There have been many projects which used or attached Bitcoin to their name in order to make it look like they are legit while in fact they are scammers using the name of Bitcoin in their project in order to attract less informed people, ask for funds and then exit scam. If it is not Bitcoin, then it is not Bitcoin, forget about whatever idea they attach to it, always know that and do not be deceived most especially for all these new projects springing up here and there. I don't know a great deal about this Bitcoin Black project but it will probably be a scam project, because if you check, they will likely base their idea on what they will do better than Bitcoin then asking for funds. In my own understanding, use the funds in more better altcoins like Ethereum or even in Bitcoin itself.

I can say that, saving can be seen as a type of long term holding, where you keep your coin in your personal wallet without doing any other thing afterwards, just see it as keeping money in the bank, while staking can also be seen as another type of long term holding but in this case, instead of just keeping the coin in your wallet doing nothing, you put it to work, that is staking it and getting a reward thereafter.
On the other hand, I do not know about Vechain staking but as usual, you will need to be very careful of the type of wallet and/or staking methods you use for the Vechain staking, make sure it is a trusted one, like the ones you already mentioned.
Also, i believe all these staking methods via different wallets have their own merits and demerits, and so the best way to get started is by asking the team in question for the best option and recommendations, because I believe they know best and would want to guide you accordingly since it is also a good addition to them that someone is buying and staking it.

This is bad and will likely turn investors towards other privacy coins like Monero. That is, if a team can't protect their blockchain and give hackers a taste of what it feels like, that is to say the platform will find it hard getting investors or users who will trust them henceforth, and considering it is a privacy coin which is believed to be decentralized, this is a bad one for them. Or maybe it could be that in the process of developing a new feature or protocol like the Chainlock as mentioned, they made a mistake thus giving hackers the loophole they are looking for. Nevertheless, I hope they come back stronger and better, while giving investors good reasons to keep trusting them while also using it for anonymous purposes.

First I thought Coinbase said they will delist and stop supporting XRP this January 19th, so are you sure that's not the cause, I means you would have withdrawn it earlier to another wallet in order to be safe. Also, if they are still offering some sort of support to XRP holders and you are sure your account wasn't compromised, then you can ask the customer care executives for help to understand what really happened, that will help you know what to do. Coinbase is one exchange that although they are huge and have big users but yet the comments from many people tends to be bad, however I hope you find the solution you are looking for and henceforth stop storing your assets on crypto exchanges, keep it in your wallet, it is better and safer that way.

What do you actually expect from people who said Ripple is dead or is dying, at this current situation many will find it better to sell everything than taking that risk of waiting till the case is settled which might even be against Ripple, so in order to be on the safest position they sell and move to Bitcoin, Ethereum or other top coins; therefore with people selling many will consider Ripple as a dying platform. Also, considering the nature of the case, no one knows what will be of Ripple until a move is made, that is, settling or going to court, if settling I think Ripple will have a chance to come back hugely but if they proceed to court which of course will take time, then the price will drop, therefore you might also agree with those who said Ripple is dead.

Although I don't know anything about Binance South Africa, but I think that in order to get a solution you need to know how the promotion/competition was managed and who was behind it. Binance is already a prominent exchange, and I don't think they will stoop too low as to refuse to meet up with what they agreed on. So try as much as possible to know who was behind the promotion or competition, the person should be in better position to answer, but that statement from the Binance angel or whatever is bad, and it shows he/she might know a thing or two about it, but might decide not to because of reasons best known to him or her. Therefore, in order to get a faster response, try other admins or representatives other than the one you have chatted with and hear what they have to say.

Actually I would say, DeFi started with a big hype then gradually the hype is over and much is not heard about them or better put, much is not heard about a good number of them again, but however those that were already on the right track are still trying their best to retain their users and growth, hence why they are occupying good ranks on coinmarketcap. In my own opinion, when a project have something to offer, the only way to keep getting the attention of users and more potential investors is through improving on what they offers, that is to say, any DeFi projects which finds it hard to improve as times goes by will be forced out of business, while those that tries their best to improve will keep growing while advancing on what they offers as time goes on.

Someone might have accessed your wallet through your private keys and transferred the assets or funds out of it, so that brings the question of how? It could be you visited a phishing website and accessed your wallet with your private keys thus exposing it to the scammers, or it could also be that, someone found where your wrote or stored your private keys and copied it or it could be a virus. How can you prevent such a thing from happening again? First always be careful of the websites you visit, make sure you cross-check the URL to be sure it is correct. Also, make sure you store your private keys or mnemonic phrases off your computer if possible, write or store on a paper and keep in secure places, such that if your devices is compromised maybe by a virus, your keys will also be safe. And lastly, before visiting any website which will ask you for private details, make sure to get it from the right source, that is, if it's a project get it from the team and so on.

Actually, in as much as Telegram group is very needed in knowing more about a project, getting close to the team and understanding what they are up to, but I do not think it would be wise using only telegram group as a yardstick in determining a project to invest in and/or how good a project is. To better explain this, a telegram group can be active, booming with activities during the starting phase or period of a project life but as they progress, finish public sale and list on exchanges, check that group again, you will realise most of the times that the same team that was active will gradually become less active, it is only few projects that you will see the team still active even after listing on exchanges. So, the activeness of a telegram group doesn't say it all, thus you need to check other factors like the use case, their team's social media presence and even the exchange they are listed on or planning to list on.

The Modus operandi of most scammers in telegram is asking you about Bitcoin, and if you claim to know they will try to introduce a scam project or platform to you, all in order to scam you, therefore the best way to be free and secure from scammers is not responding to messages from unknown people especially when they ask unnecessary questions. Also, if you find yourself in a telegram group you didn't remember joining, it would be best to exit the group without asking any questions. And lastly, when you get messages from people stating how a certain someone made them earn money through investing in a project, trading or even giving fake proofs, it would also be better to block the person; they are all scammers. In general, we have to be careful of people in telegram in as much as we use telegram to get the information we need.

I am just being curious, if some one want to sell a cryptocurrency for instance, how will the person go about it with such platform? Assuming the person want to sell Bitcoin, how will it be possible to send Bitcoin without accessing your wallet? And we know to access Bitcoin stored in a wallet like Trust wallet, you will need the internet, so in this case how will it be possible? Nevertheless, the idea is good though because the team behind the project aims to make the buying, selling and trading of cryptocurrencies easy and friendly, but yet those who are already accustomed to the normal way might not find it attractive, however who knows, it might come handy someday.

That's good and I don't really think the coin you start with really matters, but the one thing that highly matters is the knowledge being passed down to them, it is with this knowledge that they will be able to proceed further into other cryptocurrencies. Most people starts with Bitcoin, since it is the first and most prominent coin, while others starts with Ethereum and so on, just like I said, the knowledge they get afterwards is the thing that really matters, because to a great extent they are better than those who just starts without having any prerequisite knowledge about crypto, the security of wallets, how to be safe from scammers and so on.
In the same way, where many people learnt on their own through making some mistakes, others had people who helped them through teaching them what they need to know. So you did very well, and I believe they will be happy and appreciative on the long run.

Week 1

Twitter profile link: https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobjonson2018
Twitter tweet links:
1. https://twitter.com/jacobjonson2018/status/1350531342233165829?s=20
2. https://twitter.com/jacobjonson2018/status/1350177195692593153?s=20
3. https://twitter.com/jacobjonson2018/status/1349821239456624640?s=20

Twitter retweet links:
1. https://twitter.com/HtcCash/status/1348563397541994497?s=20
2. https://twitter.com/HtcCash/status/1348981401471709184?s=20
3. https://twitter.com/HtcCash/status/1348570222102339584?s=20

Well, it is understandable because good things attracts a lot of people, and since Bitcoin is very good and highly valued, it is evident it will attract more people, and the reason why they will ask you is that they believe they will be able to learn more easily; that is life, and it is good they are paying attention now while getting ready for what the future holds. Nevertheless, when teaching them all they need to know, please endeavour to start with the risk present with investing in crypto as well as the unpredictable nature of cryptocurrencies as well, you can also use the market situation of 2018 as a case study to make them understand what is involved.
Things are already getting interesting, more people are joining, more platforms will soon join up and more institutional investors will soon come in, thus it is clear the future of the crypto space is getting more amazing.

Before taking profit in altcoins I first consider the type of altcoin it is, thus will decide on how big I will go for the profit. Assuming I am holding a coin like Ethereum, once I am in profit, I take the profit alone while leaving the rest for long term holding, while if it is in the case of other altcoins such as new altcoins, once in profit I will sell everything where 50% of the profit will be going into Bitcoin and the rest for another altcoin good at that moment. Talking about USDT is when I am investing for short term, that is, once in profit I sell to USDT and use it for trading as well. And in addition, I buy Bitcoin when the price retraces not when it is high and as for altcoins, I hardly go into new altcoins because many of them gives concerns while my top altcoins are Ethereum and ADA which are kept for long term.

Ethereum blockchain is not shit and everyone can not hack Ethereum blockchain, at least till now no news about Ethereum blockchain being hacked has been heard of, but however what gets hacked is users wallet and it happens when they failed to protect their private keys. That you got hacked means you did something you were not meant to do, such as importing your wallet to an untrusted mobile wallet application, platform or website. Therefore, the only way to be protected against hacks is by storing your private keys securely, being mindful of the websites you visit and using only trusted wallet applications.

How will people know about your project and probably potential investors, when you don't spread the news about it? That is, you will need to promote your project on various platforms in order to bring it to the attention of investors and I believe you are in the right place. Get associated with a bounty manager, state what you want and they will do the rest in helping your project to reach a large audience.
Another way of establishing your brand and even increasing your chances of having a successful presale and public sale is by developing a very good MVP which is known as Minimum Viable Product; the Importance of this is to show how serious you are and what is motivating you.
Also, you will need to be active on social media channels like Twitter to update the community, Telegram to answer questions of the community, medium to post the progress of the project (updates and articles), ANN and so on.

I believe Poloniex was once a reputed exchange but nowadays I don't know much about what's happening there nor is much even heard about them where the likes of Binance, Huobi etc is already leading. Also, another reason why Binance is leading is that, the exchange tends to support a lot of trading types, features and activities in order to give traders the experience they want. In the case of Margin trading, although you might not really fancy that of Binance, but I still think it is worth taking time to study and using afterwards. Nevertheless, other exchanges with margin trading or other margin trading exchanges are Kucoin and bybit, you can give them a trial to see if they will meet your expectations.

Okay, from the write-up so far, it looks more like an exchange than a wallet, I was thinking it is a wallet of some kind but nevertheless the message is received. In my own opinion, what makes many centralized exchanges different from others while maintaining a competitive advantage over others is what they offers, and this same case scenario has being played out on Decentralized exchanges, wherein Uniswap is leading. However, I am not hear to contend on which DEX is better, but would like to see and use the features this exchange offers thus deciding on my own end why it is better. Lastly, like one of your points rightly stated, security is very important and no one can use an exchange until it has been tested to be secure and protected, in addition, the other points outlined looks good also, however will carry out my own due diligence to know more.

To be frank, I find it extremely hard using any new exchange, this is because their rate of scamming their users is always high and in most cases there is nothing you can do about it but end up losing your coins. Also, I have that believe that whatever you are finding on all these new exchanges, you can easily find it on other good exchanges thus no need of using them, not only that, any upcoming projects talking about listing on such exchange might not be far from scamming their investors; unless these new exchanges have grown and have good reviews from the community. Lastly, checking this forum on such exchanges can go a long way in helping you to be safe.