 Show Posts
|
|
Pages: [1] 2 »
|
|
For you 'old timers', meaning you remember 1999 and the dot-com bubble.
BTC = Back To Cleveland
Get it? Enjoy the ride (down)!
|
|
|
|
Here's how Bitcoin becomes extinct, or, like the Coelacanth, becomes very rare. 1) Price continues to drop. BearWhale comes back and dumps a load, causing fellow whales to dump a load, causing feedback that causes a crash back to the teens 2) Media picks up on 1), says: " BTC dead" 3) Congressmen, like Charles Ellis "Chuck" Schumer, who is a BTC-hater, start zeroing in on more Bitcoin regulation, like Schumer's proposed FinCen stuff. This might increase if the Republican's lose the Senate in November, or, if bitcoin is linked to the 'war on drugs' it might not matter if the Republicans win or not. 3b) ...FinCen will require each and every Bitcoin user that uses a US-based bitcoin exchange to file paperwork every year if the amount transacted in one year surpasses 10k USD. 4) Due to technical factors like the increasing size of the blockchain, a lot of users will start using online wallets. This will negate privacy due to 3b) 5) other crypto-coins that have more inflation and more transparency will be seen by corporations as more stable. 5B) Walmart and others adopt "CircleC": https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/apple-pay-rejected-by-walmart-and-best-buy/ and they specifically reject Bitcoin 6) another major Silk Road bust occurs. Already Silk-road substitutes are in greater demand and in greater numbers that before (source: http://www.coindesk.com/silk-road-one-year/ ). This scares Joe and Sally Average into dumping their bitcoin, especially when Schumer attacks bitcoin holders as promoting drug use. Drug lords switch to DarkCoin or some other cryptocurrency and this snowballs amongst actual users of Bitcoin (as opposed to the buy and hold speculators). 7) A hard fork or some technical glitch (like https://bitcoin.org/en/alert/2013-03-11-chain-fork) knocks out bitcoin, further causing big corporations to distrust it Anything else? I'm sure I forgot something...list your FUD and bugaboos here! |
|
|
|
I am using BlockChain.info as my online wallet. I received 20 mBTC from somebody (that's 0.00020 BTC), and it went to my Bitcoin wallet residing in Blockchain.info Here is that transaction: https://blockchain.info/tx/ab26e27cac9252a676d1665de2cb49196399fdb40d534bb6f28f9a2adf104815What I don't understand is, in bold: (1) why did it take so much money to transfer this tiny amount of 0.0020 = 2.0 mBTC, and why the amounts do not add up specifically: Inputs and Outputs Total Input 0.00239289 BTC 82 cents Total Output 0.00229289 BTC 78 cents Fees 0.0001 BTC about 4 cents Estimated BTC Transacted 0.002 BTC <-- but I only got 68 cents, why was 10 cents taken? By the miners? But I thought this was the "Fee" of 0.0001 BTC?(2) Next, I decided to send some of this money to another online wallet that I have. The address is here: 12sa4kdJGjBU3amUn3GsLYmMYq1Nd6G5Xy Here is the record of that transaction: https://blockchain.info/address/12sa4kdJGjBU3amUn3GsLYmMYq1Nd6G5Xywhat is strange is: I sent 0.4 mBTC (0.00040), and I got it almost instantly, but Blockchain.info shows it cost 0.0014 BTC ! Why do much money taken for the transaction?(3) Further, as a privacy violation, the entire world seems to be seeing my balance in my wallet: https://blockchain.info/tx/2282f8922119c3d6900450695af0926dfeaba4e3818ebf93d5c60ac15e9183f5 (0.0006 BTC left) How does the entire world know that I received 2.0 mBTC, sent 0.4 mBTC, and am only left (of the original 2.0 mBTC) with only 0.6 mBTC? Is that supposed to be public knowledge? And, as before, why are such big amounts taken from my initial sum, just for sending small micropayments? I am left with 0.6 mBTC (in my Blockchain.info wallet) + 0.4 mBTC (in my online wallet) = 1.0 mBTC out of a initial sum of 2.0 mBTC, so half my money was taken by the miners in just one micro transaction? Until I get answers to this question I will be very afraid of using BTC. |
|
|
|
|
Think about the facts: 17 billion USD in actual losses (money paid in, not what people thought they should have based on fake inflated data). But of this amount between 33% to maybe 50% has been recovered by the trustee in charge of recovery (the numbers are hard to pin down, just recently another couple of billion was thrown in the pot).
Let's pick the lower number, 33%. So the greedy investors that thought they had a golden goose lost two-thirds of their money. The ones that knew it was a scam lost all their money, since the trustee took it from them, or is trying to.
Two thirds losses? That's not that bad. I've had stocks that completely cratered and I lost 90% of my money.
Hence the subject title: Madoff's Ponzi scheme was "not that bad" actually. Kind of like bitcoin: if you bought at the peak, and sold today, you'd also have a loss but it's not that bad.
Agree?
PS--I'm not talking about the widow who lost all her money and had a heart attack, etc, if such person exists. I'm talking about the average rich person or organization that got greedy and did not do their due diligence.
|
|
|
|
I was reading the user klee who was hacked of 1170 bitcoins (apparently he got some back from the thief) and the issue to me was if bitcoin is like stolen cash or stolen goods? If BTC is like stolen cash, which is considered "fungible", then there's no legal requirement it be returned, unless the owner knew it was stolen (that's why banks will mark bank robber money with red dye bombs). By contrast, stolen goods are must be returned by law, even if the buyer had no reason to know the goods were stolen. If you read the below, due to an US IRS ruling, it is believed that bitcoins are considered "goods" so stolen BTC can be traced and returned to the rightful owner, if the theft was in the USA. But there has not yet been a court ruling to this effect. However, due to the blockchain tracing all transactions, I bet some judge rules that BTC are more like non-fungible goods than fungible currency. TonyT http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/31/bitcoin-legally-property-irs-currencyAdam Levitin is a law professor at Georgetown University, and he believes that the ruling means that bitcoin can never be treated as "fungible" – a term from economics which refers to the fact that particular instances of a good are interchangeable. So, for instance, crude oil is fungible, because if a trader buys a gallon of it, they don't care which gallon they get. Fine art is not fungible, because which work they get matters a huge amount. But the really interesting problems will come when a similar treatment is applied to criminal law. In many legal systems, receipt of stolen property is treated very differently to receipt of stolen money. If a pawn shop accepts a stolen bike, its operators are expected to return it to its rightful owner if discovered, without reward. If a coffee shop takes a stolen fiver, it can keep it. Until someone brings a case to court, it's impossible to say definitively which version would happen with bitcoin. But the IRS ruling suggests that, in America at least, it could be the former. In other words, if you think the hassle of having to file taxes on your bitcoin is bad, just wait til the shop you're spending them in has to check to make sure they aren't stolen before you can make a purchase at all. |
|
|
|
|
I uninstalled Armory and Bitcoin Core, sorry, they were acting too resource intensive, akin to a virus.
One suggestion: when uninstalling all goes well with these two programs but no indication is given, in Windows 8, that the two huge files of close to 60 GB is NOT deleted.
These files reside in the folders here:
c:\users\USERNAMEHERE\AppData\Roaming\ <-- and Armory or Bitcoin at the end
The uninstall program should warn users that these directories exist, and further, that the Wallat.dat file should not be deleted before draining it of money.
|
|
|
|
|
How do BTC noobs catch keyboard logger viruses? On occasion you see in the forums a post saying that somebody lost all their money from their online or offline wallet (but connected online) with a keyboard logging virus.
I have two theories, but I need help from experts:
1) the noobs are just like the rest of the public, in that on occasion they catch viruses, don't have the right anti-virus software, and so forth, and it's just random that they happen to be BTC users, or,
2) sites that BTC users frequent are often compromised with malware, because the bad guys know a significant portion of visitors to bitcoin sites have wallets on their HD that contain bitcoin. So bitcoin sites (including probably this one) have their DNS servers or what not compromised to redirect users to bad sites with malware and/or are constantly probed by hackers to be compromised, and so on, including perhaps the bad guys installing some sort of packet sniffer maybe at your ISP or somewhere in-between, that finds what ISP user internet address is visiting a bitcoin site, and then the bad guys attempt to breach your firewall and install a keyboard logger, etc.
I think or hope it's #1), not #2), but I get suspicious since a lot of seemingly savvy tech geeks end up with money stolen from their bitcoin wallets, so maybe it's scenario #2)?
|
|
|
|
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_degradation ("Data degradation in memory can occur when the small electric charge of a bit in RAM disperses, possibly altering program code or stored data. The hypothesis that semiconductor RAM may occasionally be altered by cosmic rays[2] is also known as soft error.") A while ago --within the last two years I think-- Google claimed that one bit in a server farm rotted (I vaguely recall this is a 1 in a 10^12 event, but if you have enough bits it's possible), and this error somehow propagated and crashed their entire network. Given this was Google who hires the best talent money can bribe, I wonder what would happen if somehow the BTC blockchain, if there is a canonical or gold standard version somewhere, suffered data rot, let's say a solar flare produced lots of cosmic particles that caused an error? Would the entire BTC ecosystem come to a screeching halt? If it happened to Google, it can happen here?
|
|
|
|
|
Does Armory take a long time to synch up for you when you start it? In my system [1], it takes a minimum of five minutes of disk thrashing at 100% and sometimes up to 30 minutes (if other programs are running). In the latter case, the system nearly freezes up and is not usable during that time.
I am thinking of either getting an SSD hard drive to help fix this problem, or maybe abandoning bitcoin altogether, except for keeping a few coins in an online wallet. IMO the purpose of Bitcoin is to help preserve anonymity while you make purchases, which is defeated by an online wallet.
TonyT
[1] i5 -quad core, 32 bit OS Windows 8.1, 4 GB RAM, a 3 year old WD hard drive that gets Transfer Rate Average : 112.0 MB/sec (decent for a mechanical hard drive), internet is a Ethernet land line that gets 1.5 MBps (acceptable); latest copy of Armory running Bitcoin Core (latest version)
|
|
|
|
I am referring to this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=828255.0 and the answer. The user had a 25 MB wallet with 16915 addresses from sending out small amounts of bitcoin. How to prevent this? "Sendmany" is suggested. I have yet to send or receive a bitcoin, but this suggests to me that BTC does not really support micro-transactions. How can you combine bitcoin in your wallet to prevent this? Apparently, if I read the thread right, you really cannot. You will be stuck with thousands of tiny addresses that each have tiny amounts of bitcoin in them, and you cannot combine them without losing lots of money? Unless I read it wrong. I am using Armory non-online wallet. |
|
|
|
|
bitcointalk.org forum uses the Simple Machines Forum software. Does SMF support a +1 button so that if you agree with a poster, you can click this button and it adds to the total? That way you don't have to reply "Right on" or something similar to indicate your approval of an opinion. Maybe even a -1 button would be nice.
|
|
|
|
Please examine the two links below from October 2014 and then take the poll: are dark markets good or bad for BTC? Note these markets have actually grown in the last year. I say they are good for bitcoin (and I don't buy from these markets, but I do use BTC for commercial goods and services). TonyT [1] http://www.coindesk.com/ross-ulbricht-hero-villain/ - A spokesperson from the Bitcoin Foundation cited the prompt increase in the price of bitcoin following the closure of Silk Road as a signal that the bitcoin community regarded the site as a “liability” [2] http://www.coindesk.com/dark-markets-grow-bigger-bolder-year-since-silk-road-bust/ - According to academics and researchers studying dark web markets – which transact almost exclusively in bitcoin – listings for illicit goods and services have actually grown in the aftermath of the Silk Road bust. The rising popularity of such markets among drug vendors and customers means that illicit trade is set to expand even more, one researcher believes. |
|
|
|
|
I have only been here less than a week, and have about 117 posts. Yet I notice I am way ahead of some others, and even "hero" and "legendary" users have only a few hundred posts (with a few exceptions, like one guy with over 1000 posts). Still, if I have 117 posts in a few days of activity, that means one of two things (well three things):
0. I post like crazy, like a person who has verbal diarrhea. I don't think that's the case though.
1. Most posters here are laconic, meaning they use few words, possibly because they are privacy freaks and are afraid of giving away their identity if they post too much. So they don't post that much, or, they use different handles and when they exceed 100 posts they kill their user ID and begin anew (I find this hard to believe).
2. The moderators here are overzealous and will ban you eventually, no matter who you are, and you have to create a new identity.
Any ideas?
|
|
|
|
|
What happens if your PC is turned off when somebody sends you bitcoin? I am using Armory, which resides on my hard drive of my PC. So if somebody wants to send me bitcoin in the next 48 hours (but I don't know when), I have to keep the PC on for two days? I think so.
Next question: suppose the PC is turned off when the bitcoin is sent, then what? Does it bounce back to the sender? Probably not. Does it stay somewhere in the blockchain as 'pending' (I am guessing so), until you turn your PC back on? If nobody ever claims this bitcoin, say their PC is destroyed and they never rebuild it, does the pending bitcoin become what is termed 'orphaned bitcoin'? (I am not sure but I am guessing so).
|
|
|
|
|
For noobs, you would have a website that says: "generate a random new Bitcoin address from your browser! No need to use your digital wallet, try it today!" The noob would click on the link, and the bitcoin address would in fact be the address of the scammer. Noob would cut and paste this into their wallet, online or offline, and hit "Send", when they are transferring money between their different wallets, thinking they are sending themselves money. But any money sent by noob would go to scammer and not into noob's wallet, since it is the scammer's bitcoin address, and not a random new bitcoin address.
A foolproof scam. Or am I the fool who is missing something?
|
|
|
|
I am going to set up a educational website and I want to promote it. I saw the CoinAd thread and it's too long to read. So I ask you legendary hero members: what is a legitimate site I can pay, in Bitcoin, to promote my website with clicks and likes and whatever else search engine optimization stuff they do nowadays from Bangladesh or elsewhere?  TonyT |
|
|
|
|
Just stating the obvious concerning the installation of Armory and Bitcoin Core. On a Windows 8 PC, i5 quadcore, 32bit OS with 4 GB RAM, a fairly new HD (that is thrashing so bad now I cannot even use spell-check on this message, so I'll use simple words), and a 1.5 MBps DSL Modem, it's going on 48 hours and it's on step #3 of 4, "Building Databases", the other steps being downloading the blockchain, synchronizing with network, and the final step being scan transaction history. I estimate another 12+ hours to go.
I do code on occasion, I once even built a internet relay chat. I figured that the peer-to-peer aspect of Bitcoin Core/ Armory was the hardest part of Bitcoin (the mining algorithm, once you figure it out, is trivial by comparison). So I figured that the value add of Bitcoin programmers was the peer-to-peer network feature, which is I think true. But this is also the weakest link at present, due to the huge blockchain I think (if you are a Bitcoin developer you know even more than me). After the user is wowed by the pretty front end (I like the Marijuana crypto-coin logo myself), the ugly reality for the retail consumer is that the back end, where the work is done, is broken unless you go to a light weight client for your wallet. And if you do that, you lose control. Why not just use PayPal if that's the route Bitcoin developers want users to go? Mastercard, Visa, Paypal will process a small transaction 'for free', and the vendor worries about it, not unlike the Bitcoin transaction fee.
In short, even though I'm a noob Bitcoin believer, I see clearly that the Bitcoin model is broken. The regulators once again are behind the curve here: contrary to their belief, Bitcoin is not a threat to traditional banking, rather, it's on its last legs, as presently configured.
TonyT
|
|
|
|
|
