Geolocation paired with a coin is a really cool idea.
Anything that gets people outdoors and exploring is great. I've done some geocache hunts and its really fun, actually.

It may not be considered totally passive since you have to do some work to write the blog posts,
but earning $110 - 250 from Google adsense each month is still probably a great return for the time it takes you.

I would be interested to know the kind of content you are posting and how many visitors you get each month. Also, how long has the site been established,
and what methods you took to increase traffic to the site.

Sold a bunch of coins last night including ETH and REP to buy Monero.
Really glad I did since the price of XMR is standing strong.
Maybe I actually made a decent prediction for once!  

Yeah this is one thread I would love to see an update on.
Predictions seem pretty spot on.

Are people this stupid? They think its no longer worth money because its not in the same shape?
I guess people don't know that the value is based on weight, and that changing its shape has no effect on mass...

Anyways props to these guys for doing this. Its worth it just to troll people. 

I sold all my ETH and REP last night and bought Monero.
Glad I did since the price seems to keep dropping.
I still think Augur is a really cool idea and might buy some at a lower price.

Ouch. Thats a big drop.
Glad I traded my LTC for Monero a few weeks ago.

Yeah 7% charge seems a little high.

But most people probably aren't going to buy an entire Bitcoin, so while paying a 7% fee is really huge on $700,
think about what you pay at an ATM.
If you only take $20 out of an atm and pay a $2.50 fee, you are paying more than 10%.
Most people will probably buy $20 to $100 and pay 7%, which is a smaller charge at the lower end.

Interested what data or information you are basing this on.

I do think that the recent rise seems pretty strange since there is absolutely no good news in the last few weeks.
(Actually most of the news I've heard is about fighting over segwit and confirmation and blocksize issues.)

Most people in the West are going to be spending money on holiday gifts and travels,
so its up to Asia if we are going to see an increase in the price of BTC.

Ah yes I was thinking it was 500 ounces.
500 grams is much less, but I still doubt the average person owns $20,000 worth of gold.
This will still only have an effect on the very wealthy. Some might buy some Bitcoin, but I assume most are going to hide money in offshore accounts and companies outside their country.

Yes unfortunately these sites need need new content, and they may put up stories without doing a ton of research.
Especially if the person in charge of making the decision is not totally familiar with Bitcoin and Alt-coins.

I don't see these articles doing anything. The people that know about crypto probably already know what Waves is,
and the average person reading Nasdaq news probably could not care less about Bitcoin, let alone some new coin with a small share and marketcap.

Exactly.
If getting listed on Bittrex is worth a 10% raise in price,
a fully functioning GUI wallet has to be worth at least that, and maybe even more.
Pick up some coins and dump them at a good price, and you can probably make 10-20% off your investment easily.

The devs may have come up with a good method to make themselves rich at the launch of the coin,
but I still wouldn't call it a "scam".

The ETH dev team is working with other companies and other projects like Augur, and they are coming up with some really cool ideas.
It would definitely be a much better play to increase the uses for this coin and cause a big increase in price, rather than dump your coins right now.
(If you work for the company and own a lot of coins.)
The project still has so much potential, there would be no reason to abandon it right now.

Honestly, I'm very surprised we are seeing a rise in price right now.
Usually everyone in the West is spending their money on christmas presents, travel plans like vacations or going home for the holidays.
So price is more than likely being driven by Asia- India, China, etc.

If we get some good news on Segwit, the confirmation backlog being eliminated, or some new service starts accepting BTC payments,
hitting the $800 to $900 range by the mid of next year seems easily achievable.

Yes the fact that this is coming from Bobby Lee definitely gives it a ton of weight.
He is probably very in tune with the feelings of the large mining pools and other exchange operators.
(Although he may just be making this "prediction" in an attempt to increase the volume of Bitcoin being traded on their site.)

Hopefully BTC drops back down closer to $700 so I can invest a bit extra before the rise to $800-1000.
(I do think that will happen a few months from now, though.)

Pretty sure a water-powered car is just called a "boat".
 

Buying BTC is definitely a pain in the ass.
In my opinion, its one of the last things that is keeping a lot of new users from adopting the system.

Unless you were able to mine Bitcoin early and make a ton of money five to seven years ago,
you are stuck with some very un-attractive options.
1. Find someone on a forum or a site like localbitcoins, buy some coins, pay a rather large markup, and hope you don't run into a scammer or bad seller.
2. Join a site that will probably require multiple forms of identification, will close your account or freeze your money without any notice, and pay a huge markup.

Unless you already have coins or an established relationship with a seller, you are forced to jump through a lot of hoops to convert fiat to Bitcoin, and its even worse to convert BTC to fiat....

Yes remember you will see a drop in profits due to increase in difficulty, random events like power or internet outage/ equipment failure,
and a million other things you can't predict or control.

What are your costs for electricity and what mining equipment are you talking about?
We need a little more information before anyone will be able to give you an estimate or help design a plan.

Well, hopefully these authors are not simply selling their "opinion" to the highest bidder,
but nothing would surprise me.

It would be hard to resist selling out, because the authors on these sites probably don't make a lot of money.
Imagine you were making $15,000 a year from your website articles, and some developer offered you $1500 to promote their coin.
Turning down 10% of your yearly salary to write one article might be difficult.

I don't know if I would call this a "ban" if the average person is allowed to own 500 grams.
At the current price of gold, that is over half a million dollars in gold per person.
This isn't going to effect the average person, only the VERY wealthy.
While some of these very wealthy might buy some amount of Bitcoin, I doubt it would be their first choice for investment.
Probably they will have some offshore accounts, invest in foreign currency and bonds, etc.
Something like this isn't going to create half a billion new Bitcoin users, not even half a million.