Agreed. If anything, this is going to push people to start buying more. They're soon going to realize they won't get many more opportunities to purchase sub 18,000 in the future. Will probably continue the cycle of up and downs by having another surge after this correction. Bitcoin's got a pretty cyclical nature and I think it's secure enough to the point right now that people aren't trying to get rid of it (aka, no major drops soon).

As many other people here, I've used and still use bittrex every now and then. I've never run into any issues with depositing/withdrawing from them. We also need a bit more info and proof. Why don't you throw in the proof that you actually sent the money to a bittrex address. Are you 100% positive that you didn't put in the wrong address into the wallet to send to? If you did, there's no way to ever really get that money back and it's technically your fault.

XRP/Ripple has been doing pretty well too. A pretty strong spike recently.

I can't help but believe that entrepreneurs who are getting into investing would be very nervous to put their money into bitcoin. There's no physical backing like fiat currencies which normally have some gold backing, etc. To them, it's a risky investment because there could be any random point in time where bitcoin takes a 180 and starts to drop. We can't really predict it, and I'd venture to say that since the China FUD we haven't really experienced a real, strong drop. It's the anticipation of that moment which could be keeping entrepreneurs away from the coin.

Pardon my language, but what the hell do you mean by velocity?!

I think you meant to type volatility.

You should clarify a lot of what you're trying to say here in this post. Earning coins comes from all kinds of different services. Remember that bitcoin is, in its essence, a currency. People can accept it as tender for what they're selling be it online or in person. The way this gets to them is through service processors like bitpay. I guess a small example would be many of the small shops that are hosted on rocketr.net. Rocketr is a hub site for people selling things and allows them to create a "shop' on their website which is private only to those that the owner decides to share it with. There are numerous ways to earn coins online, just do a bit more research and you'll keep finding new things.

In the near future, I agree with you probably not. I guess it all boils down to what time has really come to -- with bitcoin, just a month can double your money and this level of growth has basically never been seen before, so it messes with what people agree upon when they say "long term." If you're talking about maybe the next year or two, yes it's possible that it won't be a thing, but if we're talking about the next decade, I think it's more than likely we'll see options for the Altcoins. Think about it through the growth of eth and litecoin that we've been seeing over the past few months. That level just can't be pushed to the side and forgotten about.

Don't ever mine using some oneline service. 99 out of 100 times it's a scam. Cloud mining and mining in general is practically not profitable for the average Joe. The difficulty has come to the point where you would need to be very rich or a pool of money in order to even think about being profitable on mining. Even then, the difficulty could increase significantly over the time you expect to be mining, making you continuously put money into the mining rig for the chance to not even get your money back.

You're looking at this with too much of a singular mind. What if bitcoin is blowing up even when it is at 100k? If it's increasing by some arbitrary amount, let's say 7% per week, steadily, then why would you NOT want to buy bitcoin? It's much too early to say anything about this. It definitely depends on the circumstances surrounding the situation. Let's take it one step at a time for now and come back to this topic if bitcoin ever hits 100k.

Op was trying to go for the supreme logo which looks like this if you haven't seen it yet.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_(brand)

@OP, why not use the original red color that supreme uses? I like the idea of the quoted user too, using the BTC symbol would make for a pretty good unique addition as well. Of course, this is your design, take the criticism as you will. I think it looks pretty good as of now anyway!

Please move this to the scam accusations section.

You definitely should have used escrow. I don't think mods will report anyone for scamming only $200. However, make sure you move this post over to the right section and also put in your screenshots. Once I see the screen shots, I can leave negative trust on the account as well because I have proof of him being a scammer. We can get him kicked off the forum if you follow through.

Sorry for your loss.

If it's just an asset you're trying to get rid of, you should definitely sell for fiat and then convert it in my opinion. You just have a much wider reach when you accept fiat; you don't reach nearly that same amount when you try to only get btc for it. It's possible that you can say that your primary form of payment would be fiat and that a secondary option is bitcoin so that you cover both reaches. Still, I stick with my previous suggestion to contact a real estate agent.

I'm not sure which services have a fixed fee. For beginners, I know that blockchain.info is a pretty common wallet, but I know that you can adjust fee on that service. Electrum and other wallets that more experienced people use almost always have an adjustable fee amount.

Regardless of that, I think it's not worth it to put a small fee in with your transaction. Most services need at least 1 confirmation, so you want to hit that ASAP. If you don't, your transaction could be reversed. For now, try to wait it out a little. It's possible that fees go down soon, but if you really need to get a transaction through, maybe you could try to move more $ in a single transaction.

People who buy the dip will actually be the saviors for those who keep their money in bitcoin. At every critical point, time and time again, people have their major sell orders in and pull out causing that correction to follow up. But as you can see so far, it seems like we've been able to overcome all of those drops. It's pretty amazing to think about it -- there are so many people interested in buying that they're able to even out the correction to bring prices back to the original state. Bitcoin is such a roller coaster.

You should always put yourself before money regardless of how carried away you get. I ended up selling 1 BTC at $4,000, but the money was needed then. I have no regrets selling at that price since I was able to help my family out and I put that over any money I'll ever make.

I hope people don't get too carried away in these new booms and busts and ruin their family experience. We're all human in the end after all!

I think that if we give it enough time, it's possible for crypto to replace fiat. For me, it just depends on how tech-dependent the world becomes. If we end up relying on tech for most of our lives and actions, then it makes sense for money to be controlled by technology as well. If it isn't bitcoin, I'd say that bitcoin is at least a stepping stone into something bigger to replace fiat within the next century or so. Probably not next year or even the next decade; that's a little too soon.

You should get into contact with a real estate dealer and ask about the best way to approach this. I know there are some people who have sold their homes for crypto, but that seems like a pretty dangerous game to be playing.

Anyhow, a real estate agent would probably be able to help you out with this. Worst case, you sell your house for fiat and use the fiat to buy bitcoin on an exchange or something; I don't see why that can't be an option either.

Yup, this is essentially the same reason I've seen people follow for the past few weeks as well. I live in a pretty populous area, and the buzz has been going crazy just about the bitcoin rises. People are trying to hop on the train asap. This creates demand for the coin, which drives the price up as people are willing to pay higher and higher amounts for the coin itself. Now, this is leading into a bubble, and we may see another little burst, but it seems like for the most part that bitcoin is always able to get back on its feet very quickly. This will probably start being tested soon.

Also, I think there's some stuff about the exchanges there. Don't they charge a lot more than what the actual price of bitcoin is based on other exchanges?

This is an old article (June of 2017), but I just came across it while trying to search for the prices.

https://mybroadband.co.za/news/banking/213998-why-bitcoin-is-often-more-expensive-in-south-africa.html

It states that the price is higher due to the supply and demand of the market.

I guess I could see the mining idea working out if someone decides to mine in Africa and has ample cooling and is willing to send their coins over to a wallet so that they can use an exchange in a more stable-marketed country.

Let me know if I'm getting this wrong or not. I think you're saying you want to use your currency that you have (probably bank account/paypal money/other online service) and buy bitcoin using that money. Either that or you want to use your paper cash that you have.

If I'm correct, I suggest you move the money into a bank account and then use an online exchange after moving your money into that account. Worst case, if you're not trying to do a large transaction, you can always use the currency exchange section here on these forums. However, make sure to have a secure deal using an escrow on the forum.

It's possible that he didn't buy much back then, but I agree that the odds are that the op has a good sum in that paper wallet right now.

@OP, if you don't want to move your money out of the paper wallet, you don't have to. Right now wouldn't really be an optimal time either -- there's a decent amount of fees going on right now because of the amount of transactions going through. I'm sure you know this, but I think there will be a nice pocket in time in the future where the fees go low again. It'll be pretty cyclical from what I'm thinking (moving between high and low).