PSA: Get your Bitcoin off any exchange supporting "BSV" (due to insolvency risk)

[goldkingcoiner]

I agree that we should always keep our coins off exchanges as much as humanly possible but I think you might be panicking a bit too soon about that Faketoshi will get what he wants or even close to it. Justice will prevail and he will keep on being fake-toshi with nothing to show. Nobody will fall for his scam because he has nothing to provide as evidence, nothing to show that he is who he says he is. All he has is a long history of sad and pathetic ego-circle-jerk litigations which always end up him trying and failing to screw someone over to get what he wants. He's a schizo sociopath, there is no other word.

[DaveF]

Fun fact, BSV network is totally unsustainable, and like Jameson Lopp recently posted on twitter, it exceeded 7 TB, adding 4 GB per day, priced at ~$50 per gigabyte in transaction fees  

It's probably worth pointing out that this is completely intentional. As Greg has pointed out above, CSW's team will be releasing code which allows him to arbitrarily seize BSV. This will only work if the majority of nodes run this idiotic code. This would obviously be impossible on a decentralized network such as bitcoin, where >99.9% of nodes would simply refuse to run such code. But since they've deliberately made it so difficult to run a BSV node (there are currently a grand total of 9 nodes at the chain tip), it becomes much easier to get a majority of nodes to implement these changes, particularly since the majority of nodes are being running by CSW, Ayre, or another member of his team.

If there are only 9 nodes at the tip how are these exchanges operating. That would imply that either their nodes are not accessible or they are relying on someone else's node for transactions.
Not good either way. However, in the end it's just a shrug to most security minded people since as we all keep saying you really should not be leaving your coins on an exchange anyway. On -> Trade -> Off.

I don't begrudge the exchanges for doing it. They don't exist because they like us, the exist to make a profit so from that angle they are doing what they say they are going to do.

-Dave

[NeuroticFish]

I don't begrudge the exchanges for doing it. They don't exist because they like us, the exist to make a profit so from that angle they are doing what they say they are going to do.

Clearly the exchanges do it for profit. And probably a big number of traders too.

Still, a network with only 9 nodes and the risk of getting funds seized is not something a business should spend time with if they want to be called reputable. But I guess that they don't care since if this happens BSV may also become worthless in no time, allowing the exchanges reimburse their affected users without a significant loss.

Still these exchange should not bite the hand that feeds them (mostly Bitcoin, I'd expect), hence do this (delist BSV), if not for the sake of their own (and their users') solvability, then as a gesture of courtesy.

[tryingtolearn]

"Tulip Trading Limited".

Tulips...

[gmaxwell]

CZ and similar leaders (as some call them) could have chosen never to support anything that more than evidently indicated that it would turn into a greedy enterprise of a few people with dangerous intentions - but all of them, if we are honest, never cared too much for Bitcoin, nor do they today. Even when some people like @hodlonaut find themselves in court because they told the truth, none of these leaders want to show their support, or they show it in a very strange way by conditioning donations in some kind of altcoins.

I was honestly surprised that so many CEX are still supporting a project backed by someone like Faketoshi...

Most exchanges have a serious conflict of interest against bitcoin:  https://rusty.ozlabs.org/?p=607

Some, however, are worse than others. Supporting BSV is pretty bad and at least most of the big ones don't do that.

hat would imply that either their nodes are not accessible or they are relying on someone else's node for transactions.
Not good either way.

In BSV anyone but miners running a node is an unsupported and highly discouraged configuration. In their view, exchanges should be using an API offered by a miner.

Since those APIs mostly don't exist it's more likely that just many of them have firewalled off nodes-- it's a good security practice after all.  Though with so few working reachable nodes the network is extremely fragile.

Also keep in mind that many obscure exchanges are whitelabeled -- so some of the exchanges on that list may be using common backend infrastructure.

It's not even unheard of for some "exchanges" to just be entirely operated out of third party hosted wallets.  However bad you might imagine that ecosystem the reality is likely worse.  People aren't kidding when they recommend not keeping assets on exchanges.

[o_e_l_e_o]

CSW can't do nothin' about it without running more nodes

He would no doubt advance sham litigation accusing you of running code which you didn't have the rights to or accusing you of attacking his business.

Justice will prevail and he will keep on being fake-toshi with nothing to show.

But this is not relevant to what is going here. He will succeed in seizing BSV which are not his, because the entire BSV chain is so completely centralized and ran only by him and his buddies. It is little more than a glorified (and horrendously bloated) spreadsheet at this point. He will succeed in seizing BSV, which will result in exchanges either losing coins or the entire chain collapsing, which will result in exchanges having to cover their losses from other funds.

[n0nce]

I'm actually thinking about using this as a list of exchanges to avoid (as in, high risk - do not trade on ever).

I already have a small list of exchanges if I ever need to quickly withdraw or cash out something:

- Binance (this will be primary)
- One or more of Gemini, FTX, or Kraken as an immediate backup.

Coinbase is off of this list because they are too overzealous in chattering about any event from depositing/withdrawing crypto to failing KYC, to the Feds.

To be honest, for 'quickly withdraw or cash out', I can tell you that the Bisq order book for me usually has enough offers that I can just take one and get my fiat money (or BTC) within a few hours.
If you want even faster, I found Robosats to be quite fast as well, getting my own offers taken within 1-2 hours.

I don't (and don't recommend to) rely on centralized exchanges anymore; they almost all want KYC and almost all can freeze / steal your money at any time. Too risky.

I’m surprised that shitcoin is still functioning, weird that Ayre & Wright are still towing the party line. You would have thought they’d have just sold everything & given up by now. Satoshi’s Vision, the real bitcoin? Don’t make me laugh.

If you’re looking for a trustworthy exchange then I highly recommend Kraken. It’s my go to exchange, never had any issues. Obviously though as gmaxwell said in the OP, you shouldn’t be leaving any amount of bitcoin on an exchange long term.

What's nice about Kraken is that you can even withdraw through Lightning! I understand that people in some parts of the world can only afford to buy very small quantities of Bitcoin; and withdrawing from an exchange on-chain would cost them almost all they've got. Meanwhile Lightning withdrawals are completely free, as far as I know.

Fun fact, BSV network is totally unsustainable, and like Jameson Lopp recently posted on twitter, it exceeded 7 TB, adding 4 GB per day, priced at ~$50 per gigabyte in transaction fees  

It's probably worth pointing out that this is completely intentional. As Greg has pointed out above, CSW's team will be releasing code which allows him to arbitrarily seize BSV. This will only work if the majority of nodes run this idiotic code. This would obviously be impossible on a decentralized network such as bitcoin, where >99.9% of nodes would simply refuse to run such code. But since they've deliberately made it so difficult to run a BSV node (there are currently a grand total of 9 nodes at the chain tip), it becomes much easier to get a majority of nodes to implement these changes, particularly since the majority of nodes are being running by CSW, Ayre, or another member of his team.

Do you know what's funny about this? We could literally find 20 people in this forum who are willing to buy 7TB of HDD space to spin up BSV nodes and vote against Craig's 9 nodes. It would be great, just showing that it is this easy to attack a not properly decentralized blockchain.

In fact, the project representative on this forum once makes a statement on this forum that the project is over on their ANN thread but sadly, I look for the post for over an hour but it was taken down.

You may be able to find it on https://ninjastic.space/!
Was it this thread? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4985868.0

If so, there is an archive here: https://ninjastic.space/topic/4985868
As well as here: https://loyce.club/archive/topics/498/4985868.html

[goldkingcoiner]

~snip

A perfect chance to neutralize BSV by having it delisted?

Sounds to me that we should try to alert the exchanges to the upcoming danger. If I were running an exchange, I would definitely want to hear about this to hedge my risks and get away from BSV in case shit hits the fan. Not that I am a friend to exchanges nor do I believe the very concept of temporary centralization of your wallet in third party hands will have a future with Bitcoin.

The community could prevent much damage just by spreading fake-toshis plans, so that we can successfully counter them. We might even get BSV delisted everywhere. What a nice thought that is, wouldn't you say?

Also would he be basically committing theft, from a legal standpoint?

[pooya87]

Do you know what's funny about this? We could literally find 20 people in this forum who are willing to buy 7TB of HDD space to spin up BSV nodes and vote against Craig's 9 nodes. It would be great, just showing that it is this easy to attack a not properly decentralized blockchain.

Technically you only need the chainstate to verify blocks which is a lot smaller than that, that is what pruning does anyways (with the addition of storing only a handful of blocks). There may even be some ways to pretend to be a full node

[o_e_l_e_o]

Do you know what's funny about this? We could literally find 20 people in this forum who are willing to buy 7TB of HDD space to spin up BSV nodes and vote against Craig's 9 nodes. It would be great, just showing that it is this easy to attack a not properly decentralized blockchain.

Yeah, but either you run this new modified code which allows him to help himself to any BSV he likes, or you continue to run the current code at which point him, Ayre, CoinGeek, and the rest of the BSV scammers call you a fork and threaten you with lawsuits. Who knows which chain the exchanges would follow in such a scenario.

Also would he be basically committing theft, from a legal standpoint?

He's already committed everything from identity theft to fraud to tax evasion. A few charges of theft won't bother him. He's also banking on the fact that Satoshi is not going to return, and so will not file charges of theft for the coins CSW is stealing. (Like Satoshi would even care about his BSV tokens being stolen in the first place.)

[Pmalek]

There are a few other exchanges that could be added in the OP:
AscendEX, ProBit Global, MEXC, WhiteBIT, Bitvavo, BitMart, and others.

Why isn't Coinbase in this list?

The list in OP shows exchanges that have listed BSV on their platforms. According to the data I see on CoinMarketCap, Coinbase hasn't done that. Although you mentioned other good reasons for not using Coinbase, this is a somewhat different matter.

[BlackHatCoiner]

He would no doubt advance sham litigation accusing you of running code which you didn't have the rights to or accusing you of attacking his business.

I quickly ran to Bitcoin SV's LICENCE in Github, and you won't believe it! 

Open BSV License version 4

Horseshit seems from the start. Have you ever heard of the Open BSV License? Me neither. Let's see.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so

Sounds fair.

subject to the following conditions:

O-oh.

2 - The Software, and any software that is derived from the Software or parts thereof, can only be used on the Bitcoin SV blockchains.

Ok. But, what the fuck does that mean?

The Bitcoin SV blockchains are defined, for purposes of this license, as the Bitcoin blockchain containing block height #556767 with the hash "000000000000000001d956714215d96ffc00e0afda4cd0a96c96f8d802b1662b"

Let me repeat: What the fuck does that mean? That software can be altered with the condition that block 556,767 has a hash of "000000000000000001d956714215d96ffc00e0afda4cd0a96c96f8d802b1662b"? Or perhaps that it just contains the hashed message "000000000000000001d956714215d96ffc00e0afda4cd0a96c96f8d802b1662b", in a transaction for example? Or that it's just an empty block with this message in the header?

and that contains the longest persistent chain of blocks accepted by this Software and which are valid under the rules set forth in the Bitcoin white paper (S. Nakamoto, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, posted online October 2008) and the latest version of this Software available in this repository or another repository designated by Bitcoin Association

The longest persistent chain of blocks, in comparison with what?

Sounds exactly like Satoshi's vision. Censorship resistant unless you decide to fork yourself off the network.

Version 0.1.1 of the Bitcoin SV software, and prior versions of software upon which it was based,were licensed under the MIT License, which is included below.

But, MIT seemed like a bad choice, because it gives more freedom than the users deserve. 

Just lol.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Ok. But, what the fuck does that mean?

It means you can only modify the software in such a way that it is still compatible with BSV, and then it defines BSV as the chain which forked at block 556,767 and is accepted by the software put forward by Bitcoin Association. In other words, it says that BSV is whatever chain they say it is, regardless of network consensus, and so if you refuse to follow their fork to implement this stupid code, then they will take legal action against you.

[Lucius]

Most exchanges have a serious conflict of interest against bitcoin:  https://rusty.ozlabs.org/?p=607
Some, however, are worse than others. Supporting BSV is pretty bad and at least most of the big ones don't do that.

That's why a global initiative of mass abandonment of Bitcoin trading through all centralized crypto exchanges should be launched, so let all their owners face reality and find some other way to attract people to trade with shitcoins. It's far from happening (at least not in the near future), but it would be nice to see people start using Bitcoin the way it's only right, keeping it in non-custody wallets and trading through DEX.

Good article, thanks for sharing.

[BlackHatCoiner]

In other words, it says that BSV is whatever chain they say it is, regardless of network consensus, and so if you refuse to follow their fork to implement this stupid code, then they will take legal action against you.

I'm curious to know what's illegal in doing what I said. Their license ambiguously describes that the blockchain that is forked must contain that hash in that block. Does this mean that if I create another chain, named "BSOV (Bitcoin Satoshi's Original Vision)", let it have that hash in that block, and state that I'm the real Satoshi with no evidence whatsoever, just as Wright, will I get sued?

[o_e_l_e_o]

That's why a global initiative of mass abandonment of Bitcoin trading through all centralized crypto exchanges should be launched

As much as I would love to see the end of centralized exchanges, when we can't even convince the majority of people to stop using them when it is clearly in their own best interests (security of their coins and avoidance of losing coins via scams/hacks/bankruptcies/insolvencies/bad loans/seizures/account freezes, security of their data and avoidance of identity theft or personal information otherwise being shared/sold/hacked/leaked, censorship, high fees), then we are unlikely to be able to convince them on ideological reasons such as them being anti-bitcoin. Won't stop me from trying though.

I'm curious to know what's illegal in doing what I said. Their license ambiguously describes that the blockchain that is forked must contain that hash in that block. Does this mean that if I create another chain, named "BSOV (Bitcoin Satoshi's Original Vision)", let it have that hash in that block, and state that I'm the real Satoshi with no evidence whatsoever, just as Wright, will I get sued?

Whatever you create will not contain the "longest persistent chain of blocks accepted by this Software" ("this Software" being CSW's BSV software). Therefore, you will have modified the code in such a way that it is no longer being used on the BSV blockchain, and therefore CSW would claim that you are in breach of this license and likely try to sue you for it. I mean, obviously the license is complete nonsense since the code he is trying to license was not written by him and was instead plagiarized/stolen from Satoshi and other real bitcoin devs, but that wouldn't stop him from trying I'm sure.

[DooMAD]

It means you can only modify the software in such a way that it is still compatible with BSV, and then it defines BSV as the chain which forked at block 556,767 and is accepted by the software put forward by Bitcoin Association.

I guess they'll have to update that block height when they fork again to allow faketoshi to steal all those coins.  

It would be hilarious if some SV users (or victims as they should probably be known) managed to grow a conscience and decided to stay on the current SV chain against faketoshi's wishes, resulting in two competing SVs.  The difficulty is low enough that someone might still be tempted to mine that chain and keep it going.

I'm curious to know what's illegal in doing what I said. Their license ambiguously describes that the blockchain that is forked must contain that hash in that block. Does this mean that if I create another chain, named "BSOV (Bitcoin Satoshi's Original Vision)", let it have that hash in that block, and state that I'm the real Satoshi with no evidence whatsoever, just as Wright, will I get sued?

Whatever you create will not contain the "longest persistent chain of blocks accepted by this Software" ("this Software" being CSW's BSV software). Therefore, you will have modified the code in such a way that it is no longer being used on the BSV blockchain, and therefore CSW would claim that you are in breach of this license and likely try to sue you for it.

I'm curious about this.  What if you managed to implement a change that still followed the longest persistent chain?  Like a softfork, for example?  I suspect SV is so centralised that it would be fairly easy to force a softfork through.  Imagine how pissed off CraigShitWeasel would be if we upgraded his network to SegWit.   

Obviously it comes with the downside of people having to debase themselves by mining that shitcoin.  I don't know if that stench ever washes off.  But still, imagine the meltdown he'd have.   

• Bitfinex

Are you crazy? This is a top exchange

Only for ignorant people, or those without taste or morals.  So naturally you wouldn't understand.  Anyone who is paying attention knows that Bitfinex (and their USDT shitcoin) is loosely equivalent to a cancer.

[dkbit98]

It's probably worth pointing out that this is completely intentional. As Greg has pointed out above, CSW's team will be releasing code which allows him to arbitrarily seize BSV.

I know CSW and his bsv trolls in this forum are openly supporting censorship, seizure of funds, and I think they even like the idea of creating CBDC that will work similar like BSV in the end.
It's more like vouchers than a real money, and you can spend them only on such items that government (and CSW) allows you to use them.
I can't wait to see the day when bsv shitcoins will also have expiration dates  

This is an attack these scammers wanted and tried to perpetrate against Bitcoin but the Bitcoin community fought them back.

Yeah, but sadly some people are still blindly following them and not looking at all the red flags  
For a long time I was think that best for to deal with CSW is to ignore him, but this is obviously impossible thing to do.

Do you know what's funny about this? We could literally find 20 people in this forum who are willing to buy 7TB of HDD space to spin up BSV nodes and vote against Craig's 9 nodes. It would be great, just showing that it is this easy to attack a not properly decentralized blockchain.

Are you by any chance one of those people?  
It's pure waste of time and resources, but why not create such campaign, when he can spend all that time spreading toxicity and lawsuits worldwide.
I am sure most of people who run BSC nodes are acting like zombies and they will follow anything CSW tells them to do, but not all of them so we could gain few on our side.
Blockchair explorer is showing bsv blockchain has total of 18 nodes, but other more optimistic websites are reporting total of 57 nodes... it's pathetic.

[n0nce]

Do you know what's funny about this? We could literally find 20 people in this forum who are willing to buy 7TB of HDD space to spin up BSV nodes and vote against Craig's 9 nodes. It would be great, just showing that it is this easy to attack a not properly decentralized blockchain.

Are you by any chance one of those people?  
It's pure waste of time and resources, but why not create such campaign, when he can spend all that time spreading toxicity and lawsuits worldwide.

I am one of those people willing to do this experiment, yes!
Would be a great way to showcase how much importance this number ^{[number of full nodes on Bitcoin network]} has and how it makes Bitcoin so uniquely strong.

I am sure most of people who run BSC nodes are acting like zombies and they will follow anything CSW tells them to do, but not all of them so we could gain few on our side.
Blockchair explorer is showing bsv blockchain has total of 18 nodes, but other more optimistic websites are reporting total of 57 nodes... it's pathetic.

Honestly I don't think any of those 9 nodes is owned by someone else than Craig and his friends. But I may be wrong (also about the number).

[gmaxwell]

Ah you should be aware that the BSV chain is reported to contain child porn.  Not just some old non-working onion urls or whatever, but actual full on child porn due to its operators facilitating file upload and encouraging its use to bloat the chain.

In the US possession of child porn is one of the relatively few strict liability crimes-- you don't have to have intended to do it to be guilty.

Kinda ironic how much they blather on about the LAWL and their ability to edit the chain but they don't use that editing power to cure this violation of the law, nor do they even bother (or have the competence to) fix pruning support which they broke. Perhaps it's even intentional in the interest of keeping people from running their nodes.

Now I don't want to fud too much considering that so far no one has yet gotten in trouble for accidentally possessing child porn incidental to running some cryptocurrency software and BSV isn't the first (my understanding is that namecoin has the same issue, and triggers some FBI hash checking search tool)... but you might want to be aware of it.

AFAIK they haven't broken the scrambling support in the code they copied from Bitcoin Core so their block files should be scrambled with some weak encryption that will prevent dumb scanning tools from finding things in them (we added that in bitcoin to prevent idiot anti-virus software from corrupting peoples blockchains when someone inserted some twentysome byte virus pattern in the chain).

I might otherwise suggest using pruning and/or a ramdisk to reduce your exposure, but those aren't options for BSV... Not carrying it on a laptop across a border is a good idea, but that shouldn't be a problem because of the resource requirements.