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He's actually not wrong about a lot of businesses accepting bitcoin and quickly converting it into fiat - because bitcoin is after all admittedly volatile, and businesses, apart from a few actual bitcoin enthusiasts, do not want to carry that exchange rate risk by accepting bitcoin is itself instead of going through a third party like Bitpay.
To be honest, this is a concern, but in the future as adoption increases, price stability will come as well. These things go hand in hand and we're already seeing prices being a lot more stable as markets matured from year to year. And it certainly doesn't warrant this level of criticism, as adoption has certainly been on the increase as you say.
I'd be interested to know what his stance on other, non-decentralised, government or privately issued blockchain projects are. He seems to be solely talking about decentralised cryptocurrencies in this segment, which is not surprising given that Paypal I believe has lost at least a fraction of their market share in online payment processing given the emerging popularity of bitcoin in online trades. There is a conflict of interest that doesn't allow him to comment unbiasedly here.
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I personally don’t think it would ever come to that point, since the value of bitcoin adjusts to satisfy the demand. I’d like to hear other opinions?
Bitcoin's value is reflected solely through the price mechanism, because of the fact that it trades on the open market without any central entity to regulate its price movements. When there is excess demand that can't be handled based on the supply, then the price will adjusted accordingly upwards. There won't ever be a stage where bitcoin is unusable because of low supply or high demand, because we can infinitely divide bitcoin into subunits of account. So no, a shortage is not possible, even if substantial amounts of coins got hacked, because bitcoin isn't a good - it can be divided and still used in the same way. However, long term I do see adoption playing a big role in pushing aggregate demand for bitcoin, because after all you do need BTC to carry out transactions on the bitcoin blockchain. And that's a reason why I'm quite optimistic about the long term investment aspect of it as well. |
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It's an obvious fraudulent project to me. The fact that they have photoshopped photos of their team, stolen images of another person called a completely different name (using the same exact picture), and also apparently changing half of their team in the midst of their launch all are extremely suspicious. I suspect that their aim currently will just to gain as much money from the pre-sale as possible, because they know they can't defend against these claims, and they probably won't even bother as soon as the sale ends. I don't think it's just a "possible fake team member". It is a fake team member based on the evidence you provide, or at least very probable. He didn't pass KYC, but mysteriously passed KYC a few hours later after we posted on their ANN thread - NO surprise, we are used to this agency doing this often (maybe getting paid to pass a KYC?)
I certainly think that there is something fishy going on with all those ICO ratings agencies, which is a part of the reason why I never trust their assessments. People who blindly trust their judgement will be in for a nasty surprise  |
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I think that the most obvious giveaways about these MLM schemes is their promises of passive income. How you can be able to get one referral, and they are able to refer even more people which can all be traced back to you and if they invest into the scheme, you're able to receive dividends.
This is never a sustainable business model. None of these schemes have ever survived past the point where they don't have sufficient funds to pay back previous investors with new investments anymore, and the owner decides to exit scam, since MLM is highly synonymous with pyramid/ponzi schemes nowadays.
I do see this mistake made very commonly by beginners who think this is a viable investment option. You simply never invest in anything which the underlying fundamentals does not generate any profit, but rather recycles money through the system. It's far too risky to even touch MLM, and you may even be accused of wrongdoing if you promote one.
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I wouldn't blindly agree with a self proclaimed bitcoin price analyst, especially if his name is Tom Lee. He is known for spewing out completely bogus predictions that have absolutely no backing, simply for the sake of having attention grabbing, sensationalist headlines that attract attention.
But there are some interesting points that he makes, including the fact that bitcoin doesn't need an ETF to perform well, and that recessions may in fact lead to people viewing bitcoin as a safe haven from stocks/property.
I certainly don't expect the level of bullish activity that he may be expecting given his past predictions, but I think that it is totally reasonable to suggest markets may turn in the second half given the influx of institutional demand that we've seen throughout this bear market that the market will eventually catch up with, with or without an ETF. People don't expect an ETF to be approved any time soon anyways, and I certainly think it has always been hyped up to be more than it really is.
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Say there is a service of acquiring goods (you pay the service provider a fee, and in return the service provider locates and acquires a 'legal' product for you. eg no drugs, counterfeit products, fraudulent products etc), bitcoin being one of these good - Would it be legal to provide you, the user, with the located bitcoin as a result of the service you paid for?
To clarify, the service charges you say, $100 USD, to locate a product, in this case its .002BTC that you're looking for. You technically paid for the service and not an actual purchase of bitcoin, is the service provider then allowed to transfer you the located product?
Is the purchase of bitcoins banned or restricted in your country? If yes, then I doubt that this argument of "locating goods" will stand up if you ever were to get caught (very unlikely given the non-enforceability of some of these restrictions on bitcoin), because after all, your intent was always to purchase bitcoin, and not to "locate the bitcoin" at some place, if you get what I mean. However, if we are talking about purchasing goods alone as a service which is actually quite widespread, then I don't see any problems. At the end of the day, it definitely depends on the legislation in your country and what they say about bitcoin purchase. If it's legal to hold and buy I don't see a reason why you need to go so elaborately just to get your hands on BTC - just trade p2p. |
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Hello a few days ago I was a victim of a very elaborate scam on LBC. I wanted to post it here so that someone else would not make the same mistakes as me. As a side note if anyone has any idea how to identify which exchanges hot wallet the funds were sent to it would be a big help for law enforcement and I could provide an award if info leads to his arrest.
I am a trader on the cryptocurrency exchange website Localbitcoins.com People contact me to buy Bitcoins for cash. On March 1st I was contacted by a man claiming to be Daniel Polotsky. Daniel is the CEO of Coinflip a business which runs Cryptocurrency ATMS around the country and local to Chicago. I looked up his facebook and saw on the Coinflip website that he was indeed the CEO of the company. He informed me that he needed to purchase Bitcoin and I agreed like a normal transaction. I use the text messaging app Signal, and under the app his number was identified as Coin Flip Danny.
I had recognized Coin flip from the localbitcoins website as another seller. It was not out of the ordinary to be contacted by other large sellers in the Local Chicago market. He mentioned that he was in Rockford and I could come and meet him for an exchange or I could do a transaction at one of his local ATMs with a custom order. I was a little suspicious but did my research regarding any possible scams like this and found none. He mentioned something along the lines of the company running short on Bitcoin supply and he needed to pay at a very high intrest rate unless he got Bitcoins fast. The store with the ATM was closed at that point so I told him I would do it tomorrow.
The next day I arrived at 1213 W Diversey Pkwy VapeCity Chicago, Chicago, IL 60614. I was in contact with him over text coordinating my arrival. When I got there I noticed that the ATM was a buy only one. He mentioned that this was okay and he could still have it dispense cash. I went through the process still vigilant for any scams. At this point he called me and talked me through the rest of the process. He had me set up an account with the ATM. This required registering a phone number, He was very particular to make sure it was the same phone number we were conversing with so there would be no mistakes. I scanned my ID for verification. And informed him I had finished. He was at his computer and he said that my registration was not showing up in the system. I said are you sure and he said yes. Then I checked my texts and saw I had received a text from a Coin Flip operator saying my ID could not be verified because it was blurry. He said that was okay and to redo it. As we were doing this he expressed great knowledge of the regulations behind operating a Money Service Business, something that further sold him being Daniel, and indicates to me that he has likely sold Bitcoins in the past. He also went out of his way to talk about the Coinflip company again providing some indicators of insider info and saying that he was surprised that I hadn't heard too much about them, I said I had but I just hadn't used your machines before. At this point because of his knowledge of the system and interaction with Coinflip files I was sold that he was in fact who he claimed to be. I finished my upload of documents and got a conformation. Without me telling him, he told me that he now saw that I was then confirmed in the system.
From this point he sent me a Bitcoin address. I could not use escrow because his system had to receive the transaction first before it could dispense cash. Because the ATM was a buy only ATM I did not think this was out of the ordinary, and that he was going to set a custom offer which he seemed ready to do. I sent .726 bitcoin to the address. Originally he had told me he could bypass the confirmation time of the transaction and get me the cash as soon as it was ready. However, when the transaction appeared on the blockchain he then said he was having difficulty and wouldn't be able to send the money without 3 conformations. Something that takes 45-1:15 minutes. At this point I was running late for work, which he knew. He said that my code would be good for 24 hours and that I could just come back later. I told him I would be back at 7pm.
I returned to the store at 7pm. He said he wished I gave him more of a heads up and it would be 10 minutes. After 30 minutes I asked him what was up he said 4 minutes. 15 minutes after that I asked him what was up and he told me to calm down, he was grabbing dinner and he was with his kid. (I did not escalate at all, I was just asking). He then said 1 minute while he gets in front of a computer. 10 minutes later I informed him the store would be closing soon. About 5 minutes after that he said he processed it and it was good to go. I asked him how I was supposed to redeem it and received no reply. He would not answer phone calls, and has not replied since. It is unclear to me why hours after the Bitcoin was sent he would continue to string me along. The money was in his possession and he could have cut contact before that and gotten away just as easily.
The next day I informed him I would be filing a police report if I did not get the cash that night. I called a few times and went right to voicemail. That night I went to another 2 way machine to double check that I couldn't withdraw from an actual 2 way account. Following that I called Coinflip where an operator put me on hold and called Daniel Polotsky. Daniel denied ever texting anyone and the operator said that I had been scammed by a highly intricate scheme the likes of which they had never heard of before.
They explained that they thought it was 'a great coincidence' and that the perpetrator just guessed the verification error. Although it is possible, I find this very suspicious I went to the Chicago Police Department and filed a report, but they didn't seem to know if there was a cyber crime division so I don't know how useful that will be. The officer called the cell phone, the first time it rang twice before being sent to voicemail, after that it went straight to voicemail indicating the phone had been on.
The bitcoin can be traced into what I belive is an exchange's hot wallet, although I do not know how to identify which exchange this is. I know that it is possible for law enforcement to do this and that it has been used many times to knab similar perpetrators. If he sent this to an account with personal information it would be easy to identify the individual.
Firstly, try to shorten up your OP because it's hard to read so much information. From what I've seen, your mistake came at the fact that you trusted his identity based on who he claimed to be without ever confirming with the Coinflip company, and also, believing that a buy only BTC ATM would be able to somehow dispense cash. At the end of the day localbitcoins is there to serve as an escrow. If you don't use localbitcoins as escrow, then you're not protected. No matter the trust of the person you send funds directly to, there is a risk that you may get scammed because you are doing this deal off their native platform and escrow system. To be fair, this is extremely elaborate, but all the telltale signs of a scam are there. In the future, certainly be more careful - best of luck with your police complaint but tbh most of these scammers tend to cover their tracks relatively well, meaning that monetary recourse is unlikely. I would also suggest removing the mobile number, because imo that would constitute as "personal information" which means that your thread may get moved to investigations and that it wouldn't be publicly accessible to warn others who may be googling for the same reasons as you were. |
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This is very interesting statistics, though I would still be careful in assuming that this is completely non-biased, because it is after all commissioned by eToro.
Though, it definitely makes sense. The fact that the stock exchange has such high barriers for entry if you want to trade profitably, and the fact that it can stocks can only be traded when the markets are open mean that the younger generations are more gravitated towards cryptocurrencies when they look for investments.
I think that this trend will greatly benefit bitcoin's potential in the future, because this is the group of people that will have the most disposable income at some stage in the near future. The support of younger generations imo is always crucial to innovation, especially when it may be difficult to grasp and/or very complex.
However, it's just as important to note that cryptos and equities are just two completely different things.
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I see something heavy and maybe difficult, when the price of bitcoin will touch $ 4000, then drop dramatically down. In your opinion, what is happening with the current condition of bitcoin. Is it because of the market that hasn't really recovered? or is there bad news?
There is certainly resistance there. I think that the primary factor is that we are still currently in a bear market, and that bearish sentiment of traders is hindering a full on recovery still. However, I do believe that this phase of the cycle will soon come to an end, potentially in the second half of the year. This resistance has nothing to do with the fundamentals of bitcoin but everything to do with the reluctance of traders and investors to take risks when things are looking bearish and there isn't much activity within the market. Perhaps it's also got something to do with the mining dynamics as franky mentioned, but to me, the psychology of investors is mostly at play here. I'd definitely accumulate BTC right now if possible. That's the bottom line. |
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https://www.coindesk.com/blockfi-now-offers-a-crypto-deposit-account-with-compound-interestDoes this fill people with excitement or fear? The involvement of Gemini is certainly a large endorsement but I REALLY don't fancy the idea of sending a large amount of coins to someone who may shout 'compliance' when it's time to withdraw them. I can imagine lending out to large traders could pay, that's what the DCG are already doing. I'd prefer it if they stuck to their own money doing it. I certainly wouldn't participate in this. Firstly, you know that they will be running a fractional reserve, which means that even though they may be trusted now, there is every possibility that they become insolvent or have a bank run scenario in the future. And you don't know what reserve percentage they keep. Secondly, as you say, when you send coins to a third party investment like this you're always risking the fact that your account may be suspended/frozen, or withdrawals bouncing because they may use the excuse of KYC or AML without having to provide any more details than that. I certainly wouldn't just let of control of my funds like that. Plus, they're not even the first ones to offer such a thing, in the past several Chinese companies and Magnr all had similar ideas that didn't take off because low interest rates and high risk. |
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I would argue that even if the news was real, it wouldn't affect anything.
The fact is that state-issued cryptocurrencies are centralised, and that totally goes against what decentralised cryptocurrencies are going to go for in the first place in terms of controlling the currency supply without an entity that may make unwise decisions, and processing payments without a central entity that may manipulate them.
Also, think about what Petro, which is claimed to be "backed" by oil issued by the Venezuelan government has achieved thus far. Apart from potentially ripping off investors (unconfirmed, don't quote me on that), there is no evidence of any activity. Furthermore, think about who supports the peg between the underlying asset and the crypto here - the government. If they fail to deliver on their promises, there is no value. That's why I think no one should have gotten excited over this Iranian government crypto in the first place.
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Certainly, especially in the early stages of bitcoin adoption when exchange failures and government regulation always took a massive toll on BTC. Given the fact that there is relatively less regulatory framework at the moment, and definitely in the past of bitcoin third party services compared to traditional institutions, it's no surprise that when a hack occurs or an exit scam occurs that markets often panic and leads to a sudden response in the markets. Similarly with government restrictions and regulations due to their constantly changing nature, when China essentially drove out exchanges, etc. it resulted in short term FUD as well. But I do think these black swan events are becoming less prominent and have a lesser effect now that regulation has somewhat stabilised and matured, and the markets have matured to the stage that it doesn't react as easily to these exchange hacks, and otherwise, news that induce fear and uncertainty. And this will be the trend in the future as well, which is a part of the reason why I believe price stability will greatly increase as time goes by. |
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Is it really a question of whether you are with a particular camp of people? You might not even reflect their entire attitude towards bitcoin.
Also, is there any sort of specific time period that we are talking about here? Because you could be expecting a bear market to hit any time when bitcoin prices are overheated (like in the 2017 bull market) and yet still be a long term bitcoin bull. These two things are not mutually exclusive by any means.
I'd consider myself to be extremely bullish in the long term for bitcoin's potential, but I certainly am not a permabull which constantly spews out predictions that are never going to materialise, especially when a price correction is imminently happening.
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Stay away from this site and always double check all links you click. The best way is to bookmark all the important links.
It's not just something that is done with blockchain.info either. There has been plenty of phishing sites that have been hosted on google ads, including exchanges and other wallets. I'd always steer clear of clicking on any google ads from the results as well as from website advertisements. Usually, the top natural search results are the legit sites (but even that is not 100% foolproof), which means that you should always cross examine the URL with the official one to avoid being phished. These scams can come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from google ads to emails, but at the end of the day, they can be avoided. As you suggest, having a bookmark folder for common used sites or memorising the site URL instead of searching it up on google all the time greatly reduces the risk of falling into one of them. |
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I would certainly diversify into gold as sort of a long term hedge, or when a short term bull market may be emerging.
And right now, I think that a bull market may be coming given the fact that its bear phase of the cycle has been on for so long as precious metals prices seem to be stabilising and bottoming. I'd definitely be diversifying my portfolio into some low premium physical precious metals for the long run, or paper metals (for short term trading).
Though I completely disagree with a lot of the gold bugs and their attitude and ignorance towards what is a fair judgment. The narrative has always been that gold will always go up no matter what, with no regard to market cycles or short term price movements, leading to a lot of people that believe them blindly losing out. I'm not saying that this article is wrong in this way, but I do think that in the long run, we may see bitcoin and other decentralised cryptos being more and more accepted as a means of storing value compared to gold - which means that you shouldn't always blindly invest.
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I was thinking yesterday (having recently got my new contact less card) how good the system was and how we don't need bitcoin (for money transfers) with this great system and I have since come to realise how awful they are.
I watched a video of a hacker being able to get ahold of people's long number, name and expiry date using the contact less part of the cards which is enough to spend money from them. Since banks say "if an unexpected payment gets made you won't lose any money" it makes me wonder what is going to happen if someone manages to dot enough card readers around and steal large sums of money from people then the banks wouldn't be able to cope.
The 50 richest people together have just slightly less than all the money that exists. There are some foolish wealthy people out there too that might get scammed from this.
Security is always an issue when you have wireless forms of transmission. All these anti-fraud guarantees are only as good as promises, and it will sometimes be difficult to prove to a central entity that your card was hacked into and you shouldn't be held liable - and that's why you should always take security seriously despite what banks tell you. Though, I don't think that bitcoin is in direct competition with contactless payments. Bitcoin in the future could be integrated with some form of contactless payment infrastructure which would make things a lot easier. But certainly, credit card fraud is very widespread, and as a seller, you certainly don't want to be on the receiving end of that which means that sometimes, irreversible payment methods like bitcoin work out to be much better. |
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If an exchange is faking their volume data, they shouldn't be trusted. It's simple as that.
It's good that you picked up on that because they might not actually be doing anything to the customers at the moment, but the fact that they are willing to fraudulently produce figures for their own good would suggest to me that they are not to be trusted. Unless Hotbit can come out and rebut your arguments, of course.
But for now, i'd definitely avoid them. Wouldn't come as a surprise if the volumes of other markets on their site are fabricated as well. What was the deal with the user getting his account suspended here, btw?
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The cryptospace appears to be beginning to spread bear market irrationality. According to this clickbait news, an up and coming analyst that hides behind its twitter account name Financial Survivalism, bitcoin could drop to $800 if it fails to surmount a declining trendline at $4600.
I reckon the people who controls that Twitter account should talk to the now rational Tom Lee for advice hehehe.
Also, this news might be a scam effort to gain more followers for that account which might also be controlled by newbtc.com. I might also be irrational in this, however hehehe.
In any case, who owns newsbtc? I would say it's a typical analysis posted by a so called "expert" in bitcoin price speculation, in a bear market. Who the person that is posting this is honestly irrelevant, but technical analysis can be manipulated in different ways to produce different predictions to support a person's narrative, and can even create the illusion of authority in predictions. And I think that this is what is happening in a lot of these media outlets covering bitcoin price movements. I simply don't see bitcoin going down to three digits any time soon, the fundamentals of bitcoin has only changed for the better since the ATH in 2017, and there is no reason to panic so hard now just because the sentiment of the market is bearish. The demand (especially institutional) for bitcoin will likewise pick up drastically when prices do fall through $2-3k, which would suggest a sizeable rebound before prices ever get to that low. |
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Please do not get scammed. All the sellers here offering escrow for gift cards DO NOT offer escrow.
They tell you to buy using SELLY or SATOSHIBOX but the funds go directly to the seller.
WHY ARE MODS NOT BANNING THESE SELLERS?! If you give me the authority I'll ban every last one of them.
For some reason I can't even reply to most of their threads to warm people!
WATCH OUT!
This has been the exact message that we've been trying to spread here for years. The fact is that is something is listed on an autobuy site it is pretty much as good as a scam - because of the fact that autobuy sites may seem like escrow sites, but in reality, they are nothing more than an interface for the buyers and sellers. You cannot dispute transactions like you could on actual ecommerce, or escrow sites. Locked/self moderated threads should be a huge giveaway as well, along with the pricing of these gift cards. Think about it logically - who in the right minds would offer up such heavily discounted gift cards without either attempting to scam you, or providing fraudulently carded GCs? |
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Honestly, it's pretty futile if you've invested much more time and resources into tracing this down and only getting 30~ BTC in return.
Hopefully this does lead to something that is far greater than just the current amount, because it seems like if they are able to even recover a tiny amount now it suggests that there is a remote possibility that the criminals will get tracked down eventually because you've got an entry point for law enforcement now. Though, I'm still not fully bought into that idea yet.
Are there more details to this case, or is this just it? It would be interesting to see if anyone was arrested during the recovery of these funds, and whether that means more leads in the future.
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