i love this kind of panic selling because it usually causes a "too far too fast" snap-back, like a rubber band. basically, bears blow their wad trying to push new lows. high volume ensues (sellers meet buyers).

40K btc dumped on finex and no new lows? that means lots of new shorts to squeeze. the range is still tight enough that this could provide the fuel we need to re-test late december price levels---$13K to $17K. fingers crossed for a nice wick on the daily!!

so old hands who are on vacation (or dead) during the "probation period" get demoted?

are we demoting hal finney from senior member? he's only received 26 merit.

you're basically erasing all contributions that people made to the forum between 2010 and 2017. the people that made this forum great once. screw that. old hands shouldn't be penalized just because most new members are spammers.

low volume and thin market depth are two sides of the same coin. volume is low because there is no liquidity. so i agree, we can expect high volatility because of that (the timing of which is unpredictable).

but the charts do tell us when accumulation is happening. so it's not just like taking a shot in the dark. it's more about sitting on investments while they're in accumulation phases, waiting for larger fish to eat up all the sell-side liquidity. once that liquidity is all gone, the price gets marked up. simple supply and demand.

i know manipulation is rampant, but i'm less interested in short term price spikes anyway. i'm looking for long term setups that develop over months, not pump and dumps.

phew, thanks for checking!

hey dishwara, why was i removed from the airdrop? i regularly check the rules and i don't understand. i post everyday on the forums so surely this can't be for inactivity. and i post in the ANN thread sometimes too.

was this a mistake? hopefully you check for me. thanks.

but why do they have the highest volatility? and why does it follow that TA doesn't work then?

the bottom line is supply and demand. so, the key to understanding volatility is market depth. the reason BTC used to be so much more volatile (back in the day we used to see 50% swings in a day) was because of an utter lack of liquidity. whales could easily move the market---high demand into low supply.

low cap altcoins are the same way. due to the "cheap" price vs. BTC, whales can accumulate in a range until all the market liquidity is gone. and then? the only direction is up since there are no sellers left. the lack of market depth makes a 10x move very easy, like a hot knife through warm butter. this is the same exact thing we saw on the BTCUSD order books in 2013. all the supply disappeared, so the price skyrocketed.

so, it's really not about TA vs. FA. both should reflect the same thing. fundamental analysis (supply dynamics and catalysts for demand) will tell you why demand may overtake supply at a given price level. technical analysis looks for clues re supply and demand on the charts: does every dump attempt get bought up? has price risen above a major supply level, indicating further upside after resistance becomes support? does volume indicate major accumulation or distribution? all of this is valuable information to a trader.

FA for context: is this something i want to invest in, and are there fundamental reasons for increased demand? support/resistance and volume analysis for the rest.

i've seen this come up periodically. the usual answer is p2p trading like localbitcoins or paxful since US exchanges don't seem to do business in hawaii---apparently their money transmitter laws are pretty burdensome. i see references to an ATM downtown (honolulu?) but there's a big premium to use it.

the one exchange that people report success with is bitstamp. they are based in europe, so you need international wire capability, although they may still do credit cards (probably a big premium there too).

i've seen kraken suggested but also seen reports that hawaii residents get stuck in some perpetual verification limbo there.

i don't think there was a specific time and place where "bitcorn" was coined. i think it was just a play on words. the term was popularized after a professor from boston university (mark williams) predicted in 2013 that BTC would be trading at $10 a year later. he was named "professor bitcorn" by the community. i don't think there's a real explanation as to why he was named that. just a joke, really.

anyway, the term stuck. now people shorten it to the "corn"

technically, according to the wiki:


https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardfork
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Softfork

i'm not a huge fan of the definitions that bitcoin developers adopted, but there you have it.

to me, a hard fork should be about prima facie incompatibility. does the fork cause incompatibility with older clients? if yes, then it should be considered a hard fork. for instance: UASFs are considered "soft forks" even though they are prima facie incompatible. they cannot be compatible unless and until a majority of miners adopt the UASF.

that means UASFs can be indistinguishable from hard forks (as defined). if miners don't actively upgrade, it's as if they removed consensus rules from their software. that's a hard fork. in that situation, legacy clients follow the miners and UASF clients split onto a separate blockchain...

consensus is complicated.

china is still a major geopolitical power. the perceived legitimacy of BTC and crypto in the eyes of major governments definitely affects confidence in the markets. that should come as no surprise.


the OTC market is massive compared to last year:



the jump in volume lines up with the exchanges shutting down withdrawals last year. nobody's stopping OTC traders from sending their coins overseas. seems like the chinese exchanges all moved to hong kong, not sure on the volumes though.


i think lots of chinese hashpower has already moved outside the country. they're probably still using chinese pools, though. if the government came down on miners and pools, i think the drop in hashpower would be less drastic than people think.

coinbase doesn't have any options. they are based and licensed in the US; the IRS and the US courts have jurisdiction. what are they supposed to do---swallow IRS enforcement and fines, and contempt of court charges?

i don't think their shareholders would like that.

"decentralized" and "introduced via an initial coin offering (ICO)" are contradictory, so i'm curious what the scheme will actually look like. the government is openly using it as a fundraising scheme---much like the petro---to replace US reparations:

but i do like the sound of this. from the company that will apparently develop the protocol for the marshall islands government:

long term capital gains (if you hold for at least a year) are taxed at 15-20%---no more. short term capital gains get taxed at your normal tax rate, which can be a lot higher than that.


dealing with BTCUSD day trading is easy. that's just like stock trading or similar. altcoins are more of a hassle since you need to determine the USD value of every trade.


totally expected. i remember hearing brian armstrong say something like it was coinbase's goal to be the most compliant exchange in the space. they fought this in court..... what else could we really expect? openly defy the IRS and the courts?

this seems good, but i'm confused about how to interpret this:

the party acting as an intermediary for the exchange will not be taxed---but what about the party buying the good? hopefully the headline is correct, because the body of the article doesn't explain why equivalence to legal tender for tax purposes = no taxes on your gains.

why, though? what do they even mean by "blockchain payments?" because the whole premise of private blockchains is still flawed. maybe it could improve inter-bank settlement using some federated system, but......meh!

the real reason blockchains will benefit banks is if they are drawing fees for offering crypto exchange and custody services. there will be huge demand for this in the future, and mainstream consumers want to deal with reputable banks when it comes to money. this is how banks can (and will) obtain investment positions in various coins---by drawing fees and holding them.

a few years ago, i would have said the same. but the times, they are a changing.

a recent JP morgan analysis said that BTC could emerge as a traditional safe haven asset alongside gold:

also, gold's weak performance during BTC's late 2017 rally led many analysts to conclude that BTC and cryptocurrencies were taking market share away from gold.

to be fair, they fought this in court for months and got the original terms thrown out. they're based in the USA and have put so much money into MSB licenses. i wouldn't expect them to disobey a court order.


the accounts were based on this:

personally, i think it's naive to expect anything different from coinbase, but i definitely sympathize with people who will be audited over this.

cryptocurrency breaks down barriers to trade and investment. for people in developing countries and the working class in industrialized countries, we have options for income and investment that we never had before. whether you are looking for a safe haven from devaluing fiat money or a chance for a 100x gain on a speculative altcoin trade, the opportunity is there.

on a macro level, USD and supranational organizations are used to keep developing countries in debt bondage and promote western policy throughout the global south. if crypto decentralizes monetary power away from fiat money, then poor, exploited countries will greatly benefit. and i suspect that those governments that start building national crypto reserves first will also greatly benefit.

you and a lot of other people.

they instituted new KYC requirements starting january 1st---no more fake names. full KYC with government ID and selfie required. however, their policy does state that you can continue to withdraw at your old limits if you don't verify. you just can't deposit or trade.


the first generation of exchanges was mostly run by anonymous or fly-by-night people. lots of exit scammers. no licenses, no reputation to back them up. we've never known anything about poloniex except the possibly fake name "tristan d'agosta" and a virtual office mailing address.

we may not like goldman sachs, but i prefer them to anonymous owners who could disappear at any moment.

when i see millions of customers queuing up to trade BTC and ETH on robinhood, it seems obvious that lots of people want a reputable, licensed and well-known place to trade. especially when it comes to securities.


that would put poloniex worlds above the competition in turns of reputability.

also, exchange popularity comes in waves. poloniex volume moved to bittrex. then bittrex volume moved to binance. IMO, exchange UX is so bad that any of them could rise back to the top if they offered the right incentives, UI, trade engine and markets (listing new coins).


there's no way they'll keep listing tether markets. no licensed US exchange is going to touch USDT.