This. It might be un-sexy, oldschool or whatever, but if I don't understand their business model, it's likely a scam to me. All the offers I considered turned out to be scams in the end. Not that I've considered them all, but 100% is 100%.

Now, every such scam needs a grace period to build trust. It makes little sense to go for a, say, 2M$ hit when just a little wait can get you 100M$ instead. Make the suckers happy until the day you exit. They won't even know what hit them.

Be wary and ready. If it's like I am afraid it is, he who runs first wins.

USDC might be different. It is certainly different from most shitcoins as far as emission goes: not like btc, but still in a good place. But is it a bearer asset? Can USDC be blacklisted? If they can't, the scammers can still run with the money and get away with it.

Take it to the extreme: would you be willing to "lend" them your Monero, too?

Sorry if I come out as a party pooper, but safe is better than sorry.

I wouldn't do that except if I were given substantial collateral.

Like a nuke pushbutton wired to the balls of at least a couple of big guys in that scam business. Or an heir kept as a "valued guest" (ward) at my place.

Every time I read about a "get your principal plus interest!" thing, I reluctantly avoided it, only to be happy for it when learning the news a few months/years later.

No haiku today
I just thought I'd say hello
Epimenides!






#nottheusualtag

More than anything, don't poke her with a stick.

Looking at the hourly. Is it going up a bit too fast to be sustainable? As usual, wait and see, and like some of us would say, "be pee pared".

I notice today's pattern looks almost identical to Nov 28-30 - another Saturday-to-Monday span. Is it just chance, or are we back to seeing some weekly cycles? Could it mean anything? My SOMA system keeps silent.

Right you are, but the idea of censorable money still makes me itch. Yesterday it's Snowden, today it's PornHub... and tomorrow?

I hope these bans help Bitcoin converge into a flawless, easy to use L2 protocol - be it LN or something based on RSK. We really need that ASAP.

Covaids?

It's not a matter of covid for me. It's the look of surgery. I wouldn't want her to blow up suddenly. All that gore is a big turnoff. Besides, once the path of surgery is taken, you can never be sure you won't find any unpleasant surprise down there. 0.1BTC any day. Next one pleaaase...

I'll take the 0.1BTC.


Verification was surprisingly quick for me. I used to have no verification, and I used the unverified account to sell some bcash, cashed out in btc. Later on, I thought I'd get full verification so I can cash fiat if/when the need arises. No issue: a couple of days and they sent me an email "Your verification is complete". I haven't actually tried withdrawing fiat yet, though.

I haven't cashed out from Kraken yet, but the limits depend on your verification level. They get reasonably high with the max verification level, and I think they can even be pushed a little higher by negotiating.

So what. Keep on delaying the inevitable. I'm keen on more cheep koinz. Cheeper, moar cheeper, moar koinz!

I'm sure he knows. But he wants honey badger to turn into potty ledger.

Not this for sure.

Most likely this, as Dabs suggested.

Impossible. I routinely wire abroad, similar or larger amounts.

Good point. Given the hoops I have to jump through to order a transfer, I would exclude 2, at least in my case. 1 and 3 are the most likely. In case of 3,

Hello? Is there anybody in there? Did you get it? Yes, that's right, I'm buying "crypto" ! Ah, which "crypto" you ask? Hm... this is reserved info. Would you like some paid counseling? As if I were, say, a bank? (I actually am a bank. My own.)

They probably have Kraken pre-flagged and will have made phone calls to the taxman already. Well as long as I don't sell I'm fine. And no, sir, I'm not selling at this time.




EDIT (And thanks for the merit, Bawb!)

I got an email from my bank. "We tried to phone you to clear some issues with a wire you made in the past days, but we didn't manage to talk to you." Of course. I had it switched off. So I called back, but the line mysteriously dropped after the person on the other end said "let me check this... wait a minute...". Twice.

I already had a hunch what it was about, but of course I thought I'd play dumb to extract as much info as possible. An hour later, I tried calling for the third time. At last, I get through to someone who can actually explain.

The problem was with a wire I made to Kraken. Not a big amount by any means - something in the ballpark of Bob's recent addiction buys*  

Bank - "We just want to make sure you actually ordered the wire."

Me - "Why? I make dozens of wires, it's the first time..." (Actually not the first: they called once upon a time when I moved most of my fiat to another bank because they pissed me off - but that was to beg: please don't please don't.)

Bank - "I don't know, it's like an automatic system flag... well, it's to some kraken.com."

Me - (Aha!) "I see. So what's the issue?"

Bank - "No issue, sir. We just want to make sure it was actually you who wired the money."

Me - "I did. But now I'm worrying. Is this a scam site or something?"

Bank - "It is some cryptocurrency site, I think... but as I said, it's just an automatic flag. Nothing to worry about, sir."

Me - "What if Kraken sends some funds to me? Will the transfer get a flag too? Will the incoming wire be blocked?" (Slightly implying - should I close my business with you altogether?)

Bank - "Oh no, sir. Incoming transfers are never stopped. There might be some formal issue with outgoing transfers once in a while, but never the other way round."

Me - "I am afraid. I don't want any problems, you see."

Bank - "Just an automatic flag, sir. Thank you."



Things are stirring up, gents. Brace yourselves.


* BTW Bob, you're doing great! Keep at it and live joyfully! I wanted to merit your latest haiku - but I've only got a couple sMerits left, and I'd rather use them to advance some worthy newcomer.
+1 WOsMerit for that.

We're doomed! The 21M limit will be lifted, because DeFi.
Bullshit is strong with this one.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-butterfly-effect-why-defi-will-force-btc-to-break-its-21m-supply-ceiling

Don't know about you, but my feelings are between sad and annoyed that a town has to change its name because it means something funny in another language. What the fugg!

Not many gals at all round here. And if there were, I doubt they'd go too far for a single satoshi. Maybe it's better to look in the nocoiner crowd 

It's that time of the year 4-year cycle again.

There's this friend of mine, we often talk about savings and the stock market. She's got her life savings in several stocks (no funds, I think), and she hasn't been doing very well recently because of her gambling attitude. Typical story: she wants to get into biotech, she picks a "winner", buys it, but the "real winner" stock that goes 200% turns out to be a different one, not hers. So she sells (usually at a small loss or paltry profit) and gets on the new train, too late.

Every single time, I tell her it's a marathon, be patient, don't waste everything on fees and losses. She says she pays no fees, so it's cool blah blah.

I've never told her about bitcoin. I don't even know why, but it seemed like a bad idea. But yesterday, she said something about having sold something too early. She seemed so down I just couldn't help mentioning bitcoin as an interesting asset class. I said: "Just throw like 3-4% of your dry powder at it. If you like the way it goes, you can push it further. Worst case, you lose like 50%. You're used to it anyway "

Her reply: "Oh no, I'm afraid of bitcoin."

Some people just can't be helped. I'm a bit sorry for her (am I? Really really?), but I'll be sure to poke her wounds when we get to 100k.

This one respects the naturalistic spirit of haikus. It manages to slip in a-CORN and MOON. It describes someone building a stash. One of the finest seen in the WO ever, IMHO.

Your stash is your punishment.