I'm not a fan of specialized devices like these. They basically announce you own bitcoins. I only use generalized hardware because of supply-chain attacks -- and for discretion.

Keep in mind, these kinds of specialized hardwares (like hardware wallets) generally involve closed-source code and centrally-updated firmware. That's a security hole. The physical switch sounds like a novel way to imitate an air-gap, but it's not what I would consider cold storage.

Not a fan of Foxconn, either....

Unless this is not really about tax revenues. Maybe it's about deterring cryptocurrency-related activities entirely. By making it virtually impossible to comply, they are effectively banning the activity.

The Polish central bank (in cooperation with the state FSA) has admitted to funding multiple anti-cryptocurrency campaigns on social media to deter Poles from getting involved. I don't think it's a coincidence that Poland has now instituted the most oppressive cryptocurrency tax regime in the world.

If I had to choose one, I would choose Bitcoin Core. It's the reference client, is the most actively developed wallet and has the strongest development team. It doesn't have the prettiest GUI. But it's a reliable full node that syncs fast, has good fee estimation and has better privacy than lightweight clients.

If you need a lightweight client (low storage, fast syncing) then I'd go with Electrum. And in general, avoid web wallets. Like BTCforJoe said, you can compare wallets on bitcoin.org -- they rate them on various aspects. If it's recommended on bitcoin.org, it should be safe to use.

You're describing an exit scam. Many wallets and exchanges have exit scammed. This is why you should never use exchanges as wallets, or use hosted/web wallets. The old saying goes, "If you don't control the private keys, you don't own the bitcoins."

Coinbase is probably the least likely to cut and run. They're really transparent and hold licenses where they operate. But they could always get hacked or otherwise compromised and lose customer funds that way. If that happens -- worst comes to worst -- they declare bankruptcy and leave things to the courts.


USD in their custody is FDIC-insured. Maybe other fiat money is insured, too. But cryptocurrency definitely isn't.

There are some privacy and tax benefits. But they are not really anonymous, so it's better not to think of them that way.

If you need a bank account at any point, you'll need an FEIN. Banks also do KYC. Lines of credit and such require personal information. Even if you don't need banking, executing contracts on behalf of the LLC requires an officer or similar to sign and identify themselves. Beyond all that, your registered agent is always a link back to you. There's no way around that if the court system ever gets involved.


I can't comment on the smart contract aspect, but there are definitely tax benefits when it comes to trading, assuming you structure things correctly. If you're putting a lot of money and volume in, it's something to consider and discuss with a tax professional.


Wyoming law doesn't override federal securities law, so be careful.

That depends who you talk to. Most tax experts (including my attorney) agree that like-kind exchanges were never applicable to cryptocurrency. The new law made like-kind exchanges even more restrictive, but that doesn't mean they ever applied here in the first place.


I suspect that's what the Coinbase case was all about. We're probably going to hear about some audits and penalties emerging from that.

The logic works like this. Each time you sell your BTC (for altcoins) or vice versa, you are realizing the gain/loss from your previous cost basis and reinvesting the capital into new investments. As far as tax basis, you're basically selling to fiat each time you trade because you are liquidating to realize the USD purchasing power and reinvest it.

There are rare exceptions (such as like-kind exchanges) where this logic doesn't apply. But like-kind exchanges don't apply to cryptocurrency.


Using a cryptocurrency to pay taxes means selling at the current price, since the liability is tied to USD. They ostensibly only care about USD, so why would they accept anything else?

Anyway, you should always trade or invest with a tax plan. If you never trade or sell (just hold), you don't have any tax liability yet. If you're a trader, then you could have sold to cover taxes in December or January, if not earlier. In fact, it's much more responsible to periodically withdraw USD to cover tax liabilities instead of waiting until Tax Day. Because let's say an exchange gets shut down or your account gets hacked and you lose lots of your profits. As far as the IRS is concerned, you're still on the hook.

But how do they determine who has reported "bitcoin gains?" Did they just search Form 8949s for the word "bitcoin" or do they include tickers like BTC and XBT, or other terms like "digital currency" and "cryptocurrency?" I've been advised before to avoid mentioning Bitcoin specifically on my returns. There is no specific guidance and the IRS really only cares about your tax liability, not property descriptions. It's possible that some people are reporting the income without specifying "Bitcoin" on the 8949.

I'm also not sure what the numbers should be. For comparison, 802 Coinbase customers filed a bitcoin-related Form 8949 in 2015, per the IRS. The IRS expects more than 155 million returns to be filed this year vs. Credit Karma's 500,000.


That's probably true, too. We have until the 17th to file. I haven't sent mine in yet.....

There's certainly something to be said for that. I like people who are forthright.

But this is a pseudonymous forum. And more than that, I think the founders and current admins place some value on user privacy. I don't think it necessarily indicates deceit to use an undisclosed alt account, and where it does, it's not necessarily meaningful.

Engaging in fraud under that pretense is another matter entirely. But frauds don't announce their alts, so it's a moot point.

Stop focusing on ranking up. If you come off like you are begging for merits and complaining about the ranking system, you won't garner much sympathy from older members. Focus on learning about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency and become an active member of the community and/or marketplace. Just be genuine and put some real thought into your posts. Merit will come in time, but you shouldn't expect it to happen overnight.


Basically, this.

Merit isn't just about posting quality content and being thoughtful. You have to gauge community sentiment and stop being on the wrong side of it. Everyone is sick of these threads, so: stop making them, stop complaining, and put your efforts elsewhere.

I like meriting newbies who genuinely add to the conversation or ask thoughtful questions, but it's a rarity.

That's an interesting method. The problem is that everyone needs to coordinate -- and you need to trust that each participant doesn't lose their piece of the private keys.

In that sort of situation, you also want to clearly spell out (e.g. in the will) what is supposed to happen, so everyone has extra incentive to act honorably during/after the private keys are retrieved.

On some level, this stuff always boils down to trust. Do you trust your spouse or attorney not to steal your keys? Do you trust the participants in a Shamir's Secret Sharing scheme not to coordinate to steal your money? You need to weigh those risks against the idea of your coins being completely lost when you die.

You can use gift card malls like Gyft or eGifter:

https://www.gyft.com/buy-gift-cards/
https://www.egifter.com/giftcards/

They both have over 200 retailers to choose from. There are no additional fees beyond the miner's fee to send your transaction and Bitpay's "network fee" which is pretty negligible.

Gyft only accepts payment in traditional methods (credit card, Paypal) and BTC. eGifter also accepts LTC, ETH, and BCH in addition to BTC.

What they're doing is pretty reprehensible, but it's probably not actually a big deal. It's mostly just riding the coattails of the ransomware craze and duping dumb people. If you're info is already on Have I Been Pwned, then it should be considered completely compromised. It's all data from past breaches, a lot of which goes back many years.

This will hurt some people who are very sloppy about their security, but those same people will compromise themselves in various other ways anyway. Fortunately for them, a lot of services like banks, Amazon, etc. are now monitoring for customer information involved in these data breaches and prompting customers to update passwords.

They are apparently Russian and their domain registration is private. There's already been multiple scam accusations against them over the years. They haven't logged onto the forum since August 21, 2017 and their account already has negative trust: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=390399

I looked through a couple of the scam accusation threads. It doesn't look like anyone had much luck recovering funds. I would chock this up to inexperience and write it off as a loss. Next time, do some research before depositing to a casino.

So, under some conditions, your funds can be unlocked on the Bitcoin blockchain. This is not so unlike pegged sidechain tokens unlocking BTC. Maybe there's an extra step involved there, but my point is you're using non-BTC tokens on a different protocol with different consensus rules.

Just being technical.




None of this should matter. But if people are calling sidechains "Layer 2" and assuming that means "part of Bitcoin" then maybe the distinctions are worth making.

Can you point out where this exception is specified? Is there any mention of structuring regarding the 50 PLN threshold? That amounts to ~$15. Does that mean you can trade in high volume lots of that size without triggering liability?


Depressing. This goes far beyond any personal income tax requirements I've ever seen. It seems like the government wants to deter traders outright, rather than collect taxes.

It's all semantics. It's not inaccurate to refer to tokens used on LN as altcoins. If we're being technical, obviously LN hash preimages =/= bitcoins. Rather, they are substitutes for bitcoins. In a literal sense, that's what altcoins are -- alternatives for bitcoins. You can close a channel and push a transaction to the blockchain, but within channels, the "currency" being transacted is not BTC. They are hash preimages.


A sidechain with distinct consensus rules and native tokens is very obviously an altcoin. You can make a blockchain interoperable with Bitcoin. That doesn't make it Bitcoin.

Thanks. I didn't bother asking Bitpay because anytime I email them, they respond with a bunch of useless boilerplates and never address the question.

I know they are looking for a payment in the mempool to move the invoice to a "processing" state, which stops the 15-min timer. But I had actually assumed the opposite -- that this event linked the invoice to the specific transaction hash. I figured maybe their API isn't set up to recognize a different hash outside the 15-min window. I might try it with a little $10 purchase later just to see what happens.

Has anyone ever tried bumping their fee with RBF after paying a Bitpay invoice?

I imagine the transaction would be confirmed with a different hash than the one I paid the invoice with, so it might be a problem. I'm wondering for future reference because I just got caught in a lull with no blocks found for 30 minutes. I'm probably going to be delayed a few more blocks because of it. I just had to cheap out on fees, didn't I?

I suspect there is not much organic opposition. And I'm not seeing much interest in this ANN thread. Bitmain has an interest in pointing some ASICs at it; they could even be behind the whole effort. They don't want people to keep bricking their ASICs, though I'm sure they've already covered overheads by mining with X3s and then selling them. I guess anyone who bought an X3 and doesn't want to mine BCN or AEON has this now.


Did Siacoin ever fork to brick Bitmain A3 miners? How did that work out?