Mi se pare putin patetic si complet lipsit de sens dintr-o discutie legata de siguranta centralizarii vs decentralizarii sa ajungi la concluzii tip "urmaresti Antena3" out of nowhere.

Atata timp cat un document este criptat in mod corespunzator, teoretic poate fi urcat si aici pe forum si distribuit tuturor, deoarece ceilalti nu ar avea acces la el fara cheitele potrivite. Insa acel "atata timp cat" e de mai multe ori o iluzie a sigurantei decat o realitate. Pot sa te asigur ca daca in acest moment CZ de la Binance ar declara ca are datele clientilor urcate pe Google Drive.. in secunda 2 ar pierde mai bine de 10% din clienti (si s-ar putea sa fiu modest). In afara de acest aspect, ideea in sine ca precizezi exact unde sunt urcate datele clientilor tai reprezinta o momeala mai mult decat perfecta pentru un "bad actor".

That'd be a shame. I'd be happy to know that my kid is investing in something, especially if we're diversifying the portfolio as a family. Some people get the wrong idea that if they occupied a certain position in the society, the next generation must do the same as well.

The thing is, gold investment is a risk as well. Price fluctuates in any market, and the fact that it's been a reliable asset for so long doesn't mean it will be in the future as well. With technology, the future may not look as sweet for gold as it used to. Replicating substances could be a thing at one point while replicating the same Bitcoins cannot happen. He could take it from any perspective and I'd get it - he's a goldbug and that has been his lifetime passion. But not accepting something just because it's new is just pathetic, especially when after a while you finally give up and say "hey, Bitcoin is fine as well after all", lol.

It totally depends on the current laws of each state/country. Not sure how reliable this website is (the only one I can properly access without JS), but here's what Employment Law Handbook says about the New York state:


As long as the laws allow you to pay the salary in the equivalent of other currencies, products or digital assets, it should be legal and fine. It's on a case-by-case basis.

Hasn't he only recently confessed that he was wrong about BTC all this time?

Peter probably wanted his kid to have something real, as in palpable. What Peter doesn't understand is that technology has advanced to a point where you can have more trust in something that is virtual than in something that has a physical form.

Gold has been a great mean of exchange during all the previous recessions. Fake gold has been a great one as well. Times have changed, and we have something that cannot be faked or tampered with, can be instantly sent anywhere around the world and has no physical weight. It may be time for Peter himself to understand that Bitcoin is the literal revolution of money.

CBDCs will not be cryptocurrencies. This is the definition of the term "cryptocurrency" from Merriam Webster:


This is why the entire CBDC issuing is only mass manipulation but, considering the very low amount of people who have the necessary knowledge to define what a cryptocurrency is or explain how it works, it will unfortunately most likely be a success for them with the manipulation.

They can't adopt Bitcoin because they're banks. Adopting Bitcoin means eliminating the needs of central authorities such as banks and currency issuers. As long as banks exist, Bitcoin will have enemies.

Ororo, I like your attitude and I honestly wish the majority of people were thinking like you.

But nowadays, laziness is what pushes us back into different kinds of slavery we think means "freedom". It's like you are giving away all your personal life to some other parties just to get the taste of "social media" and "financial freedom" they make you only think you are enjoying.

I sometimes look forward to the day when we'll possibly be able to achieve having both an easy to understand & use coin and a decentralized one. That's how we can get more people to think like you. A 2-in-1. It's very hard however, because the mass is used to paying trusted third parties to do everything for them. If there was a way to enjoy both freedom and convenience at the same time, things would change. But now, let's ask ourselves for once: is it worth it? Would it be a positive change in the end?

If convenience would come up for Bitcoin, all we'd do is just attract the mass of laziness who'd only support Bitcoin because "hey, it gets you rich and is easy to use!". Therefore, after all, having to broaden your knowledge may be way healthier than having an easy to use coin. I think it's better to have more privacy-seeking people but a smaller overall amount of users than an incredibly high amount of users out of which the vast majority is looking just for profit.

It's not enough to purchase ounces of gold and silver to be a good investor. You could purchase collectibles at amazing prices and multiply your money without having to wait decades. You need to know what karats are, or how much an ounce weighs. That is, broadening your knowledge. Whoever does it may succeed and may also see a lot of stuff from a different perspective than they used to.

Satoshi probably wanted to combine all the best features of every currency (including those used in barter) and make something out of it that cannot be tampered with. He successfully did so, but he created something so valuable it attracts more profit-seekers than privacy ones. Bitcoin will surely improve in time. It'll only get better (hopefully). Your idea that Ethereum is a Bitcoin testnet is amazing and very interesting, never thought of it like that. It's why Bitcoin also has such "slow" updates: by rushing new stuff, we may mistakenly push a self-destroy trigger (literally or not) inside BTC.

The best change can only start with us. For one, I'd advise the closest of my friends to start loosening the leash and stop letting them trusted parties take our data. This starts with taking small steps, such as moving from centralized software to FOSS. Windows to Linux. WhatsApp to Signal. Maybe Signal to Conversations through Tor after a while. That's how you start finding out your personal life has always had many, many invisible intruders. The majority of people would think you're crazy if you begin with cypherpunk stuff. With small steps, as long as they're interested in getting more freedom than they ever had, they'll get to the more in-detail stuff as well, such as decentralized services.

To be honest, using decentralized services is certainly not for the beginners. Put a Ledger with a thousand bucks in some stranger's hand and a laptop with Bisq open in front of them - I bet you anything they'd have zero idea what is going on and, even if you explained it's about Bitcoin, they'd have no clue how to swap from a coin to another or withdraw funds. This is why it takes so long for freedom to be the people's choice.

As Bisq and other p2p and decentralized services/marketplaces seem to be hitting the gas pedal a bit more this year compared to previous ones, maybe, just maybe, people start wondering why the hell do we need to trust others when things are so advanced nowadays we don't need a central party anymore. The fact that I see more and more people waking up and starting to think the decentralized way makes me more excited about what the future holds for us than I thought. Congrats for thinking this way - hopefully your message is inspirational to others.

According to Blockchain's explorer, the address you have given us has received today a transaction worth 0.0015 BTC. You can see this transaction here: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/559dd6b57e0cb742aceb771650031b92a75d3b41e0ee5b9c01c9ff8715707979

If you take a look at the outputs (on the left side you see inputs, as in addresses that sent BTC while on the right you see outputs, as in addresses that received BTC), address 19y4mh48pnvJpzCr4ho8DYXkZKCEAU1tAE has received the exact amount of 0.0015 BTC. Moreover, the transaction has already been confirmed 18 times.

Is this the tx you are referring to?

Once a transaction is confirmed, it means it has 100% been received by the other end. You do not receive a "Addrex X has received your BTC" notification of some sort. Confirmation is equal to "the transaction has successfully taken place".

Let's be honest. The markets are still so immature the "omg, Sushi has been listed on Binance!! buy to the moon" thing is still there and working just as perfectly as in 2017 as if it's the main goal of a coin. It's too silly. Once this stops, things will change hopefully..

It's very hard to keep your identity completely hidden. Probably impossible to have it exactly 100%.

There are cameras that could be used to facially recognize you. Your disposable phone, unless it has all antennas removed, will send and receive information from and to the service provider it's been registered to (and even without it, AFAIK, a phone with battery in it could still send and receive information - especially if it's a smartphone, and assuming you're using Bitcoin with it... it most likely is). Just think about it - even without a SIM card you can still call 911, right? Even if you turn your phone to Airplane Mode, do you have any guarantee that it has terminated any communication?

What is the source of your Bitcoins? What if your government or a third party has been doing blockchain analysis for a long time and your identity has been easily found? Mixers do not hide your identity 100%. While it hardens the analysis process and makes tracking your coins a pain in the arse, it does not mean it's impossible to find who the owner truly is. With enough resources and time, someone looking after your BTC address may link some crucial information to find your identity.

There's more to it. It's just that, while you do improve your privacy, you never push it to perfection. There's always going to be some leakage you may not even be thinking about, yet important enough for authorities or someone tracking you.

Edit: Tor does not hide your identity either, if you do not use it the right way. First of all, a lot of people use it with JavaScript enabled - which is just enough for your real device's information to be leaked. The thing is, you're mistaking anonymity for pseudonymity. It's not anonymous. It's not like I send you 0.001BTC and nobody knows who sent money to who, or how much. The ledger is entirely public, which means that once data is stored, it's going to be there forever. In other words, any little mistake is going to be recorded without the possibility of reverting it. It's just like our usernames on here: you have usernames, you're not sure who is who.. but with enough research, you may find out. We're just pseudonymous - not anonymous.

While there's an evident increase in the number of people who are currently using Bitcoin, I doubt the number of purists and decentralized supporters is that large. Even I, as much as I love Bitcoin, have some alts I am still holding onto and sometimes use centralized services - which means I am basically not a purist either.

But even if everyone was non-purist, the main problem is that the mass would accept anything as long as it makes their lives more convenient. It's very easy to bait the mass by launching a CBDC with a "universal basic income"-like programme. The main requirement? Adopting the CBDC. The past 7 months have showed me the fact that, once people get the opportunity to stay home and get money doing nothing, it gets hard to go back to the less convenient life.

On the other hand, I am quite sure Bitcoin will continue to be supported by a significant and increasing amount of people and, although we'll have stupid laws and regulations, we'd still have the possibility to do stuff peer-to-peer as it was originally intended. There'll be people who are using Bitcoin the "regular" way (as in the worst way which can easily be analyzed) and others who'll go off the grid and will probably be targeted by authorities. I'll happily and proudly be part of the latter.

If I was to imagine the future, here's how I see it: Bitcoin becomes "inferior" (as in market cap, volume, tx fees and speed etc) to CBDCs while also becoming the preferred choice for those who seek more financial freedom. There'll probably be a time when the crypto markets will be heavily disrupted by CBDCs as they'll probably make a lot of traders confused the same way OP seems to be: do we choose CBDCs or BTC?

They are as safe as you make them be. A hot wallet on a completely clean, offline and secure PC is just as safe - but you need to really know what you're doing in order to keep the safety at a constant level. However, hardware wallets are more convenient as in you don't have to worry about everything. They are supposedly safe even if you plug them into an infected PC. As long as you keep them up to date all the time, you should really be fine.

Depends on what you mean by "memorized seed phrase". If you're talking about a seed phrase that you try to remember using your own brain, that is a very big flaw. Imagine having an unfortunate accident that causes a memory loss. Or imagine having forgotten a word or two out of your seed - or the correct order. Using your own brain to remember a seed is a big risk.

Again - as durable as the method of storage is. A paper wallet could be easily destroyed by heat/water. Hardware wallets are more resistant when it comes to the materials, but you still have to store your hardware wallet's seed somewhere. That could also be a paper. So keep this in mind - and a metal seed storage could come in handy in order to lower the chances of something going wrong.

Using desktop wallets isn't a bad idea. But try to avoid custodial web wallets. I mean, try to avoid web wallets at all. You could use your hardware wallet with compatible web wallets - that's fine, because you'd still store your coins on the hardware. But avoid Blockchain wallet, Coinomi and any other custodial/closed-source wallet. There's Electrum - it does an amazing job when it comes to being both fast and convenient and has a lot of functions as well.

Also, try to use your hot wallet only for short term txs. If you need to make a payment, use that hot wallet temporarily for it. Afterwards, move all your funds back to the cold storage.

It's usually recommended not to purchase it from a reseller. Think about it - is it worth paying $10 less to later find out your device has been tampered with and your funds just poof as soon as you send them to your HW?

There could even be fake wallets (IIRC, there was a fake Trezor selling around at one point) you might purchase unknowingly. Therefore, the best thing you can do is just get it from the original source or authorised sellers (you find the authorized ones on official hardware wallet websites).

Trezor and Ledger are the most widely used and known. I own both of them - it really depends on what coins you want to store and what functions you want the HWs to have. Check out both websites and their products, compare them and see which one you like more.

I would personally not call these guys who got excited over Libra "cryptocurrency gurus and advocates". Not even close to that.

As far as I remember (and this is a thing that's been quite well impregnated inside my mind), almost nobody was excited over Zucc's coin. How the hell could I trust something that's been created by one of the largest data collecting and privacy intruding corporations in the world?

It's probably not even a cryptocurrency. Just something that has the ability to probably collect the remaining information Zuckerberg does not have yet about you, your personal life and your family. Libra was heavily rejected from all sides, which is also why you don't hear about it yet. As it turned into a failure, it wouldn't be surprising if he changed the surveillancecoin's name in order to give it a second launch attempt.

I highly hope there's no hope for it. We're here to get freedom. Not to enslave ourselves more than our current world system does. I'm excited exactly 0% about his so-called "cryptocurrency".

What makes it unreliable is the fact that we're in the middle of a DeFi craze. It's as risky as joining Bitcoin trading while it has a 2017 kind of pump. You just know it doesn't go up forever, yet the gut feeling says "don't miss it".

If it had an actual healthy growth, I wouldn't've been so suspicious about it - I might have even studied what it's all about. But so far, it only looks like all the other unnecessary crazes I stood away from. When you see even the shittiest and scammiest DeFi coins pop up and boom, you have to know it's time to hit the brakes.

A lot of terms are wrongly used around the crypto sphere. The name itself concludes that BTC is a currency: cryptocurrency, but that doesn't mean it is necessarily one. On the other hand, do people buy and sell stuff using it (and work for it)? They do, they also exchange it for fiat and backwards..

It's really what we want it to be. Some people (especially around Europe) see CHF as a refuge and hold their bucks in it on the long term, especially before and during recessions. That doesn't mean CHF is a safe haven asset.

If those engineers truly cared for the privacy at Google, they would've left their jobs long time ago. They're working for a probably very good paycheck tho, and even without them Google will find other workers willing to do their job. Anything related to this massive corporation is privacy-flawed at this point. They've been able to maliciously make everything so convenient for us while recording as much data as possible from us at the same time, monetizing it, selling it and using it for their own benefit.

I have been successfully using Invidious as a YT replacement for a long time. Not the perfect alternative, but better than YT anyway. It's basically just a YT player with privacy in mind: https://invidio.us/

Unfortunately, it closed down only 3 days ago. I'll leave here the list (from their page) of alternative instances for they close the website down entirely:
    invidious.snopyta.org
    invidious.ggc-project.de
    invidious.13ad.de
    yewtu.be
    invidious.fdn.fr
    invidious.toot.koeln
    invidiou.site
    yt.iswleuven.be
    vid.mint.lgbt
    watch.nettohikari.com

There's also this alternative: https://freetubeapp.io/

Bitcoin cannot be completely non-correlated to other markets. People have to act one way or another, according to certain events. That's where some people consider it a currency and play it as such while other people consider it a safe refuge from stocks and fiat.

The Bitcoin graph @mk4 shared above would probably look less different to the SPY if more people considered it a safe haven. If they consider it the same as fiat/stocks, they'd play them against each other. Bitcoin may be independent, but if traders see it one way or another, they'll take actions accordingly .. and the charts move that way.

The ICO craze worked and ended up the same way any other stock craze does: the rich and experienced end up with more money while the weak traders and FOMO hunters ended up emptying theirs.

Nothing productive came out ot the ICOs because it was just a cycle that couldn't go on forever. It was something that many knew had to stop but only few took the right actions. A ton of money has been poured in DeFis as well in the past month, how do you think this will end?

Actually, there were a ton of coins before 2019 that had zero volume and no liquidity. I still have a few of them I never got to sell - they're still on some exchanges, but have under $10 volume per day lol. Some of the exchanges hold these coins on there because: 1. the exchange has volume so low they care about every little volume a shitcoin could generate; 2. the shitcoins' devs have paid money to have them listed or 3. the said exchange just doesn't care.

I stopped reading here for a minute. "Send me $50, I will give you $1,000" .. How did you really believe this? If the guy really had that engine and could've made $1k from a $50 investment, he would've multiplied his own money to infinity. Besides mining gear, there is no "engine" that generates BTC out of nowhere, lol. Time for you to take a seat and start learning what Bitcoin is and how it works.

Had you sent him 110 more for the "fees", he would've requested one more payment afterwards most likely. This would've gone forever, until your wallet would've emptied. Works the same way "internet girlfriend" scammers strip men's wallets out of money.

I get it. But it was solely your fault and begging isn't really a thing we agree with here. Accept the idea that you have committed a mistake and move on with it. I've lost money too and had to understand that nobody has to pay me back for the mistakes I've made. Lesson learned.

Do you trust your friend so much you'd put money on the line for something he thinks has a bright future? How does anyone even know Bitcoin has a bright future after all? We aren't crystal balls. Try to think on your own and do your research properly. There are many, many thousands of coins nobody's talking about, wonder why..

They're shitcoins or scams, that is why.

Upon entering their website, this is what I read:

It seems like the literally first thing you read on their website already sounds too good to be true.. and what are those subscription things? For $30 they promise a "Monthly Pinkoin Salary ₦180,000 ($514)worth of PinKoin"? The team is composed of God of Trinity and Universal Daddy?

Yes, it's a shame that the owners of those 2 domains are supporters of Bitcoin clones and unsafe wallets. But that's just because people obviously click the domains containing more known terms like blockchain, bitcoin, coinbase etc. before they click anything else.

Are you basically proposing an "official wallet" as in a "bitcoinwalletofficial"-like website? Any domain - or software - could be changed at any time in the wrong way. Even the said "official" wallet. The thing is, there should be alternatives. Bitcoin.org gives you an alternative for every use case you may be needing. Having a single "official" website/wallet is bad from a decentralization PoV. By having one more alternative that pops up into your eyesight whenever you look Bitcoin up, you're just going to have one more domain on the list of websites newbies tend to click.. or taking it another way, it'd be as if blockchain.com never existed and you proposed it.