Bitcoin Forum

Did we mention no listing fees ever?

One problem with a bitcoin auction is the would-be minutiae and the associated fees which would be fractions of a fraction. So we decided to simply eliminate that issue and our .01 BTC Seller fee allows us to do this. At the same time, this fee serves as the root of our internal escrow system and it also serves as our 'entrance exam.'

It should go without saying, but if one gives it some thought, both the escrow system and the 'entrance exam' are mandatory for a Bitcoin auction site--the 'entrance exam' by the way has proven too difficult for several would-be Sellers thus far. One potential Seller asked us "where do I pay?" ::) We take 2.9% for auctions that sell, but this may be negotiable for high-priced items.

"Since we at itcoinBay.com do not attach ourselves nor our members to fiat currencies, bank accounts or credit cards, we have developed a fee-based system for the purpose of accountability since bitcoin transactions are irreversible. It would be great to be able to just trust everyone, but until society evolves to that point, for the protection of all participants we will practice the Russian policy of 'trust but verify,' by charging a modest fee for participation. In the age of $1000 cell phones, $5+ coffee and Washington, D.C., we don’t feel at all apprehensive about this fee."

"At our site, no 3rd party payment or conversion systems, downloads, platform installs, special wallets, etc. are required. We use only Peer to Peer transactions as envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto. After all, is this is not how Bitcoin was intended to be used?"

As a thank you to our Sellers, we offer a one in ten chance at winning the equivalent of the fee back, and possibly much more as our Grand Prize is a DJI Phantom 4 Pro+ Quadcopter and 2nd Place is .1 BTC.

Additionally, a member can earn with our Referral Program: we pay .001 BTC for each new Seller one sends our way.

And remember--NO LISTING FEES EVER!

Let us be clear, no false profits are promised at itcoinBay.com. You are either with us, or you are with the banksters.

Gentlemen. You can't fiat in here. This is 'The Bitcoin Marketplace!'

Attention: We have two more FREE Seller Memberships to give away at itcoinBay.com. What do you receive for this? Everything mentioned in the original post. So yea that's right, you can earn a chance to win any of our prizes for absolutely NO COST to you, in addition to the other site privileges. It's really a pretty unbelievable offer that requires only for you to stumble across this post and take the time to actually read it.

Because of the numerous dead-end and unresponsive prospective Sellers we have encountered, we are going to ask that you pass our Bitcoin Litmus Test by purchasing a Seller membership here: https://itcoinbay.com/storefront/. This shows us that you know how to use Bitcoin and that you have some Bitcoin--both requirements for using the site. However, when you complete your purchase at our store simply list 'Litmus Test' as the Referrer and add your Bitcoin receive address as well and we will promptly return your .01 BTC. We will add a post if we have any takers to let you know how many free memberships remain.

Please register on the site before making your Seller purchase. Thanks!

 

Does anybody read these posts attentively?

OFFER UPDATE: As a test to see if anybody actually reads our posts, we will give .01 BTC to the first to respond to our offer. You pay the .01 BTC and as soon as the transaction is confirmed, we will send you .02 BTC.

Remember, first register on our site https://itcoinbay.com/ and then click STORE and add a Seller membership to your cart and when you checkout simply add "Litmus Test" and your Bitcoin receive address in the Referrer space.

The first to respond wins, after that there is one more free Seller membership available.

We will post updates if and when the offers are taken.

On your mark, get set, GO! A reply to this post will reserve your place. But you must follow up with the prescribed action immediately.

As a thank you to us, feel free to give us some Merit if you get a free membership and especially if we pay you .01 BTC.

 ??? Damn, still no takers! Are we to the point that .01 BTC is too small of a reward for a few minute's time? Or is it a lack of trust? We will pay you! A bad rep is the last thing we want. Or has no one even read this to completion?

How is your service different from 'bitcoin doublers'? You have no reputation and want someone to send money first.

And don't bump your topic more than once every 24 hours.

YES SIR! Thanks for the bumping information. So many rules, so little time...

Okay not really sure what a bitcoin doubler is, but it sounds like some kind of gambling operation. Did you actually read the post(s)? If you did, you would understand that we are trying to promote a Bitcoin auction site. Yes we have no reputation and that is exactly what we are trying to establish. The reason we ask for someone to send bitcoin first is due to the fact (again if you had read the post you should understand this) that almost no one that has registered and or attempted to purchase a Seller membership on our site seems to know how to use Bitcoin or they have no Bitcoin. So as we say, it is an entrance exam or a litmus test of sorts. Imagine the predicament if we allow someone to simply post an auction or bid/buy an item and when it comes time to settle up--"duh how do you use bitcoin dude?" One new member actually asked us "where do I pay?"

We have been online since the summer of 2017 and haven't done a lot of promotion because it seems that so far people don't want to spend any Bitcoin, they just want to use it as an investment vehicle and or want instant riches as opposed to having to go to the trouble of signing up, listing an auction and then waiting for someone to purchase their item--what a HASSLE right?

This post is not about the giveaway so much as it is about trying to grow our membership and number of auctions and hopefully at some point our bidders. We have given away several free memberships as we are doing with this offer, we just decided that instead of simply a free membership now we would require the new member to take the first step of paying (the entrance exam theory) and for the first person that does this we will send them back double their payment and for the second we will in effect allow them to break even. To top it off, once we reach 100 Sellers we are giving away some really nice prizes as a thank you to the Sellers for paying the membership fee. We have no listing fees and charge only a 2.9% commission on auctions that sell. We also pay a .001 BTC Referral fee.

How to convince someone to send Bitcoin first? Maybe it's impossible. But this isn't a gambling site or a so-called bitcoin doubler, we are just honest people trying to provide an incentive for people to join our site and to help jump start it.

Also, it was as much as anything just to see if people would actually read the post(s). Attention deficit disorder may be more real than we imagined. Even you asking if we are a gambling site, well if you had read the post(s) you would know how stupid of a question that is. We are real people offering one person the chance at doubling their bitcoin just to take part in the site for free, and that also includes a 1 in 100 shot at winning a drone worth $1800 which is the Grand Prize in our giveaway or .1 BTC which is 2nd Place. 3rd Place is only .02 BTC and there are also 7 Consolation Prizes which are hardware wallets. So in all, a 1 in 10 chance to win something.

In one way we are happy that people are too stupid to take us up on this offer. We should promise some impossible wild and amazing profits and then we would have more members than we could handle probably.

I'll respond on the off chance that this is not a scam...

I see you have taken things personally. Yes, I have read your post. If it quacks like a duck, well, it's usually a duck :) There a too many scams, and that's why no one wants to send first to a nobody. If you're worried about people not knowing how to use Bitcoin, why not just ask them for an address you could send the 0.01 BTC to?

Charging money to use your website is also not the soundest of business decisions when you're not the first to the market.

I concur with you on this, absolutely. Why would anyone give themselves up to chances in this crypto industry which is sadly riddled with scams. People should take calculated risk and not a blind one.

It's not a scam man, but how to convince people? It's a very long story to explain the rationale we have developed, but if you spend some time thinking on it you would probably come to the same conclusion, unless you resolved to use some sort of third party solution. Maybe that would be more palatable for people? But we really don't think it's about the fee anyway.

I didn't take it personally, just the lack of trust (due to the scammers) is very frustrating.

I don't know if you are interested in a membership, but to convince you that this isn't BS I'll make a deal with you, sign up and complete the Seller purchase but don't send the Bitcoin. Add your bitcointalk username as the Referrer and I'll send you the .02 BTC first and I'll take your word for it that you will then send us the .01 BTC. Should you screw us out of it we are out $200+/-, it's not the end of the world. This is the only way I know to get this off of dead center. And then would you please report that we did what we said we'd do? And if you want to send some Merit that would be appreciated as well.

If you do this, you are then automatically entered into our Contest/Drawing, you can list items or bid on items and you can send us new (paying) Sellers and we'll pay you .001 BTC per head.

FYI ~ I am going to include an excerpt from our site:

Buy|sell online with bitcoin for a modest fee.

Buying and selling online with bitcoin presents some challenges as bitcoin transactions are irreversible and anonymous. In order to alleviate the exposure to all sides of the transaction at itcoinBay.com, we have devised a system loosely based on the old Russian adage that says «дoвepять, нo пpoвepять», which translates to “trust, but verify.” Normally credit card or bank information would be required to participate in an online marketplace, but we will never ask for that kind of information at itcoinBay.com. So how do we overcome this exposure and “trust, but verify?” We alleviate potential problems with our trademark BITREF system. BITREF is an acronym for Blockchain Irreversible Transaction Risk Escrow Fund. How does it work?

To become an itcoinBay.com Seller, one makes a one-time BITREF payment of .01 BTC and after that there are NO annoying LISTING FEES and we take only a 2.9% commission on auctions that sell. Sellers have full privileges which include bidding/buying, earning with our Referral program and they are also automatically entered in our Contest. To become an itcoinBay.com Buyer (no selling privileges), one makes a one-time BITREF payment of .01 BTC, but this is refundable upon request. For a one-time buyer this is very easy as this amount can be deducted from the payment for an item. An itcoinBay.com Buyer may leave his or her BITREF deposit with us for as long or as short a timespan as is desired and they can become a Seller at any time should they wish to sell something with us simply by listing an item or service with us and their deposit would then no longer be refundable.

Our BITREF system accomplishes several very important objectives: it provides confirmation that the member is able to use bitcoin, while it also greatly reduces the risk of phantom bidders/buyers and or sellers. Without attaching ourselves and our members to the monetary-controls of the establishment, which obviously goes against the root principles of Bitcoin, this is the best system we could devise. While we here at itcoinBay.com believe in and practice the “Golden Rule” and hope for the same from our members, our BITREF system provides everyone in our marketplace with the ability to “trust, but verify.”

Remember, this +.01 BTC offer is only to the first to take us up on it, after that is gone we have just one more free (+.01 BTC - .01 BTC = 0 BTC) Seller membership available.

Also you asked, why not just ask for an address and send the .01 BTC? So they do nothing and get money? Life doesn't work that way, you get paid for action, at least that's the way it works for most of us commoners. Someone takes the initiative to do what we ask, which doesn't take much time but does entail some trust/the gamble of whether or not we will fulfill our end of the bargain, and for that they get rewarded. Makes sense?

Try us and see, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

The reason we started down this road is I was looking for a place to sell some stuff for bitcoin so as to accumulate some without having to spend fiat. I found no place. Later, after we had already started the site I found a few, Cryptopia had an exchange system ( I signed up and tried to sell something there and it was a joke) and OpenBazarr requires some sort of system install... We however are using Bitcoin as it was intended to be used. Another excerpt from our site: 

Now since we at itcoinBay.com do not attach ourselves nor our members to fiat currencies, bank accounts or credit cards, we have developed a fee-based system for the purpose of accountability. It would be great to be able to just trust everyone, but until society evolves to that point, for the protection of all participants we will practice the Russian policy of 'trust but verify,' by charging a modest fee for participation. In the age of $1000 cell phones, $5+ coffee and Washington, D.C., we don’t feel at all apprehensive about this fee.

At our site, no 3rd party payment or conversion systems, downloads, platform installs, special wallets, etc. are required. We use only Peer to Peer transactions as envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto. After all, is this is not how Bitcoin was intended to be used?

I for one would never put my bitcoin in an exchange. Anyone that is willing to spend a little Bitcoin on an item probably has more than a small amount so we are asking for a pretty trivial amount as an escrow and as an offset we are giving away a chance at some very nice prizes and are doing away with the hassle and tediousness of listing fees. We have thought this out, we are just waiting for society to catch up with us.  ;)

And you Mpamaegbu, if you beat malevolent to it we'll make you the same offer (see previous post). And if he beats you then we'll make you the second offer, we'll send you .01 BTC if you promise to send us the .01 BTC in return.

We are trying to build trust, how else can we do it?

OK, done. My BTC address is in the order as the name. 0.02, 0.01 back to you.

edit: I see the tx, once it confirms, I'll send half of it back. Post here, or PM me the address where you'd like to receive the 0.01 BTC.

Unconfirmed as of yet. Did you not get an address and QR code when you clicked submit in our Store? We had an issue the other day but I thought it was straightened out, if you didn't get it then I have work to do. Here is the address you should have gotten: 179Qb7zjKw7qy26x6A46b1q32Gr7Vgerb

Confirmed now, yes, I got it, but wanted to be sure 100%. Txid: 9dbd446d1d4792708b46986cc5b1e9aa2a34170007330ffa3aacfab0082d778e

Since I essentially got free money, I'll post something for sale, but you really have to put some work into visual parts of the website if you want to attract people. Some things really stand out, even if they're small, e.g. it's not 'BitCoin', but 'Bitcoin'.

But is this not considered trying to buy trust?
Surely OP could look legit and send the 0.01 btc but on the forum we have seen many "trust worthy" people turn out to be nothing more than scammers trying the long con.
Anyways, to stay on topic, I saw this post when OP first made it and since I do not have much credibility (yet), I did not want to jump the gun and say that this looked like a very cheap site set up by someone who is very good at selling things. Probably a sales person or an auctioneer.

And like I said, the site itself does not inspire any confidence. I've seen Romanian restaurants with better UI/UX.

I would like to thank you very much. I also go the .01 BTC already. Feels so good to trust someone doesn't it? :)

Although I got a red flag in my wallet saying the transaction from you to us may be at risk for a double spend? Hopefully it's just BS.

Good grief people can find fault in anything that you do...

Cпacибo зa кoмплимeнт, a пoкaзaть нaм cвoй caйт xoчeшь?

Caveat et venditor emptor. Some of the most trustworthy people have become scammers.

Most scammers wouldn't bother sending anyone any money, so at least there's that. The biggest risk I think is someone spends money on an account and doesn't get their money's worth if the site doesn't get enough relevant traffic.


It's an RBF transaction which (to keep things simple) means it would be easier to double spend if I wanted to, it's set by default in many wallets. Wait until it confirms, most likely within the next block or two since there isn't much traffic now.

edit: tx confirmed

I'm not worried... It just got a confirmation by the way.

Yes well the dilemmas are Sellers>Auctions>Buyers as well as traffic. Do we want traffic first? Driving a lot of traffic to a site that has not much action seems to be a bad plan. How did EBAY start? I had hoped friends and family would help to create a base from which to build but that didn't happen so we are taking a grassroots approach to creating a base from which to start and then plan to drive more traffic to the site as well as make the site more shiny and sparkly for people such as josephdd1, and everyone for that matter. Cryptopia was a really nice looking site but it wasn't very functional and you had to place your bitcoin in their exchange if I understood correctly. On top of that, they are no more.

And back to his kind assertion that we are in it for the long scam. What long scam? Once someone becomes a Seller, they then hopefully sell something and at that time we take 2.9%, there is no long scam potential really and why the !@#$ would we do that? Do you think that there is nothing whatsoever legitimate anymore?

Again if we were asking people to send us their life savings to get started that would be one thing, but for Pete's sake it's the equivalent of a little over $100 at the moment. We even hate referring to fiat at all, but it's pretty much still unavoidable but we hope to help to try to change that. Not that long ago it was akin to $30 and we didn't adjust anything. Back in 2017 we tried to change the price and our Contest Offer accordingly but realized it is just better to let Bitcoin take its ups and downs and keep our numbers stable.

Oh by the way malevolent, if you want to share some Merit...  ::)

Sorry, can't exchange merits for bitcoins, even more so since I'm a merit source, and should lead by example.

Okay that’s understandable. When I first made the offer I mentioned the merit as a thank you to me but didn’t consider that a moderator would take us up on it.

Thanks again for joining our site. Hope you can use it and send us some Referrals which will pay you a little more Bitcoin. Just have them add your email or member number as the Referrer.

Just so you know, malevolent let you off easy here. Just keep this golden rule in mind. Never ask for merit or trust in exchange for anything you do here. I am not sure how familiar you are with the forum culture here. So far a mod has kind of vouched for you, cleared my doubt about this not being trust buying, I'd say you are in a good spot now. Don't screw it up by leaving your website looking the way it does right now.


No need to thank me.

And no I do not have my own site. I just have the luxury of visiting some of the best sites run by some of the best companies in the hospitality industry in Romania.
De asemenea, rusul meu. Nu e bine.  ;D Intelegi romana?

Hey I know it's a huge understatement to say that the site is not first class. But again, it is not clear whether a Bitcoin auction site will succeed or not. If we build it, will they come? There are a lot of obstacles. The newness of Bitcoin, the volatility of Bitcoin, the technicality of Bitcoin, will people spend their Bitcoin?, etc., etc. The site is functional and we are marketing it as the anti-establishment site that it is and as Bitcoin is purported to be (assuming the rumors about it being a CIA creation are false). We are somewhat unique in that we break from the norm as is revealed in this snippet:

Now since we at itcoinBay.com do not attach ourselves nor our members to fiat currencies, bank accounts or credit cards, we have developed a fee-based system for the purpose of accountability. It would be great to be able to just trust everyone, but until society evolves to that point, for the protection of all participants we will practice the Russian policy of 'trust but verify,' by charging a modest fee for participation. In the age of $1000 cell phones, $5+ coffee and Washington, D.C., we don’t feel at all apprehensive about this fee.

At our site, no 3rd party payment or conversion systems, downloads, platform installs, special wallets, etc. are required. We use only Peer to Peer transactions as envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto. After all, is this is not how Bitcoin was intended to be used?

We are also trying to help lead the way away from fiat, if everyone is constantly comparing the price of Bitcoin to the dollar, it creates a paralysis of sorts. We say let's forget about what the dollar is doing and just use Bitcoin. An example of this is the non-fiat Bitcoin ticker we have created (Bitcoin compared to ounces of gold) https://itcoinbay.com/Widget/. At the moment 1 Bitcoin is equal to 8.1312 ounces of gold.

If we can gain some traction, we plan to 'up' the quality of the site. But why spend a million dollars on something that no one will use? Judging by the popularity of all of the gambling sites in the Bitcoin and crypto world, I am very surprised that our Contest/Drawing hasn't created more interest. For .01 BTC, Sellers will have a 1 in 100 chance to win either an $1800 drone or .1 BTC. Not too shabby it seems to us. And 1 in 10 will win something, the Consolation Prizes being Trezor (or Keepkey) hardware wallets. And imagine, those that have claimed our free or discounted Special Offers will gain these chances at zero cost to them! Name we one site that offers anything close to this.

For practical, or more conservative people, we of course offer a real chance to earn Bitcoin by selling things (assuming someone wants to purchase a Seller's auction) and by referring others. We also offer many links for newbies to learn about Bitcoin and or obtain some Bitcoin and we provide our phone number and e-mail for answering questions. Not sure that the time of a thriving Bitcoin auction site is yet at hand, but we hope to be ready when that time comes, we aren't going away.

Oh yea, no I don't understand a lick of Romanian.

So why not diversify and not just stay limited to act like an auction site? Open up your site to free sign ups, and keep the entry gate price for the auction sellers & bidders. If you want to attract customers that will stay and come back for more then you have to give them the reason to come back over and over again.
I have suggested this to some other project here in the past, that they should try to integrate the instant exchange that changelly, shapeshift, flyp.me and coinswitch offers. Try them out. This will instantly reduce the fear of volatility that dealing with crypto brings on its own. I don't want to pay you 1 btc today for a 10k piece of whatever and tomorrow repent having sent you that 1 btc when its price could be 50k and whatever I bought would still say the same price, or even lose its value.

Well that mindset is exactly the problem: "I don't want to pay you 1 btc today for a 10k piece of whatever and tomorrow repent having sent you that 1 btc when its price could be 50k and whatever I bought would still say the same price, or even lose its value."

Until people mature past that type of thinking or Bitcoin stabilizes, this is an uphill battle. What about the 'person' that bought that 1 BTC for a few dollars or even pennies on the dollar? They can buy a 10k piece of whatever for a few pennies or a few dollars, yea? It's like any purchase, you buy something with any currency today because you want or need it. Your scenario states exactly the hesitation that paralyzes Bitcoin users. When the dust clears and the what if's evaporate, we will be here to provide a true Peer to Peer platform for Buyers and Sellers. Why trust your Bitcoin to an exchange that can disappear with everyone's Bitcoin today or tomorrow. Keep your Bitcoin in your wallet and if you see something you like, spend a little. Very simple concept. Your banker induced mindset is a huge hurdle that remains to be jumped by humanity. True freedom is as foreign and frightening as an unknown language for most.

You have to choose between what you want to do.
Promote your business or change the mentality of how the world functions practically? Most normal people do not have Bitcoins sitting with them.

They acquire it, they sell it. You will never move past the first line of acquiring new customers if you are worried about their mentality.
Figure out what you want first. good luck

Thank you for pointing out the obvious but that is the decision we made when we started down this road. If people don't have Bitcoin and or don't want to spend it, why bother with a Bitcoin auction site? There is EBAY and others for that, yea? This site exists in the event that a Bitcoin auction site becomes a valid idea. This hypothetical vision so far remains just that.

We are not worried about the mentality of people in the least, I simply responded to your outdated thinking. If it doesn't work it doesn't work, and the opposite is true as well. All I was stating in response to your comment was that if people come around to this idea, that is why we exist. This site is not for people that are happy as slaves in the world of fractional-reserve-banking and other monetary controls. If one is happy leaving their Bitcoin in the hands of another, it is just a matter of time until history repeats itself as when the bankers realized that almost no one ever came to claim the cumbersome gold that they had been entrusted with and instead favored the use of paper IOU's.

In short, HODL your own Bitcoin!

I am not sure if this is the right approach. In a way you are promoting circle jerking rather than actual adoption.

What Jospeh might have painted is one aspect of the Bitcoin bidding perspective. But the reverse could also happen.

For instance, someone buys an artwork that is $10,000 in btc today, and the guy pays 1BTC for it. Tomorrow Bitcoin price could swing down and things bought from your site could be sold at the same $10k fiat value but for more number of Bitcoins if the btc price goes down.

So your site could inevitably end up being misused as a way for people to hedge their BTC.

You will never be able to promote Bitcoin or any crypto for that matter, without making it attractive for new people to get into the ecosystem. And I do not think that is an outdated form of thinking.

Yes Bitcoin's roller coaster swings are a complicating factor in this equation and let me state the obvious in saying that every action in this world contains some sort of risk.

If someone is too worried about what Bitcoin will or won't do, then this may not be for them. I, for example, decided to start this site as I hoped to accumulate some Bitcoin without having to spend a lot of my dollars. I thought, if only I could sell (or trade, which is essentially what we do in any financial transaction) this or that for some Bitcoin. If two sides of a transaction are happy at the moment it occurs, what happens after that is not within one's control, unless, that is, one happens to be a central banker or influencer thereof. We can spend our life waiting for something to happen or we can act now. This boils down to one's life philosophy. If I sell you a valuable painting today and Bitcoin goes to the moon or crashes tomorrow, it will at that point just be a big what-if for both of us. In what type of financial transaction is this not the case?

I would say that this site is primarily geared for people without a lot of bitcoin to sell things to people that made a fortune or small fortune already in bitcoin. It also provides an opportunity for people to earn bitcoin (and recoup/partially recoup their initial fee in the process) with our Referral Program and it offers some excitement as well with our Giveaway. Our auctions also are free of pesky LISTING FEES which would really bog things down with minutiae.

We appreciate you taking the time to add your thoughts to this post.

At our site, no 3rd party payment or conversion systems, downloads, platform installs, special wallets, etc. are required. We use only Peer to Peer transactions as envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto. After all, is this is not how Bitcoin was intended to be used?