It's true -- it's a very sad state of affairs. The amount of dumb money coming into altcoins (because Bitcoin is "too expensive") is really absurd, and this has really caused a proliferation of very scammy projects intent upon soaking up all that money on the table.

This project is especially bad. Not only are they are scamming the vast majority of their signature campaign participants. So they are getting an absurd amount of free advertising from people who wrongly believe they will receive something from the "airdrop." But it's also a copy/paste shitcoin where the devs took a massive pre-mine and are openly staking the premine.

I'm from the days when LTC was considered a scam. If I only knew then what I know now.....

If you read closely, and then read the article the WSJ and Bloomberg are citing, you'll see that there is no evidence that digital currency trading will be banned. Not only is the report totally anonymous, but it doesn't issue a directive against digital currency trading, but rather fiat/crypto trading. That's why Okcoin announced that if the report were true, they would switch operations to a digital assets exchange, rather than principally a BTCCNY exchange.

Here's what George Kikvadze‏ from Bitfury had to say yesterday:

The cited report did not even suggest banning BTC or cryptocurrencies. In a way, the alleged directives highlight the decentralization of Bitcoin: they can only prohibit fiat markets and fiat gateways.

They cannot stop P2P cryptocurrency trade, and the report seems to openly acknowledge that. Okcoin, in response, said, "If the report is true, we'll stop BTC/CNY trades & become a P2P platform for digital assets." https://twitter.com/cnLedger/status/906461180415197185

The authorities prohibiting the use of Bitcoin was always a tragic scenario for quick mainstream adoption, but not for Bitcoin itself. I think we are past the point (in terms of legitimacy) where one government prohibiting its use really matters in the long run.

The Chinese government is likely developing their own digital currency. According to cnLedger‏, there's already a smartphone app available called "Blockchain e-Wallet" which is developed and designed by the Bank of China. It supposedly uses blockchain technology and can be linked to Bank of China debit cards. There is apparently no bitcoin/crypto interface in the app.

I think the Bank of China would be unlikely to develop this app entirely independently of the government.

See here: https://twitter.com/cnLedger/status/907095022385823744

Bingo. No government can look around at what is happening in the Bitcoin/cryptocurrency space today and believe that they are going to disappear. Either get with the program or get left behind. There is only so much time to develop an ideal regulatory environment before other countries become the hubs for cryptocurrency finance. Just look at Vietnam, legalizing cryptocurrencies and outlining a regulatory framework.

I don't think the ban on ICOs will remain permanent, either. But the amount of money being put into this space is becoming large enough that the government feels they need to get a handle on it (AML, outflowing capital, unregulated securities, etc).

I hear that. But personally I'd have never gotten involved with such a scammy sounding site. Even if the deal were escrowed, you're bound to experience some hassle at least. When it comes to mining hardware, you should deal directly with the manufacturer. The chances of being scammed are very high.

I don't think Bitpay or Coinbase offers any protection in this context, either. They do refunds, but only as coordinated with vendors. If you get scammed by a vendor, I think all you can do is file a police report...

This is no longer the case. Earlier this year, volume on the Chinese exchanges drastically dropped after the government audited them. Now, we see that Japan and the West have much more influence on the market (at least according to volume) than previously thought. Trading volumes are much more distributed throughout the globe now.

It's true, though, that China is extremely relevant to Bitcoin mining and ASIC manufacturing. That hasn't changed, although we are now seeing Japanese companies enter that space as well.

Then why are you guys saying "Get Your FREE Coins NOW!" and "Free Airdrop!" in your signatures? It sounds like the majority of people wearing those signatures expected to get some free coins, but didn't. This is one of the few projects where "airdrop" not only means 1) work, but 2) work you don't get paid for.

All the while, the developers, moderators and shills continue to gaslight. "DeepOnion is not free money for everyone who registers." Reconcile that statement with your signature.

Great news. I actually thought it was a typo at first, thinking it was the GMO news. As for displacing China's dominance in mining... that might take a while. We'll have to see how things pan out for these Japanese mining ventures in 2018, and also what Bitfury has in store.

A lot can change between now and the end of H1 2018, when we can expect GMO's operation to have launched, so I'm glad DMM has an even more ambitious timeline to become operational. It'll also be interesting to see what Bitmain does in the meantime...

Let's be realistic, though. That's not "absolutely anonymous" at all. Law enforcement agencies have been running TOR exit nodes and honey pots on the dark web for years now. It's a lot better than being tied to your ISP's address. But it's not anonymity.

One should always run a no-log VPN beneath TOR as an extra line of protection if you are really concerned about privacy, and if you want to protect yourself from would-be snoopers. But even TOR + VPN is no guarantee in this day and age. But it at least means you won't be low-hanging fruit.

I would only feel comfortable manually typing private keys (e.g. to import paper wallets), because if you screw up, there is no loss. You should always copy and paste addresses. I would have thought Ethereum addresses included a checksum, like Bitcoin, to prevent this sort of thing.


It's very unlikely to happen with Bitcoin. That's why Satoshi designed Bitcoin addresses to include a checksum for testing validity. So if you accidentally delete the last couple digits, for instance, your wallet won't send.

I had the exact same concern as you just a few days ago. I don't send ETH out of my wallet (MyEtherWallet) very often and I had never sent to Bitfinex. I took a chance with a smaller amount at first and just did a typical send (21000 gas limit), and it arrived at Bitfinex with no issues. Confirmed and released into my account in ~15 minutes. So I would say, go for it. Just don't leave funds on the exchange for long. You never know what might happen...

Could you provide a link to the clarification from Caixin? I checked the main @caixin account, but can't find anything. I'm sure the reason for this story was to manipulate the markets. Somebody took out a huge short and is now collecting.

We've seen nothing official from the Chinese government and no other news sources confirm the story. I call BS. Anybody remember when the People's Bank of China banned Bitcoin (over and over again) a few years ago? This looks just like that.

Unfortunately, it really seems like they don't have sufficient resources to withstand constant attacks, which is a very basic requirement for any functional exchange.

It also makes me worry about their security; how much funds/effort are going towards penetration testing? Probably not much, if they can't even keep a functioning registration page up. Be careful sending any funds here!

They said there will be no conversions once the new site is launched. That means if you held fiat on BTC-e, that some will be returned as "USD" and some will be returned as "USDET." That's what it looks like from the token tab as well.

It's pretty obvious by now that they intend to offer fiat trading/deposits/withdrawals. My gut says that doesn't seem sustainable, but billions of dollars are laundered every day. So, why not? If they can get some minimal level of fiat processing through whatever shady third party payment processors, perhaps some confidence can return. After all, the BTC-e code economy, I believe, was magnitudes larger than the actual fiat deposit/withdrawal volume of the site. Time will tell.

Dynamic fee calculation sounds great, but it often doesn't work very well, and leaves users paying much more than necessary. I consistently send BTC using Electrum on the lowest fee setting (within 25 blocks). It's almost always included in the next block, and has never been delayed more than 2 blocks.

Anyone using the high fee setting to get immediate confirmation on Electrum (and other wallets...Core is even worse) is getting totally reamed on fees. Every single time. And I think this has created a bad feedback cycle where 1) users believe a high fee is necessary when it's not, then 2) persistently complain about the high fees.

Typical users have many less inputs to use on average than services like exchanges, and should expect to transact for considerably lower fees.

So yes, use Electrum, but you should probably use the lower fee settings if you use dynamic fees. Or just manually set much lower fees. And use RBF if necessary.

I held them in the first place because I didn't want to screw up and lose any BTC trying to extract them. I wasn't sure how its replay protection worked, and I also didn't trust these scammy wallets that came out of nowhere, like "Electron Cash" and "Bitcoin ABC."

When I researched a bit more and figured out how to safely extract my BCH, I came to the conclusion that it was best to hold for a while. Like any altcoin, it was likely to base for a while and eventually get pumped, especially with powerful backers like Bitmain. I guess there's the tiny, tiny possibility that it could overtake BTC as well, but that seems to become less likely each day. Then again, BCH might be able to capitalize on Segwit2x drama/fears as we head into November.

This is generally true. Wallet stealing malware has much more to do with irresponsible security practices and social engineering than anything else. The people that fall victim to it are usually those downloading anything and everything (such as altcoin wallets that are actually malware or random email attachments) onto machines that hold coins.

The primary defenses on an internet-connected machine: 1) rarely downloading anything, and when you do, only do so from a trusted source and check signatures. 2) Be careful clicking links and surfing in general. If you have coins at risk, you shouldn't be treating your computer as if it were a throwaway.

You should keep most of your coins offline, anyway. And you should also have a throwaway machine (or phone/tablet) for visiting sites that may be insecure, or for downloading torrents, etc.

I don't buy into the Linux vs. Windows argument. If you have bad security practices, you will lose your coins on Linux, too. If you think malware doesn't exist (or cannot exist) for Linux, you are mistaken. There is far less malware because hardly any end users use Linux.

I expect the same. Now that we are in a calm period without any pressing deadlines, the mempool spam has largely subsided and the fervor over BIP148 and BIP91 has declined to quiet grumblings about "No2x." And the Bitcoin Discussion subforum is mostly populated by low quality mega-threads again, instead of fork-related threads on every other line.

I suspect that this period will also coincide with a price consolidation that pushes into another leg of rallying. The market uncertainty around the November fork should start setting in by late October.... and I think that will be a major top for BTC.

I wonder if it might be like the US-facing online poker industry after Black Friday. The cashout situation became so bad that customers on networks like Carbon and Cake began to question the solvency of the sites they played on.

Check cashouts took anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to process, and sometimes the checks bounced. As such, a market developed around P2P bank deposits as a way to cash out. People would pay 40-50% premiums to get their money out of the dodgier sites.