Bitcoin Forum

We are proud to launch http://bitscalper.com, the first Automated High Frequency Bitcoin Trading Platform. Check it out, we would love to have your feedback!
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Spotted on reddit at http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/o9fbr/rbtcspeculation/c3fnoqi

legit stuff ?

The questions will be many I'm sure..

Just to start:

1) Why should it be trusted?
2) what do they make (fee) from this.?  edit.. ===>>>We charge a small fee for every withdrawal you request, the fee is 1.75%

When you say high frequency what do you mean by this? Do you have execution guarantees? Do you provide timing data?

I'm not interesting in using your strategy, however, I would be very interested in your base platform as a way to write, execute, and backtest my own strategies.

Let me know

I'll wait for more reports, but there are obvious things to point out:
- like you said, if they make 5% a day why publish it? 5% a day compounded is 400% a month, which means that they can turn $2000 into $37000 within 2 months.
- the fact the website is anonymous also makes it easy to disappear with everyone's money
- if this is true, there won't be enough arbitrage opportunities to make 5% a day for long

This post on reddit might be related: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/o3ebm/dear_community_this_is_a_poll_regarding_the/

The system can make at most 5% daily but it will obviously fluctuate. It's no license to print money but a smart way to "scalp" some small profits on the volume. As for now we don't have large sums of cash and thought about this experiment. Regarding the Reddit post you linked, it's not related to us. I've also noticed today the launch of another automated trading platform on this board, so it might just be a trending topic with Bitcoin.
We will not run away with the money, we are just looking to protect ourselves. At the moment the country we are living in is VERY strict about money transfers/laundering, and we can't really expose our names nor register a company without going through the hassle of gettin' a license, which is unlikely to happen with Bitcoin. We look forward to register an entity in a offshore country or something like that.
The arbitraging opportunities are lasting since quite a long now, the trick is catching the right time window.

With high frequency we intend execution times below 100ms in perfect conditions. We do have a working set of bots trading on the markets on behalf of the users of bitscalper.com. Those bots perform low latency arbitraging operations and conventional trading combined.

This is btc-only, right? If there is a considerable price drop, will the users lose money?

Well internally it actually also sells Bitcoin for other fiat currencies. Huge price drops represent a risk but we have mechanisms in place to react to such events properly. This and the remote risks related to crashing of fiat currencies (not really remote these times) are the things we keep an eye on constantly.

Okay, signed up to check this out, read the FAQ, but apart from being able to deposit Bitcoins and request a withdrawal I don't see what this site actually does.  What can I actually DO with this site?  Just deposit some Bitcoins, cross my fingers, and hope your blackbox will trade them well for me?  (As opposed to running away with them.)

Has anyone actually started using this site and can comment on how it works, etc?  Is this "bitscalper" fellow anyone known in the community?

"mere" 2.5%  in 1 day? 2 days ?  thats not mere

btw the site says:" It makes a maximum of 5% daily on the money you deposit and it's totally automatic."

Thats not a promise of 5% a day...   even 1% a day is amazing if it works.

We wish to say thanks to our early users, Bitscalper is working very well and generating good profits as for now.
We encourage users who already withdrew successfully to let people know on this thread.

I'm giving this a try and will report if it works/is legit.  Hard trusting a 5 post newbie, but can't hurt too much with just a few BTC.

Yeah, I see no reason to trust an anonymous website with my money.

Will also try and report.
Deposit started at 1:30am 12.01.2012 (CET)... will report back in about 24hrs...

The "testers" are operating under the assumption that a simple scam will be obvious after a one day deposit, when the really obvious scam would would be to trickle out returns to everyone for a month or two or longer, and once enough capital is netted, just steal it all. This scam guarantees that early "test" reports will be positive, so what is the point of even making these test reports at all? When the theft happens, it will be a single event taking everyone's money, and then your report will be too late to matter.

So cash out in a month?

We understand the paranoia, but not everybody turns out to be a scammer. About 24 hours after the launch we have already around 1000 Bitcoin deposited into the system. Thanks to all the users for trusting us.  

that doesn't prove you're not a scammer, only that a lot of people fell for it. if you said 1000 bitcoins were successfully withdrawn, that would make you look more legit.

Well alright, just watch this thread for developments and you will realize this is no scam. I guess you will be able to judge more appropriately with the time going.

Welp, I deposited 1.81097116 BTC 4 hours ago and it says I have pulled a 0.0237 BTC profit so far.  That's not bad for 4 hours of soak time!  Of course I have yet to withdraw anything.

I have also tried with a few coins  and so far can't complain...  if its real or not?
We shall see.

They said they got 1000 bitcoins so far and on their website they say they made about 39 bitcoins.  That is 3.9%.  I wonder where that 3.9% is coming from...

So here is a question.  They take a 1.75% fee when you withdraw.  Lets say you put in 100 bitcoins but you nothing happens, No return is made.   You withdraw your money.  Is the 1.75% withdraw fee on all your money or only on a profit you generate?  In this hypothetical account of 100 bitcoins, does the client get her 100 bitcoins back or is she only able to withdraw 98.25 bitcoins?

I am not saying it is a scam but I am not going to put my money in there because I don't see enough transparency in bitscalper.com.  They claim their country has strict financial laws, but they don't claim their country.  Since their laws are so overbearing, the site management has to stay anonymous.  There is a way to stay anonymous and still have a reputation.  They can build a reputation on the btc-OTC web of trust and still not use a real name.  The site can be completely legit, but someone hacks it.  You don't know who you are sending money to already and if you contact them how do you know if you are talking to the right people?

Another way in building trust is to open up part of your model to everyone to see.  I don't like black boxes.  I am sure your model is proprietary, but Bernard Madoff would say the same thing.  His model was to get money from X, Y, and Z then take x% of Z's money and give to X and Y.

I guess we cant be sure if they did make the 3.9% or not. If everybody cashes out at once we could see, and even then it could be coming from their pocket to earn trust. They still haven't answered most questions and hopefully they will. I did throw a few coins in to try it out . It's a small gamble , if I make some money - great , If not then I learned a lesson for a the price of a few btc's.

People here is really crazily paranoid but we understand. At the moment we cannot provide source code but we are working on showing some internal stats and some more informations about the system. We look forward to build some trust in the long time.

Just because one is paranoid doesn't mean they aren't being followed....

This is one red flag I didn't like.  Besides not disclosing the country the servers are in, its not that hard to get hosting in another country to virtually solve that problem anyway.

Well of course the server is located in another country, here financial control is really getting too tigh. We are located in Europe anyway, it's not hard to make a guess.

There is a difference between paranoia and vigilance.

Bitscalper, how is my earnings calculated?

Ente

Oh, then that makes me more comfortable and you should be as well.  Yes, you are technically doing business personally where you live and sit your butt down, but the servers are in a safe haven which is more important.

Hi Ente,

Earning depends on the opportunities windows. there is no way it's calculated up. it depends on how much you deposit, the return could be anything from 0% to 5% daily, or even more. 

More important for your coins, but not for our personal freedom. If we get caught here it's jail time. Period.

https://i.imgur.com/LZa3D.jpg

Deposited 1BTC
I don't understand how could I earn 0.0207 and have 1.0283 instead of 1.0207

Started about 24hrs ago it shows me 0.02935 profits started with 0.5BTC. Havent tried to withdraw so far though.

I'm not putting a password on that website. There is no https.

I highly suggest that he invest in an SSL certificate.

We should have fixed the problem with wrong amounts showing up in the balance. Please let us know if you still notice weird stuffs.

Only viable option as for now is to install the SSL encryption with a bogus certificate, because getting a level II SSL certificate would defy completely our anonymity.

the problem with wrong amounts is fixed

what bothers me now is the mail I received:



1. I had a much stringer password that was autogenerated (I know I can put it back)
2. Sending the new password in clear on the email (This is never a good ideea)

LE: tried to change the password and now I can't login with the new pass or the old one
Recovery tells me to send an email to info@bitscalper.com instead of generating some kind of link and send it to the email?
WTF is this?

It's only a technical glitch we had. Remember that we are still in beta phase. We never read your password and only store them strongly hashed. We will look into the issue you ran. We will be also implementing a forgot password feature within the next 24 hours.
We apologize again for the inconvenience, your problem should be fixed now.

Whether this site is legit or not we don't know yet.  But those that decided to take a risk like me shouldn't
complain so much. It does state that its BETA. You can give advice , point out bugs etc... but I don't think
that complaining is part of using a FREE and BETA service.

Actually I meant to ask "how is my share of the total earnings calculated?".
Like, for example, you said you have approx 1000 Bitcoins in your books. I have 5 Bitcoin in my account. That is 5/1000 of the total. Now, if you to some magic and produce 50 Bitcoins, will I get 5/1000 of this gain, so will my earnings be 0.25 Bitcoins? The next day my account balance would be 5.25 Bitcoins then?

I.e. is the total gain distributed evenly among the users according to how much they contributed to the total sum?

(Why do I ask? MtGox, for example, charges different fees depending on volume)

Ente

We're doing everything  we can to keep the bugs at a minimum and working around the clock to fix issues.

Of course not, the system works like this :
Suppose the profit % is 2.25%, if you have 100 bitcoins deposit, you would make 100*2.25/100 = 2.25 bitcoin.
The next day if the profit % is 3.50%, you would have 102.25*3.50/100 = 3.57 bitcoin and so on.
 

we have pushed an update with internal statistics disclosure to help people take confidence with bitscalper. We'll be updating and expanding it soon.

Why do you need complete anonymity for a legitimate business?

Because of our location. We are concerned about being raided.

Can you say scam / ponzi of the month ?

January 2012 award goes to : ... BitScalper !!!

Please explain how you make money and why you need the user's BTC and not just use your own BTC and that magical black box with 5% return ;)

I guess only facts could speak for you to be convinced that this is not a scam.
We do make money by arbitraging bitcoins on several exchanges, as already explained.

But that's what many people are looking for is facts, and facts like this...


don't inspire much confidence, your contradicting yourself.  Again, why would you be raided for running a legitimate business?  Many of us are not familiar with other nations laws. Is there some country where bitcoins are illegal? or exchanges? or servers? Or you just need to meet some crazy liscencing or permits to run the business?

Why don't you just take time to read the thread ? i already stated clearly the reasons to other people asking the same. Our government is crazy enough to consider trafficking large sums of bitcoins a serious white collar crime.

"© 2013/2013 bitscalper.com"

Must be easy to auto trade when you're from the future.

eheh good one, on which page ?

1st page :)

edit: its fixed..

I did read the thread.  And I was hoping to get a reasonable explanation before sending you coins.  What your implying is that your anonymity is required because the government where you live recognizes bitcoins stored and trasnfered on servers in another country as money, which I doubt is true. So thanks for the response and good luck with your business.

LOL.

On another note, it seems they are hosted in Germany ?

http://bitscalper.com.hostlogr.com/

The government doesn't 'recognize' magically anything. We are concerned about investigations on the bitcoin scene in this country, that's all. if you want to invest or not is up to you. Living with doubts is living more safely. Cheers

I would suggest that if (big if), everyone here constitutes the largest investment in bitscalper, and we sum our total investment (hoping to approximate the purported 1000 BTC received thus far), then decide on a chronologically near date to minimize risk exposure and execute a test. That test would be to all simultaneously withdraw the entire investment on a specific date to see if bitscalper can comply with the request.

The nearby date should be such that it exceeds the withdrawal fee by a large multiple... say 5 times, and see if you get your money back. If everybody posts this withdrawal date so that a maximum of persons can see it, and a majority of investors withdraw on that date, you might be able to semi-verify the validity or legitimacy of their claims. This could prove that firstly they are using arbitrage, and second they are capable of paying.

They could get caught sideways in a trade (too long/short the commodity), but they shouldn't go bust. Call it crowd sourced participation.

The other option is to use an escrow service or trusted agent, give him the money then have him do the deposit and withdrawal (he could even withdraw on an unknown but proximal date to not "show his hand"). I'm sure we could find someone here we could trust. That way we can create one huge wave instead of in-the-noise random ripple effects.

IMO that is acceptable.

You can keep your certificate fingerprint in your signature or something or use a somewhat-valid CAcert one.

They owners of the service are reading this the same as all of us. The profits so far according to them are around 80-90 btc so basically thats all they would need (- the 1.75% fee) to allow the complete withdraw of all funds....

You could wait till they have a much bigger investment and declared profit but then it just might be too late.....

You cant prove they (or any service) are legit, only that they are legit at this very moment. You cant profe they are dishonest, only proving it afterwards for the time been.
If total scam: Pay in 5% of the invested money per day, and even this 5% exists only in the "books". Wait until 1k, or 10k, or whatever Bitcoins flew in.
But then.. MtGox charges a lot less than 1.75% and still didnt run away with our money. Sure, they would have a problem liquidating 90% of the tradet volume on other exchanges then.. ;-)

So, in short: You cant prove or disprove they (or anyone) are legit or a scam. Even if we knew their "real" names and contactdata we would have to trust that, and that it would be of any use in the case of a scam. And this is the problem with *any* business where you send money first.

Ente

"Server error! Please contact the admin." that was quick

Maybe and maybe not... If i was going to dissapear i would just shut the site down...

Interestingly, this comes no matter what you enter as credentials.. So either the website has a problem, or the ser-database is gone altogether..

Ente

from the other bitscalper thread:

The server still authenticates the user, as you can test by inputing your real id + pass (it'll give you a hash in your browser url), whereas a fake id+pass gives none. I'm suspecting their bitcoin client has indeed crashed.

It's working now  :D

edit: its down again  ???

edit2: the whole site is down zzz

Error 2002 : Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)

SQL = []

Array (

• => Array ( [file] => /var/www/p/app/database.php [line] => 7 [function] => db_report_error [args] => Array (
• => ) ) [1] => Array ( [file] => /var/www/p/index.php [line] => 3 [function] => db_connect [args] => Array ( ) ) )

right now it's working again.
I guess they have worked or are still working on the servers.

The server did not reboot properly and missed to spawn vital processes. It is fixed and working now. The issue DID NOT affect your actual profits.
Apologize sincerely for the issue.

back in now

(Sorry for doubleposting on both topics https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=57406.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=57406.0) and https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=57422 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=57422).)

TL;DR: There are clear facts that Bitscalper is not what they try to tell us, I say scam!

Here are my findings:

I "joined" 10.01.2012 by sending 10BTC. By now I have 11.547BTC. 1% average per day. Doesnt sound impossible to do, huh?

1) I sent 10 BTC https://blockexplorer.com/address/14PAmBAdgjpuPgNi7jYZuUsQpAuxZoeMHv (https://blockexplorer.com/address/14PAmBAdgjpuPgNi7jYZuUsQpAuxZoeMHv), but they didnt move at all since five days! So they are giving me 1.55 BTC just for nothing? If they dont need my funds to speculate and make 1% a day, why do they pay me that 1%?
Thats a KO for me.

For completeness, here come other, more indicative clues:

2) The user "bitscalper" is new on Bitcointalk. Noone creates such a project without having been seen on the forums before! Let me guess, "oh, our country is so dangerous, we dont want SWAT to kick in our doors". You are at such high risk that you never even mentioned the country's name?

3) The counter "all scalped BTC" and my personal stats get updated a few times a day, but then in pretty large increments. Often these two numbers dont change at the same time. You want to tell me you can dump almost 3k BTC on different, i.e. small exchanges, to take advantage of a few percent arbitrage, without totally flooding that small exchange, and make a few percent gain even after fees? And furthermore, you do this one, two, three times a day, and not several hundred times a day?

4) I won't even begin with the more subtle, but still obvious signs like never stating any surname, not even in mails, using buzzwords whereever possible, seeming to be oh-so open, pleased, grateful for any input, which will make its way to the page quickly. I recognize this "Yes, yes, thank you!" style from the bazaar, immediately before paying three times the regular price.


All in all: If it seems too good to be true, it mostly is. To compare with the Aricie bot (3% loss, then a max of 3‰ plus) and my own trading (a fat loss), this is too obvious too good. I pull out nao.


Lets collect some data, shall we? And to put this in perspective: They received 2814+ BTC by now.


Receiving adress from Bitscalper:                                  Amount:
14PAmBAdgjpuPgNi7jYZuUsQpAuxZoeMHv                 10 BTC

Ente,

All of your concerns about our need for anonymity are legitimate. The other issues you describe, not moving your funds for example, are due to how the system works and not signs of a scam, as you put them.

Bitscalper, could you please describe a little bit more how your system is working when you do not have to move the bitcoins which were transferred to you?
I'm sure that this fact worry a lot of people. Most don't understand how you can make bitcoins through arbitraging and other strategies without moving them.
 

I of course do not mean we do not move bitcoins. I just mean that the address he is tracking is just one of the temporary addresses generated under his account. The bitcoins are moved from the main wallet which you do not know the address for.

did anyone successfully withdraw yet?

I did, and I know several people who did too.

Please see http://bitscalper.com/p/disclosure

I did withdraw a small amount of 5.8 BTC, which I am happy with as I only put in 5 BTC and got 5.8 out.

//DeaDTerra

Sure its supposed to be a "temporary address" in the way that only I use it, and only once for adding funds. If you would do any speculation at all, you would then proceed to transfer the funds from this "temporary address" to your "main wallet", to then work with the combined funds.

As for me its obvious, you just leave the funds there and will collect them all once you run away with all funds. Until then, you just let some random counters count up, and pay out the small "test withdraws" happening now with the others or your own funds.


Of course they (or the next similar "company") will not make this error again. I am sure our funds will soon start to be sent around in a totally wild way.

Ente

5% per day? another ponzi scheme, won't try .  ;)

Some brave man ( or woman) withdrew 500btc (!) by their site...
Monday, January 16, 2012
BTC 500
0dc0d2307c2a47f475e8b6445ff6debed498c77dee38409be59c55b904e028cc

Ente,

Just a quick clarification, you do send coins to your sub-wallet address but the trading itself uses the coin from the main wallet, again, not all the coins are used at the same time, some are not even used. profit is distributed on the user base accordingly to the amount deposited as explained earlier. Your assumptions are totally speculations, and excuse me for the word play.

Hi,

Do not panick, this is a problem with the host and will be solved within 9.00 AM Germany time. We already spoke with support and they are working on the issue. Apologizes for the profit loss this might cause.

we will have it on track. how long will it take?

We are back online now, apologize for the issues might have caused. Thanks for trusting our services.

We have* spotted and fixed a bug that was causing discrepancies in balances. Everything should work without issues now. Please let us know if you are experiencing any weird issue.

can't login again.

AutoVPS has issues at the moment. I'm talking with their support. Will make sure to switch host very soon.

The server shows the same issue as yesterday's one. Exactly identical, We're trying to get in touch with the owner, he is located in Japan and hopefully we will get a reply soon, the datacenter itself is located in germany and we might have to wait again a few hours for this to be solved.
We sincerely apologize for the issue and will be switching to another host tomorrow, as this is unacceptable.

VPS DETAILS
Status: [I18N:vps_info_power_state_disabled] - Manage power

hello bitscalper.

I just want to ask you:
Note that if an unspent output is in an address in your wallet, you haven't spent it, period.  The main wallet excuse doesn't work here.  You did not use the coins in that output, which means you didn't need them.  You can't have a positive balance in one address and spend it from somewhere else.
There are several possibilities.
1. You are lying.
2. The address is not in your wallet, it's a gox address or something.
3. You don't use all the coins at the same time.

Is (2) correct? 

bitscalper already confirms 3. somewhere else in this forum.