Anyone handing over tens, hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to a complete unknown with zero idea of where the BTC came from is a flat out nutter. No premium is worth the potential risk. And similarly you might be receiving dollars conned direct from some granny's bank account.

Lots of smaller transactions would be less out there but then you have questions from the bank.

Another thing newbies should be aware of are the rules for ranking up before merit arrived.

All you had to do was post 14 times in 14 days for 2-3 years to become legendary, less time for hero and so on. There was no requirement for the posts to be any good. All they had to be was present.

You could post nothing other than 'nice project' or 'Yes, I agree' a few hundred times and that would be enough as long as you didn't get banned along the way. This makes any senior account without merit effectively as worthless as a brand new one posting nothing but spammy links, in fact it's more worthless as it's had vastly more time to prove that it's worthwhile and has failed miserably.

I don't see why any older account deserves any respect, but if you are prone to it then that's worth keeping in mind.

The most important aspect of it is Bitfinex, a company that left its hot wallet security solution wide open for a 'hack', is putting that much in one again.

Other than that I find these stories boring and pointless. We know how much it can cost, or how little. I can also imagine if you're moving that much in dollars you're going to get some rather preferential treatment.

Thanks to the magic, or stupidity, of market cap I guess it is possible if enough sellers disappear and enough buyers get desperate enough. I can see it losing $150,000 in half an hour and I would expect the exchanges and the blockchain to be so seized up it'll be effectively meaningless.

https://decrypt.co/16998/confirmed-craig-wright-doesnt-have-keys-to-8-billion-of-bitcoin

Amazingly enough he doesn't have them.

But just in case he said he might have them some day so the fear and terror continues. Just when we thought we were out he pulls us back in.

Bubbles are created by psychology. Psychology never changes. Delusion will descend again. People will arrive right at the peak convinced it will continue forever just like last time.

The actual size of it will be dictated by the numbers arriving and the amounts required to push it to certain figures. The attitudes will remain absolutely identical.

Take that to the bank and cash it.

The only thing that'll change it is pure speculation being overtaken by other factors.

I know.

But I am not a charity. There are security hassles around posting it and market rates equal out about the same as peeling and selling the shitforks these days. There might be a difference of about 0.01-2 which is a price worth paying to reduce the possibility of disaster to zero.

Many collectors here thank those that peel for making what they've returned worth more. But I haven't seen any sign of them being worth any more and the more valuable Bitcoin gets the weedier the BTC premium will be.

I may do the decent thing. I'm doubtful at present.

I have one silver and gold coin bought direct from Casascius a couple of days before he stopped which will stay pure no matter what. The other stuff is fair game.

It reduces friction. It's possible a few people might cough up where they might not have with the extra ball ache of returning to USD. Again it depends on the type of tax. I can well believe tons of people try to dodge capital gains. You can't really escape property taxes.

For me at least it would be something I would vastly prefer when it came to tax paying time.

As it stands I would have to go to an exchange and sell, worry about getting frozen there, worry about withdrawing successfully, worry about the bank having a shit.

The alternative of one QR code on the tax page is way more appealing.

I presume these are property and state taxes rather than capital gains which is a rather different matter. But for the big stuff it would remove a whole lot of hassle.

Tell us who they are and then you'll get some worthwhile opinions.

If I were to look to educate myself in this I don't see how any university will know more than what's available out there for free. It's all been out in the open since day one.

And is the job offer guarantee in writing?

That doesn't imply they want it. I presume most mean it's the lack of clarity or status that concerns them. That's a sensible reason not to go mad with it if that's your bag.

It won't be a crypto debit card. Etoro does not sell crypto. It sells price exposure to crypto in fiat. You can't deposit or withdraw the real deal there and never have been able to. It's similar to Revolut. It's a crypto profit card.

I'm not sure why this is being discussed in a Bitcoin forum really.

But that's precisely what will happen. And it'll happen a few more times until it reaches some sort of plateau/ sensibleness. It's what brought most people in in the first place and it's what those on the sidelines are waiting for. The appetite is there. They want their green light and it'll be off to the races again.

I'd much prefer it if it wasn't that way. It would be a lot less boring most of the time. That's the pattern it's settled in.

I forgot what they were called.

I've seen plenty of talk of P2P trading on Telegram channels. It all sounds a bit alarming to me. Even before Localbitcoins did their own KYC big traders on there were doing their own. It's going to be hard to avoid. I'd rather hand over ID to known companies at least.

Is your objection to the general idea of it or do you have a specific reason?

If a company touches fiat then KYC is mandatory. That's just how it is. That's the law in almost every country.

I wasn't talking about GBTC, I was talking about Genesis Trading which is the OTC company they run. They will have clients waiting to buy or sell.

If you're comfortable dealing with private individuals away from any centralised site then KYC might not be an issue. I am not comfortable doing that. But any sensible private individual who does it regularly would probably ask for KYC too. They might have serious legal problems if they didn't.

I get where they're coming from. It's stupid to keep a portal open that is totally ignored. But there is an element of if you build it, they will come.

However it's a bit like merchant adoption or its use as a currency, people got it the wrong way around. Those'll be the last elements to arrive, not the first. Merchant adoption probably peaked in 2014 and has been going gradually downhill ever since.

Before earning and spending becomes commonplace it needs to settle in the store of value phase. Right now it's still pure betting and it's understandable why people don't want to give up their bet for bread and butter stuff.

The tricky part is the actual demand may arrive someday with nothing in place to serve it as all of it was abandoned years ago

It's a legislator's job to look beyond today and put stuff in place that nurtures tomorrow. And no one should be surprised there's little interest in spending in the last couple of years, let alone spending on boring necessities.

Maybe people never will get beyond hoarding, but the ability to pay tax directly would make a huge difference to people earning in crypto. No dicking around with exchanges, no bank account hassles.

Earning isn't really happening yet either but that's one of the prime factors in it becoming truly established.

Proper OTC desks like grayscale's service will still have kyc and so on but they won't pull stupid shit like holding your money hostage.

If you want absolutely none you'll have to do proper P2P direct with a private buyer and no middleman at all.

I guess you could start on the currency exchange section here but rather you than me.

Yes, but for some reason many coin buyers expect sellers to ignore those shitforks and eat the difference. I'm not totally sure why they expect them to do that especially when so many sellers are talking about peeling now.

If you want to preserve what's out there you need to make them square. I have a couple of brasses too. As it stands peeling feels like a better move these days even if it is heresy.