Bitcoin's rule on countries with troubled economies is probably one of the best research topics for now. With the addition of Argentina on par with Venezuela having troubles with their own fiat currency, you will have a wider scope of study plus the fact that you can compare the two and establish a working hypothesis as to what can bitcoin actually do aside from being an asset for investment or a hedge against inflation.

$7-B volume of transactions per day is already a large number, but we all know that it's not purely linear transactions that are happening in the whole network. There are multiple cases in which coins are just condensed into different addresses for obfuscation yet always ends up into one single destination ultimately, and if they added that into the $7-B volume, it could ultimately be a lot lower than the actual volume of coins being transacted into the whole bitcoin network--but the figure already is a staggering one even if it boils to $2-$3B actual volume.

I'm doing this on some markets. If I happen to see that there isn't a buy order that goes with my plans, I'd easily snuck in a measly amount to transfer the crypto to a friend or to another account which I control. No confirmation times, fast movement of funds and works like a charm. Or it could be a bot that may have screwed up along the way insta-selling something and someone already has the buy order waiting.

That's why it's also handy to place buy orders on the lowest end of the market just in case.

Bitcointalk per se doesn't have any tech supports or working email for such issues. Instead, we have the Meta section to discuss forum-related issues concerning functionality, technicalities, bugs, glitches etc. I have encountered that same problem you're having just a day ago and I suggest you bookmark this link in order to bypass captcha logins the next time around:

https://bitcointalk.org/captcha_code.php

Note: you have to be logged in on your account first in order to get your one-time unique code for bypassing captcha logins in the future.

Link to the original thread discussing captcha login bypass (made by theymos, the admin himself): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5042674.0

From experience, I can say that being a minimum wage earner with benefits and insurance is way better than having to rely on cryptocurrency earnings. Back in the days, the money I've used to buy my first bitcoins came from my minimum wage job. I managed to allocate a hefty sum of that wage to buying bitcoins and got extremely lucky to have sold initially when bitcoin was priced @ $2900 a piece. I profited a lot, yet remained in the company for the next year until I decided to tend to my business and go to another job (which pays quite good). Crypto earnings are big but extremely unstable plus no security whatsoever, so yeah, you get the point.

Disputes usually take 24-48 hours only for review, and a user could expect a reply within a week. However for your case, this has already involved 3 different entities, and the seller should, out of good will, refund you the $100 immediately. I say escalate this further and wait for Paxful's reply. If the seller doesn't cooperate, request for the seller's account termination or suspension. If they are a high volume trader, they should be worried of what could happen to their account and possibly give in.

This might be true considering that they have been posing CNY to be the world's currency for some time now, and by allowing a large chunk of bitcoin created into their soil, which could then be converted into USD and placed into off-shore accounts, this is defeating their goal honestly. For quite a long time now, Chinese economy is still Sino-centric, and that is very evident with the recent moves they have pulled off to get their economy boosted and accelerated over everyone else.

You are aware that there aren't any legitimate and well-reviewed virtual cards available within Europe and the US, right? Also, $8 for a virtual card which doesn't specify the entirety of its craft is somewhat fishy.and raises red flags everywhere. Facebook verification is also a give away that this is something that needs to be avoided, because most legitimate virtual card providers don't ask for such.

Whenever I mention a service or a cryptocurrency on my post, I make sure that I put a disclaimer that I'm not associated with them in any way nor I have a part in their cause. This is to establish the fact that I'm not related to them and I'm not advertising them, and to make sure that once they snapped the exit scam card, I wouldn't get tagged and dragged into their shitstorm. I've seen a lot of services who I've used and mentioned here in the forum that did the same, and so in order to not get associated with them just because I mentioned them, I always place a disclaimer on my posts which include them.

From what I'm seeing, adoption would start from countries oppressed by the poor management and regulation of their governments and economies badly struck by hyperinflation (Venezuela and Argentina for starters.) Next would be countries who are very much open into accepting cryptocurrencies within their gates, helping merchants and consumers integrate bitcoin and cryptocurrencies within their business frameworks and model. It would be a domino effect from there once businesses saw that people are interested into using bitcoins and the governments are positive into getting the word out for the acceptance of the people.

Personally, I think the tech developed for on-chain analysis should only be used for law enforcement and prosecution and nothing else, because if it is used for personal and corporate activities, bitcoin's privacy may not be so private after all. Having said that, there's also a limit as to how well would this analysis tool be useful, and for sure people have already one-upped Ciphertrace by crafting strategies on how to mask themselves on the blockchain.

Slowly, we're drifting away from the ethos of bitcoin regarding privacy, and I think we ourselves were to blame since we wanted bitcoin to get legalized and be accepted in the whole world.

They are inching ever closer to the cryptospace, and while they are slowly creeping up to the space by means of VC funding, investors and institutionalists, they are still quite far away from the actual space and are just trying to test the waters by using indirect means of association with the actual market (futures market, etc.) Bakkt is one thing that's most sought after by the whole space, but even that is still far away from reality.

I remember Tim Draper encouraging the Argentinian president on accepting bitcoin and crypto-related institutions and services within the country to boos the economy of the nation. With the Peso continuing to slide further from an acceptable value, bitcoin seem to be a viable option for citizens to adopt and use within their daily transactions, just like what's happening in Venezuela right now. In cases like these, we can see how well bitcoin is useful since it can be used as a hedge on countries where economic instability remains rampant, and the national currency's value keeps on suffering for such events.

Luckily from the country I'm in currently, we have 4 exchanges all regulated and allowed by the government to operate at will, provided that they have proper SEC certification and have complied with the rules and regulations set for financial services. The government had been pretty much open for cryptocurrency services and cryptocurrency per se that they have released quite a handful of positive memos regarding the state of the said financial tools. There will come a time that governments would soon accept cryptocurrencies if most countries have already started accepting it within their own soil.

Well for someone like me waiting for the price to go sub-$3000, it's quite a shame since I've been longing to buy in bulk and hoping that I'll enlarge my profits once I've hit that price point. (Un)fortunately, price climbed up and I'm pretty much breakeven by now considering that I also bought in the $6000 levels thinking that that would be the lowest price point possible in this current cycle. Right now I'm hesitant in buying right now though I've been pondering about that since we reached $4700 2 weeks ago. Perhaps I'll wait for another breakout before releasing the trigger for new coins.

I can pretty much see it booming and being used in a majority of transactions whenever possible and just existing side-by-side with fiat and not literally revamping the whole financial system. Merchants would soon realize that cryptocurrencies are in fact a viable payment method and governments would have then created regulations and provisions for the betterment of the cryptomarket and its relations with e-Commerce and the financial markets as a whole. Though the future in my opinion is bright, I just couldn't see it (cryptocurrencies) being able to compete against fiat for financial services such as loans etc.

Third-party services can integrate such function on their own systems if they so do like. Personally, I find this as a useful tool since I'll be notified on the get-go whenever someone pays me, though I don't find it necessary for wallets to do this. AFAIK electrum does this everytime I am receiving something, and has never failed not even a single time to notify me that I have something coming in.

First stint in trading with real money was in the wee months of 2015 after having collected quite a handful of bitcoins through my monthly paycheck. After I have learned about pump and dumps (not advisable anymore) and crypto trading in general, I made quite a good return off of my initial capital and started local forex trading which, up to this day, I'm investing my money and my time to with crypto trading being benched in the mean time. With my trading endeavors and luck as well, I managed to create myself a business that gives me sure profit and returns albeit generating a measly profit stream, but hey it gives me something without breaking my back!

Best thing you can do is perhaps try your hand on trading simulators that offers people to use fake money on real-world markets just to feel and experience how it feels like trading on the bigger picture. Reading can only get you up to a certain point, while experience teaches you a lot and makes you a better trader because you already know how and when to react and certain market movements.

And it seems like some people on the futures market are gearing for another spectacular run for this year, though I'm still not convinced that that would be the case. The last time the futures market got involved in the mayhem was in 2017 where the price shot through the roof, until the massive sell-off come end of December throughout the whole year of 2018. I'm still quite wary as to where this market would lead, or whether we have entered yet another bullish cycle. Some markets are already reacting accordingly and market conditions are somewhat inclined towards the side of the bulls.

Oh well, one can only hope.

Buying the dip doesn't necessarily mean collecting profits in a flash. There are times that a dip takes a long time to recover from, and I think it's not a smart move to get your funds inside a highly speculative asset if you are short on cash and you can't take the risk. In the case of bitcoin however, buying the dip is, most of the time, a smart move given bitcoin's ability to bounce back no matter how sharp the decline was. But then again, one must still allocate funds correctly on investments and other personal matters in order to not get in a tight situation should the dip prolongs and falls further.