The most important influence is the one they have over non-crypto users. Obviously, as we have been here for a long time, we know that this is misinformation. What matters is that they get to push away potentially interested investors and users.

This is not happening anymore - not in our days. Nowadays, Nasdaq, CNN, BBC and all the other mainstream media is the only right opinion. Convenience advanced so far that it becomes an issue: we don't even think our own way anymore. Instead, we're letting complete strangers tell us what to believe and think.

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Yes, it's the unfortunate truth. It's a vicious cycle of misinformation spreading everywhere around the exact same way "Bitcoin is the criminal's currency" has spread like a plague.

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I'd argue against your point here. I always respect a properly justified argument, but that is exactly the opposite of TMF's. The author is writing an article for one of the top financial advice websites out there. It's not like he's writing on a forum - he is supposed to do research before writing anything on influential blogs and news outlets. An author cannot come with the excuse of not having properly researched a subject beforehand. It's obvious that the FUD was intentional.

This is a greatly debateable subject and, before Bitcoin's market matures, it's going to be all about predictions and speculations. The fun part is, Bitcoin can right now be used as both a store of value and a currency. It provides you, for the first time, the opportunity to use it as both.

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Well, here's the fun part: it's not been a great investment just in 2020. besides a short timespan during which Bitcoin has standed above $11k, we have more than an entire decade of profitable investment. Whoever bought at literally any given time between 2009 and 2020, with the exception of a few months (the crazy 2017 bull run and this year's top levels) and still hodls today is on profit. Let's see if the next 10 arguments stand strong.

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Funny how the negative argument about Bitcoin's idea of scarcity easily turns into a very positive side.

That's right: with overwhelming community support, we could change Bitcoin's total supply. But overwhelming community support requires a very strong, justified reason to do so. Putting it another way, we will only change the total supply if it's a mandatory, vital change for Bitcoin to continue to exist.

The "digital mining" vs "gold is limited to what can be mined from the earth" point quickly falls short when you think we aren't very far away from sending asteroid-mining robots in space. According to U.S. Money Reserve, "about 244,000 metric tons of gold has been discovered" on Earth until today. However, "There may be more gold to mine, but no one can be sure how much gold is left or how hard it will be to dig up.".

Back to the outer space, TMF may be surprised to find out that there is an asteroid containing $700,000,000,000,000,000,000 worth of assets, mainly composed out of metal - "including iron, nickel, and gold" exists.

Hence, if we're talking about physical vs digital scarcity, more physical gold than ever before could be found at any given time - or scientists could even find a way to create unlimited gold as science and tech advances. Meanwhile, Bitcoin's supply remains capped at an exact amount. Thank you, math for making this possible.

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Is it that of a big surprise if I told you wealth inequality exists and, before we take a look at Bitcoin, the top 1% of the richest owns around 50% of the global wealth (and keep in mind this was before the pandemic - now the richest are worth more than $800B more)?

Bitcoin's "small group of investors" holding a significant part of the circulating supply are actually exchanges and services. I'm not sure how utility isn't there with such a huge list of shops, Bitcoin-filled debit cards, more than 11k ATMs and 212k vendors in existence and so many other options of using or storing Bitcoin available.

The GWP was actually $80.27 trillion in 2017 - and it took 4 years to grow from 2013's level of $75.59 trillion. I.e. it took 4 years to grow by only around 8%. Let's take Bitcoin's numbers from 2013 vs 2017 now:

- 2013 Market Cap (26th of Apr): $1,488,566,972
- 2017 Market Cap (30st of Apr): $21,975,158,882
- 2020 Market Cap (26th of Apr): $140,903,867,573

Say what?

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This argument really doesn't make sense.. Yeah, the barrier is low - it's called freedom, decentralization and open-source. A kid who has enough coding skills or the capacity of following a YouTube tutorial could create his own version of cryptocurrency. We're free to do so - what's so wrong with that?

Bitcoin is the 1st of all cryptocurrencies. It's the spark of the crypto world, and that will always keep it standing. Other projects may actually represent testing lands for Bitcoin's future updates. Once a new feature proves to be successful with other cryptocurrencies and the community expresses a strong support for it, Bitcoin will adopt it.

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Bitcoin gives you the freedom to do your own research probably better than any other publicly traded company in the world could. As it's fully decentralized, there is data about literally everything, everywhere. You could simply use the publicly-available information stored in the blockchain at any given time and do your own analysis. It's one of Bitcoin's most beautiful aspects. There's no cheating, no fraud - all information is transparent and free.

Besides my above argument, are all stocks priced at their real value at all times? Are they really?

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So how does this make Bitcoin a "terrible investment" in any kind of way? Digital fiat currencies will only be the currently existing fiat, but extremely worse from a privacy perspective. Going to your 4th argument, this is one of the big reasons why Bitcoin will always have a value. Learn to value privacy.

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It's years away from being mainstream, but OP is admitting himself that it will be mainstream soon. So, is being an early investor nowadays a "terrible" choice? I thought it was the opposite.

Jokes aside, this one doesn't even have to be explained. Expecting cryptocurrency to be "quickly adopted" is a very unrealistic thing anyway - it's a technology that is only one decade old, and only in the last few years did it start to become more heard about. Huge names are already using Bitcoin on their platforms - and guess what! U.S. Space Force is going to use blockchain tech to protect their data. It looks like it's going to be used anyway, be it tomorrow or within years. It's the future.

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So are we going to blame Bitcoin because some people store millions in their centralized exchange accounts practicing shit security when they could simply store them in decentralized wallets instead?

I am honestly sick of the "Bitcoin is the choice of criminal organizations" stupid idea. It cannot even compare to the fiat crimes and money laundering figures. Banks have moved $2,000,000,000,000 in illicit transactions, yet we're naming Bitcoin the Criminal's Choice.

Let's be 100% honest: if you were to commit a crime, would you choose cash which is not transparently recorded in a public ledger and requires no IP and extra cybersecurity or would you choose Bitcoin instead? Most criminals probably don't even know how Bitcoin really works..

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To be honest, it is kinda hard to properly regulate a technology that is open-source and international. It becomes even harder when you have a government that wants surveillance and control versus the community it wants to regulate, which wants freedom and privacy.

If the majority of the community wants Bitcoin to become more privacy-oriented and the US government doesn't like it, what happens? How do you adjust regulations for a decentralized currency that could be changed and used from any corner of the world?

Regulations are slowly coming to us though, and that is bad news. It's even worse than having interpretable laws actually, because the governments will want to focus more on surveillance than on privacy. The sad thing is, I do not think there is any way they could regulate Bitcoin so that everyone is happy. It'll probably be either privacy or control.

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While this is one point I agree with, I strongly believe this has been done intentionally so that more people stay away from Bitcoin. If we had easy tax reports for cryptocurrencies, people would have been more attracted towards them. But when you know using BTC means a tax reporting nightmare, you may as well stay away from it.

Again, this is something that could change. It's not a non-changeable situation. It's just that not enough people complain.

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As time goes on and internet freedom decreases substantially, Bitcoin becomes more scarce (halvings + lost coins) and probably also more privacy-focused. Therefore, chances are it is not a bubble but actually a still undervalued asset.

From 2011 to 2015, silver price has had a decline of over 70%. From the lowest price in the past 5 years, today it's up around 100%. Bitcoin has managed to recover from all of its declines, except the ones I have mentioned in the beginning of my thread: "(the crazy 2017 bull run and this year's top levels)". Moreover, as mentioned in my answer to OP's second argument against Bitcoin, Bitcoin's price and market cap has increased every few years by an impressive percentage.

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Multumesc, am intors favorul.

Faptul ca suntem in mare parte doar noi 3 pe sectiunea Ro si ne mai aruncam cate un sMerit imi aduce aminte de un topic mai vechi cu o statistica despre cat de generoase sunt subforumurile de Bitcointalk. Chiar ma gandeam in ultimul timp, oare sa fie lipsa de "generozitate" motivul pentru care nu prea exista activitate pe Ro?

I don't think there is any way to prevent manipulation imo. Lots of markets are manipulated by the wealthy.. Bitcoin is/will be more or less as well.

No matter how free we are, there'll always be 1 guy who will want to compete and be ahead of you if they see an earning opportunity in it. As you have already probably seen, there are companies that have started to purchase massive amounts of BTC. Large investments come from large names, and they have more influence & control over the markets than we do. We'll never have the "market innocence" Bitcoin had a decade ago. That's been long gone since whales appeared.

@Jet Cash

Well, Qubes OS is one way to go if you have supporting specs and want to separate your "Big Brother" apps from personal ones, although it's surely better to have two separate pieces of hardware instead just in case one of the computers gets compromised. Public WiFis aren't a reliable option imo, as surveillance cams are now everywhere around..

But it becomes a huge worry if for a personal privacy-oriented PC you don't even have a reliable internet search engine that doesn't track you down, sell your data or work with big corporations anymore..

To be honest, this is making me so confused. While Dorsey blames his own company's actions and supposedly supports Bitcoin, Twitter's ToS is just crap from a privacy point of view .. sitting only one class (according to ToS;DR's rating) above Facebook. It's almost like he contradicts himself and only sustains our cryptocurrency for marketing purposes.

If he truly supports BTC, wouldn't it be more rational to also improve Twitter's way of functioning so that it doesn't track you or disclose your personal information?

I have been using DuckDuckGo for a long time now in an attempt to support services that are privacy-focused. It's been going very well so far - especially that I can use it without JavaScript - but it looks like OpenStreetMap isn't an option anymore when looking locations up.

Instead, we have Apple Maps as the remaining option - and it looks like DDG's recent blog post about new map functions advertises Apple's logo and devices through the images as well.

This makes me give DDG a second thought. Is it really as reliable as it's usually advertised or are they slowly moving into the privacy-intruding corporations boat the same way Google moved on from their initial "anti-evil" slogan?

How high the inflation goes depends solely on the economical situation there will be at the time. Remember however that Bitcoin's price fluctuates based on way more factors, not just inflation alone. Even if inflation goes up, Bitcoin can still go bearish. This is a kinda mind-boggling subject that simply becomes more of a logical thing once you understand it.

For example, a 1950 $100 bill is worth, according to in2013dollars, $1,080 today. If we take gold as an example (sorry to those reading who're already sick of this comparison), an ounce of gold was apparently worth $35 in 1950 so $378 if we adjust it to the 1950-2020 total inflation (980%). Yet, at the time of writing this post, 1oz of gold is sitting at around $1,900.

As you can see, although the inflation rate has grown a lot in the last 70 years, we're talking about an ounce of gold worth $378 back in 1950 vs $1,900 today. That's an increase of about 400%.

Going back to my previous answer.. the thing is, you have to just play smart. I'll put it another way:

- Say you have $10k worth of BTC right now. Can you afford a house? No.
- In a matter of an year, say a crazy recession begins and Bitcoin is going to be used as a safe haven asset, growing along gold and silver. It now becomes worth $100k per unit. Meanwhile, someone cannot afford to pay their debt so they put their house on sale for only $70k. You have $100k - can you afford it now? Yes, because Bitcoin's purchasing power has increased.

That's how inflation works. You have to be smart to sell at the right time and invest in the right things. For example, during the last recession ('08) a lot of people lost their houses or had to sell them very cheap because they couldn't afford to pay the rent/debt anymore. Smart traders and investors sold commodities and bought cheap houses with their profit.

Imagine purchasing $10k worth of Bitcoin and within the next huge inflation, its price goes up by 10 times. That's $100k you're now holding in total. Now imagine $100k houses being put on sale for $70k. You're basically able to purchase a $100k house for $70k and still have a $30k remaining to spend. All of that with an initial investment of $10k.

But again, every move is a risk. Hodling, selling, purchasing.. it's a risky move and you have to assume it.

Well, that's specifically why I am not worrying much about the sponsorship.

It may actually be a good thing. How many active core devs trust Coinbase and centralized services? Theoretically, there shouldn't be many.. right? As they have to apply themselves for it on Coinbase's website, it's only going to basically be the possible "traitors" of Bitcoin that are going to do it. And as we all can see new changes, it's going to be a complete waste of time & money in the end with a positive ending for us: if any strings are attached, the reputation of those devs who'll take the sponsorship will fall to the ground. Better now than later.

That's exactly what I'm trying to say: there's nothing to really worry about because it won't work, as chances are low the codes will go through unseen and unverified. Just my 2 cents

I think it'd be a very silly and useless move from Coinbase if that's their plan. Maybe they can force their two sponsored devs to work the way Coinbase wants, but in the end it's going to be an absolute waste of time and resources if the larger community rejects their malicious intents. Or maybe I'm missing something here.

If people are running out of cash, it may actually be a good sign for Bitcoin. It means that we're approaching quite bad times, and while the governments are printing trillions, Bitcoin only gets scarcer.

The fluent trading activity cannot go on forever. There will always be periods of times where you will see way less activity. And that's especially during hard times, when people rather start saving their money for basic needs than invest it.

It's open source though, so how exactly could there be malicious coding or strings attached to this offering? Coinbase may have more influence over them, but in case anything goes wrong isn't there just enough possibility for reversal? I don't think it'd take too long before someone notices something's wrong in the new lines of code..

@Polo7

Look, I am not a genius so I may sometimes express wrong ideas on the forum. We aren't perfect, and many of us are here to learn. Take mistakes as opportunities for education instead of hatred.

There are many flaws in your posts though - they're easy to repair however, and all you have to do is just spend a few more minutes doing that when writing a post. Flaws such as...:

• Your grammar and punctuation. Fix them up and make your posts less interpretable. If a post is easy to read, people will spend their time reading it. However, when a Post BeComes Hard and ANnoying To be Read, people would rather just skip it.
• You do not want to accept anyone else's opinion but yours. I like debates. I mean, I love them. However, although I do argue against various opinions in most of my replies, an opinion that seems properly argumented and justified earns a lot of respect in my eyes. Learn to accept the idea that we have different opinions.
• You're worrying a lot of times about stuff that doesn't even matter - either that or you're spreading ideas that are pure speculations as if you're some human crystal ball. Speculation isn't bad - but it does become a flaw when you're ignoring everyone else's ideas and trying to force yours.
• There are other members that are more experienced than you are. Each of us is better at some domain than another person is. That doesn't make you, me or anyone else stupid in any way. I, for example, have 7 years of crypto experience. With that being said, it's kinda silly to talk like that about old members when they just have more experience than you. It's like trying to convince an astronaut that everything they've seen in space is fake - although you've never physically been there yourself. It just won't work.

If you're willing to leave the forum, it's your choice. Nobody will cry after you and we'll respect your decision. I've made lots of mistakes before and I think I have successfully been able to fix 'em up - now it is your chance to do the same.

Honestly, larger exchanges are more prone to handing out data about you than smaller ones. A government would not be that interested in purchasing/requesting a small exchange's database when they could simply scrap the top one and pave their path from there. If you don't like KYC, you shouldn't care how big or small the company is. Facebook is "trusted" by so many people, yet it's one of the most evil corporations that have ever existed when it comes to digital intimacy.

Cu siguranta nu suntem putini cei care au patit-o cu "apelurile random" de la diverse companii. Amuzant este ca eu sunt de obicei sunat de firme de forex. Probabil mi-am scapat pe unde nu trebuia numarul de telefon.

Am sa ma asigur ca si eu voi avea ambele carti in biblioteca. Pe una deja o am, insa spre rusinea mea.. nu m-am apucat inca sa o citesc.

Fara dar si poate. O intreprindere = automat supunerea in fata legii. Nu prea poti merge pe ideea "nu as face asa ceva" - cine ar fi "prost" sa isi consume resursele, timpul si nervii intr-o lupta impotriva statului pentru dreptul unui client la intimitate si anonimat? O companie care ar face asa ceva ar castiga mult in ochii nostri, insa din pacate de prea multe ori e mai presus succesul financiar decat orice altceva. Si pe langa asta, un proces impotriva statului (in special ca societate comerciala) inseamna sa ai de a face cu serviciile si cat mai multe autoritati posibile. Un fel de tortura psihica, pana cedezi.

Si atata timp cat nu va exista educatia necesara si oamenii vor continua sa traiasca in periculosul confort creat de mass-media, va fi din ce in ce mai grav.

Voiam si eu mai devreme sa va felicit pe amandoi pentru reusita aceasta, insa am asteptat o ocazie (cum ar fi cea de a-ti raspunde tie la reply) sa o fac. Cel mai probabil am fost eliminat deoarece in ultimul timp am fost cam inactiv pe sectiunea romaneasca a forumului - si pe aici nu exista inca reclame ChipMixer.

Asadar, avand in vedere ca ati intrat amandoi in lista finala, am sa presupun ca sectiunea noastra e pe lista prioritara. Astfel, o sa il felicit in avans pe cel care va lua locul dintre voi doi. Sau pe amandoi, daca reusiti asta. Poate ca ChipMixer ar fi scanteia de care are nevoie sectiunea Ro pentru a se dezvolta ca niciodata.

Why do people think Bitcoin is going to be a failure just because it failed as a possible fiat replacement? It isn't a good option for replacement, and it'll never be.

The main advantage is decentralization. It simply kills off all the other disadvantages no matter if it's used as a daily currency or not. People start using cryptos when they start feeling like the leash our governments put on us is getting too tight. Until then, most of them will just ignore all the new surveillance tools thinking they don't need to hide anything - until they do.

We don't need to use it every day. Stocks are important, yet you don't have any "applications" for them. But precious metals protect you from economical problems, and that is extremely important. The applications Bitcoin has now? It will never have $2 trillion bills. It'll never ask you personal information and you don't need to request anyone's permission to use it. It provides a freedom traditional assets don't.

Satoshi's identity will continue to remain a mystery unless he comes out and reveals it himself. If we want to respect his right to privacy, we should just stop wondering who he really is and continue to support his project if we will. These are imo just nonsense speculations and rumors that never really get to a consensus - except cases of stupidity like CSW's.

Devine o problema uriasa si partea cu "evadarea" din mainile corporatiilor. Un exemplu ar fi Epic Games, care cere date personale pentru desfiintarea contului precum "Address where the account was created, all devices ever signed in, etc.". Se pare ca mai nou, pentru a putea elimina propriile date din baza cuiva de date, e necesar sa suplimentezi baza de cu inca o tura de informatii. Si una e sa creada ei ca aceea e locatia in care ti-ai creat contul, alta e sa le-o spui tu. La fel ca faza cu Google Maps si "Home Address". Una e sa creada ca-i a ta, alta e sa introduci tu datele astea.

Corect. Spiritul de turma e mai puternic si mai trendy ca niciodata.

Posibil sa fie si schema de marketing, insa pe mine ma face sa ma simt cam inconfortabila aceasta raspandire masiva a camerelor in toate device-urile si locatiile posibile. Am un feeling ca, desi pentru unele firme este intr-adevar o modalitate de a atrage cat mai multi consumatori, scopul principal este sa ne obisnuim cu camerele.

Anul asta a avut loc o explozie a procentajului de camere prezente in locatii publice si nu numai. Imagineaza-ti doar anul asta cate s-au schimbat: cati studenti, angajati si elevi stau aproape zilnic ore in sir pe Zoom, Meet, Skype sau alte platforme. Apoi avem sistemul de recunoastere faciala implementat in +43.000 de scoli din Rusia numit Orwell, sistemele biometrice din aeroporturi, noile casti ale politiei chineze cu recunoastere faciala si scanare de temperatura si .. ca tot vorbim de recunoastere faciala, si Romania urmeaza sa aiba un astfel de sistem.

Eu am devenit destul de paranoic referitor la subiectul privacy, fapt pentru care putin cred ca am luat-o pe aratura. In orice caz, cu totii avem anumite scapari la un moment dat.

Multumesc frumos, si eu am cam ramas fara - pe penultimul i l-am acordat lui @GazetaBitcoin. Insa acum ca am revenit pe partea board-ului Ro, am sa incerc sa strang niste sMerits si planuiesc sa fac ceva pentru a atrage mai multi membri pe aici in discutii. Suntem cu siguranta destul de multi, lipseste doar sa ne adunam.

All I'm hoping for is that another trillion bill won't cause a strong inflation and push the economical situation off a cliff. But doesn't this move increase the national debt even more than it currently is? Last time I checked, it was sitting around $27 trillion..

How long could this keep going on for before it just can't anymore and the economy crashes like never before? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like these bills are going to be a great facade behind which a monster sits ready for the action ..