I think he's referring to the user end of things. What difference will you as user notice when PayPal for example uses blockchain technology internally? It's a benefit for PayPal itself, but the user will not benefit from it.

Regardless of how I think that databases are just as efficient, the hype around the blockchain makes businesses aware of how they can cut on operational costs, and they want to keep that private.

Only when businesses start to compete with each other by lowering the costs of the services that they offer, users in some industries might finally notice the effect of blockchain adoption. International bank transfers are definitely one of them.

What you are referring to are occasional pumps affecting low market cap coins, and these coins in no shape or form provide guidance on how the market will progress. These pumps happen regardless of the sentiment.

The price of the pumped coins without Bitcoin doing anything will always come back down. Bitcoin makes or breaks the market, and it's clear by now that we have to accept the bear market as it comes.

Instead of complaining people should do everything they can to utilize current accumulation phase and buy Bitcoin once a month by dollar cost averaging your entry points. That's the easiest way to catch the next bull run.

I like how there are more services standing up to conduct business regardless of what the government's stance on crypto is. In certain countries it may not always be without risks, but what else is there to do?

If you let governments continue with what they have been doing for decades, nothing will ever change. We need the mass to stand behind these actions, because what will the government do? Imprison hundreds of thousands of people?

Governments are out to have the mass on their side, which is exactly what makes them so powerful. If we can get the mass to take a different path for once, it will directly benefit everyone caring about more freedom.

I know I'm probably thinking too far ahead, but with crypto we started a what might be an unstoppable revolution. We can at least try to use it in our advantage......

Not drastically? LN can ultimately handle millions of transactions per second as a globally deployed network. It all comes down to how many nodes there are online, and how many funded channels they have open.

That's the benefit of not having to deal with the main chain. The more LN nodes and funded channels, the more throughput the second layer will have. The only obstacle right now is the routing aspect, but I'm sure it'll be sorted out.

Overall, literally anything is better than Bitcoin's current ~7 TPS throughput. The ultimate goal is to have people leave their channels open and buy their coins through an exchange allowing them to withdraw through LN.

It's going to take a couple of years for sure, but it is likely going to happen.

Nope. The only thing I use them for is to know what's playing in the overall crypto world, but only to have articles function as notification. I will then go straight to the source to find out what the deal really is.

Lately I've been reading a lot through Medium, which grants people a more in-depth look into certain subjects, but it can't really be seen as a news outlet. Reddit has been absolutely trash as well with all the shills and trolls.

The trick is to not take everything so seriously. It's a business model (quantity over quality) meant to pay off big time, and average birdies seem to take most of it for granted, so it seems to work pretty effectively.

I'm sure there must have been some kind a cooperation with his brother to go short, especially with how Bobby Lee more than anyone else knows how to take advantage of a whale about to unload a large number of coins.

I would do the exact same thing. Using Bitcoin to Go short on BitMEX with crazy leverage, tank Litecoin on spot exchange(s), count fiat profits + BTC profits. Who can say no to millions in effortless profits?

It's technically insider trading, but what could he realistically do differently? If he was openly going to say that he was about to dump his stash, the market would implode as well, and Lee would have shot himself in the foot.

Not that kind of insider information. I'm sure he has insider information concerning Litecoin development, which probably didn't look bright enough for him to stick with his massive stake in that coin.

Let's be honest here, what is Litecoin's purpose in this industry? Its main purpose is being Bitcoin's testbed, maybe to some extent offer fast and cheap on-chain transactions, but that's all there is to name up.

I'm sure that he allocated a part of his freshly obtained fiat wealth to buy Bitcoin at bottom levels. I like how he's not letting his bias towards his own project work against him. I respect his move to get rid of Litecoin.

Litecoiners can complain all day, but they should accept that Litecoin hasn't much to differentiate itself with in an industry with thousands of similar coins......

Governments do understand Bitcoin, which is exactly why they are so afraid of it. I don't think we should wait for the government to reconsider its stance on Bitcoin, but start doing things on our own.

Bitcoin allows basically anyone to use it without asking for permission, and here we are still waiting for daddy government to approve something we definitely don't need their approval for. We really have that power now.

Another thing is that governments will tokenize their fiat currencies, so what do they need Bitcoin for? Their tokenized fiat has nearly all the benefits of Bitcoin, plus it's completely controlled by them.

I think people after the credit crisis have more than ever found out that banks are playing a nasty game with their money. It wasn't for nothing that people's confidence in banks reached an all time low after that.

The problem here is that while most people know their money is being used for all kinds of risky practices, they also know that there isn't an alternative providing that what banks do.

In most well developed countries governments even guarantee that when a bank implodes, that your money up to a certain amount will be paid out of their own pocket, while in reality it's the money of the tax payers.

People nurse themselves with the thought that the government will act as back-up insurance, while the elite actually uses a wide variety of assets to store the major share of their net worth in.

Define long term trading. If it's like a year at minimum, it's more like an investment rather than a trade. Overall, the farther people distance themselves from trading, the more likely it is for them to profit. Based on that you are right.

The only thing is that it might just as easily work against you. I'm cherry picking now, but if you bought last year during the bull run, which a lot people did in the hope to profit, they for sure regret it right now.

It can easily take a couple of years before these people see the price go up to the point at which they finally break-even. It's the perfect example of how longer term investments don't always result in a positive outcome.

I think that's also why derivative platforms have gained a tremendous amount of popularity. It allows people to profit from any market direction, regardless of the sentiment. Big plus in my opinion.

The market as it is today won't stay as well diversified in the next couple of years. We still have to go through a phase where most of the current projects will not manage to survive.

Another thing is that when the hype around the blockchain slowly starts to fade, everyone suddenly starts to realize how it doesn't actually solve many problems at all, especially not problems databases can't solve.

The world has already seen the real innovation concerning blockchains, which is Bitcoin, Ethereum, and so forth. Most of that what's centralized and backed by corporate entities don't need a blockchain at all.

People might not like what I say, but the truth mostly isn't pretty.

As far as I am aware of, the bug wasn't exploited at all on the main net. The bug later was stated to be more severe than developers initially thought it was, and for that reason it's actually pretty solid that the price didn't move.

The most important thing this bug taught me is that having one implementation account for +95% of the nodes is quite a disadvantage. Sure, not every Core node would crash in the worst case, but still an immense amount.

Too bad it didn't trigger non SegWit nodes to upgrade to newer clients. I really would have hoped it would bump SegWit usage, but with how certain camps intentionally 'block' SegWit it likely never stood a chance anyway.

What exactly has changed for you?

I can already spend Bitcoin in order to legally avoid paying taxes, and I'm definitely not the only one. It's not for nothing that quite some rich coiners have bought properties and whatnot directly with Bitcoin.

The only thing is that when too many people start doing this to avoid taxation, and the government starts to notice that, they might change their mind and even tax Bitcoins that you spend.

Governments don't care about people, they just want to make sure their income doesn't suffer a blow because of how people are trying to use the law against the government in a legal manner. Enjoy while we still can spend without taxation.

That. They took care of the custody aspect, were entirely legal, and granted exposure to both Bitcoin and the altcoin market. It's a solid combination on paper, but not enough to draw attention from institutions.

2019: Institutions are about to enter the market.
2020: JPMorgan plans to create trading desk.
2021: Bullish news for Bitcoin, Vaneck ETF might be approved soon.

I can remember that this nonsense started back in 2015 and maybe even before that. By the time institutions finally announce that they are in, you can be sure they have been in for years already.

If it's free to move around and trade off-exchange like USDT is, how would they be able to limit people if they don't bother to use Coinbase as fiat exit point?

The only proper way to limit usage is to have USDC become transferable only to approved exchanges. I don't think they will do that with how it instantly decreases the potential and usability of this stablecoin.

As far as why they chose to go with Ethereum, it has much faster confirmations, and there is way more programmability to utilize compared to Bitcoin's slow USDT.

I have initiated a LTC > BTC conversion through Coinomi yesterday, and it went through without any problems. It indeed seems that when it's done through a service's API the users don't have anything to worry about.

That being said, this is the situation right now. It may very well be that if Shapeshift ends up getting problems due to this workaround, they might end up limiting even this form of use where Coinomi would be forced to ask for information.

Just think about it, Coinomi doesn't ask for details at all, so there is a high probability that it will become one of the main hotspots in the coming months when it comes to "anonymous" crypto conversions.

Considering that there have been so many complaints regarding the invest box gimmick, it's pretty clear that it has been attracting a wide variety of rookies thinking it was an easy way to generate passive income.

Those who complain only represent a fraction of those who are or have been using it at least once. It's basically first come first served, but we all know that Yobit itself is the very first where the rest picks up the crumbs.

Decent customer support costs money, while fooling rookies brings in money. For a party as scummy as Yobit is they will always prioritize the latter. I don't even feel sorry for these rookies anymore.

Bitcoiners belong in a whole different category of species. Some times it really surprises me how even the 2011 og Bitcoiners talk as if they are on a whole different level, while they are too blinded to see value in other assets.

Overall, people are free to express themselves how they want, but it would be a welcome change if they don't let their maximalist core block themselves in the way that it works against them.

I remember having watched a video of Richard Heart where he admitted that his anti altcoin and ICO sentiment resulted in him missing out on so much profits, that he's no longer the maximalist he once was.

He was pretty emotional as well while admitting that.

The more people expect Bakkt to initiate a bull run, the more convinced I am that it won't. I haven't seen anyone predict a bull run or even a rally correctly in the years that I have been here, and I don't see that change this time.

What makes things even worse is how Bakkt goes live during a bear market, and that's not really the best time to start in crypto. It's a market that thrives on positive sentiment, and that's lacking this year.

Institutions ignored Coinbase's index fund which was physically backed by a basket of crypto currencies. Coinbase shut it down not that long ago, likely because no one even bothered to invest in it.

They aren't up to something as long as they continue to generate profits from noobs not caring about anything. I'm more worried about what happens when they aren't generating profits anymore.

The most likely outcome is that they will either take a run with people's money, or fill up their hot wallets and claim to have been emptied by hackers. In other words, there are only losers here.

Their support is almost nonexistent. Some people have been waiting for months straight without a reply from their support. I'm sure they simply don't care at all and only bother to look through their tickets based on their mood.