I'm not familiar with this term. Could you clarify what you mean? Did you buy the bitcoins, and if so, how did you pay for them?


If you paid for bitcoins and didn't verify whether they were sent to a wallet you control, there is a chance you were scammed. Receiving seeds or private keys this way is considered insecure, since the person who gave them to you still has access to the bitcoins.

If the mnemonic seed you received truly contains bitcoins, you can access them by importing the seed into a Bitcoin wallet like Electrum. Only download from electrum.org, and verify the GPG release signature to make sure you're not downloading coin-stealing malware.

If you're having trouble importing the seed, see the FAQ.

The OP will certainly need to use a non-custodial service. Few, if any, regulated payment processors will knowingly transmit money for businesses with proximity to sex trafficking allegations.

As I mentioned above, there are some non-custodial WooCommerce plugins that would fit the OP's needs. He can have TripleA's plugin set up in minutes, so there is no need to overhaul his entire e-commerce setup with BTCPay Server.

Where are you located? What are your payment options? That will greatly impact the answers you'll get.

If you can pay with credit/debit card or ApplePay, you can buy through AQUA wallet. If you use BRD wallet, those options expand to include bank transfers.

You can also use Coin ATM Radar to find a Bitcoin ATM near you, where you can pay with cash.

The best reviewed and most frequently updated plugin I can find is TripleA's Bitcoin Payment Gateway for WooCommerce. It's easy to set up, non-custodial, with no registration or logins required. They also offer the option for bank settlement in your local currency for a 0.8% fee.

They are Bitcoin-only, so you'll need to choose another plugin like GoUrl if you'd like to accept altcoins.

Coinbase Commerce also has a WooCommerce-compatible plugin but it hasn't been updated in a long time.

There is no way to lend bitcoins in a fully trustless or decentralized way.

Wrapped bitcoins carry custodial risk -- WBTC is backed by bitcoins held in BitGo's custody. The yields for WBTC lending are quite low too, much lower than BTC lending rates on BlockFi or Nexo.

My theory is that the rate of bitcoins lost is inversely related to the price. As they've become increasingly valuable, security has become of the utmost importance. Hardware wallets are the norm for new users. Institutions only want to work with qualified custodians with battled-tested cold storage.

I also think we are entering an era where bequeathing bitcoins will become commonplace, both through trusted legal channels and privately.


It's still a donation to the rest of us in an economic sense. In terms of network effect, I would anticipate a much larger network in the future regardless -- it doesn't matter the number of coins that are lost.

Future adopters just won't own as many bitcoins as early adopters. That much is already obvious.

A pre-mine refers to initial creators allocating themselves tokens before public launch -- before a protocol can be publicly mined. That clearly does not apply to Bitcoin.

Anyone who wants to mine for bitcoins can do so. In fact, they can continue to do so after the year 2140. They'll just collect transaction fees only instead of newly minted coins.


They will get the reward of sound money.

P2P exchanges have become subject to regulation too. LocalBitcoins began requiring KYC verification in 2018, and Paxful followed suit a year later. LocalCryptos is holding out, but being based in Australia, I'm not sure how long that will last.

You can check KYC, not me! for a running list of exchanges you can use without KYC.

The potential intersection I see: Bitcoin exchanges. The vast majority of exchanges support various altcoins and tokens -- that could potentially put them under SEC jurisdiction regardless of Bitcoin's categorization under the law.

My suspicion is that's what Gensler was referring to when he suggested bringing exchanges under national registration and monitoring. He wants them subjected to the Securities Exchange Act and defined as national securities exchanges.

I didn't realize Bitcoincore.org removed it -- that was fast. It's rather sad to see Core developers immediately giving in to this sort of bullying.

I understand the practical argument that the whitepaper doesn't need to be hosted there, and that a legal case would just be a financial burden and distraction for the Core developers. Still, it's sad to see and it does give Wright a way to declare victory.

Wright is going after Square now, which probably isn't very smart. Unlike Core, Jack Dorsey might be willing to litigate.

This has nothing to do with the Bitcoin community.

He is making a point to BSV community -- that's his audience. Every one of these public maneuvers is intended to trick them into buying more BSV. There is no other explanation that makes sense.

Anyone possessing just a handful of brain cells can see there is no legal case to be made on this issue.

Indeed, nothing is official at this point. A preliminary agreement has been reached among some of the largest stakeholders, that's all.

Whether and how many creditors agree to the early repayment scheme, and then how many of those creditors turn around and sell their bitcoins -- we have no idea. I'm no fortune teller.

Even if repayment happens relatively soon, we should probably assume a significant portion of creditors are long term Bitcoin believers who don't intend to sell.

The Fed can't because they only regulate the banking system. Bitcoin obviously operates outside of it.

The Treasury Department -- which Yellen is about to oversee -- has more relevance. They can bring Bitcoin within the purview of existing MSB regulation. They can mandate strict reporting requirements for Bitcoin businesses so that spending or selling your bitcoins comes with onerous AML/KYC. They can work closely with the IRS to leverage new AML/KYC requirements into a tax enforcement and compliance program.

Or take an alternative approach: Don't deposit funds that you aren't prepared to lose in the case of KYC enforcement. I'm too concerned about my privacy to ever verify at exchanges. Whenever I use an (unverified) exchange account, I view it as a calculated risk.

Fair points, but it's worth pointing out that Liquid's security guarantees are significantly stronger than a traditional custodial service.

One of the problems I see is that Liquid is not really bootstrapped yet. The final goal is an actual peer-to-peer network built on top of Bitcoin that people use, P2P. Today, there is a lack of network liquidity -- there is little you can do with L-BTC -- so there is a focus on the need to peg out. In the future as network effect grows -- reinforcing the ability to convert to other currencies via P2P markets or secondary services who interface with federation signers -- this will in theory become less and less important.

My recollection is that CoinLab is the single biggest obstacle to the civil rehabilitation process. They filed a $16 billion claim on the trust's assets, which was obviously disputed by other stakeholders. They've now finally reached an agreement with the trustee to set aside 10% of the remaining bitcoins to settle the ongoing lawsuits, which opens the door for the other 90% to be released to creditors.

In that sense, yes, this is very big breakthrough for creditors, and it's likely they'll get paid before the CoinLab suit is settled.

Creditors still need to approve the plan, and even once they have, I wouldn't be surprised if there are more logistical delays given the scale and legal red tape involved.


According to this article from last month, approximately 150,000, although I don't think the exact amount is publicly known.

Michael Saylor has his eyes on all that cash Tesla is sitting on. Their $14.5 billion cash position makes MicroStrategy's investment look like child's play.

I wonder how that interview would play out. Elon's comments on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are often flippant, even snarky -- I'm not sure what he really thinks.

This is what users see in the Aqua app when they navigate to the L-BTC wallet:



I suppose that at least conveys that L-BTC is not the same as real bitcoin.


One reason to buy L-BTC instead: You can transfer it faster and more cheaply, assuming you're sending to compatible services. If someone is just buying coins to send to an exchange, then BTC might be slow and costly by comparison.

But yes, I think they are obviously intent on driving Liquid adoption with this UI.


Side by side, two different assets with two different ticker symbols -- it doesn't occur to me as deceptive. It's nothing like what Bitcoin.com was doing.

Has anyone come across reports of this happening in the US -- or for that matter, anywhere outside of Europe or European IP ranges? I've seen a couple more posts like this. All signs that I've seen so far still point to an EU-specific policy.

I would test it myself, except I really don't want to sell any bitcoins right now.

I have an Australian friend who tells me that your centralized options are basically zilch.

He recommended AgoraDesk, which does not mandate KYC -- although they do reserve the right to demand it at their discretion. There is also LocalCryptos, but they are based in Australia and will require you to declare your Australian residency for tax purposes.

https://kycnot.me/ is a good resource to check for other services you could use.

If you go the P2P route, I strongly recommend using escrow and paying attention to user feedback.