The fork thing has really tainted the Bitcoin reputation and in my view it will take some time to recover from that. We need to reclaim the trust relationship from the potential investors, that Bitcoin development is stable and free from any personal reward incentives for a few individuals on the side.

Pay these developers to concentrate on Bitcoin development NOT Blockstream or The lightning Project side shows. 

Well banks are going to use private Blockchain technologies to transfer between banks and also central banks. It's going to be cheaper than the existing services like Swift. <Pro> The <con> will be that they will not be using our Bitcoin Blockchain, but their own privately developed Blockchain Rip off.

Other uses like Smart contracts will possibly disrupt some other services too.   

Yes I was invited to one a year ago, and it took me 3 hours to get there. I walk in there and 26 pairs of eyes turn to me, looking me up and down. I looked like a typical agent with my short hair, so people checked me out from a distance. That is until Alberto, the guy who invited me walked over and asked me if I was Harry <false name>

When I was identified as a friendly, they pushed a beer into my hand, and we talked until the early morning hours. <Reminder: I had to drive back again>

I ended up, staying over at Alberto's flat and drove back the following day. It was a awesome experience and I just wish I lived closer to all of them. I now have more Bitcoin friends than normal friends. Normal, because most of us Bitcoiners are being seen as abnormal beings. ^heh^

Just post on forums and ask if anyone transferred a bunch of bitcoins to the wrong address. Do not mention how much it was and what the address was. Ask that person to send you a PM to discuss the matter.
If you find a likely candidate, ask him to send a small amount to the address again, to prove that it was his bitcoin address. Then transfer the money back to him or her.

I would do that, if I find someone's wallet or credit card on the street. And I have done that before and received a handsome reward for it.

You would want other people to do the same, if it was you. Right?  

If I had as many kids as I have Bitcoins, I would have had to rely on government support to feed them and keep them safe. Or I would have had to sell some of them to afford the rest. ^hmf^
I have no real sentiment towards my Bitcoins, if I need to sell them, they get sold very quickly. I do hodl most of them in cold storage, but the rest is just a tool to get things done.

I would be a bad Bitcoin parent. ^LoLz^

I am not one to advocate regulations, because I feel it is killing innovation but if you have to regulate it to protect consumers or to prevent crime, you just do it with limited restraint. If you go to the extreme, like the BitLicense in New York, you will just close that market and make a few individuals rich.

I just hope they did not scare too much due to the MtGox incident and wants to punish the Bitcoin community for that scandal. Mark is to be blamed for that, not the whole Bitcoin community. ^frustrated^

Can you just imagine where the price would have been, if we did not have the XT drama? I bet we would have once again broken through the $300 price range, because a lot of people are looking towards safe havens during this small China crisis. Mike&Gavin spoiled a pretty good party for all of us.

Now we have noobers panic selling like crazy and speculators running into table and walls. It's actually a little bit funny, if you not one of them. ^hmf^ 

The people telling all these newbies to sell is just greedy. C'mon man, all of you know this will blow over and these guys
would have lost a lot of money. We cannot give sound financial advice here, because nobody has a crystal ball. You can only base your speculative advice on the facts you have in front of you :

~ The Bitcoin price is known for volatility
~ We will have a halving next year, and it will push the price upwards due to a increased rarity factor.
~ The Core vs XT thing will soon be sorted out.
~ The spark for the decline was due to bugs on a exchange
~ The whole economic world is in turmoil at the moment, because China is doing bad.
~ US interest rates are causing doubts in the global financial markets

We need to stay calm, and hold on what you have and buy more if you can. Look at the bigger picture, before you panic.

We need more people to panic, because the price should go down below $200 for us to make a huge profit from these fools. ^joke^ If they cannot see the bigger picture, they deserve to miss the boat.
I am still holding some fiat for the $200 and then I will jump in for the bargain buy of the century, seeing that I
missed out on the early years.

Let's trim the fat off, and keep a level head. The sun will come up again, and it will shine on the brave.

It's all about the hashing power backed by Bitcoin Core and the security it provides to the whole network. The more hashing power you have, the more secure the network is. Mike and his gang cannot afford to launch a new coin with only 15% of the hashing power backing it, they would rather fight for the whole cake. 

It takes time to build a reputation for a new coin and also to establish a secure network with loads of hashing power. Mike wants to push the Lightning network on a established network <The Bitcoin Blockchain> for it to grow quicker, not start from the bottom and fight with 1000's of other Alt coins to get to the top.

When the internet started back in the days, pornography was one of the driving forces behind it. We can deny it all we want, but pornography has been a large part of every internet technology that was developed after that.
The porn industry takes a huge part of the internet bandwidth we use each day.

I have read the white paper a few times and it makes no mention about this, but Satoshi might have envisioned this too, when he thought of this. <Micro payments will serve the porn industry well, when people use it for pay-per-view>

Whilst we are fighting each other, the competitors <BankCoins> are gaining ground. I like your suggestion a lot, but it's going to take a lot of time to reach consensus, if we take that route. We need something where decisions can be made very quickly, to adapt to problems that might need urgent attention.

This in-fighting is causing a lot of harm to Bitcoin and the rate at which it would have grown, if everyone just concentrated on the same thing. Now we see two groups fighting for changes to make core developers rich and famous. <Power struggles>

All odds seems to be stacked against XT to win this battle and the voting. They might have thought that they have the support but when it comes down to money, things get a lot trickier than what they initially calculated on.
The political incentive to do this is also not very strong, because most Chinese are against domination from the USA.

The thing is most of them seems to support 8 mb block sizes, and I was under the impression that Bitcoin Core did
not want to go that route now. 

Well, we see the same thing happening with this Bitcoin Core and XT split. More hashing power going to waste on a worthless fork. The price will drop very quickly, once people see the outcome of this whole audacious plan from the XT side.

It would be better for all of us, if they could just reconcile their differences and settle on a 8mb block.   

I do both, when I invest in a gambling site. Lot's of these sites offer the chance for everyone to invest in them. You get a share in the winnings and take a loss, when they lose. It's a very high risk investment, because you never know who you are investing in, but the rewards can be high too, if they do not run.

I like high risk, high yield investments but you have to take calculated risks in betting on more reputable operations with a good track record.  

Believe me, they have done the math and they know their business. Some of that, they will get back in fee’s and it’s also a company marketing expense with some tax incentives.

They already support the government by adhering to all the AML and KYC regulations you have to pass before you can register on their site.  

For that reason, I am out! <Dragon's Den> ^Blink blink^

I think, they might have missed the boat on this one. A little bit late for this kind of action in a area where things has been stabilized already. The people might be frustrated by their banks and they might start to shift to BTC as a alternative, but a 1000 ATM's are a bit risky for such a small country.

Those ATM's would be more affective in developing areas like, Africa / India / Argentina where there are more unbanked people and a bigger market for micro transactions.   

I have been saying this for a long time. Let them think Bitcoin is anonymous and then when they least expect it, catch them with their hands in the cookie jar.

If you want to do the crime, you must be willing to do the time. 
We do not need these kind of people in our community, and the more of them getting caught, sends out a message to the others wanting to use Bitcoin for illegal activities. ^hmm^

First introduced to it, by a friend in about 2012, and I thought he was crazy. 

Mine was the 7th of September 2013 - It was a Saturday and I was watching Youtube video's out of boredom on the internet. I saw some young guy explaining Bitcoin mining and bragging how much money he was earning. Google followed and I started to research this wonderful and disruptive technology. I bought some Bitcoins that same day.

It was only about a year after that, when I stumbled onto this forum, and I joined.  

How dedicated are these developers, if Gavin did not work on Bitcoin for nearly 2 years, and Mike worked on "The Lightning Project" to win a $40 000 bounty from Oliver and also developed a competing fork for Bitcoin?

We should have a dedicated team of people, who work on Bitcoin 100% of their time. Not as a little side project.
Wladimir seems to carry on at his own pace, and is willing to kick the can down the road, as he put it.

Nobody is really 100% committed to making Bitcoin work. In my opinion these guys are being paid to sabotage and slow down Bitcoin.  ^hmf^