No. You can create any number of currencies you want, on whatever material you want. It won't have value for anyone other than you, though, so it's pointless anyway. Cryptocurrencies follow the same rule; you're allowed to create as many as you want, but it's going to be troublesome making people believe it has value.

That being said, some countries only allow the use of their own official currencies on financial transactions, so while you may be free to create your own currency, the law will not recognize it as legal tender, and you may even be penalized for using it. This is why some countries allow you to own and trade Bitcoins, but ban its use in transactions.

Yeah, they're not visible to regular users. You may check the modlog for bans, but it only covers recent ones as far as I know. I can't find the user you mentioned anymore, so they must have been banned a few weeks back.

I don't know about other payment processors, but for Bitpay specifically, you can receive Bitcoin without converting it, or even receive a portion in a currency of your choosing while keeping the rest in Bitcoin. Source: https://bitpay.com/docs/settlement

It would be much better if you can forego a payment processor though, of course, unless you want Bitcoin converted automatically to fiat to eliminate volatility risks.

Pretty much anyone can start ICOs, and with little consequence to boot, and therein lies the problem. It's an easily exploitable model, which would have otherwise been a legitimately fresh way to raise funds, except it has already been overrun with scammers. It doesn't help that it's done on a cryptocurrency platform, which happens to be the hottest new "investment" at the moment, which means it can also take advantage of people's FOMO, along with the ease of investing.

I honestly can't tell what percentage of them are legit, but I probably won't be too far off by saying around 1%.

And in response to that, I say, if crypto were large enough of a threat, why not just ban them? Some countries have already done it, and I would argue that it has been far more effective than any FUD attack they could launch. China has basically stopped just short of a complete ban and it completely crippled their trading volume, even proving to be effective enough to drive away traders to Hong Kong. I know they can afford it, but why spend millions when you can pass a bill and be done with it? In the end, even special task forces are a way to enforce rules; rules that they themselves have written and can easily rewrite.

As I have mentioned in my first post, I do believe it's within the realm of possibility, but I simply don't see a reason for them to jump through all these hoops.

Mining isn't considered a factor in cash outflow as far as I know. That's why China is letting it be for now while clamping down on everything else. It brings money in, if anything.

Money is involved because you're giving fiat to foreign companies for crypto. One often cited factor for China's capital outflows is Chinese companies and households increasing their foreign currency deposits, which isn't a much different case from increasing Bitcoin stashes in this context. You're also not just exchanging your fiat for Bitcoin, you're also paying foreign companies fees, etc. and you're less likely to use it (like foreign currency which people usually just keep in reserve), so your local economy is a little worse off.

I'm using China as an example, by the way, because its fight against capital outflows is well documented and has encroached into Bitcoin and crypto territory.

Not who you quoted, but this article offers a nifty explanation:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danikenson/2016/08/23/41-straight-years-of-trade-deficits-yet-america-still-stands-strong/

tldr; Trade deficits are bad, but there are other factors that must be taken into consideration, as evidenced by the United States' growth despite their trade deficits.


As for capital outflows I personally believe it has more to do with money laundering than anything; people are able to funnel their money out of the country freely with crypto after all. I haven't heard of a case involving this specifically, but China seems to believe it exists, as it's one of their primary concerns at the moment.

People purchasing crypto from foreign cryptocurrency exchanges using their fiat may also fall under this umbrella, as they're effectively giving away money that's part of their economy to people from other countries. I realize this case does somewhat look like a trade deficit though.

No one has really been able to precisely quantify the relationship between supply and demand (which is hard to quantify itself) in Bitcoin, so it would be impossible to estimate how much the price might be.

In terms of movement, if you think about it logically, the price would likely be stuck to how much the last purchase was for, assuming supply were at exactly zero. People can't enter a bidding war if they have nothing to bid on after all. I imagine the price would skyrocket should some enter the market suddenly though.

That being said, this scenario is probably close to impossible.

Were you asking a question or merely stating something as fact? I would argue that Bitcoin isn't too different from the past you have described. Satoshis still cost a fraction of a cent, so you could still use Bitcoin for reasonably small payments, especially right now that fees have basically bottomed out. It wasn't as ideal as it was then for micropayments, but is still quite viable. It's perfectly suitable for payments of every other amount too.

I agree that it has to be feasible for payments for it to have value, but some people would probably be content with it just being a store of value.

Supply and demand??? Don't get me wrong, I think it's ridiculous too, but it is what it is. That doesn't take away from its utility, nor from its future potential. It's not taking on fiat either. If you read the white paper, it's not much more than a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that was built as an alternative so that people won't need to pay mediation fees for payment processors.


What does this job stealing argument have to do with Bitcoin? You can't peg Bitcoin's value, a decentralized currency, to one number either, what kind of economics would that be?

It's kind of a little overblown. Don't get me wrong, it's still concerning, but it doesn't mean the US government automatically has access to everything everywhere:

From: https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/23/apple-supported-cloud-act-passes-congress-will-change-how-governments-share-data


There were no debates about it because it basically just cuts red tape. Authorities still won't have access to data they were denied access to, unless their request was denied specifically because of said red tape. I'll need to review it more thoroughly though, I guess.

I'm not betting against Bitcoin bouncing back if it does dip below $5000, but I wouldn't be so irresponsible as to risk my home either. If you're willing to lose everything for the prospect of doubling everything, then you're essentially gambling, and irresponsibly at that. Do you like gambling?


He wouldn't be selling it for Bitcoin if he could afford to lose it lol.

Well that's one way to boost your economy. I know Malta isn't poor, but some poorer countries could follow their example. It's really awesome to see industries and jobs popping up because of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general.

There's honestly no divide between new members and the older members. Newbies can contribute the same way after all, besides minor differences like signature limitations and some anti-spam filters. The perceived divide comes from some newbies acting like spammers and being somewhat toxic in general. People really don't discriminate otherwise.

If you're a newbie who doesn't ask questions that can be answered by the search bar, thinks about what they post, and follows the rules, there's no reason why people would be hostile towards you.

Someone here actually made a detailed write up with his experiences in such a group:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2876163

Spoiler alert to the surprise of no one: they're scams. Stay away.

You seem to have taken my post out of context. I was questioning the rationale behind funding a massive manipulative conspiracy which is a completely roundabout way of doing things, considering the fact that they can pass laws and achieve the same, if not even greater effects. They obviously already do such a thing now, but the topic is about Cambridge Analytica type tricks used to FUD crypto, not crypto attacks in general. If you think such attacks are happening behind the scenes, well, let's just agree to disagree.

Something being volatile basically means it's subject to wild, rapid changes. Inflation does play a part in changes in value, but its effect is more of a long term one so I don't think it qualifies as a factor to volatility.

What I can say for certain about the USD is that compared to Bitcoin, it's completely and absolutely stable. The chart says that USD value in 1910 was only about 20% off from 10 years prior, in a pretty steep drop by its own standards. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is more than 100,000% off from just around 8 years ago, and is more than 50% off from just four months ago. The USD does move quite a bit, but it's entirely incomparable with Bitcoin in this aspect.

That being said, inflation vs. deflation is an entirely different issue.

Bitcoin has been observed as helpful to the Japanese economy by giving more people more income, and in turn, spurring their spending. More spending typically helps the economy. If such a simple and direct concept has been proven to work on a national level, I don't see why it wouldn't work on a global one. Much more people getting richer would be necessary to create an observable effect though, of course.

I have to say that it shouldn't really be expected to be capable to help the economy though. Bitcoin is just another currency, like the USD, and the USD isn't being expected to stop economic slides. Bitcoin just happens to be capable of creating wealth.

Wasn't there very few industries then? There was less demand for services and goods too, along with a smaller population, so it only follows that there's not much work to be done. Our world is increasingly becoming fast paced, so it's just another consequence.

I don't think fiat and its diminishing value plays a major part. There's an abundance of workers, so they all have to be competitive. That is, for the most part, how companies are able to make them work longer hours for less pay. Deflation would probably be a welcome source of income, but I doubt it's as black and white as that.


Lmao people are going to be miserable no matter how many off days they get anyway, medieval peasants being prime example. The problem with her write up is that she's equating downtime with happiness. Then again, if she says that medieval peasants got 150 off days and revolted anyway while saying we should get more off days again, it wouldn't be a very compelling read.

Here's one (very) rough estimation that I know of:

https://hackernoon.com/the-bitcoin-vs-visa-electricity-consumption-fallacy-8cf194987a50

I don't think there are actual studies on the matter. Banking is considered a necessity after all, so it's not viewed under a microscope like Bitcoin is.