It's not that alts are bad, it's that the motivation behind making altcoins these days is for a profit vehicle, not to bring innovation to the space. Some of the functionality proposed.by new coins is amazing. But, we never get to see it because said innovative coin usually goes down in a blaze of scam 6 months after launch.

Although I'm not fond of premines in most cases, I don't see where a premine diminishes functionality here. This is the same coin, minus the brand STEEM has established. It will make the hype price surge every coin in this space does, but I don't see this surviving long term as it doesn't seem to offer any innovation.

Easy to.mine, still has hype, the possibility of parity, and superior demand.

They kinda got dragged into this. Since bitcoin doesn't have a central regulatory body, they can't turn the coins over to a third party until a decision is made; since they now possess the coins, they are legally liable for who they release the funds to. Can't send it back for obvious reasons. This may even be stolen property. They are playing it safe, and for the crisis it prevented, I can't be mad at that.

DOGE. Predictable pump cycles, has stayed in range for quite sometime now. Slower profits, but less inherent risk (not so volatile).

1) percieved proft potential. Functionality doesn't matter.

2) you can get trapped like this. The prices aren't based off any real metric except hype, unless the coin is mere satoshis, there is always room for downward price movement.

3) follow the hype cycles (monitor the news and the board/trollbox sentiment. This is what truly drives the price of these coins, along with blatant market manipulation because of small market caps.

One really apparent and really obvious reason jumps out at me: is bitcoin fast enough to handle the traffic an adoption by Amazon would bring? We are struggling to scale as we speak; having the largest online marketplace pouring transactions into the mix would most likely slow everything down to a crawl.

I mean, selling and facilitating the sale of drugs is illegal. I don't agree with the law myself, but I do understand when you play the game sometimes you do lose. Ideology be damned, I can feel the way I want about individuals rights and the right to personal freedom. But most governments feel the exact opposite, and this is a known thing. If you decide to participate in these activities with this knowledge forehand, you take your lumps if it comes to it.

TLDR: People who sell illegal substances usually go to jail when they get caught. Crazy world, huh?

PayPal is the goddamned devil.


I'm sorry, I'm still quite bitter at PayPal. Think it's kind of butt that they can embrace digital currency now, after having policies that specifically discriminated against crypto users in the past. Untold users on this forum have been burned by PayPal, self included. Not willing to jump in bed with them so easily.

They already have this con set up too well the bookmakers and schools already have a gentleman's agreement about this; you make it so that your students require our books specifically, and we will continue to release new editions so that the books aren't tradable and must be replaced. Unless the book companies can get their cut, I don't think they would play ball. This would allow the bookstores to make profit in addition to the markup (craaaaaazy markup) already on the books. I think the book makers would raise the price to reflect this.

Also, if this becomes a traded asset, some ass could manipulate the price, making the coins the school holds worthless, or making books too expensive for students to afford.  Also, someone with superior mining power could hoard coins and restrict the supply to drive up the price. Wouldn't take a ton of money to corner this particular market, it would have a known total capitalization.

As the tokens have lost their backing (the ETH/ETC underlying the asset), I think they are worthless and not quite a priority at the moment. It would be like redistributing used stratch off tickets. Eth Foundation is too concerned with the multiple millions of dollars of ETC in its possession, those DAO tokens have been put on a very high shelf for the moment. Also, I don't think people will speculate on these knowing they are flawed and valueless, but I have been surprised before.

ETC is a lot to deal with at the moment. A lot of factors in play that we can't control for, a lot of uncertainty (and subsequent volatility). If you are new, ID chill on the ETC for a minute, it's choppy waters. Honestly, ID suggest you trade BTC/USD or some other fiat pair for a while. Not as volatile, and if you get stuck on one side you have fiat, the other side and you have bitcoin. Not so bad.

You won't make the same profits that you would have had you caught a wicked ETC spike, but you wont be upset because the price ran to ruin.

People are relying on the 'lightning doesn't strike the same place twice' thing I guess. After shapeshift got its series of hacks, I can't trust in that too much. Although they might have changed some shit on the back end, I think they came back a little too soon. But for the brand's sake I understand, you don't get to go dark for too long  in this space without losing user confidence. The assumption of bad faith is expected here, this is crypto.

From what you have espoused, this doesn't seem like an ideological shift as much as a change in strategy. Serious question for you, if you will explain to me why you believe the entire coin is 'criminal' or 'tsinted'? This is the same Ethereum you used to like, to our slight annoyance, before the fork. The 'hacker' doesn't own the coin because he has a large portion of them, no more than the Ethereum Foundation 'owns' ETH. All major coins that actually make it to the big leagues experience a major theft, does this theft invalidate said coin in your eyes? Bitcoin should be a joke under this reasoning, but I digress.

Which leads to my second question. If you wanted to help the Ethereum Foundation, you want to send them as much money as possible. Wouldn't it be smarter to sell in a peak, rather than at the bottom, to ensure maximum profit that you can then donate? Off gate I can tell you diminishing one chain isn't going to enhance the other, but I don't think you will beleive me in this. If you sell low, I doubt you have enough coins to move the price; you would literally just be selling yourself short.

Selling them for ETH is an understandable strategy; I don't agree with it, but I understand it from your shoes. But at least keep your damned value man, don't give those clowns your money. I don't know you in real life but I enjoy you in the forum, I woukd hate to see you diminished. You are very apologetic of the actions of the ETH Foundation despite the fact their actions have cost you and the Ethereum community value, multiple times. Why do you feel fealty to the hand that repeatedly harms, rather than feeds?


If you truly are morally repulsed by the value you rightfully purchased and earned, donate it to a good cause after you sell it. A charity. But understand man, you are putting moral and ethical considerations on your actions that don't seem necessary. Coins got stolen, shit got forked. In this place, stoken coins are the norm. This doesn't merit consideration, it's just a fact at this point.

Coins don't have to be functional in this space for people to invest. If it exist, people will speculate on it. The overwhelming majority of alts don't have dedicated mobile wallets, hell, most of them don't really survive that long.

I hadn't had Spoetnik yell at me directly yet

I feel validated and discouraged. I will reward myself a cookie and nibble it pensively.

A singular actor does not define any of these projects. Is bitcoin diminished because of Satoahi's current absence?

And looking at the wreckage of ETH, how has having Mr Buterin at the wheel turned out?

LOL, and? Pray tell where they offer a formal education in crypto trading?

Attack the argument, not the man.

And you are passing up on sound advice.

I think the fiat for the peg isn't stored with bitfinex, and is not cryptocurrency, but fiat. Essentially, the hack shouldn't affect this, they are related but different things.

Agree. If this works, this will incentivize participating in a corner. While this is nifty, I see too much potential for abuse here.

Edit: corner? T9 got me there, don't know what I really meant to say. But since DDOSing is illegal, this obviously wouldn't work. I will admit I would probably participate in certain botnets if this existed and was lucrative, but like most of these, doesn't pass my test enough to click buy on an exchange.