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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday August 18 2016, @04:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the people-are-so-weird dept.

Motherboard reports on a strange Bitcoin "lottery" that is now claimed to be a marriage proposal.

Strange event #1: someone claiming to be the anonymous hacker who stole 119,000 Bitcoins from the Bitfinex Bitcoin exchange announced a "lottery" to win 1000 Bitcoins on Reddit, garnering over 7000 responses on the thread from people posting their Bitcoin addresses on the chance that this was somehow legit.

Strange event #2: the Reddit poster actually sent 1000 Bitcoins to the address of one of the users in the thread. Almost immediately the money was sent from that destination to yet another address, one with a public note attached that says "Please send me some money. I'm very poor."

Strange event #3: the poster on Reddit who received the money emerged, admitted to knowing the original poster (not surprising), and revealed that somehow this entire event is some sort of wedding proposal to her (very surprising).

I'm not sure what to think of this. If it's a scam I'm not quite sure who got ripped off.

Previous Coverage: Bitcoin Exchange Bitfinex has been hacked. 119,756 BTC Stolen


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by rts008 on Thursday August 18 2016, @06:21PM

    by rts008 (3001) on Thursday August 18 2016, @06:21PM (#389677)

    Good point. Since not adhering to the 'gold standard', the currency is based on the gov't. saying that 'it is money, of x value, because we said so'. And in reality, it's all smoke and mirrors, with occasional hand waving.

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  • (Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Thursday August 18 2016, @07:38PM

    by Osamabobama (5842) on Thursday August 18 2016, @07:38PM (#389698)

    Fiat money has some basic value in that it's accepted as payment of taxes. That is essentially 'because we said so,' but it doesn't require smoke and mirrors.

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  • (Score: 2) by Snow on Thursday August 18 2016, @07:39PM

    by Snow (1601) on Thursday August 18 2016, @07:39PM (#389700) Journal

    It's not even based on the gov't. Banks actually make most of the money by issuing loans and with little oversight.

    So... Governments issue bonds (create debt) to print money to give to banks. Banks then take that money, and loan it out many times over, thus creating more money. They also charge interest on that money, thus creating even more money. It's a huge scam.

    You'd think that your government benefits most from the creation of new money, but you'd be wrong.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @11:57PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @11:57PM (#389798)

      It is tough to wrap your head around the concept, or even care about it, zeitgeist addendum has the best explanation and motivation to care about it. The part on fractional reserve banking is at the beginning https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EewGMBOB4Gg [youtube.com]