~snip~
And amazingly, out of this five options, and out of the over 700 people that voted, the majority, at 32 percent said they store their bitcoin on exchanges...
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So, I kind of find it amazing that, with the whole campaign of NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR CRYPTO, bitcoin investors still trust centralized exchanges enough to hold their bitcoins in there, forgetting all the previous incidents where an exchange gets hacked, and investors lose all their funds..

Do you know why people store their cryptocurrencies where they bought them? Some for the reason that they think that it is a crypto-bank and that they are safe there, and some others because everything else is too complicated for them. However, if 1/3 of the owners are wrong, it is much better than 5+ years ago when that percentage was very likely above 50%, which means that the situation is improving.

I ask you the same question, where do you store your bitcoin?

Anywhere I have full control over my private keys, because any other option is completely unacceptable. Larger amounts simply must be in hardware wallets or even better airgapped wallets, and everything else in hot wallets on devices that are not at risk of malicious programs. This would mean that it would be ideal to have a computer/smartphone that is used only for cryptocurrencies, recommended with Linux OS as a far better alternative to Windows OS.

It would have been good if we can see a comparison between the amount of crypto used for illicit activities versus the amount of fiat used for the same purpose. I guess the amount for cryptocurrencies would be smaller if compared to the amount of USD used in illicit activities and not to talk of other fiat or countries.

A few years ago (I can't remember exactly), a good friend of ours from another forum (Leo) wrote somewhere that even less than 1% of all illegal transactions were in cryptocurrencies, and it seems to me that this percentage is still very small (definitely less than 5%). When we think about it, it can't be different considering that the number of people who are in some way involved in cryptocurrencies is less than 5% (globally), and most of them use cryptocurrencies exclusively as an investment, not as a currency.

The reasons for the decrease could be because some bad actors which used crypto for illicit activities are getting known and revealed. Cryptocurrencies is not as anonymous as people thought it is, therefore having fiat as their preferences. Or because the bull run is not yet significant enough.

Except perhaps the so-called "private coins", everything else is very easy to follow, and those who thought differently when they did bad things with their cryptocurrencies were often unpleasantly surprised.

Quote from: Lucius on February 15, 2024, 05:45:23 PM

In the last month or two, I have noticed an increase in the number of new services that offer Visa cards without KYC (albeit virtual) that can be loaded with quite solid amounts ($1000).

That's surprising, I remember 7 years ago you could find visas without KYC with limits even higher than that but it seems that they have tightened up and in recent years it was impossible to find cards without ridiculous limits, like $50. Do you care to elaborate? Or tell us where you found it?

Times have changed since then, and it is possible that some card issuers actually misused the Visa logo, as was the case with the scammers from the Centra project. However, as I already wrote, these are virtual cards that have one major drawback, which is that you cannot get cash with them (they do not work at ATMs), but they are mainly used for online payments or you can even add them to Google/Apple wallet and pay in physical stores.

There are several topics on BTT with such services, but I am not sure that I can post such links here. Check under Marketplace -> Service Announcements/Service Discussion.

Of course they will continue to survive in some way. Above all, because many users who use Yobit are new and see Yobit as an easy way to earn something. They have been accused of being scammers for years, but for example at BTT they still have a signature campaign, or at least they had one not long ago.

There is no campaign of theirs on BTT and it has been for years, the admin banned them completely due to the unbearable amount of spam created by their users. Their first campaign in which I participated was during 2016/17, and after that there was a new campaign that lasted during 2019 and ended at the beginning of 2020.

I don't know if you have read the entire thread, but if you have you will have been able to see my experience (and that of many other users) a few years ago, it is for these reasons that I can never recommend Yobit to anyone.

Of course I read it, and I'm also not one of those who would recommend someone to go there to trade because over the years I've seen dozens of accusations against them that have never been resolved. I just shared my personal experience with participation in the signature campaign and with earning from referrals, and I had no problems with that.

~snip~
CZ goes to jail for example, BNB is going to take a serious hit the moment the news hit the markets.
Just for the sake of an example, not that I wish it, the same happens if Buterin is involved in an accident.

You are very likely right, although CZ is no longer formally in charge, so that fact in synergy with the army of followers of his character and work may keep the whole thing on the surface. No matter how you look at it, his CEX is still one of the most popular among the masses.

However, the truth is that all these projects have risks in their owners, and Satoshi was intelligent enough to understand that, and that is why Bitcoin has become the cryptocurrency that most people trust today. If memory serves me, Vitalik announced a few years ago that he would step down from his position, but that did not happen.

@Jokers, is there any warning for those who want to make a post in an old topic? I know that there is a warning on BTT, if I'm not mistaken, if no one has made a post in the topic for 120 days - but even that sometimes doesn't help that someone doesn't decide to bring up old topics for completely unjustified reasons.

They say "never say never", but I don't think that will happen for a very long time (if it ever does). Gold has been present among people for thousands of years and most people have the perception that it is really valuable, and they have great confidence in it. In addition, gold has many applications in today's society, whether it is jewelry, gold bars or coins, it is used in the production of IT components and for decoration in the confectionery industry.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is a relatively new thing, and given that it exists only in digital form, it mainly attracts the younger population who mostly perceive it as a way to get rich quickly and some kind of magical internet money.

Also, most politicians and influential people in the world have a very bad or slightly less bad opinion about Bitcoin, which affects a lot of people who fall under their influence. In my opinion, this is a serious obstacle for Bitcoin to become something common, because most people still blindly listen to what they are told every day.

I also think that it is completely wrong to say that Bitcoin is some kind of digital gold and that it was invented by those who want to turn Bitcoin into what it really is not. Bitcoin was conceived as a decentralized cryptocurrency, but unfortunately they turned it into something completely different.