Yes this is just another thread on bitcoin halving but instead of speculating on the price I will like to warn newbies or probably members who are just experiencing their first bitcoin halving.

First the bitcoin halving only cuts the block subsidy which is also know as the block reward into halve (this time from 6.25bitcoin to 3.125 bitcoin) and nothing special or different changes again from the way the past blocks were mined. The size of the block and also how fees are calculated and payed are still the same.

Secondly which is for Naive newbies, there’s no special giveaway or airdrops that is accompanied with this event. Be very wary of scammers who ask you to connect your wallets to some sites to receive airdrops for celebration of the halving, it’s a phishing scam. I wouldn’t say other shitcoins won’t run airdrops but it will be risky to connect your wallet to any site for airdrops.

Thirdly Excess or high transaction fees payed in the past blocks are not returned to you after this halving, it is also scammer tactics to get access to your wallet.

Lastly Bitcoin halving doesn’t coherently means that the bitcoin price will skyrocket, yes base on past events they do go up some months after the halving, but that doesn’t mean you should go and invest an amount that you can not afford to lose. Past events are just speculations and do not reflect what will happen in the future.

Stay safe, accumulate your bitcoin and secure your wallet properly. May the pump be with us.

Just read through some multiple X handles now that Microstrategy’s X account had been hacked and tweet was done citing the claiming of the $MSTR tokens. As usual the link was a wallet drainer link and around $400k has been lost so far. Currently the tweet seems to have been deleted from the account but it’s deed has already been done.

There is daily continue warning of just clicking links as a bitcoin or cryptocurrency investors but yet many people actually continue fall victim for something I will say as a result of gullibility or greed.

The points from this phishing attack just like others is;

1. Make use of cold wallets; this shouldn’t be put on a second thought.

2. ⁠Do not trust any information from social media even if it is from an influencer account or an official account, verify, verify and verify your information.

3. ⁠If you are to engage on airdrops use a burner wallet at all cost.

The record breaking high transaction fee of 83 bitcoin paid for a transaction of bitcoin which the block was mined by Antpool had earlier reported here which was found out to be a hacked wallet due to weak randomization of seed has been after a tweet on X. Now the pool that got lucky to mine the block in which is AntPool is ready to return the excess fees. Although it is not mandatory to return the fees but they are willing to return it.

Now the procedure is to just sign a message using the private of the sending address. The procedure is as explained here by AntPool with deadline set to 10 December.

My problem or say concern is what if the hacker is still in possession of the keys and ends signing the message.

Should Antpool decides to be careful and send the excess bitcoin back to that address as any new address collected by them might also belong to the hacker and in sending it back to the address again what if the sweeping malware is still on the address and the bitcoin is immediately sent out again to the hacker new address is there away for the network to block this kind of immediate transaction again from that same account for the main time. Just like double spending sometimes is rendered invalid by most nodes.

If you’re the owner and you are not if the private key is with the hacker and they could use it to Sign the message what will you do at this moment?

As we all know the transaction fee continues to get high as the mempool remains congested for almost a month now due to reoccurring ORDI tokens on the bitcoin blockchain. This has left some people a bit furious and some newbies making costly mistakes of setting high transaction fees.

A transaction that was in block 818087 had actually paid a whopping sum of 83 bitcoins as the transaction fee. I would say this is a costly mistake but for someone having that huge amount of bitcoin in their possession I don’t get it. The transaction was first broadcasted with a fee of 70 bitcoins and then later was replaced with that of 83 bitcoin as fees.

My guess is the sender was probably trying to set is fee as 70 and 83Sats/vbyte and then mistakenly set out that high fee. The block was mined by Antpool, hopefully they would treat it as mistake and return the funds.

1. TXID for the 83 bitcoin fee: b5a2af5845a8d3796308ff9840e567b14cf6bb158ff26c999e6f9a1f5448f9aa

2. The replaced transaction ID: 0c35f3c8a0c38f45629940ee9ab2b1c93d408be113845a735043261ad20f3351

Advice to newbies check properly the amount your setting as fee and make sure you are looking at the right fees estimator, use wallets that allows bumping of fees in case you set a very low one

Woke up this morning and was going through some threads and wanted to merit a post. My intention was definitely to send 2 merits because to that post and then got carried away and mistakenly sent 22, I didn’t even notice until I saw my smerits drained, yeah it is ok to spend all smerits but definitely the amount to be sent should match the content of the posts.

My reason for this post is shouldn’t we have something like a second warning when the confirm button is clicked, like ’are you sure you want to send this amount to so so’

Secondly shouldn’t we have a patch on editing merit sent even if it is for a specified time like how the edit button doesn’t reflect edited when it is done immediately the post is made.

PowerGlove is there a way to go round this?

Definitely pained to have wasted all my smerits on a single post.

[How to know if your phone number has been swapped.]

Just like not your keys not your coins is repeated on the forum, it seems sim swap attack warning/awareness needs to be spread as such.

It is not news again that co-founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin had his twitter(X) account hacked. This lead to a phishing link been posted and many lost their funds.

Now Vitalik himself has come out to said the attack was through his T-Mobile phone number by sim swap and the hacker got access to his X account through requesting for the authentication through phone number.

Vitalik prostrated that he didn’t take the security warning about sim swap serious if not now.  

The takeaway is avoid taking authentication through phone numbers alone, but if we look at it accepting authentication through even E-mail is risky so the best act is to avoid storing funds on platforms that requires this.

How to know if your phone number has been swapped.

1. When you notice your network is no longer available

2. When you receive a notification from your network provider about a change of sim

3. When you can not have access to your social media accounts or any online accounts accounts again.

Once you notice one of this then you need to act fast

[Note]

Bitcoin main purpose according to Satoshi himself, is as an alternative payment to fiat currency. But over the years bitcoin has grown in such a way that many have seen it’s potential of been a great investment asset. This could be deduced from some of the advantages of his below;
1. Decentralization
2. Stores of value
3. Great Return on Investment
4. Fixed Number or Supply
5. Adoption rate.

Due to all these advantages some  people have not only taken bitcoin as an investment asset but have generalized it to other cryptocurrencies as well. Some have thoughts that investing in these alternative coins are actually diversification of one’s portfolio. But is this really portfolio diversification?

Diversification of portfolio can be termed the process by which investors, invest in different assets to mitigate a loss been encountered in a particular asset.

Alternative cryptocurrencies cannot be regarded as diversification of portfolio because;
1. Most of all the altcoins follow the same price trend as bitcoin, with just few going higher than it due to hype, which has made many to call them pump and dump coins.

2. Bitcoin is the only true decentralized cryptocurrency and as such eliminates the fear of centralization which is in many altcoins which could be use to manipulate its market.

3. Bitcoin supply limit is what makes it a store of value and also an hedge against inflation, giving it an edge ahead of other cryptocurrencies.

With all these and more, and most importantly the fact that bitcoin price change is actually been followed by other cryptocurrency which are not secure, makes them more risky to be used as an investment asset.

It will be better to look into other assets like stock, gold and real estate for an ideal portfolio diversification

Aside bitcoin, treat alternative cryptocurrencies as pump and dump coins that they are.


Note: I am not advising anyone on investment

I have found and read through numerous threads on the forum about the spreading of bitcoin awareness and adoption by many forum members. Two of the widely used methods from this threads that I have read are; Class room teachings and using bitcoin as a payment method for ones business. This is a great way to increase bitcoin adoption spread to others, but isn’t this done at the detriment of the advocate’s safety and privacy?

One of the main aim of bitcoin from its inception by satoshi is not just to protect our money but also to protect the user. Therefore by spreading bitcoin awareness in countries or communities that it’s government are against it, should be done cautiously. Because once the government decides to take strict actions against the users, some of the advocates that spread it publicly or use it in their businesses will easily be traced and could be convicted for breaking the law, and I don’t think even Satoshi will appreciate that.

I feel like bitcoin should be spread in these kind of communities secretly and cautiously to avoid exposing our privacy and hampering our security. It should only be thought to people that show interest and not going to schools to teach them because that is like breaking the laws of the community or country, and bitcoin or Satoshi himself is not have law breakers or criminals as it’s users or advocates just like how the media and government portrays it.

So before spreading bitcoin awareness, first of all take care of your own security First. If you can then leave the advocacy for that period. Bitcoin Uniqness will surely pave way for itself like it has been doing through the years.

After so many weeks of struggling to allow withdrawals Paxful has officially suspends its marketplace and has advice it’s customers to withdraw their funds immediately from the exchange.

This is definitely a bad news to many especially Africans who were the major customers on this exchange. Is this the right time to ditch Centralized exchanges for decentralized one’s totally?


https://twitter.com/pledditor/status/1643243489528889348?s=46&t=QdZ3_ryvESgybupE3D6xaQ