I do agree that if stock markets crash, or another financial crisis hits (especially if it's an inflationary one), then bitcoin will actually benefit due to the fact that it is decentralized, people trust in it as a store of value just like precious metals, and has a limited currency supply that cannot be manipulated by any single entity, or the government.

However, with that said, I don't expect a bullish breakout is happening any time soon still. Stocks are adjusting, but it's not in a bear market yet.

Yes, prices have gone up slightly from the bottom of $3k to around $4k. But that in my opinion is nothing but a short term rally that was due sooner or later. The overall sentiment is still extremely bearish at this stage, and it's much more likely to see prices move sluggishly and dipping occasionally, before the actual recovery hits, due to the fact that we're not close to the time taken for the last bear market to recover yet.

I mean, it's a fun idea but really, nothing special. There has been a ton of cashback extensions and sites, and this is exactly like the rest of them, except it pays in bitcoin.

There is very little risk of using the service though, if you just install it and purchase whatever you wanted to purchase anyways. The only risks that I could think of would be them not paying you the bitcoins once you hit their $15 withdrawal threshold, and that would be a fairly low one in my opinion.

The thing though is that you're likely to make anything that is worth your while from this service. The cashback rates that are advertised are usually inflated by a lot, and there will likely be a lack of partnering companies that actually do offer cashbacks. Unless you shop on a regular basis, already use all their partnered sites, and potentially be willing to deal with item restrictions, I don't see it as anything too practical.

Not only is their team fake, but their entire 'business model' is completely unsustainable.

There is absolutely no way for a legitimate business to be consistently generating anywhere close to the 9.33% per week returns, or the 40% after 1 month returns that they are promising on their site. All their claims point towards an obvious ponzi scheme that will eventually exit scam. It's just a matter of time. You don't really even have to research too much into their team to find that out.

All the partners on their site are completely nonexistent, and all point back to their own site. Stay clear of these so called "high yield investment programs", and the monitors who rate all of these programs. HYIP is just a synonym for ponzi.

Keyword here is probably "if you have cash". Prices are currently very low even after the small rebound up to $4k, and I think that there is pretty much very little chance that we're heading much further down from this level.

We could potentially dip a bit under $3k, but below that, there will be a lot of buying pressure for prices to stay that low for much longer.

Having said that, there is every possibility for short term anomalies to happen within the market. This is why I wouldn't recommend entering long positions with leverage, buying bitcoin derivatives without knowing what you are doing, or potentially even going into debt to buy bitcoins. Only buy if you have cash on hand, and if you are willing to hold your position for the long term. In that case, you'll find that $3-4k is very low in the macro scheme of things.

Interesting read. I think that it is only a matter of time before all countries go cashless, and replace bills and coins.

However, it is also a reason why cashlessness isn't necessarily always going to be a good thing. Even though blockchain technology could be utilized to create this currency ledger which will replace paper based currency, it doesn't mean that it is decentralized at all.

Quite the opposite, it allows further direct control of the economy by the central bank, and a track record of every single transaction that is ever made. Even though this kind of electronic currency would most likely be competition with the third party online payment processors within the country right now, I don't think that it would pose any direct competition with bitcoin. Bitcoin is decentralized, while this is still fiat, just in a different form. And long term investors who need a safe haven will understand that just because something is electronic, doesn't mean that it is a good long term store of value in bitcoin.

I don't think so. All that is needed at this point in my opinion is a functional cryptocurrency, and people have trust in bitcoin as exactly that. There are a ton of other cryptos which claim to do a range of things, but in reality, are completely impractical.

Bitcoin is still the most adopted, most practical cryptocurrency. It's not antiquated at all. Its first mover advantage isn't lost because most crypto users don't place trust in new, centralized tokens which are essentially pure speculation, and would rather trust in bitcoin.

In my opinion, the first mover advantage in the sense of decentralized currencies is much more important compared to companies. Anyone can copy the code used by bitcoin and create their own project, but that doesn't mean that there would any demand for it. What matters is still the community behind it, adoption, as well as how much real life acceptance a coin has got, in which bitcoin all have the sole advantage.

It is hard for someone to pay regular instalments that is denominated in USD of something in a bear market, when prices are dropping across the market.

I honestly think though that in the future, more and more people will be charging their services in Bitcoin that volatility against fiat will become a nonfactor. This will essentially be an exclusively crypto marketplace, if you like. This will in turn reduce volatility even further. Plus, I'd rather still hold bitcoin in the long term compared to fiat, which has shown the tendency to depreciate throughout history.

Also, bitcoin still offers a ton of advantages compared to centralized payment processors, especially for you. You wouldn't need to worry about your employer reversing your payments, there is no chance that a centralized service could ever freeze your funds, etc. If you want, you could always negotiate with your client regarding pricing your services in BTC, or simply asking them to buy BTC with the paypal they've got and send it to you.

Perhaps they saw the big amount of bitcoin that was involved in the transaction, and flagged it due to that.

Your only path of recourse would be to contact support, PM NeutraLTC as others mentioned, or potentially try to reach out to their social media representatives. However, it'll be hard to prove that you're the actual owner, and they could deny access to your coins.

This is why you should always retain ultimate control over your private keys, instead of trusting others to process payments for you. Sometimes these "security features" can be used against you to hold your funds, and if you don't have the backup PDF, you're essentially screwed.

Personally I don't see any advantages in BTC.com compared to Electrum, in which your coins are solely controlled by you.

If they really wanted to gain more direct control over the economy, I don't think that even paper money would be the best they will be able to do. Going cashless would mean that every transaction can be traced, and potentially, monetary policy will be able to be implemented more directly, if there were ever to be an electronic ledger issued directly by the central bank.

I honestly don't think that this announcement has anything to do with "pushing paper money". China's been going the opposite direction for years already, and cash usage is very low.

As I said before, this is simply to guarantee and back the legality of cash, and to try to solve or at least "hide" the problem of rural areas not having access to these electronic forms of payments, which are so widespread right now.

Thanks for the warning.

There has been a swarm of these phishing sites which pose as ICOs/giveaways that have been asking for private keys of people in order to receive the giveaway amount, and it is quite dangerous as newbies are quite prone to these.

Anyone should know that legitimate giveaways will never, ever ask for your private key or for you to send them funds first to receive more funds in return. Anybody who promises those types of things are scammers, and will run off with your money.

Also, there should be no instances in which giving away private keys is necessary, unless you are importing your private keys into another wallet. If someone wants to verify that you own an address, they can always tell you to sign a message.

I think that it's quite realistic that prices will continue to dip, or move sideways for the next few weeks/months.

Even though prices are extremely low right now, and I don't expect it to go much lower within this bear market due to the demand for cheap coins from institutions and individual investors below the $3k level, I think that there is still some way to go before we can safely say that a trend reversal is going to happen any time soon.

I also don't think that this current bullish rally will really last at all.

There is usually a period of relative stability before the recovery happens, in a bear market. I don't think we're at that stage yet. And if you look back to 2014, which is similar (obviously not going to be exactly the same) to what is happening right now, the bear market did go on for nearly two years. I expect a similar timeframe for recovery. 2020's halving could coincide with a potential cycle reversal for sure in that regard.

YoutubeTV is a well known scammer that has been around the forum for ages.

Also, there is a sticky on the digital goods section that literally warns against these types of gift card sellers. You should have read it thoroughly before conducting deals with anyone on the forum.

Anyways, YoutubeTV and other autobuy scammers generally like to target people that are browsing the forum without an account (since they can't see the reputation of them on the forum), as well as newbies who haven't traded before. If you use your common sense, you'll see that the rates he is offering on gift cards is completely unrealistic and will never be legit.

In the future, avoid dealing with anyone that use autobuy as a way to sell goods/services, and don't deal with people without escrow.

What I've seen is quite the opposite. Throughout the whole year there has been continued reports of institutions that are stepping into crypto, whether through trying to launch their own crypto investment fund, or opening trading services.

This might have slowed down in recent times due to the continued bearishness, but I don't think that it is necessarily "scaring off" institutional investors. I'm also sure that there are institutions right now that are looking at this bear market as a great buying opportunity.

There are still plenty of corporations that are flowing into the bitcoin markets during this bearish period. It's just that when the market has a bearish sentiment, people tend to not react to these kinds of positive news that they would otherwise have reacted to in a bull market. But that's just how the market cycle works.

I completely agree with your points. However, it really depends on the type of crisis that hits, whether hyperinflation, recession, etc.

I think that gold will still be seen as a hedge, if a financial crisis does come. People naturally revert to gold whenever there is financial instability, which could explains why gold prices rose so much post-GFC.

But gold is just too indivisible, too inconvenient, and has a high entry bar for regular investors who want to store their wealth in a safe haven. That's why I also believe that bitcoin will be seen as a feasible alternative due to its convenience, as it is also completely independent from the traditional fiat system in times of crisis.

There might not be huge spikes in price, but its value should hold relatively well in the long run due to its limited supply and detachment from the fiat ecosystem.

I don't necessarily think that bitcoin will behave like stocks. They are completely different in terms of the motivations behind people investing in them, as well as the way that profit is generated.

But if you are investing in the long term, and you believe that adoption is really going to pick up for bitcoin in the future, then yes, it is a good idea to invest in bitcoin when there is a bear market, and price and sentiment is low. Just like you would try to pick out the lowest possible entry point for a good long term stock to invest in.

That is only assuming that you are willing to hold onto your position for a number of years. If you are a trader who is seeking short term profits, then buying at this point may not be a good idea since there may still be dips coming in the near future.

Do you actually have multiple accounts on sportsbet.io, or did they accuse you of this without any proof?

Anyhow, I think that it is not fair for a sportsbook to not pay out its customers even if there are multiple accounts are involved. As long as no limits have been breached, I don't see a reason why the winnings should not be paid.

I'd like to see a response from sportsbet.io about this matter. It sure does seem like at the moment that they're just using "multiple accounts" as a way to not pay out winnings when they are due. But OP, if you do have multiple accounts, don't do this on any other gambling platform in the future. Most have some clause in their ToS that does not allow this, and it can really hurt when you've won some BTC and have it taken away.

I see a lot of people try to argue against bitcoin by saying that it is too volatile, it is too unstable to be a viable store of value. Which in my opinion is just not true.

Given the capped currency supply that bitcoin has, in the long run, it can't be subject to debasement or depreciation simply due to the central bank and/or the government abusing their power of printing more money on demand. Countries like Venezuela, Argentina and Zimbabwe have all experienced this, and at the end of the day, fiat is only as good as the central bank's ability to maintain its value, which I wouldn't trust in the long run.

For bitcoin, there is simply no way of manipulating the supply, and thus, it is a great long term store of value. Fluctuations in the short term isn't really a problem at all and doesn't affect its long term mechanics, although arguments saying that transacting in bitcoin while prices are fluctuating is difficult could be somewhat based. However, that should improve by itself simply by time, given more adopters, and actual acceptance of BTC as a currency imo.

Lmao. Can't believe that he actually is blaming the "markets" for not reaching the price targets that he has constantly set.


No one is asking them for target prices. He is the one that is putting it out there for mainstream media to make articles on. He is also the one that has constantly changing his predictions, without any tangible backing.

With such a bearish sentimented market, I really don't see any chance that bitcoin will be able to rebound to its "fair value" (which he randomly set at $13k-14k, again without any actual analysis backing it) any time in the near future.

Market prices are never determined by a "fair value", it's never that simple. Also, there is no absolute "fair value". IIRC, even he had predictions of BTC going way above the fair value estimate by the end of the year, although that prediction has been replaced by many more new ones now.

I don't see any signs of them uplifting the ban on banks dealing with cryptocurrency related businesses, yet.


All there are within this is a proposition. There is absolutely nothing that would guarantee that the report would be taken into account when the government actually makes a decision towards whether or not bitcoin will be legalized, and regulated.

The fact that they initially put the ban in the first place, without any research will probably lead to them trying to cover up their mistakes by enforcing a full on ban. Even though we all know that regulating crypto is the best long term decision for the Indian government to make, it is probably one that they won't take in the near future despite this report, and common sense.

I initially thought that they were a phishing website for Bitsane, but turned out to just be a clone site of CEX.io.

There has been a bunch of these impersonator sites around, that are used for scamming in a multitude of ways online chatrooms. From what I've observed, all of them use the same exact cex.io script as their front-end.

As soon as they get a victim it seems like they change URLs almost immediately, in order to avoid detection. This one didn't even change their name from previous scams, it seems, as it references to a completely unrelated exchange named "Dexma" and "Cryptual", likely both exchange names used in the past to run this con.

Anyways, since there are so many of these it's impossible to keep track of them all by writing down the scam sites' URLs. They're going to be constantly popping up. Just use your common sense when someone offers you funds on these fake exchanges. It's fairly easy to detect by simple research. If you do get conned, obviously you will never be able to withdraw any funds received on their platforms.