It would not be surprising if they mismanaged the funds. They are not professional fund managers nor are they working behind an investment bank. Investing in something like that should be avoided because they are subject to SEC regulations. For now the SEC is not doing anything but that does not mean they won't in the future. They will make a good example of someone just like Ross Ulbricht in showing that the US government should not be messed with.

No one really knows why. Some will say that it was because Bitcoin's volatile nature, others would cite political or economic reasons, then some would base it on recent events. Most of you have followed Bitcoin long enough to know that none of the reasons said is the exact reason why Bitcoin moves the way it does. So saying that you think it was caused by "pure manipulation" could be true or not true just like all the other reasons.

Precious metals will always be a good store of value as long as there is a market supporting it. But let me ask, why silver? Why not go for gold instead? If I had to choose between gold and silver I would certainly choose gold to hold my wealth. But between silver and Bitcoin? It is close but my decision would lean towards Bitcoin.

It is also a good time to start hoarding as much precious metals, be it silver or gold as you can because the next financial crisis could come anytime soon. I would also suggest mixing some wealth storage in Bitcoin too. There was a reason why Satoshi created, developed and then released Bitcoin right after the 2008 financial crisis.

Or why not just hold what you have now and set aside some of your monthly salary from your job to buy Bitcoin? Of course it does not mean that you should buy every month. Timing is very important like you mentioned and having some money ready to buy when the time comes is equally important also. So make it a point to be ready when Bitcoin is in bargain prices.

I hope we will get lucky again to see Bitcoin go lower to the low $500's.

Just to give a slightly different view. I do not think that Bitcoin was meant to surpass fiat. This only my personal opinion, but I think the main reason why Satoshi created and developed Bitcoin was to make a political statement. We have seen the things the bankers did that caused the 2008 financial crisis making ordinary people lose their jobs and their homes. Bitcoin is showing us a way that we do not need banks and that we have the option to take control of our money thru the use of technology. We may take it for granted because we deal with Bitcoin everyday but the statement made is very very powerful. We should feel lucky that we are taking part in it one way or another.

There is a problem with Multibit Classic where the transactions with high "S" values are not accepted since the Bitcoin protocol is now enforcing low S values only. So my question is will the developers and maintainers of Multibit upgrade classic to use only low S values when sending Bitcoins?

I hope they will since I like the classic wallet better than HD. I would hate to run into problems where my transactions would not be accepted by the network.

Do you think the hard fork will go smoothly? I assume your argument is about the XT hard form scenario unless I'm mistaken. But in my opinion it would be better to be cautious and prudent before making major changes in Bitcoin. Look at what happened with Ethereum. What if the same thing will happen again with Bitcoin's hard fork. Then what is supposed to be a champion of cryptocurrencies would now become a failed experiment in consensus. It will be laughable. The core development team should not risk anything that will destroy Bitcoin.

If you want to gain a regular income with decent profit then I would suggest taking a look at darknet market places. You do not have to sell illegal substances over there. You can sell cigarrettes, Cannabis seeds which are not illegal and even cannabinoid oil which again are not illegal. Mayne people around the world are looking for these products but do not know where to look. You can even start experimenting and set shop at Open Bazaar if you do not like the darknet markets.

It is not difficult to do even with a large number of users. Most of the users have less than 5 bitcoins and even more so have less than 1 bitcoins. Where do you think the large volatility of Bitcoin comes from? Yes, it comes from the traders and speculators going in and out of the market. It is no different from the frequent pump and dumps we have seen with altcoins. But pump and dumps are not the problem entirely if you are a Bitcoin holder. It is the volatility that is the problem. It is so stressful to see your savings drop down in value at any given day. So to lessen this volatility in % terms, Bitcoin will have to reach the price of $10,000 or more because any volatility in the $100's of dollars will not matter so much anymore.

I think you have the wrong attitude. You should always look to accumulate as much BTC as you can. There are various reasons for you to do this, but for me personally it is because the realest money that you can own and totally control right now. So every month I set aside a portion of my salary that I am planning to buy BTC with.

If the price goes down below $600, then it is a good time to look for a good price to buy at a bargain. I believe it can still go down below it and I'm still waiting to add more if it reaches the lower $500's.

You had to ask. This obviously has scam written all over it. But I do not think the people who hang out in this forum a lot will not fall for it that easily. The newbies might because of the lack of education. It is important that the people who have been here for years should look out for the newbies and give them fair warning on what services to avoid.

Also that "sweetener" is bait. They will make you money for the first $30 deposit and then skin you alive when you actually make the larger deposit.

I just heard about this too. Which brings me to a question. How is Circle as a service for payments? Have some of you actually used it or is using it right now for your daily stuff like paying for coffee in a cafe? I believe this will be a very big thing especially for us Bitcointards. I also see this as Apple bringing Bitcoin payments to the world which make me think that they could be on to something here. Because why not use Apple Pay and use Circle instead? I believe Apple always finds solutions in their walled garden, unless I missed something.

Maybe they are in the process of buying Circle?

What do you think of this proposal by the people behind Spreadcoin?

http://spreadcoin.info/news/proof-of-bitcoin-node-white-paper/

They are proposing an idea called "Proof of Bitcoin Node". I only made a quick skim on the link above and I have not fully understood it well, but the first impression I got from it is that PoBN is basically another layer on top of Bitcoin that gives incentive to the people running Bitcoin nodes thru big data mining.

Now I am not much of a technical person so it would be nice if someone explains what Spreadcoin is trying to achieve and how big data plays a role in their idea.

Hello SFR, I just noticed that I became a full member. I will start wearing the avatar too for the extra bonus. Thanks!

Let me ask you this. Why is it that bitcoin has very high volatility? One day it is down below some price from a decently high price then the next day without any warning to goes up really high. After that it goes back low again. Is that not a behavior of something traded being pumped and then dumped?

We all give excuse and deny the fact that bitcoin is being pumped and dumped from time to time and justify that by saying that bitcoin is "naturally volatile". The day that bitcoin's volatility becomes low is when the price reaches $10,000 per coin. Let's see how pump and dumping traders move that.

For debit card deposits I would recommend you go check 247exchange or cex.io. Those are the only two exchanges that I am aware of that are accepting debit cards and credit cards.

If you find them not to your liking then I would suggest localbitcoins.com. But make sure you only deal with verified sellers. You will have to deal with cash, not your debit card.

Well what do you expect? Nothing can escape the government's hand in taxing anything. To be honest with everyone, I do not want bitcoin to become mainstream. Experimentation and pushing the technology forward should be the top priority, not making money. So a bitcoin that is not defined by any government entity and free to become what it is meant to be is more valuable to me than BTC going "to the moon".

I would not be too excited about that. When the government makes a move that makes you think it is on your favor, you should beware. By "legitimizing" bitcoin and giving it "form", they will make other laws to make it something as they want it to be and how to regulate it. That will give bitcoin borders and limitations when it was supposed to have none. I do not exactly how everything will turn out but when there is government intervention, it is not always good.

Keepkey looks good and what I like best about it is it works well with Multibit HD from what I read. I do not own a bitcoin hardware wallet yet but I think my btc savings need to be transferred in one so I can sleep well at night.

I am still undecided whether to get a Trezor or a Keepkey. For the cheaper price I might go for Keepkey.

The best service to ask something like this would be Shapeshift. They will give you a better answer than a theoretical one because their services is based on accommodating and holding many cryptocurrencies. Plus they have to make everything running well and be stable every day, all year long without any down time if possible.

Search the service announcement thread for Shapeshift and start asking there. From there maybe the could refer you to their tech people or maybe even their developers.