@hatshepsut93 If the "hardcore cold storage setup" is just a formatted PC with Linux, it's not a bulletfproof solution. It still suffers from the issue pointed out by @domob. The cold storage device in the Faraday cage may have a malicious memory controller chip that messes up the transaction script generated by your wallet, to put the attacker's receiving address in it.

@Carlton Banks Doing it the hard way ( by yourself from scratch) is obviously a solution. But i hoped it was not necessary.
But why would you build a hardware chip that fully implements a general-purpose ISA, like RISC-V  ?
You don't need the complexity of a general purpose ISA, when the functionality you need is just generating transactions.
Why don't design an ASIC chip just for that function? Should be simpler.

Very smart solution ! +5 merit

About the USB stick, what about if you don't use it: just generate a QR code of the signed tx on the airgapped PC, and you take a pic of the QR with a phone.
That eliminates the need to plug untrusted devices/sticks to the airgapped PC

The only thing left is mining. If you have a mining pool or are mining solo ( maybe a minor altcoin ) , you still need a fully synced node with the PK in its folder, and internet connection.

When you say that your private key is in your hands, you mean that it is stored in a device you trust.
Or if it is on paper,  you assume that when you will import/use the PK on a device to make a payment/transfer, you trust that device.

What if the NSA asks hardware manufacturers to integrate spy chips in their devices?
Your PC may have a spy controller chip that reads your PK from your HD and sends it over to the NSA via your network card.

I'd like many open source computer and phone projects to pop up, but there are just a few of them and don't seem to get traction.
Maybe the people is still not concerned enough with their privacy. ... but hey we are talking about our life's savings here!

We prefer to stay poor then 

Yeah ok but why did they create an official thread here then, if they do not even bother answering ?
This is not professional.

I can't wait for DEXes to become mature and widely used.
This centralized exchange sh*it must come to an end.

There are a number of low-fee freelancing platforms that work with crypto transactions , like Xbtfreelancer, Ethlance, Blocklancer, etc.

Compared to the FIAT-based platforms like Freelancer.com, Upwork etc., the crypto-based ones are much more attractive IMO , when i look at the huge fees taken by Freelancer.com and the likes.

Also there are no KYC annoyances there, and that's another benefit for a freelancer , if he wants to keep his income undisclosed from his government ( thanks also to cryptocurrencies , the transactions as well can be easily anonymised ).

What i don't understand is why there is almost nobody on those platforms despite the advantages for the freelancers?

Probably the lack of freelancers is just due to the lack of employers, there is no other explanation IMO.

But why no employer then?
There are only a bunch of them looking for very specialized workers with blockchain-related skills, just because it's harder to find them on a generic platform rather than a crypto-related one.

It seems that the employers prefer Freelancer or Upwork.
It could be that the wages/commissions they pay to freelancers on Freelancer.com can be easily deducted from the employers'  taxes, while on crypto-based platforms that cannot be done?
That would explain everything.

Of course if the crypto-based platform would cause a financial loss to the employer, due to non-deductible expenses (wages), then it would be not convenient for him to be there.

With "new fresh" he means buying them with FIAT, not with  other crypto , right?

ATMs can be found only in a few cities in the world  for now, so it's not an option for 99.9% of the people.

There are 3 other valid exchanges i know where you can buy coins with FIAT :
- Bitstamp ( i've been using it for years )
- Binance ( but i've tried buying with credit card there and  did not work for me )
- Bitfinex ( i have never tried it though )

About buying with FIAT on DEXes, the problem is trusting the other peers and eventual escrows , for example if you are going to buy coins with EUR/SEPA from another DEX user.

Brainwallets are not secure,  at least if they have a relatively short seed , like 12 words.
What about Ledger ones that have 24 words?

^
THIS


@Lyana  
For now the "automatic" taxation is only done in a few countries.
@Lyana  @shirackjs and everybody else thinking that you MUST convert crypto into bank savings sonner or later...
that has already been answered in this reply https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5102409.msg49439298#msg49439298
( why don't you read the discussions? )


@shirackjs I forgot... who cares if the govs "ban" crypto? If it is decentralized, it will continue to work as before, and the price will continue to grow without the need for the gov.
BTC doesn't need gov's decision to raise in value.
It already is revolutionary enough that the price will go up naturally, without the need for help by dishonest tricksters called the gov.

If you read the answers it has already been said that you don't need to convert crypto into fiat on an exchange.
There are many other ways to cash-out, even anonymous ones of course.

It's the same old story...

Let's get back to the basics.

This whole Bitcoin thing has been invented for the exact purpose of giving the people an alternative to the banks: remember that a bank account is not the best thing for you , in that it's your money in the hand of another guy, not yours.

This guy may decide not to give back your own money to you (or say he can "freeze your account" if you want), for whatever reason , no matter if it is fair or not.
When you will close that account ... you'll kind of feel like a bird like many guys that have no properties to be distrained. I know a couple of them

The aim of this revolution is to protect the people from a possible distopic future made of slavery, and from the fear of losing their money which is not in their physical control.
But i don't know, maybe it is too early to think about these problems, in that we "just" live a financial crisis now, not a serious recession or distopic reality... yet.

AFAIU your comment has one assumption: you still cannot live without a bank account with all your money in it.

There are still too many with your mentality, maybe the govs are not repressive enough yet, so the people is still not enslaved enough to need a decentralized money system.
I guess the real crypto boom will happen when the people start to desperately try to escape from the jaws of a future tyrant, and want to close their bank accounts to move their savings in a safer place.

It is a matter of years or decades at most.

Who knows what Satoshi had in mind when he wanted to craft this technology?
Maybe he has been watching too many movies like Zeitgeist and got scared?
I guess he predicted a distopic future and wanted to "prepare".
Time will tell if he was right

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And THIS



I 'll try to answer to most of your comments here.

--------------------------------------

1) Paying taxes for helping your place to develop
These types of comments deserve a big Facepalm.
When you go back home tired from work, please relax on your couch and watch this classic that pretty much everybody knows of: Zeitgeist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTbIu8Zeqp0&t=5776s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbvCxMfcKv4

You will learn a lot of things from that, for example that the taxes and the fractional reserve are big scams.

We will be turned into slaves more and more year by year.
The real development and scientific research gets hindered and slowed down by them.
They definitely spend most of our money for less legit purposes than "development" or "your well being".

-----------------------

2) Cashing out to my bank account ( ... really? )

Some of you are incorrectly assuming that you MUST convert crypto into bank savings... why must you? There are many ways to cash-out, mostly anonymous:

- Restaurants/Shops/Services that directly accept crypto, are spreading out, even though at a slow pace

- Exchange crypto for cash by meeting with other people in your city (i.e. over-the-counter, LocalBitcoins, etc.).
Hint: check the banknotes' validity with something like this https://www.amazon.com/Dri-Mark-Counterfeit-Detection-Watermark/dp/B07F6PW69G

- [Caution with this] Get a crypto-enabled credit card like WirexApp , and cash out just a tiny amount of money at a time on it, just for small purchases at the moment you need to buy something. This is a handy way of cashing out, but it's traceable. Cash out a VERY limited amount per year in this way.

- Yeah, convert crypto into bank savings, but at a bank in a tax heaven so at least you pay very little taxes. Don't be a fool like some guy that keeps his bank reports at home, so that the dogs have the proof on a silverplate... ( some guys got caught for this naive move ).


--------------------------------------

3) Going to jail
If there's no proof, there's no jail for you.
Do you want additional safety?
- Withdraw BTC from the exchange to your BTC wallet
- Create a new BTC wallet, and move all your coins there

Why?
In this way, there is a  proof on the blockchain that you moved all your BTC to another person (which is you, but there's no evidence, it can be anyone).
So it's like you have "cleaned" your coins from your name


What is the advantage?

They want to tax you on the FIAT money that you moved on the exchange for buying the coins, AND on the additional earnings you got from an eventual
 price rise if they know you hold the coins for, say, 2 years, and the price went up by 500%.

But if you followed the 2 smart moves listed above, you proved that you gave all your coins to another person right after you bought them, so there's no earning to be taxed due to the coins' value increase.
Thus, you will only pay the taxes for the FIAT money that you spent for buying BTC
--------------------------------------

More and more countries, like Chile or India, are trying to tax their citizen for the crypto they hold.

Please don't pay taxes on your coins.
You really don't need it, unless you are totally ignorant.

It's simple: they cannot prove you have the coins on your PC/phone , so you don't have nothing to pay taxes on, as far as they know.
It's just their attempt to trick the ignorants that don't know about that

Even if they look for your wallet on your PC/phone ,
your wallet data is not accessible to them because it's  encrypted with password  ( uhm.... have you set the password protection on your wallet... right? ).

Of course you are not going to give them the wallet password.

Oh.. they tell you that you withdrawn the coins from an exchange,  so that's the proof you have the coins?
Just say that it was an hacker that stole your coins from the exchange,  not you.
You got robbed, and you don't have to pay taxes on the money that was stolen from you, right?

P.S. for the geeks: use Veracrypt

Right, many people have a strong bias against darknet, like "i'm sure it's a scam, just for being on the darknet".

The solution would be to make a swap exchange that runs as a Dapp for ETH , TRX, NEO wallets.
That is not considered "darknet" and would be accepted,.

The only drawback for now is lack of anonimity, in that a ETH/TRX/NEO wallet is needed to run a DApp, and those wallets reveal your IP.

So i can't wait for them to integrate some IP privacy in the wallets, that would open up a whole new world of possibilities for traders, and not only.
It would give complete freedom from cersorship to DApp creators and users.

@Maxpips Thanks a lot for sharing!

I am curious to know what do you think about this as well:

IMO it is possible to "predict" an incoming bear or bull run with very high accuracy, in that when a whale/bull/bear is entering into play at a given moment, he does it on just one or two exchanges, not many of them, right?

Suppose he is playing on Bitstamp one day.
Then big price changes happen on Bitstamp, and in very short time those changes propagate to other exchanges, right?

But i am sure they propagate with some delay, maybe 30 seconds, so that if you trade on a minor exchange, you have all the time to take measures before the big change propagates to the exchange you are using.

I still haven't looked into it making precise graph comparisons, as it takes time to do this research.
Have you already investigated about this?
Have you found any kind of "patterns" that support what i'm saying?

 For example, have you observed whether or not the big whales always operate on those few major exchanges (say Coinbase, Bitfinex, Binance and Bitstamp), and then the price variation propagates to minor exchanges ( say Yobit, Cryptopia etc. ) with an useful delay ? (at least 10 seconds)

The alternative is good, for now.

Trust is a more complex topic than just saying "It's regulated, then it's trustworthy".
Exit scams happen all the time even with "regulated" services as well, in that when they scam you they just invent good excuses to justify the scam.

Take for example the regulated Bookmakers that block your accounts and cancel your winnings when you win too much, and of course they will invent credible excuses to justify that.
Now some of them, like Pinnacle, are putting the phrase "We don't block accounts" even into their adv banners on the web, so what i am saying is  a known fact apparently.

Take for example Paypal and their dispute system. It gives you a fake sense of security, because Paypal is not going to properly investigate on a dispute in order to solve that in the right way.
If i am a merchant and a user issues a chargeback and returns my item, there is not guarantee that my item comes back in one piece. And if i send them a picture of the broken item, they will still not believe me and won't investigate any further.

IMO aggressive marketing and user feedback are the only things that determine the trust level of a service or person.
At the end of the day, the "tx confirmations" are just a particular type of user feedback, right? And it works, it defines trust. No need for regulation for that.

An onion service that is marketed properly and worked well for many years, IMO would gain people's trust despite being a dark web site.

You mean that a "coin swap" service must be using the classic exchanges's API in order to work? So the coin swap creators are subject to KYC, because they must be registered to the exchange to use their trade API.
Well yes, for now.

But atomic swaps on the Lighting Network are becoming a reality, so you can become an exchange as well, as long as you have the wallets on your machine, and a LN daemon.
You swap directly in the blockchain, no need to use Bitstamp API or such, so a LN coin swap exchange owner does not even need to be registered on a classic exchange, let alone KYC.

Shapeshift has been an anonymous exchange for some time, until the authorities forced them to add KYC/AML .

And this will likely happen also to all Shapeshift alternatives, like Changelly, Flyp.me, etc.

So why nobody thought about opening a Shapeshift alternative as a TOR hidden service?
That would mean the platform owners are anonymous as well and the servers location would be unknown, so that the exchange can work without KYC requirements forever.

Of course, the downside is mass adoption difficulties: not many people know about TOR, and the onion addresses are not very human-friendly.

Any thoughts?

I forgot to point out: the current bear market is not specific to crypto currency.
The stock market is bear now as well.

It's a general economic crisis, probably due to a forthcoming war (USA vs Russia/China)