Slow and steady increases is the best for those who care about Bitcoin, but those who don't care about it literally don't care about it. All they see after or during an increase is their imaginary stack of fiat pump hard, but in reality they'll end up getting rekt unless this is another mad bull run, which I highly doubt.

I also thought things would be different during the 2018 bear market, but we crashed just as hard as we always did. Better fundamentals didn't help it bottom out 50% below its all time high, instead, it went down over 80%. This is pump and dump shit. It's nothing like something that people actually value and use. It's horrible.

Even if he is actually innocent, if governments are out to take him down, which is actually the case here, they'll come up with all sorts of silly excuses to lock him up for ever. In other words, I'm really of believe that this is the last time we'll ever see him like that again, especially if he's being extradited to the US.

As for the hiding part, what else could he do? His options were; 1) voluntarily getting locked up in prison for ever, or 2) make it more difficult and spend as much time in 'freedom' as possible further working on his mission. I'm quite certain that he is self-aware enough to know that there would be a day where the autorities would arrest him.

I don't think many people within crypto still think that Jamie Dimon is bearish on Bitcoin. Instead of focusing on his words, people should focus on what JPMorgan is doing. It's clear that they are working on building up the infrastructure needed to serve insitutional clients, and the usual trash talk is part of their game. They'll praise it whenever they are well enough positioned in this industry.

All they try to do is to make Bitcoin look as bad as possible so they have time to grow in a market that severely lacks institutional grade custodial entities. Fidelity is the first to do so, but definitely not the last. I am quite certain that we will see some of the largest US banks follow this year. If they also allow their clients to buy into Bitcoin, which seems quite likely, there will be a whole lot more money flowing in.

Institutions need a platform they trust with hundreds of millions, which can't be said about our current exchanges. Heck, most Bitcoiners don't even trust crypto exchanges. I rather buy Bitcoin through my bank than wiring money to whatever crappy exchange that can freeze my funds at any time, where if I want to unlock these funds I have to answer 1001 silly questions first.

Are you kidding me? Iran has always been harsh on every single aspect of their economy, and especially so when it comes to foreign entities trying to settle there.

I highly doubt a serious number of Bitcoin miners have moved their hashrate to Iran. In most cases these articles tend to over-exaggerate the situation, and I feel it's exactly like that right now. If just a few mining entities either lose money or run into other problems, news outlets target the whole mining industry as a whole. Pathetic.

Verification on LBC is just one aspect of the whole paranoid state they're in. LBC is frequently freezing accounts of those who suddenly see a spike in their volumes or other 'suspicious' changes in use, which then requires you to submit evidence of what is going on, and where you funds came from, who the people are you're dealing with, etc.

It's super annoying how people still refer to LBC as a good alternative. It was a good alternative, but has become a place that made people look around for alternatives.

It's funny how people on social media are so easy to shift from being anti institutions, to now being bullish where people almost celebrate the mad volumes the CME is generating, lol. It's not even that long ago where largely the same people were blaming the CME for crashing the price, and now suddenly it's all different, yeah right.  

I didn't believe the futures would play a role at all when it comes to price disovery, but it seems that the CME has actually some weight. In dollar equivalent, the CME from time to time generates more volume than Coinbase Pro, Bitstamp and Kraken combined. The parties trading here aren't your average retail investors, but actual institutions betting on the price.

This is actually the perfect time for Bakkt to launch with how the market looks much better than some months ago. Healthier market = more demand, and these futures are actually coin backed, and not entirely cash settles just like the ones over at CME.

The only downside to a new parablic rise is all the scams that will pop up, because people will no longer pay attention to anything because all they see is rising prices.

It wouldn't even surprise me if we end up seeing a Bitconnect 2.0 operated by the same group of con artists, but under a different name. Most of the scams we see are related to one specific group, just like how back in 2013/2014/2015/2016 all the premined pump and dump trash coins were launched by the same groups over and over again.

I prefer to wait for the $6000 level to be taken out, then $10,000, then $15,000, etc. Just the $6000 level will be difficult enough to break.

Warren Buffett is a value investor who buys anything that has long term fundamental growth value, where the dividend aspect is very important too. In the long term most of the companies he invested in did extremely well, so if you add the income through dividends, it's all increasing in value alongside his main investments. 5% dividends become 10-15-20% dividends value wise. I respect him a lot for his passive yet very effective way of investing.

He shits on Bitcoin and Gold because these assets don't produce anything, therefore are completely useless to him. The main reason he is so outspoken against Bitcoin comes from the fact that reporters are out to make him say harsh things, because that generates views/clicks.

My target in the very long term is to follow the Buffett route, but for now I prefer to expose myself to more risk with how Bitcoin is still in its infancy. We reached insane price levels with very little adoption, so imagine what will happen with the price when we do have a solid level of adoption focused on currency use and store of value.

Bitcoin being unpredictable isn't anything new. It has been since it became a tradable asset. The thing that people should be looking for when buying are the massive corrections after a bull run, and last year is a perfect example. Bitcoin tends to correct with 80% on average after a fierce bull run, and the closer you buy to that 80% mark, the more likely it is that you buy near the bottom.

Whales don't have anyone to grab if people keep holding their coins instead of dumping so far down. In the end, there technically is no difference between a whale and a smart Bitcoiner with just a few coins who is utilizing the bear market to stack up on cheap coins. In both cases weak hands end up selling into the buy orders of stronger hands.

It's increasingly harder nowadays to actually spot who the whales are, because their main priority is to not signal that they are a whale. The only obvious thing in every market is that there is always whale above whale, but what the actual amounts are is something we can only speculate about. Only fiat exchanges know how much of it goes in and out, who the main market movers are, etc.

Not sure what makes you think this market involves trillions of dollars, but that's not the case. I doubt there is more than a few billion in actual fiat currently in the market, and maybe $10'ish billion during the peak of the bull run in 2017. This market is so illiquid that you don't need more than that to actually keep the market where it is right now. It however works both was as we have seen. Bitcoin dumps just as hard as it pumps because of that.

It's also very easy to figure out a different location for your mining operation. China hasn't exactly been super cheap with its energy lately due to the drought over there, so what do large farms actually lose here? I'm sure that the small margin they miss out on is easily compensated by settling in a country with a stable government that doesn't jump left and right because it doesn't know how to handle crypto.

Miners have already done a lot to move their operations elsewhere. China has been quite hostile towards crypto in general for over a year now, so it's nothing new. On top of that, the pools that you see consist of smaller miners all over the world, and they won't be affected by any of these Chinese measures (would this proposal be accepted).

POS = value creation, which is something governments all over the world will also dig into when it becomes a thing. Don't start celebrating already.

The 'good' thing about being a main man project is that it's way easier to implement changes to the protocol.

Ethereum's ecosystem is also way friendlier than Bitcoin's ecosystem with how the geeky developers there absolutely adore this dude. If Vitalik wants something to happen, then it happens. Ethereum's only problem is that their upgrades tend to be quite buggy, which causes severe delays up to a year or more.

Vitalik last year even said that he will write a hard fork in case he is forced to do so. Says enough. 

This is the only thing that makes sense.

We formed an ascending triangle that had some more time to play out, but it broke out way sooner than expected, which basically means that shorters were not optimally prepared to adjust their positions. Bitmex liquidated hundreds of millions worth of shorts during that price explosion, and this of course helps fueling the price to increase.

I really believed there was enough time to put in a long on Bitmex, but nope. So close.

I don't think there really is, but it's more so that they use that as an excuse to 'legitimize' their actions against those who violate silly laws set up by a bunch of people who we have never met before.

The very fact that large banks have continuously proven to be laundering money for criminals and other wealthy entities just shows how little authorities care. Banks making the same mistake over and over again means that governments can fine them over and over again, and they like this massive income stream, and for banks it's not a problem either, because everything they end up paying in fines is nothing but collateral damage.

Reading the story it seems to me that he was a bit too nonchalant, especially with the amounts being that large. 

The downside of the crypto space is that shitcoins getting 51% attacked or exchanges getting "hacked" aren't going anywhere. People continue to invest and use both of them as if nothing has happened.

Cryptopia is back trading and it seems that the users are pretty happy with that. I wouldn't waste one single second on an exchange like that, but since most people don't care anyway, they'll keep using this stuff till they end up losing funds. After all, people only learn when they lose money, so it will be an expensive lesson for sure.

Just look at Yobit. It has consistently been one of the shittiest exchanges, yet people still use it.

I think the complaints are related to the bear market and how Bitcoin takes everything down with it. Newbies were so used to seeing the price of coins pump in 2017 that they legit believed it was normal for crypto, and that it would continue for ever. It sounds ridiculous, and it is ridiculous, but that delusional were people back then.

I have even seen noobs team up to boycott Bitcoin, lol. Because if people stop using Bitcoin, the bear market will be over according to them, and altcoins can continue pumping.

People's main problem is that they don't understand what Bitcoin is. For them all Bitcoin stands for is price up or price down. These parasites sit at home all day waiting for the price to move. They don't create anything.

BCash goes up just for the sake of not losing its x % parity when it comes to Bitcoin, and of course to not get lost in the massive sea of altcoins that are faster and cheaper to use. Roger Ver and Bitmain's main worry this year was seeing Litecoin pump hard and gain way more on-chain transaction activity, and that with waaaaaaay less merchant adoption. They corrected that.

I however have to give credit where due, and that's the loyalty of Roger Ver to one specific coin; he does everything in his power to not let any altcoin get listed on services such as BitPay, and that while he could earn way more money by opening the shitcoin flood gates. Wish more people were like that within this space.

Him stating that it is bullish for Bitcoin to hover above the 200 day average doesn't make him any smarter. Every person with basic understanding of markets knows that regardless of the asset, this moving average is a very important indicator.

Considering how he completely disregarded technical analysis before, while it was quite obvious that we were stuck in a bear market and a descending triangle, he remained bullish. If you have any sort of basic understanding of markets you wouldn't be bullish while the trend was down in the most obvious manner.

Tom Lee is a joke. He's desperately trying to be right so news outlets kiss his ass. He's nothing more than an attention whore. Every person with common sense would take a few steps back after being wrong so many times. Not Tom Lee. He loves this.

It depends. Smart money always buys in when there is blood flowing through the streets, but dumb money on the other hand buys what is going up, and I am quite certain that they will provide the liquidity smart money needs to unload just before or just after the block halving.

The mass is so focused on price action (regardless of the asset), that they sell just because the price is going down, and buy just because the price is going up. This isn't always bad though. Dumb money that sold early 2018 did very well because they didn't have to ride the market down all the way to $3150 which most hodlers did.

I too have shifted to Reddit. Despite a lot of memes going through the channels there, it's a way better news source than all news outlets combined, and there are plenty of technical discussions there that you can learn from.

If you look at how rapidly the most popular Reddit channels have grown, it perfectly coincides with news outlets sucking harder and harder. In other words, people have found a new home in Reddit. The only time I actually visit sites of news outles is when someone posts an article on this forum, but never spontaneously.