Once the government gets a single copy of malware, they can blacklist the address the malware is sending coin to. If the malware were to update the address based on the date, the government could simply infect a decoy computers that have system dates in the future. If the malware were to query a server with the address to send coin to, the government could use a decoy computer to learn the address that coin should be sent to. The latter is less ideal for attackers because it will increase the time it takes to steal coin, and makes it more likely that countermeasures will detect malicious activity, and cutoff internet access to the infected machine.

All of the above is hypothetical and is likely not the reason for the transactions noted in the OP. The transactions in question are almost certainly being paid to the pool operator. This could be described as similar to someone taking money out of their right pocket and into their left pocket. There have been discussions in the past about miners taking payment in order to confirm a transaction that would not otherwise normally get confirmed, but I don't think there have been discussions where high transaction volume businesses receive payments for providing high transaction fee transactions.

Based on ds5000's post, and based on known criminal uses for bitcoin, I would think the blacklists probably relate to addresses that often receive coin via malware, meaning that criminals try to infect others' machines with malware that will send coin secured by any private keys it finds to address 3xxx...x, and 3xxx...x will be the blacklisted address. From the point of view from the malware creates, they would not want to use RBF transactions so it would be more difficult for the legitimate owner of the coin being stolen to create a competing transaction that would prevent the loss of their coin.

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To get this thread back on topic, I would point out that block 688970 was mined by the binance pool, and the transactions paying crazy fees are likely associated with binance. I might suggest this means that binance was testing their pool software and did not effectively actually pay 2200 sat/vByte.

Thank you all for the kind words.

The biggest impeadment to become legendary for most forum members is the 1000 merit requirement. There are many forum members who have sufficient activity to rank up to legendary, but are being held back by a lack of merit, sometimes deserveably so, and sometimes because they don't post in sections that receive a lot of merit.

The actual merit requirement is random for each account, and is between 775 and 1030. IIRC, your UID is the input of some function and the output is the required activity to rank up to legendary. The actual activity at which I ranked up to Legendary was actually somewhere between 855 and 868, but I got all 14 activity points at the same time due to how activity works. 

By my calculations, picking a number between 1 and 2048, 12 times (2048^12) equals ~5.4445e+39, and log2 of this number is 132. The reason for the difference in the number of bits is due to seeds have a checksum that remove some of the actual entropy.

My understanding is that brain wallets are not typically standardized, and as such, it is possible to create a branwallet that does not have a checksum that would remove bits of entropy. So if you were to one hot encode each word in a passphrase that is L words long, out of a vocabulary of V words, it would result in an array that has a dimension of [V, L], and is one of V^L possiblities.

Unless I am missing something?

mprep is the moderator of the altcoin section, and as such, he is most likely to issue these kinds of bans. Unless he is going to be away for several days, I would be willing to bet that most other moderators will differ to him when issuing a ban that breaks this particular rule.

mprep made a compelling case as to why he believes it is fair to assume the OP was aware of the rule in question before he posted the giveaway. Assuming the OP still disagrees with the ban and its duration, he can make additional arguments as to why he believes the ban is unjustified. If the OP is unable to change mprep's mind, he can escalate to theymos to see if he is willing to override mprep.

While I do like to support fellow forum members, assuming what mprep has posted is true, I do not see an error on his part. My advice to the OP is to wait out the duration of his ban, learn his lesson and move on.

I would point out that you really do not "deposit" any coin to a lighting node.

You open a channel with another lightning node, and as long as both of you have the relivant keys, the state of the channel can change provided both of you are in agreement. If the node that you opened a channel with losses access to its keys, it will be unable to ever update the channel state, and you will eventually need to close the channel.

However if your node losses access to the relivant keys, your channel partner will need to eventually close the channel. If you have also lost the keys to the address the closing transaction will be sent to, you will have lost access to that coin, as would happen in any other case in which you lose access to your keys.

You are describing a problem with a typical brain wallet that is created using a means that is not random. In order for a seed to have its advertised bits of entropy, the seed words need to be chosen at random from the word list.

A person creating a typical brain wallet will have a very large word list (their vocabulary), however they will often pick a phrase in a predictable way. An attacker trying to crack a typical brain wallet will not use random, but will rather use a library of common phrases or words that have the highest chances of being used.

A person trying to crack a seed on the other hand will need to use randomness in order to attempt to guess the correct seed.

Today while reading responses to threads I had posted in, I noticed one of my posts, I read the post, looked at my forum handle and title, and saw that I have officially been promoted to a Legendary member.

As a result of the above, I am proud to announce that I am officially a forum-made Legendary Member.

I created my account on March 12, 2019, to talk about bitcoin, crypto, and conservative ideology in a drama-free manner (yes, I know that bitcointalk is famous for its drama, and some even say that bitcointalk's drama causes the price of bitcoin to go up).

In the two years since I created PrimeNumber7, I have always tried to help fellow forum members (within reason) by lending my expertise, or giving general advice when I am not an expert, offering technical services to those requiring technical work that requires more planning or time than one might expect is required to write a few forum posts, created a number of open-source projects for community use, engaged in passioned debate with fellow forum members, worked to reduce the amount of spam, dangerous and illegal content on the forum, provided my perspective on various topics of interest to me, and did what I can in order to make the forum an enjoyable place for forum members to spend a few hours every week posting and chatting with each other.

It is an honor to finally be able to call myself a Legendary Member.

Thank to you everyone who helped make this possible.

PrimeNumber7
Legendary Member

What I said is true. I was clear that the amount was in reference to NY state taxes. NY courts do not have jurisdiction over alleged federal tax fraud.

The only reason why the federal tax amounts are listed is because of the shaky allegation of grand larceny via filing a tax return that causes a portion of tax withheld to be refunded. In addition to the problems I noted in my previous post with this allegation, I don't think NY courts have jurisdiction over federal tax laws and as such, would be unable to conclude that Weisselberg committed federal tax fraud that resulted in the alleged fraudulent tax refund. I also don't think there is any dispute the tax amounts that were refunded were actually withheld and paid to the federal government, so I think it is a stretch the alleged fraudulent tax refunds constitute grand larceny when Weisselberg could have simply had less money withheld from his pay over the year.

As noted in my previous post, the indictment offers no evidence that Weisselberg actually owes any of the NY city tax. I can't sign a lease in San Francisco, taking responsibility for the payments, saying that TwitchySeal is going to live in the apartment as his primary residence, then have the DA come after you for tax fraud if you never actually lived in the apartment sufficient to have to pay CA taxes. Even if you had signed the lease that says the apartment will be your primary residence, it would not create a tax liability unless you meet certain criteria. NY tax law appears to make it difficult to get out from having tax liability, however, to initially start having tax liability, it appears you need to live in NY (or NY city) for a certain number of days in a year. 

Okay fair enough, Ive never been in NY long enough to know how the traffic cameras work, but I think you understand the annology.

In 2015, the top tax bracket in New York was 8.82%, and today it is 10.9%. In 2005, when it is alledged this started, the top tax bracket was 6.85%. The allegation is that $1.7 million in compensation was hidden from the tax authorities over 15 years, that amounts to about $113k per year. The indictment claims that Weisselberg failed to pay about $106k in NY state taxes, which works out to be about $7k per year.

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Take a look at a copy of the indictment. I think it is pretty shaky TBH.

The indictment claims that the Trump org entered into a lease for an apartment that stipulated that Weisselberg would occupy the apartment as his "primary residence". There are a couple of things wrong with this. First, the Trump org does not have any authority to bind where their employees live, so without proof that Weisselberg actually lived in the apartment, the entire indictment goes up in smoke.

The indictment also says that Weisselberg's compensation was adjusted downward in order to account for the rent expenses and that internal spreadsheets kept track of these expenses that were for the benefit of Weisselberg. I would note that I occasionally travel for business, and when I do, my employer pays for my meals, hotel and airfare, but I am not required to pay taxes on these things. These travel expenses are taken out of my department's budget. I don't think it would be unreasonable to argue that the Trump org had a budget for Weisselberg that was to include both payroll and business expenses. I am not sure what criteria travel expenses are allowed according to IRS rules, or where Weisselberg claimed to live during the relevant time period.

The indictment's most serious charge, grand larceny, stems from Weisselberg's claiming tax refunds from the IRS that he was allegedly not entitled to. In addition to proving that the tax returns were in fact fraudulent, the prosecution would need to prove that Weisselberg was in the state of NY when he caused the tax returns to be filed.

Say there are two traffic cameras exactly one mile apart in an area in which the speed limit is 30 MPH. The DA could review the footage, see that a Trump associate took 116 seconds to travel the distance between the two lights, and charges him with speeding. The Trump associate was breaking the law -- he was going 1 mile over the speed limit, which is illegal, but this does not mean that the law is applied to everyone else, or that the DA was not looking specifically to charge this particular person with a crime.

If the Trump org was audited in the timeframe of the alleged crimes, this would probably be a pretty strong defense, especially if the audit was done by the NY IRS, and even more so, if the audit resulted in additional taxes being paid not involving the fringe benefits.

The amount of tax revenue that NY state lost out on is very small, and is probably less than the cost of the investigation, somewhere in the range of $8000 or so per year over 15 years. This is also not to say that the Trump org didn't offset some of this with higher corporate taxes on their end.

Many legal experts and law professors are saying that it is highly unusual for these types of charges being filed against the Trump org and the CFO without additional, more serious charges also being filed.

It is almost as if the charges are politically motivated. Or almost as if the DA made campaign promises to charge Trump and associates with baseless crimes.

Republicans we’re quoting BLM and left wing extremists when they say Democrats want to “defund the police”. As Gyfts noted, it was Democrats in cities that actually defunded the police. It was Democrats running for local elected office that ran on defunding the police and followed through.

The police is funded on a local level and the federal government contributes very little to police budgets. Opposing the “infrastructure” bill is about as close to defunding the police as being opposed to NK is to being opposed to democracy.

If CSW has been found guilty of perjury, or a judge has fined him for making false statements, this is good for Cøbra because anyone who has a history of being punished for perjury is going to have little credibility in the courtroom.

I have honestly not closely followed most CSW cases, and haven't spent more than a half dozen hours (over the many years he has spent litigating various cases) reviewing related court documents. My experience is that CSW likes to take advantage of the lack of technical expertise by lawyers and judges, and will respond in a way that may not answer the question directly, but the answer looks favorable to him; the lawyers may not pickup on the difference between the question and answer because of the lack of technical expertise. This is more obvious to those who have at least intermediate expertise in how cryptography works and how bitcoin works.

I believe the above is why CSW is so willing to allow so much evidence of potential fraud to be out there, as it is obvious to experts, but not so obvious to those who may impose consequences for fraud. You may be right though, it is possible there is more bad stuff that CSW is hiding.


You are correct, I should have been more clear in my previous post that it needs to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that CSW lied under oath in order for him to be found guilty of perjury. People have been convicted of murder without a body, murder weapon, or a video.

I believe it would be difficult to prove someone guilty of perjury for claiming to be a particular anonymous person that is only known by their forum handle/alias without bringing that person forward.

When CSW first claimed to be satoshi, he provided evidence he was satoshi to Gavin Anderson, only that the evidence provided was deceptive and did not actually point to CSW potentially being satoshi (had CSW attempted to gain anything of value out of the meeting, it would likely have been fraud). While this interaction makes me believe that CSW is not satoshi, I don't believe it proves this. CSW could argue in court that he no longer has access to cryptographic keys that would prove satoshi's identity.

Yes, asking users to send you an email (or more commonly, to send a PM, or fill out a google survey) would be fine. The rule is against having users create low-effort posts in exchange for altcoins.

I do see that you have hosted a number of bitcoin-based giveaways and bounties for your website in the past looking at the history of the threads you have created. Assuming you have not been banned for similar transgressions in the past, one might argue that 60 days is a bit harsh.  

mprep is most likely the mod that banned you. You can send him a PM asking him if he is willing to reduce the duration of your ban, and that you promise to not host an on-forum altcoin giveaway in the future, and he may or may not be willing to do so. If you did legitimately did not know this was against the rules, you can tell him you were unaware of the rule, and that you now know this is not allowed. In my experience, he is both professional and fair.

You cannot offer incentives for users to make insubstantial posts in exchange for altcoins, aka host on-forum altcoin giveaways. Please see Giveaway threads are not allowed:

A reorg to reverse a transaction is possible on any blockchain network. This is not specific to bitcoin. This remains true regardless of if PoW, or something else is implemented. A party wishing to reverse a transaction on a PoS blockchain for example would need to bribe a different set of stakeholders versus a PoW blockchain, but is still possible.

The reason why this does not result in a loss of entropy is that you cannot know in advance if a seed is valid or not prior to checking the seed. You will need to perform a calculation on every seed candidate before ruling it out as not being your seed. According to the electrum devs, the cost to rule out a seed candidate as being outright invalid is less than calculating the actual seed. While technically not reducing the number of bits of entropy, it would somewhat reduce the cost of a bruteforce attack with a given n bits of entropy, when compared with a setup in which every seed candidate is valid.

I would compare the above to j2002ba2's above comparison to only accept dice rolls that are a 1 or a 6 on a 6-side dice. In his example, no calculation is needed in advance, the dice is reduced to a coin, with one side being valued as True and the other being valued as False, and the seed is calculated accordingly. An individual attacker may not specifically know you are using the "1" and "6" constraints but may bruteforce with two random numbers in order to have a lower space of possible values, and with many attackers, one will eventually try 1 and 6. 

In general, anyone wanting to make API calls is going to want to make many queries. For something like blockchain data that is easily and publically available, if a customer only needed to access information on a very sporadic basis, they would just access one of the dozens of free block explorers and manually access the information they need.

You could offer two pricing options, charging both by the API call and by the month. As mentioned, I don't see many people being interested in paying by the API call, assuming both pricing options are equally priced.

You can offer a free plan that is slow. The free plan can be hosted on infrastructure that would be insufficient for paid customers. You could keep a copy of the required files necessary to implement the API in a storage bucket that can be accessed quickly, and spin up a more powerful server once you have a paid customer.

Splitting the inputs would cost money. Depositing small amounts to an exchange does not. A miner with a large amount of hashpower could create many pool accounts, make the pool pay for sending many withdrawal transactions to an exchange, then make the exchange pay for consolidating the many deposits. The cost to the miner would be close to zero.