Mining 80 yuan worth of Bitcoin in one day? Exposing the Minestore Mining Scam

A few days ago, Shitou heard about a project that can mine Bitcoin on an ordinary computer, and the value of the currency mined every day is more than 80 pieces. I am very confused about this: it may be true that mining costs a few yuan a day; it is also possible that the coins mined in a day a few years ago are now worth 80 yuan; but ordinary computers and mobile phones can earn a daily income without investing money or energy. How is that possible for more than 10 yuan? With a high degree of vigilance, I went to this website called minestore.

Mining in Minestore is very simple, just enter your Bitcoin address.

Just don’t need a private key. Shitou decisively entered his Bitcoin address and clicked "Start Ming" to start mining. An exciting scene appears:

As you can see, the mining speed is 0.00000100BTC per minute, which is 100 satoshis per minute. 60*24=1440 minutes per day, 144,000 satoshis can be mined. The current price of Bitcoin is around 60,000 yuan, 10,000 satoshi = 6 yuan, and 144,000 satoshi = 86 yuan. Based on this calculation, you can dig more than 80 yuan a day. Looking at the constantly beating numbers in my account, I couldn't help but think, if this is true, if I prepare 10 accounts, my daily income will be 800; if I have 100 accounts, I will earn 8,000... Eradicating poverty and becoming rich seems to be right in front of me.

Back to reality first. I stretched out my finger and began the ultimate test: cashing out. Click "withdraw" and the system prompts that you need to have more than 500,000 satoshis to withdraw cash. At the rate of 144,000 satoshis per day, it will take about 4 days to withdraw. Well, when I was idle, I started various tests and wandering around, and found several doubts.

1. Mining doubts

I logged out of the website, turned off the computer, and after waiting for 3 minutes, reopened the computer to log in to the mining website. I found that the account balance was no longer the same for a few minutes when I was offline. It is growing at 100 satoshis per minute. Such high returns are actually obtained through offline mining! There is no limit to the offline time. If you don’t log in for 2 years, you can get 1 Bitcoin as soon as you go online! Is there such a good thing?

Among the projects we know of, there are indeed offline mining projects. However, with this mining method that has a low threshold and almost no investment, you will either get coins that have not yet been listed on the exchange, or the income will be very low. A few yuan a day is enough, and it has to be during the promotion and marketing period. If this mining project is real, why does it support and operate? Even if a billionaire does this, he will be quickly defeated by the wool party. Didn’t you see that the well-known Li Xiaolai came to the MIXIN platform and launched an activity to get Bitcoins by signing in? He also frequently changed the rules when the daily income was only about 1 yuan, and was eventually abandoned by everyone?

2. Doubts about withdrawal records

This website is very interesting. There is a "PAYOUTS" column, which posts daily withdrawal records, announcing the withdrawal time, withdrawal amount, withdrawal address and Transaction number. Checking on the blockchain browser, these records are actually true.

Don’t rush to judgment yet. Find an address that got involved early and see what happens. Shitou found a transfer record published by this website on January 31. The address "3B74XtPhQqNPJ8id9Pr4znUs6mWBC1R774" received 0.00288981 BTC. Entering the blockchain browser and querying this address, Shitou discovered something interesting:

The current balance of this address is zero. It has only two transfer records. One is the receipt of 0.00288981 BTC from the address ending in 9Yge on January 31, and the other is nine days later on February 9. Together with many other addresses, it transferred all the bits in the account. The coins were transferred to an address ending in h6tX.

Checking other early payment addresses, the situation is similar: they all have a balance of 0, and after receiving the "mining reward" from the website, they transferred the coins to other addresses a few days later, and they have not been there since. any records.

This is not at all in line with the behavior of normal people.

If a normal person encounters something like this, why would he mention it once and not mention it again? If it is a stone, it must be lifted once every five days, once every five days, until the end of time. The behavior of collecting the coins into one account after receiving them preliminarily verified Shitou's guess: This was a fraud within the team. Ordinary people will not be successful in withdrawing money. Those who are successful are insiders' trumpets. After the trumpet received the transfer, it was transferred out again a few days later, and finally returned to the team's fund pool.

3. See the picture

Today, the "balance" of Shitou's account finally exceeded 500,000 Satoshi, and you can try to withdraw cash. Click "withdraw" and it will show that the withdrawal is successful and payment is in progress. A few hours later, I saw that the payment was still being made, and there was a big question mark after the payment. Clicking on the question mark revealed the fox's tail: Either upgrade (pay an upgrade fee of 0.01-5 BTC to "mine" faster), or pay a website maintenance fee of 100,000 satoshis (nearly more than 60 yuan).

This reminds me of the glorious history since the advent of mobile phones: I won the second prize 18 times, with bonuses ranging from 100,000 to 1 million each time, but the tax and management fees for winning the prize were amazing, tens of millions. It cannot be directly deducted from the bonus and must be paid in advance. Who is being bullied by such a scam? But after checking online, I found out that some people have been deceived.

I was not defrauded out of 100,000 satoshis, but I believed in the upgrade plan and wanted to mine faster. As a result, I was defrauded out of 0.01 BTC, which was more than 600 yuan. The big pie falling from the sky is indeed a hit.

In the currency circle, there are many projects and even more scams. Do not blindly trust the information provided by the project party, but take advantage of the openness and transparency of the blockchain and verify it with multiple parties. When it comes to capital investment and providing private keys and mnemonic words, you must be highly vigilant. In a decentralized world, the only one who can protect yourself is yourself.

This article has joined the "Good Article Mobile Project" initiated by Lichang New Media Department. This plan aims to enhance the liquidity of Lichang’s good articles, thereby enhancing the value of Lichang’s content.