I am not a lawyer, but I have had trusts setup before (including a special needs trust).

Establishing the trust is a legal process and I would suggest consulting a qualified attorney who practices in that area.  The cost can vary widely, so it pays to shop around. ( I know I paid considerably less than what you quoted to establish the trust.)

Funding the trust is separate from setting up the trust.  As far as I know, there is no restriction on what kind of assets a trust can have, assuming it's a legal asset of course.  

When it comes to Bitcoin or any other similar asset, the US case law is sparse, so,it's hard to know for certain what the IRS or a state government would decide.  So, if you are really serious about this, the suggestion of getting the best legal advice you can afford is a good idea.

Accordingly to some, HBO is playing a game with this offer.  Buying some time to assess the real damage.

http://deadline.com/2017/08/hbo-hack-game-of-thrones-payout-hollywood-attack-1202146862/

It's unlikely these "hackers" are more than script kiddies who got a little lucky or are bluffing.

Hmmm...hard to make a general recommendation without knowing your background.

Have you ever read the basic ideas behind cryptocurencies?

Might start with Wikipedia, if you aren't already up to speed on the basics.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

I am syncing my second Bitcoin Core in the last week or so.

The suggestion on adding the -dbcache=nnnn is a good one.

Assuming you have at least a "modern dual-core processor" (Intel or AMD), at least 4GB RAM and and a fast HD or SSD, then it should complete in less than a week on a "high speed" home internet connection (e.g. a cable modem).  My first attempt was about four days, but the computer was only on half the time.  That's my experience anyway.

Also, the speed of your Internet connection is a big factor.  If you have ISP enforced limits on your downloads, or data caps, then that is a factor beyond your control and you will have to live with it (or get a different ISP).

If you don't want the ENTIRE Bitcoin blockchain, I've heard that you can also download just part of it with the -prune=nnn command.

I have not tried that myself, because I am wanting the full blockchain, but I've seen it mentioned as one way of speeding things up if you want to setup Bitcoin Core.   Might search around and see if there is more relevant info on it.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Running_Bitcoin

I did the change to the -dbcache size as you suggested.  That did speed things up a bit.  Thanks!

 

"And you don't need to worry about doing a TPS report on this one."

 

Peter Gibbons: [Explaining the plan] Alright so when the sub routine compounds the interest is uses all these extra decimal places that just get rounded off. So we simplified the whole thing, we rounded them all down, drop the remainder into an account we opened.
Joanna: [Confused] So you're stealing?
Peter Gibbons: Ah no, you don't understand. It's very complicated. It's uh it's aggregate, so I'm talking about fractions of a penny here. And over time they add up to a lot.
Joanna: Oh okay. So you're gonna be making a lot of money, right?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah.
Joanna: Right. It's not yours?
Peter Gibbons: Well it becomes ours.
Joanna: How is that not stealing?
Peter Gibbons: [pauses] I don't think I'm explaining this very well.
Joanna: Okay.
Peter Gibbons: Um... the 7-11. You take a penny from the tray, right?
Joanna: From the cripple children?
Peter Gibbons: No that's the jar. I'm talking about the tray. You know the pennies that are for everybody?
Joanna: Oh for everybody. Okay.
Peter Gibbons: Well those are whole pennies, right? I'm just talking about fractions of a penny here. But we do it from a much bigger tray and we do it a couple a million times.

FWIW -   I've done informal monitoring on my PC as it's been syncing Bitcoin Core for the first time.

Based on what I've seen the overall performance is limited  by the code only using a single core to run the hash, which means the CPU cycle time is a bottleneck. 

So a faster single core CPU beats a slower multi-core on a lot of the work I am seeing.

Not sure if that's an issue with the re-indexing, because that might be due to the database code.

His silence speaks volumes.

I have other BTC wallets, but I want to run Bitcoin Core and support the network.

The sync is making steady but slow progress.  From the system monitoring I've done, my network connection doesn't seem to be a bottleneck. 

This is the first time I've installed Bitcoin Core, so I wasn't sure how long the first blockchain download would be.

Thanks for the replies!

I've installed bitcoin core 0.14.2 on my desktop (AMD FX-8300 w/8GB RAM).

It's been running for three days now and I am seeing a Progress of about 56.77%.

Any idea on how long it will take to finish syncing?

Thanks!