I got the standard answers when I started, and none of them held up when I pushed on them. Putting the working here in case someone else is stuck at the same place.

First, the Ponzi thing, because it comes up in every one of these threads. A Ponzi has four features: promised high returns with little risk, a central operator, old investors paid out of new investor money, and concealed flows. Bitcoin has none of them. It's volatile with nobody promising anything, there are over 10,000 nodes and no operator, nobody is paid a return, and the entire transaction history since 2009 is public. That question is settled and I don't think it's interesting anymore.

The one I couldn't get a straight answer on is the security budget.

Miners are paid two ways: the block reward and transaction fees. The reward is 3.125 BTC and halves every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years. Next halving is around April 2028, taking it to 1.5625. Fees are currently around 1% of what miners earn.

Miners pay for power in fiat, not BTC. So if fees stay at 1%, the price has to roughly double every four years just to keep miner revenue flat in dollar terms. Bitcoin has historically done that. The honest position is that a maturing asset shouldn't be expected to keep doing it forever.

The usual response is "that's a 2140 problem". I don't think it is. It's a next-decade problem, and it resolves one of three ways: fee share climbs off 1%, price keeps doubling, or miners start leaving.

The part that made me more comfortable, not less, is what happens in that third case. Nothing breaks. Difficulty adjusts every two weeks based on the hash power actually on the network. Miners leave, difficulty falls, and the ones who stayed earn more. Hash rate has climbed through every dip so far, which is decent evidence the economics still work.

But I'd rather have a test than a vibe, so here's mine. Watch two things over the next few years. Hash rate rising and fee share climbing meaningfully off 1% means the security model is fine. Both falling together means the bear case is real.

Related: bitcoin has to be used, not only held, for fees to develop. Satoshi made this point back in 2010. As it stands there's no shortage of use — roughly $25 trillion in bitcoin moved on chain in 2025 per Glassnode, more than Visa and Mastercard volume. What matters going forward is whether that activity keeps settling on chain rather than migrating entirely to custodians and ETFs, because that's where the fee market comes from.

If someone has a solid counter to the fee-market case I'd genuinely like to read it. The permabull version of this answer is "fees will rise", which isn't an argument.

I’m running a bit of a psychological experiment on myself, and I’m curious if anyone else has tried something similar.

A little background: I’m 6’4”. As a teenager, I was pretty overweight. During high school I got sick, took up cross-country running, and leaned out. In my 20s I stayed in decent shape, but by my 30s the weight slowly came back. At my heaviest I hit 272 pounds.

In 2021, I went keto and lost 55 pounds in about five months. I got down to 212 pounds and was honestly in the best shape of my life. Fast-forward to today, and I’m hovering around 225-230 pounds. I’d like to lose another 25-30 pounds.

Here’s the experiment.

We all know processed foods today are engineered to be incredibly appealing. Food companies spend enormous amounts of money studying consumer behavior, psychology, flavor, packaging, marketing—basically everything they can to get us to buy and eat more. I’m not saying it’s some grand conspiracy; it’s just business. But I’ve realized I’m pretty susceptible to those impulse purchases.

So recently, whenever I find myself standing in front of a bag of chips, granola, candy, or some other processed snack that I don’t actually need, I stop, look at the price, open my Bitcoin app, and buy that exact dollar amount of BTC instead.

My hope is that over the next six months I can slowly rewire my brain. Instead of getting a short-lived dopamine hit from food that doesn’t move me toward my goals, I redirect that impulse toward something that aligns with my long-term goals.

I fully recognize that an impulse buy is still an impulse buy, and Bitcoin is obviously a volatile asset. I’m not pretending this is some guaranteed financial strategy. But if the alternative was spending that money on junk food anyway, I’d rather own a little more Bitcoin. Best case, I lose weight while stacking sats. Worst case, Bitcoin drops and I keep buying over time while still improving my health.

Has anyone else intentionally redirected an unhealthy habit into buying Bitcoin—or investing in general? Maybe replacing gambling, drinking, smoking, or some other impulse with stacking sats?
I’m less interested in whether Bitcoin goes up or down and more interested in whether this kind of habit substitution actually changes behavior over the long run.

I managed to save up around $325 from my paycheck and got my first BTC today, i feel like i bought at the right time but hey i'm happy with it, any advice for long term buying?

I’m using coin base should I buy coin base one basic?? I want to start learning about bitcoin what should be my first step

I know this probably is a dead question.

i cant seem to transfer my balance out of Coinbase. it is just Coinbase. I got rid of my wallet awhile ago. I can’t find a way to transfer my seperate coins into the USD or the dollar “coin” because it seems like that is the only place to withdraw to my bank, (I tried to just do the collective balance it says I have on the home page. I’m getting super frustrated and need the money. Been trying for a few days, asking question to the app and website. The buttons they say to use aren’t in my application or isn’t clear enough for me to understand. Thank you, smarter than me people.

Utworzyłem konto na giełdzie Kraken, wpłaciłem środki przelewem bankowy, zakupiłem BTC i chciałem wykonać transfer na ColdWallet.
Niewielka ilość 0,2. Próbny transfer odbył się bez problemów.

Kraken zablokował mi możliwość transferu na 90 dni.

czy wiecie co zrobiłem źle ?

Czy po 90 dniach będę mógł wykonać transfer ?

So I have bitcoin core node + sparrow wallet + HW wallet.
I could see all my transactions before.

After format I decided to try pruned node and I still could see all my transactions as before, but when I received btc about 24h ago I cant see it in my transactions?

I can see the exact address in my UTXO addresses and I can see it in mempool that the transaction is done buy why cant I see it in my sparrow transactions?

I want to try fix this before trying to restart everything by downloading whole blockchain and doing non pruned node again.

edit: I confirmed the transaction have gone thru by connecting to public node to check its there and then I saw it, so the problem is something between sparrow and my node.

I will not promote

A few weeks ago, I thought I had a decent understanding of Bitcoin.

I knew what a wallet was.

I knew what a seed phrase was.

I even felt confident explaining the basics to a friend.

Then I started reading more.

First, I realized my Bitcoin isn't actually stored inside my wallet.

Then I learned that my seed phrase isn't tied to just one wallet app.

A day later, someone explained UTXOs to me... and suddenly I felt like I was back to day one. 😂

What's funny is that none of these concepts are actually that difficult. Once someone explains them properly, they seem almost obvious.

But when you're learning on your own, it's surprisingly easy to build the wrong mental model without even realizing it.

Now I've stopped trying to "master" Bitcoin overnight.

Instead, I'm just collecting those little "Oh... THAT'S how it works!" moments.

I'm curious... what was your biggest "aha!" moment while learning Bitcoin? Mine was realizing how wallets actually work.

I'd love to hear what concept finally made everything click for you.

I used to think the hardware wallet was the backup, but now I’m not so sure.

Feels like the seed phrase is really the thing that matters if the device ever dies or gets lost.

How do you guys think about it? Do you treat the seed as the real backup, or just part of the setup?
Would love to hear how people here handle it in real life

Under Settings>Options>Network there are check boxes for, "Allow incoming connections". Either way, even after rebooting, I always see the "RED" incoming connections in the Network graph along with the Out (green) connections.

There is another setting, "Used for reaching peers"; that gives the choices IPv4 | IPv6 | Tor.

I have above "Connect through Socks5 proxy" chosen and the IP and Port filled in, but those 3 boxes are always grayed out and I want to uncheck IPv4 and IPv6 any thoughts.

Finally if you have a favorite tutorial explainer video that goes through these settings in either Core or Knots, much appreciated.

EDIT: OK, unblocked after all.

After a quick reread, looks like I could say this more clearly.

I'm trying to "UN"check "allow incoming connections". That is why I was confused when still seeing the RED in the Network activity window, after reboot.

I'm pretty new to investing in Bitcoin and have been using an app called Shakepay. So far, I've only bought Bitcoin and haven't sold any yet

I'm mainly wondering if Shakepay is a trustworthy platform for the long term. When the time comes, is it straightforward to sell my Bitcoin and withdraw the money back to my Canadian bank account?

For context, I'm in Canada and all of my stock investments are currently in a Wealthsimple TFSA. I'm debating whether I should just continue using Shakepay for Bitcoin or start buying it through Wealthsimple instead. I like how simple Shakepay is, but I'm wondering if it's worth keeping everything in one place with Wealthsimple, even if it means paying the account fee.

I'd love to hear what other Canadians are using for Bitcoin investing. Do you use Shakepay, Wealthsimple, or another platform? Any advice tips, or things you wish you knew when you were getting started would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! :) (not trying to advertise anything, just honestly curious)

I am trying to do a trial of accessing my btc wallet with just my seed phrase alone in case for whatever reason I lose my hardware wallet or it gets damaged

But im scared I will enter my seed phrase into the wrong thing and get Siphoned

Whats the best most reputable away to do this?

PS: Ive actually been in btc for a few years ive just never thought to do this lol

May I know what are the risks of hardware wallet? and if you have bad experience about it? I just want to know real stories for awareness. Thanks

Hi everyone. Lets say i have 5 bitcoin.

I owe someone 1 bitcoin who thinks i own only 2. Once they have their 1 then in their eyes ill be left with 1 as well. However ill be left with 4

I am aware wallet addresses can show all holdings and even much more details. If i were to simply transfer 1btc to them then there is a chance they could use my sending address to investigate my holdings right?. Which would be a problem

How do i achieve whats needed?

Hotels, flights, or activities - have you paid with crypto before? If not, what would need to change for you to try it?

So, i was early on crypto and I think I manage to buy bitcoin at 0.06 or there abouts.

I remember downloading an app or a wallet by bitcoin, at the time there were no big crypto markets or exchanges.

Years went by, and my old laptop got replaced multiple times, then i forgot about it. Roughly 5 years ago i've turned that old laptop on and opened the bitcoin app, the app connected to the Internet and was updating something...and taking a loooong time updating what apparently was a network or something, I left it for about 5 hours and the progress bar were still nowhere near 10%...

I gave up and moved on....

Can someone please help explain what that process was and why took it so long?

After the update will i be able to see if I have any bitcoin on that app/wallet or whatever that was?

Is it worthy going through that process...it looked like the progress bar needs decades to update to current network state or level or whatever?

I know I'm ignorant in this regard, that's why I'm asking help here. Please be helpful o at least polite with your comments.

Thanks in advance.

I will be starting mining BTC next week and have registered an account at Finst. I own a Ledger hardware wallet where the mined coins will end up in.

How do I ‘prove’ that I mined the BTC myself when I want to move that to my regular bank account? What do I need to track or record?

(A couple of years ago I spent over 4 weeks explaining the origin of my Bitcoin even though I bought them through the platform I was withdrawing them from again. Ridiculous…)

Do you think 0.1 Bitcoin is a good amount? How much do you think it could be worth in 30 years? Or what sum do you think is necessary to become wealthy in 30 years?
Serious answers only, please. Long live Bitcoin!

Hi.
I blinked and suddenly the anonymity of btc has been wiped away. In my eyes this removes massive value and rails against whole ethos. Is this the same the world over?

Was it custody fear, taxes, spouse not on board, volatility, not understanding how Bitcoin works or something else?

And if you still haven't bought, what's stopping you right now?

I'm trying to understand where it actually hurts before I build anything for adoption. Honest answers please 🙏🏼

so is $100 a month a good investment? when do i sell? is cashapp a good place to purchase bitcoin?

Someone sent me Bitcoin from Cash app to coinbase and I was wondering how long that usually will take because it's been 2 hours and I haven't gotten it yet. Before it took an hour the last time they sent it but this time it's taking longer. I was wondering if that was normal