It will have an influence.

Just because the Ukraine has its share of problems doesn't negate the fact that a REGULATED exchange just listed futures products for the first time for Bitcoin.

I think it will provide a catalyst for the CME (World's largest futures exchange) to step up their efforts to provide products for Bitcoin, in addition to the real-time index they have launched.

You guys are really missing the boat sometimes, its painful to watch.

Centro-cryptocurrencies are the answer for corrupt banking systems wanting to extend their influence under the umbrella of new technology.

Decentralized Cryptocurrencies are for people who want freedom - unfortunately the Centrists have bigger budgets and will wage a war for quite some time resisting the changes.

African governments in general tend to be highly compromised and corrupt, as shown by certain African states that can't manage their money resulting in hyperinflation, in addition to the usual run-of-the-mill dictatorship problems (president that loses election doesn't step down) and other issues.

I don't think innovation is going to come from Africa, but Bitcoin will be a catalyst for it elsewhere.

I know we all love to subscribe to the "Bitcoin conquers all" narrative, but in this case I'd say its more tenuous then most.

The more likely explanation is that High Frequency Trading has declined in Forex, as retail trading in general has seen a downward trajectory across equities and other products. When you see Hedge funds closing down due to customer redemptions, it means the industry itself is in a consolidating mode because actual yields are hard to achieve. This is also why state pension funds are in a bind, because instead of the estimated 7% return, they've barely eked out 1%.

There's a lot more going on in the financial world that would account for this difference, is what I'm saying.

Anyone who uses a shared resource like the Bitcoin blockchain as a personal hard drive deserves my everlasting scorn.

THIS is the best idea you could think of? What the everloving fuck is wrong with you? There are so many other ways to offload that burden on to clients without having to stuff "OMG LOLz LUV MY DINNER" vapid tweets into the Blockchain.

For the love of satoshi, just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD.

The whole "Bitcoin uses energy" thing is just another way to attack the concept of a non-sovereign means of transfer.

Nobody is rebelling against TVs, DVRs, and the whole host of appliances that serve up the latest < hot show > up to homes - nobody is going "OMG if this show gets popular on Netflix it will saturate the internet".

That's why I hate this kind of argument against Bitcoin. Its selective, its blind, and it ignores the very SERVICE and UTILITY that Bitcoin provides, which is financial freedom.

And yet the morons stare at their idiot boxes and don't care how many watts THAT consumes.... 'effing retards.

Your graphic is garish and oversized, in my opinion.

As for the "article", its the classic "why are we wasting power to run the Bitcoin network, and OMG, if Bitcoin takes off it will require more power" strawman.

There, saved you about five minutes.

Ver is a pompous ass running for cover before his initiative falls in on him.

May all of his future projects run as smoothly.

If you can't be bothered to format the article headline correctly -- then I can't be bothered to read it on the first pass. Now that you've fixed it -- all I can say is its more whining about how Core is doing its job. If people really hate the pace of development, then fork the code and shut up.

The easy part is building an exchange.

The "last mile" problem of interfacing with the legacy shit-hole known as "the banking system" is what kills you.

----

This is what kills me about Bitcoin adoption overall. Much more progress could be made if people simply could make the leap of settling things in BTC without converting to currency. But no, we're wasting a phenomenal amount of energy and time trying to "work" with a system that deserves to be replaced.

Wake me up when you can actually stay within the Bitcoin ecosystem and not touch a conventional Bank, kthx.

Thoughts on Bitcoin belong in the forums elsewhere.

THIS IS A NEWS ARTICLE FORUM -- PLEASE MOVE THIS THREAD, MODS.

Thanks.

I suspect one of the reasons that litecoin is still around is that you can "wash" Bitcoins through LTC exchanges if you're into that sort of thing. Other than outright wallet laundering, I don't see what the niche LTC offers -- they used to be "ASIC is evil" until they released a patch that supported ASICs... so.... what is the point of them being around again? Oh right, faster confirms - but even then they admit they can't scale very well because of this design choice.

A big "meh" from me. The only real alt-coin that had purpose was Namecoin, since it offered a legitimate way to replace centralized DNS lookups. It has its own problems, though.

7.25% of Crap is still Crap....

Speaking of crap, Ethereum is down at 8.41 (Kraken ETH/USD) from their all-time high of 21.8499 which is a hefty 60.86% Decrease, lol.

Hey, how about ZCrash, er ZCoin -- down at 48 (Kraken ZEC/USD) from their all-time high of 30,000 which is a massive 99.84% Decrease.... LOL.

Alt-coins always are amusing...

I trust Ver about as much as I trust Mark Karpeles.

I wouldn't give any information to his operation, no matter what the reason was. Buyer beware if you trust Ver, he'll eventually burn you in the end.

There's only 4.97 Million Bitcoins left from the 21 million total.

If anyone thinks an asset that is growing more scarce by the day isn't going to increase in value -- well, you need your head examined.

The miners know this, the HODLers know it, and the active daytraders know it. There is less and less depth on the sell side, and even a
20 dollar swoon is absorbed and regained in a couple of days. We're on the upswing, the only question is how high it is going to go on
this leg.

Its closer to a shareholder meeting to vote on a proposal, only those that have "skin in the game" can participate. It is certainly not a wide-open democratic process that requires zero investment.

Been following it, there's a site that keeps track of whether it is activated or not here -- http://segwit.co/

I just want some of the stupid drama to be over about blocksize and being able to buy 5-cent candies at the sweet shop to finally be fucking over... all of it has been extremely annoying.

A "fee market" was part of the plan, Satoshi knew this when he implemented the reduction of block rewards for miners.

"High Fees"? Yeah, "high" my ass. Considering how you can send very large amounts for a pittance doesn't exactly scream "too high". Perhaps people are confused - a global remittance network takes resources, and fees are used to make it work.

But still, we get these idiots spouting "too high" and then wondering why their transaction takes a few hours instead of 10 minutes.

Idiots.

The argument could be made that Bitcoin is the ultimate litmus test for any other currency.

If your currency unit values Bitcoin highly, like the Naira, then it means your currency is a heaping pile of shit, since so many units of your crap currency is represented by a small portion of Bitcoin.

This goes for the dollar, yen, euro and the rest too.

Use this as a guide, like you would Credit Default Swaps for a sovereign state's overall rating -- if it takes more units of their fiat currency, then it means their system is in decline.

Someone should make an index based on that idea, alone. It would be interesting to track.

How does anyone, including this author know jack shit about the road we are on?

There hasn't been anything like Bitcoin, ever, in the history of currency and finance.

And yet, we have these pretend-experts who think they've seen it all before -- well, in this case you sure as hell haven't. We're in unprecedented territory, and anyone saying they "know" how far we have to go is blowing smoke up your ass. Nobody knows. Nobody has any idea how far this idea will go, where this technology will reach, or the implications of a decentralized financial system being built before our very eyes.

All I can say for sure is this -- that most "experts" will be proven wrong, given that this is an event that none of them have seen in their liftetimes.

Needs proper date formatting to be in the News Section.

As for saying "I told you so", did you really think that anyone here thought governments wouldn't mess with Bitcoin? And why are you so smug about it? Its ridiculous.

This is like watching AOL duke it out with CompuServe all over again.

Walled gardens fail.

They'll do it, because they have a corporate culture that hates things "not invented here", so they'll waste lots of money and time before realizing they left out the most important part -- the fact that it isn't Bitcoin.