Honestly, it's much more ideal to recommend Windows Defender and Malwarebytes and nothing else. More choices is certainly better, but if nearly all of them gather your data, then it's probably best to stick to the lesser evil. They should all work similarly well 99% of the time.

Windows is already gathering your data anyway, so you may as well use their antivirus instead of bringing in another third party to the equation. Malwarebytes has excellent reputation, but while I don't think you should be trusting any company blindly, it's almost necessary if you ocassionally engage in risky behavior. Running them together seem to be the most recommended configuration, and running any more as "backups" is likely counterproductive.

Man it's ridiculous how low Estonia's still is in comparison. It's also pretty funny seeing Malta's that high, considering its marketing image of Blockchain Island. Either way, this might be the reason why they increased their fees:


Some firms could be getting permits and using those to add some legitimacy in their operations, even without directly being based in Estonia.

It's also worth noting that the banking scandal OP mentioned triggered this change, not any of the crypto companies registered. Bankers and ruining crypto often seems to go hand in hand lol.

Investors do though, as sad as it is, and even sadder still, majority of Bitcoin users are still more investors and less enthusiasts. Either way, this wave of news is a welcome departure to bankers calling Bitcoin a bubble every chance they get (not that it mattered then though lol).


Weren't they talking more about Covid and investor mentality rather than underlying fundamentals? I mean, when prices crashed I honestly didn't expect it to bounce back so soon considering how bleak the pandemic situation looked like at the time -- the fact that it did signals that people actually believe in Bitcoin's longevity.

It can also be used offline, so you could use it as a paper wallet (by generating keys on a machine that has never touched, or never touch the internet), or even a de facto hardware wallet (by using a persistent Linux flash drive that will never touch the internet).

Anyway, it seems like your reason for not suggesting paper wallets is better suited towards traders who need to be able to transact on the fly, rather than holders who just want cold storage. Don't get me wrong though, hardware wallets certainly give paper wallets some heavy competition, but its only real advantage is convenience -- something which not everyone is willing to pay money for. They also cater to different needs, so they're not entirely comparable.

Not OP, but I have no idea why people cite this as an argument. Deflation, in this context, happens when supply can no longer keep up with demand. Keeping that in mind, subdividing satoshis into however many units does not affect the supply at all and shouldn't have any direct impact in Bitcoin's value.

This would be akin to central banks breaking down cents into smaller denominations instead of printing money for the purpose of injecting more supply into circulation.

This is an incredibly wrong long writeup that essentially boils down to saying people would rather hoard Bitcoin because they're incentivized to do so (mostly because of how its value tend to increase over time). I don't disagree with this, and we've been seeing this in practice for quite some time now -- people screaming HODL, merchants not actually getting much business with BTC, etc.

At the end of the day though, I think this all boils down to semantics. Bitcoin has been more of a crypto-asset than a cryptocurrency for a while now, and I don't see that changing drastically in the foreseeable future. It has to be noted, however, that it can be both; Bitcoin can be incredibly convenient to transact with considering its borderless and decentralized nature that there will be cases where people would prefer to use it over jumping hoops with fiat. That niche, along with the fact that some people simply choose to use it because they believe in the idea, are enough to ensure that Bitcoin will never be irrelevant as a currency, regardless of what its primary usage is.

Edit: misstyped long for some reason lmao

I'd like to note that this is only really an issue because of exchanges. Bitcoin was meant to be peer-to-peer after all, and was actually designed in such a way that lets you avoid middlemen. It's fungible in essence, but using it in an unnatural way (i.e. exchanges) compromises that.


Yeah, this is why the policy is flawed. They're going to be asking you proof of financial capacity (like in this case with Binance), which is a problem because you're placed at the mercy of another person.

One important question to ask though, is do they automatically flag coins suspected of being mixed, or are they only flagging suspicious patterns? The case I shared above apparently mixed some of their coins directly post-withdrawal -- if they had sent it to a different address before mixing, would it have been flagged then? It's too early to sound the alarm, and blacklisting all mixed coins sounds a bit too draconian considering how easy it is for them to change hands.

The "hacker" was not able to get any data from any records, and it wasn't even a hack per se. It was DNS jacking, basically meaning they were able to replace the original site with a fake one, so the original itself was never really compromised. It was essentially a phishing attack; if you didn't try to log in while the fake was up, you wouldn't have been affected.

That being said, EtherDelta had centralized components, and was taken advantage of. DEX should still be more resistant to attacks than standard exchanges though, mostly thanks to the fact that they don't keep your coins for you.


Wouldn't you be running the same kind of risk by using a CEX? We've seen CEX hackings happen far more often than DEX hackings, even.

The actual report actually lists a bunch of factors that support their opinion, so maybe they're talking about a number of these going off the mark:

https://data.bloomberglp.com/professional/sites/10/Bloomberg-Indices-Outlook_Cryptos_June-2020.pdf

To name a few, and each of which has a writeup:


There are a lot more, but those are what primarily caught my eye. The report seems to be worth a read, at least.

It also has to be noted that the $20k prediction was brought about by following the 2016 pattern, which they did not say was a given. It mostly just states that there are a bunch of factors which mean Bitcoin is practically guaranteed to appreciate, not necessarily by a lot. This is just another case of a clickbait article oversimplifying stuff.

I'm unsure if you're stating a fact or actually guessing, but his being a paid shill has been confirmed as far as two years back:


And straight from the horse's mouth, since his website stating above quote have since gone down:


We probably shouldn't be giving him publicity, but it might be worth it just for everyone to realize he's just a clown; it might save a few folks from falling for his dirty pump and dumps.

It did work out well, but I don't think it's a primary consideration. According to the white paper:


If we want to be completely specific, this is the reason why Bitcoin isn't anonymous.

Well these already exist, so we're all good in that front. Plenty of people use both Bitcoin along with Monero/Dash. I don't think I ever see anyone push for full anonymity in Bitcoin either -- they mostly ask why it isn't, considering its reputation brought about by pop culture.

Just to be clear, I don't mind whether Bitcoin is fully anonymous or not. What I take issue with is going out of our way just to please the government. It works out in this case because Bitcoin was never meant to be fully anonymous to begin with, but if that had been in the development roadmap and was scrapped just because of regulatory threats, then it would become a problem.

So yeah, I understand the OP's reasoning and what he said certainly made sense, but IMO the reason why Bitcoin should never be anonymous is because it doesn't have to, nor was it ever intended to be; dodging regulatory measures just happened to line up conveniently with that, not vice-versa.

I don't disagree, but this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It effectively means Bitcoin's development is going to be limited by what governments dictate. Sure some of us can live with just a pseudonymus Bitcoin, but what if they go after something else? With this reasoning, lawmakers are going to be able to mold Bitcoin into what they want with legislation, and we all lose out for it.

I mean, it's cool in this case because there are workarounds in mixers, layers, it was never designed to be fully anonymous to begin with, etc., but IMO future laws should never be a consideration in mapping out development.

Dollar Cost Averaging is generally a safe strategy, but investing a lump sum isn't bad either, especially when prices are low:


Either way, this demonstrates that it can be really hard to lose money with Bitcoin if you know what you're doing.

Honestly, if Bitcoin grows to the heights it aims to, it's not too late. You have to take note that there will only ever be 21 million ever mined, and that some are lost permanently daily -- if demand remains consistent or grows, then economics dictate that each piece will become even more valuable. It also has to be said that people are only just starting to recognize Bitcoin as legitimate, meaning you still have a hell of a head start against the general populace.

Either way, one other thing you can try is buying low and selling high. It can be tricky to identify when to buy and sell, but it can pay off pretty well. Bitcoin dipped to below ~$5k just two months ago, and if you had bought then, then you'd have nearly doubled your money by now. People often meme about Bitcoin going on a fire sale whenever it dips, but they're almost always on the mark in hindsight.

To be fair, OP said this is for beginner traders, not newcomers to crypto in general. Traders, regardless of their experience with crypto itself, have to start somewhere, and these practice accounts are probably as good a jumping point as any. Who knows, they might be dissuaded by losing their fake money making bad trades, preventing them from losing real money in the future lol.

I personally wouldn't recommend trading either, but can't deny that some people do make money from it, and that some others are even consistently successful with it. The odds are generally going to be against you, but there's really no way to know how well you'd do if you don't try (hopefully while minimizing losses).

One of Greyscale's top brass actually replied to that tweet lol:

https://twitter.com/barrysilbert/status/1264211319277961220

...meaning interest could be mounting even more despite the fact that the halving has come and gone. It must be said that this isn't necessarily good for Bitcoin though, considering their investors aren't necessarily interested in Bitcoin itself.


It's because this chart is for Greyscale's Bitcoin Trust; the investors don't actually own Bitcoin themselves. This does make Greyscale amass more coins, but whether that's good or bad depends on your perspective.

I don't know how switching from fiat to crypto will result in such a drastic change. It's just a means of exchange at the end of the day, and they've historically been able to adapt to changes.

As for blockchain technology, there hasn't really been any widespread application that doesn't have anything to do with cryptocurrency, so there's not much to suggest that it can guide a new society lol.

Anyway, part of why the world is struggling right now is that people have been reluctant to part with their money; people are mostly restricted to spending on essentials. A world with just crypto might mirror this, except people will be reluctant to spend because of crypto's deflationary properties rather than a global pandemic. I guess inflation could be introduced to address this, but depending on how new coins are issued, things might not end up too different from fiat.

It is, but they're also an authoritarian country which can get away with most of what they want. The penalties are a reflection of how resolute they are in their stance, and they obviously don't want crypto being handled at all:


This article was from two months ago. Putin has flip-flopped for the longest time, but it looks like it's inevitable this time.

Well I mean, it wouldn't have moved if there was nobody behind it lmao. Hal is just one of the possible owners based on when they were mined, and it's an incredibly short list (for the people who we know anyway -- Bitcoin was incredibly easy to mine back then, and there could be random anonymous people who have tried it silently).


There shouldn't be any issue with this, but the common theme going on around now is that if this is Satoshi, he could possibly dump the 1m estimated coins he owns. It has to be noted that there is absolutely no evidence tying this to Satoshi and that a similar event has happened in 2017.

I don't think this will cause a significant dump, if at all, but it looks like we're going to have a fun topic for a few days lol, especially because of the issue pooya87 has mentioned. I expect a CSW statement soon.