Oh, I didn't know they closed up shop in the US. I'm very confused, but it does look like the CTFC has, or at least had, some authority over them as they have been fined in the past despite being based in Hong Kong:

https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/pr7380-16

Maybe it depends on the industry?

The call itself likely won't have any effect. The Philippine market is quite small, and is certainly nowhere near big enough to cause worldwide jitters like the G20 summit did.

The outcome probably could though, but you can't expect it to have the same effect as when big news drop from South Korea or pre-exchange ban China. Bitcoin has been fairly steady during the India and Iran bank bans, so I would guess it will take much more than bad press from a small country to move it.

I don't think that there will ever be any information with regards to this thanks to their company policy:


Regarding jurisdiction, wouldn't they be able to exercise at least some authority because they operate within their country? They could probably be barred from doing so if they don't comply.

I'm not a fan of Bitfinex and Tether, but I'm more inclined to believe that this is routinary considering how the story broke late and how quiet it has been since then. Tether is worth billions, and if it has been proven to be a scam, I doubt they'll be able to keep it under wraps. Probably just people making a mountain out of a molehill.

As bitmover has stated, there are lots of coins that fill all sorts of niches. There's not a single one which can do everything, so there certainly is room for other coins to flourish. Heck, there are a lot of factors to consider even among the coins that fill similar needs, like the vision, development teams, etc. so there will always be competition.

Monopoly is bad, and I'm pretty sure the same would apply to cryptocurrencies as well.

Could you explain what you mean by this? It doesn't make any sense to me. What 3 transactions? Who advised you? Did you make them in the end?


It doesn't look like Cryptomusu is very popular (It apparently just started on January 2018), so I don't think many people will be able to help you out unless you post a screenshot of what you're talking about. You should be able to upload it to imgur or something similar, then link it here.

Is it really a straight up ban though? From the article:


"Avoid" doesn't have the same gravity as "ban". From that statement, it seems to me that banks themselves still have final sale.

Also, banks don't usually sell or purchase crypto in the first place. They simply lend their services to individuals and institutions involved in crypto.

Either that specific statement I quoted was lost in translation, or this ban is simply people overreacting to news again.

It actually has nothing to do with crypto or crypto support. You are expected to pay taxes on any and all income, whether or not it is related to crypto. Most governments aren't taxing crypto specifically, they're taxing all earnings. They don't care where it comes from for as long as it's legal.

But yeah, to answer your question, you're legally obligated to pay proper taxes, and while you certainly can cheat your way out of it, you better make sure you don't get caught as the penalties are going to be heavy.

Well if you want a more covert operation, there are usually dormitories near universities that have somewhat expensive rental rates, but don't charge money for utilities. You can actually use legit mining equipment there too. You'll probably get kicked out after a month, but it's better than getting kicked out after a few hours at Starbucks lol.

But yeah, don't lol. I know this discussion is just for fun but you're basically jacking electricity like how crypto scripts jack CPU resources.

I feel like the blockchain itself still has very specific use cases, and cannot be compared to the internet which encompasses pretty much everything these days. At the end of the day, not everyone needs their databases to be decentralized (corporations are developing permissioned blockchains, for one), and regular databases could already be distributed. It's revolutionary because it's able to self-verify, which could save a lot of resources for plenty of business processes. It's revolutionary, but not that revolutionary.

That being said, it's entirely possible that we haven't even scratched the surface of the blockchain's potential, so I could be very wrong.

I'm fairly sure there's a clause with an exception for illegal activities. Should this be the case, then their central bank's specific ban of cryptocurrency, which isn't illegal, has no legal grounds.


The thing is, it's technically not illegal. There's no law that states banks can't deal with cryptocurrencies. It's apparently just a circular from their central bank, which could be scrutinized and found unconstitutional by the courts. If nothing else, this is democracy's checks and balances system working.

Exactly. It's a loophole (which is much, much harder to exploit than you let on, and gets even harder as the system grows) that is pretty much impossible to exploit in practice because it would entail bringing down the whole system, which would hurt the ones bringing it down the most. It's like mass suicide, except without the involvement of cults -- completely and utterly absurd.

Viewed in this light, it's practically impossible to freeze a Bitcoin address, and it's practically impossible for a 51% attack to happen in Bitcoin.

It's an interesting view for sure, but I don't think it makes for a very relevant comparison. People still mostly trade within their respective timezones, which traditional markets are aligned with. People's perception of time is also the same; they count days and weeks, not trading hours, so I'm not entirely convinced that crossing the 2784-hour mark in Bitcoin trading would necessarily equate to crossing 1.4 years of equity market trading. Markets shifting while you sleep does alter decision making significantly, but I still don't think the formula is quite as linear as that.

In the case of the post cited, if we specifically want to know how long the typical crypto bear market would last, I'd say it makes more sense to map out how long they've usually lasted in the past, rather than using traditional market figures then converting them into crypto trading time.

To answer your question though, this does make comparing them look sillier than before.

I would also like to add that one of the most tell-tale signs are auto-buy links, like the scammer posted in this message:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3315079.msg35196593#msg35196593

They're basically 99% guaranteed to be scams, so that should set off a red flag to any prospective client. He already got red trust from EcuaMobi for it, but I thought it would still be worth pointing out.

You can't without funds. Most of these projects are very well funded so they can afford to shoulder such costs. I mean, for a legitimate project, you're at least going to need a development team, and that costs a lot of money. Transaction fees for the airdrop would be pennies compared to that.

If you're planning on releasing a project you made yourself, you can put it under marketing costs. Otherwise, ICO, maybe?

I think you misunderstood him lol. What he meant by bear trap was basically that Bitcoin was never in a bearish trend to begin with, it just looked that way.

That being said, anyone can make better predictions than any expert because pretty much everything in the market is fueled by speculations and current events. No one should trust anyone on any of this stuff lol.

Since this is degrading into age-old arguments, let's just agree to disagree. I would like to highlight one thing in particular though:


That is your, and many other supporters' opinion. The cold hard fact is that BTC, not BCH, is Bitcoin. All ideologies aside, just like how no one can take the Bitcoin handle on Twitter (which I pointed out in my first post in this thread) and how no one can take Bitcoin.com from Roger Ver (well he actually owns it lol but no one can stop him from using the Bitcoin name), no one can take Bitcoin from BTC.

That's funny because I'm not defending Core at all. This is not about the brand at all. I'm just stating facts:

• Bitcoin is distinct from Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin is worth ~$8,922.36 at the moment, while Bitcoin Cash is worth ~$1,213.26 at the moment. They also work differently. They are different from each other
• Let's stop focusing on the brand. Coin 2 marketers (intentionally?) post potentially misleading statements that may lead less-knowledgeable people to believe that it is one and the same with Coin 1, which is utterly incorrect and has nothing to do with centralization.

I don't care about the brand, and I have nothing against Bitcoin Cash as a project, but I don't think it's right to claim that one thing is another when that is not the case.

I know, which is why I said that mistakes could be chalked up to due diligence or lack thereof. You can't deny that it's misleading though, whether intentional or not:


Strictly speaking, Bitcoin Cash is a fork, not an upgrade. This is phrased in such a way which suggests that Bitcoin Cash is a direct successor of Bitcoin when this is not the case. There have been precedents of newbies thinking BCH is BTC thanks to these antics. If you want complete transparency, you should say Bitcoin Cash is a new Bitcoin that doesn't have these problems, or something along those lines. But that won't fly for some reason, huh?


I did acknowledge that what he's doing is legal. Shady, but legal.

I think he's basically saying that the Tether founders can inflate Bitcoin's value should they want to. I can't tell if he's being sarcastic about asking them for help though lol.

But yeah, them pumping Bitcoin would only make the blowback worse once Tether inevitably collapses, so no thank you.

Only if the regulations are fair, of course. If it gets to a point where putting money in crypto is more trouble than it's worth, then why would anyone bother? That's the part where it gets tricky.

But yeah, I have mixed feelings about institutional investors actually entering the market. They're going to be in it for the money, not the technology, so it will only contribute to volatility as they play with their money, and may actually hurt actual adoption in the long run.