Not really. Even though bitcoin is decentralised, it doesn't mean that the government isn't able to tax it. They obviously will and are doing so because they see a huge industry that they could take advantage of in terms of tax revenue.

Decentralisation here is only about the bitcoin network itself. What the government does is out of our control.

In my country, when you lodge a tax return, you only need to mention the amount of gains made through trading or investing in bitcoin, and not the actual amount of bitcoin that you own. Obviously this could be different in different countries. If you're trading a lot of BTC, constantly, on an exchange, and the government asks you for figures, then you should definitely provide them accurately if you want to stay out of trouble.

Else, if you're just using bitcoin without trading it against fiat, I doubt you do.

Be careful. He could be using you to cash out stolen/dirty/hacked bank funds, which is something that you never want to be involved with especially when you are the one that is providing all the docs to the exchange, which they can then check against your records.

This is most likely the situation with the commission set at 10%, which is absurdly high. If he had clean funds, he could easily do it himself without having to pay you that much.

Also, there could potentially be tax ambiguities. The tax department could be on your tail thinking that you're the one who kept all of the bitcoins that you bought, and ask you for CGT, when in reality, it's no longer in your possession.

People tend to think that bitcoin's energy use goes to waste - it really is not.

Regardless of whether this research is relevant or not (since comparing bitcoin's energy consumption to banks is probably not the most valid point that one could make about justifying bitcoin's energy consumption), the energy which bitcoin uses is used for a purpose. The purpose is to make this decentralised system continue to function.

It does raise some interesting points when it comes to renewable energy, and I completely agree. Focusing on how much energy something consumes is less relevant than focusing on clean, renewable energy generation. It's as simple as that.

Guess what. This is about the hundredth time that I've seen that animated background on an ICO, with the exact same template, and a crappy logo that was probably made within 5 minutes. I wouldn't participate in this just from first glance.

If you look at their site now, you'll actually see that they've changed their team photos completely, thus admitting that they were using these stock photos before.

Even after the change however, there is simply no proof that these people are real and are actually working with the company, since there are no linkedin profiles and FB profiles could be scrapped off the internet. However, I wouldn't be surprised if they came out and said that these stock photos were just placeholders for the time being, which is complete BS if they say so.

They're completely right about the markets going to head into P2P mode as they make the attempt at restricting access to bitcoin and bitcoin businesses.

Their restrictions placed on banks so that they are not legally allowed to deal with bitcoin businesses is absurd. They are not accomplishing anything and they are driving crypto related businesses away from their country. So they're literally shooting themselves in the foot right now.

The government of India could try somehow restrict P2P trades from happening as well, but that is impossible. The thing is that these P2P trades will continue to happen, even outside of platforms like Localbitcoins. It's almost impossible to moderate and "crack down", as they like to do.

Sorry. Will refrain from doing so in the future.

Most people when it comes to selecting an exchange to trade on don't take into account the fees associated with each trade that much, simply because most people don't trade enough volume for that figure to have any sort of major significance.

Bittrex was extremely popular. But it's definitely not as popular now, especially after legacy accounts were removed from having the rights to deposit and withdraw without ID verification. That's why you see huge drop offs in volume in Bittrex as of now compared to a year ago.

Thus, it's probably wrong to assume that Bittrex is still that popular as most of these traders who want to remain anonymous are moving towards Binance where a 2BTC threshold is kept for anonymous accounts. For the remaining account holders, though, they're most likely there to trade very specific pairs not offered on other exchanges; or simply diversifying their trading across multiple platforms.

I don't think that we're looking at the bull market at the moment.

Even though prices did go up drastically over the last few weeks, from the low of around $6k to $7k+, there is still simply not enough momentum and bullish sentiment within the market to say that this is going to become a long lasting, full on bull market like last year. We're still extremely far from that.

It's not really a bull trap as there is not really any FOMO at the moment when it comes to buyers, and prices simply have not risen that much at all. However, I definitely think that this rally will only be temporary and a correction will come sooner or later (probably before BTC gets close to $10k), as the bear market has still got some more time to go.

Exactly. This is exactly what bitcoin was designed against, to prevent governments from ever being able to fully banning the use of it as it is decentralised.

While third party payment processors can co-operate with the government to make the process of buying and selling bitcoin increasingly difficult, there will always be new ways around it as the bitcoin network itself will continue to be uncensored and decentralised.

All that the Wechat and Alipay ban is are words. Practical enforcement and weeding out all the crypto related accounts will be difficult, next to impossible. Same applies to all other governments currently banning bitcoin, most users aren't bothered by it at all.

I think that the main thing was that bitcoin simply reached the $6k support which has been there throughout the past few months of the bear market. We've seen this sort of rebound in the markets before multiple times.

After bitcoin consolidates at the $6k mark, it has always basically rebounded immediately to $7-8k. And as long as $6k remains support which is probable in the short term, this trend will continue into the near future.

Perhaps the September ETF deadline has something to do with it at all, but I don't think that this pump could be justified by that alone. Sometimes these rallies occur solely because of the market sentiment and psychological reasons such as prices reaching a previously known support level, without much rational reason behind it.

It has always been a myth that has misled the mainstream way too much over the past few years, which is probably one of the major reasons why adoption has not picked up as much as it could have been as it seems like a lot of people have this distorted image of bitcoin, coloured by mainstream media, as some sort of criminal currency.

The fact is that criminal activity will always be carried out on a particular currency or payment gateway, regardless of what it is. Even government issued fiat is used for criminal activity. But is it the government's fault? Absolutely not. Currencies themselves do not make criminals criminals.

Besides, I'd say that the majority of bitcoin transactions are completely legal and law abiding ever since the bull market of 2013. Regulations are probably stricter here than any other field, and the volume generated via speculation (even though it's not really that positive, but legal) is far greater than the unlawful use of BTC.

I reckon that after China denounced bitcoin exchanges in its country, traders became aware of the fact that what happened with the bitcoin policy within China was no longer relevant. There would always be ways around the restrictions as bitcoin is after all, decentralised. Individual pieces of news like this therefore, doesn't really make anyone panic anymore.

I definitely agree in the fact that these measures are probably to prevent capital flight, just as why there is a limit on the amount of foreign currency that Chinese citizens are able to exchange each year. Perhaps China is just seeing bitcoin as a threat as it could facilitate the outflow of capital from its country much like any forex.

It's no surprise that bitcoin exchange sites are being blocked by the great firewall either, that's completely expected and Chinese policies in the past with blocking foreign social media sites make many precedents. It'll be hard to see how this will be maintained though, as VPNs and proxies can be easily used, and new sites will always pop up.

Digital currencies that compose the mainstream economy may actually be more beneficial to the environment, than previous types of currency.

Gold and silver were essentially one of the longest lasting forms of money. However, we all know that to mine them, huge resources are invested, whole landmasses are being exploited, all to produce this form of asset. Same with paper, you need actual physical resources in order to print the paper money, and also electricity to carry out the printing process.

By having a cashless society, especially on a decentralised blockchain, we could use completely renewable forms of energy while posing no physical harm to the environment whatsoever. It could even boost demand for renewable energy in some cases. Besides, the benefits brought by having a decentralised cryptocurrency as a global currency would far outweigh any increases in energy use, even if that was the case.

It depends on the country that the ICO is operating from, and the citizens that it is offering its investment scheme to (that's why you see some ICOs banning certain country's citizens to participate).

While I'm not sure what the exact procedures are, most legitimate ICOs nowadays in countries with more mature crypto ICO regulations will ask you for KYC docs such as your ID, as well as AML docs, perhaps fund sources.

At the end of the day, the ICO itself is probably not even in that much control when it comes to the collection of the docs. The regulators in each country decides whether these investments are legal, what they are classified under, and what procedures are.

There is a relatively small chance that bitcoin would ever replace traditional banking methods. Let alone credit cards, which can be issued by anyone, and essentially is a form of easily obtainable short term credit.

While bitcoin can certainly be an alternative currency to use on the internet, I don't think that it would be able to all of a sudden make the idea of obtaining credit within the consumers a thing of a past.

Even if bitcoin somehow was able to replace fiat completely, which is unlikely, people would still seek credit. And when there is demand, there will be an industry supporting it. If mass adoption happens, bitcoin based "credit cards" or something like that would definitely pop up.

I don't think that it's logical at all, nor is it going to be effective.

Serious bitcoin traders with international connections are most likely going to continue to trade no matter what the policy is. A $10k fine is unlikely to deter anyone from trying to access, use, and trade bitcoin.

Also, banning bitcoin essentially means missing out on tons of government revenue if the crypto industry was to be legalised, and regulated. This is probably not as well thought out. It's understandable though that they'd want to continue to assert their control over the economy, which may be the reason why this ban exists, but there are still plenty of other ways for capital to flow out of their country without the need of bitcoin whatsoever. It's not like bitcoin is anywhere near being significant as a tool for people to carry funds out of the country, especially in countries with low adoption like Vietnam.

Nice finds.

At first glance these photos were actually decently legit. The scammers actually put some effort into trying to find some consistent photos this time. Without sufficient diligent research, it's unlikely that the average investor would have been able to pick apart this con.

There is still a few months left before their token sale ends. DT2 members should tag the scammer in question (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1964193) as soon as possible so that investors can be warned. Hopefully, not too many people actually invested in this. Their idea just from a glance seems quite ridiculous anyhow.

I don't think that you should be concerned.

The markets moves unpredictably every now and then because of the fact that not every single player within the market are completely rational. That's just the truth here. Not every rise is justified all the time by some supporting evidence. And these random price swings definitely can happen, and it does happen all the time.

I feel like that this price hike is most likely due to the anticipation to the ETF deadline in September, alongside the fact that traders see that $6k support is still holding up, which boosts confidence obviously.

I don't think that this is necessarily going to be anything long term though. More likely than not, it's a short term price rally that won't turn the market sentiment bullish all of a sudden. Don't get too excited and go FOMO buy, because I don't really expect anything majorly bullish out of this.

You could still face issues.

Paypal has never been pro-bitcoin and I wouldn't be surprised if bitcoin was actually thought of as some sort of competitor to paypal's business. In Paypal's terms and conditions, they even list "currency exchange" as a prohibited activity. Check it out yourself: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/acceptableuse-full#prohibited-activities

You're unlikely to get found out and suspended straight away, but eventually there is a high likelihood that your paypal account may get frozen or something like that happens to you. I'd be cautious if the Paypal account is of importance of you. Based on the same policies, exchanging paypal for other payment processors is technically against their T&Cs as well. A way around this I guess would be Virwox, as you're technically selling digital goods, not currencies.

Depends on the country that you're talking about.

It's definitely a generalisation to say that every single country globally is anti-crypto, while every single country is pro-AI. Simply does not work like that. Some countries hold neutral positions in regards to crypto policy, others may be anti-crypto. There is a spread of national interest in crypto across the world, on an individual level.

For countries who do have harsh crypto laws, I think that there are three main reasons. One is that it takes direct control out of their hands when it comes to monetary policy. Secondly, there is a fear of tax evasion using crypto. Thirdly, there may be irrational fears of crypto being used as a currency to facilitate illegal transactions. But honestly, these concerns have all been debunked before, and I believe that for their own good, countries should at least encourage crypto businesses and regulate these businesses, instead of just flat out trying to ban it.