Very likely, but I think they have tried to create some sort of a distance between the two platforms in order to not raise any suspicions. I strongly believe that the authorities will definitely at some point dig into that platform as well. If they do end up to be fully connected, there is obviously a lot to gain for the authorities by shutting that platform down, where they seize all remaining crypto and fiat funds. If I was an xbtce trader, I would immediately withdraw everything at the moment BTC-E went down. If people keep their funds sitting in that platform, they are seriously delusional.

Seriously, don't you ever get tired from rehashing your old nonsense that throughout the years, has not had any sort of result? In some cases I think the forum administration is way too loose when it comes to dealing with garbage and fud spreaders like you. Other than that, I am sure that behind your toxic and rotten forum appearance, hides a person that likes Bitcoin, and even more importantly, is extremely bullish. Just quit this nonsense and start acting like a person with decency, because the more you continue, the more you are making a total clown of yourself.

I have several times had more than 100K of unconfirmed transactions in my node's mempool. In that regard, the 28K that you are talking about is literally peanuts. An increasing price definitely contributes towards more transactions, but the spam attacks are the only really making the fees go up. At this point there aren't many signs of an ongoing spam attack (at least not a major one), but it won't take very long before we see one get initiated as they happen to pop up from time to time. Segwit or not, there is no way to get faster confirmations, other than to include a proper enough fee to make your transaction be included in the next first block.

Firstly, the Segwit lock-in was already priced in. Segwit2x requires miners to signal BIP141 support, so the lock-in was, and is nothing interesting. It was going to happen, guaranteed. Secondly, the lock-in on its own won't do much. If miners still signal BIP141 all the way till the next difficulty adjustment, Segwit will finally activate. In that regard, expect the price to peak a few days before, or directly after activation. Currently, extremely short term speaking (7 days or so), there is not much more to gain.

I actually wrote a post yesterday where I noticed this sort of behaviour at Bitfinex, where massive buy or sell orders pop up to temporarily make the market go into a certain direction, without these large orders getting bought or sold into. I personally don't see anything being wrong with this, unless it turns out that it is coming from Bitfinex itself. That being said, after everything that happened with Bitfinex, or better said, after everything they have put their customers through, only an idiot would make use of that exchange again. It actually surprised me that they managed to regain a huge load of their volumes again. I seriously thought it was done an over with Bitfinex, in terms of being the largest USD exchange.

I remember last year that I offered BTC-E the btc-e.co domain that I was holding, but they gave me no answer. Unfortunately, due to a noob mistake from my side, the domain got expired as I by mistake disabled auto renewal. After noticing that the domain wasn't sitting in my registrar account, I checked, and yes, it got registered by someone else. In this case, it would definitely be a great alternative domain for BTC-E to operate from, if they are ever planning to seriously come back.

It's safe to assume, or at least the best option in order to not get disappointed, is to completely forget about fiat. The only thing that there is left to focus on, is what they have sitting in their cold wallets. Authorities can size everything they want, but there is no way they will ever find out where the cold wallets are hidden, unless Vinnik (in case he is really the co operator) opens his mouth. But hey, even if that is the case, the cold wallet funds are moved to a different location, that's pretty much guaranteed.

Is it too late short term wise? It depends on your targets. If you are looking just for some quick gains, then one could indeed say that it is semi-late to start buying at current levels. I personally don't see much more upwards potential than 20% at most. If you are looking to hold your coins for the long term, then you can perfectly fine start buying right now. If you don't have any coins right now, I would go with using 50% of the money right now, and have the rest aside for when the price happens to go down. If the price goes down, then use 5-10% of the remaining funds to buy back lower, and continue all the way down. Buying back lower will help you in getting your average buying price to decrease.

From the very early days, when I could still get first block confirmations without a single satoshi in fees, it was known (at least to those who understand how Bitcoin is meant to stay rewarding for miners) that fees would undoubtly increase throughout the years due to the lower subsidy rewards as result of the block halvings. Also was clear that on top of the fact that lower block rewards would eventually result in the fees to increase, we also had to keep the constantly growing demand for block space in mind, spam attakcs, etc - these all add oil to the already boiling fire. In that regard, I can only applaud initiatives such as LN to offer people a far better, faster, and most importantly, a cheaper currency experience for those who need it. I am perfectly fine with how Bitcoin is operating right now, but those who don't mind paying a higher fee, are an extreme minority here.

Nothing will happen today. BIP141 will lock in roughly in 24 hours from now. After that, there will be another period of 2016 blocks (14 days) required, where if things don't change, Segwit will finally activate. It may be seen as a milestone, but we shouldn't forget that we have another event upcoming, and that's the 2MB hardfork that is part of Segwit2x. This hard fork is supposed to take place in November. Before everyone is going to celebrate, people should understand that remaining conservative is recommended in situations like these.

That year is a perfect date for the market to break through the $10,000 level for the first ever time, just before the block halving kicks in.

2018 $5000/$6000
2019 $7000/$8000
2020 $9000/$10,000

Currently the 10% regular fluctuations are worth around $300. Imagine how it will be when coins change owner above the $10,000 level! Fluctuations of $1000 will be a common thing by that time, while just a few years ago, the unit price was sitting well below the $300 level. I just don't understand why people keep focusing on insane price levels, while we aren't even close to $10,000 yet. Slower growth is always more sustainable than growth that we realize in a very short time. The market needs to be ready for it, and clearly, it will take plenty of years to come even close.

I have noticed an increase of massive orders popping up to briefly push the market into a certain direction, which allows its trader to scoop up a tiny profit margin in a very short time, or to unload a certain number of coins at one price range. In 99% of the cases when a large order pops up, you'll instantly see bots place buy orders on top that larger order, and that's exactly what these traders are aiming for. If you kept an eye on the orderbook of Bitfinex, you from time to time would have seen 2000BTC buy and sell orders pop up, where they later get withdrawn without anyone having bought or sold into that large order.

I have said it when the price of 1BTC reached the same level as one troy ounce of Gold, and I'll say it again - this has ZERO value. Seriously, how many more times will they keep reporting about this nonsense? The only thing that is worth reporting about, is when 1BTC equals the price of 1KG Gold. I even find it to be a disgrace for anyone to compare a few lousy grams of Gold to a whole unit as 1 Bitcoin. I already know the titles of next articles; Bitcoin worth five times more than an ounce of Gold - Bitcoin worth six times more than an ounce of Gold - Bitcoin worth ten times more than an ounce of Gold, etc.

As long as we don't know how things will play out in November this year (referring to the 2MB hard fork), there is no such a thing as relief. People get blinded by current price increase and how things haven't resulted in a big negative drama at the 1st of August. I am conservative from nature, but in this case my convervativeness is well justified. In that regard, we shouldn't be surprised to see a huge load of fud and trolling happen in the last few weeks, before the hard fork is supposed to kick in. That's why at this point I don't see the price go up further than the $4000 level. It will form a temporary peak till we know how things will play out in November.

The term crash is greatly being exaggerated in this forum. Nowadays with the price being at all time high levels, fluctuations of $200-$300 will become more regular than they have ever been. It may look like a lot, but in current situation the price going down with $300, translates into a decrease of less than 10%. I don't even look at 10% as being a correction. Correction from my point of view is a decrease of around 20%, where a crash needs to be a decrease of at least 30%. 10% fluctuations are perfectly normal given the price and tense market circumstances.

This made me think about a few students that I know who used their university resources to cpu mine certain altcoins for quite a long time. It actually surprised me that they have had their mini farm running for at least three months, before they were forced to stop and got an official warning as result. I can definitely understand why steps are taken to prevent mining to take place within the borders of in this case a mall, universities, businesses, hospitals, etc. If being very strict, it could even be seen as theft of resources in the worst case. Other than that, the article got spiced up by using the term banning in order to make it look more interesting.

I understand that people get excited by current increase, but it's always a better option to remain conservative while we still haven't dealt with the scaling drama yet. This year November we will experience a very crucial moment due to the planned hard fork - even more crucial than has been the case with the 1st of August that a lot people here were worrying about. If we manage go walk through this event without any issues (i.e no chain split), I am quite confident that we'll be hitting the $5000 level this year. $10,000 is just too much to happen within the current year. Next year, or ultimately the year after that will be perfectly okay for me. No need to rush things - stable growth is always better than peaks that mostly don't last very long.

These were indeed the fun times. I remember how people were dreaming about Amazon and Ebay accepting Bitcoin at some point, because if that would happen, mass adoption would be taking place, Bitcoin would reach insane levels, bla bla bla.

While Bitcoin definitely offers people the option to function as currency, I have never seen it as such. In all honesty, it doesn't make any sense for me to spend my Bitcoins on whatever goods. It (1) doesn't offer me a better payment experience than fiat, and (2) I too am interested in Bitcoin to function as store of value. It helps me in keeping my wealth sitting in Bitcoin outside the reach of governments and banks (the real thieves). Bitcoin offers people the freedom to choose - if one likes to not spend anything, that's fine. If one likes to spend his coins on all kinds of goods, then that's fine too. No one is forcing us to do something we don't want.

Amongst the huge load of criminals knowing how to minimize their risks, there are always those wannabe gangsters thinking they know it all. It has already happened that drug dealers got caught by cashing out their through drug sales obtained Bitcoins at the exchange they were fully verified at. It's stupidity to put full trust and confidence into the (in their eyes) anonymous nature of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is an open book for the entire world to browse through, there is no such a thing as privacy here. In that regard, they can better go for an altcoin as Monero instead of Bitcoin. Even Monero isn't totally a safe bet, but at least it offers a far better form of privacy than is the case with Bitcoin.

I believe that this is the most likely one as it costs zero effort, and they end up with millions in tainted coin funds as bonus. It doesn't matter what they do at this point, they are already being painted off as criminals, so what exactly will change for them in that regard? Nothing.

I can't see them fully refunding everything since we don't know if the servers their hot wallets operate from are compromised by the US government. If you hope for at least any sort of refund, the hope should be pointed at what's sitting in their cold wallets. But then again, we still don't know what BTC-E is going to do with these funds.

That's practically impossible. If they happen to do so, it won't take much time for the US government to chase them down, where after that we'll run into the same drama again. But even if they do end up returning, only a total idiot will make use of an exchange being operated by the same BTC-E staff.

Not ironic at all, because it's the US government that is one of the biggest criminals the world has ever seen. Their word is law, and nothing can change that. That's why I am actually glad that it isn't the US government that holds people's crypto funds. If I had to choose, I would rather see all crypto funds get burned, instead of seeing them get auctioned off by the government. But then again, we still don't know if BTC-E is legitimately interested in returning people's funds - their words have no value at this point.