Regulations differ across the countries.

Some countries may have policies that don't even recognise bitcoin as a legitimate currency, which means that operating a bitcoin casino may be completely lawful. But I think that in most countries there is a need for a license before you are able to lawfully operate a casino, and with bitcoin related regulations tightening, I'd suggest to be extremely careful if you want to launch a bitcoin casino to avoid legal troubles. See a law professional about it.

As a player, again, it's different across countries. Some countries can have restrictions on online gambling activities even if it's bitcoin. Usually, you're able to search the relevant laws on google or even in the T&Cs of the gambling site. That's why you see the checkbox saying that "by signing up, you agree that gambling is legal in your jurisdiction".

Firstly, China did not ban bitcoin or crypto. It's still completely legal for people to hold bitcoin and crypto, and trade it P2P. It's not like all of a sudden access to bitcoin is blocked. The Chinese government has simply disallowed exchanges and ICOs to exist within their economic boundaries.

There is a clear distinction between a bitcoin ban, and a bitcoin exchange and ICO ban.

Is it effective at discouraging people from using exchanges to buy bitcoin and invest in ICOs? Probably. But alternatives are popping up such as Localbitcoins that people are using, and no doubt, savvy investors will continue to invest in ICOs anyways.


It can. we don't know if the Chinese government is going to protect its local crypto projects in the future, but if it does, they will remain competitive.

The fact that the business model is based on investments that will be used to "arbitrage" is already a warning sign by itself. Add that to the guaranteed 1-1.5% per day bonuses (basically interest), I don't see how this isn't a ponzi scheme.

There's a plan structure with different tiers of investment as well, which is another thing that all ponzi schemes/HYIPs do.

All I see here is a common lending platform/HYIP scam that is packaged differently, in a different whitepaper with some new fancy technical words thrown in here and there. There is absolutely no way that someone can make such high profits on a consistent basis, regardless of what your whitepaper says.

Also, Woshib needs to stop promoting these types of scams. IIRC it's not the first time, he has promoting ETHconnect in the past before stopping I believe.

Very unlikely.

Strict capital controls have always been in place in the economy, and there is absolutely nothing surprising here with similar controls over bitcoin and crypto to prevent capital outflowing from the country. Even if there is demand, which there is, a reversal of the policy is unlikely. Just look at the limits placed on USD exchanges. Even though there is a huge demand for USD, there is still a per year limit (i think $50k a year) for exchanging local currency to foreign currencies.

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China could well be supporting local founded crypto and bitcoin businesses/projects by driving pretty much all foreign ones out. A government crypto program could even be possible. They have demonstrated interest in blockchain, but still, don't expect foreign ICOs or exchanges be allowed to operate within the country any time soon.

I definitely expected less and was supported by the fact that 5% of the respondents owned bitcoin, however, Canada is definitely one of the more progressive states when it comes to crypto in their population.

Still a very low adoption number overall, with a lot more room to grow. Those who own or owned bitcoin at this stage are most likely only using it for speculative purposes, which is something that I expect to change more towards actually as a currency in the future.


Precisely. Bitcoin would actually benefit the poorer countries with collapsing economies the most, like Venezuela right now. Adoption in these countries are defintiely going to be much lower than 5%, however.

What do you mean? Why are you contacting tether support?

If you have an issue with a transaction that is already on the blockchain and the problem is occuring on poloniex's deposit end, then you need to contact poloniex support. The link is already posted by Thirdspace above. Contacting tether support will do absolutely nothing, they do not regulate the bitcoin blockchain.

Contact poloniex support, ask them what the problem is, provide all screenshots and TXIDs of the incoming transaction. They're very inefficient as a support group, yes, but they will get back to you eventually given that you persist. Definitely could take a while depending on where the problem is, e.g. if you deposited to the wrong wallet then it could take months to retrieve that coin, or even impossible to.

KYC is going to happen sooner or later on all regulated exchanges, regardless of what you think of it.

I would have to debate that implementing KYC will have nothing to do with lowering money laundering, nor will it make the users of the exchanges any more compliant. The main function of KYC/AML in my view is to still allow the government to keep track of people's trades better for taxation purposes, which is honestly not something that's negative.

But is it something that's going to all of a sudden legitimise bitcoin as a currency and shed a positive light on all exchanges as you suggest? Probably not. As regulations matures for bitcoin exchanges and services, verification standards will increase as well for sure. There is nothing that you can do to stop this from happening, or speed this process up.

Again, this is something that will probably be aimed to address the needs of other high end investors other than having a widespread impact on the general community within bitcoin. Plus, this is most likely going to be derivatives or futures of bitcoin rather than actual bitcoins.

It's still a good thing, but it's probably just not as positive as some may think.

It definitely does show that institutional investors are interested in bitcoin and are actively making investments into entering the market, but at the end of the day we're still not at the stage at which bitcoin itself is seen as a legitimate currency to conduct business with worldwide, but rather more of a speculative tool.

It's not the first time nor is it the last time that someone is going to be saying absurd things about bitcoin, both in the bear and bull directions. It's not even the first time that someone says that bitcoin will go to zero and die, as a matter of fact.


Banks are more secretive, and facilitate money laundering, corruption, etc. Does that mean that fiat currency is fault? No. Nefarious activity is a byproduct of every single currency, not just bitcoin.

The government can try to restrict access to bitcoin, which is already happening, but bitcoin will continue to be an alternative store of value to fiat which is proving to have demand. And this demand will definitely keep bitcoin from falling to such lows, imo.

All autobuy links should be avoided, not just selly.gg. But obviously that's one of the main ones.

First of all, there is pretty much no legitimate sellers of accounts. You're very likely to get scammed or receive a fraudulent account, and this applies to not just bitcointalk accounts but other premium accounts as well. The invites & accounts section is literally full of landmines. Add that with autobuy links, locked threads, and self moderated sales threads, which are all warning signs, you get a very obvious scam.

People have to start understanding that autobuy doesn't provide any escrow or protection for the buyer at all. All it does is collect payments for the seller. Selly.gg is definitely shady for letting this happen on their platform for such a long time, now, without much of a warning even. But ultimately, you need to do some research and simply ask around for advice before you pay first to anyone on the forum, or even off the forum with an irreversible payment method.

First of all, I don't know how many times that this idea of a crypto based card has been ICO'd. It's become repetitive, and pretty much even if they don't pull off a scam straight away, I don't see any reason to invest in such projects.

Secondly, if you go to their site and see what their official exchanges are, you'll find that most are decentralised or p2p exchanges that doesn't require any form of agreement between the developers and the exchange for people to start trading Zantecoin tokens. It's like saying that the official exchange of this project is Localbitcoins, see how absurd that sounds. They're just trying to make themselves seem more legit.

Copying content from an ICO that essentially has the same business model is not only scammy, but also completely unethical if not breaching copyright laws. Good finds, OP. Avoid this project at all costs.

I'd completely agree with him.

Right now I can only see bitcoin becoming the actual currency that people would use as an alternative to fiat, because it doesn't try to do things that is outside of the scope of what a currency, or money itself, is supposed to do.

He's right, all the centralisation needed to create fancy blockchain projects or whatnot really defeats the entire purpose of cryptocurrencies in the first place. And with most of them only in the crypto scene for the investments that come in their way, I don't see longevity.

Bitcoin has by far the most community support, most adoption, most actual uses, best track record, and is the first ever cryptocurrency generating trust. If any crypto gets mass adopted in the long run, it's going to be bitcoin.

I thought that you already replied to them with the relevant proofs, but guess I was wrong.

This is still very inefficient of them, though, because of the fact that they are delaying this for over a week and their only reply essentially says that you'd have to wait further. They could easily uncomplicate things by first, responding without such a huge delay and secondly, asking for proof as soon as a dispute is launched instead of waiting till this stage.

Also, buyer has not replied for 1 week now, and they're still awaiting a reply? Please.

Guess they're not the most efficient nor reliable escrow out there. Based on your experience I'd definitely consider not using them as I said in future, especially as a seller. At least they're responding though, best of luck.

I wouldn't necessarily say that "hype" is the best word to describe it, because to me, it's not hype that will get us anywhere. It's going to be adoption, especially by real life and online merchants that will drive bitcoin forward.

In that case, I would agree. Even though a lot of people are calling bitcoin dead or whatnot with the current bear market, I think that if you scope out you'll find that we're still in the early adopter phase. Awareness is growing regarding bitcoin, but not a lot of people are actually using it. The people who are actually using bitcoin are extremely limited.

Hype is just a byproduct of adoption and awareness, and with the institutional investors coming into the market recently, the next bull market could prove to be extremely large. But even then, that does not mean that bitcoin is successful or anything. We need to steer clear of thinking of bitcoin as some kind of money making scheme, but rather look at the properties that it has as a currency.

Wow, that was a pain to read. Next time, try to consolidate all your images and text in a shorter post overall.

So if I understand correctly, the scammer was offering weekly returns of 40% through apparently "trading", then after you sent the money to the address that he provided on Telegram, he paid it to some other investor instead of actually trading with the funds? And at the end, he just took your money and ran with it, essentially. Anything that I missed?

Anyhow, the warning was really there at the beginning when 40% weekly returns were mentioned. Any time this is offered to you, there is zero chance that this is legitimate. The fact that your funds were used to pay back another person means that either he's running a ponzi, or more likely, that 'investor' is really just an alt of his.

Either way, stay away from anything that a) requires to invest in some anonymous guy over the internet and b) promises extremely high returns and c) is run on a platform on which everything is anonymous and controlled by the admin. This ticks all the boxes of an obvious scam. Any sites that this Micheal guy opens is obviously not to be trusted either.

The guy at the end, Alin, was clearly trying to just get more money from the victim while he still can. Sorry about your losses, I doubt you'll ever be able to recoup it though. However, it's a good warning to all those out there looking to invest in similar schemes.

Wechat pay is completely different to bitcoin.

It is centralized, it is owned by a corporation, and it represents value in fiat. Essentially, it is a mobile banking system which is just a lot more convenient compared to the traditional card system, hence the reason why so many people have adopted it within China and we even see a lot of businesses accept it globally.

Bitcoin is decentralized, and independent from fiat. However, the level of adoption is obviously not as high at the moment as WeChat Pay, or Alipay for that matter.

Does it mean WeChat pay is better than bitcoin? No, it just means that WeChat Pay has a lot more adoption.

For long term store of value I'd go with bitcoin any day, because it isn't centralized. With WeChat Pay not only are you holding a depreciating asset with the supply constantly debased, you also have a huge counterparty risk in WeChat potentially holding your funds or suspending your account. These are issues that bitcoin does not have, and are far better.

Of course, though, it's unlikely that anyone is going to be able to spend their bitcoin directly with as much ease as with WeChat pay, but that will improve as adoption increases.

We're already seeing this process happening, in my opinion.

Bitcoin has obviously been called various names and generalised in the past, but with the growing adoption base as well as the institutional investors now coming into the market, bitcoin has really been legitimised as a currency and as an investment. Not to mention new government regulations in certain countries that recognise bitcoin as something that is legal and legitimate as well.

It's not bitcoin's next big battle, it's probably a battle that has always been fought.

It's going to come naturally, imo. As adoption climbs and more legitimate businesses adopt bitcoin, it'll prove itself legitimate, and people and corporations will look at its positives more and more.

I think that there is obviously elements of speculation going on right now, in fact most of the market is only in it for the speculative elements of bitcoin at the moment I would say. I wouldn't say that it's necessarily a bad thing at all.

Everything in its early adopter phase will see limited usage and high amounts of speculation. Even the dot com bubble which now has turned into mainstream blue chip tech stocks.

I don't know if bitcoin is going to become the next global currency that replaces fiat or whatnot since that is a lot to ask for at this stage, but I do think that the adoption rate will continue to grow and it will at least serve a nice niche of people that want an alternative currency to transact and store wealth with. Speculation should decline as adoption and actual usage goes up, but this takes time.

I've used Bitify before as a buyer several times and never had an issue. Nor did my seller encounter any issues. Even though there was no dispute involved, I doubt that they are that biased towards the buyer since I haven't seen a lot of complaints about them at all. Otherwise, sellers wouldn't even be using them.

There shouldn't be any issues with them releasing funds to you. The highlighted part in the OP states that they'll usually award the case to the buyer if you don't respond in 3 days, which you didn't breach.

They don't seem like they're very active, though, which seems to be the main problem here. Has support responded to you at all? What did they say about the delay (if they did respond)? If they're really this unresponsive, then I would definitely stay away from them in the future when I'm conducting business. Plenty of alternatives on bitcointalk.

I don't think that the fact that bitcoin has not increased in value in the 2nd quarter is really anything to be alarmed of, because we are after all, in a bear market. And I'm pretty sure that we've seen similar bearish circumstances in 2014's bear market.

It's not going to affect bitcoin in the long run, it's not going to affect adoption. A lot of people tend to panic about the price movements in the short run and think that it's going to influence bitcoin's success in the long term, which I just don't think is true.

Is it necessarily true that bitcoin is going to see a recovery by the end of the year, though? I don't think it's guaranteed at this point. Based on the last bear market which lasted one to one and a half years or so before it bottomed, we may see further dips come our way before the end of the year. I'm much more confident that bitcoin will start its recovery some time mid to late next year, and a bull market coming near 2020, rather than saying that it's going to come before the end of the year.