I need to “come clean” about some of my blogs that featured GAWMiners, HashCoin and PayCoin over the past several months. I rarely write in the first person, but this is about my own participation in this messy situation. I want to set the record straight and make amends to anyone who might have lost funds because of my enthusiastic posts. I blog, unpaid, for the greater Crypto community on my ad-free web site, the Bitcoin Change Club (now owned by someone else), and on Linked-In.

While I no longer consider my blogs about GAWMiners to be accurate, they did diligently document my understanding of events at the time, as communicated to me as a customer. I never had any “inside information.” My blogs still accurately illustrate the marketing strategies and claims made to customers, however, most of whom lost the majority of their investments, including me.

GAWMiners is now deeply mired in controversy including an SEC investigation. One major point of public contention is how and why so many of CEO Josh Garza’s posts were systematically deleted from his own forum, HashTalk. That is why I quit editing Mr. Garza’s posts on HashTalk, and decided not to delete my own blogs, simply on principle. I have nothing to hide. I hope my blogs can serve some other, better purpose now.

I personally had a unique experience with GAWMiners. At first it was very positive. They paid me small stipends in Bitcoin to create a Crypto-WIKI on HashTalk, of which I am still proud. It was my first “Bitcoin Job,” which I loved, and I invested almost all of that BTC back into GAWMiners.

I was named one of the original “19 Paycoin Origin” innovators, and was given a nice badge and a free miner. It was not the first -- or last-- gift I received from GAW. Later I was named an “Innovator,” and was given 500 Paycoins which were then projected to be valued at $10,000, but today, sadly, are worth a mere $300.00. I was also awarded a free trip to the Bitcoin Convention in Miami, so I can’t just ungraciously walk away and act ungrateful. In fact, I stayed on much longer than I probably should have, trying to help other customers get their accounts un-blocked, un-banned and un-fudged.

In my last published blog about GAWMiners and Paycoin in January, I had to concede that the nasty GAW/Paycoin controversy had gone “viral.”

I suggested that:

‘Nay-sayers will have to retract their rants for now, and be silent for a while.’

‘If the Timeline is not met for the roll-out of the features that everyone is clamoring for “yesterday,” then the cynics can try again.’

The Timeline was not met.

I stand corrected.

Features were not rolled out, including the attractive PayBase Premier Account, which I was supposed to receive as part of my “Innovator” award.

The “Honor Program” to pay customers the promised $20 per Paycoin was scrapped, even though I personally came up with a popular and feasible alternative plan by reimbursing customers from the huge pre-mine.

My expensive collection of Legendary Hashlets-turned-Stakers are now all but worthless, including my “Origin Staker,” which some of “The 19” sold for thousands of dollars several months ago. Sorry, Mom. I should have listened to you and sold it back then.

The list of GAW/Paycoin failures goes on and on, including: “never-obsolete / always profitable” mining services that became worthless and were terminated, broken wallet software, thousands of test coins not destroyed as scheduled, no top-tier merchant partnerships, no credit / debit cards, no “moving” the market and no $20 “floor” for Paycoin, while GAWMiners’ own “Prime Controllers” were raking in 350% APR and compounding coins.

I have also blogged about other unfolding crypto failures. There have been so many…including the cloud-mining dis-service, Hashie.co, which also scammed customers like me out of our Bitcoin and Giga-Hashes.

I want to thank The Mage and other members and former members of the Crypto-coin communities like HashTalk and the original, former version of GetHashing who have graciously extended to me their understanding and forgiveness.

To anyone who lost money because of my blogs, I’m deeply sorry.

This is the last thing I bought with my Paycoin.

UPDATE 3/13/15: I am raffling off my entire XPY Staker account. I expect to raise at least $1000 in Bitcoin for Sean's Outpost.

UPDATE 3/21/15: I raised $1550+ for Sean's Outpost. I was banned from HashTalk for writing my truth during the raffle! We finished the raffle at AI-Cointalk.org.

Thanks to everyone who donated, including users of Bitcoin, Litecoin, Vericoin, Paycoin, CryptoStakeCoins and Artificial Intelligence Coin.

Final Update 3/29/15: A ceremonial check was presented at the Texas Bitcoin Conference to organizer Paul Snow, who accepted it on behalf of Sean's Outpost. A total of $2000 was raised and donated from my Paycoin account...in Bitcoin!























