(09-22-2015 06:20 PM)yolo Wrote:  Also, I'm closely monitoring some other crypto developments such as Ethereum, or any other decentralized payment network that can support higher number of transactions per second while maintaining a fair distribution scheme.

Considering diversifying or speculating in some alternative cryptos will also need to account for security considerations (the security of the alt as compared with the security of BTC).

Surely, it can be possible to make money with various alternative cryptos, and there are quite a few projects (some of which may NOT be pump and dump schemes (or evolve into such)); however, if any of the alts begin to increase in value (market cap), they will be subject to many of the growing pains that BTC has already experienced in its earlier days...

I agree with you that the growing pains of BTClandia are NOT over, but with a large number of alt cryptos, there are going to be a lot of known unknowns... that will be risky with any hedge investment that you may consider making into alts (funny that you only mentioned Ethereum as one of your considered potentials, when there are quite a few others that have decent chances of being good, too - whether for short term or longer term profitability).

(09-22-2015 06:20 PM)yolo Wrote:  Personally, I'm still waiting until consensus is reached to increase the block size to invest more. Bitcoin seriously needs a technical upgrade, if it wants to see the next big growth wave, imo. When this happens, and I think it's inevitable, it'll be some volatile times, as miners switch over to the new hardware requirements, expecting some panic. So, I have some cash set aside to buy in at the dips when this happens. I look forward to the day the first increased block is entered into the blockchain. As it currently is, Bitcoin is not very scalable, I think it's 4-5 transactions per second supported, very small amount; we've already seen the blockchain get clogged up recently, such as during the Greek crisis, and taking long time for transactions to confirm. It's not capable of supporting even remotely close the size of transactions as VISA, for example. I think it's becoming apparent that at its current state, Bitcoin can't support mainstream use even if there was demand for it. So where will it grow?

I really appreciate your outline of your reasoning for your skepticism regarding the potential for upward direction with BTC prices.

There is some sentiment out there like yours, and personally, I have the sense that there is more scaredness than necessary over this scaling issue and the forking questions.

Surely, maybe, as you suggested it is NOT a bad idea to hold off investing in case there is a dip in order to get "CHEAP COINS!!!!!!" hahahahahaha... as they say...

In essence, you seem to see the odds of a crash a little differently than me in the coming six months... so for example, maybe you would see it something like this (not to mean to put words in your mouth)... hahaha:


6 months -
less than $100 5-15 % chance
$100 to $200 30-35% chance
$200 to $250 20-25% chance
$250 to $300 15-20% chance
$300 to $400 <10% chance
$400+ about 5% chance

something like that?

Jay: what has been your overall net profit or loss since you have invested in BTC?

Haha, those are probably pretty close estimates. But then again these days I take price predictions with a grain of salt and try not to make too many of them. Instead of playing the game of predicting price points, I've become more interested in the fundamentals lately and paying attention to what's going on in the news. For example, Bank of America is filing patents for cryptocurrency, and I'm seeing more headlines about big banks getting into the game slowly. Then, I just heard news of the first BitLicense issued to Circle. Coinbase also filed a bunch of patents. Yes, I also hear bad news, too like Australian banks' hostility towards it, but overall more good news.

I agree with you about the forks not being a big deal, but scalability is an issue imo. The number of transactions that can happen per second right now is too small for the mainstream payment flow. Currently, Bitcoin is more suitable for a store of value and large transactions, which has a market of itself, yes. But, I think there would be tremendously more value if Bitcoin, being a payment for the Internet, can get up to the 50-100 transactions a second, let's say, and more. I want to see micro-payments possible on the Bitcoin block chain, and not via third parties. Or instead if there are other technologies/side chains that find a way to blend the slower Bitcoin blockchain together, that would be awesome, too; but, it seems like most projects today that have any audience operate as separate chains.

I guess long term, I'm bullish as you are, and haven't given up yet. I still have my whole life ahead of me, so I don't have a whole lot to lose. And, I still have savings in other stable assets, and have a healthy income stream in the event Bitcoin crashes big. So, I'm not too emotionally attached to any outcome of where Bitcoin goes. I do have a hard time believing crypto will die off. How could there be absolutely no application to this tech. I went to send a wire the other day, was at the bank twice, and couldn't get it through. It's pathetic. With Bitcoin, 10 minutes.

Still, if you think you put in too large of a position, (I'm not implying that you are), it would not be a bad idea to sell some at a loss if you have to. I guess you really have to find a comfort point where you really are "A" OK in losing it completely. Yes, for me it would probably be humiliating, but at least I wouldn't lose an arm over it. No need in getting greedy; if it goes to the moon, even a small investment will yield a sizable happy return.

(09-22-2015 09:57 PM)monster Wrote:  Jay: what has been your overall net profit or loss since you have invested in BTC?

Overall, my BTC portfolio is currently in the red because I have only been buying since November 2013, and i have NOT sold too many, yet.

How about you? Are you in BTC at all? or are you considering getting into BTC?

(09-22-2015 10:18 PM)yolo Wrote:  Haha, those are probably pretty close estimates. But then again these days I take price predictions with a grain of salt and try not to make too many of them. Instead of playing the game of predicting price points, I've become more interested in the fundamentals lately and paying attention to what's going on in the news. For example, Bank of America is filing patents for cryptocurrency, and I'm seeing more headlines about big banks getting into the game slowly. Then, I just heard news of the first BitLicense issued to Circle. Coinbase also filed a bunch of patents. Yes, I also hear bad news, too like Australian banks' hostility towards it, but overall more good news.

Actually, I was a bit hesitant to respond to jamaicabound's questions; however, I thought that it could be a decent exercise, if framed in terms of probabilities - and really, it reflects my sentiment at the moment, which could possibly change a month down the road, depending on developments. I have NEVER really been that comfortable with any certainty when guy's attempt to make definitives regarding BTC's price direction, because really we are really guessing and playing probabilities based on a variety of factors that we believe to be relevant to our own probabilities calculations.

(09-22-2015 10:18 PM)yolo Wrote:  I agree with you about the forks not being a big deal, but scalability is an issue imo. The number of transactions that can happen per second right now is too small for the mainstream payment flow. Currently, Bitcoin is more suitable for a store of value and large transactions, which has a market of itself, yes. But, I think there would be tremendously more value if Bitcoin, being a payment for the Internet, can get up to the 50-100 transactions a second, let's say, and more. I want to see micro-payments possible on the Bitcoin block chain, and not via third parties. Or instead if there are other technologies/side chains that find a way to blend the slower Bitcoin blockchain together, that would be awesome, too; but, it seems like most projects today that have any audience operate as separate chains.

yes, you present these issues fairly well, so there is likely some needs for bitcoin to adopt or to develop some medium and/or long term plans regarding transaction volume capabilities.

(09-22-2015 10:18 PM)yolo Wrote:  I guess long term, I'm bullish as you are, and haven't given up yet. I still have my whole life ahead of me, so I don't have a whole lot to lose. And, I still have savings in other stable assets, and have a healthy income stream in the event Bitcoin crashes big. So, I'm not too emotionally attached to any outcome of where Bitcoin goes. I do have a hard time believing crypto will die off. How could there be absolutely no application to this tech. I went to send a wire the other day, was at the bank twice, and couldn't get it through. It's pathetic. With Bitcoin, 10 minutes.

I've been involved in a variety of bitcoin forums and this thread, but I also have diversification of my assets.

(09-22-2015 10:18 PM)yolo Wrote:  Still, if you think you put in too large of a position, (I'm not implying that you are), it would not be a bad idea to sell some at a loss if you have to. I guess you really have to find a comfort point where you really are "A" OK in losing it completely. Yes, for me it would probably be humiliating, but at least I wouldn't lose an arm over it. No need in getting greedy; if it goes to the moon, even a small investment will yield a sizable happy return.

I have been pretty active in revising various aspects of my bitcoin investment strategy throughout my investment, and likely my approach has been quite a bit more time intensive than a lot of other people; however, it has been an interest and a hobby of mine since I started to research into it. In recent weeks, I have devised some ways to divide my BTC portfolio into three, and accordingly, there will be some price triggering points that are going to allow me to sell. I personally, view the probabilities of a continued crash to be less than you view them, and I am willing to ride it out and allow my BTC holdings to become less valuable, if such a price crash were to occur. In other words, I do NOT consider that there is any kind of meaningful reason for me to prepare further in such possible direction because of my overall investment portfolio and my continued ability to buy if the price were to go down further, as you suggested to be possible.

Another interesting development could affect bitcoin dynamics in the coming weeks and months - and that is looming again, a possible US Government shutdown....

Many put the odds of a USGOV shutdown at less than 50%; however, if such a shutdown were to occur (which is really NOT an improbable scenario), there could be some impacts on BTC prices.... in the short and medium term... and I would say likely to cause BTC prices to move in the upwards direction.

(09-22-2015 11:08 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(09-22-2015 10:18 PM)yolo Wrote:  Still, if you think you put in too large of a position, (I'm not implying that you are), it would not be a bad idea to sell some at a loss if you have to. I guess you really have to find a comfort point where you really are "A" OK in losing it completely. Yes, for me it would probably be humiliating, but at least I wouldn't lose an arm over it. No need in getting greedy; if it goes to the moon, even a small investment will yield a sizable happy return.

I have been pretty active in revising various aspects of my bitcoin investment strategy throughout my investment, and likely my approach has been quite a bit more time intensive than a lot of other people; however, it has been an interest and a hobby of mine since I started to research into it. In recent weeks, I have devised some ways to divide my BTC portfolio into three, and accordingly, there will be some price triggering points that are going to allow me to sell. I personally, view the probabilities of a continued crash to be less than you view them, and I am willing to ride it out and allow my BTC holdings to become less valuable, if such a price crash were to occur. In other words, I do NOT consider that there is any kind of meaningful reason for me to prepare further in such possible direction because of my overall investment portfolio and my continued ability to buy if the price were to go down further, as you suggested to be possible.

I want to make a little more of a explanatory response to this idea of the possibility of selling BTC.

We (Yolo and me) are probably in pretty close agreement on these points, but you did seem to provide a little more emphasis to selling than I did. I have NEVER really created any point at which I would sell, absent some clear and catastrophic or some clear news of a BTC successor. We have NONE of that these kinds of events, all we have, currently, (and you seem to be in fair agreement with me) that there is a probability that BTC prices will go down, and you, Yolo, seem to give a bit of a higher probability to the going down than me. NOTHING wrong with that.

But, also, you have already suggested that one of the ways to hedge is holding off on some of your investment at the current price, and holding off investing in the event that BTC prices go down. Another hedging concept that we likely agree about is merely having a large quantity of assets in fiat... so maybe if a guy has anywhere from 1% t0 20% of his assets in BTC, at the same time, he has the vast majority of his assets in fiat, so in that respect he is decently hedged, and also choosing the level of his hedge.

For the past approximately 22 months, my plan has been to accumulate BTC, and I have accomplished that considerably. My various plans to sell were considerably speculative because price was NEVER moving in the upward direction for very long periods of time. In other words my BTC portfolio was NOT in the black for very extended periods of time. Surely, there could have been ways to trade and to devise a trading plan, but I had NOT done that.

We will see what happens with BTC prices.

Currently, we have nearly 6 weeks of increased volume in a row, and the bears are having real difficulties getting BTC prices to go down further. Surely, we are at the time of the year in which fiscal years end and us government potentially closes and accordingly, new could have effects in either direction...

I know someone personally who got tricked by some of the recent changes at Circle....

One of the changes is that you can totally convert the holdings of your account from bitcoins to dollars or vice versa, at an instance and with NO fees... wow... could be strategically a good thing.. but in the end, .. WTF... People sometimes are NOT very smart when it comes to these kinds of things.

The person that I know, opened up her Circle account website one day, and got the message that she can convert the BTC holdings of her account to dollars, and she clicked "yes."

She thought that she was making the settings of the account in dollars (rather than BTC), but she did NOT realize that she was selling her total BTC by making such conversion. Luckily her total BTC holdings was only 7 BTC.

I asked her, "WTF you doing?" and she said that she did NOT know what she had done. I reminded her that there has been a little bit of price movement in the upward direction when she likely had done the conversion from dollars to BTC, but really she should attempt to convert all of her Circle account holdings back to BTC ASAP - because the whole reason that she had established such a BTC account was to have some of her assets in BTC - rather than a large portion of her holdings directly linked to the performance of the dollar..

Accordingly, she converted back the whole account and she only lost about .03BTC total with her inadvertence.

I'm sure that there are others, too who get tricked by this, and hopefully they are able to catch their mistake before the BTC price moves upwards and against them.

Regarding the various other recent changes in Circle, I find it very interesting… and NOT necessarily as negative, as was my first impression regarding those changes.

My first impression was that the recent Circle changes were a negative development for bitcoin because it seemed to have caused significant ease to convert BTC into dollars, and therefore, it seemed as if Circle was moving away from its supposed embracing of the BTC world - however, upon further study of Circle’s recent publications, I found that there are likely ways in which Circle account holders could strategically employ the newly available tools to his/her advantages.

Here’s a couple of the links to the recent publications (the first is a Circle blog post and the second is on Circle’s help pages):


http://blog.circle.com/2015/09/22/us-dol...p-updates/



https://support.circle.com/hc/en-us/arti...k-account-

(09-24-2015 03:23 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Regarding the various other recent changes in Circle, I find it very interesting… and NOT necessarily as negative, as was my first impression regarding those changes.

My first impression was that the recent Circle changes were a negative development for bitcoin because it seemed to have caused significant ease to convert BTC into dollars, and therefore, it seemed as if Circle was moving away from its supposed embracing of the BTC world - however, upon further study of Circle’s recent publications, I found that there are likely ways in which Circle account holders could strategically employ the newly available tools to his/her advantages.

Here’s a couple of the links to the recent publications (the first is a Circle blog post and the second is on Circle’s help pages):


http://blog.circle.com/2015/09/22/us-dol...p-updates/



https://support.circle.com/hc/en-us/arti...k-account-

I set up a debit card account on Circle, and over the weekend, I made a few relatively small purchases of BTC through the debit account.. just to play around with it.


After about the 3rd or 4th transaction in 48 hours, my bank froze my ability to use the debit card. I had to call up my bank to unfreeze the debit card and to resume with my various mini-transactions.

One difference with using a debit card is that bitcoin is credited to my Circle account right away, but also the money is confirmed as removed from my bank account right away, too.

I was a little bit worried that maybe I had some kind of low daily limit, and my bank told me that I could withdraw $3,500 per day, using the debit card through a circle transaction, and I could withdraw $700 and something per day at an ATM.. hm? Seems that the withdrawal limits had increased.

When I had been using a bank transfers through Circle, there would have been a credit of bitcoins to the bitcoin account (under the old system for the instant access authorization.. maybe up to $500 per week or something like that), and then the actual confirmation of the withdrawal from the bank account could have taken several days, to give a guy some time to get money into his bank account in the event that he does NOT have sufficient funds in his bank account.

Read this today and will have to think about what this means.

Quote:Australia has always been a global Bitcoin economic leader, holding over 7% of the global Bitcoin share, a stunning amount for a country of only 35 million people. Regulators have publicly worked on legal, tax and business framework for the country over the past 18 months due to increasing popularity of digital currency. This past spring, one in three Australians said they would leave their bank for a future of decentralized digital currency.

(10-05-2015 07:51 PM)SunW Wrote:  Read this today and will have to think about what this means.

Quote:Australia has always been a global Bitcoin economic leader, holding over 7% of the global Bitcoin share, a stunning amount for a country of only 35 million people. Regulators have publicly worked on legal, tax and business framework for the country over the past 18 months due to increasing popularity of digital currency. This past spring, one in three Australians said they would leave their bank for a future of decentralized digital currency.

It should NOT be a complete surprise that there are going to be various kinds of institutional attacks towards bitcoin. This has been in the news since about last week, and I have NOT studied the situation enough to understand whether BTC holders in Australia were forced into a sell or if they were able to transfer their BTC to some other wallet or location - I mean it is unclear about the transition and if they were provided any time.

Surely, it will be interesting to see how it plays out, and whether any other banks and/or countries follow the Australian lead in this regard.

For anyone looking to liquidate bitcoins but who's bank won't allow transfers or if you don't want to go through a site like coinbase to cashout for whatever reason if you have any buddies who gamble just let them use your coins to fund sportsbooks. My buddy is a big sportsbetter, most of the online sports books no longer can take credit or debit cards or at least he has troubles with his. The alternative is send a western union or as most sportsbooks take bitcoins he can just give me $500 and have me send the bitcoins to his sportsbook for him.

(10-06-2015 09:07 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  For anyone looking to liquidate bitcoins but who's bank won't allow transfers or if you don't want to go through a site like coinbase to cashout for whatever reason if you have any buddies who gamble just let them use your coins to fund sportsbooks. My buddy is a big sportsbetter, most of the online sports books no longer can take credit or debit cards or at least he has troubles with his. The alternative is send a western union or as most sportsbooks take bitcoins he can just give me $500 and have me send the bitcoins to his sportsbook for him.

Do you charge him for your services? I think it can be kind of risky getting involved in some of the financial undertakings of others, but then it could also be risky if you are charging him a fee, and the amounts get to be a lot (several thousand)

Why doesn't your friend just establish his own bitcoin account? There seem to be so many options these days - Some options require KYC and AML verifications, but there are other options as well..... Most of my involvement is with quasi-mainstream institutions - yet, however, once you have the bitcoins, your options become more open concerning degree of anonymity (even though bitcoin is likely quite a bit less anonymous than a lot of layperson users ad been understanding in its early days, and even in the past couple of years, we have learned more and more about traceability issues in bitcoin).

Surely, if your buddy creates a blockchain wallet, then you could send bitcoins to him there.. and then he would control of that wallet, no? I'm sure that there are some other decent options, as well, but blockchain is pretty robust and provides cloud-based portability.

(10-05-2015 08:43 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  It should NOT be a complete surprise that there are going to be various kinds of institutional attacks towards bitcoin. This has been in the news since about last week, and I have NOT studied the situation enough to understand whether BTC holders in Australia were forced into a sell or if they were able to transfer their BTC to some other wallet or location

I'd say it's almost guaranteed there will be attacks on bitcoin, since its purpose is to avoid state thuggery (they don't like that).

I think the biggest problem with bitcoin at the moment is a lack of extensive cash-for-bitcoin markets. If you have to go through a broker which requires ID (as is the case in Australia), it kind of defeats a lot of the purpose of bitcoin (anonymity, safety from states etc).

My guess is that eventually, in a lot of states, they will just illegalize bitcoins in the same way as they do drugs. 'Bitcoin dealers' will be made on par with drug dealers, they'll have undercover fake bitcoin dealer or buyer stings etc. The likely propaganda that will lead into this is painting bitcoin as a purely criminal device, "it's something mainly used by terrorists, pedophiles, hitmen, drug dealers etc". It won't succeed of course - people can still mail cash to exchangers.

(10-15-2015 08:52 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(10-06-2015 09:07 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  For anyone looking to liquidate bitcoins but who's bank won't allow transfers or if you don't want to go through a site like coinbase to cashout for whatever reason if you have any buddies who gamble just let them use your coins to fund sportsbooks. My buddy is a big sportsbetter, most of the online sports books no longer can take credit or debit cards or at least he has troubles with his. The alternative is send a western union or as most sportsbooks take bitcoins he can just give me $500 and have me send the bitcoins to his sportsbook for him.

Do you charge him for your services? I think it can be kind of risky getting involved in some of the financial undertakings of others, but then it could also be risky if you are charging him a fee, and the amounts get to be a lot (several thousand)

Why doesn't your friend just establish his own bitcoin account? There seem to be so many options these days - Some options require KYC and AML verifications, but there are other options as well..... Most of my involvement is with quasi-mainstream institutions - yet, however, once you have the bitcoins, your options become more open concerning degree of anonymity (even though bitcoin is likely quite a bit less anonymous than a lot of layperson users ad been understanding in its early days, and even in the past couple of years, we have learned more and more about traceability issues in bitcoin).

Surely, if your buddy creates a blockchain wallet, then you could send bitcoins to him there.. and then he would control of that wallet, no? I'm sure that there are some other decent options, as well, but blockchain is pretty robust and provides cloud-based portability.

It's my longtime friend and business partner so I'm not trying to make a buck off of him. Typically he funds his accounts with western union and they cover his fees but if there's a game he really wants to get on last minute it's quicker just to have me send a couple btc to his sportsbook.

Yeah I know coinbase really dumbs down bitcoin but I wonder if coinbase cracks down on who you can send coins to because of how formal everything is there. He's not really that good with computers or bitcoins so I don't mind helping him out.

He always pays me first too so I tell him, if there's any problem with your book not getting the coins thats on you not me, make sure you get me the right address etc.

(10-15-2015 12:08 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  It's my longtime friend and business partner so I'm not trying to make a buck off of him. Typically he funds his accounts with western union and they cover his fees but if there's a game he really wants to get on last minute it's quicker just to have me send a couple btc to his sportsbook.

Yeah I know coinbase really dumbs down bitcoin but I wonder if coinbase cracks down on who you can send coins to because of how formal everything is there. He's not really that good with computers or bitcoins so I don't mind helping him out.

He always pays me first too so I tell him, if there's any problem with your book not getting the coins thats on you not me, make sure you get me the right address etc.

Treat Coinbase as a surveillance operation. They want your info and survive on that. Your money is little to them. Get into the actual Bitcoin spirit and let it burn.

(10-15-2015 09:33 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  

(10-05-2015 08:43 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  It should NOT be a complete surprise that there are going to be various kinds of institutional attacks towards bitcoin. This has been in the news since about last week, and I have NOT studied the situation enough to understand whether BTC holders in Australia were forced into a sell or if they were able to transfer their BTC to some other wallet or location

I'd say it's almost guaranteed there will be attacks on bitcoin, since its purpose is to avoid state thuggery (they don't like that).

I think the biggest problem with bitcoin at the moment is a lack of extensive cash-for-bitcoin markets. If you have to go through a broker which requires ID (as is the case in Australia), it kind of defeats a lot of the purpose of bitcoin (anonymity, safety from states etc).

My guess is that eventually, in a lot of states, they will just illegalize bitcoins in the same way as they do drugs. 'Bitcoin dealers' will be made on par with drug dealers, they'll have undercover fake bitcoin dealer or buyer stings etc. The likely propaganda that will lead into this is painting bitcoin as a purely criminal device, "it's something mainly used by terrorists, pedophiles, hitmen, drug dealers etc". It won't succeed of course - people can still mail cash to exchangers.

Overall, I agree with your comment and your prediction.

There will likely be a large number of variety of ways in which bitcoiners will be attacked from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and also likely selective enforcement of arbitrary and ambiguous laws. Many governments seem to be playing bitcoin both ways because they really do NOT know what to do with it or how to handle it. Yet, as more and more money goes into bitcoin and its infrastructure, it will become more and more difficult to marginalize bitcoin or to control it.

Every guy is going to have to consider his activities in accordance with his jurisdiction, and his intended uses of bitcoin and even his risk profile. I had mentioned in my earlier post that I have been acquiring most of my bitcoins through various official channels, and surely I must consider that these coins are traceable - however, even if they are traceable to me, they can still be very empowering for me because I have a lot of abilities to move them around and maybe even to be able to cash out in various ways that may be ambiguous concerning whether I was the person who benefitted from the cashing out, and what exactly was received through such transaction that I made. Tools are going to continue to evolve for attempting such anonymity and /or capital controls avoidance mechanisms

(10-15-2015 12:08 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

(10-15-2015 08:52 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(10-06-2015 09:07 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  For anyone looking to liquidate bitcoins but who's bank won't allow transfers or if you don't want to go through a site like coinbase to cashout for whatever reason if you have any buddies who gamble just let them use your coins to fund sportsbooks. My buddy is a big sportsbetter, most of the online sports books no longer can take credit or debit cards or at least he has troubles with his. The alternative is send a western union or as most sportsbooks take bitcoins he can just give me $500 and have me send the bitcoins to his sportsbook for him.

Do you charge him for your services? I think it can be kind of risky getting involved in some of the financial undertakings of others, but then it could also be risky if you are charging him a fee, and the amounts get to be a lot (several thousand)

Why doesn't your friend just establish his own bitcoin account? There seem to be so many options these days - Some options require KYC and AML verifications, but there are other options as well..... Most of my involvement is with quasi-mainstream institutions - yet, however, once you have the bitcoins, your options become more open concerning degree of anonymity (even though bitcoin is likely quite a bit less anonymous than a lot of layperson users ad been understanding in its early days, and even in the past couple of years, we have learned more and more about traceability issues in bitcoin).

Surely, if your buddy creates a blockchain wallet, then you could send bitcoins to him there.. and then he would control of that wallet, no? I'm sure that there are some other decent options, as well, but blockchain is pretty robust and provides cloud-based portability.

It's my longtime friend and business partner so I'm not trying to make a buck off of him. Typically he funds his accounts with western union and they cover his fees but if there's a game he really wants to get on last minute it's quicker just to have me send a couple btc to his sportsbook.

Yeah I know coinbase really dumbs down bitcoin but I wonder if coinbase cracks down on who you can send coins to because of how formal everything is there. He's not really that good with computers or bitcoins so I don't mind helping him out.

He always pays me first too so I tell him, if there's any problem with your book not getting the coins thats on you not me, make sure you get me the right address etc.

If there seems to be a pattern of conduct, then you may want to create a blockchain wallet for such purposes, so that you have an intermediary account, rather than sending directly from your coinbase wallet. That way, it would be less likely to raise red flags with coinbase, and they are also protected from potential governmental scrutiny (that's probably motivating coinbase in carrying out such policies).

Actually, this recent upward BTC price movement has allowed me to begin to implement the next stage of my BTC investment strategy, and that is selling BTC on the way up. (it's part of a long-term strategy and maxim - regarding an asset in which you are long-term bullish - buy on the way down and sell on the way up).

Actually, currently, it's kind of a relief, but still somewhat nerve racking to adjust to kind of unpredictability. And, as most readers here realize, I have stayed in and I've been buying on the way down for nearly two years...

Since I have accumulated quite a few coins below $250, my selling on the way up was triggered (this time) at about $250.

I was NOT in a position to sell BTC in the mid-2015 run up to $317 because at that point, I had NOT acquired a sufficient quantity of BTC at prices below the evolving market price in order to trigger such selling points.

At this point, my BTC sell amounts remain relatively small, but in theory, or at least how the plan is laid out, the sell quantities will become larger and larger as BTC prices go up (continuing to assume that prices will be going up) - we will see what happens.

@ Satoshi:

Have you reconsidered any of your recent bearish public assertions, and wanting to express any changes to your BTC projections/considerations - or do you believe that BTC prices are only experiencing a "temporary" upward blip?

(10-16-2015 03:47 AM)BBinger Wrote:  Treat Coinbase as a surveillance operation. They want your info and survive on that. Your money is little to them. Get into the actual Bitcoin spirit and let it burn.

Are there other cryptos that are more anonymous? The public nature of addresses does bother me.

I'm not excited before we pass $320.

(10-17-2015 07:56 PM)SunW Wrote:  Are there other cryptos that are more anonymous? The public nature of addresses does bother me.

Yes many. Maidsafe for example, once launched, will have anonymous and instant transactions, without a blockchain.

I taking a break from online forums, and bitcoin, my 21 coins have been untouched for a while. Nice to see this thread is still alive!

Any news in bitcoin latly? Heard one buy in a bar mentioned bitcoin stock exchange?