Altcoin investment is extremely risky nowadays. Speculation has driven up the prices of most of these coins beyond the viable thresholds. A huge bubble is forming, and it can burst at anytime. If the Bitcoin prices crash after August 1, then the prices of these altcoins are going to crash even faster. So be careful with your investments.

It is quite possible, if a split occurs after August 1. The two factions will sell coins under the control of the opposing faction. A huge dump will crash the prices to sub-1,000 levels, and it may take several months, or years for the exchange rates to recover. This means bad news for all the other crypto-currencies, as most of them are either directly or indirectly linked to BTC.

I am a little bit confused about the threshold. Is it 80% or 95%? In some threads here, I have seen users mentioning 95% as the necessary consensus needed to activate Segwit2x. And here, you are talking about 80% hashrate. So which one is correct?

I am afraid that we may not witness any significant movement in the prices before August 1st. No one knows what will happen to Bitcoin after that date. It is quite possible that we will witness a split, similar to what happened with Ethereum. But we should also remember that Ethereum emerged much stronger after the split.

A few days back, I did some BTC-ByteBall trade and made handsome profits. I knew that the Byteball prices would decline after the airdrop. So I shorted my Byteball coins for around $800 per coin (BTC0.30). After the airdrop, the prices crashed, and I bought them back for around $700 per coin (BTC0.24). I am planning to repeat this before the next airdrop (in July).

I would like to suggest 4 different altcoins. You can decide whether you want to go for them or not after careful analysis.

1. Ether: Right now, Ether has emerged as the major competitor for Bitcoin. Those who missed the boat with BTC are throwing their weight behind ETH. Now it is starting to attract the institutional investors.

2. LTC: One of the oldest altcoins, but it has been dormant for quite some time. Now Charlie Lee has once again entered the LTC sector. We can expect some fireworks.

3. Byteball: The recent airdrop was a big success. They are planning for more airdrops and this will make them even more popular.

4. Stellar Lumens: The user base has been quietly growing over the past few months.

No. We are not treating it like illegal activity. The OP was just confused about the exchange fee, and about which exchange he should use for the transaction. If this was illegal, then I'd have never suggested Bitstamp, which is registered in Luxembourg, and operating with all the required licenses.

And don't forget that yesterday the limit of $3,000 per coin was overcome in Bitfinex. Even in Bitstamp, it reached $2,980, but missed the $3,000 mark. And this is very significant, considering the fact that all this was achieved despite extreme competition from the altcoins such as Ether, Litecoin, Ripple and Dash. Without the competition, we would have reached $5,000 or even $10,000 per coin.

This is a major issue. I have seen many threads here, dealing with incidents where the banks closed down bank accounts without any warning, due to the association with Bitcoin trade. In some extreme cases, the funds were frozen, and the freeze was removed after more than a year. I am not sure whether they are doing this due to competition. One reason may be the unclear legal status of Bitcoin.

Visiting faucets is a complete waste of time. And partially due to the higher transaction fee, most of the faucets now have very high payment thresholds. You need to visit the faucets at least 100-150 times, in order to qualify for the payment. And also , a lot of faucets close down without any warning, and the users are left in the cold. All the time and effort spent on it is wasted, if the sites closes down.

Some eyewitnesses are claiming that a number of people are trapped inside the building and the firefighters are unable to access all the apartments. There is an imminent threat of the structure collapsing completely. If that happens then it dims the hopes for all those who are trapped inside. Also, the firefighters may be at risk from the collapse.

There is no harm in installing and operating a few Bitcoin ATMs here and there. I know that a lot of the users still distrust the online exchanges. For such people, the ATMs can be very useful. They can just insert the banknotes and coins, and get Bitcoins in return. No need for any ID verification, and there is no risk of someone hacking in to your online account.

Gambling and trading are ways to lose your coins, and not to earn them. Because in gambling there is always a house advantage. If the house advantage is 1%, then 49% of the times you will win and 51% of the times you will lose. In most of the online gambling sites, the house advantage varies from 1% to 5%. Also, you should be beware of some sites which rig the house advantage without your knowledge.

This is a ridiculous excuse. No one will refrain from purchasing Bitcoin because it's exchange rate is rising. On the other hand, more and more users will be attracted to it, if they could be convinced that Bitcoin should give decent returns in the long term. And right now, there is not much difference between the market cap of Bitcoin, and that of Ether. So the latter is not in a position of advantage.

It seems like Qatar was trying to improve its relations with Iran, and Saudi Arabia and the other Arab nations were opposed to it. This may be the real reason behind the sanctions. And regarding support for terrorism, Saudi Arabia is the main culprit. The Saudis accusing the Qataris of sponsoring terrorism is like pot calling kettle black.

Bitstamp is one of the more reliable exchanges out there. But I would not trust them 100%. After what happened with Mt Gox in 2014, I am in general a bit skeptical about all the crypto-exchanges. But right now, Bitstamp seems to be a good choice. Will be better if he sells his coins in many installments, rather than dumping all of them in one go. That reduces the risk.

90% of the users here have been waiting for the altcoin prices to crash ever since Ether reached BTC0.05 in March. But after three months, it continues to rise, at a rate which even eclipses the corresponding rise of Bitcoin. How long this is going to continue? Perhaps Ether is going to stay at these levels.

Yeah, XRP is valued at around $0.25 per coin, and it has the potential to reach $1 per coin. That said, its rally during the past few months has been nothing short of phenomenal. Right now the prices are a bit down due to correction, but before that it had rallied from $0.006 per coin to $0.40 per coin, corresponding to an increase of 6,500% in a period of 3 months.

Yeah.. Right now I think it is too late for Charlie Lee to pump up Litecoin. He should have done this 3 months ago. Perhaps he is hoping to reap profits from the current crypto-currency rally. But I don't have much hopes for Litecoin. That currency had its moments. Once it was regarded as the crypto equivalent of silver (with BTC being gold). But it is close to being obsolete now.

Yeah... Keep dreaming. You want Ethereum to look like a Swiss army knife. But in reality, it is a cheap replica which doesn't have the same quality. Do you know how many bugs have been found with Ethereum lately? And what about the Ether robbery from the DAO? First they need to take care of their own issues, before taking on BTC.