...

For me it all depends.  Since most of my transactions are "important", and most ought to be done in a timely manner, I am willing to pay up to BTC0.0006 - BTC0.001 when the blockchain is clogged or I have a complicated transaction.

When conditions were "normal", I usually paid BTC0.00015 or a bit more to get transactions confirmed quickly.

It's the price of doing business.

...

That was a pair of interesting articles, iamnotback, thanks for posting them.  Highly recommended reading.

A go slow policy, with much discussion, with Russia is overdue.  I agree w/ Armstrong: Rex Tillerson looks to be an inspired choice to be Secretary of State.

There is a lot of work to do re stabilizing the world economy.  I don't know the way forward.  I hope Trump and his team know better..., certainly better we hope than Obama's team.


EDIT: The Politico article was interesting too.  Taleb and "Mencius Moldbug" are featured.  I let FOFOA know re the latter.

Simplex resolved the problem.   

Still, when there is stress like this on the blockchain, my future actions will be to avoid more complicated (or new) activities.  No new BTC providers, no nothing out of the ordinary.

And pay a high fee for anything "important".

It looks like we all should avoid thinking that the Bitcoin Ecosystem will usually be "routine", so exercise almost extreme caution...

...

I have never seen Armstrong discuss platinum (he might have, I have just not seen it).

The past couple of years have been something of an anomaly re the Price Ratio of Platinum to Gold (Pt is some 22% cheaper than Au now, "normally" it sells at a premium).  Fairly famous hard-ass geologist Mickey Fulp writes an interesting piece on this:

http://www.goldgeologist.com/mercenary_musings/musing-170206-The-46-Year-Record-of-Platinum-Gold-Ratios.pdf

Platinum, a speculation of interest?

...

Well, I have a question.  You wrote above that you intend to distribute your card everywhere EXCEPT the USA.  Would that mean:

1)  You will not sell them AT ALL directly to Americans?

or

2)  They could not be used within the USA (but they could be used overseas)?


Some of us travel, and a debit card that would work in most countries, but not the USA, would still be of interest to many Americans.

I have a transaction with buy.bitcoin.com/Simplex that is hung-up somewhere (no trx yet, apparently not sent).  My problem is that the send to address will expire in 15 hours...  Not only is it not confirmed, it has not been sent!  7 hours ago I got an email from Simplex saying my BTC would arrive in 20 minutes....

Not only unarrived, unsent!  

Oh, and now 75,000 unconfirmed transactions.  

Then we will see.  I suppose I ought to try and cancel the trx???

...

Bwa ha ha!!  Nailed it with the pictures of our so-called leaders.  I don't which of those nine pictures is the best (funniest), so many good candidates there...

Re Native American blood, we were trying to find out if family lore was true re Indian blood from my mom's side (if so, we would have very little, less than 1/64th for sure).

* * *

Re the decline of the West, ZH had a nice piece on what has been going on in QUEBEC earlier today.  Normally I wouldn't give two cents about such a thing, but for the fact that my wife and I spent a month in Montreal a few years ago.  The decline of Catholicism there, and now Trudeau the Younger wants more Muslims et cochonerie:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-05/quebec-crisis-west

The BTC ATM that I use the most is at a gas station, but I have used one at a forex place and a convenience store as well.

I'll have to drop by one or more of our local ones to see if gangs have hit any of them yet.

That's an interesting set of comments which may very well be true to one degree or another.

In my city, the BTC ATMs I have visited and used are mostly in parts of town where the demand for both CA$H and BTC is very high...  Not the best parts of town, using mild words.  I have met some interesting characters at the BTMs...

1. "Protection" money being extorted from BTC ATM owners: very possible.

2. I am guessing the gangs here in my city do not have their own BTC ATMs, but have not looked into that possibility.

3. Maybe gangsters would be pissed off whenever BTC takes a price dump after they have bought.

...

minor-transgression wrote (snip of just above):

"This is depression economics, where it's better to hold onto your resources than to
buy or sell."

Your whole post was eye-opening.  If we are indeed in a new era where our economy (most of our economies) are now Zero Sum Games, than that is indeed fundamentally bad news.

And we may be in such an era of Zero Sum.  I am working my way through a new book by Marc Levinson (An Extraordinary Time) which presents his case for a return to the very slow growth throughout most of history.  Overly briefly (and I have not finished the book), he writes that the conditions of the 1946 - 1973 boom have changed, in large part (but not completely, there are other bad omens too) due to energy.

* * *

Buying and HODLing of gold and BTC looks like an even better idea.

...

Here's a story I just caught with a pictured of a destroyed Bitcoin ATM in Northern Virginia:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5s3cbl/over_a_year_ago_i_discovered_a_batm_was_6_miles/

Apparently dozens of machines have been vandalized in the Midwest:

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-atms-attacked-hammers-us-midwest/


This is disturbing news.  Where are the cops?

Trump has a lot of enemies, and they fear & hate him enough so that they might prefer to have a mini-meltdown (or worse) so that Trump gets blamed -- even if America's economy goes down hard.

The Left is getting tiresome and dangerous.  Time for them to stop their crap.

Indeed you should pay up (higher than normal fees) if you have anything important re Bitcoin.  If it is IMPORTANT, and the size (kb) is not large, I would suggest paying BTC0.001 (10x the amount often chosen as a default.)

Or you can try to "accelerate" the trx by using this nice service:

https://www.viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator/

Note that your fee must be at least BTC0.0001 to use this.  I moved along quite a few very small trx that were stranded in a wallet of mine.

...

Armstrong's piece of today will interest some.  Here he discusses central banks:

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/banking-crisis/the-coming-crisis-in-central-banking/

Overly briefly, Europe's central banks will likely fail first (before our Federal Reserve).

He ends his piece:

"OWN NO GOVERNMENT PAPER PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

No faith in our central banks..., LOL!

Yes, sure.  The Ledger Nano can hold very large amount of Bitcoin.  I doubt there is a "capacity" per se, there may be some kind of storage limits (perhaps like number of transactions it can store, etc.), but I don't know.

Ask Ledger via their website.  They are friendly!

...

Kprawn and everybody

Yes, a solid & secure decentralized BTC mixing technology would be a great thing.  Better more than one such service.

The only I would add is that it would have to be secure and easy to use -- to attract users.

Keep trying.  You might want to try PM'ing them from this forum as well.  Be polite and explain the problem as best you can.

The only issue (years ago) I ever had was resolved just fine, after some give-and-take with them.

[I am not associated with them, they have given me great service though]

A  very interesting article there, Mr. iamnotback.

Big Data is likely to open up all kinds of interesting cans of worms.  Interesting subtle correlations, etc.

But, another reason to stay off Facebook?


EDIT: There may be interesting things that Kosinski and Armstrong could share or discuss (what to do with big data sets)?

...

Further to iamnotback's note just above, Fox Business News mentioned that Marine La Pen now has the lead for the next presidential election in France.  If she wins, it's adios to the Euro Zone.  Brexit is likely to be good for Britain.  Re Grexit, ahh, who knows.....

I do not know enough about Europe to say whether that is good or bad, but it would be SEEN as bad news in the short run.

DJIA (Dow) is now down 180 points, the sharpest drop since the election.

...

Armstrong takes a look at Rapefugees in Sweden raping a gal and posting that to Facebook:

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/civil-unrest/refugee-gang-rape-swedish-girl-broadcast-on-facebook/

and

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/terrorism/its-a-mental-state-of-pride-not-shame/

Snowflakes and our political Left (Soros dominated?  How else to explain the reactions to Trump's restrictions on immigration?) do not seem to have any problem with Muslim atrocities.  Disgusting.