As bob123 already explained, it depends on the coin. If the coin is weak, the underlying weakness of the coin's blockchain (in this case not enough hash power) can become a liability for the exchange because a hacker can intervene and double-spend some coins. For example the scenario may go like this: first they send some coins to the exchange and immediately spend them (say, buy BTC with them); then they use their 51% power to fork the blockchain at some earlier time and regain their already spent coins. I might be wrong, but I believe that's what happened with Bitrex and "Bitcoin Gold". The only thing the exchange can do in such a case is to delist the altcoin in question.

I think most of the exchanges already function like that. They have well-secured multisignature wallets (if they are offline hardware or cold-storage wallets doesn't matter much). But they also have to have online hot wallets that are being periodically refilled from the cold-storage wallets. These hot wallets can actually be targeted.

Now, as far as the client side goes, there is nothing the exchange can do. The user is responsible to to get hacked via these various malicious hacking schemes.

A proper exchange won't allow many of the server side vulnerabilities, like SQL injection or authentication bypasses, but you are never 100% sure.

There is always a possibility that the exchange may be targeted on the protocol level, like what happened a while ago with Bitrex and BitcoinGold. There is nothing the exchange can do in this case, as the integrity of the blockchain is compromised and the coin is double spent via 51% attack.

If you want to be able to wear a signature, there is one option at your disposal that I know of:

You can pay a small fee to become a copper member:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2385104

You will also be able to add images to your posts.

If you decide to become a copper member, here is the link to pay for it:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=credit;promote

You are completely right. I doesn't make sense what they perpetuate these days. I can't even begin to contemplate this idea about eventually ETH going to zero and the gas being paid in tokens. What that would do to the network is beyond comprehension. In any case, I thought that PoS would have been operational by now. With so many different and often contradictory information coming out in the news, it's hard to make sense. IMO, rather than talking about these issues to the media, Vitalik should step up and make some concrete steps to lead ETH into some direction, whatever that is.

You are right. It is all encompassing. It's crazy how many different areas the crypto space has brought together.  In that sense, cryptocurrencies can help you learn a lot of new stuff. For example, I personally try to learn something new from the following areas every day:

• Cryptography and the associated mathematics, prime numbers, elliptic curve math, etc.
• Programming on top of the blockchain using different languages,...
• Economics and its laws, how fiat currencies work, how central banks work, supply and demand, fractional reserves, etc.
• Trading on exchanges, trading indicators, technical analysis tools, trading psychology ...

I didn't have even the faintest idea about how most of these areas worked before getting into crypto.

To answer your first question: No, that's not ethical at all. The way I understand encryption of user's passwords is that not even the admin can access your un-encrypted password. The admin can see your encrypted password in the database, and that's it. To answer your second question, I wouldn't deposit anything until I made sure what's going on with your password, account, and with the exchange in general. Be careful and stay safe.  

If he thinks that Cryptocurrency == Ethereum, than yes, the days of the crypto market may be over. However, what is meant by this I believe is the following. If the Ethereum network fulfills its purpose, it can function without ETH as currency, so ETH may go to zero:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/02/the-collapse-of-eth-is-inevitable/

The article linked in the OP, however, presents some interesting points. I don't agree with EOS being "one of the best competitors" to ETH. There are much better alternatives in case there comes an ETH crisis. I also don't necessarily interpret the cited tweet as Vitalik being ready to leave the ship. He merely stated that ETH could survive without him. However, Ethereum is a completely different animal than Bitcoin which was able to survive and indeed thrive without Satoshi. Vitalik is a central figure in charge of ETH from the very beginning. His leaving could bring a potential disaster. This could be something very different from Satoshi's departure from Bitcoin. Satoshi left behind a fully functional system in the hands of capable individuals. I'm afraid that's not the case with Ethereum.  

Ever since I started trading on Bincance, I have never looked the other way. I just hope they will remain they way they are now (or better). KYC is not needed for basic trading, which is I huge plus IMO (and this alone may have contributed to their popularity). My volume is low enough not to need their second tier verification, which is great.

Another point. They have a Tradingview (sort of) chart, which many other exchanges I've been using in the past lack. A huge plus if you ask me.

And, yes, volume. If an exchange doesn't have a decent volume on its pairs, you cannot trade like you are supposed to. The volume on Binance is fantastic. You just have to check the XRP/BTC pair to see what a good volume is. I have no idea how they managed to get there, but I wouldn't switch to any other exchange now.

Binance also seems to have great developers. I'm looking forward to their newly announced DEX platform.

He had apparently set his mind to hold despite the volatility.  His prediction is that bitcoin is going to be worth $100,000 by 2020. Given that Bitcoin halving is due 2020, I have to say it's entirely possible. We are cutting down on the supply side, so the price has to go up. But what the actual price is going to be is less important. I admire the courage of this guy to make such a bold move, especially considering that he has a family to support.

I personally think this technology is one of the most exciting things (in general) happening right now. Ever since I learned about Bitcoin, I'm like obsessed with it. IMO, the consequences of cryptocurrencies will be far reaching. Sure, your friends may not be interested... yet. I also see this indifference on the faces of some of my friends when I try to spark their curiosity. But I'm sure that in a couple of years they will be coming back to me, asking me how this thing works, how to install this wallet, how to send this payment and so on.

The crypto transformation is inevitably happening to everyone. Just look at the number of people staring at their smartphones all they long. Our lives are becoming more and more digital and virtual. So the need for virtual currencies is the logical continuation of this process.

One of the main problems as I see it now is the ingrained tendency of many people to put their financial freedom and security into the hands of various institutions, i.e., banks. They would rather had someone else taking care of their money. But true freedom means being fully accountable for your success as well as for your mistakes. I hope the new generations will educate themselves to finally use the cryptocurrency technology to achieve total financial freedom.

That's really strange. Are you sure there is no redirection of some sort from bitcointalk.org to some other website? Because I can also confirm that there's no metamask warning for any page on bitcointalk.org on my computer.

Yes, the problems with their blockchain are piling up, starting from the size and transaction speed, all the way down to the pretty much unlimited supply (and the associated inflation problem). Let's see if they can make some progress with the announced upgrade of their network.


This is another issue. I once listened to an interview of Vitalik, where he categorically rejected the idea of moderating smart contract on their network. While this is easy to say and avoid any accountability on their part, I think it would be much better for the long term future of Ethereum if they introduced some kind of review process. How hard could be spotting and preventing fake ICO's from using their blockchain? I don't think it could be too hard.

I voted for Monero. Both Monero and ZCash provide privacy, although in a different way. However, only Monero has privacy by default. In Zcash you would have to switch to z-addresses if you want privacy. As far as I know, only 5 percent of all transactions on the ZEC blockchain are between z-addresses. It means that Zcash is not being used as a privacy coin that much. I think Monero has a stronger community and a better use case. Being a de facto standard when it comes to totally private transactions, Monero is clearly the better coin, more reliable, more efficient and secure.  

Here is what the rules say:


So, I guess, it would be against the rules.

I use cryptopia every now and than, mostly when I have to trade some lesser known coins that I cannot trade elsewhere. I can't say that it's great, but most of the time it works OK. What you need to pay attention to is the current wallet status relative to the coins you are about to trade:

https://www.cryptopia.co.nz/CoinInfo

If it says "In Maintenance", you may experience problems with withdrawals, deposits, and trading in general. It has happened to me a couple of times before, and I had to wait. But if you wait long enough, everything will eventually be fine.

I don't think anybody is misleading anybody else, whales or otherwise. When we are talking about growth, the money has to come from somewhere. That means either a widespread adoption of crypto-currencies or institutional money coming in. I don't see either one of these two options (from the demand side of things) happening right now. This doesn't mean that it will not happen in the near future, but right now I see limited potential for growth. However, there is one additional aspect we should consider, which is on the supply side. The next bitcoin halving is happening 2020, which means further limiting the supply. We will probably see the market reacts to that even earlier than 2020.

According to this article

https://www.coindesk.com/eu-cant-ban-bitcoin-mining-over-energy-concerns-official-says/

mining seems to be perfectly legal in the EU. Now there are other countries in Europe apart from the EU, so if your country is outside of the EU, you would have to check specifically for your country. You may also ask in the local boards here on the forum, just to be 100% sure.


Even if you have cheap electricity, it is hard to make money mining Altcoins these days. Depending on the situation on the market, it might take you a lot of time to repay the initial investment, if at all. Just a thought: You might be better off using the money you intend to put into equipment and invest into crypto directly.


Great idea. You will risk a small amount of money, see if it is worth it for you, and learn during the process.


No need to waste time on books. Just buy a graphic card and start mining. You will learn along the way.

Definitely there are too many altcoins and they cannot all possibly hope to survive. So what will happen to them? First of all, let's not forget that some of the coins are already dead. Check this website:

https://deadcoins.com/

To date, they list some 929 coins, which are either dead, have been found to be scam, or someone hacked them. I'm afraid many more will be listed there in the years to come.

There is also a significant number of alts that will die a long and slow death. Their value will gradually diminish, and eventually no one will care about them and they will cease to exist.

The ones that survive will never reach the bitcoin value, though. They may compete for a fraction of market cap, but IMO, BTC is the supreme number one for many many decades.

What exactly is this Forex approach you are talking about? Forex is trading of one fiat currency for another. On today's crypto exchanges one can already trade one crypto currency for another. As far as I can tell, practically all the trading tools of Forex are already available on the crypto-exchanges. So, I guess, my question is what will CryptoFx enable that is not already available on the exchanges right now.

If you ask me, marketcap doesn't mean too much and the race for the second place is also not important. What is important is how these two technologies will prove themselves in the long run.  


I don't see any technological advantage of XRP over Ethereum. It is also worth mentioning that technologically their platforms are totally different. It can be argued that the ETH blockchain is flawed, but even the way it is now is much more in line with the general idea how a crypto public ledger should look like. By contrast, Ripple is totally centralized and you cannot really say that it is a cryptocurrency at all. When you invest in XRP, you are basically investing in a company, which may be fine if that's what you want to do. Ethereum, on the other side has its own problems. Depending on whether or not they manage to solve them (e.g., will PoS work as it's supposed), it could be a good investment, or a total disaster.