Let's consider this :

Governments cannot stop Bitcoin by stopping the technology, but they can kill the interest that people have in buying bitcoins. Could governments with the help of Banks, be behind this falling price?

Last year we saw a huge increase in the price and I was thinking that it could have been a collective buying strategy by Banks to buy a lot of coins for a synchronized dump in 2018.  

If the Banks bought a lot of coins last year at the beginning of the spike from $1000 and they triggered a buying frenzy, then most of the more expensive coins would have been bought by the public. So they might just have bought coins to trick other investors into buying more coins.

So what is their goal? Their goal will be to break the demand for Crypto currencies and Bitcoin, by gradually dumping the cheap coins that they bought at the start of last year and pushing the price down. <Like what is happening now>

They know investors will have bought at the higher end, say $10 000 to $19000 and these people would probably have lost money, when they started dumping in 2018. They saw that "demand" for Crypto currencies increased, when there is a constant increase in the price and they are now creating a constant decrease in the price to break people's confidence in the technology and also the demand for the coins.

They will obviously use untraceable methods to do this, because the Banks are helping to hide the origin of this money.   They can only print a few Billions more to execute this strategy and this will go unnoticed, because it is toilet paper money.  

This is the only logical reason why we are seeing a constant decrease in the price, in spite of all the good progress that we have made. It also explains the large spike in the price in 2017.

Hodl on guys and gals, do not be tricked by these cheap tactics. <If this is true>    

What do you think about the move from Blockchain.info to Blockchain.com? https://blog.blockchain.com/2018/06/19/blockchain-infos-moving-domains/

We have been so used to Blockchain.info for years now, so I think it will be very strange to type in Blockchain.com when they move to the
new domain. <getting nostalgic now> 

I hope they make sure that they market this very well, because people might think this is a phishing attempt, with the new interface and all.

Well, to the team.. Good luck with the move. 

The thing that concerns me more is the fact that $2.55 billion is being kept in a corrupt Banking system and that the government can shutdown this in a blink of an eye. This is where Bitcoin is significantly better, because no centralized authority have control over your money and it is not backed by government controlled entities. 

I think a full audit would comfort a lot of investors, but for now this is a good start. Let's rather call this a spot check. 

Your timing for this is perfect with all the social media platforms banning Crypto currency advertisements. If this takes off, will you be able to do this full-time or are you going to sell or outsource the work that has to be done?

A lot of these projects start out as part-time hobbies and then it turns into passive income and the work just gets harder. You will also have to beef up the marketing, because people want good site analytics and hits. Do you have some site statistics now?  <Unique visitors / region?>

This is where the different strategies come in. You do not have to store your coins in online wallets. There are many cold storage alternatives for permanent long-term storage, like Paper wallets and Hardware wallets.

Everyone is walking around with a small percentage of their total Bank account in their pockets <in cash> and the same thing will happen with Bitcoin users. You only deposit a small percentage of your total bitcoins into a online wallet, linked to your phone for daily use and the rest will be stored in cold storage in another secret location.

Yes, criminals might target home users, but these people can hide their paper wallets and cold storage in other secure places. They can even leave fake paper wallets for events like this. <Giving a robber a paper wallet that only contains 1% of their whole hoard> How will the robber know how much bitcoins you have?

Correct me if I am wrong, but I have never heard of any terrorist attack in Japan?  These types of excuses is pathetic. 

Where was the price one year ago? It was $2710 and a year later the price is $6100. <More than double the price> So why are everyone panicking like this?

Stop looking for excuses and start working together to make Bitcoin bigger and better than last year. 

Well, one thing that is lacking is the fact that exchanges will not sign any Bitcoin address for you as proof that you own that Bitcoin address. So when someone ask you to sign an address for some reason, then you will be unable to do that.

The other thing is that exchanges own all coins deposited to them, because they own the private keys to all addresses where coins are deposited. When there is a hard fork, people will only receive free coins linked to these addresses, if the exchange makes the decision to pay that to the users. <Then you have to wait for them to do that and they might do that when the price is low> 

Go read Satoshi's Whitepaper, because I think you missed some of the core ideas behind this technology. Satoshi saw a problem where current financial payment systems were based on trusting centralized third parties. <Banks / PayPal etc.> He wanted to provide a alternative to these types of payment systems, because he saw the flaws in these systems.

He solved some of the problems that are associated with these payment systems, like non-reversible transactions and biased mediating of disputes by centralized authorities.

Bitcoin was never meant to be a replacement, but rather a alternative solution to a payment system with problems. If it was the perfect solution, then people would migrate to it naturally.  

So if you are so smart, come up with a alternative method to stop people from being killed, whilst cash is moved from one point to the next or when you have to deal with it on your premises.

I can manage my risk with very innovative thinking and problem solving, but you just accept the risk and have the balls to criticize other people who want to change the world with new ideas? <Most people do not worry about this, because they are not directly affected. These guys die protecting other people's wealth> 

A Cashless society is inevitable, because technology will replace Fiat currencies soon. <Most first world countries are already using mostly debit and credit cards for payment>

Bitcoin can help to fast track that process to a cashless world. Cash is not environment friendly and it is expensive and also not practical, like bitcoins or crypto currencies.


Do you know how silly you sound now? I never said that cops and governments are forcing anyone to give up their money.   I say, the fact that we are forced to use cash, because it is our reserve currency, makes attacks like this so much easier, because large amounts of cash in transit is a bigger target for these criminals.

Do not comment on things, if you cannot grasp the basic concept of the discussion, because that makes you sound silly.  

Your chances to win the lottery increase when you buy more tickets for a specific draw, not by buying a small amount of tickets more regularly. A lot of people buy say $5 worth of lottery tickets every week, but they have not won the lottery yet. The guy that bought $10 000 worth of tickets stand a better chance of winning, because he has a bigger share of the tickets for that draw.

I would rather spend more money once and stand a better chance in one draw, than spending small amounts on multiple draws. You are either lucky or not, no matter how you do it.  

Timing the best draw, will depend on the total tickets that is entered into that draw. Week 200 might have 20 000 000 tickets and Week 210 might have 10 000 000 tickets, so your tickets will have a better chance in a draw with less tickets. You can only time that, right before the draw is done. 

I disagree. The current financial system encourage robberies of this kind. When your system create large cash reserves and a carrot for these criminals, then you are part of the problem.

We will never get rid of these criminals, but we can reduce the size of the carrot. The practical use cases that I mentioned, will reduce the risk and the losses.

Debit cards and credit cards are still a problem, because it gives these criminals access to your whole Bank balance or even money that you do not own. You can manage that risk better, if you only transfer small quantities of coins to "live" wallets, when you go to the shops.  

China is one of the countries that are fighting to control capital flight and Bitcoin is one of the methods that are being used to circumvent just that. If you live in a oppressive regime and your government have full control over your wealth, then you are trapped within that country.

Bitcoin is borderless and regulation can only target centralized services that adhere to their rules and regulations.   No, government can stop direct bitcoin transfers from one Bitcoin address to another.  

Again, I disagree. Some perverts  like to see specific things. The professional model or amateur might have posted a bunch of photos on the internet, but this pervert wants a specific pose or setting.

Let's say you are into bondage for instance and you want the model to pose with a horse whip, then that posed photo will cost you extra to view it. 

The person requesting the photo, will then have to wipe the pixels to get to the content that he or she likes at a additional cost.

I think this is a brilliant idea. 

Agreed, but adoption of Bitcoin will reduce "Cash" on your premises and this will reduce cash transports. If you were a robber and you had to chose a target between a merchant that are cash only and another merchant that has a "Bitcoin accepted here" sticker in the window, which one will you target?

The goal is to eventually get rid of cash, but for now, the reduction of the use of cash will be our first step towards a cashless financial system.  

It is even more practical and safe for the consumer, because a stolen debit card & pin or credit card will destroy your Bank balance and even place you in a situation where your credit card balance is maxed out. When you use Bitcoin, you can deposit a small amount into your phone for the day and only that can be stolen, when a robber gets hold of your phone.  

The rest of your bitcoins can be stored in cold storage or paper wallets in another safe location or hardware device.  

What does it mean to “freeze” an address in Electrum?

When you freeze an address, the funds in that address will not be used for sending bitcoins. You cannot send bitcoins if you don’t have enough funds in the non-frozen addresses.

Sourced from : http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html

It was also discussed here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1821975.0  <If you want to know, why people want that option.>

Is there a way that this program can be changed to query every private key to see if it contains any bitcoins, instead of targeting specific predefined private keys?

I think the probability to find a private key that contains some coins are more likely than brute forcing a specific private key?

Looking at the odds, it might be easier to just save up the electricity cost to do this over years, than having enough luck to get 1 private key that contains some coins. 

A friend of mine in South Africa phoned me yesterday and informed me that another person died yesterday in a cash-in-transit heist. These robberies have increase significantly in the last couple of months. See link below :   

https://businesstech.co.za/news/banking/246259/there-have-been-135-cash-in-transit-incidents-already-in-2018/



This got me thinking, Why do security guards and cops and sometimes even civilians have to die for other people's cash?

The current Fiat system increase the probability that people have to die, because cash have to be moved from one location to the next and merchants need to have cash on site for their business.

How many clerks working at merchant locations have to die for their owners cash? <7Eleven / Corner shop / Malls>

Bitcoin can reduce this today!

The adoption of Bitcoin remove the need for cash on location, so the robbers have no need to hurt or kill people to get to the cash. The bitcoins received can be deposited directly into a Bitcoin address at a safe location or at a third party payment processor and transferred electronically to your Bank, if you want to convert to fiat.

The employee or clerk working at your shop cannot steal your money or be in danger, because he or she does not have physical access to the money/bitcoins and this money does not need to be transported, so the security guards are not needed.

Let's increase Bitcoin adoption today, and save lives!

I enjoyed it, when it still had a faucet. I used to re-direct all my newbie Bitcoin adopters to that site to get their first taste of Bitcoin gambling and the faucet was just a free tester of what they could expect. A lot of them enjoyed the game so much, that they deposited their own money and started gambling there.

I was not aware of the EthCrash clones, so I will have a look at that, but I will not promote them, because I am a Bitcoin supporter. 
 

I think the secret to your success is your cautious entry after 2 to 3 weeks of casual browsing and reading the forum. A lot of newbies stumble onto this site, because people might have told them that this site is a gold mine of opportunities to get rich quickly and then they start spamming the forum to rank up, to enable them to get to that money.

If you only joined this forum for the money, then you would probably fail very early on in your journey. The big reward is actually the wealth of information on Crypto currencies that are centralized in one place. The monetary reward is a added bonus for the time and effort that you spend to improve this platform for other people. 

Regulations should only be used to prevent or stabilize a "Wild West" scenario. Let's take the ICO scene as an example. A scammer with full anonymity can quickly create a White paper for his project, from some fake concept and then start a token sale and run with the money, as soon as he reached his goals.

There is no regulating body to determine who are behind these projects and how legitimate these projects are, before they go public.

This is the typical, "Wild West" scenario and the government are the new Sherriff in town, to protect the citizens and to prosecute the criminal elements in the community. <enter the SEC in the USA>