Ohoo, interesting, thank you!
My second entry, if permitted, would be:

99 - NeuroticFish

If you want to see if/how can you do this legally, a good direction could be to ask Binance's support about this.
If you want to do this, probably going through VPN or remote desktop to your computer in Turkey would be the solutions... until Binance people figure this out.

Learn some patience, they'll die off soon enough; and report them where's the case (duplication or low quality posts).
I am no longer convinced that all these topics in Meta are genuine concerns either. But maybe I start to become too paranoid...

The fact bitcoin will be so difficult to earn should make the price go significantly higher.
The fact LN and maybe similar solutions will be used on a larger scale may make tx fees even go lower.

So imho comparing the block reward with the tx fees is useless/counterproductive. I think that block reward + tx fees should be compared with the fiat cost of mining a block, and then we would see how much one Bitcoin worth.
Of course, various modifiers have to be taken into account, from the more performant machines by then to many more using very cheap energy from the sun. Also don't forget the inflation of fiat.
But that's all. I don't understand why you've tried to overcomplicate the equation, but I see no problem with block reward going lower than the tx fees, even though I expect that happen significantly later than your predicted time frame.

Most people lack the capability to properly take care of their coins. Also they were taught by the banks for so many years to keep their money in others' hands, they can't think it can be done better (plus they don't understand that unlike in the case of EU banks, if a CEX falls nobody will reimburse them).
And most people are too cheap to buy a hardware wallet.
I will add that there are also probably a very big number of day traders that can have a chance to earn only if they do keep money there.

While I do agree that people should get their money into their own custody, it's not an easy task and I don't expect it to happen fast, no matter how many MtGox and FTX happen.


The risks are preached mostly by the people who didn't use DEX.
I think that there's a learning curve, I think that people need to be taught, but if you start with "despite the risks" you've already lost them.


I think that the benefits of self custody need to be said a lot more, but also people should become aware that if they are not tech savvy, self custody probably means hardware wallet.
On this topic I'd say that the hardware wallets getting cheaper would probably help.

It's not about blindness, it's more about greed, lack of understanding properly what they see and also impatience.
People want to get money - fiat money - very fast, as much as possible. They don't understand all these details, they don't even care about them. Heck, they don't understand nor care about bitcoin either! Of course then that way too many want a "bitcoin account", no matter that this means an account in a CEX that may fail tomorrow. All they want is to get fast to a little slice of this pie.

Yes, bitcoiners too make the mistake of using CEX sometimes. But that's a different story and the scale is smaller. There the problems might start with poorer countries and less options available and continue with the (bad) habits and laziness. Still, I think that this happens at a rather small scale.


You've just proven my point. So many coins. Greed*. I am almost sure you don't know well enough most of those. Because if you'd know, you'd notice that those "so many coins" are just a distraction, just a curtain of smoke preventing you see what makes sense to follow and what not. But why do that when you can trade/gamble between a lot of interesting names, hoping to get some easy money?
(* Please don't get offended, everybody is greedy to a certain point; of course, including myself.)

That's correct. There are various variation from the rule. Still the main Martingale is doubling.


Actually the fact we try to make one bet more meaningful, the fact we think that at a certain point there's a bigger chance to see high value or low, is imho a mistake. The random generator doesn't care what was the previous number. And all this makes "the technique" wrong. At least this is how I see it.
Am I wrong?

Online/web wallets can be a pain in the ass. From errors they may have, to phishing and the possibility the wallet becomes malicious itself. I'd avoid them.
There's another problem I see there: you have not only bitcoin, but a mix of coins. For Bitcoin it could have been easier: you generate a (paper?) wallet and you're already good; but 4 (paper?) wallets can become overly confusing.

For BTC, ETH and LTC, one easy and safe way would be a hardware wallet. XMR I don't know which hardware wallet supports it correctly, I had some surprises with XMR and Ledger, but I don't know if it was my lack of knowledge or they've changed too something (luckily I've moved the coins away as advised by somebody, but at recheck after the last XMR fork, my Ledger has returned different address to me).

So without XMR, Ledger + Leger Live is the easiest option. I don't know if you want to also invest in a hardware wallet, so I won't continue; if you want to invest maybe you find something more reputable than Ledger for the job.

If the amounts are not big and you are tech savvy, maybe you configure a bootable USB stick with a Linux on it, with an Electrum, with Monero official wallet configured with a list of live servers, and maybe you find SPV / simple options for ETH and LTC too...

It's not an advise to use it, however, all in one could be Trust wallet. Still not online/web, even more, not even open source, still, it supports multiple coins (I don't know which) and afaik it's self-custody. Keep in mind that it's owned by Binance.

1. Why do you need the seed go with you? There are many ways of thought an maybe, just maybe, you don't need the seed go with you. Imho this would be best.
2. If there's a backup seed still there at home, maybe storing it encrypted / password protected on 1-2 USB sticks would do the job.
3. The seed is a text, hence it can be disguised in plain sight, like (already said) underlining words in a book, or even having 2 pieces of paper with different parts of the seed (people can mistake them for 12-words seed and they are together a 24-words seed).
4. Go to https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt and convert your list of words into a list of corresponding numbers.

At the moment somebody else gets even close to getting access to your wallet (so, if possible, before the repair guy getting to your file), you should consider that wallet compromised, move your funds away and never use it again.
Depending on your wallet's version (basically HD vs non HD) a new address may or may not be getting into his hands. However, why would you take chances?

Well said. Plus, by doubling, each new loss is way bigger, in a (desperate) attempt to recover all the previous (and ever increasing) loses.
Indeed, the sure path of getting very fast to zero.

I've seen people spending just as much time on Facebook, without even being incentivized to do so. Or playing games (online or offline). Or on TV.
So it depends from person to person, really. Going out is no longer "the thing" it should be. And if staying in, why not here?

This forum (too) is a very interesting "world", and spending time and being part of the community doesn't look like wasted time.
Of course, getting incentivized to be here and post is an important part/factor. How important, again, depends from person to person and also probably on how big the incentive is (depending on the campaign) and how badly the person needs that money. I would also not underestimate the interest in the actual people in here (online friends made on the forum).


In my case it's (also) both (the interest/passion about Bitcoin and the entire underlying technology and also the incentive) and, I'd say, even more than those two (ie the people).

14$ an hour is by far not a low-end payment. Not in my country, not in many others. So I think that you're looking at the things from the wrong angle. If you feel it's too low, you may want to adjust your spending habits.
And if you have "some skill in programing" I am sure you could look the things up and set up yourself a cold storage if you don't want to invest in hardware wallet.

Loser? I wouldn't say so. You're one of too many and all this stuff has a learning curve you've "missed". Lazy instead? Most probably, since you could have been reading this or that in the past 3 years and understand why keeping your savings in a/any centralized platform can easily turn into a huge mistake. Take this opportunity and at least learn from your mistakes. Get more knowledge and do the things right next time.

The first and easiest possibility would be that the website you've used to generate the paper wallet wasn't only showing it to you, instead it also made a copy of that paper wallet for the website owner.
And at some point, when he noticed you've funded it, he stole your money since he had too the private key.

Another discussion is about what you've done with the paper wallet an how you've stored it. If anyone else copied the private key, he could steal your money.
A paper wallet as you've done it is a private key and an address. Those can be kept on paper, but some keep it (wrongly!) in e-mail or cloud storage, giving others the chance to steal.

Plus if your computer has malware, for example, it was open to the internet.

These are the first possibilities coming into my mind.


I don't know how good is bitaddress. If people say it's OK, fine, but such a tool can easily generate the keys even by a certain rule and make it easy to recover by the site owner. I would use a wallet to generate the private key.
Apart of the first step and using a paper wallet generator, the rest of the steps look pretty good (although booting from an USB stick with a live OS with no persistence would achieve that easier).

I would use Bitcoin core (offline, without downloading blockchain) or Electrum (offline) at first step and, as a later step, I would recover the wallet from the private key and make sure the address is the one expected (so you avoid surprises there too).

---

Later edit: if you invest into amounts like 0.4 BTC, is it so difficult to invest in a hardware wallet? It would be safer and easier even for making yourself some sort of paper wallets, if you still want those.

Vai, mulțumesc mult că le-ai scris tu! Le văzusem ieri (de fapt 3 dintre ele), am și participat la două, dar mi-a fost peste mână să le postez aici, stăteam prost cu timpul și mă agitam ca prostu', pierzând și mai mult timp.
Acum am venit să văd și să postez, dar deja ai făcut-o tu. Cu atât mai bine, măcar nu hăulesc singur la lună


Baftă să avem cu toții!

Woah 
I've had a feeling that something has happened in the past years - I don't/didn't know when - but I couldn't think that it was this bad.
So sorry man. Stay strong and get well. Good luck with the surgery.

I can guess that it won't be an easy Christmas this year, but I certainly hope you'll celebrate it more properly (ok, without alcohol, but still...) in February!

Take the bright side of the situation: you've found out before it was too late.
Believe in your chance and, yeah, I'll be repeating that, stay strong!

Good point. At the first read I thought the account in discussion is bitcointalk account. But yeah, it may be an account at a centralized exchange or the wallet mistaken for account.
@Cynthia_sinach042, can you please clear this out? Since it's not advised to keep big amounts of bitcoins on centralized platforms, you may consider getting a hardware wallet...


This is not really the best way to invest, since personal needs can happen and then you may have to sell at a loss.
But yeah, I wish you don't have unexpected expenses and the investment will stay there for long.


Not many agree that in the whole world, not yet. But we'll get there too someday, not too far in the future...

19 - NeuroticFish

Thank you!

Well, congrats! Is this payment for the side job or for the main job?
I'm asking because for the side job it's just the perfect way to do it (imho), but for the main job, getting the full pay in bitcoin is a bit risky unless you can live from other funds and keep the bitcoins untouched for a couple of years.
However, interesting move!

10 - NeuroticFish
36 - NeuroticFish

Thank you, Betnomi!