The SEC has been silent for months, and can't they just keep postponing their decisions, one way or another, indefinitely? Are they required to give a definitive answer to BlackRock by a certain date, or can they just keep claiming that some additional documents are needed from time to time, and keep the policies they way they are, neither approving not rejecting ETFs? I agree that an approval would be a big win, with a solid price spike to be expected. As for a rejection, I hope that would only drive the price down for a couple of months before recovery to the pre-rejection level. The current situation of anticipation seems to work just fine, both for the SEC and for Bitcoin users.

There's no way to know for sure. The most common assumption I've seen is taking the number of Bitcoin addresses and assuming that there's roughly one address per person (some people have more, but some addresses also contain the funds of tons of people, like wallets of crypto exchanges). But that's, of course, a very rough estimate. There are also repsentative polls, which can be quite useful, but they usually only cover specific countries. This can provide insight into how many people own some BTC in specific countries, but that doesn't give the full picture. As Bitcoin users don't need to provide IDs, and it's easy for one person to operate multiple Bitcoin wallets, it's hard to make a good estimate of the total amount of users.

I do believe that there's a future in the business of crypto insurance because lots of people worry what might happen to their money and would like to have an insurance just in case they get hacked. But if the insurance comes with hodling coins on the company's centralized platform, then there's a big issue of trusting that company to not steal your money. This particular company, as others pointed out, does not look trustworthy, so there's a very good chance that they'll scam people who entrust their coins to them. In that case, it's much better to have no insurance but to store coins safely independently.

Wow, suing people who protest your company's political stance is a weird thing to do. I don't know how the judicial system of Malaysia is, but I hope McDonald's loses the lawsuit because boycotting a company over their financial decisions is a normal, democratic thing to do. In my country, it's different with McDonald's because it was one of the earliest major brands to leave Russia after the full-scale invasion, so Ukrainians appreciated it. But I understand that to other people who are more focused on other wars and countries, McDonald's can seem worthy of boycotts.

I understand the struggle of hodling. While $3k would be an unimaginably high level of income in my country, I suppose it can be barely enough if a person has a big debt somewhere in the US, so big chunks go to paying off mortgage, student debt, etc. I think that if you feel like you don't have enough to invest, it's totally fine. Just hodl what you can, when you can, and when it doesn't hurt you and your family. That's how it should be, and it's reasonable not to risk it when you're on a tight budget. I try to treat BTC as savings, so I don't spend BTC when I can, but sell some when I have to.

First of all, investing monthly sounds like a good idea because it can take some anxiety away and become a routine thing to do. Secondly, the percentage you invest should depend on the percentage of your income that doesn't go on covering monthly expenses. If, say, you have 10% left per month, you can invest half of it in Bitcoin (just to keep some money in fiat for fast use in case of unexpected expenses). But that depends on your situation, and it's important to make sure you are always left with enough to pay the bills, buy food, etc.

I like this comparison. Bitcoin is indeed getting more valuable with time, although I'm not sure that it's working better than it used to (considering that the overload of transactions is sometimes leading to issues that weren't there before). Adoption is happening at a slow pace, but there's still a lot of potential there. The comparison is optimistic, but it's the start of a new year, so perhaps a good time to be hopeful and to expect Bitcoin to actually get better over time. Not just more expensive, but also better in terms of usability and reputation.

Game 1:  30, 26'
Game 2:  30, 11'

If one has less than $2500, I think investing in Bitcoin is better than investing in real estate. You can buy Bitcoin and store it yourself, you don't have to worry about liquidity (difficulty to sell if you choose to sell). Of course, you should be prepared for volatility and that your investment can go down a lot and stay down for a while, because that's how the Bitcoin market works. But as for real estate, I don't think you can actually buy any decent real estate with that kind of money, and as for stocks and that type of thing, that's not the market I'm familiar with.

Some people are addicted, so even though they are losing, they find it very hard to stop gambling. Some aren't addicted, but are being irrational. They think that the more they lose, the more likely it becomes that the next time they'll win, even though it doesn't work like that. And then there are people who simply enjoy the thrill of gambling, so they are okay with losing, as it's just a way of spending money on a form of entertainment for them. The first option (addiction) is the most troublesome, the second option (irrational thinking) is unfortunate, but manageable, and the third is completely okay, in my opinion.

Iran and Russia are under sanctions, I don't think they can actually use USD. Maybe illegally, unofficially. But it's a big struggle for such countries. Also, they aren't big economies. Russia is #11 by GDP, but that's less than 10% of the US economy, for example. Iran is much smaller, at #42, with the economy smaller than that of Hong Kong and around the size of what Romania has. So their impact is certainly overestimated by the op. Whatever they do will have zero impact on the USD stability because they are nowhere near being strong enough to do anything about it.

I agree with the op that, by some accounts, cryptos became mainstream in 2017 because they gained tons of attention during that bull market. On the other hand, one could argue that Bitcoin (and cryptos in general) still isn't mainstream because only a tiny minority of the world population actually owns it. But as for FTX collapse, I'd actually say it had a pretty minor impact on the crypto market. Bitcoin went down from around $20k to below $17k, but then recovered to $20k+ in just a couple of months. And that was the end of its impact. Then the market started slowly recovering over 2023, so there was no market collapse.

Some companies are smart enough to realize that they can make decent profit if they invest in Bitcoin, others aren't. Microstrategy is in the first low. If they obtained more BTC recently, perhaps they expect the price to rise soon. But that doesn't mean that they actually care about Bitcoin or that they will continue supporting it if it stops being profitable to them. So it's important not to put faith in corporations when it comes to Bitcoin adoption. They can sell their coins just as easily as they can buy them, and the more they obtain, the higher the impact of a sell-out might be in the future.

Whether you lose before you gain depends on when you invest, how long you hodl, and how much negative change you consider a loss.
If you're lucky to invest when the bull run is starting out, and then you sell at the top of it, you don't have to lose before you gain. If you invest at the same time as before but decide to wait for more bull markets for a bigger profit, you might lose before you gain. If you consider something like a 5-10% price drop a loss before gaining, then it's extremely likely that you will lose before you gain.
But if you aren't selling, you aren't really losing when the price is temporarily down. You can just wait it out and gain. At least, in theory.
If you're worried about volatility and losing what you invest, I think it's better not to invest because there are no guarantees that everything will go smoothly.

The idea of a BRICS currency is still something I don't take seriously. How can they agree on a common CBDC for usage? Who will be in control of it, and why would others agree for that particular country to be in control? Even if somehow they manage to agree on that and launch that currency, it won't compete with cryptos like Bitcoin. It will be competing against fiat currencies for percentage of global reserves and trade volume done in it. I don't think it will compete well against the USD and EUR, considering that the primary alliance of BRICS countries would still be to their own respective fiat currencies and that BRICS is not a powerful alliance. As for Bitcoin, I think that sort of stuff will have zero impact on it.

If someone clearly has enough income to cover expenses, I think starting from income, as the op suggests, can be a good idea. But if one is currently living off savings, I think one should start with determining the realistic minimum monthly expenses (mainly, the rent, the bills, food costs, transportation costs), and then consider how much one is earning vs how much is required. This can help set simple goals of what kind of job a person needs to cover the expenses. And then the excess can be used for other achievable goals.

Whether you need higher education or not depends on what sort of job you expect to have in the future and what kind of country you live in. In my country, higher education is highly accessible because it's public, so free for tons of people. But not having any kind of higher education is a major problem if you want an intellectual job. You don't need to have specific education, usually, but it's good to have a higher education diploma because it shows that you are capable of learning new stuff, you are organized enough to meet deadlines, you have at least some soft if not hard skills. I think most intellectual job descriptions require it.
Bitcoin can be good for savings, I think, but obtaining higher education might still be important.

Bitcoin is safer and more decentralized, but Ethereum is also a very big project, so I'm sure they're watching out for security risks, too. Also, Ethereum transaction fee is around $1, much lower than what Bitcoin transaction fee has been lately. To many people, this can be an important point when making a choice. As for potential of growth, it seems to me that Ethereum roughly matches BTC ups and downs and does so at a similar proportion (Ethereum is currently 52% below ATH, and Bitcoin is 39% below ATH, but it's close enough). That means Ethereum is a decent investment option, even if not the best one.

I find an ETF rejection to be realistic, and that can upset some people. So yeah, maybe we'll see a small and temporary price decrease, but I hope it won't be anything big because nothing changes in practice. It's not the same as with Tesla a few years ago, when Musk actually announced a big investment in Bitcoin and adoption of Bitcoin as payment, and then pulled out. This time, an ETF was not approved and then rejected; the price went up in anticipation, not because of real change, so I'm hopeful that a rejection won't have a major impact.

Something is very off with the price, although the most expensive car in the world does cost a very similar amount of money, and with taxes in various countries, it could cost $28 million. To be honest, if someone has so much money, I don't think this person is buying a car to reduce transport cost. I also don't think this person needs to invest because that's well enough for one's whole life, and this money could be used to do something good for society. I agree with fellow forum members who suspect the story is made up.
As for purchasing a car in general, I think people should avoid doing that even when they can afford it because cars hurt the environment and take up too much space on the streets.