Oh this took me by surprise! Just a few days ago wondering if Electrum was the only wallet that fully supported native SegWit, and someone else was commenting that there didn't seem any plan from Core to do the same (mystified me) and here they are. That makes two wallet client users now able to use bech32, and puts to bed all those excuses from exchanges and services saying "we're not because core isn't".

theymos thinks it'll still take years for native to become ubiquitous but I sense this forum at least to get things going. Yep, time to kick myself into bech32 era and go full SW.

Now that's what I call piling on the pressure! Was pretty confident they'd win anyway, but Napoli aren't exactly building a reputation as a heavy hitter so the goal fest was extremely welcome news (yes, as much as I admire Juve I want Napoli to win this season). Goals spread all around, Martens getting in on the action, only 1 booking. The only concern is the knocks they got during the match. No injuries as it seems but they were getting battered out there.

The 5-goal haul will be very important too, as Juve has scored 2 more than them (and share the best defence). So happy to see Pepe Reina enjoying his time in Italy.

Now this was something I completely overlooked in the potential of LN... because that is exactly the sort of system that might just work, given enough adoption by merchants. I mean, all this while, they've been staying off Bitcoin because of confirmation times and fees, but if just staying within channels, they eliminate both fees and delays. I imagine that if even a small percentage of Visa/MC merchants become part of a widespread global network of LN, everyone would be paying (and accepting) in Bitcoin... it took years for Visa/MC to really take hold, shouldn't be much different for Bitcoin.

Now if someone would get some of these "Bitcoin cities" like Arnhem to start using LN..!

So basically you're not using blockchain then? You mean "alternative" maybe, not "parallel". As I'm unsure of what you're proposing, could it be related to something like mesh networks? Directed acrylic graph? What's going on at the chinese developer forums, probably better luck there? Pretty sure the NEO guys might be able to throw you a lifeline if you contact via github or even their NEO Wechat.

Yeah, there must be a proper name for these kind of techniques, all very easy and basic to do. My only problem would be to rely on pure memory as we all know, that's also prone to deteriorate over time. Also, using reachable clues like wife's birthday is a bad idea. I've guessed passwords often enough on friends just on family birthdays.

I might suggest a method that you and your trusted ones agree to - like a simple code easily decipherable with one or two known hints.

For example, switching three characters in the private key, depending on the first alphabetical character in it. For example, if the first alphabet in the string is "d" then, as the fourth alphabet, the hint is 4. And go from there. Other ways. Save keys on text file. Rename .txt extension to something else. Archive (zip is fine) with encryption, password protect and rename that to another extension. A bit inconvenient to retrieve, but keeps it somewhat safe from most prying software.

Yeah. I'd never do a face to face, especially as a seller. There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep as much of your privacy as possible - in fact, there's everything right with that. Not to mention personal security. We're talking about a lot of money and very specific, very expensive equipment here. I'm pretty laid back when it comes to my physical identity in relation to crypto, but then I'm not dealing with this kind of financial and monetary risks...

As pointed out rather creatively a few posts above, (a solid) escrow is really all you need. Protects both parties' interests and ensures both sides get what they want without much fuss.

Please provide more information. Do we understand correctly that you:
1. Purchased bitcoin, receiving it on your Electrum?
2. When you open Electrum, is it synced with the network (large green button bottom right)?
3. Pending usually just means the tx has not confirmed (picked up by miners and entered into blockchain as a valid tx). Even without wallet, to find out the state of your tx, simply go to any blockchain explorer (like blockchain.info) and enter the tx id. If you don't know what that is, enter the receiving address to look it up. It should show all transactions related to it, as well as their statuses.
4. How long did you wait?

Cool. Looks like the Juventus game is postponed due to heavy snow. Can't really find out when the match will be played, but this gives an excellent chance to Napoli to pile on the pressure by winning tonight's game. I know Juve will still have that game in hand but just to see that 4-point gap will be a real psychological challenge. Of course, it could work out against Napoli to feel a false sense of security but they probably need a bit of calming on those frayed nerves.

P.S. Buffon got a shock recall to the national team. Italy so desperate?

That's a whole different direction to privacy, isn't it? I'm not anywhere near the sort of technical expert that is qualified to comment but as I'm aware of, plenty of people have attempted to do this, but as far as I know, this decade-old tech has yet withstood all attempts. In theory, it's possible, but in practicality, not. MIT believes quantum computing could eventually do the trick, but I think they're wrong - at least for another decade, by which time Bitcoin would be even more sophisticated.

There is something of a distributed effort to try this (let's just say brute force cracking) called the Large Bitcoin Collider which purports realistic success, but has been unable to prove it and been debunked many times over. But hey, kudos to them for trying, right? Maybe you could start there: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1555043.0

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!