Bitcoin Gambling in the USA – Legality Aspect

Can I gamble on sports using Bitcoin, in a state where it is illegal to bet online?
I live in WA state and we have some stupid laws about online sports gambling here. I’m probably not moving any time soon, and was wondering if I could use Bitcoin for sports gambling without it being illegal.

I live in WA state and we have some stupid laws about online sports gambling here. I’m probably not moving any time soon, and was wondering if I could use Bitcoin for sports gambling without it being illegal.

Is it illegal to gamble on sports using Bitcoin, or any form of currency in that matter, if you are under 18 in the United States?
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If age restrictions vary from state to state, I live in Maryland.

This pertains to playing poker on sites such as Bovada or AmericasCardRoom. Does the fact that playing with bitcoin instead of legal tender change anything? Would betting or depositing of bitcoins into an account violate Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 or Interstate Wire Act?
In my specific instance, would it violate any state laws of Texas or New York?
I find this question very difficult to get a reliable answer, because so many answers seem to be given by poker sites themselves. Any comment from someone knowledgeable on the subject would be appreciated.

I know the federal government prohibits online gambling, but Bitcoin is unregulated so how could it be against the law? Is this still a grey area for the government?

Disclaimer: I completely despite gambling and am not interested in doing it whatsoever. Yet, I wonder: technology such as bitcoin allow one to download a fair-gambling software. That is, an open source app that can be used with bitcoin/contracts for decentralized, trustless, fair gambling.
Is that kind of activity illegal?
Please, provide a source if possible!
Location: world (?)

Hey Guys,
Just had this random thought and didn't know the answer to it. What is the law or stance on bitcoins getting invovled in:

1. Traditional Gambling Website (Online Poker, Sports Betting)
2. Non-Traditional (Fantasy Football, Random online bets)

I guess the difference is that non-traditional setting is when the people decide the wager among all of them whereas normal gambling is a platform for you to gamble the amount you want.

Why Dogecoin to $1 is Only a Matter of Time
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The Bubble
It’s February of 2021, and let’s be completely honest: We’re in a bubble. It’s kind of like 1999 but not the same. In 1999, interest rates were much higher. Today, they are nearly zero. In some countries, they are even negative. From a long-term perspective, this is very bad.
The Federal Reserve is completely to blame for this. Their policies are entirely reckless, and officials refuse to acknowledge what is going on here. The Coronavirus hysteria caused by the media and enabled by officials made the crash last summer the worst man-made disaster in the history of our financial system. The Great Depression was caused by over-speculation and a lack of regulation in an emerging financial system. The Great Recession was caused by greed and fraud (strangely, no one is in jail for this). This market collapse was caused by elected officials and the fed, who got trigger-happy and cut rates to zero back in the spring of 2020.
Whatever we wind up calling the burst of this bubble is to be determined. It will, however, be entirely manmade because the fed refuses to acknowledge the speculative behavior currently going on in SPACs, Cryptos, Penny Stocks, and anything else that serves as a legal Ponzi scheme for inflating the bubble. Even real, dividend-paying stocks have gotten way overvalued in some sectors. Also, since the fed has no plans of raising rates within the next two years (so they say for now, at least), if you’re searching for yield, you have nowhere else to look than the equities markets or one of these legalized forms of Ponzi schemes. It’s extremely unfair to conservative or retired investors looking for an honest return on their savings. This all is actually why it is a great time to look at Dogecoin, as I will get to in a moment. So long as rates are near zero, the bubble will continue to go on for longer and longer. And while it continues, people will constantly look for the next big thing.
For How Long?
Now, this may sound all doom and gloom, but that’s not my point. One day the bubble will burst, but I’m not making a prediction of when that will happen. Anyone making up dates for when the bubble will burst is either clueless or a con artist. No one knows when this bubble will burst. It could be weeks, months, or even years. One thing is for sure, the bubble will not burst just because things are overvalued. That’s not how bubbles work.
There needs to be a catalyst to burst the bubble. A major military conflict. An unexpected move or comment by the fed (raising rates, calling out the bubble for what it is, etc.). Another nationwide lockdown. I can go on with examples, but a little selloff here and there (August 2020) that causes the financial media to lose its mind is not enough. Just because you claim the bubble is bursting isn’t enough either. If you follow the media, you will get burned over and over again. That’s how it works. They want you to go to their sponsors for help, and once they burn you (sell you gold, overcharge you for poor investments, etc), you’ll come back to them hoping to figure things out. It’s a shell game. When the bubble burst, it will happen extremely fast and unexpectedly. There’s nothing wrong with playing the bubble, but you need to be mindful of when it ends because once the music stops, there will be a mad rush for the exits. You don’t want to be stuck holding the bag because everything will get crushed when the bubble burst. Even the blue-chip stocks that pay solid dividends will get hammered.
Fundamentals Don’t Matter (For Now)
In this bubble environment, fundamentals don’t make sense and, quite frankly, they don’t matter. You can argue back and forth all day long about whether something has a practical future or whether something is overvalued. I’m not here to do that about Dogecoin, Bitcoin, or any other crypto. The same could be said about Penny Stocks right now. (Hint: virtually all of these companies are way overvalued). You can find tons of articles of that nature, and I’m not likely to change your preconceived notions anyway. If we look at all the irrational bubbles that have occurred lately, you are a complete fool if you believe that TSLA or BTC is worth nearly a trillion dollars. It’s worth nowhere near that valuation.
How do I determine what something is worth, and who do I mean? It is called the market cap. In layman’s terms, that is where you take all the stock shares and multiply it by the share price. And I’m not recommending buying or selling TSLA or BTC, I’m just pointing out that these valuations are absurd. Does that mean they will not pass 1 trillion dollars? Of course not. There’s a very reasonable chance they do pass a $1 trillion market cap. That sounds absurd to write but it’s true. When the bubble bursts, you better believe fundamentals will be back in play. This disconnect can’t last forever. But it can go on for a while. And while it lasts, we all want to make some money
A Quick Word About ALL Cryptos
While I don’t believe Cryptocurrencies are going anywhere (as in, people will always buy and sell them), I also do not see any APPLICABLE future in them other than trading with other people. In fact, the biggest use I see of Cryptocurrencies is for illegal and untraceable transactions. The government will do all they can over the next several years to bring in lost tax revenue and track transactions better, but that’s the extent to which Cryptos will have relevance. How do I know this? Because the federal reserve, which is backed by the taxing authority of the US Government and the might of the US military, isn’t about to let some alternative currency usurp the US dollar. How do you think we can afford to provide all this government stimulus to fight Covid? If you think about this, you will see why other countries are much worse off. They must play by our rules, while we get to export our inflation to other countries because they must use the USD to buy commodities on the international exchanges (look at what happened when Saddam tried to circumvent this). If they print more money, their currency gets devalued. That’s why as bad as things look, relatively speaking, the US isn’t in terrible shape compared to the rest of the world.
If your financial future is so married to Bitcoin, ask yourself this: what happens if your account gets hacked? Who will you call? Who will make you whole again? If you have a brokerage account with legitimate stocks, there are regulations in place. There is the SIPC which protects again brokerage failure. With Bitcoin, you are completely gambling. This lack of regulation and lack of price stability means that there is no viable path to Bitcoin being a legitimate currency. Does it mean people can buy and sell it? Of course. But if you are in the cult of believing that Bitcoin is the future world reserve currency, you need to get your head examined.
Gold and Silver con artists have been trying for decades for people to get on this alternative currency train. At least gold and silver have some practical industrial applications. And hundreds of years of history on its side. Crypto isn’t anything but something people agree upon as having value. Why do I point this out? Because the one thing you need to do is separate yourself from what you think you know about Crypto and Blockchain, etc. While it all sounds cool and revolutionary, it really doesn’t matter. The US government could easily create their own form of Crypto that gives them more control. The decentralized part just doesn’t jive with our current global hegemony. If you don’t understand this, you should think more and read less. Once you accept this, you can start to see all Crypto as fundamentally worth the same: virtually nothing. The technicals, however, are why we want to look at Dogecoin.
Relative Valuation of Dogecoin
Now that you understand a little more background into where we are, I believe Dogecoin is extremely undervalued. Why? It’s simple. Relative valuation. This is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to compare investments. Ok, so maybe this isn’t really investing anymore; it’s gambling. Still, we can apply the same concept. Imagine two companies: they are in the same industry and have similar margins, earnings, growth prospects, etc. One company is valued at $50 billion and costs $120 per share, and one is valued at $85 billion and costs $80 per share. Which one would you invest in? Of course, you would invest in the one that is worth $50 billion at $120 per share. The cost per share means absolutely nothing. It is psychological.
Now, you say Dogecoin isn’t on par with Bitcoin and that where I’m going with this isn’t a fair comparison. Go back and read the last section. That’s why I wrote about the practical applications of Cryptocurrencies in general. None of that matters. The only thing that matters is the general sentiments shared by people that buy and believe in Cryptocurrency. So, let’s look at the current valuations:
Bitcoin – Price $40,500, Market Cap $755B (estimated as of 2-6-21)
Dogecoin – Price $.05, Market Cap $4.4B (estimated as of 2-6-21)
(Source: Yahoo Finance)
Now, I’m not saying Dogecoin is worth what Bitcoin is. I’m not even saying it's worth half or a third of Bitcoin. Who really knows? No one does. You certainly cannot say for certain that one is better than another. One is more “established” and has more name recognition. What I am saying is this: if Dogecoin goes to $1, it will have a market cap of just over $85 billion. Even at Bitcoin’s current market cap, that’s just over 1/10 of its value. And that isn’t even pricing in more appreciation of Bitcoin’s value over time. This means I see tons of room for Dogecoin to run. (I know some will mention dilution via minting of new coins, but that’s another discussion and not entirely relevant to the points I am trying to make in this piece.)
Could Dogecoin match Bitcoin? That sounds absurd, but let’s look just for fun: if Dogecoin were to have the same market cap as Bitcoin, that means it would have a current price of $8.55. So, what am I saying here? You must know the range of possibilities (within reason, if that even exists anymore) before you start thinking about price targets. To say Dogecoin is going to $100 is just absurd; things need to be put in the proper context.
Why Dogecoin?
Using relative valuation, I believe you could make a case for any Crypto. Will they all run to Bitcoin’s level? Of course not. The last question is why Dogecoin? This is the most important one that we have to answer before deciding on buying Dogecoin. The answer is simple: hype and name recognition. If I look at the most valuable cryptocurrencies by market cap, Dogecoin is number 12. I have taken an informal survey of probably 100 people over the last two weeks. I showed them the top 15 Cryptocurrencies by market cap to see which they were familiar with: Stellar, Binance Coin, Cardano, Polkadot, XRP . . . almost all of these were completely unheard of. But, somehow, they have valuations of 2-3 times Dogecoin.
Dogecoin has a few things going for it. First, hype. Elon Musk and many other prominent celebrities are pilling in. Mark Cuban has said he’d buy it over a lottery ticket. That alone can help aid a very quick lift off. Second, the name Dogecoin is very easy to remember and a trendy thing. What the heck is Cardano anyway? XRP? I mistakenly called it XPR before I edited this piece. And if you are still hung up on the practical use of Dogecoin or other Cryptos, you are missing the point of this piece entirely. Look at the story behind Bitcoin. An anonymous person online created a decentralized platform for money movement or something like that. What? How in the world did that idea ever take traction? It’s just like people online arguing over which Penny Stock is the next big thing. Neither person is right, but the perception is really all that matters.
Third, stimulus checks will be hitting within weeks or months. This naturally promotes price inflation when people have more dollars chasing few goods. People will inevitably pile into whatever they think is the next great thing. Dogecoin has momentum right now. And this brings me to number four.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, FOMO is very powerful right now. There are people all over the world that know people who have won big money in this bubble. Penny stocks, GameStop, Bitcoin, and many others that you can name. How many people do you personally know that have won big in the lottery? Probably none. This is a unique time in history. People have won big in this market and are looking for the next thing.
Dogecoin is something that could pick up steam quickly. It could blow up overnight. It may not, and that is the risk you take. At the end of the day, it’s just money that you can always make more of. Life-changing money is worth the risk when you find the right risk-reward ratio.
Do your due diligence, but also think ahead to a scenario that you could imagine. Would you be that surprised if Dogecoin reached $1? And if it did, would you be surprised if it started running towards multiple dollars? $1 is a psychological number that typically leads to a further breakout. The current market cap suggests this is all very possible. Now imagine getting in at four or five cents.
Disclosure: Long Dogecoin with Diamond Hands. No positions in any other things mentioned. -BJ

I've seen a lot of people on this sub who have a common misconception that placing bets on Bovada, BetOnline, and any other offshore sportsbook is illegal. After reading the post about sharp betting which also mentions this, I'm here to clear the air and tell you that offshore sports betting is not and has never been against United States law.
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 was passed to try to prevent people from betting offshore. It makes it illegal for any offshore sportsbook to accept credit cards, checks, and electronic fund transfers for the purpose of sports gambling. Here's the catch: Nowhere in this law does it say anything about placing a bet being illegal. So while they're breaking the law by accepting your money for sports gambling, you are not. It's similar to the decriminalization of drugs, where if you're caught possessing a small amount of drugs you won't be arrested, but if you're caught selling them you can still be prosecuted.
I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that want to bet on sports, but don't want to take the chance because it's "illegal" and would prefer to wait till their state legalizes sports betting. Other people that bet offshore use a VPN and send Bitcoin from a private wallet to minimize their chances of "getting caught." All of that is completely unnecessary.
Now I'm not a lawyer, but I don't have to take out six figures worth of student loans to correctly interpret the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. And to my knowledge, nobody has ever been prosecuted for placing a bet on a sketchy Caribbean based sportsbook.
So if you want to bet offshore, go ahead! You probably will lose your money, but you certainly won't lose your freedom.

I'm in IT but is only new to Crypto - don't shame. Started in December. Started on Bitcoin Cash.
Spent a week studying it. Played around making INSTANT and COSTLESS fund transfers between fully anonymous wallets from different apps on my different phones. Also played with BIP38 encrypted Paper Wallets as a means of Cold Storage. Made INSTANT and COSTLESS deposits/withdrawals from online "merchants" like blockchain.poker and cashgames.bitcoin.com. I know some physical retail merchants in my area that accepts BCH will give that a try soon. BCH makes me a believer in crypto. I'm spreading the words (and small amount of BCH - there's no better way to understand it until you have some to play with) to family and friends.
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Researched a bit about the toxicity between BCH and BTC. As newbie crypto user I don't care about this history (though I favors BCH due to phisolophical ideals). What I cared about is speed and fee. I haven't tried BTC because the fees would have eaten up the amount I wanted to test it.
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The way I see it : BCH is currently $450. This is the same as BTC at $45. Because the Cash Market is 10x the Gold Market.
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UPDATE:
I tested the toxicity between BCH and BTC by posting my above perspective as a new crypto user in both btc and bitcoin
Guess what I've found in the message box today?
On Team BCH:

• u/sociallyantisocial has just sent you 0.00230176 Bitcoin Cash (about 1.00 USD) via chaintip!

On Team BTC:

• "Scammer and a bullshiter, you need to move to BCH holes where bitcoin cash belongs."
• "Your post has been automatically removed from the Bitcoin subreddit because it appears to be regarding an altcoin which is acting as an impostor of Bitcoin. Even though this altcoin might have a similar name to Bitcoin, it is absolutely not Bitcoin, nor will it ever be Bitcoin. If you are confused, please review this handy chart. Altcoins are typically considered off-topic for Bitcoin subreddit. Please post in CryptoCurrency, BitcoinAirdrops or Bcash. If you feel this message is in error, please check first for similar threads to comment in. Otherwise, please contact the Bitcoin mod team. Thank you."

Kind of Ironic that "censor free store of value (BTC)" is censoring discussions on its merits.
I see myself as a new crypto consumer. If BTC refuses to listen to what new customers has to say thats fine. We do wonder what happens to businesses that don't listen to their customers. Reasonable amount of my savings is now invested BCH. So in way I hope BTC continue to not listen to their customers.
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The way I see it: Whether price rises or not is a FUTURE outcome of whether BCH can be useful in the PRESENT moment. And at present BCH has already provided me with UTILITY. As an example : being able to play online poker with REAL stakes (via blockchain.poker).
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In my country its now illegal to operate online gambling but not illegal to participate. Lost of bit of freedom when the law was passed and we could only use PLAY MONEY on PokerStars. On blockchain.poker the transaction with BCH is so CHEAP and QUICK that I would deposit and play and once done INSTANT Withdrawal.The INSTANT withdrawal is something not even PokerStars could provide.
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From what I understand, institutional investors are starting to engage because they are getting very excited about the future possibilities of crypto. Specifically some new paradigm shift or new killer app that can only be achieved via blockchains and smart contracts technology. I believe this to be true. This is why I'm now fully investing my time to learning more about crypto.
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I also believe that the PRIME killer app is already here. The PRIME killer app is CENSOR FREE MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE. And from this PRIME killer app everything falls in place. From what I know from my experiments and learning thus far BCH is the leader in providing CENSOR FREE MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE.
So I'm going to spread the words, firstly to family and friends then strangers on the internet to: BUY some, USE some, HOLD some.
Thanks for the comments regarding cold storage backups. I especially appreciate the comment regarding testing the recovery process. Almost had a heart attack when the PNG/JPEG for the paper wallet I loaded with 5 BCH failed to properly decrypt on Centos7. I initially encrypted it on Centos6. openssl defaults changed. You now have to "-md md5" to properly decrypt. So to add to this I say to also keep note or backup the software environment that enabled the recovery process. Eg: BIP38 might no longer be a standard in the future so keep a copy of the version of desktop wallet app used. Keep track of OS/version it runs on etc.
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Best Regards,

I would like to draw attention to Max Keiser's response to Dogecoin and his abusive nature. He has spent his entire life manipulating markets and knew Satoshi Nakamoto personally by his own words. He talks about activists working 'with' the hedgefunds. (Suspect) Nobody knows the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto or what his intentions are yet what is known is that among the first uses for bitcoin where moving money for illegal purpouses drugs, CP assasinations and other dubious purpouses such as gambling, money laundering etc Compare this to the creator of Dodgecoin who seeked to make near instant payments and help communities. I believe there is a reason that Satoshi Nakamoto wanted to remain anonymous as he was up to much illegality and wanted to stay hidden. I also believe that Max has access to a large chunk of the first 1 million Bitcoins.

For the record, I agree that butts/crypto are about 85%+ hot air speculation, but I do think there is some real objective "value" (if you can call it that) given to crypto, since it's clearly used as a tool of "regulatory arbitrage". This is a polite way of saying that crypto is only really useful as crimebux (i.e. scamming, evading capital controls, money-laundering, ransomware, gambling, the purchase of dark-market illicit goods etc...) .
Now, obviously, criminals have a significant incentive to obfuscate their transactions as much as possible, so the extent to which crypto is used as part of various illicit networks in order to smuggle value is likely much greater than what any "on-chain" official record would show. For example, the long-time anti-butter twitter user Trolly has hypothesized that Tether is being used by wealthy individuals in China to dodge capital controls imposed by the Chinese government. There has also been acknowledgement from official sources that this is likely occurring.
I think when you step-back and consider the crypto market as a whole, it's pretty clear what "objective" value it really provides as such. Relative to major mainstream markets, crypto is extremely unregulated (and what official regulation does exist is fairly ineffective and easy to circumvent). Therefore, due to this extreme lack of regulation, it is possible to engage in black/grey market activity in the crypto-sphere that it is simply impossible--or at the very least much more difficult--to carry out in any kind of broadly legitimate, regulated market. It is, of course, difficult to know in crypto where the greater fool (but not yet illegal) speculation/market-manipulation ends and the crime/money-laundering/tax-evasion begins, and that's kind of the point.
When butters say that crypto is "decentralized" what they really mean is that various governments have difficulty regulating it due to its international, constantly-changing, and multi-faceted nature. "Decentralization" in this context has nothing to do with the distribution and concentration of hashing power, governance, or token supply. Rather, what is really "decentralized" is the interlocking web of shady actors (Tether, the exchanges, individual whales, social-media shills, and the masses of effectively anonymous traders etc...) which all contribute in some way to the crypto-space, yet responsibility for the criminal activity enabled by this so-called "market" is sufficiently decentralized such that it is difficult to hold any of the major players legally accountable.
Of course, none of this is to say that regulating crypto is literally impossible. Governments will probably get around to it eventually in a serious way, and are already starting to do so. However, it will likely take some time, as the law moves slowly in such cases, and legal-authorities/governments always have greater concerns they must attend to. Also, crypto-firms obviously shop around for legal jurisdiction, and rival states (Russia/China/Iran/North Korea etc...) might very well be trying to weaponize crypto as a revenue stream of hard currency, as well as a tool for dodging sanctions.
Ultimately, I don't think it matters all that much how many tethers/butts there are in circulation at any given time, or what the "market cap" supposedly is. That's all window dressing--essentially arbitrary numbers on a screen, which can easily be changed by the various cartels, whales, and power-brokers behind the scenes to produce the desired result. The real use-case behind crypto is that the crypto-sphere is a *uniquely* deregulated digital "market" that can be utilized for all manner of crime and shady activity. Which is to say, it's basically a massive digital version of Walter White's car wash from Breaking Bad.

From some time now some of the people I follow on youtube have started using LBRY too. Apparently, LBRY is an open source internet protocol with a backing company behind that allows for decentralized, content distribution networks for digital media. Somewhat like the bittorrent network using DHT, but in this case the central content index is stored in a decentralized way using a bitcoin-like blockchain so that the index is censorship resistant and all that stuff.
Then, odysee sems to be a platform that hosts LBRY-indexed content (the data) to provide for reliable seeds for the content. This is a weak point for the more anarchist LBRY aspirations, as odysee is obliged to legally take down content when requested by law, but as long as other seeders remain, the content remains available. It's like a youtube for the non-blatantly illegal content, while anything that gets taken down remains accessible as long as enough seeders are available.
To my understanding, you browse the LBRY blockchain, where the content index is stored, find something you like, get the hash and descriptor for that and then ask the LBRY network peers for the data, and if you're lucky and there are seeders, off you go. Pretty similar in that sense to bittorrent with DHT, but instead of getting the magnet link or the torrent file containing the descriptor for your data from thepiratebay or whatever, you get it from an immutable, append-only database. Then there's of course the token so you can earn stuff and people hosting the data get economical incentive to do so and then you can take your tokens to (for now) shady exchanges only, where you can gamble 100x leveraged on tether, and finally cash out or not.
My issue is that I don't fully understand why a blockchain in the bitcoin sense fits the use case of decentraliced, central index storage (they say their blockchain is bitcoin-based with some modifications). In bitcoin, the transactions that are validated and mined and included in the blockchain are inherently what bitcoin is by itself, I mean, there's no need for anything external from the outside world, it's self contained and cryptographically true within itself. It's very clear what validating a transaction means (look in your copy of the blockchain if the input of the transaction matches any previous unspent transaction output and if the transaction contains the proper spending key for that output, and that's it), however, how do you validate a record in a content index? Say someone wants to post a video in LBRY, they send a transaction saying "look, there's this video, the title is "Hello World", the hash of the video file is "0x1234" and the miners download the full video file, check the hash and that it's indeed a playable video and sign it off or something? (Disclaimer: I haven't had the time to fully read the LBRY docs, so this is speculation, probably I'm 100% wrong so please correct me)
I'm honestly asking, I don't fully see the usecase for the blockchain in this scenario

The definition of success may vary depending on the utility of the coin/token. Clearly 2020 has been the year of actual institutional investors buying into bitcoin. Bitcoin is succeeding at gaining mainstream adoption as a wealth preservation asset.
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Altcoin prices are still going up, but I still don't see any evidence of them becoming a successful utility. Ethereum has the highest marketcap and largest retail participation, but outside of crypto Twitter I see no evidence of any real world utility or adoption for Ethereum. XRP, the second largest by marketcap, looks like a scam to enrich Ripple disguised as a crypto project. LTC, BCH, and BSV are just abandoned versions of bitcoin which may serve a purpose if BTC runs into fatal problems but right now they are pointless. Yield farming tokens, YFI, Hex, "rebasing" coins and Forsage looks like just complicated wealth redistribution ponzi schemes where money is a zero sum game but with manipulated variables in the monetary system to make some people paper millionaires and some very poor. Borrowing/lending and gambling tokens will almost certainly be illegal without KYC in the next few years in most countries. Oracles like Chainlink will likely be obsolete in the face of Facebook's Libra, there's no point in having databases pegged to a public blockchain when a company can privately in house run their own settings on Libra.

1. Bitcoin creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, is still a mystery figure. Satoshi Nakamoto is the name used by the person who designed bitcoin but there’s still doubt about the real identity. Over the years, many people have been linked with the same, including Nick Szabo, Dorian Nakamoto, Hal Finney, Craig Steven Wright, and others. Some people consider Nakamoto might be a team of people. As of May 2017, Nakamoto is believed to own about 1 million bitcoins with a worth of more than $2 billion.
2. Bitcoins are limited in number. You might’ve heard about bitcoin mining, the process using which bitcoins are generated digitally. So, does this mean there could be an infinite number of bitcoins? That’s not the case. A pre-defined schedule has limited the number of bitcoins. They are slowly approaching a total of 21 million and the mining process is getting harder with each passing day.
3. It’s impossible to know the sendereceiver details. Bitcoin addresses are a long string of 34 alphanumeric characters. Using that address, it’s impossible to tell the recipient. Probably, this is the reason why most of the illegal transactions are carried out using bitcoins. To protect privacy even further, most wallet programs assign the users a portfolio ID, which is also used as a username.
4. Pizza was the first thing (good) purchased using bitcoin after the first bitcoin transaction took place between Satoshi and Hal Finney in 2009, the first recorded purchase was made for buying pizza worth $25. To do so, 10,000 bitcoins were spent.
5. Bitcoin network is much powerful than supercomputers according to the experts, Bitcoin networks has a computing power of 2,046,364 Pflop/s. This is my personal favorite fact about bitcoin. If you go ahead and combine the computing power of the 500 most powerful supercomputers, you’ll get a combined fever of 274 Pflop/s.
6. Bitcoin has been sent into outer space. In 2016, Genesis Mining, a bitcoin cloud mining provider, set bitcoin to space. This was done using a 3D bitcoin model and a bitcoin paper wallet, which were tied to a weather balloon. The whole journey was recorded using a GoPro focused on the model and wallet. Once the weather balloon reached a height of 20 kilometers, the ground team made the transaction to a paper wallet. Another transfer was made to the wallet once it achieved the maximum possible altitude of 34 km.
7. A bitcoin transfer is an irreversible transaction of bitcoin. However, against popular sentiment, bitcoins are only used for less than 1% of the world's time (source: NY Times).
8. The FBI has one of the world’s largest bitcoin wallets. When the FBI shut down the operations of the Silk Road, it also seized the owner’s assets. In that process, the FBI also became one of the world’s wealthiest bitcoin owners, A report from the Wired magazine claims that the FBI controls as much as $120 million.
9. Losing a bitcoin wallet means losing those bitcoins just like you save your money in your online bank accounts, your bitcoins are saved in a bitcoin wallet. It’s a highly secure storage wallet. But, if you lose it, your bitcoins are lost forever. It’s also impossible for any person to use your bitcoins from your wallet until you give it to them. Also, if you have a bitcoin address, you can see the number of bitcoins the owner has.
10. You can gamble via Bitcoins on EarnBet-an an online licensed decentralized casino and require NO KYC in the process. Its house edge is transparent and can be verified via the Blockchain. The following is a big win via Bitcoin.

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https://preview.redd.it/82q5mkpv3hc61.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31af388b96d4fab325d9f7ce07dfcfaa958c98c7
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1. Bitcoin is highly volatile. Since its launch, in past, one-decade bitcoin has become one of the most important phenomenon in the digital world. Its price has touched thousands of dollars. However, the price keeps fluctuating and it remains volatile. Predictions have also been made that bitcoin might fall in the future if it follows the current path. This is because a small number of people, about 10, control the majority of bitcoin. This defeats the entire decentralized nature of the currency.

Apparently it's some "pseudonym", and everyone just accepts that.
Does anyone have any legit theories on who the inventors are? I find it hard to believe this was invented by one guy. My theory is that some Central Banks created it, possibly through an organization like the Bank for International Settlements.
For some reason there is this false notion that Central Banks hate crypto currency, or that they hate bitcoin. It's really not true... they've been planning to completely replace the financial system with Cryptocurrencies. For Central Banks, Governments, and the financial sector, having the ability to earmark, and track currency is a massive advantage.
Central Banks envision cryptocurrencies that have the ability to be "earmarked", or only used for certain things.
Want to(as a country) donate money to Sudan, but scared it will fall into warlords' hands? Problem solved. You give the government crypto marked to only be used on essentials. And you can track the crypto to see how it was used.
Same thing on a microeconomic level. Government wants to give aid/subsidies to poor people. But they don't want them to buy crack cocaine with it. So, they get crypto earmarked for only food, or essentials. And, if someone makes a business of taking all of this earmarked crypto, and exchanging it for non earmarked... they'll get caught, because it's all on the permanent blockchain record, and would be easy to pick up with monitoring programs.
I really want to get into bitcoin at some point. But my fear is that one day Central Banks in unison are going to announce their rival cryptos. And Bitcoin will collapse into irrelevancy... only becoming relevant for people doing illegal things, and investors who want to gamble.
I think Bitcoin's days are numbered. It is going to be seen as a dinosaur... a pioneer, but outdated. It'll still be useful in illegal markets... but once it loses its mainstream appeal(as it gets overtaken by more mainstream, bank/government backed cryptos), its value and use will plummit.
I also fear that once these "legitimate" currencies pop up, there will no longer be a reason to keep Bitcoin around. It served its purpose, and made everyone trust a completely cashless system, based on 1's and 0's. I think once the Central Banks' real, new tech cryptos come out, Bitcoin may be relegated to the history books.

In the US where I am, gambling businesses are illegal unless you get licensed by the government and these licenses are very expensive, I think I read it is $10,000 just to submit an application. Here it says a PA (I live in Pennsylvania) sportsbook license is $10 million... and if your company offers other forms of betting -- namely slots, poker, table games -- there is an additional $10 million license. I have also read, though, that it is legal to have an unlicensed betting company if (and only if) the bets are placed in Bitcoin or some other virtual currency.
So, my question is: is it legal to start an unlicensed gambling operation if the bets, right before they are placed, are converted into Bitcoin or the customers' virtual currency of choice (... or gold, silver, diamonds, stocks, bonds, Euros, or any other non-USD storage of value for that matter, maybe even poker chips that can be redeemed for USD)? So, say a customer wants to bet $10 on the Eagles game; (1) he will choose to place this bet, (2) the computer (and/or an in-person employee) will quickly convert the $10 to $10 worth of Bitcoin (or gold, etc.), (3) and the $10 worth of Bitcoin will be submitted as a bet on the Eagles game. (4) Payouts will be paid in Bitcoin (and the company can convert Bitcoin into cash then if the customers choose). Is this legal to do?
Thanks in advance for any help!

A token is just a claim slip. A coupon. Something that can be redeemed for a service or good. It has no monetary value in and of itself. It's value is a property of the good or service it can be legally redeemed for.
Legal tokens, like coupons, have to specify on them that you can't exchange them for monetary value. The fact you can't exchange them outside of their legally permissible uses, and the fact they have expiry dates, and various other restrictions, limits any potential use as a monetary medium of exchange. All tokens are regulated by governments, so as to not to destabilize their own fiat monetary systems.
There are lots of examples of tokens, like casino chips, parking permits, medical prescriptions, financial securities. The list is endless. Casino chips are tokens that people use to gamble with at casinos. They are accepted for monetary bets at the casino, however they have virtually no legal use in the broader economy. Nobody can legally buy them from you, other than the casino itself. Nobody will accept them in direct settlement of a transaction other than the person you are gambling with or the casino (or criminals). Selling your medical prescription to another person is definitely illegal. Transacting in financial securities is heavily regulated and monitored, why? Because if they weren't, these tokens could potentially become a threat to the government's own issued casino tokens... ahem, fiat currencies. Tokens are a unit of account, used for specific purposes, and will never be tolerated by governments as a medium of exchange.
Cash is the ultimate unit of account and medium of exchange, because it can be legally used to purchase any other token, good or service directly.
Banks used to print and issue their own banknotes as cash. They used to be allowed to issue their own tokens that the government would back as a legal representation of their fiat. Now they are not permitted to do this. Again, why? Cash can be too easily used for illegal purposes. Issuing new cash gives the person issuing it incredible power.
Bitcoin is cash for the internet age. It takes away that power, from everyone. Because power corrupts humans. While creating an even BETTER cash system than we ever had before, and can do so much more than the fiat cash we currently are familiar with.
In the future, utility tokens will have restrictions on their legal use, and will have to act within the law. They will have heavy restrictions on their use. They will not be permitted to continue to be freely traded, pumped and dumped, on dodgy exchanges by governments worldwide for much longer.