For now, I think it is a high risk high return investment because of what the user who posted above me said. Still, it is a good time to invest into ripple if ever the first scenario happens. I also recommend to divide your planned investment in ripple on half. Invest the other half on other coin with potential to grow so that if ever the 2nd option happens, you got a chance to break even or profit.

It's okay, at least crypto market is once again being weeded out of shitcoins without no real value at all. I am glad that the future victims of those shitcoins that have died in this dip has been saved. I really do hope many more of those future shitcoins that have a price now because of hype dies out now while bitcoin price is still in this levels for cryptocurrency to achieve healthier market in the days to come. For now I hope that we will see bullish runs soon.

Even if there is no written rule about it, begging for merits is wrong because the post might look helpful to the one who posted it but for those who read it, it might not. It is unjust to beg for merits since it should be given out only to posts who deserves it, not to any post who beg for it but if one post is helpful, someone is bound to give that a merit sooner or later, it might just take time and there is no need to beg for merit after the end of that post(s).

I vouch for this suggestion quoted above. If you dont have any skill that you can offer OP, then just learn altcoin trading and investing into ICO's here. I believe this method is one of the most profitable way to earn bitcoin if you developed the skills for it but not every site gives a detailed guide on trading, you can only find the most detailed ones here in bitcointalk. Just search for it in trading discussion section and altcoin section.

That's what merit system is for actually but others would have to give you a +merit in order to gain one. You can see it on everyone's post in the upper right. If you want to give someone merits for a good message, then click it.
Of course merit cannot be begged. IMO the system is good as it is now and doesn't need modification. One will only stay as a member forever if the user does not do helpful posts.

As far as I know theymos has not mentioned anything about required rank in order to be eligible for applying as a merit source but I recommend you to not to. It is stated in his thread about merit points that he will look into your post history and I dont think anyone who haven't spent that much time here in the forum will be able to apply. Nevertheless, there is no harm in trying so go on and try. For more info about merit system go here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0

The way you said it, It sounds like you two are gonna exchange smerits and that is not allowed here specially if the post you two have merited from each other are not quality post and are not helpful. You two can be accused of exploiting the merit system if you do that and it is very likely to get negative trust by doing so. I suggest you not do it if you still want to be in this forum.

Let me ask you what are you here for anyway? If you are only here to read, post and contribute to the community do not mind the new merit system since you will rank up eventually when your merits have accumulated. Don't think of it as injustice, to motivate yourself, just think of it as a challenge because by the time you get into higher ranks, you can call yourself worthy to be in that rank since by that time you have contributed a lot of useful post to the community.

But looking at the big picture, they have gained massive profit because they risked a lot of money and if the ICO they invested into fails, then they also have bigger loss. What I mean to say here is that it is only fair for it to be that way they didn't get their money out of thin air right? They worked hard for it and it is up to them how they will accumulate more using the money they already got. Do not put equality on the discussion since in the start all are made equal, it's just that those who descended from people who exerted more effort(I'm referring to their ancestors) and those who live now also works hardr to multiply their wealth.

You are right that btc and tether are not related with each other but Bitfinex is since it is one of the major exchanges we now currently have. I am sure that if both goes down, then we will see some bearish trend for a while but it will not be that big of a crash like you said but it ain't that small either. FUDs are also there to contribute to the dump whenever Bitfinex and tether goes down.

That's no big deal because a crypto user can always do leave behind private keys for crypto wallets on a PC or a ledger nano s for the one who will inherit to continue the trader's legacy in crypto. He/she needs only to tell the one who will inherit his/her crypto about it while the crypto user is alive. For now this is the most viable method I can think of but I do hope that in the future, there will be a legal process for it so that inheritance will be easier.

He should still hold it since Bitcoin price still got potential to grow in the next coming years and he will profit by the time.bitcoin soars above 20,000$ again. He will just regret it more when btc rises again. If I were him, I would do what I recommended to him since it is the wisest move I can take. I am sure that now he learned to not buy at all time high since gaining profit when buying in an ATH is harder.

There is a point in guessing the price even if it is unpredictable. Price predictions somehow helps in the judgement of those who wants to sell or buy. It is pointless to those like you who hodl though. It can just be a good topic for you to debate on if one is just into hodling bitcoin. Still, I believe this price decrease is nearing the bottom and we will see a bullish trend again soon.

To build an active community that shares on goal, the developer team of an altcoin must also be active in assisting it's community members when it has problems and the team must always be there to answer questions of their ICO participants in order to have an active community that shares one goal if it is an ICO. If it is an airdrop, make tight rules because if it is too easy, people won't come back anymore. Also try adding improvements in the process.

I agree that NEO was one of the biggest contender for ETH but not for bitcoin since their intended usage differs from each other. I would also say that waves is one more contender to Ethereum not in terms of price but in terms of creating tokens. All that is needed to create a token using it are 1 waves and of course a little to no knowledge to programming. They are friendly for companies that wanted to create their own crypto without programmers of their own.

Try posting on their announcement thread here in bitcointalk. Here is the link : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=428589.0 . You can also try posting or commenting on ether's official Reddit I think developers would see your post there one way or another. You can also try to tweet  on vitalik but I'm wall on Twitter he is the developer after all.

Even if every person who got TOR Browser use deeponion, it will only sit at 200$ price because they are not many when compared to the people who uses top currencies. Of course people won't see the future you are seeing since everyone got their own opinions of what altcoins will be profitable to invest into. In my case, I think the altcoin of the future is one of the top coins today.

I have researched about bitcoinfuji but as far as I know it runs on waves technology am I correct? I concluded so because of what is stated in the white paper. Nevertheless, it is one coin with potential to grow but it will not replace Bitcoin. There are many more coins that are way better than it that have higher chance of dethroning Bitcoin. If this projects goal is to be top one someday, it needs improvement first.

That's one funny way to look at it but like you said, bearish trend for now might be over because kwuckduck here says that deep crash is ahead and he is notorious here for always popping out to spread FUD during times when btc is about to rise.
But it becomes easier to predict when this guy pops out.   I said so since he is always like this, posting wrong TA, spreading FUD, And then the opposite of what he posted happens most of the time.

That is if btc continues to repeat that pattern in the following months but what if not? If you are studying btc graph from 2013 till today you will know that the price is unpredictable by merely using a chart. That being said, I expect btc to go down more and do a bearish trend for a period of time before going back up again. It needs to pull back in order to have a healthier market.