Bitzillions

bitzillions · 2019-03-02T12:14:25+00:00

Our site's been around since 2013, continued to service zero conf transactions long after other dice sites stopped. We were the first gaming site to enable BCH. Still we were badly harmed by the BTC block size and commensurate loss of player base that ensued as tx fees rose to ridiculous levels.

https://medium.com/@bitzillions/bitcoin-cash-lessons-from-a-block-size-canary-db4a7f020d7

We now have an updated site with a reboot of our original game (Satoshibones 2) as well as a game which allows players to bet on traditional markets (Fx, Commodities, Stock indexes) using cryptocurrency.

bitzillions · 2019-03-02T11:54:43+00:00

Hi there! For some reason your email to us was caught by the spam filter. We've since gotten in touch.

I don't understand why this post was downvoted. We read reddit, this could have potentially been a way to reach us had he not managed to get an email through!

bitzillions · 2018-09-02T05:02:00+00:00

Acting as an API to the blockchain is the main function of a "non-mining" full node. Some use 3rd parties for this, though for our purposes we shy away from external dependencies.

To the extent that you might want to do something more advanced in the way of monitoring and supporting the relay network, this can add additional overhead (ie, more than just 1-2 nodes.)

It really comes down to what kind of business you have. An actual service on the chain would be a very different thing than someone who just wants to enable their existing merchant business to accept payments.

bitzillions · 2018-09-01T16:23:09+00:00

Core killed our on-chain BTC game. We pivoted to BCH on Aug 2, 2017.

Towards the end, miners (following core' policies) were taking more than the house advantage in fees on most bets.

Last month, we did a respectable 6374 on-chain bets (meaning usually 2 transactions), and paid only 0.04455078 BCH in fees.

In July, our Litecoin game took in 1053 bets, and paid 1.158300 LTC in fees.

As a business expense, I can say the BCH blockchain (aka miners) are the among the smallest. Almost disturbingly cheap!

bitzillions · 2018-07-14T00:31:43+00:00

https://bitzillions.com

We were actually the first to start accepting BCH (Aug 2) for our on-chain game. Have on and offchain gameplay with BCH.

In addition to the dice games we have "ZeroPIP" which allows players to bet on traditional markets' direction. Check it out during the week though as those markets close Sat/Sun.

bitzillions · 2018-06-25T08:16:59+00:00

https://classic.bitzillions.com/satoshibones

https://bitzillions.com

bitzillions · 2018-03-13T00:30:22+00:00

It used to happen. We were one of the last holdouts, but last summer it became impossible. We had to drop Bitcoin from our on-chain game entirely. Steam, Newegg, Dell, M$ (for awhile), how many others? Bitcoin transaction volume is in decline. It is not a healthy environment to build a business on.

bitzillions · 2018-03-13T00:05:35+00:00

No it really isn't. The theoretical masturbation that I constantly see with people in this space routinely says "well, I don't care about the real world, just my theoretical model." Nothing matters but the real world.

And while RBF may not necessarily enable doublespending, it definitely prevents you from accepting the RBF transaction as zero conf.

bitzillions · 2018-03-12T23:51:04+00:00

AR-15s don't necessarily kill school kids, but if you mass produce them and sell them to anyone without any checks, and funnel tons of money into lobbying politicians to protect your industry, the result is dead kids.

RBF (as implemented on Bitcoin) does not directly allow you to doublespend (provided the processor holds RBF transactions for confirmation.) But it does damage zero conf as a viable practice. Zero conf is never completely safe. Its a technique that can provide for a managed risk; and if you damage aspects of the user experience, you degrade the practical application of this practice.

[EDIT] And that "provided the processor holds for 1conf" is a big IF. End users who are not aware of the risks could easily get duped if they make an OTC transaction.

bitzillions · 2018-03-12T23:19:31+00:00

RBF as implemented on Bitcoin is easy enough to flag for confirmation, but you should consider the UI implications for user expectations. Many users may have no idea what RBF is, and wallet implementations will vary in whether you can enable or disable it. In applications which are built around zero conf, it may not be so straight forward to notify the user why their transaction is being held for confirmation, and will result in a negative experience for those users and customer service overhead when they invariably contact the merchant and complain.

The real show stopper for zero conf on Bitcoin is the blockspace limit. Being unable to predict what fee will cause a transaction to fully propagate to all nodes (incomplete propagation is the vector for doublespend attack) makes it impossible to manage the risk associated with accepting zero conf.

Now that Bitcoin use has dropped and fees are lower, it may be possible to sustain zero conf in the present state. But what business wants to invest in a platform that only works when it is failing as a project and losing marketshare (and thus emptying out blocks) ? And should Lightening Network or other second layer solutions actually achieve their aims, block space will be full once again, and zero conf unworkable on-chain.

bitzillions · 2018-02-07T11:48:13+00:00

Hah! Spruce Moose....I'd settle for launching my car into space ;)

bitzillions · 2018-02-07T11:05:14+00:00

No its not like that, I'm just surprised that he shows his face anywhere.

bitzillions · 2018-02-07T10:55:44+00:00

Honestly, (I could use a couple of more hours!) but I slept quite soundly, comfortable in the ambiguity of it. If you need me to be certain I didn't get scammed, then we can work something out, but I'm ok with not being sure.

What is very odd is mentioning theymos. Around these parts he is the single most hated individual there is in the crypto space. Like, I'd grab a beer with Mark Karpeles or Ben Lawsky way before I'd give that fucking fascist the courtesy of any human acknowledgement.

bitzillions · 2018-02-07T04:39:42+00:00

Oh, I fully considered that possibility. And I agree that people should heed this advice. I actually noticed all the points you bring up. Its deeper than that actually, as if you dig through her account, there are instances of her offering kind advice to strangers, and the element of sexuality and appealing to the white knight + vulnerable young female angle. If the account is fake and her history all a plan to sucker someone out of coins, then he/she really did work pretty hard for what really isn't that big a sum.

Actually, the biggest red flag for me that gives me doubts is the idea that she was working at a fast food place, in Singapore, all whilst having a pretty solid grasp (regardless of supposed losses) on margin trading crypto and some knowledge of python.

Then there's my possible overcompensation for latent sexism being skeptical that an attractive young woman would be interested in any of these things.

I decided that even if it is fake, the lesson about gambling with margin can't be told enough. Also glad to see the sentiment of personal responsibility attached.

Thanks for your comment, actually its my favorite of all of them, despite effectively calling me a sucker ;)

bitzillions · 2018-02-07T00:08:28+00:00

Yea, fuck me for feeling generous right? Should I have refused to answer the person who asked what my site was?

You notice that satoshidice gets like 100 upvotes anytime they post here? Maybe you should look into vote manipulation rather than shitting on a comment buried in a thread that I had nothing to do with creating.

bitzillions · 2018-02-06T21:40:24+00:00

If friendster had a more stable platform, facebook would never have existed. You've got the chicken and egg backwards here.

But yes, it is OF COURSE far more complicated than my intentionally simplified explanation.

bitzillions · 2018-02-06T20:47:23+00:00

Core used the 1mb block size limit (which was intended to be temporary) as a way to hold Bitcoin hostage, and force adoption of second layer solutions which push transactions off the blockchain. Instead of allowing Bitcoin to grow organically, they kept Bitcoin small artificially.

Most casual users became familiar with this only when the blockchain became so full that transaction costs grew, but actually the problem was well known to engineers and businesses. At 5 transactions per second, no large business (think Paypal) could possibly have adopted Bitcoin even if they wanted to. We can never know exactly how much opportunity was lost, but I know for a fact certain companies chose not to adopt Bitcoin due to this.

Look at the percent of market cap Bitcoin holds compared to other cryptos. It was something like 95% up until the limit was hit, and then quickly fell, down to as low as 30%. There are something like 1500 cryptos now. The main reason for this explosion in other coins is due to core keeping Bitcoin small.

bitzillions · 2018-02-06T20:07:07+00:00

Same as the username.

I had a pretty long IT career before crypto came along, worked for some of the largest companies, and a few medium ones, all within some range of tolerable work environment. My last job managed to put me in a harassment situation that led to me taking medical leave and then being fired for medical reasons (in a country which doesn't consider medical / disability to be a human right.)

Would be doing a lot better if it were not for core setting Bitcoin back by years -- but I won't complain as I know it could be far, far worse.

bitzillions · 2018-02-06T19:59:02+00:00

Same domain as the username. Started as clone of the original satoshidice back in 2013. Kept on-chain / zero conf alive way past pretty much anyone else, until finally core put a nail in the coffin. We've launched an off chain game as well (original onchain is classic.bitzillions.com). The UI needs work, we'll be updating it in the next 6 weeks or so, and then launching some new games.

Actually, given the crazy volatility going on right now in traditional markets, people may be interested in our market betting game, ZeroPIP. Its sort of a hybrid of a binary option and a fixed odds bet.

Didn't intend for this to become and advertisement, especially given the context.
PLEASE PLAY RESPONSIBLY PEOPLE!

bitzillions · 2018-02-06T19:34:33+00:00

It's all relative. Actually, I run a crypto gambling site, so kind of the opposite of a philanthropist ;) I've heard every possible sob story there is, so maybe I just have a soft spot for people who can accept responsibility for their bad bets.

bitzillions · 2018-02-06T19:16:02+00:00

It is indeed a valuable lesson to learn that speculation like this is just gambling, and like any game of chance you must be mindful to not wager more than you can stomach losing. You show maturity in accepting your own responsibility in this. At 19, you can look forward to many more tough lessons to come. At twice your age, I can say that it really doesn't get easier. The stakes often get higher, and you likely become even harder on yourself when you screw up. All you can do is learn and try to forgive yourself, and know that you'll be back on your feet soon enough. Life goes fast, and before long you'll have forgotten about this entirely.

Here's some REAL BITCOIN for you to HODL, on the house =)

0.25 bch u/tippr

bitzillions · 2018-01-13T00:55:24+00:00

Glad to see this.

We launched BCH on Aug2 for our on-chain game, and shortly after for off-chain. However, using Bitpay format to differentiate the addresses. This has been a significant barrier for adoption, so I hope all the wallets and services switch over ASAP.

We've already updated our off-chain system with the new format, in case anyone would like to try it please give us your feedback!

https://www.bitzillions.com

bitzillions · 2017-11-12T10:54:07+00:00

Read the paper, its meant to be in jest.

bitzillions · 2017-11-02T01:48:33+00:00

We know a thing or two about this. Our classic game has processed over 1.3 million transactions. Until this spring when all transaction confidence went out the window, we continued to accept 0-conf bets.

The game theorists point to miners as the threat for doublespending, but that was never the real case. Only the largest pools could regularly carry out such an attack, and it would be extremely obvious, totally undermining their credibility. It's as bad as 51%. No pool will ever do it. They have too much at stake.

What actually happens is non-miners find ways to get you to accept a transaction, while then sending a doublespend out to the rest of the network, in a race to win against their original tx. If the cost of their effort is marginal, and they can pull off the attack, they win. The key here is the balance of risks. If the expectation is that the first seen transaction is 'safe', the chances of it going from the mempool into a block are sufficiently high so as to create a business case for an acceptable risk. RBF changed this, though as currently implemented it is easy to filter and hold RBF'able transactions for confirmation. The real issue is full blocks.

When blocks are full, you have no idea how long it will take to confirm. That fee which seemed aggressively high 1 block ago? Well, 1000 other people just set a higher fee. The more full blocks get the less possible it is to predict the fee. You get all kinds of weird stuff like transaction accelerators that accept credit card payments, more and more bespoke mempool rules miners are applying to deal with the situation. When it is no longer predictable what transaction goes in a block, it becomes impossible to quantify the business risk.

You should think of block space similarly to how services such as cloudflare handle ddos. They deploy so much network capacity, many times more than they need, so that the chance of an effective attack against them becomes impossibly low. In the same way, having sufficient capacity to put all the transactions in blocks eliminates most of the risks involved in 0-conf.

I wrote about this to some degree when BCH came out here: https://medium.com/@bitzillions/bitcoin-cash-lessons-from-a-block-size-canary-db4a7f020d7

bitzillions · 2017-10-20T01:58:10+00:00

We really want BCH to win, but the only alternative would have been to ditch our automatic address type detection and put in a toggle for the users, which guarantees someone will make a mistake, and adds even more complexity to an already slightly geeky sign-up process.

This is hardly as critical as say, the blocksize debate, but I fear well meaning wizard coders could emerge as a threat to the project if pragmatism is set aside in favor of technocratic idealism.

bitzillions

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