I wouldn't say that it plays a vital role, yet, at least to the government. But I believe that bitcoin's true potential is starting to reveal itself as time itself, and adoption levels continuing to go up at a steady pace.

One of the most obvious roles of bitcoin that I can think of would be international remittance, and debt settlement. Instead of having to deal with exchange rate risk, fees, and all that, businesses can simply use bitcoin to settle their trades. That's something that the economy needs right now, and bitcoin is the best thing available for a unit of account in international trade, imo.

Furthermore, if governments do legalize bitcoin businesses, and regulate them positively, it'll mean that they're attracting new crypto startups to their country, which is a positive thing in itself for the economy. These are only two examples, and the roles that bitcoin can and is playing in the economy will only grow in the future.

We could potentially see another push at $10k in around 1-2 months time when the markets have consolidated enough, and a bottom is discovered by the market, which afterwards we could see a rally sustaining for a few weeks, again re-testing that $10k level.

Though right now, it's unlikely to happen within May, unless some unexpected positive news coverage pops up around bitcoin.

And even though the $8k level has acted as support to cushion the fall, doesn't mean that it's guaranteed to stay at that level. We know that dips come gradually. I'm much more optimistic about prices in 2019 and potentially Nov-Dec of this year, than right now, because I think we may still be in an overall bearish market for a few months.

Only ones that would fall for these would probably be newcomers that are greedy. That's about it. Otherwise, it's obvious to anyone that it's a phishing email. But new people to bitcoin probably wouldn't even have their emails leaked in the first place, unless they sign up to a crap ton of dodgy crypto sites.

This is pretty similar to the twitter phishing comments where they someone says send x amount and we'll double your money, etc.

Note that almost all of these phishing scams revolve around the greed of the recipient, or whoever is reading the content. If you see any piece of mail, or post, saying that you'll be rewarded handsomely for doing something really easy/sending money to them, think twice before doing it, it's probably a scam.


I don't think it includes all leaks, though. New exchange leaks may not have registered in their database yet.

https://chainz.cryptoid.info/sys/search.dws?q=c4abbe89933b622498e82dc55537cc29e3394ff8fa6e6d91aad00c49739b7758

This is the TXID that OP was supposed to have been paid via. Still not a valid transaction ID, it seems.

And the person above my post is having the same issue as well, which means that it's definitely not the only case out there.

Refer to this: https://twitter.com/syscoin/status/995031640169529344

Syscoin has updated their blockchain to Syscoin 3.0, and Yobit's wallets are still on the old chain, which is why you have the issue there in the first place. People have been complaining about it on twitter as well, to no avail. The syscoin team said that they have contacted yobit to upgrade, but they haven't been responded to.

It's going to take some time for sure, knowing yobit's reputation for being slow as hell.

Can it replace fiat currency in transactions? I think yes. We're already seeing that happening right now, as people are buying a range of stuff online with bitcoin for the sake of convenience. And this adoption is only going to increase as time goes on.

Though, it is probably not going to replace the current fiat banking system altogether.

In some ways, bitcoin is going to be like gold, except much more convenient and just better in general as it is fully decentralized. It will probably co-exist with the fiat banking system, unless it collapses, where bitcoin has a legitimate chance at becoming the single global currency of choice.

I have read about Xapo holding funds in bunkers that were used in WWII in an article before, but never actually expected them to be holding that much. No idea if the figure is accurate, though, but if that's the case, then as you said it's a big portion of coins that will probably not get moved any time soon and will probably inspire confidence in holders.

If this is true, it also proves that the wealthy also see bitcoin as a long term store of value, something that I believe in as well.

It's definitely interesting as well that the guy has experienced inflation in his past, and that's a reason why he believes in bitcoin so much.

However, why would a bitcoin investor trust Xapo with so much money? I believe storing it yourself would be the best option always.

I don't believe that bitcoin's value comes from a single source, but a multitude of reasons.

But if you want the primary reason, then I believe that its value is derives from its ability to serve as money. It's immutable, and not manipulable by governments, and thus, people have a demand for bitcoin as money.

It's similar to how gold has value, because it was the best thing available as a decentralized form of money many centuries ago.

Decentralization, and a strict cap on the supply of coins is where bitcoin's value comes from. If bitcoin was centralized, then I doubt it'll have any value at all, simply because it can't fulfill any purpose.

It's almost funny how the world's most dysfunctional economic system is actually educating its citizens about cryptocurrency. Of course, the emphasis here is going to be placed on Petro which is just another incarnation of the Bolivar, but I think it'll still get a lot of people within the country educated on the subject of decentralized cryptos like bitcoin as well.

As I said, Petro isn't anything more than another currency, centrally issued by Venezuela, that is probably not going to end well.

But if this education program actually is able to be used on somewhat of a large scale, then it can really allow people to see that there is an alternative global store of value in bitcoin, that they can use to hedge against Bolivar's inflation.

Bitcoin isn't more scarce. All it means is that bitcoin only has that many left to be mined, it doesn't mean that bitcoin's supply has dropped at all. In fact, bitcoin is still inflationary, it's just disinflationary, meaning that the emission drops down over time.

I don't believe it's going to do anything to bitcoin, tangibly.

The difference between 16.9 million and 17 million is extremely small, almost negligible. Plus, the emission rate per block isn't going to change until 2020, so I fail to see any major impact resulting in this.

I'd say that the unbanked are not only unbanked due to the fact that they have no identity documents. Some people may simply live too far away from a banking facility, others may live in a country where the currency is so depreciative that prices change several times a month, and there is simply no point in getting an account at a bank if the currency stored there isn't even going to hold its value.

Bitcoin serves these people really well, in my opinion, if it can be presented in a consumer-friendly form.

I personally believe that currently what bitcoin is most useful for is still for people in countries with a turbulent economy, like Venezuela, where they can essentially have "savings accounts" with bitcoin. Of course, excessive KYC on exchanges will be extremely disincentivizing and inconvenient for people to get their hands into BTC, but p2p trading is going to take over in failing economies with no major exchanges anyways. And there is always going to be traders, even if it's not on LBC.

That's the problem with all of the hosted wallets. Not just custodial services, even though they are pretty much the same thing.

You are handing over control of all your coins. The entire point of bitcoin is that you hold your own wealth, not an intermediary. By depositing money into any hosted wallet where they hold your private keys for you, there is no point in using bitcoin anymore - you own an IOU issued by the service, not the actual bitcoins on the blockchain, which is what you are supposed to use.

Even with a multisig wallet, you can probably do it yourself instead of having to trust coinbase to do it. Trustlessness is what we use bitcoin for, and this is the exact opposite of that.

Exactly, I have no idea why people are still trusting them as a safe exchange to use. Clearly, this has been disproved many times in history where the customer is left high and dry without any customer support, and most cases where this happens, they are the ones at fault in the first place.

I guess people are just ignorant, and don't bother to do any research until it's too late.

Yobit constantly puts coins into maintenance, and won't respond to any support messages if you ask them about the stuck coins. That's just the simple truth. It's not a pretty thing at all, if you're in that situation. There are even suspicions that they are manipulating markets by putting their wallets in "maintenance mode", or potentially preventing a bank run where they become insolvent. Just don't use them, at all.

Anyone could have easily told that this was a scam site.

The prices on their gift cards are simply too low to be legit. Even conducting trade with them with an escrow would be risky, let alone sending them money first. Plus, their trust rating on the forum clearly says something about their legitimacy.

Should have conducted more research before deciding to send first to them. Common sense + reserach is all you need to avoid these scams.


If that's true, then how audacious this scammer is. Not even afraid to ask victims to send more money his way. He's showing absolutely no remorse, and that's disgusting to see. Hopefully others can see this thread, and no more people get scammed.

Exactly. Besides, volatility of prices simply mean that bitcoin is a financial system completely independent of the fiat system. I mean, isn't that something we should embrace? Plus, some people even take advantage of the volatility, to their benefit.

Right now, bitcoin is serving as a store of value for many. Long term, we know that bitcoin's value will be retained effectively. All the volatility is short term. And that's not really a problem for me or a lot of bitcoin users.

In fact, volatility has actually reduced significantly as the years went on, and I believe volatility will continue to reduce in the long run. The reason why bitcoin is so volatile right now is as a result of lack of merchants adopting the currency. This only comes with time, it can't happen overnight.

Firstly, calm down and provide some proof. Screenshots should do.

Localbitcoins recently have indeed been asking people to verify their accounts, probably due to the pressures that they are getting from regulators within the EU. So it's not that surprising to see that you are requested to provide ID. That could just be the result of them suspecting you of wrongdoing, even though there may be no evidence, unfortunately.

However, there is absolutely no reason that you can't log in anymore, and your funds frozen. That's BS.

You should communicate with the support about this issue clearly, and ask them the reason why these series of bans have occurred. Also tell them that you can't even log in, which is strange.

I don't understand how bitcoin is protecting fiat currency, at all.

Bitcoin is an alternative to fiat currency, and is literally known to be that. The biggest competitor right now to fiat currency is probably BTC itself, and it doesn't make any sense that bitcoin is also protecting, instead of rivaling(which is the case) fiat currencies. Simply absurd. It may be different if bitcoin wasn't decentralized, but it is.

If a country has attractive tax rates and regulations for the crypto industry, then its economy and its total output may be positively affected. But its fiat currency, does not.

It could be possible that yobit has signed off the transaction from their end, but has not yet broadcast it for a certain reason. If that's the case, the same txid will be valid as soon as the transaction is broadcasted to the network.

Unfortunately though, that's the main issue with yobit. Customer support is atrocious. And the only way that you can reach them is by their ticket system, which clearly isn't functional whatsoever.

I have not heard of a single case in which the support staff were able to respond to a ticket in a reasonable amount of time, which is why I advise people not to use it at all. You should regularly create new tickets to remind them of the issue, until they actually go and do something about it.

That could be something - however, it's safe to assume that all government issued crypto is going to be centralized, and the controls are essentially still handed to them. There is absolutely no change. If they want to actually let their citizens use a decentralized crypto, they would have done so with existing cryptos like Bitcoin.

For me, as I said, I would avoid centralized cryptocurrencies entirely, regardless of which country issues them. They simply aren't backed by anything, even if they claim to (cough cough *Petro*), since there is absolutely no guarantee they are going to redeem their promises.


Anything relating to issuing one's own currency, on any platform, is politically driven. Just like Venezuela's crypto-fiat. Not sure how it could help corruption, though.

That is correct. Bitcoin is only the best investment of a given time period, if it yields more or outperforms the next available investment.

I think that's where the difference between a trader and a holder start to emerge. Holders aren't technically in bitcoin to make the most amount of money, they just want to conserve their wealth away from fiat currencies for the long term.

That's why if you're a trader, or someone who is into bitcoin more as an short term investment, it's so important that you sell at appropriate times. Bitcoin has its peaks and troughs, just like all other investments in the real economy.

I don't even think that he has much credibility left in him, anymore. These over the top predictions that clearly aren't realistic and most probably won't ever come into fruition may actually be doing more harm than good to bitcoin. From an outsider's point of view, McAfee is a representation of an average bitcoin user itself, and with those ridiculous predictions it doesn't do bitcoin any good.

If we look at last year's bull market, which was the biggest bull market that we saw in the entire history of bitcoin, prices went up around 20 times at its peak. Right now, prices are around $8k.

Even if we double the amount of gains that has occurred in the 2017 bull market, we still wouldn't see a price even above $500k, let alone $1 million. And we may not even be at the bottom yet.

2020 is going to be a relatively bullish year, but not to the extent that he is predicting. I'm not even sure what he's trying to go with these predictions. Make more from crypto related promos maybe?