Gotta love science...

[think]

I haven't posted on this board so far, so for those that don't know me, I'm a newbie, and as green as can be expected. I've been trying to learn as much as I can, watching videos, and reading anything I can get my hands on. As of late, I watched a video on short selling a gazillion times, but I just can't wrap my mind around it. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

So here's what I know (or I think I know):

Short selling is betting that an asset is gonna go down in price.
You have the certainty a given asset is gonna drop, so you borrow that asset, sell it high, wait for it to drop, and then buy it back low and give it back. Great. Except it doesn't make any sense.

Let's see. For example, BTC is now scraping 45K. You got tipped that's gonna go down to 30K tomorrow. So...

Scenario #1

You borrow 1 BTC. Both the lender and the exchange charge you a fee for it. You do your thing, and you get a good chunk of money in return.
But what if BTC doesn't go down? You need to have enough money in your account, so as to pay the BTC back, plus the fees, plus some extra cash in case BTC goes up. If it gets yo the point that you're not gonna be able to cover your obligation, you'll get margin called.

Scenario #2

You do have the money already in your account, so you liquidate your BTC if you have it, and wait. When BTC does go down, you buy it cheap, and get the same profit you got on scenario #1, plus the fees you don't have to pay. 

Scenario # 3

This is the only scenario that would make any sense to me:
The lender agrees to share the risk (meaning he agrees to get less money than he lent you, in case things go south). That's the only way I can see this would work (not for the lender, though), and only if the top price the borrower has to pay (including fees) is less than the value of the BTC he starts with.

So, how does it work? The way I see it, scenario #1 doesn't make any sense, scenario #2 is not short selling, and the only one that makes sense (to a point) is scenario #3. That is, if the lender is willing to share the risk with you (I personally wouldn't consider it).

Now, I'm pretty sure I'm missing something, and I'm pretty sure itś dangling right in front of my nose, and I'm gonna feel like an idiot when yoou guys tell me. But, How does it work?

Thank you all in advance. 

[easy for you]

Ok, so I commented on another thread that I was working on a method to secure seed words, and soon enough I got some replies telling me about a gazillion times this had been attempted before, which always ended on somebody losing their funds because they couldn't remember their "encryption method". That was to be expected, and I appreciate them saving me the time to post something useless for the benefit of... well, nobody.
But on the other hand that got a different set of gears turning. The benefits of encrypting your seed words are undeniable, yet you should do so in a way that's hard for others but easy for you. That's the real challenge.

So here's a bit of a challenge for you guys: I did come up with a way to encrypt (kinda) my seed words, that is indeed very easy for me, I want to know how easy (or hard, hopefully) it is for people knowing a whole lot more than I do (doesn't take much) on the matter. I don't want to end up calling it "unhackable", and have a 12 year old make me look like an idiot...

So here it is:

Code:

anqouiimmaecpaosnagcodaacdarnetvasraarlecmolmappaasddaerltanveisgaugelluapqauzenazluhgormebvraesqeumeoldoidneossvoerlraouhncaapceanhaceisftardaiobredbi

That's the seed phrase.

Here's a few hints:
   

• 12 words. All in English.
• None of them are capitalized.
• Each word is 5 characters long.
• No encryption algorithm has been used.

   
So there it is, what do you guys say? Can you  crack it?
I will post the actual words when you guys are ready.

[cellphone]

Yesterday I received an ad on Facebook (on my cellphone. FB never touches my computer.) about Freebank. Of course, if you're gonna believe what the ad says, there the best since sliced bread, they're perfect, their only focus is to serve their customers, and all of  that. To make it short, I don't believe the ad. So I got scheduled for a talk through Zoom with one of their guys on Friday. Meanwhile, I asked them on FB about one of the points they made in the ad ("Cheap Payments"), and received a cookie cutter reply (probably from a bot) that carefully said nothing in so many words, an ended up making my suspicions even stronger.

Then I thought about asking questions here.
I know nobody had any experience with them, because they haven't launched yet. So, basically, my questions are:

1. Have you guys heard anything about them?
2. Is there anything I should worry about, in terms of the service itself?
3. I haven't installed zoom yet, as the interview is on Friday. Is there anything related to zoom I should be aware of?
4. Is there anything you'd ask them on the interview?

Their link is https://getfreebank.com/, if you want to check it out, but it says very little, besides the usual marketing bullshit everybody wants to hear about. If anything, the page itself is pretty poor...

Thank you all in advance. 

A while ago (don't remember exactly when), in the "Off Topic" board, I posted on this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5224912.0. Now I found this message:

A reply of yours, quoted below, was deleted by a Bitcoin Forum moderator. Posts are most frequently deleted because they are off-topic, though they can also be deleted for other reasons. In the future, please avoid posting things that need to be deleted.

"Fracture", Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling.
Anthony Hopkins playing cat and mouse with the system is amazing.

"Arrival", Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner.
Not much to say about this one. You want to marry Amy Adams from the first scene to the end titles.

I'm posting here because I replied to the message asking for clarification, and my reply was "blocked by Bitcoin Forum".

So, my question was (and still is) how could a reply citing two movies on a thread asking for movie suggestions be considered "off topic", or what in that reply could be a reason for its removal?

I don't know, maybe I will get lucky here, and somebody will answer my question, instead of deleting the thread.

I'm, as of now, using the wifi connection in a Starbucks store near my place. At least for now, that's the only option I have.
I'm running Fedora 30 (hope to upgrade soon), and using Conky as a system monitor. For the last few days I've been seeing my CPU usage go through the roof for no reason, so I'm suspecting my laptop is being used to mine crypto while I'm working (there was a reported incident not long ago for the same company).
Normally, my CPU usage hovers around 5%. The absolutely HIGHEST I've seen it go was about 30-35% when I was running Freecad and VLC at the same time. Right now, I'm seeing CPU usage in the upper 90% only on Firefox, which makes no sense.
Memory usage seems to be ok though, at around 15%.
I ran ClamAV, and, unsurprisingly, didn't find anything.
Should I be worried?
What can I do about it?

Thank you  all in advance. 

[NOT]

So I've been looking everywhere, and I can't, for the life of me, find any reliable information on multi asset, software wallets. I downloaded Exodus, just to find a thread recommending NOT to use it. Coinomi had an even worse reputation. E-Toro ended up being custodial.

Now, I've been reading (not a lot) about Atomic wallet, but, as usual, I can't find what I'm looking for.

My questions are:

• Is it open source?
• Is it custodial/non custodial?
• How about fees? Are they higher or lower than other wallets?
• Is it safe enough? yes, I know hardware wallets are better, but I can't afford one right now.

And, finally, the most important ones: do you recommend it? Any other multi asset wallet you would recommend over it?

Thank you all in advance. 

For the record, I have posted in the "Beginners & Help" board because I'm asking for help, and I'm a beginner, but I'm in no way sure this is the right board for it. If it's not, I apologize.

[FIRST THINGS FIRST: THE CRYPTO SPACE IS FULL OF SCAMMERS, HACKERS, AND BASICALLY ANY KIND OF LOWLIFE YOU CAN THINK OF. LEARN TO PROTECT YOURSELF!]

Alright, first of all, I’d like to make something very clear: this is not a “I know everything about everything” type of post. It’s just my story, in the hope it may help somebody.
Second: this is gonna be a long ass post. Sorry about that.

Up until October 14^th, 2021, I knew one thing about cryptocurrency:

IT’S A SCAM. PERIOD.

On that day, a former coworker of mine showed me a screenshot of his Bitcoin wallet. He had started on BTC a month earlier with 60 USD, and now had $ 1156. A 1900% increase in a month! That really got me thinking.

So on January 27^th, 2022, after almost three very long months racking my brain to come up with solutions to the many problems I’ve encountered along the way, I could finally start. What follows is an account of what happened along those 3 months. Hope it helps.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: THE CRYPTO SPACE IS FULL OF SCAMMERS, HACKERS, AND BASICALLY ANY KIND OF LOWLIFE YOU CAN THINK OF. LEARN TO PROTECT YOURSELF!

Now, for starters, cryptocurrencies are some very technical stuff. Learn about them. You can’t expect to be able to understand the finer points of cryptocurrency investing and/or trading if you don’t understand what a blockchain is.

So next day I started researching. There are a lot of good quality courses on Crypto trading and investing out there. In some cases (I can only vouch for Udemy.com, which I have used), you can get great courses for about $10 when they’re on sale (which happens very often), in some other cases (like Tutsnode and The Pirate Bay), you can get the same courses, and/or courses from other sources, for free. Of course, if you get those free courses you will not get the support (which may or may not be important to you), so keep that in mind.
So, since I didn’t have $10 to spare (nor a way to spare them), I went to The Pirate Bay. Got my very first cryptocurrency course, and started watching it.
Two weeks later (and because it was mentioned in the course, and in another course I was taking) I joined this forum.
Then I started asking questions here. Many of them (I’m sure) were pretty stupid (my apologies), while I was starting my third course.
By the time I felt I was somewhat ready to start, I had 5 courses in the bag. Then the really difficult stuff started: things that had to do with my circumstances and my country, so nobody could help me with.
First was the money: 10 bucks may sound like peanuts in the US, but it’s not elsewhere, especially when you’ve been unemployed for almost 2 years. Either way, I did take care of that.
Then I came up with a really hard one to crack: the law. In Argentina, the law doesn’t allow you to make transactions in USD, unless you have an account in USD (which is not easy to get), and you can’t make transactions online unless you have an international credit card (which is even harder to get than the USD account). So that effectively limits access to cryptocurrencies to a very small group of people.
I didn’t have either, so I was screwed. Twice.
Then Binance started accepting ARS, and money transfers directly from your bank account. Great!
Turned out it was just marketing bullshit, and they only accepted ARS for p2p transactions.
But that gave me a bit more knowledge, so I started looking for another exchange that would take ARS, preferably without KYC. Came across Kucoin. Signed up, and next day I couldn’t get in any longer. I still can’t.
In the meantime, I kept on asking questions here: signature campaigns, bounties, airdrops, faucets…
So on January 16th I joined Cointiply. They have a minimum withdrawal amount of $5, and pay you directly on BTC (or a few other coins) to your wallet.
In the morning of January 25th, 8 ½ days after joining, I finally had reached the $5 minimum withdrawal requirement, so I made the withdrawal. Excellent! That gave me some money, while at the same time bypassing the legal requirements in my country! In the morning of January 27th I got the deposit.
As of now, I’m working to get the second $5 batch, so I can start operating on Binance. The path has been far from smooth, but I’m moving forward, and loving every minute.

So, what’s the moral here?

1. Learn. And once you’re certain you know everything you need to know, keep learning.

2. This is important: wake up, and understand Santa Claus doesn’t exist.
What do I mean by that? The safest way to avoid getting scammed is to be realistic. I have seen sites offering 1 BTC to click on a link. Do you really think somebody is gonna give you 30 or 40  grand just to move a finger?
On the same token, I have seen “Complete Cryptocurrency” courses that last less than an hour, with others providing over 50 or 60 hours of video. Which one do you think is gonna be more “complete”?
 
3. Use the forum. Not only there’s an ungodly amount of information already written in here, but there’s also a whole bunch of very knowledgeable members that are ready and willing to help you out. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, nobody was born knowing.
Incidentally, if you’re not comfortable typing/reading in English, the forum provides boards in different languages, so you can participate. In any case, if you do wish to communicate in English, you’d be truly surprised as to the levels of “broken English” these guys are willing to deal with. Just try it.
That said, despite all their knowledge and their willingness to help, there are things nobody can help you with, especially if you live in the 3rd world. Each country has its own rules, and each person has their own circumstances to deal with. Keep that in mind, it’ll make a world of difference.

4. Solve your problems as they appear, one at a time. Things may seem insurmountable if you try to fix everything at once.

5. DO NOT EVER GET DISCOURAGED! It’s just your life we’re talking about here. Trust me: there's always a solution waiting to be found.

6. (Thanks to maydna): Be grateful. Be grateful for the help you get, and you will be helped more. Be grateful for what you have, and start using it to your benefit. Cryptocurrencies wouldn't exist if some bozos at IBM hadn't created the PC in 1981, or if some school kid didn't steal some operating system from his classmates and called it "Windows", or if some nerd mathematician hadn't set up to decipher the nazis' "Enigma" machine, some 80 years ago. 

EDIT: Thanks to the advice provided by Maus0728 and hatshepsut93, I came to realize I've provided bad advise above. Here's my truth: I've been using The Pirate Bay for well over a decade. Thanks to them I have saved probably hundreds of thousands of dollars, and, while I have heard from the very beginning some of their torrents may carry malware, I have NEVER had the slightest problem with them.
But the truth can be partial, and at that it can be misleading.
Here are some other truths: I run Linux. That alone means a huge difference, in terms of security, with Windows. But most importantly, I haven't used TPB since I got my BTC. I don't know why, maybe just luck.
In any case, while I still recommend you to use TPB as a great source for free stuff, DON'T USE IT in the same computer you have your wallet(s) on. Just get an extra hard drive or SSD, and run another OS from there. Above all KEEP YOUR WALLET SAFE.

When I started with computers (1989, I think), the very best antivirus software was F-Prot, and it had a HUUUUGE database of 464 viruses, and they were all viruses, nothing else. A couple of days ago I ran ClamAV on my computer, and had a database of some 650 thousand viruses. And we have malware, spyware, ransomware, adware, and whatever fu*kware one can think of. Point being the lowlives I mentioned above are getting ever more sophisticated, and my experience of years (or of yesterday) may be completely useless tomorrow. It's up to you to protect your stuff. Be paranoid. It's much better than being broke, trust me.

Well, pretty much what the title says. I've been trying to login, and I get this screen:



... and nothing happens. Can't type my email address, phone number, nothing.
Is anybody else having these problems, or is it just me?
But, most importantly, how do I fix it?

I have already signed up to the site a while ago, did the KYC and everything.

Thank you all in advance.  

[B]

Here's something weird: I just realized (took me long enough, I know) that Bitcoin has the same acronym as the Broward Transition Center, the concentration camp (I mean, the "detention center") where I was starved half to death for over 8 months in 2012, prior to my deportation from the US.
That got me thinking: what are the odds?
I'm not interested in any "the odds are, like..." replies, but in the actual mathematical probability of the exact 3 letter combination happening.
I did learn mathematical probability in High School, but it's been a long time, and I don't remember anything about it, so if you guys can provide the equation for it, even better, so I can learn something.

Thanks in advance. 

Alright, just got my booster (Moderna) yesterday in the afternoon. I just want to let you guys know I'm still alive (really, I am), and, so far:

• I have not grown horns, nor long, pointy canines.
• I still don't have an eye in the middle of my forehead (it'd make wearing glasses kinda difficult).
• I don't feel any special craving for blood, brains or the like (a pizza slice or two would be nice, though).
• Did not see any scratches on my bedroom wall (might need to wait on a full moon for that one).
• I don't seem to be any dumber than I was yesterday.

So I was wondering how many of you did get the booster and survived, and which side effects have you noticed?

In my case, I've got nothing. No fever (well, if we're gonna be rigorous, my fever did go up 0.2° C), no aches, nothing. Today I have some minor discomfort at the injection site, but that's it.

So, what about it? Only survivors please. If you died, you don't need to reply. Thank you. 

So, pretty simple question. I'm trying to install the exodus wallet in my laptop, and (as usual with fedora), nothing is as easy as it may be. So watching videos on the Exodus wallet setup, I noticed they mention exodus.io, while the site I downloaded the wallet from is exodus.com.
Should I be worried?

Thanks in advance. 

Ok, once again, I started a thread and it got deleted (which wouldn't be much of a problem) without as much of a warning (which, at least in my opinion, is RUDE, and it definitely IS a problem).

Well, I'm a newbie asking questions, so I guess I might have better luck here. Hopefully.

I guess asking questions about BTC in the "Bitcoin Discussion" board is not allowed, so here goes nothing:

I'm subscribed to the Coinmarketcap newsletter. Today, I received it, with an article claiming "BTC has been closely correlated to Nasdaq 100"

https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/bitcoin-price-plunges-to-lowest-level-since-august?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Bitcoin+Hits+Lowest+Level+Since+August+%F0%9F%93%89&utm_campaign=Jan+21+Newsletter_FF&vgo_ee=tBEAPeNFNxgSd1Sj3RB503wFoqDlMHNmyq65fGLdufk%3D

So, I don't know anything about Nasdaq. Should I learn about it?

Thank you all in advance. 

Ok, so I'm subscribed to Coinmarketcap's newsletter.
Today, I got to read an article about BTC's drop, and they stated that BTC "has been closely correlated with Nasdaq 100".

https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/bitcoin-price-plunges-to-lowest-level-since-august?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Bitcoin+Hits+Lowest+Level+Since+August+%F0%9F%93%89&utm_campaign=Jan+21+Newsletter_FF&vgo_ee=tBEAPeNFNxgSd1Sj3RB503wFoqDlMHNmyq65fGLdufk%3D

Now,  I don't know the first thing about Nasdaq 100. Do you guys think I should start learning about it?
Which other indicators (if any) should I be concerned about?

Thank you all in advance. 

Ok, so I'm a newbie, I've been trying for months to start investing in cryptocurrencies, and, so far, nothing even remotely good is happening.

Just to be clear, I'm well aware of what most think of crypto faucets. It makes sense, for somebody living in the US or any other developed country, to not "waste their time" on them, as you can make a lot more money just by trimming your neighbour's grass, if needed.
But some of us aren't that lucky. In my particular case, I have been unemployed since April 2020, and I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Meanwhile, even the chance of me getting a crappy job (which at this time would be a blessing) at my age and in a country which has been economically ravaged by the pandemic is slim in the best of cases.
To make things worse, even if I did get a job, the law here only allows internet transactions to be made with credit cards, so I could have a truckload of money, and still would be unable to use it.

So last week I started reading about crypto faucets. Got into Cointiply, and since last Sunday I have managed to raise a grand total of $2.14 ( ), which is very little by any means, but it's much better than nothing.

So this thread is intended to get some information from you, more knowledgeable guys, as well as to help other newbs that may be in a similar situation.

The question is: Which faucets do you guys recommend or not?
I'm looking for reliable information on honest sites where I can make a buck. I don't mind working for what most would consider "peanuts". What I don't want is to waste my time for nothing, or to get to those "deposit $$$ to get $$$$$" scams.

I have come up with this site: https://cryptofaucets.cash/2021/02/01/best-free-bitcoin-faucets/ that lists 27 faucets as "the best ones". How trustworthy is it? Do you have any experience in any of those faucets?

Thank you all in advance. 

Just now it hit me: I haven't seen any threads on which OS's are you guys running.

I've been using different Linux distros since 2009 (Ubuntu, Crunchbang, Bunsen Labs, Viperr, Fedora, Mabox and finally Manjaro). Right now, I'm using (not liking it at all) Manjaro KDE, and testing Open Suse Tumbleweed on a virtual machine. I've been very happy with Fedora for several years, but 34 and 35 have gone straight to hell.

In any case, any more nixers around here? What distros are you guys using?

So I read on another thread about this.
Just to be clear: I'm not asking if "learn and earn" programs are worth it. I understand for somebody working in the US those programs are a waste of time, But some of us don't live in the US, and to make it worse some of us are currently unemployed, so any way to start is a blessing, no matter what it costs (at least in terms of time and/or effort).

What I'm worried, first, is about security. Is there a way those programs might be scams, or any other way to hurt me financially?

But, most importantly, can you guys provide some other exchanges that offer such programs? I'm not particularly worried about KYC (though I find it to be a major annoyance), but any exchange that would request that I provide a credit card or any other banking information (like Coinbase, for example) is an absolute no-no, not only because I don't have a credit card, but because the laws where I live are so incredibly convoluted it'd be a miracle for a regular Joe to even sign up there.

As usual, any information you can add is welcomed. Thank you all in advance. 

Ok, as of late I've been drawing some lines (as practice, mostly), and now I'm more confused than ever. Everybody keeps talking about BTC being bearish, but the lines I drew show it to be on an upwards trend. I'm attaching a screenshot of what I see. The graph is from Binance.

So the magic question would be: what am I missing?

I'm confused about the "public vs. private key" thing.

I mean, I get it, you never show your private key to anybody. Easy enough.

But when do you use it?

If you want to withdraw your money from the exchange, you use your public key. But then, if you wanna send your money back to the exchange, you use the public key from your exchange's wallet?

So using your private key would be limited to getting your money out of the system (cashing out)? Because even if you purchase something, it makes sense (at least from my completely uninformed point of view) to use the seller's public key to make the payment...

 

Can anybody please help me out? Thank you all in advance. 

Ok, so I've been reading the Telegram FAQ's, and, of course, everything is perfect, and Telegram is the best thing to ever happen to the Internet. And, of course, I don't trust that kind of marketing BS.
So I'm looking for opinions from actual users, and/or people knowing better than me (doesn't take much), or anybody who feels they can add something.

What interests me is security, privacy, and the absence (hopefully) of all the stuff that has made Mark Zuckerberg "sadly famous" as of late.

So... GO!