I have to say, a lot of fucking degenerate, house-losing, wife-losing, dignity-losing gamblers also trade on their gut feelings, and that feeling can steer you wrong pretty damn quick.  Same thing with forex, stock, bond, metals, and everything else-trading.  If you rely on emotion, you're usually dead.  I think that gut feeling is a subspace of emotion, though I could be wrong.

Also:  A broken clock is right twice a day.  So you could get lucky with your gut.  Who knows.

This exactly.  The size of your bowl.  OP, don't fall for this shit.  Everyone on this forum who 'invests' in ICOs is looking to do the same thing, which is get in early with the hope that the devs of whatever particular coin aren't complete liars.  But they're all complete bullshit coins that have no advantage over bitcoin OR the 1000s of other shitcoins on the market.  Just stay away.  Far, far away.

Holy crapsteaks!  Is that seriously true?  I did not realize Venezuela was so poor--I ought to pay more attention to what's happening in the world, but the part of me that detests news won't let me.  Having said that, why not use another crypto that has lower fees?  I know a lot of them do, but I know me saying that is heresy around these parts.  But I know you can send DOGE almost for free.

Then again, I thought S. American countries were pretty comfortable using the good old USD when all else fails.  Is that not true anymore?  I thought I read somewhere that the only commercial use our current dollar coins get is in Mexico and parts south.

Yeah, that sounds more like governments not thinking things through enough--not surprising.

There is so little resistance to going cashless, it's crazy.  People could fight this if they wanted to, but they don't.  The plebians themselves hate carrying cash!  I don't, but I'm in the minority.  We've been headed this way for decades now.  How much more debased can our currency become?  There's not even any precious metals left in our coinage.  Now our money isn't even going to physically exist!  LOL

It's anyone's guess.  People will give their opinions, but there's no certainty in any of them.  The good thing is that the rise we've had recently has been sort of slow compared to 2013.  Everyone was euphoric back then because bitcoin got up to $1200, but it did so way too fast.  What we have now seems to be a bit more sustainable, but even that isn't a certainty.

So as to your question of whether now is a good time to buy...sure, why not?

I have to point this out:  The US took large notes out of circulation a long time ago, the $500 and above notes.  They weren't demonitized, though.  Is all of this much different than that, or is this a situation where it'd be like taking the US $100 out of circulation? 

People aren't getting robbed by any of this happening, are they?  I assume the concern here is that this is all more steps toward being cashless...am I correct?  I confess I don't read much news.

Man, I could not have said it better myself.  The US is flooded with counterfeit everything from China.  The coin market is especially bad--they make some damn convincing counterfeits.  It baffles me that nothing is done, but that's so far out of my hands it isn't funny.  I'm not concerned in the least about China's involvement with bitcoin.  I think it's a good thing, and those stories of miners stealing electricity...anyone could do that.  Many people do it.  Theft isn't peculiar to China by any means.

ETC is going to be approaching zero much faster than $100, so I agree with "never".  I find it highly unlikely that this shitcoin will even exist in 5 years, much less have that value.  Sure, stranger things have happened...but come on.

This is the wave of the future, going cashless.  And people want to, it's not just the governments.  People hate carrying bills and change and all that.  I see people paying for their Starbucks with their phone 9 times out of 10.  It scares me, honestly, but nothing I can do.  As far as bitcoin goes, governments are going to regulate it.  We've already seen that.  But it's not something that governments are going to kill.

Well, I've seen a whole bunch of crypto for sale on Ebay, so I think they allow it to some extent.  Your starting bid is fair.  I didn't notice if you have a reserve or not.  I think probably doing it as a BIN would make more sense, but there are tons of people who like auctions.

I think it's anyone's guess where bitcoin will be in 20 years.  That's a hell of a long time--it may not seem like it, but in economics it is.  I honestly didn't expect bitcoin to survive past 2014 after the crash, and I was pleasantly surprised that it did.

Something's going to come along to replace bitcoin, that's my guess.  I think it's got way too many problems for it to get the wide adoption that most people are hoping for.  People need a reason to use it instead of fiat, and I have yet to find a good one.  It's a good store of value that takes up no space, but as a currency it blows ass.

The bulk of my 'wealth' is in stocks.  It always has been--bitcoin is kinda new to me and I'm not certain how it's going to turn out.  I'm fearful of putting any significant amount of investment money into it.  I think the people here who are 'all-in' are a bit crazy.  But then again, fortune favors the bold, does it not?  Sometimes you have to take big risks to reap the big rewards.  I just don't have the cubes of brass enough to go all in myself.

It is a fair starting price.  Are you supposed to do this sort of thing on Ebay?  I thought they severely frowned upon selling crypto for PayPal.

Also, is this in the right section?

I love Bloomberg.  Brings me back to when I used to listen to the radio program before the market opened in the morning.  Good times.

100%?  Sure!  Could happen, and the rise could even be higher than that.  Bitcoin has always been volatile as hell, and we're definitely in a bitcoin bull market right now.  I'm going to ride the momentum wave and accumulate what I can.

Oh my lord.  Relying on what passes for news in the crypto community for a basis to make trades is insanity to me.  What kind of news would anyone expect about trump coin, or 1337, or any of the myriad shit coins that get buried on Yobit and the like?  They're all pump and dump, so any news is going to be heavily biased and likely not even reliable.  I think that plan is a lot of horseshit.  It's all random luck, making money trading altcoins.

The Fed?  I don't think they care all that much about bitcoin.  The IRS, on the other hand, seems to be greatly interested in it, and that's the agency I'd be watching.  The Fed's got its hands busy raising rates and dealing with the bankers.  Bitcoin isn't probably even on their radar.  But you know that if the IRS can fuck you out of money, they will.

I've found Dash & Doge to be consistently much faster than bitcoin, and with fees that are near nothing.  Not that I ever use those coins much--it's not like there are merchants on every street taking Dash and Doge.  Anyhow, I'm fine with bitcoin's speed for my purposes. I don't get or send a lot.

Yeah, I'm not disappointed because I don't trade all that much.  Over the years I've learned that I don't like taking losses and don't have the constitution of a real trader.   So I'm now mainly a buy-and-hold investor.  Much less anxiety doing it that way.

It's entirely possible that I could get $40 in bitcoins daily, from my job in real life.  Now my question to OP is, why would I want to do anything but HODL those bitcoins?  We're in a raging bull market in bitcoin right now, so I view owning btc to be an investment worthy of that description.  There's no need to buy anything else once you have your coins.

It's a safe bet to just ignore any offers by PM.  I can't say I've had many, but people just try their luck on this forum, fishing for idiots--and there are plenty.  Don't trade with anyone on here unless they're trusted, and ALWAYS use escrow for deals and collateral for loans.  If you do that without exception, you should be fine.  Don't trust anyone, that's also a sure bet.