So, there is obviously going to be some sort of movements on the markets when we get closer to/post election time; and when there is economic uncertainty in the markets, there is always bound to be some volatile movements in the cryptocurrency/precious metal markets.

So, what are you doing to get ready for the election to hedge your value away from the dollar as we get close to the shit storm that is Hillary vs. Trump? 

I'm especially curious to what people are doing who live outside of the US to get ready for the economic uncertainty.

This only primarily happened, because the devs and maybe a few investors had time to mine for maybe a day which gave them control of the only Zcash in existence, and then they let the demand just escalate by only putting small fractions of Zcash for sell at stupidly high prices.

Because there was just that much hype and marketing that went into the whole Zcash "craze", people just bought it up.  Or maybe some traders just set their bots to trade Zcash, no matter what the price was. 

Just getting in my input... I just check my credits and they are the same as what you guys we're talking about earlier.  I still have "created" transactions for October 29-31st that gave me a -1 post; but November 1st seemed to have worked well though.

So what you are saying is that you would essentially just take x2 the fiat value given fiat value of bitcoin in that case... in other words, you wouldn't keep the Bitcoin or gold; you just want the fiat.

I don't think this topic isn't about what you want to hold in the short term, rather what do you think will be worth saving down the line... and if you still want to take the fiat (x2) then I don't think you understand how much the federal reserve is inflating the dollar right now.

Let's just put it this way... the only people selling Zcash right now are the devs who have mined it before it's release on Poloniex, and as I'm typing this post right now, 1 ZEC = 700 BTC ... I mean, if that doesn't tell you that you shouldn't trust the "trusted setup" by the ZEC devs; then I don't know what will.  They alone are the only ones manipulating the prices to insane levels due to all the hype and because they are probably the only few who have had the chance to mine Zcash...

Those who believe these devs/investors are "trustworthy" are fools.

Well, depends on what you are trying to achieve... It mainly depends on 1) Are you seriously looking for an alternative way from bitcoin to transact value through cryptocurrencies; or 2) Are you looking for a coin to merely speculate, purchase, and dump for profit.

The majority of people who are into alt coins are mainly only here for reason #2; they treat it as another vehicle for investment gambling and nothing else.  That doesn't mean that there aren't some development being made on other coins that seriously improves on the issues Bitcoin faces (confirmation times/blocksizes, fungibility, hashing functions, tail emissions/long term mining incentives, etc.)

If you are in it for a true alternative for bitcoin (#1), then you need to ask LOTS of questions and get those answers your self by researching the white paper for whatever coin it is and if you have other questions, preferably ask questions to the devs or other people active in the community.

But you shouldn't have to look for a reason to support any coin; meaning that I would recommend only really researching a coin that purposes something that would honestly improve a problem that you, and you alone, encounter with Bitcoin all the time and would make life for you that much easier. ... This includes whether you've had issues with confirmation times, Coinbase/Circle canceling your accounts due to Bitcoin "taint", etc. (those are key issues for me personally).

ZCash is a very new currency, following a very new cryptographic algorithm (ZSnarks), that requires you to have "trust" in six people that appointed themselves to be in charge of the generating the genesis block; if they have malicious intent, or even 'unknowingly' had malicious code on the computers they used in generating the block, then they (or the malicious code owner) could have the ability to produce infinite amount of ZCash from now into eternity... there is no way to prove they aren't doing this because of how hidden everything is in ZCash, which can provide some major problems.  Not to mention, that 10% of every block reward goes to these guys.

This is enough to turn me off (personal opinion) of ZCash.  These 6 people have absolute control of the coin itself and have control of the rate of inflation in it's economy.  Is it just me, or wasn't the purpose of going to cryptocurrencies not having to "trust" any small centralized for of 'government' to make these types of decisions? ... *Cough Cough*Federal Reserve*Cough Cough*

Care to provide any white papers or anything to back that up?  What have you found in your research? Or is it just another coin in your portfolio that you are trying to pump?


If you are talking about zcash having more "traction", meaning that it has more marketing and funds being thrown at it for that reason, then that doesn't make it a better coin by any means.

People on this forum get so confused about what makes a "better coin" than another, because the only way they judge if it's better or not is based on 1) price, or 2) marketing efforts ... which is bogus, but I can see the confusion since a lot of people on here see the world through the lenses of an anarcho-capitalist... But as of right now, it is pretty obvious that price doesn't reflect usability... like at all.

Example A) It takes for ever to get a transaction to go through the Bitcoin network due to block size problems, and it has been proven that it can you can be tracked and identified through the Bitcoin network... yet it is worth ~70x more than the next leading altcoin just based on the sole fact that it was the first and has gained it's traction; not to mention be the back bone of all other altcoins...

I'm not really trying to say this to only you; but this goes for a lot of people when they say "X coin" is better than "Y coin", primarily because "X coin" is worth more.

All Bitcoin mixing services can not be assumed to be legit in hiding your identity if you are going through the dark web.  Remember, (*puts on tinfoil hat*) those services are there for profit and all three letter agencies have to do is throw a little money their way in order to see who's mixing what, and so on.  The best mixing service out there that I've seen would be CoinJoin, but even that has flaws since three letter agencies can easily just mix with your transactions by having enough inputs in there that can tell which one is yours.


duckduckgo.


First, you would have to understand what Tor does and how it keeps your internet browsing anonymous.  It can search clearnet sites (like the one you are on right now) and darknet sites, these sites usually have a long string of letters and number followed by .onion.  So imagine Ebay, you can browse Ebay for things you want to purchase on the clearnet; but for other things that you can't find that people want to purchase (usually illegal things) they will go to websites that are hosted as a .onion site.

So it's not really related to Bitcoin directly... it's just used as a currency to transact between people pseudonymously

I've read quite a few articles on the matter, and IMO, if you were to read one, I would suggest you read this article.

If you feel inclined and wanted to read a bit further on the matter here are some other good posts I've come across on the matter:

https://blog.okturtles.com/2016/03/the-zcash-catch/

http://monero.stackexchange.com/questions/83/how-does-monero-privacy-and-security-compare-to-zcash/99#99

Figured it's best to get your information straight from the source rather than have me try to give you my interpretations.  Nonetheless, I do agree that it is useful that there has been a lot of hype surrounding zcash; mainly because of the fact it gets people understand the importance of privacy/fungibility in cryptos.

Even though I absolutely love the idea of bitsquare and getting away from exchanges that is MASSIVELY profitable for a few people that can exit any time they feel like it; I just can't seem to enjoy looking at the order books on there.  I went ahead and installed it, and after looking around a bit, it just seemed to give me a headache looking at the pricing for a single market (i.e. 'buy bitcoin') and then doing the vice versa when you look at the other corresponding market (i.e. 'sell bitcoin'). I feel like it would be a lot better to keep the prices in "Altcoin"/BTC or USD/BTC, etc. and always compare to Bitcoin.

Is that just me?  Or is any one else getting agitated with that? I know it's a small, very nit-picky detail... but it just gets on my nerves.  Still plan on trying it out sooner or later though.

As I see it, it is pretty safe to say that the reason why libertarianism is popular among cryptocurrency users is because you are free to do what you want in life (socially leftish), while understanding how economics should work in a capitalistic society with limited government regulations (economically right).

Do I think capitalism is necessary at this stage of technological advancement we have in society already? Honestly, no... I don't think there is any "-ism" that satisfies what a nation (or everyone on planet earth) should follow; because all of those "-ism's" were created in an era where the industrial revolution was just kicking off.  This was during a time where there was still a high demand of people needed for farming and that sort of thing... obviously something we don't think about any more while food is in abundance (in wealthier countries).

We are WAY beyond what the current political ideologies tell us how to function as a society... As a human species, we need to go back to the drawing board and figure out the best way to live peacefully and work towards advancing human well being even further.

It really doesn't "promote anonymity"; rather than it promotes an limited supply currency that is provided on an open ledger... Which has it's own pros and cons.  The fact that people have to tumble their coins for "more anonymity" means that it really isn't all that anonymous to being with, rather, pseudonymous.

Honestly, it fills this void perfectly.  It truly is the gold standard for which all other cryptocurrencies are based off of that has value behind it.

One reason why I invest in Bitcoin though, is because it is the gold standard for other cryptocurrencies.  Since all fiat is backed by nothing, it is completely worthless to me except for notes that I pay my bills and food expenses with.  There will inevitably be a "money bubble" burst, just like the .com bubble, Housing bubble, etc. ... The way the central banks have continuously inflated the US dollar at low interest rates just to inevitably raise it just screams bubble.

More than likely what will end up happening with Bitcoin is that it will be what it is mainly used for now... a very secure way to transact large amounts of money, but not in an anonymous way at all like it would be with cash.  Not saying that this is a bad thing, and there are possible ways to enable a more anonymous layers to cryptocurrency transactions such as altcoins or side chains... but having Bitcoin as the gold standard to base what everything is priced at is probably the best way to go about things. 

Even though some people, such as my self, would rather have the "best coin" to decide on what the majority of people use... that will never be the case.  Reason being, is just because that Bitcoin was the pioneer coin that showed us the utility and importance of cryptocurrencies. If people lose faith in having their value stored in Bitcoin, then the volatility of all the cryptocurrency markets would be horrendous and could possibly cause people to lose faith in cryptocurrencies all together.

Are you kidding me?

It is pretty easy to see how much a particular wallet holds and follow the bitcoins you transfer from wallet to wallet.  If you are storing millions in Bitcoin, you would probably have to jump through some hoops that require you to give up your personal information to buy those Bitcoins....

From that point on, it's super simple for the exchange, and therefore very likely the government and/or a hacker, to be able to see where you are storing those coins.

I can't imagine that would really be all that smart of a move holding all your wealth in bitcoin, considering you have other safer assets such as silver and gold.  I understand holding a substantial amount in cryptocurrencies in general, but if it were me I definitely would have a safe full of PM's.

Price doesn't "affirm" anything, nor should you ever be mistaken that it does for anything in life ever.  A gold toilet that flushes with 40 year old scotch every time you take a shit is probably X1000000 more expensive than a regular toilet, but does that make the gold toilet better at achieving what you need to be achieved? Which is to shit/piss in said bowl and remove it from your house effectively? Gold toilet might technically be able to get the job done... but hopefully you get my point...

While I do agree with you on the aspect that Ethereum is a complete joke in a sense to "solving this huge problem" people have to create apps/dapps or whatever the fuck Ethereum does...

What I don't agree with you that the Core team is doing anything that's close to "great" in terms of execution. While some devs might have a good idea that contradicts with the other, they fail to do the one thing that matters is to actually agree on something and then doing it.  This is the big thing to me that aggravates me the most with the Bitcoin governance structure, and why I tend to like the way Monero's devs have laid things out; like so:

"Hey guys, we have this idea. Once we develop it, we would like to ask you to join us in testing it.  We are going to go ahead and give you guys a heads up that we are going to hard fork 'X' and 'Y' day every year for a while until we are satisfied with the code and go from there. Period"

Now you can blow me off as some shill, but this is a legit problem that needs to be looked at with Bitcoin and the "governance" structure.  Bitcoin will probably always be the gold standard in cryptocurrencies; but if it can't keep up with the 'times' (especially in a digital world of constant technological progression) then it's just going to be left behind if it can't keep up.

*quick edit: Take Ubuntu for example... "We are going to continue to improve the OS and every 6 months you can expect an update" ... I just think that's the best policy in terms of keeping things like software such as Ubuntu or Bitcoin up to date so to speak.

It's still kind of a "stretch" to say that Monero is at Bitcoin's "heels" so to speak as if Monero (or I guess Dash) will ever overcome Bitcoin in terms of price.  Even though I love using Monero for it's added bit of anonymity and dynamic blocksizes, I prefer to have Bitcoin retain it's good image as being the "leading premier crypto" going forward.  It's good for people in this space because it keeps peoples "trust" in cryptocurrencies in general.  To have Bitcoin be the backbone is perfectly fine with me.

Honestly, just from seeing the amount of volume sites like poloniex get from trading of just the major cryptocurrencies like ETH, XMR, DASH, and LTC alone is incredible.  If it were up to me if I had the capital to play around with (which I never will have in the short term future) I would create a fiat <-> major altcoin(s) site, and maybe plug in Bitcoin too, but to be the major go to guy for a high volume fiat <-> altcoin ramp would be insanely profitable I would think.

All the other details of the business should probably be assumed, just based on how you want to run the business... but I would think high volume and small percentage with an option of cash deposits to an account will attract a lot of people since there has been so much dread of having to go buy BTC first, then go move the btc to which ever exchange site they wanted to get whatever altcoin they desire. 

I can't even imagine the profit the poloniex guys get, but a fiat on ramp would be a killer "app", I would think, and being the first to do it is always a plus.

The thing is, even though that what you said is the most logical thing for what the devs should do (since there are a good amount of devs working on Bitcoin Core), it probably won't happen primarily because there is no direct way to govern this at all.  What seems to be happening, at least to me, is that while Bitcoin might be stronger in every since of the word as it stands right now; it's harder and harder to innovate and change Bitcoin... Why? Because there is no direct way to govern and you will always get resistance from a good portion of the devs because they feel that their idea is better, and so there needs to be a vote.  Should you give miners the ability to vote?  Well, that doesn't really make much since because miners usually don't have such a strong incentive to do anything really to how Bitcoin functions, just as long as they can make money and profit.  There is just no real way to govern and make a community decision that will make the overall majority happy and not want to fork.

This gets us into the territory of altcoins, and people doing what they want to do on their own coin.  Now, let's just assume Bitcoin adds Mimblewimble in some 2nd chain thing, and now let's just say 30-35% of people using Bitcoin as of now are pissed because the governments are pissed of a more anon solution to Bitcoin which makes it harder to track certain payments (that's if Mimblewimble really works).  Those people really want Bitcoin to be a public form of transacting money, and so they create, let's say Bitcoin Classic (heheh)...

Point being is that it's kind of ridiculous to say that everyone will just stay with Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is first and it's the only coin that really matters.  Sure, Bitcoin was first, but that doesn't mean that it won't fail do to some flaw in code or governance problem.  Let's all remember that Bitcoin is still a relatively new and experimental payment system, and no matter how much people think it's already some kind of "gold standard" that will never fail, it's not and there's still a possibility.