[update#2] Gullibility level = max, story of 1000BTC giveaway and some fun stats

[Coding Enthusiast]

“Gullibility is a failure of social intelligence in which a person is easily tricked or manipulated into an ill-advised course of action. It is closely related to credulity, which is the tendency to believe unlikely propositions that are unsupported by evidence.”

as you may know, on 3 August 2016 there was a post on bitcointalk [1] and reddit [2] by someone saying he will giveaway 1000BTC to a random lucky user who posts his address.

in bitcoin it is easy to provide a public proof of owning the address*:

Address: 1BfxSuxJqXuizBbTcP238JZY9DT4eqvzJG
Message: bitcointalk rekcahxfb 1470232659
Signature: HItHu5HG+WAsqESx8vA3U7G/OHtTk1Gz9cy2qHmF2hSjI+d71Qs5zNlt1zvB3F/hFBXsy5vAjDFUC3rPQb2QVUY=

if you don't know what 1470232659 means, it is Unix Time Stamp and it converts to 08/03/2016 @ 1:57pm (UTC)

this little topic caused a massive surge of alt accounts on bitcointalk. the topic was closed on 4 Aug by mods.

now here is the funny part, rekcahxfb starter of the giveaway topic had a password reset via email and then the first post was edited and it was now asking for 0.001BTC entry fee to a new address and this little trick has already gotten 781 victims by the time of writing this or (balance is auto-update)edit:this went up to 0.9BTC.

and also the other funny part is, some people decided to gull themselves and started to send 0.001BTC to the original address, generating a nice revenue for the owner or owners of the two said addresses. (auto-update balance for the original address) it is about half a bitcoin profit!

i post this since the entrance is already ended [3] and i am curious how this thing is going to turn out to be and which bitcoin address is going to be the recipient of the 1000BTC and also the ~1.3BTC gulled deposits. lets follow the coins

1) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1574127.0
2) https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4vykkr/1000_btc_giveaway_from_your_friend_rekcahxfb/
* this reminds of the Gullibility level of people back when Craig Wright claimed to be Satoshi without providing any normal proof. you see how easy it is to prove you own a bitcoin address!
3) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1581290.0

update 1 (8/12/2016)
the coins are on the move  
original 1000, secondary transaction
update 2
the alleged winner was on the forum with another name before: profile and  laundering money in form of loans!

[unamis76]

i post this since the entrance is already ended [3] and i am curious how this thing is going to turn out to be and which bitcoin address is going to be the recipient of the 1000BTC and also the ~1.3BTC gulled deposits. lets follow the coins

None, or the Eater address if the timed transaction has been made correctly.

[Coding Enthusiast]

i post this since the entrance is already ended [3] and i am curious how this thing is going to turn out to be and which bitcoin address is going to be the recipient of the 1000BTC and also the ~1.3BTC gulled deposits. lets follow the coins

None, or the Eater address if the timed transaction has been made correctly.

the eater transaction with the lock_time is indeed correct and the input (cc3e582bc673e8aaf9cd98a3ceccda966a9d93bd7bc3c0edc1d59dfef5fd050b) is still unspent.

Code:

{
   "lock_time":425000,
   "size":223,
   "inputs":[
      {
         "prev_out":{
            "index":1,
            "hash":"cc3e582bc673e8aaf9cd98a3ceccda966a9d93bd7bc3c0edc1d59dfef5fd050b"
         },
         "script":"47304402204506f42bc2ed8920e719c7f5da77f01c81dfa0e0873869d9be067af12706f00602206967c1018bd33528e73438c13ac2664eec7c7e1d6a743652ec96681897017f25014104c5eb97c372d1666166497a9f8937c7f351fe679977e0b04ff304596a4f1f984c95b1458fec741e1b414dc5c3a6adb6c75fc4a370952d08e59197e94e7eced185"
      }
   ],
   "version":1,
   "vin_sz":1,
   "hash":"b9aa02d992ecc9997c8e27e0d0fe81d17a73c5b903e1dd29d082b3e71e5be9d2",
   "vout_sz":1,
   "out":[
      {
         "script_string":"OP_DUP OP_HASH160 759d6677091e973b9e9d99f19c68fbf43e3f05f9 OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG",
         "address":"1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE",
         "value":100000000000,
         "script":"76a914759d6677091e973b9e9d99f19c68fbf43e3f05f988ac"
      }
   ]
}

but it doesn't mean that input is going to stay unspent forever. it can be spend before block 424900 with 100 blocks room to work with

[unamis76]

i post this since the entrance is already ended [3] and i am curious how this thing is going to turn out to be and which bitcoin address is going to be the recipient of the 1000BTC and also the ~1.3BTC gulled deposits. lets follow the coins

None, or the Eater address if the timed transaction has been made correctly.

the eater transaction with the lock_time is indeed correct and the input (cc3e582bc673e8aaf9cd98a3ceccda966a9d93bd7bc3c0edc1d59dfef5fd050b) is still unspent.

Code:

{
   "lock_time":425000,
   "size":223,
   "inputs":[
      {
         "prev_out":{
            "index":1,
            "hash":"cc3e582bc673e8aaf9cd98a3ceccda966a9d93bd7bc3c0edc1d59dfef5fd050b"
         },
         "script":"47304402204506f42bc2ed8920e719c7f5da77f01c81dfa0e0873869d9be067af12706f00602206967c1018bd33528e73438c13ac2664eec7c7e1d6a743652ec96681897017f25014104c5eb97c372d1666166497a9f8937c7f351fe679977e0b04ff304596a4f1f984c95b1458fec741e1b414dc5c3a6adb6c75fc4a370952d08e59197e94e7eced185"
      }
   ],
   "version":1,
   "vin_sz":1,
   "hash":"b9aa02d992ecc9997c8e27e0d0fe81d17a73c5b903e1dd29d082b3e71e5be9d2",
   "vout_sz":1,
   "out":[
      {
         "script_string":"OP_DUP OP_HASH160 759d6677091e973b9e9d99f19c68fbf43e3f05f9 OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG",
         "address":"1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE",
         "value":100000000000,
         "script":"76a914759d6677091e973b9e9d99f19c68fbf43e3f05f988ac"
      }
   ]
}

but it doesn't mean that input is going to stay unspent forever. it can be spend before block 424900 with 100 blocks room to work with

Fair point! It's isn't going to be given away, as far as we can tell for now.

[Coding Enthusiast]

update:
rekcahxfb choose an alleged winner on Reddit and sent the prize of 1000BTC to this address: 1NYT1f6Mbty6iZiHPQtM5fDSmSKk6e2HKN

the winner is user called TheTwistedTwo with this entry, a reddit account for 3 months but with no prior activity and/or karma (even if you delete your reddit posts your karma remains)

a different type of speculation about this on reddit

the coins are on the move 
original 1000, secondary transaction

the question remains, was this a Troll attempt? or was it a stupid and not useful way of laundering?

[pinkflower]

That is funny. It is also very surprising to me that there were a lot of people who thought that this was real. Anyway I do not know what kind of sick mind would play around with ordinary people's gullibility like that. Maybe it is his idea of a joke.

[ethereumhunter]

maybe the winner is just himself   or another person who close with him. in my opinion, there are person which will give you 1000 btc for free, especially that giveaway need to send 0.001 to get chance to be a winner. but i don't know about the truth, just curious about that giveaway.

[Herbert2020]

this has certainly attracted a lot of attention because of the size of the transaction involved in this so called giveaway. it is nearly $600,000 !

my guess is that it was laundering. but i can't think of any reason why do it this way when there is a lot easier and more anonymous ways of doing it.

[Senor.Bla]

to be fair one should make one distinction.
those who paid a fee and those who did not.

most users expected this to be BS, but "entering" did not cost anything (not talking about the group who paid a fee).
all you had to do was invest maybe 1 minute to create a new paper wallet and post it. 0 risk.
even if the chances were slim, that it maybe is just a rich kid or whatever, they where probably still better than playing the lottery and also without cost. so why not.

and the other group who paid an entering fee made most likely a dumb mistake but a cheap one and hopefully will learn from it.
i just hope nobody was doing faucets for the whole year just to blow the full earnings on the fee. 

[NorrisK]

maybe the winner is just himself   or another person who close with him. in my opinion, there are person which will give you 1000 btc for free, especially that giveaway need to send 0.001 to get chance to be a winner. but i don't know about the truth, just curious about that giveaway.

Ofcourse he sent it to himself. Nobody is going to give away a 1000 bitcoin to a random user, no matter how wealthy they are. It was probably just an effort at gloating how many bitcoins he owned.

It also shows how desperate people are around here, creating tons of fake accounts to increase their chance of winning. Also shows why any bounties using only a bitcointalk account, or even facebook and twitter are easily created to gain multiple entries.

[gentlemand]

this has certainly attracted a lot of attention because of the size of the transaction involved in this so called giveaway. it is nearly $600,000 !

my guess is that it was laundering. but i can't think of any reason why do it this way when there is a lot easier and more anonymous ways of doing it.

It's a pretty bizarre way to attempt to launder anything. Why would you announce it with great fanfare with publicly posted addresses?

I've no idea what was going on but it was a fine demonstration of the gullibility and greed that flourishes here.

[mobnepal]

maybe the winner is just himself   or another person who close with him. in my opinion, there are person which will give you 1000 btc for free, especially that giveaway need to send 0.001 to get chance to be a winner. but i don't know about the truth, just curious about that giveaway.

Yes there is no doubt that the winner is actually alternative account of himself on reddit which was inactive for months and only post on this giveaway post. All he got was those 0.001 entry fee from each participant and i think this totals 7 extra bitcoin for him.

[pereira4]

I have thought since day one that this is the scammer sending bitcoins to himself to try to remove incrimination off himself, then he will run the stuff through mixers and try to get the trace removed.

[talkbitcoin]

I have thought since day one that this is the scammer sending bitcoins to himself to try to remove incrimination off himself, then he will run the stuff through mixers and try to get the trace removed.

that may be true but the question is why did he go through this much pain in the ass to run this scheme? what was the point, if you wanted to run it though a mixer and hide the tracks why not do it directly, and what is the point of giving it to an alt account and then run it through a mixer?!

[eternalgloom]

I just find it strange that he chose 1000 BTC to do a "giveaway" with, I would have thought that people would be far more sceptical since it was such a big amount.
That leads me to believe it might have been some sort of (stupid) way to 'wash' coins gotten by some illegal practices.

[unamis76]

I guess he's back to the forums too... What a weird story, lol.

[Coding Enthusiast]

update #2
the alleged winner who deleted his Reddit previous posts has a bitcointalk account too which is active on the forum and has been offering loans [1] and he confirms it too. [2]

probably to launder money! deposit to this address comes from here with 79.92BTC. not fool proof but still!


[1] https://archive.is/c3pOF
[2] https://archive.is/qjhTk

[The Sceptical Chymist]

maybe the winner is just himself   or another person who close with him. in my opinion, there are person which will give you 1000 btc for free, especially that giveaway need to send 0.001 to get chance to be a winner. but i don't know about the truth, just curious about that giveaway.

Ofcourse he sent it to himself. Nobody is going to give away a 1000 bitcoin to a random user, no matter how wealthy they are. It was probably just an effort at gloating how many bitcoins he owned.

It also shows how desperate people are around here, creating tons of fake accounts to increase their chance of winning. Also shows why any bounties using only a bitcointalk account, or even facebook and twitter are easily created to gain multiple entries.

Don't know if this is a measure of desperation as much as the level of gambling degeneracy which is seen so often on bitcointalk.  And greed.

And I agree with above, no way is anyone sending 1000 btc to anyone other than himself.

[tobacco123]

I was one of them who submitted my address (just as a bookmark) but I never believe he will really going to give away his fortune.

If he is really so generous, there are some many charity organizations waiting for donations. Even a 10 BTC will make a real difference in many of these organizations that are helping the poor. He could have helped 100s of them.