I agree 100%

I have a confession to make. As much as I'd like to hide this from everybody around me, I want to let it out. Maybe I'll feel a little better.

I lost 22.22 BTC in 2013.

"How?" You may ask. It was mainly due to greed. You see, in 2013, I was a 20-year old. I was fascinated that Bitcoin rose so much so fast and asked my parents to invest some money into them. Told them that it had great promise of growth in the long-term. They agreed, gave me about $5400, and I bought 22.22 BTC.

All was good. The price rose and it fell. It was fun watching price and immediately calculating what the Bitcoins were now worth. It was addictive. I would check the price ever hour or so back then.

A few months later, the value of Bitcoin doubled. Now they were worth about $11k. "Wow," I though. My parents are going to be so happy (we're from a middle class family in India and $11k is a LOT of money).

One day, someone found my phone number on the Localbitcoins website and sent me a text. He said he had a strategy to earn recurring profits through Bitcoin. That a lot of people use it for gambling, and we can use the spread between Bitcoin prices in India and China to make a profit!

"This is getting better." Or so I thought. 2 weeks later, I meet the guy at a restaurant. Talk a little bit about what he plans to do with the money and I decide to send him 10BTC to see what he can do with it. He gave me a post-dated cheque for the equivalent of 10BTC in fiat as a "safety" so I can be sure he wasn't a scammer. Transferred the money, went back home, super happy to make money by investing my Bitcoins!

Later that evening, I get a call from this guy saying he needs more upfront capital to get the ball rolling. I suspected something might be wrong - but I didn't want to loose 10BTC because I couldn't afford some more. BIG FUCKING MISTAKE. I paid him 12.22BTC more and he promised to deliver.

Days went by and I didn't hear from him. I called him up hundreds of times, no answer. I rushed to the bank to cash out the cheque, but it was cancelled. I asked the bank employees for remediation, they asked me to go to the cops. I went to the cops - they said "Bitcoin is illegal, you shouldn't have bought it anyway. But since the cheque bounced, we can try to help you." They didn't do jack shit.

So this is the story of how a naive 20-year-old lost 22.22 BTC - valued at $256718 today. The story clearly talks about my mistakes. It seems obvious now, but back then, I was blinded by the idea of easy profits.

Lessons:

• Don't trust ANYBODY.
• The moment you feel something is not right, cut your losses. Don't get in deeper.
• Don't be greedy. There are no get-rich-quick schemes. Don't fall for them.
• Don't be naive.
• Never touch money/investments that aren't your own. It feels 100000x worse.
• ALWAYS ESCROW.

I'm having to fight through this pain everyday. I feel pathetic. I've lost a lot of courage and morale. I feel extremely lonely. I can't being to understand how people that have lost bigger amounts of money cope with this. If someone here knows, do let me know.

Checking the price of Bitcoin has become super painful. I can literally feel my heart burn every time I see the price go up more. I'm 23 years old now. I don't know if I'll ever be able to earn back the 22.22 BTC. I'm afraid. I feel like I'm falling through an abyss - just falling deeper and deeper.

I can, however, claim that I've got balls. That should be evident from the fact that I didn't suicide yet. Time to time and more often than not, there's a voice inside me that says "You can't do it. You're in over your head." I try to suppress that. I'm trying to make all those Bitcoins back.

Recently (a few days ago), I asked Roger Ver to help. He politely declined. It was really nice of him to reply to my email. I totally understand - he can't verify any of this. And 22.22BTC is not a small sum of money today.

If there's anyone out there that can help, please message me. If not, I would love some support in these dark times (for me). I need some extra courage. I have some inside, I need some more.

Hope you learned something that prevents you from losing money.

#BitcoinToTheMoon

Yes, we'll have to make sure that there is a business here, while trying to provide fun games for users to play. We should also maintain difficulty, as you rightly mentioned. Thank you for your feedback, the points have been noted!

Thats a good idea, thanks avatar_kiyoshi!

So this is similar to The Dao?

I'm an Indian, and I take offence in your words. First of all, Rs. 9,61,000/- is not enough to buy even a decent 1BHK house in Delhi. So it seems you're knowledge on Delhi real-estate is very outdated. It might have been sufficient a few years ago, but not today.

Don't think of every Indian as a scammer. This redlightblues or whatever seems like a very nice, interesting project. Read the damn articles, take your time before you start shitting your judgement everywhere.

Also, I notice the OP has already admitted to a mistake or misunderstanding about the price or whatever. I think that means something. Besides, just because somebody posted on this forum doesn't mean people will come running with their money. If redlightblues is a scammer, the forum members will find out and do something about it. Let everybody use their own judgement. And seriously, stop being racist.

Agreed. But this is something else. Not scratchcard. Not exactly an online casino. But rather, platformer or arcade games similar to those you have on your phone. Like the ones Ketchapp makes.

We'll try our best to prove fairness in the game.

Yes, we believe the game attacks a wide audience. From people that just want to game, to people that gamble.

Your website gives me this: http://imgur.com/Xo0EhHI.

I doubt that's really what 'turing complete' is.

Haha, a very valid point there. And I guess we could make the system open-source after launch, no problem there. At least the relevant game logic can be open source so the community can check to see that we aren't doing anything mischievous! Thank you for your suggestion!

We're about 80% through building a website that hosts a couple of HTML5 games that can be played and are timed.
Before playing any game, you deposit an amount of 0.015BTC.
You play the game and attempt to complete the objectives (for example: make 100 points in the time limit, etc).
If you do, you are returned your 0.015BTC with a small addition to it, approximately $1 in BTC.
Else, you loose and your money goes to us. Simple.

Does this sound like something you'll play or use?

We're open to suggestions and feedback on the idea. But we think this will be extremely fun!

If it works out, we're planning to go mobile as well.

Thanks for your time.

I'm able to access it.

Thats another very interesting idea. Wow, you're full of ideas! Thanks, now I have a new line of thought!

I might agree here, the 'value' of something is usually related to the supply and demand of that thing.

Lol. Wtf? Who suggested that?

I think you have something awesome right there. Wow. Very good idea!

Either. We have very good PHP and JS full stack devs as well as highly qualified mobile app devs.
This is a very good idea! But the architecture of this system seems a little complicated. It should be possible though, and probably not too difficult.
Whats the idea related to the marketplace?

That's a pretty awesome idea. And you're right - it is hard to implement and manage. BUT, I think it is possible with the emerging technology! Will definitely think about this, thanks!

Hey cloverme,

Absolutely, would have done that. But I'm not really selling services at the moment. Just trying to brainstorm if there exists any web-application or mobile application that this community would love to have and use, that can be profitable?

But yes, I'll keep in mind ognasty's escrow service. Cheers!

Because there are no 'lucrative ideas' in reality. You have to implement those ideas to actually make money from them!
I wont be putting up a bounty for the selected idea - we both can understand how easily this method fails. I get a shit-ton of ideas. Love one. But say I didnt like a single one. Make it, reap profits and never pay a soul. I prefer to be transparent - I wont pay for the idea.
Also, I will obviously NOT give you equal equity for the idea. If you can contribute development, yes, then we can talk about equity splits! Just please post your ideas here. Don't post the ones that you think are really valuable. But the rest, please post!

Please correct your link. *sigh*