First of all, I don't see the correlation between bitcoin being manipulated and prices having to go below $1k.

In every market, there is a certain degree of centralisation, and manipulation. It's a matter of what that degree is exactly.

I personally think that the significance of "whales" that somehow manipulate the entire market due to their large holdings is really largely a myth, and narratives of bitcoin's volatility being caused by manipulation per se is most likely unbacked as well.

That said, though, the small market cap in relation to other asset classes does mean that smaller orders will be able to move the market more. Though, when you look at the potential manipulation through derivatives in other markets like precious metals, I don't think bitcoin is easy to manipulate, though it might be easy for a large investor to move the market.

He's still selling, it seems. He might open a new thread though since you've already exposed him on his current thread.

It's not only a matter of escrow, though. I'd recommend not to purchase accounts off the forum because even if you do escrow, there is absolutely nothing that protects you from the account being fraudulent/hacked, or the fact that the sale of accounts is against the ToS of whatever service you are using, which is very likely.

This applies especially to verified accounts of any sort, because someone's ID needs to have been used to verify it, and it's probable that it's not whoever that selling it, which means that there is a risk that it's a product of some form of identity fraud. Just keep that in mind.

This is what I don't like about exchanges not providing enough transparency.

I get what Dragonex coming from, in terms of keeping the customers calm and all that while they sort out the issue. But in my opinion, it's just flat out dishonest and unprofessional if you are going to claim to be doing some sort of maintenance, while in fact, customer funds are already missing from wallets. While there is a possibility that there is just a coincidence that the maintenance actually coincided with the hack, I don't think it's a particularly large one.

Anyways, hacks are going to be inevitable with all centralised exchanges, and when they do happen, it's difficult to say who's fault exactly it is and whether reimbursements out of pocket should be conducted by the exchange. Hopefully Dragonex customers will get compensated, though right now, it's still too early to tell.

It's the age old comparison between bitcoin and credit cards.

My response has always been that they aren't even comparable. It's literally comparing apples to oranges. One is essentially a debt instrument that gives you credit on demand, the other (BTC) has absolutely nothing to do with the financing of debt, and is just a decentralised currency in its plain form.

If people are telling you that bitcoin will now somehow incur less adoption, or be less utilised as a means of payment simply because Apple is launching their own financial services, then don't listen to them. They aren't even directly competing each other, as they both service completely different needs within the economy. It's a much more valid comparison if you look at traditional banking institution credit cards, vs. apple cards, not decentralised cryptos versus this.

Me and others have been speaking about this cycle since the start of the bear market. It's not like it's just been discovered or something.

I think that it's safe to say halving has and will have a significant impact in the emergence of bull markets, because of the fact that the relative scarcity of newly mined coins all of a sudden increase and markets react to that, as well as the psychological aspect of people's expectations based on previous halvings pushing demand up.

It's apparent that this time round with the 2020 halving, a bull rally of sorts will most likely occur beforehand. Whether it'll start this year as people price in the event, or how much the markets actually go up as a result of this, we have no idea of knowing for certain, and people who give specific figures to these predictions usually have absolutely zero backing. But I do think that currently, we have already bottomed out, and it's very unlikely that markets will regress further down under $3k.

It's not a particularly surprising thing that they are doing.

In the past, they've already tightened up on KYC/AML in numerous occasions by first asking for KYC for all advertisement listings, then asking for KYC for traders with significant volume. This new policy that they may be implementing right now is simply a confirmation of the regulatory pressures that are put on them, and an extension to previous policies.

Whether they're going to go for the home run and just ask everyone to flat out identify themselves, I don't know. Perhaps it's more likely they'll just ask more personal information without necessarily requiring proof of them when you sign up, up to a certain threshold. But this new policy may well lead to more people jumping ship and looking for alternatives, but the fate of each platform will be similar.

The truth is somewhere in between the permabears and permabulls of bitcoin.

Don't believe the people that are calling bitcoin a scam, or a fraud with absolutely no function to serve in society, because that is simply untrue. And don't sit there and blindly listen to every word that a so called "analyst" tells you about how great an investment bitcoin is, and how flawless it is. Because it is not.

The points brought up in this article isn't particularly new, either. It's classic fear mongering by someone that appears to be knowledgeable.

Your point about bitcoin having to be accepted through third party payment processors is a valid one. Obviously, that originates from the fact that BTC is volatile, but the fact that merchants are doing this means that goods aren't actually priced in BTC, which if they were, may actually contribute to lessening volatility.

I've actually thought about something similar regarding whether a financial crisis will lead to more adoption for decentralised cryptocurrencies.

Right now, people may not see a need to adopt cryptos as they deem fiat to already suit their needs. But when price stability becomes an issue within a financial crisis, especially if there is rampant inflation, there will likely be waves of adoption from the countries that are worst hit as citizens there seek to hedge their wealth using an independent asset.

As you say, precious metals were the hedges of the past, however, I don't think that people will look to that as their first option should an inflationary crisis occur now as opposed to 40, 50 years ago as BTC essentially provides the same stability, except much more user friendly and convenient.

Bottom line is, I do expect bitcoin to outperform most traditional assets, including fiat cash, property, stocks, etc., if not see increased adoption and potentially even see some growth in the network.

I don't think that this is necessarily an issue.

Traders go into a recently listed asset and know that when it first gets listed, the prices will be artificially inflated for a period of time as the markets adjust to the normal deposit/withdrawals, as well as the hype from the listing quietens down. The volume that is generated at these kinds of prices is most likely very low anyways, because people with some common sense will know that at the beginning, it's as good as a purely speculative token.

There is nothing the exchange can do to stop this anyhow. They provide the orderbook and the trading engine, and nothing else. They can't manipulate the pricing of the orders, or revert orders from previous instances, because it's not their right or obligation to do so.

It seems like that the entire team page has been deleted from the site? Also, they seem to be revamping their site for now. Probably because they realise they've been exposed.

You wouldn't believe the amount of times I've seen real estate being used as some sort of punchline for an ICO, and inevitably, every single one of these projects either have failed, or pulled a scam. Why? Because their aim/idea is so saturated that even if they pulled through with their promises of development, it wouldn't go far whatsoever.

Anyways, I'd certainly agree that they're probably going to come back sooner or later. There simply isn't any reason for them to call it quits this early - they'll likely pull some excuse in the future that they uploaded the wrong photos or their web developer made a mistake. Don't fall for it.

Short term, it is possible. I don't think there is a particularly strong correlation, though the entry of institutional investors into the market could make this somewhat different in the future as they may hold positions in both stocks and bitcoins.

But long run, especially when considering bitcoin's internal market cycles, I wouldn't take into what the stock market is doing as something that bitcoin will mirror/inversely follow. It's just two different things. You're comparing a currency, which has no central entity, to equity of businesses whose primary goal is profit maximisation.

Correlation doesn't mean causation. It's probable after a certain period of time that you'll see correlation between any markets, and that doesn't always link them together somehow.

I wouldn't necessarily think that commodities are great bets. Especially when you have perishables.

The thing is that, if you are spending your money on emergency food supplies (like certain preppers are already doing at this moment), you are taking a huge gamble that a very specific scenario will occur in the next financial crisis. You've also got a time limit on this hedge, since even though these food supplies can last a long while, they don't last forever.

Also, in a deflationary scenario, is it really likely that having such high amounts of food stacked up is going to help you in any way? Probably not. Keeping some emergency food/water supply is good, but I wouldn't go overboard and see it as a financial hedge, since it is simply completely illiquid.

As to oil - I agree. Not only what you've already mentioned already, but also the fact that you're likely not going to hold it in physical form means that there is a counter party risk present.

It's quite a sophisticated scam, I'll give them that.

But this is no different than the Rise Only Markets that yobit offers (which has been accused of being a ponzi many times), except they do it on a much larger scale and with more features. It's at best a pyramid scheme given the nature of the setup where prices are artificially inflated, and the referral networks, which is illegal in most jurisdictions around the world; but the fact that they have a calendar and plans that promise returns suggests to me that it can be safely classified as a ponzi scheme.

Investors I think will fall into the trap because this isn't a typical ponzi scheme and there seems to be a token/coin that is underlying all of this. But not only is the token completely illiquid, its value solely depend on the sustained payouts by the platform. It's important to recognise this. Once there is no demand for the token anymore, which will happen as a matter of time given the fact that the market is only allowed to rise, or the platform stops paying out, token prices will plummet much like how Bitconnect was set up.

I think that's the main distinction that you have to look for.

I personally think that Cisco, being the company that they are, are mostly providing an outlook for institutional or corporate blockchains as opposed to cryptocurrencies. The context is most likely more so about data, accounting, private transactions in businesses etc. than decentralised blockchains as a means to store currencies.

It's an interesting forecast and outlook for the many applications of blockchain tech, of course, but I definitely think that this is a lot less relevant in terms of bitcoin's market capitalisation or market share in the global currency markets, than the title makes it seem like.

Take a look at a new scam accusation regarding Seeltrade.

Again, the scammers have used the layout of cex.io. There seems to be two types of sites that use this template though, one that solely poses as an exchange, and others that offer a bonus when you sign up, but after playing in certain games and withdrawing you'll be asked to deposit first before you're allowed to withdraw.

It's certainly possible as you say that a group of people are behind all of these, despite the many domain names that are being registered and used. It's also likely that there are more than one scamming entity/group that is doing this, given the different styles of sites being utilised. It'll be hard to track down, which is why it'll still be up to individuals to recognise them.

I personally wouldn't take the risk of this.

You simply don't know whether or not they are running a fractional reserve at a particular point in time. Also, there may be KYC/AML concerns where since your bitcoins are no longer in your exclusive control, they could hold up your funds citing the need for further verification, or suspending your account because suspicious activity. These things may seem unlikely now, but once you deposit your BTC with any central entity, you're faced with them.

Apart from their affiliation with Gemini, this is not even a particularly new idea as I've mentioned before. Previously, there were services such as Magnr if I remember correctly offering pretty much the same thing, and the reason why they didn't pick up was exactly because of the high risk, low reward situation that investors are put in.

You may be better off offering collateralised loans on the forum (You'll get 0.05-0.1% per day on loans at the very least, although obviously you'll need to find clients), or lending on exchanges, if you were comfortable with taking this counterparty risk with blockfi.

Inappropriate use of percentages, first of all, I'd say.

I don't necessarily think that the interest in bitcoin ETFs are waning due to these negative responses, which are not binding in any way since they are just comments. I think that the market is finally somewhat recognising the fact that the exchange traded funds, even if they were to be approved, will most likely be used by institutions and will not benefit the bitcoin blockchain or its users. This is in contrast of the market previously hyping up ETFs as if they were going to solve bitcoin's long term scalability problems or something.

I certainly don't believe it's very likely that an approval will occur in the near future given the previous precedents with the SEC's decision. Most people saying that it will somehow get approved this time round or whatnot are purely speculating, and have no tangible proof to back it up.

First of all, Warren Buffet doesn't necessarily reject crypto. I think that his main point is that bitcoin is not an investment, because it doesn't generate returns on equity like what businesses do, and have an actual operating business model. He has said the same thing regarding gold as an investment.

What Carsten has said though is somewhat different. Apart from the bubble accusation, which would be true if applied to a 2017 context, what he's saying is purely stuff that has been debunked over and over again, yet people still seem to be pushing. The environmental and ponzi accusations have been repeated over and over already.

Also, I think it's interesting that he essentially admits bitcoin has the transaction processing capability, whilst denying that there is any value to a system that can do this in a decentralised way. Of course though, it is important to see the reason why he may have made these comments - there is an obvious conflict of interest in terms of what the BIS is doing, and what settlements on decentralised blockchains like bitcoin can do.

I'm not sure why cex.io is so popular among scammers who take their script and make a site out of it, but I'd certainly be cautious of any sites that look somewhat like it's been directly ripped off of Cex.io based on the current trends that we're seeing. This site is no exception of that rule.

Another thing about these sites is that they seem to be constantly changing their URL. It's likely that a lot of the URLs are owned by the same scammer, and they do this to avoid detection. Once they get a victim, what they seem to do is change to a new domain name, and redirect old domains to the new one, or simply shutting down the old site.

Exchanges offering bonuses is always a red flag, because it's so obvious it won't be profitable for them, yet they are still doing it. Of course, if they ask you to send your own funds, then it's pretty much a confirmation that it's a scam.

If there were to be a dominant global currency, it will be internet based.

It simply doesn't make sense to bring back the gold standard or silver standard when there is something far more convenient, in my opinion. Especially when you take into the costs of making transactions overseas if your proposed form of global currency exists in a physical form only, it's not much better than having to exchange between different currencies right now.

Your concern about the ease of which the currency may be shut down/targeted also doesn't make sense. Shutting down the internet is a much more difficult task than what you would imagine, and if the currency is decentralised like bitcoin, even more so. It might actually be easier to overthrow a global currency that is issued in physical form by a single entity.