It will be a long time before paper money is no longer used.
Everyone would need a device with them (smartphone etc) that can send and receive payments.
It will happen one day though. People already use credit cards and pay with their smartphone app.

And just because currency is digital, doesn't mean you are safe from getting robbed!
In the future we will see people being held at gunpoint until they reveal the password to the account,
and hackers stealing money online instead of bank robbers running away with an armored car full of cash!

There are some examples on
https://blockchain.info/api/blockchain_wallet_api

You should be able to work with your web developer and use some sort of API with PHP etc to generate new addresses for each user.

Running a node on a virtual server would definitely be better than running it on your Desktop.
But it depends if you need to have a server with the entire blockchain.

Is 32GB of storage enough?
I would be interested in someone who runs a node to post their specs as far as storage space, network usage, etc.

Thanks for the replies guys!

I've been considering doing some rentals, but with all the posts I see regarding mining Ponzi schemes, I'm very reluctant.
It's so easy to make a website with some pictures, post transaction records where you transfer coins to some account and call it a "payout"
(since you don't know who owns that address)

^^^
I agree with Randy8777

Bitcoin will have a steady increase, but no huge jumps unless something big happens.
Most of the price increase will happen from new users adopting BTC as they realize they can buy things on the internet.
(Darknet markets etc.)
People who buy drugs, weapons, porn on the internet anonymously will be using BTC.

Unless some new major retailers start accepting coins, which could happen, most of the new users will be buying illegal goods, unfortunately.
Everyone else involved with BTC is a miner or an early adopter who is just looking to get money trading/ holding coins.
For the value to really go up, we need more average consumers to use coins for everyday purchases.

Bitcoin will increase, but the time to "get rich" is already over, I think.
Unless you are willing to hold your coins for years, or you have a ton of cash to invest, don't expect some huge profits.
If you have some patience and don't mind waiting, I'm sure you can make money.
(Or at least do better than putting money in the bank, since you only get a few percent interest in a savings account anyways.)

Ten or twenty dollars could become a hundred dollars if you wait a few years.
Just don't expect to become a millionaire.

Very interesting.
The thing that still scares me about Bitcoin is the fact that governments could declare it illegal and make it harder to cash out your BTC through financial institutions.
If there were suddenly no way to convert your coins into Paypal, fiat currency, etc, would anyone use them?
Even if you have a million BTC in a wallet, its still useless unless you can find someone else that will accept those coins, or a way to convert them into another currency.
If someone offered me a million dollars worth of BTC, or $500,000 cash, I would still take the cash, since I know for sure its going to be accepted by a bank etc.

I don't think its a threat, it's probably a good thing, actually.
It means that more people are using cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin won't always be the only currency, something else may replace it. That is not the most important thing.
The idea that we can make up and agree on a new form of currency ourselves is whats important.

Currently miners are getting 1/8th the coins they did a year ago for the same hash rate.
But BTC has doubled in price.
Even so, that would mean that Bitcoins are still only at a quarter of their value,
and we should see prices increase to around 4x their current rate, or just above $2500?  
(Obviously this won't happen, but it does mean prices have to increase eventually, right?!?!)

I would be interested to learn how big sellers on darknet markets turn their bitcoin into cash.
There are sellers that are making hundreds and possibly thousands of BTC transactions a month on some of the markets.
How do you launder tens, and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in BTC into real cash?
You would have to make so many transactions on some exchanges that someone eventually would notice you.

I'm sure if banks end up using Blockchain technology, they would want it to be private, so no one could see the transactions.
That's why I'm interested in projects like Zcash which claim to be able to send private transactions.

From the https://z.cash/ website-
"maintain a secure ledger of balances without disclosing the parties or amounts involved"

Most of the people that I've seen post on the forums that know a lot about trading Bitcoin and Altcoins
already had a background in stock trading, etc.
(I'm talking about the people that are posting graphs, solid math and reasoning behind their claims,
not just some wild speculation about how BTC will be worth $10,000 by the end of 2017 with no proof)

Since Bitcoin is a currency I'm sure the basic principals of currency and stock trading apply.

Question for the people pointing rentals at this pool-
who are you renting from?
With all the scams these days, I wouldn't trust a rental company without some good recommendations.

I would definitely suggest cold storage for some coins.
If you really have a large amount of BTC, it might even be worth it to get some sort of safety deposit box at a bank for your paper wallet.
I know that if I personally had a large amount of coins I would put most of them in cold storage if I didn't need the money right away.

Has there been any info on the amount of money the operators were earning?
KAT was a huge site, I would assume they were making quite a bit off the add revenues, alone.
Will be interesting to follow this case and see what the government says their earnings were.

Everyone posts these insane numbers- 5k, 10k
But the price is still sitting around $660+
I feel like its going to be at this price for a while. It may steadily increase, but I'm pretty sure we already saw the big jump before the halving.
That being said, a stable price is probably a good thing.
Wild swings mean a currency is not stable. A slow but steady increase means Bitcoin is here to stay. (Hopefully)

Yes I would be very interested to know what you were using this Coinbase account for.
Did any of the accounts you used for funding get closed- like someone disputing a credit card charge etc?
Was it attached to a bank account?
I feel like it would be much more likely for this to get your account closed, since it would be hard for them to prove that an address you sent coins to was doing something illegal.
(Is it possible to prove that a BTC address is being used for illegal purposes?)
I've never had any problem with Coinbase so far.

Transaction fees are still a mystery to me.
I have googled it, and never really found any good guide explaining a great way to determine how to set fees.
If anyone has some info on this, its greatly appreciated, actually.
It doesn't matter how much you send, the transaction fees depend more on the address you are sending to/ from?
(I'm looking at the site https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ mentioned above)

Interesting.
Just keep in mind that none of these people are doing this out of the good in their heart.
If they are giving away some information, they are gaining something from it, too.
I'm sure part of their plan involves people buying the coins that they promote.
They get in super low, you get in low, they sell while you buy. They make money off you buying the coin they advertise.
But you could still make some money with their information if you are smart about it, probably.

I agree, there will probably always be a way to convert BTC into fiat currency, although you may lose a lot to fees since you will need to go through several steps of conversion. 
I would say be on the lookout for news stories that demonize Bitcoin. If you start to see a lot of stories about how people use BTC to buy drugs, weapons, pornography, etc
this is a telltale sign that powerful people don't want the masses using cryptocurrencies, and are trying to scare us by associating it with things that are illegal.