We can speculate about huge backlog on blockchain as an attack to bitcoin, but there is no way to be sure about it, every transaction is valid and miners suppose to process it into blocks, but there are a game about it. Miners, especially in China, have switched to mine bcash, waiting for bitcoin fees increases and difficulty decrease, then get back to mine bitcoin again. Well, it just a theory, but it's make sense due to bitcoin and bcash hashrate swings following the price movement.

Yes, if you live in the US, you have to pay taxes for capital gains or using cryptocurrency for transactions in certain amount.
However, it's better to consult with a tax professional if you want to trade cryptocurrency in big amount.
You can avoid taxes as long as you buy and sell cryptocurrency which not through exchanges such as coinbase, as exchanges is the object of investigation to check whoever avoid the taxes.

long-term gains and losses will be taxed at each investor’s applicable capital gains rate (15% for Max) as opposed to at ordinary income rates (this would be 25% for Max). Bitcoin miners and investors may see a huge difference in marginal rates as a result of this distinction. Nonetheless, active traders with short-term capital gains could still be taxed at their ordinary income-based rates.

Generally, a person who in the course of a trade or business makes a payment of $600 or more in a taxable year to an independent contractor for the performance of services is required to report that payment to the IRS and to the payee on Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Income.

Read more: Bitcoin Tax Guide: An Introduction | Investopedia https://www.investopedia.com/university/definitive-bitcoin-tax-guide-dont-let-irs-snow-you/#ixzz51zx8NBS6

Well, I have never tried an accelerator, but what about antpool? https://www.antpool.com/user/prioritiseTransaction.htm;jsessionid=66E3FE302419C83DB214A57E38203EDC?m=savePrioritiseTx
However, it's seems in crowds right now, many people wants to accelerate their transactions due to mempool can't afford current transactions.
It's better to pay high fees instead of waiting for days even weeks to get a confirmation.

Obviously, bitcoin isn't a threat to financial stability, bitcoin created to be an alternative currency, even can not replace fiat currency.
Most people treat cryptocurrency as speculative object, get into the game of trading due to bitcoin's incapability to fulfill the demand of transactions per second, in other words; bitcoin can't be a medium of exchange at the moment.
Meanwhile, monetary authorities in Canada, China and Russia, among others, have all expressed interest in a central bank-issued digital currency.
There are a lot of plans that some countries want to issues their own cryptocurrency, but it won't works obviously. There is no point to create new digital currency as there is official fiat cureency, just adopt blockchain technology and go for cashless society.

This is a big news and great help as well, thank for share the information.
Fortunately, I haven't get into this decentralized exchanges, as there are some flaws recently.
But, I believe you can post this in Service discussion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=85.0) or Exchanges (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=223.0) as well to let more people knows about this problem.

What is your address? You can check it in here: https://blockexplorer.com/ and fill the search box "Search for block, transaction or address"
And then "enter", you will find your bitcoin is just fine, as no one can move your coins without the password.
It maybe just another crash from blockchain.info as this problem happens periodically, few times in a year.

is it refers to Xaurum gold?
Are you one of the developers from xaurum team?
How to do it? You need to provide information about it, such as terms and condition, shipping costs, etc.
I would like to get gold bars obviously.

Haha, you might be right, hold on for your life in the future"
I can't imagine how people will be pissed after they find out 1 satoshi worth $1. Actually, freebitco faucet ever give BTC5 back in 2009 or 2010 a huge amount for current price obviously. Some people said bitcoin may reach $1 Million by the end of 2020, so we just have to wait for 3 years and doing faucets all this time, along the way to 2020.

Cryptocurrencies become the next thing to be traded and mostly works for most people. But, in the game of trading, there will be some people get a loss, right? But, not in cryptocurrency trading, at least not for most potential coins such as eth, dash, zcash, ltc, and so on.
Why? Because the top of the current bull market is far away, as there is a huge potential of additional buyers left that could fuel the rally.”

There are lots of people that may see it and want to be involved in crypto trading. Even most big whales in Wall Street just start their journey in bitcoin futures and maybe want to learn other cryptocurrencies. That's why current price of altcoins seems get pumped.

It's a common problem regarding Poloniex support these day.
What's your problem? delayed deposit? pending withdrawal? account disabled? or Funds being locked?
Actually, the best way is contact their support, but if there is no answer, just create a new account and ask for support.
You can join this: https://poloniexevidencegather.blogspot.co.id/2017/12/please-post-on-here-evidence-of_16.html
Just in case if you have big amount of money/coins in Poloniex.
Hopefully, your case will be solved and do not use this exchange anymore.

Op admitted that he made a fool mistake, simply didn't check carefully the price.
Localbitcoins is a better place to trade bitcoin, it's better to do OTC trading (trade bitcoin for fiat currencies through person-to-person trades) with an escrow service as this site provide; Escrow protection for safe trading protects both the buyer and the seller.
Overprice? It's your call to buy bitcoin at any price obviously, if you can't find any fair price, then just move to another exchange.

Most of us waiting for another solution for blockchain as mempool seems flooded by too many unconfirmed transactions which lead to higher fees to be paid and takes a long time for a transaction to be confirmed, unless you willing to pay ridiculous fee.
However, I can't find any roadmap of lightning network, all written about the LN may be implemented soon.
“This announcement is about compatibility and a final candidate for the specification,” Lightning Labs CTO Olaoluwa Osuntokun told CoinJournal when asked for a more specific timeline on the beta mainnet releases of specific implementations. “Each implementation team will release its beta code separately, as the team deems its implementation safe and secure.” https://coinjournal.net/bitcoins-lightning-network-version-1-rc-mainnet-beta-implementations-way/

This problem happens almost all the time, there are many problems regarding their support services.
There are many similar problems about deposit delayed or pending withdrawals on most trading platform, not just Liqui.
But, it is a scam site? Take away 3.7 waves not worth at all for such exchange, but it's not the case as the transaction already confirmed.
They just have a bad support services which a good reason to avoid this trading platform.

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Thanks.

Do you realize bitcoin is nothing compare to banks system in case of the amount of money involved? Bankers have so much money to invest in every sector, if they planned to ruin the crypto market, simply invest Millions of dollars right now and then cash out after bitcoin reach $20K or $50K, easy profits for them. They can manipulate the price easily.
So, beware of your wish.

Escrow will works obviously, the website itself will act as a third party to escrow all the funds from buyers until the goods or items received in destination and be confirmed fine as ordered.
The biggest obstacle maybe about how to gain trust for a new site, there are some sites which offer similar services to buy and sell various goods using cryptocurrency or bitcoin as medium of exchange and but those sites charge high fees.
Another thing to note about shipment, a third party (your site) have to provide some shipping platforms which can handle shipment across the world, so everyone will know how much it cost for every order.

Btctalk name : error08
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If you live in US, yes you have to pay tax for capital gains. But in most countries, there is no tax for capital gains and the only thing you have to pay is withdrawal fees through an exchange.

The only story Op has about how he don't believe in bitcoin and consider it as ponzi scheme where there is no one who control it, it's decentralized digital currency.
The only story Op has about how he lost the chance to become a rich man if he invest $1000 in bitcoin back in 2011.
And here he is, trying to influence newbies to do the same mistake as he did.

What kind of contract you want to buy? as bitcoin, dash and litecoin are out of stock right now.
There are few problems regarding genesis mining contract, and you can check on their twitter account (https://twitter.com/GenesisMining) many people claim didn't get paid properly such as payouts are missing, delayed, or reduced. If you can deal with those problem, feel free to purchase ethereum, zcash or monero for 2 years mining contract. An advice; do not invest more than you can afford to lose.