No tether system is completely reliable.  People relied on USDT for a while, and they're not the first "cryptocurrency" claiming to be tethered to the US dollar or to another stable currency.  It used to be better but right now I wouldn't risk holding any significant amount of money in it.

The problem is that real exchanges aren't 100% secure and they've been hacked, had problems with withdrawals and loads of other things in the past (and now more than ever), so people turn to USDT.  Your best bet is to open accounts on Bitstamp, Coinbase or both and try trading on those, since they seem pretty safe right now.  I don't know if you can access Coinbase from the Netherlands, they don't allow a lot of countries, but you probably can.

Bitcoin's percentage of the market cap would only matter if one cryptocurrency had a higher market cap.  I personally wouldn't care, but it would be in the news and it would help that cryptocurrency to take off even more.

If Bitcoin's cap overall went to under 50%, it wouldn't matter.

Ethereum, however, isn't that much of a threat to Bitcoin.  They're quite different really.  I would only be worried if a similar crypto like Litecoin had a higher market cap (which seems very unlikely).

BTC-E aren't even accepting deposits.  Bitstamp and Coinbase look like the only major functional exchanges right now.  It really is insane.

Mt Gox returning at this sort of time when people's faith in exchanges is at about zero would be even worse.  Everyone would look it at, say "no, screw you" and move on.

The people who worked on and created Mt Gox could return, but they would need a new brand, new identity and new system.

It really is shocking how little people research these coins before they throw all their money into them.  Same way that DASH got such a crazy pump with no real uses or explanations.

It only appeared better because no one was actually using it yet.  Send a transaction with a coin that has super low transaction volume and it'll be easy.   Just because of that these coins can get away with spouting loads of crap about instant transactions and boast about their supposed superiority to Bitcoin.

Nah, it's a bubble.  I know I look like I'm running around spreading FUD everywhere, but I don't have enough money in Bitcoin to have a decent incentive to do that.  I just think that people would be much safer if they're either holding for the long term or selling soon so that they can buy back in at the inevitable drop to under $1200, whenever that happens.

Running businesses in other countries tells the one you're in that you don't matter.

Look at it from the EU's perspective - a few hundred businesses or so (nothing to them) which they're expected to research thoroughly and be really nice to just because it's a "new technology".  If I were them, I would be inclined to regulate it heavily as well because it's so hard to predict what people would do with it for a fairly small niche.

If people run their businesses in the EU, they're more of a force when the EU is talking about regulation - can't just run away, especially when it's harder for small businesses to start because they have to go through the work of registering in Malta.

They can only regulate Bitcoin that they know about.  Anyone that really wants to launder their money or avoid paying taxes will probably be capable of it unless governments do some very complicated analysis.

It seems unlikely that many people will be contacted for avoiding tax if they were actually trying.

People who use Bitcoin there won't be using it because it's actually more convenient than fiat - in fact no one ever has unless they're delusional.  They just like bringing money to Bitcoin related businesses - it'll be a small collection of people which are interested and come there regularly for their edgy internet activity and Bitcoin purchases.

I'm not from there, but I've been there.  It's a cool place - lots of people sitting around on laptops, a Bitcoin ATM and some space upstairs where Anonymous and other groups do meetings sometimes.  More than just a cafe, more of just a home for crypto enthusiasts in general.

It isn't surprising that they're reviewing it.  They have incentives to - they'll appear open minded and they won't have as much effect on the price.  Makes them appear more neutral and reasonable and gives them a chance to consider Bitcoin's recent price movements, its volatility and how they could regulate it.

The only features it needs are those of a good trading website.  It needs the graphs/charts, information about everything being traded and its importance, low fees, a nice layout and design (like Poloniex) and margin trading.

More importantly though, it needs to be reliable.  A good UI is worthless if it doesn't actually work.

The best time to sell would be in the next couple of days IMO.  There's a surprising amount of buy pressure but Bitfinex issues and frankly the uncertainty of everything kicking off right now, as well as a low-consensus BU fork of 51% or so being potentially imminent (I don't think it'll happen but I don't know what the market thinks) is all a huge ticking timebomb.

I'd be surprised if it rose any further than $100 more and if it didn't drop to about $1050-1100 after that.

You could in theory, but I wouldn't advise it.  You'd be better off just putting your coins through a trusted mixer regularly and then sending it from your own address - you really don't need to do much more than that, especially with Coinbase who have been known to freeze accounts at a moment's notice for any kind of suspicious activity.

Yes, the price of 1 Bitcoin is above the price of 1 gold.

Oh wait, there's no exact amount of gold that should determine the gold price.  An ounce is just an arbitrary amount, and Bitcoin's price being over gold is completely meaningless.  Especially when the Bitcoin supply is much, much lower than ounces of gold.

State regulation doesn't mean centralisation at all.  Centralisation will only be when one or all of the aspects of Bitcoin are concentrated in the hands of one or a few parties.

The only situation in which state regulation would equate to centralisation is if it spent billions and billions of dollars worth of their respective currencies to act on:

-Mining centralisation
-Node centralisation
-Transaction centralisation
-Developer centralisation (easily achieved with mining centralisation)

Achieving all of those things at once is monumentally difficult.

You seem to be very confused about how Bitcoin works.  People choose their fees and miners naturally choose whichever transactions have the highest fee to include in a block.  It's a fee market - it's fair but people don't pay the same.
Actually to some extent it is, since larger transactions tend to have a larger amount of inputs, especially for ordinary people and merchants who would receive a lot of transactions.

No, that's also not how Bitcoin works.  You're now contradicting yourself.  Bitcoin transactions all have a moderate size before inputs/outputs and other factors are considered - sending many transactions will not cause lower fees, it'll cause higher fees.

Well it's okay for someone you trust to have some sort of knowledge about your holdings.  For example, if you had a paper wallet, that trusted person could know the location of your key (and the location of a decoy key to cover a 5-dollar-wrench attack).

Fortunately lost Bitcoin can result in natural deflation, and deflation decreases the amount that each person holds because people buy/earn less, therefore reducing the losses in future and meaning that since Bitcoin is infinitely divisible it can never all be lost - so losing Bitcoin is only bad for the person that loses it but not for the whole Bitcoin ecosystem.

I don't think any real economists are predicting that it'll happen.  It's pretty stupid really - talking about multiplying the price by three in a year.  Sure, it's happened before but those were in different circumstances, when the price was much lower and it didn't need so much of a boost to go that far.

As the now vanished iamnotback pointed out a while ago, it's about cumulative increase rather than just increase.  Once we're at 3000, we'll be talking about 9000 because that would be multiplying by three again.  To reach $500,000 by 2030 would require a cumulative increase of 59% per year - something which could easily be achieved this year with more, and then as Bitcoin comes anywhere near that amount it would slow down.

It's unlikely to ever reach that kind of level but my point is that it's very difficult for a cumulative increase to continue without genuine investor confidence - especially since Bitcoin is no longer as convenient for small transactions as fiat.

Looks like artists will individually have to upload their music onto your platform.  That just means that nearly no one will do it because your platform requires the crossover between crypto fans and music fans - not a lot.

It might get some more people into your coin, but I really don't think there would be a need for another cryptocurrency for a basic platform like this.  You should just accept Bitcoin deposits and keep them as Bitcoin.

Yeah, just like they postponed the decision for months and months.  Even if they want to leave their options open, they're still not actually going to approve it for a long while.  They're too conservative.