Today is the right day to answer your question with a perfect example how safe is to keep your hard earned money on any exchange or similar platform like Tether.

Tether says nearly $31 million worth of its digital tokens have been stolen after hack.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/21/16684296/tether-cryptocurrency-stolen-30-million-hack

It's not safe and never was and never will be.

Why is the price of bitcoin so high?
Bitcoin is getting more popular every day and more merchants start using it. I remember a few years ago was impossible to buy on eBay using Bitcoin, now there are small companies that can do it for you. Bitcoin was first and the adoption rate is higher than any other cryptocurrency. Bitcoin limited supply of 21 million coins has a huge impact on price.The good and bad press makes bitcoin more popular, each time when BTC price increase there is a lot of news and articles all over the internet so we can expect more when BTC hits 10.000$ price mark for the first time.

Since you have been accumulating since 30 cents, accumulate some more, it is now at 5 cents

Rudystyle That's correct I didn't buy MTH in ICO (I was trying) and I was accumulating from 0.3 down to 0.06. Right now I have the amount I am happy with, and I invested what I can afford to lose. I am here long-term. I would like to have some more but I prefer diversity and I watch closely Utrust too, waiting few weeks after they hit exchange and see how they perform before making any decisions. Right now I can buy SONM and that what I do, I don't need to worry with SNM what will happen. Monetha is a good project but their timing was bad (ICO vs Bitcoin situation) and like I just said, once you have the amount you happy with next step is waiting for the first milestone in early 2018.

Paranuatu - You expecting any ICO price just to blow out of the water, but in the real world, it doesn't work like that. There is a lot of promising ICO's that will for sure be profitable, but not from day one. Viberate was holding strong value since start trading on exchanges, I think you haven't seen how can project lose value after hits exchange if you complain about Viberate.
Power Ledger is one of ICO's that now can give you 10x profit since initial coin offering, but you can't expect any project to do the same thing, it's unrealistic.
Investing in ICO needs patience, a lot of research and strong mind when the price is low and stays like this for some time.

Because you are a newbie, I will advise you to start your portfolio with coins/tokens from first Top 25 from www.coinmarketcap.com There are where they are for good reasons: they are popular, have good community and already proved they are not scam. You can't go wrong with them. It would be nice to diversify your portfolio for example:
60% BTC
20% ETH
20% Tokens you chose Dash, Monreo, Lisk, Neo.

If you really want to know how to spot SCAM:
- you need to do your own research (always)
- check their website, whitepaper, bitcointalk ann thread, youtube reviews, and community channels like slack and telegram, read as much as you can and don't forget about comments
-if your unsure ask here on the forum I am sure some more experienced user will always help you
-each project will have at some point false accusation here on the forum (FUD), at least I always seen this happen
-google for reviews and ICO rating
-visit YouTube and search Ian Balina (he is very good in review new ICO's)

It's really hard to determine without experience which project is dodgy/scam, just try to invest small first in ICO, and always not more than you can afford to lose.    

I think BitCoin Cash is pump and dump just on bigger scale. How can BCH increase in value without any good reason from 900 to over 2000$ in less than 24h? It's clearly pump & dump, and now price is just above 1K. I will not sell BTC and buy BCH no matter what people say. People behind BCH have already history with fraud. Investing in Bitcoin Cash may bring you profit but is temporary and one day BCH will crash, and remember it will aways be a clone to BTC nothing more organised by shady people.

Initial Coin Offering market has exploded dramatically and is getting slowly oversaturated, and there is still a lot of new projects coming every day. It's a great way to kickstart new company as long as your choice is good.
Why is so many ICO's?
Because there are a lot of people that want to invest from the beginning of company not like on Stock Market when company stock price is already too high for average Joe. You must do your own research and make a good choice, and then it can be very profitable like recent ICO Power Ledger (POWR) where the current price is 10x higher than ICO.

Just a good advice for the future never buy coins/tokens before the official release from the exchange. I remember recent ICO Viberate, you could buy on EtherDelta before the official release, but if you not careful enough you could end up with a completely different project that has ticket VIBE instead VIB.

Truckcoin price can rise from the simple fact - total coin supply is only 18.4 million coins with only 40% will be released in ICO on 1 November 2017 where the rest of coins will be released for mining.

I was away over a year from crypto. I sold my coins and focus on other things in life. At the beginning I was checking price like I will do when I was holding some coins then I stopped.
Looking from time perspective I learn hard way about patience, I was holding 2 years and 1 more could bring me profit $160K but I decided to quit I sold it for 2 BTC my NAV's (160.000) Why I back to crypto? I read in news about price spike and decided to go back and try one more time. Now I can say one thing, anything I decided to buy (ICO's) I will keep and  not sell until there is significant profit.
You can always leave crypto anytime, but If you don't have to sell - never ever do it. Is any of your investments hath in future you could regret. I had to admit I check price sometimes on my Blockfolio 5x time a day.

I keep my fingers crossed for this project. I am very interested how will progress when getting on exchanges. Sadly I could not participate in ICO, I wish I can buy Tokens anytime I want, but I will for sure buy on exchange in 3 weeks. Looks like the ride is just about to begin. Utrust has very good marketing since I signed up I was constantly updated (very impressing).
I understand if all Tokens are not sold rest will be burned, I am correct? 

Bitfinex may pump and try to manipulate the price of many coins, it's not a secret that many exchanges boost trading volume too, its manipulation to increase profit, the bigger volume will attract new investor and for sure you will have a more attractive price. Exchanges are also a victim of hacks and often lose money.
 I am not very surprised they try to increase profit in any possible way including price and volume manipulation.

In August 2016 Bitfinex was hacked and around 120,000 bitcoin was stolen this can explain why exchanges can't be trustworthy and will always do anything possible to increase profits.

I decided to buy some more SunContract SNC before price significantly increases, the price is still an amazing value compared to total coin supply, and most important I can see this project is doing right, good progress and working hard to achieve goals.

Eric Duprat will not destroy his reputation selling his name to ICO and then disappear. This will be a decision that will haunt him every day for the whole life, I don't think professional like him will do it. Tere is a lot of recent ICO's that lose value after start trading on exchange including BlackMoonCrypto that have reserve funds to protect price from plummeting, BMC now stopped rebuying Tokens, I don't know for how long. Their promise was price protection on 0.8$ for 2 years (last 2 months). Some ICO's price can stay low for over a year below something change, this should give you guys to think is it really worth it invest in every promising ICO before hits exchange.
I decided to skip Utrust initial coin offering offer and watch closely what will happen later on exchanges. You must always diverse, not hold to one egg (it may be empty - and will never hath, no  matter how much you wish to happen)
I understand we all getting pissed because of GitHub 0% progress, but you can't just cry ouhh I lost my money, ouhh I sold with loss you know the first rule never invest more that YOU CAN AFFORD TO LOSE, and calling someone stupid doesn't make sense, we all put money on risk (you, me and him) but some of us can't deal with stress and start blame monetha - they start with very bad timing.
If you not happy sell when price rise to the level you can cover your loss and live with that then forget it about MTH.
So far Monetha team keep each promise they possibly could, except controversial "major exchanges" but hey they can't control someone else decision! The only way is to pay to get listed and not every project will do that like Monetha.
Only time will tell, we all worry about lack of progress but on another side, mth team kept their promise. Respect yourself and others.

It's your decision which hardware wallet will suit you better, both are great hardware devices.
Trezor T is only for pre-order if you happy waiting until January 2018 and you trust company that's ok. Personally, I will wait for Trezor T reviews first, before make order.
Nano S is already tested and very popular wallet. There is a lot of reviews online that will point out all Pros and Cons.
Nano S is 50% cheaper and can be on your desk in 3-5 working days. I will choose Ledger Nano S, better value for money and there is nothing wrong with it.
Trezor T have touch screen from what I see on short video, I don't know how strong will be when accidentally dropped on leave in pocket and sit, very little information about Trezor T - maybe is gorilla glass maybe not.

If you have a second thoughts in your ICO, don't buy - just wait till it gets to exchanges, the better exchange the more chances it will be successful. Wait a couple of weeks and I bet you will still be able to buy your Coins/Tokens cheaper but this time you can analyze and check their thread, communication channels like Slack/Telegram, are they pay users for bounty, you just make sure they on the right way with their commitments. Sometimes is a lot better just to wait and buy off-exchange, not first day but a few weeks later, when price stabilizes and most of the time is below ICO price (90% times).

Max Keiser is right about Bitcoin Cash, it's just a clone that cost so much because is controlled and pumped.
He said that crypto world things move faster 100x times - he couldn't say this better, I agree that only Top 20+ coins will stay stable and rise along with Bitcoin where other coins will come and go or suffer unstable price.

Can the value of Bitcoin increase from 8.000$ to 100.000? One day it can. He gave a good example of Apple market cap from early 90's and today.

Bitcoin have limited supply, and only this year increased in value from 1000$ to 8000$. I think everything is possible.

I agree with JK 14 - SONM is far better investment than GOLEM, they are 6 months behind and price is reflecting this - it's a great opportunity to buy, SONM price was a long time below ICO price, from what I heard over a year but I can't voucher for that, I found this project recently and invested in. It's one of this Tokens you can buy on dips and not worry about it, community is very active, you can join Telegram (I recommend it) and check their BitcoinTalk thread.

If you want compare both projects google: GOLEM SONM comparision or visit SONM website.

https://blog.sonm.io/the-definitive-showdown-between-golem-iexec-and-now-it-is-sonm-30daf65870da

You can sell ERC20 Tokens on EtherDelta.com, it's a nice exchange that supports all Etereum based tokens, you can sell any Token there and get Ethereum. If you looking for best exchange look for biggest trading volume, visit www.coinmarketcap.com that lists all available for trading Tokens after ICO and click on "Markets" it will show you which exchange is best for specified Tokens you have.

For example Viberate Token (VIB) you could sell on both exchanges but bigger volume = better liqudity = better price
EtherDelta - 24h volume $2,407
Binance - 24h volume     $837,573

I can recommend you Oyster (PRL) Anonymous Storage. Their ICO was just extended until the end of November (additional 2 weeks) It seems very interesting concept merging online storage with ad traffic revenue generator using Proof of Work for decentralized storage.

more information:
Website        https://oyster.ws/
ICO Review   https://foxico.io/project/oyster
BCT Thread   https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2222507.0

Second ICO is Utrust platform - payment processor system than will compete with PayPal using multiple cryptocurrencies  and will offer buyers protection.

Website:       https://utrust.io/
BCT Thread:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2078433.0

Despite Bitcoin just complete amazing year 2017! Start from January 1000$ and will finish close to 10K! a lot of people still don't trust digital cryprocurrency, it may be because there was bad press all over internet most come from JP Morgan and other Banks about Bitcoin.
Price fluctuation is another reason new investors are afraid to lose their money. BTC was always very fragile and easy to manipulate price with FUD or bad news - look on China.
Little knowledge and experience about cryptocurrency,  first steps without some friend helping you may be difficult.