I woke up to shocking news!

TLDR The ledger device actually can expose your seed phrase to the internet.

Initially it was a speculation and people were expecting updates. Eventually, we got them:

https://np.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/comments/13itm7u/is_there_a_backdoor_yes_or_no/jkbyyfp

So yes, it's a service your can opt for for "recovery services", but the bottom line is that it can expose the seed phrase.

Ultimately, it's a matter of the French government knocking on their doors and asking for it.

This actually makes your funds at Ledger less safe than on MetaMask. At least we don't have a confirmation that other hot wallets can access or keep copies of the seed phrases.

Leger, it was nice while it lasted...

But it's game over.

​

Edit: to the people downvoting my comments: I'm also a Ledger user. Have been using it for multiple years to store my crypto. I'm not happy that this happened and I hate the upcoming inconvenience of buying new wallets and sending crypto back and forth. But unfortunately, this is the reality. :(

​

Edit 2: Many users say

but you can choose not to opt-in!!1

You can't opt out of the device being able to leak data to the internet.

You can only opt out of Ledger doing it with intent.

​

Edit 3: They just doubled down on Twitter spaces.

They described the product and didn't address the relevant comments and concerns. They kept repeating that it's an "opt in service" and finished by saying that their product is not for people with more than $50k.

We have all probably heard reports by now that Atomic Wallet has been compromised.

What we know:

• Atomic wallet had a user base of over 5 million users

• Many users are claiming to have their funds drained out of multiple wallets

• It does not seem that it is malware attacking uses, as a large user base is compromised

Atomic Wallet has not said much about about this. 17 hours ago Atomic Swap has acknowledged that users have been reporting loss is funds, however, they have neither confirmed nor denied that it is an actual attack or exploit.

This once again demonstrates how dangerous crypto is to an extent. Even without make a mistake on their own, thousands of people have lost a lot of money.

Let’s see that happens

Good luck and stay safe out there

I'm in Australia where the government recently passed a law to limit cash payments to $10,000. The law specifically wasn't supposed to apply to your own bank account.

I just tried to withdraw $10,000 from Commonwealth Bank, where I have held an account for more than twenty years.

I told them how much I wanted and said I preferably want it all in $50 notes, but if need be could have some in hundreds. That seemed ok, but then they asked my what I wanted it for. I told them that I wanted it because it was my money. They said I had to tell them because it might be for a scam. I said it wasn't a scam and I wanted my money.

The teller called the manager and told her that I wanted to withdraw $10,000. The manager asked me why and told me that I have to answer. I told them I wanted it because I was making a tik-tok video of how much cash I could feed a bear. Obviously that was a mistake, because she responded "That's a new one" and then said she could only give me $5,000 and would that be okay? (For the record, I don't use tik-tok so this isn't the real reason, but I shouldn't have to justify to anyone why I want to keep my money as cash).

Let's be clear - they knew how much I wanted right up front. If it was an issue that they didn't have enough cash they should have said so straight off. Deciding to only give me half of my money after hearing what I planned to do with it is absolute garbage.

It's my money not theirs. But banks always seem to be forgetting this.

It looks like the SEC is up to their old tricks again, doing what they do best which is omnibus a bunch of securities infractions into a legal complaint and try to use that as precedent for regulation.

In the lawsuit they claim that all of these tokens are securities:

-Solana

-Polygon

-Cardano

-Filecoin

-Cosmos

-Decentraland

-Algorand

-Sandbox

-COTI

-AXIS

Looks like theyre really committed to the rapid fire approach. This shouldnt hold up because they would actually have to argue individually that each project is a security but it shows how little they care to do so. Feels like more of a warning shot saying “yeah we really dont like these ones”. Im sure theres more that they have this opinion on but “Schroedinger’s securities” i guess we will have to wait and see

Elon Musk in 2021 (typo in the title) in a Tweet said:

"When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions."

Since in the first place the reason they gave for abandoning it was it's environmental issues and energy use, this made sense, and he said that Tesla would start accepting it again if it clean energy use mix was 50% or higher.

BMC (Bitcoin Mining Council) found out that in Q4 2022, that number was at 58%.

It's been 2 years now and what he asked for has happened.

Do you guys think they'll start accepting Bitcoin again? Or that it would help Bitcoin if they did? It definitely hurt the prices a bit when they announced that they were ditching it, so I'm curious to see what would happen.

PS: I meant in 2021, don't know where 2019 came from.

The Tweet:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1404132183254523905

An article about the findings of BMC:

https://cryptopotato.com/bitcoin-mining-became-greener-and-more-efficient-in-2022/

The people spoke with their wallets

A majority of projects have fallen over 90% from their ATH, many of which are already dead or on their last legs. Which projects do you guys still have the faith that they can make a decent comeback or reach new all-time highs? Which ones are still pushing out new code and are actively progressing? The next bull run is on the way (hopefully) and as we've seen before, alt season gets pretty intense. I'd like to look into some new projects that are still working hard on growth through this bear market.

edit: Feel free to also mention the projects that you think are for sure dead in the water which is equally as helpful IMO.

Is it so difficult for crypto developers to create a UI or anything that would make crypto easier/ more accessible to people.

I am more than 2 years into crypto, but navigating crypto is still difficult even for me:

• every transaction is a thrill: Long human-unreadable address, prone for errors, set up gas fee on your own, slow transaction speed

• if your transaction got stuck (ETH), only the more experienced crypto users know how to cancel the transaction

• bridging one coin/token to another chain can be confusing

• blindly approving MetaMask prompts can make you approve malicious smart contracts you're not aware of

• revoking smart contracts, most people aren't even aware of this

• cold, hot, paper wallets...people don't even understand what a wallet is...custodial wallets are way easier, so too many people fall for it and don't do self-custody

• coin VS token, so many people don't even understand the difference

• tokens on several chains for example USDT on ETH, on TRON, on BSC, ...some people who just want to send stablecoins to friends and family are confused how to send their funds

• confusing crypto ticker names that looks quite similar

As long crypto doesn't get easier, it won't reach mass adoption.

The internet was "difficult" once...but now even grandma can surf the net. When crypto will be easy enough gor grandpa and grandma, mass adoption is in.

https://imgur.com/gallery/UKTZCcF

I can't actually believe what I`m reading, this seems absolutely crazy for a hardware wallet provider to encourage you to backup your seed phrase online AND give them your Passport/ID - especially one that has previously suffered a data breach! But, with todays latest Ledger Nano X firmware (2.2.1) update, they're introducing a service/feature called "Ledger Recover". Strangely at the point of posting this, the firmware release notes are not yet available on their website, but it is very real (see attached screenshot).

The release notes state:

Starting today, you can subscribe to Ledger Recover.

Ledger Recover is an ID-based key recovery service that provides a backup for your Secret Recovery Phrase.

Ledger Recover is currently compatible with Ledger Nano X and available on Android and iOS running the latest Ledger Live version.

At the moment, a passport/national identity card issued by the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, or the United States is required to subscribe to the service. We will be covering more countries and adding support for more documents in the coming months. Stay tuned.

Again, I`m in disbelief about this. Apart from the risks that they're hacked again, apart from it flying in the face of never sharing your seed, and never storing it online, it opens the door to a whole new level of crypto scammers!

Ledger, please reconsider this.

Ledger Recover

//edit to add more information

More information from a wired article. The confounder also confirmed on the ledger forum that the seed leaves the device. This sounds like a form of multi sig, but still…. Nope!

Ledger is preparing to launch a new service called Ledger Recover that splits a wallet recovery phrase—basically, a human-readable form of the private key—into three encrypted shards and distributes them to three custodians: Ledger, crypto custody firm Coincover, and code escrow company EscrowTech. If somebody loses their recovery phrase, two of the three shards can be combined—pending an ID check—to regain access to the locked funds. Essentially, Ledger Recover is an additional safety net; for the price of $9.99 a month, it takes the jeopardy out of crypto’s version of stuffing dollars under the mattress. It’ll be available in the UK, EU, US, and Canada and come to other territories later in the year.

Feels like there will always be continued dilution of market caps as more and more chains are developed and evolve with each one adding new layers of privacy, etc, and pulling market cap from each other.

Never been called a BTC maxi, but that is really what I’m starting to feel like. I see the point of ETH and Matic, Dot, etc., but I keep coming back to the basic question of investing. How do I make money on this? I have made money, but don’t feel it’s sustainable and totally detached from identifiable market signals.

I’ve sold out of all positions with the exception of BTC and moved back into stocks the last few weeks and realized I forgotten the biggest advantage to making money in stocks that I took for granted. Access to legitimate market information and ability to spot trends. Tired of guessing about adoption of chains, L2’s, governance tokens, and privacy coins. Sticking with BTC and stocks going forward until reliable and verifiable info is available. Best to all still on that journey. Let the downvotes begin……

I should stop hitting the dead I know, but they continue with their great ideas. Ledger sub is a disaster even greater than news on this sub.

It started when I've read their official comment that they can't assure there won't be forced updates in the future. However the speed it became reality is astounding even for them. I tried finding the comment saying that but it was downvoted a lot, so it's difficult to find. In a different topic there was a user saying he couldn't charge the device without updating it. If there was no evidence that they're so dumb I would start thinking the gov infiltrated them.

They're still advertising their wallet as self custodial. LOL.

​

I give the links according to the rules of this sub.

https://np.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/comments/13ruuph/so_i_was_forced_to_download_the_firmware_update/

https://np.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/comments/13sh8m0/allow_signing_without_firmware_update/

​

Another comment from their sub (from a normal user):

"What you might find is that when you actually do want to access your funds and therefore your ledger, you will need to update it to do so. You also run the risk of your ledger becoming obsolete if do not update it regularly."

​

And if you want to read a long text about con against them here is what I made some time ago:

https://np.reddit.com/r/cryptoCurrency/comments/13r6x8f/do_not_trust_ledger_they_continue_shifting_the/

We won't forget they lied that the seed can't leave the device. If you have anything to add, make comment.

It would be safe to say that a majority of people in crypto have some moments of regrets around certain purchases.

Be it:

• getting caught up in the hype train and buying a coin without a second thought of checking out the fundamentals.

• riding the shitcoin wave thinking this absolute joke of an excuse for a token will moon for no other reason then because.

• overthinking the impact of silly nft features in a mind numbing grind of a game.

• turning a blind eye in some absolute slime of leader because surely they won't do x.

I could go and on, but I think a reflection of where you went wrong and how that came about is important. It's also something you'll probably share with alot of people with similar experiences.

So how about you? What was your regretful purchase, what lead you to do it in the first place and what have you taken away from the experience?

First of all, let's think about how much money you actually might need for "financial freedom" which probably means something like, you don't need to worry about all of your bills any more for the foreseeable future and don't have to work any more and can just enjoy life.

This isn't about showing off and flexing on insta in lambos and Gucci or whatever vapid influencer bullshit people like that are in to. You won't be traveling much on private jets and shit like that.

Well, for one you need to own a home/condo with the mortgage completely paid off. Which might be around $600K - $1.5M depending on where you live.

And then you would ideally want to be generating like $65k-$100K a year in passive income. You probably need another $800K-$1.5M invested in safe dividend stocks, some reits, mutual funds, managed accounts and thinks like that.

How much money do you think you would need as an initial investment in crypto to get $2M-$3M?

People joke all the time about how do you make a million in crypto? Start with a billion.

If you already have that kind of money ready to throw into crypto, then you shouldn't be saying shit like "crypto is my only hope".

What are you going to do? Yolo into "ignore fud" token. (This is a real token btw it was trending on cmc recently)

At least max out your 401K and other types of tax advantaged accounts in your country.

Diversify your investments.

Stop "investing" only in crypto where the real investment case actually is "I'm buying this token and I hope more people buy it after me at higher and higher prices until it's time for me to sell".

When I invest in AAPL I don't desperately hope that others after me go and buy the stock too. I would much rather they buy Apple Products like Ipads, macbooks etc.

Let me know your thoughts.

We've all shilled our favourite so let's talk inverse...what is the worst project that you have come across. This could be just from the financial aspects or just they sounded stupid...maybe if we don't include the FTX and luna debacles to make it more interesting because a lot of people will say those. For me personally it would be something called a digitoad that someone mentioned here last week. I am still puzzled to this day why someone would buy something called a DIGITOAD. If anyone can explain I'd be very grateful for it because its making my head hurt.

Background context: My stepfather has been investing in crypto for about 4-5 years. At the time, he primarily used Coinbase. Around the start of 2021, he had an issue where he had got locked out of his account. He was trying to get back in and was getting no response from support.

Naively, he tried to Google "coinbase support phone number". Unsurprisingly, scammers had flooded the results with fake sites with phone numbers posing as Coinbase. Sadly, he fell for one of the fake numbers and was phished out of his credentials and all of his crypto was stolen. The value of it was around $500,000 to $750,000 at the time it was stolen.

I was not as involved in my stepfather's crypto up to this point (though I wish I had been), but once he confided in me what happened, I have been trying to help him on attempting to recover these assets.

I helped my stepfather audit a reputable private investigator firm that specializes in crypto theft recovery. Throughout the past year and a half, they have been tracing the paper trail of the thief.

The firm was eventually able to trace the stolen crypto to a wallet on Binance. In order to proceed on recovery, the firm requires my stepfather to obtain a subpoena from a law enforcement agency in order to move forward.

My father is located in Indiana. County and state refuse to touch crypto because they don't understand it. The only remaining options are the FBI and Secret Service.

The private investigator provides full written instructions for my stepfather and for the law enforcement agency to follow (who to contact, what to say, etc). Once the subpoena is obtained, the PI will continue to work on reclaiming the stolen assets following. However, they cannot until a law enforcement agency signs off.

My stepfather has been trying for over 6 months to reach out to the Secret Service and FBI, but nobody will listen. Understandably, it's excruciatingly frustrating for him because it's been tracked back to an individual wallet; but the information about it cannot be obtained because law enforcement won't cooperate.

Is there anything I can do for my stepfather to get the FBI or SS to cooperate on signing off on a subpoena? Cases have been filed with both offices but nobody seems to care.

Pepe is pulling a rug right now, it's down like 30% on daily, it has no utility, 100 bucks website, shitty contract yet its listed on all major exchanges.

A lot of people jumped onto it after it got promoted like crazy with paid influencers and news channels, so many people fomoed in because of all the hype, many first time crypto users have bought the top and now they will never see it again, they will go tell others how crypto is a scam and all.

Who profited the most?

Devs Exchanges Influencers News channels And of course some early buyers.

Majority of people will lose money with it. This is not what crypto supposed to be like, serious projects with real utility doesn't even get this much support, these exchanges would not list them because low volume = no profits and these projects dont have enough to bribe for fast rrack listings, people will not support them because there are no 10x 100x or 1000x to gain.

This is absolute shit show.

Stay safe out there guys 🙏

Today I lost a total of >$50,000 in usdt, btc, eth, trx, xrp from my Atomic wallet.

At first, I thought I had messed up somewhere and somehow got a virus on my Mac. But then my friend sent me a link to Twitter, and it turns out that many other people were hacked today as well. I don't know what to do in such situations. I hope someone from the administration of major exchanges reads this post and blocks the hackers wallets.

All I did was log in my Atomic Wallet and within a minute my money was gone.

My Atomic ID: 7e4ef5079dbcab076fe3e8cb9664e080c1782476ae42ab4bef7b130157bf9f63

XRP: https://bithomp.com/explorer/35697EBD144A45205DE8A58EA7F07F34D64351EF93DBF0E8747CC6A2709A43F6

BTC: https://bitcoin.atomicwallet.io/tx/52c865ee26d167c5698daa6fd36a0af0e6389c506e91cf5ea9b2371d7f8cd8f7

TRX: https://tronscan.org/#/transaction/d7d08c03792db92f35105ef4f960efeae44f9fa90befa115f7108b4c8ebaa991

USDT TRC-20: https://tronscan.org/#/transaction/006b82f487db99caeb86fcbb63f6c110daa2d8a6fd24cdf24107a80d06843901

ETH: https://etherscan.io/tx/0xa5588b5b180d7e217500650b05a0498891e238f1308376331a7abb72cd70f635

So many common people don't understand crypto.

Sometimes overhearing conversation from these people can be very entertaining. They have no clue about crypto and sometimes it feels like they make up nonsense assumptions just to have a discussion.

So this time, I've overheard while traveling on train, an older couple talking about "doggy" coin. Those "doggy" coins are gold coins which have a dog face printed on it and those young people on the internet order them...this is what the old couple talk about. This conversation finishes with a statement that this "doggy" coin is used for shady business.

They weren't talking about some new memecoin, they were refering to DOGE coin, but they clearly dunno what it is.

For me "doggy" was the keyword which marks those 2 as complete clueless crypto haters.

Algorand was one of the most hyped projects here during the 2020/2021 bull market. It had an amazing rise from $0.096 in May 2020 to about $3 in November 2021. We were all like:

https://preview.redd.it/t1ddsrjeyt1b1.png?width=520&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=b39854424ad9fbe6202e0764c0848d63091152c3

Since then, however, Algorand has rolled over and performed much worse than most other alts. Let me summarize:

​

(1) Algorand just set a new bear market low

The price right now is $0.1548. This is 95% down from the November 2021 high and a price we have not seen since March 2020. A lot of other alts have not continued to make new lows but Algorand is one of the few projects that has done so. Other alts are also down a lot less.

https://preview.redd.it/m81nanj7ut1b1.png?width=1232&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=34fed04dfc4fbacebf9d2a0c98e4b2f88c989a2b

​

(2) Algorand is the second worst performing asset over the past 90 days

While Bitcoin is up 8.8% in 90 days, Algorand is down 42.5%. Only Filecoin has performed worse over a 90 day period, but Filecoin is a terrible project with almost 100% inflation every year and it was marked as a security by the SEC.

Algo is second from the right...

​

(3) Algorand/Bitcoin keeps making new lows

Algorand is 98% down relative to Bitcoin since its highest point. 98%! And 90% relative to the November 2021 peak. Its just nonstop bleeding.

https://preview.redd.it/cxnyr0lvut1b1.png?width=1222&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=16b86380a3edae7e41e98c4c5b630eaf4bb6141f

(4) The market cap just made a new bear market low

Even the market cap of Algo also just set a new bear market low. So even if you factor in the inflation of the token since all time high, the project is bleeding money.

https://preview.redd.it/a1r0z9kuvt1b1.png?width=1229&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=e5dc87e51a6f455767b607a53807ceb8a87d9846

So....

• What is wrong with Algorand? Why is it performing this bad relative to other alts?
• What does the future of Algorand hold? Is this a good moment to buy then and why (not)?
• Perhaps, given that everyone here is bearish on Algo now, it is time for it to pump and inverse us?

(/Play Walking_Dead_theme.mp3)

We talk about the "next 1000x gem", but nobody talks about the crypto graveyard full of projects that would revolutionize the world.

I'd like to forget the "next 1000x Gem" for a moment and dive into crypto's darkest corners.

The place is cold and dark with lots of tombstones with titles like "WAGMI", "Buy the Dip", and "When moon?".

Many crypto projects are like the 'Walking Dead' of the crypto world, and I'm sure there are plenty more.

Would you like to add any favorite crypto-zombies to our graveyard?

Which project did you invest in and now it's dead?

What will be the next crypto-zombie?

Professor at MIT teaching blockchain technology (and pizza day!)

Five years ago, Gary Gensler was a professor of the Practice of Global Economics and Management at MIT. He taught courses on blockchain technology. These are still available online. See https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63UUkfL0onkxF6MYgVa04Fn

In his lectures, Gary Gensler often spoke very fondly of blockchain technology, Bitcoin, and Satoshi Nakamoto.

He even told his students about Pizza day in his lecture on September 5, 2018. Pizza day is celebrated today and refers to May 22, 2010, when Laszlo had two pizzas delivered for which he paid 10K Bitcoins. This is a slide from Gensler's presentation:

https://preview.redd.it/kpwwf9jy7f1b1.png?width=1299&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=0df721c951c147bf2dd75427b3a6a28bf82a9900

See https://youtu.be/v2yoPmhncSY?t=340. Gary had a huge smile on his face as he proudly told his students the Pizza story.

https://preview.redd.it/anzbqn8s8f1b1.png?width=1301&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=e2830e5b7b759a6abb58d54c543bf83887bf7ffc

SEC chair as per April 2021

A few years later, Gary Gensler was nominated by Joe Biden to serve as Chair of the SEC February 2021. He was sworn into office on April 17, 2021. Most people were so positive given his blockchain expertise. The top replies on the lecture, which was posted in March 2021, illustrate the positive vibe:

https://preview.redd.it/4n7sc6ve9f1b1.png?width=972&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=327307a0856fb5c55483f213c7f5f40128521e90

https://preview.redd.it/j8mbo1xg9f1b1.png?width=1266&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=44dd63f763af0caa7291c0d3d4fbc63d9b553734

Replies to posts around that time here show the same:

https://preview.redd.it/9q9checu9f1b1.png?width=864&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=3097e5a047dfdd63ab83c822c65935d65006a0f8

https://preview.redd.it/dbtlut03af1b1.png?width=847&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=846b7f014d9f8bf5de70de1df16819fe1c5a5605

​

Fast forward, and Gary Gensler is (perceived as) a major villain in crypto

Fast-forward two years and Gary Gensler has basically become one of the biggest crypto villains. He has failed to provide any clarity of the rules - he cannot even answer the question of whether Ethereum is a security. He has also seemingly at random sued various cryptocurrency projects and exchanges. He has also failed to protect investors from harm. It's like he is slowing the growth of crypto on purpose.

https://preview.redd.it/asyugu84cf1b1.png?width=366&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=a863b00a5600f0ec504b1d6e2e181604465345b7

How is it possible that Gary Gensler went from a blockchain technology enthusiast who likely got many people to buy Bitcoin through his courses to the person he is today?

For a lot of people earning money and especially keeping wealth against inflation is very difficult. Many work hard and barely can save some money because of living cost. The few money left to save gets eaten away by inflation.

Crypto is the biggest chance for us.

I am NOT talking about "life changing super rich making" gains made with gambling into memecoins, but simply investing into the bigger 2 cryptos (maybe some alts, too).

Some might say that stocks or pennystocks were biggest opportunities...if you were early to Amazon, Gamestop and co. you would be rich, but nobody could see the future and it would have been pure luck anyways.

Why crypto is our biggest chance in this century?

It's a new technology, it brings freedom to the people, it's decentralized, nobody controls it. People slowly mistrust the current fiat system.

It's still developing, soon more people will understand Bitcoin.

Until then, let's not get your time and wealth go to waste and invest in crypto (BTC, ETH, [your alt]). It doesn't have to be life changing money, preserving wealth, increasing it bit by bit. Sats by sats, stack it.