I can tell from the previous winters that the end of a crypto winter has always come by surprise. So no, I don't know if it's over or not, we will know only after it's over.
I tend to believe that this one feels longer than the previous one, still, I think that the crypto winter of 2015 felt longer/worse.

Imho with the current overall interest in bitcoin the people, businesses and financial institutions are showing, the spring will come, sooner or later.
But more patience may be needed, because the world economy is not in a great shape right now.
And, as others also said, make sure you don't lose focus and hold (only) bitcoin (take it as an advise you don't have to follow, if you are still into altcoins, DYOR).

This is an awfully bad idea. Keeping fiat money at home makes it easy to be stolen by thieves. Keeping fiat money at home means that if the home burns down the money is also gone. Even more, at least in Europe, fiat kept in banks is "insured by the state/government" until a limit of 100k/person/bank.

What I expect bitcoiners do is to keep in bitcoin the money they afford to hold for more than 4 years and maybe keep in fiat the rest. But everybody should make his own decision whether / how much to invest.

The rest, if they have big bucks, they either afford those peanuts the banks are taking, either diversify in gold, art, real estate, stocks, bonds and maybe other things too.

Nobody has discussed in this topic for two months.
Even more, OP was not online since October.
And if you'd have the BPIP extension you'd also know that OP is also banned.

I guess that a mod should really lock this topic...

This is a mix of "if it's too good to be true then it's a scam" and "never keep money for long on centralized platforms". Both keep to be preached and people still keep ignoring that in the name of earning some more fiat (ie fools' gold). Too bad.

I've read too about Midas. It's just another one that bites the dust. 2022 has made plenty of casualties.

If the user provides the seed phrase, then the user has is and can simply use it with another wallet. They also can get from that wallet of theirs the private keys too. So there's no "nobody has the private key". I think that you should get better understanding of all this before you implement anything.


Wow. No. You're wrong. The bank has the money in their custody until you go to an ATM.
If the user have the seed phrase, the bitcoins are in their (self) custody. Way different.
Plus, as said, if the use loses his phone number or whatever, he will get new login info from the bank; if they do the same with you, the bitcoins are lost forever. Plus the scam scenarios I already wrote.


While banks may be considering reimbursing this or that in the case of reputed stores selling physical goods, they may not be that nice with bitcoin related businesses. Just look at the history of PayPal vs Bitcoin and how many chargebacks did happen in P2P exchanging simply because bitcoin is digital and PayPal never cared to research deeper.

The website giving the bitcoins doesn't matter much after that many years.
If you withdrew those coins into your own wallet - which I expect you didn't - then you should have the private key or a wallet file at least.
If you've left your bitcoins in others' custody (at the same site that gave the bitcoins or another) - which I expect you did - those have most probably spent your coins (in a way or another) long ago and the service no longer exists.

So, did you left the money there or you've withdrew into a local wallet or a non custodial web wallet?

I will ignore the fact that most users are simply incapable to safely generate themselves a HD seed phrase, I will jump directly to two possible problems:

1. Working with a seed phrase online, what could go wrong? (/s)
* local malware can detect and steal that
* phishing sites looking similar to yours could steal the seed phrase
* unsafely generated seed could get in others' hands
* users who don't know what they do will store their HD seed unsafely and lose it or others get hands on it
==> all these users will most probably blame you if their coins get stolen

2. The users have the HD seed. They buy bitcoins with stolen cards. As soon as the bitcoins arrive to their wallet they send those coins further away to be sure (even if you'd store a copy of the seed those coins would go somewhere you cannot touch). Then the rightful owner try to chargeback.
==> if you're not careful enough, with this system you can easily end up giving bitcoins for free to some scammers.

I've read about Bitcoin somewhere around December 2013 or January 2014.
Unfortunately I didn't understand much back then and I've spent some (far too much) time (ie years!) following altcoins.
However, at some point, I understood that the vast majority of altcoins don't deserve any attention, while Bitcoin deserves pretty much all the attention. Things got better since then.

So yes, I've bought satoshis when BTC was priced at 220$; but I've also spent plenty of bitcoins; I've paid for my laptop (long ago) coins for which I could have been buying a new car in 2021. Money come, money go.

This sounds interesting privacy wise, of course. But it also depends on how the process is done in order to avoid one user scamming another and I thought that an automated escrow will know if a transaction took place or the platform will be able to come in and help in case of issues. I think that this "we don't know" approach is pretty much asking for troubles...

In order to be safe:
1. Learn more
2. As already said, if you are capable to do so, use cold storage
3. If you are not tech savvy enough for cold storage, acquire a hardware wallet.

As simple as that.

PS. If you are on hot wallet, it's not only the keyboard strokes that can expose you.

Ma gandisem ca macar IntimitateaG ar putea beneficia de cateva merite in plus. Dar, na, e decizia ta pana la urma, mai ales ca ai dreptate cu "participarea masiva" din trecut.

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Inapoi la concursuri, cred ca din pacate nu o sa pot participa la concursul cu decoratiunile (intru in criza de timp). Asadar, daca participati voi.. multa bafta!

I've read your post last night when it was still readable. I didn't read the other replies you've made because it hurts my eyes and I don't think that they bring anything meaningful into the discussion.
1. Bitcoin doesn't care about politics. The fact you do, it's your own problem.
2. On Bitcoin git it doesn't matter who is what, it only matter whether he brings meaningful/useful changes to bitcoin or not.
3. You came with a lot of accusations and no proof. That's meaningless and it makes me believe you don't deserve attention.

You can start using bigger fonts, you can write long texts, but that won't help.
Next time start by doing your homework properly.

Thanks for this, I needed a good laugh!


I agree it can be useful, and it's not such a bad idea - I've seen worse and still discussed - but at the end it's up to theymos to decide.
The casino/businesses owners/representatives can (and do) pay for avatars/advertisement already, it could make sense they also display that too for a price or whatever, since getting 100 merit may not be an easy job for a newcomer.

I think it's good you've bring this up.

I see paper wallet more like a backup of a cold wallet. Because, you know, paper wallet is just a private key (or seed!) and an address you should store on paper, or steel, or whatever (and you may need cold wallet to safely spend it).

Cold storage is, for example, an Electrum that always stays offline. Usually you have on your computer (connected to the internet!) another Electrum too, with a watch-only wallet based on the same seed as the cold storage. This second Electrum will see the transactions, but cannot sign them for spending. And you'll use the cold storage only to sign transactions. Viewing the money flow, creating (unsigned) transactions, broadcasting the transactions after they were signed - these will be done with the watch-only wallet.
The transfer of transactions (from watch only) to cold wallet for signing is best done via images or QR codes, but it can be done (in a bit less safe way) via USB stick. This depends on the wallet software capabilities though.

The (larger) centralized platforms most probably use cold storage too, in a way or another, for safe keeping the bulk of user funds. But they do that for their own safety (hacks cannot touch the cold storage), not for users' sake. The user deposits/withdrawals happen with hot wallet (online wallet). Sometimes, the platform will transfer funds between the cold and hot storage, depending whether there are many deposits or many withdrawals. The use of cold storage don't make the exchanges significantly safer (they can still get bankrupt) and the fact an exchange uses cold storage for their own use doesn't make the cold storage evil. Cold storage is just a tool. Best is to learn and use the same tool for yourself since it's good, no matter who others are using it.

Same here. And I also agree on the amateurish approach on both website and their twitter. I mean, what's their aim if they tweet only in Czech? No offense, but that means that they don't aim global.
I've found this:


...and it may mean that they only allow Czech, Slovak, Polish and Hungarian. But I may be wrong.


If geographic location is blocked, then I'm not convinced these guys are building their DEX/marketplace on the right pillars (what stop them record the IPs, for example?)
Their use of Cloudflare may also be an issue for some potential users.

I don't want to break the party, but the forum has quite a number of escrows with very good reputation, especially as they've handled huge number of bitcoins in the many years they're in the business.
The main points of escrow are trust (ie reputation) and experience. At least on this forum, sorry, but you are too new to even discuss about trust.

The only open point remains "bringing customers" for this escrow "business". But at least here, from what I know, the people offering escrow services are being contacted (privately) and they decide they can handle all that's needed to be escrow or pass.

In your case (furniture), the problem can become very ugly. Let's say you are... somewhere in the world, preferably on an island with nice climate and the furniture selling business went bad.
You will have to get track of the furniture that may or may not exist, that may have been received or not by the other party (and hidden) and see who will get the money.
What if the furniture has been delivered and the buyer doesn't admit it and the transport company doesn't give you any papers on that (you are not a law enforcement authority and have no warrant)? What you do?

As Welsh said it very good: being escrow needs skill and experience. And your example for a "job" was something that I'd expect any sane crypto escrow avoid.
So no trust and imho not enough experience. Hence I'd recommend you think this all over again, much better.

Since the gambler didn't sign any paper (at the notary), the shop owner has not much of a proof that the gambler "borrowed" any of that money.
Truth being told, I've never understood why some shop owners agree to give people things on debt. It's a risk that can too easily turn against them. And this is a similar case.

So on the money side, I think that the shop owner has made a mistake he has to pay for.
Of course, on assault/body harm matter, both the gambler, the shop owner and both' thugs have the blame.

Mulțumim de invitație (și bineînțeles, mulțumim și pentru tombolă / premii)!
Din ceea ce am văzut eu și Gazeta deja am ales câte un număr, iar IntimitateaG / PrivacyG se pare că deja sărbătorește, că nu a mai intrat pe forum de 2 zile.
Și în afară de noi 3, mai sunt cam puțini alți români prin zonă, care în general nu prea scriu. Amatori ar mai fi eventual Rizzrack și poate andulolika, nu țin minte alte nume să fi arătat interes pentru concursurile prezentate aici.
Dacă au notificările activate, o să vadă...

I advise anybody interested in this offer look first into OP's trust feedback.
I don't know how accurate is that, but I certainly don't like what I see there.

Well, this way there's no exchanges/3rd party to interfere the process, which is great because:
* one may simply not like (or fear of) exchanges and P2P
* less hands means more safety and less fees; if the money has came, you see it in the wallet, if it didn't, you ask the employer

While for main income I'd prefer fiat (because I don't have much other means to spend than fiat), for side jobs I prefer bitcoin since (most of) it has a good chance to remain bitcoin for long.
Even more, I can tell from own experience that if it wouldn't have been the means of earning Bitcoin, I would most probably have much smaller amount on my Ledger.
So it's a good step for OP.