Let's say you have 3 drives X Y Z

X has 100 GB of free space you would be ok using for the blockchain
Y has 300 GB
Z has 100 GB

Would it be possible to tell the client, "allocate 100GB to X, 300GB to Y, 100GB to Z" and have the files downloaded and verified in the right order?
And you could just keep adding further drives in case you ran out of space. Right now if you run out of space you have to buy a bigger device that allows at least 500GB at least once in case you used pruned mode, but for someone that wants to keep the entire blockchain this would be good. It would also give some usage for smaller drives you don't use much.

Bitcoin = bunker where you store long term savings
Bank with CBDCs = pocket change for fast spendings

Of course, I would tell moonboys to look into proper index funds as well for long term savings and don't go 100% BTC for long term savings. And definitely think twice before thinking about any altcoin as something you would park money long term.

A government can legislate that developing "cryptocurrencies" enables money laundering, terrorism and whatnot, and suddenly any developer is under threat ot being arrested if they are not anonymous. Of course any developed democracy would need to go through various proceedings to get such a thing done, but it's not impossible, and it's definitely possible in totalitarian regimes like Russia, China and whatnot (not to mention North Korea, where I sometimes cannot even fathom this nightmare state actually exists)

The question is probably the opposite: is home ownership a waste of money?

Unless you know for a fact that you are going to live on the same spot for the rest of your life, then what's the deal? if you just want to invest in real state, you an invest via REIT index funds. By having to manage homes you lose your time and time is money, not to mention unpredictable costs of maintaining said homes. Sure people will always need homes and im not saying real state isn't a good investment, but I like other alternatives and the freedom that renting gives you in terms of easily moving and changing tax residence if needed without leaving anything behind that may tie you to the previous one.

Im not sure since there is too many moonboys still calling for "this is the last chance 100k now" moves everytime it goes up. I feel like we haven't capitulated properly yet to call a bottom. It's not clear if the FTX related losses are gone due all the leveraged money in there. FTX has too many tentacles to know for a fact.

Argentina is an hyperinflationary clusterfuck. If there is a place to never declare your Bitcoin is in places like Argentina. The speed at which your money loses value is insane in there. It's not as bad as in Venezuela but it's already so bad that it doesn't matter. Just save as much as possible because there is not an investment but a necessity. As more currencies experience this the value of Bitcoin will go up.

Many of the the "ancient whales" renounced US citizenship years ago and moved elsewhere. The thing is, back then it was less common to keep track of stuff, so I guess they would bother less about it and understand that Bitcoin "wasn't a thing", but right now they have Chainalysis and all that stuff, so depositing any mixed coins in an exchange is already a risk as you could end up with frozen funds.

I would look into what is the best move before doing anything tho. If the coins aren't tied to any KYC actions then you have all the time in the world since no government will know unless you say so. Once you claim you have bitcoins there is no way to undo that, they already know, so you must have a plan.

If you were in the EU it would be easier to move elsewhere, but IRS is another story.

From what i've read EU is more strict than the US when it comes to proof of ownership or however they call it. Point is, in the US, i've read you can pretty much safely deposit your stuff in your bank account and as long as it's not some big amount you are good to go if you just pay your taxes.

Now in the EU it may raise alarms considering the funds come from a crypto exchange.
To be honest I don't know what to tell you. The problem with being honest with the government in cases like this is, you don't really know how they will react.
Who is to say that in X years your funds aren't worth enough to move to some tax haven where they will not make questions and just park the funds there. But if that is not an option and you need the funds now, you have no other options. Get an account in Bitpanda or Kraken or some other EU friendly exchange, liquidate the funds (as little as possible), pay taxes and hope there is no further questions asked.

I doubt Gisele Bundchen or Floyd Mayweather know anything about crypto. They probably have a team of people that pick up marketing gigs for them, and they got told "this is the next big thing, get on it". And so they did, and they will pay the price.

These people probably have enough in savings to hire good lawyers and don't go bankrupt from this, but lower level affiliate marketers like Bitboy could get wreckt in a class action lawsuit if they aren't careful with what they promote.

I do believe first world western democracies could be able to come up with measures that may sound totalitarian in todays standards, but the countries you have listed offer less life quality than if you were to find yourself in a first world jail.

The fact that you have to resort to gift cards and so on just shows that the niche cases for XMR are very limited to small amounts basically. So if you are XMR rich... then what? you cannot improve your life quality. You have valuable 0's and 1's, but that's about it. You need a friendly jurisdiction to convert this into tangible things without ending up in jail.

Bitcoin provides a lot more leverage with governments since it's not "anonymous by default". And thats for now. I wonder what governments will think of Bitcoin in 10 years. If they end up banning it all, there will probably be an huge black market that has replaced the ban on physical cash, as well as some land distant jurisdictions in which you can fly and establish your finances which will be wiling to operate with BTC derived fortunes. Other than that, I think all cryptos are going to be in trouble in most mainstream countries in the future.

As far as Chipmixer, not sure who runs the service but probably everything is hosted somewhere safe from regulations that could have an impact on it and he remains anonymous. If he has everything set on point it will be difficult for them to get it done. Max they could do right now is probably block it ISP wise but anyone that uses Chipmixer already uses Tor/VPN by default so no one will even notice.


Agreed, but using protonmail, Tor or even Tails, is not at the same level as using XMR. At the end of the day, the number 1 target for governments is tax evaders, this seems clear to me and I think to anyone that has some life experience. They want their cut and that's how it is. If you go into an exchange and do some crypto stuff that has XMR in the mix to boot, this will raise more alarms than the other examples you provided.

Everyone will try to use their weapons to persuade each other. From their respective POVs:

Miners: "We have the most hasrate, join us or you will be transacting upon a less secure blockchain."
Devs: "We are the most technically competent developers, join us or you will be transacting over less secure code."
Exchanges: "We have the most liquidity, join us or you will not be able to buy/sell."
Hodlers: "We have the most funds, join us or we will rekt your shitcoin by dumping our split shares into your fake Bitcoin."

And so follows.

The fact that is so incredibly complex that somehow everyone agrees mutually makes Bitcoin a very solid protocol, probably immutable by now and thus valuable for anyone wanting to park money in there.

The fact that Luke Dashjr got 3 $million worth of BTC hacked made me remember this thread. If someone with such level of expertise gets his networth hacked, it proves that cybersecurity is a crucial subject in Bitcoin and there should be a sticky guide about it, since a lot of people would find this forum when starting.

It also proves Bitcoin is not ready for prime time when it comes to self-custody of funds. Most people would probably be safer leaving it on a regulated exchange or buying through an ETF than exposing them to potential hacks unfortunately.

It's safe to assume that using Monero (or any other "anonymous" coin) would indeed put you on a list of someone that is interested in obfuscating their finances for whatever reason. This isn't 2015 anymore guys, governments aren't dumb, anyone that is crazy enough to send Monero to an exchange without at least using some precautionary measures is asking for it.

Anyway, anyone got any news? last I've heard is hackers were chipmixing the stuff:
https://twitter.com/ErgoBTC/status/1611169585457238018

You need consensus from several parties for people to follow your HF. I don't think miners can "activate a hardfork", if by "activate" we describe it as something that is actually functional (because anyone is free to hardfork at any time). So in practice, MAHF is not a thing. And I would argue other variants aren't as well. There is either consensus of miners, users and developers, or there isn't anything functional, the way I see it is that the method how it "activates" is not that relevant.

I also wonder if by being not anonymous you are more prone to hacking attempts. I mean the fact that Luke Dashjr got his coins hacked was pretty shocking to me. Im still wondering how someone that has such a high level of expertise got hacked, that im considering he got compromised IRL somehow.


But you are applying linear thought where the EU courts remain somewhat reliable against individual state rulings. Im talking about supranational laws that would apply all over the EU. Stuff like MICA applies on all members. They could just agree that Bitcoin posses systemic risk against the Euro or something along the lines, you know the classics (money laundering, financing terrorism) and ban it as well as prosecute anyone developing it. I know this sounds insane but im talking long term. In 50 years things can change a lot, what seems now impossible may become possible eventually.

I was looking at Christine Lagarde's latest remarks on CBDC's and it seems pretty clear to me that the agenda of banning cash and then replacing the euro with the "digital euro" is now unstoppable, which will for sure make the Bitcoin price go up. However, it basically means that if you are supporting BTC, you would be developing a tool that "enables money laundering, terrorism, etc" and challenges the CBDC monopoly.

How realistic is it that public figures would be facing charges in the future? As a developer, should you remain anonymous? At the end of the day satoshi knew he was going against the status quo and managed to stay safe, however, what about all these doxed developers? I can see how they'll look on github and try to hunt contributors. We are facing a scary future. It's better to say steps ahead and plan accordingly. Someone with resources probably could move jurisdictions before it's too late but what about the rest. And even if you could move you could see yourself in an Assange situation trapped in some embassy. I would like to know if developers here think about this at all and what is your escape route if shit hits the fan.

It may actually take people like her and Sailor to go bankrupt for real capitulation. Too overleveraged, too confident. These guys would take a beating if we have more FTX events (even more overleveraged players that run exchanges capitulating, which would hit these other people running funds). GBTC is (supposedly) backed by real BTC reserves so they should be fine, however I wouldn't bet on it.

Changing these things on Bitcoin is like trying to switch a motor from a plane that is flying at full speed. The game theory involved requires that everyone is onboard. Many tried in the past and failed. The fact that you cannot easily change Bitcoin to "go faster" or "be cheaper" and whatnot gives it value since certainty has value even if at the cost of slower more expensive transactions.

I've been seeing stuff like this around:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5423058.0

Brand new accounts posting a clickable link with colourful and bold letters. I don't know what BitcoinSuprex is and im not accusing of scam or malware because I haven't clicked on the link or researched this, but let's say it is. Shouldn't it be at least more difficult for someone to post a clickable url link? This is common practice in other forums, and seems reasonable on a forum like this to be disabled until you have an higher rank than Newbie.