If you're referring to Bitcoin, as long as one full node exists, Bitcoin will continue to exist. I sure hope it doesn't come to that.  Technically, Bitcoin would still exist even if there were no nodes. POW blockchains can't be destroyed. Even if Bitcoin went completely abandoned for years, a node could come back online and begin mining the next block at any time. I remember doing that years ago with a dead altcoin. I had to mine the chain myself just to confirm my own transaction. |
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How do you calculate the inflation rate of bitcoin. It is a currency with limited supply and the the supply will decrease at certain interval. How can the inflation is even 3.6%? It is a deflationary currency! Can you please elaborate? The circulating supply is increasing as we speak due to the mining subsidy. Miners are creating about 1,800 bitcoins per day. Deflationary? I don't think so. The argument that Bitcoin is deflationary only applies once users are losing bitcoins at a faster rate than inflation. You'd be hard pressed to find evidence that 3.6% of bitcoins are being lost annually. |
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That's the amount of mined ETH. The circulating supply is much higher.
Does anyone know an easy way to identify how much ETH is still untouched from the genesis block transactions?
In my opinion, it doesn't matter how much ETH have not been moved yet. Even untouched Ethereums should be considered circulating unless they are owned by developers. Assume that someone has bought 100,000 ETH in pre-sale and is still holding them. Those 100,000 ETH are part of real circulating supply. I completely agree, it's all part of the circulating supply. It's just a curiosity to me, sort of like watching untouched Bitcoin block rewards from 2009. Just like Satoshi's coins, huge lots of pre-sale ETH could still hit the market at any time, even as people speculate that they are lost. |
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Not to hijack this thread but is there a place / thread that shows what exchanges require what KYC for what limits?
Might be nice for a sticky thread so we just have to point to it.
-Dave
Raja_MBZ maintains this thread. It's not comprehensive but it lists most of the major exchanges and it has a column for KYC requirements. |
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Does anyone have any idea where they operate from, or where they hold any sort of legal registration?
Even the shady Seychelles exchanges can usually produce a registration number with a regulatory body. Binance seems to think they can dodge any and all regulatory oversight by spreading their infrastructure and personnel across multiple borders. That's an interesting position, legally.
Does the exchange user need to know the location of this exchange? Why does this information matter? I'm fine with the idea of anonymous exchanges who also offer anonymity to their clients. Binance went further. They basically lied to the entire cryptocurrency community for years by presenting themselves as a Malta-based, EU-based exchange. That made their customers feel safe. It was a massive boost for their reputability and popularity. If they were honest from the start that they were organized in the Cayman Islands -- which was just added to the EU's tax havens blacklist -- or that they wanted to maintain anonymity, they probably wouldn't be nearly as popular as they are today. |
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Flaws in 4G and 5G aside, for all the really bad news concerning sim-swaps that's been spreading since forever, SMS 2FA is a very bad idea to start with. Yes, this vulnerability only affects a means of 2FA that was already vulnerable. Everybody should have stopped using SMS for 2FA years ago. will the risk of losing crypto from this kind of attack be lessened using Google 2FA instead of SMS 2FA?
Yes, because the SMS message itself is what's going to be potentially be stolen afaik. Google 2FA codes can't be stolen unless you're device itself is infected(and rooted). TOTP codes from Google Authenticator can't be stolen this way. However, it's worth noting that Google does offer 2FA via SMS or phone call. We should probably specify TOTP (Authenticator) or U2F (YubiKey) when making recommendations, just to be safe. |
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Long ago the IRS requested to Coinbase to send available information about US citizens, for tax purposes and other stuff. Coinbase was able to refuse but seeing how big it becomes with the time passing, perhaps in the near future, it won't be able to refuse and will have to obey. They weren't able to refuse completely. They fought the IRS in a year long court battle. In the end, they handed the IRS data on over 14,000 traders: A California federal court has ordered Coinbase to turn over identifying records for all users who have bought, sold, sent, or received more than $20,000 through their accounts in a single year between 2013 and 2015. Coinbase estimates that 14,355 users meet the government’s requirements. The full order is embedded below. Now, if you surpass $20,000 and 200 transactions in annual volume, they send the IRS a 1099-K about you. Kraken and Gemini do the same, and others will likely follow. I interpret this almost as a direct response to the Coinbase case. |
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here is a real world example. when ETH came out it didn't start slowly giving mining reward to miners as a PoW coin does, instead it had a gigantic premine of 72 million coins. THAT value was considered ETH's circulating supply. that is WRONG because there is nothing circulating about that. It's true that 72 million ETH were created out of thin air, but they were distributed to about 9,000 accounts based on the pre-sale. They're not held by the ETH Foundation or "locked" or anything like that. Every once in a while, a pre-sale investor moves tens or hundreds of thousands of them and everyone freaks out. the REAL circulating supply is a lot less than that at 37 million which reduces its market cap by 66%
That's the amount of mined ETH. The circulating supply is much higher. Does anyone know an easy way to identify how much ETH is still untouched from the genesis block transactions? |
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Do you own any? How does it deal with change addresses? From the website it sounds like each card only stores a single private key. Does it just return unspent coins to the same address?
No, I don't own Tangem card. I think you're right, the change returns to the same address. But I can't say for sure. It must. From the FAQ, each card indeed only holds a single private key: Each Tangem Card is fixed to a certain cryptocurrency and can hold one private key at a time. I'm not a fan of the privacy implications of address reuse, but the idea of a bearer instrument that you can also spend from is pretty exciting. At $13, they are cheaper than OpenDimes (by a hair) but offer a much slicker look and better functionality. Does anyone know about the company behind them? The site has only been up for a few months. |
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I recently made a Coinbase account to do some trading and to use their services that they provide to new users to earn some small amounts of crypto.
However, in order to "verify" my account, I have to give information such a photograph of my state ID and credit card info.
I'm not one to willingly give away such personal information... is this something I should feel comfortable doing? No. Read this thread: Why KYC is extremely dangerous – and uselessCoinbase was also exposed for selling user data to third parties in a scandal last year. Unfortunately, regulators have been cracking down on exchanges, and most of them are now requiring KYC. If you want to avail yourself of centralized exchanges -- particularly reputable, fiat onramps -- it's hard to avoid. The decision to verify shouldn't be taken lightly, though, and I would minimize the number of exchanges you do so with. |
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It will be better to create a quantum resistant layer to an existing blockchain protocol to increase its security or create a quantum resistant blockchain from scratch. They are the recent approaches.
The consensus seems to be that Bitcoin should implement quantum-resistant cryptography sometime before these threats become real: Here's a relevant paper that speculates about when ECDSA will be broken: Quantum attacks on Bitcoin, and how to protect against themThe elliptic curve signature scheme used by Bitcoin is much more at risk and could be completely broken by a quantum computer as early as 2027, by the most optimistic estimates. Wasabi Wallet creator nopara73 believes 2022–23 is closer to the mark: For Bulletproofs, what matters is the Shor RSA2048 line, which is predicted to be broken in 2022–23. In fact, ECC is more vulnerable than RSA in a post-quantum world, so our discrete logarithm assumption may be broken even sooner. As you can see, we are beginning to approach the estimates at the lower bound. At the same time, those estimates are based on a boatload of assumptions that may turn out false. It may be wise to wait and see how quantum technology progresses over the next year or two before rushing any major consensus changes. |
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First of all, most altcoins are a solution in search of a problem. They come up with some idea, shoehorn blockchain in to it, launch a token, and then try to market it is as some revolutionary new development. For the most part, yes, but there are a good number of exceptions to that. I think theorizing and testing alternative means of consensus like proof-of-stake and proof-of-space are worthy causes. If we could find a less resource-intensive but equally secure process as POW, that would silence a lot of the environmental critics. It could improve decentralization of the consensus process too, given how most Bitcoin users can't realistically participate in mining. No altcoins have actually come close to solving the above dilemma, though. |
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According to what I understood from Changpeng Zhao, their headquarters were in Malta, but they did not comply with the conditions required to conduct the required license to work in Malta and consequently they lost another headquarters. It's worse than that. This is what CZ said: Binance.com is not headquartered or operated in Malta. This is old news & has always been the case... That confirms that Binance was never headquartered or operated from there. Based on this, they probably just rented and maintained an empty office in Malta and allowed the world to think they were based there. With all the strictness in the legislative laws, I do not think that they can hide a lot of information about the regulatory authorities, but the question is why do they do this despite being a central platform?
You can hide a lot in places like the Seychelles. That's why BitMEX and some of the less savory exchanges are based there. |
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Why do we assume bitcoin is better than banks for money laundering? Liquidity concerns aside, Bitcoin's pseudonymity does provide an extra layer of privacy. It's the electronic equivalent of cash. Which is more private -- bank accounts with real names and ID documents tied to them, or Bitcoin addresses? The market is too illiquid to support really high volume money laundering at present, but that won't always be the case. In addition, what's anyone going to do with a mere €1000, fucking nothing... The $1,000/€1,000 thresholds are extremely low, 5x lower than the existing suspicious activity reporting thresholds that US banks are subject to. It's upsetting. Fortunately, the Travel Rule hasn't actually been passed into law anywhere. For now, it's still nothing more than a guideline from the FATF. |
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Binance will likely seek to pursue the license if Malta found violations on their operations.
I disagree. I don't think Binance has any intention of "staying" in Malta or complying with AMLD5. The Malta headquarters story was just a facade. They don't operate trading servers there, they don't answer to Maltese regulators, nor do they pay taxes. The research posted by bullrun2020bro is informative. Binance has entities registered in tax/money laundering havens -- the Cayman Islands and the Seychelles. While they've been known to operate servers from China, Hong Kong, South Korea and elsewhere, the Caymans or Seychelles could probably be considered their legal jurisdiction since that's where their corporations are based. |
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I wanted to hear thoughts on robinhood, nerdwallet gives them a 5 star rating but I didn't find much about them on the forum. Also, they have somewhat of a randomized referral, where they provide a stock worth from around 3$ to 150$, something like gambling. How's the trading experience so far for the current users over there? The first thing to mention is that they don't allow cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals. They have 17 cryptocurrencies listed, but you're only buying exposure to the market, similar to a CFD instrument. You can't use Robinhood as a way to buy and hold real bitcoins. They're very popular in the stock trading world, especially among millennials. People like their "commission-free" model, but in reality, Robinhood is just increasing the price spread and profiting from its users that way. |
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None that I know about but there is a way around to do it I think
Since you can buy VISA physical gift cards on Amazon (and Walmart too if I'm correct?), you can buy a gift card for Amazon or Walmart (on Coinsbee, Bitrefil, etc...) and use it to order a physical GC.
Coinsbee>Amazon voucher>Visa at home You can't do this with Amazon gift cards. Presumably due to fraud, they don't allow customers to buy gift cards with gift cards: You may not:
[...]
Use a gift card to purchase certain ineligible goods and services such as collectible coins or other gift cards. It might be possible with Walmart gift cards -- I don't see the same restriction in their terms. Don't be surprised if they prohibit it, though. A lot of retailers do. Retailers like Walmart and Home Depot also have physical third party gift card stands, including Visa/Mastercard gift cards. If you sell bitcoins P2P for Paypal funds, you can buy them at the POS terminal using Paypal. Obligatory warning about Paypal and other reversible trading methods |
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Beyond true, there's literally no incentive for merchants to hop onto the crypto wave.
There's loads of incentive for them, you get your money in an hour rather than weeks or months, but there's no practical way they can translate that into an incentive for customers. The most attractive uses cases are businesses that are high-margin -- and therefore can provide customer incentives -- but who are also viewed as risky by payment processors and banks: In Jack Mallers' post, he gave the example of merchants in the cannabis industry: Those processing payments in the cannabis industry charge between 5%-15%, and are known to be unreliable and unstable. That implies that merchants already have the margins to give customers 5%-15% discounts if their processing costs could be brought close to 0%. It's a big enough discount to get people to start using the app, since it leverages a payment rail they were planning on using anyway -- their debit card: My parents were already running a BTCPay Server instance and offered a 10% discount for anyone who paid in BTC, as it was so much easier for us to accept. The problem was, no customer was able to get a Lightning wallet set up to make payments ranging from $0.10–$500. With Strike, this changes immediately. All you need is the app and a debit card.
We passed Strike around to a few frequent customers and family friends, telling them if you use this app, you get a 10% discount. It worked. Customers young and old were using Strike to shop at our store, getting a discount, and helping our business. This thinking naturally extends to other "risky" sectors like pornography, which are prone to high chargeback rates or outright banning by payment processors. However, when you get down to low-margin, low-risk businesses like grocery stores and coffee shops, the incentives no longer align.  |
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Malta's financial regulator published a statement today stating they don't regulate Binance. They have not issued Binance the required license to operate in Malta, and are now assessing whether Binance is violating the Virtual Financial Assets Act: Following a report in a section of the media referring to Binance as a “Malta-based cryptocurrency” company, the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) reiterates that Binance is not authorised by the MFSA to operate in the crypto currency sphere and is therefore not subject to regulatory oversight by the MFSA. The Authority is however assessing if Binance has any activities in Malta which may not fall within the realm of regulatory oversight. Admission of virtual financial assets to trading and/or for offering virtual financial assets to the public in and from Malta requires an MFSA licence in terms of the Virtual Financial Assets Act (CAP 590) of 2018. This comes as a shock since Malta was widely believed to be the location of Binance's headquarters. Changpeng Zhao responded: “There is a mix of truth, FUD & misconception. Binance.com is not headquartered or operated in Malta. This is old news & has always been the case, hence there is quite a bit of FUD turning this into a breaking story. The community’s comments show that understanding.” Does anyone have any idea where they operate from, or where they hold any sort of legal registration? Even the shady Seychelles exchanges can usually produce a registration number with a regulatory body. Binance seems to think they can dodge any and all regulatory oversight by spreading their infrastructure and personnel across multiple borders. That's an interesting position, legally.
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