I'm fairly certain that the most persistent weak hands are still in. If you want to tempt them to dump, have the price touch $2xxx levels, and you can be sure that we'll see a high volume selloff. People have too much faith in the 200 wma which seems to be holding the price up, but breaking it would make even the more senior hodlers out here poop their pants.

If you look at 2017, then you can see how there was enough time (7 months to be precise) for people to buy coins between $1000 and $3000, so there might still be a large number of weak hands to get rid of. I hope it won't happen of course, but if it happens anyway, then it happens. I'll happily buy more coins below $3000 if the opportunity presented itself.

Platforms such as Bitmex made things far worse, because even the most insignificant price movements can be leveraged to book like 25-50% gains.

If people trade to book x percentage of profits per day, which they set for themselves as target, they'll force themselves to trade even when most experienced traders decide to take a day off. It's not for nothing that some traders have become addicted to trading, which people might consider funny, but it can be as bad as a gambling addiction.

Gone are the days where profits were easy to obtain by utilizing the $6000 support level. I tried it after it broke, but rekt myself and haven't done any trading since.

It looks like it's huge, but the market cap is deceiving. Most of the floating supply is controlled by a small number of entities. I guess that we'll see it continue to increase because of that, especially because Bitcoin is bound to increase as well. Bitcoin up shitcoins up. Shorting shitcoins is playing with fire.

Whenever you see Bitcoin's price tank, XRP doesn't fall as hard, which is done artificially by buying the BTC pair up to counter the drop in USD value. Most of what consists of the Ripple gang was here well before most of us, and they own a lot of Bitcoin, and they have to make sure that XRP offers more stability than the rest of the cryptos to market their xRapid service.

No financial institution will use something that pumps and dumps as hard as the other cryptos do, so there is enough incentive from Ripple's side to offer buy support whenever it is needed.

From what I can see, they hold at least 200,000BTC in their top wallets, and there is another ~50,000 BTC they hold in a large number of smaller wallets. Definitely a massive amount, but still somewhat of a joke compared to Coinbase's ~900,000BTC currently held in custody. It's mind boggling how much faith people have in these exchanges.

No plans as far as I know, but it would be a massive stunt for sure. They have the capital on their side, so the financial part definitely won't be a problem. I think the main reason for them to avoid the licensing/registration part is to onboard as many users as they can, trap them in, and then force them to verify themselves whenever they are ready to become fully compliant in the US.

That's what bots offer. Humans are too slow, too emotion driven, too fixated on X percentage of returns, etc. Most people won't ever be able to profitably trade, so why not have a bot do it for you? It saves you a lot of time as well (which you can utilize in a different/productive way), because staring at your screen(s) all day isn't something that will make you happy, especially when you suck at trading.

That's not a good bit of advice. My intuition told me to open trades at certain levels, but looking back, I'm glad that I ignored my intuition. It's straight gambling since you are either right or wrong. Trade based on how you analyze the market, or don't trade at all. Gambling can be done in plenty of online casinos.

Reminds me of XRP bagholders claiming that their trash token is decentralized and the only one with a utility, while it's severely centralized, and barely anyone actually uses it for its "utility".

People who don't understand Bitcoin, don't need it, will never value it and thus discard/trash it whenever they can. If they can use Bitcoin to hype up their own garbage, they'll definitely do it, especially with how Bitcoin has taken a dip. Easy bait. We'll see who's laughing in the next few years. I'm sure that it won't be these guys.

Bitcoin generally only needs a year to do x2-x5, which mean means that in such a relatively small time frame, it will outperform pretty much every asset class in the world.

Not the safest way in what manner? That ill minded individuals wait for people to buy Bitcoin through an ATM and then steal their private key that's printed in form of a paper receipt?

I'm sure that every Bitcoin ATM is placed in a crowded location where it is clearly visible to have people's attention for marketing and safety purposes. It's even happening with legacy ATM's that they are built into super markets or other buildings where there is a constant inflow/outflow of crowd.

I am a supporter of every fiat entry point, and this is one more that we can add to the list. Let's hope that pro maduro camps won't attempt to get rid of them. More support for Bitcoin means less potential support for their shitty Petro scam coin.

The same basically applies to people in Venezuela using their native fiat currency. Today you can buy your groceries with X amount of fiat, while the next week you need twice as much in fiat to buy the same groceries.

The Bolivar lost way more of its value than Bitcoin from its near $20,000 peak to where we are right now. In other words, buying Bitcoin at near peak levels (most people buy way lower since only a few people buy and sell the top) and holding it till today was a better deal than holding X amount in Bolivars within the same time frame. The good thing here is that Bitcoin will be going up again so your paper losses will turn into paper profits, while the Bolivar will keep tanking.

Even a can of tuna with a limited shelf life is a better store of value than the Bolivar.

Fatal flaw? I think it's safe to say that the more time goes by, the less risk of a 'fatal flaw' there is, especially with how the developers are pretty damn good in what they do. On top of that, Bitcoin's simplicity makes sure you don't have various levels of code to audit as is the case with Ethereum, which we have seen has yet again gone through severe difficulties that resulted in more delays.

By the time Bitcoin has succeeded as you put it, it has very likely been priced to reflect that. You buy that what offers the best possible potential, and the best time to enter is now.

The technology hasn't ever disappointed anyone, people's price predictions did and will continue to do.

Darknet sounds scary, and a place where criminals hang out, but it's not like that in reality. Most people there aren't interested in guns, fake ID's, fake credit cards, etc. It's just something news outlets love to include in their articles, because drama sells, especially if it concerns criminality and Bitcoin.

Most users of darknets just want to buy their weed or different sorts of low dosed opiates, which I see nothing wrong with. If people want to smoke weed to have a good time, what's wrong with that? These people aren't criminals. The government makes them look like that because it's against their silly law, which average joes follow like a bunch of slaves.

People need to grow a thicker skin and stop echoing their government.

Binance being a fiat entry point now is great news for Bitcoin and crypto in general.

Finally we see a major player compete with Coinbase for marketshare, and I strongly believe that Binance has a serious shot at overtaking them if they also manage to enter the USD field of the market. Most people use Coinbase as entry point to then directly send their BTC or whatever coin to Binance and trade. Now Coinbase isn't needed for that anymore, at least within Europe, they'll lose a chunk of income and clientele.

Best piece of news this year so far.

Since it is open source, did anyone with understanding of how to verify code look into this?

Most people here assume that open source means it's safe because you can check for yourself if it is or not, but since the majority here don't know how to read code, they can't verify the application as a whole. I'm mainly interested to find out how random the process of generating key pairs is, because there are enough malicious clients out there that look great, but will run off with your funds eventually.

Mind explaining who or what forced you to use that exchange, and more importantly, why?

https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/coinbe/

Looking at their volumes, a shitcoin called KaratGoldCoin accounts for +99% of the volume it generated as a whole, which usually is a very bad sign. It's very likely also fake volume considering that CMC excluded their volume and pricing data from the main index for that coin.

It seems to be a Polish exchange, yet that's not where its main traffic comes from, also very interesting; https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/coinbe.net

If that's the case, why didn't they let the cash settled ETF's go through? That would be the perfect opportunity for the SEC to show their 'true nature' if we follow your logic. Every ETF proposal (backed and not backed) was wiped off the table, and I expect the SEC to continue doing so. Historically, it has been a very time consuming process to have the SEC approve an ETF, which I think people overlook.

I think that we'll see a Bitcoin backed ETF eventually, but for that to happen the US wants to see most of the volumes being generated on regulated exchanges, and preferrably exchanges operating within the US. It would definitely help if we see Bakkt and Nasdaq's futures be approved this year, so the odds are ruling in favor of Bitcoin as time goes by. Patience is key here.

People continuously blame regulators for not understanding the market, well, allow them as much time as they need to understand it better. Why would they approve something they don't understand?

What do you think I mean? Read the post. We have been going down for over a year, so I am obviously referring to averaging on the way down. In this case it matters a lot what the break-even point is, especially with how people here only pay attention to how fast they can make profits.

It doesn't matter how much lower the price keeps going as long as you have enough fiat ready to put into action, and there is no way to know beforehand if the price will actually keep going down, because at one point the bottom is in and we will be going up again. That how investing in stocks or any other asset works as well. You buy into it with whatever percentage of your balance, and have the rest aside in case the price takes a dip.

Which is exactly what I did.

It's the mass (i.e. dumb money) I am referring to, so you can be sure that they account for the majority of the participants in this market. The people with a choice you referred to have very likely already taken the necessary actions to prevent being sucked into this bear market in the worst possible way.

What choice do average joes have at this point? They don't know how to react, have not witnessed a bear market yet, etc. What do you expect from them? Sell and risk buying back less coins for the same amount at higher levels?

The experience. It might not be something they see as great initially, but during the next wave they will value it massively, which worked out well for me as well.

It's only dangerous if you over-invest, invest with borrowed money, or blindly invest just because "experts" told you it's a great investment.

If you stick to Bitcoin, don't fomo in during bull runs and just patiently wait for the right moment to enter, the risks are super low. In the end, there is a risk everywhere, even when it comes to the stock market, real estate, etc. You have to take risk to make money, but do it in a manner the risks is calculated and don't ever go all in.

I actually find it more risky to invest in US strocks right now than to invest in Bitcoin.

Stablecoins don't reduce the volatility of crypto at all. It's just a token that should replicate the functions of regular fiat currencies, but add certain advantages for traders. Quick movements between exchanges 24/7 is the main advantage, and the very fact that stablecoins are more likely to stay within the crypto ecosystem during bear markets, while fiat currencies are more likely to be withdrawn back to people's bank accounts.

Stablecoins is money in the market waiting to enter, and you can be sure that it will eventually.

The worst part is that politicians keep promising that every bit of debt will be paid back, but every well thinking being knows that it is never going to happen. It wouldn't even surprise me if they pull off a Cyprus haircut type of cheat, but in a more stressing way. It's the easiest way to pay for something without having to use their own money, nor have to print more and devalue the Euro even further.

If people thought they have seen the worst when Greece was on the edge of imploding, wait for what will happen when Italy does the same, there just isn't a way to compare both countries. Italy will drag the EU as a whole down with it, and the EU from there will drag the rest down with it. Chaos guaranteed.

Common sense. Any entity seriously interested in buying a huge amount of Bitcoin won't ever signal that like this.

If you buy in silently, which is what most large scale investors do, depending on the amount of coins, it's a process that can take months, perhaps years, and then you also have to hope that the price doesn't pump in meantime. That being said, this proves a strong demand factor for Bitcoin backed futures where you can settle an agreement price and don't have to worry about pumps anymore.

And most of the action nowadays happens in the OTC market. Spot exchanges are a joke. One OTC trade covers Coinbase's entire daily spot volume.