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A write up and examination of this code can be found here https://stacker.news/items/458544/r/BITC0IN
Rekt Crypto Hardware Con Artists Creep Into Bitcoin - Fork Coldcard Wallet
Rekt Crypto Hardware Con Artists Creep into Bitcoin:
Obelisk Team Re-brands to Foundation Devices (FD), Forks Coldcard Wallet to the Passport Pre-order - And is Funded by Inflection, associated with Erik Voorhees (Who Owns Keepkey).
Medium article of this thread: https://medium.com/coinmonks/rekt-crypto-hardware-con-artists-creep-into-bitcoin-8ad713198d3a
Twitter Conversation: https://twitter.com/F_D_KB/status/1300480430425149448
During the 2017 bull run, people had a lot of spare money to throw around. ICO's were the popular outlet for newly green crypto gamblers and many lost their shirts to these pump and dump scams.
But another less known scam of a sort proliferated the crypto space during this time.
Failed crypto hardware projects.
These were often pre-orders for mining hardware that over-promised on performance and shipping times, but in reality, failed to deliver by a civil-suit margin.
One example of such a hardware scheme was Squirrel Research Labs, as initially promoted by Kristy-Leigh Minehan, aka OmgAGirl. This venture sold over a million dollars worth of FPGA's, promoted as hardware that would be able to mine Monero.
Instead of Monero, this hardware was only able to mine a handful of altcoins. No one broke even on these FGPA's.
Another one of these failed hardware schemes was launched in late 2017 by Obelisk Inc. a Boston based operation. Lead by Siacoin developer David Vorick, and operated by Zach Zerbert, Ken Carpenter and Jacob Johnston. Obelisk became a nightmare for it's customers and operators.
Here are the highlights of the Obelisk train wreck:
1. They advertised that their ASIC units would be built and shipped by June 30th 2018. These units only started to arrive in late September of 2018. Three months late.
2. For this delay, Obelisk pledged to pay compensation to customers. That compensation, though "credited" to obelisk accounts, was never paid out.
3. In addition, the ASIC units that arrived hashed at a rate of 66% the advertised hashrate. They were useless against competitor ASIC manufacturers, who had delivered their more powerful ASIC's on time before Obelisk.
4. As a result, many Obelisk SC1 miners begged Vorick to fork the Siacoin blockchain in order to kick the competitions ASIC's off the network. Siacoin lead developer and Obelisk CEO, Vorick, initially resisted this idea, since this would invalidate Siacoins immutability and decentralization. Eventually he capitulated and forked Siacoin so that only his ASIC's could mine Siacoin on October 31st 2018. The Siacoin price dumped soon after, and has since languished.
5. Furthermore, Obelisk pledged a coupon of 250$ and 800$ for each ASIC purchased. These coupons are now worthless.
6. They pledged to release financial statements of salaries and to honor refund requests. These statements never materialized, and refund request were ignored.
7. Their last effort was to launch a GRIN ASIC miner, and they accepted funds for a batch to be produced. But soon after, they had to refund customers due to a lack of interest and funding. Customers were refunded for the dollar amount in Bitcoin they paid at the time of purchase.
8. There were multiple other issues
All these mishaps occurred while Zach Herbert, Ken Carpenter and Jacob Johnston were operating Obelisk Inc.
After several lawsuits and the the destruction of Obelisks brand and reputation, these three literally moved down the street and rebranded to a new crypto hardware company without the legal and reputational baggage of the Obelisk brand. Foundation Devices (FD). But to make matters stranger, the above FD employees are still listed on Obelisks website as employed by Obelisk. Stranger still, their first FD product is an open-sourced Bitcoin only hardware wallet, called Passport.
Sound familiar?
Thats because the passport is a fork of Coinkites open source Bitcoin only Coldcard wallet. In essence their first product, the passport, is a clone of the Coldcard.
On its own, a non-contentious clone (or fork) of the Coldcard would maybe be an interesting project. After all, its just building on each others accomplishments, though Id hardly call the Obelisk dumpster fire an accomplishment. More like a pattern of duplicitous behavior.
As a result of this borderline IP theft by foundation devices, Coinkite is studying whether to change their software and hardware licensing to a more commercially restrictive alternative, as a defensive measure against this encroachment.
An understandable move. However, Coinkite is the well-earned spearhead for open-source Bitcoin wallets in the space today. They did all the work up front, made a massive bet on Bitcoin only hardware, and it payed off. But now going forward, we could have the FD team as the default unearned leader for open source Bitcoin hardware wallets
So where does that leave us. Will the foundation team fully understand the Coldcard firmware code they are using, but did not write?
Sounds like a security risk, never mind the ethical concerns, borderline IP-theft and the failed crypto hardware dumpster fire that is Obelisk Inc. Makes you wonder if theyll apply the same low standard for safe guarding your Bitcoin keys.
Id rather not find out.
Bitcoiners want their hardware wallet provider to have an ethic that closely aligns with the Bitcoin ethos. I would argue that forking the Coldcard wallet is tantamount to legal IP-theft. In any case, having a history of low integrity and breaking your word doesnt help the FD team either.
Therefore, if you care about the Bitcoin ethic, ethos, and the security of your own funds, dont buy a forked hardware wallet. You could buy two Coldcard wallets and a couple Opendimes for the same price as a FD passport anyways ($299).
In conclusion, youve been warned.
Dont take my word for it. Verify, dont trust.
Addendum: I would have liked to stop here, but this rabbit hole keeps going, so bare with me here.
I think its worth knowing that one of the investors behind Foundation Devices is Inflection. A fund that has a history of investing in
One of the venture advisors for this fund is Erik Voorhees, the guy behind the Shapeshift platform and the hardware wallet, Keepkey.
Both these products have fallen out of favor with most Bitcoiners, due to the high KYC demands of the Shapshift platform and issues with the keepkey itself. Though there may be more to this that Im not aware of.
Funnily enough, the keepkey is originally a cloned fork of the Trezor wallet.
Looks like history is repeating itself.
In any case, it appears that Erik Voorhees is continuing his support for companies that fork and clone Bitcoin hardware wallets.
PS: here is a list of Foundation Devices investors, all of them have been informed of this article.
Obelisk Team Re-brands to Foundation Devices (FD), Forks Coldcard Wallet to the Passport Pre-order - And is Funded by Inflection, associated with Erik Voorhees (Who Owns Keepkey).
Medium article of this thread: https://medium.com/coinmonks/rekt-crypto-hardware-con-artists-creep-into-bitcoin-8ad713198d3a
Twitter Conversation: https://twitter.com/F_D_KB/status/1300480430425149448
During the 2017 bull run, people had a lot of spare money to throw around. ICO's were the popular outlet for newly green crypto gamblers and many lost their shirts to these pump and dump scams.
But another less known scam of a sort proliferated the crypto space during this time.
Failed crypto hardware projects.
These were often pre-orders for mining hardware that over-promised on performance and shipping times, but in reality, failed to deliver by a civil-suit margin.
One example of such a hardware scheme was Squirrel Research Labs, as initially promoted by Kristy-Leigh Minehan, aka OmgAGirl. This venture sold over a million dollars worth of FPGA's, promoted as hardware that would be able to mine Monero.
Instead of Monero, this hardware was only able to mine a handful of altcoins. No one broke even on these FGPA's.
Another one of these failed hardware schemes was launched in late 2017 by Obelisk Inc. a Boston based operation. Lead by Siacoin developer David Vorick, and operated by Zach Zerbert, Ken Carpenter and Jacob Johnston. Obelisk became a nightmare for it's customers and operators.
Here are the highlights of the Obelisk train wreck:
1. They advertised that their ASIC units would be built and shipped by June 30th 2018. These units only started to arrive in late September of 2018. Three months late.
2. For this delay, Obelisk pledged to pay compensation to customers. That compensation, though "credited" to obelisk accounts, was never paid out.
3. In addition, the ASIC units that arrived hashed at a rate of 66% the advertised hashrate. They were useless against competitor ASIC manufacturers, who had delivered their more powerful ASIC's on time before Obelisk.
4. As a result, many Obelisk SC1 miners begged Vorick to fork the Siacoin blockchain in order to kick the competitions ASIC's off the network. Siacoin lead developer and Obelisk CEO, Vorick, initially resisted this idea, since this would invalidate Siacoins immutability and decentralization. Eventually he capitulated and forked Siacoin so that only his ASIC's could mine Siacoin on October 31st 2018. The Siacoin price dumped soon after, and has since languished.
5. Furthermore, Obelisk pledged a coupon of 250$ and 800$ for each ASIC purchased. These coupons are now worthless.
6. They pledged to release financial statements of salaries and to honor refund requests. These statements never materialized, and refund request were ignored.
7. Their last effort was to launch a GRIN ASIC miner, and they accepted funds for a batch to be produced. But soon after, they had to refund customers due to a lack of interest and funding. Customers were refunded for the dollar amount in Bitcoin they paid at the time of purchase.
8. There were multiple other issues
All these mishaps occurred while Zach Herbert, Ken Carpenter and Jacob Johnston were operating Obelisk Inc.
After several lawsuits and the the destruction of Obelisks brand and reputation, these three literally moved down the street and rebranded to a new crypto hardware company without the legal and reputational baggage of the Obelisk brand. Foundation Devices (FD). But to make matters stranger, the above FD employees are still listed on Obelisks website as employed by Obelisk. Stranger still, their first FD product is an open-sourced Bitcoin only hardware wallet, called Passport.
Sound familiar?
Thats because the passport is a fork of Coinkites open source Bitcoin only Coldcard wallet. In essence their first product, the passport, is a clone of the Coldcard.
On its own, a non-contentious clone (or fork) of the Coldcard would maybe be an interesting project. After all, its just building on each others accomplishments, though Id hardly call the Obelisk dumpster fire an accomplishment. More like a pattern of duplicitous behavior.
As a result of this borderline IP theft by foundation devices, Coinkite is studying whether to change their software and hardware licensing to a more commercially restrictive alternative, as a defensive measure against this encroachment.
An understandable move. However, Coinkite is the well-earned spearhead for open-source Bitcoin wallets in the space today. They did all the work up front, made a massive bet on Bitcoin only hardware, and it payed off. But now going forward, we could have the FD team as the default unearned leader for open source Bitcoin hardware wallets
So where does that leave us. Will the foundation team fully understand the Coldcard firmware code they are using, but did not write?
Sounds like a security risk, never mind the ethical concerns, borderline IP-theft and the failed crypto hardware dumpster fire that is Obelisk Inc. Makes you wonder if theyll apply the same low standard for safe guarding your Bitcoin keys.
Id rather not find out.
Bitcoiners want their hardware wallet provider to have an ethic that closely aligns with the Bitcoin ethos. I would argue that forking the Coldcard wallet is tantamount to legal IP-theft. In any case, having a history of low integrity and breaking your word doesnt help the FD team either.
Therefore, if you care about the Bitcoin ethic, ethos, and the security of your own funds, dont buy a forked hardware wallet. You could buy two Coldcard wallets and a couple Opendimes for the same price as a FD passport anyways ($299).
In conclusion, youve been warned.
Dont take my word for it. Verify, dont trust.
Addendum: I would have liked to stop here, but this rabbit hole keeps going, so bare with me here.
I think its worth knowing that one of the investors behind Foundation Devices is Inflection. A fund that has a history of investing in
One of the venture advisors for this fund is Erik Voorhees, the guy behind the Shapeshift platform and the hardware wallet, Keepkey.
Both these products have fallen out of favor with most Bitcoiners, due to the high KYC demands of the Shapshift platform and issues with the keepkey itself. Though there may be more to this that Im not aware of.
Funnily enough, the keepkey is originally a cloned fork of the Trezor wallet.
Looks like history is repeating itself.
In any case, it appears that Erik Voorhees is continuing his support for companies that fork and clone Bitcoin hardware wallets.
PS: here is a list of Foundation Devices investors, all of them have been informed of this article.
Re: 2D Bitcoin Battle Royale. Play to win Bitcoin - BitShowdown.io
the lag has been significantly reduced, and the end game danger zone shrinking the safe zone is highly effective.
i would recommend trying to make the usernames invisible when a user is under a tree, so they get the same protection as someone with no user name. or you can give people with no username the default username of anonymous to make it fair. but this will just incentive people to make there username, ".", so they are more hidden when under a tree.
keep up the good work!
i would recommend trying to make the usernames invisible when a user is under a tree, so they get the same protection as someone with no user name. or you can give people with no username the default username of anonymous to make it fair. but this will just incentive people to make there username, ".", so they are more hidden when under a tree.
keep up the good work!
Re: 2D Bitcoin Battle Royale. Play to win Bitcoin - BitShowdown.io
Hi
We've updated the game mode. Now there is no waiting area and there is an in game leaderboard where the top 5 players with the highest score at the end of a game win the bonus prizes.
This should help with the problem of few players playing as you don't need to all join within the 30 second window.
It should also encourage players to play instead of camping until the end as there is no last longer prize and players with the most kills get the bonuses.
To spice it up a little more your score gets cut in half if you die!
I have read all replies and updated the OP and added an FAQ to answer all questions posted in this thread. I have also added this to the website.
Here's the FAQ. Hopefully that helps. If there's any other questions or something I missed let me know and I will add it...
We've updated the game mode. Now there is no waiting area and there is an in game leaderboard where the top 5 players with the highest score at the end of a game win the bonus prizes.
This should help with the problem of few players playing as you don't need to all join within the 30 second window.
It should also encourage players to play instead of camping until the end as there is no last longer prize and players with the most kills get the bonuses.
To spice it up a little more your score gets cut in half if you die!
I have read all replies and updated the OP and added an FAQ to answer all questions posted in this thread. I have also added this to the website.
Here's the FAQ. Hopefully that helps. If there's any other questions or something I missed let me know and I will add it...
good update. I've been playing with some other people and we got to the end of the round with just 2 players left, me and some other guy i could not find. he was probably afk in a tree because I was looking for him for a solid thirty minutes.
I recommend you make the trees toxic/cause damage once no more players can join the round.
also, the more people who joined the game, the more the game lagged. it was noticeable and effected game play consistently.
Hi
I saw that game running just now.
What I think we can try is have the radiation move in to cover the whole map say after 90 entrants are in the game? That means anyone just hiding in trees would be killed eventually.
I will look in to the lag too. There's a lot of improvements on the todo list that would help with that. It will take maybe the whole week or two to get through all them though
Were you signed in to any social accounts at the time? If so pm me your id and I can update your balance if it wasn't credited.
Any other suggestions you have from you or friends are greatly appreciated. We have really big plans for this over the next 6 months including total graphics overhaul and better characters. We just needed to test the concept first and get all the initial issues out the way
if it helps. it seems the lag get worse when i am using the arrow keys to move around. going straight/using just one key to go in one direction is usually fine. but when i start to get creative with 2 or more key movements within a second the lag starts to freeze things up for a bit.
also, having the dangerzone shrink the safety zone is a great idea for the end game!
don't worry about the payment. i just wanted to give some feedback. I like your game, can't wait to see how it progresses.
Re: 2D Bitcoin Battle Royale. Play to win Bitcoin - BitShowdown.io
I can't call it gambling , more like a fun timewaster - especially with the prizes "up to 100 satoshi"
100k minimal withdrawal makes the players return and play again and again , but it must take a long time reach that amount
its a version of agar.io bitcoin clones , hope it doesn't repeat their mistakes
I'm pretty sure all of the agar clone games are dead because it was impossible to fight cheaters and players who teamed up to kill the opposition and win the prize
if you don't introduce the paid entry system , maybe think of alternative ways of monetizing the site ?
since I am not sure the pay-to-enter model will be too popular
100k minimal withdrawal makes the players return and play again and again , but it must take a long time reach that amount
its a version of agar.io bitcoin clones , hope it doesn't repeat their mistakes
I'm pretty sure all of the agar clone games are dead because it was impossible to fight cheaters and players who teamed up to kill the opposition and win the prize
if you don't introduce the paid entry system , maybe think of alternative ways of monetizing the site ?
since I am not sure the pay-to-enter model will be too popular
you're right it's not gambling. it's more like a game of skill, where you can put money on yourself and your own skill. sort of like poker.
I was the top player on chopcoin.io for a long time, and it wasnt the teaming that killed off the game.
it was the devs lack of improvement of the game.
they came out with new pay to play team based playgrounds but the teaming system was not designed correctly. users could predict which team they would get on if they joined the round, so this discouraged participation, since they would join a team that was winning, but not join if they new they'd end up on a team that was losing.
the devs should have stuck to a simple free for all pay to play playground, and make that the only option for players to play during the weekend. instead the devs left the free to play playground open during all times, and only had a free for all tournament once during the weekend every so often during a certain time. they should of had rolling tournaments throughout the day/weekend.
the bungled the project when they could have implemented simple scheduling procedures to encourage participation.
its really sad too, because for a while there they had a good community of players.
Re: 2D Bitcoin Battle Royale. Play to win Bitcoin - BitShowdown.io
Hi
We've updated the game mode. Now there is no waiting area and there is an in game leaderboard where the top 5 players with the highest score at the end of a game win the bonus prizes.
This should help with the problem of few players playing as you don't need to all join within the 30 second window.
It should also encourage players to play instead of camping until the end as there is no last longer prize and players with the most kills get the bonuses.
To spice it up a little more your score gets cut in half if you die!
I have read all replies and updated the OP and added an FAQ to answer all questions posted in this thread. I have also added this to the website.
Here's the FAQ. Hopefully that helps. If there's any other questions or something I missed let me know and I will add it...
We've updated the game mode. Now there is no waiting area and there is an in game leaderboard where the top 5 players with the highest score at the end of a game win the bonus prizes.
This should help with the problem of few players playing as you don't need to all join within the 30 second window.
It should also encourage players to play instead of camping until the end as there is no last longer prize and players with the most kills get the bonuses.
To spice it up a little more your score gets cut in half if you die!
I have read all replies and updated the OP and added an FAQ to answer all questions posted in this thread. I have also added this to the website.
Here's the FAQ. Hopefully that helps. If there's any other questions or something I missed let me know and I will add it...
good update. I've been playing with some other people and we got to the end of the round with just 2 players left, me and some other guy i could not find. he was probably afk in a tree because I was looking for him for a solid thirty minutes.
I recommend you make the trees toxic/cause damage once no more players can join the round.
also, the more people who joined the game, the more the game lagged. it was noticeable and effected game play consistently.
I didn't opt in for any upgrades on mine.. Should I have got an email to confirm mine was shipped?
Please PM me your order number and email I can check.
Me too, I messaged u 2.
ditto, where's my miner ?
What are the hardware requirements for FPGA mining?
Currently there are no known specific hardware requirements for FPGA mining beyond basic requirements for GPUs. That is, a basic CPU, minimal ram, minimal disk, and x1 PCI-E 3.0 connectivity.
Currently there are no known specific hardware requirements for FPGA mining beyond basic requirements for GPUs. That is, a basic CPU, minimal ram, minimal disk, and x1 PCI-E 3.0 connectivity.
Is using a 2.0 PCI-E out of the question or can we get by with one? Would this reduce the cards overall effectiveness and by how much?
One of our engineers is testing on PCI-E 2.0, but we have no idea how it will behave in mass deployment or with variations of motherboards.
Thank you for testing this out! I'm curious to see what differences there are between 3.0 and 2.0 (maybe even 1.0 if you guys are really bored).
What are the hardware requirements for FPGA mining?
Currently there are no known specific hardware requirements for FPGA mining beyond basic requirements for GPUs. That is, a basic CPU, minimal ram, minimal disk, and x1 PCI-E 3.0 connectivity.
Currently there are no known specific hardware requirements for FPGA mining beyond basic requirements for GPUs. That is, a basic CPU, minimal ram, minimal disk, and x1 PCI-E 3.0 connectivity.
Is using a 2.0 PCI-E out of the question or can we get by with one? Would this reduce the cards overall effectiveness and by how much?
I would really appreciate an update every so often on how many are left in stock...congrats on your release!
There are currently a couple hundred boards open, and some more that are earmarked but I will make available to the community if there is demand.
I expect those couple hundred to sell out over night as the other side of the world gets involved, so if you want any I would get them now.
fuuuuck. on it.
Re: CellStar.io - Play Agario Game on Real Money (Bitcoin's accepted)
I'm a huge fan of Agar.io, and have played for a couple years now. I've also been playing a similar clone that also pays out in Bitcoin when competing with other players called Chopcoin.io, (I'm also a significant player and rank very highly on their leader board.)
So please keep in mind, I am a veteran player of both paid and unpaid Agar clones.
Your clone is fantastic.
It is everything Chopcoin should be, but has been lazy enough to ignore.
The fact that you've integrated several deposit options is fantastic, and your support for bitcoin amazing.
I really really hope you consider adding bitcoin as a withdraw option for players in the future.
from experience, the biggest challenge you will face is empty playgrounds. This is unfortunately very common in the beginning when building a user base. So it's very important for users/players to know when a good time of day to play against other players is. I highly recommend some kind of tournament/happy hour once per day to attract users to compete at a certain time of day/week/month. Also being able to view/watch players play would be a great feature too, and i recommend you charge a user a couple of cents to view, don't make viewing free.
Your User interface is sexy. superior to Chopcoin's ALREADY, and they've been in the game for more than a year.
I'm not going to lie, your site has a lot of potential. the tricky part is attracting users which does require a level of marketing to the Agar, Bitcoin, and Chopcoin communities.
Please let me know if you would like some help with this, as I have experience in promoting Chopcoin.io on YouTube. Furthermore, If you would like a review of your site text for grammatical English improvement, I would be more than happy to help.
So please keep in mind, I am a veteran player of both paid and unpaid Agar clones.
Your clone is fantastic.
It is everything Chopcoin should be, but has been lazy enough to ignore.
The fact that you've integrated several deposit options is fantastic, and your support for bitcoin amazing.
I really really hope you consider adding bitcoin as a withdraw option for players in the future.
from experience, the biggest challenge you will face is empty playgrounds. This is unfortunately very common in the beginning when building a user base. So it's very important for users/players to know when a good time of day to play against other players is. I highly recommend some kind of tournament/happy hour once per day to attract users to compete at a certain time of day/week/month. Also being able to view/watch players play would be a great feature too, and i recommend you charge a user a couple of cents to view, don't make viewing free.
Your User interface is sexy. superior to Chopcoin's ALREADY, and they've been in the game for more than a year.
I'm not going to lie, your site has a lot of potential. the tricky part is attracting users which does require a level of marketing to the Agar, Bitcoin, and Chopcoin communities.
Please let me know if you would like some help with this, as I have experience in promoting Chopcoin.io on YouTube. Furthermore, If you would like a review of your site text for grammatical English improvement, I would be more than happy to help.
did anyone solve the last puzzle with the 4.37 BTC reward posted by these same people???
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=766000.120
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=766000.120
Re: www.chopcoin.io - The new interactive Bitcoin game!
video of the first January 3rd Tournament - 0x1d dominates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk7j3pjwm9g&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk7j3pjwm9g&feature=youtu.be