I remain extremely skeptical when it comes to economies that have historically not been the most stable (look up Turkey inflation, for those of you who haven't been up to date with the situation) trying to issue their own cryptocurrencies, as if that's going to be the savior of their economy.

The fact is that this is most likely just another ploy to suck in foreign investment as well as investment from everyday citizens who blindly trust in government initiatives like these. Potentially, blockchain technology may also be used to track spending more accurately for the government, as opposed to offering any tangible benefits to actual citizens.

Just look at the completely botched Petro experiment - understand what the ulterior motives of countries who want to launch their own centralized tokens are, and you'll quickly realize not to buy into the idea.

I actually don't entirely agree with this section of your post.

While it is true and universally recognized that supply and demand is what ultimately shapes the market clearing price, there is no indication (or rather, guarantee) that demand for BTC will grow at such an astronomical rate over the next few years. Also, your comparison of BTC to rare diamonds doesn't make the most sense either.

Furthermore, in terms of your statement about supply, that's not necessarily true either. It really doesn't matter whether bitcoin's supply is 21 million, 2.1 million, or 210,000. An increase in demand should still result in the same percentage gain, if you get what I'm saying.


This part, I definitely agree with.

Once merchants start adopting BTC on a large scale, I think that there will be significantly less downward pressure on BTC as people are capable of now fulfilling their needs without needing to move out of this asset, leading to less supply.

Another point that needs to be mentioned is the long term depreciating nature of fiat currencies, which means that even if demand of BTC stays relatively the same, assuming all else equal, there should be an increase in nominal BTC prices - since it has a capped supply and therefore is a long term store of value. However, when will hyperinflation come, nobody knows.

I can't tell whether these guys are genuinely stupid, given no effort in actually researching how to transact with BTC, or intentionally trying to mislead others.

If the editor actually did any bit of research, they could have realized that there is no intrinsic limitation on the amount of BTC you can send, apart from the dust limit which is minimal. You can set your own fees if you used a wallet like Electrum, or Bitcoin Core, but no, they decide to go with the example of Blockchain.com - a very outdated example for sure as well, since fees are nowhere near that much now.

If you want to sell these small amounts, deposit onto Paxful or Localbitcoins, or any p2p platform for that matter! Why are you looking at heavily regulated exchanges with high barriers of entry if you've got less than $100 to trade?

I'd also like to see where they got the figures "millions of investors" from. It seems sensationalist and completely arbitrary.

The fact is that the market has been aware of the issues surrounding USDT for a while now, including how it could be operating under a fractional reserve all this time with limited liquidity, since their shift towards backing their reserves with non-cash components.

I still take the stance that the impact of Tether on the bitcoin market has been entirely overstated.

Whilst it is true that any negative Tether news will most likely impact bitcoin prices in the short run, market participants will quickly find an alternative stablecoin to use, if there is demand (even though I'm a strong advocate against stablecoins). There are several substitutes in the market already which means that it's very unlikely that there will be long run detriments, especially when you consider the fact that long run prices are still greatly determined by fundamentals of BTC itself.

I do not think that what they mean by this is that bitcoin transactions are illegal per se, but rather the fact that their own bank policies dictate that they will not deal with crypto-related transactions due to the fact that they are assumed to be "high risk". Which is completely bogus, but it's what they're saying.

I personally think just being honest will yield you the best results, if you really want to continue to bank with them. Just state your source of income which you got the funds to invest into the crypto, and provide the necessary screenshots.

But to be honest, I would just go and bank with another institution, because of how draconian this one's policies are. Especially if you are planning on dealing with crypto transactions in the future, just switching banks will probably save you a ton of hassle in the future while preserving your privacy, for your own sake.

This might make sense in the long run, where you have to obviously account for inflation (in BTC's case, the 1800 BTC/day figure that you've mentioned). But in the short run, the markets are more irrational than you think. Short run markets don't necessarily always account for inflation, especially when the percentage of new coins minted is so low compared to the existing monetary base.

So no, I don't think that this is the reason for the current dip. Short term dips usually has nothing to do with fundamentals anyways, but more about emotions. This time, it's due to the fact that BTC was unable to breach the $13k resistance, imo.

Also, why do you think that $20+ million per day over the long run is something that is unsustainable at all? Especially when BTC is within its growth phase, it would be a surprise if long term averages do not reflect investments with this type of magnitude.

I really think that your business would benefit from having some sort of user protection scheme.

I.e., exchangers who want to get listed on your site must first be screened for potential scams, and then asked to pay at least some sum in deposit in order to be listed. That way, there is less (although not a zero) chance that these exchangers will use your platform as a promotional tool to eventually pull an exit scam.

But apart from that, I've been a fan for a long time. I've had no issues with the majority of exchangers listed.

The same people who panic-sold at sub-$10k levels were most likely the ones that bought at the height of the short term rally at $13k+. You're definitely right in the sense that it essentially drives weak hands out, which in itself presents a possibility for long term investors to accumulate at below trend average prices.

I believe that short term cycles like these are imminent. Whilst it could take some time for a certain part of the cycle to actually come into play, if prices are growing at an unsustainably high rate over the short term (like it did with the rally from $7k to nearly $14k within weeks), the correction will be a matter of time.

I think that we're still somewhat consolidating though. Markets seem to be still quite subdued despite the recovery, and looks to consolidate further at the $12-13k corridor for a few more days before a likely upward move to re-test the $14k resistance.

Are you talking about cryptocurrencies themselves, or investment schemes that are launched that accept payments in BTC?

Most of the ponzi schemes that exist online are extremely obvious to spot, and I think a bit of common sense is all you need honestly.


What it boils down to is whether or not a business's traditional operation model of selling their products or services alone is capable of sustaining itself, without the need for any further investment from new funding sources all the time in order to make their profits in the long run.

There should also be a clear distinction between affiliate marketing, and ponzi, that you should be aware of, imo. There are certain companies like Amway that sort of sits somewhere in between, it's best to just avoid them.

Philosophically, do they consist a ponzi type structure? Yes, by strict definition. But they might not be defined as such within legislation.

I think that this has less to do with an agenda against crypto (even though this is the prevailing sentiment for most regulators globally anyways), but rather simply their distrust towards these heavily leveraged derivatives.


What I doubt is that even if the FCA does pass this and enforce it, would it have much of an impact on everyday bitcoin users and investors. Even advanced traders in the UK shouldn't be that affected, since this is only banning one type of derivative. Futures, options, etc. should remain unaffected.

But I certainly do think that going down the path of regulating the risks of these derivatives would be much more fruitful than a lazy blanket ban, don't forget that bitcoin's international nature makes derivatives trading completely delocalized as a result.

I recently noticed this message on the verification tab on LBC.

Essentially, there is now a clear 1,000EUR or equivalent threshold on the amount you can trade, as well as the amount you can deposit to your LBC account before you'll be asked to upgrade to Tier 1 KYC, effective September this year. But as far as I know you are able to trade over that limit any time until that cutoff date, since I'm currently over the limit myself.

I doubt that for OP's purposes, this will be much of an issue even after the implementation of a KYC threshold, especially for a first time buyer.


It comes down to the extent of "ease" you need. All the sites with KYC are a bit hit and miss. Some people report fast approval, while others with more obscure credentials may find it difficult to get verified at all. If you're in the latter group, using localbitcoins now without these treshold in place certainly makes sense.

At any point in time, a clarification in the tax code, and a loosening of regulation in an area which is rapidly growing is beneficial to both the participants within that market, as well as the government for revenue's sake, imo.

A lack of clarity as well as draconian restrictions to access simply means less people are going to go with the legally recognized path, and more will fail to report their taxes, both intentionally and unintentionally.

And that's not evening mentioning the stunting effect that this has on bitcoin businesses, within the U.S. in particular as we're seeing a clear trend that they are moving away from domestic operations, but rather going to countries where regulations are more favorable. I personally don't think that long term, this is a desirable outcome for anyone.

I certainly don't see a strong correlation between the two at all - even though it has been argued by many others that there is.

I wouldn't discount the possibility that printing Tether out of thin air is contributing to certain rallies either, though. But that's not the main underlying reason of these bull and bear markets, in my opinion, because that would still be attributed to the natural market cycles that imminently occur.

Think about it - even if Tether's supply increased during the bear market, where sentiment is extremely bearish, would it really have an impact and all of a sudden reverse the long term trends completely? No. The main driver of that is people's expectations given the halving, how prices consolidated at $3k for a significant amount of time, as well as institutional interest.

To answer your other question, I do think that a tether crackdown will detrimentally effect BTC prices in the short run due to trader's reliance on it as a fiat replacement on exchanges. But in the long run, I doubt it'll hinder its growth.

This echoes my sentiments exactly.

While we do have to recognize the obvious improvements in adoption and the technology of BTC, this article is hilariously misinforming (probably intentional, anyways), and even long term bitcoin bulls have to realize how absurdly bad these conclusions are.

I'm still yet to be convinced that bitcoin will pose a direct threat to banks anyways - both can co-exist, as they've shown over the past decade, despite strong growth in bitcoin adoption.

What banks are probably seeing as the real disruptive technology would be blockchain, which they are able to use to up the efficiency of their internal processes as well as creating immutable databases that are more secure, much like what JP Morgan's proposal is like. Furthermore, the most BTC's growth has done in terms of influencing the financial sector is force them to become more competitive in terms of international remittance, but that's pretty much it.

You're right in the regard that if a large scale, global restriction on bitcoin ever does occur, it'll have the equivalent effect of driving bitcoin out of fulfilling one of its primary functions, which is to help the unbanked, who often cannot pass KYC with sufficient standards to begin with.

I don't think that this stance of the FATF is anything new, however, and I certainly don't see how they are capable of enforcing such a blanket ban that they seem to be pushing globally, if it ever does get implemented.

Decentralized exchanges could be an alternative, but even technology today doesn't solve the primary problem of how to conduct fiat to crypto (or vice versa) transactions while staying decentralized, although that is already fulfilled by p2p exchanges (which seem to be tightening their KYC stance as well, probably due to these new looming regulations).

Apart from the liquidity issues that others have mentioned which are obvious for the majority of DEXs available to investors on the marketplace, I think the primary concern is the lack of cross-platform/token trading pairs.

DEXs usually by design can only support the tokens of a certain platform, and nothing else. I believe that unless DEXs are able to integrate fiat as well as currencies from other blockchains into their market, mass adoption will be far fetched for now.

But I understand that it's a tough proposition to make - to make such cross-platform exchanges, you'll see centrality at one point or another. I think the question is how you minimize the risks of that.

They're definitely not the first country to do this. There has been a general tightening across the world in regards to the use of cash, which is one of the reasons why governments are pushing towards cashlessness so that transactions are more easily tracked.

Thresholds on the amount of cash you can transact before you have to report your activities to regulatory bodies exist in the US, and most other western nations. The only thing that's changed is probably the quantity threshold being lowered.

It's probably a contributing factor for Localbitcoins closing down on in person cash trades as well, albeit that was in the EU. I would not be surprised if derivatives trading platforms get targeted next, though, it could really be anyone.

I wouldn't say it's disappointing - draconian regulations should be expected, and it's not the end of the world, especially given that decentralized exchanges and P2P trading are going to be the trend in the future, that simply can't be fully censored whatever the new regulations add to the difficulty to transacting.

I don't think that even a regulated market will be significantly less manipulated - the bigger players still have significantly more market power than the smaller players, which intrinsically means that they are able to "manipulate" the market with their every move.

That's not to say that regulation isn't going to happen, though. It's in fact the polar opposite of that, the US in particular is certainly going to be trending towards further restrictions on derivatives on BTC.

Will BitMex, Deribit etc. shut down their operations completely towards US customers? Absolutely not, at least not until the regulatory pressure is really hurting them. And even if it does happen, there will be new unregulated ones popping out. Regardless of whether the derivatives market brings benefits or detriments, it's here to stay.

Yep. This was so much of a problem that CZ had to renamed his twitter name to something along the lines of "not giving away BTC" for quite a while.

Anyone know exactly how they were able to obtain the @Binance twitter handle (is it some manipulation of a special character in unicode?), as well as how they were able to obtain the verification symbol? It does look a lot more legit from the outside than the impersonator we've seen previously.

But at the end of the day, even if you did click into that link, anyone with a bit of common sense should realize exactly what's happening.

Personally, I feel like that a red tag is certainly warranted. Even though this kind of behaviour will trick absolutely no one experienced into believing in the hype, it'll serve as a nice warning sign for newbies who aren't familiar with this.

This whole site that you mentioned (Vitor services) seems to be quite shady, and projects who plan on using this should be advised of not only the forum rules themselves, but the risky nature of using these unregulated sites.

I just can't believe how there is an entire ecosystem based off breaking forum rules - incredible.