James Stanley

Posts tagged 'bitcoin'

My DIY Cryptosteel Capsule »

Mon 20 January 2020

Bitcoin wallets give you a mnemonic seed to write down and keep safe. This is usually 12 to 24 words from the BIP39 word list. But if you write it on paper, it is easily damaged by flood or fire. An improvement is "Cryptosteel"-type devices, which allow you to record the mnemonic seed in metal, such that it is recoverable in the event of flood or fire. I built one myself. Read more »

Spelunking the Web Servers of the Lightning Network »

Wed 29 August 2018

I've finally got around to playing with Bitcoin's Lightning Network over the past couple of days. I managed to buy one of the "I got Lightning working and all I got was this sticker" stickers from BlockStream's Lightning store, and I'm in the process of adding Lightning payment support to SMS Privacy. Read more »

How I cracked the Bitcoin keys in Andy Bauch's Lego artwork »

Sat 24 March 2018

Yesterday I read an article about a series of art pieces created by Andy Bauch with $10,000 of cryptocurrency hidden in them. Each of the pieces is assembled out of lego bricks. Read more »

How to get your Bitcoins out of Xapo without running their app on your phone »

Mon 15 January 2018

Xapo is a company that offered a Bitcoin Visa debit card. You'd top up your account with Bitcoins, and you can then spend them, using the card, anywhere that takes Visa payments. This is super convenient for anyone who earns income in Bitcoin. Read more »

On Gumtree, "Bitcoin" is a dirty word »

Sun 1 October 2017

I tried to list a sofa bed on Gumtree today. I went through the usual rigmarole of dusting the item off, taking some photos, uploading the photos to Gumtree, and writing a compelling description that would hook in the buyers and secure me great riches. Read more »

The only time Hacker News is this interested in Bitcoin is when there's a bubble forming »

Sun 30 July 2017

You might have got the impression that there are a lot of Bitcoin-related posts on Hacker News lately. With SegWit set to activate in the next few weeks, and Bitcoin Cash likely to fork off on the 1st of August, I took a look at Hacker News' relationship with Bitcoin over the past years. Read more »

BTC-e, Alexander Vinnik, and the missing MtGox Bitcoins »

Wed 26 July 2017

Q: How do you launder the Bitcoins you stole from MtGox?
A: Set up your own exchange and sell them on there

I tried to buy a thing off a dark net market, and the FBI stole my money »

Tue 25 July 2017

I'm interested in online privacy and freedom, and I've wanted to make a purchase on a dark net market for quite a while. On the 26th of June I took the plunge. I'd heard AlphaBay was a popular market so (for the full experience) I loaded up Tails Linux in a virtual machine and navigated to the AlphaBay site. Read more »

Why Bitcoin has to succeed »

Tue 11 July 2017

Some people want to transition to a cashless society. If that happens (and governments, at least, appear very keen to make that happen), we'll all be left with no way to pay each other without going through a third party payments company (banks, Visa, PayPal, etc.). This means people have no way to pay each other without asking permission from such a company, and being subject to censorship and surveillance at best, and the risk of the funds being stolen at worst. Read more »

Double-check Bitcoin addresses when pasting (Bitcoin TX Generator malware) »

Sun 9 July 2017

Back in April I wrote about the Large Bitcoin Collider and how it is probably malware. Well, now there's another (even more blatant) piece of malware being spread via reddit. Read more »

How to use bitaddress.org securely (spoiler: use IPFS) »

Wed 10 May 2017

Bitaddress.org is a single-page web app for generating Bitcoin paper wallets. It's a great tool, and runs entirely client-side so (in theory) you can audit the code and don't have to trust that the server is not stealing your keys. Read more »

Is the Large Bitcoin Collider malware? »

Tue 18 April 2017

Yesterday, /u/SopaXorzTaker submitted a post to r/Bitcoin suggesting the Large Bitcoin Collider (a.k.a. "LBC", not to be confused with Local Bitcoins) is probably malicious. He did a great service to the community by doing so. Read more »

I started accepting 0-conf Bitcoin payments, and it was great »

Wed 29 March 2017

Customers of SMS Privacy have been frustrated with long confirmation times for Bitcoin payments. Even though I only required 1 confirmation, it can still take a long time for that first confirmation if the transaction was accidentally sent with a fee that is too low. Instead of sending money and being able to use the service immediately, customers sometimes had to wait hours. This is immensely frustrating for a legitimate customer: you've sent the money, you're not trying to steal anything, why do you have to wait? Read more »

Precautions for generating Bitcoin QR codes »

Wed 15 February 2017

A couple of people have been asking me to add QR codes to the payment page on SMS Privacy. I'd been putting it off for a while because I didn't want to do it in a way that opens up avenues for exploitation. Read more »

The Game Theory Case for Bitcoin »

Thu 5 January 2017

During a period of only 4 hours today, the value of Bitcoin dropped by more than 30% (8888 CNY down to 6000 CNY). This sparked some discussion at work about what it is that makes Bitcoin worth anything in the first place. Read more »

How (and why) to accept Bitcoin payments yourself (without running a full node) »

Fri 11 November 2016

Accepting Bitcoin payments for an online service can be daunting at first (I worked out how to do it, for SMS Privacy, a couple of months ago). What I describe is not the only way to accept Bitcoin payments - it's not even the best way to accept Bitcoin payments - but it works for me. And it might work for you, too. Read more »

Bitcoin debit cards: Xapo vs Cryptopay »

Mon 31 October 2016

I've written before about my Cryptopay Bitcoin debit card. A number of people on reddit recommended some other company's offerings that hadn't come up in my searches. Xapo was most recommended, so I bought a Xapo card shortly after and have been using it on-and-off ever since. Read more »

Living with a Bitcoin debit card »

Sat 30 July 2016

My new project produces profit in Bitcoin. I wanted a way to be able to spend the Bitcoin without having to: Read more »