I've used Copay once for a US Amazon gift card after everywhere else was shut down. It was pretty much instant and worked fine. No fees other than their stupid network ones.

I've no idea how they managed to keep that channel open when everywhere else closed. I guess since it's them directly as opposed to some random creeps they might be in better standing with Amazon overall, though I don't know why they restricted the sales in the first place.

Never used Purse and stuff. If I wanted an Amazon card I'd do Copay again. Also very good for getting rid of your BCH of course.

Am dead curious to see how utter shit will be viewed by the time this bubble is done. I think coinbase may ultimately be doing themselves a favour by not rushing to list the industrial strength shite, though the bcash launch poos all over that angle.

They're eyeing some giant buyout eventually or becoming the gold standard which means they need a certain level of diligence maintained.

I don't see how anyone could be tempted by this 'opportunity' though.

https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/2953945

Anyone going to bother with this? It looks like a sad attempt to prop up the shitcoins they've introduced. Some day they may even acknowledge that bitcoin is actually pretty good.

Is the hidden binance server thing a fact? If it is then I would find that a turn off, not the exit scam side of things, more the inference that it's an acknowledgement of them sailing close to the wind.

If you want to be the world's largest exchange then you're going to have to swallow The Man's sperm whether you want to or not.

It's being seen as increasingly in the bag which tells me either it doesn't have a hope in hell of reaching that level by then or it's going to far exceed it.

I've often thought it was conceivable that price could be reached by then but it certainly is a big un.

Perhaps the key thing is how this bubble ends. Will Bitcoin come out of it as seeming vastly stronger and more credible than anything else out there or will some of the ICO stink rub off on it?

I'm betting on the former. I think by then it's going to be the unassailable leader and everything else will be a pale imitation. In those circumstances 100 grand is possible.

I was on the verge of signing up there too but I seem to remember their verification stuff being heavy, plus I'm not sure what the Japanese attitude to white devils is on their exchanges.

It's nowhere near as dire as the Coincheck hack where they literally had everything in a hot wallet. They could've saved themselves hundreds of millions of dollars with one Trezor.

Those amounts seem right ish for a hot wallet considering how many people come and go per day. They really need to figure out how to be non hot though.

Slightly shocking all round. Tech Bureau are a long standing crypto company and how they could've allowed something like this to happen unnoticed for what seems like a few days is beyond me.

Zaif was also one of the first 'properly' regulated Japanese exchanges. I presumed regulation entailed some serious security and being held to it. It's all looking a bit wobblier than before.

No link to this yet? - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3078815.0

That'll cover most bases with flights. Hotels and care hire etc are considerably thinner on the ground for BTC. There are some gift card options in that thread but it would still give you far more choice using a Bitcoin debit card.

Similarly those places listed often miss out budget flight options, especially European ones, so best to compare them with conventional flight sites too.

You could have a token that gave dead bald men a full head of hair and a giant boner and no one would care.

It's an object lesson in how utterly empty the whole thing is. No one knew or cared what these ICOs actually did, if anything at all, all they wanted was to sell it for more than they paid for it.

Now that possibility is gone so is everything else.

Well, to be fair it seems relatively clear that Bitmex at the very least has moments where they're willing to slide all 18 inches up your colon and not break a sweat.

The outages and insider trading leave a nasty taste but that won't stop people rewarding them with their business just the same as Bitfinex. It's a tad disheartening to see the most successful trading businesses being proper questionable but users get what they deserve.

But do you not think that as things get more centralised it becomes clearer why people were excited about it in the first place? Humans in general are stupid and short sighted. Only after they've been raped do they tend to realise why non rapey concepts might benefit them.

I have disliked all the Chinesey ones I've tried - Huobi, OKex, BTER/Gate.io. They all have shit UIs, weird translation blind spots and there's something I don't trust about any of them. I can't shake off the feeling that one day they're all going to screw me good and proper.

The most painless I've sampled has been Bittrex but their redesign makes them less sexy to use.

It needs to become other things - asset, store of value among others - before it can become a currency. And even then because it's designed to be deflationary hardly anyone will want to use it as a currency if they have an alternative.

In certain strata of society other things are as good as currency but will be roundly rejected by others not in the know. When I used to hang out with scumbags pot was as good as money. That wouldn't really work paying your electricity bill. That could be where BTC ends up.

What of machine to machine stuff? At present that's borderline completely untapped but in the next few years there might be trillions of transactions taking place between machines every day and many of them will want to swap tokens and currencies.

That's not going to work if they have to log in to somewhere, validate the login, click on a bunch of fucking shopfronts or buses to actually get in to the site, and then start dicking around with order books.

There's a lot more than just boring baseline humans who'll get use out of crypto and that's likely to be where tit-exploding levels of boom will be fostered.

I do find it quite fascinating the fondness Bitcoiners have for embracing and elevating shameless bucketshops. They keep whining on about 'manipulation' yet pour in to the same places they accuse of doing it.

There's a very definite air of masochism that's probably never going to go away.

Dollars is what nets you the proper interest rates. Everyone wants to get interest on their crypto which usually mean the rates are piddling. Personally I would definitely not risk another haircut for a pitiful return there.

Have a browse of that - https://virtualmarkets.ag.ny.gov

And tell me you believe the SEC will want anything to do with this utter shitshow.

There won't be any decision this month. When the decision eventually arrives I'm going for a 99% probability of no.

He's one of the few people who I'd consider worth listening to. He has no particular axe to grind in either direction and he's a long term believer and he's been around since BTC was in the cents.

No one knows shit of course, but he's not some Twitter zombie.

Crypto + 'lending' equals guaranteed ruin for someone somewhere along the line. By this point it's agonisingly clear they simply cannot fit together.

Anyone who thinks otherwise either hasn't though it through properly, runs one of these piece of shit sites or wants to scam you.

If they're no good then they disappear. If they're wonderful then they thrive. No one loses out by letting enough people throw enough shit at the wall. We benefit from what decides to stick.