About SHA256 hash, the issue is that you are simply trying to generate hash of string representation of private key. To correctly generate sha256, you need integer value of private key in hexadecimal form.

Try using this website for testing purpose and to understand the difference between 'string representation of hex' and actual 'hex': https://www.liavaag.org/English/SHA-Generator/ . Choose the input type = 'hex' and then generate the SHA256 hash.

Regarding your required tool, I don't know if there is any available online that matches your tailored requirements. However, I can create one. You need to tell me if you have any prior knowledge of Javascript or not so I can edit the tool accordingly providing the required level of ease. I have already created a javascript library in past which fulfills most of what you are looking for. I just have to tweak it a little to match your preferences. You then just have to download the file and run offline in browser - as simple as that.

The best android app for widgets is CoinStats. Currently it is available as 'Crypto Tracker & Bitcoin Price - Coin Stats' on Play Store.

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.coinstats.crypto.portfolio

You can customize your widget with options like displaying favorite coins, all coins, choosing price/pair from a particular exchange, design, etc. I solely use this app for widgets and so far working perfectly for me.

Okay that's cool! Nice freeroll to get started with. $250 will be good amount to play for.

My username as always: webtricks

By the way, any specific reason to slide it to 6pm? Isn't 5pm a better time slot for everyone?

Yeah, they can and are obliged to share your trading history or any other information with tax authorities if needed or asked for. That's why the first thing they ask in KYC procedure is your PAN Card which is issued by Income Tax Department itself.

But that doesn't mean you are in any trouble if you are holding or trading USDT or other stablecoins on such exchanges. INR buy/sell on WazirX is only open for Indian residents. So you can only buy/sell stablecoins to other Indians (no FEMA). Moreover, it's clear that you only have to pay tax if you made profits on sales, holding coins don't attract taxes. So there is nothing to fear if you are paying taxes periodically on correct amount of profits and incomes.

The only thing you need to worry is to not hold coins on such exchanges if you don't intend to sell those instantly and earned them from the sources you can't prove. In such cases, keep such coins on the address which can't be linked to your identity and transfer them to exchange only when you intend to sale those for INR. Withdraw the amount to the bank and pay tax in the following year. Simple, right?

At the current price, sponsored money sits out at 0.075 BTC for the championship and around 0.022 BTC for the losers tournament. With that being said, I don't see any reason why shouldn't we host the next series on Betnomi. That's roughly 0.04 BTC more than what SwC was sponsoring so far.

About day, time and starting stack, I agree with @Trofo. It would be good to leave those as it is. 5PM GMT, Sundays, one game a week, 8 qualifiers and 5000 starting chips are fine.

About buy-in, $15 entry fees imo would be perfect. We can maintain rest of the pool in BTC itself. 0.0002 BTC for championship and 0.0002 BTC for lottery pool. So that would be $15 + 0.0004 BTC for every qualifier.

We can start the series from 8th November.

It's actually a bad idea to provide direct form on the website to generate mnemonic code. It would have been better if Ian Coleman only provided source code on the website so the only option user had was to copy the whole code, paste that in any text editor and then run the file in his browser.

Providing the functionality of address generation directly on the website without any explicit 'warning text' on the top has exposed the users to several potential vulnerabilities (phishing site being the one) because newbies will always prefer generating addresses quickly on the website rather than downloading the page and running it offline.

If there wasn't a form on the website, it wouldn't be possible for anyone to imitate the website and steal the private information.

Hey FJ,
What am I doing wrong? Are my players scoring own goals? Please have some mercy, at least don't give me negative points. 

Joke aside, is this some kind of bug because I calculated my points and none of my player got yellow or red card. Also my midfielder scored a goal. So it is no way possible for me to have -30 from Second matchday so far. Also, I see leader for the matchday 2 currently has 217 points! That's impossible, right? Selections have to score at least 27 goals plus assists to get that much points. If it is goes like this, you have to pay 7BTC to the large number of players because many are going to get past 700 points this way.

Image for reference:

It is not possible for any entity except a bank or a registered NBFC to establish ATMs in India. In case of non-banking financial institution (NBFC), the entity has to take pre-approval from Reserve Bank of India and if request is approved, it can open white-label ATM which comes with certain restrictions.

However, Cashaa doesn't fall in the definition of NBFC so the company most probably have to rely on UNICA for the banking and ATM needs. UNICA being co-operative society cannot allow buying/selling of bitcoin on its current ATMs both due to financial and technical limitations. So bitcoin ATMs are out-of-picture.

I also noticed one thing, UNICA already have 43 branches in India. So, most probably Cashaa just gonna add its support on 34 of these branches. So it may sound like a big PR that they gonna set-up 34 physical branches but originally they are just paying UNICA to add their name in already running branches. Weird way to start a service but let's see. It's actually easy to fool Indians, if people can fall for ponzis and MLMs, 'crypto bank' is still very fancy term to lure them in.

Note: UNICA = United Multistate Credit Cooperative Society

But same normal middle class citizens aren't comfortable in opening bank accounts with the new private sector banks. They are still very conventional about choosing banks and happy to take 3-3.5% from public sector banks than opening accounts in private sector banks like Kotak Mahindra even if such banks offer interest rates of as high as 7% on savings! Now you tell me how many people from this 'normal middle class citizens' targeted audience would be actual comfortable in keeping their money with a company having weird track-record which is going to open branches in association with a co-operative society. I have been doing bank audits of co-operative society banks from last couple of years and can tell you such societies are awful in money management and more than 70% of their long-term lending is usually non-performing assets (NPAs). I have audited 48 co-operative branches last year, out of which I submitted critical negative report for 33, general qualifications for 8 and only 7 were healthy. Let alone normal middle class, even I will think twice in using banking services offered by a co-operative bank since now I know how it is managed by unqualified personnel.

Moreover, they are opening only 34 branches and we are talking about a country with over 600 cities. I doubt that would make much of the difference if they can't reach to the public from second and third tier cities.

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Indian commercial banks are generally considered as non-crypto friendly. There are several instances of account ban and account freeze of the crypto traders by Indian banks even after Supreme Court of India explicitly stating banks to offer services to crypto traders/users. So an exchange having its own crypto bank would be good solution for high-volume crypto traders provided such traders are ready to take risk of keeping their money with such bank. Other than that I don't think normal masses would react positively to the concept of 'crypto bank'.

I have seen threads getting trashed or moved to Marketplace (Altcoins ) section or its sub-sections if threads are offering or seeking services only in altcoins. Threads are allowed in 'Service' section if part-payments are in altcoins. At least some part of the payment has to be in bitcoin to qualify for the service section.

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By the way, why do you want to use such tokens on ETH network? Bitcoin transaction fees these days are usually lesser than the ETH network which is more or less remain congested due to DeFi transactions.

Yeah! Every time there's a big dump in the market, USDT trades at the premium of Rs. 7-10 comparing to USD price. I have tried many times to take advantage of this arbitrage opportunity however, succeeded only once. I was able to buy BTC from a foreign resident @ Preev + 5% (although I didn't make direct payment to him). Then I sold BTC on Indian local exchange @ Preev + 18%, yielding 13% in arbitrage.

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I have read FEMA Act and the act applies trading and holding restrictions on two things - 'Foreign Currency' and 'Foreign Exchange'. Now going by the definition specified in the Act, Foreign Currency refers to any currency other than Indian currency. Whereas, Foreign Exchange means foreign currency and deposits, credits, balances, drafts, BoE, LoC and other kinds of payables in any foreign currency. So one thing is sure, FEMA Act doesn't categorize cryptocurrencies either as foreign currency or foreign exchange. Also RBI haven't classified cryptocurrencies under any type of 'security', 'currency' or 'asset' definition. So my conclusion is that FEMA Act doesn't apply to cryptocurrencies.

In the absence of any clear guidance, I don't think you have to worry holding USDT or any other stablecoin because even if its value is pegged to USD, by core definition it is still a cryptocurrency and it is not possible to directly link the value of such stablecoin with the underlying reserves. Hence, it is still a value only available on blockchain and you are believing a third-party that it is keeping enough reserves in real USD of equivalent amount.

On-site currency is USD so all bets and games are played in dollars.

However, amount can be deposited and withdrew using all major cryptocurrencies.

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Wow! That would be cool. Would love to hear more details on this one, if possible we all could contribute more to the pool so tournament could be more interesting and lucrative for all.

Okay, thanks for the details. Yes, that would be better. By the way, does the web-page automatically detect if the traffic is coming from MacOS or Windows and adjust the setup link according to the OS of the user or show same link to all users?

That price difference is to account for the 'excessive demand' in Indian market. Even before USD/INR trading pairs were available on Indian Exchanges (before 2018), bitcoin was still selling at the premium of 5-20%. I remember selling bitcoin @ Rs. 14,50,000 on Zebpay when international price was $19,100 (Rs. 13,60,000 at that time).

So the premium is always there in Indian Market whenever bullish trend grows. But after the introduction of stablecoins like USDT, Indian traders started preferring to trade at par with the international markets. So, the traders started taking USDT/INR -> BTC/USDT route rather than directly trading BTC for INR.

Now, BTC/USDT pair has to be at par with international market. So the premium adjustment is only possible in USDT/INR or any of those pairs which involve INR as the base currency. That's why you see USD price rising steep in Indian Market whenever bitcoin falls or grow dramatically.

Hey Sorsis,
Was just going through the poker page on Betnomi and noticed that there's a software as well. It's always better to play on a dedicated software than in a browser window. However, there isn't much details about which OS does the software support. Can you provide the more details about software OS support and specifications needed?

- webtricks

I just checked the Poker software on Betnomi and it's a decent one. Much better than what sportsbet.io introduced and scrapped few months ago. I am in for the next series on Betnomi if SwC pull off the sponsorship.

Also noticed 'Sunday Special' on Betnomi with 7,000 Euros in guaranteed prize. That's a decent prize money with buy-in of 55 Euros, better prize/buy-in ratio than SwC's BIG BTC. Will try that one next weekend if #5th Series doesn't roll in by that time.

Only 4 players on Runners-Up table! That was easy game to win, thank you SwC for the reward of 0.01 BTC. Good game Trofo, famososMuertos and 1r0n1c. It was fun playing with you guys.

Champions table is getting intense with only Betwrong, iv4n, Jayce, arallmuus and mollok left. Although iv4n and Betwrong going strong so far, Jayce is playing his usual patience game (just like FOMA) and most probably will catch up top gears pretty soon. I am rooting for you once again bro, go and win this one like real pro.

And yes..Can't wait for the next one. Hope SwC will put up pretty soon. @Globb0 got 3-4 new players coming from his buddies' circle in the next one. I got confirmation from @icopress that he wants to join the next series as well. So that would be good 21-22 regular players in the next series, not bad!

And finally, Globb0, your stream is always fun to watch. Marbles, lottery draws, two final tables, we are having quite an eventful show going on stream.

Nope. Storing individual private key for Ethereum has same level of risk as in case of Bitcoin. The process of generating public key is exactly same for both i.e. through Elliptic Curve Cryptography. Only the process of generating address differs. Ethereum address is the last 20 bytes of Keccak256 hash of the public key whereas bitcoin address is the Base58 encoding of RIPEMD160(SHA256(public key)).

So it is advisable to use HD wallet in case of ethereum as well. Good thing is that you can use exactly same 'mnemonic words' (seed phrase) for both bitcoin and ethereum. BIP-44 has defined the standard of deriving addresses from the seed. Since you have common understanding of hierarchical deterministic process, I will tell you a little more. The seed derived from mnemonic words is first hashed using HMAC-512 hashing then left 256 bits of the resulting hash is used as 'master private key' while right 256-bits as 'chain code'.

These private key and chain code are then combined with various index numbers to produce set of private/public keys which can then used for addresses.

Bitcoin's derivation as defined in BIP-44 is m/44'/0' which means the chain separated at first hardened child of 45th hardened child of master private key will be used for generating BTC addresses.
Whereas, Ethreum's derivation is m/44'/60' which means the chain separated at 61st hardened child of 45th hardened child of master private key will be used for generating ETH addresses.

This is how same seed phrase can be used to produce addresses for multiple coins without conflicting the addresses and keys.

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Nope, you cannot manually calculate the private keys from the seed phrase. First of all, you shouldn't manually pick the words. BIP-39 has defined the set of 2048 words which are to be picked as randomly as possible to create seed phrase of length 12-24 words. It is always advisable to use wallets to create mnemonic seed phrase for you using strong pseudo random number generator. (Note: Electrum doesn't use BIP-39 and has its own set of words)

Ok! Now that you have mnemonic seed phrase, you have to use PBKDF2 key stretching function to produce 512 bits seed. This involves 2048 rounds of SHA-512 hashing and it is no way possible for your brain to do that manually.

Once you have 512-bits seed, rest of the key derivation process is what I explained in first part of this answer.

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You don't have to do that. You can store the unencrypted seed phrase without worries. PBKDF2 key-stretching function as I explained above takes 'salt' argument. This salt argument by default is 'mnemonic' string constant. However, you can increase the security of your wallet by using custom strong 'passphrase' as the salt at the time of seed generation. Keys generated from custom salt are entirely different from the one used without it. So even if someone knows your seed phrase, he won't be able to get hold of your keys if he doesn't know your 'passphrase'. And good thing is that no one could guess if you are using custom passphrase or not so they will be redirected to empty bitcoin addresses if they try to generate addresses using your seed phrase without knowing the passphrase.

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Again there is no need to do that manually. Most of the wallets are well-equipped to do that automatically for you. They will automatically create change address from different branch for you when you try to send transaction.

Also, it is common practice to use different branches for change address. So your first change address won't be your second in-line bitcoin address of m/44'/0'/0' branch but first bitcoin address of m/44'/0'/1' branch.

PS: If you have hard time understanding Derivation Paths, I would recommend to watch few youtube tutorials or this thread from blue snow is good starting point as well: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5243350

You know that balances are spent differently on Bitcoin network as compared to Ethereum network, right?

On Ethereum network, accounts and balances are stored in a global state so transactions work like normal database where addresses are debited and credited. But on Bitcoin network, you have to consume the entire UTXO as the input in order to spend the funds. If you got 1 BTC on your bitcoin address, whole 1 BTC will be consumed as the input even if you send less than 1BTC. Remaining amount will be used to create a new output on a change address.

In case you are using paper wallet, the wallet you used to import private key of your paper wallet will most probably send the change to the same address of the paper wallet. So now you have exposed the private key of the address on the device and also created new UTXO on the same address which kills the whole purpose of using paper wallet!

If you are looking to send payments regularly, I don't see any reason or benefit of using Paper Wallet. Better go for HD Wallet by securely keeping the mnemonic code offline and creating new change address every time you spend UTXO.

Okay, this solves half the problem. Now player can ensure that EOS block is only picked after all the players having joined the duel. But other half of the issue is still there. Player can still not ensure that immediately next block is taken for the consideration.

Here is what I observed in some rounds played on DuelBits (timings as per Indian Standard Time):

Round 300590:
    End Time -> 9:52:29 PM,
    EOS Block -> 148648714;
    EOS Block Creation Time ->  09:52:32 PM;
    Difference ->  3 seconds
    EOS Blocks created in the meantime -> 8

Round 300663:
    End Time ->  11:00:22 PM,
    EOS Block -> 148656853;
    EOS Block Creation Time ->  11:00:22 PM;
    Difference ->  0 second
    EOS Blocks created in the meantime -> none

In round 300590, block created after 3 seconds was taken for the calculation. I understand this happens due to delay in API calls which is quite common. However, it opens possibility that casino maybe checking the calculation with every block and only choosing the block id which draws result in the favor of bot's position. For example, I as a player may suspect that DuelBits test-checked the result of round 300590 with the following blocks:
148648708 - maybe favoring player - rejected Created at: 9:52:29 PM
148648709 - maybe favoring player - rejected Created at: 9:52:29 PM
148648710 - maybe favoring player - rejected Created at: 9:52:30 PM
148648711 - maybe favoring player - rejected Created at: 9:52:30 PM
148648712 - maybe favoring player - rejected Created at: 9:52:31 PM
148648713 - maybe favoring player - rejected Created at: 9:52:31 PM
148648714 - Favoring bot - taken Created at: 9:52:32 PM

Interesting thing is that Block 300590 was actually won by the Duebits Bot. I am not accusing you of cheating but there is no way to make sure you are doing it or not. That's the problem of using EOS blocks because new blocks are created every half a second. This all reduces the effectiveness of Provably Fair System.

That's why I am proposing you to adopt TRON blockchain. Since new block is added on TRON network every 3 seconds, that will give you enough time to make API call and make sure that the very next or at max 3rd block validated after 'End Time' is used for the calculation. No scope left for the test-check making Provably Fair foolproof!