I don't even know that there is a reason for Bitcoin to hit $800 honestly.
Unless the situation in India is bringing in that many new users, this is just a bubble.
No new services, still having confirmation issues, people still arguing over segwit.
There is actually zero good news about Bitcoin right now.

Dogecoin is one of the only coins that seems not to lose much when Bitcoin goes up,
so its safer than some other coins,
but hasn't turned a big profit in a long time.
That could change any time, but I would be surprised if price went up by more than a few percent.
Thats a good profit if you have enough money to invest, though.

Chinas currency is so manipulated, I'm not sure anyone knows what it is actually worth anymore.
If I had a lot of Yuan, I would definitely diversify my holdings into foreign currency, gold, bitcoin, etc,
just in case some policy by the Chinese government, the new US president, or anyone else changed the value of the currency into the negative.

I doubt Trump can really do much to negotiate a better trade deal with China,
but a policy that would change the price of Yuan even a percent or two is a huge loss for someone with hundreds of millions/ billions of dollars.

They run the 7th most popular website in the world,
totally free of charge- no ads or commercials,
for one of the biggest sources of knowledge in the free world.
I hardly think that asking for a few dollars in donations from each user is 'greedy'.

Yes even if Bitcoin has slow transaction times and is not as anonymous as other coins, price is mostly driven by the market.
As long as BTC stays the "gold standard" of crypto- accepted everywhere, there is no telling what the price could end up being.

Who is driving the price up right now?
Are people in India starting to panic and grabbing BTC to try and hide their wealth?
Chinese miners trying to corner the market?
I'm actually surprised the price is going up so soon to Christmas. People in the west are spending all their money on presents and travelling for the holidays, so I would assume its buyers in the East- asia specifically, driving the market.

Reddit sucks anyways.
Who wants to waste time making posts when all you can get is Reddit gold and upvotes that mean nothing.
At least here I get rewarded a few cents by my signature campaign when I say something dumb! 

Attacking the payment system isnt the answer.
Anyone who is competent enough to actually code a decent ransomware will be smart enough to use new addresses, mixers, transfer money between BTC and anonymous coins like Monero, etc.
The only way to stop ransomware is not get infected, and if you do, have backups of your data so you don't have to pay the fee.
If its not worth their time, the authors will move onto other projects.
Unfortunately, cybercrime is very profitable, and is not going away any time soon.

Personally I would dump any Zcash I had.
The fad is starting to die down, people are turning back to Monero and Bitcoin.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this coin was at the level of LTC a few years from now.

Honestly I really doubt the IRS would go after anyone who they can't absolutely prove made a huge profit off Bitcoin.
The amount of money/ man hours they would have to invest just wouldn't be worth it to investigate even someone who they believed made a few hundred/ thousand dollars.
They are probably only looking at the accounts they see moving tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in BTC.

yeah if Bitfinex adding the coin is worth a ten percent raise, a proper GUI wallet has to be worth at least a 20-30% gain IMO.
I think the smart move would be to wait a few days for this activity to die down, then make a serious investment in Monero.

Maybe in years from now if Bitcoin is replaced by another coin like Monero.
But in the near future I think some huge event would have to happen for the price to drop this much.
More than an exchange hack. I'm talking something like a 51% attack or something that would expose a weakness in the programming/ protocols.

The idea behind Bitcoin is cool.
Create a new form of currency that doesn't rely on the government.
We decide how much its worth and the rules.

Plus its based on cryptography which is an amazing subject in itself.
I have a ton of respect for people who are very good at programming and cryptography.

Reduced harvesting reward will lead to less coins produced?
Will this mean there is a reduced supply, and possibly an increase in price of XEM?

Ive seen some sales on a few RX480 cards in the last week or so.
You may be able to find a good deal and go that route.

(That was in the United States tho. Not sure what kind of prices are like for hardware in the UK right now.)

I would actually wait a day or two before buying, personally.
Being listed on Bittrex is no reason for Monero to go up 10% in my opinion.
Price has a good chance of dropping at least a few percent by the weekend.

However, I'm almost 100% sure Monero is a good long-term investment.
If any coin can be Bitcoin 2.0, its probably Monero.

Monero is obviously worth more.
I mean, there are what, at least ten darknet vendors who accept it?
Clearly that is how we should measure a coins worth, not market cap. 

If India bans gold, it would definitely have some economic impact.
Maybe not for the average person, but the wealthy would definitely be looking for a way to move money without using banks,
so it could lead to an increase in BTC purchase.
How much remains to be seen.

Crypto currency is like the dot com bubble in the early 90s.
Tons of people are looking to make a quick buck and a HUGE bubble is forming.
A year or two from now there is going to be a crash and we will be lucky if more than three or four coins are left.

Monero is the future.
Bitcoin is old news, man.
Get with it!