Bitcoin Forum

What do you think about writing on every single banknote that arrives on your hands something like:
- Bitcoin
- Bitcoin.org
- Bitcoin - Vires in Numeris
- ...

It's easy to do and it doesn't break the value of the banknote.
It will move from hand to hand, and many people will see the message.

You can do it during your free time, it takes few seconds.


I know that there was a website where people were tracking money movement ( I can't remember it )
It can become a new game ( someone has to make/develop it )

Example:
- You put a message about Bitcoin on the banknote.
- Then you take the number/code of this single banknote and you put it on the website ( than someone has developed )
- If someone found your banknote he will check it on the website, he will get Y points and you will get X points.

I hope that someone will find other rules to make this idea/game more interesting and enjoyable :D

I would love this!

Will do this with or without the game, but a game would be awesome! :)

@chrisrico
I don't know if there a good way to make easy to get bitcoin from this kind of game.
People will be able to get X bitcoin if they take Y points on the game, but there must be something to avoid cheaters.

Anyway, printing a private key on a banknote isn't easy, I mean that it take too much.
The game must be something really easy, that even a child can do.

Writing "bitcoin.org" on a banknote is something that everyone can do, even while he/she waiting for a bus ( example )
( even if taking the number of banknote need a bit more, there must be a mobile version of the website/service )

Yeh! But just like Where's George, we'll need a marketable name. Give me a few days, and I'm sure I'll come up with one.

~Bruno~ (not Bruno's Gastrotruck)

Fake edit: Got it! Where's Satoshi? or, better yet --> Who's Satoshi?

Another example: http://www.trackdollarbills.com

Anyway, we need to find some rules so that people/players will be able to have a score.
Rules have to push players to write bitcoin messages on every single banknotes that they will have.
This will increase their possibilities to get points.
The good thing is that everyone will be able to play, even if they don't know anything about bitcoin or they simply don't care :)

Is there a developer that wants to create this project/game?
( it should be compatible with every single banknote on the planet ... )

From what I can ascertain from reading the FAQ on Where's George's site, I'm willing to bet he'll sell his API for only a token amount, otherwise I don't see it as too big of a project to build from scratch. But then again, I'm not a programmer.

This is getting even better. We can use http://www.trackdollarbills.com site to develop this project.


This is frickin' nuts! They already have a forum set up and nobody has ever used it--since 2009: http://www.trackdollarbills.com/forum/

Pretty cool :)

If a game is not made, someone could simply make a quick website that sells stamps (like for ink pads). The stamp will say something like "Bitcoin is Happening" and it'd be small so it'd fit in the margin border of the bill. Anyone interested in promoting this viral phenomenon can order a stamp and join the legion.

BitcoinIsHappening.com is available...

But this change everything about the idea.
The all game must be free and easy to do.

Ordering stamps, paying for it, putting on the banknote ... it doesn't work on this way :\

WTF. Don't you guys get it? We already have our own "Where's George" game...

It's called BLOCKCHAIN!

I think that you have missed the idea of the game ;D

QR Code would be awesome!  This is like an IRL bitcoin faucet.  All one would have to do is be directed to go to a special site (i like wheres satoshi!) and be presented with simple instructions on downloading a light client or mobile app like bitspinner. 

How about..
-Make a stamp to stamp QR codes and/or urls on bills.
-Create priv keys from the bill's serial number (by sha256 etc)
-Transfer smallish amounts do dozens, hundreds of such stamped bills
-Website where the QR/url points to lets you directly enter the bill's serial number and the state you live in, lets you redeem the bitcoins and explains what this is all about

-Extra points for making this big and viral!

Ente

Using the bills serial number is a _really_ good idea since it's unique. We'll need to make a simple website that hashes the serial number to a private key, and then spends the Bitcoins on the bill to a public address of choice.

This is an very cool idea!  Here are some rules for a potential game along these lines.

Rules for a BitCoin "BlockChain Letter" Game

Create a website and work it like "Feed-Ze-Birds".  People that are interested in promoting bitcoin can donate BTC to the website to "prime the pump".

1) Player obtains a dollar bill with a "Bitcoin Blockchain Letter" website address on it.

2) He goes to the website to see what it is all about.  If he is interested in playing, he logs in and specifies the serial # of the dollar bill that he encountered.

3) Player writes web site address on any number of dollar bills and notes the serial numbers of each.

4) Players then registers the serial numbers of the dollar bills he tagged, and provides a password for each. (The password can be the same for all of the bills he registers,but it doesn't have to be). The site remembers both the passwords and the serial numbers. Each dollar bill can be registered only once.

5) The combination of password + serial number is used to generate a public/private key bitcoin address, which the website provides to the player. So, only the site itself and the initial registree have the information necessary to obtain any bitcoins associated with that address.

6) Once per month, all BTC are collected from all registered addresses.  (This is to keep the bitcoins from being permanenly lost for no good reason).  These collected bitcoins, along with any new donations, are spread out evenly across all registered bills.

7) When a players finally "gets the point" of bitcoin, they are encouraged to donate 1 BTC to each of 10 bills further up the chain of registered bills.  This will indirectly "prime the pump" if they are not collected by the end of the month by the person that initially registered them.

@John Kirk
This is better! :D

The best is avoiding stamping/printing on bills, because it takes too much time ... it has to be easy and done always and only by hands.
It's faster, it can be done everywhere and by everyone.

Rember also that this service/game must to be compatible with every banknotes on the planet and not only dollars ;)

Just writing "Satoshi Nakamoto" on lots of bank notes sounds like a great idea!

Just make sure to never let people in on the fact that you have anything to do with the marking of the banknote. That'll backfire 100%.

I think it should be very clear this is about bitcoin. So at least put the word bitcoin in it. It's the perfect advertisement if every bitcoin enthousiast starts doing this.

Writing Satoshi Nakamoto on them would be nice for us geeks, but that's it.

@Koekiemonster
I agree :)

@goodlord666
It's true that it's better to NOT give these marked banknotes to friends that know about your interest on Bitcoin ;)

I would totally play this game, especially if one gets a few mBTC for it.

Bonus points if this data can be automatically forwarded to one of the existing projects too.

@HostFat, Kookiemonster

It's a bad idea especially with strangers. You wouldn't know how quick situations like that may escalate. Also, people hate zealots when they see them. You'd be no different from Jehova's Witnesses.

I find the subtle approach much more effective which is why I'd prefer using Satoshi's name. That way people may become curious as to who "this mysterious person Satoshi Nakamoto" may be and eventually learn about Bitcoin.

Writing "Bitcoin" on a Dollar note is also... a little absurd.

Never underestimate the people.

I just had an efartphany! What if we simply used http://etchablock.com for this idea?

Since etchablock adds an extra 1 at the beginning of the newly created address, I took a single out of my wallet and recorded this serial number K28849219E as USDK28849219E, thus generating the new address 11Usdk28849219eXXXXXXXXXXXXV3GioW. I especially like the G and W at the end of the address. It's as if the internet knows me. How quaint!

But what if somehow etchablock did this on purpose for all denominations, e.g., AxxL for a fin, AxxH for a sawbuck, BxxF for a C-Note, etc.? Now we have a game. A finder of one of those is shown how to participate. Once he receives his first bitcoins, he can add his own special note on the bill, like this:

11Usdk28849219eReceived1nXXafxRDQ
11GoobertownArkansasonMarchXHoMBw
1142o12AtTheGroceryStoreXXXUMAUoU

The only drawback is that you'll have to pay to play, but that's the price one has to pay to have nice things.

~Bruno~ (not Bruno Baère)

I thought a little more about this and I actually think you are right. I think writing the word "Bitcoin" on the bills will have some ok-ish short term effect if the community starts doing this, but in the long run it would just be genious to put "Satoshi Nakamoto" on the bills. This will intrigue as I experienced myself: in my hometown one logo kept popping up everywhere as they were putting stickers on bicycles and all sorts of things displaying only this logo with no name. I wondered what it was and after I discovered what it was(a local healthy food take out/delivery restaurant, check www.bzzy.nl (http://www.bzzy.nl) for their logo) I became a regular costumer. I think the word combination "Satoshi Nakamoto" actually might have a bigger effect since people can google it.

Anyway, we should decide with which to go so people can start doing this. It would be best if we all used the same word(combination). My vote goes to "Satoshi Nakamoto".

A place to buy the stamps: http://www.thestampmaker.com/Departments/Specialty-Stamps/Wheres-George-Stamps.aspx

Goal to have a forum like this for "Where's Satoshi?": http://forums.wheresgeorge.com/

~Bruno~

I fell asleep thinking about this game and the domain I registered a few months ago, searchingforsatoshi.com. Here's how I envision it:

• At the website, anyone can anonymously open an account and deposit any amount of BTC as a donation and incentive for the bitcoin uninitiated.

• The user assigns their banknote serial number as the password to unlock the account for withdrawal.

• The Bitcoin advocate passes the note to someone they want to introduce to BTC and directs them toward the website to unlock the account and receive their funds. Alternatively, other bitcoin enthusiasts who find the bill may increase the amount in the account and then pass the bill along to make the game more exciting.

• Members may log in and share their "Searching for Satoshi story," e.g. "I paid my friend back the $20 I owed him with 0.25 BTC interest by depositing it in the bill's Satoshi account!" or "I had never heard of bitcoins before I searched for this website. The URL was scrawled on the dollar bill I got as a tip and when I opened the account, there was 5 BTC in it!"

Since we want anyone to be able to retrieve the bitcoins associated with any banknote as easily as possible, I'm thinking the "username" field for all accounts should be pre-populated with the name "Satoshi."  :D

So, anyone mind if I run with this?

Just to let you know I did it.

Went with the line "Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?" on all the bills I currently had.

Funny side effect: I had totally forgotten about it when handing over the notes. Nobody mentioned it. I guess most people tend to just take the bills and be done with it. But they're in circulation now.

It's a funny little game on the side.

My only question is why isn't it live yet?

Seriously, I hope you had a hard time falling asleep.

What if on one dollar bills (mainly) there was a note stating that to claim the rest of your tip, visit ....com? You bring this to your waitress's attention when you hand her her normal tip, explaining that because of her great service, more money awaits her. All she has to do is go to the site and unlock it. Whether she claims it or not, the bill will return to circulation, whereupon a new person will see the note and visit the site to see if they can claim it, which they'll be able to if the waitress didn't. Now you have introduced at lease two more people to Bitcoin with one bill. I'm sure others will also visit the site because of that one bill. Now multiple that by tens of thousands of bills, and you have Bitcoin awareness out the ass.

The script on the bill will basically only show the domain name. It's the landing page that's important. Short and sweet with a proper call to action. They have to get-it upon the first read. Few hopes with great rewards is something to strive for. Monetizing the site should be no big deal.

Here's a great selling point. Somehow inform the waitress, without coming across that this is some quick-get-rich-scheme, that this has the potential of making her wealthy in the future, at absolutely no risk to her.

What we now have here is a way to pay future Bitcoiners out of our own pockets a chance to play, for lack of a better word. Every single one of us probably dines out. And I'm sure we all tip. Even if only 100 true Bitcoiners marked bills to be put in the wild via the waitstaff, Bitcoin would experience exponential growth.

Then again, I came up with Koinaraoke, and we see how that worked out.

~Bruno~

Just got back from reading some of the posts on their forum. I'll have to admit. those guys are weird. They have a thread dedicated to bills with stars on them. I can't figure out why those folks are so obsess with money. Why can't they be normal like us?

http://images.wikia.com/onlyonetv/images/e/ea/Atom.jpg

I've started working on this site but I had a concern. Yesterday, I received some brand new bills from a convenience store and noticed the sequentiality (sequence-ness? sequence-nicity?) of the serial numbers.

If all you needed was the right serial number to unlock an account, how easy would it be to create a bot to do it? Would a captcha help?

I know you could write a code on the bill along with the url, but I was kinda excited about using even an unmarked bill as an advertisement for bitcoin.

No need to worry about a bot, for each dollar bill has plenty of built-in security measures that can be taken advantage of. http://onhech.blogspot.com/2010/03/dollar-for-your-thoughts.html

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_QFBV7bl6Zeg/S44N7S_IyRI/AAAAAAAAAeU/OY7agBwNYZw/s640/1DollarBillPlain+front.jpg

Simply have a field to insert the Series and Year & Plate Serial Number & Printing Position Number and Letter.

For the example I gave earlier in this thread:

Serial Number: K28849219E

Passwords to claim the bitcoins include:

Series and Year: 2003 A
Printing Position Number and Letter: A3
Plate Serial Number: FW A 165

Therefore, your site would recognize the password as 2003AFWA165A3.

There was some thread similar to this earlier on this board.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3141.msg574197#msg574197

When I was fooling around with arbitrary QR code generation I burnt one for bitcoin.org onto a bill (example in thread) thinking that people would be curious, scan it, and find themselves surfing the bitcoin.org site.

I only have a laser printer hooked up, and the ink didn't stick well.  And it was a giant hassle to align the bill right.  Probably illegal to for all I know.

Just a note, in my country I have heard it might be illegal to write on bills. But its one of those laws that nobbody cares about, since noone does it.

How about writing down the value of a Bitcoin vs the value of the dollar bill. Now after a few years, people will see this and think back at when bitcoin was only around $5.

Even if it can start with dollar bills only, I'd like that the website will be compatible with many other bills from other countries :)

My take on this idea is a bit more simple.

- Write on each bill "cbtc.com" (or something similarly short - this is short for claim bitcoins).
- User goes to address, types in bill serial number, and receives 0.001 BTC for their trouble (this is what dailybitcoin currently gives out).
- Users can enter as many bills as they want, but the first time each bill is entered, it does not give out BTC.
- The bill also cannot be entered again from the same IP (at least for a payout), nor can it be entered again for 24 hours (somewhat preventing people from just changing IP's to game the system).
- Site is funded by advertising, similar to dailybitcoin.

Thoughts?  It wouldn't require any user funding (though users could certainly donate).  It wouldn't require any complicated passwords or private keys or logins or anything.  Just enter the bill's serial, and you're done!  And if you're feeling greedy, you can go enter them from your friend's house again to get the 0.02 BTC or however much it would add up to.  :p

This is also good, but my main idea was about finding a way to push people ( everyone ) to put a Bitcoin advertise on all bills that come on their hands. So that other people will find them, and then they'll start also the "game" on other clean bills.

Your idea just push people to find bills already advertised.
I mean that it isn't viral.
They'll found the bill, get the Bitcoins ... and they will not have any reasons to add the bitcoin-adv on clean bills.

Anyway, I think that your idea can be merged with mine in some ways :)

The main rule of my idea/game is that someone must get a reward by being the first that has advertised Bitcoin on a clean bill.

http://this-dollar-is-worth-less-than-a-bitcoin.com
http://you-cant-send-this-dollar-around-the-world-instantly-for-free.com
http://the-dollar-your-government-just-prints-more.com
http://nobody-sticks-bitcoins-up-their-nose.com

or similar (I didn't suggest my better shorter ideas, you think of them before me...), set it up to be a serial number tracker combined with Bitcoin introduction and tutorial.

Poor choice of words...you'd better not run!

LOL! Dude, it's not like edd said, "So, anyone mind if I MBC this?" Wait, what?


Please forgive us for somewhat hijacking your thread, for we felt like we were still on the same page. But thank you for setting us straight. Your point is valid. The whole idea must be interactive with pullers and pushers, for lack of a better word.

A reward system based on advertisers is probably the best route to take. My only suggestion is that the site is slick looking, as well as being easily navigable. A site where a newbie can earn his first bitcoin, albeit on the backs of advertisers. It's not outside the realm of possibility to incorporate a myriad of ideas as outlined in this thread onto one site, with the waitress idea being fully implemented.

Bear in mind that many of the visitors may be minors, so...

~Bruno~

EDIT!


Unless those that enter the bills get to choose which ad the finder will see. He's awarded, say, .001 BTC for every 10 bills he adds.

Wow, please do not be so spamming.

If someone makes this service by following the main rule, it will be the biggest spamming system that ever existed ;D

It works like a game.
Everyone on earth wants to win, and if it has a "score", then it will works even if it wont give any Bitcoins to players.
( anyway, some rules to give Bitcoins can be found ... )

I'll think more about other rules ...

Yeah, good point.  Maybe there should be a reward for first entering a bill, but not quite as large as the reward for entering a bill that's already been entered before.  I just worry that the site wouldn't be self-sustainable if new bills could be entered without consequence of old bills... and also worry about people entering serial numbers that don't exist, or that they don't have!

So, you gonna do this?

EDIT:  Actually, just pay out to the original person who posted it whenever it is entered a second time!  Still though, the same person could enter it and re-enter it later on from a different computer - that would be difficult to prevent.  I suppose though, as long as the site had enough advertisers to survive, it wouldn't matter much who was the one entering the bills...!

Is there a way to check that a bill-number is valid and not just a random value?
If not, the solution is "giving the reward" only if someone else will enter the same value on next days ( or after 10 hours / 24 hours /  ... )

If someone enter a bill-number already on the database, the first player that has entered the bill-number will get 0.01 Bitcoin ( just an example ) and X points.
During the next hours he ( the first player ) wont get anymore 0.01 Bitcoin, but he will still get the X points ( every 5 hours  ?)
All others that enter the bill-number ( that it is already on the database of the server ) will get 0.001 Bitcoin and Y points. ( this wont work for 5 hours )

If someone will get K points ( that is the total of all Ys plus Xs points) after a while, then he will get 0.1 Bitcoins. ( just another example )


The main difficulty is to find the good math between time and rewards to first and next players to avoid cheaters.

I have no idea if there's a way to legitimize a bill number.  But even if there is, a cheater could use the same method of legitimizing bill numbers and enter in serials that they don't really have.

I think something along the lines of what you mentioned above is reasonable.

Could also make the reward for the person who originally entered the bill not be valid until 4 weeks out.  Who holds on to the same cash bills for that long?  That would at least avoid giving out half the reward to a cheater.  They could still "cheat" by entering the bill on a different computer and getting the "second" entry of the bill, but I doubt anyone would hold out for 4 weeks to get the reward from initially entering the bill.

Of course, you'd probably get the individuals who keep record of the serial numbers, then head back to the website 4 weeks later to claim their double reward.

Hmmmm... there must be a way to legitimize this.

It'd be fun though.  You could take the idea further and have lotteries, high score lists with rewards for the top, etc.

It has a huge virulence ;D

The obvious thing is that by increasing the Bitcoin knowledge it will also increase the Bitcoin value, so it's a win-win!

This could be big.

I agree the main point should be incentive to have more people mark new bills.

Here is the idea I have for now:

1. Mark on $1 bills (yes, ideally this works anywhere but start with U.S. for simplicity) the following: thebitcoingame.com or unlockmysecret.com

2. A curious person goes to the website and is congratulated on finding a game worth real money. The object of the game is simple: rack up the most miles traveled for their bill as possible. All they need to do is enter info from their bill (e.g. serial number and plate number)

3. The website enters the bill info and geo location of the I.P. address then calculates the distance from last entry if any. This is added to the user's score.

4. On the 1st of every month the top 3 users with the highest mileage score receive Bitcoin prize reward. This can come from donations and site advertising. There is no limit to the number of bills a person can register, but the bill they enter only is worth mileage for them to the next entry, then it transfers to the next user.

5. The site displays a running tally, and possibly other interesting info like where the bill was received etc. to add interest. It could be bigger than wheresgeorge.com. Of course, there is also a simple introduction to what Bitcoin is.

6. There can be a big bonus if a user enters any bill that they entered and later found its way back to them.

To prevent gaming the system: as mentioned earlier each bill has different security features which can be used to verify the user is holding it. The other problem is spoofing I.P. addresses, which is possible, but it's harder to spoof I.P. location over and over. Also, the I.P. might be required to come from Starbucks or McDonalds both of which offer free wi-fi nationwide.

It's a good idea, but wouldn't work very well.  You can easily have access to IP addresses from all over the world if you know what you are doing.

I wonder if it is possible to filter for only ISP-given IP addresses.  I mean, gather up the IP ranges for all the major ISP's around, and then see if the IP fits the criteria.  If not, throw an error and tell them they must enter their bills from a residential ISP carrier.

Then again, people would start creating IP address circles.  Mailing lists with lists of serial codes, and they just keep circulating them round-robin style.  Of course, that could/would happen with any of the methods talked about so far...

Hmmmm...

Also, 6 wouldn't work, because a person could just keep a log of the serial numbers, then periodically re-enter them to see if they had been entered somewhere else and thus "returned".

EDIT:  An epiphony!  Only pay out for the first bill entered for a second time every 24 hours.  In other words, it wouldn't be normally expected that the same person could find two bills that had already been written on it in the same 24 hour period, so anyone who does would be considered a cheat, and would not be paid out for that bill.  BUT, a person can enter as many first-time bills as they want in any given period of time.  Thus, the incentive to write on fresh bills would likely outweigh the incentive to cheat on existing ones!

You'd still probably have rings of people trying to enter each others bills to game the system, but ultimately, it wouldn't really be worth it for them.  And it would probably be much easier to catch them just running some simple queries on the DB.

Yes, gaming the system by I.P. is possible, but I think it's one of those things where it's easier to play correctly. A time delay would help. For anyone with sufficient skill to do so it wouldn't be worth the elaborate effort needed. As for friends entering each other's bills, remember that credit is only given once, then the bill is expected to be entered from another location and credit is given to the last person. But even the limited cheating of friends is the essence of what going viral is about. There could be a location diversity bonus. I'm thinking the max reward issued wouldn't be more than $500-1K.

- Enter bill
- Rent VPS across the country
- Enter bill again
- Win $500-$1k.

What am I missing here?

And why is credit given only once?  Wouldn't you want people to continue entering the bills, even after it has been entered once?  The more people exposed, the better, etc.

I think you and I are on completely different paths of ideas.  :p

It's legal grey area:  

http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/5711/has-anyone-been-charged-with-defacing-money

TLDR:  It's illegal if done with intent to render the bills "unfit to be reissued".

There's probably enough leeway there for the government to construe widespread defacement of bills with adverts for competing currency as illegal.  I wouldn't try to start such a movement, more likely to attract the kind of attention bitcoin doesn't want.

No, that's not how to win at the game. You have best chances by entering the web address on the max number of bills, because they all add to your total - once upon being entered from another location. There is no limit on how many bills you can enter. A VPS across the country, or a friend for that matter, could be used but only once without going into elaborate spoof tactics. For example, there could be a diversity of location bonus. In other words, the object of the game is to put out a very diverse imprint of bills belonging to you. That can be done by marking bills, or it can be done by spoofing. It's probably far easier to do it by marking bills.

Yes, people continue entering the bills. Any person gets credit once when the next person enters the bill.

Writing a web address is enough to render a bill unfit to be reissued? That's a stretch, IMO.

And it's a game to track bills not a movement. Bitcoin is not a currency.

No one is forced to write the website on the bill, the website also wont say to do it.
But ... it obvious that it's better to write it on bills to be better sure that the next one will go on it ;) ;)

"Defacing" bills is against US law but it hasn't really been enforced: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where%27s_George%3F#Controversy

I'm afraid blatantly encouraging individuals to do this would give the Secret Service a reason to prosecute bitcoiners, even if it's a flimsy one.

I still prefer keeping it very simple.

Person finds bill with URL, visits website, enters serial numbers, possibly wins BTC.
Person learns that even unmarked bills may unlock BTC.
Person visits site often to check bills, investigates the BTC market and becomes immersed in the bitcoin community.
Person becomes an advocate of bitcoin themselves and begins proselytizing and spreading the word with bills marked with the URL.

Contests over how many bills you've marked, how far they've traveled, etc should just be gravy.

Again though, how would you prevent people from making up serial numbers?

The first time a note is entered, it CANNOT give out BTC, or else people will just start making up serial numbers.

I like the idea of a small sticker with a QR Code. Stickers aren't expensive to produce and ship, plus the notes stay clean.

In my opinion this should be crowd-funded, i.e. each person puts a few bitcents on a few bills and hands them out to strangers. The idea is not to get rich, but to metaphorically use fiat money to spread the word about a new kind of money. With crowd-funding there is no need for complicated means of verification via IP/email/whatever, it's first come first served.

I agree with edd about keeping things simple, but actually the game I described is no different in simplicity from a user's perspective. They're still just entering bills into a site. The site does all the rest of the work for calculations.

I also agree a note can't give credit the first time entered, or people will make up serial numbers. I think the key validation is having the second person verify the details of the bill. From the tech standpoint checking the I.P. geo location is the best way to guard against one person pretending to be many others.

As for the illegality of marking bills it's interesting that wheresgeorge.com has set a precedent. The Secret Service themselves commented that as long as the site ceased selling the rubber stamps to mark with they wouldn't look into it too much. If bitcoin created its own game that did nothing different what would justify a new crack down?

It's a gray area, but it's interesting that the current system has no problem using gray area to their own benefit, such as with so-called "voluntary" income taxes and capital gains taxes on legal tender gold/silver coins.

The anonymous features of Bitcoin makes it possible to safely take a political stand. It's just a question of whether the resulting PR would do more harm than any benefits of exposure from actions taken.

I like this approach too, but I'd add a site address in addition to QR code. The larger majority of population don't have QR scanning phones. I think this method could work, although the rate of spreading the message would be much slower I'd think than the more interactive game.

I bet those with QR scanning phones are more likely to have interest in Bitcoin

I believe Phinnaeus was on the right track:

^ But if identifying bill information is entered for the first time how would a site know it is valid?

Well, the bill would have to be registered by someone in order to assign bitcoins to it, even if it's the sie administrator.

Oh, you were talking about redeeming coins directly from bills. I thought you were still talking about a tracking game.

Edit: Yea, I think that could def work, and it's probably the simplest possible version of the idea. It's not as inherently viral as it could be, but maybe use as a starting point?

Only one thing:
Please don't use it: I think that's not a good Latin sentence.

The fed don't need to take up any "leeway" they gave, advertising on money is illegal. OP is 100 years too late to the idea of putting advertisements on US money. Somebody already annoyed them enough they made a law against it before we were born.

US Statute 18 USC Sec. 475 (house.gov) (http://uscode.house.gov/uscode-cgi/fastweb.exe?getdoc+uscview+t17t20+345+0++%28%29%20%20AND%20%28%2818%29%20ADJ%20USC%29%3ACITE%20AND%20%28USC%20w%2F10%20%28475%29%29%3ACITE)

-HEAD-
Sec. 475. Imitating obligations or securities; advertisements

-STATUTE-
Whoever designs, engraves, prints, makes, or executes, or utters,
issues, distributes, circulates, or uses any business or
professional card, notice, placard, circular, handbill, or
advertisement in the likeness or similitude of any obligation or
security of the United States issued under or authorized by any Act
of Congress or writes, prints, or otherwise impresses upon or
attaches to any such instrument, obligation, or security, or any
coin of the United States, any business or professional card,
notice, or advertisement, or any notice or advertisement whatever,
shall be fined under this title. Nothing in this section applies to
evidence of postage payment approved by the United States Postal
Service.

I'll leave it to you to find the updated penalty in H.R. 3355 (pdf) (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-103hr3355enr/pdf/BILLS-103hr3355enr.pdf), passed into law as Pub. L. 103-322 in 1994 (protip, search for 475). Enlightening reading of how a bill is written to be unreadable by adding new phrases to hundreds of other statutes instead of being new law itself, with a senator-friendly name "Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994" (unfortunately 1994 is too early to discover from the PDF properties that it was likely directly written by and lobbied for by an outsourced prison labor company like Federal Prison Industries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Industries) to boost their labor force).

---

Completely off-topic, but FPI's front company Unicor made me think of another orwellian labor company that changed it's name to avoid it's reputation.

http://www.unicor.gov/global/images/u11/unicor-logo.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e0/Unicru_logo.png

...impresses upon or attaches to...

Well, there goes the "clean" QR code stickers.

@deepceleron
So the website will track any paper/object that has an unique number printed/wrote on it.
It must be on a domain that isn't com/org/biz/us/...
People will "spam" on everthing they want. If they'll use bill than it isn't your ( site owner ) business.
It will work on every places on the earth :)

QR codes only are a bad idea. They aren't easy to write by hand and they can only be used by nerds.

Aren't easy to write by hand? Lol thats an understatement.

If you go by IP geo location, wouldn't that cause problems?  Most bills stay in the same locale for quite a long time before moving elsewhere in the country.

I don't see this solving the problem of people making up serial numbers.  Sure, you can make sure the serial numbers match a specific pattern, but I could just take a legitimate bill and start incrementing values by 1.  What would stop me?  Or put a random set of numbers in.

The only way to protect from people making up serial numbers is to have numbers funded when they are initially entered.  Don't give out any prizes or anything, but after the bill is entered a first time, you can give out BTC when it is entered a second time.

I think you'll get a lot fewer people participating when they have to put the money in themselves though.  I know I wouldn't.  It's not that I don't want to see Bitcoin expand, it's that I don't want to be at a net loss for doing so.  And I think a lot of other people are as... stingy... as I am in that regard.

If it can be done for free, there will be a lot more people participating.

That's true, but that could be a plus. You only receive credit for a bill re-entered outside your state, so the best way to improve your chances is to label more bills... ;)

I was sure that was the case, thanks for digging up the statute.

I'd estimate this idea has a negatively assymetrically skewed expected payoff for bitcoin as a whole, better to shelve it and come up with something else that doesn't directly antagonize governments.

How about a combination of both? You can enter in a serial number, fund it yourself, and release it into the wild or you can enter it and wait for the site admin to fund it.

Why isn't wheresgeorge shut down then?  There must be some way around it if they have managed to keep straight for so long.

Now that's not a bad idea...

Government couldn't care less about WheresGeorge.  Judging from the legal history of alternative currency attempts, they care a great deal about that.

Keep in mind that while there is a lot of energy and enthusiasm among bitcoiners, the project is still in its infancy, is still relatively untested, is breaking new and unknown ground, and still needs to be husbanded to maturity and robustness before 'taking on the world'.

There are still known problems that have to be solved, like concentrated mining pool power undermining the whole notion of a decentralized currency, and unknown unknowns (say, what if Facebook created a bitcoin client which overtook the canonical one in users and then forked the blockchain with an incompatible mod?).

So I think it's best not to get too ahead of ourselves just yet, stay humble, and avoid antagonizing governments.  

Further, the establishment appears to be doing the work of popularizing bitcoin all on their own.  It's looking more and more inevitable that the USD is on a path of no return, and one day the consequences of decisions being made now by the Fed and US Govt will materialize, and all of sudden things like bitcoin and precious metals and other non-inflationary assets will get real popular real fast.  No need to rush it or force it, it will happen.  In the meantime, better to focus on working to the make core technology and supporting ecosystem as hardened, robust, and mature as possible.

Patience, grasshopper :).

^ sound thoughts.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but this is the farthest I would push this.

The dollar bills is what we're competing with, We don't want to turn people into being on the lookout for every bills that come across for BTC profit or a fun game. (I did not read much, but this is what I gathered)

Some 10 years ago I had though on doing advertising this way, I used a inkjet printer and printed a url small enough not to catch attention but big enough to be visible.  It printed ok but I didn't do many.

What about writing any phrase that come to mind including both the words "bitcoin" and "money"

Bitcoin - Finally, Fair Money
Bitcoin: Virtual money
Bitcoin the future of money
Bitcoin will replace traditional money
Bitcoin · Electronic money
Bitcoin, Smart Money
... learn more.

(from quick Google search)

+1

Okay, I've put together my take on this game at SearchingForSatoshi.com (http://www.searchingforsatoshi.com/) (yes, Phinnaeus, I know you prefer WheresSatoshi.com but it's my site, so there.  :P )

It's a little clunky and needs some prettifying and I'll be manually approving all withdrawals until I can think up the best way to discourage "cheating," but I'm still confident this could be a great way to promote Bitcoin.

Please check out the site and provide some feedback here before I create another thread to announce it's release.

First things first, the url is too long.  That's a lot of handwriting to do.  :(  I was hoping for something short and sweet, like btcbills.com.  Maybe you could grab a short domain and just have it forward to the searchforsatoshi.com domain.  That way we could write either or.

That said, I've just switched to using all cash for my day-to-day transactions, so I'll probably be putting this on a lot of bills.  Well, as long as I don't have to write out that long URL anyway.  :p

Damn, I didn't think of that.

Let me see if there are any good short urls out there.
brb

Wow, I can't believe btcbills.com wasn't taken. We'll let that baby propagate and then I'll point it to searchingforsatoshi.com.

SgtSpike, PM me your first few serial numbers and I'll add some BTC to them as my way of saying thanks for the URL suggestion.

Sweet! I'll start writing up on them bills.  :)

Second suggestion...

<input type="text" name="billserial" value="" id="billserial" class="wpcf7-text wpcf7-validates-as-required" size="40" readonly="readonly">
shouldn't be "readonly".  Makes it kind of hard to enter bills.  :p

EDIT:  Wait, maybe I am confused.  What is the difference between "Add New" and "Unlock Your Bill"?
EDIT2:  Found the "How it works" page, reading now.  Perhaps I need to TRY to find the answers myself before asking them here.
EDIT3:  Initial feedback from actually using the site:
- You need to make it more clear from the titles what unlock bill and add new means.  At the homepage, I clicked on "Add New Bills", which only takes me to the "Unlock Bills" page, hence my initial confusion.  The Add New Bills link should take you to the "Add New" page.
- This is just my opinion, but you should figure out a way to offer an incentive to people entering bills.  Maybe it's a one-time reward upon entering the bill itself, or maybe it's a reward to the person who originally wrote on the bill when the bill is entered a second time (presumably by someone else).  *shrug*  As it is though, it's only a good tool for people who are interested in using their own money and time to spread the word about Bitcoin.  You'll give incentive to a lot more people to write up the URL on all their bills if there's a reward (or a potential for a reward) for doing so.

So far, I've only read this post (not yet the ones that follow it) and clicked the link. I was there for a total of 10 seconds before I came back here to give my honest opinion--TOTALLY AWESOME!!! A slick looking site. I did click one link on that site and gave it a quick glance. Now I need to finish reading the rest of thread then peruse your site, edd. Going to get coffee first. Again, great looking site. Fair warning: I will be offering up suggestions if I feel they'll improve upon it.

~Bruno~

PS: And to think I PM'ed you, giving you that golden .com, one of which you're now going to sit on. Shame on you!

You can point now, but soon you'll be better off populating btcbills.com with your current site. The last thing you want is for somebody to click one URL but end up at another. That's already a red flag. I tried to warn you about that long URL, but you wouldn't lesson to ole Bruno. I do believe that wheressatoshi.com is more marketable than btcbills.com, although that is a good domain name. Now, I wonder who owns wheressatoshi.com? Hmmm! As far as handwriting on the bills, the real diehards will use stamps, stamps you can easily sell on your site, edd. Now onto your newly created site. Perusing I will go. Perusing I will go. Hi, Ho...

~Bruno~

Simple error on my part. It has been corrected.


Once the site is "officially" launched, I'll certainly be offering rewards, hopefully on a daily basis.

Remarks: (overall, still great!, albeit with all of our inputs, we'll make it much better for you/us, edd)

Rid the www in the URL.

Your ad here? Center it and possibly in red.

MAKE A BITCOIN DONATION TO THIS SITE: Not sure why this is needed on a for-profit site. (Fake Edit: On second thought, I kind of like that bitcoinate thingy).

Very first line on home page is way to wordy. I had trouble reading it and knew exactly what you were trying to say.
...they pass from person to person, city to city(,) and beyond.

Once a Site Administrator has approved the entry (usually right away, but it could take up to 24 hours), a unique, dedicated Bitcoin Address will be assigned to your bill and published on the site.: In the near future, this aspect needs to be fully automated.

This is weird!: 10/03/2012 ~ True, other countries put the month first, but don't we see this as mainly a US thing? Thus, 03/10/2012. I hope nobody takes this comment the wrong way, but please feel free to discuss this point.

On this page http://www.searchingforsatoshi.com/withdraw-bitcoins/?billserial=GI60435924A, use that image I provide on this thread or a newly created one will help in finding the information you're asking. Same with this page: http://www.searchingforsatoshi.com/add-new/
I know where to find those fields on a bill, for I'm the one who suggest it. But if I hadn't, and saw this for the first time, I'm not taking the time to search for it. My mind would say that it looks to hard.

Important: All links should open in a new tab or window, albeit a savvy user can override that command with their computer sittings. Once they leave your site, they may not come back due to the average user's attention span. If they see the tap is still open, there's always a chance they'll return while they're still online. If I were to consider placing a banner ad in your header, I would think twice of doing so base on this aspect along.Image a user clicking the Bitcoin100 link and it opens in the same tab. The phone rings. Conversation over. Guy gets a brainfart, doesn't even remember how and why he's on the current page. Closes the tab, and searches for the latest Lady Gaga video his buddy just told him about.

That's it for now. Please keep us abreast on this site.

~Bruno~

Who do you guys think this advertising works on? Very few people use cash. Very few of those people look at their cash. If I see something written on a bill, I automatically assume that it is a scam or the work of a nutcase. Here is an example bill that passed through my hands:

http://i43.tinypic.com/9uukjr.jpg

Some people say that all publicity is good publicity. That might apply in certain situations. I don't think it applies here. This wouldn't be good publicity.

@edd
Great! ;D
You did an awesome work!

Do you think that you will be able to support for other currencies? ( euro, gbp ... )

Your point is valid, Nim, but remember, as mentioned in this thread, one aspect of this idea was to present the bill to a waitress, instructing her that an additional tip is available. She either claims it or puts the bill back into circulation with the bitcoins unclaimed. At some future time, other people have the frst opportunity to unlock the tip. If it's already unlocked, at least Bitcoin awareness has now been brought to that person's attention albeit, as you've stated, 99 previous recipients ignored the message.

~Bruno~

Phinnaeus, I like all your thoughts on the site, and will +1 to what you said!

Ok, cool.  :)

I've addressed most of the issues brought up (some features were already present, just apparently not very evident).

HostFat, I plan on adding as many currencies as possible once the site has been used a little more  and I have a bit more time, probably after the event this weekend.

SgtSpike, I've added 0.01 BTC to all of the bills I entered and I'm assuming the rest are yours, so I'm off to fund them with a few bitcents. Feel free to redeem as many as you wish.

If there are no more major concerns, I think I'm about ready to announce this.  8)

Oh yeah, forgot to give you the list of serials.  I entered 4 of them last night.  :)

I'll test out the redemption on a couple of them, and leave the rest for whoever finds these bills.

Oh, the serial # field on this page (http://www.searchingforsatoshi.com/unlock-your-bill/) still needs to be unlocked.  I can't type a serial # in...

Fixed.

Another comment... after I unlock a bill, it just says that a withdrawal request has been sent.  You should tell the person how much BTC they will be getting at the time they enter the bill!

EDIT:  SHould also come up with a more friendly/fun statement than "Your withdrawal request has been successfully completed and forwarded to a Site Administrator."  Maybe "You found 0.05 BTC on this bill!  Congrats - it will be forwarded along to you shortly!"  Or something along those lines...  :)


Another idea - allow people to donate directly to the balance of all bills.  So, say someone wanted to help the Bitcoin cause, and donated 1 BTC.  And say there had been 500 bills entered (and presumably written upon) up to that point.  Then each bill would have 0.002 BTC added to the balance of it.

It'd be a good way to sort of automatically keep at least some BTC on each of the bills for anyone who wants to help out.  And maybe, if a bill isn't entered again within a year, you could mark it as "destroyed" and assume that it is no longer in circulation, moving those coins to other newly entered bills.

I am still interested in hearing more about your incentive to people who first enter bills.  I think it'd be great if the incentive was only realized once the bill was entered a second (third, fourth, etc) time by someone else.

He can also add a "score", so there will be "the best donors score" :D

Good ideas :)

Yes, all the system aims to incentive people to enter bills, there must be some good rules to make it working good.

These are all good ideas but they will require skills beyond my meager set. Anyone willing to volunteer to help?

I've actually been thinking about getting one thousand $1 bills and getting a stamp that says "bitcoin.org" and stamping each one and then exchanging them for larger denominations then rinse and repeat...

Eventually people will start to take notice.

Just a thought.

It seems like the reward would be easy to implement on top of what you already have.
- Allow original enterer of bill to enter in a Bitcoin address.
- As soon as bill is re-entered, send out the BTC balance of the bill to the new enterer, but also send a BTC reward to the original enterer.

The amount of reward is up to you, but I would suggest an amount that would be covered by advertisers.  Maybe dedicate 25% of the income from advertisers to go towards rewards for the people who originally enter the bills.  If you find that 50 bills were re-entered in one month, and you gained 4 BTC from advertising that month, then the next month, give a reward of 0.02 BTC per bill to the original enterers each time one of their bills is entered.

If it seems that many more of a particular person's bills are getting entered than the average number of bills, then you can assume some sort of cheating is going on and just clear his BTC addresses from those bills.  Since you're manually reviewing all of these, I don't think it'd be hard to catch cheaters.

I'll help you with the coding for that if you'll throw a couple BTC my way.

On the donations, I suppose a SQL query would do it.  Run a query to get the total number of bills entered.  Then run another query, something like "UPDATE bills SET balance=(balance+donation/bills)".  I don't know how your database is set up, but I imagine something along those lines would work.

For the Satoshi of it, I saw some bills that had Bitcoin.org next to Benjamin Franklin and penned toward the right edge was "Bitcoins to replace this." Who ever did that was a genius. God save the Republic and a curse on those who run the Federal Reserve system.

http://i626.photobucket.com/albums/tt348/papilio_luna/ao908yu.gif

I believe this might be the most vital detail of the whole project!
That way, the "bills writing folks" donate their time (and smallish money), and donators fund the system over time and keep it going. Many people would easily donate one Bitcoin to this, not many would go through writing on a hundred bills.
Also, this would be the most clever way to "recycle" already redeemed bills.
Maybe dont transfer unlimited small amounts, but a minimum of 1 Bitcent per bill?

Also, I cant find a way to reward the "bills writer", without a huge incentive to cheat. Maybe make "just" a public list how many bills each user wrote on and how many were found? Hopefully this would be incentive enough?

(Still, people might recheck their found bills regularly, to cheat the system. Which is much less of an incentive than cheating the writer-reward..)

I like where this is going!

Ente

These are the things I can think of to help prevent cheating if a reward is introduced:
- Monitor whose bills are being re-entered often.  If one person has 50% of their bills re-entered, and everyone else is averaging 2%, then you know the 50% is cheating.
- Definitely don't allow the same bill to be entered from the same IP more than once.
- Perhaps don't allow public IPs (i.e., IP of a library, etc).
- Only give a reward if the bill moves a certain distance away from the point of origin.  IP has to be from a different city, or maybe even a different state.

Really, the most important factor is the first one.  If someone's bills are regularly being entered much more often than other people's bills, then they shouldn't be rewarded.

- 1 bill : 1 account
No one can add more than 1 time a bill to an account

- The reward for the first account ( the first one that signed/entered the bill ) comes only after "another account" has entered the bill
The bill must pass from hand by hand.

- The reward for the first account must be higher than rewards for next accounts, example with the same bill:
first account - 0.01 ( only after another account entered it )
second account - 0.0001 ( and the first account will the "the reward" 0.01 )
second account - 0.0000 ( the user tried to enter again the bill )
third account - 0.0001 ( first account will also get 0.0001, or 0.00001 ... )

( these are just examples, you should find the better values to make it working good )

- There must be a limit to withdraw bitcoin from an account, example: 0.1 Bitcoin

This is a cool idea, I'd love to deface sign some euro bills :D

When euro bills will be supported by this service?

I'll be moving this game to another domain and making it a bit more user-friendly. Supporting currencies other than the US dollar is definitely a priority but it may be some time before I get around to it.

I had a different idea altogether.

Why not create a website where you can sell the stamps that say "whateverdomainaboutbitcoins.com" and all the profits go to a faucet (sponsors can the buy stamps and use them to promote the idea of bitcoins). When a user visits for the first time the website walks them through the idea behind bitcoins (or link to another website that does that, like http://www.weusecoins.com/). If the new user then types in the serial number of the fiat plus their own wallet they get some bitcoins. I guess we could re-use the same  techniques/precautions as the bitcoin faucet.

On top of that you can use that platform to promote other Bitcoins-for-Free projects.

I still like bitcoinishappening.com as a domain (it's begs the question, what's bitcoin and what do you mean by "happening").

Ok, I did some thinking and came to this model... As far as I see it is viable... please prove me wrong here..

1. Mark banknote and receive 30% of donations.
2. Submit photo of marked banknote and receive 50% of donations.
3. Participate in contest to win 50% of the jackpot if your banknote has photo, somebody found and made donation through it.
4. Donate and get 50% of the jackpot if your donation wins in contest.

What do you think guys?

As is, the system could be gamed by one person submitting a banknote and the claiming-he-found-guy as the same person.

I like your photo idea, though, and percentage payout concept.

~Bruno~

No, this is taken care of because 50% donation goes to jackpot... and if nobody donated - person is in isolation because he will not be participating in jackpot.

But if people donate, he can take 50% of the donations....

Idea not to let people to participate for free in jackpot draw... somebody must pay for it... because real money involved.


I have 10 BTC. I'm about to cheat system..

I mark 10 bills, photo them, upload to the site.

In 1 month I fake 10 discoveries...  Result - so be it... you not participating in jackpot

If I donate 1 BTC upon finding banknote - 0.5 BTC goes to jackpot.

So participation in jackpot draw will cost 0.5 BTC -  Result - it's ok...

If you found a bill and donating - 50% of your life-time donations will be gone to person who marked the bill... I think he deserves it

If that's the case (people have to pay to enter the jackpot), why wouldn't they just enter a less complicated lotto?

It's donations we are talking about here...

I found a bill on the street, googled it, found idea good enough, bought some quick btc through https://blockchain.info/wallet/sms-phone-deposits

After getting know that there is jackpot I can win ( or even without this knowledeg - just for the sake of Bitcoins ) I donate

We can even take PayPal donations for this - to fund jackpot

This is my 3rd time writing this... computer crashes >:-(   It's similar to Vorobyov's idea.

1. I mark a clean banknote with "win-bitcoins.com"
2. I make a donation to a deterministic address based on the note's serial number's hash, and register the public key at win-bitcoins.com, specifying currency, value, location, date, etc.
3. At least one month later, recipient of this note can reclaim ¼ of my donation and enter a monthly draw to win ¼ of all donations received during the month. The person who marked the winning banknote wins another ¼.
4. Banknotes already redeemed can be re-entered once into successive monthly draws for the last ¼ of donations, but never to the same user.

There is no point in cheating, all I get is ⅓ of my own donation back plus a chance to win the monthly prize AND I'd have to hold on to the banknote for one month.  Any person re-entering a banknote for the jackpot(s) supersedes any previous entries.  This means I could, in principle, save a database of the hashes of all banknotes I come across and enter them all at the end of the month, assuming I could create enough user-ids on win-bitcoins.com.  See rate-limiting below to solve this.

Fishing for hash collisions (given the small keyspace of banknote serial numbers) is possible but there are ways to prevent that:
1. Use the multisig feature in v0.6, so that donations and prizes can only be redeemed if authorised by win-bitcoins.com.
2. Rate-limit interrogations of the database of registered banknote-serial-number-hash-public-addresses to about once per minute from any IP, or once per 30 minutes from any abusive IP (where 'abusive' is defined somewhere).  This should also prevent people trying to enter lots of banknote hashes in the last minutes before the monthly draw takes place.
3. The person marking the banknote should also write the date on the note, providing extra search space.  Better still, write some random nonce.

Lastly: I'm pretty sure you can't deface legal tender.  Would this be considered defacing in any jurisdiction?  I know this has been discussed before also in the context of blacking out "in god we trust" from dollar notes.  What was the conclusion?

Here's my main concern:  Without an incentive to write on bills, the only people who are going to do it are those who want to spread the word of bitcoin, and use their own bitcoins and time to do so.  That group of people isn't very large, and already has plenty of (potentially better) means of doing this (i.e., physical coins, etc).

So, offer an incentive to people who write on bills, and this project will take off.  Don't offer an incentive, and the project isn't going to go anywhere.  It's really as simple as that.  Most people are greedy enough that they don't want to spend time and their own money on donating towards this.  Subsidize the time of those people with those who DO want to donate, by offering incentives to the greedy ones using the donations of the generous ones.  And advertisements.

Can't help but mention that my site http://coinedbits.com/ is closely related to this idea. You buy a physical coin, pass it around, track where it goes on my website. It's a fun way to spread the bitcoin message to the world.

Sorry for the necro but this thread has some really interesting ideas that I may eventually incorporate into Cryptobill.com.

Also:

Cryptobill.com (http://cryptobill.com/) is live!