Bitcoin Forum

I'd like to point out this wonderful Bitcoin success story: Ogrr.com (http://Ogrr.com)

The site is ugly!  What it is does is wonderful.

Ogrr is a forum.  It focuses mostly on gamers.  Ogrr's twist over a regular forum is that people can have mBTC balances and trade goods with each other. (FYI: 1,000 mBTC = 1 BTC)

Additionally, next to everyone's avatar is their mBTC balance.  The implication being people with a zero balance have low status. So, everyone has a reason to find some way to have some Bitcoins.

Ogrr has been growing like wild fire.  Ogrr has 1,500 members.  Membership is more than doubling every month.  In the last week it has grown by 500 members.  The previous 500 members took 3 weeks to join.  You can view the membership count at the bottom of the home page.

Ogrr's members seem to be coming from d2jsp.  d2jsp has over 670,000 members.  d2jsp's members have been abused: Advantages of Ogrr and mBTC over d2jsp and FG (https://ogrr.com/viewtopic.php?f=385&t=1451)

Many of the members are likely kids.  Bitcoin let's anyone regardless of age conduct financial transactions over the Internet.  The site has a page that makes it easy for them to find ways to earn Bitcoins: List of websites to earn bitcoins. (https://ogrr.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1424)

Ogrr brings together sellers and buyers of virtual and real goods.  Further, since you can see people's mBTC balance, you can know they have money to spend.  You can tip people with mBTC.  Further, people who engage in transactions can be rated.

If Ogrr continues to grow at this rate in several months, we could have over 500,000 new Bitcoiners.  Imagine if they each wanted 20 Bitcoins. :)

I've talked to the owner and he assures me that they will have no problem dealing with spectacular growth.

BTW, the first 1,000 people to register and reach 10 (legitimate) posts get 1 BTC: All aboard! (https://ogrr.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=84)

-Arthur

WICKED COOL!  ;D

Anyway, bitcoiners foresee this a long time ago. We just didn't know who's going to execute it.

Tipping point?  ;D

Excellent point, and great post Arthur!

Could somebody feasibly make a living playing online computer games? Slaying dragons and such all day, gaining armor and weapons, selling weapons for Bitcoins, and on and on? That's badass!

Why not?  People make money playing all sorts of games and sports.  And selling the related equipment.  (ogrr.com seems great btw)

in some asian countries, pro video gamers are treated like rock stars.

There are a number of people who make very good livings playing Starcraft professionally. Sponsors, girls, limos, blow, they have it all.

There's also an entire industry of "gold farmers" in Asia who just kill things in MMO games and sell the gold (it's against the games' TOS, but it's a huge industry regardless).

Love showing the mBTC, brilliant.

So how is loading money into your forum account indicative of status? Who is holding the bag? Why should anyone trust them?

You obv shouldn't.

I wouldn't be comfortable leaving much unless I saw a reasonable long term way for them to make profit.

Seems like a possible place to use multi-sig.

Nice!

When Diablo III comes out this year it is going to be HUGE.

Anything I need to do after posting 10 times?  Any thoughts on what makes posts "legitimate" other than just not being spam nonsense?

And yes, I'm looking forward to Diablo III and this sit will be a great resource for that!

I've known the owner of ogrr.com (http://ogrr.com) for more than 15 years.
He is 100% trustworthy,  and knows what he is doing.
He has been selling virtual goods online for around a decade,  so I m sure ogrr.com will quickly become a success in the Bitcoin and gaming community.

The funding for the site appears to require manual approval for both adding and withdrawing. I don't know how they will handle thousands of users. The site appears to use tokens for trading. This way they only need enough bitcoins on hand to send to the few people that actually withdraw. This reduces the risk of hackers stealing a big wallet. It looks like a profitable model that if managed well, will be good for online gamers.

Awesome.

How to get your 1 BTC: where? (https://ogrr.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1953)

Thanks lots!

Is there a way to have a referral link?  Or do you have to go through the "invite a friend" link in your profile?

It's taking a little while to invite peeps.

They should obviously looks for way to automate the whole send and receive thing. If it's microbitcoin they're dealing with, they can even afford to have only a 10 BTC hot wallet for instant transfer outside and withdrawal.

Might these two facts be connected?

A total of 1500 people and a whole 23  (!) online at this moment is not so encouraging as yet.
The idea is great and has potenial but to say that chicken/egg problem is solved... well, not quite yet..

I have been watching ogrr.com since its creation, and I find it extremely interesting to follow.
There's a real community there, and it is growing fast.

If ogrr.com gets enough momentum, we might witness something unprecedented in the short history of Bitcoin:
The complete disruption of an existing centralized currency system (here d2jsp's Forum Gold) in favor of Bitcoin.

At some point, the users of d2jsp might collectively realize that the value of their Forum Gold assets is threatened by Bitcoin.
This will create a snowball effect, where forum members try to trade FG for game items at any price, and FG loses its value.

These are exciting times...

Too many subforums, therefore likely to die a stale death. Whoever is running this needs some forum admin 101 lessons.

no, the subforums at ogrr reflects those at d2jsp. that's a smart decision, IMO.

They are going to automate bitcoin usability soon from an admin message I got. I deposited some in and out with no drama other than going through someone for now.
But heck yea great idea and this is one I really hope takes off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_farming
Figures

While reliable figures for gold farming are hard to come by,[11] there are some estimates of the market for in-game currency.

In 2005 The New York Times stated that there were over 100,000 professional, full-time gold farmers in China alone.[5] And in 2006 sales of such virtual goods were thought to amount to somewhere between 200[12] and 900 million USD.[4]

Another estimate, drawn from 2005/2006 data, valued the market at not less than USD200 million per year[13] and suggested that over 150,000 people were employed as gold farmers with average monthly earnings of USD145.[13] This same report estimated that 80% of all gold farmers were from China[11] a fact which has led to prejudice towards Chinese players.[14] 2008 figures from the Chinese State valued the Chinese trade in virtual currency at over several billion yuan, or nearly USD300 million.[15]

They probably grew organically in response to demand on that other site.

I'm an old man who's been on the Internet long enough to see many, many communities fail for lots of reasons. The most common is too many subforums. Unless you're a high volume site that isn't just a forum, don't split your user-base until you have more than one page of threads per day.

200 conference rooms isn't a good way to hold a conference if you only have 23 people attending. Seriously.

I can see how this could bring bitcoin mainstream.

Games are the fastest growing medium of the entertainment sector. Gaming has the 2nd largest market share, after the film industry. There is an article in The Economist about this: http://www.economist.com/node/21541164 (http://www.economist.com/node/21541164)

The yearly gaming market cap is forecast to reach 82 billion dollars by 2015.

Especially the online games sector is really booming:

http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/20111210_WOC914.gif

This involved a bit more than just gold farming, but yes, you can make money playing video games:
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2006/11/second_lifes_first_millionaire.html

this isn't the one i was looking for, but it does the job:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P39gP4QnXxE

Geez, I didn't even think about this. It could be very big indeed. I focused on a real world economy for Bitcoin, but the virtual world makes perfect sense. And I expect these kids to take to Bitcoin like fish to water.

Gaming is huge. I used to be a gamer. If game developers incorporated bitcoins the opportunities would be staggering. I once competed in a Mortal Kombat tournament, but in the real world. I would have loved to compete virtually with real money available, and for different game titles; or be able to collect real bitcoins instead of normal game coins. I'd never leave the game.

It'll probably take time before game companies tap into that ginormous gold mine, but this ogrr.com forum is a great fit. There already exists trades of value, so all that's needed is a facilitating currency.

The priority for ogrr.com should be making usability as easy as possible. The currency shouldn't get in the way. It should be super simple to send BTC between other forum members, and deposing/withdrawing from the system should be straightforward and efficient with 24hr turnaround if not automated, and of course much faster if it is. Then growth wouldn't be hindered.

I'm buying Diablo III too! ( omg when the F is it coming out, 10 years in the making....)

of course ill be playing hardcore mode and in this mode the in-game auction house for real money will be disabled.... and so ill be selling / buying items with my bitcoins  :D

With bots, yes. You happily set up some accounts with a bot and they farm all the day. Then you sell. Profit. Sure, accounts can get banned, but usually there is still a lot of profit.

In a legit way? Well it depend... maybe yes.


And this oggr seems very interesting, i knew about it since a lot of time but i never played diablo 2 so i'm not really interested. But if it grows and start to cover other games...

+1
Bitcoin will win over other internet payment means by virtue of its open source, interoperability.
Linden dollars , facebook credits and other attempts at yet another central bank will look old when gamers realize that..

1000 BTC for marketing, interesting. Might work, might not.

Is Ogrr admin registered here?

Will some Wonder-Nerd please figure out how to gamble bitcoins in the beginning of each counter strike match!?

http://ranger.gamebanana.com/img/ss/tools/2811.jpg

Better yet, lets get this goin on TF2!

Good idea!

I don't quite catch it - why does a forum need a currency at all, and how does a forum user with more mBTC become more reliable?

its more like a market place. 

Someone should open a website like http://betsofbitco.in but completely dedicated to gaming.
It should be more like a community.
Here there will be bettors, players and developers ( these ones will develop plug-ins to add betting system directly in-game as you suggested )

The forum provides a convenient way to trade goods.

An alternative is to use PayPal which has high fees for small purchases.  Or the members would somehow need to find a common payment mechanism for each purchase.  Many payment mechanisms are not open to minors.  Even Bitcoin has minimum fees for small transactions and confirmation delays when using the standard client.  Now, members have a convenient currency for all transactions and, if still want to, they can choose to use another payment mechanism.


If someone is asking about purchasing something and they have no balance, then their questions are less likely to be sincere. They certainly can't make an immediate purchase.

If they have balance, they are more likely to be participating in commerce with other forum members.

If someone is selling something and the amount they are charging is not a significant portion of their balance, they may be less likely to rip customers off.  At least customers can tell that the seller is not relatively poor.

The forum has way to many subforums. Reaching critical mass is nr1. This spreads their users out very thin.
For that its better to start with as few as possible.

Now when I look at it, there is a little over 1500 registered users. So it seems that they gained users via the 1BTC reward, but the growth has diminished after that.

A better strategy would be: offer 0.5 BTC for first 1000 registrations, 0.25 BTC for next 1000, 0.125 for next etc. And maybe offer a double if the user is migrating from a competiting site.

^^ Mining for users?  ;D

Anyway I really like the way they have integrated Bitcoin with their board.
I hope to see more mods for every board ( eBullettin / SMF /Invision Power Board / phpbb / ... ) that can be easily added with few clicks.

Is the new Mt.Gox e-Commerce feature a big step forward on this direction?

look again.
FYI, ogrr has been around since end of october.

I had the same remark after visiting the forum the first time. I don't really understand why they make subforums for geographic regions ?

It has been explained in page 2.

Hey guys, thanks for all the support.

It surely makes sense to inactivate some of the sub-forums until we reach a higher need for them, it's something we will discuss.

All feedback and criticism is highly appreciated!

to show that the growth is not slowing down, I made this little graph.
It reflects the number of registered users reported in this thread: https://ogrr.com/viewtopic.php?f=385&t=540

http://s3.ecdsa.org/ogrr.png

Are you going to add automatic funds?

It's on the way but I cannot give you an ETA on that today.

I saw that you were in our IRC-channel earlier today, I missed you by an hour, you can contact me (Superior) or jesse on the boards with any questions you might have.

@Superior - is there anything the Bitcoin community can do to help you? There is obvious interest in seeing ogrr.com succeed.

You have already replied :)
Anyway, as Acoindr said I really hope that you will find the right help to have the automatic-funds done.
I'm not personally interested in this kind of market, but I think that it's another big step forward to have Bitcoin commonly used.

if any of you guys are on reddit, you can go vote up a blog post about it that talks about bitcoin as well:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/qm6hu/ogrrcom_bitcoinbased_cashout_community/ (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/qm6hu/ogrrcom_bitcoinbased_cashout_community/)

I guess I just don't get this whole concept. By showing that you have two internet-nickels to rub together, it somehow makes you a more serious buyer/contributor?

Just as in real life, wealth is an indicator of status and success. Not a guarantee, mind you, just an indicator.

It's pretty simple - by showing that you have money to spend, you'll be taken more seriously by people you trade with. I think it's a very clever feature of Ogrr

But the money is trifling amounts, like, fractions of cents...which is why it's ok. If it was anything more, it'd be a bank and a destroyer-of-anonymity to some extent.

You're obviously not a gamer. Gamers like scores  8)

The higher the better. And there is always the option to go after significant money, as mentioned earlier in this thread.

Once new users get exposed to Bitcoin they may explore more and actually become bitcoiners.

I'm not sure I get it either, but as long as the members get it - I guess that's what matters. Maybe it's sort of like a micro-escrow: if you defraud another member, it takes some time to cash-out your nickels. Dunno.

But the score is just money that you load into it? Or am I mistaken?

YES! This is what we've been waiting for! It's only been 3 years in the making!

Yes it is. But keep this in mind: That forum is more of a marketplace than a regular forum. The mBTCs each forum member has in his forum wallet is shown whenever he makes a post, so other forum members can see if he has the money he claims to be willing to spend.

The "score", as I call it, is money (bitcoins) you load or bitcoins you get for selling things you acquire in game. The point is the larger the number under your name the more respect you get. It's like showing how committed / involved you are with that forum and gaming/trading in general. Yes, someone could just drop $100 in, but so could others. And people do buy status (characters, weapons etc.) all the time in games - and in real life, for example with cars or even the iPhone  "I am rich" app (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich).

So where does one acquire the "I haz Bitcoin" app?

Hot topic du jour: a d2jsp user reported  that his d2jsp account was suspended for typing "ogrr" in a private message:
https://ogrr.com/viewtopic.php?f=385&t=1099

Pretty interesting concept..

member growth rate already slowing down. so much for the chicken&egg problem....

Any news about "automatic funds" ?
how long  is required an administrator to deposit/withdraw bitcoins?

It's a pretty specific forum, their "market" can't be that big.

Yes, although I see potential in ogrr, this thread title is laughable.

CHICKEN AND EGG PROBLEM SOLVED! JUST GOT TO SOLVE ANOTHER CHICKEN AND EGG PROBLEM (OGRR COMMUNITY) FIRST!

The forum numbers will grow dramatically when Diablo 3 is actually released. There is not much market for D2 stuff now, and most of the other games they have listed don't have as large market potential. Look for the numbers to double by June, then skyrocket from there. My guess is 200,000 by the end of the year.

Not if they don't reduce the number of forums it won't.

Also, has anyone even got any mBTC listed in their profiles? I can't see any.

Yes the balance shows up under their avatars

We removed a bunch of forums and made the main-page a lot smaller for now, we are still working on some stuff improve the main-page.

You can see a members mBTC in their profile or right under the avatar in any thread.

I noticed that! Good job for listening to the advice and truncating it even further now, I think bitplane was right on that. The Bitcoin forums evolved the same way, and now it has lots of subforums. With this kind of ambition, I’m pretty sure ogrr will do well. :)

BTW, I saw you had a nice contest for banners and used it for a favicon, do you plan to place that on the front as well?

This thread has been useful for us and I agree bitplane posts was really on spot and we are grateful for any input we get.
Yeah. I can't say we are 100% certain on what logo we will end up finally using yet, there will be a logo placed on the front and we are also working on a front-page.

you guys need to find a way to more actively recruit.

maxbtc.com is now integrated with ogrr, so you don't need anymore an admin to fund your account :)
EDIT:
I was wrong, maxbtc.com is just a pool :(

I've had a serious bitcoin related issue with Ogrr for the last month or so, and have not gotten any help or responses from the admins there. Hopefully it's an unusual circumstance, but it doesn't look good.

this is news to me.  admin's mailbox is empty.  how have you gone about seeking help for your problem, and what is your problem?

I've messaged superior and killbill and have received no response. I just messaged admin, but I have no record of the message being sent.

Admin hasn't received any messages.  you can pm me the problem here or post it publicly here or on Ogrr.

I sent another message to admin, it should be there now. I still don't understand why the other board admins/mods didn't get back to me about this issue.

maybe they didn't get your other messages either.

From what user account did you send me a message?

Thank you to jesse for resolving my issue.

you're welcome.  Thank you for being patient :)

How long does it take for a bitcoin transaction to be executed? Specifically a withdrawal to a private wallet?

The transaction is executed almost instantly.  It might take 10 minutes or more for the transaction to appear in a solved block, and it could take an hour or more before the transaction has the standard 6 confirmations (it's found in 6 solved blocks) to consider it fully verified.

Forgive me, I did not give the proper context. I was referring to when it is executed on Ogrr's server. I executed a btc withdrawal nearly an hour ago and the transaction has not yet been seen on the bitcoin network in general, nor my client specifically.

Edit: I just noticed on the withdrawal page that there is a small notice that states it could take up to 24 hours due to manual admin approval. Apologies again for not seeing it before.

IIRC Ogrr does not use Bitcoin for trades. It uses internal credits. Bitcoin transactions in and out of Ogrr are done manually.

Maybe it's just me but talking about six confirmations seems like overkill unless someone is worried about a ridiculously large transaction.

How much money would someone need to spend on hardware and electricity these days to have a even chance of reversing a single confirmation?

what's the difference?  1000 mBTC = 1 Bitcoin.  Yes, a human must manually approve any Bitcoin in/out.  This will become faster when we can afford to have someone around 24/7, but it shouldn't ever take more than 12 hours and in most cases it'd be processed in less than 1 hour.  Think of it as incentive to leave some credit in the system ;)

Ever heard of SlayerS_Boxer?