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JamesYellen

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Hey Groovy, don't mine it. You will not make money those days are long gone. Open up an Account with Luno.com (South African Company), eft money to the account and then buy/trade bitcoin. You can also look at bitfinex.com if you want a more professional trading platform for a wider range of crypto currencies. 

 

The average home miner will struggle to be profitable or recoup the cost of mining hardware and electricity.

 

Profitability is highly unlikely given the current circumstances. The situation may improve in future once ASIC mining hardware innovation reaches the point of diminishing returns. That, coupled with cheap, hopefully sustainable power solutions may once again make Bitcoin mining profitable to small individual miners around the world.

 

This would also greatly improve the decentralisation of the Bitcoin network, hardening it against legislative risk.

 

Hey James Yellen, i appreciate the recommendations, i have alot of reading to do on this, i've been that dinosaur too, talking about mining when y'all been over that eons ago, thank you.

 

Hey, Miss Behavin i appreciate that, i'll check it out.

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Hey Groovy, don't mine it. You will not make money those days are long gone. Open up an Account with Luno.com (South African Company), eft money to the account and then buy/trade bitcoin. You can also look at bitfinex.com if you want a more professional trading platform for a wider range of crypto currencies. 

 

The average home miner will struggle to be profitable or recoup the cost of mining hardware and electricity.

 

Profitability is highly unlikely given the current circumstances. The situation may improve in future once ASIC mining hardware innovation reaches the point of diminishing returns. That, coupled with cheap, hopefully sustainable power solutions may once again make Bitcoin mining profitable to small individual miners around the world.

 

This would also greatly improve the decentralisation of the Bitcoin network, hardening it against legislative risk.

 

Hey James Yellen, i appreciate the recommendations, i have alot of reading to do on this, i've been that dinosaur too, talking about mining when y'all been over that eons ago, thank you.

 

Hey, Miss Behavin i appreciate that, i'll check it out.

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While speculators continue to push the value of the digital money to record highs against the US dollar, the system that verifies bitcoin transactions — known as the blockchain — is more backlogged than at any point in the currency’s eight-year history. The number of transactions awaiting verification is up more than fivefold from a year ago, and the jam is forcing users to pay increasingly high fees to speed up confirmations, which in some cases is making bitcoin more expensive to use than Visa Inc. or PayPal Holdings Inc.

 

Now, after more than two years of bitter infighting among the global bitcoin community about how to fix the problem, some of its most influential members are giving up on reaching consensus. Instead, they’ve begun backing a controversial solution known as Bitcoin Unlimited. If the gamble pays off, it could ease congestion and may help bring the community back together. If it fails, the digital currency could face a hard fork into separate variants, effectively splitting bitcoin into two currencies.

 

More: https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/tech/bitcoin-miners-signal-revolt-amid-sluggish-blockchain/

IQ Test

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Accepting a new fork might be the only life saver at this point in time as bitcoin's biggest flaw is the transaction fees, it will become it's own biggest competitor. Until super quantum computers become a thing solving all the transactions enabling one government to own most of it and then it leaves your computers working on "the answer of what true love is" with only the values of "your" and "mom" to work off into.

 

Then there is this:

 

 

We all want to peak behind the curtain and see what people really think, but in a public setting, they are usually guarded and engage in marketing speak. So we went undercover.

 

The following conversation took place on the 16th of February 2017 when it became clear segwit had stalled. Bitcoin Unlimited, at the time, had gained some momentum, but the mood was uncertain.

 

Considering the apparent rejection of segwit by miners, we began by wondering what Bitcoin Core developers plan to do now.

 

Adam Back, executive director and President of Blockstream, told us the plan might be to “maybe talk with some miners, see if we can debug what the issue is.” When we pushed by saying miners seem to have made their decision in regards to segiwt, Back replied by stating “I’m sorry, but I can’t help people who make nonsensical decisions. You realise what the alternative is?”

 

It is worthy to bear in mind this is a real-time two ways conversation. We interjected to point out that it wasn’t about people, but bitcoin, a, at that time, $16 billion market.

 

Back replied to state that “bitcoin as a default continues with a 1MB block and no segwit. For holders that appears stable.”

 

The obvious question we asked is whether Back is “happy with 1mb forever?”

 

He replied to state in a way that implies he would be happy “if a few miners abuse a monopoly-like position to block something that most of the ecosystem wants.” He further added:

 

“What are the tech alternatives if they have decided they don’t like segwit for no particularly rational reason that anyone has heard? Just tech feasibility, no judgement. Say developers accept this aesthetic or ego or whatever choice. Then a new approach has to be implemented. It will take 12 months minimum. Design, development, testing, network validation etc.”

 

“I won’t engage in arguments or pass judgment, I’m sure they have their reasons. We are where we are. Where do we go now?” – we asked.

 

“I like to understand motives and reasons.” – Back replied, “is it a rational proposal to delay 12months to no gain?” – he continued. “In the mean time fees go up, some usecases leave bitcoin that didn’t need to, lightning is delayed. It seems to me it is within the capabilities and means of the bitcoin ecosystem to fix this problem. They just need to get their act together and talk with Jihan.” – Back said.

 

We kept pressing by re-iterating our question: “does bitcoin end here at 1MB or is something else coming along?”

 

Back replied by stating that “there are lots of things coming in stages including lightning and high transaction throughput and bigger block via some kind of fork. It’ll take, in my opinion, 2-3 years across all those things because software is complex. It’s kind of unfortunate if one stubborn or miscommunication or whatever problem delays progress by a further 3 months.

 

Bitcoin underwent many optimisations of similar nature over the last 8 years. I’m flexible but developers are bounded by the reality of software physics. They can’t do 12 months of work in 1 month. No one wants to break bitcoin by bungled untested fork to fix it.”

 

After some back and forth repetition, we pointed out that ethereum coded their hardfork in weeks. They did so more than once. In response to the DAO incident and in response to a DDoS bug. We pointed out that Adam Back has 13 developers under his command. It can be done in days.

 

“Their s*** was on fire.  They had to undo it. It was bungled. No one transacts on ethereum. No one cares. Few people who are smart attacked it. Different ball game. Take a look at segwit. The design was figured out in outline August 2015 I think. Alpha code December 2015.” – Back stated.

 

We asked if “4MB plus segwit in 12 months” can be proposed and merged. Back replied by stating “no one in the tech community will accept that 4MB multiplied by 2-4 by segwit (4-16mb worst case) is safe. They will want to do weak blocks first (as the roadmap says) and in order to do that they would like to see the effect of segwit. It is not just a technical effect but an economic usage effect so it’s not entirely predictable.

 

I think people often think we’ll just do “xMB and segwit too, or do segwit as a HF and call it a day.” Not realising that each word of their what-if configuration is a months work for a team of dozens.  And often negative work, resulting in a worse or riskier solution (a number of people have proposed such variants, it is just more complex than it looks). And this isn’t even getting to the root cause of why centralisation is such a problem.”

 

Putting forth the other side’s argument, we asked “why should I think you do not want capacity limited to 1mb?”

 

Back replied by stating “the opposite, but there are tradeoffs to security and permissionlessness. So, here’s one concrete thing: I proposed the use of schnorr aggregated signatures in 2013. It’s now implemented in library form. That makes transactions 27-41% smaller so more transactions per block.”

 

Pressing on the 1MB point, we stated that “many blockstream employees have said they are fine with segwit never activating and, basically, 1mb forever,” to which Back replied by saying “it’s a reaction to the impression that some people are thinking to blackmail developers. They are explaining that it’s the wrong tactic.”

 

“Doesn’t that suggest developers are blackmailing miners?” – we asked, to which Back replied by saying “no. What they did is develop a proposal that they had every reason to suppose would be acceptable to all. It’s up to the ecosystem as to whether they like it or not. The ecosystem evidently does like it. And miners role is to do what the ecosystem, which includes users and investors, wants or ultimately the ecosystem can and will fire them. But none of that is for developers to meddle in their view. That’s between users, ecosystem companies and miners.”

 

“You say ecosystem, but if there was a token vote and 90% showed one preference, don’t we still need developers to merge and then miners activate?” – we asked.

 

“Not really. It could just be activated by companies. People are content to wait for miners to do the right thing for a while. If that doesn’t happen presumably another activation method will be used.”

 

This conversation took place exactly ten days before, on the 26th of February 2017, a Litecoin developer proposed a new flag day soft-fork activation method which gained some attention and ultimately led to Bitmain mining with Bitcoin Unlimited. At the time, we were not aware, so asked if by “another activation method” Back meant the so-called nuclear option, a Proof of Work fork.

 

Back responded by stating “no pow change. Just activate it.” We pointed out miners are needed for transaction validation as well as developers to merge, but Back responded by saying “consensus rules are enforced by economic full nodes. If economic full nodes say with near unanimity this is what we want and we’re turning it on, miners will follow.”

 

“I think the miners are quite bitcoin invested (directly) as well as indirectly. They do not actually want to hurt their investment.”- Back continued.

 

We argued that would be network suicide: “Developers propose, miners judge, in the very most extreme circumstances users over-rule. When it comes to users to decide, it’s basically over, their only decision is selling it down to zero, unless two coins, but…”

 

“How so?” – Adam Back asked. “segwit is opt-in for miners also. They don’t have to create segwit blocks, if they do nothing different, nothing breaks. It’s a misunderstanding of what miners job is here. Miners are only paid to ensure transaction processing and signal for rules users want. Users set the rules.”

 

“I’m sure you’ve read the whitepaper.” – we said. “No, it’s more technical and subtle. If a miner changed the rules, they would not be mining.” – Back replied.

 

“There are no fast rules, we don’t know what would happen.” – we argued. “It’s true that things get grey at the edges, but it is assumed that no one wants the nuclear option in MAD.” Back replied.

 

“You appear to,” – we said, “or, your employees.” “No and no” – Back replied. “We’ve all (those much involved with coding on bitcoin) behaved extremely professionally and courteously under fire doing mission critical and not lost our cool, nor been particularly forceful in calling out bad behavior.”

 

“I hope you all understand it is not for you to order anyone. You serve. You made a proposal. It is rejected. What now?” – we asked.

 

“Right. Well it was not rejected. It was accepted by most of the ecosystem.” – Back said. “23% for three months, that’s rejected.” – we replied. “That’s one guy. His view can change over a meal. Those 200-500 CEOs, VCs and investors can’t manage one plane ticket to China and a meal between them?” – Back asked.

 

“It’s not just one guy, F2Pool, Bitmain, BW.com, HaoBTC, BTC.TOP, ViaBTC, plus others.” – we pointed out.

 

“It is just one guy. It’s all the same guy!” – Adam Back said in one of the more interesting statement of this undercover interview. “He has 80% of the ASIC production, ViaBTC, he’s an investor in. He’s not overtly blocking, e.g. with his own pools, but as a proxy war, the view and some evidence is that this is indeed what is happening.” – Back continued.

 

We asked for evidence. “I do not actually know you, to know that the conversation won’t be on pastebin at the end of the day… but there is evidence. Anyway, say it’s 2-3 guys. Still people can go talk to them.”

 

“Are you seriously going to defame Jihan Wu in a private conversation without providing any evidence?” – we asked.

 

“I will not provide you with evidence because I have no idea who you are.” – Back replied. “Or because you have none,” – we returned. “Fine ask a dozen other people.” – Back told us.

 

Bitmain has denied they have backed ViaBTC. BTC.TOP has stated none of their hashrate share is from Bitmain. Sources suggest part of the reason why Bitmain began mining Bitcoin Unlimited is because of what they see as unfounded accusations.

 

“What happens if Jihan denies it?” – we asked. “I would not approach things in a accusatory way face to face. That is not clever in Chinese (or western) culture. Clearly he would have influence so if some people chose to go talk with him, they could ask for his help in activating segwit.” – Back stated.

 

“Is it so difficult, after two years of debate, to accept others have different views, including much of the industry, and despite your own interests, they have their own interests, especially miners, who have invested far more than you.” – we asked.

 

“At this time it appears that most of the ecosystem supports segwit as a next step and would sooner see it activate asap. My interests are simple: what is best for bitcoin, in my view.” – Back said.

 

“Didn’t the Digital Currency Group recently publish a pretty damming article, do you listen to no one?” – we asked.

 

“I listen to everyone who is willing to say what it is they think.” – Back replied. “But you don’t and you know it,” – we returned.

 

“Again, back to the well what technically else can be done. I do think a lot of the developers approach things in a selfless way. Propose, if it isn’t liked, then ask questions and propose something else, but these are not free choices.”

 

“2-3 weeks for ethereum developers. Are bitcoin developers so incompetent?” – we asked.

 

“The competence level is the other way around. Again look at evidence. Segwit pre-alpha was implemented between August 2015 and December 2015. Released to testing May? 2016. Signaling started from a few months ago.”

 

We responded by saying “it [the other way around] seems like not,” but Back told us “reason is confused,” courting a bit of sarcasm on our part “says you? Master Adam” which was met with an interesting response.

 

“Look there are lots of smart people, but there is also a lot that almost no one knows about security details in bitcoin incident response. So it’s a common theme that a VC or someone will think that they can just rustle up $10m and hire some top developers, how hard can it be. And they are very wrong.”

 

We pointed out that “miners are making no choice” to return the conversation towards a potential solution. “I would like to look said miners in the eye and see what they are actually willing to say about their decision.” – he told us.

 

We pointed out he has done so many times. “No, once more. The last conversation ended with them saying they would activate segwit and yet now it is not happening so something unexplained to what was said is going on. My interests are bitcoins, and I know much more about the protocol and security than they do.” – Back said.

 

The conversation diverged somewhat in a back and forth regarding the above last sentence, we raising skepticism and Adam Back telling us it is not difficult to imagine he knows better than miners. We pointed out we don’t need imagination, which interjected “post-facts.” We pointed out post-facts don’t exist. There are facts, post-facts are called lies. A statement Back agreed with, then proceeded to say:

 

“I do get a few too many people look at me like I’m Satoshi and supposed to rescue things. I think things would not be nearly so bad if more people acted like men and got involved and spoke their minds. Un-constructive behaviour can survive better if people do not step up and call it to account.”

 

We pointed out that statement can be applied both ways and returned to the underlying matter to ask for the third and last time whether ethereum developers, who coded, deployed and activated a controversial hardfork in weeks, as well as, later on, a non-controversial hardfork in the same sort of time frame, are more competent than bitcoin developers. This time, we finally received a response. Back said:

 

“I cannot tell developers what to do. If they are ethically against a given coding proposal as bad for bitcoin they will simply refuse. It depends what the change is but nothing that large in network load will be accepted as a simple one off change, because the networks decentralisation is already near breaking point. So they will want to implement related changes to make it decentralisation safe.

 

Developers are servants, but not slaves. If they are asked to do something unethical, they say no. Personally, I prefer extension-blocks which are not even a [hard fork], rather a further soft-fork like segwit to get more scale. So would that be rejected because it’s not a hard-fork?

 

It is hard to do good protocol design and science if people will block and fight based on irrational criteria. It is also hard to do design and development work when it is unpredictable what will be accepted, which is kind of how we got here… 12 months work and then stall for the short term.

 

Anyway, the next thing to watch is Litecoin, they are a dry run and it may shift thinking… I am more positive than all of this. Let’s see Litecoin activate. A few companies go talk with Jihan and other miners. See if they can work something out.”

 

Litecoin’s segwit stands at around 20% after more than a month with BTC.TOP’s founder saying major Litecoin pools will not activate segwit.

 

Returning to the conversation, we stated: “Yes, you can’t tell developers much, and that’s a problem. Obviously you could fire them, but, conceptually, it is a fundamental intellectual problem.”

 

“Right, but bitcoin developers are servants (to bitcoin users) and not slaves. I can’t tell them what to do, and if I tried they would say no, and I would support their absolute right to do so. The concept is just that they must do what they think is ethical.” – Back responded.

 

“Indeed, but it’s more complex, because they do have power to merge code and if they don’t things could get messy, so a complex intellectual problem” – we said in turn.

 

“Which doesn’t mean one can’t try to formulate pragmatic compromises and see if they could be persuaded of the merit of it being in bitcoins best interest long term. See, even bitcoin classic, u/maaku7 on reddit wrote an very principled and clear explainer of why he would reject a change pushed by political force and lobbying.” – Back said.

 

“Yes, but he’s just one guy, with no real stake in the system. If bitcoin goes down, he just gets another job.” – we pointed out.

 

“Right, I take bitcoin failing deathly seriously. That must not happen under any circumstances. It is too valuable for humanity. You do know I got complained at on all sides for my last attempt to broker peace.” – Back said in response.

 

Back suggested a 2-4-8MB compromise around two years ago, a compromise that was expected to be announced at the bitcoin scalability workshop. In a surprise move, segwit was announced instead.

 

Some, at that point, speculated he was over-written and had no real say. A conclusion that was supported by what happened after the Hong Kong agreement. After around 17 hours of closed door discussions, with no journalists invited, between almost all miners and many Bitcoin Core developers, as well as business representatives such as Adam Back, an agreement was reached to merge a 2MB hardfork code into the Bitcoin Core client three months after segwit is merged.

 

That agreement seemed dead in the water just months after it was reached following a prominent Bitcoin Core developer’s insult of those who signed the document. Now, more than a year later, there is no doubt the promise to miners made by Adam Back and many Bitcoin Core developers has been breached.

 

Source: http://www.trustnodes.com/2017/03/13/undercover-interview-adam-back-blockstreams-president

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In my small mind this does not seem to be good news...but we live in hope. what do you guys think ?

 

So over the fiat currency story !!!

 

Bitcoin is Myspace before Facebook came along. Bitcoin is Altavista or Webcrawler before Google came along. Bitcoin is Netscape before Chrome came along. AOL before broadband internet.

Tech is full of examples of dominate early players being pushed into obscurity due to a better, more accessible alternative.

 

Out of all the crytocurrencies, Bitcoin has got a massive lead. I hope it succeeds, but the bickering about Segwit vs. BU is hurting the community.

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I am convinced bitcoin is here to stay, and the cat is out of the bag so to speak. Right now many people don't really see the reason to use bitcoin, or why it is so revolutionary, or any point to it at all, but things are slowly changing. In a few years people will not believe there was a time without bitcoin or blockchain technology.

 

I have been using it for years and it has been amazing to see the amount of users grow, the technological improvements, and the slow changing of minds. People used to completely dismiss it, now it is often talked about in the news, and major companies and businesses accept it. Governments know about it and they also dont dismiss it, they are trying to see how they can benefit or regulate it if they can most of the time.

 

The price of bitcoin has climbed over the years, yes it is volatile, and it is risky, but as a long term investment it has performed well for people who have not panic sold every time there is a dip in price. Traders of course love the volatility as there is more chance to make money.

 

Here is a quick historical chart of the price of bitcoin and the percent in change....this is up to date as of 15/03/2017 (10:30am)

 

Pc49wNA.png

 

If you would like to learn about bitcoin, we have a website (www.bitcoinzar.co.za) with lots of information and videos, an also the facebook / twitter (@bitcoinzar) page shares lots of bitcoin news and information.

 

Now that I have found this forum, I'll also be here more often :) Nice to see @JamesYellen has started a bitcoin thread and given some great information already :)

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I am convinced bitcoin is here to stay, and the cat is out of the bag so to speak. Right now many people dont really see the reason to use bitcoin, or why it is so revolutionary, or any point to it at all, but things are slowly changing. In a few years people will not believe there was a time without bitcoin or blockchain technology.

I have been using it for years and it has been amazing to see the amount of users grow, the technological improvements, and the slow changing of minds. People used to completely dismiss it, now it is often talked about in the news, and major companies and businesses accept it. Governments know about it and they also dont dismiss it, they are trying to see how they can benefit or regulate it if they can most of the time.

 

Hey! Bitcoinzar.co.za welcome to the forum!

Join the official JSE Discord Channel

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@BitcoinZAR would you mind writing/posting a proper tutorial on how to get started with hardware wallets? I think so many South African's are innocently storing there bitcoins in Luno, blockchain.info and other online exchanges and wallets, not knowing the risks involved.

 

(I also get so many PMs asking for advice on hardware wallets and proper storing of bitcoins)

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@BitcoinZAR would you mind writing/posting a proper tutorial on how to get started with hardware wallets? I think so many South African's are innocently storing there bitcoins in Luno, blockchain.info and other online exchanges and wallets, not knowing the risks involved.

 

(I also get so many PMs asking for advice on hardware wallets and proper storing of bitcoins)

 

Hey @JamesYellen,

 

Sure :)

 

If I had to recommend any kind of wallet, it would be a mobile wallet and a hardware wallet.

 

When you use bitcoin, you have a bitcoin wallet to store, send and receive bitcoins. A bitcoin wallet comes in various forms, eachwith its own pros and cons.

 

A bitcoin wallet is a little like an email address, except instead of having an email address and password, it has a public key and a private key. The "public key" also known as a "bitcoin wallet address", which is what you share with people when you want them to pay you bitcoin.

 

The private key which you keep secret, is used to access the wallet, kind of like the password on your email address, and to create as many new public keys as you want. If someone gets your private key for your wallet, they can spend bitcoin on any bitcoin addresses that was generated by the same private key.

 

Bitcoin has never been hacked ever. What has been hacked many times is exchanges, and peoples personal computers. It is far easier for a hacker or thief to steal a private key off a website, or a home computer than to hack bitcoin.

 

There is a saying in bitcoin that says 'Not your keys, not your bitcoin'. This is basically hilighting the fact that on many bitcoin exchanges and websites, you are provided a bitcoin address to send your funds, but are never given the private keys for that address.

 

Many exchanges keep clients funds in one wallet, and have a database that keeps a record of each clients bitcoin balance. This makes it much much faster to move the bitcoin around (off chain). Since not all clients withdraw their balance at once, they can secure the bulk of the bitcoin offline in what they call a 'cold wallet', and only have a 'hot wallet' online, which they can settle daily bitcoin withdrawals from. When exchanges and websites get hacked of their bitcoin, it is generally the 'hot wallet' for daily transactions that is affected. Depending on the exchange, the hot wallet can be small, or could contain millions of Rand worth of bitcoin. Experts sometimes say that this kind of "custodial wallet" website, where they have your private key, falls into 2 categories, those that have been hacked, and those that are going to be hacked.

 

As a bitcoin user, it is best practice to use and exchange to buy or sell bitcoin, and then to immediately move your bitcoin OFF the exchange. Do NOT store your bitcoin on an exchange that can be a central point of failure, and a honeypot for a hacker. Although it is far less likely for an exchange to be hacked these days, it does still happen.

 

The most secure type of bitcoin wallet is a hardware wallet. This is a physical piece of hardware that can store your private key, and someone has to physically get it into their hands to be able to steal your bitcoin, as well as know the password for the device.

 

The most popular is the Trezor hardware wallet, or the Ledger hardware wallet. Both will plug into your computer USB port like a USB stick or dongle, and will then allow you to send or receive bitcoin easily and securely. Once you unplug the hardware wallet, it is offline, and the coins dont move.

 

If you lose your hardware wallet, or it is stolen, the password lock on the wallet when you try to access it, and its other security features will ensure that your bitcoin is safe.

 

When you do your wallet setup, you are given a random set of 12 or 24 words, which is used as the "seed" to generate the private key, and thereafter, the public keys. You need to write down all the words, in order, and keep those safe. If your wallet is lost or stolen, you can use those same words on a replacement device to get instant access to your bitcoin balance.

 

You can also use the same words on other wallets that will also accept a word seed to add a private key which is pretty much a standard these days. Most people store their private key seed in a different location to their wallet.

 

Secure mobile wallet:

A good mobile wallet for your mobile phone is the Airbitz app. This is an amazing wallet for your mobile phone that is secure, gives you the private keys, is easy to use, and has some great features like a business directory with a map to see places close to you that accept bitcoin. Add your own business for free. Follow the instructions when you install the app, and they will explain how to secure your private key.

 

Other highly recommended mobile wallets that also give you the private keys are Mycelium wallet, and Greenbits wallet which are both excellent. Follow all the instructions step by step, and you will be fine. Store your private key / word seed securely and you should not ever have any problems.

 

Personally I use a mobile wallet as my 'hot wallet', that is bitcoin that I am willing to spend, kind of like the cash in my regular wallet. If I am doing small amounts of bitcoin, say under R1000 transactions, that is done on my mobile wallet. Bigger amounts I do with my hardware wallet, which is my main "cold wallet" for my bitcoin.

 

Web based wallets....A web wallet that will allow you to access your bitcoin wallet from a website - a great web wallet is www.bitgo.com.

During the setup process, you will be provided with a download of your private key details and full instructions.

If you lose your private key, they CANNOT HELP YOU. Your bitcoin will be lost. So follow instructions, which is to download and print the private key, and store it securely.

 

Using a site like bitgo means they can never be hacked and lose your bitcoin, and they can never steal your bitcoin, simply because they do not have your private key, only you do.

 

You can use their website to manage your bitcoin securely and easily, so sending and receiving bitcoin is a bit lilke logging into your internet banking.

 

If their site is taken offline, you can use your private key to get access to your bitcoin on any other wallet software such as a mobile wallet, or a desktop wallet. Although this is good to know, it is a hassle to do, especially if you are in a hurry to make a payment.

 

One down side to web wallets, is people are the weak link, often storing passwords on your computer, or in your gmail docs or similar. If your email account, or computer is compromised, you might be giving away access to your web wallet. If someone gets access to your email account, and then resets your password on a web wallet, they might be able to access your bitcoin.

 

A bitcoin hardware wallet is still the best as far as I am concerned, because it is very easy to use, and extremely secure.

 

We actually sell the Ledger nano bitcoin hardware wallets on our website here: https://www.bitcoinzar.co.za/secure-your-bitcoin-with-a-ledger-nano-hardware-wallet/. We sell them for R1000 in bitcoin, which includes delivery by courier to your door, some bitcoin stickers, and support / assistance by telephone, whatsapp or email.

 

I also highly recommend the Trezor hardware wallet, which you can order direct from the manufacturer here: https://shop.trezor.io/

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Wow great post!! Thanks.

 

I think I might dive into bitcoin as well.

 

Some advice if you want to dive into bitcoin.....stay away from get rich quick schemes, bitcoin mining websites, and bitcoin investment systems. They are almost always ponzi schemes that tell people how great bitcoin is, then get them to invest in bitcoin by joining the scheme, which eventually collapses.

 

I also suggest you only buy from a bitcoin exchange, and not random people on facebook, bidorbuy, gumtree, whatsapp etc. It is always cheaper, safer, faster and better to buy on a bitcoin exchange.

 

Another piece of advice is to understand that the price of bitcoin is volatile. It trades like a commodity, and the market never sleeps....its 24/7 and moves fast. If you are buying for an investment, buy some, and then DONT panic every 10 minutes if the price drops. Decide to buy some and leave it for a year or two and forget about the volatility. Even better would be to simply buy a set amount every week or month regardless of the price, to average out your cost per bitcoin. Personally I buy about R500 a week every week which I put into my hardware wallet and forget about.

 

I do have bitcoin that I trade, but generally I only trade that when I see an opportunity to increase my bitcoin holdings. If I ever sell bitcoin, it is because I need cash in a hurry, but then I end up buying it back over time again since I have my weekly buy in.

 

It is not a great idea to invest a large amount of money and expect to become super rich overnight....but I suspect I dont need to tell the users on this forum that :)

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@BitcoinZar you guys are stunning! 

 

Thank you for the detailed post. Great addition to the forum. I am starting to like this place more and more. 

 

Now to get Luno and others here too so we can discuss and collaborate. I came to this forum as r/Bitcoin started to get a bit derailed and ego chambered to a degree.

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@BitcoinZar you guys are stunning! 

 

Thank you for the detailed post. Great addition to the forum. I am starting to like this place more and more. 

 

Now to get Luno and others here too so we can discuss and collaborate. I came to this forum as r/Bitcoin started to get a bit derailed and ego chambered to a degree.

 

@JamesYellen No problem :)

 

One thing people should try if they want to get into bitcoin, is to just get a bitcoin wallet setup in the meantime. Get a bitcoin address, and then instead of buying bitcoin, you can try getting someone to pay you in bitcoin.

 

Why not have it as an alternative way that people can pay you? It costs you nothing, gives your customers another option when paying you,  and gives you a way to get bitcoin without too much hassle.

 

An easy way to start is to just install a mobile phone wallet, and get a bitcoin address you can hand out to people.

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Thanks for all the info BitcoinZAR, I have a Luno account and have bought a small amount of bitcoins. How would I move them from Luno to say a secure mobile wallet?

 

Sent from my SM-G900H using Tapatalk

 

Hey,

 

First install a secure mobile wallet on your phone. Some good ones are Airbitz, Mycelium wallet, Greenbits, or Breadwallet. If you have the Luno app on your phone, you can use that to easily send the bitcoin from your luno account to another mobile wallet

 

Once you have a secure wallet installed and configured, you can usually press a link or button to receive bitcoin or a payment. When you do that, a bitcoin QR barcode will display on your phone, along with the bitcoin address. Any bitcoin that is sent to that address will arrive in your wallet on your phone. There is normally a button or link to copy the address, press that.

 

If you are logged into a bitcoin exchange, you can choose to withdraw bitcoin, and then use the bitcoin address that was displayed to you on your phone.

 

If you use the luno app, you can open that, choose to send bitcoin,  and paste that address you copied from the mobile wallet into the address field you want to send bitcoin to. Now press send, and it will go from luno, to your mobile wallet.

 

If you are not using the luno app, and are using a pc to access luno, things will be different getting the address of your secure mobile wallet onto your pc.

 

You dont want to type your address out on a PC while reading it from your phone, because one wrong letter or number, or making a mistake with upper or lower case, can mean your bitcoin wont arrive in your wallet, and you wont be able to get it back.

 

Depending on the exchange, when you choose to withdraw, you can choose to scan a QR code of the address you want to send to. If you are on a laptop, or have a webcam, you can hold up your QR code from your mobile app to your camera. It will scan, and get the address of the phone. You can now complete the withdraw from the exchange.

 

If the exchange you are sending from does not have the option to scan a code using your webcam, you can scan it using a website like https://webqr.com/. Scan the code on your phone and it will display the address on your screen, which you can copy and paste into the exchange.

 

If you dont have a webcam, you will need to get the address of your phone another way. Do not try to type it out, because of the risk of making a mistake. Maybe then you could choose to copy the address in the app by selecting 'copy', and then send it by email from your phone to yourself.

I have even heard of people saving it to a text file on their phone, plugging their phone into their pc via a usb cable, then opening the text file from the pc, copying the address, and using that to send to on the exchange.

 

Once you have the address on your pc, you can re-use the address anytime you want to send bitcoin to your mobile wallet, so save the address somewhere you can access it easily. So even if its a hassle the first time, you only ever have to do it once.

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How does this bitcoin unlimited business work?

 

Is this a new bitcoin or the same?

 

Should I rather buy BTU, will it be cheaper than BTC?

 

Hey,

If bitcoin forks, the bitcoin unlimited version will be called BTU. If you have bitcoin already, you will have the same amount of bitcoin BTC and BTU when this split happens.

Nobody knows for sure what the future price will be, but if it has a lot of hashing power behind it, BTU might be worth something.....or it could crash and burn.

Since major exchanges have said that if bitcoin splits, they will continue to keep the core chain as BTC and the Unlmited chain will be BTU, I would guess that BTC will be worth more and more expensive, since it has already got years of infrastructure, backing, branding, and billions behind it in VC funding businesses working with bitcoin etc. But really...who knows for sure.

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What happens if your phone dies or is stolen with the wallet on it? How would you back that up?

 

Sent from my SM-G900H using Tapatalk

 

When you setup and decent wallet these days, on your phone, a website, even a hardware one, you are given a random set of 12 or 24 words, which is the 'seed' used to generate your random wallet addresses.

 

When you go through the installation process, you are instructed to write down each word. Keep that seed safe somewhere and if you ever need to restore your wallet, you can use the words as the seed in a new wallet, and your balance will be restored.

 

When you open a mobile wallet to do a transaction on your phone, it also asks for your password which you set during the installation process. So if someone steals your phone, they cannot open the wallet to take your bitcoin without knowing your wallet password.

 

Your phone can die, your wallet address will still work, just like if you turn off your computer, and someone can still send you email.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Any other 'bitcoiners' use bitcoin during the recent Rand volatility? I personally stocked up when the rumors started about PG being axed by Zuma. Bitcoin went up, Rand went down, I came out great this time. I have traded back a % and taken profits, but am still holding onto some of the bitcoin I got yesterday as the price has still been rising.

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