They have track record for this. Goldman Sachs is one of Circle's major backers.

Circle was a really good option for Bitcoin buying and they gave up in late 2016 just as it was about to take off. I don't know how much hassle it was to run it, but they must have thrown away tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in profit.

That's it in a nutshell. I find the signatures here pretty low key and tune them out. Other forums can be a flat out sensory assault in comparison.

If someone's knocked up some code to hide sigs, perhaps there's a way of auto ignoring posts that are in a nominated campaign too. The Yobit affair certainly would've made something like that useful I knew someone was in it before even checking the sig.

Wirex is supposedly on its way to the USA. I'm not sure if I'd describe them as reliable, but they've been around for long enough. There's no date on when it's going to arrive.

For now at least the Bitpay card works for expenditure on card. You can't use it for ATM cash outs. If that's your sole use then there'll be cheaper non debit card options.

The feeling in my willy is that we won't get near five figures until well into next year, perhaps quite a while after the halving.

I think it's going to be a bigger psychological barrier than the all time high and once it's taken out again it will be taken as a signal to pile in by a large number of people. On the way down last time it rallied to $9990 and collapsed. That says to me it's going to be a figure that's going to require a fight.

As long as you don't put serious amounts on it it's worth a punt.

The Bitpay card didn't let you keep BTC on it, everything sent to it was instantly converted to GBP or EUR.

When it shut down, with literally no warning, there were people tweeting them with balances of £5-10,000 who were halfway around the world with no other option. That's bad. Obviously poor planning on their part too. They were prompt enough about sorting out the balances within a few weeks but that's not much use if you were in country trying to fund your Filipino hooker's womb transplant.



That's why I'm happy to take the modest hit they have. You never know when your bank will strike in the UK. It's something I'd rather keep completely separate. I can't be arsed to create a burner bank account.

Indeed. It's totally down to the person actually paying. It would be an easy way to throw your money away if you're a gambling company whose posters only hang out in development and technical discussion.

I do find it strange how consistently they reject certain sections like off topic and politics and society, and it seems a shame more local boards aren't included, but I guess they know what works for them and what doesn't.

I don't particularly buy any of this, but especially not that.

Electricity generation in the DPRK is patchy and dire. Even the capital is in the dark most of the time. I'd be amazed if they had the flexibility, consistency or capacity to keep up with the pace of mining.

As for them being the crypto boogeyman to evade sanctions, it makes perfect sense on the surface but they're saddling themselves with something that needs to be sold for fiat before they can meet their bills. Since dealing with the international banking system must be one of their biggest headaches, having to get rid of something most banks hate BEFORE they can get on with laundering it doubles the headache.

If I were Kim I'd stick to churning out those Super Dollars.

There were indeed some proper users who were signed up and being themselves as ever, but they were definitely a small minority. I noticed something was up before becoming aware that Yobit was alive again.

It was totally the right thing to do. It just goes to show the tsunami waiting to be unleashed if the slightest chance to exploit the shit out of everything emerges.

You could go from door to door knocking on the crypto company's doors demanding a job. The likelihood is that some ex Spetsnaz gorilla employed by them will bury an ice axe in your forehead but you never know.

I would've thought finding present, willing, informed and vaguely competent staff must be one of the biggest challenges if you're running a crypto operation.

Any debit card that started off claiming it needed a token should never have attracted one penny of anyone else's money. There seem to have been a lot of them too. The only reason you need a token is to steal money from your future non customers.

Of course you can use a Bitcoin debit card publicly anywhere in the world because there is no such thing as a Bitcoin debit card, it's a Visa card pre funded with fiat by a Bitcoin sale and Visa is usable almost everywhere.

You won't be able to get one issued to you any more if you live in places like Bangladesh, but someone coming from elsewhere can use it just fine.

Getting the original sum back is 100% out of their hands by the sounds of it. If their money got caught up with cartel laundering it could take forever to untangle.

Either way Bitfinex are a throwback and they should've buggered off a long time ago. They're like a fart from 2012/13 that refuses to dissipate.

If I were them I would completely abandon fiat and go full alt which is what they should've done many years ago, and that includes Tether. The way they choose to operate is fundamentally incompatible with the conventional finance system and mingling with it is a one way trip to doom.

Sounds dull and minor to me. It's a minor tiff over a little bit of terminology that they could easily discard or tweak. It's not as if this is a battle for the soul of money itself. I can't see Donald sitting on the toilet having live updates shouted to him.

Funny how on top they can be about 'compliance' but when it comes to the people they choose to entrust vast amounts of money to they'll jump into the arms of the first sweet talker who'll come along.

The quotes from that court document are pitiful. Someone with a silly name pleading for $100 MILLION of their own dollars on Telegram from someone else with a silly name like it's a fucking CSGO skin or something.

The thing that many people worry about is that Bitcoin's dollar value has largely been created by Tether - quasi dollars created out of thin air. That will cause everyone to wonder about the valuations they've taken for granted. Tether absolutely dominates trading volume, though of course most of that trading volume is fake so it's kind of moot.

Tether has always had more power in the market because of its nature as well. Every time they issue more of it it's new money entering, not the same old money sloshing around.

These revealments at least point to Tether having the backing they always to claimed to have, until Bitfinex helped themselves to it of course.

When all the Wavecrest cards shut down, Xapo, Bitpay etc you had to apply to them for a cheque to be sent to you.

Whoever's supplying the card, the fiat will be sitting in their bank account. I have zero faith in some no mark coughing up and I'd never bother with an unknown card provider. I can't see there being any type of official protection. Any random prick can become a card provider. Visa don't care until they do.

To go more legit they'd have to reveal more about their ownership, structure and finances and they have never shown any inclination to do that. They seem to have adopted the policy of having burner accounts rather than trying to cultivate any ongoing relationships. If they took the time to listen to what a bank wants from them rather than wading in and raping it until they're closed they might have gotten somewhere. The present situation is the culmination of that.

This is the email they sent out today.



Dear Bitfinex trader,

By now, you may be aware of the events of the last 48 hours, but I want to personally give you an update on what has happened and how we are proceeding as a business.

On Wednesday, April 24th, the New York Attorney General’s office filed a petition and related documents in the NY State Supreme Court in Manhattan concerning Bitfinex and Tether. We believe the petition was based on understandings and materials received by the New York Attorney General’s office both from us and from other sources. Indeed, we had, until just yesterday, been co-operating fully with the New York authorities in their inquiries into and about our business. The petition and other materials were filed without notice to us or a chance to respond to them.

The materials, which do not constitute a civil or criminal complaint are, in our view, filled with inaccuracies and false assertions. In particular, we want to assure you that the allegation that we have “lost” $850 million is categorically false. We have been advised that these amounts – whether in whole or in substantial part – are, in fact, seized and safeguarded in several jurisdictions, including Poland, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We are actively working to exercise our rights and remedies to cause those funds to be released. We are confident in our ability to make clear, coherent, and convincing arguments to recover those funds. And rest assured that we will vigorously challenge the false assertions made by the New York Attorney General’s office in their filing.

I am here to tell you that we are good actors in the digital token space, and we always act with you, the customer, as our first priority. We have always taken our legal obligations very seriously, and will continue to do so. We continue to co-operate with regulators worldwide as they seek to learn more about our business. But we will not allow that spirit of co-operation and goodwill to be used to threaten our customers.

In the days ahead, you may have questions that arise, and we encourage you to share them with me or other members of the senior management team. We will update you as and when we can and we will address as many of your concerns and questions as we can.

We have been humbled and encouraged by the support we have seen from our customers and wider community in the face of these allegations. We are here to assure you we’re as strong as ever, we are not going anywhere, and we’re unwaveringly committed to you.

Thanks and best regards, Jean Louis van der Velde CEO

Uh huh. How will you decide what is 'really' his and what is someone else's?

Why not get rid of all coins mined before 2017? The people who mined them were probably dicks compared to all the cool dudes we have now.

How could you say such a thing?

I felt as a literary effort it didn't quite match some of the greatest works of our time. I do not feel that it will be studied by people wearing silver foil jumpsuits in the far future. I will wait for more tracts from this author before recommending him to my associates.

Funny thing is that all this proves Tether *was* what it purported to be.

There must be less disastrous ways of demonstrating it.

https://medium.com/@mathias_61938/the-man-behind-the-curtain-81ecf49fa339

According to this Erik Vorhees had an office across the corridor from Crypto Capital. This rabbit hole goes so deep that the real culprit will turn out to be YOU and you didn't even know it.