/rBitcoin-Template

This is a template I use for providing “customer support” on the r/Bitcoin subreddit. Others may find parts of it useful, so I’m sharing it here. It’s not using Markdown fully, for reasons, sorry.

Creative Commons Zero v1.0 UniversalCC0-1.0

rBitcoin-Template

This is a template I use for providing "customer support" on the r/Bitcoin subreddit. Others may find parts of it useful, so I'm sharing it here. It's not using Markdown fully, for reasons, sorry.

BUY BITCOIN

If you are looking to Buy bitcoin with fiat money, then the methods available will differ based on a few factors:

  • Where are you located (country)?
  • How much are you looking to buy?
  • What payment methods do you have available?
  • How soon do you need access to the proceeds?
  • Is financial privacy important?

First time buyers may like the convenience of an online store that sells bitcoin and accepts debit and/or credit card. I do not know which ones require ID verification/KYC beyond those marked as such. (e.g., Bitsell X [💳] [NO KYC, requires browser extension], CoinCorner [💳] [NO KYC when £900 or less, not available in U.S.], CEX.io, Coinify, Paybis, Jubiter, Bittylicious, BitIreland, Kuna.io Money, LiteBit.eu, Switchere, Conio.com App, CryptoVoucher.io, Cash App and CoinMama [KYC]). You can buy BTC on Cash App without ID but you won't be able to withdraw them until you are KYC verified.

You can purchase online using a [NO KYC] online store, paying by depositing cash in a bank account or through Moneygram/Western Union:

There are physical locations where there are Bitcoin ATMs and other vending/voucher methods. For example, in the U.S. there is:

Otherwise, an in-person cash trade or an online trade using a P2P trading platform may possibly be your next best option:

P2P Trading Platforms

Using gift cards, there is CardCoins for paying with a non-reloadable, prepaid GIFT card (VISA/Mastercard/AMEX/Discover), Redeem, CryptoVoucher.io for paying with gift cards for numerous brands, r/GiftCardExchange, and r/GCTrading).

There's always the friends and family methods. Someone you know probably holds bitcoin and would be willing to help you out by selling to you.

Here's a useful comparison of exchanges in which you can filter on payment method:

And there's this other method to consider. You can have part of (or all of) your earnings converted to bitcoin. BitWage lets nearly anyone who receives pay from their employer via a bank transfer to use some or all of those wages to buy bitcoin.

There are two varieties:

  • where the employer signs up with BitWage to offer to employees partial or full payment in bitcoin, or
  • where the gig worker (e.g. Uber) or employee signs up with BitWage to receive a virtual bank account number from BitWage, and that is the bank account where the employer's bank transfer sends the employee's pay on payday

Along the same lines as BitWage, there are additional wages-to-bitcoin services:

For those paying with EUR or CHF, Bity can be used without Id Verification/KYC (beyond phone number):

For those paying with GBP or EUR/SEPA, Ramp Network can be used without Id Verification/KYC:

Strike app lets you pay bitcoin (to anyone, including yourself) through Lightning network ⚡ with the funds first coming from your bank (in the U.S.):

Great lists of [NO KYC] Exchanges:

With a P2P exchange, you can create a Buy ad and set your own price (e.g., 4% below spot). You are competing with other buyers, so if you want to find a seller you'll have to offer a fair price, but most trades there that happen from a seller taking a BUY offer result in the buyer (i.e., you) paying below spot. That's sometimes referred to as "negative fees'. If you are needing your coins sooner, you can always take a seller's ad, but in that instance you are the one paying the premium, and the seller benefits from "negative fees".

There are [NO KYC] payment methods: In-person cash trade, cash deposited in the seller's bank account, cash-in-the-mail, postal money order, and prepaid gift card. There are sellers on the P2P exchanges who accept these payment methods.

Most of these payment methods will require identity verification / KYC though.

SELL BITCOIN

If you are looking to Sell bitcoin for fiat money, then the methods available will differ based on a few factors:

  • Where are you located (country)?
  • How much are you looking to sell?
  • What methods of payment will you accept?
  • How soon do you need access to the proceeds?
  • Is financial privacy important?

There are various payment methods for P2P trading, such as buyer deposits cash in your bank account, or transfers the funds to your account. Know that there are risks in being defrauded when using bank transactions for Bitcoin trading, but if your buyer has a long and excellent trust history the risks are much lower.

P2P Trading Platforms

Otherwise, with traditional exchanges your options differ vastly based on what country you are in (i.e., what currency you use). And how long to get KYC verified if needed, before you can withdraw your cash, etc.

And finally, some Bitcoin ATMs are not just bitcoin vending services, but also are 2-way, (i.e., dispenses cash):

  • https://coinatmradar.com <-- Some will require Identity verification/KYC, others just a phone number (e.g., CoinFlip ATMs, when $900 or less), or nothing at all

Great list of [NO KYC] Exchanges:

Strike.me is a way to cash out bitcoin into your bank (in the U.S.). It started as a "tipping" app, but since it is bitcoin, you could "tip" yourself in bitcoin on Lightning network ⚡, and those funds are sent right to your bank account (via ACH direct deposit).

PAYPAL:

For buying bitcoin with PayPal, following are some options. Note, there are only a few exchanges that accept PayPal due to it being easily reversed:

  • xCoins.io
  • eToro: You can fund an account on eToro and buy a bitcoin position. But only in some regulatory jurisdictions they do allow you to withdraw those bitcoins. Elsewhere you can only later sell the BTC and withdraw the cash (including trading gains, or minus trading losses).

Sources:

There's also a trick where you do a PayPal Instant withdraw to the Virtual VISA card you get with a Wirex account. That technique is described here:

But you can check, maybe there is a seller on a P2P trading platform willing to do a trade with you:

P2P Trading Platforms

For selling bitcoin for PayPal, following are some options. Note, this is simply a list, not an endorsement.

Source:

Coinbase --> PayPal --> Bank Debit Card:

There are traders on P2P exchanges who will pay you using PayPal. You want to be careful though to select only traders who have a good rating, as after the trade they can reverse their payment.

P2P Trading Platforms

CASH:

Cash by mail -- an underutilized way to buy bitcoin anonymously

Postal Money Order

EXCHANGES:

Here's a useful comparison of mostly fiat-to-crypto exchanges in which you can filter on payment method:

For traders/speculation:

Fees:

Exchange ratings:

INSTANT EXCHANGES:

NO KYC Instant Exchanges

LIGHTNING NETWORK:

Exchanges with support for bitcoin Lightning network ⚡ payments

Payment Processing

Faucets:

Info:

Charts:

Ecosystem:

FEES / CONFIRMATIONS / RBF:

You can find additional information about your transaction, including the fee sat/vByte, here:

Bitcoin transaction fee (estimate)s:

If you are using a wallet that supports replace-by-fee (RBF), and have it enabled before creating your send transaction, you can feel comfortable going on the lower-end of the transaction fee range. If the transaction doesn't confirm soon enough for you, you simply bump the fee using RBF.

Wallets supporting RBF

There's also the fee bumping method known as child-pays-for-parent (CPFP). If you send a transaction and the fee was too low, you can spend the "change" transaction but double up the fee required. This will cause the miners to look at both transactions as a set, and the combined fees should then be high enough to get both confirmed. CPFP also can be done if you are the recipient of the funds.

RBF Charts:

SPEND:

Ready to cash out some $BTC? Spend your bitcoin instead!

Bitcoin Debit Cards:

Coinbase --> PayPal --> Bank Debit Card:

ANONYMOUS/PRIVACY:

Bitcoin Anonymity Guide 2019: How to use BTC like a straight up G

Other articles:

Privacy articles:

Chain Analysis / Explorers:

COINJOIN:

Related:

Wallet local servers:

Banking:

MERCHANT PAYMENT PROCESSING:

Bitcoin payment processing services for online/e-commerce:

For point-of-sale (POS):

Know that bitcoin itself does not work well for retail/point-of-sale. This is because zeroconf (0-conf) bitcoin transactions are not safe. For retail / point-of-sale, the bitcoin Lightning network ⚡ provides instant, non-reversible, and ultra-low cost payments. While LN is used today, it might not yet be ready for widespread retail/p.o.s. usage just yet.

BTCPayServer Integrations (WooCommerce, Drupal Commerce, Magento, Prestashop, and Shopify):

Shopify:

CoinGate:

Blockonomics Payment Forwarding:

Paywall:

Bitpay translators and merchant alternatives directory:

Online markets:

BILL PAY:

Source:

Also:

SCAM OR NO?:

How To Recognize a Crypto Currency Scam

Report being scammed

Cryptocurrency exchange hacks

Ethereum scam

We (as a community) need to do a better job at convincing people to ...

STAY AWAY FROM:

  • BITCOIN.COM
  • BLOCKCHAIN.COM
  • COINBASE
  • BITPAY
  • LOCALBITCOINS

Otherwise, YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BAD TIME

How Blockchain.com harms the cryptocurrency community

Eight reasons the blockchain.com wallet is a bad choice

Blockchain.com Web wallet underpays the recommended feerate for transactions with two outputs. The Blockchain.com iOS wallet overpays on transactions with one output."

Coinbase is not a friend to bitcoin:

LocalBitcoins - Abuse & Silencing Customers:

TAXES:

Every time you sell (or spend) bitcoin, a taxable event occurs:

Most Americans don't even earn enough such that the tax rate on long term capital gains is above 0.0%:

Compliance on reporting of capital gains is horribly low, and the IRS know this -- so they are actively trying to improve the reporting compliance rate:

Bitcoin and U.S. Taxes - Practical Considerations

CoinTracking:

Others exist as well:

WALLETS:

For me the top criteria in choosing a wallet are, in this order:

  1. (tie) Non-custodial. This is because ... Not your keys, not your bitcoin.
  2. (tie) Open source, verifiable release
  3. Replace-by-fee (RBF) support
  4. Coin Control (for maintaining Financial Privacy, but also for child-pays-for-parent (CPFP) fee bumping).

Generally recommended wallets are:

Hardware wallet (highest security): Coldcard, Trezor or BitBox02

Desktop wallet: Electrum, Wasabi

Android wallet: Samourai Wallet, Electrum, Blue Wallet (with Lightning functionality)

iPhone wallet: Blockstream Green, Blue Wallet, or Aqua

Storing bitcoins

Choose your Bitcoin wallet

Best Bitcoin Wallets

Lightning network (⚡) wallets

Bitcoin Hardware Wallet Comparison

Cold storage guides

You could even go 2 of 3 multisig, each being a different hardware wallet type: trezor + ledger + coldcard key:

Multisig

Quest For The Perfect Bitcoin Wallet

FAQ regarding bitcoin seeds. By 6102bitcoin

Seed phrase wiki article:

Types of mnemonic seeds used in bitcoin

Derivation Path

Mnemonic Code Converter

Seed Savior

BTC Recover

Transaction tools (Caution -- you can lose funds using these if you make a mistake)

FULL NODES:

Bitcoin nodes and/or Lightning network nodes on tiny hardware

PAPER WALLETS:

BRAIN WALLET:

You are not clever enough to have created a secret set of words that cannot be broken by today's algorithms, ... because you suck at entropy. Well it's not just you, ... humans suck at it:

If you just want to experiment / play:

ADDRESSES:

SECURITY:

Not your keys, not your bitcoin:

Uptime:

EARN:

One way to acquire Bitcoin is to accept it as means of payment for your products and services. Many methods have no Id verification/KYC.

Freelancing platforms which pay in Bitcoin

Browse this timeline for some additional ideas:

CURRENCY:

If you earn in bitcoin, you will prefer to spend in bitcoin (versus going through the friction of "cashing out" into fiat).

How you could end up with bitcoin even though you didn't buy any

MINING:

First off, how much do you pay for electricity?

At something like ~$24K BTC/USD, the bitcoin miner's equilibrium is about $0.16 per kWh, using an efficient Antminer S17+ and today's difficulty level. This means if you pay more than ~$0.12 per KWh, unplug your ASIC miner and sell it -- it's cheaper to buy bitcoin than operate a bitcoin mining rig. You are competing against professional miners who earn a decent profit by paying just $0.03 to $0.05 per kWH.

And that equilibrium fluctuates based on difficulty and the exchange rate, so don't count on $0.16 equilibrium lasting. It could easily drop to $0.07 or much lower even in the next year.

Beginner mining ...

Pro Bitcoin mining:

Related:

China:

There are two 51% attack approaches. One is meh. The other one can ruin your day.

1.) The Meh 51% attack: Hashrate drops to 90 EH/s and a pool (or cartel of pools) have 46 EH/s (~51% of 90 EH/s) With this 51% majority, they can control the ordering of transactions (of which, ... the ordering of transactions, is the one and only job of the miners -- but normally that is achieved through proof-of-work distributed among the field, none with absolute control of the transaction ordering). This means the cartel can "reject" blocks from any other miners, and those rejected blocks never make it into the chain. Or the cartel can reject blocks that have transactions that the cartel doesn't want to see included. Whatever ... the cartel can include or not include whatever, with full authority. This is Meh because the cartel of pools doesn't own the hashrate. They pay their suppliers (the miners) who point their ASIC hashate to the pool that pays them the best. But a harmful action by a pool (by forming a cartel) would cause those miners to redirect their hashrate to a pool that doesn't participate in the cartel. As a result the hashrate that the cartel has falls below 51% and the their ability to control the transaction ordering is over.

2.) The 51% attack for the purpose of double spending: This is where the hashrate is 90 EH/s, and then some attacker acquires an even larger 91 EH/s (~51% of the combined 181 EH/s) and then mines a private chain fork starting at some block. The rest of the network has no idea that the attacker is waging such an attack ... as blocks are still mined publicly by the 90 EH/s, every 10 minutes or whatever. Then what this attacker does is send a ton of BTC deposits to the exchanges. But on the attacker's private chain fork, those same transactions get double spent, right back to the attacker's own wallet. So on the public chain the deposit transactions confirm, and the attacker can then convert the BTC to ... shitcoins, and withdraws those funds.

As soon as those shitcoin withdrawals confirm, the attacker then releases the privately mined chain fork ... which, because it was mined with 91 EH/s, that chain will overtake the public chain that was mined with just 90 EH/s. That private fork then becomes the longest (i.e., "most work") chain. What happens next is the exchanges become insolvent. The exchanges lost the BTC deposits that had confirmations, but now appear as Invalid (i.e., "double spent"). But the exchanges also lost the shitcoins that the attacker has withdrawn. Oh oh.

The reason this doesn't happen is ... 1.) Where does the attacker find the 91 EH/s of ASIC hardware? Oh, and to run this ASIC hardware, the attacker needs facilities with 8,000 MW of electricity .. which are where? 2.) Where does the attacker find exchanges that are not monitoring for the following condition: Huge BTC deposits suddenly arrive, ... are then sold for shitcoins (even though the prices on the bitcoin drops dramatically due to the heavy selling), and the shitcoins bought are then withdrawn immediately. Of course, many exchanges are watching for this. So even though the gets the bitcoin blockchain to double spend the deposits transactions, ... the exchanges that were paying attention aren't harmed because the shitcoin withdrawal requests were not serviced.

Thus it boils down to that .... there's no economic incentive to perform such a 51% attack (for the purpose of double spending). It requires a huge, huge (multi billion dollar) CapEx investment. It is risky ... gotta successfully trick the exchanges. It is illegal. Can you mine 91 EH/s anonymously? LOL, no. And that's just a fraction of the reasons it won't be successful.

So the takeaway is that ... the risk of a 51% attack (for the purpose of double spending) certainly is something that needs to be monitored, ... but the odds of it happening to bitcoin, are between ~nil and zero. And the market recognizes this. That's why other proof-of-work coins simply don't compare against bitcoin.

For instance, BCash has ~2% of the global SHA-256 ASIC hashrate. A technical 51% attack against BCash could be performed by even a single (very) large mining op. ETC, similarly, has a fraction of the global fleet of GPUs used in mining. A 51% attack against ETC could be performed by a small cartel of large GPU miners. The reason these 51% "for the purpose of double spending" attacks don't occur much is that, as explained above, there really is not much of an economic gain even if successful, ... but there's an even more interesting reason. The SHA-256 miners are more profitable currently if that 2% of hashrate stays mining Bash, for example. If a BCash were 51% attacked and the BCash chain died as a result, that 2 EH/s of hashrate comes over to the BTC pools. Each BTC miner now loses ~2% of their revenue to these miners who arrive after fleeing the BCash carnage. That 2% loss of revenue represents a value greater than the attacker gets even if the 51% attack had been entirely successful. So, there's essentially no upside to attacking even most minority hashrate shitcoins.

And there you have it. The bitcoin hashrate rises and falls along with the price, and bitcoin remains the most secure censorship-resistant digital currency that exists, -- by a very large margin!

Solar:

Solar is a horrible match for bitcoin mining.

Bitcoin mining rigs are high in capex. Thus to get the fastest break-even, you need to mine as close to 24x7x365 as you can.

With solar, you are producing maybe 9 hours in the summer, six in the winter ... more precise numbers vary on geographic area (solar insolation), and weather.

And don't say "but battery storage!". No, bitcoin miners are competing on the cost per kWh they pay (except in a bull market where hashrate hasn't caught up to the increase in price, when even mining in Hawaii's rates could be profitable for mining, for example). Battery storage puts solar out of the range of being competitive,

  • Nuclear and coal are two "base load" generation sources, but they are not cheap nor renewable energy.

  • Hydroelectric is a great baseload renewable generation source, but it may have seasonal fluctuations, or it may have to stop generating completely during a drought. But hydro is very cheap, per kWh generated.

  • Geothermal is a fantastic match as a base load renewable generation source. Capex for geothermal is high to build but opex can be low and the fuel (heat from the earth's core) is essentially unlimited. A big reason there is not more geothermal generation occurring today is that most geothermal fields are far from population centers, and transmitting power over long distances gets expensive due to capex of transmission lines, and line loss that increases as distance from the generation source increases. Bitcoin mining can be sited at the source, eliminating that drawback.

  • Onshore wind could be a good renewable base load source as well when located where there are consistent wind currents and the turbines are tall.

Fortunately, these various renewable sources are among the cheapest methods to produce electricity. So the people worried about bitcoin mining's carbon footprint can rest easy as there's essentially almost no carbon emissions at all using these methods. In fact, these billions and billions of dollars that miners are spending on electricity each year is providing revenues and profits for renewables and for recovery of stranded energy sources -- something that helps everyone.

Other charts - Nodes, SegWit usage, and RBF support:

Price versus difficulty (~Hashrate):

Quantum:

EXPLORERS:

Chain Analysis:

Visualization:

PRICE:

Sources for Bitcoin price

Portfolio:

Charts:

Sentiment:

INVESTING:

Dollar Cost Averaging. The answer to the question “Is now a good time to buy Bitcoin?”

LENDING:

Platforms Where You Can Earn Interest By Lending Your Crypto

Blockfi discussion

Pathways for DeFi on Bitcoin

STABLECOINS:

ROUND UP services:

As always, do your own due diligence, as I know nothing about any of them -- and scammers continue to scam. For example, if they do buy crypto with your "round up" funds, make sure you periodically withdraw that crypto that was bought, rather than letting it sit on that "investment" site.

Automated Trading

IRA / 401K:

The following can all incur very high risk:

DERIVATIVES:

LEVERAGE:

"Invest":

There are a number of ways you can lose some or all of your bitcoins.

  • 1.) Buy altcoins
  • 2.) Buy IEOs / ICOs / STOs / Utility tokens
  • 3.) Buy bitcoins or altcoins and then lend them out for "interest".
  • 4.) Leave your bitcoins on an exchange, rather than move them to your own wallet.
  • 5.) Cloud mining.
  • 6.) Trading $BTC using technical analysis / market timing.
  • 7.) Send $BTC to the bitcoin address in (fake) Elon Musk's tweet where he promises to send back 10X as much.
  • 8.) Etc., etc., etc.

There's a million ways to lose your bitcoins .... it really just depends on how many you have, how many you wish to lose, and how fast you want that to happen.

Simulators:

OTC:

Bitcoin / Crypto OTC Trading Desks

HALVING:

Previous halvings were significant because the drops in the bitcoin supply inflation annual rate went from ~25% to ~12% in the first halving, then ~8.3% to ~4.2% on the second halving. The third halving saw the drop go from ~3.7% to ~1.8% on an annual basis. The next halving will put it well under 1% on an annual basis.

What is halving?

Countdown:

Issuance:

Controlled supply:

Stock-to-flow:

COINBASE:

Are you using a U2F device on your coinbase account?

No? Hmm... did you know you that starting right this very moment, and completed before you are done reading this comment reply, a hacker could do a SIM porting attack, and steal all your funds from Coinbase (yes, even your USD ... by buying bitcoin with it and withdrawing the BTC)?

You would only know about it because the next time you go to use your phone you'll notice it has stopped working.

Yes, ... it's that easy for the thieves.

And that's not the only risk for your BTC even if Coinbase is an honest, competent exchange.

When you "link" your bank account on Coinbase, ... a data harvesting company called Plaid (which is now owned by Visa) rifles through the last couple years of your bank transaction history. (This is not unique to Coinbase. I see BitSTAMP, Gemini, Abra, RobinHood, River, GiveBitcoin, Strike, Cash App, and Paxos do this as well.)

"To link your bank account, we require your bank account login name and password." NEVER AGAIN

[Update: I've been informed Coinbase provides an opt-out method where you choose Other Bank and then just verify the amounts of two deposits they send to you.]

GOVERNMENT:

The government banning bitcoin

Could Donald Trump Ban Bitcoin?

The Constitution Protects Software Developers and Users from Surveillance Overreach

After Executive Order 6102:

And here's how they do it again.

"It takes just one phone call and Coinbase's 1.2M BTC becomes property of the U.S. Treasury"

"Sir, this is a national security issue, didn't you hear Mnuchin last week?"

So who cares what the government does, my keys are on my computer

INHERITANCE:

RESOURCES:

SECURITY:

Tips for local transactions

GIFTING:

The reason gifting of bitcoin isn't easier is because "gifts" are considered "bearer instruments" and thus are targeted by the regulators. We had the most fantastic social giving service, Bottle Pay, until it had to shutter at the end of 2019, due to upcoming AML regulations (AMLD5, specifically). With it you could send to your friend via Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Twitch, Youtube, etc. It was easy and awesome. But it is no longer.

FORKS:

Geographic-specific:

NY Bitlicense'd exchanges:

Canadian physical locations and vouchers:

Physical stores and Trading Spaces

  • Yap.cx (💵) Montreal, Quebec, Canada
  • Coin Nerds (💵) Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

Vouchers (retail)

UK physical locations and vouchers:

Physical stores and Trading Spaces

Vouchers (retail)

Singapore:

Source:

List of Physical Stores where you can Buy or Sell bitcoin

TELEGRAM:

Nearly all Telegram DMs (direct messages) that start out with "Hi", "Hello" or "How are you", etc., ... end up being a complete waste of my time. Therefore, I have instituted a new policy.

If you would like for me to chat with you, please pay §50 sats (an amount of bitcoin worth about one U.S. penny). If at the end of our conversation I feel you did not waste my time (or try to get me to invest in something), I will return your 100 sats to you. My Lightning network ⚡ invoice follows: