Crypto-psychology is the discipline of how cryptographic protocols, blockchain technology, and cypherpunk activity alter the way people understand money, money symbolism, and the behaviors and emotions they cause. Crypto-psychology examines human behavior from the perspective of blockchain systems and open source, peer-2-peer technologies.

Most commercial transactions in modern societies are based on an explicit or implicit protection of both parties (seller - consumer). The protection may be provided by an intermediary party or ultimately by the law.

When I buy a product or service online with my VISA, I can reverse the transaction if the seller does not deliver according to terms.
For larger purchases (car, home) the transfer of funds is usually through a bank (which can authorise a cheque or provide proof of deposit of the amount).
In case of dispute I can ultimately seek protection from law.

I know that these systems of protection sometimes fail, but this is not the point. Even the implicit sense of protection often facilitates everyday transactions.

On the other hand, transactions with cryptos are based on trust, at least as long as cryptos are not recognised as legal form of payment and remain anonymous.

Do you agree that this lack of protection is an obstacle to the wide-spread use of cryptos as money?
What solutions do you see?

Bitcoin's base layer transactions on the blockchain are irreversible and final. It's no exaggeration to say that the entirety of bitcoin's system of blockchain, mining, proof of work, difficulty etc, exist to produce this history of transactions that is computationally impractical to modify.

In the literature on electronic cash, this property was often refer to as "solving the double-spending problem".

I just thought about a little theory. When I usualy tell friends or people in generall about cryptocurrencies and that they need to inform themselves about the subject the feedback is 90% positive. People realize that cryptocurrencies is the next "big thing".

So back to my theorie. In recent days there were a lot of discussions about Jamie Dimon CEO of JP Morgan spreding FUD. So if he actually gets people aware of crypto even by bad puplicity won't it be positive for the market despite causing a price drop by panic sellers.

So do you think even bad news about crypto in the wider media will drive the market up in the long run becuase it makes people aware?

There's no such thing as bad publicity

Yeah I was surprised at the fact that they were still open for business. I only went back to check my account after I saw the old thread for Qoinpro being revived and i checked out the site - completely new design but all balances carried over.

I can safely confirm that i did NOT receive any sort of substantial amount of money during my membership(spanning at LEAST 3 years). Even with the rise in btc and alt prices, i've only gotten a few cents.

Based on my experience, and every other person it seems like it's just not worth it...

BTC has no role to play in the real world affairs. People who try to create such a role are confused between asset and currency. The design itself only considers pure virtual activity with no touch with real world. People also mistake the buzz words such as "peer-to-peer", "border-less", "decentralised" etc as the problems to be solved. But sadly these are not real problems. The insignificant problems (speed and fees) are hardly enough to sell and these problems are going away anyway. I have no respect to Nakamoto because he ignored the most important element (govt and authorities) in social situation and still want to sell it as some solution to social situations. Hardly any country has regulatory framework that deals with btc.

The problems are rooted in the philosophy of crypto, not in the code. So, the beauty of blockchain tech is irrelevant for btc. It is like selling a bad app by showing how great Android is.

1) Bitcoin does not provide controlled visibility, because it doesn't recognise the existence of governments. Now if you make changes to provide visibility to authorities, ALL privacy is gone. If you don't, then ALL visibility is gone.

2) Fees are rooted in the design. Whatever consensus you invent for a public blockchain, you can't escape rewarding the work of validating transactions. So zero fees are not possible.

Public blockchains sacrifice all good qualities of a business application for the sake of trust-less environment which is not even actually a problem to solve in many contexts. Also they make it extremely costly to run small amount of code or small storage. Who wants their business code to be validated by all arbitrary people in the world?

Most ICOs are sharing economy concepts similar to uber model. Lack of a responsible intermediary and costs will make these "innovations" to fail, if they ever have to touch real-world activities.

Bulk of the blockchain activity will move to business collaborations which might not even look like a blockchain. Crypto coins will be used in most business blockchains, but these coins will be value-less tokens and very specific to the business or institutional activity.

It didn't take long for the world of crypto-currencies to shrug off Jamie Dimon's self-tighteous denigration of the decentralized currency that could directly 'disrupt' his cash cow businesses; and furthermore, as The South China Morning Post reports, China's bitcoin market alive and well as traders defy crackdown.

Although the crackdown has dissuaded large swathes of less-experienced investors from participating in the trade, market participants point to the limits Chinese regulators ultimately face in controlling the industry, where many users are anonymous and difficult to track.

In the short-run, the crackdown has also created an arbitrage opportunity for investors, with the price of bitcoin in China now trading at a discount to overseas exchanges.

I thought bluetooth was just a signal that transmits from your device when you want to share something? What am I missing here?

If exploited, the vulnerabilities could enable an attacker to take over devices, spread malware, or establish a ‘man-in-the-middle’ to gain access to critical data and networks without user interaction,” according to the company. “The attack does not require the targeted device to be paired to the attacker’s device, or even to be set on discoverable mode… since the Bluetooth process has high privileges on all operating systems, exploiting it provides virtually full control over the device.

What if someone creates a better digital currency? Will bitcoin be phased out? And how likely  is it for that to happen?

A network effect (also called network externality or demand-side economies of scale) is the effect described in economics and business that one user of a good or service or technology has on the value of that product to others. When a network effect is present, the value of a product or service is dependent on the number of others using it.

And how about storing personal data? It will be scary when everyone can see my personal data on blockchain.

It is important to note that there are two distinct blockchains being held; one which contains transactions relating to which users have registered and which users still have a vote, the second containing the contents of the vote (such as what party was voted for.). Through the use of these two distinct blockchains we ensure voter anonymity when selecting their vote.

the biggest question that should be answers first is : WHY?

what is blockchain? it is a chain of blocks.
what would these blocks regarding votes contain? the votes themselves? why? what would be the point of creating a chain of votes in form of blocks and hold them somewhere? what is wrong with a normal database instead of a blockchain?

or maybe you mean some form of cryptographic proof? that is not blockchain.
it is something else, but who will issue the keys for creating the "vote" cryptographically and how would you prevent people from having multiple keys?
and the final question is that will it be worth all these efforts to replace the old system that works?


I see others saying "it is a good idea" but in my opinion your idea is way too vague and general. you need to explain how will it work and what are the angles then decide if it is a good or a terrible idea. because it can be either.

Satoshi left a text message in the first mined Bitcoin block which reads 'The Times 3 January 2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks'. The text refers to a headline in The Times published on 3 January 2009.

What do you think this means and why was this done?

Alistair Darling has been forced to consider a second bailout for banks as the lending drought worsens.

The Chancellor will decide within weeks whether to pump billions more into the economy as evidence mounts that the £37 billion part-nationalisation last year has failed to keep credit flowing. Options include cash injections, offering banks cheaper state guarantees to raise money privately or buying up “toxic assets”, The Times has learnt.

Atomic swaps are the first sign in a new wave of decentralization. It is going to be interesting to see how the trend develops, since for larger and more complex transactions with fiat currencies, LocalBitcoins and established exchanges are still the place to be.

“The panic has to set in at some point,” argued Beams. “But it will do so at different times for different governments, and will produce a range of responses from them when it does.

Beams suggested that the only way to really stop decentralized crypto-fiat exchanges would be to outlaw Bitcoin trading altogether.

However, he thinks that this sort of heavy-handed attack seems unlikely to be attempted in the U.S. or Europe because there are just too many vested interests in Bitcoin now. It’s more likely that the authorities will continue to insist on KYC, tolerate compliant centralized exchanges and demonize the decentralized ones.

“With all that having been said, I’m actually optimistic,” concluded Beams. “Attacks by state actors — real and threatened — are making every part of this ecosystem stronger. Bitcoin has proven itself anti-fragile as hell thus far, and by the time all the battles have been waged, what will emerge on the other side are alternatives to existing financial institutions — money, banks, exchanges and all the rest — that are actually better in every way than their traditional counterparts.

I don't know why people say bitcoin is gambling. Its not gambling. You are investing your money and time. You use your internet. So its not gambling dealing with it.

Are any charities or non-profit organizations accepting Bitcoin or other altcurrencies?

It seems like the technology would be a huge leap forward for charities and NPOs because of the transparency involved, especially with regard to blockchain. Of course, donors would need to be savvy with the technology.

So, let's start listing them here. Which charities and NPOs are accepting bitcoin or altcurrencies?

I already know that, just asking about any info of the site mentioned in the OP.

BitcoinCollector is a free bitcoins sites aggregator. That means that we maintain a list of sites that offer free bitcoins, and presents them to you in a way that allows you to collect them in a timely manner.

Today I was reading some theories about who is Satoshi Nakamoto, and it came to me, that DPR (Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silkroad) is Satoshi Nakamoto

Most people can agree that Satoshi:
* is American
* is a skilled programmer
* knows a lot about cryptography and economics

Guess what, DPR studied economics extensively in college, and we all know DPR can code and have a keen interest in cryptography.

The biggest hint is the perfectly lined up timeline:
The last time Satoshi was involved in Bitcoin was around January 2011, Silkroad launched in February 2011. So if DPR was Satoshi, this would explain why Satoshi suddenly backed off from the Bitcoin development, he was too busy developing and running Silkroad!

Then I digged a little more and found:
DPR moved 1000 BTC that was mined in January 2009, which can only belong to Satoshi or Hal Finney. We know Hal Finney isn't DPR, so there's only one possibility left.

Also this would explain why after DPR was arrested, Satoshi's Bitcoins were never sold or moved, Satoshi himself never showed up anywhere. Because DPR lost his freedom and is rotting in a prison cell.

DPR (Ross Ulbricht) is Satoshi Nakamoto, he was arrested and sentenced to life in prison not just for running Silkroad, it is for something much more.