I think what people have problems with understanding is that they are super reliant on banks, and that the fact that they are is a bad thing.  The world has gotten so "idiot-user friendly", that people can't seem to fathom being reliable for protecting your own wealth; because banks has things in place to protect customers from fraud/theft it makes them feel very secure.

It really isn't a "magic bullet" to fix the situation the world is in caused by central banks.  You can't just rely completely on bitcoins blockchain for everyone to use because there are limits to what bitcoins blocks can hold.  So to say "fuck fiat lets force everyone into bitcoin" isn't a real solution as of now (even though it would be nice on a theoretical level). 

There is some building devs need to do to fix issues of fungibility and block sizes... until then, we will continue having to rely on using fiat for everyday bills and stuff and have bitcoin as "fun internet money".

Thing is, is that Satoshi can't move his coins without the market collapsing completely.  People would argue other wise, but that's the problem with a coin (same with litecoin) having poor amount of fungibilty.  If anyone can see what goes in and out of Satoshi's wallet, then when he moves it somewhere else, they will automatically assume the worst and think he/she/they/it is going to completely dump everything and crash the price which causes uncertainty.

So in other words... no, even if that entity still exist on this planet and has the ability to sell off those coins, I don't think Satoshi would until Satoshi wants to "kill" bitcoin.  Because there isn't as big of a holder as a million litecoin (I don't think at least), there still remains a problem of fungibility.

So essentially you are dealing with 20mil bitcoins instead of 21mil

The problem with fiat is a matters of principal (at least in my mind)... It's banks "printing" out money from nothing, though now fiat is more digital than physical. 

The media likes to portray bitcoin or just cryptos in general as something only criminals use, even though physical fiat notes and gold are used way more for funding things like terrorism. Then, in kind of a complete irony, using things like visa and mastercard is the complete opposite where everything is tracked and recorded in your name.

Though cryptocurrencies aren't useful for everything; the main thing is just trying to get further away from a central banking system.

That's the one thing that seriously dumbfounds me... Everyone who knows me IRL pretty well knows I'm a big advocate to end central banks/fed reserve, and sometimes conversations about it will start, and when I try to explain it seems like a glossy stare just wipes over them and they don't fully comprehend anything I had said...

Even giving them real life instances where you can clearly see that there is a constant devaluation of their money over a period of time (college tuitions, cost of living, etc.), they just take it more as a fun fact to know rather than a slap in the face/"WTF" moment.  It just seems that there is such a level of conformity and blind trust in a government that has proven time and time again to be faulty... and it's kind of depressing tbh.

I guess when you think about it in terms of solving ALL of the monetary problems in the world, probably not.  It's not feasible for everyone on earth to use it for their daily purchases, but I think it is an important tool/asset to move funds from one person to another in certain situations (and no, it doesn't have to be illegal situations).  If you are trying to sends your family funds from one country to another, making an online purchase, a form of a savings account, getting away from debt driven fiat, etc.; these can all be solved by bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Not to mention that it is finally being recognized by DNM's such as SIGAINT, Alphabay, and Oasis in terms of wanting to fully integrate XMR payments on their sites, which is pretty huge since it got such a big time endorsement from SIGAINT; as you can see here: monero7tukbkxn57.onion

And here is where some of the owners of the DNM sites say they are looking into integrating monero on /r/DarkNetMarkets:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/4xuqqg/sigaint_launches_tor_monero_node_as_its_operators/

I really don't think you are going to have much success if you don't have a fully laid out business plan in mind, or plan of attack with a fully functional dev team ready to fix problems... either that, or you won't have many people coming to your site.  You will have to go against the big boys (poloniex, bitfinex, etc.) and have to convince the day traders over there to come to your site.  I feel if you don't have a compelling reason for them to do so, then you might as well stop now.

Plus, you also have bitsquare, which will be decentralized and doesn't require a centralized source such as your website to trade altcoins... even though it doesn't have much volume as of now, it's starting to garner a lot of attention.

I love how this is "celebrated" when it shouldn't be.  I put celebrated in quotations because it seems like the people who are the most excited about ethereum's support from big businesses, or whatever, have never once talked about making an actual 'smart contract' or 'app' with it.  Even though ETH brought about some interesting new ideas to the blockchain, it seems more driven by profit hungry traders just like with the other majority of altcoins.

Absolutely...

Just look at this Post by Theymos today on 'Scaling quickly' in /r/Bitcoin, in which he proposes to pretty much centralize Bitcoin and allow a "federated sidechain" to help allow people to transact quickly with the use of an "unlimited block size".

It seems that some of the original people who were apart of this project have become so worried about complying with the government in order for bitcoin to be somewhat accepted in the world of commerce.  It's just... not good, let's put it that way.

definitely a good point, plus you have to think about it in a way of realizing that the more and more you as a citizen give up your rights to privacy to the government and any other authoritative powers that be, the more and more leverage they can use on you to manipulate society in general.

For example, look at the supreme court ruling that money is a form of free speech. At first people might not have been able to connect the dots of what this would do in terms of politics (which manipulates society), but it most certainly did and is right now with corrupt politicians lobbying for corrupt corporations.

You can also say the same for the net neutrality debate between everyone and the FCC... and yadda yadda yadda.

Point being, while you can say that people should have their funds all out in the open and easily traceable because only criminals want to hide their money transactions is ridiculous.  But, I for one, don't really think MimbleWimble is a true anonymous solution for Bitcoin... so I guess it really doesn't matter.  If ALL transactions aren't anonymous by default with mixing them, then no transaction is anonymous.

I understand this, but this is a very unusual election. Conservatives feel distant to the new "Republicans" and dem-socialists feels isolated to the "Democrats"... The two parties seem to be wanting to split, which gives people who usually support either side of the spectrum to go ahead and vote for someone they believe in, while they might "waste" their vote; but in all reality they probably won't be...

I really refuse to believe the majority of Americans want these idiots in the White House which is the problem of the first past the post system (you should YouTube 'first past the post cgp grey').

All in all, I was a republican but I'm not voting that Oompa Loompa in, and I'm voting for Gary Johnson. I think he has the best shot for a third candidate and I like the guy.

There are generally different prices among the different exchange sites... Most of the big time exchanges will remain around some price, but since Bitcoin is a P2P currency, you need to be ok with dealing with other peers and finding the lowest price. Best chances of you getting a good deal in your case will probably be localbitcoins.

I mean, it's always nice to hedge your investments... But since everyone here is still relatively young, I think investing more of your capital into gold would be a wiser investment choice as your "savings account" asset that you can always rely on it retaining its value and offer more purchasing power in the future, while Bitcoin and other digital currencies that offer real promise might bring more ROI but is riskier obviously.

I'm more prone now, since I'm in my early 20's, to invest 15% of my income into assets, being 60% silver/gold and 40% btc/xmr... Then $100 a month into a Roth IRA.

To each is there own, but that's how I'm currently looking at my investment strategy so far.

God, I really hate when people bring these kind of arguments to the table in what makes the best cryptocurrency/money... The price demand has nothing to do with the functionality of the currency or makes it any better. If that's the case, gold would be a much better choice because it's valued higher per unit.

There are still lots of issues facing Bitcoin and ethereum... Because the prices are high doesn't automatically make them better. There are other stuff out there that could be deemed better if they were priced the same.

To me it actually feels good when I see the transaction has cleared and been confirmed... The time up to that point makes me nervous as hell primarily because of it being "out of your hands" at that point so to speak...

Plus, doesn't anyone here have that "call to the void" feeling when you are about to send Bitcoin's to an address?? Like that uncomfortable feeling of once you hit that send button, that's it for your Bitcoin's? I guess I think way too much about it lol.

I personally would prefer to give my kids the choice of choosing what he/she wants to do in life. To say that they are smarter for doing day trading or using signature campaigns is kind of ridiculous. Maybe they are into crafts, wood working, tutoring, etc. there are a lot of other ways to earn Bitcoin or just money in general than doing those sort of things. Plus, you are actually creating something or doing a service of value rather than trading cryptocurrencies and that sort of thing.

I would imagine the majority of people here on this site is still fairly young... So why would you want to retire? I guess to me, working is something I look forward to everyday and is a reason for me to keep on going with life, besides family and other things such as hobbies.

Idk, it's always a goal for me to be rich and enjoy my time here on earth... But not retire.

True, and good riddance... They have been dictators in the fiat to crypto world for a while and I'm glad that they are tanking it and dissapointed. Bitcoin was meant to be P2P, not centralized. That's why I prefer localbitcoins, and in the future when the ball is rolling, bitsquare.

Thanks, I'll be sure to try and keep an eye on this thread then; I hope you can find a way to give us a better price than the other competitors... best prices + crypto =

If it's not too much of a hassle, I would like to see what other types of metals you have for sale... Looking forward to potentially doing business.