My experience with kraken has been horrible in the recent months.
There is an increasing numbers of dissatisfied customers from Bitstamp regarding long support response times and even some fraud accusations.
These have been the oldest and most established bitcoin exchange in Europe! Kraken is responsible for assisting in processing claims by the 127,000 creditors of Mt. Gox.

It still boggles me that after all these years of terrible business practices, customer dissatisfaction and bad system security, not a single decent EU-based cryptocurrency exchange has emerged.
Some justify the problems due to the increasing demand. These are not just growth pains. It's something more.
Please, let me know, am I the only one with these beliefs?

It seems that it needs to download the entire blockchain.
I was under the impression that this wouldn't be the case, as the full blockchain is only required
for the transaction history.
Am I wrong?

I don't know how permanent this should be considered, but for me it looks like xtnodes.com is down.

Check if www.xtnodes.com is down --> down as of now

This is a snapshot I just created for future reference, in case it gets online back.
https://archive.is/LmGkL

Is this a sign the two sides reached an agreement?
Is it just a random shutdown for maintenance?
Or is it maybe a kind of attack?

Let's hope it's the first case.  

[theft]

 

I will be short.

Part 1
I lost my smart-phone (Sony xperia branded) roughly 7 hours ago in a shopping center aka mall.
It was a fully functioning phone, and I remember that less than five minutes before the event I had a call with a friend of mine.
I realized the bad fact roughly after 20 minutes after the call was made.
Now I am making calls to track it, only to see that it is turned off!
Obviously, means one thing, theft.

Part 2
Good news: About three hours ago, I came up with a genius idea.
I configured my modem/router to not use a password authentication roughly two years ago.
The thing is called MAC address filtering. You need to tell the router what MAC addresses to allow and done.
No 'insert password hassle'. Anyway, I know this brings a security issue as MACs can be spoofed by who cares when it makes your life easier?
To the point; I got the MAC address of my smart-phone! Every device able to connect to the Internet has at least one such address which is unique,
it is not dynamic like ip addresses.

Part 3
So do you think I could track my phone even in the event of a software/firmware format?
Can the cops track your by MAC address?

Spying

According to Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency has a system that tracks the movements of everyone in a city by monitoring the MAC addresses of their electronic devices.[13] As a result of users being trackable by their devices' MAC addresses, Apple Inc. has started using random MAC addresses in their iOS line of devices while scanning for networks.[14] If random MAC addresses are not used, researchers have confirmed that it is possible to link a real identity to a particular wireless MAC address.[15]

What should my steps be to limit any personal data breach/leak?
I haven't called the cops yet, but I plan on doing so tomorrow...

[not]

Back in last year, I was impressed by how an 'innovative' project like ethereum drew so much attention, aiming at
 expanding cryptocurrency possibilities. They called it web 3.0, they called it cpryptocurrency 2.0, the called it the future.
Several months later, back in last summer the ether IPO started. I was not experienced in any IPO, so I was skeptical
of investing even the minimum of 0.01 BTC. The solution was to see what other people were thinking about the IPO.
I was convinced not to invest.People said that a lot of times money have been lost in IPOs and pre-mined coins.

I still consider ethereum a great idea, and I am happy that cryptocurrencies evolve.
However the IPO has nothing to do with the project's innovative nature!
On top of that, it appears to me that ethereum could barely be called decentralised; The devs
have a lot of power over the network! In comparison to bitcoin, the only thing a bitcoin dev
can do to harm bitcoin except from abandoning the project, is to issue a false aka fake alert using the alert key!
Also, even if the project fails, the devs will be rich! Remember the IPO?
Also ether is official stated as 'crypto fuel' and not money. This will make it easier to evade any future accusation


What do you think? Am I right?
Should I feel bad I didn't invest?

One of my addresses in Electrum 2.3.3 shows a non-zero balance although it doesn't have any unspent outputs. However using getaddressbalance(address) I got zero balance!
Note that this is a manually imported key. The other imported keys show correct balance.
That happend after upgrading from 1.9.8-->2.3.3(Luckily I backed-up my old 1.9.8 wallet )
Although 2.3.3 supports only sweeping keys, it imports the keys from old 1.9.8 wallets.
Sadly 2.3.3 seems to have poor support for imported keys.

Code:

>> getaddressbalance("1*********************************")
{
    "confirmed": "0", 
    "unconfirmed": "0"
}

Yet it comes with many nice features 1.9.8 didn't have wich I love.
Electrum looks so simple but it works and it seems to be the only mature spv wallet out there
allowing full control of your bitcoins.


Also is it possible to have more words in electrum wallet seed to increase security?

I decided after some time to offer a loan again.
This time though I will not a accept anyone without collateral, unless he is highly reputable and/or his
account is worth a lot.

Interest rate: 10%, can be negotiated.
Maximum amount is 0.4 btc. - edit: 0.18 btc

Please don't even try posting here if you are a newbie. It is not worth the risk for me.

I might be interested in the future to buy bitcoin with paysafecard.

Have you tried this?
What was your first impressions?
What is the safest and/or cheapest way to buy btc with payssafe?

Thank in advance.

bring down Assad in Syria.

http://guardianlv.com/2014/06/isis-trained-by-us-government/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-isis-islamic-terrorists-are-supported-by-the-us-israel-and-saudi-arabia/5396171

http://rt.com/op-edge/168064-isis-terrorism-usa-cia-war/

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/iraq-crisis-how-saudi-arabia-helped-isis-take-over-the-north-of-the-country-9602312.html
In my opinion, the USA and many other western countries
funded the ISIS to stop Assad's rule on Syria. But it didn't end as expected.
While Assad managed to stay, ISIS expanded in Iraq and it suddenly became
a threat to the west.

I am really curious about your view on this.

So, I am offering some loans again, after quite some time.
Terms. Collateral needed , except from very reputable members.
Interest rates are from 20% lowest.
Payment deadline two weeks Maximum.
Max btc to lend is 0.3 btc


Feel free to make offers  .

Hey guys!
I am in desperate need of your help.
I created a transaction, and soon after that I decided I wanted to cancel it.
The transaction has zero fees, so it will take a while to confirm.
I used https://brainwallet.github.io/#tx to create the transaction and I broacasted with electrum!
Please take some time to help me!

Thanks in advance!

OK In the process of migrating to multibit, I dumped my entire wallet.dat file to a txt file with json format.
But there's a little problem. There are literally hundreds of addresses in there with no balance.
For me it looks like bitcoin core creates them intentionally for an unknown reason.
The problem is that I don't know if I should import them into multibit.
Also, there are some transaction data inside the json file. Should I do something with that?

Any help will be appreciated 
Thanks

Ok, so now many people say that gox got robbed.
But there isn't any official tatement about this.
So again, did Mt.Gox get actually robbed, or is it just a rumour?

Well, it looks like it's the end of MtGox...
This is the update about BTC wthdrawal delays.
Any aswers from the bicoin developers?

Dear MtGox Customers and Bitcoiners,

As you are aware, the MtGox team has been working hard to address an issue with the way that bitcoin withdrawals are processed. By "bitcoin withdrawal" we are referring to transactions from a MtGox bitcoin wallet to an external bitcoin address. Bitcoin transactions to any MtGox bitcoin address, and currency withdrawals (Yen, Euro, etc) are not affected by this issue.

The problem we have identified is not limited to MtGox, and affects all transactions where Bitcoins are being sent to a third party. We believe that the changes required for addressing this issue will be positive over the long term for the whole community. As a result we took the necessary action of suspending bitcoin withdrawals until this technical issue has been resolved.


Addressing Transaction Malleability
MtGox has detected unusual activity on its Bitcoin wallets and performed investigations during the past weeks. This confirmed the presence of transactions which need to be examined more closely.


Non-technical Explanation:
A bug in the bitcoin software makes it possible for someone to use the Bitcoin network to alter transaction details to make it seem like a sending of bitcoins to a bitcoin wallet did not occur when in fact it did occur. Since the transaction appears as if it has not proceeded correctly, the bitcoins may be resent. MtGox is working with the Bitcoin core development team and others to mitigate this issue.


Technical Explanation:
Bitcoin transactions are subject to a design issue that has been largely ignored, while known to at least a part of the Bitcoin core developers and mentioned on the BitcoinTalk forums. This defect, known as "transaction malleability" makes it possible for a third party to alter the hash of any freshly issued transaction without invalidating the signature, hence resulting in a similar transaction under a different hash. Of course only one of the two transactions can be validated. However, if the party who altered the transaction is fast enough, for example with a direct connection to different mining pools, or has even a small amount of mining power, it can easily cause the transaction hash alteration to be committed to the blockchain.

The bitcoin api "sendtoaddress" broadly used to send bitcoins to a given bitcoin address will return a transaction hash as a way to track the transaction's insertion in the blockchain.
Most wallet and exchange services will keep a record of this said hash in order to be able to respond to users should they inquire about their transaction. It is likely that these services will assume the transaction was not sent if it doesn't appear in the blockchain with the original hash and have currently no means to recognize the alternative transactions as theirs in an efficient way.

This means that an individual could request bitcoins from an exchange or wallet service, alter the resulting transaction's hash before inclusion in the blockchain, then contact the issuing service while claiming the transaction did not proceed. If the alteration fails, the user can simply send the bitcoins back and try again until successful.

We believe this can be addressed by using a different hash for transaction tracking purposes. While the network will continue to use the current hash for the purpose of inclusion in each block's Merkle Tree, the new hash's purpose will be to track a given transaction and can be computed and indexed by hashing the exact signed string via SHA256 (in the same way transactions are currently hashed).

This new transaction hash will allow signing parties to keep track of any transaction they have signed and can easily be computed, even for past transactions.

We have discussed this solution with the Bitcoin core developers and will allow Bitcoin withdrawals again once it has been approved and standardized.

In the meantime, exchanges and wallet services - and any service sending coins directly to third parties - should be extremely careful with anyone claiming their transaction did not go through.

Note that this will also affect any other crypto-currency using the same transaction scheme as Bitcoin.


Conclusion
To put things in perspective, it's important to remember that Bitcoin is a very new technology and still very much in its early stages. What MtGox and the Bitcoin community have experienced in the past year has been an incredible and exciting challenge, and there is still much to do to further improve.

MtGox will resume bitcoin withdrawals to outside wallets once the issue outlined above has been properly addressed in a manner that will best serve our customers.

More information on the status of this issue will be released as soon as possible.

We thank you for taking the time to read this, and especially for your patience.

Best Regards,
MtGox Team

source
www.mtgox.com/press_release_20140210.html

I just realised most of my pm's are gone. Only newest are still there. Is there an explanation?
note: I checked my pm folder some hours ago and it was ok.

Thanks in advance guys...

Ειμαι περιεργος να μαθω, πως εμαφε ο καθενας για το bitcoin, και κολλησε το crypto-μικροβιο.

Αρχιζω απο εμενα.
εμαθα για το bitcoin, απο μια αναφορα που εγινε για κλοπη bitcoin στην σελιδα ειδησεων defencenet

I am selling one steam account worth of 110$ for just 0.02BTC!!!. (can be negotiated in case you're interested)
The value of the account was calculated with www.mysteamgauge.com calculator.

GAMES

Team Fortress 2
Garry's Mod
Warframe
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
PlanetSide 2
Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
On top of that, the account has many team fortress 2 custom bought stuff.
Total ours played:                          255.3 hours
Total size of Downloadable content:  66.1 GB
RULES: Buyer pays first, escrow accepted upon request.

Please pm me if you're interested.  

I am offering one BTC loan of 0.08BTC

(return 0.12 btc)
no need for collateral...
The loan went to johnmatrix

Hi guys!
I use Bitcoin-Qt but as the blockchain gets bigger, the RAM usage is high, I decided to migrate to electurm.
I imported my private keys to Electrum, and now I have my old addresses back in Electrum.
But my balance is still 0 BTC .
Any idea how to update my balance?




Thanks in advance