I don't think there would be another cryptocurrency that will be as successful as bitcoin or come anywhere near it. ETH proved to be a worthy coin but not enough to challenge bitcoin in supremacy. Perhaps in another asset class, there would be one ending in a fate similar to bitcoin's. It's just so hard to pick what coin is gonna make it big along the piles of trash in the cryptomarket. Some seem to be legitimate only to be pumped and dumped hard. Personally, I'd stay away from investing deeper into obscure names in the cryptomarket and stick with the established ones, particularly ETH.

If you're asking why bitcoin is placed as the top currency, the reasons are pretty obvious: it's because it is the first cryptocurrency ever traded with real money and its price on the market. Most cryptotraders are banking on bitcoin due to these reasons, with (sadly) its technological implications and flexibility trailing behind the price. You can also factor in the amount of money invested in infrastructures surrounding bitcoin, mainly the mining scene. Due to this, people who are knee-deep on their involvement wouldn't want to get their leverage and advantage on investments be turned to nothing. I'm sure there are a lot more reasons why people choose bitcoin over any other cryptocurrency, but these, I think, are the most probable reasons why they stick with it through the highs and the lows.

That was some time between September and August IIRC, and even though the ETF wasn't approved, the latter part of 2017 was still a huge success for bitcoin given that we just established a new ATH before the fall. Methinks that suspending the decision about the ETF would build up anticipation and be convoluted with speculation, only to be rejected once more leaving the market in a frail state prone to crashes. If we were to follow the footsteps of 2017, I'm expecting that we might reach higher highs come Q3-Q4 of 2018, or let the price slowly climb to a decent baseline and take off in 2019.

My biggest expectation on cryptocurrencies is that I'd be able to use them directly without the need to convert to fiat. Clearly this isn't really a part where crypto is to blame, but seeing how volatile the prices are, merchants are half-heartedly accepting the suggestions of people ot accept crypto as a payment option only to stop it after a short while. I'm still hoping that crypto would be usable in most shops though due to the convenience it offers.

It doesn't necessarily leads to that. People who doesn't have the means to move a market, no matter how greedy they are, they can't and won't be able to manipulate anything on that particular coin. If ever, greediness often leads to losses, as was evidenced by the previous bull run when everyone thought bitcoin's price would still climb higher than $19k. I've seen a lot of people hoarding loads of newly-created coins to hit the exchange only to be greeted by disappointment due to greediness.

I'm thinking along the same line. Perhaps the technology of dual booting available to PCs can be embedded into smartphones for the sole purpose of having the wallet secured from attacks and whatnot. While it's not feasible for most phone manufacturers, this will be a head-turner and a possible innovation for future smartphones that can act as a general communicating tool/device and another, distinct purpose aside from the conventional use of it.



Having the phone stolen or lost will be negligence on the end-user's part, so that I think will be inevitable and uncontrollable, but I'm pretty sure no one in their sane minds would want to have their phones stolen so they would definitely keep it safe. As for the last passage/statement, I'd say this should be optional, with a biometric authentication needed in order to spend more than a designated 'default' limit by the wallet. It is possible in today's day and age. If they were able to create useless apps, I'm pretty sure they can create something important for people and enthusiasts too.

! million tps isn't achievable even within the next few years. Perhaps that would be the operating limit of the LN and if so, it would be impressive if they would be able to showcase that by flooding the market and deploying it through LN. While that may not achieve anything for adoption and whatnot, it still goes to show how far this technology can go if sufficient support from the involved parties is received. I wonder if we'll even reach 30-50k tps sooner since most people only use bitcoin for speculation and literally nothing else.

Prolonging the decision opens more room for speculation, market movement, analysis etc., only for the ETF to be turned down again and cause the build up of the price to end in a grimly manner. While I like that they are trying to get some more time to think and reconsider all things that an ETF might bring, I'm quite anxious as to whether they'll really approve it or not. We've been through several ETF talks and none of them really materialized, so it might be the same scenario, just prolonging the anticipation of people and make the deep pockets profit from the hype.

While the overall general sentiment towards bitcoin have been very positive lately, I still don't think it's already a major trend reversal, seeing that this similar rise happened a few months ago, for two times already. While this may give us a glimmer of hope, it's still not enough to call it a strong reversal. Buying pressure has since subsided and the price is currently trading between $8100-$8300 which, I think is still not that bad but also not enough to signify a new trend being born. I'd say hold on to your pockets before buying, but any price is a good buy if you're in for the long term.

IMO, bitcoin dominance is nothing but an unnecessary statistic since we all know that in time, people would always revert back to bitcoin after the profits in other alts have been reaped. As the first known cryptocurrency that is publicly traded and hit the exchanges, people will always be comfortable in having their money invested in bitcoin no matter how bad the previous runs have been since they know bitcoin always recovers. It's already a given fact in the world of cryptocurrencies, and even though we try to twist the words, bitcoin dominance, even without the term, will always be there no matter what. Money in the crypto-economy only revolves around with a few fresh money coming in day by day, so it's somewhat irrelevant to keep track of this so-called 'dominance'.

I'd stick with local stocks and real estate if I were to ask. Currently, real estate back in my country is booming, with several developers making the large buck while a huge percentage of assets tend to lag behind (stocks, gold etc.) Also, with people's need of livable space and comfortable home, you can never go wrong on investing with real estate, not unless if your broker/developer is really shite. As for stocks, there will always be top performers for local stocks and be sure to get some dollars on their way. I've been invested into a certain company which I won't name for the past 3 years, and have net me quite a good income so far. Bitcoin is in fact a viable and clever investment if the user him/herself if capable of trading and is not that dumb when it comes to forex.

I don't think so. Most people are banking on G20 summits but in all honestly, there were only talks but no formal advancement towards the state of cryptocurrencies and its regulations. Also, the movement happened way before the G20 summit started, and it seems obvious that this will not cause any major effect on the prices seeing how the previous G20 summits didn't do anything to bitcoin's state. What happened was purely speculation, traders trying to create some form of signal in order to start a bullish movement.

Typically in these kind of movements, the money is just flowing towards bitcoin while the rest of the market are just held on stand-by. Surely, knowing that the biggest market share of the whole crypto-economy is on a big and rapid movement, they wouldn't want to miss any action, hence the sell-off into some of the coins while bitcoin continues to grow. If the trend is confirmed, the other alts would, for a while be disregarded while everyone is relentlessly throwing their money at the biggest market mover, thus creating this slump on other coins while maintaining the pace for bitcoin, the biggest market mover.

I hope so. Most of these efforts and display of force oftentimes are just talks and no official events are materializing out of what they're doing. I believe that we already have institutional investors on our side, it's just that their influence aren't that intricately seen considering that the market is taking a slouch and most people are believing that bitcoin's over after the blow-off from the top. To make things happen, real and sincere efforts should take place, not just petty talks and media sensationalism.

i can't quite understand what you're trying to say, but in reality, bitcoin isn't backed by anything, so are the national currencies of different countries except that the latter are backed by their government (protection, aid, projects etc.). In the case of bitcoin - cash conversion, both parties simply 'believe' that both are valuable, or of the same value without having to think that either is backed by anything. The buyer agrees that it is worth X in cash so they make the trade and that's it. The seller receiving the cash after the transaction don't necessarily mean that bitcoin is backed by cash. A trade happened between two parties and that's pretty much it.

For a permabull, they don't really change the pace of their optimism towards the market. They just become discreet on their projections and predictions whenever the prices are taking a beating. Three times have I read an article claiming that these bulls think that $6k was the 'absolute bottom' only to get the market lower and mark its territory @ $5700 for some time. As the saying goes, a broken clock is right twice a day, so in a multitude of predictions these guys are doing, a few of them 'by chance' hits the spot. If the ETF is called off or not approved, I guess we won't be looking for some crispy gains until next year.

I don't think people hoarding bitcoin would create a negative effect on the crypto-economy, not unless a whole nation is depending on it. Cash is different from bitcoin; no single nation uses bitcoin as its only means of payment/currency and as such, cannot be treated and analyzed in the same way. Hoarding cash, on the other hand, creates a 'shortage' in circulating supply, sometimes forcing the central bank to create more money, resulting in inflation and, if the formula for destruction is correctly mixed, recession. Bitcoin hoarding on the other hand is a way for people to create profit, seeing that bitcoin is treated as an asset rather than a payment system currently. There are a lot of recipes and ingredients for a recession to occur, hoarding might be one of them but not necessarily the 'key ingredient' of the said event.

There are a lot of repositories and sources for knowledge but still, people don't want to take second opinion and check sources. I admit, almost 5 years on this forum and I know little about bitcoin's technicalities, but whenever I'm posed a question about any of it, I try my best to check legitimate sources and not mislead people. Sometimes, cognitive dissonance reigns supreme for most people even though it's easy to go look it up on the internet in today's age. People lose money, not because they don't know anything about a certain investment, but because they are lazy to know anything about it.

Isn't that the main reason why people try to make technological innovations and advancements? Personally, I think that the end game here is that companies would start to invest more on technology since it's a one-time big time investment that they have to make which will make them rake profits for years whereas people would just have to look for other jobs elsewhere (agriculture would be nice). No matter how hard we campaign against it, they'd still reduce the number of human workers and replace them with more efficient, cost-effective robots that could do the job much better than a human can. It's business, and sadly, it's a part of our constant and endless pursuit of innovation.

I beg to differ. While market capitalization per se doesn't do much at all, it gives us some insight on the aggregate of how much money is in a certain market. 2013's conditions, and money available to the whole crypto-economy isn't the same as 2017 and 2018, so there literally has an influx of new money that came in the market and not just capital shifting from one coin to another. Right now it could be the case, but everyday, new money is flowing in the cryptomarkets albeit hardly unnoticed. You can't say that small, newbie buys aren't new money flowing as it still contributes on the overall number, just somewhat not a head-turner like large deposits/balances being poured as we define it.