This seems to be the original source, but you'll have to translate it:

https://www.isna.ir/news/99080301359/%DB%8C%DA%A9-%D8%AA%D8%B5%D9%85%DB%8C%D9%85-%D8%AC%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%AF-%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%AE%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AC-%D8%B1%D9%85%D8%B2-%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B2

There are Arabic characters in the link so I'm not sure if it will work for everyone properly.

Either way, from my understanding, they'll be subsidizing electricity for the miners, and how much the miners are mandated to sell depends on how much electricity they received. To put it simply, they're paying miners with electricity as part of an actual national policy.

Dimon already backpedaled from his Bitcoin hostility way back in 2018, so this isn't really a surprise. They've been looking into crypto for a while.

Lol mixers are apparently money transmitters now:


Either way, the money laundering charge was probably because of the fact that they advertised the service to avoid law enforcement. It was the same case with BestMixer from last year:


Mixers should probably fine for as long as they avoid that, and don't operate within the US so they don't get classified as money transmitters lol.


I'm not sure about Helix, but Coin Ninja definitely is:

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/coin-ninja

I'm not even sure if Coin Ninja itself is a mixer or offers mixing services; the press release only explicitly stated that Helix was.

I think you'd have much better results outside Bitcointalk tbh. A lot of people are hesitant to buy only because they would rather hold their own coins, something that probably isn't as prevalent for the mainstream. I would be very surprised if Paypal doesn't make bank from this. The fact that prices surged could indicate that lots of people think this is a good move.


I really hope so, though I remain skeptical. The community only thinks the design is absurd because we've been taught that "not your keys, not your coins", but Paypal is such a reputable brand that common folk, and maybe even some actual enthusiasts, won't mind. I absolutely agree that the design is horrible, but at the same time I could see it working especially once the fiat-settled payments are integrated. We have to keep in mind that there are a lot of people who are only invested for price movements, and I could see this being huge for them -- I mean, they'd be able to hold Bitcoin for speculation and at the same time, be able to spend on a whim where Paypal is accepted. If you don't care about holding your own coins, that's an incredibly sweet deal.

What makes you believe so? It seems even payments will be settled in fiat:


If they're actually planning to go this route, there won't be any movements in the blockchain; they give you an IOU you can play with, and since it doesn't seem like they even give you a BTC address, it might be designed to stay that way. Neither you nor the merchant will ever touch any actual BTC.

I mean, I guess it's kind of smart since it appeals to people who only want to hold BTC for its price movements, letting them speculate and spend with negligible fees. If I were a casual, I would absolutely gobble this up.

I feel a bit conflicted because on one hand, it has essentially nothing to do with Bitcoin, and could even harm real adoption in the long run. On the other hand, it's huge for establishing Bitcoin as a legitimate asset class.

I can't find any specific examples, but according to this website:


P2P shouldn't be a problem, as odolvlobo shared, but it could still certainly be seen as a method of money laundering. I don't think there will be issues with small amounts, but I would still strongly discourage it unless both parties know how to cover their tracks.

To clarify, this specifically targets teams who create tokens and somehow scams them regarding listing their projects. Regular folk shouldn't be affected. Still though, there is a lesson to be learned from this. From Kraken's blogpost, if you didn't want to open it:

Quick reminder that the people who want to sponsor and be involved in Bitcoin Core development are these same people:


I don't think any one of us really oppose supporting development, but you'll have to remember that for-profit companies like Coinbase exist to make money -- this could very well be another means for that end. Good for them, but I don't like this.

If you're talking about realized correlation, the figure was probably taken from here:

https://analytics.skew.com/dashboard/macro

I can't link the chart itself directly, but it should be pretty easy to find. The one-month correlation currently stands at around ~54%.

One thing worth noting though:


They absolutely aren't correlated fundamentally, but as more people start using them for the same things, they can easily mirror each other's price movements. It's too early to tell if they'll ever correlate consistently, but it's certainly a possibility.

It might also be due to DeFi, interestingly enough:


On top of that, we're seeing institutions like Grayscale hoard Bitcoin in full swing real time. The last time Bitcoin exchanges were this low was November 2018 according to the article above, which was a bearish preiod, but all signs right now definitely point to bulls. We're currently in a very interesting period where we're seeing actual growth not based on external hype.

What, you mean you don't like watching whales do whale things? Lol.

In all seriousness though, people make stories out of these, and could potentially affect the market depending on the amounts involved. People may hold off on buying or sell early when they anticipate a large amount being dropped, for example. That's probably not as relevant these days considering how much money it takes to move the market, but that can probably be attributed to old habits dying hard.

I don't think there are other options, really. Tor is ridiculously slow, and you're possibly safer using public wifi bare than using a free VPN.

Like bob123 said above though, SSL/TLS is implemented basically everywhere nowadays, so you shouldn't encounter problems even on public wifi if you're careful. I personally still always go with a VPN just for peace of mind though lol.

I'm not sure if that's entirely accurate. I don't really remember what he was up to then, but his infamous dick-eating prediction was made around July 2017, which was pre-$5k levels. I guess you could argue that Bitcoin was already in a massive upswing then, but at that point a lot of people were just waiting for the bubble to pop, so he at least didn't ride the wave at its peak.

He also absolutely had nothing to do with the all time high, but I imagine he brought quite a few people to Bitcoin -- I mean if scam ICOs are willing to pay him ~$100k for a tweet, then he probably has some influence in that area. I don't think his heel turn turned people away from Bitcoin either, so he could very well have been a net positive in the end, which is pretty funny to think about.


You should probably be pointing your fingers to the laws and justice system, not an agency which is just fulfilling its mandate. Even then though, did the SEC even have anything to do with this? If he was nabbed for tax evasion (which he brags about lmao), then doesn't that fall under the IRS?

Has it really been unusually stable? A quick look at the charts shows that it's been nothing unusual; the current price is just higher than past "stability" periods. I think most reasonable people wouldn't be surprised if the prices plunged and tanked suddenly. I mean, we were also stable in ~9k (and for longer than the current period) just a little more than two months ago.

That being said, I do agree that Bitcoin has "matured" in a sense that most people don't seem to think it's a bubble waiting to pop anymore. Its reputation has definitely matured, if nothing else; it has never been in a better spot in the eyes of the public.

Doesn't Paxful also require KYC though? I mean I guess you can go unverified, but you're going to be incredibly limited. They also keep your money for you, which isn't much different from centralized exchanges.

All that being said, the most likely reason people are using it is probably because they can get better rates than on centralized exchanges. P2P is better, but at the end of the day, trading on platforms like Paxful aren't truly P2P, because they act as 3rd parties.

The investor with $401k apparently wasn't able to convince the court that the hack was related to the data breach:


It seems to me that the exchange should be responsible, since the phishing attempts probably only worked because of the data breach, but I can see how that would be difficult to prove in court. I'm assuming the other two people are on the same boat. The last person, on the other hand, from a different article:


I don't really know what that means myself lol. I mean, isn't the point of phishing to gather more data about you using data they already have? Details are scant so we can't really make conclusions of our own, but if there's something to be taken out of this, it's that you shouldn't store large amounts in exchanges.

Gold has been doing fine though? I mean I guess supply lines were hit, but that shouldn't have too much effect on retail investors. Bitcoin has definitely done better YTD, but it's looking to me like the pandemic hasn't really given people much reason to sour on it.


Well not individually, but this is Chainanalysis, which is generally believed to know their stuff; I'm sure there are trends which led them to this conclusion. It's not hard to believe that the general market sentiment has improved this year either, after the shitstorm the global economy has gone through.

"Centralized" is being used incorrectly here. Kraken has always been 100% centralized, since it's a for-profit company that has a small group of people calling the shots. The same is true for basically every other crypto company out there.

The term you're looking for is probably "compliant", meaning they'll stick closer to guidelines laid out by regulators. That being said, I don't think there will be any noticeable changes on the consumers' end, since the large exchanges in the US are already compliant anyway.

Nah, unfortunately. This isn't the first time an incident like this has been exposed, and it won't be the last considering the slap on the wrist penalties on the parties involved. Give it a week and they'll act high and mighty again as people forget.

The fact of the matter is, banks do stop money laundering for majority of the population, but they've historically let big fish through. Whenever they talk about stopping money laundering, they're referring to us common folk, not the criminal empires they're in bed with.

Having add-ons like NoScript helps immensely for less technical people, just in case they trip up and click something suspicious by accident. It's not going to help against clone phishing sites (there are also add-ons for that though), but it should at least block most attempts to auto-download malware.

That being said, regardless of what protection you may have, it's still best not to risk potentially losing your crypto just for curiosity. If a stranger is trying to get you to click something, you're likely not going to want to see it anyway.