The best way to buy Bitcoin in Canada

If you're interested in adding cryptocurrency exposure to your investments here are a few points from my perspective you might find useful:

1. I love Bitcoin as an alternative asset class in tandem with a low-cost globally diversified index fund like VGRO, XGRO, VEQT, or XEQT.

2. As someone who already invests in traditional index funds and dollar cost averages every time I get paid regardless of market conditions, I am also doing this with Bitcoin.

3. Check out Newton. They have the lowest purchasing fees out of all the available exchange platforms in Canada and this is what I use to buy bitcoin.

4. Check out Shakepay to earn free Bitcoin on a daily basis by physically shaking your phone once a day. It sounds gimmicky, but it is a legitimate company based out of Montreal which is regulated by both FINTRAC and AMF while also being legally licensed as a Money Service Business.

   I do not buy from ShakePay because of their high purchasing fees/spreads and simply use them for the free daily accumulation of Bitcoin.

5. In Canada, these are currently the cheapest methods of accumulating Bitcoin and there are sign-up bonuses for both companies (Newton $25, ShakePay $30).

   Here are the referral links if you are interested in using them:

   Newton (https://web.newton.co/r/N669Y7)

   Shakepay (https://shakepay.me/r/NQECMIZ)

6. If you want tax free capital gains, you can buy QBTC.U (USD) or QBTC.TO (CAD) in your TFSA. It is certainly expensive in terms of its fees and/or spread; however, if you are super-long and super-bullish in Bitcoin as an alternative asset class, then it does not really matter. With that said, you do not truly own Bitcoin with QBTC because QBTC is a fund; and therefore, you own shares of the fund and not Bitcoin itself. As the saying goes and as you may have heard if you have done your due diligence: "not your keys, not your Bitcoin". As such, you run and operate with all of the associated risks of leaving your coins on an exchange, platform, or app.

   For large investments, I use a cold storage wallet to take my Bitcoin off of an exchange.

7. If you are current in financial news, you would know what happened with the exchange/platform and Canadian company named Quadriga. In short, many investors did not truly own their Bitcoin with them since Quadriga sold "entitlements to receive crypto assets or fiat currency from Quadriga" while Quadriga held the "keys" to the real Bitcoin and investors lost around 135 million dollars CAD. This is easily verifiable information and a famous story as well as a perfect example about "not your keys, not your Bitcoin".

8. There is no reason why you cannot do both (i.e. truly own actual Bitcoin in a cold storage wallet and own shares of the QBTC fund in a TFSA). Just realize that with the first option of truly owning the asset (i.e. Bitcoin), it is subject to capital appreciation tax whenever you trigger a taxable event such as selling, buying, and/or converting crypto-to-crypto.

9. Before you invest in anything regardless of the asset class, make sure you understand what you are putting your money towards, understand your risk tolerance, understand the proper asset allocation percentages for your risk tolerance, and formulate a clear plan of what you want to achieve as well as how you will move yourself towards those goals.

10. Finally, for me, the biggest investment is not really the Bitcoin itself, but rather, it is in the underlying technology and innovation of the blockchain infrastructure which serves as a massive global public ledger leading to the decentralization of this digital currency as well as its invincibility and independence from overbearing governing bodies whereby the Bitcoin unit itself simply has a monetary value relative to fiat currency.

11. A large part of the information of this post was taken from this post: https://redd.it/kh987p

    So if you'd prefer to show your support to the original commenter, I encourage you to reach out to them by using their referral links.

    Best of luck to you and always do your own due diligence! =)

Strangely, nobody is talking about Bitcoin.

During the last bull run I remember friends and family at least mentioning the price increase and sharing their off the cuff opinions. Back then, one friend even cited that fact as a reason he wasn't investing--it felt like a get rich quick fad, an obvious bubble. There was some truth to that, as it crashed to a bear market for quite a while afterward.

But today, the people around me are only talking about politics and the pandemic. In their minds, Bitcoin is probably something that came and went a couple of years ago. It's approaching the market cap of Facebook and it's not even on the radar of people who keep up with current events in the general sense. If I go on a big news site like New York Times, it's not even mentioned. Yes, the capital building incident in the US may have eaten the news cycle, but even tech sites and economics sites barely mention it. It's interesting.

Bitcoin and me

I thought I'd write about the last four years, an eventful time for Bitcoin and me.

For those who don't know me, I'm Hal Finney. I got my start in crypto working on an early version of PGP, working closely with Phil Zimmermann. When Phil decided to start PGP Corporation, I was one of the first hires. I would work on PGP until my retirement. At the same time, I got involved with the Cypherpunks. I ran the first cryptographically based anonymous remailer, among other activities.

Fast forward to late 2008 and the announcement of Bitcoin. I've noticed that cryptographic graybeards (I was in my mid 50's) tend to get cynical. I was more idealistic; I have always loved crypto, the mystery and the paradox of it.

When Satoshi announced Bitcoin on the cryptography mailing list, he got a skeptical reception at best. Cryptographers have seen too many grand schemes by clueless noobs. They tend to have a knee jerk reaction.

I was more positive. I had long been interested in cryptographic payment schemes. Plus I was lucky enough to meet and extensively correspond with both Wei Dai and Nick Szabo, generally acknowledged to have created ideas that would be realized with Bitcoin. I had made an attempt to create my own proof of work based currency, called RPOW. So I found Bitcoin facinating.

When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them.

Today, Satoshi's true identity has become a mystery. But at the time, I thought I was dealing with a young man of Japanese ancestry who was very smart and sincere. I've had the good fortune to know many brilliant people over the course of my life, so I recognize the signs.

After a few days, bitcoin was running pretty stably, so I left it running. Those were the days when difficulty was 1, and you could find blocks with a CPU, not even a GPU. I mined several blocks over the next days. But I turned it off because it made my computer run hot, and the fan noise bothered me. In retrospect, I wish I had kept it up longer, but on the other hand I was extraordinarily lucky to be there at the beginning. It's one of those glass half full half empty things.

The next I heard of Bitcoin was late 2010, when I was surprised to find that it was not only still going, bitcoins actually had monetary value. I dusted off my old wallet, and was relieved to discover that my bitcoins were still there. As the price climbed up to real money, I transferred the coins into an offline wallet, where hopefully they'll be worth something to my heirs.

Speaking of heirs, I got a surprise in 2009, when I was suddenly diagnosed with a fatal disease. I was in the best shape of my life at the start of that year, I'd lost a lot of weight and taken up distance running. I'd run several half marathons, and I was starting to train for a full marathon. I worked my way up to 20+ mile runs, and I thought I was all set. That's when everything went wrong.

My body began to fail. I slurred my speech, lost strength in my hands, and my legs were slow to recover. In August, 2009, I was given the diagnosis of ALS, also called Lou Gehrig's disease, after the famous baseball player who got it.

ALS is a disease that kills moter neurons, which carry signals from the brain to the muscles. It causes first weakness, then gradually increasing paralysis. It is usually fatal in 2 to 5 years. My symptoms were mild at first and I continued to work, but fatigue and voice problems forced me to retire in early 2011. Since then the disease has continued its inexorable progression.

Today, I am essentially paralyzed. I am fed through a tube, and my breathing is assisted through another tube. I operate the computer using a commercial eyetracker system. It also has a speech synthesizer, so this is my voice now. I spend all day in my power wheelchair. I worked up an interface using an arduino so that I can adjust my wheelchair's position using my eyes.

It has been an adjustment, but my life is not too bad. I can still read, listen to music, and watch TV and movies. I recently discovered that I can even write code. It's very slow, probably 50 times slower than I was before. But I still love programming and it gives me goals. Currently I'm working on something Mike Hearn suggested, using the security features of modern processors, designed to support "Trusted Computing", to harden Bitcoin wallets. It's almost ready to release. I just have to do the documentation.

And of course the price gyrations of bitcoins are entertaining to me. I have skin in the game. But I came by my bitcoins through luck, with little credit to me. I lived through the crash of 2011. So I've seen it before. Easy come, easy go.

That's my story. I'm pretty lucky overall. Even with the ALS, my life is very satisfying. But my life expectancy is limited. Those discussions about inheriting your bitcoins are of more than academic interest. My bitcoins are stored in our safe deposit box, and my son and daughter are tech savvy. I think they're safe enough. I'm comfortable with my legacy.

The Case for Storing Bitcoin on PayPal/Square/Robinhood

There are many valid reasons for purchasing and holding Bitcoin and other crypto on a service like PayPal, Square, or Robinhood. While it may not be right for you, please recognize the validity in the following arguments for doing so:

Difficult Learning Curve

Owning crypto is a complicated business. The learning curve required to own crypto is high. I remember looking at Bitcoin back in 2010 and spending a few hours trying to figure out a way to mine Bitcoin. Even with a light computer science background, I was unable to successfully do so, and ended up making Magic the Gathering Online bots instead. I do wish I had spent a few more hours or days or even weeks figuring out how to mine Bitcoin, but I didn't, so I became involved much later. I am still happy with my outcome.

Nonetheless, my point stands: while it has become easier to mine, buy, and store crypto, it is still a high learning curve and requires substantial research in order to become a part of the community.

Services like PayPal, Square, and Robinhood are far easier for everyone to understand. Most people have exposure to PayPal or Square. Many have experience with Robinhood. The additional learning required to invest in crypto is minimal.

The more of a learning curve that is required, the fewer people will become part of the community.

Not Owning Keys does not Mean you do not Own the Bitcoin.

I will preface this section by saying I am a lawyer (but not yours, and probably not in your state).

One of the most common sayings in the subreddit is that if you don't hold the keys, you don't own the Bitcoin. While this may be true from a purely computer-science perspective, it is not true from a legal perspective.

When you hold crypto on an exchange or with a service like Robinhood, Square or PayPal, you own title to the Bitcoin (you could have "bailed" it to the exchange/service, or alternatively it is being held by the exchange/service on your behalf), and if the exchange or service makes some mistake, you have legal recourse against the exchange or service. In other words, you can sue to get damages from them for their mistake.

The ability to file a lawsuit against them only has value if the exchange/service has assets you would be able to seize. So, this means that a better bailee would not only hold crypto assets and would have substantial other assets that you could seize if you won the lawsuit. In other words, services like CoinBase or BitFinex, whose sole business is crypto, could lose all their assets in the event of a bad security breach, or in the event of theft. This has been seen before with MTGOX, and everyone who stored any crypto on MTGOX was left pretty much SoL.

Again, this brings me back to PayPal and Robinhood. These two companies have substantial assets and revenue streams primarily from sources other than crypto. So, if they get hacked and lose all of their crypto, there is still likely going to be recourse against these companies.

While dealing with the companies themselves may be a pain in the ass, there is still recourse in the courts if in no other way.

Responsibility of Maintaining Keys and Wallets

A common recurring theme in the news of the crypto world is lost Bitcoin due to lost keys. Maintaining your keys is a large responsibility, and one that can easily result in losing the Bitcoin forever.

Over several years, I have gifted family members nominal amounts of Bitcoin. Recently these nominal amounts have grown substantially in value. One of my siblings that I gifted some Bitcoin to recently explained to me that they had lost the keys (they had misplaced the seed phrase). They wanted to know if there was any way to get the Bitcoin back without the keys.

Unfortunately, due to the security built into Bitcoin, there really is no effective way to get back the lost Bitcoin.

Maintaining your own keys is something you have to be aware of and on top of. If you mess up in even a small way, you can lose all of your Bitcoin.

On the other hand, if you use a service like PayPal or Robinhood or Square to maintain the crypto for you, even if they do screw up, you have recourse against them.

Wrench Attack Protection

There are also other advantages from holding your crypto on these services. Specifically, it adds additional, multiple layers of protection against "wrench attacks." Wrench attacks are when someone learns you have crypto so they come over to your house and "hit you with a wrench" (physical violence) until you give them your crypto. If you hold your own keys, this transfer is instant and irreversible.

By holding your crypto on PayPal or Robinhood, you ensure substantial delay between your crypto being sold and the funds being available. When you sell your crypto on Robinhood (I have no experience with PayPal), for example, it takes typically 3-5 business days (or more) for the funds to clear and to be able to withdraw them to your bank account.

Then, once your funds are available to withdraw, you withdraw them to your bank account (typically 3-5 more business days).

Then, once the funds hit your bank account, you must either go into the bank or write a check or have some other way of getting the funds to the attacker.

In other words, the substantial delays built into holding your crypto on a service like PayPal or Robinhood act as a lengthy buffer of safety when there will likely be chances to act and protect yourself and (secondarily) your assets.

In stark contrast, if you keep your crypto on a hardware or software wallet, it can be taken from you in mere seconds, and there is absolutely no opportunity to save it or get it back.

Wrench attacks do happen, and storing your crypto on a service like Robinhood or PayPal has its value in protecting you and your crypto and giving you recourse against a company that has other assets that are seizeable.

Managing your own Crypto may not be for Everyone

Certainly holding your own keys is great and has its advantages, but it also has its own risks.

It may be you are willing to take all of the risk yourself. Myself, I like to spread the risk around so that it isn't all on me. I am not perfect and can make mistakes. I don't want a single mistake to cost me all of my crypto holdings.

It is fine to carry crypto and Bitcoin balances in different places, including having some on PayPal or Robinhood and having other holdings on a hardware or software wallet.

So, there it is, the case for storing crypto on a service like PayPal, Square, or Robinhood.

[WTS] Hand Pours Ready to go

New Stuff Sample

Verification - Verification

Additional transaction Details Below - Reasonable offers welcome, some items will be marked with a “***” indicating that if they don’t sell within 48 hours they go back in the crucible.

New Hand Pours

3.9 ozt Vault 76 Vault Door - $135

10+ ozt 999 Mandalorian Beskar Bar - $340 each (Bar still needs to be filed and polished)

10+ ozt 90% Mandalorian Beskar Bar - $340 each (Bar still needs to be filed and polished)

JSB Branded - JSB Kit Kat Bar - JSB Square Bar - 1.1 ozt JSB Chunky Bar

(1) 1.6 ozt JSB Kit Kat Bar - $53 each

(3) 1.7 ozt JSB Kit Kat Bar - $56.50 each

(1) 2.0 ozt JSB Kit Kat Bar - $65 each

(1) 1.6 ozt JSB Square Bar - $53 each

(1) 1.7 ozt JSB Square Bar - $56.50 each

(1) 1.8 ozt JSB Square Bar - $60 each

(2) 1.1 ozt JSB Chunk Bar - $36 each

Basic Hand Pours – Most of these designs are interchangeable/combinable if you’d like me to make a new piece – I’m still having trouble perfecting the proof finish, hence the proof-like phrasing

Spot is Aladeen Bar (FITS IN CAPSULE!) - $30 each https://imgur.com/9d2wpol

Revolutionary Bars (FITS IN CAPSULE!) - $30 each https://imgur.com/YtOCxHK

“They Live” Bar (FITS IN CAPSULE!) - $30 each https://imgur.com/OeD44ri

Discipline Equals Freedom Bar - $70 each https://imgur.com/iqeiZ3o

“Good” Round - $14 each https://imgur.com/BssG3sP

Idiocracy 2020 Round - $14 each https://imgur.com/eJj50it

Hammered Round - $19 each https://imgur.com/CkFTkAN

“Stay Clean” Proof-Like Round - $40 https://imgur.com/Ng9YWUP

Basic Dude Stuff Card - $18 each https://imgur.com/bDrvpCc

“Mirror” Double Proof-Like Round- $40 https://imgur.com/f53zlAo

Stay Hard/Keep Hammering Card (slightly under ½ ozt) - $17 each https://imgur.com/AQxviaW

Fear/Quicksand Hammered Bar - $42 https://imgur.com/ztTdWyi

999 Blanks - https://imgur.com/saHuTdU

1 ozt Button Rounds - $32 each

25 gram Loaf Bars - $26 each

25 gram Hand Cut Bar (FITS IN CAPSULE!) - $30 each

40 gram Bars - $41 each

69 gram Chunky Bars - $70 each

Shipments on this sale will be USPS first class for $5 or priority for $8.

Payment by PPFF, Zelle, Venmo, Bitcoin, and ETH (Crypto Preferred!)

TRADE OPTION - My hand pours for your silver and damaged silver. I can also turn your (damaged) silver into a hand pour for you for a negotiable fee depending on the piece.

Prices are subject to change at any time due to market fluctuations and in the event of a listing error or update.

Does anyone on here use/know about Strike?

I just saw a post about Strike, a payment app that uses Blockchain and Bitcoin. I’ve been reading about it and am still having difficulty understanding some things. If anyone knows the answers, please help.

1) are there any fees for buying and selling Bitcoin on Strike? The FAQ says no, but how can that be? Every other option to do so requires fees.

2) is it a taxable event to sell your Bitcoin on Strike? Again, the FAQ says no. But I also can’t wrap my head around that. If I transfer my Bitcoin to strike from my hardware wallet, and then sell for USD and withdrawal that USD at a gain, wouldn’t I be taxed for doing so?

Thank you in advance

NEW 1 Pay Depot ~ BUY Bitcoin (BTC) at Quick Stop Gas Station - NC

NEW 1 Pay Depot ~ BUY Bitcoin (BTC) at Quick Stop Gas Station - NC

Check out Quick Stop Gas Station to get the lowest possible transaction fees when you buy or sell your cryptocurrency with Pay Depot.

Bitcoin ATMs at Quick Stop Gas Station LOCATIONS:

• 611 N Bickett Blvd, Louisburg, NC, 27549

Google Map Link: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1a9XAEuY6XSma1CiZLobl028SK_DKN5eE&usp=sharing

For Support, You can Email us [Support@paydepot.com](mailto:Support@paydepot.com)

Price = Current market price

Limit = $800/$3000 Daily

ID: Required for Purchases over $800

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To Get the Latest Location and Promotional Event News
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Key Events/Dates in Bitcoin Price History

I thought I'd post a list of what I consider some important key events and dates to keep in mind. I find this helps me zoom out and see the big picture and not get lost in the weeds of day to day & week to week price swings.

Disclaimer: Past performance does not guarantee future results. I am not a financial advisor, doctor, or a lawyer, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. I do not own a crystal ball or a time machine. Do your own research. Do not invest more than you can afford to lose. It's different this time. Institutions! YMMV. Hodl. Time in market beats timing the market. Don't buy Bitcoin, 'cause you know it's going to crash again.

With that out of the way, the dates and prices are approximated for simplicity, and sources are listed at the end. The only highs that I find relevant are persistent highs that last for several years and through the next halving, so that's what you'll see. If there's anything egregiously wrong, let me know. If there are any events that you think are important that I've left out, then make your own damn list. This one is mine.

Month	Event	Approximate Price	ATH	% change from previous event
January 2009	Genesis Block
June 2011	Pre Halving High	$30	$30
November 2011	Bottom between high and first halving	$2.20	$30	-92.67% from high
November 2012	First Halving	$12.35	$30	+560% since bottom
February 2013	Return to High	$30	$30 and climbing	+243% since halving
December 2013	New Persistent High	$1,150	$1,150	+3,830% since return to previous high
January 2015	high->halving bottom	$200	$1,150	-83% from high
July 2016	Second Halving	$650	$1,150	+325% since bottom
February 2017	Return to High	$1,150	$1,150 and climbing	+177% since halving
December 2017	New Persistent High	$20,000	$20,000	+1,739% since return to previous high
December 2018	high->halving Bottom	$3,200	$20,000	-84% from high
May 2020	Third Halving	$8,900	$20,000	+278% since bottom
December 2020	Return to High	$20,000	$20,000 and climbing	+224% since halving

If the next couple events follow a similar pattern (they won't) then one might expect (one shouldn't, because they won't) to see...

? November 2021 ?	New Persistent High	?? $100k - $400K ??	+500-2,000% since return to previous high
? November 2022 ?	high->halving bottom	?? $15k - $60k ??	-85% from high
? December 2023/January 2024 ?	Fourth Halving	?? $50k - $200K ??	+300% since bottom

There are definitely not enough data points here to draw any good conclusions, so, take this all with many, many, many grains of salt.

Sources;

• https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/price/
• https://www.coinwarz.com/mining/bitcoin/halving

Key Events/Dates in Bitcoin Price History (x-post from /r/Bitcoin)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/ksefet/key_eventsdates_in_bitcoin_price_history/

Trillion Market Cap not necessarily justified.

My username says it all. I got into Crypto back in 2017 rode up the euphoria stage into 2018 where we hit 800 billion market cap and hedl through the dark crypto winter. Bitconnect, John McAfee, Bitgrail, USDT, Osyter Pearl, Cryptopia, Coss and other events should be familiar to the

Fast forward to today bitcoin breaks ATH and liquidates millions from short sellers and we breach trillion market cap within the first week of 2021.

If you look at the difference between the 2017/2018 runup to this 2020/2021 is bitcoin dominance keeps increasing while 99 percent of shitcoins, no matter how promising the whitepaper, never regain their ATH's.

In my opinion, I don't think we're truly at Trillion Market Cap if we excluded tether (22.96b marketcap) and the lower 6100 shitcoins like centralized XRP (15.5b marketcap) and Tron (lol).

With BTC at 708b market cap, if only a quarter of all bitcoin holders tried to exchange BTC to USDT, tether would have to mint 154billion out of thin air to keep up, much like what the Federal Reserve and US Treasury have been doing for the past couple decades.

TLDR: crypto enthusiast from 2017 w/ optimistic username has unpopular opinion that we are not truly at Trillion Market Cap if we excluded the controversial USDT and all the other 6100 or so shitcoins.

"In no event should you allocate more than 1% of your liquid net worth into Monero (...)"

Hi. I'm not a total newbie in cryptocurrencies since I have bitcoins, and a few other coins, but I decided recently to learn about Monero, since I'm interested. So I just started to follow ressources pinned by this subreddit.

In monero.how, in the "Why Monero vs Bitcoin" article, is written at the end of the page :

In no event should you allocate more than 1% of your liquid net worth into Monero, as this would leave you too exposed to volatility while Monero matures. If the price of Monero drops precipitously and this would spoil your day, then Monero is not for you at this time.

For Bitcoin, a lot of people advise not to invest in btc more than you can afford to lose. They don't give a percentage number. This 1% intrigues me. Why does this website does not advise at all to allocate more than 1% ? I don't get it.

Don't you allocate more than 1% of your liquid net worth into Monero ? Even if you're an hardcore Monero believer ?

What does this email mean?

I received this email this morning and I don’t know what it means. I think it’s real because the subject line was my password

Hello! I have bad news for you. Quite a long time ago I got access to your device through which you visit the Internet and all this time I have been watching you. It's all the fault of the adult sites you visited. In general, the adult sites you visit have become the key to my infiltration of your data. I have uploaded a Trojan that updates its signatures every few hours so that anti-virus programs cannot recognize it. It gives me access to your camera and microphone. In addition, I have all copies of data, including photos, social networks, correspondence and contacts. Recently I had a great idea: to make a video where in one part of the screen you satisfy yourself, and in the other a video that was playing at that moment. It turned out very interesting! Rest assured that I can send this video to all your contacts in just a couple of mouse clicks. I think you would like to prevent such a development of events. So here's my suggestion. You transfer an amount equivalent to $ 650 to my bitcoin wallet and we forget about each other, and I delete all data and videos forever. Believe me, this is a very modest sum for my work. You can easily find how to buy bitcoin using search engines like yandex or google My bitcoin-wallet (ßtc-wallet): (DELETE * AND ADDRESS CASE SENSITIVE) 1 * FxcS1vDtPxD37w5hVdSAsQNt9dJYWr2dH You have 2 50 hours to pay, this is more than so there is enough time. It makes no sense to answer me - the address is generated automatically, to complain too, the letter cannot be tracked like the bitcoin address. I don't make mistakes. If I find that you have somehow shared this message, the video will be distributed immediately. Good luck and don't be angry. Everyone has their own job.

Stop looking at the bitcoin price. Understand - there is no safe alternative.

I can't call myself a crypto fan or enthusiast. I am an entrepreneur and became interested in bitcoin only because I am scared of what is happening with the US dollar. 

Among my friends, opinions about the future of the coin are divided. Some believe that we are facing another bubble. In contrast, others believe that the financial market will no longer be the same and that Bitcoin will be much more expensive in the long run. 

I admit I am not quite sure what is going on. But I am sure ignoring it is at least weird, so I tried to figure out a little bit about what is going on. 

All my thoughts on whether it is worth investing in Bitcoin I posted in my blog.

To be short. I believe that the probability of Bitcoin becoming a fully-fledged popular financial instrument is not zero. Namely, this event can take place. So, we are talking about risk. Of course, it is massive. But the risk is just risk. It is present in our lives at every moment in time, and you have to be able to work with it. Medicine, transportation, economics – everything around us is risky.

I could ignore bitcoin if I knew the safe alternative. But there is no one anymore. Everything around us is risky, and we should diversify these risks. 

I am afraid that we face so unpredictable future that we can not afford to ignore bitcoin as we can not ignore the US dollar nowadays. 

P.S. I am new here, and English is not my native language, so I apologize in advance if there are any mistakes.

Stop looking at the bitcoin price. Understand - there is no safe alternative.

I can't call myself a crypto fan or enthusiast. I am an entrepreneur and became interested in bitcoin only because I am scared of what is happening with the US dollar. 

Among my friends, opinions about the future of the coin are divided. Some believe that we are facing another bubble. In contrast, others believe that the financial market will no longer be the same and that Bitcoin will be much more expensive in the long run. 

I admit I am not quite sure what is going on. But I am sure ignoring it is at least weird, so I tried to figure out a little bit about what is going on. 

All my thoughts on whether it is worth investing in Bitcoin I posted in my blog.

To be short. I believe that the probability of Bitcoin becoming a fully-fledged popular financial instrument is not zero. Namely, this event can take place. So, we are talking about risk. Of course, it is massive. But the risk is just risk. It is present in our lives at every moment in time, and you have to be able to work with it. Medicine, transportation, economics – everything around us is risky.

I could ignore bitcoin if I knew the safe alternative. But there is no one anymore. Everything around us is risky, and we should diversify these risks. 

I am afraid that we face so unpredictable future that we can not afford to ignore bitcoin as we can not ignore the US dollar nowadays. 

P.S. I am new here, and English is not my native language, so I apologize in advance if there are any mistakes.

Taxables évents.

Hi there

I would like to ask you few questions about taxables event.

If I do own bitcoin and that I directly convert it to eth. Is that a taxable event? Same for usdt ?

Since that I did not converted it to fiat. It is taxable ?

Thanks a lot.

Looking Back on 2020 and 2021 Predictions

​

https://preview.redd.it/x46a37zm1v961.png?width=715&format=png&auto=webp&s=d06de8e7896c9c1c26d7ab09dc6c895d0449164a

2020 was an unprecedented year for the world and for crypto. Let's look back at some of the major events to happen in our industry:

Quick Takeaways

• Bitcoin's Big Year: 2020 was a rollercoaster year for Bitcoin. We experienced halving, extreme lows on Black Thursday, then a parabolic recovery leading us to new all-time highs.

• DeFi Summer: This year was an insane frenzy of action for DeFi. By the end of 2020, total value locked in DeFi grew more than 23-fold from under $700M to $15B.

• The Dawn of Yield Farming: Among DeFi’s most revolutionary ideas was the idea of yield farming, which distributed the ownership of protocols to early supporters.

• Beginnings of Crypto Mass Adoption: With Paypal allowing its 300M users to purchase crypto directly, we have seen a tremendous inflow of PayPal funds into crypto, especially Bitcoin.

• Institutional Bitcoin Adoption: Besides Microstrategy and Paypal, Institutions one by one announced their support of crypto, notably financial heavyweights like Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, and Citibank, to name a few.

• Ethereum 2.0: The upgrade to Ethereum 2.0 has been long-awaited by the ETH community. If anything, summer’s DeFi madness has shown that Ethereum is in dire need of an upgrade in scalability.

• Explosion in Stablecoin Supply: The crypto industry has become increasingly reliant on centralized stablecoins, most notably Tether, which has ballooned to over $20 billion in circulating supply, taking 75% market share in USD-based tokens.

• China Launches Digital Yuan: Central banks around the world may be taking their first steps towards CBDC, but not the PBoC. China rolled out its CBDC at a rapid pace in 2020, trialing pilot programs all over the country.

• Record Crypto Credit Growth: Crypto credit products of all kinds has seen a tremendous year of growth, from derivatives to on- and off-chain lending. Credit-fueled selloffs will be a risk to watch.

• Regulatory Scares for BitMEX and OKEx: These events might have been fatal to risk appetite in any other year, but 2020 proved that crypto investors are nothing if not resilient. Bitcoin stuttered briefly after both incidents, but quickly recovered.

2021 is certainly starting with a bang with BTC above $30k and ETH crossing $1k. Some macro trends are emerging and will play out in 2021:

• Crypto Mass Adoption: It did not take many new entrants to send bitcoin to all-time high in 2020. With trillions of dollars sitting on the sidelines from retail and institutional investors alike, it is really just the beginning for crypto adoption!

• Growth of Institutional Crypto Brokerages/Custodians and Asset Managers: Institutions will turn towards institutional facilitators when entering the crypto markets, while others will choose asset managers like Grayscale.

• Continued Growth in DeFi: DeFi will continue to grow significantly in 2021, and the TVL will increasingly be captured by aggregators and decentralized asset managers, which offer the ability for investors to set-and-forget their investments.

• NFTs - Art, Collectibles, and the Tokenization of Everything: We believe NFTs, especially digital collectibles and art , will continue to trend upwards as creators join in and new platforms emerge.

• Smart Contract Chain Scalability: ETH continues to be the platform to watch, especially layer 2 solutions. We expect some of the activity to migrate to alternative chains with strong ecosystems, and at an accelerated pace if scalability solutions fail to deliver on ETH.

• Growth in Global Regulatory Frameworks: As crypto becomes more mainstream, we should expect further regulation for all players in the crypto industry, especially via the FATF Travel Rule.

• Crypto Options Will Finally Hit the Big Time: Crypto derivatives will see a tremendous growth as institutions join the market. In particular we anticipate an explosion in crypto #options.

To read the full version of the Yearly Review, download the PDF version in the link below:

https://crypto.com/en/research/article.html?category=macro&page=yearly_review

Looking Back on 2020 and 2021 Predictions

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https://preview.redd.it/avi11xc62v961.png?width=715&format=png&auto=webp&s=97b099abd06152f4fb60baf2ac2b176d7a89e28b

2020 was an unprecedented year for the world and for crypto. Let's look back at some of the major events to happen in our industry:

Quick Takeaways

• Bitcoin's Big Year: 2020 was a rollercoaster year for Bitcoin. We experienced halving, extreme lows on Black Thursday, then a parabolic recovery leading us to new all-time highs.
• DeFi Summer: This year was an insane frenzy of action for DeFi. By the end of 2020, total value locked in DeFi grew more than 23-fold from under $700M to $15B.
• The Dawn of Yield Farming: Among DeFi’s most revolutionary ideas was the idea of yield farming, which distributed the ownership of protocols to early supporters.
• Beginnings of Crypto Mass Adoption: With Paypal allowing its 300M users to purchase crypto directly, we have seen a tremendous inflow of PayPal funds into crypto, especially Bitcoin.
• Institutional Bitcoin Adoption: Besides Microstrategy and Paypal, Institutions one by one announced their support of crypto, notably financial heavyweights like Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, and Citibank, to name a few.
• Ethereum 2.0: The upgrade to Ethereum 2.0 has been long-awaited by the ETH community. If anything, summer’s DeFi madness has shown that Ethereum is in dire need of an upgrade in scalability.
• Explosion in Stablecoin Supply: The crypto industry has become increasingly reliant on centralized stablecoins, most notably Tether, which has ballooned to over $20 billion in circulating supply, taking 75% market share in USD-based tokens.
• China Launches Digital Yuan: Central banks around the world may be taking their first steps towards CBDC, but not the PBoC. China rolled out its CBDC at a rapid pace in 2020, trialing pilot programs all over the country.
• Record Crypto Credit Growth: Crypto credit products of all kinds has seen a tremendous year of growth, from derivatives to on- and off-chain lending. Credit-fueled selloffs will be a risk to watch.
• Regulatory Scares for BitMEX and OKEx: These events might have been fatal to risk appetite in any other year, but 2020 proved that crypto investors are nothing if not resilient. Bitcoin stuttered briefly after both incidents, but quickly recovered.

​

2021 is certainly starting with a bang with BTC above $30k and ETH crossing $1k. Some macro trends are emerging and will play out in 2021:

• Crypto Mass Adoption: It did not take many new entrants to send bitcoin to all-time high in 2020. With trillions of dollars sitting on the sidelines from retail and institutional investors alike, it is really just the beginning for crypto adoption!
• Growth of Institutional Crypto Brokerages/Custodians and Asset Managers: Institutions will turn towards institutional facilitators when entering the crypto markets, while others will choose asset managers like Grayscale.
• Continued Growth in DeFi: DeFi will continue to grow significantly in 2021, and the TVL will increasingly be captured by aggregators and decentralized asset managers, which offer the ability for investors to set-and-forget their investments.
• NFTs - Art, Collectibles, and the Tokenization of Everything: We believe NFTs, especially digital collectibles and art , will continue to trend upwards as creators join in and new platforms emerge.
• Smart Contract Chain Scalability: ETH continues to be the platform to watch, especially layer 2 solutions. We expect some of the activity to migrate to alternative chains with strong ecosystems, and at an accelerated pace if scalability solutions fail to deliver on ETH.
• Growth in Global Regulatory Frameworks: As crypto becomes more mainstream, we should expect further regulation for all players in the crypto industry, especially via the FATF Travel Rule.
• Crypto Options Will Finally Hit the Big Time: Crypto derivatives will see a tremendous growth as institutions join the market. In particular we anticipate an explosion in crypto #options.

To read the full version of the Yearly Review, download the PDF version in the link below:

https://crypto.com/en/research/article.html?category=macro&page=yearly_review

Noob/hobbiest questions about my old Binance account, tax liability, getting out, etc.

This post is going to seem really dumb to most here. I know I'm going to get flamed, but here is the deal.

In early 2018, pretty much post-boom, I became interested in crypto, mostly the blockchain technologies around it, and started looking into alt coins for fun. I made a Binance account and spent probably $30ish dollars? on AMB, then intrigued by the "fun" of messing with trades, learning about other tech, and what not, ended up trading into and out of a few different alts: Lisk, XLM, XRP, etc.

As of right now I have a VERY small balance on Binance.com. I went ahead and logged in today for the first time in over a year, and realized as a US user I'm no longer able to use Binance.com, and instead need to use Binance.us.

I made a Binance.us account and started looking into transferring my balance over to .us exchange. I realized the US partner seems to not support all of the coins including a few that I have. It occurred to me to trade everything into Bitcoin and just move that over, potentially into my Coinbase account instead where I already have a small balance of XLM from CB Earn. If I make trades on this binance.com account will the account get banned/will I see trouble in some way?

THEN it occurred to me, is any of this shit worth it? Each one of these trades is a taxable event right? I've tried to keep track of my transactions, but it's rough, spread out between a google sheet document and a Delta (app) account. I made way more trades than is worth to do with such little value in the assets as it's resulted in a lot of hard to track transactions for very little reward. I don't think the effort towards record keeping for tax reasons is even worth the money in the balance.

I wouldn't mind everything just being converted to BTC or XLM and moved to my Coinbase account, but is it even worth it to have to file taxes on that stuff?

If I trade things around, and get what money is left over to CB where I have a bank linked and cash out soon.. I'll maybe take a loss overall from when I first started, but technically made money on the trades I make this year - do I have to pay taxes on those trades?

What happens in abandoned balances anyway? You aren't taxed on anything you hold until you make a taxable event with it, like a trade right? So if I were to just abandon some of these super tiny balances, I couldn't be held accountable for any potential value increase they see in the future unless I actually go and try and cash out or trade them?