If it's hard to cash out in certain countries, then it's also hard to enter the market; there is no one or the other.

In most countries where restrictions are quite harsh, the local markets actually flourish to compensate for the legal channels that are difficult to access. It's obviously less convenient if you deal with Bitcoin through local markets, but the benefit is that you aren't subject to AML/KYC and all other policies. If you want to remain under the radar, and avoid tax liabilities, then this is the perfect option to go for.

If governments make it difficult for you to buy and sell Bitcoin, then they don't deserve one single penny in tax income. Never support a system that works against you.

Instead of waiting for things to start rolling, try contribute yourself by raising awareness locally. The longer you are doing nothing to force through changes, the longer it takes for other people around you to do it. It makes sense as well, because if you aren't spending any of your coins, or not showing merchants locally that you have that incentive, why would they accept Bitcoin?

People here are quite hypocrite. They expect Bitcoin to be a currency, and even blame it some times for not being that, but they don't do anything to change it.

I have this year basically 'forced' people selling goods locally to accept Bitcoin because I am not going to use fiat. I gave them a choice, you continue relisting your products online where no one is buying them, or you can accept my Bitcoins and you can have it sold right now, and so it happened.

Funny thing is that he was asking me later on whether or not I'm interested in buying more stuff with Bitcoin. That's real life adoption taking place.

It is an article coming from bitcoin(dat)cawm, so we know what the motive behind this Bitcoin Core nonsense is.

Roger's wealth will surely last a long while, so will all these sponsored garbage articles, but I am actually happy he's doing this. It only shows the outside world how much of a stupid and delusional bastard he is. The more he keeps hammering down on Bitcoin, ahum, Core, the more he's convincing investors not to buy any BCash. In other words, he's making investors aware of a major flaw in the whole BCash ecosystem, and that major flaw is Roger himself.

BCash without any news reaching the headlines is a few hundred BTC volume generating coin, which says enough. Without Roger's input, BCash = BTG.

It's not really that strange. In most cases Scandinavian countries are the most peaceful and wealthy countries per ratio. If you have to deal with less scum, police departments don't require to carry a firearm; pepper spray or a taser is sufficient enough in case they have to deal with criminals and whatnot.

I think the more comfort (of course with limitations) you offer inmates, the higher the chances are that they are coming back into society with a more postive attitude. I have even read about how there are programs they can follow to directly after their release start working to sustain themselves. It's a smart system set up to prevent future problems with the same individuals. It requires an initial investment, but the long term pays off, which is their only objective.

Every exchange in the last 12 months has been a nightmare when it comes to offering swift support. They put the blame on the massive growth they have gone through, which makes sense, but not if it continues even in a way calmer market that we are in today. It's purely the lack of will to invest in their support desk, which is a shame. They generated more fee income than ever before, but don't want to spend any of it to boost their operation. They probably bought themselves a Lambo with it.

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As much as I dislike HitBtc, this seems to be your personal fault. You could have prevented this by first checking what the trading and withdrawal fees are, and what limits their markets may have. Plenty of these tokens have these kind of limitations, it's not just HitBtc doing this.

That's just nonsense. In the last years the demand has always been higher than the supply, which is the main reason we are where we are right now.

The underlying causes for volatility are the undeveloped market, greedy way of trading/investing, not knowing what people invest in (ignorance), serious lack of liquidity, etc. One aspect is already enough to get the market to bounce up and down, but when you combine all of them, it perfectly explains why Bitcoin's market is one crazy roller coaster. It directly applies to other crypto currencies as well.

Hate it or love it, I absolutely love it. I see how people keep referring to volatility as being a serious problem, but it really isn't. If you are in for the long term, you don't have to deal with the volatility at all. If you trade the volatile markets and you don't like it because you are losing, then just quit. It's very simple. It's pointless for people to let themselves suffer from their own idiotic behavior. Volatility isn't a problem, but people themselves are.

That's the most likely scenario, but the thing with Bitcoin is that we don't depend on just one aspect, and that alone makes Bitcoin a very powerful tool. In the end, with how professional parties will take over this market and the stability they bring, it will incentivize people to actually start using it as currency, and that's something people here don't yet think about.

The only thing we see people say is that Bitcoin is slow, expensive, volatile, etc.

All these aspects are part of an emerging market that yet has to make a complete transition. We can't expect a market filled with idiots and get rich quick noobs to become stable. Professional parties, which happen to be mostly conservative, will take over the major part of this market eventually. If you add that exchanges will be subject to very strict regulations, similar to what rules stock markets are subject to, extreme volatility will no longer exist.

- Bitcoin's investment aspect will flourish, although it being in a much slower pace later on.
- Bitcoin's store of value aspect will flourish.
- Bitcoin's currency aspect will flourish.
- Bitcoin's use as high value transaction tool will flourish.

Small transactions creating high volumes will be dealt with through LN, and the rest of the high value transaction will be dealt with on-chain. Solid.

I would seriously love it to have it be erased, or at least donated to the one maintaining and operating the bitcoin.org site, but we have to accept and respect that we can't just have a Twitter handle erased or change owner just like that. If that would be the case, in the same way others could do the same to very important Twitter handles of other entities, and this is quite a dangerious and unethical way of operating.

We're living in a time where there are hundreds of impersonators of political figures, celebrities, businesses, etc. No one with a functioning brain will fall for it, and those who do fall for it will learn it the hard way. People just need to understand that not doing research leads to problems, and most of them will learn from their mistake later on. We can't spoon feed everyone with rules and tips on how to behave; people should do that themselves.

Bitcoin isn't a company or representing one entity; as long as people don't understand that, they'll keep being trolled. If @Bitcoin advertises BCash crap, then red flags should pop up instantly. If not, you're a nutter.

If the 'genesis Bitcoin' is Bitcoin Core, then BCash is Bitcoin Roger, or Bitcoin JiRo, or Bitcoin Jihaaaaaa.

Fact of the matter is that Bitcoin is a public driven coin with the best possible developers working on it, where Bitcoin Jihaaaaaa is nothing more than a coin from which its nodes and everything else is in control of one group/entity. No serious investor will ever put his money into this centralized garbage, where Roger can change his mind and implement anything he wants without any resistance, because there is none.

I wouldn't even be surprised if he ends up reversing transactions from theft or whatever, just because he doesn't agree with it. I rather let my money deplete in fiat than having it sit in this garbage.

Bitcoin's price increased solely based on the speculation of these futures. If there were no futures, there wouldn't be a near $20,000 peak, period.

CME was the last to enter, and as main player in their own field the market kept pushing further up, and at the moment it went live, and thus the speculative hype came to an end, it was done and over. If you also add that the $20,000 level is a very important psychological barrier, it was even more obvious that we wouldn't make it past that level. If you also take into consideration the potential tax sales after such a massive increase, how obvious do people want it to be before they realize it?

This is a market where the price increases in advance of the event or happening, and these future markets once again pointed that out. If you sold near these levels, you have done a perfect job. The only ever times I had a 'short the f*ck out of this shit' moment was back in 2013 and last year.

It proves nothing. It's even too early to consider the market to be in consolidation mode.

The problem with a market that's lacking incentive to move up, is that we may slowly adjust to lower ranges, and that process could drag on for months straight. It wouldn't be all that much of a problem if we were hovering around $7000-$8000 levels, but with how we have been so close to breaking the $10,000 level, people's expectations are high and they won't settle for anything less than that.

At this stage the somewhat positive sentiment is just one dump away from doing a 360 shift, and that's when we for sure will adjust to a lower range. That's why I have been telling people to keep their expectations of the short term market as low as possible to prevent disappointment. What do you think people waiting for $10,000 will do when we tank back to lower $8000's? They'll dump. What do you think people not being bothered by whatever the market is doing right now will be doing? They'll hold and wait for the market to show actual signs of improvements.

It's important to differentiate between the groups we have in this market.

The group consisting of short term traders are purely betting on a good outcome of their trades, where only time will tell whether or not it was a good time to buy.

The group consisting of long term investors has never really had much to complain about, especially if you just make sure you don't buy yourself into obvious bull runs like we had last year.

If you aren't a gambler, then focus on the long term and you'll prove all the naysayers wrong. If that's too boring for you, then accept the risks of your short term mindset and don't cry afterwards. This market can be extremely brutal from time to time, just be prepared for that. The thing with this market is that regardless of how low or high the price may seem, it can always go lower or higher; never take anything for granted when it comes to the short term market.

I think at least for this year, we aren't done with seeing sub $10,000 levels. Current bottom's average is $6500 which means that something needs to happen to fill up a $3500 gap, and that isn't very likely if nothing actually bullish drives the price further up. This market has taught us that reaching certain levels isn't a problem at all, the main struggle is maintaining them.

The less you expect from the price, the lower the eventual disappointment, that's the only thing that counts in current market. People are used to how the price has been going up last year, and based on that have higher expectations for this year, which is somewhat understandable, but not very convincing.

I'm wondering if Coinbase's coin backed fund will be the bullish impulse this market needs, but we don't know when it will actually launch. They say 2018 but that can literally mean tomorrow or somewhere in December, and then they could even delay the process if the legal procedure itself experiences delays and requires extra details from regulators. It's incredibly difficult to get something done with all the legal nonsense you have to go through.

It depends on how you look at things.

Currently the most likely scenario is that this whole market is going to become a pool of professional investors, and they go for solidity, which is something that Bitcoin offers, but altcoins don't. That grants Bitcoin a massive advantage over anything else already. From there we have to look at the core principles of what altcoins offer as advantage over Bitcoin from the perspective of the general public.

Privacy; not viable with regulations very likely outlawing coins offering these features at a later point.
Fast and cheap transactions; LN takes care of that.

What else is there left? Nothing. In other words, altcoins will have to seperate themselves from the crowd by offering other features that people actually use and need. Bitcoin handles the basic tasks like a champ, and who knows what else will be next on the list. Bitcoin technically can do everything altcoins can do as well; never underestimate Bitcoin's open source nature.

Also, don't pay attention to market caps. It doesn't mean anything when tokens and currencies with insane supplies instantly gain mind boggling market caps. It's a noob metric not telling anything about the market share of a coin, its ecosystem, etc.

It is what it is for those who know what they sign up for when using centralized exchanges. In that regard, they don't have a choice other than to proceed with feeding the government their hard earned profits. If you are not dealing with anything that reeks of centralization, the choice is there for you to get that bit of freedom. In no shape or form should the government EVER be handed over money that easily.

What is the government providing for you that is worthy of everything you hand them over in tax income?

I think it's time for people to realize that this whole government era has grown to what it is today because we allowed it to happen. Governments are there to support everyone where possible, but these times are no longer existent. We have been providing governments passive income for decades, and nothing good came out of it. Instead, if we don't pay tax, we are being treated as criminals, which is mind boggling. Shouldn't that function as a wake up call years ago already?

Governments can't and won't do anything to protect you. If you look at how all regulations meant to 'protect' the regular markets don't even have any effect, why would it have an effect on crypto? The only things the government cares about is you paying your due taxes, and how you have distrubuted your wealth. If they know these two options are in check, they have everything needed to blackmail and control you.

I know someone personally that due to a tax dispute with the tax department, has no longer access to financial services and everything else requiring an initial background review, all because of his 'taint'. It's a legal form of blackmailing someone to get him to do something, which in this case is to having him pay his due taxes. The government itself is the biggest ever criminal, we don't need them to protect us, we can take care of ourselves.

Empty speculation. It also points out how many individuals here still haven't got rid of their niche mentality.

Whales don't talk, they just act and remain silent. It's always the losers around it trying to spread the hype all hoping that the average person picks up on it and starts buying like there is no tomorrow.

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The main point is that nearly everyone here keeps focusing on potential bull runs based on whatever events, while we don't actually need any of these events to see the price increase. We are going up year after year anyway, so it doesn't change anything long term speaking, just look at the bottom development. Bottom to bottom increases are gradual, while everything above that is strictly speculation and hype, and mostly unsustainable.

It's important to understand that all these traditional farts aren't looking for camera attention to speak out about Bitcoin. It's just them during an interview getting asked questions about Bitcoin, which I am sure is done so on purpose to create spicy content. Bill doesn't care one single bit about Bitcoin, and I can perfectly understand it from his perspective.

- He doesn't need the wealth.
- He will never run out of wealth.
- Financial freedom is something he already enjoys.
- He is perfectly fine with the current system and everything around it.

In other words, there is nothing of significance he likes to change that we think Bitcoin is capable of changing.

If you on purposely ask someone what he thinks about something he doesn't know much about fundementally, and don't even bother to do research on, you as interviewer know that he will just answer it for the sake of answering a question. I no longer care about what is being said by these high level individuals. It's their unsalted opinion concerning something they don't know much about, and don't even care about.

It's not even worth the hassle. You at that point depend on your hardware to remain functional, and the location where the miners are hosted to not mess up, and then we have the regulations playing a role of importannce; there are too many negative variables involved that should function as a mining no-go. All these external investments are a waste of time and don't yield anything worthwile.

$10,000 investment in mining will probably take you years to break-even with how the difficulty keeps going up, which is just insane.
$10,000 investment in Bitcoin allows you to actually benefit from its massive potential.

By the time you managed to break-even with your mining investment, Bitcoin itself has likely made a x3-x5 jump. It's like people choose to use a bike to circle the globe, while they could use a Ferrari to get the same thing done in a much faster and profitable way. Smart money makes money. Putting it into mining isn't smart for the average person.

In the same way I won't be bothered if it doesn't come through, but it adds value to Bitcoin's utility, which is the most important aspect of these developments. It's just a price tracker in reality without an underlying value, but it helps damping down the 'shady' nature they initially thought Bitcoin had. It's quite the opposite world, but the more 'legitimate' usage Bitcoin enjoys, the more traditional parties will start to grab hold of Bitcoin.

The previous ETF's were rejected mainly due to Bitcoin's unregulated nature, which currently has changed significantly, but I'm not yet sure if it's enough for them to let an ETF come through. On the other hand, with parties as CME and CBOE having an important bit of influence and a trustworthy track record in their own fields, they might actually become the first entities who successfully get their ETF's approved. It makes a big difference for sure.

Does anyone even know what happened with the 'review' the SEC granted to the Winklevoss ETF? We're more than a year further and we still haven't heard anything from them.