In m experience you can't even give away bitcoin in Africa. 
It's still there if you want it?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2710325.0

You haven't lost until you sell those coins for a loss.

Don't "invest" in bitcoin use it as money.
Don't buy alt-coins, ICOs or join any kind of group.
Only deal with legal licensed businesses.
Disabuse yourself of the bullshit that is "technical analysis".
Stay the course and don't let anyone get you off it.

There is the problem. Bitcoin was not intended to be an investment vehicle. Had you just used it like money you would have likely profited.

Because of "ransom ware" this is going to be a hard sell. However there are use cases where it makes sense. I could, for example, have an online store that sells files. Rather than provide protection for the files I could sell the keys to decrypt them. So you would download say a cookbook and when you pay via bitcoin it unlocks the file for use. 

I feel like it would ruin my life to kill an intruder. The trauma of shooting someone, the legal fees, it would be horrible.  However during the event the only thing that matters is winning the fight. I have had the displeasure of getting into gunfights on three continents now and I know how to shoot back. But it is illegal (in my state)  to kill someone to protect property. The only time you can use that gun is when "You or someone in your immediate presence is threatened with death by an assailant".

That means if my gun comes out someone is going to get shot in the chest.  The idea of wounding an intruder or shooting for the legs is an absolute movie fantasy. If an assailant has chosen to risk your life you do not play games. You do not yell "Freeze!" or threaten to shoot them, you shoot them. Follow these best practices if you are considering joining those who carry everyday.


1. Budget.
It will be very expensive to carry. The gun needs to be a good one that you can bet your life on. $1000. You will need to join a club to train. That will be maybe $400 per year. You will need to get a background check for the gun, another for the CC license, and you will likely need to attend a class. All these will run about another $100. You will want to get insurance to cover yourself and that will cost about $400 per year. Ammo for training will run about $600 per year minimum. That is only 50 rounds per month. Better to budget 50 / week.  Holster, spare mag, cleaning kit and miscellaneous accessories is another $100. So that should get you started for your first year at about $2600. It ain't cheap.


2. Train with the best.
Most clubs have three-gun, CC, and other training opportunities to improve your skills, pay for them. Listen to your instructors and always:
Keep your gun on you, chambered and safety off.  On you mens ON YOU, not in your car, not in your purse.
Always shoot for the center of mass. Not the legs, don't try to shoot the gun out of his hand, shoot right for the center of the chest.
Stop shooting when the threat is over. If you keep shooting because you are mad or whatever, then you are going to jail for murder.
Plan your defense at home. Mark out all the distances you might be fighting from in your home and set your sights accordingly.
Do ballistics tests with your gun to determine the best ammo. Under and over-penetration are problems.

3. Watch videos.
This is a weird one, but you can learn much from watching the successful and failed attempts of others to defend themselves.  Check out this youtube channel for an example of what I mean.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsE_m2z1NrvF2ImeNWh84mw

4. Avoid gunfights whenever humanly possible.

 

This is not manipulation. If someone owns 18K in bitcoin and wants to sell, that is their choice and there is nothing anyone can do to stop them. If there was a way to stop a sale then I would be selling all my coins as well.  
If you want to see a higher valuation of bitcoin then you are going to have to do something other than trading crypto for fiat, back and forth again and again.  All that does is create wild swings in price and favor the person with a lot of coins. This is the economic model WE built and it is not unfair for someone to profit from that model.

I don't see why this would be such a big deal? A bitcoin futures market is a dumb idea. There may be certain situations where an investor can gain some exposure to bitcoin via an ETF and use it to balance a counter-risk. But for most people you would do far better to just buy some bitcoin.  

So says the former head of a predatory loan business.

"Bitcoin makes no revenue, no profitability." - LOL well not for him. Which is why it was invented. Middle men hate bitcoin because it will work them out of business eventually.  Which is why it was invented.
 

Read the white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto. You will find it in my sig below, where it says "the gospel according to Satoshi". Everything you see at these forums is really about that one document.

When this thread started the fee was over $40.00 now it is $0.57

Is that enough to end the thread?

If bicoin could be controlled I should be destroyed. We have regulation and the government gets it's cut. But that's done and over. There will be no identity tied to bitcoin or any declaring of bitcoin.
We are not asking the government for permission, we are telling them that this is how it is.

A bitcoin ETF is a crap investment anyway. Why would crap be needed for bitcoin to do well?

People just don't seem to get taxes. in the U.S. you owe capitol GAINS tax. You owe on the profit you made and can actually claim a loss to reduce your taxes if you lost value. Capitol gains are LESS than income tax. If this was income you would likely owe about 35%. Be happy we only pay cap gains. 

Study? LOL

It is utter bullshit. So just do what others do. Call yourself an expert.
But know this. all you will ever be doing is guessing in the morning and making excuses in the evening.

Taxes in the U.S. are not a mystery at all. There has never been a time in which bitcoin was not taxable. It is clearly subject to capitol gains tax, no question about it. The way it works is that you trigger a taxable event anytime you see a "gain." So if you bought a BTC for $1,000 and sold for $1,500 you saw a gain of $500. How much of that gain is due in taxes depends on your other taxes, how much you make, etc. It typically ranges from 0%-10% but if you make a lot of money and live in a state with additional capitol gains it could be as high as 20% total.

The good news is that is probably 15% less than the money you work your butt off to make. Normally income tax is about 35%. 

If there is one thing I can tell you for sure... There is not a person on this planet who knows what the price is going to be. There is simply NO WAY WHATSOEVER to determine the future price. You can make general GUESSES. You can make a binary decision about the price going up or down. But if you track the work of anyone you will see that they rarely or never do any better than a random guess.

Anyone telling you different can be put to the test. Simply have them predict the price one week from today and track them each day for one month. To make it fun take your own guess each day and see that you are also a bitcoin "expert".

I should have done some more reading before opening my mouth. I guess I have gotten so use to scam ICOs that stopped doing the diligence part. For all I really know, it's better than bitcoin.   

Do? There is nothing you can do about the decisions of others. Because we are evolving an "investment" based economy I would guess that we have only seen the beginning of volatility. It could get much wilder.

An ICO from Russia is a scam? I for one am shocked!