Intel CPUs are heavily affected by all 3 attack scenarios.
They probably knew about this problem for quite a while, because the CEO
conveniently sold a lot of shares before the news about the vulnerability broke.

AMD CPUs are only vulnerable to one of the 3 attack scenarios if my source
is correct (Bounds Check Bypass). ARM CPUs are partially vulnerable to the same
attack, while other ARM CPUs are safe.

It is interesting that Bitcoin hardware wallets seem to be completely unaffected by this.
Now it is even more recommended to switch to a Bitcoin hardware wallet instead of running
a malware-infected desktop system.

You should post this in another thread, this is the thread for Bitfinex not for Bittrex.

All these exchanges are having problems with the huge surge in user numbers. Especially
the US-based exchanges now also have to verify the identity of all customers, which increases
the workload for the staff even further.

I concede that right now the cryptocurrency scene is a bit like the Wild West.
However, the situation was probably similar when fiat money was introduced.

Regulations take time and we are already starting to see the beginning of this process
in countries all over the world. Back in 2010 no country had plans to tax cryptocurrencies and
nowadays nearly every country has announced how cryptocurrency profits are taxed.

Give it some time and the cryptocurrency scene will be much more regulated than it is today.
Besides, there will be insurance products in case that your wallet gets hacked or your exchange
goes bankrupt.

I thought SegWit capability was a mandatory requirement for the Lightning Network?
Bitcoin Cash has not activated SegWit. Therefore I don´t think the Lightning Network
would be able to function on top of Bitcoin Cash.

Why would they deploy a solution like the LN anyway? Their whole narrative is based around
how on-chain scaling is the superior solution to scaling Bitcoin. If they would introduce a 2nd layer scaling solution
they would lose their main value proposition.

I believe that he is talking about the few incidents in the past weeks where a company that previously had nothing
to do with cryptocurrency or blockchain suddenly adds one of these words to their company name in a rebranding.

E.g. the company "Long Island Iced Tea Corp." changed its name to "Long Blockchain Corp" and subsequently
the stock surged several hundred percent.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-21/crypto-craze-sees-long-island-iced-tea-rename-as-long-blockchain

There were a few other companies where effectively the same happened after they rebranded their company name
to something that includes one of the cryptocurrency buzzwords.

Thank you for the link.

This is getting really frustrating. 250 € was already a tiny limit for prepaid cards and now
they plan to decrease it even further? The justifications are also pretty questionable. Even if they
would have kept the old 250 € limit it is basically impossible to use it for money laundering or terrorism
financing, which both require much larger amounts.

Of course I agree that the experience when making transactions with Bitcoin is
not as smooth as it once was. However, this is a direct result of the high value that the Bitcoin
developers place on network security. Raising the block size would alleviate some
of the current issues with transactions. Nevertheless, this involves certain trade-offs
that would make the Bitcoin network less secure, which is why most people are heavily
opposed to raising the block size limit.

However, in my opinion Bitcoin´s use case in the long-term is to be a store of value.
Transaction fees aren´t a real problem if you are not using it for everyday purchases but
rather make maybe 1-2 cashouts a year from your long-term Bitcoin investment position.

The world needs sound money more than it needs yet another payment system in my opinion.
And Bitcoin´s monetary policy is definitely a huge improvement over traditional fiat currencies.

It seems like every coin that Jed McCaleb is attached to is going to pump especially hard.
The next time he starts a cryptocurrency project I will be in on the ground floor.

Nevertheless, I have to admit that all the coins with a really high supply (e.g. Ripple or Stellar with +100 billion
outstanding coins) are performing especially good during a bubble like this. This is probably caused
by the psychological biases and anchor effects that affect the majority of people. Just look at all the guys,
who log in to Coinbase just to buy the coins that are "cheaper" than Bitcoin.

The tax laws are different in every country. In most countries you are right, the authorities would
have to prove that you cheated on your taxes. However, some countries have started a shift
in the burden of proof, which leads to the absurd situation where you have to prove that you did
nothing illegal.

This is obviously very difficult when we are talking about trading histories of "dead exchanges". I
assume that the tax authorities would just use an estimate of your profits and hit you with a tax bill
if you really can´t prove your innocence.

The important properties of Bitcoin are still the same. I concede that a few things
were better at the beginning (e.g. mining was possible on consumer hardware and
didn´t require ASICs), but the important features still work flawlessly:

-the 21M supply hard cap is still set in stone
-the block reward decreases according to the predefined schedule
-the brightest minds in the cryptocurrency scene are working on Bitcoin and Bitcoin-related services
-the developers prioritize security over everything else
...

Bitcoin is getting cleaner, while altcoins are getting dirtier.

Just look at the biggest DarkNet marketplaces (the sites that raised
public awareness for Bitcoin back in the day). Most have abandoned Bitcoin due to a
lack of anonymity and several shutdowns of marketplaces due to blockchain
analysis. Instead they are using altcoins like Monero or Zcash, which have lower
fees and offer more anonymity.

This may change in the future with possible enhancements of the privacy features
of BTC (e.g. stuff like MimbleNimble).

They are working on integrating Margin trading into their platform. Therefore
they will soon offer leverage for trading (according to Twitter certain users are already able to test
the alpha version of the margin trading feature).

I don´t think you have to worry about their fiat reserves. They are as far as I
know the only exchange that is audited every year by one of the Big4 accounting
firms.

Yes, I have read your posts in the official BTC.com wallet thread. Maybe they are trying
to push people to Bitcoin Cash by using inflated transaction fees? There is a conflict of interest
anyway, because as a miner they are one of the entities that collects the transaction fees.

I have another question regarding SegWit. Is it possible to send Bitcoin from an Electrum 3.03 non-Segwit wallet
to a bech32 address in another Electrum 3.03 wallet? Or can bech32 addresses only receive funds from
Segwit addresses?

Thank you. Do you know by any chance whether the BTC.com web wallet supports sending
to Bech32 addresses? Or is only their block explorer fully SegWit compatible as of now?

Additionally, Ripple is based on a system of "trusted validators".


This completely defeats the purpose of a decentralized cryptocurrency. Besides,
Ripple has a huge outstanding supply and 1 billion new XRP are released every month. This
will completely dilute any existing holders. Meanwhile, BTC issuance is going to go down
after the next few block reward halvings.

Is any Bitcoin block explorer working fine with the new Bech32 address format?

Blockchain.info can´t display them correctly unless you enable "show scripts & coinbase".
Even then you can´t view them like a usual BTC address or even view the balance of it.

Blocktrail has even less support than Blockchain.info.

Is there any block explorer that already fully supports the new address format?

Thank you.

It has to be expected that this development will only accelerate in the future.
The future of Bitcoin (at least the main blockchain / 1st layer) is being a settlement
network for high-value transactions. Micropayments or paying for a coffee will never be
affordable on the mainchain again.

Let´s see how the Lightning Network and the other 2nd layer solutions play out. They might
enable these use cases for Bitcoin again.

My humble contribution to increase SegWit adoption:
bc1qeuvgm5kfh2lx3y05z56a4dry6j8h8puslwfyem

Thank you in advance for changing my payment address.

I agree with the basic premise of your post. However, you forgot
to mention the most important factor of influence - eventual interest
rate hikes or interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.

If the Fed is going to increase interest rates multiple times in 2018 this
could prevent the inevitable rise in yearly inflation from happening.

Anyway, inflation is going to rise in the next few years, which obviously makes
Bitcoin and precious metals a mandatory part of every investment portfolio.

I have a question regarding SEPA withdrawals from my verified Bitpanda account.

I usually make SEPA withdrawals using Bitstamp. Unfortunately, they recently
stopped processing payments to the German bank where I have my bank account.

My Bitstamp withdrawal was declined with the notice:
"Commerzbank does not process bank transfers that originate from bitcoin related businesses.
This means that any transfer sent to your bank would be rejected and returned to Bitstamp."

Is it possible to withdraw to a Commerzbank bank account using Bitpanda? I honestly don´t really
know why Bitstamp insist that Commerzbank rejects Bitcoin-related transactions, because deposits
to Bitstamp work perfectly fine using my Commerzbank account.

Anyway, I just want to know, whether you process SEPA transactions to Commerzbank bank
accounts.

Thank you for your help.