For BTC, you should use ASIC hardware,
For ETH, you can use GPUs (Nvidia or AMD), but as of recently ASICs are also available,
For the various Altcoins you can use GPUs as well, although there are some alts minable with CPU.

This is an old dilemma as to why exactly Satoshi used double SHA256. It has likely to do with preventing possible length extension attacks:

https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/779/hashing-or-encrypting-twice-to-increase-security/884#884

Also check out this BCT thread devoted to this subject:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=45456.0

Those are default forum times, and bitcointalk.org's default time zone is UTC time:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1970889.0

Last time I checked there is no difference between UTC and GMT:

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=UTVkW9uXI4bA6ATC5aOwBg&q=utc+time+vs+gmt&oq=utc+time+vs+gmt&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0j0i22i30k1l5.987.6360.0.6572.16.15.0.0.0.0.182.1948.0j14.14.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..2.14.1939.0..0i22i10i30k1.0.QCuU7QMGxvY

So how come I didn't make 3 post on 2nd of August?

1. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4803454.msg43333821#msg43333821 on: August 02, 2018, 12:15:36 PM
2. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4800698.msg43341900#msg43341900 on: August 02, 2018, 02:12:57 PM
3. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4800698.msg43341900#msg43341900 on: August 02, 2018, 02:36:50 PM

Dear campaign manager,

I appreciate your 24-hour payment schedule, but it would be very helpful if you could tell us when this period actually stars (or ends), as we all probably live in different time zones. That way we would be sure to fulfill our required minimum of posts. Thanks.

Yes, that's what I meant.

Great to have a user friendly setup. I'm sure everyone, and especially newbies will appreciate this.

I'm currently on hold with mining, but next time I power up my GPUs, I will try you solution. By the way, 1.6% dev fees is less than some of your competition.

Is there an interval that you can set so that it doesn't switch too often. With other solutions of this type, I find it really annoying when the program has to switch constantly from one algo to another.

The other question is how the initial testing is performed. Is there a lengthy initialization period until all possible algos are checked against your hardware?

This post is inspired by a chapter from the book "Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies", called "Public Keys as Identities".

In essence, the authors state that, the closest thing you can have to "identity" in the crypto-world is your public key (or equivalently, its hashed version, which is otherwise known as bitcoin address).

This is certainly nothing new to the more experienced members of this forum, but it can be somewhat confusing for the newbie users.

If you are a beginner, you already know that you have a username and, in addition, you have used an email address to register on the forum. So, at first glance, it might be logical that your identity should be tied to your email address.

However, it is NOT. Don't forget that this is a cryptocurrency forum. There is a better and more secure way in which you can prove your identity. And, it is not connected to your email address.

It has to do with a bitcoin address you own and you have control over. All you have to do is to publish it somewhere (in one of your unedited posts).

In case you need to prove that you are indeed the person who owns your account (for example, in case your account gets hacked), the administrator of this forum requires proof of ownership of that previously published bitcoin address.

In fact, on BCT you can't use your email address to prove your identity even if you wanted to. This inability to prove identity via email address is, surprisingly, something even some of the more experienced users whose accounts have been hacked complain about (from time to time).

But, as already said, your identity is your public key, and I'm not surprised that the administrator of this forum insists on it.

Let's get a little bit more into identities in the crypto space.

If you want to speak to the world on behalf of a certain identity (public key), you have to possess the private key that corresponds to that identity.

This makes a lot of sense, because you can then sign a message by using the corresponding private key and share that message with the world. The world can then verify that it is indeed you, the identity behind that public key, by verifying the signature.

So, again, in the crypto-world, your identity is your public key. Moreover, you can have a lot of public keys (aka bitcoin addresses), and this has as a consequence that you can create numerous identities.

You can use a certain identity for a couple of days and decide to switch to another identity after that.

In the real world, your identity (your identity document) has to be managed by a central authority. And this identity is permanent, or at least not so easy to change.

In the crypto world, your identity is managed by you in a decentralized way, and you can change it as many times as you like.

This loose sense of identity doesn't mean that you are totally anonymous or that you have total privacy. The reason is that your crypto identity leaves traces and behavioral patterns that can be traced and can lead back to your real-world persona.

You can read more about privacy/anonymity in bitcoin here.

Now, because your identity is essentially a random 26 to 35 alphanumeric sequence, you might be wondering if another person could possibly assume the same identity as yours (the technical term is collision). Even if you change your identity 1000 times every day, chances of this happening are negligible. In fact, here is a nice illustration of how impossibly difficult a collision with another bitcoin address is:

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/790e9j/the_probability_of_the_same_bitcoin_address_being/

---

In conclusion, if you are a beginner, to be able to verify your identity in case of unforeseen circumstances, do the following:

 1) learn how to sign a message with your bitcoin address from this excellent tutorial.

 2) sign a message of a predefined format (as explained in step 1) and post it here.

Now you can then be sure that you can prove your identity in case such a proof is needed.

Edit: Revised according to the corrections indicated in @pooya87's post below.

Interesting observations. I wonder whether the opposite is true. Do BNB and the other exchange tokens go down during bullish markets?

Ethash is the "default" option for your graphic card, but in terms of profit, I don't think you would be that far off if you mine cryptonightv7.
The best way is to try, because websites that estimate profitability like whattomine can be unreliable when it comes to finer details.
As for wilkeccak, you would also have to experiment on your own, as it is a relatively new algo and there are no reliable estimates just as yet.
Power consumption, noise, and heat dissipation are factors that are very important as well, but many people choose to ignore them.
All things considered, IMO it is also important to choose a solid coin that will appreciate in value as time goes by.

How about the Ethereum platform doing some kind of control or regulation as to what tokens are allowed to run on their blockchain?
No way this can happen any time soon. At least, that's what Vitalik says and I personally understand his motivation.
But if the ETH platform won't regulate the ICOs that use their blockchain, I don't see any other party doing that.
So it's entirely up to every one of us to vet carefully and promote only solid projects.

Regarding the website links in the newbie accounts, I suppose this can easily be solved by adding a rel="no-follow" attribute in the website URL field. I just checked and currently the link is do-followed, which is like a magnet for these spammers. If this link was made to be no-followed, google wouldn't count it as relevant. Hopefully, as a result of this change, the brand new users whose sole purpose is to obtain a backlink to their website will lose interest to join and spam will be reduced, even if it is a small fraction.

I remember when I first started trading (just for fun) with really small amounts of money. The first 2 trades I made were actually successful, but the funny part is I did the trades in a totally random fashion, without any understanding. Then, on the third attempt the market moved in the wrong direction from what I had been anticipating. After a while I panic sold and lost a lot in relative percentage. So my first mistake as a newbie was panic selling. If only I had waited a couple of days, the market would have turned around and I would have been fine. Lesson learned never to panic sell again.

All things considered, having just 36% reduction of the ETH price this year is great. The only thing that keeps Ethereum from plummeting even further is the flow of seemingly countless ICOs that appear out of thin air every day. This simply cannot last forever. Moreover, if these ICOs were to switch to NEO, EOS, WAVES, or some of the other platforms that compete for the same market, nothing will prevent the Ethereum downfall. Some of these platforms offer better decentralization and much lower fees, so it won't be long before this happens. Ethereum has had the advantage of being the first to offer their decentralized application solution, but it is just a matter of time before a better practical solution takes over. On top of this, all we have seen so far is just constant postponing of their supposed PoS/Plasma/Casper improvements.

I cannot say for sure, but if 24 hour volume is defined as the sum of all buy and sell orders that have happened during the last 24 hours, then the two 1000 BTC transactions should be counted twice, so yes it would be 2000 BTC.

A couple of points caught my attention:

Mining is not free. It costs electricity, there is a hardware investment, and you would probably have to count in a lot of additional expenses, like cost of labor and others. Depending on the country, the costs of mining may approach the costs of direct bitcoin purchase.

Incorrect. The private keys that you need to spend your individual bitcoins are stored in your wallet. The individual bitcoins are just records in the public ledger.

I was initially drawn to bitcoin because of its potential to disrupt the established way we use money in our society. I don't see much has changed in the way people use money, though. Instead of being fully responsible for their funds, the average user depends on others to keep their crypto-currencies safe, like exchanges, online wallets, and what not. I also see more and more banking services and products being moved to the blockchain, replicating the old financial system. It seems to me as if we have transferred our old habits to this new technology, rather than employing its full disruptive potential. I hope this will change in the future as more and more people come on board.

Without any intention to be disrespectful, I don't think you really know what you are doing.

Is the main function of this new cryptocurrency to be offered for sale to obtain some BTC?

Have you ever heard of a blockchain? You have to have a blockchain to be able to integrate a wallet, let alone an online wallet.

WordPress ecosystem? You are kidding, right.

You can take any pair you like and make money. You can trade BTC/USDT or some other ALT/BTC.

You can take advantage of bitcoin's volatility with pretty much any pair. You don't have to wait for an alt to outperform bitcoin, as this will likely never happen. But you can still trade the corresponding pair. Just take a look at any ALT/BTC chart, and you will see uptrends and downtrends and that's all you need to make profit. 

It went up, and then, tomorrow it may go down again. I get your enthusiasm, but if you are happy now, does it mean you are going to be sad when the price starts to go down again?
IMO, it's not a good (mental) place to be in. Unless you constantly want to oscillate between periods of depression and elation.
What one needs to do is to build some kind of resistance to market swings and be confident in the long term success of bitcoin.