Indeed, hacking 2FA is very common these days, so many accounts on Polo got hacked while their 2FA is on. The best way to stay safe to stay online is stay away from FREE Wi-Fi. Always connect to the internet securely - I mean encrypted connection using VPN or secure tunneling software. And for your bitcoin wallet to be totally secure you need to have dedicated IP - only that IP can login to your bitcoin wallet, you can get that at PureVPN.

Yes, why not? people are always afraid of losing all their money in bitcoin which is not ever going to happen. Of course, there must be some ups and downs in the market which the price would later recover so why bordering? e.g. Bitcoin went through so many corrections from 2014-2017 but does people that invested in bitcoin buying at $400 per coin lost their money? Come on, invest now (long-term) if you really want to invest.

For me, i see nothing wrong with paying tax on bitcoin. And you know if the government create new laws for bitcoin tax people should follow or there will be a consequence. you know government are very bad in dealing with such issues and lastly i don't think the profit of bitcoin will reduce a lot when people start paying the tax.

You should check the Trezor wallet to see if it has more supported coins on their website. if not, then you have to go with the online services such as Coinpayments.net, MyEtherWallet.com or Coinomi wallet app for android.

Bitcoin volatility makes more profitable than shares and stock market. Profit is the reason by people invest their money and bitcoin is more profitable. 

Bitcoin really had an amazing journey from 2009-2017 growing from few cents up to $20,000 all in 8 years. A lot of people who invested in bitcoin early are now millionaires because of the bitcoin's exponential growth in value. Well, it appears bitcoin is still going to have a great year in 2018 more than the previous years because so many big companies, hedge funds, trading options, and major corporations are stepping into the bitcoin and cryptocurrency ecosystem.

People have different motivations about bitcoin. Some people think bitcoin is get rich quick investment and after buying bitcoin the price went down they'll immediately sell in fear of losing all their money, and the second guys are people who use to buy and sell bitcoin for a living and the last guys are bitcoin holders the guys that buys and hold bitcoin for long-term.

No. it is never too late to invest in bitcoin, you don't have to buy the whole bitcoin you can still buy some portion of bitcoin, something like a half or quarter of a bitcoin. And if you are really interested in altcoins are few good altcoins too such as Ethereum, Dash, Neo, ADA, IOTA, and Ripple.

No way outside the U.S... 2FA Security fucked up everything, man!
Unless if you have someone back in the U.S who can have access to your phone and help by sending you the 2FA codes.

Bitcoin is getting expensive everyday because there is high demand of bitcoin by the public and bitcoin has limited supply. There are only 16.7 million bitcoins in circulation worldwide. So, what is happening right now with bitcoin price is basically the demand theory; the higher the quantity the lower the price, and the lower the quantity the higher the price.

EU Amends AML Laws for Cryptotrading as US Ponders: Expert Blog



Larry Fink, CEO of the world’s largest asset management company, BlackRock, told a panel at the Institute of International Finance:

    "Bitcoin just shows you how much demand for money laundering there is in the world. It’s an index of money laundering."

Fink’s sentiment about virtual currencies reflected that of an IRS Criminal Investigation division official who told reporters in 2013 – after concluding a multi-jurisdictional investigation and shuttering a $6 billion virtual currency exchange for money laundering:

    “If Al Capone were alive today, this is how he would be hiding his money.”


Drugs and money laundering

Recently, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) published a report that provides an overview of the US efforts to police the global illicit drug trade. The report claims that virtual currencies - Bitcoin, Zcash, Monero, and Ethereum - are increasingly being used in the digital underground to facilitate trade-based money laundering schemes for transnational criminal organizations (TCO).

Over the past 10 years, the drug landscape in the US has vastly changed, with the opioid threat reaching epidemic levels in a significant portion of the country. Drug poisoning is a the leading cause of deaths in the US, with approximately 170 people dying from it every day. The opioid epidemic was declared a national emergency by President Trump last August, when Bitcoin was trading at $4,000.


Mexican TCOs and El Chapo

According to DEA’s report, the Mexican TCOs are the greatest criminal drug threat to the US. In the beginning of this year, when Bitcoin was trading at $1,000, the Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera (El Chapo) was extradited by Mexico to the US. The extradition followed Mexico’s recapturing of the fugitive drug lord following his brazen escape from a maximum-security Mexican prison via an elaborate mile-long tunnel that connected to his prison cell.

In the US, El Chapo is facing a long list of criminal charges, including drug trafficking and money laundering, for running one of the most powerful and sophisticated transnational drug trafficking organizations in this world.

DEA’s report ties the extreme success of the Mexican TCOs to multiple factors, such as:

  1. By controlling lucrative southwestern drug smuggling corridors, Mexican TCOs export and transport significant quantities of illegal drugs into the US. El Chapo, in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, boasted that he could “supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world.” He proudly took credit for overseeing up to half of the illegal drugs coming into the US from Mexico.
 
  2. To accomplish this, El Chapo said he had “a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats." Last year, Mexican law enforcement officials confiscated the Sinaloa Cartel’s 599 aircrafts—a fleet larger than Aero Mexico’s. Some of these airplanes were outfitted with the latest intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) technologies to go undetected by the US border patrol.
   
3. After selling the illegal drugs in the US - which brought in $64 billion each year - the Mexican TCOs needed a way to get the drug money back to Mexico. It became increasingly difficult for Mexican TCOs to deposit their illicit cash proceeds directly into US banks and other financial institutions once the worlds largest banks - HSBC, Wachovia and Citigroup - were hit with billions of dollars in penalties for laundering Mexican cartel money. Mexican TCOs were forced to resort to more complex multi-jurisdictional trade-based money laundering (TBML) schemes that included using cryptocurrencies.


Money laundering using cryptocurrencies

The DEA report pointed out that China has become an important hub for money laundering schemes. TCOs purchase large shipments of “made in China” goods using Bitcoin. These “made in China” goods are then shipped to businessmen in Mexico and South America who reimburse the TCOs in local currency. Bitcoin payments are widely popular in China because it can be used to anonymously transfer value overseas, circumventing China’s capital controls.


US proposes cryptocurrencies amendment to AML laws

On November 28, 2017, when Bitcoin was trading at $9,880, the US Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on Senate bill S. 1241, titled ‘‘Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Counterfeiting Act of 2017.” This bill amends the current US anti-money laundering laws (AML) by making virtual currencies more of a target for regulatory oversight. Prepaid access devices, digital wallets and other digital currency exchangers as being subjected to reporting requirements if they contain the virtual currency equivalent of $10,000 or higher.

According to Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, S. 1241 is designed to help modernize US AML laws. Grassley explained:

    “[S. 1241 will give] law enforcement more tools to prosecute and close legal loopholes. It will clarify rules on evidence for prosecutors and judges, which in turn will help increase convictions. It will make it easier to go after drug kingpins, drug cartels and terrorist organizations by being able to seize virtual currencies more easily.”


EU amends AML transparency laws for cryptotrading

European governments are pushing for global Bitcoin regulation at the G20 level, coordinated by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Amid mounting alarm that virtual currencies are being used by multinational money-launderers, drug traffickers and terrorists, the German Finance Ministry explained:

    “It makes sense to discuss the speculative risks of virtual currencies and their impact on the financial system at international level.”

Several EU countries will create interconnected registries this year, to record details of the beneficial ownership of inter alia companies and trusts under the EU Fourth Anti- Money Laundering Directive (4AMLD). These central registries of beneficial owners will be made available to local tax authorities and will be shared between tax authorities within the EU (OECD-BEPS Action 12).

On December 20, 2017, when Bitcoin was trading at $17,000, the European Parliament and its executive arm, the European Council, agreed to amend the 4AMLD. This amendment will make virtual currency exchange platforms and wallets subject to the beneficial ownership-reporting requirements (4AMLD Virtual Currency Amendment).

These new regulations will require an increase in transparency by trusts and trading companies, which will be pressured to reveal the holders of virtual currency in order to thwart potential money laundering, tax evasion and terror funding. Primary among these regulations is a requirement to provide beneficial ownership information to authorities and “any persons that can demonstrate a legitimate interest” to access data on the beneficial owners of trusts.

The 4AMLD Virtual Currency Amendment must be formally adopted by EU Member States and turned into national laws within 18 months.


Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/eu-amends-aml-laws-for-cryptotrading-as-us-ponders-expert-blog

Off the Leash? Bitcoin Looks North After Breaking $16K



Bitcoin is gaining altitude today, amid a sharp drop in prices of some alternative currencies.

Prices on CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index jumped 7 percent to an intraday high of $16,181 in the last two hours. The cryptocurrency has appreciated by 10 percent in the last 24 hours, according to data source CoinMarketCap.

Meanwhile, Ripple's XRP token has depreciated by 9 percent in the last 24 hours, having soared to new heights on Jan. 3.

Other alternative currencies like NEM (XEM), Cardano (ADA) and Stellar (STR) are down at least 12 percent each. More importantly, the XRP/BTC (ripple-bitcoin) pair has taken a beating in the last couple of hours. XEM/BTC, ADA/BTC, ETH/BTC (ethereum-bitcoin) and LTC/BTC (litecoin-bitcoin) are also losing altitude.

So, bitcoin (BTC) seems to have caught a bid wave at $14,848.10 (07:29 UTC), tracking the weakness in the cross cryptocurrency pairs (ETH/BTC, LTC/BTC, XRP/BTC) – that is, money made from the altcoin rally is likely being channeled back into BTC.

Price chart analysis also suggests BTC could extend the rally to $18,000-$18,600 in the short-run.


4-hour chart



The above chart (prices as per Coinbase) shows:

   - An inverse head and shoulder breakout. As of writing, BTC is trading well above the neckline hurdle of $15,550, so the bullish breakout is pretty much a done deal. Prices could rise to $18,600 (target as per the measured height method) over the weekend.
   - Other factors – including a breach of the falling trendline, a bullish break of the falling wedge, higher lows as represented by the rising trendline – also favor further upside in BTC.
   - The relative strength index (RSI) is above 50.00 (in the bullish territory) and rising, indicating scope for a rally in prices.

View

   - BTC could cut through resistance at $16,490 and move towards $18,000–18,600 mark over the weekend.
   - Bearish scenario: A failure to hold above the neckline support (former resistance) of $15,500 followed by a break below $14,230 today would open the doors for a drop to sub-$12,500 levels.


Source: https://www.coindesk.com/off-the-leash-bitcoin-looks-north-after-breaking-16k/

Bitcoin dominated the cryptocurrency market with 66% total dominance in the mid-December but unfortunately bitcoin went through the market correction in the late December 2017 that is why the bitcoin lost about the 31% of the market dominance. But i believe in time bitcoin will slow regain it market dominance in time.

Zuckerberg Eyeing Out Power of Cryptocurrencies



A man who knows a few things about the power of social and individuals, Mark Zuckerberg, has stated that he will be studying cryptocurrencies further in order to explore their potential for empowering individuals.

The co-founder of Facebook, in what he has called one of his personal challenges for the new year, has stated that the power of decentralized systems like cryptocurrency could help take power away from the centralized system and place it back in the hands of individuals.


Digging deeper

Lauded as an innovator and one of the fathers of social media, Zuckerberg has shown his fascination with cryptocurrencies before, but this latest New Year’s post has indications that he will be investigating its potential much further for potential improvement for Facebook. Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post:

    "There are important counter-trends to this – like encryption and cryptocurrency – that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people's hands...I'm interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our services."


Blockchain social media

There have already been a number of social media platforms based around Blockchain service; however, the firepower of a company like Facebook, which reaches over one bln people on a daily basis investigating cryptocurrencies could be monumental.

Zuckerberg’s overarching message in the post which made mention of cryptocurrencies was based around “fixing important issues in technology, media and government.” And, indeed, a technology like Blockchain is being heralded as revolutionary within those fields and with the backing of such an institution, there could be scope for rocketing growth in adoption and recognition for cryptocurrencies.


Take back the power

It is unsurprising to see why Zuckerberg would be interested in a decentralized system when you inspect social media for its peer-to-peer power. While there is a centralized force on Facebook, it has given individuals a lot of power and a much bigger voice.

A decentralized system like cryptocurrencies can only aid that growth further, and as Zuckerberg states - “put it [power] back into people’s hands.”

Well-known Software Engineer Jameson Lopp explains how, in a monetary space, cryptocurrencies have flipped conventional centralized thinking on its head.

    “At least from the monetary standpoint, we said let's turn this whole thing upside down. Instead of us trusting certain entities, instead, we are going to track everything ourselves, validate our rules and not trust anybody.”

Be it media, social media, finance, investing or any other sector, the traditionalists and the early innovators turning to cryptocurrencies, even to learn, could be the start of something big.


Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/zuckerberg-eyeing-out-power-of-cryptocurrencies

Brazilian Government Plans to Process Petitions and Write Laws on Ethereum



The Brazilian government is seeking to move popular petitions, an inefficient electoral system of the country, onto the Ethereum network, to process hundreds of millions of votes on the immutable Blockchain network.

In Brazil, popular petitions enable over 145 mln voters across the country to come to a consensus on important political decisions. But, for many decades, political experts and analysts have questioned the logistical issue of popular petitions, and political commentators have described the structural problem of the electoral system of Brazil as the basis for most of the country’s political issues.

Gabriel Barbosa, a research associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, wrote, “when people are living paycheck to paycheck, or as the common saying in Brazil goes, ‘selling their lunch to buy their dinner,’ the cost of political participation becomes high enough so that people are excluded from the political process,” emphasizing the lack of proper institutions that handle the cost of political engagement.


Move to Ethereum

As Joon Ian Wong of Quartz reported, Brazilian legislators led by Congress legislative adviser Ricardo Fernandes Paixão and university professor Everton Fraga are planning on ways to utilize the Ethereum Blockchain network to store and process electoral votes, as a part of a larger initiative to improve Brazil’s political system, which The Economist described as “sleazy.”

The key to employing a Blockchain system in processing petitions and electoral votes is to encrypt votes onto the immutable Blockchain network as transactions, to ensure that the specific piece of data remains unalterable and invulnerable to manipulation.

Essentially, processing petition signatures on the Ethereum network would require smart contracts, and the system would operate similarly as other decentralized applications that exist on the network. The electoral system of Brazil would act as a decentralized application of its own with an independent digital token, that is used to process every vote on the Blockchain.

Henrique Costa, a Universidade de Brasilia law professor, told QZ that the lack of an immutable platform to collect signatures of votes had been a real issue for the government in the past.

    “In part this is due to the absence of a platform that can securely collect the signatures of one percent of voters. We’ve been through a sort of crisis regarding the legitimacy…of our laws. Although the popular initiative does exist, there is no secure way to collect people’s signatures so people can propose bills themselves.”

Within the Brazilian electoral system, any popular petition with the signatures of one percent of the country’s populations is required to be heard in Congress. But, because of the lack of an institution and a platform that handles petition votes, the group that rallies behind a particular petition also needs to find a legislator to adopt it.

Consequently, the probability of popular petitions being heard in  Congress has significantly decreased, even though many petitions have gathered signatures from the one percent of voters.


Mobile app

Currently, the Brazilian government is exploring the possibility of using a mobile app based on the Ethereum Blockchain network with which residents and citizens can submit petition votes. Since decentralized applications can operate on mobile systems, the Brazilian petition and electoral system can operate in a similar way.

Since broadcasting every single signature as a transaction of its own is highly efficient and costly, the Brazilian government will use a system called hashing to combine all of the daily votes into one transaction and broadcast it to the main Ethereum Blockchain network.

Fraga, one of the two leading advisers of the project, stated that the integration of Ethereum into the Brazilian’s inefficient and impractical electoral system would be a celebration of democracy if it passes Congress and becomes implemented. He said:

    “It would be a celebration of democracy. With this project, we are doing what the constitution says, but in practice, it hasn’t [yet] happened.”


Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/brazilian-government-plans-to-process-petitions-and-write-laws-on-ethereum

Offline wallets are the best bitcoin wallets because they completely off the grid. There are two best offline out there which are Trezor and Ledger wallet.

BitPay Issues Statement On Visa Card Discontinuation: Money Safe, Refunds Pending



BitPay, one of the companies affected by Visa suspending the status of the WaveCrest debit card provider this Friday, has released an announcement about the event today, on Saturday. In the statement, the company reassures its customers that the funds they had stored on their BitPay cards at the time of closure are safe, and will be eventually returned to them.

This comes after similar updates issued by Bitwala and Wirex, whose business was also impacted.


Visa inadvertently disables cryptocurrency cards

In an unexpected turn of events, yesterday, Jan. 5, Visa required WaveCrest, a Europe-based debit card issuer to “to immediately close all [its] Visa cards." As a result, a number of cryptocurrency card providers that relied on WaveCrest for transaction processing have been forced to suspend their services as well, including BitPay, Bitwala, TenX and Wirex.

In a statement regarding its decision, Visa said:

    "[We] recently terminated a single prepaid card issuer in Europe from our network for violating Visa's operating regulations. That issuer, WaveCrest, was required to close its Visa card products, some of which were linked to cryptocurrency wallets."


Funds safe, refunds pending

Bitwala and Wirex have already issued their statements on Visa’s decision this Friday. Both companies reiterated the fact that neither Visa nor WaveCrest have given them enough warning to prepare for the hasty discontinuation of service. Moreover, they claim that the users’ money is safe, and will be refunded in due time.

Now, BitPay has joined in with an update of their own. In the statement, the card provider announces that all its non-US cards have been deactivated and will not be available for further payments or withdrawals.

Fortunately for cardholders, BitPay claimed that they “will get a refund for ending card balance and for any outstanding card loads.” Additionally, everyone who ordered their card after Dec. 1, 2017, will have the card order fee refunded to them as well.

Going forward, BitPay, similarly to Bitwala and Wirex, claims that it is “already in discussions” with potential alternative card issuers that will allow the company to resume its cryptocurrency debit card services in near future.

It is worth noting that Visa’s most recent decision to suspend the status of WaveCrest is seemingly unrelated to the latter’s dealings with cryptocurrency services providers. As per the official statement made by Visa:

    “Our actions were not specific to cryptocurrency, but rather reflect the [WaveCrest’s] failure to comply with Visa's policies that ensure the safety and integrity of our payment system."


Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitpay-issues-statement-on-visa-card-discontinuation-money-safe-refunds-pending

Indeed, bitcoin is secured to the level where no one can hack it or steal it. Bitcoin security is very strong to the level where no person or a computer in the world that can break it no matter who fast that computer is - even the super computers. The only way someone can have access to your bitcoins is only if you give him your private keys or your bitcoin wallet password.

Bitcoin has a self-stabilizing economy. therefore, sometime the price is up and sometime the price is down. Bitcoin price normally grow consistently until there is a correction in the market that would drop the price and once the price is down it would recover immediately normally within first 2-3 weeks after the crash.  

Bitcoin really had a great year 2017 because the price went from about $952 in the early January reaching up to $20,000 in the min-December within the same year. Bitcoin gained over 2000% increase in value in 2017 making it the successful year for bitcoin ever. And 2018 is about to be a great again.