Bitcoin Talk

they have no idea who just stole $500 million from that japanese exchange ....

never forget, hackers can break into anything digital and you have no protection or guarantee on said funds sitting in these exchanges themselves.

every purchase using crypto is a taxable event, buying crypto with other crypto, taxable event. hold for more than 12 months, capital gains tax (20%)

Hanging onto FRN's = Russian Roulette

Hedge funds are wagering that Bitcoin’s free-fall will keep going. Leveraged funds, which include hedge funds, held 2,974 short positions in Cboe Global Markets Inc.’s Bitcoin futures as of Tuesday, a fivefold jump from the prior week. Long bets dropped to 895 contracts, down 22 percent from a week earlier, according to weekly data released Friday by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...coin-s-pain-isn-t-over-on-cboe-futures-market

A growing number of big U.S. credit-card issuers are deciding they don’t want to finance a falling knife. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. said they’re halting purchases of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on their credit cards. JPMorgan, enacting the ban Saturday, doesn’t want the credit risk associated with the transactions, company spokeswoman Mary Jane Rogers said. Bank of America started declining credit card transactions with known crypto exchanges on Friday. The policy applies to all personal and business credit cards, according to a memo. It doesn’t affect debit cards, said company spokeswoman Betty Riess. And late Friday, Citigroup said it too will halt purchases of cryptocurrencies on its credit cards.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...l-cryptocurrency-transactions-on-credit-cards

OH Yes...
The people who invested without educating themselves, and haven't sold out while panicking... will now complete their panic and drop the price even further.

Thank you Loving it.

I'm sure you can do that Waxy because its your cash. These card companies are worried about joe-six ringing up charges w/ interest then having them panic sell then sitting on massive losses ( the card companies themselves ).

A third of the world’s bitcoin exchanges were hacked between 2009 and 2015, say US authorities. Technical and legal advisers to the Japanese government are even blunter about the vulnerabilities. As the Coincheck debacle unfolds, the credibility of the Financial Services Agency hangs in the balance.

The Coincheck robbery comes amid a wider wobble in cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and others are on the slide after an astounding boom that in some cases propelled prices a hundred-fold higher in the final few months of 2017. Japanese investors fuelled that run, their often leveraged trading running at 40 per cent of the global total. As China and South Korea attempt to ban virtual currencies, while questions build over the Taiwanese-based exchange Bitfinex and the cryptocurrency Tether, the future of the boom may depend on whether Ms Yamazaki gets her XEM back.

In the early hours of January 26 a different kind of user found Coincheck all too friendly. Like a cat burglar in the dead of night, a hacker penetrated the company’s security and found a fortune in XEM sitting in a “hot wallet”, a computer connected to the internet. Best practice is to keep cryptocurrency in a “cold wallet”, isolated from the network. There is still no information on the location of the hacker, their identity or how the theft was carried out. But some details are visible in the XEM blockchain. At two minutes past midnight, as if doubting the treasure before their eyes, the hacker sent just 10 XEM, worth about $10, from Coincheck to their own traceable wallet. Then they plunged in and rifled the digital vault.

Over the next eight minutes, in six separate transactions, the hacker stole 520m XEM. Valuing the XEM at last week’s market price, around $1 per coin, it was one of the largest thefts in history, on a level with the capers pulled by bank robbers or art thieves.

Perhaps shocked by their haul, the hacker did nothing for the next couple of hours; or at least there was no movement on the blockchain. At around 3am, the hacker started to send the coins on to other digital wallets, but Coincheck’s systems were still wide open. At 3.35am, they took another 1.5m coins. At 4.33am, it was 1m more, then at 8.26am, they helped themselves to the last 800,000. Coincheck was cleaned out. The vault was empty, but it took time for the bank manager to realise it. Coincheck staff went to work on Friday as usual. But it was 11.25am before they noticed something wrong, starting a desperate scramble as word dripped out and a crowd of investors and journalists began to gather outside their office in Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya district.

XEM, pronounced “Zem”, is the built-in digital currency of a system called NEM, one of a number of second-generation blockchains, such as Ethereum, designed as a platform for companies to build applications. From less than one US cent in January 2017, the price of XEM had risen more than 10,000 per cent by the time of the hack. Coincheck has vowed to repay the 260,000 affected customers at a rate of 80 cents per XEM — a total of $422m. The crucial question for investors such as Ms Yamazaki is whether it has the funds to do so.

The company declined to comment on its finances, but based on its trading volumes, rivals estimate that Coincheck may have earned revenues of $2m-$3m a day during the cryptocurrency boom, with customer assets in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as well as XEM of $5bn at the time of the hack. The value of those assets will have fallen in line with the cryptocurrency sell-off. A crucial question is whether Coincheck has large cryptocurrency holdings on its own account. That could give it the reserves needed to pay. It is also common to negotiate with hackers, say rivals, and Coincheck may be able to ransom its coins for a lesser sum in bitcoin or another more usable currency.

https://www.ft.com/content/7010982c-0800-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5

No friggin way Coincheck has $422 million sitting around for backstopping losses .......

The scary thing for me is if Bitfinex turns out to be fraudulent with their USDT. That will be the nail in the coffin imo.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...itfinex-tether-said-to-get-subpoenaed-by-cftc

Dan Larimer has tweeted what I would take as a serious warning for EOS. I would interpret it to mean any EOS tokens registered outside the block.one system won't be included in the EOS launch.

Anyone in the USA and China should look to something else, especially before June.

oh hey a coin thread! I'm in!

I am hodling.. not overly concerned atm, as i got in on some things at low enough prices that i haven't lost much invested money if any... I have decided while shit is down, not to really look too much at my accounts. I check prices, but staring at my estimated assets, and accounts is what gets the emotions going.. and i'll just avoid them for now.

I will say that i did invest more than i probably should have in the first place, but.. the gains made it worth while, and i have since recouped/saved enough cash to not be concerned.

Can't wait till peeps start throwing their tax returns into the market.

Just watching the news here in the UK. They're talking about banks banning people buying cryptocurrency with credit cards as they don't want them ringing up massive debts.
More market manipulating?

News is the one major way that Bitcoin price can be manipulated. . .

They have been putting out every kind of negative info they can, often not factual. . .(for example S. Korea and India supposedly banning) and also some factual news with globalist shills like FarceBook announcing pulling all Crypto advertising, major banks not taking credit cards, etc

Central Banks want in, but they want to be able to hold the bulk. . . not happening easily for them, because HODL

So yeah, lots of panic pieces in the media

Yeah Facebook are still advertising so that was fake news. Everytime I go on there its adverts telling you that you could make millions from investing £5 in bitcoin lol
Definitely the price is coming down and they don't want common folk investing while it's low and then making loads on the next big rise.

China ramping up crackdown

Crypto getting blasted early on this am down over 20% bitcoin tanking

I warned about all of this the fact China blocking searches on web means they are coming after crypto full force now

Guys remember, they CAN"T stop crypto. That is the best thing about crypto. They can hurt it, they can regulate it, but there is no stopping it. It's buy time folks, not fear time. Could you imagine if Apple had this kind of negative news across the world? It would go bankrupt. That fact that crypto isn't bankrupt after the hardcore attacks tells you something. Listen to what it's saying. There will be a point, where this takes off and the governments will never be able to catch back up. Crypto is subject to Moore's law, government is slower than snot.

Moore's law describes a driving force of technological and social change, productivity, and economic growth. Moore's law is an observation or projection and not a physical or natural law. Although the rate held steady from 1975 until around 2012, the rate was faster during the first decade.


With that said, I will be waiting for the Feds meeting on Feb 6th before I purchase anymore. This cash is burning a hole in my pocket.

Your description of Moore’s law is incorrect!

Moore’s law has only to do with the number of transistors printed within a given space on an integrated circuit.
It has absolutely zero to do with what you describe.

Just came across this in China south morning news. China now banning all foreign platforms to totally stamp out trading.

Over the last year Chinese made up majority of volume, wait till this hits the wire

And total crypto mining takes up more energy consumption than 13 states within the United States combined ....

A green energy disaster

MJPassion said:

Your description of Moore’s law is incorrect!

Moore’s law has only to do with the number of transistors printed within a given space on an integrated circuit.
It has absolutely zero to do with what you describe.

Click to expand...

Copied and pasted from Wiki. Take it up with them. Where are you getting your definition?

You do realize that the coins themselves are based of technology right? For example, Bitcoin is slow as snot right now. Then the lightning network coming out to help with that. Lets say that makes bitcoin 10x faster and it took 7 years to accomplish. Keeping in mind Moores law, Bitcoin would have the capability of making transactions 100x faster, in 1 year. Then so on. It's a thing........ not sure what you mean