It's a bears market but kudos to the optimism. I guess it's a good thing to celebrate whatever it is that we can be celebrating on. Positive thoughts. Positive thoughts. Open bitcoin's floodgates o ye positive thoughts. Show me the way to strike o ye positive thoughts. Help me make the right call o ye positive thoughts. Positive thoughts.

I wonder if a decentralized exchange would also be possible. Somewhere, someone may be tinkering with the idea of creating an open exchange where everything is dictated by the market. If we want to be truly independent from the traditional controls around us, an assault on the monopoly of the existing exchanges would be the thing to do.

Too late to get the hardware to the market for anyone to optimize the benefit from it if it's true. I'm not sure if there's that much profit left for a new player, much more an individual, to make money out of the remaining bitcoins to be mined. And as with the rest commenting on this article, I don't see how any individual would stand a chance against the warehouse sized operations out there. It's like bringing a cigarette lighter to fight off someone using a flamethrower.

If you read the trends right, you may still reap your gains once bitcoin's price will rebound. But personally, I believe that bitcoin will go as low as $6000 before it'll start to rebound and climb to around $11600.

On a side note, I hope that we wake up and stop the wild speculation on bitcoin and use it as a currency instead. It was not invented to be an asset but as a way for us to have a decentralized currency, free from the burden of debt being levied on the current monetary system. It is supposed to be a ticket towards true freedom and I hope people will see the true value it presents to everyone.

This is a clever display by the G20. Declaring that bitcoin does not pose a threat to the world financial stability then pumping up bitcoins value afterwards. It's a subtle way of them saying that bitcoin may be independent, but they are the final arbiter of it's value.

Again, I hope people will stop looking at bitcoin as an asset and use it as a decentralized currency the way it was supposed to. The world will be better off that way should we start using bitcoin the way it is supposed to, not hoarding the coins which results to the current wild speculation of it's price in the market.

I wish I can look into the future and give an accurate answer to questions like this. But to answer, nobody really knows how everything will play out. We may be looking at a long term bear market and the end may still be a long way, or the events in the previous weeks is indicative of a market correction and we're at the bottom of an imminent climb which will see us break past $11,600. It's anyone's guest and anyone telling you otherwise is the slickest of the slickest snake oil sellers out there.

One thing is sure though, bitcoin has been increasing in value year on year, so if you are looking at it long term, there is still a lot to gain.

FUD's or not, warnings like these are actually helpful as it halts people on their tracks and make them think on whether they've been wise in their investments. It's their money they're playing with but I do hope that people play it smart and invest with discipline. FUD's are very natural in risky markets like currency speculation and I surely hope that it's sobering effect on people will bring them a lot of good in the end. Let us not be mindless drones, seduced by the sweet melodies of the piper's pipe. Think, research and ponder before you act.

When people speculate on an asset, FUD's will always abound. It would be very nice if there is a way to filter those chaffs from this forum, but sadly, things don't work that way. As for the recent roller coaster of bitcoin's value, the whale cashing in on his Mt. Gox stash is just a very small part of why bitcoin's value is showing a decline. If you follow the news, the recent moves by social media giants to ban crypto ads (to protect themselves from possible lawsuits), the G20, the press statements from the US and other countries etc have all been instrumental in shaking things up a bit since the highs of December last year. Personally, I believe that it is a good thing should a very sharp drop happen as I do not approve of bitcoin being treated like an asset which resulted to it's value skyrocketing to dizzying highs. Bitcoin will very well serve it's creator/s purpose should it be treated like a currency that is backed by the blockchain. Such use would help us leap beyond the restraints brought about by the current monetary system that's been so thoroughly oppressive scholars can create volumes of encyclopedia about the ills it brings to our society. It's time for us to change our paradigm.

I hope that ICO's would be better policed and regulated in the coming months.  There was an article that reported that around 70% of ICO's launched this year are barely afloat. There should be a clearing house for these ICO's to pitch their garbages first before we allow them to scatter it all over the internet. The crypto community would be very much better off if we nip the scams while it's still in the bud.

2018 has been a tough year for the cryptocurrency markets, and crowdsales have borne the brunt of it. ICOs launching in the first quarter of this year have struggled to turn a profit, with the majority of exchange listed tokens trading at a loss, both in USD and ETH terms. As a consequence, pre-sales provide the only means of turning a profit – and even that’s a long shot.

At MIT Bitcoin Expo on Saturday, Christian Catalini claimed that “40% to 50% of ICOs are currently underwater – trading at a price lower than the initial offering price”. Having examined the data for 2018, using Tokendata and ICO Stats, news.Bitcoin.com can confirm this to be a reasonable estimate. In fact, 76% of 74 ICOs completed this year are in the red, posting an average dollar return of 0.9x. The 56 exchange listed ICOs that are trading at a loss have an average USD return of 0.45x. (ICO Stats calculates its ROI based on the token’s pre-sale price, rather than the public sale, so the average return for all 76 ICOs is in fact slightly lower than stated.)

Ethereum has dropped in value since the start of the year, reducing the average dollar return on every ICO to have launched on its network. Even if 2018’s losing ICOs are calculated in ETH terms, however, they are still trading at an average return of 0.9x. Whatever way the numbers are crunched, investing in ICOs is now an extremely risky business that’s statistically unlikely to produce a short-term profit. These projects may go on to produce a healthy profit once their infrastructure develops and the markets pick up. But if investors can purchase the tokens on exchanges for cheap in the interim, it defeats the whole point of signing up for a crowdsale.

The Halcyon Days of 2017 Are Long Gone
76% of This Year’s ICOs Are Under WaterIn 2017, ICOs produced an average ROI of 573% according to Coinist.io. This year, just one ICO – Zilliqa – has surpassed that figure, delivering 12x. Last year’s big hitters, by way of comparison, were Spectrecoin (46,000%), Storj (7,600%), Populous (5,400%) and Qtum (4,500%). There’s still plenty of time for 2018’s ICOs to come good, though right now investors would simply be happy to see their tokens turn green. It’s been evident for some time that pre-sales are the only realistic route into an ICO. Deep discounting at this stage means there’s typically few tokens left by the time of the public sale, and the valuation of these, coupled with market conditions, makes profiting all but impossible.

Of the 22 ICOs that are in the green this year, just two (9%) are for app tokens. Every other project is for blockchain infrastructure development of some sort, be it dApp directories, DEXes, new chains, or scaling solutions. If you’re going to invest in an ICO, then, the message is clear: be selective, choose blockchain projects over ‘X on the blockchain’ platforms, and make sure you get into the pre-sale. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting your time and your ethereum.

https://news.bitcoin.com/76-of-this-years-icos-are-already-under-water/?utm_source=OneSignal%20Push&utm_medium=notification&utm_campaign=Push%20Notifications

I hope that people will not get too carried away with these predictions. Always do your own research when investing in bitcoin's valuation and temper your expectations with discipline and the right strategy. Just because a known person says so does not mean that it has to be so as no one, not even Warren Buffett is infallible.

Cryptocurrency has become a buzzword in today’s day and age, thrown around sometimes with little to no understanding of the term or the risks involved. The most famous cryptocurrency is without a doubt Bitcoin. While originally it was viewed as a secure financial option by its use of blockchains, it is by no means an un-hackable currency and has been a victim of numerous scams.

The Optioment Ploy might be one of the more famous cases of Bitcoin fraud. By combining a Ponzi scheme with a fake ICO (initial coin offering), investors in Bitcoin Savings and Trust were guaranteed too-good-to-be-true returns on investment. Ultimately, this resulted in the collapse of the fraudulent organisation, more than 265,000 bitcoins stolen, and imprisonment and a $40 million dollar fine on Trendon Shavers, the organiser of Bitcoin Savings and Trust.

Others may have heard of the Silk Road – a famed online black market used for drugs and other illegal activities. This in itself was not a scam. When the government seized it and offered to auction off the bitcoins, potential buyers were emailed to see if they were interested in purchase, which is a common fate for harmless seized goods. Unfortunately, due to an administrative error all email addresses were able to be viewed by all addressees, resulting in a tidal wave of phishing schemes with a ready-made potential victim hit list, composed of people that scammers knew were interested in bitcoin purchase. Countless people had sensitive financial information tricked out of them by scammers.


Well-known in hacking circles is the fact that no matter how strong your online security might be, human error is always a way in. This was certainly the case with the simplest and possibly most effective scam: a hacker sent a message to the Rogers Data Centre, where Canadian Bitcoins (a company which managed Bitcoins for Canadian investors) were located. Rogers Data Centre received the message, which claimed to be from James Grant, the CEO of Canadian Bitcoins, needing all security codes. After confirming only that the CEO was indeed named James Grant, the Rogers Data Centre promptly sent out all the codes, resulting in a loss of more than $100,000.

https://cryptodaily.co.uk/2018/03/these-are-some-of-the-worst-bitcoin-scams-around/

Bladetec, a British IT hardware supplier, has recently revealed plans to build a Bitcoin (BTC) farm in the South East of United Kingdom, The Sunday Telegraph reported March 17.

The project dubbed the Third Bladetec Bitcoin Mining Company Ltd (TBBMC) aims to raise  £10 mln or roughly $13.9 mln from investors to build and operate the farm over the next two to three years. The developers then plan to sell off the mined coins as well as the mining equipment to provide investment returns, says the funding platform for the project, Envestry.

Bladetec founder John Kingdon claims that investors “don’t risk losing any money”. According to his calculations, sale of the mining equipment alone would result in profit; it’s unknown whether he took into consideration factors such as decreasing hardware prices and increasing mining costs that require more electricity and computing power every year.

TBBMC expects investment returns to follow one of four scenarios depending on the value of Bitcoin in the next two years. The scenarios range from a per annum price drop of up 40 percent, to a per annum price increase of over 50 percent.

pic

Founded in 2002, Bladetec has provided IT support, supplying, and consulting services to such bodies as the UK Ministry of Defence, NATO, and The National Grid. According to Evenstry, TBBMC will be the first Bitcoin mine in Europe funded by investors in a limited company protected by UK law.

According to the project, the TBBMC facility will cover 3,500 square feet at three locations in London, Surrey, and Suffolk. Considering the high price of mining one bitcoin in the UK, which reportedly amounts to about $8,400, most of the raised funds would be spent on energy costs, as the company is planning to mine 1,280 bitcoins, writes The Telegraph.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/british-it-hardware-supplier-to-build-largest-bitcoin-farm-in-the-uk

The internet is slowly encroaching into every aspect of our day to day lives. AI and smart devices seems to be where the people in tech wants us to go. With the adoption of these things, haven't we made our lives more complicated and harder instead? This clip, a part of the intro of the movie, The God's Must Be Crazy 1 sums it all up wonderfully: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgs528eZXSs.

Stating the very obvious is what this article is doing. What kind of discovery is this? The article is a bit misleading in that the headline is trying to imply that something like this is a previously unknown trend and there is cause for alarm because of their discovery. What kind of experts are they? I really hate it when a writer tries to put a spin on a non-newsworthy phenomena just for the sake of getting views. The writer should try to dig a little bit harder to find some better news to share. Something in the line of the experts discovering that 90% of bitcoin investors incurred huge losses from their bitcoin market investments during the 4th quarter of last year. Now, that's what I'd call a big and newsworthy discovery.

The time may come when every nation will ditch it's fiat currency and replace it with their own cryptocurrency. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may then be the benchmark just like how the US Dollar and the British Pound has been. As to whether such arrangements will be good or not, only time can tell. People are very unpredictable.

With bitcoin being so volatile, I am not so sure if it is really such a safe bet compared to gold. The one thing I am betting on though is that bitcoin still hasn't peaked. What we saw at the end of last year is just icing on the cake. Whatever is the publications agenda, they sure helped in ensuring that bitcoin's price would be on the up for the coming weeks.

Hope you're still holding on to your bitcoin and you are still able to retrieve it. And speaking of holding, with bitcoin's value projected to reach 20k by the end of this year, what's another year of holding on to it right? 

Don't be greedy and do your due diligence. Scammers gonna scam. Don't let your greed blind you into making the wrong decision.

The purpose of life is to live long and prosper. That's how Star Trek phrases it and I agree with them. You would like to live long (and healthy) so that you can spread whatever prosperity you have to as many people as you can possibly reach.