Using LN to pay small miners seems like a perfect fit -- small, recurring payments between directly connected LN nodes are like the picture-book use case of LN.

But while it may solve one of the issues that make P2Pool less attractive than centralized mining pools, I doubt that this improvement would be enough for a significant number of miners to switch to decentralized mining pools. Centralization concerns tend to fade-away once it's less convenient than the other options.

Ah yes. This is actually good news!™

While I generally find it very positive that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies start to find their place in the legal frameworks of the world, not every regulatory attempt may be as sane and benign as Japan's. I doubt that the USA, Russia or China will try to kill off Bitcoin any time soon, but politics can be fickle if you're on the wrong side of whatever is currently being lobbied.

Many of the larger and more established alt coins can get bought directly via USD / EUR as well. Kraken for example has fiat trading pairs for LTC, XMR, XRP and a few other alts. Bitstamp offers fiat trading pairs for XRP and LTC. I guess a lot of alts don't have enough volume to warrant dedicated fiat trading pairs however, so naturally BTC or ETH are the better fit.

Also note that the exchanges with the largest selection of alt coins usually don't have a direct connection to the traditional banking system.

I think BTC has a fair chance of reaching USD 30k,- at one point, but I'm not sure whether 5 years are going to be enough. It will largely depend on whether Bitcoin manages to become a more mainstream mean of payments / established form of investment. The first requiring a solution to the scalability issue, the second requiring a stable market for the bigger part of the next few years.



The good (or bad) thing is, that I'm not seeing any of the alts solving this problem much better either.

Good points. Keep in mind that crypto has its own little dot-com bubble of crappy companies right now (*cough* ICOs *cough*). I'm positive that the long-term effect on Bitcoin itself will be limited though.



I think it's less about Schadenfreude and more about preparing newcomers for the worst. Making sure that people don't overreach in their investments and keep a level head. It's all fun and games until the bear market strikes and I don't think many of the new community members are fully aware of what they are potentially getting into. Seeing how some people get skittish when Bitcoin makes as much as a sneeze a reminder like OP's seems well placed.

A stable market needs strong hands and clear heads, everyone loses once things get emotional.

Good luck trying to find a merchant willing to do this. And if you have to pay a large sum, say EUR 10k,-, it will take you a lot of roundtrips until you have paid off each installment.

They know that there are ways to move around laws like this. They are just trying to make using cash as inconvenient as possible, to nudge consumers towards payments they can more easily track, ie. credit and debit card payments.

The final paragraph of the article regarding the end of Bitcoin by 2040 is a bit weird:


"The expert calls a date for the end of Bitcoin: Since there are currently 16 million bitcoin in circulation with the maximum supply being 21 million, the end of bitcoin-mining will, according to his calculations, be reached by 2040."

I wonder if the conclusion that the end of block rewards automatically means the end of Bitcoin came from Schamir or from Businessinsider. Either way yet another prime example of a fundamental misunderstanding of how Bitcoin works.

A few counterpoints to ragnar0k's additions:


Most likely already priced in, unfortunately, so might not help us short term. In the long term however, very bullish of course.



The infrastructure has come a looong way since 2013, that is very true. However definitely not the only reason for the crashes of days of yore.



What do you mean?

Regarding yield I don't think any wall street stock has seen growth like Bitcoin in such a short timeframe, not even during times of bubble.

Regarding market cap Bitcoin is already in the ball park of S&P 500 companies. Unless you mean the whole market of course



I believe it when I see it. But true, things are moving in the right direction.

Excellent post and I fully agree with OP.

Keeping a level head and having realistic expectations is important for the community. The more people kick common sense out of the door, the more likely it is for Bitcoin to spectacularly crash. The harder Bitcoin crashes, the longer it will take for the market (including alt coins) to recover.

So stay safe out there, fellow Bitcoiners and crypto-enthusiasts! Don't let yourself go into a bubble mania when the price rises and keep calm when the big dumps come!



USDT is a ticking timebomb, be careful with that. I wouldn't be surprised if the next major crypto crash / bear market would get triggered by USDT running fractional.

USD 5000,- will be a tough nut to crack for 3 reasons:

1) There's only so much fiat that can enter the market and right now it seems like most prospect investors have already invested as they seem fit.

2) Short to mid-term there's little room to grow past USD 5000,-, so risk / reward is not as attractive as a few months back.

3) USD 4000,- still needs to establish as a new, stable bottom. This will take time.

However once USD 4000,- has become the new baseline (if it becomes the new baseline) prospect investors will have reloaded on fiat and the risk will be seen as lower, making risk / reward more attractive again.

Alright then, very bullish. I guess it's time to lock some profits in and sell some BCH now. Thank you for your service, kwuk!

Yep, while pretty much everything goes in crypto, 1 BTC = USD 500k,- is completely off-limits unfortunately (unless the USD gets hit by hyper-inflation, of course). With 1 BTC being worth USD 500k,-, Bitcoin would roughly equal the estimated market cap of gold, which, while awesome, is rather unrealistic.

But even keeping this in mind there's still a lot of room to grow compared to traditional investments. Assuming that USD 50k,- are within the ball park for BTC, that's still an incredible value proposition given current valuations.

Yeah, I also don't think you should do trades at the moment if you feel uncomfortable with the market situation. One can only trade well when one is confident. It's absolutely okay to wait on the sidelines from time to time and its absolutely recommended if you're not at the top of your game.

That being sad, if that looks like a bear market to you, you're in for a treat once shit gets real.

Look at the bright side, getting rid of weak hands ensures healthier growth and helps Bitcoin in the long term. You gotta prune the tree every now and then if you want to see it grow high and tall.

Has anyone kept count how many times China "banned" or "unbanned" crypto? I kinda lost track over the years.

Any interesting projects that are currently working on this? Adding a mixing layer on top of Bitcoin doesn't sound like a trivial task.

Exactly. The same is unfortunately true for crowdfunding in general, not just ICOs.

While I love the idea of innovation through grass roots movement, the sad truth is that most of those "innovators" wouldn't pass even early VC rounds for a reason. So in the end ICOs do little for meaningful projects that would get funding or at least community support anyways and do a lot for scammy ventures that purely feed on greed without offering anything in return.

It seems unrelated because it most likely is. To be honest, I don't think China's ICO statement was the cause of the current dip. It's only natural that a correction would occur after a new ATH, especially with a psychological barrier such as USD 5000,-. People always try to find an explanation after the fact and sometimes occurrences such as China's ICO statement simply seem to fit.

Like I said, the party is more likely to take a break than to end. Someone's has to go for a beer fiat run sooner or later

November is still going to be critical though, with SegWit2x vs SegWit I'm afraid the community divide is even bigger than last time. Unless you're referring to Lightning Network, in which case, yeah, once LN is live the party will just get started.

Definitely.

The current price levels still need to sink in as the "new normal". Knowing Bitcoin though, it won't be long until it tries to make another break for USD 5k,-. Question being, where we'll go from there. Breaking through too soon could lead to an unhealthy mania. Failing to break USD 5k,- could turn the sentiment bearish and lead to a reversal.

This party is going to end -- or rather, take a break -- sooner or later.

So I'd say USD 3.5k,- with people panic selling under falling skies on one side and people scooping up coins for the next rally on the other. The question being how far up we can go before that.