I'm not aware of the specifics here, however my understanding is that the PrimeDice hack was essentially taking an advantage of a loophole in which the user was able to get decrypted active server seed and then calculate out what the random number generated by the site would be. That's a problem with the PrimeDice code, not the bitcoin protocol itself. It could have happened regardless of if bitcoin was the currency used by the site or if it was something else.

For bitcoin to be used as a sustainable investment, it also needs to be used as currency. If no one is willing to spend their bitcoin on anything, then it is worthless as a means of currency. Over the long term, a rational person is not going to attribute more value to an asset just because it's 'an investment'.
An example of this would be Beanie Babies - they were treated by many as an investment as opposed to a toy, and that could be part of the reason they failed to increase in value. People bought them as an investment as opposed to play with, but without any real underlying value they didn't appreciate. This differs from other collectible toys which people value because of nostalgia and the fact that  there are very few left in decent condition. Everyone knows someone who has Beanie Babies with the tags still on (so there is lots of supply) but there are very few people who have the nostalgia associated with them because they were never spent. Similarly, if no one spends their bitcoins, then there is no value.
Once the final bitcoin is mined, if the price is unreasonable what is to stop people instead valuing a different crypto currency instead? A large portion of the value derived from bitcoin may be the value it has in darknet markets (just look at the price of bitcoin around the time that the at-that-time biggest darkness market started getting covered by the media). If these markets were to adopt a different currency because of unrealistic expectations as to the value growth of bitcoin, then a significant portion of the actual people spending bitcoin could abandon it.

 

I dislike lending in general, however in my opinion some of the interest rates on bitcoin lending are ludacris.
Having to pay back double in a week is essentially 5200% annualised interest (ignoring compounding). By comparison, Wikipedia states there is legislation in parts of the USA capping payday loans at 36%

If you can't afford something today, can you really afford it twice over in a weeks time?

I worked 2 jobs throughout highschool from the age of 14. I would average around 20 hours a week, however I was lucky that my regular job (working at a recycling centre) during school paid full adult rates as long as I kept up with everyone else. 3 years of saving around 80% of my income was enough to buy a second-hand car. It wasn't just an impulse purchase, but something that took years of dedication.

I think there is also a portion of the bitcoin community who don't actually treat BTC the same way they would treat cash. For example - I wouldn't even consider investing $600 of cash in a website that promises to double my money in a week, but suddenly when it is investing 1 bitcoin instead people think that it must work.
If bitcoin is used as a cash-equivalent then most of the 'rules' or attributes of cash are likely to apply, but I think people sometimes forget this.

To make money trading, someone has to lose money trading (no new bitcoin is created, it's just transferred). What information are you using that allows you to essentially outsmart the other players in the market on a consistant basis?

To draw a parallel, consider the ForEx market - realistically those who turn a profit are either lucky or incredibly dedicated to knowing more than anyone else in the market. It's not the bedroom traders who are coming out on top, it's the guy who is doing it as a career.

I like to think I'm pretty good with managing my money, I've worked in the finance industry for nearly a decade so I've learned quite a bit from other peoples mistakes. Still driving the same beat up car I bought in high school though!

100% return in a year may be possible, but it definitely won't be a 'safe' investment.
Think of what rate of interest a bank makes offering a home loan - it will be quite low, but the risk is quite low as well.
Now think of what rate of interest a bank makes on a credit card - it's quite a bit higher because the risk is greater that they can't get their money back in something goes wrong.
Realistically, a bank is making around 20% pa. on credit card lending - if a 'safe' 100% pa. rate of return was available don't you think that the big players would already be doing it?

For most people, working a 'real' job is going to be a vastly more efficient way of earning cash (which can then be used to purchase BTC) than trying to find non-conventional ways to earn BTC. There is a reason that the conventional way of earning money is the conventional way and other ways are 'unconventional' - it's what works.

In Australia most of our ADSL lines cap out at around 300kbps download - so if you want to download the blockchain then you better start 2 and a half days earlier than you actually want it. I wonder if eventually we will move to a centralised archive of transactions up to a certain date and 'reset' the local blockchain (similar to what happens with a web wallet now). As long as you trust the centralised archiver then it could prove to be convenient, albeit at the introduction of additional risk of corruption.

Although I am yet to buy anything with BTC in person, I dislike that I'll need to hang around waiting for confirmations. I'm not sure I want to take an extra 10-30 minutes each morning when buying my coffee just so the barista can make sure that my payment clears.

There are only a handful of places in my city that accept bitcoin (including a dentist!) however I am yet to actually want anything from the places that take it (the others are all computer stores), however I do spend my bitcoins online to pay for webhosting and to make donations to my favourite sites which accept BTC donations.

I'm quite late to the party and only 'bought' my first bitcoin a few months back. I say 'bought' because I actually sold some TF2 items which I'd acquired over time, but chargebacks are rampant when selling digital goods via other payment methods so I decided that the security of knowing that once my funds where confirmed that that they weren't getting charged back was a great reason to get into BTC.

here in Australia, some of the big banks are actually working on ways that they can use the basis of BTC to develop their own private blockchain system. There's an interesting article about it at http://www.afr.com/technology/anz-backs-private-blockchain-but-wont-go-public-20160629-gpuf9z

For me though, I feel that running the blockchain through a major bank takes away a lot of the privacy associated with crypto currency though, so I'll stick to BTC myself!

I'd love to apply for a Newbie spot if they are still available

User: stevo401
Postion to Apply: Newbie
Posts Start: 3
Address: 195g9N7Brzuq1DV9UVJwoMdTcmHjWTPGEx

I played it for a couple of hours when it came out but grew bored pretty quickly - I think the appeal was only in the nostalgia associated with pokemon, but in practice the game was actually pretty simple and repetitive.

For something a bit off the beaten path, try 'Metro Manila' - it's about a impoverished man who moves with his family who move to Manila and gets a job as an armoured truck driver.
It's a bit of a slow burner and not the type of thing I usually enjoy, but I was really impressed.

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