In case you haven’t noticed, Bitcoin is going through some pretty intense tribulation right now, with tens of thousands of unconfirmed transactions, thanks to a “stress test” and, on top of that, forking issues due to invalid blocks being mined and propagated by large mining pools. What exactly is going on there? Let’s have someone else explain it for us:

Three months ago I discovered a miner with ~1% of the hashrate that was processing transactions with no signature validation at all. If I had sent that miner a transaction where I spent a million of other people’s bitcoins they would have mined it and the half of the non-verifying miners would likely have given it 6+ confirms for any SPV client; and thats the more fundamental issue here which no amount of version checking would help with.

Well that certainly doesn’t sound good. Maybe it should be fixed…�jstolfi weighs in:

The core devs tried to activate BIP66 through a very soft fork, so that clients would not even know that it was happening (otherwise they might get alarmed at the word “fork”). So they just let the new rule to be silently activated as soon as 95% of the miners signaled that they had upgraded to the new version of the software (v3). To make the transaction as smooth as possible, they allowed the players (clients, relay nodes, and miners) running both v2 and v3 to talk to each other even after the transition.

But that plan backfired because some v3 miners got a block B from one of the few remaining v2 miners and started to mine on top of it, not realizing that B was invalid under the v3 rules. For a while, that was the longer branch. That branch was perfectly valid for clients still running v2, and was assumed to be valid by some v3 wallet apps that did not do full checking of the blockchain. Meanwhile, other v3 miners, realizing that B was invalid, ignored that branch and started growing (more slowly) their own branch. The ‘bad’ branch was already 6 blocks long when the core devs (who fortunately were watching the blockchain at the time) managed to warn those miners that they were mining an invalid branch. Those 6 blocks were then discarded, and the ‘good’ branch soon overtook it. Fortunately there were no double-spends, and all transactions that were confirmed in the ‘bad’ branch were eventually confirmed in the ‘good’ branch too.

The same problem occurred again a few hours later, and this time the ‘bad’ branch only got to 3 blocks before being abandoned. It is not known whether there were double spends this time.

To guard against possible repeats of the incident, possibly with double-spends, the devs had to issue a warning to all clients (even v3 ones, depending on the software they are using) to wait 30 confirmations (5 hours) for safety.

Thus, what was supposed to be a “stealth” fork became a major PR disaster.

IMHO, the devs blotched the fork. They should have programmed a delay of (say) 2 weeks between the “95% majority” event and the enabling of the BIP66 rules. Then they could have sent a waring to all v2 players, especially the remaining v2 miners and relay nodes, that they should upgrade before BIP66 went into effect. But that would have been bad PR… ha ha.

One thing is the ‘consensus rules’ that say when a block is valid. Another thing is the algorithm that miners use when building the blocks that they try to mine. The ‘v3’ label refers to the former only. By stamping ‘v3’ on their mined blocks, they only indicated that they agreed to the version of the ‘consensus rules’ that enforces BIP66 after the triger event.

The software that those miners were running would indeed have checked the BIP66 rule, if it got a chance to do so. But the software only checked the transactions to be included in the block that they were mining, and not those of the parent block that they got from another miner.

The v3 ‘consensus rules’ say that a block is valid after the trigger event only if the transactions satisfy BIP66 (among other conditions) and the parent block is valid. But the v3 rules don’t say that miners have to fully check that the blocks that they issue are valid. It would be better for bitcoin if they did, but miners have the ‘right’ to create their blocks any way they want, even post blocks full of random bits.

The miners should want to post valid blocks rather than invalid ones, because invalid blocks don’t pay anything; but they must win the race against other miners to earn anything. They figured out that they would earn more by gambling that the previous block was valid, and mining on top of its hash only, than by downloading it and verifying it first. If the previous block was v3-valid, their block would be v3-valid too. If the previous block turned out tobe invalid, well, bad luck.

The Bitcoin Core release that includes v3 does verify the parent block before mining on top of it; but miners are not required to run BitcoinCore, and the v3 ‘consensus rules’ do not require anyone to run a particular version of the software.

An interesting detail is how the big pools steal the hash of the most recent block from other pools, even before it gets out to the relay nodes. That is why they couldnot even check its version stamp.

All they have to do is subscribe anonymously as members of the other pools, and they will get that information as soon as the pool manager receives a mined header from some other member. The pool’s interest is to make sure that the block just mined is valid, and to put all its members to mine on top of it as soon as possible, while it its still sending it out to the relay nodes.

To be precise, a miner gets bitcoins for being the first to mine the next valid block. They are not required to verify anything (and it is not possible to check whether they are indeed verifying anything.) They only verify enough to maximize their expected gain.

In particular, when they steal the hash of a recently mined block from some other pool, they are quite confident that it will be a valid block. So they don’t bother to check it, and that gives them a few precious seconds of advantage in the block race.

Usually that is a safe assumption; it failed in this case because of the switch-on of BIP66 and the “victim” of the theft rbeiong out of date.

Bitcoiners are blinded by greed? No way that’s possible!

The post Fork you, got mine appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

A combination of events have coincided to form a perfect shitstorm, once again proving that Bitcoin is nowhere near ready for the big leagues. An entity known as “coinwallet.eu” has been performing stress tests on the Bitcoin network, flooding it with thousands of transactions for unknown reasons. As of this writing there are approximately forty thousand unconfirmed transactions, more or less requiring blocks to be full in order to catch up. Greedy miners pumping out empty blocks doesn’t help this situation much. For the equivalent of a few hundred dollars the Bitcoin network can be choked to death with a whopping 2�transactions per second.

Meanwhile, miners are generating invalid blocks, failing at the one job they have. A recent change to the Bitcoin client software has led to some… issues.

For several months, an increasing amount of mining hash rate has been signaling its intent to begin enforcing BIP66 strict DER signatures. As part of the BIP66 rules, once 950 of the last 1,000 blocks were version 3 (v3) blocks, all upgraded miners would reject version 2 (v2) blocks.

Early morning on 4 July 2015, the 950/1000 (95%) threshold was reached. Shortly thereafter, a small miner (part of the non-upgraded 5%) mined an invalid block–as was an expected occurrence. Unfortunately, it turned out that roughly half the network hash rate was mining without fully validating blocks (called SPV mining), and built new blocks on top of that invalid block.

Note that the roughly 50% of the network that was SPV mining had explicitly indicated that they would enforce the BIP66 rules. By not doing so, several large miners have lost over $50,000 dollars worth of mining income so far.

All software that assumes blocks are valid (because invalid blocks cost miners money) is at risk of showing transactions as confirmed when they really aren’t. This particularly affects lightweight (SPV) wallets and software such as old versions of Bitcoin Core which have been downgraded to SPV-level security by the new BIP66 consensus rules.

Essentially some miners are farting out blocks that don’t fit within the new standards and other miners, in a rush to fuck you and get theirs, are grabbing these invalid blocks and building the blockchain upon them, leading to forks as some clients reject these broken blocks and others keep on truckin’, regardless of the validity of their transactions. It’s now advised to wait for 30 confirmations instead of 6, because, much like VISA and Mastercard, you have to wait an entire day for your card to be approved.

The flood of test transactions on top of this is like diarrhea icing on a shit cake.

The post Bitcoin is Broken (But We Already Knew That) appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

In case you needed more proof that bitcoiners don’t understand humor, SA Forums goon surebet went wading through the�shitheap at Bitcointalk to find more “jokes” written by them. He is a braver man than I.

One evening the bitcoin blockchain came to a halt, it turns out Chuck Norris had mined all the remaining bitcoins, and the difficulty was larger than Graham’s number.

Q: Why is there no gold at the end of the rainbow?
A: The Leprechaun took it and traded it for bitcoins!

lol bitcoin its orange .
orange not give happines
but always gives money
how my jokes cans makes you laugh right ?

Why did the bitcoin cross the road?

To get to the china bubble

Knock Knock.

Who’s there?

Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Who?

A peer-to-peer decentralized crypto-currency that utilizes open source software and public ledger called the blockchain to provide proof of work in solving the encrypted transactions ultimately increasing security and control in your personal finances.

How many Bitcoins does it take to screw the banking system?
Moon.

Jack and jill went up a hill, both with half a bitcoin.

Jill came down with 1 bitcoin, that fucking whore.

Schrodinger’s cat knows your private key. Maybe.

How do you make enough time for all the work and play with your computer?
– You don’t. You mine with the GPU.

How do you know it’s P2Pool?
– Balance still 0.00000000 after months of mining.

How do you know it’s Bitcoin?
– All your inputs are less than the minimum fee per input.

Why did the Bitcoin cross the silkroad?

To commit computer hacking, traffic in fraudulent identification documents, and money laundering conspiracy.

Is that an Antminer in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me.

A Gavincoin and an MPCoin meet in a bar. Says Gavincoin to MPcoin: ‘fork you!’ Says Mpcoin to Gavincoin: ‘No, fork you!’

A Bitcoiner jumps into a cab…

Cabbie: Where to, bud?
Bitcoiner: Just take me for a ride.

A Shitcoiner jumps into a cab…

Cabbie: Where to, bud?
Shitcoiner: What makes you think I’m goin’ anywhere?

A Dogecoinger jumps into a cab…

Cabbie: Where to, bud?
Dogecoiner: Very far. Much fast. Wow.
Cabbie: Wow, as in Bow?
Dogecoiner: So clever.

The post Bitcoin is still the punchline 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.

News from Thermos, king turd of Bitcoin�s various shit mountains:

[email protected] is compromised
Today at 09:06:34 PM

Today I received an email from [email protected] (Satoshi�s old email address), the contents of which make me almost certain that the email account is compromised. The email was not spoofed in any way. It seems very likely that either Satoshi�s email account in particular or gmx.com in general was compromised, and the email account is now under the control of someone else. Perhaps [email protected] expired and then someone else registered it.

Don�t trust any email sent from [email protected] unless it is signed by Satoshi. (Everyone should have done this even without my warning, of course.)

I wonder when the email was compromised, and whether it could have been used to make the post on p2pfoundation.ning.com.

The email said:
�Michael, send me some coins before I hitman you.�

Not exactly Satoshi�s normal style.

Satoshi Nakamoto replied to Satoshi Nakamoto�s discussion Bitcoin open source implementation of P2P currency

�Dear Satoshi. Your dox, passwords and IP addresses are being sold on the darknet. Apparently you didn�t configure Tor properly and your IP leaked when you used your email account sometime in 2010. You are not safe. You need to get out of where��

The post Satoshi Hacked! 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.

The post Bitcoin community spotlight: Logansryche appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

Inspired by a comment attempting to answer the question of using Bitcoin without internet access, Buttcoin has launched a brief investigation into how Bitcoin might work if the grid were to go down:

One of our ham radio pals advised us that �the fastest/most common digital protocol on the ham bands is 300 bps.� That�s right: bits per second. How long would it take to download the Bitcoin blockchain (currently approaching a size of 15 GB) at these rates? After some careful calculation (punching things into Wolfram Alpha) we came to 12.6755 years. But this isn�t the end! Taking into account the estimate that you�d only have acceptable propagation about half a day at best, this time would then double to 25.351 years. Add in an estimated 25% for noise-induced errors and you�re now up to 31.68875 years. Add to this the fact that we are coming off the peak of a 22-year solar cycle�and that in approximately 11 years, shortwave communications will be drastically hindered compared to our current transmission ability so it wouldn�t be outlandish to estimate 40+ years for this step alone.

Provided there is uninterrupted power and reception for over forty years and that the cheap radios bitcoiners would by last that long, you can now spend your Bitcoin. Don�t forget to wait for your six confirmations, and watch out for the FCC!

Thanks jonny290 for helping us with this stupid and terrible thought experiment!

The post Radio Free Libertopia appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

So more stuff on trying to cash out of bitcoins and how �simple� it is.

Virtex responded to my friends ticket, and said yesterday said that the transfer that was fucking requested on the 18th, was cleared. However today my friend�s bank has not received a anything. So he calls them and apparently they can�t deal with this over the phone and will only help him if he puts in a ticket. Even though he pointed out that it takes them a week to respond to tickets.

Also my friend decided to try and just sell 2 of his bitcoins on localbitcoins through their online escrow because apparently people keep telling him e-transfers are safe, because interac e-transfers cannot be reversed! So perfectly safe! Yesterday he accepted an e-transfer and was able to add the money to his account and release the escrow.

Then this morning apparently he was notified by his bank that his account and all associated cards are frozen, and he must come into his local branch and speak to someone. They apparently wouldn�t explain why over the phone. Apparently the person he spoke to had some idea of what bitcoins were (), and after explaining how he sold them. The guy apparently explained that:

– Selling stuff online and using e-transfer for payment apparently violates some part of interac�s terms of service.
– The e-transfer he accepted was fraudulent so it was reversed (i thought it wasn�t reversible!)
– His account is to be unfrozen but he is permanently banned from ever using e-transfers again

It is funny because all the �low� risk methods of selling on localbitcoins, are terrible that nobody really uses. I love how many people messaged me about how safe localbitcoins are.

Nobody here is shocked in the least. More about the local bitcoin sales and the trustworthy individuals involved with them:

Pretty much all the methods of payment on localbitcoins are ether unsafe, or terrible from what i can tell. The two exceptions are cash (we know how well that worked out), or a cash deposit (pretty massive pain in the ass), which both are pretty inconvient.

However localbitcoins lists some other payment methods, and ranks them on �low�, �medium�, or �high� risk. The low risk includes well known and �trustworthy� payment services like EGOPay, OkPay, and Perfect Money. Ironically there is also Western Union, a service which bitcoiners declared bitcoin will kill off. The funny part is, nobody uses the low risk payment methods really, because they are all a massive pain in the ass.

Pretty much all the people on Localbitcoins (and there really is not very many in Canada, less than 200 including people who have not logged on in a month), want you to use something like e-transfers, wire transfers, paypal, etc. Which are all not safe at all. Since one party can cry fraud and boom, you loose your money and they walk off with the bitcoins. Well obviously the best solution is to let your feedback/reputation dictate if your a scammer or not. I see this everywhere:

quote:
If your LocalBitcoins profile has less than 10 confirmed trades or at least 1 negative feedback then you must send/release Bitcoins first.

quote:
Unless you have a feedback rating of 10 or higher, coins will be sent to me first direct to my receiving address. If you have a feedback of 10 or higher then we may use the escrow system (although I will pay 0.5% more if you send it direct).

quote:
Because of our established credibility, if you have a feedback score below 10 we�ll require the BTC to be sent first, either directly to our receiving address or released via trade request.

�Fuck you pleb, escrow is only for us captains of the industry�

OKPay: Does Localbitcoins even know that OKPay does not allow people to use their service for selling crypto-currencies?

quote:
Please note that due to the card issuer bank restrictions OKPAY Card order and funding becomes impossible if you perform operations related with crypto-currencies or crypto-currencies exchange.

Our financial provider for GBP bank transfers restricts further usage of funds for purchasing or exchanging crypto-currencies.

Link

If you look around there is some nice whining from people that OKPay has cancelled and closed their accounts for selling bitcoins. But you know, its �low risk�.

Perfect Money: A virtual wallet service, that nobody seems to use. You need to make an account, get verified, get the money into your account, then wait 3-5 days for the transaction to be approved they also apparently do not allow you to withdraw all your money in one shot and you must keep a minimum balance of 300$ at all times. Also from what i can gather the only way to send money is by sending someone an e-voucher. There is no way to verify the value of an e-voucher, nor is there a way to reverse it. So of course this means that all the buyers want you to send them the bitcoins first then they will send you the voucher and not disappear. Apparently only 3 people on localbitcoins is willing to use this method.

Ego Pay: Some sort of virtual online wallet service. Requires you to become verified to withdraw money from there. Also there is some really sketchy stuff in their terms and conditions:

quote:
EgoPay reserves the right to terminate accounts that act as unauthorized e-currency exchangers and all of the related accounts.

Would selling bitcoin count as an e-currency exchanger? I don�t know i can�t find a single post about someone using EGOPay. However the single most stupid thing about Ego Pay is:

quote:
EgoPay account holders can withdraw funds from EgoPay by using Payza or e-currency exchangers. Times to complete a withdrawal may vary due to security reasons, please visit our FAQ for current information.

So let me get this straight, Ego Pay doesn�t even let you withdraw money to your bank account. You need to withdraw it to another FUCKING SITE? Don�t forget no fees*(only 2.5% for deposit/withdrawal).

So? Bitcoin -> Localbitcoins -> Ego Pay -> Payza -> Bank -> Fiat

Western Union: Aside from the fact that all of the buyers expect you to be responsible for 7% fee even though they are already paying you much less than the �actual� price (aka whatever exchange has the highest price, bitcoiners claim thats the value of bitcoins). There are only 38 users willing to buy, and only 18 of them have logged into localbitcoins in the last 7 days. Furthermore, some of the buyers will not deal with you for western union UNLESS you send them the coins FIRST. Aka no escrow.

quote:
Unless you have a feedback rating of 10 or higher, coins will be sent to me first direct to my receiving address. If you have a feedback of 10 or higher then we may use the escrow system (although I will pay 0.5% more if you send it direct).

I am sorry i simply cannot trust people on localbitcoins when the entirety of their forum consists of users crying about getting scammed, by people who are supposed to be reputable. I love how bitcoiners dance between �DONT TRUST ANYONE�, to �trust me with your 20,000$ exchange, i swear i won�t scam you cause i have a whole 20 feedback�.

Don�t you guys see how great and simple these �low� risk methods are? Honestly buying and selling bitcoin has never been easier.

Clearly LocalBitcoins could benefit from BitcoinTalk�s big red �SCAMMER� tags. That way you�d know not to send your bitcoins directly to someone�s receiving address before they consider paying you real money for them.

The post Easy Come, Easy Go appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

One suggestion that came up over and over again was that they register and confirm their identities with Canadian exchange site CaVirtEx, and cash out there, since Mt Gox has a waiting list that extends into 2015 and other sites are even sketchier. The Canadian Bitcoin ATM is located in another city and wouldn�t be able to handle the volume they�re exchanging. So they finally ended up verified and find themselves halted yet again:

This is awesome. My friend dumps 5 bitcoins on Virtex to sell. Then tries to cash out his monthly max of 3k, and his account is immediately flagged as suspicious and locked.�

It was then noted that CaVirtEx has excessively sensitive automated ban/warning systems.

We shall see how long it takes for them to respond to him. Considering it already takes a week apparently for them to send the money via wire transfer.

Someone explain to me how this is easier than paypal?

No one could provide an answer, and as time progressed, UberJumper�s frustration grew more and more apparent.

This is fucking retarded. Virtex is apparently so backlogged, the current estimate on getting verified is over a month. In the mean time Virtex holds everything you have on their site hostage.

We have tried to sell butts for the last 2.5 weeks, and we have only sold a grand total of 11 butts (i.e. gotten money for it), on top of this all of those sales came when we were selling for less than half the price.

With the price of bitcoin going up up up, i find it hilarious that trying to actually get something useful out of the stupid internet coins has been so fucking difficult.

Does anyone have an idea of how to cash out?

Yet again, gift cards were brought up.

Gyft doesn�t sell gift cards that work in Canada. Also Ebay does not allow reselling of gift card codes: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/gift.html

Resident idiot/troll�how!! suggested meeting local weirdos from Craigslist, because he can�t seem to pay attention to the situation at hand.

Isn�t that what localbitcoins is for? We tried that and it was a tedious as fuck process, and we sold almost nothing. We try posting it on Kijiji, and got a single hit. So please tell me where the fuck are these magical people who are jumping over each other to buy bitcoin with cash.

These magical people are all apparently college kids buying weed on Silk Road, which had been closed down for nearly two months by this time. Every �replacement� Silk Road site has turned out to be a honeypot or a scam. how!! is clearly lying, but that was never really in doubt.

In response to yet another fool being parted with his money:

I find it funny that Bitcoin is what 1,000$, yet he is selling for less than half of that.

Tomorrow i get to go with my friend and meet two buyers �

Does anyone know if you can go into a bank and have them check a cashiers check to make sure its legit?

The next day:

Ugh went with my friend to meet 2 buyers. Story time �

We go to meet the first buyer at a bank, who wanted a 120$ in BTC. He didn�t show up at all, finally we call him and turns out he changed his mind and doesn�t want any after-all. So basically he wasted our time.

Yay

The second buyer was someone who contacted my friend through kijiji, and was interested in buying 25 coins at 500$/coin. We drove our asses out to the starbucks he wanted to meet us at, and fuck. This guy was a captain of industry, all he was missing was a fucking fedora.

He immediately started interrogating us on why we are selling, and lecturing us on how �selling at a low price is damaging the local bitcoin ecosystem�. I pointed out we wanted actual real money, so we can buy stuff with, and i don�t give a fuck about the ecosystem. The buttcoiner then proceeded to ramble on about all the awesome ways you can spend bitcoins, and other stupid shit, but he still wants to buy our coins if we are willing to give him 10 minutes of our time. Fine. He then rambles on and on about bitcoins, and how amazing they are and all sorts of awesome stuff, then rambles on about his personal projects (some sort of bitcoin exchange that is going to make it big).

Finally he shut up, my friend gives him the wallet to show him the amount he is looking for there, he �checks� it. Then announces he is tipping us �0.05 BTC to thank us for hearing him out�. �

Then tells us he doesn�t have the money, but if we were willing to �invest� 25BTC into his project, we could get a major stake in it. �We left right then and there.

My friend is currently gungho on figuring out a way to use bitpay to cash out (which i am pretty sure violates their terms of service, and i have no idea the legality of what could happen there).

Bad gimmick poster�My Linux Rig goes the tried and true route, suggesting using an exchange website, which was never ever suggested or even thought of before.

Then please tell me what exchange will deposit money into a Canadian bank account that is not Virtex?

Coinbase? America Only
Mt Gox? My friend has been waiting a month now, and no indication of when he can get any money out. Mt Gox is as transparent as a brick wall with withdrawls.
Bitstamp? Still waiting for verification
CanadianBitcoins? Sketchy as fuck, you send them the coins, they mail you an envelope of cash.

Moving on:

Virtex has denied my friends identity verification and his account is now completely frozen. They give no explanation for what they want, or why it was denied.

Meanwhile, CaVirtEx is very very far behind in their, well, everything:

Total number of verifications outstanding: 1460
Date range we are working on: Nov 23 to Nov 27
Number of staff working: 12 fulltime, 6 part-time
Verifications completed today: 81
Verifications missing info and put into waiting: 92
Outbound Phone Verification calls made: 155
Customer service tickets outstanding: 1,190

The next day, they finally get a response.

Virtex responded to my friends ticket and asked him to resubmit his �correct verification information�. Then outlined vaguely what he needed to submit (which he already submitted), and told him to resubmit.

So another week+ to get verification attempt #2?

When my friend gets fully verified and we dump several hundred coins onto the site, what is going to happen?

The consensus here was �they�ll suspend the account for suspicious activity.�

Still trying, i am guessing the massive drop in price caused 3 of the localbitcoin buyers we were supposed to meet today to cancel. �

The entire trying to cashout has been a massive pain in the ass. Virtex declined my friends identity verification, so i registered my self and i am going through the same process as well in the hopes Virtex will unfuck themselves. The entire system is shit. The longer and longer we are forced to wait the less and less likely it seems we will get a ton of money.

Two days later, they finally receive some �good� news.

So my friend gets an email that he is verified at CaVirtex.

Even though they say unlimited withdrawl limit, his user page says a maximum of 6,000$/month withdrawal.

Unless he gets their bitcoin debit card, at which point he can directly convert his BTC to cash through the card. But neither me or him could find anyone actually using the card online and giving their impressions. So he has ordered one, as a means of hopefully expediting the cashout process.

So he submitted a request to withdraw $6,000, from Virtex and we shall see how that goes. 3-5 Days for a money transfer.

The amount of times i have seen bitcoiners say �You can instantly convert BTC to cash�, is such bullshit.

Three days later, everyone who predicted �suspended for suspicious activity� wins! They don�t really win anything, except maybe for some laughs.

What the fuck is wrong with Virtex. Firstly they advertise Unlimited amount Withdrawls if you fully verify with them. When it is actually has a hard limit of 25,000$/month (after calling them and asking).

Then this afternoon they froze my friends account and cancelled the request for withdrawl, and cancelled his sell orders due to �suspicious activity�. We call them get some lady who tells us to submit a ticket, and very bluntly tells us the only way they can help us is through the ticket system.

Yet we already have two tickets open and unanswered from last week.

CaVirtEx is less than helpful here.

3 Days now and no response from virtex about the locked account, i guess i won�t hear anything until Monday at the earliest.

Which is fucking retarded.

Dogecoin happened�in the meantime and, despite being a joke, has turned into Bitcoin in fast-forward, which itself was just centuries of economics lessons in fast-forward. Nobody has learned anything from it though.

It has basically been a week now, and his account is still frozen, and i am still waiting on verification.

Also apparently they are not allowing wire transfers for now?

quote:
Dec. 17, 2013, 8:43 p.m. � Debit Card Loads and Wire Transfer Update

The Debit card load procedure is temporarily on hold, we will keep you updated as development occurs. For now, we will decline all your load requests so that the CAD is returned to your balance.
Wire Transfers are scheduled to resume shortly, please wait for an official date before attempting to notify or send.

What the fuck is going on at virtex.

Nearly a week later, this is the last we�ve heard thus far:

Virtex has unlocked my friends account, yay!

Also Virtex has recently added something called �Large withdrawals� which apparently allow you to take out 25k+. Except there doesn�t seem anyway to use this method of withdrawl.

He just requested a withdrawal which takes between 3-5 days, and i shall see if we get anything by 2014.

Happy Boxing Day! Let�s see if anything happens at all or if this story ends with yet another theft/loss. Oh, by the way, it�s probably a bad idea to use LocalBitcoins.

The post Easy like Sunday morning appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

“Wikipedia should accept donations in Bitcoin!”

Every time a donation drive starts up, bitcoiners, especially those on reddit, drive themselves into a frenzy, pestering the website’s beleaguered administrative team via email and other messages, hounding them to take Bitcoin instead of things like credit cards or PayPal. This is rebuffed every single time with what has become a form letter:

Thanks for your email and for your interest in supporting free knowledge. Unfortunately we do not accept bitcoin, however, we are aware of bitcoin and we will continue to monitor it with interest. For a full list of other donation options, please visit http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give/en. Thank you again for your interest!

For anyone who’s worked with the public, especially a segment of the public that is convinced that terrible ideas are in fact good, this is a pretty standard brush-off, meant to fool the recipient into thinking someone cares about their stupid ideas and that they may even be implemented some time in the near future. The reality is that nobody will do anything remotely close to something like “accepting Bitcoin,” “adding the requested feature” to software, or letting your WoW character have every spell in the game. It’s a meaningless message, meant to placate and nothing more.

Regardless, bitcoiners see this as a promise as well as a challenge, and often their subreddit is inundated with posts about Wikipedia as a result. Since they’re so intent on having Wikipedia take their funny money, we looked a little further into the situation.

So far every drive has been successful, and recent donation amounts totaled over $15 million, and according to the Wikimedia Foundation, the average donation was approximately $22. So, if Wikipedia were to directly accept Bitcoin donations, how much more would they stand to earn? As it turns out, not much at all.

In a ridiculously informal and totally unscientific poll, I discovered that the same bitcoiners clamoring for Wikipedia to take their money don’t want to give them much money at all, if anything. Answers ranged from the equivalent of a couple of dollars, with at least two people regurgitating South Park’s “tree fiddy” meme, one stipulating that Wikipedia could have ten entire bitcoins if they “apologize for being wankers about the whole thing,” and many more insisted that Wikipedia no longer deserves their “money” for giving them the cold shoulder for so long. The combined amount from people willing to answer my question comes up to about $23.01. �It took six people’s “generosity” to equal that of one average Wikipedian donator. Most of them wouldn’t donate at all; it’s all just grandstanding to proselytize for their cult.

That doesn’t stop them from sounding like a broken record every few months though:

Some, however, aren’t happy with Wikipedia itself, rather than their choices and ideology.

Wikipedia was probably a CFR/NSA/CIA front from the very beginning.

The whole premise of the site is to mix factual trivia with the many ‘Big Lies’ in falsified history, including major government black ops like the fake 9/11, 7/7, Madrid, Norway, Boston marathon and Sandy Hook terror or serial shooting attacks.

Wikipedia is clearly aligned with the global fascist government drive. It appeared out of nowhere with massive bandwidth and server resources, with no adequate explanation of how it secured these. It continues to report fully debunked and discredited falsified events as real, to aid the UN plans for gun control, free trade open borders, international socialism on steroids, the attack on Christianity, attack on the family etc.

I understand that only reference links from the likes of the BBC, Reuters, AP and CNN are permissable on Wikipedia now. In other words, Wikipedia is nothing more than an echo chamber for the SIX companies that control the global media. Most of the editors are university professors, doctors, economists, civil servants, teachers etc. who are Fabian socialists. The site is a complete joke.

Personally I reckon it’s time for a true anarchist/libertarian version of Wikipedia.

If you really want a terrible anarchic wiki, there’s always Uncyclopedia. I’m not sure they’re too keen on libertarians though.

The post Stop Donating to Wikipedia appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.