I just saw the same scam being used against another user yesterday: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030497.msg45815581#msg45815581

Seems like that they somewhat copied the design of CEX.io, and modified a few parts of it (check out the actual cex.io site if you'd like).

Anyways, thanks for exposing how the scammers operate as it pretty much verifies my suspicions in the beginning. Some scammers will tell you to send the funds to them before you even request a withdrawal, which obviously is no different in the end result.

The rule is simple - if you see any exchanges which you don't recognise, research and be careful. Most likely, they're sites used by scammers as a bait. Also, if you're approached by anyone on telegram for favours, they likely don't have good intentions.

I swear I've seen the same design used for a lot of other scam "jackpot" sites.

Anyhow, it's needless to say that the bets on their platform are completely fake. No way are they actually going to generate that much betting volume as a site that no one knows. Even well known gaming sites don't generate this much volume consistently. Their "78 online" on the chat box is also fake, most probably.

Obviously if you're asked to download stuff for something that you don't know, don't do it. There is too much risk of infecting your computer with a virus. Given that the site itself is not legit, do not deposit anything on their site.

I wouldn't say that bitcoin has been "quietly bullish".

Markets are still overall pretty bearish with the dominant sentiment being exactly that. Bullish prospects including the prospect of a trend reversal at the moment is still extremely unlikely.

I believe prices are either going to stabilize at this level for a few more months, or more likely, have a dip down to the $5k zone as it finally bottoms before the recovery comes. ETF isn't likely to get approved at all, and even if it does, it would only provide a short term rally to the market in my opinion.

There is nothing that can be done, really.

Firstly, why would you want a perfectly stable bitcoin? If you want something like that, wouldn't you just literally hold fiat instead? If bitcoin was stable, it would essentially lose all of its benefits as a store of value, as fiat is constantly depreciating.

In the long run, bitcoin prices are actually constantly going upwards. If you ignore the short term peaks and troughs, the long term prices measured against inflation adjusted dollars are actually pretty consistent.

Obviously we will see short term periods of volatility with bitcoin, but since BTC is decentralised, central banks can't just manipulate the supply or demand for the coin in order to achieve stability. I think in the long run, as more practical use of bitcoin outweigh the speculative components, prices will naturally be more stable in the short run.

What I see is that in China, in most cities at least, mobile phone adoption is so high anyways that going cashless doesn't necessarily affect many people since everyone already has the technology to do it anyways.

There are concerns, for example, people who live in absolute remote areas with no internet connection could be left behind on this. Also, potentially people who don't have valid identification cards may also be affected.

China's probably going to continue going cashless at this stage, it's interesting that their approach is to have two competing cashless wallets though. Also, there is no paper money shortage as far as I know of. All there is is that people are increasingly less willing to deal with the hassle of change and pieces of paper.

I like their site design a lot. Definitely still pretty far off from shapeshift, though.

With so many trading pairs, if they are legit, they could definitely be a potential replacement or alternative to shapeshift.io.

My primary concern with them though is the same as what happened to shapeshift, which was having to add an account system due to regulatory pressures with everyone needing to conduct KYC in order to trade. This could happen to faa.st in the future as well. Also, we don't know if this site is actually a regulated entity, so you never know. If issues come up, you don't really have a lot of options.

This is already known.

Regulation is going to be inevitable in this space, and we're already seeing most countries having KYC/AML requirements one way or another. I really don't think that after all the regulations and restrictions placed on bitcoin, we can still call this the "wild west" bitcoin.

What needs to be noted is that regulation is not placed on bitcoin itself, but the exchanges and businesses who revolve around the operation of bitcoin related businesses. Their regulation in my opinion could be a positive for bitcoin, if done correctly.

I think that there are definitely some governments who have been pretty hostile towards bitcoin. But there are also some that are looking to regulate bitcoin services instead of banishing them from their nation, which should be acknowledged.

Anyways, I think that there are two main reasons why some governments decide to be hostile with their policy towards bitcoin.

Firstly, as you mentioned, some may think that bitcoin takes away control from them over the economy (which bitcoin really isn't able to do at this scale). But I think more importantly, some think that it's a threat to capital flight, and in countries with strict capital controls such as Iran, it's a huge worry for them.

I don't think that crypto is more volatile because of the fact that its traders within the market are more emotional by any means.

It's just that the crypto market is something of a global thing, with no central entity to manipulate the supply of the currency in order to achieve various policies of their's. You briefly mentioned this, but I think this is the most important part. And in a sense, this inherent volatility of bitcoin is actually what makes bitcoin so advantageous as an independent store of value in the long run.

I honestly don't see prices being stable at any given moment in the future, because if it was stable, then it essentially means that bitcoin would be pegged to fiat currencies, which is actually something that no one wants and will not happen. Volatility may reduce in the long run due to increased adoption, but it will never be completely stabilised due to the speculative forces as well as the inherent inflationary nature of fiat, which it is being traded against.

Sure seems like prices have settled at this level without much vertical movement at all over the past few days.

I wouldn't get too excited and say that prices are set to climb due to it stabilising at this level, though. We're still not out of the bear market and probably will continue to see the sentiment within the market be bearish for the rest of the year.

We will most likely see some sideways movements at this level. Potentially, we could see a short term rally but that wouldn't turn into anything on a major bullish scale. More likely to occur would be a dip below the $6k support at some point this year, or if we're lucky, a long period of mostly non-volatile markets, even though that would be less probable in my opinion.

All you need to access bitcoin is virtually just internet access plus any form of device capable of downloading a compatible bitcoin wallet and has the capability to connect to a network. And with the surge of internet adoption worldwide, even the poorest countries will have wide coverage for these technologies sooner or later.

Besides, countries in economic turmoil such as Zimbabwe, Venezuela and Turkey will be the first to appreciate truly why bitcoin is so beneficial.

When your country's fiat is collapsing citizens in that country will seek alternatives to move their wealth out of that particular depreciating currency, and bitcoin is one of the most logical choices to make in that regard. Thus, I think that sometimes the contrary of what you say is true. Bitcoin adoption may be most prominent where the management of fiat is the poorest, out of necessity.

Now when I enter their URL, it redirects me to https://hollycrypto.info/.

Seems like the scammer is constantly changing their web address but their site still contains the exact same content in order to scam people. Did you get scammed yourself? How was the scam conducted from their part?

I feel like you may have been victim to a fake withdrawal scam, where someone approaches you saying that they need help with withdrawals, asking you to send them actual bitcoins while handing over their balance on one of those phishing sites. Obviously, you'll never be able to withdraw that balance from the site. Let me know if that was how they scammed you.

But either way, if any exchange asks you to pay for a membership and/or has gambling functions on their site, most likely they're scams. Regulated exchanges that are legit never do that.

We really don't have a lot of clues from this article as to how this crypto is being managed. Whether it is going to be some sort of centralised token, or it is decentralised. Is the value going to be free floating or pegged to the dollar?

I honestly don't see the reason why the IMF is so worried, though. Sure, the token might mean that the share of US dollars within the island may drop as a result of its introduction and daily use, but other than that, I don't really understand how it would affect the financial integrity or the country's economy negatively in any way?

I'm not a big fan of a country running an ICO structured sale of their token, though. Perhaps a distribution based on a pegged USD value without the "investment" element, whether pre-sale bonuses or whatnot, would make more sense.

Avoid unlicensed, unknown exchanges like these.

There is simply no reason to use them given that there are a variety of other exchanges that are way more trustworthy than this particular site that you can register with, that are also well known/regulated.

This site is pretty shady, in my books. The reviews essentially tell me the same story, as all I have seen have been accusations from people who got scammed. If you already sent the BTC first to them there is probably not that big of a chance you're going to get it back considering that their site seems to be exclusively set up for the sole purpose of luring victims for a simple scam.

Don't ever use exchanges that you haven't heard of before, without doing due diligence. Stick to exchanges that you know are trustworthy and have previous experience with (e.g. Binance, Shapeshift (though not that convenient anymore with the accounts), or even localbitcoins).

These figures are definitely elevated due to the target audience of this YouGov survey being US citizens with a computer and technical knowledge to actually be able to answer these questions. Slow death mentioned that if the survey was to be conducted in his country, the figure may be as low as 5%. And I definitely think that's possible.

I'm sure that around the world this figure is much less, especially in less developed, second or third world nations where bitcoin may not have entered the public consciousness yet. Also, some countries may have high awareness, but negative awareness due to public misconception of bitcoin and crypto as a whole.

I think that it's still a positive to see such high numbers, all in all. It's just that this number is likely not as high, but still climbing in other parts of the world. Also, I'd say that adoption, and global support of bitcoin that will be the most important and should be measured. People being aware of bitcoin, but not adopting bitcoin doesn't really say much.

If the email that he's associated with as listed in the OP is actually his, then there are definitely obvious connections of this scammer's account with other accounts, such as Coinweez in particular. These services shouldn't be trusted.

But this guy is probably a professional scammer by the looks of it, since he's not showing any remorse but rather have even threatened you, which is obviously unacceptable. But there is honestly nothing you can do to get the funds back from him since you did insensibly send first without any escrow, and he probably does this for a living. Always remember that escrow is promoted on this forum for a reason, and you should use it in deals especially involving such contracts.

Also surprised that he hasn't be tagged, yet. Hopefully a DT member can tag him soon so that people don't get scammed further.

Doesn't really matter if you fix it now, even. All you've done at this point is pretty much remove the photos in an attempt to deceive people further.

You've shown the fact that you're willing to deceive your investors by performing something that is immoral and potentially illegal with stealing other people's identities to make up your team, in order to attract more investments and make yourselves seem legit. There is simply no excuse for that.

Also, as marlboroza pointed out - you claim to be able to provide up to 200% ROI per year which is ponzi-like. If you do not deliver on these promises, then it also constitutes misleading/false advertising. Either way, anyone with common sense would understand that what this project is is not anything legitimate.

I still think that we've got some more space to go potentially before we finally hit rock bottom in this bear market.

And even if we already have established the bottom at $6k, it's very likely that we're going to see further consolidation at this level for at least several more months until the end of the year, before a recovery actually starts happening.

For one, market sentiment is bearish still, and even though institutional investment is coming in, people generally do not react that positively to bullish news in a bear market as they would in a bull market. For two, previous bear markets have lasted around 1-2 years before recovery, which is a figure we have not come close yet, so I doubt that we could consider BTC bullish atm. But a bull market will come eventually, and accumulation will prove to be extremely profitable in the long run if you do so at this price level.

All I think is really needed here is common sense.

Is anyone really going to give you 20% per day ROI on your investment? Especially if it's someone that you don't even know the identity of, how are they able to generate more returns than actual wall street firms can only hope to generate in an entire year?

The reviews on the site are a dead give away as well, because they are just so fake and obviously are shills working with the scammer. Hopefully you learned a lesson out of this. Don't even try your luck with them. With such high rates of returns, these sites can be classified into two main categories : Outright scams, and ponzi schemes. Neither is legitimate.

Fortunately, I didn't really get affected by the event, but couple of my friends did (which seems to be common judging by the replies here). And I can recall pretty much that the news about the crisis was all that certain TV news stations played at the time.

Satoshi could have definitely released bitcoin as a response to this, but we honestly will never know. I personally think that he would have still developed and released bitcoin regardless of whether the GFC came or not.

But it's a warning for sure. The fiat economy is fragile in so many different ways, whether in the debt fueled property bubble, hyperinflation, or a range of other things. Holding bitcoin could prove to be a pretty useful hedge against these collapses/events in the future, imo.