It's not as different as you may think. People dip their feet in the forex market with a speculative mindset similar to that what we see here in the crypto markets. All you see is people guessing till they are right, which as you know, is a bad long term approach.

More people lose their money on forex markets than anything else, mainly because of how accessible broker services have become for average joes, and they absolutely love the gambling-like features brokers offer.

Also, TA is being overhyped. It's great to have it function as basis for your trades, but it's nothing more than an educated guess still. TA only works when the market applies the same indicators and thoughts. How often does that happen?

Why would Bitcoin need to 'exceed' gold? Also, who says that gold's market cap won't be heading over $10 trillion by the time Bitcoin really takes off? Bitcoin increasing in value means the legacy system is messing up.

When the legacy system messes up, traditional farts park their capital in gold as safe haven asset, which means that Bitcoin has an even longer way to go in order to catch up on gold.

Another thing is that Gold can't be produced freely. It's even unprofitable for most businesses in the industry to mine gold right now with how the price hovers around or just below the break-even point.

I don't see how anything other than an ETF approval will actually affect the market. Another delay or rejection is already calculated in the price because most people already know it won't be approved.

In other words, nothing will happen at all on that front. I had a look at the charts, and it seems that the first months of each year aren't the best months for Bitcoin, which means that an increase is even more unlikely.

In a previous reply in a different thread I was referring to tax sales being a factor to focus on with how we are dealing with more startups, hedge funds, VC's, and so forth. It means more selling pressure in and after January.

I rather remain on the side waiting for the market to signal bullishness before digging in. The risk v reward ratio when it comes to trading right now is very poor.

As long as Bitcoin keeps going up, the rest of the market follows naturally, and then we also have the occasional altcoin booms to function as stimulating factor. This is the time for Ethereum to focus on different uses.

Even with ICOs still being a thing, there is so much competition in the utility platform side of the industry, that Ethereum won't be the center of the market anymore like it was last year when its price literally exploded.

This is also the time for other platforms to show what they are made of, and how much better than Ethereum they are, because as soon as Ethereum finally scales way past its current capabilities, the rest won't stand a chance anymore.

I don't see much importance in holidays. I'm more curious about how tax sales are going to affect the market in January, especially with how we deal with more legal entities being active in this space than ever before.

It definitely won't be as bad as it was last year with how the price tanked in January and February, but there might be another test of the $5800 level in the worst case. Volatility will definitely boost in that scenario.

The easiest way to get people back to the market is to have the price dip under $6000 again, because that's what many believe to be the ultimate bottom. We'll see where it goes, but I'm open to anything and well prepared with a bunch of fiat to spend.

I get it, they look to market their product in the best possible way, but it somehow starts to look like they are getting desperate. It would be wise for them to lay low for a while until the SEC actually shows signs of willingness.

People always highlight the positive side of events here, but what if there simply isn't the demand to back it up? In other words, the approval of this ETF is just 50% of the job done, the other 50% is the demand.

The bear market is a mood-killer. Every part of this industry is suffering, and it doesn't seem like there is much improvement to look forward to. I'm not trying to be bearish here, just realistic, wish more people were so.

Waiting a full day is ridiculous, especially with how the network in the last months hasn't been congested to the point where transactions remain unconfirmed for more than a couple of hours at most.

I keep sending transactions with very low fees without even looking at how congested or not congested the network is, and I continuously get first next-second block confirmations.

Makes me wonder though, how low is the fee Binance uses, and are they using SegWit? It all seems like they still use legacy format addresses, which for such a large exchange is quite shocking to be honest.

It makes the top crypto currency transactions more secure, definitely not the transactions within the legacy financial system. They are all centralized remember? Their security model is reversing and blocking transactions.

If banks are as greedy as they have always been, they won't even allow the customer to enjoy the efficiency gains they booked by adopting the blockchain technology. They are the rats Bitcoin (the rat poison) is meant to combat.

Banks could technically already operate partly on private blockchains. They could easily continue saying for years that they are researching and investing in blockchain tech, just to not allow you as customer to benefit from that advancement.

That's exactly what it is all about. If no one even attempted to set up something like this, maybe because it's too ambitious on paper, we probably wouldn't even have Bitcoin right now.

Crypto stimulates people's free minds, where they technically can't be stopped from doing anything the government may not like. You can do it right away without having to ask for permission from anyone. Perfect.

Over 90% of what we'll be seeing pop up in the coming years will likely fail, the other 10% is what we will be using in the future because it's either more useful than what we had, or it solves an actual problem.

Mind sharing why you think it's strange and difficult to use? They had problems during the hype momentum, which more exchanges had, but Kraken as one of the few managed to make a very strong comeback.

It might even be one of the most reliable fiat exchanges in the scene right now. It's maybe not be the first choice of the average crypto coiner looking for Yobit like exchanges, but perfect for those who aim professionalism.

Not sure what the 'good news' is that you are talking about, but there isn't anything news related that could lift the market back up. Why not accept that we're in a bear market that could potentially take a year or two?

Bitcoin isn't the sub $1000 coin anymore that relatively easily could be bought up with a fair sum of capital. The capital needed to drive the market out of its current bear cycle is way past anything we've seen before.

Even keeping the price around current levels takes a lot more than most people here realize. That's why I am actually surprised with how well we managed to support the $6000 mark like we have been doing all year.

We came from below $1000 last year. Things could have been way worse.

He loves attention, and he time on time again manages to have people talk about him on the wide web. The less we talk about him, the lower his overall relevance is, because all we are doing is donate him free traffic.

People with money say they don't have much. People without much money say they have a lot, and keep repeating that as loud as they can till others pick up on it, which is what seems to be happening right now.

He's nothing but a wannabe without technical understanding of the protocol. Even Roger said that CW left the room when things started to become technical, and there is no reason to doubt that.

It all depends on the exchange you are using. Binance is doing a superb job in making sure their users are satisfied in every possible way. Kraken has significantly improved their user experience as well.

Don't let exchanges as Yobit, Cryptopia, HitBTC make you believe that all exchanges are shit, because they aren't. I know the options of exchanges without KYC/AML are very limited, but that's only going to get worse.

Soon every exchange will follow.

I wish they did. The reality however is that decentralized exchanges don't provide people the convenience and liquidity that centralized exchanges offer. I don't think much will change in the coming years.

Centralized exchanges overall seem to improve slowly but surely, which means that if they no longer mess up as badly as they used to do, there is less reason for people to switch to decentralized exchanges.

It's the easiest way out. Rejection means they'll be subject to a whole lot of trash talk and drama, especially with how they according to the public are anti Bitcoin and crypto currencies, which they don't plan to fuel unnecessarily.

If you keep delaying these ETFs the public remains calm hoping for an approval next time, which obviously won't happen, but the hope is still there. People always think the next time will be different.

On the other hand, if these news outlets for once stop rehashing these nonsensical articles, people will slowly but surely forget about them. Remember the WV ETF? It suddenly came back to life after months of silence.

Both services are on decline and it's well deserved. If you let the roadmap of an imbecile affect a business that once was so successful to this degree, you shouldn't be running it, period. I would voluntarily leave.

By the time payment processors adapt to roll out LN support but BitPay doesn't, they'll more than ever realize that what they have been doing is wrong. If they don't adapt to the progress here they will lose their dominance.

It's so clear that Roger and Jihan fear SegWit and Litecoin. Any normal thinking being would do everything to increase revenue and profits, but not these Bcash suckers. Money for the world, my ass.

The thing with blockchain's explorer is that people got so used to it, that it's near impossible for them to be satisfied with that what other explorers offer. There are great alternatives out already, which I like even more.

My current (main) block explorer is https://blockchair.com

It's quite advanced and features certain other coins as well, and they even offer bench32 support, which is pretty neat if you ask me. I'm no longer using blockchain's explorer because there is no point to it anymore.

Just make the switch.

People are so used to all these failed predictions that they don't seem to care anymore. They are out to gain publicity ones in a while, so they'll come up with something just to make sure people still know they are in the game.

These guys behave exactly like internet celebrities who feel the urge to constantly show their face, where in this case entities as Novogratz have their own economical incentives to fuel as well.

Overall, some of them actually contribute to more legacy adoption, and Novogratz fits in that category. He's heavily invested and has all the incentive he needs to convince institutions and whatnot to join the party.

If Novogratz isn't doing it, who will?

What you say doesn't make much sense at all. Why should a beginner pay attention to what's being recommended by others? How is a beginner going to seperate rubbish from actual worthwhile data that can be put to action?

That to me sounds like straight gambling. In that sense people just as easily can blindly buy at any price hoping to sell higher. In both cases you don't know what's going to happen, you'll either win or lose.

There is no point in forcing yourself to do something you aren't made for nor will ever understand. People wouldn't have to lose money if they flat out admit that they have no clue about what they are doing here and stop trying to trade.

Buy whatever coin you believe in and hodl it. It's not going to get much safer than that here.

Amazon provides a service and platform that's useful to people on both sides of the market. If it was that horrible as people here think it is, they wouldn't be doing well, but they are and their revenue and profits speak for them.

Average joes want convenience, and that without thinking about the privacy that they no longer have when they allow a company as Amazon in their life. As long as it works they'll go as far as they need to keep using it.

I'm don't say it's good or bad, but I'm solely looking at what the average person thinks and does. They don't see the threats we see in these companies, and as long as they aren't confronted with these threats, they won't change.

People change and aim for alternatives once the companies and financial institutions start to work against them.

The only useful implementation for Bitcoin and other crypto currencies is to have it function as an alternative option for users top up their balances. The rest isn't of importance to them.

PayPal transactions happen within their ecosystem which are instant already, which means that there is nothing to gain here. It's a service focusing on commercial payments offering buyers zero fee transactions.

If crypto becomes too dominant they could simply choose to lower their fees as a way to compete, and I'm sure it will work out for them. Another thing is that PayPal could easily launch its own PayPal dollar stablecoin.