Bitcoin Forum
June 21, 2024, 12:18:08 AM *
News: Voting for pizza day contest
 
  Home Help Search Login Register More  
  Show Posts
Pages: « 1 ... 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 [130] 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 »
2581  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: Anyone whose own some fair amount of bitcoins should also own a mining machine on: January 13, 2018, 03:17:21 AM
What's your point? Who suggested you couldn't? The point was about hardening Bitcoin's network from attack. You conveniently omitted from the quote the statement about considering future nation-state attacks and censorship.
I was referring to the fact that it can't be a currency if users can't transact. Unless any entity can gain a large majority of control of the network, they cannot censor Bitcoin effectively.

Actually, it can be done with a third of network hash power. The reason that considering nation-states is especially important here is that their incentives are external to Bitcoin block rewards. Therefore, rational mining incentive (itself still unproven long term) isn't necessarily a strong enough deterrent to prevent censorship attacks.

The point is, if an average joe can run a miner without any issues, cost, profitability, etc. Isn't it more likely for governments, who have vast amount of resources to be able to better obtain more hashpower than most people.

Sure. If vast amounts of wealth are transferred from fiat currencies to the Bitcoin economy, could that change the equation? If enough money flows from fiat currencies into Bitcoin/cryptocurrencies, surely governments will fear for their monetary sovereignty. Ideally, these events coincide such that governments actually have considerably less resources to attack the network.

The marginal miners who can't cover their overheads are likely the small-time miners first. Mining farms would make it such that unless one has a cheap electricity, they cannot profit.

Again, you are only talking about short-term profit. It's strange that people talking about mining as if it's not an investment. Your hardware and electricity costs are an investment. That doesn't necessarily entail immediately dumping to cover principal and overhead.

Re-read what you quoted. Coins I mined years ago have ROI'd many times over. You're only thinking in terms of someone who immediately dumps to cover all overheads. You say you're talking about long term profitability when you're actually referring to short term profitability.
So that's under the assumption that Bitcoin will increase far above its current price point? Is it more profitable to buy ASICs and then mine than to just buy Bitcoins directly?

Yes, of course that's the assumption. If it weren't, then why would you make a long term investment? I already addressed the fact that buying bitcoins directly can be more profitable in the previous two posts....

No one said it wasn't more profitable just to buy bitcoins. The theme of this thread is concentration within the mining ecosystem. Hence "consider it as an investment in the currency, since decentralized mining is required to secure Bitcoin from majority-miner attacks." The implication is that a casual mining investment will be less profitable than merely buying bitcoins. But merely holding bitcoins also gives you no say over the network. Only economically important (transacting) nodes and hash power is relevant to consensus change.
Yeah, I get the point. I still don't get why is it rational for normal users to be mining Bitcoins, at an economic loss without actually gaining anything.

At "an economic loss?" That's the nature of investing. How is that so different than buying BTC before it immediately dumps 50% in price? Investing involves a principal that can be lost. Mining investments entail USD principal/overhead and USD ROI. It's simply a form of investment in BTC where players like Bitmain currently have a big edge. That edge is disappearing, as discussed earlier.

Big players have far too much hashpower than the users themselves. Sure, the network would be decentralised if everyone is mining with a significant hashpower but the cost of it makes it unreasonable for anyone to do so. There's no incentives for any mining farms to execute a 51% attack or anything similar.

What makes the cost unreasonable, on a long term basis? You apparently think the uptrend in difficulty will never end. Similarly, then, the uptrend in price will never end (Roll Eyes) So, why is the cost unreasonable? You point to the difficulty trend but refuse to acknowledge the BTCUSD price trend that corresponds to it.

As pointed out above, the incentives of nation-states to attack Bitcoin go far beyond block rewards. I'm far more concerned about mining pools that are operated or co-opted by nation-states. The network needs to harden against this possibility.

Again, you are only thinking in terms of never-ending difficulty increase (sort of like a never-ending bull market). If you think mining speculation will always look like the 2013-2018 period, I think you are gravely mistaken. That's not how markets work.

It's predicted that ASIC fabrication will become more competitive in the future, as optimizations become increasingly difficult. That can significantly level the playing field vs. players like Bitmain. For example:

Quote
“[The 14nm chip] is a very good thing for decentralization,” explains Antonopoulos. “What it does is it extends the shelf life of mining equipment from 2-3 months of useable life cycle to almost two years, which levels the playing field among all participants in the system.”

You're also only thinking in terms of the current pool ecosystem, as if it's static. Pool incentives can certainly evolve over time to address the needs of miners. Like the exchange system, all current market participants flood to only a few entities. That may not always be true, especially if the interests of pool miners begin to diverge significantly from those of operators of prominent pools.

I don't get the last part; can't the miners themselves just run their own node? They never needed a pool for them, antpool is ran by bitmain and so on.

Yeah sure, it may attempt to level the playing field. However, you have to keep in mind that most farms have access to cheap hardware and electricity that makes it suitable for mining.

Sure, miners can run their own node. The reason they may not in the future is the same they don't now: hash pooling, orphan rates, optimal mining code, etc. None of that changes what I said.

As pointed out above, subsequent generations of ASICS will reduce the "cheap hardware" edge as optimizations become fewer and further between. Bitmain will not dominate the market forever as they have for the past 3-4 years. Also, the days of government-subsidized mining in China seem to be coming to an end, which seems to be pushing miners to different localities including Canada, Switzerland and others. Indeed, miners need cheap electricity, but for example, all of Hydro Quebec cryptocurrency customers get the same rate across Quebec: $0.0394/kwh (3.94 U.S. cents).
2582  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: How to do micro payments with bitcoin? on: January 12, 2018, 11:07:45 PM
Quote
I don't think that's what he did. He said we could increase the block size that way. He then went on to say that Bitcoin users might become increasingly tyrannical about blockchain size.

Where the "tyrannical users" text can be found ? 

It was one of the final posts that Satoshi ever wrote, two days before he left the forum forever. Here you go:

Piling every proof-of-work quorum system in the world into one dataset doesn't scale.

Bitcoin and BitDNS can be used separately.  Users shouldn't have to download all of both to use one or the other.  BitDNS users may not want to download everything the next several unrelated networks decide to pile in either.

The networks need to have separate fates.  BitDNS users might be completely liberal about adding any large data features since relatively few domain registrars are needed, while Bitcoin users might get increasingly tyrannical about limiting the size of the chain so it's easy for lots of users and small devices.

In any case, I don't think that we should take anything Satoshi said (including his design intentions) as gospel. What matters are Bitcoin's users, collectively. They determine the network's fate. That's partly the message I get from the above quote.
2583  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: Anyone whose own some fair amount of bitcoins should also own a mining machine on: January 12, 2018, 10:54:32 PM
Bitcoin cannot be a store-of-value (or useful) if typical users cannot transact. There must be network liquidity. There must be a competitive mining ecosystem to prevent censorship. The consequences of lacking such (particularly due to Bitmain's dominance) may become clearer over time.
I just sent a transaction and it has a confirmation in 10 minutes.

What's your point? Who suggested you couldn't? The point was about hardening Bitcoin's network from attack. You conveniently omitted from the quote the statement about considering future nation-state attacks and censorship.

ASIC mining may not be profitable for casual users. But consider three things. First, this never-ending trend in difficulty increase (the growth hype phase mentioned above) will not last forever. The time to invest is when blood is in the streets, not when hype is at its peak.
When the difficulty starts to decrease, it means that it is no longer profitable to mine Bitcoin.

Yes. And marginal miners who can't cover their overheads shut down. The difficulty will only adjust downwards until an equilibrium is met and the trend reverses. That's the entire point of the difficulty adjustment algorithm. If mining speculation far outpaces price discovery, marginal miners shut down. This isn't a permanent situation.

Second, "profitability" should not only be considered on a short term overhead basis. Consider mining as a long term investment, not some immediate USD ROI. Also, consider it as an investment in the currency, since decentralized mining is required to secure Bitcoin from majority-miner attacks.
Unfortunately, the "profitability" in the long term will not pay for your hardware, your time nor for your electrical bills.

Re-read what you quoted. Coins I mined years ago have ROI'd many times over. You're only thinking in terms of someone who immediately dumps to cover all overheads. You say you're talking about long term profitability when you're actually referring to short term profitability.

Considering mining as a long term investment, I would rather buy Bitcoins. If the investment fails, at least I don't have a useless $1000 paperweight sitting around. Yes, decentralised mining is required to prevent 51% attack but it isn't profitable for anyone to do so. Miners certainly do not want to have millions of dollars of paperweight either.

No one said it wasn't more profitable just to buy bitcoins. The theme of this thread is concentration within the mining ecosystem. Hence "consider it as an investment in the currency, since decentralized mining is required to secure Bitcoin from majority-miner attacks." The implication is that a casual mining investment will be less profitable than merely buying bitcoins. But merely holding bitcoins also gives you no say over the network. Only economically important (transacting) nodes and hash power is relevant to consensus change.
 
Third, consider potential future transactions costs, particularly large UTXO consolidations. At some point, you may need to mine (including pooling hash power) in order to ensure that your transactions are published on the network at all.
No. You don't need any hashpower to broadcast a transaction. Unless you own at least a big farm, you won't be able to confirm your own transaction. Pools don't give a damn about their user's transactions, especially if they are small time miners. I think this argument is more towards scaling as opposed to everyone running a miner.

Again, you are only thinking in terms of never-ending difficulty increase (sort of like a never-ending bull market). If you think mining speculation will always look like the 2013-2018 period, I think you are gravely mistaken. That's not how markets work.

It's predicted that ASIC fabrication will become more competitive in the future, as optimizations become increasingly difficult. That can significantly level the playing field vs. players like Bitmain. For example:

Quote
“[The 14nm chip] is a very good thing for decentralization,” explains Antonopoulos. “What it does is it extends the shelf life of mining equipment from 2-3 months of useable life cycle to almost two years, which levels the playing field among all participants in the system.”

You're also only thinking in terms of the current pool ecosystem, as if it's static. Pool incentives can certainly evolve over time to address the needs of miners. Like the exchange system, all current market participants flood to only a few entities. That may not always be true, especially if the interests of pool miners begin to diverge significantly from those of operators of prominent pools.
2584  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: BTC must split into smaller units to survive on: January 12, 2018, 10:10:45 PM
Why not use/trade in smaller unit satoshis instead of BTC..it will look cheaper
Ofcourse, the fee is killer

That's what annoys me so much about this "unit bias" discussion. The reality is that no one can even spend "bits" due to network fees. Spending a "bit" means spending 500+ bits to get a transaction confirmed (for median transaction size). Smaller units like satoshis or "bits" might make sense once Lightning is widely deployed on the mainnet. But aren't we putting the cart before the horse?

It just seems like some early adopters, salty about the astronomical gains in altcoins, now want in on the action. I've never once heard anybody use the term "bits" outside of this discussion about how to control newbie price perception. I'm with Keonne on this one:

Quote
BIP176 - do not want 👎 If decimals confuse you, you shouldn't be using Bitcoin in the first place. The unit bias argument is completely nonsense. Stop trying to make bitcoin into some family friendly party trick

People should just learn to use decimals.....
2585  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: BTC must split into smaller units to survive on: January 12, 2018, 09:51:12 PM
I wouldn't go as far as saying it has to be split into smaller units to survive, but it would most certainly help on the road to mass adoption.

I think this will be one of the next gimmicks seen in mid/large cap altcoins. They'll fork to dilute the supply, while simultaneously inflating user holdings by the same proportion. The price will fall, say, 1000x based on the dilution. Given the state of the markets and newbie perceptions about unit prices, that alone could provide another 100x gains or better over time. It wouldn't surprise me one bit.

Bitcoin isn't a gimmicky altcoin, so we're not going to do that.

But I have to say, I'm very disappointed in those that promoted and merged BIP 176, especially because it seemed like the motivation for doing so was related to this "price perception" problem. "Bits" is inaccurate, and we already use "satoshis." It's off-putting to see in the GUI. Undecided
2586  Bitcoin / Legal / Re: Taxes: Altcoin airdrops (not fork coins) on: January 11, 2018, 10:34:56 PM
Airdrops are not totally free  Roll Eyes, it really depends upon the jurisdiction you live in.
Here within the U.S, if you recieve airdrops, you inherit the cost basis of the gift (fair market value) at the time of reception. Most air dropped coins have little to no value, but there are some that do!

The details still aren't entirely clear to me. But it seems like, under US tax law, that airdrops would follow the commonly held logic for taxing Bitcoin forks. That would mean they aren't "gifts." Rather, the cost basis (fair market value) counts as ordinary income. Any gains thereafter are capital gains.

So it's possible for many of these airdrop tokens that no taxable income is received when the airdrop occurs. There are no markets and no price discovery when the airdrop occurs. So all gains would be capital gains.

This is different than the OP, though, which considers a weekly airdrop of an established, liquid coin. It seems like each weekly airdrop received is taxable income.

You are only allowed to receive up to $14,000 in free gifts before you incur a tax liability,  and your airdrop is considered part of your income.

Actually, I believe that receiving gifts is tax-free:

Quote
The donor is generally responsible for paying the gift tax. Under special arrangements the donee may agree to pay the tax instead. Please visit with your tax professional if you are considering this type of arrangement.

The $14,000 figure is about something else. That's the annual threshold for gifts in 2017. You can give someone $14,000 a year and it won't affect your "lifetime exemption." The law allows individuals to give away up to $5.34 million over their lifetime without having to pay gift taxes. If you pass the limit, you (or your heirs) have to pay up to 40% tax.

2587  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Big Money Is Betting On A Bitcoin Price Collapse (BTC) on: January 11, 2018, 10:17:22 PM
In retrospect, the launch of bitcoin futures one month ago has proven to be a modestly disappointing event.

While it helped send the price of bitcoin soaring as traders braced for the institutionalization of bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency has stagnated since the beginning of December when first the Cboe then CME started trading bitcoin futures, trading in a range between $12,000 and $17,000.

As I remember things, the price rose significantly when CBOE futures were launched. By and large, people were expecting a similar event when CME futures launched. Appropriately, CME traders shorted the top and the market dumped. They did it on high volume too (at least when compared to the trading sessions that followed).

I wouldn't read that as betting on a "price collapse," though. It was just the path of maximum pain. Most traders lose money, so the market follows the path of maximum pain. Everyone expected the price to go exponentially higher and many bought near the top. That market exuberance got punished. I think the "smart money" was just shorting the top. And if they're smart, they know they can't suppress Bitcoin's price. It's much smarter to ride the waves.
2588  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Is Bitcoin "Mainstream" yet? The poll. on: January 11, 2018, 10:06:35 PM
Things to consider:

Brand recognition - you can hardly find anyone who has never heard about Bitcoin. They sure as hell don't know how it works, but they heard about it.

Omnipresent mainstream media coverage - countless number of press hits and mentions, all the financial 'gurus' have talked about it. No one is surprised by this anymore.

Years ago most would define 'mainstream' as widespread merchant adoption, but maybe it just wasn't meant to be...

Vote. Discuss.

It's a mixed bag. I'd say that Bitcoin has certainly achieved mainstream awareness. Everyone's heard of it, CNBC and Forbes are shilling it daily, and the banks (GS and JP Morgan) are comparing it to gold.

I don't think its usage is mainstream yet, though. Just look at the transaction numbers. All cryptocurrency networks combined still represents a tiny sliver of global value transfer. And it really isn't ready for mainstream adoption yet, given the state of network congestion and the lack of exponential scaling mechanisms. With Rootstock deployed and the Lightning Network close behind, I'm hoping that the network is ready for that kind of scale in 1-2 years.

I voted "No."
2589  Bitcoin / Press / Re: [2018-1-11] South Korea plans to ban Bitcoin - BBC on: January 11, 2018, 09:57:40 PM
South Korea is planning a law to ban cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin being traded through its exchanges.

The justice minister said virtual currencies were causing the government "great concern".

Meanwhile, several Seoul cryptocurrency exchanges have been raided this week in a probe into alleged tax evasion.

It's still too early to jump to conclusions. I have one contact in Korea who says the headlines are FUD. We'll have to wait and see. Coinone confirmed that the National Tax Service had "visited" the premises, so this does feel a bit like the PBOC "visits" that preceded the Chinese ban on domestic exchanges.

To be fair, I can understand the magnitude of concern here. The ridiculous price premiums on Korean exchanges sometimes make me wonder what's going to happen to all these people pouring money into cryptocurrency (and especially altcoins) and shifting all their attention to speculation. South Korea is the same place where peoples' children have died from neglect/starvation because their parents got too involved in gaming....
2590  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: Can anybody direct me to tutorial on tumbling? on: January 11, 2018, 09:40:13 PM
I wouldn't think bitcoin tumbling would be used anymore with the emergence of monero, dash and verge being available to use as an anonymous alternative to using these cryptomixers.

There are different risk models to consider here. DASH and ZCASH transactions have been successfully traced. Verge is a joke; it's Wraith update is literally 4-year-old stealth address technology. Stay away from it.

Monero is the only privacy coin standing the test of time, but we are only a few years in. All of this technology is highly experimental and blockchain analysis companies are working hard to de-anonymize it.

My point is, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Consider a multi-stage approach to mixing/tumbling. Don't ever assume that any one link in the chain is fully secure. Honeypots are everywhere, and small cryptocurrency networks (even with privacy features) can essentially be honeypots due to their size.
2591  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: Anyone whose own some fair amount of bitcoins should also own a mining machine on: January 11, 2018, 09:25:09 PM
....

Anybody whose own 10 or more bitcoins should buy one miner machine - what do you think ?

No. I have some silver coins, but no silver mine.

This is true, but it only applies to Bitcoin to an extent. Silver doesn't entail a digital network whose transactions are published by miners.

I believe we are in a growth/hype phase where mining concentration is driven only by ability to cheaply manufacture ASICs and cheap/subsidized electricity. However, it seems clear that we are transitioning to an era where government regulation is deeply affecting the ecosystem. Consider the Chinese crackdown on mining (including electricity subsidies). Canada is increasingly seen as attractive from a regulatory standpoint (in addition to cheap hydropower in certain localities).

But in this context, it is increasingly important to consider nation-state attacks and censorship. Bitcoin cannot be a store-of-value (or useful) if typical users cannot transact. There must be network liquidity. There must be a competitive mining ecosystem to prevent censorship. The consequences of lacking such (particularly due to Bitmain's dominance) may become clearer over time.

ASIC mining may not be profitable for casual users. But consider three things. First, this never-ending trend in difficulty increase (the growth hype phase mentioned above) will not last forever. The time to invest is when blood is in the streets, not when hype is at its peak. Second, "profitability" should not only be considered on a short term overhead basis. Consider mining as a long term investment, not some immediate USD ROI. Also, consider it as an investment in the currency, since decentralized mining is required to secure Bitcoin from majority-miner attacks. Third, consider potential future transactions costs, particularly large UTXO consolidations. At some point, you may need to mine (including pooling hash power) in order to ensure that your transactions are published on the network at all.
2592  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: How to do micro payments with bitcoin? on: January 11, 2018, 08:57:40 PM
"I don't think the threshold should ever be 0.  We should always allow at least some free transactions." Satoshi Nakamoto.
I can sympathize with Satoshi's sentiment there, but he didn't build incentives for that into Bitcoin's design. The system relies on rational mining incentive: miners publish transactions because they are incentivized to mine for block rewards and collect the fees.
As far as I can tell, Satoshi never intended the current situation to happen. Back in 2010, he already suggested to phase in bigger blocks again, but this never happened.

I don't think that's what he did. He said we could increase the block size that way. He then went on to say that Bitcoin users might become increasingly tyrannical about blockchain size.

When Satoshi created Bitcoin, there was no difference between nodes and miners: before asics took over, all nodes could mine. Miners currently earn around $30 million per day from block rewards and fees. I can only imagine how decentralized Bitcoin would be if millions of users could all run mining nodes on their own home computer, and all earn a few dollars per day from this.

Maybe that was a flaw in Bitcoin's design. On the flip side, ASICs can exploit excess capacity, which in turn secures Bitcoin's proof-of-work.

Quote
It's the mining incentive -- and therefore the protocol itself -- which resulted in this situation. This is the only way the system can guarantee block rewards in the future, once most of the 21 million coin supply is mined.
I don't disagree with the fee-replaces-block-reward thing, but in my opinion it's too early for that. It would be perfectly fine 20 years from now, when Bitcoin has a billion users who each make several transactions per day. Now 300,000 users pay around $7 million in fees per day, which limits adoption to the point that services that were accepting Bitcoin in the past, are now abandoning Bitcoin.

80% of the supply has already been mined. How long are we supposed to wait? More importantly, Bitcoin is an opt-in network. Why limit yourself to Bitcoin if you are so worried about fees?

Good technology takes time. That's why Lightning and Rootstock have taken so long. But now they are coming to fruition. It's better to introduce new systems with different risk/trust models that can integrate with Bitcoin than to contentiously hard fork at this point.
2593  Economy / Invites & Accounts / Re: [WTS] Bittrex account (basic verified), Bitfinex account (unverified) on: January 11, 2018, 06:46:40 PM
Bump.
2594  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: How to do micro payments with bitcoin? on: January 10, 2018, 10:40:56 PM
I can remember the days of totally free transactions.
Bitcoin (2009-2017✝) was intended for cheap transactions and micro-payments (P2P cash), you need something similar.

"I don't think the threshold should ever be 0.  We should always allow at least some free transactions." Satoshi Nakamoto.

I can sympathize with Satoshi's sentiment there, but he didn't build incentives for that into Bitcoin's design. The system relies on rational mining incentive: miners publish transactions because they are incentivized to mine for block rewards and collect the fees.

And for years, miners largely enforced node policy that reserved some space for "priority" transactions, including old coins sent with no fees. But miners are rational. When fee income became significant, they removed that node policy and started maximizing the fees they collect.

It's the mining incentive -- and therefore the protocol itself -- which resulted in this situation. This is the only way the system can guarantee block rewards in the future, once most of the 21 million coin supply is mined. And that's why Bcash will probably fail: when the block subsidy drops to zero, so will mining output, because fee income won't replace subsidy income.
2595  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin Foundation executive director Llew Claasen said this is a bubble on: January 10, 2018, 10:27:01 PM
Really? I’ve had a transaction stuck for 4 days on your light speed network. LOL
I’ve had exchanges take routinely over two weeks to get me my cash from a small coin sale. Your information superhighway has some very large Los Angeles style traffic jams going on every day.

No doubt about that. But I'm not too concerned. Anyone touting the Bitcoin protocol as some perfect, instant or cheap/free system is simply wrong. That's the cost of decentralization; it's a simple decentralized messaging protocol. Every message comes with storage, bandwidth and propagation costs.

Bitcoin is used less and less each day to make purchases. You can’t make dust transactions at all, so micro transactions like tipping are out of the question. You can’t make a retail purchase like coffee, drinks at a bar, grocery shopping, or a hamburger because the fees are too high. Bitcoin is controlled completely by a handful of self important monsters and is further from decentralization at this point than even democratically controlled government fiat. Bitcoin has become yet another trick used by the wealthy to take money away from the poor and no one sees it. The easiest way to rob someone is to convince them they are going to be rich if they follow the path of the robber. Bitcoin could last a hundred years and it still will have died for me less than three years from its creation. It’s really very sad.

I hear you. This was, however, a byproduct of the ecosystem that Satoshi foresaw as well. Mainstream adoption of a deflationary money necessarily means the cost to adopt it will increase, especially in the context of decentralization, where every transaction adds costs to the system.

There are systems that can interact with Bitcoin's protocol that can significantly lower the costs and delays associated with it -- with potential security and privacy trade-offs. Lightning and sidechains are both a reality now. It'll be interesting to see how their adoption affects on-chain traffic, especially since interacting with them requires on-chain transactions.

I'm cautiously optimistic, but I won't lie. I am genuinely disturbed by the greed and cult-like behavior we see in this "community." I think that we can build a better future with decentralized tools like cryptocurrency, but I'm almost looking forward to a bear market where the price doesn't dominate all discussions.
2596  Bitcoin / Press / Re: [2018-01-10] Australian Tax Office To Impose Tax On Cryptocurrency on: January 10, 2018, 10:10:38 PM
The Australian Tax Office (ATO) is establishing a task force to monitor cryptocurrency transactions, according to a report in The Australian Financial Review.

The taskforce will seek to ensure cryptocurrency investors are paying the correct amount of tax. It is stated that a team of specialists across tax law, technology, banking and finance will devise strategies to follow the money on gains made from investment in digital currency.
Not surprising. I expect similar actions across the globe. This is what government does best: scare you into paying taxes. I'm curious how they plan to "to ensure cryptocurrency investors are paying the correct amount of tax" though. Blockchain analysis is getting more sophisticated, but I suspect they are blowing smoke up our ass with that.

I don't think they have the means or ability to aggressively deal with decentralized exchanges, unregulated exchanges, mixers, IP address obfuscation, etc. But they probably have lots of "low hanging fruit" to pick, because lots of people apparently use regulated exchanges like Coinbase but don't pay their taxes.
2597  Bitcoin / Press / Re: [2018-01-10] Warren Buffett: Cryptocurrencies Will Come to a 'Bad Ending' on: January 10, 2018, 10:01:39 PM
Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor behind Berkshire Hathaway, is still not sold on bitcoin.

In an interview with CNBC Wednesday, Buffett predicted the demise of cryptocurrencies, saying:

“In terms of cryptocurrencies, generally, I can say with almost certainty that they will come to a bad ending … When it happens or how or anything else I don't know.”

He continued to say he would bet on their price declining over the next five years if he could.

The noted investor further conceded he did not know a lot about bitcoin futures, but added that Berkshire Hathaway did not own any and would "never have a position in them."

I give him credit for that. His opinion on Bitcoin is negative, but he fully accepts his lack of expertise and won't put his money where his mouth is. That's fair enough. He's profited quite well in his time; no need to catch every investment opportunity.

Bitcoiners give Buffett a lot of shit, but he's not wrong here:
Quote
investors would not be able to value the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap because bitcoin did not inherently produce value.

It's a lot easier to game market capitalization with cryptocurrencies. There are no securities filings. Highly concentrated supply can be obfuscated.

But more to the point, money (including Bitcoin) is generally backed by faith -- faith that it will continue to have widespread acceptance and will hold value. Predicting whether people's faith shifts in favor of one cryptocurrency or another is a risky game.

Buffett is correct that value is not being created when the Bitcoin market cap increases. It's merely shifting value from one asset class to another. He's focused on value investing, which necessarily does not apply to Bitcoin. Fair enough.
2598  Bitcoin / Press / Re: [2018-01-10] Novogratz Will Launch the First Cryptocurrency Merchant Bank on: January 10, 2018, 09:46:58 PM
What's the point of creating a centralized institution like a bank in the world of decentralized currencies that were made to cut the ties between governments, banks and people's private money? They want to focus on trading and strategic investments, I get it, so it's rather a combination of an exchange and a brokerage than a bank, or am I missing something here? If they were to offer loans it could be an interesting addition.

It seems like they are offering investment management/advisement and brokerage services. The point is that cryptocurrencies are foreign to mainstream investors. People want to invest in them, but are scared to touch them. They don't understand the technology, how custody works and how to properly secure their assets.

That's why Coinbase is pushing an institutional custody product as well. Lots of money is waiting on the sidelines for more reliable, regulated and compliant services where institutional investors feel safer. These guys are just in it for the money, not for the freedom that Bitcoin was designed to provide.
2599  Economy / Invites & Accounts / [WTS] Bittrex account (basic verified), Bitfinex account (unverified) on: January 10, 2018, 02:16:02 AM
You will get:

-Bittrex account with basic verification (US-based; 0.4 BTC/day withdrawal limit)
-2FA not yet activated
-Linked email account (used only with this Bittrex account)

The account has no funding/trading history. I opened it a couple months ago intending to trade and never got around to it. PM me an offer if you are interested. Serious offers only. I deal only through PMs on this forum. Payment in BTC or ETH.

I also have an unverified Bitfinex account (no trading history, UK-based) that I'm willing to part with.
2600  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Transaction Tracking with Clustering on: January 09, 2018, 10:59:27 PM
Change address has nothing to do with privacy. It's simply the technical product of the basics of Bitcoin. You can only spend full output (well, to simplify), which means you need to be given change. that's all.

Change addresses have everything to do with privacy. That's the only reason they exist. They aren't required to receive "change" from partially spent outputs. If you don't use change addresses, change is simply returned to the sending address.

It provides a tiny ammount of anonimity in the mere sense that it's non-trivial to see your current balance, but that's about it. It wasn't designed to keep you safe from prying eyes.

Transactions can be constructed such that it isn't clear which addresses are change addresses and which are payments. Further, multiple change addresses can be used. An observer cannot know (without other corroborating information) which of the involved addresses are under the control of one person (or group of people).

Privacy is preserved by not associating your keys to your personal identity in any way, shape, or form.

Obviously. But that may be impossible. You could be compromised in various ways, no matter how good your operational security is. I always consider that at some point, my identity will be linked to some outputs, whether through a third party service or a compromise. Therefore, it's irrational to be sloppy and link all my wallets and addresses together.
Pages: « 1 ... 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 [130] 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 »
Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.19 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!