A final balance of 0 just means that all of the bitcoins that the address has received so far have been spent. If your transaction  and the spending transaction have both been confirmed, then there can be no argument about whether or not your bitcoins have been received.

However, you might still need to prove that the address you are looking at is the address you were given and that the transaction you are looking at is yours.

It is hard to answer your questions because you have blacked out most of the useful information. All of that info is public. There isn't much of a reason to black it out.

If a block explorer shows that your transaction is confirmed, then the bitcoins have been received, but it is also possible that you are looking at the wrong transaction or that you sent the bitcoins to the wrong address.

You can safely ignore what luke-jr believes. Nobody takes him seriously, not even other developers on Core.

The problem with voting "Developers" is that miners can (and do) develop their own code.
The problem with voting "Code based algorithm" is that miners get to choose the algorithm.

Adding the choice "Nodes" would make the poll more interesting.

Also, it is easy to say that <insert entity here> should control some aspect of Bitcoin, but it is irrelevant unless it can be shown that <insert entity here> could control that aspect of Bitcoin. Saying that "the community" should decide is meaningless.

Yes. Each miner decides which transactions go into the blocks it mines.

However, it is important to understand that miners are competing to add their blocks to the block chain. The more hash power the miner has, the more likely that their block will be added.

It is also important to understand that if you are a member of a pool, then you don't get to choose transactions because you are just a hasher and the pool is really the miner.

It is not surprising that a Coin Telegraph article promotes a pyramid scheme (BitClub Network). I assume that is the entire purpose of the article.

The fee for that transaction is 0.00001, or about 4.5 s/B, and the result is that the transaction may never be confirmed.

Edit: blockchain.info now shows that the bitcoins have been double-spent. Is Coinpayments legitimate?

No one node or group of nodes controls the network. That is the nature of a decentralized network.

• A miner controls which transactions go into his block, but cannot control what transactions go into other blocks.
• A node (including miners) controls what transactions are relayed to other nodes, but cannot control what transactions other nodes relay.
• A node (including miners) controls what what blocks are added to its copy of the block chain, but cannot control what blocks are added to other nodes' copies of the block chain.
• A node deciding which blocks are added to its block chain, gives value to the block rewards in its chain.

It depends on whether or not you are a speculator. If you are not a speculator, then it really doesn't matter. If you are a speculator, then you really don't matter.  

The effect is not one-way. While a rising transaction fee might depress adoption, lower adoption will in turn depress the transaction fee. That suggests an equilibrium influenced by other factors.

I feel like too many people are taking all this controversy way too personally and too seriously. Listen, if you are losing sleep over any of this, you perhaps you could think about taking a break.

Whatever happens, it is no big deal. It's not like your life or even your livelihood depends on the future of Bitcoin. If it does, then perhaps you have made mistake by getting so involved, and it might be better to fix that first before worrying about fixing Bitcoin.

A coup implies that somebody is in charge. If somebody is in charge of Bitcoin, then Bitcoin is doomed.

I'm buying bitcoins as fast as I can.

"Buy when there's blood in the streets"

There is really no "request for payment". All that feature does is shows a QR code containing information such as an address and amount that another wallet can use to create a transaction. There is nothing being opened or closed, other than the app itself.

There may be some confusion in terminology.

If you "import" a private key, you are giving a copy of the private key to the new wallet to use. The old wallet still holds its copy of the private key. If two wallets hold the same private key, they both have control over the bitcoins, and both wallets will report the bitcoins as belonging to them.

If you "sweep" a private key, the new wallet sends the bitcoins to a new address that it controls (using the private key you provide). The old wallet no longer has the bitcoins.

Importing a private key can cause confusion and may create a security risk, so it is generally better for newbies to sweep a private key.

It looks like shapeshift screwed up and sent the refund to their own address. You will have to contact them again. Make sure that you give them a Poloniex deposit address to send the refund to.

Also, using Poloniex as a wallet is probably not a good idea.

1. Yes
2. The sender must broadcast the transaction to the network. However, the receiving wallet does not need to be connected to receive, but it must be connected to find out about the transaction.
3. There are no names. You will need to pay a fee when you send from one address to another, regardless of if they are in the same wallet or different wallets.
4. Most exchanges require KYC. Localbitcoins does not. All exchanges, except BitSquare, are centralized.

Yes. Anyone can send bitcoins to any address at any time. It doesn't matter when the address was displayed by your wallet. However, in order to spend any bitcoins sent to that address, you will need the private key, or the seed that generated the private key. I assume that any wallet that displays an address will save the private key to that address. It would be very bad if it didn't.

Listen, Chicken Little, if you have 5% of the hash rate, your attempt to "split the network" will go nowhere. The Bitcoin.com pool has around that much of the hash rate, and their accidental 1 MB+ block had no effect on the network at all.

Also, if a large enough portion of the hash rate increases the max block size, the rest of the miners won't be left behind, they will jump on board.

You make it sound like miners have to choose between Core or BU, but they don't. They can use whatever software they want. They can change the rules whenever they want. They don't need the Core priesthood to bless their changes.

Finally, miners already have full control. They have the ultimate say. That is how Bitcoin works. That is how it is structured. They do the proof-of-work. They decide what is valid and what is not valid. Of course, the other full nodes have some leverage, and users have some economic influence. But in the end, whether you like it or not, miners decide.

Only mentions Bitcoin in passing: