Every person who seems to ask this question then follows up with 'I have this laptop, you see. It's got a PENTIUM. I'm set, right?'

That shows the average depth of understanding on offer. Fair enough as we all have to start somewhere.

I would never suggest mining to anyone even if they had the funds to get rolling properly. You're going to be outgunned. I figured out it was a pisspoor idea in 2013. It's gotten pissier ever since.

Total illegality could work rather nicely for them. Many people will ignore it. They will all be very straightforward and juicy targets. A world where Bitcoin thrives outside and continues to enter Russia ready to be grabbed wherever it can be found would be a lucrative one.

Where that might blow up in their faces is if it starts to be used widely in conventional finance. If Russia's a total no go in that scenario it might start to hurt their bottom line. You can be a thieving gangster but also want to do legit ish business with the rest of the world too.

If it were me I'd link to the white paper, the blockchain download and not a great deal else.

I wouldn't list any third party services. I would regard layers as someone else's problem to educate people on. I'd want to keep it as a place beyond whining and politics. I think they're doing a very nice job with it considering the potential it has for mess. I'd still want to strip it back further.

You are of course righter than right.

For some reason I totally discounted the most obvious angle - OP being scammed by a buyer. In that scenario the chances of salvaging any money are way, way lower unfortunately.

The combo of unauthorised business use, lack of KYC and having to deal with payment reversals makes for a properly toxic customer.

As long as the payments are confirmed in your wallet there will always be times when fees are borderline negligible so they can be moved. Even if fees are high, you can still send with a much lower fee and the chances are good it'll clear within a quiet period in a few days unless things are really intense, and they don't get that bonkers that often.

If my business was built on items of a low valuation that were sold for Bitcoin I would be wondering how much longer accepting raw BTC would be viable for.

Fees do of course waver all over the joint and we may get many more dead phases where low to no fees reign, but having business regularly stopping and starting because payments were failing or seizing up would get old rapidly.

It depends on what you're selling, whether you're in a hurry and whether you have suppliers to pay. If not then you're in better shape but fee spikes still turn off potential custom.

I knew this subject would cause the usual characters to reach into their Snoopy shorts, pull out their filthy, unwashed member and start yanking on it in public before their carers can bundle them away.

The FSB can do whatever the hell they like. Law does or doesn't apply to whomever their masters choose. Russia is basically a very large mechanism designed to transfer money into a small number of pockets at the top.

Yeah.

Right.

I really hope the rest of Russia isn't run along these lines because their whole crypto apocalypse has been a fucking joke from second one. Have they actually passed any laws at all yet? They've had several years to do it.

One day Putin is being put on the blockchain. The next day you're going to get a pint of radioactive tea courtesy of the FSB if have a scroll through Coindesk.

If this is some sort of 4D chess against crypto they've blown it miserably. Russia is a nothing when it could've been something. And no one else cares.

As long as you live in a country you will be taxed. That tax will be charged in fiat. It would be great if you pay it in crypto, and maybe third parties will pop up, but I can't see governments letting that go.

And also in many areas more than 50% of the population is dependent on government money, either public sector jobs or welfare of some sort. That money is always going to be paid out in fiat.

I could easily switch to pure crypto right now. I don't have any loans, overdrafts or direct debits of any note, nor am I paid into a bank account. All I'd need is places accepting it. But I would not leave behind a proper bank account and switch to a crypto debit card for the moments I needed that. None of them are competent or dependable enough.

I'll assume the man who introduced GPU mining, and was asked to hold off by Satoshi, had coins to burn. I seem to remember him saying in recent times that he had little left but he should be saying that of course.

I'd love to know what everyone beyond that thread who was around at the time thought of it.

Hmm. I should've read up on the definition of airborne. I didn't bother to delineate the difference between something flying at you out of someone's gob, and something suspended in the air and lingering. Both seem airborne to me.

I agree. There's a lot to learn yet. Those facts that emerge are what are going to decide our future for many years to come.

They don't have the power or right to issue fines. The most likely scenario is that OP will get his money back after a period of time that's too long for his liking and then will be told not to come back. The only circumstances where I can see money being kept is if law enforcement gets involved and whatever money can be linked to something nefarious.

Banks are under no obligation to tell you why they've given you the boot. Sometimes it against the law to tell people why.



Why would the police give a shit? At most it's a civil matter. When you handed your money to the bank you handed control of it to them too. Whatever the outcome is it's going to run to their timing.

I'll bet that they thought they were ever so clever introducing that and this was the first step in proving that they were making a superior Bitcoin. Then good old unintended consequences took hold and never let go because they couldn't look past the next few weeks and were in a hurry to get one over on the supposed dinosaur they were leaving behind.

Ego, desperation and hubris pushed sense and foresight to the side.

That's the perfect encapsulation of Bitcoin's development vs most others.

Aye.

OP appears to have been born shorting. That's a fine strategy until it's not. A real trader flips when the tea leaves are broadcasting it and never looks back. The rest go down with the position they've married.

It's a dollar liability not a Bitcoin liability? Users paid in with dollars so I assume they're paid out in dollars. Grayscale may decide to pull it if they have an offer they can't refuse or decide the BTC can be retasked for more lucrative ends. No idea what the small print is but you're buying into an offshoot of property that remains theirs I presume.

I'm pretty sure the British government have stated that austerity has been ruled out. We've had ten years of it already and it hasn't really cheered anyone up. There is talk of tax hikes, but more the levelling up of existing inequalities such as self employed people paying less than the employed. No doubt that may change.

Many politicians are urging no more burden on the public so perhaps they're going to concentrate on back room fiddling.

As you say it's the potential of a second wave that's the decider. I could see things moving on adequately enough with this one wallop. If it proves to be only the opening round then there are going to be many more alarming choices to make and a lot of unprecedented territory will be crossed.

If there's to be a coin backed ETF where would the new player get the coins from? I assume Grayscale will be the first to offer it if the possibility arises. Not sure how it would work with existing GBTC shareholders but they'd probably be happy to convert.

The winkies will be ready too. To be well placed for something like that you had to be in place long before it's ever approved. It'll be fun to watch a scramble but I'm not sure how successful it would be.



But almost all of that belongs to other people. I dunno what GBTC's terms are but I assume you only ever own shares they issue, not the BTC. They may reserve the right to rescind your shares and refund in dollars.

I didn't notice this the first time around. This points to OP's fundamental lack of understanding of the whole thing, and Satoshi. You don't invent Bitcoin so a few years down the line you get invited to go and bake cakes on TV. 

One of the beauties of shitforks is that we can see the effect of their pisspoor tweaks. The emergency difficulty adjustment thing has massively warped Bcash at times and mining on it is basically a strategy game these days, if anyone can be bothered at all.

As ever there's a balance to be found and Bitcoin errs on the side of caution and sustainability. The way it's set up can foster short term grind sometimes but at least it remains dependable.