its a sheep mentality.

there are several exchanges in 'eastern world' and several in the 'western world'

logically if a genuine price drop happens in the east, you would expect the people in the east to move coins to the west to sell at the still higher price. meaning due to the delays of arbitrage caused by confirm times you would see a change in the wests prices 10minutes+ later.

this would be a true indication of real market trading.

but when you analyse the charts of exchange results combined. the sheep follow the east far sooner than natural arbitrage times.
this is either the exchanges sharing reserves and instantly arbitraging with their back door method (elements), for the western exchange owner to be the first mover profiteer. leaving the sheep on the losing end.
or
its not the exchanges secretly taking first mover profits using private reserves, and instead its users "emotionally reacting" like sheep instantly (not a result of arbitrage, only panic,worry), rather than "financially affecting" smartly(arbitraging) delayed following.

as for everyone continuing to think all 1.3billion chinese are bitcoin holders or they are all colluding..

what if i told you out of 1.3billion chinese. it was only a few hundred people all with under 1btc each, using bots to trade multiple times a day.
eg imagine 100 people with 0.3btc each.

and they traded once every 6 minutes each (100 times a day each).. the daily volume is 3000btc
imagine they had 3btc and a bot that trades every 36 seconds(1000 times a day).. the daily volume is 300,000btc

it does not mean there needs to be.. nor mean there are millions or billions of asian bitcoiners.. just a few hundred
it does not mean there are bitcoiners each holding 2000btc each trading daily.

i would only cry wolf if we seen 2000(random large whale number so dont knitpick) being traded every few seconds/minutes.
but the trade history is not showing this.

i know the western exchanges want someone to blame. but the western exchanges shouldn't EMOTIONALLY sheep follow the east.

instead of trying to make the east look bad by saying its the whole countries fault. because then you are only crying into your own hands to try making yourself feel better, but not actually understanding the issue to make sure you can guard yourself from it in the future.

best advice dont point fingers in different directions while crying. instead man up be responsible for your own funds and realise a price drop is not a death sentance but a discount day to buy in cheaper and average down

did you look at the trade history image.. right column.. trades under 1btc...
they are not large 1000btc trades per hit..

as for 10's of thousands of chinese trading.......... well thats still not 1.3billion.. so lets not continue the endless racism of thinking "china"(whole country) own/control bitcoin

when we all know its only a small percentage playing with small amounts repeatedly.

i would cry wolf only if you see trade history results of 10-1000btc+ every few minutes.
these small 0.xbtc orders happening is not "china (the country) own bitcoin"

bitcoin is not a commodity.
a commodity is a raw product used to create other products.
EG crude oil =fuel, plastics
EG gold= jewellery, circuits

gold specifically sits on MULTIPLE markets because it has multiple USES/desires/demands for it. dont confuse golds commodity(manufacturing industry) market as the same thing as its asset value(speculative investment financial industry)

bitcoin is an asset currency. not a commodity. but if it loses its utility of being an active currency and just sits on some hardware wallet, much like a bearerbond. (which is still a currency but not an active currency). then its value dies because it lacks something concrete backing it. meaning the asset value declines.. which snowballs down

i think somewhere along the lines you have ignored me saying UTILITY is important. not scarcity.
also scarcity is a sliding scale from scarce to abundant..
which is more of a local/real ability to get your hands on/availability thing.

having scarcity is a limit of production.. but how scarce or abundant is a separate question.
also i said that "the latter is defined though supply and demand"

this is not a fight over who got the answer right first, but it seems your trying hard to make it sound like i think scarcity is important when in MANY posts i have said UTILITY is important.. so i dont know why you are meandering down the 'scarcity' rabbithole..

but getting to the point. UTILITY means/affects value, not scarcity

most traders dont even know the exact number of coins in circulation. nor the supply in an exchange.. they only think about the demand and desire aspect of the speculation.

which UTILITY has the major impact on

what if i was to blow your mind and say that OKcoins 30k volume is not actually 30,000 people exchanging 1btc once. or 1person exchanging 30,000 coins once

what if i told you it was just 100 people exchanging just 0.3btc each ...1000 times a day

china (1.3billion people) are not hoarding 1-30,000 coins each.
china (1.3billion people) are not hoarding 1 coins each.
china (1.3billion people) are not hoarding 0.00000x coins each.

china (1.3billion people) are not even involved in bitcoin.. only a couple hundred people and only small amounts are played per day. once you realise how day trading works.

many miners dont use 'public' exchanges. they do private OTC exchanges with VC's behind closed doors.
the mining pools are not that impacting of public xchanges with their hoards of fresh minted coins..

all they need to do is use a small amount on an exchange to day trade multiple times a day to cause a volume rise and also affect the price.

just look at the trade history.. you dont see orders of 12.5btc every 10 minutes or a large 75btc order an hour or a 1800btc order hit the market each day.
instead its lots of under 1btc orders. which make the lack of real liquidity because theres only a few thousand coins in reserve get smacked around a bit not needing thousands of coins to smack it but single to double figures done repeatedly

no. i said supply and demand work within scarcity not define scarcity.

EG a apple store may know there are 21million apple phones in a warehouse but are only able to sell 20 phones at the shop (supply=20, not 21m)
there are only 2 customers wanting it. so after 6 months, the store reduces the price of the phone before the next-gen phone hits the market (demand=2, not 20, not 21m)

bitcoins current 16mill circulation and 21m scarcity has nothing to do with supply and demand.
EXCHANGES.. here is the kicker you missed. EXCHANGES are not hoarding all 16m-21mil coins.
at most the SUPPLY is a couple hundred thousand coins per exchange.

and the EXCHANGE price is based on the supply and demand of the couple hundred thousand coins (not 16m not 21m)

which is where the supply and demand is the speculation within scarcity. but not impacted by scarcity

EG think about food. some regional distribution centre may have tonnes of baked beans.
but people dont care about whats in the regional distribution centre. they only care about whats available at the local store.

if an crisis happens where everyone buys up the stores food because there wont be a delivery. (supply drop) everyone speculative their need and demand for it. and suddenly food becomes a premium priced product where people are literally willing to sell their oldest daughter in an extreme crises event..

yep
bitcoins threat is fiat. if bitcoin becomes no better then fiat no one will want it.

the threat is Hyperledger. which is the banks own blockchain currency powerhouse of multiple interchangeable chains. which laughably the blockstream paid core devs are actually helping the bankers with.. and yes them hyperledger crew have been invited to have special secret talks at this months 'satoshi roundtable'.

so incase your wondering why Sipa, Gmaxwell, adam back matt corallo and other blockstream devs are so ademnt to cripple bitcoins onchain growth for no RATIONAL reason. and why they have changed the fee estimation engine to push the average fee more biasedly up rather than down.. it becomes obvious once you look at who is paying their salary and sitting with them over cocktails at an all inclusive weekend this month

i know your trying to think outside the box, which is commendable compared to other people. but im a few boxes outside of your box.
im just downplaying it to the most simplistic explanation for normal people to grasp.

as for scarcity. knowing that once it reaches X production, thats it.. no more.. means scarcity.
unlike renewable resources, such as tree's that produce seedlings which can produce more tree's endlessly and forever..
bitcoins scarcity is a known number, right from day one.. its a fixed number.

supply and demand then takes over within this scarcity amount. which is about speculation.
for anything that has utility, speculation has resistance points, there is always a resistance point where people refuse to sell for anything less because thats the point of what some deem true value. due to the utility element undrlying the speculation. and the value on top of the resistance point is the more variable amount where supply and demand plays out.

golds "speculative asset" as you said is not based on scarcity(supply). its based on demand. and gold has UTILITY which drives the demand. which drives the speculatory value both with the resistance point(normally not known about) then the variable bit on top...

however gold will not ever sink to absolute $0 because it has other utility (jewellery/circuits) so there is always an underlying resistance point of cost of production, utility and other factors keeping it above some level. yet bitcoin IF it has no utility CAN sink to $0... like many altcoins have proven.
one of bitcoins key resistance points is actually cost of production.. (usually about 25-75% lower than exchange rate price depending on volatility and miners costs)
but if demand and utility die off.. so will the miners. thus the resistance point can drop too when the difficulty drops due to less miners. double impacting the drop.

yes its not going to be an overnight occurrence. but a long slow drop to $0.. but it is possible IF bitcoin loses its utility

bitcoin is a payment currency. without being used as payment(merchants drop it because the fee's become too high to handle) then demand drops. the variable speculative xchange rate drops. miners dont make profit so they drop out, the resistance point drops.. and a snowball effect occurs slowly(compared to other alts) down to $0.
bitcoin has no other utility to eat up supply, such as jewellery creation, circuit creation. so bitcoin cannot speculate based on a supply..
yes you can throw some coin into some 'bitcoin eater' addresses. but we already agreed scarcity does not help something with no utility or desire


unlike gold.. monetary currency can tank to the bottom its monetary utility is lost.. even if they have some behind the scenes banking products (you mentioned derivatives for instance).. but even with these banking products in the background pretending to be 'of value' to hold up the front end currencies value.. they too are speculative. and again can tank to $0..

check out the zimbabwe dollar or other world currencies that have no utility.. they have no value at all!! even if they had banking products backing them.

so in a paradigm where no one needs to use it and supply is not even a factor.. demand drop = value drop = further demand drop.. snowballing into an endless drop of value.

bitcoin needs to have UTILITY to have VALUE

your thinking of it from the narrow ideal from the euro/american mindset.

40cents is only a few minutes minimum labour in developed countries.

but

40cents is HOURS of minimum labour in MANY developing countries.

being charged 2+ hours labour to buy groceries in any country is a laugh.. and if you think that is acceptable, then please go travel the world

the gold coin rose in value ven when not used as legal tender because gold had other UTILITY. EG jewellery, circuit boards. so it was not just about scarcity as the remaining feature. it still had utility which impacted scarcity.

but if bitcoin ever got to a point of no transactional use. and people just treated them as hoarded assets. then there is no utility, no "NEED" so desire shrinks and the supply/demand ratio changes to less demand.

just look at all the altcoins that have no utility even if they have scarcity. such as 42 coin..
42coin is not 500,000x the value of bitcoin.. its not even 1x the value of bitcoin.. even if its scarcity is 500k more scarce.

in short bitcoin needs utility to have value.

anyone desiring to remove bitcoins utility should just go play with the fiat they dream and hope about everynight

1. if people had collateral. they wouldnt need a loan
2. if they had collateral. how would this collateral be held.
3. if they had collateral such as a car or house. how can they send it to you from india to EU
4. if they had collateral how can you be 100% sure the ID they used is legit for you to have an address to visit them to claim the collateral in person.

in short. if the value of a loan is less than a couple hundred euro. its not worth taking someone to court as the travel costs, let alone legal/admin costs would mount up. so the victim just takes it on the chin and moves on with their life.

if the value is higher, then the collateral item should be secured into a mutual location(escrow). where the collateral value exceeds the loan value to cover costs of loss and tempt a loanee to not default. as i said how such an item can be secured/escrowed is a risk. and if the loanee had such large value collateral to hand over. they might aswell just sell the item instead of asking for a loan.

lastly my main rule for internet trading is something everyone should think about
if you dont have enough real, guaranteed to be valid and correct info on another person you are handing funds over to. and if you dont have the capability to physically slap them with a wet fish/court order should they do you wrong.. dont give them your funds!

about the utility of LN in regards to peoples false ideals of the fee's they expect.


anyone also notice how blockchain.info removed the "days destroyed" stat.
this is because if you analyse that stat against other stats, it reveals that people DONT on average do several transactions a day or week.

many peoples funds are used once every 5 days. some peoples funds sit for months and yes years. thus something like LN with a 10day n-lock is useless utility for these people who do 2 or less tx per channel period.

so dont expect "cheap" tx fee's as the norm because LN isnt designed for people that only do 2 or less tx's per LN channel period.

---

next we have the CLTV which when confirmed(settled) stops funds from being respent for the CLTV period (laymans: much like banks/paypals 3-5business day delay on ''funds available", or like bitcoins blockrewards 100confirm maturity)

so people who do desire 'regular' spending wont want to have funds maturing for a few days.

however, LN have a scheme/plan for that too.

---

an LN hub can circumvent the CLTV maturity by revoking the funds to a destination in the CSV revoke commitment to push the funds into a new LN channel. meaning an LN hub can lock peoples funds permanently into LN contracts.(laymens: bank chargeback/reclaim)

LN actually initially wanted to penalise users by taking all their funds to the LN hubs non multisig address(fraud penalty).. as the ultimate penalty.. but morally they should only use the CLTV and CSV features to reset a new LN contract* to then get the customer to agree a new honourable agreement of who owes what. suggesting that due to CLTV its better to just use LN than resettle again.
*https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0112.mediawiki#lightning-network

so LN hubs can actually hold funds to ransom and even if you broadcast your own copy, they can CSV revoke to honourable put funds back into a new LN agreement.. or maliciously allow the hub owner to take the funds into his own private ownership (non multisig).

---

yes i left the best for last because i know people are itching to say they will save on costs if they need to do more than 2 transactions per channel period...

lastly there are the internal penalty fee's too.
LN have come up with many penalties. such as, if there is a multihop transaction happening.
you can be penalised for not promptly agreeing to it, as it would cause a extra delay on the other commitments agreements.
you can be penalised for not signing your agreement
you can be penalised for attempting to spam/DDoS the hub with excess data
you can be penalised for sending the wrong agreements to be signed by the hub

---

they actually envisioned a 0.006btc fee as a minimum entry into a channel ($4-$7 at this weeks volatile price) to cover their expectant fee's over time. yet again rules out micro payments of developing countries where $4 is 2weeks wage (cuba, georgia, etc).. $4 is 1 week(Kyrgyzstan, gambia, ethiopia, etc)

imagine having to deposit a week or 2 wage just to cover fee's for a 10 day lock. before you factor in how much you would deposit ontop to actually spend.

the problem with the devs, both calculating the onchain fee war and the LN fee penalty acceptability. is they are thinking with a western world mindset of being only slightly cheaper than paypals 20-30cent fee. before the devs would even consider lowering their 'spam' limiter down. they should spend a week outside their basements and travel the world and experience currency usage outside of the corporate america setting.

---

overall summary
LN is not the ultimate scaling solution. it is and should be just a niche/side voluntary service much like third party exchanges are.. for things like gamblers, faucet raiders and day traders who usually spam the blockchain frequently.
however malicious spammer who want to spam the blockchain will avoid LN because LN defeats their malicious purpose. thus LN wont mitigate intentional spammers.
also infrequent bitcoin users (under a few times a week) wont need/want LN due to the settlement delays and the costs of setting up/settling would be more then just paying someone direct onchain infrequently

he is french though.. lol

"store of value" has a limit.

some people think scarcity is a thing.. but if only 10 people hold say 42coin.. this does not make 42coin worth a few billion dollars..
utility plays a part of it.

if it has no utility then it doesnt matter how rare it is, no one needs to use it so no one wants it so no one asks for it.
its why all of the altcoins with small supply fail. because they think scarcity alone is a value creator

another example.

housing market.
people think if they buy a house at say $500k their asset will always hold a store of value of $500k..

check out the last 9 years and see if thats true.

when there is no demand for houses because people cant afford them or doesnt see the need of a 5 bedroom house or there is something else people see that does have utility for them thats not your house.. after a while you start dropping your ask price below $500k to tempt a quicker purchase. thus the house loses value.

now imagine it for something someone doesnt "NEED" at all because it does nothing tangibly..
scarcity is no longer something to rely on as a value store

im a brit. i just hate the FUD that turns into sheeple scripts everyone repeats and circle jerks to

they are not in fear...

seriously calm your mind. try researching rather than speculating.
china dont care about the money supply in regard to bitcoin.. for every buyer there is a seller.. so the chinese money circulates the exact same as someone buying a loaf of bread. the fiat does not evaporate. it just moves from a buyers to a sellers account.

all that ultimately changes is whos holding the fiat..

china is just doing what it does to ALL financial firms.. it periodically does routine checkups to ensure the business is working within its scope. and periodically informs the nation that trading and investment is a risk.

it does not matter if it is an asset commodity stock or share or forex.. the PBOC drama is the same for all financial services.
its nothing special about bitcoin

seriously calm your mind. try researching rather than speculating.

try 447506

not your 445706

yes its a regular/routine checkup..which is part of their licence agreement

its not raiding an unlicenced exchange.. hence all this drama is FUD

oh be quiet with your fake only 2 option scenarios..

thinking dynamic blocks leads to centralization is a failure of your understanding.

you do realise that having litenode, no witness mode, pruned mode, LN hub mode has far higher risk of diluting the full node counts.

as for dynamic blocks.. if nodes cant cope with a large rise in bandwidth, they wont vote for it..
dynamic blocks are also "conservative"(to use the scripted rhetoric buzzword of the core fanboys) by only activating extra buffer when the majority flag that they can cope with it. meaning sensible natural capable rises over time.

please slap whoever is passing you the fake rhetoric to repeat.

the obvious buzzwords repeated simultaneously by one sided biased people is becoming very clear its a script you lot are reading
"conservative" "bigblocks"

the funny thing is those wanting onchain scaling want 2mb.. the BIPS show this.
the group with the 4mb weight.. is actually the crew passing out the scripts of buzzwords pointing the finger in the other direction..

expanding utility positively increase value
intentionally limit utility negatively decrease value

its not a case of one or the other. we need to expand utility to positively affect value.

in short if you cant spend bitcoin in the 300k+ merchants and it costs too much to withdraw your funds from a exchange (fee war gets too much)

they end up returning to fiat because fiat withdrawals are cheaper or
users end up losing funds due to 'hacks' out of fear of not wanting to withdraw...

people lose out and the value/utility and desire because they cant do anything with bitcoin and it costs too much to hold independently