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2
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Technical Support / Cheap Node Self Hosting: Just because you CAN does not mean you SHOULD
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on: May 22, 2022, 02:31:03 PM
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Since the same things keep coming up: 1) Yes you can force a RPi2 or 3 to run a node but it is going to be a slow miserable time and you will have lots of issues. 2) Yes you can download the entire blockchain and run a node on a 500GB drive. But you WILL run out of space and then probably have corruption and then have to buy a larger drive and start again. And you might not even be able to copy the data from the old drive if the corruption was bad enough. 3) Yes you can use older equipment to do it. You can even use 10 year old laptops with a 2nd gen core i5. But much older then that the pure performance issues are going to be a killer. And as time goes on it's only going to get worse. 4) You can even use an old 5400 RPM drive and store your OS and blockchain on it. But if for whatever reason you have to do a full re-scan of the blockchain I hope you have a couple of days to kill. 5) Yes you can do it with 2GB of RAM, but your IBD is going to take 2 days short of forever and general performance is going to be miserable. n0nce made a nice post about doing a node for under $60. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5364742You can do it for a bit more, you can do it for a bit less. Don't try to cut that price in 1/2 unless you are technically inclined and can work around the issues. Otherwise you are going to have a miserable time. This is not to stop people from trying, far from it. This is a post letting you know that it WILL WORK. But the time and effort you are going to put into it, although probably a learning experience is going to be a lot more then having SLIGHTLY better equipment and doing it more efficiently. -Dave |
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3
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Economy / Exchanges / Philosophical question for some about publicly tradded exchnafges vs private
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on: May 14, 2022, 09:16:33 PM
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Philosophical question:
Since there seems to be a lot of discussion about the massive loss that Coinbase had last quarter.
Assuming you are going to use a regulated KYC exchange because it's easier and you just don't care. Send them money get your BTC and done. No dealing with unknown users and other things like on LocalCryptos or whatever.
Do you think you are more comfortable using a publicly listed exchange like Coinbase where you know somewhat how they are doing financially or a privately held one like Gemini where if there are financial issues you may not know untill it's too late? Now let me be clear I am NOT saying there is an issue with Gemini, I think they are solid financially. Just using them as example, because well, we don't know.
Eliminate all the Conbase is bad stuff, just think about the security of your fiat while you are exchanging it and getting you BTC or exchanging your fiat to BTC.
No matter what you have to trust them to a certain extent.
Just wondering what other people are thinking.
-Dave
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4
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Other / Archival / So the mempool is up to 125+ blocks pending BUT fees are still sane
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on: May 11, 2022, 09:05:29 PM
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Was going to open a lightning channel and took a look at the mempool to see what fees looked like.
IIRC the last time we were 100+ blocks out you needed close to 100 sat/vB to get into the next block, now 20 sat/vB will do it.
People finally figured out that you don't have to put in insane fees to move coins or is it just that nobody is in a rush?
Found it interesting, what do others think?
-Dave
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6
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Other / Politics & Society / Well Houston Has Gone Full Orwell With Monitoring
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on: May 03, 2022, 07:41:13 PM
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https://houston.novusagenda.com/agendapublic/CoverSheet.aspx?ItemID=25591&MeetingID=536The purpose of the proposed amendment to Chapter 28, Miscellaneous Offenses and Provisions, is to establish a requirement for bars, nightclubs, sexually oriented businesses, convenience stores, and game rooms to install exterior security cameras providing video coverage from the exterior of the building to the property line. And Additionally, the ordinance requires that a camera owner or operator store video footage for no less than 30 days, and provide HPD with the footage within 72 hours of a request. So you now have to install and maintain what could be thousands of dollars of security equipment and give it to the police within 3 days. WITHOUT A COURT ORDER. JUST HAND IT OVER BECAUSE THE COPS SAID TO. Yet another reason to not be in Texas. -Dave
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7
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Economy / Service Discussion / Bitrefill's new bill pay service
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on: April 30, 2022, 09:57:33 PM
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So Bitrefill is rolling out their US bill pay. https://www.bitrefill.com/buy/billAnd since you asked @o_e_l_e_o here is another trigger warning :-) Seriously, they want a drivers license / ID and live selfie and a bill with an address that matches your ID and a phone number. Since for other reasons, outside of the selfie they already had that info and I figured I could be the tester for all of you I did it. the 2% fee seems high to me but it seems to be what is out there for other non crypto bill pay services. You can't do multiple bills at the same time you enter the info and pay then enter the next and pay. Did 2 small payments to credit cards. If those work I will move to mortgage and some other stuff. Could not pay my cable bill, kept giving an invalid account number. Will update as I do more. -Dave |
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8
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / The Amazingly Moronic Bitsneaks
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on: April 16, 2022, 04:16:29 PM
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https://www.bitsneaks.com/Have not seen it mentioned here yet at a quick (mobile) google search did not turn up a thread about them. Silly, pointless and by their own words moronic. And if I had a spare BTC would be in my closet. With that being said, are things like this good for BTC in general or so they seem like cheap marketing stunts. I think in general they are good, but I can really see someone thinking the other way and asking why are cheap marketing stunts needed if BTC so good and useful. -Dave
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10
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Economy / Collectibles / [Might be Selling] 2015 PaperSafe Artist Proof #7 of 10 Wallet
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on: April 05, 2022, 03:43:50 PM
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Lets start with: Title kind of says it all and I will probably not sell. BUT I am looking for offers. No idea what it's really worth, it's a unique and VERY limited piece but I don't know what people are willing to pay. Make offers / discuss and I might let it go here or I might auction it. I don't need the BTC so I'm not that motivated to sell it but I don't have the space to display it either so it's just been sitting in the vault.    -Dave |
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11
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Bitcoin / Hardware wallets / Be careful what you plug your hardware wallet into your PC with
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on: March 24, 2022, 03:47:59 AM
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https://hak5.org/products/omg-adapterBeen working with someone and we think we might have a MITM attack working against a certain hardware wallet. For now I can't talk about it, but I can say (and have said in the past) don't trust anything you plug into your PC to verify anything else. With more and more laptops only coming with the USB C connector and more and more people needing the C to A adapter, it's going to be much easier to drop compromised cables like this into the environment. More in a few weeks (hopefully). -Dave
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12
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Bitcoin / Press / [2022-03-14] German prosecutors charge 3 with fraud in Wirecard collapse
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on: March 14, 2022, 03:04:41 PM
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https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/german-prosecutors-charge-fraud-wirecard-collapse-83432812FRANKFURT, Germany -- German prosecutors have charged the former CEO of payments company Wirecard and two other ex-managers with fraud and false accounting in connection with the firm's collapse last year amid allegations that much of its revenue and assets were faked.
Prosecutors in Munich said Monday that ex-CEO Markus Braun signed off on financial reports he knew were false. They said the firm booked nonexistent revenue it attributed to multiple partnerships in other countries and used fake documents to show it had funds that it did not. For those of you that don't remember Wirecard was big into crypto debit cards including the crypto.com card and others. A lot of Russian Mob / Dubai money was moving through them. Break out the popcorn it's going to be a good shown watching everyone throw everyone else under the bus. -Dave
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13
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Everyone in signature campaigns. Let's help the Ukrainian People.
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on: February 27, 2022, 08:34:10 PM
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Mods: Not sure where to put this, but I figure the discussion page is as good as anyplace. I was staring at this weeks payment and said what the heck am I doing, the BTC is nice but I really don't need it at the moment. So I went to the https://unrefugees.org/SupportUkraine page and gave them $200 on my credit card. And I just posted this in the ChipMixer thread: DarkStar_, would you please be so kind and change my payment address to the Ukrainian donation address. And tell them it would be nice if they did matching donations :-) -----BEGIN BITCOIN SIGNED MESSAGE-----
I am DaveF until I say otherwise please send my weekly payments to 357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P Please note that is the Ukrainian donation address so when I change it again I will sign a message from address I am using now bc1qquutf3venv8rufrqua7dv3t6rd2tl28ake4ag5
-----BEGIN SIGNATURE-----
bc1qquutf3venv8rufrqua7dv3t6rd2tl28ake4ag5
IPDohrBelDjADkMrm2QAw8CgrSZb9lAPRir4dstGjKsiPVo0V/o80/7iZvZTrmvabTrA17Ta07No/9wnSNtGGOU=
-----END BITCOIN SIGNED MESSAGE----- -Dave So far all of you in any campaign, if you *need* the money then don't change. If you don't need it; if you were just saving it, or using it for spare beer money or anything else, at least for a week or two, please change where it goes and donate to some people who can really use it. -Dave |
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15
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Bitcoin / Press / [2022-02-26] Kazakhstan ministry halts illegal crypto mining operations
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on: February 26, 2022, 03:23:21 PM
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https://cointelegraph.com/news/kazakh-ministry-halts-illegal-crypto-mining-operationsThe Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan announced that it had discovered and terminated 13 cryptocurrency mining operations. The government executed the shutdown as part of its efforts to regulate the Bitcoin (BTC) mining sector, which has grown increasingly popular in recent years.
As per the official statement, the miners were using a lot of energy, with a total power consumption of 202 megawatts. According to the Kazakh government, efforts to identify and disconnect mining farms from the electrical networks will continue. Following the discovery of illicit mining operations, authorized bodies will take operational and investigatory actions. Several other articles out there about it. I really see it as a giant game of whack-a-mole ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whac-A-Mole) as big miners just shuffle equipment around. Also, I always wonder if it's all just BTC or a mix of other algos and GPUs. It makes you wonder how much more it would cost to do it legitimately vs. hoping not to get caught. Do they do any risk / reward calculation based on anything or just start plugging things in and hope for the best. In addition to the miners themselves there is a lot of other manpower and such involved. -Dave
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16
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Using BTC vs. Using Credit / Debit cards and purchase tracking and privacy.
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on: February 20, 2022, 02:06:16 PM
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I know I have brought this up before, but:
We all want BTC to become more and more mainstream and we all want BTC to be used everywhere.
BUT, how much are we willing to give up to get it there?
In many places in the world credit & debit cards are just the way people spend money. Without getting into all the good and bad things and all the other stuff about them one thing they do do is allow for a large amount of purchase tracking.
I have a fair number of cards that I rotate though. Some are for certain things only others are more general use. Depends on limits, any cash back offers, and other things.
One of the cards I have is a Sears MasterCard issued by CitiBank. It was originally just a Sears store card, but when they imploded they changed it to a MasterCard.
It has a stupid high interest rate and the rewards it offers (CitiBank ThankYou points) are fair at best.
So I rarely use it.
The other day I got an email from them. Spend $500 a month in Gas / Restaurants / Food Stores and get 15X points back up to $600 a month in spending at those locations. Works out to about 12.5% cash back. Guess which card went into my wallet and I have been using to get gas and food :-)
My Amazon card gives me 5% back at Amazon. BoA has a card that gives 3% back on online purchases. Discover has the 5% back on different things every quarter and so on.
Coinbase has their debit card with 4% rewards (not in BTC but some alt) but beyond that there is not much.
Paying with BTC direct we get none of that.
I use BTC a lot, but there are also many many times when I could that I use a card instead due to the benefits the card offers.
BTC does offer some level of privacy
But giving that up, so banks / card cards can send us directed offers, will save you some real money over time. How far are you willing to go how much extra are you wiling to spend to really use BTC? With the Sears MC I mentioned above since I do spend more then $600 a month between gas / restaurants / food stores anyway I am probably going to net back over $225 in total for doing what I do normally. Best I could do normally would be $50 in cash back at best. Either way I can't do that with BTC.
But if a BTC debit card they are came out that would give you good benefits if you let them do a lot more invasive tracking, would you do it?
-Dave
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17
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Bitcoin / Hardware / It's not just power supplies. It's the cables, the PDUs, PROTECT EVERYTHING.
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on: January 31, 2022, 03:34:15 PM
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So, had a small incident the other day. An older miner went offline. Took a look at the logs and saw during the storm the UPS saw some insane power issues but it handled it well. The PDUs did not even show issues. The older miner was not on the UPS just plugged into an outlet. An under 800W miner on a 1000W PSU  Everything else that was plugged into a UPS or a PDU or any form of surge suppression was fine. The PDUs / suppressors did not even trip. This unit and a monitor both went bang. 2 separate power feeds, so it's not like one might have taken the other out. Keep your entire farms well protected. -Dave |
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19
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Economy / Gambling discussion / New York sports betting going live this week.
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on: January 14, 2022, 03:17:16 PM
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If this has been discussed somewhere else point me to the thread, I did a quick search and did not find it anywhere.
So now that there are approved apps to bet with here in NY has anyone changed where / how they bet?
I know some people will move books based on small odds differences, just wondering if anyone here has made a change.
Personally, I have not. I like where I wager now and they are not in New York yet, although they say they want to be by the middle of the year. No idea if it will actually happen.
-Dave
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