Sorta. I think the most important aspect of being a trader is to be rational and flexible, which means that you should adapt to any sentiment change in the market, despite how much you think your trade will work out.

Most people can't adapt to changes like that, and that's a big contributor to the losses they book. I think there are even some professionals who struggle with that depending on how deep they are into a trade and their win/loss ratio.

At the end of the day, we're all humans, so you can't not be emotional all the time.... even a night with little sleep can contribute to that, or problems in your personal life. We are not machines.

Good point. If there weren't any people investing in shady projects, there wouldn't be any of these projects at all because there is nobody to sell to and dump on. It's the basic principle of supply and demand.

Most of the people who are pouring money into these projects are purposely gambling.... they buy a basket with a dozen of these projects hoping that one or two end up exploding in value so that they 10 or 100x their money.

If tens of thousands of people follow the same method of investing, shady projects being truly worthless suddenly manage to earn millions for creating a token out of thin air. It's ridiculous.

Based on what I have seen so far, there are no real fundamentals to back any project aiming to build a decentralized exchange, simply because of the fact that the demand isn't there.

I get it that people like the idea behind decentralized exchanges, but we're not even remotely close to a point where they are convenient and liquid enough to make people leave centralized exchanges.

In order for people to make that switch, decentralized exchanges need to be exponentially better than the centralized options in this space, which they clearly aren't and probably won't be for another 5-10 years.

I like competition within crypto as that leads to better services at lower cost, but I don't see anything unique about this service.... there is nothing that would draw me to your service over the others already available.

Most of the available options have been operational for a good while, so they have had the time to build a reputation for their service, while your service hasn't even launched yet.... it's going to be a tough job to gain any share without innovation.

That's more like a dream to never come true than something we'll see become reality, especially with how it directly triggers governments to go after you as business and shut down your operations.

I stopped using that site in 2017 when the bull run turned their faucet into a dust spewer, which makes me wonder, are you using that site to have some fun or is your intention to actually collect the dust and withdraw eventually?

I can't imagine people these days to use a faucet with how little you get out of it.... I'm sure there are many other (more productive) things/tasks that you can do within this space to get a better reward for the time you put into it.

I don't think that's actually the case, because a lot of people who "invest" in ponzi schemes complain about having lost money when the ponzi implodes.... if they were aware of the risks they would accept their loss and move on.

I honestly don't know what's worse, people investing in a ponzi scheme while they don't know it is a scam, even though it's so obvious, or the people who do know they are investing in a ponzi scheme, but simply don't care.

People who don't care about investing in a ponzi scheme do that because they think they are early enough to get out with a profit.... it basically means that you are okay with other people losing money so that you can make your profit.

I noticed the change. It's welcome seeing that I can finally browse through every address format on blockchain.com instead of switching to other explorers, which is quite annoying because they are mostly slower and don't have a pretty GUI.

It has taken them a long time (probably due to Roger Ver blocking upgrade attempts), but at least they did it, which is what matters at the end of the day, so I forgive them for having taken so long to move along with the progress made in Bitcoin.

The rules you refer to don't really do much.... institutions continue to rig the markets they are active in, just on a level it doesn't appear to be manipulation. It's not about pumps and dumps, but about multi year plans to control markets.

From time to time you read about banks being fined for manipulating this or that market, which the governments aren't too unhappy with because it provides them an opportunity to fine banks hundreds of millions of dollars.

Banks on their turn know that they are going to get fined so they already calculated that into their budget, collateral damage that is called. Making billions in profits but only pay a few hundred million in fines, not a bad deal, right?

I know it's not going to happen, but people should ignore that $1.4k all time high of Ethereum because the demand factor has changed a lot since then.... it's no longer the ICO's being the driver of demand, but actual usage.

Ethereum technically doesn't have to go up a lot because people need to have just enough of it to fund the fees for the applications running on top of it, which is why their plans to go POS will be a make or break type of event.

I'm pretty sure that if people weren't hoarding Ethereum for their POS upgrade, the price would probably hover below the $100 mark today....

I can respect you saying that. I often see how people talk down on the analysis of other traders because they are using different tools, while they completely disregard the fact that people have their own methods of analysis.

I personally am a fan of volume profiles and higher time frame moving averages as I don't really trade anymore nowadays, just follow the longer term trend to plan my entry points or to know that it's better to not buy yet.

The subjective nature of trading makes it a tough nut to crack, which is something I like especially because of how it silences critics thinking to predict the downfall of Bitcoin just because there is a bearish formation about to break.

Before the breakout to +$9k I would say that's not likely, but given the changed sentiment and market dynamics, I can see the price at least attempt to close above the $10k mark, which is quite an important psychological barrier.

As you have seen, for months the price pumps and dumps back to the $10k mark, so if we manage to consistently close above it, we might be heading to even higher levels, but we're not there yet so I rather remain conservative.

Currently we're very close to a significant breakout (it will happen within 24 hours), and that move will decide the direction for the rest of the year and probably the months after that.... fireworks guaranteed!

It was unexpected in the sense that it went up so much, but a bounce was pretty much due as prices don't usually plummet south so much without seeing bulls make an attempt to initiate a reversal.

Back in June when we crashed directly after peaking out at almost $14k, we saw a $3k daily candle which people didn't expect to happen either, and people yet again called manipulation despite the fact that it was brutal profit taking.

There is no such a thing as global USD crisis.... people who are claiming there is a global USD crisis looming are spreading false information. The USD has actually been appreciating against most other fiat currencies.

In case there is a recession, the USD will be the most hoarded asset in the world because that's seen more as a safe haven than even gold, because in times of uncertainty, fixed value units is what pay your bills, not a shiny rock.

Bitcoin will not get to benefit from a crisis either, because it's a speculative asset.... no way anyone outside the crypto space will pump their dollars into Bitcoin when shit hits the fan. Not a single chance.

I don't think the government elite in African countries think it's very difficult to improve the economical situation there, but just that it will cost a lot of money.... money they rather enrich themselves with.

It has been happening for decades now that African countries have been going backwards economically despite the potential that has always been there.... people there need less government to improve, not more.

Most altcoins reached their all time highs in January/February of 2018, mainly because of how a lot of speculative capital that was withdrawn from Bitcoin was pumped into altcoins to book additional profits.

These capital shifts have been happening for years so they aren't really special, which I'm sure will happen again eventually, but not as extreme as we have seen it take place back in 2017/2018 due to the retail fomo that was going on.

Overall, I never liked trading altcoins versus Bitcoin because it subjects you to so many unnecessary variables that it just isn't worth the risk for me, which is why I prefer to focus on altcoins versus fiat.... less risk and less hassle.

From what I have seen on this forum, it's not necessary that people are against manipulation, but they only call manipulation when the market turns against them and thus they are losing money.

If the price goes up, even when people know it's manipulation, it suddenly isn't a problem anymore.... it makes them look like a bunch of hypocrites. It's not really surprising that people are like this, but it's just sad to see.

If that would allow people to earn more coins, they would, but considering that's not the case mostly, they rather take big risks in an attempt to make big profits.... usually these people end up being big losers.

Bitmain's IPO will not be approved as long as they have such a massive exposure to Bcash, which honestly is ridiculous because they basically went nearly all in on that coin, which they lost hundreds of millions with.

I'm looking forward to their next release of coin holdings to see if Bitmain has been hoarding more Bcash, which is likely the case. It wouldn't surprise me if the latest report will expose how Bitmain is sitting on 2 million Bcash now....

I think avoiding KYC is actually a good thing because it shows that people care about their private information, which is something you can't erase from an exchange's server once you give it to them.

Another thing is that we have seen various exchanges outsource KYC verification to third party services most people haven't ever heard of, but when we do hear about them, it's because they got hacked and a lot of data has been stolen.

I can't stress enough how important it is that people should value their private information more. It's not in your best interest that criminals abuse your name or that verification services sell your information to third parties.

It has been trading above and below the 0.02BTC mark for a while now, so that doesn't say much on its own. It seems to be stuck in what seems to be a very long term consolidation phase that doesn't look to end any time soon.

I would rather focus on Ethereum's dollar price as that will keep increasing as Bitcoin is on the edge of exploding, and when that happens, the BTC ratio of Ethereum will yet again take a hit, like most of the other altcoins will.

Ethereum needs to get back above the $200 mark to at least have that long term consolidation phase be somewhat fruitful, because thus far I have only seen lower high after lower high.

A bot can easily adapt to the changed market dynamics, much faster so than a trader can trading manually.... another advantage is the fact that a bot has no emotions and therefore has no such a weakness to deal with.

Why do you think the stock market is being traded almost entirely by bots? That wouldn't be the case if bots sucked and traders trading manually would be better. In crypto that ratio is likely a little lower, but it will get there eventually.

Bots are not perfect by any means, but they get the job done faster and better than humans do.