It's not surprising at all. The fact that bitcoin is so much easier to transact and trade with on a global scale simply means that people are going to be exchanging it more actively, as opposed to hoarding it which is common to gold.

This doesn't really say much about the market capitalisation nor the institutional adoption, though. Also, wash trading can't really be proven/disproven.

Precious metals is still symbolically and culturally significant, which will mean that it's probably going to remain a global reserve asset for years to come. Though I can certainly see it being displaced at least somewhat by BTC in the future.

I think that it's not something that is necessarily required in order for the bitcoin ecosystem to thrive. Especially when you consider the fact that non-physical versions of the same thing is already about, and they haven't really gained much traction at all. BTC users are always skeptical when they're dealing with a third party that holds their funds.

But I think it's a matter of time before the type of institution that you describe pops up. The question is really in which jurisdiction/country. It's most likely going to be in a country with positive regulation, that is willing to promote crypto businesses, which isn't really a lot right now.

It all comes down to what the regulatory bodies think, though. The concept is doable, and is not new.

It's not about making legislation to prohibit these activities - these are already in place in most jurisdictions around the world. It's about the enforceability of such legislation and statutes.

The examples that you provide are pretty much all cons that pose as some sort of legitimate passive income scheme, which makes it difficult for regulatory bodies to clearly assess what their true intentions are, especially when they are paying at first. I certainly remember how many people were shilling for Trafficmonsoon, MAP, etc. back then.

Also, the fact that they operate internationally makes it even harder to track down, sometimes with the owner's location unknown. So even if there is some form of legal repercussion, it usually is delayed, and there is nothing we can do. All you can do is avoid them yourself by just using a bit of common sense.

It's extremely hard to see bitcoin falling back to $5-6k any time soon given how the sentiment has shifted recently. But if it ever does, I certainly think that it's an excellent accumulation zone.

I personally still believe that this bull market is only in its infancy, if you look at how long bull markets last historically as well as when they usually peak out in relation to the timing of the halving.

Given that we're only around four tenths of the peak of the last bull market, I think that dollar cost averaging over several weeks or month still makes a lot of sense for long term investors that are willing to hold for extended periods of time.

I don't even see any ads on their front page, which is the most prominent source of income for most faucets.

It's very likely that they're mining in the background and I would certainly not discount that as a possibility.


The fact that it's so easy to build up your balance, and there are mechanisms that essentially try to suck you into the endless cycle of slaving away for them (both your computing power and your labour), along with a high withdrawal threshold should be a sign enough that they have absolutely no intentions of paying anyone out.

What's the point of using them then even if they did not mine in secrecy?

I would honestly be avoiding all of them for high amounts. It's simply not secure enough to store any large amount with a hosted wallet.

If I had to choose a service that is the worst, it is probably Coinbase.

In the past they've demonstrated the tendency of pursuing new features to attract new customers, as opposed to fixing things that were broken already that needed to be addressed (i.e., their support system). Furthermore, they've demonstrated a tendency of suspending customer accounts that have anything to do with tainted coins from gambling sites, etc., even if there is no tangible association.

But again, I wouldn't use them, even the ones that let you hold your private keys like blockchain.com. The process of exporting has becoming so tedious that it's not worth your time.

Very interesting take on the matter.

Given the track record that Cryptopia had it is extremely likely that they are not acting in good faith, especially when you take into consideration the fact that they aren't actually taking away coins that were actually stolen, which is the most logical and easy thing to do.

There's clearly a motive for them to do this from a simple profit perspective, they can play with customer funds essentially. I doubt that anything is going to be done against them though in a court of law, unless some sort of class action lawsuit is filed against them.

This will most likely become some sort of trend during this bull market.

Services will be increasingly pressured to stop offering their product to countries that are heavily sanctioned by multiple countries, or risk their license being removed and such. That's just the implications of bitcoin regulations tightening, I guess.

It shouldn't be much of an issue on a global scale, though, given that there are always going to be alternative platforms. Though, it will result in huge inconveniences in these individual sanctioned states.

Possibly. But that alone I don't think is reason enough that it would cause a huge spark in demand for bitcoin overnight.

This is because of the fact that if they are indeed using BTC as a tool to relocate their funds, they will most likely be doing so to convert to another fiat currency eventually, which means that the net effect will be close to zero.

This kind of usage of BTC as a capital flight regulations mitigator has already constituted a part of BTC's demand for ages, and it probably won't increase drastically all of a sudden.

The factor that will influence short term price movements is still mostly sentiments, speculators, and institutions. These fundamentals I think will reflect on price in the long run more so than the short.

I highly doubt that Assetylene is going to get much success with the apparent rebranding, or at least that I hope.

People most likely aren't going to be ignorant enough to be entrusting them with high amounts, after what has happened with Cryptopia and all the mess that was left behind due to security and management issues.

They may try to target a niche market, but probably not going to attract high volumes whatsoever. Anyone rational who does their research should find the connection with Cryptopia pretty easily and most likely avoid them. I'm actually surprised at the fact that the founder didn't even bother to cover this connection up by having a new CEO in place.

A deflationary currency would imply that the supply is shrinking, which is simply not true.

The term you're looking for is disinflationary, which means that the supply is growing at a rate that is slowing down. And from a technical perspective, you will never see negative inflation with bitcoin (discounting lost coins).

Bitcoin has already proven that it will work as a decentralised currency, so I don't really get where you are coming from, if we take into consideration the sheer amount that has been settled over the network. I don't think that a disinflationary system is a disadvantage at all, in fact it's probably the polar opposite.

Did you get your funds back and your account reinstated? According to StackGambler, several people should have already been funded.

Anyways, this case should be quite clear cut. The fact that there were no explicitly stating or addressing the recipient alone should have indicated that this isn't just some promo that is limited to a few people, let alone the fact that there were no ToS stating this at all.


I think that the chat issue and the crediting of the promo are 2 completely different issues.

I don't think that anyone denies the fact HitBTC is extremely risky to use. Their reputation has pretty much been this way for a very long time now.

However, what is surprising is the sheer amount of difference between what they presumably have in outstanding balances and what they actually have, at least according to this report, which would imply that they're running a fractional reserve.

I've suspected before that HitBTC may be running a fractional reserve, which may be the reason with many of the complaints. And it should be clear that it's better to just avoid using them altogether. But I'm interested to see where these stats are gained from.

I don't think that anyone else necessarily expected that.

Whilst short term corrections are extremely likely after each price rally, which is completely natural and just a part of the market cycle, given that the general trajectory and sentiment of the long term trends right now are quite bullish, I don't think anyone expects BTC to drop back into a bear market.

$10k will most likely have some form of resistance and it may take more than one attempt for the market to breach that figure, given its psychological implications. But I think that it'll happen as a matter of time.

It's probably partially true, but it's certainly not the major factor in this case and also, not a detriment but rather a benefit of bitcoin in my opinion.

You really need to look no further than precious metals to find an counterexample of an asset class that has been extremely stable, more stable than even the majority of fiat currencies around the world, yet operates without a centralised entity that manages the circulating supply of gold or silver, nor the interest rates associated on them. Furthermore, bitcoin is without a central entity *by design*. Would you rather have a currency that is a long term store of value but fluctuates in the short term, or one that will depreciate in the long term but seems to be 'stable' in the short run? Stability is relative, after all.

At the end of the day, I think as others have said, the size of the bitcoin market and the fact that it's still used for investment purposes mostly contributes to the volatility of BTC, not the fact that it doesn't have a central bank underlying its structure.

If a site needs to advertise themselves to the extent of PTC sites to gain completely unorganic traffic, then that itself should be enough to make you steer clear of them. They know that their target audience will be looking for easy and quick ways to make money, and they prey on them.

I don't even think all the analysis about the address of the company is necessary to determine that it's a scam for sure.

These types of scams are nothing new, in fact they've been around for ages now. The payout stream is undoubtedly fake, and the minimum withdrawal as you mention will pretty much eliminate all chance of you actually ever getting funds out of the site. Use your common sense. If you see any similar sites in the future, avoid.

What do you mean 'in a deterministic sense'? That's the part of your post that I did not understand.

Bitcoin is a long term store of value by design, given that it doesn't have the issues that fiat currencies are faced with in terms of the ease of which the value of fiat currencies can be debased simply through centralised manipulation.

Even if bitcoin doesn't necessarily replace fiat, it will be of value in the sense that it'll provide a stable, save haven type global asset for people to hedge against inflation in fiat, especially in countries which suffer from hyperinflation. Perhaps that's the answer you're looking for.

Were coins stolen from the site itself, or directly from user accounts in this case? How much was stolen? Are there any more information that can be provided to prove that this hack actually did take place?

Are you also vowing to return all customer funds despite this hack?

Also, I don't think that merely sending an email is a professional move in this case if your intentions are to actually refund everyone that are affected. You should have at the very least been active on multiple platforms, actively trying to answer questions, instead of answering accusations like this one some two weeks after. After all, the user here is not in any shape or form responsible.

I don't think that the intrinsic value of bitcoin is necessarily determined by the cost of mining one unit of it, on average, at all.

It's more about the demand side of the equation, as well as how much utility bitcoin is serving to the market. That's how intrinsic value should be defined as, rather than from the supply and miners' point of view.

Besides, these short term value fluctuations are completely expected and have been seen countless times before. It's nothing special. Whilst JPMorgan may be right about the fact that a correction will be coming in the short term, I still think that in the long run the outlook is still bullish. Besides, JPMorgan has demonstrated that they pretty much switch up their stance on BTC completely arbitrarily, thus I would not take them too seriously.

It would be absurd if people still bought into that narrative.

If anything, bitcoin and the traditional stock market would be somewhat inversely correlated given that one sector has a heavy influence from the traditional, fiat economy, and the other does not at all.

Perhaps in the short run, we'll see some periods of correlation by either coincidence alone, or because of factors such as interest rates, macro-sentiments, etc. But in the long run, there is really no intrinsic connection why the two are correlated whatsoever.