BITCOIN

Scottex99

Dorian1958 said:

Is The Bitcoin Standard a good place to start to understand more about BTC?  I can get it on Audible.  I see investopedia has a lot of articles, would bitcoiners recommend that site?  Or are there any other online resources recommended?

I want to understand crypto but having read the first 40 pages of this thread (and the last 15). I'm sorry but I feel that its become bogged down with circular arguments which are not helpful to me.

Thank you.

Yep. I listened to it on audible too. A great history of money and it goes into the tech just enough for it not to be overwhelming for someone new. 

The rise and rise of Bitcoin is also a good documentary that you can find on YouTube.

id say YouTube, Medium, Twitter are the best places to understand the initial concepts of BTC, ETH, Blockchain, Nodes, POW/POS etc. Just avoid the “10 alt coins that will 100x in 2022” style vids and focus on the educational ones

Scottex99

Deleted_User said:

Zola. said:

https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1497031845984227328

I don't like how Bitcoin is becoming a republican vs democrat thing, its apolitical code.
Nonetheless its pretty crazy that a future presidential candidate is openly embracing Bitcoin as part of his campaign trail... 

I made a first little venture into bitcoin a couple of weeks ago. It lasted a couple of days and I bailed out!

I have a VERY crude understanding of how it works, but have HUGE reservations about the hype. In theory it all sounds good, but when you add politics it all falls apart (from what I can tell).

I decided to have a little dabble (just £100) to get a feel for it. It was during the time that the Canadian Trucker thing was going on - the government (politics!) were trying to shut off the protest funds. They declared an emergency and gave banks powers to freeze funds. Truckers responded by telling everyone to clear out their bank accounts and move to bitcoin. This caused the start of a bank run and government then announced that they'd not only frozen bank accounts but seized people's bitcoin wallets. The next day bitcoin took a sharp tumble (it may have been coincidence).

My understanding is that they were lying - they couldn't seize bitcoin wallets? But what they did was scare people out of using it thus causing the price to drop. So my concern is that even if they can't touch it physically they have the levers to cause it to crash?

They can’t seize anything without the owner’s seed phrase or private key.

Fair play for giving it a go but I don’t see the point in dabbling with a tiny amount to just bail out, so you lose 40% of your initial investment within 10 seconds and you sell? Why? You don’t need that £40 to buy food surely, that’s why you started with that amount. You might as well let it go to zero…. Or see if it recovers.

Canada might have played a part in the price going down but it’s never one piece of news that affects the market. China has openly banned BTC about 20 times yet year on year it posts a new ATH

Zola.

Ukraine wallet getting filled

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/bc1qkd5az2ml7dk5j5h672yhxmhmxe9tuf97j39fm6?page=2

Malthusian

Deleted_User said:

My understanding is that they were lying - they couldn't seize bitcoin wallets? But what they did was scare people out of using it thus causing the price to drop. So my concern is that even if they can't touch it physically they have the levers to cause it to crash?

Of course the Government can seize Bitcoin, same as they can seize your paper money, your gold and your illegally bred shih-tzus. You get a court order instructing you either to transfer your Bitcoin to the Government (a fine / proceeds of crime order) or to leave it where it is pending further legal proceedings (an asset freeze). If you don't you go to jail.

You can avoid this, but only if you have a means to escape the Government's jurisdiction, and are willing to live forever in a country without an extradition treaty (moving if that changes) and never set foot in either the Government's jurisdiction or a country that does have an extradition arrangement. Not even for a day to visit your old ma.

Most of the Canadian lorry drivers were not willing to spend their entire lives outside the reach of the Mounties. They didn't want to live in Dubai or Belize, they wanted to live in Canada without a mask on. They didn't want to have to choose only two out of their homeland, their job and their not getting a hurty needle in their arm.

No government can make Bitcoin crash by themselves, the investor base is too large and diverse. However, neither can governments cause number go up by continually oppressing their citizens and making them want to buy Bitcoin. There are not enough people in the world willing to flee government oppression and buy Bitcoin well in advance before they do so. The vast majority of people are in favour of government oppression and enthusiastically participate in it, as long as it isn't happening to them.

Scottex99

Yep, fine.

But to add, if you have a cold wallet with BTC in it, that has never received coins from a CEX with KYC (or gov can't figure out the trail through various Exchanges, DEXs, Mixers etc, then the coins are anonymous. So if you were that way inclined, they can see a certain number of coins sit in a certain wallet address, but they have no idea they are yours. And therefore can't threaten to throw you in jail

Barry_Bear

Deleted comment asked elsewhere.

Malthusian

Scottex99 said:

Yep, fine.

But to add, if you have a cold wallet with BTC in it, that has never received coins from a CEX with KYC (or gov can't figure out the trail through various Exchanges, DEXs, Mixers etc, then the coins are anonymous. So if you were that way inclined, they can see a certain number of coins sit in a certain wallet address, but they have no idea they are yours. And therefore can't threaten to throw you in jail

Sure they can. They're an oppressive government remember, they can do what they like.

If the Government has fined you for participating in a blockade it's not their problem if you moved your money into Bitcoins, you can either move it back out again and pay up, or go to jail. Or flee to Dubai.

If you have "cleared out your bank account and moved to Bitcoin" (the scenario here) the government knows exactly how much you moved into Bitcoin from the transaction history of the bank account. Where it is now is not their problem, it's yours.

There was a bro in the US who in the 1990s moved all the assets of his marriage into offshore bank accounts in an attempt to steal his wife's share on divorce. He claimed he'd lost the money in duff investments, a succession of judges called BS and told him to pay up. He was in jail for fourteen years without ever being charged with a crime (his contempt of court was a civil matter). Eventually a judge ordered his release, saying that if he was ever going to pay up he'd've done it already. He was 73. Hopefully he felt the money was worth it.

If he'd been born 20 years later he would have hidden his ex-wife's money in Bitcoin instead, but the outcome would have been exactly the same.

Can't touch muh Bitcoin! Can't touch muh offshore accounts!

Scottex99

There’s Bitcoin ATMs, can load them with cash.

Or what about my bank statement shows 10k of payments to Coinbase or Gemini yet I actually have 200k of crypto now. I just send back 2 ETH and say yep you caught me, here’s all my coins, good sirs.

Malthusian

"For violating Ottawa traffic regulations you're hereby fined 10k, buddy."

"Haha I ain't got 10k bro, I put all my money in Bitcoins."

"No problem, you can take it out again and settle your fine, or go to jail."

"Did I say I put it in Bitcoins? I meant I put it in a Bitcoin ATM... no wait, can't get me that easily. I mean I never had any money in the first place. I work for free."

[to Canadian haulage company] "Does this guy work for you for free?"

"No, but he asked to be paid in cash for some reason. Yes officer, of course you can look at our payslips."

Or what about my bank statement shows 10k of payments to Coinbase or Gemini yet I actually have 200k of crypto now. I just send back 2 ETH and say yep you caught me, here’s all my coins, good sirs.

Then you've settled your 10k fine / divorce bill / whatever. Congratulations, you've beaten the system.

Sucks to be the people who lost 190k (assuming you eventually cash out the rest at that price) but that's their problem.

Scottex99

Then you've settled your 10k fine / divorce bill / whatever. Congratulations, you've beaten the system.

Sucks to be the people who lost 190k (assuming you eventually cash out the rest at that price) but that's their problem.

Nice pivot