Does anyone have a source for cheaply getting the case made in the US?

I went to my local guy who does plastic cutting and for a one off job the price was $75. Which is just nuts for something that although it does look cool, is not going to do much other then sit around and be shown off to people now and then.

-Dave

That covers 90% of it. The last 10% is the fact that she (and most other politicians) have to cater to what they think the majority of their constituents want an like. So people hear ransowmware & crypto she has to give the 20 second sound bite about it.



What gets me is the fact that people keep going back for more. The 1st 5 times Wells Fargo screwed you over were not that bad so you go back for a 6th?
It's not like it's not common knowledge of how bad they are, and what they do. And its not like it's that difficult to go to one of the dozens of other banks and credit unions all over the place and move your account.

I deal with Chase as my primary bank, did not start with them my account wound up there through decades of mergers with other banks. Technically I have had the same account and routing number for 30+ years and probably 6 or 7 bank names. They treat me well and since I have been with them for so long I do get a lot of perks. But lets be honest, the 1st time they screw me over, I am gone. Due to a hilarious miscommunication a couple of years ago I put in a check that was not good at the time I deposited it. So it bounced and I got hit with a $15 fee. I called and they took it off. Would I have left if they had not, probably not since it was my mistake anyway.

Had a the same issue with the 2nd check issued with the same miscommunication. BoA would not take the fee off. This was after they lost another deposit about a month earlier for close to a week and that *was their fault*. Pointed that out to them, they did not care. Moved that checking account to a local credit union. Had I not had the issue with the lost deposit I probably would not have cared, since yes I did put in a bad check. But not to give me back a few bucks after they did make a major whoops a month earlier.  I'm gone.

When I hear about people getting hit by Wells Fargo time and time again, I just think about all the people who send their BTC to the double your crypto scams. Or the ones who we see here on the forum who play at the online casinos that have dozens of scam reports against them but figure "1xBit has scammed 100s of other people, but I'll be fine"

-Dave

Querying the database directly if you code well is going to be a lot more efficient then JSON RPC. Not that JSON RPC is bad, its not not as efficient.
The downside of direct to the DB is you probably have to do have a bit more coding and know a bit about the DB structure.

Running it on your own box that has enough power, which would be faster it's probably going really depend on how well you wrote the scripts.

-Dave

So long as you are sure. Is the case a big heatsink or is there a fan?


That is more then fine. It's actually newer then the one I had on my old node in a box setup.


Actually TOR might be the issue, I am re-syncing 2 nodes on the exact same hardware one TOR on clearnet and as of now the clearnet is at 55% and the TOR is below 40% done.


It saves the bandwidth and a bit of time. And you don't have to have it online so you can do it anywhere with any device and just come back later.
If you want to say put up 3 more nodes to play with, you don't have to download the entire blockchain 3 more times, its just copy - paste - wait.

-Dave

An electrum server, is a bitcoin node with a separate database server that allows any lite wallet that follows the protocol to query and send BTC transactions.

There are several implementations of it in a few different programming languages that fulfill different roles.

There are ones that run on a lot less resources but are only really suitable for one person running a small wallet and others that can handle 1000s of queries from dozens of people at the same time.

Not saying one is better then the other, as always use the right tool for the job.

-Dave

The biggest thing missed here is where you are located and what are the fees really going to look like in the end.

Any why credit cards? You are going to take a massive hit with fees. Cash will always be better.
And if you are US based you can use many services / ATMs that take cash.

If I am in the middle of Mexico or Italy the answer is going to be different of what is the best way to do it instantly.

-Dave

The txindex=1 might slow it down a tiny bit like add two or three days onto since you are indexing as you go but not weeks of time.

Running both mainnet and testnet really should not matter much, once again add a day or two onto the sync and once the testnet is fully done it should really make no resource difference.

How is your cooling? Thermal throttle can be a big issue with RPis at times.

What type of USB drive are you using? A slower 5400RPM with limited cache might cause some slowdowns as it's indexing and downloading and verifying 2 blcokchains.

Are you downloading over clearnet or TOR? I have had some painfully slow downloads over TOR for the initial sync at times.

Could also be a combination of things. None of which add a lot of time. But 3 days here and 3 days there and another few days due to something else....

I would make a backup of the blockchain files someplace for now, so if you ever have to or want to do it again you have a known clean copy of the blockchain up to today.
Does not help you figure out why it took so long this time, but if you have to do it again it's one less thing to worry about.

-Dave

No issues, the fan is really quiet. You do have have to make sure that when assembling it the thermal pads that come with it are on the chips properly and that thay do touch the heatsinks on the case but that is about it.

As for the cost. I could have easily saved $30+ by not using an case that has a m.2 drive attachment included and going for a cheap generic one, and another $30+ by using a regular USB drive instead of a m.2 but I went for looks and style. And still came to under $200

So
This: https://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-HDTB410XK3AA-Canvio-Portable-External/dp/B079D359S6/
instead of this: https://www.newegg.com/silicon-power-ace-a55-1tb/p/N82E16820301414 (which has actually gone up a bit since I ordered it)

And
This: https://www.amazon.com/iUniker-Raspberry-Aluminium-Heatsink-Supply/dp/B07D3S4KBK/
instead of this: https://www.amazon.com/Argon-Raspberry-Support-B-Key-Compatible/dp/B08MJ3CSW7

Which would have brought the cost down to under $150 including tax.
Can also get a pre packaged RPi kit that has the Pi & Case & Power Supply & SD and saved another few dollars.

But none of it would not look as cool :-)

With the Argon case since it gives you full size HDMI ports and since it has the internal drive when I bring it someplace to show people it's easier to carry and easier to show the output on a TV without brining the mini-HDMI to full size cable.

-Dave

<cough> Node in a box </cough> and run it at home. Yes I am making assumptions about your home internet, and that you have an RPi and drive handy but still.

Seriously, for the most part it's just storage. The explorers do not take that much CPU / RAM to run till you get dozens of hits a minute.

-Dave

That is a REALLY long time. This config: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5158920.msg58008085#msg58008085 did it in under a week.
Was this an older 2GB unit? Slow internet? something seems off. Unless you are doing something else with the Pi at the same time.
Or if you don't have good cooling it might throttle a lot. A bad power supply might also cause some issues, but a month still seems long.

-Dave

Although as you said it's pointless no matter what, for efficiency it would probably be easier to write something the queried the electrumx database directly instead of using the client.
If you don't mind slightly old data, with the dump that loyce has it is simple to put it into some db and just run queries.

For more efficiency still just import the addresses, you don't need the amounts. Once you match a funded address you then look at a live explorer to see if there is anything there.

Still as waste of time......

-Dave

I think it should be changed to neutral.

I know I have gone on this rant before but I'll do it again briefly here.
On this forum as of now there is no differentiation between 'trading feedback' and 'general feedback'
So, when you leave a negative or positive for anyone who you have not traded with or know actively how they trade it distorts it.

Looking at his feedback iv4n has promoted many questionable things over the years, so if we had 'general feedback' that would be a good place for a negative.
But we don't, we only have the 1 feedback. And it is supposed to be for TRADING. Does not matter what else they say or do.

If you don't like it, talk to the boss:

Makes you wonder how many things like this happen that have nothing to do with JPM Chase / Petrobras / whoever and more about the employees working for them.
Back in 2011 a barrel of oil was in the $110 range. So 300,000 barrels is barely $33 million in total. Even if JPM was getting them at a hefty discount (say 1/2 price) and reselling them above market price (say $120 a barrel) you are talking about less then $20 million.

Not worth it for a major bank. Worth it for a few corrupt employees on both sides.

Not saying banks don't do bad things just that the numbers really look too small for them to bother at the institutional level.

As for the amount of bad things that other places do with other things vs BTC it really is just a numbers game and PR.
BTC does not have anyone running a PR office to bury bad news about it or correct misinformation in the news. So it's easier to bash.

But, it's not like BTC is going away.

-Dave

So I decided to put together an umbel box to compare it to raspiblitz / mynode

Hardware:
RPi4 4GB $55
Argon ONE M.2 Case for Raspberry Pi 4 $45
1TB M.2 sata drive $79
16GB SD card & Power Supply $15.00

So total cost $194 (+ tax)

Power draw during initial sync 1.1A


Still playing around with it. Will report in later.
VERY VERY slick GUI in my opinion.

Seems to be a nice build, I like the app store concept to add features / services.

Might be my new go-to node in a box.

-Dave

As others have said, looking at it, it's 95% certain to be an exchange.
They took all their inputs and now customers are withdrawing and they are shrinking the wallet.

I am saying most likely an exchange since most casinos tend to send out their payouts at scheduled intervals and in batches.
This looks like people just withdrawing over time.

-Dave

You kind of need an electrum node for mobile wallets / lightweight wallets on your phone / tablet / netbook anything that where even running a pruned node is not viable.
Even if you have a powerhouse laptop that can handle everything without stress if you go on vacation how is the Wi-Fi / Internet in general at the hotel? Do you want to have to sit for 2 hours while you get the blocks you missed while getting there because of crap bandwidth?


More or less yes. You either do it yourself or have 0 idea what is being done with the data.
I have an open electrum node for people to use. Am I more or less trustworthy then some random public node? I know I am, or would at least like to think I am.
You don't know that.

-Dave

And I know some people probably want me to shut up about them by now, but you don't even need to know anything about linux / programming / tech because all of the node in a box appliances that I keep talking about have some form of a block explorer built in or with a 1 click install.
raspiblitz / mynodebtc / umbrel

Take your pick and do it yourself.

-Dave

I remember some conversation abut that when it popped up like 4 or 5 years ago. And some people were upset because they ran a bunch of queries for firstbits there and were freaking out that 'the man' now has their information. 

As for the Electrum nodes. The more you want privacy the more work you have to put into it, by running your own nodes & servers. The issue is that too many people do not know how, and of those that do know how to do it, many do not want to be bothered.

Not saying that we should throw our hands up and do nothing, just dealing with the reality of it all.

-Dave

Unless you have very limited bandwidth, less then 4GB RAM or less then a 500GB free on your HDD there is no reason you cannot download the entire blockchain.
Depending on the amount of RAM in your system and speed of your internet connection it can take from a day or so to couple of weeks.

As n0nce asked. What is the issue you are having?

-Dave

But there is not any link on their site that I can see that says "having issues reaching us at times, click here"
Even you posted the link from slackexchnage about it, nothing on their archive itself.
Yes, I am complaining about a customer service issue on a free site / service. But, how many people try it, have it not work for one reason or another and never go back to them.

Now, with firefox pushing the secure DNS and using cloudflare by default I don't see the situation getting better.

-Dave