Guys, I'm not that tech savvy to suggest how to do it, but what I want to ask bitcointalk stuff, is to be very cautious with accounts from Ukraine that are trying to change password these days.

Not saying that they are necessarily bad guys, but I think it would be a good idea to not allow pwd and e-mail change until we will celebrate victory over Putin's zombies.

Hello my friends,

Sorry for not posting lately. I live in Kyiv, Ukraine right now, and if you google it, here's what you'll see



or something similar, and I just want to tell you that it's not photoshop, or whatever.

Also, what you can see in this video by CNN




is what is actually going on, more or less.

Yesterday, our President said in his address to the nation : "At first all of us were equally afraid. Later all of us were equally in pain. And now it's all the same for us all. The only thing we need is victory." Meaning, we just don't give a fuck how many more heavy missiles they launch at us, and how many more troops they send. We will defend our freedom. We will defend our free choice to live in union with Western democratic countries, and not with a big country frightened by a miserable dictator and his oprichniks.

And you know what's funny? There's no panic among people around here. Not a bit. Yesterday, standing in the long line to a food store, I was so happy to see that people were just smiling, joking on how long it will take to putin-huilo to kill himself and stuff. 🙂

In short, Don't worry about us, friends. We are ok here, and we know that we will win because the whole civilized world is on our side. 141 countries condemning Russia’s invasion in the U.N. General Assembly is very good news for us here. And Thank you, guys, for your support before the Assembly. We feel it in the form of food, electricity, internet and, of course, in the form of advanced weaponry, without which it would be harder for us to survive.



Yeah, nobody in his right mind would decide to wipe out the whole population of a country, but the thing is, Putin is not a sane person currently. But we are not afraid. With your support we will kill all his zombies here on our land. Good conquers evil. I really believe in that.

So, we don't need a ride. We need ammo. And you are giving it to us.  Thank you.

Today seeing the results of the Sportsbet.io ⚽ Brazil v Spain prediction game:

I noticed that all the guys in the top 3 were at some point participating in the Bitcointalk Poker Series. Now, it's not that a lot of people were participating there, somewhere around 30 ppl max, so I started wondering is there a correlation.

What are your thoughts on this, guys?

“Key to this rally is that it has been sustained over several weeks,” said Matt Long, head of distribution and prime products with crypto brokerage OSL in Hong Kong. “If we do see a break to the downside, it will be instructive on the direction of first-quarter flows whether we see institutions continue to buy on a potential dip.”

Imo, whether institutions will start buying up BTC on a dip isn't even a question. The question is, what price will be considered "a dip"?  $25K? $20k? $15k?

In 2017 BTC went up from $4k in September to $19k in December. Using the same pattern we can expect around $50k pretty soon (BTC was $10k in September 2020).

So, what is "a dip" this time, in your opinion, guys?

Read the whole article following the link below:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-31/bitcoin-surges-above-29-000-for-another-high-in-banner-year

Pretty often the explanations, why Bitcoin soared up or crashed down are "pulled by the ears", and have little to do with reality. Do you think that this is also the case with this Forbes article? Or was the recent surge really caused by the PayPal announcement about supporting Bitcoin buying and spending services, and Forbes is right in saying that "this rally is much more sustainable than 2017"?

Please share your thoughts.

Read in full:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/11/25/is-this-the-real-reason-bitcoin-has-suddenly-soared-toward-its-all-time-highs/

Bitcoin adoption could start growing exponentially once people realized that BTC can be used as money in any place. Right now this is not the case because you either have to pay a pretty high transaction fee, from $2 to $6, or you should wait for a long time for your transaction to be confirmed. That's what most people think, and what is more important, that's what merchants think, refusing to accept payments in BTC.

I think the solution lies in accepting the so called "zero-conf transactions", only the fee, of course, should not be set at zero. Right now, for example(and keep in mind that this is not an advantageous period for such an example), you can pay as little as 2 satoshis/byte for your transaction to be confirmed within 3-4 hours. It means 672 sats, or $0.076, for the median transaction size of 224 bytes.

Will some people try to abuse it? Surely. But with the due process of law, they will be treated as counterfeiters, with all the consequences. So, the vast majority of people will not even think of trying to double spend, just like not many of us think of robbing a bank or counterfeiting money.

Thus, the proverbial "you can't pay for a cup of coffee with Bitcoin" will become obsolete. Anyone can afford spending extra 8 cents, and no one would risk their freedom for trying to steal a cup of coffee.

Please, share your thoughts on this.

TL;DR: I think the key to wider BTC adoption is in accepting zero-conf transactions.

I remember looking at the comet Hale–Bopp back in the 1997 ... It was an experience I'll never forget.

So, I thought it might be of interest for some of you, guys. Read more details from the link below:

https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-see-comet-neowise-before-its-gone/

I'd rather not tell where I read it because in my attempts to be as social as possible I don't want to look like someone asking a Jewish community: "I read about ... in Mein Kampf, what do you think of it?"

Anyways, I read in a published book that Bitcoins sent to the so-called "burn addresses" will be available for miners to recover at some point in the future. Can someone, please, explain whether it is utter nonsense, or does it make sense in a way?

P.S. Please, don't ask about the book title. I really don't want to promote it. In my personal opinion, it is very poorly written, and, basically, a waste of time for the most part.

No campaign manager myself, so I apologize if it's none of my business, but I feel like my suggestion might be useful, or at least worth considering by sig campaign managers.

Since https://bpip.org/ is around, why not to ask the applicants for the link to their profile there instead of "Bitcointalk profile URL:"? I may be wrong, but I think managers could save some time by going straight to bpip.org applicant's profile, when deciding whom to choose.


Also, if it's in a wrong section, please, mods, kindly move it to the right one.

Thank you!

I know many of you guys sick of various predictions regarding Bitcoin price. But I think there is a difference between McAfee promising to eat his dick on national television if BTC didn't hit $1,000,000 by 2020 and an analysis made by Bloomberg. The latter one is more on a serious note. In fact, I think Bitcoin can hit a new ATH this year only because Bloomberg predicted it. Many people trust Bloomberg, and they can start buying BTC just out of FOMO. What do you guys think ?

Read more:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bloomberg-bitcoin-will-approach-record-high-of-about-20-000-this-year

or read Bloomberg Crypto Outlook June 2020 edition here:

https://data.bloomberglp.com/professional/sites/10/Bloomberg-Indices-Outlook_Cryptos_June-2020.pdf

I've noticed that many gamblers, even experienced ones, have the following misconception about what happens when the server seed is changed. When hunting for a high multiplier on dice, say, 9900x, they think all their previous losing rolls were "wasted" once the server seed was changed. As if with the same server seed you are guaranteed to hit 99.99(or 0.00) within 10k, or so, rolls. But that's not how it is, right?

I personally think that the number of times you can roll 99.99 within 10k bets has absolutely nothing to do with the variability of server seed. You can hit it many times, or zero times regardless of whether the server seed is remaining constant, or changing all the time.

But if someone can mathematically prove the opposite, you are more than welcome in this thread.

[asset that could eventually threaten the U.S. dollar’s global reserve currency status.]

Even members of the United States Congress began to describe Bitcoin as an enormously valuable asset that could eventually threaten the U.S. dollar’s global reserve currency status.

I know, some of you, guys, don't care about the price, but isn't it a good news that now members of the US Congress, say the same words we've been seeing on this forum for years?

Also, what do you think about Bitcoin's "closer correlation with gold" than that of other cryptos, as mentioned in the article?

Read more here:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ktorpey/2020/01/13/this-key-data-point-shows-bitcoin-took-a-huge-step-forward-in-2019/

[Bitcoin’s failing price could be caused by $2B Chinese Ponzi scheme dumping its crypto]

Bitcoin’s failing price could be caused by $2B Chinese Ponzi scheme dumping its crypto

 ...

However, the firm made it clear that while it does indeed conclude that PlusToken cashouts correlate with drops in Bitcoin‘s price, correlation doesn’t exactly mean causation.

What Chainalysis does say is that PlusToken dumping causes increased volatility in Bitcoin’s value, as well as correlates significantly with Bitcoin price drops.

“Keep in mind that PlusToken cashouts are just one of many potential influences on Bitcoin’s price. Media stories, concerted market manipulation efforts, algorithmic trading errors, or any number of other factors may have contributed to volatility as well,” said the firm.

https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/12/17/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-price-dump-ponzi-scheme-plustoken/


Forbes wrote yesterday that "the bitcoin price might struggle over the short term due to the $2 billion PlusToken scandal", but I tend to agree with the words from thenextweb's article, namely with "correlation doesn’t exactly mean causation". I think the current market can easily devour 20,000 BTC, that is, according to the article, "is still waiting to be dumped", without even noticing it.

What do you guys think?

Maybe some of you don’t care because you have hundreds of them, or for some other reasons, but I don’t have that many merits, and I really value each and every one of them. I feel so happy when I receive a merit, I even created a meme about that:



Back to the point, though. I received 3 merits from theymos for this post

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5193860.msg52935367#msg52935367

and until today I could see them in my profile



but today they disappeared.

You can still see them here:

https://bpip.org/smerit.aspx?to=Betwrong&from=theymos

but if you click on the post with 3 merits, it looks like it wasn’t merited by theymos.

By no means I'm complaining or trying to say that that post of mine deserves 3 merits. I'm just wondering how that could have happened, and whether it's kind of a bug that have to be fixed?

I know that Press section is being moderated really hard these days, and maybe rightly so, but I think this article by Forbes worth discussing here.


Now, crypto trading is coming to Telegram, a messaging app which boasts more than 300 million users around the world, via bitcoin and cryptocurrency wallet provider Button Wallet.

"Cryptos' biggest obstacle is mass adoption and what we’ve created will help people comfortable with trading cryptocurrency without using real money," said Alex Safonov, co-founder and chief executive of Button Wallet.

Reda more:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2019/08/26/telegrams-300-million-users-could-soon-be-trading-bitcoin-and-cryptodespite-serious-security-warning/

["Who is Euclid? We don't know. We don't know if Euclid was one person or multiple people. And you know what? It doesn't matter. Euclidean geometry works whether I know who Euclid was or not. Whether Euclid was a moral and good person or whether he was a corrupt plutocrat and a bastard. Science and mathematics have essential truth that stands alone irrespective of its inventors and irrespective of their motives. Well, Bitcoin is a system based on mathematical truths, and these mathematical truths stand alone. We can read the source code in Bitcoin and understand it, and it will be true whether Satoshi Nakamoto is a man, a woman, a collection of individuals, a government agency or aliens from the future."]

There is a theory that we, Homo Sapiens, became number one among all the living things on Earth because we love to gossip, which allows us to co-operate in large numbers. So, maybe it's in our genes, and that's why, I have to admit, I, too, still want to know who the real Satoshi is, how much money does he have, who is he married to, etc. But is it really that important?

In the documentary 'Bitcoin: The End of Money as We Know It' Andreas M. Antonopoulos is saying the following words:

"Who is Euclid? We don't know. We don't know if Euclid was one person or multiple people. And you know what? It doesn't matter. Euclidean geometry works whether I know who Euclid was or not. Whether Euclid was a moral and good person or whether he was a corrupt plutocrat and a bastard. Science and mathematics have essential truth that stands alone irrespective of its inventors and irrespective of their motives. Well, Bitcoin is a system based on mathematical truths, and these mathematical truths stand alone. We can read the source code in Bitcoin and understand it, and it will be true whether Satoshi Nakamoto is a man, a woman, a collection of individuals, a government agency or aliens from the future."
- Andreas M. Antonopoulos - 'Bitcoin: The End of Money as We Know It' (00:39:04)

I tend to agree with those words.

What about you, guys? Please share your opinions.

[Why can't they simply award miners in accordance with the hashing power provided by each of them?]

Sorry if the answer to my question is too obvious, but I didn't manage to find it on the Internet, so I decided to ask it here.

As known, each mining pool sets its own difficulty, which is lower than that of the network, to award the participants in accordance with the work they are doing.

My question is, Why can't they simply award miners in accordance with the hashing power provided by each of them?

What are the reasons for setting higher targets(=lower difficulties) for miners, and, maybe someone knows, how many such problems solved on average, say, by Antminer S9i within 10 minutes?

I would understand if otherwise it was impossible to control whether a miner was connected to the network all the time, but I'm not sure if that is the case.

Thank you.

To ensure that it takes around 10 minutes on average to mine a new block, in Bitcoin's PoW consensus algorithm the difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks. And then it takes around 10 minutes for the fastest/luckiest nod in the whole network to find a combination, a block = nonce + all the other info in the block, so that the hash of the block is started with a certain amount of zeros(or, in other words, is less than or equal to the current target). So, it's physically impossible to mine blocks much faster than every 10 minutes (sometimes it's possible to mine them a bit faster though).

My question is, how is this done in PoS? Since it can take only fractions of a second for a chosen validator to process all the needed data, how is this ensured that there is a certain interval between the blocks in PoS algorithm?

While watching Bitcoin related videos I came across this part where Andreas M. Antonopoulos is talking about an incident which occurred in April 2013 after approximately 50% of miners had started using  Google's Level DB instead of Berkeley DB. It starts here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw3WkySh_Ho&feature=youtu.be&t=3286

As far as I understood those who were running Berkeley DB could not move to the next block while those running Google's Level DB were able to create 26 blocks.
 
My question is Why do we call it a fork given that one part wasn't able to build new blocks? I thought when we say “An X-blocks fork has happened” we mean that both parties were able to create X blocks on top of the block after which it happened.

I’m no expert in the field, so please forgive me if my question is stupid. I'm just trying to learn about Bitcoin as much as I can.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[‘It doesn't die and it comes back stronger’: Bitcoin believers are digging in amid the crypto bloodbath]

Here's an interesting article from the BUSINESS INSIDER.

Since they are asking for a paid subscription for reading I'll just put the whole article here sans insignificant ending. Enjoy! )

‘It doesn't die and it comes back stronger’: Bitcoin believers are digging in amid the crypto bloodbath

by Becky Peterson

With bitcoin trading below $7,000 on Monday, 64% below its all time high, many investors have been left wondering whether this is true cryptocurrency carnage, or if bitcoin has the ability to bounce back.

Some have taken to Twitter and Reddit to exchange stories of lost potential, and what it means to see thousands of dollars in investments evaporate in a matter of days.

But bitcoin, which increased 1,800% in value over the course of 2017, is known for its volatility.

Despite consumer fears, professionals in the cryptocurrency market have much more long-term views when it comes to bitcoin's ability to rebound. Holding, or "HODLING" as its known by aficionados, requires patience and resolve. And despite bitcoin's relatively short history, many of these believers are taking comfort in the fact that bitcoin has never failed to bounce back from a hard dip, so far.

Anthony Pompliano, a former product manager at Facebook, is managing partner at Full Tilt Capital, a North Carolina-based early stage investment firm that is putting all of its next $25 million fund into cryptocurrency startups.

Pompliano said that while his firm focuses on investments such as cryptocurrency infrastructure and technology instead of the more volatile digital coins, he sees bitcoin's crash as a natural part of the market cycle. He stands by his prediction that bitcoin will reach $50,000 in 2018.

"I don't know if it's for four hours, or a day, or forever. I don't know if anyone can call that," Pompliano said.

"If you ask most institutional investors, one of the most valuable aspects of bitcoin is that every time something has occurred that should kill it, it doesn't die and it comes back stronger," Pompliano added. "I think that element of bitcoin is incredibly powerful and highly underrated."

Pompliano said that part of the volatility stems from the same cyclical market forces that sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbling 1,700 points in two days. But, he said, bitcoin is traded globally and can swing dramatically upon news that another company or country has decided to support it, or ban it. This means that cycles, both good and bad, happen a lot faster in the world of crypto.

"I would say historically, it has proven to be very difficult for individual retail investors to time markets. So what I have told people close to me is, if you want to buy an asset, buy it, hold it and don't look at it," Pompliano said. "Don't try to day trade highly volatile assets like crypto."

Robin O’Connell, the chief revenue officer at the currency exchange Uphold, was less bullish in his assessment of bitcoin's price, but he said that he doesn't see cryptocurrencies going away any time soon.

"Anyone you talk to who says they know whether this is the bottom is giving you their best guess. Who knows," O'Connell said. "If you as an individual believe that crypto is here to stay — and obviously at Uphold we believe that — then [you believe] at some point this is going to correct itself."

While critics of bitcoin often complain that there is nothing to back up its value, O'Connell disagreed. He said that the problems it solves, such as international money transfers and blockchain-based smart contracts, justify the use of cryptocurrencies and prove their value.

"Those things are to me the underlying fundamentals of whether this thing is successful or not — not how many people are betting that the price is going to go up," O'Connell said.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-prices-fall-but-institutional-investors-hold-steady-2018-2