though ETF's will be selling shares and not letting user hold actual btc.
what most people are salivating over is that successful ETF's have to lock up a hoard of coin before they begin

imagine the winklevoss with their 200k hoard. if they get their ETF accepted under a new draft thats acceptable. we will then see other companies buy up 200k+ hoards and then apply using a similar template that would too be accepted. (many companies ar waiting for first acceptance so that they can save money not applying until they se a template that works)

and if you look at real bitcoin exchanges. they only do 5-30k btc volume (lets call it 5k of individual coins being held and re-spun (arbitraged /rinsed and repeated) a day. so sudden buyups of 200k. is a big deal

knowing there is only 10mill coins that actually move regular. thats only the oppertunity for 50(max, but more realistic only 20 because users wont sell off to ETF).. so thats only an oppertunity of 20 ETF's to realistically boot up with 200k bitcoin baskets

so thats a huge chunk of coin locked into ETF causing the real bitcoin exchange market to jump in price... once the first ETF gets acceptance and then causes a snowball effect of upto 20 other ETF to follow the template to start up themselves..

as for bakkt. well we will see as its a hybrid model and yet to see the regulators poke at it

its a project done by starbucks and microsoft. so imagine it as a everyday, normal people thing. and not something that wall street whales only have access to.

oh here we go again
calling lightning a bitcoin feature but using the term "layer"
you might aswell call ripple a bitcoin layer. or circle.com a bitcoin layer
whats next re introduce NXT as bitcoin2.0

.. and then for no reason at all you introduce a random tweet from a nobody talking about a different altcoin.......
seens you really have ran down the rabbit hole of not letting people talk about the reality of lightning and to keep trying to meander the topic into a point finger at bitcoin cash..

so here goes, bitcoin cash is a separate network that does not affect anything. so why bring it up.... oh yea thats it.. 3 years of the astroturfing tactic of meandering topics..
thats a boring well known and failed tactic. to distract the conversation away from talking about real flaws by trying to make it into a bch btc social drama
(do i need to remind you of the kardashian drama trick)

how about realise that LN is not a bitcoin sole feature. it was not designed for bitcoin.. bitcoin actually had to be changed to fit LN, not the other way round

LN asks for the chain hash of which chain to monitor because its a separate network for many coins.
the network is not centralised. but the channels and funds will become centralised. learn about factories
and right now the codebase seems to be coded by the same group that were salivating over blockstream

well if you can buy real bitcoin that can be withdrawn to a bitcoin address.. and not just an ETF-esq share scheme.. then bakkt can become a big deal

reasons:
1. unlike ETF's which are KYC heavy and aimed at just the market traders with certain level of deposits. Bakkt will be aimed at people that are regular shoppers/consumers

2. Bakkt will be aimed at people that just wanna buy some at their local coffee shop. thus instantly create a "buy nearby" market for most towns in many countries. (that have a starbucks)

3.imagine it as accessible as facebook credits are compared to the hassle of buying gold shares

i can also without LN make private payments. yep you dont need LN nodes.
people have been using multisig for years and doing things privately.
many exchanges have had multisig reserves between themselves for years without LN and without needing to broadcast every trade to a blockchain

people have actually done physical bitcoin trades (paper wallet and casascius coins) without needing to broadcast to a blockchain

in 2012-2013 i remember arbitraging between mtgox, btc-e and bitstamp without seeing bitcoin broadcast onchain

bitcoin has always been in a bull run
2016 above $300
2017 above $900
2018 above $5800

if you mean what will spark the next calve(smal bull) run up a ATH mountain and then a cub(small bear) correction.. then the answer is anyone

the 2013 event was sparked by ASICS taking over the GPU
the 2017 event was sparked by VC money buying up coin to pay off developers contracts to get a certain feature locked in by november 2017

so it could be ETF, bakkt, or other things.
but those are just temporary events..

as i said. we have always been on a solid bull run year on year. and the stable bottomline value that remains higher then previous years is only going to hold by USERS and miners who both have acquisition costs higher than the previous year to refuse to sell for less thus keeping value up by not selling for less

first of all. your final sentance proves you dont understand how things work. ven though its obvious u exagerated such numbers. in any context your point would be wrong

you mind set is that if there were
20 pools of lets say 2.5exa (to total a 50exa network)
that there would become a 20 pool of 1.25exa
or there would be 10 pools of 2.5xa
the reality is that IF some people see things slow down(not much chance). they would 'pool hop' and make a scenario of 20 pools of 1.25 become 10 of 2.5
so that in a scenario of like i mentioned before a 100m race of initially 20 runners, now becomes 10 runners and all 10 runners still average 10 seconds but only one can be declared the winner
this means if there were over 100 races per day the racers actually double their chances of winning becuase there is less competition fighting over who gets to cross the finish line first

it might be worth you looking at the real data. the realtime data and not the averaged aggregated data that loses its meaning

i truly laugh at anyone that thinks because an olympic runner crosses the finish line in 10 seconds. a runner up must take 20seconds and 3rd place must take 40 seconds.. (facepalm)

but there are things such as lightning explorers
they reveal many things, balances per channel, who the nodes connect to. they actually reveal alot more then the bitcoin block explorer does about individuals

its quite funny how much stats you can get out of lightning about a particular node. but you cant get node information out of a block explorer.

using the node information you can see what node just signed some funds and which other node it got attributed to
so have fun looking at lightning network stats/visualisations.

imagine there are:
90009251394333065553493296640760748560200586941860545380978205674086221273350
keypairs
and you were able to check 1000 a second
or simply able to check 60000 a  minute
or simply able to check 3600000 a an hour
or simply able to check 86400000 a day
or simply able to check 31536000000 a year

then..
315360000000 is 10 years
3153600000000 is 100 years
31536000000000 is 1000 years
315360000000000 is 10,000 years
3153600000000000 is 100,000 years

screw it ill get to the point.
a million years can pass and you (and your 40,000 descendants) would have only checked some thing along the lines of less than
0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of all keys
so you better get started

firstly lower hash rate does not mean slower blocks

here are the reasons

1. the 20+ pools are all running their own races. with their own hashrate. if 10 pools disappeared there are still 10 pools running.

2. imagine it like a 100metre race, 20 runners. they all average 10 seconds but only 1 is declared the winner. if you shoot 10 runners.. the remaining 10 runners dont suddenly race at a 20 second average. the 100m is still completed in the same 10 second average.

3. those racist fools promoting "china is evil" have no clue. if you actually study the network. you will see there is more diversity within the pools tagged as "china"
lets take antpool. they do not use 1 coin reward address. they use a few. and if you study things more these addresses are individually managed at SEPARATE LOCATIONS in iceland, gorgia, america, mongolia and china. you will notice that some of the antpool addresses use segwit bech32 addresses and some dont. which also proves the management is independant
so its not as "china is evil" as you think. then there is slushpools that gets classed as china. but is actually managed in thailand and users are all over the world. f2pool have users around the world
so stop believing the racist rants of china owns bitcoin mining

4. if you actually check the hashrate per block as oppose to averaged day you will see even today some blocks were solved with
5exa to 35exa... meaning every day there is actually a variance of more than 50%... but you dont realise it because the charts average it out and combine data

7. if some stratum servers are taken out. you will actually see alot of farms actually pool jump. and so the remaining pools will increase the hashrate per pool and some blocks will get solved FASTER

6. in short. you wont notice it because if you take away the 'average' stats that hide the real numbers. we are already in a zone and always have been in a zone where blocks are solved with a 50% variance

at the brexit

the $:£ wil change.. making things more expensive to import..  but.. thats the narrowminded side they want people to be afraid of
the flip side expensive to import=cheaper to export

take these examples instead of £1=$1.60 (like a few years back) becomes £1:$1
so buying a $160 item a few years ago would have cost £100
now a $160 item will cost £160

that is actually good. because we brits stop buying other peoples stuff giving them money. and we start to make our own stuff again
(reboot the industrial age of britain)

also
america wanting to buy £100 of something couple years ago would have cost them $160.
now a £100 will cost them $100

so now they will happily buy more from the uk because its cheaper.
(another reason to reboot british industry)

we now start receiving more currency flow into the UK and less currency flow leaving..

and ofcourse the main thing. instead of bitcoin being ~£4900.. as the forex changes occur that turns btc into £6400

lightning is not bitcoin. it actually asks users to add in the chainhash, to allow the node to know which chains to monitor. lightning is a multicoin network of IOU transactions measured in 12 decimals.

in short lightning is a visa app to different nations fiat..
(swap visa for LN and swap 'nations fiat' for altcoins)
thus making lightning a killer app for crypto currency (coins) and not a feature of pure bitcoin

if you add up the mortgage scams of banks (2007 crisis)
all the ATM card cloning
tourist pickpocketing
forged bank notes
NFC card cloning
hacking retailer websites to steal credit cards
nigerian prince/foreign family member hospital bill scam

FIAT is the most scammed currency

in the last decade TRILLIONS have been scammed out of peoples fiat pockets. (just look at the FIAT debt clock)

for those wanting a rebrand without breaking bitcoin. how about rebrand it to 'bits' as in we all start commonly measuring in 100 sat amounts.
1btc=$6500.00
1bit=$0.0065
1.00000000$6500.00(1btc)
0.10000000$650.00
0.01000000$65.00
0.00100000$6.50
0.00010000$0.65
0.00001000$0.065
0.00000100$0.0065(1bit)

that way it becomes a great opportunity for:
1. people to stop measuring things in so many decimals which get annoying
2. it automatically silences the false assumption that 'its not mass-sharable'  debate
3. it automatically silences the false assumption that 'its too expensive' debate
4. it refreshes people mindsets to a new era of bitcoin without actually changing rules
5. people become more comfortable that buying $65 gets them 10,000 units of something rather than 0.01 units of something
6. because it feels like a new era, people can still talk about the past. but have the feeling that its the past and not the present
7. then when 1bit=$1 the 'old schoolers' will see 1btc=$1m and the 'new school' sees the main common unit is only $1 so still cheap

another racist and not well thought out topic

1. "china" is not a single entity of control. there are billions of people in it. if "america" was in the same seat you should be more afraid because there are less people under that entity thus far more easy to collude.

2. many pools defined as "china" are not actually located in china or run by employees who are chinese or actually managed by china. lets take the most propagandised of them 'antpool' most people dont realise this but antpool is not one location/farm/facility. if you look at the coin reward addresses. they are not completely random. nor are they all using the same single address. antpool has like half a dozen addresses, wach one for a different facility/manager. and if you look closer some of the addresses are bech32 and some are not. which shows that the different managers have different mindsets about if they want to use segwit or not. antpool facilities are in different countries

3. other pools like f2pool have farmers/asic owners all around the world. slushpool is actually managed in thailand and farmers/asic owners around the world

4. even if we moved to GPU. firstly mining per kwh would be wildly inefficient. and then the debate would spark you "OMG AMD(ATi)" own mining

5. pools can only collate data a certain way without having blocks rejected. essentially all pools can do is only include certain transactions they like or not add certain transactions they dislike. if people see this happening and they dont like the result of it causing a backlog of unconfirms. then they can just ban certain blocks that do certain things

its the developers that have control of rule changes. not pools

imagine it like a company.
developers are the management team(node developers) and users(merchant and individuals) are the shareholders who vote for the best management teams(node) to give/control the rules of the network.
with merchants having a more majority share hold voice as individuals usually follow the merchants as users cant spend funds if a merchant decided a different team that only accepts things a certain way, thus users wont get their transactions seen if they are not using the same tool as merchants

pools are just the secretaries/PA's that just collate the company(network) data in a format the management team find acceptable

the weak point is if there isnt management teams. but one managing team and just a bunch of supervisors that just follow the single management team. as that becomes a point where the single management team can get stuck in a rutt of circle jerking one narrative of their own cabin fever desire. and the share holders have no other options but accept the narrative as there is no other unique choice

in short the diversity of nodes is more important than the diversity of blocks

1. mining cost has nothing to do with if it will replace traditional currencies.
it doesnt matter if it cost $1 to mine a bitcoin or a $1bill to mine a btc. nothing fundemental has changed. only politics can change what governments decide to tax, treasure, and publicly serve with..

2. i almost facepalmed the first couple paragraphs.. whenever someone pretends to be a economist but then mentions the market cap like its meaningful. has failed lesson one of economics. i can make a altcoin of 1trill premined coins. sell 1 for $5 and instantly have a $5trill market cap.. all for just $5. so a market cap is a meaningless bit of math there would not actually be $5tril to go around or $100-$200bill for bitcoiners

3. again fiat is about politics. assuming bitcoin could cause fiat to change. and then accuse btc of not being able to cause change is such a waste of a conversation. its like saying icecream if eaten 20 times a day by everyone will make everyone sick.. then argue there isnt enough icecream. and that not everyone could afford 20 meals of icecream a day... its like then why even bring up the subject

if the writer was actually from MIT. then he has not yet studied much. or doesnt deserve a pass

bitcoin will be its own currency. without a nation. where its like gold or art.. traded across borders without a nation owning it
yes different countries can make laws or decide to accept or not accept it. but that doesnt make a difference. you dont need art to be a national currency for people to trade it. same with gold.

knew tether couldnt last.

all those people that thought a USDT would always by 1:1 are now seeing the scam play out.. well done to the mighty duck who has syphoned 2% out of everyones dollar. well played

now lets see a bank run. where people still thinking if they sold all their 1tethers they would all get 0.98...
i can see the 'tether' snapping when people realise the mighty duck has actually took more than 2% from the "backed" account

1. "bubble" sorry Nouriel but a bubble is not the fault of bitcoin. you even proved it yourself by mentioning other bubbles that happen in anything. bitcoin is not the fault or the cause. but infact the lack of financial knowledge taught at school or in life to prepare people to understand markets and how things work is the problem.

2. glorified spreadsheet.. sorry but fiat is a glorified spreadsheet with so many lack of rules to control how the numbers formulate. blockchain is code, rules and the data is just the background stuff. EG fiat is just the .xls file while blockchain is the .exe file.. yea there are many pieces of software that are not interesting or developed and people dont need to use it. but then there are revolutionary pieces of software, where what the software does is more important then the information within it.

3. crypto is not money.   actually you are correct. crypto is an asset. money is just digits that can be added or taken away by banks and institutions.
trying to make it sound like blockchain currencies not bing exactly like fiat is to miss the point, that point being is that fiat is not that great in the first place and something better is needed.
as for scaling. for 20 years fiat was not stable. each state had their own bank note the value was volatile. people in different states valued it at different values. heck even today a $10 bank note is work 1 hours minimum labour and another state valued at 1 hour 20 minutes minimum labour..
fiat is so volatile even in one state alone they cant agree..
"As of December 31, 2018: NYC large employers: $15.00; NYC small employers: $13.50; Downstate employers: $12.00; Upstate employers: $11.10."

3b. not scalable
blockchains are scalable. its not the fault of code or limitation of technology, the restrictions are caused by the politics of developers who have taken over and wanted to make a FIAT system pegged to some blockchains and then cripple blockchains to make the fiat-esq(LN channels: bank accounts) system more appealing by having those restrictions..

3c no barter
ill quote "Since the invention of money thousands of years ago, there has never been a monetary system with hundreds of
different currencies operating alongside one another. The entire point of money is that it allows parties to transact without having to barter. But for money to have value, and to generate economies of scale, only so many
currencies can operate at the same time."

you literally counter argued yourself. to have no barter the different currencies would need to operate alongside one another.
you literally counter argued yourself. for money to have value and generate economies of scale. only so many can operate.
i guess you dont realise the point i addressed above where a $10 has many values in just the NY state area. it can buy 10 loaves of bread in one town but only 7 loaves in another town... yep, one currency one state and needing to buy one product has so many inconsistencies of value

you move onto subjects of not allowing euro or yen in america as a main currency.. well thats politics. you then say how having no barter is good.. again politics.
having no barter is actually bad. for instance pricing people labour based on where they live does not allow the employe to barter the true value(skill) that worker can give. EG anyone can employ a person to fry burgers for $10 for 40 minutes(NYLE$15) but if one person can be lazy and only flip 1 burger a minute. and another can flip 4 burgers a minute. then barter should be good to reward the efficient burger flipper. instead of treating everyone at a lazy minimum salary

also alot of retail food goes to waste because shoppers see imperfect food and just ignore it and grab the perfect stuff because there is no barter to make a deal on the imperfect stuff.. even car showrooms are becoming anal by not really doing barter no more to throw in a few extra's into a car sales deal. i remember days where paying cash got you better deals, but now people paying with debt(credit/loan) has been the thing that can only excite a sales person into doing a lil extra. barter is a good thing

again fiat has shown to be unfair to people. valuation of value based on location. even when one currency is used. treating people the same without barter doesnt incentivise efficiency. barter has shown positives. EG promotions. but if the fiat system had no barter at all everyone would work at any level of authority for the same amount

having laws to protect people is great.
no one is saying no to law. what people are saying is WHICH law
regulations are not a law to protect citizens. the financial crises proved that

consumer protection laws would protect citizens
we should not keep going in circles whre businesses have the upper hand of grabbing funds under trust so they can screw people over. all regulation does is only let certain rich groups get the "trust" to scam later because those rich groups can afford the membersbip. the membership doesnt arrest people for scamming. it arrests people for not being a member

people need to look behind what regulation really is before lobbying for it. again look to the financial criss as a big example of how useless regulation is in regards to consumer protection. realise when regulated the businesses themselves develop and implement their own policies (self regulate) again useless

what PEOPLE need is easy access to ways to get scammy businesses caught. because right now you cant just report a business to th local cops and things happen. and taking them to court is a bureaucratic nightmare.. its consumer protection that needs developing.. not regulation

for those that dont understand.
consumer protection= "power to the people"
regulation= "power to the elite corps"

"legal tender"  refers to the national controlled currency of tax, fines, treasury,public service funding...

it does not mean other currencies are illegal. it just means the government wont be printing/minting/hoarding it. they wont use that currency for its treasury/public services.