You can't buy Bitcoin with Revolut and it's definitely no type of wallet either. You can only get price exposure to a few coins inside the app. There's no way of depositing or withdrawing actual crypto with it. That may suit for some. I'd rather have the real deal.

Weird. I assumed Tether just sits there and moves around on exchange databases. I had no idea there was anywhere near that throughput.

Considering all the other stablecoins seem to run on ETH too you'd think they would've thought this through adding another one. I find it v strange that all of these dollars are depending on a clunker of a chain that no normal person can run.

Dunno. I was hoping you could help me out with that.

Stuff like the story about Coinmama shutting someone down for having a gambling transaction about 10-15 txs back is the type of thing that's worrying. I can get 1-2 tx away stuff that breaks terms and conditions, but if it was months and many wallets ago that's going to wind up nightmarish.

Jesus Christ, that shit gets everywhere. I've reached the stage where that's so prevalent I barely see it any more and anyone who falls for it has what's coming to them.

Support got back to me fairly rapidly about the sluggish app. Their suggestions were to clear the cache and reinstall as if that hadn't occurred to me. It's now on its third or fourth update since this started and it's no better than it was.

Can't say I'm surprised by that in the slightest.

What I would be interested to know is how an exchange or other service that has to yield to this would treat coins that come either from mixers that ignore this or are mixed crowd style a la Coinjoin. Would they be automatically obligated to reject them? Will there be a point where you need a completely unbroken trail to go anywhere near a centralised service?

It's same old fungibility question. Where does it begin and where does it end? I can see it becoming an impossible mess unless everyone's sensible.

He has a new product to hawk so of course he's going to make lots of noise and everyone likes to hear a far out price prediction. It would be more interesting if for once someone made a far out prediction about its eventual uses and how it'll change the world - 'your sexbot will run on Bitcoin by 2030'.

I guess that's less eye catching.

What does 'ban' mean?

At most they can shut down exchanges in the US and forbid businesses from accepting it. The idea of people being criminalised for owning software is pure daffy. Bittorrent must have cost the US untold billions in losses yet it's still fully legal.

A place to look to for an idea of what it would be like is the UK which has basically operated without any proper exchanges since minute one. Only in recent times have proper exchanges popped up and they're looking a bit wobbly. P2P has been the accepted norm and it ticks along adequately. It's certainly stunted compared to other countries though.

Every day that ticks past means more American businesses and people get involved with crypto. The idea of 'banning' it will seem ever more ludicrous the more entrenched it becomes.

I think you'd be nuts to trust any coin creator these days. There've been enough who've ravaged their customers now. Casascius was in more innocent times. Then there are the coins with 2FA like Titan which is a horrific idea. If their site goes down, or they disappear or lose interest and Titan have gradually been fading away, then goodbye money.

Since even the crummiest wallet usually gives you the option of your own seed, or creates one, this system isn't an encouraging start.

Well, this is the same bloke who ran BTCC who sold physical coins that they mined directly to and no one's had any issues with those but it's still a long way from ideal.

He's pitching it as the way to bring crypto to the masses but starting off by centralising when it doesn't need to be smells a bit off. If it is 'for the masses' then I suppose private key logging is quite possible.

Weird how someone in crypto for such a long time can come up with something that has glaring turns offs to most.

Bobby Lee, the former fella who ran BTCC, has just launched this - https://www.balletcrypto.com/en-US/

https://www.coindesk.com/early-bitcoin-entrepreneur-returns-with-a-crypto-hardware-wallet-for-the-masses

Which wants to be the wallet to bring crypto to the masses.

Keys are generated in advance and printed on the thingy and you, um, scratch the top off to access the private key that you access with the app which I presume is where some security happens.

So it looks like a paper wallet with a few extra problems.

Will you be taking the plunge?

This is something I've always been curious about.

I'll guess that the prime factor is that it's almost entirely a creature of crypto exchanges and very few people redeem dollars through it. If people were turning up all over the world trying to buy houses and yachts with Tether that would get them springing into action in double time.

The places that do tout their stablecoin as easily redeemed for dollars and are looking into using it for commerce are several times more uptight than the most anal bank.

I've never heard of that party in my entire life. As it stands the British government is far too busy eating itself to pay attention to crypto. And if those Labour morons got in and did get heavy we'd all go back to P2P which is how it's been all along anyway.

The total lack of regulation rather than onerous regulation is the biggest problem for crypto banking in the UK. Why should any bank play regulatory roulette? Why take the risk? Far better to shun all of it until they have some idea of where they stand on the numerous issues it throws up.

Considering what places like India have been willing to do to force their populations into the banking system by cancelling high denomination notes I wonder what they'd be willing to do elsewhere if they really got a boner for negative interest rates.

Cash is in their sights already. If enough people cottoned on to crypto they might toss their cookies. Guess it might be too late by then.

They've banned Americans from their regular exchange and opened a new one for US customers that I presume will be more uptight.

Binance are covering their arse. They've always not given a shit about regulation but it's finally dawned on them that dicking with the US is not sensible. Their non KYC up to certain amounts isn't a good look. Though in many parts of the world regulars don't care enough, they will in America.

Tons of places reject Americans rather than accommodate them so it's a constructive move.

To truly know what's what it needs a generalised alt pump. 16th place or 23rd or whatever with things as they are doesn't really mean much when everyone and everything's bored out of their minds.

But no one gives a shit about this project and they never have.  Let's see what's in the pipeline leads to but the perception or total lack thereof has always been the problem rather than the tech. It's had five years to attempt to address that. It's failed completely. Can't see it magically turning around now.

Dunno what the cause of that is. Perhaps if it had been open source from the start it would've inspired developers to look closer and if the present leadership had been around back in the day it might have led to more too.

Seems like risk on top of more risk to me. The amount of miners who've come and gone makes for very lengthy reading these days. As soon as things turn south places like this will vapourise.

I don't pay any attention to mining but that cost figure is surprising. Perhaps that explains the spiralling hash rate.

I'll guess they're doing this just to chip away a little further at the SEC. They probably don't care about the numbers, or let's hope they don't.

It seems people have a weird conception of 'institutional money'. It's just as bored and cautious as everyone else's money. If things are dead there's no reason for them to kick off when others have zero interest in doing so. It'll follow the tide like everyone else.

This bit bothers me sometimes. I definitely don't give as much merit as I should but it's pretty hard to find posts by non established posters that move me. I'd much be handing it over to people to help them rank up but they don't half make it difficult.



Don't forget that when the merit system was introduced ranked up members got a large amount of merit automatically - 500 for heroes and 1000 for legendaries. It's rather telling that there are still hero and legendary accounts stuck at that level.

There is still the Coinlab lawsuit that needs settling and I haven't heard much about that. I believe the selling necessary to meet its debts, other than the money owed to customers, is now done. What's left is still the bulk of 200,000 coins. I'm not sure if it's settled completely but many people will want to be paid back with that BTC, not in USD or JPY, and they're working on that.

In theory all the money left will go to Gox's users so there'll be no more selling by the liquidator.

EUR and especially GBP markets are minnows compared to USD, USDT or BTC. I've never really understood why EUR is piddling, it's the currency of one the world's richest areas. I certainly do get why GBP is. Because of the banking thing crypto's a long way behind most other places in the UK.