A third of the price is only a difference of 30-50 bucks with certain devices. Though I'm not convinced the hardware tampering thing is a realistic risk I would still pay that to completely extinguish any doubt. You might one day be storing the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars on there.

No one mines for fun so I presume it must do. However 7000 mining machines is one hell of a big outlay. It doesn't make it clear whether they own the machines themselves or whether they have a deal with someone who owns them.

Do you want every person you transact with to know your entire Bitcoin history? Because that's what they can do if you don't break the chain somewhere. You may also trip a company's terms and conditions and get told to go away such as sending them coins that were involved in gambling.

If you have the option of keeping your past private then there's nothing illegal about taking it.

A lot of the time it's to fuck exchanges so is there is a law in there somewhere that's fraud related? Though the actual attack itself may not be in that scenario but they're using it to carry out an intentional and malicious act that causes a financial loss. I'd be seriously impressed if someone who did it could ever be found but it's an interesting question.

Yup. Say if you're 30-40 ish in a first world country you have 40-50 years of life to pay for as well as a property. $3 million looks big but you'd still have to live a modest and wise life to eke it out if you chose not to work. And inflation will murder it so you have to be extra on the ball.

Most people wouldn't think that way. They'd get the Lambos, the stupid holidays and then they'd realise well over half was gone already within a few months.

Everyone's going to say they need more. Most people who did end up with a lump that looked large would probably find themselves running out of money big time just when their earning power was gone. A couple of million dollars or whatever looks good but it has to be preserved and grown and all the while you might be depleting it.

To be officially 'rich' I'd need a lot more BTC than I have now at that price level.

Says who? I don't remember that in the Bitcoin white paper anywhere. 'A peer to peer tax evasion system' wouldn't quite scan the same way. There are tons of transactions that take place that governments would never know about. It's on you to report it.

The tax thing at the moment I'm most intrigued by is whether there's going to be some sort of wealth tax imposed to pay for economic ruin. Taxing work further isn't going to be a winner compared to taxing wealth sitting there doing nothing.

That's a very good suggestion. I'm not sure which sections it turns up in but it should also be in all of the alt sections. That's an area rife with questionable projects and even more questionable download links. Similar to here it's also likely to attract the crypto naifs.

I think it might as well be everywhere. I'd rather know I was dealing with a piece of shit even if it's erotic banter only.

I regard anywhere that doesn't ask for KYC as a place that is waiting to use it as an excuse to rape you when the time is right. It's the excuse that keeps on giving. And even supposedly decentralised places have asked for it too, not that any I've seen are worth bothering with.

As long as there are governments there'll be tax and they will charge it in fiat. They will also pay their employees in it as well as beneficiaries of state largesse. I can't see it ever going away so this is something that never crosses my mind. The government cryptocurrencies everyone talks about will be fiat too.

It may be that people have to begrudgingly convert their crypto back to fiat to pay their government bills but it'll always make up a large portion of economies.

I've come across loads of people in cryptoland who claim never to have been here. It is quite possible. If you want cutting edge info here is often a long way behind other platforms,or it never arrives at all, so I can see why you might never get around to it.

As for Bitcoin 'saving' us. Well, you have guns, gold, heroin. There's lot of outs if you look for them. Most people don't ever think to question even for a moment or two.

Most people should not be trading. They don't have the knowledge, skill or fortitude to do it and they never, ever will. I have no idea why it's touted as the first thing people should dive into. I guess the people encouraging that are the real traders who'll take all their money off them.

I'd ask him if he was feeling alright. Someone like that has better things to do than email a random nobody out of the blue.

If he replied he was feeling wonderful and wanted to be my best mate ever I'd ask him whether he's happy at the direction BTC has taken and whether any developments have taken him by surprise.

Just go via a normal freelancing site and buy it with what you earn?

There will be approximately 1,000,000,000x more opportunities and they will pay more money. I think those who pay out in BTC have realised that the people willing to work for it can't be bothered to do their sums and realise they're being massively exploited for the honour of being paid in BTC.

You may be in a place where buying it or getting paid in fiat is hard, but that's the very first thing I'd investigate before throwing away the value of my labour like that.

Someone should make a concerted attempt to migrate but we all know they'll fail. Centralisation = convenience. I'm not going to fire up some obscure client to watch one guy dribble on and no one else will either.

If my livelihood depended on staying in the good graces of one remote and mercurial entity I would certainly be nervous but that's how it has to be.

Erm, are you reading anything above? Projects are getting hacked and drained of all funds. Who the fuck would mass adopt that?

If they want it to take off it needs to have been 100% bulletproof from top to bottom for many years. Instead we get this. No one other than crypto propellerheads will ever go anywhere near it.

I've never heard of a hardware wallet arriving with hardware tampered with. Can you provide some examples?  We have of course heard of wallets arriving with printed seeds. Physical access after you've created your seed on it seems to have ways in but that's not a factor for most people.

He'll need people to want BCH for their gift cards though. If he does go for it it'll be interesting to see the uptake. I really can't see him educating newcomers as to the difference so maybe it'll explode as they believe they're getting 'more' Bitcoin.

Bitcoin market participants don't live in a magical crypto bubble. They go broke, lose their jobs, go mad or are looted to death just like anyone else. A total lockstep is unlikely but if the world goes up in smoke then I don't see how BTC carries skipping gaily along.

If you're not going away you could at least make one adjustment that would save users potential heartache and stop calling yourselves a wallet.

You're an exchange and as soon as that's clearer more people will realise what they're getting themselves into - a place where coins should not be stored and where KYC will be sprung on you at any moment.