Update

Bcash split at roughly 14:00 UTC. If you had BTC at (roughly) that point, then it should now be theoretically possible to split your coins. However, Bcash hasn't actually produced any blocks yet, maybe due to the way their difficulty adjusts, or maybe due to bugs (eg. I've heard that Bcash peers are sometimes banning each other).

Bitcoin is fine, and as expected, there was no BIP148/BIP91 split. I'm going to wait a few more hours before putting a green "all clear" thing in the news, but I'd feel pretty safe using Bitcoin normally now. Note that due to Bcash's pseudo-replay-protection, it is likely (but maybe not guaranteed) that Bitcoin transactions will not affect your Bcash balance.

If BCH doesn't crash and burn on a technical level, which it very well might, then I think that there will be three stages:

1. For the next 2-4 days, people will have BCH and be trading it inside of exchanges, but will not be able to readily deposit or withdraw it because BCH blocks will be mined very slowly. This will cause a very inflated price on at least some exchanges.
2. Over the course of a few weeks after that, it will be driven absolutely into the ground as people dump their free BCH.
3. Then it will recover somewhat and hover between 0.001 to 0.01 BTC as a maybe slightly-above-average altcoin. Depending on how committed its supporters are, it could continue indefinitely similar to Litecoin or peter out after some time.

Upper-layer protocols like Bitcoin experience a TCP socket as a stream of bytes. So from a node's perspective, it writes to an outgoing stream per peer in a manner like "versionVerackAddrInvBlock...", with messages just stuck together, and a similar incoming stream per peer. The fact that things are actually broken up into packets by TCP isn't generally something that users of TCP have to worry about (except sometimes for optimization reasons). A Bitcoin message can be broken into multiple TCP packets (if it's too large for one), and a TCP packet can contain multiple Bitcoin messages (if Bitcoin Core happens to send two Bitcoin message very close together so that the OS can batch them). If you're interested in Bitcoin rather than TCP, then you shouldn't really worry about this: just stick all of the TCP payloads together.

Try writing a simple TCP server and client in C or something using the basic syscalls. It's pretty simple, and it'll give you more understanding of how it works from the perspective of a TCP user.

It hasn't happened yet. It'll be sometime after 12:20 UTC.

Maybe the YoBit thing makes sense if they don't allow withdrawals.

It was merged by a moderator. Posting twice in a row within 24 hours isn't allowed even in selfmod threads because it unfairly bumps the thread.

The messed up text is mojibake as a result of charset-mismatch issues, probably caused by a partially-loaded page or weird configuration at the moderator's end. I haven't seen this particular thing happen before, so I'll assume for now that it was a momentary glitch somewhere. I fixed it.

Note that the 12:20 UTC split time for Bcash is approximate, and the split time could happen some time after that.

Aug 1 schedule

Here's what's expected to happen:

00:00 UTC: possible split 1

This is the BIP148 possible split point, which is what motivated all of the Aug 1 hubub. But due to BIP91's successful activation about a week ago, it is most likely that nothing of note will actually happen. It is however possible that the unexpected could occur.

12:20 UTC: split 2

BCash (BCH/BCC) is expected to split some time after 12:20 UTC. If you have a confirmed BTC balance as of approximately 12:20 UTC, and if you control your private keys, then it should be possible for you to claim an equal amount of BCH. Note that BCH is incompatible with Bitcoin (ie. it can fairly be described as an altcoin), so this split is not expected to affect Bitcoin in any technical way except perhaps some reduction in hashrate.

13:00-23:59 UTC: split instructions and all-clear

If nothing goes unexpectedly in the above two events, I will be aiming to post BCH split instructions and a final summary / "all-clear" before the end of the day, UTC. If something does go unexpectedly, then I will post an update about that ASAP.

Removed, thanks.

I do some basic research on ads before accepting them in order to avoid ads for things which could be unexpectedly risky for forum users (eg. I just refused an ad for a brand new site which takes deposits, as that is generally risky), but I can't catch them all, unfortunately. In this case, I did my investigation around the 15th, which predated those scam accusations. After that, I didn't notice that there were any problems or I would've pulled it immediately.

When Liberty Reserve was shut down, apparently you were supposed to contact the office of the lead prosecutor to get your money back. I suppose it'll be similar in this case (if the Feds actually took the money rather than the remaining btc-e operators). You can probably expect them to demand every shred of info you possess, though...

For the millionth time, you should not store money in Bitcoin banks! They get shut down, they get hacked, their owners run away with the money, etc. When you have money in an account like this, you should think of it as basically already gone -- maybe you'll be able to withdraw it, but until you actually do, it's someone else's money.

FYI: CentraTech is cleared to bid.

Also, I forgot to mention: this auction will definitely end sometime after Aug 2 00:00 UTC, at which point the worst of any fork issues should hopefully be in the past.

Note that I will only accept BTC as payment; ie. your payment transaction must be valid and must gain confirmations from the perspective of Bitcoin Core 0.14.2.

The forum sells ad space in the area beneath the first post of every topic page. This income is used primarily to cover hosting costs and to pay moderators for their work (there are many moderators, so each moderator gets only a small amount -- moderators should be seen as volunteers, not employees). Any leftover amount is typically either saved for future expenses or otherwise reinvested into the forum or the ecosystem.

Ads are allowed to contain any non-annoying HTML/CSS style. No images, JavaScript, or animation. Ads must appear 3 or fewer lines tall in my browser (Firefox, 900px wide). Ad text may not contain lies, misrepresentation, or inappropriate language. Ads may not link directly to any NSFW page. Ads may be rejected for other reasons, and I may remove ads even after they are accepted.

There are 10 total ad slots which are randomly rotated. So one ad slot has a one in ten chance of appearing. Nine of the slots are for sale here. Ads appear only on topic pages with more than one post, and only for people using the default theme.

Duration

- Your ads are guaranteed to be up for at least 7 days.
- I usually try to keep ads up for no more than 8 or 9 days.
- Sometimes ads might be up for longer, but hopefully no longer than 12 days. Even if past rounds sometimes lasted for long periods of time, you should not rely on this for your ads.

Stats

Exact historical impression counts per slot:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats

Info about the current ad slots:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adinfo

Ad blocking

Hero/Legendary members, Donators, VIPs, and moderators have the ability to disable ads. I don't expect many people to use this option. These people don't increase the impression stats for your ads.

I try to bypass Adblock Plus filters as much as possible, though this is not guaranteed. It is difficult or impossible for ABP filters to block the ad space itself without blocking posts. However, filters can match against the URLs in your links, your CSS classes and style attributes, and the HTML structure of your ads.

To prevent matches against URLs: I have some JavaScript which fixes links blocked by ABP. You must tell me if you want this for your ads. When someone with ABP and JavaScript enabled views your ads, your links are changed to a special randomized bitcointalk.org URL which redirects to your site when visited. People without ABP are unaffected, even if they don't have JavaScript enabled. The downsides are:
- ABP users will see the redirection link when they hover over the link, even if they disable ABP for the forum.
- Getting referral stats might become even more difficult.
- Some users might get a warning when redirecting from https to http.

To prevent matching on CSS classes/styles: Don't use inline CSS. I can give your ad a CSS class that is randomized on each pageload, but you must request this.

To prevent matching against your HTML structure: Use only one <a> and no other tags if possible. If your ads get blocked because of matching done on something inside of your ad, you are responsible for noticing this and giving me new ad HTML.

Designing ads

Make sure that your ads look good when you download and edit this test page:
https://bitcointalk.org/ad_test.html
Also read the comments in that file.

Images are not allowed no matter how they are created (CSS, SVG, or data URI). Occasionally I will make an exception for small logos and such, but you must get pre-approval from me first.

The maximum size of any one ad is 51200 bytes.

I will send you more detailed styling rules if you win slots in this auction (or upon request).

Auction rules

You must be at least a Jr Member to bid. If you are not a Jr Member and you really want to bid, you should PM me first. Tell me in the PM what you're going to advertise. You might be required to pay some amount in advance. Everyone else: Please quickly PM newbies who try to bid here to warn them against impersonation scammers.

If you have never purchased forum ad space before, and it is not blatantly obvious what you're going to advertise, say what you're going to advertise in your first bid, or tell me in a PM.

Post your bids in this thread. Prices must be stated in BTC per slot. You must state the maximum number of slots you want. When the auction ends, the highest bidders will have their slots filled until all nine slots are filled.

So if someone bids for 9 slots @ 5 BTC and this is the highest bid, then he'll get all 9 slots. If the two highest bids are 9 slots @ 4 BTC and 1 slot @ 5 BTC, then the first person will get 8 slots and the second person will get 1 slot.

The notation "2 @ 5" means 2 slots for 5 BTC each. Not 2 slots for 5 BTC total.

- When you post a bid, the bids in your previous posts are considered to be automatically canceled. You can put multiple bids in one post, however.
- All bid prices must be evenly divisible by 0.05.
- The bidding starts at 0.1.
- I will end the auction at an arbitrary time. Unless I say otherwise, I typically try to end auctions within a few days of 10 days from the time of this post, but unexpected circumstances may sometimes force me to end the auction anytime between 4 and 22 days from the start.
- If two people bid at the same price, the person who bid first will have his slots filled first.
- Bids are considered invalid and will be ignored if they do not specify both a price and a max quantity, or if they could not possibly win any slots

If these rules are confusing, look at some of the past forum ad auctions to see how it's done.

I reserve the right to reject bids, even days after the bid is made.

You must pay for your slots within 24 hours of receiving the payment address. Otherwise your slots may be sold to someone else, and I might even give you a negative trust rating. I will send you the payment information via forum PM from this account ("theymos", user ID 35) after announcing the auction results in this thread. You might receive false payment information from scammers pretending to be me. They might even have somewhat similar usernames. Be careful.

Yes, incentivizing posting is totally disallowed in the altcoin sections, and in the other sections it must be confined to Games and Rounds.

Auction ended, final result:
Slots BTC/Slot Person
4 0.60 ChipMixer
2 0.55 Hash_Rush
1 0.55 Gunthar
1 0.55 leonArdo@margin
1 0.55 FirstGlobalCredit

That is very much not allowed. The threads are trashed, the poster is banned for 60 days, everyone who participated is banned for 3 days, and everyone who participated cannot display a signature for 30 days.

This topic has been moved to Trashcan. Pay to post.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2039055.0

This topic has been moved to Trashcan. Pay to post.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2024824.0

The BTC+BCC will remain in cold storage. If BCC still has any value to speak of whenever I need to access the cold storage next, I will consider what to do with it then.

Rushing to sell the BCC ASAP would be an act of speculation, and would entail some risk. It is possible that BCC could acquire significant value after an initial period of dumping. I personally find this nearly unimaginable, but still, I don't go around making bets with 1000+ BTC.

Update

Due to BIP91, an economically-significant split seems quite a bit less likely. However, a large split is still possible if miners renege on BIP91, which wouldn't be very difficult for them to do.

Also, it seems that the Bitcoin Cash (BCC) fork will happen regardless on Aug 1, but everything I've seen leads me to believe that BCC will have very low value. Research and decide for yourself.

As a side-effect of BIP91, the risk of long reorganizations will be somewhat increased for the next month or so. This could cause confirmations on transactions to disappear more easily than otherwise, which could allow for double-spending. If you want to be about as safe as possible, you should wait for 30 confirmations before trusting incoming transactions.