Binance has indeed been growing rapidly, but it's a bit too fast in my opinion, especially because of the fact that they aren't used to such large volumes of trades and usage. Everything is all fine when things are running smoothly, but what if Binance is going through difficult times at whatever point in time? If we look at the past, exchanges having grown rapidly in a similar fashion, where the best examples are Poloniex and Bittrex, have all turned out to be quite incompetent when it comes to operating an exchange in an appropriate manner. People switched from Poloniex to Bittrex due to the problems, but now at Bittrex they face the exact same annoyances. I don't think Binance will be exempt from similar problems later on. That's why I prefer to keep using exchanges with a proven and reputable track record. Bitstamp is my main exchange, and will stay that (I hope) for ever.

How do you know that already? Bitcoin with the right implementations can be functional in an up to date manner for plenty of decades. Lightning Network is a great example of that. People think that altcoins are cheaper, which they are right now due to their lack of network usage, but once we have LN to work with, altcoins will lose that 'cheaper and faster' confirming transaction advantage. Result is that people with their capital will flow back into Bitcoin, which is the only coin worthy of having your money sitting in. If Bitcoin at some point will become obsolete, it won't be because of another crypto currency, but something completely new that offers everything Bitcoin does, but in a far more efficient manner. What that new thing will be, no one knows yet, but time eventually will tell what will happen.

Point is that people shouldn't focus on a certain price level with nothing really bullish to hold on to. I look at the general picture, which is that we are still above the $10,000 level, and that is the only thing that matters for me. In other words, it doesn't hold much value for me if we reach $15,000 and then fall to $13,000, from where we then increase to $17,000, and then again fall to $12,500. It's basically like the mood of a pregnant women - one day you'll get to experience her nice side, and the other day she is going nuts on you, where the day after, or perhaps that same evening everything is all right again. That's how this market has been behaving in the last weeks.

Of course sellers have the advantage there. It's an exchange that serves mainly as alternative to how centralized exchanges are more and more forcing people to fully verify themselves, which is something the sellers know as well, so premiums are a normal thing on that platform. I personally think it's well justified, but in some cases the premiums are just too steep. It's not for nothing that LocalBitcoins is climbing up in ranking so quickly - people don't want to hand an utter stranger their personal details, selfie, ID scan, etc. I however have been reading about some unpleasant experiences of people with cocky/shady sellers demanding a higher price when meeting in person, so it's definitely not only positive.

In most cases experience and patience is a solid plus in this market, but in current times the market, especially the altcoin market, has turned so wild, that even experienced traders are struggling badly. I personally had taken a short break from trading due to that, and have started to trade again after everything has calmed down a bit, where right now the market is more or less predictable due to how repetitive the movements are. I thrive on these repetitive movements, and as long as the market remains calm (calm in the way that it doesn't constantly increase to higher levels), I'll keep trading. As soon as I notice that we have broken through this calm period, or consolidation phase, I will take a break again. It's almost impossible to trade against a constantly increasing market like what we have seen when the market went up from sub $10,000 all the way till almost $20,000.

Huh? You learn in the field before going to the field?

If people are delusional enough to stick with a from inside rotten exchange as Bitfinex, and mining platform NiceHash, they will definitely not leave Kraken. I think I would have left that exchange a good month or so ago already. I am quite a frequent trader, and if there is one thing that pisses me off, then it's a slow or not responding exchange. If you just occasionally buy and sell, then there probably isn't really much incentive from that specific type of user to leave. The main thing is that as long as that exchange hasn't been hacked in a very shady manner, they can only be blamed for their amateurish way of handling and operating an exchange. It's pretty sad to see an exchange as Kraken, that was known to be quite a reliable exchange in the past, is struggling this much.

There is no such a thing as Bitcoin being the next Swiss bank account. The main difference here is that the government can't freeze your money because it isn't held by whatever shitty centralized institution. Swiss bank accounts have never been save because of how the Swiss banksters were snitching on their own account holders. It's disgusting that you have to hide your own wealth for the tyranny of your own government, greedy bastards they are. I am glad that a good portion of my wealth is locked into Bitcoin since years and years ago. It feels good that no one but myself has access to this wealth, and that it can't be blocked/frozen by ANY entity.

It has been like that since way back. This market has grown so large, that even 10-20% pull backs are few hundred million dollar opportunities for the large pockets behind all this. Great thing is that while they do the effort setting everything up, we can benefit from it too, by trading the repetitive volatility that has become so predictable, that it almost seems too easy. I have always been looking at the switch from miners in China to other nations over this fud'ish South Korea ban, because that in the relatively short term might turn out to have some impact on the market. One thing is sure, this market has never disappointed people in terms of offering insane money making opportunities, which is one of the main reason it attracts so much capital.

In current times there is no need for anyone to spam the network. The increased usage and wild price swings make people transact back and forth like crazy, and thus this can be seen as free network cluttering for those who would otherwise spam the network themselves. The only thing we can blame certain miners for, is minting near empty blocks. Today it were BTC.TOP and Antpool who minted both a near empty block, which is just ridiculous in current times. People and services are desperately waiting for confirmations, and these bastards just troll everyone by making them wait longer, and further clutter the network. In the last few days Antpool minted four near empty blocks, which has become a frequent practice for them.

Bitcoin fundamentally is very limited versus mass scale adoption, that's for sure, but as you pointed out earlier, we do need off chain scaling solutions, which is LN directly speaking. At that point Bitcoin offers every aspect people expect a currency to have. In more relevant terms, conducting small purchases, micro transacting, micro tasks, etc. Another benefit will be that with LN, the practical need for altcoins will decrease significantly, making sure that the money currently parked in altcoins will flow back into Bitcoin. The only thing that made altcoins grow significantly, is Bitcoin's current incompetence. Take away that incompetence with LN, and 99% of the altcoins will just serve as speculative investment tool.

Basically that. The only ever time I have actually thought and considered the market to be in a bubble state, was back in 2013 when we went up so hard, and that without any logical justification of actual growth, progress, etc. In current times there has been so much development, progress, growth, adoption in all sorts of countries, that there is no such a thing as a bubble. Instead, I am using the term overbought instead of bubble. At the time we nearly reached the $20,000 level, the market was heavily overbought, with just one reason, and that were the future markets. On top of that, we were also close to a very important psychological level, which helped damping down Bitcoin at that point.

It's probably due to the explosive growth, which is something they haven't seen coming. Also, people were putting South Korea on the same level as Japan, which is not a worthy comparison. Japan in all aspects shows that they are open to let Bitcoin and other crypto currencies grow, and that's something that was missing with South Korea. People focused on the growth they were going through, and for that reason got a bit too excited. On a more serious note, I strongly suspect their volumes to be artificially inflated. It just isn't normal to see certain coins generate billions in volume in just a single day. To add even more, their Bitcoin rate is $5000 higher than the western market, which is also not that convincing.

It's in their advantage to discredit Bitcoin, but they are free to do so if they feel it helps their shitty BCASH forward. Gladly, people just see BCASH as a hedge rather than an actual Bitcoin competitor, but this is something that Roger Ver doesn't entirely understand, or just doesn't want to understand. If they really wanted to make a difference, and an actual Bitcoin competitor, they would have created a completely new altcoin, and not reverted to forking Bitcoin. Forking Bitcoin brings the large holders more wealth, free marketing, free brand awareness, etc. It's just a pathetic human being if you see him talk down on Bitcoin on Youtube, where he even says that transaction fees can stretch out all the way into the $1000 range. He however refrains from explaining why such a fees are required, but of course, he doesnt.

China is far too subtile with their smoke screen attempts to get rid of miners. Just give them a date they will have to exit China, and they will do so. I applaud these actions, because this will make China less of an important factor in this industry, and thus contribute to less hash power pooling in one central location. While it may not look like so at this point in time, the Chinese government is actually contributing to less country based centralization in the mining industry. It will make Bitcoin less of a target for whatever bad intended government.

That, and to have some sort of control in the way that they know who owns what in crypto. If you know who owns what number of coins, and even till the extent of the addresses connected to these funds, the government can basically track everything you do without much effort. I think we have come to a time where exchanges behind the scenes might be handing over all our data to the government. It has made me a whole lot more suspicious, and for that reason I trade with far lower amounts than I used to in the past. I even started to look at some decentralized exchanges to see how they operate, and whether or not it offers me the convenience centralized exchanges offer me, but thus far there haven't been any decentralized exchange offering that, and probably never will find it.

Easy talking for someone who from the looks hasn't experienced any similar situations. I have experienced it with BTC-E that they remained offline, and that for quite a long period of time, where later turned out that this exchange was raided by the FBI. Of course I am not saying that this has happened to Kraken as well, but just to indicate that if you can't access thousands and thousands worth of crypto, you feel worried and frustrated. Sure, you can say that it isn't wise to leave funds on an exchange, but that's not of importance anymore right now. Kraken has been horrible with their reliability in the last weeks/months, and this is just a big f-you in the face of every user of that exchange.

If you look back, the market has been bouncing up and down for quite a while now, and that within a very wide range, so there are no issues here at all. What we experience right now is a market that doesn't know what direction to move into, and it shows due to the price movements. There is no momentum anymore, no event to hold onto, no Lightning Network, no further Segwit adoption, etc. Do you seriously expect the market to keep increasing without any bullish indicators? The market has been consolidating above the $10,000 level, and that's the main thing to focus on here. Let it jump to $16,000 and then fall back to $13,000, it doesn't matter, that $10,000 level is still safe.

I rather call it a lacking incentive to support the price with no upcoming events happening. I don't see it tank below the $10,000 level, but we might see $11-$12,000 prices, from where we will then increase again. I wouldn't really mind picking up some cheaper coins for trading purposes, because these repetitive movements are quite profitable actually. You up front know that it will bounce up again, and it really does. If you time it right, you can make an easy 5% per day at minimum, and that without much effort at all.

That's what people are waiting for, yes. But the only thing is that we don't know when LN becomes operational on the mainnet. I just hope it will be this year, but looking at how conservative the developers are usually, it might take longer than that. Other than that, people focus too much on merchants not accepting Bitcoin. People don't have any incentive to spend anything that will grow in value afterwards, and this basically goes up for altcoins as well. So whether the fees make people not spend their coins, or just the lacking incentive due to the constantly increasing price, the main point is that people are just looking to hoard and hold.

Is billions and billions in traded crypto assets not enough motivation? Imagine how it must feel for the government looking at crypto currencies that have just recently taken off there, and are already generating billions of dollars worth of daily volumes. Imagine how much money is going through these exchanges once the adoption there picks up even further, and that's something the government is unsure about, and perhaps even afraid of. I however don't really know how much factual information these sort of articles have. In the very early days of the China ban rumors people were saying fud this and that, but it became reality after a while. Not saying we'll see a similar situation become reality, but we also can't discard it.