Bitcoin Forum

Hello everyone,

There's been a lot of speculative trading recently and that needs to change. If bitcoin is to survive we must start spending it and getting others involved in accepting it.

A small team of us has decided to give bitcoins away, like a faucet but in a lottery fashion where only one winner is selected every 24 hours. THIS IS NOT A LOTTERY in a sense where you're not obligated to buy a ticket. You're more than welcome to donate to the jackpot but this is not required (we are giving away our own coins).

The system is very simple: Winnings equal 1% of user-base, paid out every 24 hours with a grand prize at the end of the week that is not paid out in BTC.  For example: currently we have 19 users registered which equals 0.19 BTC jackpot paid to a randomly selected individual at the end of a 24 hour period. If 100 members register, the 24-hour winnings will equal 1BTC. Registration is free and open to anyone (however please see FAQ and TERMS) Note: the timer on the page refreshes every 10 minutes (we're working on improving this).

If you're interested in some free coins or know someone who's been interested and ambitious about bitcoins but hasn't had a chance to enter the market due to overspeculation please DO join!

We are working on adding more statistics at this time and we're open to your input.

Please see our terms and faq if you have any questions before asking here.

website: btcprizes.com (http://btcprizes.com)

The cynical side of me wants to know, what's the catch?

There is none. We're not asking anything in return but to work as a community towards spreading bitcoin for practical use (help get more businesses realize the true potential of bitcoin and its use).

Something tells me there is something going on here:
possibility #1 BTCprizes is a government employee.
possibility #2 There is a catch.
possibility #3 This guy had a really bad economic teacher who was paid by the government.*

I'm not saying businesses accepting bitcoins are bad, on the contrary I would love to see more businesses taking bitcoins as payment. I'm just saying this scheme wont help in anyway.

P.S. I'd love to see if he could prove there was actually more than one person behind this.

I signed up.  It only requires a payout address, email and password.  Seems legit to me.

There are those out there who a few bitcents a day is nothing to their overall worth and are looking for creative ways to spread the wealth.

#1. I'm not sure how being a government employee would aid anything in this "scheme"?
#2. We are 100% nonprofit.
#3. We are well aware that giving away bitcoins is a loss for us.

By "we" I am referring to myself and two other developers. We happened to catch the train at an early time and aim at helping newcomers. Our goal is to simply shine some light on bitcoin usage alternative to being used as commodity trading.

This is awesome! Do you have to register just the one time, and you're automatically entered in every day's drawing?

If I win, I'm going to donate 10% of it back to the website to help keep it going :D

You only have to register once to be automatically entered to every day's drawing.

Thanks for answering my questions.
Sorry if it sounded harsh but I'm paranoid.

P.S. Just in fun, you avoided question #1 and the post thought wasn't really answered.
P.S.S. I'm mainly asking questions to leave a very little margin of doubt for other people, so that if you are legitimate people will be much more likely to join.

I guess I don't see why you need email addresses, if all you want to do is give away bitcoins?  Can you explain the purpose of the emails / confirmation?

We'd like to confirm with you that your receiving address is still correct before sending you a potentially large number of bitcoins.  Also, if you are chosen as the weekly prize winner we'll have to contact you somehow, thus email field.

I don't see how there would be a catch - not like Bitcoins are reversible.

Oh, and if you are really paranoid, just grab another email and setup forwarding.

I registered. Interesting idea. Creating new sites that implement bitcoins is never a bad thing.

A quick update: current jackpot 1.38BTC
Total Users: 138

(a few cheaters who will be dealt with appropriately, but that's expected).

Very generous offer - have signed up :-)

who won the last round?

Someone with the nickname of "ericthecro" and 0.18 BTC

he was listed there before the timer reached zero. im mean the round that ended like 30min ago.

Signed up, will give it a shot!

Will you send an email if I win?

Sorry for confusion. We had a timer problem and it is now fixed. The winner is "darkgamer" with 1.79 BTC, Congrats!

Next drawing in 24 hours.

-prays to win the 5850-
Could really use it to up my pathetic MH/s

When is the weekly prize winner chosen?

Hey, why the heck not. Nothing lose right? :)
Keen to win some free coins!

At the end of the week? :) We're counting down to day 3.

Thanks BTCPrizes, Altruism is an important factor in bitcoin adoption, and you guys are doing a good thing.

Yes, we send a confirmation email to make sure your address is current and accessible. Please see the website and the FAQ.

So, suggestion on the site, a page that lists previous winners and not just the last winner. I know there have only been 2 winners so far, but eventually that number will get larger, and it's always fun to see who's won :)

sounds good! I signed up

Thank you for your suggestions we will consider them.

I'd just like to remind newcomers that you should read FAQ before trying to make 100 accounts as some people are now trying to do. The only result of this is you never winning anything as you are now flagged and banned from participating.

Why ruin a good thing?

I wanted to say thanks for offering this service, I really like how I was notified about winning and for confirmation. I will be donating to show my support. Good luck everyone, I would be interested to hear from the next winner.

Joined , the site looks really cool , the idea too :D.

+1
Looks great.

No doubt there will just be more of this in the future.

Measures that can be used to prevent this, apart from keeping an eye out, as you already are:

Only accepting people with active users on this forum, or other significant bitcoin-related communities, having email confirmation a requirement + captcha.

Also, who is the new winner? :D I can only see it says completed now, and there is still just 2 winners!

Timer depends on the time zone since it counts down to a specified time and date. There are 5 hours and 22 minutes left as of now.

How long from when the timer has counted down until the winner is selected?

You mean the time between drawings? Drawings are done every 24 hours and there is about an hour left until it resets again.

Current pot is 3.67 BTC

Congratulations to "saywhatyeah" for winning 3.77 BTC!

Next drawing in 24 hours.

Wow, this seems pretty cool. Just joined :P

does the jackpot reset at any time or just keep going? what if 10000 people join?

sorry didnt see this in FAQ

The jackpot does not reset. It will keep climbing until we decide our pockets are being swept clean then we might reset it, but not to 0.

Hope we have a new winner soon :D.

Awesome, i'm in, thanx :)

I didn't get a confirmation email after registering, is there a way i can check if i typed my email correctly?

Okay, I've been in there from about 100 users. And never won!  >:(

Just kidding, I'm not mad! :P I love this concept, keep it up. But, since the site is so fancy and good looking I'm sure that you've got a lot of development skills, and in my opinion it shouldn't be to hard to create a countdown adjusted to the time of the user (is it?). It is pretty confusing and I still don't know at what time the winner is chosen (GMT +1).

Congratulations to "RayWest" for winning the recent jackpot of 4.40 BTC!

Next drawing in 24 hours.

[/quote]
Look at it this way, every day you don't win the jackpot grows.


This is a good idea thanks for suggestion. I believe someone has already suggested that as well.

I know, I don't really need it, like I said, I was just kidding. ;)

But I was serious about this part though :):
I love this concept, keep it up. But, since the site is so fancy and good looking I'm sure that you've got a lot of development skills, and in my opinion it shouldn't be to hard to create a countdown adjusted to the time of the user (is it?). It is pretty confusing and I still don't know at what time the winner is chosen (GMT +1).

Can't you spread it out a bit, so that more people have a chance to win?

Noooo! That's what stupid real life lotteries do. You play a lottery to win big.

The only difference is that this lottery has a positive EV :)

I just want to take back my skepticism from the beginning of this thread.  It's a great thing you are doing for the community.

I am going on record saying I will donate 25% of the jackpot back to the pool if I win and 25% to a charity of my choosing.

Congratulations to "TiagoTiago" for winning the recent jackpot of 4.68 BTC!

Note: I had to ban a bunch of spam users to reflect the accuracy of real users and current jackpot. (Some people never stop trying)

Next drawing in 24 hours. Weekly prize not too far off!

Good Luck!

its really awesome to have something like this where you give an opportunity to give other people some btcs and other stuff...really thanks for helping btc improving.
hope to see more things like this.

The site is awesome, but the concept is even more awesome!  :)

Thanks

Thank You!

did someone kidnap our last winner? he/she hasn't responded yet.

I certainly didn't.  :D Have you taken a look at my previous suggestion? The one about the countdown?

Besides that, can't you implement an IP address check to prevent users from creating multiple accounts? Shouldn't be that hard...

Yes I saw your suggestions. Thanks.

There is a method to my madness regarding multiple accounts. I won't be discussing this in detail to avoid giving any ideas to cheaters (but as of now they can't cheat, new ip or not)

I never got my promised BTC. :/

Congratulations to "notLOL" for winning the last jackpot of 5.35 BTC!

Next drawing: 24 hours
Grand Prize winner will be announced as well!

You haven't won any drawings. There is no "promised" BTC.

Oh wait, wrong thread.

Aren't most who sign up just going to add to their Bitcoin collection and Hoard them as well, wouldn't it be better to set up number of online shops to encourage real trade.

There are all sorts of ways to promote bitcoin use, one being what you've mentioned. We're just doing it in a fun way that will make some people very happy (it is probably not the best way to spread bitcoin but perhaps others should join in and set up their own little projects!)

W00t W00t!!! :D

Yay!!!!!

*does happy dance*

The site is down for maintenance.  any word on when it will be back up?

I hope you meant enchanted, but i guess you really meant enhanced...

Forgive me for being quite sceptical; Are there any transaction-id's or addresses where we can see the winning being paid out?

I don't remember signing any NDA nor anything, but just in case i'll ask. OP, would it be ok if i post here the address my prize was paid to?

Btw, if pointing to our winnings isn't unwelcome, could you add a thingy that will make a little banner to post in forum sigs that automaticly says how much i won and when, and if people click on it it links to the site and/or a log of the transfer? I guess it's kinda silly, but i feel like bragging about winning the free lotto, i hardly ever won anything before, much less somthing with such a big prize :P

Not trying to be annoying but... any word on when the site will be back up?  I'd like to sign-up.

Went to sign up, need to check back when maintinence is done.

Could you at least keep us posted on the progress of the upgrades you're doing please?

We need more shops setting up, surely as Bitcoin has low transaction fees a reasonable trader ought to be able to undercut regular shops, there are no credit card fees, Bank charges, with those sort of advantages, BTC shops ought to be exploding and raking in a profit.
Mining and speculation will not make BTC succesfull, real trade will bring in the masses.

no one finds the hacking of gox and the timing, both coming up and going down of this site suspect?

Áre you saying it was some sort of Robin Hood thing?

no

depends on who "friar tuck" was... but the registration for this site, assuming people used same username/passwords. wouldn't have even required any decryption, considering it was given right to them. maybe that's the pessimist in me, just seems very odd. very very odd

really?

so still this site is down since the hack? annnnnnd since the hack this guy hasnt been around? and no one finds this suspicious...

No... What do you think there plan was?  To get my email address, give out free bitcoins, then somehow hack MtGox and run away?  Does that make any sense to you?

Do you think this was some sort of Robin Hood scam for ill gotten coins?

My best guess.  They bit off more than they could chew, gave away some coins, and while trying to secure up the site to stop multiple entries decided it wasn't worth their time.

mt gox was hacked somehow... certainly pretty convenient way to do it. given the method to register for the site.