I'd say we can attribute the rises into the growing public interest and confidence made possible by giant firms and companies diving into the bitcoin market and creating platforms and infrastructures to support the growing economy. While that may not seem enough, imagine the likes of successful people and big names in the investing scene risking their money into a relatively unknown and unproven asset which is bitcoin. If not for the people confident enough to buy bitcoins even if it was deemed overpriced back then, the public confidence and interest about bitcoin wouldn't shoot and no progress on the price and infrastructures would happen for the said crypto.

For the longest time, these dudes are trying to get down on bitcoin yet no one happens so far. The Silk Road has already 'closed' its doors to its peers (lol) yet they still make a fuss about it. What about other illegal website out there that uses cash as a medium of exchange? I for one sees these 'illegal sites' utilizing cryptocurrencies as a way for the government to shift public opinion against bitcoin and cryptocurrencies since they know so well that they can't ultimately shut it down. This is not news anymore but rather the constant effort of the government in trying to win a war they won't.

I wouldn't take this prediction very seriously, though he made some good points in his analysis so there's that. As one poster mentioned, he was also one of the wild predictors of bitcoin reaching heights that were deemed impossible years ago, so whatever his claims are, it could still be worth it to read or to consider now given the amount of people wanting to take a piece of the pie. $250,000 in 4 years is somewhat outlandish, but if bitcoin were to repeat the same growth it exhibited in 2016-2017, it is doable IMO.

With the way the general public perceives tether right now, I don't think it would be a good idea to convert your assets in Tether if you can just bear the losses and possibly survive the crash in the end. Tether is a actually a good idea for safeguarding your cryptoassets when it's tanking down, but with the amount of accusations and negative light being thrown at it, I don't think it would take long for the government to take some action and put the said token under the federal microscope. You can buy tether whenever you feel unsafe for your cryptoassets, yes, but as soon as you got the chance to buy back in cheaper, take the opportunity and use USDT as little as possible.

Personally, I don't think the world cup will have any significant event in terms of getting bitcoin's word out and possibly bumping up the price. There had been many important events in which bitcoin was connected to but there were no drastic change in the price even after the event concluded. Having said that, visitors in Russia would probably go and just watch the football and not care about buying stuff with bitcoin since it's not what they came for in the first place. Though that might sound disheartening, I still want to see such publicity to have some real world effects in bitcoin, not in price alone but also in terms of awareness that such a thing exists.

If you're referring to the bitcoin blockchain, yes, it's possible for it to be stopped if a global crackdown on miners takes place and seize all the mining equipment, further preventing the addition of new blocks on the chain. Given the 'decentralized' nature of bitcoin, and its miners being situated into different parts of the world, it would be hard to search all of these and seize it all, so that one possibility is ruled out. Another event that could possibly stop bitcoin's blockchain is a nuclear warfare wherein a huge percentage of the world is completely disintegrated and the remaining are left dying in nuclear waste. We are very far from that happening but it still is a possibility you cannot rule out to happen in the distant future, otherwise the process of adding blocks in the chain is ad infinitum.

It's easy for the media to stimulate the minds of the people and letting them believe that they already have found the solution in stopping bitcoin's long-reigning volatility in its markets, by publishing a single report without any substantial evidence that market manipulation is indeed that cause of all the market's volatility. I think that manipulation plays a part in volatility but it's not the only cause of it: there are other more plausible reasons that dictate volatility, and one simple fact is that bitcoin is a globally-open market without any restrictions as long as you comply with the prerequisites on an exchange, and then you can start trading freely. As for the previous rise to ATH, it can heavily be attributed to FOMO and public hype once one of the deemed 'psychological barriers' were broken, with also manipulation at the sidelines of course.

The falling price might have something to do with the fact that people are slowly losing confidence in bitcoin, thinking that it will not give them any guaranteed profits and therefore waits for other people to buy first and (somehow) inflates the price, giving them a signal. It feels like other people are just eagerly waiting for someone to make the first move before another FOMO--no matter how short-lived it is--kicks in, causing yet another price bump for bitcoin. The recent price slump doesn't signify the end of bitcoin, though, since we've been in a similar position, albeit a rather gloomy one, back in 2014 after the price corrected in the 2013 ATH.

Where have you gathered such statistic that whales control 1/3 of BTC's market? But anyway, let's get to the facts. Whales are always around since the advent of Capitalism, and there really is no one to blame since they're just exploiting whatever advantage they have in the market in order to make a profit. What's wrong is that they exploit it up to the point that the market doesn't offer any form of opportunity to the average people to make a profit, hence, the market only benefits the whales in the long run. While I like the idea of the government looking up the possibilities of market manipulation, I don't think that this will be ever enough to eliminate the control whales have already established in the market. Heck, even the traditional stock and bond markets are being manipulated, so up to what extent would the governments eliminate the manipulation present in cryptomarkets?

There's a slim chance that bitcoin would cross below $6000, but that chance is still an opening if the bears exploited it wonderfully. There had been recent good news lately in favor of the bulls, especially the mining giant BITMAIN thinking of getting its first IPO, with Sequioa Capital budging in. This sounds like nothing but if you look deeper, it means that more institutional investors are getting involved and wouldn't want to be involved in a slouch in terms of pricing. A nice consolidation at $7000 would probably spell another stagnant weeks on the market but could be a key stepping stone towards new highs we've never seen in months.

Basically anyone can manufacture and create whatever it is that their imaginations take them to, but in order to distribute them legally you need to have trademarks and copyrights for it for someone to not go and steal it and monetize your own creation. You also need to register your business to the government in order to pay whatever taxes you might incur on your business venture. Also, do remember that if your creation has the potential to inflict harm on other citizens, or cause some form of public outcry and/or whatnot, the government would still try to seize your creation and detain you for what it's worth.

Who says bitcoin can only exist as a commodity and not a store of value? Bitcoin has proven itself to be a good store of value time and time again, though only if you intend to keep your assets for a long time. Some financial experts are even thinking that bitcoin could also exist as a reserve currency given its innate ability to hold value over time and its flexibility to exist beyond borders, so whenever the time comes that they need some emergency spending, they could thaw out bitcoin from their cold storage and send it to its destination. Like silver and gold, bitcoin protects us from the risks of inflation and the devaluation of fiat, and no, bitcoin isn't only a commodity but could also be other things.

Posting bitcoin success stories is inspiring and all, but frankly people would only look at the good parts and ignore the negative ones when the time comes that they'll be the ones investing, often resulting into losses and broken dreams. I don't mean to be rude but this only creates an illusion and false hops that everyone can be a millionaire, and you only need the help of bitcoin and crypto to do just that. It would be good if this would actually inspire people to work hard and work smart to achieve whatever it is that they want, but we already know the people of today: they'd always find an easy way out and use shortcuts if they can without assessing the risks of traversing the said path.

They love to jump into fear-mongering whenever they have the chance to, given that it's one of their forte ever since the corporate giants started paying them for shoddy journalism. Most people are looking into bitcoin's extraordinary gain in just over a year without looking into fundamentals in which it was clearly lagging at during the run/ There's obviously no way for people to value bitcoin at those price ranges without any form of artificial price boosts which we clearly know of. Those price ranges were purely speculation, hype and FOMO, and no natural growth were associated during that point of hysteria.

Destroyed, how so? There are only a few types of destruction I can see for blockchain-powered systems, and probably the most damaging one would be destroying its integrity by means of tampering the chain, or the 51% attack that most people are aware of. Due to the nature of this attack, any record that a blockchain keeps up to a certain event, until a 'split' occurs in the network, is credible and trusty, but when a certain group reaches 51% control of the network, they will have the power to write whatever they want on the end of the chain and possibly rejecting whatever is submitted to them to be a part of a chain. When people find out about such an event, they will lose trust in the chain and eventually, in the system. There's also the Sybil attack in which a single entity can present themselves as multiple ones, potentially damaging the integrity of the chain by 'taking' data or 'adding' data that is meant to be done by a single entity. Because of this, a single entity creating multiple identities in order to submit his piece on the chain might cause problems in the future if people find it out in the future. Luckily though, most blockchain-powered systems by then would be centralized, and these scenarios I talked about usually happens in a P2P decentralized systems which are prone to such attacks since anyone can join in the party.

Perhaps Bitmain's venturing into some other front of their business with the IPO in mind, possibly into logistics or other tech-related stuff they can get their hands on. This is also a good thing considering that a relatively unknown company for others overshadow some of the most ambitious and glitzy companies out there, giving yet another boom in the hype and curiosity from the masses. If anything, this IPO would be sensationalized, making Bitmain appear into magazines and headlines being the company that we never really heard of until lately, with a market capitalization that tops off the charts. Never really liked Bitmain or Wu, but this might be the news we needed for the past months.

I don't see any strong correlation about the Eid and the market. It might be that most traders just timed their profit-taking so that the Eid is to blame for the actions and not look for any underlying reasons as to why the market is down. It could also be that there are Muslim traders who took profit shortly before the Eid, which would somehow explain why the gloomy aura in the markets are to be found. Nevertheless, festivities and holidays, I think, aren't to blame for the market crashes; we just are tired of analyzing and we look for easier targets to put the blame at.

There will always be questions regarding the speculative side of bitcoin since people are invested and money is on the line. There are no wrong questions when it comes to speculation, only dumb, thoughtless and stupid ones. People always want to know whether their investments are safe or not, and to get some form of 'assurance' they ask the community on what's their take regarding the most plausible route their investments might take. Having said that, those who ask such questions are typically the inexperienced and are scared to lose money overnight. It's good that these questions pop up, though, since you can see that there are a fair number of newbies (and not just signature spammers) asking questions about something they're fairly inexperienced at.

It could work as an effective means of payment with the expense of fiat being unused and possibly harming the general economy of the country. While I see bitcoin being the greatest financial development of the modern age, this could be a means for the rich to get richer and the poor to work harder without any increase in their quality of lives.

The reason I see why banks generally do not like crypto to grow is because it will combat fiat in a sense that the circulation would be off and the rich can just hoard more money in the form of fiat or bitcoin, or both. Oftentimes, this does not pose a threat, but if that money isn't tended, or isn't being used, the rich will only become richer as time goes by while the poor workers will work hard expecting the same wages since there's simply no money available for picking. It's good if the rich can invest his money into more infrastructures creating more jobs for people, but oftentimes, the rich only buys financed vehicles, interest-bearing accounts, precious metals and other value-bearing assets. Without any increase in profit for the company the rich man owns, his taxes would remain the same while getting rich on the background. In short, fucking up the economy. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are the perfect tools for just that.

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If you want to read more about the technical aspects of bitcoin and how it might affect the current financial system, the Whitepaper is a must read for you, then look for Satoshi's own words here on the forum or other forums about his stance on the economics of bitcoin and why banks can disappear with the advent of P2P cash system.

So technically, you will be limiting the available supply for traders to work with, and in theory, the lower the supply is, the higher the price will be, though that also needs the help of demand which is I think a more important part of the equation, This might work, if the demand available for bitcoin is extremely huge, and the current hype about the coin is present. You need to consider a lot of factors in order to make a price bump before limiting a coin's supply. There are already too many hoarders at this current time yet the price isn't up. Why? Because there's simply no demand yet, and it will remain as is until someone starts buying in heaps and significantly move the price up.