Since nobody tells about it, I will. OP, you may want to also take a look/consider Bitwarden. It's free, it's encrypted, its source code is on git. (https://bitwarden.com/, https://github.com/bitwarden)
I think that it even had a review here on bitcointalk, but I cannot find it.
It was recommended here: Do you use a Password Manager? Which one is better?

Well, you've just faced the difference between "the commercial" and the reality.
Nothing wrong, nor unusual. They didn't even lie, just made you have unrealistic expectations. Sorry.

As said, if you want to withdraw to your wallet, you'll have to convert back to fiat, withdraw, then use another exchange platform (which will come with its own rules, hence you better read carefully their expectations - like KYC and residence limitations - and their fees, especially withdrawal fees). Just make sure you go to a reputable platform, not a shady one.

Or you can still keep the coins at PayPal for longer, maybe someday (soon, lol!) they will implement proper crypto withdrawals.

You're a bit late: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5383049

Mining goes on and creates more blocks every ~10 minutes whether there are transactions to process or not.
How you think it was in the early days of Bitcoin? Just look at the blockchain and you'll see how many empty blocks were mined. And even today, empty blocks are not that rare.

No. It's not what we have been talking about. We were talking about how it's advertised. And the advertisement you've been telling about is no different from what we actually have.
I'm not sure why you need re-explained what we have been talking about...

This is the beauty of democracy: they can't. Or better said, they cannot do at the levels China would do.
And for US, the agencies already have the control they need. In US the bank will do all you want if you have the warrant. And the agencies will also not move a finger without a warrant. So there are no real gains there.


Maybe, although VISA/MC are also advertised as safe, secure, fast, convenient. Then what would be the added benefit?


Of course. We're on the same page here.

Just some small questions:
* wasn't this a problem also before bitcoin was invented?
* would this be solved if bitcoin would be completely shut down?
* do you actually know how much is Bitcoin's energy consumption compared to all the rest? (yep, somebody has posted that, 0.14%)

And then... why asking all this only in relation with Bitcoin? Any particularly good reason?

Acolo cred ca cea mai informativa postare este asta: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5372350.msg58526118#msg58526118
Dar 100% clar nu stim.

Asa ca voi repeta (ca tot zicem asta cam toti) :
* nu suntem specialisti
* ceea ce facem e sa dam cu presupusul
* cine are experienta personala, ar fi super din partea lui sa posteze si aici

Doar stii care-i singura solutie: trebuie sa declaram razboi vreunei tari care se misca mai cu talent. Ideal ar fi sa si pierdem. (Vorba unora, poate reusim sa avem si ziua nationala candva cand e mai cald, sa ne putem si bucura de ea.)
Nu prea vad alta solutie sa ajunga cineva competent si harnic "mai sus", si sa si fie lasat sa faca treaba.

Nu uita ca generatiile care ne conduc au un fel de fobie fata de computere si tehnologie. Asa ca reforma, bitcoin si de astea... vise, taica...

I'm not sure what you're expecting from IMF, but I've read some years ago an interesting view: IMF are basically some accountants handling a huge pile of money for lending.

So they care most about the numbers.
And whether we like or not Bitcoin, an accountant will see those coins only as money spent.

If Bukele can convince them he can get the numbers right, if he can convince them that this and that investment will produce money, if he can reduce other costs here and there, he has a chance. A small one, but it's there.

Wrong move? Yes and no. If, as an extreme (and impossible) example, he gets the loan, invests it all into bitcoin, and we get then to new ATH. He can sell and be on a healthy profit.
USD has its own inflation, pretty big actually, and because of that the actual value he has to pay back may be even smaller after some years (especially as the interest is usually rather small).

The problem with IMF loans is the cost in tasks/checkpoints to be achieved and the signals sent to the fiat finances if such a deal is not made (resulting in higher costs for other loans they want to get, resulting in lower rating hence less investments coming from rich countries). And this gives IMF an unnecessarily big power.


Let's see if IMF will succeed in this. Let's see if other countries will adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Let's see if those will also have the economy in deep shit and need help from IMF or not.
But as a good rule.. we don't have the crystal ball, hence let's wait and see.

Me neither.


Here the situation is imho more nuanced.
You say you don't need USD, and you're somehow right, you don't. But the middlemen do, hence, indirectly, you need it to. (Please don't argue with semantics, I think that I am pretty clear).
The same goes with Bitcoin: we won't need US dollar, or fiat, but we will need all payment processors handle bitcoin, not just very few (and, at least in my country, overly expensive).
And maybe CBDCs can help with that, by making the connection easier. Or maybe not. Maybe I'm wrong and I'm hoping too much. We'll see.


Fiat already does that now. And since it's the merchants who pays most of the fees, the consumer may even think that it's for free.
What bitcoin does better now is only 3 things:
* it can be used internationally, easily, without conversion
* it's a much better investment than any other currency
* it works well without banks, KYC, the need to have a certain age or live in a "better" country

Although the 3rd is the reason Bitcoin was made for, many don't care about it (they care only about 2).
I'd say that our aim is to see 1 work much better, i.e. have much more shops accepting bitcoin directly (and whatever the payment processor does internally is a more complicated story).



It depends on the country. China is most probably marching for CBDCs for multiple reasons.
The one that they can advertise is that they won't have to pay big fees to VISA/Mastercard.
The one they are interested in is total control. The control over everybody's money, everybody's wallets. How easy will the opponents made poor in minutes!

No, they won't. Because difficulty will be sky high and the block reward will be much smaller. Because with years the block rewards decrease and with every new miner hashing the difficulty increases.
Actually even current miners may need even cheaper electricity to stay in the business.

Woah. Then it won't be easy...
IMF is hard to convince out of their conditions - possible, but hard. I am curious what can he sacrifice to keep them happy.
I really hope that my worse expectations there won't happen.

While it's good to remind people now and then about this kind of problems, the overall conclusion has not change:
if the hardware wallet falls into the hands of unknown people, it's safer to assume it's going to get broken into/hacked, hence use the backup seed and move the coins away asap.

From what I know they cannot dictate what a country/government has to do (unless it's the condition for a deal, but here it's not the case).
Hence I expect Nayib Bukele see it as an opportunity to play macho and say he doesn't give a fuck on IMF.

The real problems will come only if El Salvador will get to the point they cannot continue without financial help from outside. Then probably Bukele will lose his position, the coins will be sold, and bye-bye legal tender. It would be an extremely sad story; it would be much worse than if bitcoin never was legal tender there and - if we get there - it'll probably be also in times the price is crashing (or crashed) badly.


The impact on price now should be minimal. Or course, some may have the ammo prepared for a bigger-than-expected impact. Because that's how wild-wild-west trading goes.

I've added a little bit of extra, since fiat will not disappear yet, since far too many simply don't have internet nor care about it.


There are other possible reasons, from faster money transfers (especially international) to getting paid for your work without the need of KYC. And investment. People have been always using the stronger currencies as investment. Bitcoin fits that use case too.
(Of course, keeping money away from certain eyes can be also an use case, but not everybody is doing that.)


If the politics would have been different the price for a coin would probably have also been different. Of course, this may not help the unbanked much, although people were always resourceful.
I will avoid the topic you don't like. I will tell about those micro-payment websites some have been using for faucets, I will tell about off-chain "transactions" made by people using the same web wallet like service (eg Coinbase). Or some people can simply ask to get paid into the deposit address of a Bitcoin-card service and spend from that card. So the 5$/day people do have some options (they probably won't know nor care to use more complicated methods anyway).
I don't tell that those methods are good or bad, it's not the purpose here. The purpose is to show that people are resourceful. And I am confident that more ways to handle small transactions will be invented.
I know that you would have preferred bigger blocks. But even if that would have been fixing the fee problem, maybe, it wouldn't have made bitcoin suitable for paying at the supermarket - which is considered sometimes as a measure of success as a currency/coin - because of the block time.


I somehow agree that we should not rely on govt products for success, but on the other hand I don't think that we can otherwise and I tell you why.
You also wrote that the shop will accept govt money because of laws, taxes and such. Shops don't have much of a reason to accept bitcoin, because it means more paperwork and also more risks (sudden price fluctuation). So if we want to use Bitcoin-as-a-coin, we may not have much of a choice than provide a "connector" between bitcoin "world" and fiat/shops/banks world.
When shop owners will start seeing Bitcoin is indeed useful and used, maybe some will start accepting Bitcoin too. But I don't think that a "revolution" will just happen. Until then, we may need to connect with CBDCs. Not seeing them as a savior or such (by far!), still.. they may come handy.

As I said in the previous post. Govt launching CBDC can end up with govt rising more obstacles for bitcoin or can get to help bitcoin connect to the monetary system / the merchants. Not the best solution - imho never is - but one more step forward.

I would rather say that they'll give Bitcoin more legitimacy, since they'll look similar to the average Joe.
More value? Maybe. But Bitcoin already has more value than we'd think, it only has to be discovered (by the world).


I won't be so confident in this. People are easily manipulated and they may trust government easier than this strange free computer project they don't understand.
Many will ask why use Bitcoin when they have their e-Fiat.
Bitcoin will remain a great investment, but CBDCs have the potential to slow down Bitcoin adoption. (They also have the potential to help into a seamless connection between Bitcoin and fiat world, hence using Bitcoin too as a coin. But it may depend from country to country.)

Scammers are most often disallowed from campaigns, hence I believe that you won't be accepted here.
Since you're tagged for advertising scams, I don't really know what are you expecting.

1. Make your own topic with your questions.
2a. Easiest is to install Bitcoin core (and place the .dat file to correct location) to at least extract the relevant private keys from that wallet. Or sync if you can.
2b. Or use Pywallet to extract the private keys: https://notatether.com/bitcoin/how-to-use-pywallet-to-extract-bitcoin-private-keys/

Oh, yes, yet another 0-value click bait journalism. There was no loss at all since nobody has sold.
As investment it would be stupid to not hold for longer. And only when selling you will know for real if there was a profit or not.
Until then there's only virtual/unrealized profit or loss. The mayor should have been starting with telling the journalist to read just a little bit more.