I would say the more pressing question is: Would it still be beneficial for you to keep using Bitcoin if it's declared illegal?

We know Bitcoin can be priced differently per market as we've seen in countries like Venezuela where demand is higher than normal. Bitcoin being declared illegal will almost certainly cause the price to plummet in that market because it cuts off demand. It will also be much harder to liquidate with exchanges unable to deal with them, among many other factors. There are lots of ways to cover your tracks to be able to get around bans, sure, but these considerations may just turn off the average user, if the threat of jail doesn't do that first.

If you're a whale though, it may be possible to just fly out and liquidate small amounts, though I'm not sure about the implications.

Why do big corporations ever do anything? It helps their bottom line is why. I'm sure their decision to start accepting Bitcoin was meticulously researched and has strong indicators that it would be beneficial. Even if they do end up losing money, it could also have effects in other areas such as public perception. If it stops being beneficial, they'll probably simply drop it, like Steam did.

I'd like to think they're being idealistic by supporting emerging technology to spread awareness and spur growth, but that may be too much wishful thinking. I mean, I'm sure that could be a driving factor, but for-profit companies are exactly that -- for-profit.

I haven't read the book, but the gist of what you're saying is that everything from the past 800 years play by the same rules, right? Either way, a trend only goes on until it's broken. Crypto may just be the kind of advancement that breaks it.


Crypto is basically money of the internet. The internet has evolved so far that people have been used to instant results. We can talk to anyone from nearly any corner of the globe without any borders. We can share our life with them through instant sharing of photos and videos, all made possible through the internet. So if that's possible, why not money? Crypto fulfills that need, and that need will only get bigger as technology advances. The internet revolutionized how communications work, rendering plenty of centuries old technologies obsolete. Crypto has that potential within the financial world. Only time will tell if it will live up to that potential, but I like its chances.

I would think so. I'd say it's hardly even speculation.

Should the Lightning Network work as intended, which is to make fees drop and make confirmations nearly instant, it's going to render nearly every altcoin on the market obsolete. Sure, they may also be fast and cheap, but why use them when you could use the most popular and most valuable one? Altcoin money is sure to flow into Bitcoin, and it will be more popular than ever with actual capability of competing against Visa. Some altcoins with niche uses like Monero may survive, but Bitcoin Cash and the like are going to bite the dust.

What do you mean it hasn't passed yet? Segwit is already here and is usable. As for why not everyone agrees over it, I honestly have no idea. You'll have to ask exchanges like Coinbase, although Coinbase plans to finally adopt by the first quarter of 2018.

The most popular solutions seem to be off-chain scaling and bigger blocks. Bigger blocks have been ruled out for the main chain, which is actually what prompted the birth of Bitcoin Cash. We're left with off-chain scaling solutions like the Lightning Network, which is currently being prepared for deployment. I'm not one to say which is better, but I'm obviously on the side of the real Bitcoin.

If I were someone who didn't know about crypto, I would most likely think a party like this has a (not so) hidden agenda. I mean, it's for crypto, backed by crypto. It would be easy to assume that the entire party is being paid off by people with crypto stakes. I wouldn't be against a political party that is pro crypto, but having their entire identity based around that is simply not a good idea.

Politics must be people first, and country first. Unless we're able to establish that crypto is absolute good that brings nothing but good things to everyone involved, then this will never work. Parties must be based on an idea, not the vehicle that will be used for it.

This is true. Some people are so quick to wave around their pitchforks. I mean, I guess it's easy to assume that Visa wants crypto dead as it's poised to be a challenger in the future, but everyone should do their due diligence of research.

This doesn't mean it was a hostile move by Visa though. According to this article:

https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/01/05/spending-bitcoin-with-a-debit-card-just-got-a-lot-harder/

Bitwala came out with a statement saying the change was so sudden they didn't have a chance to notify their customers. But then again, that may have more to do with Wavecrest rather than crypto. It could be considered hostile whether or not it was intended though, as it did cause damage to crypto. Hostile, but not war declaration hostile as some people are quick to say.

Some people may say that this coming to light is a bad thing, and it may really be in the short term, but it's better in the long run. You can't fix a problem you can't acknowledge after all. The urgency may just push everyone involved to fast track solutions.

What we can do at the moment is use Segwit ourselves, but since most of the traffic come from exchanges, I doubt we'll experience substantial relief. What everyone should do is to pressure exchanges to adopt Segwit. They have to listen to their customers at some point. Losing money is sure to urge them to take action.

Other than that, all we can really do is wait for the Lightning Network to be ready.

$15 is not low. I haven't been keeping track of the fees because I don't want to be part of the backlog, but if that's considered getting better, then it doesn't look like I'll be transacting for a while.

It's true that more people are pushing for Segwit to help alleviate the problem, but the fact of the matter is, unless the biggest exchanges start using Segwit, I'm guessing we can't make much of a difference. Majority of the transactions apparently come from these exchanges, and since the users have little to no say for the fees, it just gets driven up. Please pressure your exchanges to start using Segwit.

How much did you send? It doesn't look like you're being sarcastic but $11 is a huge fee as you should be able to send transactions for a few cents under normal network conditions. Some people even say that fees reaching $1 is already a sign that Bitcoin is failing.

As far as scaling solutions go, Segwit adoption is being urged, and we're waiting for the Lightning Network. It doesn't look like there will be any immediate relief in the near future, sadly.

Yes it does. It can only really handle around 7 transactions on average per second. If you're wondering why fees are as high as they are right now, we're currently averaging 101.41 transactions per second.

Visa, in comparison, can handle about 10,000 transactions per second. It's pretty easy to notice the huge gap, and how Bitcoin can't really cater to the mainstream even if it wanted to.


I don't know what you mean by trade off, but they're potential solutions.

I don't think there's really a simple way of explaining it because the underlying mechanisms are rather complicated, but at the most basic level, it allows the use of smart contracts for "instant" confirmations. I can sign a transaction and hand it to you off chain, at which point it's already final because I can't take it back. That effectively means you're already holding the coins even if the transaction hasn't actually confirmed yet. That's my understanding of it, at least.

I don't think there are clear downsides, but it makes use of payment channels to facilitate transactions and it seems to be unclear how much that would cost.

At the moment is the key phrase. If I wanted to use something as a currency right now, which is what OP seems to want to do, I'd choose fiat in a heartbeat too. We have to admit that Bitcoin is under a crisis right now with the ridiculously high fees. It's barely usable, again, at the moment.

Majority of people here are either in it for investments or the technology though, in which case, the fees aren't a big deal. You don't have to pay a fee to HODL after all. That's unfortunately pretty much all Bitcoin is good for at the moment, at least until we get significant Segwit adoption and the Lightning Network.

It depends which crypto you are talking about. If you're talking about Bitcoin, then it's only pseudo anonymous, as others have pointed out. You're only anonymous until a single address has been definitively linked to you, after which all your transactions are pretty much public. Bitcoin doesn't hide your IP when transacting either. If you don't want your IP being traced, then you can hide under a VPN, or route your traffic through tor. Although you can hide your identity quite effectively, Bitcoin wasn't built with anonymity in mind so you're going to have to take extra steps to ensure your privacy.

If your primary consideration is anonymity, you can use altcoins like Monero, which actually obscure your IP as a feature, along with making your transactions extremely hard, if not impossible to trace.

Well it was aimed primarily at banks, and some pretty large ones use the Ripple platform. If banks were trying to undermine Bitcoin, then supporting (well I guess they already do to some extent) Ripple would probably be the cleanest way to do it. I still have no idea how Ripple is going through this tear, but the fact that the company behind it has the power to release more coins into the market is very off putting to me. They may even be able to create more, for all we know.

Either way, I don't think this run is sustainable, and it's going to slow down at some point. Bitcoin still has a comfortable lead, and I'm not at all worried, considering their differences.

You seem to be assuming that once crypto takes off, fiat will die. I find that highly, highly unlikely. That would require near-perfect infrastructure for every single corner of each and every country. You need to be able to spend your money anywhere and everywhere after all, and a power outage or service interruption should not paralyze towns or cities. Fiat still does a few things better than crypto, which is why it's going to stay.

Either way, if we assume that banks will be killed off, the closest thing to them at the moment are exchanges. You park your money with them and cede control. They have certain rules that you need to follow for you to be able to move your coins. I could see them being able to hand out loans.

Awesome! This is also a great time to remind everyone that Bitcoin is still young, and has only really started getting mainstream attention. It has always had a scalability problem, but it has never manifested until very recently -- the fact that Bitcoin is getting more transactions than it can handle, when it has never had this problem, is a sure sign of growth. The demand is starting to get here, and we know the technology can keep up for sure.

These struggles are a sign of early tech which will go away as it matures. Cheers!

It could, but that would come with certain downsides. Whether that is worth the immediate but temporary relief is up for debate. Besides the technical issue of decentralization, there's also a political side with Bitcoin Cash being validated somewhat. Either way, it doesn't look like a small block size increase is on the table. All we have right now is inceased Segwit adoption and the upcoming Lightning Network.

The Bitcoin Gold fork did happen, but no one really cares about it. It doesn't affect the main chain whatsoever, so it isn't even relevant in this case.

I'm not dissing on your effort, because there was obviously a lot put into it, but this is still way too complicated. If you're explaining this to family then there's no way they need a representation of every single step. Heck, I'd bet majority of Bitcoin holders themselves don't know half of what you're talking about.

Just tell them it's public ledger of every single transaction that gets passed on to everyone so it's near impossible to attack unlike centralized tech like servers. Chances are they're nowhere near technical enough to grasp the inner workings, and if they are, then they'd learn much better if they read up themselves.

Not likely. They have no incentive to do so. Miners earn a lot, and I'm guessing they help bring foreign money in. China wants money to stop flowing out, not in. I don't like that China has majority of Bitcoin's hashrate, but I think they would be stupid to put an end to mining.

Despite all these people saying that China has an axe to grind with Bitcoin, I don't buy it. They have a problem in their hands with capital outflows, so they're simply plugging holes to address that problem. ICOs and exchanges let foreigners take money from the Chinese and they don't want that. If they didn't like Bitcoin, they would simply ban it just as they did Facebook, etc.