China could succeed in helping less competitive Bitcoin mining regions get further back into the marketplace, removing the dominant influence of China based pools and mines. And it would be a win against the "anthropogenic climate change" hand waving too (China's electricity being in no small part produced in coal powered stations).

But the stated aim (eliminating capital flight from the Chinese economy) won't work without crippling the Chinese state into something as authoritarian as North Korea. The Chinese people, and in particular it's traveling, educated middle-class, are unlikely to be happy with the changes needed to eliminate capital flight effectively (further restrictions to travel and access to information would definitely be 2 important aspects of a successful elimination of capital flight). And even then, smart and/or educated Chinese people will skirt the ban, and Bitcoin will continue to be one of the successful methods.

Maybe the PRC could limit capital flight to only the most powerful and/or corrupt individuals, but that's a recipe for disaster also, really. Authoritarians in powerful states often die strangling themselves and those closest to them before they succeed in killing the whole country and it's people.

This could turn into a cat & mouse situation, and so there could be regular PoW hash algo changes to combat the latest calls of "hey, we're upgrading Bitcoin for you with a super special network hard fork! So, we'll write the new super special software, and everything will be fine, just like before.... but better!!!"

It doesn't really matter though, any fork will demonstrate the true intentions behind it once it's been enacted, sooner or later. Understanding the programming or the cryptography won't be necessary, the effect to end-users on their abilities to use (and their money's subsequent unit market value) will make it obvious whether the fork was intended to provide value to the users or those who chose to do the fork.

Ok, but what you're forgetting is that business is micro-managed by the Chinese government also. Businesses of a certain size or significance have a government representative in the management. So this whole charade looks just a little transparent, there's no way the big Chinese exchanges aren't in essence government led already, and so this big story where everyone's suddenly really surprised that cryptocurrency exchanges need special operating licenses (which possibly don't even exist in Chinese law yet) is in fact a hilariously bad lie.

While it's not likely to happen with Catalonia (there is indeed too much at stake for the Catalonians to be so bold), you're probably wrong with your 50 year prediction. It will only take some smaller regime/economy to be threatened by some bullying external actor for the sufficient desperation to manifest itself. And then the illiquidity you're bemoaning will be very much less an issue. Less than 10 years would be my prediction, but lots more bottom-up adoption will likely happen before any significant top-down moves, of course.

I don't think it's gonna happen like that (although I don't think the decision on this is final yet)


Segwit is a soft fork, and so it really does make more sense to make it opt-in, not a default. Sure, it should be clearly labelled and simple to opt into, but making it the default straight away obscures the choice from the user. I mean sure, there aren't many good reasons to continue to use P2PKH or P2SH (i.e. legacy type) transactions now, but there are just a few (including "unreasonable" reasons, such as continuing to do business with any users that might refuse to use Segwit addresses or compatible clients).

I can imagine it becoming default in later versions, but not yet. The users should really lead the move to make Segwit transactions the general standard, the developers can then respond to that appropriately.

Yeah.

The thing about moving averages is....

....wait for it....
 

.......they move. Wait just one more day, and the 2877 figure becomes a different number (although I bet 2877 is gonna be the only number on every price shills lips for the next few days)


And what's more.... they're arbitrary. There's no reason at all to use a 50 day MA than there is to use a 30 day MA, there's nothing technical or scientific about either figure (except that shorter averages are arguably more appropriate for something as volatile as Bitcoin, but meh it's still not very meaningful).


There's one reason, and one alone, why anyone is making a big deal out of this: those saying this are trying to create a "magic number" psychology amongst novice investors. As if there's somehow some massive statistical consequence of crossing the magic line.

The magic only works because: the foolish believe it.

Armory 0.96.2 has been out a few weeks, Segwit addresses is enabled in 0.96.2 (Armory has a track record of adding the more advanced wallet capabilities earlier than other wallet software does)

A significant part of it is changes to RPC commands, which many people don't use (or aren't aware they use).

I guess a noticeable feature for the casual user is the improved startup speed for the GUI client. And also improved database IO performance (blockchain writes faster, UTXO set writes faster, + new experimental mode to improve verification speed). Sync'ing with the network is now much quicker as a result.

It really makes little sense, except from the cui bono (i.e. most cynical) perspective: did some officials from the Chinese government just collude on a huge insider trading manipulation  event? If so, it's tempting to point the finger at BTCC also, as their statement (as well as tweets made by Charlie Lee) played a major rhetorical role in the price movement. The timing of their initial statement, followed by the timing of statements revealing the voluntary nature of BTCC's decision look especially suspect.

What's more, the relevant institutional bodies in China know perfectly well that cryptocurrency exists and is a policy headache. Sudden decisions, publicised in such a way that the market suffers maximum volatility seems pretty questionable also. Nothing's changed since the last time Chinese officials got out their ban hammer, the only recent significant event in cryptocurrency just so happens to be a massive cryptocurrency price spike just occurred. But that's a total coincidence, of course.


It seems like alot of people have already learned this lesson from the previous PRC policy "changes", BTC trading volumes still haven't been especially high, despite the price movement (and the thinner the trading volume, the more speculative any price movement tends to be).

pffff, and so what's the outcome of this aggressive bar drunk's "show of strength"?


Pointing finger at Bitcoin, swaying around wildly: "I'll let ya off this t-t-time *hiccup*, but I'm gonna be watchin' you! That's right, I'm gon watsch you real close!!!"

Oh please, somebody stop this terrible maniac from wielding their almighty power

Sometimes decentralised systems are appropriate. Sometimes they aren't. Because sometimes they work. And sometimes they don't.


It's just too much of a risk to go through the Gavin Andresen situation again, it's just a waste of time that can be avoided.


Also, none of this reasoning is convincing. If soft fork BIPs just needed an alert sent on the client to get activated, it would have been very easy to get BIP142 over the signalling threshold (and this leaves the mystery of why every other soft fork was never activated that way).

Well, the yuan Bitcoin price will increase, not decrease, in the wake of any confirmed exchange shuttering in mainland China.


A significant factor in Bitcoin's popularity in China has always been to enable capital flight (there are many methods to achieve capital flight from the Chinese economy, but Bitcoin is both attractive and popular amongst those methods). That real demand use will continue to exist after any exchanges are shut, and will simply add a price premium to BTC exchange denominated in yuan.

This move (if followed through with) could imply that the Chinese capital flight issue is causing the Chinese economy problems so serious that they cannot be ignored. That's a hell of a way to make the capital flight worse, and this is ostensibly happening in the economic/manufacturing powerhouse of the world.


Further, China have a geo-strategic headache brewing with North Korea. The Chinese have supported the North Korean regimes of the past, the likely reason being that North Korea can be used as a convenient distraction to US interests in South East Asia if the regime is given the right support at the right time. The Trump administration have threatened something pretty high stakes in terms of action against China if it's government continues to support North Korea in spite of the new economic sanctions against North Korea: the removal of China from SWIFT.

This would cause untold problems for both China and the US. It seems everyone involved is happy with the compromise, if we take them at their word. If the Chinese economy really is in trouble, as this move against cryptocurrency exchange implies, then there could be serious world-recession calibre fireworks in the pipeline.

It's totally and thoroughly hilarious.


Miners lobbyist: "Uh, how about 2MB?"

Bitcoiners: "Oh not this again..."

Miners lobbyist: "We'll call you altcoiners if you don't join!! ALTCOINER!!!"


Any, y'know, technical arguments at all guys? Because this is the Technical sub, semantic arguments are off-topic

Yeah, ok.

It's reminiscent of these aggressive bar-drunks who stand around talking about how they're going to fight everyone in the place


Do it

Do something


Because if you keep talking and do nothing, no-one's going to take you seriously.

And if China does ban cryptocurrency, no problem. Chinese interests will simply lose their influence on cryptocurrency, and the (significant) Chinese cryptocurrency business will simply resume trading elsewhere (the yuan will probably still trade against BTC, for instance, in Hong Kong and Singapore should the Chinese government ever enact a cease and desist order against Chinese cryptocurrency exchanges)


So, stop talking and actually do something PRC, your credibility is diminishing by the second

People who have only just become interested will always bite on this one, but here's the rub: the author of this article forgot to include the words "long term" in his definition of this characteristic (and clearly knows less about financial market then they purport to).


Central bank issued currencies also fluctuate in market value a great deal, comparing Bitcoin to the USD conveniently ignores the fact that Bitcoin has performed a great deal better as a store of value than a huge number of national currencies throughout it's existence, which is why Bitcoin found popularity all over the world with the citizens of those countries whose currencies have slid or collapsed.

Daily volatility in many currencies would have significant effects on businesses trading in those economies, but anti-capitalist laws prevent the true effects of exchange rate fluctuations from being felt in actual consumer market places. If government-backed (read: violence backed) currencies were such powerfully, trustworthy mediums of exchange, there would be no need for authoritarian intervention in their street value.

The reason fiat currencies are so fragile is that real capitalists understand the truth about fiat currency: it's only value is in self-preservation, for government and neo-serfs alike. Government needs fiat to keep their Central Bank racketeers happy, and the proles need fiat to protect them from government theft and violence. Until Satoshi came along, and mixed bittorrent with real capitalism, lol


Real capitalists.



And that number just continues to increase. It won't take a huge percentage of the world's population to convert to regular Bitcoin holding and use before it really puts a dent in the viability of this joke clown marionette of capitalism that the government/corporate cartel desperately tries to sell to us through CNBC and the like on a daily basis.

And real people will act in their real self-interest, there is nothing that can be done to stop this. Capitalism is more powerful than planned economies for precisely this reason. So this system will eventually fail, and here's how it's going to crash: governments and central banks, in their arrogance, will assume, as usual, that their interference is what will solve the ever worsening state of their planned economies. And the more they interfere, the more the spiral of the vortex will tighten around them. They will finally realise that it was because of how little they interfered in peoples economic lives that prosperity existed, and not in spite of it.

This is such a basic (yet surprisingly the most original) observation.

C'mon Chinese government, you've threatened to "do something about cryptocurrency" almost as many times as the Russian government has, all these public pronouncements that end in nothing just come across as one big, long bluff.


The simple fact is, there is no decision that any government can take that will act in that government's interests. If they're totally merciless, they're screwed anyway. If they let it be, they're screwed anyway.

So, pretty soon the modern serf-izens are going to figure this out: the more the government talks, the more it demonstrates how helpless they are to stop cryptocurrencies, it's going to be about as effective as their bans on other victimless crimes. Once that happens, governments will quickly lose control altogether.

So let them bluff, or follow through. It makes no difference in the long-term, Bitcoin wins whichever they do. Satoshi and the cypherpunks were too smart for these jumped-up government crooks.

Yeah, the "verifying that all developers agree on the result" part can take some time, but usually no longer than 48 hours after the source is finalised. This depends on real people providing their gitian builds to the repo though, and possibly the minimum hasn't been satisfied yet (they have non-internet lives to lead after all, and there's no harm in taking the time genuinely needed to do these releases). Check the Bitcoin github repo to see the state of progress. I still think this is release notes related, though.

FTFY so-called financial journalist




Look, it's really simple Forbes Magazine, either capital runs the system or violence does. We all know you guys are in favour of the violent gangsterism version of reality, quit your idiot analogies and get real. No-one wants to hear your sycophantic bleating in favour of the cryptocurrency world now, you've been talking 99% nonsense about cryptocurrency ever since you began covering it.

If the finance world is to take you seriously, start here: an unmitigated apology to the cryptocurrency industry, and to capitalism, period. Until then, do be quiet.

Well, the actual Chinese government are unlikely to be happy with removing their options when it come to cryptocurrencies, bearing in mind the US Treasury Secretary's recent threats to cut China out of the SWIFT system if China breaks the new economic sanctions against North Korea (although Mnuchin's comments are also to be treated less seriously than they appear, the US really needs continued Chinese growth for a whole panoply of reasons to help sustain present US economic... well, let's call it "activity", growth seems a strange word to use at this point in time. Sure, the number of dollars in the real world money supply is growing ).

So it's kind of difficult for all state actors concerned here, they're making all kinds of belligerent and bellicose threats, none of which would be less than disastrous to actually follow through with. Strange, it's as if all state governments are gradually changing into a slightly different variation of the North Korean regime: full of talk, and little substantive action.

They're becoming hilariously impotent, it's pretty funny to see them thrashing around as their power base slowly dies while Bitcoin continues to rise. Be nice, boys and government  girls, you'll meet some Bitcoiners on your way down, and you want to land gracefully somewhere, don't you?

I think there might still be a few issues open on the 0.15.0 milestone related to the release notes. achow101 will be able to give us a definitive answer, if he's not too busy.