half true. some investments are risky, but there are a wide variety when it comes to investments; take mutual funds for example. with diversified holdings that are constantly managed, you can generally expect your investment to appreciate at a few percent annually. government bonds are similar; for no risk, you can see a small profit over a length of time. neither of these even compares to gambling, where a risk of total loss (of whatever you play) inherently exists no matter what. personally, I think trading is akin to gambling, except you're actually able to minimize risks involved. however, you can't escape the possibility of markets fluctuating against your favor.

fees amounted to mere pennies a year ago, I was pretty surprised when I saw fees rose to this extent.
I haven't really kept up with the bch / segwit news, but I'm starting to get the gist of it.

so in a perfect world, if the miners got off their lazy asses and set to 4mb blocks, I'm assuming it goes
bigger blocks > more tx processed per block > eventually no unconfirmed transactions > back to lower fees
am I understanding this correctly so far?

profits are not a guarantee. the price could very well crash following this price spike we've been seeing. not that I hope that's what'll happen, but entirely possible. but yes, I agree it's never too late to invest.

right there with you; I didn't really believe magic internet money would ever become something of actual importance when I first heard of it so I let it pass. this was way back when cpu mining was starting to phase out; imagine where I could be now

I don't think it's really 'hating' on bitcoin; I think it's just hard for people to place their faith in a monetary system that they do not fully understand. it also doesn't help that for those who do understand bitcoin, they understand that the path is paved by major miners that could potentially cause hard forks and attack the network if they chose to. I was sort of the same; I couldn't really place faith in 'magic internet money' when I first heard of it.

better is a loose term in this comparison. gold has a long established history of holding its value (for the most part; gold isn't without its price fluctuations), but bitcoin has a history of being volatile. this can immensely benefit investors as we see now, but the reverse is true; just look at what happened after mtgox.

there's a lot the governments of the world are capable of that we don't know about. i think i remember reading something about some of the 3 letter agencies being able to geolocate TOR exit nodes and physical server locations based off of calculating exact response times from various points, and i think this was around 1 1/2 years ago maybe? no telling what they're capable of without being involved.

the opposite effect is possible; bitcoin was meant to be a decentralized currency, and regulation does imply centralization (to an extent). this may turn off many users from bitcoin, or just cause the price to tank. that being said, im no expert in economics or the effects of outside influences on the market.

false, you can definitely profit from -EV gambling, its just not likely. +EV or not, its still possible to lose as long as there's a chance of losing. it is only statistically more likely that you would win out (profit) over the long run. this is never a guarantee.

not necessarily. hosting poker tables allows both the player a chance to profit and benefits the house as they take a rake on the pot as their fee. for professional poker players, this is both a form of entertainment (if they choose to see it this way, some may not as it is purely a monetary pursuit for them) and a source of semi - reliable income. as long as they are competent to win over the others at the table, they can definitely consider it a 'permanent,' or long term source of income.

autobetting with martingale or whatever is still going to (probably) get you a short term profit, just very slowly. its not necessarily a guarantee it will fail either, but statistics says that it is extremely possible to lose over many rolls, many depending on whatever multiplier / win percentage that the fool chooses to use. honestly though, if you're looking for a decent chance at profit, just manually bet on a game you like for a few.

there's no such thing as 'playing it safe.' there is always a risk involved in every roll you participate in, nothing changes that. its also never smart to bet everything in one roll; why give it all for one chance?

i never saw why or how people could actually be confident when gambling; the odds are right there in front of you, and you should be more than aware that the outcome is, more or less, going to be random. how you feel or what you think the outcome will or might be will never have any effect  on the end result, period. how you go from the cold, hard mathematical odds in front of you to believing you're going to win no matter what the circumstance is beyond me.

that's assuming the current status of bitcoin (lots of queued transactions, high fees) persists. bitcoin is a experiment above all else imo, and we're just running into a big wall at the moment. if the kinks get worked out and we go back to 10 minute, low fee confirmations, we might start seeing some widespread adoption, even in small shopping outlets.

a highly liquidatable one at that, which isn't easy to find. I can turn my bitcoin into fiat at a moment's notice if I wanted to; something you can't really do with gold or silver.

playing for profit does not necessitate a loss. neither does playing for fun equate to winning. sure, you might have fun because you're winning, but your emotions do not determine the outcome. this isn't a fantasy world. in addition, no amount of self control will ever change the outcome of a roll, I don't know where your getting these ideas.

nope. it just take a long time. a very long time.

I didn't really give it a chance when I first heard about it years ago either. this was around the time gpu mining was just starting to become a thing. at the time, it just seemed like a fun project / experiment that would pass on a year's time.

everybody regrets it after seeing the potential they missed out on, that's no reason to give up though. as far as I'm concerned there's still untapped potential we could benefit from.

that's pretty condescending of you to automatically assume that people without white collar job qualifications turn to gambling naturally. opportunities only come to those who seek it, and there's almost always a way out. the only exception I can see is in the lowest of 3rd world areas of the world where there is actually zero possibility of movement on the social ladder, but even in that sort of environment, id find it hard to believe casinos even have business existing there. casinos exist to take money from those who have it. it has zero reason to even exist in an area with little to no income.

as far as fees are concerned, it wasn't always like this, and won't always be like this. even just 2 years ago we were looking at fees that equated to pennies.

on the grand scheme of things, fiat is still relatively new. throughout human history, we've used various forms of currency ranging from salt, precious metals and gems, and even cattle before representative money in the form of paper or imprinted coins came about. we're just now entering the age of digital currency, and it may not be bitcoin, but cryptocurrency in general may be the next legal tender.

that's not entirely true, fiat can be just as volatile as bitcoin. look at how the British pound tanked after the brexit vote. also, several people becoming rich off bitcoin doesn't prove its potential on its own, personally I think bitcoin is the start of the next step in how currency evolves (bartering, commodities, fiat, and in the future, cryptocurrency).

rather than becoming legitimized (whatever you mean by that), I'm more prone to thinking it'll be regulated, especially with the negative stigma attached to bitcoin among the uneducated masses (silk road, hacking ransoms, cybercrime).

I have to agree; I think the original vision of bitcoin was to remain separate from a large single entity capable of centralization and regulation.

supposedly, the interest payments. I say supposedly because it's rather fishy, them giving this high of an interest rate without real justification where the funds are coming from. it's advertised pretty much as a handout.

as said above, anything like this that promises what is essentially a handout raises questions. as it stands, it seems they have nothing to gain from this; they're handing out money, and that's not how a business makes money. it reeks of 'exit scam' (not saying it is, just how it might be perceived).

that's a terrible idea. people would abuse the shit out of that to get the accounts of people they don't like locked.

convenience. unlike at an exchange, you don't need all this identity verification, 2fa, valid bank account, wait period for ach withdrawal, etc. you just walk up to one, send bitcoin or insert cash (big selling point of bitcoin atm's) and get what you need. the fee might not be justifiable for some people such as yourself, but other people think differently. personally, I wouldn't use one either.