There could be liquidity issues that forced them to close their doors, but until someone actually complains that they have not been made whole in this whole situation, it's indeed unfair to call them an exit scam.

After all, they've announced their intentions to close the exchange well in advance. It's not like it's coming as a surprise to anyone else.

But for people who still have a balance on this exchange, it would be stupid not to withdraw it straight away. From my experience from previous exchange closures, the longer you wait, the more risk your funds are going to be at. Especially when withdrawals stop being processed automatically.

From a bounty hunter's perspective, IEOs are infinitely better.

The fact is that regardless of the project's fundamentals, if you are simply looking to cash out the tokens after you do the expected tasks instead of holding onto the tokens for the long run, you're much better off having a token which is guaranteed to have instant liquidity on an exchange.

Of course, things would be different if you were planning on holding that token for the long run. You can't judge a token solely based off whether or not it was initially listed on an exchange or not, but unfortunately that's not what most bounty hunters I know look for these days.

It's not a particularly surprising development given that Telegram is known to the authorities for providing an anonymous channel of communication to its users, as well as the fact that they are essentially selling tokens that represent securities more than anything else.

Very interesting though that SEC only took action this far into their launch, though. The project was already generating a lot of hype.

I'd definitely stay out of this one, until SEC clarifies their position at the very least.

Not just dictatorships, but really any country with long term economic issues, especially hyperinflation.

BTC can really be used to circumvent a lot of things, including acting as a store of value, preventing centralised debasement of currency, as well as moving funds overseas. For immigrants from countries with high levels of capital controls due to concern with capital flight, this could be particularly helpful.

This is something that BTC can do that no other FOREX, or even the centralised cryptos can do. There is no central point of attack that a government can look at and censor.

Through a fork, it can be negotiated down. But whether or not there is consensus support on that is doubtful.

I suggest to you that if you are looking for something with lower block times, just look at available altcoins with somewhat stable value for now.

However, I don't see much of a reason for change at the moment. 10 mins is already extremely fast for an average confirmation compared to how long traditional banking systems take to clear just a simple international or even domestic bank transfer/cheque deposit. There isn't really THAT much of a practical difference between 10 min block times, or 5 min block times.

Could be possible that that's the reasoning behind it.

More likely than not though China is not just specifically targeting crypto exchanges in their crackdown, but rather just the entire cryptosphere as a whole. As an extension to that policy stance, they simply try to stop anything that would enable users from accessing BTC or whatnot.

Wechat and Alipay has already started flagging transactions a while back, but I haven't actually heard anyone getting banned. I do know for a fact though that Chinese traders on there are now a lot more cautious than before, e.g. asking people to not speak of anything crypto related in Wechat's dialogue when conducting a transaction.

You don't need to go through tier 1 verification for as long as you stay under their prescribed limits, which IIRC is 1000 EUR.

If you want to go through to tier 1, then you get 20k EUR a year in limits which isn't a lot actually. It seems like that the lowest viable tier that you need to be in if you want to trade actively on LBC as an advertiser would be tier 2, which demands proof of address alongside the traditional proof of ID.

It's honestly pretty crappy for regular traders to have to go through this. Like me, I personally don't use LBC that much, just to cash out my coins occassionally for expenses and vice versa, but tier 0 is just impossible to use right now unless you create multiple accounts which goes against their ToS.

The only two ways that you can be profitable in the long run with sports betting would be:

a) arbitrage betting, i.e. taking advantage of the differences in odds across platforms due to promo odds and/or information assymetry
b) having some sort of professional tipster which has a legitimate model that they go off of with a proven track record. Even if these boxes are ticked, this is highly risky.

If you're just an amateur with no experience, and betting on random moneyline - forget about it. Think of it as entertainment.

Arbitrage betting can also only be done on small volume bets. Anything larger you'll find it difficult to orchestrate. I think the opportunity cost of either of these strategies to make money off sports betting is simply not worth it. You might as well have some fun with sportsbetting instead, and focus on some other venture for profit.

@OP, Have you tried downloading the coinbase app?

Cancel the pending withdrawal from your web client now, download the app, sign into your account as normal and request the withdrawal again. I learned this from a forum somewhere when I had the same issue and my withdrawal was pending, and after requesting it through the app it went through instantly with no holds.

Take a look at these two threads, I learned it from them:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7oanss/this_withdrawal_will_be_delayed_for_72_hours/
https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7jyljy/transaction_delayed_for_72_hours_at_coinbase/

I'm not sure if this is still a viable option (they could have fixed it), but it's worth a try. Otherwise, you'd just have to wait. It's infruriating, I know.

Extremely comprehensive guide. I did know of these phishing websites before but didn't know the exact method that scammers seem to do this by.

I think that browsers should definitely show these codes by default, or at least have better algorithms that detect when the user is visiting a fraudulent site. Of course it is impossible to keep up with these phishers 100% all the time, but it should at least get periodically updated (this sort of scam has been around for a while now).

The majority of these phishing sites come from google ads as far as I know. You should never click on any of them. Even top search results can sometimes contain these sites if the site is relatively new. As others would have probably suggested, even though bookmarks may seem like a hassle, they are definitely worth it.

It shouldn't be possible as long as the transaction is confirmed beforehand. ETH is a decentralised blockchain, which means that the token creator simply does not have the sovereignty to reverse transactions at will, even if it concerns tokens that they issue themselves.

It is very likely that the person you're arguing with simply got confused somehow, or never received funds in the first place.

If it was a centralised ledger, then it COULD be done. But not for ERC20 tokens to the best of my knowledge.

DEXs are still new stuff and there isn't really any mature competitors out there yet, so you want to invest in the one that has the most potential as opposed to the best right now. The best right now would probably be Bisq for p2p trading.

However, I'd suggest that you seriously look into BNB.

They may not be the most decentralised, but with CZ's track record and their community dominance, I think it's clear cut that they'll be the most viable option. I think that Komodo will always be somewhat associated with anonymity which was their past, and I'm not sure whether or not that's going to be the way to go in the future.

There are still plenty of angel investors available if your project genuinely appeals. Especially with low interest rates and further cuts incoming probably, which means that people are looking for places to invest their funds instead of keeping it in the bank.

However, most projects right now as you say are either privately funded through equity, or go public but are completely garbage projects.

As an investment, it's a difficult predicament to navigate through for sure. I personally think that ICO investing right now is futile, unless the wider markets pick up. While if you have sufficient funds, seeking to be an angel investor could prove to be more profitable.

Firstly, I'd suggest that you look at BTC now because you may not be up to date with recent developments.

With segwit and the introduction of LN, fees have come down drastically which is part of the reason why I think BTC dominance went up a ton while alts continue to fall despite BTC's bull market earlier on.

Secondly, I'm also an IOTA holder, but probably for a different reason. I like the fact that there are free transactions, but that's not the main point. It's really a hedge against quantum computing and scalability for me.

I've seen a lot of positive developments from IOTA devs, and the new wallet GUI looks clean. But honestly, it's not ready for mainstream adoption or is anywhere near it. Tangles are still a new thing while blockchains are now aged technology.

I highly doubt that you'd be able to start trading with such a low amount of money.

The only way that I can foresee you getting somewhat of a decent return back in terms of dollar amount would be derivatives trading, and you'd be doing that on leverage. You could experiment with it, but it would essentially be almost like gambling for a beginner.

But with such low capital, OTC trading or LBC trading will be extremely difficult. I suggest that if you want to go down that route, save a bit more money irl first and then come back.

I would strongly advise against submitting any form of fake ID.

Regardless of what anyone feels about KYC (I personally think it's completely unnecessary in a lot of instances), you should not be defrauding the exchange and going against their terms and conditions. You are not only going against the loan here, but also you're putting your own funds at risk - why bother?

As others said, it's no laughing matter. There are ways to buy BTC with card on other sites with slightly worse rates without verification, but this ain't it chief.

Don't see much of a point for doing this. So what if you find where the funds ended up? The funds would have likely been through the hands of many completely irrelevant people to the investigation anyway and diluted down.

I think it's a much better idea to track the progress of the class action lawsuits filed against BCC and their affiliates, including Trevon James, Cryptonick, etc. And even that has not been gaining much steam at all.

Consider your funds gone if you did invest, because there will likely never be a reimbursement. An expensive lesson, but necessary.

It's just atrocious handling of the situation. Any campaign outstanding where the project has been proven to be a scam should be stopped at the first instance so that:

a) bounty hunters don't go around working for nothing
and b) so that the project doesn't get any more free advertising that contributes to their scam.

It would be extremely immature to do anything else, in my opinion, and could lead to financial damages.

First of all, a 7% inflation target is way too much. Most western countries have fiat currencies that inflate at around 2-4% annually, and the upper end of that range can even be considered to be high inflation by today's standards (with deflationary pressures hitting most countries right now).

Secondly, how are you going to guarantee that this fork is going to keep its value better than BTC? Remember that prices aren't formed by supply alone, it's a combination of both sides of the market forces.

There is a lot of guesswork and assumptions here. I'd rather have a disinflationary coin like BTC rather than an increasingly inflationary coin like this one. And for anyone wanting a stablecoin, this is not pegged to any stable currencies even in the short run.

Why? Because people are greedy, and they don't do their due diligence before actually investing. Just look at how many people are getting hyped up over the gram ICO without even knowing what it does.

All they see is the candlechart of a coin, or a roadmap, or a profit calculator. They are focused on the immediate returns that they can make while completely ignoring the downside risks that an altcoin also brings to it, which in the majority of the cases actually far outweigh any potential future upside.

Developers and marketing teams of these projects take advantage of these fallacies that people have as well, which makes it even more effective.