i'm not sure how serious he is, but the mayor of miami (12th largest city in the USA) just said in an interview with FOX business that they are considering a direct investment in bitcoins: https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/miami-mayor-bitcoin-invest-cryptocurrencyThe mayor of Miami wants to make his city more appealing to the tech industry by embracing bitcoin and even investing some government funds in the cryptocurrency.
“If I would have done it last year, I would have made 200 plus percent,” Mayor Francis Suarez said on FOX Business' “Varney and Co.” “So I would have looked like a genius.”
The mayor told host Stuart Varney that Miami is looking into allowing citizens to pay taxes and fees to the city in bitcoin.
“We want to be one of the most crypto-forward and technological cities in the country,” he said. “So we're looking at … creating a regulatory framework that makes us the easiest place in the United States to do business if you're doing it in cryptocurrencies.”
“I want the creative and the innovative class to come here and create high-paying jobs for my residents,” he said.
Suarez said bitcoin is “a very attractive investment” and that the city of Miami is considering “diversifying our investment portfolio” and holding a percentage of investments in bitcoin.
He believes the price of bitcoin will increase as the currency becomes more mainstream.
“It's only going to go up,” Suarez said. public officials in control of government treasuries turning into bitcoin bulls? we're obviously entering a new era! is this just the beginning---next stop, central banks? if they follow through, would this be the first direct investment of government funds into bitcoin? |
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What does it take exactly to whitelist a bitcoin address? Am I reading this blurb from Bitstamp the same way you are? It doesn't appear on its surface to require any KYC info from its users (though I suppose that could be built into whatever the whitelisting process is). there is a new requirement to upload a photo that "proves" it's your address. i can't find anything specifying the exact photo requirements---not sure if it's like a selfie with the address written down, or what. i figure it's supposed to function as a legal declaration that your withdrawal address is yours. this removes the possibility of bitstamp having liability for third party money transmission. it means that if any illegal activity is linked to outputs that came from your account, they can point the finger at you and send law enforcement after you. it'll also make snooping by tax authorities much easier since most people will just hand over their privacy (maybe even a master pubkey) instead of taking effort to tumble their exchange withdrawals. Anyway, KYC requirements are only going to get stricter and more pervasive, not less. as a matter of fact, the USA is on the cusp of passing regulations that will require the same thing. https://www.coindesk.com/fincen-wallet-rule-defi |
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but at the same time, the amount of bitcoins stolen from legacy addresses could have a catastrophic inflationary effect on the market.
since moving one's coins into quantum-resistant addresses is voluntary, millions of coins would likely remain unmoved. those would be stolen and circulated back into the economy.
1. Not all Bitcoin on legacy address is vulnerable, only address where it's public known is at risk. i didn't say all legacy addresses were vulnerable, but we already know that many millions of coins currently are. consider this: https://twitter.com/pwuille/status/1108085284862713856My answer is (c) 5M-10M BTC. This includes all outputs with P2PK/raw multisig outputs, plus P2PKH outputs with known pubkeys, and P2SH/P2WSH with known scripts. granted, as the threat nears, a lot of those coins will be moved to quantum-resistant outputs. but if any of the estimates about the # of lost coins are remotely correct and we account for user ignorance/inaction, we could still be talking 3, 4, 5+ million vulnerable coins. 2. Quantum Computer can brute-force private key from public key far faster, but not instant. The actual owner can move their Bitcoin to quantum-resistant address with high fees.
i think it would be reckless to make that assumption. it underestimates the potential power of the adversary's hypothetical machine. we may be talking about the same situation as a race attack. if the adversary forces a holder to spend all their coins as mining fees, the end result is the same---he loses his coins and they are recirculated into the supply. it's also very unlikely that all holders of vulnerable outputs would be in a position to race the adversary. we're talking about a window of minutes or even seconds. |
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Personally, I think a Coinbase IPO may be amazing for bitcoin price in mid-term.
I know there are many institutional funds which cannot buy BTC directly due to regulations, such as pension funds. But those funds might be able to have some exposure to bitcoin while buying a Coinbase Stock. As Bitcoin price rises, coinbase will get more profits and its stock price will also go up.
And vice-versa. As coinbase performs well, it will attract more clients to buy bitcoin.
It is a win-win game for bitcoin and bitcoin holders. I hope also that as their IPO finishes they will also have more transaparency, becoming a more reliable exchange.
agreed---the IPO should reinforce bitcoin's place in the news cycle, fueling retail investment. bitcoin rises > equity investors flock to coinbase stock > coinbase stock rises > the news media hypes both bitcoin and coinbase. like you said, it's a win-win. But be ready for more rigid KYC obligations....
maybe so. they already removed margin trading, possibly for similar reasons. https://help.coinbase.com/en/pro/trading-and-funding/trading-rules-and-fees/margin-trading-faq |
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Which of these two companies are the biggest driving factor to sustain these high prices? (It is rumored that Pornhub alone does about $100 000 000 worth of transactions per year)  that's nothing. paypal did more bitcoin volume than that in a single day recently. on january 10th, they did over $200 million. https://twitter.com/AlexSaundersAU/status/1348806620050935809i wish we could see how much paxos was holding in custody (is there a service that tracks that?) to confirm... but in my view, paypal's effect on the market blows pornhub outta the water. paypal is turning out to be a huge avenue for retail investment, and that's who is driving the market exponentially higher--- investors. not porn addicts paying for $10 subscriptions.  |
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Using it to attack Bitcoin won't reap much benefits especially when some BIPs would probably shift it to a quantum resistant algorithm fairly quickly.
we could soft fork to add a new quantum-resistant signature type fairly quickly, but at the same time, the amount of bitcoins stolen from legacy addresses could have a catastrophic inflationary effect on the market. since moving one's coins into quantum-resistant addresses is voluntary, millions of coins would likely remain unmoved. those would be stolen and circulated back into the economy. that was the thinking behind theymos' comments here, which were not well received: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4isxjr/petition_to_protect_satoshis_coins/d30we6f/This issue has been discussed for several years. I think that the very-rough consensus is that old coins should be destroyed before they are stolen to prevent disastrous monetary inflation. People joined Bitcoin with the understanding that coins would be permanently lost at some low rate, leading to long-term monetary deflation. Allowing lost coins to be recovered violates this assumption, and is a systemic security issue. it's a sticky subject. theft is wrong, but so too is willfully ignoring all users' expectations of controlled bitcoin inflation. lost coins were supposed to be a donation to the rest of us---at least that's what satoshi said---not recirculated into the supply. |
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So lets say I had the keys on my Ledger nano S, and as a precaution I wrote them down.
I loose the Ledger nano ,but still have the private keys written down.
Am I still able to cash in the BC without the Ledger? yes. always make sure to back up your wallet seed so your coins aren't lost if a device malfunctions. Next question....
When an exchange sells me BC ,and I get my private key , does the exchange ever see the private key they send me ?
when an exchange sends you a bitcoin withdrawal, they can see your public key/address---that's where they send the coins. once the withdrawal is confirmed on the blockchain, they can no longer move the coins. they can't see your private key. |
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grayscale just bought 16k BTC in a single day. that's 18x the mined supply, so they are just eating up all available market supply! i'll be amazed if sellers can take this market below $30k again given the size of these inflows from institutions. On January 18 they added 16,244 BTC to their fund!  More than 600,000,000 inflows on a single day. Highest BTC inflow ever. Highest USD inflow ever. $5k seems like an impossibly distant memory now.  |
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You might have decent luck dropping a line on the collectibles page. From time to time I've seen precious metals offered at spot. thanks, i did take a look and gold coins do occasionally pop up there, but not too often. maybe i could make a thread, though i was kinda just hoping to find an offer from someone reputable. i'm a little worried about counterfeits/lack of documentation. i suppose if i can get someone like Lesbian Cow to escrow a deal and test the gold, then it's a good (private) option. i'm surprised there isn't more overlap between bitcoiners and gold collectors tbh. seems like a match made in heaven to me. |
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I have access to some of my old computers, hopefully the right ones. To be honest it's a crap shoot, but, I gotta try. I do not know if the email folders were saved on my HD.... like I said, when I login to mail.aol.com, it shows only email from 2015 til current. I lost literally 15 years of emails/files/folders.
A couple of years ago, I tried logging on to aol via AOL Desktop program, and it is no longer working/functional. They discontinued it.
The only steps I took in 2017 to recover the info was just trying to log on to my old email accounts, and did quick scans looking for certain keywords, such as bitcoin, bitcoin core, bitcoin-qt, wallet, et. cetera.
why the emphasis on email? if you physically have the computers you believe the wallet files are on, you should be searching those for your wallet.dat file. are you sure we're talking about a local bitcoin wallet (on your PC) and not an account with a third party website? |
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In an age of increasing inequality, how has it not occurred to these "top economists" (heavy on the sarcasm) that the vast majority of the QE they're doing goes straight to the wealthiest 1% who are already hoarding all the wealth? More money would be spent back into the economy if the poorest in society actually had some disposable income to spare. i don't think your point is necessarily lost on them, but central banks don't have the ability to direct money to the lower classes. what they're doing with QE is injecting liquidity into banks, so banks can increase lending to businesses. they're trying to prevent a wave of business collapses which could turn into a deflationary economic cycle. it's far from perfect, but i'm not sure it's nefarious. |
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Does the IRS expect the FIFO/LIFO/HIFO methods to be applied to all the crypto assets owned by the tax subject (even those not used for trading at all), or is it applied within one exchange at the time?
the determination applies to all of your assets. This is interesting, considering that assets will have a fiscal effect even if they are never used for making profit. that's the essential distinction between specific lot identification and all other methods like FIFO etc. the former accounts for what actually happened. the latter is sort of an arbitrary accounting of your entire portfolio. if you're using multiple exchanges and maintaining a separate long term stash, specific lot identification will be easier. it will probably provide the best tax benefits too. Specific identification can be used as an accounting method for trading crypto assets. This means that taxpayers can select which units and lots of cryptocurrency they are selling at a given time as long as they can specifically identify them and support the cost basis of the units.
So you could essentially mimick FIFO for every single exchange by always identifying assets bought first on the given exchange, no? here's an example of the kind of tax benefits you can get vs FIFO: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/05/taxlots.asp |
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Could Bisq go rogue thereby making it impossible to withdraw my funds? Does it have the capacity to do so?
your biggest concern would be security vulnerabilities in bisq's software. case in point: Hacker Exploits Flaw in Decentralized Bitcoin Exchange Bisq to Steal $250KTo carry out the thefts, the attacker was able to set other users’ default fallback address – the destination to which crypto is sent to if a trade fails – to their own. Posing as a seller, they would start a trade with a buyer and simply wait for the time limit to run out. Rather than going to the legitimate owner, the digital assets arrived with the attacker, along with the buyer’s payment and security deposit too. as an open-source application, it's unlikely that bisq developers would purposefully inject malicious code putting your funds at risk, although it is possible. as a layman, your best bet is to wait on downloading/installing new releases until some time has passed for others to analyze the code. |
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Can you guys please explain why the block reward can't act as a way to regulate the price? From my basic understanding, when the price is higher, it's more profitable to mine, which leads to more miners, which leads to a higher mining difficulty, which then can be used to increase the supply and bring the price back to the "normal" level. price can't be regulated in a decentralized way---it's completely external to the protocol. the mechanism you're referring to just regulates the bitcoin emission rate, retargeting difficulty so that blocks are produced roughly every 10 minutes. Also, I'm pretty sure that 99% of the reason why Bitcoin's price is increasing is that people FOMO in at every bull run so far, in hopes of profits, not because they actually want to buy something with it. The fact that the currency is inflationary doesn't make it a very good "early adopter catches the worm" type situation. a key issue you're touching on here is that the prospect of a deflationary currency bootstraps bitcoin adoption. if people think bitcoins will rise in value, that's a huge incentive for them to adopt. that dynamic doesn't exist with an inflationary currency that is intended to dilute the value of your holdings over time. |
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Now that the institutions are entering the Bitcoin space, with large companies such as Microstrategy adding it to their balance sheet and financial institutions such as JP Morgan speculating on price, we will start to see more credence in their price / market cap projections.
One issue with Bitcoin as digital gold though is that we also now have the Litecoin digital silver narrative too.
So if we assume Litecoin will survive how do we project its Litecoin's market cap? Does it happen in relation to the market cap of silver? why the focus on market cap? totally unpredictable, just like predicting where BTC will finally top out. market share of all crypto investment seems more interesting to ponder. precious metals investors are generally skewed heavily towards gold, but just like stock investors, they love to "diversify". this is a typical investment mindset. i predict this dynamic will translate into a similar orientation towards bitcoin and altcoins: investors will show a heavy preference for bitcoin---it will continue to dominate the market---but altcoins will persistently stick around. "silvers" and "coppers" will certainly emerge. i dunno if litecoin is gonna cut it long term though. for all we know, the future #2 coin hasn't even been launched yet. |
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In terms of fees... which is the cheapest? Example imagine i want to sell 5k usd worth of btc for fiat bank transfer to my boa account. binance.us, hands down. 0.1% trading commission when you sell, free ACH bank transfer to withdraw fiat. So which do you use?
i'm using centralized exchanges less and less these days, and i'm trying to avoid KYC. the only exchange i've completed KYC at (years ago) is coinbase pro, so that's who i use. i wouldn't necessarily recommend them though. |
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to be fair, the definition of "digital currencies" includes stablecoins, CBDCs, e-cash. it's not just a distinction between fiat money and crypto. imagine if they replaced "digital currencies" with "cryptocurrencies"---now that's a poll result i'd like to see. i'm not sure they'd risk putting that out there. |
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this is the crux of the issue: > 5. Is bitcoin not attacked for the fork because the bug led to the creation of bitcoins much higher than the maximum supply?
Exactly, it made the Bitcoin implementation derail from the spec.
> Both forks fixed bugs in the codebase. One allowed to generate a huge number of bitcoins, the other to transfer big amounts of ether.
Not really, Bitcoin wasn't working and it was fixed. Ethereum was working and it was "fixed". everyone using the bitcoin network had opted in to a 21M coin limit on a fixed emission schedule. this is why the network was able to quickly unite behind a single fork that fixed the inflation bug---because the bug made bitcoin diverge from the specification. everyone on the network had incentive to fix it. the same was not true of the ethereum fork. that protocol was not what users opted into, so naturally some users did not support it. theft on a massive scale---very dangerous precedent, no matter the underlying ethical considerations. |
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I guess the edge that centralized marketplaces have are consumer and seller protection. i think it's more that decentralized marketplaces are clunky and not intuitive. consumers wanna quickly navigate to a website or app page to buy something---not download and run an executable file, as is required to use openbazaar. it makes sense for buying/selling illegal drugs and things like that. it makes less sense for buying regular stuff that you can buy anywhere. it's just too much bother. |
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