It’s just in my nature to poke my nose in to everything I see and try to find out how it is done. Today was no different and I came across a very curious account. I say account and not steemian because this account does not have any followers, did not make any posts or is being followed!
What’s more this account has withdrawn 5370 steem in the last four months to their Bittrex trading account.
I delved deeper into how he was able to make such a tidy income on Steemit without have to post or even upvote and I wanted to copy. I wanted to be rich and follow in the footsteps of successful steemians.
What I found was just too easy, get other steemians to make a transfer of steem to you and this is exactly what he did. Many, and I mean many steemians transfer approximately 32 Steem to this account. I wondered why would they make this transfer? It definitely wasn’t because he produced good contents because like I said, he made zero posts. Was it because of a service that he provided?
I delved even deeper going into the rabbit hole like Alice in Wonderland ever more curious to see where that rabbit will end up taking me. I looked at the accounts making the transfer and found they were all also set up about 4 months ago.
Upon studying these account further, I noticed that they were immediately set to start power down of 35.255 steem. I believe this is the start steem that come with every account when the account is activated. I looked at the many different accounts and lo and behold I found the same modus operandi.
I counted the number of transfer made to this account and based on the number of transfer and average transfers made the sum total matched the total withdrawal of approximately 5370 steem.
I surmise that someone familiar with programming have written a script to take advantage of the free introduction steem that comes with every new account.
Damn, why didn’t I take computer studies when I went to university!
I liked how you followed this to the end, @marcusxman.
However, I don't think that you would get 35.255 steem when you activate a new account. So, the money had to come from somewhere else.
Another thing that makes me wonder is that how did they get passed the mobile phone activation? Did they actually use that many different mobile phones to create the accounts?
Hi @sadekj, I remember when I furst opened an account with Steemit there was some steem to start off with. I can't remember how much but it was in the range. As to phone activation, I am sure that a coder can come up with a novelty solution to by pass this. Maybe he utilised a click farm in China to get all his activation code. So it is interesting to know!
It wasn't that much I think it was around five dollars or so, my fiance transferred me cryptocurrency so I could get off to a better start on here (about 35 dollars) and it's fluctuated by it is 27 now and it was never over thirty...but I to have all in steem power, for regular steem dollars when I signed up I got one dollar.
Steem did go to about $2.30. At least you got in when steem was relatively low instead of seeing your steem value go down by half. I think steem will go back up so just hang in there.
Thanks, yeah I don't know much about cryptocurrency to be honest but I know bitcoin had dropped and the value always goes way back up so I'm not too worried. :) Just trying to figure out this place still :)
Hi @gingerlocks thought you might be interested in my latest post about trading bots https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@marcusxman/leonardo-the-crypto-trading-bot-you-need
I got around 4 steem on the start. So that can not be it....
Hi @sadekj Thought you might be interested in trading using bots, see my post https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@marcusxman/leonardo-the-crypto-trading-bot-you-need
Read this my post on what to do if you see such thing: see link https://steemit.com/steem-help/@charles1/how-spam-is-killing-steemit-and-what-to-do-about-it
The person is taking advantage of reward system which is a disadvantage to us.
Thnks for sharing.
Amazing detective work. What is your moral stance on this behaviour though?
Morality is a very serious topic and can get people into all sort of arguments. However, I would not do this in my current situation but if the need arise for example I am in desperate need of money and I need to feed my family then I may have to. So morality you could say depends on ones circumstances and cannot be applied to all. Is this person in desperate need of money is hard to say. However things like this is good because vulnerabilities in the system can be highlighted and fixed to make it better. After all he just took advantage of the set up with his skill and know how and it is then up to the devs to counter this. To me we need things like these to always keep us active and our brains always thinking and developing otherwise our brain would just turn into mush from under use.
If you need help just give me a ping!
Click @bullionstackers
@bullionstackers i have already approached @aggroed. Just wondering if Steemit can do something to plug this loophole?
good info followed
THESE are the REAL Bots you have to be concerned about. NOT the posting bots.
In this new digital age, all the tech geeks have now found their niche.
Yeah, but c'mon this is absurd. Aint it?
All the more power to those with the skills and know how. Besides, we can only improve on thing when we find out how to break them. The next version will be an improvement on the last and so on....
Next version? Are you suggesting the next new Steemit or the next time enough people figure out a way to develop counter measures to this issue?
A fix to the loophole. i think it is easy for Steemit to plug this loophole. Just don't allow power down for the free steem. i sure there are many other creative ways that people have not thought of and Steemit will need to be on watch all the time to counter these new techniques.
Cool, just clarifying
Hi @jpederson96 Now you can also be a proud owner of a trading bot, see my post https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@marcusxman/leonardo-the-crypto-trading-bot-you-need
I hope they open source that script 😂
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Good info! Lucky people who opened an account months ago. My friend open an account recently and the free STEEM you get is 0.5 and you get delegated STEEM POWER to get a total SP of 15.
My account was opened about two months ago, I do not remember how much STEEM I got, it was not much, but my delegated STEEM was around 200.
It's quite a difference. Maybe four months ago they got such a high introductory STEEM, so they used the opportunity, but I don't think it makes sense now with the free STEEM so low.
I wasn't aware the free steem was getting lower and lower so I guess it it not too much of a problem now.
Now this is disturbing
And here i am buying steem
Its not fair
I think that the problem might be resolved from comments received. the free steem now very low so maybe it is now not worthwhile to do this kind of scamming.
Yes, I created my account about two months back and I got just 0.5 SBD and 27 SP. And more recently my friends joined and they just got 15 SP I guess.
So I think there is no loop hole now. Hard fork 19 changed a lot of things.
Up vote me ples follo me https://steemit.com/@ravindraojha
Upvote and follow u same need from u........