Exactly this.  Just because 8000 years ago 100% of people believed the earth was flat, did make it so.  Just because 1000 years ago everyone believed "heavier than air flight was impossible" didn't make it true.  Statistics about people's beliefs do not change any facts.  Just as in September 2019 if 49% of people think a recession will occur with 6 months (for example) doesn't mean it will.  

As he said, bitcoin transactions NEVER depend on an exchange.  Sure if you want to purchase bitcoin, one may need an exchange.

Is it a safe haven?  Certainly more so than fiat.

Just a bunch of nonsense.

Crack cocaine can kill, not to mention tainted cocaine can and does kill.  I would wonder about the people making it, what if they screw up?  What if the dealer cuts it with something lethal?   It just isn't worth the risk to me to do any of this stuff.  (By the way, to one of the people above, I don't touch anything either - clean living.  No alcohol or drugs etc.  I enjoy my life without needing any of them.)

Centralized crypto backed by a physical asset that can be seized? What’s the point?  I’ll answer that question - I think the point is to capitalize on buzzwords and control their citizens.

My thoughts are he is mistaken since he doesn't understand how a POW coin secures the entire chain. The effort of POW secures every portion of the chain.  People who argue otherwise don't understand the basics of bitcoin and the economics upon which it is based.

It is like saying "gold has no value" or "<name your fiat currency> has no value."  In some respects that is true.  If you were on an island alone, none of them, bitcoin, gold, the Euro/Dollar etc would have no value.  However they all have value based on the fact that other people know that different people will exchange them for something of use to you - food, shelter, medical care, water, computers, TV, movies etc.

Does skin color matter?  What about green-eyed Americans?  Blue-eyed Americans?  Blond Americans?  Brunette Americans?  Grey-haired Americans?  Anyone can use bitcoin.  Everyone should use bitcoin, regardless of irrelevant factors like skin color to protect themselves from the statist authoritarians who are ascendant in the US Democrat party.

Oh, and "African-American" is a racist term, invented by the southern Democrat majority in the 1960s and 1970s in order to delegitimize black Americans to make them seem only half American, not full American.  At least per various law schools in the US.  So, you probably don't want to use that term.

"a blockchain is added to a bitcoin blockchain" and other errors.

Lol.  My thoughts are that this graphic is laughable.

It is almost as if someone who didn't know what they were talking about put it together.

He may have been pro-bitcoin in the sense that he'd take donations in it, but he was anything but "pro" the sentiments behind bitcoin.  As a leftwing authoritarian statist, the goals of bitcoin taking power from the government entities and elites who control the world monetary system and who encourage an inflationary currency are the antithesis of bitcoin.  Likewise, he and his cohorts that he will support in the democrat primary are of the mindset of wanting to know everything that everyone does and so would be at odds with any privacy protections coming to cryptos.  And don't forget the UBI, insanity if you care about freedom.

Bitcoin is anti-elites and not inflationary at all eventually and beginning in May, even less inflationary that now.  It is decentralized instead of centralized like the policies that he espouses and it is incompatible with a centralized, all-controlling government which he advocates.

So while it is always too bad when someone who is somewhat pro-bitcoin even if only accepting donations in it, is out, his philosophy would have been completely at odds, diametrically opposed to bitcoin's uses if he had been elected.

There are people who are pro-bitcoin from a philosophical standpoint, such as Ron Paul or Rand Paul, plus much of the House Freedom caucus, but likewise there are plenty of people in DC who hate everything that bitcoin could accomplish because it will impact their power and consequently the amount of money they can make selling that power.

A constitutional, representative republic is much preferred where the wolves are not legally allowed to vote to have the sheep for dinner even if it is 999 wolves and 1 sheep.   The US Founders, Alexis de Tocqueville and many other people have recognized why democracy is a bad idea, and anyone who has read history should understand it.  It is one reason why the US has the electoral college among other things.  It is another reason why the sheep in the US are allowed to be armed.  So the power-hungry wolves can't vote the sheep into slavery.  After all, the Democrat slave owners in the old Southern US States were a democracy and I doubt anyone with any sense would argue that the slaves did not deserve protection.


Check out Federalist 51 for example:
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/primary-source-documents/the-federalist-papers/federalist-papers-no-51/

Democracy is a tyranny of the majority and hence should not be the goal of anyone concerned with liberty. I was in Miami at the time and had friends from Venezuela who used to come and visit.  They thought no one would vote themselves into slavery and destruction.  They were wrong.

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner as someone once said.

You are right. The lure of "free" stuff is extremely strong.  The people voting for them don't seem to realize that nothing is free and they are selling themselves and their progeny to these people, and trading their liberty and everyone's liberty in return for a few pieces of silver.  Once it is done it is extremely difficult to go back to freedom. You may be able to vote yourself into the slavery of socialism, but you can only fight your way out.

Look at Venezuela.  The richest country in South America 25 years ago with a ton of oil riches. They elected a socialist who promised "free" stuff to the people and promised to "equalize" incomes and wealth. He succeeded, he just equalized them down to a dollar or two per month.

People who think it can't happen somewhere are naive.  A power hungry group can seize power and eviscerate the constitutional protections over a short (or long) period of time. The left can play a long game, look at how FDR in the US undermined the constitution in order to advance his power and how leftist presidents since then have built upon that.

A Sanders with a Congress of like mind could easily take it to the extreme where there would be no return.  The courts would be of little use, look at how FDR threatened to pack the US Supreme Court and then, suddenly, got his way on the issues of the day.

I think a lot of the activity is just so that they can try to earn bitcoins with the spammy sig campaigns.  I am happy to donate to things I care about, but not to the nonsense "global poverty" BS.  People need to vote for freedom not authoritarianism (socialism, fascism, communism etc) if they want to get out of poverty.  Property rights, freedom, education and the rule of law will do more to bring people out of poverty than people donating.  

I started mining etc in July 2010. At any time anyone was free to involved in bitcoin, mining, developing, buying etc between Jan 2009 and today.  Everything is about choices though.  You could spend your money (for example) on netflix or spend it buying bitcoin in 2011, 2012, 2013 etc.  Likewise, you can spend your time watching netflix or learning programming or anything with regard to bitcoin or anything else.   You can play fortnite or you can learn something worthwhile, start a business or do something like that.   Don't later complain later when you missed an opportunity because you chose to watch TV, go out drinking, partying, playing video games or anything else that takes you away from spending at least some time doing something productive.  It doesn't have to be exclusively something productive, but don't complain later if you chose something else.

Just like people who complain about "the rich".  In most "1st world" countries, parents could easily save 1000 euros or dollars for a newborn - 84 per month in one year.  Cancel cable and netflix for a year and spend the time reading to your child.  Don't buy coffee at Starbucks and you could save a 3000 or 4000 that first year.  If you do that 1000 or 4000 and give it and invest it for the child, by the time they are retired, they'll have more than 1 million (or 4 million).  Do it for a few more years, and it will grow even more. If instead of that, teenagers take the money for their phone and travel expenses (e.g. petrol/gasoline) and invest it from 13 to 18 they'll likewise have a few million by retirement even if they never invest anything again.

It is about choices though:  instant gratification or understanding math and the power of compounding and acting on it.  People make their choices and then they pay the price later or reap the rewards later.  Don't expect people who are paying attention making smart choices to pay for your poor choices.

The authoritarians - socialist, fascist, communist, totalitarian etc - have never liked people being able to control their own lives through controlling their own wealth.  FDR was a leftist through and through ready to throw freedom out the window to gain power for himself and his cronies.  Nothing has changed since then except the world has been pulled more and more to the point where people who believe in defending liberty are in the minority in many places.  It should be noted that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice and bitcoin is one big way to defend your freedom from the collectivist authoritarians who are bent on taking over the world by taking over money. 

If a government begins outlawing crypto, gold (or other PMs), puts in capital controls, puts in wealth taxes, you know that they are heading in the direction of authoritarianism and it is time to start planning (it really is time to plan BEFORE THAT by owning some bitcoin - 1 or more preferably) for an exit to a country that values freedom.  Look at the looters in Venezuela, NK, Cuba, and many other countries around the world.  Look at Bernie, Warren, and Biden in the US - they believe that they have the right to the products of your life in order to amass power to themselves.

Slavery was evil in the past and is still evil even when couched in flowery language of "need" and "fairness".

The current time is just a guess, so there isn't an appointment.  It is highly unlikely to be the end of April, but we could see it a few days sooner than estimated now.  Some estimates are saying May 12 2020 (e.g. https://www.bitcoinblockhalf.com, https://www.thehalvening.com).  Some are saying May 7 (e.g. https://www.bitcoinclock.com).  A couple of months ago the estimates were May 15th.  4 years ago, they were June or July.

However, all that being said, if, for example, the hash rate increased by 100% each of the next 6 halving periods, then each one would only take a week, so you'd shorten 14 days by half if the sudden increase started right at the next 2016 block period.  Then you certainly could have the halving sooner.  The odds of a 100% increase in hash rate like that are infinitesimal though.

In short, at the current rate of increase, having it in April is quite unlikely.  However, it doesn't really matter one way or the other when it occurs so I don't see why the tweet would be FUD, merely something that is probably wrong and since I didn't see any rationale as to why they think that it seems to be just wild speculation.  Don't know who that person is, and seems like just some random person throwing something out there.

And I am not really sure if this even belongs in the Dev and Tech section, perhaps it belongs in the Discussion section.

The former, but the end will be that people will stop needing to exchange out of crypto and more and more people will just stay in it and not need the exchanges.

I'll be happy to buy these tainted coins at a few cents on the dollar.

“ Bitcoin is the money of criminals”

I also have to ask who is defining what is criminal?  If it was the US a century ago alcohol would be illegal and pre 1914 cocaine was legal.

In some places drugs are legal, in others illegal. In some places purchasing an ad to attack the monarch or Muhammad is illegal, in others who cares. The bunny ranch is legal some places, illegal others. Homosexuality is legal some places and illegal others. In some places it is illegal to own a gun, in others not. 

At some point and some time pretty much every use of fiat or bitcoin would’ve been illegal, but control freaks like to control others thinking that other people are unable to think for themselves.  Yet paradoxically these same people are competent to vote in people to control everyone else.

Typical fake nonsense news from the NYT.  They can't even get the facts correct.

You mean, corporations are supposed to collect it from the buyers of their products and remit it to the government.  People are the only entities that pay taxes, corporations etc merely collect them on behalf of someone else and divide the costs primarily on consumers and employees.

I think she means anyone involved in any way in bitcoin.  She seems like an authoritarian to the core who wants to control everyone else via money.

Power consumption provides network security.  I'm sure she'd much rather have everyone use fiat so she can seize it in or inflate the value away in order to fund whatever he pet projects are, but some of us believe that we have the right to the products of our lives and we aren't slaves to satisfy her whines.

May, not June.

As far as the fiat price goes, unchanged or increased demand and a decrease of new supply, should lead to a higher price eventually. Whether that is before the halving due to anticipation or months after the halving due to the anticipation already occurring is anyone's guess.  In short, no one knows, it is just guessing.