How to mine bitcoin: Guide to mining at home - Express.co.uk
How to mine bitcoin: Guide to mining at home - Express.co.uk
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Bitcoin Technology
/bitcoin is amazing and we love it but sometimes it's nice to have an area dedicated to the technical details and interesting projects of bitcoin so this exists to complement /bitcoin, Feel free to X-Post if you think your article is relevant to both /bitcoin and /bitcointechnology This subreddit is for all proposals, articles, questions and answers on bitcoin related technology DO NOT POST icos, pricing, memes, scams, etc here as they will be removed.
NiceHash offers you to buy or sell hashing power directly, no contracts, no limitations, pay-as-you-go if you're a buyer and be-paid-as-you-go if you're a seller. Why bother renting rigs, when you can rent hashing power? NiceHash brings more to renters and rig owners. Visit https://www.nicehash.com today! Simply create order and you are already mining your favorite coin or point your rig to our stratum server and you are already earning bitcoins.
You've probably been hearing a lot about Bitcoin recently and are wondering what's the big deal? Most of your questions should be answered by the resources below but if you have additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments. It all started with the release of the release of Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper however that will probably go over the head of most readers so we recommend the following videos for a good starting point for understanding how bitcoin works and a little about its long term potential:
Some other great resources include Lopp.net, the Princeton crypto series and James D'Angelo's Bitcoin 101 Blackboard series. Some excellent writing on Bitcoin's value proposition and future can be found at the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute. Some Bitcoin statistics can be found here and here. Developer resources can be found here. Peer-reviewed research papers can be found here. Potential upcoming protocol improvements and scaling resources here and here. The number of times Bitcoin was declared dead by the media can be found here (LOL!)
Key properties of Bitcoin
Limited Supply - There will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoins created and they are issued in a predictable fashion, you can view the inflation schedule here. Once they are all issued Bitcoin will be truly deflationary. The halving countdown can be found here.
Open source - Bitcoin code is fully auditable. You can read the source code yourself here.
Accountable - The public ledger is transparent, all transactions are seen by everyone.
Decentralized - Bitcoin is globally distributed across thousands of nodes with no single point of failure and as such can't be shut down similar to how Bittorrent works. You can even run a node on a Raspberry Pi.
Censorship resistant - No one can prevent you from interacting with the bitcoin network and no one can censor, alter or block transactions that they disagree with, see Operation Chokepoint.
Push system - There are no chargebacks in bitcoin because only the person who owns the address where the bitcoins reside has the authority to move them.
Low fee scaling - On chain transaction fees depend on network demand and how much priority you wish to assign to the transaction. Most wallets calculate on chain fees automatically but you can view current fees here and mempool activity here. On chain fees may rise occasionally due to network demand, however instant micropayments that do not require confirmations are happening via the Lightning Network, a second layer scaling solution currently rolling out on the Bitcoin mainnet.
Borderless - No country can stop it from going in/out, even in areas currently unserved by traditional banking as the ledger is globally distributed.
Trustless - Bitcoin solved the Byzantine's Generals Problem which means nobody needs to trust anybody for it to work.
Secure - Encrypted cryptographically and can’t be brute forced or confiscated with proper key management such as hardware wallets.
Programmable - Individual units of bitcoin can be programmed to transfer based on certain criteria being met
Nearly instant - From a few seconds to a few minutes depending on need for confirmations. Transactions are irreversible after one or more confirmations.
Portable - Bitcoins are digital so they are easier to move than cash or gold. They can even be transported by simply memorizing a string of words for wallet recovery (while cool this method is generally not recommended due to potential for insecure key generation by inexperienced users. Hardware wallets are the preferred method for new users due to ease of use and additional security).
Scalable - While the protocol is still being optimized for increased transaction capacity, blockchains do not scale very well, so most transaction volume is expected to occur on Layer 2 networks built on top of Bitcoin.
Divisible - Each bitcoin can be divided down to 8 decimals, which means you don't have to worry about buying an entire bitcoin.
Bitcoin.org and BuyBitcoinWorldwide.com are helpful sites for beginners. You can buy or sell any amount of bitcoin (even just a few dollars worth) and there are several easy methods to purchase bitcoin with cash, credit card or bank transfer. Some of the more popular resources are below, also check out the bitcoinity exchange resources for a larger list of options for purchases.
Here is a listing of local ATMs. If you would like your paycheck automatically converted to bitcoin use Bitwage. Note: Bitcoins are valued at whatever market price people are willing to pay for them in balancing act of supply vs demand. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin markets operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Preev is a useful site that that shows how much various denominations of bitcoin are worth in different currencies. Alternatively you can just Google "1 bitcoin in (your local currency)".
Securing your bitcoins
With bitcoin you can "Be your own bank" and personally secure your bitcoins OR you can use third party companies aka "Bitcoin banks" which will hold the bitcoins for you.
If you prefer to "Be your own bank" and have direct control over your coins without having to use a trusted third party, then you will need to create your own wallet and keep it secure. If you want easy and secure storage without having to learn computer security best practices, then a hardware wallet such as the Trezor, Ledger or ColdCard is recommended. Alternatively there are many software wallet options to choose from here depending on your use case.
If you prefer to let third party "Bitcoin banks" manage your coins, try Gemini but be aware you may not be in control of your private keys in which case you would have to ask permission to access your funds and be exposed to third party risk.
Note: For increased security, use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere it is offered, including email! 2FA requires a second confirmation code to access your account making it much harder for thieves to gain access. Google Authenticator and Authy are the two most popular 2FA services, download links are below. Make sure you create backups of your 2FA codes.
As mentioned above, Bitcoin is decentralized, which by definition means there is no official website or Twitter handle or spokesperson or CEO. However, all money attracts thieves. This combination unfortunately results in scammers running official sounding names or pretending to be an authority on YouTube or social media. Many scammers throughout the years have claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin. Websites like bitcoin(dot)com and the btc subreddit are active scams. Almost all altcoins (shitcoins) are marketed heavily with big promises but are really just designed to separate you from your bitcoin. So be careful: any resource, including all linked in this document, may in the future turn evil. Don't trust, verify. Also as they say in our community "Not your keys, not your coins".
Where can I spend bitcoins?
Check out spendabit or bitcoin directory for millions of merchant options. Also you can spend bitcoin anywhere visa is accepted with bitcoin debit cards such as the CashApp card. Some other useful site are listed below.
Gift cards for hundreds of retailers including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc.
There are several benefits to accepting bitcoin as a payment option if you are a merchant;
1-3% savings over credit cards or PayPal.
No chargebacks (final settlement in 10 minutes as opposed to 3+ months).
Accept business from a global customer base.
Increased privacy.
Convert 100% of the sale to the currency of your choice for deposit to your account, or choose to keep a percentage of the sale in bitcoin if you wish to begin accumulating it.
If you are interested in accepting bitcoin as a payment method, there are several options available;
Mining bitcoins can be a fun learning experience, but be aware that you will most likely operate at a loss. Newcomers are often advised to stay away from mining unless they are only interested in it as a hobby similar to folding at home. If you want to learn more about mining you can read more here. Still have mining questions? The crew at /BitcoinMining would be happy to help you out. If you want to contribute to the bitcoin network by hosting the blockchain and propagating transactions you can run a full node using this setup guide. If you would prefer to keep it simple there are several good options. You can view the global node distribution here.
Earning bitcoins
Just like any other form of money, you can also earn bitcoins by being paid to do a job.
You can also earn bitcoins by participating as a market maker on JoinMarket by allowing users to perform CoinJoin transactions with your bitcoins for a small fee (requires you to already have some bitcoins.
Bitcoin-Related Projects
The following is a short list of ongoing projects that might be worth taking a look at if you are interested in current development in the bitcoin space.
One Bitcoin is quite large (hundreds of £/$/€) so people often deal in smaller units. The most common subunits are listed below:
Unit
Symbol
Value
Info
bitcoin
BTC
1 bitcoin
one bitcoin is equal to 100 million satoshis
millibitcoin
mBTC
1,000 per bitcoin
used as default unit in recent Electrum wallet releases
bit
bit
1,000,000 per bitcoin
colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin (μBTC)
satoshi
sat
100,000,000 per bitcoin
smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor
For example, assuming an arbitrary exchange rate of $10000 for one Bitcoin, a $10 meal would equal:
0.001 BTC
1 mBTC
1,000 bits
100k sats
For more information check out the Bitcoin units wiki. Still have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or stick around for our weekly Mentor Monday thread. If you decide to post a question in /Bitcoin, please use the search bar to see if it has been answered before, and remember to follow the community rules outlined on the sidebar to receive a better response. The mods are busy helping manage our community so please do not message them unless you notice problems with the functionality of the subreddit. Note: This is a community created FAQ. If you notice anything missing from the FAQ or that requires clarification you can edit it here and it will be included in the next revision pending approval. Welcome to the Bitcoin community and the new decentralized economy!
Hi all! I am looking for a watchdog for my rig which is running under smOS from a pendrive. I can hardly find any information about them. Can it restart my rig if the system is on a pendrive, not on a HDD or SSD? Does it need any driver installation or just plug and play? Is there any difference between the red, black and green ones? black red green Which one do you recommend or anything else for substitute?
https://preview.redd.it/a23q7hk8vzd51.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=e6881f85b69711ad999ec80481a1d982019a798c Looking to get started with ChainX? Eager to know what ChainX is? This article will cover both, so stay where are you are and learn about what separates ChainX from other Polkadot Parachains. ChainX is one of the several Parachains of Polkadot, a Web3 Foundation project focused on bringing the numerous blockchains of the sector together through interoperability and easy integration. The ChainX team is building a public blockchain ecosystem of multi-currency integration. With a unique PoS consensus algorithm that follows an asset mining model, “One Asset One Vote” measures mining power based on market value of large caps like BTC, ETH, EOS, and other assets from users inter-chain deposits. Deposit data is then used with Bitcoin’s model to halve output eventually, and distribute PCX tokens in the fairest way possible. If you are ready to start asset mining across different chains with ChainX, read on!
Tutorial: how to deploy your ChainX node on Ankr
Head to app.ankr.com, create an account if you don’t have one already, then click the Deploy a Node button.
Now you are taken to the configuration page. The hardware configuration is already set to the optimal system requirements, but you are allowed to increase the specifications if you wish to do so by using the Advanced button.
The platform also recommends a cluster, which is usually the one that has the most freely available resources. In this particular case, the recommended cluster is the UK cluster, but another cluster may be recommended depending on where resources are most available at the time.
If you are deploying a Full node, select if you need archiving. In case you want to query historical data, please select Archive. If this is not the case, you can go with the Non-Archive option for less disk space and faster performance.
If you want to run a Validator, there is no archive option.
Name your node, using up to 32 characters, or simply take the default name provided.
Select your preferred payment option (ANKR ERC-20, ANKR Native or USDT or credit card). If you choose to pay with cryptocurrency you need to deposit funds on the generated address.
Click Deploy and once payment is received, your node will automatically start deploying and be online in minutes for use!
Got this weird DM on reddit idk what this guy is up to have any of you ever heard of this https://tradeoptiongains.com Site? u/mikerobin25 Mikerobin2501:52 AM Hello there IDEKMyUsername09:34 AM Howdy Mikerobin2509:47 AM How's it going? IDEKMyUsername12:13 PM Not bad. What's up Mikerobin2512:36 PM I'm doing quite alright, How about you? IDEKMyUsername12:53 PM Not bad Mikerobin2501:39 PM Well, I don't mean to intrude but are you familiar with the term "cryptocurrency", Bitcoin to be precise? IDEKMyUsername03:10 PM Yes Aye Mikerobin2503:25 PM Well, I'm at the moment engaging in an outreach aimed at expanding the clientele of my platform and enlightening the populace on the monetary potential of bitcoin trading and mining. Would you be interested in this? IDEKMyUsername03:26 PM Uh yeah sure I can look into it. What does it include? Mikerobin2503:28 PM Are you familiar with the term "Bitcoin trading"? IDEKMyUsername03:29 PM Yeah somewhat Like selling and buying it? Mikerobin2503:33 PM Well, Bitcoin trading is the process of making profits by buying Bitcoin at a low cost and selling it when the price goes up, This method is referred to as Dollar Cost Averaging(DCA). The Bitcoin trade is volatile, and price move by a significant margin. This activity is done on trading platforms. Are you following? IDEKMyUsername04:07 PM Yep gotcha so far Sorry had to pickup a call Mikerobin2506:51 PM No problem mate. Every platform has an investment procedure and ROI method. Unlike other platforms that engage in day trading (profiting from the volatility of bitcoin which is inefficient), My platform is registered with S9 ant miners that mine the bitcoin you invest to increase exponentially and that’s how you earn profits. Have you heard of the term "Bitcoin mining"? IDEKMyUsername06:52 PM Yes I have Mikerobin2506:57 PM Good. For clarification, Bitcoin mining primarily involves generating and earning off the confirmation of blocks of transaction on the network such as the Blockchain network. This is made possible with the use of special and sophisticated devices called the Bit main devices, Such as the AntMiner S9 and ASIC hardware. These devices are extremely expensive to maintain and require a lot of electricity generation and technical expertise which makes it rarely an option for private individuals who are interested in going into Bitcoin mining. But my platform has been able to provide for this disability. Are you following? IDEKMyUsername06:57 PM I feel ya Yes Mikerobin2507:01 PM Moving on, My platform operates a full S9 Antminer farm. The Antminer s9 has a hash rate of 12.93TH/s which is -+ 7%, Which could generate a ROI of 0.5 BTC within an investment period depending on the investment capital. Note: ROI stands for return of investment while hash rates a measure of how many times the network can attempt to complete this puzzle every second. This means that hash rate is a good indicator of the Bitcoin network's health. Do i still have your attention? IDEKMyUsername07:02 PM Yes Mikerobin2507:05 PM Finally, All investments are made and monitored by the client (you) on the platform's website as you earn profits daily and you can contact me a "Broker" on the platform whenever you need assistance or more information. https://tradeoptiongains.com IDEKMyUsername07:05 PM Hm U have a history of wise investments? I mean don't really know you so not like your a "professional" of any means Mikerobin2507:06 PM Certainly We've been running for a span of 4 years now with optimum services provided IDEKMyUsername07:38 PM oh wow gimmie some more deets? how much money would I expect if i put a quick g bar in? IDEKMyUsername07:53 PM hm? Mikerobin2507:54 PM An investment of $1000 amounts up to the standard ROI stated above which is 50% of 1 bitcoin. Apologies for the late reply, Was attending to a client of mine. IDEKMyUsername07:55 PM so invest of about $1000 would give ruffly 5? nah ur good fam like how I go about that tho u know cause isn't bitcoin like kind of high right now? Mikerobin2507:57 PM Yeah though it would have been more profitable if you had started earlier when it was cheaper but you should be expecting more returns due to the halving coming up. https://www.bitcoinblockhalf.com/ IDEKMyUsername07:58 PM how high you think its going to get? Mikerobin2507:59 PM Its a highly speculative asset but from my experience and following it's previous halving events, Probably 15-18k. IDEKMyUsername08:01 PM oh jeez thats like as big as the big boom right? how you know its gonna do that? and what if it doesn't lol? do I just l;ose it all Mikerobin2508:05 PM Exactly. If it doesn't, It would remain at its breaking point of 9k or peak point of 10k but i highly doubt it doesn't pump(rise) based on past halving events. You can simply get started by creating your personal account on the platform by which you can start by purchasing bitcoin and you can do this by clicking on the "Register" icon to get started. IDEKMyUsername08:05 PM hmmm idk Kinda need some more security u know what I mean? Mikerobin2508:08 PM I understand. Loses are only made when you sell off, You money remains intact whether it rises or falls as long as you don't sell but your ROI is fully attained on your account on the platform. IDEKMyUsername08:09 PM o Mikerobin2508:10 PM Indeed Mikerobin2508:20 PM Any more questions? IDEKMyUsername08:20 PM uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh no Mikerobin2508:22 PM Okay then, I'm available here if you're interested and need my assistance Enjoy the rest of your day. IDEKMyUsername08:25 PM o ok Yesterday Mikerobin2501:48 PM https://www.fxstreet.com/cryptocurrencies/news/breaking-bitcoin-price-takes-down-9-000-as-10-000-beckons-202004300334 https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/bitcoin-price-gold-oil-2020-best-performing-assets-a9492641.html IDEKMyUsername01:51 PM O I bought it Mikerobin2501:51 PM Pardon? IDEKMyUsername01:52 PM I bought one Mikerobin2501:52 PM On what platform? IDEKMyUsername01:54 PM I'm idk the one u sent me Um* Mikerobin2501:55 PM Really? When did you do this and why wasn't i informed? Today IDEKMyUsername10:19 AM Oh like last last night I thought it was expected U sent me the link and everything ;( Mikerobin2510:22 AM You would have informed me so i can enlighten you more on the procedure. Are you aware that it's a mining platform and you earn profits as an investor? IDEKMyUsername10:23 AM Yah so what would profit be ya reckon? For let's say $1000 over liek a year Mikerobin2510:24 AM What name did you use in registering the account? IDEKMyUsername10:24 AM Uh I'd have to look it up But how much profit did u say it would be about? Mikerobin2510:27 AM 0.5 BTC a month depending on your investment capital that is, I would need the name of your account to register it under my personal database so i can provide you with information and assistance when needed. IDEKMyUsername10:28 AM O damn that's some big bucks right there .5 btc like what 4g? 4 times 11 that's $44,000 a month Mikerobin2510:30 AM How much did you invest and what is the name of your account? Your profit is calculated in respect of your investment capital IDEKMyUsername10:31 AM Like 11grand Mikerobin2510:31 AM And the name? IDEKMyUsername10:31 AM Mmmm How do I find it? Is there a way on the site Mikerobin2510:31 AM What name did you use in creating the account? Didn't you register? IDEKMyUsername10:32 AM Oh like my irl name I thought u meant like a username Mikerobin2510:32 AM Username is what i mean IDEKMyUsername10:33 AM It's gonna be under Jeffery Henderson Jeffery L. Henderson Mikerobin2510:35 AM Okay, Give me a second to record it and ascertain your expected profit. IDEKMyUsername10:35 AM Sick Did u find my account? Mikerobin2510:41 AM I can't find your records on the platform, Maybe a technical difficulty. Could you please sign in and send me a screenshot of your funds deposited through discord please? IDEKMyUsername10:41 AM So tell me mike Where's the cash? Mikerobin2510:41 AM Pardon? IDEKMyUsername10:41 AM You lost it, oh you misplaced it. Now mike you know I don't like to be lied to right? Mikerobin2510:43 AM Since i can't find your account on the platform, I guess that's the ending of our conversation. Good day. IDEKMyUsername10:43 AM So why THE FUCK ARE YOU LIEING TO ME Mikerobin2510:44 AM Prove that you have an account on the platform by sending a screenshot IDEKMyUsername10:44 AM I cannot I did it on Computer Mikerobin2510:45 AM The sign in through your phone, Do i seem like a fool to you? I have a lot of clients to attend to and i don't have time for games IDEKMyUsername10:45 AM I ain't the I one that took another man's money and now can't find it You don't have other clients Let's not play games here How do I get my money out of this depreciating asset? You better help me get my money out of this or were going to have a major issue Mike... IDEKMyUsername11:16 AM U serious rn bro? Ur gonna scam me out of my 💰 ? A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy,. But suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth. and you'll know the debt is paid IDEKMyUsername08:01 PM Br You still my 11 grand Stole What's your name Tell me Or I'll find you
Onion Monero Blockchain Explorer by mWo12 included.
Auto loading menu for Monero updates, and script that auto detects, formats and mounts attached USB drives. Labels drive for simple detection by future versions of PiNode-XMR so the blockchain is maintained between versions.
tor bridging Node - routes your transactions through the tor network
Public Node - Using new RPC payment feature* - soon
Private Node - with mining (For education/experiment only)
Simple control with Web-UI
View Monero node and hardware status
Control bandwidth, connection limits and RPC port
Transaction pool and summary viewer
View connected peer info
Monerod log file view page
Easy setup menu for config of passwords, USB storage, Update and optional dynamic DNS.
All the benefits of running on a Pi, silent/fanless, low power (approx 15w) for 24/7 node, low cost.
Headless (No need for extra monitor,keyboard,etc) and connect via Ethernet or WiFi**
Background: I've been making nodes for other coins for a few years to learn about some crypto basics. It got a bit of interest for I have a site https://PiNode.co.uk but recently far more advanced projects have come on the scene (such as RaspiBlitz for Bitcoin) which was so far superior there was no sense pursuing it . However there are benefits for Monero users running their own node and we didn't have that quality of plug and play node. So I've been giving it a go and this is the result. The Future of PiNode-XMR: First of all project needs feedback to continue, I don't know what to develop and introduce unless people say what they don't like, do like or want. Second, it'd be great if anyone else in the Monero community would like to get involved, we have a great group and I'm sure there is an aspect of this project someone takes an interest in. Please get in touch. Like if there are any budding website designers in our midst the UI is the last module of this project that isn't open source, it's from a template and I've put it together best I can but...throwing that out there :) I'd be nice if the monero community could completely own this project, completely open source. Finally, I know that now there is more choice on the single board computer market and although the Raspberry Pi is popular it may not be the best hardware choice. So the next plan is to rather than make disk images that are hardware specific, to instead make scripts that are based on an OS ( probably Debian ). This way this project can be built by anyone using a single command onto Pine64, Odroid, Bananapi or any old laptop/pc with Debian for thier full node. Thanks for taking an interest and readingDan The "Advanced Settings" page from the UI for a bit of colour after all that text: https://preview.redd.it/4pqg5mcqr6941.png?width=1340&format=png&auto=webp&s=aa1f9ee176746ea064c8e8573ba04ee864ab5bc3 Edit: Added download link to this page too. Corrected image layout. Edit2: Added hash of image. And note it's also possible to flash the image directly onto a USB drive with a program like Rufus and not insert a MicroSD at all. You'll need to then manually expand that partition to the size of the drive, but may be useful to know.
04-03 12:33 - 'Paul Le Roux' (self.Bitcoin) by /u/financeoptimum removed from /r/Bitcoin within 191-201min
''' Paul Le Roux is a fascinating character, whose story entails drugs, gold, arms dealing, North Koreans, Iranians, elite-level encryption, Somali pirates, women...and more women. Let's get into it... Part 1/5 - The Early Years Paul Le Roux was born on Christmas Eve, 1972, in Bulawayo, the second-largest city in what was then called—by the white minority that governed it, at least— Rhodesia. In 1980, Robert Mugabe became prime minister of what would now be called Zimbabwe, ending minority white rule in the country. Four years later, when Le Roux was 12, the family relocated to South Africa. Not long after the move, in exchange for washing his father’s car, Le Roux was given his first computer. After that, a relation of Le Roux states that he became "completely anti-social.” When Le Roux was 15 or 16, in the late 1980s, the local police raided the family home and arrested Paul for selling pornography. After that, Le Roux turned even more inward. Although he was an excellent student, he despised the idea of learning Afrikaans, which was compulsory in South African schools, describing it as "a dead language" that he "didn't want to learn." At 16, he dropped out of high school and decided to follow his interest in computers, taking a local programming course. Family lore has it that after he spent one class explaining some technical fact to the teacher, he got a letter saying he no longer needed to attend. He then completed a year’s worth of material in eight weeks! Accounts of Le Roux do indicate that he was exceptionally gifted, and people who worked with him described him as a genius. After returning from a family holiday to Disneyland in the US, 17-year-old Le Roux decided to leave South Africa, and departed for the UK eight months later to work as a programmer. He then moved from the UK to the US, where he lived in Virginia Beach. After six months in the US, he followed his then-girlfriend Michelle to Australia in 1995. The couple married and Le Roux acquired Australian citizenship. Le Roux frequented message boards and enjoyed trolling Australians. A typical post read: "All of Australia could disappear into the Pacific and the only difference it would make to the World is the Americans would have one less pussy country to protect." His posts caused outrage on the board - someone even changed their handle to fuck @ you.paul Le Roux would later declare that his correspondents had fallen for his ploy: "Australians are east to provoke and your postings (including 2 death threats, numerous flames, and one guy who swears he has my address & phone number) have provided me with hours of amusement." Of course, Le Roux did more than just troll Australian message boards in this period... Le Roux had started building E4M - Encryption for the Masses - in 1997, releasing it at the end of 1998. Part 2/5 - The Turning Point E4M allowed users to encrypt entire hard drives, and to conceal the existence of encrypted files (such that prying eyes wouldn't even know they were there). According to Le Roux, the software was written from scratch, with thousands of hours going into its development and testing. As well as this, in the [Politics section of the E4M website]1 , Le Roux published a sort of Manifesto, describing how "governments are increasingly relying on electronic data gathering" and how "Strong Encryption is the mechanism with which to combat these intrusions, preserve your rights, and guarantee your freedoms into the information age and beyond." In the spirit of the open-source software movement in the late 90s, Le Roux released E4M for free and made the code available for other people to improve. Therefore, with no income from his two years of labor, he was struggling financially. His marriage fell apart violently and the couple got divorced in 1999. Le Roux first relocated to Hong Kong, then to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He married a Dutch citizen named Lilian, and they had a child shortly after. In 2000, in order to monetize E4M, Le Roux launched [SW Professionals]2 in 2000. Based in South Africa, the company offered offshore programming, including E4M customization. One of Le Roux's clients was an Italian telecoms engineer called Wilfried Hafner, who had corresponded with Le Roux for several years about E4M. Hafner had founded a company to create a commercial encryption product that would combine some of the elements of E4M with another piece of software, Scramdisk. The new company would be called SecurStar, and its product would be called DriveCrypt. Hafner hired Le Roux to build DriveCrypt's underlying engine. At the time, Le Roux was desperate for money - he drove a beat up car and worked out of a Rotterdam apartment small enough that, on the phone, Hafner could often hear a baby crying in the background. Hafner on the other hand was living in the South of France, and Le Roux openly coveted the kind of success that he imagined led to such a home. He told Hafner: "I am ambitious, I want to have all this." However, in the middle of the development work for DriveCrypt, Hafner discovered that Le Roux was still working on E4M and had incorporated some of his work for SecurStar into his personal project. As a result, Hafner terminated Le Roux's contract. By October 2002, SW Professionals was now defunct and Le Roux was openly soliciting for work on the alt.security.scramdisk forum. It was around this time that Le Roux received some news that "shattered his whole world." In 2002, he travelled to Zimbabwe to retrieve a copy of his birth certificate. On the trip, his aunt and uncle pulled him aside to tell him the truth, and it was then that Le Roux found out he was adopted. Although many family members had known for years, Le Roux’s parents had elected to keep him in the dark about it. It was the "unknown" part that hurt him the most. Shortly after, Le Roux appeared on an another set of message boards - he seemed to be launching some kind of moneymaking scheme that required opening a company based in the U.S. In 2004, a group of anonymous developers did exactly what Hafner had feared: they released a new and powerful, free file-encryption program, called TrueCrypt, built on the code for E4M. TrueCrypt combined security and convenience, giving users the ability to strongly encrypt files or entire disk drives while continuing to work with those files as they would a regular file on their computer. Hafner and his SecurStar colleagues suspected that Le Roux was part of the TrueCrypt collective but couldn't prove it. As we'll explore in Part 5, TrueCrypt is an interesting part of this story... Part 3/5 - Money and Power After Le Roux's departure from the encryption world, at least under his own name, he entered the Internet-pharmacy business. What Le Roux did next was combine two of America's favourite past times, popping pills and online shopping, and the results were sensational. He turned over around $300MM in 4 years. In 2007, Le Roux moved his family to Manila, where he would base his operations. He also had call centres in Israel. This was a brilliant move by Le Roux, as the authorities were not looking at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem as hot-spots for a large-scale organised crime operation... Le Roux was moving serious volume during this time - his operation was once one of FedEx's largest customers. A relative of Le Roux pointed to 2008 or 2009 as the point at which Le Roux snapped. "I think the money got to him. I personally saw $100 million in his office in Makati. Cash, bud. It was fucking ridiculous. It was in wicker baskets lined up on the side of the wall in his office." Le Roux's appetite only grew, and not just in the literal sense (he was known as the "Fat Man" in the Philippines): he wanted to be a different kind of businessman, a lord of the real underworld, not just the virtual one. An Israeli associate of Le Roux tells how "Le Roux wanted to make more money, fast. Le Roux wanted to diversify, to be bigger. The only way to do that was illegal. He was living inside a movie, you could almost say." As well as this, Le Roux was notorious for his sexual exploits - he once wrote to his cousin, "15-20 a week, sometimes 3 per night." A former call centre employee tells how Le Roux approached him with an assignment, which at first he thought was collecting women for Le Roux to open a bar. However, that was not the reason, as Le Roux explained: "I'm going to impregnate them, and build an army of kids." Le Roux asked him to make a spreadsheet to track the women: their names, dress size, age, medical checkups. The operation was given top priority by Le Roux, who even sent his emissary to China to try to find women there. It is rumoured that Le Roux has at least 11 children to 7 different women! Le Roux's businesses expanded into logging, precious metals mining, gold smuggling, land deals, cocaine shipping, and arms dealing. These activities were spread across dozens of shell companies registered all over the world. Of course, he needed to launder the money. Le Roux used paid muscle in Hong Kong to swap cash for gold bars, and then proceeded to stash the gold in warehouses in Hong Kong (this totalled around $50MM). Speaking of paid muscle, Le Roux had plenty: ex-soldiers and mercenaries made sure any problems were dealt with force if necessary. Le Roux was closest to ex-British soldier Dave Smith, who would act as the leader of the mercenaries and allow Le Roux to insulate himself and not have to deal with people. In fact, Le Roux once told Smith "I live vicariously through you." However, things took a turn for the worse, at least from Dave Smith's perspective, as Smith stole $5MM worth of Gold from Le Roux. Le Roux was furious. He then summoned Smith to his place in the country, and asked him to dig a hole as they needed to stash some gold. However, when he arrived, he was greeted by a South African hit-man. After the hit-man had finished shooting Smith, Le Roux then grabbed the gun and fired into Smith's corpse. Le Roux then set about building an arms base in Somalia. To achieve this, Le Roux called upon an ex-soldier from Europe, code-named 'Jack' to work for him on the ground in Somalia. At sea, Jack had to bribe Somali pirates. It was actually this activity in Somalia that landed Le Roux on the radar of the DEA, as he popped up in a UN Report on security in Somalia. The DEA were now on his tail. Of course, his encryption skills came in handy - Le Roux's thick layers of encryption meant that the DEA needed someone on the inside... Part 4/5 - "Well played gentlemen, well played" Le Roux was getting more and more paranoid about people in his organisation stealing from him. Without justification, he suspected that his self proclaimed 'Golden Boy' Jack was stealing from him - so he ordered a hit on Jack. This was a huge mistake on Le Roux's part, as Jack then called a CIA hotline and went on the run. It was 18 months later that a DEA investigating Le Roux found Jack's message to the CIA. The DEA agent then called Jack. Scared for his life, Jack agreed to turn informant. In the meantime, Le Roux then had a change of heart and apologised to Jack for ordering the hit on him. The DEA then asked Le Roux to go back to work for Le Roux - they now had someone on the inside. To tempt Le Roux, the DEA devised a sting operation. They knew that Le Roux wanted novelty and excitement. So they fabricated the scenario that Jack had made contact with a high profile Colombian trafficker, and the Colombians wanted to bypass the Mexicans for their meth supply in the US. Le Roux was hooked. However, the DEA needed to lure Le Roux out of Manila, as his network of corrupt officials would ensure he will never be arrested. Jack needed to get Le Roux to Liberia (where the DEA had a trusted ally in Fombah Sirleaf, Head of Liberia's National Security Agency). Jack achieved this by saying that they needed to meet a cartel representative to finalise the deal. It worked, and Le Roux was arrested. Initially, Le Roux went into passive resistance - he was a big unit (hence the nickname "Fat Man") - and it took around 10 agents to get him on the plane to fly back to the US. Well he settled on the plane, the first thing Le Roux said to the DEA agents was: "Well played gentlemen, well played." He then said: "If you're looking at me, then clearly you're looking at bigger things..." The DEA agents were intrigued: "No Paul, you're the prize - what could possibly be bigger than you?" Le Roux responded: "Nation states gentlemen, nation states." He then started to spew out extremely valuable information on North Korea and Iran. Of course, this wasn't the only leverage Le Roux had... The enforcers who were once on Le Roux's payroll needed to be held accountable for their numerous murders, and the DEA were desperate to get them behind bars. Le Roux was key in their eventual capture. But that's not all: a crucial piece to this story is Part 5... Part 5/5 - TrueCrypt As we discussed previously, Le Roux was rumoured to be a member of the TrueCrypt collective. In November 2012, a man with the online handle Cincinnatus decided to throw a party in Hawaii. The idea arose out of an email exchange with Runa Sandvik, a developer and expert on the online software Tor, which allows its users to mask the physical location of their computers on the Internet. After she gave a Tor tutorial on Reddit, Cincinnatus sent Sandvik an encrypted message. Cincinnatus told Sandvik that he lived in Hawaii. Sandvik mentioned that she would be there on vacation the following month and could give a talk on Tor. Cincinnatus suggested they host a “cryptoparty,” a phenomenon that had arisen around that time among technology- and privacy-conscious activists. The date was set for December 11. Unbeknownst to Sandvik, her fellow party planner was hatching a much more elaborate education scheme. Four days after he contacted Sandvik, Cincinnatus sent an email to the journalist Glenn Greenwald. “The security of people’s communications is very important to me,” he wrote. In a series of emails, he suggested that Greenwald set up an encrypted means by which sources could contact him. Cincinnatus organized the cryptoparty at a hacker space called HiCapacity, located in the back of a furniture store in Honolulu. When Sandvik arrived around 6 p.m., Cincinnatus introduced himself as Ed and told her that he worked at the computer-hardware company Dell. Ed kicked off the evening by welcoming the attendees, then invited Sandvik to give her presentation on Tor. When she was finished, Ed pulled out his laptop, plugged it into the projector, and began his own instructional talk about TrueCrypt. In Ed’s presentation, Sandvik later wrote, he “pointed out that while the only known name associated with TrueCrypt is someone in the Czech Republic, TrueCrypt is one of the best open-source solutions available.” Six months later, in June 2013, Greenwald and filmmaker Laura Poitras published the first of a series of articles that grew out of their contact with Cincinnatus. In time they revealed that his full name was Edward Snowden, that he had worked in various capacities at the National Security Agency, and that he had downloaded and handed over a trove of documents from the NSA in an effort to blow the whistle on what he believed were egregious privacy encroachments by the U.S. government. Among them was a document revealing that TrueCrypt was one of a small number of encryption programs that had withstood the NSA’s efforts to crack it. What Snowden and the rest of the world wouldn’t know for another two years was that Paul Le Roux, the man whose code formed the foundation of True Crypt, was at that very moment in the custody of the U.S. government. Le Roux was in a bind, facing the full force of a U.S. federal prosecution for any number of his extraordinary array of crimes. The only way out was to spill his secrets... [[link]4 ''' Paul Le Roux Go1dfish undelete link unreddit undelete link Author: financeoptimum 1: e4m.net/**l*ht*l 2: e4m*net* 3: www.yout*be.co*/watc**v=z**aMoJ**k* 4: www.youtube.com/watc*?v*z*Za*o***kc**^* Unknown links are censored to prevent spreading illicit content.
Lessons learned - Crypto and Divorce - In January I was a millionaire thanks to BTC, then my wife divorces me and now I have $30,000 AMA
Crossreferencing u/nanoissuperior He wrote earlier today: https://www.reddit.com/CryptoCurrency/comments/a3n6uw/in_january_i_was_a_millionaire_thanks_to_nano_now/ Title: In January I was a millionaire thanks to Nano, now I have $25,000 AMA I was replying to his post, but my reply ended up being a bit too large as a reply and steered off-topic, albeit an interesting one. So I decided to make it its own post, because there may be a good lessons to be learned and hoping some will come forward with good information to be shared. I hope it can help anyone on this sub avoid the costly mistakes that I made. Here it goes: FLAIR: LEGAL (not in the list) ---- u/nanoissuperior are you who I think you are? I won't give out any further identifying clues, but I happen to know someone in the exact same position that could have written that exact same headline. If you read the first paragraph, you'll know if you know me. The person I know bought Nano really early, based on a tip from a friend. I got in much later. By the time he told me it had already spiked to the $5 range, when I ended up buying. I then sold in the $20's so it was a good buy nonetheless. We were former colleagues at a large, large software company somewhere in the PNW, I left the company to venture out on my own and try to launch some projects I had in mind and relocated overseas for a few years. We lost contact with each other during my time away, but we connected again during the market runup and started exchanging coin information on a daily basis during the big bull run of late 2017. That was a crazy time.... the market trend was a few degrees short of vertical for pretty much all coins! Hey, guess what? Now that I think about it, I could have written that same headline myself! In January 2018 I was a Millionaire too! Not with Nano, but thanks to purchasing a good chunk of Bitcoin in 2011 at $1.20 each. I ended up a single digit millionaire with what I had left in Bitcoin around January of 2018. And, just like you, today, from all that wealth, I have about $30.000 left, with little to show for. Can we call that even? Although my disaster was not caused entirely by market fluctuation; Mine is a more complex story and I am going to mention it, because hopefully, it could serve as a lesson to be learned for any crypto holder out there, so they don't make the make mistake I made: Don't trust anyone. Always be skeptical and watch out for your own interests. Anyhow, here it goes: After 5 years overseas, I had enough and wanted to come back to the States. My wife stated her preference to stay abroad, but eventually, she conceded albeit reluctantly. We chose a small town in CO to settle, and landed in November of 2017. We had plans to settle down and considered purchasing a home with my/our new fortune, based on the market price during that period. At the same time, I was also hesitant about the inherent tax payments due caused by such large liquidation. I was trying to have to pay taxes as far away as possible. So, I decided to wait till New Year's Eve and started liquidating my crypto on January 1st, 2018 right after midnight. This way, I would have 16 months (till April, 2019) to pay any capital gains taxes, and I was confident at the time that the market would give me that for free, especially at the pace that it was going. I have been an early adopter and have since then acquired the high levels of verification and trading limits per week, with many exchanges, but for a large sum like this, I needed several separate transactions, over the course of several weeks, especially wanting to do it with a US-based exchange that was linked to a US bank accounts, to avoid overseas wire transfers, meaning more fees. (Yes, I did look at all OTC options, but for reasons not relevant to the story, I couldn't make it happen, so I had to use the traditional Exchange channels for asset liquidation). My wife and I, initially had some fundamental disagreements on the gross amount to be spent and the type of property we should be purchasing. I wanted a smaller place, with a denser, younger community, where there'd be kids our son's age for him to play. She insisted that we should go big; we had been traveling for so many years, and we had not been able to call any of our past residences our home. It was time to settle and nest; She convinced me that we should own a property of our own that we would be proud of living in for years. One that we could own outright and would not easily outgrow. We ended up splurging and purchased in cash two luxury cars for ourselves and set our sights on a large dream house in the city's Golf & Country Club, free and clear, for us and our two kids. I don't even play golf, nor do I even like it, but, if it makes her happy and it is within the safe margins of making it happen, I figured, why not? My concerns were largely financial and the numbers were adding up. It was a bit tight against my personal safe margins, but, at the same time, I was imagining to never have to make, or even have to think about, a car or home mortgage payment ever again! Bitcoin is on a roll and there is no sign of it stopping. Fine. Let's do it, before I change my mind. Now, I admit I was extremely lucky with choosing the time of when to sell the assets. I had no clue the market would take a dive in February, and so it seemed to many that I had timed the market perfectly, selling most of my coins in the first two weeks of January of 2018. Many called me a genius for selling at the very top, as if I had some sort of wisdom to know when it would drop; the truth is much less flattering; it was nothing but dumb luck, based on me wanting to pay taxes in 2018 and defer to 2019. Awesome, well done! Yeah? well, slow down, son, not so fast. So, I gather the 7-digit lumpsum in January 2018 and we write a check for the full amount at closing in February on the property of her dreams. A property that could easily be showcased on a luxury Real Estate magazine cover. Also, remember we had just moved back to the United States with just a few suitcases each from overseas. We had no furniture, kitchenware, curtains, TV's, bed sheets, winter clothing and so many other essential things that one usually purchases over time, but which we now had to purchase all at once. Not a problem, Bitcoin had dropped slightly but still well above $15k, I believe, at the time. And, earlier, in January, I had diligently taken this expense into account and effortlessly set aside a small fortune for equipping such a large house with everything we would ever need, brand new. It seemed we were protagonists of one of the Home Makeover Shows. Finally, after working day and night, prepping the house non-stop for days and when every piece of furniture had finally arrived, been unpacked and carried to its corresponding room, it seemed most of the essentials were in place and the hard work was done. I longed for pouring myself a Scotch and to finally sit down and enjoy the fruits of my labor. I head downstairs to the dedicated walk-in, cigar-humidor / wine / Scotch cellar in the basement and grab the better bottle of Whisky of the few bottles of Scotch that I had bought earlier in the week. On my way up, I remember feeling a sense of calm, combined with a glow of excitement and this undescribable profound inner peace, all at once. This was such a rare, natural, non-drug induced high that I had never experienced. It felt so good! This sense of accomplishment of achieving that one thing I had been chasing and longing for my entire life. I had expected I would be chasing this goal for the next 15-20 years, and yet, here it was. No, where I was, was even better than expected! A place where not even my parents, who still have to make their monthly mortgage payments. I had done it! With a smile from ear to ear, I take a deep breath of relief and while looking around the property, I think to myself: "It's perfect, everything is in place and I can finally call this our home. We are so lucky and we are going to live a great life. A life that few can only dream of. So many concerns will be lifted and become redundant. Everything will be better. I'll start a fire in one of our two fireplaces and I am going to begin enjoying my semi-retired life with the first sip of my drink. That will be the official start of our new life". I head over to the kitchen to get a glass and some ice cubes, while I struggle to find which one is the freezer among the many drawers in the kitchen. It was then when I notice a handwritten note placed front and center on the kitchen counter. It is from my wife and read: "There is no easy way to say this, so I am just going to say it..... I want to legally divorce [ ...]". It continued saying that she had taken our son, and had unequivocally decided to leave me. She had already filed the paperwork for divorce and that I should expect to be served in the morning. My bliss had lasted less than 5 minutes and in less than two seconds, it turned dark, somber and I saw it all crumbling down in front of me. Like a long-awaited rocket launch, years in preparation, which then unexpectedly explodes on the launch pad during the countdown. My stomach, heart and everything in my body just sank and melted into one ball of poison in my core. I felt like throwing up. I was completely blindsided; she had played the game all along, not giving me the slightest hint of what was being concocted in the background. She had already engaged with her lawyers weeks beforehand. Her mother was already in town from another state to help out with I don't know what. I had been gaslighted and was threatened by her that I needed to see a psychiatrist due to a change in my temper that I had supposedly developed - my temper was awesome: with BTC at that price? Everything was perfect! But I obeyed and went anyhow (this would later fit her story that she had to leave with the child because she feared for her safety due to my supposed temper for which I was under treatment, therefore, I must have this temper problem, see?). Also, the purchase of the overpriced home also seemed clearly premeditated: Price was the main driver of the decision making; not location, demographics, taxes, etc. It was the wrong neighborhood for us (people much older than us, retired, golfers and no kids the same age as our son to play with). Our house happened to also be the most expensive in the neighborhood. I can see it all so clearly now. See, your crypto coins on the blockchain, are not within the US court's jurisdiction (or, at least, it's quite debatable - a gray area - ask me for the seed and I can tell you that I may have the seed, or that I may not have the seed, I may have the wrong seed, I may have forgotten it, I may have lost it - you can't prove I did not forget, or lost it, etc). However, once it is in FIAT in a bank, or invested in a property, the courts can rule on the asset(s), freeze, disburse or order a sale of the property, etc. It's done all the time. Also, the coins were technically mine, and by definition private property (not to be divided during the divorce) as they were acquired before the marriage. I could not prove its origins (I bought many of them via direct messaging members on Bitcointalk.org and mining rather than exchanges, so no records, receipts or nothing to prove otherwise: the big exchanges like BitStamp and Coinbase didn't start operations till 2013, if I m not mistaken. Instead, I would talk to one of the forum members offering coins we'd agree on a price, I'd send a check to wherever the individual seller instructed me to (Russia, Bulgaria, Japan, UK. etc) and the coins would be deposited to whatever address I provided. Yes, it was quite crude at the time. However, once I converted my coins to cash and used that cash to buy a property for the benefit of the family, it became common property and thus she then had rights to a portion of it when divided between the two parties should a divorce occur - which ended up being almost 3/4 of all assets. I was robbed in broad daylight. By the one person, I trusted with my life. The one you should trust with your life. Your life partner. And while I was in complete denial, trying to bargain, I waited too long to obtain good legal representation. When I finally ended up getting a lawyer, I was quite distraught and I clearly did not do the proper research and this resulted in a less than stellar performance and detrimental to me at many key steps in the process. I had to switch legal representation right before mediation and I can't blame my new lawyer either, as (s)he did not have the required time to catch up on all the details, (s)he did his/her best, but I was ultimately strongarmed into conceding my soon-to-be-ex-wife to let her return to the house, in exchange to obtain 50% of my son's custody, with serious and strict clauses I had to abide by. So, I had to move out, find a hole in the wall in a student apartment, pay my rent and pay our kids pre-school, while she lives grandiose, without monthly payments in the country club, till the house sells, which will likely be in the spring of next year. Nice! Due to my delay, legal mishandling and somehow every other element in her favor, she inexplicably ended up with around 3/4 of the worth of all assets, free and clear, no taxes due. Mind you, she has never financially contributed, nor made a single $ during our entire marriage. She has never worked and had $0 in her pocket when we married. She didn't even have a checking account, well in her thirties. She is no dummy; she is street smart, knows how to manipulate people, get her way with flirting and charm, while I am more intellectual and book smart. and She beat me hands-down. She is walking away with a sum of, not quite 7 figures, but close. With what I am left with from the sale of the house, I am responsible to pay for all the capital gains taxes from the liquidation to the IRS, which are due in April 2019. I don't expect there to be more left over than the estimated $30k mentioned above. Hate the market all you want, I made peace with the market and am keeping busy at hating my ex for a while for putting me in the same situation. She tripped me 1 yard before the finish line and pushed me in the prickly bushes, to cross it by herself. Go figure. When I am done hating her, I'll get back to rebuilding my life again from scratch. I am not worried, I have done it before. Just pissed, I was so close and that I was so naive to not see it coming. Sorry, I am not meaning to hijack the thread, just wanted you to know that others may have lost more than just "free" money; money we didn't really have to work for. We were the lucky ones. It is what I keep telling myself to stop me from jumping off a bridge. PS - Woah: Sorry for the wall of text; I was just going to write the first paragraph and ended up venting about my current situation. I know, I should take this issue to /depressed, /exes or /whereisthenearestbridgeIcanjumpfrom. Hopefully, this can be a lesson to those holding crypto and some can learn what NOT to do. I learned the hard way and was left with nothing. Don't be a nice guy. Don't trust anyone with your crypto. Anyhow, I am sure either our vigilant subreddit bot, or one of the mods will remove my post for not adhering to rule, and if not, I am sure that you fine people will downvote me to hell. Go ahead. Take away from me the little Karma I left too! Thanks! I learned many lessons, but here are some key ones [IANAL - any crypto-educated AL opinion appreciated here, thanks] : - Understand the concept of private property - property you acquire before getting married. INAL - this depends on the state legislation, but it is hard to prove with crypto, especially if you obtained your crypto through foreign exchanges, outside of legal jurisdictions, the petitioner might not understand or willing to invest in obtaining subpoenas and requests to businesses operating overseas, as this may result costly. - Get a lawyer who understands, or is willing to understand crypto, its benefits of being somewhat unreachable and how that can work for you. Don't let them shortchange you with: "well, let's just convert the rest to cash, because that I understand" type of reasoning. - If you do go to mediation, the above applies as well. This arbitrator or mediator needs to be one that understands the intrinsic details of crypto - for example, during the ATH, I bought 6 digits worth in $USD of Stellar. I used the very first version of the software, supporting Stellar on my hardware device, and put it all in a cold storage wallet somewhere around January. I routinely checked on my coins on the blockchain and they are there. A few months later, I try to access my account and the device returns a different public address, which contains 0 funds. I am still trying to debug this issue with the manufacturer, but the fact is that I was accused of hiding these coins or negligence and was demanded that I paid half of what was lost. or not lost, out of my pocket for money that I didn't have access either. I tried to explain it in the simplest terms, there are risks involved with using first come software. There is no 1800 number, mo tech support. no CEO, no, you can't call the BBB and complain, etc and no one seemed to be able to understand, nor willing to either. It became a huge roadblock for which I had to concede, not cash, but a concession, I was not wanting to concede. The petitioner leaned on the fact that I was either wilfully cheating or stupid enough to lose the coins and managed to create enough doubt in my character and integrity and there was nothing rational I could explain that she, or anyone else in the room would understand. Perhaps mutually contracting a seasoned crypto expert that can offer a neutral view and give his/her opinion might be worth considering. Andreas, where were you when I needed you? :) - Other examples were some coins I had bought in 2012 and gifted to some of her family's kids. I was holding these, till they would turn 16 for them to pay themselves their college, or so I told them. These coins were demanded back by the petitioner. Ok, I suggested that I would send them, but with a CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY value with a block height of let's say,10 years from now, out of fear that she would spend the coins and the kids would never know (they are toddlers). No one understood what I was talking about, I was made out the crazy one, I gave up, sent her the coins, unlocked and, just as I expected, within 20 minutes of receiving them, she spent $1200 worth of it (for a flight, I think). If you are the only one speaking your language, no one is willing to listen or make an effort to understand you. - It appears my coins were private property, which means, that I acquired them before the marriage and in case of divorce, if I have not moved them or used them for the common good of the marriage, then they remain mine. However, I liquidated them and cash ended up in my checking account to be used to buy groceries, cars and eventually a house, and it is then that they became common property. Only once they landed in my checking account on which she is named on. It appears that had I taken proper legal precautions with documentation, or a company/trust, where that money would have gone, instead of my checking accounts, elsewhere, I would have still been able to be the legal proprietor of the resulting cash. I can't quite remember the details, but it as something that was explained to me afterward, and I honestly think I just tuned it out, because it made me sick to know I could have held on to my wealth. Perhaps a lawyer can chime in? Again, much of the lack of information and every misstep taken was because of dealing with people that are accustomed to traditional assets and will not deviate from it. Crypto is different and is treated differently. It is so important to know the strengths and weaknesses when going into litigation about something that people don't understand. - Some more I can think of, but this post is getting way out of hand in size. Feel free to comment/suggest your own and I'll add more to the comments. Credits to: u/nanoissuperior Thanks for your post, it inspired me to write this one. Anyone, any karma you feels needs to go his way, for providing the source of inspiration, please give to O-OP. TL;DR: Wife, having contributed $0 during entire marriage, waited until I cashed out all my crypto at the top of the bull market in January 2018, for a nice seven-figure amount, and then immediately divorced me for the money. Edit: added TL;DR
3rd Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study – CCAF, University of Cambridge
Hi BitcoinMining! We are the cryptocurrency research team from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF), an academic research centre at the University of Cambridge. We publish freely available research reports on the cryptocurrency industry. In 2020 Bitcoin’s issuance per block will drop for the third time since its launch. When the number of blocks hit 630,000 the Bitcoin network will experience another “halving”, where the block reward will drop from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. As the Bitcoin halving is rapidly approaching, we would like to highlight a few interesting observations and ask some open questions that we have encountered during our research. 1) What will the impact of the 2020 Bitcoin halving be for miners, and in particular smaller ones? In a recent paper entitled “Bitcoin’s Production Cost”, Charles Edwards from Capriole Investments pointed out that (i) Historically, the electrical cost to produce a Bitcoin has represented a price floor in the Bitcoin market price (ii) Based on CCAF’s electrical consumption data, from “The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI)”, 2019 was the least profitable year for Bitcoin Mining in the last 5 years. (iii) Given that the Bitcoin Production Cost will double in the next Bitcoin halving, and that the daily cost of Bitcoin Production therefore will be spread across half as many Bitcoins, a number of questions arise: · What will be the impact on the smaller miners' businesses? · What are the core risks small miners face? · How can smaller miners mitigate this risk? 2) Will we see a greater concentration of mining in the hands of a few? If so, what will the implications be? Back in 2018, when we released the 2nd edition of the Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study, “Centralisation of hashpower in the hands of a few” was the greatest concern for small miners. It would be interesting to gauge what the sentiment is in 2020. · Is the concentration of mining power still the greatest concern for small miners? · Will this situation worsen after the halving? · What scenario could mitigate these issues of mining concentration? 3) How will miners deal with concentration risks? In the 2nd edition of the Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study, we identified three categories of concentration risk in the mining industry: (i) Hardware manufacturing concentration, (ii) Hashing facility concentration and (iii) Pool concentration. Miners will have to mitigate and deal with concentration risk on all three levels. · What strategies will small miners likely use to mitigate these risks? These are some of the questions we hope to answer in the 3rd edition of the Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study. In order to gather accurate, relevant and useful benchmarking data, we need your help. As a company active in the mining industry, perhaps you would take a few moments to answer our Cryptoasset Mining Survey? The mining survey can be accessed here: https://jbs.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bEMklTo335cP0Wh The survey is available in English, Español, Português, 中文, 日本, русский, and 한국어. Thank you in advance!
Hi Bitcoiners! I’m back with the 35th monthly Bitcoin news recap. For those unfamiliar, each day I pick out the most popularelevant/interesting stories in Bitcoin and save them. At the end of the month I release them in one batch, to give you a quick (but not necessarily the best) overview of what happened in bitcoin over the past month. You can see recaps of the previous months on Bitcoinsnippets.com A recap of Bitcoin in November 2019 Adoption
You've probably been hearing a lot about Bitcoin recently and are wondering what's the big deal? Most of your questions should be answered by the resources below but if you have additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments. The following videos are a good starting point for understanding how bitcoin works and a little about its long term potential:
Limited Supply - There will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoins created and they are issued in a predictable fashion, you can view the inflation schedule here. Once they are all issued Bitcoin will be truly deflationary. The halving countdown can be found here.
Open source - Bitcoin code is fully auditable. You can read the source code yourself here.
Accountable - The public ledger is transparent, all transactions are seen by everyone.
Decentralized - Bitcoin is globally distributed across thousands of nodes with no single point of failure and as such can't be shut down similar to how Bittorrent works.
Censorship resistant - No one can prevent you from interacting with the bitcoin network and no one can censor, alter or block transactions that they disagree with, see Operation Chokepoint.
Push system - There are no chargebacks in bitcoin because only the person who owns the address where the bitcoins reside has the authority to move them.
Low fee - Transactions fees can vary between a few cents and a few dollars depending on network demand and how much priority you wish to assign to the transaction. Most wallets calculate the fee automatically but you can view current fees here.
Borderless - No country can stop it from going in/out, even in areas currently unserved by traditional banking as the ledger is globally distributed.
Trustless - Bitcoin solved the Byzantine's Generals Problem which means nobody needs to trust anybody for it to work.
Portable - Bitcoins are digital so they are easier to move than cash or gold. They can even be transported by simply remembering a string of words for wallet recovery.
Scalable - Each bitcoin is divisible down to 8 decimals allowing it to grow in value while still accommodating micro-transactions.
Some excellent writing on Bitcoin's value proposition and future can be found here. Bitcoin statistics can be found here, here and here. Developer resources can be found here and here. Peer-reviewed research papers can be found here. The number of times Bitcoin was declared dead by the media can be found here. Scaling resources here, and of course the whitepaper that started it all.
Where can I buy bitcoins?
BuyBitcoinWorldwide.com and Howtobuybitcoin.io are helpful sites for beginners. You can buy or sell any amount of bitcoin and there are several easy methods to purchase bitcoin with cash, credit card or bank transfer. Some of the more popular resources are below, also, check out the bitcoinity exchange resources for a larger list of options for purchases.
Here is a listing of local ATMs. If you would like your paycheck automatically converted to bitcoin use Cashila or Bitwage. Note: Bitcoins are valued at whatever market price people are willing to pay for them in balancing act of supply vs demand. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin markets operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Preev is a useful site that that shows how much various denominations of bitcoin are worth in different currencies. Alternatively you can just Google "1 bitcoin in (your local currency)".
Securing your bitcoins
With bitcoin you can "Be your own bank" and personally secure your bitcoins OR you can use third party companies aka "Bitcoin banks" which will hold the bitcoins for you.
If you prefer to "Be your own bank" and have direct control over your coins without having to use a trusted third party, there are many software wallet options here. If you want easy and secure storage without having to learn computer security best practices, then a hardware wallet such as the Trezor or Ledger is recommended. A more advanced option is to secure them yourself using paper wallets generated offline. Some popular mobile and desktop options are listed below and most are cross platform.
If you prefer to let third party "Bitcoin banks" manage your coins, try Coinbase or Xapo but be aware you may not be in control of your private keys in which case you would have to ask permission to access your funds and be exposed to third party risk.
Another interesting use case for physical storage/transfer is the Opendime. Opendime is a small USB stick that allows you to spend Bitcoin by physically passing it along so it's anonymous and tangible like cash. Note: For increased security, use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere it is offered, including email! 2FA requires a second confirmation code to access your account, usually from a text message or app, making it much harder for thieves to gain access. Google Authenticator and Authy are the two most popular 2FA services, download links are below. Make sure you create backups of your 2FA codes.
Gift cards for hundreds of retailers including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc.
There are several benefits to accepting bitcoin as a payment option if you are a merchant;
1-3% savings over credit cards or PayPal.
No chargebacks (final settlement in 10 minutes as opposed to 3+ months).
Accept business from a global customer base.
Increased privacy.
Convert 100% of the sale to the currency of your choice for deposit to your account, or choose to keep a percentage of the sale in bitcoin if you wish to begin accumulating it.
If you are interested in accepting bitcoin as a payment method, there are several options available;
Mining bitcoins can be a fun learning experience, but be aware that you will most likely operate at a loss. Newcomers are often advised to stay away from mining unless they are only interested in it as a hobby similar to folding at home. If you want to learn more about mining you can read more here. Still have mining questions? The crew at /BitcoinMining would be happy to help you out. If you want to contribute to the bitcoin network by hosting the blockchain and propagating transactions you can run a full node using this setup guide. Bitseed is an easy option for getting set up. You can view the global node distribution here.
Earning bitcoins
Just like any other form of money, you can also earn bitcoins by being paid to do a job.
You can also earn bitcoins by participating as a market maker on JoinMarket by allowing users to perform CoinJoin transactions with your bitcoins for a small fee (requires you to already have some bitcoins)
Bitcoin Projects
The following is a short list of ongoing projects that might be worth taking a look at if you are interested in current development in the bitcoin space.
One Bitcoin is quite large (hundreds of £/$/€) so people often deal in smaller units. The most common subunits are listed below:
Unit
Symbol
Value
Info
millibitcoin
mBTC
1,000 per bitcoin
SI unit for milli i.e. millilitre (mL) or millimetre (mm)
microbitcoin
μBTC
1,000,000 per bitcoin
SI unit for micro i.e microlitre (μL) or micrometre (μm)
bit
bit
1,000,000 per bitcoin
Colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin
satoshi
sat
100,000,000 per bitcoin
Smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor
For example, assuming an arbitrary exchange rate of $500 for one Bitcoin, a $10 meal would equal:
0.02 BTC
20 mBTC
20,000 bits
For more information check out the Bitcoin units wiki. Still have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or stick around for our weekly Mentor Monday thread. If you decide to post a question in /Bitcoin, please use the search bar to see if it has been answered before, and remember to follow the community rules outlined on the sidebar to receive a better response. The mods are busy helping manage our community so please do not message them unless you notice problems with the functionality of the subreddit. A complete list of bitcoin related subreddits can be found here Note: This is a community created FAQ. If you notice anything missing from the FAQ or that requires clarification you can edit it here and it will be included in the next revision pending approval. Welcome to the Bitcoin community and the new decentralized economy!
Transcript of discussion between an ASIC designer and several proof-of-work designers from #monero-pow channel on Freenode this morning
[08:07:01] lukminer contains precompiled cn/r math sequences for some blocks: https://lukminer.org/2019/03/09/oh-kay-v4r-here-we-come/ [08:07:11] try that with RandomX :P [08:09:00] tevador: are you ready for some RandomX feedback? it looks like the CNv4 is slowly stabilizing, hashrate comes down... [08:09:07] how does it even make sense to precompile it? [08:09:14] mine 1% faster for 2 minutes? [08:09:35] naturally we think the entire asic-resistance strategy is doomed to fail :) but that's a high-level thing, who knows. people may think it's great. [08:09:49] about RandomX: looks like the cache size was chosen to make it GPU-hard [08:09:56] looking forward to more docs [08:11:38] after initial skimming, I would think it's possible to make a 10x asic for RandomX. But at least for us, we will only make an ASIC if there is not a total ASIC hostility there in the first place. That's better for the secret miners then. [08:13:12] What I propose is this: we are working on an Ethash ASIC right now, and once we have that working, we would invite tevador or whoever wants to come to HK/Shenzhen and we walk you guys through how we would make a RandomX ASIC. You can then process this input in any way you like. Something like that. [08:13:49] unless asics (or other accelerators) re-emerge on XMR faster than expected, it looks like there is a little bit of time before RandomX rollout [08:14:22] 10x in what measure? $/hash or watt/hash? [08:14:46] watt/hash [08:15:19] so you can make 10 times more efficient double precisio FPU? [08:16:02] like I said let's try to be productive. You are having me here, let's work together! [08:16:15] continue with RandomX, publish more docs. that's always helpful. [08:16:37] I'm trying to understand how it's possible at all. Why AMD/Intel are so inefficient at running FP calculations? [08:18:05] midipoet ([email protected]/web/irccloud.com/x-vszshqqxwybvtsjm) has joined #monero-pow [08:18:17] hardware development works the other way round. We start with 1) math then 2) optimization priority 3) hw/sw boundary 4) IP selection 5) physical implementation [08:22:32] This still doesn't explain at which point you get 10x [08:23:07] Weren't you the ones claiming "We can accelerate ProgPoW by a factor of 3x to 8x." ? I find it hard to believe too. [08:30:20] sure [08:30:26] so my idea: first we finish our current chip [08:30:35] from simulation to silicon :) [08:30:40] we love this stuff... we do it anyway [08:30:59] now we have a communication channel, and we don't call each other names immediately anymore: big progress! [08:31:06] you know, we russians have a saying "it was smooth on paper, but they forgot about ravines" [08:31:12] So I need a bit more details [08:31:16] ha ha. good! [08:31:31] that's why I want to avoid to just make claims [08:31:34] let's work [08:31:40] RandomX comes in Sep/Oct, right? [08:31:45] Maybe [08:32:20] We need to audit it first [08:32:31] ok [08:32:59] we don't make chips to prove sw devs that their assumptions about hardware are wrong. especially not if these guys then promptly hardfork and move to the next wrong assumption :) [08:33:10] from the outside, this only means that hw & sw are devaluing each other [08:33:24] neither of us should do this [08:33:47] we are making chips that can hopefully accelerate more crypto ops in the future [08:33:52] signing, verifying, proving, etc. [08:34:02] PoW is just a feature like others [08:34:18] sech1: is it easy for you to come to Hong Kong? (visa-wise) [08:34:20] or difficult? [08:34:33] or are you there sometimes? [08:34:41] It's kind of far away [08:35:13] we are looking forward to more RandomX docs. that's the first step. [08:35:31] I want to avoid that we have some meme "Linzhi says they can accelerate XYZ by factor x" .... "ha ha ha" [08:35:37] right? we don't want that :) [08:35:39] doc is almost finished [08:35:40] What docs do you need? It's described pretty good [08:35:41] so I better say nothing now [08:35:50] we focus on our Ethash chip [08:36:05] then based on that, we are happy to walk interested people through the design and what else it can do [08:36:22] that's a better approach from my view than making claims that are laughed away (rightfully so, because no silicon...) [08:36:37] ethash ASIC is basically a glorified memory controller [08:36:39] sech1: tevador said something more is coming (he just did it again) [08:37:03] yes, some parts of RandomX are not described well [08:37:10] like dataset access logic [08:37:37] RandomX looks like progpow for CPU [08:37:54] yes [08:38:03] it is designed to reflect CPU [08:38:34] so any ASIC for it = CPU in essence [08:39:04] of course there are still some things in regular CPU that can be thrown away for RandomX [08:40:20] uncore parts are not used, but those will use very little power [08:40:37] except for memory controller [08:41:09] I'm just surprised sometimes, ok? let me ask: have you designed or taped out an asic before? isn't it risky to make assumptions about things that are largely unknown? [08:41:23] I would worry [08:41:31] that I get something wrong... [08:41:44] but I also worry like crazy that CNv4 will blow up, where you guys seem to be relaxed [08:42:06] I didn't want to bring up anything RandomX because CNv4 is such a nailbiter... :) [08:42:15] how do you guys know you don't have asics in a week or two? [08:42:38] we don't have experience with ASIC design, but RandomX is simply designed to exactly fit CPU capabilities, which is the best you can do anyways [08:43:09] similar as ProgPoW did with GPUs [08:43:14] some people say they want to do asic-resistance only until the vast majority of coins has been issued [08:43:21] that's at least reasonable [08:43:43] yeah but progpow totally will not work as advertised :) [08:44:08] yeah, I've seen that comment about progpow a few times already [08:44:11] which is no surprise if you know it's just a random sales story to sell a few more GPUs [08:44:13] RandomX is not permanent, we are expecting to switch to ASIC friendly in a few years if possible [08:44:18] yes [08:44:21] that makes sense [08:44:40] linzhi-sonia: how so? will it break or will it be asic-able with decent performance gains? [08:44:41] are you happy with CNv4 so far? [08:45:10] ah, long story. progpow is a masterpiece of deception, let's not get into it here. [08:45:21] if you know chip marketing it makes more sense [08:45:24] linzhi-sonia: So far? lol! a bit early to tell, don't you think? [08:45:35] the diff is coming down [08:45:41] first few hours looked scary [08:45:43] I remain skeptical: I only see ASICs being reasonable if they are already as ubiquitous as smartphones [08:45:46] yes, so far so good [08:46:01] we kbew the diff would not come down ubtil affter block 75 [08:46:10] yes [08:46:22] but first few hours it looks like only 5% hashrate left [08:46:27] looked [08:46:29] now it's better [08:46:51] the next worry is: when will "unexplainable" hashrate come back? [08:47:00] you hope 2-3 months? more? [08:47:05] so give it another couple of days. will probably overshoot to the downside, and then rise a bit as miners get updated and return [08:47:22] 3 months minimum turnaround, yes [08:47:28] nah [08:47:36] don't underestimate asicmakers :) [08:47:54] you guys don't get #1 priority on chip fabs [08:47:56] 3 months = 90 days. do you know what is happening in those 90 days exactly? I'm pretty sure you don't. same thing as before. [08:48:13] we don't do any secret chips btw [08:48:21] 3 months assumes they had a complete design ready to go, and added the last minute change in 1 day [08:48:24] do you know who is behind the hashrate that is now bricked? [08:48:27] innosilicon? [08:48:34] hyc: no no, and no. :) [08:48:44] hyc: have you designed or taped out a chip before? [08:48:51] yes, many years ago [08:49:10] then you should know that 90 days is not a fixed number [08:49:35] sure, but like I said, other makers have greater demand [08:49:35] especially not if you can prepare, if you just have to modify something, or you have more programmability in the chip than some people assume [08:50:07] we are chipmakers, we would never dare to do what you guys are doing with CNv4 :) but maybe that just means you are cooler! [08:50:07] and yes, programmability makes some aspect of turnaround easier [08:50:10] all fine [08:50:10] I hope it works! [08:50:28] do you know who is behind the hashrate that is now bricked? [08:50:29] inno? [08:50:41] we suspect so, but have no evidence [08:50:44] maybe we can try to find them, but we cannot spend too much time on this [08:50:53] it's probably not so much of a secret [08:51:01] why should it be, right? [08:51:10] devs want this cat-and-mouse game? devs get it... [08:51:35] there was one leak saying it's innosilicon [08:51:36] so you think 3 months, ok [08:51:43] inno is cool [08:51:46] good team [08:51:49] IP design house [08:51:54] in Wuhan [08:52:06] they send their people to conferences with fake biz cards :) [08:52:19] pretending to be other companies? [08:52:26] sure [08:52:28] ha ha [08:52:39] so when we see them, we look at whatever card they carry and laugh :) [08:52:52] they are perfectly suited for secret mining games [08:52:59] they made at most $6 million in 2 months of mining, so I wonder if it was worth it [08:53:10] yeah. no way to know [08:53:15] but it's good that you calculate! [08:53:24] this is all about cost/benefit [08:53:25] then you also understand - imagine the value of XMR goes up 5x, 10x [08:53:34] that whole "asic resistance" thing will come down like a house of cards [08:53:41] I would imagine they sell immediately [08:53:53] the investor may fully understand the risk [08:53:57] the buyer [08:54:13] it's not healthy, but that's another discussion [08:54:23] so mid-June [08:54:27] let's see [08:54:49] I would be susprised if CNv4 ASICs show up at all [08:54:56] surprised* [08:54:56] why? [08:55:05] is only an economic question [08:55:12] yeah should be interesting. FPGAs will be near their limits as well [08:55:16] unless XMR goes up a lot [08:55:19] no, not *only*. it's also a technology question [08:55:44] you believe CNv4 is "asic resistant"? which feature? [08:55:53] it's not [08:55:59] cnv4 = Rabdomx ? [08:56:03] no [08:56:07] cnv4=cryptinight/r [08:56:11] ah [08:56:18] CNv4 is the one we have now, I think [08:56:21] since yesterday [08:56:30] it's plenty enough resistant for current XMR price [08:56:45] that may be, yes! [08:56:55] I look at daily payouts. XMR = ca. 100k USD / day [08:57:03] it can hold until October, but it's not asic resistant [08:57:23] well, last 24h only 22,442 USD :) [08:57:32] I think 80 h/s per watt ASICs are possible for CNv4 [08:57:38] linzhi-sonia where do you produce your chips? TSMC? [08:57:44] I'm cruious how you would expect to build a randomX ASIC that outperforms ARM cores for efficiency, or Intel cores for raw speed [08:57:48] curious [08:58:01] yes, tsmc [08:58:21] Our team did the world's first bitcoin asic, Avalon [08:58:25] and upcoming 2nd gen Ryzens (64-core EPYC) will be a blast at RandomX [08:58:28] designed and manufactured [08:58:53] still being marketed? [08:59:03] linzhi-sonia: do you understand what xmr wants to achieve, community-wise? [08:59:14] Avalon? as part of Canaan Creative, yes I think so. [08:59:25] there's not much interesting oing on in SHA256 [08:59:29] Inge-: I would think so, but please speak [08:59:32] hyc: yes [09:00:28] linzhi-sonia: i am curious to hear your thoughts. I am fairly new to this space myself... [09:00:51] oh [09:00:56] we are grandpas, and grandmas [09:01:36] yet I have no problem understanding why ASICS are currently reviled. [09:01:48] xmr's main differentiators to, let's say btc, are anonymity and fungibility [09:01:58] I find the client terribly slow btw [09:02:21] and I think the asic-forking since last may is wrong, doesn't create value and doesn't help with the project objectives [09:02:25] which "the client" ? [09:02:52] Monero GUI client maybe [09:03:12] MacOS, yes [09:03:28] What exactly is slow? [09:03:30] linzhi-sonia: I run my own node, and use the CLI and Monerujo. Have not had issues. [09:03:49] staying in sync [09:03:49] linzhi-sonia: decentralization is also a key principle [09:03:56] one that Bitcoin has failed to maintain [09:04:39] hmm [09:05:00] looks fairly decentralized to me. decentralization is the result of 3 goals imo: resilient, trustless, permissionless [09:05:28] don't ask a hardware maker about physical decentralization. that's too ideological. we focus on logical decentralization. [09:06:11] physical decentralization is important. with bulk of bitnoin mining centered on Chinese hydroelectric dams [09:06:19] have you thought about including block data in the PoW? [09:06:41] yes, of course. [09:07:39] is that already in an algo? [09:08:10] hyc: about "centered on chinese hydro" - what is your source? the best paper I know is this: https://coinshares.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Mining-Whitepaper-Final.pdf [09:09:01] linzhi-sonia: do you mine on your ASICs before you sell them? [09:09:13] besides testing of course [09:09:45] that paper puts Chinese btc miners at 60% max [09:10:05] tevador: I think everybody learned that that is not healthy long-term! [09:10:16] because it gives the chipmaker a cost advantage over its own customers [09:10:33] and cost advantage leads to centralization (physical and logical) [09:10:51] you guys should know who finances progpow and why :) [09:11:05] but let's not get into this, ha ha. want to keep the channel civilized. right OhGodAGirl ? :) [09:11:34] tevador: so the answer is no! 100% and definitely no [09:11:54] that "self-mining" disease was one of the problems we have now with asics, and their bad reputation (rightfully so) [09:13:08] I plan to write a nice short 2-page paper or so on our chip design process. maybe it's interesting to some people here. [09:13:15] basically the 5 steps I mentioned before, from math to physical [09:13:32] linzhi-sonia: the paper you linked puts 48% of bitcoin mining in Sichuan. the total in China is much more than 60% [09:13:38] need to run it by a few people to fix bugs, will post it here when published [09:14:06] hyc: ok! I am just sharing the "best" document I know today. it definitely may be wrong and there may be a better one now. [09:14:18] hyc: if you see some reports, please share [09:14:51] hey I am really curious about this: where is a PoW algo that puts block data into the PoW? [09:15:02] the previous paper I read is from here http://hackingdistributed.com/2018/01/15/decentralization-bitcoin-ethereum/ [09:15:38] hyc: you said that already exists? (block data in PoW) [09:15:45] it would make verification harder [09:15:49] linzhi-sonia: https://the-eye.eu/public/Books/campdivision.com/PDF/Computers%20General/Privacy/bitcoin/meh/hashimoto.pdf [09:15:51] but for chips it would be interesting [09:15:52] we discussed the possibility about a year ago https://www.reddit.com/Monero/comments/8bshrx/what_we_need_to_know_about_proof_of_work_pow/ [09:16:05] oh good links! thanks! need to read... [09:16:06] I think that paper by dryja was original [09:17:53] since we have a nice flow - second question I'm very curious about: has anyone thought about in-protocol rewards for other functions? [09:18:55] we've discussed micropayments for wallets to use remote nodes [09:18:55] you know there is a lot of work in other coins about STARK provers, zero-knowledge, etc. many of those things very compute intense, or need to be outsourced to a service (zether). For chipmakers, in-protocol rewards create an economic incentive to accelerate those things. [09:19:50] whenever there is an in-protocol reward, you may get the power of ASICs doing something you actually want to happen [09:19:52] it would be nice if there was some economic reward for running a fullnode, but no one has come up with much more than that afaik [09:19:54] instead of fighting them off [09:20:29] you need to use asics, not fight them. that's an obvious thing to say for an asicmaker... [09:20:41] in-protocol rewards can be very powerful [09:20:50] like I said before - unless the ASICs are so useful they're embedded in every smartphone, I dont see them being a positive for decentralization [09:21:17] if they're a separate product, the average consumer is not going to buy them [09:21:20] now I was talking about speedup of verifying, signing, proving, etc. [09:21:23] they won't even know what they are [09:22:07] if anybody wants to talk about or design in-protocol rewards, please come talk to us [09:22:08] the average consumer also doesn't use general purpose hardware to secure blockchains either [09:22:14] not just for PoW, in fact *NOT* for PoW [09:22:32] it requires sw/hw co-design [09:23:10] we are in long-term discussions/collaboration over this with Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash. just talk right now. [09:23:16] this was recently published though suggesting more uptake though I guess https://btcmanager.com/college-students-are-the-second-biggest-miners-of-cryptocurrency/ [09:23:29] I find it pretty hard to believe their numbers [09:24:03] well [09:24:09] sorry, original article: https://www.pcmag.com/news/366952/college-kids-are-using-campus-electricity-to-mine-crypto [09:24:11] just talk, no? rumors [09:24:18] college students are already more educated than the average consumer [09:24:29] we are not seeing many such customers anymore
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