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Is Twitter Helping Justin Sun and Other Cryptocurrency Celebrities Defraud?

08/03/2020 by Idelto Editor

A site as hugely influential as Twitter should ideally take a balanced and responsible approach when suggesting blue check accounts and other popular influencers to follow in the crypto space. Fact is, this couldn’t be further from the reality: Twitter seems to constantly promote the same narrow selection of accounts to follow, some of whom are arguably massive scammers trying desperately to pump their own bags. This begs the question: is Twitter actively helping favored accounts while stifling the reach of others?

Also read: Bitcoin History: When DDoS Attacks Made BTC’s Price Drop

The Same, Tired Selection

One might imagine that figures as controversial as Tron founder Justin Sun — who is recently under fire for what many view as the hostile takeover of crypto blogging platform Steemit — might be handled with care by social media platforms like Twitter. Especially after numerous allegations of scamming, false claims, buying followers, and shameless promo after shameless promo.

Whether it be suspiciously claiming to be CEO of a Chinese language homophone of “ripple” when Ripple company officials themselves deny connection, big talk of partnerships that don’t materialize, or riding the back of tragedy and sickness to promote the copy-pasta-whitepapered clone coin TRX, Sun is no stranger to suspicious cringe shilling and criticism.

Why, after all this, does Twitter continue to promote Sun like the second coming of Satoshi in its follow suggestions? For that matter, it stands to ask why other questionable influencers are made so prominent on the site as well, when they seem to be doing little more than advertising for their own crypto products, many of which have yet to be tested or vetted fully for viability.

Twitter’s restrictive official stance on business ads for crypto can be found here. Not that there is anything wrong with pushing one’s product, but when other accounts can be easily shadowbanned and suspended for seeming lesser allegations, eyebrows do begin to raise.

Kobe, was great to have met you in niTROn 2019. Mtg you was one of my life’s greatest honor & privilege, I’ll forever remember us on stage discussing the future of blockchain. We’ll have a moment of silence in your honor during niTROn 2020. R.I.P. pic.twitter.com/oMqU9ZpkKh

— Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) January 26, 2020

Twitter’s Algorithms and Follow Suggestions

Twitter has come under scrutiny for its algorithms previously, with CEO Jack Dorsey stating before U.S. lawmakers in 2018 that they had been used by the company “unfairly,” but that the issue had been rectified.

A BBC report detailed that users of the platform began to notice relevant tweets were no longer appearing in searches. Dorsey stated that myriad signals were used to choose “what to show, down-rank and filter” and that although the company doesn’t shadowban accounts based on politics, some mistakes were made and accounts had been treated in an unfair manner.

As for follow suggestions, Twitter lists multiple factors that supposedly go in to determining what a given user sees, including contact uploads, user location, Twitter activity and interactions, and info from third-party websites.

This all sounds well and good, but why are some accounts suspended or ejected from the platform, while others who seem guilty of mis-informational and spammy abuses, continue to thrive? Even though crypto ads are strictly regulated on the site, influencers like Sun, CZ of Binance, and others seem to be able to weave through this net, shilling their own crypto products to millions of followers with impunity. While many crypto users of libertarian bent might wish to make Twitter much more deregulated, decentralized and “Wild West,” if you will (author included), the seeming lack of consistency is strange.

Sitting at the Popular Kids’ Table With Jack

It’s a bit presumptive on its face to say that all of this is happening because of money and unofficial alliances, but let’s be honest: this is probably happening because of money and unofficial alliances. A site becoming huge does not make it exempt from the natural consequences of human nature; if anything, the problem is exacerbated.

Even employees of a small town gas station, for example, will conspire to stiff a new guy out of the best shift when he’s not there. One can only imagine how things get at the major-leagues level of multi-billion dollar empires. To assume conspiracy doesn’t happen at this tier would be naive, to say the least. This is social media. More engagement translates into more revenue, and more “extreme” and enticing posts related to arguments about politics and getting rich quick with crypto stimulate engagement.

Former Twitter software engineer Abhinav Vadrevu on shadow banning: “they just think that no one is engaging with their content, when in reality, no one is seeing it” #ShadowBan — WATCH THE FULL VIDEO: https://t.co/ev3bmCVGMQ pic.twitter.com/CxytLgRGsD

— Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) January 11, 2018

Besides, former Twitter employees have admitted such conspiracy goes on, even if it has been somewhat heavily spun by so-called conservative media. Controversial activist James O’Keefe presented video in 2018 of a former Twitter engineer saying:

One strategy is to shadow ban so that you have ultimate control. The idea of a shadow ban is that you ban someone but they don’t know they’ve been banned, because they keep posting, but no one sees their content … I don’t know if Twitter does this anymore.

While left-leaning media tried to downplay O’Keefe’s hidden video, it nonetheless is troubling.

Nobody’s Business but Twitter’s

Principled bitcoiners don’t want the government to leverage legislative force on ol’ Jack or Justin, and shape Twitter into a perfectly boring and “fair” Communistic platform where there can be no bias. After all, it’s a business, at the end of the day, and the business can do as it pleases. Besides, whether someone is a scammer or not is often debatable. It’s no secret there are alliances and bitter divisions in the crypto world with each camp calling the other shitcoin peddlers. In fact, such divisions are obvious to the point of Dorsey himself helping to perpetuate them:

It’s really no surprise then that some in the Bitcoin Cash community suspect targeted censorship as well. When a BTC maximalist is CEO, of a company whose former employees say shadowbanning was practiced, and accounts seem to be deleted, shadowed, or axed at random, it’s awful hard not to start connecting dots. The controversy surrounding reports of the @Bitcoin handle being sold last year to a BTC maximalist also fueled this fire, as the sale of accounts is prohibited by Twitter’s Terms of Service.

I finally reached out to Jack on Twitter to ask why Sun and others seem so universally pushed on his platform’s users, but at the time of writing haven’t gotten a response. Until there is more clarity, it looks like the garish glare of Sun and his ilk will go on trying to blindside folks, but it’s doubtful Twitter denizens will go elsewhere to interact. After all, no one can deny it’s entertaining, and that means sure success for any social media platform.

What are your thoughts on Twitter and prominent crypto influencers like Justin Sun? Are some given preferential treatment? Let us know in the comments section below.

Op-ed disclaimer: This is an Op-ed article. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the Op-ed article. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the content. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any information in this Op-ed article.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Reuters, fair use.

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The post Is Twitter Helping Justin Sun and Other Cryptocurrency Celebrities Defraud? appeared first on Bitcoin News.

BCH Funding Debate: Btc.top Founder Suggests 2/3 Hash Vote and 6-Month Evaluation

17/02/2020 by Idelto Editor

BCH Funding Debate - Btc.top Founder Suggests 2/3rds Hash Vote and 6 Month Evaluation

Over the last few days, Bitcoin Cash proponents have been debating the Infrastructure Funding Plan (IFP) after Bitcoin ABC published an announcement on implementing the plan into the upcoming software release. Again the concept was met with mixed responses and the community has been arguing about the situation on forums and social media. Following the community responses to Bitcoin ABC’s blog post, Btc.top founder Jiang Zhuoer published an updated version of the plan the following day.

Also Read: 5% of Block Rewards – Bitcoin ABC Will Add Infrastructure Funding Plan in Next Release

Bitcoin Cash Infrastructure Funding Plan Discussions Continue as Jiang Zhuoer Publishes Update

Members of the BCH community have been discussing the latest information regarding the Infrastructure Funding Plan (IFP) after Bitcoin ABC told the public it would be implementing code for the plan in the 0.21.0 ABC software release. The plan had a few changes to the proposals discussed prior which included only 5% of the coinbase rewards, a BIP-9 like voting method with threshold, and funds that can go to “more than one project and can go to one of several in a whitelist.” The whitelist ABC came up with included donation addresses for a “General Fund, Bitcoin ABC, Electron Cash, and BCHD.”

BCH Funding Debate: Btc.top Founder Suggests 2/3 Hash Vote and 6-Month Evaluation — Check out the recent video about the Infrastructure Funding Plan from Bitcoin.com’s executive chairman Roger Ver.

Bitcoin.com’s executive chairman Roger Ver discussed the IFP subject on Youtube and had a number of objections and questions concerning the latest IFP update. On an r/btc forum post, Ver’s Reddit account stressed: “As it stands now, Bitcoin.com will not go through with supporting any plan unless there is more agreement in the ecosystem such that the risk of a chain split is negligible.” Following Ver’s statements, Btc.top founder Jiang Zhuoer published another blog post on the read.cash platform called “BCH Miner Donation Plan Update Again.”

Zhuoer’s latest post is much shorter than the two blog posts he published prior in regard to the IFP subject. The post is also aligned with the Bitcoin ABC announcement and further discusses the voting threshold and coinbase donation amount. Zhuoer’s latest IFP update states:

It will start by the hash voting, if 2/3 of network hash agrees, the donation plan will be put into effect. (I believe the miners have the right to vote on how to spend their output).
For the 5% of the coinbase donated by miners, the miners shall have the option, at their sole discretion, to select a number of donation objects, such as: General Foundation, ABC, BCHD, Electron Cash.
The donation plan will last for 6 months (as one version is valid for a maximum period of 6 months). I suggest that we stop the fundraising after 6 months, and we may restart it eventually to prevent it [from] becoming a permanent rule.
There are numerous objections now, I am inclined to start the donation plan after that the community reaches a basic agreement. If they fail to achieve it, we could set up the General Foundation first, let’s see its operation effect funding by donation, then we could proceed the hash voting next time.

Block 622509, Bitcoin Verde, and Bitcoin Unlimited

In addition to Zhuoer’s latest blog post, BCH block #622509 mined by SBIcrypto.com left a coinbase message that says “no” and a link to the Bitcoin ABC announcement. There are also comments stemming from developers of full nodes like Bitcoin Verde and Bitcoin Unlimited.

Bitcoin Verde’s Joshua Green tweeted about the announcement from Bitcoin ABC and questioned why Verde was excluded. The chief scientist of Bitcoin Unlimited, Peter Rizun, tweeted about the announcement from ABC as well. “Amaury Sechet is literally modifying the BCH protocol to issue coins to him and his friends,” Rizun explained. “Due to the poison pill, miners and exchanges must upgrade before May 15. If they do as usual and download the new version of ABC, his plan succeeds by default.”

Greg Maxwell Stirs the Pot

In addition to the opposition against the IFP, former Blockstream developer Greg Maxwell is seemingly stirring the pot. Within the depths of an r/btc thread that Greg Maxwell started, he claims Amaury Sechet (Deadalnix) private messaged him about creating a version of Bitcoin ABC without the IFP. Github code linked by Maxwell shows a version of ABC without the IFP and again states that “Amaury Sechet requested that I post this.”

“It is completely untested and may not even compile,” Maxwell says and then insults BCH toward the end of his comments. Of course, Maxwell’s thread, statements, and IFP free code were controversial among r/btc patrons. Not too many people believed Maxwell’s words, and lots of his commentary was downvoted throughout the thread. Maxwell was also known for being involved in the November 2018 hash war as it was once claimed he was helping Craig Wright.

With Negativity In the Air, Open Discussion Is a Net Positive and Worthwhile

The IFP discussion continues to unfold and read.cash and r/btc are filled with threads and blog posts about the subject. If anything can be said at the moment about the furious debates it is that at least people have open forums to discuss the situation. Back in 2015, when bitcoiners tried to debate raising the block size, moderators from the most popular Bitcoin Reddit forum censored anyone who approved of raising the block size. Right now, in the world of Bitcoin Cash, there is no censorship happening and even Blockstream developer Greg Maxwell is free to speak his mind within BCH forums. The IFP debate and discussion is continuing to unfold and news.Bitcoin.com will be there to inform our readers every step of the way.

What do you think about the discussions revolving around the IFP subject? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Coin Dance, Btc.top, Youtube, Bitcoin.com, Fair Use, Blockchair, and Pixabay.

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The post BCH Funding Debate: Btc.top Founder Suggests 2/3 Hash Vote and 6-Month Evaluation appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Close to $6k in Bitcoin Cash Tips Paid to Read.cash Authors Last Week

29/01/2020 by Idelto Editor

The read.cash blog has been a resource for the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) community for a while now but ever since the recent miner funded development proposal, the blogging site has gathered significant traction. For instance, the front page of read.cash shows that during the last week, more than $5,730 in bitcoin cash has been given to post authors.

Also read: Data Shows $25 Billion Worth of Bitcoin and Ether Held by Seven Crypto Exchanges

Read.cash Blog Gathers Momentum During the Infrastructure Funding Debate

Read.cash is a blogging website that rewards content creators with bitcoin cash incentives and a large number of BCH proponents leverage the platform. Seven days ago on January 22, Btc.top’s founder, Jiang Zhuoer, revealed an infrastructure funding plan for Bitcoin Cash which was met with mixed reviews. While a number of BCH supporters took to Reddit and Twitter to share their two cents, many BCH fans leveraged the read.cash blog in order to share their opinion about the proposal. Out of the 28 posts on the front page of the read.cash platform, 17 of them are about the proposed development fund. The posts are written by ordinary BCH users, miners, developers, and influencers who felt they needed to write about the proposal. Tallying up the tips on the read.cash front page shows that there’s been more than $5,730 in bitcoin cash given to authors.

Before the funding proposal, read.cash was slowly gathering more users and blog posts. News.Bitcoin.com recently published a step-by-step guide covering how to register for read.cash and start creating content. Last month, the team behind read.cash development published a chart that shows the number of articles per day has been increasing. Across a variety of r/btc threads, a number of BCH supporters have explained that they enjoy the platform a great deal.

Individuals just discovering the site have also given the read.cash platform compliments as well. “I write Audiobook reviews and am moving from Medium to read.cash and just posted my first article — The site beats Medium hands down,” one new user wrote nine days ago. Moreover, after all the big tips and onchain voting this week, many BCH supporters congratulated the read.cash developers for their hard work. “In ten years your site may facilitate million dollar tips through the decentralized blockchain network — How does that make you feel?” one Redditor asked the creators. Following the question, the read.cash team responded:

Unbelievable — BCH is un-freaking-believable — I mean I’m with Bitcoin since 2013, but it never stops to amaze me. The best part is that it’s peer-to-peer — The site doesn’t even have much to do with it.

Crypto Proponents Appreciate Leveraging Read.cash to Share Their Content and Earn Bitcoin Cash

In another r/btc post discussing the $1,000 BCH tip sent to the developer, Imaginary Username, the read.cash creators emphasized that people should still only keep small amounts of funds on the web wallet. “Just a reminder for everyone not to keep big amounts of money in read.cash’s online wallet — Web browser wallets are very convenient, but cannot be made very secure,” the developers stressed. Two weeks ago, a writer dubbed Messier87 explained in a read.cash blog post how appreciative he was that a BCH-centric blogging platform exists.

“I have been around some Blockchain-based blogging platforms for some time now,” Messier87 wrote. “As more new forms of these types of platforms are launched, the space becomes more competitive.” Messier87 detailed all the reasons why he likes read.cash better than other blockchain-based blogging platforms. For instance while alternative blogs like Steemit use native coins, read.cash leverages the fourth largest coin by market cap. Messier87 noted that with other blockchain-based blogs writers sometimes have to wait days or even weeks to spend their tips but with read.cash that’s not the case.

“Sending funds on read.cash can happen as soon as you are tipped,” Messier87 underlined.

The author said that compared to well-established blockchain blogs, read.cash has a clean user interface (UI) that works. Read.cash was launched in October 2019, and Messier87 remarked that he appreciated how much of the read.cash roadmap was completed so far. The recent tipping and slew of infrastructure funding plan blog posts have cast the read.cash blog into the limelight. It will be interesting to see if the platform’s growth trend continues to rise after the debate settles.

What do you think about all the blogging taking place on the read.cash platform during the last week and a half? Have you tried the read.cash blogging site yet? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any ideas, concepts, content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Read.cash, Jamie Redman, Reddit (rbtc), and Fair Use.

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The post Close to $6k in Bitcoin Cash Tips Paid to Read.cash Authors Last Week appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Video: Reviewing the Billfodl Multishard

17/01/2020 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin Magazine reviewed the Billfodl Multishard, a two-of-three stainless steel recovery seed storage device that allows you to split your seed into three shards, ensuring that, even if someone finds one part of your phrase, they won’t be able to steal your funds.

Each shard allows you to store up to 16 words of your seed phrase, and each unit tells you which 16 out of the 24 total words to load up. Shard One houses words 1 to 16, Shard Two houses words 9 to 24 and Shard 3 houses words 1 to 8 and 17 to 24. Once this process is complete, you will have effectively backed up each seed word twice.

As mentioned in the video review, you can also choose to use just eight slots per shard and fill the rest up with random letters to achieve a three-of-three setup, which would ensure maximum security. Billfodl worked with an industry expert, Dave Bitcoin, the head of Wallet Recovery Services. Dave Bitcoin determined that, if utilizing 1,000,000 modern GPUs, it would take approximately 1 billion years (not to mention the roughly $65 trillion it would cost to purchase and run 1 million modern GPUs, even assuming a low electricity cost of $0.02 per kilowatt hour).

In terms of use and design, the sleek and sharp feel of the individual shards feels comfortable in your hands. However, the individual letters that need to be inserted into the shards come in a punch-out style container that can’t be sealed properly once it’s opened. So, be sure to set up the three shards in one attempt so that you won’t have to store any of the letters in a cumbersome matter.

Overall, the Billfodl Multishard is an incredibly sturdy and secure device that, if properly set up, can allow any Bitcoiner to sleep safe at night knowing that their recovery seed phrase is safe and properly stored.

The post Video: Reviewing the Billfodl Multishard appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Read.cash Platform Rewards Content Creators With Bitcoin Cash Incentives

02/01/2020 by Idelto Editor

Since the platform’s launch, the Bitcoin Cash-centric blogging site read.cash has gathered a lot of traction. The website’s user base publishes interesting content and new material on a daily basis with the most popular authors gathering tips in bitcoin cash for their work.

Also Read: These Are the Bitcoin Stories You Loved in 2019

Read.cash Blogging Platform Leverages Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash

About a month ago, news.Bitcoin.com reported on two blogging websites that reward users in crypto for producing content. One of the platforms featured was read.cash and ever since that initial report, the application’s user base has grown significantly. The creator of read.cash explains in the About section that the site allows users to publish content (text, images, videos) with the ability to earn BCH if people enjoy the work produced. “If a reader likes your content – he or she can upvote your post by sending some amount of bitcoin cash (BCH) to your online wallet,” the website’s creator notes.

The website’s posts are stored in a traditional database, but the system uses onchain transactions for peer-to-peer upvote payments. “These are done on-chain and censorship-resistant,” the read.cash website details. While perusing the read.cash front page or main news feed, there is a number of blog posts from unique authors covering a variety of subjects. There’s also a bunch of well known BCH proponents who utilize the read.cash blogging site.

How to Use Read.cash

Signing up for read.cash is fairly intuitive and takes only a few minutes to get started. The first thing the website does after you press the ‘register’ tab on the top right side of the screen is give you a simple rules disclosure notice. Essentially the owners of read.cash will not tolerate pornography, or “anything hate-filled, name-calling, trash-talking, personal attacks or insults.” If you accept this agreement, then you are brought to the registration window which asks you to enter a valid email address and give yourself a read.cash username. You can also quickly register with a Cash ID and Badger wallet in order to skip giving the website an email address.

After signing up, the platform gives you a welcome message and the next screen gives you a 12-word seed phrase for the read.cash native BCH wallet. Read.cash highly recommends that you write down the seed phrase as you would with any other noncustodial wallet. The website also stresses that it doesn’t recommend storing more than $10-20 on the platform. From here, read.cash gives you the BCH address tethered to your account and you can begin using the site.

If you want to write a post using read.cash, in the top middle section of the website there is a ‘write’ tab, which brings you to a page that allows you to format a post. You are asked to add a title and there’s a section for you to draft the body of an editorial. Read.cash allows you to also add a header image and there’s a help page that teaches users how to format subheadings, italics, bold text, clipboard support, embedding images, creating lists, embedding videos (Youtube and Vimeo), code markups and blocks, blockquotes, and more. The step-by-step guide explains how to save the work and publish the post to the main read.cash feed when the draft is finalized.

If you hover your mouse over the username on the top right, it will show you a dropdown menu which shows your articles, saved drafts, affiliates, sponsorships, and full access to the native wallet. With the read.cash native wallet you can send funds to another wallet, deposit BCH, and back up your seed phrase again if you lost it. Read.cash also allows you to tether a unique image to your profile picture, write a bio, and tie a few website links to your profile.

Future Enhancements and One-Time QR Codes

The read.cash platform has published a roadmap, which displays a list of objectives the website’s developer plans to add in the future. In no particular order, the read.cash blogging site hopes to add a section for communities, email notifications, user mentions, and more. A large portion of the roadmap’s goals have been completed and the list shows all the tasks that have been checked off. So far, using the website is easy to get used to, especially if you are already familiar with other social media applications and forums.

There’s a great number of posts published on the read.cash platform and if you like a particular author’s content you can give them some BCH at the bottom of each post. In order to upvote the content and give the author BCH, simply press the button that says “encourage the author to write more.” You need to have BCH in your native read.cash wallet to tip the writer, but if you haven’t deposited funds you can opt to use a one-time QR code invoice. Read.cash users can also share content with sites like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Pinterest. If you want to continue following an author’s work, you can subscribe to an individual writer’s feed.

A Giant Obstacle: Amplifying the Network Effect of Decentralized Social Media

Read.cash is promising, but like the slew of other blogging sites that leverage cryptocurrencies, it will need to continue attracting users. There have been many platforms that have attempted to create blogging and social media sites that integrate the benefits of censorship-resistant onchain transactions. However, they have all faced an enormous obstacle which is amplifying the network effect enough to outpace centralized incumbents.

Still, the use cases and platforms that leverage cryptocurrencies are still young and there’s a chance that any one of them could potentially gain ground on a social media giant. Especially when the platform is powered by the overall user base and it rewards users for providing good content. Such platforms look nothing like the centralized blogging sites today that censor people while reaping 100% of the benefits produced by popular content creators. The hope is that someday, applications like memo.cash, read.cash, and other crypto powered solutions will break the mold.

What do you think about the read.cash blogging platform? Have you tried a platform that leverages cryptocurrencies and content sharing? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, read.cash, and Jamie Redman.

The post Read.cash Platform Rewards Content Creators With Bitcoin Cash Incentives appeared first on Bitcoin News.