Ask Any Crypto-Based Question

[tk808]

Ask a Crypto Question

I've been active within crypto for over 5 years now, and since the recent Bitcoin spike, there's been a lot of questions from newer community members in this alt-discussion forum. I've experienced and been in many of the situations you have, along with many of the other veterans of the crypto-world, that linger here. It's ultimately my passion to share what i know, and assisting others with wisdom and insight into all things related to crypto.


I invite you and anyone to ask any question pertaining to cryptocurrency and blockchain.
The only types of questions i will not answer, are those specific to a crypto, questions like "What do you think about Ethereum?" "What coin are you investing in?" ... etc.




This thread is open for anyone to ask questions, and anyone should feel free to answer them. The thread will be modded in-case of spam (from Google) and inconsistent discussions not pertaining to the topic.

This thread should not be used for investment/trading decisions or be declared as financial advice. Always DYOR and always invest/trade carefully.

[buriks]

from the number of bounties on bitcointalk this is an ETH token, in your opinion for the future, will there be a new trend with tokens that will match ETH tokens?

[IgorShumilo]

Which coin / token in your crypto portfolio you hold the longest because you think that the price does not match the prospects of the project. Tell us how you heard about bitcoin and how you bought it (p2p or stock exchange).
You have created a very interesting topic and I will look after the questions. I hope people will not ask the same questions and will read the topic from the very beginning!

[tk808]

from the number of bounties on bitcointalk this is an ETH token, in your opinion for the future, will there be a new trend with tokens that will match ETH tokens?

Back in 2014-2015, there was a trend to fork Bitcoin and create a coin pertaining to meme's and etc. This was a big thing, and this is when coins like DogeCoin, EarthCoin and every imaginable Xcoin appeared on Bitcointalk. From BBQCoin, FoodCoin, WaterCoin, Titscoin and etc. This was the trend!

Now, 3-4 years later, we are in the period of ERC-20 tokens, very similar to those coins back then. Now tokens, are getting more serious and are trying to capture industries and rework them entirely. These are basically the majority, a token that functions in a larger system.


Could something else come and replace ERC-20 token standard? Probably, but it's hard to realize and understand what this can be at this moment. Personally, i suspect that ERC-20 token is a very basic concept and more advanced blockchain years down the line will make ERC-20 tokens look like the forks in 2014-2015. When it does happen, it will revolutionize crypto's, just how Ethereum did. Basically, the next big blockchain that revolutionizes the current ERC-20 token trend, will be a top 3-5 crypto. Some new blockchains have serious potential in regards to this, but there isn't anything revolutionary (easy to use essentially) to overthrow ERC-20 yet. ERC20 will be around forever, just like all Bitcoin POW coins, and Peercoin's POS coins.

All technology is an advancement and a step up from another. The next major milestones, i think, will eventually be done by large fortune 500 companies like Intel and etc. The most talented developers in Crypto will get recruited by these companies.  

On a side note: Qora was the first crypto that attempted smart-contracts (one could say NXT though). Qora was the ethereum before ethereum imo, sadly it never took off because of development and technical problems.

Original Ann: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=522102.0
NEW Ann: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1358722.0


My weakest understanding is with technical aspects of blockchain and how they are fundamentally designed. I can't go into details, perhaps someone will comment on my remarks here that knows a bit more about what's occurring with the more advanced blockchains.

[tk808]

Which coin / token in your crypto portfolio you hold the longest because you think that the price does not match the prospects of the project. Tell us how you heard about bitcoin and how you bought it (p2p or stock exchange).
You have created a very interesting topic and I will look after the questions. I hope people will not ask the same questions and will read the topic from the very beginning!

The longest coin i've ever held is of course, NXT, the first ICO to occur here on BTT (i didn't invest in NXT ICO), but invested in it when it hit it's first exchange (some scammy/shitty one). While most development behind NXT transferred to Ardor project, i hold just the Ardor equivalent i had in NXT (and sold my NXT). So basically Ardor, which is NXT reborn (fork).


The first time i heard about cryptocurrency was through some money making forum (mid 2013), pertaining to marketing, ads and etc. I eventually stumbled upon a Goldcoin post, and i was intrigued because the concept was so different from almost everything else. I searched a bit further (thro the Goldcoin forums), and realized what Bitcoin was, everyone was talking about it. This was just as Silk-road incident was just about to occur, which led to the first spike in Bitcoin price to ($1100-1200 USD). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(bitcoin). I was watching Bitcoin's market, and it was fucking crazy! Bitcoin went from $150-200 usd to $1k usd in like 1 month, day after day, new heights and gains. It was so bizarre to witness such a thing, as a fresh crypto guy.


There was major news behind this, and the first major flood of crypto currency individuals came to these forums to search for more information and see what this was all about (including myself).

If any single event caused Bitcoin to become noticed by the masses, it was Silk-Road, then a bit later the MT. GOX incident.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox

[coin8coin8]

I read your past posts, I really admire your knowledge in the field of crypto, you are very talented！
As an old member of the forum, you can raise objections to the Merit system. this is very rare for higher rank member. Yes, for newbie/jr.membr, the merit system is very difficult to overcome. It is a talented person like you, and now only got 35 Merits, not to mention newbie.In the long run, your views are correct, As the times passes, the entire system will come to a halt, due to the unreasonable replenishment rates and the lack of user-understanding of how the system functions.It will cause the forum to lose its vitality.
I read your topic "Bitcoin's bubble is going to be corrected"，I want to ask you a few questions.

1. Now there are more money in the crypto market than in 2014. In the past, due to the low total amount of funds in the market, once the funds flow into the market, the bear market is easy to reverse, but now there must be a very large amount of money flowing into the crypto market to reverse the bear market now,I think it is very difficult. How long do you think the current bear market will last?

2. Due to the large amount of scam ico, investors are afraid to invest in ico, which will make it more difficult for those really good project financing. In the end, a good project may also fail because it cannot raise enough money. It will form a vicious circle, and more investors will not dare to invest, so ICO is getting worse. Do you think the current market is like this?

3. Ethereum and its ERC20 brothers are now going downhill, will Ethereum be replaced? Who is most likely to replace Ethereum？

Maybe my understanding is superficial. If there is something wrong, please point out！ thank you very much!
I will continue to pay attention to your posts and learn more from you.

[kingzpro]

Im myself following crypto market for long now and as most of the community is concerned about the current negative sentiment in the market that is here since many months, i will like you to comment on the market situation and when we can expect recovery and bulls back?

[5thFear]

Well i am not new but still relatively new. I joined this industry as a spectator in 2016 and recently starting doing bounties and airdrops. I don't have any investmet, actually lost all my 25k usd worth money to a hyip site. Anyway What i want to know is that is it possible for me to make a living out of here because i don't have a job and i am doing full time bounties. Nothing else.

Can i live in making a living out of here ? i have been doing around 20 bounties right now but they all promise to pay about 3, 4 months later. And 2 of my bounties have already said that their softcap not met so no coins for anyone.

What do you suggest ? Oh and for the job, i tried but no luck. So...

[tk808]

I read your past posts, I really admire your knowledge in the field of crypto, you are very talented！
As an old member of the forum, you can raise objections to the Merit system. this is very rare for higher rank member. Yes, for newbie/jr.membr, the merit system is very difficult to overcome. It is a talented person like you, and now only got 35 Merits, not to mention newbie.In the long run, your views are correct, As the times passes, the entire system will come to a halt, due to the unreasonable replenishment rates and the lack of user-understanding of how the system functions.It will cause the forum to lose its vitality.
I read your topic "Bitcoin's bubble is going to be corrected"，I want to ask you a few questions.

1. Now there are more money in the crypto market than in 2014. In the past, due to the low total amount of funds in the market, once the funds flow into the market, the bear market is easy to reverse, but now there must be a very large amount of money flowing into the crypto market to reverse the bear market now,I think it is very difficult. How long do you think the current bear market will last?

2. Due to the large amount of scam ico, investors are afraid to invest in ico, which will make it more difficult for those really good project financing. In the end, a good project may also fail because it cannot raise enough money. It will form a vicious circle, and more investors will not dare to invest, so ICO is getting worse. Do you think the current market is like this?

3. Ethereum and its ERC20 brothers are now going downhill, will Ethereum be replaced? Who is most likely to replace Ethereum？

Maybe my understanding is superficial. If there is something wrong, please point out！ thank you very much!
I will continue to pay attention to your posts and learn more from you.

Im myself following crypto market for long now and as most of the community is concerned about the current negative sentiment in the market that is here since many months, i will like you to comment on the market situation and when we can expect recovery and bulls back?

 

Thank you for the kind remarks!

I want it to be clear, that any financial advise i give you should use at your own risk. I'm not a genie, and i can't predict the future, i can only tell you what i know from my experiences. Some of what i tell you may be incorrect, some of it may be spot-on, i warn everyone to never take what other people say for granted (even myself).



1) The perception of "big money" flowing into the market is very tricky, people don't often acknowledge that total volume is based on movement, for every coin sold, there's a person that bought it.. obviously. So, at any given moment, you can cut the total volume in half for any coin and determine that that volume for people buying/selling. MOST traders actually sell at a loss, because the markets are so volatile it's very tricky if you haven't been involved with the coin, if you don't understand the exchange and what type of overall market you're in, then you're going to lose money.

As the markets get bigger, it's going to be much much more difficult to "pump & dump" coins, due to the capital needed to manipulate the markets. The big manipulators of the market have built positions years ago, and or are such large investors (with a ton of money pooled together or not), that their influence on the markets can still be seen. Other than that, for the most part, today's market is heavily reliant on sentiment, if people see a 1% decrease, other users are more likely to sell (especially if you're a day trader and do not have a handle on the markets) and the cycle continues creating massive losses for everyone.

When will the bear market end? Who knows. I really can't determine that or give you a clear explanation. My biggest go-to secret is viewing news on a daily basis (with big instutions getting into bitcoin, ETF's and etc), along with historical prices. I don't really expect the markets to enter a bull-ish period by the end of this year, i think Bitcoin may recover a bit, but i doubt it'll reach 10k again this year. It will be much more clear by mid-next year on the current situation of the markets. If you really wanted a number, i personally think the markets won't recover for another 1-3 years (until BTC surpasses 20k again), potentially even longer.

A LOT can happen in months/years with crypto.



2) Yeah it is. But, there's a lot of big industries and outside influences/talents that are being attracted to crypto, with that, they bring experiences in marketing, development and etc. The barrier for entry for new ICO's increases daily, more and more money is needed to really see a successful ICO through.

The current ICO's occurring need little investment, and in-turn, they get little funding these days (especially since it's a bear market). It's going to become more and more clear over the next 2 years that 95% of the ICO's launching are pure shit, and the good projects will have their turn in the light, always.

The biggest problem for me (as an investor) is the separation of Bitcointalk, and all these newer sites to market ICO's and team's going at it solo (without any website help). It becomes very difficult, if there's no major names or backing behind the coin (marketing aswell), to realize these coins in the current climate.

There's a lot to say on this, but hope this introduction is significant for you.



3) Ethereum will not be replaced anytime soon. It's the adopted standard, the easiest to develop on (since a lot of people have created ERC-20 Tokens). The thing with smart-contracts and platforms that get built ontop of is the accessibility for developers, information available and prooven tech. Ethereum has all those qualities. Other coins (in the future and now) may have more significant blockchains and better features, but the current climate ERC-20 is just fine.

The major problem with ERC-20 is availability and how bloated the blockchain will be. Especially when the next major bull-markets occur, it took me like 2days to get a transaction through when cryptokitties was a thing (it destroyed ethereum's network, flooded it).

People will always try to use better blockchains for what they are trying to achieve and marketing purposes, but for most purposes currently, ERC20 satisfies most. Until this climate becomes more sophisticated and evolves into a new level, ERC20 will remain supreme. It could be another 2-5 years before Ethereum becomes severely underthreat, especially if the next bullmarket occurs, Ethereum will not be able to cope with the amount of tokens build on its platform (the number of tokens out there has increased significantly since December.)

[tk808]

Well i am not new but still relatively new. I joined this industry as a spectator in 2016 and recently starting doing bounties and airdrops. I don't have any investmet, actually lost all my 25k usd worth money to a hyip site. Anyway What i want to know is that is it possible for me to make a living out of here because i don't have a job and i am doing full time bounties. Nothing else.

Can i live in making a living out of here ? i have been doing around 20 bounties right now but they all promise to pay about 3, 4 months later. And 2 of my bounties have already said that their softcap not met so no coins for anyone.

What do you suggest ? Oh and for the job, i tried but no luck. So...

Sorry to hear about your losses, if it's any comfort, i sold two (of three) of my NEMSTAKES for roughly 4k USD in total (in 2014 or 2015 can't recall). If i held onto those other two, i would of had an extra 4-6 million USD. Very few people have been in that type of situation, and i still kick myself to this day for making that dumb mistake, but it happens all the time in crypto, i was fortunate enough that i haven't lost majorly yet in crypto. When i started in crypto, i took out 2 loans for 600 USD, and since then, i only put about another 600 usd ever into crypto. I sit on profits from my initial investments, no matter what occurs. I only lose what i did not convert to USD.

All in all, i've lost for being in dumb in crypto, not real money i invested personally. Even though i have lost millions. If that makes sense, haha.



There are a few ways i'm going to view this problem.

1) If you truly believe in crypto, and enjoy your profession here, then i highly recommend you do what you love to do despite what situation you're in. Because when the time comes, and you were in the right place at the right time, you could come out very wealthy over-night (if you were lucky enough).

2) In terms of making a living off of bounties, it's a very tricky subject. Money from bounties is staggered as you said, you're not getting paid RIGHT NOW, but in 3-4 months. Who knows what can happen, more than often these coins die, in some cases they rise expoentially. You can expect about half of those bounties will be total failures and bring you no profit, the other half may bring you good returns, and 1-2 will actually be the majority of the money you make. I can't give you hard ratios, but from my experience, 1/10 1/20 coins i view have some potential.

You can make a living in crypto, but you have to be very smart and aware. Those individuals who do make a living from bounties are examining every piece of information, from analyzing markets daily, analyzing the direction of their coin, and the most important step, understanding weither or not the bounty coin you're doing has any future. I would recommend not relying on bounties initially to make a living, instead of treating it as a 2nd job, that may be very lucrative for you. It's very unpredictable and i can't give you a hard MOST DEFINITELY you can make a living, because it's hard to understand how other people view certain coins and how they research.

Again, i'll stress in entering bounties like you're going to invest in the coin, because you are investing in them, with your time and effort. If the teams lacks transparency, details for their coin or something doesn't seem right then avoid it and move on.

It's an acquired talent and skill to realize what coins succeed, and what coins fail, and often it's out of anyone's control entirely. Even I still struggle to this day knowing which coin is going to be in the top 100, or total fail. This is due to the amount of other coins launching at the same time, the TRUE intentions of the team (which is always unknown), and overall the trends with the markets, and exchanges they get listed on.

There are many many forces that determine which coins are good or not, and how profitable they will ultimately be.



If you're careful, smart and research into coins to get a better understanding, you'll come to a point where you come to an epiphany in what crypto-currency really is, and how many shitcoins there are out there and how to maximize your time and gain a lot of income/profits. This takes a lot of dedication.

Once more, you can make a living, but it depends how much you need to live. I'm not an expert bounty hunter, but i understand how coins fail/succeed and all the problems and discussions other bounty hunters bring up. The best thing to do is find a group that discusses bounties heavily, this will help you understand more.

[coin8coin8]

Vitalik Buterin said at the Ethereum Industry Development Summit that the days of explosive growth in the blockchain industry may have passed, and now ordinary people are aware of its existence. “The blockchain space is approaching the ceiling.” “If you talk to a generally educated person, they may have heard of the blockchain at least once. There is no longer a thousandfold growth opportunity for anything in this area.” The growth of coins and other digital currencies six to seven years ago has benefited from marketing, and "this strategy is approaching a dead end."

This is what Vitalik Buterin said at the China Blockchain Industry Summit yesterday. Does this mean that cryptocurrency is already unprofitable?

[tk808]

Vitalik Buterin said at the Ethereum Industry Development Summit that the days of explosive growth in the blockchain industry may have passed, and now ordinary people are aware of its existence. “The blockchain space is approaching the ceiling.” “If you talk to a generally educated person, they may have heard of the blockchain at least once. There is no longer a thousandfold growth opportunity for anything in this area.” The growth of coins and other digital currencies six to seven years ago has benefited from marketing, and "this strategy is approaching a dead end."

This is what Vitalik Buterin said at the China Blockchain Industry Summit yesterday. Does this mean that cryptocurrency is already unprofitable?

Even the best minds in crypto can't say with 100% certainty the direction of crypto. I generally agree with what he has stated, but there's one fundamental flaw, and that's where big money resides.

Most are certain that Bitcoin and cryptos in general will experience explosive growth at least once more, when the average institutional investor enters crypto (wall-street in general). Most are waiting for a final legitimization and recognition form the U.S. and around the world.

Along with this prospect, there's a lot more to consider in the broader context of the worlds monetary systems, and potential failures in the future (collapse of USD and other currencies could occur, unlikely, but could). Vitalik was reluctant to mention the growth of Bitcoin initially in 2013, and the "doom and gloom" many had in their minds during 2014-2017, people still predicted Bitcoin could reach 10k USD, but the vast majority (even myself) never believed it would occur within a few years.

Crypto will recover, while we may not experience substantial growth (everything has an upper limit), the general market capitalization is often estimated to be a 2 trillion dollar market (every time i calculate earnings it's based on a 2 trillion mcap, 1 day to 100 years from now, who knows), about 1000% increase from what it is now.

Vitalik's logic is this: the jump from 10 Million mcap, to 200 billion is ENORMOUS, but, the jump from 200 billion to 2 trillion is even more grand (not by %, but by sheer money involved), thus making the later growth even more substantial. I acknowledge what he was trying to say with 10k+ % increases, which will become more of a rarity, but the end of major explosions of growth will not end, but slow down forsure. The top 50 crypto, will hold their positions, unlike what we've seen in the past. There will always be flukes, and new technology that overthrows existing, and that's one reason i will always be hesitant on accepting Ethereum as the standard or etc.

On the flip side, in this current market, coins have shrunk quite a bit (in some cases by 90%), what would happen if bitcoin suddenly went back to 20k in the next 2-3 years? Guess what, the same gains will be made again on those coins, only this time, some may even go even higher because of their current valuations against BTC. There are many many perspectives to look at. Just because Vitalik is founder of Ethereum, doesn't mean he suddenly knows everything about crypto. He's a very intelligent guy, do not get me wrong, but, I don't fully believe he understands what he's talking about sometimes, and i've been reading and hearing his words for the past few years now.

Is Vitalik overall right? Yes in the context of what i written above, but mostly no imo. I firmly believe he's talking only in the perspective of ERC20 token launches, and is neglecting any new and upcoming tech that will overthrow Ethereum's monopoly hold on the smart contract system or even Bitcoin itself, years from now.


As with everything anyone says, there are nuances. Vitalik is in a position of power, and he can dictate what the markets will do (especially with ETH) to a minor extent. His words are valued because he built the second biggest (mcap wise) and largest blockchain (factoring in all contracts), but everything he says is just an opinion, just like with any person. It's easy to be negative in a negative environment, and for that judgement to be accepted. Just like how everyone thought they'd be a millionaire in a positive environment. No one can predict the future, we can only base our current knowledge on all past knowledge and experiences. This is how we draw conclusions for the future.

In my personal opinion, crypto is a long-way from mainstream adoption. Until you sit down one day and your accountant and says "Disney is doing well and we have great forecasts in the next year, but Bitcoin is expected to outperform Disney within the next 10 years..." then you truly know mainstream adoption has occurred, when institutions/businesses and etc recognize the legitimacy of crypto and blockchain.

Most people don't even know the function and still do not recognize the legitimacy of the blockchain. I don't call that mainstream adoption, I call that mainstream awareness. Bitcoin had mainstream awareness in 2009-2010 btw, i remember walking down my highschool hallway and seeing a picture "Who is Satoshi Nakamoto." This was a big thing on the internet, and did catch mainstream news i believe also. People were aware of Bitcoin that far back, but had no clue what it was or what it even meant. I guarantee this is how some of the oldest guys here on BCT found about Bitcoin.



EDIT: In case you are curious, this is what vitalik was ultimately talking about, summed up in 1 graphic. No one knows where we are on this graph, you can only speculate. Most would say "The Chasm" right now, but guess what, "The Chasm" happened in 2014 aswell. And that's what my entire post above is about:

[tk808]

Thanks for your questions thus far, hope they help you a bit.

If my posts are too long, just let me know, i want to give you in-depth insight and answers to really make this thread worthwhile.

[wengskie33]

In your opinion, Are those coin or token from airdrop are worth to hold? Can you say that you have to dump it when the price in the market is pumping or it's better to hold it and wait when the price is mooning?
Thank you for your answers.

[tk808]

In your opinion, Are those coin or token from airdrop are worth to hold? Can you say that you have to dump it when the price in the market is pumping or it's better to hold it and wait when the price is mooning?
Thank you for your answers.

1) Dump when you think the market has peaked (sometimes you can get caught in bear trap, and coin will go higher).

2) On very very rare occasions, you'll sell and the market will hold somewhat steady near its peak. Holding airdropped coins and gaining value over years is so rare, that you'll be looking for this unicorn all your life. Don't wait, unless you have undying faith in your coin. One recent (somewhat of an) example of this rare occurrence, is with Hydro (airdropped coin). https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/hydrogen/#charts even though it held somewhat steady, it still pumped and dumped heavily.

3) If you absolutely have faith in the coin, sell high (on pumps) and buy back at about 35-70% discount (depends how near the peak you sold), good rule of thumb. There will always be a chance, no market climbs forever.

4) With any airdrop coin, the price will peak (talking about like 100-200% increases here btw), at one point or another, then the price will fall heavily. My advice to you, is gather every airdrop coin's market history and compare their pumps and dumps. (aside from NEM, which was a unicorn and a crypto bounty/airdrop hunter's dream)

5) I always tell myself this 1 rule "What goes up must come down," and it has always been true, law of gravity applied to crypto markets (what i say to myself). The trick is how far up, how far down and how long; That's a millionaires secret.


Warning: This is just my experiences and what i've learned. Always DYOR and invest/trade carefully.

[coin8coin8]

In case you are curious, this is what vitalik was ultimately talking about, summed up in 1 graphic. No one knows where we are on this graph, you can only speculate. Most would say "The Chasm" right now, but guess what, "The Chasm" happened in 2014 aswell. And that's what my entire post above is about:

Thanks for your questions thus far, hope they help you a bit.

If my posts are too long, just let me know, i want to give you in-depth insight and answers to really make this thread worthwhile.

Thank you for your answer. Vitalik Buterin’s words scared me，but your answer gave me confidence. My assets have depreciated by 80% this year. Most of my altcoins have not been sold in time. I invested $50,000 in 2017-2018. Now I am I have to cut my expenses, my life is getting worse, fortunately, dogecoins has risen a lot this week, so this week I sold some dogecoin and changed some money to live.
I now hold BTC, ETH, EOS, XRP, ADA, WAVE, BTM, LYM, REBL, Dogecoin, STX (it's dying), MOT (very bad coin), etc. I open my wallet, various altcoins, I am thinking about change them all to bitcoin, but it seems that this is uneconomical.
Your answer is not long, because it is worth it, I need someone give me confidence to support me at this hard bear market.

[tk808]

In case you are curious, this is what vitalik was ultimately talking about, summed up in 1 graphic. No one knows where we are on this graph, you can only speculate. Most would say "The Chasm" right now, but guess what, "The Chasm" happened in 2014 aswell. And that's what my entire post above is about:

Thanks for your questions thus far, hope they help you a bit.

If my posts are too long, just let me know, i want to give you in-depth insight and answers to really make this thread worthwhile.

Thank you for your answer. Vitalik Buterin’s words scared me，but your answer gave me confidence. My assets have depreciated by 80% this year. Most of my altcoins have not been sold in time. I invested $50,000 in 2017-2018. Now I am I have to cut my expenses, my life is getting worse, fortunately, dogecoins has risen a lot this week, so this week I sold some dogecoin and changed some money to live.
I now hold BTC, ETH, EOS, XRP, ADA, WAVE, BTM, LYM, REBL, Dogecoin, STX (it's dying), MOT (very bad coin), etc. I open my wallet, various altcoins, I am thinking about change them all to bitcoin, but it seems that this is uneconomical.
Your answer is not long, because it is worth it, I need someone give me confidence to support me at this hard bear market.

One thing i'm pretty certain of, is bear markets in crypto won't last forever, there are forces that will always try to manipulate the markets into bulls, causing FOMO panick like 2017. And trust me, big whales seen this fomo and will utilize it again. And yeah it is scary, a nice sum of your money is invested.

[tk808]

Interesting thread. What do you think about privacy-optional coins such as Zcash and mandatory-privacy/fungible coins such as Monero (i'm not asking about price obviously)?

Privacy based coin's have mostly died out with new wave of investors. As you are aware, back in 2014-2015, this was a major major trend. In the current climate, more investors are being drawn away from the initial ideals that you and I are aware of, decentralization, anonymity and etc. And that's one of the most disappointing things for me, and i'm sure many others who adore cryptos. I want it to be clear, there is a lot of manipulation and advertisements for "decentralized anonymous coins," kinda like coins want to have EVERYTHING in their blockchains, but i do not consider those privacy coins at all.

The flood of shitcoins (ICO's pertaining to industries) have ultimately drowned out any innovation in these areas. Most privacy coins (ICO's) pertain to DASH forks, MN coins, and have ultimately flooded the market, where these coins have no value whatsoever, just like the majority of ERC20 tokens. The projects that are seeking to innovate, are few and are COMPLETELY drowned out by the mass flood of shitcoins, i see these coins and i feel bad, because 3 years ago, their coins would of been within the top 100 today. The barrier for entry of coins has grown and will keep growing, more and more capital will increase proportional to time.
 
In regards to Monero, I don't expect any privacy coin to contend with Monero in the future, it's amazing because there was so much fud behind Monero in the early days and yet it succeeded above all other priv coins, especially over it's father, Bytecoin (the original coin that incorporated cryptoknight on the darkweb). There's a lot of history and reasons why Monero ultimately succeeded above and bytecoin, and i won't go through and give a history lesson here.

There will always be a small niche within crypto for anonymous based coins, but unfortunately, (again) the need/want for privacy coins has become much much less significant. There's also a huge negative connotation against these types of coins (propaganda mostly), and many feel these types of coins are too closely associated with illicit acts. They are very easy to manipulate, and often those creating these types of coins are creating them to serve one selfish-purpose or need, coins like DASH and Monero are successful because they were pretty transparent, in the early days, with what they wanted to achieve.

Monero is the king of anonymous coins and share somewhat of a throne with Dash, again i don't really see that changing ever. Monero is the Ethereum of privacy, and until the technology and development significantly increases over the next few years, or there's suddenly critical vulnerabilities with the protocols that handle the blockchain obfuscation (the way Monero is private for those who don't know), then there will be a need for a new contenders, and new contenders will fill these voids.

I'll be honest here, i know little about Zcash, i never have taken my time to really understand the underlining Zerocoin tech, and why it's more significant (or contends with) than cryptonight. My weakest understanding resides with technical blockchains, and i hope someone out there will eventually give you a better understanding of these chains. But, the option to become private or not, is a gimmick to a certain extent, if that's how Zcash works. You either are going to buy a coin for 100% anonymity or safety, and for prooven tech, or you're going to invest in something else. There's not really a desire for a coin to handle both your private transactions, and public transactions. I think XSPEC is a fork from Zcash, in which i have had some experiences with the wallet and etc, it's just not a nice feature to have, or very essential. If i personally wanted to be private, i would always go with Monero or Dash, it's just much more practical. That's purely opinion btw, i actually have no real use for anoncoins, but they are some of my favorite coins to trade/invest with.



In regards to the markets: If you calculate the top 100 coins, and how many of those are strictly privacy-based coins, it's very small <10%. Even though, privacy coins are the truest crypto-currencies and the truest successors to Bitcoin, in the sense the reincarnation of Satoshi's vision for decentralization and anonymity, unfortunately, most ideologies are lost or manipulated for profit with newer investors.

[vit05]

What is your opinion on governance? Do you believe that it is possible to have governance using only the tools of the protocol? I mean, solutions that do not involve forks, whose differences are resolved only by voting.
 
Do you believe that projects using PoS can function without a central authority and in a totally distributed way?

[Louis21]

What's your opinion about regulation, will it be good or bad for the entire Cryptocurrency industry?