As much as I like Bitcoin, I can't deny that current transaction fees and on-chain limitations are bad. Bitcoin can't grow without more users, which it can't handle because all blocks are full. My first Bitcoin experience was a good one back in 2015: I could make many transactions at a very low fee, which gave me a good feeling of how Bitcoin works. You can't do that now without paying a small fortune in transaction fees. And even if it's "just" a few bucks per transaction, that's too much just to try it out.

Litecoin still has low transaction fees. For $0.01, you can make about 50 transactions. The good thing is that Litecoin works about the same as Bitcoin.

Judging by your screenshot, the wallet is "Up to date.", which means it's connected. Click Window > Peers to confirm it's connected.
Maybe you're just not used to seeing the real interface without IBD You can create a wallet now.

The feedback he sent me, you and nutildah looks like a confession:

That was to be expected. Chatbot-spam gets harder and harder to detect (and prove), and if Mods don't ban them on the spot for plagiarism, there is no limit to the amount of verbal diarrhea they can create.

First: you are (of course) correct. But if Blockchair shows "Senders" and "Recipients", I think the phrase "sending address" is less confusing to someone who's new to Bitcoin than "UTXO". And I'm so used to this, that I didn't even think about it being technically incorrect.

The same applies to many other taxes: tax payers are responsible for reporting the correct amounts. If you don't, government can fine or imprison you. The level of tax evasion varies per country, Italy holds the record in EU. That makes me think it's much more socially accepted in Italy, but I have no idea what consequences there are for tax evaders after they get caught.

I guess you don't know Dutch houses: they have large windows, are built close together and don't have much distance from the sidewalk.

Thanks again for your flawless timing!

I'm having a drink to o_e_l_e_o tonight.

Even if you'd show proof of funds, you'd be buying Merit, which will only get you red tagged.

You still have your sense of humor, that's good What else can you do than try to see the bright side.

Yes.

Damn, this sucks
Spending time with loved ones is indeed the most important thing for your remaining time on earth. You made a lasting impression on Bitcointalk.

Farewell.

The same thought crossed my mind. But not taking this seriously wouldn't be fair either. Real life can be unimaginably tough

May I ask why "they" donated that many dust transactions? Were those different people or was it one person?

Are those 30 wallets yours, or do the funds come from other people? If the wallets are yours, you could import all keys into one (offline) wallet instead of sending them, and then create one large transaction to create one new input.

Also note that consolidating 30 different wallets is bad for privacy.

My expectation was that someone is somehow turning a profit from the Ordinal scam, but I can barely believe that produces enough money to spend many millions of dollars per day on Bitcoin dust transactions for months in a row. Then again, ICOs also earned massive amounts of money, so maybe enough people are really still dumb enough to fall for this.

Since their Ordinal crap needs it's own wallet anyway to make any sense, they should have built this whole scam on LN.

One the one hand: yes, ETFs are the opposite of what I'd want to use. But on the other hand: Bitcoin gives anyone the freedom to use it the way they want. If they want to risk fractional reserve Bitcoin, let them.

Many exchanges have lost their coins in the past. This will eventually happen to an ETF too.

I guess it's a bit of both.

There's another benefit to people keeping coins on exchanges or ETFs: the blockchain simply can't handle more on-chain transactions. Current estimates of the number of "Bitcoin owners" are several timse larger than the total number of funded Bitcoin addresses. That can't all happen on-chain, without massive increases in block size.

I can use Bitcoin right now to order dinner. Of course it's a currency.

On-chain solutions can't, because storing a quarter trillion VISA payments per year in a decentralized way is simply not viable. That would require massive data centers. But off-chain solutions have the potential to do this: the Lightning Network for instance doesn't need to store all transactions, each node only has to store the current state of it's own channels. Except for the problem of on-chain channel creation, this has the potential to scale very well.

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I may even consider using a Bitcoin ETF: unlike my own keys, an ETF comes with tax benefits for pension savings. But that would also mean I have to trust the ETF for decades, and I'm not ready to do that yet.

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Banks are just trying to remain relevant

Miners can easily switch pools. The moment one pool is subject to unwanted government involvement (let's say a tax on freshly mined Bitcoins), miners will leave. Money talks.

You'll be one failure away from losing your Bitcoins.

Why is he not banned for breaking forum rules?

Mods won't delete it, so others can read it too. Best you can do is lock (bottom-left) this topic.

There is no "gas", there's only "transaction fees" in Bitcoin.

So you have 0.1 BTC in dust. Yep, you're screwed. And since those "inscription" spammers are the cause of the high transaction fees, it feels like sweet karma to me
Either way, just wait. If fees drop enough, you can consolidate them at 1 sat/vbyte. You're going to need patience.