Very disappointing day for the GOP. Senate will be 51-49 in favor of the Democrats, and the House will be 224-211 in favor of the GOP. Republicans lost crucial senate races in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada (last two yet to be confirmed). On top of that, Murkowski is likely to win the election in Alaska, which actually puts the senate 52-48 in favor of the Dems. For Ukrainians, there are reasons to rejoice. Trump openly said that there will be no "blank cheques" to Ukraine if he returns to power, and in general the Democratic party is seen as more sympathetic to Zelenskyy.
The GOP hoped for a "red wave", but things didn't turned out the way they hoped for. While people were angry with Democrats because of inflation, they chose to vote for them instead of the GOP to help defend our democracy. With the insurrection on Jan 2021, people would think twice before voting for the GOP again. The party has switched to the far-right (authoritarianism) side after Donald Trump became President of the United States. Would you imagine how disastrous would be for the world if the GOP takes control of both chambers of Congress, as well as, the White House? Funding for Ukraine would stop, giving Russia a victory over the war. Once that happens, it'll be the end of democracy for good. You can see why most countries are helping Ukraine win the war against Russia. They're defending the core values of democracy by doing so. Of course, the global economy has been severely affected by the war. But that's the price we're all paying for in defense of world democracy. Even President Biden said so. I hope Ukraine defeats Russia to help end Putin's regime for good. Only then, everything will go back to normal (although COVID-19 still hasn't gone yet). No one knows what will happen in the future, so we can only hope for the best. Just my opinion  |
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Oops... DOGE just passed Cardano again to reach #8 in the CMC rankings. Elon didn't get bored of it, said he's working on integrating it into Twitter, which could prompt other businesses to follow suit. Pretty far from dead if you ask me. Mainly just bumping this to see how many people respond to it like it was written yesterday  For some reason, Mr. Musk is keeping people in suspense. He keeps announcing that he's working on integrating DOGE into Twitter, without providing concrete results of the same. I don't really think he will do it especially when regulators are getting aggressive towards anything crypto-related. Even if DOGE gets added into Twitter, the chances of it becoming a valuable cryptocurrency in the future are pretty slim. When developers decide to limit DOGE's supply, then things will improve for the better. Otherwise, not. You can't expect much from a cryptocurrency that was created as a joke, anyways. I'd prefer Cardano, Ethereum, or even Litecoin which are better alternatives to Dogecoin. The first two are constantly being developed and maintained by the community, with new features being added every once in a while. Dogecoin's development progress is practically stalled, as developers have no intentions of making it a cryptocurrency for serious use worldwide. While Dogecoin may last for generations (due to being an old cryptocurrency that has managed to survive up to this point), its value would remain relatively the same over the years. At least, the Blockchain is healthy. As long as DOGE stays decentralized, there should be nothing to worry about. Just my thoughts  |
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I'd like one (x1) brass chip of the lowest number available. PM incoming soon. Thank you! |
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The coins you said that have pumped even in near market are newer coins. Like if you see even the trend for bitcoin, it has also not grown much in last few months and remained at same price. Now, lite coin has also behaved the same during this time. If it has not gone up by a lot, it has not even got down much.
On the other hand, if you see coins like Solana and Luna, they have completely ruined the wealth of investors. So if you have invested in lite coin during this period instead of Luna or Solana, your funds would have remained safe.
Personally, I still use litecoin for payments. I do this because of two reasons. Speed of transaction is ok and the fees for transfer is also less than transferring bitcoin. The people I do transactions with also have no problem while trading with litecoin.
People often ignore old coins (except Bitcoin) because they usually don't bring anything new to the space. What people want is something truly innovative that would help them make lots of money in the short term. That's why we've seen an influx of cryptocurrencies with a lot of "bells and whistles" to help attract as much investors into them as possible. Good-old coins like Litecoin and Dogecoin have decided to "play it safe", by introducing new features at a slow and steady rate (especially Litecoin). They prefer to be reliable and decentralized, than adding lots of new features that would lead towards many undesired situations in the long run. I'm fine with Litecoin being as it is, as long as it works as intended. Who knows if it lasts for generations? Just my opinion |
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Of course they're pushing it. Paper money needs printing almost continuously. There are always banknotes that get damaged and they'll get burned (or melted) and replaced with new ones. That costs money.
If they manage to reduce the amount of "paper" money needed to stay in circulation to half, they will save a lot of money from this cycle.
Then, obviously, digital money - no matte it's banks, visa or CBDCs - it's easy to track.
And, as we already know, CBDCs will probably also be easy to freeze or seize, giving governments even more power.
But, by the law (or possibly the constitution?), the government has to ensure each and every citizen has access to the money. And if internet and technology is not available.. phasing out paper money will be illegal/unconstitutional. Simple.
I think there's still a long road ahead before we see paper money being phased out for good. It's likely neither you or I will be alive by the time this happens. As you've said before, there are many parts of the world where Internet access (and technology) is not available. How would people begin using a digital currency if they don't know how it works or even have the necessary tools to make a payment? It's possible CBDCs will live alongside paper money for quite some time. It'll be the same as credit/debit cards where paper money is still being used even though the former proves to be superior. My guess is that paper money would cease to exist 50 years from now. Governments would not only need to develop and launch CBDCs to the public, but also provide the necessary infrastructure (eg: Internet access) to help make people adopt the new system. They would also need to educate the masses about digital currency payments, especially when there are many people who have never heard about or used crypto before. Of course, privacy will be gone once CBDCs reach the mainstream. But at least, we'll have decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Monero at our side. Who knows what the future will bring? Just my thoughts |
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It's up to you, if you don't care about privacy issues then you can count on it. I trust and invest in ethereum for the profit it brings, so I won't see anything wrong with ethereum. The move to ethereum's POS is a must because there is no way to solve its problems like gas fees and scalability if it doesn't move to POS and can't reduce gas fees, I think people will also leave it soon and choose other blockchains. So it doesn't matter whether it becomes more centralized or not.
Honestly, people investing in cryptocurrencies today are more concerned with profits than privacy. If you want anonymity we have bitcoin, even if eth is decentralized it cant compete with bitcoin.
Most people view Ethereum as an investment tool (not a currency). They wouldn't care if it becomes heavily centralized as long as their pockets are filled with money. Only a very small minority actually care about decentralization, as they're true believers of the technology underpinning ETH. As long as money talks, don't expect things to get better anytime soon. At least, Vitalik proposed a roadmap to help tackle the issues of centralization surrounding the Blockchain. I'm hopeful ETH will become more decentralized with subsequent network upgrades. Despite becoming less-decentralized with PoS, it's still a far better option than heavily centralized coins such as XRP, BNB, or Solana. I don't think ETH's position on the market will change just because it lost some decentralization after the upgrade. Who knows if it lives alongside BTC for generations? Just my opinion |
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I agree. I remember people trusting Cryptsy and Mintpal too (currently both of their ceos are indicted). But markets weren't really even regulated. Whales played pump and dumps and exchanges didn't require KYCs and for some reason Bittrex didn't seem that legit at the time when it came as a rival.
When Binance came, regulators were just catching up. And newbie investors didn't have the trauma of big CEXes exit scamming, failing or getting hacked. People who came before 2017 knew that anything can happen and tried to warn everyone with the facts like "not your keys, not your coins".
I still think that the whole game has changed a lot. Regulators are watching things more closely and CEXes are working with them. FATF laws are coming and soon Regulated DeFi will be a thing and losses by theft can be covered by insurances. Security now is way more sophisticated and normies can trust security of Binance way more they can trust their own tech savviness to keep hackers away.
Only thing that can seriously mess things up now are unseen disasters we haven't thought about, or huge lawsuits and stuff that happened to FTX and even then you have to fear more market volatility then some exchange stealing your coins.
I'm afraid people will continue to lose trust on CEXs due to constant hacks/theft and/or misuse of funds. This is good because it will make crypto more decentralized by forcing people to use DEXs as an alternative to existing centralized exchanges. After all, crypto is all about eliminating the single point of failure. When you give too much power to an exchange, that's when crypto becomes no different than traditional Fiat. Satoshi gave us Bitcoin to help us escape today's banking system. That means getting away from centralization as much as possible. Binance make have taken the reign as the biggest exchange in the world, but it has a long road ahead before it becomes the sole player in the industry. I hope that never happens, or it will be a complete disaster for crypto. Competition is always needed to help the industry grow towards new heights. Empires don't last forever, so who knows if Binance becomes history sometime in the future? Just my thoughts |
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This is already happening, and quite widespread as well. I opened a thread about it here: Recent events should make everyone withdraw all their coins to their own wallets. There are multiple examples around the world of governments using data gathered from centralized exchanges to spy on their citizens, as well as using those same centralized exchanges to censor those citizens and prevent them from spending their coins. Just because you (plural you, not you specifically) haven't been censored yet, doesn't mean that any and all data centralized exchanges have relating to you is not already in the hands of your government and other governments around the world. Having self-custody of your crypto is a must these days. Especially when governments are starting to exert pressure over centralized exchanges. That, and also the fact that CEXs can collapse at any moment due to hacks/theft or misuse of customer's funds. With ever-increasing regulations from the government, trading Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency without KYC is a must to help achieve true financial freedom and privacy. I think Bisq is the best solution for trading Bitcoin in a P2P manner. HodlHodl is good too, but it's a custodial service (as far as I know) unlike Bisq where you have full control of your keys. We need as much decentralized and non-custodial exchanges as possible to help resist governments' efforts to destroy Bitcoin for good. I hope we'd still be able to buy and sell BTC through such alternatives, even if governments decide to ban the cryptocurrency in the future. Just my opinion |
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Paid Confirmed. Thank you! |
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I don't think crypto will and can replace fiat, even though the value of fiat is getting lower and even worthless later, because basically fiat has become the currency of every country and is recognized by the world,
even if it has to turn digital, I think the state/government will create digital money.
the government is very afraid of the value of crypto which has high volatility and the price is unstable the main reason why until now crypto has never been recognized
As long as governments and central banks exist, don't count on the disappearance of Fiat anytime soon. It'll be here to stay no matter what. Even though inflation is "killing" Fiat, central banks have the power to strengthen their currencies by raising interest rates. While this results in severe pain towards risk assets like stocks and crypto, it's only for a short period of time. Once inflation is reduced by a large margin, Fiat currencies will return back to their former glory. Let's face it, crypto will never beat Fiat because of its decentralized and censorship-resistant design. It will only serve as an alternative to those willing to "escape the system". I'm fine with that as long as crypto works as intended. With CDBCs on the brink of becoming a reality, I see a future where both Fiat and crypto will exist for generations. Just my opinion |
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2015 1/10 oz 999 silver Mintage of 3. This is back whenn I ran a small mint out of my garage. I used clay models and a reduction machine to make dies. I would swing a 20 ton screw press to make my own custom physical crypto wallet pieces and wake the neighbors. Funded with .1 to match the weight. I have a few 1/4 oz silver pieces, 10 1/10 oz gold and a few gold/silver bars too. Real 999, not that fake plated stuff. I believe I made a 1 of 1 in bismuth. The gold 1/10 oz is probably the smallest. it was 15-17 mm I dont remember. The design was horrible...as I was learning how to engrave in metal. I would destroy the dies after several strikes because I never hardened them. It was all trial and error. I like them rough looking and treasure like. All made in the 2014-2016 time frame. Bitcoin was cheap at the time so I didn't care. The silver 1/10 oz were around $25 each. It was more about promotion of physical silver crypto wallets and exploring outdoors. I hid various rare silver bars and wallets around the world when I would go on vacation. Arkansas diamond mines, Blue springs Missouri, Cabo San Lucus Mexico mountains, El Yunque Puerto Rico. ect. in hopes people would find them in a 1000 years and be like WTF. Like a hidden pirate treasure. I didn't know anything about holograms at the time, so I just ordered some generic ones on ebay that would fit my blank planchets. I'll see if I can find pics of the press. It was badass. It literally had huge balls. Ball wieghts the size of basketballs you had to swing around to make the strike. Good times. Not for sale. That's pretty awesome. I like the fact that you've made a pure silver loadable physical Bitcoin at such a diminutive size. With only a mintage of 3 units, I can imagine these selling for a very high premium (if you decide to sell them someday). If I had one, I'd treasure it forever. By the way, I'm curious to know more about the "Bismuth coin". Do you have any pictures of it?  |
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Why do people always expect something extra ordinary from Bitcoin halving? Why do people always think that "bitcoin halving = bitcoin price growth" ? And finally, why do people always want Bitcoin price to go up? Why not use Bitcoin as a technology? Why do everyone expect and want Bitcoin to make them rich while they do nothing (holding does not mean a person work or do something much).
What I expect from next halving ? Nothing. Price would aim to grow, but due to factors like expensive electricity, world economy issues, bunch of other cataclysms or disasters, nothing will be changed much.
Most people see Bitcoin as an investment tool than a currency. They believe it will always go up no matter what. While the halving promises to reduce Bitcoin's block reward (effectively making it scarcer), it's not a guarantee market prices will go higher than they were before. Everything will depend on the rules of supply and demand. If there's a lot of demand for BTC while the supply is low, prices will skyrocket at a very fast pace. Otherwise, not. With how the global economy is performing, it's very unlikely Bitcoin will reach a new ATH in price soon. Not even the halving will save it. What it could only do is make Bitcoin rise a little bit in price, but not to a point where it crosses its latest ATH of over $68k per coin. Only an end to the current economic crisis will make it happen. At least, Bitcoin is still alive despite rising energy costs and geopolitical uncertainty. That shows us how resilient the cryptocurrency is compared to traditional Fiat. The latter is bound to collapse due to exorbitantly-high inflation rates. I don't think rising interest rates would be of any help, as the Russo-Ukraine war continues to disrupt the global supply chain. If Fiat collapses, then it would be a huge win for Bitcoin. Who knows if 2024 would turn out to be BTC's luckiest year yet? Just my thoughts |
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You repeated it. But you are wrong. The Merge did not reduce the transaction fee. That upgrade has nothing to do with its fee problem which has been existent for a long time. Ethereum transactions today remain expensive. It is as expensive as before the Merge. Ethereum has yet to address this big and persisting problem.
About its centralization, wasn't it already centralized before the Merge? But Ethereum as an investment isn't really competing against Bitcoin. It is competing against equally centralized altcoins like XRP, BNB, etc. And it seems it is the best one among the bad ones. So if you plan to invest in altcoins, Ethereum remains to be a perfect choice.
The Merge was never about reducing network fees or improving transaction confirmation times. It was all about reducing carbon emissions, effectively resulting in a 99.9% energy-efficient blockchain network. Subsequent network upgrades will target ETH's scaling issues more thoroughly. While the initial phase of The Merge resulted in heavy centralization, things are bound to improve for the better as Vitalik planned some fixes to help address the problem. He said there will be some upgrades that will help tackle the MEV issue to reduce the chance of censorship on the blockchain. There's no designated timeframe for this, but at least we know ETH won't stay centralized forever. Compared to other chains, I think ETH is still the best option out there after Bitcoin. It's still going strong as the world's second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap despite centralization issues. I'd trust ETH more than BNB, Solana, or XRP which are heavily-centralized "shitcoins". Who knows how far ETH will go? Just my opinion |
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Actually, it is too early to talk deeply about Dogecoin as micropayments on Twitter. He may apply it or may revoke the idea. It is still an idea, very far from realization. I suspect it is only the way to pump Dogecoin price temporarily. To be honest, there are many other coins or currencies that are better to be micropayments on Twitter. Dogecoin should be not the priority if we consider its volatility, it is ideally just another option for micropayments. Regarding developers for the job, Elon Musk ideally already thinks about it. He is a smart one, he must analyze it deeply. I don't think he will dare to add Dogecoin as a micropayments tool on the platform, as it will attract unwanted attention (either from the regulators or hackers). Would you imagine Twitter being under heavy scrutiny due to allegations of people using DOGE for money laundering and tax evasion? Even if Mr. Musk only adds the option for verified users (those with the blue tick), that won't stop regulators from weighing in. Twitter is neither a bank or a money service business (MSB). It doesn't even have a license for that, so don't count on DOGE being added to the platform anytime soon. All Elon Musk wants is fame and fortune. He's already rich, but somehow he wants more money than what he has (greed). By "pumping" Dogecoin, he will be able to multiply his investment in no time. No one knows what's in his mind, leading me to wonder what will he come up with next? Just my thoughts |
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Litecoin has the power of Bitcoin & DOGE combined. It is deflationary with fixed supply like Bitcoin. Again, it's transaction fees are cheap and has a quick settlement time like DOGE. There is no reason for it's untimely death.
Only drawback I see in Litecoin is that it's community is not as apprehensive to new projects as Bitcoin/DOGE. Openness to the new & untested is required for growth.
Litecoin is one of those good-old coins that are as solid as Bitcoin itself in terms of decentralization and censorship-resistance. It's fast, dirt cheap, with an extremely-limited supply of 84m coins. If inflationary cryptocurrencies like BNB and ETH went all the way to the moon, then LTC can do better. The problem with Litecoin is that development progress is quite slow compared to other cryptocurrencies being traded on the market. Not only that, but the project is weak on the marketing/promotion side. If the team would've done a better job in this regard, Litecoin would've been among the top 5 coins in market cap. Impressively, the coin hasn't vanished yet as many exchanges are still supporting it. There are a lot of trading pairs for LTC, so it's likely the coin will be with us for a very long time. As much as I'd like to see LTC rise in price, I think it's a lost cause. After all, people are focused on big players with shiny-new features (mainly smart contract platforms like BNB, Cardano, Avalanche, and Polygon). At least, Litecoin is a usable cryptocurrency. Who knows how far will it go? Just my opinion |
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You can't be 100% safe.
If you're dealing with cash, and face-to-face then things could go bad easily if you're not careful.
As for the other online banking platforms, then there's that risk of chargebacks which an escrow can't help you with.
So, regardless of the platform, what you need to do is:
- Check the user's profile and that he has good (and most importantly recent) feedback reviews because these accounts can change hands.
- Avoid dealing with large sums with one individual. Trade with multiple ones instead, so even if you get scammed, you won't lose everything.
Thanks for the tip. It's best to trade with more than one person to help diversify the risks of loss as much as possible. I've tried AgoraDesk, but I was about the get scammed by someone who had positive feedback. The person wanted me to wire him the money to a bank account, even though the listing stated "Bitcoin to PayPal". It could've been that his account on AgoraDesk was hacked or something else (that was quite a few months ago, btw). I've read a lot about Bisq, so I'm going to give that platform a shot to see what happens. It's my best bet to sell BTC for cash without leaving any trace. With ever-increasing regulations on the crypto industry, it's better to be safe than sorry by avoiding centralized exchanges altogether. Can you imagine if someday the government uses info about your trades performed in a CEX against your own will? Staying anonymous (under the radar), would prevent many headaches in the long run.  |
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I think it is over and the fact it is not as popular as mining from what I have seen in the Chia and Burst coins before is they are not as easy to maintain as the GPU rigs,with hard disk you make a process called as plotting/bursting and that needs a powerful workstation or CPU server in order to support let's say like 12-24 big HDD as they consume computer resources while when you build a mining rig the CPU stays idle once the GPU bat file has started the mining process.
Staking is bad yes but you have alternative coins to mine still with GPU like ETC,ETHW (this one I believe to become the best of all of them,it is Ethereum Pow which is a continuation of old Ethereum) and RVN,ERGO and a couple of others,so that is why HDD mining is not as popular and very few people take the time to deal with it.
I've thought so. HDD mining would be so resource-intensive (on the CPU side), that only large datacenters would be able to afford maintenance costs. I think HDD mining encourages greater centralization over the Blockchain, than it's the case with GPU mining. At least, it's not as bad as staking. There doesn't seem to be any news surrounding Chia or Burst coin anyways, so it's likely HDD mining will become dead in the future. Most miners are looking to make a quick buck, so they would go for the PoW algorithm that gives them the best bang for their buck. GPUs and ASICs are all there is to make a return on your investment in no time. Who knows what the next big thing in the mining industry will be? Just my thoughts |
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CBDCs will not replace fully the paper money. They just can't. And not all governments will issue CBDCs.
It will take more generations until paper money gets phased out, if ever. There are still many people who don't use technology, there are still many regions not covered with internet; those just cannot go without an offline currency.
That's what I've thought. But if governments are keen into pushing digital payments, then they're going to have to provide the necessary tools to make it happen. I believe the transition from physical to digital Fiat will be a slow one as not everyone is used to credit/debit cards or even in-app purchases. As you've said before, there are many people without access to the Internet. Not only that, but there are old people who don't like to use anything else other than paper money to pay for goods and services. Governments who issue CBDCs are going to have to experiment with it for a while before the transition is 100% complete. We have to say that digital money is unavoidable, thanks to the ever-rising popularity of Bitcoin and its derivatives. Exactly when will the whole world go cashless, is an excellent question. I'm in no hurry of seeing CBDCs in action, especially when paper money brings greater privacy benefits to the end user. Once everything goes digital, you can say goodbye to your privacy for good. Who knows how the future will look like with CBDCs and crypto in play? Just my opinion |
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Binance and before the takeover, FTX was a monopolist in the cryptocurrency market, whose trading volumes exceeded trading volumes on other exchanges by dozens of times. And this carries a great risk for the entire cryptocurrency market. And if something like this happens to Binance, the consequences will be impossible to predict.
Yes. But Binance was still considered FTX's biggest contender in the crypto/Blockchain space. Merging FTX into Binance would make the latter much more powerful than what it is right now. Imagine if Binance keeps buying other exchanges until the becomes the sole player in the industry. It would pose unnecessary risks crypto was meant to avoid in the first place (single points of failure). If Binance goes down, you can expect the whole crypto market to crash all the way down to rock bottom. It'll be hard if not impossible for prices to recover within the short term. Consider how Cryptsy (a now defunct exchange) caused a severe blow to the crypto market prices as it was one of the biggest exchanges in the world. Just like it happened with Cryptsy, it could happen with Binance at some point in the future. I believe regulators should step in to help prevent Binance from becoming a monopoly. Only then, there will be healthy competition which results in greater decentralization in the long run. It looks like the merger won't happen anytime soon (Binance backed down after it saw FTX's books), so we should have nothing to worry about. Just my thoughts |
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I'm looking for the fastest smart contract platform in the world that's based on Ethereum's EVM. I've tried Polygon (MATIC) and BNB, and I have to say they're extremely fast. But could there be another contender which is faster? Something like instant transaction confirmation times and zero gas fees while using the same "engine" as the ETH blockchain would definitely do the trick. Any suggestions? Your input will be greatly appreciated. Thank you. |
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