nah
its more like if the pope has constipation(holding it in and wont release it) does he shit in the woods

just to inform people
regulations do NOT give exchanges the authority to freeze funds / confiscate funds

if a customer has been flagged as being a AML risk. the exchange is suppose to only write out a SARS report but NOT inform the customer they are under investigation

the only time that funds should be frozen is if there is a court order. at which point the funds would be seized by the authorities and the customer would be informed of the seizure straight away by the authorities

it is not the job of an exchange to act as a sheriff/judge/customs officer. it is just an exchanges job to act as a witness/informant

im several steps ahead of the understanding of LN.. ran scenarios. and the hop/route model has issues. once you understand the whole multisig part of it and then realise the magnitude of channels required just to get 1 million people connected and then realise its not like users can have just 1 payment deposit (channel open) you start to realise people need to pump alot of funds in. and dilute their spendability between each of those channels

then with people limiting how much of THEIR funds they allow to use for the 'lending' process of the hop concept. again this limits utility

its worth you running scenarios of long term real world utility. because right now. LN devs are just looking at will ONE payment get from source to destination without a bug.

they are not really at the point of thinking about real world usage between many people with different life circumstances, spending habits, spendability

LN is not the be all end solution. its not going to deliver as expected and its not as unlimited/easy cheap headache free as people over promote.

yea there will be some speculation if all you care about is a price spike. but when it comes to utility, LN will only be worthy for a certain niche amount of users. and once people start to se its limitations and the over promises.. the debates will circle again hoping for the next big thing that promises real utility.

but first people really need to understand the function, the usefulness and the limitations of LN. and not just the reddit overpromise propaganda adverts of hype and utopian dreams

signature campaigns and bounties for marketing ICO's are foolish errands and very similar to walking the streets picking up pennies. and are only useful if u just want a couple pennies to play around with or live in a country where a couple pennies is worth as much minimum wage as the time you put in collecting them pennies.

instead think of your own skills/talents/knowledge and market yourself. inform people of your skills and set a bounty where you want to b paid X for doing a certain task

dont limit yourself to a sig campaign where you can only advertise 1 company for a month and only able to get a pay day if you spend many hours of that month making useless time wasted posts.

instead set yourself up with many avenues. market yourself look for all the companies that are involved in an area you know and then apply for jobs they advertise or if you see something they should offer tell them that you have an idea that can expand/improve their business and you want X for that idea

dont be foolish
regulations do not protect people

regulations and consumer protections are two separate things altogether.
if anything. wipe the word regulation from your mind. never speak of that word ever.
and instead feel fre to use the term consumer protections
repeat the word consumer protections, consumer protections consumer protections

if you can truly understand the differences. and can realise where the battle lines lay.. then and only then can you go forth and lobby and promote consumer protections.
but do not elude to or try to suggest that regulations are consumer protections.

the problem is when there is a sudden jump.. silly foolish people talk about it as if that super high price is the norm.
they use terms like "get back to" or "regain"

what you have to think of it as is the market is CONSTANTLY testing the highs and the lows.

the norm is not the high. thats just a test of possibility.
its finding the resistance point where traders find the peak before traders are no longer going to buy any higher

the norm is not the low. thats just a test of possibility.
its finding the resistance point where traders find the bottom before traders are no longer going to sell any lower

once you know what the top possibility is and the bottom possibility is. then you know the safe zone. and then if the price is near the bottom price. you know its discount day and time to buy. and when its near the top and you in profit you know its profit day

stop thinking that once a spike happens it should stay up.
stop thinking that once a drop happens it will always stay down

take your emotions and reverse your way of thinking.
when theres a drop do not think about selling.. let the fools sell and test the lows. while you buy in at a discount
when there is a spike do not think about buying the hype. let the fools buy the hype to test the highs. while you sell for profit

.. but if your using coinbase... then you back to using third party systems again... which negates the whole point and purpose of what bitcoin was suppose to be about

EG
if your just going to swap 'balances' within coinbases user database you might aswell just be using paypal.

funny part is that if coinbase/bitpay say that they can send a merchant a FIAT wire transfer the next day.. it just proves that the FIAT wire transfer only takes a day

the whole point of bitcoin was that merchants should directly accept bitcoin for their goods and then that merchant pays salaries and its suppliers in bitcoin the same day. without the need to put funds into an account/address/channel that requires another persons agreement/control/signature

just having bitcoin as a asset currency but rely on third party services as they payment method/gateway/route makes bitcoin no better than fiat as a currency. which then just reduces its utility to be just a asset

crypto currency business surveys 2000 of its customers.. to say high percentage of its customer know of cryptocurrency

hmmm
thats like a chocolate company doing a survey of people that walk into a thorntons to ask them if they know what a chocolate truffle is.

whats next uber doing a survey of its uber customers to say high percentile of population use uber
whats next, go to an alcoholics anonymous to say high percentage of country is alcoholic
whats next go to westminster and sit in the commons benches and have a survey that says high percentage of population are in politics

oh i got it
stand outside a female toilets.. results say there is a 99% of females. and they all suffr from needing to pee within minutes of answering someones question

there is a simple formula
using the bitcoin price data (you can get the CSV data to put in an excel spreadsheet)
https://blockchain.info/charts/market-price?timespan=1year

and the mining hashrate data (you can get the CSV data to put in an excel spreadsheet)
https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate?timespan=1year


you then use this formula to get the cost per bitcoin of mining using this formula
=((hashrate/14)*8.22)/1800
i will explain
hashrate number from the hashrate column measurd in Thash
14 dividing the hashrate by 14 gives you how many S9 rigs equate to that hashpower (each rig is 14Thash)
8.22 cost of a S9 rig per day ($3000/365) NOTE:- this is just rig cost of $3000 at $0.00c electric
1800 btc mined per day

for instance,
put the date in the A column
put the btc price in the B column
put the hashrate in the D column
then put the formulae in the C column
[C:2]=((D2/14)*8.22)/1800
      [A]                {B}           [C]              [D]
[1]date             btc price    minecost    hashrate
[2]14 Mar 2018    $8,152    $7,683       23555075.18


you can then make a chart using the data over a period of time



note:- mining cost not include electric
if your electric is $0.05c per kwh 8.22 becomes 9.78 for rig and electric
if your electric is $0.10c per kwh 8.22 becomes 11.34 for rig and electric
if your electric is $0.15c per kwh 8.22 becomes 12.90 for rig and electric
if your electric is $0.20c per kwh 8.22 becomes 14.46 for rig and electric
based on a 1.3kwh S9

NOTE:- does not include electric of lighting/ventilation but does have the rigs electricity of 5 cents and 20 cents


which as of the 16th of march
BTC price: $8,530
mining rig only cost: $8,324
mining rig at 5cent electric: $9,903
mining rig at 20cent electric: $14,642

its worth having the formulae so you can update it and see when the bitcoin price spikes way above mining cost to be profitable (speculative bubble area(bull market/pump). or when a crash goes too far below cost of mining that it makes it a undervalued dump

many people use mining costs and then add in other formulae like the low of a monthly range to get a trend line of trade resistance to do analysis

though the OP is just advertising his website.. he does not understand the difference between money vs currency

bitcoin is a currency. infact anything can be a currency. its an umbrella term for anything people think has a tradable value.
money is a smaller sub category of currency. which is a medium of exchange with a set stable value that everyone can agree on.

bitcoin fails that test due to volatility and the fact that not everyone recognises it, intends to use it, wants to accept it
money is more about legal tender/fiat that is recognised, intented to be used anywhere and people want/do accept it

unless you can ask 100 random people how many loaves of bread can 0.00017btc buy you. .. without them scratching their head or having to do calculations or googling the answer, bitcoin is not money

bitcoin remains in the broader umbrella category of asset currency

your thinking of capitalists..

now with that said..
lets look at how a crypto currency would develop in a communism situation

imagine each houses rent was based on number of bedrooms(nothing more nothing less) school costs were based on number of pupils
EG (pp/w=per person per week) note ill use this weeks average btc price
bedroom 0.01btc pp/w(~$80),
food 0.005btc pp/w(~$40)
school 0.002 pp/w(~$16)

note: things like bedrooms for a couple would be double because two "single" bedrooms would be bolted together to make physical room for a kingsize bed for the kinky couple to roll around in (i presume some knitpickers would argue couples dont deserve double rent)

here is how a crypto currency would work for (easy understanding) 7 families with a total of 27 people
1) single person gets 0.015btc
2) single person with 1 child gets 0.032btc
3) single person with 3 children gets 0.066btc
4) single person with 5 children gets 0.1btc
5) a married couple gets 0.03btc
6) married couple with 3 children gets 0.081btc
7) married couple with 5 children gets 0.115btc
(total 0.439btc)

and this would be where each household has a ASIC miner and they all are running it. and the block rewards are 0.439 a week that get pooled and then shared out in the amounts shown above
the algo is set that if a new family wanted to move to the communist neighbourhood, their PoN(Proof of Need) will be set and the block reward would increase to cover the neighbourhoods new higher requirement

8 ) married couple 1 child 0.047btc
new weekly block reward 0.486btc for neighbourhood

where there is no person owning the blockchain. no person getting more than a fair share and no thieving is occuring

if you put away your fox news perception of communism.. and instead if a nerd. the reality of communism boils down to.. well simply.. star trek

if not a nerd it boils down to.. having a family
in short, no matter what you do as a job, your efforts are shared out with those around you based on need

fox news tries to present it as if there are some rich thugs that steal everyones money/property and that people are left with nothing while some rich guy gets richer. this is not the case.

the reality is that housing becomes 0 value. and who gets a house is based on their need. for instance. a single person gets a one bedroom apartment and a person with 10 kids gets a multi bedroom house.

this means you will NOT find a billionaire single person with a 20 bedroom mansion, nor would you find a person homeless on the streets.. as everyone would be treated based on their need, not on what job title they have

i personally am not a capitalist/communist mindset. im more of a socialism/libertarian..
but i do love how many portray communism when infact what they are actually are describing is capitalism

wealth hoarding is capitalism.. so while capitalists wanted to go to russia, do business and get rich, they soon found out if they did go to russia all their hard work had to be shared. which the capitalists did not like to be part of.. thus started the propaganda of making communism sound like people were getting robbed and rich people were getting rich. when infact its captialism that takes things off people but doesnt fairly share it out

what people need to do is stop looking at the peak price as if thats 'value' and then cry every time it drops.

instead take the LOWEST price of the last 6-12 months and set that as 'value' and then if the price doesnt go below that line, they know bitcoin has good resistance and good value

if the price goes well higher then the LOW then this is the speculative bubble. and when it comes down but is still above the LOW thats just a correction.. (bubble burst)

but if the price goes below the LOW then that is where its a undervalued dump(where true panic usually sets in)

in short dont base your emotions on the highs at any point.. look for the lows and set targets and 'value' based on the lows

regulations do not mean consumer protections. consumer protections do not mean regulations

once people wise up to that truth, they would stop advocating for government regulations. and instead advocate only consumer protections

4 years ago. average joe could buy $10 of bitcoin without any KYC registration headaches.
now its lots more paperwork, and risks of funds being frozen at a moments notice under fake AML restrictions as soon as people try to move large amounts and cash out.
(the funny part is that money businesses are not suppose to freeze funds movements without a court order. and not even allowed to tell the customer they are under investigation)

as for the sharks vs whales.
whales gobble up huge orders in one go. those days are becoming rare. and also the liquidity of the markets and the volumes of the markets are shrinking too. so now its more so sharks running the exchange movements. by taking little bites very often via bots to move the markets.

we are no longer in the days of mtgox where seeing 2000 bitcoins move in seconds happens due to one whale . now most order lines are under 1btc each and have many bots all biting at the orders like a school of sharks

smart traders have learned, its no longer entertaining to hold 1btc for a year and hope the fiat value doubles.. instead they hope to make 1btc into 1.01 every 3 days so that at the end of the year they have 2btc+ and that 2btc also has the hope of being worth even more due to the fiat change they would have waited for anyway.. thus quadrupling their funds.

so we are no longer in the whale domain of waiting for 400%-1000% whale spikes. but instead we are in the weekly 1-10% shark bites domain

i love bitcoin, but lets get rid of the fake hype and stick to reality.. you know.. stop over promising and under delivering and instead stick to facts and let people understand what bitcoin can offer in reality

with it becoming too costly to fund a private key, many third world countries are finding it costs atleast an hour of their minimum wage just to move funds and thats when mempools are near empty.. and when mempools are over crowded it can cost a hours labour for first world countries(weeks salary for third world)
 
unless you agree to accept funds through a multisignature channel on LN. yea thats right LN is the same as banking, where funds are no longer just yours but payments require someone elses agreement to move funds.

as for killing banks. banks have fiat laws such as minimum wage, taxes and court fines that only accept fiat as payment.
and goverment/public sector laws that only pay out salaries in fiat
this means that fiat will continue to circulate. meaning banks wont get killed. all that will change is that there will be less local bank branches and instead more apps/atms

some say that trying to get states to accept bitcoin for tax payment is some how making bitcoin kill banks. yet a government tax office having a partnership with something like bitpay or coinbase as their currency swap does not make bitcoin kill fiat. it just make bitcoin acceptance a gimmick. the treasury still holds fiat, and just uses a processor third party company to accept bitcoin and hand the treasury fiat.

its like in the 90's where some supermarkets swap recyclable tin cans for food vouchers. this did not mean tin cans would replace fiat.

bitcoin needs alot more then user adoption and gimmicks if it wants to try replacing fiat.

and bitcoin alot mor onchain coding practices to sort out the onchain issues which offchain solutions do not make bitcoin better, but turn bitcoin into the same crapy system as fiat, which then makes it less appealing to use bitcoin as it offers no advantages over fiat

...but. when you look at LN with its cltv which can be a couple days, and the csv which can charge back... LN becomes no better than swift

you will also find that many businesses that were segwit advocates in 2016-2018 are still afraid to use segwit.
take the mining pool BTCC are still afraid to use a segwit address for their own blockchain rewards
https://blockchain.info/block/00000000000000000001408ba538895e2ffa7c70ef8ee62f5b7ef7428bbafcc7

even achow, a known advocate of segwit who had tried to fight tooth and nail to make people think that segwit is the best thing since sliced bread isnt even using the new bc1 addresses

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=290195