Scam: (transitive) to swindle (someone) by means of a trick

No one here is being tricked. If you know what the word Ponzi means, and you invest in a site named Ponzi, is that not willingly investing and not being tricked? I agree that Gambling sites are the exact same thing, you just play them in different ways. Provably fair and such are just buzz words. It doesn't mean that the odds are fair, it just means that they give you the odds, and you agree to those odds before playing. Traditional casinos and such aren't a scam, but they aren't provably fair.

I don't see why people want to censor things rather than just allow people to use their own judgement. I agree that hidden ponzi schemes are a scam, but all of these just come right out and say they are ponzis, no false expectations, no tricks, not a scam. If someone puts money in and get burnt, what is the difference between then putting money into a dice game and losing? And before you say odds, just because Ponzis don't have published odds, doesn't mean that you can't calculate your own odds.

Well, the forum administrators long ago. Meta: Discussion about the Bitcoin Forum

It would be appropriate to discuss the trust system in general in Meta, but for individual disputes, I think a separate section would be for the best. Scam accusations get their own section for person vs. person disputes, but Meta is appropriate for discussion about Scams in relation to the forum itself. Same concept.

I'd second this. Some issues such as with the trust system in general are a forum problem, and fine in Meta. But individual disputes I agree aren't really a matter for Meta.

Yeah, as expected, things came up. I needed to order additional machinery, so things are delayed a bit, but still moving forward. This is the reason you never take preorders.



Personally, I've always found the holograms sort of tacky. Anyway, I can guarantee this won't feel like mass produced tokens. What I'm making are hand made, one at a time, and not tokens.



Correct, this is why I'm trying to figure out what to do here. The most secure way to do it would be to do multisig so I never have access to the private keys. But, there is no resale value of a piece if you are relying on a stranger that knows the private keys not to steal the coins. With Casascius coins, you are relying on Casascius not to steal the Bitcoins, but that is better than trusting whoever it is who purchased the coins first.



With what I'm planning, buyer funded isn't possible. Each buyer would have to have expensive machinery, and be willing to sign a liability waiver to not hold me responsible for burns from molten 2000ish degree metal.



BIP38 encrypted would work for buyer funded models, where the original buyer gives me the private key encrypted so that I don't know what it is, but then they would have access to the private key, again making resale impossible. If I end up making buyer funded pieces, this would most likely be the route that I'd take.




Buyer assembled models are very unlikely at this point. That is unless I ship every unit sold with metalworking tools and safety equipment, a CNC Mill/Router, Metal furnace.

It's been discussed. The forum doesn't need any more money so there's no reason to create new ranks and solicit donations.

That is why I wanted the OP to start selling trust to see how it would play out. I want those real, actual values. But I'd agree, buying accounts is negative EV for the purpose of scamming, trust perhaps not though. Thats why I think selling accounts is more "acceptable" than selling trust. While you are correct it is more or less speculation until people start trying to sell trust, you can make certain assumptions. I've asked people to name a single proven instance where someone has purchased an account or trust to scam with. The fact that in Bitcointalk's history, no one can point out let alone one instance, there must be a reason why its not done.

I'd be happy to post my list of calculative analysis on the matter, but people don't seem to like my 4 page walls of text.

The Like/Dislike system won't be implemented. The Admins have said in the past that they don't want to turn discussion into a popularity content, so it wont happen. The automatic bump button is something that has been discussed, and I believe it will be added. Pretty much just as you proposed. It will be a button that the OP can hit that will put their thread back onto the first page, but wont require any posts and therefor won't clutter threads. It will still be limited to 1 bump per day.

There isn't much to understand. Why is selling trusted accounts ok? Because people say so. Why is selling trust not ok? Because people say so. There aren't rules, the community as a whole dictates what is ok and what isn't ok to do. For example, leaving feedback for someone you haven't traded with. Why is that ok? People have rationalized that it is necessary to preempt scammers, so it is an accepted practice, not a rule.

If I had to take a stab at guessing why people care more strongly about trust selling, is because the initial trust they receive could be a lie. Lets say someone has an account that they have completed 10 successful trades and have 10 positive feedback that they are selling. The trust adds to the value of the account. That value then is carried along at the time of sale. So say an account is 1 BTC, and the trusted account is worth 1.5 BTC because of the trust, the sale price is going to be 1.5 BTC, meaning the scammer buying the account will need to scam more than the 1.5 BTC, otherwise they lost money. Generally an account is going to be worth more than its trust because of the time put into the account, and sig campaigns, etc. I believe that is why buying trusted accounts to scam isn't a commonplace thing. Its just not profitable, but I could be entirely wrong, that is just my theory.

Say you wanted to buy trust, not the account. Your account is worth 1 BTC. You pay 0.1 BTC for the trust, and the feedback says that you were trusted with 50 BTC. Your account might then be worth 2 BTC (That is if people don't just disregard that kind of feedback from non well known people) you can then try to scam for 2 BTC, and if you succeed you made .9 BTC, making the act of buying trust possibly feasible.

That said, I still don't think that either is a commonplace thing, because all it takes is one guy to say, hey that trade looks fishy, make a thread about it, and everyone involved is marked a scammer, and whoever trusted that person on default trust on the first place would have to deal with a lot.... and I mean a lot of hate.

That all said, there were a lot of rational details that people overlooked here, so their panties got into a wad for nothing. First the OP didn't have a default trust account, they had no understanding of how the trust system worked. If they did have a trusted account, it was most likely on trust depth 3/4 which would be relatively meaningless. We don't know how much the OP was charging for trust and we don't know if their trusted account had any weight at all. I actually hoped that they did have a trusted account, because the only way to see how it would have all played out. I have a few theories on why selling trust isn't profitable either, but we would have had to see it in action.

So in conclusion, what is ok and not ok is dictated by the community. I think that people are more outraged by trust selling because it is more likely to be profitable for a scammer than buying an account outright. The reason the trust system has been in place this long and this topic is just coming up sort of speaks for itself.

Haven't tried the horn. Did try the sax, didn't work too well. I didn't fall, nor cause any harm to either, as the unicycle is incredibly hard to fall off of. But none of my roads are even slightly flat, and I haven't mastered the balance well enough to start riding on a non flat surface. Once you are going, its not too bad, but its even more difficult holding a saxophone.

Not a problem. Our time zones are very different, so expect a little bit of delay in responses. Its a little after noon my time on Monday, packing the watch up now and hope to get it out today if the mail doesn't come early. If it does, it will ship out tomorrow morning. The shipping expectation is 7 to 10 days, I'll update you with any additional info that I recieve.

I spoke to a group of people who were doing just what you are talking about. Funny enough, with the help of the developer of Popcorntime. They are using Florincoin to create a media sharing platform based on blockchain's distributed consensus.

Demo Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_u-ndscZjY

Nah, hes hanging out in Portland, too stoned to remember his password. Don't worry.  

Ribsthemeat

Somewhat interested, if you can't work through escrow, the trade would have to be secured in some way or another before I'd consider buying it though. Perhaps you have something that could be used as collateral against the Bitcoins until the miner arrives?

Question though, you are currently running it in the US with the built in PSU? The Bitmain site says that it wont turn on without at least 205V. Its not a huge concern to me since I've got two 220V recepticals that I patched together, but I'm curious as to how you are running the miner on 110 or 120?



*Edit* Oh, never mind S4 not S4+.

The watch wont get crushed if just sent in a mailer, I'll package it up extra tight. If its crushed, I'll refund you the entirety of the cost.

For the Watch, Papers, shipped in a mailer it would be

For the Watch, Papers, and Display Box, shipped in a small box, it would be

Shipping is $6.91 in the mailer, $12.87 with the box. Shipping price is already factored into the Bitcoin amount above.

Quoting and bolding the important parts for the feedback I'm leaving, so that people can read my reference link.

Yep, I've still got it. There are two options when shipping. If you want just the watch and the paperwork that comes with it, shipping is around 0.025 BTC. If you want it with the box, shipping increases to 0.050 BTC or a bit higher. The difference being, with just the watch and paperwork, I can bubble wrap it and put it in a padded mailer. The Box takes up more volume and requires a shipping box which changes the shipping rates.

I've got one of those high volume shipping subscriptions where I pay a flat monthly fee and in return shipping is a bit cheaper per package. The above info applies to most countries, though I'd have to double check to be sure for each person.

Again, sorry for dragging this off topic, I'm trying to not derail the original thread, if the parties involved would actually like to discuss all of this, we can create a new thread.


What I meant by law enforcement, is when issues come up world wide, and whoever it is doing the blaming blames Bitcoin, TBF has created a target on themselves. Can't punish a technology that is meant to be resilliant, punish those involved. If you want to put yourselves out there, thats on you and I don't have anything bad to say about that. Just saying my prediction is that those involved in public advocacy groups like the Bitcoin Foundation will be the ones that law enforcement can target when Bitcoin is made illegal. I'm not trying to be paranoid, but Bitcoin is a disruptive technology, its not far fetched in the slightest to think that there will be resistance as it gains traction, and that resistance could make its way into laws. There are tons of examples of this happening in the past. Hell fiat is almost illegal in the name of protecting against money laundering and funding terrorism. And to reiterate, my last few sentences are explaining what I meant by law enforcement involvement, I'm not accusing anyone of any of the examples I used.

Well if at all, Id say the other way around. But by and by I mean, why associate someone with a group unless they say they want to be associated? Satoshi didn't ask to be part of the Bitcoin foundation (to my knowledge) so wouldn't it make sense to not have Satoshi listed as a member until they ask to join?


Can I go search through the Bitcoin foundation's mission statement and look for quotes that I interpret as proving my point only to have you counter with your interpretation? Yes and I'd be happy to do so, but will I find quotes that say, "TBF was created to speak for the Bitcoin community"? Probably not, but as I said, I'd be happy to look. Before I spend time doing so, isn't it's creation implication of the need for someone to speak on behalf of "Bitcoin"? The need to push for adoption, speak to politicians who don't understand the technology, inform people that Bitcoin isn't just for online drug markets, etc? While I say most of those things are fine and good, and there isn't any ill will intended in doing those things on TBF's behalf, have you stopped and thought of the greater issues caused by making official statements for "Bitcoin" which consists of the technology itself, and the userbase? While I'm moderately hostile to the premise of a Bitcoin foundation at its roots, please make sure you understand that I don't have a single qualm with any individuals in the Bitcoin foundation (to my knowledge) so no personal biass influences my thought process. I trust individuals to speak on behalf of Bitcoin, even if what they are saying is nonsense, because everyone knows that its an individual person's testament, not an official claim. The formation of an official body to personify Bitcoin not only provides a target, but also greater room for misunderstanding of Bitcoin's nature. If one of your members says something controversial, your personal opinions or points of view reflect poorly to the technology as a whole. Thats where my resistance to an official Bitcoin foundation comes from. I'm not against advocacy groups of people who wish to speak about Bitcoin, but there really needs to be more than one to water down the role of each group. Where was the official internet foundation? Who pushed for people to understand that the internet wasn't just a way to do shady things, or to let people know the benefits of the internet? While that isn't a 100% apt comparison, some similarities are there, so hopefully you understand my meaning.
I also personally disagree with a few policies, but that isn't as big of an issue.

You are welcome to, I can go off topic from time to time as well, and someone will handle it. I did keep it on topic though

Bitcoin business' don't claim to speak for what the Bitcoin community wants. (Nor do I for that matter) They are in it to pay their salaries, their employee's salaries, and hey if they help Bitcoin thats a bonus. Its not about the fact that the Bitcoin foundation is a centralized organization, people get way too bent out of shape about centralization because of the percieved decentralization movement that Bitcoin is a part of. Its the fact that you get a group of people who are so above the average user and claim that you are speaking for the best of a currency and the average user. Its not that I don't support some of the individuals in the Bitcoin foundation, but creating a single group to represent a vast distribution of people all with different goals, doesn't that seem a bit counterintuitive? People are free to create their own Bitcoin foundations, and obviously you can't be held accountable for something that others are free to or not to do, but all in all I personally believe that the Bitcoin foundation is a huge issue. You may not take yourself as "the official Bitcoin foundation" but anyone from the Media, Policy makers, and law enforcement will.

And again, to avoid going too far off topic, as this really isn't the right thread to discuss the pros vs the cons of the Bitcoin foundation, I reiterate my support for removing Satoshi's name from your club. I'm going to make my own Bitcoin foundation and name Muhammad Ali as a club member 

I'm surprised people didn't make a bigger deal out of Satoshi's name being included in the first place, I think until a day when Satoshi returns and asks to be part of the Bitcoin foundation, why would their name be included?