Bitcoin Forum

Hello,

Many forums have points, gold, nakamotos, whatever. They can be awarded for good forum behavior. They are sometimes sold to support the site. These points can confer benefits like badges, access to elite sub-forums, and more. Virtually all of these points systems that allow purchase have mods that let users pay with PayPal, but I found zero (0) that do the same for Bitcoin.

So as a small experiment, I set about converting one of these mods to work with Bitcoin. I wanted the mod to be simple to setup so integrated with the Blockchain.info API for accepting and forwarding payments. The plus is the forum admin doesn't have to run bitcoind. They must only supply one of their addresses so Blockchain.info can forward payments on. They can change this address any time from the plugin's settings to control the forum's financial privacy. Or they can publicize the address to show just how loving their members are. The drawback is they're dependent on Blockchain.info to properly report and forward payments.

http://www.davidsterry.com/mybb_screenshot.png

The plugin I chose to modify, enables some sample package sizes to be offered so you can set that as well as a points to btc exchange rate in the plugin's settings. You can also set the name of your points and tell it which field in the `users` table of MyBB to increment. Anyway, you can get it here:

http://www.davidsterry.com/Credit%20From%20Coins.latest.zip

and the github is here if you want to contribute:

https://github.com/weex/mybb-credit-from-coins

Thanks for checking it out!

Great project! MyBB is the best Open Source forum, imo.
Can the admins' address be any BTC address or does it have to be a wallet at blockchain.info?

Will download and test soon, thanks.

Any BTC address at all.

As I get it - you tell blockchain.info an address where they should forward all payments and the users just get one-time addresses from blockchain.info so they can be distinguished from each other. Right?
Why not use BIP32 instead? This would also create a LOT of unique addresses, but you can keep the main key to yourself (even offline).

Also a bitcoin URI might be nice for people with desktop clients additionally to that QR code.

Is it possible to withdraw as well, or is this rather a one way money sink?

First off, this is an awesome looking project weex. Thanks.

+1 for BIP 32, this would be a great use case for BIP 32 and a great place to show it off (both of these are also true for any website that needs any real speed generating keys without trusting the server with the private key).

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0032 (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0032) - Short version: Using math to generate keys in a deterministic fashion. More private or public keys can be generated from an extended private key, and more public keys can be generated from an extended public key. The server can make new addresses on the fly without any sensitive information.

I would assume this would usually be one-way, though bi-directional exchange would be an interesting way to reward people, although a certain exchange rate would have to be picked and may need to be changed each time someone withdrawals. And since forum points are usually unlimited while money is not it may be hard to balance.

Mostly. The different addresses are more so the site has control over their privacy. Blockchain.info's API actually calls back with the userid once payment is seen to the address but yes Blockchain.info uses the address to know what to send in the callback.

BIP32 is a great idea and I am aware of that protocol. For this initial mod, I wanted something simple to code but more importantly simple for the forum admin to setup.

What is the simplest way for someone to get a BIP32 key? Is this going in bitcoin-qt/bitcoind in the foreseeable future?

Afaik the only client supporting BIP32 currently is Electrum. I didn't do too much research though.

Just rediscovered this and will use it soon, thank you.

This is good, and creative!

Thinking of updating this to use Coinbase and possibly gocoin. Anybody using this?

I have it on a dev project and expecting to use it live.
MyBB is a great forum, thanks for making this.

blockchain.info vs Coinbase API?
Any chance you could have a primary and a secondary, so if blockchain.info is down then another option is there?
Thanks again.

@weex
PLEASE update this. i would even give you some coin to do so. I KNOW this is grave digging at its finest but this would be badass!