I don't know if this is actually a full-blown bear market, but it would appear that sentiment is quite bearish right now.  And what it really looks like is that bitcoin is just trading in a wider range than it usually does--$7000-$9000.  But who knows, the market could be in for more slaughter and bitcoin might drop even lower than $7k.  I'd like to see it not do that, or course, but I'm fully aware that it could. 

Unfortunately I've bought all the bitcoin I can for right now so I won't get to take advantage of the lower prices, which I see as a fire sale.  Now would be an even better time to get into the market if you're not already, but only if you're going to hold for the long term.  In the short term, things could get uglier. 

I'm going to stop watching the price for now, though it's hard to not know what bitcoin is doing since I see all the thread titles in the Speculation section and usually when bitcoin rises or falls in a dramatic fashion, those titles give it away and I end up checking preev.  lol.

OP, that's happened to me with the Dash Electrum wallet several times, and each time it happened I just had to reload the wallet and wait.  One time it took almost an entire day before the wallet would load correctly--and I had the current version.  In fact it still happens from time to time, but usually I just have to close and reopen Electrum and it works.

Don't worry, though.  As long as you've got your seed phrase written down, you still have your coins no matter what the wallet does.

I never had to do that, but I probably would have tried had Electrum kept screwing up.  It was very annoying, and it did either what OP described, getting stuck on 21/70 or whatever the number was, or it would just say "Not Connected" for a long time. 

Despite problems like that, I still love all the Electrum wallets.  They're pretty much my favorite.

Ah, that's the intestinal fortitude that's needed to make a good profit!  If you're confident that bitcoin is a solid investment (which reflects my opinion on it), it is times like these when it's time to buy.  If you're holding bitcoin now, especially a lot of it, times like these can make you queasy--and I totally get that.  I didn't think bitcoin would drop this much after breaking out above $12k but here we are.  Typical bitcoin behavior.

Yes indeed.  Buffett is a great example of a person who's lived by those words, and look at how wealthy he is.  Not that he'd ever invest in bitcoin, but that's his choice and I respect that fully.  Right now investors do seem very fearful of where bitcoin is headed, but there's been no bad news and there's no reason why bitcoin has dropped as much as it did since yesterday.  Anyway, I still think it has more value than the market is giving it credit for and that it's a good bargain at the current price.

OP, take note of the above.  There are quite a few members looking to buy bitcoin with PayPal, including myself--but I'm done buying for now, so I'm not making an offer here.  It's important to note what BitMaxz said, that you shouldn't necessarily trust high-ranked members or those with green trust, since accounts are frequently sold and even legitimate members have been known to scam for even small amounts.  PayPal isn't the best way to buy bitcoin unfortunately, but you might find someone who's willing to deal with you honestly.  Just be careful.

I've looked at their site before, but that was a while ago and I recall not being impressed by them.  I'd much rather deal with members here than take my chances with a site like that and pay higher costs than I need to.  Usually you can do 1:1 trades based on the preev rate, and it's hard to beat that.

"Decentralization" is a huge buzzword these days, but I suspect that's all it is.  It makes sense for things like crypto, and in fact that's one of the biggest advantages of bitcoin, that there are miners all over the world maintaining its blockchain, and the fact that this job isn't being performed by a bank or government agency.

Other things, though?  Decentralization just doesn't lend itself to everything, and that probably includes social media sites.  I'm not even sure how that would work anyway, and if there was an advantage to a decentralized facebook, twitter, or youtube I suspect such a beast already would have been created and adopted. 

OP, you might want to give some thought about what the term means and why it's important to crypto but not necessarily everything else. 

Thanks for quoting that.

For one thing, I wouldn't expect the CEO of Coinbase to say anything different--they're in the business of selling bitcoin, so it makes sense he'd make a bullish statement like this.

But the other thing is that it's very true.  Even now, with bitcoin's price tanking, owning a whole bitcoin still could be life-changing for people in poorer countries.  I'm pretty sure there are places in this world where $7500 is more than a year's wages.  Even for a person struggling financially in a developed country like the US, Canada, or somewhere in Europe, that amount of money could definitely get them out of a hole. 

The problem the CEO is not mentioning is that for the above population, getting that 1BTC in the first place is probably not an option.  For people who aren't struggling, owning that 1BTC might not ever be life-changing unless bitcoin's price shoots up to $100k or $1 million, and who knows if and when that's going to happen.  Most of it has to do with demand, and there's no guarantee that demand for bitcoin is always going to be high.  I hope it remains high, but nothing is certain.

Mm hm, that's what I figured.  And since that's true, I'm sure you're well aware of how valuable merits are and that you need them in order to rank up and thus earn more money.  So that's why I think you made this thread, which you probably know reflects an opinion held by many senior members and merit sources who might give you some merits because they think you really believe what you wrote.

I'm cynical, however, and I'm not buying it even though I completely agree with the words you typed.

For the above post I don't think he deserved it, but it's your merit to give.  If we were all the same, it'd be a damn boring world.

OP, you're probably more frustrated with your gambling than with bitcoin's performance, though I can certainly understand the latter concern.

Bitcoin doesn't have to compete with PayPal, by the way.  Nobody invests in PayPal except if they buy their stock.  Bitcoin is more than a payment method; it's an investment as well, and that's probably what it most gets used for anyway.  But as with any investments, the value of bitcoin can drop dramatically like it did over the past day--and I don't know how long you've been into bitcoin, but there have been times when the price has dropped much more than it just did.

But if you're done with it, you're done.  However I suspect that when we start seeing bitcoin rise again--especially if it's a huge rise all at once--you'll be sucked back in.  And no shame in that, either.

I can't stand Reddit, so I don't know what it is they're selling in that screenshot.  What coins are they talking about?  I'm assuming they're not RDD, right?

And yeah I do tend to think they ought to start accepting bitcoin for whatever it is they're selling.  If bitcoin as a payment option ever fit any business, it probably would fit Reddit perfectly--I'm sure there are a lot of members there who would use that option, since they tend to attract the younger crowd who are more familiar with cryptocurrency than a lot of other businesses.

Speaking of RDD, anyone see how poorly it's doing lately?  It might be a tad off-topic, but maybe not.  It was trading at 9 sats last I checked, which was yesterday before bitcoin dropped $400.  I actually used to like it as a proof of stake coin, but I could never stomach its volatility and now I'm glad I don't own any.  Wonder why it never got adopted for anything, especially on Reddit.

Wonder why that is.  Like I said, I would expect the option to be quite popular if people are actually paying for anything on Reddit.

Warren Buffett loves this kind of scheme, which is why he's always had a fondness for insurance companies--they get all the cash up front and don't have to pay out the claims until an accident happens.  It's why he invested in some "stamp rewards" program many years ago, which was another business that collected cash from customers up front and might or might not have to pay anything out (I can't remember the details, but I read about it in his autobiography).

This Amazon thing sort of sounds like that, though I'm not sure Amazon is all about making a profit that way--they tend to do anything they can to increase their customer base, even if it means losing money in the short-term.  That's always been the case with them, right from day one.

Yep on both counts.  Well, not exactly the first sentence since where I come from everyone has credit cards and tons of personal debt, but personally I don't believe in buying anything that I can't pay for with cash.  Credit cards are way too expensive to use, and the temptation is too great to do just that.  But yeah, this scheme jackg described doesn't sound unfamiliar to me at all.  And even if it's ongoing, there's nothing to stop Amazon from ending it at any time, which they'll probably do once they suck in all the new customers.

Heh heh.  I think at one point I thought and probably even wrote that bitcoin wasn't going to dip below $10k, at least not in the near future--and that was only a few months ago when it was above that price.  Oh well.  I did buy some bitcoin in the past couple of days, though not much and looking at the price this morning, it's already dropped below what I bought it at.

I'm not concerned, however.  As I write this, bitcoin is at $7603 and while that was about a $400 drop since I went to bed last night, it still could have been much worse.  I don't know if this is that "typical" end of year selling that I keep reading about, but it's possible.  The same thing often happens in the stock market, even though it isn't even December yet.  If bitcoin doesn't recover this year, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that 2020 will be a much better year than this one.

Man....think about it.  Bitcoin is still picking up the pieces from 2017's irrational exuberance.  That's why I don't want to see a crazy bull market like that one ever again.

OK, thanks for helping me out.  I still need around $25-$30 worth of either BTC or Dash.

As stated in the title, I need $50 worth of BTC (or Dash) at preev 1:1. We can use whatever preev is at for bitcoin or the CMC price for Dash, at the time we finalize the deal. 

I will not send first unless you have significant green trust or if I've done business with you before.

This will be a neutral feedback transaction.

Send me a PM if you're willing to help me out, as I might miss seeing this thread if you post here.

Local rule:  Please do not post here unless you're interested in doing this deal.  PayPal is very risky because of the chance of chargebacks, but I have never done this and won't ever.  Also, I won't deal with anyone under Full Member unless they're willing to send first.

Gee, these two posts don't sound the same or anything.  Reported 'em both.

Are people still falling for cloud mining scams?  I don't see much talk about cloud mining on the forum anymore, so I assumed that it had gone by the wayside, at least somewhat--and I've always pretty much assumed that most businesses offering those services were scams to begin with.  But newbies ought to avoid them like the plague, because you have no way of knowing if the company you're giving your money to is actually doing any mining or if it's a Ponzi scheme (which it probably is) where they pay out your earnings from new customers' money.  I know it's hard to get into mining bitcoin nowadays, but cloud mining is NOT the way to do it.  It would be much better to just buy bitcoin and hold it, or even to get into PoS coins to earn income.

Yeah, I reported that fuckball's post already so hopefully it gets deleted.

Bleh, I've seen that happen and to me it doesn't matter a great deal--plus most people don't even notice it.  That's a non-issue in my opinion.

But the image thing, that I would mostly agree with you on.  I don't often get the jumpy-image issue, but as I said in the thread I made yesterday a lot of images that members include in their threads are completely unnecessary and usually oversized.  Not all images, of course, but there are a few members who tend to really overdo it.  I wouldn't mind if those kinds of images were reduced to a link, maybe based on the size of the image....?  I don't think it would be a good thing to do that for every image, though.  A lot of members include pictures of charts in TA threads and some post funny memes which are usually appropriate to the thread they're in, and I think those should be shown.

It would be much better if, instead of making a change in the forum setup, members would only include images 1) of a reasonable size, and 2) when they're relevant to the thread.

Oh yeah, and #3:  Members should stop quoting posts that show images altogether.  That's probably asking too much of people, but it's good forum etiquette IMO.

That's an awesome effort, dude, and a cool way of presenting a list of places where you can spend your bitcoin--I'm not into spending it myself, but if I'm not mistaken I think you are and I respect that.

I know Apmex sells metals for bitcoin, but an even better choice for the "G" would be Veldt Gold, which is a business that really supports cryptocurrency, and I don't think they even use a payment processor that converts crypto into fiat.  Plus they actually buy metals for crypto, too.  The only bad thing about them is that their prices aren't that competitive last I checked, which was some months ago.  But I do admire their apparent love of crypto, whereas Apmex probably couldn't care less about it except as an option for people to pay for their metals.

As an aside, I'm wondering what kind of device you're using on a train that would allow you to make such a detailed list like this.  Do trains have wi-fi these days?  I haven't ridden on one in years, and the last one was the Metro North into NYC and that was in the pre-smartphone days.

I agree, and I wouldn't buy one used from anyone, even if it came still sealed in its box and was supposedly new.  That's my paranoia perhaps, but I'd rather spend a few extra bucks to buy it new from Ledger themselves. 

And OP, I wouldn't sell it if you don't have to.  If they discontinue the To The Moon edition, I'm sure it'll become a collectible and you'd be able to sell it at a premium at some point in the future.  And I happen to like it a lot and have been thinking about buying one just to have it.  I've become somewhat of a fan of the Ledger since buying my Nano S, and I wouldn't mind getting a special edition model while it's still available.  I say keep it.  And as others have said, you might not even be able to sell it for a reasonable price since it's pre-owned.

It's probably weird shit even to the idiots who would buy it.  And man, what kind of egomaniac do you have to be to think you're so popular that someone will buy your bath water, pee, or chewed gum?  It amazes me what the internet has done to some people's egos--and we live in an insane age where any fuckup can become internet-famous just by making Youtube videos that get enough views or whatever it is that this Gamergirl does.  

Crazy world we live in, and I'm old enough to remember a time when it wasn't like this.  Anyway, who would be crazy enough to spend their precious bitcoin on a jar of piss?  Kids.  It's those crazy kids.  It's gotta be.  lol

Exactly.  Bitcoin is way to precious to me and I don't have so much that I'd even think of spending it on something I needed, much less something idiotic like a jar of bath water, and I don't care who's bath water it was.

It almost happened to me before I attained Legendary rank, but I lucked out.  I don't think I would have been too disappointed, since I've never been a forum rank hound but I did want to get to the final rank anyway and I'm glad I didn't have to extend my wait.

OP, congratulations on becoming a Hero member.  I'll keep an eye on your posts and see if there are any worth meriting, which I'm sure there will be.  You've got enough activity such that you might rank up to Legendary if you had the merits today, so at least that part is nearly over with.  As long as you keep posting relatively frequently, you ought to get there in a reasonable amount of time. 

And again, good job on the anniversary cards.

No, not at all.  In fact, I really like when members post memes because they usually make me laugh.  Nor am I annoyed by pictures in general, just the ones of the type that I listed, ones that distract from the text, cause more scrolling, and don't add anything to the thread.

Yeah, I have done that but I realized that it isn't my place to tell them what to do and that I'm just one member with an opinion.  Not like any of them listened to me anyway, lol. 

I disagree; including a huge picture isn't a "style" like it would be for a member who frequently posts memes or charts or whatever.  Or if it is a style of posting, it's a really bad one IMO.  There really is no reason to include enormous graphics that serve no purpose.  And with that, I think this is going to be my last post in this thread.