I prefer the price to increase towards that level just before the next block halving, or just after that. It will give the market enough time to build itself up, as everything takes time. By that time the demand has increased significantly, we might have an ETF, we surely operate larger blocks, and the block subsidy is at an all time low. That will surely justify the price to demolish the $5000 level. Even more precise - I will be disappointed if we by that time haven't gone through that level.

It's funny how news sites desperately try to keep pushing articles into the net to boost their ad revenue. First it was Bitcoin the main source of evil in this case, then it was the price increasing due to people buying Bitcoin to pay the ransom, and now it's this... What's next? If the entity behind this attack wanted to gain big time, he would have gone for an altcoin such as Litecoin or so, and not something like heavy (in terms of it's price) as Bitcoin. There where Bitcoin's price gets pushed up with like 20%, Litecoin's price would more or less double in value.

If you're looking to benefit from each possible price movement, you have to monitor the markets basically non stop. I quite often end up staying at home for days without even going outside, just to benefit from this market action. I must however note that I am of course not staring at my screen if the market happens to move extremely slow. I can only justify investing full days of my time into trading if there is enough volatility. Aside from that, gambling is never a good combination with anything. Gambling is a losing game, seriously.

My cold wallet coins till this day are still untouched, and I will not touch any of them in the coming years. I have a seperate bag of funds and coins that I use to trade the volatility. All profits made in BTC will directly flow into my cold wallets - I almost never cash out to fiat, as in having the money sent to my bank. For now I secured 10% profits between $2100-$2110, let's see where we go now. I do expect a small dip to occur.

You miss the point. I too agree that miners are the only entity that should be blamed here. Since you're rocking an academic background, why do you ignore the simple fact that miners have been choking the network with rubbish transactions to boost their fee income? It's of course not only miners that happen to spam the network (hint.. hint.. BU.. caugh), but they account for a significant part of the spam in its entirity. Other than that, I do agree with you that Segwit isn't a solution at all, but what other alternatives do we have? There are none that sit on the same level.

It has all to do with the availability (in this case, the lack of) of on-exchange coins. If in a certain country there is more demand than actual coin availability, it would mean for people that they have to buy up the price just in order to obtain their desired number of coins. It's just a start, because I seriously believe that the overall availability of on-exchange coins will only decrease in the coming years due to the increasing adoption throughout the world. And no, I don't see North Korea ever going to be friendly towards anything that involves internet.

It's obvious that you don't understand the main point of importance here. If the hackers run 'their' stolen coins through a mixer, they risk having 'their' coins seized immediately after the first confirmation. It basically goes up for every service (.e.g. gambling site, exchange, spending them through well known Bitcoin payment processors, etc) you plan to use - the risk of having these coins seized is larger than them "cleanly" coming back to you. It cost no effort to trace every movement of these coins, and seize them after their first confirmation if they happen to get deposited somewhere.

Bump.

GDAX topped $2102 not that long ago, while Bitfinex slightly topped $2099 as peak. Interesting will be how long we can maintain the $2000 level. I am still waiting for that correction to happen, but currently it looks like no one is really willing to contribute towards that correction. People are firmly holding their coins, which is something I haven't seen before in my time in Bitcoin (bought my first coin around $20 back in early 2013). In that regard, we can't really apply that what happened back in the days, to how things are right now.

Doge isn't going up because of Bitcoin. Dogecoin has been (in relative terms) 'undervalued' for quite a long time. Looking at the most popular other alts that have gone up in price considerably, people dive into Doge as nearly all other alts are pumped up to the sky already. It's not only Doge - even dead coins are being pumped up to the sky by people just in order to hit bank. It's really pathetic how far people are being pushed by their greed. It's pure gambling.

Yeah, GDAX is really trying to grab the lead, not only today, but it has been the case several times already. I wouldn't be surprised that if this continues, this exchange will surpass basically every other USD based exchange. Great thing about this is that they enjoy a high level of security/insurance since it is a Coinbase exchange. If you look at the current leader Bitfinex, then it's all shady behavior that they get assosiated with, due to the fact that they aren't willing to register their activities properly. I can't wait for this to become reality.

You should only pay attention to the price of OKCoin's CNY-USD ratio. Right now it's CNY-USD $2020 versus USD $2140. The USD side of OKCoin's trading platform has a very poor orderbook (both buy and sell side). In that regard, it takes a low amount of capital to pump the price up to much higher levels, but it also requires a low amount to dump the price $500-$600 lower. Nothing special here.

I can't really see that become reality in the coming few years. We have to look at this whole situation from the merchant's side; If they happen to generate $10,000 in Bitcoin sales, and they keep everything in their own wallet, they will be extemely vulnerable to Bitcoin's volatile nature. If the price happens to go down with 15%, which isn't that unlikely to happen in a matter of just 48 or so hours, it would mean that the merchant in question lost $1500 in sales. Merchants need a constant flow of liquidity, and Bitcoin isn't exactly helping in that aspect.

I personally tend to say that it's better to wait, but if you really want to increase your coin holdings, then go ahead and buy at current levels. Important to note is that you should not go all in. Best is to use 25% of your capital to buy at current levels, and have the rest aside for when the price happens to go down. Another important thing that you must understand, is that if you do happen to buy at current levels, you should accept taking the risk of seeing the price fall down with a few hundred bucks in case the price corrects. It's a peak you're buying at, don't forget that.

Fundamentals are strong, you're absolutely right!

Blame miners for choking the network with rubbish transactions to boost their fee income, and blame them directly too for not letting Segwit activate.

Bitcoin was never meant to provide any real anon features, so keep farting.

It is and has always been a potential hard fork, and that's really it.

I am sure that people being desperate enough to actually pay ransom, will have no problems into taking an extra stap as in buying Bitcoin first, and then convert it to Monero. I haven't really looked in dept into the anonymity aspect of certain altcoins, but if they are really as anonymous as the developers state them to be, then these criminals might actually go for it. Because as it is right now, the collected ransom Bitcoins are pretty much worthless as basically everyone can follow these coins step by step. They have to come up with something new.

Gold and Bitcoin are pretty similar in each and every aspect. Main difference of Bitcoin is that it has the advantage of being digital, and an already known/fixed total supply. It's easy to move value from one place to another, where you also happen to enjoy a great level of divisibility. Aside from these aspects, what are the differences between Gold and Bitcoin, according to you? And don't come up with reasons as people that can earn money through Bitcoin easily, etc... Real functionalities I am talking about.

Bitcoin is simple, correct, but its simplicity is also exactly what people like about it. Seriously, nearly all features that altcoins support are gimmicks. These features are just meant to trap in people believing in something that they will never use. People want to send and receive transactions, speculate, use it as store of value, etc. Bitcoin offers people exactly that. Only point I might agree with is that it (regardless of the fees) takes relatively long for a transaction to settle (confirm). That's what I consider to be the only thing I find that altcoins do better.

Don't blame yourself for not knowing what a good time is to cash out profits. In most cases it will depend on how much profit you have on paper. If you at current levels have made like 30-50% profits on paper, then it would be a decent moment to cash out some of your profits. Important is that you should never cash out everything at once. If you cash out profits, then do it in smaller batches. I always cash out like 10% of my profits at most. In certain extreme situations as now, I cashed out 15%, but that's really it. By cashing out smaller batches you don't miss out on further gains, and you will also benefit if the price happens to go down, as that will allow you to buy back at discount rates.

I agree that reaching 95% support is impossible. However, just as Jihan once threatened (empty threat obviously) to initiate a fork at 51%, the same can basically be done with Segwit. In this case, no miner will ever want to proceed with this as it's simply to dangerous, but it could be an option at 60-70% (which is still a distant target for Segwit).

I am a fan of pushing Bitcoin forwards. Currently the demand for block space greatly outweighs that what Bitcoin can offer. So yes, I want Segwit to activate as soon as possible. If it needs to be done through UASF, then I'll happily cooperate as I currently run 4 core nodes.