exchanges aren't the only source of "entry of fiat to bitcoin". they are one of the ways which happens to be  easiest so it is more popular. and if some day there were an unreasonable crackdown on exchanges people will simply switch to other methods like what Chinese and Indians have been doing.

and basically what you are saying here is a reason for price to fluctuate not for bitcoin to not exist (or last long)!

it is because your account rank is low (Newbie). you need to become at least Jr. Member for the embedded pictures to show up. but those who quote you have higher account rank so their comment shows the picture.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178608.0

you can also pay a fee and upgrade your Newbie account to Copper rank so that some of your limitations are improved.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2385104

I wouldn't jump to any conclusions if I were you. what we had is just a small recovery, just like when a correction happens after a fast and big rise, this recovery is also because we have had a fast and huge drop.
there also isn't any signs of a bull market movement as of yet. we may or may not see $8000+ but until I see $9500 and the breakout above $10k I would say we are in a bear market.

you should only use Yobit if you have no other choice left to use. for example if you want to trade a coin that is only listed on Yobit and nowhere else or for example if you want to trade without ever requiring to verify your account by submitting any kind of documents you can use Yobit. otherwise it is not safe to use them.

also if you decided to use this exchange then it is best to only stick to depositing and withdrawing bitcoin, LTC, ETH and possibly 1 or 2 other bigger coins. stay away from making any deposit or withdrawal of other altcoins because your transaction will be stuck.

that is just what you are assuming and have no proof to back your guess up.

is bitcoin used my a lot of investors as a way to make money? yes
are these investors using exchanges to do so? yes
does that make bitcoin centralized? no.
is it the whole usage of bitcoin? obviously not. there is a lot more to it than that. there are millions of dollars being spent on buying different goods from millions of merchants around the world.

you should keep in mind that bitcoin is just a protocol with a certain set of rules. anything else like what OP has in mind is just things you can build on top of that protocol using the software that you code. for example the HD wallets and Seed words aren't changing the protocol. it is just someone who build something on top of bitcoin.
you think some "email-based app" is required for making bitcoin more adotable then start developing one. or if you cant then try explaining your idea better so that a developer can do it for you.

interesting enough when I checked some stuff out about him talking about bitcoin I realized Warren Buffet is not exactly "bashing" bitcoin for no reason. for example the "Bitcoin Is Rat Poison" thing that was being spread all over the internet last time was not what Buffet said! it was what the reporter told him which was a quote from someone else who said it in 2013 if I am not mistaken! then the media went crazy and started saying Buffet called bitcoin a "Rat Poison".

(since this is trading discussion board) as a trader the worst thing you can ever do is to HODL. in fact holding is meaningless if you are a trader. you want to constantly move your money around and make profit otherwise you can not and shout not call yourself a trader.
this means when you see the drops you either have to cash out and stay out of the market in fiat (not USDT) or you have to be bold and short the market if you know how to do it and willing to take the risks.

if you are not a trader then the only thing that you should ever hold is something that has real potential. in my opinion that thing is bitcoin and nothing else.

I don't like all these people telling others to buy bitcoin now. it is not doing anybody any good.
I believe that we are not at the bottom yet and price may fall more and when you keep telling newbies to buy we may end up seeing another big wave of panic sellers who mess everything up again.
just let the market find its bottom and things to calm down with the whales and  their hungry bellies and then jump back in again. it will happen soon and you need to be vigilant when it happens but there is a good chance that going in too soon is not going to end that well.

nearly every single altcoin that has ever been created has outperformed bitcoin at some point. but that doesn't make them good. it just makes them good options for pumping. you can never pump bitcoin but it is super easy to pump a shitcoin. specially when they are worth so little. for example a shitcoin worth 1 satoshi can easily be pumped to 10 satoshi (outperforming bitcoin) in a week and then continue its death routine.
and yes they will continue to be shitcoins that get pumped and dumped. but the problem is they are getting pumped ...... AND.... dumped. you always forget this dump part of these shitcoins which is why you are losing money.

you should not reuse bitcoin addresses to begin with which means remembering something that you only use once is a silly notion. you have to generate them once, use them once and then move on to the next address.


there aren't enough logos in the world to even cover a tiny fraction of current users online on bitcointalk right now let alone covering all the addresses that are possible. unless by "logo" you mean something like QR code then there is no difference between a QR code and a string since they are both showing the same thing!

if this was true then price of every asset should have fallen each time Americans wanted to pay their taxes! so how do you explain no fall in other markets? and more importantly why are they only selling their bitcoins to pay their taxes and not their golds, stocks, bonds, real estate, .... I'll tell you why because nobody liquidates their investment to pay taxes. specially assets that are full of potential.

forks are more dramatic than scary. as a matter of fact if you used the word "fork" before 2017 nobody even knew what you meant and even if a fork happened (which has happened multiple times in bitcoin and other coins before 2017) nobody would have minded or even remembered it happening. but ever since the drama of August 1 2017 with bitcoin and all the FUD that was spread, people are scared of forks.

this statement is a clear result of those FUDs that I mentioned above. when a fork happens there doesn't have to be 2 blockchains. look at SegWit fork that took place last year. there was no 2 chains. there was one chain, 100% of the network switched to the new chain and continue. a successful fork with majority's support.

wrong. people are able to make transactions the only thing that  changes is that the receiving parties have to wait for a bigger number of confirmation during a fork to be safer.

same thing as above.

so how does the bank do the bold part? meaning how do they convert bitcoin to fiat? are they going to use another exchange other than bitex which they are working with? or are they planning on running their own exchange platform? or maybe they plan on selling it off the market?!!!
none of that make any sense to be honest! in all this process there will be a time where they have to transfer fiat and that is just an unnecessary step which will only increase the fees.

it is not always about the energy source you can also reduce the usage of energy aka power consumption of the equipment by improving them.
and I do believe that in near future, maybe 2-3 years we will see much better ASIC machines that are a lot more efficient so that they consume less energy and produce a higher hash rate. it is starting now with other big companies entering mining space. I have even heard NVidia make some comments. there are Japanese also working on new ASICs. with competition entering the market things will always improve.

what you hear these days is only because price has been falling otherwise manipulation has existed from early days and in fact manipulate exists in any other market even the big and regulated markets. it is something inevitable. but these days only because people love drama during drops the media is filled with the talk about manipulations and how everyone is being ripped off. but when the manipulation is on the rising side nobody says a word about it.

setting specifics when you are trading/investing is sometimes good but sometimes terrible. for example in this case things such as "Put 5-10% of your net worth in crypto" and "Every month take 50% of your profits in fiat" are specifics that I can not agree about.

you must invest what you can afford to lose and also based on your risk taking habits and how much profit you plan on making. so it can be 1% for someone, 5% for other and 90% for someone else. you can not say which one is right or which one is wrong as long as these percentages are well thought considering the risks and also the reward.

as for cashing out, the market doesn't move monthly. sometimes you can make a huge profit in one day and sometimes you may make tiny profit in a whole month. taking the profit out should be done when you reach your target regardless of when.
not to mention that many don't want to store their profit in fiat. they want to store it in bitcoin.

first of all what you think is just a guess. it is far from reality. the reality is that "Bitcoin + jewelry" has already happened. if you do a quick google search you can find numerous cases of it.
here are a bunch of links:
https://spendabit.co/go?q=jewelry
http://bitcoindaily.org/bitcoin-guides/how-to-buy-jewelry-with-bitcoin/
https://www.reeds.com/bitcoin.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7yvu2c/my_family_online_jewelry_shop_is_now_accepting/

secondly the newbies who think the way you said here also have so little amount of money that hey also lost a lot of it so they have even less eventually. these people don't have any impact on a big market like bitcoin's.

but you only looked at a tiny part of history and made that conclusion whereas you should have looked at the whole history if you wanted to make this conclusion.

you are correct about the bubble before $20k meaning the $1200 in Dec 2013. but that was not the only bubble that bitcoin had!
take a look at the $260 bubble which happened in April 2013. it was a rally from around $10 to $260 which is 2500% rise (this $20k was 1600% rise) and the bear market that followed only lasted about 6 months. or the one before that which was a fall to $2 in 2011 which lasted less than 5 months if I am not mistaken.

the $1200 bear market was a special one because we lost a huge exchange that controlled nearly all the market (had >80% of the volume) and it scammed people. we had to not only recover from the drop but also recover from the biggest scam in bitcoin trading history. and it technically lasted until first quarter of 2015 or 13-14 months.

there has been a lot of manipulation taking place in bitcoin market on exchanges for a couple of months now. my observation is that it started mainly at strength when price went below $10k for the first time and it has only grown ever since. so the one small drop in a day that OP saw is not a "whale attack" it is just a simple drop but it was caused by the same manipulation that has been going on. if you want to call that a "whale attack" then feel free to.