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Most of these hacks are inside jobs. Cryptsy for example pretended to be hacked, and really the owner just made off with everyone's coins.
More recently, it looks like the Bitgrail "hack" is an inside job by the owner - though police are still investigating.
It's basically a long con - get loads of people to join your exchange, get them to trust you and deposit more and more stuff. And then one day just shut up shop and disappear with the coins claiming there was a hack.
This is why you should never store coins on an exchange - you never know if you are going to be a victim of a long con.
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Is silver a good idea to buy now?
I would say: no. The problem with gold and silver is, they carry no utility other than past history. They can't be exchanges for goods or services. There's no infrastructure in place where precious metals can enable a form of electronic payment. They can be difficult to store and are likely easier to steal than say bitcoin for example. They're can also be difficult to physically transport from one place to another. In addition to the above, there isn't anyone who actually uses precious metals for anything. It has no purpose. This is where you are wrong. Both gold and silver are used in manufacturing. Gold is an excellent conductor, but it is also inert in that it doesn't react with water or other chemicals. That makes it incredibly useful. Pretty much every PC and laptop you use will have gold in the chips (which makes old computers valuable - always remove the gold before discarding) |
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The price seems to be struggling to get over $9000. I personally think we're more likely to test $8,100 than we are to make another attempt to break through $9000.
What we really need to some good news to push it through the barrier - not sure where that news will come from, though.
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It's not the price of the coin that is important, it's the market cap. Small cap coins are easier to pump - they are usually on just a couple of exchanges with low daily trading volume. Therefore a pump group can make the coin's price move quite substantially with only a small amount of money.
I'm quite agree, about that and I'm sure no one experienced in crypto will argue. But I'm speaking about newcomers, don't you think they are mostly predisposed to buy coins with lower price?The answer to your question in bold is Yes. Especially on coinbase - they look at the price of bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin and literally buy the cheapest. They don't really understand about market cap at all. |
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It's not the price of the coin that is important, it's the market cap. Small cap coins are easier to pump - they are usually on just a couple of exchanges with low daily trading volume. Therefore a pump group can make the coin's price move quite substantially with only a small amount of money.
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What I think will happen is that they will subject ICOs to the same regulations that apply to IPO's. So whitepapers have to be substantial, accounts will have to be made public, the regulator consulted before the ICO and so on.
It should eliminate the scams but still let genuine proposals to go through.
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waiting for 3 months . . . last reply from them on January 03, 2018: Due to an unprecedented amount of growth in a relatively short amount of time we're experiencing a longer than usual wait time responding to and resolving your requests. This wait time has also increased the number of duplicate tickets entered on the same issues, further slowing down our agents ability to get to your request in a timely manner. We apologize greatly for the wait and we are actively training new personnel and streamlining our support system to better handle the demand. You are receiving this update as we've identified your ticket as having not received the care and attention typically seen from Bittrex Support. We are grateful for your support and understanding as we work to improve our process and respond to requests. ** WE ASK THAT IF YOUR ISSUE HAS NOT ALREADY BEEN SOLVED THAT YOU REPLY TO THIS EMAIL OR UPDATE YOUR TICKET AT https://bittrex.zendesk.comIf your issue has been solved you do not have to do anything. We will send you a reminder in a few days and if we do not hear back from you we will close this ticket for you. We understand that waiting can be frustrating and we appreciate your patience and understanding while we scale our support team to handle the increased demand. Best Regards, Bittrex Support Team @ Bittrex So basically if people don't update their tickets, they will get cancelled? |
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This is a gold rush for the chip makers. I wouldn't be surprised if they all rushed into this sector.
The more countries that legalise cryptocurrency the more firms will enter this space either creating ASICs, the chips or setting up direct mining operations.
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/nvidia-ceo-huang-crypto-is-real-the-world-is-coming-to-terms-with-it-1518188630Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) are up $16.52, or almost 8%, at $234.04, following better-than-expected fiscal Q4 results and outlook yesterday afternoon, which is prompting another round of price target increases this morning, into the $300 range.
Founder and CEO Jensen Huang was kind enough to take a few minutes to talk with me by phone following the report. He was in an upbeat mood, as he often is after a quarter. He had spent the Chinese New Year traveling through Asia, handing out red envelopes with cash, he said.
When I asked Huang if he wanted to point out anything in particular about the report and outlook, Huang began, “Clearly, there’s a lot of talk about crypto,” meaning, crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin and Ether, and their role in selling GPUs. “And crypto was a real part of our business this past quarter, even though small, overall."
Crypto is still just a small portion because "data centers is growing so fast,” meaning, the rise of sales of chips to power things such as A.I., which rose by "more than triple-digits,” he pointed out. And "GForce gaming has grown, and self-driving cars — the momentum is just great."
If that sounds like a way to deflect the obsession with crypto, I asked Huang if he was satisfied with the Street’s constant demand for information about crypto.
Said Huang, "Crypto is a real thing — it’s not going to go away.
He then went into an extended disquisition about crypto:
This year, the world is starting to come to terms with the existence of crypto. It’s based on blockchain, and it's very secure and very low overhead. I think there’s clearly real utility. It’s a real phenomenon, and so everyone is coming to terms with it. I’m not against the concept of virtual currency — it’s as real as virtual goods, and video games. And as you know, tens of millions of virtual goods are created and shared and sold in virtual reality, and people invest thousands of hours to create space ships in space that they battle against each other. So, the concept of virtual goods and virtual worlds and virtual currency all ties together.
Yes, but, I repeated, was he happy with the Street’s obsession?
"That conversation,” said Huang, "it’s understandable, but in the final analysis, it’s not relevant. Because to us, it’s all just demand for GPUs." I expect a lot of chip companies are hoping that cryptocurrency and mining is here to stay.
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NEO is going to be doing an airdrop: https://neo.org/blog/details/3061Announcement: NEO will airdrop ONT to the community
Ontology is a next-generation multi-chained public chain infrastructure platform initiated by Onchain, a leading blockchain technology company in China. It is also a common platform that supports a decentralized trust ecosystem.
To support a joint ecosystem, Ontology project is handing over an amount of ONT tokens to be managed by NEO Council. NEO Council, in turn, hereby announce that it is decided to airdrop ONT tokens to the NEO community as follows:
The airdropped tokens are part of a donation from Ontology team to the NEO Council. As a gift to the community, this airdrop will consist of 20 million ONT.
Airdrop ratio: Each NEO will get 0.2 ONT (50% of which are freely tradable and the other 50% are automatically locked).
The snapshot of NEO addresses will be done at block height 1974823, which is estimated to be at March 1st, 2018, around 5:00 am (Pacific Time).
Delivery of the first ONT tokens will be completed in the weeks following March 1 (0.1 ONT per NEO). The other locked half (0.1 ONT per NEO) will be using the same snapshot, but will instead be airdropped on the Ontology MainNet. Ontology MainNet is expected to be released in Q2, 2018, specific date depends on how the Ontology TestNet is operating. Further details will be released. Notice that the snapshot will be done on March 1st - so I expect buying of NEO in advance of that. |
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Ethereum is already being used more than bitcoin (it does over a million transactions a day compared to just 250,000 for bitcoin).
The only thing restricting Ethereum's growth is regulators stepping in to stop ICOs. If ICO's are regulated rather than banned though, Ethereum could go from strength to strength.
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Well Coinbase has their hotwallets insured with Lloyds of London - and I'm sure that is part of the reason they've become so big. People feel safe with them. And yes, people pay more when they buy their coins from Coinbase - but that's the price of safety.
With the other exchanges, you are taking risks. This is fine if you understand the risks and move your money out of the exchange as soon as you have made your trade. Sadly there is a group of people who think it's possible to have low fee exchanges AND safety, and they keep getting burned.
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The property on offer in Bitcoin ranges from studios that cost $130,000 a piece, approximately equal to 15.5 bitcoins at press time, to two-bedroom apartments for $380,000 each or, roughly, 45 bitcoins.
Intelligent move, they will multiply their money this year, maybe by looking at people like them and how many profit they will get, other investors could jump into bitcoin too, seems like there are good movements with bitcoins and housing in that country. It's great publicity for them too - it's a wonder other firms arn't doing the same just to attract attention. |
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1. Bitcoin can't scale, to the point that it will never be usable as a currency
2. Bitcoin is too unstable and volatile to be a store of value
3. There is tons of serious competition among alt coins, which did not exist in the past
4. Governments are cracking down on crypto
Why on earth would you look at these facts and still think bitcoin is a good buy? Nobody would think that, except for someone who already owns bitcoin and has likely lost a lot of money over the past month or so.
It isn't a good buy at the moment. What isn't clear is why attention hasn't switched to some promising alts which don't have bitcoin's problems. I'm guessing it's because the alts don't have a media presence. |
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https://cointelegraph.com/news/a-pair-of-british-entrepreneurs-sold-50-luxury-flats-for-bitcoin-in-dubaiTwo entrepreneurs from the UK - the founder of the Ultimo lingerie brand baroness Michelle Mone and her billionaire partner Douglas Barrowman - have sold 50 luxury apartments in Dubai that they originally promised to put on offer for Bitcoin last September, according to a report published by Business Insider Feb. 10.
The $325 mln luxury development Aston Plaza and Residences was launched in Dubai in September 2017 and is set to be completed by 2020. Upon the announcement of the project, Mone and Barrowman promised to offer 150 out of the 1,300 apartments that comprise ‘Aston’ for Bitcoin.
By February, 50 of those apartments have already been sold, the two entrepreneurs told Business Insider. Michelle Mone added that some of the buyers purchased two apartments each, and one person bought as many as ten.
The property on offer in Bitcoin ranges from studios that cost $130,000 a piece, approximately equal to 15.5 bitcoins at press time, to two-bedroom apartments for $380,000 each or, roughly, 45 bitcoins.
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Bitcoin is volatile simple because it's market cap is relatively small (bitcoin is worth less than Apple). That means it doesn't take much money to move the price. As the market cap gets bigger and bigger, the volatility should reduce. Meanwhile, volatility is fun for traders  |
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"The last 2 months have seen particular jumps, but that may in part be explained by the dramatic increases in hash rates again. "
How is hashrate related to that? It's the speed of block transactions that matter, no?
I think he means hashrate increased, some miners dropped out as a result, and the block times then lengthened before it could readjust again. |
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Wait, if they're not open to new merchants then who exactly is currently using the service? Or is this more like a teaser launch?
It sounds great though. I won't say no to additional avenues of crypto payment. I hope it catches on. Bitcoin has been labeled unusable because of the clogged network at the end of 2017, and people need to know that's not the case anymore. All signs point to an increase in Segwit adoption (Coinbase is about to come out with support too!), and that should help handling the demand plenty.
Maybe they'll roll it out to existing merchants to see what the response is. What Coinbase really needs to do is add alts. Merchants are leary of bitcoin because of getting burnt last year with transaction times and fees. |
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One wonders if politicians own crypto. There is a decent possibility some of them do with their history of insider trading. Of course, given their age and relative degree of computer illiteracy, it is possible they subscribe to the Warren Buffett school of thought which might be summarized as: "if its not old enough to be a fossil, don't invest in it".
Careful about assumptions about computer illiteracy. The PC became widespread in the 1980's, which was nearly 40 years ago. Most 50 and 60 somethings have always used computers at work. And the internet came of age in the 1990's, which was 30 years ago. Most of Generation X (40 and 50 somethings), were pioneering the use of the net when they were in their teens and twenties. It's only people who are older than 70 who struggle with tech, and most of Congress is younger than that. Certainly the 71 year old Trump has no problem using Twitter... |
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You can lend out your coins on Poloniex. The rates arn't that great - but you do slowly increase your stash over time.
(P.S. Other exchanges like Bitfinex also offer lending, but I'd steer clear of them as they seem to be under Federal investigation over the tether business).
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