Did you flunk the Turing test?

How did you get past the CAPTCHA to log in?

In the Twitter/TL;DR world, so few people actually read nowadays.  Who needs it?  Let’s see a picture of how pretty a Bitcoin transaction graph is!


That’s from 2014, from a blog post by bitcointalk user organofcorti, as discussed on this forum.  Anybody who hasn’t seen it is a n00b.

Now, to correct a few bits of misinformation:



Yes, “AML”/“KYC” is poison for privacy and freedom.  But that’s not even relevant here:  Governments and exchanges are not the only ones who can trace Bitcoin transactions.

Instead of shooting off your mouth on an Internet forum, you could try your own blockchain tracing with BlockSci, available as an open-source project.  First, read the paper.

Also have a look at this paper on how merchants and third-party web trackers can correlate web cookies, names, physical addresses, etc. with blockchain data.

There are also some neat papers on attacking the privacy of Bitcoin mixers; but if you want me to assemble a bibliography for you, you’ll need to start paying me.

Correlating “KYC” identity data in an exchange is the easiest way to identify Bitcoin users.  Obviously.  But it’s not the only way; and if you think it is, then you are in for trouble at some point.  As is anybody who takes your forum advice.  Don’t mislead others with careless, foolish, and factually incorrect talk of Bitcoin being “anonymous”.

P.S.:


I may perhaps consider your opinion and explain to you why you’re wrong, if you could explain to me how many “newbies” have longstanding familiarity with the academic literature on Bitcoin transaction tracing.

Also, I could argue Zcash vs. Monero; but that’s offtopic in a Bitcoin forum.

Also, I think my “first fight” was over here.  Though it’s tough to say; I’ve been busy.  There are just so many “ill-informed nincompoops who overestimate their own competence [and] enjoy voicing opinions to which they are not entitled”, to quote myself from that first link.

Now, stop claiming that Bitcoin be “anonymous”, or I will taunt you again.

Stop thinking.  It is dangerous to your health.

There is a rich vein of academic research on tracing and correlating information in the blockchain, as well as cross-correlating it with real-world identifying information from other sources.  Professors who know, like, mathematics ’n’ stuff have been working on this for years.  Go read some papers before you opine.

STOP MISLEADING PEOPLE.  Bitcoin was never anonymous, not designed to be, and never imagined to be by anybody who understands the simple concept of a global public ledger.

People who read this, before you shoot yourself in the foot, do some research.  Also read carefully, and observe the blatant self-contradictions of people who claim that Bitcoin be anonymous:


(How can it be “getting compromised” if it’s really anonymous?  How could the IRS be “following the tracks” of anybody who uses something “created to be anonymous”?  Duh-huh.)

Bitcoin was never anonymous.  Anybody who said it is, was stupid or lying.  Anybody who thought it is, may be in for a rude shock with unknown timing.  The notion that “Bitcoin is anonymous” is a persistent, pernicious myth.  It’s a global ledger, wherein each copy of the blockchain shows in full all transactions ever made.  What is so hard to understand about this?


They have been, for awhile.  But things develop slowly in Bitcoin.  They can’t just smack on a new feature, at risk of accidentally dropping a billion dollars worth of coins on the floor.

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.

Yes, “straight up brute forcing” is indeed possible.  I sincerely suggest that you try this.  It will keep you busy and out of trouble.  To make it easier, there is a public directory of all Bitcoin private keys.  Yes, that site really does list all Bitcoin private keys.  Get rich!  Happy hunting!

(P.S., why are highly intelligent people in a “Development & Technical Discussion” forum seriously answering questions about bruteforcing secp256k1!?  Doubly-hashed, undisclosed public keys are just gravy.)

Blocks are not limited to 1MB:  The concept of a “block size” is obsolete.  With Segwit, there is no longer a block size limit at all; instead, there is a block weight limit of 4000000 bytes:


Each transaction has its “weight” calculated, and the total is limited. This is specified by BIP 141:


It sounds complicated; but this is actually designed to avoid making transaction selection more difficult for miners.  As in many engineering matters, the most obvious way would have negative side effects which can be ameliorated by careful design.

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Edit:  Refer to the code!

Repeat ten times slowly, until it sinks in:  “Segwit2X” is not Segwit.  “Segwit2X” is not Segwit.  “Segwit2X” is not Segwit....  Got it?

So-called “Segwit2X” was a scam in name and substance, as I explained above.  I 100% support Segwit.  But this fairly represents my opinion of “Segwit2X”, a.k.a the “New York Agreement”:



Thanks for the correction.  You’re absolutely right, “people” don’t hate Segwit.  A small but vocal group of imbeciles led by crooks hates Segwit, and tries to spread a false impression that “people hate Segwit”.  The title of this thread contributes to that.  It’s a cheap propaganda ploy:  “Why do people hate X so much?”, when very few people actually hate X.

Sigh.  A “blockchain” is not some magic pixie dust you can sprinkle onto any problem and make it disappear.  If you don’t believe me, try setting up your own Steem full node.  Yup.  Not happening.  —  Oh, Steem is exactly your idea, including the coin part.  To run a full node, minimum listed requirements are a dedicated server with at least 32GiB RAM and large, fast disks.  For this and other reasons, Steem is quite centralized; instead of “being their own servers”, almost all users just log into the centrally managed Steemit website.  I’m not sure what the point is, other than “blockchain”.

Thanks for your attention to security!  I will look forward to checking out the beta site.

Is this reported at all in other browsers, or are Bitcoin users (who should know better) clicking through browser warnings as they never, never, ever should?  I’m guessing that at least all Firefox users get the same warning.  I guess also I could fiddle with s_client and figure out what the problem actually is...


Hey, it’s a cypherpunk thing!  (grin)  Encrypt the whole Internet.  A free certificate from letsencrypt.org, a few minutes twiddling the webserver, use public-key crypto to control your personal fortune...  It all fits together, no matter whether a site is static or not.  N.b. that injected Javascript can harm users, even on static sites.  In the wild:  NSA does it, some ISPs do it, and skiddies with firesheep on the wifi do it, too.  TLS is needed on every site.

Fall in a well and die.  Or I stick a fork in your eye.

Mods, could something please be done to sweep up this garbage?  Thanks.

Why not give her $250 worth of Bitcoin?  First, get her mad that you didn’t do that a year ago.  If we use “the $500 handbag” as a unit of account, then $250 worth of Bitcoin a year ago would now be worth about five handbags.  If you pull it off right, she may become obsessed with Bitcoin; that seems win-win for you.

Maybe splurge an extra $100 for a hardware wallet, so you have something to put under the tree and she can keep her coins safe.

Of course, you should only give her Bitcoin if you really love her.  Diamonds are compressed charcoal.  Numbers are forever.  “For bettre or for wores, to haev and to hodl.”

Think you that I wax romantic?  Truly, Bitcoin is for lovers.  y² = x³ + 7 is a svelte elliptic curve you can embrace to your bosom:


Oh, I would double-hash points on that (and I do, every time I use Bitcoin).  Yet there are limits to intimacy.  My very heart may be naked before my ladylove, but she will never touch my secret keys!


Ah, the benefits of deflationary money:  People stop buying junk they don’t need.  Instead they want precious, precious bits.  Anybody who was profligate with Bitcoin a year or three (or more) ago has been undergoing corrective shock therapy, poorer but perhaps wiser.  Or at least, sadder.  Methinks many a would-have-been “Bitcoin millionaire” is now cursing at himself amidst a cheap pile of consumer baubles.  At least, some got pizza.  I hear that food tastes better when it’s bought with today’s value equivalent of over $110 million.  Or maybe it tastes like ashes.

Are you talking about Segwit, or the attempted hostile takeover misleadingly called “Segwit2X”?  I have seen this error pop up a few times on this thread.  So-called “Segwit2X” has nothing to do with Segwit, except as a cheap propaganda ploy.


Say what?  It was Core who created Segwit.  It was Core who fought an uphill battle to get Segwit activated against the wishes of certain powerful parties.  Core won that battle because, contra what you say, the community did support Segwit.  Thus the power of the threat of UASF (User-Activated Soft Fork), which relied entirely on the support of the Bitcoin community.  When it looked like a showdown was approaching wherein the community would force Segwit to activate, some of the anti-Segwit parties split off and cooked up the “New York Agreement” to save face—and attempt ramming through an absurd blocksize hardfork.

Segwit was opposed by (a) certain particular large miners, who evidence suggests are exploiting covert ASICBOOST; (b) certain particular monied interests who want to either centralize control of Bitcoin, or wreck Bitcoin entirely; and, (c) groupies who lapped up the swill dished out by the first two, because they’re idiots.  Now, these people have their own little playpen which they call “Bitcoin Cash”.  They have no dev team worth speaking of, no technological improvements, and no economic support except for a small number of wealthy backers who prop up the price so they can occasionally pump-and-dump.  It would be funny, if it weren’t so pitiful; and it would be sad, if it weren’t so disgusting.

Meanwhile, with Segwit, I currently get a 75% discount on fees using real Bitcoin; and I can look forward to all the Segwit-requiring technological improvements which Core and the Lightning devs[1] have in the pipeline.

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1. Lightning is not developed by Core, though of course there is some overlap between who is involved with both projects.

Well, that’s the kind of attitude which will make hot women who are “wife material” avoid you like syphilis.  This leaves you with the type of woman who can be bought, and demands to be bought.  It would be more honest to put the money on the bedside table directly to her Bitcoin address, instead of messing with the handbag; so I guess your wife must be the kind of whore who lies about her profession, and lies first to herself.  Are you happy helping her maintain her precious illusions?

No matter how hot, a real wife cares about babies, a stable nest, and a husband who prudently builds for the future.  Give an exclusive choice, if you’re not rich enough to provide both, a wife will prefer the investment which will pay for future university tuition, rather than immediate gratification with $500 handbags.  Unless she is American.  Are you perchance American?  Just wondering.

Oh by the way, shame on you for calling a man’s wife “ugly” when you don’t know anything about her, or even if he has a wife.  Sour grapes.  Whether or not you’re American, it is perfectly clear that you’re jealous of men who get for free from hot women what you need to pay for—with handbags or otherwise.


Such helpful “friends” you have!  They give you the advantage of not needing deadly enemies.

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Now, I am usually thrilled to make gifts of useful advice.  But for such persons as to whom I here replied, everything has a price; and my advice is very expensive.  My Bitcoin address is listed in my signature.  My words are worth more than $500 now, and much more than $50k later on when you die without leaving your Bitcoin to anybody because you’re totally alone, and nobody even likes you.

I just got Cloudflare CAPTCHAed.  I infer it may only have been the “currently offline” error page?  Was the site down?  What is going on here?


I didn’t do the CAPTCHA; I just waited awhile for the site to come back up, and then it loaded without CAPTCHA.  I don’t know whether the wait also resulted in me using a different Tor circuit, due to Tor’s circuit dirtiness timeout.

(I then got more Cloudflare errors when trying to post this, but no CAPTCHA.  Error 504, then 502.  I guess the first time, Cloudflare decided the error message was too precious to be served without CAPTCHA.)

If you’re not an idiot, then neither your wife nor anybody else knows how much Bitcoin you have.  If your relationship is so fragile that failure to buy a $500 handbag would cause a divorce, then you’re stupid if you let her know you have any Bitcoin at all.  (If you have an excellent relationship, then she may know that you have some indeterminate amount of Bitcoin; but then, we would not be having this discussion.)

So, why worry about the expense of divorce?  You may lose your house and bank accounts, but not your Bitcoin.  Keep your priorities straight!

(Aside:  Chainalysis + divorce lawyers = marriage made in Hell.)

Tor user here.  Please see this thread, especially my replies 0, 1, 2, and 3 (all currently on the third page).

In Tor Browser, you can get a new circuit by clicking the onion button, then hitting “New Tor Circuit for this Site” (or Ctrl-Shift-L).  Wait for reload.  It may take a few retries to get a CAPTCHA.  That is how I am logged in right now!  At worst, I have needed to cycle through six different circuits to get the accursed CAPTCHA.  Usually, I “only” need to try two or three.

As an aside, it sounds as if you are logging in sometimes through Tor, sometimes through your “own IP”.  Don’t do that.  It makes Tor useless.  If you want anonymity for your forum activity, you must immediately abandon any username you have ever used with your “real IP”, and make a new username with Tor which you will use with Tor only.  Note, signing up a new bitcointalk.org account through Tor costs Bitcoin; but your payment can be applied toward purchasing a a Copper membership, which will allow you to post images (and make them actually show up).  Observe beneath my name, I am a “Copper Member” though currently still “Newbie”.  By quoting your message, I made your image show up.

Please direct any further discussion of this CAPTCHA issue to the other thread.

For the past few days, I have been unable to even get a CAPTCHA without changing Tor circuits.  I did some rough testing, hitting “New Identity” in the login page and then changing circuits until I could get a CAPTCHA.  Rinse, repeat.  At worst, I had to try a total of six different circuits before Google would even deign to waste my time clicking pictures.

This brings to mind another thought:  Google could force Tor users to rapidly rebuild circuits to the same endpoint, then potentially watch for any other network activity which could be correlated by timing, size, etc.  Hmmm.  How many Tor nodes are hosted on Google Compute, or otherwise network-visible to Google?  —  Next question:  Does the NSA like to see Tor users rapidly rebuild circuits to the same endpoint?

Those are the sorts of subtle questions which make for papers on anonbib.  Or for attacks.  For a “cloud” provider who hosts many Tor nodes, I think I smell at least the possibility of a guard-discovery attack here.  Tor is known to be weak against an adversary who can observe both endpoints.  If Google forces Tor users to build circuits until they hit a Google-hosted middle node, then I conjecture they could use a similar attack to find the guard (counting the guard as if an “endpoint”).  They then know that a user with guard X logged into bitcointalk.org at dates and times which can, in turn, be correlated with a bitcointalk username (assuming they can’t just use some XSS to grab that off the login page—or share/cross-reference databases with Cloudflare).  Every little bit helps a network observer gathering data for deanonymization.

As an aside, Tor Browser/Torbutton could really use a feature which permits conveniently changing exits without rebuilding the entire circuit.

Public Service Announcement:  If your Bitcoin address starts with a “1”, DO NOT COMPLAIN about Segwit not saving you fees!

The first question for those complaining about fees:  Are you using a Segwit address?  That would instantly get you a 75% discount on fees.  A backward-compatible (P2WPKH-in-P2SH) Segwit address looks like this:  36finjay27E5XPDtSdLEsPR1RypfhNW8D8.  Any Bitcoin client made in the past few years can send money to it, so you don’t need to wait for other people to upgrade.  A Segwit-native Bech32 address looks much different; it is the address format of the future, but only people who have recently upgraded their software would be able to send money to it.  I hope to use Bech32 for my own addresses in a year or so; meanwhile, I have upgraded my software so I can send to them.

Addresses starting with a “1” do not get the Segwit discount, and will never get the Segwit discount.  (Same with some addresses starting with a “3”.  There is no way to identify a P2WPKH-in-P2SH address just by looking at it; that is why it is backward compatible.)  The “discount” is not for nothing; and pedants, please excuse that I am deliberately oversimplifying a bit in this explanation.  What users need to understand is that Segwit helps the network, and they get an instant 75% discount for more making efficient use of the network.  Using an old, non-Segwit address?  You are using more network resources, so you will pay more.

That explains what you can do right now to get lower fees with Segwit.  But there is another part to this:  The fee market.  Several large companies opposed Segwit, and have thus far refused to use it themselves although it would save them huge amounts on fees.  This is distorting the fee market, keeping everybody’s fees higher than should be.  Furthermore, there are other parties deliberately spamming the network with low value/high fee transactions, to drive up fees on purpose.  Both these problems will eventually be solved by economic pressure.  Such problems are expensive for the parties causing them.

All that being said, you should never expect fees to return to anywhere near the levels where they were a few years ago.  Fees used to be absurdly low, because blocks were not full.  Bitcoin was mostly unknown, or considered a toy for nerds.  Now, you are seeing $11k+/BTC exchange rates for the same reason that blocks are full:  Bitcoin is at the threshold of seizing the mainstream, it is valuable, everybody wants it, and lots of people are using it.  You cannot get one without the other.  Bitcoin is not just a cryptocurrency:  It is the cryptocurrency, and demand for block space will always exceed supply.


That.  As for the “drama” you referenced:

What idiot BCH pushers do not realize is that their fees are low, because their huge blocks are almost empty.  Outside of a small, vocal crowd (mis)led by some manipulative people who have money to toss around, nobody cares about their scamcoin.  Their solution to “scaling” is to not need it.

Bitcoin doesn’t need a little bump-up; it needs to scale big.  Its demand-driven market value has increased 100× in the past few years; I think its network transaction capacity needs at least 10000× increase, to be future-proof.  Orders-of-magnitude increase in capacity cannot be achieved by linearly increasing the blocksize.  That is a simple, unavoidable, arithmetical fact; and anybody who says otherwise is either stupid or lying.  The solution is to add another layer.  That would be this Lightning Network thing you have probably heard about.

Activating Segwit was the first step toward supporting that new layer.  Segwit is only the beginning!  As long as certain parties were blocking activation of Segwit, everything else was held up, too.  Now that Segwit is a network reality, developers have the next step in an active testing phase.

Fees will never again be really low for on-chain transactions; for Bitcoin being valuable means that blocks will always be full.  But you can reduce your fees 75% right now by using a Segwit address; and in the near future, you can look forward to really low fees on Lightning.