stompix gave a real ELI5 explanation... i'm going to dig a little bit deeper whilst still trying to keep it as ELI5 as possible...

Each block can contain at maximum 4 Mb of transaction data. 1Mb for the "real" data and 3 Mb of "witness" data. It's impossible to create more blocks, the average time between 2 blocks is ~ 10 minutes. If you'd add more ASIC (mining) hardware, you could decrease the time between 2 blocks for a very short while, but the network automatically increases the difficulty if you'd do such a thing, and a higher difficulty would mean the average time between 2 blocks would once again be close to ~10 minutes.

What it boils down to is that, on average our network can handle about 6*1Mb of "real" transaction data.

Eventough i haven't really read up on "ordinals", they're basically an NFT built up the bitcoin blockchain. In order for them to work, they create tons of transactions. By doing so, they create more transaction data than there is space in the bitcoin blocks.

This is why other people that are legitimately using bitcoin have to outbid each other (and those ordinal users aswell) for a place in one of the next blocks.
The outbidding happens because of the space limitation... A miner can chose which transactions he/she adds to the block he/she is trying to solve. Since mining is a business, it makes sense for them to add the transactions with the highest fee per (v)byte of transaction data. If you don't outbid others, your transaction won't be included by the miners trying to solve blocks.

Oops, you're completely right... A overlooked that the second guess was only to be submitted later on.
@OP: please, disregard my second guess... Sorry for the mixup!

Seems fun... I'll take a stab

Prediction 1: $29,847.03
bech32 address: bc1qrpqy0kwy2ukappr9tnatk8ulzmlzjxes82auns

Prediction 2: $36,244.77
bech32 address: bc1qrpqy0kwy2ukappr9tnatk8ulzmlzjxes82auns

if you have 12 given words, there are 12! possible combinations of those 12 words (given you cannot re-use the same word).
12! = 479.001.600

Let's round this number down to 479 million

The number of possible 12 word seed phrases is 2^128
2^128 = 3,4 e38. That's 340282366920938463463374607431770 million

I did some googling, and found a benchmark of somebody claiming to be able to test ~150.000 combinations per second. Now, this was with a GPU and a highly specific derivation path and pre-known address that had to be derived using this derivation path... A best case scenario...

Let's assume you get to 0.1 million combinations per second... It would take you 4790 seconds if you knew all 12 words... That's an hour and 20 minutes.

If you don't have the 12 words, it'll take you 3402823669209384634633746074 seconds @ 0.1 million seeds/second... Thats  107.902.830.708.060.141.889.705.291 years....

There's a huge difference between getting 12 random words and hacking a seedphrase where you don't know these 12 words...

yes... I didn't think about this attack vector... But it's true... Every package you sent is encrypted using a symmetric key shared between the client and cloudflare, then cloudflare decrypts the packages and re-encrypts them using a symmetric key shared between cloudflare and the host.

Cloudflare can, in theory, inject malicious code into any website that uses their proxy... Including but not limited to the code used to generate keypairs.

on your machine... yes... if i had to take a guess, i'd say odds are >90% you're using an x86_64 architecture with either windows, linux or mac OS... And for those combinations, a precompiled binary is available.
An raspberry pi has an arm architecture and runs linux (usually), this combo also has a precompiled binary available...

But when you try to switch to more "exotic" alternatives, you just have to double check... IIRC, arduino (for example) uses a different cpu architecture. I've also heared about single board computers using PowerPC, RISC-V, PIC, SPARC,... architectures. I guess most rPi alternatives will have a precompiled binary available (usually they'll have an ARM architecture), it's just something you have to double check beforehand. You don't want to buy an SBC having a PowerPC cpu architecture and then be surprised it's not that easy to install your favorite linux distro, and even harder to manually compile all the (bitcoin related) tools you need.

Now, the link i posted before has a disk that's to small for the full blockchain, but it has an x86_64 architecture. If you find one with an 1Tb disk, you're golden... It might cost you 10 or 20 bucks more, but you'll have a silent, small, reasonably power efficient device that should be very easy to slap the disk image provided by mynode onto by just following their walktroughs (disclaimer: i don't run mynode, so i have not tested this claim!!!)

So it basically boils down to creating an asymmetric keypair client-side, sending the pubkey to your server and receiving the pubkey from the server's keypair, then completely encrypting every package inside your browser before sending it to you and only receiving encrypted packages from you which can be decrypted using your privkey.

If it is set up correctly, i guess that approach would be ok... It's still a tad bit early for me, but for now i don't see any real problem... It does feel like it's going to slow down the experience, and you'll probably have to make sure to respond to any vulnerability that's discovered anywhere in the complete stack... But it's defenately a lot better than just using cloudflare.


Convenience... Lazyness... Incompetence maybe?...
I don't get it either, but still, a lot of them are using cloudflare and their main reason seems to be "other are doing it to, so i don't see a problem"
As far as i can tell right now, it seems like whirlwindmoney might have found a way to combine convenience with security, but i do wonder if it'll come at a price (usability, speed, maintainability,...). Time will tell

Depends on the architecture... I know there are precompiled bitcoin core binaries for x86_64 (linux + windows) and arm (linux), and there are probably some other precompiled binaries for other common "combinations" of os and architecture. If you plan to run it on a different architecture and/or OS that the ones that have precompiled binaries, you might have to compile everything yourself... If it were just bitcoin core it'd be doable, but if it's a whole range of tools, it might not be worth your effort...

I know there are a lot of stores that sell second hand, revised mini computers that are dirt cheap, these might be a better alternative if you don't want to end up spending weeks to get things compiled and running.
Here's an example: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Fujitsu-Esprimo-Business-Computer-Refurbished/dp/B0854LM164/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3J55WATHIU45A&keywords=general%C3%BCberholter+mini+computer&qid=1682518983&sprefix=refurbished+mini+computer%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-3
(i'm not affiliated with amazon, nor this store!!! use at your own risk!!). BTW: this particular example's HDD is to small to run an unpruned node, but a pruned node would do just fine on this hardware, 115€ delivered to your door (in the EU), just slap a linux distro on there, configure your node to be pruned and you're done ...

noooooooo...

Not binance and DEFENATELY not freewallet!!!
Binance is an exchange, it's very bad practice to keep your money in an online wallet, and binance isn't even a wallet (it's an exchange). Exchanges are made to deposit, trade and withdraw...

Freewallet is a completely different thing... It has tons and tons of fraud accusations from people that have given reliable testimonials that freewallet is selectively scamming. It is also widely believed by a lot of people in the community they're relying on fake reviews and bought adspots on search engines to lure in new victims *customers  

Check out this site for picking a wallet: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

Just my advice: if you're going to hold a lot of money and you want an easy sollution: go for a trusted hardware wallet. Personally i use a ledger and a trezor, but you should do your own research.

If you're just experimenting and you have access to a clean pc, you can hold a limited amount of funds in an SPV HD wallet like electrum or sparrow... or bitcoin core (eventough that one takes a massive amount of hdd space and time, since you're downloading and verifying the complete blockchain)

There isn't a foolproof answer to this question... Personally, i have never tried to convince anybody to invest in anything. Not my parents, not my brother, not my friends...

If it goes wrong, they will always feel like you were responsible for their loss, and that's a burden i don't want... But that's just my personal opinion.

walletexplorer.com offers some of this functionality... Not exactly like you described, but it does try to group addresses together into wallets...

Cold storage using electrum is secure if done correctly...

That being said: some hardware wallet vendors are open source... And you don't need to use the software from the wallet vendor, a lot of hardware wallets can be used together with electrum... So the hardware wallet vendor shouldn't automatically have to know how much funds you own (+ you can always use tor if you'd like to use the hardware wallet's software... + sometimes the hardware wallet's vendor's software allows you to not use their nodes)

By the way, the pincode does protect you in case of a "normal" reasonable tech-savvy thief steals your wallet... Personally, i'd recommend an extended seed + a pincode... But yeah, if you do it correctly, an airgapped electrum setup can be just as safe (or even safer) than a hardware wallet.

There's some confusing terminology that might or might not protect you in this case.

Your seed is composed out of 12 or 24 seed words (usually). Allmost all hardware and software wallet vendors give you the opportunity to encrypt your master private key which gets derived out of these 12 or 24 words.
If with "passphrase" you mean such an encryption password, the hacker can steal your funds even without knowing your passphrase, since the passphrase was only used to encrypt the master private key, but the hacker can just derive said unencrypted master private key if he has your 12 or 24 words... In this case, you are not safe at all!!! If he physically steals your hardware wallet, the code might or might not protect you for a while (at least, untill the attacker bruteforces your code, which is sometimes not as easy as it sounds).

Some hardware vendors also offer to add a 13th or 25th word to your seed (extend your key with an extra word). In this case, if a hacker steals your seed, he'll also have to brute force this 13th (or 25th) word before he can derive your master private key. In this case, you're better off, but certainly NOT as safe as without having your key compromised. The hacker just has to brute force one word, which is plausible...
On top of this 25th word, the vendor usually asks you to also add a pincode (or password), this password (or pincode) has the same function as the first part of this reply (just encrypting the master private key...).
If the hacker steals your physical device, he'll have to bruteforce the password encrypting your mpk AND bruteforce the 13th (or 25th) word... It'll take him longer, but i personally wouldn't rest comfortably before my funds were moved to a new (clean) wallet.

There's no magic bullet here... If you buy hardware with the lowest Joule per Hash, you'll get the most hashes for the amount of energy you spend... It's just that simple. Some people might advise you to overclock or run different firmware in order to optimise your hardware even more, but you have to realise that when doing this, you might end up breaking your hardware or installing backdoored firmware sooner or later (and those optimizations are usually just a couple percent better... It's still more efficient hardware = more hashes for an amount of energy).

What does make it complicated is that the most efficient miner might not be the most sturdy one... And if you pay to much for your energy, odds are pretty big you'll never ROI, no matter which miner you buy.

If, for example, a new type of chip would be found that's much more efficient, people would probably just buy more of them... The diff would probably just rise but the power consumption would remain the same.

Only if the price would drop significantly over a longer period of time, people would start shutting down their ASIC's and the power consumption would decrease (at least, that's what i guess will happen).

I would never try to convince anybody... I'm a big crypto enthusiast, but i still consider crypto a high risk investment... I wouldn't want to be responsible if they'd lose their funds.

On the other hand, if they'd made up their own mind and just asked me for assistance, i would gladly help them out

I don't think this has been discussed before (AFAIK). I do have a personal opinion for both your points tough, it might not be the same as the admin's and i reserve the right to change my opinion if i hear good arguments coming up from other people .

1. Don't think this is a good idear. If you lock a topic, it becomes completely static. What if somebody wants to clean up his posts because he (for example) doxxed him/herself? I know, the internet it permanent, and your post details stay in several caches forever, but at least if the topic isn't locked you have the option to edit the details that are in plain view.
AFAIK, there are people advocating to lock topics as soon as they received sufficient replies, but it's more of a personal responsibility, not something the mod's have to do manually or the admin does automatically.

2. depends on the thread... Most of the time, the answer would be: yes, if you find a topic that hasn't received a reply for 2 years and you have something new to add, it might be a good idear to open a new thread... But it does depend on how long ago the thread has been created, how long ago since the last post, the content of the thread and the comment you want to add. For example, if it's a topic from 2014 that asks a very specific question and received a couple dozen replies over then next 7 years but no real answer, and it is now dormant for 2 years AND you have the exact answer for the exact question that has been discussed for 7 years and is dormant for only 2, it might be ok to add the answer to the question for reference purposes. If you just want to tell the world you haven't found the answer either you might want to consider not necroposting...

Well... That's quite a hard one... I have no experience with holding loads of altcoins on a phone. Generally speaking, i'd say it's a bad idea... I personally don't believe those wallets are as thoroughly vetted as open source desktop wallets (even tough that's just a gut feeling), combined with the extra attack vectors (easy theft, a lot of times just a 4 digit pincode as protection,...). And even then, it's a bad idea to hold a reasonable amount of funds on a desktop wallet anyways.

Since bitcoin is about personal responsibility and choice: I have heared reasonably good things about mycelium, but you should do your own research before using them. Personally, i would never use them for anything more than pocket change, but it's up to you to make up your mind.

If you want more security (and this should be your goal), you could look into hardware wallets like ledger... They have at least one model that can be used from your phone (and, eventough not everybody likes ledger, i think it's safe to assume they're a hell of a lot safer than any "real" smartphone wallet). They support a cured selection of altoins aswell.

Personally, if i were you, i'd probably use a wallet like mycelium (or even an exchange wallet) to receive coins, swap them for BTC the very same moment i receive them, and then keep them on a properly generated paper wallet or a hardware wallet. Bitcoin is money, keep it safe. Don't cheap out on $100 for a decent hardware wallet when you're storing a couple thousand dollars worth of crypto... It's just not a good idea, and you'll end up losing funds sooner or later (and at this point you'll wish you had spend $100 on a hardware wallet, or a couple of hours learning how to properly generate and secure a paper wallet).

I'm not MagicByt3, but i quickly scanned his code.

With this script, you're mining on a solo mining pool...

Here you connect to the pool:


here you seem to send your address to the pool, so they can pay you if you hit a block:

and here you seem to send a payload if the hash is smaller than the target (wich is basically solving a block in a solo mining pool:

Once for complete clarity: i'm not MagicByt3, i just took a 5 minute look at the code he posted and it seemed quite logical and straightforeward... There's a small chance i made a mistake since this is the result from a very quick glance at his code.

Also, you have to realise that code like this is a POC (proof of concept). It's a learning tool to teach people how mining works... Do NOT use such code to actually mine... The hashrate is sooooo low, and the power and hardware consumption sooooo high that your odds of making a profit are so close to 0 that in reality you can call them 0.

Even IF you can withdraw from a "free" cloudmining site, it proves absolutely nothing... It's a (very) old tactic that has been around for as long as i've been around (~2014): let your first "investors" withdraw and promote your site to lure in more victims, then scam them.