those countries are not the big VC money in crypto. so dont expect as big of a speculation in april time of year

also..

basically. expect 2019 to be off to a good start on many fronts
VC, user adoption, mining

VC money made some losses.. but here is the thing. they love loses.
these loses are 'paper' loses of FIAT 'accounts' not real bank balance.
why do they love it.
tax deductions=pay less REAL tax FIAT

many FIAT businesses dont want to make profit in 2018 for this very reason. so this year they are happy making a 'paper loss'
(you dont actually have to sell to make a paper loss)
so when 2019 starts. its then great starting point for a profit year.

its why all the ETF's are holding out on applying.
SEC dont want some small time cowboys being thee first ETF. so they are holding out for the big VC institutions.

also to add onto point 3 of my previous post. most next gen asics are delivering in final week of december (currently being ""QA TESTED"(profitably))
so will be up and running by new years day.

2019, fresh new year

prohibition era a century ago.. people still got drunk
'war on drugs'.. people still got high

the secret is. if a FIAT business is heavy on its regulation policy. dont use it.
OTC is the moonshine industry of bitcoin.
custodial exchanges are the licenced pubs/bars that have a 5 drink limit and require you to have a designated driver after 2 drinks

to add to this. and explain more about the black text part
DCG.co and digital garage are high investors of blockstream (guys that programmed segwit into bitcoin, to make bitcoin compatible with another SEPARATE INDEPENDANT NON BLOCKCHAINED network called lightning network.

compatibility NEEDED to succeed by november 2017.
(alot of developer/social drama went into ensuring segwit got adopted and LN active)

devs got paid off in november2017 by means of BTC (millions of $$ worth) which is where the actions of the mandated upgrade instead of natural adoption was so controversial.

as a separate 'bet' those VC's also done some futures contracts which expired november 2018

1. the 2017. was triggered by VC money that needed to buy btc to pay off some tranche(contracts) that succeeded in november2017
the price of 2017 should have not gone up so much, but speculation, hype and FOMO pushed it too high and that temporary bubble burst by spring 2018

2. some of then contracts had a 12 month lock. meaning november 2018 release to spend.. and so they did
(mid november to mid november was no coincidence)

3. asic manufacturers startd swapping out old redundant s9 asics in october and started using the spare space for quality testing(mining for profit) new next gen asics. but knowing the wider community cant get these next gen asics until end of dcember they they didnt want to shoot their own foot or cause controversy by pushing the hashrate up.. (they learned that lesson in october 2013). so instead they knew they could still win blocks, still profit while running less asics to keep hashrate down.

4. it has nothing to do with drama of altcoins. the altcoins are the lemming that got hold of old gear cheap so totally unrelated. alt coiners just took the drama they created as a way to glory hound themselves some fake news that they are influential. but reality is they are not. there is no arbitrage evidence they even affected the prices

mining cost equilibrium is the bottom line value

its its cheaper to mine then buy people mine if its cheaper to buy than mine people buy.

so look for the most effiecient mining cost and you learn the bottom line mining cost which miners wont sell below
you soon learn the number of times the price went below bottomline mining costs ovr many years is negligable because people are not fooilish

there is a big difference between
buy the tipdip with all your eggs and hodl
vs
buy the dip once the correction has had time to fully dip. use multiple baskets and take multiple small % quick repeats and keep doing it over and over

anyone who sees a sudden 4x rise and then buys in at that top 10% using all their funds. maybe shouldnt be trading.

but that said. hardly anyone actually was a 'buy and hold' at 2017's tip
never buy high. never sell low
dont buy the tipdip. (the initial dip from the tip)

its far better to make 1% a day (365% a year)
than to hodl for a year hoping for 3.65x spikes

if a youtuber is selling courses. usually they are not successful trading. thus have to make secondary income from youtube.
if a youtuber is selling courses. usually they are not successful trading or youtube so they have to sell courses.

a good way to spot a bad youtube trader
1. when they talk. they only talk about a line THEY hand drew on a chart where they just chose 2 points and drew a line.
these people are not Technical Analysts. they are what i cal Trend Anals
2. if they then use media as their non market external data

good and proper TA use:
UTXO movements/stats
mining hashrate
mining costs
coins moved per block
arbitrage data

so if you see a youtuber just looking at a btc<>usd chart and drawing a line and mentioning 'back in 2013'.. unfollow them

if you were an actual trader for a living, then you should know by now to not use market tools everyone else uses. you should also know not to use market data to look for trends.
there are many other things involved outside market data that affect market price.

if your just looking at market data. you are just looking at the "conclusions" not the triggers. by the time you react to market data. the market has already done what it wanted. just looking at market data is just trending the sheep. then reacting to only market movements is just being a sheep, moving because another sheep moved.

its like when institutional investers shout out buy. its because they already have. and now they want the sheep in on the buy game so the institutions can get the sheep to pump so the institutions can sell. thats right when an institution shouts out buy. its because the institution is ready to sell.

finding the triggers and baselines
its like gold. your better suited to find out how much gold miners are mining gold at to learn the bottomline line cost of gold
EG if gold cost $900 to mine. prices would circling around the $900 area.
if it cost $1. prices would be circling the $1 area

because if its cheaper to mine gold to buy it. people will. if its cheaper to buy gold than mine it. people will
why waste diesel on excavators and sluice machines if you can get gold cheaper than mining costs.
why waste investors money buying gold if you can get gold cheaper using diesel on excavators and sluice machines

there is a equilibrium. people are always trying to find the cheapest way to get an asset.
so gold markets circle the mining cost.
bitcoin markets circle the mining cost.

yes there is speculative layer. but im not talking about how to find the next ATH or the next speculative bubble, im talking about the bottomline waterlevel not the waves and tsunamis and bubbles above the waterline.

look to mining costs to find the underlying water level

with all that said
the real foolish notions:
buy@FOMO (hype upward moments)
buy the tipdip (right after the speculative bubble high starts to dip)

best time to buy is at the correction(back near the baseline)

next bit of advice. split up your basket of funds into several baskets. never put your eggs into one basket.
if you have $10k. break it up into 5-10 orders.
make an order. buy. then sell and only sell for a couple %. dont HODL for months waiting for that 100% jump
take a couple % a day and repeat
if the price doesnt go up by 1%  and just stagnates. then fine. you still have 4-9 other baskets of funds to take advantage of other opportunities while that one order sits dormant

there actually is a market / mining dynamic equilibrium

find the cheapest most efficient mining cost. and thats the baseline of value support.
when market prices move too high they always correct down closer to the mining cost range.

in short people want BTC theres 2 ways to get it
1. buying it
2. mine it

when its cheaper to mine it they will
when its cheaper to buy it they will

when they buy it the price goes up, making mining profitable
when they mine it the hashrate goes up, making mining costly

when they sell it the price goes down, making mining costly
when they dont mine it the hashrate goes down, making mining profitable

yes there is speculation layer but if you can find the bottomline mining cost you find the bottomline market value people refuse to sell below.

no one can guess when a temporary spike of speculation will happen. but if your looking for bottomline support. look for the mining cost and youll find the base value equilibrium

EG in january people woulld have started getting their S15's. imagining a whole network running s15's
the hashrate would need to be above 210exahash to have a sustainable bottomline where the price is around $25k
for those wanting a $100k btc . the hashrate would need to be about 840exa+ to keep a stable market above $100k

funny thing is that i see you complaining about businesses that are FIAT handling
i said in other topics.

if you want decentralisation YOU have to move away from using centralised FIAT services
if you want to not be held back by FIAT based sanctions/regulations. then stop using fiat regulated exchanges

organise a meetup and swap hand to hand with someone in a coffee shop

bitcoin is not sanctioned/regulated by fiat rules. you will not find a single fiat rule in bitcoin code,
the problem is people using FIAT services and then crying when FIAT rules apply

if you dont want the controls of fiat to apply then you need to not use fiat.
organise your local towns bitcoin meetup to discuss getting a local grocery store to accept bitcoin.

detach yourself from FIAT and FIAT rules will be of no concern to you.
didnt you read the regulations it only applies to BANKS and MSB's aka fiat regulated services

solution: dont use an MSB and you wont find funds getting blocked.. simple

continuing my math from a few posts ago. thats 12month of data and math i used. based that a asic bought 12 months ago was $2k and at month 5(april 2018) people made enough to have $2k after paying electric.
meaning then the only worry was electric.
2months after that(june) they accumiliated enough income to cover all the electric upto today. so any income after june was 100% profit

.. now imagine this.
in april you took that $2k and bought more asics.
cost in april would have got you 2 s9's
by october you would have paid off one of those asics and used those funds to buy 2 more asics.
meaning by november your upto 5 asics meaning your income is not 90cent after electric. but $4.50 a day
OR
you could have hoarded not bought any extra asics meaning $2600 profit combined today and bought 26 s9's at $100
so your income after electric would be $23 a day not 90c if you started mining them all today

yep still bullish, even now
2016 = over $300
2017 = over $900
2018 = over $3500

basing numbers on the price/mining equilibrium
if the entire network was mining s15 in 2019. the hashrate would need to be around 850exahash to give good value support for a healthy SUSTAINABLE price support of $100k
which is a 20x of current hashrate

i dont deal in speculative ATH or spikes that correct down. im thinking of a point of stable bottomline value when i do my math.

looking at how long a hashrate takes to get 20x higher. to support a healthy $100k cost/price equilibrium can be achieved within 2 years

so we should see some speculative drama of $100k in under that time. but then a stable support for $100k in 2 years

right now mining rigs using more than 5cents/kwh electric. are not farms(majority) they are just home users hobby mining.
thus the amount of PEOPLE screaming its not profitable because they usually only running a couple asics say its not profitable
might seem high. but the amount of ASICS involved with those individuals is LOW

the asic FARMs where there are  hundreds-10's of thousands of asics per person/facility. are well placed in cheap electric area's

so yea
there might be 1000 PEOPLE with say 10 asics (10k asics) screaming 'unprofitable'
there is also 299 people with say 10,000 asics (2,990,000 asics) happily making profit

the 299 people. are swapping asics for more efficient asics to make more profit. thus dont need to run as many asics when swapping.
while the 1000 hobbiests are crying that their electric is too high

btc-room-101 has many many many calculations WRONG

hashdate 42exa
42000000thash
=3mill s9 asics always hashing

with 1800 btc mined a day
each asic makes 0.0006 a day =$2.40+

each asic bought last year was the s9 which was 1.3kwh
at $0.05/kwh = $0.0625 an hour per asic = $1.50 a day per asic

so your making 90c profit after electric is paid TODAY
i know your doing the math thinking 90c after electric
=6 years to cover hardware cost of an s9 12 month ago
=2.6 years to cover hardware cost of an s9 asic 6 months ago
=8months to cover hardware cost of an asic price batch of 3 months ago
=4month to cover the hardware cost at todays $100 second hand cost(ones offered to you)

but here is where your getting it wrong. basing old hardware costs on todays income
you said it yourself you can buy hardware at $100
which doing the actual math. subtracting out the electric cost. accounting for decumilating income means you get your $100 back in 5 months
................
so lets go back a year. grab all the stats of bitcoin prices. hashrate and math it out day by day
when turning on the hardware last year
you would make ~$25.88 a day (i done the math) which minus the $1.50 a day electric =~$24.38
that first day income after electric was $24.38

i done the math of hashrate per day divided it up to per asic and everything. and repeated it so that i could
calculate the de-escalating income per day. i even evaluated it against the btc price each day (eg selling your daily income as it came in)

and guess what.
within 5 month your income after electric. would have paid off the hardware.
meaning after the 5th month. you then are mining just with electric costs to cover.
knowing that there is still the rest of the year to go. you can work out at $1.50 a day thats $320~ of electric for 7 months
which paying the daily electric and just saving up income after electric as you use it.

within 2 months you have made enough profit. to cover the rest of the year.
so by month 7. you are making pure profit and no longr worrying about electric bill for the rest of the year

yep
mining on an S9 from december 2017 to december 2018 would get you ~$3147 BEFORE electric, taking into account you selling each daily reward each day
which is: ~$2600 after electric

have a nice day

i have been playing around with machines that activate when they see a transaction confirmed on a particular address. a few years ago it was fun seeing something happen just by making a payment.

a couple years ago i mentioned an idea that car dealerships would in the future just need to send a multi-output transaction to a car manufacturer. EG
(uk dealership)                (18" wheels red paint, leather seats, rest of car)
1UkD34l3r5h1pNo1234(4btc) -> 1F4ct0ry18inchWh33l5 (0.4)
                                                1F4ct0ryR3dp41ntw0rk (0.4)
                                                1F4ct0ryL34Th3r534t5 (0.4)
                                                1F4ct0ryR35t0fc4rc05t (2.8 )

where if you can read the addresses shows:
where the car needs to be self driven to when complete (uk dealership number 1234)
what customisations the car requested should have

imagine a factory where a machine activated mixing red paint when it received funds to
1F4ct0ryR3dp41ntw0rk (0.4)
and so on
and the the finished cars licence plate/chassis number was the transaction ID of such transaction

now imagine there was no car dealership needed. but the funding address was a address of the customer
sitting at home. that through an ID chain the factory could identify the customers home address.

take it one stage further. the customer didnt order the car. but the old cars onboard computer showed an error number
and triggered the replacement car.

AI does not need to be AS (artificial sentiants)
a computer does not need to show pain or 'feelings'. it just needs to show it can do anything without a human needing to press a button to make it do something.

EG a car breaks down
the human passenger just thinks that the car has stopped due to a red light at a crosswalk.
but the old car knows it stopped due to a error. the car has already ordered a replacement car. which would be self driven and arrive at the passengers house by the morning.

all the self processing has occured before the passenger realises what the holdup was not a red street light but a car fault

take it one stage further
not car, but a custom AR-15 rifle orders a replacement when a old rifle locks-up

just wait a couple years
many people who deposited fiat to buy BTC in MTGox still believe that they are owed BTC. even when there was not enough BTC in mtgox reserves to honour those trades

just wait a couple years
when people lock funds into LN factories and have factory hubs hand them unaudited tx's(not on blockchain) to open channels
and then just circulate unconfirmed balance back through a factory because a factory prefers to only hand out channel open payments instead of fund onlock broadcastable onchain tx's

just you wait for boiler room fake ETF pretending to be fully backed BTC ETF when they are really just CFD gambling sites

a unused s9 is $850
a unused s15 is $1450

s15 is 28thash = 2x s9(14thash)
s15/2=$725
s15 wins

also s15 is 1.6kwh. so s15/2=0.8kwh,   unlike an s9 which is 1.3kwh
s15 wins again

what people dont realise is what happened in october
       _
      /  \
    _|
   /
  /
 /
/

this is normal hashing rises prior to october where more s9's are steadily added
this is them not adding more S9's
this is the initial replacing 1s9 for 1 s15
thus going back to normal steady rises but where they would only turn on 1 s15 when they would normally turn on 2 s9
this is them turning off some s9's and swapping 2s9 for 1 s15 (flat swap)
this is them realising they could actually take 8s9s out and only put 3 s15s and still win blocks while not having to run as many rigs

you can see on the hashrate charts the curve. though stretched out and zoomed out you dont notice the curve as much
forgive the colouring below. but i grabbed an earlier image i done to show some other topic something

the smaller image within the image is the 12 month hashrate. the larger image is a zoom on the october/november curve

looking at the image within the image. the blue highlight is normal action. the pink highlight is the initial purple flatline
the yellow highlight is the green orange purple red curve explained above

people still forget that new more efficient asics are incoming. many are already operating now. (they call it quality assurance testing, but yea they are making money)
its not doom. its just the start of a new day, you just have not seen the sun rise yet

well cryptocurrency economics is becoming just the same as fiat economics.

telling people holding their own funds and spending them p2p just doesnt work. that crypto assets are just too heavy to operate like that.
this is why so many wall-streeters/bankers are loving alternative networks like LN, etf's and sidechains.
so that crypto assets get locked up in vaults and contracts requiring the wall-streeter/banks sign off.
people then trade un blockchained, unaudited payment methods. and then after a time they simply drop the connection between the locked asset and the unaudited payment method