Ethereum is a really good choice to hold. If you want to have long-time profits, I think you will achieve your goal with ethereum. I disagree with the "stable" thoughts about ETH, for no crypto is such as stable. Nevertheless, there are those well-seated cryptos as ethereum that seems to remain on market for a long time.
Now, as with any crypto, it is always wise to learn a lot before even giving away a dollar.
About wallets you can use with ethereum , Blockchain.info is strong, as well as the ethereum core itself.
Between ETH and BTC there are differences. We must not forget ETH is kind of a "blockchain evolution", it is based on the bitcoin core but has in its code the smart contracts, so this is a kind of "complex bitcoin".
My question should be: Why is ethereum your first choice? I believe it is important to you to be able to answer this question before making any investment.

Again? Please, before posting just use the search in order to see threads about the same topic. There are thousands of people asking the same every day, and this is not correct.
Do you want to earn merits?? Then the first step is to read the forum, to look for the topics you are interested in, and, of course, to avoiding to repeat again and again the same threads.
I strongly encourage you just to read a lot every day before even thinking in posting, ok? This will help you a lot, and also other users.

English is not my first language at all, I just learned it by reading my favorites novels in their original language, that happened to be English. Now, I speak perfect Spanish, some French, and some English, but in the future, I would love to learn Japanese, Chinese, etc. I studied Japanese for a whole year but, sadly, I remember nothing, for I never practice it.

Somehow I  am sure the process of learning new languages gives you a new brave perspective. Sometimes I found myself thinking in English or even French, for there are several words in those languages that don't exist in mine. Languages open your brain, gives you advantages in relationships and also in getting some works, but also gives to you de opportunity of understanding the world with new words, with other cultural perspective. That's the reason why I'd love to speak Japanese.

Merits is a good way to clean up this forum for scammers, and also a great way to improve the post quality. At the same time, I think this is way too hard to rank up now, for instance from hero member to legendary. But, in any case, is the system guilty of that. I mean: now the new system is implemented is our duty to make it works. When you look into your profile, in the merit section, you will read how important is to share smerit in order to give people the opportunity of ranking out (if deserved).
So this is our duty, as members, to make it works. The system is based on a great idea, at least from my point of view, but it is not going to be easy to people feel it as "fair".
As another user has mentioned, there are full rank members who maybe do not deserve it. I think the merit system is just pushing all of us, even legendary members, to be better writers, to share better contents, or, at least to try. So, as a system, this is brilliant.
Now, some ideas come to my mind when talking about how to make it works. One of them, that I've repeated a lot, is to make a "Merit Contest" about a nice topic, or about something difficult to achieve (a problem needing the solution, for instance). I've been seeing people offering merits only to newbies or jr. members, but such a thing is not too fair. Hero members, I repeat, are one of the most "affected" of all by the merit system. So, in my thoughts, I find much more useful for everybody can participate in any contest they want in order to rank out, no matter the rank they already have.

I haven't made "this contest" yet because I want first to have your opinion. What do you think it can be about? Do you have something you need some help with to be the "Contest-topic"?
Let's help this merit system and make it really works!

Of course, they are still active on the forum, and their hard work is visible everyday. But just take a look at how many topics are being published every hour here. This is an impossible work just to make an instantaneous revision of all them. That takes some time, and this is not an easy cake.
The forum has become something huge. Everybody wants to be a part of it now, and they are just doing their best.
In order to help moderators to keep clean the forum, if you see too much-repeated topics, then just point it up by giving the people the other similar threads to read in the answer, and also report it, so they can see them easily.
I believe this is a responsibility for all to keep clean the forum.

Predictions are just that: predictions. Your cant never be sure of their accurancy. Talking about Bitcoin, I believe anything is possible. On the beggining of the year, a lot of "experts" were talking about bitcoin falling into $5000 and then rising to $50000 in 2018.

If we observe the behaviour of Btc from the last year, we see this is quite umpredictible. So, even when I truly believe eventually Btc is going to reach an umprecedent price such $100.000 or so, I cant say when it is gonig to happen. Next year? In a decade? Who knows!!!

Thats why I never fix my investments based on speculations or predictions. I just try to live to the day, instead of being worried about what price is expected from Btc to reach. For all that news are just based on smoke. Nobody can really knows what is going to happend (saving maybe those who holds the biggest amount of Btc). For us, mortals, I think this is healthier just to wait and see.

First of all, think first if that money is expendable for you. I tell you that just because if you make an investment on an insecure mood, well, probably you will end falling into a panic sell and loosing the money. If the amount you want to invest is somehow expendable, then you will be able to avoid panic, and that is the right mood to begin with.

Second of all, just ask yourself how much time do you have. I mean, do you want instantaneously profits? Or you can wait at least a whole year no concerning about your profits?

If the answer is the first, then Bitcoin maybe is not a good choice, not even Ethereum. Both of them have to be looked as long time investments. If your answer is the second, well, then I would say, buy some Btc and relax.

When I read your words, nevertheless, I feel you are a complete newbie in this world. This is just a feeling, si tell me if I am wrong. But, if you are a newbie, then my advice will be just to wait a bit longer before making your investment, learn, read, and build your own criteria.

The crypto world is complex and it is easy to loose money if you just come into it withouth the knowledge and the necessary patience.

I don't think this is just related to bitcoin. When I was a teenager, I was forced by the situation of working , so my academic results went down due to the free time or studying time I did not longer have. Now, you are talking about students using Bitcoin in order to help their families, so maybe this is a necessity to them. Maybe you should let them explain to you how they use bitcoin, be a part of their feelings, to encourage them to share their thoughts. Only by building bridges maybe they can feel they are understood and you will be able to transmit them how important is for them to continuing studying.
They have to earn money maybe because of the economic family situation, so look at them just like young people with too many responsabilities. School does not give their families a way of living and paying bills, but it surely give the young students a future. If they want to become big on the crypto world system, they will need to study whatever related career they choose. Now, they can live or help their families thanks to their "work", but all the knowledge they can have if they study maths, programming, and so, is going to help them not only to survive, but to become succesfull young people.
The ability of having a good speech they will develop thanks to the study of the english grammar and by reading all the novels they can will give them the necessary presence towards the world to get a really nice place on a great company...

Those are examples. I truly remember how my teachers used to punish me, for they didn't understand my situation, they didn't get the whole picture. They were able to see just a young person avoiding classes, instead of a young person in a need. Now, maybe they are learning to earn money  by crypto, they success on the matter and they feel other subjects are not of their interest anymore, for they have covered they needs thanks to the internet, instead of the school. This is totally understandable. Maybe your job, as I said, is now to build some bridges to reach them and to explain them how important school is just to be better and better in the crypto world.

Bitcoin, always. XRP (Ripple is the enterprise behind the coin, and the name of the coin is XRP instead of Ripple) is not even considered the "same" as other crypto, for it is leaded by a private company and is centralized. Now, even when XRP can have profits itself, I believe for long term is much better bitcoin. My thoughts are based not only in the love we all have for the first crypto, the king, and the responsible  for all this "crypto fever", but also because when you take a look to the news (over all them talking about governments regulations), you will always read the word "Bitcoin". So, Bitcoin is on the talking of the governments all over the planet. That's mean: it is going to become an important part of the global economy pretty soon.
Big companies are talking about accept BTC as a paydment system, and, at the same time, the production of them is becoming lower and lower. So, there is going to be a time where (probably) will be a part of the economy, will be used by many and will be more and more desired for many, while there are going to be the same of them on the global market.
So, to me, BTC is one (if not the best) investment for long term.

I believe it depends on how much time do you want to spend in trading. To me, there are several steps to follow before even begin to do so:
1. Read about the cryptos you are interested in. Not all the crytos have the same system. They are thousands of them currently on the market, so making a research about them before even thinking on trading will give you a whole panorama and you will be able to make better decisions.
2. Once you choose your top 10, and your plan B and C, just study their behavior for at least a week. You will understand who they are moving, and what kind of movements seems to have some logic.
3. Just buy those you choose and begin the trade. But do not use too much money. This is similar to gambling, do not forget that, and you can loose everything. So just begin with the expendable amount you consider to be ok.
4. Spend some time trading in this way. I am sure you will see how rules can change, but there is always a kind of patron. When you understand it, feel prepare to trade a little bit more confident.

Now, trading implies to expend hours in front of your computer, and weeks, even months, just watching and learning.
Try to learn a bit every single day, but also avoid rush. If you enter into the trading world with rush and no patience, then it is going to be easy for you to loose money.
Another advice: be careful with people offering to trade with your money. If somehow you feel it is a good idea to trust anybody else, just make an investigation about him/her/them before giving away your money.

Be patience, take your time. To learn how to trade is slow and needs all your time and patience.
I hope you to success, and happy trading!

Hacked isn't equal to cracked, i'm sure you mean cracked. And yes, as anything that involve a computer system can be hacked.

I remember some hackers words who say: People can build really secure systems, but there will always be a big vulnerability: The user. You can always hack the user and get sensitive information from him.

Now, getting back to the topic, i think it can be hacked, but if it get hacked it can be fixed with a fork, just like it happened before with ethereum

To me, there are several reasons why Bitcoin has become the most important crypto coin:

• first if all, perfect timing. Bitcoin was launched into the world precisely when the crisis was hitting too many pleople. A lot of people just had nothing to loose, so the enter into the crypto world as a kind of game.
• second: security. After some historical moments as "the corralito" in Argentina or the japanesse tragedy after the earthquake, the Spaniard crisis and its government rescueing banks... trust was death. People all over arround the world seeked a new form of money that wasnt implied depending on a bank system.
• third: technology. It has become more popular between common people, so the access to new kind of technology is easier than a decade ago.
• and fourth: of course, publicity. Bitcoin is the most famous crypto asset. Even so, I've met a lot of people that doesnt know what cryptocoins are, but they inmediately recognize the word "Bitcoin".

I think satoshi nakamoto isn't just 1 person. it's a small hackers group behind bitcoin creation. But i'm just guessing, nothing that i can prove.

Maybe we should stop asking us who is he and think more about all the money behind him. A good question is: How many bitcoins have satoshi nakamoto?

This guys say 1.1M ( https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-well-deserved-fortune-of-satoshi-nakamoto/ )
Other ones say 0.98M ( http://time.com/money/5002378/bitcoin-creator-nakamoto-billionaire/ )

So, at this today bitcoin price we can say satoshi is holding $11,454,710,000. That's a serious amount. If we think about when bitcoin was at $20k, on that moment satoshi was on te 35th place from the top 100 billionaire mans on the world.

https://imgur.com/a/y3ou3
Here you have the price of avocado for the last 20 years. There you can see how anything it totally stable in the market. Bitcoin, like avocado, is going to get higher prices and lower ones based on the buying/selling orders, as well on the production of new coins.
As you see, avocados have suffered tons of changes in its prices. Even when the price seems to be rising, they go up and down so many times you can buy an avocado today in one dollar and tomorrow in some cents.

Well, in economics, this is very normal.
I don't believe Bitcoin is going to totally stabilize anytime, because its value is highly speculative, and that's normal, based on the mere existence of it.
Now, as well as the Bitcoin production becomes lower, it is probably when its value will increase, based on the buying/selling orders again.

So, no. Bitcoin, from my point of view, is never going to be stable, like avocados, tomatoes, oranges...

It depends on the use you make of the technology. For instance: social media has become a kind of "cancer" for too many people because they get addicted to the "cyber life" instead of the real one. It is commonly said technology approaches you to the people far away, but I totally disagree. There has been created a new form of social communication that cuts the traditional one, the face-to-face one, the healthier one.

On the other hand, we have how people access to information. It is now instantaneous, and few contrast their information, they are willing to believe anything that looks convincing. This is a very dangerous stuff, for information surrounded us and is castrating the ability of thinking, just because the people just believe anything. One example is social media bullying. We just make an opinion based o smoke too many times.
Now, the time people spent in social media: instead of grabbing a book, they spend hours and hours just checking their facebook.

But not all is negative. Technologies are much more than social media. Cryptocoins, for instance, is democratizing the money for the first time in history. Everyone can access it if they will. Also, information. Despite the big amount of shit information, there is true access to verify information, and you can learn whatever you want on the internet. You can learn how to play piano, for instance, and, at the same time, economics.

So, in a resume, I believe technology improves communication, as you said, only if you use it thoughtfully. If not, then you can feel more alone than ever.

You are talking about the so-called FinTech Law, which was proposed in Congress. There are some points of this law I don't completely agree with. Despite the proposal is about making legal crypto, it is going to be the Mexican Central Bank (a.k.a. Banxico) which will determinate which cryptos are going to be legal and which cryptos not. It is kind of dangerous, even more coming from Mexico, to determinate what is going to be legal.
For now, the proposal is talking about the permission of using cryptocoins by investors and banks. The common use of all of them will not be allowed if the law is approved.
Now, for common users which are still skeptic about the use of Bitcoin, for instance, maybe this is a good deal. But the point is Banxico will determinate (probably) the taxes and fees they will have to pay.
So, this is a kind of "centralization" for the using of cryptos.
I believe there are two points of view. In one hand: regulation. This is positive for enterprises and gives some kind of security about crypto to the common users. In the other hand, we have prohibition: there will be determined wich crypto are going to be legal and wich illegal. What is going to be based on? Who knows. And that is the part that makes me feel uneasy.

Wow, try to imagine someone crying on street "Hi!! someone give me some dollars!!!"

NOP. Free money is not what this forum is about. And maybe if you want to earn some cryptocoins, well, man, just walk all the path we've already done here!!
1. If you want to earn some free crypto, maybe you must read about ICO or (even when you dislike it) some poker pages with freeroll.
2. To come here asking for free coins is just like walking into a bank crying "hey, guy, give me some money!".
3. You don't need money to get crypto, just time, work and knowledge. So learn and work before posting!!

I think you have all the attitude, the best, but, please, just use all that energy on creating and working instead of asking, ok?
I recommend to you just to read a lot in this forum. I am absolutely confident you will learn all you need to know in order to get those free cryptocoins you want so much!!!

Best of wishes from here!

Bitcoin is and still will be the principal target for hackers, much more since it's value grew up so much. The market has more than 20 million in BTC, so getting 10 is a great bite from that, a  succulent cake.
I believe we all are going to see this kind of news more and more often, 'cause it has been happening since the very beginning (the hacking). I feel the most important part of this is just to be aware of what is happening: where the money resides, then there will be hackers.
So, for our part, the most important thing is to be aware and to be careful. The situation you mentioned, the "Chinese food" restaurant becoming a hacker site, well. Every week we have a new one.
So thanks for sharing. I will make an investigation on the matter,

Team Satoshi is not a god of any kind!! They invented something and gave it to the world to use it. It was a kind o a gift. I don't understand why people make him/them responsible for Bitcoin, for it was, as I said, I kind of "gift".
I think if they want to remain anonymous there is a reason for that. Questioning that decision is not our work at all!!

Both of them have risk, but i think the risk is bigger with trading than invest. But the profit could be bigger with trade than with invest.

Trade with altcoins can give some crazy jumps and send you to instant moon, every day i see coins getting +50% but the hard part is to know which coin will be the next one bumping.

With invest, if the investment is secure, then you will get close to 0.1% daily, you need to be really patience until get areal profit this way.