I've not had any big successes with bounties, mostly small rewards for coins that have either fallen a lot since listing on exchanges, or else the project failed entirely. It's a bit hit and miss, and seems worse now than it was back in 2017 when I started. We shall see how it goes. These new projects need time to build up, and if a new coin is worth only pennies or a few dollars, it is worth just holding for a few years to see whether the project becomes a big success.

I was concerned at the time this thread was started, but that has turned out (I think!) to be the bottom of the market. We have since had a big recovery of around 100% on a lot of coins... and prices continue to move steadily upwards. I'm a lot more confident now than I was in December.

Cardano certainly has a lot of promise, but it also has a lot to prove. A lot of the price has been based on anticipation of future functionality, rather than something that has been tested in the real world. I would say be careful. The potential is certainly there for it to succeed massively, but there is also a risk attached.
As to whether it can overtake BTC's marketcap, that doesn't seem likely in the near future. Longer-term no-one knows, but if BTC does become the crypto 'store-of-value' coin, then it will likely remain number 1.

I try to cover a variety of use cases. Other than that I look at roadmap, team, any potential competitors, and I also look all over the website. These help in assessing the level of professionalism of the project, and how likely they are to achieve what they set out to achieve. Price history can also be useful as an indicator of when to time your buy-in.

It depends on your personal assessment of ETH really. But if this is the only alt you have, then it is often a good idea to spread out across a few coins.
If you think smart contracts will be huge and you want to spread your bet across them, then maybe sell some ETH and get some EOS/ADA/NEO.
If you think ETH will be the best smart contract platform, and want to cover some other sectors, IoT, fast payments etc, then get some other coins that fill those use cases.
Either way I wouldn't sell all of your ETH - I think it is a very strong project.

It's not surprising that we have a sudden price drop immediately after a sudden price rise. What is important is that the drop only goes partway down, so we still have a net rise. It's just normal market behaviour, nothing really to be concerned about.

It does look like the bear market is finally over now. We've seen some huge rises (in percentage terms), and volumes are incredibly high, well above what we've seen before.
Currently we're in a mini-dip which is inevitable after the big rises over the last couple of days.
It's looking good though, and BTC doesn't look like it will have much trouble with the $5k threshold.

I don't think the sudden BTC jump was that surprising. Prices had been moving steadily upwards for a couple of months, with any dips recovered almost immediately. We were due a breakout upwards. As usual, BTC leads, and then alts follow. So both increase vs fiat, but the initial stage is alts remaining relatively static whilst BTC goes up - which is why it translates as alts red against BTC at the start.

It's been looking increasingly bullish over the last month or so, prices trending slowly upwards, volumes really high, and any dips recovered quickly. We were due a breakout upwards, and now it has happened. There will inevitably be more pullbacks, and I suspect the usual situation will develop where prices rocket upwards but overshoot and then drop back a bit. The key for me now is whether BTC can break and hold above the $5,000 price point. If it can, then that starts to build a new support level and we can expect the bullish sentiment to grow.

The main reason is that prices had been stable for a while, and a breakout either up or down was imminent. The fact that we've been trending gradually up for the last month or so meant a break upwards was more likely. The next test for BTC is to break the psychologically important $5,000 threshold, and then hold above it to set a new support level.

Yes, of course there is a future for BTC. Prices are volatile, that means there are big dips as well as big rises. It also means that when the market hits a low point as it has recently, this doesn't spell the end - it is merely the low point in the cycle, and we are already seeing big movements back upwards as the recovery starts in earnest.
A dip doesn't mean the end of crypto, just as a high price won't necessarily always stay high.
BTC has a huge future, whether that's as a store of value, or speed with LN, or something else with developments that have yet to happen.

I do expect BTC to become a 'safe haven' during times of economic uncertainty. In fact we've seen it happen to an extent already in troubled economies such as Venezuela.
Before it becomes a viable option for most people though, we need: a) easy transfer between fiat and crypto, and b) greater BTC market stability.
I do expect this trend to continue and to grow as crypto markets mature.

I think the distribution where higher ranks get greater stakes is fair. This reflects the fact that a higher ranked account is generally considered more influential. Also as it has to have been built up by many posts over many years, it means the poster is an established and influential member of the forum - so they should get more stakes than say someone who has just joined. Higher stakes for higher ranks also goes some way towards addressing multi-accounting and spamming. This is similar to people with more social media followers getting higher stakes for Twitter/Facebook bounties.
The issue of whether merit is fair or not is a different question. It may be imperfect, but it is currently the best solution we have to  solve the issue of people ranking up just by spamming meaningless posts. I myself have been partly lucky (because I got to Full Member before merit came in) and partly unlucky (because this means I'll never become Senior). I do feel for newcomers and those with really low ranks, but until someone comes up with something better, then the merit system is the best we have. It may have its flaws, but it is certainly a sensible and well-thought-out system.

The way we've been going over the last few weeks, I'd say $5k for BTC by May is a real possibility. The markets seem to have turned, volumes are up and confidence is flooding back. I expect BTC to lead the recovery ahead of the major alts, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if we broke through $5k in the next few weeks.

2030... That's so far in the future it is impossible to predict for a fast-moving market like crypto.
I think society will have changed a lot by that point, and a big part of that will be due to the integration of crypto into everyday life.

It is looking like we might have turned the corner and are heading out of the bear market. Price rises have been steady for a while now, and we are heading back up slowly but surely. Crypto has weathered the storm and has survived, as we thought it would. It is time to feel more confident.

There are plenty of bad altcoins, but plenty of good ones too with strong development and legitimate use cases.
It's simply not the case that alt=bad.

I don't think that's true at all. Yes some coins are scams or pointless money-grabbing projects that don't even need to be crypto.
But there are plenty of alts that are real projects, with a genuine use-case, a solid team and roadmap, etc.
It's just not true that all alts are scams.

Look at the various ICO rating websites to get a list of anything upcoming, and which category it is, financial / manufacturing / crypto exchange etc. This is useful as a starting point and to give you some idea of what is out there. If you find anything that piques your interest then look for some reviews, but most of all it is important to just take all this as a starting point, after which... DYOR.

You have to research anything you like as much as you can, team, website, roadmap, use case, white paper etc etc.

It is always a gamble, but we can minimise risk by ensuring that our guesses are informed guesses.

Bounties can still be valuable, but it doesn't make a great deal of sense to sell as soon as you receive bounty tokens. Yes prices might drop in the short-term, but it is better to take part in a bounty where you actually believe in the project, so you can be confident that long-term the value will increase.
In this market, and with projects failing to hit hard cap, a lot of people will think it is not worth participating - but you need to have a longer term perspective I think. The days of 2017 when anything hit hard cap is different to the sentiment now after a year of price drops.