As the title of this thread says, Theresa May's EU withdrawal deal has been rejected by MPs by an overwhelming majority for a second time and other markets have already reacted to this news.

https://www.fxstreet.com/news/gold-rises-to-early-month-high-as-us-china-trade-deal-brexit-favor-safe-havens-201903130347

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/brexit-vote-3-reasons-investors-outside-of-the-uk-should-care-2019-01-14

How will Bitcoin investors react on this news? Will we see more or less people investing in Bitcoin or will we see little impact on the Bitcoin price?

Let's discuss. 

It's just another 9 to 5 day in 2030. It's a Wednesday and I have to be at work early, so I dress quickly and nearly forget to put on my wrist wallet. <Geez.. it will be a bad day, if I forgot that>  

I go down to the parking basement and get into my new Tesla Auto 7000 <Driverless Car> and I am greeted by the friendly onboard computer, called "Buster".

Buster : "Good Morning, Sir... Where will we be going today?"

Me : "Morning Buster, let's head off to work, I have a long day ahead of me.  

We exit the basement parking and the onboard Crypto wallet built into the Tesla gives a loud "Ping" when the payment for the parking goes automatically off from the pre-loaded balance on the built-in wallet. <Buster acknowledge the payment for the parking was done>  

When we get about 1 block away from the Drive-thru Starbucks, Buster ask me if we should pop-in for a quick morning coffee and I agree. I order my usual Caffe' Misto and Spinach,feta Breafast wrap and pay with my Crypto wrist wallet.

I am one of the first people in the office and I decide to quickly browse through the Wednesday Flash Sale products on offer at OpenBazaar. <Amazon was replaced by OpenBazaar in 2022> …. I spot a new Nano Drone mini XLR for BTC0.00000045 and I place my order for 2 of these beauties. The wrist wallet detects the purchase and gives me a verification prompt to complete the transaction.  

………. Let's complete this story together   to see what our vision for Bitcoin will be for the future.  

To be continued...….

[guts and glory]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxIdUzmZusY

Meaning : One must take risks in order to achieve a goal or glory. One who does not try, does not succeed.

This goes out to all the newbies out there and all the people who are becoming despondent with the Bear market.  Jack Hoffman from the Gold Rush TV Series kept on motivating his fellow miners with these words and they grew from a small team of people and only a few ounces of Gold in their first season to a bunch of miners that mined loads of Gold in the last couple of seasons.

It is reported that Todd Hoffman's annual salary from the show was about $400,000 and his overall net worth is around $5 million.  

This show is all about guts and glory and fighting to the very end and it is also very applicable to the Bitcoin community. We are faced with massive challenges, like shills spreading fud and governments pushing against Crypto currencies and competitors creating Alt coins and hackers attacking Bitcoin based services and lots more, but we still push through and Hodl strong.

I truly believe, in Jack Hoffman's "No Guts No Glory!" way of thinking, when it comes to Bitcoin. Let's push through these challenges and reap the rewards, when it happens.  

[Bitcoin is not a Get rich quick scheme]

Ok, it is not what you are thinking. Bitcoin is not a Get rich quick scheme, but the UK series "How To Get Rich Quick - Season 1 episode 3 includes some footage of a rich entrepreneur, Dave Fishwick, creator of Bank of Dave, discussing Crypto currencies as one investment option to become rich.

Luckily for us, the Bitcoin price at the time, generated a small profit when that episode was shot and he even commented that the profit he made then, were the equivalent of 3 years of interest in a local Bank.

I made 800%+ profit on my initial investment over a period of 4 years. (200% per year) - Go watch the series, it is full of good tips for the budding entrepreneur out there.   <It is also not focusing on Crypto currencies, but all the methods that can be used to increase your wealth> 

Edit - I wonder how many people will only reply to the Thread title and not on the content of the actual topic now.  

I am just curious to know if you can buy lottery tickets for your own national lottery in your country. I am not referring to all these scam gambling sites with supposed "Provably Fair" lottery systems.

I bought some lottery tickets online and I was only presented with the old traditional payment options and I figured it is time for us to approach these Lottery operators, to ask for a Bitcoin payment option.  

If enough people ask for this, they just might consider giving us that option to pay with bitcoins.    What payment options do you have for online lottery in your country?

[the number exchanged on WeChat was an impressive 46.6 billion]

" In China and other Southeast Asian societies, a red envelope is a monetary gift exchanged during holidays or special occasions. Over the past couple of the years, the tradition has gone digital with Tencent and Alibaba both offering virtual red envelopes. The digital version has caught on and last year, the number exchanged on WeChat was an impressive 46.6 billion - the equivalent of 33 envelopes full of cash for every person in China. That's a huge increase on 2016 when the red envelope count came to 8 billion. "

https://www.statista.com/chart/12919/chinese-new-year-will-see-billions-of-digital-donations/

Why did they go for "Ethereum, EOS, and Torn" for this -->  https://www.cryptonewsz.com/blockchain-cuties-gifting-digital-gifts-in-celebrations-of-the-chinese-new-year/7593/

Will we see more Blockchain and Lightning Network focus on this celebration next year? I sincerely hope that the Bitcoin community can see the potential of digital gifts in a massive market like this. 

                                                                           Let's give the big boys like Tencent and Alibaba a Bitcoin run for their money in 2020!

Ok, let's forget for one moment that Banks are also getting money from thin air, when Reserve Banks are printing money. Let's just concentrate on the millions of deposits that are deposited into Banks on a daily basis and that most of this money is borrowed to other people with interest. 

This money is channelled to loans <Short-term and Long-term> and people pay interest on those loans, resulting in higher debt.

So, when people remove their money from Banks and they invest in Bitcoin, they actually reduce the amount of money that Banks can loan to other people, effectively reducing global debt.    

This is why we always tell people not to buy bitcoins with credit cards or loans, because you are borrowing money from Banks to invest in Bitcoin and that increase debt levels again.  

Hoarding Bitcoin also stimulate a saving habit and that helps to counter increasing debt levels.  

The Banks in my country adds VAT to their Banking fees for every transaction you make. So I am not just paying the Banks to use my own money, I am paying the government too for the same transaction.

Yes, some Banks give you a small amount of transactions for free (Depending on the type of account), but once that limit is exceeded, you start to pay Banking fees for every transaction.

So Banks and Governments are making millions on fees that we have to pay, to use our own money!

Is this not one of the reasons why governments wants to stop Bitcoin and also the leverage Banks have over governments, if they lose the VAT on those transactions?

Please share your information on the way that governments and Banks are charging you to use your own money. How much is your VAT on those transactions and if you know that VAT is being paid as part of your fees?

I recently watched the movie Goosebumps 2 with my kids and Bitcoin was once again mentioned briefly in this movie. The one boy mentioned Bitcoin and the other boy called it Nerd money.   <My kids turned to me and said, Are you a nerd?>

So it got me thinking, why would people label Bitcoin as Nerd money, when people use electronic payment options like PayPal every day? What feature about Bitcoin gives people this impression about Bitcoin?

The first thing that comes to mind is the technical IT knowledge that people need to understand the concept about this technology and also it's origin amongst very highly skilled programmers and developers in the IT industry.

I am definitely not a nerd, but I am more than willing to carry that label, if it means that Bitcoin should be part of my skill and knowledge set in this world.  

Bitcoin Nerds will rule this world! <Bill Gates is 100% proof of that>

So I was thinking, why do we not crowd fund a reward that would be awarded to the most innovative Bitcoin Killer Application or Game of the Year?

The developers are doing mostly volunteer work for us to bring out those excellent Bitcoin projects and nobody is rewarding them for their efforts.

I think, it is time for the Bitcoin community to step up and to support these people and the best way to do this would be to reward them for their creativity.

A huge reward will surely contribute the following to Bitcoin :

~ Draw more non-bitcoin developers to Bitcoin
~ Spark the Killer Bitcoin App everyone is waiting for.
~ Help us to get developers not to create their own coins or using some counter party tokens for their projects.
~ Rewards innovation
~ Increase adoption when more use cases stimulate Bitcoin demand.
~ Increase media expose. <positive>

As to who would make the decision on the winner and who escrows and mange these funds, well I will leave that open for discussion. I am just putting the idea out there, someone else can run with that.  

We need some spark to start the fire!

Ps, If a Bitcoin Whale wants to fund this, then so be it. It just needs to be done to get things on track again.

Let's take the credit card companies as an example for this explanation. When a credit card is reported stolen, the service provider <Bank> are notified and the credit card is blocked. They are able to do that, because they have 100% control over that technology.

Now, let's apply this scenario to a Bitcoin address, where major merchants can be notified to block any transaction, that are coming from that address. <Think of Supermarket chains and Fast food franchises and also fuel companies.> Let's say you donated money to Wikipedia and your government does not like that, well they can link that address to you, if you re-use that Bitcoin address at any of these companies and they can push that information to a wide selection of other merchants and services that accepts Bitcoin payments and order them to block payment received from that address. <or any address linked to that Bitcoin address>

Ok, that might sound extreme in the 1st world countries, but a lot of dictators in 3rd world countries will not hesitate one second to do that to their citizens, if they had the technology enabled to do that.

Also, if people knew your Bitcoin address and they linked that to your personal information, then they will be able to gather a lot information from that one address. They will know how much money you have invested in Bitcoin and also what your spending habits are and even where you live. <You buy from a ecommerce site and they courier the goods to your physical address.>

This information in the wrong hands, can be very dangerous, so YOU have the right to hide that information by any means possible.  This is where the Mixer services comes in handy. :->

Is this legal? Probably not in most countries, but it just gives you the same level of anonymity, similar to when you withdraw cash from a ATM and spending it randomly at merchants.

Does this help criminals to hide their identity too? Yes, but as we have seen with the Internet, technology comes with it's advantages and disadvantages. The internet are used to distribute child pornography and enables terrorists to communicate and it is also used by money launderers to launder their dirty money, BUT it is used a lot more for legal things like emails / browsing useful information / ecommerce / social media etc.

Mixer services should not be branded as a tool for criminals, but rather be applauded for it's contribution to our financial privacy and protection from all the criminals and Con artists out there.   

These are just some of the reasons why we should use Mixer services to protect our financial privacy, there are lots more. {Financial Stalking /Bribery/Selective Marketing based on individual spending habits/Kidnapping  to name a few}

In 2017/2018 with the sharp increase in the price to the ATH of $18 000+, people were saying that Bitcoin can never be a currency with that kind of fluctuation and volatility in the price.

In the 3rd & 4th quater of 2018 up to Jan 2019, we have experienced a correction from that ATH and we are seeing much less volatility in the price. <The price hovering between $3500 and $4000>

Would you say that Bitcoin has shed it's speculator skin and emerged as a true currency, after this correction? I think with most of  the speculators left the Bitcoin scene in the last year or so and Bitcoin has truly transformed into a community of people who are more interested in the technology and using the technology as a currency. <This explains the stable price>  

Let's discuss, because I am very curious in what you opinions are about this.

" Billionaire fortunes increased by 12 percent last year – or $2.5 billion a day - while the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity saw their wealth decline by 11 percent "  

" the number of billionaires has almost doubled since the financial crisis, with a new billionaire created every two days between 2017 and 2018 "

" Tax rates for wealthy individuals and corporations have also been cut dramatically. For example, the top rate of personal income tax in rich countries fell from 62 percent in 1970 to just 38 percent in 2013. The average rate in poor countries is just 28 percent. "

~ Average daily wage of workers in Africa = $5-50 per day! <South of the Sahara>

~ Money being hidden in offshore accounts = $7.6 Trillion.

Source : https://www.oxfam.org report.

How can Bitcoin help to reduce the global economic inequality? Please discuss possible solutions.   I was thinking of a few small contributions that Bitcoin can add, to help with this problem.

1. Cheap cross border micro payments for micro tasks. (Global tipping services)
2. Cheaper remittance services. (People working in 1st world countries, who wants to send money home to their families)
3. Lower global interest on loans. (Individual funded loans that compete with Banks)
4. New job opportunities (Crypto currency and Blockchain related)
5. New investment opportunities & tools for non-professional traders. <Less fees and no barrier to entry>
6. Hoarding will stimulate a increased saving culture.
7. A hedge against Hyperinflation. <Protect your wealth from your countries/governments bad decisions>

Please add more to this list.  


 

By now most people have heard about this, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/u-s-now-says-all-online-gambling-illegal-not-just-sports-bets.

We all know that Crypto currency online gambling sites are rampant on the internet and it adds loads of demand for Crypto currency on the Internet.

Some of these sites are legal, but a large amount of them are operating illegally. The possible prohibition on internet gambling in the US will have a significant impact on the price of Crypto currencies that are used for gambling.

Do you think legal operations will close their doors and move underground?
Do you think it will only have a limited impact on Crypto currency prices?
Will these operations move to countries that allow online gambling?
Will online gambling evolve into illegal sites on the Darkweb?

Let's discuss. 

In the early days of Bitcoin, faucets was used to introduce people to Bitcoin <Before it became a money-making scene> and it quickly became one of the most successful tools to spread adoption.

I know my first introduction to Bitcoin was some free coins that I received from a faucet and I played around with those coins, until I figured out that it was actually "real" money and not some worthless token. <This was all done risk free, without investment of my own capital>

The Lightning Network is focussed on micro payments and faucets thrive on micro payments that are done within their centralized software. We want to highlight the effectiveness and speed of micro payments on the Lightning Network, so the first application should be a platform where micro payments are front and centre of their business model, right?

Let's discuss reasons why we are not seeing adoption of the Lightning Network being pushed by the platform that use micro payments the most --> Faucets!

Lightning Network Faucets will be the next evolution of old faucets. 

 

[never die]

Looking back at 2017 and 2018, one thing became clear and that is the never die attitude of the true Bitcoin investor/user. We are as stubborn and tough as a Honey Badger and we fight to the bitter end.

Ask yourself if any other disruptive technology like Bitcoin would have survived this long, bearing in mind that we are being attacked and challenged from all sides. <Governments and Banks and competitor coins>  

We took these challenges like scaling and we ran with it and our developers came up with a novel solution <Lightning Network> and now we are getting back up and running with that.

Let's wake the Honey Badger within us and continue the fight to Bitcoin to Mars!  

A year or two ago, I was one of the lucky people who broke even with my investment capital and since then I made almost 800% profit on the capital that I invested in Bitcoin. I decided very early on that I would not have all my eggs in one basket and I started to sell some bitcoins to buy assets and also collectables <Old coins> to serve as a plan B.

How many people sold some bitcoins for some profit and used that profit to invest in something else, just in case something went wrong with this experiment?

If you follow the same strategy, please share your thoughts on what you are buying or planning on buying to distribute your investment portfolio?  

I just want to say, Merry Xmas to all my fellow Bitcoin hoarders. I know we are from different countries with different religions and beliefs, but we have one thing in common and that is the belief in Bitcoin.  

I hope you did not spend too much bitcoins on Xmas gifts and food for the festive season and if you did, please buy back in on the dip.  

Have a great Xmas and let's stay strong in this season where spending pressure are at it's peak!

Ho Ho Ho, Hodle on!!!!

Most people would agree that it would be more beneficial for the price of a stock/commodity/currency to slowly go up, rather than continuously going down.

Investors <short-term> are looking at a potential investment, where they can be motivated to invest more money into that investment, because the profit <carrot> is held in front of them, because the price is continuously going up. This is what happened prior to 2017 and that is why investors dumped large amounts of money into Bitcoin. <Back then, the price pattern showed a continuous upward trend>

Now, with the price constantly going down, investors are sceptical to invest in Bitcoin and some short-term investors are pulling the plug.

Even if you are not interested in Bitcoin as an investor and you are just buying bitcoins to use as a currency, then a continuous downward movement in the price is more heart breaking, because you are getting less value for the bitcoins that you bought the day or the week before.

Even merchants hate a downward spiral of the price, because they will lose profit, if they are not using a payment processor to convert the coins to fiat currency.

On the way down a lot of people panic and they sell at a loss and these people will lose confidence in the currency/commodity and they will never invest in Bitcoin again.

We need a slow upward trend to get us back on track or this will go down in flames.  

On Monday I bought a item on sale from a online website and they had a buy 1 / get 1 free deal for the day. I placed my order and I paid with bitcoin, but they have a 10 minute timeframe for the transaction to confirm. <Only 1 confirmation is needed>

So, I did the checkout and I paid with Bitcoin <Electrum wallet with the highest fees> and watched the countdown from 10 minutes. Well, the SegWit transaction  did not confirm in 10 minutes. <It took 23 minutes on the first attempt and 28 minutes on the second attempt>

In the end, my money was refunded and I missed out on the deal. 

The Lightning Network would have solved this problem, but we are not even close to mainstream adoption and the merchant says that they not going to switch to the Lightning Network, until there are large demand for it.