I'm gutted for Jones as I really thought he might have stolen it. Although, what a fight it was I didn't catch the end so not sure if it was awarded fight of the night?

This was a decent card which had some decent fights. I know many aren't a fan of the midweek fights, but it definitely made my Wednesday more entertaining. I purposely didn't put out my picks for this one though as i had a lot of doubts about them. I'll probably have some more input this Saturday! I don't care if you don't like Connor he definitely brings the hype with him!

I wasn't too far off of my predictions, but that Mores fight was absolutely shocking. I'd think that both might be cut from the UFC if they keep performing like that. In other news, Max proved all of us doubters wrong, and he looked probably the best he's ever been. Title contention absolutely. Khabib will probably return if Connor puts on a show, which means one very last showdown between the two. I would be very much hyped for the fight, but I'm not sure if I would be thrilled about Khabib breaking his promise, and returning so soon as I took him as a man of his word, especially because it was his promise to his family.

As for the Max Holloway fight, a lot of people suggesting it will be hard to beat for the fight of the year contender, but honestly I thought his performance was fantastic, but it wasn't all that much of a fight, rather just a beat down. Honestly, at times it looked like Rocky when he's in the factory punching some meat bags. Not to be totally disrespectful of Kattar as the guys got a chin of steel, but he was totally outclassed on the night.

Exactly, China has banned Bitcoin several times I believe, and China still has a huge share in the Bitcoin market. The real risk, is governments drop Bitcoin from the news, and try to censor it by not actually reporting, or talking about it. Since that helps with adoption, if that was removed it would slow down the adoption rate. Although, banning it would actually likely increase the exposure Bitcoin has, and make people question why it was banned in the first place. For example, when Edward Snowden released the documents, he was wanted, and banned throughout America, and what that meant was it generated a lot of news. If, they didn't make a big deal about it, and quietly released that they had got compromised, then it likely wouldn't have reached many of the worlds population. I believe it was Edward Bernays in his book "Propaganda"  where he explains that, complete censorship is an effective way of advertising, because of the amount of discussion it creates.

An example in modern times; A video game gets banned in x country, because it breaches certain laws regarding violence. That's usually circulated worldwide that this video game is so violent that its been banned in x country, which in return creates a lot of hype. The same happens with Bitcoin, especially when people will look into the reason why Bitcoin was banned. If it was banned for a "lack of appropriate measures to regulate", that's going to interest a certain demographic. You get the point, no matter the reason, outright banning doesn't seem to have an effective way of neutralizing anything, but instead as evidenced by China's market share might in fact have the opposite effect.

China also bans the use of social media, and various other things, but almost every Chinese resident I know of gets around it via a VPN. So, China attempts to pen in their population by introducing measures for that, it only creates a barrier rather than actually being effective.

Sound advice. If you value your friendship, you shouldn't risk it by trying to influence someone into anything. All friends of mine, have approached me for advice, rather than me trying to push anything on them, because no matter how much you put a disclaimer out there, they will likely hold you responsible, if it was your idea for them to invest.

Also, if you are recommending books I wouldn't suggest recommending it without vetting it yourself. You shouldn't be recommending anything that could potentially be bias either way, or provide misinformation. Especially, when it comes to cryptocurrencies, the amount of factually incorrect statements, and bias even on "reputable" websites is quite significant.

This is my way; never push your ideals, or even ideas on anyone. If they are interested, they will ask how to start. I'm not into the whole business of advertising, and basically being a recruiting agency. I didn't find Bitcoin by being recommended it, I found it because it was in line with my values, and situation.

Yeah, I watched that fight when it was on. I was fully expecting the Zombie to take him part, after having such a long time out for Ortega looked fantastic. He's always been a good striker, but what impressed me the most was his patience, which I don't think he's always had. Honestly, I've got Ortega potentially making some waves in the division.

That's a good point, it annoys me when companies don't take certain goods seriously. Honestly, hard drive returns, and things like Trezors should be binned off, as Amazon certainly doesn't verify that the contents haven't been tampered with. I was under the assumption that most retailers liquidate stock like this, rather than relisting it.

Where have you heard this? This is quite the significant claim, and I'm not even sure I can even consider it to be true for a moment. I'm not even sure, how this would benefit hackers, since all they would know is you own said device, and you might be a target for phishing attempts. Also, I'm fairly certain that the pay off for being caught leaking company information would just not be worth it, especially considering its apparently known that employees do this.

You mean "If" they 20x. I can't think of more than a handful of altcoins that I actually see appreciating in price over time, and especially inside of 4 years. Usually, a market takes time to grow, unless the coin is specifically used for pumping, and dumping which is not something that you particularly want to invest in if you believe it'll reach 20x, as very few altcoins actually do this.
I prefer the "I'll invest what I can afford to lose" plan personally.

This generally good sound advice for almost every industry I can think of. In fact, more companies that develop into something bigger, were once a more niche based service. I believe, amazon was originally a bookstore(?), and although its not always the aim to compete, but to achieve a certain market share to justify the platform.

Although, getting back to the original discussion; I personally don't think a decentralized "Youtube" would be enough of a benefit, or even an improvement. It depends what is meant by decentralized in this instance, since decentralized might mean that the platform gets overwhelmed by spam, and therefore contributes to its death.  Obviously, you could say that going the community moderated route would work, but only once the platform is big enough, since at the start most people won't care, they'll only care if the platform appears good, without being actually attached to the idea.

To back up your point even more though, Twitch was originally a site known for gaming streams right? However, its developed into a site which hosts a number of different content, and is slowly moving away from being branded as a "gaming streaming" platform, and more of a streaming platform. I believe, there's a number of political figures that now use the service, as an example.

Yes, this is generally the case. For example, if you take game development companies they usually hire a tonne more people once they begin development on the game, and then offload them once its been completed. Although, this is usually done via external contractors, you get the idea.

Bitcoin, is being constantly changed though, its just at a much more smaller scale compared to other projects. Although, as I mentioned even small projects can involve a lot of people at once. Local businesses I know of have hired hundreds of people to get their project off the ground whether thats full time employees or contractors. Bitcoin, by nature is largely volunteer based, and therefore its almost self explanatory why Bitcoin might feel "slow" at times, although as mentioned above, not even sure I agree with that statement.

I can't really comment on whether filecoin is a realistic option; although, from the very little I know about it, probably not. However, the issue with taking on a giant like Youtube is, you would probably either need a radical, evolutionary concept or enough money to be able to get a share of the market. Youtube, is probably known by everyone in the world, and to be honest Google, and a few other companies pretty much have unlimited funding. So, even if you were to grab a share of the market, it would require constant funding. If you truly wanted decentralized, then that might be an issue.

The better option would be to come up with another solution with not so much competition, and once that's generating money invest what you are earning into something like this. Youtube, is fundamentally flawed in a lot of ways, and there's definitely things that it needs improving on. However, tackling such a large company like Google, is going to be difficult even if you have funding.

Are the only distinct features of your proposed platform that it would be decentralised?

This probably should go without saying, but be on the look out for social engineering, or ways that the seller/buyer can influence your view, and convince you to do something other than the accepted practice. The thing is with any person to person interaction, you are allowing them to be able to use their initiative, and potentially skirt around the process. This is how most scams are done, basically they make up an excuse, or they send a link, and get you to log in to something, or anything like that. As already mentioned, whenever they ask you to go off site, ignore it, and probably cease dealing with that user. Since, if they've tried to get you off site, even if you were to successfully go through the official site, then you don't know if they actually own that money, they are sending you.

Centralized exchanges, you don't have to worry about that since you are usually dealing with a automated system, but once you introduce a chat system, which a few P2P exchanges have implemented, you have to be on guard against social engineering techniques.

That would be a pretty sweet deal, sign me up! In all seriousness, I'm usually quite publicly pessimistic about Bitcoins short term value, but more optimistic about its future worth. However, this is the first time in a long while, that I'm starting to believe that Bitcoin might not give too much up on its current price. I'm not sure I'm as optimistic as you, reaching for the 45k, but I think a 25-30k is definitely something I can get behind. 


I guess whatever way you look at it they would be taking a risk. Although, you would assume that mining companies would be in it for the long term, and therefore might even benefit form offloading their earnings frequently to try, and get more capital to invest either in more Bitcoin, or in equipment to increase their profit in the long run. It would be a hard decision to make, and without knowing the calculations, I'm not sure which would yield more results.

Personally, I'd recommend taking a look for yourself, specifically looking at altcoins which are of interest to you. Since, not every altcoin will behave the same, and Bitcoin doesn't always influence every single altcoin. There's a number of factors which contribute to the market of each Altcoin. So, to prevent misinformation, and biased being injected into answers, take a look at how the market reacted after each time Bitcoin went up.

We as humans love to identify patterns, even when there aren't any. Remember, that correlation doesn't always equal causation. Personally, I don't really believe in a Altcoin season, that happens once Bitcoin shoots up, the only conceivable way this would be true is because of increased exposure to cryptocurrencies. although I'm not sure that would significantly impact Altcoins enough on its own. 

Although, there's ways of disrupting the network such as the implied 51% attack, it doesn't really effect the Blockchain, especially not long term. As suggested, the Blockchain is merely a public ledger, which stores information that's broadcasted to it. That's all. The 51% isn't a hack either, its more of an attack to disrupt the network, although its not a very feasible attack for the long term.

Although, your point is somewhat true. Altcoins, and generally lesser known blockchains are more likely to suffer form 51% attacks, due to the fact that there's less devices contributing to the hashing rate.

Kind of I guess. Quantum computers definitely are possible, and have been made just not at the required power to be able to effect current standard algorithms. A quantum computer isn't very likely to be compressed any time soon, it might not even be physically possible, because of the amount of power that it requires, it needs to be cooled effectively. If you compress the machine too much, then that defeats the point. It would probably require operating in a sub zero room for it to be efficient also.

If you really want to go the open source route, you should probably look at hosting the Trezor software which is open source on a single board computer such as the Raspberry Pi. AFAIK, there's no issues with doing so, and you might trust the hardware you choose rather than the hardware which comes presupplied with Trezor. Its extra effort for sure, and would require a lot of testing before actually committing to it, but if you are storing a large amount of Bitcoin, and care a lot about using open source software then its probably worth the effort.

I find it hard to judge interviews to be honest. Usually, fighters don't want to do much talking, with the exception of the likes of Connor Mcgregor. Although, not in UFC I know that Tyson Fury has been very public about his media obligations, and how they wear down on him. I don't think Holloway will get walked over, but I have reconsidering my pick there. I've seen Holloway go through the trenches to get the win though, and I can't just ignore that as he definitely has it in him to endure, and win pretty much any fight.

Honestly, I'd really like to say; that people are waking up to how the world operates, and are completely disgusted by it. So, they would like to truly own what they own, and become responsible for it themselves.

In reality, its making money. The majority of people coming into Bitcoin, are here to make money, and probably to withdraw any profit back into their bank accounts. This is still good for adoption, because it will catch certain people during this process, but I'd expect the vast majority don't actually care much about Bitcoin as a technology, and the benefits of using it over traditional methods.

Do you mean that the box that contained the actual box of the trezor was sliced open, or do you mean that the authentication sticker was also sliced open, and the actual box of the Trezor was opened? If its the latter, I couldn't possibly recommend using it, even if it did come from an approved reseller, since it could have been tampered with during transit.

In reality, it would be rare for someone to have the know how to tamper with it in the first place, especially without butchering the device. However, definitely better to be safe than sorry.

If it did come from overseas, then customs to tend to open packages, and they don't tend to care about slicing important authentication stickers either.

It does though, because various propoganda campaigns have been run to associate Bitcoin with crime. Look at any news publication about Bitcoin involving crime, then you'll see that most are completely  biased towards the fact that fiat can also be used the same way. The only difference is, cash cannot be traced through a public ledger, where Bitcoin can be which is also something they usually fail to mention.

Ask a member of the general public, and there's a higher chance that someone associates Bitcoin with criminals, than they do with cash. I've witnessed it several times when I've heard people talk about Bitcoin, but I imagine this is fairly widespread.