# Bitcoin #

@joakes yes, I agree. That is the way things are at the moment but I think change will come sooner or later. I cant see governments allowing it to stay that way. I will be paying mine, I dont like the idea of going to jail over money

Bit of a downward movement in markets again. I suspect this is the 'dead cat bounce'. Be interested to see where it moves from here. I think cash is king at this stage. I have taken a big risk here and have positioned for the next move. It may end in tears over the coming days.

Topsy. I agree I pay mine as well. But not sure that I agree that govts will have much control given the number of exchanges they'd have to make international agreements with to even get data let alone the exchanges having KYC. Throw a VPN in and private coins and I think they may just be chasing their own tails without much luck. Easier to just raise general revenue taxes on the masses.

@joakse yes, good point

Nice Craig. As usual, The Simpsons sums it up better than any discussion on here, or in any financial media.

What a bizarre thing watching this play out.

Ive seen a few like that it is kind of funny, but sadly the alts are not still up the top of the cliff, they sadly follow Bitcoin down as well.

Interestingly i heard a lot of the big bitcoin holders are actually buying up now, i guess Warren Buffet had one thing right.

"Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful"

BTW. i got brave today and checked my balance right on the bottom at below 8K, and was surprised and happy to see I'm still 20% in the green.

Around early november people were getting excited and some were saying that bitcoin could reach 10K usd by the end of 2018 (not 2017) It was around 6 - 6.5K at the time. Others were saying no way. 6K to 8K is a solid gain in 3 months or so. There seems to be good support around 8K at the moment.

Hang on.... I’ll just edit my last post and change 8K to 6K. So much for support. At least ethereum has not dropped as much.

That drop was heavy didn't think it was going to stop bounced back from $6,625 to $7,500 pretty quick though.

Definitely not boring this crypto thing.

Big day today, things are going to get worse or better very quick.

Things are shaking up !

A hint of normalcy returning to the financial world . Will interest rates in Australia rise in lockstep with any potential rises in the US ?

Would you prefer it if I lied and said no ?

Interested to hear your take on rates mirroring US, blowin. Reasons?

Inflation not there, retail sales down. Can only put it down to housing and cost of funds?

I’m no expert , Kaiser. Very far from it . But I’d have thought that the Aussie banks borrow the money they lend to us from overseas and so when interest rates O/S increase then the Aussie banks have to increase their rates here in order to maintain profitability.

Right or wrong ?

I would be lieing if i said i wasn't a little concerned atm.

Glad i get into crypto very early. Some people must be really in the shit.

Yeah, no claims of being an expert here, either. The retail interest rate might change due to scarcity of funds, but doesn't mean the Res Bank will shift the cash rate. The spread got wider a while back and the banks may use the opportunity to take a bit more.

From what I've heard, the Govt has been doing the job of an interest rate rise in the background anyway. Lending ratios that have been put on the banks has made it much more difficult to borrow investment funds. They're trying to put a dent in the capacity in order to stem the demand. People want to buy, but the criteria to borrow at the moment is prohibitive. The aim is to correct the Syd/Melb bubble. Of course, they could just change the foreign ownership laws and would have a similar or even more profound effect, but that would be too overt and controversial.

Last comment is blowin clickbait, if ever there was one...

Sorry to digress, just to get back on topic....

Bitcoin currently US$6333

I am predicting a bottom out of 5k before we see some support. But what would i know this is new territory no data to go off.

It's been new territory the whole time.. the bubble has burst, game over.

Long way off game over.

Game over for all those looking to make quick cash late last year and over the Christmas holiday period who got in late. Nothing's that easy.

True a lot of newbies would of lost money. Sure there are some horrific stories

All part of the ride and the sole reason why I took out my original investments.

Stocks on the other hand.....fck knows why they've tanked the last few days. That's bleed me hard!!!

Yes. The people who got in late will be feeling it now. Far from game over though imo. My plan has always been to buy in to very carefully chosen icos and hold. At this point I am 7x up and have taken out my original investment and some profit long ago. If I was told in October that the market is in the position it is now I would have happily taken it. I have been up a hell of a lot more than I am now but I am still happy. I think there will come a time when altcoins are not so tied to the fate of bitcoin, but at the moment they go up and down together.
I was reading an interview with the devs from one altcoin and they were saying “we have no idea why the price of our token is going up, maybe people are looking at our roadmap and predicting a rise in the next few months” Of course it was just the blind hope of speculative investors. They would do well to listen to Warren Buffet “buy when everyone else is selling and sell when everyone else is buying”
It all seems so drastic at the moment besause the gold rush pushed prices so high but I think it will settle down. The developers have not stopped working on any of the projects that I have invested in. I still get emails almost daily about the progress that is being made. There is still a lot of money and a lot of brainpower in the space and it is not going to just disappear in a puff of smoke.

Tempting fate there.

Not sure whether it is courage or stupidity but I’m in for the long run

The prices of alts are actually holding pretty good really, i just hope that they can recover once things settle, Ethereum is still close to double the price it was in early November, I'm a big believer in the flippening http://blog.flippening.watch/what-is-the-flippening/ and i think this is part of the process of change.

Bitcoin is being cut down closer to a value it should be and hopefully the market in time will become less influenced by bitcoin.

At the peak, Bitcoin was trading $17 billion a day. There's guaranteed to be a LOT of victims in there. Hundreds of billions changed hands, that have since been cut into a third of that

http://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/6228096/tdest_id/568475
Some perspective...

Topsy, I can't recall if you mentioned this previously..........WANCHAIN??

Looks damn impressive and if it goes the path of Factom, wow, I wish i'd gotten in on it's ICO.

i call bitcoin at less than $1,000 by years end. along the way the price will spike and drop as the whales play the field.

on the positive side though, at least the number of miners consuming copious amount of pointless energy for nothing has significantly dropped.

@donweather yes, it looks great. I just missed the ico, the whitelist had closed the day before I heard about it. Thinking about buying in.

Been some real positive news over night from the CFTC (Commodity's and futures trading commission) this was the news we were waiting on that was either going to be bad or good.

Watched a video on it and lots of what they said was really really positive in regard to how they view cryptos

https://www.coindesk.com/cftc-to-take-do-no-harm-approach-on-crypto-regu...

Also Singapore has come out and said they will not be banning cryptos

Also was some positive news in Australia yesterday with the big banks also saying they won't ban crypto being bought with credit cards etc

Market currently is reacting positively to the CFTC news 70 billion plus gone back in since last night, bit coin having a nice looking run upwards with lots of volume.

Fingers crossed this continues Bitcoin currently up almost 2K from the recent bottom.

@Happy Whales don't want bitcoin to fail?

They make money from Bitcoin, you can actually see the biggest holders in Bitcoin here https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html

And their transactions and you will notice none are selling unless they are trading but in the drop yesterday many bought up quite a lot of bitcoin, i guess thats smart money, when all the dumb money panic sells, they are buying.

Indo - Take your profits and kick back this arvo with a relaxed smile on your face.

You’ll feel happy and relieved with real cash sitting securely in your pocket . It’s a nice feeling.

Topsy, I struggle to see the big returns if you're buying in at $5 on WANCHAIN. The horse has already bolted IMO. Don't get me wrong.....still good returns to be had.....just not the big ones if it opens at $5. Marketcap won't allow the huge returns even if it goes to $100

RECAP of the USA SEC Hearing today:

Negatives:
>Security concerns
>People need to be protected from themselves
>Exchanges need to be regulated like stock exchanges
>People are investing into #BTC for retirement - how do we stop them losing money
> Need to reduce volatility
> All #ICOs have to register with SEC or they're illegal
> Need more stringent regulation before allowing people to invest
> Need greater oversight before ETFs can be implemented.
>Believe that the market has been manipulated.
>Believe that more regulation is needed.
>ICO are scams
>Blockchain has potential
>Can not protect the people from who buy into scams
> Regulation could lead to FINRA designations & minimum equity requirements

Positives:
> possibly hit 20 trillion by 2020 if growth is sustained
> didn't ban crypto
> regulation leads to wall street investing

I don't think many of those things are negatives, i look at many of those as positives..

Regulation is a good thing if the market is to continue and prosper and become mainstream, it needs regulation in all areas that helps provide security, instead of being what it is now which is like the wild west, i mean yeah its kinda cool....but really going forward we need regulation like the stock market the more mainstream it becomes and the more serious investors that are involved.

As good as ICO's are to make money they are also like the salon in the crypto wild west and need even more regulation.

I agree Indo, necessary for sustained growth. People need it to trust it. That was what attracted me to ripple in the first place. (But you have me worried with the numbers part) One day, when we are all billionaires with gold chains around our necks, us believers will have to meet up in some cool wave rich location

I love what the STACK platform is trying to achieve. Very impressive if they can pull it off with Mastercard now on board. Will certainly allow crypto's into the mainstream day to day of customers and retailers.

@domweather I agree with you on wanchain

@shoredump like the idea of a millionaires meetup

Watching this atm, no research yet but will be jumping on the whitelist as soon as it opens just in case.
https://seele.pro

This is a cool video on the history of Bitcoins bubbles

Great video Indo, and exactly the reason why I’m not worried and am in fact sweating on some money to come through so I can buy some more. Buy the dip.

@indo great video, it goes higher each time. We are in on this very early (talking about the altcoins)

Airtoken (AIR) is below ico price atm $0.015

What's peoples thoughts on current market?

Seems we are on a bit of a bull run almost hit $10K USD

But is it just a bull trap?

I was really confident we were going to retest 6K before going up proper (i even put about 5% into USDT, to re-buy at 6K or lower, yes i know USDT is maybe a little risky at the moment)

But now not so sure, seems we have broken resistance in that 9K zone, next line of resistance is around 12K.

Imo i think bitcoin is on a run and hit 20k Aus in the next 2 months. People will sell there ATL coins pretty soon so they dont miss the boat.

Seele.pro whitelist opens today at 3am. I think it is limited so be quick if you are keen

Don't think I'll be investing in Seele.

https://thetechinsider.org/cryptocurrencies/seele-ico-review-is-it-a-sca...