Wow, si mie mi-a scapat treaba asta complet. Credeam ca inca suntem in stadiul "nu stim". Atunci.. stirea asta ne pune si pe noi sub aceeasi categorie in care se afla El Salvador?

Eu ma uit la grafice crypto din 2013 incoace. Pana prin 2017, am inteles fiecare analiza pe care o vedeam. Majoritatea erau legate de candles/patterns. Pe urma, au aparut specimene de tipul cercurilor fara sens din "analiza" lui Cojocaru. De multe ori ma intreb daca astia cumva trag cate o linie pe grafic dupa cum se scoala de dimineata, ca alta logica nu vad.

Dar da, sunt cateva personaje de tipul Cojocaru/Schiff/proudhon (dintre care ultimul vad ca s-a potolit de cand .... suntem in bull run.. ) care nu accepta sub nici o forma infrangerea. Pare un pic a fi gest de psihopat, no offense.

Ceva nu-mi suna a bine la modul in care functioneaza. Ca sunt paranoic sau nu, urmatorul segment de pe site-ul lor un pic ma sperie :

More Data, Better Analytics
Gain location and usage data for devices like sensors, logistics trackers and consumer products while respecting user privacy.

Asa era si cu aplicatiile de tracking COVID pana sa isi dea cativa "mai priceputi" seama ca e de fapt foarte simplu sa o transformi intr-o metoda de a supraveghea utilizatorii ei, oricat de "privacy-friendly" ar fi ideea. Si, intr-un mod ironic, tot de la Bluetooth pornea si ideea aplicatiilor de tracking .. cel putin cele despre care stiam acum cateva luni

I think that having Bitcoin is still useful even with an user-friendly XMR - BTC atomic swap system existing. There are just so many people who link privacy to crime. They would probably never like the idea of Monero and automatically think of criminals when hearing about it. Atomic swaps come into help here: you can pay with BTC at a XMR-accepting store and you can pay wkth XMR at a BTC-accepting store. You can use swaps for trustless trading. You can use them to trigger from privacy to public and back.

The idea of having privacy as a default in BTC is good for us, privacy advocates, but you can only imagine how much oppression there would instantly be from the governments. They love Bitcoin currently because they have Chainalysis and a lot of people who don't give a damn about their own privacy. It's the paradise of surveillance right now. Should we get default privacy with BTC, things would change drastically. I bet.

Also, living the life without a smartphone is very possible. In fact, living without one is so much better. Ditch your smartphone for a week and see for yourself. You can always have a smartphone without a SIM card in it that you only use for WhatsApp or so and never take it with you outside.

Eu nu inteleg. Cum reusesc oamenii inca sa fie tepuiti cu asa ceva, avand in vedere cata informatie exista pe peste tot si ca iti trebuie 2 neuroni sa intelegi ca nimeni nu iti face un beneficiu benevol? Uneori cred ca oamenii care cad prada tepelor de genul asta sunt oameni care oricum aveau nevoie sa se dea cu capu' sa inteleaga unele lucruri care in mod normal ar trebui sa para.. logice. Imi vine sa ma iau de cap numai cand ma gandesc cati oameni inca trimit sume exorbitante tepelor in stilul "da-i bani lui Musk si iti da el dublu inapoi".

Dar da, desigur, intai sa fie aia mari cu buzunare oricum pline multumiti. Prostimea sa astepte, ca nu moare nimeni.

That's exactly what I mean when I say that separating my private life from the public one was the way to go for me. I think that preserving your anonymity or privacy means restarting from zero every time you make a mistake.

It's safe to assume that my account's history would get you to a lot of quite personal information about me. The languages I speak, the country I'm from, the sig campaigns I've been part of, the addresses I've used etc. However, by creating a new lifestyle, you can now not link my account history to my private life anymore. The governments know I'm using crypto anyway right now, so abandoning this account is useless really. I chose to still enjoy the forum on my original account.

This is what privacy & anonymity is about, I believe. It's about learning from mistakes and resetting every time you make one. Acknowledging your mistakes and continuing to get better at it. Am I then to be called a "privacy advocate"? Or an anonymous user? The forum account maybe not, but I do have.. let's say "a separate face" that has nothing to do with my current account.

Great topic, Dave. I seem to care about both equally. I care about my privacy as much as I care about my anonymity. I did indeed make a lot of mistakes in the past and I am still making them, but I am getting better at it overall and this is the best part.

I have separated my "public" life from my private one. I've done big changes in my lifestyle to accommodate with my private way of living. This means getting rid of many accounts and platforms people typically use, carefully choosing specific smartphones and the software & OS I'm running on them (same goes for laptops and PCs), taking cameras and mics out of my devices, preferring to pay more rather than share my data with strangers and so on.

One perfect example I'd like to give is getting rid of "discount cards". Pharmacies, stores etc here in Romania have certain "discount" or "loyalty" cards that we can use to buy stuff for cheaper. But this data is almost every time linked to very personal information of yours such as ID, driver's license etc. I can now create a card within 2 minutes and buy stuff for up to 70% cheaper - but is it worth the discount? Is my personal data worth a 70% discount at a supermarket? In my opinion, it is not. It's worth much more. So I ditched my cards and now I'm paying much more money for everyday stuff. But my local pharmacy doesn't know anymore what kind of treatments I take, what kind of condoms I buy, whether I prefer cash or card and which card do I use for certain products.

Now let's go back to BTC. I think that if you care about privacy or anonymity, Bitcoin is for now a bad choice. That is until BTC <-> XMR atomic swaps become easy to use (and widely used) and are tested well enough for bugs to be extremely rare or inexistent (which I think is impossible since, AFAIK, any code has a flaw - you just need to find it).

Also, that is until Bitcoin adopts a more private way to go. Perhaps Schnorr signatures are the first good step. I don't know - the point I'm trying to make is, Bitcoin is still a transparent ledger and no matter how much you try to be private, one mistake could reveal your entire history. That is very, very bad - almost as if you robbed 100 banks, got caught for one but they linked all 100 to you. That makes everything so much worse for you legally. Sorry for the example - I never really link privacy to bad stuff since privacy is NOT being a criminal, but this is the best one I could think of.

On the other hand, even XMR isn't good if you're inexperienced. Use the same address on multiple websites while shopping and you're about to get some of your financial history linked together.

Now let's see what you can do about it.
- Make your BTC private or use XMR. When shopping, try to avoid online shopping as much as possible so that the address & name issue is avoided.
- Use Coin Control for Bitcoin. Use disposable seeds/addresses for XMR or BTC. Use disposable SIM cards. Use disposable, $10 mobile phones. Dispose of anything you can afford to dispose if you want to keep your tracks limited and harder to link.
- If you create a ProtonMail account, use Tor. Pay with private Bitcoin and then mix your coins again. Yes, you pay for an account creation, but if the Switzerland ever gets ProtonMail to share your e-mail's logged IPs, your home IP will never appear there. Do the same for a BitcoinTalk account. Try to keep your traces as limited as possible.
- Use DEXs instead of centralized exchanges. This is one of the best ways to keep everything private.

Living a private life is expensive, so I have to miss out on a lot of stuff to live mine that way. Sure, it's expensive, but at the end of the day you feel so much safer knowing there's no camera watching you, no mic listening to you, nobody tracking your pharmaceutical purchases and, ultimately, having no stranger in your private bubble.

Cred ca o "problema potentiala" cam majora, care ar trebui de fapt sa fie dezbatuta de la bun inceput, este securitatea. Nu m-as inhama vreodata sa imi iau telefonul personal cu mine in oras cu Bluetooth-ul pornit si cu o aplicatie care 24/7 cauta telefoane la care sa se conecteze. Mi se pare un imens dezavantaj si cred ca nu e prea greu sa profiti de "dovada de conexiune" pentru a fura date din alte dispozitive. Bluetooth-ul in sine si conexiunile wireless au puncte slabe imense privind securitatea.

Iar pe urma, g3amb0, esti roman sau nu? Pentru ca traducerea pare mai mult a fi una automata si totodata cam gresita ..

I second Bisq, HodlHodl, Pancake and UniSwap. These are great ways to start off although I would recommend you to stay away from the ETH chain (fees are too big right now). There is also Haveno, a Bisq fork that is supposed to be the stealth version of it with much, much lower fees but I think the software isn't ready yet. Might be a good idea to keep an eye on it though.

Wallets.. just use fully open-source wallets like Electrum or Mycelium if you want to stay away from unnecessary headaches.

I think investing in altcoins can be very reasonable, if you know what you're doing and if the coins you invest in actually do have a future. Think of how profitable ETH has been in the last few years.

The only thing is, when you invest in an altcoin you invest in what you see now. You never know however if that coin will even exist anymore in a matter of years. Bitcoin is the king, so you would definitely hear about its downfall. Hearing about a downfall of a specific alt .. less likely.

Then, you should know that most alts lose purchasing power against BTC. There are very few that actually make it and are worth the investment when you consider the Altcoin : BTC ratio. If you think Bitcoin is the future, then it might in fact be smarter to simply buy it (even if it seems expensive right now) thank to invest in alts.

My personal opinion is, you should take altcoin investments by their name: as an alternative long-term investment that you shouldn't 100% rely on.

My two questions are.. does anyone even use Facebook anymore? I haven't checked it out in years and I feel better than ever before.

And then, how do people still trust them? They've heavily influenced so much stuff around that I would never trust them again. When they've shown multiple times in a row how they don't care at all about your privacy and manipulate your feelings intentionally through various creepy experiments, how the hell do you get to hype up Libra Diem..?

I am not even sure their rebranding has done anything at all, lol. It's a quite cringey attempt at washing away Libra's bad reputation.

Un fel de .. eu v-am zis ce strategie sa aplicati, da' daca n-ati ascultat asta e.. introdu toate posibilitatile pe un grafic si botezeaza-te "analist expert". Din o suta, o fi una care sa se apropie de liniile tale. SOL a urcat invers la 0.002525 intre timp, deci profetia din OP se duce naibii pana la urma ..

Schiff has already recognize his defeat against BTC many times before. The strongest and most stupidest one was when he thought Bitcoin was to blame that he didn't back up his wallet, lol. When you get some boomers out here who got zero idea how Bitcoin truly works but still talk crap about it, you know they're gonna fail at some point.

The more BTC grows, the more of these critics will turn from BTC critique to BTC investment. But at the same time, expect new critiques to appear every time Bitcoin surprises the world again.

What kind of "issues"? Most of the "hacks" are due to the BTC owners' fault. Sending hoping to get 2x your money from Elon Musk, downloading crap off the web, opening unsafe executables, PDFs etc.

I agree but just to an extent. I am an advocate of privacy coins, and studying them made me realize that transparency isn't always good. It's good as long as all parties are fair and have good intents. Otherwise, things could turn dark and creepy so quickly - see Chainalysis.

Bitcoin already is a global currency. It's just not the main currency, nor is it adopted everywhere yet. The idea that Bitcoin will win against other fiat currencies is imo just wet dreams of Bitcoiners, at least for now. There are just so few governments that would allow this to happen. Just think of how much control they'd lose over you. No powerful government wants that.

I feel like the more the 2.0 release is getting closer, the higher the fees are and so the more unusable the chain becomes. For now, it feels like a kamikaze imo.

There might be a big change, but I doubt the security will stay the same and I also doubt there are no big sacrifices to make. Unfortunately, it's probably privacy, decentralization and security that will be at stake. PoW to PoS is already a big red flag for me.

Foarte tare poza! Banuiesc ca e sumarul tuturor "analizelor experte tehnice" din domeniu?

Asa arata si orice pagina de TradingView, daca ar fi sa suprapui toate "analizele" pe un singur grafic. Pana la urma, din 100 de analize diferite o fi una care sa se apropie cat de cat macar de adevaratul curs al pretului..

They'd just move to another country and that's it. I don't see such a huge risk honestly, and at the same time I highly doubt that the US would ban mining. Sustaining BTC mining and being the top country in the world at it (they love being the top anyway) is better than cracking down on it and letting another country take the lead.

Astept revenirea OP-ului, dar momentan cred ca e un pic rusinat dupa ce SOL a ajuns de la 0.0031 la 0.002621 astazi. Din pacate, istoria doar se repeta si altcoins se duc tot mai mult in cadere fata de BTC la fel ca .. aproximativ in orice alta perioada din orice alt an de pana acum. Aici e dovada pura pentru care nu mai ma incred in niciun fel de "pronosticuri" crypto. E mai mult noroc decat analiza

You can avoid taxes legally - ask the rich how they can do so. Because I have a feeling only we, the poorer, mostly get to pay them

On a serious note, perhaps it's a good idea to get in touch with a good lawyer or so and ask them if your idea is a good one and whether it's still within the limits of the law. But a personal opinion of mine: if you find a way to avoid them, keep your lips sealed. That is because if enough people follow your way of legally avoiding the taxes, they will find a way to stop you from doing so.. 'cause they hate it