Besides 2015 when Bitcoin and crypto in general seemed to be on the real brink of death having their worst year, today the markets look better than ever before imo - possibly being even highly undervalued.

But it's very, very hard to convince someone that they should head for a long term vision and not be led by short radical market movements. If you take 2015 out of the equation and the short timespan during which BTC has been past $12k, all you're left with is mostly pure profit and every year has been a new high. Even if you had invested once per month ever since BTC was >$12k, you still would've had a profit today as the price crashed a few times.

It all goes down to your own vision over the market.

I think it'd be a problem if Bitcoin becomes user friendly, because if it's decentralized it just cannot be.

You're on your own. There's no Bitcoin worker who is obliged to help you with your wallets. You are free to create, deposit to, withdraw or sign from and use an address in any way you'd like - even share the private key to it, if you will. You're just free to educate yourself and, if you're interested, to join the network. Computers aren't user-friendly either. Yet, they're being sold every year "like hot bread" (a Romanian saying).

Let it happen naturally; let the interested ones educate themselves & join us and the non-interested ones stay away.

Your argument doesn't make sense. Money going out of DeFi and into Ethereum/Bitcoin means DeFi's market cap should theoretically be reduced while Ethereum/Bitcoin's should increase. Besides the fact that most DeFi tokens are based on Ehereum's blockchain, I don't think there is any other correlation between the two.

Once a crypto bubble pops and you're part of it, two things happen most of the time: you either sell in complete sadness and never go back to crypto again, or you repeat the same mistake until you finally realise you would've been so much better off with Bitcoin.

So yeah, it does tend to benefit Bitcoin especially as people quit DeFi. Besides verified fiat-crypto exchanges, the best and quickest way to get out of a hype is by exchanging the said coins into other cryptocurrencies - and most money goes straight back into BTC and ETH. The more altcoins lose power, the more power Bitcoin gains.

When something completely new and unique pops ups, people tend to suspect its legitimacy and usefulness. Today we have tutorials and guides for Bitcoin, including ELI5 explanations, everywhere we look. Back then, it was something only few could comprehend. For non-coders, it was all about trusting whether what a stranger on the Internet says about that code is legit or not.

Imagine one more completely unique and advanced technology pops up. Call it Bitcoin v2.0. The average person does not know coding languages - would they trust some new, strange software on their PC?

Criticism is healthy. While some of it makes no sense, I like listening to everyone and making my own decisions and opinions. Without criticism, Bitcoin wouldn't have progressed this much.

We, as humans, seem to only want more and more no matter how much we have and we're capable to forget about almost anything if money is on the line. Once something becomes an opportunity to earn money, there will always be more people interested in making money out of it rather than looking into the subject. The objective a lot of people have over Bitcoin has changed long ago from "financial freedom" to "let's get rich" unfortunately.

I'd argue against your point mostly from a personal experience; most of the BTC traders/investors I know bought high & sold low every time Bitcoin had a bullish/bearish run. It's usually the wealthy and smart traders purchasing the opposite way and not letting themselves be driven by emotions.

Now that I'm reading this thread, I just noticed this is a phenomenon happening to me as well.. especially with gambling. It's probably the fact that a Bitcoin "cent", as in 0.01 BTC, misleads your mind into thinking it's not worth so much just because you're used to the USD denomination - and maybe also the fact that we all just want to gather as much BTC as possible.

It's a very rapidly increasing industry, the esports figures are higher every year. I doubt kids are playing with low amounts though - parents seem to give them more money than I thought they would, and I don't think it's much different to how much the average . How many adults do you think afford spending $10k on a dice game? Kids have way more free time, and winning those in-game items seems to be a very fascinating goal for them.

According to ChooseHelp, "the average american loses just under $400 per year, or about $30 per month, through all forms of gambling" while "the average Canadian loses just under $600 per year, or about $50 per month, through all forms of gambling". I am quite sure kids who are betting on esports have more free money per month than that.

CBDCs are both happy and sad news for me - the only positive thing I can think about these currencies is the convenience it provides.. but all the negative sides exceed the positive ones by far. But on the other hand, once they are out in the wild people may realize that digital is worse than cash from many angles. If that happens, then Bitcoin, Monero and other cryptocurrencies will receive more attention than ever before.

Which one, CryptoTalk? If they removed the pay-per-post from their forum, it'd die quickly and painfully. Last time I checked it out, it was just exaggeratedly filled up with shitposts and plagiarization. It has no future, the same way YoBit wouldn't but they just come up with new scammy schemes every few days to attract and fool more newbies.

It's getting easier and easier to realise them with the development of P2P platforms, mixers, whirlpools and other ways we currently have to anonymize Bitcoins. Unless they expose themselves one way or another, I think they'll eventually get away with the stolen gains unfortunately.

The brothers may be part of a larger ring or they just weren't the right persons to suspect. Unless someone from Israel gets to verify if there's any public record of the two, I can't seem to find any information besides assumptions. This is what Blocksat says about their arrest:

Congrats to you if you've been that interested to read the Whitepaper so many times. Keep it up and try working your way up - 1 BTC is achievable, stay positive and you'll make it.

The wealthy rarely share parts of their fortune if at all. You have to understand that even Davinci has reached the popularity he has through hard work - and it wouldn't be fair for him to help others who haven't worked their assess off, would it? I understand that you want to get as much Bitcoin as you can, but we're all here for it - and almost all of us over here want to get more and more.

But I'd rather focus on trying to acummulate as much as I can while studying the technology rather than hoping for someone to throw a random penny in my bag. We're here for financial freedom. People will still kill for Bitcoin the same way they'll kill for anything else out of greed and despair, but Bitcoin does not enslave you. It sets you free in a way no other asset has ever been able to.

History may repeat itself, but not all the time. Bitcoin's past of impressive value appreciation will not just be a magical endless cycle. If it was able to hit $3k after touching $20k, it is able to hit $1.5k after touching $10k as well - and so on.

It's not just a miracle. Today, we have the possible extreme advantage of multiple factors, such as the fact that there still are very few Bitcoin users right now, although the number has exploded since Bitcoin's genesis. While you may have missed the first decade, it's still early to enter the market today IMO.

But that comes with consequences - institutional investors are making Bitcoin's graph follow stocks more than ever before. Remember when Bitcoin had a huge drop this year, together with stocks while at the same time Gold bounced? How is Bitcoin a safe haven in that scenario?

It was actually invented in 2008 and launched in 2009 by Satoshi. It totally depends on what "approved Bitcoin" means to you. If you mean adopting it as a national currency, it's close to impossible due to the fact that governments do not have any kind of power in this economy.

Other than that, while there are some countries hostile to Bitcoin, there are many, many out there allowing its usage even as a method of payment. Regulations helped make that happen, but while on the other hand attacking privacy from multiple sides.

If he's your idol and you take his word for granted as if he was some crystal ball, then do so. But I wouldn't if I were you. Bitcoin could end up badly the same way Buffett's portfolio could. It's all about what the future reserves for us. John McAfee has said years ago that Bitcoin would either hit $1M by the end of this year or he'd cut his d*ck and eat it live on TV. Would that be convincing enough for you that Bitcoin is going to make you rich? It wasn't for me, and it seems like he either has to eat his own sexual organ or he'll just take it as probably the biggest L of his life.

Influencers and billionaires aren't Gods. They only have masses they move to the directions they want. I'd honestly recommend you not to be part of those masses.

The DeFi bubble has bursted a while ago imo, and all we'll see is occasional pumps&dumps and, generally, a downtrend. The focus has to move to yet another useless hype now that the so-called "revolutionary technology" of DeFi is failing.

Hard to believe that all bubbles are exactly the same. A little positive information could easily turn a bubble into a bull run in a market where the conditions are able to change significantly every few seconds.

While using reliable/decentralized exchanges fits as an answer perfectly, sometimes it may be a trusted exchange selling virtual Bitcoins. That's right, virtual virtual currency.

For example, I would avoid purchasing BTC on platforms that only give you non-withdrawable Bitcoin on paper like purchasing Gold stocks. You don't actually end up owning Bitcoin on there - it's just you paying the price for something they don't truly sell, if that makes sense.

Back when the immigrant crisis was a thing in Europe, banks selling gold have been hoarded by people trying to physically withdraw their owned gold - and that is a very big issue. I'd rather own it physically than virtually, the same way I'd rather own Bitcoin in my own wallet rather than a number on a random "reliable" website.

Edit: Revolut may be one of these reliable platforms selling non-withdrawable Bitcoin. The link sends you back to a 2017 forum post though, so the information may be outdated.

Who, exchanges? Oh, there are lots of exchanges doing what is known as wash trading, faking their volumes.

How do you know who bought what? Well, you just don't. But you don't know if Gold's market activity is 100% legit either - and I can assure you it isn't.

This is one of the main reasons mining and the chain of blocks exists. The history of Bitcoin's blockchain is theoretically immutable, as in any little mistake you make now through BTC (like exposing your real identity) might affect the entire immutable history of yours.

Bitcoin's creator is Satoshi Nakamoto, and he does not own any kind of decisional power in the coin's governance. In fact, there is no central governance - it's a decentralized network. The network stays up at all times specifically due to the fact that there are people using it and helping it grow: full nodes, miners and users.

You may be interested in reading a bit about block rewards. This is how coins are being generated and introduced into circulation as a reward for miners. Unlike many of the centralized altcoins, Bitcoin's inflation rate is precise and gets cut in half every 4 years.

Besides maths and coding, there are no laws we need in order to protect ourselves from counterfeited coins. Welcome to the magic of programming.

I don't think it could be simpler than it currently is, and now that it's over a decade old a logo change would only make people very, very confused. Bitcoin's logo is just a letter with two stripes on it - why would we need a "rebranding"?

It's a currency. Not a product or a company. Therefore, we should just accept it the way it is. A fancier logo wouldn't help with the adoption in any way - in fact, it may actually hurt it the same way Bitcoin Cash's introduction made some very confused about which project is the legit one.

Unfortunately, this is inevitable. Humans are greedy. There will always be at least one who'll want to have more than the others do. As Bitcoin gets more and more adopted, more Bitcoin than ever before will be in the hands of the wealthy. I guess there is no way we could evade wealth inequality even with BTC - but at least it's decentralized.

Well, the bolded part is quite contradictory to your bad news. The value of Bitcoin hitting $50k or more is not far-fetched. We're quickly approaching the moment where the world will have its first trillionaire ever.

While the increase of Bitcoin's price makes me happy, I wouldn't be that excited about it. We're known to have unnecessarily quick pumps after breaking news that most of the times end with quick drops as the hype ends.

Interesting list. Looks like the intel work against crypto criminality has been stronger than ever before in the past few years. There definitely is a little fight between the wish for complete freedom and the one for proper and strong regulation in the industry as a fight against illicit activity. Meanwhile, illegality will always find its spot - or a breach somewhere they could profit of. Here's something that is so sharply double-edged:


I'm kinda afraid the development of P2P stuff will be halted and possibly even banned by authorities at one point. For them, it gets even worse than mixers being considered suspicious activity. The answer to OP's question about what awaits the darknet is that peer-to-peer markets and platforms will be on a big growth in a matter of years imo. That's because you sometimes get to have a freedom you usually aren't supposed to have, but there also are some people out there who'd just rather have no intermediaries. You get to exchange millions of bucks from one digital currency to another without anyone necessarily knowing who you are. You get to keep alive a platform even if the creator of it gets a life sentence. Should that be a thing?

---

I guess we have to decide what we want: complete freedom or regulations. A way in the middle seems impossible. I have a feeling a lot of more experienced and privacy-oriented Bitcoin users are sitting in the first kind of extremity, where they want to be free to do whatever they like and are strongly against seizing websites, platforms etc. It then becomes an issue when you see that illegal marketplaces are popping up every now and then though, so how exactly do we make it fair to everyone so that there is an equilibrum between freedom and legality?

Are you using Bitcoin in your daily transactions? I am not, and the vast majority of BitcoinTalk users are not either.

Bitcoin transfers are instant and require no approval from a bank worker, but how does the other end cash out reliably and in time? Today we have ATM KYC limits and ATMs have high fees as well if you want to sell BTC for cash. And if you're completing KYC to withdraw from an ATM, then you could just exchange your coins at a reliable exchange instead as well.. Because by the time your transfer gets a confirmation, Bitcoin may have fallen enough to lower down the worth of the coins.

It's really not like we've adopted Bitcoin so much you could replace fiat with it. Most of us use it mainly as a store of value rather than a daily-drive currency. It's not as easy as telling your friends to use BTC instead of bank transfers, because they have no idea how it even works. If it was simple to adopt it, it would've happened a very long time ago.