It's getting increasingly difficult to hide that. Most of the newbies enter the market through centralized exchanges not knowing anything about what risks they expose themselves to.

The forks that we have had to deal with didn't help either. Bcash was too tempting to not dump for Bitcoin, and a lot people dumped them at any available exchange at that point to fetch the best possible price.

Coins that haven't been in direct circulation suddenly came back to life and the privacy of these people has suffered a major blow. Greed makes people do stupid things as always.

I see people keep rehashing how many countries have banned crypto, but no one provides any proof.

There is a major difference between certain sanctions being temporarily implemented by countries and actual total bans where people can't buy or trade or even own crypto anymore. These cases are extremely rare.

Even China didn't do that while people think they banned everything related to crypto completely. Millions and millions of people there are still using crypto on a daily basis and even speculate with it.

People read an article stating ban and they directly think it's done and over. They don't understand how manipulative articles are and how easy it is to mislead noobs with them. It's pure exploit of ignorance.

If that was the case, this market would be a complete mess (more than it already is). The reason that this market isn't a mess is because of whales calculating their moves instead of impulsively acting like retail traders do.

Whales are just minding their own business and will do what they can to financially benefit from every possible market scenario. Pumps or dumps for them are as profitable, there is no difference.

With futures and other tools that they can use manipulation is more profitable than ever before. This is the reality we have to cope with till regulations are frightening enough to discourage large scale manipulation.

You can monitor the market as much as you want, it won't do much at all. If you trade the current hostile market you just have to accept that you will more likely lose than actually generate profits.

We're almost exactly experiencing what happened last year when we were going up. The only difference is that we are going down right now, likely back to the levels at which we started this bull run.

If that turns out to be the case, the $5000 mark will be a solid buy. It might go down a bit more, but you can't endlessly keep waiting and waiting. At some point it's time for action.

The most important thing is to make sure that you're on board before we pump back up.

The coins can still be dumped.

People suddenly obtain coins they never expected to have in the first place, which can be seen as a gift or bonus. Who says these people won't end up selling their coins? It's quite a realistic scenario.

Granted, there won't be immediate selling pressure, but when these coins will be released, it will count as extra potential selling pressure. Over 100,000BTC isn't a joke if by that time the price is $10,000-$15,000.

We'll see where it leads to, but at least it's good knowing that these coins won't end up being kept by the government. They could very easily made sure of that, but thus far they haven't.

I don't mind it to fall harder. The lower the price is the more coins the same amount of fiat will buy me. It's always smart to have fiat ready that you can use to start buying around these levels.

If you know that you have fiat aside, you are more capable of handling corrections in a mentally more stable manner. Most people that are afraid and worrying went all in and have nothing but their expensive coins left.

I do feel with you guys, but if people don't make mistakes, they won't ever learn anything. Let this correction be that learning experience. This bull run you may have wasted, but the next one will be a winner for you.

I can't wait for that to happen, but can't BitPay at that point technically still manipulate their UI in a similar way as they do now? If I request a lightning payment (invoice), it responds with a similar screen.

I can either scan the QR or copy the URI, but that's an option. They can choose to show me as much as they want me to see, or as little as they want me to see. They will likely still hold some power at that point.

Good thing, or not, depends on how you look at the situation, is the fact that BitPay has lost a tremendous amount of traffic. For an exchange that's understandable after a hype, but for BitPay? It's damaging.

I still haven't seen one single use case where the blockchain actually did its work as we all credit it for.

I get it that speculation has an upper hand in this game, but if to this day nothing has been done to actually showcase the added value of a blockchain, then when will we finally see and experience it?

It's the same with cryptocurrencies back in the days. It was hyped all the way through, and nothing came after Bitcoin that offered something based on use instead of speculation.

Ethereum and EOS will end up like that. People care less about what it can do. They just want to enter and exit ICOs with a profit and then move to the next one. Am I pessimistic? Yes I am, and I have all the right to be that.

The volatility has nothing to do with merchants being interested in accepting Bitcoin or not. Their exposure to the volatility is zero with how they use services such as BitPay to take that exposure away from them.

Currently there are hundreds of thousands of merchants already accepting Bitcoin and it continues to grow further in terms of merchant adoption. The majority of them get 100% of their sales directly converted to fiat, risk free.

The thought of Bitcoin becoming worth more in the next months prevents people from spending. The mentality has always been that spenders are losers. They are technically, but coins can and should be bought back.

It must be obvious by now that people simply don't care. It wasn't rewarding to cloud mine last year, and has become far less rewarding today, but the number of people investing in cloud mining keeps increasing.

Cloud mining platforms manage to attract people based on how they market themselves, and their marketing skills are quite impressive. If you can still attract capital from people in today's world, you are doing your job well.

These platforms might even be paying YouTubers to shill for them. It happens a lot when it comes to ICOs and other schemes, so why should it not happen with cloud mining? YouTubers don't care as long as they get paid.

Based on how many people keep complaining about Bitcoin to be a horrible currency due to the fees and volatility, one would expect a lot would want to use it, but in reality they don't and probably never will.

People not interested in using Bitcoin as currency shouldn't even dare to complain about it in that way. Too many people are here for the wrong reasons, which is quite sad actually.

Using Bitcoin as currency creates an important secondary purpose, but that secondary purpose might never gain any ground with people not changing their mentality. We'll see how it ends, but I'm not optimistic at all.

That's perfect. I like the stability around the $6000 mark since it allows me and everyone else to start utilizing Bitcoin as currency, which is our main goal, right? At least that goes up for me. Bitcoin is a currency, don't forget that.

Stability and very low fees are more important than an increasing price. People complain about how the volatility and the high fees are a problem, but they don't do anything to use Bitcoin when everything works as it should.

Quick confirmations, stability, very low fees, is there more to wish for?

$10,000 was low, then $9000, then $8000, then $7000, and now $6000.

This market proves that all levels we visit aren't low but actually on the higher side. $2000 is low, $3000 as well, not current levels. I wouldn't discard another dump potentially testing lower $5000s in the coming weeks.

My insurance is that I have enough fiat that I can use to buy big if we ever happen to tank way below current levels. Patience is all that matters in current market, and if you're lucky you'll be able to buy coins far cheaper soon.

I am ready for whatever happens. If the price tanks I'm good, and if the price pumps I'm good as well. I always make sure I don't limit myself to take advantage of just one direction. Both directions are profitable for me.

Regulations are stimulating adoption, not preventing it. It's probably more that the lack of regulations is holding this market back, and then we need to see regulators provide clarity so everyone won't end up breaking any laws.

And what government bans are you exactly talking about? As far as I know there has not been one single country that actually banned crypto. Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

News sites are riding the sentiment of this market, which means that during a bullish sentiment they praise everything related to crypto, but when things turn bearish, they'll do everything to let you know it's bearish.

BitMEX is the best option.

I however would advise you to think everything through properly before you do anything, because using an exchange as BitMEX means that in the worst possible scenario you lose your entire initial amount.

People think they can handle the stress and risks that come with using such platforms, but it's by far not as easy as it looks. It's more related to a betting platform rather than an actual exchange.

The higher the leverage multiplier is that you use, the sooner your position is wiped out if the market moves in the opposite direction. Most people only use a 2 to 5x multiplier, definitely nothing above the 10x mark.

If you're a long term hodler then a recovery soon isn't what you are aiming for, because the price shouldn't really matter to you. I am exactly the same as how I was last year during the stairway to the $20,000 mark.

I knew the price would start dropping again and that the value of my coins at that point was severely exaggerated due to the ongoing hype. 1BTC at $20,000 is exactly the same as 1BTC at $6000. It's the mentality breaking people here.

People discard the fact that their Bitcoins will always be equal in number, the price can't change anything about that. Those who adopt this way of thinking will become firm hodlers. The rest will continue to struggle.

I don't think so. People need to get used to a market that doesn't continuously increase in short time frames. It's healthy to see the market take a few steps back and hover around more realistic levels.

In the background Lightning Network enjoys more mainnet implementation on a weekly basis, which is something we don't hear anyone talk about. It's a big deal in my opinion and motivates me to jump in.

The network capacity has gone up from around 20BTC to nearly 26BTC as I can see. It might not seem like much, but for now it's great considering that most Lightning transactions are very low value test payments.

That. I have the option to buy Bitcoin via an exchange which would take a day or two to wire money to, or to have it instantly bought from one of the several local services allowing me to pay through internet banking.

The fee in the first case would be close to 0.5%, while the convenience offered by local services will cost me like 3%, but I can get it to drop all the way to 1.5% if I buy thousands of Euros worth of Bitcoin.

For that reason I won't consider using an ATM. If I need Bitcoin, regardless of where in the world I am, the local services allow me to instantly buy them. Am I spoiled with all this luxury? Hell yeah!

Tether has become a real thing here. It's getting far more credits than it's worth.

There is no point in speculating whether or not Tethers are being used to pump the market. If it did, it would be quite pathetic actually, because it means that this whole market is one inflated bubble not even worth half its price.

Try to find others things to focus on. Tether will eventually lose importance due to how exchanges becoming compliant are able to add actual fiat pairs instead of tokens consisting of nothingness.

Just follow exchanges trading actual fiat pairs and ignore the rest. I always found Bitstamp and GDAX to be the better exchanges to follow. Even Gemini can be seen as a worthy one to follow. Future looks bright.

Totally not surprised about the low number of people owning any crypto. In most cases people have only invested in crypto with a few hundred bucks, likely just to test and play around.

Imagine what happens when they go big on crypto and start converting a certain part of their savings to Bitcoin as a long term store of value tool. Everyone starts with alts and ends up with Bitcoin in their portfolio.

On the other hand, we shouldn't really pay too much attention to these surveys since they can be answered just for the sake of answering or to mess it up. Fact is that the price is and stays a better measuring tool.