Altcoins have a pretty easy life in the crypto industry. They don't need ETFs or other fancy tools, they just need Bitcoin to take their weight and it will automatically boost altcoins beyond Bitcoin when it comes to cold hard gains.

That's why most noobs don't even bother with Bitcoin anymore. They just sit in whatever altcoin and wait for Bitcoin to move, and they gain more than when they would have invested in Bitcoin.

Can't really blame them since their only motive for being here is to scoop up profits. Bitcoin's higher price scares off retailers. Instead of a tiny chunk for $1000 they can buy hundreds or thousands of other coins.

Bitmain is popping up everywhere, literally. Day by day they are gaining an upper hand in the altcoin part of the market as well, which is quite an interesting development. It's like a virus infecting this industry further and further.

If this continues, and there is no reason to think otherwise, they'll be one major single point of failure for everything this industry stands for. I really hope for some actual competition to boil up.

The only reason Bitmain manages to grow is because of how there isn't one single party capable of catching up on them yet. Their first mover advantage is paying off big time and there is no stop to this growth yet.

Governments years ago already realized what Bitcoin was capable of, they just didn't believe it would actually be adopted by the average person as is the case right now. It's their fault entirely.

It leaves them no other choice but to make sure they ride it out as it comes. If they really wanted to put a stop to it they should have attempted it years ago, and even then it might not have worked as they planned.

It's probably safe to say that the majority of the people have heard of Bitcoin by now already. They may not know what it is other than a volatile beast, but its name is hard coded in their brain by now.

All the bull runs are great for Bitcoin's brand awareness.

That technically doesn't even matter. The exchange has stored your information on their servers for ever. In case they become compliant later, you have some explaining to do when the government knocks on your door.

As long as you are using centralized exchanges to buy from or sell to, you are at great risk. Maybe these unregulated exchanges serve as data collecting hub for tax agencies to whoop you later on for tax evasion.

I wouldn't take anything for granted here. Buy coins, mix them, spend or use them. We're already at a point where there is barely any privacy left, let's at least respect and appreciate the mixers in this industry.

I'm not quite sure what your source of information is, but it's wrong, very much so. Bill Gates actively expressed his interest in the blockchain itself, which could change certain aspects of the world economy for the better

It's Bitcoin that he doesn't seem to be a fan of, or at least not anymore. There was a video circulating in which he was mildly praising Bitcoin for what it brought to the world, but somehow he changed his opinion.

Maybe that Warren Buffett has got to his mind, but it's quite interesting actually. What in the world could make him change his view on something so dramatically? It's not that you can bribe him, he'll just laugh his ass off.

The sentiment can change in an instant in crypto. If a whale decides to buy the price up to the $7000 mark, 99% of the market will turn into a bull while a few seconds before that they were extremely bearish.

Regardless of how unlikely something is, there technically still is a possibility for it to happen, and as long as enough people believe in it, we can see the market moon beyond what we consider unrealistic right now.

In other words, expect the unexpected!

Also add that there technically is no need for Bitmain to wait till they account for the major part of the network to attack it. Attacking Bitcoin could be done with far less than 50% but it would be less successful.

There is too much at stake for Bitmain to participate in shady business. It's in their best will to let Bitcoin be as strong as it needs to be. As long as that is the case, there is not much to worry about.

People keep focusing on Bitmain, but if it wasn't Bitmain there would be something else potentially way worse in its place. It's the same as with all dictators, once they are no longer there, you realize that they weren't all that bad.

Trading cryptocurrencies is more a matter of luck rather than knowledge, especially during very active market phases. I have yet to find someone who made the most out of current market by trading.

The only effective trade was to short crypto last December or early January, and buy back at current levels. Most people need to acknowledge that they can't trade this market and for that reason should stay away.

These news sites are the main source of fud that gets pumped into the crypto community. Their articles are either poorly written, financially biased, or meant to confuse people to affect the market.

It's only a matter of time before cryptocurrencies focusing on anonymity will be dealt with equally on a global scale within a few years. There is no way to avoid this from happening and it's a good thing.

Even if governments try to act like they don't mind them right now, there only needs to happen one terrorist attack that they can somehow link to these currencies to get rid of them entirely.

The good thing of a global ban will be that these coins will only be accessible through decentralized exchanges, and that will grant anyone the best level of privacy. BTC> ZEC> DASH> final destination. Perfect in my opinion.

The whole point is that crypto isn't offering any form of anonymity, unless it's specifically designed to be that, which is why it grants agencies all freedom to track people down pretty accurately.

If crypto was as anonymous as people believed it was, governments would have taken the necessary steps to prevent them from growing larger, which is something Japan is seriously considering right now.

All regulations and measures being enforced by governments aren't meant to tackle terrorism and money laundering and whatnot, but just keep you firmly within easy to control/observe circles.

I agree. Crypto was meant to free people from all struggles the legacy economy puts us through, but the same is happening right here and it's more in our face than most people realize.

We have to accept that as long as we are dealing with people, the underlying problem of everything won't ever be solved. The only way to get rid of people's tyranny is to get rid of humanity in its entirety. It's too extreme I guess.

In other words, we have to take care of ourselves instead of worrying about what the rest is doing. We have decentralized money to use, and we can even create our own money, which quite a powerful tool.

Bitcoin made the world a better place, marginally.

The market value is the only thing that matters for people.

Altcoins are the perfect example of why people don't care about what the underlying technology of these coins stands for, they just want to ride the peaks and then move to the next coin they hope is on the brink of exploding.

The exact same speculative hype happened during the dotcom bubble, where everything that was technology or internet related was worth orders of magnitude more than their real world application or product.

Bubbles are pretty easy to spot, and crypto currencies are going through one that has still not popped yet. Not sure when it will pop, but it will happen. Only a dozen or so coins/tokens will be left standing after the cleanup.

I'm glad that I can wholeheartedly assure you that I have not seen any wanking sessions. 

If you are horny you just stick to person to person wanking sessions, not let the whole world see how perverse you are. I seriously believe that there fundamentally is something wrong with these people.

They are messed up. It has been proven that people desperately looking for this sort of large scale attention have problems in their personal lives which has been brewing long enough to make them do all this.

People are too dumb to realize that everything they do on the internet can lead to their own downfall.

What these specific cases are good for is that they give people a firm wake-up call to stop being a retard and for once respect your privacy and don't do desperate shit that people (whoever they are) can use against you.

What retarded fool wanks and record that on video? I don't feel sorry for any of the people that were a victim of this. Let it be an expensive lesson that will make you think twice before you ever do such a thing again.

We have enough years of history pointing out that most people don't care what they invest in as long as it is volatile and cheap, which is exactly what altcoins are. Noobs and altcoins is a match made in heaven.

I guess we just need to accept that people will continue to invest in shitcoins. It's their money they throw around with, so it's their problem if they end up losing big time. Some will learn and some will keep making mistakes.

In the end all this is called freedom, let people experiment.

I hope we won't reach $60,000 this year, because it will end just like what happened after almost reaching the $20,000 mark. Everything that goes up hard in a short period of time will come down equally as hard.

And then we have the incompetence of the exchanges to deal with, because I'm quite sure that they will fail as hard as they did last year. And the network will end up being cluttered and choked to the absolute max.

In other words, the only thing another bull run will do is yet again prove how crappy this ecosystem is. Let's hope that we see the price increase gradually and allow this ecosystem enough time to expand organically.

It shouldn't be. In the end people will just look for ways to conveniently cheat the system, which has been happening for decades in the regular market. The wealthy elite doesn't do anything other than that to preserve wealth.

Local crypto markets around the world have been exploding due to all the regulations that people are sick and tired of, and I'm happy that the regular people with crypto have another option now.

I think that eventually when crypto becomes more mainstream than it is right now, that we'll see lower tax rates in an attempt to lower the bar for people to report their holdings and gains. It's only a matter of time.

I am in hardcore hodl mode. I barely use (spend) any coins and I don't see anything in it for now from my position. It's pointless to force yourself to use something that just doesn't offer much convenience yet.

Fiat does everything I want money to do, and that in a much better way than Bitcoin. In order to make me switch over to Bitcoin it has to be able to match fiat in nearly every way, and we're far away from that right now.

I must however say that I am impressed with the Lightning Network and think that this may very well be the trigger that will make me use Bitcoin more than ever before. Till that time Bitcoin remains gold for me.

The problem is that they don't enable actual fiat to crypto trades like how we are used to trade on our current crypto exchanges. I'm not sure when they plan to enable actual trades, but at least it's better than nothing.

It will help legitimizing crypto more effectively amongst high level investors and institutions. Every attempt to do that is a gigantic boost for everyone in this industry. This is what we have been aiming for to achieve.

Bitcoin was frequently called a fraud and a ponzi scheme years ago, but this fraud and ponzi scheme is forcing itself deep into the core of the legacy economy, and it's just the beginning. Keep hodling your Bitcoins firmly.

That's wrong. The purchasing power of your fiat capital highly depends on Bitcoin's price, where if you enter now you get way more bang for your buck. Those who entered far above $10,000 wish they waited before buying.

The only problem for newbies is that they don't know what the right moment is to open up a position. Only time proves whether or not it was a good decision, and considering they blindly enter, it's mostly not good for them.

It's not easy being a newbie, especially with how hostile the altcoin market is. I'm quite sure that most of the newbies and maybe even the older members here are mentally broken due to the bear market.