For those who use Abra wallet, just recently they added Stellar, Bitcoin Gold, DigiByte, Augur, Status (SNT), Stratis and 0x (ZRX).

I've been using an Abra wallet since it allows me to easily transfer my crypto and exchange it to fiat directly to my bank accounts. I personally don't use these other coins that were recently added, but do any of the other Abra wallet users use these coins? More and more cryptocurrencies are being added in Abra which allows its users to easily invest.

I'm betting that the people who bought bitcoin at a higher price than is right now are shedding tears because they see that they're losing their money as the price get's lower and lower. For those who rode on the hype just last December or bought during a bull, they must be bawling tears by now especially if they think that the price will remain at this level.

There's really no need to complain about the market and continue to feel sad and hopeless as it won't help you nor make the price go up. Wait for another bull trend then sell to recover your investment.

Yes, most people are probably not surprised with the news since Japan is well known to be more open to crypto as compared to other countries. Let's hope that this goes on well and doesn't end up spiralling downwards.

This may then be a great opportunity to get rid of the stigma that ICOs are 'shady'. With this legalization of ICOs in Japan, then this would allow projects to flourish and investors to flock in. After a successful ICO or two, people will come to realize how profitable and beneficial ICOs are.

Perhaps for some people, they initially think that it's too complicated to understand upon hearing the words "lighting" or "network". When some people hear "technical" words like this, they tend to think that it's going to be too difficult to understand without even giving a shot of trying to comprehend it. There's a stereotype that only nerdy geeks who have expert knowledge on this field would understand these kind of concepts. But as with how it is easy enough to understand what are direct deposit, payroll and credit/debit card payments work - lighting network is going to be understandable for the lay man as well.

In fact, there are already a number of few countries out there that has imposed tax on trade transactions or exchanges from crypto to fiat. Other countries may follow this and pattern from their taxation framework. It's not so impossible as others suggest. Some may even impose a tax on gaining crypto income. Governments may seek regulation on exchanges or trading platforms to be able to oversee the transactions being made locally.

Bitcoin Payments In Asia Hold Strong As Cryptocurrency Prices Continue To Plummet

While many of the top cryptocurrencies are down in the dumps, BitPay has raised a total of over $70 Million in capital and processed over $1 Billion in Bitcoin Payments in 2017 .

BitPay’s CEO, Stephen Pair, announced in a press release that one of the company’s future goals is to expand into emerging markets in Asia, which is also one of BitPay’s fastest growing regions for cryptocurrency transactions and wallet adoption.

And despite the price of Bitcoin dropping, Menlo Ventures – whose portfolio includes companies like Uber, Warby Parker and Roku - still decided to invest in BitPay’s Series B round. This was also its first institutional cryptocurrency investment.

“We gravitated towards BitPay because we felt the company had identified a killer use for cryptocurrency in facilitating low cost payment solutions for cross-border commerce and business-to-business payments, which is a massive market poorly served by the existing payment rails,” said Tyler Sosin, a partner at Menlo Ventures.

Read more at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelwolfson/2018/04/05/bitcoin-payments-in-asia-hold-strong-as-cryptocurrency-prices-continue-to-plummet/#2dec21373b09

What? NO! That would be horrible! I would actually want to promote to have more sMerit sources in the local boards to allow those who can't speak english fluently to gain more merits. There may be abusers or account farmers in the local boards but that's only the minority. Let the mods of the local boards handle that. Even if you restrict sending merit in the local boards, that's not going to be a way for them to improve their english and grammar. Forcing them to post on the other boards won't help, and it will just add to the spam.

Back in the day, it was said that airdrops were more profitable than it is right now. Although that most of the airdrops right now don't have much of value, it can't be said that 99% are scams. That's too huge of a margin IMO even if many of the airdrops really are scams. There are still some out there from actual and legit projects among the numerous fraudulent airdrops. Finding one, however, would be a diamond in the rough.

Others speculate so as well because pf how popular etherium is becoming. Others think that some day will come when etherium will actually surpass bitcoin because of its aspects that are better than bitcoin’s. Some even claim that btcoin will eventually die because of the many altcoins and competition being created. Bitcoin has slowly become outdated because of its high transaction fees and long confirmation times, and people say that this is what would eventually kill bitcoin.

Just read an article on how much the cost is of getting a coin listed. It turns out that:

According to research from Autonomous Next LLP, cryptocurrency exchanges are raking in millions of dollars from ICO operators seeking to secure a spot for their tokens on high-volume trading platforms.

“It sounds like the market price to list a crypto token on an exchange is $1 million for a reasonably regarded token, to $3 million for an opportunity to get quick liquidity,” the firm wrote. “We don’t know these numbers with certainty, but suspect the order of magnitude to be roughly in line with today’s reality.”

Is still worth it to spend this amount for ICOs to get their coins listed in exchanges?

1. Twitter Frauds
Recently, one of the most common ways for the scammers to trick investors is by Twitter. Many fake accounts have lately attack Twitter with tweets giving assurance of gaining 10x returns.

2. Market Manipulation
Sometimes regulation can be considered as a good thing, mainly when it protects the vast majority of people. Such trading regulations prevent scammers with large bankrolls from taking the market into control and scamming regular investors to open/close positions. Being present, these regulations usually help investors from getting tricked, easily finding out the most common market manipulations.

3. Fake Buy/Sell Walls
The buy/sell walls will not affect you, unless you usually base your trades on chart analysis. You can easily identify a wall when you look at the depth chart of an order book. On this point, as the name tells itself, a wall usually consistently appears as a high wall just on one side of the order book, most times 2-5x larger than the other side.

4. Pump and Dumps

Pump and dump groups’ strategy is to artificially pump the value of a particular coin right before dumping it on the investors who got fooled and thought the chances of gaining more were very high. In industries where 50% gains in a month are easily attained, it’s weirdly amazing how still pump and dump (P&D) groups even exist.

5. Paid Promotion
Even though we might think that many well-known figures of cryptocurrency might be on our side, many of them are usually paid to promote coins in the cryptosphere. Whenever these endorsers are paid to promote various projects, they are required to reveal. Right now, there is no force towards them to do so and they rarely do.

6. Shady/Shoddy Exchanges
Knowing that some exchanges are vulnerable to hacks, some having questionable management practices, others having security flaws, it is very risky to keep your digital assets on these exchanges. Consequently, we recommend to keep your coins in a wallet, such as the Trezor or Ledger Nano S. Also, even when you store your coins in a wallet, you should be cautious when trading on exchanges.

7. Phishing Attacks
One of the most common cryptocurrency scams are “Phishing attacks”. Phishers commonly purchase domains and Google ads imitating popular exchanges. The fact that the fake website looks alike with the real one- once you enter your credentials, the fake site directs you toward the correct platform, therefore, you get stolen, and your account gets empty. To not be a part of this scam, make sure you always type the exchange URL directly into the address bar. More importantly, you should have some type of 2-factor authentication enabled for all of your accounts as well.

Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/ethereumworldnews.com/beware-avoid-these-7-cryptocurrency-scams-happening-right-now/amp/

For the ICOs, it comes with a low cost for providing with tokens. I think others gamble with it because similar to how chips work in a casino or tokens in an amusement park, it seems like you’re not using you’re own money when in reality you are because it holds a certain value. As compared to the actual use of fiat, it deems as “less harmful” but it is only psychological for the buyer.

That’s true. Since cryptocurrency is not recognized as regular use for payment system, then it may not apply as a substitute for wire transfer. It’s not illegal and it’s allowed to be done however the issue here would be the currency. Since fiat currency is recognized legal tender whereas crypto is not in most countries, then the wire transfer may not become valid through the use of crypto.

Depending on the credibility of the person. Some experts are able to advise with very insightful remarks and they can teach you lessons which you may use for future purposes, but it would be up to us what to do with the information that is given to us. No one can dictate or pinpoint how the market will perform no matter how many years of experience one has. I take into consideration what experts have to say but I do not totally rely on it.

It is out of their hands. Bitcoin and crypto will just continue to flourish even if they don’t want to. Some have even chosen to ignore it or impose a total ban simply because they do not understand something which is unstable and out of their control. As we can see, some countries are now making regulations and this may continue for the upcoming years. Soon, many more other countries will choose to regulate as well.

Founders of a cryptocurrency backed by Floyd Mayweather charged with fraud by SEC

Two founders of a cryptocurrency firm that was endorsed by champion boxer Floyd Mayweather have been charged with carrying out a fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO) by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The company in question is called Centra and it raised $32 million via an ICO. An ICO is a process by which a company can issue a new digital coin in exchange for money. The coin has the potential to be used on a service offered by the company or traded in the future.
Sohrab "Sam" Sharma and Robert Farkas, co-founders of Centra Tech. Inc., masterminded a fraudulent ICO in which Centra offered and sold unregistered investments through a "CTR Token," the SEC alleged in a statement Monday.

The two people claimed to offer a debit card backed by Visa and Mastercard that allow people to convert cryptocurrency to U.S. dollars to spend it in stores. The SEC alleged that Centra had no relationship with either company. Sharma and Farkas created fake biographies of fictional executives and paid celebrities to tout the ICO on social media, the SEC claimed.
One of those celebrities, who was not named by the SEC, was boxer Floyd Mayweather. He posted a picture of himself in September 2017 holding a Centra card.

Authorities in the U.S. have been trying to clamp down on fraudulent ICOs. The SEC clarified in March that it is looking to apply securities laws to cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets. Jay Clayton, the head of the SEC, said that the organization is devoting a "significant portion of resources" to the ICO market.
Centra is not the first ICO that the SEC has gone after. Earlier this year it took action against AriseBank which it alleged raised $600 million.
Still, scams persist in the ICO world which remains a wild west in many jurisdictions. CNBC recently investigated a scam ICO called Gize which raised $2 million.

Read it at: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/03/floyd-mayweather-backed-cryptocurrency-ico-fraud-sec-says.html?__source=facebook%7Ccrypto+

I found the meme really funny, but I find it funnier that it became true and there’s already a readily available website for computation. It’s not a surprise for the bitcoin millionare to indulge, especially for early adoptors. They must have attained so much money by selling their bitcoins that they are able to splurge and spend on luxury. I hope they don’t become one day millionares just like those who won the lottery and spend on luxuries the following day. The early adopters should know better than that since they have endured all those years of holding.

It’s practically very cheap. On the part of the ICO, there is no cost since they will pay the participants with their tokens. On the part of the participant, it is profitable because they get paid for advertising the ICO. Signatures are atteactive to the eye and investors get interested in an ICO when they see a signature. Especially when a signature has a clikable link, someone who is interested or curious enough would take a visit of the ICO’s website and may choose to invest so it can be said that it is actually effective.

We cannot say for sure that the prices will get higher but at the phase that we’re in, it may be likely for technology to continue developing and improving. With the use of cryptocurrencies, the system of payments may be revolutionized in about 5-10 years as we know it. Other enterprises, especially from the business and financial sectors may even choose to adopt crypto and other countries may eventually do the same as well. Crypto may be even be more accessible to the public in the future.

Actually, there has been plenty of negative remarks about the forum especially here on the meta section when the merit system came out. Of course the account farmers became mad and complained about how it’s going to be impossible to rank up and the merit system won’t work. There may still be some spam and shit posters up to this day but it’s true that there has been an increase of interesting topics brought by users wanting to improve their post quality.