How I Accumulated 2M Stellar in Less Than 24 Hours

https://medium.com/@everettforth/how-i-accumulated-2-million-stellar-in-less-than-24-hours-98b89af934cb

by everettForth • 12 years ago

104 62 12 years ago

malanj• 12 years ago

That seems like the market mechanism working as it should. It's a little tacky, but effectively the turkers are valuing their Stellars really low. I'm not sure it's a problem.

Arguably Bitcoin was the same initially, except in Bitcoin's case you paid CPU manufacturers and electrical utility companies who preferred to be paid cash than mine Bitcoin themselves. Division of labour in action.

dan_bk• 12 years ago

Is USD 1.00-2.00 really enough of an incentive for people to do this (instead of keeping the Stellars), considering they (normally) can do this only once (b/c 1 FB account)?

(Edit: it seems more likely to me that, if this was done over MT, the people working on MT were in turn using botnets for scale.)

opendais11• 12 years ago

Yes or just human spammers in low labor cost countries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag

listic• 12 years ago

I actually thought it is way too much. People are filling surveys for cents there, after all.

gus_massa• 12 years ago

Stripe paid $3000000 for 2000000000 stellars @$0.0015. He's paying up to $2 for 5000 stellars @$0.0004. So the MT are selling it at a 25% of the Stripe price.

IF stellar is a success, hoarding can be a good idea. But if this has a fate similar to to Auroracoin (also heavily premined, handed out for free to everybody) the price may drop 20 fold: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auroracoin

imaginenore2• 12 years ago

And it will. There's nothing revolutionary about Stellar. It's a fork of Ripple (the founders of which already cashed out).

Instead of inventing yet another premined coin Stripe should have integrated Ripple.

EarthLaunch• 12 years ago

They should have integrated Bitcoin.

opendais11• 12 years ago

Everett,

The cat was out of the bag before you even tried. The only difference is others showed restraint and didn't break Stellar's mechanism intentionally.

When I pointed out you could buy access to FB accounts, you weren't actually supposed to go out and do it, y'know?

Just because we can break dumb mechanisms like these just means we have to show restraint. :/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8115497
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8115430

gdb• 12 years ago

Note that Everett was paying Mechanical Turks to auth their legitimate/existing Facebook accounts — not to go and fill out a bunch of captchas to farm new ones.

opendais11• 12 years ago

Yes. That is farming Facebook accounts. :/

If I had meant "creating Facebook accounts", I'd have stated that. This is a technique that has been used before on various blackhat forums.

Generally farming is getting people in countries with cheap labor to go out and perform the action for you. Mechanical Turk is one way to do that.

e.g. Term in a different way: http://www.blackhat-seo.com/2009/captcha-farms/

Captcha Farms do the same thing but with a private pool of cheap labor.

Gdb, I was trying to be circumspect and not spelling it out so some script kiddie didn't go and immediately use the technique.

kibibu• 12 years ago

I know there are clever people working on this, but I can't see how any system based on handing out free money can really work.

"Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt leaves as legal tender, we have, of course all become immensely rich."

opendais11• 12 years ago

Honestly, I'm mainly just angry someone went out and basically ignored the fact multiple people told Stellar this would happen. Then went and did it.

Furzel• 12 years ago

Perfect H2G2 quote for the situation

SkyMarshal• 12 years ago

Just because we can break dumb mechanisms like these just means we have to show restraint. :/

Dumb mechanisms inherent in a cryptocurrency should be broken early and often. This is just one inherent in Ripple/Stellar. Everett is a hacker hero.

opendais11• 12 years ago

Why is it always necessary to demonstrate the obvious in a selfish way for gain? And how is that 'heroic'?

adventured• 12 years ago

Systems of great value based on requiring voluntary restraint will always fail. If there's a particularly dumb mechanism that can easily break a system, then the entire system should fail, the sooner the better.

opendais11• 12 years ago

Credit cards work out just fine.

wyager4• 12 years ago

Just because we can break dumb mechanisms like these just means we have to show restraint.

Why the flying fuck would I show restraint towards a system that claims to be designed for the safe storage and transport of money?

You bet your ass I, along with ten thousand others, tried to find ways to game/break Bitcoin. And guess what? We can't, because it's well designed.

If Ripple/Stellar are gameable, they deserve to be gamed.

opendais11• 12 years ago

You bet your ass I, along with ten thousand others, tried to find ways to game/break Bitcoin. And guess what? We can't, because it's well designed.

51% attacks? http://www.coindesk.com/ghash-io-never-launch-51-attack/ ?

Etc.

Please don't tell me you can't game/break Bitcoin. With enough capital, you can. Just no one has bothered.

Please don't make obviously false statements in defense of your position.

Why the flying fuck would I show restraint towards a system that claims to be designed for the safe storage and transport of money?

I could steal people's credit card information and use it without triggering the fraud alert until after I get the goods. I could flee the country to a place that wouldn't extradite me for such behavior before anyone was the wiser.

I don't because I have no desire to abuse breakable systems just because I can.

I guess I just have more restraint than most people.

SandroG4• 12 years ago

Everett's response is much appreciated.

Per my original HN post last night which broke the story [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8124119], I still think that he gamed the system. If I remember correctly, he asked mTurkers to create a Stellar account _without_ an identifiable account name so the transaction couldn't be easily backtracked. Also, he did not use his real name in mTurk and impersonated someone else. Not sure if his actions violated the ToS.

It was right for Everett to have come forward and disclose his means. His suggestions to improve the system are excellent. It will improve the Stellar system for everyone involved. Nevertheless, I believe that he should donate his balance to a charity. It will be an honorable thing to do.

Sandro

lessnonymous2• 12 years ago

It makes no sense to suggest he donate it to charity. He found a pile of people willing to sell him the goods at a price both they and he were happy with. If something like Stellar is to succeed you can't put limits on the free market and the transactions that are allowed to take place using them.

Just because he didn't use his real name doesn't make the transaction less valid. And just because the task didn't use an identifiable account name doesn't make the transaction less valid.

What you're insisting is that you can't buy something from someone on Craigslist using a fake name and meeting in a place that nobody else can tell where you made the transaction. In other words, 99% of Craiglist transactions.

SandroG4• 12 years ago

He found a pile of people looking for a job, and willing to perform a set of tasks for a certain price. Nowhere was it disclosed that this was a one-time deal, and by proceeding they would be forever limiting the upside of their personal economic prosperity.

If you disclosed to these people that this is a one-time transaction, and that they will forever be parting ways with their only allotment of currency which might appreciate in the future, and which is currently valued 50X higher, I bet you wouldn't get as many takers.

prezjordan• 12 years ago

Why would you tell people this?

opendais11• 12 years ago

For some reason the link to the other HN thread got downvoted so:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8124119

He got outed.

everettForth• 12 years ago

https://twitter.com/EverettForth/status/495725720464023552

jnbiche3• 12 years ago

I just read at the top of Stellar's forum a note from Joyce Kim, CEO of Stellar:

We expect that as a price for stellar becomes more established, we'll have to continually adjust the total amount of the giveaway to make sure it keeps making sense.

So they're already dialing back their distribution promise. This is exactly what happened with Ripple. When Ripple first started, there were assurances that all but 20% of Ripples would be distributed "as quickly as possible".

That didn't happen.

Several years later now, Ripple has decided to basically keep as many ripples as they can, which is supposedly part of what led to the split between Jed and the Ripple leadership/owners.

All this is a funny commentary on human nature. As an outsider, it's as clear as day to me that in order to succeed, Ripple needed to rapidly distribute as many XRP as possible. After all, 5% of a lot of money is worth much more than 50% of nothing. The only other missing ingredient for Ripple was community engagement.

And with Stellar I fear we'll see the same thing (at least with respect to a rapidly decreasing distribution rate).

These issues are exactly why Bitcoiners are so scornful of "pre-mined" coins. All things considered, proof-of-work and proof-of-burn are still by far the fairest and most successful currency bootstrapping methods. Stellar uses neither.

Bootstrapping a currency is the ultimate Zen undertaking: in order to make money as a crypto-bootstrapper, you must find ways to distribute it, either by giving it away or (preferably) by fostering entrepreneurship and spending it on those merchants who take a chance on accepting it.

A lesson much of the Bitcoin community still hasn't taken to heart, which is likely the only reason why interest in the coin is failing to pass on from the early adopter to the early majority.

swamp12• 12 years ago

Sorry that wasn't clear. What she means is the amount given to each person. We are still and always will be committed to giving away the total 95B stellars. I just edited her post to clarify what we were trying to say.

jnbiche3• 12 years ago

Thanks for the response. At the same time, I remained concerned by this idea that an increase in value of Stellars would slow down the rate of distribution.

After all, new users are a limited commodity (particularly after the honeymoon period). So almost by definition, if you chose to decrease the amount of Stellars distributed because the price is increasing, then you're slowing down the rate of distribution.

Which is exactly what Ripple has done.

I'd be happy to be proved wrong on this one, but I'm definitely taking a wait and see approach.

mrb• 12 years ago

"interest in the coin is failing to pass on"

What makes you think it is failing? Literally all the indicators show that interest in Bitcoin is growing:

- Payment processors are growing very fast (eg. BitPay is signing up 500-1000 new merchants every week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8YSivdLKf0 and see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7974197)

- Even very large companies began to accept Bitcoin: Dell, Expedia, Newegg, Dish Network, Overstock, TigerDirect...

- BTC continues to gain value --chaotically through bubbles but still gaining value overall: http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg730zigWeeklyzc...

- Bitcoin VC investment reached $158 million this year, and is on target to reach $200-300 million, approximately 2x-3x more than last year: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-venture-capital/

jnbiche3• 12 years ago

Interest among businesses and institutions has increased and to an impressive extent. Interest among users seems to have stagnated.

If you can show any metrics pointing to an increasing rate of adoption among users, I would be greatly heartened.

Instead, we seem to be reaching a wall between the early adopters and early majority. This is a well-known chasms in the technology adoption cycle, and I'm a bit concerned about Bitcoin's ability to jump it, particularly given the current "hodl" mentality of most users of the coin.

On the other hand, if there's another big jump in price (not unlikely), then there will likely be increased interest among users. So I'm not saying Bitcoin will never gain majority adoption. I'm just saying that at this point, things don't look as promising as they did a year ago.

cconcepts3• 12 years ago

Am surprised no one with the coding skills has put up a graph showing the value of a Stellar over time. A rudimentary beginning could be a derivative of these values: http://bit.ly/1o2eBJl

Which is currently around $0.000353USD/STR ($2.05/5800)

cconcepts3• 12 years ago

I must be missing something, was that not an OK thing to say?

striking2• 12 years ago

What was supposed to be at that link? Could you take a screenshot?

cconcepts3• 12 years ago

It was the Mechanical Turk page showing people buying/selling Stellar

SandroG4• 12 years ago

I bet that the unsuspecting Mechanical Turk workers, who traded their 6000 Stellars, did not realize that this was a one-time deal, rather than a repeatable revenue opportunity.

Mechanical Turk workers are used to low-paying and high-volume jobs. The $1.00 fee is very attractive for the steps involved, if this was a repeatable job. It's only natural to assume that every worker would attempt to create another Stellar account and retry the steps anew, only to be confronted with a an error after the first attempt.

And, unbeknownst to them, if Stellar does become a success, those workers will forever be left on the sidelines. Considering that Stellar has the potential to include the world's underprivileged into the global economy, often without bank accounts or identities, it's a shame that we are the first to take advantage of them.

Aqueous2• 12 years ago

Or Stellar flops and the guy just spent 24 hours of his life and $50 or so dollars to accumulate a bunch of useless not-even-paper. It could go either way. The mechanical turk workers implicitly made the bet that stellars will not be worth much more than they are worth today in the future - and were thus, reasonably, willing to trade nothing for real actual money that's there right now.

SandroG4• 12 years ago

Those same workers could have traded in their 5000 Stellars for $50 on Stellar Forums. Everett was actively selling 5K Stellars at $50 [http://forum.stellar.org/t/i-want-to-buy-your-stellars-50-fo...], while buying them at $1 on Mechanical Turk.

wyager4• 12 years ago

They probably never would have heard of stellar in the first place, if not for this mechanical turk job.

Most people aren't even aware of Bitcoin, let alone all the random pump-and-dump schemes floating around.

hankhill• 12 years ago

Not only is he arguably violating Mechanical Turk's terms of service by simple asking people to sign up for this in the first place, he's even gaming MTurk itself by creating multiple Amazon accounts with pseudonyms and spamming the marketplace with requests. Cute, Mr. Forth, really, really cute.

Update: If you don't believe it, here's a screenshot straight from HIT Scraper, a Greasemonkey script MTurk workers often use to display job listings on Mechanical Turk in a more easily parsable fashion: http://imgur.com/DOAIuy3

Not sure how he pulled this one off, considering Amazon is now requiring a verified SSN or tax ID for requesters to purchase money to post HITs, but there you have it.

yincrash• 12 years ago

When was the screenshot taken? Once the cat was out of the bag about what he was doing, I'm sure many people decided to also try the same thing.

striking2• 12 years ago

Maybe those HITs were posted by other people, recently?

joyce• 12 years ago

I am the executive director of Stellar. Wanted to share my reply to the MTurk stuff: http://forum.stellar.org/t/stellar-updates/1026

cheshire137• 12 years ago

On my laptop, I scroll the screen but cannot read all the text in the blue popup titled "Updates from Stellar HQ." It just scrolls the white page underneath, which is not what I'm trying to read.

alanfalcon• 12 years ago

Yeah I had a lot of problems with this on my iphone

iamjdg• 12 years ago

hey everett, just because you are so ahead of the curve i used my "send 1000, receive 1000" new stellar account promo on you..well deserved, spend wisely...

How I Accumulated 2M Stellar in Less Than 24 Hours

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