I think that there is definitely other life in the universe - but the word aliens has come to be associated with UFOs and little green men - which I don't think is how it works.

Its an interesting question - but I think that any government that did this would basically be saying in no uncertain terms that they are the final arbiters of all money created.

It would mean that they are saying that you are not allowed to trade freely and that you are stuck with the currency of the country that you trade with.

If all governments said this then it would mean that they have created a monetary alliance that is stronger than Bitcoin because they could easily "outlaw" Bitcoin (using the legal system - they wouldn't be able to shut it down technically) and make their new currency legal tender.

If that were to happen then there would be no need for Bitcoin because it would mean that there would now be a borderless currency (which is one of the main value propositions of Bitcoin) and most likely the price of Bitcoin would drop.

If, however, they went about outlawing Bitcoin without providing an alternative - its likely that it wouldn't be a universal deal - there would still be countries that value the economic freedom of the individual above outlawing Bitcoin and would most likely not join the alliance - meaning Bitcoin could be mined and distributed legally there.

Maybe one day our leaders will understand that money is just a technology to help drive the economy and satisfy human needs and wants. Until then - buy Bitcoin.

You can accelerate your own transactions if you want All you need to do is ensure that the fee you enter is around the current price that most people are paying to get their transaction confirmed which is defined here: https://blockchain.info/charts/cost-per-transaction

The only other way to accelerate your transaction is to mine and find blocks yourself and prioritise your transaction in the next block - this is what some of those services do.

I'm not sure if the price to confirm through acceleration is higher than paying the current transaction confirmation fee but you can look at both options and go for the cheaper one.

The fee in order to complete a transaction varies on the Bitcoin network from time to time. There is effectively a backlog of transactions on the network caused by the fact that the current rate of finding a block and adding transactions from the mempool to the next block is limited.

Your transaction will be eventually be confirmed if/when the number of people sending Bitcoin slows or if everyone also sends transactions with a low fee like yours but if Bitcoin usage spikes and everyone is happier to pay higher transaction fees than you (in per byte terms) - it will potentially never be confirmed.

There is a possibility that as Bitcoin nodes go offline and come back on that the rate of mempool synchronisation drops and your transaction gets lost and expires - or that the Bitcoin devs update the clients to kick transactions over a certain age from the mempool but I think that is more unlikely.

In fact your question is what has sparked the whole block size debate. If blocks were bigger - you could process more transactions in them and confirmation times would be reduced.

There is more information on the proposed solutions in the following links. 
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_size_limit_controversy
https://www.coindesk.com/explainer-what-is-segwit2x-and-what-does-it-mean-for-bitcoin/
https://medium.com/@olivierjanss/the-solution-to-the-block-size-debate-42c3814ff481
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem

Good luck!

I think its more a function of the fact that most implementations of wallets are designed to work across both Linux/Mac and Windows. If you've ever tried to develop for all three platforms simultaneously you very quickly realise that the GUI toolkits aren't very good. The best one is Qt (the same gui as the KDE desktop I believe) but it isn't as developed as many of the native GUI toolkits because it has to work across all platforms so is only as good as the most basic platforms.

When you consider that you wouldn't even have these frameworks if it weren't for open source then you'll realise its not actually a curse

Haven't ever seen any but I suspect its because the code base is a changing one and most coders will just run through it themselves on GitHub anyway.

Would be good to see it though as a way to get younger coders involved.

Just happened across this one: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7x4vad/putin-cryptocurrency-russia-mining-regulations-ico-bitcoin-ethereum?utm_source=mbfb

It sounds like a good idea from a government's perspective but wouldn't miners just move to locations where they don't have to register?

Lol - true - I guess in this instance ethics isn't a major concern - either for the users or owners. Outside of the pirate bay though - what if you were paying for a Netflix subscription and they were stealing cycles from your CPU in a way that you would never know - would you care?

Did you change the default password?

After reading about the Pirate Bay hijacking web miners (https://gizmodo.com/the-pirate-bay-added-a-cpu-hijacking-bitcoin-miner-to-s-1818488143) I wondered if anyone had created a list of such sites. How would you even detect that the site is stealing compute power from your device?

The best way is to just not join them in the first place. Bitcoin's design means that you have the ability to control your own account and manage your own returns. So get your own Bitcoin address, learn how it works - and build value in the crypto market by trading in crypto. Buy your everyday goods where you can in crypto and teach your friends how to do the same. That way the value of your crypto will appreciate as more people start to use it.

Check out the Monaco card https://mona.co/

You can spend crypto directly anywhere.

Not sure that I would call it a flaw - its more a feature that needs to be upgraded

I'm not sure that Ether will see large price increases. It has a fixed inflation model (1% I think) which means there will always be more of it made. And when it moves to the PoC algorithm its not going to be as expensive to mine as Bitcoin.

So I say BTC @25k
ETH @ $800 - maybe.

  Buy Buy Buy.

Its interesting though - I think each of the halvenings will cause some panic buying.

  yep - all the way down. Thanks will check out the Hardware section.

Lol, yeah - that's why innovators are hugely important to the success of a country. I think the interesting thing with Bitcoin is that you don't need to consider the country anymore - you can build a borderless organisation with people who are just as innovative as you.

Yeah - its a network effect that basically means the value of the network gets multiplied by itself with each new user. I don't think it strictly applies to currency given that not all people can buy the same level of Bitcoin - but if larger players get involved (like banks) then that number could grow very quickly.

I don't think so - most banks are already digital. They use digital transfers to move money from location to location. The real benefit of Bitcoin is in its decentralised model and the ability to send it quickly for (relatively) low cost.

Of course that convenience is lowered by having to manage your own security (unless you get a web wallet). Opening a Bitcoin account takes seconds. Bank accounts - not so quick. Sending to anyone anywhere in the world takes a maximum of a few hours during busy times. Banks currently take days.

The problems isn't really the banks though - its more the layers of procedure and red-tape that are instituted to "stop" criminals. Bitcoin has auditability and complete traceability so can actually help law enforcement track payments without the need for regulation.

Unless there is a very compelling reason to switch (helicopter drops maybe???) I don't think Bitcoin is going to stop being used.

I think it depends on the coin. If most people are running ASICs then that will be your best bet.

If its one of the cryptos that uses mining algorithms that are designed to be resistant to ASICs then its going to be best to use GPUs in that case.

Ultimately it comes down to how much you can mine for the cost of the electricity that you're paying.