I liked some of the things that I read about Ripple, but every time I look at the available number of coins, it causes me concern.
Right now there are over 36 BILLION coins in circulation.
I just don't like that distribution model, personally. Its a minor thing since most Bitcoin transactions are measured in Satoshis these days. 
But I prefer smaller numbers of overall coins minted.

Asking for your employer? Is Kraken a US based company?
I really worry about exchanges and the amount of information they are collecting from their customers.
Exchanges and companies that convert fiat to crypto are getting a lot more attention from governments, not to mention the fact that they are a goldmine for hackers if someone can manage to get access to this information.

If price went to $2000 that quick there would probably be a serious correction,
but anything is possible.
Two months ago I would not have thought $1000 was possible, but here we are.

Price seems to be going up quickly, and I still can't figure out why.
Is China driving the current rise? India? Are we getting a lot of new users or simply some rich investors trying to buy up all the coins?

Monero up 15% today.
Maybe Febo is our Monero prophet?

Anyone who can bet $300,000 to $500,000 on a short probably has enough money to cover it.
Its still probably a big loss, but I'm assuming this person probably has made millions off Bitcoin already.

Personally I would never take a short against Bitcoin right now. Things have so crazy lately. The price seems to be going up with no signs of stopping.
(Although a slight drop in price could be just as likely, I guess.)

Small dip right now, but it probably wont go below $900-925.
For all we know this is a slight correction before going up to $1000.
The price has been so crazy recently, I don't think anyone can predict what its going to do in the start of 2017.

I guess promoting a bunch of shitcoins to pump and dump is not the way the crypto markets work there.

Recently there has been a lot of talk in China about Monero.
Hopefully some Chinese exchanges start trading XMR. That could send the price to the moon since you would have so many new potential users.

Don't forget to add Zcash to the list.
Im 99% certain this coin is a scheme by the Mossad or NSA/ CIA to track people who think they are using an anonymous coin.

I generally use https://coinmarketcap.com/
to look at market cap, price, volume, etc

They have a "Historical Snapshot" section but I don't see anything that tracks yearly gains.

Bitcoin is nice, but the real big fish in the world are much more concerned with the Dow Jones.
You think Warren Buffett is checking the price of Bitcoin? No. Hes making hundreds of millions off the stock market.

Bitcoin is still a small investment for small time buyers at this point. Hedge fund managers and big time investors are starting to get interested in crypto, but its still very early for big time investors.

Really disappointed I didn't buy some ETC last week. I had a hunch the price would rise, but never thought it would see a 20-30% increase.

I've heard that there is a lot of interest in ETC coming from the Asian regions, China specifically.
Anyone got some concrete info on some projects that are using ETC? I'm still not sure of the cause for the recent spike in price.

You could have made 30% off your investment if you bought ETC a few days ago.
Not bad for a single days work...

If that is actually 85,000 people that will buy Bitcoin, its very impressive.
The main problem is that Bitcoin is still not accessible to many people in these countries.
The average person is not going to have a computer, access to the internet, and a way to convert fiat to Bitcoin.
For now it will remain the privileged who will have access to Bitcoin. But its a good start, at least.

Ok thanks, appreciate the advice.
I've been looking into doing some short sales but didn't know what site to use.

Is there some published info on Megaupload 2.0 or just rumors?
I feel like whatever products are tied to Mega will have a huge increase in price the first week or two Mega is launched.

I'm going to grab a few more BURST coin and some Bitmark (BTM). Both are super cheap and even if they hit $0.25 a coin, you will be turning a nice profit.

The ability to remain totally anonymous when sending payments could indeed be a huge factor for some users.
Dream market is one of the top three or four largest darknet markets?
Thats good news, but most of their vendors would have to accept Monero before it would generate any real amount of Monero volume.

Still, I think that a price of $20-$30/ per Monero in 2017 is very possible. Years from now Monero could be worth $100s easily.

If anyone had a way to get into this account, the real question is,
would they just take the 1 Bitcoin, or would they use the exploit to compromise other accounts?
I guess it depends on what color hat they wear. 

Two weeks ago I would have said that $1000 before the new year is not very probable.
The last few days have shown that (apparently) even $900 is easily sustainable.
I'm still a little concerned that this is a bubble and the price could drop back down, but there seems to be no end to the climb, right now at least.

Of course there are scam sites, and there may be some run by operators of legitimate sites.
All you need is basic skills to make a decent looking website, and either get ranking up or pay for traffic to increase your search results,
and eventually you will get some users signing up.
Its so cheap to host a website these days, you only need to scam a few users and you will make money.

Bitcoin has a lot of new users and its hard to know who to trust.
Since we still rely on third parties to convert fiat to and from Bitcoin, there is a risk of getting scammed if you don't deal with a reputable company.

Yeah I just sold all my Monero and bought Factom.
It hurts my soul to sell a coin that is rising and buy into one that may drop further, but the long-term potential of Factom is just too great.
Every week or two there is a new partnership being announced or some award. Further wallet developments and integrations will only make it a more accessible product.

I'll just avoid looking at the price of FCT for a while, and hopefully in a few months from now I'll be happy I made the swap.