PC

bitbat45

I’ve done this with electrum many times before. It is a hot wallet at that point but as long as your PC isn’t compromised you should be fine. Start with a small transaction if you have that option. Make a small test wallet and try to sweep it as practice.

nugymmer

That is the question. This is about protecting those who already have it all. If it were truly 100% fair, BTC would only be mineable with a PC, much like Monero is only really mineable with a PC, so in all honesty, BTC isn't all that fair at its current stage. So none of this bullshit surprises me anyway. BTC hasn't been truly fair since 2011 when ASICs started ramping up the hashrate. The fewer ASICs and the more powerful ASICs there are, the less decentralised BTC will be. If you have a few giant miners who are mining all of the BTC, and no one else can reasonably mine it, then you have a problem.

EggMedical3514

Exactly.  I have 2 different hardware wallets and both of them are empty as we speak.  Then I have a watch only wallet on my PC that I use in case I need to generate addresses to receive crypto.  I only load up the hardware wallets if I need to send or spend.

BaldBear_13

Do not post any pics or specific info to anybody, not even lawyers. What you need is to figure out where to input this info. If you mentioned bitcoin to lawyers, say you could not gain access to it. A lot of bitcoiners are paranoid, so it is possible that he buried the "keys" so deep that you will not be able to get them. You cannot use his usual ID info (name/birthday/SSN) to gain access to most types of "bitcoin accounts". Look at his devices: cell phones, PC's, dedicated hardware. If you can get into devices, look for wallet apps like people mention here, or browser exchanges. If you find wallet apps, look up youtube tutorials on specific app, then use it to check balance. You can then keep money where they are, or set up your own wallet account. Look at his notes looking for 12/24-word phrase or any passwords. if you find them, do not share with anybody. Instead, use them to set in your own wallet app to gain access. He also might have apps or browser logins on exchanges, and exchange account can hold both bitcoin or real money. And you might be able to gain access using his ID info.

hitlicks4aliving

Man got hit by the infostealer. It happened to me too but I had no wallets or creds on the PC because I just took it out the box lmao.

Big-Finding2976

You only ever enter it on the Ledger device, not in the Ledger app on your PC. That's the whole point of having a hardware wallet.

procabiak

GPU mining isn't done for Bitcoin anymore. People made algorithms to auto-mine GPU-based shitcoins with the highest dollar value and then auto sell it for Bitcoin. They exist only because people from the past still dream about a GPU-based holy algorithm that "can't be ASIC'd" (no such thing) and are willing to pay for it. Even with that, most of the time they're still not profitable. You'll always make a loss long term unless you get free electricity or want your PC to become a room heater. (suprisingly effective for a small room lol, but probably not good for you or your PC parts).

Flash-Ranger

For a gaming PC with an RTX 4070, you’re typically sitting around 120-150 watts when tuned for mining. Run that 24/7 and you land around 90–110 kWh per month. At $0.15/kWh, that’s roughly $13–$17 in electricity. Revenue-wise, newer GPUs are more efficient but not dramatically more profitable. You’re usually looking at something like $12-$30/month before electricity depending on the coin and market. So same story as before: best case a few dollars profit, most of the time hovering around break-even, sometimes slightly negative. The efficiency gain mostly just reduces your loss, it doesn’t suddenly make it a good business. For a gaming laptop with something like an RTX 5070 Ti, the numbers look worse in practice. Power draw might sit lower, around 90–120 watts, so maybe $10-$13/month in electricity. But laptop GPUs are power-limited and thermally constrained, so your hashrate is also lower and less stable. You’re probably pulling in something like $8–$20/month before electricity. That means you’re often at break-even at best, with a higher chance of losing money. The bigger issue with the laptop isn’t just profit, it’s degradation. You’re running a compact system at sustained load 24/7, which accelerates heat-related wear on the GPU, battery, and cooling system. Unlike a desktop, you don’t have much thermal headroom or easy part replacement. You’re trading long-term hardware lifespan for a few dollars a month. Net result: the RTX 4070 desktop setup is marginal and situational depending on electricity cost. The RTX 5070 Ti laptop setup is structurally worse and leans toward not worth it even before factoring in wear.

mokahless

>I thought BTC mining paid out 50 BTC [...] The fractional BTC wasn’t until mining pools came Pools started in 2010 and were the norm in 2011/2012. Everything about my comment assumes a pool. >when the hash rates went up and difficulty levels rendered PC CPU mining obsolete and GPU I've already responded to a variant of this in your original post: >"not meaningful" CPU mining in 2011/2012 would probably have net at least 0.1BTC after a while or 0.01 after a bit. Not worth it for anyone back then of course, but worth looking back on now . >and dedicated ASIC mining machines were needed later on. ASIC didn't immediately invalidate FPGAs or GPUs. It was a process as the difficulty slowly rose as more and more units came online. So same thing with the CPU to GPU transition. >The powerful mining pools would win the award and distribute the 50 BTC among the pool participants, therefore fractional BTC Satoshis. This, is indeed how a pool works. What's your point?

Dr-Mumm-Rah

Groceries, gas, McDonald's value menu, PC chips, Netflix prices and healthcare, all on day-fucking-one.

Blockchainauditor

Can you hook your phone to your PC and access the files from there?

ByWillAlone

So from 2012, wallets may or may not have been generated deterministically. Some were, some weren't. Deterministic means you can regenerate the wallet from a seed phrase. Nondeterministic means you need the actual generated wallet file plus the encryption key (basically, a password). I just went through a wallet recovery exercise myself with a pre-2016 wallet and was successful but I had the wallet file plus encryption password. As much as people love to hate on AI, I will say that Chat GPT was extremely helpful at guiding me through it so that I didn't risk getting scammed by requesting help from others. Assuming you don't have a seed phrase or words, you must get the wallet file off of that device. How broken is the screen? Since it's android, you can connect USB to a PC and use ADB tools to access the root file system and archive the entire contents of device storage to your PC to carry out the forensics of finding the wallet file but you would need to authorize the adv connection request on the physical device first.

No_Artichoke_5670

Both. It just means someone mining by themselves without joining a mining pool. Could be running a single miner, or could have a warehouse full of them. It's basically like playing the lottery. Highly unlikely that anyone mining on their desktop PC would hit. Probably someone with a few miners in their home.

EpicCrypto

Kiddo? I'm betting I'm no kiddo. By "not needing to prove anything" your showing you want the easy way out. This day in age you need to prove you can do something for someone to be ok with you doing that thing, such as me fixing a computer, no one is just going to give me their PC unless I can prove I know what in doing.

juan003

I thought BTC mining paid out 50 BTC approximately every 10 minutes back then before the first halving. So approximately 6 lucky nodes per hour or 144 lucky early adopters per day with a 50 BTC payout each! One lucky node solving that hash gets 50 BTC every 10 minutes for mining and processing transactions for the blockchain. The fractional BTC wasn’t until mining pools came about when the hash rates went up and difficulty levels rendered PC CPU mining obsolete and GPU and dedicated ASIC mining machines were needed later on. The powerful mining pools would win the award and distribute the 50 BTC among the pool participants, therefore fractional BTC Satoshis.

Defiant_Leg_6335

Non capisco il tuo problema. Se hai un vecchio PC ancora funzionante cosa c’è di più semplice di collegarlo ed accenderlo per cercare il file contenente il wallet? Già oggi la protezione con password non è obbligatoria, figuriamoci all’epoca. Strano comunque che un tizio abbia minato Bitcoin relativamente così poco tempo fa e ne abbia un ricordo così offuscato, nonostante fosse gamer e si dilettasse in hacking. Se fossi stato io avrei ricordato tutto perfettamente.

One-Cardiologist-462

Connect the HDD to a PC via a USB caddy, and search for a ".dat" file. This is the same extension my wallet files use from the bitcoin node. Copy it to the local PC nd try opening them in the bitcoin node. If they were from years ago, then you won't have to sync for long to see the balance appear. I hope you find a nice surprise :)

ReadingTheSign23

There isn’t really a single “number one” wallet, it’s more about what tradeoffs you’re okay with. Hot wallets like Trust are convenient but always online, while cold wallets keep your keys offline which is why people push them for bigger amounts. For non KYC, most self custody options already fit that since you control the keys. Hardware wallets are popular because they isolate your private keys from your phone or PC, but you still need to manage your seed phrase properly or it defeats the whole point. If you’re holding a decent amount and planning long term, moving at least a portion to cold storage makes sense. If it’s smaller or you need frequent access, a hot wallet is fine. A lot of people just split between both so they’re not putting everything in one place.

Leithm

From  a smart  contracts perspective  UTXO’s  are  much safer because blind signing (the cause of most big protocol hacks) are not possible as the tx’s are  committed within the contract and miner validated like any normal payments.  You don’t have to trawl through contract code  looking for  vulnerabilities. Pruning has been around on BTC for a decade but no one used it because there was no  need,  removing the  storage bottleneck.   Compact blocks, Xthinner and Graphene removed the network speed bottleneck, leaving the signature validation processing bottleneck.   The BU  team were running 256mb blocks single threaded on a normal desktop  PC many years  ago.  Bog standard desktop PC’s  have many cores and Libbitcoin proved the advantages of parallelisation long ago.    

Leithm

<5 tps UTXO protcols can easily process 10's of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of tx's per second. The Bitcoin Unlimited team were running 256 mb blocks on standard PC hardware many years ago, Tht's before you get into welll parallelised code like Libitcoin. With open source hardware 1m Tps is easy.

SeaTurtleLionBird

Okay, so. This is a tough one but I have a pHd in Computer. You're going to want to retrieve the PC, from the attic (remember this, it's important an important step). After you get this computer from the attic (remember, not the basement). You will want to plug it in and then, carefully, press the ON button. You need to press the ON button, very crucial. From here, stick your dick in the CD-ROM drive. Don't bother opening the disc tray, just jam it in there over and over again.

splinket69

I get that this is probably a common post on this sub so apologies for that. If the second part of your comment means you don't believe me, I'm a 33 year old man and don't care for internet clout whatsoever. I'm just here for advice dude. I think taking the hard drive into my local PC repair shop fella would be a dangerous thing to do so I'm asking random strangers on the internet instead.

PradaFrate

Yes, you can bruteforce the code on a PC, but don’t reset the phone with some other methods to login.

TheScientistVampire

Check his old laptops / PC or look for seed phrases physically written down somewhere

Upstairs-Spray3024

Mined 2 bitcoins in a few days on my basic gaming PC, and just wiped the drive when Windows needed to be reinstalled. They were worth like $8 and I didn't care to lose them, it was just a neat experiment.

kajunkennyg

I would check his laptop or home PC and try to get into some of his emails then look for accounts at exchanges, also see if he has a ledger or trezor laying around. To get access to any of his exchange accounts you will need the death certificate. Also, if he has a will check that for instructions. Most OG's have dead man switches or trust setup to handle these things.

Darkorder81

Did he use a laptop/PC I would start checking there first.

crunchyeyeball

Which wallet were you using? If hardware, which make/model? and do you still have it? If software, which one? and do you still have the PC/phone it was installed on? If you have neither the wallet *or* the seed, I'm afraid you have no chance of recovery.

disruptioncoin

Is it silly that I want a PGP app for it? Just for typing messages on an airgapped device, and then using the same device to encrypt the message before transferring it to a networked device using QR codes, like the Q does with signed bitcoin transactions. I have an OnlyKey Duo which makes it easy to encrypt messages while keeping my PGP keys on a non-networked (open source) device, but I still have to plug it in to my phone/PC, and of course the unencrypted message starts off on my networked device to begin with. I know I could use a second laptop but I feel like such a device could fill a certain niche..

MinimalGravitas

In that case your memory has failed you, Ethereum didn't get 'hacked'. An application built on top of it (The DAO) was exploited. If a PC game you are playing gets exploited you wouldn't say that your operating system got hacked, right?

pezdal

It is good of you to warn others with your story, though. I’ll remember it the next time I’m tempted to move my entire life savings onto an offshore gambling site. How did the third party benefit from making bets on your account? (In any investigation you have to follow the money). Have you forensically analyzed your computers for backdoors, viruses, remote control software, etc.? If it were me I’d get a pro to do a complete archive of your PC’s storage, digitally sign it, and store it offsite. Next I would analyze the shit out of it. logs of your activity, sign in times, network connections… Build a chronology. Scream and yell till Stake helps (unless they stole your money). Fellow Canadian Drake promoted the site, I’m told. Maybe he wants to help?

PhiNeurOZOMu68

Pay off enough debt to be manageable during unemployment. Buy solar to offset energy, then use the energy savings to buy into BTC monthly. buy a new PC, node, and home miner

Lazy_Intentions

The odds of you hitting a solo block reward on a personal PC in your lifetime is near 0. Not 0 but approaching it. Calculus would actually probably call it 0

Objective-Choice6518

Create a fresh wallet then use your PC to transfer from the older wallet to the new one

crunchyeyeball

A USB drive and a hardware wallet may sometimes *look* similar, but they are designed for polar opposite purposes: * A USB drive is designed such that data is *easily* accessible to a PC. * A hardware wallet is designed such that sensitive data is *never* accessible to a PC (the keys).

I-always-argue

A friend of mine became rich by mining with his PC only using a single 6970 GPU

FriendsMade_MeDoIt

Honestly, at this point most of the coins worth mining need specialized rigs or GPUs, so trying to make real profit on a normal laptop or PC is pretty tough. A few people still play around with stuff like Monero, but even that usually barely covers electricity unless you have some crazy low-cost setup. Might be more fun to just experiment for learning rather than expecting big returns.

binary_quasar

As somebody who has solar and has tried mining, it very likely isn't worth it. Yes, if you want to mine and actually make a profit, you need specialized equipment built for mining. Technically, you can mine some lesser known coins (remember Ravencoin anybody?) With a regular PC, but it almost always is a hobby thing and not a profit generation thing.

riscten

Honestly when it comes to crypto-related stuff, I don't even trust the store-bound apps as a lot of them end up being malicious despite the review process, especially those with few downloads. Plus, there's an argument to be made about nothing bare-metal being required for a price-tracker. A native app means it only works on one platform, while a Web app works on all platforms. When the app is good, it's nice when it works on your Android phone, iPad and desktop PC without having to wait for the dev to port it, if they ever do. And in this case OP clearly knows how to build Web apps, so there's no excuse outside of "I wanted to learn Kotlin".

i_have_chosen_a_name

How would they know? It's all anonymous. Nothing is stopping Trump from betting that the US is going to attack Iran, and then attacking Iran. Other then that Trump is a moron who couldn't find the on/off switch on a PC even if you offer him a 13 year old virgin that looks like his daughter as a reward for doing so.

leonm0161

So first off, let me answer your question specifically focussing in Scalable Capital as I have been using it myself for years now with 50k+ Investments: When Searching for "Bitcoin" click on "Kaufen". It will then give you 4 options to choose from: - CoinShares Physical Bitcoin - Bitwise Physical Bitcoin - Invesco Physical Bitcoin - 21Shares Bitcoin ETP BEFORE choosing one, you can click on "Crypto ETPs vergleichen". It will show you the costs per year (TER) and if it's free of tax after one year/Einkommenssteuerpflichtig before one year (langfristig) or if capital gains tax is applied/Kapitalertragsteuer+Soli+Kirchensteuer (kurzfristig) Now there are multiple reasons why I heavily advise against buying bitcoin via Scalable: 1. High spread / worse price (big difference) 2. The TER is high & is a permanent cost 3. You cannot send any coins as they are custodial. If the company holding your coins was to act evil (check our FTX crash) you lose everything. NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR COINS 4. Scalable is focussed on stocks & ETFs, their crypto offer generally is just a nice-to-have service Instead, I recommend creating a savings plan on Coinfinity which I use to buy bitcoins myself. The advantages: 1. No spread 2. Transparent costs (scalable earns most of the money through the worse spread if gives you) 3. They don't try to play with your emotions with displaying no chart to avoid repeated buying/selling out of greed or fear (Hin- und Her macht Taschen leer!) 4. You create your own hot wallet within the app (carefully write down all 24 words on paper if you do) 5. You can automatically invest by setting up a Dauerauftrag & can even make them send your coins to your personal cold wallet automatically or just buy anytime. 6. You support a German company which focuses exclusively on Bitcoin. That way you support other bitcoin holders which will also contribute to a higher Bitcoin price Now if you found this comment useful, feel free to use my personal referral code for Coinfinity: BR6PC2QK This will not only reduce your fees for 6 months but also 21% of your fees which would usually go to Coinfinity go to me instead. With this referral I am obviously biased, so please do your own research. In the Bitcoin community we say (Don't trust, verify!)

anymonero

Oh, yeah, I figured it out. But it's really unintuitive. You have to double tap on the border with no indication that it is tappable. I just think that kind of UI works best on touchscreens, if I'm on PC I'm coding with a keyboard.

ThreeTonChonker

Ok so if BTC was using GPUs instead of ASICs you think that’s better? It’s not. Proof: the current PC gaming market. Consumers can still buy ASICs. BTC is useful just like any store of value that can be used as currency is useful. How’s gold looking to you? The charts show it was sideways for 20 years until the bull run of the past couple years and now it’s likely to crash back to the average and continue going sideways. It’s a pain to store. It needs climate control. Unless it’s pure gold (which most is not), it will tarnish. It takes up a lot of space. It’s heavy. When the price of gold surges (like this recent bull run), companies switch to other conductors instead of using gold for industrial or commercial uses. The reality is when it’s put in your phone or electronics it’s mixed with a dozen other metals to the point where it would be impossible to call it gold anymore or extract any value from it. The supply of gold is increasing. China just found the world’s biggest gold vein. We know we will be mining it off asteroids sooner than later. We can make gold in a lab but it’s currently inefficient and not worth the effort. How about the fact that if you trade gold as a stock, the exchange isn’t required to hold any physical gold? So the entire market for gold is just paper and vibes. BTC doesn’t have any of these problems. Your main issue is that you don’t like the value being assigned to it because you feel like you missed the boat. You will make up reasons to dislike it now that I’ve shown you that it’s a superior store of value. In the past, you’d be called a Luddite. On the internet, you get upvoted by your fellow Luddites so you all feel less bad for not realizing what I’ve just explained to you a decade ago when the price was more within reach. But it’s still early. You could just admit you were wrong and jump in now instead of convincing yourself you know best despite all the evidence to the contrary.

This_Discussion126

You know what's even more sad, I was there, at the beginning, you could mine thousands of bitcoins just with your PC, but I couldn't be bothered as it was only worth pennies.

vattenj

In 2013 there was very few storage method for bitcoin, most possibly that is a file called wallet.dat in core software directories. You just take out HDD from that laptop and connect it to another offline PC to search for this file. When you get the file, download and install a PC version of core software, and replace the wallet.dat file with the one you found, but most possibly the file would be password protected, and you need that password in place to open that wallet

No-Research8107

Surely Satoshi used a desktop PC

MatteVat25

I btc sono sulla chain. NON sono nel laptop. Se hai le chiavi private o le 12 parole, le metti in un qualsiasi PC, con un qualsiasi software wallet e dovresti accedere ai tuoi fondi. Se questo non funziona di sicuro non peggiora la situazione.

TheresNoSecondBest

Jade is made by Blockstream. Bcash scammers hate Blockstream because they don't make devices for their dying fork. I would expect these 1 star ratings from these people. Or it's because people use Jade with the Blockstream Oracle system and it IMHO isn't great idea. Get the JadePlus and use it stateless, as a temporary signer. Use Bluewallet or Sparrow on PC as a watch only wallet and keep your keys air-gapped all the time.

MaleficentPapaya4768

I was day trading bitcoin when it was in the $80-120 (dollars, not $k) range per coin, pushing trades of 5-10 BTC a dozen times a week or more. Finally got out of the trading game, set up a mining rig on an old PC, and eventually got all my bitcoin stolen in the Mt Gox hack. Life moves on. 🙃

decentralised_cash

**IF** you know what you are doing, you can also set up an air-gapped Linux PC for wallet-generation, but this is significantly more work and more error-prone than using a hardware wallet. Remember: there's nothing "magical" about a hardware wallet - it's just a device that runs a very well-known algorithm **offline**.

IllllIIlIllIllllIlll

I never understood people who think this way. I have spent Bitcoin when it was at $1000, I paid for a lobster restaurant dinner, I paid for a VPN subscription, I paid for PC parts, and I don't regret it because I initially bought when it was $400. Oh no, my money "only" doubled before I spent it. Oh no, I "lost" so much money! I'm still paying through my nose! It makes zero sense to accumulate wealth forever, at some point you have to use at least some of this wealth otherwise what's even the fucking point? Do you want it written on your tombstone: "this person accumulated 10 BTC and never spent a single satoshi"?

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AcostaJA

Try Coinomi wallet installed at an offline device, it have been sometimes more successful than btcrecovery FOR CERTAIN OLD SEEDS, also electrum itself as was the oldest wallet to implement 12 seed recovery. ALWAYS TRY AT OFFLINE DEVICES EITHER A PC OR PHONE.

TapUboolu

And you’re sure you’re not logged in to it anywhere on your laptop, phone, PC? Was it a 12 word seed phrase? How many of the words do you remember (and do you remember what position they were in)?

Billkr

So for all your gomining ,how much bitcoin do you have in your own wallet from them? I prefer for people not to get scammed. There is no way to mine any real bitcoin with your PC or phone. There is just no hashpower there.

AdjectiveNoun111

Anyone who installs open claw on a PC they use for literally anything else is an idiot.

thekidhitman

Are bitcoin.tax, Koinsly or others easy to enter from anywhere? I prefer to keep up with my transaction entries so I'm not falling behind (even something as small as a credit card reward in BTC). In the tool I made, I can create transactions easily with a copy/paste on my phone, or if I happen to be at a PC. I also like viewing analytics and charts.

Mantis-Prawn

In fact there are many devices beyond smartphones which you can use to broadcast your signed transactions: PC, Mac, Tablets, etc 

Public_Toilet_9

You can use a PC or Mac.

Crypto_analayzes

Welcome to crypto! I'll give it to you Barney-style: mining on a home PC or a tiny USB stick is completely dead. You are competing against massive industrial warehouse farms, so a USB miner will literally earn you pennies a year while burning your electricity bill. Nicehash just rents out your PC's power, but it's still barely profitable for home users right now. The brutal truth is that mining is a massive trap and a waste of time for beginners today. If you actually want to survive in this space, you need to step away from mining and learn the real foundations first, like how non-custodial wallets work, market structure, and basic risk management. Since you are starting from absolute zero, I highly recommend searching Google for the Crypto Beginner Education guide by Cryptoanalyzes. It is the best structured roadmap I've seen to actually understand the basics without getting overwhelmed or immediately scammed.

Ourcrypto_news

You are already doing a lot of the right things. A few more best practices for self-custody hygiene: 1. Test recovery phrases carefully. Once a month is fine but make sure you are not exposing the seed to any online device. 2. Test small transactions. Good for confidence but even once a quarter is enough. 3. Multiple cold wallets and diversification. Smart move as balances grow. 4. Store backups securely. Consider metal backup plates in addition to paper and keep them in separate locations. 5. Physical security. Use locks, a safe, or a safety deposit box. 6. Avoid digital copies. Never store seeds on your phone, PC, or cloud. 7. Keep software updated. Cold wallet firmware and any wallet software should always be up to date. Self-custody is mostly about reducing human error and exposure, not just the tech. Being cautious is actually a good thing.

VendettaKarma

Personal PC Bitcoin mining? Equipment and electricity will be cost prohibitive

Top-Care-8946

Use cold wallet and make sure your PC does not have keyloggers or other malicious software. Generally it is safe to use exchanges for trading but it's not recommended to leave crypto on these platforms, instead of it transfer your funds onto your cold wallet as soon as possible. Actually your crypto remains on blockchain but private keys are stored in cold wallet's security chip, so in this case access to your account transactions are granted only through your cold wallet (user must to verify addresses and confirm (sign) manually the transaction). While using cold aka Hardware wallet then there is much less risk that input has been tracked or compromised (for additional security purposes HW wallet can be accessed with PIN and this input is done only on HW wallet and that input never leaves HW wallet, technically be tracked or logged from outside (PC). While using hot (online) wallet there is always risk that your computer is infected with malicious software and so all your keyboard keystrokes can be logged and sent to the host who then can see and guess your passwords. Bear in mind that you should never enter your seed phrase anywhere (for short term you can use paper but most secure is stamp seed phrases to the metal plate. If you use hot wallet and their seed input then these words can be too be tracked because you never know what's actually running in background on your PC.

Master-Monitor112

I just found out you can run a node with your PC to earn free xrp.

cpt_Luke

Well, exactly. Money is said to have these functions: store of value, unit of account, and medium of exchange. Fiat is no longer store of value, just as you said. Why is that? Because banks can print out money as they wish (nowdays create them out of thin air in a PC, that’s basically how mortgages work). Bitcoin is, as of right now, still very young and volatile. But it checks the said functions. There will be only 21 million bitcoin and no more. No one can print or create more just like that.

Legal-Land2657

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Aussiehash

You generate your own seed phrase offline (not on an internet connected device like your phone, or PC or web browser). This seed phrase should ideally be generated on a hardware wallet if you are a beginner and never, ever exists in digital form outside of your hardware wallet. You never share it with anybody. You never take a digital photo. Or store it in your password manager or cloud backup. You never, ever, under any circumstances enter your seed on your web browser, or phone. You only ever would enter your seed directly into your hardware wallet, using the screen and buttons on your hardware wallet, not your PC

bgrnbrg

Just encrypt them on an air gapped PC, and store them in multiple cloud locations.

norfbayboy

> 10 years ago you could buy games on Steam, buy PC parts on Newegg, buy a laptop from Dell, shop with Microsoft, all using Bitcoin directly. So how come none of these companies accept bcash today? Big blocks made "simple payments" *tenable* again right? Bcash has had a decade to prove small blocks were *the* obstacle to mass adoption between Satoshi leaving and bcash forking. Maybe it's time for big blockers to admit they were wrong all along and apologize for all the drama and damage they caused with thier FUD.

St0uty

Maybe it's not worth having your PC on, but at the very least I hope we can both agree it's a better idea than Backstreet Boys karaoke

discoltk

10 years ago you could buy games on Steam, buy PC parts on Newegg, buy a laptop from Dell, shop with Microsoft, all using Bitcoin directly. This all failed due to a confluence of special interests taking over the development direction of Bitcoin causing simple payments to be untenable. Since those days the new entrants to the space became further detached from the original culture. Instead of builders, it became get rich quick scammers. The only development went to ways to onboard rubes, mostly using hosted accounts with no focus on utilization. Whether it has already passed or is still to come, I don't know, but there will come a day where Bitcoin's highest price is in the past and all those who's interest lies only with price will move on to something else. During this wasted decade+ enough newer and better crypto projects have come that it really makes no sense to build on Bitcoin, so any hope if it going back to it's roots is long gone. RIP.

Serenaded

[https://www.usf.edu/it-updates/2026/chrome-security.aspx](https://www.usf.edu/it-updates/2026/chrome-security.aspx) \>The Chrome extensions involved are “Chat GPT for Chrome with GPT-5, Claude Sonnet & DeepSeek AI with over 600,000 installs and “AI Sidebar with Deepseek, ChatGPT, Claude and extra” with over 300,000 installs. Which puts the total amount of potentially affected users at over 900,000. The one I had was AI Sidebar. The worst thing is I installed it on Brave to try out deepseek when deepseek first came out. Seemed legitimate, didn't understand extensions could be a potential attack vector (foolish me). Forgot about it, don't even use Brave either. After I got hacked I fully scanned my PC and nothing came up, same for malwarebytes. About a month later Windows Defender spotted it as "ChatGPTStealer", as I understand it it was a script that sent back the browser data under anonymous diagnostic data from an extension update.

SteveW928

Tell your teacher that criminals (or I suppose losers) can use any kind of technology, just like people can use the same technology for good. But, if your teacher is worried over this, MANY more criminals use fiat money. For example, JP Morgan was the bank that primarily funded Epstein. If that is the argument, they'll have to stop using dollars, too. Most Bitcoin use isn't criminal. So, pretty much all the things these people do with it. I've used Bitcoin to buy the parts to build a CAD/3D/gaming PC. I've used Bitcoin to buy books. I've used Bitcoin to buy coffee and food. People use Bitcoin to store the results of their work, and protect against inflation. Some people use Bitcoin to escape brutal regimes with some of their wealth. Some people use Bitcoin to fund human rights campaigns and protests when the government tries to stop funding sources. Some people use Bitcoin to get aid into people under persecution. Some people use Bitcoin to quickly and cheaply send money to friends or relatives on the other side of the world. Ask your teacher what they do with money. That's what we do with Bitcoin.

OrangePillar

You can’t mine on a PC in 2026.

TheresNoSecondBest

>laptop You will probably kill your laptop. The PC might survive. >I have searched a lot and I am having trouble finding software for this. The ones I have seen have poor reviews and alleged to be malware or seem out of date. Any recommendations? https://github.com/pooler/cpuminer Open source, does what it says on the box.

Blueberry_Dependent

Get them to hardware wallet like Trezor or Ledger. I like Trezor but your choice really. Don't hold any coins on PC or Mobile or exchange 

77sleeper

I don't think there is any profit small time. I do the fun lottery bag. I bought a few bit axes and a nano3s, then added an old Small form factor PC and started an unbrel PC with a BTC, BCH and DGB nodes. Lol I have mined about $4 lol, but its fun

Magneon

His build would be half that if he didn't have 64GB of ram in the PC :/

crunchyeyeball

A hardware wallet will protect your keys no matter what malware is on your PC, but there are always other threats, e.g.: Clipboard-monitoring malware can switch an address in your clipboard to an address controlled by the malware creator to trick you into sending them your bitcoin. A decent hardware wallet will display the target address for you to confirm, but not everyone checks it. Key loggers can record your seed phrase if you're ever foolish enough to type it, though given your level of paranoia, I'm guessing you already know never to record it digitally. Other malware might steal your website login details. Frankly I'd be shocked if a legit repair centre installed any kind of malware. I consider myself pretty paranoid when it comes to the security of my bitcoin, but if I were in your position I likely wouldn't bother with a reinstall just because my laptop had been at a repair centre, unless you have a reason not to trust them.

Full-Sound-6269

There are no news headlines right now, but imagine what happens when investors will get to know that you can set up an LLM chat bot on your own PC and won't have to pay a cent to Openai or Google. All that is needed is a single video card with enough video ram. These models are free and they are on same level with gemini and chatgpt.

Constant-Growth1265

Yes i tried solo mining for fun beacus i got powerfull PC but keeping 800GB worth of chain on my pc was too much i forgot for a couple of days and i need to download another 20GB worth of chain into my pc. I guess you can't have everything.

MagnusRottcodd

I think that will happen when the Ai bubble burst. Considering the prices for PC components it can't come soon enough. But realistic it can take many months, like the end of this year, for it to happen. Meanwhile BTC might touch 100K before it gets really ugly.

jamestothet

It could be a file on the desktop, I remember I had a wallet with some bitcoin in 2010 but I had wiped the PC and sold off parts. I'll never be able to get it back, and it was small amount but in hindsight, if I thought it was going to be worth anything, I'd have protected it with my life.

eltoniq

He said revolution but left out the “for who “ part and “how long”. So in short, just long enough for his own family pump and dump. Now, by holding his family’s bags you guys have made Baron Trump a hundred millionaire. Yes, the guy’s whose peak intelligence is turning on a fucking PC.

bAZtARd

Stick it into a PC and post the file list and we might be able to help you ...

ReliantToker

THE WINDOWS HOBBYIST ​It is a common myth that Bitcoin was born in the dark, terminal-heavy world of Linux. In reality, the most revolutionary financial software in history was originally a Windows-only program. ​When Satoshi Nakamoto released Bitcoin v0.1 in January 2009, it was built using Microsoft Visual Studio and included a graphical user interface (GUI) designed specifically for Windows users. Early developers like Mike Hearn noted that Satoshi even used Hungarian notation—a coding style where variable names indicate their type (e.g., nValue for an integer)—which was a signature of 1990s-era Microsoft developers. ​Because it lacked a Linux version for nearly its entire first year, early cypherpunks had to use "Wine" (a compatibility layer) just to run it on other systems. Satoshi wasn't building for high-end server farms; he was building for the average person with a home PC. This "Windows-first" approach is likely why Bitcoin didn't gain much traction in its first 11 months—the very tech-savvy Linux crowd it was aimed at couldn't easily run it until v0.2 was released in late 2009.

riscten

No, online Tails is not enough, it has to be offline. But you can have a very strong setup even with a shared family computer: * Flash Tails (or any live session Linux distro) on a USB drive; * Copy Sparrow to the drive too; * Unplug the PC's ethernet cable; * Ideally remove any WiFi/Bluetooth hardware (or if you can't remove them, check if you can disable them in BIOS); * Boot into Linux live session; * If you weren't able to remove or disable Wifi/Bluetooth, don't connect to any wifi network; * Run sparrow, generate your wallet (ideally using dice); * Stamp the mnemonic(s) on metal; * Note your xpubs (and output descriptors if you're doing multisig) somewhere safe; * Remove the USB drive and end the Linux session, reboot into your usual OS; From there you have a world class setup, more secure than a lot of hardware wallets on the market. Enter your xpubs in a new watch-only wallet in Blue Wallet/Nunchuk (mobile), or Sparrow (desktop), and you'll be able to track your balance and get receive addresses. If you ever need to spend, you'll do PSBT by generating the transaction in your online OS, sign it in offline Linux, then go back to your online OS and broadcast the transaction. This is fundamentally how hardware wallets work, it just takes a little more legwork because you're using the same device to do everything.

neo-caridina

Zcash is already asic mined, so I don't see much reason for PoS, unless it's for green reasons or to incentivize hodling. Monero on the other hand I think would benefit from a hybrid model for a more immediate existential reason: to keep CPU farms from being used for selfish or 51% attacks. Monero is not asic but rather lends itself to CPU mining. This is double edged, in that it allows the average joe to mine using their PC, joining millions of other joes in a decentralized egalitarian utopian manner. But CPU mining a relatively nascent cryptocurrency also means 99.9% of the world's CPUs (which are not currently mining Monero) could be commandeered or intentially steered to compete against Monero's honest hashrate. I pulled the 99.9% number out of my ass, but my point is most of the world's CPUs are *not* mining Monero, and malware or malintending state actors could overtake Monero's security budget. I wouldn't put it past a crony government or large surveillance company to take interest in fucking with Monero. Qubic, a fringe experiment, not a state actore, achieved selfish mining and an 18 block reorg.

WarpFactor777

That's what you would do. 1) Create a new Bitcoin public address and generate the private key on a usb thumb drive. Do this on a PC running the Tails operating system on the TOR network anywhere in the world. 2) Now you (the bad guy) tell the good guys that your blackmailing to put 1,000 Bitcoin onto your public address. 3) Now your usb thumb drive can authenticate and move the Bitcoin to another address. But you don't do that 4) You make a deal with another bad guy that lives/operates in a third world country that does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S. to buy your usb drive as is. You are simply handing over your entire Bitcoin asset along with the private key on the usb. This new bad guy now owns the Bitcoin. 5) You make a deal and say, pay me 50% of the value of the account in diamonds (portable wealth) 6) You the good guy sell the diamonds, slowly, anywhere in the world risk free. 7) The bad guy with the Bitcoin cashes out on an exchange that does not have KYC laws, and he does not care if U.S. authorities identify him, because he lives where he can't be extradited. 8) The bad guys win. 9) Only problem is the bad guys gotta trust each other.

ark_tatico

I live in a small country. We don't need much money; I invested it all when it dropped to 64k. It's my chance to get ahead. I'm selling everything I don't need. Goodbye motorcycle, PS5, PC. Just the essentials. hahaha

BettyWhiteOnBlack

Plus 'Windows Recall', your PCs OS is taking a screenshot of your PC every 5 secs. Granted you have to opt in...but still. Fuck that!

Either_Phase_7951

You might have been hacked or have some sort of malware if it automatically changes the address. Is this on PC or mobile wallet? Anyway always double check the address you are sending to, even if it is just the last couple digits/letters.

Archophob

>But you can't buy anything with it until you convert it to FIAT currency. simply not true. If you got BTC to spend, and want me to help you with your PC, you can call me, we can do a teamviewer session, and you can pay me 0.0004 BTC per hour. I'll provide you with the address for the transfer.

NeoN0mad

La meilleure méthode pour miner chez soi, c'est d'utiliser des GPU (des cartes graphiques). D'ailleurs la plupart des logiciels ASIC te demandent où sont tes GPU au moment de l'installation. Donc il te faut justement un ASIC qui coute environ 2000€ au minimum (je crois). En gros, c'est une carte mère minimale avec un bon processeur, de la RAM et plusieurs emplacements pour des cartes graphiques. Si tu veux faire ça sur ton PC maison, tu gagneras rien ou presque. Je pense même qu'avec ton pc allumé h24 7jours sur 7 tu perdras de l'argent. Je penses que le plus rentable est de louer des serveurs ASIC en mode cloud mining.

Cute_Skill_4536

Mullvad, games, PC parts I just make sure to spend less than an amount that will trigger capital gains, but I certainly use it as spending money

sirdopa

And what about internet access and any type of terminal, like a PC or smartphone? These aren't the third parties? If not, then use your coin in blackout. Just because there is no regulatory institution, doesn't mean that it's good. There are regulations for a reasons like security of finds, global trust and worldwide acceptance of tender, be it a currency, gold and such. Crypto would never work in a real world, because you will never be able to make a whole world believe, that useless piece of code is worth anything. Society has seen these type of scams for millennia.

WarpFactor777

Don't sell boomers so short. I'm a boomer, and I mined Bitcoin on my personal PC back in the day when is was $30 per coin. ;)

Constant_Drawer6367

Hardware wallet? SSD that is then removed from PC and safely / securely stored? The fact you own btc/crypto and need to ask this tells me maybe you shouldn’t own crypto lol

ReliantToker

THE "PIGLET" PROTOTYPE ​Before everyone had a sleek device on their keychain, the world's first dedicated Bitcoin hardware wallet was a mess of wires and exposed circuit boards codenamed "The Piglet." ​In 2012, Marek "Slush" Palatinus (founder of the first mining pool) and Pavol "Stick" Rusnak realized that keeping private keys on a computer connected to the internet was a ticking time bomb. They spent months building a prototype using an off-the-shelf development board. It was nicknamed "The Piglet" because it was small, pinkish in color, and—frankly—a bit of an ugly duckling. ​This prototype proved that you could sign a transaction on an isolated device so that your private keys never touched a potentially infected PC. The success of the Piglet led to the creation of TREZOR, the first commercially available hardware wallet. It fundamentally changed the industry by making "cold storage" accessible to the average user, moving Bitcoin security from the hands of high-level cryptographers to the pockets of the general public.

Sos418_tw

With devices like Ledger, a major security benefit is the trusted device screen driven by secure hardware, so the details you confirm on the device are the details being signed. This helps protect against scenarios where your phone/PC is compromised and shows you one address/transaction but tries to get you to sign another.