I woke up yesterday and I noticed someone has been missing on Bitcoin Talk.  It was quieter than it used to be.  I often follow my gut, but I thought it may be my mind playing games on me again.

Then I notice BlackHatCoiner had a Personal Message that said 'Farewell, Leo'.  I thought, this can not be possible.  I hoped it is just a prank.  But I soon realized it is not.  The beloved o_e_l_e_o of Bitcoin Talk has posted a Farewell.  We have to live on this Forum without one of the most notable Members we ever had.

It is a feeling I hate.  To me, Leo was always admirable.  I received a hefty amount of Merits from them and I always thought, why me and not some body else.  I never skipped a word of every post I found from Leo, unless it was something so out of my area of knowledge that I truly could not comprehend.  I hate the feeling of waking up to reality and realizing we here are not forever.  Many of our members come and go, but many of us go unnoticed.  You however think we are the strongest and before you know, reality slaps you right when you thought it never would.

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You wake up one day realizing even this day is not granted for all of us.  This moment is however.  You are alive now.  Otherwise, you would not be here reading my message to you.  This is why it is sometimes so important to live in the moment.  Not all the time, but sometimes it is important to do so.

When you realize there is not much time left, you start to realize most of the things you have ever done and worked for are actually in vain.  You used your time to work for a bigger TV, for a better camera, to renovate your home or buy your own property.  You wasted time arguing with strangers, doing courses, fighting for a better future.

Then you realize people around you are vanishing.  You realize life means becoming lonelier and the people you used to love talking to become fewer and fewer.  You realize you will never hear some of their voices again.  You will never hear their laugh and see their smile again.

And then you realize your time is coming too.  So what did you really work and fight for all this life?

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Leo is an admirable and notable Member of Bitcoin Talk.  I know he will fight the worst and come back here.  I do not want to even think about him never coming back.  He taught many of us a lot about Privacy.  He fought every body who tried to convince Know Your Customer is for our good.  He fought for our Rights and Freedom.  Against Surveillance and Control.

And that did not happen so he could gain anything.  Leo just did not want this world to have a dystopian future.  So he fought it.

But back when I wrote about my own problems, a handful of people Private Messaged me.  Although we never had a chat before, Leo was among them.  So I want to end this Thread by saying a Thank You to o_e_l_e_o and every body else who taught me a lot of the things I know and who are fighting for Privacy and for what Bitcoin should be.  Thank you for caring.  I do not know if you realize this, but many of you changed sets of minds and lives.  Writing your thoughts and sharing your knowledge on Bitcoin Talk may be your normal life, but you may never realize how much change you provoke.

I promised myself I would never write about my own struggles publicly again.  It felt like a relief for a while.  But then, I felt like that was a subject I should not have touched upon on Bitcoin Talk.  And it is a subject I will likely never touch upon again.  But after I saw Leo leaving, I felt it is important to write a Thread about him.  Leo is one of a kind.  A fighter and a good person.  He fought for us, now he is fighting on his own and I just know he will succeed.

So Leo, thank you for your existence and I appreciate you for using your precious time to be a Member of Bitcoin Talk.  I could not not be emotional reading your Farewell considering it was only last year you cheered me up and offered to help.  I want to know you and your family are well.  I feel emotional, but I will not cry because I know you will do well.

To put an end to this Thread, I will leave here the warm hearted message I received from Leo only one year ago,

Hey bud,

Just wanted to reach out and wish you and your family all the best for the months and years ahead.

Your ethos on all things privacy and security obviously strongly aligns with my own, and something I strongly respect. Having said that, off this forum I am (REDACTED). While Alzheimer's and mental health in general is absolutely not my area of expertise and while I obviously can't offer personalized medical advice, if there is anything that I can do to help you in any way, (REDACTED) or bitcoin related, please don't hesitate to let me know. I can provide my PGP key should you wish to encrypt any correspondence.

Best wishes,
Leo

Mining Farms gaining more and more percentage of the total hashing power is an often discussed subject here.  My theory is that in the event of an already large Miner gaining enough control of the Mining that a 51 percent attack becomes more likely and easy to accomplish than we would expect and like, Bitcoin would have to suffer a Hard Fork which would expel any sort of equipment other than CPUs and GPUs so the power could be redistributed among the community instead of a majority of it being distributed among few giant Miners.

I do not know how much of a solution or how feasible this would be.  But say this was a thing and Bitcoin became GPU and CPU mineable ONLY like it used to be many years ago.

What would happen?  What are the risks we would run into?

Unless you have been a victim of writing the wrong word of a Seed down or the incorrect order of it, you do not know how frustrating and desperate such a mistake can make you feel.

When creating a new Seed, always double check its validity.  Not only by writing it down and double checking it with your own eyes.  To me, even if the Wallet checks two or three words, it means nothing.  There could always be an error and I try to minimize it.

The way I do it is as soon as I write down the Seed, I close the Wallet, then re launch it and use the Restore option.  Enter the Seed from the paper I just wrote and go from there.

I wrote words in the wrong order before and at first glance it looked right.  Next time I had to restore my Seed from my paper, it said it was wrong.  I got desperate for days, until I tried to swap the word with the previous and luckily it did work for me.

Check your Seed twice.  Do not be lazy.

The question is in the title.

I was reading on some other topic on this Board and it got me curious.  Why is RBF not by default for all Transactions on the Blockchain?

I am very familiar and used to Bisq, Trade Ogre, Local Monero and Agoradesk.  I have been looking for a few weeks at Wizard Swap but am still not entirely sure whether to try it out or not.

The main concern of mine is I am using no Java Script and I see this message when I enter their website,

Your browser does not support JavasScript. Some features may not work.

I am afraid my trade would not function properly and I may need to re enable Java Script to finish it.  Is there any body who has had experience with their website?  I want to try more Exchanges out of desire to support the few remaining Exchanges who still do not enforce any Know Your Customer policy.

Some printers are known to include watermarks on printed pages for further identification of the device used to print.  This is Privacy concerning.  I guess you can understand why.

Today we have Smart phones though.  What is known is that they leave EXIF information on pictures we take with the camera.  EXIF is easy to erase.  Particularly if you have a Linux Operating System such as Tails.  Does any body here know of any proof that these photos ALSO have some kind of other 'watermark' similar to those Machine Identification Codes we saw in printers?

I imagine this would be a number of pixels arranged in a certain spot that reveal identification of the device used to take photos with.  Or something like that.

To some of you this could seem silly but maybe this actually gets attention from members around here.

I met a number of issues every now and then while browsing Bitcoin Talk or trying to write a thread / reply.  I am not using Java Script and some features of course do not work.  But it seems like some of them are easy fix.  Here are the issues I am finding currently.  I can not remember them all but I will update the topic as soon as I remember more.

> BBCodes.  I see the buttons.  I can hold the cursor over them to see the Alt Text.  But it would be helpful if the Alt Text also showed a really short guide of how the BBCode works by showing what the code is to insert that function in the reply / topic.  Alternative solution is adding a link or question mark icon next to the buttons that would open up a really simple Bitcoin Talk page showing examples of how to use BBCode.

To find the actual code for the buttons, I had to quote some body else who posted the face or text feature that I wanted and find where their code was so I could copy it.

> Show/Hide link for ignored users is non functional.  This means I have to first remove a member from my Ignore list if I want to read their message.  I do not know how easy this fix would be to be honest.  But maybe it is as simple as a few lines of code.

Non Java Script users are probably only a handful.  Hello to you all.  What other issues have you met along the way while using BT without Java Script?

Pretty much self explanatory.  How do you do it?

Here is my way.  I mostly pushed away and pulled out of relationships with people who seem to stand against my beliefs.  Instead of convincing them I just moved on.  I found that a lot of those who do not believe in my choice of investment and think I will fail are the same people who never listen.  Know it alls who rather put you down and disregard your feelings with no logical reasoning.  Sometimes it feels like they envy you or some thing.

I believe this is a healthy way of handling your environment.  Keep negativity outside your bubble.  Only keep close to you people who give you the ambition and optimism to continue.  Not sure how many of you believe in this.  But manifesting negativity has always brought negative outcome in my life.  Surrounding myself by positive thoughts and positive people has brought a strong source of light all the time.

Cam linişte aici pe la români.  Hai să discutăm un pic.

În ultimii 10 ani, Bitcoin a avut câteva realizări inimaginabile.  Voi cum vă imaginaţi lumea Crypto peste 5 ani?  Dar peste 10?

I am offering my avatar up for rent.  Any offer is welcomed and can be discussed and negotiated.

Only accepting payments in Bitcoin.

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History :
>Advertised Bitcoin Talk Pie Making Contest (25th of Feb to 14th of Mar)
>NOW AVAILABLE!

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Regards,
PrivacyG

This is the first and only time I will likely ever talk about my personal life.  If you want to get to the Bitcoin part, please scroll down to the second part of my thread.  Anyway.  I will try to write the story as briefly as I can.

Because I never posted anything like this before, please keep in mind I may not feel comfortable for now replying to questions about this issue I am facing.  Feel free to ask any thing but remember I may not reply to some of your questions.  I do not even know why and how I am posting this.  I never felt comfortable doing it since it involves personal life but now I feel like I should write this thread so here we go.

In the three most recent years of my life, I started realizing something was going on with my mental health.  Initially, I ignored the issues but as the decline continued and became more apparent, it slowly started affecting my life and so I could not simply ignore it any more.

It started with me noticing I could not concentrate on my daily routine any more.  If some of the tasks took a few minutes many years before, they take me up to half an hour now.  If you ask me why, I just do not know.  I just realized common tasks are becoming harder and harder to complete.

Then I realized it was not only about tasks.  I actually had little signs of a mental decline in the past approximately five years, but I did not think it was this serious.  But I found out it was much worse than I expected.  I could not communicate as efficiently any more.  I found myself taking up to a minute to find a word.  I started forgetting where I put my keys and wallet every single day, or I started placing them in uncommon places.  I started missing appointments due to this, because sometimes it takes me up to a few hours to find them.  So I went to a local store and duplicated my keys and made sure I split my money in multiple wallets.  Guess what.  I lost two sets of keys for over a month AND one of my wallets.  One set of keys were attached to my entrance door all this time, the wallet was on my desk.  How in the hell did I never see them, I do not know.  Initially, I thought it was my significant other playing games on me.  Until they started getting mad and irritated on me because every day something was missing.  Either the keys, or the wallet.

I started forgetting the most important events.  Forgetting about dates and time.  I thought money was missing from my wallet, but then I found a bill from the day before which explained the missing money.  And most recently, I started to repeat questions over and over about simple things.  It is like you tell me something and the next second I forget.  So I ask you to repeat, then I forget again.  And so on.

In fact.  This started happening on Bitcoin Talk as well.  I read an information and soon I forget it.  But sometimes it is not like the entire piece is missing from my brain.  It is like someone fragmented it into many pieces and I know something about it, but I do not know enough to remember what it actually was.  Out of my time spent on this forum, I believe over half of it is spent re reading my recent posts and earlier replies of mine in threads because I do not remember what my argument was on a particular subject or whether I even posted in the thread at all.

Of course it becomes increasingly more irritating every time I realize this is going on.  And I try to calm myself down and focus on what is most important, but then I realize it is exactly the most important that I seem to now forget.  My family is very supportive now that they realize what is going on too.  So thanks to all of them.

-----

Anyway.  Recently, I took multiple exams and an MRI which led to the diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer's Disease.  I could say this is life changing, but I am really trying not to.  By the way it looks, many disorders are progressing so much faster when the affected individual knows they have it so my plan is to try to slow it down while not caring much about its existence.  Sort of living with it while finding a way to make it work.

I recently started forgetting about my Cryptocurrency things.  Some passwords and where their backups were, where I put my Hardware Wallet, which disk was my Wallet on and more.  I do not remember what many of my recent transactions were for.  They are even labeled, believe it or not.  So I thought if there was a way to pretty much store everything in a place I can go search in every time I forget something, this may help.  My solution is therefore taking a notepad and writing everything down.  Word by word, with long explanation for every thing written.  Which is really heartbreaking for someone like me who would have never done this before for .. you guessed it, Privacy reasons.  I love this idea of having everything hidden and knowing there is no way some body else can put the pieces of the puzzle together.  But now I have to go against my passion, because this is the situation and I have to accept it and to find a way that works.  And then comes another issue I have to be really realistic about.  If my mental decline will progress significantly within a short time span, I have to make sure my relatives will pick up the pieces of my puzzles and work them out by themselves, without needing me.

So, here I am.  I just started teaching my closest relatives about Cryptocurrencies more than they ever knew before.  Kind of giving them a more in detail course so they know what to know, what to do and what to avoid doing.  I am still thinking about who to give the sensitive information about where my Seed Phrases are stored.  I have a pretty complicated setup, which I now have to unfortunately simplify.

To make sure my Alzheimer's is slowed down as much as possible, I am training my brain every single day.  I chose an exaggeratedly long password for my computer that I want to remember character by character.  I wrote it down somewhere safe too, so in case my brain goes nuts someone else can enter my computer too.  I plan to change this password every month, so I always have something to learn.  I bought myself all sorts of puzzles and brain training games, I started playing some sports and learning new languages and poems.  It is me having fun while trying to prevent or at least slow down the worst.

The saddest part of all of this is that I think I remember either LoyceV or o_e_l_e_o once said on Bitcoin Talk that the human brain should not be trusted because brain damages can occur and you never know when and how it can happen.  Well.  You were very right, and I am unfortunately witnessing it now by myself.  Never trust your brain.  It can play games on you and it is not fun at all.

The most interesting part of all of this is I can remember most of my past with an incredible lucidity.  Sincerely, I can close my eyes and think about my past and I can almost live it again through my own brain.  But the more recent past seems more and more blurry the closer I get to the year 2023.  You would think memory loss is going to affect your entire life's timeline.  The brain is such an interesting and intriguing thing.

But I am convinced I am not the only person with a declining mental health over here who is using Bitcoin.  I definitely do not want to leave Bitcoin, it is part of my fun.  It is part of who I am now.  Privacy as well.  So I will of course continue to be me, but I have to be conscious about the serious decline that I am facing.

So the purpose of this thread was actually to ask other Bitcoiners facing the same issue.  How do you work your brain out?  What kind of behavior are you using to make sure you overcome the difficulties of your mental health declining?  Do you have any tips for me?

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Regards,
PrivacyG

While answering in another thread, this debate came up in my mind about Bitcoin and decimals.  Curious to know what the general user thinks.

Say inflation was so crazy 1 Satoshi became $1 and a Hard Fork took place through which we add more decimals to Bitcoin.  It currently has 8.  If we add 4 more decimals, is 1 Bitcoin still just as scarce or do you consider it artificial injection of supply?

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Regards,
PrivacyG

I am still trying to wrap my head around the way Bitcoin Core functions because I am way too used to Electrum.  So bear with me, I am trying to learn and improve.

I have been running a Bitcoin Core Full Node through Tor 24 out of 7 for a while to support the network and thought why not use it as well since I have it anyway.  If I import multiple watch only addresses and private keys into the same Core wallet, is there any way they can be tied to the same owner with Coin Control used properly?  Can they be tied if transactions are broadcasted from the same Tor identity?

Logically I would say no to both questions.  As far as I know, all information about the addresses I import are processed locally unlike SPV Electrum and a transaction is distributed first among multiple peers and a random peer will ultimately broadcast it publicly, making it extremely difficult to find out who was the initiator.  If that is the case, it means I do not have to worry about anything.

Or, do you think amnesic Tor sessions (Tails) where I open up Electrum, import just a single private key, broadcast the transaction, dispose of the session and redo it later with the next private key is a better overall behavior than the above?

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Regards,
PrivacyG

As Bitcoin users, we get the chance to use our financial resources precisely the way we want.  You get to choose whether you want anyone else to be in control of your keys.  You get to choose whether you want to have enhanced privacy or not.  You get to choose where to pay fees from and who to send money to, without a third party's interference.  You get complete freedom over your own assets.

Now let us focus for one moment particularly on the second thing I mention.  You get to choose whether you want to have enhanced privacy or not.

As a community, no matter what aspect and subject we try to discuss we are going to be split.  Although some of us sit at the extremes, there are many who partially care and partially do not.  There are many who are trying to sustain their own mindset and not agree with the opposing view.  But I think privacy is something concerning each and every one of us.  You need privacy, I do as well.  Everyone needs at some point.  You have curtains in your rooms, you never shower in front of a clear window, you never share intimate conversations with anyone surrounding you, you probably have a passcode on your phone and you are maybe afraid of telling everyone about your Bitcoin holdings.

You are doing all of this because you want privacy.  If there is anyone who says 'no' to everything I stated above, you are probably among the extremely few who truly do not care.  But truth is, almost everyone cares.  Whether it is subconsciously or not, there is this feeling of discomfort and / or fear surrounding this idea of having zero privacy.

Bitcoin gives you freedom.  You choose if you want everything about your financial history to be public knowledge or you can choose to break the chain and make every single possible future 'spy' of your account lose your track.  I often hear this idea that zero privacy is not a big deal because you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.  But this has been proved wrong multiple times in our history.  And if you have ever had your identity stolen, you know this saying is false.  Everyone has something to hide, which is not a bad thing.  Privacy exists for a reason and just because a Blockchain is public does not mean you should justify and publish information about you for everyone to see.

Logically and morally, nobody should care about the things you do with your own money.  I am definitely against any kind of crime, but I am aware that if crime is prevented with Bitcoin, all the ex Bitcoin criminals will find an alternative.  Probably Monero.  Probably not.

But realistically speaking, we have been taught to fear hiding anything.  I know, this may sound like I am getting this thread closer to some kind of conspiracy.  But we have all been pretty much brainwashed to believe having privacy is wrong.  Which is insane, because things used to be different only few years ago.  Nobody really cares what you have done with your cash bills, so why would they care about the track of your Bitcoin?  Is it because Bitcoin is not a private ledger?  Or is it just because they like collecting information on us and placing fear under the idea of privacy?

Anyway.  I am personally sitting at the extreme of privacy seeking Bitcoin users.  I know, name checks out.  I am doing whatever I can to cover my footsteps, and I am not a criminal.  It is just so creepy to me knowing that someone out there is trying to untangle my financial records to find out what I am doing with my personal life.  I know what theft of identity is and it is very scary.  It freaks me out that Exchanges get to check out your history and steal your money for believing or pretending your assets come from an illicit source.  It is scary that for anything I do, there is a bot, an AI or a human being trying to link all sorts of meta data and information to my own actions.

In consequence, I chose protecting my privacy and personal life.  I am using mixers and Coin Control to make sure my assets have no link to my identity.  It is a hard work to do because you have to carefully watch every single step you make, but it is worth it in the end since I feel free.  Nobody is watching me closely, which feels incredible.

But I am very conscious there are a lot of you out here who simply do not give a damn.  Which begs the question for me, why is it that you do not give a single damn about your own privacy when using Bitcoin?  Why not protect yourself in front of all sorts of attacks if you have the chance to do so?  Also.  What do you think about us, who try their hardest to 'hide'?  Do you think we are suspicious or are you perfectly fine with our way of living?  Do you think the number of criminals is larger where there are more privacy enthusiasts?

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Regards,
PrivacyG

I think I messed up with the way I generated one of my Hardware Wallet's seed.  I have only recently moved all my Trezor T holdings to a new seed and as far as I remember, now the default seed generation process is the Shamir scheme rather than the typical sheet of 12 words like a Ledger or Electrum generates.  I remember they allow you to switch in between the two, but I sticked to the Shamir.  After discussing in another topic I found out this is not as safe as it seems so I now have one question.  Is it possible to revert from a Shamir scheme to a typical 12 words seed?

I want to upload images in a thread but can not seem to find a way to upload them safely.  My browser is running through Tor with JavaScript disabled at all times for security and privacy purposes.  An image hosting website allowing NoJs is perfect, or maybe someone has a better idea.  Does anyone have a suggestion for me?

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Regards,
PrivacyG

I thought 14 was the limit.  But I earned over 30 in the last week and to my surprise the count only keeps increasing.  I read the pinned thread three times but still couldn't wrap my head around it.  Theymos says here the maximum you can earn is 1 per day, which still means 14 every two weeks.   Am I missing something?

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Regards,
PrivacyG

Greetings fellow Bitcoiners,

I have an airgapped computer containing an Electrum install.  Even though I have been using it for years, I never found a way to update my balance offline.  Instead, I use Address labels as a way to manually update the balance of each address.

Whenever I sign transactions from my airgapped Electrum the balance does not change.  Previously, I tried to load a broadcasted transaction from my online computer but that does not seem to work either.  Is there a way to see transactions and balance without going online at all?

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Regards,
PrivacyG

Greetings to you all Bitcoiners,

Despite being a long-time lurker of Bitcoin Talk, I never took the chance to create an account myself.  Some of you older forum users seem to be enjoying the lifestyle of daily posters for real, and I cannot lie!  It does seem to be pretty fun hanging around here sometimes.

I would like to introduce myself as a privacy and security advocate, although an amateur one, and so my top priority today is getting my profile up and running with maximized privacy settings.  For this reason, before I start my Bitcoin Talk adventure, I would like to politely ask for some tips concerning my forum account settings.

To the present time, I have restricted the forum IP logs and hid my e-mail address and online status from my profile.  If there is any other setting I may have missed, your suggestions will be met with a lot of appreciation from my side and hopefully merits from other readers who currently own some spendable ones.

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Regards,
PrivacyG