Bitcoin may take a knock if 10% of the coins go missing. But that would actually simply increase the value of everyone else's holdings.

Epic battle of our time sounds good. Bulls versus Bears. Good vs Evil

It is now or never

Actually I am mistaken. It was that one. But I only watched it in december 2012

Yes, the next <insert time period here> is definitely critical.

One route to sell coins is to send them with a blockchain transaction to the exchange over the bitcoin network. But you can wire fiat currency to the exchanges. For example you could wire 10 million dollars to bitfinex if you were stupid enough. You might then loan btc from someone in a swap and sell them on the exchange - you might manipulate the price downwards significantly. You could then close your short contracts for profit. You then take your money out of the exchange. End result the price moved, but no bitcoins moved on the blockchain.

Shorts at ATH for the year and the price is holding at 355. Three day MACD green candles are lining up. Meanwhile the bears are sure the price is going to fall lower, they have been conditioned to expect it. Interesting inflection point.

What got me first into bitcoin was a talk by Rick falvinge from a 2012 bitcoin conference. He talked about the rise of the internet and the end of banking. Superb, funny and to the point.

Thanks for the warning. Could you tell me this weeks lottery numbers again?

Great. Everyone is free to do what they like. But IMO bitcoin as a growing idea and concept billowing out into the wider world is provocative enough right now without creating a poorly named wallet and saying you have no problem with ISIS using it on a bbc interview.

Despite what Marcus says about the 'sheeple' wanting the best form of private money going, the general public take a dim view of supporting terrorism and tend to believe whatever rubbish the MSM feed them as the truth.

Laudable aims, though I would prefer 'privacy wallet' or something a little less deliberately provocative. Whilst I agree with the premise of the project in principle I think they are terrible PR for bitcoin right now.

Why did you buy it, obsess over it, etc?

I don't think the average person really cares that their financial transactions are totally anonymous. The average person does not understand the simple concept of inflation.

Markets choose the best option available to them. Completely anonymous cryptocurrency will be stifled by the existing power structures if it tries to rise up. Bitcoin or a successor is good enough.

The comparison with cash is not particularly useful. Cash is being phased out in the Western world fairly rapidly, with not a whimper from the sheeple either.

Other than being decentralised, frictionless, borderless, non counterfeitable, cryptographically secure and algorithmically scarce?

You could be right. Shorts at ATH now already though.

If crypto goes mainstream it will not be anonymous.

I think we actually are in agreement cbeast.

You are right and wrong. Blockchain analysis could be helpful but someone with lots of coins/fiat on exchange could massively move the price and because it is 'off chain' not leave a blockchain imprint.

If bitcoin days destroyed rockets upwards, if there are documented cases of huge numbers of coins moving to or from an exchange then perhaps something is afoot and you could predict a major market move. But it is not a perfect science.

Having ruminated over side chains for a bit I think they in principle could be a good thing for btc adoption but may change what btc is today irreparably as a concept. If they operate a fixed peg via the 'two way peg' to btc then they are not inflationary. I think any side chain which has any kind of float between btc and SC will struggle to find btc users, thought I can see money being chased by unscrupulous SC developers in this type of enterprise initially, and this could be potentially inflationary or disruptive to btc. Fixed peg approaches will be stuck with the price volatility that btc currently enjoys though years in the future this may not be a problem.

If we take the moneroSC which potentially boasts anonymous coin transfers between individuals on the side chain. Then really it is just a dark pool of locked BTC changing hands as monero tokens off chain. The off and on ramp addresses can still be tracked which may limit the attractiveness if it is not widely used. I can't see this taking off to be honest except in black market use. In time the bitcoin blockchain will be mapped out by governments and tied to identities closely. On and off ramps will be monitored closely by Western governments through regulation.

Say someone (blockstream) starts the sidechain nanoBTC, designed to be ultra low transaction fee, and near instantaneous, suitable for micropayments online and in shops etc. The aim being to support huge volume (de)centralised transactions off chain but denominated in pegged side chain btc. The main stumbling blocks for adoption like any alt would be utility and acceptance as a currency. It would then need to be supported by big players in the industry (bitpay, coinbase, circle, other payment gateways etc) who agree to integrate nanoBTC with a big grand opening at the outset. It could have a branded corporate america friendly logo.

How would that work in practice? At first swapping between standard BTC and nanoBTC is possible via a single click in your centralised wallet, allowing the security conscious to maintain funds in native BTC with a hotwallet in nanoBTC. Perhaps this happens 'under the hood' without the consumer realising during transactions between certain companies. Over time, barring security disasters people gradually stop using btc natively for transactions and instead use nanoBTC as cash everything online. NanoBTC becomes a ubiquitous payment token but is still exhangeable for BTC and the bitcoin network is maintained as before with relatively few TPS, simply acting as a backing store of value, and in time average joe is unaware of btc at all.

BTC is held natively as a commodity by investment houses and investors in ETF's. Perhaps in time the value of BTC is actually maintained by use of nanoBTC globally.  Whoever controls the incentives behind the nanoBTC network gets very rich.

Edit: this could be how the unit change dilemma is solved, allowing regular joe public to not be put off by the psychology of spending hundreds/thousands of $ for a small amount of btc.