Love it or hate it, Dash is gaining popularity and doesn't look to be going away any time soon.
Really good news for the developers and all the coins they insta-mined, I guess lol.

For what reason? 
Some news or technical details may give some people a reason to investigate the coin further than a random moon/ doom post.

Is there a way to check the serial number etc to see if the cards were produced at the same time/ location?
Maybe there is a bad batch with some defective part/ soldering etc.

Could have been a coincidence, could have been foul play. But don't hold your breath for any kind of refund.
There is no guaranteed uptime on an unregulated exchange.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone went to the lengths of a DDOS on a trading site, though.
When there is a lot of money at stake, you shouldn't be surprised that someone would use underhanded tactics to gain an advantage.

Exactly.
This is one of the reasons for the Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym.
Bitcoin was designed to be a decentralized currency controlled by the users, not one iron-fisted ruler. (Or group of rulers)

This is obviously Google predicting the future price.
Get your coins now. In fact, I'll be a bro and sell you coins at half price, only 5k per BTC!
Kappa face no space.

Yes, unfortunately every time they announce a bank "using their technology", there isn't much details.
Are they using it for testing? Are they actually using it to transfer fiat currency within their organization or with other banks?

It's an interesting project and may be worth investing a few dollars, but I get worried that its just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.

Are we talking about sustained growth,
or a big spike (10 to 20% at least) followed by a huge drop?

Personally I don't think it will reach that high, but it could be in the $100 to $200 range.
The value is going to be tied to associated projects like Augur, in my opinion. If some of these projects become big, ETH could become huge.
It's definitely worth owning some in your portfolio.

We are at the point where scaling needs to be solved in the next few years.
Bitcoin will stay king for now, but another coin with faster transaction times and better optimized blockchain could definitely take over.

Confirmation time and sending fees are probably the two biggest obstacles for a crypto coin that aims for mass adoption.
(Aside from security and privacy obviously.)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.0

Anyone thinking of investing in this coin needs to read the first post in this topic.  
Very suspicious stuff going on in relation to this project.

One of the most interesting topics I've read on this forum and a great piece of detective work. 
Definitely a good idea to keep this topic alive with the recent spike in activity of Bytecoin.
(Even though its probably a quick pump and dump)

Its probably worth making a small investment, although I think its kind of a long-shot. 
Litecoin is stable and has decent development, but that doesn't mean much in altcoins right now. 
The only thing that matters is marketing and hype. 99% of altcoin investors are fucking sheep that just buy whatever coin is trending on the exchanges. 

Weak hands get scared any time the price drops a couple percent. 
Most investors are looking to make a quick buck and have no long term plan. Thats why money moves between Bitcoin and Alts. 
Anyone with long-term perspective isn't scared just because the price drops $100.

Ripple is interesting but any coin where the initial devs have millions of coins makes me suspect.  
Also, is it really likely that any coin with Billions in circulation would reach $1 each?  
That would create another Microsoft/ Google, which may happen one day, but is not an easy thing to accomplish. 

That being said, it may be easy for Ripple to become worth $0.10 one day, which would still be a huge return on your investment.

Re-reading this thread as it is very interesting. 
Wondering what the motivation for this person is.
Is this someone who thinks they are causing damage? Prepping/ testing for a larger attack? An accident? 

Exactly. The time to buy ETH was a couple months ago when the price was down.  
If you want to make money right now, sell ETH, buy Bitcoin and wait until ETH dips again to buy back in.  
Rinse and repeat.

I would love to see a picture or video of the ransom screen. 
Hopefully it has some lovely ASCII art that will take me back to the days of my childhood.

I believe OP is asking the question "what if scaling was solved tomorrow?"

If this happened it would take some time but the price would no doubt have a slow steady increase. 
Right now a lot of Bitcoins price is based on speculation of future user base and increased transaction volume.
So I don't think price would double overnight, but over a couple years you could easily see another 100% or 200% increase in value.

Yes I would not be surprised to learn that Bitcoin mixers were controlled or at least heavily monitored by government agencies.  
Hiding large sums of anonymous money would be the type of thing that would certainly get attention from the three letter agencies as we call them in the US.
(DEA, CIA, FBI, NSA, etc)