Oh absolutely. We just need to shut everything down and we can have clean air again. Lol. In all seriousness though, this at least shows that it's not impossible; we just need more sustainable solutions.



I don't think I've seen any news of a single country pushing digital currency ahead of their priorities during this pandemic since basically everyone is busy trying to contain it. The only push towards crypto I've seen thus far are some Americans spending their stimulus packages on Coinbase, and I don't think that has anything to do with the virus at its core.

It's honestly great that some people are finding silver linings amidst this crisis, but the reality is that this sucks. The only positive I can see that will possibly stick for the long run is that people and their governments will possibly be more careful regarding the spread of disease. This pandemic was almost certainly preventable, but then China censored shit like they always do, other world leaders didn't do enough when they still could, etc.

It seems like both of those are safe for now, as I couldn't find any legitimate scam accusations. Considering this is an incredibly high stake scenario though, when in doubt, it's best to simply go for the more reputable options. As others have pointed out, Bitcoin Core and Electrum are popular, and therefore more scrutinized, making them safer to trust for people who can't review code by themselves.

You can use this as a reference:

https://www.cryptocompare.com/exchanges/#/overview

But as with every centralized service, take it with a grain of salt. A good guideline to follow is that generally, old and big exchanges are less likely (meaning they still could, but they potentially have more to lose than gain) to fake their volume, while new and small exchanges are more likely to fake theirs. It's usually better to stick to reputable ones anyway.

Mutation is normal, but as things stand, prospects are looking good for a vaccine:


I would expect it to be effective, and I agree that its development is probably the only way the global economy can start to recover; spending is going to stall while there is risk of infection regardless of regulations. The problem is that it takes years to develop and roll out vaccines. This one in particular should take a bit less time on average considering the gravity of the situation, but we might still need to brace for a multiple-year wait. In the meantime, most people will continue to spend only when necessary.


Lol what health care system? There are a handful of countries that have been doing a lot better, but yeah they should be able to weather this storm better than most despite all the doom and gloom.

As incredible as that is, Bitcoin has grown so large that hobbyists alone can't maintain enough network security.


This is really why an arbitrary increase in block size could be disastrous in the long run. A fee market must exist for the network to remain secure; look at what happened to LTC and BCH's hashrates after their halving. BTC doesn't have to worry about this problem as much because it's going to remain profitable to mine even after halvings.

Wouldn't you need to ask for a SSN or ITIN if this is the case since KYC is mandatory? If SSN is required then there's probably no way to do this fully legally; illegal immigrants can get an ITIN though, so there's that.

Either way, small amounts should be mostly inconsequential.

I would say that this depends on your financial capacity. Plenty of people live paycheck to paycheck, and they almost certainly keep track of what they spend and how much they need. You can obviously afford to ignore more as you amass more of it, but even at comfortable levels, I'm sure people are keeping track of how much their next holiday is going to cost, how much they need to make for that dream car, etc. Even Bill Gates must be paying attention to how much certain things cost (maybe that next jet or private island lmao); it just so happens that normal grocery items are already so far beneath him that he couldn't even come up with a range.

It can be easy to fall under this perception if you're satisfied with where you are, but ultimately, it's not just a number. The only time you don't realize that it's there is when you don't need to use it for anything.

Well you really should, with the pandemic going on and all lol.

In all seriousness though, it shouldn't matter in most situations. Taint analysis requires a fairly sophisticated process for accurate results, and that usually means they're fine-tuned enough to detect if 'dirty' coins changed hands.


You may want to cite a source. All mixers that have been shut down so far were not shut down just for being a mixer.

Wait, isn't it common practice to tape over your laptop webcam? I remember this going viral a few years ago with people following suit. That put me down the right path, personally.

But yeah, another thing to consider is that a video of a random ass male jacking off isn't exactly popular on the internet. Even if someone did put up your video out there, chances are no one is even going to look at it lmao.

Why would it be smart to leave? It doesn't seem to me like the US is doing that much worse than the rest of the world. Basically everyone is burning money at this point, the spotlight just happens to be pointed at the US like always.


CBS has an article that discusses it. It's not in-depth by any means but it's not as catastrophic as it looks for the most part.

This is why oil was in the negatives:


So strictly speaking, oil itself doesn't have negative value, the said futures contracts of oil do. Future contracts of oil that don't require you to take physical custody should still retain some value. But yeah, unless it somehow cost you money to hold Bitcoin (which can never realistically happen), no doomsday scenario can lead to a negative valuation.

Yes, but extent is the question here. The best way to learn is by trying and immersing yourself. Technical analysis works sometimes but IMO only because so many traders follow them; they end up being self-fulfilling prophecies. Some level of familiarity would probably suffice. Focus on them too much and you could end up seeing patterns where there are none.


It's probably better to not trust anyone, since crypto is mostly unpredictable anyway. If you do end up following a couple of people though, make sure you do proper research on them. There are a lot of shills out there.


Everything rises and falls with Bitcoin, to the point where diversification within the crypto market is nearly meaningless. You might be able to catch surges here and there with alts, but catching those is mostly blind luck and pullbacks can be bloody. If you're just starting out with trading, I suggest you start with just Bitcoin while keeping your eyes on alts, and then you can jump in once you're comfortable.

There's data to suggest that it's already starting to happen:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/data-suggests-some-americans-may-be-buying-crypto-with-stimulus-check

That being said, I'm sure a vast majority of the money would be spent on essentials. Investing is a luxury for most households at the moment, especially since we don't know when it'll blow over.

What's funny is the scams specified by the FBI aren't even targeted towards new users:


They're just going for their usual targets with their usual methods but are involving crypto one way or another.

That's probably because it doesn't threaten employers' business under most circumstances. In this case though, these employees had money to burn, and their current stature proves that they are at least a significant competitor in Bitmain's business. Bitmain exercised their right, which they definitely didn't need to do, but the court agreed anyway.


The Zhan mess is certainly ugly, but I don't think this case will affect Bitmain's public perception very much. There was an agreement and it was broken, so it's understandable that they went to court. Either way though, I don't think they have much of a chance considering they weren't even able to breach HK.

I don't think there's a possibility of the USD losing reserve currency status anytime soon. It's certainly possible for it to lose its status as the primary reserve currency, but something has to replace it, and potential usurpers haven't been doing too hot either.

The article does mention that USD comprises around 60% of the global reserves (as of 2019), but what it doesn't mention is that it's still leagues higher than the next one in line, EUR, which sits at around 20%. You might think Yuan would be a contender, but it only accounts for 1.96% of the total. Things could still change, and I believe it's only a matter of time, but I don't think there will be a groundbreaking shake up in the foreseeable future.

These don't seem to target holders at all? I mean the examples listed all look like run-of-the-mill scams, except executed with crypto. I'm surprised they singled out crypto at all considering these scams have predated crypto itself lol.

It's interesting how no less than the FBI has come out with this warning though. Makes you wonder how prevalent crypto scamming really is.

Just a heads up, posting in the forum just to earn money is generally frowned upon.

To answer your question, cryptomaniac_xxx was likely referring to stuff like Signature Campaigns and bounties, which can be found in the Services section. In a nutshell, some service providers will offer you a certain amount for posting with a signature advertising them active on your profile. There are also plenty of people who sell goods and services for Bitcoin.

But yeah, campaigns/bounties are supposed to add incentive to your participation to the community, not the other way around. Spammers are typically blacklisted from joining or even outright banned from the forum, so do keep that in mind.

I feel like this is a pretty short-sighted conclusion. Sure, the upper middle class is forced to do some soul searching, and that might lead to something good once this all passes. A lot of other people face a different reality though: job layoffs and loss of income. Some have been hit a lot harder than others, and I'm not sure if everyone would be as united as the OP theorizes considering the massive rift between priorities (being productive vs. surviving). We're also going to be so preoccupied with rebooting the economy that it's going to be a lot easier to fall back into old habits than rebooting our psychology.

To add, I know of at least one instance of a country (supposedly) recovering from the pandemic, and it doesn't look like their people have changed their mentality at all. I suppose we'll see, but the biggest change I foresee is that people would have more awareness of their leaders' incompetence because they actually need to pay attention now -- I just hope that leads to change for the better.

I'm sure it comes up here and there, considering full courses from reputable universities already exist, but I don't know if it actually has enough economic impact (for now at least) to be tackled head-on by econ students. It's still incredibly young (on top of that, it only really entered the world stage like what, 2 or 3 years ago?), and even top economists don't really agree about its place in society -- heck we can't even conclusively say if it's a good hedge against traditional finance or not, even in our current crisis.

I don't think there's a crypto revolution going on either, since it's looking like majority of its users are still speculators who don't care for the technological aspect too much. Real world usage would need a big boost before we see any major changes to public perception.