How to post Bitcoin bounty for stolen truck

[Stolentruckvictim]

A property my family owns was burglarized recently, probably by local druggies who may frequent two small, rural towns.  The most valuable thing taken was a late model pickup truck that they may have taken to transport more booty,  These two towns are small enough that the locals have a good idea who the thieves are,  my hunch is that the truck is stashed somewhere if the local scum are not sophisticated enough to chop it up quickly.

My idea is to post a 10 million satoshi reward in a wallet made specifically for this purpose and then post this $4700-ish reward for information leading to the recovery of the truck.  The truck is worth $30k, so this would be a reasonable finders fee.

My question is how to communicate this bounty in a way that the local rural busybodies would understand?  Maybe a public key posted on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, etc, with instructions on how to verify the quantity?

If I do this effectively, it could generate an army of motivated hillbillies scouring the countryside and tapping into their network of friends, family, co-workers, and I recover the truck.  If I do it incorrectly, they won’t understand what the hell I am talking about or I inspire a $5 wrench attack!!

Any thoughts from this knowledgeable community?

[jackg]

What are you going to do when you find out where the truck is/who stole it, take it to the police?

Was the truck quite a unique find for them or is there likely to be quite a few others in the town (what would've stopped the thieves changing its numberplate and its colour)?

But yes there areamy guides out there for confirming the signatures associated with addresses, you might just have problems trying to do this anonymously if 1 someone tries to find a way to manipulate their way to getting the funds without providing useful information, 2 whether the person that reports the truck trusts you to reveal where it is (and their own anonymity)).

Also if you do get the truck back, is there a chance the thieves will try to steal it again, do you want that "invite".

[Stolentruckvictim]

Yes, I would give information to the police.
I can give a general description and the VIN for positive ID.
I would use a burner phone to minimize traceability back to my identity.
Thanks for the address verification guide idea, as I could make that part of the posting, along with the public address, as well as an explanation that I would text the seed phrase to gain wallet access upon confirmation the police had recovered the truck.
The truck would be moved to a different location a sizable distance away.

[Poker Player]

There is one thing I don't understand. You want to maintain privacy but you give a reward in Bitcoin to get back something that belongs to your family? People are going to know that that Bitcoin is owned by someone in your family. Otherwise, who would give that reward?

On the other hand, do you think there are many people in those rural towns who know about Bitcoin? But well, let's assume that there will be someone in the village among the younger people who understands it and can communicate it to the rest. Yes I would publicize it through as much media as possible, Craigslist, Facebook and whatever else you can think of. In the time I have been on the forum I don't remember anyone saying they were going to give a bounty for anything like that. If you finally do it tell us how it goes.

[Obito]

You might want to coordinate search for the truck with the local police, you really need their help in terms of posting the bounty. I don't know about the bitcoin bounty though, about how you can post it. This forum could help you, try the Services board if it's possible to put a bounty there, be careful though, the thieves might claim the reward.

[NeuroticFish]

I've seen many good points here.
OP, you can't really expect that there are so many people around you who know about the value of bitcoin.
And, while it's good to incentivize people for useful information, you can end up paying the exact thieves for getting your truck back, and after some weeks they may try again.

About hiding the tracks with Bitcoin... it's a "hmm"...
Even if you'll mix the coins, it's clear that somebody from the family owns bitcoin. And I can only hope that it won't lead to a 5$ wrench attack...

[Pmalek]

If you want to pay the finder's fee in Bitcoin, no need to overcomplicate things. You can sign a message from the address that holds the coins with the correct date and information what the money will be used for. Then again, will the people who see the ad know what a signed message means? If you think they will, do it. If not, just add a phone number and information that the finder's fee will be paid out in Bitcoin.

You can post it on social media or an ad on a local radio station. If your town has some significant bulletin boards in some locations, print it out and place the notifications there. You can also tape the ads to light poles around town.

Trying to hide your identity won't really work. It's not like someone who doesn't know you or your family would pay +$4000 to get a stranger's pickup back.  

[Upgrade00]

I agree with the above comment. I cannot find any peculiar reason why you want the reward paid in bitcoin especially if you are not sire how much people know about it and is scared of compromising your security.
Your top priority now is recovering your truck, through the best means possible; reporting to the local authority and organizing a bounty in fiat is the best option in my opinion.

Bounties are not that popular in my area. How about rather than a huge grand prize, you offer a reduced reward for any useful infomation, which could give clues to how it can be located?

[dkbit98]

My question is how to communicate this bounty in a way that the local rural busybodies would understand?  Maybe a public key posted on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, etc, with instructions on how to verify the quantity?

First, sorry about your truck.
I think that you can make local bounty advertised in newspapers, local media and most popular websites, and state that reward can be paid in Bitcoin along with fiat currency.
You know what is popular in your area, offline and online, so you can make your own bounty posters and put them all around for everyone to see.
It's possible that f you choose only Bitcoin for payment you may get rejection from skilled hillbillies who are anti-bitcoin.

If I do this effectively, it could generate an army of motivated hillbillies scouring the countryside and tapping into their network of friends, family, co-workers, and I recover the truck.  If I do it incorrectly, they won’t understand what the hell I am talking about or I inspire a $5 wrench attack!!

You can't make totally anonymous bounty because you have to post image of your track with license plate, but you can inform local police and authorities and put Bitcoin in some multisig, so that you can't be attacked so easy.
I think it's even possible to hire some Bitcoin trust to hold bitcoin with you as third party, and they could guarantee bounty payment if truck is recovered.

[pawanjain]

I don't really think that would be a good idea. The best thing to do would be file a complaint to the police and get their help to find your truck back.

If you do consider to post a bounty then there are a lot of concerns regarding this.
The thieves might see this ad and plan another attack on you to get your coins.
They might give you your truck back and get the rewards in bitcoin and then steal your truck again.
You might also get unwanted attention due to your post which might lead to more trouble than a help.

Even then if you still want to post a bounty then you can sign a message from your bitcoin address holding 10 million sats.
Then you can post the bounty along with the signed message on various platforms like facebook marketplace, reddit and local marketplace.

[dezoel]

I have not seen this being done at all at anywhere. Maybe if you want to do it you can just create a wallet and put the amount that you are giving out as the bounty reward in that wallet. And after you might have done that, you can then keep the private keys and whoever is able to give information to you that leads to the police getting back the truck, you can then hand over the private keys to the person that provided the information and they can use the private keys to have access to that wallet.

But like I said, I have not seen this being done I’m just saying based on my understanding on how Bitcoin works. Then As for how they can know the amount in the wallet, you can post the address so that anyone that knows how to check it can check the address on the blockchain and see the amount that is stored in it.

[Stolentruckvictim]

Thanks for the great responses.  My family just wants to get the insurance payment and isn’t really interested in this idea.  It isn’t my truck directly, so I think I will have to drop this plan.