I found this when I was researching for a project I'm brainstorming, put it on my todo list. Haven't looked at it but here's the links:

http://api.bitcoincharts.com/v1/csv/

Here's where I found it: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16143266/get-bitcoin-historical-data

I don't know if it has resolution sufficient for your needs but I hope so.

Best of luck with your analysis!

Best regards,
Ben

Here is a key thing that I think that some people are misunderstanding about how Merit/sMerit works:

When you give sMerit, you do not lose any of your Merit.  Keeping sMerit does not increase your Merit balance and sending it does not decrease your Merit balance.

I have seen more than a few instances of people giving each other sMerit for good posts on a thread.  Probably, some of these were mutual sMeriting.  As in, "I'll send XXX a sMerit because they had a good post", followed by XXX, "I'll send YYY back a sMerit to thank them for sending me one".  So if you think about it in that way, you could potentially benefit from rewarding someone for a good post because they might thank you by returning the favor.

I see that there's been lots of complaints about the merit system but it's really a new change and I think it takes time to see how it works in practice for longer than just the initial deployment/adjustment period.

This is a great idea to help people and businesses find banking services that won't get closed down as soon as they start doing too many crypto/fiat conversions.  It's one of the most important considerations for anyone, especially businesses, in this field.  For my organization, I opened multiple accounts with banks after having a full discussion of cryptocurrency because we cannot afford to be without banking services for any length of time.

From my conversations with bankers, the biggest issue doesn't seem to be that they are taking a hostile attitude because they see crypto as a threat (though I'm sure there's some of that).  For most, it seems to be that the crypto/fiat transactions are often tagged as suspicious and therefore they have to go through their anti-money laundering process repeatedly.  For small banks, this is often a manual process because the volume of their SAR (suspicious activity report) transactions is low.  And for larger banks, it's a very small amount of their business, so it's easier for them to "just say no".

One of the projects I'm working on is one that will lead to (provided the required survey of the potential membership field [crypto industry] supports it) the chartering of "Cryptocurrency Federal Credit Union", which will be a FCU that specializes in personal and business banking for those that deal extensively in crypto.  The great thing about credit unions is that they are member-owned, which I believe is a better model for the cryptocurrency ecosystem and more reflective of the "be your own bank", decentralized view that many of us believe in.  Incidentally, the bankers I spoke with about this project thought it was a great idea, even though they didn't know much about crypto.

Until we do our day to day purchases in Bitcoin or with other crypto assets, reliable fiat/crypto conversion is needed, which is what this enable.  Once it is operating, it will also make it easier for new/existing crypto businesses because we FCUs can partner in certain ways with those businesses to greatly reduce their regulatory burden re: money services business registration in the many states it is now required in.

Best of luck with your project and I will contribute information I have on financial institutions as I come across them.

Best regards,
Ben

Hi All,

I am responding in here to a topic that was started in the Ivory Tower because I don't yet have the rank to post in there, but it is a topic that is interesting to me and that I think I have some meaningful contributions I could make.  If this is not allowed, please let me know and I won't do it again - but I looked and didn't see any rule against it as far as I can tell.

The in there has the same subject, here's the link: Charity Projects with Crypto


I wanted to let you know that I've been working on something along these lines in my organization as one of the projects that we're incubating and launching, and explain a little bit about where we're at.  My organization is just getting off the ground, but this is one of the first projects we're going to launch.

The project has a working name of "Bitcoin for Good".  The goal of the project is two-fold: first, to raise funds for charities, and second, to increase adoption of Bitcoin in the non-profit organization market segment.  I believe that crypto assets are a particularly well suited in the charity space for donations because many charities are international in nature and Bitcoin and other cryptos transcend national boundaries.  In addition, organizations that have operations around the world, or that respond in disaster relief contexts, could really benefit from Bitcoin's ability to be transferred quickly anywhere on the planet.  So these are two powerful features that would encourage adoption of cryptocurrency by charities.

The essence of the project is to provide an "Amazon Smile" like experience for donors.  For those that aren't familiar with Amazon's charity effort, Amazon Smile is a program that allows Amazon.com shoppers to opt-in to any charity of their choosing (using the IRS master file in the U.S. and I believe similar registries in Canada and Europe).  Amazon then donates 0.5% of the shopper's purchases to that charity.  The charity does not need to register in advance with Amazon, all they need is 501(c)(3) status and to be listed on GuideStar, which is a repository for charity information.  They've given tens of millions to charities through this seemingly small 0.5%.  So, our project, Bitcoin for Good would do the same, only it would make the payments to charities in Bitcoin.  The project will distribute paper wallets that contain the contributions.  We're going to do it in a secure way (still thinking about how to best accomplish this, probably two mailings to separate the public and private keys), of course.  But the overall benefit to the crypto ecosystem is gaining adoption in a segment of the economy that has some unique benefits to be gained from crypto use.  The average person on the street never, or hardly ever, has a need to send money half way around the world.  But charities do it every day, and it can be difficult to accomplish from a logistical perspective, especially during times of crisis.  Cryptocurrency is, in my view, a tailor-made solution for that problem.  Currently, some charities literally stage cash in strategic locations around the world which is very expensive to store and protect.  This could reduce the need to do that while actually making response times faster.  Once we have this project implemented we will also be producing integrations for various shopping cart platforms and reaching out to large Internet retailers.  I know that some retailers would be very inclined to implement a program like this if it was "turnkey" for them.  They don't have the resources that Amazon does so it's difficult for them to enable customer-directed giving in the same form, so that's where Bitcoin for Good can be a benefit.

We have some other ideas for disaster relief using cryptocurrency but this is the first project in our incubator program.  The other ones are more complicated, but I believe that in a heavy disaster scenario the ability to distribute mass amounts of cryptocurrency to individuals has huge potential.  In areas that suffer huge natural disasters, one of the top priorities today is to restore cell service.  After the hurricanes last summer in the Caribbean, many areas remained without electricity (many still are, in fact), but wireless service was restored quickly.  In areas where banking infrastructure is down for weeks, cryptocurrency can be a perfect solution allowing people to be able to purchase what they need to repair their homes / eat / etc.  The current FEMA solution of distributing prepaid debit cards has a big drawback when disasters have destroyed POS terminals and/or landline service isn't working (as many of those terminals still use landline or non-wireless internet).  But moving to cryptocurrency transactions, that can be bought and sold from each other through smartphones, is a great way to help people get what they need to begin the process of recovering from a disaster.  I think your idea to reward donors with some type of coin that they could redeem with partners is a great idea, it's an extra incentive for donating, and I know many retail/online partners that would offer benefits in exchange for publicity about their participation in the program (corporate responsibility).

Also, to your point about crypto people being charitable, I believe that there's many that have been very generous which is a really great thing about this field.  Not everyone can give like the Pineapple Fund did, for example, but there are certainly people that come together to donate to causes or organizations they believe in which is outstanding.  More of those stories will be highlighted and featured to counter the "Bitcoin is used to commit crimes" BS.  The spreading of FUD in that way by the legacy interests won't stop Bitcoin and other crypto assets, but positive stories can only help counter that as well as grab people's interest enough to help adoption.  That's what I'm working to do -- projects that benefit the whole field (and by extension, civilization as a whole).

Best regards,
Ben

I think the merit system should be kept even though it does make it harder to "rank up".  I believe that was part of the reason it was put in place.  This forum does get quite crowded with poor quality posts, and to the extent that those posts are made solely to rank up, the merit system will help alleviate that problem.  I view that as a positive as there are some really good discussions on here and it will be easier to find them without all the garbage posts.

Over some period of time, as long as people keep rewarding good posts with merit, the kinks should work themselves out.  The initial distribution would have had problems no matter how it was done, there's an adjustment period of any change of this nature.  I just think that the moderators and management should keep an eye on how it's being used over time, and make adjustments if needed.

It looks like they're doing that, when my organization profile, BTRIC, bought the copper membership it was so it could post images and have a signature.  When the merit system came into place, the link part of the signature stopped working but it seems to be enabled again.

One thing that I learned about BCT is that I should have made an account long ago.  I've been dabbling in crypto here and there for years and a long-time lurker of this board, well before I made an account.  I'm sure there are many others that did the same.  So when I made the account for BTRIC I did it pretty much as soon as I formed the organization.

Best regards,
Ben

There are certainly ways to accomplish this by using non-U.S. entities if the entity itself could be considered accredited pursuant to the Investment Company Act but yet within one of the exemptions.  Would the SEC be triggered?  If it was clear that the purpose of this was to circumvent U.S. law, probably eventually they'd not take a favorable view of that.

However, there are also ways to accomplish this without foreign entities.  Take a look at the extensive exceptions granted to 501(c)(3) organizations pursuant to the Philanthropy Protection Act of 1995.  This is the law, and therefore is NOT circumventing the law.

My organization is structured as a 501(c)(3) because we are focused on incubation/startup accelerator for projects in their early phases, making them good quality ICO/ITO and/or other types of investment offerings when they are divested from BTRIC as separate businesses.  Donors are rewarded for their support of projects, but that reward will vary based on the legal jurisdiction that the project launches as a separate business in.  None of this is an investment.  When the business launches as a for-profit, it will then have investors, but while it's being incubated, instead it has donors.  It's been difficult to communicate the message that, yes, a non-profit economic development business can indeed launch businesses that are separate entities, and at that time they can take on investors as well as (within the legal bounds of the jurisdiction the business is formed in) reward donors.  But I'm working on spreading that message to build support for what we're going to be doing.

Many people aren't aware that non-profit organizations can launch and even be the sole shareholder of for-profits, but it's an excellent hybrid structure to take in certain cases.  For example, the Red Cross is a charity, but the part of their organization that actually sells the blood products that it makes is a separate for-profit business, wholly owned, with all profits going back to the charity as a contribution.

My organization is going to do other things that benefit the whole ecosystem.  One of those things is to produce model structural documents that allow businesses to create the best structure that is most favorable for investment.  Those documents will be public, open source, and able to be used by anyone.

Best regards,
Ben

(disclaimer: none of this is legal/investment/tax/etc advice, it's just my contribution to this discussion.  get your own lawyer/accountant/etc for professional guidance.) I should put that in my signature.

I am working on this as part of my organization.  Standards in certain areas are greatly needed both to screen obvious frauds as well as a demonstration to regulators that industry is engaging in self-regulation.  That, to me, was a key takeaway from the recent SEC/CFTC testimony.  Self-regulation, when it can be done, often can both reduce the urgency of regulators seeking to impose their rules, as well as provide them a good framework that they are often inclined to adopt (while still meeting the statutory mandate of their agencies).  I am reaching out to major crypto projects/businesses/organizations to try to build support for this work.

I have experience in design of certification standards though obviously not for ICO/ITO type certifications.  However, it is needed and a critical component, as I see it, of putting in place voluntary measures that could be widely adopted, even expected, for a given offering to attract serious attention.  A two-tiered approach, sort of a pre-certification and then a full certification could be done as well, as you indicate would potentially be desirable for use on BCT.

In order for any certification standard to be credible, it needs to be completely open and documented in its complete assessment methodology.  There are some materials that people have published about how they evaluate ICO/ITOs that provide a good starting point, but most standards I've been involved with typically are more intricate than the general outlines I've seen from others in various places.  Which of course makes sense because they're just offering their personal methodologies, not a true certification standard that could be applied widely.  I'm also looking at rating criteria that are used for traditional investments as some of that is clearly applicable to the crypto asset class.

A couple of other factors that should be considered in standards criteria is that the evolution of the standard should be open to all stakeholders to participate in (think an IETF type process as a goal to eventually adopt once you have enough interest), needs to be agile enough to adapt to changing needs but not so dynamic that it's changing too often to have a clear meaning, and, the people/entities that are certifying compliance with the standard should not have any actual or perceived conflict of interest with any project they are evaluating.  Other standards I've been involved in revising often operate  by having a peer-review component of draft assessment documents.

Finally, the standards I've worked with typically take months to years to go from start to finish in terms of a single assessment.  However, in my view much of that was needless and the actual work was done pretty quickly.  Obviously, with ratings of ICO/ITO you'd have to significantly shrink that timeframe to days (for a pre-assessment / basic tier) to a few weeks (for a full assessment/certification).  Those standards were originally developed in a pre-Internet world, so the standards we'd build for crypto/ICO/token/crypto business (and in my view these all need to be done via some different criteria as each has some key differences but also many similarities such as security).

Best regards,
Ben

I agree completely that the current system is unsustainable and our debt and deficits will continue to grow to levels well beyond anything that could be considered prudent in any way.  Both Republicans and Democrats are to blame for the situation, they both want their pet funding priorities to be made, and especially this nonsense about "dollar for dollar, military spending has to be matched with non-military spending".  What?  What if there's no need to spend in one or the other area?  It's just madness.

I believe the US will print until no one will take our paper anymore.  Hyperinflation will occur though it will be masked for a while due to the way the official statistics are calculated through extremely creative accounting.

But I think the inevitable end is a default.  They will kick the can as long as they can to avoid it, but at some point there will be no one to buy Treasury bonds (besides the Fed backstop but the bank shareholders of the reserve banks will not allow that to go on endlessly).  At that point, when no one will take our worthless paper, we will default.

And, sadly, I believe at that time, we will go to war.  History is rife with examples of war being the "collection agent of last resort", and some of our largest creditors have some pretty sophisticated militaries.  Of course, none of them spend anywhere near the amount of money that we do for "defense", but anyone that has ever looked at the racket that is defense contracting knows it's at least 2/3 slush.  Projects purposefully run over budget, over time, because the contractors know that once the government is in XXX billion, they're going to approve an extension, an increase.  Insufficient competition in the defense industry means that a few giants can charge pretty much whatever they want.

Incidentally, it's been very interesting to see SpaceX come about and give Boeing and Lockheed a run for their money.  I believe I saw that they can operate their launches at about 30% of the price of Boeing/Lockheed, plus their engines are made in the USA, unlike the largest lift on the Delta rockets which I believe are Russian made.

Cryptocurrency is a great alternative to U.S. dollars, and it will increase in its utility the coming years as fiat currencies are exposed, country by country, as the shams that they are.  I am of the opinion that the end-game of the U.S. dollar is essentially decided by those that pull the strings, the question is, how long will the rest of the world buy our shitcoin aka US Treasury bonds?  I think some in government see the control that banks have had over not just us, but also the government itself, and want to break free of those tethers (pardon the pun).  I think crypto assets can establish a parallel economy that eventually, just possibly, the government itself will switch over to.

President Andrew Jackson had the right idea in opposing private central banks.  Even in a pre-crypto era, the concept of a private bank having control over the monetary policy of a country makes no sense to me.  The only way it makes sense is from the perspective of the bank.  I can see why they'd be all for the idea of putting a nation deep into debt.  Perhaps a government-run bank makes sense, but a private bank that has the power to set interbank lending rates and rulemaking authority?  Those banksters back in ~1910 that penned the Federal Reserve Act really pulled off a coup!  I bet they thought it'd never be passed into law, or maybe with substantial watering down it might have.  Boy they sure made out on that.

Best regards,
Ben

I think that there is wide variation between projects/services in how seriously they consider security issues and code vulnerabilities.  It is also difficult to know for sure which is a A+ project and which is an F, especially when they first launch.  Even Amazon faced this problem when it was new.  Some people didn't trust online commerce at all, it had to earn the trust of its customers.

With crypto assets, the situation is worse in some ways because the stakes are potentially much higher.  A crypto exchange is essentially a bank if it has custodial control over funds.  So it needs to have bank-level security.  But a new exchange just launching might have the very best security practices in place, but it will have to earn over the trust of its customers.  But the reality is that a new exchange launching needs enough customers in order to stay in business, so the difficulty can be real in earning enough customers as an unproven entity.  Decentralized exchanges provide a good answer, but only to the extent that they are implemented and operated in a secure manner.  But decentralized exchanges will not end the need for fiat/crypto gateways, at least for the time being.  Some actual standards that are established, maintained as technology evolves, and are complied with by these businesses could help to at least set a baseline in these areas.  I'm not saying they should be "mandated" (though regulators may have a different view of that), but rather, that the market should favor those that choose to implement them.  Voluntary opt-in but a market expectation that any good operator does put these measures in place.

Of course, a conservative approach would be to not use any service other than those that you've been using and had no problems with.  Online trading of stocks took a while to be embraced by the masses.  Many people stuck to their brokers, with their high fees, for a long time because they either didn't want to learn the technology or because of stories they'd heard about fraud, weak security, and/or website functionality/UX issues.  Early stock trading websites weren't very fun to use, they were often adapted from internal systems that brokers used.


The "wild west" is a great approach to take in exploring ideas.  Some of the altcoins that aren't simple clones have some very interesting ideas that could eventually be more widely implemented in other, larger cryptos eventually.  Some of the ideas won't shake out, however.

But even altcoins are mostly "live", representing real money.  Of course anyone that gets involved with them knows that there is a chance the value could go to zero, but when you are dealing with actual funds, you have to be a little less "wild west".  There is a need for structured testing in testnets before you roll out something to your real blockchain that could end up destroying peoples money.  The best currencies do this.  Many of them, however, can't always afford the infrastructure to run a separate testnet.  I'm hoping to help some of the good ones with some infrastructure.

Also regarding the "wild west", regulations will be happening.  They already are in some legal jurisdictions.  My view is that, as a community--really an industry--that it is far better to get out in front of regulations with common-sense, reasonable standards that are adopted as industry best-practices.  Regulators are inclined to work with their "constituents" if they are legitimately dealing, as an industry, with the problems.  I don't think crypto assets will be banned in any major country (and of course I understand the argument that they "can't" be banned due to their nature, which is true, but that doesn't mean that regulators don't ban something on paper) because some countries are openly embracing Bitcoin and seem to be becoming aware of the wider implications of moving to decentralized systems.  The comment yesterday from the Prime Minister of India was really nice to see, for example.

Another area that needs a close look is the way that KYC is conducted in ICO/ITO offerings.  In my view, the risk of giving out your information to some project on the Internet is just as high, if not higher, than the risk of losing funds from the venture.  Identities can be stolen, either by a hack or by malicious ICO projects.  This is something that the industry could establish a decentralized solution that would balance the legal requirements with practical requirements of the crypto model.  These rules were written for banks, and while there is some overlap, there is also a different set of considerations that need to be taken into account when dealing with decentralized entities.


Thank you very much.  I hope it does become the standard.


I agree that consumers share in the responsibility to make sure the places they do business with are trustworthy.  At the same time, there needs to be a pathway for new businesses to be able to enter the market and be able to prove that they, too, are able to be trusted.  I guess a "toe in the water" approach, trying a new business slowly, is one way to approach that.  Standards that are voluntary but that become "expected" is another approach.

As the industry expands, these things will be put in place, either by the industry or by the regulators.  U.S. securities markets are "self-regulated" with entities like the SEC providing oversight to "self-regulatory organizations" such as FINRA.  That could be a good model that balances the unique aspects of crypto assets with the legal requirements.

In any event, it's good to be able to have this conversation.  It's good to know that others are also thinking about these factors.

Best regards,
Ben

I wholeheartedly agree with you.  I couldn't believe that there was apparently a client-side JavaScript exploit on that Bitgrail exchange, where that was the only check it had to verifying an accounts balance!?!  Seriously, code that runs in someone's web browser, wtf?  That type of foolishness wouldn't make the cut for a web game, to say nothing of financial transactions of real value.

In my view, best-practices standards are needed for security and code audits.  There are many attempts at this out there, it needs to be pulled together, structured and maintained like RFC or BIP standards are, and proliferated through the field.  Especially considering we are dealing with a rapidly evolving technology, these standards need to be maintained on an ongoing basis.  I know the steps I take to lock down a server today in 2018 are different in quite a few ways than they were in 2014, for example.

My organization is going to be looking at this issue because it's a real problem that needs some coordinated focus.  We're conducting our launch fundraiser right now with an Ethereum ERC20 token, but I have real concerns with the stability of that platform moving forward.  A deep dive is in order with some consultations with the gurus before I make any long-term decision I'll live to regret on platforms.  In some ways it's a shame, the Ethereum platform does seem good "on paper", but has some real flaws that need to be met before I would place the kind of trust in it that you do to a financial institution.

If a bank lost $500M in a year, people would be in jail!  (Well, maybe not here in the U.S., but only because the banks own our government [for now]).  But who would bank with a company that was so careless with funds it has custodial control over?

I might sound ranty back, but it's only because it's so outrageous.

Best regards,
Ben

Yes, I have it on my organization profile.  It works well for including images in posts.

Best regards,
Ben

Hi grue, thank you very much for the great script!

Best regards,
Ben

Hey there! Think about if you experimented with any other cryptocurrencies back at the time. Many were forked from the Bitcoin core code. Make a backup copy of the WALLET.DAT that you do not load on any software, just work from a copy of the file for your experimenting.  If the wallet file is from a fork (another kind of cryptocurrency) it's impossible to know for sure that it won't end up getting corrupted.  Of course, do not share the private key or the wallet file with anyone or any website.

Then, as others have suggested, you can try searching the transaction ID and/or the public address on block explorers.  Make sure it's the public address.  Guard your private key just as you would a combination to a bank vault, because that's essentially what it is.

Best of luck with your found wallet!  If you are able to access a wallet with a balance, even if it's an altcoin, we can help guide you to an exchange so that you are able to exchange the balance for your fiat currency, or even better, convert it to Bitcoin.

Best regards,
Ben

Oh gotcha, I thought they might have the key, I just sent them this message:


I see a post on the Bitcoin Foundation website about the fund as well as a video.  Maybe they have the key?  I can reach out to them if it would help.

Hi Cryddit,

I will reach out to the ALS Foundation today and make sure they are aware of their BTC.  I do not have any knowledge of how this was set up but if they have trouble I will get a contact person name/number and send it to you by PM?

Best regards,
Ben

I agree, the Copper Membership is a good deal to give a newbie account the ability to post images in the thread.  That's the approach I took with my announcement.

Best of luck with your project!

Best regards,
Ben

Do you know if there's a more recent version of the Lightning Network white paper?  The latest I've found is version 0.5.9.2 dated January 14, 2016.

Thanks,
Ben

I agree.  Currently, Ethereum is the go-to choice for deploying a token/smart contract to a public and widely distributed blockchain.  Hyperledger's technology is built for enterprise, though some of it could be adapted to a crypto use case (and possibly has been, not completely sure tbh).

My organization BTRIC has initiated contact with the Hyperledger Project and hopefully we will be a part of that soon.  The way I see it, all of the different projects offer the opportunity for innovation that can benefit the entire field.  We are also currently conducting a crowdsale with Ethereum ERC20 tokens, because that's the current de-facto standard.  But we are closely examining the technologies before deciding on a long-term platform for our currency or token.  There are some very real concerns I have about the stability of the Ethereum blockchain.  I'd like to examine some alternatives as well as get input from experts.

You may also want to look into some other novel blockchain projects, such as Stellar, Cardano, and even Ripple. People knock Ripple because it's implemented as centralized (at least right now), but the code could be forked anytime and made into a more distributed system. It's a good idea to keep abreast of the different adaptations of distributed ledger technology.

Oh, and don't forget Omni. If you're familiar with Bitcoin it will probably be the easiest for you to understand Omni because as I understand it, it's a fork that has been enhanced with additional features for their use cases.

Best of luck with your blockchain education!

Best regards,
Ben

This is a side effect of poor/scam/fraud ICO/ITOs.

It needs to be remedied -- this is the single biggest thing I hear when I talk to people who follow the crypto market from "the other side" (investment banking community).

And I have to agree with them, there's too much low-quality stuff out there.

We will fix this problem, though.

Best regards,
Ben

One of the things that BTRIC, my non-profit economic development organization, is working on is exactly this.  A standardized methodology to evaluate and score ICO/ITOs, then evolving to score other entities such as exchanges (security audit frameworks, etc.)  There are some good approaches from the community on various scoring factors but not much in terms of breaking down the nuts and bolts of each scoring component.

We will use this internally to incubate projects that score very well (though we'd rather have another impartial certifying body score our projects, we do not want a conflict of interest), and the standard will be public, open to input and participation from the community, and revised as best practices evolve.

In the face of the coming regulation, which we can't stop, and backlash, such as the Facebook advertising ban (and likely more), we need to work as a community -- and industry -- to develop standards before we get killed with overbearing regulations.  We either come up with credible, well-defined, and transparent (open source) standards, or the regulators will impose standards we will have to live with.

Anyone interested in this project please contact me, I'm looking to get it underway in February.  Feel free to PM or contact me on Telegram/email/etc, use the contacts for BTRIC in my signature.

Best regards,
Ben