For me not much has even changed when the price nearly touched the $20,000 level last year. I just trade the volatility as I have always been doing, and keep the coins I hold for the long term sleeping in their wallets for plenty of more years. We have experienced these sort of situations for so many times now, that it's a bit weird how people keep panicking over absolutely nonsense. It's like people never seem to understand the basics of this market, and that while they have had enough time to do so.

Definitely so. That's why we shouldn't take certain peaks and dumps too serious. To start with, the near $20,000 peak of last year was a massive exaggeration of how the market gets bought up by blind panic rage buyers due to the future markets. At that point we were beyond the actual all time high already, but the market still got pushed further, till the point where $20,000 was forming the mental barrier. If that $20,000 barrier wasn't there, we would probably have seen the market increase even further. That barrier was the STOP sign the market needed to calm the f... down.

The range is obvious, so from here the most interesting part will be how much market support there is for anything above $12,000, and for how long this support is able to last. It's very difficult to tease whatever entity to keep buying without any events or happenings ahead of us. The most bullish event to look forward is Lightning Network, but it may even turn out to be something that will be completely ready somewhere next year. The few successful tests of LN and the beta implementation of whatever service isn't sufficient. In most bullish short term scenario, I can see the range getting wider, but that's really it - the volatility within that range will remain.

No one is required to post for Merit. If you just want to post randomly throughout the week, then that's fine too. Sure, the chances of you not getting more Merits will shrink a bit, but the main point is that people should be posting naturally, and not for the sake of Merits.

People are forcing and exaggerating in their posts to get Merits, that I have noticed too, but that's still better than spamming with 'yes I think the price will go up', or 'Bitcoin will make us rich, but we have to trust in Bitcoin'. Everything that may potentially enhance the discussion field in a thread is a welcome addition, because that's what's missing now.

It's impossible to prevent Merit sales from happening. This forum is the main hotspot for people to earn money online, and for that reason will do everything to rank up. Whatever system ends up in place to 'avoid' spam and everything related to it, people are creative enough to work around it. It's basically a catch up game for people, where at some point, catching up will be achieved one way or another. At least I so far have seen a positive change in how people write their posts, so I will start looking at newbies and other lower ranked accounts more closely to reward their efforts. The more we reward people for their efforts, the less people will try to game the system - at least, that's how I look at it.

So what? Ripple managed to surpass Bitcoin's market cap two times already, so there is nothing special to it. Market caps of altcoins are utter nonsense metrics. No one should look at that as being an actual market share metric, because it isn't. There is a major difference between market cap and market share - people should just understand what both terms actually mean. Just wait for it when Lightning Network becomes operational on the main net, altcoins will then see how much of that "precious" market cap of Ethereum and other top altcoins will be left.

It's funny how these traditional market gurus just can't accept that Bitcoin is being adopted by the average person and institutional investors. It's not the first, and definitely not the last attempt where these oldies try to talk down on Bitcoin like it doesn't have any purpose, and that the only reason it has value is because of criminals, terrorists, and now even dictators, lol. Like seriously, just retire already you old man. That dude can barely stand up for a minute or two without holding on to something to maintain his balance. The market has changed, and within ten years from now on, it won't be anything like what it is today anymore. It's either adapt to the new situation, or be left behind to later realize what you have missed out on.

China has to accept that you simply can't prevent people from investing in Bitcoin. One way or another, there will always be a way for people to trade Bitcoin, even when it's not as convenient as trading on an exchange. I seriously hope that decentralized exchanges will become the norm in the coming years, because people for once need to understand how annoying and unworkable centralized exchanges are getting due to all the regulations. I have taken a look into some of the more popular decentralized exchanges, but it's still more or less a hassle and time consuming practice to settle trades. I hope that atomic swaps will be able to bring the necessary convenience people need in order to take decentralized exchanges more serious.

What people, noobs? Coinbase has nothing to worry about since it's so heavily involved in various aspects of this ecosystem. To add; Robinhood only allows US and Australian citizens to make use of its app. It might roll out further into more countries, but it will take some time. If Robinhood would be able to 'kill' Coinbase, it should have 'killed' other stock brokers a good while ago already. This app allows noobs to play around with stocks and whatnot, but offers nothing for professional traders. It's too basic, but that's why the average person likes it so much. They just want to make a fiat deposit, buy the stocks or whatever they think will increase in value, and they got it. It's definitely a convenience service enjoying popularity. Good thing is that it makes crypto more accessible, so that I am definitely happy with.

1) This forum has never been a decentralized 'system'.

2) This merit system is an attempt to prevent further downward movement of this forum (whether or not it really ends up helping is another question).

3) People who want to read and post have nothing to worry about. If you aren't just interested to rank up solely to join sig campaigns, then the merit system shouldn't be a concern to you.

4) Doing something to potentially improve the overall image of this forum is better than doing nothing and have this forum sink to the absolute bottom.

5) Mods have more important things to do than throwing around with merit.

6) Accept the change and move forward.

Definitely a case of scientific research and analysis of a market in repetitive state. I find it very funny that people think they can predict and read the market, while it has been doing the exact same thing for a few days straight now. The probability of "predicting" something that's meant to happen within an obvious range isn't anything special - any noob looking at the charts can come up with that. Crawl out of your comfort zone and come up with a prediction involving more forward thinking and more risk, because such simple predictions won't bring you anywhere.

No one ignores Bitcoin. This market just follows the money trail. If Bitcoin experiences a stagnant period of time, people tend to shift towards altcoins temporarily to try their luck there. Money doesn't like to sit still doing absolutely nothing. This market is largely driven by events and happenings justifying a bull run to get initiated, where the future markets of last year were a perfect example. As soon as the future markets became active, the market took a few steps back, and rightfully so. Does that mean Bitcoin decreased in value significantly? Technically, yes, but not if you look at how extremely overbought the market was. In other words, current levels aren't all that bad. Still 10x higher than last year.

It isn't strange. They just want to prevent their employees from developing an anti banking system attitude due to what level of features and freedom Bitcoin offers. It cuts out banks, makes their entire way of working obsolete with their next working day transactions, grants people access to their wealth 24/7, they don't need to justify any action anymore, while they need the permission of their bank right now. In that regard, I can very well understand why banks are doing this. You can see it as self protection of the bank itself, and not so much that their employees need that protection. The bank doesn't care a single bit about their employees - they just want to remain their ancient way of conducting business the same for many more decades.

There is so much money involved in this market, that even on government level there are entities looking to take advantage of the noobish nature of most of the "investors" in this market. We have seen JPM CEO do the same, we have seen South Korean officials do the same. It has become so normal, that I don't even take it serious anymore. I just use their market manipulation attempts (in case successful) in my advantage to trade the volatility as result of that. Do you guys remember how each time the price went up significantly back in the days, China popped up with a certain announcement taking the price down again? It happened so frequently, that even Donald Trump would understand that it wasn't coincidence anymore.

It's 25% your fault, and 75% Bittrex. Bittrex acts in a very shady manner by giving people the ability to deposit, while they won't allow people to withdraw anything. This is so wrong, that it literally makes me hate them so much. It's nothing more than an attempt to make people deposit funds in the hope they will not be able to pass the verification levels you're supposed to go through. Those who eventually give up on their verification and take their loss, will translate into money in the pocket of Bittrex, the bastards. If you don't allow people to withdraw, then why allowing them to deposit? I have a legacy account there as well, and I am still able to deposit (obviously won't ever do), but won't be able to withdraw anything. I hope you don't give up on your funds if it concerns a considerable amount of crypto assets. If it's a relatively smaller amount, at least ask Bittrex to delete all your information including your account - at this point you don't have anything to lose anymore.

In order to make financial institutions and the government with its on debt based system obsolete, we need the average joes to cooperate when it comes to initiating a revolution. It's the mass that can make the real difference here, and as long as this mass keeps allowing the government to dictate their life and treat them as a cash cow by having them pay tax endlessly over the same amount of money, nothing will change. Great first step for people is to stop being so fiat centric. Another important step is that people should understand and appreciate how much financial freedom Bitcoin offers to the outside world. At this point in time, the extreme majority of the digital payments we conduct, and value we store in a digital manner, require approval of centralized entities being the banks, MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, Skrill, etc. We need to cut these greedy and obsolete services out entirely. Bitcoin allows you to do exactly that.

Fud regarding the ban of exchanges by South Korea has been debunked, and was never really taken that serious by the market. It was a much needed correction that took the price down from the peak levels we reached last year. Sure, the fud might have triggered noobs and other gamblers to contribute as well, but there is no real damage. Current levels are exactly where we belong, and still 10x the price of last year at current day.

The 'high' fees have dropped significantly due to the bull run that lost momentum. Currently the average fee is $5, which isn't all that bad to be honest. If you don't have transactions that need to get quick confirmations, you can even just include $3 in fees. And how is the transaction speed slow? It's pretty much instant in most cases. There is a difference between confirmation speed and transaction speed. So, no there are nu further issues left, but even knowing that, without any bullish events to focus on, not much will happen.

Relative is a very wide term for you? Because the volatility has been pretty active in the last few weeks. We were moving up and down within a range of $13,000/$15,000, till that range couldn't be supported anymore, which resulted in the range ($10,000/$12,000) we're currently moving in.

It won't happen till it happens. I have seen so many people talking about resistance levels, base levels, etc, that they have lost any real credibility (more than before) due to how far off all of these predictions and chart 'readers' have been. Even the important $10,000 level isn't anything this market is willing to support in a serious manner. It has quite easily been dumped below $10,000 for two times now, and a third time is very possible. It's clear that the market just reacts completely different from what people expect it to do.

I actually like this. I however also understand that he is in a position to sell his music for Bitcoin and then keep holding on to his coins. Retailers won't be able to do this because of the constant cashflow that they need, where we also have to take into consideration that they don't want to be exposed to this market's wild price swings. 50Cent has an eye for what route to follow when it comes to investments, and this once again confirms his business and investment instinct.

That quote confirms it. He is in a position to not liquidate his holdings, which again, doesn't apply to retailers. There might come a future where retailers are willing to hold a small percentage of their sales in Bitcoin, but more than that is not really going to happen. We just have to accept that not everyone is interested in Bitcoin. Merchants just want to scoop up extra revenue by having Bitcoin as additional payment option.

No thanks. People at all times should be stimulated to take care of their own coins, and not have whatever entity act like a centralized vault to offer people "convenience" and "security". Seriously, what's the point (aside from speculation purposes) of Bitcoin when you let a central authority take care of your coins? Then just keep using fiat to transact, because there won't be much of a difference at that point. If you aren't the sole owner of your private keys, you don't own anything. Bitcoin allows people to cut out whatever central authority, and yet they don't seem to understand how much value this aspect of Bitcoin has.

So what? There are so many others losing much more on a daily basis, but they don't rush to social media to get their retarded gambling habit known to the outside world. It's basically the same as with how people suddenly pop up and claim to have become a millionaire with just an initial investment of $1000. Good for you that you achieved that, but what's the point of having it be publicly known? It's obviously a scream for attention. And honestly speaking, I don't believe that he just lost $3000 as initial investment. If it was, then he wouldn't react like that - there is definitely more that we don't know. I know there are people who've lost quite a bit with gambling, but where they act like they just lost a small amount to make themselves not look like an utter idiot.