Entropy refers to an entire system and not an isolated part. Energy coming from the sun powers the creation, sustenance, and evolution of life and all of its complexity.

Buying different altcoins is not really diversifying because they all correlate strongly with Bitcoin (until they eventually fall to 0). Diversifying with assets other than cryptocurrencies is better.

Yes. I think it is more likely that it is an old blockchain.info recovery phrase (which is not BIP-39, BTW).

I don't know of any wallet app that creates an 18-word BIP-39 phrase, but there might be one. (If so, then why not just use the original wallet app?)

From your image, it looks like "free margin" indicates how much she can borrow to buy more coins.

The energy consumption of Bitcoin is unrelated to how it is used, except that more adoption means higher fees, which result in more energy consumption.

The person who told you that is wrong. It is possible to successfully "attack the chain" regardless of the number of blocks with sufficient resources.

There is a rule of thumb saying that it is extremely unlikely for a chain reorg to be 6 blocks deep. The six blocks rule of thumb comes from the math in the white paper and an analysis in a very old post here somewhere.

It is possible to reorg an unlimited number of blocks if you have more than 50% of the total hash rate. If you have less than 50%, then the probability of success drops exponentially with the number of blocks. It is not impossible to reorg 6 blocks with less than 50%, but it is very unlikely to succeed and therefore very impractical.

In order to back up that statement you have to show that a construct is the only possibility, and that there are no other possibilities, including inconceivable ones.

Otherwise, it is only your opinion and not a fact.

There is always a tradeoff between security and convenience. Having a wallet on an air-gapped computer is certainly more secure, but it is also a lot more inconvenient.

As everyone should know, a hardware wallet goes a long way in increasing convenience without sacrificing much security.

That was not smoke. That was powder that had been applied to to the hand.

It already happens in war zones, so it doesn't have to be imagined.

I don't think the sport will last long because competitors will eventually develop a technique to knock-out their opponents in the first hit. You don't have to hit someone with a fist to knock them out.

It is not just 6. It is 6 per round. That is not the actual number, though. That is the average number. And, as there are more and more rounds, the actual number is likely to get get closer (in relative terms) to the average. That likelihood is measured by the standard deviation.

However, there is a relatively small source of error. The chainwork value does not account for stale blocks. A stale block indicates work that has been done but does not contribute to the main chain.

That is false.

The public key for the first is 0479BE667...16F81798B7C5258...04EF2777

The public key for the second is 0479BE667...16F81798483ADA77...FB10D4B8

The compressed public keys are also different. One is 0279BE667...16F81798 and the other is 0379BE667...16F81798

Also as noted by @Prime9973 (although he should clarify that he means the x coordinate and not the entire public key)

All of the hash power that is out there is hash power that we don't know about. Miners don't report their hash rates. They only way we can estimate network hash rates is by looking at how fast blocks are being produced.

We can infer that the expected number is relatively close to the actual number because, for example, if the actual number were twice as much, we would expect to have twice as many blocks.

Think of it this way: The difficulty determines the expected number of hashes needed to find a block, regardless of who is doing the hashing.

Here is a simple example: suppose you have a group of people, each rolling a 6-sided die as fast as they can, and in order to win a round a 1 has to be rolled. Because the probability of rolling a 1 is 1/6, we know that it takes an average of 6 rolls to roll a 1. It doesn't matter who is rolling their die, or how fast they are rolling it. It will take an average of 6 rolls. Sometimes it takes more and sometimes it takes less, but the expected number of rolls is 6 for each round.

Now, the actual number of rolls is probably very different from 6 for each round, but as more and more rounds are played, the actual number is likely to get closer and closer to the expected value. That is the purpose of the standard deviation. The standard deviation measures the probability the actual number of rolls being different from the expected number of rolls by a certain amount.

Again, none of this is actual measurement. It is all probability. When you can't know the actual count, you can still compute the expected count and you can compute the quality of that value (in terms of probability).

I don't specifically know why addresses were invented but I can think of two reasons.

• 1. It is useful to keep the public key secret until it is needed.
• 2. Addresses take up much less space

Probability and statistics are your friend.


We can't know the actual number but we can come up with a reasonable estimate. The chainwork value is a good estimate and a standard deviation value tells us how good that estimate is.


The chainwork estimate and standard deviation values account for those possibilities.

That is unlikely to ever happen. Also, note that bitcoins are worthless if they cannot be traded since that is their only function.

These facts have been repeated many time but it seems that many people still are not aware that Grayscale does not own the BTC in GBTC, nor can they sell the bitcoins in GBTC.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust is a trust. It is a separate entity that it managed by Grayscale, and it pays Grayscale a management fee of 2% per year. The bitcoins in the trust were deposited in exchange for shares in the trust. Grayscale does not own the bitcoins in the trust. The trust owns the bitcoins. Grayscale does not own the trust. The shareholders own the trust. Not accurate.

The bitcoins in the trust were deposited in exchange for shares in the trust. While Grayscale deposited the initial bitcoins, they certainly did not deposit all of the bitcoins. However, Grayscale did have convenience option in which they would purchase the bitcoins to be deposited for the customer.

The structure of the trust currently does not allow the bitcoins to be sold, lent, or used as collateral. Grayscale cannot sell the bitcoins in the trust.

Life of Brian