I´ve read that you cooperate with Bitpay. Can I assume that this is the same exchange
rate as displayed in the Bitwala dashboard?
https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-exchange-rates

Is there any other way to view the current exchange rate you use without a Bitwala account?
I´m not a Bitwala customer as of now and would like to confirm, if your marketrate is really
as competitive as you claim in the Bitcoin Debit Card comparison on your website.

Thank you for your help.

Thank you for the review warningsigns!
The provider Cryptopay looks very good at first glance. I checked their FAQ regarding the quote above and you are right, it would be considered a domestic withdrawal.

I have another question regarding Cryptopay:
Do they use Bitpay? Or what is the source for the exchange rate when funding your Cryptopay account with BTC? I read that you will be charged a 1 % fee for topping up
your card and another 1 % fee when you load your card in a currency that is not your card currency (e.g. for a top up using Bitcoin you would
get charged 1 % and 1 % = 2 %). However, I can´t find the source for their Bitcoin exchange rate.

edit: nevermind, I found it at the mainsite of cryptopay.me 

I know that as of today a multitude of projects is offering a traditional
VISA or Mastercard that can be funded using cryptocurrencies.
I have been researching the various providers for days now (Bitpay, Xapo
and so on) and have found that they often cater mainly to the US. This
is unattractive for European users like me, who would get
charged forex conversion fees for every transaction.

Does anybody of you use one of these Debit Cards that can be funded
using crypto in Europe? Which provider offers the cheapest fees and
is reliable?

I´d be happy to hear from your experiences.

Great to hear that the new site will finally be released 

I tend to agree with your sentiment regarding the Core development team. However, it is not really clear, whether the 2x hard fork will
actually happen at all. The signatories of the New York Agreement could still decide to shift their support to BCH or to abandon
the hard fork plans. But this is all speculation for now, I will wait until you have reconsidered the situation in November.

I wasn´t arguing for the importance of regulation. That is a topic for another day. I´m actually inclined to agree with most of
your statements regarding the disadvantages of regulation for the average exchange user!

However, I was arguing for the importance of regulated exchanges in order to render a Bitcoin ETF possible.
Regulation is a huge headache for users and for the exchanges, but it is an inevitable outcome if the BTC market comes
to maturity. If BTC was mainly traded on regulated exchanges, the SEC (and similar institutions in other countries)
would have a hard time denying another ETF application.

bitFlyer (based in Japan) is currently the exchange with the highest marketshare of all
BTC exchanges.

1   bitFlyer   BTC/JPY   $374,405,000   $4073.27   15.17%   Recently  (Coinmarketcap)

Has anybody used bitFlyer? It is obviously attractive to trade at the exchange with
the highest marketshare and their fee structure looks reasonable.
However I couldn´t find any information, which countries are even accepted.
I know they announced to service certain US states in the last days, but how
is the situation for people based in Europe?
Is it possible to trade at bitFlyer from Europe? Are the verification
requirements reasonable?

I´d be thankful for your experiences.

Some people have advocated for viewing potential future forks as a kind of dividend payment for holding Bitcoin.
I agree with this sentiment and intend to hold both (or all) chains if another chainsplit is happening in November.

Besides, it is important that you make sure you don´t lose funds in the process of a fork. Some people
have fallen for fake wallets or other scams in the turmoil of the BCH chainsplit.
Make sure you only use legitimate wallets in the case of a chainsplit 

I´m not from the UK, but here are some general rules for dealing with Bitcoin withdrawals to CASH:
-if you are transferring a big amount, inform your contact person of your bank in advance
(there are numerous cases where people didn´t do that and did get their account locked, which
only causes hassle!)
-if you are selling only a small amount and very unregularly, you probably can get away without paying taxes
-depending on your situation and the tax laws in the UK you can make use of tax exempt amounts
-depending on what you want to do with the cash, you might consider purchasing in BTC
directly (e.g. using a service like Gyft to order from Amazon)

I concede that the unregulated nature of Bitcoin itself could be a problem. However, it could be sufficient for the SEC and other regulatory entities, if the
exchanges (= the points where cryptos are changed to fiat and vice versa) are regulated.
If the unregulated exchanges would be gone or only responsible for a negligible part of overall trading volume an ETF would likely be approved.

Imagine a world where the biggest 5 exchanges are places like GDAX, Gemini, Kraken (all US based) combined with some regulated exchanges
in Asia (e.g. Bitflyer, which is also expanding towards many US states). This would make an ETF approval much more likely.
In this scenario Bitfinex could still be functioning, but not at the current level of marketshare.

While it may add functionality, Ethereum has proven to be less secure than the time-tested Bitcoin network.
Besides, projects like Rootstock are developing smart contracts on the basis of Bitcoin.

I don´t really see Ethereum as a thread for these reasons. Additionally, it is very questionable, whether
the intended change to PoS as a consensus mechanism is feasible at all!

I don´t know the motivation for his posts, but let me take his side for the sake of argument.
The shutting down of exchanges like BTC-E and Bitfinex could be beneficial for the whole
cryptomarket. One of the reasons cited in the original Bitcoin ETF denial was that
certain unregulated exchanges make up a big part of the Bitcoin markets.

If these exchanges would get shut down for some reason, this would facilitate the
introduction of Bitcoin ETFs. And we all know what this would likely mean for the price.

Take a look at the Services forum:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=52.0

There you can find most of the threads where people offer their Escrow services.
However, I think most charge a small fee for performing the escrow. I don´t think it is a big problem to pay a
1 % fee or something similar, because with your trade amount this amounts only
to the BTC equivalent of 0.5 €.

I´d like to join your campaign at the next possible date.

User: Samarkand
Postion to Apply: Member
Posts Start: 79
Address:    1JkXjQFh8cYpuF4eFMte3f1RcVf6KLvVjL

How exactly does BTC help economic growth in your opinion?
A huge percentage of owners is just holding and doesn´t make any transactions at all.

The mainstream economy works, because most people buy and consume stuff. If someone buys BTC instead of buying
a TV or a new computer, the economy doesn´t really benefit.

In the future when BTC will be used more for purchases this could change, but currently I don´t really see it
as contributing to economic growth.

You forgot the 3rd possible option. Bitfinex could make so much money from their exchange operation that they can easily replenish
any outstanding funds and unbacked Tethers.
They are collecting a part of their fees in BTC and could sell them at other exchanges at the current high prices of more than 4k $ / BTC.
It is not all obvious that they are not doing that already.

Facebook is slow in removing stuff like this as well! It may seem paradoxical, but they earn
good money from illegitimate advertisers and are therefore not 100% invested
in combating this kind of fraud.

Besides, big parts of their systems (this is the same at Google) are automatic
and work without any human intervention. Therefore it is possible that no human
has ever approved this, but it simply got included in the ad rotation automatically.

ETFs may have a real chance, if the offshore exchanges aren´t responsible for a huge part of
BTC trading volume anymore. With btc-e gone, Bitfinex in trouble (if you believe the rumours about
Tether), things are looking promising for a future Bitcoin ETF.

Besides there is this other ETF, not by the Winklevoss twins, who is taking a different approach and
therefore maybe has a better chance for approval.

https://www.btc-echo.de/ein-neuer-bitcoi-etf-geht-an-den-start/

And how would they collect the money they are owed due to a law like this?
This sounds completely unrealistic and would never be introduced.

Especially because financial regulations are not global, but differ greatly between
various jurisdictions.

I discovered a "bug" (or maybe a missing feature) in the Roulette game:

It is not possible to place a bet on 4 numbers simultaneously. In Roulette parlance
this type of bet is called a corner bet.


This is not an exotic bettype, but rather one of the more common bets.
I´d like to see if that possibility was introduced or repaired.

Let´s say your assumptions are true. Why haven´t they been able to set up new banking relationships outside of the US?
They announced to enable withdrawals in currencies like JPY or HKD (or even Euros!) and haven´t been able to deliver
on that promise.

Besides, the US market is big. I agree that compliance costs are ridiculous, but the US is also one of the biggest and therefore
most profitable markets to operate in. If the crypto market will continue to grow in the future, it may be a bad business decision
to opt out of the US just because of compliance costs.

I still suspect that they have problems due to the token creation, which allegedly (!) is the reason why they
were dropped by WF.