He's a snake oil salesman.

Have you even looked at that platform? It looks like it was coded by complete novices.

More importantly, "McAfee Magic" is not actually an exchange. It's just an interface that integrates APIs from other exchanges. You still need to have accounts at these exchanges -- and you need to complete their KYC processes.

Power generators always generate much more electricity than actual demand requires to maintain grid reliability and prevent blackouts. They sell that excess electricity cheap -- as long as doing so nets more than the costs to store the electricity. Since Bitcoin miners are incentivized to find the cheapest possible energy, it's a match made in heaven.

If some combination of large scale load balancing and renewable/green energy sources could be used to secure trustless money, that would be pretty great.

I don't think so. The authors of both the Cointelegraph article and the Finance Magnates article it's sourced from seem confused. This is all that was reported on Finance Magnates:


I could be wrong, but it doesn't look there's any real connection to the 2016 Bitfinex hack. These guys just hacked a bunch of Bitfinex accounts and emptied them out. The author of the Finance Magnates article misspoke and said it was the 2016 Bitfinex hack. Cointelegraph -- being the trash that it is -- repeated it without fact checking.

Why so? Most people already use bank accounts. Why does it matter if some of those people take some of that value and hold Libra instead of dollars or euros?


Libra users will have a centralized currency backed by quickly devaluing fiat currencies. Why would that replace Bitcoin?

Those platforms are free. Bitcoin has financial barriers to entry -- that should be expected to hamper its adoption by orders of magnitude vs. free platforms. Those platforms also didn't exactly need to bootstrap a network from scratch like Bitcoin. They were built on exponentially growing technology trends (smartphone and social media adoption) that tapped into already existing gamers and social media users.


The adoption rate of any given technology only goes vertical one time. It hasn't happened yet for Bitcoin, but looking at the ongoing trend and changing popular attitudes over the past ten years, I'd say we're approaching that point.

I'm not sure. There seems to be an implication that service providers will share information so they can identify specific persons by analyzing both sides of a transaction chain. I guess this isn't so different from Coinbase analyzing customer withdrawals multiple transactions out to identify gambling service transactions and terminate customer accounts accordingly.

This is what Bittrex and Kraken had to say:



Apparently the FATF guidelines mention mixing services:


I know Gemini has prohibited the use of mixers in its terms of service for some time. We might see codification of laws intended to require these sorts of practices. Whether mixers would be outright banned is another matter.

P2SH transactions won't necessarily save you money on fees. P2SH ≠ Segwit. P2SH is just a type of output comprising a hashed script. Many types of transactions use it, including multi-signature transactions which are much, much larger than standard or native Segwit transactions.


While Segwit adoption can mitigate some fee pressure (by removing witness data from legacy blocks), we shouldn't overstate its effects on the fee market. It still only represents a small linear increase in overall block size.

There's no economic incentive, but it's the only way to fully validate a proof-of-work blockchain. Using an SPV wallet implies trust, and leaves one vulnerable to attacks that can't be mounted against full node operators.

Once you've validated the entire blockchain, you can save space by pruning.

Extradition pertains to criminal prosecution. Nobody is getting extradited over ignoring a court summons in a civil case in the state of Florida.


He's either ignoring his lawyers or getting advice from lawyers who should be disbarred from practice.


We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, this extradition talk is complete nonsense.

On second thought, the FATF is probably not as effective as I originally assumed. According to this 2017 report, most monitored countries have only instituted basic AML regulations like making money laundering a crime and requiring banks to report suspicious transactions. Most of their recommendations go unenforced:


This sort of noncompliance may be relevant in the case of Bitcoin exchanges and brokers that don't currently require KYC:


I still expect the guidelines to further reinforce a two-tiered system of compliant and non-compliant exchanges. Services like Coinbase and Gemini will no doubt be attempting to comply with them.

If only it were that simple. OTC brokers and P2P exchange operators will probably be affected by these laws.

The DEX of today are all centralized in some fashion -- servers, domain, etc. They will fall in line for the same reason IDEX mandated KYC and Binance DEX is IP-blocking traders by country. Truly peer-to-peer options are few and far between.

Not all mixers are equal. Simple tumbling methods were broken a long time ago, yes. A researcher recently shared their work on de-anonymizing mixing services here on the forum. It's worth reading. The crux of it:


Of note, however, is the fact that he was unable to use these methods to break Chipmixer, whose tumbling methods can't be broken by timing attacks. I'm curious whether Ciphertrace could.

The current generation of DEX are still highly trust-based and dependent on centralized infrastructure. Order books and atomic order matching use centralized servers. The centralized DNS is often integral. With platforms like Binance DEX and CryptoBridge, you are trading proxy assets while you trust someone else to hold your real assets.

What we need is truly decentralized ways of trading. We need much faster ways to relay order book and order matching information P2P. We need decentralized internet like P2P mesh networking, decentralized domain registration, atomic swaps that are usable for traders in real time. This won't happen overnight.

I wouldn't choose your investments based on what's "cheap" and what's "expensive." There is a huge graveyard of dead altcoins and tokens which were once "cheap" and are now simply worth nothing. Some altcoins will have larger % gains than Bitcoin; others will simply die. Keep that in mind when gambling on altcoins.


Binance is still okay for US residents until September 12. Then they are officially kicking us out and launching a US platform. Presumably the US platform will lack access to many of the coins currently trading on Binance.

Who, in particular? I know Kraken and some others were discussing the formation of some global parallel information sharing system for exchanges. I imagine they'll be iterating to the FATF how burdensome these rules are, and that it'll take many months or even years for exchanges to implement an effective and compliant system.

Over that period of time, hopefully decentralized trading solutions drastically improve. To me, the writing is on the wall. The Wild West days of centralized Bitcoin exchanges are coming to an end.


I was under the impression that the FATF and OECD blacklists were pretty effective in forcing countries into compliance. Is that not the case?

It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for a bench warrant to be issued. That would authorize the police to arrest him, but I'm guessing there's no chance of extradition.

Basically, Wright would need to avoid stepping foot in the United States.

Here's a couple options that can stave off that paranoia:

1) Keep your private keys offline. Electrum makes it very easy to sign transactions offline, so you can transact using a watching-only wallet on your online computer without compromising your private keys.

2) Security through isolation. Don't browse the internet, download torrents, open email attachments, etc. on the same machine where you hold private keys or log into exchange accounts. Have a PC that only uses a very limited number of "safe" applications and bookmarked websites.

Cold storage is the best option, but at the very least, you shouldn't be using Bitcoin alongside other reckless and insecure daily activities.

Are you sure there is no tax? I get the feeling some people are assuming taxes aren't due simply because there are no cryptocurrency-specific regulations in their country. However, in many countries, realizing capital gains on property sold is already covered by the tax code.

If you haven't researched the law or talked to a tax advisor, I wouldn't just assume you never need to pay taxes.

...which are not banks. Visa, Mastercard and similar payment processors will be happy to implement Libra into their POS products and take a cut from merchants like they do today.

Banks, on the other hand, only stand to lose if people start holding funds in Libra/Calibra instead of bank accounts because it's cheaper to remit internationally. Just like banks created Zelle to compete with Venmo, they'll create a new, cheaper and faster system to replace SWIFT and begin competing with products like Libra.

This is a lot more burdensome than you think, and could change the entire landscape we've been operating under for nearly a decade. $1,000 is the equivalent of 0.1 BTC at this moment.

These regulations extend to all businesses, so you could be forced to complete KYC and sender/receiver disclosures just to buy goods and services. If you want to do a little gambling, tumble your coins, swap between cryptocurrencies, the same could apply. The freedoms we currently enjoy could be massively undercut if these guidelines become widely enforced.