Ohh man, you are the hell raising priest I have heard so much about?? This sure is a new account. Always wanted a chance to speak to you.

So what exactly is your grievance by the way? I have seen you complain about everything from the forum rules to bitcoin's abilities. Just want to understand where you are coming from. Were you hurt by bitcoin as a technology or the people supporting it?

Very well said.
This illusion was partly fueled by the prospect of everyone becoming a Venture Capitalist now that they could invest in ICOs. I think a lot of these people who bought at >10K bought to get onto the ICO train. ICOs giving back 5x returns was almost a constant in telegram, discord and Slack groups over the last few months.

They did this by simply investing in whatever sounded the best without going into the details of the project, team or technology behind it. Those who bought BTC just for the sake of BTC would have done their research and would have come across the golden rule of crypto.
If they didn't bother, then I am tired of parting with my sympathy for these people.

I bought in at the 6K levels and now am back to almost my original investment after those 12X gains on blockfolio. I frankly don't care because I am so much better informed and starting to get the feel of the technology and politics behind it.
Its exciting to be a part of.

I hope these people learn their lessons and we get rid of the people who thought the goose would keep laying golden eggs indefinitely. Next time, Do your own research and stop taking the shortcut of believing Youtube shills.

Bitcoin is here to stay. Even if these regulations etc. actually "outlaw" it (which is a pretty distant possibility), it'll still function. It should still exist as a project for the part of humanity which prides itself on the values of openness, innovation and hard work.

Its going below 6000 right as we speak. All this shit has happened in the past. It'll now take sometime for the "authorities" to make their first move. Till then, we have to stop looking at this from just the financial angle. Learn why we have such coordinated FUD. Ask yourself why you are willing to part with your investment in BTC, the moment a bad news comes.

Media, news has been used to influence our decisions for so long. Ask yourself why you bought in? If only for the money, then you shouldn't have invested more than you can afford to lose. If you have, then advice others not to do so again. Learn where you went wrong and lets not repeat this the next time it inevitably goes up.

They decided to start "professional blockchain development" with a laughable name like that. Such stupid posts. Almost every coin out there has copied bitcoin's codebase. Go look at their credits.


Seriously man. A forum is a place to exchange ideas and have conversations. These idiots have turned it into a flea market. Its sad that so many newbies actually far for these tall promises in the hope of one of them being legitimate.

Institutional money flows into assets that are expected to have growth in the long term. This growth is dependent on whether the product/ asset has a market or not. The market depends on the people who are using it. It depends on whether big merchants are going to accept it as a way to fund their commerce activities.
The upside for the common people to use it or store is that its non-deflationary, its value will not depend on government intervention, it will be secure and decentralized in the long run.

This current flow of money is probably just the thing that we fear. Big investors trying to make money off of small investors who scare easy by these constant buys and dumps. It may also just be your average big-pocket traders. I don't think we should worry about it too much.

The fundamentals of bitcoin are as strong as ever. With newer innovations picking up, we'll see another extended lull period. The next wave will come as some of the other alternatives come up with working products and use cases. As usage grows, we can be sure that we'll see the marketplaces getting active again and the merchant revival come in in a big way.
Th institutional money will then come in as a supportive investment and not as a speculative one. That is where we have to head.

This present FUD too shall pass.

Anybody who falls for this is going to the same old concept of "Its true because they told you so". Bitcoin is about decentralization and taking the power that government's wield on mass perception away.

If you still fall for this, you never knew anything about bitcoin. Go be a Bcash shill and make miners and Roger Ver rich while you are left to usng another "commodity" that you will be told is what you need.

This s plain disgusting!

You as a full member of the most active bitcoin forum is supposed to behave two ways:
1. Know what is causing the dips and have more to say than "Any idea what caused it?"
2. Be least worried about it as you should be comfortable with the ups and downs by now because you believe in the technology and philosophy behind Bitcoin.

If you still have to ask such a newbie question then you are part of the reason that Bitcoin is going down. People who had no idea and no interest of the underlying principles have invested in it thinking they'll become billionaires like the winklevoss twins. This has made it susceptible to the stupidities of teeming millions who believe and form their viewpoints from 21st century media.

There were a lot of frustrated newbies who felt left behind in comparison to spammers having multiple leveled up accounts, just because they were here before the sMerits epoch started.The pain vis-a-vis the spammers is definitely real and this is some much needed relief.

As the thread becomes popular, some of the other members will also be doling out merits to worthy posters who show up here. This should probably be stickied so that everyone who comes to Meta to complain about sMerits can take a look. The topic headline could be something catchier like "NOT GETTING ANY MERITS? COME TAKE THE CHALLENGE!"

Payment received aTriz. Thanks a Lot.

The article is fine with a lot of assumption but I don't understand your misleading headline. It is not talking about flaws in the system but is proposing a solution where "everybody can work in their own sweet time to earn currencies".
His basic argument is that work = money.

This sounds promising but at the end, if anybody and everybody can mine according to their willingness or capacity, without any entry barriers, then that would be the answer to all problems.
In reality, the present system is the same. You can still earn according to your willingness and capacity. Giving away free money without the underlying understanding or work is never possible.
People who are earning bitcoin aren't just doing it by mining. They are doing it through trading, selling goods and services over internet, making art and selling it. There are people over at Steemit who are earning cryptos by blogging and contributing the community in general. The system still works.

It allows anyone to earn according to their time and investment. The basic premise that Bitcoin doesn't allow this because apparently only miners earn the reward is flawed. The currency once mined comes into circulation in the market. The circulated currency is now up for grabs according to your participation in the market. Those miners cannot just hoard all the bitcoin. How are they supposed to fund their businesses and running costs?

Whats amazing is that there is a system of checks in-built to keep the transaction rules in consensus. That is enabled by running a full-node which anybody can do.
I don't see how a system can be secure and effective for exchange without a third party and still offer the same power to normal users and small businesses over decision making.

Wow. This sucks.
If a blanket order comes from RBI to stop all transactions related to cryptocurrencies then we'll have to go back to trading through cash on localbitcoins.com.
I don't think it'd be that bad except that a lot of people who are in this for multiplying their investments will be either forced to sell-off or increase their vision.

The only problem is that there is only a very small percentage of Indian users who care for cryptocurrencies for the sale of cryptos. They all want a quick buck by investing in ripple or scam MLM's propagated by people like Amit Bhardwaj on his website.
Maybe a blanket ban will solve this problem even if by only a small measure.

Good thought experiment.

Bitcoin's main intention is to force the banking system to correct itself in such a way that we don't have to be witness to arbitrary decisions from Central banks that are fire-fighting measures to solve problems that shouldn't have been there in the first place.

While the world was reeling under the mortgage crisis and investment banks like Lehman brother and Insurance agencies were conniving to build their castles in the air, the central banks should have stepped in to stop the madness.

What happened instead was that the common people lost their money, the central bank PRINTED more money, that DEBT was took on by the governments (which will be repaid by by cutting public expenditure, calling them austerity measures and increasing taxes, calling their populations lazy). I am sure most people are aware of the way these chips fell and are still affecting common people around the world, especially the youth who were waiting to join the workforce but were beset by crippling unemployment.

Why were the central banks or the big 5 complacent in dealing with the warning signs? Why is it that the wall street guys, the CEOs still laughed their way to the banks with ever increasing bonuses while companies and households collapse? Who answers for the massive NPA's and the bail-outs?

Answer to these questions is that the governemnt monopoly over PRINTING money with all the central banks collaborating (ECB, Federal Reserve etc.) enables this system where corporations are supposed to be too big to fail. Ultimately, all you are left with are curative measures like bail-outs.
Think about if if the underlying currency to be used by all central banks to settle transactions was a deflationary one like bitcoin. There won't be anymore freedom to print money and take on debt at the cost of the masses. This is what happens if Bitcoin replaces fiat as a setllement currency. Banks will exist but as responsible guardians of people's wealth.

I have seen some of the figures being released saying the annual consumption is something like 45 TWh. The most commonly referred calculation is here. They are using the revenue earned by miners to back-calculate the energy consumption which looks pretty flawed. Some back of the hand calculation shows that figure is pretty inflated.

The S9 consumes 1350W for ~14TH/s.

If all the mining hardware is assumed to be as efficient as the S9, We'll have 21,000,000/14 = 1,500,000 S9 working.
Per day consumption: 1,500,00 X 1350W x 24 Hrs = 48600 Megawatt Hr.
Per Year: 48600 X 365 =17,739,000 MWh = 17.739 TWh.

Now, multiply this by a factor of 1.5 to account for cooling costs and the distributed hardware, we have an estimate of around 27 TWh.

Of course, i am pulling this factor of 1.5 just randomly but i suppose its a reasonable assumption. It means for every S9 consuming 1350 Watt, you spend 675 Watt for cooling and auxiliaries.

The calculation up there which shows 45 TWh is an alarmist figure.
The 27 TWh per year is also pretty humungous.

Bitcoin network like any other value proposition system will use energy. The figures being given out sound alarmist to me. What needs to happen is that Bitcoin miners should shift to more energy efficient hardware. Bitcoin community and miners need to find solutions to these problems. It is  a governance issue and it can be solved. People just need to  put their head together and in the meanwhile, we all need to do a bit more math..

The best thing we as users can do is to make ourselves aware of the qualities and shortcomings of bitcoin. We should be abreast of the work being done to take care of those shortcomings. We must also read and form an opinion as to why bitcoin is more resilient, secure and tested than all the other clones.

Learn as much as you can about the PoW vs PoS case for a truly decentralized cryptocurrency that wants to be an international medium of exchange with no third parties. If you have the time and inclination then try LN yourself. Be prepared to combat the FUD.

Convert to BTC on any of the exchanges and then transfer to Zebpay. It supports LTC too now, it'd be better to convert to LTC. Thats because LTC withdrawal fees would be lower. Unfortunately, most exchanges will charge a flat withdrawal fees on BTC which can be a significant amount.

Zebpay is good enough for withdrawals and deposits if you have a verified account connected with it. Declare and pay the taxes according to your slab.

Unfortunately its very difficult right now to get any of these GPUs at a reasonable price. We are all trying to get our hands on them but even the 1060s and the RX 580s have sold out. They were selling at around INR 25-30k just last month but have since increased to around 45-50K.

If you are new and looking at these for the first time then first of all, avoid ebay and amazon as people are selling them at exorbitant proces.
Don't go for OLX too as there are a lot of scammers with stories about importing it from USA at lower prices in bulk and selling them here. They are simply not available.

From all that has been happening, your best bet would be constantly check at primeabgb, mdcomputers, rigassembler and theitdepot. You can talk to them and negotiate to place advance orders for some of the GPUs. They sometime accept.
Good Luck hunting. Post updates if you get any good deals.
Don't trust anyone offering these at low prices/ discounts.

As safe as we are willing to keep it.
There are hardware wallets that keep your keys encrypted within that little USB like thingy. If you can't afford a wallet, then there is the option to have a brand new installation and keep all wallet backups there.
Only connect them to the internet when you really have to. Not to be left on a laptop connected to the internet full time.

I think more than the hackers, the phishing and scam attempts are making the scene unsafe for newcomers. They play all sort of mind games with similar looking websites, scam addressed during ICOs in telegram/ slacks, Special airdrops and what not.

Cryptocurrencies in general demand a bit more expertise from their users than the basic thumb twiddling android user.

I too think it would have been reasonable to have a subforum for Lightning. It is a paradigm change as far as feature additions to bitcoin are concerned. Its success mostly depends on the network effect it'll garner.
In fact, the forum is probably one of the places where having widespread adoption from individuals could contribute a lot to the success of LN.

I am just going to use this thread now to bump a topic i started with the intention to discuss ideas on how we as a community can rally to make sure SegWit and LN have the desired effect. For your considerations: Thoughts on Supporting SegWit/LN and not Big blocks.

Sorry if someone's a BCH fan as I am not sold on its merits and claim to the legacy.

I have dust but even then its difficult talking to people about it. If you sound even a little bit like you know shit, people automatically assume that you are one of those early, uber-hacker, adopters with lot of them lying in your normal wallet. They will also assume that you have already multiplied your investment thousand fold and that you are drowning in money.

I think anyone who has publicly acknowledged holding a lot of them must seriously take care of their security like any of the other rich people would do. Well, at least live in a place that is a bit more secure or crowded than the idyllic village they are showing in that picture.

Maybe just keep your passphrase engraved inside a small locked metal box. Put that metal box in a bank vault . (Metal box coz you really can't trust your bank guy not to try a sneak peek).
I am sure people have done crazier things to keep their passphrases secure.

 

Congratulations, you just replied to the founder.
Although, Satoshi had already typed in the exact same thing in his last sentence. I hope this is not a bot bumping a thread.
That'd be weird!!