it is encoded in Base64 but it doesn't always start with the same few characters and it doesn't nessaasrily end with an "=".
the equal sign (=) is for padding.

from Wikipedia:
"The final '==' sequence indicates that the last group contained only one byte, and '=' indicates that it contained two bytes."

you can see the examples there for more information.

this can also be helpful: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4080988/why-does-base64-encoding-require-padding-if-the-input-length-is-not-divisible-by

i wonder when will you start sharing "all" your bullshit i mean discussions
i still remember how you were struggling to make money around here by spamming all around the forum hyping up ETH and bashing BTC and having a love hate relationship with LTC...

you were saying "winter is coming" when price went to $1200 back in April and was calling all kinds of doomsday theories (just like now) and saying it will go back to $800.
suffice it to say that not only there has been no "winter" but also price went up to $1800 and the rest is history

i wonder how long will this account of yours last before you are banned again! maybe try spamming less this time, maybe you can last longer...

if you read a proper article written by a decent journalist not an idiot or if you read the official warning that the bank/government released about cryptocurrencies, i am sure you will get your answer.

the reason is pretty simple and it is the same reason why "I" warn others about digital currencies such as bitcoin. it is things like
- the highly volatile nature of bitcoin. the fact that price of it can swing up and down a lot and if you invest you may lose or gain a lot of money in a short time. that is considered a big risk.
- the fact that it is a new technology, you need to learn it properly to use it correctly. not using it right can lead to losses. for example holding 1000BTC in your online computer with an unencrypted wallet your desktop!
- the fact that there are a lot of scammers out there that are using the bitcoin's no charge back to rip you off.
- don't get me started on altcoins, how shitty they are, how majority are pump and dumps (which is illegal by the way). and how there is a lot of market manipulation (which is illegal again).

you can go here: https://bitcoincharts.com/charts/
click on "Symbol" dropbox and select different exchanges. set the time period to "All Data" to see when they start. this is a mostly reliable way to figure out which exchanges were around back in 2014 and the list is nearly complete.

for example if you choose BTCC you can see it has been around from 2016ish https://bitcoincharts.com/charts/btccUSD#tgSzm1g10zm2g25zv
but Mt Gox has been around from 2010ish https://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#tgSzm1g10zm2g25zv

it is still a dumb move, as dumb as it was 2 years ago when i first heard a news like this about someone selling everything he owned (even sold his dog!) to buy bitcoin. and i am not saying it is dumb and high risk just because of how price moves, that is only a small part of it but it is dumb because what happens if you do that and lose your bitcoin wallet!
you take backups and take all the precautions of course but what if you lost the wallet, a hardware failure, a fire, your bank safety deposit box was robbed that will be the end of your life....

it doesn't matter, during, before, after forks, you should always "store" your coins in cold storage https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Cold_storage

anything else is a risky move, and when you leave it with a third party (freebitco.in for example) you are taking a much bigger risk because you are giving up control on your money and that is a risky move.

but if you end up doing it anyways, they will most probably credit your airdrops as they have promised.

.... and at the same time having a huge amount of coins premined makes it a very dishonest fork.

in any case i am very interested to see how this is going to work though. i really hope it gains some traction for the sake of its mining, i love to see how they will handle things in the future, for example will it remain GPU mineable. some people say there is nothing called "ASIC resistance" and they suggest adding deadlines now for change of mining algorithms to prevent it.

it is pretty interesting that you became extra active as soon as bitcoin price broke the $5000 resistance and all your previous comments and topics have been with the same doom subject about bitcoin. it is as if you have missed the train

from the start of this, all that was said has been manipulation of bitcoin price. they took a shot and spread the FUD, it was always a win-win situation, the FUD was successful and they made a huge amount of profit in a very short amount of time.

and as you can see all of it was also temporary. bitcoin always comes back on track because you can not keep its price down for long. it always bounces back up to the normal price levels. we were testing the $5000 resistance last time which is about 1 month ago and not it is broken.

i disagree with this a little.
the news about China that is popular and everyone is hearing about is the "China Banned Bitcoin" FUD still. not much has changed about that FUD really and they never banned bitcoin to begin with. they closed a couple of exchanges, and banned ICOs that is all they did nothing more. and just like last times that they closed exchanges, there is a good chance they will be opened soon after some time, maybe 3 months.

i have not even seen any "hopes of China Reversing any Ban"! and when a news is not really circulating around you can't say it is effective in my opinion.

this upcoming hard fork is a joke (Bitcoin Gold on October 25) and most people don't even know about it. it is mainly to create an altcoin. and this one is completely an obvious attempt at that. the previous one (BCH) was hard at work to say otherwise although doing the same so the drama about it was also more.

there is also the fact that no bitcoin miner (meaning current miners with their ASICs) can not mine BTG apparently so there is no drama on that front either!

Not, really. just testing stuff and i am very curious to know why that particular tx is being rejected!

i also believe that when mempool is empty and mining a block gives miners nearly $61,000 (big percentage of which is pure profit) the transactions must be free.


as far as i know, the purpose of fees are the following:
1. compensate miners for the work they are doing in case the block reward was small enough that it couldn't cover the cost of mining
2. prevent spam attacks sustainability as we saw multiple times.

---

@buwaytress
i am still using Electrum, however i create the raw transaction myself and ask Electrum to just sign it. just a workaround to force Electrum to sign 0 fees without checking it and preventing the creation. i usually broadcast it there too, without any issues.
but that smaller one is still being rejected because of priority!

- electrum
- most of the block explorers
- directly to different nodes by connecting to them and sending them a "tx" message.

well that is another thing about Russia. for years the news have been releasing negative stuff like the imprisonment that i mentioned above and yet they hold things like the "International Economic Forum", the Moscow "Blockchain and Bitcoin conference"!

and that meeting was greatly exaggerated in my opinion. it was an Economic conference thingy which the president attended, and obviously Vitalik was one of hundreds there who met him!

unless you are using something like exchanges or coinbase and xapo and call them "wallet", your "wallet" will not support the new forked coins ever. your "wallet" is a bitcoin wallet and will continue to support bitcoin not altcoins that are forked from bitcoin.

you will have to download the wallet they release, risk using it, and claim the coins. that is why so many have not yet claimed their bitcoin cash.

Russia never banned bitcoin and never had the intention to do it either. that was FUD

also as you can see price didn't reach $5k and it probably will continue to struggle. because the $5k price is the previous ATH and breaking the ATH is always slower with some more resistance than normal. not to mention the round number effect.
we may see it before 25th though. because apparently people love this coming fork for the free money they are going to get

sorry to disappoint you but the [blank] country banning bitcoin FUD belongs to exactly 1 month ago. now it won't work and it won't matter. it is like old news now.
what Russia says and you think is new, is not really new. their stance against bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general has always been like this and things like the quote you shared here is a common thing that they have been saying for many years.

last year there was even talk of serious prison time for anyone who uses bitcoin. but to this date it has not yet happened and all that remained as "talk" not actions.

who cares?
so what if US government and 20 other governments know who Satoshi Nakamoto is. what is that going to change? ... absolutely nothing!

you are confusing bitcoin with a centralized thing. possibly even some of the centralized altcoins such as ethereum. yes if these centralized altcoins lose their developer they simply die because they are the kill switch.


i would have said the same thing if Craig paid me the same amount he paid Gavin

this is not support, this is not even SegWit2x they are adding!
it is a fake market with fake tokens (IOU-like) which they added to their platform so that they can make money from trading it. they call these "future markets" but you can trade them all the same. what coins are being sold and bought nobody knows.
there is another market called BU (bitcoin unlimited) there which is the same!
https://www.bitfinex.com/trading/BCUUSD and it has been around from March

my issue is not with confirmation and fees!
i can not even broadcast the transaction, it is being rejected by the nodes.