comparing 2013 to 2017 spike is lazy trend anal

the 2013 rise happened due to asics hitting the hashrate/difficulty in october 2013 and thus increasing the cost of mining and thus caused a price surge.
the 2014 crash was due to mtgox

the 2017 spike had NO value reason
(speculation says it was due to tether issues)
(speculation says it was due to the ASIC manufacturers only accepting BCH)
     which caused FIAT buyers to buy BTC on the BTC-USD market(price rise) and then swap btc for bch.
     thus keeping BTC supply away from the BTC-USD market.
     because ASIC manufacturers didnt use BTC-USD to cash out but used tether to get funds out of western exchanges
the 2018 correction was just that. a correction not a crash

the 2017 spike should not have occured as it was not based on any valued reason but based on speculation of financial arbitrage

that said. the currnt ~$6000+ is back down to the VALUED bottom as it should be before the december speculation event.

interesting points to make. dont just look at charts and treat old events as something that will repeat (trend anals)
instead look at logical VALUED reasons(technical reasons) which cannot be learned via drawing lines on a price chart or copying historic price data.

Hint. check out the hashrate and do maths on mining costs and you will see a good guideline of underlying intrinsic value to base when the price should move due t value. and to check if volitile large movements are due to increase of cost. or just speculation/emotion. to work out if its a stable growth that will remain or something that will spike and correct

if btc did not fork(split) on august2017..
then btc would be using the exact same
block format as pre august2017.
transaction formats as pre august2017.
network topology as pre august 2017

but no, btc forked/changed/split in august. meaning a 2 way split.
both went in separate directions to the pre august 2017 protocol

go ask Luke JR why old nodes need "bridging nodes" to translate the full block data
go ask GMAX why old nodes need "upfilter nodes" to translate the full block data

especially how after august. a full archival blockdata is only relayed between peers using
MSG_WITNESS_BLOCK
and the 2009-2017 MSG_BLOCK no longer relays a full block data.. it only relays a stripped version (analogy: translated to pidgeon english from dutch)

analogy
august 2017 the blockdata changed from english(legacy) to dutch(sipa's prefered format) which new nodes can relay using the new MSG_WITNESS_BLOCK
legacy nodes that send MSG_BLOCK dont get the dutch data as is.. instead its a dutch TRANSLATER(segwit node) that strips the blockdata and changes it into pigeon english. which is not 100% accurate/validatable by english(legacy nodes). but deemed close enough to ignore the issues it cant understand

this does not mean the blockdata is legacy compatible. it means a segwit CLIENT has to be used as a translater
bitcoin (network: the blockdata) is not compatible... it needs a translater(segwit client)

bitcoin WAS the blockchain. but now because the blocks are in sipa's prefered format that cannot be just downloaded from a torrent as is but needs sipa's codebase to be a filter/bridge/translator for legacy nodes..
this does not make bitcoins blockchain compatible. it just means core as a TRANSLATOR can pidgeon english the data to trick legacy nodes into thinking the blockchain is acceptable. yet legacy nodes cannot fully validate very transaction clearly, nor can legacy nodes relay this new data as is. thus not compatible.

again the blockchain is not the same as pre august and legacy nodes are not part of the relay network. thus not compatible

P.S
carlton banks is a fanboy not a codeboy. its useless asking carlton about code, so ask luke/gmax/sipa
also i do laugh at the lukes many backtracking statements(2mb bad.... 4mb good). but if you ask him a straight question. using words that cannot be denied as they are in code. he does eventually admit the truth. so be sure to mention how full archival data is no longer served via MSG_BLOCK, and he will have to admit things have changed and when they changed. thus admitting the fork of 2 directions (bilateral split)

a channel is you and a partner in a multisig.
yes you can open just one channel. BUT your then reliant and have to TRUST on that counterpart being online to co-sign the funds to then allow them to in thier other separate channel with another partner they have on a route co-sign with their partner to hop the payment.

if your partner is not online then you need to open another channel with another multisig counterpart and fund that channel, to then route via a different direction to the end destination you desire

i know your trying to stir 2 scenarios into one to hide the issues. but hiding an issue is just ignoring an issue and doesnt solve the issue
EG you pretend 1channel is all thats ever needed which is a scenario if you only want to pay starbucks. by only connecting direct to starbucks

but
1 if you want to pay a friend and there is no connections between you and friend.. or you > startbucks > friend. then you need to open another channel.
2 if you want to pay starbucks  whr your only conneted to a friend and there is no connections between you and starbucks.. or you > friend > startbucks. then you need to open another channel.

you cant say that you can pay anyone all the time without issue from one channel ever. atleast be realistic

the best dev's and the best scrutinisers are those that dont promote something as utopia. but instead look for loopholes, bugs, issues, pitfalls.
so if you really want to do LN a favour stop kissing ass and instead run scenario's intended to break LN.
keep breaking it, until it wont break anymore

so a guy made a tweet saying an exchange does fake trades.

1. does not prove exchanges do it internally
2. does not prove exchange said that
3. dos not show which exchange it is
4. does not show it does it using zero deposit(backed) funds

all its saying is an ICO owner could get the first 50btc of trades at zero fee. which is not illegal

all in all i think its a honeypot trap the SEC are trying in the hopes of using empty evidence from an unidentified 4th party (hearsay of hearsay) but that just seems too obvious. but i think the SEC might be desparate to find something to then grab any reason to say manipulation via exchange insiders occurs.

i think the tweet owner should report the evidence and proof it actually happens instead of a graphic he could have created himself to invent evidence.
until real proof is available that documents trades done by bots that hold no real balance. then we cant just say its happening.

arguing about AML/KYC in LN is right now empty argument..
but what people on both sides to defending offending the devs dont realise is that LN is NOT a service solely to be used by bitcoin.

as soon as the FIAT hubs start atomic swapping for btc on LN then you will see the AML/KYC compliance issues

yep when the 'decentralised exchanges' start operating. then you will see all the other BSCartel services start making their money.. EG Civic with thier admin fee for ID registration/checks. circle,coinbase,and other exchanges taking fee's and ... requiring ID

again LN is not a pure BTC network. its a offchain service to atomically swap between currncies and its been the gameplan since before 2015 to earn the BSCartel millions.

ever thought why rusty russel and sipa were getting millions of dollars if all they were doing was coding for bitcoin community,
(blockstream has ovr $100m and less than 100 employee's so ach guy linked to Blockstream has over $1m)
reality is that all the development is being pushed to make services to make returns on dev investment back to the BSCartel (barry silbert doesnt run a charity, he wants returns eventually)

P.S
if you think devs are interested in making transactions cheaper onchain. or have a cheap tx system. please refrain from replying
 just look at whats happened
bitcoin core price october 2017 ~$6000  ... min dust tx  limit 1000byte =6cents min to have tx happily relayed #
bitcoin core price june 2018 ~$6000  ... min dust tx  limit 3000byte =18cents to have tx happily relayed  #

funny thing is after october the price increased. but did the november or the january code releases DROP limits to compensate the value change.. nope they infact increased the dust, not decreased.thus double whammy (facepalm)

cryptocurrency is limited to just moving funds.
however blockchain(open public ledger) and DLT(closed private ledger) are beyond cryptocurrency, but also include cryptocurrency as a subcategory.

so dont limit yourselves to just cryptocurrency.

for cryptocurrencies, the future is going to be where the UTXO is more protected and validatable separately amungst peers than now. to allow for a faster 'service' to validate/lock payments while they wait to be double locked into a blockchain.

and where the blockchain is prunable. which i can see as only a few supernodes would end up holding the entire full blockchain and then individuals get a
reduced version of the archived blockchain bar the most recent 6-12 months which would be full blockdata. and where the UTXO set wil be organised in such a way that that users are not waiting minutes for a 'confirm'/lock.

for blockchain /DLT, the future is going to be where the network is multichained, imagine it like the swift network where each bank branch has a chain for lets say 10,000 bank customers and then the network valudates the most recent blocks of each chain as a governnance audit of all the chains of the network to double strengthen the network while not having to have all nodes store all chains. thus reducing the data load of nodes. and thus allow speedier service to users.

the data does not have to be financial.
instead of bank branches of 10,000 customers chained. it could be
a medical practictioner office with 10,000 patients registered per chain and the data being their medical history.
a school/college of 10,000 students per chain and the data being their grades, attendance, etc

the important thing about where blockchain /DLT will be useful to solve issues. is in use cases where data NEEDS to be in more than one location.

many people foolishly create blockchains where the distribution of data is not about needing the data in multiple locations for data use. but putting the data in multiple locations purely to validat/lock data which is then only served/managed/displayed from one location/source (facepalm)

EG a guy asks his wife, kids and pet dog to double check the guys maths.. but in the end the guy then only shows his data at a central office presentation as the data itself is only useful in the office. meaning the wife,kids and dogs dont need to keep the data as its not something they need to see again after validating as its of no interest to them. thus wasting the families resources and time each keeping thee data after validaton

so if you want problems to solve. think about not creating blockchains where it makes random non interested parties validate it purely for security and then not need(no incentive) to see/use all the data later. but where multiple parties NEED to see/use all the data ongoing and they all are part of the validation, thus have incentive to keep/audit the data ongoing

EG not need all students to hold all records of every student for the rest of their lives, but where each school validates other schools and the schools hold the blockchain both for government auditing and student access of individual records.

its called arbitraging and is not manipulation.its just using the currencies to move between exchanges faster that fiat wire transfer to take advantage of prices

EG
the USD-BTC when the price goes up. people are doing alot of USD trades to get bitcoin.
but when the price goes down. people dont want USD because it takes 3-5 days to move that USD out to another exchange that might have a lower price.
so yea people swap BTC for tether. (to not impact the USD drop) and the move the tther to an exchange and then buy bitcoin at a cheaper price..
then move the bitcoin back.. buy mor tether. and move the tther to a cheaper ecxhange again to buy more bitcoin cheap..

arbitrage is a normal trading tool. its jsut many fiat economists dont really see price movements and arbitraging happen in minutes bcause they are used to seeing it happen over days due to old fiat banking restrictions/delays. which by using tethr dont have these delays.

thus its not manipulation and not spoofing/illegal acts. its purely being able to move funds faster than the banking fiat system can offer.

that said the november-dcember spike was definetly speculative and not based on logical value rise so i agree that half the price (anythng above $9k) was beyond the scope of 'value' which is why it corrected itself by february.

DIP= Discounted Investment Period

in other words buy low sell high

initially i did the maths. but then noticed the totals were so low it wasnt even worth including

just imagine it a room of just 1000 asics (i could fit that many in my living room) so lighting is not even a decimal in comparison to 1000 ASICs
(1000*1.3kw(asic)      1*38w(bulb)) = 1300038w/h
2.5m asics +lighting =3250095000watts/h = 3,250,095kw/h = 3,250.095mw/h = 3.250095gw/h = 0.003250095tw/h = 28.4708322tw/year

each farm only needs 1 PC so thats at most 500w/pc.. screw it ill be generous. lets say 4 PC's as backups or for the guy to play solitaire on while bored
and lets say 20 pools thats 80 pc's to actually monitor the asics. thats 0.0003504tw/year

so in total that still does not change 28.47 to anything more than 28.4711826 which still rounds to 28.47.. so as i said not worth including

alot of LN fans will say "LN is not centralised. its like the SWIFT wire transfer network where its not just one bank office/hq. but multiple banks and account holders.."

but they forget users have to link to others and lock funds in with others. where that other party has to agree on users payments (just like how banks work)
and after studying and running scenarios of usability. hubs(bank branches) start to form as oppose to a user having 4-8 independant channels with each channel going to each service.

and so just like everyone knows all the banks are in it togthr to scrw customers over.. these hubs are all in it to hold all the reserves between them and scalp the users linked to them.

its simple 'degre's of separation' theory
just try doing the math of

4 to the power of 4 = 256 (not even enough for a school yearbook of people) 4 channels per person 4 hops end to end

8 to the power of 8 = 16,777,216 (small island/city population) meaning if all users had 8 channels. it take upto 8 'hops' to get end to end

9 to the power of 9 = 387,420,489 (about the populations of america) 9 channels per person 9 hops end to end

10 to the power of 10  = 10,000,000,000 (world population) 10 channels per person 10 hops end to end

but f you think of a bank HQ that works in 2000 regions. and those regions have 2000 bank branches each and each of those bank branches served 2000 users... thats 8billion users that can reach each othr in 3 hops and the users only need 1 channel to their bank branch

would you prerfer to split your $200 spend across 10 channels. where instantly $2 of your $20 per channel is reserved for closing channel. and it then costing you upto 10millisats(10x1milisat route fee) to get end to end
or
knowing you can fully spend $200 in one go. and the risk of random users going off line is less due to uyou using reliable hubs(bank branches)
would you prerfer to keep your $200 spend in 1 channel. where instantly $2 of your $200 is reserved for closing channel. and it then costing you upto 3millisats(2x1milisat route fee) to get end to end

imaginiing channels
users who may budget they only want to spend $50 a week ($200 a month) will NOT want to put their $200 into 4 channels incase one of the route to a peer goes offline. because that $50 gets locked or cost them on unchain fee to get it out again.

users will end u choosing a hub (bank branch) to connect to and just throw the whole $200 in knowing its just 1 onchain fee they will need to worry about if they need to exit. and decide a hub is less likely to go off line than random users.

again users will not want to set up multiple channels. so the hop model of multiple routes wont work.
(its worth people running scenarios, it helps)
 and the HUB (bank branch) model begins to shine.

take youe own bank account. would you prefer your wages going into one account and then using that account to pay all your bills. or have 8 bank accounts and when you get paid you then have to pay a wire transfer(onchain fe) to then redistribute ur salary into 8 accounts dedicated to each paying a bill.and then knowing if something goes wrong with bing unable to pay a bill it then costs you another onchain fee to move funds again.. most people end up for convenience just throwing it all into one well connected reourse and letting them sign have joint control of your funds
.. this is how banks formed in the first place
even now looking at the LN network overview you can already se many users with 1-2 channels. not 4-8 channels.. and those 1-2 channls are betwen hubs in most cases.. and the hubs that have way way more than 8 connections. are what will bcome the new bank branches.

even before the 1mb that satoshi put in during 2010. satoshi had a 32mb limit. this was called the "message size limit"
the reason for 32mb was due to technical stuff outside of blockchain stuff. and more about the internet technical issues

ill leave you to google the technicals but in short its easier to send data in clumps of under 32mb due to increased risk of packet/data loss which can cause propogation delays because so many packets would need to be checked and re sent the bigger the file gets

again this was not a bitcoin/blockchain limitation. it was a internet data transmission procaution to reduce delay, double transmission and other issues.
this is why you see so many image upload services, microsoft word upload, email attachments that have 32mb limits (if they want superfast service withleast chances of data retransmission)

but as i said ill leave you to google the technicals
bigger files are possible but then it requires extra code to double check stuff and need more code to rebuild lost packets etc. so it was simpler to just avoid going that high, to kep the system efficient.

what you actually find is that decoupling altcoin<->btc is the cause of the stagnation

in the past to get ether/other coins, you first needed to buy BTC with fiat (btc fiat price goes up) and then btc is taken off the btc-usd market to hand btc to ether market. (again less btc on the USD market, btc fiat price goes up)
those selling ether for btc then hold btc. thus keeping supply away from btc-usd (again less btc on the USD market, btc fiat price goes up)

but now people can buy ether direct via USD, so the arbitrage to ether via btc has not occurred.

that said. btc's price has seen health climbs
2016: never below $300
2017: never below $900
2018: never below $6000

and as the 'buyers remorse' support gets tested. where people refuse to sell for less than it cost them to obtain it. and also the impact of hashrate rises causing mining cost to rise we shall se positive movements in btc.

but with all that said. we really do need devs to stop trying to develop crap features that only help altcoins and offchain multicoin networks grow. and instead concentrate on real bitcoin onchain scaling and scurity and usability

yep and segwit addresses BC1q were not designed as a sole btc feature.
LN was not designed as a sole btc feature

the bc1q addresses were designed to identify btc tx's when the bankers add their hyper ledger system to LN so that they can tell the difference between a btc address and their atomically swappable fiat coins.

bankers running the hubs 'for convenience of users' is already in the works.

even the layout of hubs is the same network layout as bank branches. the co-signing requirement is the same as bankers authorised payments.

so your worry about spam is empty

how can you argu about spam. then argue there is no spam because blocks are empty.
whats next worry that cars can b overcrowded because you sen a comedy clip of 30 clowns walking out of a mini car.. but then argue that cars should only have a drivers seat because most of the time thers only one person per car.

hint: an near empty block of 0.2mb does not lock off 32mb of hard drive space. it just uses 0.2mb of hard drive space. but allows the rules of allowing mor transactions in without 2 years of debate.

its better to have 32mb limit and not need it. than to have 1mb limit and argue for 2 years how to expand it
its better to 4 seat car and not need it. than to have 1seat car and argue for 2 years how to upgrade the car

take you pc. if you only intend to store 1 jpeg image on the PC world you specifically ask a PC retailer for a pc with a hard drive that only stores the operating system+1jpeg. or woul you want a hard drive that has the capacity for alot more knowing you may needd more in the future, and dont want 2 years of hassle arguing about upgrading your pc.

funny part is any coin, even btc can prevent spam. simply by having a fee priority formulae re-established. that makes it harder/more expensive to spend fresh utxo that have not matured for long(low coinage/confirm count=expensive), that alone will solve people trying to churn through transactions by spending them as son as they are confirmed.

but anyway. btc has stagnated onchain. and all devs care about is LN so that they can grab peoples BTC using punishments and exsivvive onchain fee's to tempt them not to leave LN until thir channel is empty. or get kicked to a crap coin so the hubs can get all the btc.
typical banker mindset

i still laugh at the above.
but nice wordplay windfury. it seems your indocrination into that group has taught you how to twist words.

adam back paid his devs to PREVENT increasing the legacy blocksize to satisfy HIS groups political agenda

only problem is you slipped up. how can bitcoin core not increase the blocksize if increasing it is some groups aganda..
remember you pretense that bitcoin core doesnt control anything. so how can they prevent it

this is where windfury has to admit core (adam backs paid devs) do have control.
just check out bitcoin.org/en/download   oh look core and only core is mentioned.
(notice hypocrisy yet)

yes they are mining at a loss in some places. which is why if you check some of the charts. some locations with high electric have turned off a few rigs.
but some will still mine even at a loss, because they just hold for a long time due to paying lectric as a yearly contract so dont need to cash out instantly

some pools with low electric and are using the new gen asics have added more(20% in some cases) and making profit even at this mis $6k range of prices.
but that only accounts to at most 1800btc a day of support line. however before october there were 16+m coins in circulation and it seems the majority are refusing to sell below the $6k bottom line that begane in october 2017. and that $6k line has been tstd many many times and people have had ample oppertunity to sell down if they wanted to. which shows that the 'churn' from old buy to new buyer has already occured of those willing to sell below $6k and now the holders are happy to hold above $6k and wont sell for less

mining pool BTCC were biggest advocates of segwit from the very day it was thought up. thy even decieved the network by their mandatory activation and jjoined the ranks of blockstream to get it activated.. but today, they still fear putting their coin rwards from mining onto segwit addresses
(funny right)
https://blockchain.info/block/00000000000000000021865b070933943fb8b5959678542998bb99d5721b4e3b
notice coin reward -> 13TET...  not bc1q...
2 years of advocating and propaganda that segwit is the best thing for bitcoin.. and they refuse to use it themselves..

gotta laugh
"A transaction that spends one or more SegWit outputs is considered a SegWit-transaction. "

so a TX of
in
1addressR4nd0m
1addressR4nd0m
1addressR4nd0m
bc1qrand0maddr355
out
1addressR4nd0m


where only 25% of 'spend' are segwit.. they class as a full segwit tx (facepalm)

what there needs to be is stats of how many UTXO are using bc1q addresses.. that would show true 'adoption'
not the stupid biased in favour of segwit indntification that site uses
in most cases the single bc1q address of these biased tx's only include a bc1q address not because a user is paying another user from funds they intentionally wanted to use segwit with. but the "change" address has defaulted to created a segwit change address (by default rather than user intentionally chosen) thus users are kind of duped into gtting their change back as segwit. thus this stat is not adoption rate(choice).. but fostering rate(not intentional choice but default result)

..
the segwit stats of that site. is biased stats like they do in saudi arabia
legalising female drivers. but knowing most saudi males dont want thir wives driving, stats realistically are low. so what they do is employee femail public bus drivers. and so every bus passenger is then classed as a communter with a female driver to bump the stats. yea not one femal per bus(journey) but 1 female per passenger. thus a bus of 10 passengers would be 10 communtes with a female driver. not 1 communte

again whats needed is a UTXO breakdown of legacy vs segwit utxo

tether is only useful as a method to arbitrage 'dollar' between exchanges. thus instead of a price rise happening on one exchange. and it taking old wire transfer 3-5 business days to move dollars across to impact other exchanges. tether can do it in seconds/minutes.

but.. guess what. people were arbitraging before tether. i was doing it in 2012 between exchanges.
we just used a different alt as the dollar substitute
it was not manipulation. it was just being faster than FIAT swift network
arbitraging happens every day and its legal and standard practice for traders.

so its not tether thats to blame. its the fact that its easier to arbritrage price movements across exchanges in crypto.. its faster than standard fiat world

as for hodlers.. you cant blame them either.
if you look at the cost of mining. which depending on electric and generation of asic used is $6k-$9k region roughly per btc.. the price has NOT tanked below a healthy cost of creating btc.

so although there may be many holders(including myslf) that have coin from as far back as 2012, it doesnt show that people are willing to sell all the way back down to 2012 prices. (yep even i still have my hoard from 2012, i didnt sell)
the 6month low has remained above cost of mining minimum. so it has shown very good support.

once you cut away the very temporary speculative drama that caused the hype bubble of october/december. and then realise the january-february was a COREECTION and not a 'loss'.. you will see a healthy VALUE line for 2018 of $6k+