As an experiment, it might be interesting to watch. Launching a digital currency locally is easier and safer than doing it at the level of the whole country. I wonder what the tax implications of this are going to be, though, and how the approval from the federal government will be received, given that the US is not very friendly toward cryptos and blocked the huge Libra project in its infancy. What I like about the project is that it's a case of embracing both a centralized digital currency and Bitcoin, showing that these two can hypothetically coexist in harmony.

Amazon isn't accepting Bitcoin as payment, Tesla temporarily stopped accepting Bitcoin until the mining sustainability investigation is over, and Apple is going to accept BTC only indirectly, via accepting Coinbase debit card. The hype is real, though, and it does have temporary effect on the market.
Answering the thread name's question, I believe the general tendency of Bitcoin becoming as valuable along with becoming more popular is true. After all, it makes perfect sense because if Bitcoin gets more popular, the demand for it increases, and if the demand increases, the price increases as well. However, even though the amount of users is constantly growing, we still have the bearish market from time to time, so the price doesn't always correlate with popularity.

Thanks for a good article on coping with crypto volatility! Educating oneself is indeed very important, and I feel like some people skip this point completely. I've seen people investing in altcoins and ICOs who didn't even know about the existence of websites like Coingecko that allow to see the market from different perspectives, and barely knew anything about how many coins there are, and how they are doing. I'm also sure that not many people keep track of how much they lose because it's easier to forget and move on, but it can prove to be a fatal mistake.
Long-term holding that was mentioned in the thread is a good strategy, but only if we're talking about top altcoins. Otherwise, a person might invest in a temporarily pumped shitcoin and lose only more over the years because the coin is never getting pumped again.

a)  No
b)  2
c)  17'

I sent the money today from Sportsbet.io account and messaged my transaction ID. It feels like the previous season ended so recently, and yet another one is starting so soon. I look forward to playing with you all once again, and hope to get in the top-10 one more time
I like Superbru, by the way. I think the system is more or less fair, and I like how they visualize things. It's very convenient to be able to analyze many things (including one's own performance) on a single website.
Good luck to everyone!

It's good that (and if) the mining power is migrating from China because we could use a little more decentralization and independence from such an unstable authoritarian state as China. Hopefully, new countries will be more welcoming to mining operations.
I'm glad that there's more mining going around, but I also don't think that it matters a lot. Bitcoin has plenty of miners involved, so if some leave, and the mining difficulty decreases, it's not bad per se. It also doesn't negatively affect the price or interest of investors in Bitcoin.

I use local exchanges, and the transaction is processed within 15 minutes from the first network confirmation, and the confirmation often comes within 10 minutes if the fee is at the priority level. Within this time, the price changes a little, but the amount is usually insignificant in my experience. I don't use stablecoins because they're a bomb that can explode at any point because there's no real value behind them, and it can lead to catastrophic consequences if enough panic happens. The prices can be fixed in fiat for convenience, and I don't see how adding a stablecoin into the equation is making things easier.

While the design shows that some work was done on the website, it somehow strikes me as not very appealing. My first association is that the design is old, as if it was created 10 years ago. Maybe it's the sharp edges and too many colors, I don't know. The main page is also too long, and at the bottom there's info about the website which isn't in English... The website needs some improvements, so I'll assume it's a Beta release if even the main page isn't fully in English. Also, being highly responsive in this thread is very important to build the reputation and, in turn, get users.

What I like about this website is that the list is filled largely with casinos that are indeed trusted and popular. It's a good divergence from most similar websites that list very random casinos, which probably paid them. That being said, your main page mentions anonymity as one of the benefits of Bitcoin casinos, but many actually ask for IDs these days, at least under some circumstances. I also don't realize what you mean by 'trip to the moon' calculator. Is it literally how much the trip to the Moon per person is worth? In that case, it's a little irrelevant, but ok 

McAfee is a sad dead speculative guy who said many weird things and in the end did more harm than good to Bitcoin. He was also pretty crazy, so no wonder that some thought of his led to op's unrealistic fantasy of crypto replacing government. People could vote in a decentralized way, and the voting could be based on Blockchain. Even at this point, it would be Blockchain doing the replacement, not cryptos. But then someone has to decide what to put on vote, someone has to manage institutions and ensure communications with other countries, someone has to write the laws to vote on etc. I don't think there's a way to make all of it work in a decentralized way. Also, the majority is very ignorant on many questions, and it would vote toward a catastrophy. If a question of abolishing taxes was voted on, the majority would surely support the decision. And then there would be no money to fix the roads, subsidize medicine and public transport etc.

If a bank loses so much money, I wonder who's going to pay for it. Surely, banks will avoid the situation when someone fails to withdraw money or pay for something, right? But even if it does, banks aren't safe, of course. I tried to look into how they work in my country, and the data is a little confusing. Apparently, only money that one puts 'on a deposit' (basically lends the bank to invest for annual profits) is what the bank uses for investments, but there's also this thing that the numbers in a bank account don't have physical representation in the bank. I wonder how it all works relatively well under such risky circumstances. And compared to banks, hodling BTC is way safer because you actually own the money if you have the private key.

It's very hard to judge a token by the whitepaper because it's easy to wrote some impressive stuff about how amazing the project is. It's also easy to get high rankings for an ICO, and it doesn't even involve paying money. Those websites work by rewarding detailed info, so a totally worthless project can get high rates easily. I'd rely on the team if it has famous people, and also on the exchanges where the coin is listed (if it's a good exchange, at least the team is putting money into that, and it will be possible to sell the token easily when needed). A closely related factor is trading volume. I'd wait for it to become significant enough to ensure that the tokens can always be sold. Come to think of it, all of this implies that some time is required to see how the coin performs initially, so it wouldn't be a completely newly listed coin anymore. But at least that would make it a safer investment.

Minor price fluctuations occur naturally, but I don't think all those times when the price changes significantly and some events preceded them were coincidences. I remember how the price fell when Musk announced Tesla won't be accepting Bitcoin and China restricted mining activities. And the price clearly went up following Amazon rumors. There were also other similar events in the past. News coverage makes some impact because people act on it. Which is why it's impossible to predict the market, as events like Covid cannot be predicted in advance.

I used to think the way op does. It seems logical that if a state creates its own digital currency, it's done to provide an alternative to decentralized cryptos for its citizens, and then restrict the usage of true cryptos. However, as I've seen Ukraine's roadmap on crypto adoption which plans both to issue a digital currency and allow using Bitcoin for payments and trading, it seems that the intention of issuing a digital currency doesn't always lead to tough regulations. The policy wasn't implemented yet, so it might not work out, but it's hypothetically possible for digital currencies to coexist peacefully with cryptos.

ATMs aren't necessarily more convenient than online exchanges. For one, they have high fees which, from what I've heard, can exceed 10%. Moreover, it means dealing with money on the street, so there's a risk of being robbed. Plus, if an ATM asks for some info you don't want to give, it will be harder to stop in the middle of the process of your card might be "chewed" by it. As for the more general question of convenience making it more popular, I think it's true. So its good when more options are available, it's just that I'm not sure ATMs are what we need.

It's not the most useful thing that often becomes valuable. Gold has been mentioned here before. It's not a great metal to make strong things, and there are cheaper stones that look better than it does. And yet it's more valuable because people trust in it and believe that it's valuable for subjective reasons. So Bitcoin doesn't have to be the most useful to be valuable. Also, when it comes to Bitcoin, there really isn't much improvement after it with altcoins. PoS and private blockchain have their pros and cons, so they aren't necessarily improvements, and smart contracts are useful, but not very convenient, so they are not a big enough improvement to make Bitcoin obsolete. If someone solves the scalability issue once and for all with some crypto, this could be a big enough improvement. However, it also has to be made in an attractive way because IOTA allegedly solves the issue in the long run, but the early adoption stage is highly centralized, and there isn't enough interest to go through it.

I think it's just a longer road than we tend to notice. Paypal CEO admitted holding BTC in 2019, and Elon Musk owned some BTC back in 2018. This shows some initial interest of decision-makers, which over a year or two can lead to a company adopting Bitcoin as well. But Bezos never showed any interest in Bitcoin, so there's no primary background to build adoption upon. As for Omidyar (the eBay founder), he opted for Libra and also didn't express interest in BTC, so it's the same case as with Bezos. I think they're just not ready to adopt because their companies are already successful, and maybe they don't feel like it's worth it. After all, it's dealing with authorities, figuring out the regulations, taking the risks related to Bitcoin's volatility among other things. But they'll come around eventually, especially if the adoption trend continues.

The tax part depends on the region, and there aren't many places where one can get an official salary in BTC, I believe. And apart from the unstable price, we also have to deal with unstable fees. Not to mention the overall lack of places where one can actually pay with Bitcoin.
I believe the currency should be of employee's choice and decided on an individual basis. For now, I think fiat will dominate, as there often isn't enough infrastructure and proper legislative framework to pull this off with cryptos.

Then why take the high risk by investing in an ICO when you can at least invest in a token that's already on exchanges? A huge risk with ICOs is that you might not receive the tokens you've paid for, or the token might never get listed on an exchange. Then there are financial risks, such as the price dropping dramatically, but by investing in a token that's already traded, you at least eliminate the risk of being outright scammed. If you want fresh projects, just sort the tokens to see those which were recently added (like this). You can then google them and read what the projects are about, but at least you'll know that you'd be able to sell when you want to.

I wonder how many people still invest in ICOs. I thought the ICO market was pretty much dead by the end of 2019, and yet here we are in the middle of 2021
The idea of giving stakes in a casino is pretty good, but I'm not sure how investors can make sure they aren't deceived, and they get their fair share of profits. Or is it somehow done automatically, like via smart contracts or something?
I'll wait till the coin's listed on exchanges because it's always safer this way, but I just want to know more. If a person buys your tokens on some exchange, how can this person get the payouts in BUSD? How are you going to monitor all and will there be conditions, such as hodling for 6 months or something?
Good luck!