it is because of the possibility of a "split" not a hard fork. and people fear that if a split happens price can go down a lot since many will sell on one side only.
but the problem is, right now we are seeing nearly 90% total support for SegWit and when support is that big the chance of a split is ne arly zero.

it is alwasy Fear Uncertainty and Doubt with bitcoin aka FUD.
people are now caught up with the split FUD once again and they are forgetting that there is a big difference between them who are only holding bitcoin which they can sell at any moment and miners who are not only holding bitcoin but also have a lot invested in mining equipment and they won't let the split happen at all costs. since the fall will ruin them more than it can harm a holder.

the altcoins has never had any significance, and only people who were pumping them kept quoting the total market cap and silly things such as bitcoin's dominance. and the reason for their dump isthis.

as for bitcoin, this is a temporary hiccup because SegWit will soon be activated on August 1st because it has a high support and then we will see a big rise with this period as its accumulating cheap coins period. and then we will have problem over the hard fork that comes a long time after that date.

if there is a surge then it will be after August 1 when SegWit activates on bitcoin. and by that time i suppose we have to forget about altcoins for this year because what you saw this day will be even bigger by that date and the dumps will become harder in altcoin market (the money will be coming back to bitcoin when it is sure).

i am still not sure about the bitcoin price drop "a lot" part but in case that happens the result is the most obvious one! LTC will go to the moon.

think about it. LTC has SegWit, it is  the copy of bitcoin. it has already activated the Lightning network (i am 80% sure about it!) and it has been around for a very long time (about 5 years i believe).

and so far in the altcoin market that everything is RED we can see LTC is still the same price with a high volume and compared to last week it is even higher.

how about doing all 3.
it is a good choice too at this point. you diversify, sell some for getting the profit because bitcoin price is still very high compared to start of t his yaer ($1000) and by diversifying into altcoins you can gain some more profit.
my choice is litecoin for this case. it has activated SegWit and it is also adding a lot more with the lightning network, the atomic swap, ... and the price is very solid at the moment. because where others are falling LTC is staying up and even rising.

you keep saying this but in fact i believe how much of bitcoin is already mined has nothing to do with its adoption.
things like big volatility in price and things like the scaling war are the things keeping the price low and prevent many people from investing in bitcoin because it seems scary to them.

you should remember that loss is a common thing in trading.
and when we are talking about altcoins on poloniex then because they are pump and dumps it means big losses are very common and everyone experiences them at some point in their trading and there is no exceptions.

the difference however is in what different people do in face of a loss. some of them like you keep holding and risking their investment for bigger loss.
some start panicking and dump everything they have.
and some will use a more logical approach of selling in the early stages of the dump and avoid further losses.

which one of these 3 you choose will determine the amount of success (or profit) you can gain in the long term.

it does not matter which wallet you used to create the bitcoin transaction. what matters is what amount of fee you included in your transaction.

these days if you include anything above 100 satoshi per byte your transaction will probably be confirmed fast.

for using the Viabtc accelerator you just need to include at least 10 satoshi per byte fee in your tranasction and then copy paste that transaction ID in their website and click the button. if you see the "acceleration successful" message on top, then you are done if not you have to try again later.

you can also read the details at the bottom of that acceleration page.

p.s. the time it takes is usually about an hour or so until ViaBTC finds a new block.

you still have a very long way to go to be able to beat the kwakduck record my friend. you are just in the early stages of beating him. keep up the good FUD work maybe we award you the second place under kwakduck soon.

i no longer know what is going on with bitcoin
i was actually excited about SegWit2x and thought with the big miners support we can finally get SegWit but i don't get why all the fights are about anymore and each time i read one of these topics i don't see any clues either, just the same things being repeated!

can you give me an example of these addresses with the link to the block explorer because i have never heard about them and i did a search for the term "listgrouptransactions" that you said but nothing came up.

i speculate the complete opposite of this.
1. price remaining stable has a very low chance, because there are a lot of things going on at the moment and each of them will affect price greatly and can cause big fluctuations.

2. i disagree with bubble. the bubble ended at >$2900 and correction is also over. we are currently in a narrow channel getting ready for the next phase. remember that a bubble never lasts long and it has been enough time since that drop (a very high chance)

3. the issue will be solved eventually. most probably very soon and as it is solved, the price will most likely skyrocket which makes current state we are in the accumulation phase. (very likely)

1 billion dollar worth of bitcoin is 400,000 BTC, and by billionS you mean a couple at least and taht will be nearly 1,000,000 bitcoins. buying that much bitcoin means the price will just go to the moon on its own since the market is still small and orderbooks aren't filled with huge orders yet.

and nobody will do this, and if they do they will do it slowly and if they do do that, they won't announce it to the public. that would be silly.

what are hidden addresses? are you talking about some altcoin or is it still bitcoin, because there is no such thing as hidden address in bitcoin. everything is out there and if the bitcoin address has ever received any payment it will show up on a block explorer.

it mostly depends on the type of problem that you have, and usually the withdrawal troubles will take much longer, and also when the problem is related to hacks, ... it will take even longer.
the normal problems are the ones that get solved fast.

i mostly agree with your third option, and generally to start from ourselves. if we have a business or do anything that is involving money to change hands, then why not use bitcoin.

and also the most important part is when we start using bitcoin ourselves. we can't really expect big businesses like Amazon to start accepting bitcoin when not that many of us are really willing to spend our coins.

you should always do what you feel is right. and that is what i am doing, i am not suggesting you to do the same.
and besides this is what peer to peer exchange looks like. you find someone, you see their record if there is any, then do some business with them. you can start with a small amount first and then go bigger.
and i assure you number of people with "stolen bitcoin" on public places trying to trade bitcoin is nearly zero. if someone wants to sell stolen coins or whatever they go to dark market, they don't risk publicly.

the same reason as when bitcoin came USD and other fiat currencies didn't fall to the ground as burn!

even if some day in the future another better system came, it would take years for it to gain the foot hold that bitcoin currently has. you are a fool not to see all the adoption that is going on all around the world, and they are adopting bitcoin not some shitcoin you think is good.

no it doesn't!
the chances of hitting zero or ever going low to a small price is so small that it is nearly zero.

the 1 billion however is a possibility. but it is all about timing. these big prices are usually in a far future not tomorrow or one month from now. that would be silly.
but a long term rise, with all the adoption that curretly is going on, i can assure you is possible.