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      "body": "Congratulations @rmajor! You received a personal award!\n\n<table><tr><td>https://steemitimages.com/70x70/http://steemitboard.com/@rmajor/birthday2.png</td><td>Happy Birthday! - You are on the Steem blockchain for 2 years!</td></tr></table>\n\n<sub>_You can view [your badges on your Steem Board](https://steemitboard.com/@rmajor) and compare to others on the [Steem Ranking](https://steemitboard.com/ranking/index.php?name=rmajor)_</sub>\n\n\n###### [Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness](https://v2.steemconnect.com/sign/account-witness-vote?witness=steemitboard&approve=1) to get one more award and increased upvotes!",
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      "body": "![image](https://img.esteem.ws/gyrfds8pb2.jpg)\n\nVolatility is core when it comes to the unregulated Cryptocurrency Market, it is what makes it highly risky, yet equally appealing to many. Loosing 15% of its total Market value in 24 hours can be a thing of the norm. Nevertheless, the Market went frantic with this drop on Monday 4th September. Crypto traders and holders woke up to alarming Red portfolios as almost all coins were spiraling down. Some even lost 50% of portfolio value. It was a ‘Bloodbath’. Bitcoin’s price staggered down 20% from its high of almost $5000 (2nd September) to $3998 (5th September)‬ and Ethereum’s price echoed with a drop of 31% from a high of $390 (2nd September) to $268 (5th September). What is even more interesting is to note that today, (Thursday 7th September), only 3 days later, the market recovered back to its estimated $160 Billion value and prices of Bitcoin and Ethereum rebounded back to around $4500 and $322. It is this bounce back resilience that gives many traders and investors the confidence and faith in the market and what keeps them locked in despite any shortcomings. It is also why cynics have no definite case against the booming market. In essence, the most experienced and most successful traders and investors are the ones who take advantage of the dips and buy-in rather than sell and run for cover. The Cryptocurrency market is going strong, and ‘stronger’ is where it is headed as it becomes more tolerated by nations, governments and regulators globally. This article investigates the global landscape for Blockchain technology adoption and Cryptocurrency acceptance and assesses its probable future. Let’s start with what triggered the Monday fiasco.\n \nChina Bans ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings)\n \nOn Monday, 4th September, The Central Bank of China announced a ban on ICOs (See article “ICOs- Can you become a millionaire from a $500 investment?” that explains what ICOs are). The People’s Bank of China defined\n \nAccording to Xinhua news agency, there had been 65 ICOs in China so far during the year, raising a combined 2.62 billion yuan ($394.6 million) from 105,000 individuals in the country.\n \nChina’s greatest asset is its population, and hence its economic dominance. We can see the effect of that dominance on the market as the large price drops can quite simply be attributed to Chinese traders panic selling to take the most profit they can. This caused ‘short-lived’ chaos and massive losses, before prices stabilized and bounced back after the drop.\n \nGoing back to August 2016, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued a whitepaper, in collaboration with tech companies including Onchain (investigated below), detailing Blockchain for financial applications. The financial sector was outlined as the first application for Blockchain technologies for use in: payment processing, asset management, securities, clearing and settlement as well as user ID. The whitepaper also suggests making relevant policies to support Blockchain technology research, projects, innovation as well as R&D and public platform building. Clearly china has big plans in store for Blockchain. \n \nTherefore China's ICO ban is not to be mistaken as obstructive to Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology, but rather a precautionary tactic and an attempt at regulating the industry and maybe even controlling it, putting the right players in the right places, at the right time. \n \nChina’s Blockchain Front Runner- NEO\n \nThe first to launch an ICO in China is the world leading open-source Blockchain project “Neo Smart Economy”, dubbed \"the Ethereum of China\". Although unlike Ethereum, NEO uses fiat currency as its internal currency and their aim is to bridge the gap between the old and new financial systems through creating smart contracts, certificates, identity and legal compliance. The trading NEO coin isn't the fuel that runs the engine like Ether is to Ethereum, in fact it is more like a security, 'acting' as shares in the company. NEO was previously known as “Antshares” and has seen a massive explosion on to the market. It is ranked amongst the top 10 cryptocurrencies of 2017.\n \nNEO has recently seen a boost in price around 90% from $7 (end of July 2017) to $50 (mid August 2017), and then held it steady at $34 for a while. NEO was very much hyped after its re-branding and news of upcoming Chinese ICOs building solutions on the NEO blockchain like the much-anticipated Red Pulse ICO, which has now been cancelled. NEO was hit the hardest by the ICO ban and its price dropped around 37% instantly from $30 to $19 with the news, and has only today shot back to $31. Views remain divided on whether NEO is still a good investment in light of China’s recent stance. As many Chinese traders have pulled out of NEO amidst fear and doubt, many global traders step in as they see a golden opportunity.\n \nNEO’s Background\n \nNEO's founder Da Hongfei, is CEO of Shanghai Distributed Technologies Co Ltd, the umbrella startup behind Onchain. The Fosun Group (China's largest investment conglomerate) is directly investing in Shanghai Distributed Technologies Co Ltd. This implies government ties in place and underlying support. With that stated, NEO as a blockchain project has been developed with an eye for government regulations and legal compliance. Arguably, the recent ICO ban acts is in NEO's favor, abolishing competition and making it an even stronger player.\n \nWith the 2017 DACA International Blockchain Summit scheduled for 2nd-3rd September in Beijing, Da was supposed to be a presenter, as NEO is the pioneer blockchain project in China. Da however announced that he won't be able to attend \"for personal reasons\" only days before the conference was cancelled by the government. A questionable move that sparks theories of his involvement in the government inner circle and the possibility of his awareness of the ban before it was issued.\n \nCan china's ICO ban be a tactic to protect NEO's best interests and position it as the first, top and ONLY blockchain digital platform? Bearing in mind the government's indirect stakes involved. At the end of the day, China is no stranger to such authoritarian tactics to undercut competition. If that is true, then NEO is definitely one to watch, and could potentially be the next big thing in blockchain and cryptocurrency!\nThe Future of ICOs and Cryptocurrency\n \nIn the long run, the move to ‘temporarily’ ban and regulate ICOs is promising and mostly positive, given the widespread support and sales of fraudulent coins that promise high returns, and the incompetency and inability of some teams to hold fair and transparent token sales. ICOs are a new model of raising capital and Regulators globally are yet to understand its risks fully in order to properly regulate it. The Challenge will be in achieving the balance that would regulate, but not hinder or stifle innovation and progress of the new and promising ’Blockchain’ technology.\n \nBefore China, there was the SEC issuing warnings about ICOs, then the US banning Americans from participating in global ICOs and Singapore’s Central Bank issuing an Investor warning about the risks of ICOs as Singapore became the most favoured destination for ICOs. These attempts were not as strong as the latest Chinese attempt at stopping ICOs as the Tech Savvy traders found a way around these formalities and bypassed the fork in the road through using VPNs (Virtual Private Networks), which in this case act as a tunnel for free, unrestricted, secure and private access to the internet. Providing a connection via proxy hopping to different external public IP addresses. This method is not as easy for the Chinese traders as China’s tech infrastructure ring fenced and fort-like due to stronger and more secure firewalls which stop VPNs in and out.\n \nWhile China and the US are (on the surface) going for a prohibitive approach to Cryptocurrency and Blockchain, another Major power is adopting a much more permissive approach and welcoming it with open arms. Russia is embracing blockchain, making it a national priority, and would be the first stock exchange to make cryptocurrency a new investable asset as Moscow Stock Exchange welcomes cryptocurrency trade against paper currency. Although only accessible for qualified investors (with at least six million rubles in personal assets or 200 million rubles for investment firms), in order to avoid money laundering activities, it is a major stepping stone.\n \nThe Russian-Ethereum Love Affair\n \nRussia is seemingly going full steam with Blockchain Technology. This is no surprise, as Russians are some of the most skilled cryptocurrency developers. The founder of Ethereum; the second largest cryptocurrency, succeeding Bitcoin according to market cap, which is essentially a platform for creating smart contracts via Blockchain is Russian born developer Vitalik Buterin. Vitalik has just signed a partnership under the non-profit 'Ethereum Foundation' with Russian state-owned development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) to provide support and expert training of the Ethereum platform in its new blockchain research center. Vitalik stated that;\n\"Cooperation between Ethereum and VEB gives a unique opportunity to engage in research and development on the use of blockchain technology for public administration and accelerate the adaptation of this technology to government organizations in the Russian Federation,\".\n \n ![image](https://img.esteem.ws/upc3y352lc.jpg)\nImage via CoinTelegraph\n \nRussia is surely fostering the home grown talent, harboring a community of Ethereum experts within Russia and planning for big blockchain based projects. Putin himself has expressed interest and support for new technology like \"AI\" stating that \"the nation that becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world\". Also Predicting that future wars would be fought by countries using drones. Blockchain surely has the capacity and infrastructure to accommodate AI. AI works on large volumes of Data and high throughput stream processing, therefore needs technology with Big Data scalability and querying, Blockchain technologies are able to do just that. Blockchain provides the ability to harness distributed computing power, access shared Data and Storage; offering more Data and better models, making AI more intelligent, faster and stronger!\n \nSingapore, Thailand, Philippines and Brazil\n \nAmongst other nations to rally support for the Crypto and Blockchain movement are Singapore, Thailand, Philippines and Brazil.\n \nSingapore has always been a favorite destination for startups due to its friendly taxation policies, light regulations and state funding. The government, through its central bank 'MAS' has launched initiatives to support the FinTech industry, the latest being dedicating $166 million in funding for the development of financial technology projects. The central bank went over and beyond, creating the Ethereum based \"Project Ubin\", creating a tokenized version of the Singapore dollar, as an alternative currency to be used in the interbank payments network. A move signaling its support for Crypto-assets and Blockchain technology. The MAS is moving to regulate ICOs in attempt to maintain Singapore's reputation as a safe financial hub. It aims to protect ICO activities, prevent money laundering, protect investors and allow more people to participate in the offerings.\n \nThailand has started its mission of widespread adoption of Blockchain technology in various sectors. The central bank of Thailand recently held a meeting with Vitalik Buterin and the CEO of OmiseGo to discuss the future of the financial sector with Blockchain technology. Moreover, the Ministry of Finance are openly supporting OmiseGo; an Ethereum based financial services platform that acts as a real-time peer-to-peer (P2P) value exchange and payment services to participating customers. It is essentially a platform for efficient and secure infrastructure for payment processing based on the Blockchain technology. The OMG coin has seen great growth and a price surge with the news of government support and as they signed a new partnership with McDonald's Thailand. Amongst other developments in Thailand, a leading Thai commercial bank \"Kasikornbank\" partnered with IBM to introduce the 'Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain' to its current systems of processing letters of guarantees.\n \nElsewhere, The central bank of the Philippines has granted licenses to two local Bitcoin exchanges, according to reports from the Philippine Star. Also, The Central Bank of Brazil is considering prototyping a Blockchain settlement platform as a backup to the main existing platform for the Central Bank. Furthermore Brazil's Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management is piloting a Blockchain 'identity' application in partnership with Microsoft and Ethereum-based startup ConsenSys.\n \nEU Blockchain efforts\n \nIn line with 'identity' Blockchain use cases the United Nations, backed by the EU parliament is also piloting a Blockchain project for the management of Syrian refugee identities. The UN has also conducted a pilot in camps in Jordan where funds were distributed amongst Syrian refugees in Ethereum.\n \nThe UK also maintains support for growing FinTech developments and the government is funding Blockchain initiatives under the body 'innovate UK', mostly in sectors like digital health and Payment Solutions.\n \nMajor global banks have also indicated support for the Blockchain. UBS is leading a project to create a digital Cash system that allows financial markets to make payments and settle transactions at speed via Blockchain Technology. The group of participating banks includes Barclays, Credit Suisse, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, HSBC, MUFGand State Street. The project \"Utility Settlement Coin\" (USC); a tokenized equivalent to each of the major currencies backed by central banks is to be launched in 2018.\n \nUS Bitcoin Developments\n \nBitcoin is closer to being classed as an investible digital asset globally, and becoming a tradable asset on the regulated stock exchange markets against fiat currency this year, as LedgerX (with CFTC clearance) are offering the first federally regulated bitcoin options exchange. With that in place, the SEC could change its mind and approve the first Bitcoin ETF, as 3 more application have been filed for review, and the first “Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF” originally rejected in March is currently under re-assessment.\n \nSo, Where To?\n \nIf the ICO frenzy somehow comes to an end, there will be a bigger wave of investors flocking to tap in to this world of new value by launching Crypto Hedge Funds that theoretically act like VCs to facilitate funding for Blockchain project development. Current VCs like Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital and Union Square Ventures are already ahead of the trend and have already invested in the Crypto Fund “Polychain Capital” which now has $200 million in assets under management. Currently there are 15 new Crypto funds globally, each assuming their own strategies and models, but the number will inevitably rise as investors see more value in the development of these projects.\n \nWith all these indicators that Cryptocurrency and Blockchain will slowly become the standard norm for governments, authorities, and regulators, will the core values and fundamentals on which Blockchain was built on be tarnished?  Will we be seeing “Centralised” and “Controlled” as opposed to “Distributed” and “Decentralised”? Accumulated wealth for the few instead of for the masses? No more shared prosperity? Or will that mass adoption only enhance the development of Blockchain by providing the necessary means and infrastructure for optimal growth and achieving full potential? Whichever way it goes, it will be one hell of a ride; history in the making!",
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      "body": "@@ -101,18 +101,19 @@\n g like g\n-et\n+ood\n  ICOs to\n",
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      "body": "Thanks for mentioning Unikoin, will definitely be looking into it. Cindicator and Monetha are looking like get ICOs to get on board, and of course coins like BAT (BasicAttentionToken), ADX (Adex), ZRX (Project 0x), DNT (District 0x) are good investments as they haven't yet pumped to potential!",
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      "body": "Thanks for the reply. I really believe there are great returns to be made from investing in the crypto world and would love to spread the message! Of course doing your own research is always important :)",
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      "body": "![image](https://img.esteem.ws/a192wa2s80.jpg)\n\nWith Bitcoin surging past The $4000 mark, all the commotion about Segwit, hard forks, and the creation of a new currency 'Bitcoin Cash' with an immediate market cap of around $6 billion, out of thin air, cryptocurrency has never been so mainstream. With a total market cap of $87 billion, spread across 800 currencies, the crypto space all of a sudden seems very appealing, to investors and the general public alike. So how can the average person get in? ICOs.\n\nICOs have been likened to a kickstarter on steroids with its \"1000X improvement in the time-to-liquidity and a >100X improvement in the size of the buyer base relative to traditional means for US technology financing .” (Thoughts on Tokens, by Balaji S. Srinivasan.) \"Tokens will break down the barrier between professional investors and token buyers in the same way that the internet brought down the barrier between professional journalists and tweeters and bloggers\".\n\nSo what is an ICO?\n\nAn ICO (initial coin offering) is the equivalent of crowdfunding, in the crypto space. Companies attract investors by setting up their own cryptocurrency coins or 'tokens'; a scarce digital asset based on the blockchain technology, tradable on crypto exchanges. Somewhat similar to an IPO, except it is a more distributed, and flexible version, without all the stipulations (or at least for now).\n\nThe main advantage of ICOs is that anyone can get in, with a minimum amount of money, however much one can afford, let's say $500, can buy a substantial amount of coins (as the new coins; 'Alt coins' are still up and coming and priced low, most are still under $1!) and see a good return of x10 upwards, as the company grows and the price rises. Markets are more volatile so you're likely to see a fast return on investment as opposed to the fiat markets. Can you become a millionaire from a meek $500 investment in the stock market? How many shares would that buy anyway? In the crypto markets, that is a potential reality!\n\nPeople who bought Bitcoin back in 2011 when it was $1, or even $100 in 2013 are today's multi millionaire big players in the space, reaping the rewards now in 2017 where the price is $4212 (as of this post). That's why everyone is on the lookout now for the next Bitcoin!\n\nICOs are companies building software/ products/ services on the blockchain technology so it is essential to look at what blockchain technology aims to achieve and how that impacts society.\n\nThe core values and aim of blockchain technology is to decentralise power and distribute wealth across a wide spectrum, rather than in the hands of a profiteering few! The community become active 'participants' and wealth created is spread all around. Investing in an ICO surely falls along the lines of said values of spreading the wealth; as the company does better, so do you! Not so sure about decentralised power though, as at the end of the day there is a centralised team working at the company, remotely or in-house. Yes most are open source projects and all the codebase is available on GitHub, but come on, how many of us are skilled developers and can actually code? Quite a lot, but not yet so! Nevertheless, ICOs are still appealing.\n\nThis year, all ICOs combined raised around $1.3 billion in funding. The top 3 players were; Tezos (a new cryptocurrency with features like a self-governance system and the ability to create smart contracts) raising just over $232 million, Bancor (a cryptocurrency with a protocol to create a new generation of smart tokens) raising $153 million and Status (a decentralised messaging app) raising $90 million. See image below for the full list of top 10 ICOs in 2017 obtained from coinschedule.com. What's more interesting is that ICOs are now finding creative new ways for promotion, trying to infiltrate the mainstream by using celebrities like boxer champ Floyd Mayweather to endorse and promote their token sales, like Stox; a predictions market platform (who managed to raise a $33 million worth of Ethereum) just did. \n\n ![image](https://img.esteem.ws/iyn7zz11ar.jpg)\n\nWith that much potential of raising funds, along with the absence of regulations and a regulatory body comes a lot of room for fraud. No doubt, the question, is this a scam? Enters our minds as we skim through the lists of active and upcoming ICOs. This is why the boiling market recently caught the attention of the SEC (the Securities and Exchange Commison) in the US. It issued a ruling that some of the \"coins\" are actually securities and are subject to the agency's regulations. The ruling also provided additional guidance about ICOs and a warning about investment fraud for investors wishing to invest in ICOs. It still remains unclear whether ICOs will be regulated in the future, but for now, chasing after the next big thing, and seeing coins like TenX's 'PAY' rise over 800% (from around $0.6 to $5.00) in price, in less than a month has never been more fun!",
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      "author": "haejin",
      "body": "@@ -5,40 +5,59 @@\n sis \n-is what I call a non-intentional\n+and other mining contract sellers are what I call a\n  sca\n@@ -594,15 +594,109 @@\n  scam!%0A%0A\n+It's a simple case of you give me $500 and I'll pay you $100 spread throughout a year. Scam!%0A%0A\n Capish?\n",
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      "author": "haejin",
      "body": "@@ -184,14 +184,16 @@\n . %0A%0A\n+If \n I pa\n-id\n+y\n  $50\n@@ -224,16 +224,22 @@\n act and \n+would \n get a de\n@@ -256,16 +256,20 @@\n .000001 \n+ZEC \n per day.\n@@ -316,16 +316,19 @@\n so, they\n+'ll\n  take my\n@@ -362,16 +362,22 @@\n e, they \n+could \n simply d\n@@ -458,17 +458,20 @@\n eanwhile\n-,\n+ and\n  they'll\n@@ -492,16 +492,97 @@\n et $400.\n+ All those fancy video clips of their GPU miners....bah humbug! A scam is a scam!\n %0A%0ACapish\n",
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      "body": "Genesis is what I call a non-intentional scam. Those who run Genesis mean well, but their transparrency is next to none and their prices guarantee their profit and certainly not yours. \n\nI paid $500 for a zec mining contract and get a deposit of 0.000001 per day. Do the math and the scam is obvious. Also, they take my $500 and for what I can see, they simply deposit pennies of that to my mining account and spread it for a year and meanwhile, they'll probably pocket $400.\n\nCapish?",
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      "author": "rmajor",
      "body": "![36114763342_bfd7d17150_z.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmaXmGV3dpPqAXWpcrZad9GijrdBLQp9QWgjPnfxEEb5xW/36114763342_bfd7d17150_z.jpg)\n\nIt happened, it forked! Bitcoin split into two separate cryptocurrencies; Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCC/ BCH). This is old news now, we are past Aug 1st now, and the aftermath continues to unfold. \n \nTo say the least, chaos was rampant, as most exchanges held off on BCC deposits/ withdrawal since the fork, up until late afternoon yesterday (3rd August). As all BTC holders were credited with an equal amount of BCC and were advised as the smart move to keep their money in external wallets and not on the exchanges, they couldn't  access or trade their new currency, how ironic! People who have left their Bitcoins in exchanges were the lucky minority who were able to sell their BCC at its high at around $750. The rest were taking to social media in search for answers as to why exchanges are holding on to their funds, when they would be able to access them and most of all when they would be able to DUMP them in order to invest in other Alt Coins and in Bitcoin itself, all worrying that by the time the major exchanges open BCC up for business it's value would have dropped and be near to worthless. \n \nThe only exchange that was accepting BCC deposits and withdrawals was HitBTC; a major Chinese platform. As BCC was traded only on this exchange and being sold/ dumped there, this caused a steep variance in price between BCC on the different exchanges, HitBTC's price of course significantly lower, hitting around $180 at its lowest, while the price on Bittrex (one of the larger crypto exchanges) was around $700 at the same time, making an astounding difference of around $500 in the price of the SAME coin. Kraken, another large exchange soon followed and accepted BCC deposits/ withdrawals, but listed them under the BCH ticker and on average BCH was priced $100 Lower than BCC on Bittrex. With majorly varying prices and different ticker names, Bitcoin Cash caused a ton of confusion and uncertainty. Even affecting another coin BitConnect using the same ticker BCC, causing it a major drop in price! Hilarious! It seems that the community is so divided to the point that they can't even come to an agreement on a name. The newest circulating label for the coin is Bcash and it seems to be picking up heat on twitter, adopted by major crypto influencers like @whalepanda, @petertoddbtc, @tonevays and @excellion to name a few. Yes, some do think it is ridiculously stupid!\n \nWith most exchanges now open for business, and people rushing to dump their BCC. BCC's price has seen a slow and steady decrease and is at $271.52 on Bittrex as of this post. The reason for the slow decrease is that transactions need 20 confirmations on Bittrex, which is taking up to 24 hours due to the current low mining power/ hashrate (it's interesting to note that on HitBTC, they need only 2 confirmations). Bitcoin Cash Network Difficulty has been adjusted and is now decreasing, resulting in quicker block times and making it easier for miners to produce more blocks. The price is predicted (by a majority) to keep dropping, some even anticipate the $100 mark by 8th August, the day Segwit actually activates on BTC. All the while, BTC price has risen slightly to $2850.73 as of this post. \n \nThe price drop of BCC has a very logical explanation, and is largely down to people trying to get the best value for their money, fearing it will drop, as it's still a new coin, and at the end of the day arguably an ALT coin. Also, due to people wanting to invest in Alt coins as they dropped in price, affected by the whole BTC drama. This is probably expected and even part of the plan. The real test is when it actually hits it's low, maybe even less than $100? What is going to happen? It is highly likely it will skyrocket again and even surpass BTC's value. There is an argument that BCC is completely decentralised; just look at its core Development team, seems to just be 2 guys? Except it isn't, but that's just how \"decentralised\" looks like, compared to that of BTC which is a whole bunch of people, argued to be a centralised team. Is that the true vision behind the original concept? Fact remains that technically, BCC has more to offer; higher ledger storage space, faster and more secure transactions. Will that trump BTC's cult like following? Could it be that BCC will go even more mainstream and gain even more following, it's certainly equipped to do so! BCC has strong leadership and backing, not to mention big miner support, so there are quite a few traders waiting for the big dip in order to secure their buy in positions, believing that it is going to be THE cryptocurrency of 2018.",
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      "author": "gnimeets",
      "body": "@@ -370,20 +370,35 @@\n t of\n+ \n people\n-are\n+ have their btc \n off\n+ \n exch\n@@ -402,16 +402,37 @@\n xchange.\n+could buy a few hours\n .I dont \n",
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      "author": "gnimeets",
      "body": "I stil believe it is smarter to place buy alts than wait for the btc fork. The instant return in 2-3 days far outweighs what will be made of btcc. People are only making max 12% by waiting for the fork and getting free btcc. The gains made from buying alts today should=20% at least.  come 12:01 there will be a massive rush back into all the alts. Well considering alot ofpeopleareoffexchange..I dont know. Decided to get some cheap DecRed yesterday and have already made that 10% I would of from BTCC..of course it ispossibl I will swap out last minute for btc, but unlikely",
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