Addiction in anything is not good. Be it gambling or alcohol or power. But I don't agree with one adjective that you have used for gamblers, that is sloth. Gambling is extremely adventurous by nature. A person who is looking for easy money, will think of some other way but not gambling. Because gambling is full of uncertainties. A lazybone and easy money lover will not even come to this gambling industry.

Also you have missed few good points about gamblers. Those are,

1. Risk takers
2. Adventurers

A gambler needs to have these qualities and because the risk in gambling is higher than any other industry, the risk adjusted reward is also higher.

We have seen similar news last year as well which later turn out to be a fake news. I have checked the article was posted recently but they could not provide any reliable source to their claim. So I doubt the authenticity of this news.

However, if it happens, it will be great for the entire market. Probably millions of dollars will be infused in the crypto market pushing the price to another notch higher.

At least for HSBC, there were a proof and they were caught for this illegal transactions, because everything happened within the system. But for bitcoin it won't leave any proof, just a ledger entry in blockchain. It is pseudo anonymous in nature, hence governments are actually worried that bitcoin is the much better and cheaper option for money laundering. So it's not about double standard game played by the governments. Bitcoin has now become a favorite currency for illegal transactions like money laundering and terrorism financing. We as a common people, certainly don't want such nuisance to happen in bitcoin network because it's hard to catch. 

It's good that China is trying to explore the possibilities of blockchain technology and trying to put it in a good use. However, this news is not particularly cheering for the market because it doesn't have any financial impact. It's similar to the situation in India. While the Reserve Bank of India asks all regulated financial entities to roll back their positions from the crypto currency and the Prime Minister's office tweeted that they are looking towards blockchain technology to put it in good use. So it's a kind of double faced game they are playing. So no impact will be seen in the market of such news about blockchain technology. What we need, is the mainstream adoption.

If you are going through a bank and if they knows your nature of business, then Bank will always ask for partnership deed. because you guys are mainly creating a pool fund to buy a particular crypto asset in one chunk. I don't think, you can legally create pool fund to purchase an asset as an individual. You need to have a Memorandum of understanding signed at least.

So instead of taking that route, you can educate your friends how to purchase the crypto asset from an exchange. If you want to avoid the legalities, that's the best way to do so. Probably you want to sit with them and walk them through the purchasing process. I don't see any other way out. If you are going through banking route, you have to comply with legalities.

Thanks for letting us know this fact! I was not aware of it so I will take it as a new learning. In that case op has to file the court case against the old entity. Because the liability can't be vanished out in thin air. Either it changes ownership or stays with the old entity. If the liability was not transferred to new entity, the justcoin promoters will be held liable for mishandling of customer's asset.

That's the normal dynamics of the crypto market. 18% growth is nothing for bitcoin in a single day. We have seen much more volatile times previously. So the speculators of bitcoin have acquired more as per their pocket size when the price was down to 6.5k few days back and made a good percentage of profit.

But I am personally holding up my bitcoins because I strongly believe it has a lot of potential left. The current price is just the tip of the iceberg. It can grow to a whole new level just like we have seen during the last quarter of 2017. So my suggestion is to HODL.

Acquiring a company without the assets and liability is not a legal way. The customer support team most definitely hiding the facts. If you have purchased the bitcoins and sent to your justcoin wallet, then the blockchain ledger is holding the proof of it. So if you are not getting any resolution even after following their escalation matrix, legal action is the proper next step to follow. However, do a risk reward analysis before you step into a legal battle. If the numbers of bitcoins are significant and can provide you with a significant earning even after the expenditure of a legal battle, then only go ahead with it.

Definitely team owners are getting richer through IPL but that certainly doesn't mean that IPL matches are fixed. A parallel sports betting industry definitely exists but that's pure speculation like stock market.

There is term called sponsorship and TV rights. Cricket is most popular game in India and brands are more than willing to spend billions to get a right advertising spot in the tournament. If you see their jersey, it is overloaded with brand logos. That's how majority of the money comes from.

Secondly, the match tickets are 4 times costlier than the normal international cricket games. Teams get a percentage from the ticket selling as well.

Thirdly, the TV rights are equally distributed between the team based on the numbers of matches they play.

Finally the merchandising. This is a small but another source of income for the team owners. These are some significant sources of income I mentioned here. They don't need to fix the matches for earning. Definitely people bet and speculate on IPL matches but that's a parallel industry and doesn't really interfere with results.

Right you are! But majority of the people using bitcoin doesn't classify it as a ponzi or pyramid scheme. Those who have classified bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general as a pyramid or ponzi, they have either never used it personally or uneducated morons.

I remember, one Indian Member of Parliament, classified bitcoin as ponzi scheme in front of the who parliament. These kind of people don't have any understanding of the technology and they are too ignorant to learn new things. Bitcoin is nowhere related to ponzi or pyramid scheme.

However, if I talk about bubble, then I have a different understanding. Bitcoin can be somewhat linked to bubble. We can't deny the fact that the driving force of bitcoin is somewhat based on the hype it has created. Today people are talking about bitcoin because of that hype. Not everyone is a technological expert, so non technical people are coming into the market because of the hype it has created. Definitely bitcoin is a technological milestone but hype is one of the major driving force of it.

These are just few factors and not the complete list. It would be good if you can elaborate these points to make this post more meaningful. However, apart from the factors you've already mentioned, I would like to add few more to it,

1. Adoption & acceptance:
This is a very important factor which can drive organic growth to bitcoin. More adoption will create more possibilities and increase the acceptance of bitcoin. Countries like Japan and Germany has already legalized bitcoin, that's adoption. With this adoption, the merchants in these countries have started accepting it for any goods or services. These kind of adoption is very much required if we want to see organic growth in crypto sector.

2. Utility:
This particular factor is directly linked with the technical factors of bitcoin. Once we adopted bitcoin and merchants started accepting it, then it comes to utility of bitcoin. If we see that a transaction is taking one hour+ to get confirmed and you have to wait for that much time to get your goods in hand, it's not convenient. However, with the adoption of segwit, we have decreased the confirmation time which increased the utility of bitcoin. I am sure, after the mainstream adoption of Lightening Network, bitcoin will be second to none in processing payments pushing the utility quotient to another notch higher!

I am sure there are more factors that is driving the bitcoin price. Like demand and supply etc. But these two above mentioned factors are and worth adding to the list. 

I somehow agree to your argument here, that we should not predict any future events based on the past! That's true for real world and the example you have given here. I can also add to it, that there was a global financial crisis in 2008 but that doesn't mean it will happen again because we have learned from it and moved on. But when I talk about technical analysis, it gives me a different picture all together.

This particular chart type is know as "Bullish Symmetric Triangle" in technical analysis. This is exactly what OP is talking about. The representation is similar to the below chart,



As per technical analysis coupled with trend analysis, once the price moves beyond the breakout point, a sharp increase in the price follows. So lets just hope that it happens. I know that technical analysis means very little in bitcoin and crypto market because of its nature. It's the raw reflection of human emotion around the world and it is very hard to predict the future. But technical analysis is just a tool for speculation and nothing else. I believe we have many bitcoins in our cold storage and if the  price increases, it's good for all. Lets just hope for the same, even if history repeats itself!

I doubt your view on IPL. You are probably misunderstanding IPL with PSL. IPL matches are not fixed. Earlier a scandal surfaced about match fixing and few teams got suspended for 5 years from the tournament. Also everytime you loose on prediction doesn't necessarily mean that matches are fixed. It is because you have predicted out of emotions and not on facts. IPL is a very clean tournament, it is not Pakistan Super League.

I tried to search google for the same answer but unable to find any realiable source of news which can justify today's price surge. However, if you are monitoring the price of bitcoin continuously, then you might have noticed that the price was not fluctuating much since last few days. In real world stock market scenario, we call it a phase of "gaining strength before taking another leap". It mainly occurs when the price of an asset reaches its optimum low and investors start entering into that asset pushing the price higher. Probably that's what happened with bitcoin as well. But whatever is happeneing, it's positive.

Right you are! This is what happens when the entire system is controlled by uneducated politicians. I am sure if Mr. Rajan continues to be our chief governor, India would have adopted crytpocurrency for better use. But now the country is being ruled by a political party who are busy building temples than hospitals and schools. So we can't expect anything better for us. We have to live with this fact that India is still not a developed country even after having a trillion dollar economy.

But hey! Weed and drugs are also banned in India, but we have abundant supply available. So who cares!!

It's a good news that governments around the world are exploring the possibilities of blockchain technology through mainstream adoption. But we also have to keep in mind that it does not talk about bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency. We already know that blockchain has immense possibilities, it is just we need organized efforts to recognize those. I hope UAE government will set some good examples of blockchain use to the rest of the world.

Unrelated but the way the author has mentioned "his highness" everytime, is laughable in context of the rest of the world.

I completely support taxation on bitcoin and other crypto assets. If we are looking for mass adoption by the governments, this taxation is the only way to achieve it. Once the governments start taxing on bitcoin and provide a regulatory framework, cryptocurrency will actually be able to reach to the common people. If the governments don't provide a framework for taxation and regulation, that's when the uncertainty starts engulfing the market.

Kudos to the OP for taking out time to write such a long and detailed explanation about consequences of gambling. But if you really have control on your greed and emotion, you will not have to face any negative consequences from gambling. It's all within you and you just have to trust yourself. If someone has good on his own instincts, he will never have to face addiction in anything.

Even though I appreciate the move, the subject line is really misleading. The subject line of this thread represents that six governments have moved to court against the decision of Google and other companies. Instead, they are just an autonomous bodies like crypto associations without government affiliation. So please change the thread title.

But it is a really good move and I wish all success to these crypto associations against the decision of crypto advertising ban. This ban is actually a part of bigger conspiracy plotted by USA to bring down the significance of cryptocurrency in the ecosystem.

I don't know about any crypto currency exchanges that issue 1099-B form. It is only from the legal stock brokers and exchanges, you will get 1099-B. SO now you have to rely on trade history section of your tradings exchange. They should provide you with a P&L statement comprises all your trades in a summarized version. In absence of 1099-B, you can use that P&L statement to file your taxes with IRS. There should not be any issue. The idea is to properly report your incomes. the P&L statement should cover that.