"Even in its early stages, blockchain is acquiring such renown for potential that any business associating itself with the term can attract new investment overnight, prompting some to use "the B word" so casually that they've also attracted attention from regulators."

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/02/blockchain-has-grabbed-the-attention-of-investors.html

I think it's really great to see so many people seeing blockchain in a positive light and wanting to invest in them. Blockchain is truly the future I think.

Thoughts?

American businessman Bill Gates again spoke out against the first crypto currency: in the Squawk Box program on CNBC, the co-founder of Microsoft called bitcoin one of the most speculative things in the world. This slightly tilted the course of the coin on Monday, May 7, but today it is still in the green zone.

"I would oppose bitcoin if there was an easy way to do this," said Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corporation in CNBC's Squawk Box, on Monday, May 7.

    "As an asset class, you do not produce anything, and so you should not expect it to rise, it's a kind of pure investment" stupid theory, "Gates said in the CNBC program" Squawk Box. "

     "Bitcoin and ICO, I believe, I believe, these are some of the crazy, speculative things," Gates said. He added that someone once gave him bitcoins for his birthday, but he sold it in a few years.

According to Gates, there is no need to count on the growth of bitcoin's value: "from the point of view of the asset class, you do not produce anything." The largest shareholder of Microsoft considers investing in this cryptonet "the theory of a bigger fool in its pure form."

She claims that money can be made by acquiring securities without regard for their quality and selling them at a profit, because there will always be a "bigger fool." Proceeding from the theory, speculative bubbles grow in this way, which burst with time and bring down the value of shares in a mass sale.

Note that earlier Gates accused the BTC of the death of people, pointing out that the coin is often used to buy drugs. In November 2014, the businessman called bitcoin "a revolutionary technology and the most innovative solution in the modern Internet payment market."

Like many critics of crypto currency, Gates acknowledged that the basic technology of blockchain has its advantages. Blocking eliminates the need for a third-party intermediary, such as a bank, to quickly create a secure, permanent report on the transaction between the two parties. Bitcoin is the first application of blocking technology, and companies are exploring ways to use technology to manage supply chains, trade and other areas.

Hello,

I read everything regarding binance issue days ago.

It’s was hack or phishing issue ?

If it was phishing, how come user got caught, as binance need google Authenticator ?

Thanks for the lights

bitcoin slowly went down this year, from almost 20k USD last December and went down at a significant price

what might be the reason why bitcoin's price is going down?
what are the major things that can greatly influence bitcoin?
answers would be fully appreciated

The risk in the virtual currency market is the risk of losing some or all of its capital when the investor performs the investment or virtual currency transaction. Identify the risks before conducting a transaction, helping them to know the specific loss rate in each case of investment will be how to, minimum and maximum how to decide the scale of investment, the first time investment, time of investment completion, and other relevant factors.

See:

There Is No Escaping History.  Fiat Currency Eventually Fails.

Notice that this is a critique of fiat money -- not a critique of state-issued money under a gold/silver or other standard.  Fiat money is a rare occurrence in modern history.  (We live in strange times!)  As we can see, the examples found by the author are a small number of short periods here and there.

I have my own critique of gold/silver standards, but that's another issue.

Some say that the Lightning Network is centralized, but from my point of view, it's still a decentralized solution to scale Bitcoin as anyone would be able to run a Lightning node at will. The huge advantages that it provides for Bitcoin such as dirt-cheap fees, and instant transactions would be too hard to ignore to implement in the future.

However, if the Lightning Network turns out to become a centralized solution for Bitcoin (like many claims it will), then it would be doomed as only those with a lot of wealth and power would be able to participate in this ecosystem.

What are your thoughts about this? Is Lightning really centralized? Or Decentralized?

I think we are in the Growth stage, as more and more people are hearing about Crypto, but there still is a big gap in the involving decision. For instance, a lot of people hear about it, talk about it, but until they understand it there is a long way to go.