Currently people don't really have that much incentive to switch completely, which I can't blame them for if it concerns local payments. Centralized internet money (PayPal & Co) is however different. Bitcoin in my opinion is one of the best forms of internet money because it actually settles the payments in full and for that reason are irreversible.

If someone transfers value to you through any of the existing centralized payment services, the payment never settles. In all cases the payment services even after many years can still reverse your transactions. In other words, the money that you think is yours isn't yours at all unless your physically withdraw it from an ATM.

The same basically applies to all the people thinking it's great to use centralized crypto platforms such as Coinbase to transact through. This is no different from you using PayPal.

Price manipulation happens everywhere, so that's not really the main criteria for them to keep rejecting ETF's. The SEC wants to walk into an exchange office within their own jurisdiction and raid the crap out of it in order to find out who the bad actors are in case of manipulation. Currently that's near impossible since exchanges operating within the US are so called 'following' exchanges and not those that are leading the market.

The collection of current leading exchanges consists of Bitfinex, Binance, Huobi, OKEx, Bithumb. All Asian focused. No way the SEC is going to allow an ETF to come through like this.

The SEC won't approve any ETF's, regardless of how secure/trusted/safe it is for investors. If you look at the underlying reason for that, which is that the entire crypto market is driven by Asian demand, there is no way that we'll see anything change for the better in that regard. The SEC basically wants highly regulated exchanges within the US to be the main market makers, and that's near impossible, at least in the short to mid term.

What people tend to forget is that Coinbase has already a coin backed product (Coinbase Index Fund) available for institutions to invest in, but they aren't biting (yet). It has a pretty steep entry point of $250,000 but that shouldn't be used as an excuse as to why this product isn't generating more institutional interest. Perhaps that during the next leg up we'll see it gain more popularity, but till that time, there is not much demand.

Sheeples -> price drop -> latest news -> cause.

Traders -> short based on lower high cycle -> price drop -> count profits.

It's not really surprising to see the price do the same thing over and over again during a longer term downtrend. Sheeples go against it while traders just utilize the flow of the market. Based on the longer term downtrend, the next lower high will be somewhere between $6800-$7000 and we'll get to face it this month for sure, and that range is exactly where my next short will be opened.

Knowing up front that the ETF will either be rejected for sure or once again postponed, there is nothing else to spark any potential bullish sentiment this year. Accumulation is what people should focus on. Dollar cost average on the way down.

LN is the only way forward in that regard.

The power of a globally deployed LN is that you don't have to close your channels. At that point people will be able to buy and sell coins through LN which will automatically give people way less incentive to close their channels. Why would you want to cash out to the main chain when you can have everything be done through LN? Going back to the main chain is like saying goodbye to your Ferarri from where you then jump on your rusty bike with a flat tire.

If you plan to send just one or two transactions without having an active LN channel, then you are better off using the main chain to conduct these transactions.

Give them the time. I know it's frustrating, but there is no other thing that you can do for now.

Also, just because they have replied to you on a daily basis previously doesn't mean they are always supposed to do that. In most cases people are already happy if Poloniex is replying to them at all, so you have been in a more than fortunate situation with how much backlog they have to work through. The more you go against them, the longer it will take for you to finally have your matter solved.

Poloniex doesn't care in the end. If they think you're demanding too much of their attention, they'll quickly shift their attention to the next support ticket because it's easier to solve. It's all about how efficient the support can work, where instead of "wasting" time on solving one person's matter, they could have spent the same amount of time solving more matters.

It's not scary at all. People sign up for that so they have to swallow all of it.

It's not at all surprising since we're dealing with a more than convenient means of exchange. Not expecting governments to firmly regulate the centralized ecosystem around Bitcoin and crypto is just foolish. In the end, governments are doing Bitcoin a favor by regulating the centralized ecosystem around it. All it does is stumulate decentralized platforms and economies to emerge for the benefit of everyone valuing freedom.

Bitcoin is our weapon to end what we allowed governments to start. The only thing we have to do is stimulate the decentralized revolution.

Of course it will reach these levels again. The problem with all the noobs here and the idiots calling themselves perma bulls is that they believe we'll be back to Bitcoin's highs before the end of the year, which is completely utter nonsense. It's really frustrating seeing how the current generation of noobs are in no shape or form able to acknowledge the presence of a bear market.

You can easily seperate the good perma bulls from the fake ass perma bulls by just listening to their 'sales pitch'. Good perma bulls promote Bitcoin as decentralized means of exchange, while the other side only highlights Bitcoin as speculative object. Reality is that the latter group is the loudest of all and thus more likely to infect newbies with their poisonous way of thinking.

We don't need anything of that. ETF's and good news are temporary speculative events that lose their effectiveness after a while. We need people to use Bitcoin as money, and with LN (which I believe is Bitcoin's killer application) people will have the best ever form of money that they can wish for. If Bitcoin is good money, which it will be with LN, the use will be what's driving the price to record highs organically.

I seems that you still haven't got any clue about what to do.

Why don't you under a different name (fake identity) reach out to your local tax department and ask for advice? I don't think anyone here will be able to come up with a satisfying answer that will make you report your profits and what not with a peace of mind, so why not just reach out to the source of your concern?

I have done that before, and ironically enough, my local tax department has an actual desk for those who seek to be anonymous with questions. I still didn't use it because you never know how anonymous your are even when using that option, but using a fake identity definitely keeps you out of their aiming range. There is nothing to lose for you. Go for it.

Currently the average person thinks about investments and trading when it comes to Bitcoin, but eventually Bitcoin will become so normal as being another form of money, that the investment and trading aspect won't differ from how professional parties (and to a lower extent retail traders) trade EUR/USD/CNY/JPY, etc. The average person has not much with forex trading, and will no longer care about Bitcoin in the same way when we reach the aforementioned stage.

Bitcoin is a very simple protocol meant to do just a couple of things extremely well, and that's directly what makes it so powerful. Instead of decreasing economical development, it will stimulate economical development with how you are dealing with a non deflationary means of exchange that doesn't abide by any laws set up by governments. Governments are actively holding back economical growth, and that in more ways than just one. Bitcoin breaks that.

Correct. Bitcoin has been the best performer in the longer term picture and that will always continue with how altcoins just don't have much to thrive on other than hype.

Ethereum's price exactly one year ago was $280 while it currently hovers around the $200 level (it even slightly dipped below $200). It's pretty bad if you can't book any sort of growth long term speaking. Bitcoin's price exactly one year ago was around $4100 which means that its price has gone up with 50% based on today's price of $6200!

Once again clear evidence for altcoin noobs that Bitcoin is the only way to go in the long term gains.

It doesn't matter much if he's right or wrong, especially when you take into consideration that the companies he invest in offer him exposure to a wide variety of industries, including tech. In other words, if tech booms as it has been doing in the last few years, he's directly profiting from it as well. It basically applies to all industries since the companies he invest in are pretty diverse in nature.

Also don't forget that Berkshire Hathaway has stakes in various banks as well, including Goldman Sachs. If Goldman Sachs manages to have Bitcoin generate insane amounts of profits eventually, Warren Buffett will again profit, and that while he (at least in the media) heavily dislikes Bitcoin.

There is no such a thing as anonymity with Bitcoin, especially not when it comes to newbies having bought their first coins through centralized services. Even if Bitcoin transactions were entirely invisible, it doesn't change anything when it comes to your legal obligation to honestly declare your gains and holdings.

You should know how many people trade at stock/cfd brokers and not pay one single penny in tax. There is no such a thing as anonymity over there, and yet the government depends on people's honesty when it comes to gain declarations.

I'm not at all a fan of paying tax, but when it comes to using centralized services, it's just better to declare everything since you don't want any problems with the government at a later stage. If they bust you, you will still end up paying everything, but then with a hefty fine on top of it and that will definitely hurt. It sucks, but what else can you do? The only alternative is not using centralized services.

Aren't all shops automatically (ie, by default) saving all your transaction history for a couple of years at minimum?

Ethereum's blockchain in no shape or form offers any decentralization, especially with how you only need to make sure you catch Vitalik and you're pretty much good to go as government.

Ethereum has rolled back the chain already to save investor funds, and that with a minority agreement! In other words, Ethereum is pretty much the last blockchain you would want to use for these purposes, especially if you take into consideration that Vitalik recently admitted to write a fork in case he's forced to do so. It's a complete lunatic.

Voting itself is and will always be prone to some extent of manipulation, even on the most decentralized network as the one from Bitcoin.

While other coins might suck just as hard, we really need to have the utility platform part of the market to be well diversified. Back in 2017 it was just Ethereum that people could buy into, which as we all know, pumped its price to insane levels, and it was very close to Bitcoin in terms of market cap at one point. Right now the same won't happen again because the pool of funds that will flow into altcoins will be split in smaller fractions where each individual coin will get its share of the pie.

In other words, competition for Ethereum is the best thing that could happen to this market. Startups no longer need to use Ethereum as base, they have a wide variety of much better scaling alternatives to choose from. Ethereum started it all, and it gave birth to platforms that might at some point overtake its spot.

It's just a matter of time before we can start even paying our bills in Bitcoin. Merchants can save like 3% in fees just by accepting Bitcoin, which allows them to forward that as a bonus to people using Bitcoin as payment option. If Merchants cut out the centralized payment gateways, which will take a while but still, Mastercard & Co won't be able to compete with Bitcoin based on fees anymore.

That's not Bitcoin. We need to get rid of central parties requiring permission and fees for their services. That's what Bitcoin is meant to combat. If we stick to debit cards and central payment gateways, what are we using Bitcoin for? People in that case can just as easily stick to using fiat as they have always been doing.

Guys, you do realize that the far majority of the Iranians aren't actually buying a whole coin for $24,000 right? It's all fractions of a coin they buy and sell.

In the end, the economical activity there is what matters. If people and businesses accept Bitcoin according to the $24,000 valuation, they have their own econimical rules and thus don't lose out on anything. There just aren't enough Bitcoins in the world to allow all people to buy their coins at (currently much lower) western exchange rates.

We're spoiled with how we can buy a lot Bitcoins at the best possible rates, but people need to realize that some very closed countries like Iran don't have that luxury.

Back in the days I used to wire money to a wide variety of different countries for business purposes, and the transactions basically looked like this;

My bank €100 + €15 in fees -> Bank X receives €100 + €10 -> Bank Y receives €100 + €5 (converts everyting to USD) ->  Bank Z (destination bank) $130.

It takes several days with how every individual bank has to ask permission to the other bank if it's okay to conduct this transaction. It's faster to fly our money to the receiver.

With Bitcoin you cut all that nonsense out and the other party gets his money near instantly, just takes some minutes to confirm.

We need wallet clients to able to calculate Bitcoin amounts in each and every fiat currency for more usability. Currently mostly all wallet clients are focused on the main fiat currencies, and this has to change. Bitcoin is for everyone and the demand for Bitcoin has never been this country diversified.

That's okay I guess, as long as the balance is healthy enough.

In all cases, the majority of the fiat in circulation isn't being utilized as money, but rather as investment. The reason fiat has value is because we need and use it as money, and we need it to invest in other assets. It's a 2-way utility factor that makes fiat so useful, even though its value depreciates consistently throughout the years.

Bitcoin does everything fiat does in that regard, except for the fact that with Bitcoin you aren't dealing with long term value depreciation.

The current generation of "investors" are lunatics and parasites that we'll eventually get rid of. Smart money will shake the last few satoshis out of their pockets.

Taking over an exchange isn't something that happens in a matter of weeks. In most cases it could take almost a year before you can actually own it, especially with all the legal hassle that Poloniex had to go through in order to have the deal be approved by higher authority. I think it's pretty safe to assume that Goldman & Co fomo'd hard and contractually agreed on an amount at the very early stage, which turns out now has been a bad decision.

It was hardcore seeing Poloniex push through 100k daily BTC volumes, which equates to around 150BTC in fee income every day. I think that's what Goldman & Co were after.

But yeah, the Poloniex owners did well dumping at prime rates.