Crypto Cuttlefish

Found a new block-explorer script this weekend called "Ace" - it's the simplest form of a blockchain explorer, basically a PHP wrapper around JSON-RPC calls to a coin daemon.  Nice thing about that is that requires almost no setup - just adding your coin daemon's rpc port, user and password to a config file.  

There's no database attached so it's a very lightweight deployment, at the cost of having a smaller set of features.  

Abe and Insight each annoy me for their own reasons - Insight because Node kind of annoys me in general, and because their configuration is a little obscure, and Abe because it has no templating system to speak of so adding any extraneous info or customization requires sloppy hacks. 

TL; DR: There's a Transaction List for VTX but blockchain problems are preventing the deployment of other services. 

Building new software on a broken foundation is hard. 

Last week I attempted to set up a blockchain explorer for VvXx / Vortex using both Bitcoin Abe and Insight.  Each of these explorers was having different problems in providing a complete tool which would verify individual transactions, show the contents of a wallet, and allow a user to browse the block / tx history in a linear manner.  

I couldn't get Insight to correctly recognize the Genesis Block of the blockchain, so it was unable to retrive blockchain data.  Abe could retrieve the blockchain data, but considered every block beyond the first to be orphaned, so these couldn't be browsed through the web frontend. 

I tried setting up my own PHP script to make JSON-RPC calls directly to vvxxd.  I was able to get transaction details for individual transactions, but the block hashes returned by JSON-RPC didn't match the block hashes of the blocks that were read directly off the blockchain, so there was no way to match a TX back to the block in which it originated.  

Wallet addresses are also still coming up as "not on the network" even though RPC calls return valid-looking wallet addresses. 

I was asked to look into VvXx and see if as Earlz discovered, the dev had in fact inserted a large hidden premine of coins into circulation.  This appears to be the case, with block 29 containing a mining reward of 600,000 coins.  

My initial investigations were done through Abe, which doesn't fully support X13 algorithm blockchains, so while I could load the block record into a database, there web frontend only works sporadically. 

A database query summing up all of the mining rewards for existing blocks puts the total amount of Vvxx in circulation at 887,900 coins.

Bit cold wallet address child announced to provide 100 percentsecurity deposit

2014-05-27 14:49:54    Author: wine children    Category: Announcement Tags:   

To ensure that the user be assured transactions and improve transparency bit child trading platform, real-time user to accept supervision, enhance user confidence in the platform.

Bit children within special open platform virtual currency wallet cold storage address. All cold wallet addresses will continue to publish in accordance with the market value of the order.

More news Dear children please pay attention to the official announcement and a bit of official microblogging.

Bitcoin (Bitcoin)   1GRFNTyLwoyQnk7S3MFFAz5qPkdWp7YSoY

Wright credits (Litecoin) Lg8GHnTJVifsEFX71u7PtDfE5yPLsYWCNC

Little currency (Peercoin) PSEGrEFm3kqLzDnYVhzHc4Hr7pjLEqHh4q

Diablo currency (Darkcoin) Xqs6ALUH95s65Vn6cSU1kzTaB8aPsf4hf9

Future currency (Nextcoin) 10715382765594435905

Dogs currency (Dogecoin) DHKAifubLRomJVZdF4bRd9whxvsdcEyvsU

Domain currency (Namecoin) N6JuRqQwaegTeX5bB5qq7Y9D6Hxryzuzp2

Black credits (Blackcoin) B8qDGVRxeNEZ6AoYVrPAVzxjXFSPvGr4XN

Prototype shares (Protoshares) PvMga93tnLgmJuZnD43kSqVSbEcSTiywVu

Green credits (Vertcoin) Vjf6QRCF1AsaMUeGBpN8ZtN2z2htiGkZXr

Quark currency (Quark) QYq7BijWcaVT3EB8N6HJYpAq4LzDomoBNj

Prime currency (Primecoin) AKQJUnwV4iooMbCYN1tuK8KiFtmgLMEfah

Zeta currency (Zetacoin) ZGfz94PBE2D3yhgSSooqMbtSiLNLozYsbv

Feather currency (Featurecoin) 6dnSe8a6mqemQK9wToj2xjFSGYL11ma5TS

Carolina currency (Megacoin) MSAkrhRyte7bz999Ga5SqYjzypFFYa2oEb

Unlimited coins (Infinitecoin) iK9WkPaopE1KMD9AS2EtbH5VuqCj4WXA1K

Maximum credits (Maxcoin) mXB29S7wGfodcNGQQXQ7xXnBKGqyCxH2QQ

Continued updating ...

This is a google translate of this post made on the Chinese exchange BTER on May 27, announcing their cold storage wallets for solvency, which lists the #1 Zetacoin wallet as their cold storage wallet.  

I had mistakenly identified this wallet as belonging to Cryptsy, based on tracing transactions I had made thru Cryptsy (I have traded Zetacoin on Crypsty, but until today, had never traded Zetacoin on BTER).  

I'll be going back on my original research to see how coins I sold on Cryptsy ended up on BTER - likely I missed a withdrawal by another Cryptsy user who sold coins on BTER somewhere in the TX Chain.  

The purpose of this timeline is to establish that Brock Pierce is deliberately misrepresenting his past.  He has made assertions in recent statements to Ryan Selkis and the Bitcoin Foundation that are contradicted by previous journalism or legal findings, and he also misrepresented his story to Wired journalist Julian Dibbell in 2008.

Furthermore, Pierce maintains that he was "unaware" for years of lawsuits brought against him by former employees.  This timeline will establish that those lawsuits were covered for several months in newspapers and tech industry journals, and that from late 2000 to sometime in 2004, Pierce was not passively "unaware" of legal actions against him,  but living in Spain fully aware of the lawsuits and investigations against him, and trying to evade responsibility.  

He only returned to the USA after he and his partners were arrested and extradited from Spain to the USA. 

Again - not trying to prove or disprove the content of the allegations against Pierce, but to show that after his first company collapsed, he went into hiding in Spain, and lied to the press about his reasons and his inability to contend with the charges against him.  In his current attempts to clear his name, Brock Pierce continues to obfuscate and misrepresent key incidents from his past.

Prologue 1991 - 1997, New Jersey, Concentric Research

1991

Marc Collins Rector founds Concentric Research, an ISP, with attorney Randy Maslow as general Counsel.

1995

Concentric is receiving investments from the likes of Goldman Sachs 

1993-1997

Marc Collins Rector molests Plaintiff JW in New Jersey.

This becomes subject of late 1999 civil lawsuit, subsequent FBI investigation and August 2000 criminal indictment. The indictment is made public in June 2002 (after Marc Collins Rector is arreseted at large in Spain.)

This is the "years before" incident which Brock Pierce refers to in his statement to the BTCF.

Part 1, 1997-2000 Encino California, Digital Entertainment Network, Civil Suits

1997.

Marc Collins Rector and Chad Shackley sell a portion of Concentric and move to LA to start Digital Entertainment Network (DEN)

1997- 1999

At least 4 incidents of Marc Collins Rector taking underage boys out of California to have sex with them. Marc Collins Rector would be charged with 21 counts of "child enticement" in a Federal case for these crimes. He would plead guilty in 2004 on 8 counts agianst 4 victims, known by their initials "R.G." "J.T." "B.L" and "D.S".  Brock Pierce has made no public statement about these criminal cases.

1998 - 1999

Brock Pierce working at DEN. Brock Pierce's date of hire is unclear but he's profiled in a June, 98 Oasis Magazine article as a DEN executive.

1998 - 1999

Alleged molestation of Daniel S, Mike Egan, and 2 others occurs, as detailed in a Radar Magazine article from 2008 and "Last Pixel Show" article in ZDNet. Subject of civil suits filed in summer 2000. At least one of these victims (Civil plaintiff "Daniel S" / Criminal Victim "D.S.") may also be the victim in the criminal complaints for which Marc Collins Rector pled guilty.  These are the lawsuits which Brock Pierce says were filed fraudulently as an extortion scheme by Egan.

November 1999 

DEN prepares for IPO as Financial Troubles are reported in industry press.

Autumn 1999,

"J.W." files lawsuit against Marc Collins Rector alleging molestation in New Jersey from 1993 through 1997.

DEN IPO Cancelled. Collins-Rector, Shackley and Pierce resign from DEN. FBI opens investigation into DEN founders.  Collins-Rector settles lawsuit.

May, 2000

DEN Announces Bankruptcy.

July, 2000

4 former DEN employees - Mike Egan, Daniel S, and 2 others file civil suit against Marc Collins Rector, Chad Shackley and Brock Pierce alleging kidnapping, rape and death threats. At this point, the 3 DEN Founders are at large an unable to be served.

August, 2000

Marc Collins-Rector indicted in New Jersey on criminal charges in the "JW" case.

Autumn, 2000 Marc Collins-Rector, Chad Shackley and Brock Pierce leave the USA and remain incommunicado and at large for at least several months.

November 2000 

"Last Pixel Show" article published in ZDNet. Details lawsuits against DEN founders, frustrations of lawyers, law enforcement at being unable to find them.  Plaintiff "Daniel S" details sex crimes, drugging and death threats perpetrated by DEN founders in this article. 

February 2001

Default Judgement awarded in Civil Suits against Marc Collins Rector, Colin Shackley and Brock Pierce since the 3 are unable to be located to stand trial.  Reported in the L.A. Times.  Brock Pierce remains "unaware" of these proceedings.

March, 2001

Suit against DEN founders expanded to include other business associates.

At this point, 9 months after the lawsuits were initially filed there are multiple stories in the LA Times detailing the allegations and naming Pierce as a defendant. There is also an article in ZDNet detailing the allegations and the frustrations at Pierce's own counsel being unable to reach him, yet he maintains that he was "unaware" of the lawsuits.

Part 2, Spain, IGE, Arrests and Criminal Charges

Late 2000 / Early 2001 

Marc Collins Rector, Colin Shackley and Brock Pierce take up residence Marbella, Spain. This is detailed in an article written in 2008 by Julian Dibbell in Wired magaizine, "The Decline and Fall of an Ultra Rich Gaming Empire", and a criminal complaint filed by Brock Pierce's IGE business partner, Alan Debonneville.

According to Dibbell, Pierce claims he does not live with Marc Collins Rector and Colin Shackley. According to Alan Debonneville, the 3 share a home.  They had an Everquest guid together as well, which they use to make contact with Debonneville to hire him to work for a new venture they are forming.

May 2001 

Brock Pierce launches IGE, his second venture. Continuing business association with Marc Collins Rector and Colin Shackey described in Julian Dibbell's article ("Pierce introduced him to Collins-Rector and Shackley, explained that the three of them had made millions, and invited Debonneville to join him now in making millions more").

This contradicts Brock Pierce's May 2014 statement to Two-Bit Idiot / Ryan Selkis that he cut ties with Marc Collins-Rector after the failure of their "initial venture." Despite the launch of this new venture, Pierce's American associates remain unable to contact him about lawsuits brought against them seeking damages on his behalf.

May 2002

Brock Pierce, Chad Shackley and Marc Collins-Rector arrested in Spain in a raid on their home. Spanish Police find them with "enormous amounts of child pornography" in the home.

Summer 2002, Colin Shackley and Brock Pierce are released from Spanish jail.

Summer 2002, charges against Marc Collins Rector in New Jersey "J.W." case are made public. Extradition proceedings begin with Spanish law enforcement.

Has Brock Pierce returned to America at this point to clear his name? The timeline is unclear, and Perice did not provide any details when I asked him about it on Twitter.  There are at least 5 months before the summary judgement that the lawsuits are being written about in mainstream press, and 3 other DEN executives who are brought into the suits shortly thereafter.  During this time, Brock Pierce is not living in some remote place without access to communication, he is launching an online business in Spain, so it strains credibility that nobody in America would have been able to reach him to inform him of the lawsuits as he claims.  There's no indication that he returns to the USA at any time before Marc Collins-Rector is released from Spanish jail, extradited and charged in New Jersey.  (Debonneville will claim, and Dibbell will report, that he in fact spent a good portion of this time trying to buy himself and his partners diplomatic immunity in Liberia)

Later parts of this Timeline will detail the Pierce's time with IGE, his attempts to buy diplomatic immunity for Marc Collins-Rector in Liberia, and the lawsuit which Alan Debonneville filed against him. 

Two graphs of transactions in the Zetacoin network showing the chains of transactions leading from large wallets to individual user wallets, as described in my previous post about the #1 Zetacoin wallet.  

Both images show transactions from the same group of wallets.  The second one just shows fewer nodes (lower-value transactions filtered out) to show one chain clearly.  

(Update, June 27 2014.  I was correct in identifying this wallet as an exchange based on its behavior, but I was mistaken in which exchange owned the wallet.  It belongs to BTER, not Cryptsy.  At some point one of the transactions I was tracing must have been a withdrawal between Cryptsy and Bter.  At any rate, the crucial point remains that this is not a "partner wallet" and that these coins aren't off the market waiting to be implemented in a payment system.  

See this post for details)

Originally I had planned a longer post explaining my techniques for how I came to this conclusion, but I keep seeing people on Twitter basing their Zetacoin buys / sells around the idea that "The Biggest Wallet Hasn't Moved" and I feel like there needs to be a discussion about the nature of this "biggest wallet."

The wallet in question belongs to address ZGfz94PBE2D3yhgSSooqMbtSiLNLozYsbv.  It was created in late January 2014 and immediately began acquiring Zetacoin in 50,000 ZET denominations (the denominations are exact, with no fraction-of-a-coin exchange fees subtracted), every 3 minutes, or 1 million ZET per hour, topping off at a maximum balance of over 40 million ZET.  On Coinplorer, you can see that the first 1,000 transactions take place between January 28 and January 31, then a handful in February, and after that no more until early April.  When news of potential Zetacoin "deals" emerged in late March / early April, this wallet was revealed, with a balance equivalent of over $1 million USD.  People began speculating that this was the currency reserve of a partner corporation that was going to use Zetacoin as a payments system. 

The #1 Wallet Was Loaded Quickly, But Exchange Prices Didn't Move

One thing that we can determine from the pattern of how the wallet was filled was that these coins were not purchased on an exchange.  Cryptsy was only doing a maximum of 1 million ZET in total volume at that time, and BTer and CoinEx, the only other 2 exchanges selling ZET, were much smaller.  The price also didn't move at all during the 3 days that this wallet was loaded, which would be extremely unlikely if 25% of all existing currency was purchased and taken off the market.  The coins couldn't have been mined during that time because mining was almost completely over by January 2014 - the only time when close to that volume of coins was generated was in August 2013, the few days after launch (due to the combination of high block rewards and inaccurate difficulty targets that were common before KGW was implemented in new coin launches).  If they were purchased privately, off an exchange, then why the 3-day load-in?  And if they were purchased privately, then who gathered up all of these coins to sell, them, and where were they sold from?  

Most Funds in the #1 Wallet Entered and Left Through a Single High-Volume Wallet

Most of the inbound transactions to  the #1 wallet come from another wallet, ZUGDRKbSFSpMccJ4VKnLoEsRqCT3T3hfHm.  This wallet is the crucial link in revealing that the largest wallet is cold storage for Cryptsy.  Wallet ZUGDRK... has an extremely high transaction volume, currently over 120,000,000 ZET (or about 75% of all ZET in existence) but the final balance stays relatively low (currently 1.3M). Transactions always occur in denominations of 100,000 ZET, usually clustered in groups of 1.5 M or 7.5M.  This wallet serves as the transfer point between the #1 wallet (cold storage) and single use hot wallets which connect to individual Cryptsy users' deposits and withdrawals. 

On April 15, there was a brief, orchestrated pump-and-dump of Zetacoin set off by a supposedly "leaked" document detailing a business plan involving MPesa and Zetacoin.  The price quickly tripled from 6k satoshi to 18k satoshi, before falling back down.  Shortly thereafter, coins started moving out of the #1 wallet for the first time.  Some were speculating that this was a price-crashing "dump" while others thought that this was a test run of the payments system.  

If you look at outbound transactions from the #1 wallet on April 15, you'll see that all of those millions of coins moved pass through wallet ZUGDRK... the same wallet that the coins came from in the first place. Likely conclusion - the volume of the pump and dump on April 15 depleted the exchange hot wallets of enough coins that more coins had to be brought out of cold storage to fulfill withdrawals.  The last time coins came out of the #1 wallet was April 4th and 5th, as the panic buys from the original "news" were just settling down. 

Inbound and outbound transactions from wallet ZUGDRK follow the same pattern.  For an outbound transaction, coins are split off in ever-shrinking denominations, and a new wallet is created with the balance, until the 100,000 ZET have all been used up.  For inbound transactions, larger and larger denominations are bundled up until a balance of 100,000 coins is reached, then that balance is sent back to wallet ZUGDRK.  Tracing these chains of transactions and single-use wallets requires clicking through dozens of pages of transactions on a blockchain explorer - there's currently no easy way to visualize them. 

I Traced My Own Cryptsy Deposit to the #1 Wallet in Just a Few Hops

I wanted to test my hypothesis that the #1 wallet was Cryptsy, so I figured that if I sent coins to Cryptsy and sold them, they should end up in that wallet.  

On April 19, I sent 200 ZET from my laptop wallet to Cryptsy and sold the coins.  This is the transaction: 

Status: 94895 confirmations Date: 4/19/14 00:59 To: cryptsy ZHnicRYwuhGn7RTMdTh5CJzjtmr8db2yP4 Debit: -200.00 ZET Net amount: -200.00 ZET Transaction ID: 0151654c92b35aa84de1c953850fd7c00e52b6afd9bc15e80fcc7ff17464e759

You can see on Coinplorer that the funds hit my wallet at 5:00 and are taken out a few hours later in this transaction which bundles together several other transactions into one denomination of 509 ZET and change, and one transaction of 0.01 ZET.  If we follow the larger transaction, we end up at wallet ZMonXxZwD2gDv74ToVvrAucFbbX93sHKZV a currently empty wallet that had a few thousand ZET pass through it between April 15th and April 20th.  Funds are added, and then the balance is zeroed out.  And where do those funds end up?  The high volume wallet, ZUGDRK, which you can see shows up several times in the transaction history.  If you look at the last outbound transaction you can see how the 200 ZET I deposited on Cryptsy end up bundled up with other transactions into a single transaction of 100,000 ZET that is deposited to the high-volume wallet which is the source of funding for the #1 wallet.  

Can We Close the Circle and Connect the #1 Wallet as the Source of these Funds?

OnO OnNow this temporary wallet was opened on April 15 with a deposit of 1,340.83675244 ZET from wallet ZXujpwAg81RhhuQNFEv9Vb3SHWTTqDaA9Y.  This wallet has funding one 1 inbound wallet, and is zeroed out to 2 outbound wallets.  It was funded from wallet ZD8SbUcJickWtN8hxpgnSPM2R7S4BGWfL8, which had a deposit of 1,621.4421708 ZET.   That wallet was funded from ZZYSfTFrz6QPBBpZVFyoTR4vLFRS5egxoi (again, one in, two out, zero balance).  That wallet got its funds from ZR7sXCBviDaD4hqgBRJ7HdUCk6kcjRKQNM (1 in, 2 out, zero balance) and that from ZY6CDCj3vpUtFSo4UDAe2immRMY9VoDfvu, and that wallet was opened on April 15 with a deposit of 6,793.10 ZET from ZUGDRKbSFSpMccJ4VKnLoEsRqCT3T3hfHm, the high volume wallet, on the same day that 7.5 million ZET were moved out of the #1 wallet to here.  

What about going the other direction? Can we connect a withdrawal from Cryptsy back to this wallet? On APril 20, I withdrew 1,668 ZET from Cryptsy in this transaction. In that transaction, the I bought Zetacoin from wallets funded by ZHtQPqJZr23d3xuAYciBPYbHxxKw5PewJ6 which was funded from wallet ZUi6YHiSQcgQ35bPrnRZwvuLfPcikRmWiP which again, has wallet ZUGDRK all over its transaction history.

For both buying and selling, you can trace a chain of transactions from individual withdrawls and deposits back to the high volume wallet ZUGDRK. This was the source of most of the funds for the #1 wallet, and received 7.5 million ZET from this wallet on April 15, which it has put into circulation, with those funds entering and leaving wallet ZUGDRK multiple times. Cryptsy transactions trace back to this wallet, so this must be Cryptsy cold storage.

That Was a Lot of Work