Exactly. The more money is printed by governments worldwide, the higher the inflation will of Fiat will be. I don't get why so many people are still trusting Fiat above anything else in these times of need, as it should be less valuable than it was before. I guess that there is a lot of misconception of how Fiat truly works in the mainstream world. Smart people will choose Bitcoin and Gold than Fiat since they're "safe-haven" assets in times of turmoil. The pioneer cryptocurrency is still in its very beginnings, as there is a lot to build/improve upon it. On the other hand, Gold is much stable and trusted by many people worldwide. Both Bitcoin and Gold are very similar due to their extremely limited supply. Anyone who's looking to secure his/her capital, would quickly resort to Gold or Bitcoin to be prepared for desperate times like the ones we're facing right now.

In the meantime, people will continue to rely on Fiat for daily payments. Even with social distancing, the average person can still make use of Fiat online with the help of credit/debit cards or a payment processor like PayPal. We need to give Bitcoin more time until it matures enough for the mainstream world to use. Remember, the crypto market is still small compared to traditional markets like stocks and precious metals. More liquidity and regulations are needed (aside from development and innovation in the space) in order to make Bitcoin in-par with other asset types. As long as we work together to make the crypto world a better place, the time will come when many people worldwide will resort to Bitcoin as a "safe-haven" asset against the traditional banking system of today. Just my thoughts

Exactly. Privacy coins go against what central banks and governments have established for a very long time. They give people freedom over their own money, leaving said entities out of the system. Governments' excuse will always be that privacy coins (and crypto itself) serve as a means for money laundering and terrorist financing in order to get what they want. The real intention here is to spy over people's transactions than anything else. Not to mention, governments want to control people's money like they do with Fiat. A financial system that's completely independent from the world's banking system, proves to be a threat to the very existence of central banks worldwide.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Monero being de-listed at other centralized exchanges over time. After all, exchange operators want to keep their business by keeping governments happy. Monero will turn out to be traded exclusively in decentralized exchanges and in-person, once all centralized exchanges decide to de-list it. As long as people continue to support the XMR blockchain, nothing should go wrong. Thanks to the decentralized and open source nature of crypto, anything's possible nowadays. Governments' or companies' actions won't have an effect over the prominence of Monero whatsoever. The more centralized exchanges de-list Monero, the more alternatives will emerge for people to continue trading it. Just my opinion

That's certainly true, mate. Crypto was meant to bring financial freedom to world. But the fact that most people rely on centralized services for crypto transactions, greatly defeats the purpose. As long as centralized exchanges keep track of people's identity, taxation will be highly possible to perform by governments worldwide.

Now, imagine if everyone used decentralized wallets and exchanges on top of centralized ones? It would be a "nightmare" for governments as they try to link Blockchain addresses to a person in the mainstream world. Even worse, truly private coins like Monero and Grin makes it impossible to browse on-chain transactions for crypto taxation. Governments might ban crypto in the end, if they're unable to tax people's crypto funds on the Blockchain. But that doesn't matter as long as people continue to support crypto in the mainstream world. Regulations either good or bad won't have an effect over crypto's longevity whatsoever. With a full government crackdown, it'll still be possible to use crypto for daily payments. The only issue would be exchanging it to Fiat or vice versa, since it'll be declared illegal by the government. But I believe that people will trade crypto to Fiat in-person to remediate the issue.

All in all, I hope that crypto and governments work together for the foreseeable future. I don't mind paying taxes just to comply with the law and avoid facing jail time. I'm sure most people will do this since they don't have a choice. Cooperation with the government is key to avoid many undesired situations. If there's a friendly crypto stance from governments worldwide, nothing should go wrong.

I'm going to have a go with the F1 mini since it's the most affordable FPGA miner available on the market. I don't mind if it "steals" hashpower, as long as I'm able to learn how FPGA mining works. I want it for learning/experimental purposes, than making profit. I'm not surprised to see some PoW algorithms being taken over by ASICs, since there's really no such thing as "ASIC resistance". Developers need to adapt PoW algorithms over time, in order to maintain such resistance. The beauty of FPGA miners is that you can easily adapt to another algorithm by simply downloading a bitstream or programming it by yourself. ASICs on the other hand, are disposable since they're fixed to an specific hashing algorithm. That's why FPGAs have brought my attention lately.

Nonetheless, I appreciate your recommendation for getting started with a cheap FPGA miner for learning purposes. I'll try doing solo mining with it, to see what results I'll get in the short term. I'm planning to upgrade to a much more powerful FPGA miner once I learn how everything works. My next mining setup will consist of FPGAs and GPUs, instead of ASICs. I'll be a fun and exciting journey as I mine altcoins for profit.

This is great. Thanks for sharing. I was always curious to know how to airdrop ERC-20 tokens to given ETH addresses on the blockchain. The methods from the article look easy enough to get started with this. I'm going to test it on ETH's testnet just to be safe. An automated approach to sending free tokens to ETH addresses which meet certain requirements could prove to be beneficial for the issuer. I believe that dividends can be sent easily on the ETH blockchain using the given methods above. If it works for ETH, then I guess that it'll work for any other ETH-based fork like ETC and EXP. The only problem will be gas costs (fee), when paying ETH addresses manually across the network. If there was a way to "pre-load" a smart contract with gas, it'll be possible to send automated payments to addresses which proves to save time and cost-effective.



Thanks, mate. This is real useful. I think that I have all I need to send "airdropped" tokens to ETH addresses which meet certain requirements. Sending tokens one-by-one can be time-consuming and cost-ineffective if there are many ETH addresses on the blockchain that qualify for the airdrop. Bulk transactions will be ideal for this task, automated by a smart contract on the ETH platform.

Now that I have some articles across the web on how to do a token airdrop to ETH addresses on the blockchain, I'm going to play with ETH's Ropsten Testnet for a while. There are so many things you can do on Ethereum, that's not possible with Bitcoin nowadays. I've learned something new today thanks to you guys.

Exactly. It's all about convenience rather than security/reliability. At least, that's the mentality of most people nowadays. As long as a centralized wallet is easy to use, nothing else matters. Wallets of this type are much easier to handle for the average person than decentralized ones since there's no need to maintain custody of private keys. All the hard work is done by a third-party. Of course, this brings many security risks to user's funds. Knowledgeable people in the crypto space will definitely use decentralized wallets and services because of this. But the average Joe doesn't have time to study how to properly secure crypto funds, leading it to use a centralized wallet instead.

I guess that for each situation in life will be the wallet to use for crypto transactions. I'd suggest anyone to only store minuscule amounts of crypto on a centralized wallet, just to be safe. A decentralized wallet is a must for large crypto balances. Here, it's best to use a hardware wallet for maximum security against the latest threats in cyberspace. In a world where malicious hackers come up with schemes to steal your hard-earned money, it's best to rely on maximum security in order to reduce risks as much as possible. Even so, we cannot force everyone to rely on decentralized wallets and services in the crypto space. The best thing we could do is give our advice to everyday people in the mainstream world. But the ultimate decision would lie on them, whenever they'd want to continue supporting centralized wallets and exchanges or all the other way around. Just my thoughts

Well, Bitcoin provides far better job opportunities than Fiat itself. It's easy enough to send Bitcoin across borders than it is with Fiat nowadays. The pioneer cryptocurrency is suitable for daily payments, despite its high prices. You don't necessarily need to buy a whole Bitcoin (1 BTC) to use it as a currency. Buying fractions of a coin, is all you need to get started using Bitcoin right away. It's even possible to get "free money" by using your own device to mine an altcoin. Then, you can simply exchange that altcoin into Bitcoin for peace of mind. The low fees, and faster transaction speeds than Fiat, makes Bitcoin convenient to anyone. With the Lightning Network, people will be able to use it as a currency more thoroughly.

Of course, not everyone will find Bitcoin as an attractive payment option for mainstream transactions. There will always be people who support Fiat above anything else. And that's probably because the same is stable in price and backed by the full faith and credit of the government. But those who are serious about privacy and censorship-resistance, will use Bitcoin above any other currency in the world today. As long as we do our part to introduce the benefits of Bitcoin to the world, people will come to it. Just my thoughts

No one knows how a CBDC will turn out to be when launched. Governments could simply use Blockchain technology or a centralized database of their own. I think they'll use Blockchain tech for this purpose, considering their level of interest in the same after Bitcoin came into inception a long time ago. They can have their own private blockchain network where central banks act as "miners", "stakers", or "validators" of the same. Governments will simply run nodes in order to support the centralized blockchain network. No one from the outside will be able to build/develop on it, neither browse transactions performed on-chain. Since it'll be a permissioned chain (rather than permission-less like Bitcoin or Ethereum), central banks and governments will have full control over people's money. This is even worse than physical cash or credit/debit cards, since every single transaction can be easily manipulated at will by said entities with the power of Blockchain technology. Privacy will be a thing of the past in the new digital money system backed by governments worldwide.

I've seen somewhere that China has already been testing a digital wallet for its own CBDC. There are pictures across the web, showing a concept of the wallet's interface. It seems that China is serious in launching a digital Yuan to the world. It'll only be a matter of time before other countries follow. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the development of CBDCs as we speak. The more people practice social distancing, the less physical cash/banknotes will be used in the mainstream world. This will further encourage governments to start launching CBDCs for the whole world to use. Believe it or not, CBDCs will be the future of the worldwide economy. Just my opinion

Thanks for your recommendation. This new masternode coin looks like an affordable entry-point for making a passive income system without breaking the bank. I'm impressed by its latest developments, which gives an indication that it'll last for long. I was looking into another masternode coin called "SnowGem" (XSG), but I'd need to wait for more than a year to achieve ROI with it. Horizen's securenodes are quite affordable, but the gains are very minimal. I guess that you "get what you pay for". No other masternode coin is as profitable as DASH is, probably because it requires a hefty investment in terms of USD. The dev team should make DASH a "Tiered Masternode Coin" in order to attract average people into it. Not only it becomes affordable to start earning with a "tiered masternode" but it also contributes towards the decentralization of the underlying blockchain network.

Nonetheless, I'll add POLIS to my list of masternode coins to invest for 2020. As of now, I'm running Digitalcoin (DGC) and MonetaryUnit (MUE) masternodes as I've bought them cheap when prices were very low on the market (especially MUE). Digitalcoin is very cheap nowadays, but a great coin with a multi-algorithm PoW consensus. It's not very active in development, but the dev adds a new wallet release every once in a while. These masternodes, alongside a POLIS and Horizen masternode should ramp up my crypto passive income system for 2020.



Yeah. There are so many high-risk, high-reward masternode coins out there on the market. Most of them are inactive in development and innovation. Only a few are active in development, with a low-reward mechanism. I'd prefer to deal with coins of this type because they tend to survive on the market for a very long time. Zcoin and Phore are very interesting, although relatively expensive to get the collateral for a masternode. Still, they're not as expensive as DASH is today. Zcoin tends to be very undervalued nowadays, considering that it's been the pioneer of Zero-Knowledge Proofs (Zerocoin came first than Zerocash). I believe that it's better than its rival Zcash, with all of the features it provides. But I guess that people are focused on market cap rankings and hype than anything else.

All in all, I hope that investing in these masternode coins will be worth doing so for the long term. As long as they're adopted by the mainstream world, there should be nothing to worry about.

A very useful site. Thanks, mate. At least, we have an estimation of how much money it would take the attacker to perform a 51% attack. The results are not accurate, so they may vary according to the network's hashrate over time. One thing for sure is that some BCH miners have migrated to the BTC blockchain. This should make Bitcoin Cash weaker against a 51% attack, while strengthening the original Bitcoin (BTC). I believe this is temporary as a result of BCH's halving event. Once Bitcoin (BTC) halves on May, those same BCH miners that migrated to BTC could go back to supporting their chain. If that doesn't happen, then Bitcoin Cash would be at risk. As a last resort, developers could make use of merged mining or fork to a new PoW algorithm to strengthen the underlying blockchain network.

At least, it's nearly impossible to attack the BTC blockchain because of how expensive it is to do so. Not even governments will be able to afford such costs. I hope that the BTC blockchain continues to grow in hashrate so that it would become a truly unstoppable form of money for the whole world to enjoy.



Interesting. Calculating the cost of a 51% attack looks somewhat complicated, but at least there are sites and apps available which makes your life easier. Considering current estimates, it would take the attacker a hefty sum of money to attack the BTC blockchain. No one could afford doing a 51% attack on Bitcoin, unless it's a company that produces mining hardware. In this case, Bitmain has a greater chance of attacking the BTC blockchain than anyone else as it dominates a large portion of Bitcoin's hashrate. Up to this date, Bitmain hasn't become a threat to Bitcoin's PoW consensus, but it could sometime in the future.

Anyone can easily rent miners on Nicehash to perform a 51% attack on smaller blockchain networks. You don't need to setup mining equipment or incur in energy costs. Just paying the rent for "x" amount of hashrate, could allow anyone to attack a PoW blockchain if he/she has the capital to do so. But I believe that the attacker's efforts will be in vain, as more money will be lost than what it is gained.

I wonder if hybrid PoW + PoS blockchain networks are much more expensive to perform a 51% attack? After all, the attacker would need to control 51% of mining hashrate and 51% of the coin's supply (if I'm not mistaken). Bitcoin devs could decide to implement this in the future if the community allows it. As long as Bitcoin has an immense hashrate backing it, nothing should go wrong. The one's that need to be concerned are Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV supporters + developers. Miners from those chains could migrate to Bitcoin itself, making them completely vulnerable against a 51% attack. But I believe that the damage done will be minimal since "nobody" uses those chains nowadays.



A well thought-out and detailed explanation. This basically summarizes how to calculate the costs to perform a 51% attack on any PoW blockchain. Considering that hashrate volume is low on Nicehash, the attacker would simply need to own mining hardware to attack a PoW blockchain of his desire. The energy consumption and hardware costs, would make it unfeasible to disrupt a large blockchain network like Bitcoin or Ethereum. That's the beauty of decentralization/censorship-resistance. As long as Bitcoin maintains astronomical levels of hashrate, not even governments will be able to stop it. Of course, Bitmain already controls more than 51% of the BTC hashrate, but the fact that it's more profitable to support the BTC blockchain greatly defeats the purpose of an attack of such degree. The real deal will be with smaller blockchain networks that are relatively inexpensive to attack. But developers could easily rely on other solutions to mitigate security risks.

As long as Bitcoin is alive and running, nothing else matters

That's certainly true, mate. If Fiat can still be used online, why people would resort to crypto in the first place? I know that the dreaded volatility makes crypto somewhat unattractive to the average person, but it still has greater benefits than Fiat itself. For instance, people using crypto can obtain true freedom over their own money. It's possible to achieve privacy for online payments performed with crypto. That's not possible with Fiat using either a payment processor like PayPal or a credit/debit card directly. Besides that, crypto provides better profit opportunities than Fiat itself because the way it was designed. Bitcoin is the world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap, with a deflationary model that keeps coin emission low every 4 years. At times, Bitcoin becomes extremely valuable giving you the opportunity to profit within a short time frame.

Despite all the benefits that crypto provides over Fiat, people are still comfortable in using the latter since it's been trusted for a very long time. People are skeptical to use something that's new and widely unstable for mainstream payments. I believe crypto needs more time to mature before people will be able to consider it as an alternative payment option in times of need. Until then, the average person will continue to cash out everything for Fiat during the coronavirus pandemic. The longer the outbreak takes to disappear, the more prices will decline across the market. This applies not only to crypto, but also stocks and precious metals. Since this is the first time crypto experiences times of turmoil, it'll be put up to the test in order to determine its true value proposition in the mainstream world. I'm hoping that people will be able to use crypto more thoroughly in times of need sometime in the future. Just my thoughts

It's no secret that some forks will die, while some will remain alive for a very long time. Every fork can contribute towards the development of Blockchain technology one way or another. Different crypto projects test different algorithms and solutions for scalability, privacy, and more. But only those that are capable of providing real use cases for the mainstream world, will survive in the long run. The efforts from developers working on Bitcoin forks will be extremely beneficial for the main Bitcoin blockchain. Features that work on other chains, can be easily implemented on the BTC blockchain if the need arises. It's like Bitcoin forks are experimental grounds for the development of Blockchain technology. By doing this, the ecosystem becomes stronger than ever.

No matter how many Bitcoin forks there are, only one chain will be the true winner. So far, Bitcoin is the leading cryptocurrency in the industry with a large number of developers, businesses, and individuals supporting it. I'd expect it to be that way for a very long time, because of its first-mover advantage on the market. Bitcoin forks will never be able to take Bitcoin's brand recognition within the mainstream world. They may copy Bitcoin's design and name, but they'll never be as "trusted" as Bitcoin is. Mainstream adoption matters above anything else. BCH, BSV and other Bitcoin forks are way behind Bitcoin in this regard. Ultimately, the market will decide which coin will remain as the "real Bitcoin" for the foreseeable future. Just my opinion

That's certainly true, mate. People just want to make a quick buck with Bitcoin, rather than believing in its core technology to change the world for the better. It's all about freedom/decentralization, than making money. After all, Satoshi designed Bitcoin to be independent from the world's current monetary system. But people are still putting their faith on Fiat instead of Bitcoin, despite being subject to manipulation or fraud. Whenever there's a bear market, most people cash out their Bitcoin for Fiat. Almost everyone is waiting for Bitcoin to reach a new All-time-high to make profit. Lower prices across the crypto market, tends to scare people away from the industry. With a Bitcoin halving every 4 years, you'd expect prices to become higher over time.

It doesn't matter if Bitcoin reaches a new ATH in price or not, since it was designed as an alternative monetary system to existing Fiat. As long as the BTC blockchain is still alive and running, there should be nothing to worry about. Decentralization/censorship-resistance is key to achieving financial sovereignty. That's what matters here. And Bitcoin can be used directly for peer-to-peer payments regardless of its price across the market. Once you focus on Bitcoin's utility, you won't need to worry on its price ever again. Just my thoughts

Thanks, mate. This is very useful. At last, a developer has taken the effort to make Bitcoin accessible to blind people. With Satoshi's ambitions of making Bitcoin useful to the world, this is a pretty big achievement. The basic part of sending/receiving Bitcoin transactions for blind people should suffice. At least, blind people can interact with the BTC blockchain thanks to this project. But the real deal would be exchanging Bitcoin to Fiat or any other cryptocurrency via a centralized or decentralized exchange. I'm not aware of any exchange that's friendly for blind people, so that's something that needs to be solved in the future.

Considering that there's still a lot of work to be done, the only way blind people will be able to truly use Bitcoin nowadays is with some human assistance. It's hoped that as popularity for the pioneer cryptocurrency grows, developers will be interested in creating an infrastructure for the visually-impaired. The "IcyWallet" project is genius work, as it allows any blind person to interact with the Bitcoin blockchain with ease. I'm beginning to wonder how BTC addresses will be read by the wallet itself? Setting a label for an address or something simple where the blind person would understand, could prove to be quite convenient for the end user. I'm sure the dev will come up with a solution for this, if it hasn't been implemented yet.



That's something that needs to be "tackled" with, if developers want blind people to use Bitcoin securely. At some point, human assistance will be needed to verify the authenticity of the wallet. It's the only way to know that it's not been "rigged" in any way. The "IcyWallet" developer could simply make the software speak a unique code that would let the blind person know the same is authentic and not modified in any way. At least, better something than nothing. This wallet may have some issues, but it seems to do its job pretty well. As long as the developer continues to work on it, flaws will be mitigated over time. Let's support this project in order to help increase Bitcoin adoption for the visually-impaired.

Exactly. Bitcoin is still behind Fiat when it comes to merchant acceptance. Nearly every store around the world accepts Fiat, but not Bitcoin. This is probably because the pioneer cryptocurrency is volatile in price. As long as prices are unstable, Bitcoin cannot be used as a currency like Fiat. Aside from making Bitcoin faster and cheaper to use, we should focus on making governments regulate the market to provide better price stability. With greater liquidity and mainstream adoption, it's possible that Bitcoin will be used for daily payments instead of Fiat.

Until then, people will continue to use Fiat in times of need (like the ones we're facing right now). Even with social distancing, it's still possible to conduct transactions with Fiat using a credit/debit card or a payment processor like PayPal. As long as people trust Fiat, Bitcoin will be used by a very small margin. Now that governments around the world have started to print more money than usual, inflation will rise like never before. We'll reach a point where people will no longer trust central banks and Fiat currency itself, leading towards increased demand for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on the market.

Nonetheless, the smart money will "hodl" Bitcoin no matter what. The halving is about to happen soon, resulting in higher prices per coin in the long term. We may not be able to avoid "sell pressure" across the market as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. But as long as loyal supporters of the cryptocurrency buy and "hodl" their coins, nothing should go wrong. Besides, Bitcoin continues to grow in development and innovation behind the scenes. Before you know it, scalability and privacy issues will be a thing of the past on the BTC blockchain. This, alongside reduced coin issuance, should lead towards a very bright future for Bitcoin. Just my opinion

The final decision lies on the governments themselves. I believe that they'll have success taking down centralized stablecoins. But they'll have a hard time trying to do the same with decentralized stablecoins like DAI and bitUSD. Central banks have seen crypto more as a threat lately because they prove to be an "exit route" for the currently deteriorating economy. They want to stay in control of people's money no matter what. An alternative payment system which is outside of the scope of a central authority, goes against what banks have established in the first place. Eventually, centralized stablecoins will have to comply with heavy-handed regulations or be left out of the game. There's no reason to worry about a stablecoin ban harming the entire crypto space, since it was designed to be completely independent from the world's monetary system.

Long before stablecoins even existed, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies performed well within the mainstream world. I know that volatility reduces one's spending power in terms of Fiat, but that's not an issue when using crypto directly for daily payments. Stablecoins are helpful when you want the convenience of Fiat with the power of Blockchain technology. If they'd cease to exist, then you'd just cash out your crypto to real Fiat at any time. I believe that central banks are just giving these suggestions to governments worldwide to spread FUD within the crypto/Blockchain space. No matter what their efforts may be, they'll never be able to take down the industry in its entirety because of its decentralized and censorship-resistant nature. Just my thoughts

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If I were to create my very own token on the ETH blockchain, I'd need to be able to airdrop some free tokens to ETH "hodlers". I've seen many token issuers doing this, which has made me curious on how to do it. Something like specifying a certain number of ETH required for a person to receive free tokens will suffice. Will the solution involve modifying or tweaking the smart contract's code? Or can it be done on a separate programming language?

Any help with this will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I've been into Bitcoin for quite a few years, and I'm impressed to see how far it has reached in the mainstream world. It's the most widely-adopted cryptocurrency for decentralized payments worldwide without the need for a middleman. In its current state, Bitcoin works wonders for ordinary people like you and me. It's only a matter of putting the right BTC address and the number of coins to send to get started using the Bitcoin blockchain.

However, my concern is how blind people are able to get used to Bitcoin? To my knowledge, wallets (either with a GUI or CLI) don't have "text-to-speech" features to make blind people's lives easier. It'd be great if developers keep blind people in mind to help increase the adoption of the pioneer cryptocurrency in the mainstream world. The only thing I've found is an audiobook of the Bitcoin whitepaper which is a great solution to introduce blind people into the "mechanics" of Bitcoin.

Any thoughts?

I know that DASH is the most profitable masternode coin, but I can't afford the collateral of 1,000 DASH at current prices. I'm on the hunt for other affordable masternode coins that would be worth investing right now. To my knowledge, most masternode coins have been abandoned by developers as they've been unable to provide real use cases for the mainstream world. Some are still there (like Digitalcoin and MonetaryUnit) but their trading volume is extremely low. I'm deeply interested in a masternode coin that's active in development and innovation. But most of all, I'd needs to have trading volume on the market.

Do you happen to know which affordable masternode coins (besides DASH) are the most profitable ones to invest right now? Any suggestions or recommendations will be greatly appreciated.