Something strange I noticed today. I had sent a transaction with a 10,000 satoshi/KB fee a while ago to consolidate many small inputs (https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/tx/6c3dca0b37f69a154b7bd61a5c9b2613c3777e37c565d4801460f26d28158c3f). With the transaction fees being as high as they are currently, I wasn't expecting it to confirm anytime soon. However, to my surprise it was confirmed today by Bitfury even though the current transaction fees haven't been lower than 200,000/KB for a while now.

I am not complaining but I wonder if Bitfury (and maybe some other miners too) are confirming low fee transactions to fill up their blocks (so that nothing looks suspicious) while letting high fee transactions accumulate in the mempool and thus raising the fee estimates higher?

Recently I have started asking users who win $20 and $200 at FreeBitco.in to start posting about their wins in the forum for a small reward in addition to their prize. To keep the place clean, I'll be asking them to post it in this thread. Since FreeBitco.in has a lot more users than this forum, these posts might be from newbies but I have also asked them to post their winning seeds and a screenshot of their win to get the reward. Hopefully we get a lot more people posting about their wins now!

Just a warning to faucet collectors - please do not withdraw dust amounts to your wallet. Either set a high threshold in your micropayment caches before withdrawing or accumulate your balance in faucets before withdrawing. If you withdraw dust, you will end up with transactions like these when trying to spend your coins:

https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/tx/050a818311ace31976b5dfab0ca260a2dfbaeaefc33fef027677a4717e598aae

[What happened::]

What happened::
I have bought about $1,500 worth of AWS codes from (Worldwide) in the past without any issues. This time, he asked me for 0.51873796 BTC to deliver an AWS code. After I paid, he said that he would not be able to deliver the code and asked me for an address to send the refund. I sent him an address (1NMQTkSAfWRWBJUff6nV1CP44HWP9iqQuR) but the refund never came. It has been over 48 hours, he usually replies within an hour or two.

Scammers Profile Link:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=877816

Amount Scammed:
0.51873796 BTC

Payment Method:
BTC

Proof of Payment:
https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/tx/6614589890d21296d43115969efbf2f623077c0b38686507ccbf03ea2b432e88

Additional Notes:
I will delete this thread if he either gives me a refund or a code as promised. I believe I also have his real name and email address which I will also post if he does not settle in 48 hours from now. I will also be sending him a link to this thread.

I would appreciate it if some default trust users could tag him.

I need somebody who can develop a full set of animated banner ads for my 2 websites - freebitco.in and freedoge.co.in. Banner sizes that I need are : 468x60, 728x90, 120x600, 160x600, 300x250.

Please post your price and examples of your previous work here.

[FreeBitco.in]

Hello all
I am the operator of FreeBitco.in and I have made http://FreeDoge.co.in which is a Dogecoin faucet with a gambling component, where you can win upto $200 in free dogecoins every hour and then play a HI-LO game with your won DOGE to win upto 100x.

The minimum payout is only 5 DOGE and you can request it any time and the coins will be sent to your wallet within 24 hours.

I would appreciate any suggestions or feedback that you may have.

Thanks!

[We received your deposit transfer. However, as it meets some of our volume and frequency thresholds, we kindly ask you to please help us better understand the nature of your relationship with Bitstamp.In order to do so, we are starting this additional KYC (know your customer) procedure which we must successfully complete before we can proceed with the processing of your transfer.We kindly ask you to please answer the following KYC questionnaire:1. How did you learn about Bitcoin?2. What is the purpose of your trading on Bitstamp? Please describe in as much detail as possible how you intend to use your trading account.3. Which banks are you intend to use? Please provide the complete addresses and SWIFT codes.4. Estimated amount that you would be depositing/withdrawing to/from your Bitstamp account per month (in USD and BTC)?5. What type of trading will you conduct? Buying/selling/both? Estimated trade volume per month?6. What is the source of the funds which you have so far deposited to your Bitstamp account? Please provide any financial documentation which can confirm how the funds sent to your Bitstamp account were acquired.If you have any questions in the meantime, please feel free to ask.]

So, I have been a long time user of Bitstamp and buy a fairly large amount of coins from them each month. This time around though, after I sent them a SEPA deposit of 5,000 EUR, I was hit with this message.

We received your deposit transfer. However, as it meets some of our volume and frequency thresholds, we kindly ask you to please help us better understand the nature of your relationship with Bitstamp.

In order to do so, we are starting this additional KYC (know your customer) procedure which we must successfully complete before we can proceed with the processing of your transfer.

We kindly ask you to please answer the following KYC questionnaire:

1. How did you learn about Bitcoin?
2. What is the purpose of your trading on Bitstamp? Please describe in as much detail as possible how you intend to use your trading account.
3. Which banks are you intend to use? Please provide the complete addresses and SWIFT codes.
4. Estimated amount that you would be depositing/withdrawing to/from your Bitstamp account per month (in USD and BTC)?
5. What type of trading will you conduct? Buying/selling/both? Estimated trade volume per month?
6. What is the source of the funds which you have so far deposited to your Bitstamp account? Please provide any financial documentation which can confirm how the funds sent to your Bitstamp account were acquired.

If you have any questions in the meantime, please feel free to ask.

So, basically they are holding my money hostage unless I answer their extremely stupid and irrelevant questions. I find this to be highly unethical. If I had reached some threshold, why could they not send me these questions once I had hit it instead of sending it after I send them a deposit ?

I have sent them answers to their dumb questions but I shall be taking my business elsewhere in the future (Kraken by the looks of it).

I have only ever bought coins using them and have not withdrawn any fiat from their platform. I guess anybody who does a lot of buying via their platform should expect the same.

[http://freebitco.in]

This is an auction for 3 ad spots on http://freebitco.in for 1 week. This auction will end in 7 days from now.
The is very new faucet/free dice website and has grown massively in the span of a few days and will only grow further.

Google Analytics : http://freebitco.in/GA.pdf
Live Website Stats : http://freebitco.in/?op=stats

The three ad slots are :

Top Leaderboard
Left Skyscraper
Right Skyscraper

You can view these ad slots by visiting the website.

The starting bid for each ad slot for 1 week is 0.5BTC

To place a valid bid, post the ad slot that you want and your bid amount.

Auction ends in :



I shall update the Analytics pdf regularly.

Thank you!

Does anybody know if blockchain.info imposes some kind of hourly limit on its wallets, on the number of payments you can make ?

For example, today I sent 75 payments in a single transaction and after that trying to send 75 more gave me the following error :

{"error":"com.google.bitcoin.core.AddressFormatException: Illegal character O at 28"}

However I could send 50 in the next try. Then after 50 I tried to send another 50 but again got the above error. The same thing kept hapenning again and again and eventually I got the error when trying to send 10 payments. I waited a couple of hours and tried again and the 10 payments went through.

This made me feel like blockchain imposes some limit on the number of payments you can send per hour, even if they are combined in a single transaction.

No transaction was above 2 kb at any point and I sent more than enough transaction fees with each.