I guess is the right decision for Paypal isn't it?
I mean why taint their names today, maybe there are other ways to make money here and perhaps there is a possibility that they will have their own tokens in the future that could also rival Libra that's why they opted not to join force with them.
They need to under go that audit first specially with the accusations that they are being used for child exploitation and money laundering scheme. So let's see how it turns out. Clean up their dirty laundry first before they support crypto because I'm sure regulators are going to scrutinised them just like what they are doing today with Facebook's Libra.
It's absolutely the right decision for Paypal. I don't think Libra is going to launch, so why stay in a project and get tarnished by it, if it's likely not going to happen? If paypal wants to connect to crypto they can always tie up with one of the wallet providers like Coinbase, that would be safer for them. |
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See https://bitcoinist.com/coincheck-rolls-out-bitcoin-btc-payment-for-gas/The Japanese crypto trading giant announced the move in a press statement issued on Friday (October 4, 2019). The program is a result of a partnership between Coincheck and a couple of gas companies in Tokyo.
Dubbed “Coincheck Gas,” users of the platform can pay their domestic gas bills in bitcoin. According to the press release, BTC payments for gas under the program will attract a 3% discount.
Also, the company says it will gift users 3% of their monthly gas bills in bitcoin sent to their Coincheck wallets. Coincheck Gas is a follow-up to “Coincheck Electricity” which the company rolled out back in 2016.
These services are part of efforts by Monex — Coincheck’s parent company to boost mainstream BTC adoption. The company also has other programs that allow customers to swap loyalty points for cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. In theory this is really good for adoption. In practice - who knows, it depends on ordinary Japanese taking up the offer to actually use their bitcoin for something. Hopefully the 3% discount will encourage them, though some may decide they'll make more by just hoarding their bitcoin. |
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Just reading through this whole story, one of the takeaways I have is that there will always be risks whatever platform we can be using or trusting. The banking system has had its share of many horrible stories of depositors losing money and this one above is just one of the many examples all over the world. The banking system is never perfect as long as it is manned by real people. There is a strong probability that some people inside the bank can be doing the fraud or scam with or without the discreet approval from the top management. Here in my country, I heard similar horrible stories too but in most cases the banks concerned had to return the money lost as it is their burden actually to protect their depositor's assets just temporarily on their safekeeping.
So that brings us to cryptocurrency or Bitcoin to be specific. Bitcoin might be better than the banks (but some can argue with this, of course) because it is decentralized in the first place so no one can be able to just siphoned out the funds to nowhere and no government can order for the digital asset to be slashed or surrender unto them. However, Bitcoin has its own inherent and related risks so that we should also be careful especially if one is just new to this whole thing.
The bottom line is that anything can be carrying some type and form of risks but it is all up to us to determine which can be the lesser evil. And I think we know the answer to that question.
I think the big issue in the cryptocurrency space is that people keep their money on exchanges, and as we have seen, exchanges run away with people's funds more often than banks do. Mtgox, BTC-E, Mintpal, Cryptsy, and on and on and on. Bitcoin is decentralised, but nobody wants to take advantage of that and operate their own wallets, not least because the blockchain has got so big most laptops don't have enough memory to hold it. |
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The issue is this: people hoard scarce currencies like bitcoin or gold.
Now imagine that you couldn't use dollars, euros or any fiat, and there was just gold and bitcoin. And the price of gold and bitcoin kept rising because they're scarce.
You might spend a little on absolute necessities - food, rent and so on. But you wouldn't spend on luxuries like going to the cinema etc, you would hoard your bitcoin because the price is rising.
That would completely collapse the world economy. Most of the things we spend money on are not necessities. The few people with gold and bitcoin would be fine, the rest who depend on their jobs would be absolutely miserable because their jobs and income would disappear.
That's why people fear deflationary currencies and that's why central banks encourage a small amount of inflation - it's to encourage people to spend.
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Economic situation all over the world depends now on talks about tariffs between USA and China.If talks will fail we will see mega crisis.Now ask yourself if your economic and financial situation uncertain will you put your money what you need to survive in most risky asset.Bitcoin is most risky and most profitable asset in the world
Talks between the USA and China are definitely going to fail. The Chinese leadership is gambling that Trump won't get re-elected and that there will be another "softer" president in place by Jan 2021. So the stand-off will continue and whether the US goes into recession depends on how resilient their economy is and whether they can shrug off slowdowns in the rest of the world. |
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Blockchain would help the financial system in industrial revolution but banks would not let cryptocurrency take over them and so the government. Decentralized system is scary where the core of the society is speculation and theory. Blockchain should be adopted in a well manner, where there will be halfway for purpose and efficiency rather than just speed of transactions. Japan are trying to provide an international network for cryptocurrency like SWIFT that is used by banks to avoid frauds but Japan stated that it is still unclear how the network would work and so proposing and testing are still on process. Blockchain will level up the ongoing revolution as it is applicable on various fields not only in terms of financial and security.
I don't think banks really care. They make their money by charging interest on lending. Blockchain doesn't interfere with that at all, instead it makes the movement of money cheaper. It's governments who don't like blockchain (because it usurps the govt's function of being the sole issuer of money). |
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see https://decrypt.co/9966/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-adoption-ngo-chaarity-reportThe number of charities accepting crypto donations has doubled in North America, Europe and Australia, says the 2019 Global NGO Technology Report.
But the numbers are still small. While the number of charities accepting crypto donations has doubled in North America, Europe and Australia, cryptocurrencies still form only 2 percent of total donations.
Africa has the largest amount of NGOs accepting crypto with 5 percent, Asia follows with 4 percent, while Latin America trails with 1 percent. The real question is whether the NGOs immediately sell their crypto for fiat, or whether they then use it to buy services in the target sector using crypto. lf they did the latter, then adoption would soar in places like Africa. |
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tether being printed is the equivalent of fiat money being wired to a bitcoin exchange [to buy bitcoins]. it signifies growing demand. price is determined by supply and demand, remember?
as a trader, i always wished i had access to fiat inflow data of exchanges because it would tell you about buying demand and whether it's rising or falling. tether issuance/burning is about as close to that as you can get. it's a pretty great indicator, as the data suggests.
But has anyone ever cashed out tether for fiat? That would be the real indicator of actual money behind it. Otherwise it can look like token designed to flatter bitcoin's popularity. |
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IMO, the 4th industrial revolution already began upon the widespread use of the internet, sans the idea of blockchain and other newly-found ideas of today.
But blockchain is part of the internet - it solves a problem that only the internet poses, which is "how do you make sure digital money isn't spent twice". It's essentially designed to be cash on the internet. Remember, till bitcoin and blockchain payments on the net had to go through two monopolies: Visa and Mastercard. Whereas in the real world of bricks and mortar you can spend cash. Blockchain is designed to be the cash element of the internet and complete the revolution. We are at early stages because it's still cumbersome to use. |
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See https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-03/bitcoin-gains-correlate-with-tether-issuance-researcher-saysIt’s becoming a little clearer just how much the stablecoin Tether contributed to the rally that saw Bitcoin more than double in value this year.
On days that new Tether tokens are issued, Bitcoin increases in price as much as 70% of the time, researcher TokenAnalyst calculated. Since about $2 billion of Tether was issued this year, it was likely a significant factor.
Tether has been at the center of controversy since it was introduced as a way to provide liquidity in the more than $200 billion digital-asset market, where lingering concerns about illegal uses have made it difficult for many exchanges to secure banking services. New York’s attorney general in April accused the companies behind Tether of engaging in a cover-up to hide losses and co-mingling client and corporate funds.
Why and when Tether is issued is often a mystery, with officials of the private company saying the tokens are minted to meet orders from larger customers. In countries like China, where crypto exchanges are banned, people can pay cash over the counter to get Tethers with few questions asked. From there, they can trade Tethers for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Tether can come into circulation on a number of digital ledgers, called blockchains, and the origin matters. Following issuance of Tethers on the Ethereum blockchain, as so-called ERC-20 tokens, the price of Bitcoin moves up 70% of the time, TokenAnalyst found. On Omni, which is linked to the Bitcoin digital ledger, the price of Bitcoin moves up 50% of the time, the researcher found.
“I think the discrepancies are appearing recently primarily because Tether on ERC-20 is just much easier than Tether on Omni to use as a means of transferring value quickly,” Sid Shekhar, co-founder of TokenAnalyst, said in an email. “Ethereum is a speedier chain than Bitcoin. As Tether is primarily used as a way to realize gains and get in and out of volatile crypto-asset positions in times of market movement, the speed of transferring into/out of it is critical.”
The data could make it easier to predict future price moves.
“Traders can leverage this knowledge by tracking mints and burns of the ERC-20 Tether token as it’s closely tied to movements in Bitcoin prices,” Shekhar said. The thing is - there is a lot of real money being exchanged for bitcoin too, especially people cashing out everytime there is a spike, and people are obviously using real money to buy Tether in the first place, so it's not clear exactly what role Tether plays in bitcoin's spikes. |
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But it seems to me that no matter how we feel about Libra. It will be a revolution in the crypto industry. Because if it appears, it will be fully legalized and with the appropriate permissions. This will stir up the crypto community.
What nobody has asked or established is this: are Facebook users really interested in crypto? They might not be, they might be on Facebook simply for social media stuff and want their finances kept separate and simple. |
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PayPal has pulled their guns out of the Libra project according to CoinTelegraph. Do you guys think Libra is going to be a big fail of Facebook? Would you actually use a Facebook based coin to make payments at businesses and friends taking into account the previous press scandals like Cambridge Analytica?
The European Union has launched an investigation into Libra as well. I don't think Libra will get off the ground - there is too much resistence, mainly because governments don't like or trust Zuckerberg. If Libra had been announced by someone else, a friendlier businessman, it would have had a better chance. But Zuckerberg is toxic. |
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The BCH fork is important I think because instead of really trying to create new value it tried to take value away from the real Bitcoin. The new value it created was small because it is not really a valuable new software compared to many things that exist, but it split off some of Bitcoins value/marketcap to it right from the start..
You may think you got a bunch of free money from BCH but it just kinda split the value of your keys..
If it wasn't for BCH your Bitcoin would probably have been more valuable than your combined BTC/BCH, not only because BCH took some of that value out of BTC but also created a bad image of BTC reducing it's value..
I may contend that the BCH fork REDUCED the value of all of our keys from all the negativity surrounding it..
I see it as entirely possible that had BCH never happened your same keys would be more valuable now in just BTC than your keys are worth now with the BTC and BCH combined..
I disagree. The problems with bitcoin, especially the four-week long backlog in Dec 2017, is the reason bitcoin's price started to drop from it's all time high. BCH is just another alt among about 1500 alts. None of them are "taking something away from bitcoin". On the contrary they are expanding the crypto universe because you can do things with alts (including BCH) that you can't do with bitcoin. BCH for example allows you to buy stuff from mechants accepting Bitpay without huge fees. It was easy for Bitpay to add BCH as the protocol was the same (it's too hard for them to add other alts). So BCH actually helped in that mechants didn't abandon the crypto space entirely the way they would have done if bitcoin was the only crypto and the backlogs were getting worse and worse. |
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The first block trade has been executed: https://decrypt.co/9976/first-block-trade-bakkt-bitcoin-futures-executedThe International Continental Exchange (ICE) today announced that the first block trade on the Bakkt Bitcoin
futures contracts exchange submitted to ICE Futures U.S has been cleared.
The trade, submitted on Tuesday, was between crypto investment fund Galaxy Digital and over-the-counter trading company XBTO. The size of the trade was not disclosed.
The milestone is one of just several Bakkt has knocked since Bakkt launched last week. Bakkt Bitcoin Futures include the physical delivery of bitcoin against a futures contract—meaning that traders can bet on the price of Bitcoin in Bitcoin, rather than betting on the price of Bitcoin using U.S. dollars. So I guess it's baby steps. We will have to see if more follow. |
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There is a misinterpretation of what Satoshi wrote in the Whitepaper: "A peer-to-peer eletronic cash system".
I think you are wrong. Satoshi definitely intended bitcoin to be a payment system. Think about when bitcoin got launched - Januaary 2009 at the height of the Financial Crisis. Governments were forced to bail out the banks because if they didn't payment systems wouldn't work - businesses wouldn't be able to use banks to pay their staff, customers wouldn't be able to use their debit cards to buy stuff, people wouldn't be able to get cash out of banks. In other words the bailout was entirely due to the threat to the payment system. If there was an alternative payment system, they'd have let the banks go bust and let the shareholders eat the losses. They let Lehman go bust because it was an investment bank and not involved in payment systems. So Satoshi was definitely trying to create a new payment system that didn't depend on banks. The only trouble is that because there are a limited amount of coins, people are hoarding them instead of spending them. But other more inflationary coins like doge can be used as a payment system instead. |
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The only benefit to 5G is the speed which makes mobiles as good as laptops.
But without the infrastructure that allows crypto to actually take advantage of this (payment gateways, retailers accepting crypto and so on), it doesn't benefit cryptocurrency at all.
I think bitcoin has wasted a lot of time on the lightning network when they should have been spending the time getting other infrastructure in place.
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I also think that dollar will lose his dominance and bitcoin is great dollar hedge.Will be time when bitcoin and gold will rise together
Lose it's dominance against what? Interest rates in the dollar zone are 2%. In Australia and the UK they're 0.75%. In the eurozone they're -0.5%. Ditto Switzerland and Sweden. Japanese interest rates are -0.1% So how on earth can the dollar lose it's dominance against all these useless weak currencies that have negative interest rates? Who on earth would park their money in euros and pay for the privilege because of negative interest rates, rather than put their money in dollars with positive rates? |
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Its very possible. projects will not just pay for listing fee but will also pay for them to be defined by the council, meaning discussed in the council table. Binance must be in that "OTHERS" because obviously they rely to binance decision when they delist BSV. and yet they are now creating this Crypto Rating Council?  It's definitely mysterious as to why some alts get listed and others don't. For example, they've given Ripple a rating. Why? Does anyone in the real world anywhere actually use Ripple? Or are they listed just because they have well-connected developers and a marketing board? |
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So is this good news or bad news for Bitcoin? So which is better, low fees or high fees?
It's more about adoption than anything else. An awful lot of stuff is being built on top of the Ethereum blockchain, and it's being used, even if it is just for games or collectables like cryptokitties. Not a lot is going on with bitcoin, it's not really being used for anything other than speculation. |
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If anything, it is the government that will get the first-hand access to all this wealth of personal information. So why should they resist if only for this reason alone?
How will the government get hold of all that personal information? Laws are in place that prevent them accessing it. And if the govt can't get hold of it, they want to make sure that NOBODY can get hold of it, certainly not a rogue private company. Which is why they're going all out to stop Libra. While allowing bitcoin to continue. |
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