I've joined pump & dump (or "signal") groups on Telegram back in 2017 and I learned my lesson. Some of these groups had an incredible influence over the prices but the chances of earning anything through the P&D cycles were slight. Before I could even write down the 3 letters of the coin to buy it, the price was already at its peak. I had to buy it at peak and sell it with huge losses. Hence, it's a bad idea to go for these schemes.

This is a pretty risky thing to do, but when trading I usually looked for the coins with a high difference between the first buy order and the first sell one which also had a decent volume. I would place an order to buy it
for a 10% smaller price and as soon as my order's filled, I'd sell it for the "cheapest" price on the sell order book. By doing that, I once doubled my balance in a matter of hours, until it didn't work anymore.

But then, there's a difference between the usual trading (using analysis) and using order book differences in order to benefit off them. If one's going for trading based on analysis, then more popular coins (like BTC and ETH) are better. They have high volume, the chances of your orders to fill up faster are way higher, you don't need to sell your coins for a shitty price and pump&dump groups cannot have much of an influence over the prices of these coins unless they have whales inside them.

I see. I'll have to arrive home and I'll look more things up to see if I find anything helpful.

I'm honestly surprised Ledger didn't try helping you out with finding where the problem is, knowing it could turn out to be a huge vulnerability nobody's found before.. especially because it's supposed not to be able to send any tx without physical confirmation..

It's not that you've downloaded a compromised wallet. From my understanding, there was an exploit in the official version of Electrum that let hackers display a fake update notification. Those who've updated through that notification have updated to a modified version of Electrum.

And if I got it all right, I believe the servers removed by MB were servers through which you've got the malicious update of your Electrum.

If you read the MalwareBytes article, you'd get an idea of what has probably happened.

This is why decentralized exchanges should be selected. The higher the number of people using them is, the better they become and the more volume they get.

We need to stop using and promoting centralized exchanges imo. I haven't used one in a very long time. Decentralized is the key to getting rid of these scams..

Frumoasă inițiativă. Nu am auzit niciodată de un exchange fizic care să ofere cryptomonede și mă bucur să aflu că avem posibilitatea să achizitionam/vindem și astfel.

Legat de KYC, identitatea este obligatorie indiferent de suma tranzacționată? Întreb deoarece sunt unul dintre acei "fixiști" care încearcă să respecte în continuare ideea de intimitate și lipsa nevoii de încredere a Bitcoin-ului.

Dacă da, există vreun plan pe viitor ca achiziționarea sau vânzarea de cryptomonede să se poată face fără ca identificarea clientului să aibă loc?

Mulțumesc!

So I gave a Google search of the two servers you've mentioned in the third post of this thread. A Google search of "exs.ignorelist.com phishing" resulted in a report from MalwareBytes, and I don't believe it's a coincidence.

Something smells fishy to me here. I've taken a look over all the posts on this thread and, according to #4, the address 34Y6nb5SRxAGkozUpyKa59Qq7f87acC98s, which OP confirmed was one of the addresses he used as an input in one of his transactions, is listed right next to its private key on https://bitkeys.work/?page=725.

I'm confused, to be honest.

Edit: apparently the website generates a random private key for the richest wallets, hoping to collide with the address.. I thought it was one of these "all BTC private keys" websites.

Still, the Google search I've done linked me to the report above. Hence, OP might've downloaded an infected Electrum wallet..

Edit 2: I've done another search for the second server MalwareBytes categorized as a "Phishing". According to this link I found,

In other words, OP has fallen victim to a phishing attack... Press CTRL + F and look for "exs.ignorelist.com" and "endthefed.onthewifi.com", you can find them in the code above. I'm sorry, OP. Please take measures ASAP to secure all your funds before they'll steal more out of your wallets..

---

Considering your wallet is compromised, I can assume you might also have other compromised softwares installed on your computer. Therefore, I'd suggest switching the internet off on the computer you've got Electrum on (or plugging out the Ethernet cable), backing up everything important (don't forget to backup the wallet.dat files!!!!) and doing a fresh, SECURE complete wipe out and reinstall of the operating system.

If you connect your computer to the internet again after reinstalling the OS, please make sure the software you install is legit.

We're talking about very large amounts at stake, so taking appropriate measures against phishing might save you from another disaster. I really wish I could've helped with the recovery of your funds..

---

Apparently my attempt to do an extensive research of the MB detection from the first few posts of the thread turned out to be just a shitty failure in the end. Will try to look up the change path scenario Lucius has linked and anything useful will be posted on the thread.

The answer is pretty subjective. It really depends on the gambler.

Those who've been in the worse financial/family scenarios are more prone imo to the "threat" side of gambling. The thought of possibly earning more money than your entire family's made in a long time is sometimes just killing that "oh but what if I'll lose" feeling. It's more of a fight taking place inside your brain where addiction fights your logical thoughts.

If one has a mindset stable enough to abstain from depositing and risk more money than they should, gambling falls in the "fun" side for them. But it's pretty easy to fall back into the "threat" side because we all know the feeling you get when winning something. You'll just want more.

AFAIK, Bitcoin was created to AVOID third parties.. right? It's meant to be trustless. So many people are taking these news as if they're positive to us. They're not, at least not for me.

If decentralized exchanges will ever be developed to the point where merchants can use them to let their customers pay in crypto and instantly swap them to fiat, that's what I call the possibility of a mass adoption.

Until then, we're gonna just be moving in a vicious circle where your only option is to go for third parties.

If China and the EU working on centralized currencies using Blockchain technology isn't a reason good enough for you to consider a big move towards Blockchain is planned as we speak, you need a reality check.

I think this year we'll only get an idea of what the currencies will be like. It's a too quick to switch from fiat directly to digital, they'll need time to make us accomodate with the digital world.

I'm still wondering in what circumstances this possible hack took place. One thing I can think of is that someone might've physically altered your device to get the funds transferred from your device to their wallet, although the chances are slight considering not many know what the hell a Ledger even is. But it's worth giving it a thought.

Otherwise I have no idea what the hell could've happened.. Have you tried contacting Ledger? Maybe they've got the right person to help you out. AFAIK, in these cases they'll ask you to send the possibly compromised device for further testing.

If you don't know what you're going to invest your money in, it might be an even bigger mistake than gambling. Both involve risks, both can get you broke in no time. If you're going to invest with the same luck principle, you can turn investing into gambling.

Have you tried creating a wallet account on Ledger Live to see if the BTC shows up as missing there too? If it's an Electrum bug, it must show up in Ledger Live. I think Magnum Wallet (no need to download it) works as well with the Bitcoin wallet on your Nano S. Suggesting this in order to see whether it's Electrum's fault or there's a serious security risk with the hardware wallet. If the latter is the case, then I gotta put mine away for the time being. 

Yeah, takes a lot of losses to finally get a win.

You only know a few people out there who've gotten rich through gambling because you need luck to win. It's not like you level up and the more experience you get, the better your results will be. The only way your results could change in time is if you either become addicted or you get rid of the addiction.

The only effort you need when playing out your money is financial effort.. I don't believe anyone out here is like "oh God, I have to click that damn button again.." when they're in a casino. It's specifically made not to need any effort to win money.

They're gonna fight it through regulation. Pretty easy to introduce some new highly unfavorable regulations for crypto and make a ton of people leave the markets. We already are in a fight against them.

I fear the same thing happening to Gold regulation in Europe is going to happen to Bitcoin too. Right now you cannot buy gold worth over €10k in some countries without your name popping up on the AML suspects list. And the limits are only decreasing.

Moreover, I'm not sure if this is the case for all stores, but some of them have noticed their customers that if the accumulated sum of all your orders exceeds €10k, they'll have to notice the authorities.

That's just outrageous. I expect, however, similar regulations to happen to Bitcoin sooner than expected.

Whenever a coin I own is dumped to All-Time Lows, I just buy more of it to decrease the average price I've invested at. This is how I minimize my losses and it's worked every time.

I'm hodling them all. Haven't sold a crypto in my entire life (for fiat). It's something that's gonna be worth a shit ton of money one day and if I won't get to benefit off it, my kids will. I haven't entered this game to dump my holdings. I'm just hodling them all and living a happy life watching BTC grow. My Nano S is probably the most precious thing I'll ever own.

I've done day trading but always failed. I have some kind of talent to hit the Buy button whenever price decreases and the Sell one right before a parabolic movement. I've done a lot of altcoin trading and what I found out in the end is that, although some of my moves got me a lot of profit at the time, if I were to hold BTC until today without selling it for any kind of alt, my total holdings today would've been worth approximately 50% more. Hence, trading BTC for alts and vice-versa when prices changed did get me profit at that moment, but on the long term that profit decreased dramatically.

Was level 3, but now I'm back to 0.

Am one of the lucky gamblers who've ended the addiction on profit. I ended mine when I started thinking thoroughly the consequences addiction implies. I knew this would one day end in a big loss I couldn't recover from - only few are lucky enough to earn a fortune and not lose it.

My routine back when I was addicted was like: wake up - make coffee - play on PrimeDice - sleep - repeat. It was an endless cycle of me betting, but to be honest, the chat on there was very fun so were the tips and random rains.

Oh man, connect to a non-encrypted WiFi that acts like a man-in-the-middle by a hacker who made it look like it's a public wireless connection (say you're in a mall and the hacker names the WiFi "FREE Internet_Mall" with malicious intents and the damage can be huge. That's giving your data to a hacker for free and is a security risk if you're going to use cryptocurrencies over their connection.

Wait, what? China can't "print" 21 million BTC. You probably don't understand how Bitcoin works. First of all, the mining power you're talking about coming from China isn't government's. It's spread across China and this doesnt mean they control Bitcoin. And then, you can't just change the supply of a coin because everyone else has to accept the change. And here you go - that's when forks happen.

That doesn't make Bitcoin centralized. High hashrate in china =/= the Chinese are controlling it. If these mining farms were moved to Europe, would it mean the EU is controlling Bitcoin? It does not, I assure you. This "most hashrate is in China" excuse has been used so many times and without success. I still haven't seen a successful instance of China manipulating Bitcoin in any kind of way.

If a coin has a theoretically higher TPS capacity, it does not mean that:
 1. The coin can really touch that number; and
 2. The coin is gonna be the future Bitcoin.

In fact, we have Litecoin with a ~8x more capacity of TPS than Bitcoin. Soon it's gonna be a decade old and tet Bitcoin is still the king. If TPS was the most important thing, it would've passed Bitcoin in the game long ago. But surprise! It hasn't.

There's more to it than just tx speed. Bitcoin has also been tested for more than a decade and never failed miserably. Hence, BTC is still king.

All this aside, a decentralized cryptocurrency will not make it to the "bank card" use anyway. It's just not gonna happen, let's try to live the reality and not an imaginary scenario.

And remember that, by joining a scam bounty program, it might not seem like it but you're just helping the next scam thrive. I've seen many going for random bounties just because they hope they're gonna hit the jackpot once and earn an undervalued coin for free.

If no attention was given to the obvious scams, there wouldn't be as many out here. But these bounties have now turned into automated scams and there are enough silly people out here to promote them and make their scam a success.

Oh, and remember that once you join a scam project, your name will be linked to it forever, so you better do some little research before you're going to trust a project.. welcome to the Internet.

To me the development is one of the keypoints of a project. If I see there's development and interest coming from the project's team and it's not just "WE'RE ON BINANCE!!!!" kind of news but real and unique ideas being worked on, it'll become an interest to me.

If you join a project a few days after the bounty thread is published, you don't miss much. Unless there's a signature campaign you're interested in, but you wouldn't want to wear that on the forum is the project is a scam.