you don't need to hire somebody, like eternalgloom already said: if you don't know how to create a transaction manually, you can always use coinb.in

• suft to coinb.in
• download their sourcecode
• unzip the sourcecode, open the index.html
• go to new => transaction
• enter a funded address for which you own the private key
• click on "advanced", enter a locktime
• as output, enter an address whose private key you also own... The value of the output should be the sum of the values of the inputs minus the fee*
• generate the unsigned transaction, save it on your disk, go offline
• open coinb.in's index.html again, click on sign
• paste your unsigned tx + private key, sign the transaction, save the signed transaction, reboot your pc, go back online
• use coinb.in or any other service that allows you to broadcast signed transactions to broadcast your transaction

* in order to calculate an appropriate fee, you can always use https://coinb.in/#fees

EDIT on the 4th of june 2018: it seem like coinb.in might have some problems signing, it might be best to try out this procedure on the testnet*
source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4594240.0;topicseen

This is a dual walktrough:

• a walktrough for the "average" user that wants to use a "light" wallet
• a walktrough for people that have a node running a recent version of bitcoin core on the testnet

walktrough for the "average" user that wants to use a "light" wallet

• Download Eclair wallet testnet
• Initialise the wallet (start it, follow the initialisation wizard
• Go to the tab labelled "Your bitcoin address"
• Copy the address chown on this page
• Use a bitcoin testnet faucet to fund the address
• Surf to http://lntestnet.mocacinno.com/ , find my node's QR code at the bottom of the page
• Go to the tab labelled "Lightning channels"
• Click on the gree +-button in the bottom right corner
• Scan my node's QR code
• Enter a decent amount of tBTC to fund the channel with (0.1 would be nice, it's the testnet afterall)
• Wait untill the funding transaction has sufficient confirmations (go to the tab "lightning channels", the channel you just created should indicate "normal". It can take up to 120 minutes before the funding transaction has enough confirmations)
• Once the channel between you and me is normal, surf to http://lntestnet.mocacinno.com/
• Pick a theme
• Pick an image
• solve the captcha and indicate how many unblurring steps you want to sponsor
• a ln invoice will be shown, both in ascii (text) form and as a QR code.
• open the eclair wallet, go to the tab "transaction history"
• click on the arrow on the bottom right corner, either scan the QR code on my website, or copy/paste the textual invoice
• wait untill eclair tells you the payment succeeded (usually 10-15 seconds)
• refresh the page, either by hitting F5, Ctrl-R or by clicking the link that is provided
• you'll now see the image is a little bit more unblurred

walktrough for people that have a node running a recent version of bitcoin core on the testnet

• clone https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning
• install the deps, configure, make
• install screen, start a screen session
• go to the path where you built c-lightning
• lightningd/lightningd --network=testnet --log-level=debug
• cli/lightning-cli newaddr
• fund the address you just received with some testnet coins
• go to http://lntestnet.mocacinno.com/index.php
• find my node uri and copy it
• cli/lightning-cli connect [my nodes uri]
• fund the channel (the walktrough fund that channel with 0.16777215 BTC, but you can enter less if you want to)
• cli/lightning-cli fundchannel 02ba2ff21424770345705dab33fdec208a1c34d9eecf056e9b9c332b50b7d03a37 16777215
• follow the steps from the "easy" walktrough, up untill you see the lightning invoice. Copy this invoice
• cli/lightning-cli pay [invoice]
• wait untill the invoice is payed, reload the website

UPDATE!!! New domains: https://unblur.ninja/ and https://lightning.photos/

PROMO: pay for an unblurring step, send me the invoice in a PM and receive a credit line with 25% of the amount you spent!
PROMO: get a free 2000 sat credit line by sending me a PM just to test out the site without having to create a lightning wallet!

Kprawn launched the idear of an adult site that accepted LN payments in order to "unpixelise" erotic images*... Micropayments that would allow models to monetise on on-demand images.
I actually found his idear quite funny, and because i find there is a lack of service providers that accept lightning payments on the testnet, i tought it would be a good idear to start such a service.

This site does NOT contain any NSFW images, it's perfectly safe to open in a work environment if your employer allows you to surf to external webpages!

Without stalling any further: http://lntestnet.mocacinno.com/
The admin-interface: https://lntestnet.mocacinno.com/AdminLTE/ (PM me for a user/password)

This service runs on the TEST net, and is for entertainment purposes only. The payment database will be reset whenever i feel like it, and testnet coins will not be returned to the enduser (testnet coins are worthless to begin with, so i won't bother returning them).

BTW: if this script turns out to be solid i might consider either selling it, or running it on the mainnet myself... PM if you have an intrest in accepting LN payments and either wish to purchase a full setup of this script, or if you have a different project that requires LN payments.

Last but not least: i'd like to keep this thread relatively clean, please don't start posting your personal beliefs about the lightning network. Personally, i think the lightning network is a tool, i have no positive/negative feelings for it... I think it has pro's and con's, but it's only when we start building some testnet applications and start to test the crap out of it, it'll be possible to form an educated opinion. This is what this script is about: creating a harmless environment that allows users to freely experiment with the lightning network.

Mayor update: the script is now also running on the main net: https://www.mocacinno.com/lightning/

The reason for putting this script on the main net is because the only places currently accepting lightning payments still offer goods that are way to expensive for testing purposes (imho). At this moment, the images on my site cost 50 sat's per step, so for less that 0.0004 USD you can now test a lightning payment on the main net... Waaaay better for testing purses than risking $1 for a simple testrun

At this moment, i've just ported the script to the main net, it it untested (for now) since i left my hardware wallet in my bankvault, so it's inaccessible to me at this point in time. I'll pass by the bank tomorrow, fund my mainnet lightning wallet and give the script a testrun

*original thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4491067.msg40872939#msg40872939

It supports all supported coins. You only need the one recovery seed, even if new coins become supported AFTER you created the seed

TryNinja gave you some pretty solid advice, but in case you need extra assistance:

@OP: what did you do exactly? What did you purchase exactly? Which wallet did you download? Which wallet did you use to generate a new address? Did you withdraw anything to any wallet?

If you downloaded a wallet for the wrong fork, generated an address and withdrew your purchase to the wrong wallet, usually there are ways to export private keys from the wrong wallet and import them into the correct one, but in order to give you some assisntance we do need to know what happened exactly.

Well, that's exactly how my POC works... Offcourse i loaded it with some open source images instead of NSFW ones... I also used imagemagic to blur the image instead of unblocking more pixels...

a POC wasn't that hard
http://lntestnet.mocacinno.com/

It's on the TESTnet!!!
All i needed was a running node, c-lightning, lightning-charge and a running LAMPstack

BTW: it's a proof of concept, it's NOT nice to look at, it's just a easy way for everybody to have another service they can spend some free testnetcoins on!
Feedback is welcome

I concur with the other opionions in this thread, altough i doubt it's merely a problem of the speed or effort of the signature verification process. Personally, i think the complete workflow might be long overdue for a complete overhaul.
I've got some experience writing scripts using the json-rpc interface of a bitcoin node, i think it should be fairly simple to automate the complete process up to the point where a human just needs to look at the end result of a request and click a button to either confirm or deny a password reset/account unlock.

Basically, if one would write a simple form where a random string is shown and where a user can enter the post where he/she staked his address, the address itself, the reset email address and the signature he made using the staked address signing the random string. The script could then just use the json-rpc query of a locked node to verify the message and save this data into a simple relational database.

An admin would have an admin interface with a view of this database showing the qouted post + post history (was this post edited or not) and the result of the signature, maybe combined with some account info fetched from the db (like logintimes, ip's, password changes,...). When this info is given in a simple way, the admin should be able to either confirm or deny the password request with the click of a button.
I haven't looked at smf's data model, but i can only imagine that resetting a password is just a matter of generating a random string, hashing it, updating the user's entry in the users info table and creating an email to send the unhashed password to the entered email (together with instructions for a password reset).

Which wallet are you using? I vaguely remember bitcoin core used to have a 100 kb limit, but afaik it has been removed a long time ago.
Offcourse, with a non-segwit wallet, the maximum transaction size is 1Mb, with a segwit wallet the size of the transaction without the witness data is 1Mb.

BTW: it doesn't matter how much BTC you're trying to spend. It matters how many unspent outputs you're using as an input to create the transactions, and how many addresses you're funding (how many new unspent outputs will be created by the new transaction).

If you use 100 unspent outputs with a value of 0.001 BTC as an input for a transaction with 1 output, the transaction will have about the same size as when you're using 100 unspent outputs with a value of 1 BTC as an input and 1 output (eventough the maximum output value of the first transaction would be <0.1BTC while the value of the second one would be < 100 BTC).

A workaround for your problem would probably be to combine unspent outputs first.
For example, you have 1000 unspent outputs and need them to fund 1ReceivingAddress.
If the transaction using the 1000 unspent outputs as an input is to large, you can create 5 new addresses and fund them using 200 of your unspent outputs. Once those 5 transactions are confirmed, your wallet now holds 5 unspent outputs instead of 1000, so the transaction funding 1ReceivingAddress will use 5 unspent outputs as an input and will be relatively small.

I have a hard time understanding what you're saying, but if i get your question correct, it seems like you're asking whether or not somebody will remove the negative trust on your account if you write some meaningfull posts?

Well, in the OP's case, The Pharmacist left him negative trust because he was suspecting this account to be farmed with low quality posts. In this case, if the OP proves he's a helpfull member of the community by cleaning up his act, The Pharmacist *might* reconsider (no guarantee).

In your case, it seems you were tagged by DannyHamilton and nullius because you were begging for merrit, even sending nullius unsollicited PM's begging for merit. In my honest opinion, just writing "some meaningfull posts" won't solve this problem. Just my personal opinion tough... I wasn't the one giving you -ve, so there's no way to be sure about this.

A real life example to try to explain it a bit simpler.
There are 2 guys on this forum i don't trust:

• one because he started a public crusade against me because i was helping people and asked some information in order to help them out, this dude claimed i was the worst person on bitcointalk and claimed his financial loss caused by my action of helping others was 1 million bitcoin. He made a whole thread where he dragged my name trough the dirt and stuff.
• the second dude was trying to get a service off the ground. I personally believed he wasn't a bad dude, but the service he was trying to start required a lot of BTC from the community and had a very, very, very big chance of going bancrupt, making a lot of community members lose a lot of BTC. I had a big altrecation with him

If both those people ran a business from the start, and made it a big succes, i'd start trusting the second dude again... However, the first dude would still be on my ignore list.
If both of them would write beautiful posts helping hundreds of people, they'd stay on my ignore list.

Bottom line: you can get neg tagged for numerous reasons, if you want to get untagged, you should fix those reasons. There is no generic sollution tough, what will fix the OP's problem won't necessarily fix yours. You should just accept that some of the reasons for getting -ve are "unfixable".

Probably because most altcoins are just clones of clones of clones of the original bitcoin core implementation.

People pumping out new (scam)coins usually just clone an existing coin and change a couple parameters, maybe change the QT wallet a little bit, but they don't invest enought time to completely write a new wallet from scratch, so the end result is that most of those wallets look more or less like the implementation they were forked from. Sometimes you can even trace back which version of bitcoin core was initially cloned when you look at some of the features of the altcoin wallet.

PS: i'm not saying that all altcoins are scams, but a lot of them are either scams or worthless imho.

The whitepaper was written at the time there was only cpu mining. At that time, if you had more than 51% of the network's cpu power, you had more  than 51% of the networks hashrate (depending on your setup and the feature set of the cpu's).
Having more than 51% of the network's hashrate allows you to, statistically, find more blocks by yourself than all other miners pooled together. This would allow you to rewrite the last couple of blocks leaving out transactions that do no benefit you and still end up with the longest chain (the chain that required the most work).

Nowadays, you can no longer mine using your cpu/gpu (well, you *can* technically mine using cpu/gpu, but the odds of solving even a single share are extremely small, so for all practical implications, it's impossible to mine with a cpu/gpu), so the nodes no longer mine.
The theory is still valid tough: if you would own more than 51% of the network's hashrate, you could still do a 51% attack... However, nowadays, you could only gain 51% of thet networks hashrate by investing billions into latest gen ASIC's, this makes a 51% attack extremely costly, and since such an attack would probably decrease bitcoin's price, you'd invest billions and get very little in return (since the "stolen" btc would be worth a lot less). If the community ever discovered somebody was executing a 51% attack, they could *potentially* even decide to fork to a different POW algo, making the attacker's ASIC investment "worthless" (he could still use it to mine sha256d altcoins, but it would be way less profitable than mining BTC).

I have never used a mac, but using this procedure will only work if the wallet file isn't corrupted. If you want to be 100% sure, just run a standalone version on a clean pc and restore from seed....
The procedure you describe might work if the newer version solves a bug that lead to the strange behaviour on your side, but if it isn't a software bug but rather an OS/network/wallet related problem, just updating your existing wallet might not do the trick.

Do you own ANY other device other than the device on which your wallet is giving your troubles? There are binaries available for linux, windows, osx and android.

Did you write down the recovery seed when initially creating the wallet? If so, you could just use this recovery seed to recover the wallet on any device you'd like.
If you didn't write down the recovery seed, i hope you didn't remove electrum and cleared the cache? I guess as long as the app remains installed on your device, there'll be a way to get your hands on the wallet file itself.

So, bottom line, you need either one of these:
- the wallet file + the pincode
- the recovery seed

I don't know what you're trying to do with a gmail account here... AFAIK, gmail has nothing to do with electrum (eventough i haven't used the android client of electrum in quite a while)

Those two steps are defenatly a good start, i would like to add the following step... It's a bit harder than the steps ETFbitcoin proposed, so i'd keep this step as a last resort:

- use a different pc/laptop or at least a different user account to run the latest standalone version of electrum and restore your wallet from seed, make sure the green indicator in the right bottom of the screen is green, make sure your system is clean, make sure the root disk isn't full... Enable coin controll and double check there are unspent outputs you can spend. If everything is OK, and you still can't spend your BTC, i'm running out of idears

Good luck

You're mixing up bitcoin's and ethereums terminology. Eventough this isn't a big problem, it might make things very confusing for newbies. Ethereum is using the terminology 'gas', bitcoin uses the terminology 'fee'.

When you create a bitcoin transaction, you use one or more unspent outputs that fund an address controlled by your wallet. You use these unspent outputs as an input to create a transaction whose newly created output output funds the address provided by the person you're paying.
When you take the sum of the value of the outputs, and substract the sum of the value of the inputs, you get the fee.
When a miner decides to add your transaction to the block he's trying to solve, he can add the sum of all fees of all transactions in his block to the coinbase reward. So, the bigger your fee in relation with the size of your transaction (in bytes, not in value), the more incentive a miner has to add your transaction to the block he's trying to solve.

Soooo... If the person who created the transaction used a fee that is lower than the recommanded fee, there is a big chance you'll have to wait for a long time before your transaction finally ends up in a winning block. While your transaction isn't included in the blockchain, it usually resides in the mempool of the nodes. Most nodes have a setting to prune unconfirmed transactions after a couple of days.

If you transaction is stuck in the mempool, you (the receiver) have several options:

• creating a CPFP
• waiting while periodically rebroadcasting the signed transaction
• paying a miner to include your transaction in the block he's working on (sometimes there are miners who do this for free to)
• asking the sender to create a RBF transaction
• asking the sender to double spend the unspend outputs used in the stuck transaction to create a new transaction with a higher fee

Trust is unmoderated... This means that the only one who can remove the negative trust on your account is the one who gave it to you...
In your case, you *could* try to be a productive member of the community, help others, give advice,... And maybe you can contact The Pharmacist in a couple of months and politely ask him if he's willing to review your account and modify his trust rating. There is no guarantee he'll do this, but maybe it would be worth a shot?

I also think this could potentially work, depending on wether or not your models are famous.
Next to this, the first one opening such a service will probably get a lot of customers that want to try out the LN network, and think such a "paint removal" service is a fun way to test out their new LN wallets. Offcourse, you have to make sure you're one of the first people to accept LN payments. If you open such a service after hundreds of other retailers accept LN payments, you lose these customers.

Depending on my workload, i'd probably be able to help you in the development of such a service if you ever want to go trough with this idear

Unless the attacker used brainwallet with a weak passphrase, a weak online wallet that is willing to cooperate or a bugged wallet with a flawed RNG, this cannot be done...
Sorry.

Quite simple: if anybody with a botnet of a couple hundred/thousand PC's was able to brute force any private key that results in a certain public key whose hash (the address) has been funded with a couple BTC, bitcoin would have been worthless by now, since in this case the security concept would have been flawed. The address space is 2^160, the private keyspace 2^256. It's basically impossible to bruteforce these keyspaces... It might sound like this is possible because the human mind just isn't capable of imagining the mere concept of numbers this big, in reality it is impossible.

I realise this isn't what you wanted to hear, but this is the reality. Sorry for you loss.

Sure, but if you let electrum pick 12 random words, the odds of somebody else getting the exact same words is 1 in 38111625095145107907897956032358039683072 (source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1606740.msg16154287#msg16154287). These odds are so small a human being can't really comprehend them