They're no longer that popular anymore. They are only ranked 24th in terms of trading volume per 24h now, compared to Binance which is currently number one. This is far from their peak where they were consistently getting the #1 spot.

Their reputation has sort of been ruined by their terrible support and just generally pretty bad experiences that customers had had in the past. Especially as they forced verification onto every single user, that was the start of their downfall.

Anyways, I think that the reason that some people still use them is probably because that one, they are used to their trading interface from the past, and two, they've got some pairs that are not being traded on any other major exchanges. Apart from that, I don't see any advantage in using them over Binance tbh.

It's almost guaranteed. And judging from the date that this was posted, I reckon that your contract was probably already terminated by now unfortunately. Do correct me if I'm wrong, in the slight chance that it wasn't.


There is really no solution to this.

Cloud mining itself is just purely set up for the benefit of the company running it. There is virtually no prospect for the users to make money in the long run unless you run a large affiliate network of some sort. They control everything regarding your investment once you deposit with them. As we've seen with Hashflare, they have done shady stuff such as reducing contract lengths from lifetime to 1 year and increase minimum withdrawal exponentially. All the while, you don't know if they're actually mining. Nor do they need to provide any proof of profits each day.

They can literally arbitrarily determine your payments each day, and terminate your contract if they want to. Cloud mining is essentially touted as a passive income scheme. It's the exact opposite of that.

These are certainly interesting statistics.

I don't know if the figures are accurate. If yes, then it certainly shows how bitcoin and some other major cryptos are already being used for the purpose of storing value in times where fiat may not hold its value at all. This is obviously reflected in the high adoption rates in Turkey. I'm not sure whether Venezuela was neglected in this, but I certainly would have expected them to show up as a high adoption nation as well.

These are all tangible benefits bitcoin brings as a decentralized alternative to fiat, and it can be easily seen in times of economic crisis.

However, I really doubt that just because of the Turkish inflation crisis, bitcoin will get pumped or bought heavily as a result. Even if adoption is increasing, the volume is simply not there to influence the market that much.

The bitcoin dominance index has pretty much hung around 70-90% for the majority of its life, before the bull market of 2016-2017 that saw a lot of smaller projects, ICOs, and altcoins enter into the space of cryptocurrency.

I think that as long as these crypto projects attracts investors, bitcoin dominance will remain low. However, within the bear market where interest in the market is quite low, it wouldn't be surprising if it went as high as 60-70%, without a bull market.

I don't think that bitcoin dominance really has anything to do with how bitcoin is performing, though. It's about how much hype is around new projects. I do think that in the long run, we'll see a gradual return of bitcoin dominance to its previous highs, as people start to realize how pointless most of these new projects entering are.

Who is saying that cashless societies will mean that natural resources will be depleted?

As long as the energy source is clean, there is no reason why a cashless society can't be environmentally friends, sustainable, while still offering the benefits of cashlessness when it comes to convenience, zero-counterfeits, and digital nature of it all. In fact, printing cash could be potentially more harmful to the environment, or even the mining of precious metals.

The only concern that people should have with a cashless society is if the society relies on third party payment processors that are centralized and controlled by the government. In that case, payments can be monitored easily, and the government has even further control on currency itself.

There actually isn't that much FUD in the market at the moment. I don't know if it just me, but I certainly see less FUD right now compared to a few months back, when bitcoin peaked and started its gradual decline to around $6k, when people said absurd things about bitcoin ("bitcoin is dead" was one of the classics).

Right now, prices are actually staying pretty put, and even though ETFs are getting rejected, markets have matured to the point that they now understand that ETF rejection doesn't mean the end of the world and the market is no longer panic dumping when it comes to these decisions. That is probably the only FUD that is in the market right now.

Sell off is definitely nearing its end. We're already seeing buying pressure at $6-7k, and if prices do go lower, traders will most likely continue to accumulate leading to quick rebounds. Besides, historically, major bear markets have lasted 1-1.5 years on average, meaning that we'll most likely see a major recovery some time mid-to-late last year.

I think that the bottom is actually quite close to the current level. The $6k support has been extremely strong and has essentially been the floor for the past half a year or so. Even though I'm still not completely optimistic on that being the final bottom before the recovery finally takes place, I do believe that the actual bottom will not be below $4-5k, if not just at the $6k level.

This is mostly due to the huge buying demand that we'll see at $4-5k, if prices were to ever get that low. It's also why it's such a good time to accumulate right now, with minimal risk and huge rewards.

I agree with the article in the highlighted parts in particular. This bear market is only a normal occurance in the bitcoin's historical cycles. It's not really anything surprising. A bull market will emerge as soon as the prices bottom and the recovery starts, which I believe will happen before the 2020 halving happens.

I really think that the markets have grown increasingly insensitive to these bitcoin ETF news.

With the tons and tons of ETFs being rejected, people are starting to realize that these rejections has basically no effect on bitcoin's long term potential, and the obvious benefits that bitcoin offers on its network and blockchain.

That's why I think prices aren't really moved by these recent rejections. There is no hype over these ETF deadlines anymore, so there isn't really panic dumping when the rejection comes either. All ETFs are is a centralized financial tool. The decision shouldn't be weighted this much by the community anyways.

What's surprising here? As markets turn bearish, there is no wonder why bitcoin interest is at a low.

Google search trends basically only encompass only mainstream searchers, as more experienced bitcoin users would rarely search up these terms up on google.

You have to understand that mainstream interest is dominated by market sentiment and price changes. If price rises rapidly, even if it is an unnaturally fast ride, the mainstream will become interested and this will reflect in the google search trends.

Likewise, in a bear market, it's no surprise that mainstream interest would suppressed. This correlates perfectly with the strong recovery that bitcoin had in 2015-2016, which definitely led to most of the surge in popularity of the search term.

All this is saying is that prices are low right now, market sentiments are bearish, and nothing more than that. It means nothing in terms of actual bitcoin adoption, or even development.

You could also argue I guess that US workers tend to live beyond their means, which is something not solely based on their income alone, but rather their total mentality and spending habits. I don't think this aspect is being analyzed at all during this piece.


This could well happen.

I think that crypto adoption will either be accelerated through people's wages increasing, leading them to have more spare funds to invest into bitcoin (which isn't possible when their wages are much less); or an economic crisis in which the fiat currency depreciates so much that people are forced to find an alternative currency to store their wealth.

If wages do grow, then it wouldn't be surprising to see these employees that previously had no spare funds to invest turn to actively seeking to invest in something, in which case, more people may become intrigued with bitcoin and actually have the means to adopt it.

Why aren't cryptocurrencies listed in this infographic?

They are probably the most practical and widely used function of blockchains right now. Yet, they're being left out?

It's clear to me that private blockchains are going to be developed by corporations increasingly in the future, each with their own practical uses. However, even if major cryptos like bitcoin are seen as impractical right now, these decentralized cryptocurrencies on the blockchain will still be the leading force of blockchain technology in the future, as merchant adoption rises.

By now, pretty much no one cares about the result of the ETF anymore.

The approval of one could potentially spark some short term interest in the market again, but beyond that, there is really nothing more that an approval would do. It wouldn't affect any bitcoin users, even, as ETFs are mainly traded by speculators with sufficient capital only.

I don't really see any reason that they would reverse the decision as easily as the article makes it out to be, anyways. The most likely outcome would still be a second rejection.

But really, who cares. SEC rejecting a bitcoin ETF doesn't mean it's rejecting the idea of bitcoin, which is something people have huge misconceptions about. ETFs don't represent bitcoin itself, nor should you care so deeply about the opinion of a single entity anyways.

It's not really practical until mass adoption goes underway.

Right now, people still value most of their day to day purchases in fiat, so it makes sense for them to price bitcoin in terms of fiat as well, as even bitcoin accepting merchants generally do not fix the price of their product to a particular crypto value.

And it wouldn't really make sense, for the sake of convenience, for anyone to change to that method of measuring value at the moment simply because of the low adoption. In the future, as more merchants enter the market, we could see this happen. Though, it's unlikely that such drastic social changes will be made any time soon.

Bitcoin is now a serious viable alternative as an asset to store value.

There is a difference between intentional devaluation of a fiat currency against the USD, compared to the depreciation of a currency in terms of purchasing power within its own borders. And I think that you're referring to depreciation of fiat in this case.

Bitcoin is able to benefit those in countries where prices are constantly rising due to their fiat losing purchase power day by day, including Venezuela right now. As it is a global, decentralized currency, there is no central entity that can influence the supply of BTC and thus debase it like they do with fiat.

Based on that, it wouldn't be crazy to say that an inflationary crisis in the economy could potentially bring new adopters to bitcoin, even.

It's interesting that they are having two different standards.

If you are a "domestic" user (which I'm assuming is a user from the country that they're operating from, China), then you're apparently still allowed to purchase up to 300,000 RMB. While if you're an international user, you can't purchase without verification anymore. If anyone knows why this is the case, please let me know.

But this is definitely just reflective of the entire regulatory environment of cryptos in general - regulators are quite hostile towards bitcoin at the moment and this attitude isn't really changing any time soon. You can buy anything else on the web without any KYC, yet when it comes to miners, you need KYC. Imagine if you had to get groceries using KYC in the future. Absurd, right? There is no legit reason why mining equipment should be treated differently.

Why would you sell off your bitcoin investment just because some regulator rejects the idea of an ETF, which is in no way representative of bitcoin itself? Do keep in mind that ETFs are tools used for speculators, and they really don't bring any value to the average Joes.

The markets have grown insensitive about ETF approval anyways, because of the amount of times it's been hyped up and amount of times it's been turned down. I'm fairly sure that most people understand what I said previously now as well, which is why we don't really see rallies before a potential ETF decision anymore.

My definitive advice is to keep holding, especially through this rough patch of bear market. There is virtually no benefit to selling right now, as the prices are just so low. Besides, an individual decision like the SEC's, on a fund made for speculators, really has no relevance in terms of the long term potential of bitcoin whatsoever.

Actually, with the prices consolidating at $6k, we could well see a short term rally coming soon, pushing prices above $7k.

But you're right for the most part. Market sentiment remains quite bearish right now, and even if there was a rally, it wouldn't last very long before the correction brings prices down to previous levels. A lot of people actually thought that August was going to be the month when prices will start recovering, because of the ETF. But to me, the ETF was never going to get approved in the short term anyways, and even if it was, it would most likely only cause temporary FOMO within the market, and no major trend reversals.

It's not necessarily a bad month. The $6k support still held up. I'm probably not as positive as some others. Even though I think that a short term rally is possible, the recovery is probably not going to happen until next year after prices bottom, which we may not have even seen yet. It's not something that is just this month.

Interesting. With some ICOs, you could almost say that the amount of control they have over the value of their tokens make them completely centralized, even though they may still use blockchain as the underlying technology.

But firstly, I don't think that it's fair to say bitcoin is backed by dollars. Bitcoin's value does not depend on any fiat currency to be maintained, even though it is indeed priced in fiat currencies. Nor is it fair to say that dollars are backed by gold - that hasn't been the case for decades.

I think that yes, we're seeing more and more centralized blockchains being made, that aren't necessarily getting more support. They may be issued by individual governments (petro), or organizations. Most of these projects do lack grassroot support, however.

Blockchain can obviously be used for a wide range of things, including in corporations as an immutable ledger. And that will definitely be explored in the future by many, i think.

It doesn't mean bitcoin will be affected, though. Even with these private blockchains, as long as people are using the bitcoin network, it will function. And people are smart enough to know that government issued crypto-tokens with a centrally controlled supply is no different to fiat, so they will continue to use bitcoin.

Venezuela has obviously been in constant economic problems for a good amount of the decade.

By looking at this article, they seem to think that by having a national, centralized cryptocurrency to which they peg their fiat to will solve all the country's problems, which is far from the truth. Just because a peg exists, doesn't mean the government can't continue to print more and more Bolivars by the day. They can even create more Petro, if needed, without necessarily have to have an independent auditor to audit their reserves first.

If you really believe that such a scheme is going to be successful, then you're just too naive. Venezuelans should not invest in the Petro token or keep any wealth in their currency, but rather, put it in something like bitcoin which is actually decentralized.

It's funny that they say that. Even ironically, as their national currency, the Zimbabwean dollar, has failed miserably in the last decade or so, while the population of Zimbabwe suffered severe economic hardship brought by this disaster of a government.

All the while, bitcoin held its value much better than the Zimbabwean dollar, even in its worst bear markets.

It's crazy that even today, when bitcoin's reputation has been mostly cleared up, there are completely baseless accusations from governments and individuals about criminality and bitcoin. The majority of bitcoin users are law abiding citizens. And the majority of bitcoins in circulation is used for completely legitimate and lawful uses. Just because some people choose to use bitcoin for illegal purposes, doesn't mean that bitcoin is a fault, nor is it a valid reason to banish bitcoin and bitcoin businesses altogether.