That, I believe, is the most relevant aspect of this discussion anyway. Even using TOR isn't safe, it just raises the probability to not get identified. Just have a malicious entry or exit node by operated by the NSA (which is definitely happening) and there you go. So people who use TOR think that that is the ultimate measure to take when it comes to staying anonymous, but it is not.

Would be interesting to ask the best security expert in the world: What should I do (online, but even offline) today to make sure that actions in the digital / physical realm can't be tied to my identity in ten years from now?

Ten years is deliberately chosen here because that would have been a question for someone who joined crypto in its very early days.

Lol so true. When you come from the crypto space and somebody talks to you about this Pokemon card being sold for $300k or so, and he expects you to freak out, you are just like: well dude, doesn't shock me at all. This stuff is happening in crypto day in and day out. Rather draw some dog pictures and took them online. Maybe you get lucky and Musk tweets it!

I guess that is the decisive issue here. While Bitcoin is harder to steal, it is also essentially impossible to retrieve afterwards even if you got the thief or robber. For many physical assets there is at least a chance to either find it or call out a reward, but that is not the case for Bitcoin if the robber is slightly familiar with how cryptocurrencies work.

I'd agree here with NeuroticFish because a while ago I saw some documentary or so and it was about how the human body can literally be broken down into mathematical equations. While that is great for medical science, the real question is what happens if health insurance companies get their hands on individual data sets? If a certain data set predicts specific health conditions significantly reliably or even only hints to potential health problems, what is going to happen to these individuals' insurance rates? It would completely undermine the idea of a solidly united society.

So the real question is: is it possible that the data gets into wrong hands? That question can certainly be answered with yes because as soon as that data is of significant value, rest assured it is accidentally going to be leaked into the wrong hands.

When you say that you took privacy and anonymity very seriously when you started with crypto, that also implies that you fully understood how privacy and anonymity in the crypto context really plays out! I would argue that most of the people getting into crypto, even those who joined pretty early, didn't 100% certainly know how this sector would develop and what is required to really, really stay anonymous and leave zero trails.

When I thought about that topic, I frequently asked myself: "What is required to really stay anonymous in this game?". The fact alone that this answer has changed over time, clearly reveals that I would have fucked up in the beginning anyway if I intended to stay anonymous back then. I learned so much new stuff so quickly and realized again and again that staying anonymous forever is almost impossible for literally everyone. Nobody really knew in 2011 that obfuscation protocols would show up soon. Mixers were around pretty early, but it seems that some of them can be cracked by Chainalysis and so on and so forth. I am just saying that staying anonymous with steps required today doesn't mean that measures taken today also ensure anonymity in the technological context of tomorrow.

Those who can anticipate even that and understand how the future most likely plays out with technological advancements in relation to certain capabilities of protocols, seriously, that is a very very small number people being able to pull that off.

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I like the last point you mentioned, the regret issue! Really, even if there is sometimes a bit of doubt that all pans out and Bitcoin could be replaced by another new technology, that is just how technology works, I would still be mad at me if I didn't try. I believe in Bitcoin and letting doubts take control over your own belief and passion is very regrettably. If it turns out I was wrong, fine, it was worth the ride!

I strongly believe that we are still in the early ages of Bitcoin and we all made the right decision to get involved as early as we possibly could.

You should consider that he isn't dependent on any more popularity. I doubt that is what makes him do whatever he did over the last couple of months. He doesn't lack money nor does he lack popularity. Maybe he is just extremely interested in cryptocurrencies as he is also the founder of a finance-related company aka PayPal. It isn't as if he had no clue at all about what he is talking. He does have a weird way to interact with the community, but I believe it is just the way he is.

Yes the 50% like was the point where I thought ok now Bitcoin should be oversold and resistance will come up. That was the case. A couple of rumors also helped Bitcoin to get back on track but it was oversold anyway at more than 50% loss fro its ATH. The best strategy is to not put all your available cash into one single position when a crash happens, but to put a fraction of it repeatedly into crypto even when it is downward slipping.

Those using it for payments frequently is a very small minority. Hardly anyone would use Bitcoin as there is nothing that you can pay with Bitcoin for to still justify the extraordinarily high transaction costs. Only if you buy  a house or a car it would make sense to use Bitcoin maybe. Apart from that it is a pain in the ass still to do shopping with Bitcoin specifically, other cryptocurrencies might work out better but there are hardly any cryptos that are widely accepted as a means of payment.

With all due respect, are you serious? Bitcoin is absolutely tied to the global economy, like a 100% tied to the global economy. The global economy and its current state is the reason why Bitcoin came into existence, but as we have seen during the pandemic Bitcoin moves exactly the same way the rest of the global market also moves. When everything crashes, Bitcoin crashes as well. Check the charts mate. Some here are talking about a hedge, but what do you need a hedge for if you can't pay your rent or your food? What does Bitcoin even help you when a virus is going around the whole globe?

Correct, if a technology like Bitcoin becomes the new standard and people would have reason to participate in it but can't, that's also kind of exclusive, which Bitcoin is not supposed to be. I don't know though how critical the situation is when it comes to mobile phone distribution. I guess most people have access to mobile phones? I have no idea about those statistics but that might be one of the smaller problems to solve.

What about systems like Siri where you can give commands via speech? Wouldn't that be the simplest way to interact with your device in order to get transactions initiated and processed? For verification you could use fingerprint in addition to a spoken password, just in case someone listens to you. The password could be a certain sentence as well so it is not that obvious. I think there are ways for sure to solve such problems.

In a world where Bitcoin replaces fiat, I think a lot of other things would have changed too. We will have governments and no anarchy as we will have violence and the state has the obligation to protects its citizens from that violence. If there was no state, there would always be groups who seek to claim control over other groups. For as long as there are governments, I think that there are also fiat currencies. It is the only way for them as of now to force people to pay their taxes. Without taxes, states would probably collapse one after another.

Talking about a pattern for Bitcoin isn't making a lot of sense. I know you could show a graph now and tell me that in certain time intervals Bitcoin moves the same way again and again, but applying a pattern or trying to find a pattern for an unregulated area which has enormous potential impact on the global economy is just not reasonable.
Nobody knows what the regulatory environment will look like in 12 months from now, whether the banking lobby can achieve something that is bad for cryptocurrencies overall. We just don't know until our ideas and hopes become fact.

I think it is used to invest and speculate, yes, but it could also be a good tool to get large amounts of wealth from one country into another. As I am not a multimillionaire or billionaire, I don't know what it costs to transfer sums of money of that magnitude, but Bitcoin has proven over and over again that especially for larger amounts the fees are absolutely negligible for international transfers.

There was also talks about laws from the European Union that large funds are allowed to invest a certain portion of their assets into cryptocurrencies. I don't know when the new law took effect, but I think it was quite immediately after it was passed. Might be a couple of weeks ago. Who knows whether that also contributed to the recent price increase, could be a possibility.

Very true but at the same time this pump feels healthier than if we just had kept going 2 months ago. It felt like it was too much already and honestly I think most here were almost eager waiting for a crash. Nobody really wants it but many have that feeling that it is due or even overdue. That was certainly the case when we crossed 60,000 back then. Now build a new stable level and grow again from there.

We haven't yet arrived at increased efficiency unless you are a huge Bitcoin holder and are transferring larger sums around the world. Yes, then there is no doubt you made the right choice with Bitcoin, but you could also use a cheaper cryptocurrency with sufficient liquidity to do that. For those who have only a little bit of Bitcoin, we can't really claim that Bitcoin is more efficient than traditional money, depending on what you are referring to with efficiency. If it is speed, then yes depending on the purpose Bitcoin is supposed to fulfill. Buying a cup of coffee sucks, sending money from Asia to Europe or vice versa it is great. We don't need to talk about the costs to do that though.
 

His cars still have to prove a lot I think. Volkswagen is catching up at tremendous speed now. The market is big enough for several car producers of course, but Musk still needs to stand the test of time in the next five years or so. When autonomous driving becomes a public reality, we will see whether the systems work seamless and reliable. I do believe he is going to pull it off successfully, but that is a complex business he is in and so far there is still a lot that he promises and what also remains to be demonstrated. Apart from that, yes, I like the cars too.