Of course they don't.  In fact, they probably benefit from these increases in some way.  They own the casino, house has an advantage.

We need to do what we can to eliminate that.  It's what has held humanity back from true progress.

Best regards,
Ben

Hi lifeinwinter,

In my view, decentralization is the answer to so many of humanity's problems.  It is not perfect, but it has some great attributes that I believe should become the base, foundational principle around which society organizes.

Decentralized technologies were around long before Bitcoin.  The problem that Bitcoin solved, and what makes it a giant leap, is how to have decentralization in a trust-free model.  Blockchain (and, by implication, consensus) is an astounding concept, so simple in its essence, but with such wide-reaching applications.  The truly awesome thing about Bitcoin is not just the blockchain, but also that the first major use of blockchain was in decentralizing what, by far, is the most powerful construct to control, enslave, direct humanity: money.  If you can decentralize money, everything else will follow.  If you failed to decentralize money, the rest of it doesn't necessarily have an overall impact on improving humanity for everyone, everywhere.  Satoshi and Bitcoin went after the biggest structure of power and control in the history of the world, and Satoshi and Bitcoin are winning!

There are many other what I think of as a "gatekeepers", you can find them in virtually all fields.  Some of the most obvious is the media.  The media controls the flow of information to the masses.  30 years ago, if I wanted to communicate with the world, unless I was one of the few to have a TV or radio show, or a newspaper column or something similar, I was screwed.  The technology to convey information was there, but it was essentially a one-way street, from the few to the many.  No way for the many to also communicate with the many.  It's also clear that those entities, television networks, newspaper publishers, etc., exercised their power to control what we were able to learn.  They "shaped" the information in such a way to portray a worldview that suited their corporate interests.

Enter the internet.  The internet makes it possible for this message I am typing right now from my home in New Jersey, USA to be instantly communicated to anyone reading this page.  I can go tweet about this post on Twitter if I wanted to, and it would be there, available to anyone that wanted to view it.  The Internet gives us the technology to be able to communicate information of all types to anyone, anywhere.

Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are examples of the power that open exchange of information enables.  No more must I trust what NBC News is telling me, I can search and find 10,000 other sources of news.  I can actually tweet to the newsmakers themselves if I wanted to.  And they can tweet directly to me (such as the President of the USA).  By bypassing traditional gatekeeper media, the Internet enables a greater variety of information sources.  However, just like those TV and newspapers, these platforms are also learning that they have enormous power to shape the message.

This is why decentralization is so important.  We need decentralized platforms to exchange information, platforms that have no point of control.  We need resilient decentralized networks on which information freely flows from the many to the many.  Once you have the free flow of information, and there is no point of gatekeeping control, the truth will win out.  (It's more complicated than I'm explaining here, but this is its essence.)

In the wider financial services industry (beyond cryptocurrency itself), decentralization levels the playing field in what was always a rigged game.  Properly implemented decentralized systems that are based on transactions should always have a construct, a blockchain, that eliminates cheating.  In time, all financial trading will take place on such systems.

The free and open flow of information of many types (not just financial and media) can benefit from properly designed decentralized systems.

As far as the downsides, those that have lived their lives as gatekeepers, are no longer needed.  They either adjust to the new reality of decentralization, or they're obsolete.  All decentralized systems begin as centralized ones, to some extent.  Over time, decentralization should increasing occur of the health of the system is threatened.  Active efforts must be taken to ensure that centralization does not occur, sometimes this means purposely building less efficient systems to increase resilience.

The decentralization of "all the things" is a huge, earth-shattering change for those in the very elite that have been favoring "globalization", which is really quite the opposite: it's a centralization of power and control.  The possibilities that decentralization places within grasp are truly amazing.

Best regards,
Ben

Hi Patatas,

I don't support centralization of these innovations in any way, shape, or form.  I believe that standards that are fully open in their development and review should be the direction to go in here.  I've seen SROs destroy industries exactly as you say, either by infiltration by "bad actors", or by defining the standards so high that only the "elite" can participate.  A central place where all standards are published and easily available to anyone is no more centralized than, for example, bitcointalk or the Bitcoin wiki.  This could be a GitHub repo, for example, and I don't view that as "supporting centralization".

I was supporting voluntary standards for such things as code quality to prevent hacks (browser-side JavaScript?), soundness of technical protocol (is their hashing algo easily crackable?), and policies to minimize harm (if someone hacks in the middle of the night, will someone be able to pull the plug and prevent further damage?).  I believe these are common-sense things, and publishing an open standard for these things will help increase the confidence in crypto assets.

What I'm saying is that now things have gotten more serious, the concept of SROs in the U.S. market has been broached (in the article I linked in the OP), and regulators have responded with supportive statements.  So now you have a situation where it is likely that SROs are going to come into play.  This changes things a bit.  What I conceived of as "voluntary standards", in some form, is likely to become mandated.  I don't like that, but it's the direction we're now headed.  And given that, there's a need to defend against this by shaping how it happens.  Otherwise, things will be shaped by it.

Given the prospect of SROs being formed to regulate the U.S. market, I believe one or more open SROs should exist.  More is better.  This is a defensive move.  If nothing is done, it's likely that one or more SROs will be established that are more closed than I believe this new emerging field should be.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see a monolithic SRO as best serving the wider interests.  It's more likely they'll only serve those that fund them.  Perfect example, FINRA.

I've really tried to communicate this message but if no one else wants to seriously consider the need for such a thing, there's really nothing more I can do.  My organization is trying to do good things for this field, this is because I believe strongly in the potential of these technologies and want to be a part of increasing their utilization.  Especially Bitcoin, it's the hugest paradigm shift, the highest "hanging fruit".  But other things can also benefit from decentralization.  Anywhere there's a gatekeeper, there's a need to overcome that gatekeeper.

Best regards,
Ben

It's unfortunate that this is occurring and probably will continue to occur, which sucks.

People need to think of some unconventional ideas to mitigate against this.  First, you can enter into a JV with the power company itself, if they're down for it, that is.  Another thing is to do something good with your excess heat, such as grow produce.  A decent mining operation has enough heat to help a good size hothouse/greenhouse produce a variety of different vegetables.  Sales of these items would cover the costs of the staff needed to tend the crop.  You could even sell them at a discount to residents of the town as a gesture of goodwill.  The discount is a goodwill write-off. (Not tax advice, blah blah blah.)

Another way to mitigate against the costs is to conduct some other mining (GPU probably) in conjunction with your BTC mining, such as distributed computing "useful work".  Then you can make a better case that your computational power is being put to a good use.  Mining operations should really consider themselves to be data centers.

In my view, it's important to have good relations with the community to help adoption.  One of the things my organization wants to do is develop outreach programs that can be used by operations that are moving into an area to educate the public / local lawmakers / potential employees about blockchain, cryptocurrency, and its huge potential benefits to humanity.  These type of educational programs will help to speed adoption and promote the benefits that you and I know about, but that many others are just starting to grasp.  In addition to top-down advocacy (to regulators and Congress / state legislatures), a bottom-up approach is also a great way to spread positive information about cryptocurrency and other decentralization related technologies.

Best regards,
Ben

Hi Stedsm,

I don't know the legality of SROs in other countries, I know they can be granted legal status in the U.S. to create regulations to enforce portions of the Securities Act and the Exchange Act.

I agree with you, there need to be multiple SROs, and they also need to look at different things differently.  I.e. a cryptocurrency should not be evaluated in the same way as a token, etc.  There are some common elements but many differences.

I think a set of standards that are voluntarily applied to projects of all types is the logical first step.  Some of these standards may be adopted by SROs, some may be adopted by regulators, who knows?  Open standards that are subject to ongoing review and revision, IETF style.

I am very concerned that going down the SRO pathway without multiple organizations will cause market concentration and consolidation.  I've seen it happen elsewhere.  The other concern is, in the U.S., that FINRA will try to add it to their belt and/or infiltrate SRO(s).  I've seen this happen too.

Best regards,
Ben

The fear is real.  Guarantee that their large bank customers have pushed this agenda.  We need to obsolete them (both the banks, of course, as well as Google).  People often focus on Google's dominance in search, which is true, but they also dominate advertising.  Through Google and YouTube combined, Alphabet dominates too large of the flow of information in general.

Best regards,
Ben

I agree with you.  I believe that there should be some form of standards placed on businesses and projects that want to exist in the crypto space.  I am personally against regulations, in terms of government-imposed rules and regulations, but they are coming, from all countries.  There's no effective way to prevent that, if nothing else, the litany of fraudulent ICO/ITOs has built the case for them, as has hacking/poor code (sometimes inexcusably poor).

So given the reality of regulations coming, the question then becomes how to best apply regulations.  In my view, regulations should be focused on businesses and projects, as opposed to people.  Standards on the soundness of cryptocurrency, for example, might have components such as: is it using a robust hashing algorithm?, has it been stress tested/hacker bountied against vulns?, is there sufficient control over who can commit to the codebase?  Standards on ICOs would include aspects about the underlying business.  I don't think it is appropriate to evaluate the potential of a project to actually be profitable, but certain standards aimed at reducing fraud should be done.  Crypto businesses need to have in place measures to ensure their code is security audited, that any penetration has a plan to quickly respond to and prevent further damage, and such.  There's more, but these are just what comes to me off the top of my head.

I believe that governments will allow SROs for cryptocurrency (specifically the U.S., they've actually stated it).  And actually, I believe there should be more than one.  Giving monopoly power to a single SRO is dangerous.  I've seen groups infiltrated by parties that don't have the best interest of their membership at heart, and it can do real damage.  For example, imagine a Visa without a Mastercard.  Visa would have significantly more ability to control aspects of the payment card market.  I believe that even this duopoly is problematic, but imagine if it was just one of those associations.

My organization is partly focused on creating voluntary standards for many of the same things that an SRO will be doing.  The difference is, under an SRO in some form they will have the effect of law.  SRO's are granted legal rulemaking authority in some areas, which is a little peculiar, but considering we have a private central bank, the Federal Reserve banks, I suppose it fits in with that model.  I have experience in dealing with SROs, though not in the financial services industry.  In my experience, they often become an exclusive club with the bar to entry so high that it effectively cuts off new businesses, and especially new revolutionary business concepts, from participation.  That is what I'd like to avoid.  Unfortunately, some of the larger businesses in crypto space may not be inclined.  I hope that's not the case, I really do.  But certainly, they have a financial interest in keeping the "club" exclusive, provided they're part of it.

So I am going to try to reach out to some that I believe would have an interest in bringing this project forward, even if parts of it eventually morph into an SRO due to the necessity of the situation.  It's proven difficult to reach key people, I've been working at it as much as possible.  I believe it has a great value to the community, I hope we can prevent a worse case where large financial interests outside of crypto get to write the rules.

Best regards,
Ben

Gatekeepers.  Search engines are gatekeepers like the rest.  Same as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc.  They show you what they want and hide what they choose.  In this way, they are no different from the information sources that came before them, television, radio, newspapers, etc.

Decentralization of all of the platforms is the way to ensure that there is no point of censorship/control.  Content that is illegal can be community moderated without a central authority.  Lots of decentralized platforms for video, search, social networking, microblogging, etc. are around.  Some of them are pretty good.

Most of them are still "federated" though, as compared to truly decentralized where nodes can hop on and off of the platforms dynamically.  So that's some work that needs to be done.  The other issue I see is a way to monetize it.  Both for the users that contribute content as well as for maintenance of the service, software, etc.  A decentralized platform spreads the cost out through many nodes all operating and constituting the network.  However, you have a user adoption problem if you can't afford to bootstrap the platform to sufficient size that it is a viable competitor to the current platforms.  The software will be open source but there are still costs of ensuring that great people are advancing, testing, auditing, maintaining the code.

I do a lot of thinking about this, have a bunch of ideas on how to advance it.  I look forward to cracking that nut.

The biggest accomplishment, quite possibly in world history, is devising a means to remove the power from the bankers.  Bitcoin has done that.  Everything else will follow.  Eventually, governments themselves will not exist in their present form.  This will not happen quickly, unfortunately.  But it's my goal to make it happen as quickly as possible.  Decentralizing everything (well, there's probably exceptions either with practicality or utility, so I'll just say decentralizing everything in the aggregate) is the way forward for humanity.

Best regards,
Ben

Hi All,

I have lots of keywords that apparently Google is going to take action against at some point, from what I read online.  However, as of now, this screenshot shows impressions/clicks of an ad that I created yesterday for my organization:


So they've not banned bitcoin as being a valid search keyword as of yet anyway.  I don't think they will when push comes to shove.  Also, "cryptomoney" is on the list.

I'd take more screenshots from other ads but it's been a long day.

Once again, another reason that Google has way too much power and control and needs to be obsoleted by decentralized ad platforms, decentralized video platforms, and decentralized search.

All of the gatekeepers must be dismantled.

Imagine the world that will be.

Best regards,
Ben

Hi Tman,

In my experience, evaluating someone's arrest record and possibly their conviction(s) is something that is often best evaluated on a case by case basis.

I've encountered many people of different types through my travels.  People with a criminal background that were dirtbags.  People with NO criminal background that were engaged in crime, just never caught.  But I've also known more than a few people with a criminal background who were able to put it behind them and lived a decent life.  In my experience, those people can often be more trustworthy in some sense, because they know that you know about their background and are essentially taking a chance of them.

I am personally of the view that with the exception of some very bad offenses, people that commit crimes and serve out their punishment should be afforded every opportunity.  They should essentially have restoration of their rights in full.  There are some exceptions, of course, based on the need to protect others.  But, for example, I believe that criminals that have served their sentences should be able to vote in elections if they choose.  I believe they should not be barred from occupational licenses if they demonstrate that they've overcome their former poor choices.

Here in New Jersey, USA, for example, a medical doctor that is convicted of drug abuse is allowed to undergo a five-year program (of supervision by other doctors), and then they'll be fully restored.  During the program, they have limitations as to their ability to prescribe drugs of abuse and also are subject to being drug tested.  On the other hand, at the same time a 19 year-old student in college that gets caught with drugs and convicted can, as a practical matter, never even get close to their medical license.  It's pretty hard for them to find any career-type job.  It's a terrible shame.  Meanwhile, scores of people commit numerous crimes and do not get caught and/or have the connections/pull to get out of the consequences.

So really, a case-by-case basis is best.  Of course, once you know of someone's history, you should be on the look out for behaviors of that type.  But honestly, it's mostly the people that you don't know about that will be the people that end up ripping you off.

They say, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger".  I believe this is true, but also that someone can be "dead" even while they still go through the motions of life.  So when encountering someone, you have to consider if they are, in essence, "dead" (having been killed by dealing with the consequences of their criminal behavior), or if they've become stronger for it.

Sometimes you can help them on the right path by letting them "earn trust", slowly and cautiously.  It's very instance-specific.

Best regards,
Ben

Hi All,

I have been posting for some time about the need to develop, as an industry, voluntary standards to evaluate cryptocurrencies, tokens, crypto service providers, etc.  My purpose in bringing this up to the community on here was to see if there would be some consensus around developing such standards.  I've received several statements supporting the need to do this with respect to ICO/ITOs, to help root out the fraud/scams, etc.  Also received much positive support regarding KYC/AML standardization because currently, handing over KYC information to ICOs that are failing at over 50% rate, is not the best approach.  At some point, unscrupulous actors will look at your identity as a marketable asset.  In other cases, hacks could obtain access to this highly personal information.

I also believe somewhat separate, but interrelated standards, applied to various segments of the crypto asset ecosystem (security standards, financial management standards, etc.) would be useful in demonstrating to regulators that the crypto asset field is doing something about the unique issues created by this new asset class.

Earlier this week, Gemini posted a proposal to go further, and create a self-regulatory organization for cryptocurrency.  It specifically excludes securities tokens from its scope, but their blog entry is here for your review:

A Proposal for a Self-Regulatory Organization for the U.S. Virtual Currency Industry
https://gemini.com/blog/a-proposal-for-a-self-regulatory-organization-for-the-u-s-virtual-currency-industry/

For your information, a self-regulatory organization, SRO, is an entity that is recognized by the SEC/CFTC as having some independent rulemaking authority over their members in self-regulating their scope of membership.  An example of this is FINRA, which regulates the equities market (and some of the futures markets as well I believe).  The thing you probably don't want is to be subject to FINRA's jurisdiction, so if SRO's are now on the table, the industry should strongly consider the creation of one or more SROs.

My question to this board is, what do you think of the proposal on Gemini's blog, or about SROs in general?  Do you believe it goes far enough?  Too far?

I am asking this question because I've been examining these aspects of the crypto asset community for some time and believed this bridge would eventually be reached.  I was hoping to get support for voluntary standards that would help to minimize the fraud in the space, but now it seems that things have become more urgent.

Please let me know your thoughts on here or you can PM me or contact on Telegram.

Best regards,
Ben

I've always found Cicada 3301 to be very interesting.  Never had much time to really deep dive it, seemed to be way over my head but intriguing nonetheless.  People that have been able to solve those puzzles are certainly geniuses.

Best,
Ben

I think there's a lot of women in Bitcoin, take a look on Twitter for example.  By no means is it 50%/50% though.

My organization will work with women in the field, we hope to expand opportunities for women to work with crypto assets and other emerging technology.  There are lots of great women coders.  Just yesterday I was reading a Tweet about women coders that have trouble finding an 'in' because most companies are looking for more senior positions and they're fresh out of coding training, so wouldn't be able to necessarily go straight to a senior position that typically requires work experience.

We will hire some of those junior coders (not only women, we don't discriminate), and give them experience that can be a stepping stone to other jobs.  We also plan on doing the same in our InfoSec and Ops.  We will give them experience on real-world projects.  I'm excited to be able to give that opportunity to people.  Knowledge in the blockchain field is very valuable.  We will likely send some of our best to the blockchain boot-camp that a few of the top "gurus" in the field have started to operate.

We are FAR from saturation in terms of people, projects, or potential of this new paradigm.  Bitcoin is truly earth-shattering.

Best,
Ben

Hi Near28,

Quick question, is this tutorial published anywhere else?  It'd be good to have on a Wiki or somewhere.

Best regards,
Ben

Keyphrases are fun.

We use a form of the diceware method, surely overkill, but we enjoy the "ceremony".  Only get to do it a couple of times a year.

I and the other two partners go into the only room in our office that has no electronic devices or windows (with one notable exception described below).  We shut and lock the only door.  We do not speak.

We unlock a cabinet (I hold the key offsite securely except when we need to generate a keyphrase) that contains our diceware supplies: logbook of usage, the directions written in a large font so that we can point to them instead of speaking, pencils, scrap paper, casino grade dice, professional rolling surface (and the little tumbler cup), and the diceware key book.

First we record the log: date, our names, and the purpose of keyphrase generation in a somewhat obtuse manner.

Then we roll a single die to select who will be person 1, 1-2 = me, 3-4 = T, 5-6 = J.

Then in sequence we roll, typically for an eleven word keyphrase.  The words are looked up in the key book and recorded on the scrap paper silently.

After we've completed rolling for words, we then roll two dice (subtracting 1 from the total, so the range is 1-11) to determine the word that has the first letter capitalized.  We've also done it a second time to determine a word with the last letter capitalized.

Then we roll 1-11 again to select a word to insert a symbol, rather than a space, after that word (roll twice, one for symbol selection, other for word selection).  We use eleven symbols on a chart to choose from.

We roll 1-11 one more time to select a word to insert a block of numbers after that word.  We then roll all of the dice and lift the rolling surface gently so they slide to the edge lip and record the numbers in sequence left to right.

Then the scraps are placed in the proper order, the capitalization and symbol is inserted in the proper place and we have the keyphrase ready to use.

We then power on an airgapped laptop (wireless card removed) that is running Qubes OS, person 1 logs in with their credentials, and the keyphrase is entered into an encrypted KeyPass store that is solely used for that purpose.

Any use of the keyphrase (such as for GPG or root certificate generation) is performed on that computer.  We use an offline root for our internal certificates and issue all from an intermediary.  Other stuff I'm not remembering but that's basically it.

It's a rather extravagant procedure, and I'm sure there's flaws with it, but it gives very high entropy keyphrases, and we're not exactly storing top secret documents or huge amounts of cryptocurrency (though we occasionally work with government confidential materials), but we like the "ceremony".  We have never had any unauthorized use of those keyphrases, so we're happy with that method.

If we had to do it all the time, however, I'm sure we'd end up relying on technology in some way, and there's certainly many ways that provide very good entropy.

Oh yeah, I forgot one part, we verify the serial numbers on the dice. Casino dice have serial numbers, so we figured might as well, since they're there.  That's a check we verify and mark in the logbook.  But we've never had any compromise of our diceware cabinet, and the Qubes computer (I call it "the vault") is stored in a good old-fashioned safe.  We shred the scrap paper in a P-7 shredder mixed in with other documents around the office (which we usually shred with P-5s that we have at our desks but mix in because we don't use the P-7 for much else.  It probably gets more shredder oil than any of our others).  The P-7 is a bit slow but it makes tiny confetti when it comes out.  It's the highest class of shredder (I think), but they also have something called a disintegrator, which literally makes it into dust.  Those are too expensive and unnecessary for our work.

Since forming BTRIC, we have upgraded our physical security systems significantly, including additional protection on our server room and the rack cabinets, video monitoring, as well as some work on our network infrastructure, with more to come once BTRIC can afford it.

Hmmm, I was reading about Zcash's ceremonies earlier tonight and had a laugh about their ceremony, but now I realize we're doing a very similar thing in my organization.

When we do a keyphrase generation, we typically go out to dinner that night after work.  So that's the best part lol.

[Not security advice, may cause unusual rashes. Ask your doctor if diceware is right for you.]

Best regards,
Ben

I have no doubt that Satoshi is a talented writer.  You can see it in much of his writing on this forum and in some other archival locations.  I look forward to reading his book.

If he chooses to come forward, that's great, but I can also understand why he'd want privacy.  Having a lot of attention suddenly placed upon you can be a very stressful and anxiety-ridden experience.  Plus there are practical considerations that have to be accounted for as well, given the estimated number of BTC he may have.  Personally, that's why I don't support attempts to "dox" him.  If he wants to come forward, he will.  If not, he won't.  He could even release his book without coming fully forward publically.  It has been done before.

I believe that the funds that were mined in the genesis block cannot be spent because of how the genesis block is inserted into the blockchain (well actually creating block 0 of the chain, not really inserted).  I don't think the 50 BTC transaction in the block is subject to the same validation code as a normal block.  I could be wrong but I remember a few years back there was some discussion about that possibly being an oversight and in the end it was determined to keep it the way it is.  I forget the reason why, I think probably it would introduce a potential vector to fork the chain straight from block 0.  I'm sure it's around if you search, it had to be on here because years ago this is the only place I went for Bitcoin information.

However, for the BTC in that transaction to reach $21 million, each BTC would need to be worth $420,000.  Nice number, lol, plus I believe it's very attainable in the medium term future.  Also, GiveDirectly is a great charity!

Best regards,
Ben

Yes, previously Section 1031 allowed like-kind exchanges in a variety of asset types (though it was somewhat ambiguous about what assets actually qualified for it, investments were generally considered to be among the permissible personal property that was eligible).

However, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 amended that section of the Code and repealed its applicability on anything other than real property (i.e. land, buildings, etc.)

Under this reading of the Code, each individual transaction is evaluated for a capital gain.  This is why it's important to work with a tax professional to determine the best cost basis method for each transaction, this will minimize your taxable gains.

We need cryptocurrency to have legal status as currency.  That would make things so much easier.  Tokens are a different story (with its own set of complexities), but true cryptocurrency should be treated the same as Yen, Euro, or Dollars, etc.

Best,
Ben

[Not tax or any other kind of advice.  Ask your doctor if cryptocurrency is right for you.  I am not your accountant, go talk to him or her.]

Just be really careful with that website, it's obviously collecting a lot of people's credentials.  If you look through Meta, you see that people's accounts are "hacked" quite often.  Many of them probably come from that site.  I reported it to the phishing site registry, but I have no idea how long it takes for them to investigate/respond to reports.

Here's something to know about those phishing sites, just in case you or anyone reading this doesn't know:

Even if you couldn't log in because of their captcha issue or whatever, a website can be coded in a way that it records everything you enter on a login page -- even if you never submit the form.  Most people believe that you have to submit the form for information to be sent to the website, and often that is the case.  But there are ways that a webpage can use javascript to submit information as you are typing it.

Best advice: if in doubt, change your password.  There's no harm in changing passwords whenever a compromise is possible, even if it's unlikely that it actually occurred.

Another thing you can do, if you are finding yourself going to that website accidentally often (because it shows up in Google results), you can prevent your computer from being able resolve the domain name for the website by null routing the DNS name (127.0.0.1 in your hosts file), or using a browser extension like this one (for Firefox):

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/blocksite/

I'm sure Chrome has one too, or I think it might have built-in functionality to block sites.

Better safe than sorry!

Best,
Ben

Hi Allen,

If you want to create your own financial institution there is quite a bit of work involved.  Fortunately, there are consultants that do this type of work full-time.  The regulations and capital requirements of chartering a financial institution vary depending on the country and type of institution.

You should seek the advice of legal counsel before attempting an undertaking of this kind.

Best of luck with your venture!

Best regards,
Ben

EDIT: I missed the key word "crypto" in your question, I thought you wanted to start a traditional bank or credit union using your BTC as capital.  Again, lending regulations vary based on your legal jurisdiction but many people have successful crypto lending operations.  The regulations in this area are somewhat unclear, so you can look for a location to form a business that has favorable regulations.