Tag: #ADDRESS

20 Security Rules for bitcoin

Questions & Answers Chapter

20 Rules for Security in bitcoin

Here’s a short list of common sense Rules, to use and implement for a better Security while using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

In the hopes that they are quite self-explanatory Rules, please do try for your own good and your assets, to follow them…

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask in the comments.

  1. Keep your private keys safe and secure, and never share them with anyone.
  2. Use a hardware wallet to store your bitcoins offline and away from potential hackers.
  3. Use a strong and unique password for your wallet and any exchange account.
  4. Be wary of phishing attempts and never click on links from unknown sources.
  5. Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) whenever possible to secure your accounts.
  6. Use a different password for each account and change them frequently.
  7. Avoid using public Wi-Fi networks for sensitive transactions.
  8. Keep your computer and mobile devices secure with updated antivirus and anti-malware software.
  9. Use a separate address for each transaction, and avoid reusing addresses.
  10. Verify the authenticity of any website or service you use for Bitcoin transactions.
  11. Use a reputable and secure Bitcoin exchange or wallet service.
  12. Use a hardware token or other secure means of 2FA, avoid using SMS.
  13. Be mindful of social engineering and do not reveal personal information to unknown parties
  14. Use a unique email address and phone number for every exchange account.
  15. Keep a copy of your private key, Seed Phrase or wallet recovery phrase in a safe place.
  16. Be skeptical of unsolicited offers, promotions or services.
  17. Learn about the security features of your wallet and use them.
  18. Do not leave your funds on exchange for long time.
  19. Educate yourself about the risks of using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
  20. Regularly monitor your accounts and transactions for suspicious activity.
With 🧡

Running bitcoin – Hal Finney

Wonder In Peace Bright Mind

Join Honorary Chair Fran Finney and the Running Bitcoin Challenge Committee as we honor legendary cypher punk, Hal Finney.

This is THE EVENT that combines Hal Finney’s love of running and Bitcoin and is raising funds and awareness to help defeat ALS, which ultimately claimed his life in 2014.

You are challenged to run (or walk, roll, or hike) the equivalent of a half marathon — cumulatively or all at once — by the end of January 10, 2023.

From wherever you are, spread the word about Bitcoin, participate in a healthy activity, feel good about doing your part to defeat ALS, and start the year off right

Hal Finney, one of the earliest bitcoin contributors, died eight years ago from complications of nervous system disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

His spouse, Fran Finney, is now organizing a half marathon to raise funds for ALS research via bitcoin.

The “Running Bitcoin Challenge” is set to take place between Jan. 1 and Jan. 10. The timing of the occasion leads up to the anniversary of Hal Finney’s “Running bitcoin” tweet, in which Finney famously disclosed he was deploying a Bitcoin node.

There is no set location — participants can choose to join anywhere they wish. Players are encouraged to either run, walk, roll or hike the equivalent of a half marathon (Hal’s favorite distance) either in one go or over the entire 10-day period.

Donors contributing at least $100 will receive an official shirt with the half marathon’s logo, while the event’s top 25 fundraisers will get a Hal Finney collectible signed by his wife.

As of Wednesday morning, the event has already managed to secure nearly $10,000 in bitcoin donations.

An advocate of cryptography and digital privacy, Finney was the recipient of the first-ever bitcoin transfer from the network’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

The bitcoin community often suspected Finney was Nakamoto, a claim he consistently denied. He reportedly found out about his condition in 2009 and decided to move away from the project.

Hal’s name is high in the Bitcoin pantheon as one of the first people to voice support for Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention and for being the first person to receive a Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi.

He was, for a time, considered one of the top contenders on the list of potential Satoshis himself (many in blockchain who reject Dr. Craig Wright’s statements still falsely believe Finney to be Bitcoin’s real creator).

Hal, who referred to himself as a “cypherpunk,” was a cryptographic activist who went from developing video games to working on the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) project in the 1990s. He described his PGP work as “dedicated to the goal of making Big Brother obsolete.”

PGP creator Phil Zimmerman hired Hal as his first employee when PGP became PGP Corporation in the early 2000s. He described Hal as a “gregarious man” who loved skiing and long-distance running.

Despite gradual paralysis that eventually forced him to stop working, Hal continued to code software and follow the Bitcoin project.

Almost as famous as his 2009 tweet is his “Bitcoin and me” post on BitcoinTalk.org in March 2013, the last he’d ever make.

It’s a long post, and Hal was “essentially paralyzed” at the time, using an eye tracker to type. Forum stats show the post has been read over 278,000 times.

“When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away,” he wrote. “I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test.

I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them.”

Hal himself always denied being Satoshi Nakamoto, adding later that he’d sold most of the Bitcoins he mined (at pre-2014 prices) to pay for his treatments. He also mentioned putting some in a safe deposit box for his children.

“And, of course, the price gyrations of bitcoins are entertaining to me.

I have skin in the game.

But I came by my bitcoins through luck, with little credit to me.

I lived through the crash of 2011.

So I’ve seen it before.

Easy come, easy go.”

Hal Finney
www.runningbitcoin.us
Admiration and great Respect
With 🧡

Bitcoin’s Store of Value

To any intelligent observer, it has been apparent that bitcoin’s primary use has emerged to be store of value/investment.

Yes, bitcoin’s decentralized/permissionless solution to creating an immutable cryptographically secured database brings a vast array of different potential revolutionary applications not seen since the advent of the internet but again, the primary use has emerged to be store of value/investment.

bitcoin has been so good at this store of value thing that it has become detrimentally  successful – enter the (well-funded) hacks and puppets…attacks from the outside and from within – some of which via spread of (FUD) tangent ideas with coders, media, investors, and within bitcoin community to maybe start an idea of even ‘slight’ change.

First, please realize no other tool in modern-day finance has been so successful at being an effective savings mechanism which unlike traditional ‘savings accounts’ this bitcoin actually keeps up in value for you to be able to afford higher cost of rent, education, healthcare, vacations, etc. (due to its beautiful combination of scarcity, a ceiling of 21mill coins, immutable, permissionless->not controlled/influenced, secure, and being established/developed).

This effective savings tool of bitcoin is made accessible to the 99% of us and cuts to the core of exposing the flaw of the central bank fiat system with its funny-money creation out of thin air paper/credit-currencies benefiting the privileged institutions and then last to benefit would be the rest of us.

It can also expose flaws of fraudulent funneling of extra paper-currencies created by central banks…now think, even those privy to any fraudulent funneling of funny-money will see what’s going on and understand something like bitcoin as an alternative being effectively immune to these games that even these bad-actors themselves would buy bitcoin! Bitcoin changes the paradigm of central-bank funny-money (Bitcoin is the anti-funny-money warrior: open & mechanism)….and it has taken off….and will catch the attention of the central banks who by definition, have nearly unlimited systemic resources and influence (think governments, telecoms ISP providers, hardware/chip manufacturers, software developers, search engines, exchange conartists).

Even if a hard-fork doesn’t happen anytime in the next couple of years, it’s the threat that an attack on this pure beautiful store of value system to something even slightly different that can actually gain a noticeable percentage raises the question…is it possible that someday that the groups influencing bitcoin (those controlling mining or those involved with coding development, or the rest buy/transacting in bitcoin) would (either out of ignorance/misunderstanding or out of vested-interest to undermine bitcoin) start demanding (even slight) changes that may contradict the store-of-value that bitcoin is???

That is the big question that if the answer starts looking like yes…then value would plummet as bitcoin no longer be seen as a store of value but would eventually turn into another app coin (i.e. Ethereum) that can do many amazing things but not the one store-value amazing thing that it has done these past few years. the price would be zero-bound (compared to what we’ve been accustomed to with bitcoin today).

If the answer to that question is no (that you reading this, this community, software coders, mining operators, investors, everyday folk, work to stay educated on the above and act to keep the integrity of this bitcoin system)…then even a $50 billion market cap would still be seen as trivial in the financial assets arena where one bitcoin can easily go above $5,000 USD. But really, as the years pack on and integrity remains intact, the price would be infinity-bound. 

First Time/Small Miner

First time/Small miner reference
for getting started.

If you want to start mining here is what you need… and what you need to know.

This is written for home miners/small farms, but can be used as a guideline for most operations. Use this as a reference for what you need to research, or what questions you need to ask before jumping in.

What you need to mine can be broken down into the following categories:

  • Hardware
  • Electricity
  • Location
  • Internet connection
  • Information

Mining BITCOIN is done exclusively with dedicated BITCOIN mining hardware based on ASICs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrated_circuit .

You CAN NOT meaningfully mine bitcoin today with CPU, GPU or even FPGAs. Bitcoin difficulty adapts to match the amount of mining done on the network and has reached levels trillions of times too high to mine meaningfully with PCs, laptops, tablets, phones, webpages, javascript, GPUs, and even generalised SHA hardware.

Even if you combined all the computers in the world, including all known supercomputer, you would not even approach 0.1% of the bitcoin hashrate today.

There isn’t any point attempting to mine bitcoin with CPU or GPU even in the interests of learning as it shares almost nothing with how bitcoin is mined with ASICs and will not teach you anything.

Hardware

Asic Miner:

Here is a list of the companies currently manufacturing Miners for public purchase.

Each one has their Pro’s and Con’s it is up to you to do your research and decide what is best for you.

A few points to consider while researching are :

  • efficiency
  • reliability
  • warranty period/policy
  • power draw

Each company has a different way of handling warranty repairs, depending on your situation and the policy repairs can become cost prohibitive. I will touch more on efficiency and power draw in the electricity section.

• Current list of competitive hardware

Power supply: You will need to purchase a power supply to run your miners. You will find ATX and Server grade PSU’s, the latter being preferred for mining BTC. 

When it comes to selecting a PSU purchase something with a capacity 25% higher than your miner is rated to draw. This will have you operating within the 80% rule.(explained further in the electricity section)

EX. Miner draws 1000 PSU should be able to provide 1250W.

** Many current generation miners are now being manufactured with Integrated PSU. Again do your research to see if your unit comes with or without. Generally you will still need to source a power cable.**

Auxilliaries – Avalon miners require an external controller, 1 per 20 miners. You may have to run additional fans for intake and exhaust depending on your location.

PSU’s can be purchased large enough to run 2 Miners; or the opposite 1 Miner fed by 2 PSU’s. Ensure the PSU you have selected will have the correct amount of PCI-E connectors required to operate your miner(s)

You can also find a large supply of used miners and PSU’s. Again it’s up to you to do your research as these often are a no return transaction.

Electricity

Follow all local codes and regulations

This is the number 1 factor in whether mining is right for you. As discussed with Miners being a 24/7 machine drawing power those costs will make it cost prohibitive for some people to mine. You need to be aware of what your costs/kWh are and run the numbers.

This will be done in a profitability calculator. This is just an example of 1 there are many out there.

( Miner usage in kW ) * ( Hours run per day ) 24 * ( Cost/kWh ) = Cost per Day to Operate

( Ideally less than the FIAT value of BTC mined )

The second part to the electrical requirements of mining is the available service; written for North America.

You will need to figure out the amperage you can spare, what circuits and receptacles you have in place, are you setting up on 220V or 110V. You will need to make sure that you have the right cord end for your PSU to match the receptacle, picking the wrong one can cost you a few days of mining if it has to be shipped.

If you can try and set up on a 220V circuit for 2 reasons :

– You will pull half the amps, and it is more efficient.

– Doing so requires 2 breaker spaces in your panel. Breaker sizing will depend on how many miners you plan to run. Here is the formula for calculating amps.

Watts / Voltage = Amps

Here is where you will bring the 80% rule back into play by sizing the continuous miner load to 80% of the breaker rating. 12 Amps on a 15 Amp breaker, 16 Amps max on a 20 Amp breaker, 24 Amps on a 30 amp breaker.

If/when you increase the amount of miners you are running you may want to look into PDU’s, as opposed to more receptacles. 

Location

This is something that is often overlooked to the headache and frustration of many would be miners. These machines are loud and hot .
You essentially have an electric heater that also uses an industrial fan to keep it from melting itself. This space will need to have the electrical requirements as discussed previously.

So make sure you have a space that is well ventilated with a plan to exhaust heat, and bring in fresh dust free air. I say this as using AC to cool the room will eat into your profits and may even make mining unprofitable.

The noise issue is a consideration you can sort out depending on whats available. (garage, basement, remote building)

Both of these issues can be handled with hosting, which is further explained in the information section.

Internet connection

Some miner setups have the option to use wifi. It is advisable to use a wired connection where available. This will provide a more stable connection and ensure you are submitting the expected amount of shares which is directly related to your payouts.

Please note that mining uses a negligible amount of bandwidth, and will not affect your other internet usage.

Information

You can use this information in this post as a good baseline to get you going. In addition to this you will want to research network difficulty; this readjusts every 2016 blocks to maintain a 10 minute block time on average. While this can go down it generally increases.

Solo or Pool?

You can solo mine but this is essentially a lottery even as a large scale miner. Should you chose this you can check this out as a starting point.

solo.ckpool.org 1% fee solo mining USA/DE 250 blocks solved!

Odds are most of you will join a pool. I will only say that it is in your best interest to mine at a pool that pays transaction fees (miner rewards). Then you will want to consider the fees associated with the pool.

When it comes to these pools you want them to be large enough that they are getting at least 1 block every Difficulty adjustment period. Larger pools will offer smaller rewards paid out more frequently, and vice versa.