It's debatable whether or not the pension system is a scam, but I completely agree with the fact that we should be doing the best we can to take care of ourselves instead of relying on external elements.

The older generation has a pretty decent pension budget they will be able to somewhat comfortably maintain themselves with, but that's completely different for the younger generation. We are literally on the wrong side.

If I don't do anything myself to build up enough capital to later on retire with, I'm in a very bad situation, that I know right now. Bitcoin is the only element that I have confidence in to help me achieve my goal.

There is nothing for me to lose in this case. Not doing anything will make me a loser.

How? Speculation alone isn't enough to drive the market up that high. If we even see the SEC approve an ETF this year, it won't be accessible for larger parties this year. It's planned to open up somewhere in Q1 2019.

And then we don't even know how popular that ETF will be. You can imagine that with a higher price due to prior speculation the demand for an ETF will be pretty low because these parties know how markets work.

Similar to what happened last year with the futures, the amount of shorts were insane when the markets went live. If futures were tied to only long positions, they would be ignored like they don't exist.

I like how all these developments spark serious discussion on how Bitcoin shouldn't be a tool that wall street will jump into and maybe even dominate in the far future.

The interesting part is that people want to see the price go up, rather today than tomorrow, but they don't want large institutions to fuel the 'moon rocket', which is actually quite contradicting.

Institutions are the last part of adoption and the only parties being capable of injecting potentially hundreds of billions in this industry, which retailers aren't capable of no matter how hard they try.

Eventually even $100,000 will prove to be a great buy.

Are there physical limits in place when it comes to LocalBitcoins? I have seen people from the US complain about sudden AML/KYC procedures while their use pattern hasn't changed at all.

It seems to be a problem mainly focusing on users from the US considering that I don't see many other users complain about similar issues. It could be a sign that the US is trying to crack down on local economies.

LocalBitcoins was to go-to source for people avoiding exchanges, but has become somewhat of a target for authorities. The only positive side to this is that it will fuel development of decentralized platforms.

I agree with some of the above posters that current market cycle is the main reason for the decline in ecommerce revenue, but it's somewhat related to people's ignorance as well.

The main struggle for people is the idea of missing out, and for that reason refrain from spending their coins. People need to understand that every satoshi you spend can and should be bought back at the same price.

I'm not spending my coins very often, but when I do I make sure that I'm never seeing my balance decrease. Bitcoin should circulate like how fiat is circulating when we are using it as money.

If you don't want to use Bitcoin as money during similar market conditions you basically admit that it's not a good form of money.

It could also be a desperate hype attempt to reverse the market, but since the reaction hasn't been there it's safe to say that the market simply doesn't care. People need to stop hoping for merchant adoption. It's not 2014 anymore.

I will only get excited when merchants start to physically accept Bitcoin and not through a third party, which might take a while considering that the volatility won't be going anywhere in the coming years.

Overall, it's a fairly decent step forward. It's the first step that's important because no first step means no potential second step. As long as the conversion process isn't slowing people's transactions down it's fine.

No one wants to waste time on simple tasks as buying a coffee. If it's slow it's bad money.

Bitcoin's supply may be limited, but people don't realize that there are enough units for everyone to transact with. At some point 1BTC will be so much worth, that even one single satoshi will become a measurable value unit.

Don't forget that 1BTC can be cut into 100 million smaller units. If you do 100 million times 21 million you'll see that Bitcoin's limited supply won't form an obstacle or barrier when it comes to being widely usable money.

Bitcoin is not perfect, but it's capable of doing the job fiat used to do, but always failed afterwards because of how flawed the whole system is. If things play out in our favor, we'll see Bitcoin become what gold is today.

It's clear that Ethereum won't be going anywhere, regardless of what people think about it. I don't like it either, but we can't just blindly discard it and act like it will vanish at some point.

People like Ethereum and will keep backing it just like how Bitcoiners are backing Bitcoin. It does everything its users want it to do, which is giving them direct access to a do-it-all platform.

Ethereum made sure that there likely won't be any token growing out larger, and this directly benefits Bitcoin as well. Ethereum basically killed the entire token market and we should be thankful for that.

That's how we progress due to the overall lazy and ignorant nature of people. If you don't terrorize people as centralized exchange, people won't have any incentive to look for an alternative.

It's because of AML/KYC that people see no other option than to use decentralized exchanges. It's because all the thefts we read about that force people to use decentralized exchanges.

It's basically the same with fiat as well. If fiat was working perfectly and didn't lose value, and banks weren't greedy jerks, people wouldn't even use Bitcoin. By force they learn that they should look into non central alternatives.

People are free to discuss everything they feel has importance, even if you don't like it.

It has become a trend for people to call others fud spreaders or trolls just because they aren't extremely bullish. Please accept that different people also means different opinions. Grow a thicker skin. That helps.

If you think OP is spreading information you don't like, then wait for Kwukduck to show up and start throwing around with his usual dose of extreme bearishness. He's probably the most hated (hated by noobs) person here.

I like your down to earth way of looking at things. People quite often forget that we're dealing with different traders and investors nowadays, which all secure their profits on time.

Seriously, where in the world do you even get 10% returns per year? People here have been spoiled with how the price has gone up last year ~ if the price isn't at least doubling it's somehow not worthy enough for them.

All these crazy high expectations only lead to disappointment, which is exactly why the sentiment everywhere is rock bottom right now. If there wasn't an ETF to hope for, the price would sink hard.

It doesn't state that. I however don't believe it was Tether causing the price to increase significantly last year, but purely fomo and manipulation from unknown entities. It's probably better to not know what exactly happened.

The only odd behavior is that Bitfinex managed to eat through massive dumps without any problems, and that consistently for days. If even one of those dumps were dropped on the market today, we would badly bleed.

We have had several crazy bull runs during Bitcoin's existence and Tether wasn't even a thing back then. It's probably just the media trying to cause panic and promote its articles in a far more effective way. More clicks is more money.

I don't have that impression actually. I see a lot people constantly rehash that they would use it in this or that scenario, but they aren't doing anything to prove that they are genuinely interested in utility instead of speculation.

Yes, adoption isn't optimal, but it's changing and there are enough ways to conveniently make use of your crypto currencies. You can always sign up for a crypto backed debit card allowing you to spend almost anywhere.

I am not really confident in things to change much in the coming few years, especially if crypto keeps jumping up and down. Less volatility will translate into less speculative trading and more actual use. Maybe that institutional capital will help.

I like how the dump to below $7000 today instantly made people realize that the increase of last week had no chance of being maintained. I don't see $6800 being an important level to focus on.

If we're really continuing the long term downtrend we'll demolish every level above $6000 without any problems. Worst case scenario is that the next lower high peak is just under or over the $7000 mark.

We have to face it, with how unlikely an ETF approval is there is no way for the short term market to climb up. I know it's pure speculation, but the 2014 looks similar to how the market is moving right now.

I wish more people were like that but I'm afraid that we haven't seen the worse yet when it comes to people's greed. The only reason they want Bitcoin to replace the established system order is because the price will increase.

They don't realize that if Bitcoin replaces fiat, Bitcoin remains Bitcoin and we will only change the way we look at value by that time. It means that with or without fiat, 1BTC is always 1BTC and nothing will ever change that.

The only question will be what value Bitcoin or one single satoshi have without it being able to use fiat as benchmark currency, but that's a problem for later. We'll find out when we're forced to find out, that's how things seem to work.

Don't use BitPay. They have been trying to kill off Bitcoin's ecommerce side by changing the way people conduct payments and they suddenly started to charge an extra fee which is completely retarded.

Use one of the payment gateways as suggested by the above users or look into Coinbase as they have the banking aspect done right and might even become a bank themselves in case their license gets approved.

We eventually will break the $20,000 mark but not any time soon. If you look closely at the market trend this year, we consistently have formed lower highs and lower lows, and this will continue till we bottomed for real.

It may very well be that the price hasn't gone up because of ETF speculation, but just because it was the next lower high movement of the longer term downtrend. It seems that the >2013 scenario gains ground with the month.

People need to forget about reaching new highs and start putting some fiat aside to buy lower. I know people don't like to read this, but 2018 isn't the year just like how 2014 wasn't the year after the late 2013 peak.

That's why we shouldn't even be surprised about clickbait titles and sensational articles anymore. Even if they themselves don't believe x event is the reason for the decline, they will tell noobs it's that anyway.

It's an extremely competitive market where all these news outlets operate in. Trying to publish quality content and real stories isn't profitable. If they tried that for a year they would shut down because no one is interested in that.

Crypto is all about drama. It's time for people in general to grow a thicker skin. If you want to learn something you have to dig into it yourself and not rely on extremely biased third party information sources.

It will be interesting to see how long they can keep that up, and if they manage to keep growing, what will Bitmain turn into?

All the naysayers talk about crypto as it not having any value without speculation, but they more than likely would want to invest in Bitmain itself. It's a company, generates revenue, and billions in profit.

No old-school investor will pass on such an opportunity. If they play it smart, there is definitely a lot to gain for Bitmain. They are literally popping up in every corner of the crypto industry. It's a goldmine for them.

They are going big on EOS as well.

Indeed. I have read through the TOS of various services requiring AML/KYC where they initially want to make it seem like your data is safe, but hidden within a wall of text they state that they may sell your data to third parties.

That's why people should carefully read through the TOS of the service they plan to sign up with. I know it's boring and time consuming, but you have no right of speaking when you blindly agree to all terms.

In any situation people should just assume that their data is compromised by evildoers, because no one but the service or the company they outsource their verification and storage tasks to knows what happens with it.