Bitcoin Forum

As many of you have noticed, Cryptsy has joined the ranks of other exchanges and now allows paid voting to determine which coins will be added to their site.

EBT is taking a stand against this ridiculous form of bribery and has made a formal request to be removed from the Cryptsy voting page and we encourage others to do the same.

We have made the decision based on our personal ethics and what we think is healthy for the coin and the altcoin community.  We believe there should be specific, publicized criteria in order to have a coin listed, it should not simply be a decision based on who can spend the most BTC or spam the forums asking for votes.  Coins should be added to exchanges based on the same community demand and hard work the coins prior have shown in order to EARN a spot on a major market.  We would hope that the other devs that feel this way will also take a stand to stop the manipulation of pump and dump coins.

If you'd like to show your support and encourage Cryptsy, mintpal and other exchanges to abandon paid voting please show your support below, contact site support teams, or give a RT: https://twitter.com/EBTcoin/status/442024032284573696 (https://twitter.com/EBTcoin/status/442024032284573696)

Update:  As of 3/8 there is no longer a BTC address to buy votes on Cryptsy!!!  (I am still trying to get mintpal to acknowledge my request)
Update:  As of 3/10 there is no longer a BTC address to buy votes on MintPal!!!  

+1

I dont have twitter, but will write Cryptsy today.

I support your decision!

Yes, exchanges taking BTC for voting is nothing other than corruption - it stinks.

Totally agree.  I'm in favor of a voting system, just not paid voting.

Showing my support. The big coins may have lots of support and big spenders now, but after the excitement dies down cryptsy will be left with dead clones of lousy coins with no exchange volume.

Come on man
This is the unique opportunity to be add to cryptsy
Just pay  :D

Paid voting a bad idea!

This Top list is free too... LOL here is The EBT vote Button
http://altcoins.gotop100.com/lists/altcoins/custombanners/31115.png (http://altcoins.gotop100.com/in.php?ref=116)


 ;D

you are correct sir..


there should not be any crypto-lobbiest's greasing palms in this game..

thats the kind of hogwash the world is getting away from..

 

+1 a great quote that kinda sums up the entire ordeal for me is:
History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always with economics. Vested interests have never been known to have willingly divested themselves unless there was sufficient force to compel them.
B. R. Ambedkar

I think this is the community's opportunity to be the force that compels them to divest personal interest and put the community and the health of the market first.

I will now mine this coin, GJ dev, EBT is the real deal, good coin.

the exchanges are want to more money, money, money.....

You have my support for this. I'm sick of this situation now. This is just pure greed. The only winners out of this are the exchanges. How much BTC they rake in from people hoping to get the next pump and dump coin listed..it's a joke.

Paid voting is nothing more than a greedy site owner looking for bribes.  I've pulled close to 20 BTC out of the altcoin market from exchange sites which participate in paid voting.  There are plenty of online and brick and mortar merchants which accept BTC for payment so exchanges aren't even needed.

This is just disgusting.

Hear, hear! :)

I'm a little shocked that Cryptsy pulled this.  Time to withdraw my balances and cut them out.

Any business that promotes bribery looses all my respect.

Classic case of a greedy programmer, not someone with good business sense.  There are so many ways to increase profits and ROI, but openly resorting to taking bribes from the community through paid voting is not one I can support.

 

I agree 100%.. Insane

Good decision, I support it.

Eh. If people want to throw money at it, it's their choice.

I'd rather take a stand against high school dropouts pumping out a dozen kids and demanding I pay for their EBTcards but that's just me!

Wow a real coin... VERY NICE!

+1

Bwahahahahaha  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

Just had nothing betters to do.

MintPal voteing list sorted without the payed votes:

http://abload.de/img/mintpalrealvotesvud77.jpg

wow..   look at the paid vote figures of ZEIT, USDe, KDC, XXL, ANI, STY and SLR.
On the other hand, I've never owned or traded any of these. :D

It's clear who the only winners are out of all this; the exchanges.

The sad part is these paid votes are coming from miners and coin owners like us, not from the devs or premine holders.

Paid voting is bribery which is corruption. Same thing what the fiat bankers are doing. Coins that are selected by paid voting do not have real support.
It only leads to pump and dump by the same persons that pay for the votes.

Coins without paid voting have much better chance for natural growth because they have real support.

+1000

One of the reasons behind crypto-currencies was to get away from this type of thing.

Stand up ;)

We need to get cryptorush also to stop accepting paid votes.

Thank you, I will reach out to them.

I have also reached out to MintPal and AllCrypt but have not received a response to my requests.

As of this morning, MintPal no longer accepts paid votes via BTC for EBT!!   :o

The dev contacted us about removing the paid votes from EBT, and truth is it's difficult to do, as it's an integrated system. A coin without a payment address has one auto-generated when the page loads. We'd need to recode the page to do that. Which takes time and resources away from working on the exchange.

So we WILL remove it - just when we have time.

That being said I wanted to address a few things.

We tossed the idea back and forth when we implemented the system and ultimately decided to go with it, even though to some it comes off in a negative light.

The reason being is that some coins have a huge community and user base.

And some have a small but dedicated community with financial backing.

Calling AllCrypt sleazy for taking paid votes is like calling a company sleazy for advertising. You're paying to get customers! You should use your community to get those customers!

Paid voting is by no means required, and 90% of the votes on AllCrypt.com have been unpaid. I'm honestly a little shocked that we are sleazy for giving a coin's community the OPTION to pay.

AllCrypt's voting system it completely and utterly transparent. You see what gets added because it's on the list. NO ONE had voting systems before we did, and now look how many copycats there are. Because we did it right.

If we did back room dealings and demanded money to list a coin (like some exchanges have been accused of) you can call us sleazy. We offer the OPTION - which you are free to NOT take. We believe in personal choice and freedom, and to say "No you can't" because some people don't like the idea, thats just as closed minded.

And I have a question - you say:


So what should that critera be? How do we, as exchange operators, judge YOUR devotion and hard work? We thought votes were a good way. Votes cause forum "Come vote!" spamming. As a side effect it also causes site signups, making the exchange more visible, thus making your coin more visible when it's added. We thought that would be a GOOD thing.

I really want to know what that criteria for judging hard work and community demand should be. Something that we can measure. Fairly. And transparently.

Because from MY experience, people seem pretty pissed when Cryptsy "randomly" adds coins that no one understands why. Maybe they were making judgments of hard work. Maybe Vern is personally vested in the coin. Maybe money changed hands. NO ONE KNOWS.

At least with our system, EVERYONE knows. Clearly. Openly. With transparency.

No one's making you pay to vote. So why do you care if someone does? Unless it's the "not fair" syndrome. And thats an area where we don't sympathize.

I know this post will make us no friends whatsoever. But you'll never get anything less than honesty from us.

Oh, and as a side note... our evil and slimy coin voting raised 3.59 BTC ($2267 as of right now) which was donated to Sean's Outpost to help the homeless.

Our coin voting provided about 700 meals for the hungry in Pensacola FL.

What a horrible thing we did.

A quick followup. I just noticed this as I was about to close the page.

AllCrypt.com had over 172,000 FAKE VOTES. People used Tor. People used IP changing VPNs. One asshole found a way to trick the system so that he could use other users id numbers to send votes. (Since fixed)

Coins without paid voting do NOT have a "much better chance" for natural growth, because that "real support" can be faked SO easily.

And what the hell do you care if other coins pump and dump? Someone else posted that the exchange will be littered with dead coins. Again - why do you care? Some of our TOP VOTED coins, with REAL votes, and little to no BTC donations have, so far, had ZERO activity on the site.

None whatsoever.

But that doesn't affect your coin on the site - so again - why do you care so much what other people do with their coin?

Please provide proof of this, I see absolutely no information on your site about this but I am glad to hear you're donating these bribes. Are you donating 100% of all BTC vote buys?

Also, I see no use of the word "sleazy" in this thread so no need to get defensive.  You're putting a lot of words in our mouth.  Your exchange wasn't even on our radar until someone mentioned it, all we did was request that you remove the bribe address.

One suggestion is to implement a voting system where only members of your site that meet a certain criteria (# trades, min balance, etc) be allowed to vote and have a LIMITED number of votes overall and limited number of votes per coin.  What is your issue with this type of system?

P.S. - It appears as though your site was built using the OpenEx backend, is this correct?

You did a right thing but i don't see it anywhere if it's true . All coins are donating there and people . Indeed a very nice place too put your cryptos in .

Yes PAID VOTES ARE BRIBES AND I AM AGAINST THEM AND THIS ILLICIT GAINS ! This is controlled mafia by BTC bag holders . STOP VOTE BRIBES .

How about even starting the discussion with the community about criteria for listing. Personally i would like to see a group of 5 or 6 community members appointed to a board. They would help to develop an outline of mensurable criteria for exchanges to judge a coins progress. We know regulation is knocking at our door and the only way to help dictate the way it effects us it to influence it. I think we have an opportunity to get ahead of this be prepared for it and minimize the impact of the regulations. This means paid voting WILL NOT BE legal in the future so why practice it now. I always run my business ventures with best practices in mind even if they don't currently apply. If you where in the business of making soda and they made BVO illegal in your country next year you wouldn't make a new soda with it in it would you?

my 2 cents

I applaud EBT on taking a stand.  Eventually I think a crypto standards board will evolve, similar to the w3c evolution back around HTML 2.0

Let's face it, the crypto currency world over the last few months has become a get rich quick program:

 - put out a generic copy coin
 - mine during launch (or premine)
 - buy into an exchange
 - dump for BTC
 - sell BTC made from dumping generic copy coin for USD or other fiat

can anyone name a coin out of the 100+ that came out in the last 6 months that doesn't follow the above plan?

Finally a dev team that makes me think crypto currencies have a future other than trading up for BTC and selling for quick cash.

http://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoMarkets/comments/1zas97/allcryptcom_launched_last_night_donated_359_btc/

Our marketing guy hasnt gotten the blog up, so I'm doing that today. In the meantime - there is the post we made about it. Including addresses, links, as well as a message signed with the address used to make the donation, clearly visible on blockchain.info as being Sean's Outpost's donation address.



No, the word sleazy was not used, but it was implied. Using the words bribes and corruption are pretty much synonyms. And speaking of the word corruption - it really ticks me off when people use inflammatory words to incite an emotional  response, when it's not even remotely true.

cor·rup·tion
kəˈrəpSHən
noun
1.
dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery.
"the journalist who wants to expose corruption in high places"
synonyms:   dishonesty, unscrupulousness, double-dealing, fraud, fraudulence, misconduct, crime, criminality, wrongdoing; More

AllCrypt.com has never been dishonest, unscrupulous, fraudulent, or any of the above. We have gone above and beyond to maintain our ethos of transparency and integrity.

So yes, I do, personally, get very defensive when I'm told, even indirectly, that we are corrupt. The whole tone of this thread is "bribes are corruption and it's underhanded and terrible and you're bad people for doing it."


Do you want the supporters of EBT to have to sign up to a site and trade something else, coins they don't care about, to have to vote? A minimum balance is easily faked. You deposit, vote, withdraw. Rinse, repeat. Maybe two of you sign up, one deposits doge, the other BTC, and they do a bunch of 1 satoshi trades back and and forth... both skewing the market volume and trade price numbers (thats a hell of a lot closer to corruption than we've ever come), to meet those minimum trade numbers?

Each user can only vote a limited number of time total? Only on one coin a certain number of times? So they make a new account. And another. And another. Ok, wait, stop them from doing that by imposing trade restrictions. Let us now infinite loop back up to the previous paragraph.

10 Make Account
20 Deposit BTC
30 Make another account
40 Deposit Doge
50 Ruin orderbook with fake trades
60 Vote
70 Withdraw BTC and DOGE
80 Log Out
90 Goto 10

Don't condemn what we do because you don't like the fact that others CHOOSE to vote with supportting currency.

By your philosophy, everyone on kickstarter is taking bribes and corrupt.

Seriously - think about it. Say we instead ran a kickstarter campaign. And as a Perk at the $20 level you got a tee shirt - and as a perk at the $500 level you got a no-fee account, and as a perk at the $1000 level we guaranteed to add any coin you chose at launch.

Is that bribery?

Is that corruption?

Is that ANY DIFFERENT than what we did? I really need to hear a well thought out explanation as to how taking crypto donations as low as 8 cents to help your coin is ANY different whatsoever than running a kickstarter campaign, and taking $1000 to add your coin.

If our coin voting is bribery and corruption, so is every kickstarter out there.

And again - it's OPTIONAL. If we REQUIRED payment, we'd be some pretty slimetastic douchebags. Right now we have 66 coins on AllCrypt.com. Of those 64 coins (BTC and LTC were immune from voting and donations), and I am pulling the data live from the database there were:

• 33 of the 64 received a grand total of 0.000 BTC in donations.
• Of the 31 that received donations, only 12 received more than .059 BTC ($37)
• Of the 31 that received at least .0003 BTC (the lowest amount of any coin thats been added so far, not counting 0 donation coins), there were 537,353 votes cast. When you add in the votes from donations, the total score of those coins was 663,515 votes. That means of the 31 coins that recceived any donations at all, only about 19% of all votes were from BTC
• Counting ALL coins currently listed on AllCrypt, a total of 1,137,637 votes were cast. We already know that 126,162 were paid votes. Meaning about 10-11% of all votes from all coins on AllCrypt were paid votes.

Shocking levels of corruption.

I keep coming back to that word because it really pisses me off.

We pledged 20% of all donations would go to charity. And it did.

But it's just so WRONG.

One last point before I get back to coding today - If you don't want EBT to gain votes through money, then have your community just... gasp... not donate? Politely state that you want EBT to be "above that, and while I realize we're all not like that, I ask that we don't stoop to that level." I never understand the tendency of people to want to legislate other people's actions. Don't want to pay for votes? Then DONT PAY. Why "pass a law" stopping others from doing so?

I really do want to hear the argument as to why what we did is so corrupt, but if we did it on kickstarter it wouldnt have been. Of if it was, I want to hear why EVERY campaign on kickstarter isn't bribery and corruption.

(As for OpenEx - god no. Build an exchange based on software everyone else has the source code to? Are you daft? Let's publish any possible security hole, and even if it has the community to shore it up, hackers still have a REALLY good starting point to find those holes. No way.)

"We publicly pledged 20% of all vote donations would be going to charity."

Enough said, and they're not "donations".  Call them what they really are...

hahahahaha 20% donation .


You and the others that take bribe i really , really hope you will go in JAIL . This is a clear proof of bribe . e-bribe for putting up a copy-pasta coin . 20 % ALL OF THEM 100% . SERIOUSLY ? With 20% you brag ? WITH THAT YOU DARE TOO BRAG ?! Buying votes = FRAUD in all countries possible . All exchanges like you will be screwed the same way this are dishonest money ! Yes BRIBE ! . Good bye hope it will come and knock off your door down tomorrow morning .



The bribe is the gift bestowed to influence the recipient's conduct. It may be any money, good, right in action, property, preferment, privilege, emolument, object of value, advantage, or merely a promise or undertaking to induce or influence the action, vote, or influence of a person in an official or public capacity.[1]

I just typed a pretty long winded response, but it's quite clear that with the intelligence level of some here - it's just not worth the time. If you'd like me to remove EBT from the voting page I will - I cannot imagine that with the mature, educated and stand-up community some of you appear to be that anyone would use AllCrypt.com anyway - after all, it's clearly run by a public official who takes bribes. It's too much work to remove the donations from it and after the way I was just spoken to here, I've no desire to recode the voting page.

Or I can donate 100% of all BTC that comes into that address to charity. Which I expect to be zero anyway, given how obviously corrupt a paid voting system is. Up to you.

The dev has my email - he can email me his decision. Not worth my time to come back to this friendly and open minded corner of the net.

allcrypt,

Don't take it bad. It's clear that there are very strong and different views on this subject.

I for one was very interested in reading your posts to understand a bit more were both sides are coming from and thank you for posting. I have my own opinion and although I would very much like to share them I know that it would pretty much cost me a lot of time and fill pages and will not change anything at the end so I resist.  ;D

The whole thing rises other questions for me...why for example did the exchanges start adding every trash coin? The whole voteing idea has something of: we don't care what coin we will add they are all crap... which is true.. :D

I see from your name allcrypt that you probabily plan to add as many as possible so ok thats a good reason maybe but then why is cryptsy and others starting to convert their well established exchanges into crap exchanges!?
But yes thats another topic. And no I don't know how to evaluate what a good coin for an exchange is.
I certainly hadn't done a you can pay for votes system. It's not a good idea at all if you think long enough about it. I self wouldn't pay for any coin to add to an exchange and in a way I like those coins that haven't paid. I also however think that the "take a stand" movement is a bit extrem.  But yes I don't want to start my 10 pages explanations.

5byZvfJY8hhH2QpfGoYi531xNiVn1BenRr bump for the cause!

Just stumbled into this discussion thread and felt much relief at the presence of some like-minded individuals. The altcoin ecosphere has gotten into a pretty polluted state, such that it feels like a hard rain's gonna fall, sooner than later. I'd like to repost a comment I made elsewhere a few days ago (post-launch on another thread) in reaction to the grovel-beg-bribe sucker mentality that has spread like bubonic plague throughout the land of crypto:

Take a moment to step back from the frenzy of the launch and all the hope, fear and emotionalism over the future of this coin. Since we are all presumably interested in wealth-creation, how about a few words on the psychology of abundance vs the psychology of poverty. Not a place for an essay here, so I'll cut to the chase and point out that all the manic competition lately over whose (most often) shitcoin will be fastest onto an exchange, and in particular this imbecilic voting bs with the exchanges 'selling' votes as a commodity -- all this reflects the mindset of poverty. Poverty, victimhood, and the golden opportunity for exploitation that goes with them. It works like this: You secretly fear you have 'little' and therefore must compete for scraps of approval meted out by beings above you who seemingly have a say in your future. It's a sorry state of affairs that the exchanges actually can pull-off this cheesy scam of taking your money in exchange for these pathetic 'votes'. Lol, for the privilege of possibly being allowed in their doors. I would not debase myself, or my coin, to mentally (let alone financially) buy into this horseshit. Just as an exercise in positive visualization: how about picturing the exchanges kissing your ass and competing to be the big volume player in the great action of your awesome coin. Just a thought, folks.

Good point although a little abrasive.  Every exchange will jump onto a coin, votes or not if they see it being actively used for buying and selling goods/services, without the need for votes, free or paid.

This is where EBT and every other coin needs to focus their energy, getting it actively being used.

I'm more interested in accuracy than delicacy, and bullshit doesn't merit a soft touch. Yes, I obviously agree with you that energy would best be redirected toward genuine prosperity rather than expending itself in lotto-ticket style desperation. Taken in context, it was an appeal to start thinking in a more winning manner, which includes calling out loser-think for what it is.

No need for justification to me.  Like I said, I agree with you.  Every week dozens of coins are being thought up (dog, cat, heavy, lite, moon, saturn, red, green) all with the single goal of mining in the beginning, hitting an exchange and being dumped in an effort to trade up to BTC.

What happens when the real business world realizes this and catches on?  Trying to get an exchange to list you is only one small step in development of a coin.  If someone wants EBT badly enough, sell me a watch, or a car, or clean my house for EBT.  If I want your goods and services badly enough I need to be willing to part with my rare EBT for them at a price we both agree on.

That's the type of thinking the crypto community needs to return to, that's the type of thinking (and usage) which will make a coin valuable.

If it takes abrasiveness to get that point across, I'm all for it.  Even if EBT gets destroyed in the process, they've taken a stand and given the crypto community a much needed wake up call.

However, considering the boom EBT's seen since this little disagreement between the dev team and the exchanges I don't see EBT going anywhere but up in the near future.  I may be wrong, just ask my 3 ex-wives, but we'll see.  My bet is on EBT.

Like the Beatles sing "money can't buy me love" it also can't buy love for a coin. If you remove all paid votes from the voting list, it would not look the same. I believe the top 5 coins on those lists would be totally different.

This guy from allcrypt it's brain stupid you know that guys right ? Did you saw what he wrote ? He really enjoy taking bribes . Why the hell would remove the code isn't nothing hard about that .  ??? ??? ??? ??? SIMPLY REMOVE ALL ADDRESSES AND PAGE ! Simple as that . Anyway it will be activity against such exchanges and maybe authorities will hear .  ???

"For example, in 2006, German prosecutors conducted a wide-ranging investigation of Siemens AG to determine if Siemens employees paid bribes in exchange for business." Gone in prison . That's your faith and the others too . Everything that has too do with pay off for getting up in front of everyone it's a BRIBE & ILLEGAL .

This conversation is a good way to see this thing from different angles and vent some frustration these paid votes have caused.

What's up with this? Cryptorush is still taking bribes in the form of paid votes. That's sounds like the voting in Ukraine. There was nothing fair about that.
They even take coins in there without voting. One example is spaincoin.

Everyone takes bribes and will always continue to do so, but many of us only support coins that take the stand.  People commit murder, rape women, beat children, these things will never stop, but we can choose not to support or use the services of those who do.

The challenge is that most of those in the crypto markets are just out for a quick buck, mine a coin in the beginning and dump it right away for a trade up to BTC, then cash out to dollars.  With that type of community, most people don't care about bribe votes going on at the larger exchanges, as long as they're still making a buck, it's fine with them.

You can't change the world, only hope that by your example others will follow.

You aer right about following the example. Change will happen if enough people believe in it.

More and more exchange sites are adopting the paid voting system.  I wonder how much money these exchange sites are raking in from paid votes and either won't ever launch or will never list the coins?

What happens to all the money from those paid votes?

They keep it, simple as that! That's why they allow paid voting, to scoop money while they can.

And that's why it's so important to not pay for votes.  If you believe in a coin and want to see it successful, it's better to spend money/btc on building marketplace infrastructure so people can use the coin to buy and sell goods than paying to get listed on another exchange for everyone to dump the coin for btc.

I concur with your opinion. Paid voting should never be supported. If the coin is worthy enough and there is demand among people, it will naturally find its way to a exchange sooner or later.