There is the occasional card that still pops up and claims to be anonymous but more than likely they're scams. Even if they're not scams it's only a matter of time before Visa found them and squashed them.

A lot of people are paranoid about their bank getting funny with them and that's a valid worry depending on where you are.

I've seen others reckon it magically shielded them from the tax man. Erm, nope.

I remember when the Wavecrest cards got stopped and from the outrage it seems like for a lot of people it was their one and only option. Maybe there's less banking out there than we think.

Of course it's important to them but it has become so mutated by greed that it serves no one other than those at the top. It costs the US taxpayer 2-3 times more per head than any free at point of use system and it totally dominates the lives of people who scrabble to afford it. It's the worst of all possible worlds beyond not having any at all.

And we're seeing that attitude trickle down into their response to this crisis. Check this - https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1245906088911949826

Without denialists and profiteers I wonder how many more people could be saved.

But some will be thinking along the lines of - can we afford not to?

We are indeed awash with affordable tat but look at the social effects the current system has created - job insecurity, populist knobhounds, intergenerational resentment, rising living costs and stagnating wages.

Of course rejecting China may not solve any of that but some will feel it's worth experimenting with. I guess the real disruptor is AI and automation and that's the greatest unknown for all of us in the future.

Imagine the effects of genuine hostility between the West and elsewhere beyond the sniping we have today. It could be crippled in a couple of hours. At the same time it's possibly the most powerful form of keeping the peace between major powers we've ever known. No one can afford world war to happen any more. That may mean more proxy wars of course.

If anyone decides to get legal that won't wash. They are handling the money of others and moving it elsewhere with a polish of untraceability. Because of that they should be vetting the source of the money and vetting the people who sent and received it. It's just about the perfect definition of a money laundering operation. I think centralised options are on borrowed time unless they bury themselves deeply.

The fucking nutter is just as fucking nuts on Reddit these days - https://www.reddit.com/user/jstolfi/

It's possibly the biggest waste of life and energy I have witnessed in all my days. Despite his fervent efforts he has not vanquished the object of his ire.

That's one maggot I don't miss.

Erm, since when was renting a car with anything anonymous? The rental companies would emptied of cars in 5-10 minutes if that was possible. You have to hand over a driving licence and a card so they'll have everything they need to start spying on your trips to take selfies at beauty spots.

It's striking how high up some long dead accounts still are. Goes to show how 'committed' some posters were back in the day.

What about several million people facing the prospect of no income? Unless you're a total degenerate, and there must be plenty of them, you're not going to continue gambling if you're wondering how you're going to manage to feed yourself.

Similarly I presume the lower than expected dip in merchant stuff is people buying necessities.

I think there will be many calls for this. They will eventually fade away. What will happen is some concerted stockpiling. And then that'll get sold off or forgotten about. That's how humans roll. We carry on improvising until it's too late. I can't see that changing.

I guess the real test is dealing with the economic wreckage. No one knows how bad that will be or what the effects will be. Perhaps it will inspire some sort of sea change. I ain't holding my breath.

There's newbieness in different forms, crypto newbieness and trading newbieness.

If you don't have a grounding in how fucking gross crypto can be then your trading will be even more disastrous than it was going to be anyway.

Think of all the things you need to be aware of - plagarised white paper piece of shit projects, fake volume exchanges, exchanges springing KYC on you, exchanges flat out stealing from you, malware wallets. The list is a very long one. If you're not immersed in some of the basics then you may well head straight into disaster.

I would automatically assume any escrow site was suspicious. It's just too obvious a temptation. And this one is the most obvious so far.

Even a site with track record could have been created entirely to build up to a long con. The only circumstances where I would consider one was if it was regulated and backed by longstanding legit companies and there's no such product out there and maybe never will be.

It looks like it's a fintech project primarily. This is exactly in line with his stated desire of making the world more financially inclusive. There is a crypto attached but the investment went into the core company.

It's still an endorsement of sorts but if he'd bought coins directly that would be a different deal.

They had the opportunity to look all professional and polished as they moved on to another phase. Instead they played it worse than Gox on mushrooms. It's ancient history now of course but it really made them look like absolute penises at the time.

If I remember rightly there was about one hour of notice and then it started trading. And trading was suspended less than five minutes later. Maybe a week or two of notice would've driven the price mad but the opposite did the same too and screwed some customers big time.



He has a board and investors to answer to. If he spent his entire life buying shitcoins in secret and then 'surprising' the market with his listing he would be ousted as an out and out hypester and someone with a steadier and less corrupt hand would be brought in. Customers would rapidly tire of it as well.

This is not necessarily true. The South Korean market went through long periods of having a higher price than the rest of the world. The reason for this was that foreign money couldn't get in or out. Because it was a sealed market it did its own thing and was often over $1000 higher than elsewhere.

There were a ton of threads here asking how this could be exploited and why there wasn't arbitrage. If it was possible the difference would've been squashed flat in seconds, but it wasn't. No one leaves free money on the table.

If there is a consistent price difference between one exchange or area vs everywhere else it means there is always a problem of some sort moving money that distorts the price difference.

The only people who decide the value are the buyers and sellers, not the backers. There are examples like Maxcoin, which was endorsed by Max Keiser, that died instantly.

Big name involvement looks good on paper and possibly increases initial visibility but it won't get you very far out of the gate.

Over one MONTH between posts and this is on a Bitcoin forum, even if it's primarily the BorgstreamAxaLizard version. That has to be some sort of record.

And for this Bitcoin I can see the halving being dangerous for its health. Miners are not exactly flocking to it as is.

As far as I know there still aren't explicit insider trading laws about crypto exchanges. I presume there might be some sort of commodities law that may be able to be applied but I've never seen a case of it. Roger Ver publicly admitted to doing and said it was sometimes a good thing.

That's separate from securities laws which have been put into action multiple times in this area.

Coinbase's BCH launch was a total joke. It arrived out of nowhere and the price went ballistic. They conducted an 'internal investigation' and concluded they did nothing wrong. Funny that.

The main thing that would stop him from doing it would be threatening his own cred and pissing off his multiple investors. That might be enough to stop any silliness.

I merit stuff that informs, entertains or makes me think. A good question is just as worthy as a good answer.

I think the most important thing is to be yourself. Your posts so far say nothing. They have no personality. You seem to be writing what you think people want to hear but they've read it a billion times already. This forum is overflowing with that.

The unique thing you have to offer that no one else has is - you. Don't pretend to be anyone else. Don't attempt to please anyone else. Give us more of you.

For instance, you're in Bangladesh. Write a post about Bitcoin's situation there. I'd be very curious to hear about it as we don't get much information from there.

It's about the magnitude of the dump. Things of that size and violence don't happen time after time. Like I said it could get back to that price out of sheer boredom and gloom but that would be after weeks, not a few hours. I don't think it can manage it in similar circumstances.

It's just the same as a blow off top except in reverse and the tops don't come around very often either.



Nicely called.