It's a bit of a funny situation for me. I agree that UK has one of the most conservative (as opposed to liberal) financial systems in Europe, but I think also one of the most open (as opposed to closed). Remember this simply means that they may never want to relinquish the state's role in regulation and overseeing of markets, but it is certainly open to new ideas and innovation. Despite or perhaps because of its membership in the single European market, it has been forced to renew itself as a major fin tech hub, with all the technology parks and incubators littering the British landscape.

UK is also where a lot of so-called neo banks have opened up in the past 4 years, in Scotland, Ireland and England - and these will be the first to incorporate cryptocurrency, while possessing banking licenses. The time is near for a true Bitcoin debit card to come up, and with its withdrawal from EU, this may make it even more attractive, arguably even more necessary.

Never really thought about all the things I've bought with Bitcoin. Starting with actual physical items, which incidentally were all bought either on or through this forum's marketplace:
1. Apparel
2. Toys or gaming items
3. Storage/wallets

All the above crypto related...

Services or electronic products, mostly external sites:
1.various vouchers for discounts or rebates for games, shopping
2. Sms and phone services (virtual telephony)

Notably, none of the above could have been purchased without Bitcoin.

There's definitely something brewing on the horizon for the EU, and as with all the past moves on financial regulation, this has started with somewhat low-key informal discussions with industry leaders. This is what happened a month ago in Brussels when some EU ministers and the ECB met behind closed doors with a coupld of blockchain firms and even a Chinese miner. Central theme to the meeting? Cryptocurrency regulation.

The blueprint's already there to be honest. Meanwhile Finma in Switzerland's almost in the final phases up its first investigation into ICOs. 2018's going to be a very revealing year for European governments and central banks.

Hello and welcome back to the EPL everyone! Have a feeling I will do either really well or really badly today, it will depend on the early kick off, on which I am betting on an upset (based on bookie odds) by a slim margin. In fact, I'm keeping close to the bookies this Week for most of the games and betting against them (only slightly). Good luck all!

Also, yes, very keen to look at joining some World Cup pools next year, plus Champions League. These, and Euro, are the only pools I would consider, as long as the fee is not too large (the fee for this pool was reasonable at original fiat pricing). I bet on other leagues but one-offs, can't say I know anything about the teams outside of England.

Japan was really the first to truly embrace the Second, Third and now Fourth Industrial Revolutions. And what more to say about blockchain (and Bitcoin)?Of course, we shouldn't forget that it took that incredible debacle of Mt Gox to start the boll rolling, but roll it did and here we are, with Bitcoin not only legitimate, not only recognised, but truly embraced by the Japanese.

We'll never know if Bitcoin would be here today if not for Mt Gox bringing the industry to everyone's attention, but that's all not important now.

P.S. Anyone know what's going on with the CEO's trial? It started in July but I can't find any updates. Some Japanese speaker want to share searches from the local business outlets?

Great update ciccio and thanks. Will be really interesting to see gow bookmakers change their odds now, though I might wait for the actual draws before selecting early winners.

I might take a couple of risky bets on perhaps Iceland or Senegal to win a semifinal berth, if there's any bookie offering.

P.s. england and brazil kits are leaked as usual. Nothing special but could be a surprise when them colourful African teams show up with theirs.

Anyone for some early side bets?

Used to react to all these posts with: any time's a good time to buy! But you know what? You guys just hold off and wait. I really need Bitcoin to slow down this mooning because I can't work hard nor fast enough to accumulate 'em cheap!

But all right, let's look at the technicals. What do we see happen for sure after each and every new ATH? A dip. But are these dips getting more reliable and predictable? Yes... in a way. But they're not following any pattern of percentages or duration. The dips can be over in hours, or stretch two days.

So yes, it remains true: buy Bitcoin any time if you're an investor. But sure, wait for the dips if you want a quick buck. Keeps the volume moving so good for us long-termers.

I've been thinking a lot about Bitcoin and how even someone with perhaps moderate IT abilities like myself continues to face some issues when following guides and step-by-step instructions. A lot of my knowledge on using it now came with several mistakes, a lot of frustrations, but I haven't forgotten how intimidating it can be to learn to use Bitcoin properly. Yes, a lot of the questions asked here are indicative of laziness - but language is another big problem with most of the useful guides in technical English.

The fact remains (to me) that Bitcoin has a steep learning curve, not very simple to learn, and extremely difficult to master. But I think most of us will never need to learn more than the basics (though what is basic can be arguable). I know people with a lot of coins who simply refuse to believe that maintaining their own private keys or controlling how their transactions are spent can be safer than just relying on an app that simplifies everything. I see their point, in their situation.

HCP's truism stands true. I think "the community" is doing enough, is doing what it can. But you can't create fool proof guides. If today, fraud and scams can still happen with banking tools centuries old, we should expect that it can happen at least with equal regularity with a new tech like Bitcoin.

Of course a small group of miners want to go for it. And why wouldn't they, when other small groups of miners have shown the way to easy profits (Bcash and BTG), with even the most absurd of incompetency in handling a relatively simple fork didn't seem to impact prices too much (as in the case of BTG).

Whatever forks happen from now on will not have a fraction of the consequences that SegWit2x posed. Just plain old rinsing and repeating of cash grabs, but I really wonder if they've thought about what happens a year from now, two years, etc. when prices are no longer profitable and development stagnates or deteriorates.

Simple answer: they don't care.

This isn't the first time it's been brought up, but I still see no trustless solution being proposed to solve this issue of inheritance and legacy. I'm now starting to think that if it's possible to somehow create a smart contract or a time lock transaction that requires the owner to always access the coins every fixed period... and if this condition is not met for say, consecutive periods, for an additional rule to trigger that would send the private keys (unencrypted) to a specified person? This assumes that if the owner is unable to access for an extended period of time, it could only mean he/she has passed on.

So far, even multisig solutions with a legal firm requires trusting someone or some party.

Not the most technical person here, but would something like that work?

Oh, Dimon always knew what he was doing, we all know this. He did his best to short Bitcoin before coming out with that statement(s), achieved the desired effect, cleared all the positions and re-entered Bitcoin long. Just as Bitcoin recovered this week, it did then, and Dimon scored an easy 40-50% profits from the effect of that call alone. Genius? I guess so.

Did he mean what he said? Absolutely not. The banks know who they are, and they know Bitcoin can't be used efficiently to launder money. Did you know banks and consultancy firms have an actual budget line to pay for fines and penalties when things like this happen? It's far more cost-saving to pay millions in penalties than to actually pay billions in tax and legitimate fees. It's business as usual for JP Morgan, yawn yawn.

I think what was truly special about Bitcoin to me was that how you never needed to trust anyone to send your money. For the first time, ever, apart from face to face cash, you could make a transaction to anyone and you know it would get there with certainty. No relying on a bank's promise to honour payment. Nor a government's to recognise the currency. Nor the recipient to be honest and say they received it.

I spend, I am in full control, I know how much and where it goes to. And it's recorded forever.

That's bloody special and still is today.

They don't. They just know your email, probably from a number of sources including referral sites if you use them to promote this site. Doubt they actually have access to user emails or I'd have received a similar email from them. Another possibility is that you logged in from another device and the form saved yr email? Better change yr pass now.

No service in the world would ever ask you for authorization without your prior knowledge. And certainly, none would ever ask you to login via links.

Crypto involvement has given me a lot of new spam to contend with, expect the same for yourself =)

You'd be surprised to learn that your entire process is often repeated, particularly at the last where they finally realise that they should never have let you open an account in the first place.

Cubits is a major Bitcoin payment servicer for a lot of online casinos (who accept Bitcoin deposits via Cubits). This further explains a lot of people who get caught out when depositing Bitcoin at Cubit sites, and are suddenly told they can't withdraw through method other than bank wire... which excludes their countries.

Users beware of hidden terms of service esp when the site you use accepts Bitcoin via a third party payment processor.

There you go, someone who calls it out. On the very definition of shitcoin, you're taking little more than a gamble if you're buying up bags of shitcoin in the hopes of turning unrealistic and high profits.

I'm not totally averse to the idea of owning some shitcoins myself, but I treat them exactly as the gamble they are, with any spare change I put into them considered as gambling money I'm prepared to lose.

Granted, if I take stock of the total I've gambled on shitcoins, I probably lost over a hundred dollars. Nothing compared to what I've lost in actual gambling though... And these shitbags are all still trading, so you never know, haha.

As described by previous posts, there is a conventional solvency mechanism that basically means you only can get what is already there - exchanges merely match up offers. Makes put down their own digital assets and takers have to trade or exchange their own assets. Exchanges earn from commissions, small fees charged to both makers and takers.

When an exchange directly trades with you (ie. you take them up on their offers) then they make money from the spreads. This does mean that there is a risk of insolvency if the exchange's own capital is caught by price spikes - but exchanges tend to use customer deposits as their own liquid capital, all managed by a solvency mechanism that doesn't allow trades to trigger if the risk is present. You'll read how people cry foul play when markets are frozen.

Then, there's also this thing called Tether (USDT)... more exchanges are using it. Simply put, this token was created out of thin air, issued to customers to represent USD (somewhat pegged to its value). It has been having a lot of problems of late.

This won't be half bad if your rather specific predictions come close to their mark, given that you're still a Jr member!

But won't you share some of your obviously stringent research methods that brought you to these figures? The technical analyses I've read this week, especially the ones popping up since yesterday's return to 7k are all calling out double heads that imply a strong finish above current ATH by New Year Eve.

But you're right on percentages. Every steep dip has been swiftly followed by even more outrageous climbs.

Assuming these are strictly BTC pairs, I'll comment on Dogecoin, since it's really the only one among your list that I have significant experience - and holdings. Its chief strengths: maturity, adoption and already low levels against Bitcoin which have not managed to break the 10 satoshi floor despite several ATHs.

There is still good value in trading Bitcoin against doge, with even 1 satoshi movements giving significant percentage profits. At sub 20 levels that's a clean 5% possible on small volume Bitcoin tradings.

Some arbitrage between exchanges are also apparent and doge is easy to move around, cheaply.

Once it does pump, as it seems to every January, it's even good for long term hedging I feel. I don't mind buying up small amounts every low period. Have accumulated quite a bit, while making profits along the way. As long as Bitcoin has a future, so does Doge, for the foreseeable time anyway.

Have mentioned a couple of times before how I haven't really moved past the 4 or 4.5k mark, particularly because the moves beyond that have been so fast with no real holding level beyond a week.

While I didn't discount a move towards 10000 by end of 2017, I have still been psychologically at 4500.

But the recent week, with BCH failing past the initial run, amd Bitcoin returning to pre s2x suspension levels with such strengths, I'm very ready to see the new stable price at 7000.

Yeah, I'm glad I waited one week to sell a significantly desperate stash. Going to have to pay about $40 in late bills payments, but I gained a couple of hundred dollars just by waiting from 6100 to 7300! Not exactly my proudest moment of self discipline but I was so certain the sell off was just too sharp.

Also, I doubt it was really the Segwit2x suspension... after all, it was supposed to mean good news, surprising as it was to most of us (or to me, anyway). It was the unexpected blowback from angry miners and supporters... Bitcoin Classic group and all that just rushing over to BCH and carrying their hashpower with them.