Crypto Currency Thread

[tertius]

x5x3 said:

I'm intrigued just how dominant Channel Hubs will become. Its a simple concept, setup a LN node, create a channel to each major supplier (e.g. Costa/Amazon/BP/Tesco/etc) and then sit back and take a small fee for connecting consumers.

You’ll need to fund each channel so potentially a significant sum will be tied up.

I’ve been through every document on LN I can find and it’s still not clear to me how channels / routes across channels are found.

[x5x3]

tertius said:

You’ll need to fund each channel so potentially a significant sum will be tied up.

Indeed - but it is earning fees so that should not be too much of an issue. In some ways it is similar to the proposals for POS on the Ethereum chain.

tertius said:

I’ve been through every document on LN I can find and it’s still not clear to me how channels / routes across channels are found.

This is from their GitHub repo - "Performing path finding within the network, passively forwarding incoming payments" - I'll try to find the specific functions if I have time later. Remember that like BTC itself it is a gossip protocol so nodes talk to each other to share information - including their open channels.

[tertius]

x5x3 said:

tertius said:

You’ll need to fund each channel so potentially a significant sum will be tied up.

Indeed - but it is earning fees so that should not be too much of an issue. In some ways it is similar to the proposals for POS on the Ethereum chain.

Yes, indeed, not suggesting it isn't worthwhile, just poining out it isn't free

x5x3 said:

tertius said:

I’ve been through every document on LN I can find and it’s still not clear to me how channels / routes across channels are found.

This is from their GitHub repo - "Performing path finding within the network, passively forwarding incoming payments" - I'll try to find the specific functions if I have time later. Remember that like BTC itself it is a gossip protocol so nodes talk to each other to share information - including their open channels.

Definitely interested to see what you find. It's that knowing about A channel is one thing, knowing how they form a useful route seems to me to be quite another.

[HannsG]

Seriously tempted to drop a sizeable sum into NEO.

I just can't stomach $150 a coin, although there maybe significant upside still..

[x5x3]

tertius said:

Definitely interested to see what you find. It's that knowing about A channel is one thing, knowing how they form a useful route seems to me to be quite another.

Their GitHub main page has some good general information and links.

I've had a browse through the code and there is a function findPath which has the following comment;

// findPath attempts to find a path from the source node within the
// ChannelGraph to the target node that's capable of supporting a payment of
// `amt` value. The current approach implemented is modified version of
// Dijkstra's algorithm to find a single shortest path between the source node
// and the destination. The distance metric used for edges is related to the
// time-lock+fee costs along a particular edge. If a path is found, this
// function returns a slice of ChannelHop structs which encoded the chosen path
// from the target to the source.

For those of you not completely familiar with Dijkstra's algorithm - it is explained here.

This is why I love open source - it is all there, we can all read it and we can also all comment and raise issues if we find them.

Edited by x5x3 on Sunday 21st January 11:45

[Vyse]

How does lbc counter charge back/reversal of payment?

CzechItOut said:

Let me introduce you to LocalBitCoins, where people offer to buy your bitcoin by depositing cash over the counter, directly into your bank account.

[anonymous-user]

Vyse said:

held in escrow, no reversal as you have to have money or btc on your account. You agree to release them. if they don't release in certain time , transaction is cancelled.

Edited by The Spruce goose on Sunday 21st January 11:49

[x5x3]

The Spruce goose said:

held in escrow, no reversal as you have to have money or btc on your account. You agree to release them. if they don't release in certain time , transaction is cancelled.

Edited by The Spruce goose on Sunday 21st January 11:49

he means for example if I sell a BTC on localbitcoins, Mr X buys it, he sends cash to my Bank Account, I release the BTC - Mr X now has the BTC, then Mr X tries to do a charge back/reversal of payment.

There is nothing on localbitcoins to prevent that happening.

[anonymous-user]

x5x3 said:

he means for example if I sell a BTC on localbitcoins, Mr X buys it, he sends cash to my Bank Account, I release the BTC - Mr X now has the BTC, then Mr X tries to do a charge back/reversal of payment.

There is nothing on localbitcoins to prevent that happening.

you can't reverse a bank account transfer, got nothing to do with localbitcoins.

'The UK Payments Council, which handles bank payments, has this advice: “We would like to warn people about making purchases online using internet or telephone transfers. Treat them like cash'

the concatenations are no claw back.

[fishseller]

HannsG said:

So the French and Germans want to regulate Crypto it in the words of idiotic journos ban it?

Banning is not same as regulation. Till this day USD is the best currency for illegal trades as any cryptocurrency is trackable. And to buy it you have to use bank account. And i doubt anyone in sane mind would go to bank to deposit illrgal cash in large amounts. All news can try to scare off people from cryptos but more and more will join the network. And it may soon create banks only as secondary institution for money transactions.

You can Buy Bitcoin using ATMs in London Drug dealers favorite apparently


Decentralization is key when it comes to determining how much control a government entity truly has. Because you can transfer cryptocurrencies peer-to-peer, even when governments try to crack down on exchanges and crypto investments people will still find ways to trade with each other. It will be very expensive to annihilate cryptocurrencies (if not impossible). People will still be able to send and receive money in the form of cryptocurrencies, and they will find a way to obfuscate their transactions. Of course, this may not be legal to do, especially if the country you live in has some laws that prevent you from trading crypto, but it is reminiscent of the days when businesses tried to ban the BitTorrent protocol.

Meanwhile Johnson wants to build a fking bridge. The world has much bigger issues that crypto. Seriously why is it even a topic..

[Vyse]

There was a reddit post a few days back (cant find thread).

The buyer sent the payment, the seller saw the money in his account, crucially the amount showed the money but had actually cleared. Seller released the coins and buyer somehow managed to cancel the payment. Seller lost £1000. I assume once its cleared there can be no way back?

The Spruce goose said:

you can't reverse a bank account transfer, got nothing to do with localbitcoins.

'The UK Payments Council, which handles bank payments, has this advice: “We would like to warn people about making purchases online using internet or telephone transfers. Treat them like cash'

the concatenations are no claw back.

[anonymous-user]

Vyse said:

only fraud could do it, which is a risk, just trade with established ones to reduce this. The reversals i've seen are paypal or netteller.

[Behemoth]

The Spruce goose said:

only fraud could do it, which is a risk, just trade with established ones to reduce this. The reversals i've seen are paypal or netteller.

Exactly this. Look for high ratings, just as you would on fleabay.

[CzechItOut]

Vyse said:

There was a reddit post a few days back (cant find thread).

The buyer sent the payment, the seller saw the money in his account, crucially the amount showed the money but had actually cleared. Seller released the coins and buyer somehow managed to cancel the payment. Seller lost £1000. I assume once its cleared there can be no way back?

Faster Payments cannot be reversed, however credit card or PayPal can. On Localbitcoins, buyers offer a variety of payments. Personally, I wouldn't want a stranger who wants to buy bitcoin for "cash" either depositing or transferring money directly into my bank account, as this is a recipe for inadvertently getting caught up in money laundering and I wouldn't trust PayPal or card payments which can be reserved.

[Behemoth]

CzechItOut said:

Personally, I wouldn't want a stranger who wants to buy bitcoin for "cash" either depositing or transferring money directly into my bank account, as this is a recipe for inadvertently getting caught up in money laundering

You may trigger AML from your bank if unusual sums appear on your account, but if you're just carrying on with your normal volume/value of activity and buy/sell with a long term highly trusted individual, nothing should trigger. You can also demand sales only to people that use a real name & fully verify. You would only then have a problem if you were actually trying to launder your own money. By using a service which buys/sells an asset with a third party trusted entity, what wrong have you committed that will get you into trouble with AML?

The risk levels associated with various tx methods are well explained in localbitcoin's FAQs https://localbitcoins.com/guides/how-to-sell-bitco...

btw, a similar escrow P2P service is https://bitbargain.co.uk/ . They've been around a (relatively for Bitcoin) long time & is where I first bought BTC. Sellers on there have to do a lot of verification and even have to pass a seller's exam.

[HannsG]

Anyone in NEO here? Seems to be on a bull run and bucking the trend of other cryptos in terms of performance across past few months.

[anonymous-user]

So what is causing the current drop? Hats off to anyone who is making money out of this craziness.

[varsas]

Joey Deacon said:

So what is causing the current drop? Hats off to anyone who is making money out of this craziness.

Without really knowing anything...I think it's because the recovery from the low last weak wasn't very strong. Then we had a dip about 16:00 yesterday and, again, no really strong recovery....it then traded sideways for a while, people got nervous or could see it wasn't going up fast any time soon so they sold.

If this goes below $925 (it's already broken £1,000) we're in for a very rocky ride over the next few days...to be honest it doesn't look great even if it stays where it is ($970 at time of writing)

ETA Don't even know why I look at the price, I'm not selling any time soon!

[stongle]

Trying to pick a reason is like playing pin the tail on the donkey with blind 4 year olds.

Looked like a false breakout over the weekend. The support line for BTC looked like 8800 and we never tested that. I think this will be a very whippy week, especially as there is another futures expiry this week.

Fed Shut down, more bad news (FUD) coming out of Korea / India (well yesterday), could be driving market down today. I think the real risk to crypto isn’t going to be a ban but the impact of enhanced AML / KYC (this could really take the wind out the sails of new money inflow).

I’ve taken profits this morning. Trying not to over trade and looking at the px constantly (thru the night) was driving me nuts. I’m holding a 100 EOS and that’s it. My 6 week profit was around 33% of stake (or I exited with 133% of my original after fees etc etc) - although I made a poor (additional) ETH buy at top of the market which added drag.

I have a target PX to come back in to the market….

Edited by stongle on Monday 22 January 14:01

[trickywoo]

Joey Deacon said:

So what is causing the current drop?

If you could rationally explain the past dramatic rises you'd have a chance of explaining the current drop.

Boils down to the old cliché of greed and fear IMO.