Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), has said that cryptocurrencies are not "mature" enough to be regulated. Speaking at a press conference last week, CNBC reports, Draghi told reporters: "With anything that's new, people have great expectations and also great uncertainty. Right now, we think that – especially as far as bitcoins and cryptocurrencies are concerned – we don't think the technology is mature for our consideration." Making the comments in response to a question on the potential of cryptocurrencies, Draghi further said that one of the lessons of the financial crisis is to "cherish" the benefits of fintech innovations like bitcoin, while still paying attention to their "potential risks." They cannot regulate it, they can ban it or leave it. They can ban it if they want, but bitcoin doesn't cause enough problem to them yet to think about banning it. Sure, they can regulate it -- not the protocol itself but its interaction with sovereign money and national residents. And that's the significance for governments. It's not like Bitcoin is the first decentralized asset. Gold has been long regulated, and it has even experienced periods of national prohibition. We have seen all this before, it's just that the technology backing cryptocurrencies is fundamentally new, so states don't have a handle on how to regulate them yet. |
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1. Bitcoin Gold fork is very badly prepared and (was referred as) is a joke. Information about the fork is lacking. no replay protection.
This is why it almost seems to function as an advertisement against hard forks. It makes them look like altcoins. It's even possible that Bitcoin Gold is a joke. Supposedly there will be replay protection, but it is not present in the code yet. 2. Segwit 2x fork has no replay protection, which will cause double spending to a certain degree. This fundamentally challenges Bitcoin's principles....which is to prevent double spending utilizing Blockchain technology. It won't cause double spending, because that phenomenon refers to a single protocol/blockchain. It doesn't apply here because no BTC is actually being double spent in a replay attack. Coins on another chain are being spent in a "replay attack." The lack of replay protection in Segwit2x will make such attacks possible. Basically, if you try to spend B2X, you may spend BTC at the same time. If you try to spend BTC, you may spend B2X at the same time. 3. possible Bitcoin Unlimited fork (sorry I have yet to read more about it) may cause chaos to the Bitcoin network and there may be many versions of the bitcoin blockchain.... Bitcoin Unlimited is irrelevant now. Nobody will be following any BU chain. Their supporters all seem to be supporting the Bitcoin Cash altcoin or the Segwit2x fork. Due to the above reasons, are the fundamentals of Bitcoin indeed challenged by the upcoming forks? Many people have said that "Oh, we have survived the Bitcoin Cash fork, it will be the same this time, just HODL" but it may seem that this time the value of Bitcoin could be really challenged?  I would say that the fundamentals are certainly challenged by the forks, but not for the reasons you mention. The biggest concern for me is that there is no network agreement around Segwit2x, so it is sure to cause a split. If the companies backing it are successful in co-opting Bitcoin and overtaking the name/brand/ticker in the face of widespread opposition from users, Bitcoin's "decentralization" will surely be questioned. And the prospect of a real, permanent network split between the legacy chain and the Segwit2x chain could damage the price, too. |
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Ok. So for the past two months, everyday, I have been reading cryptocurrency news from all around the world. (mostly from news.bitcoin and cointelegraph) and I has summed up my top three most supportive and progressive crypto-communities. [Feel free to disagree with me or correct my words]
not in any order
DISCLAIMER
*My reasons came from a compilation of news articles, but the list is purely opinionated.
1. Russia
The conflicting interest b/w Putin and the Central Bank has been slowing up the pace for progress; however, recent news suggest that the guidelines for bitcoin and digital currency will be made both beneficial to the government and the local users. I think Russia will be one of the centers of the blockchain technology in the future. Not to mention that Putin and Buterin have already discussed ways for the Ethereum platform to work well for the government.
2. Scandinavian countries
Not only Russia, but countries in Northern Europe have also integrated the blockchain technology in their university programs. Not only that, but some have now allowed Bitcoin to be a method of payment for tuition fees. Aside from this, countries such as Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland are gearing towards a 'cashless' society, and digital currencies are helping them do so.
3. Japan
Of course Japan is in my list. What better way to say it, but Japan is the first to make Bitcoin a legal tender. What makes Japan enter the list is because they didn't end there. As soon as they've allowed Bitcoin to become a mode of payment, authorities then also placed their attention to the miners and ICOs. Leaving no factor behind. As of now, you can even pay utility bills with Bitcoin, and the government is supporting small households to mine digital currencies.
I'm not sure that Russia belongs on the list. Like China, they have flip-flopped on cryptocurrencies for years. The Prosecutor General actually said in 2014 that using Bitcoin was illegal, because it functioned as a "money substitute." This stance was never enforced and indeed seems to evolved into a more progressive stance. However, they have continued to block access to cryptocurrency sites/exchanges, and released a new list of banned domains just a couple months ago. The government has also made conflicting statements (and there are conflicting rumors). On one hand, the Finance Minister says it makes no sense to ban cryptocurrencies. On the other hand, there are rumors floating around about the "Crypto-Ruble" and that once it is launched, mining other cryptocurrencies will be considered illegal. I wouldn't include Russia simply because we have no idea what their regulations will end up looking like. Japan, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland are definitely all taking progressives stances and are encouraging innovation and adoption. |
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For non-technical holders of BTC (i.e. the mass of the BTC population), the risk of inanonymity and centralisation still there: as they have to entirely rely on their wallet providers? If such wallet providers are hacked or meddled with their users, the users won't have anyway to protect themselves or anyone to make a claim on? Their fund in BTC is entire at the mercy of the wallets? If you control your own private keys, you don't need to worry about what happens to wallet providers. I assume you're talking about web wallet providers like Xapo and Coinbase, right? Then indeed, they can be hacked and you could lose everything. It's much safer to download a local desktop wallet like Core (or Electrum for a lightweight wallet) that gives you control over your coins. How you think BTC would work for the ordinary people in the future to replace their current existing financial assets and management with fiat currencies?
I think BTC for day-to-day purchasing will function much like Venmo and similar apps. It will likely be powered by the Lightning Network, and users will largely not understand how it works. But I don't think BTC will ever replace fiat currencies. That would only happen if governments themselves disappeared entirely. |
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I think this is not good. I really don't understand why oppose.. Bitcoin gold will be the power alt of bitcoin and better than BCH. Most users would like GPU mining Nah, Bitcoin Gold is already dead on arrival. The developers have already confirmed it's a premine. An airdrop with no real developer community and nothing but fork hype isn't going to go very far. There's plenty of other coins more worthy of your GPU hash rate; competition is fierce. If we can't transact B2X to the exchanges, then how is a price for B2X going to be established?
Either you transact and risk loosing Bitcoin or you do not. Either the exchange credits existing balances, or not. Either way, the best way to currently estimate the price of B2X is futures trading as there is no risk of losing your Bitcoin ATM. Last time I've checked, the price was 1/8 of Bitcoin if not lower. The problem is that in order to profit from the futures market, you need to hold funds on the exchange through the fork. You can sell the BT2 for BTC, but you'll take an equivalent loss if you sell the BT1 for BTC without waiting a month. I think the market is probably fairly accurate given the current market information, but it isn't worth the exchange risk to trade it. Hence the low volume. |
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So, just should not send or receive till things settle down?
For the October 25th fork, there should be nothing to worry about. According to the BTG developers, there will be strong replay protection. So if you move your BTC, the BTG will stay in the old addresses. After the fork, if you want to claim the Bitcoin Gold, just move your BTC to a new address. Then download the Bitcoin Gold wallet on a throwaway machine / virtual machine and import the private keys that held BTC at fork time. The main concern with Bitcoin Gold, in my eyes, is malware. There is a chance your private keys will be used to steal your BTC, so make sure to move your BTC first, and only import keys into the BTG wallet which are currently empty on the BTC chain. the main concern regarding bitcoin gold is its replay protection. their website says their coin has a replay protection but i have not seen any recent commit to their github code base that adds this, it is possible that i have missed it but in case i haven't it should be the main concern of you. because making any transaction on BTG without replay protection means losing your bitcoins on the BTC chain. It the Bitcoin Gold developers are lying and they aren't adding replay protection, the project is dead in the water anyway. And it's not a concern based on the above: "only import keys into the BTG wallet which are currently empty on the BTC chain." I would never put BTC at risk to get some airdropped tokens.  I'm pretty sure the Bitcoin Gold project was launched to discredit both BCH and B2X -- they all look like crappy altcoins now. As such, I think they will follow through with the time-tested and somewhat trivial address/transaction format change to prevent replay. |
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So, just should not send or receive till things settle down?
For the October 25th fork, there should be nothing to worry about. According to the BTG developers, there will be strong replay protection. So if you move your BTC, the BTG will stay in the old addresses. After the fork, if you want to claim the Bitcoin Gold, just move your BTC to a new address. Then download the Bitcoin Gold wallet on a throwaway machine / virtual machine and import the private keys that held BTC at fork time. The main concern with Bitcoin Gold, in my eyes, is malware. There is a chance your private keys will be used to steal your BTC, so make sure to move your BTC first, and only import keys into the BTG wallet which are currently empty on the BTC chain. |
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So when the crypto-rouble, crypto-yuan, crypto-IMF-coin, and possibly the crypto-aussie dollar hit the exchanges, then does Tether becomes a moot point? Hmm, I don't think so. It actually brings Tether into the spotlight. The Crypto-Ruble and Crypto-Yuan (or whatever they end up being known as) are backed by their respective central banks. There is no comparison to Tether. Tether is a shady company that can't move money and hides its bank accounts for fear that regulators/law enforcement might freeze their assets. It's no secret that they've been blacklisted by the banking system (and not just with USD) since early this year. You think the US would just let Tether operate with impunity? People can use it to completely skirt taxes and AML compliance... |
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bitcoin cash is not total failure since he is traded above 300$ after 3 months.
bitcoin gold is maybe a failure or even an scam. most of exchanges will not support him because lack of security and double spend
This isn't clear yet. It's possible (even likely) that the final Bitcoin Gold code will include replay protection. If so, it won't be unsafe for exchanges to add the coin. Having said that, it's only a week away from the fork and we still haven't seen the code. That's a bad sign, given that there should be ample time for auditing/testing, especially in an open source environment. I think that we are all probably blowing this out of proportion and that this launch will be a big flop. I suspect that the hype surrounding this "hard fork" may have been to cast doubt on the Segwit2x fork next month. |
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That is, if the balance is less than 1000 US dollars, you do not have to worry?
I have many open orders in different coins.
And where to translate them now? (
Which exchange should I use?
Is there a normal stock exchange at the moment?
People are definitely moving back to Poloniex from the looks of it. I can already see some volume has moved over there, and I've noticed that whales seem to be moving first on Poloniex today rather than Bittrex. Unfortunately, Polo isn't without its problems -- long wait times for support, stuck withdrawals, etc. But they haven't pulled a scary stunt like this. It's not clear yet what their new policies are. Bittrex has not released an official statement, and they are not responding to media inquiries. Total radio silence from them.  |
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Hello everybody!
I just found out that the exchange has started to block accounts!
Without explaning the reason!
Yes, it's all very cryptic at the moment. Bittrex is silent while thousands of users are complaining about disabled accounts and enforced enhanced verification. Journalists are starting to pick the story up: https://twitter.com/WolfOfCryptsy/status/920137064573628416There is speculation that it has to do with country of origin; apparently many users reside in countries like Iran, Pakistan and Russia. Bittrex is, of course, based in the US. Other users are reporting that Bittrex emailed them and said that since their account was valued at more than $1,000 that it must be verified. In the meantime (days) it seems that many people are simply locked out and unable to trade or withdraw. |
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Some people love the free money, but it seems really bad for Bitcoin long-term.
It's actually really good for Bitcoin long-term. Hard forks are great and Bitcoin was designed with them in mind. Proposals to change the Bitcoin protocol are another thing that makes Bitcoin decentralized. In the long-term, only one, the community-chosen chain will survive. This is the case with Bitcoin Cash. Although it's still fairly active, it did not influence Bitcoin at all and Bitcoin has kept growing rapidly since then. What makes you think Bitcoin was designed with hard forks in mind? Satoshi built Bitcoin with forward compatibility; the templates (scripts) used in future versions can be processed (if not necessarily understood/validated) by older versions. This is why backward compatible soft forks are ideal for Bitcoin. I'm not sure how Satoshi felt about hard forks. He didn't give much indication. On one hand, there is the often-cited quote that we could increase the blocksize limit by programming the fork at a block far in the future. But shortly after, he said that Bitcoin users might become increasingly tyrannical about the size of the blockchain. He didn't seem to offer any clear indication either way, suggesting that the question of future hard forks was entirely up to the user base, not him. |
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I think it'll go the same route as Bitcoin Cash. Another useless fork.
I'm beginning to realize now that this is the point. Part of me thinks that it was even conceived/bankrolled by some of the #NO2X folks. Someone had an interesting term for what they are trying to achieve: "fork fatigue." Basically, we see fork after fork after fork (Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Segwit2x), and with each fork it seems clearer that the resulting coin is an altcoin. Not Bitcoin. So, my thinking is that Bitcoin Gold is being launched to weaken the mandate of Segwit2x, and to make it appear foolish. Here's to hoping we can get some free money out of it.  |
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You are forgetting about Bitmain. They control or influence enough hashpower to ensure the fork happens mid November. Jihan Wu has always said in public they will change to mining with btc1 no reason to doubt his committment so far.
The fact that Bitmain and Jihan Wu can single-handedly decide to go through with the segwit 2x fork is everything that's wrong with bitcoin at this moment. The community is clearly against the fork but seemingly Mr. Wu doesn't care. I wouldn't think about it like that. The miner takes all the risk with a fork in a proof-of-work economy. Sure, fork shenanigans and playing games with hashpower distribution could affect the markets in the short/mid term. But Bitmain would be the one taking the risk, because they are expending the energy to mine the coins. If no one wants to buy their forked coins, they've flushed a lot of money down the toilet. Users just need to be able to hold through all the shenanigans and price swings. They won't lose anything. Now, if Bitmain and the major services/exchanges succeed in pushing most of the user base into a fork, we've got problems. Then I might start looking into other coins to invest in long term. But I think users will stay on the legacy chain, for the most part. |
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My account is 3.5 yrs old, used to be Legacy, just logged in (after being out for 1 wk) and it's now a 'new' account. Have always logged in from same place. No problem whatsoever with withdrawals in the past, no problems at all as a matter of fact. I don't think I've ever needed to contact support. Tired of these exchanges pulling this kind of crap without prior notification. Or was there news and I missed it?
Guess I'll try for the basic verification BS.
edit: last 4 of social needed ffs? gah
Did it worked? Basic verification? I rarely used Bittrex. Basically I never withdrew anything from it. I have account for like 3 years. Logged in when I heard all this troubles from people. I did basic verification and when done it said I need to do Advanced verification. With that I could withdraw 100 BTC a day but I have there sitting only few BTC. That sounds to me total bullish. If they want full advanced verification let them say. But professional would be to announce that months in advance. Basic verification is easy. If they can't find public records based on the information you provide, you can simple verify by phone number. That way, you can minimize the sensitive information that you need to give them. Unfortunately, it sounds like this won't cut it anymore. Basic verification is supposed to give you a 3BTC/day withdrawal limit. But people are also reporting now that accounts valued > $1000 must provide government ID and selfie. So, having basic verification is meaningless at this point. |
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anyone got paid from Wex?
any success withdrawal ?
There are reports of successful withdrawals. It seems that fiat payments from third party processors (Advcash, PerfectMoney) are arriving in 48 hours or less. Cryptocurrency withdrawals seem to be operating instantly, as expected. There are some occasional reports of missing ETH deposits (which I think are being successfully credited eventually). But the main issue is that people who are verifying their accounts are reporting that some (or all) of their balances are being reduced to zero, and support is not responding. If you're wondering whether or not you should put money on there... maybe just to quickly swap one coin for another. I wouldn't keep funds there for any period of time. I prefer to use something like Shapeshift or Changelly for that anyway. |
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Looks like the old deposit addresses still work and are active.
I did not realize some of my miners are mining to an old address directly which was BTC-E and have since been paying to that address every week.
I just found out and when I checked that old BTC-E address is still active and being spent to other addresses. Needless to say the new site does not use the old deposit address so can't get it through that.
So someone is still playing with a bunch of BTC in that account.
Well you have lost that money most likely. They were addresses in hot wallets FBI may have now if the got at the private keys. Well, BTC-e should have the keys to those wallets. It's possible that the FBI could have them as well, although it's possible (rather, probable) that the keys were encrypted, and encrypted well. It could take months or years for them to crack the encryption under some circumstances. I'm guessing that WEX/BTC-e is moving those coins, and I'll bet thedreamer isn't the only one still depositing into the old wallets. For their sake, I hope they are hiding their tracks before mixing any of those coins in with WEX's wallets. |
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My company has asked me to research Bitcoin as a potential back up storage of a slush fund due to the ease of sending money to people around the world on the field even in hard to reach locations.
I'm confused is the 51% solved or is it still an issue?
It's not really an issue that can be "solved" per se. Bitcoin's use of proof-of-work is the best solution so far, but it is not immune to 51% attacks. Double-spend attacks have occurred (by miners) in the past and it's prudent to expect that they might happen in the future: never accept zero-confirmation transactions and consider waiting for a multiple confirmations before releasing goods. And it's probably more prudent to think of it as a 33% attack (selfish mining), and 25% of the hash rate will make the attack work a good deal of the time. Bitcoin incentivizes honest mining, but miners can act fairly anonymously if they choose to and they are motivated by profit, not goodwill. So act accordingly. Having said all that, Bitcoin is the most secure payment network in the world. Just don't accept unconfirmed transactions for payment. |
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A hard fork is a loosening of BTC's consensus rules (such as the block size in the case of Bitcoin Cash and SegWit2x) which results in a chain split.
simple small differences in what you say make huge difference in the result: a hard fork is changing bitcoin's consensus rules which may result it a chain split. The primary distinction that Core developers have drawn is that soft forks add rules and hard forks remove them. Personally, I don't think this is an ideal definition, and the BIP148 experience proved it to me even more. The important thing is whether a fork is compatible with the original chain. That should be the primary distinction between a soft vs. hard fork, in my view. For example: Miner-activated soft forks (beyond a comfortable majority threshold for activation) are always compatible. These should be known as soft forks. User-activated "soft forks", on the other hand, are a priori incompatible. That is, they explicitly add new rules that will split from the original chain unless and until supported by a majority of the hash rate. Really, I think "UASF" is a misnomer. Experts will argue both sides of this point, but I tend to believe that hard forks as currently defined (removal of consensus rules) will always cause a chain split. In a technical sense, even if 100% of users migrated to the hard fork chain (impossible), it is literally split from the original chain. It has no relationship to the original chain whatsoever; the "ledger" is merely a copy. |
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Hi guys long story short I have got 2 bitcoins somewhere on exchange platform and I can't remember which one...
I bought them back in 2014 and then it was difficult to buy them, as far as I know there were only two platforms which wore selling them. one of them virwox aand there was other one that I can't remember. Please give me a few platforms if you know any who wore running exchange in 2014
Thank you
There were lots of exchanges available in 2014. Some are defunct at this point. It might help if you can answer a couple questions. What country do/did you reside in? And do you remember the payment method -- ACH, bank wire, Paypal? Virwox was always pretty obscure. The most prominent exchanges at that time for BTCUSD markets were MT Gox (defunct early 2014), Bitstamp, Bitfinex, BTC-E (defunct mid-2017). If you had money on BTC-E, they did relaunch as WEX.nz and repaid 55-60% of customer funds. However, if you haven't logged into your account in three years, you're going to have a lot of trouble accessing those funds. |
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