It's something we have to get used to.

1) Bitcoin is still somewhat of a niche market.
2) Bitcoin is experiencing the highest level of mainstream media coverage ever because it's the hottest subject to talk about (positively or negatively), financially.
3) Bitcoin enjoys far more popularity than fiat. There is a difference between forced usage, which applies to fiat, and actual popularity of an emerging asset/tool such as Bitcoin that offers everything fiat does, but in a far better way.

People aren't specifically talking about fiat because of how much of a hardcoded aspect it is in their lives. I am quite sure that eventually, when Bitcoin gains more ground in the regular economy, enjoys more acceptance and adoption, Bitcoin will be what fiat is right now; a normal payment instrument. All the nonsense we experience with crypto in general right now, perfectly shows how far away from that sort of acceptance we are, and thus how much potential there is left for us to gain. Bitcoin is the main currency, but as Bitcoin grows, so will other crypto currencies. People should use that as an opportunity to convert their fiat wealth to Bitcoin and not constantly complain about what the media is doing. The sooner people do that, the lower their exposure is to this damaging system only meant to make everyone poor.

This concerns a smaller fraction of the crowd. As long as 8 out of 10 sheeples don't experience any serious consequences of making use of centralized exchanges, they won't bother to switch. The only thing they care about is having the coins in their account so they can unload them at any time, or transfer it to another user instantly and for free through the same platform.

Can't agree more, but we can't do anything about it as long as people don't bother to care about the underlying problem of centralized platforms. It's always action = reaction. If people personally don't experience any problems when using an exchange or online wallet platforms, they won't see anything dangerous in it. People must either have their accounts blocked, or lose funds in order to wake up, that's always how things go, and even then, certain people will keep making the same mistake. Bitfinex is the perfect example of how an exchange not deserving to exist today, has managed to regain its dominance within this market.

It's a simple matter of action = reaction. In other words, it also involves a certain form of hypocrisy from WikiLeak's side. They should have known better.

Correct, but people and businesses however keep doing so. In this market it's like 10% decentralization and tech, and the other 90% doesn't care about anything other than the convenience they enjoy when using centralized exchanges and whatnot. Coinbase is already at a point where they have somewhat centralized the part of the market they operate in. Whether it's on the internet, or people around me, it's all Coinbase they are using, which does concern me somewhat. The larger Coinbase keeps growing, the more influence they also gain when it comes to their support for certain proposals. It's a dangerous development, but one people don't seem to care about as long as they keep making profits and whatnot.

Financial pressure and volatility are all relative aspects, and all based on how fiat centric minded people are. People should understand that when they buy Bitcoin, they buy whatever amount in Bitcoin that after buying will never change in number. If people see the price go up, they get happy, and if the price is going down, they feel somewhat disappointed, which is understandable initially, but just not that logical.

I have seen the price go up in 2017 from less than $1000 to nearly $20,000, and it didn't change my way of thinking one single bit. I know that there technically isn't a difference between your coins being worth $1000 or $20,000 when you aren't selling the coins that are meant for long term holding purposes. No on has to go through unnecessary stress and drama. It's hard, it takes time, I know that, but people should really try to get rid of their fiat bias. It will help you become a solid holder.

People like to believe that, but it's just regular selling pressure after a crazy bull run backed up by nothing but hype. I do however believe that the insane load of rubbish news did somewhat accelerate the correction, and probably made it bottom out sooner than usual. It's no longer coincidence that after a major increase, when a correction is about to kick in, suddenly we get flooded by negativity. It's a well coordinated attack to achieve what market movers want to achieve, which is sell near peak levels, buy back around bottom levels, and repeat. While noobs keep panic selling, whales have more than doubled their coin holdings. This very well explains why just like in the regular non crypto economy, the gap between poor and rich is only growing larger.

While that to a greater extent makes sense, scam and legitimate ICO's aren't always that easy to seperate. It's not that every scam ICO is advertising itself to hand people over crazy bonuses if they invest in the first or second stage. Look at how cloud mining services are passing off their products, while in reality it is actually a legal form of scam, even when they are actually mining; they just rip you off in all possible situations. Another thing is that most ICO's, legit or scam, will eventually end up failing and going down anyway, so losses are inevitable in people's ICO investment journey. In other words, is somewhat of a gamble. Knowledge reduces your overall risk exposure, but it won't prevent you from falling for potential scams. Don't forget that scammers throughout the years became far more creative when it comes to hiding the shady nature of their intent.

I strongly hint towards the opposite. All their terms and conditions demonstrate how everything is set up like fort knox, where even in case of an actual scam attempt, they can make it look like a legal scam attempt. It's bad for all involved parties having suffered damage, but that's unfortunately what they bought themselves into. Reading terms before investing is boring, but boring saves people a lot money in the end.

Good lawyers cost a decent chunk of change, which makes things even less worthwhile to proceed. GenesisMining is well aware of that, and very likely uses that in its advantage. Also, GenesisMining can just admit its mistakes along the process and still pay out what is due, and all without any negative consequences for them. Is it worth to potentially put thousands into lawyer costs to get back, what is it, hundreds of dollars worth of due payment?

Most of the transactions are related to businesses, so it's safe to say that every Visa transaction deducts a certain percentage of the sale value. It also depends on the service you are using that's based on Visa, which in that case might cost you more, but on average I would say they take around 2% of each transaction. In some cases people purchasing stuff through credit cards have to pay a fee as well, so overall, Visa can earn up to 3-4% of the value in total from one single transaction. And aside from that, there are more types of transactions they heavily earn from, which in some cases can bump the fees to even 5-6%.

Users, obviously. Whether people deal with on-chain transactions or off-chain transactions, block space will always be required, and those who want to obtain a spot in a block will have to pay for it, which again, are the users.

It's not an achievement or so in my opinion. People make it seem like it is, but it isn't.

If people think logically, then there wasn't anything to do other than to keep holding. It makes zero sense to sell at anything below the $10,000 level if you have had the chance to sell at or near $15,000 levels. Just like there is a peak to any bull run, there is a bottom to any reverse bull run, and that bottom was marked back in early February. In other words, if people didn't use below $7000 levels to buy as many coins as possible at, then it's a wasted opportunity. As always, regret comes afterwards, and now people realize they have been too late, where fomo starts to tickle them now. People.

It should be legal in all aspects by default since Bitcoin itself isn't doing anything wrong. It's the ecosystem around Bitcoin that may not be considered halal in certain cases. It once again comes down to how people use or abuse Bitcoin, and this is something that not everyone seems to understand yet. Bitcoin itself is the purest form of freedom, everything basically that the current system can't provide people with.

I know plenty of muslims myself, and they all haven't even thought one second about Bitcoin being halal or not, and that's exactly how it should be. I very much doubt that this will have any significant impact in the future because of that; muslims have bought themselves into Bitcoin already, so what exactly is there to gain? If people talk about the wealthy Arabs, then I am sure they have done everything to get involved in crypto by proxy. Banks invest in crypto by proxy, wealthy individuals, perhaps central banks, etc. It almost seems like an ongoing proxy hype.

All peaks are inflated due to the heavy speculation and hype behind them. In most cases reaching a certain level isn't the problem; maintaining these levels is. I personally don't expect such levels to be reached, but on the other hand wouldn't be shocked if it did happen either, so in that case I'll have my shorts ready. The market has always been ahead of the utility in value terms, but just as last year, another bull run this year will very likely end in the same way. The only difference is that we are forming higher bottoms, but not enough to make bottoms form above the $10,000 level this year. I may sound like a party crasher, but a fair and honest opinion is worth Gold in times where people expect too much from the market. I'm not influenced by short term long positions hoping they bank for me.

I am purely focusing on bottom development, and while we may experience a certain form of breakout this year, I am not entirely confident in the next main/base bottom to be marked at +$10,000 levels. My best guess is that the next one or two bottoms will still be below the $10,000 level, where hopefully, we in 2019 won't see anything below $10,000 ever again. Short term speaking, anything above $10,000 will be sufficient for me; there is nothing else for me to expect or look out for. The lower your expectations are, the less disappointed you will become in the short term market.

Currently everywhere on the internet and in the mainstream media you see people and 'experts' speculate about a breach of the $20,000 level, but that level of confidence hasn't reached me yet, and probably will not without anything happening justifying that sort of increase. Exchanges aren't ready for another bull run, that's for sure. If we do happen to go through another bull run, we probably end up with again, high fees, crippled exchanges, tons of complaints about this and that, etc. Sure, Segwit is doing its thing, but it's not enough when hype usage and spam attacks clutter the network badly. In other words, nothing has changed much.

Bitcoin itself doesn't need regulation and can't be regulated. To add; governments are 'discrediting' fiat themselves with their printing habits.

No. We don't need to have governments start exchanges so sheeples start 'trusting' crypto. If you don't have faith in the underlying technology of crypto, then you will never have faith in crypto, not even when the government starts getting involved. Also, we are entering a time where people are looking to distance themselves from a system not doing anything for them, but instead, only makes them become poorer as years go by. Governments will soon need US, not the other way around, and that change is something crypto will be forcing through slowly but surely.

Realistic scenario/theory; banks try to cut down on future competition by making doing business impossible for exchanges, and then they themselves will launch 'fully legalized' exchanges to take over there where regular exchanges are no longer able to seek for banking services. It's definitely a nasty practice, but a very effective way to for banks tho prevent regular exchanges from fully utilizing their first mover advantage.

Banks have never been shy of these nasty practices, all to eliminate competitors with iron fist, and I am quite sure that my theory will be very close to the reality at some later point in the future. At that point you'll also see how they enable people to miraculously buy crypto with credit again. It's money they are after, money that they think belongs to them, greedy bastards that they are. One answer to this, and one word; DEX.

It doesn't really matter what scam it involves, it only points out that buying yourself directly into Bitcoin, or holding your existing coins instead of investing them in whatever junkyard site or service, is always the best way to get what you want, which is an increase of wealth. I always found it quite fascinating that people are so willing to expose themselves to such insane risks, while in most cases it only result in losses. It's yet another sign that people are too stupid to learn from anything. While this is a market where everything is possible to a certain hight, it still doesn't change the fact that money isn't out for the grabs here, and sites and services can't hand you over Golden mountains like it's nothing.

While I am browsing through Youtube looking for some interesting content, I am being flooded with ads having as tumbnail; turn $250 in $4000 or turn $250 in $11,000 in 1 week. I am doing my utter best to find 1 single legitimate ad, but none popped up. I am glad that these ads will no longer be present in the future.

Not sure what shitcoins you invest in, but if your portfolio frequently loses like 90% of its value, you are doing something horribly wrong, and don't actually learn from it since it's happened more to than once.

The only thing that makes sense is that you only lose when you sell, but that's not something people think about because of how fiat centric they are. In the same way, you only book profits when you sell. I have various cold wallets that throughout the years have gained on-paper value, but what's that value worth when you aren't doing anything with the coins in the forthcoming years? In other words, there is no difference if the coins are worth $100 or $20,000 like last year's peak. The only consistent aspect of your investment is the fact that you always have the same number of coins no matter what. It's an important mindset that will help you achieve your goal, but only a very few people have that mindset.

Refunds are perfectly possible with Bitcoin. In this case it doesn't depend on Bitcoin itself, but the applications being used as payment gateway. BitPay, which is the most popular payment gateway right now, allows refunds too. These applications can be tweaked to such extent, that merchants can have as much freedom to issue different sorts of refunds as possible.

People for some reason think that Bitcoin is an ancient piece of technology not being capable of much, that I definitely have noticed throughout the years. LN will be the next big thing, and possibly THE killer application people were desperately waiting for to show up. It doesn't only offer Bitcoin the currency centric features it needs to move further and stimulate usage, but it also allows for a more flexible form of scalability. Merchants at some point won't even need to use payment gateways anymore, especially if the price becomes a notch or two more stable; they are their own payment gateway.

Stocks are nothing more than an investment tool. Bitcoin is a multifunctional tool, and is something that you don't necessarily need to convert to fiat in order to sustain yourself. If merchant adoption picks up in the forthcoming years, and that will very likely happen with LN, people are able to conveniently do grocery shopping, pay bills with Bitcoin, etc. The difference between Bitcoin as investment tool and a currency tool won't endlessly remain as massive as it might be right now. Stability, or something close to that will do miracles. It takes time, I know, but everything takes time in the end.

At some point there will be a time where you have to pay a nasty, like really nasty premium in order to convince people to sell their coins to you for fiat.

If people have to force themselves to somehow make sure they can't access their coins due to a lack of trust or confidence, then they shouldn't invest at all. If you actually believe in Bitcoin's fundamentals, and what change it can force through in the forthcoming years, you won't even consider selling any of your coins; people shouldn't want themselves to go through this. It only causes stress and unnecessary drama.

Also, the majority of the people here very likely believe that Bitcoin can become worthless overnight, which somewhat explains why there has been so much panic flowing through the market in the last months. It all comes down to ignorance; if you don't understand what you're investing in, then don't invest. You'll only become a target for fud and manipulation as result of that. If you can make sure that people know what they invest in, and have them take distance from their fiat centric way of thinking, then that alone is enough to turn people into solid holders. You buy 1BTC, not $8000 worth of fiat; regardless of the price, your BTC unit value remains always the same.

$8500 isn't a mental barrier at all, not sure why people keep repeating this. It's basically what the media has been echoing; this week is Bitcoin's make or break week!

It's just a poor form of journalism and analysis not leading to anything. Whether it's next month or the month after that, or the months after that, eventually the price will keep going up anyway, so there isn't really anything to expect right now. If we don't make it past the $9000 level, then we don't, no big deal. People keep hoping for a miraculous increase leading to +$10,000 levels, but what if the market isn't ready for it? While people consider current levels to be low, they completely discard the fact that the current price is $7000 higher than last year's price. People focus too much on the peak last year, which only makes them feel bad about current market, while we are doing better than ever before.