Sex drugs and Bitcoin

[Nirish guy]

Yes Christian good reminder not to be so easily fooled by beggars. Same as the guy who crawls up and down Silom at night on his chest, dragging himself along. Although I've heard both stories one that he's a fake and gets up and goes to a car later in the evening and the other that he's genuine, I'm not sure which.

But either way I think just for deciding to "work" at dragging himself along through the shitty dirty streets of Silom, complete with rats aplenty everywhere and people tripping over him the guy definitely earns his money no matter whether he's genuinely disabled or not !

[cdnmatt]

What makes you so sure?

I assume that all electrical/digital/cashless payment methods can fail at any time (either a technical failure or on purpose by government or criminals

No, because there is no single point of failure within the bitcoin network. The processing network is distributed across tens of thousands of computers / servers across the world.

The only real worry is that it's not backed by a government, hence isn't considered legal tender anywhere. The only reason bitcoin currently has value is because people have decided it has value. It's not backed by any land, natural resources, military, and so on though. That's bitcoin's largest vulnerability.

It's certainly easier faking being blind than faking missing a limb. Although even that is not unheard (or unseen?) of:

Don't even start. Yes, I'm actually blind. I'm sure Joe will be able to come to that conclusion on his own.

[Nirish guy]

Serious question Matt - so from the little I know ( almost nothing) about Bitcoin I think I read that you ( anyone) stores their bitcoin in a basically a online folder ( wallet) but for security reasons the smart thing to do is to save the separately offline on say a portable hard drive etc. So, does one then have an online bitcoin "account" with a user name and password etc, where you then log on, connect that hard drive and buy or trade your bitcoin then ? Is that roughly how that works ? And if so, my question then, what if that off line stand alone hard drive that you saved your bitcoin too juts simply fails ( as hard drives are known to do from time to time) - do you / can you have a back up copy or is there some form or written down numbers somewhere that you would print off in case of such an emergency that would allow you still to trade and ensure you haven't lost all your bitcoin etc ??

[joe552]

Thanks NIrish, I almost understood that post. Actually, I understood more than I need to but it's an interesting question.

[arsenal]

Bitcoin is one of two subjects I regularly try to fully understand but can't. The other is Chinese history from 1937 to 1949. Simply too complex.

[cdnmatt]

@NIrish -- If you're thinking of getting into bitcoin, by no means use an online web wallet. Download for example Electrum, and create your own wallet. Electrum will give you a private key that looks something like:

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xprv9uLTx27spgZJdqXogmUiHUm4XgWFxcc2zRki9A9aWur8vB 5hj3micsEd4VvJM4G3jsGPMRbi9HGJHs5mXE6crtGd25xGDP28 XjyuXjS96YD
------

Think of that as basically the PIN code to your bank card. That's all you need, and you will always have full access to your funds. However, it's your responsibility to keep it secure and protected, as if you lose it, there is no bank to call. You just simply lose the money.

As long as you keep that private key, then that money is probably far more secure than in a traditional bank account. Nobody can touch it -- not any bank, government, nothing. It's yours.

[Nirish guy]

@NIrish -- If you're thinking of getting into bitcoin

Im not, I was merely enquiring out of interest to hear how that worked thanks

[cdnmatt]

Thinking about it, where did the thief known as bruce_nyc go? I miss him telling me how wrong I am about bitcoin, and how everyone should trust their money with AirBitz.

[frequent]

Thinking about it, where did the thief known as bruce_nyc go?.

Did the memory loss accompany the blindness? As I recall Surfcrest banned him for promoting his own, rival, forum here

[bobsaigon2]

Thinking about it, where did the thief known as bruce_nyc go? I miss him telling me how wrong I am about bitcoin, and how everyone should trust their money with AirBitz.

His "poly-amorous" relations with men in New York were laughable. When he tried to replicate that in Thailand, it was positively inhumane, as he attracted and then discarded several young men before planning to bring a Burmese youth to the US as his fiance. For the boy's sake I hope that never happened. I'm sure the required marriage within 90 days of arrival in the US would never have materialized and the youth would be left floundering with no legal means to remain in America. Hopefully, bruce is now spending his time as a fugitive of some sort.