I will speak like an economist. In one hand, this bull run reminds me the dot com era in 2000. If market goes up too fast, there be will some self correction sooner or later. But in another hand, bitcoin has both the scarcity and brand name. No fiat or other major cryptocurrency is protected by the scarcity like bitcoin. It is even better than gold from this perspective. Ethereum is more powerful in the technology sense, but bitcoin is the number one brand in this market and is the de-facto go-to cryptocurrency. I won't be surprised if it keeps going up. The key issue is your time horizon if you are investing or managing your crypto asset.

Of course Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency and first successful application of blockchain. Besides the technology I think the most impressive part is its quick adoption by the mass crowd without a company or government behind it. It is a truly successful case of community, self-governance and decentralization. There wasn't big money spent on marketing, sales or promotion. It is an example that marketing people should look up. For generations, marketeers have spent big money and effort trying to force or seduce the crowd watch the TV commercials, click online ad banner, or even junk mail is still alive. Big waste without much success because the corporate interest is not aligned with the consumers. We should rethink about marketing. I believe that community could be the next driver. The key point is that the community (consumers) have to be a stake holder.

There are many problems in the US. But I think the biggest one is many citizens are disenfranchised. It has caused many symptoms in this country, poverty, growing income gap, discrimination, and many others. There are many reasons. First is participation. US self claims itself the greatest democracy in the world. But it is a shame that turnout rate in the election is only 50%. Half of the country just doesn't give a damn or is indifferent. Second the power is aggregating more in the hands of a few, including corporates like google and facebook. Poors, even middle class pay the price in all kinds of crisis. Last, politics becomes a game of salesmanship, staged performance, trading among power, benefit and money. It is a gridlock. I think only thing will change this reality is a huge crisis which will wake up many people and force them to participate in their social life rather than social network. That's why I am hopeful that blockchain technology will mobile people from a different dimension.

I believe so. First, Bitcoin has many advantages over the traditional banking services, cheaper fee, real-time, more secure, etc. Second, it competes with many governments who usually abuse their money supply power and create inflation. Third, its borderless feature will empower people and force governments to compete for better regulation and policy.

I believe that the world will function as usual today in most part without BTC. There are many alternatives, fiat, credit card, etc. Still the BTC user market is fairly small compared to other financial instruments. But it is impossible for BTC to disappear or go away. First this technology is out there and can't be reversed. Second, public has learned the power of cryptocurrency and it is impossible to force them to forget. Train has left the station and it is impossible to have a world without BTC now.

First, I would stress the relativity. Success is relative rather than absolute. It is also context based. A common success 100 years ago may not make sense at all today. Second, we have to think about margin and measure success by benefit and cost. These two factors vary from individual to individual. Third, life is a journey rather than a destination. I think the ultimate success is that we are satisfied with our experience and in peace when we approach the end of life. Materials is a big part in all these three aspects but not all of them.

People could be looking smart if they get lucky. But being strategic won't guarantee success every time. So the point is what your time horizon is. If you are doing some investment for the long term, you'd better have a strategy. No one can be just smart or lucky for a long time without a strategy. Even for a short term game, right strategy will make you smarter in the sense of statistics.

Yes if they don't have to deal with cross border money transfer or inflation. If you take fiat to West Union and send it cross border, the fee could be as high as 20% in the worst case. In the countries with a high inflation, it is the poors who pick the tab. I definitely agree that education is a key. We got to understand our financial rights which is often violated in the fine prints.

Government will only accept the legitimacy of BTC if it can regulate at some level. But they have no clue how to do it now. Instead of waiting for some regulation coming out which may not make sense, crypto community is able to proactive shape the future regulation with government. Hong Kong and Taiwan government have create so called sandbox and let the startups experiment while government is watching. Those governments expect to learn from these experience and make some creative regulation.

Government will not accept bitcoin just because a lot of people use it. Government is risk avert and can't afford any big scale scam or security risk in public. If BTC can help government do this job, they will have incentive to embrace it. At the same time, Ripple is positioned different to work with the government for compliance and regulation and could be a competitor in this aspect.

They are at a cross road. In one hand, they don't want anybody challenge the government in the money making business. In another hand, they understand the blockchain technology will change this world dramatically. Expect some new policy with a twist coming out soon in China.

I think BTC will be one of the moneys in the future. Others, such as XRP and ETH, offer new technology and infrastructure and will be in the mainstream too.

Another good case study. I have seen a company that offers online BTC lottery. Same as what you find in the US. But they open source their software. Everyone can review the source code that generates the random numbers. They ever disclose the finance and accounting. I think it is as legal as the one run by government :-)

But with BTC, how do you define jurisdiction? If the company is registered in another country, domain name is registered out of US, and the owners/operatives are out of US too. How to enforce even it is illegal?

I have been in the corporate as well as self-govern community. You have to accept the reality that people are motivated by all kinds of reasons, noble cause, financial interest, title, power, ego, sex, and many other dark gains. We can't blame corporate, community, money or technology for these dark sides of human being. I am sure scammers will invent more scams on Bitcoin and people will be creative to use this new currency for their corruption agenda. The bottomline is this, whether it provides this world more good than bad? It is also a race between two camps as one tries to advance the benefit of the society as a whole as well as individuals while the other camp tries to advance a few individuals' benefit at the cost of the rest majority.

Paper money will be used less but will not go away. Money will be digitized more but security breach will draw people, especially government, back to paper money. Crypto will continue boom but need to get over the hurdle of regulation and security before it becomes accepted by mass market.

You can consider a peer to peer ATM like ABRA offers. Even merchant chain store like 7-11 could potentially be your ATM partner.

Both bitcoin and ethereum are still in the infant stage and will grow a lot. With smart contract, I believe that ethereum is a good direction for the community to go. Actually both community need to deal with many unsettled issues, such as concentrated power and control, security and scalability.

I would like to add one more point. The money supply of both fiat and crypto surely increases as many countries are printing money and new cryptocurrencies have been created. If we take something as a standard measure of price, such as a McDonalds' Big Mac, and its price will surely inflate after the burger could be purchased by cash and crypto. The real world inflation will have impact on crypto as well.

Besides BTC, I think real estate will be a good investment too. The boom of crypto increases the money supply and fiat will have inflation. Then real estate is a good anti-inflation asset.