I think newer members underestimate how much shitposting you have to wade through to find good posts. It takes work.


Agreed there. The system loses meaning when some people are getting 20 or even 50 merits from one user, for a single post.

What would you expect? There's no forum reps here anymore. There was something endearing about Giancarlo and Rafael posting on the forums back in the day. Giancarlo was especially a douchebag.

Now this thread is mostly just speculation about Tether FUD.

This might be a dumb question, but how do you "use" the repository clone exactly? I'd be interested in switching to an offline signing system like this, but I've only used the Myetherwallet browser GUI. Are you saying there's no GUI for doing this?

The Service Discussion board and their subreddit are swarmed with complaints as well. But it's been like this since last May. If anything, the situation seems slightly better than a few months ago, after lots of the trading volume moved to Bittrex (and later Binance). There are people with millions of dollars stuck. Some have had their withdrawal limits lowered to $0. I left in June out of fear that I would get money stuck there.

Dremeber, stop posting referral links here. It's against the rules. And it's sort of pathetic.

Yes, I'm not convinced this is some sort of exit scam or bankruptcy. If it were an exit scam, I don't think they'd have filed this months ago.

Even if the primary holding company were being dissolved, how do we know they aren't just transferring the assets to another holding company? This isn't uncommon in the crypto industry, especially if they are worried about regulators. Bitfinex has done it several times in its history.

The past few days? That's nothing. You could have said the same thing the week of November 16th to November 23rd -- a week of sideways. Immediately afterwards, the price pumped from $8,000 to $17,000. It seems like the same thing here: the calm before the storm. This 4-day consolidation is the longest sideways we've seen in a month.

In a trend, the longer the consolidation goes, the higher the price can go after we break range. Given the velocity of the parabolic trend, now that we've broken new ATHs, another 50% move seem imminent. Bulls just need to confirm support at the previous highs.

Regardless of anything, volatility is only going to increase. This is a parabolic trend, and afterwards comes the blow-off top. Trends in both directions will be highly volatile for the foreseeable future.

It has decent UI and a major brand. That's why lots of newbies (who haven't had problems yet) heap praise on it. No veteran in the bitcoin space will ever recommend blockchain.info to you. It's better than a custodial web wallet (like Xapo) because you control your private keys. But technically, blockchain.info isn't completely open-sourced, so I wouldn't assume that you are in sole possession of the keys either.


Kraken is having performance issues like most exchanges right now. It's clear that exchanges can't cope with the influx of user volume right now. In any case, you shouldn't use Kraken to store the coins.

For newbies, I recommend Electrum for BTC and MyEtherWallet for ETH.

That's a pessimistic view of things. Using bitcoin and cryptocurrencies is very empowering because no centralized entity (like your bank or Paypal) can freeze your funds, delay transfers, etc.

The downside of that is that you are 100% responsible for your money. You need to be wary of social engineering attempts to get your exchange credentials and private keys. Be careful of phishing sites and don't trust any links that enter your email. As a general rule, if I can't store a coin on a hardware wallet (like the Ledger Nano S), I am ultra careful to check the source, discuss the software with people I trust, and to compartmentalize less trusted software from my primary PC and wallets.

Also, don't be so sure that people can't be effectively traced. Many people involved in the darknet markets have been jailed at this point due to blockchain analysis.

Not surprising. Natural News is a conspiracy theory website on the level of Infowars. They go off about chemtrails, fluoride in drinking water, vaccines, etc. It's a platform for promoting dietary supplements more than anything else.


In the end, it doesn't matter. Bitcoin's source code has been meticulously picked over by many thousands of competent developers. There's no backdoor or anything. If it was created by the NSA, it's out of their hands now.

Interestingly, Zcash is partially funded by grants from DARPA and the US Navy.

This question might be better suited for the Mining speculation forum.

Personally, I don't see the incentive for private ISPs to target bitcoin miners. It'll just drive them to friendlier ISPs, as market competition dictates. The one potential problem I see: if the removal of net neutrality is being used as a smokescreen for the government to pressure ISPs into targeting cryptocurrency miners and/or users.


Packet analysis can determine that you are connected to cryptocurrency networks. Traffic from such users could be throttled or blocked in theory. You can prevent that by using a VPN setup, but they can also trivially detect the encrypted traffic and block that too.

For net neutrality to be really problematic, VPNs would have to be targeted too.

Priced against BTC, most altcoins still look like they're in a bear market. This could end up being a bull trap for alts if BTCUSD decides to either cliff dive or start making new ATHs. Then we'll see a rush out of alts again. I've noticed that most of the veteran traders I follow are very hesitant to say "alts are back." I'm on the fence myself. I'm scalping and catching a 2x here and there, but I'm not piling in altcoins right now for the long term.

Long term, I'm interesting in DEXs more than anything else. During the next altcoin spring, I think that DEXs and anonymity coins will prosper.

You don't really need a 10-minute confirmation do you? Give it a half day and you can drop the fees 7 or 8-fold. If people can load their accounts with BTC, I don't see on-chain payments as a big problem right now.

It can also be tempting to spend some of those bitcoin profits. Isn't that how the hodlers roll--never sell, hold until you can spend it? Not sure how much business eBay does, but if Amazon were to enter the foray, I think it would generate a lot of profit taking.


A specification for LN has now been released, and they've done mainnet transactions. How far off do you think we are? A year, two? Realistically, the next big step is building publicly available wallets.

I read through the threads, still unsure about a few things. One of the main reasons I'm considering a hardware wallet is for secure altcoin storage without putting my PCs at risk dealing with all the wallets. I found a comprehensive list for the Ledger Nano S / Blue (the other models seem to only work with BTC/BCH) and I'm not thrilled with the support but it does have a few low/mid caps I need. Hopefully the list keeps growing.

Anyway, after digging around the Trezor site for some time, I couldn't find the list of altcoins supported. Anybody have it? How engaged is either company in adding shitcoins? The more the merrier!

It sounds like the only difference for the Trezor T are touchscreen display and a USB-C port, right? Doesn't seem like it would make or break the decision between Ledger vs. Trezor.

Not thrilled to see this:

Well, they are registered with FINCEN and are thus a money transmitter, so they need to comply with AML/KYC regulations. They laid out their policy a few years ago, so it's nothing new. They've been around for years and they're a legitimate exchange (as far as those who operate without state MSB licenses go, anyway).

But in general, I minimize the identity documents and personal information I give to altcoin exchanges. They generally say nothing about complying with data protection laws, and historically, database leaks are rampant. I had my ID and other information leaked from MT Gox several years ago. I don't intend for it to happen again. So these days, I stick to Changelly and Shapeshift, decentralized exchanges, or Bitmex for trading high cap altcoins with leverage.

Surprisingly, they seem to be coming around quickly. All it took was the CBOE entering the market for their competitors like CME and NASDAQ to follow, probably out of fear that traders would leave for CBOE.

And after Bitcoin finally sailed through $10k, JP Morgan released a new report stating that they believe that Bitcoin could become a reliable, long-term store of wealth. They said it could become a traditional asset class, comparing it to gold! This is the same bank run by Jamie Dimon, the infamous Bitcoin bear.

After the exchanges, broker-dealers and investment banks join us, governments will be next. I predict that they'll be storing cryptocurrencies in the national treasury in the future. Things'll get really interesting for cyber-warfare at that point.

According to their Twitter account, they've been fighting DOS attacks for the last several days. You can monitor bitfinex.statuspage.io/ for real-time updates. 16 hours ago, they said:


So I don't think this is a hack. But in general, I don't consider Bitfinex to be a "safe" exchange. The 2016 hack is still unexplained (no post-mortem). But more than that, the whole Tether business and banking blockade seem worrisome, and the fact that they've never held licenses in the jurisdictions they serve. I lost a lot of coins when BTC-e went down, so I minimize my exposure to unlicensed exchanges now.

I mostly stick to GDAX and Bitstamp, although I'm looking forward to decentralized exchanges once they start gaining liquidity.

After being screwed by several exchanges over the years, I can sympathize. But under the law, that's not true. Fiat currency generally must be accepted as payment for debts. Technically, that's what fiat currency means: currency "by decree." Not being familiar with the Japanese language, I can't point to the exact law, but it has parallels with all major fiat currencies. This is what the US Treasury says about credit obligations vis-a-vis the dollar:


As a creditor, you have no choice but to accept fiat currency. This is why it's so incredibly important to control your own keys. If Coinbase gets hacked, those coins are gone forever. You might get some $$ value back in bankruptcy/reorganization, but those bitcoins can't be replaced.

The long term trend is definitely going up, and I see that as an indicator that adoption is increasing. Personally, I think that price (supply vs. demand) is more indicative of adoption, as it accounts for hoarding.


That's why 400,000 transactions is an arbitrary milestone. It doesn't necessarily mean anything given the context of the recent spam attacks. Take a look at this chart and tell me if you think it looks organic:



That looks like very clear fee rate manipulation to me. It's likely being carried out by a large miner, like Bitmain. Big blockers and Bcash supporters are using this narrative to promote Bcash. That's what the congestion is about, more than anything else.

As written, the bill doesn't entail that. I don't see anything that says cryptocurrency holdings must be declared. Rather, they seem to be targeting Bitcoin/cryptocurrency services. The expansion of the definition of "financial institution" would make exchanges, brokers, tumblers and perhaps even payment processors (Bitpay/Shapeshift) implement stiff AML/KYC protocols when interfacing with US customers. If passed, I think a lot of services will begin prohibiting US customers.

At that point, things get more complicated for US residents. The bill essentially makes it unlawful for US residents to misrepresent or conceal their identity to these services. For example, I think that using fake personal information on no-KYC or low-KYC exchanges will become illegal if this bill is passed. That doesn't mean you need to declare crypto holdings, but it provides a deterrent to tax evasion when taking profits.

There's an element of truth to this, but I'd like to emphasize that US debt accounts for a less than people think. Easy credit obviously provides an easy way into the cryptocurrency markets, and American libertarians like to point to the US economy first. But the elephant in the room is actually China, especially when you consider their historical position in the mining sector and exchange markets.

People with a limited understanding of the situation say that the Chinese economy is a net exporter, and thus that the situation is sustainable. On the contrary, the rise in national output was built on a massive mountain of credit.


There are multiple global credit bubbles waiting to pop. But like 2008, I don't think a systemic collapse is on the cards.