Bitcoin Forum

https://www.bitdraw.com/assets/branding/bitdraw1.png (https://www.bitdraw.com/)

I am proud to announce the launch of BitDraw (https://www.bitdraw.com/), the Bitcoin community's new premier raffle and lottery site.  BitDraw provides both ongoing and one-shot raffle and lottery style games for your enjoyment. Create an account, deposit some Bitcoin to receive gaming tokens (TKN), and use those tokens to buy tickets to the games. Cash out your winnings at any time by converting tokens back to Bitcoin.  The exchange rate for BTC to TKN is 1:1000.

To celebrate the launch of our site, we've scheduled some promotional one-shot raffles for the following prizes over the next month or so:

2012.08.13 - 2012.08.20 : Casascius ฿10 Silver Round (https://www.casascius.com/) (10 BTC 1 Troy Ounce .999 Fine Silver Round with Gold Bitcoin Logo) (Raffle (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2135))

2012.08.13 - 2012.08.24 : 1 Troy Ounce .999 Fine Silver Liberty Dollar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar) (historical, discontinued, and rare!) (Raffle (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2136))

2012.08.20 - 2012.08.27 : Casascius ฿25 Coin (https://www.casascius.com/) (Raffle (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2181))

2012.08.27 - 2012.08.31 : 1 year subscription to Bitcoin Magazine (http://bitcoinmagazine.net/) (Raffle (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2226))

Multiple Raffles (check the site! (https://www.bitdraw.com/raffles)) : Casascius ฿5 Coin (https://www.casascius.com/)

Come on over to the site, create an account, and enter the raffles!  In addition to the promotional raffles linked above, we have both daily and weekly raffles and lotteries that pay out in the intra-site virtual currency, tokens (TKN).  Don't forget, you can increase your odds of winning by buying multiple tickets to a single game!

"But Dustin", you ask, "how do we know this isn't some scam and you're some evil scammer?  How do we know the drawings aren't rigged?  What about SECURITY???"  Good questions!

First, you know who I am.  I'm very public on the Internet.  You can find out all about me at my personal website (http://www.dustintrammell.com/) or follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/druidian).  The account I'm posting this under is in my real name.  Look, that's my real face over there!  I'm also known by the handle I)ruid, under which I have an OTC rating (http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=I}ruid&sign=ANY&type=RECV). The domain bitdraw.com is registered in my real name (http://www.whois.com/whois/bitdraw.com).  The SSL certificate authority that issued our site certificate has verified my identity.

Second, the random bits of data used for our random number generation is pulled from random.org (http://www.random.org/), an unbiased, independend third party who's entire purpose is to provide truely random data to the Internet community.  True randomness is important because machines are notoriously bad at being random.  In fact, with enough data to analyze, they can be quite predictible in their "randomness", which is very, very bad for certain purposes like raffle and lottery drawings.  Therefore, instead of using a potentially predictable pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) like is provided by most operating systems and programming languages, we use a proven source of truely random data for our drawings.  Further, the winning raffle ticket or lottery values, as well as a list of all of the tickets purchased, are displayed on each game page for your own verification after the game closes.  While we don't disclose identifiable user information on who purchased tickets and the winners, there is enough information for each user to determine which tickets in the pool they purchased and whether or not theirs was the winner.  We also invite winners of the games to post here in this thread if they do not mind identifying themselves.  We will build the option for winners to identify themselves directly into the site in a future version.

Finally, we know how important security is to the Bitcoin community.  With the last couple years' track record of service site hacks, scammers claiming to be hacked and running off with the users' funds, password database leaks, and the like, we have taken a number of significant steps from the beginning to ensure that our service has as much integrity as possible.  Some of BitDraw's current security features include:

• The entire site is wrapped in SSL, all the time.  This ensures that you know that your browser is connected to the legitimate site and that communications and data in transit such as your authentication credentials are protected from prying eyes on the Internet.
• The site employs an entirely offline Bitcoin wallet.  Bitcoins deposited at BitDraw are sent to an offline wallet and withdrawals are processed manually and only after the withdrawal is confirmed by the user via response to a PGP-signed email. While a bit slower than instant withdrawal, your Bitcoins themselves are completely safe in the event that the BitDraw site itself is hacked or becomes otherwise compromised.
• BitDraw stores passwords securely and enforces a strong password policy.  Our password policy requires passwords to be 12 characters long and have at least one upper case character, one lower case character, one number and one symbol. Passwords are stored as a salted SHA-512 hash.

We hope that these initial disclosures and security precautions allow you to comfortably game with our service.  If you have any questions, would like clarifications on any of these points, or would like to report a bug, please comment in the thread below or email us directly at the addresses listed on our Contact Page (https://www.bitdraw.com/contact).  To report a security issue, please contact us directly via email to security [at] bitdraw.com.  You can also follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/BitDrawLottery) for status updates and announcements.

We hope that you enjoy BitDraw, and good luck!

You can now follow us on Twitter! (http://twitter.com/BitDrawLottery)

Quick-reference Promotional Raffle Links:

• Casascius ฿10 Silver Round (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2135) FINISHED!
• Liberty Dollar (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2136) FINISHED!
• Casascius ฿5 Coin (#1) (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2137) FINISHED!
• Casascius ฿25 Coin (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2181) FINISHED!
• Casascius ฿5 Coin (#2) (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2182) FINISHED!
• Subscription to Bitcoin Magazine (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2226) FINISHED!
• Casascius ฿5 Coin (#3) (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2227) FINISHED!

Post-Launch Issues:

• We're getting reports that some versions of Firefox and the Android browser do not like our SSL certificate.  If you see this, please report your browser and version so that we can track down exactly what the problem is.  Chrome, Safari, and IE appear to be unaffected.

Post-Launch Bugfixes:

• Registration confirmation email link now correctly goes to HTTPS site.
• Password reset option added to login page.

site is looking good! i registered but man: that password input is a bit of a pain ;) very long and many restrictions. if i want to use an insecure password than why not? its my fault :) i think its not a good idea to force the user this hard..

btw: where do you get this "html template" ?? i see this design on many many bitcoin sites... is it freely available?

it also took me long to find the bitcoin address for funding. maybe a link to "fund my account" or something else?

I would rather our user accounts not get brute force hacked in the first place.  Besides, you are using a secure password manager, aren't you? (:


If I recall correctly it's a Ruby on Rails standard template.  I'll see if our lead developer wants to chime in here on the technical details.

We could add a "Funding" link under the username drop-down menu, but it would essentially go to the same page as the "Profile" link currently does, the user's profile.  That would seem fairly redundant, no?

why is it such a big secret to say how much tokens cost?  such as one bitcoin is equivalent to x tokens.

I just registered. I tried my password 3 times, couldn't get in, checked email, ahha have to activate, clicked it, went to site, still says bad login, copy/pasted link, still no dice. Am I losing my mind?

Does it matter? You're going to get X BTC worth of tokens. Anything but a power of 10 is probably silly. And I guess if it is non-linear that's an issue.

It's no secret, the exchange rate is listed on your profile page, right below your deposit and withdrawal addresses.  For the record, the exchange rate is 1000 TKN to 1 BTC, or 1000:1.  We'll also add the exchange rate to the FAQ for non-registered visitors.

That is strange.  Please try the password reset function now that your account is activated.  If that doesn't work, please email support [at] bitdraw.com with your account details and we'll look into it.

nope.. everything is in my huge brain ;) normally i am using very long passwords with only words and not numbers or symbols.. like this: https://xkcd.com/936/

yes the "add funds" would link to the same page. its redundant but for the user which is searching for this site it would be much easier to find. with the link "profile" i am thinking of "editing my personal data" or "seeing a profile page of my account"... thats not really straightforward.. the FIRST ACTION you want to be done by an logged in user is funding! so why make it this hard ;)

Bonus points to you for using very long passwords.  Unfortunately most people aren't as diligent and we must force them to be.  Perhaps we'll code in an exception to the complexity rules for passwords exceeding 20 characters (:


Perhaps we can link the Balance indicator next to the username drop-down to the profile page as well.  Then just clicking the balance would take you to the deposit and withdrawal addresses.  Do you think that would be more intuitive than doubling up links under the username drop-down menu?

Maybe I should do this in the morning, I don't see password reset anywhere on the webpage or in the email.

There should be a link to initiate a password reset when you fail authentication.

Hrm, looks like that link is missing.  We'll get that fixed ASAP so you can attempt to reset your password via email.

The password reset form is now on the login page (https://www.bitdraw.com/login).  Please give that a try and let us know if you are still unable to log into your account.

It's Twitter Bootstrap (http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/).  I was wrong when I said before it had to do with Rails, it's entirely CSS/images/HTML.

Am I the only one having trouble?

I tried my password again, using both my email and username, still failed. So I clicked the reset link, set it to what I thought it was, tried to log in, still fail.

Tried to reset again via the link, I guess it is one time use?

Tried to request reset again and the email is not coming.

i also cannot login even after the reset

Yes, the link sent in the reset email is for one-time use.  If you want to try the reset again, you need to have the site send another reset email.  The emails go out in batches every so often so you may not receive it immediately after requesting it but you should receive it within 15 to 20 minutes or so.

If the second reset didn't work, can you email support [at] bitdraw.com with your account information so we can take a look?

Ok, please email support [at] bitdraw.com with your account information so that we can take a look.  We do have other users actively logging in and playing, so it sounds like the issue you and FreeMoney are having may be isolated incidents.  Hopefully with both of your account information we can track down exactly what the problem is you two are having.

Please check your email, I believe your issue has been adequately addressed.

Looks like we're starting to get some decent competition for the daily and weekly raffles and lotteries, although the odds of winning are still very favorable.  In some cases the odds per ticket are still better than 1:5 (:

Less than 24 hours until these two raffles end!

These two raffles are now complete, congratulations to the winners!

New raffles that have started today include a new raffle for another Casascius ฿5 Coin here (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2182), and the raffle for the Casascius ฿25 Coin has started here (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2181)!

The raffle for the 1 oz Silver Liberty Dollar (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2136) ends in less than 24 hours!  There are currently only four tickets purchased for that raffle, giving each ticket a 25% chance of winning.  Pretty good odds!

The raffle for the Casascius 25 BTC coin (https://www.bitdraw.com/games/2181) ends in less than 24 hours!

Hey guys,

Just wanted to post here. I won a 5 BTC Casacius coin from BitDraw. I got an email within 10 hours of winning asking for my shipping, I gave it to Dustin, and it arrived within a few days.

Pretty bad ass considering I only spent like .5 BTC.

This business has rg's Stamp of Approval.

Thanks for the kind words rg!

I won a 5 BTC Casacius coin from BitDraw got an email for shipping info within a few hours, gave him my shipping info and recieved the coin in a few days, i would highly recommend this service if you have and bitcents to spare

All of the promotional raffles from our launch are now complete!  Congratulations to all of the winners!  We may have some additional non-TKN raffles in the future, which we will of course announce here in this thread, so stay tuned...

Thanks for the kind words Eric!

We're regularly having multiple entries into each raffle game now.  As I've indicated before, all raffle games are guaranteed a winner as the winner is selected directly from the tickets purchased to the game, and for each ticket purchased the raffle prize increases  Check 'em out! (https://www.bitdraw.com/raffles)

BitDraw is now provably fair!  Check out our announcement in this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152551.0).

We're now listed on the BTC Pages (http://btcpages.net/component/mtree/gambling/165-bitdraw?Itemid=).  Please go rate out site and provide feedback!