Watched the interview earlier today, what I found most interesting was how he compared both assets;
"Gold is a 5000 year brand and is a go to asset in terms of inflation" and later on;
"I own many many more times gold than bitcoin but frankly if the gold bet works the bitcoin bet will probably work better because it's thinner, more illiquid and has more beta to it."

This means he considers an asset which is almost 12 years (from the Genesis block) to be a better bet than gold which has been around for 50 centuries. The more people come to this realization, the more adoption Bitcoin would get.

There are currently a few services which have been granted the SPDI charter to function as a crypto bank;
• Kraken Wins First Crypto Bank Charter In U.S. History
• Avanti Digital asset bank
These are custodial services which function effectively as centralized exchanges for buying and selling cryptocurrencies, as well as holding assets for its customers. They also offer banking services like IRA, debit/credit cards as well as asset management services.

No, although if you're unsure of where to store your hardware or paper wallet, you can keep it in a bank vault, same way precious metals are stored. In this case, you still have control over your funds and can access it through your backup. Custodial services hold your assets as you're storing on their wallet and as such they can freeze your funds and block your account.

If you're looking for a coin to invest in, you would have to do your own research. Pump or hype around a project does not mean it is credible or worth holding for the long term, and if you're looking for a get rich quick venture, you should understand it's a huge gamble and you bear the risk of burning through your capital quickly as well.

The altcoin space is a bit crowded in now with so many new projects springing up due to the DeFi hype, as an investor you should learn to filter through it all and decide if any coin or token is actually worth your investments.

Utility is also an important factor. Some projects do not survive market cycles cause they were built on hype without actually trying to solve any problem, which would have driven demand to it.

If one is investing in altcoins, they are technically not Bitcoin investors, but cryptocurrency investors.
I do not think that should be a tip for new investors as there is no necessity to invest in other cryptocurrencies. If one finds a coin which they consider to be worth investing in after going through the fundamentals, they can take the risk, but new investors interested in Bitcoin should be under no pressure to diversify their holdings.
In my opinion, the best form of diversification is having a real life business or source of income which would prevent you from dipping into your Bitcoin stash for regular needs.

From your topic title and this quote, I would assume one of your inquiry is, a way to send Bitcoin 'instantly' or in seconds.
Bitcoin transactions are added into blocks which are confirmed averagely every ten minutes, after which a new block gets filled up for confirmation. So regardless of the amount paid in fees you cannot make a transaction get confirmed instantly (as this depends on the network), but only put it closer to the tip of the mempool by paying priority fee.
You should note that 10 minutes is the average time time for block confirmation, it could take much longer than that or happen in seconds.

Bitcoin does not lose value when sent, what happens is you pay a fee to miners to get the transaction confirmed, and if you're using a centralized exchange like binance, they charge a service fee on transactions. These fees are taken from the funds in your wallet, if you're sending the maximum amount, it is taken from the transaction input.
To avoid this service charge, use a non custodial wallet to make transactions.

This is not unique to ATM services. Bitcoin ATMs function as a regular centralized exchange where one can buy or sell Bitcoin directly using a debit/credit card or bank transfers. Such services offer liquidity for the Bitcoin market, as not everyone can or is willing to trade on decentralized exchanges or through OTC trades.
If combined with privacy practices, like use of non custodial wallets and coin mixing/joining services, it could be done right with little effect to anonymity or privacy.

I am yet to use one as it is not quite popular in my country.
If I'm to use one in the future, I'll likely trade below the KYC limit as some ATMs allow one to buy or sell cryptocurrencies below certain amounts without needing to register on their platform and input personal details.

Is this a recent transaction you made or an old unconfirmed one?

There's probably a glitch for the transaction to not be on the mempool; it's possible the parent transaction was unconfirmed at the time of sending and later got cancelled (through a double spend or got dropped from all mempools) rendering all child transactions invalid.
If you're the one sending the bitcoins, you should also verify the receiving address to ensure it is a Bitcoin address.
You can also try tracking the transaction on multiple block explorers.

All these are guesses and we'll probably need more information, like txid or public address to give a more accurate advise.

If you consider the price changes in Bitcoin retrospectively, you would realize that the term 'cheap' doesn't really apply. Every spike in price does not make Bitcoin expensive, it's only higher in value than it was some time ago, but as mk4 said, if you consider it to be lower in value than it could be in a future time range, then it is still a good investment.
Investors may have seen spikes like $300-$1000 and assumed Bitcoin to have become expensive and choose to wait for a correction, meanwhile the market rode that waves to as high as $20,000.

The market price is connected to the fundamentals of Bitcoin. Bitcoin has qualities which an average Joe can think; 'I would want to own one (or a fraction) of that because of <inserts unique quality>', and an investor who may not be interested in those qualities could still want to own Bitcoin cause they feel the demand for it would increase making it a wise investment for profit.
The more demand grows the moe valuable it gets.

Bitcoin as a decentralized asset does not need to be validated by a government inorder to go mainstream. More adoption is always welcome and anyone can trade or hold it, but its growth should not depend on the actions of a person or institution.

Moving with millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin may not be a good idea. Such amount should be safely tucked away in a hardware wallet.

Except the thread is a stickie, the poster would have gotten the warning, that the thread they are about to reply to has not been posted on for over 120 days, and they should reconsider if the want to reply or start a new thread on the topic.

Is there a possibility that the reply would still be relevant today and helpful to other members who may have a similar inquiry?
Waking dead threads may be unethical in some situations, but a user could have a valid reason for choosing to do that, I think there are much easier ways to spam than digging up 8 year old threads.

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*Edit: Issue solved. I'll also vote for that thread to be locked to prevent future bumps.

In my opinion, this could either be caused by the discovery of vulnerability in the network or government policies which limits its usage.
A vulnerability while possible, is unlikely. The network has a difficulty barrier which prevents malicious attacks and limits the effects in such a situation. It is also fully decentralized, so there is no central server or body which can be exploited and lead to a crash.

Government regulations; such as an outright ban or use of strict policies could have a huge negative impact on Bitcoin. However,
• Such a ban may need to be synchronized to have a real effect. Bitcoin currently has different legal stance in many countries, ranging from places with tight restrictions or bans to places which encourages its usage.
• The effect of a ban would likely not be long lasting, people can always move out from places with tight restrictions to more enabling environments, thereby creating an economic risk for countries which aims at stringent laws.

Overall, I would say a global consensus by governments restricting Bitcoin poses the biggest threat.

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There is still one major threat which Bitcoin faces, and this comes from the community. If majority of Bitcoin users traded their autonomy and privacy for convenience by accessing it through centralized platforms, Bitcoin could become another digital fiat, losing it's unique qualities.
While this may not have an instant impact on the market, it could overtime become more significant as governments would be able to control Bitcoin effectively (freeze coins and prevent certain transactions).

It is rational to want to spread out your funds, but storing bitcoins on a centralized platform, may not be the best option. You can try downloading a non custodial wallet and keeping a portion of your assets there, preferably on an airgapped device.

Also, on your hardware wallet you can explore with addresses available by adding passphrases to your original seed phrase, thereby creating a new address where you can store a portion of your funds. Your added passphrase can be made as strong as possible with the use of alphabets, numbers and special characters. You then create a backup for the different addresses and store them in different locations.
Although, if your hardware device is compromised, it could potentially affect all your addresses (some other member can confirm this, as I'm not certain)

I do not, and also do not intend to. Imo, If one has access to buy Bitcoin directly without regulatory hassles then that would be the best option.

PayPal integrated four cryptocurrencies into its platform; Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.
Also, the cryptocurrency market is heavily dependent on Bitcoin as the major asset with a dominance of about 63.7% as at this time, so when there is a spike in the value of Bitcoin, it has a tendency to influence some altcoins and carry them along same way when it crashes. I however expect a decoupling of the crypto market overtime and bull runs would likely become less synchronized.

I understand the argument of services like PayPal acting as a bridge to connect Bitcoin to users who are on the fence or doubtful about investing. Centralized adoption is not the ideal route for a decentralized asset, but increasingly seems to be the cost to get Bitcoin mainstream.
Bitcoin is not associated with any scam project AFAIK, everyone should endeavor to do their own research.

It is possible. During the last ATH rally in 2017, it was not until the end of November that Bitcoin surpassed $10,000 but at this point now it is already testing the $16k resistance level. The value of Bitcoin is unpredictable, but we could very well see a new All Time High before the end of they year.

Regardless of who emerges victorious, it would have little effect on the Bitcoin market overtime. Afaik, neither candidates has interest in aggressive policies which influences Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Some parties even suggest that Biden's policy on tax and money printing would shift more people into Bitcoin.

Cryptocurrency: Bitcoin
Dollar amount: $15
Bank Name: Guarantee Trust Bank
Account Name: **sent**
Account Number: **sent**

Edit: txid - a5498e3bcc76550022d47f18be97dc66565c9227c749c76546b62a7611df38b1

*Funds received. It's always a pleasure.

The market is largely unpredictable and there is no one factor which causes a bull run, there has been lots of organic growth over the last few months (before and after the halving) which was capable of building bullish sentiment in the Bitcoin space, but without any significant effect on the market value;

• Microstrategy adopted a Bitcoin standard
• Grayscale increased their Bitcoin AUM and hold about 2.4% of total supply
• PayPal integrated Bitcoin into its platform
• A number of other public companies bought and hold Bitcoin.
So, this can be viewed as a price correction with the market value closing the gap to match sentiments of traders and holders.

Imo, Bitcoin has been undervalued for a while now and had the potential to spike up at anytime, but with no certainty on when; Guess we are there now.

Merit sources like most other users have boards they frequent, and they are appointed on this basis. A source who is active on a couple of boards would majorly distribute merits there, you wouldn't expect them to venture into sections they have little knowledge of as they would not be able to discern which post is quality and which is not.
Also quality is subjective, if you find 50-100 good posts per hour you can report then here - [self-moderated] Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source.

If you're going to make this accusation, you should show some sort of proof, otherwise it's just baseless trolling.

There's no guarantee the individual is on this platform or that they'd see your thread here. It is also not good practice to try reaching out in this manner as you expose yourself to scammers who can impersonate the person you're searching for.
If you do not trust a site to trade on it, then avoid it completely, there are a number of other ways to buy and sell bitcoins.

Firstly, theymos is the forum administrator, not the global mod.
About smerit for sources, I do not think most of them fail to use up their stash, some do due to inactivity or failure to find enough merit worthy posts which meets their criteria.

The forum does not expect anyone to be a hero (whatever that is in this context), there are just a set of rules which guides the activity on the forum, and failure to keep to those rules attracts some level of punishment. Asides this, the forum is designed to be as free as possible and to accommodate the various interests of members.
Some members have gotten permanent bans reduced to signature bans on the merit of their overall contribution to the forum, so that counts for something.

My exact thoughts.
Inflation is not just a decrease in the value of a currency due to supply shock or scarcity of products, but it is equally represented as an increase in the price of goods. So, if the value of Bitcoin goes up when priced against the USD due to inflation, the price of products purchased by the USD would have also increased to counter this change.

Bitcoin can be used as a hedge to escape hyper inflation, but inflation does not directly make Bitcoin more valuable imo. Think of it as a balance scale, with two weights on each side; if one gets lighter, the balance shifts, as the other one pulls the scale towards its arm without any increase in its weight.
Hopefully in the future, Bitcoin would be priced against actual products and work hours, rather than against fiat currencies.