Someone is sending out 0.001 BTC's to hundreds of random people. Who and why?

[AliceWonder]

Could it be an encoded message, where they mined the blockchain for addresses that had letters in the right place to make their message?

[yona]

That would be s
Super elaborate and expensive

[Inedible]

Better to be paranoid, than an idiot. So your hypothesis is, that someone sent 0.001 BTC * 1000 = 1 BTC = ~80 USD to random strangers just "for lulz". Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

I know. It's a ridiculous suggestion.

Next they'll be telling us someone spent 10,000 Bitcoin on a pizza lol

[AliceWonder]

It only cost $80 (or whatever) if they were the sender's coins to begin with.

If from stolen private keys, it didn't cost them anything.

Think about it - what better way is there to get back at your ex than to send their bitcoins to a bunch of random people.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

I think it's a probe to test and see which new addresses are associated with that old one; when you spend that 0.001 BTC along with some of your other inputs they will become linked and they'll know that the same person that owned that old change address owns some other inputs that might not be otherwise associated with it. You could delete that change key from your wallet, or first import it somewhere else -- maybe redeem it on mtgox or something and thus foil their scheme :p

I had just the same thought.

But once coin control is incorporated in the mainline client, this no longer will be a problem. Then you will be able to select which exactly coins you send to what address.

[jhansen858]

Dude, seriously? You are one paranoid guy, earlier you thought somebody who needed their wallet password bruteforced was trying to start a media scare, and now this?

This happens all the time, anyone can send anyone BTC for any reason, scripts go haywire, people copy & paste the wrong address, people send money "for lulz" and as someone else pointed out, to probe addresses to see if their alive, or to see if they spend that BTC in a joint transaction so that they can see other addresses that the person owns.

People come here all the time with wallets that need bruteforcing or to ask about money they randomly received, they're two very common threads, use the search or just browse the forum and you'll see.

Damn dude whats wrong with you? Take your meds.

Nice try NSA... Shake your fist and say the words out loud,  "And I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids"

[jhansen858]

Dude, seriously? You are one paranoid guy, earlier you thought somebody who needed their wallet password bruteforced was trying to start a media scare, and now this?

This happens all the time, anyone can send anyone BTC for any reason, scripts go haywire, people copy & paste the wrong address, people send money "for lulz" and as someone else pointed out, to probe addresses to see if their alive, or to see if they spend that BTC in a joint transaction so that they can see other addresses that the person owns.

People come here all the time with wallets that need bruteforcing or to ask about money they randomly received, they're two very common threads, use the search or just browse the forum and you'll see.

Damn dude whats wrong with you? Take your meds.

Better to be paranoid, than an idiot. So your hypothesis is, that someone sent 0.001 BTC * 1000 = 1 BTC = ~80 USD to random strangers just "for lulz". Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

The hypothesis that it was done to probe and track addresses actually makes a lot of sense, but it is also scary, because if that is true, then it means that someone is willing to spend ~80 USD just to be able to potentially track ~1000 of bitcoin addresses.

Am I paranoid, for pointing out, that even the ddos of mtgox was called "Bitcoin was hacked" in mass-media?
Am I paranoid, for pointing out, how much FUD and anti-bitcoin propaganda is in mass-media?
Am I paranoid, for believing, that since mass-media loves spreading anti-bitcoin propaganda, and has called ddos of one bitcoin exchange as "Bitcoin hacking", that they will also call bruteforcing of a bitcoin wallet as "Bitcoin hacking"?

I could easily see this as an experiment by someone to see how much you really can track in the block chain just by "tagging" addresses. 

[hashman]

I'm not sure I follow the "address probe" reasoning. 
Don't change addresses on the block chain already have some money on them?  They are already "tagged".. 
But if there isn't much there, and somebody is grasping at straws looking for any information at all.. 

In any case, the next step for you sleuths out there is to see what those 1000 addresses have in common, i.e. to see why the lulz giveaway targeted them.  Any common addresses in their input branches? 

[Trongersoll]

I'd be interested to know if the transactions start going in the other direction. What can you gain from knowing an address is valid? Could something like the vanity software find the other part?

[keystroke]

Here's another transaction like this. I know because I received 0.001 BTC.

https://blockchain.info/tx/4c6e38a39ac940460495bfa4f9a4ec406029b83cde820d3e01fc192433712fa9

[QuestionAuthority]

Money mapping... It is a sort of traffic analysis technique. It could be just some random researcher.

That's the most reasonable thing said so far.

[Viceroy]

It's the US Federal Government finding the criminals who adopted the ponzi scheme known as bitcoin to attempt to wash their ill gotten gains.  Duh.  The NSA's budget is the largest black ops budget in the world.  100 x  0.001 transactions costs only a penny.  Imagine how much they could learn if they applied $100k to the "problem".


We know from Casey Jones arrest that the DEA holds bitcoin (at least they hold his).  To the address owners... ever buy anything on silk road?  

Nice try NSA... Shake your fist and say the words out loud,  "And I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids"

Given the recent revelation from Snowden it's clear that the NSA has been around decades longer than bitcoin.  They are adding bitcoin information to the omnipotent data they already own, if they didn't invent bitcoin to begin with.  It's a perfect way to identify every criminal they want to find, isn't it?  Every bitcoin transaction is recorded in a public record.  Not a good choice for criminal activity.  Coke encrusted cash is a much easier thing to deal with but I bet the NSA has been scanning dollar bills serial numbers from the time before they started embedding money with RFID.

all your base are belong to us. (CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.)

[Trongersoll]

It's the US Federal Government finding the criminals who adopted the ponzi scheme known as bitcoin to attempt to wash their ill gotten gains.  Duh.  The NSA's budget is the largest black ops budget in the world.  100 x  0.001 transactions costs only a penny.  Imagine how much they could learn if they applied $100k to the "problem".


We know from Casey Jones arrest that the DEA holds bitcoin (at least they hold his).  To the address owners... ever buy anything on silk road?  

Nice try NSA... Shake your fist and say the words out loud,  "And I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids"

Given the recent revelation from Snowden it's clear that the NSA has been around decades longer than bitcoin.  They are adding bitcoin information to the omnipotent data they already own, if they didn't invent bitcoin to begin with.  It's a perfect way to identify every criminal they want to find, isn't it?  Every bitcoin transaction is recorded in a public record.  Not a good choice for criminal activity.  Coke encrusted cash is a much easier thing to deal with but I bet the NSA has been scanning dollar bills serial numbers from the time before they started embedding money with RFID.

all your base are belong to us. (CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.)

Really? you think Bitcoin is on NSA's radar? Do you think that they have nothing better to do? They do have a charter that they are supposed to operate within, they don't get to do what ever they dream up. Sure, if what they are looking at is involved with BTC they'll get what they need, but overall i doubt that they care. besides, they probably understand BTC better than we do. There is a book called "The Puzzle Palace" that can give some insight into their mindset. Of course things have changed a bit since 9/11.

[Clark]

Money mapping... It is a sort of traffic analysis technique. It could be just some random researcher.

That's the most reasonable thing said so far.

I was also going to suggest this.

Some researchers at some economics department have probably sent out multiple transactions like this and are mapping where the money is going.

Perhaps they choose the 'random' addresses in the list to be change addresses on purpose (easy enough to find).

[Trongersoll]

Money mapping... It is a sort of traffic analysis technique. It could be just some random researcher.

That's the most reasonable thing said so far.

I was also going to suggest this.

Some researchers at some economics department have probably sent out multiple transactions like this and are mapping where the money is going.

Perhaps they choose the 'random' addresses in the list to be change addresses on purpose (easy enough to find).

Or it is a psych experiment to see if a thread like this one pops up and the reactions.

[CasinoBit]

The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense. - Tom Clancy

/thread

[whiskers75]

Yes, I remember giving away a total of 10 BTC randomly on coinchat when we had a launch party.

Really? I remember getting a few mBTC here and there, but a party?

[btceic]

It's scotaloo, he is sending out hundreds or thousands of .0001's with messages embedded in them to try and extort people or to just f**k with them.

[scotaloo]

It's scotaloo, he is sending out hundreds or thousands of .0001's with messages embedded in them to try and extort people or to just f**k with them.

lol, where is the embeded messages then? would you like me to embed some more for you?

[firefop]

It only cost $80 (or whatever) if they were the sender's coins to begin with.

If from stolen private keys, it didn't cost them anything.

Think about it - what better way is there to get back at your ex than to send their bitcoins to a bunch of random people.

It's an interesting point -

If I were going to write a wallet stealing software, I'd think it would be hilarious to just distribute the balance to random people.

~

What if there's a clandestine service designed to 'clean' coins. What does the turn around time on a laundry service need to be? What would be the fee incurred (what if it isn't a service but code developed for personal use).

Lets assume it's a service.
Lets assume they take btc and distribute it in tiny pieces to 10000 different change addresses. Lets assume some percentage of those addresses (10%?) are randomly selected off the block chain and not controlled by the client or the service.

Now you've broken up the clients bitcoin into 10000 pieces, and introduced a 1000 false leads for LE to follow.
Now you do it again with different source address using say... 9000 new client controlled addresses and 1000 false leads.
You run this all at the same time (cycling through groups of false leads for 10 different clients) for 10 cycles.
Now you've muddied it even further. aka everything links to everyone. . . if you got enough big enough clients you could literally spam every address with some amount of coin (over time).

If you did the payments over a long enough period of time... the client addresses would eventually accumulate enough of a balance to be 'spent' probably used to buy some good or service that could then be resold (or cashed out) in some way.

Then you can get really diabolical and trade private keys off the blockchain and obfuscate the trail even more.

In summary, you've got some clients 'cleaning' bitcoin (but it takes a long time) - you've got a bunch of random people being investigated if the client is ever investigated - you've got the service making a tiny fee by owning some addresses that are somehow included in the above process - and anyone who investigates it, ends up wasting time investigating thousands of nerds who just buy bitcoin and use it for stuff like gyft cards, alpaca socks and silver.