New: CrowdFunded BTC Bounties to Hunt Down Hackers and Thieves

3 minute read

Posted by: DeepDotWeb

September 17, 2014

A new service was launched by Roger Ver  (Bitcoin Angel Investor) Called “Bitcoin Bounty Hunter”:

Now anyone can contribute bitcoins to motivate people with information on criminals to provide that information to law enforcement,  or motivate law enforcement officers to take action directly. I’ve personally contributed over 40 BTC for the bounties to help get things started. With this financial motivation I hope we can help catch the dishonest among us,  and motivate those working in law enforcement to actually take action.

I’m sure there is lots of room for improvement to the site’s aesthetic and technical implementation.

Please post your suggestions for improvements to the site below.

Together we are making a better world!

The service url is: http://www.bitcoinbountyhunter.com/

Taken From the sites FAQ:

What is Bitcoin Bounty Hunter?

Bitcoin Bounty Hunt is a new service that allows people to anonymously crowd source bounties to catch a particular criminal.

How does it work?

Anyone can contribute bitcoins to the bounty pool. Anyone who is a position to help catch the criminal can compile all of the details proving the person’s guilt, and submit a zero knowledge proof of the evidence using proofofexistence.com Then they contact the correct “authorities” and provide all the necessary details that lead to an arrest and conviction. Once there has been a conviction, contact us with with the evidence you submitted to proof of existence. If we agree that you were the earliest person, we will pay you the bounty.

Who can participate?

Anyone can anonymously contribute bitcoins to the prize pool by donating to the bitcoin address associated with each bounty. Anyone can anonymously submit the information required to lead to the arrest and conviction. Anyone can anonymously collect the bounty.

How can I claim a bounty?

Once there has been a conviction, contact us with with the evidence you submitted to proofofexistence.com If we agree that you were the earliest person with the evidence leading to the arrest, we will pay you the bounty to the bitcoin address specified in the document.

Can I use your service anonymously?

Yes, anyone may anonymously contribute bitcoins to the bounty pool, anyone may anonymously post a new bounty, and anyone may anonymously claim a bounty.

What kind of bounties are allowed?

We allow any bounty for a person who has committed a crime in which there is a victim.

How can I claim a bounty?

Once there has been a conviction, contact us with with the evidence you submitted to proofofexistence.com If we agree that you were the earliest person with the evidence leading to the arrest, we will pay you the bounty to the bitcoin address specified in the document.

What kind of bounties are prohibited?

We allow any bounty for a person who has committed a crime in which there is a victim. In the future we hope to implement a trustless, distributed system.

What do you charge for this?

We are currently offering this as a free service to help demonstrate that there are viable, non-governmental ways to help with law enforcement.

Who holds the money?

We currently hold the funds in secure bitcoin wallets with individual public addresses for each bounty. In the future we hope to implement a trustless solution in which no individual human being has control of the funds.

What happens if the bounty is never claimed?

If law enforcement makes the arrest on their own, and no one claims the bounty, we will either donate the bitcoins to charity, distribute them proportionally to the other bounties, or possibly donate them to the arresting law enforcement agency.

How can I trust you?

We are working on developing a trustless solution based on blockchain technology, but for now you should know that this site was created and is managed by Roger Ver, one of the most well known early Bitcoin adopters, and responsible for helping to bootstrap a large part of the Bitcoin ecosystem. He recently donated over $1M USD worth of bitcoins to charity, and would have no reason to defraud any of the participants in the Bitcoin Bounty Hunter program.

The current available bounties (for claiming or more donations) are for:

Bitcoinica -Help catch whoever is responsible for the theft of tens of thousands of BTC from Bitcoinica and Zhou Tong. Bounty Reward Ƀ2.0000 (~$912)

Satoshi & Roger Ver Hacker – Help catch the hacker that hacked into Satoshi Nakamoto’s and Roger Ver’s email accounts.  Bounty Reward Ƀ37.6000 (~$17,145)

Mtgox – Help catch whoever is responsible for the missing 600K BTC from Mtgox. Bounty Reward Ƀ2.0010 (~$912)

I wonder if its possible to add all the Dark Net market scammers to this list like all the “hacked” market admins since Sheep Marketplace until today?

Updated: 2014-09-17

Updated: