ordinarily i'd say "any competition is good competition". but the truth is, at some point of saturation, consumers gain nothing.

i think what's happening now is that secondary incentives have developed in the market. running an exchange is lucrative because listing fees have gotten so high---it's not just about trading fees anymore. by the same token, ICO companies are desperate to have their tokens listed somewhere, which creates demand for these new exchanges.

so it's no longer just about organic supply and demand for cryptocurrencies. i'm not sure how long this trend can last.


as long as the order books are thick. if you spread traders and market makers around too much, that makes for thin markets, more slippage and higher volatility.

one of the best places to start learning technical analysis is babypips. i recommend starting here: https://www.babypips.com/learn/forex

yes, it's geared towards forex trading, but TA is applicable to all markets including cryptocurrency. the first couple sections are introductory and mostly forex-related. i would skip to "course 3: elementary" and go from there.

for a beginner, i'd definitely emphasize studying support and resistance, moving average analysis, oscillators and divergences. this should give you a good base to work from.

with bitcoin, no. however, if you lock your BTC into payment channels on the lightning network, you can collect fees when your node is used to route transactions. fees are much lower than on bitcoin's blockchain, though. so unless you're a very well-connected node, you probably won't make much in fees.


you don't necessarily need a full node for that. lightweight nodes (like electrum or mycelium) and even online wallets like blockchain.info allow you to manually set lower fees. it's third party services like exchanges that really screw people on fees.

i think tim is coming less from that angle and more from the "blockchains are gonna disrupt finance, banking, healthcare, etc" angle.

we haven't really seen how a major economic collapse would treat bitcoin. it would be interesting to see how it would have fared in 2008. a lot of people think it would actually be good for bitcoin, but i've got mixed feelings about that, especially while the technology is so young.

my old trading mentor always believed a stock market crash would have a very bearish effect on bitcoin. he knows the market perceives bitcoin as a high risk/high reward asset. a larger economic crash would shift creditors into tightened standards (no more easy credit to pump markets) and investors into "risk-off" mode, and money would pour into safe havens. i agree with that assessment. the alternative scenario is one where USD completely collapses, but that's a longshot. it's an eventuality on a long enough timeline, but i've seen people predicting imminent USD doomsday for decades. it's a bad bet that you can't time.

all of the above. i'm a bitcoiner, and i love to use it. if i could get friends to use it like venmo, that'd be great. i feel like those third party apps log too much information about us. unfortunately my friends are all hoarders or skeptics.

paying bills would be great too. i'm self-employed and the majority of my income is from day trading, denominated in BTC. it would cut out the middleman (exchanges, banks) and i could just pay directly. rent too.

the idea is that "owners" become a larger and larger group over time, as mass adoption takes over. after a certain point of market acceptance, the naysayers can't avoid it. just like they can't avoid the gold market. if it were purely up to governments, there would only be fiat money. instead, governments have gold reserves among other assets.

the jury is still out regarding mass adoption, though.


isn't that proof enough that demand will continue to exist for bitcoin? what can provide open transparent p2p markets without third party/government intrusion, and do it better than bitcoin?

based on an interview with first block's CEO, it looks like it's physically backed by bitcoins. it sounds quite like the bitcoin investment trust (GBTC) run by grayscale:



the trust is open-ended, meaning they buy BTC on the open market as demand requires. so it depends how many wealthy people want exposure to bitcoin in their tax-free/retirement accounts (it's only for accredited investors, which means 1 million CAD liquid assets or 200k CAD income per year).

hence "they don't need to take large bitcoin positions."

from my and your perspective, it's definitely rational to invest something into bitcoin, given the massive potential reward. but that's not so obvious to most people (including the rich). the rich have been hedging their wealth for generations; they don't need bitcoin. not yet, anyway, as the market hasn't forced their hand. they can afford to be laggards.

for the few that do invest into bitcoin, they don't need large positions (>1% of assets) to reap huge rewards. and most will want to minimize their risk exposure as well.

there's some complexity to the issue. in venezuela, 2017 was a year where the government endlessly cracked down on miners. miners were imprisoned for various crimes like "the legitimacy of capital, illicit enrichment, computer crimes, financing of terrorism, exchange fraud and damage to the national electricity system." they even raided small household miners.

in russia, the position of the state regarding bitcoin seems to change all the time. a few years ago, the prosecutor-general said it was completely illegal since it was a "money substitute." there's been no official legislation, and like china, officials have waffled between positive and negative statements. we'll see what the law looks like when it's eventually passed.

i think the more authoritarian governments initially react with an iron fist. over time, they realize how little control they have, and perhaps that cryptocurrency offers real value---particularly those countries that suffer from USA sanctions, as you pointed out.

i'd say we're at a pretty crucial juncture. now that price is sliding down again, we're threatening to break the series of 2 higher lows on the daily chart. those lows were at $5755 and $5858 (bitfinex prices). i'd love to see $6000 actually hold here so bulls get one more try at a higher high above $7430. that'll definitely trigger a short squeeze and will fundamentally change the daily/weekly price structure.

until a real breakout occurs, i'm just waiting. i have a nagging feeling the direction will be down, and i'll be shorting the market again soon.

^^ life of new traders right here. they're completely ruled by emotion and yet foolishly think they can beat the market. this is what it means to "pay tuition."

you have to just let these people get rekt. it's just part of the market---in fact, successful traders are profiting from their follies. many of these noobs will just leave the space entirely, writing off crypto as a scam. a small minority of them will bounce back and actually study markets and trading strategies and will learn to beat the market.

on some level, i've got sympathy, but i also understand this is a crucial aspect of markets. this is fear and greed and playing out. their fear and greed is the reason my orders get filled.

were you around in 2014? "but there's so much good news! this space is nothing like it was in 2011!" new exchanges were launching and the chinese exchanges were flourishing. new merchants were coming online. crowdsales like mastercoin and ethereum were sucking up coin supply. and yet price kept falling.

there were also bear markets in the second half of 2011 and 2012, and also in mid-2013. the bear market you're thinking of was just the longest one, the only multi-year bear market. in my observation, the market moves much slower (in both directions) as time goes on, particularly after 2013. the post-bubble bear markets are likely to be more prolonged now as a result. i'd be happy to be proven wrong on this, but there's not much to go on besides historical price action and cycle analysis.

mazacoin is still around but interest/awareness dropped a lot when it got delisted from bittrex last year. the network is still active and it's consistently listed as one of the most profitable sha-256 altcoins. unfortunately, daily volume is low. i like the lead developer @guruvan and the idea behind it, and i'm hoping it has a resurgence. it's still trading on cryptopia.

i agree, we shouldn't be surprised if these first attempts fail. getting the network bootstrapped and coins fairly distributed (and used) is no easy feat.

but if your prediction comes true, there's no end of year profits for holders: we started the year at $17000, and you're talking about ending the year near $3000. i never bought the whole "selling for the holidays" rationale anyway. some years, the holidays are extremely bullish, other years bearish.

if 2018 does end up being $17k --> $3k, then at least we know there shouldn't be much sell pressure from holders paying their taxes. no gains, no taxes.

that's true, but i suppose that's why bitcoin works: greed. the mining incentive, limited supply, metcalfe's law......satoshi knew the economics underlying bitcoin would cause its incredible price rise if it ever caught on. people are (mostly) rational and they see that too by now, so it's only natural that they chase the price.

i remember an old trading buddy of mine used to say: "one day, the world is going to collectively realize there's only 21 million bitcoins, and that time is running out." i'd love to see more people adopt BTC as a currency, but there's no way around the greedy hoarding.

it's just supply and demand. what makes you think "manipulators" have the ability to regularly move the spot market to their whims? markets trade in a range the vast majority of the time---that's true of all markets, not just bitcoin. these "resets" are happening in both directions because that's what happens in a range---there's no momentum in either direction to cause a breakout.

a large holder might iceberg large sells at resistance, but whether or not a top actually forms there is really just up to the market. plenty of whales have been slaughtered mercilessly by this market, especially in the older days. having a bunch of coins doesn't mean whales knows shit about trading. for some reason, people just assume these people are profitable and remain whales. they aren't and don't. they're not much different than the 80% of traders that lose money.

most buyers wouldn't want to bother with all these requirements, even if they're legit. passport, selfie and letter of authorization just to buy a little BTC with paypal? no thanks! i would never do that!


they don't prevent chargebacks, but they would probably deter a lot of buyers from trying. i suppose the letter of authorization would bolster the seller's case in a dispute, but who knows how paypal would decide?

you can---bitfinex redeems USDT for USD. unless things have changed very recently, when you deposit USDT to your account, they credit you with USD. you can wire the USD out from there. supposedly tether.to also resumed withdrawals late last year after they stopped servicing USA customers, but i can't confirm.

otherwise yes, there's the USDT/USD market on kraken. apparently, bittrex now has a USDT/USD market too, but it seems like it's limited to some customers in the USA, and you need to apply to trade it with a verified account.

jeff bezos is doing what's good for jeff bezos. he's infamous for being uncharitable and is the wealthiest person in modern history. i suppose he's trying to change that image.

it looks like he's a creating a fund that he controls. that way, he can set up friends and family as employees and write off their salaries as tax deductions, along with other loopholes. and he can recoup much of that $2 billion in tax deductions.


i think it's partly that it's so transparently not to "help the world" or anything like that. it's just a PR thing, and it doesn't cost bezos much to do this because of the tax loopholes. and we all know that most charity money is squandered and wasted. it's just an empty gesture meant to fool the plebs.

this is a good take on the current market. prowdclown, a couple months ago, predicted that we were in the beginning of an accumulation schematic. it looks like he was probably correct. the selling climax occurred and the subsequent attempts downward were bought. and we wait......


you got a source for that? i don't see anything when i google it. seems like the last news on the subject was late 2017, when the pension plan investment board head said BTC and the blockchain space weren't “investible” yet. looks they they're waiting a few years before revisiting the topic.