Brandon Casten, the new owner of Bitcoin online poker site Satoshi Poker, has shut the brand down and migrated players to a new site currently pending launch and titled BurnTurn.eu.
His decision ends the Satoshi saga less than a year after it was launched by Bart Von Oort, who claims that Casten has not held up his end of the sales agreement relating to paying the site’s obligations to players (see previous reports).
The two men clashed again on the Bitcoin Talk forum this week, with Van Oort claiming that he is about to sue Casten for the return of the software and playerbase, and the dismantling of the sales agreement on grounds of not meeting contractual obligations in the form of agreed player payments.
A spokesman for Casten’s Antigua-based Open Source Industries Limited, which operates BurnTurn.eu, responded to Van Oort’s post, accusing him financial irregularities with player funds, and claiming that BurnTurn had saved the day by buying the site and software.
The spokesman said that plans were in hand to pay owed players in a secure and orderly fashion once BurnTurn has gone live, which he said was imminent.
He blamed Van Oort for delays in getting things moving, claiming that he had left the enterprise and its software in a poor state which has taken time to sort out.
“When BurnTurn goes live (very soon), all verified accounts will be credited for instant withdrawal,” the spokesman promised.
Casten followed up the forum exchange with a circular to Satoshi players advising them that re-launch delays have been caused by the unsatisfactory state of the Satoshi software, leading to the decision to abandon Satoshi and move players to the new TurnBurn.eu site, which uses different and more efficient software developed in-house.
“All account balances will be honored on BurnTurn and available as soon as we launch,” the advisory promises. “The BurnTurn software is 100 percent open source and we have developed it ourselves, so its performance has our full confidence and we hope to earn yours as well. Again, we apologize for the delay and appreciate your patience.”