Traders won't care, but I'm sure exchanges run some kind of taint analysis on all coins they keep. They decide whether the coins are tainted or not, and can deny you their service on those grounds.

The good thing about this is that their analysis is mostly sophisticated enough to recognize that you just happened to find dirty coins on your hands, meaning you're very unlikely to get banned unless you're actually doing something shady. The bad thing is that they also have a very good idea of where your money is coming from and what you're doing with it, so you actually have very little privacy if you're using such a service.

If you're using Bitcoin P2P, which is how it was originally intended to be used, it can't be "censored".

The correlation between the two is about to approach an all-time high, so it wouldn't surprise me if Bitcoin followed suit after a crash. I'm not sure about it being hit twice as hard though, considering it recovered way faster when COVID first hit.

Either way, I don't think it's going to be a cause of concern since there aren't really any solid indicators that it'll stay down when it falls. All it's going to be is another fire sale, really.

It's built directly on the Lightning Network:


The above announcement (from March though lol) also has way more details about how it works, so everyone who's curious should give it a read.

They don't necessarily save your email, but they do keep logs.

Anyway, I have personally used it and had some old emails show up along with specific leaks; I can anecdotally say it's legit. It's a popular and reputable service and I would say it's reasonably safe to trust. Either way, they can't really do much with just your email anyway, which is all they require, and you can always hide your IP using tor, VPNs, etc..

I've always felt like the two aren't comparable. I mean, honestly, how many people actually use Bitcoin just because it's digital? Its biggest selling point has always been its decentralization -- I'm sure a lot of the average users don't really care about the concept, but it's what allows us to spend any way we like, or make even more money through price fluctuations. This is where Bitcoin's strength lies, and I don't think digital currencies can even begin to compete with it in this area.

I'm sure digital currencies will be used more frequently barring monumental fiat collapse, but that doesn't mean they're better, just that Bitcoin is typically used on other things.

If they're picking a random winner from the retweets, there's really no way to tell because this is a legitimate marketing tactic. New businesses do campaigns like this all the time instead of actually spending on advertisements. Whether or not they actually give away the reward is totally dependent on the business itself, but these are usually 100% safe apart from wasting your and your friends' time.


Some legitimate airdrops actually do require KYC though, so that's not necessarily a red flag. I would say they're never worth it considering what strangers could do with your information, but it's ultimately up to the person if they feel the reward is worth the risk.

Pretty much every analytic service is independent, and are mostly worthless and shouldn't worry you -- exchanges and most people wouldn't care about their findings.

Large firms like Chainanalysis and Coinbase have their own analytics and being tagged by them could actually carry consequences, but their methods aren't public. We can only reasonably assume that they follow movement, and are probably a lot more sophisticated (they can probably reasonably guess when coins change hands, etc.) than tools available for the public.

Did the court even explicitly mention private key ownership? The gist doesn't seem to revolve around it:


I'd also like to mention that it does create precedent, but probably only for forks. If "not your keys not your coins" is to be made generally applicable, exchanges would be laughing their way to the bank because they hold everyone's keys, and would therefore be the rightful owners of all the coins entrusted with them.

Excellent breakdown.


They don't have specific rules for just airdrops, but I would expect them to treat it the same way as forked coins. The forked coin scenario is probably just a lot more common, because as squatter has said, most random airdrops have little to no value anyway.

Assuming you live in the US, you should have paid taxes for them (as income) when you received them. You don't pay capital gains for them until you sell or convert.


You can file for a loss, so not necessarily.

Maybe they were talking theoreticals? Like, they're dumbing it down because most people are only familiar with Bitcoin and nothing else. It also seems like the writer is partial towards PoS, but that might just be because it's what the page is about. Someone could probably reach out to his Twitter if they care enough (lol).


Honestly, I don't think there's enough to write about in crypto to justify their (crypto-specific media outlets) existence. This is part of the reason why they overblow the simplest stuff and make stories out of people briefly mentioning the subject. I could see some of the misinformation being deliberate just to grab some kind of attention.

It's legit, but you're actually applying for a loan with collateral unlike other options that function more like a traditional debit card. I don't think it's for everyone, but if it works for you, then you're probably going to like it because there's not a lot of red tape involved.


I actually agree. They're very inconvenient in jusrisdictions where they're heavily regulated.

It seems like they're assuming that people who know how to protect their coins don't need/want to use hardware wallets. It's quite a huge leap, yeah.


It doesn't seem to show up on Google or Bing even if you search for it specifically (check-ledger bitcoin), so maybe a phishing email?

You can also donate Bitcoin directly to Hong Kong Free Press:

https://support.hongkongfp.com/

It's at the very bottom of the donation options.

This still wouldn't be effective if said UBI doesn't lift people out of poverty though. If people only have just enough to put food on the table and not much else, they're still going to need work, and all the power will remain with employers all the same. That's why I think it has to be enough to lift people above the poverty line.

You could maybe get away with a smaller amount -- I mean, something has to be better than nothing, right, especially for the poorest of the poor. It would at least solve the issue of hunger, but the issues you outlined, not as much. If the problem is companies not hiring to protect their bottom line, then it might be easier to address that with legislation over actually implementing UBI. They're shit out of luck either way anyway; you either cripple them with massive taxes to fund UBI, or you force them to spend more on labor.

Shouldn't the answer to this simply be enough money to lift the poorest of the poor out of the poverty line? I mean, that's kind of the point, right? It depends per country, but each should have their own metric. This should be what's ideal, at least.


I don't think there's really a sweet spot as far as this is concerned. It simply depends on how it's implemented and how well it's managed.


By definition, everyone should qualify under UBI. If the goal is simply to provide money for the poor, then all we need to do is look into expanding existing social services like unemployment benefits, etc. True UBI is meant to treat everyone equally, nothing less.


I don't think there's a real solution to this. Power can be used and abused, and that's really all there is to it. You can probably go after centralization, but that also means less organization, and an even smaller chance for this to work.

In an ideal world, everyone should be guaranteed at least a comfortable standard of living. UBI can provide that, which is why I like the idea. The devil is in the details, however, and I'm not entirely sure how possible it is for this to be implemented.

I think it essentially boils down to: Do you trust Blockstream?

If yes, then they do have a good 2FA thing going, which should theoretically make it harder for your funds to be stolen:


Do note that this doesn't necessarily mean they can steal your funds, but they may be able to delay their release. I've seen some people who don't like it for this reason. Their UX is also better than Electrum's from what I've seen.

But yeah if you don't want to deal with all that, you can't really go wrong with Electrum.

Is it cheaper? I mean I guess that doesn't really matter, but I thought it was more to ride this trend:



You underestimate how many people use the internet. This may be old news for us, but a new user could easily see it as an opportunity. Look at it this way: I'm sure many, if not all of us, know a handful of people who believe everything on the internet is real -- these same people are the prime targets.

While this is true, most of the concerns regarding personal custodial solutions don't really have much to do with individual accounts being hacked. The most glaring problems with them, IMO, are that the exchange itself could be hacked (which has happened a lot of times, albeit to much lesser exchanges), and that they could lock you out of your account of their own discretion (regardless of whether it's justified or not). I don't hear too much about individual accounts being compromised, probably precisely because of the reason you stated, as well as two-factor authentication systems, etc. that have been commonplace for a while now.

I also get what you're trying to say, but are there any data to suggest that OTC markets are lacking in liquidity?

Thanks for pointing this out! I'm guessing people couldn't be assed to verify because it's in video format lol.

Either way, I doubt intelligence agencies know who Satoshi is. There shouldn't be any reason for them to look into his identity considering he can't really control Bitcoin, and he was never a controversial figure anyway. He also disappeared before Bitcoin was little more than an experimental currency.