I'm skeptical of the source and methodology. I think the sentiment is right, but this sounds inflated. "48% of males?" Come on now...


But where is their money going to come from? As a millennial, I observe stagnant wages and declining benefits (replaced by contract jobs). What's Bitcoin got to do with only working a couple hours a day? Is that because we're assuming 1 BTC will be worth millions of USD someday?

Indeed, seems like the market doesn't care. And frankly, I don't either. It's just another way to sell coins for fiat money. It doesn't mean anything for adoption of the protocol.


I think it'll be quite a while. Merchants aren't in the business of currency speculation and they have no reason to expose themselves to that sort of volatility risk. So they'll lag pretty far behind user adoption IMO.

Double-edged sword. On one hand, banks will be (and are being) forced by the market to adopt cryptocurrency -- a clear response to heightening adoption.

On the other hand, this totally defeats the purpose of Bitcoin. I wonder how many people will eventually get screwed over by trusting banks to hold onto their peer-to-peer currency!

Only bitcoins, or other coins as well? Remaining bullish on altcoins through Q1 and not cutting losses earlier might earn these guys the label of "poor management."

Now I'm curious to see the Q2 results, since BTC closed both quarters at similar prices. That might give some hints about their portfolio. Seems like nothing but losses and setbacks for them so far. Hopefully things turn around for them.

A lot of people use them because it's convenient, or because they reaps rewards and cash back. People that pay their balances in full might be persuaded towards BTC payments if the usability, convenience and rewards are there.

The root problem is still that those rewards are paid for by charging debtors high interest and fees. If there's no credit system to fund the consumer incentives to transition away from credit cards, I think companies like Bakkt would have to charge pretty high merchant processing fees.

Maybe GDAX -- I think they mostly play by the book. I've also seen some analysis of Bitfinex trading metrics that suggest they are mostly legitimate too.

But Binance's volume is likely manipulated. I follow lots of traders on Twitter and many people suspect fake volume because of the lack of order book depth. Same accusations you see towards OKEx. And remember, CZ was the mastermind of Okcoin and Okcoin futures trading engines, which were notorious for faking volume. You think he wouldn't work that magic at Binance, too?

I'm ambivalent about it. On one hand, an ETF approval would give some sense of legitimacy in the establishment/legacy finance world. A government rubber stamp can definitely affect public perception.

On the other hand, I don't understand the explanation that institutions are "waiting" for an ETF. I don't think they are, and I don't think an ETF will fundamentally affect demand in a huge way. I think it might be a great excuse for a rally, but I don't buy the idea that ETF approval means massive amounts of money being pumped into the market.

Anything can become obsolete. There are some drawbacks to using Bitcoin -- decentralization = inefficient due to redundancy, and proof-of-work under these incentives consumes lots of energy.

So, if another technology comes along that can eliminate trusted third parties while solving the double-spending problem -- and somehow improve on the above limitations without sacrificing security, usability, etc. -- then it could become obsolete.

But I'm not sure I'd bet on that happening.

That's what you get for calling something "unhackable"...


Of course they aren't. They may be safe based on a limited understanding of the threat surface, but that's all. Things like Meltdown and Spectre really put into perspective just how little we might know about critical vulnerabilities in micro-processors.


I often respond to these suggestions when I see them, and urge people not to dump all funds on a hardware wallet. It's fine for day-to-day spending and limited storage. But it's not cold storage. And as a matter of practicality, it's very dumb to store all funds in one wallet, which is what many people apparently do.

They've obviously delved deeply into altcoins, and I don't see that going away. Even considering the communities that forked to brick Bitmain's ASICs, those seem like a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme. There is just so much a greed buffering demand for mining hardware right now, and for the foreseeable future.


Indeed, we really shouldn't be surprised. Most gold miners left poor -- and so too will most crypto miners who blindly invest into mining hardware. Sort of depressing when you think about it....

They've been branching out into altcoin mining hardware for a while now. There's still markets to tap there. Launching Bcash also allowed them to recycle old hardware due to much lower difficulty -- plus, both overt and covert ASICBoost work on Bcash.

I also noticed this a little while back: Bitcoin Mining Giant Bitmain Is Making a Major Pivot to AI

Let me get this straight.... The SEC just made some very sweeping objections in its denial of the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF. And these guys think they have a prayer of getting an ETF with a "basket of ten cryptocurrencies!?"

The delusion is strong here...

That's no joke. I really hope we see stronger competitors emerge in the next year or so.


Bitmain ≠ "people." They're not like any other miners at all. They derive lots of profits from hardware manufacture, and by mining with customer hardware during the shipping period.

Regarding the liquidity section, any idea how the BTC market compares to other markets? It's not clear from their response. The biggest thorn in the SEC's side is probably the prospects for manipulation.


It's funny to me that bitcoiners like the idea so much. Putting P2P coins into a trust so people can buy/sell derivative securities? Haha!

I guess they've bought into the idea that "ETF=moon."

Yeah, its sounds quite speculative. It reminds me a bit of the mindset of 2008-2010. Where I lived, there were massive construction developments everywhere. And just a couple years later, there were unfinished/abandoned construction projects everywhere.

This industry moves too damn quick to be planning for difficulty adjustments this far in advance -- this is apparently a 20-30 year infrastructure investment. And analysts also say the power is intermittent (unlikely to run at full capacity without good luck).

I've seen better investment plans, that's for sure.

That wasn't the point. There is a common misconception that the "intended purpose" or "point" of Bitcoin is consumer purchases -- just read the OP. Consumer purchases are just one possible application. As such, nobody should care if "only x% of transactions" are for purchasing goods and services. It's obvious that consumer spending isn't Bitcoin's most common use case, let alone its "intended purpose."

What you're saying regarding privacy and trust isn't lost on me, but these considerations aren't very important for most consumer transactions (particularly from the consumer side). Most consumer spending = housing, transportation, food, insurance, healthcare, clothing. Not black market or cross-border or government-sanctioned activity, etc. that requires trustlessness or privacy. For savvy consumers, using credit cards (and reaping the rewards) and paying them off without interest makes a lot more sense than spending precious bitcoins. And if you're worried about frozen bank accounts, that's about censorship resistance broadly, which reaches far beyond just consumer spending.

I'm a big believer in Bitcoin, consumers having additional options like Bitcoin is great. But consumer spending isn't what makes Bitcoin one of the most important inventions of our time.

The articles on this subject are very vague and don't mention the exact details: https://bitcoinist.com/us-government-confiscates-iranian-bitcoin-holder-assets/

Like gentlemand mentioned, I think it was Iranian account holders at American exchanges. I've heard complaints from Iranians going back to last year about Bittrex locking their accounts and providing zero recourse.

It really sucks, because it was the fault of the exchanges. They shouldn't have been doing business with residents of sanctioned countries, but they did, and their terms allowed for it. Then overnight, presumably by some intervention by US authorities, their accounts began being locked.


Exchanges are just centralized businesses. They control the private keys to the cryptocurrency in your "account." They handed the coins over to the US government.

The "intended purpose" of Bitcoin wasn't consumer purchases. It was intended to solve the double spending problem without introducing a trusted third party. Consumer sales are just about the most boring use case for Bitcoin, and conventional payment methods are perfectly fine for most consumer applications.

If anything, consumer purchases should drop as a percentage of total BTC usage over time. As BTC becomes increasingly accepted as its own asset class and a store of value unto itself, people will just hoard it more and more.

Same. All the hype around these applications seem like an excuse to pump and sell into the market. The SEC doesn't take ETF applications lightly; some take years for approval. Given their lack of insight into, and jurisdiction over the spot market, they have every reason not to rush approval on an ETF.

Here's a source for the story: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/26/winklevoss-twins-bitcoin-etf-rejected-by-sec.html


"...issues with security, market manipulation and investor protection issues" -- this applies to all ETF applications. Doesn't sound promising!

So, exactly what Robinhood is doing, except with more altcoins on offer? I assume their business model is to take from both sides of the spread.

Not exactly groundbreaking, but the more competition and liquidity options in the spot market, the better. It seems like every exchange saw massive amounts of complaints during the run-up last year. I personally had very frustrating issues with Poloniex and Coinbase.