Seriously, Marijuana is cheaper when bought with Bitcoin? Or does it not matter what mode of payment you use for as long as you order online? While I have no intention of ever buying illegal substances, I find it mildly interesting that discounts are given for this purpose. I'm going to go ahead assume that the discount only applies when purchasing with Bitcoin because it can be harder to trace if used the correct way, and you forego the need to a third party to facilitate the transactions.

But yeah, Bitcoin critics are going to have a field day with this. Bitcoin's use in crime is pretty rare in news nowadays so I'm sure they're hungry for content they could use for their agenda. It's not Bitcoin's fault, of course, but they will spin it that way just because Bitcoins are involved.

Your link leads to an image. Here is an actual article I was able to google:

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/2120506/hong-kongs-bitcoin-businesses-suffer-after-local-bank

Anyway, this piece of news really highlights the need of people for Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Banks have far too much power, even being capable of freezing a perfectly legitimate customer's account without prior notice. It's ridiculous how banks can deny people of their own money. With crypto, people will be able to retain full control without the need of banking services. If nothing else, that might force them to take the power tripping down a notch.

I know the jury is still out for Mark Karpeles, which is why I won't be so quick to judge that he's had malevolent intentions for the start. It is a fact, however, that he lost a LOT of his customers' money. Even if I were to believe that he wasn't corrupt, the collapse of Mt. Gox just leads me to the conclusion that he isn't competent enough to keep his company afloat. I would bring my business elsewhere.

That being said, Mt. Gox is a failed brand, and would inevitably be linked forever to its infamous collapse. It would be beyond foolish to reuse it. People will stay away even if the original actors weren't involved anymore.

I don't think complete parallels should be drawn between the dot com bubble with the rise of Bitcoin. They do have their similarities, but are not completely the same. Far too much money was put into dot-com companies within a really short period. For comparison using your figures, 13x the amount of money was invested in just half the entire period Bitcoin has existed, and that is without adjusting for inflation. As meteoric Bitcoin's rise had been so far, I find the two barely comparable.

In the end, it really just boils down to belief. I don't believe Bitcoin to be a bubble, but I still acknowledge that there is a risk. I believe in the technology and in the vision, and I want to see where it goes.

It is? Awesome. Time to move coins then. I honestly thought it would take longer for things to stabilize, but I'll take it. This just proves that Bitcoin cannot be taken down so easily. I would like to note that $2 is a rather high fee though. You should be able to get by with some cents on a normal day.

Just to reiterate, the reason why so many transactions were stuck this past week is because the mempool got spammed by presumably the same actors that pumped Bitcoin Cash. Everyone had to pay higher to get priority because of the sheer volume of transactions. That being said, be careful what/who you support.

It's only as smart as you are, just as it is with most other stuff.

It seems like you have a sound plan, and logic dictates if you do exactly that, you will be able to make money. If you have the time to watch for such dips and highs, why not? If you're not convinced it's going to work, then you can try it on a smaller scale first. Say, try it on 0.1 Bitcoin and try day trading for a week. You should be able to somewhat accurately gauge the level of success of your day trading without really breaking the bank. The way you phrased it makes it sound easy, and this way you'll be able to see exactly what kind of challenges you'll face. Good luck!

Not in its current state. It can only handle a fraction of what Visa's can handle, and is hampered by slow confirmation times and/or high fees. It's also vulnerable to spam, as what Bitcoin Cash supporters oh so lovingly demonstrated. It has been a few days, and we're still feeling the after-effects.

What it does best right now is to be a storage of value and an investment. It's barely an alternative payment solution at this point, but I know something will be done to address that in the future. I'm sure the community will be able to find a way to move forward with a united front at some point.

There are a few factors which may have contributed:

- There is news that Segwit2x will push through, even with minimal support. People may be buying for airdrops.
- CME is about to start trading Bitcoin futures, which legitimizes Bitcoin, and can attract more investors.
- BCH attack has failed and the number of unconfirmed transactions are slowly but surely normalizing.

There may be other certain developments around the community that I'm not aware of though, so feel free to add if you feel that I missed something.

Those are fair points! I think you missed one of the biggest selling point of Bitcoin, though, which is its decentralization.

Nobody owns it, nobody controls it. Its future is entirely in the hands of its holders. Transactions can't be stopped, they can't be reversed, with no limitations on value. You can get involved regardless of age, sex, or financial status. Users are free, basically.

There's also the fact that its value just keeps growing, and it doesn't seem like it will ever stop. Its growth is a marvel, and it continues to be. But who cares about that right? /s

Those are what it's for, initially. You're not going to find many people here who actually, genuinely care about those, though. They may mention them in passing when talking about the advantages of Bitcoin, but are actually around for the money. It's pretty hard to blame them, either, because Bitcoin has been synonymous with massive returns for a while now. The only reason it's currently as big and as popular as it is is because of these investors. But hey, if Bitcoin can still achieve these ideals in the end, then it's not so bad, right?

It kind of sucks because I really believe that this incident with Bitcoin Cash was no coincidence. It seems like a plain old pump and dump, and lots of people took it hook, line, and sinker. There's no way to tell for sure who benefited from this, but Roger Ver and friends are high up in my list of suspects. He moved his coins to make it look like he's about to dump for BCH, but it doesn't look like anything of the sort happened.

Still, Bitcoin Cash did grow a little bit from where it started, so there's that, at least. That was their chance to overtake Bitcoin and it was obviously just smoke and mirrors. It sucks for the holders, and it sucks for the community that people can get away with this kind of manipulation.

What the hell is this? What do they think they can achieve with this? Bitcoin has been incredibly bullish, could it have something to do with this? This is getting ridiculous. First, BCH got pumped and dumped, leading to lots of people losing money, and they might do the same with Segwit2x. This is just plain toxic. I guess it's true that where there's money, there is greed.

Barring some monumental development within the community, I would say no.

Its backers, however few of them were, pulled the plug on it because they couldn't get community support. I don't see that factor changing anytime soon, so its old backers are not going to start backing it again anytime soon. There will still be advocates, of course, but there's no point in going through with the fork if no one will use it anyway. If they ever decide to go ahead with the fork anyway despite the issue of lack of support, then it will be because of nothing other than pride, and it won't change a thing.

If you're paranoid enough to cover such scenarios, why would you even consider storing Bitcoins on a compromised system? I seriously doubt any virus can survive a full format unless you're visiting really shady sites, but if you're buying a substantial amount of coins, investing in a clean, new, sealed hard drive should not be too much of an issue. Do not use pirated software and your newly installed system should be completely clean. Additionally, if you're worried about viruses from your home network, you may want to install Linux instead, as they are much more secure against such viruses, especially when other computers on your network are comprised of Windows/Mac machines. Use a paid VPN service to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks, and use Tor if at all possible. I cannot assure that you will be 100% safe even then, but I can tell you that you would be much better off than if you were using a compromised system.

It's plausible. Solar power technology has come a long way, but you might need an excessively large surface area of solar panels and not to mention ample sunlight to be able to satisfy a mining farm's needs.

But yeah, we as a community do need to be looking into alternative solutions when it comes to energy as governments around the world crack down on mining. Electricity abuse and green initiatives are very convenient excuses to push for bans with little resistance. We can't give them an easy way out.

It's supply and demand, in a way. Right now, there's way too much demand (transactions) with little supply (miners with their confirmations). Miners typically choose to include the highest paying transactions, so we have a lot of people bumping up their fees, driving the prices up way higher than normal.


No one can really say. Things are settling down a bit, with the number of unconfirmed transactions going down gradually. I would say maybe a week?

They have been at war for a few decades. Both countries want unification, but it gets hairy once you take into consideration that there are two leaderships, and neither would want to step down or make compromises. The North needs all the funding it can get, which is why they're doing this. You might want to brush up on your world history.

The last thing we need is to be compromised by state-sponsored hackers. Everyone should be taking every security measure they can for their online activities, but they should be doing that anyway even without the North Korea cyberthreat. Every penny stolen would be used to fund North Korea's nuclear arsenal, and I would rather not contribute to that.

I understand they're only on the testing stage so far, but I didn't know they already rolled out the features to some users. I know it's not final yet, but if they truly do go ahead with their support of Bitcoins, it would be monumental for Bitcoin's long-term outlook. It also seems like Square's stock surged after their announcement, so it's obviously mutually beneficial and shows that people actually want this.

It only takes a few risk-takers for several other companies to want to join the fold, not wanting to miss out on being pioneers.

Woah, excellent write-up man! Incredibly detailed.

Bitcoin being insanely inefficient in terms of power consumption isn't a new subject, but I have never seen it compared to other cryptos, and even USD. It's not a good look for us with the numbers being as lopsided as they are. It's still a rather obscure issue, and until it makes it to the foreground, it can never be addressed. People who are against Bitcoin are going to have a field day with your article, but that may be necessary to push innovation.

Any fork that doesn't actually aim to improve the legacy chain with the community's support is not a blessing to Bitcoin. You've seen the uncertainty that the Segwit2x brought, and how Bitcoin enjoyed an all time high after its cancellation. Even more recently, Bitcoin Cash supporters attacked Bitcoin by spamming small transactions, and we're still feeling the effects of it. As far as I can see, the forks have done no good, and even caused harm to Bitcoin and its community. I suppose people getting airdrops and dumping them for more Bitcoin is good though.