A good and simple tool can always be used for its intended purpose and for other things too.

We will emphasize here "not your keys, not your coins".
Others will prefer going through Wall Street companies because that's how they know to invest into this. It's suboptimal, but it's not prohibited. It will be interesting to watch what happens when first of these will get a hack or something, but on the other hand, don't we already have a long history of exchange hacks and people keeping their coins at exchanges? So.. let's just stay real, OK?

If you mean using exchanges (of any kind) for attempting mixing bitcoins, it's pretty easy to do it wrong.

Some of the exchanges may keep logs of the transactions, even they say they don't.
Some of the exchanges may keep logs of the IPs, even they say they don't.

It's not easy to do privacy correctly nowadays for Bitcoin.
My take is that if you indeed want privacy, just stay in Monero ecosystem. If you want to do good investment, use Bitcoin.
If you mix them you can easily get something worse than you'd expect, whether you'll know it or not.

If you really mean safe you need either cold storage (but that's not that easy to configure properly and use), either hardware wallet.
Even a simple USB stick can do wonders for safe keeping/safely handling your coins... if you have the knowledge for it. But since your money is at a centralized exchange... let's go for a faster and easier route: hardware wallets. They have a big range of prices, it widely depends on how many altcoins you also have and how much you want to pay for the HW. There are plenty of reviews around, you already got a good number of answers.

I want to emphasize something else: it's not enough to just get a safe wallet. It also matters how you store the seed, it matters what other things you do (it's easy to think HW is extremely safe, but you use it with a seed generated online, ie unsafe, or not paying attention to the transactions' addresses and get your money stolen by a clipboard malware).
So take your time and try to learn a little more.

Bitcoin has a very long history of very big volatility and everybody who gets scared by that has - sooner or later - very bad days if he goes for investing/holding (pretty much ending with a panic sale).
My advice is always look at the big picture and use your brain.

And about the question in your topic title, my take is: yes, but you may need some time, maybe even weeks or more, to see that happen. And yes, because halving is also near, this may become somewhat fuzzy.

We are not even at half of the month and a lot of things can happen. This may be a pretty much expected bear trap, but somewhat oddly placed (I expected it before the ETF announcements).
I would give it some time - until the end of this month - before getting a conclusion. If the price still goes downwards it's a nice opportunity to buy, if it starts going up... it may go fast!
The chance to end the month still on a positive trend is pretty good.

Am luat o scurta pauza de la scris pe forum (am apucat doar sa citesc un pic), asa ca am ratat cateva concursuri interesante... (plus, probabil nebunia din zilele cu anunturile de ETF, heh)

Am facut curat si am adus totul la zi.

Am doua noutati.

Una este ca Wallet of Satoshi a facut sa ne amintim proverbul cu pomul laudat. Nu stiu despre ce tara este vorba dar asta nu arata prea bine:



A doua este ca am gasit o postare lunga si interesanta despre LN in general, nu doar despre un anume portofel. Eu zic ca merita citit.
Originalul, in engleza, este: https://stacker.news/items/379225
Si in romana, tradus (cu picioarele de catre Google): https://stacker-news.translate.goog/items/379225?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=ro&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true

33 NeuroticFish

Please & thank you!

I received them, this got confirmed last night. Thank you very much!

Ich habe sie erhalten, dies wurde gestern Abend bestätigt. Vielen Dank!

Pretty good post, pretty good idea.
I've changed my password in November, I'm good.
I tend to change at random times, not necessarily at New Year's.

And yes, I recommend long password with random characters.
My password manager, Bitwarden, contains a great password generator, making a great combination. I recommend people consider using such a tool, it's much better than using same password or one with same "base" or "rule".

Happy New Year!

My German is far from good, so I will also use tools for translation, apologies for the mistakes.

Thank you vey much 1miau for the great contest! Also thanks to the other sponsor too, shame the things are going like this in 2024...
It's a bit shame that the number of participants was this low, but on the other hand, this helped me win ... although my prediction was more than 1000$ off.
My address is: bc1qlwxqcku2q9lxvwhpymzwy7uexx6krlwws0re5e

Congratulations to all the winners and Happy New Year everybody! May this new year bring an ATH beyond expectations!

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Vielen Dank an 1miau für das fantastische Gewinnspiel! Vielen Dank auch an den anderen Sponsor. Schade, dass die Dinge im Jahr 2024 so laufen...
Es ist ein bisschen schade, dass die Teilnehmerzahl so gering war, aber andererseits hat es mir geholfen zu gewinnen ... obwohl meine Vorhersage um mehr als 1000$ daneben lag.
Meine Adresse ist: bc1qlwxqcku2q9lxvwhpymzwy7uexx6krlwws0re5e

Herzlichen Glückwunsch an alle Gewinner und allen ein frohes neues Jahr! Möge dieses neue Jahr ein Allzeithoch bescheren, das alle Erwartungen übertrifft!

Il vazusem, dar am zis sa te las pe tine sa faci onorurile, ca e concursul tau.
Si nu stiu, ori sunt eu foarte ocupat si ametit, fie a durat cam putin. Dar la asa premii... nu e de mirare.


Foarte bine!

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Ca nota, in caz ca te intereseaza (pe mine nu prea), se pregateste concurs la care premiu este revista Bread. Exista doar pre-anuntul, inca nu avem concursul propriu-zis.

Yay! Nice way to end the year!
Thanks a lot Gazeta & the sponsor!

Congrats to all winners!

Happy New Year everybody!

Indeed, the point is to try to be ready for whatever the future is preparing. On medium and long term it's clearly bullish.


1. News are to be posted in the proper location.
2. Hunting for merit like this is just.. ugly. Hence, welcome to my ignore list (and hopefully many others').

It would not be first New Year's this happens.

All the news tend to make everything look overly bullish, but you never know and it doesn't hurt to be prepared, just in case..

I will start with the fact that stompix is right: you give too much attention to worthless memes on twitter.

Banks are old enough to adapt. Of course, some few die in the process, but if you know where to look you will see a lot of changes from the last years, from lowering the fees and speeding up transactions to facilitating bitcoin buying and storage or even steps towards merging banks with exchanges (I don't know though if this last one became reality).

Yes, only few do this, most are still afraid and push towards Bitcoin ban. But I find JPMorgan a great example: while Dimon is talking all the crap against Bitcoin his bank does all the steps to become a big player in offering Bitcoin or BTC ETF to other institutions.

The restrictions are there for two reasons: politicians and bankers are on the same side (of course, most politicians don't take a side for free) and while some banks are afraid of losing some market share, the other problem is that the really smart Bitcoin users' funds are difficult to track and link, leaving governments out of ideas in some issues they know to handle only by tracking the money transfers.

@NotATether: I've seen you've listed Wirex with VISA and 1.5$ monthly service fee. From what I know they no longer have that for years; it's MasterCard with 0$ monthly fee.
Can you please verify? (They do have their costs, most of them hidden in the spread, that's another story).

A new currency most probably means more fiat paper to be poured - sooner or later.
I expect it to have the same effect as printing more USD, EUR, whatever: more overall inflation, which is visible as an increase of Bitcoin price.
Of course, it will be late, it will be slow, hence most will not feel properly this effect and will claim that there was no effect at all.

If, on the other hand, will replace other currencies like EUR did, then the effect will probably be too small to be felt.

28 - NeuroticFish

Thank you Gazeta / MixTum / Icarus (cygan)

I am also a Windows user and while it's always said that Linux is much ore secure than Windoze, if you are not familiar with it you can make mistakes and end up worse than with Windoze.
I am not familiar with Samurai, plus my setup works only for my computer, but I think it's not difficult to extend it to work on LAN, so for your Android too.

I've made 2 tutorials for Windows users, one for Electrs, installed on a Linux subsystem in Windows, and another for Fulcrum (which is also an Electrum Server, but it's Windows exe).
Maybe it worth taking a look to that direction too.


This being said, I'll add that even if you reinstall everything under a fresh Linux or Windows, the blockchain files should be still good, you just have to make sure the bitcoin daemon uses those data folders/those files.
Plus: from my experience WSL is faster than a Virtual Machine (Virtual Box).