I don't know what it is in other countries but in France there are local currencies, about 80. Although it is difficult to determine an exact number, it is estimated that there are about 80 on French territory. Through a social, environmental, local or even regional objective, their interest is to convey the values that conventional currencies no longer embody today, and this movement is arousing growing enthusiasm if we are to believe a report by the Sol Movement , which oversees local currencies at the national level, published in early 2021. ID offers you a non-exhaustive list of local currencies in circulation by region, as well as an evolving map. A friend was bragging to me about the merits of her local currency, but I wonder what's the point since we have bitcoin? Bitcoin which obviously includes the world population. I did not really understand the objectives of these local currencies, I was wondering if local currencies existed in other countries and if people understood the interest of these local currencies which seem to undergo inflation like the fiats. https://www.linfodurable.fr/conso/la-carte-de-france-des-monnaies-locales-en-circulation-16262https://www.linfodurable.fr/social/des-monnaies-locales-pour-transformer-les-modes-de-consommation-26697 |
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Yes, I am complaining that people are not nerdy enough. It's been 14 years since Satoshi published his white paper and the vast majority of people still don't understand what Bitcoin is and how to use it. Sure there are many people buying Bitcoin on crypto exchanges and speculating on it.
However, the average guy on the street that I speak to, and even many people on crypto forums still don't understand Bitcoin's potential as a virtual commodity, or it's potential to create an alternative to Fiat economies. Maybe the problem is deeper than just a lack of understanding about the technology? Maybe it's a lack of understanding about economics as a whole? How many people are economists?
I understand that my frustration might be due to the fact that I am coming from a very privileged position. What are your thoughts on this?
Misinformation starts very early: at school first, then the mass media. We saw it during the 2017 bull market, a lot of people wanted to buy btc because the media was talking about it. But they were not at all interested in technology or finance (inflation etc...). Out of fear, they sold everything at the start of 2018, shouting at the Ponzi pyramid. Finally there are few autodidacts and people are often satisfied with what they see on TV or in the newspapers. They have no idea how the economic system works. It's through real life that they learn: when they see the prices go up and when they realize that their savings are no longer worth anything (or not much). It is in adversity that they look for alternative solutions. BTC is already the alternative solution in several countries (Nigeria for example). |
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I don't understand why real estate prices are rising in France. Investors do not want to buy expensive real estate and invest in other countries with a good climate, such as Georgia, where you can invest in construction at an early stage and get an apartment at a price of 800-1000 dollars per square meter without renovation. How do you like these prices?
Think that with each sale, the government takes a part, the department too, without counting the real estate agencies. Of course the banks also with their 25-year loans. Housing is a basic need. This race for profit is totally insane. But right now, with interest rates going up, good loan applications are being turned down. The cash machine begins to seize up. So much the better, otherwise young people can no longer find accommodation. On the other hand with declining transactions and therefore the taxes that go with it too, the French government will find us a new tax to compensate. |
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People is only looking an easy way to buy Bitcoin, that's why they ended in centralized exchange. I've seen Binance ads in everywhere when it's related with cryptocurrency, what make it's bad because they wrote Binance is a safe place to hold your coins. Most of people wouldn't think about the long term effect, as long as the site is right now looks safe, it's good to go for them. Many people are not ready to manage this security on their own and therefore not at all ready to manage a non-custodial wallet. We need lessons at school like in El Salvador.
Where did you read if El Salvadorian schools teach about non custodial wallet? AFAIK they have their own wallet e.g. Chivo, it's a custodial wallet where you need to submit your KYC, but the good thing they didn't force all their citizens to use this wallet. No doubt I expressed myself badly. I was not talking specifically about wallet, but about education in the broad sense. Everything about the bitcoin environment and how to protect yourself on the internet, as "Mi Primer Bitcoin" offers. https://miprimerbitcoin.io/It's not just a lack of information, it's also a lack of education. The Internet and all its risks have been introduced without prior training, without any courses on cybersecurity, on personal data and why it must be protected.
Many people are not ready to manage this security on their own and therefore not at all ready to manage a non-custodial wallet. We need lessons at school like in El Salvador. I learned everything on my own, even computers. It's not easy and it takes time. You have to do it in addition to your job, your family, all the other activities.
Education is not enough. They will more easily forget their lessons if they don't experience in the market, see more bad reports on how people lost their bitcoins by scam centralized exchanges. Like safety rules, they can be taught at school but not all of them will have safe practices. Education is a most important thing we can do and we must start with education. They must start with educational course on bitcoin wallets, what to use, what to not use and spend time for practice. Education is that: to learn and to put into practice. If you learn music theory without having a musical instrument, what's the point? As far as cybersecurity is concerned, people should already be awareness: people do not even realize that posting photos of their children, not securing emails, not using a virtual credit card etc etc is already potentially dangerous. Before even learning, they have to understand why they have to learn and what it is for. Confidentiality or protection of personal data are abstract data. Not to mention financial education. Most people have never heard of CBDC. There is therefore still a very long way to go before people (and companies) can venture onto the Internet without too much danger. CEX probably seem safer to them, even if ultimately using a non-custodial wallet is not so complicated. I too still have a lot to learn. |
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They do this because they were introduced and guided to create accounts to buy bitcoin on centralized exchanges. They were not taught about risk of leaving coins on centralized exchanges and they think they can safely store their bitcoins in their accounts. Reminder: do not keep your money in online accountsIf they were taught about risk, like above reminder, they will use non custodial wallets. It's not just a lack of information, it's also a lack of education. The Internet and all its risks have been introduced without prior training, without any courses on cybersecurity, on personal data and why it must be protected. Many people are not ready to manage this security on their own and therefore not at all ready to manage a non-custodial wallet. We need lessons at school like in El Salvador. I learned everything on my own, even computers. It's not easy and it takes time. You have to do it in addition to your job, your family, all the other activities. |
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People who work in IT probably do not realize how difficult the crypto environment can be to understand and for some even become downright anxiety-inducing. Indeed, digital education has not, in my opinion, been properly done in many countries, especially in France.
This is how most people in their forties/fifties and over are completely lost in the digital world (especially in France). Companies do not protect their data and are easy prey for all hackers and individuals alike. So of course individuals know how to do bullshit on social networks, but there are many problems that persist and are here to stay for a long time.
Cybersecurity is an area that has really been left behind. Insufficient passwords, risky clicks on anything and so on.
In this environment where everyone learns what they can, no matter how and often quite badly, we can imagine that bitcoin is part of another world. When, however, a person wishes to hold bitcoin despite everything, the sum of the accumulated shortcomings is such that she/he becomes the ideal victim for all hackers.
If this person is not disgusted after a bitcoin hack or crash, he/she must face:
- New words that correspond to unfamiliar concepts.
- Tons of cybersecurity tips (mail protection, 2FA etc...)
- An anxiety-provoking environment that talks about hackers all over the place.
- Tools such as hardware wallets which seem complicated when some people already have trouble using a computer.
So in this context, it's no surprise that beginners prefer to leave their bitcoins on CEX, because they have less to learn in one go, just managing a password and 2FA, (and don't always use that). The stress engendered by bankruptcies such as those of FTX or the oft-repeated phrase "Not your BTC, not your coins" can indeed discourage more than one.
Moreover, in 'developed' societies of permanent recipients where people are no longer really self-taught (perhaps lack of time, intellectual laziness, lack of self-confidence, etc.), the idea of being oneself accountable for their funds, with no customer service and no one to complain to is hardly/no longer an option.
It takes time to read and to learn, every day I learn something and when I look back over the years I have the impression of having naively walked on a minefield.
I take this opportunity to thank the people who really know much much more than me for never having been condescending by my sometimes simple (or simplistic?) questions, whereas IRL in France in particular asking a question is sometimes considered as a sign of stupidity (which is quite the opposite I think. I'm not ashamed to say I don't know or I don't understand).
That's why newbies prefer CEX in my opinion because they feel safer and at least in a more familiar environment like their banking app (!).
Personally, I must have taken at least 3 years to connect a Ledger, being discouraged in advance and because I didn't really have time to understand how it worked. (In the end it was much simpler than I had thought.)
The more I learn, the more questions I have and I tell myself that I would never have gone around the question. Fortunately, my children are older and I therefore have a little more time to learn, but the path still seems very, very long. I have lots of notebooks to put notes on to look at later, but I have so many notes...
I dropped CEX after trying lots of them mostly to see what they looked like, I never traded because it's a job and I'm not interested in it, I had shitcoins which no longer exist (but for which I had only invested a few euros), I don't understand anything about DEFI and NFT for me, it's a bit like fashion week, not very interesting either.
I ended up changing shitcoins into btc and putting that on a hardware wallet (but not the ledger whose interface I don't like). Finally I applied the maxim "not your keys, not your coins"). Maybe that's the beginner's path after all? Going slowly towards this goal, without being too greedy or too naive and doing things at your own pace (I'm particularly slow I think...)
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Hello,
Today there are a thousand and one ways to obtain bitcoin, CEX, PtoP exchanges etc ... I read that the concept of seed and BIP39 was proposed later. This is all a bit confusing to me.
How did you do at the beginning to have bitcoins and how were they kept? I guess it was reserved for the rather computer-savvy people? When did it get easier?
Thank you
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Oui évidemment, le backup de la seed c'est la base  Quand je dis effrayant et génial, c'est parce que ç'est super simple pour une réinstallation mais en même temps, on a envie de l'effacer  Par contre pour le tactile je ne pense pas qu-il y ai de stress à avoir, un bouton mécanique n'est pas nécessairement plus fiable. De toutes façons ce n'est pas comme si l'objet en question coûtait une fortune. Alors bien sûr on veut un outil fiable dans le temps et peut-être qu'une bitbox peut durer 100 ans, mais on nous avait aussi vendu à l'époque les CD's et DVD à leur sortie comme inaltérables ( https://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/cd-et-dvd-ne-sont-pas-fiables-selon-l-academie-des-sciences-39750471.htm) Et que dire des disques durs externes ? Pareil, finalement personne ne sait vraiment la durée de vie de tous ces appareils, on stocke des données et un jour on a plus rien (photos etc). Alors la seed elle est d'abord en sécurité ailleurs, sur un bon vieux truc à l'ancienne, des boulons ou des plaques en acier inoxydables. |
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100,000 euros is a very small amount for a tax deduction, because real estate is more expensive in France. And such a deduction can be made once every 15 years. Russia has the simplest tax legislation for individuals, and the most uneducated citizen can understand it. This article contains very complex calculation rules that will most likely require the additional services of tax lawyers.
I know that salaries are high in Europe, but I heard from people that up to half of their income is spent on taxes and insurance.
It's been years that wages are no longer in line with real estate prices. Previously everyone could buy their home based on their salary, despite high borrowing rates. A worker could buy a house without his wife working (in the 1960s). Then wages no longer kept up with inflation (1983, socialist government, unless I'm mistaken). Now even people with high wages have to go into 30-year debt to buy an apartment in Paris or a big city. Real estate prices are insane. But a lot will happen in the months to come: if the owners have to do some kind of advanced technical control of their house to sell and must have a property that complies ecologically with the government's requirements, it is very likely to stop the machine. Not all homeowners can afford expensive work to insulate their home before selling it. The rental market is super tight: prices are also soaring in the big cities and seaside resorts. There too it will be necessary to rent with precise environmental standards, in addition to that it takes at least two years to evict a tenant who does not pay his rent, investors turn to seasonal rentals or invest in something else. Let's see what will happen in the following months ... |
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Incredible, I'd never have thought of all that. Thanks to LoyceV for the two articles, which I'll read now.
Now I have another question: I know you can personalize a QR-code so that people scan it and go to a website for example (I've already done this by modifying the colors, adding a logo etc), can you do the same with a bitcoin address (I assume so?) and which site do you recommend to do it safely?
Thanks
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Am I forgetting any?
I would add the casino/gambling scammed and the custodial wallet ones. For the custodial wallet : you are using a service of custodial wallet and one day you realize that you can't withdraw your funds because the service is closed or is ending. The gambling one is more common Oh yes, I didn't think about casinos. How does it work in practice? You play and you can't withdraw your winnings? Or do you play and lose all the time? I'd like to understand before adding it. In the end, custodial wallets are just like CEX, aren't they? Are there any examples of such wallets where people haven't been able to withdraw their funds? |
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I didn't understand why people were so trustfull in staking for so long. Then I didn't understand how you could put your life's savings into a single cryptocurrency (unless it is bitcoin, that's my opinion).
I don't understand how someone can invest their entire life savings in anything, and that includes Bitcoin. Because although Bitcoin from an investment perspective looks very promising, the future has always been and will be uncertain, and therefore diversification is something that only makes sense. And yet it's happening all over again. People don't seem to learn from the past.
Only intelligent people learn from other people's mistakes, others choose the hard way and learn from their own mistakes, but that's something we can't change. This is something that works for scammers, because they prosper precisely because of such people and the fact that today anyone can "invent" cryptocurrency, list it on some CEX and claim that this is the next big thing. I misspoke, as many of you have noted. Of course you have to diversify your investments, I meant that if I wanted to all-in, then I'd choose bitcoin over a new crypto, even if it's in coinmarketcap's listing and especially if I can't withdraw it when I want to. We can see that people are always ready to invest in anything and continue to listen to anyone: these people, influencers, on Youtube and other social media, get huge commissions for promoting any shitcoin. Fatman recounted on Twitter how he earned 3.45 BTC on Twitter and 2 BTC on Discord in just in two tweets (he later repaid). He wanted to show how simple it was to scam someone by promising a crazy return. I think it's important to remember Bitconnect, Madoff and the others to learn not to fall into these traps. But it's true, as someone mentioned above, that cautious people who really check out the scams section already know about them. |
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P/s: about investing Thier life savings?.. humans can do anything incredible for money... mostly when it's made to sound really strange and fascinating
Sandra 🧑🦰
Besides, what is surprising is that one might think that people who play gambling or who get trapped in Ponzi schemes are people who are not or not very wealthy and who have hopes of getting rich quick. But with the Madoff affair, we saw that even people who are already wealthy can be greedy. |
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I was reading the very interesting post of LoyceV about this clipboard virus ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5190776.0) How it works
1. You select a Bitcoin address, and press CTRL-C.
2. The malware changes the address to an address owned by the hacker/scammer.
3. You press CTRL-V and lose any funds you send.
Even if you check part of the pasted Bitcoin address, chances are the first few characters are the same, and you still won't notice the address was changed.
i was wondering if it's possible to change a QR-code the same way that the victim sends the btc to the scammer address ? |
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Remember the big Ponzi Bitconnect and learn from the past. At the height of the Bitcoin hype in late 2017, one company in the cryptocurrency sector was almost as much the talk of the town as its illustrious representative. BitConnect (then the sector's seventh-largest capitalization) was at its peak on December 28, 2017, and one BCC (BitConnect's stock symbol) was traded for $477. Bitconnect's market capitalization soared to $3 billion. But on January 17, everything came crashing down: the site abruptly shut down and thousands of investors were left out in the cold. Some had put their life savings into it  A classic Ponzi pyramid: a fraudulent financial scheme in which customers' investments are remunerated by funds provided by new entrants. BitConnect then exchanges bitcoins for its BCC "cryptocurrency", while promising a return on investment at a fixed rate over several months. The more money you leave locked up, the higher the return. In this type of scheme, if the scam isn't discovered, it eventually comes to light when too many investors claim their stakes at the same time. This is what happened at the end of January 2018, when most cryptocurrencies experienced a severe correction. " Influencers:": BitConnect created a sponsorship and affiliation system. Influential Twitter and YouTube personalities advise beginners to give BitConnect a try, while pocketing a 7% commission. This short documentary shows people being scammed => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thMP0ZpGlDwI remember that at the time I couldn't understand how you could exchange btc for this unknown currency (BCC). I didn't understand why people were so trustfull in staking for so long. Then I didn't understand how you could put your life's savings into a single cryptocurrency (unless it is bitcoin, that's my opinion). And yet it's happening all over again. People don't seem to learn from the past. |
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Bitcoin doubler scam, and that's where I fell in the beginning. I thought it's very easy to make a lot of bitcoin and I was so naive then. Without thinking, I deposited some bitcoin because someone recommended it to me.
But by now we all know that this is obviously scam. And so I'm not afraid to tell everyone was experience about it and try to spread the news that there's no such thing as easy bitcoin. It's hard to earn BTC by the way. It's better that we work our ass off and earn it rather than thinking of investing it into something like a doubler or whatever the scamming is calling it right now.
Never heard of that, I will see what it is. Am I forgetting any?
Has this happened to you or someone you know ?
Deceiving scams is also executed on many occasions especially targetted towards which is someone who will contact you on telegram, Facebook or in any other way and seek your help to withdraw their coins because they will claim that its stuck on the exchange or any platform and their country is not letting them to withdraw it and even they will show their profile and will give access to it but all of them were masked and it is under control of the one who is contacting you. They will offer 50/50 to withdraw the amount so you will say okay and get the site credentials from the random person then you will try to withdraw but the support says you need to deposit $50 or $100 which is a red flag straight away but due to the amount, they can make most people will be deceived and fund the address provided in the screen, once you send it then there you are scammed! I received such kind of offers lot of times and many were too so I think it can be added too in OP's list. Is it like the old spam e-mails when people said they had a blocked inheritance and had to pay the fees to unblock it? Because otherwise I don't really see what it's all about. Why anyone would pay $50 to unlock funds on a CEX just doesn't make sense (I guess I didn't quite understand the principle of this scam). |
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2. There are the CEX scammed. MtGox, FTX etc ..., they can be beginners or experts.
6. The betrayed scammed. Whether a beginner or an expert, the betrayed scammed has trusted someone (friend, colleague, lover...) and lost his or her funds.
I believe these two are supposed to be in the same category of betrayed/betrayal scams because both of these scams occurred as a result of betrayal from someone you trusted, and the same is true of exchanges whom we trust and leave our coins with; thus, if they run with our money, they betrayed us, which can be exactly the same as the person you know and trust to betray you. I don't think it's the same thing. In fact, almost from the very beginning of our apprenticeship, we learn the famous phrase: "not your keys, not your coins". So we know that if we leave our coins on a CEX, there's a risk. In addition, there's the experience of the past. Being betrayed personally by someone you know is different: it's your trust that's shaken. You can't expect that. It's a disappointment that can be profound and go beyond the loss of funds. Not to mention that for CEXs, there's a tiny hope of recovering funds. |
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Yes, I have been scammed once for $5,000. I was paying from my Ledger Hardware Wallet to Exchange for a quick P2P Withdraw and I realized I sent it to some address which has exactly same first 5 characters and last 5 characters similar to my Exchange Deposit Address. The attack which was done on me was Address Poisoning. I just copied the address from my Recent Transaction History on Ledger and sent $5k USDT. I still feel ashamed of that as I have kept myself safe from every other possible scam attack.
Could you please explain me how it functions please ? Thank you |
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2, 3, 7 is what I've been through.
And I was also scammed by an impersonator of a relative, I remember when that person stole my friend's social media account and texted that he wanted to borrow USDT to pay fees, of course on a close level with me took absolutely no precautions and sent the money to the wallet address in the message, even though it was a long time ago but it helped me learn a big lesson not to be too quick to believe things on the internet, and now being exposed to certain terms like deepfake it makes me even more wary.
I hadn't thought of this last way of scamming @Nwada001 : I sent a DM to the mod to put this thread in another place if necessary. |
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