Well, I would not buy Huawei because of the scandals, but I do like my Xiaomi, so I agree with the point. Japan has been the leader of technologies for a long time. China is like a cheaper mass production version of what Japan does, as for me. But yeah, in the end, what I usually use is also Chinese. And the US is the country that makes the right investments into foreign businesses and establishes relationships that are profitable to it. Where the US might be the leader in technologies is perhaps weapons and space tech. In any case, it's unfortunate that the US does not see the Blockchain Industry as a potentially good investment. The government and traditional economists don't see it this way, at least. Some serious influential people actually do.

It's really sad if Bitcoin is that close to its limit of capacity... It means that viable solutions must be proposed ASAP. I don't know, maybe more people will get used to the Lightning Network as a way of dealing with the issue, but there are legitimate reasons why some don't like it and don't recognize it.
Now, about that transaction number. 500 million sounds like a lot, but this should be put into perspective to be able to assess what it really means. Talking about transactions, let's take a look at Visa. It seems that it processed 31.7 billion transactions in the third quarter of 2019 alone (I found this data on a website that does not load anymore but could not find any other data), and if that's truly the case, it means that Bitcoin is soooo far behind that it's even hard to consider it an achievement.

I don't understand how Craig did not end up in prison if he himself claimed to own the address to which the money from the hacked MtGox was transferred... I don't think he's a hacker, though. And yeah, I don't think he is Satoshi, even though there are some people who are absolutely sure of that. At the same time, he's not a complete fraud, because he does know a thing or two about cryptography. After all, he does manage to pretend to be Satoshi most of the time, he has a relevant degree and IT work experience.. So he is an educated guy, morally questionable and definitely not Satoshi.

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I wonder why you chose Latinbet24, I've never even heard of this one... Have you tried Stake.com, Fortunejack, Bustabit? They're all very popular and highly reputable, so you might be interested to take a look at those. Just remember to consider the reputation and read the Terms of Use, and you should be fine. Good luck!

While it's good that the adoption is increasing, the difference is too serious. It probably means that if the usage increase rates don't change, it won't ever be able to catch up and turn into something meaningful. And the example of this guy's shop is very specific. People use Bitcoin there because they don't want the purchases to be noticed (so they use it to hide something, basically). I think people should use Bitcoin not only when they'd prefer to hide what they are doing, but just to pay for any stuff. And we are very far from that yet. I want to use BTC for causal stuff, but I find myself not being able to do that because the things I usually buy cannot be bought with Bitcoin.

I know some people are against the Lightning Network, but I think that it's not that bad. Sure, there are some centralization issues, and yes, it's not really Bitcoin (it's off-chain transactions). Apart from that, it's not user-friendly, and I heard that maintaining a channel might even be costly. But the way I see it, this is Bitcoin's best chance of processing micro-transactions and thus staying relevant for everyday life usage. So considering this, I believe it's good that this money has been raised, and they'll be able to work on improving the whole thing.

Well, this one resolved fast with the revelation that this IP means that Satoshi was using TOR. I've also heard before about the leaked real IP, but it truly is not a way to determine who Satoshi is. A friend of mine likes IvanOnTech on Youtube, and he said that Ivan believes that if Google wanted to find out who's Satoshi, it could, but it would, of course, be a massive privacy violation. The argumentation was that they can find out the info about IP-addresses, logs and stuff like that in the volumes which at least would be enough to compare this person with someone else who is a potential Satoshi and say whether it's the case. What do you think of that?

I've heard about the intentions of organizing this meeting, and if I remember correctly the purpose of it for Justin was to convince Warren that Bitcoin is alright and deserves attention. So no wonder that they actually discussed cryptos over dinner. It was more like a business dinner, and Justin probably paid for it, right?
I don't think that it will affect the TRX price, though. After all, it's not like they agreed to a mutually beneficial partnership or anything, they just talked and apparently Warren did not change his mind at all.

Sounds like another random prediction made by a random guy. I don't think that any predictions there are there really matter. When a person makes one good prediction, this person becomes a guru, basically. And even when a guy makes terrible predictions, people still discuss them. There's no way of predicting where the price will go. None of them are scientific. We can say that it's more likely that Bitcoin will be $10k tomorrow than $100k, but not a lot more than that, and definitely nothing legit long-term.

I think it's just because many people don't know what cryptos are and because some facts about returns on investing in cryptos are amazing and unlike anything people have seen before. So the mix of the lack of familiarity of what cryptos are and some facts about high profits of people who, say, bought at $1k and sold at $20k make the stories appealing and even somewhat realistic. This allows the scammers to succeed very often. Oh, and another thing is that if you scam people in a traditional way and get caught, you'll definitely be found guilty and probably end up in prison, whereas since cryptos are not regulated in many countries, sometimes even when scammers are known, nobody charges them for their crimes. It's good that some countries are working hard to change the situation.

Everything reacts to coronavirus. I did my TOEFL recently and saw an article that the tests are canceled in China. I have sort of a job in film industry, and today I read that China closing 70k cinemas due to the virus will cost the global economy about $1 billion! Fortunately, Bitcoin does not get affected, because it certainly cannot spread the disease and using it does not require attending any public places where someone might be infected.
As for transaction volume, though, I don't believe the data because everyone knows about volume getting faked and because I cannot find any well-established media writing about it.

Yes, I've heard about the auctions in 2019, so I suppose they are pretty common. What I did not know is that the amounts for sale have been higher than right now... I am actually surprised I've never encountered anything about it. The auctions I remember were on way smaller amounts of BTC (at least one auction that comes to my mind now). I do agree that these things usually don't have any effect on the market, so this might pass by without changing anything once again.
The op seems to suggest that the auction might have triggered the pump, but again I don't remember it being the case or being actively discussed when the pump occurred.

Your statement about Bitcoin being illegal in most countries is incorrect. If you look at most maps and lists with Bitcoin adoption, you'll see that they signify that Bitcoin is legal in most countries. However, it's also an overstatement (like the table on Wikipedia on the legal status of Bitcoin is). You see, they mainly say 'legal' where Bitcoin is not regulated. This is the case with my country, so that's why it caught my attention. In many countries, no regulations forbid or allow Bitcoin. De facto it means that people can easily use cryptocurrencies. But technically it means that Bitcoin is neither legal nor illegal (although many countries are looking at the possibilities of regulating the market), and I believe that after 10 years it's still the most common situation.

Well, it's the first time I hear about this "top analyst". If he made one good prediction before, it does not mean he'll be right again. I think websites like Newsbtc should stop publishing such FUD because while a trader's words don't mean anything, this prophecy can easily become self-fulfilling if people start panicking after reading such speculations. In any case, Bitcoin dropping to $8k or something would not be that bad IMO. I mean, we've seen it there for a while, we can get past it again. Nevertheless, I choose to hope that this does not happen because it would mean Bitcoin has to wait even longer till recovery.

I've seen a guy asking for advice about lotteries and it got me thinking. I don't understand why people even like lotteries. You don't do much, most likely lose and have to wait for the outcome for a long time. Perhaps, people are interested in the possibility of winning, but that would mean they are not really into gambling as the process. So what is it for you, do you play only for the sake of winning or do you care about the process of playing/researching/anticipating the outcome? I think that the process is that is attractive in gambling, and while the outcome surely matters, I would not like to wait for a long while to learn it.

NitrogenSports has been accused of shady behavior before. While this cannot technically be called 'scam', and I am glad that eventually, you got your money back, it is misleading of them to behave this way. Withdrawing into a sportsbook does not sound like a good idea, and perhaps you should try a more reputable sportsbook (like Sportsbet.io) next time. Like what you've found in the rules, I've only encountered such rollover requirements regarding deposit bonuses, free spin money and stuff like that. Their weird rule is just something to keep in mind, I guess.

After the previous halving everything was not that positive either. People keep saying that it pushed the price up, but let's look at some facts. July 9th, 2016 was the day when the halving occurred. The price was $577. On June 17th it was $750, but it went to $591 five days after that. It was not until the end of November that the price climbed back to $750. Let's not forget that this wasn't anywhere near BTC ATH of $1121 from 2013. The new ATH was not reached before February of 2017 which is 7 months after the halving event. What I am saying is that it might take months if not more after till Bitcoin reaches the new ATH, and there's nothing keeping it from not reaching it in a long while. So maybe we should not keep our hopes up.

I am not a Twitter person, but this is great news! It shows that Bitcoin is becoming a solid part of contemporary culture. Bitcoin emoji might not seem like much, but it increases its noticeability, right? I like it that Jack Dorsey is being so supportive. He tweets positive stuff, he funds the Lightning Network development, his Cash App accepts Bitcoin (at least, this is something I read about a week ago), and now this emoji is just a nice addition to the overall systematically pro-Bitcoin position of an influential person.

I also loved the joke about BCH and BSV, by the way

I don't watch the TV, so I don't hear any of that. People are very different, and unless we are influential people that can appear on the media with opposite claims, I don't think we can change much. At the same time, we can try to change the opinions of the people around us. I am a part-time teacher, and I've mentioned Bitcoin to students during the lessons as well as tried to tell them a bit about it. I am teaching literature, but when we had a lesson on cryptography because of reading E. Poe's "The Gold-Bug", I told students about cryptocurrencies. These kinds of small mentions might bring big changes eventually.

I've seen different movies from the nominations, and it's unbelievable for me that the most likely winner is 1917 (I am talking about the Best Movie award right now). I mean, it's a beautiful movie, but it does not have anything too deep in it. Moreover, it's not very relevant today. Joker, on the other hand, is a breakthrough in villain portrayal, it's about a topic that is very relevant nowadays, and it is a kind of movie that has made huge impact on culture already. The odds for betting on Joker are amazing. Today I made my first bet, I put some money on Joker on Sportsbet.io. Let's see how it goes!