

Signholder Receives Over $24,000 In Bitcoin After QR Code Appears On ESPN - CryptoJunky
http://cryptojunky.com/blog/2013/12/01/signholder-receives-over-24000-in-bitcoin-after-qr-code-appears-on-espn/

======
quesera
Silly story, but the implications are interesting.

Next natural disaster with global media coverage, banners and tents with
giant, video broadcast-friendly "Donate Here" QR codes will sound like a good
idea.

Which means that _someone_ (or more likely, several ones) will quickly make
scam replicas and ruin it for everyone.

I remain deeply skeptical of QR codes as a user interface.

~~~
damian2000
They're just another representation of a long string or number... checking or
verification can be built on top of it if needed by software.

~~~
lmartel
They're worse because they're not human-readable.

It's easier to trick someone into scanning the wrong QR code than it is to
trick someone into sending money to the wrong url, email address, phone
number, etc.

~~~
ars_technician
I wouldn't exactly call bitcoin addresses human-readable either.

~~~
eterm
True, but it's easier to tell 1d3af66... apart from 3e5d115f... than 2 QR
codes, especially if the QR codes are separated by a minute.

------
ward
As a confused Belgian, what is meant by "Unlike traditional bank accounts,
where you would never share your account number on national television,
Bitcoin public addresses are secure"? Giving out your account number in
Belgium is pretty secure, nobody can do anything with it beyond putting money
on it.

What's different in the USA? What extra info are you handing out by giving
your account number beyond "this is a 'bank address' that you can use to send
me money"?

~~~
sp332
If you have a bank account number and the routing number for the bank, you can
place a "demand draft."
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_draft](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_draft)

~~~
tinco
This is probably similar to "automatische incasso" which probably is also
possible in Belgium. But note that an automatic incasso can be reversed, you
just have to be aware that it's happening.

------
davedx
Story about Bitcoin being a good thing on Hacker News. Cue negativity:

Comment negative about scams, silly stories and QR codes being bad - check

Deeply cynical comment - "They were probably donating for their own gain" \-
check

Skeptical comment that this isn't true - check

You're a cynical, negative bunch of pissants these days, HN.

~~~
ceol
I'm not sure how you could look at HN and think it's anything but zealous
about Bitcoins. You'd have to have some deep and powerful victimization
complex.

I only ever see comments like yours on Bitcoin articles. Most every other
article, HN is even more negative, and everyone goes along with it, but as
soon as it's about Bitcoin, "How dare you say those things!" It's almost as if
you've convinced yourself of Bitcoin to the point of not being able to handle
anyone questioning it. Your mind just can't comprehend why anyone would not
hold the same view as you.

I wonder what that sounds like?

~~~
davedx
Hah, I see the same negativity in most HN comments, not just Bitcoin articles.
The community is a cesspool of snide remarks, put downs and overbearing
pseudo-intellectualism. Most days I've stopped reading comments entirely.

I think Reddit.com/r/Bitcoin is zealous about Bitcoins, not HN. And you know
what? I prefer it. At least people there seem happy, unlike here.

YMMV of course...

------
abat
This looks like the Bitcoin version of the GoldenPalace casino buying the
Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich for $28,000. The majority of the donations
were probably designed to attract attention and therefore help market Bitcoin.

------
zepolen
I love how whenever a new technology comes out the amount of applications are
never fully apparent.

When I first heard of bitcoin back in 2010 I thought it was a cool concept,
but sending money to unknown people across the world? That never crossed my
mind.

Now that I think about it, we do it all the time in the forms of charities.
Tsunami victims on the other side of the world, a fund is set up to help them
out, and most people might say, I'll chip in a dollar, but I can't be fucked
to find out how, and sending a dollar is hard anyway. Then mobile phone
operators started offering SMS payments, and people had a simple solution.

With cryptocurrency this solution is even easier. It wasn't until it actually
happened that this clicked for me.

Consider telephone for example, initially it was used to talk to other people
over a long distance, but it was thanks to that concept of sending information
down a wire that made it possible today to eg. look at a live webcam on the
other side of the world right now.

Imagine telling someone 200 years ago that you could talk/see a person on the
other side of the world in real time. Remember, phones didn't exist, motion
picture was unheard of etc.

They would think you are mad.

It would be as unbelievable as saying today you can use buy a Rolex watch made
in Europe online and it would be teleported to your desk.

But who knows, maybe this will be possible in the future.

And maybe in retrospect it would have been obvious.

------
Phlarp
It's worth noting that a very large percentage of these donations are coming
from a very small number of parties. Notably over $10,000 each from
[https://blockchain.info/address/1F8UFEeVJGXUzR9TWfBMkyqbipjM...](https://blockchain.info/address/1F8UFEeVJGXUzR9TWfBMkyqbipjMMuW7BC)

and

[https://blockchain.info/address/1JSDMMDybTZ9nEZgMUtTXQSW4hGR...](https://blockchain.info/address/1JSDMMDybTZ9nEZgMUtTXQSW4hGRsWRYEp)

~~~
oh_sigh
I bet one of them is a winklevii

------
applecore
He's only keeping the first 2.26 bitcoins.

He's donating the rest (over 20 bitcoins) to Sean's Outpost, a bitcoin
charity.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rs2zf/on_college_g...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rs2zf/on_college_gameday_this_morning_new_way_for/cdqj992)

------
GigabyteCoin
Bitcoin unfortunately makes this feat very difficult to verify. We will never
truly know how much of that $24,000 the poster controlled in the first place.

~~~
marcell
The blockchain has timestamps, so actually you can verify quite easily.
Unless, for some reason, the individual is sending bitcoins to himself...

~~~
thelsdj
That is the implication. He got sent very large sums of Bitcoin, you would
expect that he'd just get a bunch of small ones, but he got 2-3 large ones
($5,000 a piece).

~~~
richbradshaw
Maybe from people who didn't realise how much they are worth?

~~~
jonknee
What number of people do you think qualify:

1) Have 5+ BTC 2) Recognize a QR code on a TV broadcast 3) Think to pause the
tv broadcast, decode the QR code and send BTC 4) Completely unaware of the
1000s of news articles and broadcasts about the soaring value of BTC

Maybe he sent it to himself, maybe someone else was just very generous, but no
one purposefully sent 5BTC without knowing it was valuable.

------
snissn
[https://blockchain.info/address/1HiMoMgBaAikFHgAt3M4YJtetp4H...](https://blockchain.info/address/1HiMoMgBaAikFHgAt3M4YJtetp4HrnsiXu)

~~~
alexkus
1HiMoM...

wonder how long he waited to try and get that as 1HiMom... before giving up

~~~
BenderV
He certainly used Vanitygen
[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen)

~~~
joezydeco
"I made it with a vanity generator on an offline computer. I have the public
and private key. No software is currently managing the wallet and its not
online anywhere."

[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rs2zf/on_college_g...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rs2zf/on_college_gameday_this_morning_new_way_for/cdqro4q)

------
ericcumbee
I saw that earlier in the day during College Gameday. I am surprised that the
QR Code was readable though. Of course I was more interested in the Georgia
Southern 1-0 In the SEC sign.
[http://30fps.mocksession.com/2013/11/30/georgia-
southern-1-0...](http://30fps.mocksession.com/2013/11/30/georgia-
southern-1-0-in-the-sec/)

------
wellboy
This will give him even more donations^^

