Title is wrong. It should be Predictions yet again prove to hold zero value.

People should stop following all the stupid hype that doesn't lead to anything. Seriously, people were expecting a rally, but didn't do anything other than waiting for it to happen.

How is this rally supposed to be initiated without any effort or buying incentive from traders? It's like waiting for money to land into your pockets, but without actually putting any effort into it.

I am happy to see the price remain fairly stable just above the $8000 mark. It allows me to keep accumulating coins around the same levels with a fixed amount every 14 days with a part of my income.

No regulations means Bitcoin users enjoy more freedom, which is always good, so it's definitely not a problem at all. I would say that more regulations are the main problem rather than there not being any regulations.

Germany has proven to be quite friendly towards crypto developments, which is why its regulations don't form that much of an obstacle. China's regulations however show the different (negative) side of them.

Other than that, these lending platforms eventually all seem to be doomed. I can't name up one lending platform that hasn't been hijacked by scammers, so I hope that Bitbond can be an exception here, but I'm not optimistic.

Bitcoin itself is as crypto as you want to have it. Everything around Bitcoin is business. In the same way the price with all its fluctuations doesn't reflect Bitcoin's utility and actual progress. All important differences.

Ignorance is the main reason. People don't understand even the basics of Bitcoin and the market that's extremely new and thin. Volatility and extreme gains are side effects of a new and thin market, it's perfectly normal.

Traditional assets don't experience these fluctuations and increases because of how developed their markets are, and how institutions rule them with iron fist. Bitcoin's market is still a market ruled by regular people mostly.

Eventually I can see it change with how institutions are slowly finding their way into this market, but it will be a process taking years with how slow governments always are with implementing the proper regulations.

It seems that the 'significant trading' trigger is something that doesn't really apply to one fixed amount. It's very likely an algorithm calculating everything per account based on your activities, which is ridiculous.

It might be that a change in your usual transaction behavior can cause them to force you to verify yourself. This likely explains why LocalBitcoins doesn't state any fixed limit in their TOS.

This change has already resulted in a situation where loyal LocalBitcoins users have ditched that platform. All its usefulness and friendly overall nature is gone for good due to the regulations dictating these services.

The real problem we are facing is unknown. With that I mean we have to worry about that what we don't know instead of the recent cases with Facebook that have been covered thousands of times already.

In order to prevent all that you should avoid anything requiring your personal information. It seems difficult with how applications and services require this information, but the fact of the matter is that we don't need them.

With how regulations are kicking in on a weekly basis, all sorts of investment sites and ICOs are requiring personal information, which is utter nonsense. I would never value potential profits over my own privacy.

It has nothing to do with Ripple being less volatile than other crypto currencies, because it simply isn't less volatile. Ripple is a centralized crypto currency that technically allows transactions to be reversed.

All aspects of Ripple make it an interesting option for banks and certain financial services, but it has no real use and utility with how governments will tie their own fiat currencies to a token running on their blockchain.

Ripple is nothing more than a get rich scheme with the insane premine that's being kept hidden from the public, but it doesn't really work in their favor. It's one of coins heavily being frowned upon by the crypto industry.

Patience applies to all sorts of investment/trading durations. Patience isn't something that by definition means you are waiting a long time (e.g months) to liquidate your position in the market.

Patience can also be you waiting a few more hours instead of liquidating your position within your usual 5-10 minute trading range. It's all personal and fitting within your own way of trading.

In the same way that patience can be a good thing, it can also turn out to be working against you. It all comes down to how you recalculate the market based on each trend or sentiment adjustment. Everything in here changes quickly.

It's actually just common sense.

I however don't like diversifying crypto assets since that only works against you in case things doesn't go to plan. People quite often think it's a must, but I don't see it like that and never done so.

You have to deal with all variables applying to different coins, because different coins means different markets and different background developments. Altcoins aren't fundamentally stable or well developed, so it's a risk.

Just having Bitcoin means less stress, less potentially negative variables, less severe corrections (they go up hard but also come down hard), and so forth. Chasing high returns has never been an option for me.

He has lost his credibility a long time ago already. He made certain predictions last year and implies that it wasn't him having made that prediction, but someone else using his name. What? Video proof shows otherwise.

It's basically the same with all the shitcoins he keeps promoting for $100,000 in return. At some point he was accused of manipulation and whatnot, and then blatantly claimed his account was hacked and that it wasn't him.

This dude has serious mental problems. It's a billionaire. He shouldn't degrade himself like that for pocket change (yes, for him that's pocket change). He's nothing more than an eccentric old man with too much free time.

I have seen that interview and it wasn't really convincing to be honest. He contradicted himself and didn't even explain why he believes that the price will go up. Seriously, what's the point of predicting something that you can't explain?

He made clear that he doesn't care about the price as long as the volatility remains the main aspect, because that's where BitMEX earns the big dollars. It's a gambler's paradise, especially with 100x leverage.

The margin between losing your initial settle value and the bust level is so insanely thin, that one swing can either make you a lot of money, but also instantly wipe out what you put in. It's not an exchange but a casino.

I thought so too initially, but it seems that the dumps we have seen between $6000-$7000 are now again dictating the market. I'm not yet sure if this is meant to accumulate or play around with high leverage trades.

If you have the capital to move markets, opening insane leverage positions might turn out to be very worthwhile with how you can easily reset the market with $500 in both up and down directions.

It seems that the speculation about the consensus event to boost the price has not resulted in anything. I didn't expect anything in the first place so there is no disappointment here, but the overall expectations were high.

If a dump follows at the end of the event, I'm buying.

The closer we come to the block halving, and the important events and developments, the price is pretty much guaranteed to increase, especially in the latter part of 2019.

It's just a matter of summing up the obvious, which means that you don't have to be an 'expert' or 'analyst' to understand how much potential there is to catch up on in the coming few years.

It seems that everyone nowadays is throwing around with extremely bullish predictions. The only downside of this is that we might see an opposite reaction of the market in the coming months.

Regardless of how seemingly bullish the sentiment is, we are one major dump away from a total sentiment shift. It's basically a perfect shakeout opportunity before the market gets bought up like there is no tomorrow.

It's not an important market at this stage due to how the government there works against everything that helps people obtain a small bit of freedom an allows their economy to develop itself.

India is less paranoid per ratio than China, but what's that worth? China is extremely paranoid and unwilling to work out any midway solutions, where India is just paranoid and unwilling to look at things from an unbiased position.

India could have had a major boost from allowing crypto to develop, but its hostile stance towards everything new and emerging is destructive and makes sure that this country will never progress optimally.

It's again a clear sign that the elite doesn't want the average person to develop further. Poverty is a horrible way to keep people in check, and they have no problem using it to get what they want. That's evil.

And how exactly is that different or an advantage over fiat? I can pay all my bills with fiat in an instant as well, and that either through internet banking or other payment services.

Or you can have your bills be automatically deducted. It's safe to say that fiat related payment infrastructure has improved significantly in the last years, which might have been the result of crypto competition.

The only thing is that fiat payment infrastructure is still costly, especially when it comes to international payments. I wonder how long it will take for them to lower their fees in order to match crypto.

It might actually take a while since the banking system consumes a lot in power as well, and that bill somehow needs to be paid by the user.  

I wonder with developments such as lightning network and eventually also smart contracts, what purpose is there left for other altcoins? Technically it's possible to add any feature altcoins are rocking right now.

I am strongly of believe that when lightning network becomes fully deployed and easy to use at client level, it will cause a major shift from capital that will be flowing from altcoins back into Bitcoin.

With all that in mind I wouldn't feel comfortable hodling any altcoin for the long term. People keep saying that Bitcoin is slow and lacking features, but time will show them what Bitcoin is really capable of.

No one is safe when ill minded individuals know you hold large amounts of coins or cash. I always cringe when people brag about their holdings and profits, which is mind bogglingly stupid and extremely risky.

The worst part is that some are even so stupid, that they enable location tags on social media. If you want to become a target, then that's definitely the path to follow. Times are changing, and this again proves it.

That's what I did with my main cold wallet. Not that I own a lot in terms of fiat value, but in relation to my financial status it represents a significant amount, and for that reason worthy to take these precautions.

I have had a look at the terms of the site I occasionally buy gold from, and they indeed seem to have a limit they work with, but it's quite easy to bypass. All purchases below €11,345 don't require any identification.

If you stay below that limit, and purchase €11,000 worth of gold per day, you can get access to €77,000 worth of gold on a weekly basis. The site also operates a brick and mortar store, so you can buy with cash as well.

What sort of limits do you face in the UK when buying precious metals?

It's difficult to demand from people that they will dive into Bitcoin's technical side. After all the years the majority of the people don't even understand what the internet actually is.

As long as people know that Bitcoin is a decentralized currency tool and people use it as such, that can be seen as a great achievement already. Mass adoption is the only thing that we should care about.

People use basic email applications by the billions, but don't know anything about the underlying protocols. The only thing we need are basic level applications making use and further adoption of Bitcoin easier.

I have always wondered how the tax department will react in case you suddenly start reporting your gains. Is it even smart to report your gains after not having done it for years? I have been thinking about it for a while.

Can you just claim that you found back an old wallet file? At some point large holders will become multi millionaires and it will somehow require them to come up with a solid plan of action to buy properties and such.

There are several ways to approach it from an illegal perspective, but doing it legally will definitely be a challenge and could end up causing more bad than good for you. Tax evasion has always been a serious offense.

It's your own money, but you are a criminal for not handing it over to the government.

It's all ok. If everyone was a master in trading and hodling due their ultra confidence in Bitcoin, the market wouldn't be as interesting as it is right now for investors. Volatility attracts big money and we should be happy with it.

At the end of the day, all these fluctuations are good for everyone looking to increase their holdings. It means that weak hands are 'transferring' their wealth to stronger hands, and that means more stability in the end.

This is also how things work on stock markets. It's meant to be a platform causing wealth to move from the stupid to the smart. It may sound harsh, but this is one of the reasons the rich only becomes richer.

The far majority of the short term sellers are losers.