Just think about it, if you win whatever amount but the site suddenly asks you for a small deposit in order to withdraw, why don't they deduct that small amount from the total and send people the rest of the funds?

Common sense should prevent people from falling for it, but the amounts these sites ask for are so low that people think its okay and take the risk. Imagine how much these sites make when thousands of people deposit $5 or $10.

I reported the domain for operating a scam website. I hope others will do so too.

With how volatile the current market is and in some moments low in liquidity, significant price movements should be expected. I'm not sure how tight your stop was, but always allow room for a wick so that it doesn't trigger your position.

The lower the leverage counts are that you use, the less likely it is for wicks to harm you. Anything over 10x leverage is similar to gambling at this stage. Don't underestimate the volatility and willingness of market markets to trigger stops.

That's pretty much what most noobies do, so I'm not surprised at all. They buy in hoping that one of these coins will replace Bitcoin because they are faster and cheaper to use.

Bitcoin is the perfect hedge against how unstable altcoins are for people caring about their BTC ratios. Sure, there are times where altcoins do shine, but it's impossible to know beforehand when the right time is to buy yourself into an altcoin.

I have seen and heard so much nonsense about a looming altcoin season in the last couple of months, that I feel sorry for how stupid people really can be. Altcoin season will kick in when nobody expects it to kick in, that's how it works.

You don't even have to use real money to trade. You can choose to paper trade or use one of the plenty available apps allowing you to trade with non existing money. It's something I have done at the very beginning too.

Psychologically there surely is a difference between trading with non existing money and real money, but the basics matter here. You will figure out what strategies pay off and what strategies are shit.

I am however of believe that there is no such a thing as perfection in trading. Perfection means that you will always profit, and this is something even the best wall street traders aren't capable of doing. Not realistic at all.

I'm pretty sure most people in modern economies are in favor of digital money instead of paper and metal money (at least, in my country they are). The thing however is that it's hard to part with physical money entirely because people are so used to it.

Another thing is that physical money offers people anonymity, where using digital money in form of PayPal or debit/credit cards are traceable and you can be monitored by government agencies and insurance companies.

I remember a case where someone was denied healthcare insurance because that person seemed to have a very unhealthy life style based on the things he eats and drinks. I think that's a very important reason to keep using physical money.

Many exceptionally amazing coins? I'm a bit more on the conservative/realistic side then-- I only consider Ethereum to be a worthwhile crypto. All other coins are blatant copies of Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Look at TRON and EOS for example, both networks are being flooded with fake transactions to make them seem vibrant and active, while in reality only a small number of people are using them. It really is embarrassing.

I like the growing DEFI app economy on Ethereum and strongly believe that this is something we should pay attention to. It's good to see that ICOs are no longer the main price driver of Ethereum.

I don't consider YouTube videos to be a good source of content for newbies, especially with how most of them go with the flow of the market and adjust their stance even on an hourly basis when they have to. Too biased and greedy for clicks.

The market is obviously the most important factor for people to join, so from there it makes sense to get comfortable with markets in general. I like the suggestion for people to read books because that definitely helps.

If you have a basic level of market understanding, it's much easier for you to make a decision on when to buy and when to sell. Currently most people just buy in at any price level not knowing that it's likely the top that they bought.

The momentum around LN peaked before the price pumped to $5000 but it's good to see that the development keeps going despite the interest shift now the market has made people go back to fomo mode.

The liquidity in BTC terms has reduced around 10% but the price increase made sure there is still like $9.5-$10 million available in liquidity, which is good-- a higher price means people need less satoshis to transact with.

The article mentions that the upgrade with make transactions faster and cheaper, which is quite interesting because they are near instant and free already. Generally, the fee I have to pay is either zero or 1-2 satoshis.

The increase of 15% today was followed up by fairly strong volumes. It's impossible to expect more given how uncertain the market still is. People aren't going in full but keep some aside just in case.

If we can have a bullish close on the daily chart we are likely to see +$11k levels, but this leg up could still be another lower high, so we shouldn't get overly excited even when the price touches $12k in the coming weeks.

As far week hands not being shaken out, most definitely not, but we've done well to shake out enough to fuel the current increase. Time will tell whether or not it will last, but people are certainly happy with it.

I think the bulls actually like these selloffs because it makes a further increase easier. It also helps making people more bearish in general and therefore open shorts because they expect the price to tank. After that it's squeeze time.

It's not healthy when the price goes up in a parabolic manner, regardless of how strong the bulls are-- all it takes is the momentum to shift for the bears to start unloading the coins they firmly held on the way up.

The more we see large holders unload right now, the less selling bulls have to eat through on the way up to a new yearly high. The bears selling will eventually buy back at higher levels to not lose out once again, which means more buying pressure.

I can't blame them for that. I'm a consumer myself and look to buy that what's cheap and decent of quality. We all are out to shop at places where we can get the most bang for our buck.

I'm sure many do care about the environment and other things related, but not enough to justify buying goods that are more durable and generally more expensive. It's just the way people are.

You mean not so fixated on money, right? Our lives revolve around it, whether we like it or not, so we do prioritize money over most other things. Without it our life would suck. It's the center of everything.

I'm glad that there are wealthy individuals who do utilize a part of their wealth to finance cancer research, mental illness charities, etc. We all can do it, regardless of how small your donations are. I do it too and it feels good.

I'm not referring to gold in digital form, because that doesn't exist. It's physical gold I'm referring to and this is just as, if not, more decentralized than Bitcoin is. I thought it should be fairly obvious.

Bitcoin is already that. It's just so that people need to adjust to a state they start accepting it. I personally haven't ever seen Bitcoin as anything other than digital gold.

Bitcoin is the improved version of gold. It doesn't need to be super fast for that because not everyone is constantly trying to move gold from one to another address, that's just what speculators mainly do.

In this case a broker doesn't mean a person trading for you, but a platform allowing you to trade cash settled instruments like gold/silver/options/futures/etfs, etc. RobinHood is the most popular retail broker of CFDs.

BitMEX can be seen as a broker too. Instead of cash settled instruments they allow you to trade Bitcoin settled instruments. In both cases (exchange vs broker) you depend on a centralized platform to trade on.

Then there are the more professional forex brokers where you can lose more than what you put in if the market turns against your positions. These are the platforms you should avoid at all cost if you're a small fish retailer.

Gold in physical form is even more decentralized than Bitcoin. It also offers a true peer to peer experience when transacting. The only thing it doesn't have going for itself is that there is little to no convenience.

That's an argument with no relevance in relation to Bitcoin being decentralized or not. Bitcoin is so new that it grows organically over time, while gold has already gone through that initial stage of growth.

Eventually Bitcoin will become a 'boring' asset class too. Don't assume that Bitcoin will keep going through +1000% bull runs indefinitely. Be happy that you are part of this revolution at what I consider still an early stage.

Also remember that we have gone up from $3000 to almost $14k already. Currently we're hovering around the $10k mark, which is still $7000 higher-- it increased enough to compensate for 50% less block rewards.

If the price doesn't go up much more than what it has already given us, the difficulty will either go down a bit or remain stable. The block halving is very important fundamentally, but it's not a one way rocket flight to the moon.

Another thing is that when the sentiment is going backwards where coins are being dumped on the market, the lower block rewards won't have much of an effect at all-- the price will go down regardless of that.

Bitcoin intends to do what you want it to do. If you want to work your way around governments and everything that's centralized, then Bitcoin is a fantastic tool allowing you to do so in the most convenient way.

Some people find Bitcoin more like a currency type of tool for payments, which is great too even though the on-chain transactions are quite an obstacle in that field. LN will be it then.

For the first time people can choose to do whatever it is they want with their finances. It's an incredible power that can't be stopped by anybody. Let people just use it the way they want and call it whatever they want. Freedom.

I don't see much relevance in this. I can already buy gift cards through bitrefill with Bitcoin (main-chain + LN) and utilize them at Starbucks and orders of magnitude more merchants.

I have bought several food related gift cards and utilized them this year, and that without any problems. People are better off downloading the bitrefill app and start using it, and it works in a lot of countries.

It goes both ways. It's just action reaction. Bitcoiners consider gold to be shit and a horrible asset overall, while gold bugs refer to Bitcoin in the exact same way. I don't see anything wrong with it.

Both camps are emotionally connected to their investments. For most of them it's all or nothing and they won't shy away from trashing competing assets. Don't we largely have the same goal at the end of the day?

That's not entirely true. People who bought gold 5 years ago have booked a sub 10% net gain. Inflation is about 2% a year so based on that there is a loss of purchasing power.

It all comes down to what your entry point is. For some it might have been a fantastic hedge against inflation, and for some totally not, especially when you as retailer fomo bought around the top years ago.

China hasn't failed to control Bitcoin because it was never their intention. China wanted to make sure it has done just enough to make Bitcoin and crypto in general less appealing and a bit harder to dig into. I think they did well there.

What ban? China didn't impose a ban on mining. Not sure where you got that information from, but it's false/fud. I would avoid the news outlets or certain individuals contributing to this fud circus.

If you look at the hashrates of most POW coins, they have nearly all gone up to all time high levels. If China really banned mining the consequences of that would be felt in a more severe way. Mining in China thrives as ever!

Exactly. People's main reason to be here is still speculation related-- buying what goes up and selling what goes down is part of every market. The sentiment is just as volatile as the price is.

I personally don't think we'll see the bullish trend come to an end unless we see two consecutive bearish closes on the monthly time frame. Currently everything is still looking good and this correction a healthy pullback.

I won't say this is a dip to buy into because we might go a bit lower, but these prices are becoming more interesting for those who dollar cost average once or twice a month. Lower price means more satoshis for your fiat.