We're moving within an obvious range, where we failed for the second time to break through the fierce resistance around the $9000 level. In other words, failed attempt will push the price back to the lower end of the range (+$8000'ish), to charge itself up for another attempt next week. It will be interesting to see if the third attempt will do it, because if not, there is a higher chance for it to dip below $8000 again rather than to charge up for another attempt. Either way, it makes no difference for those who are looking to buy themselves some coins for long term holding purposes.

Yup. As long as fundamentally nothing has changed, there is basically no point in shooting up too much from current levels. Current situation is still the same as how it was a few weeks ago, and last year. Sure, Segwit adoption has been picking up nicely, but that's not enough. People know it will pick up and have already calculated it in, and now look forward to the next thing.

It might still be that MtGox somewhat plays a certain role psychologically, but that definitely isn't the main reason why the market looks very much uninspired. I think the next trigger will need to be related to LN or something from the side of financial institutions jumping into this market, or a new ETF popping up. Every new development of positive nature enhancing Bitcoin's utility might turn out to be that trigger. At least current market allows people to accumulate their coins consistently below the $10,000 level, which is a positive aspect of this slower market - everything has a positive side to it.

It actually might be the case, but we won't find out because we strictly depend on what type of information they release. And trust me, governments are very much desperate to degrade themselves like that. This article points out how even central banks are sponsoring social media stars to spread fear about crypto. They paid a Youtube partner almost $27,000 to spread "awareness".

Nope, but you know the media; if it involves Bitcoin being featured in negative happenings, it has to be pointed out so everyone can see it. Bitcoin is hot and for that reason attracts readers and clicks, plus the media loves to hammer down on Bitcoin. As always, it's the big dog that enjoys the most shine and hate at the same time.

On another note, this once again shows how shitty the security standards are within the different departments of the government. I personally noticed when renewing my drivers license last year, some of their computers were still running on Windows XP. It's mind boggling how they so blatantly ignore how important IT security is, and for what? It all comes down to how they try to cut down on operational cost. The few bucks they try to save right now will be peanuts compared to how much they will have to invest when things go horribly wrong on their side.

And what may that task be according to you? The main use that altcoins enjoy is all speculation related. The few altcoins that do somewhat serve a purpose, are very small in number. Monero is the only coin I personally consider to have technoligical value, and then one may argue that Ethereum offers technoligical value too, but that again is mainly related to speculation at this point. Monero solves a problem that Bitcoin doesn't solve, and that is quite an impressive achievement if I may say so. I personally do not hold any Monero as an investment, so it's not that I am developing a financial bias towards that specific coin. It's genuine interest purely based on its technical engineering.

No. The sole reason Bitcoin has been growing significantly is because of regulations. Professional parties are being offered more freedom to enter this market due to all the regulations kicking in. No regulations will mean that crypto will always remain that niche market that has great future potential, but that potential will never be utilized as result. Crypto will become a completely new legal asset class that with a very high probability will surpass the main assets in the world in terms of value. Regulations are not an obstacle for crypto's growth, the lack of regulation is an obstacle. I don't understand why people still believe that regulations are a negative development, and that while Japan has proven everyone wrong on so many levels.

Bitcoin has never been anonymous, so that doesn't change anything here. If we as normal minded people use Bitcoin, ill minded people will do so too. It has been like that with every currency/asset in this market, and that will never change. People just need to stop acting like it's something horrible, or that criminal Bitcoin abuse doesn't exist.

Don't forget that SilkRoad (if you don't know SilkRoad, look it up) back in the days was the first actual and successful Bitcoin merchant. It perfectly demonstrated how Bitcoin can function as a currency for any sort of purchases. Granted, transaction fees and network cluttering were not a thing back then, but that's not even the point here. More usage translates into more network load, and that's why we have to revert to off-chain scaling layers, and that's all fine. Where people look at SilkRoad as being a horrible piece of Bitcoin history, I actually see it as a great and very important development.

HYIP is a scam by default. At some point, when there is no longer money flowing into their system, those who entered as last will be those who lose the most. I wouldn't even consider it to be similar to gambling, because gambling is something you do on actual legal casinos, while investing in HYIP's means you are filling the pockets of crooks. That's a major difference. People investing in HYIP's also contribute to more victims being able to fall for it, because as long as there is money coming in, the scheme will be able to function, and thus victimize more people. Everyone should think about it when pumping money into an absolute scam. Those who sell these scripts are crooks as well. I don't understand why that is even allowed to sell on this forum.

Perfectly shows how stupid you are. No proof to back up your claims other than the futile; but I'm getting paid nonsense.

The problems they are facing is that they are no longer allowed to offer their service to people of a certain state. I hope this becomes all states very soon.

See. I definitely believe that they pay out, but for such a long period of time from one contract? No chance.

Of course. If there is nothing to move, it will be a very easy transition.

People shouldn't be surprised about this. Japan's regulatory system allows businesses to become active and productive in the crypto field, which isn't exactly possible in other countries due to how stupid and slow they are. If all countries for once stop being so freaking stubborn and pathetic, not only crypto will thrive, but also their regular economy. Bitcoin alone at some point will have a multi trillion dollar market cap, and that's without the rest of the crypto market. Japan has already a pretty solid first mover advantage, and if other countries don't follow soon, they'll be left behind even further.

It's not fake, but simply nothing to worry about. It's just that the news sources releasing these articles always twist words in order to make it look more serious than it in reality is. Binance is a squatter for invading territory it isn't allowed to settle itself in, and that's what the Japanese government is pointing at, and rightfully so. If Binance did everything according to the rules/laws of every country it right now in most cases is illegaly operating in, it would never grow out to be the monster it is right now. But then again, very soon, even Binance will force people to comply with KYC/AML, etc. It will likely happen this year.

Technical analysis can be useful, but only if the market remains fairly calm. Calm market means there is less of impulse actions, fear, greed, etc. People then somewhat accept the range as long as it doesn't get broken, and within that range it keeps bouncing up and down for a while. These repetitive movements are quite easily to exploit in your advantage. Till that extent, it's not, and shouldn't be considered gambling. As soon the panic, fomo, greed, etc start kicking in, then make sure you stay away from the market, especially if you aren't comfortable trading in such circumstances. People who do so anyway, and overestimate their understanding of this market, are mostly those who lose in the end. No one can beat this market at that point.

It's indeed hype at the end of the day, but it doesn't really matter. It's attracting people to this market, and that's the only thing that matters. At some point they will realize how rubbish all these ICO's and shitcoins are, and aim for solidity, quality, security, and that's what Bitcoin offers. Bitcoin is the center of this entire market, and the main benchmark currency.

It's like Gold - people can't afford whole units, but they still want to own a piece of it. Bitcoin's divisibility offers all layers of the society to own a piece of it. Seriously, everyone that I know being involved into altcoin investments/trading, do it for one single purpose, and that's increasing their Bitcoin holdings. They don't give one single shit about altcoins and their gimmick features that no one is really interested it. If the market actually thought Bitcoin was redundant compared to other altcoins, Bitcoin wouldn't be able to grow to where it stands right now.

If this market wants to be taken seriously by professional investors, then stock market principles are indeed needed, and I can't wait for it to happen. I like how free this market still is in today's world, but we can't just keep endlessly dragging on like that. It scares off potential investors, and we also have to acknowledge another problem, and that's the severe lack of on-exchange liquidity. You have to keep moving forward, and while the adoption is consistently picking up, the ecosystem isn't catching up fast enough, and that needs to change. We want crypto to compete with traditional assets, but what's all that worth when our ecosystem in its entirity doesn't reflect that. It's time to grow and to accept the regulatory requirements, period.

Agreed. The point however is that we could have had these decentralized exchanges years ago already, but that till now didn't happen due to how low the demand is for such exchanges. It's a financial incentive based market we operate in, meaning that if something isn't rewarding enough, even when it's for a good cause, it simply won't happen.

The current decentralized exchanges perfectly demonstrate how low the demand is. In five years time of people demanding these exchanges, the actual growth of existing decentralized exchanges till now is rather disappointing. Building up such a platform takes years, which might end up costing millions, and then you have to face one or two years after operating that you won't be getting any worthy income as well. Every little thing adds up making it financially not interesting to even start. However, with LN, atomic swaps are closer to becoming reality, and this development might turn current decentralized exchanges in absolute monsters, so there is still some light/hope at the end of the tunnel.

You only think the current price is cheap because you use the all time high peak of last year as benchmark. It only reached that high because of the hype and speculation, and these factors aren't sustainable, especially with how the hype has faded completely. If we look at the market right now, the demand, progress, the price is exactly where it should be.

In other words, current price not undervalued at all. This ecosystem also proves that it is not ready to stand where it stands right now, because of how incompetent/crippled exchanges are. Before people start to complain about current levels that they are low or boring, keep one thing in mind, be careful with what you guys wish for. I remember how people complained about the same thing when the price was hovering around $14,000. Why doesn't the price go up anymore? Why doesn't the price show any action? And so forth. After that they got their action; $14,000>$12,000>$10,000>$8000>$6000. People should appreciete the current levels instead of complaining. Regardless of how "low" the current prices may seem to people, they can always go lower in the short term.

G20 was nothing (ie, not bad not good). People should just accept that the market doesn't necessarily needs to move based on certain events. Each time the price is going up or down, people think it is related to something, while they completely ignore how this market is largely also depending on impluses. These impulse buy/sell actions then trigger an opposite reaction, which from that point will either steer the market either further up, or down. Impulses can't be detected by applying technical analysis or whatever. It's the unpredictable nature making this market so interesting, and at the same time make people lose a lot of money. Short term = full of surprises. Long term = up, up, up. People not knowing how to participate in the short term market should only focus on the latter option.

This gives me a good feeling for having sticked with my old fashion paper wallets and digital wallet file backups stored on external HDD's and USBD's. The reason for me to hold off is the fact that I just never had the feeling that I can trust any of the existing hardware wallets, regardless how reputable the manufactures themselves may be.

I even have a thin actual Gold plate where I personally engraved the private key of my main cold wallet in. It of course doesn't have to have to be actual Gold (could be any metal), but it allows me to bling things up a bit, which adds an extra touch that puts a smile on my face everytime I think about it, and it also increases its physical durability if you put it against a paper wallet. I would also love to buy myself a casascius coin last year, but slipped on that due to the premiums, which are now insane, lol. It's a perfect old school collectors item and a great cold storage tool.

It will take an awful lot of time for Coincheck to pay back its users. If we look at how they recklessly kept around half a billion worth of crypto assets in hot wallets, and have been stolen afterwards as result of that, it for me means that they lost every grain of credibility they once may have had. Don't forget that it only concerned one specific crypto currency that accounted for half a billion hot wallet value - imagine how much of other crypto currencies they would have sitting in hot wallets at that point. It's mind boggling how stupid this is if you think about it. It's too shady to be considered a random/unlucky hack in my opinion, but at the end of the day, if you can't prove that something happened, it didn't happen, which is frustrating.

While you may be happy with how slow governments are when it comes to catching up with crypto, I don't see any need or justification to be happy about something like that. The longer it takes for governments to update their regulatory framework, the longer the market has to operate in an uncertain environment, and that's never a good thing.

Regulations will allow financial institutions to participate in this market without having to revert to financial products tied to Bitcoin's value, but not having an underlying value. Currently that's the only option for them, and that has to change. If they are able to participate in this market, they will be able to set up coin backed funds, set up exchange platforms providing 10000x more liquidity than the current sloppy exchange we're dealing with, get ETF's approved, etc. All this isn't happening because the regulations are lacking, and that's a shame. I want these regulations to be forced through today rather than tomorrow. It will be a victory for Bitcoin's utility.

MtGox dumps shouldn't be happening anymore, or at least not in the severe form again. Important to note here is that they have already gained the total fiat amount needed to compensate people as per the agreed Bitcoin unit value at the time of happening. The only question from here remains what will be happening with the other coins, which happens to account for an insane value in the range of $1.3-$1.4 billion right now. I strongly hope that these coins will be given back to their original owners in a fair manner. People deserve to have their coins back, because even with the current compensation arrangement, it still feels like a tremendous loss. I seriously hope that the Japanese government won't gobble them up, because that would be totally unfair in each and every aspect.