It's sad to see that only a very few people think like that. It's even more sad when we take into consideration how the majority of the people use exchanges as wallet, all out of laziness. In other words, the majority of the circulating Bitcoins is held by centralized services. It was pretty shocking for me to read that Xapo is sitting on $10 billion in client funds, which goes beyond everything we value.

All these fools think to have left the banking system and are now safe, while in reality nothing has changed for them; their funds are still being controlled by a central party. I consider it to be worse than having your money stuck in banks because of how scummy most of the exchanges are, and how incapable they are of professionally running a multi billion operation. Every time an exchange goes down, even if it's for a few minutes, people start worrying, wich says enough. People don't trust exchanges but are still using them.

Decentralized incentives are great, but they face one challenge they can't (at least for now) overcome, which is to incorporate fiat in a totally decentralized manner. All decentralized platforms right now rely on centralized payment services to settle fiat to crypto transactions, which is something they need to figure out somehow. Only crypto to crypto transactions are truly decentralized.

Tether is somewhat of a decent alternative, but again not decentralized since they work with fiat reserves being held by one party, where on top of that they don't enjoy that much of a clean status with everything going on. Unless we start disregarding fiat and use Bitcoin as base, it will prove to be a real challenge having decentralized platforms offer truly decentralized fiat to crypto trades.

Are you blind?

In the last few years plenty of altcoins popped up doing things Bitcoin didn't do, which people kept hyping about, but Bitcoin didn't give a fuck. It's not about how many more features you can have over Bitcoin as altcoin, but what features you can offer that actually enjoy real world usage. Thus far the only altcoins managed doing that are Ethereum with their ICO craze and Monero offering privacy features.

Bitcoin's main features are very basic and simple, which means that altcoins have to come up with other (in demand) features to differentiate themselves. Also, altcoins form a testbase for Bitcoin. If at some point an altcoin comes up with something innovative and in demand enough, it can be implemented in Bitcoin or run on top of it as second layer. LN is the perfect example.

According to some? Some isn't a source, and some doesn't know any more or less than what we know.

People for once need to stop with looking for reasons why something happened. Not that long ago with how the price was going down it was first due to South Korea, then China, then the SEC, then stricter Japanese regulations, then the social media ad ban, etc. It's all nonsense speculation based on nothing but just a silly assumption because the price was going down. It's going down for a reason, right? That's where people go wrong.

With current drop it's MtGox, the recent exchange hack, Warren Buffett. Smh.

The overall interest in blockchain will only increase, just like how it happened with the internet. The main problem is that out of the many initiatives, at current stage, the far majority will fail, but it will be something we all will learn from to develop more efficient applications and use cases.

Seriously, look at Bitcoin, it was the development of the first ever crypto currency where it was only meant to function as means of exchange, where right now we have Ethereum functioning as platform developers can build apps and other layers on. It's truly groundbreaking. Regardless of how I strongly dislike the far majority of the altcoins and tokens, some of them do actually serve a purpose. My main favorite is Monero since privacy is very important to me.

Bitcoin's advantage is that it doesn't need to compete with others because it's doing everything people want already, which is functioning as store of value, and means of exchange, where with LN on board it will be even more of a perfectly usable micro transacting tool, especially when clients allow easy usage for even the worst noobs. Main uses = Bitcoin. External uses = altcoins.

Every market experiences volatility. In traditional markets frequent up and down movements of 2% are also volatility, and some even dare to call 3-4% swings extreme, which is something we in the crypto world laugh about or even completely ignore due to how 'normal' they are. People here complain about how the market is slow when it's just moving up or down with 1 or 2%, while institutions only need 0.05% gains to optimally profit from the market.

Everything is the same, it's just that the crypto market needs to mature in its entirety to become something like what Gold is today. It will happen, but allow it to develop and catch up. Nothing in the world happens overnight, and especially not when it comes to something fundamentally this groundbreaking. Just look at the internet, it's still not done growing after more than two decades.

The problems of value loss have started to become more obvious in recent years than ever before. The wealthy elite won't suffer any loss in purchasing power with how their returns easily cover the loss in value of their fiat holdings, but that's unfortunately not the case for the regular person.

Regulars have one weakness, and that weakness is debt. It's insanely easy to borrow money every month to fill up your gaps, while in the background the value loss of fiat + the interest rates of your loans (short term loans are mostly the worst and most expensive) are pushing you down in the hole even further. It's sickening that a system like this exists. Imagine how more worse the situation will become when we're like 10 years away from now.

Debt is the poison of this system slowly sucking the life out of everyone.

Bill Gates knows how everything works when it comes to peer to peer applications, and he is well aware of the fact that it's impossible to dismantle Bitcoin. Instead of wasting their time and effort on something that doesn't yield anything of significance, they are better off working out their own plans (which I am sure aren't crypto related). It's not that Bitcoin is forming a threat to any of them. If they want they can hop in and enjoy the ride up, but it's just not their interest.

The problem with their harsh statements is that they are basically forced to comment on something they don't like or care about. If you ask the majority of the hardcore Bitcoiners what they think about altcoins, they will very likely tell you that they don't care about redundant garbage, and that they will become worthless at some point. CNBC and all the other mainstream media channels are looking for sensation, and they know what questions they need to come up with in order to spice things up.

Be happy people.

The sooner that wallet runs out of coins, the stronger the market becomes with how we got rid of one entity being in control of such a large number of coins. Think logically, that wallet will run out of funds at some point, so the market won't have to deal with this nonsense endlessly. If the market is affected by the recent coin movement (which I personally believe isn't the case), see it as a cheaper entry point for yourself. In other words, use a 'negative' event in your advantage to make it a positive event.

If I didn't stock up coins at sub $7000 levels I would have bought for sure, but I'm fine for now.

It's ridiculous and somewhat retarded, but not surprising at all. It may very well be related to the EU regulations concerning crypto exchanges that have been updated recently.

I opened a bank account last year and was subject to the exact same questions, so the this is basically the next step for authorities to bind you even further in their system. It's just another power play demonstration. It's almost like we are kids that need to be taken care of, where in order to get something done, we have to ask permission for everything.

The most funny question I had to anwer was whether or not I would ever plan to deposit money from illegitimate acitivities on my bank account. Seriously, what's that for a question?

I want to open a bank account, not apply for a $500,000 mortgage you fools!

Bitcoin doesn't ask me for anything when I open a bank account (ie, generate an address/private key).

Pump.

Gold isn't being seen as money in the way that you can walk into any store and throw your rocks on the table and demand to buy a TV or whatever.

I have seen myself how physical Gold transactions have been taking place where it was either to sell for fiat, or trade for a watch or car. In the same way I am sure that way larger transactions are taking place with Gold. It could be anything; real estate, cars, art, etc. It's a great tool in various circumstances as well, especially when you can avoid tax in some cases that would otherwise require you to pay tax if the transaction was completed with fiat.

People should think further than just the grocery store. It's totally not about that.

That's also a form of 'decentralization'.

In all seriousness, it feels great to know that one country isn't the other when it comes to being open minded towards new emerging technologies. On the other hand, I am sure that when Japan has been booking consistent GDP growth through Bitcoin alone, other countries will follow. It's impossible for any well thinking government to ignore that.

Seriously, not allowing crypto currencies to develop in your country does more damage than allowing them to develop. If we take into consideration that it is a perfect hedge as well for governments, then they are even more stupid. In case the regular economy implodes due to their shitty fiat system, which is quite realistic to happen, they won't be hit as hard with crypto offering an alternative form of growth. Japan is smart, very smart. I'm looking forward to their GDP statistics for 2018.

I personally think the failed attempt to break $10,000 was the actual trigger, but it doesn't matter anymore.

If MtGox is cashing out (with governmental incentive), and I say if, it's the best possible news because that means the number of coins that they have in stock is only decreasing.

While people are going nuts and start panicking, I am getting excited because the less large holders there are, the less influence they can practice on this market. In other words, buy as many coin as you can while you guys still have the opportunity to do so. It's impossible to tell how heavy these coins weigh on the sentiment, but seeing that wallet shrinking in number of coins feels incredibly well.

It's actually very simple, the market does the opposite of what the general public expects.

Know that when the mass starts speculating about an increase, it's unlikely to happen. If the mass actually believed that the price would increase, they would have bought and kept buying, but that's obviously not the case, which explains why the $10,000 level is more of an obstacle than most people were thinking initially. As always, empty speculation doesn't yield anything, actions do, and in this case it's a minor step back.

In the same way it happened with how most people believed we would have to go down a lot more in order to properly recover, and it went up without going down more, which again is an opposite market reaction. The most that we can expect from the market is to consolidate around current levels. It's pointless to speculate about increases when the incentive just isn't there; be happy with consolidation.

While it's quite easy to track people, it's impossible to differentiate between 'legal' and 'illegal' transactions without solid proof. Nothing will change in that field.

Stock markets and other traditional assets are subject to daily manipulation, and that while these markets are extremely regulated, but no one here talks about it. It's always Bitcoin being put in the corner.

I don't really understand what market cap (think that's what you meant?) data has to do with this.

People have two options they can choose from; 1) to verify and accept that your personal information is compromised and stored on whatever servers for ever. 2) to avoid dealing with anything that's centralized. You can somewhat balance things out a bit if you don't want to choose, but avoiding central services is always the best option, but one that people don't see as such yet. It will come eventually.

No one is capable of influencing someone being worth $90 billion and 1000x smarter than Warren Buffett.

Bill Gates changed the world with Microsoft in his own way, added value to how we use the internet, applications, etc. What did Warren Buffett do? He just entered and left markets on time, which is great for him personally, and Berkshire's shareholders, but hasn't been of any sort of value for the world itself. Buffet knows that his time has come to an end, and that must hurt, especially with how he has been wrong on Bitcoin for many years.

Also, Berkshire Hathaway has quite a large stake in Goldman Sachs, and if they really didn't like Bitcoin, they and their other co-shareholders have enough saying to at least make things more difficult for Goldman Sachs. All these old farts are nothing more than a bunch of hypocrites; they act like they hate Bitcoin, but don't have problems with Goldman Sachs becoming more valuable due to their stakes in the crypto world.

Munger said Bitcoin is rat poison, and he is absolutely right. Bitcoin is the rat poison exterminating rats called banks and governments.

No, exchanges and online wallet services aren't exposing people's email addresses. People use one email address for basically everything. In most cases faucets and other trash sites get hacked and their database leaked, so with all that information the hackers try to gain access to exchanges and online wallet services, which is their only objective obviously. With how crypto has increased in value lately these log-in attempts have increased as well.

In other words, use a shitty email account for faucets whatnot, and use new highly secured email accounts for important services. This is common internet etiquette, come on!

Traders depend more on luck than anyone else in this market, regardless of how experienced they are. This isn't the stock market where equal minded institutions rule the markets based on their analysis, where they also filter regular orders coming through and let their high frequency department exploit that advantage.

The crypto market can be seen as a war zone where traders from all sorts of different categories battle against each other, and that non stop. There are so many variables involved, that every step you set is a gamble that will either end up in profit or result in a loss. I have yet to come across a trader that manages to book consistent profits in this market. One day isn't the other; today's profits are tomorrow's losses, that's what this market is.

How is someone sharing his genuine opinion pessimistic? Nothing points at $10,000 to become a base support level, and I strongly believe that during this whole year, we aren't done with sub $10,000 levels yet. Don't forget that the bottom (~$6500) is way lower than current levels, so we have definitely a lot to catch up on before we can bottom at levels close to $10,000. We need a major trigger to accomplish that, but the only relevant question is when that major trigger will show its face.

Positive sign is that the market bounced back up after having dipped below $9000 for a brief moment. If we can see the market consolidate around the $9000 level for a longer while, it likely means that the sellers have exhausted their resources; the average price in the last 20 or so days has been hovering around $9000 which is a very healthy sign, and may confirm that.