You shouldn´t underestimate the impact of Tether. It´s not just FUD.
However, I agree with your general post and I think you are definitely spot on
about the India, China and South Korea news.
Good post, I just happen to disagree on the Tether situation.
I don't really trust tether, and I never use it. Like I said I'm all cash on my trading bankroll right now, because we are on a down trend, and I mainly try to play oversold bounces, but I trade with real USD and not tether.
Since I don't trust tether, I don't understand how people sell BTC for tether. If they want a way out of tether, they should sell it for BTC instead.
As for margin trading I never do it because I think it's just suicide in crypto, since it's volatile enough in my opinion. But doesn't it just work almost like a "loan" from the exchanges? Exchanges just offer leverage, but in order to do that they need to have the funds and the price wont rise more than the actually tether in circulation (don't know I this statement was clear enough, but I don't know how to put it in a different way).
Steam wasn't serious about crypto? No, they were, that is why they accept it. They removed it because of high fees.
I do believe they removed it because of high fees. The thing is, if they are true about using crypto, why not offer an alternative? I would understand their move if they accepted another coin with low fees, instead of bitcoin. If they didn't, then the fees can't be the only reason. I'm just saying that.
You run a company and you want to offer crypto as a payment method. You give up BTC because the fees are high. Won't you offer a better alternative then, after you removed bitcoin? If you don't then you are saying that you don't believe in crypto (unless like I said they just trust bitcoin, and they are waiting for BTC to be usable again).
Stripe? No comment, right?
They are going to remove bitcoin because of high fees.
Sorry, I made no comment on this one, because I don't know Stripe. I will check it out. Anyway, if they make the same move as steem, then my answer will probably be the same. If they are serious about using crypto as a payment method, and they have problems with BTC because of high fees, then they need to accept another coin that has low fees and keep crypto support.
Funny thing that you are mention network and 30K unconfirmed trasactions it is because people stop using bitcoin because of high fees.
I hate the current fees, even now, that they are lower I still hate them. But I understand that BTC is in development so I will not just massive sell.
What I said was that when the fees were high, people were still crazy about BTC, and the price was increasing, so it didn't really matter to them, so the drop in price can't be fee related.
And again, I'm not defending fees. I don't like them, but it makes no sense to massive sell BTC because of that. People would simply hold BTC and wait for the LN. Why massive sell? It's irrational to do it because of fees.
And again, if the fees were the problem, they would sell BTC and buy an alternative. There are plenty of coins with low fees out there. Why aren't those pumping as the alternative to BTC? Simply, because the problem is not fee related. They are afraid that crypto might collapse, and become illegal, and be banned by governments etc. (so again, it's FUD related and not fee related.)