That's just utter nonsense. Who's target is that, yours or from certain self appointed "experts"? Everyone can say the price will reach X level before the end of the year. At least provide some sort of on analysis on how you think the price will move towards these levels, otherwise it doesn't hold any value. In order to grow to such levels, Bitcoin must be able to cope with current demand, because as it is, the demand greatly outweighs the block size capabilities in current form. Then we have a major threat in form of a potential chain split that may take the price down real hard. Better significantly lower you expectations, becase as it is, it will only result in a big disappointment for you.

It will be difficult to reach full consensus as the majority of the pools mine their blocks supporting BU. It's 40.3% BU and 26.4% Segwit right now. Things can change rapidly if certain pools start signalling support for Segwit instead of BU, but then again, I don't know if that will be enough to reach the 95% activation threshold. If you purely look at what's holding Bitcoin back, then it's the block size increase. If that is sorted out, then there basically isn't anything hold Bitcoin back anymore.

It's funny how through the years things haven't changed a single bit. If you browse through 2011 threads, you'll see that at such insanely low prices (compared to todays prices) people were equally in panic at the time the price went down. If you just look at how the price has been developing in the last years, then it's obvious that no matter what level of intense panic, the price always recovers and moves up higher. It's of course not a guarantee that it will continue to recover endlessly, but with Bitcoin's potential growth in mind, we have far more exciting years still ahead of us.

Auction has ended;

We have a winner here, congratulations. I will be sending you a PM with details right now.

What features are you exactly referring to? PayPal offers people a wide variety of features too. Most popular feature for people using PayPal is that they enjoy buyers protection. It's a significant advantage it has over Bitcoin in people's eyes.

I assume you are referring to signature campaigns? If not, then please state what you meant. In case you did refer to signature campaigns, then it's nothing special. It's just a task that you complete, where afterwards you get paid. This can also be done with fiat through PayPal. Nothing special here.

Sending Bitcoin without any fees is just a waste of time, since the chances of your transaction to get confirmed are ultra low. Especially when it's a small ($1-$5) valued transaction. Other than that, when using your PayPal balance, you can transact instantly and without any fees between family, friends, etc.

I am not surprised about this. I can't think of anyone in my circle to ever declare their holdings and profits like a sheep that is ready to get butchered. People are in Bitcoin for several reasons, and one of the reasons is to work outside the governmental system. Coinbase is just one example of how it is being forced to cooperate with the governments in order to hand them over user information. In the coming years more exchanges will follow. It's basically like this - If you don't declare your holdings and profits, the government will come after you and claim what you "owe" them.

You over-invested or clearly can't handle the level of volatility that Bitcoin is experiencing. This is how Bitcoin has been from the very beginning. Current decrease is just a joke compared to several mega dumps/decreases that we have experienced back in the days. I just laugh at the time I see the price go up or down. It means money in my pockets as I love to trade this volatility. Even if you're not a trader there is no need to panic. Volatility offers opportunities even for people that are occasionally buying and selling. Two options; take advantage of the volatility, or just wait on the side line where you don't do anything. The market has proven to go up in the long term, so your investment won't suffer from short term dumps.

Here is a list of all BTM suppliers http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-atm-map/ from there you can click on every BTM supplier where it will direct you to their site.

Of course it's better to buy from an exchange directly, but what if you quickly need to have some coins and you only have cash? Then you will surely not mind to pay the steep fees.

It all depends on how the regulations in a certain country are, because every country has different rules regarding exchanges, services, etc. In some cases you "only" need to have your ID barcode scanned in order to complete the verification process. Scanning the ID barcode will give them all your personal information, and from there you have to trust them to not abuse any of your details.

I do follow altcoins to stay up to date with everything, but you can't ignore the fact that the far majority of the Ether coins are in control of just a few people. Same goes up for Dash. In that regard, it doesn't surprise me a single bit that they have been pumped badly in the last days. Other than that, what makes you write off Bitcoin as being useless? Just because Bitcoin doesn't serve people well as currency tool? If that's your reasoning, then how did it become useless? Bitcoin hasn't been any different...

Keep making yourself believe into something because you have taken certain positions at current extremely inflated prices. ETH isn't that special at all for dark net markets as AlphaBay has also implemented Monero a while ago. Other than that, I wouldn't find it that big of a problem if certain altcoins "take over" Bitcoin's position in dark net markets. It would mean that the mainstream media channels have less negativity to throw around with regarding Bitcoin.

No worries. In the hours that you have your client running as node you can still help other nodes to receive the latest bit of data.

OP; I am operating 3 full Core nodes through my currently 'unused' VPS's, all connected to 100MBPS fibre optic, and I am proud to do so. It would be fantastic if all people with unused (or partly unused) VPS's / dedicated servers could host themselves a Core node to support the network. But unfortunately, people won't do this from themselves automatically if they are not really that much into the technical aspects of Bitcoin. Most people are only here to earn.

No. Exchanges in general add poor fees that are not pointed at how the network situation is by the time you request a cashout. In this case, mempools are not suffering from a heavy spam attack anymore, and thus people don't have to outbid each other with higher transaction fees to get included in the next block(s). Generally, the fee you need to include right now to attract attention from pools is significantly lower, and thus explains why your current cashout got confirmed sooner than the previous ones.

It may very well be that certain people shifted their priorities temporarily to trading altcoins due to their heavy fluctuations, but that's nothing new. ETH and Dash are being pumped with money from very wealthy individuals that hold the far majority of the circulating coins/tokens in their portfolio. Do you seriously think that the extreme pumps that altcoins experience is coming from legit demand? If the people behind these massive pumps didn't had the majority of the circulating coins, then they wouldn't have any incentive to pump the price. ETH and Dash don't enjoy any sort of real world usage. They purely function as speculative investment options for with greed filled people. MLM was also mentioned to play an important role, but I can't verify how far their importance is when it comes to these pumps.

I can better say; what's the deal with all these fudding and fake supporting BU shills?

BU nodes growing? You mean wealthy entities hosting nodes through data centers to give noobs the impression that their artificially created node count is real?

Not that close, but still, close doesn't mean it will really happen. Don't start counting your profits already.

Actually, you can't buy whatever you want directly with Bitcoin. Sure, through a Bitcoin related debit card you can "spend" your coins in nearly every place in the world, but that's not the same as directly spending your coins.

That's actually not true. Everyone that knows your TXID can basically follow every step you set. That's the beauty of something so transparent as Bitcoin.

Problem with this is that Bitcoin on local level can't come anywhere near the supremacy of fiat and its related payment platforms. Instant transactions, no transaction fees, secured payments, etc. Tell me, what has Bitcoin to offer as local currency? In order to motivate people to use Bitcoin as currency, it must perform equally as good as fiat, or more precise, better than fiat.

In case of a chain split, Bitcoin Core will continue to be the only real Bitcoin. BU will be listed as altcoin, and that's really it. If people want to support an altcoin, then they are of course free to do so. All this drama will however have a temporary negative effect on the price, which may result in a visit to levels deep below the current ones. But as it is right now, nothing of this has happened, and thus everything remains pure speculation.

If you want to benefit from Bitcoin's volatile nature, then do this > 80% of your coins for long term holding purposes > 20% of your coins for short term purposes, as that will allow you to cash out and buy back. It would help you in taking advantage from current situation, where the result will be that you increase the number of coins that you have. Never force yourself to stick to just one thing, when you can do two things at the same time without any problems.

In general, if the price is going up in a nice and rapid manner, people get excited and happy. But when the price goes down in the exact same way, people suddenly start to lose all confidence and think the worst. How difficult is it for people to realize - that what goes up fast, can also come down fast. If you look at the charts, current levels are basically the same as how the price was exactly one month ago. No big deal.


Often referred to as clickbait.

As long as BU forms somewhat of a potential danger when it comes to causing a chain split, people won't so easily calm down. Think about it, what has changed since yesterday that you think the panic period is over? Nothing has changed.

It's not.

For sure. This is what all day traders look out for. I am a day trader myself, and I personally wouldn't mind these fluctuations to continue bounce up and down for a few more days. Since the panic isn't over yet, I think the chances are pretty high to have more profitable day trading opportunities in the coming days.

Correct. However, people put themselves into great danger as they quite often happen to invest money that they can't miss in their personal life. It's dumb and makes them do even dumber things (e.g. panic selling at a loss, and buying back at higher levels). If you invest with money you can't afford to have invested, the you can't make any proper decisions. All your decisions will be based on emotions.

In most cases egos and the financial benefit is what makes people go full retard - and with this I am referring to indeed Roger Ver and J. Wu, for walking the wrong way. Years ago you could say that Bitcoin's purpose was the only priority for high level Bitcoiners, but that's not the case anymore with stakes sitting at higher levels than ever. It's financial gains > egos > Bitcoin. Who suffers from this? As always, the users.