It's not a very impressive list at all. I really can't tell if the NYA is going to come crashing down in flames, or if the companies will double down in support of the fork. My suspicion is that the Mike Belches and Brian Armstrongs in the discussion believe that the market will react very strongly to a supermajority of miners switching chains. They may not be wrong about that; we need to wait and see.

Personally, I'm pretty nervous. I'd love to see everyone back out and call the whole thing off. But I think Bitmain is interested in the Core chain appearing weaker POW-wise, so it could get messy.

The fact that BCH's "emergency difficulty adjustment" parameter led to periods of massive hyperinflation followed by periods where it takes hours to find blocks, I'd say they haven't stumbled onto "better technology." In fact, there is an open pull request in their Github to address their disastrous changes. The EDA was basically all they did besides increasing the block size limit.

And it turns out that increase was unnecessary since their average block size is like 50 kB.

Adding replay protection requires a hard fork. It requires a change, such as to address format, that invalidates transactions on the alternate fork. Segwit2x is already hard forking. It would be fairly trivial for them to slightly alter the address format to achieve strong replay protection and therefore make transacting on both chains completely safe post-fork.

Core has consistently stood against hard forks, so it doesn't make sense for them to hastily hard fork now just because Segwit2x exists. If the Segwit2x camp wants to fork off, they should go ahead and do so. That shouldn't add any burden for Core; it's only proper etiquette to fork in a way where users won't lose money. That means adding replay protection to your fork. The only ones forking are Segwit2x, so it's incumbent on them.

And from a practical standpoint, it's far too late for Core to release an update that would be adopted widely in time for the fork. It would be a contentious update, and the fork is only several weeks away. Much of the ecosystem won't have adopted the update. Segwit2x, on the other hand, has very few nodes on the network. It would be much more trivial for these few nodes to update than the entire Core ecosystem.

That's because GDAX is the same entity as Coinbase. Literally, GDAX is just the liquidity pool for Coinbase. On Coinbase's website, they refer to GDAX as their "product". And Coinbase does appear on the New York Agreement.


I agree, but when it comes to a hard fork, there is no way to predict future demand. It's completely impossible. There has certainly been a perception expressed by some that fees are too high and that block capacity is too low over the past few years. Nobody can gauge how representative that sentiment is of the Bitcoin network, though. And like I said, nobody can know what percentage of the network will switch to the forked network. That's true even if 100% of us were all lining up saying we supported Segwit2x.

This leads to all sorts of questions. Are hard forks ever ethical if they are coordinated with miners? Because miners switching networks deprives legacy network users of a vital resource -- transaction confirmations. That means that users will migrate out of economic coercion rather than free choice. Should this be considered an attack?

One clarification to be made here: GDAX and Bitflyer are part of the New York Agreement. If you weren't aware, GDAX = Coinbase (the former is their order book exchange interface, the latter is their simplified broker interface). GDAX is the largest US exchange on the market. Bitflyer is the largest Japanese exchange on the market, and fluctuates within the Top 3 exchanges in the world for volume.

That's not an endorsement of 2X by me. I'm just saying that we can't act like major exchanges "haven't said a word about 2X." Shapeshift and several major wallet services like Blockchain, Jaxx and Xapo are also signed onto the deal. That's nothing to sneeze at!

Maybe, but I'm fairly certain that isn't the plan right now. The government definitely realizes that Bitcoin and blockchain technology is here to stay. That's why there is a smartphone app available called "Blockchain e-Wallet" that was designed by the Bank of China, according to cnLedger. It will be linkable to Bank of China debit cards. There's no evidence that it will compatible with real cryptocurrencies like BTC -- I imagine it won't.

I guess those who believe that cryptocurrencies are merely payment rails might actually fall for such apps. Maybe that's the point.

Anyone who wants to start mining, or any miner who wants to ramp up their operations, needs to buy Bitcoin Cash in this case. For now, they probably have enough of a stranglehold on ASIC manufacturing that they can get away with it, too. No manufacturers are really competing with Bitmain at this point; shopping elsewhere is just for those who put ideology before profit. Not many of those people left in the mining business.

I don't think it has anything to do with Chinese regulations. They are starting to feel the pain of propping up the BCH market. They want to use their market share to force their customers to prop it up for them.

It shouldn't matter if someone gets access to your smartphone and the 2FA app, since it's only one of two factors. Your password shouldn't be stored on your phone. For instance, if you trade from a mobile app while using the same phone for 2FA, arguably you don't have the security of 2FA because a thief might only need your phone to drain your accounts. The saying with 2FA is "something you know, something you have." Naturally, if you shift everything to "something you have" then you are insecure.


I never had an account on WEX but I checked my account on BTC-E.nz. They required my original 2FA in order to reset the token. Wasn't it the same for WEX? I thought they said they were transferring all the login data including 2FA.


Check the profile on your account. Does it list your name? They said before the launch that all identity data was destroyed (doesn't really make sense, but allows people who can't verify a chance to get out).

It's possible that they are just hedging their blunder of supporting BCH. There is likely little buying demand and they are propping up the markets themselves. This way, they can force some of that burden onto their customers.


China is pretty good at replicating/producing goods and exporting them at lower costs. I don't think this is particular to ASIC chip manufacturing. There is some upside here. Bitfury is doing significant research and development into next generation chips, and from the relationships they are building, I think they plan to become more relevant in this space.

There are also two major Japanese conglomerates -- GMO and DMM -- that are planning to enter the ASIC manufacturing sector in the next year. So hopefully Bitmain's dominance isn't a permanent situation.

I don't think "legal issues" could explain things, unless this were a situation like Bitstamp, where we have seen many examples of people's accounts being disabled for AML/KYC and law enforcement concerns. Those cases clearly all follow a similar protocol and there is a clear (if unfair) explanation for account disabling and termination.

In this case, we're just seeing radio silence for 3-4 months on some peoples' stuck transactions. Compared to 1-2 weeks with Bitstamp. There are scant reports of accounts being disabled and no reports of similar law enforcement concerns. Just stuck transactions everywhere you look. It's just like Cryptsy. I hate to say it, but this is exactly what Cryptsy looked like when their problems began in earnest.

Meh, that's pretty crappy logic. The obvious solution to that is to keep your token on more than one device (you should do this anyway for easy recovery in case of device malfunction). YubiKey can attach to your keychain, so this would never be an issue. This seems like a no-brainer if you are serious about your account security. High-value targets not using 2FA on their accounts is simply crazy.

There's no more secure way (yet) to authenticate, at least not until biometric authentication is the norm. I'm not looking forward to that.

It appears to be a legit story; the article is linked in the OP. However, I would take this with a grain of salt. Indeed, the Russian government has topped even the Chinese government in regards to waffling on cryptocurrency regulation (and following through on rumors). A few years ago, they said it was illegal to use. Two weeks ago, they said there was no point in banning it. The governor of Leningrad also recently offered an open invitation to the mining industry to set up and operate in his region.

Maybe the Russian government just needs a dip to buy.

Japan is regulating Bitcoin and the business sector is pouring money in, and the US is about to have fully-regulated futures markets on LedgerX next month, so I doubt it.

And global trading volumes are rapidly changing. A year ago, Japan wasn't even on the radar. Now they have the biggest volume in the world (albeit, some exchanges with zero fees, so there is likely additional churn). South Korea, too, is now becoming one of the top countries for trading volume, seemingly out of nowhere.

So even if the Chinese government is putting the brakes on exchange trading, it seems like those volumes are being replaced elsewhere. I'll bet some Chinese traders have already moved to Japanese and Korean exchanges.

I don't think this has anything to do with shutting down exchanges. But it likely does involve heightened AML/KYC procedures. This was inevitable. When bitcoins were worth $2 a pop, no one cared. If they might be worth $10,000 this year or next (and that appears to be the trajectory), then regulators have no choice but to step in and get a handle on the industry.

The magnitude of scams and frauds (and the potential damage caused by them), as well as the scope of money laundering, are much bigger now than years ago, when the market was worth very little.

What withdrawal method did you use and what country do you live in, if you don't mind me asking?


So, after the Bitfinex hack, when they issued USD-denominated tokens to cover the BTC shortfall, were they insolvent? The whole point of the tokens is to erase the insolvency from the books. But I will say, the fact that there were zero conversions of fiat balances after the launch of WEX is suspicious. It could not have worked out to the penny. So to some extent, you must be right.


I don't think that situation was avoidable. The premium comes from inability to process fiat withdrawals (and maybe some perceived risk of law enforcement action). They could never have obtained enough Tether liquidity to replace USD balances with USDT. That's why they have a 10% withdrawal fee... because they need to discourage a bank run on USDT reserves.

It seems like it's too late for that now. People have been actively trading and withdrawing, so those balances are set in stone. It's interesting to recognize that Bitfinex is in a similar position: unable to process fiat deposits or withdrawals, with Tether as the only means to move fiat value around.

It's also not necessarily true that the fiat "isn't there." The same goes for Bitfinex. Inability to reliably move high volume USD is not the same as being insolvent. Don't get me wrong -- for all I know, WEX is insolvent. But I just mean that it might be a bit more complex than that. US-facing poker sites have generally charged high withdrawal fees ever since the US government shut down the major sites in 2011 (some sites offer a couple free withdrawals per year).

I tend to agree. I think Yours is a fantastic example of an idealistic idea (micropayments to fund the content you love) that doesn't work in practice. I suspect the more traditional route of patronizing will turn out to be more lucrative. Services like Patreon seem to be taking off in the Twitter/microblogging sphere. We'll see, though. I know this project has been really hyped, so maybe I'm getting too cynical in my old age.


Is there any evidence that major services like YouTube are actually going to integrate Bitcache? It's not obvious from the above video...

One of the ways to gauge it is regulatory involvement and institutional investment options. These things tend to be purely reactive; they are not the "early adopters" of a technology. The fact that Bitcoin is getting so much attention from these groups (e.g. CFTC formally registering LedgerX for swap execution, or the new Bitcoin ETF to be listed on Canadian markets) says that it is definitely here to stay.

Commodities market insiders are also indicating that the SEC is getting closer to approving an ETF in the US as well. Once that happens, a big potential pool of investors could have access to BTC options.

Before getting into any technical details about making the withdrawal..... what country do you reside in? Is your account verified with OKCoin? And are you talking about OKCoin.com or OKCoin.cn?

It makes a difference. International traders on .cn platforms got screwed pretty badly earlier this year when the Chinese government audited the .cn exchanges. All cryptocurrency withdrawals were disabled for months. When they were apparently re-enabled (for Chinese customers and/or VIPs), reports began to emerge that international customers were still being denied the ability to withdraw. This was still true as of a couple months ago, but I haven't kept up with new developments.

Well, sure. You have to consider that BTC was trading in the cents and dollars range for years; we're now trading near $4000. A few years ago, it was much more common to hear that cryptocurrencies were just Ponzi/pyramid schemes and scams. And Congresspeople were even calling for it to be banned.

From a mainstream establishment perspective, BTC is much more accepted now. It's not going away. And that's exactly why the Chinese government is doing what they're doing. I don't think they are doing this to attack Bitcoin at all. I think they are trying to consolidate control over Chinese Bitcoin mining and the Chinese market. This isn't about prohibition as much as consolidation.

Things definitely feel uncertain because of the situation in China, but in a broader sense, certainty about the future of BTC is becoming more solid everyday.