January 13th from Miami: This was an on location appearance as I was the Keynote speaker for the opening night of the Miami Bitcoin Hackathon (which was great by the way). Here is the TLDR:
0:00:02 – Regulators Investigating Chinese Exchanges: This is a serious situation which caused the price of Bitcoin to drop over $100 in just over 24 hours. It also looks like we are already seeing reduced leverage coming out of these exchanges but there is no word on results of the inquiry. I also accuse BTCC of fake volume and make a case that this space needs more regulation without the KYC of the consumer.
0:38:50 – GBMiners Ponzi?: This topic was specific to Cloud Mining Scams out of India but I take the position that all Cloud Mining operations are shady and will turn into scams sooner or later. Yes this includes Genesis Mining and BitClub which for now seem to be some of the ‘more’ honest operation in the space. Also talk about how convoluted Bitcoin inspired scams have been getting and the job of scam busting becomes harder and harder. Bernie Madoff history also came up in the context of those scam busting rich and powerful people are putting their life in danger.
1:14:00 – Price of Bitcoin in India: It is all supply and demand, but in India most people are poor so no one is probably buying a full bitcoin. I still think it’s the headlines that cash is being eliminated which is stimulating interest in richer regions like EU & US which is doing all the speculation. I also reference a great study on the elimination of cash from Harvard Business Review.
https://hbr.org/2016/05/the-countries-that-would-profit-most-from-a-cashless-world
1:33:00 – Backpage Shuts Down Escort Section: So it did not take long to figure out where all those ads went. They have migrated to the Dating section so just check out “Women > Men” to find the same ads you were used to (or Men > Men, we don’t discriminate here). Also talk about how stupid it is to run this company publicly nor fly through US territories. In addition companies like Paxful or Xotika should be getting ready to fill the void in case Backpage does go down for good.
1:50:00 – BONUS: I predict the future of Bitcoin perfectly. I explain why Bitcoin will go up $75 in the very near future because of a Cup&Handle Pattern and it did just that within 4 days without any downside.