Evidence, please.
They are right to warn people about it and right to be sceptical. Plenty of people will either rape themselves or get raped.
I've yet to see any actual malicious acts against it. They're trying to get it to fit in current laws as they would for anything else. It may not work but that's their job.
I don't think there's the need of evidence. Bitcoin eliminates the need of third parties, it's supposed to eliminate the state from the process too. I highly doubt any leader is okay with it taking even a little piece of the state's power away. I agree with the point that governments don't want people to enjoy economical freedom, but that's not why they are trying to "shut down" crypto. I even doubt that they have such intentions to begin with.
Nearly the whole crypto market disregards the sole reason of why it exists, so what are governments really afraid of? People still trust centralized parties---parties governments can easily exercise control over. They like it more than they don't.
As for people getting rich during a recession, I really really doubt that---recessions generally take down any asset with it, where the speculative assets are being hit the hardest. Bitcoin is a speculative asset too.
I couldn't agree more with the second paragraph there, and it's kinda sad to see it's turned into an all-about-money thing. But while recessions do take down any asset with them, the price of gold soars as it's considered a safe haven asset. It's yet to be seen whether Bitcoin would be considered the same during such times. |
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Hopefully, the recession can be the fire to test the mettle of Bitcoin and make it stronger and more valuable.
I believe the idea of Bitcoin investment/holding during a recession will be a big fear and confusion until an event like gold/silver confiscation takes place, where Bitcoin becomes a "king" that is way harder to find & take thanks to the possibility of hiding even billions in a small piece of paper with a private key on it. As it's never been used in a recession before, it wouldn't surprise me if there's one point where it simply crashes like never before. The biggest crash in its history was in 2011 (-93%), and that percentage would bring it today down to around $600. At the same time though, I do believe it's not going to be a long lived crash.. but out of confusion and fear, the stakes are pretty high for it to happen IMO. |
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20kevin20, you ask questions to which answers have already been given, you just need to read from the beginning. It is a normal thing that any seller in the post office needs to give their ID, it is a state-owned company which can not afford to purchase crypto without asking for a document from a client. It also should be noted that this project is still in the test phase, only in a few offices in one city.
There are some other options in Croatia where users can buy/sell certain amounts of coins without any ID, but based on information posted in this thread all of them will need to adjust to new AML rules which should come into force early next year.
If in your opinion being requested an ID by the state-owned institutions/companies is a normal step, for me it is not. Doesn't it basically stand against the purpose of Bitcoin? While these news are amazing as we're taking a look at the evolution of cryptocurrencies, this KYC part annoys me. It's not that I'm hiding my identity, but these two (AML and KYC) could affect anybody at any time and involves a third party being used in the transaction process. That's either the bank being allowed to either accept or refuse your transaction in case of a bank transaction to buy/sell crypto, or the state itself doing the same thing but with cash by requesting your identity. I've been running away from control for so many years, and yet today we're exactly where I feared we could end. I am just afraid this is not a step they took to adopt cryptocurrencies but a step to try an artificial centralization of Bitcoin. The amount of precious metals you can buy in the EU anonymously is also starting to get shrinked, slowly but it does affect a lot of people. Sorry now for deviating from the main subject. Overall, it makes me happy to see adoption and I'm sure projects like this will attract new people to invest too. I just hope these new investors will have a real, not a false image of crytpocurrencies in their head. |
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There are mathematical numbers that are very Very VERY small. Even though those numbers are not mathematically zero, they can be considered to be zero in the real world. For example... You sit in a large room full of air at 23 degrees celsius. The air is a typical earth atmosphere (a bit more than 14 pounds per square inch) with approximately 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.9% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, etc. [...] There is a non zero possibility that you could be struck by lightning once a year while sitting on a toilet taking a crap every year for 17 consecutive years. I think any reasonable person would also say that there is ZERO CHANCE of that actually happening as well. Oh, wow, thanks for the examples. I see, so I always had this fear somebody could randomly generate my private key one day and take my funds, even if I'd be using hardware wallets. Now you clarified that and I get it. Thanks! It's a sketchy scam.
Well, I wanted to use it just once and even the setup part looked pretty sketchy to me. I had that feeling something's wrong with it. (wanted to use it for educational purposes, no stealing intention) Looks like I have so much to learn that my questions are actually kinda stupid.. |
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They are only buying cryptocurrency of course to profit, they will set a lower buying price compared to the market for them to generate profit since this is a state-owned office there's a huge chance that verification will be required for each transaction.
I thought about something different: allowing the citizens to sell their crypto so the government can stack up coins for some kind of artificial centralization: 1. Only buy BTC from citizens 2. Stack up a lot of coins 3. Start allowing your citizens to buy BTC from you too, but change policy: ID REQUIRED. 4. Create yourself a history of every BTC buyer and seller I remember Amazon had patented a way to find out who's who on the BTC blockchain explorer a few years ago. Who knows, it might already be activated and running... |
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Satoshi's wallet is not one address or public key. It is tens of thousands of individual keys because he did not reuse them. Being able to find a private key that he used would only let you spend 50 Bitcoin.
Oh, I get it now and I kinda feel ashamed not to know that yet, lol. I thought there were just a few addresses with tons of coins actually. You don't seem to understand how close to 0 it is.
It is literally impossible to have the probability of collision be exactly 0 because that would require an infinite search space which is literally impossible (would require infinite matter and infinite energy which do not exist).
Got it, I'm just thinking there might be just 1 collision happening at one point in the future, even with the chances so small. I mean, again, it's VERY close to 0 but there still is that one very little chance of collision, right? What about LBC? I have never used it before although I did want to, but it seemed kinda sketchy to me. However, I've seen lists of Bitcoin addresses found as collisions with older transactions on them or even still having BTC on them. How does that work, aren't they privkey collisions? |
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If you have specific questions about anything (not generalized questions like "tell me everything about..."), you can post them in the Development & Technical Discussion or Bitcoin Technical Support sub-forums.
There are several of us that are happy to help you understand any details that you may find confusing or unclear.
Also, if you haven't yet read the original Bitcoin Whitepaper, you really should. Most of it isn't extremely technical in nature and while bitcoin has evolved quite a bit since it was first written, it still gives a good overview of some of the important concepts. Just keep in mind as you read it that not everything from that paper is still 100% true about how bitcoin works.
Here are some generalized questions that you can begin investigating on your own to help you understand some of the pieces better:
What is a transaction input?
What is a transaction output?
What are the contents of a typical output script?
How is the transaction output script converted into a bitcoin address?
What is a transaction ID?
What makes a cryptographic hash useful?
What is SHA256?
What is a Merkle Root?
What is RIPEMD160?
How does mining work?
What are the components of a block header and how are they generated?
What limitations exist on various components of the block header?
How are digital signatures created and/or validated?
What happens when a new Bitcoin Node is synchronizing?
How is a private key created?
What is WIF?
What's the difference between the various bitcoin addresses (Those that start with 1, or 3, or bc1).
What do the following acronyms stand for and what does each actually mean: P2PK, P2PKH, P2SH
What commands are available in Bitcoin Script, and how can they be used?
Thank you, Danny! To my shame, I have a Bitcoin Whitepaper picture sitting for years on my wall similar to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/9qvlxo/in_8_days_it_will_be_the_10th_birthday_of_the/, but I've never taken the actual time to read it through. There's so much information I just got now, I'll have to dedicate my time to learn stuff I don't know about Bitcoin. Thanks for the help  |
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We're taking a look at a world having more, MUCH more debt than it generates. It's getting closer and closer to the impossibility of paying the many-trillions debt and that's sad because it means the chance of a recession just got boosted. Something weird is going on now with the bank accounts. I just read a thread here regarding India's bank accounts being wiped ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5191378.0) and it reminded me of an article I read only a few days ago regarding the Turkish bank accounts being frozen up. This doesn't look like a coincidence to me, and what's scarier is the amount of events worldwide we're waiting to happen, the biggest ones being Brexit and the American elections getting closer. We're confronting many economical events and that could bring down the system. It's good for those who've prepared, but it's gonna be a pain for whoever isn't ready for it. Here's the source of the Turkish government freezing up +3.3million bank accounts: https://news.bitcoin.com/turkish-government-freezes-over-3-million-bank-accounts/. That's a creepy number, it affects over 4% of Turkey's population. What's even scarier is the reason they've frozen up their accounts is because they had passed a debt threshold, now go back to the first paragraph I wrote here and read that again: the chances of being able to pay the world debt is getting closer to impossible. Only a recession could save us. This is not a bubble anymore, there's something bigger coming up. Now it's not about the USA, it's about the entire world being stuck here. Many say the consequences of a recession cannot be clearly predicted as it differed completely from one crisis to another, but I think it is pretty clear that a recession happening today would have a disastrous aftermath. Take it back to a few months ago when we had the yield curve inverted ( https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/yield-curve-inversion-deepest-since-2007-flashes-recession-signal-2019-8-1028478146). It wasn't the first sign of a stock crash, but it was a very good warning for anybody who hasn't prepared yet for what's to come. If 5 years ago mentioning a stock market crash was stupid, today more than 50% of my friends think it's on its way. That's confirmed by some statistics made by Business Insider ( https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/next-recession-metlife-survey-shows-americans-expect-one-arent-prepared-2019-10-1028591353). Now to whoever isn't prepared and is wondering what they can do to prepare, there isn't really a "recipe" of getting yourself and your family ready for what's to come. Bitcoin hasn't been through a recession before (ignore the 2009-2012 one as almost nobody used BTC at the time), so the price would probably go absolutely crazy as nobody will know whether in a recession BTC could be considered a safe haven asset or not due to the fact that it only works through electronic devices. I'd suggest having both a reserve in precious metals and in BTC. If a crash happens, you have both of them and I can assure anybody the price of silver and gold would rise substantially in case of one. In fact, it's not the price of the precious metals rising but the fiat currencies being slowly devalued by the crisis. It's scary, but it'll happen sooner or later. I don't understand how somebody could take it as a joke or as a very small probability... it's happened so many times before, it's an usual period of the economy. We have even Warren Buffet predicting a recession ( https://www.ccn.com/billionaire-warren-buffett-predicting-a-stock-market-crash/).. But millennials haven't been through a recession yet so not going through something your entire life might make you believe it's just a story and will always be like that. |
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I might be wrong, but can't WinRAR open archives even if they're password protected? I believe you could see what files there are inside, but you couldn't extract/open then unless you had the password. I'd try an open sourced free ware that scans your entire hard disk for your wallet. Docfetcher ( http://docfetcher.sourceforge.net/en/index.html) is what I found to be open source, or you can try using 7Zip or WinRAR to try scanning your drives for the file ( https://superuser.com/questions/326737/how-do-i-search-the-content-of-7-zip-archives-7z). 1) In an email - email account locked
2) on a memory stick - hid it, cannot find it
Meanwhile, try remembering where the memory stick is by reversing events (just take it logically and try to remember what you thought about hiding it at the time, maybe you'll remember?). What do you mean by 'email account locked'? |
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The source is legit so i think the US really want to shutdown Bitcoin but maybe by Donald Trump demand. We all knows about Trump openly criticize Bitcoin so maybe he is now using his power to shutdown it slowly in the way that looks like nothing happen but failed so hopefully he realized it now that it is not that easy to destroy Bitcoin and that he may ended up like JP Morgan.
You're a great example of somebody who blindly trust a source just because it's one of the top mass media websites in the USA.. It's obviously their dream to take BTC and the entire crypto market down. Otherwise, people will not only become richer as the recession gets closer but they'll also get the taste of economical freedom. That scares them institutions for sure, and they don't want to loose us. |
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considering the facts that SHA256 transforms 256bit public key (as input) to 256bit output, but RIPEMD160 transforms 256bit to 160bit, so the highly likely the collision is in RIPEMD160 function.
That depends on what you mean by highly likely. It is much MORE likely that it will occur in the RIPEMD160 transform than in the SHA256 transform, but that's a bit like saying that it is much MORE likely that a completely fair coin will land on heads 160 times in a row than 256 times in a row. In both cases it is *VERY* unlikely. Essentially we are talking about the difference between "It isn't going to happen" and "It isn't going to happen". I used the incorrect words to descripbe. Of course the probability is highly unlikely, it is actually impossible. And for me as 2^256, so 2^160 are both very high numbers, and the probabilities 1/2^256 and 1/2^160 are actually 0%. I just had in mind the probable place of collision if such collision is found. Let's say Key1 and Key2 are 2 keys leading to the same Address. So, it is more likely that public keys PubKey1 and PubKey2 are different. Then it is also more likely that SHA256 of PubKey1 and SHA256 of PubKey2 will be different. But the collision is in RIPEMD160 function transforming different SHA256(PubKey1) and SHA256(PubKey2) to the same hash, and then to the sme Address. Although everybody calls it a 0% chance, it's enough for just one man to get the key to a big wallet like Satoshi's without even having the plan to, and that would be disastrous for us. I keep on wondering when something like that would happen. I understand the chances are very close to 0, but what if it happens just ONCE with a huge wallet? Is there any way this could be prevented? |
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One thing about authoritarian/totalitarian governments is that they want to control all aspects of the county that they currently reside in with an iron fist. As a result, the people there are most likely restricted to following the current dictator or group of people in charge and are unwilling to step out of line due to the fear of consequences. Cryptocurrency can probably bypass that control Considering that a majority of places with dictators can still access the Internet via a VPN or other means they can use cryptocurrencies.
An example would be in China, considering that their government controls its economy and has a lot of restrictions on what people can and cannot do with the currency (RMB) that they use. Cryptocurrencies can bypass that control as they are not controlled by any government and can keep the identity of its users a secret when they do transactions this can result in people using cryptocurrency being able to freely trade without any restrictions on how much they use. As a result, cryptocurrencies allow people in oppressed regions to become freer as they are not restricted in terms of money and trade.
What if the country bans and makes it illegal to make any kind of transactions using crypto currencies? You see, the dictator over here didn't ban the currency itself, but was able to put a ban on the usage thus anyone using the currency is committing a crime. Even if they some how manages to stay away from the sight of the government, whats the use of buying it if they can't actually use it. Like none of the stores in their country will be willing to accept crypto currency. We need some better solution. There still are ways to do it even with this restriction, although it'd be illegal and a big risk for anybody doing so. We can't really help much countries like North Korea. They're going to have the same way of thinking no matter what, and it's the people that must rise against their own leaders if they want a change. It wouldn't be the first time it ever happened in the history. |
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I get what you mean, thanks for the charts. I used to love playing with the charts and predicting the price and had a very big success a few years ago, but now I'm kinda afraid to do it. Would be nice if this prediction comes true. I just hope it's not going to be all about the money though - I really love how mass media's focus is pointed all towards BTC when its price rises so much. That grabs the attention of many people not having ever used BTC before.
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Well, the price gets drastically affected by the events worldwide so any outcome means a price change. That's how trading and speculation works, but I don't really follow the speculations anymore. There are too many out there, and whoever gets the right prediction in the end is followed by many... until they mess up. I'd rather follow my own intuition.
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I just thought about something else.
What about if your laptop needs a new battery and say you buy one off ebay? If you buy a new battery, but its obviously 3rd party and not genuine from manufacturer, any risk in that? What about a used one or open box? Can someone put malware in a laptop battery?
No? There's no way you can do that with a battery, correct me if I'm wrong. Battery only supplies power. It might be connected to the computer but that doesn't make it prone to hacking or sending any virus to your PC unless there's another device connected to the battery you have to plug in. With little knowledge about PC components you should easily notice that tough. |
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If you want to deepen your knowledge of Bitcoin, then knowing cryptography is more important than knowing programming. Programming would only give you knowledge of implementation details, while cryptography will teach you about fundamentals like signatures, hashes, proof of work. It will also allow you to easier understand Lightning Network and upcoming features like Schnorr.
Thanks. Will put cryptography on my reading list. Bitcoin is much known for trading and for investing. This has made people learn about its market analysis much more than its technical aspects. We've got lot of threads and technical articles that gives clear information on how bitcoin works.
That's how I lost my funds in the past too: knowing just how to profit off it, and not taking enough precaution to keep my BTC safe. I just want to learn more about it as I should've already known A LOT after 6 years of using it. I know most of it, but I find myself questioning so many things and it's hard to understand a side of tech you've never studied before. you don't need the knowledge of coding to understand bitcoin the general understanding of how C++ is not required either , even if bitcoin itself was coded in it if and when you want to develop and use blockchain to its fullest , you will have to study especially if you want to contribute to developmnet : https://bitcoin.org/en/development#code-reviewhere are some totally free courses and books that will help you if you want to learn bitcoin without ANY background in coding or language knowledge: Blockchain Theory 101 , Introduction to Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain from UDEMY ( google them , they should be free to download and use , all you have to do is register) https://www.coursera.org/learn/cryptocurrencyThanks for the resources! Will download them ASAP I appreciate that you have the willingness to learn more and this willingness is the power for everything you want to achieve.
Just read about the topics you want to gain knowledge of; if you have questions then make a thread and you will always find someone who will answer. Reading is knowledge and knowledge is power.
You don't have to be a coding guru to learn about mining or some technical stuff, but if needed then a basic coding knowledge will be sufficient I guess and that's not rocket science.
Most of the miners and those who have a vast knowledge of the technical part are not coders. Coding is just another part and I guess you don't want to be a developer to program something.
I hope you got my point...
I get what you mean. I thought you could only understand a new update by reading its source code, and that means understanding a coding language. Reading topics here is kinda hard as I don't understand lots of terms and expressions regarding the technical side. |
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I just hope it's going to be a short-lived project anyways. It has almost nothing to do with the cryptocurrency world and points of view. It's against my vision, so is it against Satoshi's. On the other side though, they made it easy to use so of course many will go towards the "best cryptocurrency". I hate it when the mass media manipulates so much and gives you the false truth: it's NOT related to cryptocurrencies and it's NOT a Bitcoin competitor. And it's disrespectful to the crypto world and to Satoshi himself.
I've seen places stating Libra isn't and will never be accepted in their shop. It's good news for me. And now let's talk about price - it's going to be a Stablecoin.. and privacy'll be gone.. so who cares about it?
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Wow, that's purely amazing. This is what we need. I'm honestly surprised to see institutions actually accepting cryptocurrencies. I'm wondering what their plan is - maybe they're trying to become friendly with us so we don't turn against them? I might be wrong - is the Hrvatska Posta owned by the Croatian government or is it a private post? Also, why are they only accepting to BUY cryptocurrency from us? Why don't they also sell? Do they require an ID to finish the transaction, considering we need to pay taxes for our cryptocurrency profits? I have a lot of questions actually, if somebody could reply it'd be awesome.. Next time I'm visiting Croatia I have to check this out |
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According to the CoinTelegraph article 5200 Keplerk tobacco shops will start accepting bitcoin payments in form of coupons. I think they not only accept bitcoin payments but also enable customers to buy bitcoin coupons that I think are redeemable but their partner Bitmedia or maybe they are only usable withing their shop network. If anyone here is from France and can share his experience with this I would appreciate.
5200 locations accepting BTC as a payment adoption is huge in my opinion, not only that but it is mentioned in the article that giants like Decathlon and Sephora will start accepting BTC by 2020. What do you think is the quickest way to adoption? Big retailers or small local tobacco or coffee shops which people go to on a daily basis?
Sounds similar to the tobacco shops in Austria selling these "bitcoinbon" coupons, but I believe they do not accept BTC at their shops. I really wanted to buy one of these coupons but unfortunately I haven't had the chance to yet. They're usually placed next to Amazon and Google gift cards, so they are easy to be noticed by anybody. |
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2140 is a long way to go. Assuming this, it might be an end for miners because mining was their way of their profit, there will be a sudden shift here.
Are you trying to say that it would be okay for Bitcoin to no longer have miners? Then, people will just move from Bitcoin to other crypto? Such a pessimistic thought. Mining will turn into sustaining the blockchain, and as far as I know they will still earn money off tx fees so that they can continue keeping Bitcoin on its feet. Otherwise, there would be no point in mining if there's no profit. We had those people at the beginning of BTC mining so many coins just for fun, nowadays it costs a fortune to do so. As soon as the last block gets mined though, the price should be very high. There will be no more BTC to mine so if price becomes kinda stable until then, it might drastically change due to the fears and thoughts of the market. Correct me if I'm wrong regarding the first paragraph. |
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