It's more than that, but still millions of miles too far away from being worthy to allocate serious capital to manipulate the Bitcoin market. People just want to grab anything they can when it comes to predicting an increase or decrease. Funny thing is that while CME is a much larger player as a futures and option exchange, but yet CBOE shatters CME's volumes like it's peanuts for them. It clearly shows that they have a massive first mover advantage that's paying off nicely. Another thing is that people here look at the futures as being something harmful because of potential manipulation, but at the same time, I am sure that the future traders look at Bitcoin traders in the exact same way. Both parties are afraid of each other.

Last ever bump.

That's the whole point. People just look at the charts and base their 'support' on what they read from the chart analysis. The lower the price drops, the lower people will drop with pointing at certain levels to be the next 'support' base. This market puts all people's technical analysis to waste most of the times, and I am happy that it is like that. Even the $10,000 level is not a base support level, and we have seen that it went below that level two times already this year - people saying otherwise are just blind. It takes no effort to get the price to tank below that level.

It's not the end at all. If the market gets boiled up again due to a bull run, the number of transactions will increase again, and if a spam attack follows to add fuel to the fire, we're back at 0.001/0.002BTC fees. It's just a temporary occurrence due to how calm the market is. People who have been around for a while have seen the fees drop significantly, to then increase significantly again - it's basically a wave pattern that keeps repeating itself over a very long period of time. In other words, calm market translates into less transactions, and a strongly active market translates into more transactions. If you have to move transactions with plenty of outputs, then this is the right time to do it.

Don't focus solely on high ranked members saying something. In times where accounts get bought and sold frequently, hero and legendary members status doesn't represent knowledge or good advice anymore. Just look at how much resistance there is against cloud mining in general, and let that be an indicator for people to not invest in any of them.

Amounts are pretty insignificant when it comes to cloud mining. Percentage wise, you'll still not be able to get anything out of your 'investment'. There are so many fees and variables involved that are set up to work against you, that you by default don't stand a chance. If you actually 'reviewed' genesis mining, you would see that it is a scam hole. The only thing that keeps them thriving is their superb marketing, which makes sure there are enough rookies bringing in the required amount of money to pay out the earnings of the earlier entrants.

Valid concern, but in the same way, what if Coinbase becomes so wealthy, that they use their capital to acquire Blockchain.info, Kraken, Xapo, etc? I personally find this to be a more realistic scenario than having whatever entity acquire Coinbase itself.

Those who actually have the ability to think further than the far majority of the people might do this, but all the noobs and whatnot will probably not care about it. For them the only thing that matters is the buying and selling aspect, where a lot of these noobs even use Coinbase as wallet to store their coins in. Coinbase has made a massive tank of itself in the years it has been active in this market, and even in such a way, that they managed to leave their closest competitors at that point far behind in current times.

There have been a lot people complain about this, and it's not just from today or yesterday.

https://forum.hitbtc.com/discussion/8136/deposit-fees-on-hitbtc-are-ridiculous

https://forum.hitbtc.com/discussion/9108/absurd-deposit-fee-by-hitbtc

According to this article, HitBtc has started with charging people deposit fees, which is absolutely ridiculous. It however states that it targets Bitcoin, but a lot people complain about altcoin deposit fees as well, so this might be them having further capitalized on this whole deposit fee situation. Exchanges, once you deposit funds, move the funds from one to another address, and that plenty of times with just one user deposit, so it looks like they will now force people to pay for this. I find this to be unacceptable, and would probably leave an exchange because of this.

I am basically on the same level here. I personally have never worked with technical analysis for that specific reason. It may be worthwhile in some cases, but it will never be the same as how technical analysis applies to the stock market for example. The crypto market is so emotion driven, sentiment driven, greed driven, where we also have to take the free market aspect in consideration, that it more often than not is a waste of time to focus on technical analysis. I honestly don't believe that we're completely safe yet, because all it takes is one major player initiating a large dump causing the market to instantly change overall sentiment. We need to add at least another $3000 to $4000 to make it less likely to see the price dip well under $10,000 again.

Expiry of future contracts isn't really fud to be honest. It's a legit concern that some people like to address. Whether or not it's actually a factor (I personally believe not) is content for another discussion, but people are free to talk about it in the speculation section. I get it that there is a lot fud going through the market as we speak, but not everything necessarily fits in that category. Nowadays when people aren't that bullish, and they are sharing their predictions on how they see the market progress in the forthcoming months, they are marked as fud spreaders, while it is not the case. And to be honest, the $10,000 level isn't a base level yet, we have seen that yesterday.

Merge Bitcoin? What does that even mean?

No. If you look back at how full the blocks were even before the crazy explosion in price, it perfectly shows that it's not a problem at all for the price. If it was a problem, Bitcoin wouldn't be where it is today in terms of its price and adoption. The correction that we experienced this year was due for a while with how overbought the market was, and that without a valid justifiable reason. I call it a much needed healthy correction.

I'll take that guarantee! Segwit is here already, so that is a decent first step if utilized more. The real K.O. punch will be delivered when Lightning Network enters the arena. The only important question that we all want an answer for, is when we will see LN being operational. I hope this year, but I wouldn't put my money on it. It has to be tested and tested, and tested, and again tested for a few more times - all to be sure that it's safe an won't have any amateurish bugs. In that regard, I wouldn't mind waiting longer if I know it's 100% safe and secure.

That's a pretty sweet deal to be honest. It translates into $10,3XX per coin, which is something that you can't buy it for when using an exchange to do so. If you would use an exchange to do this, and especially with how thin the market is nowadays, it would require you to pay a hefty 10-15% premium. That's the main reason why +1000/10,000BTC orders are being settled in OTC markets. There are dedicated Bitcoin exchanges offering OTC trades for their more wealthy customers as optional service. It's the only way to move large quantities.

Nice throwback; https://www.coindesk.com/four-winners-44000-bitcoins-final-silk-road-auction/

These 44,000BTC coming from SilkRoad were worth around $14.6 million back then, translating into ~$330 per Bitcoin.

It doesn't mean anything. Governments can bend the rules at any time to put themselves in an advantageous position. It's not the first time that that things like this happened, and definitely not the last time. The only thing they should ask themselves, is how much sense does it make to enforce a total ban on something that can't be banned at all. If you ban Bitcoin, or just even exchange activity, people will directly jump into their local peer to peer market, which is something that has been growing rapidly, and that globally. It's an important choice to make - will you as government just regulate this market in a fair manner and maintain some control (make people pay 'due' taxes, and know what person holds what quantity of crypto assets), or will you push people into the peer to peer markets that almost can't be controlled at all? Easy choice for me.

I might cash out some profits for fiat in the very long run (at least at +$100,000 levels), which would be to buy myself a house if that involved party doesn't accept Bitcoin, but the far majority of my coins won't ever get sold. I seriously can't part with my coins knowing how powerful Bitcoin is as tool. It gives me that peace of mind knowing that I will always have wealth sitting in Bitcoin that no one but myself can access. I still have some early 2013 coins that till this day haven't moved. Not even to claim the BCash and other trash forks and airdrops.

It's not that the exchanges themselves are behind all this. It's the government forcing exchanges to abide by the KYC and AML policies, and some other things, and in most cases, depending on the verification levels, you have to verify yourself with ID and stuff to unlock all functionalities of an exchange. The lower tier verification levels just need textual information (i.e name, address, phone number, etc). But of course, lower tier verification directly means less functionalities and lower withdrawal limits.

Most exchanges that at this point still aren't forcing people to verify themselves, depending on where they are based, are not operating legally, and especially when they are accepting fiat deposits and withdrawals. If they also aren't licensed to function as money transmitter, they are yet again not operating legally, where this is even a more severe offence. It's like a ticking time bomb where it's just a matter of time before the FBI or whatever agency raids that entire exchange.

They can to a large extent. If a government forces every exchange to submit people's results on a yearly basis, they'll be gaining a whole lot tax income quite easily. I wouldn't even be surprised to later find out that exchanges are transferring data to the IRS already right now. South Korean exchanges are about to face these sanctions already, and I am pretty sure that western exchanges will follow too very soon. Big brother is watching you, and that while people don't even realize it. It's a scary thought, but not one that's unexpected. It's no secret that the majority of the people aren't paying their "due" taxes over their crypto holdings and profits. The government will take it out of you as result of that.

Lol. If crypto wasn't a thing at all, the governments would just continue their normal activities like they are doing right now, so what are they exactly losing? They are taking people's money by force, so it's more a form of theft in reality. The government punishes its people for theft, and rightfully so, but who punishes the government for their theft?

I hope you're right my wall street dude. It would mean that I can buy back 10-15 Bitcoins for every Bitcoin that I sold last year. On a more realistic note, it will not happen. There is no reason to believe any of these skeptics when they don't even understand the very basics of Bitcoin, and its market. These are the exact same fools having said that Bitcoin wouldn't even manage to hit $100 back in the days, which it did. The same goes up for $1000, and so forth. Keep talking and you'll see how you don't want to get remembered to that prediction ever again once we're six to twelve months away from now. To add; if people really believe that the market is going to tank real hard this year, then feel free to short Bitcoin and to make loads of profit afterwards. It's an utter waste of a fantastic money making opportunity if you don't do so.

No way the employees will completely agree with this. As professional, they will of course tell their higher authority that they have sold everything, but in private, I very much doubt that any of these bank employees will sell their crypto assets. It would be stupid to do so, mainly because of the fact that you can do whatever you want when you're not working, as long as it isn't illegal of course. The article also states that it isn't clear on how to exactly monitor their employees, which likely comes from the fact that it is impossible to do outside the professional atmosphere. It's even illegal for an employer to 'infiltrate' in someones private life. The only thing they could effectively do, is monitor the social media activities of their employees.

It went down below the $10,000 level slightly just now, which shouldn't really concern people as long as we don't break through the previously set bottom. It's pretty much the thin overall market allowing these swings to reach this deep down. It will likely keep moving within a new range that happens to be $10,000-$12,000 (give or take a few hundred in both directions).

It's pretty risky to wait with buying till the market drops to $8000 since it may not even happen. From current levels its just 20% decline to $8000 anyway, so it's not even worth waiting for if you plan to invest for the long term. If you want to wait anyway, then make sure you buy some at current levels, and have the rest of your funds aside in case the price does happen to fall down to your target price of $8000.

BCash forked because of the greedy nature of those who initiated the fork, which also goes up for Bitcoin Gold and all the other shitcoin forks. It's however Roger Ver and Jihan with a hidden agenda, where their main target is to convince people that BCash is more Bitcoin than Bitcoin Core itself. Lightning Network is a legitimate effort to transform Bitcoin in the ultimate currency/means of exchange that it deserves to be. Once LN is ready and rocking, altcoins will suffer a major blow for sure. BCash doesn't fit in that category since it isn't even initiated because of them looking to offer people an alternative option. It's greed and greed only.

China has been nothing but a problem to crypto, where their announcements were constantly shaking the market up and down due to how big of a deal China was in people's eyes. People were even of believe that if Chinese exchanges were no longer able to function, that this market would fall down so hard, that it likely wouldn't recover anymore. Let me tell you one thing, Bitcoin isn't China, and China isn't Bitcoin. Bitcoin's current growth is more well distributed throughout the world than ever before, and that's something we should be extremely happy with. It means that if one country is about to exit this market, regardless of how big that specific country is, it will not be able to drag down this entire market with it. And honestly speaking, one country shouldn't be able to have such a large impact on the entire market. It makes no sense. Correction is understandable, but that's all it should be.