Blowing the lid off the CryptoNote/Bytecoin scam (with the exception of Monero)

[neuroMode]

I have a question about Quazarcoin being linked to the original scam artist devs of Bytecoin:

If it's a scam, how is the dev OracionSeis benefiting? If it is was indeed a scam, the dev had an excellent opportunity to "cash out" when QCN hit Poloniex and soared to ~ 0.01 QCN/BTC. Why keep the whole thing going after this? Why post in the thread almost every day? Why is there no obvious bashing of Monero by the dev?

I like the investigative work you did, but you sort of call out QCN in your rage and don't really go into detail about anything else. Nothing I've seen over the past month or so makes any sense in the context of it being a scam. If it is one...it's a pretty damn harmless one.

[Johnny Mnemonic]

I have a question about Quazarcoin being linked to the original scam artist devs of Bytecoin:

If it's a scam, how is the dev OracionSeis benefiting? If it is was indeed a scam, the dev had an excellent opportunity to "cash out" when QCN hit Poloniex and soared to ~ 0.01 QCN/BTC. Why keep the whole thing going after this? Why post in the thread almost every day? Why is there no obvious bashing of Monero by the dev?

I like the investigative work you did, but you sort of call out QCN in your rage and don't really go into detail about anything else. Nothing I've seen over the past month or so makes any sense in the context of it being a scam. If it is one...it's a pretty damn harmless one.

Not sure if you read up thread, but look into how QCN started. OracionSeis attempted to hijack the community by maliciously forking Monero's code base and relaunching as Monero. After failing to do so, he deleted his original posts/threads before renaming the coin to QCN. I used to have archive.org links on hand for proof, but you can do some digging and find them yourself.

[Johnny Mnemonic]

It seems a lot of folks confuse the history of bitMonero/Monero. It was not simply a rename of the same coin.

thankful_for_today (TFT) pretended to create a fair relaunch of bytecoin in bitMonero, though it's apparent now this was an obvious attempt to corner the market and capture the non-bcn-believers before some other fork came along.

TFT pretended to listen to everyone. I even collaborated with him via PM to help him launch bitMonero on schedule (I was also planning a bytecoin fork at the time and wanted to combine resources). He appeared cooperative at first, but then stopped responding and suddenly launched with parameters that were either never discussed (much steeper distribution curve) or publicly and unanimously vetoed (60 second block times). I believe the steeper distribution was his subtle attempt to capture more block rewards with an optimized miner.

This move actually turned me away from the coin altogether. I was again planning a fork until David Latapie and others took over the project and have since turned it around.

The way I see it: bitMonero and Monero are not and should not be considered the same project.

[neuroMode]

I have a question about Quazarcoin being linked to the original scam artist devs of Bytecoin:

If it's a scam, how is the dev OracionSeis benefiting? If it is was indeed a scam, the dev had an excellent opportunity to "cash out" when QCN hit Poloniex and soared to ~ 0.01 QCN/BTC. Why keep the whole thing going after this? Why post in the thread almost every day? Why is there no obvious bashing of Monero by the dev?

I like the investigative work you did, but you sort of call out QCN in your rage and don't really go into detail about anything else. Nothing I've seen over the past month or so makes any sense in the context of it being a scam. If it is one...it's a pretty damn harmless one.

Not sure if you read up thread, but look into how QCN started. OracionSeis attempted to hijack the community by maliciously forking Monero's code base and relaunching as Monero. After failing to do so, he deleted his original posts/threads before renaming the coin to QCN. I used to have archive.org links on hand for proof, but you can do some digging and find them yourself.

"Hijacking the community" really makes no sense--nobody can hijack a community. I don't have access to any of the drama but I see mentions of it early in the QCN threads so I cannot really comment on this further.

Was he just upset about how Monero was launched? Was he on the dev team of Monero and didn't like how things were operating/progressing? Or is the OP claiming in a roundabout way that OracionSeis is part of the original Bytecoin team (proof?) and that he is trying to destroy Monero out of vengeance by forking Bytecoin and launching his own coin?

If the launch of Quazarcoin was a malicious act towards Monero and its community, it's failing hard at appearing and being malicious. As of now it simply exists as an alternative cryptonote coin with altered coin specifications and different development path. If OracionSeis was driven purely by malevolent intent, surely he would give up developing a coin that was not having the desired effect. It's a huge waste of time to put months of effort into keeping a coin alive (regardless of how well he is actually developing things).

As an outsider looking in on cryptonotes and QCN's existence, this is a situation that at worst looks like a disgruntled member of Monero/Bytecoin that was not happy with something (I still don't know what) and launched his own cryptonote coin as a result. At best, it looks like an alternative cryptonote coin that aims to develop a very "primitive" and "young" cryptonote technology down its own path.

EDIT:

The information about Quazarcoin in the OP doesn't really get any more specific than:

Coincidentally, and completely unrelated (hurr durr), Quazarcoin, Fantomcoin, and Monetaverde are all also on Sourceforge. This gives us a frame of reference and a common link between them - it's quite clear that at least these three are run by the same team as CryptoNote.

They (former CryptoNote/Bytecoin developers(?)) launched a series of cryptocurrencies that should be avoided at all cost: Fantomcoin, Quazarcoin, and Monetaverde. They are likely behind duckNote and Boolberry, but fuck it, it's on your head if you want to deal with scam artists and botnet creators.

None of this is really damning evidence to be honest, and even if it were correct, what the hell is the problem
when you get right down to it? So 3 Cryptonote coins were launched like normal and any person can go judge how active they are for themselves.

And as for the "scam artists and botnet creators" claim, I have to say this: There are much easier ways to scam people in today's cryptocurrency landscape than to launch a forked version of Bytecoin "without a premine or instamine" and keep devving it long after QCN's price had peaked the first week it went on Poloniex. Scam should have been over then, dev checks out with his BTC and doesn't show his face again, right? That's not really what's happening with QCN. OracionSeis might be concocting some super-long elaborate scam that involves lying to a bunch of investors, but none of that is really happening either. If he is a botnet creator, he's doing a very bad job of keeping the buying pressure consistently elevated so he can make massive returns with his botnet. He would be spending 100% of his time on PR and marketing and not devving, right? Well, that's not happening and there aren't QCN shills running rampant trying to hype QCN every day.

 

[Johnny Mnemonic]

I have a question about Quazarcoin being linked to the original scam artist devs of Bytecoin:

If it's a scam, how is the dev OracionSeis benefiting? If it is was indeed a scam, the dev had an excellent opportunity to "cash out" when QCN hit Poloniex and soared to ~ 0.01 QCN/BTC. Why keep the whole thing going after this? Why post in the thread almost every day? Why is there no obvious bashing of Monero by the dev?

I like the investigative work you did, but you sort of call out QCN in your rage and don't really go into detail about anything else. Nothing I've seen over the past month or so makes any sense in the context of it being a scam. If it is one...it's a pretty damn harmless one.

Not sure if you read up thread, but look into how QCN started. OracionSeis attempted to hijack the community by maliciously forking Monero's code base and relaunching as Monero. After failing to do so, he deleted his original posts/threads before renaming the coin to QCN. I used to have archive.org links on hand for proof, but you can do some digging and find them yourself.

"Hijacking the community" really makes no sense--nobody can hijack a community. I don't have access to any of the drama but I see mentions of it early in the QCN threads so I cannot really comment on this further.

Was he just upset about how Monero was launched? Was he on the dev team of Monero and didn't like how things were operating/progressing? Or is the OP claiming in a roundabout way that OracionSeis is part of the original Bytecoin team (proof?) and that he is trying to destroy Monero out of vengeance by forking Bytecoin and launching his own coin?

If the launch of Quazarcoin was a malicious act towards Monero and its community, it's failing hard at appearing and being malicious. As of now it simply exists as an alternative cryptonote coin with altered coin specifications and different development path. If OracionSeis was driven purely by malevolent intent, surely he would give up developing a coin that was not having the desired effect. It's a huge waste of time to put months of effort into keeping a coin alive (regardless of how well he is actually developing things).

As an outsider looking in on cryptonotes and QCN's existence, this is a situation that at worst looks like a disgruntled member of Monero/Bytecoin that was not happy with something (I still don't know what) and launched his own cryptonote coin as a result. At best, it looks like an alternative cryptonote coin that aims to develop a very "primitive" and "young" cryptonote technology down its own path.

The OP of this thread is suggesting that OracionSeis is part of the BCN scam.

Fact: OracionSeis came into the XMR thread, called everyone scammers, and attempted to direct traffic to his own fork of the exact same name.

If OracionSeis is one of the BCN guys I wouldn't be surprised.

[rethink-your-strategy]

I have a question about Quazarcoin being linked to the original scam artist devs of Bytecoin:

If it's a scam, how is the dev OracionSeis benefiting? If it is was indeed a scam, the dev had an excellent opportunity to "cash out" when QCN hit Poloniex and soared to ~ 0.01 QCN/BTC. Why keep the whole thing going after this? Why post in the thread almost every day? Why is there no obvious bashing of Monero by the dev?

I like the investigative work you did, but you sort of call out QCN in your rage and don't really go into detail about anything else. Nothing I've seen over the past month or so makes any sense in the context of it being a scam. If it is one...it's a pretty damn harmless one.

I'm about to pass out, but I've updated the OP with info on QCN. Search for OracionSeis and you'll find the new paragraphs.

Added my Bitcoin donation address to the OP too. Your donations pay for the insane amounts of pizza and Monster I consume when researching this shit.

[neuroMode]

I have a question about Quazarcoin being linked to the original scam artist devs of Bytecoin:

If it's a scam, how is the dev OracionSeis benefiting? If it is was indeed a scam, the dev had an excellent opportunity to "cash out" when QCN hit Poloniex and soared to ~ 0.01 QCN/BTC. Why keep the whole thing going after this? Why post in the thread almost every day? Why is there no obvious bashing of Monero by the dev?

I like the investigative work you did, but you sort of call out QCN in your rage and don't really go into detail about anything else. Nothing I've seen over the past month or so makes any sense in the context of it being a scam. If it is one...it's a pretty damn harmless one.

I'm about to pass out, but I've updated the OP with info on QCN. Search for OracionSeis and you'll find the new paragraphs.

Added my Bitcoin donation address to the OP too. Your donations pay for the insane amounts of pizza and Monster I consume when researching this shit.

Fair enough. I just read it and I still think you are blowing it a little out of proportion.

So he tried relaunching Monero. Big deal. It wasn't really malicious in nature after clicking its thread. He even clearly outlined why he was pushing for a relaunch. I quote:

I want to talk about the Monero relaunch.

The CryptoNight algorithm & the CryptoNote protocol undoubtedly will have the great future. The technology performs all of the claimed promises. I’m sad that it was only in a deepweb a long time.

I’m against premine, instamine and other "honest" ways of scamming users. I’m sure that attacks on BitMonero are totally unacceptable. TFT is the good guy but not for our market.

The opposed camp consists of aggressive users who solo-mine now with help of an optimized miner with a closed source. Moreover, this miner not available to simple users!

So I decided to relaunch Monero with improvements. Monero will have a flatter curve issue (see the chart) and a fast miner from the start.

That doesn't sound too terrible, and definitely not 'malicious'. It just kinda sounds like someone who just didn't agree with Monero's progression/launch and was trying to rally like-minded community members. Seeing that either enough people didn't agree with him or that relaunching was a poor way of dealing with his issues, he canceled the launch and relaunched as Quazarcoin. Whether or not he is wrong about the assertions he was making is a different story. I think it's just pretty clear that he was just disgruntled by some things and wanted a coin like Monero that was 'fair' in his mind.

And that's pretty much all that Quazarcoin is today. The OracionSeis guy quietly goes about his business devving QCN no matter how popular or unpopular it is during a given week. I really haven't seen him take any aggressive or malevolent actions towards Monero in the process. He also shows interest in helping out community members who post problems they are having with the wallet.

If this is some scammer or thief, he's definitely doing a terrible job of it.

[rethink-your-strategy]

That doesn't sound too terrible, and definitely not 'malicious' It sounds like someone who just didn't agree with Monero's progression/launch and was trying to rally like-minded community members. Seeing that either enough people didn't agree with him or that it was a poor way of dealing with his issues, he canceled the launch and relaunched as Quazarcoin. Whether or not he is wrong about the assertions he was making is a different story. It is clear that he was just disgruntled by something and wanted a coin that was 'fair' in his mind.

Then why use a bought account? Why buy an account in the first place unless you're trying to look legit? There is no legitimate reason to buy an account unless you're trying to scam people.

The SourceForge link between those four is also quite tenable. Nobody uses ShitForge anymore, definitely not for a cryptocurrency.

http://sourceforge.net/directory/?q=cryptocurrency - 36 projects including bullshit like Java GUIs for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency tickers.
https://github.com/search?utf8=✓&q=cryptocurrency&ref=cmdform - 1163 repositories including every cryptocurrency known to man.

It's possible, however unlikely, that the person that bought the OracionSeis account has since split off from the CryptoNote developers. It doesn't fucking matter, hiding behind a purchased account kills any hope of legitimacy. Until the developer is transparent and owns up to everything in great detail, QuazarCoin should be avoided like the scam it probably/possibly is.

Sleeping now, will respond to anyone when I'm up.

[Vanderi]

I have a question about Quazarcoin being linked to the original scam artist devs of Bytecoin:

If it's a scam, how is the dev OracionSeis benefiting? If it is was indeed a scam, the dev had an excellent opportunity to "cash out" when QCN hit Poloniex and soared to ~ 0.01 QCN/BTC. Why keep the whole thing going after this? Why post in the thread almost every day? Why is there no obvious bashing of Monero by the dev?

I like the investigative work you did, but you sort of call out QCN in your rage and don't really go into detail about anything else. Nothing I've seen over the past month or so makes any sense in the context of it being a scam. If it is one...it's a pretty damn harmless one.

I'm about to pass out, but I've updated the OP with info on QCN. Search for OracionSeis and you'll find the new paragraphs.

Added my Bitcoin donation address to the OP too. Your donations pay for the insane amounts of pizza and Monster I consume when researching this shit.

The brain needs also b-vitamins and proper oil. Empty calories can be left to their own value. I'm a sad, one-liner example of the true opposite.

*edit: try it.

[smooth]

The SourceForge link between those four is also quite tenable. Nobody uses ShitForge anymore, definitely not for a cryptocurrency.

There are more links.

First, the style of communication on all these coins is quite similar. The developers are absent for days at a time or longer, then make very short posts with questionable (at best) English writing skills. They don't really interact with the community so much as show up occasionally and make prepared statements, then disappear again. (BTW, this reminds me a lot of TFT.)

Second, we know of bought accounts being used for both bytecoin and quazarcoin.

Third, there are major stylistic similarities between all of their web sites. For example, look at the icons used for their download links:

bytecoin.org:



quazarcoin.org:



fantomcoin.org:



monetaverde.org:



old bitmonero.org:



I thought maybe this style of download links was extremely widely used and this could be a coincidence, so I looked at several other coins that are reasonably "hot" now, including DRK, CLOAK, and XC. None of them used this particular style of download links.

In my opinion all of these cryptonote/bytecoin coins (except Monero) are being run out of some kind of coin mill, probably operating in a country where English is not widely used. The public-facing "developers' are really just caretakers who divide their time between appearing to be working a lot of different coins under different names. The web design is done by a common team, which explains the stylistic similarities (close attention to the web sites would probably show more such similarities).

[slb]

@smooth  Are you complaining that most of the sites are using "font-awesome"? It's a modern standard. You can find more info here: http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/
Also Sourceforge provides public tracking for download count, Mega.co.nz does not. It's a simple choice which one to use if the dev wants all the users to have accurate knowledge of the actual usage of the coin.

[neuroMode]

That doesn't sound too terrible, and definitely not 'malicious' It sounds like someone who just didn't agree with Monero's progression/launch and was trying to rally like-minded community members. Seeing that either enough people didn't agree with him or that it was a poor way of dealing with his issues, he canceled the launch and relaunched as Quazarcoin. Whether or not he is wrong about the assertions he was making is a different story. It is clear that he was just disgruntled by something and wanted a coin that was 'fair' in his mind.

Then why use a bought account? Why buy an account in the first place unless you're trying to look legit? There is no legitimate reason to buy an account unless you're trying to scam people.

The SourceForge link between those four is also quite tenable. Nobody uses ShitForge anymore, definitely not for a cryptocurrency.

http://sourceforge.net/directory/?q=cryptocurrency - 36 projects including bullshit like Java GUIs for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency tickers.
https://github.com/search?utf8=✓&q=cryptocurrency&ref=cmdform - 1163 repositories including every cryptocurrency known to man.

It's possible, however unlikely, that the person that bought the OracionSeis account has since split off from the CryptoNote developers. It doesn't fucking matter, hiding behind a purchased account kills any hope of legitimacy. Until the developer is transparent and owns up to everything in great detail, QuazarCoin should be avoided like the scam it probably/possibly is.

Sleeping now, will respond to anyone when I'm up.

Why use a bought account? Because maybe he just wants to be taken seriously by people on the internet. His actions seem a lot more like someone who got involved with a community and took it upon himself to try and fix a coin he loved in ways that in hindsight weren't the ideal ways to fix them. Simply chalk that up to inexperience and maybe being driven too much by emotions. Maybe being taken seriously was so important to him that he didn't even consider how buying an account might seem shady to people who thought he was the leader of some elaborate scam (because there's no scam taking place to begin with).

I can show you a million examples of scammers that are successful with brand new accounts. He didn't need to buy an account if he wanted to scam people.

Go look at the last month of pages in the QCN thread. You'll find that OracionSeis just seems like some guy in his own little world doing the right thing in his mind. He continues devving and posting regardless of how many other people are posting or how much his coin is losing value. He doesn't bash other coins and he doesn't artificially hype shit up.

Remember when people wanted to fork Litecoin after Scrypt ASICs starting surfacing? Were they trying to scam anyone or were they just acting passionately about a coin they liked that started losing its identity? I think QCN and its dev is very much like this situation. Again, whether or not Monero had issues that even warranted a relaunch is another story. I'm just saying that good intentions can be misconstrued in a realm where daily scams have people on constant high alert.

Hopefully the QCN dev can come forward and dispel some of these conjectures in this thread. I don't think the QCN dev ever had people accusing him of being a scam artist at this level, so he might be pretty oblivious to all these accusations happening right now. Or I could be totally wrong and you are completely right.

[neuroMode]

The SourceForge link between those four is also quite tenable. Nobody uses ShitForge anymore, definitely not for a cryptocurrency.

There are more links.

First, the style of communication on all these coins is quite similar. The developers are absent for days at a time or longer, then make very short posts with questionable (at best) English writing skills. They don't really interact with the community so much as show up occasionally and make prepared statements, then disappear again. (BTW, this reminds me a lot of TFT.)

Second, we know of bought accounts being used for both bytecoin and quazarcoin.

Third, there are major stylistic similarities between all of their web sites. For example, look at the icons used for their download links:

bytecoin.org:



quazarcoin.org:



fantomcoin.org:



monetaverde.org:



old bitmonero.org:



I thought maybe this style of download links was extremely widely used and this could be a coincidence, so I looked at several other coins that are reasonably "hot" now, including DRK, CLOAK, and XC. None of them used this particular style of download links.

In my opinion all of these cryptonote/bytecoin coins (except Monero) are being run out of some kind of coin mill, probably operating in a country where English is not widely used. The public-facing "developers' are really just caretakers who divide their time between appearing to be working a lot of different coins under different names. The web design is done by a common team, which explains the stylistic similarities (close attention to the web sites would probably show more such similarities).

All of this is nice to point out, but I still don't get it: What's the scam? What's the wrongfulness in QCN existing? There isn't any obvious misleading or deceit happening in the thread. There isn't constant artificial hyping. There isn't a premine for the dev to dump. Nothing the dev has done makes any sense in the context of him concocting some evil plan to screw people over.
 
I think QCN is pretty much a 'what you see is what you get' type of deal that people can judge properly before investing or mining. I don't see QCN getting jammed down anyone's throats, so what's the issue?

[Roy Badami]

thanks for your hard work - I was following the cryptonotes from the beginning here.

I think you are right regarding bytecoin and probably some of the merged coins.

What is and was hard for me to understand from the very beginning is the role of the cryptonote team. I have the feeling that there is a loose connection to bytecoin, but they are really interested in the development of their protocol. I was in their forum and it was full of high quality posts as well as serious discussions. Maybe you have better information but I do not think they are scammers, it is more likely that they are academics who are interested in developing the technology.

I initially thought this too. The straw that breaks the camel's back of this argument are the fake fates on PDFs. If there was only a loose connection to Bytecoin, why not: release the whitepaper in March, don't version it, sign it as March 2014, let Bytecoin make any claims they want, refuse to comment on them, and don't pretend you've been around for 2 years by creating a bullshit Tor site? They doubled down on the Bytecoin claim, and that means that anything they say loses credibility, even if it has some validity.

I don't think the fake dates prove that the Cryptonote team were in on the scam.  It's quite possible that the Bytecoin team had a copy of the (as yet unpublished) white paper - perhaps having convinced the Cryptonote team that it would be better to delay publication until the launch of the coin.  In which case all fakery could easily be down to the Bytecoin team.

If that were the case, and the fakery was not done with the consent of the Cryptonote team, then it does raise the question as to why the Cryptonote team haven't come forward to cry foul, but there are a couple of possibilities:

• They figure it would be pointless, as it would be too difficult to substantiate that they really were the Cryptonote team
• They wish to keep their anonymity and fear having their cover blown - perhaps the Bytecoin team know their identity so they don't want to pick a fight with them

BTW, for convenience I'm refering to the people behind the text of the white paper, and the ideas within it (including the cryptographic design) as "the Cryptonote team" and the people behind the software implementation and the launch of the coin as "the Bytecoin team".  In reality, though, I strongly suspect that the original intention would have been to call the coin Cryptonote, and for whatever reason it was renamed prior to launch.

roy

[MrPiggles]

Wow, this is the best hatchet job I've seen since the last time I did one hahaa.

[smooth]

I don't think the fake dates prove that the Cryptonote team were in on the scam.  It's quite possible that the Bytecoin team had a copy of the (as yet unpublished) white paper - perhaps having convinced the Cryptonote team that it would be better to delay publication until the launch of the coin.  In which case all fakery could easily be down to the Bytecoin team.

If that were the case, and the fakery was not done with the consent of the Cryptonote team, then it does raise the question as to why the Cryptonote team haven't come forward to cry foul, but there are a couple of possibilities:

No that doesn't fit. Although the dates on the signatures are bogus, and the V1 paper was clearly not created in 2012 (references from 2013), the signature itself is valid, and is signed by "Nicholas van Saberhagen", which is an identity directly associated with cryptonote, not bytecoin. In otherwords, it was "Cryptonote" that faked the signature dates, not "Bytecoin."

I agree with you they are, in reality, likely one and the same, but the theory that they are separate organizations and the bytecoin people are behind all the shadiness doesn't hold up, for this reason and others.

[Roy Badami]

Oh, and thank you, rethink-your-strategy, for all the hard work you've put into exposing what many of us already suspected.

roy

[Roy Badami]

No that doesn't fit. Although the dates on the signatures are bogus, and the V1 paper was clearly not created in 2012 (references from 2013), the signature itself is valid, and is signed by Nicholas van Saberhagen, which is an identity directly associated with cryptonote, not bytecoin.

I'm not sure what the signature proves.  Nicholas van Saberhagen is just a pseudonym, anyway, and there's no way of knowing who put that name on the paper, nor who created the certificate that was used to sign it.

EDIT: Note how the Acrobat screen capture in the OP says "Signature validity is UNKNOWN" and "The signer's identity is unknown because it has not been included in your list of trusted identities and none of its parent certificates are trusted identities".  Or, in other words, the signature proves nothing.

[smooth]

No that doesn't fit. Although the dates on the signatures are bogus, and the V1 paper was clearly not created in 2012 (references from 2013), the signature itself is valid, and is signed by Nicholas van Saberhagen, which is an identity directly associated with cryptonote, not bytecoin.

I'm not sure what the signature proves.  Nicholas van Saberhagen is just a pseudonym, anyway, and there's no way of knowing who put that name on the paper, nor who created the certificate that was used to sign it.

It's on the cryptonote web site, not the bytecoin web site.

So your theory is that cryptonote created the document, gave it to bytecoin, and then bytecoin gave the (fraudulently signed) copy back to cryptonote, which put that copy up on their web site. 

I find this not a credibly likely explantion.

Furthermore, even if cryptonote people didn't realize the papers had bogus signatures on them, why would they put up an obviously fake "V1" paper at all?

 

[ndrog]

Set aside all ego's and beliefs for a minute and try to approach this more subjectively.

Does it really matter if the sigs were altered purposely or out of sheer neglect/stupidity? Isn't the whole point of cryptonote & others, all about the cryptographic technology itself?
We don't know who Satoshi Nakamoto is and why he created Bitcoin in the first place. He could be a perverted genius who thought/created the technology itself to be used as a monetary vehicle for perverts alike to purchase kiddie porn. Who knows? *Speculation* Did it stop the evolution of Bitcoin/community and all the benefits it has to offer.....No!.

Why go through all the effort and man hours create a sound cryptographic method? to scam people of their savings? I highly doubt it!!  

I currently hold Monero, Bytecoin, ducknote, so before I get any type of bashing as a BCN shill. all I am saying is try to be as subjective as possible and don't get carried away.