One site that I know is OpenBazaar. It is an online marketplace wherein you can buy and sell some items for bitcoin. No one owns it because it is an open source software wherein everyone can buy or sell freely and there is no fee as well. If you want to buy or sell goods then this forum has a board of it as well here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=51.0. It is more convenient for me because you can see if the person selling it is reputable enough and you can see the feedback if its previous customers as well.

Personally, I don't want to spend bitcoin on small value items because of the fee and because I consider bitcoin as an investment not as a currency. I would think that the clothes that I bought would have less worth when the value of bitcoin becomes bigger so better buy it with fiat.

Coinbase Custody Targets $10 Billion in Institutional Funds for Bitcoin Investment

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong officially introduced Coinbase Custody, a platform targeted at institutional investors. The new product is intended to be ultra-secure:

We are designing Coinbase Custody to meet the needs of institutional clients. In particular, we feel that institutional clients require:

Strict financial controls (multiple signers, audit trails, limits, etc)

Dedicated account representatives and phone support

SLAs on funds transfers

A regulated digital currency custodian

Multi-user accounts with separate permissions

Support for a wide range of digital assets and currencies

Insurance (in some cases)

And high levels of cyber and physical security

According to Armstrong, Coinbase currently holds $9 billion in user funds in various cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin. Coinbase Custody is exclusively for institutional investors with at least $10 mln on deposit. There is a $100,000 initial setup fee and a fee of 10 basis points per month on all deposits stored on the Coinbase Custody platform.

Money waiting to enter market
Armstrong further emphasized that the finance market currently has over $10 billion in institutional money that has been sitting on the sidelines. Coinbase believes these investors want to purchase digital currency, but have been waiting for a safe way to buy and hold it. Armstrong wrote:

“Over 100 hedge funds have been created in the past year exclusively to trade digital currency. An even greater number of traditional institutional investors are starting to look at trading digital assets (including family offices, sovereign wealth funds, traditional hedge funds, and more). By some estimates there is $10B of institutional money waiting on the sidelines to invest in digital currency today.”

Coinbase to target institutional investors
Upon the finalization of its $100 million Series D funding round which increased the market valuation of Coinbase to $1.6 billion, Armstrong promised Coinbase investors and customers that the company would provide necessary infrastructure for institutional and retail investors in order to address the demand for Bitcoin from the traditional finance sector.

With the launch of Coinbase’e new platform next year, there will be three products specifically designed for large institutional investors: Coinbase Custody, CME Group’s regulated futures exchange, and LedgerX’s regulator-approved futures exchange. LedgerX is the only one that has launched to date; it has already seen an increase in its volumes since its launch in October.

Armstrong added:

“We already store billions of dollars worth of digital assets on behalf of our customers. We serve thousands of institutions via our GDAX product, the leading digital currency exchange in the U.S. We’ve raised $216M from venture capital firms and financial institutions like the NYSE/ICE, USAA, BBVA, Westpac, and MUFG.”

In the long-term, Armstrong further emphasized that Coinbase will focus on facilitating the investment of institutional money into the Bitcoin market, with its capital and strong teams of developers.

Last week, Leo Melamed, the chairman of CME Group, the largest options exchange in the world, stated that he has gradually altered his viewpoint of Bitcoin in the past few years. This came about as he continued to study the decentralized structure and peer-to-peer protocol of the Bitcoin network.

In the upcoming months, the Bitcoin market will see a shift in trend, as institutional investors and retail investors begin adopting Bitcoin as a robust store of value and a legitimate financial network. It will be more difficult for public figures and bank executives to offer baseless condemnation of Bitcoin, given the crackdown on major banks this past week on money laundering and fraud charges, and the rapid increase in mainstream adoption of Bitcoin.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/coinbase-custody-targets-10-billion-in-institutional-funds-for-bitcoin-investment

This shared economy services has made a big difference in how the transport system operates as well as in the hospitality sector. I have seen some ICOs who will be implementing this kind of services and I think blockchain technology would be good for them so that any anomalies that may happen can easily be traceable since there is tranparency in it. Besides, some of them are taking advantage of the shortage of the transportation industry so it would be an advantage if others would be able to see how the others are doing to assess if the fare that is charged is fair. It would be applicable to the lessee as well in the case of Airbnb.

The world would still be developing some ways to solve the economic crisis without bitcoin. There are financial crisis before the existence of bitcoin and the world was able to somehow uplift the lives of the people who are suffering from it. There are still fiat and electronic payment to function as payment option and medium of transaction so there's not much that will be change in the world without bitcoin. I would assume that only 1% of the world knows about bitcoin so the world without it would be as much as it is today. Only those that knows bitcoin today would imagine a different world without it because it has been part of our lives. I agree that it would have been different in how I live today if I didn't knew about cryptocurrency back then.

Government would create cryptocurrency with an aim to go with the flow with what is happening now in the cryptocurrency world or as what OP said to "destroy" bitcoin and make a legal one which is under their control. Yes sure some of the governments already welcome cryptocurrency with open arms but there are some who are still closing their doors to it because they don't want to lose their control. If all the governments would agree to something which is not good for the current bitcoin then they would just create their own and of course they will work together with the banks who control the cash flow.

The incredible amount of funds that have been gathered by projects doing Initial Coin Offerings has, in turn, attracted more developers and entrepreneurs, further increasing the number of ICO projects to a point where there is at least three new ICOs every week and it’s no wonder. ICOs allow project developers to gather funds without the need to resort to banks or VC firms which makes the whole process much simpler.

ICOs also provide additional advantages for those creating them like the chance to distribute their token on a global scale, increasing the value of their network in accordance to Metcalfe’s law, and the possibility of cultivating a vested community that can help market and develop the project globally.

Most recently, this new form of fundraising has been catching the eye of mainstream audiences and even celebrities with stars like Jayceon Taylor (The Game), Floyd Mayweather, and even Paris Hilton, all three of which have endorsed ICOs. Traditional investors have also become aware of ICOs and their potential as an investment vehicle with Goldman Sachs analyst Robert D. Boroujerdi and his team stating that “it’s getting harder for institutional investors to ignore cryptocurrencies.”

Positive news regarding the ICO scene have been abundant but not all is well. Several government institutions across the world have also taken notice of ICOs with many of them threatening to ban or regulate the fundraising mechanism. China has banned all ICOs and both the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) have warned that ICO tokens may be considered securities.

Other places like Isle of Man, Switzerland, and Singapore have taken a more permissive stance and are becoming “hubs” for ICOs and blockchain projects. Although regulations, upcoming technology, and many other factors will play a big role in the future of ICOs, it’s clear that this alternative fundraising mechanism has opened new doors both for project creators and for investors alike.

Now, a new wave of ICOs is beginning to emerge from mainstream companies with considerable user/client bases. Although projects like Bancor, Filecoin, Tezos, and others have gathered an unprecedented amount of funds, reaching hundreds of millions of dollars, these projects are still unknown to most outside of the cryptocurrency sandbox.

So what happens when big companies like Aptoide or Kik join the ICO scene? Although many believe that there will be a blockchain “killer app” or a user interface moment that will take crypto to the mainstream stage, it may be the opposite. Mainstream companies may end up bringing ICOs to the spotlight, making cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology globally known.

A perfect example of a mainstream company entering the world of Initial Coin Offerings is Aptoide with the upcoming Appcoins ICO. Aptoide runs an Android app store that has over 200 million users, 800,000 unique apps, 12,000 publishers, and 70 different manufacturers and partners. In order to solve inherent problems found in the current App and Appstore ecosystem, Aptoide is launching the Appcoins protocol, allowing users to earn the APPC token by using the app and watching ads.

The system put forth by Appcoins will not only eliminate unneeded middlemen and associated fees, it will also introduce its millions of users to the concept of cryptocurrencies through an incentive-based model for developers and advertisers. The white paper reads:

"The AppCoins network is an open and distributed protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain. It aims to mitigate the current inherent deficiencies of app stores. By marrying blockchain technology with app store technology, app advertising, in-app billing and app-approval can be drastically improved and sped up through disintermediation and redistributing the unlocked value to end-users and developers."

The Kin ICO, another popular example, was created by Kik Messenger, an award-winning instant messaging app with over 300 million registered users (as of May 2016). The ICO funded the development of Kin, an ERC20 token that will be integrated within the Kik app, allowing for trustless payments and incentives within the app itself.

By exposing the Kin cryptocurrency to over 300 million users, Kik is sure to introduce a large percentage of its user base to the concept of blockchain and the endless advantages it brings about. According to Ted Livingston, CEO of Kik, the use of a cryptocurrency token will create an alternative monetization model that does not rely on advertising, introducing a new incentive-based approach for developers that build apps and services that can “get user attention and create value”.

Source: http://bitcoinist.com/can-icos-mainstream-companies-lead-cryptocurrency-mass-adoption/

You know the drill if ever there is another bitcoin fork. Price of bitcoin will go up again, altcoins will bleed again. It is a good opportunity to buy your favorite alts. Bitcoin holders will have more free coins and then sold it again for the true bitcoin. It seems that the forking is never ending. Before the actual fork, bitcoin price will surge and then altcoins will have a temporary party before bleeding again. In times when bitcoin is having a major update or move then altcoins are more affected and it is only during the times bitcoin is having a stable price when altcoins are able to make their move.

It is still the combination of both. For me, I use technical analysis but I am not using many indicators. Just the simple patterns and then support and resistance. I am also using fibonacci retracement and then observe it in multiple timeframes. At first, I am just following the news and then follow the hype but sometimes I end up losing because I am being dumped on so I just revise my strategy. I concentrate more on technical analysis and then see any news that may affect the price. I focus more on altcoins that has high volume because my strategy works on those coins and my target profit in a trade is just minimal because I focus more on consistency rather than gaining 50% in a day and losing it all the next day.

I just check their website and it seems that way. They are the one who will handle the arbitrage operation and we would just wait for the profit it seems. I am looking for a site to give arbitrage opportunities but I am still skeptic regarding depositing my money in a site and let them handle the operations for me. I still need more information about the site and need to know the experience of some people who are already using the site. I agree that the information should be more detailed and the steps in joining should also be stated in the post.

I saw others post during that time that they will sell their bitcoin for less than $6k and switch to bitcoin cash because it is the coin that will replace bitcoin and the price is already more than $2k so I don't know what happen to them afterwards when the price is crashing. Those who just got in in crypto world would be somehow confuse seeing that there are so many bitcoin in their names and seeing that bitcoin cash is rallying and there's a shilling then many would be entice to buy it only to be dumped upon afterwards. We should always be vigilant when a coin is being hype because sooner or later it will crash if there is no steam left anymore and by the time the dumping starts, it will happen so fast and then the exchange will freeze as well due to the volume or any other reason and you will see your position in the losing side instead of being in profit.

Given that blockchain technology has attracted many businesses and in the future more businesses would consider adopting it then it is timely for an audit firm to join the alliance. This is crucial because they are the one assessing the company transactions and operations so knowing the process and technology beforehand would shorten the process of learning about blockchain technology in time when the audit season starts. I believe there would be more sectors that will join the alliance especially nowadays that bitcoin is having a rally again and some companies would be interested in the technology behind it.

There are already countries who charge taxes in the transactions if they cash out to fiat and if they hold it for a long time and the value increases then they need to file a capital gains tax. Failure to do so would result to a penalty if the government finds out that you evade to pay taxes. Sure the profit will decrease because of your additional expenses but just think of it as your duty as a citizen of your country and besides if you try to avoid it then you will suffer if the authorities find out. For the attraction towards bitcoin, I don't think people would just back out investing in bitcoin if they knew there are applicable taxes to it because as far as the profit is bigger than the expenses then it is still a net gain.

A combination of both would be better. Trading has a higher risk but if you are both trading and mining then you would not be much affected by the emotional factor trading because you have a source of income aside from trading. Many people trading are losing because of their emotions being uncontrollable and many are just chasing their losses resulting to more losses. Because there are many people who are gaining significant amount of money, others are enticed to try it to but end up losing because of greediness and impatience. If you are mining, emotions doesn't matter and though the rate of return is not that big compared to trading, it is still profitable so better have both mining and trading. However, maybe it is better to mine altcoins than bitcoin since mining with a PC in bitcoin is not profitable anymore.

I don't think that there will be a bitcoin bank. The concept of bitcoin is to be your own bank eliminating the people or banks/financial institutions controlling your money for their own advantage. Besides, cryptocurrency is so volatile that it is hard to have a stable rate of interest in which case it could become an advantage or disadvantage to the creditor of the bank and to the bank as well in case someone put his money there like when the rate increase compared to fiat and banks only have a fix rate so it could become an advantage to the bank but if the exchange rate decrease then it would be a disadvantage to the bank which is bad for business because he is losing instead of profiting from it. However, there would be a possibility that a bitcoin bank can appear if fiat would be eliminated which means all are price in cryptocurrency value so there is no need for conversion rates and eventually it would be stable too but it is highly unlikely to happen.

I agree that this should be implemented everywhere so that those scammers would think twice before scamming people given that there is already a legal action that can be done in case they fail to deliver their promises. Moreover, people should always be careful when it comes to investing especially in cryptocurrencies because most of the time, we don't know the people behind those names or even if you can see their faces in the announcement thread, there is still a possibility that those are not their true faces. You should always do your due diligence because you work hard for your maoney so you should not just easily give it to someone without knowing if it is legit or not.

When it comes to token, anyone can just issue it and then add an additional name to an already existing one like OP mentioned Ethergold. The project is already fishy especially if they are asking for donation and then do a random airdrop without even a website and roadmap. Many of them just post airdrop and then ask for information without even mentioning what their project is all about and what are their goals.

There are a lot of signature campaigns to choose from. Just make sure that you are making a quality post because signature campaign managers are checking your post history first before letting you join a campaign. Also make sure to follow the rules of the campaign and generally the forum rules. Make a constructive post which can add information and value to the discussion. Aside from the links mentioned above, you can also find the overview of signature campaigns paying bitcoin here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=615953.0. It is updated from time to time so you can just check it in case you want to find a suitable campaign for you.

That question becomes a lot harder to answer as we see more and more of these projects pop up in the cryptocurrency world. Many people assumed Bitcoin Cash was a joke at first as well until it recently surged to US$2,800 per BCH. Moreover, we have seen various new Bitcoin-themed currencies and digital tokens come to market recently, which is something that needs to be addressed sooner or later.

On CoinMarketCap.com alone, we see many different Bitcoin clones listed. BitcoinDark, Bitcoin Plus, BitcoinZ, Bitcoin Scrypt, Bitcoin Red, and BitcoinFast are just some of those names. There are also a few Bitcoin-themed ERC20 tokens in circulation, which only makes matters even more confusing right now. If they weren’t enough, we now also have Bitcoin Cash Plus, although it is doubtful this is a real project in its current form.

While it is true the Bitcoin Cash network received a hard fork upgrade not too long ago, this particular currency has nothing to do with it whatsoever. Bitcoin Cash Plus will be provided to Bitcoin holders through an airdrop, which is scheduled to take place once network block 501,407 is discovered on the network. No one really knows how this airdrop will occur, as it is not a direct hard fork of the existing code. It is likely the approach will be similar to that of Bitcoin Gold in this regard, even though a lot of details have yet to be worked out, by the look of things.

As one would expect, Bitcoin Cash Plus purports to introduce some new features. The developers claim there will be an even bigger focus on decentralization by using the Equihash mining algorithm. This is the same algorithm used by Bitcoin Gold, which draws some interesting parallels between both airdropped currencies. Additionally, there will be on-chain scaling with a block size of 8MB, which puts it on par with Bitcoin Cash itself. Those are interesting design choices, to say the very least. How all of this will play out remains to be determined, though.

Furthermore, Bitcoin Cash Plus claims to offer an emergency difficulty adjustment algorithm. Such an EDA was removed from Bitcoin Cash through its hard fork not too long ago. There is also a new SigHash providing replay protection, which we have seen in other Bitcoin clones as well. Someone is seemingly attempting to combine the best of both worlds with a brand-new currency. It’s an interesting approach, assuming this is even a real project to begin with. That remains highly questionable at this point in time.

Assuming this project is genuine, the question becomes who will support this new cryptocurrency. That is very difficult to answer right now, as we have seen both wallets and exchanges become less keen on supporting such airdropped currencies for the time being. Even the integration of Bitcoin Cash itself has taken most service providers several weeks, if not months, to complete. Bitcoin Cash Plus is worth keeping an eye on, mainly because it may result in more free coins for Bitcoin holders. This entire situation is getting out of hand, though; that much no one can deny.

Source: https://themerkle.com/what-is-bitcoin-cash-plus/

Bitcointalk Username: entrepmind23
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The secret of the rich and successful is to make their money work for them instead of the opposite which is what is being done by most people. The good investor knows the risks involved when investing. They study the project well and in case their plan wouldn't work then they would have alternative solutions. They are patient and frugal as well. They do not spend their money in useless things. They are more keen to spend their money in assets than expenses because when it is spend on assets then it would generate more income and if they spend it on expenses then there would be no income generation. They know the importance of connections and up to date with what is happening around the world that may affect their investments.

Stop loss is important when you trade so that you can prevent being dumped on and if the price goes lower and you already lose half of the value of your account then you would wish that you should just have sold it when price was way above. Crypto is so volatile so there would be times when it reached your stop loss and then shoot up in which case you will miss out some profits but there are other opportunities to trade. You should always manage risk because it will burn your account if you don't use stop loss. The lower the price gets, the higher the percentage it should go back up in order for you to at least break-even so you might want to think twice of using stop loss or not. Example below:

Percentage Loss     Percentage Rise for the Price to Break Even
5%                             6%
10%                           11%                                                         
20%                           25%
30%                           43%
40%                           67%
50%                           100%

If you lose half of the value of your position then it needs to double in price in order for you to break-even.