This blog is now in archive-only mode! We have new outlets for expressing our excitement and contempt for all forms of cryptocurrency now!

You can follow us and laugh along with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency projects on our twitter, @Buttcoin.

You can also talk with other global banking shills on our subreddit, /r/Buttcoin.

While we are officially putting the blog out to pasture, Buttcoin is not dead. We still hate you all.

The post Buttcoin is pooped. appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

You may have noticed that there was a college football game on yesterday and it was called the Bitcoin Bowl (formerly known as the Beef O’ Brady’s bowl which was also formally known as the MagicJack bowl). A decentralized crypto-currencydid not sponsor the game, rather it was the Bitcoin-to-fiat payment processor Bitpay who shit outmillions of VC dollars to sponsor the 4thcheapest college bowl game, just ahead of theFamous Idaho Potato Bowl.

While Twitter was mainly bashing on the absolutely shitty looking baseball-turned-football field and trying to score free bitcoins by using the #BitcoinBowl hashtag, we had a mole on the inside whoneeded to kill 4 hours waiting for his bedspread to be dry cleaned and decided to go to the actual game and give us a rundown on just how bad it was.

SomethingAwful forums poster “N00baTheHutt” had this to say:

 

Trip report time!

As previously mentioned, I didn’t see much in the way of obvious Bitcoiner activity at the game. It was basically a Central Florida home game, since they are from Orlando, only a few hours’ drive away, and that dominated the crowd. Coming through the turnstiles, people were greeted by a bunch of attractive girls in Bitpay shirts handing out glossy literature (more on that in a bit). I wandered over to one of them to ask if there was any centralized location where I could get a bunch more Bitcoin freebies (hoping for pitchforks, really), but she sheepishly confessed that she didn’t really know and wasn’t at all involved with Bitpay – they apparently just hired a bunch of women not even remotely affiliated with them to hand out their literature. Not really a surprise. Walking through the concourses, I did see a guy in a Pirate Bay shirt and a woman in a shirt saying “Bitcoins Not Bombs,” but that was about it for any bitcoiners. I did hear some people talking about it in the stands, though most of it was “Yeah, so you pay real money for internet money, but can you get it back out into real money?” and jokes about paying all featured charity donations in bitcoins.

Game balls were delivered by a group of Army Rangers rappelling down from the roof of the dome. This was done to the strains of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” though I’m not sure if anyone besides me found that a bit, uh, ironic.

The Bitpay executives were there for the coin toss to determine first possession. One of them brought his dog.

Probably a third of the seats at the Trop were blocked off, and even those that weren’t had plenty of free seats.

Didn’t quite get around to covering up all the MLB logos on the turf.

This thing didn’t show up in the plebian seats where I was – far as I can tell, it made a brief appearance in the sponsor/bigwig seats and nowhere else. Hopefully it has since been sucked back to the nether hells from whence it came.

I think these are some of the people behind the magazine we all got.

One of the other sponsors was apparently a group called ViralStyle, who look to be a bunch of classy folks.

The ads played several times during TV timeouts in the stadium. Reception did not seem overly enthusiastic.

INTERLUDE: How to molest your ray

Halftime featured the NC State marching band performing a medley of Daft Punk hits. Doesn’t work so well with marching bands. We also got to see a very special moment as the Key to the City of Madeira Beach was presented to the Bitpay team. Madeira Beach is VERY proud to be the FIRST official Bitcoin City and Bitcoin Beach in the WORLD, apparently. I’m counting the days until the city is hacked and their budget mysteriously vanishes.

It took four hours to play one hour of football. The game was pretty mediocre for much of it, too, as evidenced by this yawning cameraman.

NC State won. I’m very disappointed that the trophy wasn’t just a big coin. Missed opportunity.

Here’s the literature that was being handed out! It’s… interesting stuff, that’s for sure. Are you bit-curious?

Table of contents.

If only that wolf was colored red. Could’ve made it a Guy Fox.

Goldbugs and Bitcoiners: a match made in scam heaven.

All the profiles of “innovators” are apparently sponsored content, which amuses me greatly. But it’s okay,yBitcoin magazinewriters interviewed them before writing the puff pieces, so it’s almost like real journalism, not advertising.

You can read the rest of the magazine yourself.There’s some fun stuff in there, and I found several contradictions between articles just flipping through it before kickoff. I recommend seeing what else you can find.

I can’t wait until 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 finally becomes the year of Bitcoin!

The post The Bitcoin Bowl really did happen and we had someone at the game. appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

This a guest post from security researcherNicholas Weaver. Nicholas is a part of Berkley’s ICSIprogram and he’s here to tell you a bit about how broken bitcoin is and how you too can profit!.

OK, now I may be just be a simple country Hyper-Chicken, err Ph.D. security researcher, but I think by now I get something very important about Bitcoin: How to make money with Bitcoin. Now I’m also a lazy security researcher, so heck, lets reveal my super secret 10 step plan on how you too can make lots of money with Bitcoin.

Step 0:

You gotta move to Sochi. Now the Bitlievers like to claim that their digital Quatloos free them from the oppressive yoke of government imperialism, but at the same time they go screaming like little girls to the government to help them out if you steal too many of their Dunning-Krugerrands. So you gotta go to some country where the local language defines MLAT as “Tell the FBI to go fuck itself”. And although most of Russia is a frozen hellscape dominated by a shirtless, humorless tyrant, Sochi is, after enough billions of corruption, a nice place to live. Hey, they even have a F1 race.

Step 1:

Break into blockchain.info and all the other “web wallet” services. Oh, but wait, aren’t these companies run securely, with lots of venture capital money? Well, if you consider the VC fundedRNG Improvments[sic]to their code, do you think the rest of their security is much better? And breachCoinbase too while you’re at it…

Step 2:

Download all the saved web wallets. Now these wallets are all encrypted by the suckers users passwords but that just means most are protected with passwords only slightly more sophisticated than “123456”. So start throwing it at your password cracker. As a bonus, get everyone’s email addresses and download all the other password information. And get crackin…

Step 3:

In the meantime, its time to provide another “improvment” [sic] to Blockchain.info’s JavaScript. Just tweak things to leak passwords out to you. Something subtle, or blunt, or whatever. Just as long as it works. For some presumably humorous reason, the Bitcoin community somehow thinks that downloading JavaScript from a server to access your wallet is more “secure” than just having all your digital Latinum stored by someone else. So be sure to laugh manically as each password rolls in.

Step 4:

Wait. Patience is a virtue, young padawan. Until your improvments [sic] are noticed, they will continue to work, snagging all the suckers who somehow, despite believing in a decentralized digital Clams, insist on trusting centralized companies because “the market will eliminate bad actors” or some such Randite fantasy. I mean, the market eliminated bad exchange actor Mt. Gox pretty quick and they in turn eliminated over $500 million of bad bitcoin actors from bad customer actors too!

Step 5:

Once you are discovered, only then do you transfer all those virtual Cubits into your own accounts. Conveniently, the wallet service will tell you when you are discovered and should move the loot because well, they’re going to have to post a big announcement and remove your improvments [sic].

Step 6:

Join the throng on /r/bitcoin who mock those who lost their binary Ankh-Moorpork Dollars to your attack, because everyone knows you should only store your Bitcoins on your own computer. This computer must run a self-burned live linux distro and never be connected to the internet. In fact, make sure to glue the ethernet ports shut. Don’t forgetto include posts noting how the thief is performing a public service in this objectivist paradise by educating the victims on how computer security works.

Now this is all fine and good, but why stop there?

Step 7:

Start writing your malcode module that looks for Bitcoin wallets. This pretty little malicious program should copy both unencrypted and encrypted wallets. It should also add an improvment [sic] to any Bitcoin client it finds to once again tell you the password. Don’t want to actually write the infection routines? Well, there are services you can use, just find your friendly PPI service.

Step 8:

For each stolen wallet, if you crack it, don’t rob it. Well, not right away. After all, probably the best host based IDS is an unsecured Bitcoin wallet, and you don’t want word to get out too soon. Wait a little while. Meditate on the fragility of all things. And then, get impatient and rob em blind.

Step 9:

Join the throng on /r/bitcoin who mock those who lost their binary Ankh-Moorpork Dollars to your malcode, because everyone knows that you should only store your Bitcoins using a paper wallet. Once again, be sure to include posts noting how the thief is performing a public service in this objectivist paradise by educating the victims on how computer security works.

Step 10:

Enjoy life!

So there you have it, a 10, well, 11 step program to make lots of money in Bitcoin. Whatever, off by one error, who cares? Its not like such errors exist in the core protocol of Bitcoin (*cough* OP_CHECKMULTISIG *cough*).

You can thank me by contributing to 1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE.

You can also follow me on Twitter: @ncweaver

The post How to make money with Bitcoin in 10 easy steps appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

(Note: This is a repost of an earlier poston the Buttcoin subreddit. I’ve added new information since the original post implicatingBFL of other site purchases)

My name is Evan. I’m the founder of Buttcoin.org(now ButtcoinFoundation.org)and have been making fun of Bitcoiners since 2011. Buttcoin is one of the oldest Bitcoin sites on the internet and a few months agocelebrated it’s 1 millionth visitor.

Nearlya year agoI (accidently) became a paid shill for Butterly Labs. And I wasn’t the only one.

In December of 2013, Bitcoin losing comedy steam (which thankfully came back!) and after 2 1/2 years of running the site I was getting tired. I had started up school again and work was getting steady so I wasn’t updating as much. I was in the middle of a redesign to keep myself busy but I went weeks between updates. But I liked the site so I kept it around. A few months prior our top notch reporterkillhamster had helped me find new comedy gold to mine and was posting consistantlyon the twitter. He had become the de-facto chief operator of the site.

I was approached by someone named Jeff. He emailed me from a domain at a local bar in Chicago. He had asked about buying the site. This wasn’t the first offer I had gotten. I have been asked to comment on articles in PC World and speak at John Hopkins University about Bitcoins and the site was somewhat popular, but no one ever put in any serious offers. The site got steady traffic but everyone who knows about Bitcoins, knows about computers. And everyone who knows about computers runs AdBlock. So the site made no money but was a fun little hobby of mine.

Jeff presented himself as a regular reader of the site who owned Bitcoins and had presumably cashed out. He said he liked the writing style, liked the site, and wanted to know if I was interested in a sale. I asked what he was offering. He said he wanted to offer me $XX,XXX dollars (not as high as the $30,000 someone is quoting however). I thought his was a joke. The site had no revenue and was virtually impossible to monetize. The only people willing to advertise on bitcoins sites are BFL, Mt. Gox, BitPay, and they would never advertise on Buttcoin. I asked him a few more questions to gauge his sincerity; what he planned on doing with the site, how the transition would be handled, would he allow me to continue to write for the site. He explained that he wanted to keep the site like “The Onion of Bitcoin”, wanted me to keep writing for a minimum of 6 months. He also wanted everything to be in his daughters name because she was just graduating out of journalism school and he wanted her to learn online publishing. The guy was going to buy my site and then let me still have control. I have bought and sold a few domains and sites before and could tell he was serious, so I said fuck yeah and took his money.

We did the site transfer and closed escrow. The day after the transfer occurred my admin account was locked out even though I had an agreement to stay there for 6 months. Since I was already fighting with little site issues because of the transfer I didn’t think much of it, I emailed Jeff but got no response. Killhamster still had publishing rights. The next day we noticed that our most popular article on the entire site, the “The $22,484.00 Butterfly Labs Mini Rig bitcoin miner is a huge, broken, unstable piece of shit.”had been edited and now read The Butterfly Labs Mini Rig is a sexy Bitcoin mining machine.

At this point killhamster emailed Jeff and asked what was up. He stated that there were “going to be some changes to attract new advertisers”. He explained that he liked the humor but picking on specific brands was no good. He said that BFL pays $1000/month for every ad on BitcoinTalk and that there’s no reason we can’t get the same kind of deal. Since my account was now locked out and I was the original author, killhamster could not change the article. At this point I was pretty bummed that what was told to me was no true but whatever, not much I could do about that now. Killhamster was still running the twitter and planning to do some funny stuff with future articles. I wanted to see what was up with this guy though.

I checked and see what was edited. The only thing edited was That BFL article and 2 more, one about them faking CE certification and one where Wired tested it and was unimpressed. But there was some much worse stuff on there that wasn’t touched. If he was trying to clean up the site for advertisers, why just those BFL articles.

Then I remembered that my Google Search Rankings for certain Butterfly Labs related terms were high. Very High.

Buttcoin was ranking between 3-4 for the search term “Butterfly Labs” and “Butterfly Labs Review” and was usually #1 for “Butterfly Labs Scam” and “Is Butterfly Labs ligit”. It was obvious to me that the purpose of purchasing the site was to simply remove the negative articles that were destroying their search traffic and making them look bad.

So I Google “Jeff Butterfly Labs”

http://www.butterflylabs.com/management-view/jeff-ownby-2/

Jeff Ownby is the VP of marketing for BFL.

I never got his last name and all contracts where under his “daughter’s name”.

So I looked a bit deeper and see Jeff from BFL graduated from Elmhurst College in Illinois and the Jeff that bought Buttcoin emailed me from was a Chicago-area bar domain. I still couldn’t get this guy’s last name but I finally found an old Facebook post from a press release by the bar the guy owns and it said his name was Jeff Ownby. Could be another guy with the same name but I’m sure now that BFL bought the site simply to remove three negative articles.

After the FTC seized Butterfly Lab’s assets and Buttcoin.org went offline permanently, we decided to re-launch the site under our control again and re-post the original unedited articles in their entirety.

Since the original post blew up on Reddit, a couplepeople have come forward who used to work for BFL and Jeff. They said that this was the tip of the iceberg and that Butterfly Labs has gone in a major campaign to buy up Bitcoin websitesand turn brand-neutral sites into website who promote their products.

One of the most trusted Bitcoin sites on the internet is the site called WeUseCoins.com.WeUseCoins is one of the oldest Bitcoin websites (about a month before Buttcoin started, early 2011) and is known as the official “beginners guide” for new bitcoin users. It’s a brand-neutral site created by an early Bitcoin fan to clearly and plainly explain Bitcoin’s benefits. It’s on the Bitcoin wiki, the subreddit, and posted any time someone wants to know about Bitcoin. They also made the very popular “What is bitcoin?” videothat has over 600k views.

Ssometime in the past year Butterfly Labs purchased WeUseCoins.com as well.

The site now says “BF Labs” on the bottom and it’s obvious purchasing the site was mainly to inject product links to BFL products.

Take the link on this page to “mining contracts”.

Here’s the page as it was cached in October 2013:https://web.archive.org/web/20131010210100/http://www.weusecoins.com/en/mining-guide

Link goes to the official Bitcoin wiki

Now look where it goes to: https://www.weusecoins.com/en/mining-guide

Butterfly Labs. Their links are peppered everywhere else on the site to. Any link that went to the Bitcoin wiki that mentions Mining Hardware or Mining Contracts now goes to the BFL website.

WeUseCoins is a PR6 website in Google which is very authoratative. Has over 450k backlinks as well.

A link from WeUseCoins is very valuable and just another one of many sites that BFL purchased to control their image online.

This is most likely against the FTC guidelinesto turn websites into paid advertising platforms since the intorduction of so called “Mommy Blogger Disclosure” laws which state that any links that can be considered paid advertising must be clearly marked separate from other content and any sponsors must be disclosed. Articles such as Buttcoin’s criticism of the BFL Mini-Rig being turned into a promotional article with zero article definitely run afoul of the FTC guidelines and should contribute to the legal clusterfuck that BFL is already in.

So that’s the whole story of how BFL bought Buttcoin.org, locked me out of the website, turned itand other websitesinto a a promotional machine until it was ultimately killed. It’s also the story of how we’ve risen from the ashes into our new, shill-free home at the Buttcoin Foundation. Until the next juicy offer comes around, I suppose.

The post The Story Of When Buttcoin.org Sold Out And How Butterfly Labs Turned It (And Other Sites) Into A Product Marketing Machine appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

I want you to read the following block of text without thinking about how well your day is or isn’t going. This will induce spastic cringes so powerful your sleep apnea will be cured.

The title of this Reddit post is “I just forced a business to accept bitcoin whether they wanted to or not.” The author is unknown, since, as you can see in the picture below, the [deleted] tag is where the name would be (We think its this guy), presumably after the negative shit he got from this post. Here’s the full text:

So today I took my kids to the pumpkin patch. It was a family farm and there were about 100 kids there. So it was nice, kids found their little pumpkins and were happy. Then I go to pay. Well I waited for 15 minutes, but nobody came to take my money. I walked to their house and there was a phone number there to call if nobody was around. Called it twice, left a message. Still nobody came out to take my money. I waited a total of 35 minutes and I don’t believe in stealing, but I’m not about to sit in a car for 30 minute car ride home with a 3 year old and 5 year old screaming at me as to why I left their pumpkins there, so I took them without paying.

Got home, found the farms email address and emailed them payment in bitcoin from coinbase. If they accept bitcoin next year, I’ll go back and buy more pumpkins. If not, fuck them, they will probably be out of business anyway since nobody was manning the register for a full 35 minutes(or longer)

Just in case there was any doubt, here’s the original post.

There are many things fucked up about this story. Here’s a short list, and feel free to add in the comments below if I missed anything:

1. Has this guy never been to a restaurant with a shitty waitress, and, instead of waiting for her to take your card, you just went up to the front desk and paid the guy at the register? There are ways around the problem of no one manning the register. One Redditor commented

brycey06
they didnt have a mailbox you could put your money through?

He could have just left the money there, as well. I don’t think anyone would steal the cash, especially if the guy had left a note saying “You weren’t here, I saw a price list, here’s your money, Love, Dave” or something. But if you think it might have been stolen, he could have left the cash in some odd nook and�cranny, and emailed them to say�”You weren’t there, the cash is behind the rosemary” or whatever. There are multiple ways to be a good person.

2. What the hell were his kids doing this whole time? He said he waited 30 minutes. During that time, were the kids with him? If so, did the kids see Dad here steal the pumpkins? What the fuck kind of example is that?!

pm_me_pasta
Good example to show your children.

“No one’s here so we’ll just steal the pumpkins, kids!”

You could have made this a lesson in ethical behavior that they would have remembered. Oh well.

This guy is right. You could have tried to pay and taught your kids “This is the right thing to do”. I thought that’s what you libertarian and/or Freeman of the Land types were all about: Integrity, respect, honor, pulling yourself by your bootstraps, etc. You threw your battle-hardened ideals out the rear window for some pumpkins? The fuck kind of movement is this?

3. The farm did not accept Bitcoin, yet you paid in Bitcoin. User “pm_me_pasta” summed it best:

pm_me_pasta
Couldn’t agree more. From the farm’s point of view:

“Hey mom and pop pumpkin farm, no one was attending your register so I helped myself to some of your stuff. Don’t worry I’ll pay you later in Japanese yen.”

Assuming this is a working farm, they don’t have time to figure out what a Bitcoin is, let alone get payment for it. I know CoinBase, its where I keep my BTC that I have no idea what to spend it on, but sending and receiving payment are two completely different experiences.

If your sending, say to your bank account, it takes me 3-5 days to get it transferred. If I’m sending it to Silk Road to score some smack, its 10 minutes. If your sending it to that farmer, he has to set up a CoinBase account, then his bank info (With Routing Number, Bank Number, Account Number, etc.), then wait for the bank to be verified, which can take 2 days for them to do that thing where they send you some pennies and you see what the exact amounts were. Then converting it from BTC to USD takes 3-5 days.

That’s 7 days to receive payment. YOU COULD HAVE JUST KNOCKED. Which brings me to my next point.

4. WHY DIDN’T YOU KNOCK? There was 100 other kids there, it was a well kept family farm. You mean to tell me you went to one spot and waited for half an hour, and that’s it? I understand, they should have been there, that is a point against them, but they had to have been somewhere! Its a family farm! Go to their front door, they won’t mind you bothering them! Your giving them money! And even if you are bothering them, like they’re having a family emergency or something, you ask where you can leave the money. Or your just leave the money by the register with a note of what you took. Or you leave without pumpkins, and tell your kids you’ll come back later. But you don’t steal! Why the fuck did you steal the great pumpkins?!�Did Linus put you up to this?

“Did you get the pumpkins, lil’ bitch?”

5. There was a phone number, you called twice and left a message. With all we have established, you could have, from that point onward, been polite enough to say in the message anything we have suggested here. But assuming your a smart guy, which, from what we’ve seen, you aren’t, there is another option: Just leave.

Leaving could have fixed two problems:

1. I wouldn’t have had to have written this!

2. Your kids could have learned a lesson.

But you didn’t want to waste gas! That’s why you stole, because your kids were miserable without the pumpkins!

Your kids went to a farm with “a hundred other kids”, had a blast, and might have a great memory of their dad getting them some pumpkins to carve later. But when they find out�that you stole them, that memory is going to be tainted.

The reason we think user “peilthetraveler” is the original poster is because of this comment:

peilthetraveler
Yeah, probably should have just left the pumpkins, I would’ve had to suffer with 30 minutes of screaming kids, then I would’ve got home and been so pissed that my time was wasted i would’ve got on yelp and dragged their name through the mud, plus since its a small town, got on facebook telling everyone how bad the customer service was, cost that farm hundreds of dollars worth of business(maybe more because once I told everyone there was nobody manning the cash register all the “real” thieves would’ve come out of the woodwork to get the easy pickin’s) and then we all suffer greatly.

At least my way, they got their money, my time and gas wasn’t wasted for nothing and kids are happy. It was the lesser of 2 evils.

This guy makes it sound like he’s in control of everything here: If he does get his way, the kids love him, he didn’t waste his gas, and they have pumpkins, which kids love, cause its like legal stabbing.

If he doesn’t get his way, though, no problem, since he can do a negative review on Yelp and cost them hundreds! Then go on Facebook! And then we all suffer greatly, cause where else am I gonna steal pumpkins next year! I’m such a sadist!

“Bend over.”

Also, he implies that if he had bitched about the farm and its lo 30 minutes+ of unmanned register control, the “Real Thieves” would steal straight from the unmanned register, because that’s a thing that happens.

2 points I want to make here:

1. You stole. You may pass it off as “I paid in Bitcoins, whether they like it or not”, but they don’t accept it. Like I covered earlier, its hard to get that money if you’ve never been set up to accept Bitcoin before. And to any business, revenue is important. So they have lost money on you taking product, ergo, you stole. You had 30 minutes (Or longer, since you weren’t being rushed) to put money down, and you didn’t. You can claim “Bitcoin!” until your blue in the face, but meanwhile the farmers you stole from are�out whatever they charge (Lets say $5 a pumpkin), which does add up, over time. To offset that, they may need to charge extra on a few other units, because that’s how stores offset the costs of stolen merchandise.�You robbed them, and they’re the bad guys?

2. When I said earlier “Just leave the money on the counter with a note”, I mean that. No one is going to steal that money. There’s 100 loudmouth kids there. Assuming they didn’t all get there on their own in a massive horde of toddlers, their parents are there. And the average Joe that would take their kids to a pumpkin patch has enough moral lessons and ethics to see a note on the table or just cash and not take it. The only people who would do that are lowlifes who steal. And, as we have seen in point one, that’s you.

This guy�had no control here. He took the worst possible avenue. And things weren’t going to go that horrible “I’m going to post on Yelp, and I hope they lose $10 billion trillion quadrillion dollars because I had to wait for 30 minutes while they milked cows or something” direction either, because it doesn’t work.

When Amy’s Baking Company was on Kitchen Nightmares, its Yelp rating was one of the things they bitched about the most. Its what got them on the show. Yet look at it now: 3 star rating. Its never been a question of it being a shitty place, its not. It looks nice, the food is decent at worst and fantastic at best. Gordon Ramsey said it was a pleasure to be there when he did his inspection of the place. The problem wasn’t the food, it was the owners shitty attitude and behavior! And yet, despite the beating they got, they’re still open. That is one of the worst examples of Yelp being used to “Take down” someone, and they’re still fucking here. If the whole fucking internet, with all its lethargic muster, couldn’t bring down Amy’s Baking Company, then you can’t bring down “Fuckin’ Pumpkin’ Inc.” because they weren’t there to complete a transaction. And, again, your the asshole here, because your the one that stole.

6. What the hell possessed you long enough to get onto Reddit and brag you ripped off a family farm. Did you seriously think that was going to go well?

In the words of Bill Maher:

“I can’t even think of a suitable analogy for that disconnect. Its like thinking getting a handjob will clean your garage”

Those are just some of the quick thoughts I jotted down. If I missed any, let me know below, so I can steal them and update this article pretending they are my own.

The post Is It Stealing if the Vendor Doesn’t See You Take It? appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

Because I’ve been doing more digging�for Bitcoin-related stories, I have certain sources�I tend to go back to. One of them is /r/Bitcoin. It has been one of the best spots�for researching anything I have ever come across for a reporter such as myself. It’s like the all scams, misogyny and bad ideas come right to me! (But I look other places as well, because I’m not lazy, like CNN.)

I have no real opinion of Reddit. I actually kind of like it to be honest even though I personally never used it.�It just seemed like some popular link site that had weird groups like the Bitcoin nuts in addition to being the homebase of the Men’s Rights movement. I got turned off by things like that and�Adrien Chen’s article on�Violentacrez�but now, thanks to BTC, I’m back.

Throughout the time I’ve known of /r/Bitcoin I’ve figured it attracts a lot of newbies wanting to learn about the ‘coin. Seems reasonable, right? It is the first source listed in the “Keeping Up to Date” section on everyone’s favorite Bitcoin Starter site, WeUseCoins.com�(now owned by Butterfly Labs).

In life, there are many things we know we don’t know. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. But what we do know is that there are�76% of Americans�don’t have a clue what�a Bitcoin is. Either they don’t know its a thing, or they don’t really care. In the same survey linked above, 80% of people said they’d rather have Gold over Bitcoin, probably because Gold is easy to explain and, economically speaking, proven.

But what about those few who genuinely want to know more? What about the men and women�who are genuinely excited about such a interesting concept? Those who want to dip their toe into “The Currency of the Future”? What does the Reddit Bitcoin community, linked to by many of the most prominent Bitcoin introduction sites, do to help them, the newest of newbies, looking for the most “Up to Date” info?

The answer is just harass them, apparently.

Case in point:

There’s an old business adage that says “No company was ever unionized without deserving it”. This means�things need to change but the guys in charge don’t seem to realize that�things are so bad�that�pretty much 90% of our�site’s content�is devoted to�them and their blatant idiocy. So now its time to force some changes.

First lets just be clear: A member of the Reddit Bitcoin community has decided there has been so much�harassment that there needs to be some basic guidelines on how to handle the newbies. So right off the bat things are less Utopian than they have been proclaimed, and more like if the newbies were Snake Plisskin in “Escape from New York”, with everyone just attacking him just because they’ve never seen him before.

Alright. So what’s going on?

Huh. That’s actually a pretty clear�depiction of what’s going on. Although there are so many other things you could have pointed out, in reference to just /r/Bitcoin.

This is going surprisingly well.

Well, you haven’t managed to run anyone off Reddit with the usual Bitcoin-Related insanity, so let’s listen.

Yes. If this rule was followed, they could have 5 more “Adopters”�a year.

Wow, 2 out of 3 so far. Bravo.

I’d just like to point out that this guy’s name is “secret_bitcoin_login“. It took a guy with the username “secret_bitcoin_login” to be reasonable. Good job, guys!

That “By Request” link, FYI, goes to a comment down in the same thread by a guy named “BigBlackHungGuy“. You guys suck with names.

But names aside, these are 4 legitimate, level-headed and, above all else, reasonable requests. However, given the history of the ‘Coin and its cult-like communities’ past PR disasters being basically a string of hilarious incidents�akin to a train crashing and spilling its cargo of dildos next to a row of churches, one car at a time, this is probably going to hit hard.

Now before we continue let me make one thing clear: No, I did not read the comments on the thread. It restored my faith in some Bitcoin followers and I don’t want that immediately destroyed by someone probably named 13-23. This isn’t like the last article�where there’s a string of comments that show “THESE PEOPLE SHUR ARE STUPID!”-esque rhetoric. I want to really look into what’s going on here. And I think I know a good starting place.

Recently in the Buttcoin subreddit�a man posted his story about trying to explain that there are, in fact, people who know about Bitcoin, but don’t really support�it. The top comment, according to him, was that those people don’t exist, a type of mindset the Cult Education Institute calls “Loading the Language“, where easy, memorable and short catchphrases become constricting, to the point that anything outside the “Language” is absurd.

The idea that 76% of Americans don’t know about Bitcoin is to some a laughable statistic in much the same way anti-vaccination crazies, when shown 4 different stories about how not getting vaccinated hurt or even killed people, just strengthened their belief that vaccinations are terrible.�Asterios Kokkinos�had a great quote on Episode 21 of the podcast “The Biggest Problem in the Universe“:

“I believe all these statistics, obviously, but the people that don’t vaccinate their kid are not gonna be convinced by statistics, so it’s like, what the fuck do we do? …Like, I know that on this program, you don’t necessarily talk about solutions, but, like, seriously. What the fuck do you do? You can yell a million statistics. You can get 1,000 doctors.” (Source)

The answer, it seems, is that you can’t do anything. Whether is be�Bitcoin cheerleaders or Anti-Vaccination nutjobs or 9/11 Truthers, there is no convincing people they are wrong or that there is other information they are refusing to see once the language has been loaded.

Therefore, none of the four great suggestions will ever come to fruition because they don’t really “Work” in the context of the language.

So we could show every single example of how embarrassingly easy it can be to scam these guys or how they get arrested for doing stupid things like starting Silk Road and letting a CAPTCHA expose your IP address every time someone logs on yet sticking to your�guns because Bitcoin is right and anything else is wrong. It’s like in “The Dark Knight Rises”, when Bane tells a really hot guy “You stay in this plane that’s about to crash”, and the guy just goes all blue steel on him, melts my heart, then crashes with the plane (~swoon~). Someone not constricted would go at least go “I wanna get out of the plane!” Then die, because Bane gave that person permission to. But at least make an effort! Don’t just let “The Cause” be the thing that leads you to your slaughter! Have a little fight in you!

But Bitcoin is comforting to them now. Anything that goes against it in turn goes against what makes them comfortable. Questioning Bitcoin, therefore, is a major source of discomfort and needs to be remedied ASAP.

In our coverage of the FTC’s case against Butterfly Labs, we showed you documents from BFL’s motion to dismiss that were so glaringly condescending it made me�dry-heave because I was laughing so hard. It was completely unnecessary but there it was. In a legal document, submitted to a federal court, this was presented with the only edits being certain italicized words to really layer on the sarcasm:

If they REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALY wanted to know, they’d just let us continue, like the market demands.

It shows a level of condescension and confidence that is not acceptable in any trial, anywhere, especially when it’s you against the feds. It shows said traits on the same levels as, say, serial killer�Ted Bundy as he defended himself in court. We all knew he was guilty but he was so sure he could use his charm to get out of jail because it worked with everyone else, especially his victims. It didn’t work. Even when his 5 court-appointed lawyers told him to let them handle it he demanded to be his own defense, a move one of his lawyers, Polly Nelson, said

“…sabotaged the entire defense effort out of spite, distrust, and grandiose delusion” (Source)

Same with any clip of Charles Manson. You see him saying insane shit all the time, but have you noticed there is a structure to how he will say something in English, then devolve into babbling nonsense? It seems like he is having bits of clarity, followed by�being pulled back into, well, Mansonland. That’s the language constricting him. And with Manson that constriction by language is so tight that the only words that can come out are gems like “You guys are living a thousand illusions, man!”�Between those two quotes, the one from Bundy’s lawyer and Charles Manson, does the Bitcoin Cult not pop up just a little bit? Especially with Nelson’s “Grandiose Delusion” bit?

When people are trying to learn about this cool thing called Bitcoin and are met with hostility, and then the cult wonders why people hate them, it becomes absurdity! Of course people are going to hate the asshole who, when you ask a supposedly simple question like “What’s a gigahash?” or “Where can I find coins?”, instead of being directed to the Newbie forum, you get called a dick for wasting everyone’s precious time that could be spent studying the philosophy of Satoshi’s masterpiece.

The Loaded Language Bitcoiners work with involves phrases like “Currency of the Future”, “Sheeple”, “Early Adopters” and “Decentralized”. Words that, if strung together enough times, create an atmosphere that tells a Bitcoiner “Anyone who doesn’t know what Bitcoin is must be a fool!”, while everyone else looks at that guy and just goes “Fuck this, I’m paying for my Panera Bread with my Credit Card like an adult.”

There are so many other things that people don’t like about that community of nutjobs, like how everything is the most complicated process that cannot be explained, but these people are pretty much harmless fedora-wearing bronies�who hide behind the veil of Libertarianism like it means something to anyone besides Ron and Rand Paul.

A constricting loaded language has led to the cult of the ‘coin. Some of the members of said cult will read this and deny every word I’ve written and attempt to proclaim their currency is the way of the future.

All I will say is this: Visa has VisaNet, their main network�center, located on the eastern side of the US. VisaNet�can handle 24,000 transactions per second. In�that single second, security measures are put in place to stop fraud, stop risks (like overcharges) and help aid in disputes. They also do a 5 day stress test each summer to flood the network with transactions to make sure it can handle an excess number of transactions like at Christmas time, when everyone and their mother is trying to buy something. 2013’s highest capacity was 47,000 transactions per second. And since they can modify their system for maximum efficiency, everyone, everywhere can use Visa and not have to worry their payment won’t go through due to a technical error.

Bitcoin currently accepts 7 transactions per second. I can’t really provide a source though since all the information I wanted to link to is by the cult. And it’s all wrong. You try to get a legit answer from the cult on just this one thing, why the all-digital currency of the future can only handle a minuscule number of transactions compared to a supposedly outdated system, and all you get are lies. Pre-constructed lies at that because, like all cults, the members cannot think on their own.

The post Why People Dislike the Cult of ‘Coin. appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

The Federal Trade Commission filed Case �4:14-cv-00815-BCW� on September 15^th, 2014. In their report, the FTC claims that BFL did a bunch of dumb things.�These include:

–Refusing to refund payment, by flipping between two policies: No refunds, and refund offers that were never fulfilled.
–Josh Zerlan, Vice President of Product Development, testified�that BFL used pre-paid rigs to mine for BTC before shipping (if they were even shipped). This may explain why some were broken messes by the time they got to customers.
–Because the products were shipped so late (or not at all), the rigs were incredibly outdated, and because of that, miners couldn’t use the rigs properly. �(Via FTC):
–Refusing to ship the BitForce miner months after pre-orders, then using deceptive marketing to get people to buy or upgrade to a newer miner, the Monarch.

For these reasons, primarily, the FTC had temporarily shut down operations at Butterfly Labs (From what I understand, some operations have since resumed after a TRO elapsed. More on that later). The FTC has said in their later report:

Given their record of repeated law violations, Defendants [Butterfly Labs] cannot expect the Court simply to take their word�for it that they have abandoned their illegal conduct for good� Defendants� business survives upon income obtained through misrepresentations about timely delivery and profitability that�should be returned to their�victims…�[The] Defendants have failed to explain why the Court should�permit them to resume operations and deplete assets available for consumer redress, especially in light of the Commission�s likelihood of success on�the merits. (Case�4:14-cv-00815-BCW�Document�42)

Yeah.

About that last bit, the �Success on the merits� part. As detailed earlier, BFL is fucked. The FTC has multiple points (and evidence) on BFL�s deceptive practices that are quite compelling. These include:

–BFL admitting that they were behind schedule, while using vague terms that didn’t set a firm ship date. Like, openly saying �Two months or longer� to consumers. Which is not considered “Qualifying language”, AKA �Not some vague bullshit�. BFL later admitted that, with Bitcoin mining, �Time was of the essence�. They ended up never shipping most of their orders, and the ones that did ship, as mentioned earlier, were outdated due to the difficulty rate constantly increasing. That basically means that because the miners weren’t delivered on time despite the company admitting that, in order for their product to be competitive, it had to be operational ASAP, the rare few who did receive their broken, piece of shit machines could not recoup their costs and, therefore, lost a ton of money.
–That stupid calculator they put everywhere, stupidly. (More below)
–The language used to explain shipping delays specifically was �Feeble�, and any excuses they use are bullshit because they clearly were not shipping anything or being reasonable in the meantime.
–They lied about testing the Monarch chip, saying it was nearly finished with “Taping” when, in fact, it was barely even beginning, with internal messages saying to expect shipment in early February 2014. This was November 2013.
–Around the same time they were panicking about the Monarch chip not being close to done, they sent an email blast promising early 2014 would be the ship date. This is, again, vague, not qualifying language, and also�deceptive marketing, because it is claiming that a product that is not close to being done is close to being done, and pre-orders are open now! What a great source of revenue: people trying to jump into the mining game not knowing that BFL was supposed to ship that product months earlier!
–They claim to have a full refund policy for orders between August 9^th-November 9^th, 2013. Hilariously, they have no documents proving this, making this one of, if not BFL’s�most blatant lie when you realize the FTC had to consult �The Blogosphere� to see how customers had to force refunds via Credit Card disputes or lawsuits. The main thing from all of the comments in each thread is simple: BFL did not willingly refund a single damn order, probably in part to their confusing refund policy explained earlier. We’ll call it “Kafkaesque”.
–Later on, they allowed consumers an option to upgrade their order without disclosing that by doing so, they would void their opportunity to get a refund. That is illegal, since you have to notify consumers when you change details like that. Its why you get an email from eBay or PayPal or Tumblr saying “Our Terms of Service have changed”.
– By the FTC�s count, BFL had 3 major products that did not ship: BitForce, Monarch and their Cloud�Mining�service that charged $10/GHS using their Monarch miners. Yet they still advertised new products and accepted pre-orders.
–Not one BFL consumer, not a single one out of 20,000 paid-in-full consumers, got a BFL miner on its original ship date. And even if there was a reasonable delay, since this is supposedly very high-tech stuff were dealing with here, and delays do happen, BFL still has literal tons of Monarch orders left to ship almost a year after the original ship date. That’s unreasonable for any company with orders paid-in-full.
–Those stupid �Y U NO SHIP� pitchforks from our last article on BFL? The FTC sees that as the company mocking their customers. And it�s kinda hard to deny.

Nothing says “We love our customers” than using funds that should go to shipping a product instead going to mass ordering foam pitchforks and torches. BFL 1, FTC 0.

The calculator bit is an important one. For those not aware, BFL posted a calculator on its Facebook and Tumblr accounts, as well as its website and a few other official BFL pages, telling people they could see how much they could potentially earn with their rigs, based on the current difficulty level, exchange rate and how much electricity costs. The FTC says the calculator showed when someone would break even with the machine using the calculator. This is a problem, because since the machine never shipped, these calculations would equal an outdated and useless miner, if and when they finally got their machine. There�s also the fact that an employee of BFL has said they lied about how powerful the machines actually were, meaning the calculations outputted were always wrong, thereby misleading customers, a serious charge that will most likely be one of the main reasons BFL will crumble.

So, in the end, what is the FTC charging them under? The Federal Trade Commission�Act of 1914, a law President Woodrow Wilson signed to stop monopolies and unfair trade practices. Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. � 45(a), prohibits �unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce”, which, as demonstrated above, BFL has done in fucking spades. Here’s the full list of violations:

I’d also like to add “Conspiracy”, just to see Reddit go insane.

AND, before we get to BFL�s rebuttal, let�s not forget that BFL Co-Founder and Innovation Officer Sonny Vleisides engaged in mail fraud by participating in a lottery scheme run by his dad that, internationally, netted $25 Million dollars from victims. He was still on probation when all this insanity occurred, so out of all of them, his odds are the worst.

His Prison name was “SonnyV”.

So…�What was BFL�s response?

Hilarity.

–BFL contends that the FTC is basically Dirty Harry, a good cop gone rogue because of their foaming at the mouth hatred of all things Bitcoin and Butterfly Labs, despite the fact that the FTC noted in its earlier report that the IRS has decided to let Bitcoin be counted as taxable property, and therefore okey-dokey.

–BFL called the FTC �Kafkaesque�, with the following footnote:

�From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.� � Franz Kafka, The Trial.

According to Wikiquote, that is actually from Kafka�s 1918 work �Aphorisms�. Also, the FTC is not acting Kafkaesque, its doing its job. The refund thing from earlier? That is definitely Kafkaesque.

–The first footnote, the very first one, is very adamant about how much the FTC is on a �Campaign� to �Destroy� Butterfly Labs. The quote that follows inside the footnote is as docile as an actual butterfly�s queef:

�We often see that when a new and little-understood opportunity like Bitcoin presents itself, scammers will find ways to capitalize on the public�s excitement and interest,� said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC�s Bureau of Consumer Protection. �We�re pleased the court granted our request to halt this operation, and we look forward to putting the company�s ill-gotten gains back in the hands of consumers.�

Considering the harm these guys have done to thousands of paying customers, that is as calm and reasonable as it gets.

–Despite the FTC�s pretty good explanation of what Bitcoin mining is in its first affidavit, BFL is claiming that THE MAN COULD NEVER UNDERSTAND THE BIGGER PICTURE, MAAAAAAAAN.

Because nothing makes sense if you don’t BELIEVE!

And here is the first page (of 2) from the FTC explaining the basics of Bitcoin:

I’d keep going to the next page, but I think I’ve made my point.

Moreover, their argument that the FTC’s claims don’t matter because they don’t understand Bitcoin (They do) is bullshit as well, because you don’t need to understand something to know its a scam. I don’t know a thing about chemistry, but when I see con artists selling juice they claim cures AIDS, I know that’s bullshit. We all know buttsex�is how you cure AIDS.

–I get a very weird Boston Legal-esque vibe from this motion to dismiss. It�s like some guy at BFL handed in a megalomaniacal rant about how the government hates him and his company to a lawyer, and the lawyer was like �I think I can translate this into legalese�.� Case in point:

… if he BOTHERED to pick up the phone, which I know must have been SOOOOOOOOOO HARD, then asked just ONE question about this thing they CLEARLY don’t know about…

That is an actual quote, from a real court document. That is so out-of-bounds rude for any case document I�ve seen in a while. Even the Whitey Bulger trial docs had class, and that guy ran the Winter Hill Gang! They based Jack Nicholson�s character from �The Departed� on him! Yes, that guy! This document is more offensive than Bulger�s trial, and the fact that he actually killed people is on public record, in pretty graphic detail. Depictions of bodies are less offensive than this motion to dismiss. I�m sure there are other motions on record somewhere with language this glaringly condescending, but I haven�t seen it. I think, side by side, this motion for dismissal�will be used to teach law students how to lose a case before the trial has even begun.

The main problem with the language is the condescension. It is clear that whoever wrote the rant that was translated into legal babble thinks he understands Bitcoin than anyone else, even Satoshi, and just KNOWS that no one inside the FTC could possibly understand such a broad concept as digital currency, because OBAMA.�I’d be willing to bet .000001 BTC that whoever decided to add condescension to their motion against the federal government’s case is probably one of the three main BFL officers listed in the original trial docs.

In fact, going through this whole document, it reads less like a professional defense of a company accused by the government of defrauding investors, and more like if you took the out of touch and not at all accurate legal advice from the comments posted on /r/Bitcoin, got said comments complied into one dump of quotes, and shipped it to a law firm with some of the more confident Libertarians standing in the room, bull-headed as ever, demanding their constitutionally protected day in court be as close to Perry Mason Syndrome as possible.

Yeah, guys, you could have TRIED to learn SOMETHING.

–They did ship some of their �Jalapeno� units, and, in fact, did ship other products as well. It isn’t disputed that some product was shipped. However, there doesn’t seem to be any documentation saying it was 45,000 units. There really isn’t any proof of that 45,000 unit number besides them just making it up. Note that there is no footnote, and there isn’t one on any other page mentioning that number. They are blatantly lying in their motion to dismiss against the FTC. I don’t know if that’s a felony or not, but I hope to God it is.

But that�s not the point. They very well may have shipped 45,000 units, but in the meantime they were refusing to refund customers, mining BTC with pre-ordered machines, not shipping paid-in-full units to customers, and then mocked said paying customers with those stupid foam pitchforks. According to�the FTC, BFL didn�t ship anything to something like 20,000 people who had already paid for their machines. �That�s the point: That they conspired to use customer funds to make equipment for themselves, and then ship it off to the customers when they were done. If that wasn’t their plan in the beginning, it certainly became their plan after, lets say, 2 days.

Via FTC.

–This:

Yeah, FTC, you could have at least TRIED to see we were already being sued for what you’re accusing us of doing.

Oh, so NOW the FTC wants to protect consumers, even though we were already being sued for our deceptive practices by someone else! They should have stopped us sooner! Well, it�s too late now, and that�s how law works, so I think were in the clear.

And for those wondering about the footnote, well�

If Plaintiff already knew about the District of Kansas putative class action when it filed its ex parte papers, it had an ethical obligation to inform the Court of the existence of that case.

Basically, the FTC should have known they were already being sued in Kansas, and by not putting that in their briefing they�re basically liars, even though the FTC did mention that there were �at least 2 lawsuits against BFL in the past, in its first report.

–They seem to have lost touch with reality. This, by the way, was the best part of their whole motion:

Y’know, on one hand, they’re calling us fraudsters, but on the other, they’re letting us back in the building, so we win, right?

I seriously cannot fathom the stupidity it must take to write that second paragraph.�BFL is basically saying �The FTC CLAIMS that we stole up to $50 Million dollars from thousands of customers, yet they let us reopen our doors! They must have finally opened their eyes to the future of Bitcoin! It was all just a big mistake!”

Lets explain: On September 23^rd, the FTC announced that, through court order, BFL was shut down through a Temporary Restraining Order, or TRO, on the grounds that the three main officers, Darla Drake, Nasser Ghoseiri, and Sonny Vleisides, respectively the treasurer, CTO and Innovation officer, had done all the fun stuff we�ve covered. Because it was so blatantly obvious that BFL was going to continue doing what it was doing (And, based on the language here, they DEFINITELY would, since they don’t seem to see what they did wrong), the FTC got a TEMPORARY restraining order, meaning that for a short period of time, operations would cease.

What they are contending in that second paragraph is that because a temporary restraining order lapsed, the FTC has no case. Because, as we all know, when time elapses on a legal matter� law.

There is absolutely no point to their contention here. Because the TRO ended, and the Judge decided he wasn�t going to renew it, they win. Because law.

We’ll be keeping track of this story, and any updates will be posted on our new main site, ButtcoinFoundation.org, or by following us on Twitter. Or don’t, I don’t give a shit.

The post An In-Depth Look at how Butterfly Labs is Going to Lose in Court to the FTC appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

Bitcoin fans rejoice! The once prestigious, ranked 39th out of 40 Beef �O� Brady Bowl in St. Petersburg, Florida, is now known as the Bitcoin bowl, thanks to the VC-funded, �we don�t have a business model� Bitcoin company Bitpay, who spent a whole $375,000 to sponsor the college bowl game for three years. No, this isn�t a desperate cry for legitimacy after Dogecoin sponsored NASCAR�s Josh Wise and sent him rocketing to weird internet stardom.

Naturally, some of the rules of college football will have to change to reflect the Bitcoin community�s values and standards. Thankfully, my awful pals at the SA forums have been more than happy to make some suggestions:

MORE CURLY FRIES:

put all the scores in the blockchain

MORE CURLY FRIES:

all plays take a ten minute break while everyone watching decides whether they agreed with what they saw

TVarmy:

i really hope they implement a tipping system at the game, where people in the stands pelt the players with quarters.

duTrieux.:

anybody who purchases at least 51% of all tickets gets to decide how the game ends

mr Scoop:

when scoring a touchdown players need to remember to pay the score transaction fee so the points will be confirmed before the end of the game

MORE CURLY FRIES:

instead of having players sent off the field for professional misconduct they must wear a special RULE BREAKER shirt so other players know not to do sport with them

FrozenVent:

25 points are awarded every 10 minutes

theflyingorc:

Halftime scheduled for Pattaya Thailand

Several field goals are orphaned

Field can only handle a maximum of 7 players at a time

haveblue:

clever coach sneaks sticker with team name into ref�s logbook, team credited with every touchdown that season

Chum Scandal:

players encouraged to remove pads and helmet to avoid overheating

bisticles:

The scoreboard is just a listing of every point scored by every team in every sport since the beginning of time

duTrieux.:

there are no referees, but there is a wiki

The post The Bitcoin Bowl appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

The post When all you have is Bitcoin… appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

Few Bitcoin stories are as enduring and as entertaining as that of perpetual loser Logansryche, one of the least successful bitcoiners out there. From failed virtual businesses to failed real businesses to failed business ideas, he embodies the true spirit of Bitcoin.

He was well known for being one of the �best� ideas guys out there, starting with his past business experience: a now defunct Second Life animal shelter. He would take in abandoned virtual pets, virtually feed them, and find them new virtual homes with virtual owners. This ended predictably, with all the fake animals starving to death in Videoland. This somehow qualified him to run more advanced and profitable businesses, such as BitCard, his online gift card store, but with Bitcoin! BitCard, originally hosted on some shady free webhost, was to supply not only a wide array of retail gift cards, but collectible trading cards as well, such as rare (not actually rare) Pok�mon cards, baseball cards, and of course, Magic: the Gathering cards.

He had high hopes for his little store, keeping people updated at the Bitcoin forums, where nobody paid much attention except to tell him to buy a real domain instead of using what was probably an open relay filled with Russian spammers. After mooching off a friend to buy a real domain, he finally set up thebitcardstore.com, where he first sold (didn�t sell) trading cards, and then added gift cards. The site was plagued with issues that he never really fixed, such as �being able to purchase things� or �staying open.�

In the meantime, he advertised his services as a �developer� and offered to set up stores for other Captains of Industry. His first (and only) customer reported a less-than-stellar experience. Logansryche claimed to have worked on things for a grueling seven hours, only to have nothing to show for it. Once his customer discovered that nothing worked correctly, Logansryche demanded an additional payment to fix it. In his defense, �Bravenet uploads files in chunks under 30mb externally, it took� 3 1/2 hours to upload Open Cart and 2 modules� which allegedly weighed in at 100 MB. He knows how long it took because he marked down each attempt to upload on a Post-It note on his monitor, so everyone knows. Insisting that the initial prepayment was a gift, he demanded more money for doing nothing, in typical Bitcoin fashion. Eventually his customer offered him a fraction of a Bitcoin because he �did his best.� Logansryche continued to blame everyone else for his shortcomings.

At some point Logansryche decided that he desperately needed a 1994 Ford Explorer, because only that particular year�s model could put up with his hard driving (total and complete lack of maintenance.) So he cooked up various ridiculous money making schemes which, as expected, ultimately failed. One such scheme was selling electronics. By electronics we mean he literally pulled a bunch of components from old PC motherboards and tried to sell each one individually. For the parts that weren�t pried loose with pliers, he was using a small blowtorch to melt the solder and singe the parts themselves. In his own words, �they smell something awful�. When this failed, he went back to hawking gift cards at 70 to 100% markup. When this was pointed out, he blamed some script and now every card is marked up ten percent, which just happens to always equal two dollars. �Do some math yeesh.�

After picking a few fights on the forums, he was called out as a scammer after failing to deliver the one gift card he ever managed to sell. Bitcointalk user cablepair�bought a ten dollar card, and mentioned that he needed it quickly. Logansryche didn�t deliver, since he himself had to purchase the card (now a code) from some other retailer and was beyond broke. cablepair requested a refund and was rebuffed several times, eventually only providing the funds after borrowing them from his girlfriend. This marked the end of the BitCard store.

It was then that internet detectives dug up some hilarious dirt on the guy, including his unhealthy love of Disney�s The Jungle Book spinoff TaleSpin and his sad attempt to petition Disney to hand over the rights to the show to him, so he and a bunch of other amateur manchildren could make new episodes. When told that this was an unrealistic goal, he threw a tantrum and eventually gave up.

The failed store, escrow services, hours-long uploads, and tantrums were nothing compared to his grandest plans: to buy the derelict Hub Theater in Rochelle, IL�and turn it into a wonderland of Bitcoin, soda, and every film imaginable. This was amazing on so many levels, as his lack of planning, comprehension, and business acumen came together to create a huge, beautiful trainwreck. He requested donations totaling $350,000 to completely renovate the theater, focusing primarily on the concession stand and ignoring important things such as parking, fire safety, and the movies themselves. Here is his complete bill of materials:

5? Fountain Drink Counter $579
48? Storage $509 x4
20? Trash Can $415 x2
Topper w/warmer $372 x4
1000 16oz Cups $63
500 32oz Cups $60
500 44oz Cups $68
2k 16oz Cup Lids $61
1k 32oz Cup Lids $40
1k 44oz Cup Lids $41
Corn Dog Fryer $638
Corn Dog Batter $42
1k Corn Dog Skewers $35
Cotton Candy MAchine $495
Cotton Candy Mix $50
1k Cotton Candy Stix $30
Deep Fryer $232
Popcorn Scooper $14
Popcorn Butter $85
20v Fountain Drink Machine $11,000 x2
5gal Diet Dr. Pepper Syrup $67
5gal Dr. Pepper Syrup $67
5gal RC Cola Syrup $67
5gal 7up Syrup $67
5gal Pink Lemonade Syrup $42
5gal Sunkist Orange Syrup $67
5gal Pepsi Syrup $OOS
5gal Diet Pepsi Syrup $OOS
The Hub Theater $175,000
Carpeting need dims
Epson Projector $2,000 x2
Popcorn Popper $958
Hot Dog Steamer $533
Condiment Station $457 x2
Cash Register $200
Credit Card Machine $300
Convection Oven $1,047 x2
Cinema Seats $127,000
16? Pizza Oven $1,574
14? Pizza Oven $1,400
Pretzel Oven $1,400
24�24? Register Counter $275
24�70? Counter $405
Spiral Fry Cutter $458
500 Large #5 Tray $31
50lb bag Popcorn Kernals $35
Popcorn Caramel Glaze $35
Butter Flavored Popcorn Salt $28
5gal Fruit Punch Syrup $51
5gal Hawian Punch Syrup $76
5gal Coke Classic Syrup $122
5gal Barq�s Root Beer Syrup $122
5gal Cherry Coke Syrup $122
5gal Coke Zero Syrup $122
5gal MM Lemonade Syrup $122
5gal Sierra Mist Syrup $OOS

His plans for the rest of the theater�s operations were less thought out. The projectors he�d selected were beyond inadequate, being more suited to a conference room than a theater of any size, and his plans for the films themselves were to obtain DVDs or just stream from Netflix, ignoring copyright and licensing altogether. After being told over and over again that none of this would work, he promptly gave up, his theater dreams unfulfilled. He didn�t resume posting regularly for nearly a year.

Logansryche�s next big business plan was to sell custom made guitar picks, using yet another crappy free website. This is when we learned how the Creative Commons license isn�t actually an alternative copyright option, but allows him to �print any logo [he] wish[es] as long as [he doesn’t] claim copyright to it.� All art, music, literature, and other creative endeavors are free for the taking, as long as you remember to slap a CC logo on it somewhere and don�t claim it as your own. Clearly this is how he would have shown every movie ever in his now-forgotten theater. After being extensively educated on copyright law by a few patient forum posters, he located a cache of royalty-free art. Seventeen days after he began, he had lost interest and moved on to considering purchasing a Sun Microsystems server with money that he didn�t have in order to try Bitcoin mining again.

Catching up with Logansryche today, we find that he�s going to help his cousin become a professional video game player by begging for $3,000 for computer hardware, he�s going to launch an internet TV station about the paranormal, using a the Ghostbusters logo (it�s OK, because Creative Commons!) by begging for $2,000, and he�ll be creating an internet gaming music video channel, also by begging for $2,000. It�s satisfying to note that all three of these are completely unfunded, though he�s kept everyone updated (whether they wanted to know or not) on the status of his pro gaming journey, which is basically �we won a game.�

In addition to this, he�s looking to move from some despondent community in NY to some despondent community in FL:

We are here to attempt to raise money to move from Syracuse, NY to Ornaldo, FL. Our current residency is quickly becoming unlivable. The walls in the bathroom are quickly becoming infested with black mold(which I�m allergic to), the floor in the kitchen have become wavy and the house is generally becoming smaller and smaller by the day. We had an inspector come to the house and he said that the shakes on the outside of the house are asbestos, the porch overhang is ready to fall since the supports were made of metal, and there�s no insulation in the walls anywhere(there�s that crumbly stuff in the attic, but that�s it). We were told by three different contractors that to fix everything would cost over $200,000.00 � Our solution to the matter is to move out of New York and back to Orlando, Florida. I spent eight years there and have a good repitoir with management of Titusville Publix so I would be able to get work there. We found a few properties that would help us achieve our goal.

The first is a property that�s easy to get to from everywhere and costs $90,000 and HOA fees are $500/mo. It�s a 1/1 condo located in Plantation Park. Link

The second is a 2/2 mobil home for in a park for $28,500 and lot rent there is $528 +utilities.

The third is a 3/2 house for sale for $49,900.

Either way we look at it, in addition to these prices, we would need to either rent or buy a box truck and an additional vehicle to drive around in. Before anyone asks, we�re both on SSI and make only enough to cover the mortage, water, electricity, and internet. We�ve cut as much misc money from our budget as we can and it ends up back into the house somewhere. Please help us achieve our goal of $150,000 we would really appreciate it.

Here�s the $49K mansion mentioned above:

And that, save for some minor disgusting personal details, is our very favorite Bitcoiner.

Product goes here. Description goes here. Pathetic existence goes here.

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