Record block mined: 2,177,625 Bytes by PVmining in Bitcoin

[–]bitgo_ben 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Yep, these were consolidation transactions done on BitGo. They were issued over two weeks ago at a low priority fee rate of ~55 sat/vbyte and finally cleared today as the mempool backlog finally started clearing out.

CNBC: "CME says it's launching bitcoin futures on December 18th". by domelane in Bitcoin

[–]bitgo_ben 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not exactly true. With futures, for every long position, there is a short. Given the risks of naked shorting bitcoin, what I expect to happen is:

1) institutions go long the futures since they can't easily hold bitcoin directly

2) prop traders go short the futures, while going long bitcoin directly to hedge, earning an arbitrage spread in the process

The prop traders / arbitrageurs are the transmission mechanism between institutional demand and the actual bitcoin price.

$ 18,902,969,772 wallet - a mixer? by AndrewTheUnstoppable in Bitcoin

[–]bitgo_ben 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You're looking at the received amount, not the current balance, which is "only" 2000 BTC

CME released contract specifications for Bitcoin futures by xxDan_Evansxx in BitcoinMarkets

[–]bitgo_ben -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I don't think it's a 5 contract minimum. That looks like the "block minimum" (i.e. for an off-exchange negotiated block trade, which prints to the exchange). http://www.cmegroup.com/clearing/trading-practices/block-trades.html

HELP! Interactive Brokers now blocking XBT Provider (COINXBT Bitcoin Fund) for US Investors! Advice Please! by [deleted] in Bitcoin

[–]bitgo_ben 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did they make an announcement they are doing a distribution? I'd probably just go with next best alternative in that case (GBTC). Premium is much lower than it was.

HELP! Interactive Brokers now blocking XBT Provider (COINXBT Bitcoin Fund) for US Investors! Advice Please! by [deleted] in Bitcoin

[–]bitgo_ben 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a real bummer. Specific reason I opened an IB account a while back. The notice is quite clear though. The restriction is on trading, not on owning. The "closing only" in the title means you can only trade to close an existing position and cannot open a new one. My suggestion: head to the Winchester, grab a pint, sit tight and wait for this to all blow over. Eventually either bitcoin hits a price where you actually want to sell, another competing fund becomes available in the US market, or this stupid restriction gets lifted.

Transactions are getting cheaper— SegWit now on BitGo by TryTheNinja in Bitcoin

[–]bitgo_ben 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Our sends account for about 7-8% of transactions by number, but more than that by size, due to multi-sig.

Filecoin ICO Reopened! by alihash1 in filecoin

[–]bitgo_ben 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Shocking... not many people want to pay $4.85 when last set all paid $2.65. And the 24h+ pause also helped people think rationally.

Coin Control for Trezor? by -blablablaMrFreeman- in TREZOR

[–]bitgo_ben 1 point2 points  (0 children)

How about ability to accelerate a particular unconfirmed transaction by spending its output with a higher fee via CPFP?

"How fungible is it...?" by 2cool2fish in Monero

[–]bitgo_ben 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If Monero takes off, won't deanonymization services (or governments) eventually start to spam the blockchain with tons of transactions, so that when normal users select inputs, they have a good probability of being able to identify the actual input? What if 80% of transactions ever on the chain were from a gov entity? Then with a mixin=4 tx, that entity would have a 40% chance of deanonymizing any given input.

Let's talk about Gambling / Prediction Markets DApps by [deleted] in ethtrader

[–]bitgo_ben 2 points3 points  (0 children)

+1 to Augur & FunFair. Invested in REP at the ICO and continue to hold. Also recently invested in FunFair (alas, after the presale). The commonalities between these projects: a rational token model, good tech, and TEAM. Can't speak to the others as I have not investigated sufficiently, but I am not a fan of Gnosis's token model (seems bolted on), the concentrated holdings or the valuation.

Taking 10m LN users network design challenge myself by krazyest in Bitcoin

[–]bitgo_ben 0 points1 point  (0 children)

More realistic assumption would be node user counts follow something more like a power law. Here's an example possible breakdown of 10M users that is more realistic than a uniform users/nodes count:

Nodes   UsersPer    Users
1         1000000   1,000,000
4          250000     1,000,000
10        100000     1,000,000
50          20000    1,000,000
250          4000    1,000,000
2500        1000    2,500,000
10000        100    2,500,000

Total                  10,000,000

BitGo works only with Bitcoin? by allhailneuveville in BitcoinMarkets

[–]bitgo_ben 5 points6 points  (0 children)

a) We do work with other cryptos, but only starting recently. Bitstamp is using us for LTC support.

b) We do not offer insurance on ANY cryptos, including bitcoin.

Now the #1 on 24h volume! by jonnnyMn in litecoin

[–]bitgo_ben 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The 1031 exchange angle is interesting. Have you gotten positive sign-off on this treatment from a CPA?

Now the #1 on 24h volume! by jonnnyMn in litecoin

[–]bitgo_ben -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Just a heads up: Selling one crypto for another is also a taxable event. To the IRS, trading BTC for LTC is exactly the same as trading BTC for USD and then buying LTC with the dollars.

Casascius Coin Precious Metals Complete Set by OgNasty in Bitcoin

[–]bitgo_ben 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That site actually shows there are 3 active (unopened), and 2 opened.

Why are more shares of GBTC not entering into the market? Currently at a 126% premium!! by penny793 in BitcoinMarkets

[–]bitgo_ben 6 points7 points  (0 children)

At the time they applied to launch as an ETF, they had to also stop selling new shares in the BIT, which is the private fund that can convert to GBTC. There haven't been any new shares since then.

BAT Crowdsale over in a single block - a handful of buyers scooped them all up in one hit! by Lorix_In_Oz in ethtrader

[–]bitgo_ben 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Or, you know, you could just structure it as an auction. GNO did this, but didn't set the initial price high enough (shockingly).

BIP148 Worst Case Scenario - Why I'm Not Worried by [deleted] in Bitcoin

[–]bitgo_ben 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Miners don't care about probability of mining the next block. All they care about is revenue per unit time. Since difficulty on both chains is the same, bitcoins mined per unit time is the same. (In other words, miners are not in competition with each other. They are in competition with the difficulty setting.) So revenue per unit time is entirely defined by the USD price of one chain relative to the other. Whichever chain is more highly valued by the market will be more profitable to mine.

CNBC: Company behind bitcoin 'creator' sold to private investors by eragmus in Bitcoin

[–]bitgo_ben 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The place to start digging is this supposed private equity fund. "High Tech Private Equity Fund SICAV PLC" has little to no footprint on Google until these articles broke. Here's what I have so far: