Governments are still suppressing Bitcoin in form of cash settled contracts, which basically means that investors have a legal financial product to buy into without it being backed by the underlying asset.

It's also playing a role as to why we don't get an ETF, because that's not something the government wants to help with as an ETF will surely cause the price to experience new influx of billions in institutional capital.

The good thing is that Bitcoin never needed any of these financial products, but it's obviously nice to see the price go up a lot, which is the main reason for most people to be here.

Options aren't really that much of an advantage as these will be cash and physically settled, which means that there is yet another product on the market that makes Bitcoin less scarce because you don't have to back it with coins.

CME will offer options too and they will double the amount of futures contracts one can hold, so expect more cash settled product volume that will eat through the demand for spot Bitcoin.

The boost in futures volume that Bakkt reported on Friday was only the result of the heavy fluctuations.... once the market calms down and moves sideways for a while, you'll see the volume they report implode hard.

It's not going to do anything in case governments order the companies behind the satellites to terminate Blockstream's (or any other entity) contract. If that happens you can kiss your satellite goodbye.

It only provides an advantage as long as the government isn't your direct enemy, which they might become when Bitcoin grows larger at cost of their own financial system. That's why I'm not really hyped by these satellites.

That's a feature I liked about BTC-E back when they were still operating. I remember how some whales were handing out these codes to a bunch of random troll box lurkers after making a ton of profit.

It's up to people to not fall for such scams because an exchange will never ask you to create a code and hand it over to them.... they already have full control over your funds so all they need to do is sort out their problems.

These scammers are probably from third world countries, so if even one user ends up sending them that code, that's considered a big profit with Bitcoin's current price. People need to update their internet etiquette.

Based on the charts, it would have made more sense for the price to make lower lows than to go up the way it did last days. I read an article that a lot of shorts were liquidated, which might explain the irrational buying that occurred.

Only when traders have no option but to buy Bitcoin we see these moves.... it's not that we have had any fundamental development justifying the pump we have been through.

An important indicator of shorters buying was how easily we have sold down from $10.5k to $9k because it didn't make any sense and other traders used that as an opportunity to secure very easy profits.

The good thing about OPs thread is that it makes people aware of where the risks are in terms of this being a massive bull trap. I don't think it's a bull trap myself, but one can't discard that possibility either.

People were extremely bearish before the +$2k move up, and now expect moon again before the end of the year. It's something that can be used against them by whales because we're definitely not out of the woods yet.

It was intense.... you could throw a dart without looking and the project it landed on would make you a few hundred percent profit at the very least, which is why money went into projects like never before.

When Bitcoin was done pumping and entering a corrective phase, altcoins in early 2018 reached their peak because a lot money went from Bitcoin to altcoins just because it was so easy to make money there.

I doubt we'll ever get to witness that again unless altcoins in their entirety pump, but that's not very likely with how people rekkt themselves hard.... they rather stay away and move on because they aren't done recovering yet.

People are pushing for an ETF because they think it will pump the price in the run-up to the launch, where they then use the launch as a sell the news event. It's just the profiteering aspect that people care about.

I doubt we'll get to see an ETF be approved until the exchanges in Asia stop being shady, which isn't going to happen so they will keep wash trading and the SEC will keep rejecting the proposals of any applicant.

Because of how high the probability is that after (6) confirmations your transaction or other data has been stamped into the ledger for ever. It's the absolute truth in the sense that you can't change it anymore.

The more days pass, the less likely it is that the chain get rolled back to a point where your transactions are no longer stamped into the ledger. Obviously, the probability is extremely low for that to happen, but it's handy to know nonetheless.

As long as Tether the company doesn't allow a proper audit of resources, there is every reason for people to question their business model, especially with how they have admitted to not have that 100% backing.

They also admitted that they used non backed tokens to buy Bitcoin with. I'm not sure about the amounts they bought Bitcoin with, but the act alone is already extremely shady which people rightfully worry about.

People were talking about how it wasn't a good time to buy like two days ago, and now we're here.... if they sold any of their coins they are going to wake up with a very bad taste in the mouth, literally and figuratively.

People were right in the sense that when the trend is bearish, it likely will result in lower levels, which is generally true, but it only works until the bottom is in and we go back up.

Prices don't go up endlessly and they similarly don't go down endlessly.... it's easy to be bearish when prices go down, while it's extremely hard for people to turn bullish when the signs point out that we found a bottom.

No one knows, but that's the beauty of this market. It shuts up every critic continuously, where these increases are also the reason they don't dare to short Bitcoin, because it would rekkt them hard.

People hoping for moon need to be aware that there is a general law within crypto that anything that goes up hard comes down hard.... especially when profits have to be taken by institutions of which most are closed now.

One way of trying to figure out what profits an exchange generates, is to calculate what their fee income is over the volume of all their trading pairs. It might not be accurate, but will give you an indication of their profits nonetheless.

Another income stream is the interest they generate on the fiat they hold on behalf of their traders. It's impossible to figure out exactly how much they hold in fiat, but I'm sure it's in the hundreds of millions at the very least.

Overall, Coinbase's $2 billion total profit is something the shareholders will be delighted with, especially with how most of the shareholders bought themselves into Coinbase when they weren't as big and dominant as they are today.

I was quite bearish in the last couple of weeks but have to say that I am very impressed by this reaction of the bulls, which is indicative of strength. I'm not going to say that we're out of the woods yet, but I'm very optimistic.

It's so funny when you see the price go up like $200 that you aren't interested at all, then hours later turns out that $200 increase was the start of an incredible pump that went higher than most people could have imagined.

It's yet another case of how the bearish sentiment of the mass works perfectly as counter indicator. The only thing is that with lower weekend volumes we might see the price give up some of its gains, so don't be surprised by that.

I always have a good laugh when self proclaimed experts talk about how Bitcoin will react to this or that geopolitical situation, while the truth however is that the movements seen that do align with these situations are pure coincidence.

If you browse through the hundreds of tradable assets, I'm sure a dozen will see similar price action, where the similarities between the avocado and Bitcoin charts were quite a topic not that long ago.

I was quite shocked by how hard the price has gone up. I was expecting some minor increase after a near 30% fall from when we broke out of that descending triangle, but this is beyond insane and might spark a recovery.

I agree. I have bought myself into Ethereum because I'm more than interested in how the POS plan will work out, so I made sure I have at least 32ETH to be able to stake on my own.

I do have to say that I'm 50/50 on this because I'm not entirely sure if Ethereum will be leaving POW entirely, which increases the odds of a chain split because the miners obviously don't look forward to that.

If it turns out to be one big failure in the end, I'm still fairly sure that I'm turning a profit because my average overall buying price is ~$100 per coin.... a lot needs to happen for Ethereum to drop below $100 again.

The thing is that you don't need a blockchain for that at all.... proof of that concept already exists in form of EOS where the block producers have reversed transactions that were initiated by hackers.

The block producers even froze quite some balances in other scenarios, which is what I expect the government to do as well. People should stop focusing on blockchains, because that's the biggest trash there is.

The hype behind the blockchain industry is greatly exaggerated and driven by greedy entities who's only purpose is to attract capital from the suckers thinking that blockchain will transform the world.

Stablecoins aren't investments. They are tools to hedge the risk of volatility or a bear market, or simply to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities because it's much faster to move back and forth than fiat through banks.

It seems that you care more about hedging a bear market, which you can still do if you think the price has more room to the downside. Everyone is free to express their views and points, which OP has done.

I do however believe that it's all just emotions that got the better of you, so try to work on that.... handy tips are to not over-invest, don't use too much leverage, and learn to understand the market to spot the bearish signs on time.

You sound like someone who would snitch on a neighbour for potentially not having paid any tax or whatever.... what people do isn't your problem and you shouldn't just think that what the government's law tells you that it is justified to obey.

A lot of laws are beyond ridiculous IMHO, and I find it encouraging to see people try to avoid them. If you want to turn yourself into a slave of the system, then by all means, go ahead and feed them your hard earned money.

Bitcoin empowers people and that's what I like about it.... for the first time there is a convenient way for people to not be the suckers they have always been. It's just fear that makes a lot people obey the law, not because they love the government.

Bitcoin definitely for me. I don't need any cash, and in case I am gifted cash for whatever reason, depending on how much it is, I'll convert it to Bitcoin directly. If the amount is low I'll just fancy myself a steak or some sushi.

I have been giving some of my family members a paper wallet loaded with 0.01BTC for their birthday, and from what I know they still haven't cashed anything out, which is an indication that they expect it to go up or at least hope it does.