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As a long term owner of Bitcoin, I can say this is the absolute worst time to start investing in it. It's development has been taken over by a group of mentally

As a long term owner of Bitcoin, I can say this is the absolute worst time to start investing in it. It's development has been taken over by a group of mentally unstable developers with weird personal agendas and beliefs. The official Bitcoin website and subreddit are heavily censored and are no longer a reliable source of information. It's widely reported elsewhere that their moderator stole millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin from users. There are other cryptocurrencies that deserve attention but I won't mention them here so I don't look like a shill. Be wary of the 4chan crowd who seem to be everywhere hyping obscure currencies to get rich off of pump-and-dump schemes. If you're going to invest in a cryptocurrency, thoroughly research it before buying. Trust nothing on an official website or forum. Verify everything you read on public forums. And never leave your money at exchanges. The #1 rule of cryptocurrency is this: Coins are not in your possession until you are the only one with the private keys.

tradersam 9y ago
> As a long term owner of Bitcoin, I can say this is the absolute worst time to start investing in it. It's development has been taken over by a group of mentally unstable developers with weird personal agendas and beliefs. The official Bitcoin website and subreddit are heavily censored and are no longer a reliable source of information. It's widely reported elsewhere that their moderator stole millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin from users. I don't agree with this. It may be a bad time to start investing, due to the price, but Bitcoin Cash is the corrupted currency in my opinion. Roger and his cronies were spamming the network for months, trying to create demand and when he finally got his big block coin, he wouldn't sell more than a few BTC for it. He's all about the money, along with Bitmain. I concede some core developers (like Luke-jr) are not the greatest, but they've been in control since day one.
- RandVal30142 9y ago
  >Roger and his cronies were spamming the network for months For fucks sake. Show the "spam," track it to an individual. The blockchain is transparent yet no one has done this. This is what my other comment was about. Named users in the community have been made into horrific caricatures who are the basis for conspiracies no one is able to prove despite the transparency of Bitcoin itself.
  - keymone 9y ago
    https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#all https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#all May was the peak of controversy, arguments and discussions about future of scaling bitcoin. core vs unlimited node count, miner support, vendor/merchant support - nobody knew how would things turn out. throughout that time one of main arguments was that blocks were full and mempool (unconfirmed transactions) was gigantic. the moment camps settled on agreeing to disagree - mempool was gone. feel free to continue pretending this all was simply a coincidence.
    - RandVal30142 9y ago
      No seriously, show the transactions you consider to be spam. Classify them in some tangible way, then identify the users behind them. The specific claim was that it was from "Roger Ver and his cronies," not that a mempool backlog exists. Show the transactions you claim to be "spam," and identify the persons behind them. Go do it.
      - keymone 9y ago
        a simple glance on that graph with knowledge of notable events in bitcoin timeline screams that the "omg blocks full mempool gigantic" argument is fishy. i don't really care that i can't convince you without spending hours and hours satisfying your standard of evidence, i have better things to do.
        RandVal30142 9y ago
        >a simple glance Show the damned transactions. > with knowledge of notable events The claim was very specific, show the damned transactions. >i don't really care that i can't convince you Because you can't show what the "spam" is let alone show who is "spamming."
        tradersam 9y ago
        I can't prove the transactions were Ver's anymore than I can prove some are yours. But as keymone said, the timeline of events is fishy. How come they stop when the block size debate does, or Roger uses them as examples in post after post of why Core needed to be replaced because of this huge backlog. When, you can look at the transactions yourself, most are dust, and they peak when the debate does. I can't prove it, sure. But myself and many others think this because it is logical, and it sounds like there is no changing your mind so we'll stop here.
- aedron 9y ago
  > In control since day one I don't know much about bitcoin, but I do know that the original people who took over from Satoshi (Gavin Andresen, Mike Hearn) were ousted in rather ugly and public ways a couple of years ago. As far as Roger Ver is concerned, I believe he is also one of the earliest people in the space. EDIT: Come to think of it, the people currently leading bitcoin development originally told Satoshi (on the crypto mailing list) that bitcoin would never work (Greg Maxwell and Adam Back both).
RandVal30142 9y ago
> It's development has been taken over by a group of mentally unstable developers with weird personal agendas and beliefs. They literally want to edit Satoshi's bitcoin whitepaper[1]. One of the supporters of editing the paper is theymos, who runs the censored Reddit sub. I was banned there after reporting a violent user who was urging the torture of Jihan Wu[2] of Bitmain. Violent invective and hate directed towards races & nationalities somehow are not insta-moderated while mundane comments about Bitcoin itself get mod-queued forever? Its out of control there. That lot is not to be trusted. [1] https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-org/bitcoin.org/issues/1325 https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-org/bitcoin.org/issues/1325 [2] http://archive.is/oDdq5 http://archive.is/oDdq5
xor1 9y ago
>There are other cryptocurrencies that deserve attention but I won't mention them here so I don't look like a shill. Shit, I'd appreciate it if you named some. I'm actually planning on putting my entire next paycheck towards crypto. Currently eyeing Neo even though I apparently missed the boat by not buying it when it was called ant.
- iDemonix 9y ago
  I keep looking at Neo but not sure I've already missed out
  - andirk 9y ago
    it's showing a little dip now as of writing, if that's what you wanted.
- tradersam 9y ago
  Litecoin is extremely undervalued. Ethereum has an incredibly bright future, Monero is an incredible tool for privacy. Check out bitfinex.com and start trading pairs there. They have a description under every currency that should help.
  - panarky 9y ago
    It wasn't long ago that crypto prices on Bitfinex were quite a lot higher than other exchanges because you couldn't withdraw national currencies [0]. Are their banking issues all resolved now? Also, if you're domiciled in the US, Bitfinex won't even do business with you [1]. For US customers who what to be legal, Gemini seems pretty solid and verifies new accounts quickly, though they only support Bitcoin and Ethereum [2]. [0] https://www.coindesk.com/spreads-widen-bitcoin-exchanges-amid-bitfinex-banking-issues/ https://www.coindesk.com/spreads-widen-bitcoin-exchanges-ami... [1] https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/216 https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/216 [2] https://gemini.com/ https://gemini.com/
    - tradersam 9y ago
colordrops 9y ago
This is a great breakdown of the history of recent craziness: https://np.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/6rxw7k/informative_btc_vs_bch_articles/ https://np.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/6rxw7k/infor...
lz400 9y ago
For anyone reading this, don't take this comment as gospel, or the comments disagreeing. There are 2 factions, they both generally hate each other and there's an incredible amount of shilling, astroturfing, etc. From both sides. There are also genuine people in both sides. Blockstream, the company that employs some of the current core devs are the devil for some, saviors for others. That "moderator", Theymos, is a knowledgeable and fair guy for some, a petty tyrant and thief for others. If you go to the main subreddits for both factions, they spent most of their time taking digs at the other faction and quoting whoever supports their position, no matter how silly their arguments are. There's very strong groupthink and tribalism and to me it looks dangerously like the_donald or something like that. I don't have a dog in this fight. In fact it's so confusing I don't know which of both factions has a better case. But I'm pretty sure the wild accusations both fling at each other are in many cases heavily based on agendas. Take everything you read with a grain of salt.
AgentME 9y ago
>It's development has been taken over by a group of mentally unstable developers with weird personal agendas and beliefs. Weird personal agendas like thinking SegWit is a good upgrade for Bitcoin? Skip the ad hominem. >It's widely reported elsewhere that their moderator stole millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin from users. Is this about theymos being donated a ton of bitcoins to host and improve some forum software back when they were worth nothing, and then using it for that? People are still on that witchhunt after all these years? https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2mcdb4/thermos_is_spending_100000_worth_of_his_donated/cm32dws/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2mcdb4/thermos_is_... https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/23crla/rtechnology_removing_bitcoin_censorship_losses/cgvvc51/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/23crla/rtechnology... https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/23o0hs/an_rbitcoin_moderator_seems_to_be_a_wellknown/cgz0vp6/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/23o0hs/an_rbitcoin...
statoshi 9y ago
No one can control or take over Bitcoin development. Similarly, there is no official website or subreddit. This system has no authorities.

tradersam 9y ago

> As a long term owner of Bitcoin, I can say this is the absolute worst time to start investing in it. It's development has been taken over by a group of mentally unstable developers with weird personal agendas and beliefs. The official Bitcoin website and subreddit are heavily censored and are no longer a reliable source of information. It's widely reported elsewhere that their moderator stole millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin from users. I don't agree with this. It may be a bad time to start investing, due to the price, but Bitcoin Cash is the corrupted currency in my opinion. Roger and his cronies were spamming the network for months, trying to create demand and when he finally got his big block coin, he wouldn't sell more than a few BTC for it. He's all about the money, along with Bitmain. I concede some core developers (like Luke-jr) are not the greatest, but they've been in control since day one.

RandVal30142 9y ago
>Roger and his cronies were spamming the network for months For fucks sake. Show the "spam," track it to an individual. The blockchain is transparent yet no one has done this. This is what my other comment was about. Named users in the community have been made into horrific caricatures who are the basis for conspiracies no one is able to prove despite the transparency of Bitcoin itself.
- keymone 9y ago
  https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#all https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#all May was the peak of controversy, arguments and discussions about future of scaling bitcoin. core vs unlimited node count, miner support, vendor/merchant support - nobody knew how would things turn out. throughout that time one of main arguments was that blocks were full and mempool (unconfirmed transactions) was gigantic. the moment camps settled on agreeing to disagree - mempool was gone. feel free to continue pretending this all was simply a coincidence.
  - RandVal30142 9y ago
    No seriously, show the transactions you consider to be spam. Classify them in some tangible way, then identify the users behind them. The specific claim was that it was from "Roger Ver and his cronies," not that a mempool backlog exists. Show the transactions you claim to be "spam," and identify the persons behind them. Go do it.
    - keymone 9y ago
      a simple glance on that graph with knowledge of notable events in bitcoin timeline screams that the "omg blocks full mempool gigantic" argument is fishy. i don't really care that i can't convince you without spending hours and hours satisfying your standard of evidence, i have better things to do.
      - RandVal30142 9y ago
        >a simple glance Show the damned transactions. > with knowledge of notable events The claim was very specific, show the damned transactions. >i don't really care that i can't convince you Because you can't show what the "spam" is let alone show who is "spamming."
        tradersam 9y ago
        I can't prove the transactions were Ver's anymore than I can prove some are yours. But as keymone said, the timeline of events is fishy. How come they stop when the block size debate does, or Roger uses them as examples in post after post of why Core needed to be replaced because of this huge backlog. When, you can look at the transactions yourself, most are dust, and they peak when the debate does. I can't prove it, sure. But myself and many others think this because it is logical, and it sounds like there is no changing your mind so we'll stop here.
aedron 9y ago
> In control since day one I don't know much about bitcoin, but I do know that the original people who took over from Satoshi (Gavin Andresen, Mike Hearn) were ousted in rather ugly and public ways a couple of years ago. As far as Roger Ver is concerned, I believe he is also one of the earliest people in the space. EDIT: Come to think of it, the people currently leading bitcoin development originally told Satoshi (on the crypto mailing list) that bitcoin would never work (Greg Maxwell and Adam Back both).

RandVal30142 9y ago

> It's development has been taken over by a group of mentally unstable developers with weird personal agendas and beliefs. They literally want to edit Satoshi's bitcoin whitepaper[1]. One of the supporters of editing the paper is theymos, who runs the censored Reddit sub. I was banned there after reporting a violent user who was urging the torture of Jihan Wu[2] of Bitmain. Violent invective and hate directed towards races & nationalities somehow are not insta-moderated while mundane comments about Bitcoin itself get mod-queued forever? Its out of control there. That lot is not to be trusted. [1] https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-org/bitcoin.org/issues/1325 https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-org/bitcoin.org/issues/1325 [2] http://archive.is/oDdq5 http://archive.is/oDdq5

xor1 9y ago

>There are other cryptocurrencies that deserve attention but I won't mention them here so I don't look like a shill. Shit, I'd appreciate it if you named some. I'm actually planning on putting my entire next paycheck towards crypto. Currently eyeing Neo even though I apparently missed the boat by not buying it when it was called ant.

iDemonix 9y ago
I keep looking at Neo but not sure I've already missed out
- andirk 9y ago
  it's showing a little dip now as of writing, if that's what you wanted.
tradersam 9y ago
Litecoin is extremely undervalued. Ethereum has an incredibly bright future, Monero is an incredible tool for privacy. Check out bitfinex.com and start trading pairs there. They have a description under every currency that should help.
- panarky 9y ago
  It wasn't long ago that crypto prices on Bitfinex were quite a lot higher than other exchanges because you couldn't withdraw national currencies [0]. Are their banking issues all resolved now? Also, if you're domiciled in the US, Bitfinex won't even do business with you [1]. For US customers who what to be legal, Gemini seems pretty solid and verifies new accounts quickly, though they only support Bitcoin and Ethereum [2]. [0] https://www.coindesk.com/spreads-widen-bitcoin-exchanges-amid-bitfinex-banking-issues/ https://www.coindesk.com/spreads-widen-bitcoin-exchanges-ami... [1] https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/216 https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/216 [2] https://gemini.com/ https://gemini.com/
  - tradersam 9y ago

colordrops 9y ago

This is a great breakdown of the history of recent craziness: https://np.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/6rxw7k/informative_btc_vs_bch_articles/ https://np.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/6rxw7k/infor...

lz400 9y ago

For anyone reading this, don't take this comment as gospel, or the comments disagreeing. There are 2 factions, they both generally hate each other and there's an incredible amount of shilling, astroturfing, etc. From both sides. There are also genuine people in both sides. Blockstream, the company that employs some of the current core devs are the devil for some, saviors for others. That "moderator", Theymos, is a knowledgeable and fair guy for some, a petty tyrant and thief for others. If you go to the main subreddits for both factions, they spent most of their time taking digs at the other faction and quoting whoever supports their position, no matter how silly their arguments are. There's very strong groupthink and tribalism and to me it looks dangerously like the_donald or something like that. I don't have a dog in this fight. In fact it's so confusing I don't know which of both factions has a better case. But I'm pretty sure the wild accusations both fling at each other are in many cases heavily based on agendas. Take everything you read with a grain of salt.

AgentME 9y ago

>It's development has been taken over by a group of mentally unstable developers with weird personal agendas and beliefs. Weird personal agendas like thinking SegWit is a good upgrade for Bitcoin? Skip the ad hominem. >It's widely reported elsewhere that their moderator stole millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin from users. Is this about theymos being donated a ton of bitcoins to host and improve some forum software back when they were worth nothing, and then using it for that? People are still on that witchhunt after all these years? https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2mcdb4/thermos_is_spending_100000_worth_of_his_donated/cm32dws/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2mcdb4/thermos_is_... https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/23crla/rtechnology_removing_bitcoin_censorship_losses/cgvvc51/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/23crla/rtechnology... https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/23o0hs/an_rbitcoin_moderator_seems_to_be_a_wellknown/cgz0vp6/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/23o0hs/an_rbitcoin...

statoshi 9y ago

No one can control or take over Bitcoin development. Similarly, there is no official website or subreddit. This system has no authorities.