In most cases friends tend to exaggerate what their income is, how many girlfriends they had, etc. I wouldn't pay attention to whatever someone else is making.

The most important aspect is that you should be happy with every single penny in profits that you end up making. If we have to believe people here and on other social media platforms, they trade for fun, make x percentage of profit per day, stopped working to focus on trading, etc. It's all bs. Don't let a bunch of fools make you feel bad because they "earn" more than you.

Crypto being decentralized is totally worthless when you use centralized exchanges to trade on.

Last year was the perfect example of how people being overly optimistic got brutally punished for their ignorance.

The smartest people turned out to be the dumbest people last year, those who panic sold very early on when they started to see the market crack up badly. People tend to make fun of weak hands, which I have done in the past as well, but who's laughing now? Being less fundamentally biased is a better option for your coin stack, because it will allow you to buy back more coins for the same amount of fiat much lower.

The only truth that matters is that centralized exchanges can't be trusted, and shouldn't be trusted.

It's not worth the risk anymore. We're at a stage where buying back Bitcoin isn't a matter of spending a few thousand anymore, but hundreds of thousands, or millions in case it concerns very large traders/investors. It's one of the main reasons OTC volumes continue to increase. Dex's have seen an uptick in volume too.

What makes you so confident that a bull run is due this year? More hopium is definitely not what these people need.

I honestly think that it's more likely that 2019 will be quite boring overall, and if we do happen to see an increase of some sort, it won't be anything like a bull run. On top of that, due to clowns such as Tom Lee people have given up on perma bull type of predictions, and that's actually a good thing. It's super deceiving to promise people golden mountains while the market is a pile of rubbish in the short to mid term.

It depends on how it happens, and on what side of the road you are.

It could be just a flash wick that gets bought up quickly, which is the most likely scenario in case the market hasn't actually closed below major support levels and the 200 wma on a weekly time frame. In that case it would subject the market to extreme volatility but at the same time amazing opportunities for those looking to acquire more coins for the same amount of fiat.

Always make sure to have a bunch of fiat ready to put in action would the price tank hard. One last high volume flash crash wick could signal an actual bottom that people on a large scale would agree on that it is a bottom. People focus on double bottoms, v bottoms, etc. It could speed up recovery if so. Currently people are still in doubt due to how ugly the charts look.

It shouldn't hurt. In fact, some times I feel sorry for people who are so close minded, because they are the ones losing out, not we. You should feel strengthened that Bitcoin is subjected to so much skepticism. In most cases people are salty about not having bought in sooner. Instead of utilizing the current bear market, they continue to talk about how it can't work.

Little that they know, they will feel even saltier in the next couple of years when we reach new highs. People's main problem is that they think the initial stage of revolution is over, but it's far from over. We barely made it past our first obstacle and the second one is quite literally too distant with how this speculative phase won't just come to an end. Markets need time to mature, so does Bitcoin.

It doesn't happen all that often to see a new shift in technology or money that could change the world. Instead of enjoying it, people fight against it.

Reputation damage = financial damage in the long term. It makes their competitors stronger because if even a small number of people switch to other platforms, it's already a big win for the smaller competitors in that market segment. In other words, this might be a billion dollar mistake in the long run.

Facebook has gotten a whole lot of negative press in the last 12 or so months. I have noticed how people around me closed their account. I must admit though, Facebook strategically took over Instagram which is somewhat of the most popular social media platform nowadays. If people look to switch from Facebook to Instagram, they're still dealing with Facebook.

We're not at the bottom anymore. If we would in fact correct 90%, that means a drop to $2000 which is almost a 50% decline from where we are right now.

Others don't look at Bitcoin the way we look at it. If we follow the general public's view, Bitcoin right now looks like an asset that shouldn't be touched. It's a house of cards that is on the brink of collapsing. I doubt many people that aren't interested in the tech behind Bitcoin are going to hold till the price reaches $10,000. It's more likely for them to cash out at 50-100% to secure their profits.

Based on that, the risk versus reward ratio isn't all that interesting. It makes more sense for them to wait for the trend to reverse, and buy into an increasing market. If the trend is up, they can't really go wrong in the mid term.

How are they leechers? They are trying to gain more exposure by accepting a hot new internet currency thingy. It makes sense to convert it to fiat for them, because it's too volatile, and they can't use it to restock because that still requires fiat money. In the end, we should be happy that we can have all sorts of merchants accepting it. I am grateful for that.

5% is huge, especially when it comes to things like domains, giftcards, electronics, foods, etc. In this case the business model isn't the profit margin per product, but profit margin per x amount of sales volume. Waiting to generate x amount of sales volume with Bitcoin isn't worth the risk. Businesses need constant cash flow, they aren't here to speculate.

I respect their Tweet to show support to the victims over there, but this doesn't make them a better exchange.

Even if Cryptopia has the best intentions in the world to get things working again, I'm doubtful about their general capabilities of runnnig an exchange. It's not out of the ordinary that something like this will happen again as hackers are targeting these exchanges more than other exchanges for a reason.

On the other hand, for the sake of people getting their funds back, I hope that this exchange ends up relaunching successfully.

This cracked me up hard. 

In all seriousness, it's quite pathetic if someone is going to wait 60 days to claim something that with a high probability isn't claimable at all. I can already see them pop up a notification after 60 days that you either have to make a small deposit, that their terms are changed and it's no longer available, or that they end up taking a run.

People here don't understand how to value their time. 

I don't agree with that, so it's not everyone.

If you're completely honest to yourself, and look at the market from a neutral point of view and not from an 'I want my bags to pump hopium view', you'll acknowledge that our long stay below the $4000 level is very much indicative of how people don't think buying at these levels is a rare opportunity.

In fact, most people expect even lower levels. On the other hand, people expecting lower levels tend to be wrong more frequently than right, so based on that, you could even consider this to be a bullish signal. Last year people were overly bullish, down we went. This year people are overly bearish, and now it's waiting for the next big move.

We're due for a massive break in the coming 15-20 days, so we'll see what we get. I hope it's green, but I'm prepared for red too.

It all depends on the 200 wma in my opinion. As long as we respect it, the most we can expect are wicks trying to dig deeper, but as long as there isn't a weekly close below that moving average, there is not much to worry about. A weekly close below the 200 wma would definitely make me short Bitcoin, because the bloodbath will continue in that case.

It's highly unlikely, but if the market is really out of steam, and we get that weekly close, you don't want to be that sucker hoping for better times while only worse is what you'll be exposed to.

Why would they wait for Bitcoin to die? They aim to serve a whole different market with their stable token. I would even like to say that the longer you wait, the more of competitors there is in this industry, but considering that there isn't a legitimate backer of stable tokens yet, Facebook could be up for some success as first mover.

If they end up gaining a crazy amount of momentum, it's going to be interesting to see how the government will react. I'm certain that the counter reaction won't be pretty at all.

It's a startup, so it doesn't surprise me there.

The thing about these relatively new players is that they offer Lightning payments, and this is something BitPay can't compete with, so they have a massive advantage here. If you also add that it allows merchants accepting Lightning to generate some free press, it becomes even more interesting for them to actually partner with these new players.

I'm sure that BitPay won't switch to Lightning, so this will eventually end up costing their first mover advantage.

It seems to be a trend for exchanges to reward people with $5-$10 amounts, but this seems rather extreme to be honest.

Another thing is that the site looks a lot like Bitmex, which is quite a negative in my opinion. It's not that it looks bad or something, but it gives me the impression that the operators behind the site didn't put much effort in having their exchange stand out with a refreshing design. Or perhaps I'm too demanding.

Exchanges that don't subject you to KYC verification aren't anonymous. They can still link the information that they do have to certain events that you are connected to. On top of that, they can subject you to KYC verification out of nothing, and we have seen that this is happening more frequently than people are comfortable with.

Your information will be stored on random servers for ever, and when these "anon" exchanges you're referring to go down, they'll very likely sell your information to make a last quick buck.

Technically speaking, Coinbase is still one of the top exchanges if you discard everything related to USDT.

Top volumes as we speak in actual USD;

CME; $74 million. (contracts, but still, everything is settled with actual USD)
Coinbase Pro; $30 million.
Bitstamp; $19.5 million.
Kraken; $15.5 million.

If Coinbase or any of these exchanges would inflate their volumes, it would be inflated to a level they can compete with the Asian wild west show.

Analysts and possibilities. 

Following the trend lines, which do seem to support Bitcoin, it's only a matter of looking at the charts to figure out what's going to happen. This holds significance until it doesn't, which means that we have to close below the supportive trend lines, and then still, the 200WMA is creeping up higher and higher, which makes it less likely to retest $3150 unless it's a flash wick that gets bought up to keep the daily and weekly chart still look pretty.

Everything we see is indicative of more sideways actions. I doub't we're done with $3xxx prices, but even if so, if it turns out that we bottomed for sure, it's not a problem to buy 10-20% higher if it keeps going up from there.

The fact that it's only €3 (or whatever other low amount) makes people actually want to give it a shot. If they lose €3 they lose and it's not a big deal. This is what scammers know and bank on. If thousands of people get scammed like this, all the €3 deposits add up to a sweet amount. If this scam is operated by someone in a third world country, then it's even more worthwhile.

Just think about it, no one is going to send hundreds of dollars worth of Bitcoin to a random site. A few bucks of it might be worth the gamble for people.