Yesterday, while everyone was helpfully explaining to me why Bitcoin is broken, obsolete and failing to fulfill it's mission, I ran my monthly payroll.
1/
I have a dozen people on my team, scattered across six countries and four continents. A multinational small business. Many get paid in Bitcoin or Ether.
/2
BTC payroll is batched in a single RBF transaction, sent from Segwit native addresses. I low-ball the fee by 50% usually and wait 30 minutes, then bump it if I need to. Mostly I don't need to.
3/
Yesterday, I paid $1.50 to send my 4 figure USD value payroll transaction and it got confirmed in the 4th block after broadcast. At around 8pm my time, my team got paid in under an hour, all around the world
4/
Some of them are in countries under currency controls and hyperinflation. The Bitcoin they get is a lifeline, because they can't get paid any other way.
/5
So while I was being "schooled" on Twitter about abandoning the unbanked and underbanked, abandoning my principles and following a dead-end path... I ran payroll.
/6
My lived experience and that of the people who work for me, trumps their concern trolling. Those who say it can't be done shouldn't interrupt those currently doing it.
/7
The irony of being told how Bitcoin is failed, dead, useless on the same day it is at all-time high again and the same day I run my monthly payroll is savory and delicious.
Carry on concern trolling. I've got work to do.
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During times of extreme market excitement, the capacity of Bitcoin gets strained. That means that Bitcoin transactions become expensive and slow. Some may even become "stuck". Here's what to do...
1/
First, check and see how congested things are. A great site for this is Johoe's Bitcoin Mempool statistics:
That rising mountain is 6hrs of activity. There are already 30,000 transactions willing to pay more than 50 satoshis per byte
2/
Transaction fees are measured in satoshis per virtual byte (vbyte). Different transaction types have different sizes, depending on the complexity, number of inputs/outputs and address type being spent.
A typical size (one input, two outputs) is about 144 vB.
/3
A lot of people who are into cryptocurrencies will see this FinCen leak as vindication and proof that banks are money launderers.
But, this will be used against cryptocurrencies...
1/
See the correct analysis of this news is that AML/CTF and KYC don't work. They will never work because they try to control the *tool* not the *criminal act*. It's not the money that is illicit, it's the use of that money to commit crimes.
2/
I've talked about this extensively. Not only is the use of money as a crime-control mechanism ineffective, it has terrible consequences that increase poverty for billions by creating economic exclusion. So it's not just useless, it is "Worse than Useless"
3/
This whole "what is ETH supply" thing is a silly gotcha that doesn't make much sense if you understand how Ethereum works. It's no better than the silly gotchas Schiff and Roubini level at bitcoin.
We can do better. Let's look at the details...
1/
First of all a block explorer is a very limited view of any blockchain. These are user-interface tools that abstract important details and translate them for the user's benefit. They each have a point-of-view that is the result of their data collection and analysis methodology
/2
You can easily see how this plays out in Bitcoin too, if you've paid any attention to all the errors in popular blockchain explorers over the years. Take a Bitcoin metric like "current hashrate" and you will find a dozen different answers depending on where you look
/3
It seems like some Twitter API posting service has been compromised and being used to send out fake "giveaway" tweets from popular crypto/blockchain accounts. "CryptoForHealth" is a scam.
No way are all these accounts unprotected by strong passwords and TOTP 2FA
I don't think this is a compromise of Twitter. I think it's another intermediary "social media posting" service that is popular and used by multiple companies. They often have weaker security and limited 2FA options, but full access to the Twitter API granted by the user.
To be clear, no one should be gloating about this and neither am I. No one is immune to attacks and even while I feel I have taken strong precautions to protect my account, I'm watching this with horrified interest, hoping it doesn't happen to me.