Retail is known as the dumb money for a reason. Most retail "investors" if you can call them that,
prefer to dump their money into the shitcoin casino. And after they lose their shirts have nothing left for bitcoin.

Retail are mostly impatient degenerates who are addicted to gambling on hype and sentiment, not fundamentals.
That's partly the government's fault for allowing the shitcoin casino to exist, letting them market and prey on naive retail investors.

I seriously doubt that. There are thousands of Strategy shareholders. If they all knew the public address
of the bitcoins it would be very easy for any of them to anonymously leak the information onto the internet, and many
would have done so by now, and it would be impossible to stop them. So there is no point to telling them to keep it a secret.



No reason? It's called proof of reserves. How else do you know they possess the bitcoins they say they do
without verifiable proof? You're just going to take their word for it? Are you really that gullible?

The bitcoin ethos is that you should never trust, but verify. Saylor said so himself many time when explaining what bitcoin is.
But he doesn't seem to practice what he preaches. A Bitcoiner should always question everything and never take rust anyone's word
without verifying their claims. Never take anything for granted. That's not just a bitcoin thing, it's just simple common sense and
good business practice for anything in life.

That's what I've been wondering. Strategy doesn't disclose public addresses,
but they do announce all their purchases. So if the purchases are indeed legit, shouldn't it
produce corresponding activity on the blockchain that could be tracked and verified?

Bitwise discloses public addresses of its bitcoin holdings for its ETF, so why can't Strategy?
Even Tether discloses its public addresses, so Saylor is full of shit on this one.

If you want a bitcoin custodial product I would go with Bitwise.

Wow, that's crazy. I wonder who it was? maybe Peter Schiff?  But good for Ross, he did give a pretty good speech.

Bitcoin is the only digital asset worth investing in.

Everything else is a pump and dump Ponzi scam whose creators ought to be in prison IMO.

This is one of the reasons why they say you should never re-use a bitcoin address.

Laziness or carelessness can lead to very costly mistakes.

Incredible news. Texas has the most bitcoin mining in the US and is very pro-bitcoin.
The governor said he wants to be the crypto capital so will probably sign the bill.

Texas will be the second state to have a true bitcoin reserve (investing with public funds).
But unlike the first state of New Hampshire, Texas is huge with 20 times the population.

Fuck the dirty IMF gangsters. IMF polices have killed or destroyed more lives than all the world wars put together.

Like mafia loan sharks, they are nothing but gangsters in a suit.

That is completely dependent on the value of your own bitcoin versus the value of your bank account.
If you have a million US dollars in you bank account but only a thousand worth of bitcoin in your wallet,
then having your bank account hacked is much more dangerous.


No it doesn't. Which is why I advised using multiple layers of security including passphrases, encrypted files,
2 factor authentication, etc. If one layer fails you are still protected by the others.

Yes of course, if it is not not possible where you are then you cannot do it.
Hopefully that will change in the future. Bitcoin used to be against the law
in many countries but is no longer illegal today so things can change at anytime.

Nothing in life is perfect. But don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good as the saying goes.
Using a bitcoin debit card still contributes to network activity, helping to strengthen the network.

People may think that buying a cup of coffee is such a small transaction it doesn't do anything for the network.
That is the wrong way to look at it. In the US alone there are 50 million individual holders of bitcoin.

If just one or two million of these holders are using bitcoin to buy coffee every week or every month,
that is a huge contribution to the network.

I already addressed that concern in my OP. Again, if you are only using bitcoin for small purchases
like a coffee or to pay for lunch once in a while then the price movement doesn't matter much.
The price can be up or down at the time of your purchase, but over time the ups and downs will balance out
so in the end you aren't losing anything. If you are really that worried about it you can simply pause spending
when the bitcoin price is down and wait for the price to go back up to start spending again.
 

Instead of giving in to our emotions and fearmongering, let's take a look at some facts.

Millions of bitcoins have been lost permanently because people lost the physical backup of their seed phrase.
That is an indisputable fact. The exact number is not known, but most experts agree it is in the millions.

How many bitcoins have been lost due to hacked PMs? I don't know of even one bitcoin that was (verifiably) lost that way.
So statistically you are far more likely to lose your bitcoin because you lost the physical backup of your seed phrase then
your PM getting hacked.

As I said, this argument against using bitcoin as payment is nonsensical.
You don't have to spend any of your bitcoin savings funds. You can simply convert the cash
you normally use for daily expenses into bitcoin and use that to pay for things.
Even if you do spend from your bitcoin savings fund it's not going to kill you to buy a coffee
or a meal with bitcoin once in a while.

However, Satoshi has actually meant it for an alternative payment gateway as the fiat system continuous to fail us.

Satoshi understood future halving events will have a negative financial impact on miners ability to stay in business.
Mining is not free. Expensive equipment has to be constantly upgraded, energy costs are huge, etc.
The costs become exponentially higher with every halving. The bitcoin network won't be very strong or secure if miners
don't have the funds they need to run things optimally and stay in business. That is why he intended for the network
to be supported as a payment system where miners are supported by transaction fees.


The Bitpay phone app/wallet is optional. When you use Bitpay in a browser
with a non-Bitpay wallet the connection is temporary and there is no background process always running.

There was a lot of talk about using bitcoin as a payment method during the Bitcoin conference.

STEAK N SHAKE
A representative from Steak N Shake was on stage, announcing the introduction of bitcoin
lightning payments to all their franchise stores has been a success so far.

NEWEGG.COM
I buy most of my computer stuff from Newegg which accepts bitcoin payment through Bitpay
which I have used a few times in the last three or four years. For those who don't know Newegg
is a major retailer of computer products in the US. They have been accepting bitcoin payment since 2014
so that's pretty amazing a large retailer to start openly accepting bitcoin at a time when bitcoin FUD was
at an all time high. But they never seem to get much credit for it. I never hear anyone ever mention it.

Newegg sells all their stuff online so you don't have to be near a physical location to buy from them.
To me it's a satisfying feeling to actually use some of my bitcoin to pay for things.

 

One of my recent purchases on Newegg.com. To use it choose the Bitpay option during checkout,
then connect to one of the supported wallets. It deducts bitcoin funds from your connected wallet. Very easy.



I used my Coinbase account to fund this purchase. You can use any supported wallet.

Newegg doesn't accept bitcoin payments directly so Bitpay is used as a bridge.
But I don't think that matters. Using Bitpay the merchant saves on credit card
transaction fees, so you help the merchant to save money and also support bitcoin miners
who I believe earn mining fees from the transaction.

BITCOIN DEBIT CARDS
Coinbase has a VISA debit card that you can fund with either bitcoin or cash, so you can use it anywhere
that accepts VISA. Some other providers are crypto.com and Bitrefill that lets you fund gift cards with bitcoin.

JACK DORSEY AND SQUARE
Jack Dorsey said it's important for the long-term health of bitcoin for it to become a widely used method of payment
not just a store of value. Dorsey's payment processing company Square is supposedly working on integrating bitcoin
payments into their machines so that could be big for adoption of bitcoin as a payment method.

So to help support bitcoin try using it for payments as much as possible IMO. When you help the miners you are also
helping yourself as a bitcoin investor. You don't have to use bitcoin for every purchase but do what you can to support
the bitcoin network and ecosystem. Even if the merchant doesn't accept bitcoin directly you can use a bitcoin or crypto
debit card anywhere that accepts normal debit and credit cards.

If you are a business owner consider accepting bitcoin as a payment method for your business.

I don't understand this argument that you should buy things with cash and save your bitcoin.
You can use bitcoin to do both. Simply convert some of the cash you normally use to pay for
everyday items anyway and do it that way. You never have to touch your main bitcoin savings.

Sure there can be some volatility issues using bitcoin as a payment method but over the long run
it balances out and you break even. Because some days the price of bitcoin may be down but
other days the price will be up so over the long run you're not losing anything.


Used my Coinbase debit card at McDonald's this morning:

I stand corrected. But with Bitwarden the hack was not an actual hack, because the flaw was detected
by the open-source community before it could be exploited. So I don't count it as a hack.

The Lastpass and OKTA breaches involved customer names and emails according to the links you provided.
So the result being customers may have been exposed to phishing and social engineering attacks, but no passwords
or anything stored in their vaults were likely compromised.

Most password managers offer 2 factor authentication so I would highly suggest enabling that option for anyone using one.

For another layer of security, you can put your seed phrase in a password-protected PDF file
(Microsoft Word gives you this option). Then upload it to your PM.

My caveat would be all this stuff is for more advanced users. You don't have to be super tech savvy
to use them but should be at least moderately computer savvy and feel very comfortable doing this kind of stuff.

Those who don't feel comfortable dealing with too much complexity, it's best to keep it simple and stay with offline-only storage.

You are correct. Lastpass was hacked but according to the company the data breach involved
customer names and emails, no passwords were compromised. Which may or may not be true.

I was using Lastpass the time but after I learned of the hack began researching alternatives and went with Bitwarden
which is an open-source PM. I'm surprised to see it on the hacked list but good to know the flaw was caught and corrected before
hackers could exploit it. That is the benefit of open-source that there are large number of  eyes watching for vulnerabilities.
So I recommend open-source PMs but everyone should do their own research.

The conventional wisdom is to never store your seed phrase online.

Millions if not billions of people rely on password managers to store critical username and password information for
their bank accounts, email account, Amazon, ebay, Apple and Android accounts, crypto exchanges, school and work emails, etc.
They also store all your personal identifying information including name, address, phone number, etc.

The average person probably has at least a hundred different online passwords which would be virtually impossible to keep track of
without a password manager. I have never heard of a password a manager being hacked into so they seem to be extremely secure.
I have been using PMs myself for over 20 years with no issues. So if they have such a stellar track record of security then why not
use it to store your seed phrase?

Benefits of using a PM - eliminates the possibility of losing your physical backup or having it stolen.
Personally I am more concerned about someone stealing my physical backup or losing it then I am
of my PM getting hacked.

I'm not saying others should store their seed phrase in a PM but I do believe it is an option worth considering.
Ultimately it is up to every person to make their own choice. If you don't feel comfortable doing it then do it.
Keep your seed phrase offline. Another option is having both - a physical backup plus online backup secured in your PM.

I would also suggest using a passphrase (aka hidden wallet) so in the remote event someone hacks your PM
they won't be able to use your seed phrase without knowing your passphrase. But this is completely optional
and can be a double edge sword - if you ever forget your passphrase you are screwed so better make sure
it is simple enough to remember. Of course you never want to store your passphrase together with your seedphrase
because that would defeat the purpose.

GO PEDDLE YOUR SCAM COIN ELSEWHERE RETARD.