Price is unpredictable, not value, they aren't the same. And in terms of price, this exponential increase over a short period of time does make it look like Bitcoin is in a bubble. Bitcoin is not only scarce, but also has undeniable utility. It is believed that Bitcoin is the future of money. Currently around 0.01% of the world population uses Bitcoin so if we assume that the current price is determined on the basis of people willing to pay for the future value of Bitcoin, value-based pricing then from this perspective it might not be a bubble. Based on this we might be in the initial stages where people are getting to know about Bitcoin which would not only allow them to be part of the global financial economy, but would also make them financially independent.

Here's an interesting take on why Bitcoin's current price doesn't reflect its true value.


https://decentralize.today/dont-fall-for-the-hype-why-bitcoin-s-10-000-price-doesn-t-reflect-its-true-value-6b42a59fce0a

Survey Monkey for a crypto investment business survey, they are indeed popular and trustable. Their free plan is limited to only 100 responses per survey. Survey Legend and Survey Planet have unlimited respondents. Why not use Google Forms, have seen some users posting their surveys on this forum, but I think the response rate is low, might get more response from Reddit/CryptoCurrency or CryptoMarkets.

Yesterday a thread was created on Bitcoin discussions section, why is Bitcoin price not dropping when sending fees are so high? Almost all responses were centered around, Bitcoin investors don't care about transaction fees because everybody is holding and that's the reality, Bitcoin has become an investment rather than a medium of exchange. Recently Steam stopped accepting Bitcoin because of high fees and volatility. All the new investors are just obsessed about the price, ignoring the fact that Bitcoins true value lies in its ability to transfer value without permission through a secure global consensus network. With LN implementation, Bitcoin might be used as a medium of exchange, but again there is a psychological barrier that prevents a Bitcoin holder from spending, scarcity, the price will increase, if I spend some coins now it will be harder to gain it back.

For the time being Bitcoin is more a digital gold rather than an alternative to fiat or other existing payment systems.

A website similar to Localbitcoins, but with mutliple cryptocurrencies, interesting concept. P2P trading platforms are quite popular and will always be in demand, one of the alternatives if a government shuts down exchanges or bans Bitcoin, but still they are centralized with a single point of failure. There are a few decentralized exchanges Bisq, Bitshares, Waves, Decred, but not quite popular and not much support for multiple cryptocurrencies, but I do think that in the near future, decentralized exchanges would be much more in demand than P2P/OTC platforms. So just a suggestion, if you want to give something back to the community, a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange with security and privacy as priority would be better than a P2P platform. There is also Cobinhood (beta), supports around 20 cryptocurrencies with zero trading fee, projects like these would be game changers in cryptosphere.

A highly subjective question, different perspectives, quite difficult to predict at what stage of the hype cycle Bitcoin is currently at. IMO there could be two possible scenarios.

Peak of inflated expectations – Trough of disillusionment – Slope of enlightenment - Plateau of productivity.

1. Technology-driven adoption, proven valuation as a store of value, technological developments/upgrades/scalability/surviving forks and other uncertainties. Getting legal status from countries like Japan and Australia and most recently the Bitcoin futures. If all these can be considered as mainstream adoption then the 2011 and 2013 crashes were the trough of disillusionment and Bitcoin is now on its way to slope of enlightenment.

2. Speculation-driven adoption/hype, lack of merchant adoption, transaction volume getting dominated by trading volume, lack of utility as a medium of exchange, pending technological implementations/upgrades. Currently roughly around 0.01% of the world population is using Bitcoin and based on all these it can be assumed that Bitcoin has yet to reach mainstream adoption so it might still be in the peak of inflated expectations which would be followed by a trough of disillusionment (major correction) to finally reach slope of enlightenment and then plateau of productivity.

Like I mentioned, it is quite impossible to predict the current phase of Bitcoin, better to relax without giving much thought to price movements.

There would be a dual market, futures and Bitcoin market, might be interdependent or independent. Cash-settled Bitcoin futures would allow Bitcoin skeptics/institutional investors to bet against Bitcoin without even buying it or there is a possibility that these investors will want to suppress the price so they can buy Bitcoin at a discount, either way this would lead to a new price discovery mechanism.

Just read an article on, will the futures market do to Bitcoin what it did to gold?


https://medium.com/swlh/will-the-futures-market-do-to-bitcoin-what-it-did-to-gold-b7d35704641

So far Bitcoin mining operations weren't put under any legal framework, this registry would be the first, and for what, to allow bitcoin miners to operate with legal protections, to protect miners rights, just an excuse to squeeze taxes, or a more extreme measure like mass confiscation of mining equipments. In the whole article this is only thing that makes some sense.


If the registry is used to subsidize mining costs, provide lower electricity tariffs for bitcoin miners then I guess miners might register and be more transparent about their mining operations and finances including taxes.

Not only Venezuela, Putin had also announced that cryptocurrency miners would need to register with the Russian government in 2018.

Obviously social media networks have a huge impact on Bitcoin/cryptocurrencies. In the early days the communication channels were limited to this forum, mailing lists, and IRCs, but now information, discussions, speculation regarding Bitcoin is readily available on several social media platforms and this has definitely boosted Bitcoin adoption. Based on digital word-of-mouth effect, these social media interactions have created a social feedback cycle which is fueling adoption. Studies have proved that there is a correlation between Bitcoin search engine trends and adoption, to the extent that social signals can be somewhat used as a trading strategy.

Apart from the memes, information, and discussions, Reddit has somewhat become a platform to resolve issues related to Bitcoin services (exchanges) and letting others know about the inefficiency of a service, a red flag, helps to avoid certain services. So basically not only positives in terms of adoption, information and speculation, social media can also be manipulated to spread negative news/FUD to have an adverse effect, all part of the package.

IMO earnings from Bitcoin/cryptocurrencies is a passive income, be it mining or trading, both involves capital/investment and comes with a lot of uncertainty, while a job would provide you with a stable source of active income. You might be able to earn more from cryptocurrencies than your overseas job, but still this isn't guaranteed, it might not be profitable in the near future so it is better to choose stability over uncertainty and consider cryptos as a source of passive income (part-time).

Why use Koinex when there are three other popular exchanges with better rates? Both Coinsecure and Zebpay have the best rates, but in terms of KYC verification both Unocoin and Coinsecure is sloppy, will take couple of weeks to get verified and with the recent increase in volume INR deposit orders will take at least 24 hrs to be processed, Zebpay is much faster. I do recommend using Zebpay.



http://www.bitcoinrates.in

Banksters, a few prominent investors and Nobel Prize winning economists including Robert Shiller and Joseph Stiglitz have called Bitcoin a bubble. Right now, with roughly around 0.01% of the world’s population using Bitcoin, it already has become the 6th most valuable currency in the world, but this exponential rise in Bitcoins price in just a few months somewhat does confirm the bubble theory. It's highly likely Bitcoin is in a bubble, but it is impossible to predict at what stage in the hype cycle Bitcoin is in now because it is an entirely new experiment in decentralization, a disruptive technology and historically it is evident that all new technologies go through hype cycles (bubbles). It is somewhat hard to value a new technology’s intrinsic value using traditional valuation methods and that's what is happening with Bitcoin, technology-driven adoption is getting overshadowed by hype and FOMO.

Even when Bitcoin was worth zero it had value since it solved the unsolvable 30-year old Byzantine General’s problem. These bubble conclusions are solely drawn based on price movements only, without giving much thought to fundamentals, utility, technology, and ignoring that the value proposition of Bitcoin has the potential to set new price milestones without really being in a bubble, but most importantly given the adoption is organic, technology and utility-oriented rather than mere speculation/hype.

It is difficult to ponder why 21 million was chosen. Like mentioned above it might involve variables and elliptic curve arithmetic or a much simpler mathemathical explanation (not exactly accurate) like this one:

Calculate the number of blocks per 4 year cycle:

6 blocks per hour
* 24 hours per day
* 365 days per year
* 4 years per cycle
= 210,240
~= 210,000
Sum all the block reward sizes:

50 + 25 + 12.5 + 6.25 + 3.125 + ... = 100
Multiply the two:

210,000 * 100 = 21 million.

Or as mentioned in one of the mails (not sure if they are legit) between Mike Hearn and Satoshi Nakamoto, it was just an educated guess, picking something that was neither too small nor too large, in the middle.


https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8439/why-was-21-million-picked-as-the-number-of-bitcoins-to-be-created

https://pastebin.com/Na5FwkQ4

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2080206.0

So you want a bitcoin url shortener script and that too a free one. Go through microearnings section, you might find one. For a paid script, Salmen (JQuery and FaucetHub faucet script) might be able to help you, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=386072

This guy is also working on a URL Shortener Script, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2497410.msg25576164#msg25576164

As far as a fork is concerned, there is a thread on altcoin section about Bitcoin Silver, another scam coin, nothing known about developers, no website, no github links, just that yet another fork, specifically snapshot coin might happen in December. Just a cash grab, a joke in the name of making Bitcoin mining decentralized again and yet again.

As far as the rapid increase in Bitcoin price is concerned, one of the reasons is, the world's largest futures exchange, CME is expected to launch bitcoin futures in the second week of December.

Bitcoin is already a global currency, but replacing USD as a global reserve currency is a far-fetched theory and for that to happen the extent of Bitcoin adoption should be exponential, major countries should adopt and legalize Bitcoin as currency, one of the primary currencies for trade throughout the world should be Bitcoin. If Bitcoin becomes a global reserve currency then obviously the price would  skyrocket. In terms of functions of money:

1. Medium of exchange.

Scalability, volatility, transactional cost, speed, fee matters. Assuming Bitcoin scales to accommodate large scale global transactions and there is more price stability, Bitcoin would be a reliable medium of exchange.

2. Unit of account.

To serve the function of a unit of account, Bitcoin should be able to measure the relative value of goods and services and other transactions in the economy. Divisibility and volatility matters. Since Bitcoin is divisible it enhances its unit of account function, but volatility can be a major con especially if there is short-term price fluctuations. A fluctuating global currency makes it difficult to spot the true relative prices of goods and services leading to adverse effects.

3. Store of value.

Since Bitcoin is deflationary, it is beneficial to Bitcoin holders, good store of value, but at the same time the expectation of higher future value of Bitcoins may lead to its hoarding in anticipation of higher price which in turn may reduce its use in exchanges of goods and services. Although increasing and retaining purchasing power, its use as an effective medium of exchange might be limited.

From an economical perspective, according to Blocklink analysis, the richest 30% of all Bitcoin owners own 98.3% of all Bitcoins. So the poorest 70% of Bitcoin owners own less than 1.7 % of all Bitcoin. It takes merely 0.153 Bitcoins to be placed in the top 30% richest Bitcoin owners. Assuming Bitcoin becomes a global reserve currency, the wealth distribution still somewhat remains the same as the existing system.

Bitcoin doesn't have to replace the banks or Fiat or become the global reserve currency to be disruptive. It just needs to accomodate and offer alternative solutions be it storing wealth or P2P transactions to people who don't want to use banks/Fiat.

http://www.blocklink.info/distributions.html

Bitcoin news website from BitcoinTalk. So basically you will be copy pasting some of the topics and responses on BCT to your website. Right? Now the question is rather than visiting the forum (original source) why would someone go through the same topic on your website (copy pasted)? An interesting topic on BCT gets around 100 average responses, quality answers with different perspectives as well poor responses so the idea of copying and publishing only quality posts on your website might be a good idea, rather than going through hundreds of posts looking for genuine information/inputs, it would be readily available.

Topics like, What if bitcoin mining becomes illegal worldwide isn't news, centered around hypothetical scenario and discussions, topics like these are good for making assumptions, but for Bitcoin news, it should be related to current event topics.

Even though it is copy pasting, the idea isn't bad. There are thousands of topics on BCT, on what basis are you going to choose topics? There are quality answers from experts/professionals as well as individuals, opposing opinions, but both right from their own perspective, so what defines a quality answer? This is why a forum is different, everyone can voice their opinion, but when we have to choose a few selected responses, it would be based on our own point of view.

I guess I put way more thought into the whole idea, but that's it. Even if you start a website based on this concept, there is the above question, there is no guarantee that people would be visiting your site. Apart from BitcoinTalk, Quora, Bitcoin Stack Exchange, and Reddit are used as a Q&A website. In a thread with 100 responses, people usually check out the first 10 or last 10 posts while the genuine inputs might be in the middle. There are certain topics on BCT, removing poor responses and only keeping quality answers would be helpful especially to newbies, piecing together information.

BillDesk, an Indian online payments company that conducts around 70% of India's online billing transactions has launched Coinome, India's first crypto-currency exchange. Right now the platform supports Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash only, but the exchange plans to support 20 mainstream crypto-currencies by 2018. There have been rumors that the Indian government might ban Bitcoin and the interesting thing is the company behind Coinome, BillDesk is a participant under the Payments and Settlements Systems Act, 2007 that is regulated and supervised by the Reserve Bank of India.


http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/startup/cryptic-world-billdesk-launches-indias-first-crypto-currency-exchange-2445875.html/amp

As far as supporting 30+ top cryptocurrencies is concerned, Coinomi is a good choice. The scam accusations has nothing to do with Coinomi. Their code is open source, some scammers took it and created malicious clones to scam people. They have been in service since 2014 and have a good rep. IMO Coinomi is one of the better multi-coin wallets. If security is your concern use hardware wallets or try Exodus wallet, supports 20 cryptos.

The major industry that is going to benefit from Bitcoin revolution in Africa would be remittances. According to Wikipedia, about  20 to 30 million immigrants from Africa send around $40 billion USD annually to their families and local communities back home. In several fragile states, remittances are estimated to exceed 50 percent of GDP.

Most African countries restrict the payment of remittances to banks, which in turn, typically enter into exclusive arrangements with large money transfer companies, like Western Union or Money Gram, to operate on their behalf. This results in limited competition and limited access for consumers, which allows these Money Transfer Operators (MTOs) to charge the highest fees for remittances in the world.

Bitcoin remittance startups like BitPesa, Abra, Remitano, Bitspark, and GeoPay are taking the power away from large MTOs by offering low fee for remittances.

The next is payments industry, especially mobile/smartphone based money transfer. Right now it is dominated by M-Pesa. Right now there isn't something like M-Pesa for Bitcoin, but maybe in future. Most important is to target the unbanked, many startups are working on it.

Don't know whether cryptocurrencies would haul Africa on par with the rest of the world, but there could be drastic changes in the socio-economic conditions of African nations.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance

Owning and having control over your Bitcoin aren't the same, private keys makes the difference. Custodial wallets and exchanges does provide the users a wallet, but not keys. So theoretically it could be said you own the Bitcoins when you keep them on an exchange or move them to an exchange, but technically since you don't have control over them, do you really own them? Nope.

Keeping small amounts of Bitcoin for trading purposes on reputable exchanges is necessary for active traders, but when you can be your own bank, keeping everything on exchanges would be foolishness. And that's what a lot of newbies are doing now.