Bitcoin and virtual cryptocurrencies

I can recommend professor Richard Werner from Southampton and his explanation of how banking sector works and why crisis happen:

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Iā€™m mining TRTL to save and HODL.

Itā€™s a meme coin, but if it ever goes anywhere, iā€™ve already got 50k of coin.

I think all this will work if we learn to do without war. One big war and we will be back to precious metals and commodities. Look at what happened to paper currency during major wars. Civil War is a great example. The green back was used for wall paper.

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lil windex shilling for bitcoin cash :joy:

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images of child abuse and pornography found in the immutable bitcoin blockchain, could potentially make the blockchain illegal to download or possess

The researchers extracted content from the blockchain, converted it into readable files and presented their findings at the Financial Cryptography and Data Security conference in CuraƧao earlier this month. Eight files with sexual content were detected, two of which were backups of link lists to child pornography, containing 274 links to websites, some 142 of which referred to Tor hidden services.

ā€œAlthough court rulings do not yet exist, legislative texts from countries such as Germany, the UK, or the USA suggest that illegal content such as child pornography can make the blockchain illegal to possess for all users,ā€ it concluded.

While spending bitcoin does not not necessarily require a copy of the blockchain, other transactions, such as some mining techniques, require that the user downloads either the full blockchain or chunks of it.

ā€œAs of now, this can affect at least 112 countries in which possessing content such as child pornography is illegal. This especially endangers the multi-billion dollar markets powering cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin,ā€ the researchers said.

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Key part is this:

That means that average person cannot access these files easily. There are no public services that allow display of this kind of data (www.blockexplorer.com and www.blockchain.info doesnā€™t allow this) and original bitcoin-core software (that full bitcoin nodes run) doesnā€™t allow neither upload or download of these files (there is not any standard means of upload/download to blockchain). It is just by-product of having possibility to encode short message into block (it is usually used for signature of the server mining the block and there it can be also used for flags / votes for particular features in cases where you vote with mining power).

I donā€™t see as a problem, but it is certainly interesting theoretical philosophical question :slight_smile:

If I take it into extreme level, there are invisible parts of files that you can encode data into in practically every environment (starting with email headers and ending with picture you upload to facebook). For example EXIF in photo files is very similar in nature.

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Crypto is the future, thereā€™s already a few BTC atmā€™s around.

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who made loads a money when it hit the top Btc and ltc :slight_smile:

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i think there may only be 1 actual image of child porn, the rest being only links to child porn. it seems like an intentional attack on bitcoin (or very likely just actual pedos buying CP w/ bitcoin) but it does open an interesting debate. encrypted child porn is still illegal and theoretically being able to hide illegal content in other places is different than it actually being there. the blockchain isnā€™t necessary to make transactions only for mining.

I think this video belongs here:

Cryptocurrencies have been seen by many in the cannabis industry as a solution to banking bans and some of the industryā€™s legal woes by becoming an alternative to cash payments while the drug still remains illegal at the federal level. Banksā€™ unwillingness to deal with cannabis-related payments means that customers cannot use credit or debit cards to make purchases. A lack of banking makes marijuana dispensaries targets for robbers and thieves due to the large amount of cash on hand.

While High Times initially claimed that accepting cryptocurrencies in its IPO would make it the ā€œfirst traditional stock offering ever to accept investmentsā€ in digital currencies, the SEC file states that the announcement was a mistake.

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I dont understand why people are so put off by the idea of a new form of currency. Thinking that fiat currency regualted by the federal reserve is the best option is absurd. Makes me wonder if this choice was made by high times or if the reserve had an influence on the choice. My guess is the second.

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If I had free electricity would it be worth buying bitcoin miners at this point in time?

With free electricity Iā€™d say mining can be profitable. Only concern is to correctly project cost of ownership because miners get old pretty quickā€¦ If I were you Iā€™d probably try to check maybe top 5 cryptocurrencies and choose the right technology (there are at least 3 main competing mining algorithms [SHA256/Scrypt/X11] - when you choose particular one you have to stick only to that algorithm and mine only currencies that support that algo).

You can filter currencies by algo for example here:

https://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency
https://whattomine.com/asic

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Is internet speed a factor with mining?

In general noā€¦ some mine using 4G/LTE GSM networksā€¦

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Check that coinwarz calculatorā€¦ Insert GH/s according to the device you would like to buy and watt consumption if you want to factor in electricityā€¦

Remember that at a first sight all cryptocurrencies in that list seem to be profitable but in practice there are fluctuations that they donā€™t take into account. Biggest factor is the price of bitcoin / altcoin to the dollar that is moving constantly. And second important fluctuations are in so called difficulty of the coin (diff rises when blockchain reacts to the increased number of miners - mined amount [x altcoins] per day is a constant but it needs to be distributed among higher number of miners). You cannot predict how those two factors will progress in time so that makes return on investment projections very hardā€¦ In any case stay on the pessimistic side of calculationsā€¦

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I didnā€™t even know that there were so many options. :thinking:

Would a second hand machine mean it is outdated?

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/bitcoin-mining-machine-Fast-delivery-second_60836534057.html?spm=a2700.galleryofferlist.normalList.62.498e1716fLJavD

looking at the zcash miners

Any crypto trade by usa citizen is now taxable event. Even crypto tp crypto without any paper money involved.

The new irs hoops as I understand:

If you make a trade that opens with you holding crypto, and a year passes and you still own it and havenā€™t traded, regardless of how much itā€™s worth itā€™s a capital gain.

However, that being said if you hold a year and have losses, you can report them haha and write them off. So kind of offsets it IF you are current and prepared.

Was reading a horror story of some dumb rookie in 2017 before bitcoin shot up to $20k and hype was buzzing hard this guy was in college and threw down $5k on bitcoin.

On the way up, it was worth $875k at one point.

Then Mr. Dummy held it greedily and it went down to a paltry $120k.

So he knew nothing about taxes and was asking for advice on reddit. And they said delete this change reddit account and go see pro tax lawyer!

They said each one of those events can tax you into ruin and all together and not reporting, the guy is going to have penalties and interest piling on him by the second.

And heā€™s not earning, he is in college, has this $120k in cold storage not cashed out yet haha, (just took $2.5k dip today) and he could be on the hook to irs thugs for who knows how much forever, may have ruined his young life already.

Be careful, I think to mine in usa is folly. One pitfall of bitcoin and monero and many of the most popular coins, other than their distribution of wealth being more thin than in North Korea, is that the majority of asic miners are on Chinese mainland.

But thatā€™s non of my businessā€¦

Hey, Mr. Robot just came on, I love fictionā€¦

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Any intraday traders in here? :smirk:

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