It's generally more informative to consider the opposite angle. What dooms people to being eternally broke?

From my observations the main characteristic that imprisoned them was their inability to defer gratification.

I knew a creative type whose output was world class. However he would throw away whatever he was building to progress it the moment anyone offered him some bullshit shortcut. Of course it always turned out to be hogwash so he was back to lower than square one again.

He always voiced the fear of winding up being the person who could've been someone rotting in the back of the pub and that's exactly what he became. He couldn't look beyond the end of his willy or the next five minutes.

I talked to a bloke who was three times bankrupt. I asked him where it all went. He spent quite some time considering it and then said it was mainly designer clothes on credit. Then he pointed out his new designer clothes with his new credit line.

For some reason the Bitcoin pious call instant or delayed gratification high/low time preference, which is a loathsome phrase, but if you can't get a handle on that you may as well not bother at all.

'It is impossible to stop operations now, but it is possible to block crypto wallets and remove illegally obtained crypto assets. This can be done by gaining access to the crypto's private keys as a result of complex investigations.'

Well, if they kick your door down and stomp on your face until you give them up then they are correct.

Beyond that I've zero idea what they think they're smoking.

Overall I have to say I'm pretty disgusted at the attitude law enforcement has to any type of online theft. They really don't seem to give a fuck, but they will run you over and stick a dog on your throat if you steal something with 1/100th of the value in the real world. Going on that attitude I reckon crypto scum have a bright future.

It all depends on where you live and how you obtained the BTC.

Where I'm at if I'd just bought it then no. If I got it by earning it and trading if it's above the limits they give then I'm still liable for the tax on those earnings even if I have no way of paying it.

Look at these people who did a million shitcoin trades, wound up with nothing and didn't realise every trade was taxable.

Still, I wouldn't bother mentioning it.

Coinbase bought xapo so I presume they've rolled their holdings into that figure.

Since xapo's big bucks were a small bunch of OGs from 2012 or so I wonder what they feel about it.

I wouldn't want a place I trusted bought out by someone I may know nothing about.

Ah well. the alternative is there and waiting.

Hey,at least it's voluntary. For now.

Interested to know how much is institutional money and how much is minnows.

Maybe some day soon Brian coinbase will actually admit that bitcoin isn't shit since he is responsible for 5% of all of it. He's even managed to write the word a couple of times recently.

They are using aspects of cryptocurrency technology to create supercharged fiat currencies.

If people are unhappy about government meddling, surveillance and control now they're going to be screaming if these ever get implemented.

They will be able to debase your money with no way of combating it, shut you down if they don't like one of your transactions, extract money from you no matter where or how you're storing it and places like China will be able to control where and how you spend your money or simply make you a total non person incapable of spending, earning, sending or receiving it.

That'll make the case for real crypto more compelling than ever. However it may also make getting in and out of crypto very hard to impossible. It needs to get some form of its own economy that can stand completely outside government money before governmentcoins become the norm.

Well blow me down with a feather. Luckily Steven Mnuchin or whatever he's called said outright that the dollar is NEVER used for money laundering so it's got to go somewhere. It's very considerate of criminals to leave it alone. Nice guys.

It almost certainly would've been a search engine.

Considering this site's place in history it's pretty weird how rarely it's cited or referred to elsewhere. I've hardly ever seen it mentioned in any mainstream media, apart from Ross Ulbricht fucking up here and pizzas, and not all that often in the crypto 'press' either.

I find it bizarre when people seem to believe it's somehow frozen in aspic. There is a difference between making an announcement about an announcement and 'partnerships' vs real work. The latter actually makes progress.

This is completely out in the open for all to check at any time - https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin

Can anyone spot anything going on there? I can.

Since Europol have stated Monero can't be traced let's hope they don't hand over a few million quid of our money to someone who claims they can.

And what's with gambling? The British government seem to actively want everyone to ruin themselves doing it. It ain't the US.

We noticed.

I'm the buxom blond with the Captain Birdseye beard.

Usually I only deal with sailors but the boss has made an exception. Let's negotiate.

Yes. That seems to be the norm for volume localbitcoins traders these days and that's totally separate from the site's own KYC. It certainly wasn't the case when I used it in 2013/14 but those were golden and innocent times.

If am accosted by the sea I am regularly mistaken for a salty old sea dog and people ask me whether I had a good catch today or what the weather will do. I don't got no neckbeard though.



I have met real live Bitcoin fans in the actual real world. The majority were clean shaven. They will eventually come around.

Consider yourselves fuckin' warned, maggots.

To impose their will on others.

Previous world wars took place in a world where commerce between countries was vastly more basic and vastly less intertwined. Now world war would not be good business. That's why it'll never happen again.

Lots of toy wars will take place instead.

I learnt long ago to stop attempting to understand what Americans think about these things. They're all aliens.

Real ones, not the illegal type.

Look out the window. Yugoslavia hasn't existed for a few decades now. The closest thing will be the Serbian Dinar. I doubt you'd get anything other than a clip round the ear if you turned up with that to a bank in Belgrade.

Still Wirex and Coinbase mainly.

Crypto.com announced today that they're launching cards for Europe - https://blog.crypto.com/app-update-eu-uk-address-verification-now-open/

I haven't used them for other purposes but their app is pretty slick. I'm finding Wirex a pain with its sluggish app so might give it a try.

It didn't hit 20 grand on any of the most credible exchanges. It did on a few illiquid ones but that doesn't count in my book.

10 grand was the magic figure for me and I'm glad I grabbed it. Just a couple of years before that figure would've seemed like pure sci fi yet there it was.

And people are here and many have had their lives transformed by NOT listening to the mainstream. The mainstream so far has been painfully, excruciatingly wrong about the whole thing. Their cred has slowly worn down to zilch when it comes to this. They so far have demonstrated no reason why their opinions should be respected.

Maybe they'll be proved right some day. That doesn't really make up for being wrong for ten long years.

Yours is a wonderfully retro account. Shame you weren't here in 2014/15. You woulda had a ball.