The nexus of narcotics, firearms and terrorist payments doesn't begin or end with the people dealing with it. It ruins lives where it begins. The so-called 'customers' for some of tbe worst stuff out there are people living in ddveloped countries.
The ones who get victimized are the faceless who have nobody to fight for them. Till now, it was easy for law-enforcement to claim victory by "freezing accounts" without even bothering too much about what goes underneath. Atleast, the anonymity of crypto will force their hands to actually tackle the issues that lie underneath.

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Bombing other countries indiscriminately to maintain status quo in geopolitics is one of the main reasons behind terrorism.

Abetting illegal narcotic activity in places like Afghanistan and South America are reasons for the drugs problem.

Letting the millitary-industrial complex run amok with profit motive is the reason for proliferation of illegal arms in the street.

Let them deal with these instead of finding the easy way out with the "paper trail".

The idea of decentralized money to loosen control of banks and financial institutions was naturly born with bitcoin.

The idea for these decentralized apps does seem a little forced but still has it's merits. Decentralized file storage is supposed to hell these dapps run in a censorship resistance environment.

The problme is that the implementation of these lofty ideas has been pretty vague till now. I don't see Ethereum network becoming the global computer or something yet. Still, it is not like there is no vector along which this can grow. For the optimists, or if one is peddling an ICO, anything is possible..

This sounds pretty nonsensical. Real estate is an asset class in itself. How does it matter if you bought it with bitcoin or something else. The value of the flat will depend on the overall outlook of the real estate market.
It would be better if you can provide a link to the article because it seems like you are misreading something.

Although the argument that a cryptocurrency with too much volatility cannot be used as money has its merits but the volatility seems to matter only because we are comparing the value of bitcoin against fiat. In a scenario where bitcoin is actually working as currency, there will be need  for a set of indices standardized by calculating amount of common goods that, say, 1 BTC should buy. Such an exercise would either need regulatory intervention or bitcoin adoption would have to go widespread with merchants deciding this value governed by free-market competition.
This is when volatility would not really matter.

There is this anecdote about an old Indian movie producer who was living in the bollywood city Mumbai and had just started earning some decent cash. Living space in Mumbai is hard to come by and the wife wanted him to put the money into building a house.
He instead decided to invest all the money in setting up a movie studio and equipment in his name. He told the wife that "Once the studio sets up and starts earning, we can always build a house, but if i built a house, i would never have been able to build a studio"

Investing in building assets that give you return rather than those that stay idle (like real estate) is the best advice I've ever heard. No fancy clothes, big house or jewellery for the wife but the best tools of the trade first.

Data Sciences is a pretty widely acknowledged and established area. Any openings related to those will want full time credentials. There are options for freelancing but they aren't going to be easily available or give job security.

Blockchain technology on the other hand is relatively new and still evolving. If you have the time to get involved, then there is a lot of opportunities to work with various companies and individuals looking to exploit the ICO craze. They all need blockchain developers. In terms of prospects, blockchain and related programming would be a safer option.

The problem with any such program is the handling of money by institutions. The moment it becomes institutional, only those with authority and connections can pull the levers for releasing them. This is where personal discretion comes in and people are not immune to the corrupting influence of having to handle a lot of money.

This could probably work if it was done all with BTC in a completely transparent and traceable way rather than setting up separate bodies for disbursement of UBI. Also, people taking individual responsibility rather than delegating it to one big body would be a much better solution. Not everybody has the time and intent, but it can still work.

Coinbase caters mostly to the US and European markets and is probably the single biggest and well known exchange in media circles. Support for ERC20 tokens means they can put a choice of those ICO coins as soon as they finish raising the money.
Exchanges like Binance and Kucoin have been earning decent sums from these ICOs in the form of listing fees. Though, it can be expected that as coinbase aims to target a more sophisticated set of customers and be seen as legitimate (check out coinbase custody for institutional customers), they will do some due diligence in the kind of tokens they will list.

We may see the beginning of the process of separating wheat from the chaff. Too much to ask for probably, but there is a possibility.

BCashers have a habit of trying to find crucial points of attention and then pump the price manipulatively. Roger Ver then goes on air and boasts about "Bitcoin Cash has increased by 80% while Bitcoin has still grown like only 20%". The moment he goes off air, they call it curtains and the price dips back.

Nothing new in this. Its a shame that he has been able to fool so many people for so long. The crook shouldn't have gotten hold of bitcoin.com in the first place.

Apart from the miners controlling the hash-rate, which is basically the security behind the protocol; there are full nodes that are supposed to validate any new transactions and blocks.

If you run a full node then it is only going to accept those blocks which fulfill the requirements of the code as defined by the bitcoin core client. Any code changes done by miners will not be accepted by these full nodes as valid and will not be propagated or included into the mempool.

The Indian government is a nanny state in many ways. It's also filled with power hungry politicians and bureaucrats who like to see themselves as benign overlords and not as public servants. This shows through when the central bank simply asked all banks to stop any interaction with crypto exchanges.

They failed to properly define bitcoin and just gave vague statements about their potential misuse. A petition was launched for which the Courts have summoned the representatives of Central bank and taxation authorities. It is not illegal but it'll soon be very difficult for any new comers to transact.

Any newbie that searches for bitcoin and ends up at bitcoin.com is screwed for good. They will inevitably end up buying BCash. Right now, we have just undergone an explosion phase in december. Lot of people who joined back then are pretty much aware of the differences and the Roger Ver style shitty marketing tactics.

What these conmen are banking on is that another wave of newbies will  get confused enough to not know the difference and end up buying BCash in huge amounts. I suppose they have some target price that they aim to reach so that they can make it more profitable for miners than bitcoin, even if for a small while..

This is when they hope that hashing power will switch. It's a plan they are willing to execute by hook or by crook. All the more reason for the real bitcoin community to be ever vigilant and keep telling people that BCH being peddled by bitcoin.com is actually BCash backed by people like Ver who like to boast "I am a self made millionaire and i will not be insulted" and then go red in the face while rage quitting.

That is frankly nothing like what bitcoin is supposed to be

Blockchain is not meant to take banks place. It will be good that the technology will be used as in this example. But yes, a lot of us are hopeful that bitcoin dominance will result in reforms in a lot of banking practices by bringing more transparency and accountability to them.
This can be accomplished in a scenario when the use of bitcoin becomes too important for banks to ignore and they have to follow the ethos of bitcoin rather than trying to co-opt or suppress it like they are doing at present in the name of utilizing "blockchain" technology.

Becoming the richest man on earth couldn't have been done without a lot of stealing and back-stabbing. What does this tell us about these uber rich, uber successful people like Buffett, Munger and Gates? There are studies that suggest that these successful business people have the three dark traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

Now contrast that with the open-source, collaborative and decentralized ethos of bitcoin. It goes against the very spirit of these rich psycopaths babbling about "Harvested Baby brains" and "Rat Poison Squared".

Seriously man, Who the hell do these old fucks think they are?? They can't see something become successful without their psychopathic trademark on them. That is the only reason they keep disparaging it. We really have nothing to feel about what they say. Let them go wither off with their stupid thoughts.

Block-chain has been pretty hyped for quite a few years now. This is because of the popularity of bitcoin and the increase in it's price. In reality, there haven't really been an established use case for block-chain except bitcoin.
The usage for block-chain is still evolving both in terms of development as well as adoption. The basic solution provided by block chain is trust-less ledgers and smart-contracts. These are powerful technologies but industry is still only trying to find their usage.

Even while blockchain is evolving, the killer app still is bitcoin.

Right. Opportunity to improve ones lot is the first requirement. Several of the African countries where people are living in poverty have warlord type governments where people have to worry about their safety first than anything else.

Most of this institutional charity flows through institutions into the pockets of those who control them. This becomes just another form of kickbacks. Why else would we still have unpopular leaders continuing to rule through power of the gun. Where do these people get the resources to maintain huge police states to keep the people under heel.

People who want to make the world better should also realize that life is lived at several different levels by people. A tribal family living happily in a jungle in deep interiors of India can be as happy and prosperous as one living in a concrete jungle in New York. Forcing the notions of growth and development onto people who don't really want it, isn't a desirable outcome either.

BTC adoption by masses will now depend mainly on the success of LN. Even if people don't use it  so much in the beginning, the ability to prove capacity with layer-2 solutions can be the next major milestone for bitcoin.

Right now far too many big names are hogging the limelight in terms of adoption and we don't see much momentum in the smaller spaces. Activity related to merchant adoption and such would be much more welcome than these uncertain announcements from the bigwigs. Their intentions are little else than ensuring that the rich clientele doesn't miss the bus.

The distinguishing bit is where other cryptos like Ether are seen as ambiguous in terms of securities law while Bitcoin seems to be in a better position. Unlike the futures contract, the article talks about actual trading of bitcoin going through big banks and exchanges.

This makes bitcoin a commodity that is available for being bought and sold at the exchange. An important thing to figure out is what this does to the utility of bitcoin. There is more decentralization but the main purpose will still only be served if BTC continues to serve as the settlement crypto for the whole cryptoverse. That seems to be the main potential utility for the time being. If and when the LN gains mainstream usage, having BTC trading on these big exchanges will be very helpful.

BTC will still be maintained and enabled by the network and not controlled by these bodies in any way, it is safe to assume that coming of NYSE or Goldman is a positive news.

There really is no need for coming up with forced analogies and creative ideas like bilateral split etc etc. Only one Bitcoin is needed. If you want to trade or buy it, then go for the BTC ticker.

This constant distraction about bitcoin being a well-defined, objective idea that should only follow the whitepaper as a bible is absurd. The community project that was handed down by Satoshi has SegWit implemented in it's current form. It is the network, the community and the individuals world over who value and identify the historical transaction database associated with the BTC chain with Bitcoin Core being the main client/ software. That is sufficient to identify Bitcoin.

Doesn't change the fact that Bitcoin Cash is an alt-coin and these marketing tactics are just a dirty businessman's game. These people have done everything from misleading newbies through their owned platforms to manipulatively pumping it during crucial events.

Today if somebody were to start another chain fully compliant with the original code devoid of all the BIPs and start calling it the the "Bitcoin Vintage", it won't be bitcoin. Bitcoin Is. That's it.

People who give a criticize banks here without using the topic as a filler are actually concerned about the financial system we are living in. That is where the "Central banks" come in. You need to make a difference between big investment banks, central banks and your usual street-side variety of bank branch that keeps your deposits.

Everyone understands that some form of credit lending and deposit holding is needed. It is when banks become too big to fail and the topmost banks collude with businesses and politicians to ensure that they never have to be accountable for the taxpayers' money, that is where the problems come in. That is why people oppose them.

You may have seen too many posts that say "Banks are bad" without going into the gist of the argument which makes you sick and tired. Go into the real argument and identify the real problem. You may not feel the same then. It is easy to say that they can co-exist but you forget that bitcoin takes away a lot of their power. If you think they are just going to accept this power sharing and not try to subvert bitcoin, then you are simply fooling yourself and getting co-opted.

Thanks for the reality check. Governments can only be as good as the checks and measures put on them. Socialist countries that proffer equality turn into dictatorships when no individual is allowed to be influential enough. Capitalist countries stress on property that allows individuals with good intentions to amass wealth too. In a socialist country, only those who are close to power get the monopoly on amassing wealth and in such an unchecked state, they just run away with the purse.

One can only imagine how much money the top officials in Venezuela would have plundered by now. With their plans to come up with their own crypto "Petro", will there be any improvement in the corruption situation? The launch of the currency itself was full of ambiguities as it was shifted to NEM at the last moment. If this is any indication of things to come by, it again looks like a screw up.

The only way out for the people now is probably a revolution or if those at the top have a change of heart.