If you want to be a merit source:

 1. Be a somewhat established member.

2. Collect TEN posts written in the last couple of months by other people that have not received nearly enough merit for how good they are, and post quotes for them all in a new Meta thread. The point of this is to demonstrate your ability to give out merit usefully.

those files are html browser based tool that you can run locally offline on your browser
ok, so I'll be using 19Fm1SKQnk8Gpy1v7fXyiHqvHiFPiTnFRF as destination address
current recommended tx fee is very very high close to 1000s/B  
so I set 0.00225 for tx fee which will be around ~850s/B ($36 @ $16,000) and 0.003 ($48) for tip if you don't mind
when you see and do this, hopefully the network fee will drop a few hundred nearing this weekend

Preparations:
- open this post so you can follow the step by step instruction easily
- have your private key for 1o4PtEAcNCHx8H5qU5R9XSGBMskJ2Jocp handy, my guess it starts with K or L
- go offline, disconnect your internet connection
- open your browser's private window so it doesn't cache, record or leave cookie, history, and etc
chrome incognito mode or firefox private window or whatever private browsing mode your browser have
- open the folder where you unzipped the two tools you've downloaded

First, acquiring your privkey:
- if the privkey you get from bc.info starts with 5 then you're set, jump to Second part
but if it starts with K or L, as I guessed before, then you need to find the real privkey for 1o4PtEAcN address
- open folder bitaddress.org-3.3.0 then click & drag bitaddress.org.html to new tab on your private browser
- you can move around your mouse to get to 100 % or just click "Wallet Details"
- enter your K or Lxxxx private key in the space provided and click "View Details"
- it should show your 1o4PtEAcNC... address on the left, scroll down a bit you can see "Private Key WIF" starts with a '5'
- the string starts with 5... is your actual private key for 1o4PtEAcNC...

Second, signing rawtx:
- open folder coinbin-1.3 then click & drag index.html to another new tab on your private browser
- click on menu "Sign" then copy paste your private key 5xxxx into the first input form
- also copy paste unsigned rawtx below into the second input form , and click submit
- it will give you "Signed transaction" , select and copy the new signed tx
- open notepad, paste this signed tx and save it for later use
- click on menu "Verify" and paste your signed tx in the input space provided then click submit
- make sure all inputs for your transactions are checkmarked on the signed column
- also double check the destination addresses and amounts are precisely as we agreed, 1Fq7XdaVC... is my address

Third, broadcast:
- close all incognito browser but don't forget to save the signed tx on your notepad txt file
- re-connect your internet and re-open your local coinb.in index.html or just go to live coinb.in page
- click on menu "Broadcast" and paste your signed tx here then click submit
- if it gives you error, you can broadcast/push it to other nodes or post here your signed tx
and I will help you push it to other available nodes

I hope these instructions clear enough for you to understand and follow

I’m no expert in Bitcoin, or any crypto currency, just a regular guy, with a bit of background knowledge, mostly from reading this forum over the last few days. I’m starting to experiment with Bitcoin partly to diversify my investments, but mostly out of curiosity! I thought I’d start a thread about my Bitcoin journey to help anyone else in a similar position, but also as a sounding board to make sure I'm on the right track.

Bitcoin has been in my peripheral vision for years - I’m not going to think about how lucrative it could have been to have bought some Bitcoin when I first heard about it! The value has already doubled since I put “Research Bitcoin” into my todo list a few months ago! I am not interested in learning about the mining side of things, I understand I have already missed the boat on that!

From my current investments I have come to the  conclusion that I prefer to take a hands off approach to investing and that fees can eat into your profits, so need to be minimised. I’m going to take a similar approach to Bitcoin, finding a balance between returns, effort and fees and to start with - not investing more than I can afford to lose, until I know what I am doing a bit more.

It seems like my first step is to set up a wallet - there seem to be a lot of options for this. I think to start with I'll go for a web based one to start with, blockchain.info and coinbase are looking most likely at the moment - any preferences on the two? Or is it worth setting up both and seeing which I prefer?

Security wise, I have set up a new email address, with 2FA activated, to keep my Bitcoin stuff separate/private.

The private key did not work for some reason, and when I would check addresses there was no BCH showing on it either.

However, this is what ended up working:

1 - Sent all coins to another wallet (thanks LoyceV), this is the safe thing to do

2 - Downloaded Bitcoin ABC on another PC

3 - Loaded it until it was up to date

4 - Swapped wallet with old bitcoin wallet that is now empty, but had coins in at time of fork

5 - If you sent your coins out, it will show 0. Go into transactions. Right click and select Abandon Transaction for all post-fork transactions.

And then your BCC is right there. This should work for anyone that was having issues with the Coinomi method. Make sure you have enough harddrive space when doing this files are very large.

I've rebroadcasted your transaction https://blockchain.info/tx/83619e4a579b498b30c1d48fa4ef57b2692a0f6a471ede2c0cc7a5afeb43539a and the parent transaction's inputs - https://blockchain.info/tx/e7fd426cc3716b59ba84869abfafafc8315eec0c3975b71c4b6dfba9c0d4c41e

Before re-broadcasting the parent transaction, it was giving me missing inputs, so I had to do that first and then re-broadcast the child transaction.

Basically derived it from: https://blockchain.info/tx/e7fd426cc3716b59ba84869abfafafc8315eec0c3975b71c4b6dfba9c0d4c41e?format=hex


and https://blockchain.info/tx/83619e4a579b498b30c1d48fa4ef57b2692a0f6a471ede2c0cc7a5afeb43539a?format=hex


I've pushed the transactions on blockcypher, coinb.in, smartbit and blockexplorer. I believe other nodes should start picking it up as well soon.

Edit: Have also submitted your transaction to the antpool transaction accelerator, just incase your transaction can be picked by the next block that they mine since both these transactions have very good fees.

Edit2: Both transactions now have 1 confirmation.

What you could do is to try to use tool such as: https://coinb.in/

I've been using it for quite some time and so far my keys are safe with me. What is coinb.in anyways? It is a website open-source that have basic functionality of signing an address and creating and managing transactions in general.

I use LIVE OS installed on my USB for this because every time I use this USB it is only existent in my RAM. Basically you want to boot up your live OS, download coinb.in pull the information about available inputs via some available block explorers out here and simply go offline after you get your inputs. Plugin other usb with your priv key or you can install software that can read QR from your camera codes before you even go offline and can read your private key this way. Sign a message with that private key and simply save your hex encoded bitcoin transaction either on your hard drive or plugin another USB so you can simply broadcast that hex later on.

I found this to be effective thing to do for me, might be a bit complicated but so far it have served me well.

I don't really see an other offline solution as you will still have to pull unspent inputs from somewhere.

Electrum can do this if you have an online computer and an offline (air gapped) computer.

Setup the online Electrum in watch only mode with the address in which you have funds. Attempt to send the funds as desired. This will create an unsigned transaction which can be saved in a file that you can place on a USB stick. Setup the offline Electrum with your private key. Move the USB stick to the offline computer, load the transaction into Electrum, sign it, and saved the signed transaction back onto the USB. Move the USB to the online computer, load it into Electrum, and broadcast it to the world. (I've not done this, so I don't know all the user interface choices that will be needed...)

The signed transaction is secure. You can take your time broadcasting it from the USB. No malware can take it and change it.

No altcoin can compete with Bitcoin in economic fundamentals.  Bitcoin has the first-mover advantage, the network effect, the famous brand name, and most importantly:  Large numbers of people, rich and poor, of a thousand opinions and religions, are each and all forcibly united by their common selfish interest in Bitcoin.  Bitcoin isn’t only a technology:  It is a sociological phenomenon.  That is Bitcoin’s economic foundation, and a power no altcoin can hope to match.

Thus, altcoins compete with either scam glitzy marketing, or features and technical advances.  I will here focus on the latter.

As an economic giant, Bitcoin needs to be technologically conservative.  People rely on Bitcoin to safekeep their life’s savings!  Many have considerable fortunes held in Bitcoin.  So Bitcoin can’t take risks on unproved ideas, however promising they may seem.  It also can’t hardfork on demand, if needed to implement features which could not otherwise be added.  Thus if you want a cryptocurrency which implements radical new ideas and experimental features, you can only get that with an alt.

This whole situation will change with sidechains (whether Drivechains or otherwise).  A sidechain allows implementation of almost any imaginable feature, backed by genuine Bitcoin.  Turing-complete smart contracts?  Unlinkable transactions secured with zero-knowledge proofs?  A coin which sings like a bird each morn at dawn, and changes hues with the days of the week?  Do it with pegged Bitcoin, on a sidechain.

If and when that becomes a reality, no one of sound mind will buy into an altcoin—and no one with sound motives will build a new altcoin.  People with new ideas will simply create a sidechain.  People who want new features will simply use a sidechain.

Absent the only legitimate means for an alt to compete against Bitcoin—features—the only people left in alts will be speculators, scammers pushing hot ICOs, and fools buying into hot ICOs.

When that happens, will all altcoins crash and burn?

Corollary question:  How much higher will the value of Bitcoin rise, when the capital currently in alts starts flowing into Bitcoin sidechains?

Note:  For technical reasons, I am not thrilled by the proposed implementation of Drivechains.  But the technical discussion is not here relevant, if Drivechains become Bitcoin’s substantial implementation of sidechains.  Any which way, sidechains are coming.

Disclosure:  I currently hold a substantial position in an altcoin.  I bought into it for ideological reasons (privacy), not for speculation.  I paid bitcoin for it.  At present, I am watching it slowly slide away into oblivion against Bitcoin.  I will not say which one, because my purpose here is not to bash any particular coin—especially not one in which I myself am invested!  Rather, I am questioning the future viability of altcoins altogether.

In reply to these, and likely others earlier in the thread:



Smart thinking!  A day or two ago, I whipped up a quickie Segwit address generator with a simple regex search.  It can produce both P2WPKH-nested-in-P2SH and Bech32 addresses.  It’s quite trivial; it lacks vanitygen’s features, and probably also falls short in performance.

Some sample outputs from short patterns:

3NULL3ZCUXr7RDLxXeLPDMZDZYxuaYkCnG  (^3NULL[0-9])

bc1qcash96s5jqppzsp8hy8swkggf7f6agex98an7h (hahah; ^bc1qcash[0-9])

From earlier tests, WIF private key import was confirmed by me to work perfectly in Electrum:


The code is in C, Unix-only.  It’s fairly trivial; it essentially glues together Core’s secp256k1 library, luke-jr’s libbase58, and sipa’s reference Bech32 code.  It has almost no features; it won’t even try to tell you if the pattern you seek is impossible.  I’d intended to toss it out there somewhere for others to play with; but it devolved into a patchwork of #ifdefs with multiple different code paths, due to an build-time problem with dependencies.  It would require time and effort to clean up.

How great is the interest in this?

Hey folks,

Today is a Monday and that means an update of my weekly BTX airdrop end date prediction spreadsheet.
This week I predicted 134 000 coins to be dropped, while the factual number was 133 140, so slightly lower than predicted.
The main reason for this is in my view the 3-4 days that the airdrop registration was offline due to the new website added by the team.

In any case, the end date is still unchanged - still April 23rd as the last Monday.

Next week we will have the first 6% airdrop and I predict 180 000 coins to be dropped that week. Let's see how it goes!

https://i.imgur.com/WZ524j3.jpg


--ypsi

Current issue

Currently you can check your sMerit balance only when you try to send sMerit to someone's post by clicking the +Merit link for the post.
Another issue for small-number sMerit holder is the sMerit balance is rounded off and you can't check if you have 0.5 sMerit.
Furthermore, it does not seem to be well-recognized in the community that the minimum unit for sMerit is 0.5 [EDIT: while sendable minimum unit is 1], or even the difference between Merit and sMerit.

[EDIT:
Another point is that in the current system +Merit link doesn't appear if you have 0 Merit and 0 sMerit, which makes Newbies and Jr. Members a little bit hard to know the existence of sMerit.
Of course if people read the theymos' post carefully they understand the system, but it's also true that some people are confusing, so I tried to think about how the interface could be improved.]

These issues prevent smooth Merit/sMerit circulation.

Proposal

I think one can solve these issues by improving the interface, specifically, by

1) introducing sMerit balance to Profile page and under the name at one's post,
2) making 0.5 sMerit visible there.

The new interface requires minimal effort to implement, resolves the above issues, and also answers repeated questions such as "how to check my sMerit", "why I can't send sMerit", "why I have 0 sMerit when I received 1 Merit" etc.

Of course a user's sMerit balance should be visible only by him/herself, otherwise people might rush to people who have a large number of sMerits.
[EDIT: so sMerit balance should be still hidden from other accounts just like email address.]

The following images are what I have in mind, the left one is the current interface, the right one is my proposal:

Profile page
https://imgur.com/qbHYTeE


Each post
https://imgur.com/e0eIeEc

3. We will take a look at your history and maybe make you a source.

I am especially eager to have merit sources in sub-communities such as the local sections.

But for newbies like myself, getting to the next rank is exponentially higher because you really have to grind. Grinding isn't bad... but imo it's really unfair. Just a mini-rant.

Countries Tested & Proven (Will add more as more members reach-out) : [b]THIS IS WORKING IN EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY IN THE WORLD THAT ACCEPTS ONLINE-PAYMENT[/b]

1- Let's say I import a hamburger, does this hamburger come to my country by regular mail or by DHL or do you have any other service that does transport of food that I do not know?

Here it is http://premiumbitcoins.com/my-bitcointalk-account-got-hacked

-----BEGIN BITCOIN SIGNED MESSAGE-----
This is premium_domainer from bitcointalk.org and today is 2016.01.10, time of 03:47 PM.
-----BEGIN SIGNATURE-----
1TP3N8ciApQrsX58GWJe4UifGSjghaqgm
IKnXCzyB0bX+ypuILukL6Z179RF90x9vR/eQc+ytEqdDZxoH1R/Ng8c5XipNeWoiatAskqA9QCrVg6dRQM95GdM=
-----END BITCOIN SIGNED MESSAGE-----

A prolific Russian hacker who raked in at least $170 million by stealing more than 2 million credit-card numbers and selling them on the black market was sentenced Friday morning to 27 years in prison in U.S. District Court in Seattle.
For years, Roman Seleznev was “one of the world’s leading providers of stolen credit card data,” according to federal prosecutors. He used the proceeds of his illegal operation to fund a lavish lifestyle and fuel his fondness for American-made muscle cars.
A prosecutor likened Seleznev as a “Tony Soprano-style mob boss” during the Friday sentencing hearing. The government had sought a 30-year sentence for Seleznev, characterizing his operation as unprecedented.
Feds seek 30-year sentence for Russian master hacker convicted in Seattle
Feds say accused Russian hacker at SeaTac detention center may be plotting escape
Son of Russian Parliament member convicted in massive hacking, ID-theft scheme
“Never before has a criminal engaged in computer fraud of this magnitude been identified, captured and convicted by an American jury,” prosecutors wrote.
Seleznev apologized in court, blaming his difficult upbringing in Russia.
Seleznev, 32, the son of a prominent member of Russian parliament, hacked into thousands of business computers to steal the credit-card numbers. Many of the businesses were Washington state restaurants, including the former Broadway Grill on Capitol Hill, Grand Central Bakery, Mad Pizza locations in Seattle and Tukwila, Village Pizza in Anacortes and the Casa Mia Italian Restaurant in Yelm, Thurston County.
He was identified as a suspect in the hacks in 2010 after a Secret Service task force linked computer intrusions at restaurants in Washington and Idaho to a mysterious email address and website in Russia.
The Vladivostok man was indicted in 2011 by a federal grand jury in Seattle on charges involving more than 30 computer-fraud-related counts. The indictment grew to 40 counts by the end of 2014
He was arrested in 2014 in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. While the U.S. did not have a treaty with the Maldives, officials there agreed to let U.S. agents arrest Seleznev, which drew official protests from Russian authorities who claimed he had been kidnapped.
According to the prosecutors, Seleznev’s laptop computer, seized during his arrest, contained 1.7 million stolen credit-card numbers.

I don't agree with using the trust system for pure spam; that's not what it was designed for.

I totally fell for the cloned site, until I realized I couldn't see your trust ratings.
I have added this line to /etc/hosts
Now my computer can't access that phishing site anymore.

https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts (scroll down a bit to see many different categories hosts files). The one mentioned above isn't on it though, so I've added it by myself.

Many long-established members have 2500 merit and more. And that too for posts with no more than 3 words.

So that does not represent the quality of these postings.

In addition, attempts are already being made to sell Merit.
Does that serve the quality of the contributions?

And members like me, who are 3 or 4 days ahead of a status upgrade, now have an almost impossible task to do.

In addition, this is an international forum. And not all members speak and write flawless English here.
Like me. And even that will worsen the scoring - unaffected by the content.

I have an old hard drive that might have a couple of Bitcoin on it. Any help would be appreciated.

My standard practice with forked coins and paper wallets is the following.

1. Importing Paper wallets to a new Bitcoin address <moving them away to keep them safe>
2. Taking old Paper wallet and using whatever forked wallet to extract the FREE coins.

On the contrary, it seems that people are not giving out as much merit per merited post as I'd hoped. Any post that deserves to be read should get merit, and really good ones should get 10+. If people with plenty of sMerit to spare persist in giving out only a couple of merit per post, then changes will have to be made to either disincentivize sMerit hoarding or adapt to the lower amounts.

Merit sales are not an issue. All illegitimate merit will decay, and will account for a tiny and very expensive fraction of the total merit economy. It's basically a rounding error; fight it where convenient, but waste no sleep over it.

In particular, if you remember where you found the source for the following answer, I would appreciate it:


(I would like to know whether the forum has its own rules against it or "caught" just means negative trust)

MANUTD 04B549B0B75DD108B872249ACE14981155900B227A637B0D412E8F11159D6192EAF498F54BE44B6 6727C9CE1CA61FD8D276E9AEF8B5C7154234EAB1A2AC485B8DA

----BITCOIN ADRESS ----

1NXEg6FaaDrGfyqPq4Mo1sncQGMTZBz2tv

-----BEGIN BITCOIN SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Today is 28.01.2018 bitcointalk account km4700ruda (u=237301) belongs to this address

-----BEGIN SIGNATURE-----

IOu0BWB1y4mT7im4p9IDDlVe9hcUUfT0bfnOClo0MF/RGmrjF5VaBAbC3fwUzuTM9jnNk8pc/46nGcj8KXcZKvk=

Anyways, I went on Bitcoin.com, created a wallet, had the choice between buying bitcoin cash and bitcoin Core, I didn't even think I went for bitcoin cash because it was the first one on the list and I thought that is what I needed.

So if your man received something, let's say he expected Bananas and got Apples.

Fine he can tell me you sent me the wrong fruits but he cannot claim that he didn't get a bite from the apples I sent him and on top of that diss me a call me a liar.

I Love putting my trust into people, my word is my bond and I was very excited to make my first payment using Bitcoin....Cash (you see am learning). But that's fine, it's about a 100EUR, you live you learn, like the saying goes fool me once...That will make me more vigilant.

I won't give up on Bitcoins or Bitcoins Cash, I love the concept and if this community is anything to go by then I definiltely want to be part of this journey

Received. I gave you 1 merit, and I see jackg did the same -- does this mean that we both are a confirmed alt of you?

I'm hoping that this system will increase post quality by:
~
 - Highlighting good posts with the "Merited by" line.

Please try to merit posts that other people might find interesting, since top-merited posts show up on the stats.

Also, now people have been shifting to SegWit addresses, what is the direct (positive) result that you noticed?