HONG KONG (Project Syndicate) —
...
There is no telling how far this trend will go. Technically, the supply of cryptocurrencies is infinite: bitcoin is capped at 21 million units, but this can be increased if a majority of “miners” (who add transaction records to the public ledger) agree.
...
Last year’s IMF report indicated that cryptocurrencies have already been used to circumvent exchange and capital controls in China, Cyprus, Greece, and Venezuela. For countries subject to political uncertainty or social unrest, cryptocurrencies offer an attractive mechanism of capital flight, exacerbating the difficulties of maintaining domestic financial stability.
Who writes some of this junk? Miners can't agree to change the limit - sure they can fork the coin, but who is going to follow a coin that is (a) centralized to the miners and (b) subject to the whim of miners inflating value away. They might as well trust a central bank. As far as "maintaining domestic financial stability" - how about following a sound money policy instead of playing games with it? Duh. |
|
|
|
I agree with what you said. I wanted to make sure he was being precise in what he said as that could help to eliminate the possibilities where the error was made. ;-) I will be interested to see if he returns. If your friend received that address from "his IR exchange in Australia", one would think it would be one of their addresses. It doesn't make any sense that IR would be providing anyone an address for a different service such as Kraken.
I suspect that he means: "My friend looked at his transaction history on IR to see where the bitcoins were sent to." Not: "My friend got an address from IR and then used that address to send the bitcoins to me." When you asked "Where did your friend obtain the 1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m address", I think the OP didn't realize that you meant: "How did your friend choose an address to send the bitcoins to?" And instead accidentally thought that you meant: "How did you determine that the address 1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m was the one you had used?" If so, have you contacted IR support to see if it is one of their own addresses? Of course, if he didn't really "receive it" from "his IR exchange" and instead used an address that he had previously sent bitcoin to from IR in error he would probably know who that was based on his transaction history at IR who that address belonged to.
These are possibilities, but I suspect that the more likely scenario is a mis-communiation between yourself and OP. As DannyHamilton said above, something got messed up in one of the listed steps. It seems prudent to verify that the address "1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m" actually was provided by IR *or* whether it was something your friend had sent to previously, *or* if that address was changed by malware on either of your machines.
Yes. The important question that ONLY the OP and his friend can answer is: "What was communicated when you were getting ready to send the transaction, and where did that information come from?" If it was provided by IR, why are they providing addresses for different services?
I doubt that they are. |
|
|
|
I reckon this is only the beginning. We may see more mining pools and miners pulling out from their support of the New York Agreement. To put it candidly, what gain does another hard fork present and is the risk worth the reward?
More transaction capacity per block. The real question is not, if a hard fork is worth the reward, but rather, which chain gets the desired BTC ticker symbol at the exchanges. Your fear of hard forks is unsubstantiated in my opinion, because smaller coins like Monero hard fork all the time and it works fine, if the majority of the hashrate supports the forked chain. Hard forks in general are problematic because they establish precedent that for a "good reason"(tm) as determined by someone else changes to the root protocol can be made at whim. Don't like the fact that someone made a coding error? Roll it back and fork the coin. "Distribution" isn't "fair"? Fine, we'll change the rules to redistribute coins. Hard forks should be few and far between (if ever) because they are both poor precedent, seem to make a small group a single point of failure (e.g. a few individuals in control of mining pools) and can be dangerous to the stability of the coin. Like TCP/IP, DNS etc, changes are extremely rare, rolled out with plenty of warning and extremely well tested. The 2X portion of Segwit2X is even more problematic due to the speed of the rollout and testing issues. |
|
|
|
To Ranochigo - IR is 'Independent Reserve', an exchange in Australia.
To CR1776 - My friend received this from his IR exchange in Australia.
...
If your friend received that address from "his IR exchange in Australia", one would think it would be one of their addresses. It doesn't make any sense that IR would be providing anyone an address for a different service such as Kraken. If so, have you contacted IR support to see if it is one of their own addresses? Of course, if he didn't really "receive it" from "his IR exchange" and instead used an address that he had previously sent bitcoin to from IR in error he would probably know who that was based on his transaction history at IR who that address belonged to. As DannyHamilton said above, something got messed up in one of the listed steps. It seems prudent to verify that the address "1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m" actually was provided by IR *or* whether it was something your friend had sent to previously, *or* if that address was changed by malware on either of your machines. If it was provided by IR, why are they providing addresses for different services? |
|
|
|
Thank you for this advice.
Unfortunately I only have a mac book. What other Software would run with electrum wallets?
Br
The easy answer if that is the case then is to go into System Preferences -> Users & Groups and then after you unlock (click the padlock icon) hit the "+" symbol and add a new user account. Create a new account on the Mac Book. Log in to your new user account and restore Electrum there. One advantage to having it in a separate account (and making sure your regular one is "Standard" not "Admin") is that it provides a little isolation from the regular user account. You should also be able to move the "default_wallet" to a new location then you could create a new one and restore it in your regular account. (Or perhaps rename it - in ~user/.electrum iirc. ) |
|
|
|
|
Where did your friend obtain the 1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m address? It looks like there have been a number of transactions to and from it.
|
|
|
|
Well, thanks for the information about this new attack, if it turns out to be valid.
I would like to ask you to spare us the worrying and tell us if there is an economical incentive for large mining pools not to cooperate with the rest of the network in mining or something similar, since possible attack isn't always the profitable attack.
We report to this forum, as there is no proper mechanism for vulnerability disclosure process in Bitcoin.
As long as I know, the attack has not been used in practice. The attack is always profitable unlike selfish mining. The attack is stealthy. The victim may notice that it is being attacked maybe due to higher fork rate, but it is hard to pinpoint the attacking pool or miner. See: Step 1. https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/contribute/issues#disclosure which leads to: Step 2. https://bitcoincore.org/en/contact/which is what you may have done - but there is a proper mechanism for people who look at this later. |
|
|
|
Whats the latest with lightning now?
Also with the segwit 2x nya agreement does that mean it's a agreement in a contract meaning people who signed the contract cannot back out of it?
To me, the agreement reads like a memorandum of understanding, see https://medium.com/@DCGco/bitcoin-scaling-agreement-at-consensus-2017-133521fe9a77The NYA doesn't read like a typical contract with precise terms, requirements, dates, specific performance requirements etc. That said, anyone can try to litigate anything and no doubt someone at some point will try. But things like "We agree to immediately support the following parallel upgrades to the bitcoin protocol" are easy to say, okay, we did immediately support it. Now it has been a month so we didn't agree to continue to support it forever etc. Definitely wasn't drawn up with terms that I would rely on to be enforceable. |
|
|
|
I don't know much about how BTC or ETH works, but why all cryptocurrencies takes so long to confirm a transaction. I think even 30s is too long, why cant it be instant like PayPal?
PayPal and credit cards can be reversed for MONTHS afterward. Bitcoin gets into the mempool across the network in < 1 second and it is very difficult to double spend thereafter. Once bitcoin has several confirmations it is pretty much irreversible, certainly after 6. So in a second, bitcoin is across the network. And in a few seconds on the paypal servers. In an hour (if you paid reasonable fees), bitcoin is confirmed and can't be reversed. In a few months PayPal and credit cards are final and can't be reversed. With segwit and lightning, Bitcoin is across the network in a second and micro transactions are easy. And it's confirmations will be as above. All without relying one a third party who could block your account and remove your money - for any reason. Tell me again which one takes a long time? |
|
|
|
Its impossible to engage the legacy banking system and not leave a trail. Just pay the 13 - 15% on long-term capital gains and be done with it. (Most people have held for more than a year.)
I don't understand why someone would risk potential fines and audits or even jail by not paying. Whatever your stance on taxation is, you're not going to change the system from inside a jail cell.
Agreed. One open question is the impact of the Ver Tantrum Coin fork since it had/has some value. The IRS hasn't given guidance yet as far as I am aware as to how to handle it. When do you pay taxes: 1. At the fork? 2. Converting it from Ver Tantrum Coin to BTC? 3. Selling any resulting BTC? Probably #2, but hopefully #3. My limited understanding is that any real income is determined by local currency. So the conversion from whatever crypto into fiat is the taxable event. It could be more complicated, but until specific guidance is issued, you're better off paying something rather than nothing. It is in your favor to have had attempts to settle potential tax instead of avoiding it all together. I like the edit. Lol. It does depend on jurisdiction, you are right. Some it could be conversion between cryptos and some just converting to fiat. E.g. If I have a yen position (and I am a US citizen) and trade it for the Euro for a gain, that would be a taxable event even if I don't convert to dollars for a week. And was it short or long term gains? |
|
|
|
Bitcoin GPU, also known as Bitcoin GOLD and BGOLD with the symbol BTG, is planning to fork off the main chain and use an ICO to “help BTG chain the longest Bitcoin Blockchain.” “Bitcoin GPU is a full node implementation of the Bitcoin protocol,” its website, which curiously features the Bitcoin Cash logo, states. “GPU mining can protect Bitcoin Key value: Decentralize.” The first Bitcoin fork, Bitcoin Cash, has become sufficiently widespread to warrant regulatory involvement from the US Securities and Exchanges Commission as Bitcoin holders received duplicates of their original BTC holdings. Once forked from block number 478558, the assumption from commentators is that balances will double again, creating what trader Vortex refers to as “more free money.” More: https://cointelegraph.com/news/suddenly-bitcoin-gpu-hard-fork-could-give-bitcoiners-more-free-money http://btcgpu.org/#"first Bitcoin fork"? Oh please. There have been many. "en-crease"  "Block 478558", so it already happened and will be live 16000 blocks after that? We are at block 482670. It will change the bitcoin POW? Binaries but the link to source doesn't work? Seems scammy and sketchy so far. |
|
|
|
|
All kinds of upgrades are possible with segwit script versioning, a big one is privacy improvements.
|
|
|
|
It is an AVERAGE of ten minutes, but the actual time between blocks is not guaranteed to be 10. |
|
|
|
Hello to everybody,
TL;DR: i believe bitcoind is not capable of creating multiple/individualized wallets, how can i do that without third parties using only C#/C++/PHP/maybe python? are there any libraries that may be helpful? or is it easy enough to communicate directly with the nodes and write my own client? (in a perfect world, i want an api that is not owned by a third party like blockchain.info or coinbase, and id like a library that will not require jumping languages and using HTTP communication or any form of request/response type...
what IS a wallet? does the blockchain/nodes/miners/etc... even recognize wallets or is it a construct we use for organizing the addresses like an account?
...
any insight will be greatly appreciated.
If you truly mean a wallet, look at: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/0.15/doc/release-notes.md#multi-wallet-supportBut I don't think that is what you want. If you mean a construct to just group addresses together per user, using a HD wallet ( https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Deterministic_wallet#Type_2_hierarchical_deterministic_wallet) per user stored in a DB is how many do it. Nodes/miners/block chain doesn't know about wallets, at root, just inputs and outputs. Then talking to bitcoind to communicate is an option. Btw, going somewhere stating "x is a mess" isn't usually a good way to introduce yourself to get help, imho. :-) |
|
|
|
Hi!
I have read one's page on social media inviting bitcoin investors and guaranteed to gain profit at 140% for 140 days by doing nothing. Is this another "too good to be true" thing or scam?Or possible to profit this much?
Scam. Don't do it. No doubt they will scam some people, don't be one of them. If it isn't a scam, ask them to borrow 100 BTC from them, then send it back to them and tell them you'll repay them in 140 days from the proceeds. ;-) |
|
|
|
The data that you see is not a representation of what everyone else sees. The data that you see is solely based on the number of transactions Blockchain.info has on their mempool, everyone can have different numbers due to poor propagation of transactions or differing rules.
The drop in the mempool transactions is likely triggered by a restart of the nodes that they have. The mempool might have been emptied by Blockchain.info and the increase in the number of transactions is due to nodes sending more transaction data to Blockchain.info after that.
It is interesting that they are running a pre-0.14.0 Bitcoin Core or they have the save mempool feature disabled. Or the had an unclean shutdown. |
|
|
|
I am really hoping Monero takes off way more. That will help immensely in avoiding paying the government their bribes. Seriously, they provide NOTHING of value for the crypto markets and want a cut when your high risk pays off? Unbelievable.
Agreed with that too in principle (nothing of value), but for most people the risk (jail time) isn't worth any potential gain. The leeches will get their blood to buy people's votes and unless you want to follow the Roger Ver route and renounce your citizenship (from the US in his case), you have little choice if you want to be compliant. And "New Bitcoin Millionaires" probably will want to be able to enjoy their gains and to do so will need to follow the law. Just like people were over-confident in the security of TOR and were burned by either misconfigured servers, emails, honeypots, KYC/AML etc, there will be plenty of times that misusing the anonymity of Monero, mixers, Dark Wallet and the like will leak information that will enable the authorities to follow your path of transactions. And then you'll be screwed. |
|
|
|
Let's give Segwit more grace period to really see if it fulfill what it promises
-snip- To use SegWit, you will need to use the new transaction type between new SegWit addresses. As TraderTimm correctly points out with that chart, less than one percent of transactions currently being sent are SegWit transactions. That's nothing to do with SegWit, it's to do with wallets not creating easy interfaces for spending SegWit transactions -snip- I agree with you 100%. The problem is that the average bitcoin user doesn't know how to use it. I mean, I don't know how to do it, and I know more about bitcoin than the average person on this forum. We need someone who raises general awareness, and can easily explain how it works. Once more wallets roll out with support - e.g. Electrum - I think usage will increase particularly when people see, "oh, I can pay 1/4 (or whatever) the fees by selecting SegWit". Kind of like the P2SH rollout wasn't instant. |
|
|
|
Its impossible to engage the legacy banking system and not leave a trail. Just pay the 13 - 15% on long-term capital gains and be done with it. (Most people have held for more than a year.)
I don't understand why someone would risk potential fines and audits or even jail by not paying. Whatever your stance on taxation is, you're not going to change the system from inside a jail cell.
Agreed. One open question is the impact of the BCC fork since it had/has some value. The IRS hasn't given guidance yet as far as I am aware as to how to handle it. When do you pay taxes: 1. At the fork? 2. Converting it from BCC to BTC? 3. Selling any resulting BTC? Probably #2, but hopefully #3. |
|
|
|
are you suuure it has been confirmed !!!
Yes, it is definitely confirmed. 86 confirmations so far, 0.023045 BTC: https://blockchain.info/en/tx/db4c02c63e43a284c4b9dd0ad3206f61ce6f622e825412c8bbc37567485665ca(you even said it had 73 confirmations in your subject!) You need to contact their support - looks like there are several ways of doing so on their contact page - this is a problem with their service or their wallet. There may be a method of exporting the private key from that address if you are using their online wallet or app and importing it using something else (or sweeping). |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
