Topic: Auction of MoneyPot.com the bitcoin gambling wallet (Read 5838 times)

Announcement has been made! https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1274857.new#new

We did! And there's a lot of great news that will come with our formal announcement.

Your? You guys bought Moneypot? Damn good mate.

We're posting an intro to our group today, .

May we know who or what group the site has been sold to?

Thanks everyone for participating. I have selected a winner, and the auction is official over. Thanks everyone!

Shit. I meant "the end of November" but apparently can't count.

Just to err on the side of caution, I'll make it "end of December the 1st"

31. of november is obviously a mistake. Does the auction terminate tonight or tomorrow night?

You're right that it's an unconventional auction, but I believe it's more of an auction than a sale as there is no fixed price.

As for why I have and will reject bids, MP has tremendous potential to be used for a huge scam, and that's something I would do anything to avoid. Because of the investor system, all a (rich) scammer would have to do is start creating shill whale accounts on the site, and start losing hundreds of bitcoins to investors. To reassure everyone it's real, you'd just have to show solvency and even though this would be a paper-loss, the reality is that a lot more investor money would come in, then go out because of it. Then after it stops growing (or you run out of paper money), the scammer would just shut down the site and keep investors money.

And that's not purely theoretical, I've been contacted already by two people who I believe had bad intentions (and can be traced back to a previous bitcoin scam) one offering a significant more than the highest bidder.

So if you're interested in the site, I'd encourage you to place a bid. If you're buying the site with good intentions, I can't imagine myself knocking back the bid. And the site is strongly looking like it'll sell one-way or another, and at something I would consider a very attractive price =)

Hi Ryan,

This doesn't seem like a standard auction that i would be willing to bid on. Since you are choosing which bids to reject it doesn't come off as an action. I think this belongs more as a normal Sales Thread. Anyway that being said if you ever were to convert this into a proper auction i would be happy to place my bid.


- David19.

If that's true then nobody will buy it, lol.

Ryan will keep ALL invested funds in his possession. He will run a clone of the site (essentially) where users can easily withdraw their funds as they are ready. You can then reinvest in the new platform if desired.

What will this auction mean for people that are using the INVEST option on MoneyPot?

Sure, I'd be willing to read over it and take it into consideration. My goal with the auction is to find the person/people I would think most motivated and suitable to run the site, not necessarily the highest bidder. However, I do have have multiple offers above the starting bid already =)

@Ryan: Will you consider a lower starting bid or is 50BTC the absolute minimum you are willing to sell the platform for?

@readers: anybody interested in splitting/partnership?

unibtc's is certainly a valid point. There are always cases where a company buys out its competitor and then closes it down. Also, it is possible that he may not be able to manage it as well as Ryan does. SatoshiDice last year (it is going okay at the moment) is a good example to consider.

But, yeah, considering the number of competitors here, I don't think it someone would actually intent to do it. Moreover, Ryan could easily decline the offer if he doesn't find it in the general interest to proceed with the sale.




Yup.




You don't really have to. Ryan is still the owner and is in control of Moneypot and its bankroll. He would announce once there is an ownership change or something worth the notice.
Well, it is up to you to decide what to do with your money.

i took off all my money from MP for now.. sadly ;(

NLNico made a nice comparison table: https://dicesites.com/moneypot

Is it possible to see somewhere profit Statistics from MoneyPot games owners?
I have some excellent gamble domains, and for some time now thinking about on starting this job. certainly interests me and the future of the MoneyPot.com service, changing the owner is not guaranteed successful future work.
thanks, and I apologize if I went to off-topic

I want to point out that if he's asking the basic questions like that, he's probably not a good fit. @Decoded -- it's up to the owner to secure things. Your job to ensure all updates are done to the site/server, ensure as new exploits/vulnerabilities are discovered (including your own pen-testing) that they're fixed before people are able to take advantage of them, etc. If you're not well-versed in Internet, server, and web development application security, you absolutely do not want to be handling other peoples' funds, much less your own.

Yes, absolutely

Yes, the new owner would have to host it themselves. (I will help them set it up though)


There's no way the site can take a loss on its commission (e.g. the 1% from cold deposits, or a tax on investor profits). But probably the most sensible thing is for the owner to invest in the bankroll themselves (considering it has no counterparty risk), which can absolutely lose large amounts of money due to a lucky whale.

I'm not really that smart when it comes to websites, but if I purchase this, does it come with the domain name?
Do I have to host the servers myself?
If you provide the servers, what's the total hosting fee?
What's the current income per day for you guys?
Was there ever a day where you lost bitcoin?
What's your net profit/loss so far?

You can't either delete or edit posts in Auction board for obvious reasons.
@OP sorry for going off-topic

Sorry, I tried to edit my post but accidently quoted it twice lol. Did bitcointalk remove the ability to edit posts or is it only like this for this specific thread?

From my experience, there is no qualified advice when it comes to bitcoin. Hardly any country has proper laws or percedents.
I actually worked on a unique gambling site for 6 months and ended up not being able to release it. There is simply no way to launch a bitcoin dice site that's able to compete and is legal. The problem isn't even license fees(150k+/yearfor 2 different licenses if you want to be able to legally offer your service in the whole world except the US and Australia).
It's the simple fact that you will have to collect personal data from people who sign up and when you compare that to simply putting in a name on PD there is no way that members of the bitcoin community will come play at such a site.
Also a Costa Rican company provides absolutely no protection according to the several lawyers i have talked to.(Only got this information after i had already made one l0l)

Anyways, sad to see you sell the site. Couldn't think of many people in the bitcoin (gambling) community who are so passionate and have so innovative ideas and projects.
The amount of work and thought you put into your sites made me trust you even when i hadn't seen you on bitcointalk.
This could be the last good bitcoin gambling investing opportunity gone if the wrong person buys it. I do trust that you will choose the right person though.

From my experience, there is no qualified advice when it comes to bitcoin. I actually worked on a unique gambling site for 6 months and ended up not being able to release it.
There is simply no way to launch a bitcoin dice site that's able to compete and is legal. The problem isn't even license fees(150k+/year if you want to be able to offer your service in the whole world).
It's the simple fact that you will have to collect personal data from people who sign up and when you compare that to simply putting in a name on PD there is no way that members of the bitcoin community will come play at such a site.
Also a Costa Rican company provides absolutely no protection according to the several lawyers i have talked to.(Only got this information after i had already made one l0l)

Anyways, sad to see you sell the site. Couldn't think of many people in the bitcoin (gambling) community who are so passionate and have so innovative ideas and projects.
The amount of work and thought you put into your sites made me trust you even when i hadn't seen you on bitcointalk.
This could be the last good bitcoin gambling investing opportunity gone if the wrong person buys it. I do trust that you will choose the right person though.

No, they're just wiped from the liabilities. As a simple example: if someone deposits 1 BTC with cold addresses, my assets go up by 1 BTC but I only increase my liability to them by 0.99 BTC. Same logic applies to all types of commissions. (Although, everything is double-entry, so can easily be queried to audit)



I'm far from qualified to give legal advice. You'll need to speak with a lawyer who knows the laws of where you live.

Pretty much what I had thought. That is why I just sit and hodl my coins rather than invest them into anything lol. I even attach a spreadsheet with links to every forum sale I make when claiming the income on my taxes! I know better than to mess with the govt when it comes to something like BTC...sadly. I hope he finds a legit buyer to keep things going.

Absolutely not. Someone actually got charged with a crime for developing poker software for someone in Europe. Even though he wasn't hosting the poker site himself, the U.S. government decided that by nature of him developing it, he was aiding someone else in a criminal activity.

I would love to own a site like that, but sadly I lack the technical know how to run it properly . I also assume something like this would not be good for a US resident to own?

Does Moneypot show where the commission on investors go to? or is it just hidden and is sent to your own (MP OWNER) account? How much have you made from this per month average?

I'm sort of interested as an investor, and how goes the legal activities and licenses and such?

Regards,
Jm Erestain

It's been up what, a year, so 6k earned. Not sure if that's profit but I believe it's gross. So $500/month average, depending on how much time was put into it. Each person has to value his own time, .

Do you think thats enough to pay up the resources used.. Giveaway, electricity, etc..
IMO that profit ain't worth it to run a site for a long time..

He already said it's made 35 BTC since its start.

if the site is earning alot then it won't be put up in auction..

We wish you best of luck RHavar and thanks for being a great admin of Moneypot, our team looks forward to the new business relationship with the chosen new owners.

How much site earned in last 1 week, 2 weeks and 1 month?

Is the site require work with it, or it just earning alone without big help?

Oh wow, did not really see this one coming but i understand where you are coming from. I am certain just holding up the site and managing the issues with app owners, users etc + the constant worrying is more than enough to be a full time job. And most likely one that does not leave a lot of free time.
Sorry to see it come to this (You were very trusted in handling the site, so it is sad to see that part go) but i hope you find "The right person" for it. Good Luck!

Hi,

I'm not very fond of selling out real trusted companies/products. Have you considered alternative options like expanding and hiring people to help?

In any case, would you consider making public the site traffic analytics?

Regards

I doubt someone would buy it and just trash the site. And since he's looking for reputable people, he would hopefully choose someone that wants to really boost the site up even more and promote it more heavily.

Its sad to see that you decided to auction the site.. I don't see anyone else capable enough to do what you did for the site, the investors and the devs.. But then again, real life is more important, and for that i salute you for it..

What happens if no one bids after the deadline? And incase someone bids and he/she got no competition, will he automatically win? Bidding 50btc is easy for big competitors of moneypot, Its gonna be sad to see some competitor site bidding for the site and winning, and just for the sake of abandoning it.. Every big business will do anything just to remove a competitor, even if it means spending and buying it..

Also what will happen to the current apps that are currently hosted or powered by moneypot if the new owner decides to just drop the project after buying it.

Again, its sad to see the site up on auction, And i salute you for what you did and have done for the bitcoin community. I wish you all the best in life.

Regards,
Uni

All software and projects are included (including socketpot).

It does not however include the Costa Rican company (I like the protection it provides, and would prefer to keep it to run bustabit and pevpot under that entity), but if someone was willing to pay an extra ~$2k USD (the cost of me setting up a new company) + the legal fees of transferring it, I would be happy with transferring it. Or could come to some arrangement where bustabit/pevpot continue to run under that entity.




My hard-costs are about ~450 USD a month in hosting. If I tried, I could probably knock that down considerably, but as it stands most of that goes to high quality database hosting I run it with a beefy and replicated setup (even losing a few minutes worth of data, could be horrific)


MoneyPot has only directly made about 35 BTC from commissions. (Although I personally made another 56 BTC on the original 100 BTC I seeded the bankroll with). Throughout most of MoneyPot's existence I've been waiving commissions (including right this moment) to either help developers or investors. Honestly, commissions have made relation between developers and investors very tricky. On one hand there's sites like JustDice which offers (amortized) 90% of the house edge to investors. And there's other sites like PrimeDice which offers (amortized) 100% of the house edge to the owners. So I'm in a tricky situation where often app developers look at a site like PrimeDice and complain about not making a higher cut, whilst at the same time investors look at a site like JustDice and complain about making too low of a cut.

My general solution for this has typically been to waive commissions, especially after big events (e.g. BetterBets got hacked, so I waived app commissions for a while). I've been fortunate to have a pretty decent source of income from bustabit (~50 btc/month) and always held a >= 20% stake in MoneyPot's bankroll, so I've had the luxury of delaying the question of the best way to monetize it.

Probably the nicest thing about owning the site, is that you have no counter-party risk (which is probably the biggest reason to not invest in bankrolls). So you're able to own a large percent of the bankroll without too much worry. With a 10% fee on investor profits, you can use that to own more-and-more of it.



Sorry, I'm really just looking to free up time.

I think instead of trying to get him to portion out the site, it'd be better to just invest with others in a group situation.

Probably will not be making a bid (although I may), however I have been watching MoneyPot for a while, and would be curious to see what ends up happening with MoneyPot.

A couple of questions that someone who might be considering to buy your site might be wondering:

Can you give information on the costs/expenses that MoneyPot incurs?

Can you give information on how much MoneyPot (as a site) has earned over time? This is especially important because of the unique feature of having App devs (and having to pay them).

Can you explain the estimated profit that would be estimated to be earned by the site for every 100BTC that is wagered by gamblers making large (>0.25BTC) bets, and for every 100BTC that is wagered by gamblers making very small (<0.00001BTC bets)? (under current policies, and assuming that bankroll is 100% crowd funded, and assuming 100% luck for the casino overall)?

Would you be willing to sell a portion of the site (so someone could buy say 10% of the site, but not the bankroll)? 

Sad to see you let go of MoneyPot. Was pretty surprised to see this auction up.
Always saw you as the right man for the job, as I trust you and this sort of thing
requires a large amount of trust.

Just make sure to keep it away from them scammers.

Regards,
JM Erestain

does this include just the software and domain or also the costarican entity and the associated gaming license? also, what about the other domains/software (socketbot, etc)?

Note to players/casinos: Any change of ownership, or event that would have any impact or risks will be clearly announced significantly in advance.

Users balances, logs, ip addresses, deposit and withdrawal history will **NOT** be included in this sale



--
For those not familiar with the bitcoin gambling scene, MoneyPot.com is quite a popular bitcoin gambling wallet and service. It provides an API for casinos to run their own service, allows players to transfer money between casinos and provides a unified bankroll for investors. I started first working on it over a year ago, launching it in March this year.


The amount of workload I've had recently has become a bit unmanagable ( both in bitcoin gambling, and out of it), and I'm looking to lighten my workload up as much as possible by selling moneypot.com (And am not working on or for a competitor/successor of MoneyPot).


Furthermore, as MoneyPot accepts 3rd party bankroll investments, it is currently has attraced over 630 BTC of other peoples money, which could make this property very attractive to a scammer. As such, I am not willing to sell to a completely anonymous person.

All source code (node.js/postgres) and intellectual property rights are included. The domain moneypot.com has been in continuous use for bitcoin gambling, since July 2014 so it's well ranked and in itself has fielded offers of $10k USD

I am also willing to assist in migration of the site to the new owner to help make it a seemless transition.

As everyone loves charts:

Wagering statistics:

(Note: MoneyPot itself has made a bit over 35 BTC through comissions and cold deposit fees. I've also held >= 20% of the bankroll)


User growth (proper registration, not instant-account creation):



Auction Format

This will be a silent auction, terminating at midnight of 31st of November GMT. All offers need to be either PMd to me here, or emailed to [email protected]  accompanied with a signed message showing you have enough money to make a serious bid.  Minimium bid is 50 BTC. I reserve the right to reject any and all bids. More than just the bid amount, I am especially interested in some of the soft qualities (who you are, what skills you have, what your plans are), and very-well might pick the bidder who didn't actually bid the most. =)

Payment method is bitcoin only (preferably an escrowed 2-3 multisig transfer).


Good luck! I look forward to hearing from you