Unfortunately many users report that they are hacked and that their coins are stolen,and most of them use online wallets-but recently many users report they desktop (Electrum) wallet are hacked.Only way to pretect BTC is to move it from hot wallets of any type and create paper wallet/cold storage-but most effective way is hardware wallet since you can use it every day and your coins will be safe.

What I would recommend to anyone who wants to protect coins is to check some of hardware wallets on this Black Friday,I just got e-mail that Ledger Nano S price will go down by 21%.

Almost there is no day to get at least one user of Electrum wallet who was hacked and lost their BTC.It seems to me that there is something specially targeted and attacking users of Electrum on all operating systems and no matter what type of protection they use.

You probably picked up something when using that public wi-fi,but it is strange that only Electrum is affected.It seems that the only correct and safe way to store BTC is hardware wallet/paper wallet/cold storage.

The conclusion is clear,regardless of the steps that we can take to secure our desktop hot wallets they simply are not safe anymore.

I think it's difficult to give a precise answer to this question,and I'm not really familiar with the technique that would make it possible to create seed just from one private key.There is also very little discussion about it,although most agree that exposure of private key from Electrum may endanger the safety of whole wallet.What I was found that if you expose one private key+master public key it is possible to get your master private key.

There is one interesting discussion on this subject you can read and if you use search option on forum maybe you find something else.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=657205.0

Why comparing Amazon,Tesla or Apple with BTC which is a digital currency/asset?These are two completely different things and you seem to be forgetting that BTC is so successful just because it is decentralized and there is no that strong guy which you mention.It is always wrong to put all the power in the hands of one man,and Satoshi Nakamoto think on that when he invented BTC.It is more likely to these companies fail and BTC survives.

If you're a beginner who wants to collect BTC it is quite understandable that price increase does not fit in your plans.What you can do is to make more effort to collect as many coins you can.People hold BTC all time,this is one of the reasons why prices go up,but they also use BTC in transactions to pay goods and services.Just check how many signature/twitter/facebook campaign + many other services on this forum use only BTC as a means of payment.

We should not be discouraged if we earn smaller amounts in BTC,in few years they can be worth xx times more then today.Just 3 years ago I collect daily 300k-500k satoshi on BTC faucets,many say it is dust and waste of time and today 500k satoshi is over 40$

It's never too late to invest in BTC,the only difference is that this investment is now much more expensive than at the beginning of this year, or years ago.So every new investor asks the same question and has the same fears,it is not easy to invest money in something worth 8000$+ per coin.

The main concern is whether and how much further prices can go up in future and whether the price can goes down.This is always a risk every new investor need to take when it comes to BTC.Not so long ago there was a saying that any buying under 1000$ per BTC is cheap,can we now say that any buying under 10000$ is cheap BTC?

In countries such as Venezuela and Zimbabwe BTC really becomes currency that people accept more and more.They are simply forced to do that because of incredible inflation and loss on the value of the domestic currency.The only reason people do not use BTC even more in that countries is very large unemployment(in Zimbabwe 90%) and lack of technology.To use BTC people need money and PC/smartphone+internet,and when that becomes more available usage will certainly increase even more.

I remember that I read here on forum that monthly salary in Venezuela is something around 20-30$,taking that into consideration if some user from there join to signature/twitter campaign and earn only 100$ per month BTC makes his life a lot easier then to work in some factory.

Private keys in Electrum wallet are generated from seed,so if you expose only one private key theoretically it is possible to generate seed from that private key.For that reason it is not smart to export your private keys from any HD wallet,only thing you need is your seed in a safe place.

I remember to see topic about this question where these issues are explained in more detail,if i find it i will put the link in the post.

You pay max fee for your transaction and you can pay only 10% of that amount if you use custom fee and still get your transaction confirmed.I agree problems with high fees and slow transaction should be solved ASAP,but for now we have to adapt to the current situation.

I always use custom fee and some of the acceleration tool to speed up my transaction,never pay max reccomended fee because it can be very high.I hope with full implementation of Segwit and LN things will get better.

If this speculation / prediction realized in next 5 years more or less,many would be happy and rich.Even if you manage to collect 1 BTC this would be very nice amount of money in every part of the world.It is difficult to predict can growth from this year continue,but if this year end between 8k-10k$ and in 2018. price go up "only" x5 we will have 40k-50k$ what would be great.

Of course it will depend a lot about the way governments will support / regulate BTC,do they considered them as a threat or as something positive.And today we can see completely opposite opinions,one government fully accepts it(Japan),some others consider it completely illegal(Bolivia, Ecuador,Bangladesh...)

Many people will sell at 10k$ and there will be correction of price-and how much will go down depends on the amount of dumped coins.I think there is two type of people,one have a goal to sell at a certain price,take profit and finish with BTC.The others will sell part of coins and hope for correction to buy back at a low price.

I personally choose not to sell,even trading can bring profit but it is also a risk.Just holding BTC in last 2-3 years was extremely profitable.

Even today we can say that this is the time of BTC,and that this year is one of the best and most interesting since BTC exists.The future is always uncertain but we all hope it will be great and that this year is only the beginning of new achievements.

There is no doubt that users base is increases on daily basis,there are more and more merchants who accept BTC all over the world and many governments make positive decisions and laws enabling easier adaptation of BTC in everyday life.

There are some problems that need to be solved by developers,transaction should be faster and cheaper and situation like few days ago should become a thing of the past.That is a big challenge today,when this is solved, BTC will become stronger and more interesting for new investors.

Every time you make transaction in Electrum wallet is create "change address" and on that address is change what left when you send BTC.Let's say you have 0.2 BTC on some address and want to send 0.1 BTC,wallet use total amount from that address in a way that send 0.1 to address you chose and other 0.1 minus fee is allocated to that change address you see.

This is very good for your privacy because on this way it is hard to somebody to know how much BTC you have and where you send them.There is option to disable using of change address in Preferences/Transaction,but it is recommended to not disable this option just because of user privacy.

BTC have finite supply of 21 million coins and that is a fact which is very well known.I do not know why you think that some altcoin which have "bitcoin" in his name can change total number of coins.Most of that altcoins even with "bitcoin" in their names will simply disappear over time.There is always a option to increase total number of BTC,but I think nobody wants to that happen.One of the reasons why BTC is most popular cryptocurrency is his limited supply among other things,and 1000 more new coins on market will not change anything.

Your transaction have almost 500 confirmations and problem is in your wallet/PC/internet,you should see this transaction in Electrum wallet.If you have option to install Electrum on different PC you can try that,and it is better to use seed then private keys.

It seems to me that this is a problem with the servers you are connected and that you should try one by one until you see your transaction.I check about this problem and there is so many situation like yours,most of them are solved with server change or restarting Electrum.

Regarding blockchain_headers_file,it is in Electrum data folder -- local disk C/users/home/app data/roaming/electrum but you need to click "organize" and check folder and search option to enable hidden files and folders.

Before you delete that file be sure to make copy just in case,and keep your seed in safe place,this is most important.

There is currently no reason to price go under 7000$ this weekend,although something like this could happen at any time.Based on CoinMarketCap BTC is down by 2.2% in last 24 hours but it is still very close to 8000$.There is great opportunity to buy a few days ago when price is go down to 5500$ because of BCH pump and Segwit2x cancellation.The question is whether something like this can be repeated again and give us new chance to buy some cheap BTC.

It's about a huge amount of money which you plan to invest,and investment in cryptocurrency is very risky but on the other hand it can be very profitable.There is no doubt that BTC is number one cryptocurrency today with tremendous potential and as you say maybe 30% of people in world have heard about it.So with time more people will show interest and start buying BTC,more demand+less supply over the time will push price up.What is certainly to be taken into account is the attitude of the greatest governments of the world to BTC.

Most people will advise you to invest most part of money in BTC,it somehow seems the most logical move today and my opinion is no different than that.There is many coins out there,and some of them exist for some time,but what is future of ETH,XRP,LTC,DASH and some others It's really hard to say.

I would personally invest more then 50% in BTC,and I think this will bring me very nice profit in next 10 years.The rest of the money would go equally on today top altcoins,but with some deep research maybe you can find some low value altcoin which is worth investing.

If you invest all that money and buy coins be sure to take the greatest possible security measures,coins are easy to buy,but even easier to be stolen.

There is some news that one big exchange will dump all BCH and credit all users with BTC,and that some others might follow.But for now price of BCH is quite stable above 1000$,so I think the crew behind this project can be satisfied with this price.

I think that BCH can not do any more damage to BTC,perhaps there will be more attempts in future but will be difficult for them to do this at the previous level.I think all who join and buy BCH now see that was just pump and dump scheme of one altcoin,some get profit and many are lost.

I have to admit I'm surprised with the decision of BitMEX Exchange but I fully agree.Since most users will anyway sell BCH for BTC, exchange will do that for them and in this way will prevent to some users in the process of coin split lost BTC&BCH.Many fake wallets,services,hackers having very profitable times with this forks.

I do not know is BitMEX start to dump BCH,but by CoinMarketCap BCH is up by 7.63% in last 24 hours with current price 1119$.But this dump will certainly have an impact on the BCH price and even more if others follow with the same practice.

I have this problem also and it is very annoying.Sometimes I just get message that my computer send automated queries and only thing that help is to reset my modem to get new IP address.

Situation became much worse in last few weeks and many users complain that reCaptcha is completely unsolvable,and this is particularly evident in faucets where you need to solve captcha to claim reward.

It would be nice to add second captcha to login as choice,I think many would be grateful for that.