Bitcoin Adoption

[james]

Can anyone advise me if coinbase if OK for buying bitcoin. A bit wary of them since they want things like passport-scans.

James

[Sligolad]

All reputable exchanges like banks today need these documents James, all part of government driven AML anti-money laundering and KYC know your customer regulations.
Bitstamp and Kraken who I would recommend over Coinbase will also require these.
All are reliable though the backlog of applications for accounts has been bad in recent months due to the sudden upsurge in applications, you may have to wait a while to be accepted.

There will be a big move towards decentralized exchanges this year which will try to avoid being as invasive but they will probably have to relent to the pressure of increased regulation.

[james]

Thanks ..

[Villalvazo]

All reputable weight loss pills for women and exchanges like banks today need these documents James, all part of government driven AML anti-money laundering and KYC know your customer regulations.

Do you think the increased regulation will be the end of cryptocurrencies? Because it kind of defeats their purpose at that point, no?

[Sligolad]

I think regulation is overdue as there are to many centralised tokens and ICO's.
Will be interesting to see how the US rule in the coming months on whether Ethereum and all the tokens using it are securities or not.

I expect more Cryptos will appear before the eventual collapse of at least 90% of them over the coming 3 years with only a handfull of them remaining.

As far as Bitcoin is concerned no such worries and Banks and Governments appear resigned to Bitcoin but there may be some more regulation required for exchanges to gather more personal data for those trading Bitcoin.
The Lightning Network will continue to scale and add more privacy and this will be a challenge for Big Brother to monitor.

Overall I am still bullish on Bitcoin given all the tech develpment ongoing and I think we will be moving up the early adopters stage on the curve shortly now that all the early mania is dying down now.

Banks and Financial Institutions are finally starting to get on board and next year should be an even more exciting year.
I attended a very good lecture on Bitcoin at UCD last Wednesday evening by Andreas Antonopoulos with a full house and it was an excellent night with great interest from an audience of about 300.

He spoke about countries and banks launching their own Crypto and we see this is already starting to happen but being centralised they will never be as good as Bitcoin as long as it sticks to the core fundamentals as defined in the White Paper.

I guess to summarise many cryptos can be regulated but Bitcoin cannot be regulated as the worldwide network effect is now too large to be managed by any sovereign power.

[Diapason]

There are bitcoin futures on the CME now, which lends extra legitimacy for those asset managers who were concerned about the Dark Web and Silk Road associations. It's mentioned at virtually every financial conference I attend these days, and demand is growing even in traditional spaces. So all told it's not going anywhere, but it might shortly get a little too mainstream for some!

[jkeny]

Very interesting Bitcoin journey & posts, Pearse
Like Simon, I managed to avoid investing in Bitcoins even though I knew a bit about the technology & it fascinated me from that persepctive
So, although the technology was interesting, I'm not very well versed in financial markets & couldn't evaluate the importance (or otherwise) of these cryptocurrencies. In my probably naive view, a lot of financial markets seem to be driven more by sentiment/perception rather than anything tangible (a gross simplification, I know)

Keep the updates coming whenever there is something of note to report, Pearse, it is a fascinating topic & technology, to be sure, which many believe, will have far reaching ripples (not just in currency)

[Sligolad]

Thanks for the feedback guys.
One point i should make as I just noticed i used the term bullish earlier which I should avoid in case people read that as bullish in terms of dollar value.
Right now as someone who is not a technical trader but I do follow some experienced people on Bitcoin and the general consensus is that we are in a Bear market at the moment and I am expecting to see Bitcoin drop further over the coming months.
I expect it to bottom in August or maybe earlier and then back on a Bull Run but again I am no financial adviser.

Always Bullish on the technology :-))