I thought that BTC would get a bump after August 1st, but more for people dumping their share of BCH back into BTC.  I don't think that's the case though because BCH is holding up a lot better than most expected that don't support it.

You could register with an exchange like Bittrex or Poloniex and trade on their platform.  You could also use ShapeShift to trade cryptocurrencies, however it will likely have a higher transaction fee.  You can also sell Bitcoin on localbitcoins for your local currency.

Good advice.

What is the actual use of BCH at the moment other than a speculative investment?  Does it serve any purpose for commerce or a store of value?

I wouldn't say never. It's currently very far from being the strongest currency in the world. But the growth that it's experiencing is exponential, so over let's say a couple decades, it does have potential. Right now I'd say the USD is the strongest currency by far. Pretty much accepted worldwide and they could print bitcoins entire market cap in a month without any effect on fx (which they already did for years).

With that type of risk, we can also lose 50% in a month as well.  No one is making 100% gains per month consistently.  And 15% a year from risk free savings would be amazing, if it actually existed 

The cost of printing fiat is less than a cent for the paper and ink required, yet once it's finished, it's worth say $100.  It's probably the lowest cost possible to get $100 out of thin air.

For less tech savvy people, or older people who don't want change, there will just need to be a user interface that is super easy to use.  The same way that old people have gotten off dial up internet, or rotary phones.  What can be easier than tapping a card or phone on a scanner and having the payment go through.  Once it's part of everyday life for the tech savvy and younger crowd, it will be more trusted and adopted by the rest.

Banks may eventually play a role and give the option for customers to have Bitcoin with them.  I'd assume mainstream folks that have trust in their banks would prefer this.  Sort of like an exchange but integrated with existing bank accounts.  The rest can use wallets with private keys.

Go to coinmarketcap.com to see all of the different cryptocurrencies available for trade.  Keep an eye on that periodically to observe the movements and volatility of coins you're interested in.

There's some general info on Bitcoin for beginners here https://www.coindesk.com/information/

Enjoy.

Centralization is good when it is executed with benevolence.  However what usually happens is that the people that are "in charge" have their own interests which are different than the general public.  Assuming that you don't have selfless benevolent leadership, decentralization is a better approach imo.

I haven't recovered my BCH yet, and I'd assume many people are in the same boat.  Heard a lot of speculation about the price of BCH immediately crashing to bullshit, however it's doing quite well.  Not sure if it's because most people haven't gained access to their BCH to dump it, or if it has legit support.

Yeah that is sort of a problem.  You can get your hands on GPU's.  Rather than struggling to get AMD cards or paying a premium in the second hand market, I'd go for Nvidia at the moment.  But even then, profitability has dropped drastically in the past couple months.  Not sure why you'd want to do GPU mining right now.  I built a 1070 rig in May, and at the time the payback estimate based on profitability was 5 months at constant difficulty.  Right now it's about 18 months.  And the difficulty isn't constant, it just get's more and more difficult.  Do some more research before you invest in the hardware, unless it's just a hobby.

I agree they're definitely not powerless, but having an explicit strong resistance towards cryptocurrencies will give power the the opposition, which they'd probably rather not have.

$ wise, central banks are still several magnitudes beyond Bitcoin.  The entire market cap is very small compared fiat currencies in circulation.

Yeah I'm not sure if most people even have access to their BCH to sell.  I don't.

Current price is at $430 which is pretty impressive given all the speculation that it would instantly die.  #3 in market cap, behind Ethereum.

BTC part of my wallet (Jaxx) was down most of the day, showing an incorrect balance which had me a little concerned.  But it returned to normal a couple hours ago.  They're still debating whether they're going to support BCH on shapeshift, which they just tweeted today.  Even if they do, there will be a huge delay to even access it to be able to trade it.

The first one to print money and have it backed by force (a military) wins.  Any money that is printed and backed by nothing is counterfeit.  Just because one group of people say they are legit doesn't make it any different.  They print money and get rich by enslaving others.  You print money and you go to jail.  That's how the game works.

Mining has its ups and downs with profitability.  For GPU mining, the profitability has dropped off significantly in the past couple months where the payback on hardware is going to take a year and a half or so, rather than what used to be about 3 months.  Of course the future price of the coins have a huge impact on that though.

To answer OP, I'd say the best way for steady income is to build a marketable skill to mastery.  Depending on the economic environment of the city you live in, moving to another city will provide different opportunities.

Well it was volatile at $200 and it's still volatile at $3000, which is 15 times the value.  Higher value (which would represent higher demand) might help, but regardless of the value, if the volume is low, the price will move easily.  Same concept as the stock market.  Once you increase the volume substantially, each trade has a much less significant impact on price.

Yeah pretty much.  I'm not going to be making any transactions or trades.  I think it will take a few days for BCH to even show up in wallets, so I won't be able to do an instant dump even if I wanted to.  Just going to observe and see how this plays out.

I don't believe there's any restriction on what the federal reserve can print.  During QE3, they were printing $80 billion per month.  The CPI which I consider bullshit, didn't even move much.  But the money goes straight to the banks and Wallstreet and the wealthy elite benefit from it.

The speculative investing causes volatility.  If Bitcoin was widely adopted for commercial use (buying and selling products and services), then the volume would go up so drastically that the buying and selling of traders would have a far smaller impact.

The higher the volume, the harder it is manipulate and have huge volatility.