This is the same argument with anonymity on a thread I found yesterday, where there are 2 side to the coin. On one side, bitcoin mixers are able to provide us with a level of security and keep ourselves and our money safe, while they also provide the same option to people who do illegal and terrible.

Biggest problem though is that even though there is a small section of people that use crypto to launder their money, the most prominent and popular way of money laundering and illegal activity is still fiat currencies, so we are banning mixers for being a small part of the problem, as the governments screwing over the people using mixers for privacy reasons.

That's true, and it would be even worse for crypto if privacy coins where abolished.

A 0.5% fee in crypto exchanges is actually quite high, compared to exchanges like Kucoin and binance that offer really low fees (around 0.1-0.2%) that are all bigger and more popular, and charge lower fees.

Some people however, are forced to deal with expensive bank transactions. I personally care a lot about fees, and to send money overseas, I was forced to pay around a $120 fee for a $2,000 transaction, and even though I found cheaper options, they were around $40 still.

Having expensive fees in cryptos is never good, I'd personally recommend Kucoin instead, much cheaper fees and more coins and popularity. Never had issues with them regarding KYC, etc as well.

Anonymity obviously has good and bad things behind it, the good being able to protect your privacy and keep the things you want to be hidden, hidden, and the bad side is obviously the regulations and illegal things you can accomplish while being unknown.

Your argument is invalid though. Your saying due to some people who abuse the system, the entire system should be changed and stronger rules need to put in place.

The issue isn't anonymity, it's the companies and people that abuse the system and use it to accomplish bad, illegal things. Governments need to focus on shutting those people down, instead of changing the entire system.

There are a couple of options avaliable:

Centralized exchanges - such as Binance, Bittrex, Kucoin, Kraken, these ones are exchanges where you will usually need to verify your ID and then will be allowed to deposit fiat and buy BTC and other cryptocurrencies off.

Decentralized exchanges - an exchange where you will use your own funds and the exchange doesn't hold it, BISQ is the only one I can think of right now.

P2P marketplaces - these ones are platforms such as local bitcoins and paxful where you can find other people to buy BTC off

OTC options - this is where you can arrange a place to meet up and do cash trades, paxful offers this, but I'd recommend using your local marketplaces for this.

The websites are banning your IP addresses from the VPN's right? I'm pretty sure the VPNs have very similar/recognizable IP's and it allows any company who wants to, be easily able to those logins.

I wouldn't say it's that difficult to ban out spammers - it would be pretty easy to ban out a lot of the facebook spammers, a lot of them share the same IP because they share the same household, or use the same VPN's.

I agree. Signing messages per addresses are already a thing but there could be further alterations to prove one's online ID (not their actual KYC information though).

Said Germany before going through hyperinflation...

There is one big problem with printing more money to invest or buy more cryptocurrencies, or for that matter, doing anything with it - and it's inflation, which is when you print more money, the value of your money is even worthless and you can't just "print infinite money" that way.

The countries currency will instantly plummet and they will lose money before they will be able to get the money into exchanges to buy any cryptocurrencies.

I read the recently linked article - https://cointelegraph.com/news/thailand-govt-will-amend-aml-laws-to-regulate-cryptocurrency

I don't like Thailand's approach with cryptocurrencies, they seem to be way too restrictive with the new technology, and are also very short-sighted in assuming that cryptocurrencies are only used for money laundering, sure privacy coins might not be the most regulated type of crypto, but that doesn't mean you should be so strict with other coins.

It's pretty vague though, the article - might not actually mean a ban on cryptocurrencies and money laundering, we can't assume anything right now with nothing being official.

I disagree with this. For fiat payments, do you know exactly how the banks process the payments, or do you know how tap and pay machines function and take the money from your account?

Bitcoin works as a blockchain, and with the amount of easy to use wallets and unlimited choice, it is very easy to use BTC for payments - just scan a QR code or insert an address and enter an amount.

This has some truth to it to, I agree that some cryptocurrencies need to be easier to acquire, but it isn't fair to compare a new payment option to fiat currency.

Jesus. Another one bites the dust of rules and regulations then, it looks in the years that crypto is being recognized and more mainstream, governments and companies are often forced to be much more strict, especially when it's related to KYC and money laundering issues.

I believe they allowed businesses to operate without KYC, I personally did a couple of large transactions via their service provider and had no issues.

Have there been any actual rules made, or are they just jumping the gun here? I'm not fully familiar on money laundering rules, but I don't think they were this strict.

What are the available options then? Is this an issue with you not wanting/having 2FA options like using a phone number or other options, or is this bad design on Coinbase's side and not being able to add your details? If it's an issue with your number, go into settings and add it, I don't think you need to wait for prompts

Have you considered using other wallets as an option? From personal experience, Exodus is a great multi-cryptocurrency wallet for desktop and IOS, Samourai is great for android mobile wallets, and if you are picking an online wallet, Bread (BRD) and blockchain.info are also pretty good wallets.

Don't risk it, there are way too many cases of exchanges/wallets allowing you to send money and then the customer gets forced to send KYC to withdraw the money.

Agreed, Pretty sure IP banning is useless, especially if the government or countries do not enforce the rules they put in place. Most casinos/exchanges ban certain areas, but with the amount of free VPN's, it's very easy to avoid.

The biggest issue with these bans is that a fairly big portion of the company's revenue comes from people VPNing to use their service, so even they could easily ban these IP's that most VPN's direct to, why would they? It's extra profit for them.

Pretty sure they only add those sorta rules so they are no longer liable by the government, but they don't really enforce it, so it's just a waste of words.

They spend heaps on exchange security, I'm guessing way more then just millions with the best security and white hat hackers, but if black-net hackers try hard enough, there's always that one screw or button left exposed and when activated, makes the structure come crumbling down.

I would definitely say that this helped move the DEX up on the priority list, a DEX that doesn't hold user funds would that they would no longer be viable to hacks, information leaks, or anything...

I can't believe some of the telegram channels with the picture up... Not sure if it is truely FUD now, a lot of the photos look real and it'll either cost a hacker a lot of money to fake something like or it'll be real.

Yes and no, from my knowledge. I don't think BTC was invented to circumvent taxes, instead, it was a coin that was made to bring power to the people, and give them faster and more transparent transactions. Keep in mind, comparing BTC to wire transfer transactions is a hell of a lot faster, and that was one of the main issues that BTC was built to solve.

I don't think we'll get out of paying taxes any day soon. Taxes are always gonna be following us around.

No, I don't think that it at all, taxes often take up 20-40 percent of your income, while TX fees are a couple of cents, and basically nothing. I wouldn't look at TX fees in this way at all!

Jesus. Just read the article and I'm left in shock. Etherdelta has been going through so many issues, and I thought them paying off over 400,000 in fines would mean they would be much more careful with things - https://www.coindesk.com/sec-charges-etherdelta-founder-with-running-unregistered-securities-exchange

Although to be fair - it looks like the project was sold 2/3 months before the ICO started, seems like it was sold for the sole purpose of scamming investors with an ICO


Another once-respected DEX that I've personally used falls today - even though they weren't the best owners, regulations and rules are making it harder every day to run a DEX, and I feel like the only way to be safe, would be to never get it registered and associate your real ID to it.

I'm pretty sure it's been like that for a year now - most online wallet services require you to add a second device (phone), or add 2FA authentication to your bank account. It's not really a bad feature, really helps with security and allows you to recover your account with your phone or 2FA authentication if you ever lose it.

If you don't have a phone - you can google some PC 2FA authentication services, lastpass is a pretty good and I've used in the past.

No idea about TX fees, but the network isn't congested so you should be able to pay a pretty light fee.

Yeah, it's definitely a bit weird from the hedge funds, although most of the profit due to having so much capital gives you a leg up from other investments, so they usually get better opportunities.

It seems like BTC is invisible to these hedge funds when it is below 5,000 USD, which would usually be a great chance to buy, especially when you have a large amount of capital, and then after BTC does it's bull run and goes up to 12,000 the capital funds finally take notice of cryptocurrencies, they always seem to miss out.

BTC being more and more mainstream as an investment option is always good though, happy they are at least paying attention.

No, I don't think that's the case, previously during BTC's peak of 20,000, most people, no matter what the inputs were forced to pay transactions of minimum 50 dollars. Not really an issue of how many inputs, more of a problem with the congested network and the unaffordable BTC price.

Please don't compare BTC to BCH, or BSV. They are 3 completely different coins and they each have very different goals, BTC is to change the future of money and decentralization, and BCH and BSV be a centralized copy of the coins, fueled by maniacs.

Currently, with lightning network deployed though, we see little to no congestion with fees being healthy and affordable for everyone to use.

Of course. We see a huge increase in attention on Bitcoin, a lot of people are currently looking into and checking out cryptocurrencies, and it's all for a good reason - the technology behind it is pretty revolutionary.

Yeah, this is a shitpost. Look at any major country, company, anyone and you'll see advancements in their knowledge of cryptocurrency. 3 countries are now developing their own cryptos, multiple companies like mastercard are as well, and Bitcoin is extremely popular around people now.

Happy with it's current state. Not mainstream yet, but big enough to become mainstream in the future.

50% in bitcoin... Man has balls, I wonder how much money he holds in other cryptos and altcoins, I would estimate around 10%. The biggest and most important question would be, how much did he buy, and what price was the BTC bought? It'll be very interesting...

No, I don't think this is smart if it's a legitimate post. Look at the recent months and how volatile BTC has been going - no one wants to wake up and see 20% of their life savings gone down a drain, no matter how rich you are.

I'd like to see that as well, would be interesting.

As much as there is good intent behind this post, I don't think there is really a point - BTC isn't at a point right now where it is ready for mass adoption, as hard as that might be for us to admit. The lightning network was a really good addition and made making microtransactions a lot more viable and affordable, but we still aren't ready so far.

As much as I love BTC and hold some to this day, but I prefer holding it as excess money, instead of keeping everything into an unstable source of money, I prefer fiat!

Probably due to lack of demand, high TX fees and regulations.