roughly 1,000 BTC of pre-sale funds still in the hands of Moolah” after having approached Moolah and giving them a 24-hour deadline to release the funds which they have failed to do.
“Despite these legal actions being taken, and the fact it could take a while until matters are resolved, the SysCoin development remains unaffected. Feedback on the 0.1.5 RC3 client is still being collected as we speak, and a new DNS seed has been set up successfully.
A new IRC tipbot for IRC is currently 90% completed, and is expected to be available in a few days. An updated development roadmap is expected to be released in the next 24-48 hours, so we wil keep an eye out for that.
Some of Syscoin’s Official announcements :
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=757255.msg9241341#msg9241341
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=757255.msg9239527#msg9239527
In the end, what can innocent folks hope for? Their funds back? Highly unlikely to happen. Questions answered? Possibly. But that still leaves folks hurt, confused and victims of undeserved potential malice. It would be ideal if folks who are unable to manage funds and have purposefully or accidentally taken advantage of people to be honest about their incompetence. It would further be ideal if they were not allowed to be in positions of power to control and manipulate others and even more so to steal and take advantage of other’s hard earned and rightful money. People are being hurt by your actions, it IS criminal no matter how much you think you are in the right, you are taking off with other folks money without delivering on goods and services you collected the money for, that is fraud. Whether it was intended or no. Please try to do the right thing and be honest and stop the lies, deceit and strategizing. It’s disgusting. Would you want someone to treat people you love whether that be you, your parents, your significant other or your friends like this? Taken advantage of and lied to? No? Then please do try to get some help and start treating people with decency, honesty and consideration as a start.
LANDON MERRILL’S POST IN FULL:
Click the link to access the entire Reddit thread:
http://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/comments/2jn4n6/a_statement_from_landon_merrill/
My name is Landon Merrill, but most of you know me as TheBoffin, or just as Boff. With everything that has been brought into the light over the past few days, I figured it would be best for me to make a statement of some sorts, so here it is.
I first began my interactions with “Alex Green” during the late part of December 2013. We met in an internet chatroom (IRC) specifically for Dogecoin. We started talking, and bouncing ideas off each other, and we hit it off. We fed off each other’s ideas. We soon began talking in depth about Moolah, and what could be done with it. I signed up for his service, and instantly thought to myself that I had to be a part of this. This is going to be big. That is when the first round of “PIE” opened up. I invested 500,000 DOGE (1.1 BTC at the time) but kept wanting more. Eventually we began talking as business partners, and I was offered the role of Head of US Operations. I immediately wanted myself to be protected, and incorporated Moolah.io Inc in the state of Wyoming. I opened up a bank account with Wells Fargo, and we were in business. Yes, I am omitting the entire “Treats” formula from this equation.
Business was doing great. Storefronts were working as planned, and life was good. Sponsorships happened, tips were given, and Doge was going to the moon, or so I thought. It was the middle of this year when I did become worried about a few minor things, not having access to certain features, or control over certain situations. At the same time, I thought very simply to myself, would I trust this person whom I have never met? I shrugged off my doubts simply as me worrying too much about nothing. Things continued on, slander was stated, angry comments and legal threats were being thrown around like candy at a parade. Here I sat, wondering not only what the hell was going on, but also what was true, and what was FUD? Who do I believe? Whose side is the right one to be on? I was lost, confused, and to be completely honest, a bit scared.
Then there was the video. Aaah, the lovely video.
I’m sure most of you have seen it, and at first, I was furious that it was leaked.
Ben, I am still pissed at you for that, but we’re not going there right now 
Let’s skip a whole bunch of the bullshit, and get to the part that everyone wants to know. Is Moolah a scam, and if so, who was (is) involved, etc. Here is what I can tell you. I knew that Alex Green went by the name Ryan in real life, to some people. I did not know that was his real name, middle name, what it was, or what it meant. I have many friends that go by names that are not their birth name, so I really did not put any thought into it. Here is what I know to be fact. I have done everything 100% legally and in good faith in the United States. I have broken no laws, deceived no one, and scammed nothing. My name is listed on the MooPay LTD paperwork, but the shares were never legally issued to me, nor a contract, or hell a single piece of paper was signed between myself and “Alex Green”. Nothing was signed between myself and “Ryan Kennedy”, or any other name he might have used in the past. This is something that has bothered me for a long time, but it seems now that it might be a blessing in disguise. Dogecoin was what brought me into the world of Digital Currency. I have given away millions, of my own doge, long before I was involved with Moolah. I started the PIF subreddit back in the very early days to create a safe(r) place for “tipping wars”. I broke Mohland’s bot FAR too many times, called him while he was at the pub, and begged him to fix it. I’m not going to sit here and have my name dragged through the mud for nothing. It never deserved to be in the mud to begin with.
Now I bet you are wondering what about the rest of the staff?
I cannot speak for everyone, but I do have very strong feelings about a few of them, and I will share those with you.
Eoghan (aka) /u/lleti
Great guy, smart as a whip. I talk to him constantly, and I am 100% sure he had no clue,
nor any involvement in any potential scams, or knowledge of Ryan’s past.
Alex (Hatz) (aka) /u/ahatzz11
Broski, I know, for a fact that you had nothing to do with this. Hands down, I will state it as fact.
Forrest (aka) /u/xJRWR
If he had anything to do with this, then I will eat my shoe. And I have big feet.
Spike (aka) /u/cspice
Seb (aka) /u/NoMercy82
Jon (aka) /u/noneo
Again, 100% sure they had nothing to do, nor any knowledge about any of this.
Chelsea (aka) /u/strictlycomeprancing
I really doubt that you knew, and if you did, well good job hiding it from me.
I know that you had more interaction with Ryan than any of us did, but that does not imply that you knew anything.
I am willing to answer most questions that have to do with me, but I will not, in any way speak for any other member of my staff. Please try to keep it civil, and remember, I am not a bad person. I would also like to state that there has been no evidence of any wrongdoing by Moolah at this time. I hope to god that nothing surfaces, but it might. I honestly have no clue. Right now, what I want most of all, is to protect myself first and foremost, as well as those I know are innocent.
Some of the staff will be available in #moolah.io on Freenode IRC answering questions as well
webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#moolah.io
THE POST IN FULL BY EOGHAN HAYES:
Click the link to access the entire Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/comments/2jnhxt/this_is_the_person_i_know_as_ryan_kennedy_and_my/
Lately, whenever I say the name “Ryan Kennedy”, two particular people spring to mind. The first is an individual whom I would describe as kind, captivating, a wordsmith, highly intelligent, and a good friend to me. The second person is what I can only at this point, describe as a comic book villain; someone who has left a wake of destruction in their path, through various alleged cases of deception, fraud, intimidation, and abuse. The second person, if I were to believe the things that have been spread recently, is also far more intelligent; but in an entirely different way.
Firstly, I’m going to state one thing; I am referring to this individual as Ryan Kennedy. Ryan Kennedy is the name that I saw on his passport. It is the name I call him. It was the name I made fun of when he booked me a ticket to the UK via RyanAir. It was the name he told me he had changed via deed poll, to Alex Green.
This post is not to delve into his personal life; he gave personal reasons as to why he did not want to be called “Ryan Kennedy” in public, and gave me a long story into the legalities of his new identity. And I believed him. He wanted privacy due to what I can only describe as a deeply personal issue, and I respected that. This was the first, and last time I ever spoke to him about his name, or identity.
Ryan approached me several times to work with Moolah/the holding company “MooPay” in the past – to which I refused, several times. I did not refuse on the basis that I thought there was anything shady or otherwise with the companies – I simply wasn’t interested. I did speak to Ryan and others about how I wanted to launch vAsic, and also look towards launching a CEX.io style platform for hashrate trading, targeted towards Doge mining. Upon telling Ryan about these plans, Ryan immediately told me he had “the same idea”; and made some boisterous comments in regards to how I “should not even try to compete with him”, due to the power of what seemed to be unlimited funds on his side.
And so, eventually, Ryan struck a deal with me in regards to vAsic – he will cover the first round of ASICs, at no loss to me. I didn’t have to sign any contract; he would pay for the first round, as a friend. If I wanted further investment beyond this point, I would begin working for Moolah/Moopay. “Your first hit is free”, right? I accepted this offer. vAsic was launched – and in retrospect, it marked an important date in the fact that Moolah, the “hardware ATM company”, had now finally shipped custom hardware – ASICs that were voltmodded by myself. With vAsic, I was spending around 9 hours a day at my day job as a Software Developer, getting home, and spending around 5 hours soldering, and testing devices. At weekends, I’d put in around 30 hours to catch up on any backlog. I’m quite certain the amount of residual lead I’ve absorbed through my fingers at this point will ensure that I’m mad as a hatter by the time I hit my 40’s, but I digress – that’s not the point here. The whole operation went swimmingly, and I agreed with Ryan – he would invest aroundabouts $10,000 in a second round of devices, and would take 49% of vAsic. In return, I would continue working on vAsic, and also become a staff member of Moolah/MooPay.
The reaction to vAsic was overwhelmingly positive. Yeah, the profits were razor thin (we’ll get back to this point shortly), but seeing people post up photos of their modded ASICs, mining Doge – and then having a laugh with everyone who wanted a “signed ASIC”? That was what made the project for me. Similar to the work I’d previously done on releasing the Amazon Miner AMI, and working on the Doge source base, I got to see people enjoying the fruits of my labour.
The internal company response from Ryan, did not share my views.
I was not at any point congratulated for getting all the orders handled – nothing in regards to soldering, reaching shipping deadlines, providing customer updates, handling the support side of things; that was all negligible. The response instead, was “why didn’t we sell them for a higher price?”. Now, I can understand that – but for those who weren’t around during the vAsic unveiling, let me re-cap over the plan than I ran with. The devices themselves would be sold at cost – or even slightly below cost. The main meat of the operation was to lie with vPool, a mining pool which would be run by us. The Pool would absorb a 2% fee, and allow you to either mine Doge, or multi-mine altcoins for a payout in Doge. I was working on software to accompany the mining hardware, which would allow for a “quick setup” – i.e; a pre-compiled miner that’d connect you straight to vPool, and pay out to your wallet address.
The logic was simple enough; people receive their ASICs. They can use the pre-compiled miner to avoid the whole setup routine. They make a bang for their buck off the pool, which profit-switches. The 2% fee then goes towards covering any loss on the hardware, or making a profit; whichever Ryan choose to be prudent. We get to undercut prices, miners get cheaper devices. The Doge hashrate is boosted – worse case scenario, we’re doing something great for the community, and we are not making a loss from it. If our only profit is a positive PR – and we’re not making a financial loss, I saw it as a winning situation.
So, time came to get the pool up and running – and I requested to work with the Moolah sysadmin Forrest (JRWR) to develop the pool. All I would need from JRWR is the backend work in setting up the daemons as you would with a standard pool; and I’d write the profit-switching algorithm. Ryan assured me that he would lend his own devices (which he claimed to run at a total power of 1GH/s – about 2% of the total hashrate at the time), in order to bolster the pool’s strength and viability.
But then things, predictably in hindsight, went wrong. Ryan got angry at the idea of us using NOMP/MPOS to develop our system on. He claimed he was working on his own pool software. Well, not working on it – he was actually running on it. And he claimed it was a profit-switching pool already, with all algorithms already completed. This blindsided me. We were sitting on a profit-switching custom pool software? Why on earth was I not told about this? What’s it written in? Can you please send it on to me?
No. “It’s not finished yet”, was the reply. Can you send me on the source base, so that I can finish it myself, considering how busy you are in other areas? “No”. A few weeks went by, and vAsic’s second batch was coming in. I took matters into my own hands – and convinced JRWR to set up a plain Dogecoin and Litecoin pool to run from vPool. The motive was very unappreciated by Ryan, but he seemed to understand to an extent, that vAsic will haemorrhage money if we leave out the most important element of the entire business model – being the pool software. We got the pool up and running, and requested the 1GH/s hashrate to be applied to it.
As I’m sure many are assuming – and many are remembering from using vPool, this 1GH/s hashrate never arrived. Our hashrate was too low to find blocks at a reasonable pace, and it was unprofitable for miners. Myself and Landon (TheBoffin), pointed our own personal devices to the pool, lending it around 20MH/s. This was the best we could do at this time – and we had already taken thousands of dollars worth of orders for new devices. And they were all sold at cost; not including the price of solder, soldering tips, packaging, etc. Obviously, there was no real “labour” cost associated with vAsic – I was the one doing the soldering and testing, and a friend agreed to assist with the packaging for a small enough fee (around $200 for a full weeks work – which came to a total of 4 weeks for him). So, what happened? The devices got shipped – the pool was a flop due to the non-delivery and non-development of products we had been promised, and the company as a whole made a loss.
I was, to be frank, flabbergasted – how could Ryan allow something like this to happen? If there was no custom pool software, I was ready and willing to develop it. If there was no 1GH/s hashrate to apply to the pool, we could’ve offered mining incentives to some of the bigger miners to assist us in finding blocks for a natural growth over time. Instead, we only had phase 1 of the plan – selling hardware without an incentive for profit. How on earth can a company justify doing that? Well, the answer was, the company was not going to justify it. The response to me was one of anger and blame. vAsic was going to be wound up as a result of these failures.
To which, I did not agree with. The deal was that Ryan would take 49% of the company – and I would hold onto the other 51%, alongside lending myself to Moolah/the MooPay holding company. Later, an internal company call took place in regards to company logistics moving forward. This would be the first time I’d ever sat in on an “internal company call” – I was starting to think they only existed for playing League of Legends.
At the start of the call, Ryan commented that his power had gone out – and I made the (admitably awful) joke of shouting “THEN WE WILL LOGISTICS IN THE DARK!”, in a tone reminiscent of Leonidas. Well, mistake number one. Ryan responded in stating “Eoghan, please take this seriously, this is a logistics call”. “Alright, let’s do this then”, was my reply. I was met with the response of “Ok, you appear to be having a problem at the moment Eoghan, we will talk to you later”. This was followed up with me being ejected from the conference. My housemate was sitting beside me at the time, and I recall his – excuse the expletive – response to this, was; “What the fuck is his problem?”.
I contacted Landon, and told him he can make Ryan aware that I have no interest in continuing our business arrangement. I am happy for Ryan to continue holding 49% of vAsic, and I will continue development on it myself; but as far as Moolah and MooPay goes, I did want any part of it. Ryan’s reaction, and his behaviour towards me had been consistent with the above call. There was a constant sense of fear among staff, and an unsettling feeling that for the most part, would not pass. Landon agreed with me on many sentiments – and later would admit to me that the vast majority of staff members had approached him with similar concerns. However, back to the matter at hand – Landon delivered the message to Ryan, and I then found myself in a very similar situation to what others, such as Jackson Palmer and Ben Doernberg found themselves in before.
The vAsic account had around $7500 left in it (after the second round device sales, a loss of around $2500 due to some broken G-Blade models, which we had been given “store credit” for, instead of a refund); and Ryan demanded it back. He also demanded the vAsic company in full; claiming that the fact that I followed his instructions in adding the text “vAsic is a trading style of MooPay Ltd…”, to the webpage footer, made it legally his property; that my 51% was in short, smoke and mirrors. I reacted very angrily. I refused to hand over anything. His response, was that he was contacting the local police station, and would sue me. My response? “Do it”.
Suddenly, there was a calm. The story changed. Ryan told me about some personal things he was going through, he was sorry, and didn’t mean to snap at me – it was undeserved, etc. “We’ll make vAsic work. You’ll get more autonomy”. I was given an apology, to which I accepted. Everything was going to be fine, we all have bad days. It happens. What’s important is vAsic gets to continue on, and everything is fine now. Ryan said that we should meet, and celebrate working together – he booked me a ticket over to the UK, and we were going to head out and have fun for the day. Everything was swell again.
When I met Ryan, he was as I said all along – a kind, captivating individual. He seemed to have a story for just about everything. He showed me his passport “to prove he was real”, which we both had a laugh at. He told me several stories/quoted several things – that admitably sounded a little far fetched at the time – that I would later read on his Encyclopedia Dramatica article, and mostly in relation to how he built up his personal wealth. Over time, his stories on gaining personal wealth seemed to change; and the strange part is, that in hindsight, I didn’t notice. Over the course of the months that followed, the stories that were being woven seemed to become more and more believable. One in particular, spoke about a relation to the old Earls of England, and a wealthy ancestry tied into this – and again, at the time, this seemed like an entirely reasonable explanation to me. Even though I had been told several different things by the same person, somehow, these things seemed real.
Back home, my mind was more at ease with everything – I met the guy, and he was nice. He was genuine. I wanted to get back to work on vAsic.
Ryan had other ideas. We spoke over Skype, mostly in regards to the logistical costs involved; packaging, absorbing the cost of broken devices (to which ASIC manufacturers rarely take responsibility for), scaling up the operation with staff requirements etc; and Ryan eventually convinced me that vAsic should be wound down. I agreed. And I can’t tell you why – honestly, because I can’t tell myself why, but I was no longer making the argument of vPool being the intended profit turner; or asking about his custom pool software. Come to think of it, he also stated he had direct contacts at Zeusminer who could give us excellently discounted deals – but none of this occurred to me. I accepted his advice on the situation, and we wound down vAsic.
So, what did I do with Moolah/MooPay beyond this point? Well, on my second trip over to the UK to meet Ryan, someone asked me what my job was with Moolah/MooPay. My official title was “research and development”. But I joked “paid friend” when asked. Part in jest, part to drop a hint to Ryan that I was unhappy at how detached my work seemed to be from any of the core platforms.
One of my first suggestions to Ryan, was in relation to staff; there are several members of staff working non-technical areas, whom have all proven their technical aptitude. Either from professional experience with programming/development, or from studying a Computer Science field. I stated that we have underutilised talent, whom I could train up on application development over time – giving us a free source of home-brewed coders. Startups nearly always have a self-educating environment with their staff, why wouldn’t we do the exact same, when we already have talented individuals at our disposal?
The response was volatile. Insults were thrown towards those with development experience; they are not to be trusted with code. They cannot be good enough to do x, y, and z. It is not up for discussion. You have a project assignment, and I suggest you work on it.
My project assignment was something I drew up the whitepaper for on request – and even in the whitepaper documents, I noted how terrible an idea it was from a financial perspective. Without going into great detail, think of rewriting the entire bitcoin protocol in a different language. With very minor changes – just a different language. It made no sense to me as to why it was approved. I constantly chimed in with stating that “there is no way for this to be profitable for the company” – Ryan consistently stated that it was not intended to be. Just to keep working on it. And that was it. I still to this date, do not understand what he was looking to do with this project.
Things continued to turn bad for Moolah – but Ryan’s spirits always remained high. We were consistently assured of all the love and admiration that the adoring public are giving us; there’s just a vocal minority comprised of nutbags, rallied by the “downright evil” Ben Doernberg and Jackson Palmer that want to put us down for no reason. And I say this in assuring you, that this is what the staff believed.
I stepped up to handle some PR – albeit without permission. I began reading the MoolahPIE subreddit, a discussion forum set up purely for anyone who had invested in the initial 750 BTC offering by Ryan Kennedy, into the newly formed Moolah company. I wouldn’t say that people were angry – rather, they were getting frustrated. Communications from the company on there were minimal; payout and financial information was consistently delayed, and the transparency around all matters were poor. There was a post on there at one point celebrating the fact that I had been hired by Moolah – there appeared to be the impression that vAsic and my own projects would fall under the Moolah banner, meaning they would share the profits from any system I developed. Ryan later told me this wasn’t true, and that any new products I develop would be under the holding company “MooPay”; but that I would still work on Moolah as a developer if needed. Ryan stated that investors were made aware of this. I’m sure I’m going to find out very soon if this statement was true or not.
I spoke with a lot of the investors, and I raised all of their queries and concerns to Ryan. Ryan seemed unphased by any of this; and instead, again suggested that I should be working on my assigned projects. I again, spoke with Landon in regards to investor concerns; and he fully agreed with me. The investors have to date, funded the company with what I would personally call, an obscene amount of money. Landon and I both spoke with Ryan about this case; and we were promised more transparency, and better communications. This never occurred.
I met Ryan once more in the UK – again, a very spontaneous visit. The tickets were booked by Ryan around 12 hours before the flight was due to fly out. He was again, the same captivating, kind, and generous individual I remembered him as. Any doubts that may have been forming in my mind about him quickly vanished when he gave me a hug on sight, and asked me how I was doing. We went go-karting with Chelsea Hopkins, checked into a flash hotel, and had drinks/a meal in a lavish casino. Ryan talked about how great Moolah was doing. He seemed to be in a really good place, and I was very happy for him. Why wouldn’t I be? He’s my friend and he’s doing so well – everything was turning out rosy for everyone involved.
Upon returning home, I was again instilled with confidence – things are going to be great. I wrote up a proposal and whitepaper for a new internal project, which I suggested as a replacement for ‘MooFarm’ – of which, I believe the story is quite well known. Ryan ordered a large amount of Gridseed equipment for Scrypt mining, to which he later claimed became entirely unprofitable by Zeus’ entry into the marketplace, with their lower cost, higher powered ASIC devices. The project I presented had an aim to allow for profitable mining, and transferring across ‘MooFarm’ shares with the approval of the investors. Ryan later stated he was too busy to read over the project proposal, as he would be taking off for Japan shortly. Again, this travel arrangement came as news to everyone at Moolah.
I sent on the project whitepaper to Landon Merrill instead. He reviewed over it, and loved the concept. Like me, he wanted to see it get implemented as soon as possible as an alternative to “save” MooFarm. Ryan on the other hand, suddenly became staunchly against the idea – without even reading the papers. He claimed that there will be no “saving” MooFarm. The MooFarm project is dead, and will not be discussed. This was the final word on the matter.. for a couple of days.
Ryan spoke to me a few days later, from Japan, and stated we should launch the project I proposed – but not under MooPay or Moolah. It should be spun off as an entirely separate entity. This caught me off-guard; it was again, baffling to me as to why we would want to spin off this idea into a new company, rather than using it to restore confidence in Moolah/MooPay. I did not receive a response to this. Instead, the conversation went cold, and we did not speak of the project proposal again. Ryan’s focus right now was on MintPal.
My main concern however, was along the lines of “Why on earth is he in Japan, when a major trading platform is about to get relaunched?”. The issues with the relaunch hoisted a red flag in my mind – but the difference is that this time, I did not wave that flag down and reassure myself everything was fine. In the event of a mass database migration, I have never heard of taking two platforms offline. The typical way that this would be done, is that the smaller of the two sets (being moolah/prelude), would be taken offline, and converted to the new database format. After a (mostly manual) audit over the accounts set for transfer, you would then run a consistency check against the “new” database. Make sure different people aren’t using the same usernames, make sure balances are fine, etc. You then run a “test” merge, using an offline copy of the “new” database, and check if everything transferred through correctly and without error. Following this point, the larger of the two websites (being mintpal in this case), should be taken offline for around 45-60 minutes (at most), to complete a quick database merge based on the success of your test results. Why would someone, who told me that he had worked in development for Microsoft, Amazon, and Telefonica to name a few, see several days downtime for what is in my opinion, a basic task?
Things started to unravel; it became very clear that Ryan did not want to be questioned on this case. Any staff requests were ignored – and from the support staff I have spoken to, they have all stated that they are “behind closed bars” in handling customer/merchant/investor queries. They have no access to processing refunds or checking transactions themselves; it was all handled solely by the one and only, Ryan Kennedy. Information, and conflicting stories started spreading amongst the staff members like wildfire. Tension was high. MintPal went live in a “beta testing” state, and I had a quick look at it. I found an exploit very quickly; where I could inject the name of non-existent coins into the trading url, and a blank trading profile would be displayed for said coins. The main issue I had with this was that it was parsing in the text I had written into the URL, and displaying it on the page. I notified Ryan about it in Moolah’s private chatroom, and followed this up by stating that while I personally could not get any scripts to run (attempted injections of javascript/SQL Queries, which were then blocked by the backend as set up by MintPal’s old team) – I stated that “someone much smarter than you or I may find this bug, and find a way to exploit it better”.
The response I received, again raised a red flag. “If you want to doubt your own intelligence Eoghan, you can. Do not doubt mine”. Any competent developer, any experienced developer, or really anyone with a decent understanding of the industry, will ALWAYS know that there is ALWAYS someone smarter out there. Any developer who thinks they are “the best developer ever” is extremely far from “the best developer ever”. Overconfidence is a trait that I always assign with brand new programmers. It’s not necessarily a bad thing – because brand new programmers need both excitement and confidence to carry them through the learning process, wile usually working on little bits of personal software. Not one of the largest altcoin trading platforms on the planet. In not so many words, I relayed the above opinion to Ryan.
The response was apocalyptic. But not towards me. Several staff members were put on “paid suspension” – for various reasons. I witnessed all suspensions, and the reasonings (rather, the non-reasons) behind them were nothing short of outrageous. Random accusations of non-tangible targets not being met; the behemoth amount of support tickets coming in being the fault of the support team alone (when the exchange was not even running – and the public were audibly making references to a ‘MintGox’, implying Ryan may be doing a runner with their money); and Landon, who had his personal life dragged into the reasons behind his work suspension. I was initially told that I was suspended “until we can find a suitable project for you to work on”; as he showed displeasure in the fact that the month or so I had spent on entirely re-writing the bitcoin protocol in a new language, did not yet have any tangible software available. A few days later, he assured me that I was not suspended; and did not give any reason or explanation for this.
Ryan re-iterated over his reasons for suspending the other staff members; and honestly, he managed to make them sound very tangible. Looking back on it, I was happy to believe it all. I was more happy that my job was apparently safe. Ryan began speaking about the great volume that MintPal was doing; and that he had been trading on it himself. Staff appeared to be “unsuspended”, with no reasons given.
I remained in touch with Landon. We both had concerns at this point – to say the least. I got in touch with other members of the support team – namely Seb, and Alex ‘Hatz’. A big concern at the moment was that apparently, staff were not being paid. It was starting to dawn on us that something was seriously wrong; and all of a sudden, we all became blindsided by Ryan’s “bankruptcy statement” release.
I will say at this point that I have never had any view over Moolah’s financials. I was never privy to that information – and in conducting a screencasted audit on the request of r/dogecoin users back far before my employment with Moolah began, Ryan proved to me that the wallets contained all of the financials that were purported. Beyond this point, the only information I had to go by, was in Ryan sharing positive news – or in most cases, boasting about huge volume going through Moolah’s Merchant and Storefront services.
So why is it, all of sudden, after a 750BTC Fundraiser, alongside supposed private investments totalling up for several dozen additional BTC, and several months of profitability (to which MoolahPIE Investors received positive returns on), that one bad month can cause bankruptcy? How on earth is anything like that possible? Investors were furious; merchants and consumers were similarly, shocked by the sudden announcement. Ryan was not providing any answers beyond the point that “we did really well to make it 10 months as a startup, with limited funds”. My thoughts immediately recoiled back to the “leaked video” involving Ryan, Jackson, and Ben. During which, Ryan boasts that he has VC’s “bending over backwards” in attempts to invest; but Moolah didn’t need investment, he claimed. “Our MoolahPIE was just a marketing tool”. Moolah was, as Ryan declared it to be, unstoppable, financially secure, and apparently backed by what must have been the busiest legal team on the planet considering the amount of threats that were issued from Ryan.
Investors were furious – the SYSCoin team in particular, were missing approximately 750BTC. Legal allegations began; and I couldn’t blame people. If this happened to me, if my money suddenly was “all gone” without explanation, and signed off with a gratuitous “Thanks for all the fish!”, my blood would boil. And as the legal threats poured in, suddenly the bankruptcy was called off. “Those people would love to see us go down”, Ryan stated. “We’ll make this work” he claimed, before following up with a pun on stating how it’d be great to silence everyone with ATMs being released too.
I can only speak for myself on this matter – but I strongly believe all staff members felt the exact same I did. Something was seriously wrong. Something is wrong to the extent where I believe that law enforcement will become involved. I asked what was happening with MintPal – Ryan snapped back that MintPal no longer had anything to do with Moolah/MooPay, or otherwise. It was no longer our concern.
Almost immediately after this occurred, I received a phonecall from Landon – who kept asking me to verify Ryan’s full name. I stated that “you know his name as well as I do – it’s Ryan Kennedy”. Landon asked me if I had read that off his identification, and I confirmed that I had. He then asked me if I remembered Ryan’s date of birth from seeing his passport. Now, as an admission – I am terrible for remembering birthdays. I’m truly awful at it. If it weren’t for Facebook, I wouldn’t even know when to wish my best friends a happy birthday. However, I clearly remember commenting on the day, on the fact that our birthdays are very close to oneanother. “Should be sometime in December, and I think he’s a year older than me”, I replied with. Landon’s voice audibly sank. He asked me if I had ever heard of the surname “Gentle”. I replied that I did not.
Landon then linked me on to the now infamous Encyclopedia Dramatica article referencing Ryan Kennedy/Gentle (amongst other psuedonyms). He asked me to confirm that the photos posted on that page were of Ryan Kennedy. I stated that they certainly him. There is no mistaking that this is the Ryan Kennedy I know, and have met. But the article itself painted a different picture. “There is no way that this is the Ryan Kennedy I know, and have met”.
And still in writing this document, I still do not feel like I am in any way writing about the Ryan Kennedy that I know, and have met. Sure he had volatile moments – but this cannot be him. Surely it cannot be. I spoke with Jackson Palmer that night over Skype, and I shared as much information as I could; maintaining that there must be an explanation behind all of this. And at a same time, all the inconsistencies in his past started shooting to mind – from his finely woven stories about his personal wealth, down to his ensuring that no member of Moolah/MooPay were given a written, paper contract; despite our constant attempts and efforts put into receiving one. Now my mind started to wonder if he was trying to protect us in the scale of a grand scam – or if he was ensuring that a paper trail was not left.
I immediately got in touch with Mike, and Ferdous; the main shareholders in MintPal. They were as shellshocked by all of this information as I was. They then revealed to me something far more dangerous; Ryan is currently in complete control of the MintPal system, inclusive of the cold storage wallets. Coupled with this, over 1000 BTC in altcoins were not transferred in the “server migration”; and would have been lost forever if MintPal’s previous owners (Jay and Jason) did not reach out to the server host. The hopes that I had that this was all a big mis-understanding in regards to Ryan Kennedy in my mind, were soon quelled by an email that I was forwarded from Ryan’s server host.
—
17 Oct 2014 01:54
Yeah, it has been a total mess and the guy is extremely shady.
The servers got suspended for non-payment. A few days later Ryan opened a ticket asking why the servers were down and we told him they were suspended for non payment. He then tried to pay by cycling through credit cards, which flagged in our system as potential fraud. This blocked future CC payments under the account.
He then tried to pay with PayPal, and we unsuspended the machines. About 6 hours later the payments were disputed with PayPal as unauthorized and we then suspended again.
He then said it was a new PayPal account and sorry for the trouble, he would take care of it… We did not unsuspend at this point and told him the disputes need to be closed. Several days go by and they are still open and unresolved and no word from him. Finally he states he got in touch with PayPal and fixed the issue and it should be resolved within 24 hours. The disputes were closed by PayPal in his favor and all funds refunded.
We have the servers suspended still, but at this point we are about to just consider it a lost cause.
The guy gave us a UK address, but not once has he logged in via a UK IP address. All of the IPs are from random high risk countries (Russia, China, etc).
—
The information above is damning enough to begin with; but we all paid close attention to the last line of that email. “Not once has he logged in via UK IP address”. We know he’s not in China, nor Russia. Recall that earlier, I expressed doubts in my mind about his aptitude as a developer – and suddenly, we all flipped onto the same page. Was Ryan even developing for any of these platforms? April – the user Sporklin from reddit, contacted me and showed me that MintPal’s redesign was in fact, a template. A cheap template at that; around $25. And suddenly, everyone started asking me to same question; was I involved with Moolah’s core development, and have I seen Ryan’s code to date?
No, I haven’t. I was always kept busy on what seemed like a pointless project to me. Absolutely nobody within the Moolah staff team had ever seen Ryan Kennedy’s code. Ryan at this time, was in the Moolah private channel, brushing the entire situation off like it was a smear campaign. Claiming he’ll legally go through people for what they’re doing. We should all ignore it. And honestly, a very small part of me still believed this.
I kept speaking with Jackson Palmer, who later put me in touch with Ben Doernberg. The first thing I had to say to Ben was “I am so sorry”. I think I might’ve said it several more times throughout our conversation. He mentioned that he was relieved to see me on webcam, and verify that I wasn’t Alex Green/Ryan Kennedy myself. We both had a good laugh at this – conspiracy theories ran so far on Ryan Kennedy that now that everything was coming to light, it was hard to tell which “insane lies and tin-foil hat theories” were actually true.
Ben was one of the first people to call Ryan out on his allegations; and he was responded to with legal threats. Ryan talked at length about how he would cut through Ben for a shortcut (in the legal regard) – I believe every member at Moolah were well conditioned to see Ben (and Jackson to an extent) as the antichrist. In speaking with Ben, we talked about everything – my involvement at Moolah, what I do at college, small-talk about ourselves as people, and having a laugh at how my terrible HP Webcam makes me look unhealthily pale with contrast problems. The most important thing that I took away from this conversation, was that Ben was not out to get anyone. In re-watching the “leaked video” now, I seem to do so from an entirely different light. I’m picking up on the inconsistencies in the stories being spun, rather than accepting them as fact. Ben had one purpose in all of this; he did not want to see people getting hurt, swindled, or defrauded. And I was one of those in what was a large group of people, who called him a spreader of lies. Someone who just wanted to see us lose our jobs. Someone who wanted to see this brand new, loving and friendly company go under for their own enjoyment. And for this, I cannot overstate how sorry I am.
My thoughts immediately went back to Mike, and Ferdous, who are currently still in the midst of MintPal – whom are now being assisted by Jay and Jason (the previous MintPal team), in cleaning up the wake of destruction that was left by Ryan Kennedy. And the pity/remorse I had for Ryan’s case went out the window, when I realised that Mike and Ferdous were being targeted by those who have been wronged by Ryan. Ryan already made it plain and simple in Moolah’s private chat – “MintPal is not our problem anymore”. What happened to MintPal is the equivalent of a nuclear bomb being dropped on a City, and a two-man hazard crew consisting of Mike and Ferdous are now in charge of the cleanup – and attempting to follow the trail of a 3700BTC transaction from MintPal, which is now accused of being lodged into a personal account of Ryan Kennedy.
I do not personally know what is going to happen with Moolah, or Ryan Kennedy beyond this point. I can take an educated guess that it will involve law enforcement – and an even more educated guess in that anyone whom previously worked with Moolah, certainly do not work for them anymore. The damage that has been done to this point is beyond extensive – and there’s still a small part in the back of my mind saying that “The Ryan Kennedy I know, my friend Ryan Kennedy is coming back to fix all of this”.
Unfortunately, that is not how the story ended. It instead, ended with a whimper.
[18/10/2014 23:54:00] moolah.io: I’m not saying anything after all I have done for everybody, you in particular, this is how you choose to repay me. Posting like this while you know legal talks are ongoing, and posting like this in what reads as a fairly clear attempt to throw me under the bus “just in case”.
To the person who has been leaking from this chat for some time, when it fails to be proven that any criminal activity has happened – I will be taking action against those that decided to contribute information to the attacks on me, and the other employees. I am not a passive person in this regard.
If you all want to ensure you are protected? Fine. As of 2354 GMT on October 18th, 2014 – the employment of each and every one of you is terminated in full. Any access, or attempt at access to company resources or information; past this time, will be dealt with accordingly by law. If any of you wants to talk, you have my email.
[18/10/2014 23:54:03] *** moolah.io removed Alex from this conversation. ***
[18/10/2014 23:54:05] *** moolah.io removed Chris from this conversation. ***
[18/10/2014 23:54:09] *** moolah.io removed Eoghan from this conversation. ***
[00:44:34] moolah.io: You’re welcome to post that if you wish, but I honestly recommend speaking with a lawyer first.
[00:44:38] moolah.io: You should know me better, Eoghan.
– /u/lleti (Eoghan)
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Signature: IJGoIdA5M5QA9WAXuXSRJfSDVLVruY1qVF9cDUml/8EkMdJETf3AJh5s2z5eqsYJ1GJnxbNsyvytnz7X3uBIfHM=