Airdrop

How and when the Obyte currencies of bytes and blackbytes were distributed by general airdrop. See the Distribution article for other methods of getting Obyte out there.

For Steem attestation "airdrop" see the Attestation article.

NOTE: As from Feb 18 2018, general Airdrops have been discontinued. See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1608859.msg30564528#msg30564528 for details. The text below is retained, mainly for historical use.

Install a wallet

Normal users should choose a light/quick wallet, not the full/slow option. The full one takes a long time to sync, and you cannot change from full to light but have to start from scratch. Be warned.

Complexity

See the Wallet article for variations on multiple wallets and multiple devices. Generally, the more complex the arrangement you create, the more likely it is to fail, e.g. sending one device's address from another device. Keep it as simple as you can.

After installing a wallet

After installing, chat with the TRANSITION BOT to participate in the next distribution round. [This link](byteball:A2WMb6JEIrMhxVk+I0gIIW1vmM3ToKoLkNF8TqUV5UvX@byteball.org/bb#0000) will open automatically in your wallet when you click it.

Byteball address (disambiguation)

• A wallet address is all upper case, looks like K7RMH5EFPZW67JTS5B5GA6PDZA4MYX4LY  

• A unit address, like a transaction you sent, looks like Ip241kkFRkZnaVF61Z6+/JW3YELOaHn9C6PAjeMp8fs=  

• And a bitcoin address looks like 13AM4VW2dhxYgXeQepoHkHSQuy6NgaEb94

Proving ownership

The Transition Bot will ask you to send your Byteball address, then prove ownership of a regular Bitcoin address you provide by either sending a small transaction from it, or by signing a message using its private key. Workable (free!) signing solutions are:

• Electrum  
• Trezor  
• Nano Ledger S
• Mycelium (on Android)

Note that the bitcoin address can have zero bitcoins in it. The bot only needs a signature from the correct private key. Fractional bitcoin amounts like 0.027 BTC are fine too.

Signing a message

• Click on "sign a message" in your Bitcoin wallet menu
• In the "message" field, paste your Byteball address
• In the "address" field, paste your Bitcoin address
• Click "Sign" (not "Verify")
• Copy the resulting "signature", and paste it for the transition bot

BTC on exchanges

Generally it won't work to try and link a Byteball address to bitcoins held on an exchange. You need to know the private key to sign a message for the Transition bot. There apparently is an exception:

cryptkeeper [2017-06-06 8:07 AM]   @xxxx I stand corrected: cryptox.pl will pay out distributed bytes and blackbytes for a fee of 5%

P2PKH addresses

If you try and sign a Bitcoin address beginning with 3... (instead of 1...), the transition bot will say "Only P2PKH addresses are supported." You can still use your P2SH address (3...), but you will have to prove ownership by the microtransaction method and not the signing method. This is a Bitcoin limitation, not a Byteball limitation.

P2PKH = Pay to Public Key Hash and P2PSH = Pay to Script Hash. Further explanations are outside the scope of this article, but are easy enough to find online.

Multiple addresses

You are allowed to link more than one Bitcoin address to a single Byteball address. 

But you are not allowed to link more than one Byteball address to a single Bitcoin address. If you link both by transaction, neither will work. If you link both by signing a message, the first will deactivate but the replacement will work. 

These are OK, for example:

Byteball address	Bitcoin address
CDE... linked to	1j4y...
CDE... linked to	17g6...
PQR... linked to	1kmr...

Many Bitcoin addresses

It may be easiest to consolidate all your wallet bitcoins into one Bitcoin address. Choose any one of your Bitcoin wallet addresses as a destination, and send all bitcoins in the wallet to that address. After the transaction has confirmed, now you can sign a message for the transition bot using that single Bitcoin address.

Rinse, repeat

If you want to link different Bitcoin addresses to different Byteball addresses, your dialog with the bot should consist of repeated series of these 3 steps:  

• Byteball address  
• Bitcoin address  
• signed message

Distribution

All the Byteball (native) currency units were created at the outset. About 65% have been distributed so far, in ten rounds, starting December 25, 2016. A snapshot recording which wallets will get "bytten" has been being taken at the first bitcoin block after every full moon. The bytes distributions usually take place maybe 12 hours after the snapshot. The blackbytes distributions usually take several **days**, starting with the highest amounts and working down to the lowest, so be patient. Tony will announce when the distribution is complete.

Total supply

• Total supply of bytes = 10^15 = 1,000,000,000,000,000
• Total supply of blackbytes = 2.1111 x 10^15 = 2,111,100,000,000,000

Current rules and rates

From Tony 2018-02-18:

As I said before, airdrops to holders of BTC and Bytes, which we did on full moons, were a good way to bootstrap the network and get initial attention. But last few airdrops failed to attract any significant number of new users while quickly consuming the undistributed pool. We had to pivot to other distribution methods, but at the time I was writing the above post they were not ready yet, and I had to tentatively put another old-style airdrop on the calendar.

Now that the new distribution methods are ready and proven, and we've added even more methods than originally planned, the March airdrop is cancelled. November airdrop was the last one that paid to holders in proportion to their balances.

Verify your balances

Bitcoins

If you spend money from a bitcoin address, the "change" by default goes into a different address (explained more at Change address. Check before the airdrop that your bitcoins are in the linked address, and move them back there if necessary. Allow enough time for bitcoin transaction delays.

Bytes

Similarly, if you've been using your Byteball wallet even for small amounts, a big chunk of your bytes may have moved to different addresses. Send them back to your linked address in time for the airdrop.

The transition bot will tell you your linked balances

The bot will tell you the current linked balances for both your bitcoins and bytes. Just say hi to it. This [Transition Bot](byteball:A2WMb6JEIrMhxVk+I0gIIW1vmM3ToKoLkNF8TqUV5UvX@byteball.org/bb#0000) link will open automatically in your wallet when you click it. 

Online check

You can also track linking progress at the Byteball main site transition pages.

Bot down sometimes

Sometimes the bot is down for some hours. During the monthly distribution period it's out of action for several days, and may simply repeat back whatever you say to it. Don't worry -- it will wake up again.

Changed hubs

If you change hubs, say hi to the transition bot before the next distribution, so that the distribution bot knows where to send the blackbytes.

Wrong amount

Here are steps to take after the airdrop if you think you didn't receive the bytes/blackbytes you should have. When you ask for help in Slack this is what someone else has to do for you, so it is preferable to do it yourself instead.

0. Make sure you are using the latest version of the wallet, currently 2.1.

1. Be aware of the rules above, especially concerning

• when the distributions start, how long they take, and when we know they are finished
• blackbytes and linked addresses
• how change addresses work.

2. Check the address(es) here to see what is linked and the bitcoin balance, and/or here to see the current Byteball address balance.

3. Check the date/time of any transaction that moved your coins. Was it before the snapshot?

At this point, most issues should have been resolved. 

Too soon

Some people move their coins to an exchange seconds or minutes after the exact time of the full moon but before the next bitcoin block when the snapshot is taken.  

Wallet and explorer differ

Does the explorer show some new bytes have arrived, but they don't show in your wallet? 

Wallet not connected properly? Your internet connection needs to allow communications to get to and from the wallet: an easy check is do the chatbots work? If the chatbots don't work, maybe showing a Socket Closed error, this lack of proper connection must get fixed.

• Other internet things work, like a refreshed/reloaded browser opens a website, right?  
• Firewall problem?  
• Tor turned on by mistake? (**Check** this at Settings > TOR, don't just assume it isn't)
• Something else wrong?

Wallet not sync'd? If have a full wallet it needs to sync up to the date of a transaction to show it. Then, transfer your coins to a light wallet and when you're sure the coins are in the light wallet dump the full wallet.

Weird wallet? If you have done something weird like "copied" a wallet from one device to another, or are running more than one instance on a single computer, then you may or may not be able to access these coins. 

---

History

The first drop distributed exactly 10% of the bytes. The figures 1.4152, 2.9876 and 0.1319 have been rounded off.

#	Snapshot (UTC)	Block time	BTC to GB	BTC to GBB	B to B	B to BB
1	25/12/16 00:00	00:02:59	1.4152	2.9876	1.0	2.1111
2	11/02/17 00:33	00:44:34	0.0625	0.1319	0.1	0.21111
3	12/03/17 14:54	15:02:25	0.0625	0.1319	0.1	0.21111
4	11/04/17 06:08	06:22:12	0.0625	0.1319	0.1	0.21111
5	10/05/17 21:42	21:46:16	0.0625	0.1319	0.1	0.21111
6	09/06/17 13:10	13:17:27	0.0625	0.1319	0.2	0.42222
7	09/07/17 04:07	04:20:40	0.0625	0.1319	0.2	0.42222
8	07/08/17 18:10	18:11:03	0.0625	0.1319	0.2	0.42222
9	06/09/17 07:02	07:09:14	0.00625	0.0132	0.1	0.21111
October skipped
10	04/11/17 05:23	05:24:16	0.00625	0.0132	0.1	0.21111
December to February skipped
terminated

Is the airdrop (distribution system) unfair?

The ideal way to distribute new money tokens would be to give everyone who wants to use them an equal amount at the time of creation. But who wants to use them? How would we know? And how would we know that one person would not fake being a hundred persons and take more than his fair share?

To determine such interest one must use an indicator that cannot easily be faked. Owning bitcoins fulfils that requirement. All the money tokens, (white)bytes and blackbytes, came into existence at the first moment of creation of the Byteball master record. They were being distributed in a dozen "airdrops", about one every full moon.

The distribution could be considered to be unfair, but unfair distribution of money exists in real life: some people are billionaires and some are beggars. And it is not at all unreasonable to assume that someone who owns many bitcoins -- 8 years into its lifecycle -- is more likely to contribute to the use and expansion of another crypto than someone who owns only a few, or none.

External links

• https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DJNQM2vXcAECClL.jpg @0xB10C's graph of airdrop amounts
• https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DJNQmBCWsAEMDOy.jpg and for blackbytes