With the same analogy, salt dominated for a long time until the introduction of minted coins, then paper money, then fiat, then bitcoin/crypto. Bitcoin is just on its early stages and there's still a huge room for development if you ask me, and right now people are still over bitcoin and other alts being their second best interest to profit. If bitcoin is to fall, best bet is that it would take decades before that happens.

Their knowledge in the traditional stock markets wouldn't apply even 90% of the time in crypto, that's why I barely listen to these financial experts when it comes to crypto talks. But in the coming months/years when crypto is flocked with these stock traders and finance experts, I'm inclined to think that the volatility would soon be lessened, and some of the traditional trading strategies, indicators and whatnot would soon apply to crypto since it would slowly shift its nature and exhibit activities similar to those of traditional assets. I guess I'm just wishful thinking, but there is a high possibility that crypto would soon be like traditional penny stocks in terms of volatility and market activity.

Influential or not, still a news that would possibly be a moving force in the market since it's still positive no matter how you look at it. Good for our Aussie mates since here in our country (Philippines), once they found out that your funds came from a service that deals with crypto, they'd block your account without any warnings just like what happened to our supplier of video cards here. The bank (BDO) noticed that the person cashes in millions every month and the funds came from an exchange. In return, the bank suspended the account due to it receiving funds from "unknown sources" that could come from "illicit activities and fraud". Such a shame though, but I guess that's what would happen if a certain entity isn't doing their own research.

Sadly, most people in here only focus on the gains they can make with bitcoin and not really with the tech. Ironically, those who don't like bitcoin are the ones who's making further developments and progressions with the blockchain tech, while the people who like bitcoin the most are the ones who only care about the profits and leave the tech alone with no interest on it whatsoever. In the future, blockchain will be a key tech feature that most services will use, so isn't it wise to focus on it while trying to gain monetary profits as well?

Most people who are in the crypto game are looking for a fast way to gain riches. Well, this isn't one of them, and let's be honest, those who have held through time since 2010 are lucky that bitcoin gained value or else, this forum would still be a hub for the geeks and few people who really wanted to escape the chains of the government, and their bitcoins would remain a token to be gifted if someone posted something useful on these forum's boards. Only the smart investors gain something when most people accept their losses, and those investors deserve to be rich than the poor souls who thought crypto is a get-rich-quick scheme.

With the same logic, shouldn't fiat and gold be worthless right now since owners and users of both only magically agreed that they are worth something? Honestly everything in this world gained value because people subconsciously agreed that X is worth something and it only became widely-accepted later on. That is how gold gained value; it's hard to procure, so it should be worth X and people just agreed to it since the logic is technically correct.

No matter how stable the price will be, there'd still be some kind or differences in prices between different exchanges as they operate with different volumes and each has their own different market conditions. As of now, arbitraging low amounts is pointless, given that the fees and confirmation times aren't in great shape. However if the two things I've mentioned favor traders, then you'll see that the price gap would reduced as traders would surely go where there are profits.

As for the price, it will remain volatile as ever given that bitcoin still remains as a speculative asset and millions of traders are exchanging it as well.

You forgot to mention the famous line "the bitcoin bubble has been popped" by FUDsters and permabears. Everytime bitcoin loses 5-10% of its value, numerous topics will spawn with almost the same title when it clearly is the norm of bitcoin's market movements. Also, aren't the charts enough to prove these people that it's normal for something to lose value and regain it back once more? Silly people. While they are busy crying "bitcoin is dead", smart money buys their 'bags' and silently climb towards their riches.

Also, the pic is cropped on the lower part.

Traditional investors are aware that crypto has already garnered massive interest from all over the world, and that means more money for them if they entered at the right time. The hundreds of billions of dollars wiped out of cryptospace in a span of a month *could* be regained if the money from the Dow continues to be pulled off and move it to crypto, and smart investors knew that the stocks aren't the best place to put their money in given the current market conditions. It seems that the most viable options they have right now are bitcoin and gold, but I'm not so sure about the latter, and the former being a likely option given its steal price.

But not every guy who gained money in something should always be the one who we seek advice to. I admire the dude's patience, but then again it was an extremely lucky happenstance that he jumped into the train years before other people started noticing bitcoin. Nevertheless, still impressive for a 19-year old lad to get set for his next years in life.

On the other hand, I think that the newer generations would largely benefit and further develop crypto in the future and creating a newer system which would change the way we look at money. Bitcoin is the start, and as more and more great projects materialize, the closer we get into achieving the real financial freedom we've always dreamed about.

If I bought at a higher price than the current market rates, I tend to buy more if i deem that the price is a steal and would somehow help me average the price of my coins. But if I already bought at a low price, I'd just let it sit there and try to buy as many as I can whenever I have the spare cash. Also, I'd be checking out other coins that could be on a "bargain" and buy them to maximize the profits I could reap later on. I don't sell during these times, and like many others, I'm left holding the bags of other people who thought they're smarter than me.

To not stress anything about this one, you and your brother could just use 2 ETH wallets for the both of you and whatever proceeds you make in ICOs and whatnot could be pooled to another address which both of you have control. KYC on exchanges isn't strict, but on ICOs I'm not fairly certain. Also, how would another exchange and ICO know that X address is controlled by you and your brother? That would be highly alarming since exchanges can only give information to the authorities if it's something to do with illegal activities but not to other companies and services.

Good thing it's already been cleared up; South Korean officials, just like any other government officials in the world only wants to regulate bitcoin and prevent illegal activities from flourishing in their countries through the use of bitcoin and nothing more. It's just that some media sources like to rumble words and make it look like something negative comes up, that's why whenever most people read bitcoin regulations they already think that it's the government trying to prevent any growth possible in a certain region/country. A great move, and could possibly regain confidence to some investors and traders.

As always, the media exaggerates most of the price action in bitcoin, especially if an obvious downtrend is incoming. Traders greatly capitalizes on this, and puts more and more noise/traps along the way to make confused traders give in and sell what they hold in order to prevent further losses. That's why mental and emotional fortitude is greatly needed when you have crypto investments; on paper and charts, it's obvious that bitcoin always tend to overshoot after a period of bloody crashes, but there's no definite indicator to tell whether a bear cycle has already ended and the bulls are already on the upper hand. The key is, don't get tilted with the FUD.

But what's happening at the moment is that some bulls are already quietly accumulating BTC while everyone else is busy doing estimates as to when would be the best entry price in the current market situations. Ideally, anything below $10k is a steal buy, given that the lowest point we've been into since the incredible bull run is @ $6000 which is already a lot higher floor to take off from compared to the previous run's $600. It might consolidate @ $9000 before refueling for another spectacular bull run. The question is, when would this happen and what would trigger it?

Can't blame people to risk money into something they don't fully understand. There'd be naysayers and doubters spreading FUD and fear while you are quietly building profits on your arsenal. It also became a lesson to me, when every push to $300 are regarded as 'dead cat bounces' by permabears, it's a sign that you should wait for the price to go down again and buy as many as you can. Made a decent stash by waiting on weekends to buy cheap coins and profited more than I could imagine. The thing is, when these bears are spreading FUD and fear, that is the time to buy when everyone else is selling their hard-earned bitcoins.

As most of us here know, Japan currently is the leading country in tech and innovation (and weird TV game shows) so it's not surprising that they'd be open to accept an innovation with how people handles money, and that is bitcoin and crypto. Also, their government is very keen on finding ways to help their citizens in any way possible so as you observed, there isn't any strict regulations regarding crypto in Japan. Many of the Japs believe that bitcoin will be the future of payment and money, that's why most of them jumped ship without hesitations before everybody else could.

There's always a chance for that to happen but with the current conditions of the market, the chances are very slim. Expert and newbie traders are still all over bitcoin and the cryptos and even the big financial giants know they still can rack up profits after profits with bitcoin. It might take several decades before we see the ultimate fate of bitcoin, but as for the coming years, people will still go crazy about it and regard it as the next big thing.

That is to be expected from coin devs: they'd market their product at the best of their abilities hoping that it would net them great profits in the end.

Personally, I look at these things to check whether a coin would really be worth to invest in or not:

• Whitepaper - this is one of the most important things an investor should look at before diving deeper into a coin. Most of the time, whitepapers from pump and dump coins are only comprised of flowery words that makes no sense at all if you churn the words bit by bit. Not being a grammar nazi but there are still some whitepapers out there that isn't even put out in straight English. If the development team can't put up a whitepaper decently, how would you expect them to work on the coin with dedication and effort?

• Road map - some coins out there don't even have a road map to begin with while some are shady and feels like it wouldn't be able to meet those dates and is just placed in there to attract investors. If a coin is really there to stay, the dev team would place goals that are attainable and not just some random dates placed to garner interest from their peers.

• Dev team - this may not be important but I personally look at the names and see what these devs' other projects are. If they finished a promising work, I might consider investing and trusting on them, and if not, I'd just GTFO and look for another coin.

These are the basic things I really dig into before buying in to a coin. It might be time-consuming, but then again, it's money that we're dealing with in here so every single bit of information you can get from the coin counts.

Have only been a follower of Mike since November and the way his estimates hit the mark is insane; he once stated that the month of December would be hard to predict so he didn't launch a new hedge fund in the said month like they should have, which turns out to be the best move possible. Good thing I sold out before everything blew off on December 23 and kept holding until I released some fiat again to buy just 2 days ago. If his estimates and analyses are correct, I'd be in the greens again for this year. It is extremely tempting to sell during the crash from $14k down to $6k but still, patience and emotional fortitude really pays off in the world of crypto.