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Suspicious Bitcoin Cash Data Points to Volume Manipulation

May 9, 2019

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By CCN: A single address has sent over 674,000 transactions on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. The address was just created last month, on April 9th, and is one of a handful of addresses that account for the vast majority of transactions on the fourth-largest cryptocurrency’s blockchain.

A Minecraft Mix-Up or Something More Sinister?

The address is believed to belong to the owners of Craft.cash, who support both Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV. All of the transactions it sends are functionally worthless, a couple of hundred Bitcoin Cash satoshis. One dollar in Bitcoin Cash currently equals around 350,000 BCH satoshis.

The issue was brought to light by a Twitter user who claims the transactions sent by this address account for 50% of all the activity on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. The address is not the only one that sends seemingly worthless transactions constantly, however.

This one address accounts for over 50% of $BCH transactions in the last month.https://t.co/eSfJswoZqN

— I am Nomad (@IamNomad) May 5, 2019

One theory posited by Bitcoin Cash supporters is that these transactions are generated by Minecraft-style game Craft.cash.

This reporter has noticed when using Bitcoin Cash that any address where he sends or receives a transaction, another one will follow it in the amount of .00001111 BCH. These transactions originate from more than one address, and at least one of them is blockchain advertising. If you look at this transaction, there is a message embedded, advertising a gambling service.

Every time this reporter sends or receives a transaction on Bitcoin Cash, he notices that an additional, tiny transaction goes through.

Bitcoin Cash Blockchain Spam or Outright Manipulation?

People don’t typically complain about free money. The contention is that these addresses intentionally create insignificant transactions with to inflate the perceived activity on the Bitcoin Cash network. It’s trivial to write a script which will scan the blockchain for new transactions and send recipient addresses additional funds. In one respect, there’s no complaint because the amount sent covers the standard transaction fee on the Bitcoin Cash network. It acts as a transaction fee rebate.

In the case of the alleged Craft.cash transactions, the amount doesn’t even do that.

The prospect of using the blockchain to advertise services is appealing. Services that want attention will have to send more significant amounts, of course, but the result could be a new, regular feature built around the concept. The user receives the funds and sees the message in the wallet. Typically, to see a Coinbase message, you have to look at the blockchain itself using an explorer.

Just did a quick investigation, and my take is It’s very unlikely that it’s for a game.

It’s looking more like deliberate manipulation: https://t.co/YMshL82FRZ

— edoera (@edoerararara) May 9, 2019

The Craft.cash theory is refuted by some, as seen above, which would suggest that the transactions are being used to artificially inflate BCH blockchain activity.

So definitely not organic.

Also the whole theory of “it’s coming from https://t.co/ejkqMv0aFH dev’s address so it’s for that game” is completely false because the game creates a new wallet for every user.

What’s more likely: the developer is involved with the whole manipulation

— edoera (@edoerararara) May 9, 2019

Reportedly, the theory doesn’t make a lot of sense because every user on that site gets a new wallet through Block Party.

Bitcoin Cash has a number of on-chain services, such as Honest.cash, which creates a transaction every time someone upvotes content. Also SatoshiDice, which originally ran on Bitcoin and was the brainchild of blockchain entrepreneur Erik Voorhees, and creates a transaction every time someone places a bet.

If those transactions are considered spam, then the vast majority on Tron are spam as well. Tron has numerous on-chain casinos that create thousands of transactions per hour in the form of bets placed. These casinos generally also use the blockchain to determine the results of those bets, based on the block’s hash.

Why Transaction Volume Manipulation Matters

The accusation seems to be that Bitcoin Cash wants to seem more useful. Some writers have alleged that the volume manipulation goes hand in hand with price manipulation.

But you don’t hear a lot of people talking about the amount of money transferred on Bitcoin Cash. Instead, people talk about how cheap it is to do so and how it has a greater capacity than Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Cash fees are cheaper than Litecoin’s. This transaction of 26 inputs cost 0.026 USD in tx fees while BCH would cost 0.0051 USD for the same transaction. Bitcoin Cash is the most convenient AND cheapest for merchants.https://t.co/0X13wj3PbO

— Bitcoin (@Bitcoin) February 9, 2019

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