Sounds like you are referring to the trading fee which is a percentage of the traded amount? On the other hand, transaction fees are paid to the network in order to get your transaction on the block. It is not neccessarily as built into the bitcoin network, but in order for your transaction to be processed in a reasonable amount of time, a transaction fee is needed to incentivise miners to process your transaction.

You can read more about it here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees

That's is a good catch OP. There are quite a number of ICOs using stock photos for the management team and that is a sure tell. Some dont even bother reaming the image files! Won't go into names but the most recent one was an ICO trying to issue a coin for wifisharing.

Good DD and thanjs for the expose

I suppose we can say we are messing around with the crypto' s market capitalisation as a whole, rather than bitcoin itself. I agree that there is no question about btcs market cap, but each fork does increase the market cap of crypto as a whole.

I do think we will start moving away from a market cap measurement or find some other way of valuation that takes into account liquidity.

Since you are new I recommend blockchain.info or coinbase for an easy to use online wallet, and these has been around for many years so it is stable. Once you are comfortable with crypto as a whole, you can then start exploring desktop wallets like electum. Or you could just jump straight to getting a hardwallet like trezor or ledger

The idea of a bank for bitcoins is really for those who do not understand the concept of a blockchain. A bank for bitcoin just cannot exist, unless we are talking about an organisation that has a large wallet and runs a fractional reserve system for lending and borrowing of bitcoins. And that is what some exchanges are already doing.

I do feel it is already an international currency. Some banks and small funds already use BTC as the backbone for quick FX exchange. And BTC is not controlled a nation-dependent central banking system, unlike fiat currency. However, I agree that still a long way to go for mainstream adoption, but to me that's a bigger ambition than just being an "international currency"

Sorry to hear that OP. I dont have any solutions as per other posts, but just so that others could learn form this, how do you think the hack occured? Was it a physical compromise of your pc/malware? Was 2FA activated? This will help others in a way to get some good out of this situation.

Again sorry for your loss and I do hope the authorities can help you out in some way.

I could imagine a ban due to money laundering concerns or just because POW is a huge waste of energy. But there will always be alternatives: alternative coin, modes of transmission and different proofs out there. Even if bitcoin mining is banned, there is no way to stop all crypto activity.

Yeah OP needs to understand how bitcoin works. Transaction fee is for the transaction to be included into the block. This is really about the fundamentals of how bitcoin, or any similar crypto, works.

Please hold majority of your ETH, especially with metropolis in the horizon. But you wouldn't be faulted for selling some off to diversify; you're certainly having a good problem

Currently yes, bitcoin allows financial inclusion for all, as long as u have a computer and a internet connection. But It's not the only path to financial inclusinlon: many fintech firms are trying mobile app based solutions to reach the unbanked. I see bitcoin as therefore part of the solution to providing financial services to more people.

This tech is sound but this coin has suffered recently as one ICO built up on NEO (RPX) is not allowing China investors, who are the biggest holders of NEO. This is response to regulation in China. Hence large sell off in NEO, have to continue to monitor the regulatory environment in China.

Interesting and ambitious project targeting drug pricing and discovery. However, I have yet to see a direct benefit of the use of blockchain in the context of that project, a normal database could work just as well. Exciting project nonetheless.

Been in bitcoin for years. Each time there is an improvement in protocols there will always be FUD. But it will be good to look above the technical issues and see the basis of how bitcoin works: a community that supports the development and use of bitcoin. And as long as they support and sustain btc, it doesn't matter how many hardforks occur.

Satoshi is the founder of bitcoin but there were certainly other cryptocurrencies that existed before bitcoin. Its just that those were small scale projects that did not receive, or were not meant to be, large scale projects. Bitcoin was the first successful large scale cryptocurrency imho and thats a landmark event in itself.

Yup I'm fortunate enough to live in a country where we have a local exchange to get btc to fiat within a day. I'm not too sure whether people in countries without local exchanges have thought of more creative ways to cash out... I'm guessing through some form of third party payment systems where btc is an intermediate step. Maybe others could share?

I wonder whether we can get any local Russians to comment on the actual situation. Alot of FUD going on. Just like when there was news about China banning? When in reality it didn't amount to much.

Large demand from tech enabled countries like South Korea, Japan and China. Fintwch is really booming there and the startup culture is intense.  Glad to know from the posts that places like Philippines and India are getting in, it can be a good tool for financial inclusion.

I shall be controversial in saying that the exchange doesnt really matter. If you are just going in to do a quick transaction and then shift the coins out into a proper sap, then the exchange only matters in that hour or so when the coin transfer and transaction occurs.

Nobody should be sitting their coins on an exchange longer than a couple of days.

Get a bunch from novaexchange. There is usually enough liquidity for single buyers and it's a good entry point to get a similar with the wallet and ui as well.