Maybe all I need is a TB somewhere that I can mount using SSHFS. I'd only place Bitcoin Core's blocks directory on there. That works fine if it's a local HDD, so I assume a network share would work too. But I have no idea what bandwidth that would take for running Electrum server.
Somehow I always find myself short on disk space and bandwidth.

What makes you think a Newbie's first post qualifies to vouch for someone else?

With "connect", you mean install Electrum server, right?

Unless I find a good offer, it looks like it's going to be after September. By then others Electrum servers may have lowered the minimum, so I may not have to do it anymore.

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Yesterday fees went up, now they're back at under 1.00 sat/vbyte:

The only people who will pay 8% fee, are the ones who use stolen Paypal accounts. Even if you're honest, there is nothing to gain from this trade.

Being completely anonymous makes selective scamming very easy for exchangers: nobody's going to do anything about it.

I've never seen an exit strategy like this:

Why does that remind me of Executive Order 6102?

If they want to be regulated, they themselves shouldn't be anonymous and hiding in some tax haven. Regulated companies (and governments) leak enough data as it is, I'm not sending my personal documents to unknown actors.

Many Bitcoin casinos and exchanges started this way: some guy creates something nice that gets out of hand, and suddenly they're earning a shitload of money they can't spend legally if they don't become regulated. Quite literally all the exchanges and casinos I first saw when I started in Bitcoin, went from completely anonymous to full KYC or they stopped existing.

If it's registered in my own country I'd trust it a lot more than if it's somewhere I have no idea how the legal system works.

Agreed! Only send to exchanges what you want to exchange, and take it out as soon as possible.

Some would call it theft.

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It's a catch-22 for good, trusted anonymous exchangers: being good and trusted means they'll get bigger. And if they get bigger, they'll eventually become a target for authorities (or at least some of the many different authorities out there).

Nope. I considered upgrading my VPS and adding 1 TB to run my own, but my webhost "expects new stock in September". I don't really want to delete this data to free up some space either.

Thanks again for your flawless timing!

I guess it depends on the definition: I'd say owning Bitcoin means owning owning your keys. Considering there are only 53,218,057 funded Bitcoin addresses (based on yesterday's data), and considering many Bitcoin owners have more than one funded address, there are far less than 50 million Bitcoin owners.
On the other hand, if I use a broker to buy shares of a certain company, I can say I own shares of that company. So I guess (by now) it's okay to say you own Bitcoin when you "have" some on an exchange or ETF. By that definition, 1 in 6 or 7 sounds plausible.

Bump!

The blocks he mines are empty.

It's probably easiest to exchange some other crypto for Monero. If you don't have that, see if there's a Bitcoin ATM nearby.

Quote from another topic:
@joker_josue: would this be something TalkImg can make easier? Say someone uploads 100 images in bulk: how cool would it be if TalkImg would create a BBCode sample to post them all in table format?

I'd say we're not that far from such a situation. Many people already fall for "wrapped" Bitcoin, which it nothing more than a promise to real Bitcoin coming from a company hiding in the Cayman Islands. And yet, people fall for it.

I don't But I can imagine bankers coming up with this scenario for profit.

I wouldn't invest borrowed money, but I'm risk-averse when it comes to loans.

They may block your account. Coinbase for instance is well-known for blocking accounts if users send coins to an online casino.
In short, just assume centralized exchanes are analysing coins coming in and going out.

Sure you can! Just not on-chain. Just like a bank can lend out a million dollars without having a single physical dollar in the entire building. As long as the dollars (or Bitcoins) only exist on their own accounting system, they can pull it off.

That's one step away from fractional reserve Bitcoin: someone deposits 0.95 Bitcoin, someone else borrows 1 Bitcoin and deposits it again, after which someone else borrows 0.9 Bitcoin and this keeps repeating until the bank owns everything because of interest.