Wallets don't store bitcoins. They store you private and public keys necessary to access your coins.

There's no way to earn bitcoins just by owning bitcoins.

You are probably looking for masternode coins. You've posted in the wrong section of the forum.

Yes it is. Thank you for mentioning BCash. Given all the buzz and fuss surrounding their fork, I was wondering how they solved this problem.

Even if you downloaded the source code, there's no guarantee that the code hasn't been tampered with. So, you would also have to verify the signature of the code. Especially given the countless altcoin wallets out there, you never know what to expect. Also pay special attention to the URL where you are downloading the wallet software from. 

Yes, there's no other way but to check randomly.


No, see above.


There are no patterns. There's no other way to find the hash but to randomly try different inputs to the hashing function.

Thanks for the explanation. It makes perfect sense, and I guess it could be done without too much trouble.

I keep reading (hearing) about replay protection in the context of Bitcoin Forks.
Here is what I've figured out so far:
When a fork happens, the same set of unspent transaction outputs (UTOs) are present on both sides of the fork and are controlled by the same private key.
If I understand it correctly, the problem arises when someone decides to spend some UTOs on one of the chains. An attacker may intercept and use the same
transaction signature to spend the equivalent UTOs on the other chain.
A solution that comes to mind could be to spend the UTOs on both chains at (nearly) the same time with high enough fees to ensure that both transactions
are mined as soon as possible.
Questions:
Is this attack just in the domain of theory, or has it happened before?
If the fork is friendly, should there be a mechanism in place to protect users against replay attacks, or in other words,
is there a way to implement Replay Protection globally?
How can this be done properly and whose responsibility is it to implement it (the people in charge for the fork)?

I see that Blocknet has already listed quite a few coins on their platform.

Does anyone have experience making these atomic swaps between various coins?

As I understand it, you have to have two sides willing to trade directly and then the exchange of coins is made without any intermediary.

Not that I'm particularly fond of Ethereum and its founder, but Vitalik's reasons for not participating are legitimate. For example, Coindesk's reporting on EIP 999, their giveaway scams, and linking to fraudulent websites.
Btw, many conferences, not only in the crypto space, are organized primarily for financial gain. You can see that by the hefty registration fees in the range from $1K to $3K per participant. Just multiply that by the estimated 4K participants.

At least in theory, it could be possible to replace your transaction with another one with higher gas price. Check out this guide:

https://www.reddit.com/r/EtherDelta/comments/72tctz/guide_how_to_cancel_a_pending_transaction/

With blockchain technology it is hard to imagine classical loans against property, but a couple of interesting crypto loan solutions have emerged in the mean time.

One is Salt (currently only available for US citizens), which offers fiat money loans (USD, EUR, and others) against bitcoin collateral.

The other is Ethlend, which offers ETH loans against other cryptocurrencies by utilizing smart contracts. Probably we are going to see more and more of these crypto loans in the near future.

Source: https://blockonomi.com/salt-vs-ethlend/

Did you ever want to know how Bitcoin's Scripting Language works without going into too much technical detail?

I was referred to this youtube video, which I find fantastic for beginners (like me).

It was made by the creator of learnmeabitcoin.com (if I'm not mistaken).

In simple terms, it covers very advanced topics like locking and unlocking scripts, validation, types of scripts, the basics of stack operators, etc.

These terms can quickly become very technical if you read about them in a book. Because of that, the lessons covered in the video are even more valuable.



The video is a bit lengthy, but it's worth every second of your time. Hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

While I agree mining is not as profitable as it used to be, doing research and setting up your gear doesn't take so much time (if you know what your are going). You can easily be working a regular job in parallel to mining. Mining is a set and forget operation. Once set properly, you can forget about it and do other things. As long as you have a profitable margin, that is.

Exactly. It is really hard for companies to build a blockchain platform, as they are centralized by definition. Unless they somehow incentivize their huge base of users to enter into some kind of PoW or PoS mining scheme, they will have to be centralized. And then, they are not really creating a cryptocurrency in the true sense of the word.

The linked article uses keywords p2p finance, smart contracts, blockchain technology, and other frequently used ICO terms. But it fails to mention how exactly ZPER is going to be different from the "countless" other similar cryptoassets. And it fails to answer the question why ZPER should be considered a smart investment in the first place. I haven't heard of ZPER so far, so I'm certainly not competent to say anything about it, but the article didn't help me either.

Thanks. Really good tip. The privacy issue is important. I didn't know it was also available for Firefox.


Yes, I knew there was a video guide. Thanks for linking it from this thread, so people can choose what to follow. I think some people would find it easier to follow a step by step guide, but it is a matter of taste.

This topic has been moved to Beginners & Help.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3754513.0

I realized my guide would be more suitable for beginners in the Beginners and Help board.

I just published a step by step guide into installing MetaMask for Chrome. You can find it here (Altcoin Discussion, as it technically belongs there):

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3754513.msg37036220#msg37036220

Hope it helps!

When I first tried to install an Ethereum wallet locally on my computer, I soon found out that it wasn't an easy task.
In contrast to the ease of installing my favorite Electrum Bitcoin wallet, I wasn't able to find a simple desktop Ethereum
wallet that would work without problems. So I was forced to use MyEtherWallet.com (MEW).

Recently I discovered MetaMask.

Metamask is a safer alternative to MyEtherWallet because it prevents phishing and should in general be a better
option than using a direct online MEW wallet.

Moreover, with Metamask, you are always one click away from sending your funds. You need not search for keystore
files or private keys to transfer your tokens.

Using a hot wallet like MetaMask, however, is not a good option for long term storage of funds, so you should use MetaMask
for transferring or keeping smaller amounts of coins.

Warning: For larger amounts, you should always use HARDWARE wallets or some cold storage solution (for example MEW installed
offline on an AIR GAPPED computer).

I've seen many topics here on the forum where users complain that they have either lost their MEW private keys (or keystore files)
or they have been robbed of their tokens due to phishing when trying to manipulate their coins on MyEtherWallet.com.

Hopefully this guide can help them switch to MetaMask, which is a safer solution.

How to Install MetaMask

1. Open your chrome browser and go directly to https://metamask.io



2. Click on Get Chrome Extension



3. Click the Add to Chrome Button



4. Click on Add Extension



5. It should say Added to Chrome now



6. Click on the small MetaMask icon top right in your Chrome Browser



7. It will connect to the Main Ethereum Network automatically


8. Accept the Privacy Notice and then accept the Terms of Use



9. Choose a strong password to encrypt your wallet


10. Next step is very important. Write down the 12 seed words you've been given on a
piece of paper and store them somewhere safe:



Knowing your seed phrase is all you need to access your tokens in case something goes wrong.

11. And that's it. Your new public address is now easy to be found:



12. If you click on the three dots you can view your account on etherscan, copy your public
address to the clipboard, and so on



13. If you click on Send, you can enter the recipient address and send some coins.



14. If you click on Tokens, you can add tokens to your account.




I hope this short installation guide will be enough to help you install MetaMask and improve the security
of your ETH wallet and prevent the loss of tokens due to hackers or mismanagement of private keys,
especially if you are a newbie who tries to navigate the new word of Ethereum based tokens and crypto-assets.

There are many great trading tutorials. Here are some to get you started (suitable for beginners):

0 to Pro Crypto Trader: Your Ultimate Guide to Bitcoin and Altcoin Investing
How to Trade Cryptocurrency – For Beginners
The Total Beginner’s Guide to Cryptocurrency Trading (Bitcoin, Ether and More)
How To Become a Cryptocurrency Trader (Simple Tutorial)

This is terrible. I'm always amazed how far some people are willing to go to steal other people's money.


The malware is nowhere to be found in the google search results now, at least not in the nearest google data centers my browser uses. I guess the action was efficient and Google indeed banned the malicious ad.

The said thing is, Google doesn't seem to have qualified personal to audit crypto-related ads, so many malicious schemes go under the radar these days.