I am posting here to check in and learn how you have liked the 3rd series so far? I hope you guys are enjoying it! Personally, I couldn't participate in the 2nd half of this series, mostly because I have been extremely busy with work and personal stuff. Would you be up for more poker or enough for now? you know i'm always down! I am not 100% sure if/when we will have a 4th edition (communication still tough etc.), so even more important you give your best tonight to qualify for the Grand Finale! I am pretty sure we will play some games one way or another and maybe even continue our series (if there's interest), just not 100% sure for various reasons.  As a conclusion and the most important thing I wanted to say: It's really been a pleasure doing this with you guys all these months, great times at the tables when the world went crazy! same, i've had a great time in our games. if we don't get another series going/SwC doesn't wanna sponsor us again, i'm happy to get some casual games running. thanks for all your efforts, dude! We are still slowly growing in core numbers which is awesome. yeah, i was pleasantly surprised to see a few new faces lately! |
|
|
|
see you guys in.....3 hours?! yikes, i haven't even slept yet. been drinking all night and.....the sun is coming up now.  i'm registered, no guarantee i will make it but i'm actually gonna try. i might play it like a maniac for once, and steal from all you nits playing for points. in b4 i drop from 4th to 10th in the standings!  I will have an early exit since I'll have to take big chances on bad cards (...) If it helps, your chances of qualifying are next to zero, because of your bad average. me next! what are my odds?  |
|
|
|
Theoretically, yes, but in reality not many people want to engage in criminal activity. It is possible to buy a counterfeit 100 Dollar bill of very good quality for $40-$60, and use it in places where it can't be detected(there are plenty of them), but not many people are willing to do that. it's probably less of a question of how many people are willing, and more a question of how much damage those few people can do. it boils down to loss prevention, and i am confident that not accepting zero-confirmation transactions is one of the best loss prevention decisions a company can make---especially if crypto payments become more popular. Oh, c'mon, man! They confiscate your phone, computer, or whatever, and prove the guilt.
that might apply to large scale thefts, but i don't think it applies to low value transactions. no retailer is going to the police over a $4 cup of coffee. that's a waste of time and money. it's more important for them to figure out how to prevent the $4 losses. |
|
|
|
What do you think of this offer?
Eh, the interest rate isn't astronomical, but I'm not sure how much lending business Coinbase is going to get, as people who own crypto presumably have cash as well--unless they overinvested in crypto, which bitcoin investors have been known to do. Borrowers are going to seriously have to worry about margin calls to put up more collateral for their loans if bitcoin drops, and that's a serious concern. you can only borrow up to 30% of the collateral in cash. that's 0.3x leverage. the risk of margin call should be relatively low. even if you maxed out your leverage, bought the top, and then we had another march 2020 crash, you should be okay. it's an interesting idea---to invest in crypto, then put it up as collateral and pull cash back out, all while retaining your investment exposure and not triggering taxation. assuming bitcoin outperforms the interest rate (easy in a bull market) and you can pay back your loan, then it makes sense. |
|
|
|
To me it's a bit like looking for a problem where there is no problem and looking for solutions even when we don't need them.
But as you point out exchanges already are making it a problem. this is why self-regulatory organizations are so useful for government regulators. members self-police, for fear of losing their whitelisted status. it's exactly the same with the LBMA and gold. the real pressure to mandate KYC for gold refiners to prevent money laundering, or remove conflict gold from circulation, comes from governments, but the actual policy comes down from the LBMA and is self-enforced by its members. the cartel that will form bitcoin's version of the LBMA is obviously being established. BAKKT will be on the list, no doubt. fidelity and any of the legacy financial institutions who get into custody too. bitgo, coinbase, gemini, and similar tier exchanges/custodians would probably make the cut too. i assume platforms like bitmex, binance, and bitfinex will become de facto second tier exchanges. at some point in the future, their coins may be unwelcome on whitelisted exchanges, and depositing them will get your account closed. |
|
|
|
imagine being able to easily double spend every low value transaction back to yourself. you don't think anyone would take advantage?  if it can be exploited, it will be. I definitely don't disagree; but the incentive of people attempting a double-spend would greatly drop(in my opinion) if the transaction is done in person(hence I chose the coffee example). Attempting to double spend to get back $4-5 while risking jail time due to your identity being exposed(assuming the shop has a CCTV camera) isn't simply worth it in my opinion. this is something i've always been curious about, and that we don't have legal precedent for. are we sure that double spending constitutes criminal fraud or a similar crime? this could make for a fascinating legal case. the courts haven't established whether an unconfirmed bitcoin payment constitutes money received, in the same way cashing a check or taking possession of cash would. i know i don't personally consider money received until a transaction is confirmed on the blockchain. on top of that, there is also plausible deniability re who sent the double spend transaction. since multiple people can have access to the same private keys, can it be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that you double spent? Binance, one of the biggest exchanges, doesn't even have SegWit.
they at least support withdrawals to bech32 addresses now and if you look at their hot wallet, they've started using them internally. indeed, they do not support segwit address generation though. |
|
|
|
Thought about this in the past, and I somewhat agree, as long as the fee is low but still passable(e.g. 5 sats/b). Of course though, this is for cheap merchant transactions like a $4 coffee and such(who the heck would double spend $4?). imagine being able to easily double spend every low value transaction back to yourself. you don't think anyone would take advantage? if it can be exploited, it will be. I don't think we get to use this kind of "acceptance" though; Lightning is a lot better now compared to when I initially thought of this as a solution. lightning adoption is sadly moving at a glacial pace. the liquidity just isn't there, and won't be for quite a while. what i'd really like to see is boring stuff---transaction optimization, fee optimization, segwit support, batching. it's not glamorous, but if exchanges would just stop unnecessarily clogging the network, i think it would buy us considerable time re scaling. |
|
|
|
I think the solution lies in accepting the so called "zero-conf transactions", only the fee, of course, should not be set at zero. it's too dangerous, unless the transaction is non-RBF and has an extremely high fee well beyond what is reasonably required for reliable confirmation. otherwise the chances of double spending or the network not confirming the transaction are too high. instead of seeking out instant or nearly instant transactions (high fee, next block confirmation), i think consumers should aim for eg 1-hour confirmation. get used to the idea of waiting for settlement. when everyone is racing to get into the next block, it really drives up the fee market in an exponential way. Will some people try to abuse it? Surely. But with the due process of law, they will be treated as counterfeiters, with all the consequences. with bitcoin's electronic and cross-border nature, i don't think those guarantees are good enough. bitrefill was one of the only companies accepting zero-confirmation transactions. they recently stopped. |
|
|
|
Our innovative multisignature model uses dual private keys - one held by the user, and one by our servers. This allows us to enforce Two-Factor Authentication to protect your funds, while timelock smart contracts guarantee that users always retain full control of their coins. Do note that this doesn't necessarily mean they can steal your funds, but they may be able to delay their release. i've read a few horror stories about greenaddress's multisig and 2fa implementations---people being locked out of their wallets for 90 days, or permanently. i would recommend against them, unless you are an advanced user or are very familiar with the UI. it has too much complexity and too many unnecessary features. you can't really go wrong with Electrum.
+1. i rarely recommend anything else, especially to noobs. |
|
|
|
what does it corroborate exactly? they're requesting all account info/history linked to his identity from coinbase, right? to confirm whether his accounting is legitimate and whether he is hiding other accounts. i guess that still doesn't tell us exactly what an audit entails on the taxpayer side. here is one important lesson---don't report a shitload of bitcoin capital gains, then later amend your tax return to remove those capital gains and claim a refund. it's gonna look fishy as hell and land you on the IRS's radar. i dunno what this guy was thinking: Petitioner and his wife filed a joint 2016 federal income tax return, reporting a tax liability of $36,594, which they paid in full. (Dkt. No. 10-1 (Declaration of Amanda Snow), ¶ 10). Petitioner and his wife then filed an amended 2016 federal income return, showing a reduced tax liability of $21,119 and claiming a refund of $15,475. (Id., ¶ 11). In their original tax return, Petitioner and his wife reported long-term capital gains from seven transactions involving the sale or disposition of bitcoin. In their amended return, they removed the two largest of these transactions, reducing Petitioner's long-term capital gains from $104,482 to $410. (Id., ¶¶ 12, 14.) This reduction in reported their long-term capital gain is the sole basis for their claimed refund. (Id., ¶ 14).
Petitioner's amended return and requested refund spurred the IRS's investigation into Petitioner's 2016 tax liability and his bitcoin transactions. In connection with its investigation, the IRS issued the disputed Summons to Coinbase. |
|
|
|
What about losers tournament? I would love to have that at same time as main final so I can keep one eye on the pros while chilling on the other table with my fellow losers. In general this a good idea, the only problem is, that non-Top3 players from Grand Final are also eligible for small final, so this doesn't work unless all Grand Final players agree to forfeit that spot. or we could just make it open for everyone who played in the series. the prize pool is probably like 10k chips---it's not like excluding the championship winners will provide some huge EV or anything.  the 23rd is fine with me, and i'd love to see both games played at the same time. i just hope they fix the chat thing soon. our games have been awfully quiet lately. |
|
|
|
One little thing I noticed is that this news is published on Businesswire - A Berkshire Hathaway Company, which should be part of Warren Buffett empire.
they are just a paid-for press release service like prnewswire or any of the others. microstrategy paid them to disseminate this story. it doesn't say anything about buffett or berkshire hathaway. |
|
|
|
you listing a few companies who also have offices there (yes, that's the point of office park!) doesn't prove your point.
You haven't proven that "BAM Trading Services Inc" has any significant assets to be sued for, or anything else for that matter beyond the bare minimum needed to satisfy fincen requirements. It's a Delaware corp so the worst can be assumed until proven otherwise. first i need to prove the square footage of their san francisco office, and now i need to locate their assets? lol, the goalposts keep moving further and further! if having a physical, legal presence registered with regulatory agencies (along with the 2nd biggest, if not the biggest, brand in the industry, plus FDIC insurance) isn't enough to suggest legitimacy, then what is? what exactly makes kraken, for example, so much more legitimate? do you have proof of their assets? what about coinbase, bitflyer, gemini, and the other regulated USA exchanges? can you please provide all the data points that prove they are legitimate, but binance.us is illegitimate? what is the square footage of all their offices, while we're at it? or is the assertion that no exchanges are ever legitimate, in which case this whole argument is totally fucking pointless, and there is zero point to singling out binance.us? |
|
|
|
Biden has selected his running mate and judging by the odds movements (there are always people with some insider information), it will be Susan Rice - he will announce it later today, lets see. Unfortunately I can't access the Betfair charts (if someone can, please post a screenshot here), but in the last screenshot I took end of July, Rice was 5+. In a screenshot from April, she isn't visible so must have been 30+. Good bet missed Edit: Well he picked Harris actually lol. unsurprisingly kamala was the bet to take all along---good in the 2s, still good at sub-2. never much doubt in my mind. Lastly Biden hasn't been active at all, dude just shuts up and waits for Trump to lose judging by the 2016 election, that's probably a smart move. hillary's ego was part of her downfall. |
|
|
|
The confusion might have been caused by the fact that you didn't post the entire address first as the last part is clear giveaway: BAM Trading Services, Inc. One Letterman Drive, Building C, Suite C3-800 that's because they list only "suite C" in their FINCEN registration. I'm not going to copy-paste all of them but you get the idea, approximating the search results there are about 50 companies located in that building dividing the floor room by that and it's well below your average Subway , if we say there are double the number than the space goes below your one-bedroom apartment, not enough for a rat to get claustrophobia but enough for a chipmunk. you listing a few companies who also have offices there (yes, that's the point of office park!) doesn't prove your point. what matters is they have a physical presence for legal service, widely known executives located in the USA, and legal registrations in a jurisdiction that can actually come after them in both civil and criminal court. literally none of that applies to binance.com. all of it applies to binance.us. your assertion that "binance.us has a small office (something you can't even begin to prove) so they must be illegitimate" is rather uncompelling. if you feel the need to keep taking about square footage as a measure of business legitimacy, your points will fall on deaf ears. As for the binance.com ≠ binance.us , that's just hilarious. Is binance,us run by CZ's good twin or what? we're talking about legal jurisidction. binance.us is subject to american legal jurisdiction. binance.com is not. if you want to sue binance.us, you easily can, assuming you have a case. if you want to sue binance.com........lol, good luck even finding out how to serve them, let alone enforcing a judgment! I remember I had the same discussions with other users when they were trying to tell me how Binance moving to Malta will change things how Malta will get millions in return in taxes and so on and on, and they had the same arguments, fully regulated, office, people working there, people never learn! Binance fleeing from country to country and jurisdiction to jurisdiction is more predictable than the seasons these days.
binance never had any legal presence in malta. they were just lying to everyone. they never registered any entity there. of course they wouldn't pay taxes there or be subject to EU jurisdiction. in contrast, you can pull up binance.us's registrations. they openly operate from the USA, they are legally registered in the USA, they openly serve american customers---good luck to them if they are trying to dodge USA legal jurisdiction! |
|
|
|
No matter how much "principled" an elderly conservative voter is, he would never vote for someone like Biden. If Biden becomes the president, then he is likely to nominate ultra-liberal judges to the supreme court (similar to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan). And this was one of the main issues which ensured a near-total conservative support for Trump in 2016.
meh. biden is a total centrist, not a progressive. i also don't think supreme court appointments are/were a primary factor. the 2016 election was about populism, the "drain the swamp" mentality, and posturing on immigration and trade protectionism. GWB's secretary of state colin powell has endorsed biden. GWB and mitt romney won't vote for trump. john bolton and a slew of other high ranking republican officials have defected, as well as prominent conservative commentators like bill kristol. stuff like https://rvat.org/ makes me really question this idea that republicans/conservatives couldn't be disgusted by trump enough to stop supporting him. and that's the key---biden doesn't need to flip 2016 trump voters. he just needs to keep them from coming out in strong numbers again. we saw way more republican unity in the 2016 election. i dunno that this fracturing is enough to break trump in 2020, but when people act like it's still 2016 and trump is still running against hillary, as if the last 4 years never happened.....i'm skeptical. that attitude reeks of the blinders hillary voters had on in 2016. |
|
|
|
binance.com ≠ binance.us. the former is registered in the seychelles and is hiding its operational infrastructure in multiple countries. the latter is registered in the USA and has physical offices in the presidio in san francisco.
Offices, where a rat would get claustrophobia, are now a proof of legitimacy? How many times have we heard the same story about Binance? They are moving to Japan to escape the evil Chinese gubbermint. Then, they moved to Malta to escape the evil Japanese government. Then, surprise, it turned out the Maltese government was evil and Binance decided they will not ask for a license from this corrupt government and decided to flee again. rats getting claustrophobia in here?  what you're saying applied to binance.com, not binance.us. since day 1, binance.us was based in san francisco. no virtual offices, registered with FINCEN, can easily be served legal papers. you can easily find at least a half dozen of their executives/managers in san francisco. it's nothing like binance.com, which is completely shrouded in secrecy. |
|
|
|
We don't know if 1% would be necessary, or if it would be sufficient. I think that an in-depth analysis would make a great research paper. It is not clear if it would even be viable. How would you feel about your bank charging you a 1% security fee to hold your money? To maintain a fixed money supply, the 1% subsidy could be accompanied by a 1% demurrage. no matter how it's implemented, paying for mining security is experimental. we don't know if fees alone will be viable either. that's one of the reasons i'm a small blocker. i want to err on the conservative side re the assumptions we make about security absent a significant mining subsidy. if that damages adoption potential, so be it. adoption shouldn't come at the cost of viability. there are basically 3 ways we can pay for mining security: 1. fees, 2. inflation, 3. demurrage......or some combination. none of these are attractive to users. nobody wants to pay large amounts just to send money. nobody wants to have their money devalued by inflation. nobody wants to be charged money just for holding it. still, we need to pay for mining security somehow. and since economics can't be studied empirically/scientifically, we're all just guessing at what the best solution is. we're also tempering that against our own selfish drive towards a tragedy of the commons, where we sacrifice long term viability because we don't wanna pay any of the costs. that's partly what is behind the motivation for big or unlimited block sizes---the other motivation being that it's a marketing point for adoption. you know, "cheap/instant tx". |
|
|
|
I remember once I heard the owner of Biance say that it was not necessary to have a physical office for things in the cryptocurrency market, so now I wonder what the requirements are for obtaining a license in the USA and how people can rest assured that the funds they are really safe if we are talking about an exchange where it is not known where it is located.
binance.com ≠ binance.us. the former is registered in the seychelles and is hiding its operational infrastructure in multiple countries. the latter is registered in the USA and has physical offices in the presidio in san francisco. this is from their FINCEN MSB registration: MSB Registration Number: 31000159813807
Registration Type: Initial Registration, Corrected Report
Legal Name: BAM Trading Services Inc.
DBA Name: Binance US
Street Address: Letterman Digital Arts Center, One Letterman Drive, Building C, Suite C
City: San Francisco
State: CALIFORNIA
Zip: 94129 |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
