Bitcoin Forum

Time is money. Which is why Indian startup SearchTrade (http://searchtrade.com/) is looking to change how the Internet functions today by rewarding people with bitcoin for their time spent using search engines. Along with the ability to purchase keywords like assets, the innovative approach to search engine monetization may usher in a whole new industry. 


It pays to search :

However, two entrepreneurs from India, Vishal Gupta and Rashmit Gupta argue that in most cases the innovation has been at the front end of the user experience. The most exciting piece of the pie, i.e. the revenue model, is still up for grabs. This is something they hope to change through their startup SearchTrade.

SearchTrade looks to reward users for their time spent searching for information on search engines. The plan is to incentivize the user with satoshis every time a keyword is entered. Where it gets interesting is that the user is also able to join in the network’s revenue pool by purchasing keywords as though it were assets. Once purchased, these keywords would then create revenue for the investor on every search generated involving the word throughout the network.

Full article can be found here : http://cointelegraph.com/news/115205/search-your-way-to-millions-using-bitcoin-to-reinvent-the-search-engine

Honestly I think this is a great project and if this aint going to bring Bitcoin to mainstream I'am not sure what will ... "SearchTrade is set to launch in 107 days and has already generated a fan following by raising 91 BTC during a recent keyword presale". and now it's 111.2 BTC (after couple of days) . What do you guys think about this .

Sounds very interesting but also very confusing at the same time.

Had a quick look but will have to read through it in a bit more detail this weekend. Would be nice if one gets paid for every search you do. Guess the amounts will however be extremely small.

swagbucks already do that

You need to have 10 BTC to start reserving keywords...
That's quite a leap of faith there..

*edit you can already do it from 1 BTC I see..

Well, I guess we know where they got their idea from.

My question is, who will be funding this?

They state that:
CURRENT PAYOUT PER SEARCH – Bitcoin: 0.00000400 USD: 0.0016 (Approx @ 290$ per Bitcoin)

25% goes to -> Search User
25% goes to -> Keyword Owner
25% goes to -> App Owner
25% goes to -> SearchTrade

Nice, but who will be paying for it?
I doubt the sale of keywords will be enough to cover the keyword everytime it is searched.
So I expect this to go bust very soon (if it will ever launch).

If I understood right , this is only a Pre-sale so they launch and they are now at 111 BTC (and only half got sold) so I think sales will be opened officially after they launch , there is planty of keyboards logically

Yeah, but.....
I pay 1BTC let's say to buy the keyword Bitcoin.
Then when everyone searches for the word Bitcoin I get 25% of 0.00000400BTC which is paid by whom?
Is it paid from my initial payment from buying the keyword (ponzi style)?
Or is SearchTrade going to pay for it?
If it's the latter then how is SearchTrade going to pay for it since they expect to get 25% out of each search too?

EDIT: And just to prove that they don't know what they are doing - or are lying....
Each party gets 25%, and as they state ( http://searchtrade.com/defaulthome/ )

CURRENT PAYOUT PER SEARCH – Bitcoin: 0.00000400 USD: 0.0016 (Approx @ 290$ per Bitcoin)

25%
0.00000125 BTC
0.0004 USD
goes to -> Search User

25%
0.00000125 BTC
0.0004 USD
goes to -> Keyword Owner

25%
0.00000125 BTC
0.0004 USD
goes to -> App Owner

25%
0.00000125 BTC
0.0004 USD
goes to -> SearchTrade

According to their "math", that is 500 satoshis, NOT 400.

Scam anyone?
Ponzi?

Does anyone have their wallet address of where those 111BTC reside?
Did anyone buy a keyword?

Have to agree, the figures just do not add up. Even if they sell the same keyword several times over but this will just compound the problem even more.

Please check my previous post above yours ;)

I have edited it and included interesting info

Unless they are not holding their funds on one wallet , then this is a total scam : http://bitcoinrichlist.com/top100?page=107
according to their website they have 112.4 BTC and on that list there is only three wallets with that amount and those wallets last transactions was one year or two years ago .

Bought 3 keywords, lets see what happens.

(Btw according to FAQ they plan to pay people with advertising income)

Can you give us the payment address?

Advertising income still won't cut it.
Unless they charge ridiculous fees or have very few visitors in their search engine (which I doubt it).

14Ncr7JVsNRrczzt8ybusTDBaNWbUxu5Sx > 1btc
1MiXFcB9rbZh2XFvnBPZY6Ha38kks7eBLJ > 0.4 btc

What is disturbing is if you "fund" your account, there is nothing else to do with the BTC than buying keywords.
Not yet found a possibilty to withdraw or something, let's see how it progresses.

Interesting well lets see how this pans out for you then
And it does seem disturbing that their is no withdrawal function although you can buy (porn) Bitcoin and some other word lol.

Hmm, all I see is your purchases and the coins moved to other addresses (currently ending at https://blockchain.info/address/1AdhncLSb5HCcZ1C6EfpBzDCwYGA4T7iTY ) which do not have 112BTC as claimed.

Indeed, it is disturbing that you cannot withdraw.
How will you withdraw your earnings?

Well, it's still in Beta..
If it's a scam then time will tell, but when I look at the team and founders.. if they take my 1.4BTC (which isnt too big a deal(for me)) I will surely make them pay for it in another way.

So lets see what happens..

When I try to withdraw earnings, it shows that my wallet address is invalid???????? It must be Possible SCAM!!!

Interesting project. Still curious if this site is will pay and still doubt if this site looks ponzi scheme or not, because as far as i see the system is like rotation money.

The statistics on this site is unreliable. So, we need to wait till launch and see results.

It's a ponzi.
It doesn't take a science degree to figure that out.

Certainly, since the ones that buys keywords and don't get back 100% from the invested amount wil be given to other keywords owners.

I thought "Bing" was the first search engine, who paid in Bitcoin for the people who used it or was that Gyft cards? {USA citizens only}

How long will it take too ROI on buying keywords... nobody knows, so this might just be a risky venture, if you keyword is poor. The payout for searches is extremely low, so you

might have to change your browsing habits to earn money from this. Spamming searches will not offset the energy you used to acquire the money.  ??? ???

It might work, if you used your employers equipment and electricity and you just changed your Search engine.. so there is no harm in that.  ::)

Actually, on the site it shows a total of 112.4 BTC, but it is in two pools; Community pool 56.2 BTC and Search Trade 56.2 BTC.

Perhaps they break it down even further internally, but you could start searching for wallets with those amounts.

I don't like that presale thing.
It looks extremly risky, and the devs will get their money no matter what happens.
They will be rich even if their search engine fails.

I don't know how would they pay their users. Advertising won't just take the cut, and their statistics are shady as hell. Something's not right in here.

Anyone here was able to find something useful ? all I was able to found is this adress : https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/address/1KUnC6k8Ltyub1nbZPohkSRFKGEpFYxkAK with 4 BTC and it's nothing of what they claim they have.


EDIT : Seems like they made their thread here aswell https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1169313.0;topicseen

Hey Guys see a lot of confusion and questions.

A. Are we a ponzi scheme or genuine there is no way to judge intentions.

B. We have been working on this since year and a half and have built team of 15 odd developers and adding more now to expand team to 30.

C. Payout alters on a simple maths that will evolve over time to keep pool profitable at all times.
i.e Total searches devided by total income = payout ( 24hr cycle to start with but will reduce payout cycle as time goes by )

D. Keyword Pre-sale prices will reduce 10% after every sale since all keywords cant make same amount of money and it would be common sense that people buying first will target best keywords.

E. Funds that we have collected get scattered in multiple wallets to protect both us and our users from attacks. We take fund safety seriously.

F. Keywords owners can trade keywords with each other so trade-able value of keyword could be higher than actual income it makes. E.G. if Word bitcoin had earning of 100$ a year it could be traded in multiples of 10 and be valued at 1000$ as it would imply 10% return on investment.

G. I have 16 years of work experience and last thing I have onn mind is to take money and run. Believe me I make more than that on mind.

H. We initially started crowdsale with friends and family and post cointelegraph article saw unkown people buy keywords, frankly we were not prepared for that or expecting it.

Please add any further questions  on this thread : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1169313.20

What prevents page crawlers from abusing the system and making tons of searches? Can make a lot of searches very fast..

Just a little advice and recommendation for everyone who is willing to invest on this project . I asked SearchTrade to post adresses with a signed message that they do actually own those funds and he said he will post them next week so check here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1169313.msg12334482#msg12334482 and don't invest unless he post .

For now users are allowed only 40 paid searches per day. We have also implemented some checks to ensure people cant scam the system.

40 searches, depending on payrate is quite minimal. i hope you wont be using annoying captchas or something to prevent botting..

Well payout ia calculated based upon number of qualified searches so whether it is 20 or 40 searches per day payout is same. Basic calculation total income devised by number of qualified searches per 24 hrs. Which may reduce over time to 10 mins aas traffic increases.

This looks like a ponzi written all over it !

First of all they are calling it a crowdsale and collecting 91BTC , where is the proof ? They claim friends and family invested. If friends and family invested its not a crowdsale , its only a friendsale.
searchtrade please show us proof of where the crowdsale was announced and proof of funds/transactions?

Second, the whole financial model is so complex and doesn't make any sense. Why would anyone place there ads on the site instead of using google adwords. If I place my ads on google I get hits from contextual search . If I place my ads from searchtrade I get nothing , because users are just going to search/ get their BTC and exit the site. Nobody is going to use it for actual searching first of all bcoz its slow and simply because it doesn't add any value.

The security thing does not fly with me... the Bitcoin address with the amount of coins can still be displayed for
everyone to see, as proof that they have the claimed coins. Coins in cold storage or offline storage is quite safe.
The Blockchain provides transparency for just this reason.

When you smell smoke, you will find the fire. Let's not get burned by this, by doing proper investigation and homework about these people. 

Hey guys I am the rat you guys seem to be discussing thanx :D. *will do proof of funds this week.  That done it will still not prove anything I could easily display funds that I already own. So how will we settle this? My linkedin profile : https://in.linkedin.com/in/vishalgupta99[/b]]https://in.linkedin.com/in/vishalgupta99 (http://[b)

Your understanding of business seems to be limited to google model only, We are not depending on google search only our idea is to allow user to have more choice to start with. We want to enable developers to build specialized search driven businesses. We are integrating both third party as well as our own ad program Why? we do understand our own program will take a while before it starts generating some serious money.

Look fishy. I better stay out of this game.

You can always wait and watch how it shapes up in the future. We can only talk about our ideas and work with people who understand our point of view. Would be great to hear your suggestions if you had any. Thanx