This job is now completed. Thanks very much to @TritonCrypto! Awesome work. I'm very happy with the service. Designer thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5244440

Locking thread. Thanks again, everyone!

Hi All,

I'm making graphic tweaks to a theme. I can do some stuff myself, but I'm no professional. Please see this image:



Full size is here: https://i.imgur.com/VkYWvAk.png

The theme didn't come with the boxes. I'm making those myself. I'm conveying the idea of Anonymity + ID (like driver's license) = Trusted. Again, I'm no pro, but what I want is the mismatched icons I'm starting with to all match and look good, in much larger size. That's where a designer comes in.

See the little blue profile icon outline near top left? That's the theme's default icon, and it's what I want in the first box, but much larger. I was playing around and made that icon solid, which I think looks good too.

Here's what I need (all with originally large sizes to fill boxes, and possibly be shrunk):

1. Profile Icon Outline Like Original (just large)
2. Profile Icon Filled in Solid (again, large)
2. ID Card/License Icon (again, large)
3. Trusted Shield Icon (again, large)

Can I get all these icons in 3 different colors: the original light blue of the theme profile icon, then the gray of the text/boxes, and also white, so I can decide which to use? Last, can the files all be PNG format and transparent so I can put the image on different background colors, for example, in the light blue blank profile circle near top center? That would do it!

The last time I posted a graphic job like this someone just made the requested tweaks and posted the image in the forum with their desired price ($30, when I think I offered $50) and I promptly sent the BTC. I just need the PNG files, whether posted to the forum or emailed etc. I'd also like a simple note emailed saying something like payment for the graphics has been received and all rights of usage are given. Please let me know the next step or post graphics as you like. Thanks, everyone! 

Yes, what you're talking about is essentially the UTXO (list of unspent transaction outputs). That's what really matters for a blockchain. The blockchain is just the historical list to get the current UTXO. The selling point of Bitcoin is that it's trustless. You don't have to trust anyone about how many coins there are or who rightfully owns what coins. Your node checks everything itself, from the Genesis block up to the current block. (At least in theory it can. A practice has been adding "checkpoints" for new software releases, so you do trust a dev team somewhat, in that they will give you the correct calculation up to that point, so there is no need to actually check.)

So Bitcoin is actually capable of discarding much of the blockchain too, with a feature called "pruning". With pruning enabled you set your node to only keep about 2 weeks of historical blockchain.

On your original topic about forking to invalidate coins, that's why there is now ETH and ETC (Ethereum Classic). Someone made an Ethereum smart contract (for some new investment) with a bug which was found allowing the coder to send coins to his own address. The coder taking the coins argued publicly that he was only following the code as it was written to behave, which was true (it was just written incorrectly). That presented a philosophical dilemma: the idea of Ethereum is the code is the law, outside government regulations be dammed. So calls to create a fork invalidating that mistake went against that idea. In the end Vitalik decided to indeed fork Ethereum and refund those investors. That gave rise to people saying Ethereum is really proof-of-vitalik, and that code is law isn't really true. Another dev decided to keep the original chain alive and it became known as ETC.

This is a very good point. New investors don't realize how hard it is to make a business work. I'm not sure the failure numbers you list are right; it depends largely on the industry (for example, fast food shops are easier to keep open than new oil mining ventures). However, the failure rate is high. The number I hear is 8 out of 10 new businesses fail. That's only a 20% success rate, which is still pretty low.

There is something else to consider. Business that are destined to be successful generally don't need a lot of funding. If the business has something of real value then they can turn that into cash and grow the business. This is especially true of web based startups, because everything is just digital information. It used to be that starting a business required a big outlay for building space, equipment, employees, licenses etc. at a minimum. Now everything needed to serve potential customers can be programmed.

The moral of the story is be vary wary of things that sound too good to be true. I'll give one last piece of advice, and this is something professional investors (eg Angels and VCs) look for: see if the business has traction. A key to investing is lowering the chance the project you invest in will fail. The best way to do that is seeing if the project has something going for it, even if small. When a team promises the moon but only offers a whitepaper that's probably a good indicator they will not be around.

Yes. At TrustedCoinTrades a user's reputation (or identity) is more important than the payment method.

The OP's description seems confusing. I'll try providing a better summary.

Full-Node

A full-node is the term for "fully validating", which means this type node checks both transactions and blocks itself, without trusting others to do that. Note that miners will usually be full-nodes, because if they don't they risk losing money as they might waste hash power on an invalid block.

Light Node or SPV (Simplified Payment Verification) Node

A "light" or "SPV" node does not verify all transactions or blocks independently. Instead, this type node relies on other nodes to check whether or not transactions it is concerned with are in the valid blockchain. In many situations this reduced independence is fine for making simple transactions, and this type node uses far less resources since it doesn't deal with entire blocks.

An example of a popular Bitcoin SPV wallet is Electrum: https://electrum.org/

The advantage of using both types is completely controlling your own private keys, which is recommended (as opposed to leaving coins on exchanges).

You can sell your PayPal USD for BTC, BCH or LTC. Please note you would need to verify your ID for EZ PayPal. The process is free and easy!  

Greetings!

We're happy to introduce a solution to pesky reversed PayPal trades! Many know PayPal is reversible. We created EZ PayPal, a way to buy small amounts of PayPal funds from multiple sellers to reduce risk of chargeback. If there is a reversal the user is quickly banned (we verify all sellers) resulting in an overall safe environment for trading PayPal. See example below:



We're seeking traders interested in buying/selling PayPal. Feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

https://trustedcointrades.com/paypal

I agree with this, with the caveat being a person must know what they're doing.


Actually, here is a story of a guy who lost $30K using a Trezor because he forgot his PIN. The story has a happy ending as a hack was able to bypass that lock, but he could have definitely lost it.

https://www.wired.com/story/i-forgot-my-pin-an-epic-tale-of-losing-dollar30000-in-bitcoin/

Exactly. As long as you're not over extended for how much you have there isn't pressure to sell. That's the value proposition a lot of gold bugs don't understand. There is a trade off. One can rest assured a physical gold coin won't go to zero value it's true. At the same time being physical has the drawback of transfer problems. That's why people started preferring paper notes (which keep going to zero value) over gold​. Not actually being physical makes Bitcoin the most transferable form of money one could want!

The best multi-signature wallet I've seen by far is Copay.

https://copay.io

They're also a great option as you're controlling your own private keys. Copay supports Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

The government bans a lot of things. For example, in Venezuela it's illegal to buy US dollars on the street, but people have had a dollar black market for years. Same with drugs being illegal for decades, which hasn't stopped people from buying, selling and using. Sometimes things are banned until they become legal again, just as in many US states marijuana is now sold legally. So banning Bitcoin would not stop its use.

Keep in mind Litecoin is exactly Bitcoin with only a few minor changes. I really like Litecoin for the following reasons:

• Fairer distribution - Litecoin is probably the fairest launched and distributed coin; Bitcoin was launched when nobody knew about it so a few in early got loads of coins, while later altcoins often were premined or "accidentally" early mined in favor of creators (eg Dash)
• Faster block time - Confirms 4 times quicker
• Good mining distribution - Scrypt usage means a different field of miners than those with heavy Bitcoin ASIC advantage
• Good infratstructure - There are tons of coins, but not all are equal with support/infrastructure. Bitcoin is best supported because it was around longest. Litecoin probably comes in second.

For these reasons we decided to integrate both Bitcoin and Litecoin at TrustedCoinTrades.com (a LocalBitcoins.com but with added coins and no ID required).

Since you are a beginner you'll find the easiest experience with a 3rd party website, such as Coinbase.com, because they handle everything for you. It may be a good idea to start with them just to familiarize yourself with how things work. Use small amounts. They also have a mobile app and their security is good.

As you get more comfortable you can move away from Coinbase (or keep them for only smaller amounts). There are a couple reasons for moving to a wallet you completely control yourself, such as Electrum. First, with Coinbase your identity and coin use is not private. If you will use your money for anything in a legal gray area, such as gambling, your account may be frozen or closed. Second, as people will tell you here, it's always best to control your own coins (the private keys) because that's the only way you're sure you own them. With others you only have an IOU. That's not so bad with a company with Coinbase as they're very large and professional, but you should be careful with others.

For larger amounts use a hardware wallet such as Ledger. Another good option between a 3rd party and running your own software is blockchain.info. With them you generate your own private keys using scripts in your browser. They also have a mobile app. They're a great option to get up and running fast and experiment and learn. However, remember they are not the same as completely controlling your coins yourself, because you're trusting the software they give you. Hope this helps

Hi generatorhd,

As others point out PayPal is pretty bad in an anonymous environment, because charges can be reversed up to 6 months later. It only really makes sense to accept PayPal when you have high confidence the sender won't reverse the charge, eg a payment from an established business or someone highly trustworthy.

I do think there is a market for the kind of loans you're offering. It's a reason we added a Lending section at TrustedCoinTrades.com/lending. Might I suggest you check that out? Consider the following. Offer a loan of say $100 for 7-14 days where you receive 10% interest. However, you instead mail a USPS Money Order to the recipient anywhere in the US. That costs $1.20 and $0.50 for a stamp so under $2.00. At 10% interest you still profit $8 in 14 days which is 8% ROI in under a month, a rate many investors would die for.

The recipient can cash the Order at any post office. Money Orders are also safe from being lost/stolen as might happen with sending cash.

On our platform we hold either BTC, LTC or BCH in escrow, so people would be trusting us not you with their 120% staked collateral.

Thanks for the great input everyone! After much thought I have an idea which may work. The key is reputation. A borrower must have something to lose if they default. Many in crypto have built up profiles with good reputation, such as Legendary members on BitcoinTalk, or 100% Feedback with 1K+ trades on LocalBitcoins.com. If we tie in a member's reputation to a loan that could provide incentive to not default.

For example, a member's profile can have a line like this:

Verified Profiles: BitcoinTalk(DaddyUser - Legendary), LocalBitcoins(DaddyTrader - 100% FB)

In this way a potential lender can see the person has an established track record and make a small loan of say $50-100, without collateral. If the person defaults that is attached to their reputation on our site for minimum 4 years. We'll also have a public search where usernames can be searched and checked for any default.

I think for small amounts it's much better to repay than ruin an established reputation, similar to credit history.


Banks don't generally loan out small quick loans. Think of it as the difference between going to a supermarket or a convenience store. People use both. Also, a person with bad credit isn't automatically guaranteed to default. It depends on the circumstances. For example, the profession considered least likely to default on loans is a school teacher (they remain in a stable job for decades). Imagine a school teacher has a medical emergency forcing them to declare bankruptcy or otherwise default. Perhaps they're a young teacher just starting out with no credit history. Banks don't take time to ask about a person's details. They make a black/white decision based on credit rating. We want a platform where peers can advertise to other peers who can take time to consider finer points that may make individual loans make sense.


Yes, there is a certain value that exists with a person's online profile which can be used as a basis for judgment.

Hi noela,

I'm sorry to say it sounds like you have some kind of clipboard virus. See this article:

https://themerkle.com/evrial-malware-steals-bitcoins-by-changing-clipboard-copied-addresses/



The full address should NOT change. It's only the "bitcoincash:" that is added or left off the address. If you saw something weird happen on your computer, as you say, like that solid 1px line that appeared on your screen that sounds like your computer is not operating 100% the way it's supposed to. Doesn't sound good.

My advice to you and everyone, even experienced crypto users, is something I often do which is send a small test amount first to verify everything works as expected. There are a lot of changes that happen as cryptocurrency evolves and services add or remove coins and coins themselves change address formats (eg P2SH addresses) and not all services always match up their wallet implementation.

I think there is a danger of that. Of course the KYC for casinos is really all about keeping governments big and in power, as they want to collect taxes on everything.. It's not about money laundering. We've seen large banks launder money to drug cartels with nothing happening but a slap on the wrist and/or easily payable fine.

For now it's a cat and mouse game of crypto services trying to stay a step ahead of creeping registration. We need to proactively educate the public about why govs really want to have all info on their living activities. It's all about staying in power and further growing that power.

I think you're right. The market is probably still letting air out from the huge bubble and run-up to almost $20K  

Right now we seem to be moving sideways. We probably are not back in a bull market, and if it's still bearish we may be near the bottom because the overall market is much bigger. The huge bubble got a lot of attention and many new people into cryptocurrency.

Hi noela1,

There isn't really enough information to diagnose what happened. Note that Bitcoin Cash changed to a new CashAddr format to help people from accidentally sending BTC to BCH wallets and vice versa. A CashAddr format looks like this: bitcoincash:pqkh9ahfj069qv8l6eysyufazpe4fdjq3u4hna323j and the old format looks like this: 35qL43qYwLdKtnR7yMfGNDvzv6WyZ8yT2n. Note that the "bitcoincash:" part of the CashAddr format is optional, but officially supposed to be there, which is probably why your sending wallet displayed it that way.

We need more information to try to see what may have happened by checking a block explorer. You can post your full wallet address here or investigate yourself with a block explorer like this one: https://bitcoincash.blockexplorer.com/

There is no harm in posting public wallet addresses unless you're specifically trying to hide that from someone linking to your particular forum name. I mean nobody can steal funds just by knowing a public wallet address.