[Leave cryptography to the cryptographers. Seriously. Please. For your safety and the safety of others.]

This should have been coming for quite a while, but I was so busy I didn't have time to post as much as I'd like and I didn't have the time to give this a good thinking.
I wrote here and there, using a Tails stick is 90% of the time a good solution for me, but I've used my Ledger for simplicity.
Of course (not surprisingly) I no longer trust my Ledger to keep more than 100$ worth of BTC on it and since I still get some earnings from signatures... I want to go away from my Ledger before it's too late.

On the other hand, I also don't want to have Electrum-specific seed, for example because I'm eyeing SeedSigner for the future.

I've been reading different topics on coin and dice based seeds and, after weighting various possibilities (like use random generator for better dice generation) I've came back to this post, which I tend to agree more and more:

1. Leave cryptography to the cryptographers.  Seriously.  Please.  For your safety and the safety of others.

Generating your own random numbers is low-level crypto.  >99% of programmers should never, ever touch low-level crypto directly.  This is not to insult your intelligence:  The smartest programmers in this space all either study up on their cryptography, or leave cryptography to the cryptographers.  Studying cryptography takes lots of smarts; knowing the limits of your own knowledge also takes lots of smarts.

And now the idea: why don't just use Ledger (only!) as seed generator?
I mean: reset Ledger as a new device, write down the new seed, reset it again (because it's unsafe), and I'm done.
Is it anything I've missed? Is this also unsafe for a reason I've missed?

(Was this already discussed and I've missed that?)

[Autorizarea platformelor de schimb crypto în România, sub amenințarea amenzilor de 50.000 lei - procedura propusă de Ministerul Finanțelor]

Autorizarea platformelor de schimb crypto în România, sub amenințarea amenzilor de 50.000 lei - procedura propusă de Ministerul Finanțelor
https://www.startupcafe.ro/taxe/autorizare-platforme-schimb-crypto-romania-amenzi-procedura-ministerul-finantelor.htm

Desi doar am rasfoit rapid stirea, cred ca merita atentie.
Da, partea cu amenzile in cuantum absurd de mic pentru o afacere inseamna ca va mai trece mult pana cand vom vedea o conformare, mai ales din partea celor care oricum operau la gri.

M-a apucat rasul cand am citit partea cu

deținerea a cel puțin unui cont bancar în monede fiduciare prin care își desfășoară operațiunile, deschis în Romania.

adica unii, saracii cauta banci locale cu care sa lucreze si li se inchide usa-n nas de ani de zile...


O alta parte de interes ar fi ca un ATM nu va mai putea opera fara full-KYC. Cam nasol.

O măsură aparte se referă la automatele tip ATM de crypto. Procedura propusă prevede aici că „este interzisă desfășurarea activității de schimb între monede virtuale și monede fiduciare și de portofele digitale prin intermediul automatelor de schimb pentru alte persoane decât cele pentru care a fost parcursă procedura de cunoaștere a clientelei, conform dispozițiilor Legii nr. 129/2019, pe platforma digitală cu acces la distanță”.

Na, concluzia mea este ca legislatorul nostru dovedeste din nou ca habar n-are in ce sfere traieste, dar legatura cu realitatea clar nu are. Asadar adoptia crypto in Ro, in loc de claritate, primeste inca un sut in dos si o piedica serioasa. Nu ca as fi avut asteptari...

[Electrum server]

If one wants to have an Electrum server, one of the options is Fulcrum.

I already have an Electrum server (Electrs), which I use and for which I've made a more complete tutorial in the past, but at some point I've made tests with Fulcrum too and it would be a shame to remove it without providing a tutorial for the others who want it.

So... one major advantage of Fulcrum comes on Windows: the user can just get compiled binaries for Bitcoin Core, Fulcrum and Electrum, configure and run them all, without the need of stepping into Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Another good thing is it's performance: it's processing the requests significantly faster than Electrs. Just in my experience (HDD, infrequent use for rather short tasks) Fulcrum gets in the state I can access it significantly slower than Electrs.

But, tbh, I don't like Fulcrum as much as the other option I have (Electrs)
* Fulcrum is made by somebody with BCH ties and it may be much better optimized for BCH (to say the least)
* As I said, Fulcrum starts/syncs slower than Electrs and that's not OK for my use case

Something more about this tutorial. This is made for a Fulcrum as I use it: me, for myself. No discussions with other servers, not announcing my server, also no SSL. I've kept it simple. If one wants to expand the tutorial with that, be my guest.

Since an Electrum server works on top of a Bitcoin Core node, I'll handle Bitcoin Core first, but shortly.

Bitcoin Core is with pretty much the same as in my other tutorial, but with some tiny bit of change in config:
* already in that topic, later on, I've switched for use with rpc user and password instead of cookie. If you want to keep using cookie, that's fine too, just pay attention to the config files (both of them)
* Bitcoin core's config needs one more line: zmqpubhashblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:8433

So, I will not insist with Bitcoin Core, it's in the other tutorial, I'll just put here my config:

Code: (bitcoin.conf)

txindex=1
server=1
rpcbind=127.0.0.1
rpcallow=127.0.0.1
rpcallowip=127.0.0.1
rpcuser=UsErNaMe
rpcpassword=PaSsWoRd
zmqpubhashblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:8433

Fulcrum (https://github.com/cculianu/Fulcrum)

You download Fulcrum from https://github.com/cculianu/Fulcrum/releases ; you will get something like Fulcrum-1.9.0-win64.zip
It would be nice to verify your download, which is done with the correcponding *.asc file, like for Electrum.

Unpack the zip into a new folder, maybe FulcrumBinaries. We won't touch that folder from now on.
Now we create a file called Fulcrum.conf with the content:

Code: (Fulcrum.conf)

datadir = x:\FulcrumData_MainNet
bitcoind = 127.0.0.1:8332
rpcuser = UsErNaMe
rpcpassword = PaSsWoRd
tcp = 127.0.0.1:50001
peering = false
announce = false
public_tcp_port = 50001
admin = 8000
stats = 8080
db_max_open_files = 80
fast-sync = 8000

Some details:
* The username and password has to match with the one from Bitcoin
* x:\FulcrumData_MainNet is a folder you create, preferably somewhere fast (SSD), since this is where Fulcrum will keep its data; mine has now ~113 GB, but it may be safe to have some more space there, especially at start
* that fast-sync line should be commented (put a # in front of it) after the initial sync finishes
* the server is set to not discuss with other servers, not announce itself for other clients and so on; also no SSL

I've made a batch file for start and one for stop, but this stop works only after the sync is done. Else you better press the good old CRTL-C.
The content of the batch file is not very useful as it is, maybe as example, because it contains the path to the exe and, as parameter, the path to the config.
In my case it's:

Code: (start.bat)

"x:\Fulcrum\FulcrumBinaries\Fulcrum.exe" x:\Fulcrum\Fulcrum.conf

Same goes for the stop.

Code: (stop.bat)

"x:\Fulcrum\FulcrumBinaries\FulcrumAdmin" -p 8000 stop

After starting Fulcrum (start.bat) it might take an awful lot of time until everything is sync-ed. You may want to look for lines like:

Code:

[2023-02-27 21:42:48.964] Starting listener service for TcpSrv 127.0.0.1:50001 ...
[2023-02-27 21:42:48.965] Service started, listening for connections on 127.0.0.1:50001

or

Code:

[2023-02-27 22:03:32.758] <Controller> Block height 778553, up-to-date

Then you can start Electrum. As I wrote in the other tutorial I'm lazy and I'm using the portable Electrum. For me the command line is:

Code:

electrum-4.3.4-portable.exe --oneserver --server 127.0.0.1:50001:t

[Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX has partially resumed operations in Japan – allowing customers to withdraw funds]

Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX has partially resumed operations in Japan – allowing customers to withdraw funds
https://technewsspace.com/bankrupt-cryptocurrency-exchange-ftx-has-partially-resumed-operations-in-japan-allowing-customers-to-withdraw-funds/

The title says it all. The Japanese are the luckier. The rest.. can only hope, but not too much.
The withdrawal will not be straightforward, it will happen through Liquid Japan, still, I am sure the Japanese won't complain too much, excepting the few for which somehow the records got lost (strange).

Now, some interesting points:

Japan’s ability to protect its consumers from losing money due to the crypto exchange collapse can serve as a model for other countries, The Register noted.

* The withdrawals are possible because the regulations in Japan ask for mandatory insurance. So the withdrawals come from the insurer, not FTX (which is bad news for the rest of the world).
**  I think that this will fuel the urge for more strict regulation of crypto (and not as it should - the crypto businesses), possibly also missing exactly this insurance part.
**  I think that this will fuel the urge to make everything with even stricter KYC requirements

* People will miss the point that this is insurance money and will expect FTX "recover". And if FTX name will come back in a way or another, I would not surprised is all will jump in like nothing has happened.

Din cate stiu nu avem in sectiunea romaneasca vreun tutorial de LN, dar nici acesta nu se doreste a fi un tutorial, mai ales ca eu sunt cel care intreaba.

Treaba sta in felul urmator: am citit din cand in cand pe ici-colo despre LN, mi-am facut niste idei (unele mai bune, altele poate chiar gresite), dar, spre rusinea mea, nu am folosit niciodata.
Si cum toate au un inceput, am zis ca nu ar strica sa avem un schimb de opinii aici, mai ales ca in sctiunea internationala fie o sa se bage vreunul sa ma trimita la topicul cel mare si exagerate de stufos (parerea mea), fie sa inceapa sa zica ca "LN nu e BTC" si.. stiti povestea si personajul.

Intrebarile ar fi cam asa:
Ati folosit careva LN? Din ce portofel ati folosit (local, sau cu cont pe vreo platforma? In caz ca ati folosit local, aveati serverul vostru local sau de pe net?)
In functie de portofelul folosit puteti sa imi dati un exemplu de pasi (foarte pe scurt)?

Eu sunt un pic timorat de LN.
Despre Electrum am mai citit si nu m-a convins: nici nu stiu daca serverul meu de Electrum (un amarat de Electrs local) e bun pentru asta, nu cred ca e..; server extern de Electrum mai degraba evit sa folosesc; si daca as folosi server extern ar insemna sa deschid un canal, iar aici intervin probleme de incredere, de fonduri blocate, de canal deschis disproportionat (o sa fie fonduri doar pe partea mea, deci pot primi bani doar daca am trimis intai) si mai stiu eu ce surprize (trebuie oare portofelul sau serverul lasat pornit 24/7? la un server extern nu am control!) plus tehnologii (habar n-am ce e trampooline sau LND).
Blue Wallet ofera portofel pentru LN, dar spun clar si direct ca e in custodia lor. Momentan pare o solutie de compromis care ma atrage, ca fiind vorba de sume mici, nu ar trebui sa fie probleme. Dar nu am folosit.

Na, cam asta este varza de informatii de la mine din cap. Nu am pretentia ca cineva sa o desluseasca. Dar daca ati folosit LN, m-as bucura de cateva cuvinte/directii sa invat si eu asta...

Nu sunt mare utilizator de monede alternative si nici nu mai fac day trading de foarte multi ani, dar, avand in vedere ca subiectul a aparut in legatura cu niste oferte platite de testare, poate ca nu ar strica o mica discutie/dezbatere (aici, in locul portivit) pe tema portofelelor de monede alternative, in mod special a celor construite ca extensie de browser.

Deci... principalul portofel in discutie ar fi Metamask.
Eu, cum fug de Ethereum si de Tokenurile create in acest "ecosistem" (mi se pare inutil de complicat sistemul cu gas fee, plus ca in putinele dati cand am avut nevoie de tranzactii cu tokenuri ETH e fost scump), nu am folosit Metamask niciodata (am preferat MEW impreuna cu Portofel Hardware). Asa ca voi lasa pe altii sa isi dea cu parerea despre utilitatea lui.
Mie mi s-a parut intotdeauna riscant, nici nu m-am simtit niciodata comfortabil cu plug-in de browser sa fie portofel (desi ci WAVES avusese asta la inceputuri), dar in zilele de relativ inceput ale Bitcoin au existat plug-in-uri de browser (in general de afisare de pret) care au furat bani frumosi, deci prefer sa le evit.

Mai adaug si ca monedele alternative, fiind mult mai volatile si mai riscante decat Bitcoin, am inceput sa le evit din ce in ce mai mult (cu mici exceptii).


Deci.. cred ca e mai bine sa isi dea si altii cu parerea, care chiar au si folosit asemenea scule. @ltcrstrbrt ?

* Este chiar atat de bun/util/facil Metamask?
* Se poate folosi in siguranta cu portofel hardware, sau ce masuri de siguranta (a banilor) sunt recomandate?
* ...

I'm making this post because I think that some might be interested, especially after certain discussions not very long ago related to Jerry... (so, @dkbit98, if this is a reason to ignore me, it's up to you, I am playing fair and notifying you).
I was already thinking on this back then, but I made my mind just now and I've also done it now: I've cleaned up my ignore list.

It was not only as a "second chance" gesture (Merry Christmas!), it was also done in order to make sure I won't get into troubles with unresponsive "Ignore users settings" page.
Yeah, I also think that some may have improved in the past years (it's my first such cleanup), but I know that some will think that it's highly unlikely such things happen.


As a matter of fact I've already added back one user, so please don't be too harsh with me; the show goes on.

Discuția a început în alt topic, dar conținea o idee foarte bună: să "scoatem" partea legată de merite de acolo, că poate îi ajută și pe alții.
Probabil că începutul va fi un pic "rupt", dar e un început...

Deci:

Nu deschidem o altă discuţie pe secţiune?  Mă prea tem că mă trezesc cu postările şterse din cauza derapării de la subiect.  Cred că mai sunt mulţi români care întâmpină probleme cu câştigarea meritelor.  Şi nu vreau să îi descurajez, ci dimpotrivă.  Poate reuşim să aflăm şi alte poveşti şi să îi sprijinim.  De fapt, cred că ar fi o continuare interesantă a discuţiei traduse de Gazeta.

Este o idee foarte bună, și deci avem asta aici acum. Probabil că se putea și mai bine, dar putem adăuga pe parcurs.
Dacă prin cealaltă discuție te referi la Campanie pentru îmbunătățirea calității postărilor, nu le-aș uni, întrucât poate că unii vor căuta doar informații despre merite, fără a face conexiunea că pentru merite trebuie calitate. Așa că, zic eu, legătura trebuie făcută de aici spre acolo (și am făcut asta).

Continui (cam abrupt, știu, cu răspunsurile:

Din curiozitate întreb.  Ai obţinut merite extrem de greu după un anumit prag sau dintotdeauna?  Întreb pentru că am impresia că pe măsură ce înaintezi în numărul de merite devine tot mai greu să le obţii.

Fiind deja "Legendar" când s-au introdus meritele, pentru mine a fost invers: am obținut merite mai greu la început. Cauze au fost mai multe - eram mai slab (am mai învățat foarte multe de atunci), numărul de surse de merit era mult mai mic, și postam mai puțin, cred că era și mai puternic încetățenită ideea "hai să nu prea dăm merite la cei de rang mare, că ei deja stau bine" - dar chiar am fost oarecum stresat și mă consideram inferior celor care aveau peste 1000 de merite obținute "pe bune". În timp am început să obțin din ce în ce mai multe merite, parcă din ce în ce mai ușor...

Uneori şi eu arunc merite poate că aiurea.

Cred că toți fac asta uneori.

Nu ştiu, studii în trimiterea meritelor n-am.  Trimit şi eu cui simt că merită, până la urmă.

Având în vedere că e la latitudinea fiecăruia cum își folosește meritele, fiecare face "cum simte", nu te stresa.
Regula nescrisă ar fi să se merite în principal postările bine scrise și utile/de ajutor.

Experienţa mea mi-a dat un sentiment că o majoritate din lumea aceasta 'bună' de care spui şi-a format un fel de ego faţă de rangurile pe care le au şi faţă de reputaţia de pe Bitcoin Talk.  Nu îmi dau seama dacă doar aşa mi se pare sau chiar aşa este, dar de simţit cel puţin eu aşa simt.  Zici că tocmai am intrat la o convenţie pentru prima dată unde toată lumea ştie pe toată lumea.  Sau poate se întâmplă pentru că unii dintre noi ne obişnuim prost să ignorăm mesaje care la prima vedere par fără substanţă.  Ce e drept, şi eu fac până la urmă acelaşi lucru, deci ce comentez.

Teoretic sunt persoane de la care mă aștept la o anumită calitate a răspunsului și s-ar putea să le dau mai mult interes, în ideea că s-ar putea ca informația transmisă de aceștia să fie deja completă, iar eu pot să învăț de acolo, sau nu să mai am nimic de adăugat acolo. Dar asta nu înseamnă că doar pe aceștia îi citesc (nu au cum să acopere fizic tot forumul) și clar la aceștia tind să fiu mai zgârcit cu meritele.
Dar partea cu "convenția" nu e chiar așa departe de adevăr

Uneori, mai ales dacă într-un subiect de discuţie sunt cel puţin pe jumătate oameni dintr-aceştia 'buni', mă simt cumva ca şi cum îmi suflă cineva în ceafă când scriu un răspuns, pentru că ştiu că toţi sunt pregătiţi cu ţevile drept în ceafa mea în caz că zic ceva incorect.

Mda, întotdeauna există riscul ca cineva să scrie același lucru în același timp. De aceea ajută să fii clar și succint.

Dar cum spui şi tu, alte dăţi depun efort imens şi petrec ore scriind o postare pe care realizez mai târziu că probabil nimeni nu a citit-o, sau dacă a citit-o a râs şi a trecut mai departe.

Ei, am avut cazuri în care au râs pe față, că îmi scăpase ceva sau nu știam vreun amănunt (și nu știam că nu știu).
Deci nu fii prea strict cu tine însuți... Măcar tu... că alții vor fi, când va fi cazul (dar până atunci rămâne problema drobului de sare).

Cred că mai sunt mulţi români care întâmpină probleme cu câştigarea meritelor.  Şi nu vreau să îi descurajez, ci dimpotrivă.  Poate reuşim să aflăm şi alte poveşti şi să îi sprijinim.

Declar noul topic deschis și doresc să văd cât mai multe întrebări!  

And the shit show started by FTX is going further:

The lending arm of crypto investment bank Genesis Global Trading is temporarily suspending redemptions and new loan originations in the wake of FTX’s collapse, Interim CEO Derar Islim told customers on a call Wednesday.
The unit, known as Genesis Global Capital, serves an institutional client base and had $2.8 billion in total active loans as of the end of the third quarter of 2022, according to the company’s website.

And this goes further. According to Bitcoin Magazine, Gemini Earn customers are affected by Genesis' problem:

BREAKING: Gemini Earn customers unable to redeem funds as Genesis lending halts withdrawals

I guess that it's expected that this castle made of cards will make other similar castles collapse....

Although I've taken a quick look, this doesn't seem to be discussed, and I think it should.

It looks like Binance has decided to consolidate their wallets/transactions last night. It's something they do now and then, but the current timing could not be worse.
And from CZ I do expect to be a deliberate move (usually in his favor, not ours), but I don't understand the reasons. Spamming mempool now means more panic to the average Joe in these days he's overly panicked. Does he want to make people change their minds about withdrawing from exchanges? Or does he try to cover some exchanges that can now claim withdrawing issues? I don't know.

For better info on the context, it worth looking on this tweet and the subsequent ones and also the images:
https://nitter.it/OwenKemeys/status/1592223269310328833

[Visa partners with FTX]

An interesting news (and somewhat awaited): Visa partners with FTX
CNBC: Visa partners with FTX in a bet that shoppers still want to spend cryptocurrencies in a bear market
TechCrunch: Visa dives deeper into crypto as FTX-linked debit card expands outside US

Visa is betting that crypto investors still want to spend their digital currencies, even as prices plummet this year.

The payments giant is teaming up with global exchange FTX to offer debit cards in 40 countries with a focus on Latin America, Asia and Europe. The cards, which are already available in the U.S., will link directly to a user’s FTX cryptocurrency investing account. The move allows customers to spend digital currencies without moving those off an exchange, “like you would with any bank account,” according to Visa’s CFO.

Although FTX starting - sooner or later - to offer Bitcoin (and maybe other crypto) related debit cards worldwide is pretty much normal and probably expected by some of FTX customers, I find interesting that it's said that "Visa partners with FTX" and not the other way around and I find interesting that FTX partnership is directly with Visa and not a 3rd party provider like we've seen in the "previous generation" of crypto cards.
Clearly, FTX is moving in the direction to compete (someday) with Binance.

It’s Visa’s latest foray into the space and adds to more than 70 crypto partnerships. The San Francisco-based company has already joined forces with FTX’s competitors Coinbase and Binance.

I guess that there are bits I'm missing, since I thought that Binance cards, for example, are issued by Swipe, not by Visa directly.

[official]

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/iran-makes-first-import-order-using-cryptocurrency-tasnim-2022-08-09/

According to Reuters (who is citing another agency), Iran has made this its first official import order using cryptocurrency. It's an order that worth $10M. It doesn't tell it was Bitcoin or not though, and the following part makes it even more confusing:

"By the end of September, the use of cryptocurrencies and smart contracts will be widely used in foreign trade with target countries," an official from the Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade said on Twitter.

I'm not even sure whether I should be happy or unhappy about this news, but certainly it's far from unexpected. It's... part of the adoption...

[lending platform]

According to The Block:

Crypto lending platform Hodlnaut halts withdrawals and is working on a recovery plan

The official announcement tells:

To all users, we regret to inform you that we will be halting withdrawals, token swaps and deposits with immediate effect. We have reached this difficult decision due to recent market conditions.
[~snip~]
We would like to reassure you that this difficult decision was taken for us to focus on stabilising our liquidity and preserving assets, while we work to find the best way to protect our users’ long-term interests.

So... is anybody still keeping their money on various centralized platforms hoping for pennies?
You still don't see how risky is that?!

Since I've seen that everybody comes up "knowing better" what this forum may be needing, I'll try my shot too.
I feel like the forum could use one more mod in the Dev&Tech sub. I have a feeling that the current mods, although highly technical, don't really have the time do "house cleaning".
I know that in most of the cases there's not so much garbage there, I also know that global mods may look in there now and then, but lately I've noticed that at least this topic got derailed pretty bad and I guess that some "kicks" here and there would be useful.

... or would somebody just take the patience and report a bunch of posts? Would be that enough?

Seeing there's a nice raffle for an Arculus wallet, I've done a tiny bit of research on what this wallet is.. and I have more questions than answers
So maybe somebody who has seen this wallet can tell more / enlighten me.

I've seen on youtube that this wallet is basically a plastic card with NFC chip. It works with their proprietary wallet software. You have to have the NFC and the wallet software connected in order to work for the important operation. The wallet software creates the 12 words seed the user has to write down for backup. ... And here my questions come.

Since this is meant to be secure... I'm lost.

Is the Arculus card a hardware wallet and that's the one generating the seed? Or it only provides some sort of 13th word?

Will the 12 word seed work also with Electrum without Arculus card (as it should)? Then I find it incredibly unsafe to show the seed on the smartphone app (am I mistaking?)
Will the 12 word seed work only with Arculus card and their software? Then the user is tied to their proprietary software and hardware and may be a problem if the company disappears.

Thoughts?

[Easy2Boot]

I've been using this for years, but more for convenience, not necessarily for security. However, I think that it's also great for security/live systems easy to fire up. If it's not secure enough, please let comment/let me know.

I'm talking about Easy2Boot (E2B). This is a software that can turn easily an USB stick into a bootable "swiss knife".
One downloads it, runs it to set up the USB stick, then the show begins: certain folders from the newly set up USB stick can be filled with ISO images. For the lazy ones like me the \_ISO\MAINMENU\ can have them all.

I have now such a stick, I have on it Tails OS ISO, Linux (Mint), various antivirus systems, but also windows system like GandalfsWindows10PE.iso (or, better, here; if you need help, ask). A lot of iso and information is there in https://easy2boot.xyz/tested-payloads/
Just keep in mind that after adding the ISO files you should run (as admin) the USB's MAKE_THIS_DRIVE_CONTIGUOUS.cmd
Some of the payloads can be used with persistence too, but I've never done that.

The stick has also a small "transport" partition where I put IanColeman's, or Eraser portable (to fully removed files) and other such tools.
And obviously I boot from the stick without internet. E2B will show a menu asking which ISO to boot from.


I hope that this will help anybody, especially those afraid of Linux or who prefer to use their favorite tools under Windows in an environment they can keep safe and contained.

There's quite some drama in Reputation board about things happening in the German forum, I don't want to get the same drama here.
While the question comes from there, it's actually generic.

If an user threatens another user (especially a rather new account) with getting him banned... is that OK? Or, better asked, should we do anything about it? (report or anything). Is a new (unofficial) rule needed?



Of course, it's a fake threatening since he has no power to do anything, but it can silence or disappoint new users coming to this forum.
Or I'm worried for nothing, since it's a situation that doesn't happen often and it's usually related to political (to say so) views, not technical, so not a big deal?

[Trebuie să privim moneda ca orice altă marfă. Ea se tranzacționează în funcție de piață. Există cerere, se vinde, nu există cerere, stai cu ea pe stoc]

Am tot vazut, mai ales in sectiunea internationala, o gramada de "Gica contra" care zic ca Bitcoin este atat de diferit de bani si ca nu ar trebui sa aiba valoare.
Stiti povestea, sunt convins.

Am descoperit azi intr-un articol care nu are treaba cu bitcoin absolut deloc, ci cu Rublele in contextul razboiului lui Putin si a sanctiunilor, o exprimare care din punctul meu de vedere merita "imortalizata" aici, fiindca explica foarte fain si simplu niste chestii:

„Trebuie să privim moneda ca orice altă marfă. Ea se tranzacționează în funcție de piață. Există cerere, se vinde, nu există cerere, stai cu ea pe stoc”, spune Dan Chirleșan, conferențiar universitar doctor la Universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza din Iași

Deci da, fiat este doar alta marfa. Niste hartii pe care banca nationala sau trezoreria scrie ca jura pe rosu ca valoreaza X (iar apoi fac acel X sa insemne cat vor ei, prin inflatie si altele).
As zice deci ca Bitcoin este o marfa similara, doar ca nu este manipulata de guverne/banci centrale, ci valoarea este la latitudinea pietei.

Does anybody know what has happened with the mempool in the last hours?
I see that somebody has dumped 100 vMB of transactions at 12-14 sat/vByte.
Any background story about who has done this or what event has caused it?


source: https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC,8h,weight

[Capitol Coin: Number of Cryptocurrency Lobbyists Nearly Tripled Since 2018 and Spending Quadrupled, With Help from Revolving Door Lobbyists and Corporate Allies]

Capitol Coin: Number of Cryptocurrency Lobbyists Nearly Tripled Since 2018 and Spending Quadrupled, With Help from Revolving Door Lobbyists and Corporate Allies
https://www.citizen.org/article/capitol-coin-cryptocurrency-lobbying-revolving-door-report/

It's a bit old news/report, I've noticed it now since CZ tweeted it.


It's quite long for my liking and I don't understand 100% what all those associations are, but the charts show it clearly: numbers are steadily increasing. Crypto lobbying is a fact and the money (and people) involved is on the rise.
Again, nothing really new nor unexpected, though I find the numbers impressive.

...Yes, I've seen that some (cough Ripple cough) are also lobbying shitcoins, we just can't have all nice and clean. Still...



The news item also shows big names giving up government job and turning to crypto and using their know-how for lobbying crypto.
The article tries to bring some weak (?) criticism, but I gracefully ignored that part (I don't care that much of the fears expressed by people still afraid of thunder)

Like the megabanks, tech companies, fossil fuel corporations, and other industries, the crypto sector is putting millions and millions of dollars into pushing lawmakers to put their private business interests before the public interest. In Washington, D.C., where money speaks loudly, the digital currency lobby is determined to have a say. In the face of this lobbying spree, even the most crypto-friendly lawmakers should pause to ask whether what is good for this volatile sector is what’s best for their constituents.