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scottstirling / bitcloutDAO

Decentralized Social Network Money Frauds/Scams including BitClout / DeSo, Twetch, Steemit, PeakD
MIT License
30 stars 15 forks source link
bitclout bitcloutsocial cryptocurrency defi fintech fraud fraud-prevention peakd reverse-engineering scammers twetch

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Decentralized Social Network Money Frauds and DAOs: BitClout / DeSo, Twetch, PeakD, Steemit ...

Updates 9/29/2021:

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/118133/bitclout-creator-decentralized-social-blockchain-200-million-funding-a16z-others

https://www.coindesk.com/wyoming-dao-llc-law-passed

https://coingeek.com/wyoming-senate-passes-dao-law/

Other Projects of Relevance and similar macro and crypto structure to BitClout:

BitClout, PeakD, Twetch and Steemit are all ersatz Twitter-style cryptocurrency DAO platforms so similar in look and concept to one another that they are related, copying code and ideas from each other.

The main commonalities to these frauds is they are centralized and decentralized systems designed for:

They mislead users in many fraudulent ways, including promoting overloaded and confusing meanings of "decentralized" and "open source" and "currency." They use public and private blockchain tech and APIs, open source project code produced by companies such as Google, and content delivery and security (for themselves, not their victims) services such as Cloudflare, to perpetrate financial fraud in the open. BitClout has promoted itself as "open source" since launch, when in fact all of its core code remains closed source to this day (the explorer and the "desktop app" available on GitHub are peripheral).

Twetch is based on buying and spending Bitcoin SV and micro-fees for transactions, which themselves have fees and require use of software wallets and keys running in your web browser.

BitClout is based on charging Bitcoin fees and additional costs for any and all transactions involving BitClout (which, as on Twetch with BSV coin, is required to be spent and fees paid to spend it for every action in the app) or their Creator Coin token, and also manages keys and wallets in your web browser.

Both sites are released under the auspicious promise of being alpha or beta quality and the hottest new thing being developed too fast and furiously to be stable, secure or usable. Bluntly, that is bullshit; these are fraudulent scams from tip to toe that completely lack professionalism and security features for users; protecting the BitClout or Twetch operators and their data, not you and yours.

$BitClout

This project gathers BitClout's code and offers analysis of its APIs, 3rd party integrations and architecture.

BitClout is a pay-to-play social network and game. It is a scam if considered, sold or promoted as a financial investment. BitClout should be thought more of as a a game or a vending machine that accepts Bitcoin irreversibly in exchange for a game currency called BitClout and a token called Creator Coin. One can buy a token with BitClout. One can buy either with Bitcoin. But it is impossible to refund or withdraw Bitcoin back from the system, nor is there any declaration of intention to ever make it otherwise in the one-pager pdf or the terms of service (linked on the second screen of the Signup flow, avaialable at https://bitclout.com/terms-of-service, in the source code (in main.js) and documented here). BitClout is a game and it costs Bitcoin (and a valid phone number) to play.

Completing your profile, at minimum, requires a phone number that can receive text messages for confirmation. Allegedly one can pay ~$60 in Bitcoin as an alternative, but I have not tested that.

All image content posted by users is stored in and accessible via public cloud storage on imgur.com.

Registered users can like and follow each other, post their own and promote other accounts' content, and spend Bitcoin on BitClout, then send BitClout to other wallets on the BitClout network, all of which costs, at minimum, a verified phone number and the price of Bitcoin transaction fees at premium market rates plus a percentage increase (BitClout adds 1.5 * priority fee price currently, 4/23/2021) (once Bitcoin has been used to purchase BitClout).

Update 4/9/2021: Reclouting /retweeting functionality appeared overnight after some new code was deployed.

The following functions cost Bitcoin to get started. The prices are set by the current cost of Bitcoin transaction fees:

All actions are really based on blockcypher.com and other vendors services, technology and APIs, which makes setting up the technology for BitClout primarily an orchestration of services and APIs tied together through a web UI. All of the strongest technical aspects of BitClout are based on Cloudflare, Angular, blockcypher.com, imgur.com, various 3rd party libraries (see below) and GoDaddy's https://domainsbyproxy.com (who have a subpoena policy posted on their public site) obscuring the owners and creators behind BitClout.

Admittedly, the mastery orchestrating the components of the BitClout "solution" and carrying it off so far is respectable.

The BitClout one pager / whitepaper (7 pages) is a masterwork of rhetoric: enthymemes and triggers to encourage readers to jump to conclusions, confirm biases and desired outcomes and act on positive emotional response rather than careful analysis.

Partial list of other projects and services referenced and used in BitClout's Angular code:

GitHub projects: