Blame the spammers that flood the mempool. This isn't organic growth causing problems, its a regular and habitual pattern of abuse that always seems to run out of money for a while until next cycle. Prime suspects are Roger Ver, ex-pat cheerleader for Bitcoin "Unlimited".

Also, 0.00000001 * 300,000 = 0.003 BTC * 1,009 (Bitstamp) == 3 bucks and change.

While high, it isn't the end of the world, either.

Again, just follow the surges in the mempool for likely actors.

Here's one from 2015 -- https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/13/down-the-blockchain-rabbit-hole/

It is "old hat" to those of us that have seen multiple "BANNED/Not Banned" freakouts in our time. I'm guessing the Chinese govt is just trying to figure how to get a cut of the action, and prevent capital controls being circumvented. They didn't get all the exchanges either, and I'm not telling which they forgot

Its going to take some time to "dig out" from this decline.

We've been here before - 9 days ago, to be exact. So I'm not really quaking in my boots that we've tumbled. My only concern would be if we end up aimlessly sideways without any Chinese trade. Volumes at Bitfinex, GDAX and Bitstamp seem adequate. There's no way to "arb" any price differences in the Chinese exchanges since their money spigots are shut, so that will limit the selling pressure for a while.

It all is going to end up like before, where we work out sideways and such and then manage to peek above 1,000 again. I'd like to see a solid month above 1K, personally, but we haven't managed much staying power so far.

The People's Bank of China have "gotten wise" to the ability of Bitcoin to circumvent their capital controls.

So, they shut it down. Who knows when they'll actually be able to transfer funds again.

Well, as I suspected, they saw how Bitcoin was being used to circumvent capital controls and have shut the party down. (For now...)

No way to "arb" this, so those funds will remain trapped if and when they get going again....

This just seems to be normal stuff to me. They have been meeting with the exchanges regularly, at least according to Bobby Lee of BTCC.

I'm sure they're interested in how to limit leverage and limit who can move money out of the services. They're not stupid, I'm sure they realize with the Yuan weakening back towards 7.0, Bitcoin could be used to shuttle worth out of the country.

I anticipate other countries to do the same as they finally understand the global nature of the Bitcoin network.

No, they aren't in the white paper you pedantic tool.

My understanding is sidechains are secured via the parent blockchain hashing power. Which is why it makes sense. Then the side-chain can have different ratios of value to the main chain, and in effect "fill the gap" for lower-end purchases.

Precisely this.

There is no way to register a company without the principal officers being known. Sure, there are some scammers out there selling the idea of bearer bonds and other dubious loopholes, but if the IRS sends you a subpoena you're going to comply unless you want your entire organization shut down.

I don't like the lack of privacy protection for the users, but it seems the IRS would have had more than one way to get the customer list in any case.

By their own definition Coinbase is a money transmitter.

I can't see how the CEO wouldn't understand that this was always a risk. The IRS has been known to audit corporations - and while I agree that targeting every user is broad, they're still treading on the line of being able to enforce existing law against what they perceive as potential abuse.

I'd prefer they had taken a more direct approach, but given its a government organization with very little staff given its size, I am not surprised they are asking for everything.

Just glad I never touched that service with a 100-meter pole... but I will be watching to see how they enforce individual fines/financial assessments.

I guess Roger Ver refilled his spam wallets.

If you guys think this is because of block limitations, you're not seeing the big picture. There's been a recurring pattern here where transactions suddenly spike, and then we get mempool backlogs. That shit isn't "natural" or "organic". Its some jackhole pushing their agenda in the form of screwing over other people using a shared resource.

Top suspect is Mr-Bitcoin-Unlimited-Asshole-Ver, who has come out in opposition to the latest solution to scaling, which is Segregated Witness. He's tasted the power, and now wants his crap-coin to be a majority fork, and he'll play dirty pool to make that more attractive.

As far as paying fees blocking out some poor ditch-digger in Kuala Lampur, you've got to be fucking kidding me. Our use-case isn't every biped on the planet, its those that have some value to transmit in the first place. Amazonian jungle tribes and outback maori tribesmen need not apply -- nor do they give two shits.

Sidechains are more suited to micro-transactions. It will take time, but I think that will be the direction to take.

Those that can't innovate -- copy.

Outside of "washing" coins, litecoin doesn't have a compelling use-case, and its price reflects that.

This is arguably the only time the FED actually was helping people, instead of stealing from them via inflationary erosion of buying power.

These bastards need to be audited, and I hope it happens in my lifetime.

"Drop in liquidity".... yeah, sure thing.

All I know is we've ground steadily higher above 1,000 without a Chinese leverage party to crash the gates this time. So you can take your quotables and shove them where the sun doesn't shine.

How is this an actual news piece?

Every troll from the beginning of Bitcoin has used the "Well, what if the INTERNET EXPLODED" kind of argument to falsely show Bitcoin being highly vulnerable.

Obviously, if your fucking internet is down, you have bigger problems than the next block being processed. But no, with regularity I get see "news" pieces that
exemplify the extremes, "What if we have another solar flare" or "What if an asteroid hits the Earth"... well,  lots of shit will happen and people will die -- and I
don't think we'll be too concerned about Bitcoin at that point.

It just pisses me off these casual assholes toss out these stupid fucking questions without acknowledging that their ENTIRE COMFY EXISTENCE would be nullified
if the internet or electricity went "poof".

How is this news? Its a goddamned PR fluff piece.

Thanks for posting - whaleclubco.... I love reading self-promotional pieces about services I could give two shits about.

So, its like Pokemon GO except they call their creatures "Augmentors".

Lets just set aside the realities of battery drain on something that uses Augmented Reality for a second, and ponder whether the underlying game itself will be worth two shits.

Pokemon Go had a mania phase and is petering out. That was with the drive and promotion of a major company behind it. Using an ICO to raise funds for a game is interesting, and trying to tie a token to "rares" in a game hasn't been done before, but honestly I feel like this is just another version of Steam Greenlight, except you get to hold the bag if none of these promises or interest works out for this game.

As for using the blockchain, I sure as fuck hope these people aren't just dumping information into the ledger like a personal hard drive, because then I'll not only dislike them, I'll actively oppose their efforts.

Anyway - buy their tokens and depend on them to not only develop a game, but carry through their promise of not offering "rare" items for tokens... seems like a multitude of risks to me.

Just because you tack "blockchain" on to something, doesn't mean its going to be successful.

Vessenes is known for having absconded with 5 million from Gox, just do a few searches and you'll see the relevant threads popping up elsewhere.

I question this man's motives and personal ethics. Gox is also a symbol for how much people haven't learned from the past. Witness Bitfinex since they were "hacked".

People still flock to that platform and trust them with their funds. Two possibilities present themselves, either people are more trusting than you'd expect,

or they are more likely to be complete fucking morons.

I leave it to you to decide which.