Tether is now several years old. You can't keep something like that up for this long without cracks showing at some point. The simplest explanation for this not happening is that Tether operates how they claim to operate.

The biggest threat to Tether has always been regulators as this is ably demonstrating.

You should be whatever you wish to be. All the same I find the alt fans who are 100% dismissive of Bitcoin the most tragic. r/cryptocurrency is currently a desperate wasteland where they're still convinced Nano's instant transactions or whatever deserves to 'defeat' Bitcoin.

It's really weird how people fixate on one ickle feature and conveniently choose to be blind to the overpowering stuff that really counts such as network effect and security. And this cycle is where Bitcoin will separate itself further from alts. Big money is not interested in much else.

Certain alts will have their day again no matter what. A lot of people backed the wrong horse that'll never get up again. And talk of use cases is laughable. Hardly anyone's 'using' any alt for anything other than searching for more dollars.

No one's going to pick it up if Facebook get their arse kicked. It's a fundamentally repulsive idea to governments. Anyone else who tries will get their arse kicked too.

Libra will never emerge in the form they're proposing. It'll be exactly like Paypal. That started off touting ideas very, very similar to Libra and then real life hit and it became a soulless bitch.

If only there was something... decentralised.

I don't care what it does to ruin itself as long as it doesn't haunt this forum spewing bitterness afterwards, which of course it will. I hope for our sakes it's right and makes vast amounts of money and lives happily ever after.

LHV bank in Estonia works with Coinbase and have continually made positive noises about Bitcoin. It is often the case that a bank will work with someone like Coinbase and reject private customers but it's worth asking at least.

There's only a tiny number of countries in the world where trading and selling crypto is illegal. Unless you're in one of them they're talking out of their arse. They're fully within their rights to shut you down just because they don't like the idea but it being illegal is not the case almost everywhere.

They may not like it but there's no way they can say it's 'illegal'. If you can point to your buys and wallet movements then there's no question of anything not being above board.

"Gambling is the wagering of money or something of value on an event with an uncertain outcome, with the primary intent of winning money or material goods."

Um, that sounds exactly like trading, even more so when it comes to leveraged stuff. Nothing to be ashamed of. It's a bit disingenuous to pretend it's something other than that.

While I find all of this very entertaining I do not regard it as Bitcoin related AT ALL.

No doubt Craigy will sue me if he reads this.

It may relate a bit in terms of the mining and coins controlled by Calvin Thingy but that's no big deal in the great scheme of things either.

If it does become that huge and remains that huge I'm curious to see what type of user arrives here. Do we get the less desperate and starry eyed or more of the same? The prospect of truly silly returns will be long gone by then unless you're willing to wait many years.

Will there be a more mature class of user looking for steady ish appreciation or will they switch to the shittiest of shitcoins and leave Bitcoin to the more boring investment types?

You wouldn't be asking this question on this forum if it was possible. It wouldn't exist any more as no one would trust Bitcoin any more.

The prime reason it took off in the first place is the way it managed to completely extinguish all doubt about the validity of a transaction. Without that Bitcoin has zero value.

A 'fake' transaction cannot be broadcast, let alone mined and would never reach another wallet nor would it be sendable in the first place. Every aspect of Bitcoin's design squashes the possibility flat.


You'll just be ignored completely. It will never appear anywhere.

I'd like their names so I never employ them myself. I don't see how anyone could conduct themselves in court the way he has if he's actually taking on board the advice given him.

I presume they're pocketing the money and keeping their own opinions to themselves. All he's produced so far is a string of lies and literally nothing else.

You can see the block situation here - https://tbtc.bitaps.com/blocks

The last block found was 1 hour 20 minutes ago but it's pretty similar to Bitcoin's block generation times usually.

That's a dirty word. I've read that they've had to fork the testnet a couple of times because people were trying to monetise it.

The easiest place will be a testnet faucet.

https://tbtc.bitaps.com

https://bitcoinfaucet.uo1.net

Lots are empty but those claim to have some. When you're done it's considered good form to return it to the faucet.

His views on this are consistent with his principles so for him to be keen on it at the stage it's in would be strange indeed.

He doesn't invest in gold. He does invest in silver. Silver has more practical use, less speculation and is impossible to substitute in some of the roles it's used in.

Some people have a practical use for BTC. They're in a small minority. Everyone else is waiting for more dollars. That's not his bag and never has been.

I wonder what Coinbase's awareness levels are like surrounding this. Do they want to become a direct network participant? That might open up a whole new bunch of head aches. I wonder what users would feel if a Coinbase channel was launched. It would be a mighty thing indeed.

Just to double check did you write down the seed when you created the wallet? That's the series of words it gave you when you created the wallet.

If you have that then you have no problem at all. You can restore it in a new wallet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5et2BfLzEHs

Was it a completely new pass phrase created just for this wallet or is it a variation on a phrase you use elsewhere?

If you can remember some of it there are programs and services that can brute force it for you. If you truly don't know at all what it is then those options won't be possible.

And did you not make a backup when the wallet was created?

If we're talking 'real' gold then it can't hold a candle to BTC in this respect. If I had a pile of gold I wanted rid of I'd have to travel a substantial distance, wait for it to be validated and probably accept an offer quite a bit below spot as the only person who'd buy it would be a gold dealer.

Obviously if you have an IOU then that's a different matter but real gold believers shouldn't be touching that anyway.

The gist I'm getting from the OP's people is that they'll be the very first to sell in a panic and spend the rest of their life cursing BTC. The idea of it being a viable route for your nice retirement funds is plain stupid.

You need to go into it with your eyes and your legs wide open. Anything could happen. They sound like the type of person who shouldn't be putting any more than 1-5% of their originally planned amount in. Even then that might break their spirit.

People get awfully funny about money and us lot are so far gone we're the worst to ask about Bitcoin's prospects.

I didn't read anything pro or anti bitcoin there.

It's the reaction to Libra that's the telling one. That's something that could instantly slot in to hundreds of millions of lives with little friction. That caused near universal panic from this class of person.