JD upon successfully soliciting a small sum of BTC and eager to put his plan to work, decides to transfer the few fractions of Bitcoin he received to another account. While at this point many would become suspect, JD suspects his few willing volunteers will understand.
 
Sipping on his morning cup of coffee, JD smiles as he stares off into the distant sunrise. It is indeed the beginning of a new day…

Once there was a man (we’ll call him JD) who made his living any way he could. He never really stayed in one place or held down a job for very long, although he was more than qualified for a wide range of occupations. No, JD instead relied upon taking things a day at a time and usually ended up wherever his free spirit took him. He liked to claim this was the only way a person could truly be free.

JD just spent the last few weeks visiting a nearby public library where he could log a few hours here and there on a public computer. JD, not having a lot to his name preferred to utilize public resources whenever he could, both due to necessity and to his credo of not being tied down to any particular place.
 
He does know a thing or two about computers and navigating the “net” and would often go to the library to research the places he visited or learn more about things he heard about. He once briefly considered a career in IT, but found that would not lead to the type of life he was looking for.

One morning while taking in the sunrise at a small coffee house, JD recently overheard a conversation about something called Bitcoin. JD often would like to seek out new places from which to view the sun rise and felt this was one of the ways he could more closely feel part of the wider world around him. It offered him a sort of solace as it was a familiar face he could count on wherever he may be.
 
His curiosity piqued, JD scoured the net to find out about this new form of currency. The more he read, the more he became intrigued. As you can imagine, when one tries to live as a free spirit, it is hard to reconcile this with the more traditional means of storing and securing money.

While JD was not particularly obsessed with money the way many people are, he did realize it had its place and was almost as much a requirement in the modern day as having clean air to breath, food to eat, and a warm place to sleep. JD spent the next several days thinking about what he read, but he decided to take action when on his next visit to a coffee shop, he noticed a sign indicating they now accept Bitcoin.

On his next visit to the library, JD is able to assume an online persona. He creates an online e-mail account and signs up to a popular Bitcoin forum. Here he tiptoes around carefully, initially reading many of the posts and learning how to create online wallets. He likes the idea of something he can access from anywhere, as this fits in with his lifestyle, so establishes himself with a few exchanges that provide a means to accept coins into an online wallet.

JD gets his first taste of Cryptocurrencies by participating in a few giveaway threads, which are commonly used to help introduce people to new cryptocurrencies when they launch. Having explored the site for a few days, JD recognizes these as Alt-coins, and knows that this probably the best entry into the crypto-currency world. As he has no physical means to mine coins, or the financial resources to purchase any outright, he seeks ways to become more involved.

Another week or so passes and JD comes up with an interesting idea. In order for it to work it will require some form of community involvement. Even with his little time spent on the various online sites, JD knows this will take some doing and incredible patience. But with plenty of free time, JD feels up to the task.

While the general community is war weary and sees scams at every turn, JD manages to convince a few souls into participating in his endeavor.

(to be continued…)

Sign-ups are now closed.

Looks like we have 8 participants, a bit less that I hoped but I am optimistic it will still work out well, after all this is a forum run experiment so it is hard to control all aspects of it. Now I just need to figure out how to get you to give electric shocks to each other though this forum...

My next post will be the official kick-off of the experiment per my last post's instructions. The first few parts will not require any interaction, just so you are aware. Also, I should point out that it might not at first seem like a lot is happening, but keep in mind everything has its purpose.

The board is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last...

First off I would like to thank all of the donors to this little project. *Begins Rod Serling voice-over* – You have all become unwitting participants in a little thing we like to call life. You have all agreed to play the game for various reasons not knowing what is before you, is it simply an elaborate scam, an actual experiment, or some other devilish plot? What is known, is this is no ordinary forum thread, you have just entered the Twilight Zone….

With that feeble attempt at a dramatic introduction out of the way, I will first try to set some expectations.

Keep in mind that this is a long-term experiment and there will be many phases, this is just kicking off phase one. The experiment will likely draw out over several weeks or months, perhaps longer.
Due to the nature of the experiment, there may be long periods of time between updates.

At some stage, the experiment may require input from the participants. I will PM directly asking for any information that will need to be kept private. Sometimes I will ask for information publicly in the thread that I will also ask you to PM me your response. Other times I will both post in the thread and ask that you also respond in the thread.

To designate the type of response required I will prefix [PM response required] for the responses that need to be kept private and [Public response required] for responses requested to be made as forum posts. If you accidently respond the wrong way, (i.e. post PM response in thread) it won’t necessarily break anything, but realize we are dealing with human psychology and thus the direct and indirect influence of others will play heavily into this.

Also, since there are multiple participants, please allow time for everyone to complete any required actions. Again, this will probably take quite some time so things may, and will, appear to stall at times.

I also want to point out that you are obviously free to not participate and can drop out at any time, all that I request would be a PM so I don’t end up waiting for a response from someone who decided to quit.

One last issue, since this seems to be of great concern to many in the observation deck, if anyone wishes to opt-out right now and for what-ever reason wants their donation back please let me know now.
 
After the first phase begins, I will consider all Bitcoin received an inter vivos gift and make it available for use in the experiment. After this point all funds in the wallet are considered mine to be freely used however I wish with no conditions or expectations set upon how I use them.
 
The funds will be transferred around and used in a manner deemed appropriate by the experimenter (me) and any others who may work for, assist, or are directed by me on how to handle the funds. I make no promise, claim, or guarantee of how the funds will be used, they may or may not be used in a manner you agree with. Since the funds will not always be under my direct control, at some stages the funds could simply disappear for many reasons including, but not limited to; fraud, transaction errors, theft of wallet, mistypes, etc.

Once the experiment begins, I cannot accept any more participants or deposits to the wallet address. If any funds are sent to the address for whatever reason after this point, they are also considered gifts and will be used in the experiment with no expectation of any participation by any who sent such funds, either intentionally or accidently.

The first phase will kick-off within 48 hours of this post in order to give everyone time to be sure of their decisions and opt-out if so desired. I can accept new participants for the next 24-hours, but after that time the signup is locked and any funds sent to the wallet address become forfeit and are subject to the above conditions.

Ok, looks like we are nearing completion. I need the last few participants that have sent deposits to PM me the details, as of right now I have more people than deposits.

Once this is straightened out I will post a bit more information before beginning.

There is still time to jump in, 10 total participants would be a nice amount, could possibly go up to 12, but after that I will be closing the sign-ups.

Ok, thanks for joining!

Can you each PM me your sent from addresses so I can match up who is who?

Thanks!

Actually 6 donors and two dust transactions from other sources, as mentioned earlier. Just want to keep the number of active participants straight.


I wouldn't quite go that far...


Hard to determine at this point, but it will be more based upon the so called "active participants" or those who have a vested interest via their donations.

Everyone is free to comment, but it would be nice to keep it on track and not just turn into a bunch of people yelling scam, scam, scam. Thus I too apologize if anything I said came across as snarky or demeaning.

Confirmed and thanks for joining!

I know the excitement and anticipation is unbearable. I do want to try and get a few more people on-board though, so I will wait a while longer to give others the chance to jump in.

As indicated previously, I think a nice number would be 10 participants. The experiment will go on now that the minimal requirement has been filled, but keep in mind that this is the minimum amount assuming no one else joins and not the optimal number that I think will make this work.

If you look through the posting, you can see early on I admitted to messing up by not more clearly stating I need participants more than a set amount of Bitcoin to begin. The experiment can indeed move ahead with 5 people, although it will work better with more. I have no reason to move forward simply to try and appease inpatient observers.

I am starting to get the feeling that instead of merely raising valid concerns, some people are just actively trying to sabotage this thread. Thus my original vision was to have something like 10 people each donating $0.10 worth of Bitcoin to make an even $1.00. The amount was arbitrary and intentionally meant to be kept low to avoid all this distraction. I simply needed enough to not be eaten up by fees, since there will be multiple transactions involved.

Now I have been as upfront and forward with everyone as much as I can be without disclosing too much to ruin the experiment. I have taken the time to try and respond to almost every post to address any concerns or complaints, but some seem to be never satisfied.

Still hoping a few more people join in.

I want to be clear right now, this is not going to unfold in minutes, hours, or days, but will be something that draws out for some time. I could easily let the sign-on period last for a week without jeopardizing the experiment in any way, and in some ways that would be the best course of action I could take. I do know this community will not stand for that, and running an experiment online through a forum is going to be interesting enough.

So I am thinking maybe 24-48 more hours, but the fastest way to see it get started is to join in. I am sure a few more of you can donate a few cents of Bitcoin.

Good to hear, yes thanks FalconFly! I will also take note of this as you suggested, I am unsure if I can incorporate it into this experiment, but it is nice to see people willing to donate to those in need.

Good points all of them. I do understand this, and again, why my original intent was to try and get multiple people to donate small amounts that combined would add up to $1.00, thus each person would be risking a minimal contribution of say $0.20 worth of BTC.

I will also point out that I am collecting quite a bit of information on the human nature aspect as you point out. I just did not expect it to be quite so, well vocal, at the start. I am finding it very hard to keep myself separate from the experiment due to the overwhelming suspicions of being a scammer. So while it is fun and exciting to see all the different reactions, in my desire to keep the experiment on-track and reassure people enough that I can get enough participants to work with, I am also risking breaking one of the first parts of the experiment.

I think you misunderstood my intent in the response you quoted above. I was just explaining that yes, that is a possibility that I could simply disappear with the money. This is actually an requirement of the experiment. The donors need to be aware, and hopefully all are, that this could simply be a one time deal and their donation is gone.

Again, this is why I wanted the total amount to be kept low to help avoid drama, but I understand with minimum transaction sizes, fees, etc. sending very small amounts may be hard and it seems the donors so far have sent more.

There is another motivation in my original intent to keep the amount low, which I will explain later. Much of this will make more sense as it goes on but the more I explain the harder the subsequent phases are going to be.

Very interesting why people get so worked up about things. I never said this was for anything specific, simply a social experiment and have often commented I make no promises about what happens to the donations. Maybe I just disappear and keep my $4.32 or whatever it comes to, who knows.

This requirement of a donation is a key part of the experiment and is already yielding good results more so in the form of people so jaded and blinded by skepticism that they cannot bear to watch anyone even part with a few cents. I might just need to run another experiment on that aspect of human nature alone.

Anyway, thanks for your input.

There are now 5 actually, some of the other dust was acquired via different means which will be revealed as this progresses. Again, everything will be readily visible to all, I will keep the front page address in the loop through-out the experiment.

Thanks lucas! 

We now have 5 participants, I would still like to see one or two more though, so I will give additional time before making the decision to move to the next part.

Thank you cubic! I have always said, hard work is its own reward. Or was that hard work killed the mule, I can never keep these things straight...

You are thinking to small. I am actually holding out for 1, 10, even 100 million!!!

Interesting analysis, I might need your services further on in the study.

True about starting up the account and doing the usual newbie stuff, posts a few times in newbie thread, hit up a bunch of giveaways threads, etc...

I can assure everyone I am in no need of the few BTC the project has raised thus far. Remember, the initial request was for a combined total worth $1.00.

I admit I blundered on that a little and should have more clearly stated I need multiple participants to contribute small fractions. I just picked $1.00 as arbitrary amount that was still large enough that as the experiment progresses it wouldn't be destroyed by transfer fees. There will be a need to move the funds around a bit, and if I started with some really small amount, it would be gone in a few transfers.

I do find that this part seems to be pretty interesting already, as we can see human nature in action. Most people are reluctant to participate, even though the experiment clearly calls for an insignificant sum for most of us. I suppose one rational is that people are weary of all the scams and other attempts, and even though it is a small amount, they feel if they gave to every small request they would be broke in no time.

I have also stated that I am in no way interested in someone's participation if the small amount of BTC is significant for them. As mentioned in an earlier reply, I realize that we all live in different circumstances and to some even $1.00 can be a lot. Hopefully, this goes somewhat to show I am not just interested in collecting a few dollars.

Back to business, we are now up to four participants. Each has donated roughly $1.00 each which seems to be a good amount. I still need a few more people to participate before we can begin. As far as any more hints, I have said it enough already to the point of being redundant, revealing anymore will have too much influence on the rest of the project.

Three people have come forward and been willing to take part in this experiment. I could use a few more people to donate some small amount, preferably under $1.00 worth of bitcoin. Five participants would be the minimum needed even though more would be better.