It should've been expected, people always lose jobs and something they own due to technologies development, it's very difficult to find something that is really valuable and non-dependent of time, that's why gold is so precious and good investment, it was worthy ages ago and it's price is only increasing due to its limited source, but things that can be replaced with something else won't stay for long. Books are now replaced with E-books, some mechanical tasks are being replaced by automation of different processes, maybe someday people will invent something much more powerful, than computers and even such companies like Microsoft or Apple won't be in need anymore. It's not a reason for concern, though, it's developmental indicator that should be accepted as a given.

Even though Ethereum was dropping insanely this year, hitting 45% loss for the last two months it still established itself solidly alongside of Bitcoin on the market. As for other altcoins - no chances they'll hit Bitcoin in the nearest future. While Bitcoin team was working on legislation processes, convoking hundreds of conferences and meetings, attracting new businessmen and investors (more information: https://www.bitcoinmarketjournal.com/conferences/) Ethereum team worked on platform widening and development. This year they've made lots of new partnerships, which we can see by the number of ICOs and hundreds of new Ethereum-based tokens, set in motion Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and ConsenSys to make easier future ETH adoption. I think both done well and we can expect great advances in price soon.

Tax isn't a theft, it's necessary for the cycle of money and economics in general, how else would money come back to the central government budget? I agree that in some countries, especially developing ones, governments do steal a lot of money and that's why things are turning ugly out there, because money that was derived from taxes should be spent on governmental and social needs, e.g. supplementary benefits, country reconstruction, subsidies and national improvements in whole. If there are no taxes the country not only will stop developing, but will begin to fade. Let's take Austria, for example, this country has one of the biggest taxes - 55%, but people live in affluence there, have lots of opportunities and high salaries, clean and smooth roads, comfortable conditions in short, so taxes aren't hindrance if used properly.

It will have future if there is demand. The advantage of gambling games based on Ethereum blockchain database is that they aren't powered by one centralized owner, unlike traditional databases for gambling. Centralization is always a threat: it can be hacked, the owner can scam users, it stores records about clients, like their balances, transactions and other information they input that can destroy anonymity and be used to steal assets too. Blockchain-based gambling websites, on the other hand, solve this problem as there are no 3rd parties. However, provably fair algorithm solves these problems too (well most of them, the website still can be hacked, but the chances are reduced), so maybe there's no need in Ethereum. Moreover, due to obligatory Smart contracts involvement bets in this case are processed slower than with a centralised database.

No, I didn't face such problems at home, one member of my family does gamble (more than me, everyday for hours), but I don't consider this as a problem and I don't think people should go so crazy about gambling addiction. It's not a problem while this doesn't harm or bring discomfort to others, including the gambler himself, like spending too much money or time on it, or thinking about casinos too much so that hinder normal living. I think it's unfair to blame gamblers for spending too much time and money on playing, if one can afford it, why not? We all have addictions, like social networks, internet, some like computer games and don't forget about the wives that complain about their husbands gambling addiction, but don't consider their shopping, plastic surgeries or abundant beauty salon visits as an addiction.

Certainly, the determinative here is provably fair algorithm and anonymity, the second one particularly gives some people not only confidence, but freedom. I'm talking here about countries, or maybe some groups with concrete religion-based restrictions on gambling. To the above listed advantages I'd also add security: other online casinos store records about their clients on a centralized server and that includes information associated with the deposits that customers made. This issue is a threat not only to clients' anonymity, but to their funds too, because such a server can attract lots of hackers and if it is hacked - all of the assets can be lost at once. But this, however, can never happen to a gambling website, that uses cryptocurrencies.

I think it's too early to say whether it is a good or a bad year yet, last year the whole fun about prices has just begun at this point, increasing from ~$4000 in the end of August to ~$18000 in December, just 4 months later! We can expect the same course of events this year, or even better, another important fact - if the price of BTC was shitty this year it doesn't mean that this year was bad for cryptorurrencies by all means. There have been numerous events related to cryptocurrency questions in 2018, that might make the price increase soon, e.g. Bitcoin during FIFA World Cup, or BTC acceptance by Starbucks and Burger King and lots of conferences that attracted new investors and companies: https://www.finder.com/cryptocurrency-conferences-and-events
All those events enhanced the expansion of Bitcoin and thus, the demand for it.

There shouldn't be any correlation between a particular season and prices, but, for a fact for some reason prices begin to increase in the end of autumn and keep growing during the winter season (my own observation), so now is probably the best time to purchase Bitcoin as well as some altcoins and hold for 5-6 months. You can see the red market yourself - it's a good sign, buy during the downtrend. This has already happened in 2013, 2015 and, of course, the last year, but the uptrends and downtrends are becoming more and more steep as the years are passing, so better hurry and don't miss the perfect moment.

I agree that leveraged trading is almost as risky as gambling, it's just the possible profit that attracts people, but even a professional trader, as for me, can't make a 100% prediction. Sometimes one can say with a 70-80% probability that a certain cryptocurrency will increase, or decrease and whether it is better to sell now, or to buy. But guessing the exact price in a certain period of time - that's too risky and only the one who personally manipulates the price can know what will happen. I think leveraged trading should be done only with small amounts of money, due to the likely possibility of losing it all, unlike in a regular trading, where there are chances to recover your losses someday.

That's what probably the governments of the Republic of Zimbabwe thought. Long story short - printing money will lead to a hyperinflation, if a certain country is poor due to shitty economical system, export, tourism and so on (meaning no one else needs their fiat currency or products) they can't change the situation by printing money, or making salaries higher without serious assets behind all that. It would be nearly the same thing as hiding all the mess and trash in your room into different closets to make it seem tidy instead of cleaning up the mess de facto. There's another reason for that issue - it's corruption, that takes place in the most of developing countries, it actually crushes the economy. Due to corruption less people can develop small business, which is a good index of successful economy, people also immigrate to other countries with more opportunities, due to less developed business and lack of qualified labor the quality of the goods produced declines and thus people buy import production, but not their national and so on. The only way a certain country can become successful is actually people in the government stop being so greedy and unfair.

IMO such a separation relating to different entertainment based on the age isn't exactly accurate. I think this is more about an environment, hormones and individual needs, maybe even genes determine craving for certain games (there was even a study about that https://www.bionews.org.uk/page_91056), as there are adults, that are okay with watching TV, news and alike - it's their amusement, on the other hand there are kids that would prefer playing hazardous games, cards, where they can feel the sweetness of victory. Take Monopoly, for instance - a typical game which proves that from the very childhood kids want to play games that involve money and power. I bet some schoolboys would enjoy playing poker if they knew the rules and would've bet everything they owned. 

Other than the price there, obviously, have been changes in the market capitalization, that has increased since the beginning of 2017 and average transaction value has been dropping after insanely big numbers in winter 2018 along with the average transaction fee. Here's a useful website to see some other changes on a chart, or compare BTC progress to other cryptos: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-marketcap.html
More importantly, though, many processes have occurred there oriented to worldwide Bitcoin implementation in the function of legal and official currency. South Korea and Japan, for instance, allowed Bitcoin integration for some hotels, airlines and created some exchange installing crypto cafes, kiosks and so on and this is not the only country to make such steps, read more here:
https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/04/02/despite-price-drop-bitcoin-adoption-is-strong-in-japan-and-south-korea/
https://www.coinstaker.com/best-4-bitcoin-friendly-countries/

Nice start and Icobench ranking is a good pointer. I like ICO projects in which usage of blockchain or ethereum platform, or tokens and digital currency system gives some benefits over the traditional one, because nowadays there are so many projects, where, honestly, there's absolutely no need in cryptocurrency, they can work as well on fiat currencies. Take Trippki for example: https://icobench.com/ico/trippki
An ecosystem, built on Ethereum platform that works as a reward system for booking hotels, why not do the same thing using Visa cards? Anyway, Blackbox Network doesn't seem to be that way and I like it, may be successful someday.

They will die if Bitcoin and other top cryptocurrencies die, that's my opinion. To increase the price of any coin new interested people are needed and I can assure you that people that are new to crypto world know only about Bitcoin, maybe Litecoin and Ether (but those are advanced students) and have no clue about Golem or Dentacoin, or whatever else altcoin there is. Moreover, all those alts (or most of them) have very big, much bigger than BTC, circulating volume, taking the previous examples - it's more than 959 million for the first one and above 325 billion (!) for the second one. There should be either really lots of interested people, or less people, but the ones that would be ready to buy dozens of those coins, both of these conditions are difficult to achieve. So for now we can only count on BTC, LTC, ETH, XRP, Cardano, EOS and alike for the purposes of long term investments.

This phenomenon, even though it seems like a complete superstition, may have a logical explanation. I think so, because my first experience in poker and roulette were very lucky, so lucky that not everyday now, after all this years I can make such a scoop. This, however, didn't happen as I played dice games as a newbie (another fact, which proves that intelligence affects the output in gambling games, like poker). So, the explanation is that whenever one plays for the first time he doesn't risk as much due to lack of knowledge and bluffing experience and the less you risk - the more you can win. An experienced player undergoes what is called "Woe from Wit": he thinks and and tries to estimate so much that he cannot notice some obvious things, or can be too confident in some things that for a fact are uncertain and so on.

Ether is recovering slower, than Bitcoin and both are part of red market, unlike XRP, which seems to be slowly hitting green market with its +2,16% today. However, investing in Ether is more logical now, XRP with about 40 billion units in marketcap will grow very slowly, even though its price is quite small while the idea that now you can purchase 3 Ethers with the same money it was 1 Ether not so long time ago is very attractive, I'll definitely buy some, hopefully this autumn will be as fruity as the previous one. But there's one problem that can influence the price of ETH - scaling problem and if  if it won't be solved with the help of proof of stake consensus, or other mechanism - same story that happened to Bitcoin before SegWit will happen to Ether soon. And as for Bitcoin lots of experts, not only Winklevoss, predict increase in price: https://smartereum.com/2732/bitcoin-price-prediction-2018-can-cryptocurrency-hit-50000-or-100000-this-year-forecast-2018-thu-aug-16/

This problem is more of an ecological, than economical, I guess, because this doesn't reduce the volume of plastic that is needed to be recycled. Yes, people can gather garbage and sell it to have some tiny amount of money, but this won't reduce the level of unemployment, this doesn't enhance the export from the country and definitely doesn't increase demand for the national currency. The government can hire people to collect and deal with the trash, or they can leave it to the citizens and pay them off, but all the gain that will actually go to the government is this difference between the salary they pay to the employees and the amount of money they give to volunteers.

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I don't think that what you assume is possible, exchanges don't work like that in order to prevent extremely dramatic drops in prices, which can cause serious problems to economics. At least exchanges that I used had a strictly limited amount of Bitcoins you could sell for fiat currency and that amount was exactly equal to the amount of Bitcoins that was bought on that same exchange. So if everyone sells Bitcoin, but no one buys exchanges will just stop working after the exhausted stock. But Bitcoin isn't physically backed up by money or any other assets, like all other cryptocurrencies. There's only one maybe upcoming cryptocurrency, invented specifically for Muslims that conform with Sharia. As long as it prohibits using any currency that isn't backed up by anything the idea is to create a crypto, that would be backed up by gold, here's the link https://qz.com/1247409/bitcoin-cryptocurrencies-for-muslims-backed-by-gold-are-popping-up/

To be honest, I don't see how this can help a trader or why is it a mandatory for a trader to know this. The first advice - I think it's up to a trader when to analyze and why one should "order without thinking too much", what does that change? Second - a person who invested his money in a crypto will always wait for a perfect outcome, it's not the kind of thing one can prevent in his mind. The third one - I can't imagine what kind of a trader wouldn't focus on charts, because it's the basis, but speculations are important too, some news can be a wake-up call for traders. Accept losses is just some obvious thing I won't even comment on that one. And the last one - I think it's the opposite, statistics is important, if you kept trading for some shitty coin that wasn't bringing you any profit you should quit but not wait until luck will knock on your door.