[ANN][AUR] Auroracoin - a cryptocurrency for Iceland

[forlackofabettername]

basically you just need to take a close look at this wallet:
 ANArcr1CNx15LeTVmTcTDowX7GzkXsk5yV

to see what's going on.

https://chainz.cryptoid.info/aur/address.dws?ANArcr1CNx15LeTVmTcTDowX7GzkXsk5yV.htm

in this wallet 575.000 coins were drawn together all directly from airdrops in the same hour of the same day

it is the receiver adress of those other transactions sighted and so the 'whale on exchange'-theory is dismissed beyond doubt because it's impossible.

I think it is quite obvious what has been happening here.

[forlackofabettername]

also noteworthy: the last 9 hours (or more) not a single airdrop has been claimed
... suddenly ... after two days ago there were many hundreds claimed in a day (far more than what would be credible)

how is this very sharp, almost impossible drop in demand for airdrops to explain all of a sudden? 

[molecular]

Your explanation would also imply the hypothetic whale you talk about would have been extremely lucky to buy these exact amounts from these different wallets and nothing else. It's not possible.

This is not true. The trades that happened on exchange have nothing to do with the amounts in the transaction. That's just the cryptsy wallet... everything is mixed there. cryptsy auroracoind just looks for 100k AUR worth of unspent outputs when the whale withdraws.

[BallOOner]

any estimates on how much dev was able to profit from this scam?

[molecular]

also noteworthy: the last 9 hours (or more) not a single airdrop has been claimed
... suddenly ... after two days ago there were many hundreds claimed in a day (far more than what would be credible)

how is this very sharp, almost impossible drop in demand for airdrops to explain all of a sudden?  

looks pretty believable to me.

last 3 days claims numbers have consistently dropped at night and (4:00 and 8:00 time slots). EDIT: Just checked: the "t" in the stats is the end time of the time slot, not the start time. So it makes sense: people sleep from 0:00 to 8:00

Same today, just it takes longer because people have been partying last night and now they have a hangover? Or just no new people are reached any more and existing ones have sucked all the claim infos from their friends and relatives by now?

Let's see if claims pick up in the afternoon.

[forlackofabettername]

Your explanation would also imply the hypothetic whale you talk about would have been extremely lucky to buy these exact amounts from these different wallets and nothing else. It's not possible.

This is not true. The trades that happened on exchange have nothing to do with the amounts in the transaction. That's just the cryptsy wallet... everything is mixed there. cryptsy auroracoind just looks for 100k AUR worth of unspent outputs when the whale withdraws.

if that was the case it would imply 90 people or more deposited in a row to their cryptsy wallets without anyone depositing other things inbetween. But the theory does not even need to be discussed anymore in the light of ANArcr1CNx15LeTVmTcTDowX7GzkXsk5yV

only take your time to look at the incoming transactions to this wallet (we have just been discussing one of them)

ANArcr1CNx15LeTVmTcTDowX7GzkXsk5yV

any estimates on how much dev was able to profit from this scam?

hard to say. I think the scam is still in the making and the plan is to dump that premine on much higher marketcap at a later date.

[forlackofabettername]

Let's see if claims pick up in the afternoon.

yes, we'll be watching

[molecular]

Your explanation would also imply the hypothetic whale you talk about would have been extremely lucky to buy these exact amounts from these different wallets and nothing else. It's not possible.

This is not true. The trades that happened on exchange have nothing to do with the amounts in the transaction. That's just the cryptsy wallet... everything is mixed there. cryptsy auroracoind just looks for 100k AUR worth of unspent outputs when the whale withdraws.

if that was the case it would imply 90 people or more deposited in a row to their cryptsy wallets without anyone depositing other things inbetween. But the theory does not even need to be discussed anymore in the light of ANArcr1CNx15LeTVmTcTDowX7GzkXsk5yV

I looked at ~25 blocks in a row from around the time manually and >95% of transaction (>100 tx) were of amount 318 (12.5 coinbase excluded). It's not implausible.

only take your time to look at the incoming transactions to this wallet

ANArcr1CNx15LeTVmTcTDowX7GzkXsk5yV

I'm not ruling out it's baldur abusing his power, but it could be a big whale accumulating. The incoming transactions you point would be withdraws from the exchange (most likely cryptsy). As you said: the blockchain doesn't look 'natural'. That's because it isn't. Noone is using it for much of anything else than claiming airdrops, depositing and withdrawing from exchanges. Of course it looks like it looks.

I'm tempted to do address clustering to try to (dis-)prove the inputs you point to are coming from cryptsy, but it's a lot of work for me...

keeping an open mind...

[molecular]

for sake of transparency, here's the bitcoin-abe sql queries that produce http://explorer.auroracoin.eu/claims.3.html

select
        (extract(year from block_time) || '-' || extract(month from block_time) || '-' || extract(day from block_time) || ' ' || (extract(hour from block_time)::int / 4) * 4 || ':00:00')::timestamp as t,
        min(block) as min_block,
        max(block) as max_block,
        count(distinct block) as blocks,
        sum(tx_count) as tx_count,
        round(sum(block_minutes)) as block_minutes,
        round(sum(tx_count) / sum(block_minutes), 2) as rate_per_minute,
        round(sum(tx_count) / (sum(block_minutes) / 60), 2) as rate_per_hour
from (
        select
          max(b1.block_height) as block,
          max(to_timestamp(b1.block_nTime)) as block_time,
          round(((b1.block_nTime - prev_block.block_nTime) / 60), 2) as block_minutes,
          count(distinct txout.tx_id) as tx_count,
          round(case when (b1.block_nTime - prev_block.block_nTime) = 0 then 0 else count(distinct txout.tx_id)::numeric / ((b1.block_nTime - prev_block.block_nTime) / 60) end, 2) as rate_per_minute,
          round(case when (b1.block_nTime - prev_block.block_nTime) = 0 then 0 else count(distinct txout.tx_id)::numeric / ((b1.block_nTime - prev_block.block_nTime) / 3600) end, 1) as rate_per_hour
        from block b1
          inner join chain_candidate cc1 on b1.block_id = cc1.block_id
          inner join chain_candidate p_cc on p_cc.chain_id = cc1.chain_id and p_cc.in_longest = 1
          inner join block prev_block on prev_block.block_height + 1 = b1.block_height and prev_block.block_id = p_cc.block_id
          left join block_tx on block_tx.block_id = b1.block_id
          left join tx on tx.tx_id = block_tx.tx_id
          left join txout on txout.tx_id = tx.tx_id and txout.txout_value = 63600000000
        where
          cc1.chain_id = 11 and cc1.in_longest=1 and
          to_timestamp(b1.block_nTime)::date >= '2014-11-25'
        group by
          b1.block_height,
          date_part('hour', to_timestamp(b1.block_nTime)),
          b1.block_nTime, prev_block.block_nTime
        order by
          b1.block_height
) as i
group by t order by t
;
                                                                                                           
select now(), count(*) as claim_count, sum(txout_value) / 1E8 as claim_sum
from txout
inner join block_tx on block_tx.tx_id = txout.tx_id
inner join block b on b.block_id = block_tx.block_id
where txout_value=63600000000 and to_timestamp(b.block_nTime)::date >= '2014-11-25';

Not sure how accurately this catches the amount of claims. Might be off quite a bit.

It makes 2 assumptions, for example, that are not necessarily true:

• airdrops happen in separate transactions (not by sendtomany)
• all transaction outputs with value of 636 are airdrop

[forlackofabettername]

 but it could be a big whale accumulating. The incoming transactions you point would be withdraws from the exchange (most likely cryptsy).

he bought  575000 coins all from wallets that claimed directly from airdrops with no exception - not even a single coin!? Not possible, sorry.  And withdrew them all like that in the same hour from cryptsy? 575k? Equivalent of more than 2 weeks of tradevolume of the whole market? Around that time airdrop was 318 so he would have bought 1800 airdrops without buying a single coin that was traded to someone else before? In fact he would have bought more airdrops since the smaller ones are in it aswell

Think again! NOT POSSIBLE!

[molecular]

 but it could be a big whale accumulating. The incoming transactions you point would be withdraws from the exchange (most likely cryptsy).

he bought  575000 coins all from wallets that claimed directly from airdrops with no exception - not even a single coin!? Not possible, sorry.  And withdrew them all like that in the same hour from cryptsy? 575k? Equivalent of more than 2 weeks of tradevolume of the whole market? Around that time airdrop was 318 so he would have bought 1800 airdrops without buying a single coin that was traded to someone else before? In fact he would have bought more airdrops since the smaller ones are in it aswell

Think again!

can you stop YELLING, please?

here's a whole bunch of exceptions:

http://explorer.auroracoin.eu/tx/43d0d9c1943a6f20d4a231d177593120baa7d9bd61ae0278dadcbcbe4f413e3c#o0

all mined coins it looks like, no airdrop coins. This tx outputs to ANArcr1CNx15LeTVmTcTDowX7GzkXsk5yV, so it's one of the inputs you claim in huge red letters are purely airdrop coins, which is wrong.

Another possibility: cryptsy coldstorage

[forlackofabettername]

can you stop YELLING, please?

here's a whole bunch of exceptions:

http://explorer.auroracoin.eu/tx/43d0d9c1943a6f20d4a231d177593120baa7d9bd61ae0278dadcbcbe4f413e3c#o0

all mined coins it looks like. This tx outputs to ANArcr1CNx15LeTVmTcTDowX7GzkXsk5yV, so it's one of the inputs you claim in huge red letters are purely airdrop coins, which is wrong.

sure, so there is some mined ones - didn't check every single input of course. Doesn't help either interpretation since anyone can mine coins.

Proving things beyond doubt from blockchains alone will be hard though because there can always be doubts constructed. If you want to stick to the lucky whale theory, fine with me aswell. I don't buy that though.

I think it's up to the people to decide for themselves if an incredibly lucky whale was buying 575k coins at exchange (all of them from airdrops directly, only few coins mined but no coins that have been transacted on the chain before between people)
Or the much more likely answer for people who are not biased from holding bags:
Balduro, who is hiding himself and does an unsupervised airdrop is giving coins to himself like everyone would in his situation

Wether people want to buy into a coin with an unaccounted for premine of 50% where there are clear indicators of laundering that for private gain or not will ultimately be up to everyone themselves.

Sorry for yelling. What i hate is corruption and people biased from bagholding is exactly that. Maybe that's why i tend to flip a bit.
I think i'll be watching the discussion from here for a bit while looking around the chain some more. Doubts can always be constructed of course.

I can only say caveate emptor

facts are:

-balduro is as gone as he can be (probably hiding in a cave in the mountains with his laptop)
-the airdrop/premine is not accounted for in the slightest way

[forlackofabettername]

Another possibility: cryptsy coldstorage

I don't think so because the outgoing transactions were all even numbers of tenths of thousands distributed to different wallets the same day they came in. Cryptsy would not do a coldstorage adress only to dissolve it 6 hours later again. Cryptsy could be asked for their old coldstorage adresses too. More info is always better.
Bottom line: doubts can always be constucted.

-> Santa Claus and his raindeers is claiming coins too btw. So maybe it's them.


For me it looks like:
Balduro claimed airdrop to different adresses of himself in the same wallet and then later had to change the adress (because of possible security breach or what ever the reason was) - withdrew most to a single new wallet from which it was distributed back to smaller adresses the same day (in 10-thousands amounts) to not get too much attention for the wallet.

I feel:
There is still a lot to discover around these transactions. I'll be digging and keep you posted about new finds.

[mattakazulu]

Does anyone know the story behind baldurs name?

[xhomerx10]

Does anyone know the story behind baldurs name?

 Do you mean the man or the god?

[mattakazulu]

The name chosen by the creator of auroracoin. Its a pseudonym so where does it come from?

[dinobotta]

Does anyone know the story behind baldurs name?

Baldur is the name of one on the nordic gods. He was the son of Ódin and his wife Frigg. Baldur was the most beloved of the gods and was killed by Loki because of jealousy.

[dinobotta]

How much does education cost in Iceland?

Education is free in iceland

[dinobotta]

Your explanation would also imply the hypothetic whale you talk about would have been extremely lucky to buy these exact amounts from these different wallets and nothing else. It's not possible.

This is not true. The trades that happened on exchange have nothing to do with the amounts in the transaction. That's just the cryptsy wallet... everything is mixed there. cryptsy auroracoind just looks for 100k AUR worth of unspent outputs when the whale withdraws.

if that was the case it would imply 90 people or more deposited in a row to their cryptsy wallets without anyone depositing other things inbetween. But the theory does not even need to be discussed anymore in the light of ANArcr1CNx15LeTVmTcTDowX7GzkXsk5yV

I looked at ~25 blocks in a row from around the time manually and >95% of transaction (>100 tx) were of amount 318 (12.5 coinbase excluded). It's not implausible.

only take your time to look at the incoming transactions to this wallet

ANArcr1CNx15LeTVmTcTDowX7GzkXsk5yV

I'm not ruling out it's baldur abusing his power, but it could be a big whale accumulating. The incoming transactions you point would be withdraws from the exchange (most likely cryptsy). As you said: the blockchain doesn't look 'natural'. That's because it isn't. Noone is using it for much of anything else than claiming airdrops, depositing and withdrawing from exchanges. Of course it looks like it looks.

I'm tempted to do address clustering to try to (dis-)prove the inputs you point to are coming from cryptsy, but it's a lot of work for me...

keeping an open mind...

Perhaps this whale is the person who scammed some Icelandic people with a fake Facebook game, which is the result of Facebook authentication was closed down on http://claim.auroracoin.org/?

[molecular]

can you stop YELLING, please?

here's a whole bunch of exceptions:

http://explorer.auroracoin.eu/tx/43d0d9c1943a6f20d4a231d177593120baa7d9bd61ae0278dadcbcbe4f413e3c#o0

all mined coins it looks like. This tx outputs to ANArcr1CNx15LeTVmTcTDowX7GzkXsk5yV, so it's one of the inputs you claim in huge red letters are purely airdrop coins, which is wrong.

sure, so there is some mined ones - didn't check every single input of course. Doesn't help either interpretation since anyone can mine coins.

Proving things beyond doubt from blockchains alone will be hard though because there can always be doubts constructed. If you want to stick to the lucky whale theory, fine with me aswell. I don't buy that though.

I think it's up to the people to decide for themselves if an incredibly lucky whale was buying 575k coins at exchange (all of them from airdrops directly, only few coins mined but no coins that have been transacted on the chain before between people)
Or the much more likely answer for people who are not biased from holding bags:
Balduro, who is hiding himself and does an unsupervised airdrop is giving coins to himself like everyone would in his situation

Wether people want to buy into a coin with an unaccounted for premine of 50% where there are clear indicators of laundering that for private gain or not will ultimately be up to everyone themselves.

Sorry for yelling. What i hate is corruption and people biased from bagholding is exactly that. Maybe that's why i tend to flip a bit.
I think i'll be watching the discussion from here for a bit while looking around the chain some more. Doubts can always be constructed of course.

I can only say caveate emptor

facts are:

-balduro is as gone as he can be (probably hiding in a cave in the mountains with his laptop)
-the airdrop/premine is not accounted for in the slightest way

Your yelling is excused (I get emotional too from time to time, especially when I suspect people misusing their power to enrich themselves) and I value your your input.

You are right: everyone is biased by his portfolio and it can be extremely hard to accept facts that mean ones position is unprofitable or one has helped a criminal or things like that (see the pirateat40 fiasko for example).

I guess we'll just have to live with the uncertainty for a couple of months. Greatest danger is balduro not burning the remaining premine. Until then, investing in AUR is a gamble with extreme risk (and extreme potential reward). It is anyway because we don't know wether it'll work at all. Everybody has to decide on his own what he does and wether he can live with the potential consequences.

Again: thanks for your input, I'll try to keep an open mind and I'm pondering more intensive blockchain analysis (don't really have the time, though)... I know, it's hard to prove stuff conclusively, but more data would indeed be good.

I'll be digging and keep you posted about new finds.

yes please. in normal font