I don't think so. The market has taken enough distance from the initial hype around ETFs after the many delays and rejections, and I'm glad the price isn't reacting to this nonsense anymore.

It's clear that the SEC has a list of things it want to see happen first before they approve an ETF. Everything that's happening with Bitfinex and Tether make it even less likely for an ETF to be approved in the coming year or so.

I honestly can't even blame the SEC for being so strict. I as Bitcoiner consider the ecosystem to be unhealthy as it is right now. Too many unregulated exchanges and Tether that could potentially implode is a big no go.

The SEC has a huge market to protect, one that Bitcoin isn't worth entering.

This. I have seen how exchanges started out as free to access for most people, then became overly aggressive when it comes to KYC/AML measures. Bittrex and Poloniex are great examples.

Both exchanges saw themselves grow out to the largest players based on volume, then fell back after they started annoying their users, which in the end resulted in frozen funds and blocked accounts. It was and still is a mess.

We just have to accept that exchanges are subject to these measures no matter how we think about it. If an exchange hasn't yet implemented KYC/AML measures, it very likely will the more popular it becomes.

The larger an exchange becomes the more it signals to the authorities that they should knock on their door.

Isn't it obvious? People don't want an alternative way to get around the fact that Amazon doesn't accept Bitcoin. People want them to accept Bitcoin solely because they believe the price will pump hard.

I hate to pop people's bubble, but I have to point out that Amazon with a very high probability isn't going to accept something like Bitcoin. It doesn't work on a large scale, and it might end up working against them.

What if a certain percentage of their customers get so upset about them using Bitcoin that they will ditch Amazon and look for an alternative? People here don't think about it, but it's quite a realistic scenario.

Not using Bitcoin is the safest bet.

I wonder though, how much of XRPs transaction volume is actually real? It really seems like most of their 'supporters' are either noobs waiting for banks to finally use it, or bots continuously transacting with each other.

XRPs 24h transaction volume is now 500k, and it has been like that consistently in the last 3 months, a bit too consistent to put it. It wouldn't surprise if this turns out to be a massive circus show.

Just as much of a circus as how they sell XRP out of their reserves below market value, and contractually force buyers to hold everything or only sell like 1-2% per year. Everything about Ripple and XRP stinks.

The fact that there is no way to figure out who moves Bitcoin from address to address shows that Bitcoin is doing its job well. I'm sure that institutions like that bit of 'privacy', and we all do.

I am however not sure if institutions are legally obliged to disclose their current holdings, but it would make sense if so. It's mostly client money they invest, and they do deserve to know what is going on in the background.

Institutions pay attention to the technicals, and what's better than buying into an asset that has gone down with more than 75%? Much better than many of the stocks that hover around all time high levels.

This is their cold wallet that you can follow: https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/3D2oetdNuZUqQHPJmcMDDHYoqkyNVsFk9r

3 days ago Bitfinex withdrew 17.25k BTC from its cold wallet, and I think in a week they'll withdraw even more funds in order to have their hot wallets filled up to allow their users to withdraw without problems.

It depends. In some cases people intentionally use multiple platforms for the sake of nothing having all their speculative funds sitting in one single exchange, because we all know what can happen with an exchange.

Instead of losing all your funds, you will only lose a third or fourth of your speculative funds. It still sucks of course to lose a chunk of your funds, but if you're using centralized exchanges anyway, then why not go ahead and spread the risks?

Major benefit to having funds in multiple exchanges is that it also allows you to exploit arbitrage opportunities. It's just a matter of logical thinking in my book. Better safe than sorry.

April has been an extremely generous month for people. Not much was required for people to make profit, but the market won't continue to be this generous. The market looks overbought and due for a sub $5000 dip.

Don't forget that before the pump to $5000 people were largely bearish and still speculating about how sub $3000 prices were realistic. Some were even speculating about the price to reach $1300 or even below $1000.

People were overly bearish in March, a pump we got. People right now are overly bullish, and a dump we got, and I believe there is more room to the downside, so don't assume that it's over and we go back up.

Bitfinex has little fiat left to allow its users to withdraw, so they buy Bitcoin instead and withdraw directly after. It's frustrating seeing how this exchanges continues to land itself in deep trouble with their shady operators.

I'll keep an eye out to see how Bitfinex's cold wallet gets drained further due to traders fleeing the platform in order to secure whatever they have left there. Only an utter idiot deposits Bitcoin and sells for USDT right now.

It's time for the authorities to raid everything related to Bitfinex so we get rid of this nasty exchange once and for all. Sure, it will hurt the market initially, but when they implode the pain will be way worse.

Bitcoin's peaks are basically people front running its potential. It's literally only a matter of time before we break the $20k mark and have it become the bottom of the next big correction.

The real growth in the price is shown based on the bottom to bottom development of Bitcoin. From $150 back in 2015 to $3100 in 2018 makes even the deepest point of the 'horror' bear market of 2015 look like a joke.

The difference is that back in 2015 many people legit believed it was over, while in the current bear market the sentiment hasn't ever been this positive. People are no longer afraid of bear markets.

This is a pretty big deal, much more so than the empty Bakkt that won't be granted an approval this year. Bakkt has already been kicked in the nuts by LedgerX, and possibly even Nasdaq with their Bitcoin backed futures.

That being said, the total number of their traders is just a headline figure. No way they will all rush to buy themselves into Bitcoin. It would be amazing if they did, but we have to be realistic here.

Makes me wonder how deep they are invested in this coin. I do like the fact that there is nothing but positivity around Litecoin, which is a world of difference compared to scam coins such as Bcash and BSV where they are only out to cause drama.

Even in the best case scenario for Bitcoin, I don't see it swap position with gold. It's too well adopted and respected for what it is, and then we have its physical nature also playing a role of importance for people.

Gold in physical form is just as decentralized as Bitcoin is, just less convenient to deal with on a daily basis. Another thing is that you can't fork gold to create money out of thin air, which is possible with Bitcoin.

The downside of Bitcoin's forks are that they compete for the same hashrate, which I always found to be a major downside. It caused problems where there wouldn't be any if forking wasn't a thing. It's really unfortunate.

Vague and quite a sensational article. I highly doubt that the sentiment within the government there will change because of this. News outlets like to add a bit of spice to their articles, which usually are poorly translated too.

The only illegal aspect is that this mining operation was running on stolen electricity. If that's actually the case, the authorities should penalize him for exactly that. The purpose of the electricity is not of importance at all.

Most likely not in a positive way. It reminds me of how people talk about market manipulation when the price is tanking, but completely ignore manipulation when the price is nicely going up.

I know from experience that some of my coworkers were skeptical about Bitcoin at first, then made some profits in 2017 because it was very difficult to lose, then turned in skeptics again after their paper losses increased significantly.

People find everything ok as long as they are on the winning hand, but as soon as they notice that losses are looming, they change and start blaming all types of external elements instead of their own ignorance.

That would affect the entire world economy. In other words, to get rid of Bitcoin entirely, you have to get rid of everything else that accounts for a much greater value than Bitcoin is. That's a very bad deal.

On the other hand, if we all generate our own electricity we can still use Bitcoin through satellites. I'm not sure how safe that would be, but at least there is still an option to transact with the outside world. Power to the people.

That's actually a good thing. Sci-fi movies in some cases are an indication of what we can expect in the future. It's also a reflection of the free mind, something our governments try to talk out of our head by indoctrinating the younger generation.

It seems that McAfee's 'self marketing department' has done its job well in that regard. This dude must be laughing so hard that he doesn't even realize how drugged he is.

Anything? I don't see people bring up how Bitcoin has gotten so much more secure throughout the last couple of years. I also don't see people bring up how important Bitcoin's decentralized nature is.

People here only focus on nonsense and negativity.

If you are so confident in the market, have you significantly increased your long position(s)? If I was as optimistic as you are, that would be the first thing on my priority list, else it's a wasted opportunity in my book.

I find it quite shocking to see people be so overly bullish about the market, and that while we haven't even made an attempt to break through last year's main support, which will turn out to be the main obstacle for the price this year.

Also, there is no point in waiting for institutions to enter the market because you never know when they're in. They won't publicly announce that they bought a shitload of Bitcoin. Stop dreaming.

I am indeed referring to Hashnest. It's owned by Bitmain.

I was talking about Hashnest. The site you linked to is a straight scam site. The best thing you can do here is to report that domain to the registrar. If enough people do that they might deactivate that domain.

No serious company would ever use a gmail.com email as support. They probably couldn't afford an email service. That and their many pajeet style typos is an instant red flag. Lazy and broke ass scammers.

What do you mean with keeping your emotions on a leash? 100x only requires a 1% move to wipe out your initial trade. Regardless of how the charts look, a 1% move can occur at any time and in any direction.

I prefer to use mild leverage multipliers so that I can hold my position open, regardless of the volatility. I have experienced it before that after my position was opened I was in the red, but with some patience it turned green.

If you use tight stops you don't have that advantage. You are basically subjected to the mercy of the short term fluctuations, and I rather avoid that. I'm happy with lower profits as long as the risks are relatively low too.

Anything better than a loss.

I find it highly distracting to be part of a group when it comes to trading. I looked into some that were free and open to access, but the noise ratio is so high that I ended up leaving every single group I joined.

It was so distracting that I developed an anti TA bias with how these people turned TA into a meme rather than something useful. I'm glad I looked into TA again on my own without all the noise from fools thinking to be pros.

I stick to trades that are somewhat obvious in my book. The peak of the current run is something I shorted due to how bullish people are, and the fact that Bitcoin was very near a $100 billion market cap.

Day trading is something I avoid at all cost.