Kicked off the throne by Ethereum? What throne? The throne of fake market caps? I am sorry to crush your little dirty fantasy, but Bitcoin has been kicked off this fake throne already. Just now again.

http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/views/market-cap-by-total-supply/

Sh!tcoin Electra has a market cap $135 billion.

It's an older thread, but you are spot on here. In general, people worry about their coins worth a few hundred bucks to lose value, while there are people with hundreds of thousands worth of coins, and they don't whine at all. Just now, the price took a step back worthy of 10% - if I only look at the coins I have for trading purposes (that happen to be on-exchange now), then in a matter of just an hour, the coins decreased around $4000 in value. Do you see me whining? Nope. It's all part of the market. People must understand that you don't lose anything as long as you aren't selling.

It still doesn't hold much value for me as only a few exchanges have touched the $3000 level, and it was just for a brief time. Ethereum has even gone through the $400 level today - it's insane that people are still falling for it. Supply is almost in full control of just a few entities, and if they so wish, they could even push it towards the $1000 level in the coming months. Vitalik & Co are statistical billionaires now.

No big deal. If people so badly want to have fast confirmations combined with lower fees, then they should head over to one of the hundreds of altcoins available. If you look at the network usage of altcoins in general, then it has increased slightly, but that's not due to actual usage in terms of transacting and stuff, but more due to the bubble that altcoins are going through. People move coins back and forth from their own wallet to their exchanges.

It's quite a surprising read for once. I like how LocalBitcoins remains fair by offering people the option to withdraw both the real Bitcoin, and the altcoin in case a chain split becomes reality. I am quite sure that not every exchange will follow LocalBitcoins in this regard. It's easy for an exchange to say that they will not support the altcoin, while in reality they just keep all the altcoins themselves - it's pure theft.

Other than that, this site is pretty annoying as an ad pops up each time you click somewhere.

You got it. Important to note is that this only goes up for coins you had before the chain split has taken place. If you buy Bitcoin after the chain split, you'll just have one Bitcoin, but not the altcoin.

Doesn't hold much value for people here - what matters is when the major USD exchanges like Bitstamp, GDAX, Kraken, Bitfinex (yes, even that exchange), etc, start touching the $3000 level for the first time.

Everyone tries to benefit from Bitcoin, and rightfully so. Bitcoin has been outperforming basically any type of investment option/asset for years now, and this is something that will likely continue in the forthcoming years. It however surprises me that it took them this long to figure out. It's more a far fantasy than something actually becoming reality any time soon, but imagine what will happen when several ETF's gets approved, and institutions from around the globe allocate a few per cent of their total portfolio to Bitcoin.

Basic form of manipulation; If you as group hold the major part of the total coin supply, you can basically continue buying up your coins till when you think it's enough. All other incoming money from traders/investors/gamblers just adds fuel to this continuous pump. I must admit that this is by far the biggest pump/manipulation attempt of all time in the crypto world, but don't let it get the better of you. In terms of actual usage, Ethereum is nothing more than a tool that serves a speculative purpose, and that's it.

It's the decentralization aspect that makes Bitcoin unique and loved by so many people. Bitcoin is a way to cut ties completely with the governmental/banking system as your wealth can be safely stored in Bitcoin. Only YOU will be able to access your wealth, and no one can tell you what to do. Remember how the government in Cyprus years ago gave people there a fresh haircut? It's a modern form of theft that people no matter what had to swallow. This could have been prevented if people's wealth was 'locked' into Bitcoin. Obviously, especially back then, no one would dump their entire wealth in Bitcoin, but this example shows exactly how powerful Bitcoin is. Imagine participating in a system with government issued tokens/digital coins - ultimately, they can, and likely will develop such a system, where they can instantly freeze/cut off someone's holdings by just a single click on a button.

It will likely happen before the end of this day.

Seriously, I knew people were chasing quick profits, but this is getting absurd. Just wait for it, as soon as the price drops a few hundred bucks, people will throw around with threads asking whether or not we'll be heading back towards sub $2000 levels. People's moods here are equally as volatile as Bitcoin's volatility.

I ditched stocks back in 2013 as there is no need to have my money sitting into something far less rewarding. It turned out to be the best move of my life, in financial meaning. If Bitcoin didn't exist, my wealth would probably sit on 10 to MAX 15% of what it is right now. I must admit that it's easy talking as I was relatively early in Bitcoin, but it's still not too late. Demand is there, the hunger for freedom and decentralization is there - I only see growth. Not to mention that the general 'trust' in banks is reaching all time low after all time low. Bitcoin allows any entity to store a good portion of its wealth outside the reach of greedy banks and governments, this is one of Bitcoin's main aspects that I greatly value.

Are you looking at 5 or 10 minute charts or what? Bitstamp just got down like $80, and Bitfinex just over $100, but that's really nothing considering the volatility and the hight of current levels. In recent days these are normal market movements, so there is no need to exaggerate things. If you want to buy so badly, you can do it directly as it doesn't really matter if you're buying your coins for $100 more or less.

Miners, and especially those that are on the side of BU, will surely not look at how things move on without themselves accounting for a serious numbers of nodes. As we speak, it's not even clear how much of the current Core nodes are owned by these people. In that regard, it will be interesting to see what will happen in August. Other than that, Lightning Network is something to enhance Bitcoin's currency aspect, where spending small number of coins will be worthwhile again. For me personally Bitcoin in current form (even with the higher fees) is perfectly workable, but I want to see Bitcoin become mainstream and experience growth in every possible aspect. I am sure that the average Bitcoiner will greatly value LN as micro transacting is a big deal.

Point is that it's not only done because of the insanely high transaction fees, but also to generate themselves an extra bit of revenue. Let's say they keep 0.001BTC in their own pocket per requested withdrawal, in case of a major exchange, it might process like 500-1000 withdrawal requests on a daily basis. At most (per this example) that would give them 1BTC of extra income per day, 7BTC per week, 28BTC per month, 336BTC per year = $940,000. And I wouldn't be surprised if the actual figure is even higher than that. Not bad isn't it?

If you want to avoid having to deal with greedy miners directly, you'll need to go off-chain, and that's where Lightning Network will come handy. It will allow people to do micro transactions again without having to worry about confirmations, fees, and all other annoyances that may be caused by miners. Obviously, miners will not like this, so I am curious about their actions if it ever comes that far.

Yes, Satoshi introduced Bitcoin as a decentralized peer to peer payment system, but I seriously don't understand why people till this day take this aspect of Bitcoin so serious. In local situations people will use something that offers them convenience, and that bit of convenience comes from fiat - no matter how much of a Bitcoin lover you are, there is no point into denying that. Bitcoin for me shines in the aspects of it being a store of value, and ultimate remittance tool - that's all I need. I must however note that Bitcoin's currency aspect will get a boost after Segwit -> Lightning Network. It will largely close the gap that exists between fiat and Bitcoin in currency terms, but we're not there yet.

Lower than average. Another thing is that they bundle withdrawals - exchanges wait till 5-10 people are withdrawing money within a few minuts apart, and then push these coins towards their owners. They collect 5x or 10x 0.0025BTC in fees, and add just 50% of the withdrawal fees people paid as transaction fee.

This is truly a non statement. Buying yourself into cloud mining makes you nothing more than a slave of the pool that you have given your precious coins to. It's just you having a contract or hashshare that represents a certain hight of hashpower, and that's it.

Doesn't change anything in current situation.

Also doesn't change anything in current situation, plus it's a far too expensive practice for someone just interested in lower transaction fees.

UASF.

It won't impact Bitcoin at all. People that have the feeling of not being able to afford a whole BTC unit, are insignificant to the market even in large numbers. Point is that people should understand that Bitcoin is highly devisible by nature, and also that you can shift away from the BTC unit to the mBTC unit. 1BTC is nothing more than a GUI unit measure that equals 100,000,000 satoshis. In that regard, it would make more sense for people to set mBTC as their main unit configuration. Instead of 1BTC, you'll have 1000mBTC sitting in your wallet. Instead of buying 1 unit of BTC that costs you +$2800 right now, you'll buy 1 unit of mBTC that costs you just $2.8 at current levels. Only negative aspect that I see here, is that the fees got significantly out of control. It would mean that in order to transfer 1mBTC, you'll be including 1mBTC just in fees. That's why I can't wait for the implementation of Lightning Network - miners need to get kicked off their influental seat.