Some of these stats look broken to me but this is what's out there - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=stats

Depends on what your definition of active is. Some will be logging in but have never posted, or haven't for months or years.

I'm sure most 'hacks' are the owners stealing but one of the biggest of all was Coincheck and that hack was entirely down to them keeping everything that was taken in a hot wallet. They had the free and fully integrated option of multi sig but didn't even do that, let alone pay up to $80 for a Trezor that would've saved them a few hundred million dollars.

Here's a fresh one - https://twitter.com/altsbit/status/1225319347687653377

Note the wording - 'A small part of the funds are safe on cold wallets.'

That feels like the wrong way round.

In my part of the world, the UK, there are fewer options than there used to be and very few new ones coming. It looks to me the optimism surrounding merchant adoption peaked in 2014 and has been going slowly downhill ever since. Lots of places have rescinded it as an option like Steam, Expedia and others.

Coinbase forcing merchants to handle their own seeds must have put a huge dent in their business and I've only ever used one place that had Coinbase as its payment processor.

Merchant adoption will come en masse a long time down the line. The speculation phase needs to transition into a store of value and then it eventually might become a currency of sorts.

I definitely appreciate the ability to spend it. I don't expect it to grow much for a lengthy while.

A beary market would be keen to latch on to sustained buying too. Everyone looks for that glimmer of hope and will grab it if it arrives.

And there's a class of buyer who'll regard a government endorsed sale as more desirable than a regular one. If people are willing to pay a premium for freshly mined coins, these ones have an attractive stamp of authenticity too.  

Slippage. That's the whole reason many go to OTC trades.

No way could you obtain several thousand BTC in one go without risking driving the market batty. You could try it over a few days but even then others may notice strong and sustained buying and raise their sells.

Paying slightly above market for a one time buy could save you money vs buying on the open market.

I was under the impression that in many cases it's the pool operator who keeps the transaction fees. Only a certain number of pools share the transaction fees with the people mining with them. Funnily enough the ones that don't coincided with that fee explosion back in the day. Even more mysteriously they were trying to push BCH and most had links to Bitmain.

Are you certain?

I will be moving around in one these pulled by 15-20 drag queens.

Not totally sure what you're trying to convey but if there were any type of nefarious attempts to trick people with data chaning it would've been all over this forum in seconds and the place would be shouted down.

Whatever's happening to you, it ain't happening to anyone else.

If the Bitcoin price remains unmoved that would put the market cap at about 8.6 billion dollars which would put it at number 4 on CMC. A snapshot pump giving a 16x rise and hauling it 21 places upwards in a few weeks or months would be rather outlandish.

Maybe alts in general will go on a run between now and then and a big move will follow most other things but I'd be pretty amazed if it panned out like that. Then again crypto is rarely short of deranged moves.

I plan to charge them money to send personalised messages from a real life Bitcoin owner. I will also launch a range of tea towels, doormats and coffins for them to buy with some of my most inspiring posts printed on them.

Get ready to be a figure of pure awe. It's a huge responsibility but I'm ready to take it on.

That's typical r/bitcoin straw grabbing 'this is good for Bitcoin' rubbish.

China is extremely cashless already. Hundreds of millions are using apps to pay for everything.

The only potential factor is whether the conventional economy takes a knock and whether that influences Bitcoin's price. I doubt that'll happen or it'll be impossible to detect.

Who knows? I do remember keeping a close eye out and everyone who spoke of their bid said theirs was under market. Can't remember how many said anything but it was a few.

It doesn't really mean anything. There'll be good days and bad days when the buyers don't show up in the same numbers. It's not much of a reflection of the market elsewhere. There's only so many buyers at this level and only so many who bothered to qualify.

Tim Draper, a major VC investor, bought 30,000 coins seized from the Silk Road. I'm sure he would have no trouble at all moving them on for just the same price as any other coin. They've basically been 'cleaned' by passing through government hands.

This lot don't release their sold prices. From hints from failed bidders it's usually slightly below the market rate but not significantly. It all depends on who turns up on the day to bid. The UK police recently did a public auction of seized BTC and the prices were more than the headline rate on average with a few exceptions where people clearly didn't understand the difference between BTC and BSV etc and radically overpaid.

https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/09/27/uk-police-bitcoin-cryptocurrency-criminally-seized-auction-ethereum-ripple-satoshi-vision/

Dunno where the money would go. Maybe back into their own budget. Who cares?

After my Windows 7 party last week I threw a Tesla party tonight. I isolated them from the media to keep the hysteria going and dosed every single one with cyanide. Now they're all face down in their meringue while I languidly smoke my cigar.

No they're not. They're immigrants which is a much more powerful status. They have chosen to be here. They have a vested interest in keeping it honest and healthy and contributing to it. They have the option of going home if they don't like it.

When a 'country' is entirely made up of passionate volunteers then the usual stuff pulled by the leadership will get swatted flat in seconds, or if it goes that wrong they'll simply migrate again leaving the bad actors with nothing.

Do a normal job and buy it.

Even if you're in an impoverished part of the world if you sit down and do the sums it's quite likely you'll end up with more crypto for similar amounts of time expended.

Nope. I remember the endless conjecture about the first Silk Road auction. People were screaming doom and insisting that we would all die. Then fuck all happened and fuck all has happened with every single other one ever since.

Daily OTC volumes are likely often higher and people don't shave their pet polar bear and apply eyeliner to it at the prospect of that.

You need to start off with your aims for whatever you're holding and plan from there.

I have plenty of shitcoins. Some I will get rid of in search of more BTC. Others I will offload with the intention of cashing into fiat and never returning. I treat them completely separately with those ends in mind and don't pay attention at all to the other pairing.

No, that's Michael D Higgins the president.

Leo Varadkar is a right tall one. It doesn't sound like he'll be PM for much longer.

If Ireland's next one is someone of this calibre and look I'm emigrating tomorrow.

No doubt there's a hot guy in bed with you. Just stay in there and enjoy the future.