I haven't seen a figure named anywhere which I think is a bit uncool myself. I would guess that it's similar to the 10,000 Euro limit where they start getting weird about bank accounts in the EU too, or maybe they'll equate it to cash in which case it's even lower.

Well, after watching a series of Consensus livestreams I've concluded that you'd have to be a fooking nutter to think crypto's going anywhere but eventual gargantuanosity by now.

I hope the pisstaking ICO dead wood gets erased along the way though.

There are options beyond vanilla websites. People are trading via Telegram groups and so on. And why the hell aren't more operations using Namecoin .bit based sites? That's a censorship resistant option right there.

I'll guess that it's US only like many other things.

Also it looks like Expedia accepts Bitcoin via Coinbase and Coinbase now makes merchants control their own private keys I think.

Even if they did accept BTC it's likely they'll abandon it because of that.

Do you honestly think they're not going to shut you down after a couple of consecutive buys? That's about as obvious as it gets.

I'm not sure there's any formal limit in the UK but this place has similar ID requirements to the other one noted - https://www.atsbullion.com/faqs/are-there-any-id-requirements/

Since they permitted these cesspits to appear out of nowhere and take over the country I can't say I'm too impressed by their watchdogginess so far. They've must've been too busy singing karaoke to notice millions of people pouring into an untaxed and unregulated market right under their noses.

Fair enough. Note how much less ludicrous that requirement is compared to Bitstamp wanting your tax records and all of your Bitcoin addresses so they can trace everything when they retrospectively demand more info when your money's locked up.

Yup.

https://www.sharpspixley.com/buy-gold-using-bitcoin/

That's the best place to get metals with BTC in the UK. If you're going above £5000 then you have to hand your ID over.

It seems like a no brainer to me. Something has to be established and accepted as a store of value before people treat it as a currency, but that's just me.

You need all parties to be confident that the thing they're transacting with is going to be accepted by some total stranger as worth something the day after that particular exchange.

At the moment in most cases when you're buying something, Bitcoin and BCH and everything else is nothing but a payment rail for fiat. It's going to take a long time before it doesn't occur to any major business to keep it without conversion.

I can well imagine two Bitcoin believers not thinking that way but they're already down the rabbit hole. You need the unemotional to think the same before it really goes places.

Which I've always struggled to wrap my head around. Korea is a closed market. No money can get in or out. In theory it should have much less effect than heaviness in other markets as other markets do cross pollinate.

I guess people are looking for reasons to panic these days.

And how did South Korea let these exchanges arrive out of nowhere and operate in total impunity without any tax or oversight? What kind of amateur hour government permits something like that to happen?

Normally this would certainly be the case but these paragraphs imply otherwise -

“all financial institutions … ensure that they do not use, trade, hold and/or transact in any way in virtual currencies; ensure that they do not provide banking services to facilitate any person or entity in dealing with or settling virtual currencies; and exit any existing relationships with virtual currency exchanges within sixty days of the date of this Circular and proceed to liquidate and restitute existing account balances.”

"The ban includes “maintaining accounts, registering, trading, clearing, collateral arrangements, remittances, payment and settlement accounts, giving loans against virtual tokens, accepting them as collateral, opening accounts of exchanges dealing with them and transfer / receipt of money in accounts relating to purchase / sale of virtual currencies.”


Most of the time they say nothing about ending banking relationships with crypto exchanges and anyone trading it using banking, but that's much more explicit and comprehensive that usual.

No great loss to us. Could be a reasonably sized one to a few Zimbabweans.

$197. I really didn't expect the price to nearly 6X within the space of a few weeks.

And I really really REALLY did not expect the price to dip below that level well over a year after that.

All exchanges will go down this path eventually if they want to stay in business. There may be a few holdouts but even if they were fundamentally honest they're going to end with a big fat target on their back so you might find your anon exchange suddenly frozen.

Even when KYC is optional, you never know when they're going to change limits a la Bittrex and Poloniex. Either verify or leave.

Exchanges are entering a new phase of legitimacy, or rather the non shit ones. I really can't see a Goldman Sachs or NYSE backed place running away with funds or going bankrupt because of a gaping security hole.

The new danger to users on places like that is disappearing into their KYC/AML hell and never emerging again.

What people usually forget to add, and he does too, is that his prediction is based on Bitcoin radically devaluing the USD by 2020. It had better get its skates on because the USD looks pretty steady from here.

That adds a double dose of bath salt-soaked gubbins pouring from his faeces-encrusted lips.

A vast, vast majority go unpunished. It's depressing how slow law enforcement is, or more importantly, how uninterested.

In the UK you're sent here in the case of cyber crime - https://www.actionfraud.police.uk

This is basically a call centre that logs your moan, might give you a crime number so you can claim insurance if that's possible, and that's pretty much it. It's fob off rather than an attempt to deal with it.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2287106/Fraud-victims-told-forget-police-contact-centre.html

A friend of mine was chased by a police helicopter and three cars for stealing one bag of coal from his local garage worth £10. If you lose a million quid online they won't even bother to tell a qualified pig most of the time.

It's a really strange situation and it has to change.

So given unlimited brain power and funds what would you do to try and change things? Or do you think it's too far gone regardless of what anyone does?

Mining is an area I understand very little of, but I'm surprised it wasn't foreseen that behemoths like Bitmain would rise and something wasn't done to attempt to address it before it happened.

The main reason I look to carry out crypto transactions is that these days I have far more value tied up in it than fiat and I can't be bothered to go through the hassle of converting it back to fiat, plus it's fun to spend free money.

Unfortunately the places you can spend it are contracting. Coinbase's change to merchant accounts seems to have turned a lot of merchants off.

It can be more convenient but not by a huge amount, just a bit less typing.

It was big in Nigeria and South Africa for a while, but sadly I think that was largely down to the MMM Ponzi scheme.

Localbitcoins is about as close as you can get for a one stop shop for demand - https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins

https://blog.sia.tech/the-state-of-cryptocurrency-mining-538004a37f9b

A fine overall read here from someone close to the front lines.

TLDR - unless you're Bitmain or someone similar you're probably eventual toast.