>= Full member...

I'll update my post right away, i should have been more clearly when i wrote down the specs

@Theymos:

I'll bite the bullet
I'll create a giveaway for a cheap bitcoin keychain from aliexpress (i'll try to dropship it) in a locked topic and accept users that have a valid giveaway code via email, once the slots are filled i'll unlock the topic, post a full list of giveaway codes next to a slot (0-f) and a future block for which the last character of the hash will determine the winner.

Could you create a private giveaway for me, anybody equal to or above full member without negative trust from DT1 can enter.

PS: this is the first time i ever try to dropship something... Fingers crossed

EDIT: added "equal to or", the previous description wasn't clear enough...

Well, it's been a long time since the mempool was flooded in such a dramatic way as it was flooded in 2017-2018 (don't remember the exact time period, just that it's been a couple of years). It's possible that the "spammer" is still creating transactions, but if he does, it's no longer to a degree that causes issues with other people.

There is no real way to ip ban spam transactions. Transactions are broadcasted trough the network, nobody knows who created them. Ip's are not recorded on the blockchain, nor are they transmitted together with a transaction. If you really wanted to ban "spam" transactions, you'd have a hard time, since there is no difference between a spam transaction and a "valid" transaction (spam transactions are valid aswell).

You could ban peers you suspect being the source of spam transactions, but all nodes would have to use the same blacklist (and the spammer can just use a different ip to broadcast his spam, so you'd have to update the blacklist every couple of minutes). If one of the nodes wasn't willing to ban the suspect peer, the suspect would still be able to broadcast to the node that didn't use the blacklist, and this node would still relay the spammers transaction unhindered.
A second thing you could try is to convince miners not to include transactions using unspent outputs funding certain address lists, but nobody knows the complete lists of all addresses belonging to the spammer's wallet, nor would the miners be willing to help you (since they're missing out on income if they do this).

Neither of these options is bulletproof or feasible, and all options would depend on incomplete, centralised "blacklists" that would have to be honored by the complete network (all nodes and all miners), and one option would even cost the miners a substantial amount of income, so it's not likely they would be willing not to include valid transactions that have a higher fee per vbyte just because somebody says it's spam.

If we put aside the assumption most people have about who the "culprit" is, and why he/she spammed the network, only a couple possible explanations could be given as to why the attack stopped:

Either the attack was deliberately, and it stopped because the culprit reached his/her goal, made his/her point or ran out of funds
OR
The attack was unintentional, and the "culprit" found out he was the reason why the mempool was filled to the brim (and the fees were out of proportion) and he/she stopped spamming... Or maybe it was unintentional, and the "culprit" just needed several thousand tx's confirmed, and once this was done he was content.

The fee does not depend on the amount of BTC you're sending. It depends on the size of the transaction.
The size of the transaction depends on the number of inputs, the number of outputs, which kind of addresses were funded by the inputs and which kind of addresses you're funding with the outputs.

A transaction using 1 input with a value of 100 BTC creating one output of 99.9999 BTC will be a lot smaller (thus cheaper) than a transaction using 100 inputs of 0.01 BTC to create 99 outputs of 0.01 BTC (eventough only 1 BTC was transferred in total, vs 100 BTC in the first case). In this example, it doesn't even matter if the second transaction was between segwit wallets, or batched...)

Segwit and batching aren't responsible for a 4000% drop, i guess you're just comparing the fees of a large transaction in the middle of the 2017 spam attack (that fueled bidding war for fees) and the fees of a normal transaction right now.

A couple years ago, somebody was just spamming the mempool with thousands of transactions, so in order to have a decent chance of getting your transaction into a block, you had to outbid all those spam transactions... The fees were insane, but the attack only lasted a couple of months (if memory serves me correctly), before and after the attack the fees have always been very reasonable.

1 - mocacinno

Blockchain.com usually keeps those invalid transactions in their database for a longer time (not forever tough, so if you re-check this link in a couple of hours, the data might be deleted)
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/81c1fd6b34101ebf443d7d6f0c04080530fb2b819288107540b0f49c8238fa9c

To bad they don't analyse these invalid transactions in-depth anymore. I remember a long time ago where they would just print a big banned on top of their explorer telling people it's a transaction using double spend unspent outputs as input.

The transaction is real and was broadcasted, probably before the first transaction in the chain (the one doublespending the unspent output) was confirmed. At that point, it was reasonable of localbitcoins to conclude that, in normal circumstances, the transaction could have been confirmed in ~30 minutes.
However, given the fact that the first transaction in the chain of unconfirmed transactions uses an unspent output that's been double spent (and the double spending transaction was confirmed afterwards), this transaction became invalid and the funds should have been removed from your acocunt overview.

It's probably a bug in localbitcoin's accounting system, they should probably remove these funds cause they should not confirm.

Disclaimer: it's early in my country, i hope i didn't mess up when i was following the chain of transactions... I think i followed it correctly, but i have a habit of messing up when i'm tired... If you want to be 100% sure, you should follow the chain of transactions i posted in my previous post by yourself and see if everything adds up.

No, you don't have to install anything... Theymos asked the community if there were people willing to install the software on their own servers and use it for their own forums in order to debug it in a live situation.
As a nontechnical enduser, you should just wait untill most of the bugs have been found and fixed, at that point Theymos should install the software on one of his servers, migrate the database, and you should just be able to login into the new bitcointalk without any hassle....

Correct... In more technical terms:
The transaction with id 7ae6a11ada3be68256bae7fb789a464f2451c0557bd56ecd07c03613cfdc3eb3 uses 1 unspent output as input:

• the unspent output created by transaction with id 41a69f578bfa9bfd1064c32fe0d1450d2778aa27711bcbbd15dc8af65c30e36f

The transaction with id 41a69f578bfa9bfd1064c32fe0d1450d2778aa27711bcbbd15dc8af65c30e36f uses 1 unspent output as input:

• the unspent output created by transaction with id 81c1fd6b34101ebf443d7d6f0c04080530fb2b819288107540b0f49c8238fa9c

The transaction with id 81c1fd6b34101ebf443d7d6f0c04080530fb2b819288107540b0f49c8238fa9c uses 2 unspent outputs as input:

• the unspent output created by transaction with id c46d3a082977ba08e309ff7564adeb13775b3b619d05e4876d59f9ec3bde59d1
• the unspent output created by transaction with id d159e103b5d5eb069e14a5a5c9a125942e8b3a6ed75d489096b93727c9688649

However, the first unspent output (created by c46d3a082977ba08e309ff7564adeb13775b3b619d05e4876d59f9ec3bde59d1) WAS already spent in the confirmed transaction with id 4e47b2f204e96562eb144b679b0a1554885fcf5b062ef5a73422bff2a7020e51

Since transaction with id 4e47b2f204e96562eb144b679b0a1554885fcf5b062ef5a73422bff2a7020e51 was confirmed, none of the other listed transaction can ever be considered to be valid, since they're using an unspent output that is no longer available for them to use

1 - mocacinno

Thank you 

Yup, the block reward is THAT low  
To be honest, i've already taught the same thing a couple of times: maybe it's time to reset the testnet again... It's a TESTnet afterall, people need tBTC for tests, and it's a bummer if they can't just CPU mine some tBTC. I have no idear why people insist on running old ASIC's on the testnet to begin with. The stash of tBTC i currently have was CPU mined a long time ago, but nowadays is simply impossible. That's why i need all those adds/affiliate links/begging for tips/donating cpu power/..., i simply need to either rent some hashrate from miningrigrentals or buy an old asic (an S7 or something) if i want to replenish my faucet, and i don't want to pay these costs out of my own pocket.

As for a donation address for tBTC: sure
This address was generated by my testnet node, the one running the testnet hot wallet, so all donations go directly into funding the faucet: 2NBsursJUfmepDu3WT7GBRLrL6AdHSPC9V4


Yeah, i realise 50.000 is a tad low... It should be sufficient for a couple basic tests tough... I dont think you need more tBTC if you're trying out creating a testnet paper wallet and sweeping it in testnet electrum, or setting up a testnet lightning wallet, or testing out some basic json-rpc calls on your testnet node... However, i realise that if you want to test a new mixing algorithm, 50.000 tSat is just dust.

I do plan on increasing the claim amount in the future, after i see if this model is self-sustainable.

A campaign to urge devs to send the tBTC back to one of the working testnet faucets would be great... I do think most people will have lost the funds, or they'll just ignore such questions... But if only a few devs would do this, it would probably make a huge difference.


Half a dozen seems about right, I found 6 (including mine), that's why i created this one, testnet faucets are important, they give people a no-risk tool to develop and learn.

The testnet difficulty is peculiar. It drops to 1 if no block has been found for 20 minutes. However, if the difficulty retargets after the the diff has been dropped to 1, it'll stay 1 for 2016 blocks, than it'll double for 2016 blocks, then it'll double again,...
However, if you're cpu mining, and you're competing against an ASIC, this just doesn't matter. The asic will find thousands of blocks (difficulty 1) before you've found only 1 (with your CPU). Sure, mining moves faster, but you still need a decent hashrate if you want to mine some tBTC.

The regtest is great, but it's not really a network. It's fine for debugging your json-rpc api calls, but most of the time i used it, it did not suffice for "real world" simulations, so you actually do need the test network for that...

Well, i actually assumed the OP needed 5 tBTC fast to do some testing, but he has a whole month to give me the tBTC back... So if he spends 0.1 tBTC on fees, he has all the time in the world to claim them from one of the 3 or 4 working testnet faucets.
Even if he doesn't, and he returns 4.9 tBTC, i wouldn't be mad... It's tBTC, so he's allowed to use it to test stuff

As for the collateral: i can assure you that it is not my intention to sell the tBTC. I'd rather have 5 tBTC back than $20 in BTC, it's a real hassle to mine tBTC. I do hope the OP feels the same way, but we'll wait and see. If the OP would run, i'd keep the $20 and use it to mine on the testnet once my stash runs out, so my endgoal would be to walk away with 5 tBTC, not to trade 5 worthless testnet coins for $20.
On a sidenote: I only asked for collateral because the OP is a new member with negative trust, if he was a > full member with positive trust, i'd probably lent the tBTC without collateral, the collateral is just an incentive for him to return the tBTC once he is done, nothing more, nothing less...

That's why i proposed a paper wallet
I just don't see the point in running an old (potentially vulnerable) wallet on an old (vulnerable) OS. In order to use a paper wallet, the OP's friend just needs one friend with a clean pc + printer... Sure, a paper wallet is only suitable for holding, but still, he can hold in a very secure way.


Most paper wallet generators, like the offline version of https://www.bitaddress.org/, have bip38 encryption build right into the tool... Just click the "paper wallet" tab and enter a strong password... That's all.

Iancoleman's page (at least the offline version) is nice to, like you say, it's basically a HD paper wallet, but missing the encryption... The bottom line is that we agree that a paper wallet is a good idear for somebody who can't affort a decent phone nor a decent home computer


I'm pretty sure there's a market, however, i just don't think it's a good idear to fill this market...
https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-1224/product_id-19997/version_id-177951/Google-Android-4.4.4.html

If you develop a wallet that's compiled for such an old version of android, they'll point a finger at your wallet every time they lose funds because of a vulnerability in the underlying OS.
Granted, there are also vulnerability's in newer versions, but at least they'll still receive patches.

So he only has such an old phone and no computer... Maybe you can let him use your computer to create a paper wallet? That way he'll be able to invest in some crypto and still hold it as secure as humanly possible given his resources.

If you decide to take this path, make sure you use a community vetted paper wallet generator, make sure you only generate a wallet while offline (and reboot before going back online), make sure you print on an offline printer, make sure you bip38 encrypt using a strong password, make sure you keep a couple copys in a secure spot (preferably laminate the paper wallet).

That being said, i'd probably advise your friend to buy a new phone anyways... You can always check dx.com, gearbest, buyincoins, aliexpress,...
https://www.dx.com/p/global-xiaomi-redmi-3s-50-inch-4g-smartphone-snapdragon-430-2gb-16gb3gb-32gb-13mp-camera-4100maheu-plug-renewed-2719852.html
I mean, if you don't have €45 for an android 6 phone, you probably shouldn't invest in crypto to begin with, you probably need your money to pay for food, medicine, shelter,...
I'd probably even advise him to pay €60-€70 and get an android 9 phone, just make sure you vet the brand before you buy a phone, some brands are great (security wise), others not so much

This question pops up several times per year:

https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=016660200577587308545%3Aesf40ml9aag&ie=UTF-8&q=mobile&sa=Google+search#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=mobile%20version%20bitcointalk&gsc.sort=

The thing is, there is a new forum script for bitcointalk that is in development, so i don't think Theymos will install a mobile theme for SMF (because he customised SMF, it's not as simple as installing a theme on a plain vanilla version of SMF).

That being said, i've been giving the answer of epochtalk being in development for years... Literally... For the untrained eye, it looks like the development stalled, i don't know if there's any kind of timeframe for the conversion SMF => epochtalk, but if there is a timeframe, i don't think it'll be anytime soon...

At the moment, it's a fixed amount of 0.0005 (50.000 tSatoshi's), i'll give an explanation under dkbit98's question  


typo fixed   Thanks for notifying me... I'm a dyslectic dutch speaking system engineer, it's hard for me to write a single sentence that doesn't contain spelling errors, let alone create a complete page, so all spellchecking help is more than welcome!

As for the higher amounts: i'm currently in the phase of testing the waters. The main goal of this faucet is to earn enough from a-ads, my affiliate links, the voluntary web mining after the claim and tips to either rent some hashrate or buy a second hand ASIC to mine on the testnet (i'm trying to reach a break even point, i'm not interested in making money from this faucet, but i don't want to invest to much of my own money in it either). The big "problem" is that the coinbase reward on the testnet is low (0.39 tBTC + fees) and the hashrate on the test network is high. Basically, most tBTC has already been mined, the utxo's are sitting in the chainstate db forever, nobody is giving them away, nobody is using them, but several people are still mining on the testnet using ASIC's... So i have to figure out how much i can give away to reach a status quo where the income =~ the cost (tBTC is worthless, but this doesn't mean it's free to mine).

In all honestly, 50.000 tSatoshi's is a low amount, the odds of the claim amount rising to 100.000 in the next couple of weeks/months is big, but everything will depend on how much tBTC is returned to me, and how much income i get from the site.


I do really hope people will return the tBTC, like i said above: tBTC is worthless, but that doesn't make it easy to come by, so the more worthless tBTC is returned, the more people i can help.

I incorporated your tip, i've put my line begging the people to return the tBTC next to the claim button aswell

I'm not an Armory user (i played around with it a looooooong time ago, but i kept using core afterwards), but a quick google turns up the following:
https://www.bitcoinarmory.com/troubleshooting/#how-do-i-setup-armory-on-the-test-network-testnet

I confirm i have received 0.0021 BTC, as soon as the transaction has 2 confirmations i'll fund ms3Q8h3KhBQ9cEomjmMvRa66AV7RdwMasd on the testnet chain with 5 tBTC

I'll edit this post with the txid once the transaction has been broadcasted

EDIT: tx confirmed, tBTC sent:
https://blockstream.info/testnet/tx/dfee98a2eb6c5f9126a2d512043a3c316dcba6e85deadd4dae6560ccc1b751e7

Sure, $20 as collateral for 5 tBTC sounds OK to me...
You can either pick a trusted forum member to hold the collateral, or you can fund this bitcoin address:

bc1qp0ugpnscaeszzjxd6cgas7a528f52jrwdecw3v

As soon as either the trusted forum member tells me the collateral is secure, or if the transaction funding above address has 2 confirmations, i'll fund ms3Q8h3KhBQ9cEomjmMvRa66AV7RdwMasd with 5 tBTC

As discussed above:
I want the tBTC back within 1 month and (transaction) fees are payed by you when i return the collateral...