Bitcoin Forum

Hi all!

Am I the only one who feels the current Bitcoin/Crypto climate is going to shit? When I got into Bitcoin in 2013, this was the true new wild west so to speak. So what happend in the last 5-6 years?

Governments are trying to take back control with regulations and taxes.
Exchanges requiring ID (KYC) etc. (hahahahaha fail)
Developers are requested to make themselves public
Previously rather unknown people. but with success in crypto, are for some reason seen as some sort of "Messiah" (binance dev for example)
etc.
etc.
etc.



So why the hell.... Do we (community) go along with all that crap?

And IMHO, if you are happy with the current climate, you should not be in crypto at all!

Or have I smoked one too many? This is not what Satoshi wanted/meant when he created Bitcoin right?


Have a good one,
Towelie

I know your feeling, and this kind of sentiment happens all the time in all different areas
Talking about BTC it's normal to be this way, in the past, like you said, it was the "wild west", but there were two options:

1 - Become unknown and be part only of the dark weeb, deep web and a few enthusiastics
2 - Become well known and be more developed, bigger, more "professional" and atracts more people to the enviroment

You know what happened, so this is natural, maybe with the first option you would be sad because no one would believe in BTC, so accept this fact and live well with BTC and community

1.Governments wanting taxes and control?...Hmm,yeah that's what governments want since the beginning of the human civilization.Are you surprised or something?

2.Exchanges requiring ID (KYC). That's government regulation,the exchanges have to comply by the law in order to continue their business.KYC isn't effective and can't stop scammers,but it has something to do with paying taxes. ;D

3.Developers requested making themselves public....Who requested that?I don't see any news about this.

4.Crypto "Messian" people.Well,those people are a certain kind of entrepreneurs.
There are "make money online gurus" "crypto gurus" whatever you can think of "gurus"  
Just ignore them.Most of the "gurus" and "messiahs" are con artists and scammers.

Was the 2013 crypto climate better than now?
Back then,there were scammers everywhere and every bitcoin related website was a potential scam.

The beginning of my BTC journey is dated back in 2013 too. 2013 apparently was the beginning of Bitcoin's explosion, and that obviously led to lawmakers thinking about crypto laws. I am against control & KYC, but on the other hand I do get the fundamental idea of "we can't just let everyone be anonymous and handle money the way they want without any underlying ability of controlling from where, where and why the money is moving".

However, they're pushing it to the limits - exactly like I thought they would. They essentially pushed it to the abuse, out of which the most obvious one was KYC. This identification program, in my opinion, has put out the fire for many as they lost trust in BTC. It was supposed to make you free, not linked to yet another third party.. right?

The thing is, this being a new area of economics means there'll always be never-seen-before measures and features coming up and/or vanishing. Expect just anything. The only thing I have never stopped doing is believing. Maybe Bitcoin one day falls to 0, but what if I can be part of the opposite? Part of a changing world?

Focus on your beliefs. Focus on your privacy. Fuck Bitcoin laws man, they're nothing compared to what our leaders are pushing as an excuse of this "pandemic". The privacy thing goes way beyond KYC if you stop being blind and look at the situation we are witnessing as we speak. WHO wants to enter your house and check on your family members every single day and we're worrying about a KYC?

Where the hell are we heading?

Change is to be expected.
- The popularity of Bitcoin rose exponentially since 2013 and it also became an investment assets to many.
- Government authorities saw that investor's money is flowing into bitcoin and they also want a piece.
- Developers requested to make their identity known is a consequence of the many scam projects that flooded the market since ICOs became a thing.

Despite all the changes, Bitcoin enthusiasts still have the option to use platforms that do not require their identity and transactions to be exposed completely such as P2P exchanges, wallets with coinjoin features and coin mixing services.

I guess you smoked too many lol ;D

I think bitcoin is not at the climate, and we still waiting for that. The climate will come when the bitcoin price can rise so high, over what we already saw in a few years ago. So be it if the government wants to take control of regulations and taxes, but the crypto will still continue. And some exchanges do not require KYC for their members because they want to make their members satisfied with their services.

What we see now is bitcoin has a large number of people who use bitcoin to make money, and there is many more people will come to the bitcoin world. But we cannot see that in a short time because people need to learn before they can use bitcoin properly.

many of your kind don't worry because we have our own expectation mate so that is your opinion to be respected.
we are not going along thats why we are until now not allowing the government tool over our Market here.
well i am happy at some point because now we can Buy more before the price goes high again.
Satoshi Made this for us to have financial freedom thats why until now we are fighting for our anonymity (though we are not that anonymous here)

It got more popular. Prices increased.

As the money in anything grows, it becomes more visible and more of a concern to governments and regulatory authorities. If a thing is small in dollar terms, then it is inconsequential to a government, and is ignored. When it gets bigger, and particularly when it impacts other people and other businesses, then the authorities step in. Crypto has a lot of rock-solid use-cases. It will continue to get bigger, continue to move towards the mainstream, and continue on the path to regulation and integration into 'normal' society.

If I have a couple of chickens in my garden and set up a stall in front of my house selling 6 eggs a week for $1, then the government couldn't care less that I'm making $1 profit and paying zero tax on it. If I scale up and have 10,000 chickens, build a shop in front of my house and start employing staff to sell the eggs, then the authorities take an interest. Same with anything.

I am more or less satisfied with what's going on. Governments should regulate the market, it would facilitate the adoption process. Of course, the regulations shouldn't be too tough but I think regulating cryptos like money makes sense (although in practice countries usually opt for other things which allow getting money out of it). As for #2, I think there should be reasonable financial limits introduced, and once transactions are above that limit, KYC is okay because it can really help fight money laundering. Speaking of #3, it came to be at least somewhat after billions of dollars lost by people who invested in scam ICOs and couldn't even sue the teams as they had no idea to whom they gave their money.
There are problems, but it's not all that terrible IMO.

True  ;D

Crypto becoming bigger than anyone have thought is the reason why government is calling it a "threat" to their standardized set of terms financially. We have seen economists calling it a bubble, and government tend to ban it. But now? I see establishments and businesses growing with cryptocurrency, they are having a wide variety of payment options which people most love when buying, and the best is that government is considering it now to be an alternative for fiat currency and is having the idea of Digital Central Bank Currency.

Pretty clever analogy, it only means that government is only looking with the same level as their eyes, they are not looking down and taking crap.

I do understand line of thought and this was my concern when all exchanges start implementing these stupid KYC policy, it is getting frustrating. What these exchanges wants is that they want to play the big boys game and for them to get accepted they need to play by their rules. I have always argued that Bitcoin is not a money to be used to buy just anything like the Fiat.

That was always going to be the case with BTC. Once they (ruling class) figured out that they can't stop BTC without going on a totalitarian rampage, it was obvious they were going to try the "less invasive" yet profitable approach to deal with decentralized cryptos such as BTC: regulations.

I mean, it's not like Bitcoin was a synonymous of privacy. Plus, exchanges are the gateway for Bitcoin to the masses. General public complying to KYC = they buy crypto = price pump = moon & lambos and everybody wins (the masses discover a new way of keeping their wealth outside of "the system" and hodlers see their btc stash go up in value, it's a win-win situation).

I don't follow the technical side of cryptos nor the community surrouding it so i'm not aware of this. Are they being forced to do that?

Seen as a Messiah by whom? The general public? The MSM? Crypto newbies? If so, should we care? it's not like we have the resources to stop them from following the next narrative. Let the herd follow the narrative that the ruling class has imposed on them. We (not NPC's following the elite) should just move along with our lives.

Let's cut the crap, either we go along with this "new era" of cryptos or we won't see BTC mooning (literally what the majority here wants). The community let this current climate that you speak of proceed like nothing back in 2017 when the big boys from Wall Street started making their moves and entering the crypto market en masse. it's too late now, they're too big: whales holding massive amount btc, exchanges trying to monopolize the cryptosphere (see Binance), etc, etc.
Also, most people involved with cryptos nowadays do not care about the cypherpunk movement (which is something i'm sure you follow), it sucks but it is what it is in this time and age.

Is Satoshi supposed some sort of Messiah? "O' Lord Satoshi, for thou hast created bitcoin I will follow thee for I have followed thy teachings" LOL

Wow, some valid points here.

Good to know I'm not the only one who's having thoughts like that.





The chicken example is spot on btw :D



But, if there's such a bad taste when it comes to KYC, how come the majority of traders still use them? There are many alternative exchanges that don't require KYC (yet).
So this makes me think, the majority does not give a crap about their privacy as long as there is some volume on these exchanges to play with?

I get it though, if you trade on bittrex,binance or whatever, you are not easily moving to another exchange. But isn't that a bit "dangerous" as well? I mean, where's the line here in what exchanges ask, and will ask from from us in the future?

I think we can be certain, this is only the start of "regulating" crypto. So when will this go too far/stop? When they ask fingerprints for login systems?  :D


I'm aware of the positive sides of regulation. But lately, it looks like the regulations are going through the roof, and we just follow along like a headless chicken. That's what worries me on the long term. Are the masses agreeing to these regulations too easily maybe?


edit:

There's too much to quote from everyone, and to respond to it. But thank you all for replying and giving your inputs/thoughts on this matter.

nothing, all the things you listed here (below) are exactly the same as ever!

they have been doing it long before bitcoin and will coninue doing it long after bitcoin.

exchanges are centralized places that are only used by traders. the rest of bitcoin users are not traders so they don't need exchanges and their KYC. they can also buy bitcoin P2P or get paid in bitcoin just like any other currency.

almost all of bitcoin developers and major contributors are already known! again this is not changed over the past 10 years.

anybody is free to claim to be anybody. there is at least one new idiot literary every week who claims to be an expert in bitcoin. that only makes them look bad.

Hi Towelie,
you are absolutely right about what you say! up to 5/6 years ago bitcoin was considered the new far west, for many a gold mine, but over time the fans have multiplied considerably and with them also gurus and scammers! this led to a gradual loss of our privacy on cryptocurrencies and apparently it was inevitable that it would happen

The worst idea ever for crypto community is KYC documents. Bitcoin wasn't designed with this worst idea. But peoples are hopeless since most of reputed centralized exchange organizations asking for that shit documents even including gambling. I am not sure how cryptocurrency would be 100% regulated but this is another disadvantage for crypto users. Regulation and KYC procedures making hard to use crypto currency. Its become quite difficult to keep your privacy private.

Even we aren't happy with current crypto climate what should we do? Leaving crypto industry for this reasons wouldn't be a solution. Rather than blame to others think about something new and unique how could we build more strong crypto community and we could overcome such as shit ideas.

It goes mainstream and the government recognized it but being regulated by this entity will not be good for the mass especially if we talked about this "KYC". Centralized Exchanges are just complying with want the government wants because if they don't they can't operate, I'm just hoping more and more adopt decentralized exchanges.

You are lucky to be one of the early adopter. Satoshi's vision and mission creating bitcoin didn't go in vain. We are still using it as a payment and that's the main goal why Satoshi ended up with bitcoin.

The exchanges just came next and those are businesses that have to comply to their local government in which they are part of the jurisdiction. They're helping the crypto community because there's circulation of money and it's adding market cap to bitcoin.

I guess Satoshi is expecting this or has seen this scenario, the collaboration of the government and its tie up to bitcoin.

There are obviously different kinds of people on the market now. One uses bitcoin for its better pseudonymous support, while the other is in it for the money. The latter won't mind any KYC as long as it's safe for them while the other would probably asking where are we going right now.

Crypto is no longer a 'geek' market now, everyone is trying to take profits from it, so it's inevitable. If you don't like KYC, strict rules and etc, then DEX is your choice. Removing the whole retail market is not a good idea either as it's impossible to make bitcoin mainstream when you don't get enough publicity and volumes from those speculators.

Going shit seems to be too much. It pretty much just bent to the will to the majority of those big companies, albeit a minimal amount. Kind of like meeting halfway through to make an agreement. Not to mention the explosive growth of Bitcoin in every aspect which only took 10 years. The government as an authority HAD to do something. It's not like they're just idiots to ignore something that literally imposes control over something they themselves control. Not to mention that they can't even participate in negotiations with whoever is backing BTC because no one is backing it. Well, there is, but it's a collective organization without any leader, simply speaking, the crypto community that is invested in making BTC an asset that could be assimilated to the entire world.

In my country every local exchange wants you to first to through KYC if you want to trade or liquidate into local fiat. That is basically the reverse of what cryptocurrency is meant for.

Developers are requested to make themselves public because of so many scams happened in the past. Now, if they need investment into their projects they need to reveal their identity or create a project better than those which already exists.I support that too as it helps investors to gain trust.

Other than that everything else is a bunch of crap.

To me, this is what Nakatomo Satoshi wants to create. he wanted to create a decentralized market and a limited supply of assets would lead the market and he succeeded. He knows that when this market is well known, it will be a completely beneficial playground for those who have a lot of money. Anyway, this is a kind of interesting decentralized market and It is only for those who like to face high risks. We can either make a lot of money and become a shark or we have nothing.

To be honest, the progression we see today is far away from the past. there are many developments and most of the time it involves Bitcoin. the good thing about it is, they are now recognizing bitcoin as one of the top currency in the world not just some fancy coin from the casino or used by the bad people in the deep weeb. this is so far the great year for the bitcoin unless you still want the old way of bitcoin where you are having hard to explain it to the people. which much more complicated than what we have today.

Your points are valid mate because the problem with OP is that He is expecting
too much to happen as if the market
 needs to continue growing in front of Him in which i think not appropriate in Crypto currency,Not like in Stocks that there
 are physical products in circulation but here?all are virtual so movement are far different from everything that we use
 to learn.but at least we are seeing completely success for more than 10 years look of how much crypto already achieved .

I think this starry-eyed, nostalgic romanticism with the bitcoin landscape being the wild-wild west is a very "western" concept. I was not there in 2013 but came in touch around mid-2017 with the ICO craze. I don't think KYC or regulations have hurt bitcoin as much as the insider themselves. You cannot expect a technology like bitcoin to reach a critical level with interest just from the privacy-conscious individuals. Bitcoin NEEDED more people to come in. That meant development and use-cases. Actual usage as the currency of the internet but that did not happen. One of the reason is the non-diversification of development.  The community also got split and bitcoin relegated the role of demonstrating blockchain capabilities to the crazy, scammy ICO "devs".

Another thing is that the discussion on newer capabilities has completely got shut off amidst the unnecessary tantrums over KYC/ regulation etc. Fo rexample, @JetCash decided to start threads for discussion of bitcoin's new capabilities (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5220436.msg53692151#msg53692151) but these things don't get much attention. This leads to a situation where developments based on bitcoin don't get as much attention. All the spotlight remains on the maximalists and "sound money" enthusiasts from twitter. (Unfortunately, the set of maximalists and the set of COVIDiots has a considerable overlap, so more division).

There is a certain section of people that wants bitcoin to be a cure for everything from Govt monopoly to bad vaccine practices to fake news to consumerism. It provides a starting point for that but it cannot by itself be the answer. That explorer spirit has been taken over by traders and whales. We just unleashed another set of software guys waiting to get rich (Gates and Jobs) when we should have had a set of software guys wanting to make the world a better place (Stallman and Linus).

I believe you are part of a small group that is not satisfied with how things are going


call evolution.

when in my country we used this phone

https://img.ibxk.com.br/2017/07/08/08113436976607.jpg?w=328

we had privacy because the government didn’t require people to register with mobile operators.

today we use these:

https://imagens.canaltech.com.br/295762.547987-iPhone-SE-2020.jpg

the number of people using the phone in my country has increased a lot and as a result the government has started to demand that mobile operators register their customers and privacy no longer exists


because this is an inevitable path, you can still use mixers if you want privacy


 :D

You need to look at it from afar.  This kind of technology is going to take time to develop and turn in to a mass adopted payment system.  I think first off too many people view bitcoin as an investment rather than a currency system as it was intended.  This is misleading and confusing to new people coming in and trying to figure out what bitcoin is all about.  We also haven't gotten that "killer app" as Andreas Antonopolous always talks about.  The one that makes things super easy your grandmother could use it.  This is all going to take time.  Rome wasn't built over night.

This has been an age-long campaign for the fact that most of these exchanges are custodian exchanges and could be shut down if found violating rules, well there are some individuals under government radar, so the government want to be able to track them and their fund coupled with nations under sanctions. The government is still very powerful that this KYC has started been extended to DEX. It's too bad you can almost not able to buy bitcoin with your card without KYC.


For the most part of this, it's the developers that want to conduct ICO/IEO and collect funds from the public that usually do this to build investors' trust.

If you want to collect money from individuals then you must be transparent and for this to happen then you must be publicly known so this is not a bad practice at all specially from the government that serves as protector of each people.

for OP,if you are not contented in this market then you can just simply Leave because no one is forcing you to remain here and having this issues .

The main reason is that people try to cheat the system. For example many people started using exchanges for money laundering business and therefore there was no option but to make KYC mandatory. Decentralization is important and beneficial but at the same time some people exploit it for their own benefit.

You will agree with me that then bitcoin is not really understood and when people get involved in bitcoin, a lot of people started concentrating on the flaws which lead to using bitcoin as a settlement for illegal things, fraud and money laundering and this has caused many parties involved in finding a concrete method to reduce this flaw and the results are those KYC, AML compliance and regulations we are seen today.

I am among those who are quite surprised by the current state of bitcoin, so many bad things happen in the crypto world. Therefore more and more
decreased enthusiasm of people towards bitcoin. I want bitcoin to be respected and desirable as before, frankly I am a person which is difficult to
move on to what happened in 2017-2018. At that time the whole world seemed to glance at bitcoin, and it was very easy to earn money when it is.
It has been two years but the situation is now very alarming, even though the big event bitcoin halving is about to take place will happen but the
price movement of bitcoin looks stable. Bitcoin prices should have gone up dramatically.

Before we even learn this crypto,illegal people already using this as their trading material and i believe that why this become more popular and successful is because these underground people are already using this.
KYC and AML maybe effective for Law Abiding people but for criminals and syndicate ?lol they will only laugh at this regulations.

Nobody think that Bitcoin will show like this as it started nothing and just being ignored by many, not even the government had noticed. But to the time that crypto explode, it catches attention to the people. Not being a part of it only but also the aims of the government to take control and have some share of it. The greedy thing to be and most likely they do to the others.
Should we expect strong support for them? Not really and we can't expect that from them unless they'll taking some part of it just like imposing taxes.

I guess crypto also evolved in the last 5-6 years.


I think this is evident last 2016 and really highlighted in 2017 specially when bitcoin reaches it's peak. I don't think its taking back control, but more of wanting to have a piece of the pie.


You can still used DEX.


Why not though, people are pulling a lot of scam attempts. Top 10 coins developers are well-known.


To be honest, when the price of bitcoin starts from .01 then goes to 10 dollars, it became an asset per se, so it has very much evolved.

1) Governments were never going to allow crypto to remain in its Wild West state.  Never.  I'm actually surprised that there aren't more rules and restrictions than there currently are.  In a lot of ways, we're still in the early days of crypto.

2)  Exchanges aren't requiring KYC docs because they want to (as far as I know).  They're doing that because they're being forced to by the governments in whose jurisdictions they operate.  Exchanges don't have a choice, and I can't fault them for implementing KYC.

3)  I don't know what you mean by developers requesting to make themselves public.

4)  Yeah, there's a lot of that "cult of personality" in the crypto space, which I don't particularly care for.  I'm not interested in personalities and generally don't believe anything people have to say--even less so when they have a "big" name attached to their words.

The community doesn't have a lot of choice as far as the regs governments put in place, and it's unfortunate that there isn't a big political crypto lobby like large corporations have.  And as far as the 4th point is concerned, I've found my own solution to that (see above).

You are stating events which happens all the time with or without bitcoin.

Government in control. It is not new. Anything created by one genius will suddenly be a criminal or will be missing, etc.
Creation of a new kind of optional payment method, they will buy it using the rich people who are also in their control or vice versa.

So what can you really do about it.
You speak like you can do something. Why not propose a good guide and then maybe we could follow it.
If it was really good though.

Well, technically you always had to pay your taxes
The biggest exchange was Mt.Gox, and it required verification for larger amounts as well.
Developers of genuinely awesome stuff, that don't ask people to buy in using funds, can make whatever they want anonymously. In the early days, a new altcoin was very severely judged if it was pre-mined. If people want to ask for tons of cash, with no upfront work, unlike Satoshi they may need to show their credentials.
I think there are lots of crypto to crypto exchanges that don't need KYC.

There were a few positive things that have been shut-down and that will be missed.
There were a lot of betting websites that weren't blocked to people from the US. Satoshi Dice for example and betting on outcome style websites.
The one that shutdown that made me the saddest was one with bitcoin denominated stocks. We could have had our own stock markets.


I'm generally happy with where things are now. If you put some legwork in, you can do all the things that you could do in the early days, perhaps except for mining and getting some btc through faucets.

I wanna see a bitcoin stock market again though.

Why do you say so?

Satoshi meant to create:

- "A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash"  - Done

- no third party involved in transactions - Done

- impossibility of tampering/double spending - Done


Bitcoin is doing great, and I think Satoshi would be proud of its performance.

What governments are trying to do and what exchanges are requiring is the consequence of the level of adoption Satoshi couldn't even dream of at the time of writing the whitepaper.

(Sorry, didn't mean to sound so snippy. It was just my opinion. I know, I can be wrong)

Why not? everyone has different criteria and comfort zones, right? we cannot force others to have the same tastes as us.
If we are not happy with the current climate, then do not adapt, then we will not get anything. Don't blame change, it will always happen to get adjustments that can be enjoyed by everyone. After all, you can still get privacy, trade without KYC on a decentralized exchange, right? There are many choices to suit your taste.
The fact is that bitcoin is still on track. The government is only trying to adjust this to the system by imposing taxes, just think of it as competence that the government provides legality and rules governing crypto.

The climate has its ups and downs. Don't be too negative it's still doing ok in the time of economic disturbance and pandemic.

One thing Satoshi did not expect for sure were people trying to lie to the public and try to make everyone think they're Satoshi. He made a system that allows to sign addresses and that should be the one and only proof needed to know for sure who is who.

Part of the community allows people like CSW to tarnisg the name of Bitcoin and Satoshi by ignoring that he did not sign any of the original addresses. This is "going to shit" in my eyes.

"Oh heeeeeell no"

I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore! Speech from Network (1080p)
- https://youtu.be/ZwMVMbmQBug

 :D

I just thinking that KYC is a trestle for bitcoin getting accepted in all country.

We never life in freedom, we have a government who still have an old system.

Indeed, bitcoin was created to make the people get a freedom life but I think it will never come true.

this is only the start , expect that many unexpected things to happen on the past  . so if i were you i will now decide if i will accept all of these changes and stay or not  .  the reason why they make such change is because  i think there are now more users here in cryptocurrency   .

they need to ask kyc to control frauds   . they need to tax crypto because that is also to control abuse because people think btc is a gateway to freedom but about the devs , that is not really a serious matter .

It was inevitable, once you release something to the public you no longer decide what it will become, at the beginning most of those that adopted bitcoin did so because they believed in the ideals that represented and they opposed any kind of attempt to try to regulate it, but as bitcoin has become more popular those people have become a minority and the focus is now on how to make money the fastest and if that means accepting all of those things that go against bitcoin and its ideals many people are willing to accept it.

So actually what we think is not profitable will actually have a positive impact on us. For some people, KYC is indeed considered a taboo in the crypto world that maintains privacy, but we also have to consider that crime and bad things can happen here too, so that would be very helpful. If you don't want KYC then there are other options such as a decentralized exchange. See? we are free to choose, all risks are borne individually.

Yep, this was not Satoshi's plans for Bitcoin, if you take time to read how he described the cryptocurrency. Over the years a lot of people have defined Bitcoin in a way that's different from what was said at the beginning. The first description was that it's simply a payment method, but nowadays people are seeing it as an investment or something else and some are saying that it's a safe haven.

Well, none of them are wrong about it, Bitcoin can be an investment, but some people are now trying to misuse it. There are those who are looking for opportunities to pump and dump in the market, although that's now something difficult for anyone to achieve.

The government forced people to do KYC, but when it comes to the internet, it is hard to do that because the internet means we are free to choose what we want. The internet is like a cross border in every country, and we can do business with all people in the world. But I agree that we cannot lives in freedom because we still have an offline life which will need the government to control the country. But bitcoin gives another choice for us to have currency over the internet and the real-life, so if we use bitcoin, we can have the freedom to manage our money without interfering of the government.

Good luck with hiding a transaction on the Bitcoin network. Less than 1% of users have the technical skills needed to pull that off.

One cannot actually decide how the other person perceives anything , especially Bitcoins , it is not centralized therefore one cannot force it on others .

The volatile value of Bitcoins have since forever scared the investors away , the Whales are holding approximately 50% of the Bitcoins therefore they can sway away the price of Bitcoins in whatever way they want .

I do think even though we are not at a really amazing point in the history of Bitcoins but it will still take years for people to be able to use Bitcoins for daily activities, it is something of the future I believe .

Give it time.

I don't Bitcoin is going to be a shit show in the end because it has still great support from the community and to the investors as well. Though there are some hard times for bitcoin to pull back up especially this year that really tested the strong hands for everyone because of the massive dump due to corona virus.  And for exchanges requires KYC, i don't blame them or whatsoever that's their standards of running things and it has good and bad side effects. Over all i still have massive trust on Bitcoin until the end!

Why are you surprised You are looking for money and what else can be taxed ... Cryptocurrency cannot be traced so KYC allows you to do it. Looking for money especially now purse is the bad situation of the world economy. Although this is also a good side. It's quite close to Bitcoin legalization ...