Bitcoin gives more financial freedom than fiat currencies and/or storing money in banks. But Bitcoin can't solve the power dynamics issues, can't solve poverty. After all, those who are already rich have the best opportunities to invest in Bitcoin (because they can afford it) and crypto businesses. Yes, some people have their lives changed dramatically by Bitcoin, but that just adds a new small class of people who are rich because of Bitcoin, rather than removes poverty or even reduces it significantly. I think the biggest step toward 'fixing the world' is a big value shift that we haven't quite reached yet. But I do believe in humanity and that we can arrive to the idea that people should not be obliged to work to have their basic needs satisfied anywhere in the world.

Tim Draper is no regular guy who overcame a loss and became rich. In the article, he says he wanted to buy $250k worth of Bitcoin, which means he was already quite rich in 2011. And then with the Silk Road confiscated coins, he bought 30,000 BTC, paying $632 per coin, so it was a huge investment which he, again, could totally afford. To be honest, I don't think he bravely pushed through the loss. The thing is just that the $250k he lost before wasn't really a big amount of money to him, wasn't a big deal. I'm only saying this because he then casually spent almost 19 million dollars on buying BTC from the US government. And honestly, if you're already rich enough to be able to invest so much money into Bitcoin, do you really need the profits you'll get from it?

I know that some people use mixers for legitimate reasons. For example, I recall that Buterin once mentioned using a mixer to send money to support the Ukrainian cause, and I understand why some people might feel the need of maintaining anonymity for such things. But the way mixers work makes them very useful for money laundering, and kids of similar to how money laundering is done in general. I've never used crypto mixers, and I'm not sure whether I consider them a neutral technology that should not be banned or not.

Nobody can be sure how the future will play out with such a decision, and I think it depends a lot on the kind of altcoins you had before, but I believe that many would agree that putting the money into Bitcoin is a safer bet. Perhaps one of those altcoins will outperform Bitcoin at some point (in terms of 2x, 3x and similar measurements in comparison with the price at which they were bought), but it's also likely that some will stagnate. Of course, there's no guarantee that Bitcoin will fully recover and outperform its previous highest point, but it did that after every bear market in the past, so I think there's a very good chance it will continue to happen over and over again.

There are plenty of existing regulations, and I don't think we need more of those. I believe that a more reasonable, balanced approach should be put in place. Namely, I find it absurd to demand mandatory KYC from everyone on a crypto exchange, regardless of whether their account has dozens, hundreds, or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of money. It is important to fight big crime, the sort of activities that result in millions or more of laundered money. These activities should be the primary target, and those moving huge amounts of money should be required to provide a lot of documentation. As for regular users, I think the privacy concerns outweigh the risk of illegal financial activities here. Also, I think the regulations should not focus merely on crypto users and platforms, but should also deal with a big issue of banks laundering billions of dollars. I mean, such cases as Danske Bank are crazy, and all efforts should focus on preventing them.

This sounds like a great idea, actually. This means they use less energy than they normally would, and energy efficiency is a step toward a more eco-friendly future. Now, the carbon emmissions don't come from Bitcoin mining but just from using the electricity, if its source is bad for the environment. Companies often don't have a choice about their energy source because it's just something that depends on a country, city, and district. They should not be blamed for that, and, in any case, they are trying to make up for mining by using the residual heat for a good practical purpose. I don't know if it's safe for humans, but I don't see why not (unless we're talking about a fire hazard).

I think this topic belongs on the Economics section more than here because it's not about Bitcoin.
I'm not surprised that China's encouraging people to use their CBDC because it's a way of performing even more control over citizens than they normally do. These transactions are more traceable, while giving people the illusion that they're using something similar to cryptocurrencies. Fare discounts are probably a good way to promote a CBDC, but I hope people will be careful with using it. Surveillance is already too much in China even without a CBDC.

14. Alexander Volkanovski
13. Brandon Moreno
12. Robert Whittaker
11. Jalin Turner
10. Tresean Gore
9. Niko Price
8. Jack Della Maddalena
7. Yazmin Jauregui
6. Alonzo Menifield
5. Vitor Petrino
4. Terrence Mitchell
3. Jesus Aguilar
2. Esteban Ribovics
1. Tatsuro Taira

NOT go the Full Distance 5

Debt collection is a serious criminal enterprise in some countries. And even where it's not physically dangerous like they show in movies about South Korea, it can still mean psychological pressure for the person who took a loan and the loved ones. Fast money schemes are especially dangerous because they can give you some money pretty easily, but the interest rate is gigantic, and people often don't realize what they're getting into.
The suggestions by Investopedia include loaning money and even co-signing a loan with a struggling person. I don't think these actually help much, and they can ruin a relationship. The second article is more on-point, of course, but a big disadvantage is that it deals specifically with the US (after all, it's an official US government's website), whereas debt situations and solutions can depend a lot on a country.

That's actually a very valid point. While kids clearly are the future, the world is changing pretty fast, and seniors can be a significant part of the economy as well. Moreover, while it's probably illegal to target children for financial activities and investment opportunities, seniors can be targeted, and while kids usually don't have access to funds (they don't have bank accounts and normally don't know how to access bank accounts of their parents), seniors often have savings or other funds, so they are at a higher risk of losing money. I believe that it's important to educate the seniors to give them a fighting chance against scammers, so to speak. But as for adoption of Bitcoin specifically, I think it's more important to focus on the younger generations (although of course I'm against forcing children to learn stuff) because they will become the biggest contributing force to the economy, as well as policymakers and business owners of the future.

I just want to sum up the main reasons others pointed out in the thread. Aside from profit-making, Bitcoin can help overcome banking restrictions/sanctions in countries where it's relevant; it gives a person a possibility of total control over their funds; it provides more privacy than banking; it's a way of avoiding intermediaries when performing transactions; it can be a good alternative to a bank account for minors who aren't eligible to get one; it can be useful for migration when you need something to store your funds in.
One that I haven't seen in the thread but find pretty unique is an argument that Bitcoin mining can actually promote a switch to green energy by being a major consumer, since green energy often has storage issues, and miners can take it because they're big clients who need a lot of energy.

I'm not surprised by the results of the survey. Whether Bitcoin will do better over the next year feels less certain than that it will do great over the next decade. That's because we can all see the general upward price trend of Bitcoin, but also that a bear market can take a few years, give or take.
I believe it makes sense to assume we'll see a couple of bull market over the next decade, and while Bitcoin does take 3 steps forward and then 2 steps back, it's still clear progress in terms of the increase of its value.

I honestly have no idea how the op managed to miss the 2021 bull market, but the funny thing is that I did my own calculations based on the last few bull markets and I also settled on sometime in 2024 for the bull market. Of course, there isn't nearly enough Bitcoin history for it to count more than anecdotal evidence, but it makes sense to me that 2023 will still be in the red, but at least at some point in 2024 we'll see strong signs of recovery.
2024 will be there pretty soon, so I guess we'll see. But also, I don't think it will determine Bitcoin's fate. After another bull market, we can easily see another bear market, Bitcoin losing up to 75% of its value and all that.

Cash is more anonymous, I agree with that. But cash is also physical, which means one needs to go somewhere with it, leave it there for someone to pick up or meet up for that. And then you can't do much to legalize it because you can't just bring tons of money to a bank without any explanations, and you often need money in a bank account to pay for important things. Cryptos are digital, which means there's no need to physically go anywhere, and there are exchanges to get fiat or some places where you can spend major cryptos directly.
I don't think cryptos can be reasonably blamed for the existence of illicit financial activities, but cryptos do have some advantages over cash.

Elon Musk is very rich and pretty chaotic. He can make 3 corrections to his one Twitter-related decision; his company can invest and them sell their BTC; he can create a poll on whether Tesla should accept Dogecoin, get an affirmative answer from the majority and simply ignore it if that's his mood that day.
Also, as was pointed out in this thread, he certainly makes mistakes, but he's just rich enough to cover them. I wouldn't waste time trying to understand what's going on in his head and investing in whatever's the next thing he endorses. He can be wrong or change his mind very fast, and he'll be fine, even if it costs him hundreds of millions of dollars. And those who don't have tons of money will actually suffer.

Hm, that's a good dilemma the op described. Yes, it was a missed opportunity, but I think there will always be such cases. If one's an investor, one should follow the guidelines that give a higher chance of succeeding, and I think the investor had a good reason not to invest. If there are no other factors to consider, I wouldn't invest in something I don't understand. But I feel like my decision would also be impacted by other matters, such as the vibe of the team, whether their mission has a socially significant component to it (helping the environment, promoting education etc.), and perhaps also the gut feeling (but only if it's very strong because I normally rely on the rational things).

The op is right that it's best to invest what one can afford to lose. If someone just has some property that sits there without any use and for some reason can't be made profit of via renting or something like that, selling it and investing into Bitcoin is an okay idea. But if that property can become very useful or is already a source of passive income (via renting), then perhaps it's the profits that should be invested, not the money from selling the property. The op says 'free money', but I don't think it should only be money someone got as a gift or something. It can be earned money, as long as it's not required for other things.

a.  Palmeiras
b.  Over
c.  2-1
d.  Yes
e.  18'

While Brexit seriously impacted the political standing of the UK, thus should not affect the stance of the banks toward a politician, unless his finances come from illegal sources or something. I haven't heard of such things happening to anyone before, and I do think it's strange if several banks denied his requests to open bank accounts... However, he does mention a potential reason being a claim that he received funding from Russia Today (RT), but if it's just a claim with no evidence, then banks shouldn't act on that.
The op is right that this guy is pro-Bitcoin already, and yeah, I agree that it's very reasonable to expect him to move his funds into Bitcoin and become a stronger supporter of Bitcoin. However, I think it's also likely that he'll still try to find a bank for some of his funds because there are simply too many places and areas where you can't use Bitcoin directly.

I haven't heard of this before, so I decided to google it. This seems to be a great article because it overviews what the Bible actually says, referring to specific fragments that can be interpreted as relevant to the matter of one government and one currency. As one can see, there's nothing specific about a single currency there. Also, keep in mind that we're talking about the apocalypse here, so thinking that Bitcoin will be that single currency isn't really giving it a good reputation, considering that it's supposed to be the world at its lowest moral point, pretty much.
Only some of us are Christians, so to many these interpretations and prophecies don't matter at all, but those who are Christians must remember that there are very different approaches of religious hermeneutics (interpretation of texts): some believe in the literal meaning of the Bible, others advocate allegorical (figurative) meaning, and some argue for the double meaning. You don't need to take the Bible literally to count as a Christian, and you surely don't need to commit to far-fetched interpretations like that there will be only one currency at the end of the world, even if you do believe in the prophecy overall.