What I should say is, you don't need to put all of your bitcoins into cold storage. You can keep the coins that you want to use in a hot wallet. If you own 10+ bitcoins do you need them all out to use?

I don't understand what your saying.

“Cold storage” refers to keeping your bitcoins out of reach of the internet(hackers) and computers that could become potentially infected with malware or viruses.

Yeah this is what we suggest you use in our 5 step guide that is linked in the original post

This is why its best to use a computer that has never been online before.

You have to ask yourself the question are you in for the short or long term. If your in for the short term best of luck I hope you make some money. If you choose long term put your bitcoins in cold storage, there is going to be crashes/bubbles just like there has been i think 8 now and if you keep selling at those lows your never going to win.

I understand the hassle but if your going to invest a large amount of money into Bitcoin people need to make these steps. A couple weeks ago there was a story on /r/bitcoin of a guy that had 30+ bitcoins stolen from a hot wallet, I don't know about you but almost $30,000 seems worth the hassle.

Does anyone have any thoughts on why people don't put them in cold storage?

Why do people not put their Bitcoins in Cold Storage? It's pretty sad when you hear people losing 5-10-20 Bitcoins because there online wallets got hacked. Please stop risking so much money to be stolen, if your new to Bitcoin or you don't know how to put your bitcoin(s) into cold storage I've put together 5 Steps To Place Bitcoins in Cold Storage.

I'm glad you also enjoyed it. If you have any suggestions as to what you think people would like to learn about please let me know.

I'm assuming most merchants that are using a service like Bitpay are transferring most of their coins to the dollar. Now my question is does this hurt the bitcoin market in the long term?

Thank you, I'm glad you found this post helpful. Feel free to share this post with your friends that are just getting into Bitcoin.

Edit: This is my first post here and I just want to say hello and happy new year.

Peer-To-Peer

A peer-to-peer (P2P) network, in contrast with a centralized network, operates in a decentralized fashion where individual nodes (referred to as peers) both serve and consume resources. Peers share their resources, processing power in the case of bitcoin, and make them directly available to other participants in the network. This precludes the need for a central server to coordinate and manage connections.

Proof-of-Work

A proof-of-work (POW) system helps deter fraud and dishonesty on a network by requiring work from the service requester, processing power in the case of bitcoin. Specifically with bitcoin, an implementation of Hashcash is used. A time-stamp is added to the coin transaction that can only be found using brute force–guessing until correct. Asymmetry of the work means that it is moderately hard for the requester to perform the task but quick and easy for the service provider to check and verify.

Nodes

In terms of computer networks, a node refers to a connection point. In the case of bitcoin, nodes represent computers or servers physically connected to the internet that run current implementations of the bitcoin protocol software. These nodes work together by sending, receiving, and forwarding information to each other in a way agreed upon inherent to the software code behind bitcion. Node is derived from the Latin nodus, meaning knot, and in the case of bitcoin operating a peer-to-peer network, nodes serve to tie together all other nodes into a web or mesh.

Network Operation

The operation of the network is fairly simple. Each new transaction is broadcast to all nodes that then collect them into groups called blocks. Nodes work on performing the proof-of-work for blocks and, when found, broadcast that block to all other nodes. Other nodes only accept new blocks if all transactions contained in it are valid and not previously spent. Acceptance of the block is expressed by other nodes utilizing the block and building further blocks on top of it, adding to the chain of trust. This serves to make it even more difficult to defraud because a dishonest node would need to overcome all other nodes in attempting to propagate the fraudulent transactions.

Incentive For Honesty

Within each block of transactions, the first transaction produces a new coin owned by the node that compiled the block. If the node is able to complete proof-of-work on the block and gain acceptance for it from other nodes, the person or organization claims valid ownership of the newly minted coin. This also serves as a method for distributing coins into circulation without requiring an issuing central authority.

Privacy

Where traditional banking models achieve privacy of some degree by limiting public access to information, the public announcement operation of bitcoin precludes this method. However, privacy can still be achieved by keeping your public key, essentially your account number, anonymous. The general public can see that someone is sending a certain amount of bitcoin to someone else, but without knowing who may be the owner of each account. This is very similar to information released about stock exchanges.

Source: ProBitcoiner.com

Don't think you're (the reader) going to get rich fast on anything as your probably going to get burned. Only invest what you can afford to lose in Bitcoin or any other alt coins