The fake volumes are created by the exchange to be in the top list of the most traded volumes and i do not think that some people will create these fake volumes to help the exchanges, majority of the hyped volume cannot be determined by looking at the exchange, but you can analyze these things by understanding the amount of unique visitors a particular site is getting and the amount of trade that is going on at a particular time and if we can have those then we can have an approximate volume rather than believing what the exchange is providing.

Future market was a major factor in the bull as well as tether was instrumental in pumping the price so high, during 2017 there were a lot of tether being created without any valid proof on that they are fully backed by dollars, if there is any market downfall then tether will be the main reason for that and i feel that something big is coming that could wipe the market by a big margin. Credit card usage were there, but that was not the main reason for the big rally, it was minuscule when compared to the amount of tether being created during that time.

There were many threads earlier regarding this topic, first it will take a long time for all the coins to get mined and second important factor is that the price would be so high and we need a better solution to counter the price when it comes to transaction charges, bigger blocks was one solution but the question remains how big the blocks can be and whether we can have a better solution than we have now to balance everything. Even now the miners will be earning a few extra bitcoins apart from 12.5 bitcoin they earn with every block and by that time the price will be that high that they will compensation with the transaction fees alone.

So only exchanges are banned in China and anyone could trade bitcoin with exchanges from outside the country and P2P and OTC trading is legal, right now China is not in the map when it comes to bitcoin, earlier i still remember every news coming out from China could change the market situation and the amount of FUD and FOMO during those times we high, glad that it is all over and the government put an end to all those speculations.

Unfortunately bestmixer is the first mixing service that came under fire from the authorities and some of the mixing services closed their service earlier fearing these sort of actions will come once the bitcoin market become more mainstream and i am not convinced with the way they took them down, they cannot pin point one thing that they did, all the authorities say is that they helped in money laundering, which is a broader term and it is very difficult to sort these type of issues and today bitblender has closed their service too after this incident, we now have chipmixer and will see how long they will last.

Since they have big resources in information technology sector we should believe that they must be crypto friendly and with facebook recently announcing their plan to launch their own crypto currency and India being a big market for facebook we must consider that there should be some sort of regulatory framework being done rather than an outright ban, i am not aware of the political situation in India but being a big democracy in the world we expect a fair ruling.

Many people are careless and so is the reason these scammers are taking advantage of the ignorance and the curiosity to increase the profit in a short cut is the biggest problem, people think that they could increase their profit by investing in platforms that promises good returns than the banking sector and people will jump into those thinking they can earn easy profits, if people understand the risk they are taking, these kind of scams will end and it is not about free coins they get or being over confident but the lure of doubling without any effort is the main reason.

If you are living in a country with no regulation, then there is no point in debating the legality of bitcoin until there is a decision from the authorities, it depends upon how they view the market and how well they can frame a regulations knowing the difficulties they have to encounter since it is a global medium and cannot be restricted easily. There is no point convincing anyone who is not interested in the new technology, it is a waste of your time.

There are many scammers luring in telegram too, if you contact any support of any exchange regarding your issue in telegram, you will see many messages popping up informing you that they are from the customer support and they are out there to scam your money and they will talk really well to convince you and that is what scammers do, it is a serious issue that everyone should understand and never deal anyone outside the site you are dealing with and never send any coins to any wallet.

Consider that you have a old person in your home and you talk to them about bitcoin mining, do you really think that they will understand anything about it, the situation i see here is that, her grand son or grand daughter might have done these things and in order to save them from going to jail she helped them out and took the punishment instead, it is a different culture altogether in Asia and they will protect your kid even if they do something illegal.

I have a different opinion when it comes to scaling, if Satoshi was around i am sure he might come up with a good solution that would be acceptable to everyone, if he can invent something that looked like impossible before bitcoin, i am sure he might have some idea about the scaling issue we had to encounter too, because he never created bitcoin for a selected group of people, he invented for the entire world to use.

The raid on Craig is not related with the copyright he was given, the Australian tax authorities were behind that after the media outlets came up with the conclusion that he is the person behind Satoshi, no one can claim that unless there is substantial proof and we have none till now.
I respect the privacy Satoshi wanted and i would not want anyone to be a stalker if he wanted a private life, respect privacy.

Satoshi would use any encrypted service that really takes care of security and Telegram is one such service and if it was active during his time he will use that service, he would have used IRC with TOR enabled and if he used to chat in that, he made sure he was secure with his communication and the E mail service he used to communicate was Anonymous Speech and GMX as far as i remember.
@OP the answer is clear, since Telegram was created well after his online presence he never had a Telegram group.

Hopefully you are from Cuba and glad to see that you have an internet connect, since this thread came up i just googled and found that the residents are able to use internet in their mobile phone from December 6, 2018  . I never thought there are people who are restricted like this around the world apart from North Korea and some Arab countries. All i know about Cuba is that they have world class wrestler and boxers but did not knew that they are living in a dictatorship kind of environment without any freedom, with the internet being available now to residents am i sure the government will view it as a luxury item and i have no idea how they view the virtual market or whether they have a firewall like China.

Source:
The Internet Finally Makes Its Way to Cuba, but How Will Cubans Embrace Bitcoin and Blockchain?

Note: Carollzinha and CryptoBry has linked the news before me, either way i am not editing it as it is my source of knowing about Cuba as well.

As long as the development when it comes to faster transactions lower fees are on the right track there is nothing to worry, bitcoin was meant to be used by everyone even in the poorest countries with minimal network penetration and will be the bank for the people who are not having the privilege to have their own bank account, when i started out that was the goal and that was echoing in the entire community, now things have changed and until there is a better solution nothing is replacing bitcoin.

Since you claim that you help him with filing all these patents and trademarks and you are really close to Craig, why not you advice him that the easiest thing to do is to sign a message from the genesis block and prove that he is legit, will you tell that he will do that in the next ten years or he lost those addresses  . You really do not need to go to these lengths to prove that he is the creator, just advice him to sign the genesis block but i am sure he will have another excuse for doing so  .

Those are genuine questions that anyone will have before the entire market blasted through the roof, how will you understand something like this could ever happen until it starts functioning and it was really hard for anyone to understand during that time to know what it mean by a currency without the support of any government, so those responses are genuine to the core as everyone had those questions when you first heard about a decentralized currency.

May i ask how you came to a conclusion like this, if the price of bitcoin touches those valuation how come paper money will loose its valuation, i would like to hear your theory regarding that  . Do you really think that the general expense will increase if the price of bitcoin increases, what kind of commerce analogy is that dude  . If people invest when the price was right, then they could make some money and nothing else. The world will move on as normal.

It is a new market and what belief do they have if they know nothing about the market, you need some patience and skills to learn about a new market and it is not that easy for someone who is not interested to understand how the market works or how to evaluate a market which has no physical presence, there is no point in arguing with anyone who is not interested to learn, but i do engage in healthy debates every now and then  .

Major merchants are accepting bitcoin but not world wide, there are accepting at a particular area and not in the entire US too from what i understand, it is a major win for bitcoin even if they are accepting in one or two stores of a global brand but when they will be accepting it in all the branches world wide is yet to be seen and if they start accepting it in all the stores of their brand then it is a major news.

With the market showing strength well before halving, i cannot imagine how the market will be by the end of this year or after the halving.
It does not bring anything to bitcoin and only time will tell how this is going to end up.
His drama will continue and it is another interesting aspect as he is challenging everyone on his path.
Those days are over a long time ago and topics from China is not even in any conversation.