Bitcoin Forum

A little over two weeks ago, I created a post on here, asking what bounty hunters look for in a bounty campaign. You can view that post here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5186995.msg52539177#msg52539177) if interested.

I received a significant number of responses with valuable insight on what key components bounty hunters look for before participating in a bounty campaign. However, after reading all the responses and striking conversation with some of the users, I realized that the majority of bounty hunters are unaware of why some bounty campaigns, and startups, are structured the way they are.

For example, about 90% of bounty hunters on here stated that a bounty campaign that requires KYC is an instant red flag, with most just completely ignoring it instantly. I understand why this is the case, but what I don't think bounty hunters understand is why some startups require it, and some don't.

So, I wanted to take some time out to explain from a bounty manager perspective, and now a member of a new startup perspective, why these campaigns have these certain requirements and are structured the way they are.

PLEASE NOTE: This post doesn't reflect all bounty campaigns accurately as everyone varies by startup. Also, this post is assuming the bounty campaign and the startup behind it is legitimate and not a scam![/b]

Know Your Customer (KYC)
I'm not an expert on this by no means, but I'd be cautious of a project that doesn't require KYC in order to participate in their bounty campaign. Different jurisdictions have provided regulatory guidance recently and activities that used to be allowed in this industry in the past 1-2 years are now not allowed anymore. These projects that don't require KYC are either not aware, are not being careful, and/or have not done their due diligence. Those who do require KYC, require it because they've taken the necessary steps in order to determine who can and can't participate in their crowdsale/bounty campaign.

I understand that performing KYC for any project is concerning as you are giving up your personal information to an unknown startup, however, it is very necessary if that startup wants to legally abide by all the jurisdictions and regulations. So my advice is that you get to know the team and determine if they are trustworthy before even participating in the bounty campaign. Join their Telegram Group and strike up a conversation on KYC and why they determined it to be required or not required. Their responses on this topic will help you validate their credibility and trustworthiness in my mind.

Bounty Campaign Reward Pool (KYC)
Obviously, the higher the reward is, the more enticing it is to participate in hopes of claiming that reward. However, I noticed a large number of hunters look at the total tokens allocated to the bounty campaign before participating. This makes sense if the bounty campaign is staked-based, because then the total tokens allocated factors in to how many tokens will be rewarded for each completed task. However, a lot of hunters stated that the reward pool matters for even fixed-based campaigns.

My input on all this is that this shouldn't be a determining factor like it is for most. From my experience, startups will try to offer the most tokens as possible upon creating a bounty campaign because they know that the more tokens normally results in the most participation. However, there has to be a limit to the number of tokens offered by each startup.

If a bounty campaign has a smaller reward pool than most, it is most likely due to one of the following reasons:
* They plan on holding at least one or more bounty campaigns or contests
* They want to limit the effect of the everyone dumping the token once it hits the market

I'd be cautious about big reward pools because that usually results in a large dump as soon as the token hits the market. Bounty hunters tend to sell as soon as they can so the more tokens rewarded, the more tokens that will be dumped. So if you want to hold the tokens you receive, you may want to look for those that hand out less tokens. I know it sounds odd, but it just makes that project more valuable.

Reward Per Task
Again, most startups want to reward you as much as possible for a completed task, however, they also want to maximize the participation received as well. In order to do this, rewards must be reasonable unless there will be little participation with a large pot of rewards. However, if the task is a content related task, and the quality of work is more than exceptional, the team will most likely reward you more than stated on the bounty campaign. Any bounty hunter that is willing to spend the time to create a high quality piece of work will definitely be generously rewarded. So if you are looking for a high reward, I recommend taking the time out to do the necessary research and due diligence so that you can create value for the startup.

Unknown Distribution Date
Having a known distribution date is a big bonus for bounty hunters for reassurance purposes, however, if there isn't a set distribution date, I recommend learning why before you just ignore the bounty campaign.

Many startups hold bounty campaigns in order to increase their exposure for their crowdsale. Those that hold a bounty campaign during their pre-sale or private sale most likely won't have a distribution date because they don't want to force a strict deadline for their sales. The crowdsale determines how successful a startup will be as it funds their development for X amount of years. For this reason, startups want to maximize the amount of funds they receive as best as possible, and in order to do so, they normally leave the pre-sale or private sale rounds open until they deem necessary. As a result, a distribution date can't be set for a bounty campaign until these rounds are officially closed, and once the public sale rounds are announced.

Words Of Wisdom
The ICO/STO/IEO world is growing every day, but so are the elaborate scams. So to finish this post, I just wanted to provide my insight on how I deem a project and their team legitimate or not!

1) Join the Telegram Group and start asking questions!
If a startup is legitimate, then they will value their community and try to answer any questions as quickly and honestly as possible. So by asking questions on the team, the project, the crowdsale, etc..., you can easily learn how committed and knowledgeable the team is. The biggest red flag is if the Telegram group isn't being moderated and you never receive a response from your questions!

2) Don't base your decisions on influencers or listing sites - Do Your Own Research!
Anyone can get an influencer or listing site to promote their project as long as they pay the right amount. For this reason, they can basically get anything published whether it is true or not. This is why I caution everyone when reading ratings or comments on a startup; not all of them may be credible.

To be safe, just do your own research. Review the website, look at the team and their background's, closely read through the whitepaper. Do a thorough review of the project before deciding to join their bounty campaign or crowdsale. If you don't spend at least an hour reviewing the project, you didn't do a good enough job.

3) Don't be afraid to get involved in a project
This doesn't necessarily relate to determining whether a project is legitimate or not, but I just wanted to get this out there anyways. Don't be afraid to ask a startup if any positions are open, or if you can help promote the project. Outside of bounty campaigns, a startup is always looking for more ways to get their name out to as many people as possible. If you are really committed to a project, reach out to the team and tell them how you think you can help. Most teams are willing to hear at least what you have to offer, and if deemed of value, you could earn extra tokens or even a role with the team! The best part, asking to get involved has zero consequences!
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If you have any comments or arguments against any of these, feel free to get the conversation going below in the comments!

Thanks for reading and Happy Hunting!

Wow, younsurely took your time compiling this information and still I found this very informative. You do have a nice input there. Most bounty hunters would just depend what bounty to join depending on what is famous or who the manager is or sometimes where their friends are. In my own opinion it is good to have your own way and research where to join and look closely on the regulation, distribution and any other rule that applies to the bounty which you think will be convenient for you. Remember that you will be devoting your time and effort promoting a project so make it worth it.

Yep, this is just what I've experienced after working in this sector for almost a year and a half!

I agree, participating in a famous or highly reputable bounty campaign is a common theme that you can't really go wrong with doing. However, you can't quite expect to receive a decent reward from these campaigns due to their wide-exposure and large participation. The real hidden gems are the ones that most people glance over and don't pay much attention too. If you do your research and determine there to be real use-cases for the project, you should participate in it!

Great work mate! I hope this would help new hunters to understand how things are done. Besides, I am getting more and more disappointed with bounty campaigns in general and believe that someday we would finally get good rewards.

Thank you very much!

I don't mean to turn this post into a marketing post, however, if you are looking for a new bounty campaign to participate in, I recommend checking out the most recent one I'm managing. The project is called PlanChain and runs on the VeChainThor blockchain. They are still new and very early in their pre-sale stages, but they look to have a promising project and team, so I personally think they are going to do well.

Give it a look and let me know if you have any questions!

PlanChain Bounty Program (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5186272.0)

Especially the number one option on words of wisdom - Join the Telegram Group and start asking questions- most hunters don't find it necessary to join the telegram group of the project they supposedly support, some only join when telegram is made mandatory for all participants otherwise they won't join to follow up on relevant update that could give a clue how serious that project is or appear to be, it is always good to join the telegram group of any project you are supporting to gain more closure about the project, from this group you can tell if the team are active or not, and other helpful hints.

This is a good observation but I guess you are still unaware of some campaigns who are misusing this KYC verification.

You can refer to this thread for context https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5189364.0

Some campaign start out with no KYC but they suddenly decided to implement it towards the end of the campaign. They are not required by law in their country to conduct KYC for a utility token but they still claim it's for "legal purposes" when in fact the actual purpose is to weed out bounty cheaters.

Wow this is a well written info about bounties, bounty hunters should put away fear when engaging any bounty project, after doing your own part like better researches just be strong and brave, crypto bounties are unpredictable, sometimes the least project you expected to turn out well will be the one that will pay you on the long run

Again, this is why I said to be cautious when participating in a bounty campaign that doesn't require KYC. At least for campaigns that require it straight off the bat, you know they won't pull any quick ones on you.

In this case, KYC was stated to weed out the multiple/fake accounts, which is actually the best use-case for KYC in bounty campaigns. However, this project definitely had the intention of throwing in this requirement last minute in order to reduce the total rewarded tokens as a decent amount of hunters probably didn't notice it was required in time.

Exactly! Communicating with the team in the Telegram Group gives you a much better understanding of the team over looking them up on LinkedIn or any other resource. It also just gives you a better understanding of the project itself and can help you determine if you want to participate fully with the project or not. Telegram is the main point of contact for startups in this sector and if you really want to get a firsthand glance of what a project is and how it will perform, the Telegram group will provide that.

The telegram community can also be used as an assessment of the activeness of developers in updating their projects and I think developers will be more active in telegrams compared to other social media. And it can be said that the telegram community is the most updated information connector because you can directly ask the developer while other social media are usually managed again by several teams

The fastest way to detect how serious a project team are is asking them challenging questions on telegram, if you are good at this you will find answers in no time, some teams have bad intent and some have good intent but stay away from teams that are not 100% opened to questions, they are always dangerous

But just doing this also not enough, there are many crypto people that able to speak about their project very clearly and very fluently. But they just know how to talk but they cannot implement their idea

The more disappointed you are it seems you aren't ready to quit, i see you are promoting synchrobit project, some bounty projects are just bad but if you learn from your mistakes you will get better at picking projects to promote

i have promoted lots of bounties through other bounty platforms like bountyminer and bountyhub but the rewards are very low yet i am glad i don't promote scam projects, the rewards are so low that they are like when you receiving tokens from airdrops campaigns but its better than none, doing research helps me a lot and histories of past bounties help me as well

That is why joining the Telegram group should just be the first step in evaluating a new project. You should still do your own due diligence in any other way you please. But engaging with the team on Telegram should definitely be the first step.

KYC has become a lot of debate and there are always those who agree and disagree.
Doing KYC for an exchange I don't mind, but not for bounties.
I disagree if someone said Bounty that requires KYC to be considered a legitimate bounty, because KYC and development project are different things
Indeed, many have suggested KYC to reduce participants who commit fraud but prociding personal information for something that has not been seen to be a value is foolish, security of personal information is more expensive than a bounty prize.

I think it would be useful if bounty hunters actually collaborated and formed a list of questions that could be provided to projects that have an ongoing bounty campaign. This would save the incessant questions in the bounty chat, such as when distribution, why no payment etc.

Such a resource would save the time of not only thousands of bounty hunters, but also all the projects that have to answer the same questions repeatedly, while also giving hunters a good way to separate the trash projects from the good.

You make a very valid point. Depending on your stance on giving up your personal information, it varies if you are willing to participate in a bounty campaign or not. A lot of people complain that bounty rewards are too low to begin with, so performing KYC definitely isn't worth it for some chump change in tokens.

However, bounty campaigns are aimed to attract not only followers, but actual investors. I've participated in only a couple of campaigns, but each one I also invested in as well. So performing KYC in these situations weren't an issue for me.

So again, depends on what your goal is with a bounty campaign and how protective you are with your personal information. Unfortunately, most of our personal information has already been exposed by other means so you may not be protecting something that you think is actually private.

nice writeup man, i owe u some merit, im out right now :P

In my experience it has always amazed me at the price people place on their personal information
They don't seem to realize identify theft is REAL, and you could be a victim and never know until your credit companies freeze your accounts for weird activity
I avoid KYC, except for established exchanges, im too paranoid haha

As a bounty hunter,  I will always look for a project that offers a better reward, of course considering the factor OP stated on the first post.  I don't care if the coins will be dump since it is the projects owner's task to keep it at a reasonable trading rate.  



If you want to  hold a token, it is not the token that were hand out that we should look out for, but rather the total supply of the token.  Imagine a project that allocate 1 million token in a campaign while having 100B total token supply.  What will happen to your holdings then?  Mostly, participants will get a reward of around 100 to 8,000 token each a rough estimate of  bounty distribution that includes all the regular running campaign in the altcoin bounty considering there is a decent number of participants joined.   Worst, developers hold 10% to 15% of those token.

This idea would be best if the project allocate bounty rewards depending on the total sales of the ICO and burning those that were not sold considering the campaign allocation is around 1-3% of the total coins.

You have learned a lot of things about how the crypto bounty system works nowadays, and now you are managing a bounty. This is what every bounty hunters want. A guy who knows the pain of bounty hunters and who wants to give everything at the exact time. I just checked your bounty campaign and I must say Planchain has a good potential to be a successful project. And, I believe this thread will help lots of new bounty hunters to know better about bounty things, so you deserve a merit from me.

Quite a useful research I think, good job! I think the key factor that leads to success in bounty hunting now is a professional methods and creativity. You should be better and smarter than hundreds of other hunters now, competition has grown too much lately.

Thanks for the read and feedback!

I agree, KYC can be pretty risky. That is why I highly recommend getting to know the team first and even researching who the KYC provider is. If your information does get leaked, you can take action against the KYC provider. The only issue is knowing if they leaked your information or not because companies these days like to keep this a secret as long as possible.

But, a highly reputable startup will have a trusted KYC provider that you shouldn't have to worry about. So it all comes down to doing your own research and whether you trust that team enough or not.

Thank you very much for your input and the merit!

The bounty hunting field is a lot more complicated than it should be and is filled with too many scams. I started out as a bounty hunter so I understand all the frustrations that pertain to bounty hunting and my goal is to solve these frustrations as best as possible! This post is only the beginning as I'm hoping to have an extended bounty managing career in the future in which I can create an almost perfect balance between bounty hunters and startups.

In the telegram, you can track not only the activity of the team, but also the activity of the followers who support the project. To see what questions are most often asked, and if they interested in the product. Well, and, of course, it is important that the team doesn't ignore the questions, and answers as often as possible.

With the rise of icos/stos and now ieos we have experienced people making huge money both from investments and bounty but today we need to have a look at the other side of the story, if we analyse the last 2 3 years of bounty campaigns we can easily conclude that majority of campaigns have proven to to dishonest if not scams, either they have not paid hunters or they have reduced rewards and changed rules by the end of campaign or have just went down like exit scams, especially the last one and half year was terrible regarding bounties and number of scams and the situation right now is not very bright either we definitely need to get rid of dishonest projects and campaigns.

As I continue to grow my reputation, I was thinking of building a network of reputable bounty managers and bounty hunters. That way, if you are a hunter of a manager, you can offer your work to either party and hopefully both parties will benefit. This way, only promising projects will receive participation, while the hunters can be reassured they will receive their rewards.

Any thoughts on this?

My basis of judgement in finding the good project in cryptospace, isn't focusing now on the white papers or roadmap of the cryptocurrency. What I am aiming to look is how the projects is managing the situation happening each day a big news is out, through that you can already identify projects that has their real intention in the market. Not just those that goes on the flow and disregarding issues arising such as market price fall of such crypto.

You bring up a good point that I think you were touching on. A team that worries less about the price of their token and more on the development of their product is a team you want to follow. The price will move once the product is being adopted. The only way to increase adoption is by making an attractive product.

In my past experience I quickly jump into the Bounties that had a big amount of allocation event though the manager and the project is unknown to others. in the end the project didn't go well so they just abandoned their bounty participants and so as their plan on the roadmap. If you are an early participant in this kind of industry, you might see what kind of bounties are fake. especially those who are managed by "Needmoney" a manager who didn't do his job to inspect the bounty he promotes. and all of them turned into scams. that's why he got the title the worst bounty manager of 2018 and that title got him to his retirement.

Not into KYC though. It sucks that they can possibly extort you in the end.
Getting involve in the project is good. The team needs cooperation to the community which you are part of.  They are not just open to give out for transparency, I have joined a project several times and most of the time, it feels like there is something they hide that when asked they just tell you to wait til you forgot about it.

The quality of the projects are beyond the control of bounty campaign managers. It's just that there are some bounty managers who accept projects without turning a page. They often ended up handling a scam project. The bounty section of this forum is full of scams. It is not only needmoney that handled scams. Many managers, popular or not, handling many projects or just one or two, are handling scams. It so happened that needmoney's bounty management services is a little bit more popular than others that projects reach out to them. Even irfan has a lot of scam projects.

Great post I think you have covered all the points which bounty hunters always think and want to know some time don't understand, After reading this thread many hunters will now differentiate b/w legit and scam project, Thanks for sharing.

That's why by continuing to do the same thing will increasingly make your personal data no longer private, let alone provide personal data in an ICO's project that even we  do not know the truth or legitimate about their company.
I learned a lot about entering cellphone numbers on a site or giving personal data to other parties, making me often get phone calls or SMS, offering fraud service.
My point is always be careful if we have to give to public about our personal information.

Everything is on point, never be afraid to ask and research, that is the only time we will know if our effort is worth doing for. We might got all experience now of unpaid bounties this past years, but we should not give up doing bounties also, since we are already here think of it, still many people didn't know that bounties can be rewarding more than our regular job if we happen to find and be accepted in a campaign. It is way challenging now than before but its better than posting nonsense in social media and not being paid at least here there are chance to be paid if we did our assignment in choosing a quality project that will be successful and is able to pay their participant.

Yeah the activities of the followers is also very important, being part of the telegram group you can easily tell if the followers are genuine of fake, we know most project use bot to populate the number of followers in their telegram group to make it look as though they have large community members, i was part of a project where i had this feeling that most members in that telegram group are either paid or bot members, because with a closer observation of their post you can tell they are not genuine, all they do is sing praises of the project, no criticism or questions about the project development, just things aren't right in there :)

Well that is a good tips and insights for bounty hunters but in KYC part that's i am not agreeing with you becuase doing kyc poses a significant amount of risks since all of your information is in there your name, address and social security number and sometimes your bank account is listed on your ID so, it is dangerous if hackers and scammers has your documents they use it for loans and others so, i don't join bounty campaigns that deals KYC

That's one thing I don't understand. Why would you manage a campaign for a project that looks even one bit of a scam? You have to know that if it becomes labeled as a scam, then it will destroy your reputation.

I thought it was always common sense, but I guess not. Either way, my goal as a bounty manager is to work with projects that I deem legitimate and have potential for success. I think this is the biggest differentiating factor when it comes to comparing bounty managers and which ones you can trust.

I completely agree to require documents with personal numbers and an address for several coins, I think this is unclear, I also try not to participate in such companies, but still have to participate in such companies sometimes, then I only provide driver license data

Yeah most KYC requirements only ask for License and/or Proof Of Address. So I neither one of these really put you at risk for any type of identity theft or financial theft.

This is an achievement already if I may say, it is better that you promote projects that are paying low and not scam than to promote projects that will promise you huge reward and then end up not giving you a dime. We have more of projects that are offering big rewards and they know that this is what usually entice most bounty hunters, which we eventually fall victim when we see one.

Another reason why some projects low offer low reward actually now is that they feel they give too much to hunters which they eventually dump the coin when they enter exchange, so I guess they are also using that as regulations, while some projects is because they don’t meet up to hardcap again which has made them to reduce their hardcap drastically.

You seriously need to do your research and stop talking shit. Bounty hunters don't need KYC there is no reason for it. You shouldn't even need to give KYC for investing. IF you ever need to give KYC it should be for large amounts. Not $500 you investing. Sorry but that is not a large amount. Criminals launder hundreds of thousands.

You have just said you shouldn't trust a project that doesn't ask KYC so you saying we must trust a project that asks KYC?? Dude anyone can start a project and demand KYC anyone!!!! You want to trust some stranger online? These people don't even use proper KYC services and you want to trust them? If you do give your KYC you must only give it to a proper KYC service so only one person sees the data and once its passed its passed.
Not some random asshole online harddrive.

Now go give your KYC is every bounty you see. You already have heard why people say KYC is a red flag yet you insist its still a good thing. People explained why it is not a good thing but you don't listen.

No, it would be still considered to be just like a scam when you receive a dime to your hardwork and time.Yes, it might be better than nothing at all but recieving less will really act just the same.

Im still amazed that there were still people who do still stick with bounty hunting in spite of all these scam and low payment issues.I cant deny that there are still some good projects but their pays wont really be similar to those we have seen in 2017.