Yeah, necessity is the mother of invention, isn't it? The Visa saga must have been too much to deal with so they opted to go for their own banking license. Seems like this will be the new way to go for all these old giants of payment gateways, and with neo banks all the rage now, we'll see plenty more coming along with their own "whitelabel" debit card solutions. Can't be happening quick enough, competition needs to be fiercer cause I'm happy with the solutions I have already but wouldn't mind options to keep things (and fees) interesting.


I have been wondering if there's any direct challenger to Visa and MC - every debit card solution eventually relies on their systems. We've had a blockchain-based tech to displace Swift already (Ripple), why not something to displace Visa/MC and co?

It's 0.0005... or 50,000 satoshi if that's easier. I was thinking they'd set it back down to their old 10k sats fee but I guess we're going to see them hold on to that for a while, at least perhaps until they get on board with Segwit.

Of course storing on your own wallet is safer than on any exchange (with the exception of decentralised ones where they also don't store your private keys)... you should be the only one able to access your stored funds.

As I mentioned, there are some sites that allow fee adjustment, like the one I mentioned (CG). That's not an exchange though.

Perhaps move this to Technical Discussion section.

Since you're not doing any tests, then your starting point, like on any topic, should be to read up. Start with the most obvious: the whitepaper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf.

There've been lots of papers discussing Bitcoin privacy, particularly related to so-called blockchain forensics, used by enforcement agencies to track down (with great success) illicit activity using Bitcoin via address/tx association and following the blockchain trail. Here's a very recent study: https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/3883533/downloads/Bitcoin%20Laundering.pdf

Here's another from last year co-authored by Maxwell: https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/1066.pdf looks at improving Bitcoin privacy. There was another by same co-author, can't recall where though.

Lighter stuff: you might want to read about several techniques used to enhance Bitcoin privacy, including mixing/tumbling, certain basic behaviours.

Not sure how you became a teacher since these days they require at least a high school graduation from applicants even in developing countries. Your correlation makes the most basic mistakes that wouldn't let you graduate high school. Last year, a new cinema opened in a small town in my state, and when public exam results were released recently with a drop in average performance, yup, a letter to the editor in a local paper blamed the cinema.

Teaching Bitcoin to kids, or letting them use it, will have no more or less effect than any other new tech you show them. If anything, the really interested ones might go on to do a lot of reading that'll help them in their critical skills later on in higher education.

Damn Kane, every time Salah levels, he pips him by another game. Kane's actually the third most clinical strike, to be honest, just behind Salah and then Aguero (chances converted to goals ratio). I was definitely feeling that CP would feel hard done by. I predicted a 1-1 draw for them and "almost" got it right.

I knew Willian'd score, but Mourinho does have a way of overcoming these types of matches. The Chelsea faithful must be all in hiding now to lose to their former special one.

Yeah, anything upwards of 50k satoshi has been murderous for people using exchanges as wallets - or any site service, for that matter, which charges a fixed fee rate. Worst still, very few of these actually use proper fees when processing withdrawals, and during spikes in network congestion, expect them to skimp on fees (not even putting the fee charged to users to full use).

That said, for a very long time I used Poloniex to accept small payments, and then withdrew them to my own wallet when they reached a certain amount. They've always had a 0.0001 BTC fee, which increased recently to 0.005. Still was reasonable for most times and a steal for consolidating multiple inputs. So maybe add that to your list, OP?

Of course, it should be said exchanges can disappear with your funds at any time...

Think you can see here that everyone recommends a few good ways to start off:
1. Gain experience doing the work you intend to do. Either start off offering free services or take the low-paid ones to build a portfolio.
2. Gain a reputation for hard work - usually your forum account here speaks for itself. Contribute to discussions, take a bit of time to research and give constructive feedback.
3. This is what no one's really said yet. Be open with yourself and ask if you're really as good at what you do as you think you are. If you're not, then find out what you're good at and look for opportunities using the skills you have. Content writing isn't actually for everyone.

Shapeshift is convenient but they have pretty hefty spreads, so I only use that as a last resort. Coinpayments is what I'd recommend as a new-ish service that seems to be gaining reputation. As a user, I've used them without hitches, and as an escrow service, I'm pretty happy with how they've managed that for me on two occassions. They've also got a sig campaign here with a reputable manager, so I'd say that's another vote of confidence.

BitPay I no longer use, their invoice system is just too tricky with a short payment window. Currently workable with low mempool but I wouldn't like to run into issues when transactions start to flood back in.

Here's a creative alternative, which I've used: using a casino account with inbuilt exchange supporting multiple cryptos. It does require you to trust the service of course, and probably a roundabout way of being able to switch between crypto to pay someone in an alt but I've done so happily with crypto-games.net. Much lower spread (about 2%) on instant exchange.

Somehow missed this, I see you made this post a couple of weeks back. Now, I've always felt that miners play at least a small role in propping up Bitcoin prices - at least in the very act of selling the bitcoins they generate. If the overhead calculations are correct, then they would need to put up more than half of the coins they generate on the market for selling daily. I suspect that this is a lot less - a lot of other factors aren't taken into account (BTC isn't also the only coin mined).

But temper this: last year, when the price really rose, was also the year that saw a lot of new entrants into the mining industry - major players like Bitmain are not increasing, but losing their majority hashpower. They can't do much on their own ($20m is as you say only a temporary measure and this warchest is not liquid) and we've seen even post NYA that miners actually aren't the collective force we thought they might be.

Yeah, same here. 20 points from the Liverpool and . I backed all the underdogs (according to bookie odds) to win, except for Liverpool (my usual 3-0) and Brighton (I predicted 2-1). Newcastle made me smile (I predicted 2-0) but it was not to be, not even 10 surprise points as they eventually drew 2-2.

If I HAD stuck to previous weeks strategy of picking unexpected 1-1 draws instead, I'd have hit it on Leicester and Burnley. What the hell, right?

Stephencurry and Betadviser did well. So I might as well gamble on today's two games, favouring a low/no scoring draw at Palace (come on Benteke!) and Willian to continue his hot streak to beat Utd 2-0.

Well, well, no one would have guessed US to win their first gold with the curling event. I lost all my bets on Sweden, Swiss, and Norway... guess it always pays off to pick one crazy underdog in the US, I just never saw it coming. Anyone know what the odds must have been for them? Wouldn't be surprised if it was even 100+.

Germany even knocked out Canada in ice hockey, so glad I didn't decide to take that bet. They were at @60 odds to win so you bet there'll be plenty of Germans looking forward to the last game. OAR in the final too, so I'm really wondering if I should take these kind of tourneys more seriously next time!

Cat's not dead. Probably still got all nine lives left in fact. For Bitcoin to start losing one of those lives, we'd need to see it seriously threaten prices of over a year ago - and that's below $1.5k. No doubt there'll be people believing this could still happen, but it'll be a stretch of imagination to see in in 2018. Crystal ball doesn't seem to allow looking beyond the horizon, but there's got to be a lot of things that need to happen for the cat to get skinned the first time.

What'll it be? Alts finally gaining supremacy? That won't be until two or three years when all these utility tokens MAYBE see some serious adoption and use beyond the confines of trading. Countries simply cracking down? Not in the current climate of governments warming up to blockchain and crypto, eager to forget the hurt of the last financial crisis.

Yeah, even the rumour mongers at the usual Merkle/CCN etc hideouts can't seem to get anything juicy on their plates these past few weeks. Just the recycling of same stories, clarification of previously reported happenings. All threads that are running on their last legs. If I had to guess, there are some quiet undercurrents that a lot of ICOs from last year will be dealing with, and with GDPR implementation coming up in just over 2 months, there might be quite a bit of scrambling before some major announcement from continental watchdogs.

That's primed for a May/Spring movement either way, but yeah, there's really nothing to pressure the price away from 10k, think Bitcoin's really sprouting roots out here now. I'm ready to be wrong though. Perhaps regulation won't be as impactful this year.

SW and LN will likely take a lot longer than we're expecting... end of the year or autumn even. And that... that will really bring back some of the lost herd.

Talk about sucker punches, nothing quite like the Premier League in terms of goals scored in the dying minutes. Newcastle will really feel like they lost two points but credit to them for going for the win, Mourinho was right when he said they play for their lives... I was just a few minutes away from claiming a nice win, but as it turns out all my ML bets for today didn't pan out for the underdogs.

Liverpool got a nice win, nice strategy for Moyes to put in the sub Antonio, Liverpool do have a way of forgetting to mark new guys for the first few minutes, if anyone notices they need a bit of time to adjust their zonal markings. But the Terrific Three all getting on the scoresheet again, I'm not too upset.

I have a bit of confidence in Liverpool now. They've just got back from a nice weekend break (Klopp gave his main players that since we didn't have FA Cup worries) and will be raring to take out some of their kicks back on West Ham. Odds aren't good for betting though, but I put a tiny bet on Liverpoool over 3.5 goals at a nice doubler.

I'm taking a few risks t oday on betting:
1. Newcastle ML bet @3.87 should be interesting as they're buoyant from crashing Man Utd's party last weekend.
2. Burnley ML @ 3.1x
3. Swansea ML @ 4.22

Just one win out of the three will return a small 3% profit at least.

Interesting that the central bank started off by relating cryptocurrency to "investment", after at least 4 years of already having it on the agenda as a means of payment first, but I suppose that's reflective of all the queries they must be getting from the public about whether "investing" in Bitcoin is legitimate. At least it is one of the few banks that recognise and state Bitcoin benefits as a means of payment (though fails to specify why exactly it is different from others in that it's p2p and trustless).

Note that the bank governor very seldom acts independently of the current political regime. It will be how the ruling party views Bitcoin that eventually decides (or not) if Bitcoin will ever have a status there.

I'm leaning towards Patatas here. I know the major demographic of most traditional online gambling, especially leisure gamblers, means that graphics and attention-grabbing images will be important to pull in the crowds, specially if you're going for the mobile market... but I wonder if crypto gamblers are a little less concerned with graphics than with speed. Every site I play at: loading is an issue especially with mobile data access. Maybe I'm getting too used to dice-game sites and how they look, so I already have expectations.

Unless the images are a significant part of branding... I'd tone down and aim straight for the heart of BitDice... highlight the flagship product, hook the crypto gambler in 2 seconds, not 5 while images load.

Bitcoin does not need approval from any country. It does not need Warren Buffet's approval. That is perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of Bitcoin. It specifically sought to make approval redundant. You never need to trust anyone or any country to use Bitcoin. It never seeks to force itself on anyone. Using it has always been and continues to be voluntary.

Add Switzerland to the list of authorities (at least in some municipals) who've begun accepting Bitcoin as tax payments since last year. Not to mention you've always been able to buy tickets for state-run public transport there with Bitcoin.

Add Vanuatu to the list of countries who accept Bitcoin for citizenship.

I could go on, others probably will. OP has to learn to use Google at least.

Yeah, I actually missed out on the 11700-12000 range, after delaying a much-needed sell for over a week, and being forced to do it today means I lost out on about 15%, but it's really good to see that the lows are getting much higher now. I know it's only short term and in the end I would have liquidated just as much today as more than a week ago, but because I'm lining up a few more sells over March, this kind of behaviour is pleasing.

I won't be surprised if Bitcoin tests 6k again soon and it'll have many chances to do just that before Spring fully arrives. Now that the regulatory movements are being clarified, and newcomers have seen indeed that short term profit taking is possible with Bitcoin's insistence on volatility, the volume across the board seems to be approaching levels that encouraged last year's boom

ATH this year is not unlikely, but I'd really like for Bitcoin to stay firmly above 10k for more than two or three months before feeling comfortable to readjust my "psychological" price of Bitcoin... which actually is still above $5k. Call me pessimist, but I like being proven wrong with Bitcoin!

I agree that the issue of Bitcoin's energy use is overblown hugely out of proportion - first of all because it isn't a waste if it serves a useful purpose. And securing the Bitcoin network has become a very useful purpose in itself. Never mind its implications for modern finance.

I also agree that Bitcoin's energy consumption is unfairly measured, unfairly compared, and unfairly valued. There are just so many factors to take into account other than simple "txs per unit of energy". At least with Bitcoin, you can actually more accurately quantify how much it costs to conduct commerce in the Bitcoin ecosystem. But look at alternatives like Visa (the favourite comparison)... you can't easily put a figure to how much it costs to conduct their commerce. You can estimate salaries of Visa employees, overheads for brick and mortar establishments, even budgets lines for marketing, for security, for brand, R&D, maintenance. None of the comparisons take these other cost-bearing aspects into consideration.

But I also agree that energy consumption should be considered - and it is actually an issue that's been debated even from four, five years ago. Rightfully so.


This. Can't blame politicians for picking a populist stand on Bitcoin, though. That's sort of their job