No, they are not. Mainly bcause that none of the so called "bots" are mining, or even registered companies. All of them are simply ponzi schemes in disguise. Some may pay at the beginning phase of their operations, others may not.

I've seen plenty of these scams in the past, and none of them will prove to be profitable even to the early investors. In fact, 99% of the time, they will take your deposit and not pay any withdrawals.

All of these bots will promise you guaranteed profits, with a consistently increasing balance. This is impossible in a real bitcoin mining situation.

The most important reason is probably the cycles in the market.

When there is a bull market, no matter how much bad news is floating around, the price will be in an uptrend the majority of the time. When there is a bear market, no matter how much good news is around, prices will usually be stagnant/going down. That's just the nature of the bitcoin markets. It moves in cycles.


I don't think that incorrect speculation leads to any dumps at all. If I said an incorrect prediction, I doubt anyone would active pursue to sell their coins all of a sudden. Most people here are smart enough to realize that speculators that publicize their predictions are usually sensationalist, and at the end of the day, no guarantees can be made regarding price speculation/prediction.

No. I don't know why you are thinking that the small gains in value at the start of each month that has happened thus far would all of a sudden mean that we are out of the bear market altogether and launch into a bullish phase.

There is no momentum in the market, or optimistic sentiments to allow for a full bull market in this month in my opinion, if that's what you mean by "favorable market".

A short term pump is possible, since there are signs that the price is testing $8k, and that could potentially mean testing $10k resistance again. But I doubt that it's going to be long lasting rally by any means.

I don't think that there is any chance that a group of people that can't even build a website properly is able to deliver on their promises of a new and improved blockchain project. Also, there is virtually no chance that an ICO with such steep discounts will be legit.

If you invest, you're buying worthless Erc20 tokens that anybody can issue on the ETH blockchain.

By the way, This is their investment address, that all funds are supposedly directed to: https://etherscan.io/address/0xEaf8FB21896C3257aBCc3569115049B5501c005d

Seems like that there is around 0.5-1 ETH currently being scammed out of people. Like come on, they literally put up an ETH address and ask you to pay them, instead of the extensive KYC procedures that legitimate projects ask you to complete.

I'm pretty sure that all users start with those settings by default (not allowing newbie messages). I've PM'd him for you so that at least he is notified regarding the situation. His thread is most likely locked so that any negative reviews or comments of their site can't be publicly seen on their official announcement thread, and that's one of the most common scam tactics used by scammers as well.

Don't get your hopes up, though.

To me, it's very clear that this person is a scammer, and as such, will most likely not reimburse you with any sum of money. As I said, in future, please do some research before you actually send money to any bitcoin exchanging site.

First of all, rumors from China will stay that, especially if it's something that doesn't make its way into mainstream news. It shouldn't affect the prices of bitcoin in the short term by anything, since they are so easily debunked. Plus, I don't think that any negative news from China right now is able to influence prices as much as it did when the Chinese governments announced its ban on ICOs last year, simply because of the fact that China has significantly less influence over the market after these regulations from the government.

But it's interesting, because we're still in the process of testing $7.8k/8k resistance without much movement both upward or downward at the moment.

For me, even if it does hit that, I wouldn't FOMO buy all of a sudden thinking that a big rally is going to come. Market sentiment is obviously still extremely bearish at this stage, and I wouldn't say that's going to be changing in this month. Prices may go up by 10-15%, but that would be it and a correction would come after that. I would buy at levels close to or below the $6.6k support, instead of buying when prices are increasing at the moment.

My suggestion, if you don't want to go through anything too complicated and you're willing to take on a certain degree of risk, then use one of the trusted currency exchangers such as zazarb on the forum. You're probably not going to get charged back from a very trusted community member.

Virwox works, but you'll either be waiting a long time for your orders to be filled, or you'll get pretty bad rates for smaller transactions. Also the number of steps involved is just too large and extremely complex overall.

The best and safest way would honestly still be to cash out your coins for cash first either on a regulated exchange or Localbitcoins traders, then depositing it into a bank account, then depositing to paypal. You'll get the best possible rates, and there are no risks of chargebacks, especially if you are dealing with amounts above $10k. However, this may be unnecessary for small amounts that value convenience and timeliness over anything.

Coinbase is known to do this. Do a search on google and you'll see the number of accounts suspended by coinbase, whether it's because funds were received or sent from suspected gambling sites, or for no apparent reason at all.

At least they are allowing you to withdraw the remaining balance from your account, though I doubt it's going to be an easy process. It'll be a sticky situation to be in for anyone that wishes to stay anonymous, because some form of verification may have to be done in certain scenarios.

By storing money with any hosted third party wallet, you're giving away control of your coins.

The only reason anyone should be using coinbase is because they want to exchange fiat to bitcoin or bitcoin to fiat. No point whatsoever using it as a wallet, when not only can you do the same thing with Electrum with no counter party risk, you're also taking on the unnecessary risk of your account getting suspended or terminated by them.

I would say that crypto, in the form of ICOs, are probably currently in a bubble.

I'm not saying that bitcoin is a bubble. In fact, I think that BTC is probably the most profitable & sustainable long term investment you are able to make right now, especially after the adjustments that took place during this bear market.

But, it's easy to say that a lot of companies & projects that are currently issuing their own tokens have their values artificially boosted. A lot of crypto projects currently aren't even decentralized, but in fact, just money making schemes for the founders and marketers. A lot don't even have any purpose whatsoever, and yet the prices are being driven up by speculators. This is unlike bitcoin, as there is a need for a decentralized and independent currency, and it's also the first crypto. But all the ICOs currently popping up, I just don't see the value of most sustaining in the long term, although this could go on for a lot longer.

Well, it's hard to do so given virtually no context. What payment method are you talking about here? Do you favour convenience or price at which you are able to purchase these coins at? These are all important factors that will influence one's preferences, and you need to give more info in order to have an accurate list.

For example, to tell you what you mean, Virwox is probably the most convenient if you're looking to buy bitcoin with paypal, or credit cards.

However, a major regulated exchange such as Bitstamp will probably give you the best rates. While Localbitcoins isn't an exchange, it's incredibly convenient and present a wide variety of payment methods. All of them have pros & cons. If you don't give context, there is virtually no way that anyone is able to list it out for you.

I can't say for sure which one is the best for you, because it depends on your individual needs. An exchange could be more trusted, however, have larger spreads on this particular trading pair. Or vice versa.

I would not, however, use Octaex. I believe that there were recent accusations of it being an exit scam, and upon checking their site out, it doesn't seem the most legit. HitBTC is another one to avoid, since when you try to withdraw, they may hold your funds and ask you to provide unnecessarily large amounts of verification questions. Cryptopia has had deposit/withdrawals problems in the past, and should be avoided as well.

You should do some research yourself on the rest of the exchanges that I haven't ruled out, and find the best for your purposes.

The OP of the BitcoinXCash announcement thread, who is probably the owner was actually active not long ago. Try PM'ing him. It'll be likely that he won't even bother to respond to you because his site is so obviously a scam, but it doesn't hurt to try.

Next time, make sure that you actually use a reputable and trusted exchange, instead of finding a random one from somewhere and deciding to trust it with an irreversible payment method of PM. Not having negative reviews doesn't mean anything, it just means that there are no reviews.

You can actually use bestchange.com to browse your options next time, the exchanges on that site is usually legitimate.

It really depends on the scenario. However, since bitcoin is one of the only major currencies that aren't really affiliated with any sort of credit bubble or central bank, I think that there is a high likelihood that bitcoin will outperform a lot of other asset classes.

If we're talking about inflation, as in Argentina and Zimbabwe, then bitcoin obviously would serve a vital role for adopters in countries affected, since it is proven to retain its value even in these circumstances.

What will happen to the rest of the crypto market is unknown. But all in all, I think bitcoin will definitely hold its value steadily in these scenarios, if not making gains of some sort, due to the depreciation that fiat undergoes in certain scenarios.

If bitcoin does drop to $1000, which probably won't happen, then I think that most people here would know that it would be a signal for accumulation. Prices at that level is simply way too cheap to not buy at, in my opinion.

There is nothing that would say that your graph on the bottom is applicable to bitcoin, in 2018. In fact, throughout bitcoin's history, I don't think that we've seen a bear market that has ended with a price less than or equal to that of the start of the run up. Every single time, prices have consolidated above that figure.

We will probably adjust a bit more from the $7k mark, but I don't see BTC losing 95% of its value from the peak during this dump.

Under the current government policies? It's obvious that they are quite anti-bitcoin, even though it's not a flat out ban from the government right now.

However, we don't know what's necessarily going to happen in the future in India regarding bitcoin. Obviously, we would like to see as bitcoin enthusiasts for the RBI restrictions on Indian banks regarding dealing with bitcoins to be lifted, however, that's not guaranteed to happen nor is it likely to happen in my view.

I remember that the government of India was looking at a high tax on bitcoin, but at least it would be legalized. Since they are indeed talking about this as an option, we can't rule out that possibility. However, excessive taxing hardly "helps" bitcoin in India or businesses to grow. Honestly, all governments should be trying to attract bitcoin related businesses into their countries right now using this opportunity, instead of trying to repel them.

One of the biggest misconceptions/mistake right now that people are making in my opinion is investing in centralized or somewhat centralized cryptocurrencies, and think that they would be able to get the same benefits as bitcoin.

There are also crypto projects out there that are purely speculative tokens that address a non-existent issue.

Bitcoin would be the only long term crypto that I would hold, and I agree, it's somewhat like "Digital gold". The reason is that the network is actually decentralized, and it's all we need right now - none of the other fancy whitepapers we see on other crypto projects. Over the long run, I wouldn't be surprised to see that bitcoin holds its value significantly better than other speculative tokens that are circulating on the market right now, due to its decentralization, limited supply, and practical adoption.

Well, central banks and fiat currencies are only a pretty new concept to humankind. The economy, as well as the currency, can definitely function without a central bank, as demonstrated by the days where paper currency did not exist and we used gold and silver as main forms of currency.

These are essentially the most basic forms of decentralized currencies, and they certainly worked well to serve their purpose - to store value, and to serve as a medium of exchange in transactions.

It's up to debate whether or not society would function better without a central bank, but all I know is that if I wanted to save my net worth in something, I would not put the majority of it in something which value is based on a central organization's trust, and they essentially can inflate the supply of as much as they want to.

When inflation is that rampant in your country, there is virtually no point in holding cash. It's funny that some people call bitcoin volatile, when there are clearly fiat counterparts that are absolutely atrocious at keeping their value over even short spans of time.

Obviously, it's not as bad as other countries such as Venezuela yet, but Turkey's economy really isn't doing well, and that is reflected through the ever depreciating value of their fiat currency.

I believe that under these circumstances, bitcoin can be extremely useful as a way to store wealth. Just like we see in venezuela, which has seen a surge in bitcoin and crypto activity, Turkish citizens may want to start hedging against their fiat currency by investing in a decentralized and proven store of value, which bitcoin seems perfect for the purpose.

Good find, OP.

Their site is set up in the most generic way possible and that sort of gives away their scam. Also, it's funny that they mention they are one of the top HYIPs in the industry right now, which essentially admits that they are running a ponzi scheme.

Obviously, the trading bots that are mentioned in their business model are completely fictional. After the lending platform collapses of 2017, you'd really have to be extremely stupid to fall for these types of scams which literally regurgitate of the same story and content as previous scams, just under a different name. Don't be surprised if the Telegram group that they advertise is full of shills, either.

Lawsuit or not, I wouldn't use HitBTC. However if there are active members of the community that are attempting to go up against a particular company, then it's probably a good sign that you should stop using it altogether and withdraw your funds from it. It shows how untrustworthy this particular exchange is, really.

HitBTC has a track record of asking excessive amounts of questions that aren't mentioned when you deposit, after you try to withdraw. And they hold user funds for a long time by doing this process. Essentially, you'll be forced to give info about the origins of your funds, in very detailed format, and they'll always ask for more info, even if you do fulfill what they asked for in the beginning. This process is tiresome, and time consuming.


That's true. But usually there are alternatives that are available. Unless you're trading small amounts, I wouldn't use HitBTC at all due to the fact that what's going to happen come withdrawal time is completely up to them.