There is always a risk that a faucet is scam, whether or not it is app based or web based.

What I'm saying is that based on my experience, most of the faucets that have an application that is listed on the play marketplace aren't linked with any major micropayment processor, like Faucethub, which means that there is more of a risk for you to use them. Untrusted independent third party platforms that have no reputation don't count either, as demonstrated by Claimbitcoinnetwork scamming you here. If you use the ones that are listed on say, Faucethub, it's much safer even though there is still a risk.

Hopefully at this stage Google will take action and remove their products from the play store, since there is definitely enough complaints with proof to back this up.  However since the amounts involved are extremely low I'm not exactly sure if Google will respond at all.

This is why it's not a good idea to go out and find obscure dice sites, and then play on them without any concern for their reputation.

The fact that they have continued to delay such a small amount on withdrawal, as well as lying about sending you a PM would suggest that there probably isn't a real issue with your account profile, but rather just them not wanting to pay you out, potentially due to a depleted bankroll or something along the lines of that.

That's the exact risk you take when you play on platforms like these. There are plenty of trustworthy dice sites out there. Don't just go on the gambling section of the forum and go play on any ANN thread that you see.

MavenBets also seems to be looking for investors into their platform, which is obviously extremely risky for anyone to do if they can't even process a simple withdrawal request like this.

People don't like the verification process.

It takes time for verifications to get processed, and people want to be able to get their funds exchanged fast. And also, your personal information simply isn't safe with random exchanges that have popped up, especially when extremely in depth and sensitive information are increasingly being demanded.

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Have you researched into the legal implications of continuously opening new, pseudoanonymous exchanges? If you're opening it under the same company, wouldn't it be a matter of time before they get cracked down?

Also, have you settled your case with Privcoin?

There's always a problem when an asset is held by a third party.

The same can be said with any fiat, in my opinion. There is a risk that the bank who holds a country's reserves (especially if its jurisdiction is overseas) goes rogue and it refuses to move funds when it is instructed to. That risk is the same as what has happened here to Mr. Maduro's gold withdrawal.

Bitcoin combats this issue given its decentralization and trustless nature, as there needs no third parties to get a transaction processed and done.

So you're absolutely right, given that bitcoin has the positive traits of gold which makes it valuable (decentralization of currency supply, no single entity issuing the currency), whilst improving on the convenience, portability and trustlessness of remote transactions, it does make sense for countries to start holding bitcoin in reserves.

I'm surprised that they are this cheap - the time that they took to actually respond to your emails in such depth is probably worth much more than the 40k satoshis that you are requesting here.

I don't think that it's a good idea at all to faucet due to the lack of rewards for your time, but if you do, Google Play is a terrible way to start. The faucet ads on there usually target newbies, and since they hold all of your funds, it is entirely up to them to pay you out and there is no third party to keep them honest.

If you do want to continue to use these faucets, make sure that you are doing so through a legitimate third party micropayment processor. The one that I heard about a while back was faucethub, though I'm not entirely sure whether they are still up and running. By using official faucet lists from these sites you significantly reduce the risk of getting scammed (still not 100% foolproof, though).

From what I've seen in the article it does seem like that they are just using blockchain technology as the infrastructure for processing fiat payments.

As exstasie said, that is completely different from a decentralized cryptocurrency which has its own currency supply, and can process payments without any third parties. So to me, the fact that Japan's retail cryptocurrency investments are booming has no real relevance to whether this new network for processing fiat payments will be able to succeed.

Even if they were able to do this from a technical standpoint, will this just be a temporary thing with the Olympics in order to facilitate transactions for foreigner, or would they actually be able to integrate this network into day to day payments of the locals after the Olympics? Since Japan is so reliant on cash, it's difficult to say. It's honestly very interesting though that out of all the countries around the world, Japan would be the one that hasn't stepped into cashlessness at all at this stage.

It's not surprising given their lack of support during 2017-2018 which left a lot of users frustrated and looking for other exchanges.

Also, the fact that they offered such high returns on investments could be a reason why they are shutting down. Due to the decreased volumes they could have potentially realized that it would be completely unsustainable to be paying investors such high rates of returns. That's just a guess though and it's unconfirmed.

Either way, I don't think that Liqui ever had that good of a reputation and this news was probably only a matter of time given their lack of competence in customer service. At least they are offering full refunds, which is hopefully legit and not just a promise thrown out there.

There are definitely other exchanges that will struggle in this bear market, in my opinion. The question is which ones will push through and which ones will close their doors.

The law enforcement route could be possible.

If they were keeping the proceeds of what was sold of seized coins anyways, then if they ever wanted to get into investing in bitcoin as a reserve asset (maybe to replace gold as a reserve asset), they could theoretically just keep the coins for themselves instead of making a public auction.

They could also buy in the open market, but the volumes that they would require would quickly pump prices up in my opinion, so I don't think it's a feasible route. Perhaps OTC trading between large institutions as well as other countries central banks once more countries accept bitcoin as a reserve asset will be the way to go.

But either way, it's too early to say the method a country would use to acquire bitcoins for its reserves, when no one has actually done it yet. This can and will change in the future in my opinion, when more countries see how bitcoin can indeed offer a global store of value, just like gold, but much more convenient, portable, and liquid.

I think that it's pretty much impossible at this stage to say what exactly this interim is going to do in regards to bitcoin policy. But if the report is accurate and that he has indeed expressed disdain towards Petro, then it's definitely something positive to look out for.

The fact of the matter is that Maduro has been trying to make Petro sound like a nationalistic version of bitcoin, which it is really not. It is centralized, it's not a store of value, and it's completely impractical.

Though there are no guarantees. Even if he may be supportive of bitcoin doesn't mean that changes will be made to push bitcoin adoption and regulation to create an incentivized environment for bitcoin businesses or bitcoin acceptance, though that would be the logical thing to do given the state of Venezuela's own currency and economy.


Yep. They say it's backed by oil, but it's really not since IIRC it's impractical to extract that oil from the ground. So essentially, it's no different to Bolivars, except the government also gets foreign funding from this.

Centralized payment processors and networks have one goal in mind, which is to charge as much as they can for their services. That's why we see this case with Mastercard essentially blocking off competition, and why other money remittance services are so expensive.

Decentralized forms of payment like bitcoin doesn't have this problem. There is no central entity that is looking to make money, and every transaction is based off a flat rate regardless of the size (in terms of monetary value).

At the end of the day, this is one of the reasons why I'd rather use a system like bitcoin, rather than the services provided by traditional banking networks.


You're right. As government spending deficit increases, so will their desire to have these types of fines against large corporations. And yes, if this continues, then we could see governments putting out regulation for bitcoin and other cryptos because they want to have revenue from this as well.

But this is exactly what has been happening over the past 10 years?

What the question really is I think is how much volatility is hindering adoption. Bitcoin as a payment method will work regardless of its value, since the network is completely distributed. Even if prices drop to close to 0 one day, as long as the network which bitcoin runs on stays the same, there won't be any issues with bitcoin being a form of payment. For example, merchants accepting bitcoin in a period of volatility can still do so, through hedging their exchange rate risks with a third party or by themselves.

I do think that speculation will lead to somewhat decreased actual consumer use, but at the end of the day, will not completely stop consumers adopting it. And as I expect bitcoin volatility to continue to drop in the future like it has, it's not a particularly big problem.

You mean the tokens that are solely listed on their site?

I did some research and there is pretty much nothing found about the exchange is question nor the tokens that you mentioned, apart from the ANN thread that AdolfinWolf mentioned. The UUC and COC tokens that are listed on Bitwinex aren't listed on coinmarketcap at all, which means that most likely, Bitwinex is the only exchange that are listing them.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bitwinex are affiliated with the tokens that you are talking about here. To be completely honest, I think that the volumes that are generated on their site with these trading pairs are fake and just can't be real. I mean, 20k USDT in a trade for a token that no one knows about.

My best guess would be the same as Adolfin's. The site and the tokens are a complete scam most likely, and even if they aren't, there isn't any reason to be using them.

Check out https://www.bestchange.com/bitcoin-to-perfectmoney-usd.html. They provide a pretty comprehensive list with live updated prices, and I use them a lot to do my research when dealing with payment methods like Advcash, PM, etc. Most of the exchanges on there you can trust. They might not take the exchange fees into account, though.

But my go to is probably changer.com, I've used them very regularly and never had issues. Their rates might not be the best but they do have an intuitive interface and good live chat support IIRC. Seems like a few people above me have used them as well, so it's a good bet.

If you're completely unsure then go on Localbitcoins. There will be offers for BTC -> PerfectMoney and PerfectMoney -> BTC. The rates won't be too bad and you'd be protected by LBC escrow.

It's really not about being optimistic. It's about being rational.

We know that we are in a period of a market reset, and that has happened basically throughout every single asset that is traded on the free market, and since the existence of bitcoin. Bear markets aren't anything abnormal and doesn't suggest anything fundamentally wrong about bitcoin.

All it is is a necessary correction from an overheated bull market of 2017, leading to prices dipping and market activity faltering. If you invest in bitcoin in the long run, or as a hedge against fiat, you shouldn't be panicking. Even though I don't expect 2019 to be the year a bull market emerges, I do think that it is a matter of time before prices recover, since bitcoin adoption especially on an institutional scale as increased despite this bear market.

Considering that most of these legal advisers that are currently active on ICO teams are completely fake, and their identities are in fact fabricated for the ICO, no.

Simply having a legal adviser column on your site's team page doesn't make you any more trustworthy, or more compliant.

I suggest that if you are looking into the legality of the ICo you should still conduct your own research, read their "about us" and their terms and conditions, and use your common sense. Are they professional, are they registered, and do they require KYC? Don't just look at their legal adviser and that's it. If they do have a legal adviser, search him/her up as well to see if they are well known, or just some random guy, and if they are actually affiliated with the project.

What do you mean? The controlled scarcity of bitcoin that is hard coded and can't be manipulated is the one of the characteristics that makes bitcoin valuable and a store of value in the long run. Unlike fiat, it can't be manipulated by a single entity.

I think you're misunderstanding the term scarce here. Bitcoin is scarce, which is why there is a price to trade it on exchanges. If it could be obtained infinitely then it wouldn't have a value at all.

So yes, scarcity will and already is in play in determining the value of bitcoin. And in the long run, this scarcity will only increase as demand increases and the disinflationary curve of bitcoin slows down in new currency creations.

Have they given you any explanation as to why your account was locked after the fact? Or have they simply unlocked your account and said nothing about why it had occurred in the first place?

To be honest, I've played on Nitrogen plenty of times before and it's definitely disappointing to see OP's case like this. One of the most important aspects of a sportsbook in my opinion is to give customers maximum control over their rightful funds. What they did here without any warnings or explanation is definitely unacceptable. Their support not doing anything about the case even though the promised timeframe had already passed also isn't acceptable.

Anyhow, I'd still trust Nitrogen with small amounts. But when it comes to big amounts, I wouldn't really trust any crypto sportsbook at the moment (there has been a lack of quality ones really). They can lock your funds at any time just like what happened here.

I think that people generalize the term crypto too much these days.

When people talk about investing in crypto, they are often talking about investing in crypto-based projects that have tokenized securities. These projects are very rarely worth investing in my opinion and the vast majority of them are only there to get their owners money.

Even though this sample size of the study may be small, it does tell a clear tale. Real, decentralized cryptocurrencies like bitcoin that aren't profit driven rarely will need public investments. Low success rate should be expected when there isn't even a problem to begin with, even though they are trying to solve it.

Good question.

Personally, I think that it is pretty much impossible for all countries across the world to somehow come together and ban the use of BTC altogether. That would be the only way of remotely stopping bitcoin use, in my opinion. Not only is a ban it super hard to enforce, even if it's just on a scale of one country (just look at all the countries who has banned or have unofficially restricted BTC), it also means loss of tax revenue.

But if it does happen, especially if a ban occurs in a country like the US which has a lot of adopters, it could move the market a lot. Will it completely cripple the network and make it dysfunctional? Absolutely not. But short term, will people panic sell? Probably.

I wouldn't say that government attitude and regulation is the most influential thing regarding bitcoin price right now. It might have been 5-10 years back when the market was small, which led to big panic sells after China ousted some exchanges, but looking back it had no real effects in the long term. That could be similar to what would happen in the future if more countries pursue this line of policy as well, as the network itself is decentralized and doesn't need the support of one entity or party to keep it working.

Use your common sense. No hosted wallet should ever ask you to send funds directly to their cold storage, even if this is a needed action. All your funds are stored on their online hot wallets anyways (plus a portion in their cold storage already). If they wanted to move it somewhere safe, they can do it without asking you to take any action.

But these phishing emails for both wallets and exchanges have really increased in volume over the past year or so. And not only emails, but fake twitter accounts, giveaways, etc. etc.

Just be careful with any "official" accounts asking you to send money to one of the addresses that they provide, on their PR account or via an email. Research, and if anything seems sketchy, don't bite. I do wonder how the scammer obtains their emailing list, though.