The "volume" a coin gets doesn't concur that it is automatically better by any means necessary for whatever function that the coin should be doing.  You could have an "out house" in the back yard, and instead of being being built with lumber it is made out of solid gold, or you could have a normal toilet that flushes and connects to a sewage line... which is better? Well the out house is probably more expensive and people really like gold, sooo....

Weird analogies aside, I think you can still see where I'm getting at though.  There are definitely other coins out there that are improving on Bitcoins current flaws like block sizes, fungibility, other properties on a blockchain, etc. For the development on Bitcoin to remain stagnant just because it is the most valued currently doesn't mean that is a good thing.  

Side chains could work, but still...I mean I totally understand that 99.9% of all altcoins created are basically pre hyped pump and dump coins, but there are still some out there that are perfectly legitimate and are trying to create something unique for the sake of a need for it. Sitting back and saying, "Ah, yeah well... We could easily just put that on a side chain" and not actually do it or don't feel the urge too isn't doing any body any good.

So are you pretty much saying take out a portion of your whole entire crypto portfolio and put it into PM's?  I think this is a pretty smart thing to do, but I would still ride out the rest of this year and hold XMR.  You're right though, if this were to happen it would be smart to keep it in either crypto or PM's to avoid dealing with Uncle Sam... But honestly though, I really don't think Trump will win; there seems to be an unavoidable manipulation in the election this year.  Who knows though, just the change from a somewhat like-able guy as president to either an old/ill witch or a short-fused oompa loompa will cause chaos in the markets regardless... remember, a lot of countries still don't like doing "business" with a woman anyways.

Back on point though, love reading your insights when I come check this speculation thread from time to time.  I still feel that if it does end up dipping to 160 again and possibly below it while remaining to have a strong support at 150 or 155 for the next couple weeks will be extremely bullish and will cause some people to start trusting the XMR market again... not to mention, DNM users will start to see that this isn't some elaborate "pump and dump" scheme.

So, the thing with cryptocurrencies is that it relies on a trustless, decentralized economy.  With bitcoin, or any other true, PoW (proof of work), decentralized currency, you need people to run nodes and mine the coin.  This is the only way you can secure the coins transactions, because if someone wanted to "hack" a transaction or do something malicious on the network, then that person would need to be very motivated to do so as well as have some serious computing power behind them.
Side note: this is why PoS (proof of stake) coins will never be as secure as PoW coins.

The feds might try to attempt to create their own currency; but let's imagine the fed decides it doesn't like how the Internet is bringing political activists together and they want to create their own "nationalized" Internet.  Well it wouldn't really work, because the Internet is everlasting and global.  If one country shuts down Internet access to the nation and essentially creates a nationalized Intranet to track citizens activities, that would have devastating consequences on the nation alone, but will have not that big of an impact on the rest of the world's Internet because that's just one country down and everyone else can still easily communicate with each other.

The "cat is out of the bag" with cryptocurrencies.  You could argue, however, that Bitcoin is already still easily as traceable since it has a very transparent blockchain system, but that's for another debate.  However, Bitcoin is a revolutionary concept of a payment system without trusting a third party... and that, in itself, is a very good thing.  There are more altcoins out there doing work on improving certain problems Bitcoin currently faces (block size, anonymity, etc. etc.), but as it stands, the Bitcoin network is just too powerful even as it stands today for the Fed to "replicate" and force people to use.  Hell, they are still sitting pretty with the whole fiat system that it would be pretty stupid for them to put it on a blockchain for everyone to be able to track and follow..

I really don't see how this is a topic even worthy of a real discussion.  If you want people to mine the coins with electricity, do you need to pay the electricity company "electricity coins"? What about raw materials, such as lumber, to build your barns? "Lumber coins"? No... It just doesn't work.  Money is supposed to be a bartering tool for all forms of good and services, and isn't supposed to be used as coupons or tokens for something you're buying directly (i.e. bringing tickets to a teller you earned by playing arcade games to buy a stuffed bear, etc.)

I mean look at how food stamp debit cards work... you don't see those things being more valuable than money, do you? If some poor person got a food stamp card (which can be used to buy something nutritious at the grocery store), but decided that they wanted cash in exchange for their food stamps in order to buy drugs, then you will see someone buy it off them for way under the price of the card.

Honestly, if you are in it for the potential for increase in price with the ability to buy a lot; I would suggest you to buy silver. 

Silver has been at stupid low prices for a bit, and it's a nice hedge on the dollar as well, being a precious metal and all. It's probably your best bet to get the best of both worlds if you want something that's really stable and will secure your wealth in a valuable asset and something that has a lot of potential to increase in price; Just my opinion though.

How I personally view it, is that buying Dash is sort of like buying a timeshare for some condo some where.  It is viewed as an "investment" that you might only use a couple of times, and whenever you are done buying whatever you need with Dash (I guess a soda?) then you sell your masternode/timeshare to the next person who is hoping the same thing happens.

Now I know you could argue that every crypto is the same way (buying and hoping to sell at higher prices), but it's the distinction of owning a "masternode" that controls inputs and outputs is what really turns me off from the whole Dash thing. Having one node that is better than the other one is just really... sleazy? (for lack of a better word)

I mean, if you are going through a site like LocalBitcoins, then you don't really have to do actual IRL P2P transactions.  If you wanted to buy that much Bitcoins, you would probably have to make multiple cash deposit transactions to avoid KYC stuff/suspicion of weird activity going on; plus you would have the benefit of having the proof of the transactions actually taking place by taking pictures of the receipt and sending them to the vendors to prove you have made the purchase... Just going up to someone with that much cash in hand is a really sketchy situation.

It should be that way, tbh, but the problem is is that people can easily copy and paste the public address to see how much that address has.  That's a real problem in, for instance, Satoshi's case (if that person is still alive) because he has made his address public and people can see his coins there and if he moves them at all.  So, unless Satoshi just all the sudden wanted to create a mass panic in the bitcoin market place; it's safe to say that the total remaining Bitcoins in circulation are 20 mill instead of 21.

Having a protocol in place where there is no ability for people to see how much you have in your wallet or trace where one person sends to another person is a pretty important thing for personal security of your own wealth.

Honestly at this point, it really kind of depends if you truly believe in Monero... because I mean as of right now, it's around the $8-9 range.  I wouldn't dare to play with putting a large portion of money in if you were planning on day trading, because whales are in abundance in this market now.  Price swings in either direction will make you emotional (either exuberant or pissed) and you will get out real quick if you are thinking in those terms.  It's either going to go one way or another, it will be platinum to Bitcoins Gold or it will be a bust. Just remember to invest with what you can afford to lose, and if it were me, I would just keep it in cold storage for 3-5 years and see what happens then.

Absolutely.

Obviously, there are going to be people who get into the crypto world who act irresponsibly and go along with the crowd who posts FUD and a whole bunch of nonsense; but should that be on the shoulders of people who post that stuff here? Absolutely not, or it shouldn't be.

People who are starting to come here that brings some "real money" to the table, are probably not these type of investors I described above... they are probably going to do their research and plan accordingly.

Well just to give you some peace of mind, I requested mine before friday to not worry about it on the weekend and I didn't receive my payment for the weekend.  Honestly, I'm not really worried at all; these guys are pretty good at remaining true to their word about everything so far and are very honest with what is going on.

The payments will probably come sometime next weekend though, if I were to speculate.

Right... hmm, that's an interesting way to put that.

I like the idea of having social media being mingled in with one another, but it's just kind of hard to see social media being that way since different platforms are so different in general.  Take twitter and reddit, twitter is composed of a bunch of posts with 160 or so characters max and reddit you can post as long as you like with a voting system... I really can't see how you could merge those two things together like that, but hopefully something of the sort would come out.

I like your ideas, it's just that generally (and it's a sad fact) people don't care if their privacy is being violated.  I know a lot people who keep saying: "If I don't have anything to hide, what should I worry about?"

... I mean that's like if you came home to your house to find someone snooping in your mailbox and looking in your windows, are you saying that you wouldn't be angry or somewhat defensive of your belongings/home? I don't really understand people sometimes, just don't.

Maybe when you own some and just hold it, but how will people get that supply if they don't purchase some? That's pretty scammy (ponzi'ish) to me I would say... and yet at the same time, not even remotely close security wise compared to a PoW algorithm. It sounds good to you on paper when you worry about collecting interest like a bank, but the whole point of cryptocurrencies is to get away from a "banking" like system and to create a decentralized currency that (theoretically) anyone can get by running nodes and mining, while also making it secure and decentralized.

Now in my mind, ASIC resistance is the way to go... but could be wrong.

Maybe so with the Winklevoss twins, but there are some people who are kind of in it for both of those reasons... think about it, they wouldn't have been one of the first adopters of Bitcoin if they didn't have some fundamental belief in what Bitcoin can do.

Example A) Look at someone like Roger Ver, he is a rich guy, yeah I get that; but he is going around to all sorts of places spreading the word of crypto currencies and, to me atleast, seems to be genuinely in it for the currency itself and thinks that it will change the world. 

The first people to have found out about Bitcoin and invested in it all had the same sort of ideological beliefs... now those beliefs are starting to get a little hazy and less defined.

Marketing effort? I mean maybe people who are just invested in it and want to get the word out, but make no mistake in thinking that the devs are doing this marketing effort... actually they recommend you not investing in it.

This is a new frontier in the world of cryptocurrencies and Monero is on that front end... so invest accordingly to how you want to hedge your funds

PoS would create a "larger distribution of coins"? Not in the slightest.  First of all, cryptographically it is just unsecure to not have a PoW algorithm.  Someone would have to be insanely determined and have a ton of computing power on his side if that person wanted to do something malicious.

And secondly it wouldn't creat a larger distribution of coins over time.  People would just keep it in their wallets and not use the currency at all and just let it grow over time.  That's not how a currency should work, at least in my mind it shouldn't.

Good point, but I'm still confused about what you were trying to say above.  YouTube "Red" now does this, but it's not necessarily taking off by any means (at least I don't think?). There are tons of other social media sites (reddit, tumblr, pinterest, twitter, etc. etc.), are you saying that you think some time in the future there will be people who would rather run software for their social media needs rather than quickly just connecting to the internet?  

edit: referring to this

Idk, people sort of like the simpleness of Facebook and have no care in the world if it violates some of their privacy on the internet.

I really don't know if steem will really work that great either becuase 1) There aren't very many people who are really "up for" dealing with cryptocurrencies at this time; and 2) There have been other social networks that pay based on posts/views/likes that kind of failed even though you have a very small amount of people who do use it, but get paid very little over time (example tsu.co)

PoS is a scam in every single possible way.  I mean, I hardly agree with every single thing that OP was saying, but you do have to judge the crypto by it's usage and development... not just some hyped up white paper that uses a lot of buzz words to catch your attention, you need to dive a little bit deeper than the buzz words.

I do think some form of ASIC resistance is a good thing.  Centralization of miners would be a lot tougher, but all in all, if you want to use some form of crypto currency that uses a blockchain, then you will always have pools.  Unless you could some how force people to mine only on their daemon and prevent people to connect to other peoples nodes, then maybe... but that comes with a lot more cons thans pros in my mind.

Well, considering that you could argue that it drives useless conversations to be happening that has very repetitive idea floating around on a single thread over and over; you could also argue that it is the responsibility of the signature campaign to make sure stuff like that doesn't happen.  Sig campaigns (and I really can't blame them) go through and just see if it is X amount of length without reading into what that person is saying and in what context.  I feel that if every campaign was doing that, then what you see on the forums honestly would be so bad.