It really depends on your sympathy to the current market situation. If you believe that it would still go lower, and the downtrend would continue, then it's better to just wait a little bit before you think it would not go any further. However, if you're skeptical and thinks that there's no time for another dump and the next bull run is soon to happen, maybe within a few months, then whatever fluctuation it is having right now, you should really buy today, considering that it dropped almost $2k from $9,000+ in the past weeks.

I'm also quite skeptical about such kind of publicity. But I guess it attracts more investors and traders into their platform. It gives potential clients assurance and comfort knowing the reputation of Coinbase is backed up by the whopping amount of their holdings. I think they know what they're doing and whether or not they have that amount, it's an advertising strategy and positioning their dominance in the market, now that another halving would occur and an increase number of new investors are expected to eye on cryptocurrencies.

Blockchain is not only for cyrptocurrency. Several companies have admitted in using blockchain to store/aid them in their day-to-day operations. One example is Coke One North America (CONA), Coca-cola's bottler association, uses blockchain to monitor and manage their supply chains. One point in time, I have also seen a post here in Bitcointalk regarding a decentralized cloud storage that uses blockchain, which I am not sure if made it or not.

No promise has been declared, nor any assurance of government's non intervention. Sure thing that Bitcoin aimed that separation from the government and traditional financial methods, but saying that it assured it would be maintained that way is utter false. You cannot stop governments from interfering with anything unless you (the people) demolish your own government, in which case it would just be chaotic. They could, and would, monitor all things under their sovereignity because that's their job.

That's right as of now. But think ahead. Quantum computing would possibly be the next thing. Prevention is better than cure as they say, and while it may seem quantum computing is still not a thing, researchers of cryptography should start thinking of methodologies and algorithms that would be considered quantum-proof. Because if not, then once quantum computer get a hold of the required computational power, time is shorter to protect the network.

Can't predict accurately who does this, but whales are what I only see that can do such manipulation desptie steady uptrend on the price. If you look at the charts, the dumps are quite steep and its either large players or manipulators. It's quite normal months before the anticipated halving, manipulations are a thing for these whales to profit as much as they could until the next bubble that would happen.

By means of "covers", means that it would just introduce them the word and its background. No digging up deeply to its framework and advocacy. I think what the government wants to do is just to educate younger minds about the "possible" currency of the future, rhe cryptocurrencies. It's to make them informed that such things exists and not only a thing of selected communities and isn't only for illegal activities, which is a good move for the start of cryptocurrency adoption.

They could not totally prohibit Bitcoin because total ban is almost impossible. Acquiring Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is quite easy through unregulated exchanges. And if ban is implemented, demand for it might rise which would further increase Bitcoin's price.

I don't see it as saving grace too for them. It might aid them for awhile but personally, I think people would just trust exchanges more than banks that would monitor their purchases. Even worse, they might advertise cryptocurrencies aggressively to innocent ones without them knowing of its volatile nature.

First of all, Bitcoin is naturally a deflationary currency since the start. Given the fact that it has limited supply, time would come that when supply is maxed out and demand keeps increasing, its value would increase, and with higher price, makes its purchasing power higher (opposite of inflation imposed by government on fiat by producing more money/supply).

Now for the halving, slower supply generation with assumption of steady Bitcoin demand, would short the supply and create the same effect (deflation). That's why halving is associated with uptrend of prices. Also to mention that the sudden half supply generation is quite a large percentage in one blow (50%).

For me though, I agree on some points. (1) It's a possible desperation move, given the fact that recent news regarding adoption of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain in different applications in society, (2) It's still uncertain if it would get passed since EU's regulation and theirs are conflicting, and (3) they might advertise it aggressively to innocent clients and profit out of them using cryptocurrencies, further bringing negative image to cryptocurrencies for being a 'scam' as people might think.

It's hardly any correlation to have with Bitcoin as of the moment, and based on the news that came out. Though this is generally good for blockchain adoption, it won't affect Bitcoin's price that much. If also this is the words from them, it seems like HSBC is having some problems gaining profit and have finally decided to join the blockchain-powered system. They may still have to employ though, with higher salaries since they would need a lot of developers and security analysts to maintain the order on the system and prevent any harm, such as hacks and exploits, from happening.

China is nowhere near being pro-Bitcoin. They're still insisting and would still push the growth of their own government-made cryptocurrency, giving/retaining their control and surveillance to their population's financial activities while still banning and keeping an eye to enterprises with operations related to other cryptocurrencies.

Still, having known Germany leads the way to Bitcoin adoption could impose impact on US and other countries that are still neutral to implementing cryptocurrencies.

This would be the best move for adoption. However, it's not that easy to encourage them to adopt to Bitcoin without those large enterprises doing so too. If they see huge international companies adopting to such mode of payment, then it would be much easier for them to trust the system and would follow. But until that would not happen, then there would not be a driving force that would make them support payment through Bitcoin.

This could potentially impact the market significantly when seen in a long-term manner. Adoption looks inevitable now and there are these news that comes up quite often, and FUD spreaders are now silent. Even with their attempts to hinder further adoption, Bitcoin always finds its ways and proves that it could be used as an alternative mode of payment, not only with illegal things but also the legal market. It just seemed to be predictable and quite sad to know that Bitcoin first emerged in the illegal black markets, but now it's turning the other way around.

I could see three scenarios as of now:

(1) Governments would use existing cryptocurrencies, but would impose tax on them, either through exchange or imposing rules on owning cryptocurrency wallets (regulation and KYC).

(2) A much more possible scenario, governments would make and use their own cryptocurrency, and (possibly) ban usage of other cryptocurrencies not made by political government.

(3) Governments would ban usage of any cryptocurrencies and would not adopt such technology (highly unlikely).

I just hope that the fees are not too much for what you pay for, because if so, it might discourage newcomers to Bitcoin in investing and using it, because their first impression is that it's much expensive to buy versus its market price.

Still though, if this would pull off, then most likely, stores and merchants inside the mall would soon follow the trend and adopt too, making the Bitcoin ecosystem and community alive and would really be used as a mode of payment rather than a speculative asset. Volatility won't matter if they make a system that would convert Bitcoin instantaneously upon recieving to fiat, eliminating possible loss of value from holding.

I have read the article and from what I can see, the statement of Fabio de Masi is quite true, that banks could potentially market these cryptocurrencies as get-rich-quick schemes without proper briefing to potential investors of the risks involved. But still, it's good to see such adoption on the way. Germany and China are those countries leading the digital payment systems, slowly replacing paper money for digital means, and it's generally good to see Germany keeping up it's ways.

Not to stereotype, but most of women does not really care to technical details, but only cares if a thing works or not. As long as something works, they'd use it, and if they don't see any use of it in the future, they would just forget it after they got what they want. They tend to focus more on other things, while men tend to be digitally oriented since more men are attracted into PC/digital world early on, hence why more people in the IT field and such are comprised of men. If Bitcoin would get adopted more wide-scale, then we might see balance of men and women's usage percentage if the future.

QR Codes has always been one way too go in sharing set of string information in a convenient way, thanks to more accessible camera-enabled devices. China also has been known to host a large percentage of people interested in cryptocurrencies. Although it comes as a no surprise, such act is appreciated and spreads awareness and possible adoption to unknowing communities. As far as I know, there exists such huge marketplaces in China which transfers payment/money digitally through popular social media/messaging apps like WeChat which has supported digital payment.

KYC in itself isn't entirely a bad idea. It does prevent some fraud and adds another layer of security but still depends if the exchange is trustworthy enough. KYC could help retrieve coins sent to wrong address, on exchanges that implements KYC too could use these details to fix some issues. However, even though tax isn't also a bad thing (since it is necessary to have law enforcement and peace and order), I do also disagree on government's hot eyes on cryptocurrencies, especially now that they had seen its potential, it just looks like they just want to profit from these grounds.