It seems to be an incomplete flowchart though.

In its current state both "Public Permissioned Blockchain" and "Private Permissioned Blockchain" results could be replaced with "Git" and it would still hold true. I mean that's pretty much how open source works (stored, verifiable versioning states; multiple writers, many of which are unknown, most of which are untrusted; and one or more project maintainers that ensure code integrity but are not always online).

I guess it would get closer by adding a real-time requirement to the workflow decision tree but that then still seems kinda flimsy.

I think what Libra is mostly showing is the difference between public cryptocurrencies and privately owned "cryptocurrencies".

Libra is receiving so much flak in Europe because it's a private currency, created and controlled by a private entity. While Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were eyed with cautious suspicion, they never faced the open rejection that Libra is currently dealing with.

Maybe that's because Bitcoin is a public infrastructure and thus not the centralized accumulation of power that Libra would be. Or maybe that's because they know that Bitcoin can't be stopped for lack of a single point of failure. Either way it's teaching the public a lesson on what is and what isn't a free currency ("free" as in "freedom", not as in "free beer"). Which is already a step up from the question whether cryptocurrency is money.

Decentralization is definitely just a means to an end. Even the distributed nature of public blockchains is just a means to an end though, namely permissionlessness. In this regard data distribution is about reliability however, not security. A huge but subtle difference.

Security is what you get by means of an appropiate consensus algorithm (eg. PoW, PoS, etc) or by some form of centralized access control. The former is necessary for securing a public ledger that can be openly accessed and edited. The former is however unnecessary overhead for any form of private ledger. For that centralized access controls are more than sufficient. Even centralized access controls can be set up in a way that ensure that no single employee can manipulate the whole database. That's how IT security in finance has worked for decades.

So long story short, sure, a company may use a private blockchain. Whether it makes any sense is a different question though, as for most use cases that are often touted for private blockchains many more appropiate solutions already exists.

As far as mining Bitcoin is concerned it seems like currently you could get started with hardware for as low as USD 263,- (PSU and I presume various taxes and shipping costs not included):
https://shop.bitmain.com/product/detail?pid=00020190911155155939FluJlFo406C8

In terms of efficiency the above ASIC miner is already terribly outperformed by other miners though so it'll probably be nothing more than an expensive doorstop. So if you want to have hardware that actually has a chance of making a profit you'll probably won't get below USD 2,000,- such as that one:
https://shop.bitmain.com/product/detail?pid=00020190917150041561N918SAIe0626

There are other ASIC miner producers out there as well, but I presume they'll be at about the same price level.

Many alts are still mineable using GPUs, there you'll have to see which GPU is the most efficient for the currency you want to mine. In that case price is only limited by how many GPUs you can cram into something that remotely resembles a PC. For creating a dedicated mining rig with, say, 3 GPUs, you could probably get started with maybe USD 800,- upwards.

Hardware cost comes only second to electricity cost, however. Unless you have access to cheap electricity, it'll be hard to reach a return on your investment. Punch your electricity costs per KWh into a mining calculator and see how it turns out. Be aware that mining income diminishes monthly, with your mining rig being deprecated and non-profitable within 6-12 months.

So with that being said, mining can be profitable. But unless you want to commit to it or do it as a hobby it's probably easier to just buy the coins you are interested in.

Due to the questionable merits of private blockchains it seems like anyone trying to sell you "blockchain the technology" is after your money, rather than trying to provide a proper solution.

I assume the B in BaaS stands for Bullshit?

Don't get me wrong, Ethereum is definitely one of the more legit cryptos.

My concerns though are (a) whether Ethereum will have another tokenized spring like the ICO summer of 2017 and (b) how likely it is that newcomers are going to head for Ethereum as "the next Bitcoin" rather than some wholly new coin (ie. "the next Ethereum").

Oh I did, I just don't think it will make much of a difference.

Many alts (including ETH) have very high profile cooperations, yet it didn't help the alt market much when the bear market struck. Of course there's always the chance that this time it's different^TM, but I personally wouldn't hold my breath.

Genau, die 24 Wörtchen sind die Passphrase. Die benötigst du um dein Wallet wiederherzustellen sollte dein Hardware Wallet kaputt oder verloren gehen. Achtung: Mit diesen 24 Wörtchen können auch andere Leute dein Wallet wiederherstellen, also sicher verwahren.



Achtung: Bitcoin Adressen werden zwar aus Public Keys generiert aber sind selber keine Public Keys! Im Normalfall wirst du mit Public Keys selber allerdings nichts zu tun haben.

Wie asche schon gesagt hat sind diese Adressen (beginnend mit "1", "3" oder "bc1") die "Kontonummer" die du angibst wenn du Coins bei Bitpanda kaufst. Check doppelt bevor du die Adresse auf Bitpanda bestätigst (es gibt Malware welche Bitcoin Adressen beim Copy / Pasten manipuliert) und nicht wundern wenn sich die Empfangsadresse deines Wallets nach einer eingelangten Zahlung ändert (die meisten Wallets generieren für jede eingehende Zahlung eine neue Adresse, wobei alte Adressen weiterverwendet werden können).

The main pull behind ETH's rise during the last bull market seems to have been ICOs. I don't think that this hype will repeat however, so I'm not sure about whether ETH will make that much of a comeback.

It also seems to me that people have become more wary about investing in alts, so that's another factor that gives me doubt in alt coins chipping away at BTC's market dominance any time soon.

Should Bitcoin make a major comeback however, I can very well imagine enough newcomers FOMOing into the crypto market via alts (ie. trying to find "the next bitcoin") to make such an investment profitable from a fiat perspective. However I have my doubts that we'll see Bitcoin market dominance drop below 50% during the next hype cycle.

Backup von der Seed Phrase hast du gemacht und sicher verwahrt? Das ist mal das wichtigste bevor da irgendwelche Coins raufwandern

Falls du in Österreich wohnst gäbe es noch Bitcoin Bons (bitcoinbon.at) in diversen Trafiken und bei der Post, da findet bis EUR 250,- täglich keine Verifizierung statt (nur dein Name und deine Email Adresse werden benötigt). Allerdings haben die einen relativ deftigen Aufschlag von ca 10%.

Have you looked into Electrum? You'll have to install Electrum on your server but you won't have to run a full node:

https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/merchant.html

Das klingt jetzt vielleicht blöd aber die deutsche Wikipedia Seite zu Bitcoin ist gar kein so schlechter Einstiegspunkt:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

Vor allem hast du dann auch gleich die für Bitcoin relevanten kryptographischen Konzepte verlinkt.

Has the transaction been confirmed in your wallet? There's a bit of a spike of unconfirmed transactions right now, maybe your transaction fee is too low.

If the transaction has already confirmed in your wallet you'll probably have to get in touch with the ATM provider. Is there any company name on the ATM?

If the transaction isn't marked as confirmed in your wallet, you could try doing a RBF transaction. What wallet software are you using?

Bitcoin will definitely survive. Why should it not?

I'm a bit on the fence how Bitcoin will behave during a recession though.

As figmentofmyass already pointed out, recessions make market participants very weary and allergic to risky investments. People tend to stay in cash rather than in any investment vehicles, especially unproven ones. Gold is a bit of an exception in this regard, but I'm afraid that Bitcoin has yet to build the trust that gold already has.

However I do believe that it will also depend on where Bitcoin will be in its boom / bust cycle. If recession hits while Bitcoin is already down it might very well act as a worthwhile hedge due to its cheapness and cement its position as uncorrelated asset. The likeliness of this happening is anyone's guess though.

You only lose money by selling at a loss.

If you already made a loss and are wondering whether you should enter the market again, ask yourself why you want to buy in once more. If your only reason to buy back in is because the price went up, than that's an excellent recipe for desaster because the next time Bitcoin goes down you'll likely panic sell at a loss once again.

The same is true if you haven't made a loss yet but are considering selling vs doubling down on your investment. Only buy if you are convinced that there's a future for Bitcoin, not merely because the price went up recently. If you're not convinced by Bitcoin aside from its price, don't buy it. Simple as that.

In both cases, don't invest more than you can afford to lose. Don't be invested at a level that is high enough to put pressure on you, financially or psychologically.

So the solution is easy. Just make Bitcoin certificates and use that as money. Problem solved

On a more serious note, anyone can establish a rather arbitrary definition of A and then claim that B is not A because B does not fit that arbitrary definition. But there's no knowledge to be gained from that line of argumentation.

If we've learned one thing about the corporate and governmental data collection binge of the last few years than it is that it doesn't matter whether it's "only" metadata. When someone wants to stay anonymous, any amount of metadata is a liability.



People do raise the same point for bitcoin.org

Let's not introduce a new problem just because a similar one already exists.

One common reason for people ignoring the small profits seems to be them trying to go for maximum profits by attempting to call the bottom and / or top (ie. trying to time the market). If people were better at accepting the impossibility of this notion fewer people would fuck themselves over. Just ease your way in and out of the market. It may not be an optimal strategy but it's less risky and more importantly less likely to make you tilt and FOMO.

From this point of view maybe adding an "undo" feature like Gmail has could help.

Obviously there's nothing being undone for real, but the short delay it introduces can help with the second thoughts that hit you after pressing "send". It's a neat little psychological trick that doesn't do much, technically, but at least from my personal experience it does make a difference.

Problem being, I'm afraid the majority of people don't realize that they have sent funds to the wrong address until way after the fact. At least that's the impression I get from the support requests hitting the Bitcointalk forums.

Wrong forum, this thread probably belongs to Service Discussion:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=85.0

Also they have a thread over at the gambling section, so maybe you can get in touch with their Bitcointalk account over there:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=750760.4440