Some countries are already considering the idea of a state-issued cryptocurrency, so no matter how much we loved our dear fiat, we will inevitably move towards a crypto future. The reason I see why people use this is because the government tells them to do so, even without the backing of gold or any other significant reason or catalyst, people will follow because they'll believe that it's the best thing. Most people won't care about whether the currency they're using is open or closed-source; as long as they can use it, they will.

Even big companies and industry leaders have expressed their opinions regarding the 'blockchain' alone and not cryptocurrency. Perhaps it could spark yet another industrial revolution but one all I can say is a digital currency future and blockchain-integrated systems will be a huge part of our society in the future.

The men seated in such positions are the ones used by these giant corporations for their schemes. I wouldn't be surprised if a politician is used to throw rocks at bitcoin for literally no reason at all, just to make it look bad to the public and buy the idea that they are the good guys protecting people from the utter failure bitcoin is. This type of activities will continue as long as bitcoin delivers and proves that it's a worthy asset that people can use with little compromises. People will always be able to find what's best for their needs, so no matter how much mud-slinging these guys do, bitcoin will still thrive.

No. Lightning Network is a 3rd-party off-chain scaling solution proposed to alleviate the burden of transactions on the main chain and doesn't have something to do with other cryptocurrencies. It is said that LN will provide an efficient, secure and cost-effective solution to the growing number of transactions the bitcoin network is facing everyday. Needless to say, it does not meddle with other cryptocurrencies since it's an isolated blockchain channel from other blockchain systems.

I don't see how Google is violating any laws or regulations and I can't seem to find any illegal practices apart from them spying on people specially with the ads. Android is Google's creation, and we all know that a lot of services for Android requires Google's services. If not for these services, how would an average consumer find an Android smartphone's worth? Though I agree that there are bloatwares and unnecessary bullshit embedded on a fresh phone but these bloatwares can be disabled by the end-user if they so do wish. Heck, if Google is an unfair competitor, why would they even allow free, useful apps on the Playstore if they just want to shove their apps in the consumers' asses?

This is somewhat a nonsense fine; they should focus more on the spying and data mining part rather than the apps that comes with a new handheld device.

If ever the world is to shift to cryptocurrencies, I for one thinks that this is not the end of the banks. State-issued cryptocurrencies will still be regulated, manned, and controlled closely by banks and if anything, they can do things easier and quite effortlessly since they only need to change some figures in the code and voila! Magic internet money is created out of thin air, a few clicks and a few inputs! Banks would be the kings of a centralized cryptocurrency, just like what they are already doing in the realms of a fiat-powered world today.

The way I see it, bitcoin will have a huge impact on other cryptocurrencies if it were to largely decline. Most crypto on the list only follows the trend of bitcoin; some may deviate a little but still always find the tail of bitcoin and follow it. ETH can be its mighty predecessor, seeing how most coins are now ETH-based or are introduced through ICOs. Crypto-economy might still thrive, but the future for it might be short-lived since most people are only banking on bitcoin and not on other coins.

It will be good if the site will be upfront in saying that they use a system that momentarily uses our computing power whenever we're on their site in replacement for annoying ads that usually take up much of the space of the website UI. Unfortunately, most of these websites inject these malware into our systems without even telling us about it. I had an issue once that an 'unknown process' is eating up 97% of my GPU's performance for 30 minutes, on idle mode. Turns out it was a mining software embedded in one of the files I needed for a USB microscope (lol beware guys). From then on, I always check sources, see what's in the package before I install anything on my machine.

As someone who had been trading with different coins for years now, all I can say is there's no definite way of telling the bottom, but it's wise to not buy immediately after a new ATH has been popped since it still has a tendency to go downhill. Wait for the second wave of crashes before choosing whether to buy or not to buy. If the price stagnates for more than a week, that tells you that no further shakeouts or pushes will happen immediately, and gives you a decent window of turning a profit by stockpiling the coins. Usually after a high has crashed, the market is shaky, and getting 5-10% in profit is already something to be thankful at. One thing is to not be greedy when this time comes, and bail out immediately if you already got 20-30% profit. Buy low and sell high is still the principle, but waiting for the price to be higher when you already have more than enough profit is risky and outright dumb.

Can't blame other people for not doing anything in the recent slump. It's already 3 times since this similar event happened, touching $6k, bouncing back a bit, then go on to yet another descend. Surely for other people, another similar scenario isn't possible and everyone thought that once $6k is broken, it's already the end for bitcoin which in this instance isn't true. Idk the real reason as to why all of a sudden bitcoin jumped $1200 in just 1-2 days but it seems to be that it might replicate the events of the 'double-bottom' which happened between Feb and May. Another rise is imminent, and I expect yet another climb back to $6k after profits are taken.

Yes, though by a small fraction. Most of the world's trades are still done and completed in fiat. Given that there aren't that much merchants involved in the ecosystem, it'll be hard to keep tabs on the overall trades done with bitcoin unless it's high-valued and highly publicized. Bitcoin is supposed to be used as an efficient currency capable of being sent and received even across borders, so it will be safe to assume that trades from across countries are happening day-to-day, just not that noticeable compared to what fiat has been making for several decades.

As for the case of cryptocurrencies, it has done good more than harm to most countries. Regulations help people and investors acknowledge a certain investment and attract the average Joes into trying it out. Also, it steers fraudsters and wrongdoers from using cryptocurrencies as a vehicle for their schemes since they know for a fact that cryptos aren't an uncharted territory anymore. However, too much control leads to danger for the progress and growth of cryptocommunities and cryptos themselves, take India as a fine example. As long as the governments don't meddle too much with cryptos and just enforce regulations for fraud and on the platforms facilitating trades, it's all good.

A $1200 increase in a day is absolutely something to be amazed. I don't even expect bitcoin to be in such a state given the weeks of massive pressure from the bears, and just on Monday we saw yet another sluggish day as bitcoin walks back @ $6100 which got me into thinking that the bears will test sub-$6k again. This, I think, is a much needed boost which will absolutely regain the confidence of traders and try to make a push. All recent news sprouting are somewhat positive and coinciding with bitcoin prices turn of events. I just hope that it can maintain the said strength it has right now to take us to higher highs and consolidate at that.

They must hide the trails of where the money would go, and surely these things would remain unnoticeable by most gov't agencies since who would buy apps with alphabet songs on it for even a dollar? Money launderers day by day are getting ingenious with their schemes, resorting to things that are left easily unnoticed even by the best of the Feds. I personally applaud them for deviating from cryptocurrencies as a means to launder money; they know so well that there will come a time when bitcoin and other crypto can't just handle the heat and no matter how convoluted the trails are, they'd eventually get caught.

I openly admit that the Philippines' economic state as of late isn't something to be proud of. With a whopping 5.2% inflation rate, the country's currency is weakening against the dollar day by day, with most of the recent decline attributed to the 'build build build' project of the incumbent president. Other factors such as the decrease in investor's confidence in local businesses due to the rampant violence in the country also helped drive the economic growth down. Hopefully by 2019, the country can recover, as most of the structures in the build build build project would be completed by then.

No one has any liability or accountability to answer your questions if the ETF is denied. First and foremost, no regulating central body controls bitcoin, and as such, no matter what happens on a certain country about its regulation on the said crypto, it stays as is, no questions asked. I agree on the fiat part, though, but it still works because they (banks and governments) want and need it to work to keep their countries crumbling together and to make sure anarchy won't take place. If people see that bitcoin has potential and bitcoin can be a vital part of their economic situations, they'd choose it sans the endorsement of the gov't or any other celebrity/famous person.

ETFs could be big, but IMO this is an exaggeration of what might happen in case the said ETF is approved. We've been discussing bitcoin ETFs for years and so far, no further developments are taking place, only talks and postponements. I don't see ETFs bringing trillions to this market, but if a similar FOMO and hype is generated, it could artificially inflate the price and take us to a trillion-market cap. We'll see whether a strong reversal would take place ones the ETF is approved and is taking place.

This is already common knowledge. though the numbers are just guesstimate: no one really knows how much bitcoins are lost since they could easily be just cold storages from different people. Nonetheless, in theory this should make all the existing or circulating bitcoins valuable due to the law of supply and demand so this is all good. However, if there aren't really any demand present, no matter how much lost bitcoins are there, it simply wouldn't boost the price up.

There are no disadvantage in a cryptocurrency exchange since it helps people acquire the coins they want and need to hold. In using it, however, there are certain disadvantages in which, IMO can be avoided if the end-user knows what he's doing. Keeping a huge amount in cryptocurrency exchanges had always been a bad thing since crypto exchanges are prone to hacks. Apart from that, anything is good in using crypto exchanges. Keeping yourself safe and vigilant in using these platforms would ensure that no unnecessary loss of funds will occur.

There are some cases in which a certain altcoin go against the current trend of the crypto market, most specially the newly-created coins which only recently went live on crypto exchanges. Technically, these coins are still not distributed and only a handful of people have the coin in their hands/pockets. It has the tendency to be pumped initially, and after the coins are distributed to new users, that is when we can safely assume that the coin will now start to follow the general trend of the crypto market.

In specifications, yes, bitcoin fulfills all three of these. However, due to the fact that there aren't enough places to spend bitcoins and use them as currency, it cannot display how good and effective it will be as such. Due to this, people outside the ecosystem think that bitcoin isn't an effective means of payment because there aren't sufficient data existing about the reliability of the coin. Most retailers and services who removed bitcoin on their method of payment feel that it's tanking because it's not wante, but that's not the case in actuality.