To all the comments above: Tesla has obviously been brought up to the top through Elon, so did Bitcoin get propped up by Satoshi and all of our devs. That's just obvious.

But I'm not sure if Tesla can be compared to cryptos. Like, does it even make sense? They're two completely different things. I don't get the idea of comparing BTC to literally anything..

I highly doubt the volume of p2p trades exceed or are even 80% the volume of centralized exchanges. If this was true, Bisq and Atomic DEX would've actually been reliable exchanges (as in you could easily trade at any time knowing you'd find decent prices).

Agreed. Now I believe we can both also agree that even if the larger part of crypto users really do care about their privacy, a waaay smaller percentage actually use BTC accordingly. It's really been bugging me out recently: even if people care, most of them do not have the right education to increase their privacy while using cryptocurrencies. Therefore, governments are obviously not bothered - if blockchain analysis wasn't a thing, I doubt they would've been so friendly.

I'd argue about both the number of people who don't give a damn about privacy/centralization and the significance of it. I think the number of people not caring is high enough to have a negative overall impact over a significant part of the whitepaper. Like, I understand the need of more convenient platforms that cannot be at the moment anyhow but centralized, but in my opinion, promoting centralization and completely ignoring your privacy en masse means we're losing ground.

Here's a little question: what do you think would happen if everyone tomorrow stopped agreeing to KYC and centralization and suddenly turned to Tails and Bisq, mixed their coins and went off the grid? Would adoption continue growing or would institutions and govs suddenly back out from supporting crypto?

I can't remember if it did the last time I had to reset it, to be honest.. yet, the moment is still kinda stressful and puts me into some kind of paranoia mode until I get back to my wallets, lol.

To be honest, this one sucks the most. I mean, methods that require a good remembering mind suck and could go wrong for example if you suddenly have an unfortunate loss of memory.

I created a very complicated method to hide my keys (not very safe, but takes hella lot to find out what the pattern is) on a paper years ago and recently found the paper containing just the hidden key. I have no idea anymore what the method I have used was. Fortunately, it's empty though..

Of course, there is no perfect hot/cold storage method. All you have to do is take maximum care whenever you use your wallet and make sure that you're keeping your seeds and private keys away from any visible/vulnerable spot, and that includes the Internet. Avoid custodial stuff as well, whenever possible.

It'd not that hard once you get the hang of it. Just spare a few more seconds making sure what you're doing is right, it usually solves and helps prevent a lot of issues and possible mistakes.

From what I can see, an overview of most people's attitude towards DeFi gives me a good look over what the future truly holds for the coin. It honestly looks like there are way more people who believe it's a hype than people who think it's actually useful at all.

I would personally not do anything about crypto in general besides telling people why I believe Bitcoin is amazing. I think it's so much healthier to have natural adoption rather than desperately attempting to gather as many people as possible. Moreover, we're in the middle of a seemingly bullish timeframe. Not the best time to gather more interested people.

If they don't want to leave any digital footprint then they better not be desperate, lol. That's how you usually mess up.

Anyway, although even the smallest mistake could lead to the identification of the hackers, I guess their identity remains and will remain a mystery. Guess we have to just move on and let the blockchain analysis teams do their job. So far, nothing to see besides transfers.

So you basically think BTC will not go under $10k just because of that? I am pretty sure that, while emotions surely are a price influencing factor, they don't act as a barricade that wouldn't let price drop again. The price is quite close to $10k actually, and it's probably easier to dump it back to that price point than it is to pump it up. But panic isn't a thing that has the ability to stop a market crash imo.

Except YFI which seems an overexaggerated hype imo, all the others have BTC in their name and similar prices. Wonder why

They're alts sitting on other blockchain and pegged to BTC's price. In other words, fake Bitcoins. This is why their prices are higher than $10k. There are alts out there such as 42-Coin (and I think there's a coin purposed for adult stuff as well) that has an even higher price point than that. However, price just doesn't mean anything if the said coins are useless, centralized or both.

Can relate to the "scare" part: had my Ledger update go wrong once, which resulted in a stressful search on how to fix that and had to fully reset of the device. The scariest part is having to re-introduce the seed and wondering if you have even written down the correct seed upon initialization.

---

A good strategy is to first of all keep using that Ledger but leaving Windows for good. I have more bootable disks and drives for various purposes, one of which is a Tails USB which comes with Electrum preinstalled. I use that for either anonymous browsing or crypto. Using Bitcoin with a HW on an amnesic OS through Tor sounds safe enough imo.

For the private key, most if not all strategies have their own flaws. However, there are so many ways you can store it safely including a crypto seed metal vault. If you purchase a quality non-corrosive one, you can just bury it in your garden and unless you forget where you placed it, it should be fine even if you had a $5 wrench attack and the intruder has plenty of time to steal it.

Regarding CASA, why the hell pay a monthly fee when you have so many fully free, open source and reliable options? Electrum and Wasabi are two options you can easily trust, as long as you don't download them off some fake website. I don't see any advantage paying for something that's supposed to be free. Just makes no sense.

So are you going to trust a complete stranger's prediction more than you trust your own? Especially if the stranger is on the internet..?

Check what's going on in the crypto world by yourself and you will form an opinion based on that. But take everything with a pinch of salt - especially news articles. Try to find out if Bitcoin seems like something people will talk less or more about in the future - will it be useful within 5 years at all?

Go your own way. It's better, much better than following anyone else's words.

Although I've never really went in-depth with the adult space of cryptos, I think I am quite sure there aren't any significant projects out there (especially on BTC) to look for. Might be the perfect opportunity for you to start working on something yourself that'd satisfy the needs you believe the crypto-adult space has..

I mostly only know that Verge once partnered with PornHub, but it honestly looked (as you said in another post of yours above) more like a way to pump their coin than anything - especially considering the time they chose to partner with PH.

Now about Bitcoin upgrades/updates that are adult services related.. I'm not sure there has been any progress on that niche to be honest, I have never really seen anyone focused much on it at all. But again, maybe this is a perfect opportunity you can't miss.

For how long do you think we'll be able to continue using Bitcoin the "free" way though? That's what's changed. If you take a look at recent laws regarding gold & silver in Europe for example, there have been limits imposed so that any purchase that exceeds €10k needs to be done through identity verification (and I believe AML authorities are announced about the acquisition as well). So while you could theoretically take gold and do whatever you want with it, these rules and restrictions are strangling the "freedom" part of what both cryptocurrencies and precious metals offer.

Quick example: ATMs. We probably now have KYC almost everywhere around the world if we exceed limits or the ATM owners consider our txs suspicious. Years ago, you could buy as much as you wanted without having to worry about this. You could buy $100k worth of BTC through Bisq though, but by doing so aren't you basically trying to avoid the laws?

You could purchase guns off a dark black market for free and do what you want with it. Laws and regulations, however, take that freedom away from you. The more people promote this "buy bitcoin get rich" thing, the less they'll care about fundamental ideas - and that allows those stinky regulations to exist.

I unfortunately don't have much time to read the entire article but it certainly looks like it deserves a good read. I have taken a very quick look over the article and here's what I have to say:

I feel like Bitcoin has lost its way as well. We've gone from the desire of freedom to the desire of material earnings, a higher value that we'd sacrifice almost anything for. Turning Bitcoin into exactly what it wasn't supposed to be. And while you could still spend and move your BTC freely around even if it was to be banned in your country, the majority has the power and the majority seems not to care about anything besides value.

However, this was a logical thing from the start: the more people join, the smaller chances are that Bitcoin will follow its initial path.. hence why I sometimes wonder if Bitcoin's fundamentals would have been way better followed if it had a small value. It's usually the ones not giving a damn about BTC that are quitting - I would personally not sell anything even if it was to drop to $50. Would you? Or would you move to another crypto?

At the same time, going back to the crypto anarchy stuff and expressing our desires through BTC would basically turn it into an enemy for authorities. Just imagine suddenly having BTC fully anonymous - or everyone suddenly starting to whirlpool their coins. Is that healthier and better than the way we're currently following, or would we have to expect an immediate ban following such a change?

It's a debatable thing, but if there's anything I 100% agree with, it's the fact that we have lost our way long time ago.

Just try not to get fooled by false promises. There have been enough scams and unrealistic projects that came with amazing white paper stories. It's not all about white paper and supply - you need to see true development and real utility of the coin. Otherwise, it might have a good run before it sinks down in the thousands of other shitcoins. Seems too good to be true? It most likely is.

Is your friend a crystal ball or a whale planning to do a painful pump & dump soon?

I'm highly skeptical about both YFI and similar tokens/coins. Especially now that YFI has passed BTC's price tag - it only looks to me like it's getting closer and closer to the huge dump that'll shake off a lot of current believers. The total supply doesn't mean shit - check out 42 Coin. Only 42 coins in existence, yet no volume and .. zoom out that chart from day 1 of its launch to today and you'd see the price went from insane amounts of BTC to only 3. Should Xiot hodlers lose interest, it could get dumped in no time.

In other words, don't you think there's any human crystal ball out there who could make you rich out of nothing. DYOR, look the coin up and see if it's even a legit project with a legit team and real progress & be more than skeptical when willing to invest in a cryptocurrency. Don't fantasize over incredible figures because you might end up screwing yourself; you don't want to lose it all like you never had it.

It seemed to have difficulties going past 10k (or 11k?) as well, not too long ago - yet, after many tries, it was able to get past that resistance. Did that make it extremely bullish as many thought it'd be? So far, it doesn't look like it. So, unfortunately, it's damn hard to predict much accurately when it comes to crypto assets.

will delete in 24h; double post

Or just sit on the side and maybe play with some virtual bucks before actually going in for trading with real money. Most of us take the bait and start trading with absolutely zero experience and knowledge, and this leads to unwanted results most of the time. Sit back, analyze charts and either play with a very little capital or with virtual bucks until you get the hang of it.

Avoiding the emotional side requires a ton of mental strength. No matter if you are extremely bullish on a coin you're trading or not, if you see parabolic candles you might be changing your mind before you know it. So again, just get experience first and leave the real trading for later.

None. We already have enough stablecoins in my opinion for both. Why bother buying fiat or precious metals through a new pegged altcoin when you can buy them directly without having to trust a 3rd party that is under control of your wallet or when you can just purchase a pegged alt that has a history and trust behind it?

But to answer your question, you have to ask yourself which will be more looked after in the long term: fiat or commodities?