Just to be clear; I dont really oppose the idea of 0.1 BTC coins (though I think the 'full option' 1BTC coins make more sense, but choice is good), I just oppose the idea of making those coins expire , particularly if they expire long before they've had any chance to appreciate in value enough to make redeeming more than just an exercise in futility.
I disagree with them expiring. It might introduce someone to Bitcoins if they find a discarded coin years down the road, and think, "hey, I wonder what this is?", then find out that they now own 0.1 BTC. |
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Just a thought, as a promotional tool I think of the handing out at large gatherings scenario like occupy movements. Being that the private key is not hidden, they could be coins or they could be printed on cards. I think some people will really get it, some will kinda get it and some won't get it at all and throw them away. This being the case I think it might be a good idea to print/mint up a version that has an expiration date and if the btc hasn't been spent by that date the btc will be redeemed by the issuer. If this is printed on the coin or card it is understood and not dubious considering this is for promotional use anyway. The card could also have more information on it. Thoughts?
There is already such a project that does more or less that. BUt honestly, how many people are going to redeem 0.1 BTC? And then what, they have 0.1 BTC in their wallet, only took them a day to download the blockchain and/or 20 minutes to setup a mt gox account, 12 attempts to get the numbers right. What can they do with it? Nothing. I just dont see it. 0.1 BTC might have some purpose if you speculate on long term appreciation. It might one day become worth enough to bother, but making them expire in x weeks, you might as well save yourself the trouble. I think it's perfectly okay for people to toss them right now. It would be a 20 cents conversation starter. It would do a lot to help promote Bitcoin IMO. And if they do toss them, so what? It's just 0.1 btc lost forever. But imagine the day when 0.1btc is worth something and people started finding them in couches. That would be funny. Yes, exactly this. The point of them is, it's a cheap conversation piece. Even if they were worth 5 BTC each, some people would never bother to redeem them. But the fact that it has SOME value, regardless of the AMOUNT of value, piques people's interest. Those people will be interested whether it's only 0.1 BTC or whether it is 5 BTC. And people who want to give away 1 BTC coins can just buy the "real deal" casascius coins and give those away. There's no reason those coins couldn't be used in the same manner. |
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A simple way of being sure that no-one including the operator can cheat by using the information of the target pattern is to use a pattern that hasn't yet been generated at the time the betting takes place.
The process that generates the value of reference must be random and not easily controllable by any one.
You can use for instance the N last bytes of a future block hash.
Or the hash of the close price of some large stock index.
So what's wrong with simply using last 5 of transaction hash = last 5 of block hash in a future block? Nothing wrong if the number of the block that will be taken as reference is decided in advance and you close the bet before the block that precedes the chosen block is issued. The block hash cannot be manipulated to match a given bet. But someone can place a bet that matches a block he found right before submitting the block on the network. If bets are tied to transactions, there is a good way to rule this out : stipulate that valid bets are bets which transaction was already confirmed at the time the reference block was found.In that case, you don't even need a reference block. The first block that matches any of the previously confirmed transactions designates the winner. Right, we're on the same page with that one then. |
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So we can assume tawsix controls ~8,000 with which he can do whatever with...
If he votes with those ~8k shares, then we know that he doesn't give a fuck what we think and that we need to take him to court. Yeah that. It'll be pretty clear the course of action that needs to be taken if there's suddenly a huge amount of shares voting towards liquidation. |
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We don't know if he actually gave himself those shares or not, or if he was just taking half of the dividends for himself, before sending rest out to shareholders. Given that it appears he has already made up his mind, and hasn't paid for 50%+1 shares, I hope that he doesn't vote on these/this motion(s)
How many shares Tawsix were to receive if an absorption were to happen, needs to be worked out with him and shakaru. I personally think that he should receive shares based on the amount of money reinvested from dividends. I believe remuneration should not be a factor, given how poorly he has run SIN.
Good point. I hope I am wrong that he gave himself an equal number of shares, and instead, he was just paying himself half the dividends. I tried looking for the post in which he was talking about it, but couldn't find it. There's no "thread search" here either. :\ Last I heard, he should have owned around 270 shares. But, if he was just paying himself the BTC directly, and not reinvesting them back into the company, then he should own 0 shares. |
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how many shares does Tawsix have ?
I voted no, i did not see option for Shakaru to take over
That's my point - he has the same number of shares as all the other shareholders put together. However he votes is what will happen. |
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Using firstbits is a good idea, though I'm biased.
What about just letting the purchaser load them up? If they have the firstbits, it'd be easy enough to quickly type that in, grab the full address, and send 0.1, 0.5 or 1 BTC to it.
Then again, people wouldn't know how much was on it just by looking at it, so you couldn't say it was a 10 bitcents coin or a 1 bitcoin coin - they would all be different.
I would probably sell them by the roll of 50, offering to pre-load them in advance, or to generate a list for the buyer to post-load them, or offering to post-load them myself. Empty coins don't have searchable firstbits, and those not familiar with the command line interface or the "sendmany" command will spend a lot of time loading coins, and will pay a lot of transaction fees. People wouldn't necessarily know what the amount is, but if the coin says "BITCOIN" it's reasonable to assume it might be 1 bitcoin, without actually having to be. Presumably if you're talking to somebody about Bitcoin, you'll probably tell them whether you're giving them a whole bitcoin or just part of one. Eh, good point. You'd have to send them at least a satoshi before they have firstbits... Sounds like a good plan though.  |
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why not take time to do some samples and upload them with a watermark that way we know we're getting out moneys worth
You're worried about $0.25? If i don't worry about this .1btc and i don't worry about that .1btc by the end of the day i'm all out! Fair enough.  |
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So, liquidation will win. He'll say he got X dollars for liquidating the assets, which may or may not be the truth - he won't give the details. It'll be paid out in the form of BTC to the shareholders. We'll never know what assets were actually owned, whether he pocketed some of the money raised by shareholders (which seems fairly likely at this point), whether the assets were liquidated at a fair and reasonable price, or whether he pocketed some of the money raised by liquidating some of the assets. I guess you could demand to see Bill of sale. I mean if it is sold on ebay that leaves a record. If he sells the "equipment" (which may have never been purchased to begin with) to someone on this forum they can confirm it. If he claims he sold it to some anonymous person without any proof well hopefully he gets scammer tag for life. We've been demanding things all along that he has ignored. We've been demanding a list of hardware, detail on purchase price of said hardware, etc. He hasn't given any of that to us, so I doubt he'd comply with a demand to see bill(s) of sale. I agree that he should get scammer tag for life though. UNLESS he actually shows what was purchased on what dates, for how much, and it matches up with the information we already have about shares sold and BTC raised. |
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Nnonce is the ticket. 000000 is the proof
How could someone use a nonce as a ticket? The nonce is created by the miner finding the block, and doesn't require said miner to actually purchase a ticket by sending coins to an address. This makes no sense to me. A simple way of being sure that no-one including the operator can cheat by using the information of the target pattern is to use a pattern that hasn't yet been generated at the time the betting takes place.
The process that generates the value of reference must be random and not easily controllable by any one.
You can use for instance the N last bytes of a future block hash.
Or the hash of the close price of some large stock index.
So what's wrong with simply using last 5 of transaction hash = last 5 of block hash in a future block? |
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So let me get this straight.
Tawsix the scammer still refuses to actually list what hardware has been purchased.
Tawsix the scammer initiated a vote on GLBSE to either liquidate the assets or let someone else take control of them.
Tawsix the scammer has given himself an equal number of shares as have been issued to everyone else, which means that whatever he wants to happen, will happen.
Likely, he'll vote his shares towards liquidating the assets, so no one else has a chance to see them. That vote will win, of course, since he owns half the shares already. The best we could hope for on the absorption front is EVERYONE else votes for it, but it would have to be every single shareholder, and it would only result in a tie. Maybe he gave himself one extra share just so he could be sure he wins the vote.
So, liquidation will win. He'll say he got X dollars for liquidating the assets, which may or may not be the truth - he won't give the details. It'll be paid out in the form of BTC to the shareholders. We'll never know what assets were actually owned, whether he pocketed some of the money raised by shareholders (which seems fairly likely at this point), whether the assets were liquidated at a fair and reasonable price, or whether he pocketed some of the money raised by liquidating some of the assets.
And that is exactly what he wants.
For anyone who still wants to fight him on this, he ILLEGALLY gave himself a larger share of the company. He wrote a contract, then broke that contract by issuing shares to himself that he did not earn according to the terms of the contract, and that is the best point of contention I can find.
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Instead of denominating them, maybe I ought to just put "BITCOIN".
I probably will not vanitygen. It is difficult to vanitygen with mini private keys.
I will probably print only the firstbits and put them in a mini QR code. To me, loading batches efficiently is more important than redeeming a batch quickly. These are meant as giveaways, QR coding the private key is inconsistent with that purpose and also this is a coin - space is quite limited.
Using firstbits is a good idea, though I'm biased. What about just letting the purchaser load them up? If they have the firstbits, it'd be easy enough to quickly type that in, grab the full address, and send 0.1, 0.5 or 1 BTC to it. Then again, people wouldn't know how much was on it just by looking at it, so you couldn't say it was a 10 bitcents coin or a 1 bitcoin coin - they would all be different. |
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why not take time to do some samples and upload them with a watermark that way we know we're getting out moneys worth
You're worried about $0.25? |
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Just thought of something though - a person wouldn't necessarily have to mine x number of blocks in a row in order to "cheat" with this scheme, they just have to find the perfect hash in the future block selected that would match their transaction hash to win the lottery.
Eh, I don't like it. Even basing it on both block hashes and transaction hashes, it's still full of holes and messy as all getout.
You can't find perfect hash without hashing. There is no shortcut. If there was I could find solution to every single block in a millisecond. The only way an attacker can attack the lottery is by mining. When mining against a block you hash a nonce, check it, if valid publish, if not valid try another nonce. On average it takes quadrillions of attempts to find a solution to the block. There is no shortcut. Even if a miner knew that hash x gets him 1000 BTC he can't find x without randomly trying hashes until he finds it. Hashes by definition are one way transactions (something) -> (hash). You can't go (hash)->(something). If you can then SHA-256 is broken and Bitcoin is in serious trouble. Actually.... that's a good point. As long as the entry fee is lower than the block reward, it should be fine. No one is going to throw away a block when they have equal chances of winning just by buying another ticket. The higher the prize the more someone may try cheating by manipulating what blocks they submit. I decided to add real world data from the mega millions lottery to eliminate any cheating for my lottery. Cheating block hashes would be pretty hard though. It would have to be worth the effort as they would be throwing away 50 BTC every time they didn't submit the block AND they would be racing to do it before someone else submitted one. It would be tricky. Not impossible though.
Real-world data is a nice touch. Easily verifiable, indisputable, and no one can modify it. |
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But, a far greater risk is that of people buying "real" casascius coins, peeling off the hologram, stashing the BTC elsewhere, then buying a bunch of these giveaway coins to use the hologram stickers on the "real" coins. Suddenly, a person can't trust any casascius coins, because they have no idea if the person using them has already spent the BTC and simply replaced the hologram.
If I'm wrong, tell me. Maybe there's something I'm missing.
I think the talk is of some different, 'scratch-off' sticker, so the overlap with the fancy coins won't be an issue. I was the one who brought up holograms again, but your point never even crossed my mind. That would create some confusion for sure. Scammers gonna scam, and giving them the tools to do so isn't a good plan. Ok, so both the sticker and the coin are different. Is the gold scratch off sticker not hologrammed? That should be enough difference, IMO, to differentiate the two. Basically, if someone would get confused by a gold scratch-off sticker stuck on a "real" coin, then they'd probably get confused by any random hologram or sticker that a scammer could purchase. |
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After all the feedback, here is what I am thinking.
1. The giveaway coin should perhaps be 1 BTC, so the production costs can be much lower than the face value.
2. I should use the 22-character private key.
3. I should use or provide round gold scratchoff stickers (even if that meant I just threw the stickers in, and you stick them yourself).
I have ordered some sample aluminum coins from the coin minting company to see how well I can engrave on the colored aluminum with the equipment I have available. My belief is that I can go straight from an SQL database to the laser engraver so I can blow out thousands of coins a day - as long as the laser can make an impression on these coins (it won't do jack squat on my brass or gold coins without a coating of chemicals).
Uhhh, bad idea to just provide the hologram as an extra. That ruins your whole security process! A person could order a bunch of these, copy the private keys, then stick the holograms on them and sell them as "unused", when in fact, they are used. Now, you mention that you would be potentially using aluminum for these giveaway coins, which would mitigate the problem of used coins being sold as unused, at least for people who are already familiar with the coins.But, a far greater risk is that of people buying "real" casascius coins, peeling off the hologram, stashing the BTC elsewhere, then buying a bunch of these giveaway coins to use the hologram stickers on the "real" coins. Suddenly, a person can't trust any casascius coins, because they have no idea if the person using them has already spent the BTC and simply replaced the hologram. If I'm wrong, tell me. Maybe there's something I'm missing. FWIW, I would not buy 1 BTC coins for giveaway. Maybe I'm just poorer than the other folks here, but I just don't have that kind of money to spend. I would much prefer smaller coins. Though, again, it depends how much it would cost per coin. |
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I'll take you up on that. Where do I send the coins?
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Yes, if the overhead price was low enough.
Put it this way - I'd buy 10 for 2BTC. Not sure if that's even reasonable because I don't know what your production costs are, but I'd do it for sure at that price, and maybe at a higher price.
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There's a problem with that though - a miner could target a specific nonce number while mining for the block. If they win the block, they also win the lottery!
Good luck with that one! Even if you were deepbit, the nonce is randomly created by all mining software and is not 'forceable'. You would have to write a custom pushpool and custom mining software that would move the 'noncing' into the coinbase or such, and have Thash/s, to even have a whimper of a chance. 256 tickets and the last two digits of the hash then. Oh, I realize the chances are very remote. But everything should be accounted for - every risk should be mitigated, however small. I realize that it is not a big deal with a jackpot of 5 BTC, but for a larger lottery, it should definitely be taken into consideration! I understand your points, opinions, and reasons not to participate. As of now, there are no participants, I actually wish it stays that way, due to the fact that I'm not going to redevelop a system just to have an experiment. I will continue to run the Lottery, to fulfill my obligation. I won't defend myself, my method, or my reason to hold the Lottery.
Good Day sirs.
Hey, I am just trying to help you achieve complete transparency and trust with your lottery! I understand the risks are small with a small jackpot, etc, just wanted to give you some things to think about. I am not meaning to attack the way you want to run your lottery, or tell you that it has to be done one way or the other. How you run it is entirely up to you. |
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Bitcoin has a random number generator that is not falsifiable and is widely available for all to verify. What you do is, say: ticket numbers are 0-499, winning ticket matches the last three digits of the nonce of block 155620 - (2016 blocks from now, should be ~14 days/Nov 30). Subtract -500 from nonce if last three digits over 499. {
"hash":"000000000000052292e0b44756ec93c37d9fa4e974c82b10f205cedfc241986b",
"ver":1,
"prev_block":"0000000000000434485ebbffcde54b1870c9598f2d5e50b3859770282a15d690",
"mrkl_root":"2b537a8fec565e7ff4e1a535becb17f5edee621c01f15bfa3361b0041a43ddf1",
"time":1321483525,
"bits":437129626,
"nonce":958058163,Then people need to actually know what "ticket number" they got, a receipt should be digitally signed by raffle holder and include the number(s) and address that a winning payment would be sent to if won, so any claims of nonpayment can be verified as legitimate. The public key of the raffle holder should be held in an immutable location. Then there is the "I sent payment but never got a ticket", or "raffle holder disappeared". Someone looking to exit the community with some profit could pocket everything and disappear if the the balance is not held in escrow (see mybitcoin.com). There's a problem with that though - a miner could target a specific nonce number while mining for the block. If they win the block, they also win the lottery! |
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