I won't lie. As a contrarian trader, this kind of sentiment definitely makes me cautious about being too bullish. Personally, I think the ETHUSD chart is inconclusive right now. It's not clear whether we are in a consolidation before price makes another major leg down (in tandem with BTC), or whether the bottom is already in.

The ETHBTC chart, however, looks fairly bullish. There is a well-tested base and a tight price squeeze on the daily chart. Price seems ready to break out to the upside. I still think the long term ETHBTC top is in, but I think we could go on to retest the June highs.

Sounds like a classic libertarian spiel about counter-economics. I really don't see how the proliferation of cryptocurrency results in the phasing out of governments. The mere fact that decentralized money exists is not a replacement for governments. Gold has been used for centuries as decentralized money... did it phase out governments? Of course not; governments just started stockpiling gold. That's probably what they'll do with Bitcoin in time, too.

Why do you want to trade against USDT, rather than USD? For example, you can trade ETHUSD on GDAX, Gemini or Bitstamp -- those are the most reputable exchanges around. You don't need any USDT in that case. Tether is mostly useful for moving USD value between exchanges or hedging USD value on exchanges that don't have fiat deposits and withdrawals.

If you really want to trade USDT, the easiest way is to send cryptocurrency to an exchange that offers Tether markets. You could send your ETH to Poloniex, Kraken or Bittrex and sell it for USDT.

There's really no reason to use blockchain.info, even for short term use. There are lightweight desktop wallets that instantly sync which are far more secure, and which have better UI. Electrum is one example.

However, I wouldn't say you don't have full control of your funds with blockchain.info. They don't control your private keys. The main security issue that I can see is potential MITM attacks if their service is compromised. If you don't control the software that signs and broadcasts your transactions, your transactions can be hijacked.

It's pretty well-known that ViaBTC is just a proxy for Bitmain, so anything that applies to Chinese miners generally may not apply to them. They are extremely well-backed and have operated openly for years. And Jihan Wu has appeared not to be concerned at all about the prohibitions. He indicated that exchanges would be reopened with licenses.

Regarding your point about overhead costs, miners can easily point their hash power overseas and sell for USD. Since that USD is particularly valuable to Chinese investors, they can even charge a premium for it. The main issue is whether these rumors about banning mining outright could be true.

They might still have a few tricks in store. There are rumors that an OTC trading ban is on the table. That means it would be impossible for Chinese miners to legally liquidate BTC to pay their bills. There are also rumors that the government might simply take over major mining operations. Presumably that would be bullish for Bitcoin in the long term.

There's also that leaked report about blocking the BTC network within China (subjecting it to the Great Firewall). Lots of FUD here, so I wouldn't say the manipulation is done with quite yet.

If so, I hope they do it honorably like Bitstamp did a few years back. They at least gave a month or more notice to users that they would have to pass mandatory verification after a certain date (I think it was ~ end of September, 2013). So users had time to get out if they didn't want to verify.

I'd be comfortable verifying with Bitstamp now (or Coinbase or Gemini), but I wasn't back then. And I wouldn't be comfortable handing over passport or full SSN to Bittrex at this point. I have no idea who they are or what care they take to protect that data...

Well, they didn't really ban Bitcoin, just ICOs and exchanges. Likely, they will also prohibit OTC trading, which will drive mining activity outside of the country. This still would be unlikely to remove China's influence in ASIC manufacturing.

Despite the recent attack on BTC-e, the US doesn't seem to share China's hostility. The CFTC granted formal registration to LedgerX to offer swaps/derivatives for Bitcoin. They could be trading as early as next month: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2197799.msg22086566#msg22086566

And apparently, people in the sector are expecting an ETF by the end of the year. Things are moving quickly. 

Some exciting news is developing on the US regulatory front. LedgerX, the first CFTC-regulated swap execution facility, is set to begin trading next month. They have officially notified the CFTC that they will be listing their Bitcoin swap contract as early as October 4th: https://twitter.com/WhalePanda/status/910962349581971457

I'll take this with a grain of salt, but the CEO of ETF.com believes that we can expect a Bitcoin ETF in the U.S. by the end of this year. That seems ambitious given how brutal the SEC was in its decision early in the year. But time will tell. https://www.thestreet.com/story/14315353/1/bitcoin-futures-based-etf-likely-to-be-approved-first.html

These economic use cases only feed into Bitcoin's actual use case: a network. The same goes for gold. Gold has value because people believe it has sound properties and therefore widely accept it as money. The "use cases" of industry/electronics or jewelry pale in comparison to its use as an economic hedge (because of its historical acceptance as money).

That is the type of network that we are building for Bitcoin. Is it still risky at this stage? Of course. But gold was the money of previous generations. Cryptocurrencies might be the money of the future.

This should all have been expected. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies don't necessarily threaten a state's ability to issue money, but they can potentially reduce a state's monetary control if their values continue to climb. This won't be the last time that a government places massive restrictions on cryptocurrency, especially with regard to authoritarian governments like China.

At the end of the day, even if they ban mining and block the network itself, there will always be non-internet methods and VPN to sync and publish transactions/blocks. But it could be a major deterrent to Chinese investment.

Unfortunately, I don't think you will recover your funds. The only thing you can do is contact Bitstamp support and ask them to dump the private key so they can send you your USDT. But Bitstamp does not support Tether for deposit/withdrawal, so I think they are highly unlikely to help you here. Most exchanges these days have disclaimers that absolve them of responsibility if you send a currency to the wrong address. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Contact support anyway. Maybe they will help you.

Being in the US, sites that offer margin (or any Bitcoin trading services for that matter) will be increasingly off limits for you. But you can always use a VPN. Bitmex has no KYC (deposit and withdraw BTC only) and has very high leverage on their perpetual swap contract. They also offer high leverage on a few altcoins. Bitfinex is also an option through VPN as long as you deposit/withdraw cryptocurrency only. Nobody can withdraw fiat money from Bitfinex anyway, so that's irrelevant. But they offer fairly low leverage.

1Broker was a great place to trade Bitcoin CFDs up to 10x leverage, but they closed their BTC market due to inability to scale. They are launching a new service called 1Fox (supposedly this month). I think they will be open to US customers, but I'm not sure.

Yeah, still hearing horror stories of stuck withdrawals for months, unanswered tickets for months. Their interface is glitchy enough that it worries me. The removal of the trollbox was pretty shady because it was overwhelmed with complaints from users. Instead of hiring loads of new staff they just tried to bury the problem.

Meanwhile, they are asking for a full DNA sample from new users. Full social security number for US users. Who the fuck is crazy enough to give their full SSN to Poloniex?! Nobody even knows who these crooks are...

Well, I think that's why everyone wants to know exactly how much are lost. I think that, psychologically, when the market considers the price, we are considering a supply of 21 million coins. We all know that can't be the true supply, given all the lost coins, especially from the early days. But nobody really knows just how much BTC is being hoarded vs. BTC that simply will never move--ever.

Are Satoshi's coins "lost?" It could make a difference of, what, a few % of the entire supply? Pretty huge difference if a single BTC might be worth millions someday.

But there is a big difference between a temporary loss of Chinese trading volumes (e.g. because of the exchange shutdowns) and blocking access to the Bitcoin network within China, or banning mining. The former may have just caused some temporary panic which was quickly absorbed by the market.

But if China bans Bitcoin mining? That will be cause for much more drastic panic. China controls a strong majority of hash power. A Chinese government ban on mining could instantly cause a massive drop in hash rate.

Just to clarify, Coinbase insures USD funds. They may insure the other fiat currencies they offer (GBP and EUR). I'm not sure about the latter, but USD funds are FDIC-insured like any bank account in the US.

However, many people mistake this to mean that their cryptocurrencies are also insured. They most definitely are not. I don't think there are any firms offering insurance for cryptocurrency custodians, especially at Coinbase's scale. USD can be insured because it's easy to trace and reverse within the banking system. Crypto? Not so much...

Well if the ban on ICOs and cryptocurrency exchanges wasn't enough, there is in fact some new FUD in the pipeline. Word has it that the Chinese government is considering blocking access to the Bitcoin network (and others) within China, like they do with Facebook with the GFW. See: https://twitter.com/btcdrak/status/908998917995552776

The latest rumors regard mining. Supposedly, prohibitions on mining are on the table. I wish I could read Chinese, because apparently people are talking about it on 8btc: https://twitter.com/redtheminer/status/909961602018926592

Yeah, Haipo Yang has been laying on the FUD very thick ever since the rumors emerged. I wonder why. By all appearances, ViaBTC has always been a proxy for Bitmain, and Bitmain holds a lot of BTC (and are heavily invested in its future). I don't see how him going around tweeting "if China gov say mining is illegal, we are fucked" helps their cause. Jihan Wu, in comparison, has not shown the same level of worry.

It would not be surprising if China blocked the P2P network within the country's Great Firewall. It wouldn't be effective at restricting use, but it would discourage average citizens from using it and thus using BTC for capital flight.

But given BTC's trajectory on the world stage and China's dominance in mining, the government prohibiting mining would be shooting themselves in the foot.

That's a bizarre reason to like Xapo. If you want to use their BTC/fiat exchange services, then sure, it makes sense to verify your identity. But if you just want a lite wallet, you should retain your privacy.

As far as fees, you can also pay much lower fees by using a desktop wallet like Electrum. During low congestion periods, you can pay <5 satoshis per byte and get confirmed in the next block. Even during times of moderate congestion, you can usually get confirmed within 10 blocks or so. It's never necessary to pay as high of fees as Xapo charges.