Well the system is already in place to accept payments with Visa, so it's really smart to leverage that, and be able to spend your money where you want. There's no limits that way. You don't need to find places that accept BTC, and it's strategically a good deal to get the "system" to accept Crypto, cause Visa is still getting their 3% from merchants for accepting it, banks still get their ATM fee when you withdraw, so big business doesn't feel as threatened by a major adoption. Yeah, there's a little politics at play, but what do you expect when big moneys involved? Bitpay has not been cancelled, I used it yesterday, and they only sent mine to me like the week before Christmas, and I have a friend who is waiting on his card which was sent out Monday, so those were rumors you heard about it being cancelled.

You're wrong about this one. Coinbase does have a special deal. Bitpay does also. There are a few more as well. Other then the Shift card which is the Coinbase one, the way the other cards work is they connect to an exchange and you are basically selling some of your BTC (some of them support other altcoins as well) so anyways, you sell some of your coins and the exchange sends your money to what is basically a prepaid reuseable Visa card (with their own branding on it) I'm in the process of moving to a less restrictive state (In NY atm, which is most restrictive there is, and doesn't allow half the exchanges) so I can get one of those cards. Now as far as limits go, the Shift card offered by Coinbase has a $1000 limit per transaction. The Bitpay card has a much larger limit (10000 per transaction) so you'd want to utilize that for your big ticket items. I get the feeling that you don't particularly like Bitcoin for some reason. Kinda strange that you would join a Bitcoin forum if you dislike Bitcoin. Also, there's lots of things in this life I don't like, but I just concentrate on the ones I do. Why would I want to be reminded of something I didn't like? It's a big world out there. I'm sure you could find a hobby that makes you happy.

I don't get what peoples problem is. I buy stuff with BTC all the time. Get yourself a Coinbase account. I know, everybody loves whatever wallet they're using. Just use 2 wallets. The Coinbase wallet links to the Shift card they offer. Spend money any time you want. It's a Visa card, and the transaction goes thru immedietely. Take cash out of the ATM. Theres a ATM fee, but it's the same amount as my bank for foreign ATMS (3.00 or 3.50, cant remember) Now your transactions happen off blockchain. Problem solved. Oh, you want to send BTC to your friend, or someone who you are buying from? Or you want to recieve BTC from someone who bought something from you on ebay? Coinbase does Coinbase to Coinbase transactions off blockchain too also with no fee. That's how I pay the rent for my mining space. The other problem with BTC transactions is you want to wait till the price is up to make a large purchase. So get yourself a second (or third) wallet from Bitpay. Wait till the price is where you need it to be, and move over $500 or whatever you need to over to the Bitpay card. Now those funds are locked in (basically you've sold some of your BTC) Now since your sending BTC from yourself to yourself the time it takes to go through shouldn't matter as much so use a really low transaction fee, and just wait a couple days for it to go through if that's what it takes. Just use the tools you have available, and there really aren't any problems. I think people WANT there to be a problem, probably cause they have invested in some altcoin. People need to be able to go into a store and swipe a card. That's how the whole world is setup. It's best to work with what is there already. Visa gets their cut, banks get their cut, and everyone will chill with the resistance. Wallet to wallet is cool for some stuff for sure, but not for a McDouble and a Coke.

I don't like the low quality posts any more then anyone else, but it gets into a grey area when the forums start getting micromanaged. Like at what point do you have to be afraid that someone thinks your posting just to post? Do we have to be scared to quote something someone said and reply "Hell yeah!" under it  because someone thinks we're trying to raise our post count? I've been coming to this forum for the last couple years, but I never registered until December. Actually the way I used it before that was to type questions about mining in Google, then when a result came up from BTT I'd choose the "see more from bitcointalk.org" link and go from there researching whatever problem I had. I was motivated to finally get off my ass and make a real account here as the result of a signature campaign, but I would say that's defintely not a bad thing. I know what I'm talking about at this point, (you probably didn't want to hear much from me for awhile when I was still learning anyways), I like to think I have meaningful contributions to discussions, and I've had some great conversations with some great people since then. With a forum related to something as international as Bitcoin there's going to be alot more people who don't speak great english too, and I feel bad for them also, as many of them probably have no ulterior motives for the less then clear and concise posts other then that they really don't know any better. I am glad that the forum isn't a free for all, and that there is accountability, and I do appreciate that alot of people are working really hard to try and make it better. It's definetly a double edged sword, I just always like to give people the benefit of doubt, and I believe that most people are good, they just usually don't have a chance to be or they have been burned so many times they become jaded. But goodness is like a root. A little water and you got some fresh sprouts.

It won't transfer back to bitcoin. Alts are going to go from strength to strength. Partly because some are innovative. Parly because alts are volatile so offer trading opportunities.

Lots of exchanges even allow you to trade some alts directly for fiat, bypassing bitcoin.