Well... that's actually a pretty good question...
In theory, yes, you can lose your coins while trying out wallets.... IF you download a fake wallet, and import your wallet file, i guess you can get robbed... Also, if your wallet.dat is currently residing on an offline machine, but you move them to an infected (or improperly secured) online machine to try to import them into a wallet, you can get robbed aswell.

However, there are ways to decrease your risk:

• you can run litecoin core on an offline machine using your wallet.dat, then export the list of addresses to an usb drive (or, if you're paranoid, generate a qr code of your addresses, and scan them using your mobile device) and then look those addresses up on a block explorer... If they are funded, you can use an offline setup. Here is some info on how to do this using bitcoin core (but litecoin core should be more or less the same) https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/How_to_set_up_a_secure_offline_savings_wallet
• you can verify the signature and hashes of the wallet files, and only download them from official channels
• you can make sure your pc is clean, updated, firewalled,...

A .dat file... My best would be the reference client... the one you could find at litecoin.org

https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin

As long as you make a couple of copy's of the .dat file on OFFLINE media, it doesn't hurt to try every available wallet untill you find one that works... That being said, for an older .dat file, litecoin core would be a good first step...

with the information you've given, this is really hard to tell...

Which altcoin is "My altcoin". Did you create an altcoin by yourself? If so, are you mining your own altcoin? Which codebase did you use?

The most prominent was the silk road, IIRC the operator was caught because he posted on the clearnet asking questions/telling stuff that could be related to setting up dark net markets, aswell as promoting the silk road on the clearnet... Afterwards he used the same handle to post his e-mail.... And IIRC, his linked in also had vague links to the silk road (or darknet markets in general).

I don't remember all the details, but i do remember that in the end he got caught because of bad opsec... Posting the wrong things on the clearnet...

I don't know the complete story, but i'm assuming he/she has a native segwit address (starting with bc).
He/She probably needs to change the derivation path to BIP84 (on iancoleman's site)...

I usually don't have the habit of replying on a thread that's a year old... I usually just report the new post to a moderator and have it removed due to necroposting...
But, it seems you're new to this forum, and your question might not have been completely answered in this thread, so i guess it might be nice to cut you some slack.

You are right, electrum IS a wallet, and it does not HAVE to use the tor proxy. It's fine to run your wallet connecting to clearnet nodes, BUT, those clearnet nodes WILL be able to log your ip and the addresses you request. So, in theory, a node owner will know your ip and part of your unspent outputs... This is why some people prefer extra privacy by running a tor client and using this client as a proxy. By doing this, they hide their ip from the electrum nodes they connect to.
A different sollution sometimes used is running a full node, then installing electrs or electrumx and connecting to your own node... That way you are 100% sure the node owner isn't malicious.

In the future, just as a general rule of thumb: the forum has some rules against necroposting (posting in a thread that hasn't been posted in for a long time), so if you have questions like these, you can open a new thread or PM somebody in the original thread

Did you read my post? Did you try to comprehend those numbers?
It's more important to use a good wallet (with a non-flawed RNG) and make sure your private key/seed doesn't get stolen in any way (including saving on a potential online medium, virusses, malware, fake wallets, phishing,..) than it is to split up your unspent outputs... Really... If you're not afraid of dying due to a meteorite after being hit by lightning, you defenately should not be afraid of somebody guessing your private key... Be afraid that somebody STEALS your wallet file, or STEALS your seed/pk, don't be afraid that somebody GUESSES your private key.

By splitting up, you can decrease the odds of somebody STEALING your wallet/seed/pk IF (and only IF) you use different devices and wallet to generate those seeds/keys and never store them in the same place... It adds a whole lot of extra things you should keep in mind... It might be a good idear if you're at risk of somebody stealing your wallet/seed/pk, but for a normal user, the risks of messing up the whole setup might be bigger than the risk of somebody stealing your key/seed/wallet.

My advice would rather be to use a verified method with good OPSEC and stick to it... Generate your seed/wallet/pk on an offline machine, never let it touch any online machine, use a decent wallet and verify this wallet before using it, ignore any attempts of social hacking, keep encrypted backups on offline media,... As a normal user this adds much more certainty than starting to generate loads of seeds using different wallets and different OS's, then keep them safe on different offline media... This might be a good idear if you're running an exchange with several employees, but as a private user it might lead to loss of funds due to forgetting your encryption scheme/wallet/backup/...

You're not wrong about the odds of somebody guessing your private key not being completely 0... It's just that you have to protect yourself against the threads with the biggest odds... And the thread of somebody guessing your private key is soooooo close to 0, that in reality you could say it IS 0. The odds of you being scammed or your wallet/seed/pk being stolen are not 0... I read those stories every single day... Build up good OPSEC against those threads instead of focussing on the one thread whose odds are in reality ~0 .

prove? No, it is indeed possible...
Each time you try, there is one chance in 1,461,501,637,330,902,918,203,684,832,716,283,019,655,932,542,976 that you find the exact private key belonging to a certain address.

The main problem here is that human minds are not capable of comprehending such numbers...
Are  you afraid of getting hit by lightning? Well those odds are 1 in 1,222,000 PER YEAR
Are you afraid of dying by being hit by a meteorite? Well those odds are 1 in 250,000 (in a lifetime)
source: https://stacker.com/stories/2343/odds-50-random-events-happening-you

If you live, for example, 70 years, the odds of being hit by lightning and later in your life dying because you were hit by a meteorite are 1 in 4.357.142.857. So it's 335426605300057279761503315041820000000 times more likely to have those two things happen, than it is to guess an exact private key...

Now, offcourse, there are estimated to be around 460.000.000 funded addresses (https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/how-many-bitcoin-users/). So, you have to divide 335426605300057279761503315041820000000  by 460.000.000 if you want to know how much the odds are compared to generating a private key for *any* funded address.
Then you end up with 729.188.272.391.428.869.046.746.337.047

Now, let's assume you're not generating one key, but you're able to generate 2002 Mk/s (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen), this is grossly exaggerated, since this vanitygen program only generates keypairs, but does not do a lookup for unspent outputs funding those addresses.
Let's see how big the odds are that you can find *one* private key belonging to *one* funded address in a lifetime of 70 years compared to getting hit by lightning AND dying of an astroid:
729.188.272.391.428.869.046.746.337.047 / (2002.000.000 keys/second * 60 seconds * 60 minutes * 24 hours * 365 days * 70 years) =
729.188.272.391.428.869.046.746.337.047 / 4.419.455.040.000.000.000 =
164.995.065.181

CONCLUSION:
It is 167 billion times more likely to be hit by lightning AND dying from a meteorite strike than it is to run a GPU 24/7 generating address for 70 years and finding a single private key whose public key hash was once funded

I don't know about you... but i like those odds... Sure, they are not 0, they'll never be 0, but nothing in this life is absolute... I am very sure the odds of somebody impersonating you and stealing all your money from your bank account is much, much higher than somebody robbing you from your bitcoin... The odds of your bank vault being opened during a bank robbery and your gold being stolen is higher than the odds you get robbed out of your bitcoin... Hell, the odds of your country dissapearing and your money not being worth the paper it's printed on is much higher than your bitcoin being stolen.... At least, in a perfect world... In reality most people get robbed because they used a weak RNG, a vulnerable wallet, an infected pc, fall victim to phishing, fall victim to an evil maid,...

I guess you'll have to grow a thicker skin.... really... People say all kinds of stuff you might not agree with, but this one isn't even directed at you (in person). Just shrug and walk away...  I know that if somebody attacks you personally, it gets harder to walk away, but this one was just a broad statement. It even looks like the OP wasn't fluent in English, and it's even possible he wanted to say something completely different than what you've concluded, but the true meaning was lost in translation.

If you don't like what this person is saying, just click "ignore". If he says something that makes him untrustworthy in your books, add him to your trustlist, but with a tilde (~) in front of his username.

Malware is a broad term...
I know there are copy/paste virusses circulating that replace a bitcoin address in the clipboard by an address belonging to the creator of the virus...
I know there are fake versions of certain wallets floating around...
I know there's software floating around that logs keys...

Those are all "malware" in my book... and the victim always ends up being robbed...

I guess it depends on the situation really... The odds of accidentally "finding" a private key whose public key hash (address) was funded in the past are very, very, very close to zero (no matter what hardware or setup you use)... So, if you accidentally "find" a private key it's either:

• because the RNG used by the first "owner" was flawed
• because you used completely immoral and illegal techniques (like keyloggers, malware, evil maid, physical theft, phishing, extortion,...)

In the first case (the original creator of the private key used a flawed RNG), you might argue that you might dare to ask the original owner if he/she is willing to give a reward... Eventough technically you're NOT entitled to one!!!
In the second case (illegal methods used to acquire a private key), i hope the police catches you.

Now, once again, if you find a private key that's able to spend unspent outputs that do not belong to you, the victim will have a hard time catching you (eventough it's NOT impossible). It's like finding a wallet with money on the street: nobody is stopping you from pocketing the money, but if there is a security camera in the neighborhood that catches you in the act, the victim CAN press charges and you CAN end up in jail... No matter how small the odds are, this DOES happen from time to time...


In the past, i HAVE seen people messing up their transaction fees, paying huuuuuge fees by accident... I've seen some mining pools who were able to mine the block including those transactions giving part of the fee back to the person who messed up their transaction in the first place... In those instances, a reward might be fitting...

1) electrum will take care of this for you. If you have multiple unspent outputs funding addresses belonging to your wallet, electrum will pick those most suitable. If needed, a change address will be generated and used automatically...

2) there is nobody governing bitcoin... If, for some reason, you find a private key belonging to somebody else, legally you should not touch those funds... But if you do, there's nobody to stop you (unless your victim goes to the police). There might be a difference between the method used to generate this private key: i guess that if you generate a private key whose public key hash (address) was funded in the past by accident, and law enforcement catches you, you'll have to give those funds back to the rightfull owner... IF you use illegal "tricks" (like malware or phishing), you'll probably end in jail...
But it's all very technical and difficult: it's hard (but not impossible!!!!) to trace bitcoin transactions, it's hard to determine who is the "rightfull" owner of an address, it's hard to connect an IRL identity to an address (but, depending on the circumstances, it's not impossible either)

So the top mixer on your site is using cloudflare's SSL certificates (or should i say, man in the middle attack?)..... Really, remove them from your list, a mixer using cloudflare is actively harming their users and should not be endorsed (just my 2 satoshi's)



Same thing goes for blender (number 3 on your list)
Same thing goes for foxminer (number 5 on your list)
And bitmix (number 6 on your list) seems down

What good is a no logs policy if you allow a US based company to keep full logs (including deposit addresses, letters of guarantee, ip's, times, browsers,...) in your place...
If I had to chose between a reputable site that kept logs but was using an X3 certificate and a site that claimed to keep no logs but was using cloudflare, i'd pick the first one every time (not that i endorse keeping logs)!

You mean, the domain that was on sale last year?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5273751.0

I'm not accusing you of anything, but this looks like a sale disguised as a loan...

I can open the image just fine...

The main problem is that PM's can be faked pretty easily... It's not that i don't believe you (cause i do), but a screenshot might not constitute as sufficient proof for everybody...
Maybe you can ask a mod to verify the PM, afterwards the (potential) scammer's account will certainly be tagged.

Yes, it's a safety feature...

I have a model one (without a touchscreen), the model one's screen shows the scrambled numbers, the website (or electrum) shows an empty grid, you have to click on the correct place in the empty grid, corresponding with the place of the number on your HW wallet's screen. If it were unscrambled, a program tracking your clicks would be able to deduct your pincode.

My model T also shows scrambled numbers to enter the pin on it's touchscreen, it makes it much harder for somebody looking over your shoulder to see your pincode.

I don't have a good memory, but if i remember correctly, the first firmware of my model T did show the number in the "normal" order on it's touchscreen, but one of the first firmware updates fixed it so the numbers were scrambled (at least, that's how i remember it)

I didn't hear from this one (yet), but i added it straight away
Thanks!

I haven't watched the complete video... just the first 10 seconds...
This guy is showing a newpac usb miner... You can find them on sites like this one: https://www.bitshopper.de/en/shop/sha-256-miner/usb-miner-bitcoin/newpac/

The device hashes @45Gh/s (maximum... it is rather difficulty to make those usb miners run consistently at those speeds), and at these speeds it'll draw close to 10 Watts.
Let's assume for a moment, you're able to get it running @45 Gh/s whilst it draws 7 Watts and disregard the power consumption of the rPi (or pc) you need to connect it to. Let's also assume you only pay 5 cents/Kwh for your power.... These are huge assumptions: you'll probably won't keep it running @45Gh/s consistently, if you do it won't consume only 7 Watts, and you'll probably pay way more than 5 cents/kwh

Let's plug in those numbers at a mining calculator:
https://www.coinwarz.com/mining/bitcoin/calculator?h=45.00&p=7&pc=0.05&pf=0.00&d=19893045048575.00000000&r=6.25000000&er=1&btcer=59348.38830000&ha=GH&hc=11999.99&hs=-1&hq=1
Even at these absurdly low assumptions, you'll only make 1 cent/day, so it'll take you 12.000 to recuperate your initial investment (not including the S&H, taxes and customs charges... Nor the investment of an rPi).

Even if you disregarded electricity completely, this gear would still only make 2 cents/day...

@Ucy: thanks for the input
As an answer to your question: the main idear would be to warn people that a show was cancelled and the final episode ended on a cliffhanger...
Netflix is a prime example: they keep pumping out new TV shows, the makers of the show end their season on a cliffhanger (because they think that would decrease their odds of getting cancelled), yet netflix still cancels them... The end result is: all fans of the show are left hanging... They saw the final episode (ever) ending on a huge cliffhanger which never gets resolved.

For me, this behavior is a dealbreaker: i refuse to watch an older show if i know it doesn't have a proper ending (an open ending can also be a "proper" ending, i'm basically talking about the shows that end on a cliffhanger, but it was obvious the show wasn't meant to stop at that point)... Offcourse, shows that are still running are always a gamble.

I'm trying to make a public database people that love TV shows could visit before they start watching an older show... That way they can look up wether or not the show they are interested in has a proper ending before investing a lot of time into watching a show that abruptly stops and leaves them hanging high and dry.

What year was that video you're talking about posted?
I have a couple of those sticks laying around... I stopped using them many, many years ago...