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Bitcoin Blog a1

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Nyan Parlement

I meant to write about this when it was news, but often times, I’m pretty slow at releasing content. Speaking of which, I am looking for guest contributors.

But about a year ago, I officially became a founding member of the Nyancoin Parlement. The parliament is an interesting system and is like a mix of a corporate board of directors and a legislative government body. The fundamental principle behind the Nyancoin Parlement is one coin is one vote. Nyan coin are used to give electing power to those in office. A coin can only be used to endorse one candidate at a time. One of the issues was if Coinaday should be the “Dictator pro tem” of the Parlement.

So if I wanted to vote Yes (which I did), I could use my 100,000 coin endorsement and vote on it. But if someone else is endorsed with more coins, they will overall have more sway than me. Overall whichever receives the most votes (in the form of coin endorsements) wins.

As far as I can tell, this seems to be the only system of its kind. But I haven’t conducted an exclusive search by any means.

There recently has been some activity in the Nyancoin Parlement, and perhaps some new exciting news will be forthcoming. Then again, it might take a while for me to write about it.

Monday, February 26, 2018

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Don't put money into what you don't understand


Part of the mission of this blog is to point out scams. Sometimes I suspect scams and don’t say enough. Here is another potentially dangerous site I am looking into. Buying mining somewhere else is a risky proposition, so be careful. The site does offer free mining, so maybe you can investigate it with me.

Here is an older story that I didn’t get around to publishing. ( Ref1, 2, 3)
What happened is this guy bought a ledger Nano, and included in the box was a piece of paper with additional setup instructions. This piece of paper was not from the manufacturer, it was included by the reseller. The buyer followed the directions which enabled the seller to steal all of the buyer’s Bitcoin.
Long story short, know what you are getting into. I don’t use a standalone hardware wallet, as it doesn’t solve one of the simplest problems with a physical wallet, it can get lost or stolen. Sure, you can save your key on a physical piece of paper, but if your home has a problem like a fire, this will not help you.

Here is another unrelated scam. Bitcoin is becoming mainstream enough that scams are also becoming more mainstream. Some of these scams are obvious even if the subject was USD rather than a cryptocurrency. For example, on reddit someone was claiming to host a giveaway where you give them .5 ltc and then they will give 10 ltc back to you. This scam is clear in USD as well. Some scams are more sophisticated. Like in the paragraph above. It's not obvious why using the private key contained in the Nano ledge box is a bad idea unless you are familiar with Cryptocurrency.

In short, don’t put money in things you don’t understand!




Monday, February 19, 2018

Robinhood


Hey, a short update post. Crypto adoption is getting mainstream more and more every day. Lots of non crypto people have been coming out as crypto people:

Tai Lopez (you can see some of his show here)
Amir Blumefield (you can hear on his podcast If I Were You)
Robinhood will now enable you to invest in Crypto! That's exciting. For those of you who don't know, Robinhood is an app that lets you invest in stocks with no brokerage fees! Normally a trade costs at least 5 dollars, but not with Robinhood! Check it out here.


Also, a short note, the Reddit alternative, Emeopled, is now offline. They promised btc for every user, but it looks like that didn’t pan out. I don’t think they ever made a profit, or even revenue, as I don’t think I ever saw ads on the platform.

Sunday, February 11, 2018

ICOs are dumb.



For a little context, an ICO is an initial coin offering. In essence, it is selling equity or ownership in a company. It is similar to an IPO, initial public offering, but with some major differences. There is mountains of paperwork and regulation that goes into an IPO. Some firms specialize in working with companies seeking to go public and help them meet the requirement ( I even worked at one of these). Some of the minimal requirements is audited financials, finding an underwriter ( like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, etc) , registration with the SEC and many others.

I mean, in some ways undercutting underwriters is cool, but at the same time, underwriters and other parties in the IPO process have an important role. In my opinion, the auditors play a huge role. Now, as an auditor, I’m probably a little biased. But with an ICO there is no guarantee what you are getting into. There are not required financial statements, let alone audited ones, as anyone can offer an ICO. In addition, there is not assurance the ICO is even in compliance with the law.

When auditors give an opinion on an IPO, it is a huge deal. Normally a party needs to be privy to sue. But in the case of an IPO if there is a material misstatement, anyone who experienced a loss can sue.

ICO also have be totally ridiculous. This has to be the craziest one I have ever seen. Literally they are advertising flying cars.

Speaking of which, here is a referral link to an ICO

In the past, I haven’t had much benefit from this, I tried signing up at Wcex.

But as far as I can tell, it didn’t work. The website doesn’t remember the account I made with them.

And don't forget. There with btc price dropping, now is the time to get involved!