Site: http://www.btcflap.com/

Ref: http://bitcoinwarrior.net/2015/04/btcflap-is-offering-highly-competitive-offer-for-bitcoin-sellers/

It appears they did a paid press release for exposure. Anyone making an offer to pay above market price is almost always going to be a scam. The desperate attempt to sound professional in the press release is another strong indicator of a scam.

...because TRICHED said in a PM something about a list of 1,000,000 sites so I thought it was a list not specific to Bitcoin.  When he sent the actual list it was a researched list just like everyone else's.

Anyway, I offered 1 BTC for research.  I ended up paying out 1.5 BTC for research.  To the people that actually did the work.  /thread

So the final lists I got were:

roslinpl - 100
conteaza - 1100 - list was 1200 but had some dupes
Candystripes - 842
TRICHED - 2965

sinecoin - said only half his list had domain names.  looks like a quick copy and paste from a wiki.  I don't trust the quality and therefore didn't request the actual list.

All of the other lists were good quality.  TRICHED's list was huge but most of the sites were still relevant.

Paid 1.5 BTC total.  5007 URLs = 0.000299581 BTC each.  Proportional payments:

roslinpl - 0.03 BTC to 19tBQCj71a2MCem23xjFgzNvKhcxjgCHwa - https://blockchain.info/tx/463afeedf6c46b25f46b0cbae1bbbae03268812a1ae155236ad9f251e77b3807
conteaza - 0.33 BTC to 15xcKtBDjVU67FkAzfXYzZfPHQ18Mbdy7T - https://blockchain.info/tx/4078b1845ad3fbd8385343860be0312f9f1074510f67fc2a0a2cc9af874edf06
Candystripes - 0.25 BTC to 1CandyPE2zp8TQ55BA9gUP4qgVHzzPdDQ7 - https://blockchain.info/tx/2e3160784c090a2f6b175b2a18597b9433d317d7c1cfc8516a0943d0562f626d
TRICHED - 0.89 BTC to 16kXabXYDdNK6VhV8wKnh6fWYmLEazpJRE - https://blockchain.info/tx/da49eee85386263cf0287b6ae2e26294f00937faca185d5f628e271bc9c1f621

And if anyone is going to complain about the payments not matching the OP (even though I added 0.5 BTC and divided up the payments as fairly as possible), realize that if I'd stuck to the OP the only person eligible would be Gianluca95 since he was the first to claim the job, and no one else would have gotten anything.  Adjusting the payments to match the situation was the best option.

For the sake of transparency, here's what I've gotten so far:

roslinpl - received list of 100 - good quality (not just betting sites)
sinecoin - received list of 337 titles - I need to verify his list has domain names

Candystripes1 - received sample of 279 - I need to verify if the total is 279 or 1,000
Candystripes2 - received list of 563 - good quality

Triched - received list of 527 titles - I need to verify his list has domain names and if 527 is the total number

conteaza - said he has a list of 1,200 - I requested a sample to determine quality and diversity among the categories

So far all of the lists look like they are good quality and diversity.  Once I get the questions answered I'll divide up the 1.5 BTC proportionally and send payments.  Hopefully today if everyone answers my PMs.

And for that guy expressing dissatisfaction: a) a forum is a terrible method to hire people but it's the best we have, and b) I was expecting one person to claim the job and everyone else would see that someone had claimed it and not start working on it.  But more people replied and said they were already starting to work on it, so I feel obligated to divide the payment up and even added an extra 0.5 BTC to the total amount.  Best I can do.

Ok, these people were the first ones to claim the job:

Gianluca95
roslinpl
conteaza
Candystripes

So no one else should start working on it now.  I can't offer everyone the full amounts listed in the OP, but I'll divide up 1.5 BTC as fairly as I can based on the results submitted.

For those four, whenever you have a completed list, please send a decent-sized sample by PM and the total number of sites, and we can agree on an amount for the full list.  The bounty isn't large enough to justify the effort to escrow.  Please review my posting history to see that I've paid for work here in the past without escrow.

Need someone to gather a list of URLs of Bitcoin (and altcoin) related sites.  Such as:

- Mining pools
- Exchanges
- Mining hardware vendors
- Community forums
- Official coin sites
- Software (Electrum etc.)
- Betting sites
- News sites
- Bitcoin shops
- Paper wallet sites
- Web wallets

Old or new, even pretty much dead is ok as long as they are still online.  I need as many as you can get.  Completeness is more important than accuracy.  So if 10% of them are not actually Bitcoin related that is fine.

Just scraping URLs from wiki.bitcoin.it or coinmarketcap.com isn't enough.  I could do that myself.  I need someone who will be thorough.  Scraping URLs from bitcointalk.org and trimming them down to relevant ones is one potentially good option.

Payment is based on number of relevant URLs and diversity of types from the list above.  A list of just official coin sites or just exchanges or just mining pools isn't that useful, I need sites of all types.

Best case scenario is a list of 1000+ relevant URLs spanning all types.  That is worth 1 BTC.  I'll even throw in a bit more if it's a really great list that I can tell somebody spent a lot of time and attention on.  For other lists payment is 100 URLs = 0.1 BTC so:

300: 0.3 BTC
500: 0.5 BTC
1000+: 1 BTC

The format of the list is just domain names or full URLs:

https://cryptsy.com
cex.io
nxtcoin.org
http://www.ghash.io
...

I'm not always the quickest to reply so if you feel this is your type of job just post a comment below claiming it and get started!

Brilliant!  Much easier to use now.  I can already tell this is going to replace pywallet as the go-to tool for working with wallets.

I sent you 1 BTC at 16xe1bCgnDLe27FAWHb4pmKzjiEWzMxLG8.  My list below contains some things not in the OP so I'll bump up the total to 2.0 BTC (1.0 BTC left) if these are added.

• --wallet: Can we get rid of the need to type --wallet?  Instead just use the first non-option parameter as the wallet file, i.e. wi.py --is-encrypted somewallet.dat
•   Note/warning/error formats: For any note/warning/error, let's follow these rules:
    
  • Notes start with NOTE:, warnings start with WARN:, errors start with ERR:
  • Always go to stderr instead of stdout
  • Always one line
  • For any command that requires decrypting the wallet (e.g. --list-keys, --list-private-keys) and an incorrect or missing passphrase is provided, continue running the operation but output <Encrypted> wherever an unencrypted private key would normally appear
•   Note/warning/error conditions:  These are the places I can think of where a message is needed now:
    
  • WARN: whenever a command requires decrypting the wallet and an incorrect/missing passphrase is provided (except for --test-passphrase since that is the whole point of the command)
  • NOTE: whenever a command requires decrypting the wallet, the wallet is encrypted, and the correct passphrase is provided
  • NOTE: when the wallet is unencrypted and a passphrase is provided
  • ERR: whenever the script encounters an error condition during processing it should output an ERR line and keep going if possible.  Ideally only one line will be output and not a traceback/debug dump unless a --debug type option is provided.  If a traceback/dump is output though it should go to stderr.
  • ERR: when --determine-coin is used but the coin is unknown (even if the script knows the "otherversion" still output an ERR since we don't know the coin name.  So the output would be ERR to stderr and Unknown,123 to stdout where 123 is the otherversion)
• --balances: This is the major change and why I'm adding the 0.5 BTC since this may take some work.  For BTC, LTC, and any other currency that blockr.io supports, use their multi-request API in order to get multiple balances at once.  You can pass up to 20 addresses at a time (I think it's 20) and that will greatly speed up --balances.
• --balances: For other non-blockr.io currencies, can the script re-use the existing connection to the web server instead of closing and starting a new request?  That should help the speed too.
• --balances: Currently if a lookup fails for one address the script stops.  Instead it should output an ERR line and output the public key with "Error" as the balance and keep going.
• --list-public-keys, --balances: Add an --include-contacts option.  When this is provided the public keys/balances for addresses in the contact list will be included in the output too.  No label is needed, the addresses from the contact list should appear in the output the same way as local addresses.
• --balances: VTC addresses that have not been seen on the network are reported as having a balance of 7.0 by the script.  It should report 0.
•     Blackcoin/Ultracoin/Mintcoin: Any command I run on Blackcoin/Ultracoin/Mintcoin wallets gives this error message:
      

[/li]

Actually, I figured out what is causing the problem.  I'm using VirtualBox and the wallet files are on a shared drive, and for some reason BSDDB can't work with that directory.  All other tools I've used can read/write fine to it, they treat it just like any other directory.  My suggested fix will actually fix two issues:

- Suggested fix: Create a temporary working directory in /tmp, do the operation, remove the directory.

This addresses the issue with the shared drive and also fixes the issue that currently lots of __db.00X files are left behind in the directory after the script finishes.  If you can do the operation using the temporary directory and leaving the wallet file in its current place, that is best.  If you need to have the wallet file in the temporary directory, then copying it over would be ok.

And please send me your Bitcoin address so I can send you half now.  I've been slow to test but I want to make sure you know I'm good for the BTC and to keep you motivated to make these fixes.

Great.  I might not have time to test for a while, so please send me your BTC address and I'll send 0.75 BTC now and the rest after I test.

In the one test I did I got an error message:


Tried it with a couple wallet files and got the same error.  The user has read/write permission to the directory.  I have the python-crypto package installed.

Hi cointra,

I can't test it easily or fully because it uses pywallet's strange and broken --datadir.  The script needs to be able to work by providing just the path to a wallet file, no --datadir option.  Also pywallet's implementation only opens files named "wallet.dat", even if you specify a different file.  The script should be able to handle a wallet with any filename.  If it requires a working directory it should handle that internally.

• --list-keys: The format of the public and private keys should be the "usual" format.  For the public key, that is the format shown in the client and block explorers (i.e. 1GoK6fv4tZKXFiWL9NuHiwcwsi8JAFiwGK).  For the private key, it should be the format used by the client's "dumpprivkey" and "importprivkey" commands.  For long term planning perhaps adding a --format option where the default is the "usual" format would be a good way to go.
• --list-keys: When I do --list-keys (or pretty much any other command) the script needs to output the warning/notice about the encryption status as the first line of stdout.  See the OP for details.
• --is-encrypted: This is outputting "Encrypted" even for wallets I'm sure are unencrypted.  I haven't been able to get it to say "Unencrypted" yet.
• --is-encrypted: When I ran this on a newly created encrypted Blackcoin wallet I got this error:
  

[/li]

• --test-passphrase: Same error as above.
• --list-contacts: The labels should be in double quotes.  If there is no label for an address, output "".
• --balances: I tested with a Zetacoin wallet and it gave an error for each address: "Error reading balance for address".  The URL in the script returns a 404 when I visit it in my browser.
• --explore-url: Should be named --explorer-url.  Also it output "None" as the last line.  Not sure why that was, but each line should either be a URL or an error message.

This list of issues doesn't represent a full thorough test.  The inconvenience of the --datadir/wallet.dat filename issue was enough that I only tried a few different wallet files.  Once that issue is fixed I'll do a more complete test of all features with more wallets.

And despite the list of issues, I do think the tool is coming along well.  It seems like it has the core routines it needs, it just needs to be polished for user friendliness.

Thanks cointra!  I'll be able to check it out in detail in this weekend and will post any feedback here.

Bounty raised to 1.5 BTC!  +0.25 BTC bonus.  See main thread for details.

Now raised the bounty to 1.5 BTC (+0.25 BTC bonus)!  That's pretty reasonable I think.  $660-$770 at current price of $440/BTC.  And it's a pretty fun project that will be widely used after you make it!

Any takers?  All the info you should need is in the OP.  Just get started, maybe put it up on Github during development and take my money!

Anyone else want to contribute to the bounty?  If so state the amount in the thread.

So the exchange that many have been using for transferring to these cards via SEPA is going to start requiring ID verification after May 30th.  The exchange is the one with the initials TRT.  So get your money out now if you like your privacy!  The details are in the exchange's news section:


Also a question for mateo: in this situation would there be a currency conversion fee (assuming MB/WK USD card):

USD on exchange -> SEPA in USD -> Withdraw from ATM in USD

Edit: Also for mateo: would it be possible to set up a private thread somewhere that only your customers could access?  That way we could discuss which exchanges to use and the best ways to stay anonymous more openly.

Just like the subject says, Blockchain.info is now blocking access from Tor exit nodes.  It used to be 1 out of 25 nodes would be blocked, now it's 1 out of 25 that is allowed.  It's clear they've made the decision to block access from Tor.

So much for a simple anonymous online wallet.

All of sunny1's postings (at least the most recent few pages) are either pro bitcoin-trader.biz or anti btc-arbs.com.  It's a shill account.


Each of SirSwatch's 4 postings are about bitcoin-trader.biz and each encourages people to reinvest their earnings.  In two of the postings he's encouraging people to invest up to $50,000 and collect money from friends and family to invest.  Another shill account.

If it's not obvious to you by now that is this a ponzi, frankly you deserve to lose the money you invest.  At least it will be a lesson for next time.  I'll leave you with this:

None of my information was incorrect.  Point by point:


That's why I asked if anyone got their principal back.  Ponzi schemes can always pay out small amounts as long as new investors are joining.  Paying everyone back their full account balance is what a ponzi can't do, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the site follows this pattern.  Paying small amounts is a great way to make people think they are actually making money and spread the word.  In the real world the ponzi operator would send fake statements (too expensive to write checks every day).  In the Bitcoin world it's easy enough to actually send the daily "earnings".


If it were a real fund you would get compounded returns.  Any fund manager getting 1% returns per day would obviously reinvest the profits.  The fact that the monthly returns reported on the site are the sum of the daily returns  shows how fake the numbers are.  Imagine you were the fund manager and every day you made 1%.  If the fund was 100BTC that means you'd be making 1BTC per day, so that by the end of the month you'd have 20BTC in profits.  The non-compounded interest reported by the site means the fund manager would just be letting those earnings site idle instead of reinvesting them.  No way would that happen in a real fund.  (And yes some earnings are withdrawn daily, but not all of them).


I don't know what this means.  Are you suggesting the fund is returning consistent 1% daily returns on your USD investment?  Despite the fact that it's a BTC/altcoin trading fund and the price of BTC fluctuates wildly?  If the returns are denominated in USD that just makes the whole idea even more ridiculous.


Ok, so it's only 2000% APY instead of 3778% APY.  And again they claim these absurd returns come from manual trading.  In a fully electronic market.  That has had aggressive automated arbitraging for years.  Right.

In summary: if it sounds too good to be true, it is.

Site: http://bitcoin-trader.biz
Profile: xephyr (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=154893)
Self-moderated thread (negative posts are deleted): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=518602
Open thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=393570

xephyr says he's just a user of the site, but when you look at his posts you can see he spends lots of time making them and sounds just like a company representative would.  He provides daily updates on returns with charts and images and whatnot.   I don't think an ordinary user would take that much time and effort just for a few referral clicks.  An ordinary user also wouldn't start a self-moderated thread and delete negative replies that point out how the site is a ponzi scheme.

Regardless of whether xephyr is the site operator, the site is a classic ponzi/HYIP.

First warning sign:

The 6 month difference is important because it implies that people had previously been paid back their principle after the lockup period ended.  Since the site actually started in October 2013 or later, zero or few lockup periods have ended.

An analysis of the claimed returns:

So I originally posted this in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=518602.0;topicseen  But of course it was deleted since the pumper is self-moderating the thread.

Has anyone actually received their principal back from this?  20% per month = double your money in 5 months.  Madoff promised 0.83% per month using magical arbitrage strategies and the smart people knew that couldn't be real.

What is the total size of the trading fund?  If you're doing arbitrage with your $1,000 account I could see a 20% return being possible.  But arbitrage opportunities do not scale.  There is a limited amount of arbitrage available in the market and lots of people competing to get it.  And according to bitcoin-trader.biz they are doing manual trading.  How could it be possible for them to get the large amount of arbitrage profits they'd need for those level of returns, especially when they are at a huge disadvantage to automated traders?

Plus they are reporting returns of around 1% per day.  That's a 3778% APY when compounded daily (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-yield_investment_program).  If they were getting those kinds of returns they wouldn't need to take anybody else's money.  1 BTC invested at those rates in April 2013 would be worth 4,100,974,661,233,895 BTC today.  Or you know, 300,000,000 times the total supply of Bitcoins.

I'm calling it: PONZI

And also:

Some people here seem to have such little experience with the real world.  Let me summarize for you:

- The founders are (according to general opinion) well known and respected members of the community.  They are traders and coin devs and write a lot of articles on altcoins and so on.  They've been around for a long time and understand how things work.

- They want to create a company (investment fund) and they have some general ideas of what activities they would do to increase the value of the company (fund).

This happens all the time in the real world.  Once someone has become a well-known and respected member of an industry, someone who has held executive positions in successful companies in that industry, they can get investment money just based on who they are.  Look at Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams and Biz Stone.  They created Xanga, Blogger, and Odeo.  They had a reputation as being successful at coming up with new ideas and turning them into profitable companies.  When they had some vague idea about creating a new type of communication platform investors threw money at them.  The idea didn't matter, they were investing in the people not the idea.  They had investors lining up before they wrote a single line of code.  The idea of course was Twitter.  And since that has been successful Williams and Dorsey have gotten investment for other companies just on their reputation and past success.

Or to put it another way, if Justin Timberlake wanted to start a record label but didn't have any artists to sign yet would you invest?  If the senior trader at Goldman Sachs left to start a hedge fund but didn't know what his trading strategy was going to be would you invest?

Decide for yourself if the QTM founders are people you respect and trust and think can put together a profitable altcoin fund.  But to call it a scam because they don't have a 100% road map of exactly what they're going to do is silly.  You're investing in the people not the idea.