When I was your age I invested some money to buy Bitcoin. I think it is the only genuine crypto-currency potential to increase in value for next coming years. If you want to spread your money over more currencies then I would chose Litecoin, it's identical to Bitcoin but has 4 times more supply, 4 times faster block times and it's not over populated so the transaction fees aren't that high. 85% Bitcoin and %15 Litecoin or less is a good choice. The safest way to store your coins is a paper wallet. After buying your coins using an exchange you can easily withdraw your coins to a paper wallet. Then when you feel you want to use your coins, you just import the private key to a desktop wallet. I don't think a computer is much saver to water or getting stolen. Make sure you make an extra copy and hide them on different places.

I think Siacoin is a really interesting project, it uses Bitcoin's blockchain technique to decentralize cloud hosting. It's a good solution for the centralized cloud hosting we use nowadays, like Google Drive or Dropbox. When you store your data to their servers then they'll have full control over your data, it's a bad development if you ask me. Data is really valuable, you shouldn't give full access to a company with workers you don't know. Sia solves this problem by storing parts of your data, encrypted on harddrives all around the world. If this project gets more attention then it will increase in value.

Bittrex suits all your needs but it will need your documents before you can start trade. If you want to bypass this, because you care about privacy then there is an exchange called Cryptopia. The downside of it is that you first need to get your hands on one of the top crypto-currencies (BTC, LTC, ETH) to start trading. Because this platform doesn't let you trade in fiat. I use Kraken to buy Litecoin or Bitcoin, because it accepts SEPA transfers, then I deposit the coins to Cryptopia.

Address:

Message:

Signature:

Please, quote my post.

I got to admit that Monero's cryptonight is really awesome and I really think that there technology adds something to the crypto technology but it can't replace Bitcoin. On the end all the coins that are listed on CoinMarketCap are based on Bitcoin, some of them add something new that is significant and a lot them don't. Monero deserves a community and it's value is justified but it's still a clone of Bitcoin that has some added technological advancements. Bitcoin is in my opinion capable enough to use as a private payment method, if you use it the right way. So I don't find it necessary to switch to a different coin.

I haven't heard about it, could you link me to your reference in form of an article? I suspect that the coins are not hacked because of the way Bitcoin is build but actually a human mistake. A lot of people store their Bitcoins in web-wallets that are not properly configured and don't use the recommend security measures. To everyone that recognizes themselves, please do proper research to the capabilities Bitcoin has. Web-wallets are not the only way to store your Bitcoin and if you decide to use a web-wallet make sure that you use good security measures.

Thank you. You're right, Bitcoin mining is getting really expensive lately. I think that's because there are currently only 2 companies that manufacture these ASIC miners, they can manipulate the price as they want it because they have monopoly. It's quite bad for the decentralization that GPUs got useless when mining Bitcoin as these were publicly available and could be used in every price-class. Let's hope the the growing tendency to more expensive mining equipment gets tackled.

Privacy is important for me, it's part of the freedom we have. I think Bitcoin has enough privacy if you use it the right way, for example it doesn't limit you to create a certain amount of accounts/addresses, like banks do. Use this feature to give yourself more privacy, don't use an address multiple times for different payments if you want to stay anonymous. Also Bitcoin doesn't require any of your personal information, it's the exchanges and web-wallets that want you to register your personal details. Create a desktop wallet or generate a random address using bitaddress.org, you don't have to be connected to the internet to receive transactions. For extra privacy there is also something called a mixer, it fully anonymizes your transactions and as far as I'm aware of is legal in most countries.

The max supply is realized by a process called 'Halving' it simply does what it says it halves the reward for mining a block. At the very beginning this reward was an amount of 50 BTC, after 210.000 blocks were mined this reward halved to 25 BTC. It happens every 210,000 blocks, which is equal to about 4 years when you assume that blocks are mined every 10 minutes. The current block reward is 12,5 BTC, approximate mid June 2020 the reward will halve again to 6,25 BTC. More information including a countdown timer can be found on http://www.bitcoinblockhalf.com/ .

I have invested some money in Litecoin and Ethereum Classic, but that was after their values dropped by the China ICO ban that influenced the whole crypto-market. I chose that moment because their prices were historically low and I had the feeling that they would quickly recover. But I'm not sure if this is the right moment to get in, prices seem to be very high now. I don't feel comfortable buying when the price is growing but that's personal preference. You got to make your own decision whether it's worth investing now or later.

You have the ability to own funds with a public address that isn't associated to your personal details. So you're able to receive money without the sender nor central bank knowing that it was you that made the payment. You're in essence not connected to a central bank, the bank can't follow your activity. It's the only currency that let's your money be separated from government or banks.

I got an email from blockchain.info some time ago that they supported the Bitcoin Cash chain. I haven't tried using the new feature, but I would trust them more than other webwallets. They have been around for more than six years, that's before Bitcoin really got 'hyped' and they're one of the only webwallets that allow you to manage your private keys/seeds. But if you want topnotch security and be responsible for your own coins than you should use a desktop wallet instead.

Wallets can be hacked by human errors, in Bitcoin you're the one that is responsible for the security of your funds, not a third-party like when you have a bank account. When you want to hold Bitcoins you need to make sure you create your wallet on a computer that isn't infected, you also have to verify that the client is safe and authentic. The level of security your wallet has is linked to the time you have to spent on setting it up, for example setting up a wallet on blockchain.info is much less time-consuming than an Armory wallet that you want to use offline. But Bitcoin is quite immune for most attacks, the only possible danger that could really hurt the whole ledger is if the SHA-256 algorithm would become broken. However I think it will not come that far as Bitcoin can upgrade it's algorithm when it is needed. Then you have the 51% hash power attack but this won't hurt the whole network, just the people that the attacker deals with. In this case the attacker would be able to reverse transactions he did. But the chances of someone getting such an insane amount of hashpower is really low.

I thought about this exact same question a couple of days ago. I'm considering to tell my father how it works, as I don't think my mother nor my sister will remember it. I'm also scared that if my sister remembers it, she could possible slip of tongue the location were I save it to friends, because I think she doesn't understand the value of it. But it's worth telling someone, you never know what will happen. Bitcoins are getting a really serious value, I think it's better that my family is able to enjoy it than that it is gone forever.

Bittrex X - I haven't used this exchange so far, but I dislike the fact that you need to upload your documents to be able to trade. Even if you don't want to deposit nor withdraw fiat.
Coinbase/GDAX X
Kraken A - I trust this exchange, they never disappointed me. Their support is really fast, they don't require any documents for small deposits or withdrawals and they support SEPA transactions. All these factors made me create an account on Kraken.  
QuadrigaQC X
CoinCorner X
Poloniex X
CanadianBitcoins X
BitFinex X
BitHumb X
BitStamp X
Cryptopia B - I think this exchange is worth mentioning, it's easy to use, has the lowest fees I have seen with an exchange and has lots of different altcoins to offer. You can't deposit nor exchange fiat but it's a very useful when you want to exchange a lot of different altcoins.

When was the wallet created? The type of wallet depends on the age of the wallet because begin 2016, blockchain.info did an upgrade.
If you have your private key or seed, then you could try to import it into Bitcoin Core wallet, it has a feature like you mentioned. The command "listreceivedbyaddress" lists all your addresses with received transactions. Then I believe you can move it from one to another with "move <fromaccount> <toaccount> <amount> [minconf=1]".

I agree with you, it's never too late to buy Bitcoin. But if you see it as an asset, with which you want to make profit then the price is better predictable when you follow the latest news about that particular coin.

The increasing popularity is caused by the media who like to cover Bitcoin in the news. Even if it's negative news coverage, then it's still attention. The human-being is inquisitive by nature so we like to explore new things. That's where a lot of the new Bitcoin users come from, also because Bitcoin is associated with increasing value, which is a desire that a lot of humans have from nature.

I think you should hold your Bitcoin and in case you want to enjoy life, then you could convert some of it to fiat. I don't think that switching to altcoins is a good idea, almost all altcoins are doomed to fail. There're just copies of Bitcoin with some different characteristics, developers act like it solves all problems but it doesn't. It's either a temporary solution or it isn't a solution. However there are some altcoins that might have success but you got to research them carefully and you shouldn't invest more than 20% of your current capital in Altcoins. But it's still your own choice, you should do what you think is the best.

Ik gebruik zelf altijd Kraken, heb tot nu toe wel goede ervaringen met ze gehad, ook al weet ik dat velen hier anders over denken. Betalingen worden in één a twee dagen gedaan, er zitten volgens mij geen fees aan vast. Het is een kwestie van je IBAN invullen en via je email de uitbetaling verifiëren.