Traditionally, gold is a "safe haven" investment. This is particularly evident in the various economic crises that have occurred around the world, where investors would retreat to gold, such as the case in the '00-'01 recession and 2008 GFC. However, it also depends on which markets are affected, as well as the economy you find yourself in due to the different effects your currency has on the price of gold versus the USD/GBP/EUR/AUD/JPY etc.

Investors flock to gold in times of incredulous downward volatility because it's quite static. Instead of losing money in the stock market during perilous time, gold entices by offering stability with it's relative static price movements. Although even gold isn't the only "safe haven" investment, and some would argue there are less risky alternatives such as government bonds. Other investors instead seek to capitalise on these movements rather than merely storing value, such as hedging by going long on the VIX or volatility index.

Volatility and value storage isn't the only benefit gold has over Bitcoin, other positives include more liquidity, established base value and the fact that Bitcoin only has 2% of the market cap gold does.

That is not to say Bitcoin isn't a great asset, but it really depends on what you want out of your investment. Bitcoin is extremely speculative and has higher risks than most other financial instruments, but it may also yield a higher reward, as is evident in some of Bitcoin's movements having more than double the volatility of gold, it depends on what, when and why.

If you're looking to preserve your wealth in the short-term, gold, government bonds and cash is the way to go. If you want to increase your wealth with little risk, combine the previous assets with stock ETFs when things look brighter. If, after all that, you have leftover funds and already factored in emergency savings, a small bet on Bitcoin may be well worth it for your future.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news to holders, however in a shock surprise (at least to me) - they've made an announcement on their blog that they're winding down operations, redistributing assets back to the community and CFI trading activity will be halted at Friday, September 14 at 12:00 CET.

https://blog.cofound.it/closing-cofound-it-as-crowdfunding-market-disappears-and-presenting-good-practice-for-icos-796db5e001b8

Anyone with more knowledge on the situation that can chime in? Was this a long time coming or a big shock?

How will the be redistributing assets? Is it possible that insiders sold right before the announcement?

EDIT: There's been another update and with more info on the redistribution of assets:

https://blog.cofound.it/introduction-roadmap-af329fa2c9f3

I'm sorry to deliver the bad news to everyone, but Cofound.it is closing down.

https://blog.cofound.it/closing-cofound-it-as-crowdfunding-market-disappears-and-presenting-good-practice-for-icos-796db5e001b8

Apparently Bulletproofs can reduce the average tx from 15kb to something like 1.5kb-3kb which is still slightly larger than Bitcoin's 0.5kb but definitely a significant improvement. Would something like RuffCT/StringCT reduce that even more? I'm also curious if we would be able to prune the blockchain in the future, like Aeon or Boolberry do - although Monero can't use the same method IIRC.

Monero also stores UTXO on-disk with denormalised database indices/LMDB rather than on-memory like Bitcoin, so although their blockchain isn't growing as fast as Monero currently, they will still suffer from a growing UTXO set in time, although hard drive storage is getting cheaper every year and there's always room for more optimisations and off-chain scaling solutions.

I'm not an expert though, so I'd love if someone could chime in and correct me if I'm wrong.

Ah right, thanks - I had a feeling I was wrong, looks like I was calculated the current price when I should've calculated the individual prices people are quoting on the order book.

The 2nd screenshot looks to be from a different time but the time is not visible so I can't confirm.

It looks like the user is referring to the depth stats like the total BTC/RFR on sell and buy. I'll analyse the second screenshot to keep things consistent.

On the buyers side, there is a total of 17285205.223 RFR which is supposed to be 11.7 BTC worth, however Bittrex is saying it's worth 4.319 BTC. The same thing goes for the sellers and the other screenshots.

Now when I log in to verify this is true, on the buyers side there is 16865062.813 RFR which is supposed to be worth 11.42 BTC however Bittrex is showing  4.576 BTC.

It looks like the prices do not match at all...I'm not sure if this is a bug or I'm misunderstanding the intention of the numbers. Other coins have some mismatches like this too, but only a small amount which shows it might be just the price the users are paying on the exchange, however the RFR market is quite amplified in this example and it looks like they're paying more for RFR?

Can someone chime in to see if I'm missing something here?

You can only get merit if you buy HoweyCoins.

Or, you can do it the hard way by reading the unofficial FAQ

Wow, I'm sorry you're feeling this way and wish you all the best.

First and foremost, stop trading and investing into ICOs, if you're not that financially well of it's not going to end well - especially since your having some personal issues at the moment. Trading should only be done in a clear state of mind and if you can afford it. Even then I'd advise to just keep some money in Bitcoin and a large-cap coin, nothing small - but ONLY if you have the money and don't trade with it, just leave it and forget about it. This stuff isn't important man, don't stress over it.

Now, with your girlfriend, I really think you have to sit down with her and talk about how you're feeling and you're worried about the finances. If she likes you she'll definitely understand.

The key takeaways here are, be honest to her and to yourself. Don't spend money on ICOs or trading if you're struggling financially or mentally.

If you need someone to talk to, you can hit me up. Look after yourself mate, good luck with everything!

I personally don't like the idea of spanking or any corporal punishment and wouldn't do that if I had kids.

I'm also glad my parents never did that. Spanking children is a lazy way of punishing your kid, it's much better to teach them why what they did was wrong rather than just hit them. And rewarding good behaviour via positive reinforcement is much better than simply punishing them which should only be a last resort imo.

Spanking should only be for pleasure between consenting adults.

The most motivational or inspirational films would have to be (oh boy I didn't expect a mega-list):

The Pursuit of Happyness
Rocky
Life Is Beautiful (La Vita è Bella)
Pay It Forward
Forrest Gump
Goodwill Hunting
Dead Poets Society
The Blind Side
The Theory of Everything
The Shawshank Redemption
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Rush
Schindler's List
Slumdog Millionaire
To Kill A Mockingbird
Remember The Titans
42
Freedom Writers
A Beautiful Mind
Braveheart
The Lord of the Rings
Fight Club
V for Vendetta
Hacksaw Ridge
Interstellar
Warrior
Southpaw
Inception
12 Angry Men
In the Name of the Father
Shutter Island
Up
Cinderella Man
Gladiator
Patch Adams
The Green Mile
Million Dollar Baby
A Few Good Men
Law Abiding Citizen
Saving Private Ryan
Glory
Chariots of Fire
Hotel Rwanda
The Mighty Ducks
The Killing Fields
Amazing Grace

If anyone needs help quitting smoking, my friends and I have tried many options but the only one that worked wonders was vaping.

It's a lot less harmful and cheaper. Just buy a good vape kit and a couple bottles of ejuice flavours and you're good to go.

I can also help you if you need advice or try one of the vaping communities.

When it comes to computer programming and software engineering, the language is not important. Many newbies always ask "Which language is best?" etc and there is not one single answer. The most important thing is just starting to program and learning how to solve real-world problems, starting with easier tasks and progressing your way up as you learn the syntax and different problem-solving techniques.

However, I'd say Python is one of the easiest languages to start off with and learn, it's also quite versatile and can be used for web apps, scripts, software, IoT, data manipulation/analysis etc. C is a lot harder, but definitely worth learning at some point because it's used in many applications and software around the world. C is crucial from Linux to 3d game engines.

I highly recommend both languages, but Python is definitely the 1st choice for beginners.

Not saying I support them as I feel bad for their victims but you'd think that hackers and botnets using Monero would be a positive sign due to the privacy benefits.

I don't like Trump at all but I'll gladly take him over Erdogan any day.

Erdogan is a authoritarian who constantly increases his own powers and reduces the civil liberties of his citizens. He is always vying for more control over the media, attacking the free press with seizures and jailing journalists and rival politicians who dare to criticize him, even trying this with foreign editors. Don't just take my word for it, Reporters Without Borders calls Turkey "the world’s biggest prison for journalists."

He even said democracy and freedom have "no value" to him! He sees himself as the next best Turkish leader after Ataturk when he is the opposite. He is hostile to Kurds and leans towards radicalism.

This is a shame because Turkey is a beautiful place with beautiful people, it could have been a secular nation of freedom and tolerance - but Erdogan has another vision. One of hate and power.

I hope Turkey can eventually replace him with a better leader.

Just a note, don't just buy/sell what everyone else says - just take what they say as a springboard for researching ideas yourself.

That being said, I personally feel you should at least have a decent percentage of Bitcoin and most of your holdings are projects that have a lot of hype, especially in Asia.

I'm fascinated by ADA, but it's risky because they're valued quite high without a big working ecosystem. A small holding in it is okay though.

I'm not an expert in supply chain projects like VET and have done little research on WAN, ICON and ONT. I'm also a little skeptical of EOS and NEO due to lack of decentralisation, so is XRP but I guess they're target market is financial institutions anyway.

OMG looks pretty cool, but I'm unsure how it compares to projects like 0x, Komodo, Kyber, Loopring and Blocknet.

Is there any utility for people holding or buying SolarCoin rather than speculative purposes? If I understand correctly, Solarcoin rewards users for the amount of solar generated, which may increase selling pressure. I'm just wondering as someone who doesn't have access to renewable energy what the coins could be used for.

There's quite a few subreddits that are worth looking into and it all depends on the type of content and discussions you are looking for. You can also find coin-specific communities however there's too many to list.

For Bitcoin related discussion:

r/Bitcoin
r/BitcoinBeginners
r/BitcoinMarkets
r/BitcoinDiscussion
r/BitcoinMining

For general cryptocurrency discussion and content:

r/CryptoCurrency
r/CryptoTechnology
r/CryptoMarkets

Other:

r/EthTrader
r/GPUmining

Crypto Memes:

r/CryptoCurrencyMemes
r/CryptoHumor

Here's a link to the r/CC wiki which contains a link to useful resources as well as other subs:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/wiki/directory

Quite a predicament, indeed.

Just understand it can take a bit of time. The mods or admins are likely very busy both inside and outside this forum and probably receive hundreds of notifications a day so it may take some time. They also have to look at each circumstance with fresh eyes to make sure you are 100% the original owner.

Make your case as detailed as possible with evidence and above all be patient and kind.

Good luck!

It's actually marginally better to drink warm water on a hot day, rather than cold water. Apparently, your body works harder to adjust the cold temperature of the water to your body and cool you down faster. The warmer temperature also encourages sweating (seems counter-intuitive) however is a natural response that can cool you down as long as you're letting the sweat evaporate into the air rather than getting it trapped into thick layers of clothing.

I'm not sure there is sufficient evidence that makes this certain, but at least that's what I've read.

https://www.billi-uk.com/does-drinking-ice-cold-water-on-a-hot-day-cool-you-down/

https://www.joe.ie/life-style/hot-drinks-hot-weather-592098

https://www.quora.com/Does-drinking-cold-water-increase-the-body-heat-or-reduce-it

I can help you with that if you want or with anything else you need.

Just FYI for some reason I can't message you on this account, probably because this is a newer account of mine with "newbie" status so you have to change your settings if you want private responses from others.