[It's over, THX!] Call for participation: Test BitWrk and earn BTC this Sunday!

[indyjo]

TEST OCCURED ON SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14th, 2014, BETWEEN 14:00 UTC and 16:00 UTC

This is your chance to earn some (milli-)Bitcoin just by leaving your computer turned on for as long as you like, but no longer than two hours.

What is it?
I would like to perform a test to see how well BitWrk performs under load, and I need your help for this.

In case you haven't heard of it, BitWrk is an Open Source project of mine currently under development with the aim of becoming an open, anonymous, Bitcoin-driven marketplace for computing power. It works like a stock exchange, just for computing tasks instead of stocks.

BitWrk has been discussed in this forum before. Version 0.4.0 "Venus" has just been announced. Currently, BitWrk allows users of Blender, a powerful Open Source 3D graphics software, to calculate pictures and movies in a distributed fashion.

The test will occur on Sunday between 14:00 UTC and 16:00 UTC, and at the end of the test, all earned Bitcoins are going to be paid back to the participants, via Bitcoin.

How can I participate?
Download BitWrk 0.4.0 from its home page, and set it up to be able to sell Blender rendering. There are instructions for that on the home page, but you can ask questions in this thread and I'll do my best to help. Some time before the start of the test, all accounts will be reset to zero BTC with the exception of the account I'll be using. I'll put BTC 1 on it, but that doesn't mean that I'll spend all of that money. Let's see how well it goes. At the end of the test, I'll freeze all accounts and transfer the balances back to the account owner, via Bitcoin!

Do I need to register somehow?
No! The BitWrk software will generate an account for you, and that account will have an associated Bitcoin address. That's where the money is going to be sent to at the end of the test. You will be able to add the key to your Bitcoin wallet access that address. I'd appreciate if you could announce your participation here in this thread, but it is not a must.

So I will start with 0 BTC on my account?
Yes. You can PM me if you want to start with a positive balance.

Is there a risk involved?
BitWrk is still in development. As I haven't had the possibility yet to test the service under high load, it might break down in some unexpected way. In that case, I'll try to find a fair solution to compensate you for your time.

How can I receive the money?
In BitWrk, users are identified by a bitcoin address, so it is easy for me to know where to send money to.

Users need to import the private key into their Bitcoin wallet. It is stored in a file called privatekey.wif. That file can be found in the following locations:

• Windows 7 and 8: C:\Users\<USER>\.bitwrk-client\privatekey.wif
• Mac OS X: /Users/<USER>/.bitwrk-client/privatekey.wif
• Linux: /home/<USER>/.bitwrk/privatekey.wif

To import it into your Bitcoin wallet (taking the Satoshi client as example):

• Open privatekey.wif in a text editor
• Select the file's contents and copy it to your clipboard (Ctrl-C, Cmd-C)
• In the Bitcoin client, select Help->Debug window from the menu
• Go to tab console
• In the command line on the bottom of the page, enter: importprivkey <PASTE YOUR PRIVATE KEY HERE WITH CTRL-V/CMD-V> "BitWrk" rescan=false
• Your Bitcoin wallet will now contain an address labeled "BitWrk". It will receive all future transactions to that address.
• If you want to include past transactions too, use "rescan=true" instead of "rescan=false". It will take a while, during which Bitcoin will be unresponsive.

How can I keep informed?
I will make all announcements in this thread. Keep it open and refresh it from time to time!

Any further questions? Feel free to ask in this thread, or PM me. Otherwise, hope you'll be there on Sunday!

Indyjo


BitWrk's browser-based user interface in action.

[railzand]

ookaay

You will be able to add the key to your Bitcoin wallet access that address.
 

[bitllionaire]

and how much can we earn?

[indyjo]

You will be able to add the key to your Bitcoin wallet access that address.

How to receive money?
In BitWrk, users are identified by a bitcoin address, so it is easy for me to know where to send money to.

Users need to import the private key into their Bitcoin wallet. It is stored in a file called privatekey.wif. That file can be found in the following locations:

• Windows 7 and 8: C:\Users\<USER>\.bitwrk-client\privatekey.wif
• Mac OS X: /Users/<USER>/.bitwrk-client/privatekey.wif
• Linux: /home/<USER>/.bitwrk/privatekey.wif

To import it into your Bitcoin wallet (taking the Satoshi client as example):

• Open privatekey.wif in a text editor
• Select the file's contents and copy it to your clipboard (Ctrl-C, Cmd-C)
• In the Bitcoin client, select *Help->Debug window* from the menu
• Go to tab *console*
• In the command line on the bottom of the page, enter: importprivkey <PASTE YOUR PRIVATE KEY HERE WITH CTRL-V/CMD-V> "BitWrk" rescan=false
• Your Bitcoin wallet will now contain an address labeled "BitWrk". It will receive all future transactions to that address.
• If you want to include past transactions too, use "rescan=true" instead of "rescan=false". It will take a while, during which Bitcoin will be unresponsive.

[Scepta]

Not sure I'd be downloading anything from an untrusted site. Also no mention of verifiability or payout?

[SlicedUpSandwich]

Why don't you get a professional load test rather than 2 or 3 users who actually download your software... this seems quite fishy to me.

[indyjo]

and how much can we earn?

Up to 1 BTC will be shared among particpiants, but could be less, depending on how much compute power there will be available, and on how prices develop.

[indyjo]

Not sure I'd be downloading anything from an untrusted site. Also no mention of verifiability or payout?

Good point!

• Full source code is available, and compiling yourself is easy.
• Use a VM or another user account if you don't trust the software. I actually recommend that!
• Account balances are public. Maybe some people could post their account IDs. Here is mine: http://bitwrk.appspot.com/account/1MwvTNehPz7U5XYn3h1G7LVPANv3GFq6JR
• Payout will take some time, because it is still a manual process, but it should be done within the same day.
  

[indyjo]

Why don't you get a professional load test rather than 2 or 3 users who actually download your software... this seems quite fishy to me.

I want to make this more of a community project. Actual users might turn up unexpected results. And it's more fun! 

[indyjo]

Only 4.5 hours left! 

[indyjo]

One hour to go!  
Currently my account is the only one with a non-zero balance. You can track it here: http://bitwrk.appspot.com/account/1MwvTNehPz7U5XYn3h1G7LVPANv3GFq6JR

[Samperio]

I would like to help. is it time yet? (I guess we have still 30 minutes, and I upgraded to python3 and also imported successfully the pvt key from the also just installed bitwrk... )

Still, it seems I still need to install blender, right?

Please confirm if it's all good. I should be able to report ten minutes before the hour.

S.

[indyjo]

I would like to help. is it time yet? (I guess we have still 30 minutes, and I upgraded to python3 and also imported successfully the pvt key from the also just installed bitwrk... )

Still, it seems I still need to install blender, right?

Please confirm if it's all good. I should be able to report ten minutes before the hour.

S.

Hi Samperio, thanks for your efforts! Yes, you need to install Blender and have a port open. What kind of system are you running (Mac, Linux, Windows?).
Any questions, I'll talk you through.

[Samperio]

I almost posted the previous, but yes, answering your questions, all appears to be good, I'm running Windows 7.

detailed info in almost-published message below:

----

Hooray. It appears to be working.

If anyone is on a rush still trying to make it, remember these have to be in order:

-Router with open port
-Firewall, with open port.
- my antivirus also complained that python3 appeared viruslike... just put the exception and voila!
+ and of course, bitwrk, python3, blender all installed. (it appears to take less than 20 minutes, it took *me* a lot since the message in the early hours, for I also did some major software upgrade this morning.

My experience is that my first mandate to sell timed out with default options. But now I "overpermitted" a long amount of trades for a long period of time (3 hours).

One small question. Since I may or may not be present at the time the test finishes, would it be okay for me to program my computer to simply kill the bitwrk process when maximum time is due?

Seems like there are like 9 minutes remaining for the test to begin, right?

All good here, but I'll keep on checking this thread again and again for the coming 40 mins.

S.

[indyjo]

One small question. Since I may or may not be present at the time the test finishes, would it be okay for me to program my computer to simply kill the bitwrk process when maximum time is due?

Are you sure that port forwarding works? I get "connection refused" on port 2300. You might want to double-check with http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/

And yes, it's absolutely ok to just switch everything off!

[Samperio]

bummer! It does appear closed from that website.

I'm trying to diagnose and will either post or PM you around half past.

[Samperio]

Port now appears open!

[indyjo]

Ok, folks, it's over! Thanks for your participation!

Unfortunately, not every participant was lucky in getting the software to do Blender rendering correctly, so a few people might not be listed. That's not to say that their contribution didn't count! Getting to know failure situations was a main motivation for the test.

Here are the final results for accounts that did have some success:

Account	Final balance	Comment
1MwvTNehPz7U5XYn3h1G7LVPANv3GFq6JR	mBTC 965.88084 + mBTC 1.6406 blocked in ongoing transactions	That's my account
143TMvtqCwaiCj4HcLry94bq8MzSgH7Nru	mBTC 14.23
1149qGAWUau1P9qf61Nnyu62m5pJXDXT4x	mBTC 12.402
1FZc8afGhbZ9R6muNwbrQUTapoFkswBy26	mBTC 5.4189
18wvyrNnzwqdFCErA2ncuime8Nw3R2VCwo	uBTC 150
Fees collected	uBTC 277.66

Hope you had as much fun doing this as I had. Maybe for the next time, the test should be 24h long. What do you think?

[indyjo]

Here is the pay-out transaction: https://blockchain.info/tx/0e3d0af3189ef2a8c051a1579fe180e00d53210e3a0baaa3853107b10acc305f

[Samperio]

Great stuff having been part of this testing.

I guess my detailed reporting to you mainly by PM made it clear it also helps to learn how things cannot be done.

To update everyone interested, it's that I had a mixed Cygwin / Windows native setup between Python3 and Blender. The script as it is was resulted somewhat confused with filenames.

I'd like to investigate on my side on how to make even this exotic setup to work! Maybe that would be eventually helpful to this project.

Funny thing is that, given my rather shallow experience programming, and a little more managing computer systems, I did not know how to get involved in new bitcoins projects. This is like my first opportunity!

No wonder that's how BTCT has performed investiture for me as a Junior member just today! 

Good week to y'all.