Utter balls and bit late now. Still feels odd to see the UK pay some actual legal attention to cryptoland. It's been almost entirely silent up until recent times.

Our Arthur has just stepped down from Bitmex along with a few others.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/80163/bitmex-announces-leadership-changes-arthur-hayes-no-longer-ceo

You believed all the human garbage floating around in this space was somehow magically immune from the law? I think quite a few of them thought the same thing until they were proven rather radically wrong.

Looks like his fugitive cosplaying has turned out to be a bit real after all.

When I got going in Bitcoin in the UK there were no proper exchanges and banks liked to shut you down if they saw the B word. P2P did make up for it to an extent. Several years later it has improved massively.

If I were in a country with weak and expensive infrastructure I'd be focusing more on future potential and ultimately this isn't Bitcoin's problem anyway. In an ideal world the need to rely on exchanges will reduce once you own it.

Pretty simple reason for me. It's now the majority of the value I own. If I want something pricey then BTC has to pay for it. But that's kind of irrelevant as I have no shortage of it.

It's the people who let all of it fly out of their hands that blow my mind and that seems to be extremely common. I remember someone in a well paying sig campaign in 2014/15 saying they spent ALL of it on Steam games and they claimed not to retain any. It got spent as soon as it was earned.

Those games had better liven up your lonely nights for a long arse time to come. I couldn't look at them without feeling anything other than burning resentment.

There isn't much middle ground at the moment. There are drooling zombies like us who 'get it' and will put up with some outrageous inconvenience sometimes. Then there's the rest of the world which is scared or doesn't give a shit or simply sees no reason to bother.

Education is what will pull Bitcoin upwards more than anything. More people need to educate themselves about it and some day the majority will meet in the middle.

The longer you're in this, and you do it right and stay put, the more your net worth in Bitcoin grows. After a while the prospect of another 3-4 years of nothing after another peak starts to become a lot less appetising.

I think Bitcoin is of course amazing. I am also fucking sick of being lassoed to a either a bucking bronco or a comatose turd. I will be giving up 50% of it when the right moment arrives.

There's an amazing future ahead. I've waited long enough to do something to address my own. Anyone walking away completely will either regret it or extracted so much it won't really matter.

If there is a major downturn I guess we'll see how deeply reserved that money actually is as most are saying they're in it for the long haul. Yes, dear. I expect most will shit the bed and dump having lost plenty. And then a few days or weeks later it'll be higher than before.

This is an odd trend.

Aw. Seems a shame to pop someone's bubble. One may as well let them enjoy it for a while.

If it's someone lowly and totally unfamiliar I usually have a quick browse of their other posts just in case they're a loathsome poo in every other post they've ever created. If they are then I'm cockblocking.

It would be pretty funny if their ever growing behemothosity started to make the SEC warier of going deeper into approving crypto-related things. It's quite possible just them and Coinbase could wind up being in control of a crazily high percentage of available coinage.

I absolutely believe the average crypto fan is more willing to risk. They wouldn't own any if they weren't. It's handy to balance risk appetite with some understanding and impulse control but I know that's a tricky balance.

Calvin owns it. I doubt Craig even owns the red socks he's actually famous for. He probably arrived at Calvin's office with an old carrier bag wearing a sheet he found in the river. Everything after that is on loan.

Little surprise there.

One of the enduring mysteries of this arena is the willingness of people to throw their Bitcoin away in a way I'm certain they'd think twice about with dollars. How you can favour retaining the currency that's only going to reduce your spending power and piss away the one that may ensure your future is beyond me.

Fuck 'em.

Of course but they will do their very best to resist and find alternatives to use until the completely necessary moment arrives. That doesn't make for a very vibrant user base. And it also chucks most discretionary purchases out the window. You will simply go without.

While it's an interesting development I do wonder how this is going to pan out. If it becomes some sort of bubble in its own right then it's going to end up proper messy. Company money is just as prone to panic and ballsing up as any individual and they have many obligations and requirements on top too.

I don't think many companies will have the means or the will to sit through many years of bear like an individual can.

I think the next phase will be Calvin employing some actors to make a pretend court case of 'Satoshi vs World' and livestreaming the judge gravely announcing 'It is clear that you are Satoshi, you always have been and you always will be. I thank you from the bottom of our hearts and apologise profusely for your mistreatment on behalf of this planet. I hereby award you... everything. Case dismissulated'.

Other actors will mob Craig as he leaves.

That should draw in enough saps and keep them happy. Clavin will screen it every Christmas.

If Bitcoin ever is to be a currency I think it's going to be the final phase, not near the first. You've got to get through the speculation bit and get well into the store of value and then you might get a currency so they're crazily early.

I applaud the fact that it exists but it's clear there's little to no desire for it. And ultimately I myself can never see the point of a decentralised marketplace for vanilla goods. There's more hassle, more friction and no gain as far as I can tell. A buy is a one time thing I need fulfilling in the most convenient way. There's no philosophy tied to it.

Different for less developed countries so I hope the idea remains alive until its time comes. Could be a wait. Until then someone should be doing dark market stuff which is the true use case for now.

If there wasn't volatility most people wouldn't be here. And for many years to come it's still going to be the prime draw. I'm sure many people have been converted into true believers after that being the reason they arrived but let's not kid ourselves.

Without sleazy speculators it would be nowhere near where it is today and possibly nowhere at all.

It must have been many months since I did anything crypto related on a computer, exchanges etc, other than being on here. But for the proper stuff I have a separate machine. Much more time is spent doing conventional stuff and I'd rather be doing that with my evil machine than some goody two shoes filled with irritating shite.

Our Craig's 100% record remains intact despite attempt after attempt to dethrone it. It might be the wrong direction he originally desired but it's still noteworthy.



https://twitter.com/hodlonaut/status/1311272694554546176

If nothing else many of the alternatives out there look plain ugly and straight out of the 1980s. It's only a handful of tweaks to transform them into something appealing and shiny. If I'm going to spend countless hours staring at something you may as well not assault my eyeballs.