Topic: Bitcointalk project Reserve fund. (Read 208 times)

I understood it similarly. It's a proposal to have the forum escrow funds that will be held in case the project scams its investors and bounty hunters. But bounty funds can already be escrowed, and if bounty hunters stopped joining and signing up to advertise projects that haven't escrowed the bounty tokens, they would at least have some sort of protection. A guarantee that payment will be made by the escrow agent. They can still receive worthless tokens, but that's not something the escrow should be concerned with. But this place is full with people who don't care what they sign up for and bounty hunters will continue to be scammed.   

Even assuming that this scheme would work - which it wouldn't for reasons explained by pretty much everyone above - that's not what insurance does. It doesn't magically disappear some issue or another. It socializes the cost of dealing with it. Which is great if it's a low-probability random accident of some sort. It's quite bad if it's a deliberate action like a scam because it will be abused up the wazoo.

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A much better option would be to trashcan the token/bounty nonsense completely and focus on making Bitcointalk a nice clean non-spammy Bitcoin forum.

Radical idea, I know. Sorry for not warning you all to sit down before reading.

I'm amazed you were actually able to decipher what the idea was, because the only part of OP's post that wasn't fluff was this:

And from that statement it isn't really clear what exactly is being suggested.  Are ICO/DeFi/whatever project owners supposed to chip in to an insurance pool so that their bounty hunters don't get scammed?  An escrowed amount of funds covering any bounty or campaign would be better--but I'm still not sure, because there's so little detail included that it could mean anything.

By the way, LoyceV, you're right to slap your head when members want more regulation.  Ben Franklin probably wouldn't be able to comprehend what the US has morphed into since he died.  Security cameras on every street corner, people being forced to wear face masks, and on and on.  Christ, one of the best things about bitcointalk is that Theymos is a hands-off kind of guy.  Sure, I think it'd be nice if known scammers got banned, but I can live with the forum as it is because it's probably one of the few left in existence that allows members to express their thoughts without fear of a ban or having posts deleted if they don't align with the forum administrator.

In other words, I'd rather not have bitcointalk follow the path of Youtube and become a nice, family-oriented theme park where everybody's nice and safe.  Fuck that.

LoyceV hits the nail on the head with point three of their list for me (thanks for the theymos link, I've been was looking for that not too long ago). Not every project is going to have that kind of money to initially launch, it's by no means a requirement that a project has to have money in the first place. Yeah, it clearly helps for things like marketing, and developers. However, there's been numerous low budgets launches that have at least been successfully initially. So, despite many projects being a scam, that doesn't mean all projects intend to scam, and by imposing some sort of deposit to post an announcement, you're effectively removing the freedom to post their own ideas, and projects.  

Personally, I would prefer education about the telltale signs of a project which might be looking to scam, while allowing everyone the ability to present their ideas.

If it is about ads banner in banner space, forum has it already. However I guess what you implied is signature campaign and signature space.

• https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adinfo
• https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats

If projects want to run ads banners in banner space, they have to join auction, go through verification of theymos and they have to make deposit as well.

Scam is not moderated on the forum. There are trust, feedback and DT gangs help to do it but it is more likely community-led actions.

Forum does not involve in project's issues. I don't think it should have such connections to any project.

I don't see too strong correlation here. Scam projects if run by big teams, they can spend big budget for marketing in order to successfully attract naive investors and steal bigger money from those people.

If they have good strategies to scam, a small deposit to the forum for advertisement don't prevent or stop them to scam others.

What you described here looks like an escrow service. If yes, it already exists in the forum.
Again, @Theymos and other admins will possibly not have the time or interest to run a centralised financial transaction which is actually what bitcoin is fighting against.
I know there is a forum called "Altcoinstalk", I think this suggestions will make more sense there, because here is strictly a bitcoin forum. Allowing you earn in other currencies is a privilege that shouldn't be abused.

Scams aren't moderated here and it's probably main reason why such reserve fund isn't needed here. It's not forum staff responsibilty to protect people from scam and things that you offered just would add extra headache to them.
And such reserve fund means that quite significant amount of money would be in one hands. Who exactly would be responsible for it and handling situation if scam will happen? Bitcointalk isn't central bank, this comparison don't fit there very well.

Do forum owe to protect the forum users from scam project? It's my responsibility to protect myself, your responsibility to protect yourself. And read the below quoted part of LoyceV post.

Sadly this bounty hunters don't try to understand this as long as they get paid with shitcoin with contract (monthly payment, payment after X days of listing etc) lol. I have been offered few times to build a project and make some quick cash by some people from a crypto group but I couldn’t because that's not ethical. This has been a trend. Scammers are doing that and people are buying that shit too, most importantly bounty hunters are helping them too.

The central bank is a centralized system and as such can have central reserves and act as an authority over other banks;
- Bitcointalk is not a central authority and does not moderate scams,
- Scam projects can still go on without advertising on the forum, and investors and bounty hunters would still flock to those platforms,
- Such a move would open up so many other can of worms that it will not be worth the stress,
- This also brings us to the reason why scams are not moderated, it cannot be effectively handled, so rather not give users a false sense of security.

There are so many things wrong with this idea, I'll limit myself to the most obvious problems:

• A centralized "reserve fund" is the opposite of what Bitcoin stands for: "be your own bank!"
• It's the responsibility of a bounty spammer to check what they're getting into instead of just spamming anything that promises to pay them in made-up tokens.
• The forum's mission is to be as free as possible, restricting users goes directly against that.
• Users shouldn't let their guard down, thinking the forum will protect them against scams.
• Most of the "projects" advertised by bounty spammers are only designed to make the creator rich, after which he moves on to the next project to do it again. Why should someone who is promoting a likely scam be protected against getting scammed?
• What is it with people asking for more regulation? Listen to Benjamin Franklin: "Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."

What I know, there is no escrow involved to receive banner advertising funds. It was sold by auction. Also theymos don't accept advertisements for new projects regarding investment especially ICOs.


One important thing, forums do not moderate scams.
And the three roles you mentioned are not related to the forum, let alone getting involved in their interests.

You are not the first one to propose that. In fact, several years ago, I proposed Security deposits for Bounty threads. What you will be told is that Bitcointalk does not moderate scams. All the staff and forum users can do is provide guidance and knowledge about the various types of scams that exist. It's your responsibility to decide what you will do with your time and money.

This is a Bitcoin forum. Altcoins and unlisted tokens won't be given much room for marketing around here.
If a project was somehow sponsored or approved by the forum, people will get the wrong impression that it's safe to join, it's legit, and will be successful. The forum or its escrows can't and won't guarantee that.

Besides, the team members of a project can already contact forum escrows or bounty managers and have them hold the bounty tokens. That's already happening and there are bounties and signature campaigns that do that. Therefore, the forum doesn't really need to get involved.

Before I proceed to the main point of this thread let me share a story that can help our understanding of the thread in a better way.
There was a certain time when a megabank exit scam happen in my country, the bank liquidated with investors, customers, and staffs funds running into billions of dollars. It was a devastating situation to the general public and even the government at that time without any solution to the problem. But the government through the central bank came up with a policy to contrail avert future occurrence of such scams and the central came off with what is called, Banks capital reserves where all banks deposit huge percentages with the central bank where all deposits will be paid back from in the case of any financial problems arising from such financial banks in the future.
In that way, the central pay back all legitimate and verified deposits, staff, and investors.

Back to the main reason for this thread
@theymos and the other administrators of this forum can come up with such a policy such as what we have with the forum banners space where new projects that require the services and investment of members of this forum deposits a certain amount in a forum escrow account where all unsettled payments and refunds are made from in the case of the project not succeeding or an exit scams.

What this will result in is!
1: Eradication of scam projects from this forum
2: easy means of addressing any issue coming from
     investors and staffs and project team
3: project team will have a sense of responsibility to put in they best to push the project to succeed.

Those at the center of this policy are:
1 investors
2 bounty hunters
3 managers
 


Thanks for your comments and suggestions.