I don't expect much of the next halving on its own

We should understand that while block reward is halved, i.e. the supply of new coins becomes half as much, the total supply is already large enough to make this halving not very relevant other than for hype and noise (i.e. for speculative purposes mostly). But if the cryptowinter is to end (that won't be because of halving), this event may still serve as a good trigger to kick off a new cycle

Okay, let me explain a few things

First of all, you should always remember that with margin trading you are basically playing against the "house". And the house in this case is the exchange where you margin trade. You may be playing against an exchange even when you are long with your own coins, but it is always the case with shorts. In practice, it means you should expect things which you normally wouldn't, for example, exchange forcefully liquidating your margin position on some completely arbitrary grounds (like an alleged glitch in the system)

Second, you should understand how the margin system is supposed to work, i.e. when you are likely to have your position liquidated, and here I mean real liquidation, not the one like described above (i.e. wrongful liquidation). If you don't know or understand how it works, you better stay away from margin trading on this exchange until you do. Otherwise, you risk losing your balance due to a technically legitimate margin call. And remember at all times that you are playing against the house with margin trading

I can't say that all altcoins are useless

For example, personally, I find Litecoin quite useful, even if for only "pump&dump shit". Kidding aside, if Bitcoin is to become something, it will most certainly have to do with a store of value. But a good store of value can't be a good means of payment at the same time as these things are mutually exclusive to a great degree. So we need an altcoin which would work as a means of payment with Bitcoin being a store of value. And this is where Litecoin fits in perfectly, without any kidding

Be careful what you wish for

As you just might get it finally. This "stability" is very deceptive. It is not the first time we see prices moving in a tight range (though it is definitely longer than usual), but it always ends in a powerful breakout. You may be sure you are not the only one who feels the same way as many traders are not happy with this market either. And to earn as before they have to narrow their trading ranges in such environment and add to their orders

It means that the range between major support and resistance levels is diminishing. At first it leads to price being sort of locked in between the narrowing walls, and this is what we actually see now. But ultimately, when the resistance or support is finally broken, there will a mighty price action either to the upside or downside as it always happens. And I don't think things are much different now (even though it may take longer than usual)

I think many people are asking themselves the same question

And I also come to think that it is quite warranted, though I in no case would call the current environment as stable. If anything, it is quasi-stable as the trading volumes are really pathetic now, i.e. there is neither sufficient supply to move prices lower nor sufficient demand to move them higher. All in all, it essentially means that the market becomes highly susceptible to small disturbances in the balance of supply and demand

What it can lead to, we already know when the price quickly and effortlessly crashed 2 times. So don't expect too much from this seeming "stability". Maybe, it's about time to short, again

You may want to add a simple FAQ or How-to

I also paid a visit to your site, but honestly, I don't know how to play Blackjack (really), so a short and easy to read guide is sort of must-have for people like me. Well, actually I may know how to play it but I don't know what kind of game the term refers to. Apart from that, I didn't quite like the blurring of the background when you call a menu, it is not easy on the eyes and unnecessary attracts attention (the idea obviously being the opposite). I guess just slightly shadowing the background would do the trick

But the same can be said with respect to any asset out there

I assume some people are going to come up with the idea that gold doesn't belong to this category, i.e. when everything falls gold rises. But it is not so. Gold just happens to fall slower in value under such circumstances even if its price denominated in fiat money (say, the dollar) may in fact be rising. The bottom line is that you can't actually take Bitcoin (or crypto in general) and say it is a luxury as everything else would be a luxury in this context (apart from bare necessities like water, food, shelter)

I remember those talks

And some of them are going on years, for example, about Amazon being ready to accept Bitcoin in the near future, when that "near future" should have come a couple years ago already. But as far as I know, Microsoft had really been accepting Bitcoin directly at their site for some services in the past. Then there were rumors that they disabled this possibility (around the time Steam shut down their Bitcoin operation), but they had been refuted if I'm not mistaken. How things are now with Bitcoin at Microsoft I don't know, though

That's a crappy argument if you ask me

There is no and cannot be "same reason" here. No asset can rise indefinitely but that doesn't in the least mean that it can't fall to 0, and this is particularly true with respect to speculative ones, like Bitcoin or whatever. According to this logic, the stock of dotcom companies couldn't turn into garbage just because these companies couldn't rise to infinity either. Somehow I thought people have actually learned something after the 2018 crash


Bitcoin can easily follow them. But if you want to believe (Bitcoin or otherwise), who am I to stop you?


0 is the lowest price potentially possible for the Berkshire Hathaway stock. Much bigger institutions failed (see Lehman Brothers)

Because it doesn't feel that way

The drop from 6k to 3k was very much like the other price drops before this one. For example, we first fell from 12k (which was considered a true bottom after the 20k top by many "distinguished analysts" here), then we fell from 9k to 6k. And the last fall felt very much the same as the previous falls did, so don't really expect people to think of it as a capitulation event even if it is


Basically, you don't know. But don't worry, no one knows for sure, either

Wall Street types are die-hard speculators and profiteers

Then yes, they don't care about "being their own bank" and I'm utterly curious why everyone can be so deluded about their real intentions. They are vultures that parasitize on something that has real value, though I wouldn't call them just gambling on the price as they don't gamble but suck in money like a cleaner. On the other hand, they may not be very interested in Bitcoin specifically because it is already mostly a vehicle for speculation, so there is not much left in it for them (and they are not going to become next bagholders)

Don't mess with the IRS

If I'm not mistaken, crypto is considered commodities by the CFTC for trading purposes, and it is expected you pay taxes on capital gains which you realize when you sell a cryptocurrency for profit. But as I suspect, it is not much different from capital gains that you make through currency exchange operations on respective exchanges or Forex. So I don't think there is actually a need to change the tax code for cryptocurrencies in general

I was actively trading back in the day, so it is not a hard question for me to answer. Bitfinex was the most popular exchange back in 2015. I can't say with certainty about now, but it is still one of the top exchanges out there. And I like their approach to margin trading as it is pretty simple and easy to understand (unlike what they do at Bitmex), though I don't quite like them wrongfully liquidating open margin positions as it actually happened to me once

But they admitted being wrong and even paid back the expenses which I suffered due to their mistake

That's what I think myself

However, there can be a way out, something like a fallback plan. For example, you can also add an encrypted variable with a password known only to you, which you set at the moment you lock the address. It would allow you to stop the timer prematurely and thus claim the coins back immediately. I know you are going to say that it can be stolen too, but it is a one-off variable which is used only to stop the timer, so you don't need to save it anywhere but in your head only (read, it is not the same as your private key)

Okay then, probably it is exactly what I wanted to see in Bitcoin, though done in a different way (maybe, even in a more flexible way). So how can we prevent coins from being sent to a non-existent address? Well, not actually prevent them from being sent but rather being able to claim them back?

Perhaps, adding a variable (a timer) that would allow to claim the coins back if they don't get spent?


Funny, taking into account that I specifically pointed out in the OP that people should not attack me without first trying to understand what I actually wanted to suggest (and they still failed me):


Obviously, I didn't mean that all transactions should be made reversible. And maybe a 1-of-2 multisig is the right way to go with my proposal, after all

No, this is not a real difference

I mean, not in practice. In real life, the trees don't grow to the sky, so while you have a certain price at which your short position will be liquidated (if we talk about naked shorts), it is basically the same as 0 for longs. You can say that if this price is too high, then the whole idea of shorting becomes meaningless, and I would likely agree with that but will also add that it is not particularly different from just "buying" at 20k and holding at 3k. In fact, there is an anti-bitcoin. It is covered shorts which you can hold indefinitely long


What you speak about refers only to naked shorts but covered shorts have the same effect on the market price as the naked ones but without this "short-coming" (pardon the pun)

And what does it change?

Centralized exchanges hold most of their funds in cold wallets anyway, so keeping such wallets locked with a forward timer (say, set for 1 hour) will prevent these hacks from happening. On the flip side, though, there is another catch here. For example, it becomes known that the keys have been compromised, but the hacker can't steal the coins as it has a timer counting. So how can a legitimate owner claim his coins and not let the hacker claim them before him? That's an interesting implication which I didn't think of when starting this thread


Okay, I will look into it. Can I set a timeout with this approach, i.e. when the recipient doesn't claim the coins after a specified amount of time, can I claim them back?


Blockchain is that overseer. It decides what is allowed and what not

The current jackpot is likely an artifact from the jackpot contest that seems to have been removed

I don't know if this contest was ever available on FreeBitco.in but on FreeDoge.co.in you could participate in the jackpot contest where you rolled for the jackpot against other players. For example, if you participated in it and hit the jackpot (08888), you were given the whole amount paid by other contest participants in this round. I don't know why the show was canceled but with it the jackpot made sense playing

This is a very clumsy setup

Why would I need to share my private key with someone else as this is what a multisig is about as far as I understand it? I don't know if I'm using the correct terminology here but I hope you get the point. I just want to send somebody a few coins from my wallet (read, address) who I may not even know, and make sure that the coins don't get lost or stolen in the process. So how does a 1-of-2 multisig help me in any meaningful way here?

That's not a surprise

As that's what you should expect from a poorly designed system which has no built in protection against hacks or thefts. I understand that no one may have expected Bitcoin to turn such a huge success (e.g. we all remember Linus Torvalds and his famous "just for fun" thing), but this is no excuse for not adding basic, if not to say primitive, options which would make stealing coins a lot harder if not prevent hacks and thefts in the majority of cases