You might think you are hedging your bests as you placed it, but many of these Alt coins are mostly pump and dumps and you have a high chance of losing even more, if you chose one of these coins. The failure rate of many of these coins are relatively high, compared to Bitcoin that has been around for years.

Diversifying is a good thing, if you know what you doing. You can do a lot of harm, if you not going to do your homework.

This does not make sense at all. If you cannot afford something, you do not go out to the shops and steal it. It is a criminal offense and you will be fined or jailed for that. These services are the vehicle  for criminal actions and they will be targeted by the authorities.

What will happen if everyone starts downloading copyrighted content from the internet and this industry collapse, due to financial problems? It also has a ripple affect, because legal providers of these products like Netflix or video shops have to close their doors too.

If you cannot afford it, do not steal it. ^hmmmm^ 

We already got rid of the potential benevolent dictatorship, with the departure of Mike Hearn. The immediate threat have been dealt with. If the development team turns into a <Communist> system, like the OP defined it, we will deal with that too.

The developers work for the community and to improve the technology based on the needs of the community. If they do not address those needs, other developers are free to bring their proposals and the community will decide, if the proposal is good enough to replace the current developers.

This has been blown out of portion for no reason. Any forum on the internet has rules and you are informed about this in advance. One of the rules on \r\Bitcoin on Reddit says specifically, NO Alt coin promotion will be tolerated. Until one of these forks replace Bitcoin, it is deemed to be a Alt coin.

We are free to join any other forum, where Alt coin talks are tolerated or to create our own forums for these discussion, like Roger Ver and those guys did. If XT or Classic or any other BIP proposal is correctly defined as a Alt coin, we would never know, because it is open for interpretation.

The fact of the matter is, the moderators of these platforms has decided that these discussions are Alt coin based, and should not be allowed on a platform that were meant for Bitcoin discussions. 

I think people are jumping to their own conclusions, because some banks in Australia has already been taken to court for the same thing. <Anti-competitive practices> They will still do this, but they will be more creative. If these Bitcoiners give them the slightest opportunity, they will jump at it.

These people did not get where they are today, because they followed all the rules. In 2008 we saw how they nearly destroyed the economy, with their scrupulous lending practices and fractional reserve.   

Loads of new cars out there are driven with manufacturer problems and people do not even know it. As soon as these things are reported, it gets investigated and if it was attributed to the car, the manufacturer will recall the cars to be re-fitted with a replacement part. These things just happen.

It could also have been a problem with the charging station and not the car. 

Hey, like it or not, some regulation and monitoring will happen and we should just accept it. The governments has a obligation to protect their citizens against terrorists and/or consumer protection against fraud and scams. So I agree with their views on that.

The positive thing about this is, the door was left open for discussion and further investigation. They could have just closed the door and forced the current financial systems down on us and they did not do that. Let's just enjoy the small steps we are taking towards a better Bitcoin future. 

Just use a off-chain solution like Xapo with instant transaction confirmation. You get people to sign up for a Xapo account and then have them use their Xapo debit card to pay for the stuff they want to purchase from these vending machines.

Once this takes off, Xapo could form a partnership with these vending manufacturers and arrange for discounts on fees for these micro transactions. At this stage all in card spending <off-chain> is free. Correct me if I am wrong.

The best we can do for now, until some sort of verification service can be developed to help identify legitimate businesses, would be to visit this site and to see if it is on the bad list. http://www.badbitcoin.org/

Someone or a group of people with a good reputation and standing in the community should create a site, listing the legitimate businesses. I know this will be a bit controversial, but it could serve as a guideline to help people to use more trustworthy services. 

He would not have been influenced by personal gain for one thing. He will also not worry about not having enough experience to do a hard fork, if it was needed. He will also not allow for a <hostile takeover> or a power grab. His objectives and his goals was centered around the improvement of the technology.

The developers working on BIP proposals now, seems to concentrate on their own personal gain <monetary or power>

What would be interesting, is if the Chinese government force all Chinese mining farms to mine their own coin and not Bitcoin. It would effectively take away 50% to 60% of the Bitcoin hash power. A lot of these operations can be moved out of the country if that happens, but it will be more expensive to do that, because electricity is subsidized in China.

Now that is a scary thought. Then again difficulty would drop and we would possibly be able to mine with GPU's again.   

The house will be a physical asset you can sell later, but it will carry expenses too, and people tend to forget about these expenses. < Municipal Rates & Taxes on the property / Maintenance of the physical structure > If you subtract that over time from the first investment and you received no rental income to cover that, you will find that the profit on that property will be much lower than what you might have had, if you just waited for the price of Bitcoin to rise even higher.

I guess a physical property feels safe for people investing in traditional commodities like gold and silver and real estate. 

Most of these winners are fake and just engineered to serve as a carrot for the donkeys. The carrot is always out of reach,

Your activity is monitored and this can be seen from the affiliate interface offered on some of these sites. They pay you a referral fee on the profit they made from the users that you referred to them. You can also see this, when you exit a specific slot game for instance. When you enter that game again, it remembers what bonuses you had and what amount of coins and how many lines you played before.

So you just continue where you left off and they just make sure that in the long run, you still see some smaller jackpots, but you lose it over time. You are like a little hamster in a wheel or a donkey chasing a carrot.

I think what the person is trying to say is the old Libertarian thoughts are that Satoshi's view on centralized services like banks were to replace them with Bitcoin. I do not necessarily agree with that train of thought, but I think it might be a better solution for many of the problems associated with these services.

Will Bitcoin replace the banks? No, I doubt it. They will just adapt to the new technology and keep doing business.^sad^

I doubt that any normal customer of a bank knows how a ATM works on the inside. They want to walk up to a ATM and just use it to deposit cash or to withdraw money. They seldom know how money is transferred between banks <Swift> and that not all money in their accounts are stored in the local vault.

This must be the same for the average Bitcoin users to make it easy for them to use the currency or the other features like Smart contracts.

I think it also has to do with the numbers, because these advertisers knows a country like the Philippines will have a much higher poverty rate than say Finland and these countries will have loads more users using these faucets for income, and that does not necessarily translate to sales.

The irony for me is, these poor countries actually need the higher payouts, seeing that faucets are there to help people to get hold of bitcoins. The world is so upside down, it's sad.

Bitcoin Heaven for me will come when people around me start to fight with me, because I did not introduce this technology to them earlier and also when I can walk into any shop and I can pay with bitcoins. That would be perfect and I will be in a position to tell them, " I told you so " 

We are still teething with scaling problems, but that will soon be resolved. Not everyone wants another PayPal.

 

Excellent first post, and I hope your travel down the rabbit hole will be just as good. I think a lot of people first have to use it, to realize how special it is. Once they break that barrier, things will be so much easier. Lots of people like you are out there, but they have not taken that first step.

Now the difficult part starts and that is to spread the word, and if I were in your shoes, I would first do some research to be in a better position to explain it.

What would be great, is if someone could create custom number plates, with the following " Sold4BTC " or " BTC RIP ? "
or some sticker in the rear window, saying " Bitcoin is Alive! " or " Bought with Bitcoin " I just want people to know that it was bought with Bitcoin.

Tesla is a great car, and I also want one. It would be great if they throw in a PowerWall too. ^smile^

I guess Barry said it best, "What does not kill you, makes you stronger" and this definitely shows in the community. A lot of dead skin has been shed, and we are looking much better than before. We now have one enemy clearly defined and we can concentrate on that for now.

Investors will soon realize the complexity of this environment and how competitive it can be and this might scare some or it might excite others. Who wants to invest in a boring commodity? Keep the adrenaline pumping, we like it rough.