UNITED BITCOIN

[Ayms]

This is on my TODO list to understand what is this story of phase1 and phase2 here

UBTC is a fork of BTC, if you seek for some BTC transactions before the fork, then you find the very same in UBTC

Then I don't get very well why you have to rely on them to claim coins and what is this story of two phases (maybe missing some information here)

Because unless they put some strange things in the code you are supposed to be able to move coins without their help

For example using https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2827163.msg29235873#msg29235873

And I have tested it with real UBTC transactions

Someone to try it? (ie if you had BTC before phase 1 and/or phase 2, then you have UBTC and you can move/claim them with the tool)

Or am I somewhere off-topic here, not getting what is going on?

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[Michail1]

This is not a hard fork. This is an airdrop. If it was a hard fork, you could use your private keys to get the amount. But they are checking for various transactions, and then are going to SEND you the united bitcoin, and only if you provide identifying information.

Why is anyone bothering with this? Is there really a thought that this is going to take off?

If they are able to send coins to anyone they want, then this is centralized. They have a huge premine, even if eventually anyone can mine. What is the point of this obtuse procedure except for them to keep more coins for themselves and/or to get personal information for tracking?

That is not correct.

It definitely was a hard fork.

Check your addresses to see you gained the coins and there are transactions on the exact dates you received them on the bitcoin blockchain.
To be clear.... If you had received 1btc for every month for every year and you go to the UB explorer, you will see exactly that.  It shows every transaction (Not simply a single address with the full airdrop amount).  The blockchain is 100% a fork of the original.

The difference is UB used a god mode to take it all away.

This scam was simply to de-anonymize and kill coin days destroyed as you moved your coins to claim them as part of phase 2, but they didn't give anything back to the addresses.

This is more likely just another jgarzik fuck up in which he can't fix his own explorer (the full node or the lite node).

Even better, they changed the web explorer to hide the fact that they used such a GOD mode to reverse the 'unutilized' coins.  That transaction simply doesn't even show up anymore.

[ulhaq]

This is not a hard fork. This is an airdrop. If it was a hard fork, you could use your private keys to get the amount. But they are checking for various transactions, and then are going to SEND you the united bitcoin, and only if you provide identifying information.

Why is anyone bothering with this? Is there really a thought that this is going to take off?

If they are able to send coins to anyone they want, then this is centralized. They have a huge premine, even if eventually anyone can mine. What is the point of this obtuse procedure except for them to keep more coins for themselves and/or to get personal information for tracking?

That is not correct.

It definitely was a hard fork.

Check your addresses to see you gained the coins and there are transactions on the exact dates you received them on the bitcoin blockchain.
To be clear.... If you had received 1btc for every month for every year and you go to the UB explorer, you will see exactly that.  It shows every transaction (Not simply a single address with the full airdrop amount).  The blockchain is 100% a fork of the original.

The difference is UB used a god mode to take it all away.

This scam was simply to de-anonymize and kill coin days destroyed as you moved your coins to claim them as part of phase 2, but they didn't give anything back to the addresses.

This is more likely just another jgarzik fuck up in which he can't fix his own explorer (the full node or the lite node).

Even better, they changed the web explorer to hide the fact that they used such a GOD mode to reverse the 'unutilized' coins.  That transaction simply doesn't even show up anymore.

How are they able to remove coins if they don't have the private keys? If they can take coins without having private keys, they should be able to take anyone's coins, regardless of whether there was activity or not. So where is the security?

[simongoat]

can anyone explain why I need to send btc to claim my UBTC?

[Ayms]

This is not a hard fork. This is an airdrop. If it was a hard fork, you could use your private keys to get the amount. But they are checking for various transactions, and then are going to SEND you the united bitcoin, and only if you provide identifying information.

Why is anyone bothering with this? Is there really a thought that this is going to take off?

If they are able to send coins to anyone they want, then this is centralized. They have a huge premine, even if eventually anyone can mine. What is the point of this obtuse procedure except for them to keep more coins for themselves and/or to get personal information for tracking?

That is not correct.

It definitely was a hard fork.

Check your addresses to see you gained the coins and there are transactions on the exact dates you received them on the bitcoin blockchain.
To be clear.... If you had received 1btc for every month for every year and you go to the UB explorer, you will see exactly that.  It shows every transaction (Not simply a single address with the full airdrop amount).  The blockchain is 100% a fork of the original.

The difference is UB used a god mode to take it all away.

This scam was simply to de-anonymize and kill coin days destroyed as you moved your coins to claim them as part of phase 2, but they didn't give anything back to the addresses.

This is more likely just another jgarzik fuck up in which he can't fix his own explorer (the full node or the lite node).

Even better, they changed the web explorer to hide the fact that they used such a GOD mode to reverse the 'unutilized' coins.  That transaction simply doesn't even show up anymore.

How are they able to remove coins if they don't have the private keys? If they can take coins without having private keys, they should be able to take anyone's coins, regardless of whether there was activity or not. So where is the security?

That's what needs to be discovered and the purpose of my post above

Normally they should have zero control over the coins and people should not need them to move/claim their coins, unless they built a kind of "Bitcoin private network" where they can play with whatever they like, hiding things not providing a working explorer

Even better, they changed the web explorer to hide the fact that they used such a GOD mode to reverse the 'unutilized' coins.  That transaction simply doesn't even show up anymore.

@Michail1 to what example/transaction are your referring to here?

[Ayms]

so my electrum wallet is now showing a green tick next to the balance and it's no longer 'not verified'. however i still can't send anything out. i'm getting the missing inputs error.

has anyone else progressed any further with this?

We are all in the same boat ECB.
The reason you (and I) get the error is because the coins are no longer in the addresses of your electrum wallet! Its just that Electrum doesn't show this last move.
They have been moved using some sort of GOD mode by the UBTC team.
If you look at the address that supposedly has the coins in your Electrum wallet then paste that address in the UBTC explorer https://www.ub.com/explorer/
you will see that the coins have been moved to an address that you don't have the keys to.
God knows when/if these are going to be returned or not.
I also went through the trouble of claiming the coins using their site but my balance shows as zero on their claim page???
Don't think they could have made this more complicated if they tried. Perhaps that was their intention? Bamboozle us into thinking it was our mistake!!!

Maybe I am starting to understand what they are doing and why they need people to perform one transaction to transfer the coins, but it's not so easy to investigate since apparently the explorer does not cooperate

@realmachasm would you mind giving the BTC address you mention above and the address the coins appear now in UBTC (you can email me if you don't want to put it here)

Does anyone else has the same kind of example? (ie some coins on an address that are now on a different one in UBTC)

It would be interesting to see what would happen if someone sends a transaction to UBTC from an address before block #498777 using my tool

[Michail1]

can anyone explain why I need to send btc to claim my UBTC?

Why would you even consider trying to claim a coin where they haven't given out the coins they promised in the last Phase of distribution?  You don't honestly think that even after nearly 2 months that they would now follow through with Phase 2 Grace Period?

Even better, they changed the web explorer to hide the fact that they used such a GOD mode to reverse the 'unutilized' coins.  That transaction simply doesn't even show up anymore.

@Michail1 to what example/transaction are your referring to here?

Sure, just pick any address that had bitcoin prior to the 'fork' that didn't move them during their period.  No need for me to provide one.
For an example, pick any physical bitcoin (like Casascius coins)... I went to uberbills and picked a random 1BTC coin to exist.
https://casascius.uberbills.com/?address=13MAXoPLQEmrtSTASDZrGNNpmsZ1gsAUnn
So, with blockchain.info (explorer), I see....
https://blockchain.info/address/13MAXoPLQEmrtSTASDZrGNNpmsZ1gsAUnn
Obviously still funded with 1BTC since 2016-01-25 03:32:40 (depending on time zone).

You can confirm it also has all forks (as monitored by the site) at:  https://btcdiv.com/   (just fill in the address - 13MAXoPLQEmrtSTASDZrGNNpmsZ1gsAUnn and click search)

So, wait.... a coin (address) that has existed for years, it has every fork EXCEPT United Bitcoin.  WTF?   Oh yeah, this proves my point.

Let's confirm the is/was a balance at UB.   Go to https://www.ub.com/explorer fill in the address and click search, or go directly there to:
https://www.ub.com/explorer/address?address=13MAXoPLQEmrtSTASDZrGNNpmsZ1gsAUnn

WTF, the 1UB coins was funded on: 2013-12-06 12:41:14.0  (proving this is a FORK of the block chain), but again... WTF...
It was taken back by UB on: 2017-12-12 06:29:44.0  (Unutilized).  Strange they added this back to the explorer currently so you can see they took the coin.

So although it is a fork, UB then took it back (some kind of GOD mode).   I would NEVER Buy a coin that can be taken back at will at any time.  This is worse than banking or a credit card.  In this case, you can't even complain.   Wouldn't you just hate to buy a house, pay it off, and then it's taken back by the bank?

Do you really want a coin to exist when a founder can simply take it back at will?

So, not only is this a bullshit coin, but it's not distributed on schedule (or at all).  Even worse, they can take any coin balance they want at will.

How are they able to remove coins if they don't have the private keys? If they can take coins without having private keys, they should be able to take anyone's coins, regardless of whether there was activity or not. So where is the security?

They control the blockchain.  GOD mode.  And, I absolutely agree with you.  Why would anyone invest in a chain where they can take the coins without even a fork.

[Ayms]

Thanks, good example, given the people that are behind this fork (and that know all this stuff very very very well) there must be a logical explaination (if not why to do a fork?), so I am not sure that there is a God mode like rewriting the chain from the fork or mining invalid transactions, most likely they are using some tricky things that they know to move the unused coins and "send" coins to people

Some thoughts for now (mainly for myself but reconciliating everything might lead to understand what they are doing):

- if they ask people to send eveything to one address and then send a transaction, most likely this is to know the public key of the address (the address is the hash of the pub key, you don't know it until you spend an output), knowing the public key is one of the two validation steps to check that you are allowed to spend an output, so knowing it you can skip one step (that's why it's advised to change addresses each time), the second one is to check that the signature has been signed with the private key

- strangely the UBTC balance in their explorer does not correspond at all to the BTC balance, it's much lower, then maybe the output value is very small and then all the amount go to the miners as network fees, I am pretty sure that they are doing something like this

- indeed in the above example 31rZdrTpN57Wbfhg7xTPxeFGjEQaMBjxoo is a miner, probably people know that if you spend an output of 1 BTC and put wrongly 0.01 value to be spent, then 0.99 go to miners as network fees (not if you are using a wallet or my tool, but basically you can't cut an amount, then you can spend a part but needs to send the other part back to you minus the network fees, now if you don't send it back to you it just goes to the miners)

- this does not explain how they generate valid signatures for the transactions which require the private keys but we must keep in mind that the sighash serialization that they are using does not include the amount to be spent (they are not using BIP143 for non segwit transactions), back to previous points

- and apparently the signatures are correct, I just checked one transaction but it got verified correctly (see https://github.com/Ayms/bitcoin-transactions/blob/master/ub.js)

The intent here is not to promote my tool but to understand what is going on, then again if someone is in a position to use my tool, please try with a small amount, this must work

Btw I read their "white paper", waste of time, very vague

And if someone can catch a "stealing" fact like https://www.ub.com/explorer/address?address=13MAXoPLQEmrtSTASDZrGNNpmsZ1gsAUnn please advise right away so I can get the corresponding transaction and check it (not easy to get)

[Michail1]

Thanks, good example, given the people that are behind this fork (and that know all this stuff very very very well) there must be a logical explaination (if not why to do a fork?), so I am not sure that there is a God mode like rewriting the chain from the fork or mining invalid transactions, most likely they are using some tricky things that they know to move the unused coins and "send" coins to people

Some thoughts for now (mainly for myself but reconciliating everything might lead to understand what they are doing):

- if they ask people to send eveything to one address and then send a transaction, most likely this is to know the public key of the address (the address is the hash of the pub key, you don't know it until you spend an output), knowing the public key is one of the two validation steps to check that you are allowed to spend an output, so knowing it you can skip one step (that's why it's advised to change addresses each time), the second one is to check that the signature has been signed with the private key

- strangely the UBTC balance in their explorer does not correspond at all to the BTC balance, it's much lower, then maybe the output value is very small and then all the amount go to the miners as network fees, I am pretty sure that they are doing something like this

- indeed in the above example 31rZdrTpN57Wbfhg7xTPxeFGjEQaMBjxoo is a miner, probably people know that if you spend an output of 1 BTC and put wrongly 0.01 value to be spent, then 0.99 go to miners as network fees (not if you are using a wallet or my tool, but basically you can't cut an amount, then you can spend a part but needs to send the other part back to you minus the network fees, now if you don't send it back to you it just goes to the miners)

- this does not explain how they generate valid signatures for the transactions which require the private keys but we must keep in mind that the sighash serialization that they are using does not include the amount to be spent (they are not using BIP143 for non segwit transactions), back to previous points

- and apparently the signatures are correct, I just checked one transaction but it got verified correctly (see https://github.com/Ayms/bitcoin-transactions/blob/master/ub.js)

The intent here is not to promote my tool but to understand what is going on, then again if someone is in a position to use my tool, please try with a small amount, this must work

Btw I read their "white paper", waste of time, very vague

Their fork doesn't do anything; however, in order to 'claim' them, person with the private key needs to move the bitcoins.  This does two things.
It proves the coins are spendable since they (or a portion) was moved.
Also, it destroys coin days destroyed.
On a side note, it puts the owners at risk of loss in that they having to go to cold storage, etc in order to move and a mistake could be done at any point.

The public address is known by everyone.  Anyone running a full node could check the UXTO set.  Hell, you could download a snapshot from any explorer to see the balance of every single address.  So, they are not revealing anything with regards to balance by being forced to move coins.  I think you mean xpub key.  In that case, yes, it could be revealed and then a blockchain explorer could see addresses that belong to the wallet.  It's best not to use the same xpub either; however, HD wallets (although great for generating an address each time) don't create new xpub keys.  So, for those that really want to hide address balances, a new xpub should be used, but it's really each to simply follow the coin movement to the next address anyway.

UBTC balance does show the balance based on the BTC balance; however, they took them away.  The only balance is any coins that were NOT moved away from the address during phase 2; however, that was in order to get the removed coins that were labelled as 'Unutilized'.   Strangely, the lite wallet (electrum fork) does show the full balance, but doesn't allow you to spend/move them and doesn't even show the fact that they were removed as unutilized.   I am happy to provide you many more examples for BTC balances not moved (like all physical bitcoins) or even addresses that were specifically moved for phase 2.

UB is made worse in that they are now doing Phase 2 Grace Period in which they want you to submit your personal information in order to claim if you were not part of phase 1 or phase 2.  Strange that people would fall for this being naive to the fact that UB hasn't followed through with Phase 2 yet for coins moved over a month ago.  Why would people knowing this believe UB would now give you UB in phase 2 (b) if they haven't followed through with phase 2 (a) yet.  Maybe UB will really really promise to distribute them?  Ha.   Even if they did, they could just take them away anyway.

As for your tool.  I will look at it later; however, I noted immediately that the inputs are address which never contained bitcoin (as you pointed out may be a miner, but could also be part of an exchange).  So, they are addresses that were funded after the fork and likely from an exchange that was able to get coins from the phase 1 fork when they were included in hope of UB getting the name out or miner.  Although I have access to many addresses and their pkeys, I don't believe I have access to a single address that has UB since they were all defunded as unutilized.

Agreed.  White paper appears useless.

I would like to again ask if a single person was able to claim (and get (meaning spendable)) any UB from phase 2 or phase 2b (Grace period).

[Ayms]

I understand that you are a bit angry like many people (and myself) about this stuff, but please consider that this is determinist, they can't easily reinvent everything

I am not talking about xpub, but the public key associated to anyone's address, even if it's supposed to be public, which is not the case in fact since all of what you get is the hash of the public key (ie your address), you can only get it when a transaction happens where the public key is disclosed finally

Then let's try understanding what they are doing, there is no magic there, and the more info I get the better it is (ideally a post/email "real time" with a transaction spending some unused coins so I can get it and see all the details, which is not possible with their explorer)

PS:

As for your tool.  I will look at it later; however, I noted immediately that the inputs are address which never contained bitcoin (as you pointed out may be a miner, but could also be part of an exchange).  So, they are addresses that were funded after the fork and likely from an exchange that was able to get coins from the phase 1 fork when they were included in hope of UB getting the name out or miner.  Although I have access to many addresses and their pkeys, I don't believe I have access to a single address that has UB since they were all defunded as unutilized.

I don't understand what you mean, it's not a tool for UB but all coins, I will not repeat it all along the posts but if someone can, then just try it here to see what happens

[Michail1]

I understand that you are a bit angry like many people (and myself) about this stuff, but please consider that this is determinist, they can't easily reinvent everything

I am not talking about xpub, but the public key associated to anyone's address, even if it's supposed to be public, which is not the case in fact since all of what you get is the hash of the public key (ie your address), you can only get it when a transaction happens where the public key is disclosed finally

Then let's try understanding what they are doing, there is no magic there, and the more info I get the better it is (ideally a post/email "real time" with a transaction spending some unused coins so I can get it and see all the details, which is not possible with their explorer)

No, I am not angry at all.  UB is a bullshit coin.  I was just trying to point out how bad they are.

I'll try to find someone with coins that they are able to move (if I can) and DM you directly.

[Ayms]

I'll try to find someone with coins that they are able to move (if I can) and DM you directly.

Thanks

Does anyone have a synced node? (at least until 24th January)

I would be very curious to get the result of bitcoin-cli (or probably ub-cli) getrawtransaction bfc1242a02f10ce6b9489812c4b95a39511b52fee5926621c900651669eb4224

This is the transaction that spent the example you gave to the miner I pointed out (ie UB team)

[Ayms]

Then? Nobody has a synced node, I understood that some said they had one in this thread

[European Central Bank]

Then? Nobody has a synced node, I understood that some said they had one in this thread

this is the place to keep tabs on what the forks are doing - https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinAirdrops/

there are always people in that forum running weird scripts and nodes. if there is one running you'll find a mention of it there.

united bitcoin has gone down there just as badly as it has here.

[foxsky88]

UBTC a bad project . I thinks so , the web very slow. the airdrop so crazy , I give up claim.  shitcoin UBTC.
No give us a good idea claim .

[Ayms]

@ECB thanks for the link

Even if subscribed there I really dislike reddit but maybe I will post something, and then look at the strange comments or maybe for once some accurate ones

Maybe wrong, but something looks different with UB, not as trivial as all the other forks (see my guide to create a fork in 5mn  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/user-guide-how-create-your-bitcoin-fork-5mn-fool-everybody-vitte), UB is clearly in there as a scam fork, but how they are stealing transfering all the coins is a kind of interesting, how they do it remains mysterious

[European Central Bank]

not as trivial as all the other forks

say what you want about the average shitfork, at least most of them work as advertised and are upfront about their premines, or sometimes there are even none.

united bitcoin must be the worst run fork out there and is a flat out insult to regular users. before you even take the distribution into account, there've been periods where there wasn't a block for hours.

considering the supposed caliber of the people involved, i can't believe how pathetic and useless it is. a bunch of school kids could do a better job.

it's mind blowing to consider that jeff garzik was planning on running bitcoin itself.

[Ayms]

Robbery of the century maybe for UB

As I said, I don't know, but all of those shitforks follow pretty well my "guide", you don't need a bunch of school kids to do this, just one, something is different here, maybe worse (if possible...), apparently you misinterpreted what I meant, I am not supporting this one and the other ones neither, but the others are just simple forks, this one has something different and indeed quite strange, finding out what they are doing might allow to revert the situation against them if proven shxtty

[simongoat]

I just missed the grace period because I couldn't work out how to send from a specific address with a nano ledger. In the end I found you could use electrum but then I got my segwit and legacy addresses muddled up and couldn't send to verify and claim. I suppose its too late now? Can grace to extended in exceptional circumstances? A shame because it looks like this is a really good project.

[Ayms]

I just missed the grace period because I couldn't work out how to send from a specific address with a nano ledger. In the end I found you could use electrum but then I got my segwit and legacy addresses muddled up and couldn't send to verify and claim. I suppose its too late now? Can grace to extended in exceptional circumstances? A shame because it looks like this is a really good project.

Normally it's not, we don't know what they are doing but (see above) it would be interesting to see what happens if we transfer coins with my tool, you can email me if you want to try (but from a normal or multisig address before block 498777, not a segwit one)