Archive for Februari 2013

Month In Review: February 2013

Februari 28, 2013 Add Comment
Hi! This is Marcus Wilson, The Bitcoin Master's butler! I'm not as good as him reviewing stuff, but I'll make my best every last day of each month to cast an eye on what he had to say about the world of Bitcoin. Let's see what we have for February 2013, the very first month he decided to share his wisdom with the rest of us mortals...



But first, let me serve dinner to The Master...



During the month of February 2013, The Bitcoin Master wrote:

  • Six Bitcoin Information Articles:
  • Fifteen Free Bitcoins Sites Reviews:
  • Three Bitcoin Services Reviews:
  • One Other Bitcoin Site Review:
  • Two Personal/Blog Notes:
Welcome!
Did Earn Free Bitcoins And GOXKEYGEN Stop Working?


Wow, it's been a pretty intense month for The Bitcoin Master! This month he focused his energies on telling us which the best websites to get free bitcoins are, how they work and what we should do to maximize our rewards on them. He also warned us about several websites that don't give out free bitcoins although there are many links pointing to them. He informed us on the steps one must take to get into bitcoin, how to join a mining pool and how to join a market exchange. He gambled money for the first time on his life just for the sake of documenting how a popular bitcoin gambling game works. He even unmasked a scammer stealing coins to unvigilant bitcoiners.

On the first day of the month only 3 people read what he had to say (and two of them were me). Today he is read by over 500 people each day. During this month, 10.000 people have come to this place to read his articles and learn from him. He's achieved all of this in one month, starting from zero.

The Bitcoin Master is simply amazing. I love being his butler.

Site Review: Free BTC PT (2 updates)

Februari 27, 2013 Add Comment
This is a site that I found by chance, since it doesn't advertise itself anywhere. And it's also the one that can potentionally give you the largest amount of bitcoins every day. I call it "Free BTC PT":



http://free.btc.pt/



Let's clear something out first: I consider that a web gives out free bitcoins when it's a bitcoin faucet or when it asks you to do very simple tasks which require very little time to do. If the tasks require some considerable time, I won't consider the bitcoins are free anymore, since you are actually working to get them. Free BTC PT lets you choose what type of site it is: you can stay the whole day there watching videos, completing offers and solving captchas or you can visit a couple of times a day and do a couple of each every time. I personally leave the site open on a tab of my browser and sometimes check to see if there are videos to watch.


How It Works:

  • Free BTC PT gives you four different ways to earn bitcoins after registering an account: watching videos, solving captchas, completing offers or simply visiting the site every hour.
  • If you decide you want to watch videos, go to the Watching Videos section of the web. Wait until some videos appear and watch them until they are over to earn 150.01µ฿. About 20% of the videos do not give you a reward for watching them though... Update 1, 08/03/2013: Now it's 100µ฿ for about half of the videos you watch. They update the reward as Bitcoin increases its value in the market. Update 2, 04/04/2013: Now it's 25µ฿ per video.


It works with Virool, just as CoinTube, but here they actually pay you

  • If you want to solve captchas, go to Captcha Madness!. They'll give you one captcha, which could be verbal, an image or a description of a brand. Solve it to earn 1µ฿. Request a new captcha on the page that loads after you submit your solution and repeat the process. There seems to be an endless amount of captchas for you to solve, so you may do this until you get mad!


Solve the captcha...


... Request another captcha and get mad as you earn microbitcoins!

  • If you want to complete offers, go to Satoshi's Millions!. Here's where you can earn the most bitcoins for doing stuff, but I recommend you forget about these offers entirely. Most of them make you download viruses or annoying adware or make you subscribe to a service which costs you more than the value of the bitcoins you receive for doing so.


No matter how tempting they are, forget the offers

  • If you leave the website open on your browser, it will give you 10µ฿ per hour. Update 2, 04/04/2013: Now it's 5µ฿. Here you can see several of these payments on my Account Activity Log:


I haz Bitcoinz. Meow!

  • If you want to withdraw your balance, go to their Withdrawal Center. You must have made at least 2500µ฿ to be able to withdraw. Update 2, 04/04/2013: Now it's 500µ฿:


You should get the minimum to withdraw in a couple of days


Best Strategy:

  • Create a new Bitcoin address only to receive bitcoins from Free BTC PT. This way you can assure yourself that they are actually paying you.
  • Visit the site, create an account and leave it open forever. You'll earn 240 120µ฿ per day this way.
  • If there are videos to watch, do so. You'll get paid when you've watched them until the last second. Some days there are a ton of videos and others there are very few to watch. That depends on how many advertisers Virool has.
  • If you feel like solving captchas, go and do it. I personally only do this when I'm really tired; it's an easy task that you can do without thinking and that sometimes wakes you up. Solve them in two tabs at the same time so as you don't have to lose the time the pages take to load. I can solve 6 captchas per minute this way. This means I could earn up to 8640µ฿ per day this way. And end up mad in the way!
  • Don't complete offers. The harm they might cause to your computer is not worthy of the bitcoins you'll get for doing so.
  • Request a payment once a day or when you reach 2500500µ฿. It's not good to leave unclaimed rewards sitting on the databases of websites you don't control untouched for too long. You only have to give them your bitcoin address once; they'll remember it for future withdrawals.


These three days I was away from keyboard around 8 hours in total. I needed some sleep...


Site Review:

  • Expected profit: 5/5 4/5 3/5. Around 5000µ฿ per day if there are many videos to watch. Around 1000µ฿ otherwise. There's virtually no limit here though! Update 1, 08/03/2013: These numbers depend heavily on the videos that reward you for watching them. I guess they still can be achieved, but with the reduction to 100µ฿ per video it's more difficult than before. Update 2, 04/04/2013: The numbers keep going down as the price of Bitcoin goes up.
  • Convenience: 3/5. The website has a weird design, but it works very well. It also has too many ads everywhere.
  • Payment speed: 2/5. You'll receive your payment within 24 hours after you request one.
  • Risk: 0/5. It's a website that gives you free bitcoins... Or that lets you earn bitcoins by doing simple tasks.
  • Final Score: 7,5/10. Free BTC PT lets you earn a lot of bitcoins every day. More than in any other site I've stumbled upon. There's many factors that determine the amount you end up getting each day, so you should check it out and decide yourself whether it's worth your time.

Did Earn Free Bitcoins And GOXKEYGEN Stop Working? (2 updates)

Februari 26, 2013 Add Comment
During the last couple of days I haven't been able to get my daily dose of free bitcoins at the websites Earn Free Bitcoins and GOXKEYGEN. Are you having a similar problem? I wouldn't like to add these sites to my list of places that don't give out free bitcoins anymore...



Will they be back soon?



I have contacted the administrators of Earn Free Bitcoins to inform them of this issue. I don't know how to contact the owner of the GOXKEYGEN site... It might have been hacked. Update 1, 26/02/2013: The admin of Earn Free Bitcoins says he's got a lack of advertisers at the moment, but that this will change soon. Stay tuned! Update 2, 27/02/2013: Earn Free Bitcoins works again!

Meanwhile there are a lot more sites where you can increase your bitcoin balance for free! Check these out:

(Sorry, but today was a busy day for me and I couldn't write any reviews :-P)

Site Review: AmazonBitcoins (2 updates)

Februari 25, 2013 Add Comment
Do you buy at Amazon? Would you like to buy their stuff using Bitcoins? Now it's possible, thanks to a new Bitcoin service which launched yesterday: AmazonBitcoins!



http://amazonbitcoins.com/



My Experience With AmazonBitcoins


One of the administrators from AmazonBitcoins contacted me one week ago to see if I could review their new website. I accepted, as long as they sent me the necessary Bitcoins to test their service. I'm glad they trusted a crazy guy like me who calls himself "The Bitcoin Master" and sent some coins (Update 2, 25/02/2013) 0.9฿ my way! I'll tell you my experience using their service.

The first thing you'll see when you visit AmazonBitcoins is that the website is really clean and uncluttered; there's only the necessary amount of text needed to know what the site does and how it does it. It almost looks like an iPhone app inside your browser with that big "Get Started" blue button. If you press said button it will show you a dialog to register a new account:



Simple and infomative


When you introduce your data in the text fields and press the "Register" blue button you'll be given a personal AmazonBitcoins Bitcoin address to send the coins you'd like to exchange for Amazon gift cards. You may send as little as $1 (converted to bitcoins) to try out the service:



The "Copy to Clipboard" option is a nice detail


I sent them the 0.888฿ needed to buy a $25 Amazon gift card. Every time you visit the site this exchange prize is recalculated taking as a reference the one at Mt.Gox:




Transaction sent!


And in seconds I received this very professionally written email:



0.888฿ = $25.15? I guess the bitcoin exchange versus the dollar went
up while I was using this service!


After that, I only had to wait 13 minutes to receive my Amazon code on my inbox:



Excellent!


The service is really fast! Once you send them Bitcoins a new link will appear at the top of the AmazonBitcoins page with your order history. It will show you the status of your orders and the gift codes once they are processed:



This is my order history...


... And this is a sample order history where you can see two orders:
one pending and another complete


They also had a Live Chat where I had the chance to chat with Brian, one of the creators of the site! This is a great addition in case you have questions about the service. Brian is very helpful and nice as well:




Update 1, 25/02/2013: The Amazon gift code I received was redeemed by the AmazonBitcoins administrators, not by me.


Site Review:

  • Service quality: 5/5. The website is clean and zen-like, the registration process is hassle-free and the information they give covers everything you need to know about the service. They've also got a FAQ.
  • Convenience: 5/5. This is a great service for those who'd like to buy stuff from the Old World (where Bitcoin has not yet been widely adopted by every business). And especially for those who don't want to go through the process of registering on a market exchange (or can't [I'm looking at you Residence Certificate!]) to transform their Bitcoins into other currency. 
  • Service speed: 4/5. The service is fast. It's not automatic, since they have to wait for some confirmations of your transaction to avoid the bad people who double spend their bitcoins. They are planning to let customers with a good payment history skip this waiting time and receive their gift codes as fast as possible.
  • Risk: 0/5 1/5. None. The administrators are good, trustful people. Their service works very well and if you have questions you can contact them via Live Chat or email. Update 2, 25/02/2013: Read the comments.
  • Final Score: 10/10. AmazonBitcoins works like a charm. You can now buy stuff at Amazon with your bitcoins faster than if you go through a market exchange to transform them into dollars or other Old World Currency. It's a service I'd recommend to anyone!

Site Review: CoinVisitor (2 updates)

Februari 24, 2013 Add Comment
Update 1, 10/03/2013: CoinVisitor has been down for 24 hours. I sent them a tweet to ask the reason.

Update 2, 11/03/2013: CoinVisitor works again...

Let's have a look today at one more site that gives you free bitcoins for visiting websites. CoinVisitor follows a scheme a bit different from other similar places like BitVisitor, Earn Free Bitcoins or BitCoin4YOU:



http://coinvisitor.com/



How It Works:

  • CoinVisitor gives you free bitcoins after you input your Bitcoin address, visit a website during a certain amount of time and solve an image captcha.
  • You'll earn from 5µ฿ to 4500µ฿ every time you do this; most of the times it's 15µ฿ or 30µ฿. However, after several websites you'll notice it'll say at the top of the page "Current visit value: FREE". When that happens, you'll get nothing if you continue visiting sites and solving captchas.


I only visit webs when the visit value is different to FREE...


This is almost a loss of time (keep reading)...

  • There's a countdown at the upper left corner indicating the time you must be at each website; it could be 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds and I once was 300 seconds. When it reaches zero, an image captcha will load; in order to solve it, you'll have to select the image that doesn't belong to the set. Let's see some examples:


When this countdown ends, you'll solve an original captcha!


The wrong one here is the mushroom, because it can never have leaves


The wrong one here is the giraffe (or is it a llama?), because its background is white


The wrong one here is the elephant, because it's far bigger than the others


The wrong one here is the arrow, because it has no legs


The wrong ones here are the boats, because you can't use them for eating

  • If you fail the image captcha, you'll have to enter a verbal captcha:


I though I had all the previous captchas right...


Grrrrr! Boring...

  • When the current visit value is FREE you might get a prize after visiting many websites. You can redeem it by solving one more image captcha:


I WON A PRIZE!!!!


It's funny that they divide Bitcoins up to hundredths of satoshi...


Yeeeeeaaaahhh

  • Your payments are delayed, but you may request a payout at any moment.

Best Strategy:

  • Create a new Bitcoin address only to receive bitcoins from CoinVisitor. This way you can assure yourself that they are actually paying you.
  • Bookmark the site. You only have to introduce your Bitcoin address once. The site will remember it for your future visits.
  • When you get up, visit the site, watch the wesites it pushes to your browser and solve the captchas. Since there's no possibility to know whether there are new websites for you to check out, do this several times during the day. I personally do it when I get up, after lunch and right before going to sleep. When the visit value turns to FREE, leave the site. Don't try to go for prizes.
  • You don't really have to browse the websites. You could have them on one tab of your browser while you wait for the countdown to end doing other things on other tabs. However, some sites contain good information, so don't dismiss them automatically.
  • Request a payment whenever you like.


You've got to solve one more captcha to request your payment


I prefer not to request it until I've reached thousands of microbitcoins


Site Review:

  • Expected profit: 3/5. Around 200µ฿ per day. Not much, but since you don't have to wait several minutes on each site...
  • Convenience: 4/5. The image captchas are kind of fun to solve (at least when you first visit the site) and the wait times are low.
  • Payment speed: 3/5. You'll receive your payment several hours after you order a payout.
  • Risk: 0/5. None at all; this is a website that gives out free bitcoins.
  • Final Score: 7/10. CoinVisitor uses image captchas and makes you wait very little on each page. Its rewards for doing so are also lower than on other sites, but it's so fast to get them that doing so is worth your time.

Useful Bitcoin Web Tools

Februari 23, 2013 Add Comment
There are several webs focused on the Bitcoin world that contain a lot of interesting information about the state of the Bitcoin network, the contents of the blockchain and other stuff. Let's check out seven of them today:



Great tools for the Bitcoin user!





1. Bitcoin Block Explorer


Bitcoin Block Explorer allows you to easily view information about the blocks, addresses, and transactions created by Bitcoin. It's a simple website made in plain text with no images. If your query is too complex it might not give you an answer though.



http://blockexplorer.com/


2. Blockchain Info


Blockchain Info allows you to navigate the Bitcoin blockchain, that is, the record of all transactions ever made on the Bitcoin network. It's very much like the previous Bitcoin Block Explorer site, but it shows the results to your queries in a much prettier way.



http://blockchain.info/


3. Bitcoincharts


Bitcoincharts provides financial and technical data related to the Bitcoin network. It's also got links to important Bitcoin news, data on how the power of the network is distributed (Hashrate Distribution) and allows you to buy Bitcoins from people who live close to you through the site LocalBitcoins.



http://bitcoincharts.com/


4. Bitcoin Watch


Macroeconomic data, technical analysis and Bitcoin market overview. Bitcoin Watch provides very complete, fast to access and useful information for those who want to know the economics behind Bitcoin. It takes much of its information from Bitcoincharts.



http://bitcoinwatch.com/


5. Bitcoin Clock


Bitcoin Clock is an original way to represent the state of the blocks created since Bitcoin was created. Here you can see the blocks that have been created, how long it will take until the block creation difficulty is adjusted, the remaining time for the reward a miner gets when he finds a block to drop by half, etc.



http://bitcoinclock.com/


6. Bitcoin Sentiment


How will the price of one Bitcoin in United States Dollars vary six months from now? Will it be worth more than today or less? On Bitcoin Sentiment you can cast your opinion and see the combined opinions of the rest of people who visited this page, so as you can plan your Bitcoin inversions easier.



http://bitcoinsentiment.com/


7. Bitcoin Monitor


Bitcoin Monitor visualizes the activities on the Bitcoin network: coins being moved around (transactions), recording and tamper-proofing the history of events (block creation) and exchanges with other currencies taking place (currency trade). It's a pretty informative and hypnotizing tool.



http://www.bitcoinmonitor.com/

Site Review: CoinUploads

Februari 22, 2013 Add Comment
Today I'll review a great web that allows you to earn Bitcoins with your digital files! It's really easy to use, anonymous and works very well. And its name is CoinUploads:



http://www.coinuploads.com/



My Experience With CoinUploads


A couple of weeks ago I put a notice on my Blogger profile inviting my awesome readers to suggest websites that I should review. Soon I received an email from one of the administrators of CoinUploads, a site that lets you host and monetize your digital files. Let's review it then!

The first thing you'll notcie when you visit the site is that it's really clean and minimalist. There's just some text succinctly explaining the service and a button to upload your file. There's no need to create an account, so the service is really fast. I created a text file with a list of my favourite webs to get free bitcoins and uploaded it. This information appeared on screen:



Select your price


Here I could choose the price I wanted to sell my file for and also was informed of the amount I'd end up earning after their cut was applied. You keep 70% of the price paid for your file, as in so many Internet services of today. Since this was just an experiment, I chose the minimum: $0,001. I introduced a new bitcoin address I created to receive payments from CoinUploads and pressed on "Save this file". I saw a new page:



Upload successful!


It said my file had been uploaded and gave me a link to share my file and earn money on every download. I decided to put the link on my blog, at the top of the right column. You can still see it if you look to your right.




I left it there for a couple of days but I didn't see any activity on the bitcoin address I created to test this service. I guess nobody wants to pay for a list they can get at the end of each one of my posts on this blog! I decided then to test the service... Buying my own file myself.

When you click on the "Download Here" link you are sent to this page:



(Since the price of Bitcoin is continually increasing it must be cheaper now)


You are told the price of the file in bitcoins and are given two options to buy it:



Download by Voucher or with Bitcoins


I clicked on the option to buy with bitcoins. My screen showed this micropayment page:



It generates an address for you to pay for the file


This page reloads every certain amount of time waiting for your payment to arrive. I must say I really like the minimalism and simplicity of the whole process. There's no clutter; they have only written what is essential for the service to work and nothing else.

Under the previous screen section, there was this:



A referral link!


Since I was going to buy my own file, I guessed I could use that referral link and not lose as many microbitcoins. Then I'd also be able to test the referral system! I created a new bitcoin address to receive the commision and introduced the referral link on my browser's address bar. Another screen with a new bitcoin address to send my payment to appeared. I payed:





I payed a ton more in transaction fees than for the actual file...


And in less than a minute they received the payment!:



A wild download link appeared!


As you can expect, when I clicked on the download link I downloaded my own file, which was nicely saved on my hard drive:



I feel weird for doing this...


Now I had my own file successfully downloaded, but I had yet to receive my earnings. I waited a few hours and this transactions appeared on my digital wallet:



Earnings and commisions!


Everything went incredibly well. The commision was 13,08µ฿, 35,001% of the basic price of the file (exactly as they claim). It's a bit odd that I received 38,86µ฿ when I had payed 37,37µ฿. Still, it's great to see that a service based on Bitcoin works so well! I recommend it to everyone that needs a place to host files which they want to sell!


Site Review:

  • Expected profit: ?/5. This depends on how interesting your digital content is and how good your marketing skills are!
  • Convenience: 5/5. Everything works as it should, the design is clean and uncluttered and there's nothing I could think of to improve this service!
  • Payment speed: 4/5. They send their transactions in batch after six confirmations. You only have to wait a few hours to receive your bitcoins.
  • Risk: 0/5. None. You won't have to pay anything upfront for uploading files, so you can nothing lose by using this service even if you then don't manage to sell them!
  • Final Score: 10/10. CoinUploads is the service that anybody who needs a place to store their commercial digital content and wants to be paid in bitcoins should use. It's simple to use, effective, fast... I really can't think of anything that could make it better, so go and try it!
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