I'm probably a bit late now, but maybe useful for the others: A tip we often give out is to hold a rolled up towel against the wound when you need to stand up, cough, etc. Gives it a bit of support and some people find it helps with the pain.

Hope you are well on the mend!

Europol released a report regarding cryptocurrencies and criminal activities here (PDF link further down the page): Cryptocurrencies: tracing the evolution of criminal finances

The report makes for an interesting read, although most of it is just saying things we already know - Bitcoin is the most popular coin being used, Monero is the best privacy coin, cryptocurrencies are used on the dark web, etc.

The really interesting snippets I'll quote below:

So even Europol are admitting that illicit use of cryptocurrencies is low, criminals prefer to use fiat, and both in real terms and comparatively cryptocurrency is used to a far smaller degree than fiat is.

I know better than to think this report or the actual facts or evidence within will stop the media FUD that only criminals use bitcoin (see also: Why do you need privacy if you have done nothing wrong, Bitcoin is killing the planet), but perhaps we could now turn our attention to the massive fiat banks which have time and time again been found to be knowingly laundering trillions of dollars for various criminal networks, terrorists, and corrupt politicians? Wouldn't that be nice.

Self-mod to prevent spam.

For now, sure. But there is nothing stopping us from implementing script-path only taproot addresses or even just hashing P2TR addresses and creating some P2PKH-P2TR hybrid, which would allow us to use taproot addresses in a more quantum resistant way prior to the implementation of whatever full quantum resistant scheme we end up with.

This is not possible. If you choose not to broadcast the transaction, then the receiving wallet will simply not see it since the transaction has not propagated through the network. If you timelock the transaction for 5 blocks in the future, then you will not be able to broadcast it until that time and it will again just sit in your wallet and the receiving wallet will not see it. Your only option would be to broadcast the transaction with a low fee and hope it doesn't get confirmed before you have time to communicate with the owner of the receiving wallet and check it has showed up.

Still, I think this is massively over complicating the problem. It is near impossible to make a few typos in a bitcoin address and still produce a valid address which you can send coins to. If you have the wrong address pasted in to your wallet then it will be markedly different from the real one.

I never said they did:


Not abandoning bitcoin at all, simply using its second layer solutions. And even then, I'm still supporting miners by making channel opening and closing transactions on the base layer. Even when most people are using Lightning, there will still be more than enough transactions happening on the base layer to fill the available block space and pay miners the fees they need.

Nice strawman. Once again, I will not be responding to any attempts to derail yet another thread in to your personal vendetta against Lightning.

Why not? It is a trivial thing to do.

Of course. But it will be years between a quantum computer which can reverse elliptic curve multiplication, and a quantum computer which can elliptic curve multiplication in the 10 minutes it takes for a transaction to confirm.

Not to mention that the post QC algorithms we have access to at the moment will undergo significant improvements and developments and have their own weaknesses discovered in the next 10-20 years. If we forked now, we might end up with a clunky solution with huge signatures and yet find we still need to fork again in the future.

As are all the coins in reused addresses. As are all the coins in light wallets which send master public keys to servers to look up their balances. As are all the coins received via payment processors where the user uploads their master public key to generate new addresses for each customer. And eventually, as are all coins as soon between the time they are spent and they are confirmed.

Taproot was never designed to be quantum resistant. Still, with taproot you can use specific script-paths rather than use key-paths at no extra cost to avoid the issue of your public key being revealed.

Obviously that's what Big Phire and the lame stream media want you to think. People who do their own research know otherwise.

It's quite clear you do not understand the language in the US legal system whatsoever (which to be honest isn't surprising given you aren't a US citizen. The problem here is that you are trying to hold court on something you don't understand). This is the last time I will respond to your willful ignorance on this matter as I am bored of repeating myself.

Once again, the government always had the powers to bring forth a federal regulation which would be subjected to due process and public scrutiny before being implemented. With this change, they will now have the power to simply declare special measure with no scrutiny whatsoever.

Federal orders and federal regulations are specific things which have specific meanings which you clearly don't understand. What you have written here doesn't even make sense.

Again this doesn't make sense because you don't understand what orders and regulations are. Paragraph 3 said that whenever a federal order was issued, it would be issued alongside a public notice. This has now been scrapped, meaning the orders can be issued in secret.

I am by no means an expert on the matter, but my understanding is that a lot of quantum resistant algorithms are still in their infancy. There is no point discussing and settling on a quantum resistant algorithm or other upgrade now when it won't be needed for ~20 years, when in 20 years the landscape will have changed so much that whatever we have settled on will be vastly outdated. Everyone is pretty much in agreement that if a change to deal with quantum computers is needed then it will happen. What form that change will take will depend entirely on when and specifically what the threat from quantum computing is, which we won't know until much closer to the time.

If there is a method to do so, then I haven't heard it yet. If you have an idea, I'm keen to hear it (as I'm certain others are too). The only options I have heard are either to lock all P2PK outputs so the coins in them are permanently inaccessible and unspendable, or simply ignore them and let them be stolen by quantum computers and re-enter the circulation.

Maybe try reading my entire reply before foaming at the mouth. I literally said exactly that:

Currently allowed to be used. That sounds pretty much synonymous with "already have this power".  

Incorrect. (a)(2)(C) is striken, removing the clause "subsection (b)(5) may be imposed only by regulation" and replacing it with the much looser "by order, regulation, or otherwise as permitted by law".

Incorrect. This quite clearly states that any special measure must be accompanied by an announcement of that special measure and can only last 120 days. This is removed, which gives the government the ability to implement special measures indefinitely and without announcing them publicly.

Incorrect. It says so right in the text you have quotes. "May prohibit, or impose conditions upon certain transmittals of funds". She's not asking anything. She's telling. And given that pretty much every cryptocurrency exchange provides a service for foreign users as well, then they all fall in to this category.

And even if you are right (which you blatantly aren't), but even if you were the fact that the language is ambiguous enough that sitting lawmakers can interpret it in the worst possible way is enough of a concern that this needs fixed.

Still don't understand why you are pro-government interference.

Two initial thoughts.

First of all, the master remote wallet will have to be online at all times to be able to be accessed from the other devices, and so the security would be poor.

Secondly, it seems overly complicated since the same set up (being able to access a single wallet from multiple devices) can already be achieved by just importing the same seed phrase in to multiple wallets. This way also has the benefit of not having to host a remote wallet and be dependent on it being online at all times, as well as removing the extensive attack surface which comes with hosting an online wallet which accepts incoming unsigned transactions for signing and the software on your mobile devices to create and transmit such unsigned transactions.

Of course exchanges are linking addresses to your real name, and of course they are employing (or even owning) blockchain analysis companies to deanonymize you as much as possible. Everyone knows that, and people like me who are disgusted at that avoid using centralized exchanges. What I don't expect is that kind of privacy invasion to spill over in to my wallet, software or hardware. And even if AOPP doesn't directly invade my privacy, or indeed is only an optional feature, I will not support any wallet which signals that they are going to be complicit in centralized exchanges trying to destroy the very nature of bitcoin.

They can't destroy our privacy in one fell swoop. If they turned around tomorrow and said every bitcoin address must be linked to someone via KYC or be blacklisted by every exchange, service, node, miner, etc., then (hopefully!) the community would revolt. But if we are just going to shrug our shoulders at every small invasion of our privacy, then we will get there eventually. They will just keeping pushing more and more until our privacy is all but gone. Because let's be frank - the hideous scenario I've just described is the end goal for the government if they can't shutdown bitcoin entirely.

At this point one must wonder why franky1 is so keen to give the US government more and more ability to meddle in your private affairs and transactions.

Deliberately missing out the most important part.

Subsection (b)(5):

This is the section that gives the government powers to freeze accounts.

This is how this section is currently allowed to be used:

This is how this section will be allowed to be used should this bill pass:

It is obvious for even a 5 year old that the way that this can be implemented has been made significantly wider. "Otherwise as permitted by law" absolutely means the government can now implement this unilaterally without any public process, as would be required if they wanted to pass it as a regulation instead. They even entirely scrapped the 120 day time limit. If you want to go looking for some other part of the US Code which restrict them from doing so, then please be my guest. You won't find it. You might also want to read up on the process of how federal regulations are issued, since you don't seem to understand the difference between that and the government being able to simply declare that x is going to happen as long as they don't break any other laws.

It's not a solution, but it will still happen. Simple supply and demand has shown that the fee rate will increase to whatever people want to increase it to, not helped by centralized exchanges and other services paying far higher transaction fees than necessary, and poorly coded wallets and websites suggesting excessively high fees. These periods of higher fees will undoubtedly happen again in the future. Indeed, if we come to a point where it becomes unprofitable for some miners and they drop off the network, then until the next difficulty retarget blocks will be mined more slowly, block space will be at a premium, and fees will increase.

No, I would not pay fees of $2 per transaction, but I would pay fees of $2 to open a Lightning channel which allows me to make unlimited transactions at negligible additional cost. (I will not be responding to any attempts to derail this thread in to your personal vendetta against Lightning. Those posts can go here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5380215.0)

It will become an issue long before then.

The last sat will be mined around 2140. For 40 years before that, the block subsidy will be less than 1000 sats. For 40 years before that (which is 2060, so really not that far away and within the lifespan of many people currently using bitcoin), the block reward will be less than one thousandth of what it is now, at 0.00610351 BTC or less. This is nowhere near enough to support the current level of mining activity on its own. Indeed, in will only take 4 or 5 more halvings for the block subsidy to consistently be less than the amount of fees currently being collected in a block.

Fees will pay a very important part of mining rewards within the next 20 years. We certainly won't be waiting until 2140 for this to be an issue. A combination of more transactions in a block and higher bitcoin price in fiat, as well as times of higher fee rates in sats/vbyte, will need to be enough to sustain a sufficient level of mining activity to secure the network.

Yeah yeah. This is all on me. Let's ignore the people like Jerry Brito (CEO Coin Center) and Jason Brett (former FDIC regulator) who are saying what I'm saying. Let's ignore Brian Armstrong (CEO Coinbase) who is saying what I'm saying. Let's ignore the actual sitting representatives who are saying what I'm saying, such as Tom Emmer - https://twitter.com/RepTomEmmer/status/1486384340238053377 - or Cynthia Lummis - https://twitter.com/SenLummis/status/1487077010052730889. Do you maybe want to jump in to the next House session via Zoom or Skype and let them know you and you alone have got it all figured out, and the entire US government and the rest of the bitcoin world are wrong.

There is always the possibility to get another candidate to oust him at the primaries.

Hopefully people are contacting their representatives to get this nonsense amended or voted against.

Not to mention that the whole process of turning private keys in to address is done locally, and indeed can be done without an internet connection at all. There is no reason that Electrum would start generating incorrect addresses just because it has a slow connection or no connection at all. Even when you import a private key in to blockchain.com, the conversion to an address is done within your browser and does not require an internet connection.

I wouldn't recommend OP to put his bitcoin anywhere other than his own cold wallet if he is simply planning to hold for long term. The small additional percentage you will gain from using somewhere like Binance is tiny compared to the overall gains we will see in the price of bitcoin, and the risk of your coins being hacked, stolen, lost, your account being locked, Binance withdrawing support for your country or state, demanding excessive KYC which you can't complete, and so on, does not justify these tiny percentages. Much safer to just hold your bitcoin in your own cold wallet.

Your options for cold storage are a hardware wallet, a paper wallet, or an airgapped device. Although I prefer the latter two over hardware wallets, there is no doubt that they are harder to set up and use and easier to make critical mistakes with, and most users will be better served with a good hardware wallet. Ledger and Trezor are the most common ones, but there are a large number on the market and they each have their own pros and cons. You'll need to decide which one is right for you.

I disagree. The internet itself isn't even 40 years old, and now it is ubiquitous and we are dependent on it for almost everything in our lives. There's no telling where quantum computers will be in another 40 years. There is a big difference between having a quantum computer which can crack a private key and double spend a transaction in the 10-60 minutes during which it is unconfirmed, and having a quantum computer which could crack a P2PK address if given months or even years to work on it.

And obviously, as a community we will need to be a step ahead of the game and address this before it becomes a real possibility. I am fairly certain that during my life I will see bitcoin move to a quantum resistant algorithm or have some other quantum resistant feature added to it. What we do about the vulnerable P2PK coins is another matter.