Did Magic Dice just exit scam?
Of course I don't entirely know what's going on, but it's not far fetched to think that this actually just happened. As a matter of fact, if you visit the website you will notice it's completely offline.
But... it worked
Yes, It did, and I used it for a while and had some fun. Of course, the idea that I was getting tokens, getting a share of the casino, kept me coming back, even though I knew I was actually net negative on my playing along. So, you could say I also had my guard down.
Today however, it stopped working, and a good indication that it's Closed for Business is this little fact:
And... It's gone
Just like that, Magic-dice is illiquid. In plain words, they cannot pay out players who would "win" at this very moment. So of course, the website is down, but this did not stop some people from sending funds to @magicdice, funds that are likely not going to be returned.
But Who?
Well, you could say that @magicdice was somewhat anonymous, and this is kind of true. As far as I know the Steemian behind the project was none of the known avatars. But using the magic of the internet, I found a little detail that is very, very interesting.
Yes, our old friend Zombee is actually @magicdice. I would love to say I'm surprised, but I'm not really. Since he is a talented developer, and as you can probably deduce from the other name on that picture, the creator of dmania too.
Why is it a scam?
The word may sound harsh, but as far as I know, If they exit right now, none of us are getting our tokens, and even if we did, even if we received some steem-engine tokens, if the casino has closed it's doors they are literally worthless.
If you are delegating to @magicdice, now might be a good time to get your SP back, granted as far as I know, there's been no communication behind the downtime, nor the cashing out.
MenO
Uuuupsi
RE your point in the comments about @zombie gambling away 1M steem - you mean a significant amount of the MD transactions were just him (I assume) playing his own game?
That's really tragic!
I know at least a couple of people who have pumped money at this for those tokens!
Sad.
Fun fact... The operation made the creators roughly 584K steem. Not a bad bag indeed. In today's prices that's 233k USD more or less.
Impressive.
Posted using Partiko iOS
!bookkeeping magicdice
Hi @meno!
magicdice
Received:
Spent:
Total:
!bookkeeping magicdice
Hi @fbslo!
magicdice
Received:
Spent:
Total:
It's kimd of worse thing happen on STEEM . Shit dude hope for the best in future.
Posted using Partiko Android
I just remember how it was provably fair ;)
230k is some amount of money - as long as you can get away with it.
Risk/reward for a talented developer looks way off.
Posted using Partiko Android
"Risk/reward for a talented developer looks way off."
What do you mean with that?
Excellent review @meno and another casino turned to dust!
They've probably done me a favour and saved me money lol.....ahh well, was fun while it lasted. I prefer donating my money through Kryptogamers blackjack anyway!
Posted using Partiko Android
I feel so bad, I got excited initially about this game because I knew dapps like that tend to attract volume which I hope would carry over on Steem as folks buy Steem to play.
I started playing regularly did not really stick around for the dividends, there was something odd about it, making numerous small bets and one big bet usually brings in the fish but what I realize, you can lose 10 straight big bets and that's not normal, so I took a back sit, did not follow up and not surprise. I notice powerguy was bidding big and I started to follow him on Steemit here, not to sure if he is part of the operation or a victim but I feel really sorry if he is innocent, he may be the biggest loser on this.
Sad, I was having a nice little stake in these MAGIC tokens. My grandfather was right: Who is betting, is cheating.
nothing we can do about it... life lesson my friend.
I seriously feel that cryptocurrency creators should start to put in some stop gaps on tokens and dapps that use their currency. Otherwise these exit scams are going to run rampid in 2019 - 2020 and hold no one accountable. It most likely will also destroy cryptocurrency.
I don't know if destroy is hyperbolic, but it's not a bad idea...
It damages trust like right now myself I don't want to invest or keep my crypto anywhere else but to myself lol and normally I am a very strong investor.
Invest or speculate?
Posted using Partiko Android
I know I shouldn't, but,
What's a stop gap?
Posted using Partiko Android
Not sure but just like with a DPOS where votes determine who is mining the new tokens and keeping the blockchain intact perhaps a vote of confidence per each dapp. There has to be something otherwise this will continue to happen. This is the 3rd program this year that I know of that took steem funds and ran.
What if there is absolutely nothing, as you are probably starting to suspect, that can be done, without completely undermining the trust of the community by creating a position of power that could bring down the whole system if they were a bad actor? By making users transactions be possibly "locked" you've literally undermined the entire premise of censorship proof and decentralization and opened an avenue of abuse that would affect anyone, not only the idiots that chance it on these OBVIOUS scams, obvious as they come without any way to audit them or from known/trusted actors and generally make promises that no one can hold them to keep.
Posted using Partiko Android
What if instead it went by votes of the community not one single person. There honestly has to be some type of accountability otherwise there is nothing to stop it from happening again and again and yet again.
How would that work? What would stop one person with thousands of accounts to lock funds up at their behest? What would stop one whale from doing it?
Do you honestly think that you can prevent these things from happening?
Posted using Partiko Android