Processors as concierge or processors for machines? The t
OP seem to be vague, but I'd still give my thoughts on the two points I've given.

Payment processors, IMO, removes the decentralized and trust-less nature of bitcoin. While it helps vendors to not get caught in bitcoin's volatility, bitcoin loses its identity and essence just to save a few merchants from potential losses. In order to eliminate the need for payment processors and get more merchants on board, volatility must be eliminated, though that in itself is already a pretty hard tssk to acheive.

On the side of processors for mining, it's already accomplished by dedicated ASICs capable of doing complex algorithms for bitcoins in an impressive rate. Surely in time, more and more powerful, cost-efficient and greener processors might be released, thanks to our advancements in technology. We don't need to add more miners, we just need to decentralize them IMO.

Personally I think this is just natural growth coming into play. People need to learn that every event contains a reaction from the market, and it always goes both ways.  No one can ever stop people from making FUD or bad comments when prices are taking a beating. Also, I believe that through these, newbies will be able to discern what is FUD and what is fact by doing their own research on what's happening with the market. You can't forever protect someone on the harsh realities of truth, and they must see and experience it firsthand to become better traders and investors in the future.

Personally, having places to spend my cryptocurrency would be the best thing and might attract potential end-users of the said currency. Right now, there's little to no merchants involved with cryptocurrencies and avoid it as much as they can. The volatility of the coin scares most of the merchants, and no matter how successful the coin is speculation-wise, it's still lacking in fundamentals, and that's what project managers and services need to work on. Word is already out there regarding bitcoin's existence, together with rhe info of what it does and why is it revolutionary. People just need to apply these concepts firsthand and realize there's much more into it than just a new investment fad. We're in a paradoxical state where we want to progress but we keep on focusing our energies in speculation. If we could distribute the attention into some other field that needs more work, that would be great.

With the number of arbitrary predictions created at this very forum on a daily basis, I don't think the data gathered by the study holds weight and is not reliable. Sure, the analyzer would cherry-pick the words the researchers think is valuable in determining the actual price and place it in an algorithm, but at the end of the day it's just another study of guessworks translated to a pseudo-valuable research. Most of the time, predictions that come true are mere coincidences and not really because people knew that it was going to happen. The market always has the tendency to go against popular opinion, therefore making predictions inconsistent and an unreliable source of opinion for decision making and opening a position in the market.

For as long as these exchanges are correctly registered and jave complied to the requirements of their respective countries, it's all good. I don't see any reason why volume distribution acriss platforms is a bad thing. If anything, it contributes to the decentralization and further prevent a Gox 2.0 from happening, among other reasons. It is actually great that more of these exchanges pop up; I just hope that they are correctly registered so as not to have further complications which may affect people in the end.

It's amazing how predictions can turn out to be shocking especially if it goes against the current general sentiment of the market. All reasons have been given, yet there's hardly anything that came up with much substance, only guesses and nothing more. I'd be more interested in a prediction without bias but only facts on hand  but so far, none of them seem to satisfy me nor the criteria I'm looking at. South Korea and Japan are absolutely the biggest market movers in the recent rise, but for reasons unknown.

Get yourself registered in an exchange and check from there. Your 'very small amount' also matters, considering that buying bitcoin from an exchange and transferring it to a crypto-exchange requires fees to do the transfers. It might be not worthwhile to invest it or buy immediately but considering that you already read things about how it works, a small play money won't hurt to test the actual market. Remember though, there's a high possibility that you'll be throwing your money down the drain so always be ready for that certain scenario.

The whole US government right now is a shit show, with Trump spearheading the nonsense with his lousy acts of manliness against China. His administration is somewhat realizing that the man sitting on the president's seat is nothing but a joke. I'm not even surprised that the Senate and the House of Representatives came up with a bill that negates the trade tariff on several items. They may be protecting their best interests at heart, knowing that the president is already doing it and their just saving themselves from an utter destruction. China can go along and receive this tariffs and just target their exports elsewhere other than the US. But let's face it, the US needs China more than  China needs the US (consumer electronics and labor, lol) so if Trump will still be stiff regarding his stance on this matter, idk what will happen to America if the Chinese did the same thing.

97% positive comments is already a good indication that a positive ruling will come out and the ETF will be approved. However, do remember that 3% is still a probability we cannot disregard and that small of a percentage, most of the time in this type of environment, leads us to disappointments. No matter how 'positive' a ruling/decision seems to be, if it is already priced in, it will still go against what everyone assumes it to be. We definitely need to get that ETF approved for a nice boost in price, and perhaps CBOE would deliver after the Winklevoss ETF is already out of the picture.

The Winklevoss' twins ETF were already rejected by the SEC due to bitcoin's price being volatile thus potentially affecting the outcome of any trades/transactions concerning the ETF. What I'd like to know is how would CBOE propose their ETF to the SEC, knowing that it is possible that the latter will use the same reason in declining the ETF to the former with no remorse. After all, they're essentially the same to the core, so what would CBOE could do or 'say' to appease SEC by any means? I'm already expecting a turn-down but we'll see how things would pan out.

While the idea in itself is great, I don't think that this will gain much attention knowing that a large percent of people has since moved to internet for their entertainment needs and only a few, non tech-savvy people are staying in their couch browsing through the channels of TV for a few hours a day. Most of these people are the ones who are too old to understand what bitcoin is or why is it even existing. Overall though, this is still publicity to get the word out, and we all know how curiosity changes one's POV on a subject.

In a market that's free and large, it would be near-impossible to prevent market manipulation no matter how governments team up to stop it. There will always be exchanges that will allow these to happen in exchange of money, and the government wouldn't know that even if they probe and sniff around the exchange's operation as long as someone won't spill the beans. This is to be expected on ETFs: SEC would deny it because of the price volatility without further explanations, no fucks given and no reconsideration at all. I just hope that the next proposals in line would get through the SEC and spell victory for us all, but given the reason by which the SEC bases its decision, it might be too far-fetched to get one going within this year.

While he stated valid points, I'd still choose bitcoin over a centralized cryptocurrency any day, no matter how much development the latter got over the course of years. What's disheartening about bitcoin is that devs is that they aren't actively making any developments about making bitcoin a viable currency because rhey feel that there isn't a need to improve the specifications of bitcoin. If it works, why modify it? That kind of mentality separates bitcoin from being a successful currency from a successful investment vehicle.

a. Bitcoin's decentralization is often a great edge considering that intermediaries are removed and you don't need to trust anyone to handle your money for you, just miners processing your transactions just to get your payment going around the network. While this sounds easy, many people are still overwhelmed by bitcoin's decentralized nature for clinging too much on fiat for the most part of their lives.
b. I don't think so. Central Banks of different nations are trying to regulate bitcoin as hard as they could, with some countries (India and Iran) going to the extremes by prohibiting banks from meddling with bitcoin-related transactions.


1. Not really government's trust but rather the public's trust to the government. People believe the government too much and so the government can just create money literally out of nowhere and convince people that it's actually worth something. Not even backed by gold in this day and age.
2. As franky1 has pointed out, perhaps you could count the miners' machines and infrastructures as the ones backing bitcoin up, having its intrinsic value tied with it.
3. Is 21-M an 'arbitrary' number if it's stated in the whitepaper? Bitcoin is divisible into smaller units, so I don't think there'd be a problem in there.
4. While this is true, fiat is in a way, an unreliable store of value prone to hyperinflation if a country's economy goes insane (Zimbabwe and Venezuela are fine examples) and is beyond repair.

As a national currency, bitcoin would perform poorly, being a currency with a limited amount and with no chance of being controlled fully by any governments. Due to this, the government can't create new bitcoins out of thin air to satisfy the economic needs of their country. While performing poorly as a national currency, it can still excel as an independent one due to it transcending borders without having the need to trade to your local fiat every time you need to make a purchase.

Though most of these coins in the top 10 have a great community backing it up, the ability to bounce back higher after a great deficit is what separates bitcoin from most cryptocoins. Also, a lot of deep pockets and influential people are getting their hands wet on this market, so it gives us a wider audience for the coin and a huge number of traders participating, possibly eliminating the control of the whales in the process. Also, it's recognized and regulated in a lot of countries already, which gives enough confidence to the end-users to not get fucked up by exchanges in case they wanted to go Mintpal or Mt. Gox for profits.

It just goes to show that the main trading activity right now isn't only confined in the West unlike a few years ago, with the East contributing to these rises significantly than their Western pals. Also, the volume recorded @ CME just shows us that even institutional investors are trying to gauge the market and see whether a confined futures trading be sufficient to affect the cryptomarkets. The market is not limited to a few traders anymore and more and more people are wanting a piece of the cake. Trading volumes suggest that the market is booming albeit in a slow and steady approach. Hopefully this continues and not just an overnight show of dominance, which usually happens if the bulls can't sustain the pressure from people trying to cash out.

Politics on this day has always been dirty, and no matter what form of money are we talking about, dirty politicians will accept it for their personal gains, be it bitcoin or any other assets. There's no hope cleaning this world from dirty politics, as most people running for public offices have always the intention to take the office and use its power for their best interests, not the public's. Perhaps I'll never see the day that public offices will be used for the general good of the public and not just one party or family.

According to the article, the Iranians were circumventing some form of sanctions imposed by the US. Anyone circumventing the law/sanctions are deemed to face any legal implications of their doing. If this is indeed true, we don't know what sanctions did the Iranians circumvent, or broken for the US government to seize their assets. Well if these Iranians are operating under the US soil, they could face charges aside from the confiscation, but apparently they aren't and the trouble they are getting right now is how would they get it back, knowing that the Central Bank of Iran has banned banks and financial institutions from catering cryptp-related transactions and services.

It still depends largely on what would the market reaction be. While most people are banking on the bitcoin ETF to be approved, without enough support on a possible push, it wouldn't be an increase at all. Most people see the approval of an ETF to be somewhat magical, while in reality if a large group of traders aren't believing on the effects of such, there would be a stalemate and no real crashes or increase at all. As you've said, it's pure speculation, and even with the approval of a 'big' event, what happens in the price will still be pure speculation, so assuming that it will definitely increase is somewhat wrong.

I don't really believe in such predictions, primarily if there's absurd figures with the main prediction. If it's too good to be true, I pass it up. But when there's concrete facts backing up the prediction, no matter how absurd the claims are, I'll take a look and use the facts as reference/basis on what my next move will be. I don't straight up believe in these predictions but only the underlying reason as to why the person who made it come up to such a conclusion. Most of the time it works, and definitely a good way to draw a line on how would you trade in the market.