People have been expressing skepticism about Bakkt ever since the launch was delayed a while back. I take this as a sign that CFTC approval is likely and perhaps even imminent. That looks like a lot of interest from VC firms.

Nope, blocks will just stop being produced and transactions will stop being confirmed. It will be inactive but it'll still exist. At any time, a miner can start hashing again and the blockchain will pick up where it left off.

I've seen this happen before with altcoins. Years ago, I had to start mining an altcoin just to get a transaction confirmed because the chain was dead and I was trying to send coins to an exchange.

People had unrealistic expectations about "cheap/free and instant transactions." I really wish that narrative -- spread by companies like Blockchain and Coinbase -- had never caught on. It was never part of the design. Low fees just implies low transaction demand.

It's not that the store-of-value aspect is all that matters. It's that perpetually increasing block size drives fee revenues down, which threatens the mining incentive as the block reward gets lower and lower. That's a threat to the entire security model of Bitcoin.

LN isn't perfect but it's the best candidate we have to get the best of both worlds -- scalability and cheap/instant transactions.

It's upsetting, but unfortunately we should expect it from a rational point of view. Casual users are less likely to have strong security protocols and more likely to fall for social engineering attacks like this. For most people, malware has never carried great consequences -- Bitcoin is changing that in a big way. Finding a balance between user-friendliness and security is really hard.

The normal price to withdraw fiat from Bitfinex is only 0.1%, which isn't bad at all. If you can actually manage to receive bank wires from Bitfinex and you don't need more than $1 million per month, selling there is actually profitable because of the higher prices.

Just remember the OP's experience: If you redeem USDT at Bitfinex and can't withdraw via bank wire, you'll have to swap back to USDT or buy BTC or other coins to get out. That probably means you'll lose money because Bitfinex prices are usually higher than the rest of the market.

If USDT is trading at a premium to Bitfinex, you might consider just withdrawing through Tether. If you can't receive a wire from them, at least you'll get your USDT back.

People put too much emphasis on commitment/settlement/funding transactions. The point is that you can make one on-chain transaction that enables you to make many LN transactions. That's what scalability is about -- improving throughput capacity without sacrificing performance. It's not perfect and it doesn't allow endless transactions at no cost. Decentralized systems that don't require trust cannot possibly offer that.

One way LN can be leveraged cheaply is for merchants to automatically open LN channels with customers who send Bitcoin transactions from LN-compatible wallets. Thereafter, the customer can use cheap and instant LN transactions. And since the merchant is likely to have channel liquidity with major hubs, the customer can then use that channel to pay wherever LN is accepted.

I think that's the case too. It's extremely popular. Years ago, it was estimated to account for 10% of the world's Bitcoin transactions, and its visibility has only grown over time. Countless altcoins have forked Electrum too, signifying its popularity. It's the best lightweight wallet on the market so it has a large contingent of casual and newbie users -- who have big targets on their back.

It's not surprising. Exchanges are using stablecoins to offload AML/KYC responsibilities on stablecoin issuers. I always assumed the second generation of stablecoins (USDC, PAX, GUSD) would be far more compliance-minded than Tether. I like the idea of secondary markets for fiat-backed tokens but it sounds like a regulatory nightmare. If you're doing it to avoid KYC, it's probably going to backfire at some point when you get your funds frozen.

There's not enough info here for me to immediately side with the affected traders though. Regarding the first report: Depositing to Binance and then immediately withdrawing the full amount to Paxos for redemption? What legitimate reason is there for that? And on the second report, they affirmatively state the customer misrepresented to Huobi the ownership of funds, so it seems there's more to the story than Paxos merely closing his account for nothing.

We never get the whole story from these reports.

Because they're not objective observers. The Kleiman family aren't like journalists reporting on this in The Times. Their lawyers are putting forward an argument trying to persuade the court. It's obviously based on fabrications and they (and their lawyers) may not realize it, for the same reason that many people believe(d) Craig Wright = Satoshi.

That's a pretty powerful statement recognizing Bitcoin's importance as a non-sovereign currency. If Bitcoin were to become a significant unit of account in global banking and commerce, that could take a great deal of influence away from actors like the US who exercise monetary hegemony over the developing world, in addition to corrupt local rulers. Today, the idea of "banking the unbanked" isn't too realistic because the network is still quite small. But in the mass adoption scenario, it could be really transformative. Entire countries who are cut off from the banking system could have a reliable means for value transfer.

That doesn't address what you said.

Using your example: People who bought Litecoin at $1 in January 2015 are up 3400%. You said "Bitcoin is the only crypto with real value" so I still don't understand, what does "real value" mean? Why does Bitcoin have real value, but altcoins cannot?


They have a symbiotic relationship. Altcoin markets suck bitcoins away from the fiat market, diminishing available supply and therefore encouraging higher Bitcoin prices. Altcoins also act as test beds for features that could eventually be ported to Bitcoin. For example, I think altcoins implementing Segwit facilitated implementing it in Bitcoin because they proved how safe it was at a time when Segwit was considered controversial.


These don't compare to mandatory private transactions at the protocol level like Monero. Enforcing privacy at the protocol level would require a hard fork and would deteriorate Bitcoin's public and transparent ledger. That's extremely controversial and will therefore never happen without a network split.


That doesn't prove anything about the future at all! Bitcoin is currently the most secure and reliable cryptocurrency. It's also the most scalable relative to its security. That doesn't mean that better technology won't emerge in the future.


Your opinion holds no weight either, by that logic. I was merely trying to engage in discourse. Why are you so butthurt? Stay out of Bitcoin Discussion and go to the mailing lists if you only want to engage with Bitcoin developers specifically.

In the 1990s, the internet was barely used. Like you said, in its infancy. So, people make the comparison to convey the idea that Bitcoin is in its infancy but will eventually become ubiquitous and part of our everyday lives -- just like the internet is today. They mean that Bitcoin will go from obscure to ubiquitous in a relatively short period of time (decades).

I don't think we need a "killer app" -- sound money is reason enough for mass adoption. We just need time to run its course.

Regardless of this incident, that's always been a possibility. It's one of the reasons Electrum has poor privacy. It's similar to the US government running loads of Tor exit nodes. The more malicious nodes that exist, the more likely you are to connect to them.

There's only one other way to use Electrum. If you don't want to randomly connect to servers, you have to run your own full node and then run an Electrum server on top of it.

Good on them for realizing it. Cryptocurrency is here to stay and it's high time that governments plan for it.

Governments who take the authoritarian route and ban cryptocurrencies outright will pay dearly for it -- not today or tomorrow, but years in the future. Capital (both monetary and human) will flow towards crypto-friendly jurisdictions. Brain drain will continue to occur in backwards countries who are intent on fighting innovation and financial progress.

What is "real value?" So much of Bitcoin's value is tied to speculation about future usage. It would be silly to say today's price is based on current network value. The same applies to altcoins.

Just because Bitcoin is the best cryptocurrency doesn't mean it's the only valuable one. Bitcoin can't and won't integrate most features (including private/confidential transactions) for political reasons. It will never use alternative consensus or scaling mechanisms (like proof-of-___ or sharding). I think it's naive to assume that no use cases or superior technological approaches will ever emerge from altcoins.

You wouldn't use a PC-based wallet -- what does that mean? The reference client is a PC-based wallet. Are you saying you'd only use a hardware wallet, or a paper wallet (generated on offline PC)?

The most important distinction to make is where your private keys are held -- online or offline. I figure any online desktop wallet is a target for theft, but I don't particularly like hardware wallets either. They have fairly large and untested attack surfaces, multiple theoretical attack vectors, centralized firmware updates, etc. Major vulnerabilities have been found (and quickly patched) as well, just like Electrum.

Electrum can be used such that private keys are kept offline on an airgapped device. That's why I use it. It's also got great UI, is lightweight, Segwit-compatible and can be used in conjunction with your own full node. Lots of selling points!

I know Morgan Stanley said they were waiting for more interest from clients before launching their own Bitcoin products, but as of a couple months ago they were loosely planning to offer futures-based swaps. In the meantime, they are clearing Bitcoin futures for clients, same as Goldman Sachs. I figure Goldman is in the same position. They want to see more interest and liquidity in the regulated markets.


I think there's something to be said for the distinction between derivatives/securities and spot cryptocurrency. It's hard to imagine institutional clients lining up to trade at Poloniex. Some will go through the trouble of OTC brokers and figuring out storage or custody, but many won't bother until they can buy through their regular broker-dealers.

I think they had plans to turn Poloniex into a licensed broker-dealer, but I wonder if the SEC crackdown on security tokens put a damper on things.

I'm pretty sure it's based on Craig Wright's previous claims. He claimed to control several addresses (some or all of which were proven to be tied to entities like Mt Gox) and he used them in back-dated contracts that purported to show that Kleiman transferred ownership of coins to Wright. I'm not sure why he did that, but he apparently did.

This early in a civil case, I think that's good enough to move forward. I think it would fall apart at trial, though.

There's a few harsh lessons to unpack here.

When downloading a new wallet release, make sure you're on the genuine site. In this case, it was a fake Github repository. The official Github wasn't compromised, nor was electrum.org.

Next, always verify the release signature. This is how to do that for Electrum. I would also recommend using Electrum as an offline wallet for additional security.

Jihan Wu was a contender in 2017 with the original Bitcoin Cash split, but he's been pretty quiet this year, especially recently with Bitmain's financial woes.

It's a tougher choice between Craig and Roger but I choose Craig. He's just so over-the-top, a true megalomaniac. Roger is so predictable that I hardly notice him anymore.