Topic: [Discussion] Bitcointalk Community Awards 🏆 - page 10. (Read 19698 times)

I know about it, but only one wallet was tested, which is not a guarantee for the others. Just for the record, I also received one Betnomi Ledger.

Also, don't ignore shipping costs and possible taxes. This can vary a lot, so it can happen that someone will pay almost the same price for delivery as if he were to buy it himself. Or, if you give a choice, what are you going to do with 30 or 40 wallets that the winners didn't want to take over?


It is about rewarding users who made a specific contribution to the forum during the year. In this contest, beginners have very little chance to win a prize, at least that's how it was until now. This makes the whole thing even more ridiculous.

Looking at previous prize winners, the majority of them are long time users of this forum who will be well aware of the dangerous of custodial wallets and all probably own one or more hardware wallets already.

For the newbies who win a prize, giving them a hardware wallet teaches them to accept and use hardware wallets which have been handled by an unknown number of third parties, which is not good practice, in addition to requiring them to dox themselves to another forum user. Further, different people are going to want different things from a hardware wallet. You mentioned Trezor, for example, whereas I will never use a Trezor advice again given their anti-privacy stance and their partnership with blockchain analysis. Far better to give bitcoin as a prize and let people buy their own hardware wallet of their choosing directly from the manufacturer if they wish. This is safer and more secure.

No, because one of my close friends confirmed the authenticity of the wallets, and as far as I know, they were delivered by MJ.

As for this year, I wanted to ask MJ to directly order 100 cold wallets from the manufacturer, which would not have the sponsor's initials on them.

Changed: I just received a letter from Trezor dedicated to Black Friday.

The essence of this conversation comes down to the fact that so many people use custodial wallets and this event is a great opportunity to allow many users to switch to the light side.

Last time one of the prizes was a Ledger wallet, sponsored by Betnomi. Didn't it turn out to be justifiably risky in the end, because Betnomi was accused of an exit scam, and now we still have their confirmation that part of the team left with the user's data?
After that, I wouldn't even consider this as an option.

I think keeping things simple makes the most sense here.  Just sending the prize money directly seems easier and avoids extra hassle and,  let's be real, many members probably won't love sharing personal info just to get a reward.  Giving prizes to voters could mean more cheating attempts, too, which isn't ideal for the contest's credibility.  But I guess if it gets more people pumped up and involved that's a plus! Having clear rules on who can vote could help limit fake accounts messing things up.

+1 to no physical prizes. In previously years I've very sadly had to turn down some very cool collectibles, a hardware wallet, and was one of three to also turn down a very generous all expenses paid trip to England to watch a live soccer game courtesy of Sportsbet.

In any election, giving a reward for voting will lead to (some) people voting for the reward, instead of voting because they believe they're voting for the right person.

I remember the doubt around hardware wallets that were given as a prize by a website that turned into a scam. And if there's any doubt, you shouldn't use the wallet. That's the whole point of using a hardware wallet.

I vote that the winners should get the portion of the BTC when it is split to the winners. That way, no winners would cost money to receive what they have won and stay private as what many forum members want plus this is Bitcointalk forum and the event is Bitcointalk Community Awards

Come these community awards.

Quite honestly, I think the prizes should be in BTC, and not in physical assets, for several reasons:
- Many users do not want to reveal their physical address (a point already mentioned by other users)
- Receiving a physical prize can cause complications and expenses for the winner, as they may have to pay customs fees
- The work will increase for those who will have to send 100 prizes via postal service. In addition to the expense that will be involved, as it can be very high for some parts of the world.
- Some prizes may never reach the recipient, due to errors and errors in postal services.

If it is to send the wallets then you have to consider the locations of the winners. There are some countries that you will send those wallets and it will not reach the winner in that country so what I am saying in essence that the risk involved in shipping those devices should also put into consideration. The shopping fee might not be a problem but will the devices reach the winners' door steps? Personally I prefer the cold wallet gift because it will make some people who on their own can't get the cold wallet device to have it but to send the devices will increase because you are not given the gift to winners that are present in occasion but they are scattered around the world so that will make you to spend double spending. And because of that I recommend the cash gift to the winners which will also release your stress and double spending. Dividing the $7000 to them is better.  But you can also try the second option to see if it will be successful done to reach all the winners with their cold wallet gift. And if it does, then it is the the best option. I have ordered it before but it was cancelled due to delay in shipping. Again the cold wallet is the best but we have to consider many factors that will hindere the shipping process.

It just seems to be bad security practices to be receiving wallets from questionable sources on the interwebs, even if the shipping address might be securable.  

None of us should be taking those kinds of chances, and surely, even we might question some of the vendors and then their various supply channels too... There can be concerns about devices tampered with prior to shipping and interception of devices, and even in regards to software, many of us also have to rely on other people to check the software that is run and which devices, and so there are preferences for open source software, and even that has levels in which we might be wondering if what we are running is matching with other open source versions that had been allowed to be vetted.

Bitcoin is a great technology for the receiving of bitcoin and even the use of the lightning network for the same purpose.. and sure there could be some shitcoins that could be sent out to winners too, even though many of us (I cannot speak for everyone for sure) would be inclined to convert any shitcoins that were to receive to bitcoin, and maybe some members (winners) would refuse to receive shitcoins, so that could be inconvenient and/or complicated...

Yeah.. boring to send grandpa BTC on chain or even over the lightning network.  

I do recall winning some kind of bitcoin prizes in the past (in other contests), and denying to receive the bitcoin in the past because I did not want to provide a bitcoin address, but then i have the bitcoin address in my signature that I do not tend to check very often, but sometimes even I feel funny if some member(s) might have sent BTC to my public address in the past, and sometimes it can feel like being stalked to receive biticoin in certain kinds of public ways..   

Back to this prize situation, just imagine if there might be a few different transactions for the sending of BTC or lightning network transactions as prizes, and the onchain ones could be sent with multiple recipients in order to save on transaction fees.  Even if the on-chain fees might be high, but if there were 20-40 recipients for each prize sending transaction, then per recipient, the sending to multiple recipients at the same time would contribute towards the per recipient transaction fees to be relatively low, even if sent at the higher transaction fee rates, which may or may not be necessary depending on what is happening on chain at that time... Perhaps just sending at a normal rate...or even whatever is economical at the time of sending.

Imho, just keep it simple and send the money and that way you will avoid ending with some extra wallets as some winners probably wouldn't want to reveal their identity for a reward. Due that reason I didn't pick up my reward from the first community awards.

Yes, but I cannot use both options since the minimum quantity of wallets that can be ordered is 100 units.

So have to choose one or the other (and the wallets definitely wouldn't bear the sponsor's name).

Hmm, I think most people would probably just say the bitcoin prize money is better without much thinking.  But if you forced me to pick between those options, it gets trickier. 

What if we met in the middle? Reduce the cash rewards split between the winners, and keep the physical prize (cold wallets) for the community members who voted.  That seems fair to me and   

The special wallets would still let voters feel invested.  I don't know, just a thought. 

Indeed, it's really hurt to reject them, But for some people, there is no other option but to do that.
I myself visit the collectibles board sometimes but even if I want to take something from there, I can't take those for privacy, because in my region cryptocurrency and everything related to it is illegal. 
And I think that since it's a Bitcointalk Community Award, there are a lot of people in this community who have the same limitations as me, so I also think that giving money or bitcoins as a prize would be better than hardware wallets.

yay the BCA awards will come🥳🥳🥳
we from Icarus can then produce individual Icarus cards for the winners and of course it is up to them whether they send their winnings or other funds to these wallets.
Icarus would be very happy to be a part of this awards and to accompany them together with icopress and the entire community

It is not the third but the fourth Bitcointalk Community Vote and Awards.  

First: 2020
Second: 2021
Third: 2022

And we are going to have a fourth in 2023.

70 hardware wallets shared between the winners and the community would mean there would be more 'winners'. But with too many people now sceptical of hardware wallet manufacturers and the need to expose your privacy to the senders, too many people would turn down the price.

$7000 in BTC would be easier to disburse and nobody would worry about their privacy, but it would be for only the winners and no one else. You have to choose the trade-off it'll be.

Agreed. We've seen in previous years that many users refuse anything that requires a physical address.

I've seen very nice collectibles offered on Bitcointalk over the years, some for free and some were offered to me. It hurts having to reject them, but I'll always choose privacy over material goods.

While cold wallets can be great collectibles, memories or even used by some, I agree with BlackHatCoiner, it's better if people decide and handle cold storage/HW themselves.
Plus, money tends to be a better prize, it's more private (one needs to post a wallet address, not a postal one) and can be used for whatever the winner wants it to.

On the other hand, if we pick the money option, the voters/community may get nothing and of course, an incentive would get more voters/votes (of course, abuses too).
But you have a good experience with people, I am sure you'll find the best approach.