I get your point here.  It's also based on some sort of lack of confidence - they don't think that it's feasible for them to break away from the biggest pools but often a better option is right around the corner.  The reality is that if they joined a smaller pool, it would probably benefit them more. 

When people point out that your pool last mined a block a few months ago, they ignore that every pool has to start somewhere and the only solution is for more people to join it.  The problem is that the huge pools always have money to make great promotions, while the most principled people in Bitcoin seldom have money as they never profiteer enough in the first place to make these promotions.  This kind of post is a great way to get the word out about this so I do think it's acceptable for you to be promoting your pool.

So the OP is getting increasingly desperate for accounts to post with, now posting with a newbie account as he doesn't own enough shill accounts to post with.

Quickseller is usually pretty accurate about who alts and shill accounts are, so this is most likely an elaborate scam of some sory or at least intends to lure you into other scams and build up false trust.

Well in this scenario Bitcoin would have a lot of uses. I think that in the short term the usage would drop significantly, but I also think that this narrowing of Bitcoin down to one use - a currency - would probably help it in the long term.  More merchants would begin to accept it as they would lose concerns about its volatility, and if block size issues are resolved this could result in widespread usage as Bitcoin would be viewed as convenient and stable.

However, transaction fees would still be significant and this may discourage everyday transactions which the Bitcoin network should encourage.

Yeah, it seems irrational to be ashamed of losing and hide it from everyone else but practically shout it off the rooftops when you win.  People who win the lottery are definitely not ashamed but were the odds in their favour? Of course not.

Gambling naturally results in loss eventually of course, but if you do lose you shouldn't dwell on it and hide yourself.  Gambling is perfectly safe if you're responsible and don't bet with everything you own.  The important thing is probability and this will act regardless of whether you win.

True, the major bots are probably CAT and Gunbot, the two being fairly similar and the latter only trading on Poloniex.  You need to be warned though - these bots are not designed to automatically make profit for you and there is no bot that will consistently or accurately do so.  These bots are mainly designed to assist your trading by:

1.  Trading when you are asleep.

2.  Carrying out your trading strategy with the appropriate coin of your choice.

You have to be experienced enough with trading to be able to use your own discretion in situations in which the bot will not be useful as the bot cannot handle every situation.

You also have to be prepared to have enough capital to make back your original investment of, in Gunbot's case for example 0.1 Bitcoin.

Language is fluid and definitions can never fully capture what something evokes to the reader.  When someone refers to Bitcoin as a currency, they are referring to the use of it as an exchange of value, often making reference to it being online (a cryptocurrency), which shows its separation from "money".

I would argue that some altcoins, especially the most established ones such as Litecoin, do have relevant innovations which separate it from Bitcoin.  I think that some of these coins are even trying to be more useful as a currency - Litecoin tries to make itself more convenient for mining and accessible to the average person - the "silver to Bitcoin's gold", and Dash is trying to create instant transactions which have become more difficult on the Bitcoin network.

However, because of the competition between altcoins, none of them become widely used enough to become accepted by any merchants, even online.  This results in most of the genuine transfer of altcoins being by people who are trying to earn money by trading them as they're volatile, which ironically makes them more volatile.

No, Bitcoin wouldn't die if governments banned it.  A lot of things survive despite government bans, otherwise crimes would cease to exist altogether.   This is why the illegal drug market is still thriving, and beyond that, Bitcoin's association with illegal activity would mean that the ban would just shift the market - criminals on the Dark Web would be less concerned that Bitcoin is being taken over by traders etc.

The main thing that I think could potentially kill Bitcoin is block size issues.  If a solution isn't found soon and the number of transactions continue to grow, that would ironically result in disillusionment with Bitcoin, which in turn would result in a decrease in transactions from less technical users.  This fall in transactions would result in mining revenues falling as there would be less transactions in each block (this would apply much more in a few years when there's another halving as transactions would be more reliant on fees) and therefore if mining was not profitable less transactions would get confirmed which would theoretically create a spiral resulting in Bitcoin's death.

That scenario is pretty unlikely and I let my brain run away a bit, but it's a shame that generally Bitcoin needs continued usage now to stay afloat, or at least will in the future.

I disagree.  Bitcoin is designed to have more convenient transactions.  If a person sets lower fees, the transaction either takes a long time to confirm or doesn't confirm at all.  That's why there are loads of different threads on the forum with the same topic, talking about when their transaction is finally going to confirm.

If Bitcoin users have to decide between extremely inconvenient and extremely expensive transactions then Bitcoin has been unsuccessful in its purpose as a currency.

Yes, but Bitcoin mining is pretty risky to get into now because:
-You don't know what transaction fees etc. will be in the future so your income will not be consistent.

-In 4 years there will be another 'halving' in which the rewards for mining a block will be cut in half, making it harder to profit.

-You need to consider exactly how resolutions to block size issues are going to affect mining.

Fortunately what will make you profit is holding the Bitcoin you earn, as it is most likely that the price will rise over time.

This is a common fallacy related to trade.  People can't just follow the market as it is moving because by the time the trend is big enough to be noticeable, it's too late and you'll end up buying high and selling low.  The main people who make profit are the people who do a combination of recognising past trends in the market.  What they also need to do is predict future trends in the market by recognising possible news and predicting the results of things that happen (e.g. the ETF).  If you do it when you see other people do it, you're too late.  You're only on time if you see what's making them buy/sell.

Buying now is an OK or moderately bad idea.  The ideal time to buy was right after the ETF when there was a brief panic sell bringing the price to under $1100, or even before when there was some volatility right at the start of the year.  The ideal time to sell will be after block size issues are sorted and Bitcoin starts being used more commonly as a currency, raising its price, unless you are the sort of person that trades daily, in which case there are numerous places to buy and sell.

Well the net profit and return on investment are pretty directly linked - you can't just invest next to nothing and expect to get a decent ROI.

I'd say that the key factors of whether mining is profitable or not are:

1. Your electricity costs.  Unfortunately, if you only have a small amount of money and are looking for 1-3 miners, you probably won't make any profit unless you are lucky enough to live in an area with cheap electricity.  Sometimes electricity costs can even exceed the revenue from your miners.  The only solution to this, if you're in it for the long run, is solar power but this will add a new level of risk to your mining.

2. Where you get your miners.  Bitmain is capable of being so profitable because not only do they sell miners, they own thousands of them and mine themselves.  Obviously you can't do this, but you can buy second hand and use other ways of attempting to get cheap miners.

3. Future difficulty.  In this case, you're at a fairly good point because you know that your profits will remain not consistent but nearly consistent for the next four years until the next halving.

In any case, mining is a risky venture and doing it on too small a budget, especially in an area with high electricity costs, is probably not a good idea.

I don't think it's good to have concentration in one country anyway.  It doesn't literally centralise Bitcoin as it's in the private sector, but this kind of monopolisation can never be good for something like Bitcoin that should be easy enough for anyone to take part in.

Plus, there's no chance China is going to ban Bitcoin.  They'll just loudly discuss it to try and bring the price down and buy a bit more, but they'll never actually do it.

Key ways of earning:

-Signature campaigns.  These are when you put an advertisement in your signature space on the forum and earn for making a certain number of posts on the forum, usually each week.  For people who are reasonably new, this is arguably the best way to get started making a smallish amount of Bitcoin to mess around and experiment with.  Don't make spammy posts for them though, or people won't like you and you might screw up the forum for others.  You might need to rank up to Junior Member or Member to begin participating in these, which could take a few weeks.

-Other forum related earnings e.g. selling old items on marketplace (you could even sell things for fiat and convert them to Bitcoin along with what you are already intending to put in.

-Ponzi schemes/HYIPs which often pay out for a while*

-Mining.  This is when you confirm others' transactions using specialised transactions for the reward of new Bitcoins and transaction fees*

-Trading Bitcoin with other cryptocurrencies on exchanges like Poloniex or Bitcoin to fiat currencies on exchanges like Bitstamp.  Before you do this, you will need to research the behavior of cryptocurrency markets and under no circumstances should you invest more than you can afford to lose, especially when you are less experienced.  If you decide to do this, don't expect to earn straight away - put in small amounts of Bitcoin first to test the behavior of the market and use your discretion.

-Hold.  This is the only choice which requires absolutely no work or skill, but for someone who is enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies you're probably interested in doing things.  Still, if you just buy and hold your Bitcoin for a long time, it will most likely go up over time as it is designed to do naturally.  You would make more money saving with Bitcoin than with fiat as long as you keep your Bitcoin as safe as possible.

I hope this helped, good luck on your endeavors.  If you want to check altcoins for trading you could use this service, if you want Bitcoin news you could use CoinDesk and if you want to understand the depths of Bitcoin, then the best way is just to look around on this forum and you'll see all the different topics being covered, as long as you're willing to look up and try to understand technical vocabulary.

*NOT RECOMMENDED

True.  Due to Bitcoin's mixed use I would consider it a kind of gateway investment - people often buy it with the intention of earning but are still likely to spend it and use it for other purposes, which is great - amateurs can get involved and find out how these things work, even trying it out with small amounts as in many ways it's very convenient.

The problem is that by suggesting that this is the best time to become a trader, it suggests that there could be a worst time to be a trader, and arguing that it's a bad time can just be an excuse for not bothering to find out more and get involved, which I believe Bitcoin can help you do.

While there are worse and better times to trade overall due to economic factors, there will always be a good investment to make - all you have to do is find it, and taking part and experimenting with small amounts will help people so much to understand how to get involved.

I do think that occasionally we see a kind of subconscious arrogance among less experienced investors who believe that they can "buy low, sell high".  What they don't realise is that not everyone can win and trading is never obvious because you can't just hold something forever in most cases - there will be drops and sometimes, if you're trading properly, you're going to have to lose money for individual trades.  Holding for too long can often hurt people's profits as well and trading is not an easy thing to do.

I would suggest that people who get involved need to avoid spending too much money to start off with and get to grips with the specific trade and with other business people before starting on any kind of semi-professional or professional level.

It's definitely partially that, but I think their main reasons were concerns with fraud and protecting the safety of their investors.

The reasons they gave are unfortunately based around the fundamental nature of Bitcoin which makes me less confident that they'll ever approve the ETF in the future.  They said "the rules of a national securities exchange [should] be designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices and to protect investors and the public interest".  They also noted that "those markets should be regulated".

To be honest, the chance of the scammers getting caught is pretty low.  That's why so many hackers try to steal Bitcoin - if they're good at it, it's pretty hard to track.

You're also unlikely to get your Bitcoins back because they would have to send them back to you.  However, what you can do is take precautions for the future:

1.  Make a new wallet.

2.  Go on to the "security center" of your new wallet, on the left.

3.  Take all the precautions that it suggests, especially enabling 2 factor authentication.  You should also block Tor users which Blockchain tries to do (a lot of hackers use Tor so this would make you a bit safer).

If you're serious and intend to hold a decent amount of Bitcoin, you should try a cold wallet or ideally even a hardware wallet.  Some people argue that if you hold your Bitcoin online it's never safe, and while it can be reasonably secure, to some extend they're right.

I'm not sure what you mean by "inside hand" but if you're suggesting that blockchain.info did it rest assured that they're legit.  You could have fell victim to a fake blockchain.info or phishing link.

You could also be infected by a virus, in which case you need to run reputable antivirus software and you still may not be 100% safe.

ETF rejected, the drop happened within minutes of that news being announced.  I don't think the delays on withdrawals would have caused that much of a drop as I would kind of have expected that to happen anyway - most investors predict when the odds are that strongly in favour of something.

Bitcoin withdrawal is also being delayed on all of the major exchanges but we have still seen an ATH during that period.  I don't think these short-term things have so much effect on the price.

It was never going to stay that high for long though, it was mainly just the hype for the ETF that brought it up so high in the first place, so it's fine to see it down to more natural levels (and if a natural drop now is still over $1000, Bitcoin couldn't be much stronger to be honest).  It was a little bubble, but we've seen now that Bitcoin is comfortable up here this time and it isn't just a pump like 2013.

Yep, the SEC is clearly doesn't think that Bitcoin is a viable investment due to its association with scams and money laundering.  This isn't something that can just be fixed, in their minds, overnight.

I haven't done mining before but as a musician, I know how annoying soundproofing can be.  You could try soundproofing foam which is pretty cheap or, if you're more serious (e.g. you have A LOT of miners), you could always try getting the room properly soundproofed by professionals, but this could often cost over $10,000 unless you do it yourself.  If you're any good at handywork you could try setting up two walls and filling the gap with sand, which is a more traditional way of doing it.

If your only argument is that you're allowed to do something you're clearly incapable of structuring a response.  Most people don't do stupid things just because they legally can.

All of your "references" are exactly the same thing which you have few to no credible citations for so it is not "trust information".

Your account may have not done scams before but your weak grasp of English, attempt to cover an entire page with information about corn silk and the fact that all of your previous posts that I've seen are spam as well, I have a pretty good indication that you're a scammer, or at the very least are misleading people about this.

It's also irrelevant whether you knew me before, because the whole point of the forum is the exchange of ideas and intelligent thought, most of which occurs between strangers.