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Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc.)


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59 minutes ago, shakahorn said:

Anyone know what the latest announcement from BlockFi really means?  And bigger picture, is it still a safe place to put money?  I started out small but have been making regular deposits and purchases trying to dollar-cost-average it.  Now if I lost it all, it would hurt.

What do you mean by “is it still a safe place to put money”? None of those crypto exchanges are safe places to put your money, and they never were.

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On 2/14/2022 at 2:55 PM, shakahorn said:

Anyone know what the latest announcement from BlockFi really means?  And bigger picture, is it still a safe place to put money?  I started out small but have been making regular deposits and purchases trying to dollar-cost-average it.  Now if I lost it all, it would hurt.

You mean where they settled on penalties with the SEC?

 

23 hours ago, XYZ said:

What do you mean by “is it still a safe place to put money”? None of those crypto exchanges are safe places to put your money, and they never were.

The recent events in Canada should make the importance of holding your own coins crystal clear. It also makes the case for holding some of your wealth outside the traditional financial rails. 

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On 2/14/2022 at 2:55 PM, shakahorn said:

Anyone know what the latest announcement from BlockFi really means?  And bigger picture, is it still a safe place to put money?  I started out small but have been making regular deposits and purchases trying to dollar-cost-average it.  Now if I lost it all, it would hurt.

I'm still trying to understand what it means as well. Who knows if Blockfi's team is happy with the result but many in their position have long called for more regulation. 

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1 hour ago, Chips O'Toole said:

I have been avoiding wallets because I'm lazy. Any recs on hot and cold wallets to start storing coins outside of the exchanges?  Are any more or less reliable?  

Could hot wallets become susceptible to something like what happened in Canada?

The most common options for cold wallets are trezor and ledger. My understanding is that they’re pretty similar in coins they cover and ease of use. I’ve never used trezor, have a ledger nano s. 
 

https://www.ledger.com/

https://trezor.io/
 

There’s a bitcoin only option that is probably the most secure. Airgapped. Costs a bit more. ColdCard. I just got one. Looking to set it up this weekend. 
 

https://coldcard.com/
 

I know as a noob, the ledger setup was easy. The key thing is to just secure your own coins. They’re sitting ducks on exchanges. Listen to the ceo of Kraken. 
 

 

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17 hours ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

The most common options for cold wallets are trezor and ledger. My understanding is that they’re pretty similar in coins they cover and ease of use. I’ve never used trezor, have a ledger nano s. 
 

https://www.ledger.com/

https://trezor.io/
 

There’s a bitcoin only option that is probably the most secure. Airgapped. Costs a bit more. ColdCard. I just got one. Looking to set it up this weekend. 
 

https://coldcard.com/
 

I know as a noob, the ledger setup was easy. The key thing is to just secure your own coins. They’re sitting ducks on exchanges. Listen to the ceo of Kraken. 
 

 

It’s also a good strategy to not put yourself in a position where the police want to freeze your crypto account.

and don’t get me wrong, I agree that using exchanges to store ALL of your crypto isn’t the best strategy.

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12 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

It’s also a good strategy to not put yourself in a position where the police want to freeze your crypto account.

and don’t get me wrong, I agree that using exchanges to store ALL of your crypto isn’t the best strategy.

We can discuss more in CR, but who has the power, who are the dissidents, and what qualifies one as a “terrorist” can shift greatly over time. 
 

Of note, there is an Executive Order next week coming addressing crypto regulation. 

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Is there a short answer to the difference between holding funds in an app like Coinbase and adding a wallet?  I've had Coinbase since July, but noticed they're now pushing to connect a wallet to the account.  Other than, perhaps, making it easier to buy stuff or send people crypto, I don't understand the reasoning for attaching a wallet to Coinbase.  Note: I'm in for the long game.  I've never really considered actually using crypto to buy or send folks stuff - at least in the short term.

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17 hours ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

Is there a short answer to the difference between holding funds in an app like Coinbase and adding a wallet?  I've had Coinbase since July, but noticed they're now pushing to connect a wallet to the account.  Other than, perhaps, making it easier to buy stuff or send people crypto, I don't understand the reasoning for attaching a wallet to Coinbase.  Note: I'm in for the long game.  I've never really considered actually using crypto to buy or send folks stuff - at least in the short term.

Not sure what you mean by connect a wallet since I don’t use Coinbase anymore? Like MetaMask or something? They probably want to make it easier to transact on their platform. 
 

If you’re in it for the long term there’s really not much reason to leave them on Coinbase besides convenience and less responsibility. You have to be ok with a future where your access to those coins is limited, whether it’s how much you can move or transact with and how often.

 

On another note, recent events have me wanting to make some kyc free purchases of bitcoin. Has anyone used atms before? There’s a premium you have to pay but it’s maximum private ownership. Think I’m going to buy and put that on my new ColdCard.

 

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17 hours ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

Is there a short answer to the difference between holding funds in an app like Coinbase and adding a wallet?  I've had Coinbase since July, but noticed they're now pushing to connect a wallet to the account.  Other than, perhaps, making it easier to buy stuff or send people crypto, I don't understand the reasoning for attaching a wallet to Coinbase.  Note: I'm in for the long game.  I've never really considered actually using crypto to buy or send folks stuff - at least in the short term.

I’m not familiar with the Coinbase wallet but the account vs. wallet concepts are simple. Think of a Coinbase account like you bank account. They control your funds which has pros and cons. As an aside, it’s not all negative like some believe. Coinbase is acting like Chase or BoA.

A crypto wallet is like a wallet in your backpocket with cash in it.  You have complete control over it. No one can confiscate your crypto funds. But you also take on all responsibility. Lose the password and recovery info, the wallet is gone. Just like if you left your physical wallet sitting on a bar somewhere.

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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I've looked into getting a Ledger Nano, but I honestly worry I'll mess something up and lose access to funds more than having it on Coinbase. I don't really understand how to transfer money over and what if the battery on the thing dies?

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3 hours ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

On another note, recent events have me wanting to make some kyc free purchases of bitcoin. Has anyone used atms before? There’s a premium you have to pay but it’s maximum private ownership. Think I’m going to buy and put that on my new ColdCard.

I bought BTC on two different ATMs and both times I had to put a driver’s license for the machine to take a picture of, so not too sure about the “kyc free” thing. I believe these fucking machines also take pictures of your face. I don’t know what would happen if instead of putting your driver’s license you put a piece of paper with “fuck you” written on it, but I’d be curious to find out. I suppose you would also want to wear a hat and those glasses with fake eyebrows and nose and mustache for the picture.

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7 minutes ago, XYZ said:

I bought BTC on two different ATMs and both times I had to put a driver’s license for the machine to take a picture of, so not too sure about the “kyc free” thing. I believe these fucking machines also take pictures of your face. I don’t know what would happen if instead of putting your driver’s license you put a piece of paper with “fuck you” written on it, but I’d be curious to find out. I suppose you would also want to wear a hat and those glasses with fake eyebrows and nose and mustache for the picture.

Like I said, I haven’t don’t it yet but one well known podcast laid it out this way.

You can search this site for atms near you. https://coinatmradar.com/
It lists how much kyc is needed for what level of purchase. I’ve seen one close to me that you can buy up to $900 with just sms verification to a phone number. 
 

To not attach your own phone number to your purchase it recommended this site. https://www.textverified.com/
I’m guessing there are other options as well for this service. I’m going to look around. I guess you could even just buy a burner phone or something if you wanted. 
 

Again these are smaller purchases but over time you can build a stack up that is “off the grid”.

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2 hours ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

I've looked into getting a Ledger Nano, but I honestly worry I'll mess something up and lose access to funds more than having it on Coinbase. I don't really understand how to transfer money over and what if the battery on the thing dies?

The coins/tokens aren’t on the device so losing the device or having it malfunction doesn’t mean you’ve lost access to the tokens. You would have recovery words that would allow you to restore access. I understand the hesitancy of using these devices but they’re not that complicated. You pick it up quickly after a few transactions. 

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On 2/20/2022 at 11:05 AM, FirstTimeCaller said:

I've looked into getting a Ledger Nano, but I honestly worry I'll mess something up and lose access to funds more than having it on Coinbase. I don't really understand how to transfer money over and what if the battery on the thing dies?

yeah, a ledger is just basically another wallet address where all transactions need approval from the device.  nothing is 'stored' on the device, it's still all on the blockchain.  Just buy directly from the mfg (not amazon or 3rd party), keep your seed phrase just on paper (don't take a picture of it, don't keep it on your computer (even encrypted), and never ever give out your seed phrase or allow remote access to your comp.  

If you lose the device, you can purchase another one and restore your seed phrase to it and will be back in business.  The initial wallet address will still have all your stuff in there.  Each coin type will have its own address (BTC, ETH, SOL etc...).  you can even keep eth blockchain NFTs on the ledger ETH address.  I keep a lot of my high value NFTs on there and it will prompt you use the ledger device to do any sales/transfers/listings etc...

If the battery dies you would need to charge it before using.  no transactions are possible without physically pressing the buttons to confirm.  Most of my tx are via metamask, which will integrate the ledger and wait for you to approve each tx during the signing process.  

Transferring is as simple as just entering your ledger address as the 'transfer to' address in the Coinbase/cex prompt. 

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2 hours ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

I think it has to be linked somehow. The timing is too coincidental. It could be direct flows from Russia or people front running an obvious trade?

So, did you figure out how to buy BTC without any KYC whatsoever? Asking for a friend…

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15 hours ago, XYZ said:

So, did you figure out how to buy BTC without any KYC whatsoever? Asking for a friend…

I haven’t done it yet. Haven’t had time to set up my coldcard. Will keep you posted. 
 

50 minutes ago, washparkhorn said:

Anyone know what percentage of BTC is owned by Russian entities?  I seem to recall it was 10-15% of BTC. 

no idea. It’s very hard to determine numbers like that. This is a qualitative report on crypto adoption, not just btc, from the biggest chain analysis company out there. 
 


https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2021-global-crypto-adoption-index/
 

 

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It sure looks like it's possible that Russian whales started fleeing to BTC when the shit hit the fan.  How else do you explain this many new wallets plunking ~$40mm into BTC?

The guy who tweeted this out earlier today ended up deleting it because he said the data was being misinterpreted...

Image

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$40 million seems like a fairly trivial amount of money for any single oligarch worth billions, let alone dozens of them. Also looking at that  chart you can see a few other huge movements up and down, so i'm not sure how much you can attribute to the goings on in Ukraine. What was was going on in January of 21 that caused the huge spike? What about march/april that caused the huge decline. You might be able to look back in 6 months and determine some trends, but there's enough "noise" in the system anyway on a day to day or week to week basis, that its not clear to me that chart allows you to draw any conclusions other than the just acknowledging the change. 

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3 hours ago, Blotto said:

$40 million seems like a fairly trivial amount of money for any single oligarch worth billions, let alone dozens of them. Also looking at that  chart you can see a few other huge movements up and down, so i'm not sure how much you can attribute to the goings on in Ukraine. What was was going on in January of 21 that caused the huge spike? What about march/april that caused the huge decline. You might be able to look back in 6 months and determine some trends, but there's enough "noise" in the system anyway on a day to day or week to week basis, that its not clear to me that chart allows you to draw any conclusions other than the just acknowledging the change. 

The number of big wallets looked like it was tracking the price up to the high in Jan '21, but yea, no idea why it didn't follow or stay up there for the ATH in November of '21.

It very well may be noise, it just seems like a hell of a coincidence to me.  Like I said though, the BTC maxie who first noticed this chart and posted it quickly deleted it because it went viral and he wasn't comfortable with the assumption it was Putin's homeboys driving the spike.

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Translation 

Since yesterday, Venezuelans 🇻🇪 warn that they have not been able to enter #Metamask .

 The reason?

 MetaMask has begun to comply with North American regulations and will not provide services directly for Venezuelan users.

 Although it can be entered using VPN.


My comment- Ethereum is not decentralized enough for what’s coming. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
7 hours ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

 

if someone really wants to find out who got what via crypto it can be done.  Here is a thread about two 20-year olds getting busted for fraud for rugging an NFT mint

They sold ~$1.1M of NFTs and then just ghosted after spending a few weeks shilling and building a following on twitter and discord.  I actually bought 2 of these at .03ETH each and the volume of sales was really good.  They could have actually milked the royalties on 2ndardy sales for a week to get even more money (and given me a chance to exit after profit) but they just pulled the rug a few hours after sellout.  I knew several people that bought 40 to 60 of these things.  It's just a cost of doing business when flipping NFTs that you will run into these every so often.

Anyway, the feds followed the trail and figured out who they were.

 When i cash out crypto it goes from my hot wallet to my Coinbase account and then i sell the ETH for USD.  Then xfer the USD to my bank account.  Barney Fife could figure out who i am if they wanted to.  Not saying this is a good thing, but if you want to be anon, it's straight cash homey. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

So my sweet mother (no pics) calls me tonight.

Mom: "What are these things called 'cybercurrencies?'  It's all they talk about on the news!"

Parliament: "I have no idea."

Mom: "And Bitscoins.  What are they?"

Parliament: "'Bitcoin?'"

Mom: "Yes."

Parliament: "And was it 'cryptocurrency?'"

Mom: "Yes.  What are they?"

Fella's, crypto is DEAD.  When my 70 year old mother is asking about it, there's no money left to be made.  Sell your cybercoins tomorrow.

ETA
NFT's too.  She was asking about NFT's too.

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11 hours ago, Parliament said:

So my sweet mother (no pics) calls me tonight.

Mom: "What are these things called 'cybercurrencies?'  It's all they talk about on the news!"

Parliament: "I have no idea."

Mom: "And Bitscoins.  What are they?"

Parliament: "'Bitcoin?'"

Mom: "Yes."

Parliament: "And was it 'cryptocurrency?'"

Mom: "Yes.  What are they?"

Fella's, crypto is DEAD.  When my 70 year old mother is asking about it, there's no money left to be made.  Sell your cybercoins tomorrow.

ETA
NFT's too.  She was asking about NFT's too.

She was watching 60 minutes. 
 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bitcoin-beach-el-salvador-60-minutes-2022-04-10/#app

 

Pretty straightforward segment on Bitcoin Beach/El Salvador. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

crypto really is mary kay for dudes.

 

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkp9wg/leaked-shill-price-list-shows-wild-world-of-crypto-promos?utm_source=reddit.com

Leaked ‘Shill Price List’ Shows Wild World of Crypto Promos

A price list is spreading like wildfire and revealing how cryptocurrency influencer promotion works.

 

Quote

On Monday, an independent researcher who exposes hacks and scams in the world of crypto published a purported list of influencers and how much they charge to "shill" crypto projects on Twitter. The list quickly went viral, starting a conversation about how essentially any cryptocurrency project can simply pay influencers to retweet or promote their projects to hundreds of thousands or millions of people on social media. 

 

The spreadsheet includes dozens of influencers including current and former professional athletes and Lindsay Lohan, many with tens of thousands of followers and in some cases verified accounts. Motherboard reviewed the Twitter feeds of dozens of the accounts on the list, and many of them claim in their profiles that they promote crypto projects. Some of them say, specifically, that they "shill" crypto. Some of them are self-claimed "crypto promoters" or "crypto influencers." Many have contact info for paid partnerships or promotions. Others don't, and even advise that their tweets are "not financial advice." 

All of the accounts Motherboard reviewed regularly promote obscure coins, NFTs, and other cryptocurrency projects.

The prices on the list vary. According to the spreadsheet, retweets are less expensive than "shill tweets." There is also a column for "package deal" which includes two shill tweets and a retweet. Prices generally range from a few hundred dollars for a retweet to as much as $25,000 for a shill tweet from Lohan. The spreadsheet is also selling a shill tweet from "all accounts" for $80,000.

 

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2 hours ago, crash_davis said:

crypto really is mary kay for dudes.

You can make an argument that several of today's cryptocurrencies may play a significant role in our future, and blockchain as a technology certainly will. But we sure as fuck dont need 10K unique cryptocurrencies. I play in a regular poker game that has 2 or 3 crypto bros in it, and I always crack up when they compare notes and debate what they like about one crypto vs another. I think they secretly compete to see who can mention the most obscure crypto each week. 

2 hours ago, crash_davis said:

A price list is spreading like wildfire and revealing how cryptocurrency influencer promotion works.

Lulz at Lindsay Lohan charging the most. Her talent is (or at least used to be) tits, not crypto. Relying on that broad for investment advice makes about as much sense as relying on Chance Mock for investment advice. 

Edited by Blotto
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