I'm honestly pretty skeptical when it comes to my state using blockchain tech for the "better". I find myself rather being stuck in the system we are currently living in than having to live in a fully electronic system backed on the Blockchain. From a decentralized currency such as BTC to a system where everything is recorded and traced by central parties is a very big negative leap.

For this reason, I'd rather stick to the normal polls - although I certainly do know they could be rigged. Politics are mostly mind games where you always have to choose the "worst side" every 4 years anyway. Is there any real advantage in swapping from the current system to a blockchain-backed/based one?

Lucky you. Learning how BTC works isn't the easiest thing for most people. I now have 7 years since I started my journey and I still have a lot of things I do not know (or know the wrong way). Reaching mass adoption means teaching everyone how to use it - give $5 in BTC to a 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years old person and you'd see that, the higher the age is, the harder it is for them to understand the system. I personally think this is the best way Bitcoin could ever evolve: becoming easier to use and understand. Until then, it's going to be "the crypto/privacy/tech geek's currency".

Why exactly would/should a government see Bitcoin as a solution to "the problem in the payment system"? To them, BTC is something mostly out of control and they don't like stuff they cannot control. Especially Russia. The benefits of using digital currencies will switch so smoothly from decentralized cryptos such as BTC to their digital fiat you won't even notice. That's going to happen "later", but at a pace slowed down enough for most not to give a damn anymore - and probably before the world will have a stable law structure for cryptocurrencies..

Furthermore, I'd recommend using a different e-mail for different categories of accounts you have. For example, use one mail for social media accounts and a completely different one for exchange accounts. This not only lowers the chances of all your accounts being compromised at once but also decreases the chances of all your accounts being linked by an external party to your identity. This way, if your "exchange" email gets compromised, you know that you should only consider the said accounts compromised - unlike having all accs on the same mail, where you have to check whether all of them have been affected or not.

I would message them ASAP and let them know about it. I guess they'd give out a sweet bounty as well for not stealing their BTCs. Stealing all that amount of BTC wouldn't be worth it in the long run. Imagine you steal it all and mistakenly reveal a little but crucial information enough for blockchain analysis companies and authorities to identify you. And then, imagine having to live forever the constant fear of being found out.

I'd rather enjoy a little $100 bounty (or even nothing) than strip their funds off.

Nowadays it's pretty hard to have a legit coin with a legit team behind it and interesting/unique fundamentals pop up. Having a new coin today is as easy as going on some random website and paying someone to literally fork a coin and switch the name to the one you desire.

We have too many alts. >95% of them will clear out sooner or later - it's just impossible to have these many and the more coins there are, the less sense their existence makes. Just stick to what's legit and let them fake projects with fairytale descriptions die out.

Not having a job puts you in a place of uncertainty where you're seeking financial refuge. Bitcoin is considered a great refuge by many (including me) from the failing financial system, so a lot of people may buy during rough times (the recent correlation between gold and BTC price pushes makes it even more obvious now). But this is just one reason out of possibly hundreds. There are too many to have a list of price influencing factors you can solely rely on.

Halving & halving FOMO, the USD inflation in the past few months, the virus situation, the rise of Gold, Bitcoin slowly becoming more mature as time goes on, adoption level, crypto legal status in certain countries .. etc. Whoever has the answer to all of these and the many others missing has a broad idea of what the market should look like.

I'd argue that, once you get the hang of digital payments, you'd be more interested imo to check out BTC as well. A lot of people don't like BTC because it's virtual, so using virtual fiat vs using a virtual decentralized currency is only a small step away. I hear "please use card payments as often as possible" every like 10 seconds in our grocery stores and I think the constant repetiton of those words will make a difference at one point, lol.

I would not be surprised at all if my country came up with a ban, although I do not think so. But enough stupid choices and laws have been passed out here.. If a large country with a significant economy such as the USA does though, it'd become an issue. On the other hand, hardcore Bitcoin supporters would probably rather emigrate in this situation.

Let's not forget one thing. Bitcoin's ledger is completely transparent, unlike fiat. This means hacks are way easier to be tracked than cash scams are, and this is both a good and a bad thing.

If a fiat scam at the level of Twitter's last vulnerability exploit happened, you couldn't see how much of the stolen bucks went to a certain place. Having a public fully transparent ledger makes things seem way more prominent when it comes to scams than cash tracing possibilites does, but in reality, way more fiat is stolen per day than the equivalent of BTC in USD is.

But.. a ban is now unlikely. It would've been a possibility if we hadn't seen large companies allegedly supporting cryptocurrencies. We have followed authorities' path, so we've basically kneeled to them. Hence, they probably do not see us as a danger anymore.

So far, it looks like the pandemic is here to stay. Countries are apparently trying to adapt to e-studying through online classes.. There are also lots of people who've adapted to credit card payments instead of cash as well. which means we're clearly going the digital way.

So yeah, to me it looks like the situation definitely pushes digital currencies forward and most likely increased crypto usage as well (this is pretty obvious in a lot of the charts and data from the last months). And then we have time - the more passes, the newer generations of humans are which results in a better adaptation to technology.

How so? If evolving means trying to centralize mining power and wealth distribution, I personally don't think it's good news at all. I am here for the exact opposite of what this so-called "evolution" would be: I'm here to support financial freedom and decentralization.

One might argue that even with a centralized mining power, besides rolling back blocks and censoring some addresses, they can't do much. The thing is, if they'd be controlling all (or the largest part of) the newly mined supply, it would be not much different from what most ICOs and XRP is currently doing. If Satoshi is/was a central bank experimenting on us, then it means we're probably going to see the fundamental ideas of BTC get destroyed, all in a matter of time.

To me, isn't a choice based solely on price. It's something that will depend on a lot of factors actually, the crucial one being Bitcoin's legal status around the world. I would not sell for a very long time and just keep accumulating instead, but if I find it a defeat against the authorities, I might reconsider. This is like talking about the choices I'd make if and when Bitcoin touches $1M - is price the only decisive factor?

The future's going to look interesting. Big names of the world's industry supposedly kneeling to Bitcoin's increasing dominance while anti-BTC laws and policies are on the rise. Is it just me, or is this all a very subtle approach of a check-mate they're trying to get to?

I cannot truly trust a positive Bitcoin opinion coming from a person/group who's helped the worldwide wealth inequality and unfair financial system be a thing. Especially when you don't even know the basic BTC stuff, as hatshepsut93 mentioned.

With the recent number of social media scams, I'd put one more thing on the list: nobody will give you free money. Not even Elon Musk. One more thing is, I'd highly suggest starting to educate yourself about decentralization and your privacy. It's going to be more than worth it in time, trust me. There are a lot of things you may think you're doing right but are completely mistaken about

Ah, and this is another piece of information that will put mixers and the possibility of having a bit of crypto anonymity in a bad place. It's quite obvious that smart hackers will seek to anonymize their coins one way or another to erase their traces. What kinda creeps me out is the way you can link some addresses so easily together

Interesting for sure. I'm getting an increasingly strong feeling a wild BTC ride is on the way, and dormant addresses waking up is making me even more confident. Do addresses that have received BTC count as "dormant addresses" as well though, or is it just addresses that have not made any kind of txs in a while?

Bisq may be an option as suggested above, but just remember it's not a viable solution if you're looking for daily trades. Is it illegal to own BTC in your country, or is it illegal only to cash out from it? I wonder what happens if you use Bisq and after a few trades you sell BTC to someone and they send you a bank transfer with a "Bitcoin purchase" transaction detail?

If I were in your situation, I would have refrained from trading as much as I could and probably offered some service out here for BTC instead. Throw these BTC into some mixers after you accumulate a higher value and you should be good. Just try to use Tor as much as you can. P2P may sound great, but you're using a bank, and they surely can question your entire bank account history if and when they ever spot something suspicious out about you. Face to face meetings could be just as bad (or even worse). Personal opinion tho.

It gets worse when you compare centralized currencies to decentralized alternatives in regards to physical payments. Having to wait a long time to have your tx confirmed is a pain in the ass for both customers and merchants so, in the end, most will choose the more convenient way obviously. This is why BTC will probably never be above the payment methods and means of exchange we currently have.

Like, I have not really tried spending BTC at a local restaurant, but what happens if you pay for a $50 restaurant bill using BTC with 1 (or zero) sat/byte?

A random shower thought I just had: would e-mailing these companies and kindly asking them to erase all the data they stored about you be a good idea to consider for future orders/accounts we make? I think it does increase the chances of not being part of future data leaks/hacks, or it at least decreases the amount of information one could steal.. especially for orders from companies such as Ledger, from where you rarely place orders at all.

In all honesty, I would not really compare BTC txs to banks as a "Bitcoin is better" argument. For now it may be great, but it's going to be a big L for us as soon as digital national currencies become the norm.

Decentralization still sits right in front of all the features we have, together with limited supply and precise inflation rate. When the digital USD comes up, expect transfers to be instant. At that point, it'll basically become a war between centralization & decentralization because otherwise, besides transparency, BTC will become inferior..