i don't touch multi-coin wallets. i've heard nothing but bad things about jaxx and exodus. so i can't tell you from personal experience, but i've heard that it's shoddily coded---at least the parts that are open source. exodus is not 100% open source.

and it has bad default privacy and security practices. i know as of last year they forced address reuse (horrible for privacy) and didn't have any kind of 2-factor authentication available.

if you're going to use multi-coin wallets, i would at least spread the risk around and keep the BTC and ETH in separate native wallets. i recommend electrum for BTC and parity (or at least myetherwallet) for ETH.

a high percentage of predictions this year said that we'd rise to ridiculous prices like $25k, $50k, etc too. these types of exaggerated expectations happen in both directions; both bulls and bears are guilty of it.

markets are frustrating in that way. when everyone expects doom, we pump. when everyone expects a pump, we fall. in a rally, the top is higher than everyone expects. in a crash, the bottom is lower than everyone expects.

in other words, most people are always gonna be wrong in their market predictions. that's also why most traders lose money. that's the market for ya.

can you trust bittrex? do you know who their 3rd party KYC service is? do you know what jurisdiction they fall under, and whether they are obeying all data protection laws in your country of residence? many exchanges and bitcoin services have had their databases hacked, along with customer ID info. that stuff ends up on the darknet, sold to criminals.


it shouldn't ever be necessary to submit KYC for airdrops or bounty stakes because the amounts are way too low qualify for reporting under money transmission laws.

some ICOs do it because they are misinformed about the law. some do it because they think it will make them appear legit. some do it because they want a way to avoid paying some of their bounty hunters after the fact. some do it because they are going to sell your documents on the darknet.

none of these reasons are legit. don't do KYC for airdrops or bounties!

honestly, bitcoin stands on its own fundamentals. the market understood the big blocker narrative was bullshit. it understands that bcash is far less secure and has very little developer support. i don't think bitcoin needs our "protection" at all. if it did, this would all be for nothing anyway. bitcoin either stands on its built-in economic incentives, or it fails. i see no alternative. the market either understands value and gravitates towards sound money, or it doesn't. we'll find out. i'm not gonna waste a single ounce of energy on bcash though.

that's what we call a "good problem to have." i wouldn't call a 26% gain bad luck! have you seen the recent bloodbath in altcoins? you're lucky you were holding DOGE, because not much else survived.


i noticed open short interest on XRP was huge (and still is). i wouldn't be surprised to see it go higher still.

it goes to show you why it's important to retry setups after stop lossing. lots of times, the market likes to run traders' stops before going in the opposite direction.

i would never pay for trading education or signals. there's too much good information out there that's completely free. starting with this:


i've learned a lot from the chat on tradingview, following consistent traders on twitter, and even from the speculation board on this forum. i've never heard anything positive about any paid services and i'm not gonna start anytime soon. if the "traders" offering paid services were any good, they'd be stacking trading profits rather than selling stuff to naive traders.

that shouldn't be the ceiling, because prohibition has been capping demand for a long time. a lot of people who refused to buy on the street are now buying in the shops.


unfortunately, the opiate lobby and others have been fighting medical weed at every turn. the medical cannabis industry is somewhat of a misnomer---the doctors and prescriptions are legitimate, but it's completely separate from conventional medicine and pharmacies and there's no health coverage that covers it. it's pretty upsetting to think about the fact that the obamacare mandate forces people to buy health insurance even though it specifically doesn't cover their medicine.

things like CBD extracts are really powerful medicine for lots of serious medical problems, but predictably, not everyone who needs it can pay the 1000x markups that these weed companies are charging now.

looks like the news came early. the decision is postponed: https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/cboebzx/2018/34-84231.pdf

they're asking for more written comments from interested persons. i'm reading that the next deadline will be set once the order has been published in the federal register---not sure when that happens. potentially, it can be delayed until february 2019.

the vast, vast majority of rich list holdings are customer deposits. just like the vast majority of BTC held by binance are customer deposits. if USDT loses all its value, that doesn't make binance insolvent. just like if BTC loses all its value, it doesn't make binance insolvent. in those cases, binance's customers are the ones who lose all their money because their holdings are devalued. binance can still fulfill all USDT and BTC withdrawal requests. your claim that tether's inability to pay its creditors means insolvency for other exchanges makes zero sense.

sure, binance takes fees in USDT---i'm sure they hold some amount of USDT as assets, and i'm sure it's liquidated very regularly. CZ is not a moron. they will only hold USDT (exposing themselves to bitfinex as a counterparty) for as little time as possible. if binance wants to hold USD, they open bank accounts lol. plus, if you're just talking about USDT trading fees, you're talking about their profits---losing some portion of their profits doesn't equate to insolvency.

they actually already have KYC. you just don't need to complete it if you're okay with the 2BTC daily withdrawal limit.

i imagine it'll be like bitfinex. no KYC required to trade or withdraw cryptocurrency, but KYC required for depositing and withdrawing fiat money.


i don't think hiding their servers will do much for them anyway, if shit really hits the fan. just ask the admins at btc-e......

hundreds of millions of people in china don't have access to formal banking. paying for something through alipay requires a bank account. opening a bank account in china requires a valid passport and usually also an employment pass, student pass or work permit---that will never happen for a substantial part of the population. then there's bank account maintenance fees.

and then what do they get in return, besides losing all privacy in their transactions? the privilege of saving 12-18 seconds at the counter? great!!

i'd love for price to actually drop to new lows, then reverse up on gigantic volume. that would be a huge reversal signal. the little fakeout yesterday didn't put things to the test yet. just more blueballs. we're still holding onto this tiny range, so i'm prepared for anything.

i would definitely prefer a break to the upside because it would be so much more obvious and easier to trade. i have a nagging suspicion that a dip below $6000 will get bought again, so i'm really hesitant to short until a downtrend is established again.

it's certainly feeling like a bubble. it'll be interesting to see who emerges on top in a few years, when all the dust settles. tilray got way over-hyped because it was the first public pot stock on the nasdaq.

but like cryptocurrencies, the pot industry isn't going anywhere. at the state level, things have progressed past the point of no return. it's only a matter of time before the feds come around and reschedule cannabis. that'll probably cause another cycle of new investment.


we are a very long way from market saturation. there is an incredible amount of new demand. it's actually fucking annoying as a consumer---like 80% of the people i see in the shops now are normie weekend warrior types who take forever at the counter because they've smoked weed like twice in their life.

and there's no way most people will ever grow their own. especially when you consider how hyper-consumerist society is now. growing takes months of preparation, hard work and often good luck (regarding weather, unless you have good indoor growing space).

that highlights why bitcoin isn't super attractive to consumers. you give up any consumer protections, and you also give up incentives from credit card companies.

i'm aware that consumers pay the merchant fees in the form of higher prices, but that cost is already socialized among consumers because other people use credit cards. if i stop using credit cards, i'll still pay those higher prices. there's no added incentive for me use cash or bitcoin in that sense.

the most rational thing for me to do is use credit cards for the cash back rewards. and if i need to charge back against a bad merchant, i have that option. my opinion may change for transactions where i need privacy, but i don't care about that for the vast majority of day-to-day transactions.

the truth is that tether = bitfinex. mostly the same directors, and i believe there is a corporate/subsidiary relationship. that's why USDT can be redeemed for USD on bitfinex.

you can deposit USD to bitfinex and withdraw USDT to other exchanges. that's where the money is theoretically coming from.

regarding tether.to itself, i can't confirm since i'm in the USA and they don't serve USA residents anymore. but i read that after the banking troubles last year, tether.to resumed bank deposits and withdrawals for residents of other countries. their fee page lists a $20 fee to deposit/withdraw by bank account. either way, i believe most of the activity is derived from bitfinex.

the easiest way to think about it: holding a USDT balance is the same as holding a USD balance from bitfinex. they are both IOUs from bitfinex. as far as i know, bitfinex is processing fiat deposits and withdrawals normally.


binance and the others aren't net USDT creditors. it doesn't matter to them (financially) if USDT is unbacked and loses all its value. in that situation, binance is still solvent since it still controls all its depositors USDT.

in that situation, it's the holders of USDT on binance that lose money, not binance. this is why kraken always had a USDT/USD market. they can't risk redeeming USDT for real USD because that would expose them to bitfinex counterparty risk.

bull markets = uptrends and bear markets = downtrends. you're just diluting the definition so it has very little meaning. if you zoom out far enough, bitcoin is simply in a bull market for 9 years now, with no bear market ever. that tells us absolutely nothing regarding TA or FA.

what you're doing is very similar. "bear markets have to last multiple years, therefore there was only one bear market, and because mt gox, it's really unlikely we'll have another bear market." sorry but that's a weak analysis. your logic is circular.

2010-2011 was 8 months of rising followed by 6 months of falling. was the 2011 bubble not a bull market, because it was only months long? was the 94% crash that followed really not a bear market, because you invented some arbitrary time requirement? really?

also, regarding that time requirement, any thoughts on this:

just like the 2014-15 bear market was the longest in history, the 2015-17 bull market was the longest in history. everything takes longer now.


why do you blame gox for the length of time it took to recover? sure, the situation is different now. it's been 4+ years. why does that mean a long term bear market is unlikely?

when i saw the news on the forum subheader, i immediately checked the price. like you, i was surprised that the market had such a small reaction to the news.

maybe the market understood how minor the vulnerability was. but here's my take on it. when sentiment is really negative, people look for any reason to sell, and bad news is usually an excuse to push new lows. since we're not seeing that here, market sentiment is probably improving. i take it as a good sign for bulls trying to hold the $6k level.

i'm happy to see him becoming more reserved and backing off his ATH calls. that's what we need to turn this market around: bulls becoming bears. he's absolutely right that investor expectations needed to be reset.

but has sentiment really been reset, yet? too early to call IMO. in hindsight, this $6000 zone definitely might be seen as an accumulation zone. i've seen many price structures like this that resolved bullishly. but even if it turns out that way, i think it'll be several months more before we really start rising.

lol @ the tommy lee jones pic......

the fiat issue does seem problematic. anything you can't automate with smart contracts is problematic. can anyone explain how bisq works? who are these third party arbitrators and how are they chosen?


etherdelta is only quasi-decentralized. it's built on the DNS system with centralized servers. the site got hijacked last year when hackers replaced its DNS entry. lots of users got their private keys phished when they imported them.

there's no way around it. the hype is dead. it's a bad time for public fundraising.

if it were me, i'd either try to do a private investment round, or weather the storm and wait for better times before doing a pubic ICO. there's no magic answer here when altcoins and tokens are in the throws of a bear market. advertising right now is such a tossup with investor interest at all-time lows.