The only way, I imagined to have 0 leaks is to buy a phone, import electrum, then import the XPUB and generate wallets to receive coins. Then check the balance through Tor with wifi in a cafeteria for example. That is why I was asking if there is device to just generate wallets.
Actually some of the Electrum servers also leak information about the addresses in a wallet and their transactions/funds. All the SPV wallets (light wallets that connect to external servers) face, in a way or another, this same problem. If you want proper privacy, I think that the actual way is a bit more complicated, involving you install Bitcoin Core and download the full blockchain. I think that in order to import a master public key you may also have to install an Electrum server and use Electrum with your own server. I've done that a few months ago.
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While i agree with your logic, i managed to find some BTC seller who accept RUB at HoldHodl[1]. But obviously the rate isn't fair. At time of writing the post, those seller charge 4-30% higher.
That's not unexpected, by far. Keep in mind that any seller risks that until the point he will spend those RUR they will probably worth much less than at the moment of trade. And obviously the sellers also try to profit greatly...
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swapping a coin under investigation to other coins may alter the flow of that coin and make it difficult to trace.
Um.. not really... Do you realize that the coins in the cex account are only entries in a database, associated with an account id? Do you realize that after one deposited coins there, those coins can be spent (by cex) for other users' withdrawals, still his account id keeps track about his current amount of coins? All the trades done by that account are also part of the same database, linked to the same account id. So tracing the coins should be easy, no matter they are Bitcoin or USD pegged whatever.
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Because if poeple would sell their rubles for Bitcoin as the ruble becomes worthless, it means somebody is selling those bitcoins for rubles, right?
That's why I said the options are limited. The available options are most probably in-country, either face to face, either with the account at the same bank. Don't rule out completely the option that some Russians may need to sell BTC for fiat (RUR, USD, EUR) for their daily spending.
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Nothing to be sad about except probably accept that everything crypto, including Bitcoin, is basically a peace time solution and are not suitable for the imagined dystopias and wars. Bitcoin's network depends on an uninterrupted, peace-time supply of Electricity and great Network infrastructure. Both of these things are targeted in wars.
So while Bitcoin will still be good for safekeeping your wealth and taking it over the borders in wartime, that wealth will definitely fall down in value while uncertainties continue. Still, we cannot possibly be at war always and at war everywhere. So bitcoin is still a safe bet in the longer term. People haven't seen enough uncertainty to believe that for Bitcoin. They intuitively think of Gold as THE ASSET. So, no grudges against gold there. Bitcoin's still a baby for war times.
Gold is difficult to carry with you. Gold is heavy. Gold has to be declared at the border. One can easily hide with himself one or more copies of his wallet seed, sometimes even in the plain sight and go on. Even a hardware wallet is not a problem at the customs. Indeed bitcoin can be difficult to spend if electricity / internet is down (although smartphone + power bank can solve the problem if the electricity is not completely wrecked), but I don't know how many would accept gold either, since the risk of receiving counterfeit/something that's not gold is pretty high. I don't say gold is bad. What I say that neither of the two is perfect.
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I was working on a method to secure seed words
You do realize that the better/stronger your method is, the better the chance that an accident/stroke/brain damage (which I hope will never happen!) can make the coins unrecoverable by your family, right? You do realize that in 10 years you may have forgotten the wonder method for securing the seed? Sorry, no matter how good or bad your method is, you should not use that. And an advice: it may be better to put that .. key... into a code tag, since now it strangely shows (at least to me) a space character that doesn't actually exist
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The challenge here now is the "technical know how" is it every body that can be able to afford the cost to run a full node transaction considering the technicality, fund and a capacity of about 400gb memory space among others, although use of paper wallet here as such in hardware wallets can still goes along way providing suitable solution to securing privacy and having control over your coins and the respective keys to them.
I see no challenge, really. If one has no technical knowledge a hardware wallet covers most of the security he needs and he can continue by reading a few non-technical things, but not much more. And a light wallet like Electrum for Desktop or Mycelium for Android don't need 400GB and such, they are pretty straightforward and small. I think that paper wallets are a (technical) step forward, not for everybody. Yes i read it on the news about how account belonging to Russians were laid on embargo and the innocent citizens are suffering for this, and this call for a total avoidance of centralized exchanges because to me using them is synanymous to using fiat banks as they serve as a third party which can be easily use in tracking individual user by government or any private or corporate organizations as no privacy protocol is strictly adhere by them all.
Indeed, centralized exchanges are somewhat like banks - in relation to KYC, legislation, sanctions -, but they're even worse actually than banks because: * in Europe 100k EUR/person/bank is backed by the government; this doesn't happen with exchanges, no matter what their owners say (some may be insured or have a reserve fund, but inside job/theft and sloppy handling can happen) * an exchange may tell it was hacked, close the business and leave you without your coins; or be hacked for real, with same result * phishing schemes can steal your money usually easier from an exchange than from a bank * you can easily mistake your overly complicates security settings at certain exchanges (like believing that 2FA keeps your account safe while your API keys are exposed) * you can get your phone stolen, having both the 2FA and the exchange's app on the phone.
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It's not the first scammer with "wide" and stupid retaliatory feedback. I have my "painting" too, from g.p. and such.
We know that those don't mean anything, but: * newbies may not know that and may even get a wrong impression about somebody because of this * lower ranks may be afraid to post real negative feedback because of this
The problem is, on the other hand, that "not regulated" is crystal clear and if admin starts to add exceptions.. he may be opening Pandora's box. Still... I think that a rule on removing all the trust feedback a banned user does may make sense. In most cases it won't help, still...
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I don't know what are Symbolic links, chainstate or indexes, I'm new to Bitcoin Core, I had used online wallets and now hardware wallet (trezor). I will search on Google, hope to find something useful and make the change you said.
Symbolic links are some sort of shortcuts. You put a shortcut in a folder telling that the date is somewhere else. The system will see the data like it's in the original place. A google result that could explain it better is: https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/chainstate or indexes are 2 subfolders of your (Bitcoin Core's) data folder. My point was to move the current content of those folders to the SSD and put (on the HDD) symbolic links to point to the new location. When I've done that myself the speed improvement was significant. At the end, if you want to have all the data on HDD and move the content back, you'll have to pay attention at removing the symbolic links (you may have to google a little).
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I get your point and it's valid point when a Russian trading with foreigner. But i meant Russian trying to find Russian BTC seller where both of them use Russia bank (local bank transfer).
That may work if the other party also has and account to the same bank. I think that transfers between Russian banks also needs SWIFT. But yes, you're right, this may be indeed one use case that doesn't need face to face. (I've added now an update to the other post too)
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Forgot to mention, I have 256GB SSD (where is installed the windows and some small apps) and 1TB HDD where I have 800 GB for Bitcoin Core.
Use Symbolic links and put the chainstate (and indexes too if you have) onto SSD. You can move them back after the initial sync has reached 100%. Of course, these operations need Bitcoin Core not be running when you do that.
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However, is this even possible? What would a Russian do in this situation? Are they able to just transfer their Rubles to exchange, purchase Bitcoin, and then transfer it to a wallet?
Since Russia banks are out of SWIFT, Russians will not be able to transfer their rubles to most of the exchanges, hence I think that they don't have much of other choices than finding other individuals inside Russia willing to sell Bitcoin for RUR. While they can't use most centralized exchange, their option isn't that limited. They still can rely on decentralized website and P2P/OTC medium such as Bisq and HodlHodl to find Bitcoin seller though. From what I've understood from here (Romanian, here's a Google translation), if it's out of SWIFT, the customers of the bank can only withdraw money, nothing else. So I expect that - in a way or another - only face to face trades could take place there. Edit: as seen here (thanks ETFbitcoin for pointing out), if the other party has account at the same bank, it may work P2P without the need for face-to-face.
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However, is this even possible? What would a Russian do in this situation? Are they able to just transfer their Rubles to exchange, purchase Bitcoin, and then transfer it to a wallet?
Since Russia banks are out of SWIFT, Russians will not be able to transfer their rubles to most of the exchanges, hence I think that they don't have much of other choices than finding other individuals inside Russia willing to sell Bitcoin for RUR. And, if so, is it attainable? Will someone who has worked their entire lives and saved money for their family's future trust a strange technique to transfer that money to a USB stick?
Bitcoin price has quite a history of going up and down. One needs to have been reading and trusting Bitcoin for long term - the past charts show that for minimum 4 years it was usually a good investment. But right now? No. One may need to access the money "tomorrow". Also, as I said, it won't be easy to find sellers. Right now Russians would better exchange their fiat in any other currency. But I think that they've already missed that train too... PS. Keeping the private keys/seed on an USB stick is unsafe. Paper or steel are better, usually kept in multiple places.
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start using and supporting decentralized wallets like 1. Hardware wallet 2. Electrum wallet 3. Trust wallet 4. Atomic wallet 5. Bread wallet
I find it rather strange that Bitcoin Core is not on the list at all. Also Hardware wallet is not one wallet - there are many brands and models. While the intention of the post is good, it does need improvements. Some other notes: * I would warn people against web wallets - even those that are not custodial * I would warn people against generating paper wallets online * I would warn people about open source vs closed source wallets * I would mention that private key or seed has to be backed up safely offline in multiple places.
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Hello dear plebs:
I am a pleb looking for help.
I am trying to find out if there is a HW with the option to import just the master public key to generate addresses (Only watch-wallet). I know it is possible with Bluewallet to import the public master key, but I do not want to even want to connect to internet with the phone, neither I want to have my master public key in my phone or export the skeleton to electrum in my pc.
I am looking for HW with just the public key, (without the private key inside) to generate addresses to receive, never spend, HODL For4.
Thanks
Yours sincerely anonymous pleb-
The point of having HW is to safely sign transactions. If you don't want to sign transactions, you don't need the HW. As you know, HW works with a companion software wallet after all. You can import the master public key into any software wallet... As long as master public key is imported, the wallet doesn't have to be connected to the internet (just then you will see addresses, but not the current funds on those addresses). I feel that you misunderstood something from how Bitcoin works....
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I see PoW vs PoS also in a philosophical way: it's meritocracy vs oligarchy. For PoW one has to work hard and good to obtain rewards and trust. For PoS the rich ones rule; you have no other choice than just trust them because they've bought that coin.
I know that PoS lovers will come and tell that ASICs can also be bought on big numbers by the rich. Still not the same. PoW is the right direction. The only thing I'd like to see more is that large ASIC farms start building their own sources of regenerable energy (although I know that the PoW vs Environment drama is fake)
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First many still don't know the difference between custodial and non custodial wallet and the benefits of owning a non custodial wallet. Many crypto investors just feel all wallets provides equal benefits
Well pointed out. I feel that this is the main reason for this topic. (PS. You may want to fix your quotes though) If it is somewhat true that about 5% of the world's people own Bitcoin or have been involved in some way with other cryptocurrencies, then it is clear that most still trust banks more, and that a good portion of those who own a cryptocurrency still trust custodial services. Maybe that will change now that people in Russia are being forced to look for an alternative because of all the sanctions that are in place and those that are yet to come.
Indeed, the percents are very small. I don't know if it's 5%, however, small. But it doesn't necessarily means they trust banks more, I think it means they don't trust (or simply fear of) bitcoin. It was said for so long that's unsafe to keep money in Bitcoin, most do follow that. It also doesn't mean that 95% would keep their money in banks, some don't trust banks and keep fiat at home (which makes them perfect targets for thieves). The problem is that the money in banks is (at least lately in Europe) even backed by the state (under 100k/person/bank, which is usually enough). So extra trust... until something bad happens (remember that in Iceland everybody lost all their bank deposits in 2008? or just look what happens now in Russia and Ukraine too; even in Romania panic did strike and many ATMs were empty yesterday) If we take El Salvador as an example of a country that first declared Bitcoin a legal tender, Russia may be the second big experiment where Bitcoin will become the best alternative if its financial system collapses. Although I have no doubt that the regime will react very sharply if people start using Bitcoin en masse, which poses a far greater danger to the government than people living in misery and poverty.
El Salvador is a wonderful example to follow, although afaik most people there too use mainly custodian services. And Russia... I don't know if I want it declare Bitcoin as legal tender, nor used by their government; it may label it criminals' money and I don't want that.
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Somebody's selling cheap. Again.
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Thanks for the laughs. Bingo - we will see what come next. China? Queen? Looks like Defcon 2 is next. Yep, my vote also goes for Defcon 2. And we're early. China may be next. Although.... how's the queen lately, since she also had/has covid? And there I though I started to feel better.
Don't celebrate victory yet, the bugger loves to play dead for a short while just to hit in another area. I surely hope it's not the case for you, still, make sure you're prepared (and continue to take medicine if you started doing that).
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