I would install Linux in one of the computer and use it solely for the signing of the transaction. Linux is less targeted when it comes to malware due to the less widespread use and it's nature as an operating system. Under no circumstances should the computer go online and it should only be used for signing. Next, you can set up a watch-only wallet on an online computer using the xpub that you can get from the offline computer. Whenever you generate an un-signed transaction, you'll be able to copy the hex version out for your other computer.

While there isn't any huge concern for the use of a USB, you can explore using QR codes instead. The way that it works makes it better since you can be definitive about the information being transferred. Bad USB was an issue and I bet it could be an issue in the future, especially with flash drives.

Something about the post-it doesn't seem right... 

I'm interested. Let me know if you'll transact with a trusted escrow on the forum

Did you send the coins to an address after you encrypted your wallet? If you did, the default behavior is for the wallet to dump the keys created prior to the encryption and the HD seed gets refreshed. You will need to save a copy of the wallet.dat after the encryption. Could you try to find it?

Genesis block was in 2009. Binance was definitely not founded then either.
When was the last time and the version that you've used your client? In the older version, a backup has to be made for every 100 transactions. If you have transferred your coins out of binance, there's nothing that you can do if you don't find the relevant wallet backup.

Why would the person be forced to use Bitpay? The service wouldn't know if the payment is done via BitPay if it's done on-chain. They have no reason to force the user to use BitPay to pay for an invoice in Bitcoin on-chain, it'll be the same as paying using any other wallets.

I don't think its very unreasonable for the fees to be that high. There was indeed a period of time where it took hours for my transaction with a fee of ~100sat/byte to get confirmed. If the merchant wants a confirmation within a reasonable period of time, I don't think that would be out of the ordinary though I agree it's quite extreme.

If your wallet provider doesn't allow you the liberty to choose the way to use your wallet, you should avoid it.

Binance.com doesn't use bech32 (bc1) addresses, they still use the legacy address which starts with 1. You might've copied the address wrongly.

As for the transaction being 4BTC, Crypto.com is a custodial wallet so in a transaction, it's used to send funds to several users at once. Crypto.com is not at fault here, they've sent the funds to the correct address that you've indicated. Your funds are still in the address[1] and I assume that it's not your first time using it as there was a transaction prior to yours?




[1] https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/address/bc1qvxxj7cte6470kpc0a4xcqtg80wddq06w3ar04z

Might sound quite trivial but is it executable? Navigate to the directory and pass chmod +x bitcoind into the command line. I've been running Raspbian and I had to do this so it might be applicable to you.

I assume you're getting the hash of the entire tar.gz file? The hash should be 55b577e0fb306fb429d4be6c9316607753e8543e5946b542d75d876a2f08654c for the arm version.

Possible. But there isn't a known vulnerability affecting Electrum as of now. If you were to verify[1] Electrum, you can eliminate the possibility of you having downloaded a malicious version. How are you loading it into the website? Can you be certain if the customer is trying to scam you by telling you they've paid and provided you with a fake TXID that sends the transaction to another address?

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5240594.0

What I'll do is to synchronize the client completely on a normal computer and then transfer the entire data directory to the HDD. It'll save a lot of time as you can validate faster on the computer due to its better processor.
I don't think anyone actually did an actual test on it but a good priced SSD should withstand the degradation pretty well. In terms of the cost and benefit, you'll probably have a faster synchronization and roughly a similar experience of running a node. I would argue that given the only process that would have any noticeable benefits from an SSD is the IBD, a HDD would provide a marginal cost savings and provide roughly the same user experience.

HDD is more cost effective than SSD in terms of per gb costs. While it does run a bit louder, Bitcoin nodes has a lot of I/O activity with it due to the constant fetching of block info to supply to the nodes. Flash storage can degrade over time with constant reading and writing. HDD is more reliable in this aspect.
I would recommend for you to run one with Raspberry Pi.

Do not put your files on the MicroSD card if you're going that route. The high I/O will wear out the MicroSD card very quickly. You would want to synchronize your files on a computer before putting it on a Raspberry Pi. It's too underpowered and will take quite some time, perhaps up to a week to synchronize. You will want to use the options to disable wallet and all the unnecessary stuff to try to save the resources and perhaps limit the peer count. RPi is very underpowered for a node but it performs well for it's price, it'll work just fine for a medium sized full node.

I can't find an interview that's more in depth and rigorous as his, was definitely an interesting read.

I assume that you're talking about version 4.0.5, not 4.5.0 because it doesn't exist.

Try pressing the bottom right bubble (is it red?), uncheck select server automatically and scroll to find VPS.hsmiths.com:50002, right click and press use as server.

I was incredibly busy with exams recently and I just remembered about this PM. Sorryy!

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?
I think it was in the early 2014s. Bitcoin was featured on my news, just a short segment, nothing in depth at all. Curiosity got the better of me so I spent the whole night researching about Bitcoin and accidentally stumbled upon this forum. I realised that it was a good way for me to buy stuff online (I couldn't get a debit card as I didn't fulfill the age requirement) and I got hooked onto it after reading through the whitepaper. It was a good thing though, it is probably the catalyst for me to pursue a degree in computing right now .

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?
IIRC, it was around 2015. Well, I have always wanted to own my first Bitcoin. I got fractions of it previously by selling my stuff online and trying the various faucets (wasn't that worth my time). A Bitcoin ATM came to my country and it didn't require KYC verification. So I traveled 1 hour to the ATM and purchased my first Bitcoin. I was pretty excited at that time and I actually used my paper wallet for that.

3. How did you get on the forum?
I was googling it. Luck has it, was the 4th link after bitcoin.org.

4.1. What prevents mass adoption of cryptocurrencies?
Volatility and government regulations. I think the government is the greatest hurdle after it's volatility. The main problem with cryptos in general is that they aren't backed by anything and is a rather novel technology. The general population is probably fairly skeptical about this entire concept, why would they take their time to research about blockchain and stuff right? The volatility obviously doesn't help with the situation, having your net worth getting wiped by 1k in a few seconds is certainly not fun. Government regulations is probably next and it's probably about the difficulty to regulate it and the problem with tax evasion and stuff. Not good for Bitcoin but that's what the government has to prioritize.

4.2. How do you think mass advertising of gambling projects has a positive effect on the development of the forum or harms the community?
Well, I don't think there can be a positive effect. It's gambling after all and mathematically the house would always win, combined with the negative stigma associated with it. I see gambling ads all the time and I don't think having them on a forum is necessarily bad, as long as it's not endorsed explicitly.

4.3. How do you consider whether 2-3 years of experience in cryptocurrency is enough to successfully invest or does an investor need to receive special education?
It's enough. I don't see Bitcoin as a viable investment though, more like a speculative asset. You just have to accept that the 1k that you've invested in Bitcoin can become 0 in the next second. Once you have that mindset in mind, you're ready to invest.

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?
I think I was one of the earlier supporters of the merit system and regularly rebuked those who were trying to argue against it. The main thing that is affected by the merit system is the rank and it honestly doesn't matter. Its a forum for discussions and I don't think having a lower rank undermines the message that one is putting across. Signature campaign wise, well it does bring more traffic to the site but I'm not sure how beneficial it is. I do see loads of interesting discussion and the same goes the other way.

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?
I don't have any topics in mind but in terms of a subsection it's probably Development & Technical. I think LoyceV and TryNinja has contributed immensely to the forum, I love the sites that they have created.

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?
2FA, mobile site (it's so annoying to type on my phone) and probably autolocking topics (I really can't wrap my head around some topics which obviously only needs one reply and has 11 pages worth of rubbish)

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?
Nope. I don't see a point, not an educated trader and I don't have interest in most of the projects (unless they offer something innovative)

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?
Biggest profit and loss was when I bought at 8k and sold at 10k.

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?
No opinion. I was pretty busy recently and I haven't had the time to scrutinize it.

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?
Necessity. I would prefer those who know my real life identity to keep it a secret for personal reasons.

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?
Mastering Bitcoin. I think it's probably the only book you need to know the inner workings of the system.

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?
Ethereum and Bitcoin only.

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?
One month away but I sure hope it'll be stable at 20k at least.

I think it's great for more institutions to accept Bitcoin and I see this as a huge plus for the adoption.

However, it's important to note that it's just akin to having more payment methods. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing bad about it. Having more payment methods is beneficial to the adoption but it isn't synonymous as people seeing it as a store of value. The volatility of Bitcoin is way too much for most to shoulder especially when it's so hard to use Bitcoin. Until Bitcoin becomes less volatile, the adoption rate won't be high at all. It's definitely good publicity to be one of the few to accept crypto though (something something about innovation within the university)?

It is.

To calculate entropy, we'll have to use log2 (6) - log base 2 of 6.

That gives us an entropy of approximately 2.58496250072 per dice roll. 128 bit entropy should be enough of an entropy which would result in at least 50 dice rolls to reach. When you have 100 dice, you can probably pick around 50 biased dice and still end up with 128bit of entropy.

The choice of word and the phrasing could be misleading and it'll help if they'll point this out in the packaging of the dice. I think the sequence of picking the dices will have a significant effect on the entropy but there is a decent cushioning before you'll really endanger the user's funds. You can only truly achieve 256bits of entropy with 100 unbiased dice rolls. Picking all of them with bias would just be creating a brainwallet.

On the blockchain, the transactions are completely transparent. You'll know if a transaction spends an input from certain addresses. By recognising the origin or the path that the funds take, you can deduce with a reasonable accuracy that it is from a certain service. It's especially so since most gambling site uses a single address (or a bunch of known addresses) to store their funds as well.

Can the casino provide a transaction ID (hash)? Can you see the transaction hash on a blockexplorer (blockchair.com)? Is the funds in the transaction going to the right place? If the answer to any of that is no, then they haven't send the funds.
Deposits are automatically credited on Coinbase.

You can try but it does have some downside. There are several services that are still incompatible with Bech32 addresses (god knows why) so it'll be wise to use a P2SH Segwit Address for better compatibility. I presume some of the services actually offer both and toggles between the types of addresses which would be great.
Addresses starting with 3 merely indicates that it is a P2SH (Pay-to-Script-Hash) address, it does not necessarily contains a witness script wrapped inside.
Probably not. There shouldn't be any noticeable difference when you're paying to a legacy or a segwit address.

Yes.

No they aren't. An address that belongs to you can be used to receive and send funds repeatedly.
It isn't. It is fairly easy for anyone to be able to trace transactions. The coins are usually sent to a known address that is controlled by the casino. Afterwhich, it is likely sent directly to your address. Coinbase can reasonably link the connections and deduce that you're sending the funds from a casino.

Unfortunately, yes. There's no way of getting them back.

That's not my address. The first few characters may look similar but the remaining characters are very different.

You've probably been infected by a clipboard virus. The malware changes any Bitcoin addresses that it detects in the clipboard and changes it to one that looks similar and that they control. You have to backup all your important files and do a complete wipe of your computer. Some may be fairly persistent and using an antivirus would not be sufficient.