Exactly, lol. 

The higher the fiat price so the larger the "market cap" the less likely that someone dumping X coins will move the market.

I wouldn't say it was FUD.  It is a valid point about printing fiat (and then USDT as a result) - assuming I didn't misconstrue what you said.  If your point was about governments massively printing fiat some of which gets funneled into USDT, my question is whether this is manipulation or smart people protecting themselves from potential inflation and other polices while they can.

If you have the fiat the fastest way is to buy bitcoin.  If you have marketable skills, then earning money and then using it to purchase bitcoin is reasonably fast (pretty similar to getting paid in bitcoin).  If you have products to sell, maybe you have a farm, or a manufacturing plant, you can sell them for fiat or bitcoin.  Mining will require miners which will require money to purchase and to pay for power.

The short answer is: what is the fastest way to earning money unless you already have money to invest.

It is funny to see that now a "whale" is:
"Bitcoin 'whales,' addresses with more than 100 bitcoin."

Over the long term bitcoin will do more for the pseudo-science of economics than has been done for economics ever.  The ability to track transactions, supply and demand, will provide ample ground for analysis.  Of course hopefully taproot and other improvements will provide additional privacy protections.

It would be interesting to know the stats, but it would likewise be difficult to get answers.  Few will feel comfortable disclosing that.

Obviously if you know the future then you can time the market.  No one knows when the peaks and when the troughs are though except in hindsight.  If everyone knew that $19.x K was the high, everyone would've sold.  If everyone knew the future, then they would've bought at $1.

Buying and holding is a great strategy for everyone who has done it so far.  Will this time be different?  Who knows except that EVERY time is different than the last.  This time institutional buying is more long term than trading, e.g. things like short term trading on Coinbase/Coinbase Pro/Gemini vs MSTR, Square, Galaxy, MassMutual, Guggenheim, and of course, GBTC (which is in turn owned by places like ARK, Kinetics, etc.)  From what I've read, these are long term holders looking for diversification.   Would they panic sell?  Perhaps, but much less likely than leveraged traderson any of the trading platforms or people in 2017 who were trying to make a quick buck and then panicked.  This adds stability to the fiat price and also decreases supply for sale which alone will increase the fiat price, let alone the halving last year, and the increase in demand.

Sure each time people were saying "bubble" there was volatility, but likewise each time there was an order of magnitude or 2 growth in fiat price and then it came down some, but nowhere near back to the earlier prices.  It then ended up retracing back to the next high.  

So if you know the future, time the market.  If you don't know the future, well, think about what really makes sense.

"The author must have missed some nice buying opportunities along the way." - exactly.  

Re the questions, seems click-bait-y to me:
1. Idiotic.
2.  Kind of dumb answer, he neglects that if these institutional investors hold long term, it reduces available supply, which when demand is constant or increasing, results in higher fiat prices.
3.  "...the concern can’t possibly justify the nearly doubling of Bitcoin’s price in 30 days."  Certainly not.  But the *awareness* of the concern AND the *awareness* of ways to combat the concern after 11 years of people poo-pooing the idea of crypto being protection certainly can.  Before someone flew, or a satellite orbited the earth, things were different and it changed only in a few hours.  Look at Sputnik for example.
4. He ignores elements of the "network effect" to make a point.
5. Fair point except the "may be divorced from reality" point.  It may be, but it certainly was "divorced from reality" between 2009 and 2016.

If Rob Berger had been as prescient as he acts now he would've had his clients buy pretty much any time between 2009 and June 2020 (or even through all of 2020 given the fiat price move since).

Is it a bubble?  Maybe.  I do recall though that every single new high - $0.30, dollar parity, $10, $30, $100, $1000 and gold parity, $2000, $10000, $20000 - was also called a bubble.  Every time people said it was a bubble.  Even dollar parity, because it was a "ponzi", "wasn't secure", etc.  Really, I think that there were at least 10-12 times when people have said it was a bubble that I've noticed.  It has been much more than 2 bubbles though.  Each time may have been a bubble at the time, but for longer term, it didn't matter.  Some people called the guy who bought the pizza for Laszlo stupid for doing it in payment for bitcoin because it was worthless - many others thought it was great.  (Now the reverse is true calling Laszlo stupid for doing it, but he is anything but stupid.)

Remember EVERY time is different than the last.  This time institutional buying is more long term than trading, e.g. things like short term trading on Coinbase/Coinbase Pro/Gemini vs MSTR, Square, Galaxy, MassMutual, Guggenheim, and of course, GBTC (which is in turn owned by places like ARK, Kinetics, etc.)  From what I've read, these are long term holders looking for diversification.   Would they panic sell?  Perhaps, but much less likely than leveraged traderson any of the trading platforms or people in 2017 who were trying to make a quick buck and then panicked.  This adds stability to the fiat price and also decreases supply for sale which alone will increase the fiat price, let alone the halving last year, and the increase in demand.

Sure each time people were saying "bubble" there was volatility, but likewise each time there was an order of magnitude or 2 growth in fiat price and then it came down some, but nowhere near back to the earlier prices.  It then ended up retracing back to the next high.  

I have said it before, but anyone who has bought and held over the past 11 years has done great.  Even buying during the $1000 bubble, or the $30 bubble etc.  

Likewise, each year that bitcoin survives makes it much more likely it won't collapse.  2010, 2011, collapse was possible, low in my opinion at the time, but possible.  With time, with each institution and each person involved that likelihood has dropped.  It is always still possible, but extremely unlikely now.

You are right, 2% isn't enough to make much of a difference to most people.  I think he (and others) just pull numbers out of their hats.

I agree. He just seems to want clicks. 

The 1933 gold analogy is a valid one, gold can be seized (e.g. stolen) while at home or at a border from anywhere to anywhere else.  So places like South Korea, Hong Kong, most places in Europe, the US (with the potential for authoritarianism there now), India, Russia, pretty much everywhere, with capital controls or potential capital controls should be buying crypto now.  People who leave preparation to the last minute won't be able to prepare.

Buying 2% of your portfolio now may make it 20% or 40% or 200% if we hit another order or magnitude or two of growth which is certainly possible.

The bolded part is key.  Whatever you do, don't turn it on again.  Likewise, was "turned on a handful of times" and left on for weeks at a time or minutes at a time?  Likewise, if 10GB was installed it is a lot different than if 100GB was installed.

So there is a chance, as far as telling them, if you trust them, yes.  If they are just going to "recover everything on there" they might see the file names too depending of course on what has been over written and not.

Usually if there is no wallet.dat file or directory, stopping and restarting bitcoin-core will recreate it.  (And you wouldn't have to re-download the block chain to do so.)

The wallet.dat file is accessed using Berkeley DB, is there something you are trying to accomplish by accessing it directly?

( see e.g. https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/build-unix.md
libdb4.8   Berkeley DB   Optional, wallet storage (only needed when wallet enabled)
)

It isn't like bitcoin.conf where it is just a text file, e.g.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/share/examples/bitcoin.conf


Perhaps if you tell us what you are trying to do you can get more responses.

edit:
Is this related to your other question about recovering an old wallet.dat?  If it is, whatever you do, do not install anything else on the old SSD.

I was just going to say almost the same thing, but exactly what o_e_l_e_o said.

About 5-6 years ago, I just bought a new computer and printer for cold storage that never touches the internet.  While these hardware wallets are nice, right now I am more comfortable with a specific portable that is used for cold storage and doesn't rely on a third party to access the coins.  I'd prefer to have full control and not have, essentially, a black box.Even though the source is out there, it still seems quite black boxy to me.

Of course, at $40, it is a lot cheaper than a MacBook Pro or other portable.

My initial thought is that she is an idiot who doesn't understand math.  I think in reality, she is carrying water for the fiat loving, anti-freedom political class who sees bitcoin eating away at her power.

Of course, since she won't define her terms precisely, she can make claims with a bunch of hand waving in order for her to try and trick people.

What exactly does she mean by "scarce"?
1 - scarce meaning that only so much of it is available.
2 - scarce meaning that only so many people can own a whole bitcoin, e.g. only so many people can own 100 million Satoshis.  
3 - scarce meaning that only so many people can own ANY quantity of bitcoin, e.g. how many people could own 1 satoshi (or even less with lightning).

If you say #3 is what she's talking about, then she's right that it isn't scarce because everyone can have *some*. Normal, rational, reasonable people would think of #1 and #2 were what one would think about when they say "scarce" but she is relying on people to think she knows more than she does and accept her stupidity as enlightenment.

Reminiscent of someone not understanding Zeno's Paradox.

Could it be that your amount is being eaten by fees so there isn't enough available to withdraw after fees?
Also, are you using "Withdraw BTC" to "Crypto Address" or "Coinbase.com"?

I look on the web and it shows:
To address
Amount
Network Fee
Limit
Processing Time

So if you had 0.0001 BTC, and the "network fee" was changing or was high enough it would fluctuate showing what was available to withdraw. 

I don't know how it could be negative but I've seen some people be anti ETF. 

I agree about the centralization being a problem.  One would hope that perhaps people would keep custody of their own coins, but one never knows.

The article isn't very well written, but it says: "The trading has been suspended for some time now."

I can see why if they can't trade 24/7/52 like bitcoin, you would have the entire weekend when futures can't be traded and bitcoin might be 5000 higher or lower from the previous trade.

Of course, that is the point of the futures market, to let people hedge. Seems stupid to have suspended it. At least there are other markets.

I think you are right.

Will the statists join the train to protect themselves while trying to sell everyone else out?  Probably.

https://www.coindesk.com/vaneck-proposes-bitcoin-etf-again


Eventually the statists will approve an ETF.  It is just a question of when.  Will this time be different?  Who knows.  Will it be a positive for the bitcoin fiat price?  Opinions seem to vary, but my view is that the more options for people to use bitcoin, in this case for capital protection/capital appreciation, the better.

In addition to what others have said above, selling and repurchasing won't buy you much, if anything.  Merely depositing it, waiting and then withdrawing a different amount first, and then the balance later would probably do as much.  You should make sure you are complying with the laws of your jurisdiction whatever you do though.  Converting to ether or something else works too, but if you convert 1.23456789 bitcoins to ether and then the exact same back a few days later, someone might notice.

Much also depends on your goals and timeframe. 

- If you intend to hold it for some long time period, you can just leave it where it is.  Once taproot is active, it will create some additional privacy improvements that you will be able to use to protect your privacy.
- If you intend to gamble with it now and IF online gambling is illegal in your jurisdiction, then you should consider different options.

So, is your goal to hold or something else?