I am sure that there are a lot merchants willing to accept Bitcoin as optional payment form, alongside the plenty of others they are working with, but most of them simply don't know Bitcoin, or they get distracted by the volatility. I am sure if they realize that they aren't exposed to the volatility if they make use of a payment processor such as BitPay, that they will definitely be open to accept it as payment form. It's a lack of understanding that plays an important role here. If I was a merchant that didn't know much about Bitcoin, then sure, the volatility will be a solid reason for me to not allow Bitcoin payments. But if I know we have third party payment processors that take care of everything, then heck, why not? I have nothing to lose, and the same goes up for others.

Trading requires effort, and thus profits you generate through trading can't be considered passive income. Passive income is income that you don't have to do anything for. Example; Earning interest is passive income. Cloud mining is passive income. Gaining income through the ads you have on your site is passive income. And there are of course more examples, but you have an idea now.

I always say, if you're a well experienced trader, you'll be using like 75% skills, and the other 25% is luck. The 25% luck is something we can't rule out since markets can move into the exact opposite direction at any time. Reason may be that a large trader with the ability to move markets has changed his approach due to inside information. Or perhaps that one is looking to spontaneously buy or sell a huge number of coins at once.

There are more than four, but the main thing that is concerning me even more, is that the chances are high that various large mining farms are owned by the same entity. There is no definite proof to back this up, but I am definitely not the only one thinking like that. There was an interesting thread I came across a few months ago regarding this, but unfortunately I can't find it right now.

Bitcoin being the first crypto surely does matter, but the point is that people don't need any altcoins. Bitcoin does exactly that what people want it to do. I quite often see people stating that altcoins are better because they offer this feature, because they are faster, bla bla bla. They don't realize that basically every feature that altcoins advertise themselves with, is just a gimmick that doesn't enjoy any actual usage. Another thing, most altcoin networks are pretty much empty as they don't enjoy much usage. If they at some point get the same level of usage as Bitcoin, then look how much of their 'speed' is left... It will slow down immensely.

There is something you should take into consideration - Price will surely go up when Segwit gets activated, but it's not a proper long term solution with its 2MB caps. After a year or two the same discussions will come to life as by that time, blocks will once again be full as is the case right now. Demand is strong, don't underestimate that. But to reach $10,000 levels, it will require a good number of years to build up the price. $2000 is a good start when Segwit gets activated.

Countries (regardless of their importance/size) will not incorporate Bitcoin. That's one thing you don't have to focus on or dream about - it will never happen. At this point the only bit of good news that will massively bump the price as gentlemand also pointed at, is when pools finally reach consensus and allow Segwit to activate. It will mean that Bitcoin is finally able to move further. Everything else is not of any importance right now.

That's indeed the impression that you get by browsing through the entire speculation section. People simply don't understand what it takes to get the price to reach certain price levels. It even takes a decent amount of 'effort' to just keep the price at the same levels. Nothing comes easy in the world and Bitcoin is definitely not an exception. Main point of importance is that Bitcoin needs to scale in order to keep moving further. If there is no scaling solution, or at least a temporary solution, there is no way we break through the $2000 level. Bitcoin's userbase is growing, more people means more transactions, and more transactions means more transactions needing to wait a good while before getting included in a block. 1MB block cap is an obsolete number already.

It's quite simple actually;

Go here > https://coffee.foldapp.com > click load Bitcoin > choose the amount you want to deposit (currently it supports amounts of $10 and $50) > then you'll get to see the exact amount in BTC that you need to pay, plus the address where you need to send the coins to.

As soon as your payment comes through, the barcode you'll see becomes your giftcard-like payment form that you can scan in Starbucks. Currently you're entitled to a 10% discount if you use Fold, so that is quite a decent deal.

After that you can cash out the remaining amount that you haven't used in BTC to one of your preferred addresses.

I must however note that it may not work everywhere as the Starbucks in your country must be able to accept USD based giftcards, but in most countries that is the case, but there may be some exceptions.

Firstly, there has been no good news that resulted in the price to increase again. It's just a normal market movement in current circumstances. Second, Bitcoin isn't really good news sensitive anymore as was the case back in 2013/2014 and the prior years. Bad news on the other hand, which in most cases isn't even bad news at all, still seems to influence the price in a negative manner. In that regard, for some reason a lot people still think that literally anything can happen with Bitcoin. I think the direct result of this is ignorance.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I am aware of, there is a low number of coins that you can track, which on its own doesn't mean anything. In case everyone is indeed able to follow the nearly 120K BTC, which at this point renders these coins pretty much worthless since they are 'marked' - I wouldn't even be surprised that at some point (now the debt has been fully paid off) the "hacker" miraculously returns the coins to Bitfinex, where Bitfinex basically can do anything with these coins from there. Don't you yourself think everything around the "hack" was/is more or less shady?

In case you can follow/track the 120K BTC, would you mind sharing the addresses in which they are sitting?

I assume you're referring to investing in gambling sites as in supplying coins for their bankroll. Mind explaining how it work when it comes to the returns? On what basis are you getting the returns, can you liquidate your investment at any time (regardless of you having made profit or not), is there a certain time frame where you can better avoid investing in the bankroll of a certain casino, etc.

What security holes are there to fix when it was an inside job? It's great that people have been compensated in full, but the main point is that they have been compensated according to the value of the coins in USD at the time of the hack. Is it coincidence now the price has nearly doubled in value from the time the "hack" took place, that they have paid back everyone? I don't buy it. 120K BTC at doubled price means that they just need to liquidate 60K BTC to repay all people, and to get rid of every sort of investigation, drama, etc. Easy profit, isn't it?

I am quite a frequent trader that mostly comes in action at the time there is enough volatility. Day trading indeed requires you to constantly stare at various open screens that you have, where basically every up and down movement could be a winning or losing one. I mostly focus on repetitive patterns, but some times the market is moving outside the familiar range, which requires you to take an extra bit of risk when it comes to your trades. I personally don't experience any stress, but it is very tiresome as some trading sessions can last like 10-15 hours, and thus prevents me from going outside, or doing something non Bitcoin related.

It's funny how certain people think Bitcoin is a bad investment due to its volatility. Volatility matters to traders, but not at all to people being long term minded. If you buy and hold Bitcoin for 2 years, why would you care about short term fluctuations? Bitcoin has proven to move up over a longer period of time, regardless of the intensity of the fluctuations that we have been going through. If people don't believe this, then they just need to look at the all time charts, that will show them how much short term fluctuations affect the long term price - absolutely nothing.

If you read the entire article, one thing becomes obviously clear - people should stick to their industry and avoid putting their nose into something they don't know much about.

I know, but regardless of something making sense or not, if you say something targeted at a specific time frame, you should go in-detail and explain what it is that will cause the price to go up or down. It could be that he thinks a specific non Bitcoin related event might cause the Bitcoin market to shake up. We don't know this because he didn't explain anything, and that's exactly what I am asking for - clarification of his statement.

Mind going a bit more in-detail? What's with 12th of April that you think will make the price go down? At this point there are no indications of a market that will move in a different pattern, and thus the market will just continue bouncing up and down as it has been doing in the last weeks. Basically everyone with at least a certain bit of market understanding is able to spot that. I just assume you are guessing, where if your prediction becomes reality, you'll tell everyone that you were right, and when your prediction doesn't meet, you'll just silently move on.

It's a good thing for those that were harmed by the actions of Bitfinex, but it's clear that this exchange can't be fully trusted anymore. Everything around the hack was very shady, and enough people don't even believe it was a hack. That being said, I must state that the exchange gained back its leader role when it comes to being the largest USD exchange. It's either that traders that have returned, or that new large traders have found their way to that exchange. From all the exchanges, it has the highest level of liquidity in its order books.

Article clearly states that payments will happen off-chain. It basically means that Bitcache will act as central authority in this whole process. But on the other hand, I don't think many users/content creators will care much about that. Their only priority is to generate as much revenue as possible with their content. Kim also stated (in a different article) that if Bitcoin operates larger blocks, he will consider to go from off-chain, to on-chain.

It indeed can hit the $1200 level soon, but with BU fud going through the market the price can also tank down to $1000 within 24 hours. Fact is that there is quite a strong level of resistance at ~$1100 levels, in that regard, I wouldn't focus too much on the $1200 level for now. Especially when you consider that the price is moving within a certain range, that at the same time shows no real indication of moving outside that range.

It was, and still is undervalued. Especially if you put it up against the gains that other alts have been going through the last weeks. In that regard, I wouldn't be surprised to see Litecoin smash through $15-$20 in the coming months. If Segwit gets activated on Litecoin, then the market will go complete nuts and then we'll see a real price explosion. I greatly prefer money flowing into LTC over having the same money flow into ETH and Dash.