I think a lot of the activity is just so that they can try to earn bitcoins with the spammy sig campaigns.  I am happy to donate to things I care about, but not to the nonsense "global poverty" BS.  People need to vote for freedom not authoritarianism (socialism, fascism, communism etc) if they want to get out of poverty.  Property rights, freedom, education and the rule of law will do more to bring people out of poverty than people donating.  

I started mining etc in July 2010. At any time anyone was free to involved in bitcoin, mining, developing, buying etc between Jan 2009 and today.  Everything is about choices though.  You could spend your money (for example) on netflix or spend it buying bitcoin in 2011, 2012, 2013 etc.  Likewise, you can spend your time watching netflix or learning programming or anything with regard to bitcoin or anything else.   You can play fortnite or you can learn something worthwhile, start a business or do something like that.   Don't later complain later when you missed an opportunity because you chose to watch TV, go out drinking, partying, playing video games or anything else that takes you away from spending at least some time doing something productive.  It doesn't have to be exclusively something productive, but don't complain later if you chose something else.

Just like people who complain about "the rich".  In most "1st world" countries, parents could easily save 1000 euros or dollars for a newborn - 84 per month in one year.  Cancel cable and netflix for a year and spend the time reading to your child.  Don't buy coffee at Starbucks and you could save a 3000 or 4000 that first year.  If you do that 1000 or 4000 and give it and invest it for the child, by the time they are retired, they'll have more than 1 million (or 4 million).  Do it for a few more years, and it will grow even more. If instead of that, teenagers take the money for their phone and travel expenses (e.g. petrol/gasoline) and invest it from 13 to 18 they'll likewise have a few million by retirement even if they never invest anything again.

It is about choices though:  instant gratification or understanding math and the power of compounding and acting on it.  People make their choices and then they pay the price later or reap the rewards later.  Don't expect people who are paying attention making smart choices to pay for your poor choices.

The authoritarians - socialist, fascist, communist, totalitarian etc - have never liked people being able to control their own lives through controlling their own wealth.  FDR was a leftist through and through ready to throw freedom out the window to gain power for himself and his cronies.  Nothing has changed since then except the world has been pulled more and more to the point where people who believe in defending liberty are in the minority in many places.  It should be noted that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice and bitcoin is one big way to defend your freedom from the collectivist authoritarians who are bent on taking over the world by taking over money. 

If a government begins outlawing crypto, gold (or other PMs), puts in capital controls, puts in wealth taxes, you know that they are heading in the direction of authoritarianism and it is time to start planning (it really is time to plan BEFORE THAT by owning some bitcoin - 1 or more preferably) for an exit to a country that values freedom.  Look at the looters in Venezuela, NK, Cuba, and many other countries around the world.  Look at Bernie, Warren, and Biden in the US - they believe that they have the right to the products of your life in order to amass power to themselves.

Slavery was evil in the past and is still evil even when couched in flowery language of "need" and "fairness".

The current time is just a guess, so there isn't an appointment.  It is highly unlikely to be the end of April, but we could see it a few days sooner than estimated now.  Some estimates are saying May 12 2020 (e.g. https://www.bitcoinblockhalf.com, https://www.thehalvening.com).  Some are saying May 7 (e.g. https://www.bitcoinclock.com).  A couple of months ago the estimates were May 15th.  4 years ago, they were June or July.

However, all that being said, if, for example, the hash rate increased by 100% each of the next 6 halving periods, then each one would only take a week, so you'd shorten 14 days by half if the sudden increase started right at the next 2016 block period.  Then you certainly could have the halving sooner.  The odds of a 100% increase in hash rate like that are infinitesimal though.

In short, at the current rate of increase, having it in April is quite unlikely.  However, it doesn't really matter one way or the other when it occurs so I don't see why the tweet would be FUD, merely something that is probably wrong and since I didn't see any rationale as to why they think that it seems to be just wild speculation.  Don't know who that person is, and seems like just some random person throwing something out there.

And I am not really sure if this even belongs in the Dev and Tech section, perhaps it belongs in the Discussion section.

The former, but the end will be that people will stop needing to exchange out of crypto and more and more people will just stay in it and not need the exchanges.

I'll be happy to buy these tainted coins at a few cents on the dollar.

“ Bitcoin is the money of criminals”

I also have to ask who is defining what is criminal?  If it was the US a century ago alcohol would be illegal and pre 1914 cocaine was legal.

In some places drugs are legal, in others illegal. In some places purchasing an ad to attack the monarch or Muhammad is illegal, in others who cares. The bunny ranch is legal some places, illegal others. Homosexuality is legal some places and illegal others. In some places it is illegal to own a gun, in others not. 

At some point and some time pretty much every use of fiat or bitcoin would’ve been illegal, but control freaks like to control others thinking that other people are unable to think for themselves.  Yet paradoxically these same people are competent to vote in people to control everyone else.

Typical fake nonsense news from the NYT.  They can't even get the facts correct.

You mean, corporations are supposed to collect it from the buyers of their products and remit it to the government.  People are the only entities that pay taxes, corporations etc merely collect them on behalf of someone else and divide the costs primarily on consumers and employees.

I think she means anyone involved in any way in bitcoin.  She seems like an authoritarian to the core who wants to control everyone else via money.

Power consumption provides network security.  I'm sure she'd much rather have everyone use fiat so she can seize it in or inflate the value away in order to fund whatever he pet projects are, but some of us believe that we have the right to the products of our lives and we aren't slaves to satisfy her whines.

May, not June.

As far as the fiat price goes, unchanged or increased demand and a decrease of new supply, should lead to a higher price eventually. Whether that is before the halving due to anticipation or months after the halving due to the anticipation already occurring is anyone's guess.  In short, no one knows, it is just guessing.

Seems somewhat pointless - a centralized digital representation of fiat. Just use a database.

The problem is that once governments have established the precedent that someone else's needs justify the seizure of my means to pay for them, it isn't a stretch for those governments to want to seize something like bitcoin since it gives people an escape hatch from the government controlled fiat system.

I doubt that Coinbase is a three letter agency, but if you get an administration in that believes it is their right to "redistribute" wealth in order to pay for an authoritarian government bitcoin will be a prime target if it is concentrated at one place.  Particularly if the US Supreme Court has been packed beforehand in order to green light this type of socialist/fascist/communist program. 

Will it happen any time soon?  Probably not, but the lure of "free" stuff could turn the US election in 2020 to a government that will eventually need to pay for all the promises they've made.

Bitcoin is more of a threat to inflation prone fiat currencies and central banks than commercial banks. Bitcoin banks would be closer to Swiss banks vs, say, Deutsche bank.

Every wallet does not have a seed phrase. Many do, but not all.

I would also add this is true for anything digital.  If you don't back up your Office files, eventually you'll lose something. If you don't back up your photos, you'll lose them. In short, if you don't back up electronics eventually something will go wrong.

If he had either backed up his device that had his wallet or backed up his password, he'd have been fine.

Bitcoin is not to blame for user error.  At best the device should automatically back your.

Blockchain or a local exchange?  Those are bad ideas unless you are incompetent about securing your own computer.  Then you don't own bitcoin, you have an IOU.

Electrum is secure if your computer is secure.  People saying that "they" have lots of security issues are misinformed.

I am curious what OS you are running, anti virus software you are using.  Not that it matters since it is gone, but perhaps it will help someone else.

Electrum is quite secure if your computer is secure.  Anyone saying otherwise is spreading FUD.

But bitcoin's confirmation IS faster than current payment methods such as Visa.  Visa's initial approval may be a few seconds, but you can contest a charge for months afterward so it is NOT confirmed for months.  Bitcoin transactions are confirmed much faster than months.  An hour or two.  Bitcoin's initial broadcast to the network is a few seconds at most also.

I do agree though, the scalability drama is just that, drama. 

With Lightning, you can have more or less instant broadcast and instant confirmations.

Most (all) side chain functions can be duplicated faster and cheaper on things like lightning.  Sidechains may be interesting for some uses, but federated sidechains that require trusted 3rd parties aren't very interesting except as experiments.

Assuming coins haven't moved since 2010 are lost is a poor assumption for at least some percentage of them.  Slashdot's first article on it was July 2010 and a lot of people got involved and started mining then and just mined into an address and left them. 

It reminds me of the (continual it seems) proposals to require coins to be moved in order to keep them - one should not assume that coins that are of X age are lost.

Agreed.  It would be like if my grandfather gave their 13 year old grandchild a 1/10 ounce of gold and then the kid went outside and it fell out of her pocket in a lake.  Then they said, "I didn't lose it, my pocket it."

Blame the gold or blame the person who didn't take care of it?  It is like blaming forks for making people fat and guns for shootings.