They could definitely be checking for a grow house. 
Even states where medical marijuana is allowed will bust a grow operation if it is too many plants.

If you have nothing to hide you could definitely call the power company and tell them you noticed someone coming to check the meters a couple times and wanted to know whats going on.

Bitcoin has shown that it is much more resistant to crashes than it was a few years ago. 
The "drop" that people are talking about was actually a slight bubble a few weeks after the last halving. 
The price will probably go up slowly.

The only way I can see the price going below $500 is if BTC is totally dead.
Unless we see another coin become so popular that it overthrows Bitcoin, I'm sure that buying coins now is at least a decent investment.

Three months left for OPs prediction to come true. 
When is this huge financial crash supposed to happen? After the US Presidential election?
Please advise so that I can get my affairs in order to move to Russia or China LOL.

If you don't mind the noise of the miners, you could definitely put some in a room and use it for heating. 
You may even be able to heat the room where you will sleep, if you don't mind the noise. 

Since I'm used to the hum of racks of computer equipment (from my job), I can fall asleep with the sound of fans easily.
Depends on how easily you sleep through the noise.

One of the main issues here is going to be your electricity cost.
If your cost is low this may be a way for you to make a little money, otherwise you are probably better off just heating your space through normal methods.

You aren't going to get rich mining unless you have millions of dollars and live in China. 
(And started a company a few years ago already) 
Too much competition. 

It's basically a fun hobby and a way to earn possibly a little bit of money if you really know what you are doing,
but learn a lot about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

I don't think anyone would accept a physical bitcoin because its just a form of a paper wallet.  
You still have to perform a transaction and wait for confirmation.  
Its basically a novelty way to have offline cold storage. 

And most of them are collectors items that cost way more than the amount of BTC loaded on them. 
It would be cool for someone to set up another run of coins and keep the price low.

If someone is selling lot of electronics like TVs, computers, PS4 on the darknet and actually delivers items,
they are probably carding (stolen credit cards)
and looking for a place to get rid of their goods for cash. 
You can probably get a good deal on an item, just know that it is stolen merchandise.

I would consider buying some cheaper mining gear, like a s7, and running that for a while. 
If you are able to keep that running with no issues and make a little money, then spend more and get some newer gear. 
If the mining does not work out, you have not wasted all your money.

This is why I love this forum. 
As someone who only knows basic programming, its amazing to come to a thread like this and learn about things like "Turing Completeness" on my lunch break.

Is it possible to feel smarter and dumber at the same time?
The more learn, I realize how little I know...

Bitcoin is about $570 right now.
Do you still think buying BTC is a good long term investment strategy?
Prices have not moved much recently. Some people call this "stable", while some people call this "stagnant".

I actually think its better to be stable and not have prices jumping up and down.
But does this mean the days of getting rich off Bitcoin are over?
If you invest $570 and a year later have $600, could you have made more on a different investment like stocks or bonds?

Even though there are a lot of spammers and idiots, there are some members here who REALLY know what they are talking about.
There are people who operate mining pools, people who know a ton about mining hardware, there are four or five people who post really good topics in the Economics Speculation forum.  
I've learned way more about Bitcoin on this forum than anywhere else.

I would not be surprised if price was around or above $600 the first few months of 2017. 
So if you have the money, and can buy some coins in the $550-570 range the last few weeks, you will probably do well. 
I don't see the price dropping that much, and if something happens, it could certainly jump back up to the $700 range.

That really makes me interested in the Okcoin business model.
I had no idea that such a thing as a 0% fee exchange existed. Is it really free to exchange coins?
If so, how would a business like this turn a profit?
It would cost a huge amount of money to run a successful exchange and keep servers running, security up to date, support staff on hand, etc... 
How are they affording all this? I don't see any ads on their site? Are they offering some other products/ services that charge a fee?

This has to be one of the most indestructible cold storage wallets:
https://99bitcoins.com/crpytosteel-hands-on-review/
Literally made of steel. I don't think anything other than an atomic bomb would destroy this. 
So as long as you didn't lose it, you could put it in a safe somewhere and always have access to your cold storage account.

Does anyone accept Monero? 
I've heard it mentioned, but I've looked at some of the Darknet sites and it looked like everyone was only accepting Bitcoin. 
(I haven't looked in a while though.) 

Wouldn't the easiest way to weed out spammers be correlation of a single IP address to multiple accounts?
Is it a possibility that someone would go through the trouble of using a proxy/ tor etc for each account so none of them posted from the same address?

The only way to end spam would be to dis-allow signature campaigns.
I know that when I first joined a campaign I got a little excited and made some extra posts.
For someone that really needs the money, they definitely have an incentive to hit the max posts every day.
And for someone who has the skills to program a network of bot accounts and automate their posting, it might be worth the time if some of the figures posted in this thread are accurate.

Bitcoin is anonymous, but a lot of these exchanges are trying to become reputable financial businesses,
so they have to follow some laws and guidelines. 

Its actually a bit difficult to buy coins without using any id at first.
You can probably find some trusted members on this site to buy from, but they may charge you higher fees at first, until you establish a relationship with them.

Its funny how often someone makes a new account just to post "OMG Bitcoin going to be worthless the sky is falling sell now B4Its2Late!" 

I actually wonder what is the motivation for someone doing this. 
I don't know if they do it just because they are trying to troll people, or if its someone with enough money to actually make a profit if a panic dump happens.

I started playing Diablo 3 again. 
Its so much better than it was a few years ago. 
Playing Season Adventure mode is really cool if you've beaten the game already. 
(I would still recommend beating the game in regular mode once because the story is really good actually.)

There are some major retailers that accept Bitcoin- Steam (games),Newegg.com (computer parts), Overstock.com.
And with companies like Coinbase working with retailers to help them accept payments that you fund in BTC, you can actually buy a decent amount of things. 

But I agree. It's still mainly an asset for speculation. That's why the price isn't moving much right now IMO. 
We need more retailers, or another online service like iTunes etc to start accepting Bitcoin if we want to see growth continue and the value rise.