Although the title is imho somewhat misleading, although the formatting could be better, the story is interesting and the conclusions pretty good.
It's interesting to see that it was greed and not the technology that made you "give Bitcoin a second chance" and research deeper than "what's on TV". (please don't take it as criticism)

And although the point about hackers and scammers is there, I'd also add something to your point #3:
Like everywhere on the world, the forum has its fair share of scammers too. This means that one should be extremely careful about what info he shares, extremely careful about private messages and impersonation, even more careful about people inviting out to other platforms and even whatever is posted publicly, since not everybody's intentions are good.

The idea is to ask publicly, but while sharing as much info as possible gets the problem solved easier one has to be careful to not share sensitive info, and also wait for multiple replies and see which can be indeed helpful.



However, you seem to have gotten most of the things right (as already said, you still have to learn about the risks on your computer, for example) and I'm happy for you. Enjoy the ride!

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While movies are not malicious (from what I know), one can easily share there executable files which double-clicked can deploy Pandora's box.
So indeed, extra caution or even avoiding such platforms can be a very good idea. (Cold storage or hardware wallet are another option to consider, depending on the skills, funds, need for convenience).

I clearly understood and I know how rounding works in code (both up and down), just I've never encountered this and I find abnormal.
I mean, in all exchanges I've used the rounding went like:
* if I have to pay, it rounds up my payment
* if I have to receive coins, the number will be rounded down
So no matter what are the 9th+ digits after the decimal point, "the bank always wins".


When my help is no longer needed/useful, let me know so I'll withdraw. No rush, but, as possible, please don't make me check the platform an entire month just to see that's nothing new there.

I don't know how the things happen in UK, but in my country somebody would have been already taking that drive or computer in the same day and selling it for parts or simply the metal - either somebody working there, either (more likely here) homeless people living near the dumps.

So it doesn't matter whether the HDD can withstand the pressure or the corrosion. He's not only searching for the (plastic) needle in the haystack, it's also quite likely the needle is no longer there.


Quite sad story imho. He should move on. He should have acknowledged long ago that the goddess of fortune was not on his side and should have moved on...

I've seen people raising funds by simply posting their bank details to get money sent there. That's already not Bitcoin. I know that the bank can also do nasty things, but I think that you understand my point.

On the other hand, a Bitcoin platform similar to GoFundMe may use a custodial wallet for collecting the funds and have the power to review/seize those funds. (Of course, also an address can be posted for collecting donations.)

So "bitcoin literally fixes this" is pretty much incorrect also in my opinion.

Bitcoin's blockchain is public. One can easily find out how much money is at an address (attention, at an address, not in a wallet - a wallet can have multiple addresses and linking them is not automatic), one can easily look for the addresses containing most coins.

But knowing which addresses are richer is not enough. I believe that the hackers will go for:

* known services (like exchanges) looking for vulnerabilities
* spreading malware, infecting computers, stealing all they can
* phishing
* ...

The advice for not keeping too much funds on hot wallet is not that the more the funds the more likely to be stolen, no. It's because hot wallets are not too safe and whether you have 20$ or 20000$, they can be stolen in the same way. And then it's better you don't have 20k there.

When we talk about bigger funds (and the meaning of "big" may differ from person to person) then cold storage, hardware wallet or, if meant to be HOLD for long, then also paper wallets are advised.
Hot wallets are for daily small funds. Like what you keep in your pocket when you enter a crowded bus/tram/metro.

If speed is crucial, there may be that blockchain and PoW are not what you actually want/need and a common database can do the job.
However, you have to think it well (and then maybe tell us too) what you want to achieve.

The "at least some time" part was always true. I was not expected that the problem of "indefinitely on limbo" is as big as the others stated.
However, having the RBF flag on for last resort is always a good idea.


I know that Electrum for desktop does explicitly have the option to have or not RBF, but I didn't see any such setting in Mycelium.
You can see on a block explorer like mempool.space, blockchair.com (in additional info area) for any transaction that's not confirmed whether it has RBF on or not.

CPFP doesn't have to be enabled. All you have to do is ensure that at least one output of your transaction (that's usually the change) goes to a wallet under your control (so you can spend it with a very high fee in case of emergency, hence doing CPFP = child pays for parent).


Imho, if you have such problems, then you'll probably have to only consolidate only the related inputs. If you are not sure, consolidate only where you have multiple inputs at the same address.
If you consolidate them all, whether you do it in multiple steps or not, can easily get tracked/seen that they all belong to the same wallet.

The problem is that he is asking for non-collateral loans, probably hoping that "his" address can fool anybody.
That's why he got negative trust feedback, not because of that address staking.

This topic comes out now and then, but I also feel that it's not emphasized enough.
Indeed, people tend to hide their paper wallets and seed backups in various ways, others even rely on their memory for "storing" that. (and it's wrong)

But I don't agree with the "over a particular age" part. Accidents do happen even to the young ones. Whether it's car or even more - motorcycle or bike accident, one may lose some memory. Also human mind tends to store/remember incorrectly various things from the past - the farther it is, the more inaccurate it may be. So no, even the young ones should be careful with that.

People hide your paper wallets from potential wrongdoers, but do it in a way somebody you trust can access it (in special circumstances) and use it for you if you - for any reason - are unable to.

Bounties can also have signature campaigns, where posting in threads is also rewarded. And some managers didn't care that much about post quality.
But I may have a wrong impression based on the days people accounts were spamming the altcoins area for the yobit campaign. Since then, at some point, I've set altcoins on ignore and .. maybe the things got better and I've missed that.


The problem starts to arise when the bounty pool contains (more than 50%) altcoins. Without that it would have been easier to choose, although, indeed , Bitcoin Discussion is not much of appropriate either.

Trust is not moderated.
The only way to no longer have that negative trust is to get the users who have left that feedback remove it.

This basically means you'll have to nicely convince them that you deserve a second chance.
...I have quite high doubts that you'll succeed with that.

This is somewhat funny, since I expect that like everywhere on the world, quite a lot of users from those countries will have their windoze in US English only.
So it's a rather stupid way to be "racist"

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It has to be the primary language or any?
It has occurred to me that maybe if we install one of those languages would this malware leave us alone?

It was all in the sticky post you could have been reading before posting.

From what I read here, in case of Mycelium you can "reload account" and try to use those funds. This would mean that it's not re-broadcasting by itself...

Clearly RBF/CPFP are easier, but some just don't use the right wallet for that (RBF not available) or simply send to others/services and no longer have the choice for CPFP.
On the other hand, if you have to RBF a consolidation transaction... it kinda lost the purpose, so just waiting it to either confirm, either get dropped can become the better option.

I think that normally the mempools would start dropping the transaction after 2 weeks, but some may have different settings (longer or shorter period).
Also some nodes will drop the transaction if they are getting crowded (too many transactions, too much memory used, only the more expensive are kept)
So unless you use some odd online wallet that would maybe re-broadcast your tx, from what I know, in 2-3 weeks it should be forgotten if not processed.
And when it's forgotten, you can also tell your wallet forget it, hence getting access to those coins.

I don't have my own experience in this, but there were discussions on this when the mempool was full for long (especially in 2017/2018, and back then the period for getting dropped has been even changed). I hope that I've remembered the things correctly.

It's very good that you created this thread. You cam now see how many things you've misunderstood, from focusing onto certain websites generating paper wallets (which should clearly not be used online and most probably not used at all, when one can easily make a live OS with a wallet and get himself either private key, either a HD seed as he prefers) to adding unnecessary complications to the topic, like spending and change addresses.

I don't want to offend, but from this point on, you'd better correct that long text, so other newbies don't get into the same mistakes as you.

Aside of reading all the comments and corrections you've got (and may continue to get) here, I recommend watching/reading/studying this other topic, which looks pretty good until now: What is a paper wallet?

This is indeed true, however:

* if one starts using the paper wallet, it can - sooner or later - lead to mistakes, from using it in hot wallet to using it for getting fork coins and exposing himself to other possible attacks (replay attack)

* if an address was spent from is, at least in theory, less secure than one never spent from. I don't know the theory that well and from my understanding such exploits won't be available for many years to come (maybe depending on QC too), or at all, still, I don't like it.


So while you're right, I prefer to tell newbies not to spend/"overuse" a paper wallet, especially since it's meant for long time storing, hence better overly safe than sorry.
And it's not that difficult to make another paper wallet for the change when spending is done.

I find the "requirements" far too easy for merit.
However, much more important: after the first good answer you should no longer award another answers for the same question, else people will just copy.

I expect newbies usually (wrongly) think that paper wallet has to have fancy images and can be only on paper.
But the normal simple definition for a paper wallet is: a pair of private key + address one can (and should!) store offline.
Even more, a paper wallet should have only inputs, i.e. no transactions sent out of it. If one sweeps it or imports it into a wallet it should no longer seen as paper wallet since it was online.

Indeed, nowadays, some tend to "widen" the definition of paper to "a HD seed and possibly one or more addresses that will be stored offline". While some may see it a bit far from the initial idea, I find the seed much easier to save this. While the rule of being imported also stands, here some extra problems may arise and it's advised one also write down more "advanced stuff" based on his knowledge, like the derivation path and the software used to generate the seed (since Electrum and Ledger, for example, seeds mean different resulted addresses).


I do like that you advise airgapped system for generating paper wallets. People still don't realize how important it is to be generated safely.

It's not (only) about honor, it's also about (brilliant, and far from micro!) strategy. I keep telling: this is how DCA is done. He just sticks to the plan and DCA-ing. Straight ahead.