Just found another super fast transaction speed (can compare with Ripple). This is Stellar Lumens (XLM). 3-5 second confirmation time Supports thousands of transactions per second
Some other compare if you need: Ripple - 3-5 second ledger closes Ethereum - 15 second block times Litecoin - 2.5 minute block times Bitcoin - 10 minute block times

If you have the risk appetite the high yield investments today would be crypto currencies. With large number of ICO’s and most of them just on white paper without yet actually having a platform the only money that gets made on those tokens is by speculation. You can check any crypto exchanges (Bittrex, Kraken etc.) to get a feel of the volatility and returns (positive and negative)

Hard to answer and give the opinion on this. But, even how profitable it is with Bitcoin investment, we surely cannot compare with real estate investment. Why? Easy. The current floating risk. Eventough Bitcoin has increase a lot in just a short period of time, but there’s still a risk on it because of the floating price moving too fast and even there’s a high potential for Bitcoin to increase in next 5 years or whatever, but there’s still a risk on that. Unlikely Bitcoin, real estate investment increase slowly from day to day, month to month, year to year and decades to decades but trust me, for long term investment real estate will always be the champion.

Is supply or demand every going to change? Yes, every moment of every day. Shitcoins are all the fashion these days. I hear Ripple is super legit with ties to the banking industry. And it only costs $1.

General precautions you can take for safer bitcoin investments are:

Store your bitcoins safely, a hardware wallet like Ledger Nano S is the safest option( Hardware wallets are disconnected from online network)
It’s better not to invest when the bitcoin prices are skyrocketed and when it is showing a overall decreasing pattern
Safety is the first concern, so never misplace or lose your bitcoin wallet private key
Exchanges get hacked all the time( Search up the recent hack on Korean exchange Bithumb), so i’m mentioning again, use a safe hardware wallet

It's not best practice but don't listen to the people that tell you it's dumb. If you know enough to secure your own money than that is a far better option but if you have not yet put in the effort to learn you might make a mistake so letting coinbase handle it is a fine option. That said you absolutely should make an effort to learn enough to do it safely yourself and a hardware wallet will make it much easier.

The basis of the whole crypto-currency movement is anonymity. But anonymity makes it impossible to borrow money. Who would lend money to someone whose identity they didn’t and couldn’t know? So what good is a currency that you can’t borrow?

That doesn’t mean it will crash, but structurally it can never become a widely used currency, because it can’t process enough transactions and can’t easily be borrowed. Bitcoin is an asset, not a currency.

Reasons why Bitcoins won’t work:

Bitcoins have always been sought most by libertarians, gold bugs and drug dealers. The other biggies who have given approval of Bitcoins are Germany and Ben Bernanke (Ex-chairman of the Federal Reserve). The recent surge in prices (1 Bitcoin equals 40212.40 Indian Rupees: September 2016) gives us the impression it is a classic bubble waiting to burst.
The main buyers of Bitcoins are the Chinese investors. This increase in price of Bitcoins has led to hoarding giving the idea that the prices are only going up. This has not been the only concern for Bitcoins as there have been a lot of theft because of its high prices.
The biggest selling point for Bitcoins are that it has a fixed ceiling, meaning no upper level authority can inflate its prices by issuing more.

If I have to pay a higher price than fiat.

For me, if you use Bitcoin, the price must be the same, or better, cheaper.

You don’t need a bank to store Bitcoins. With Bitcoin, YOU are your own bank.

YOU have to take all the precautions to protect your funds (backup and password protection and safety).

You could use a bank to store your offline wallet passphrase, though.

Bitcoin is a global currency, so the target audience is not really one group or type of person (and not just humans in a futuristic AI world).  But the early majority of users would be people who value privacy, globalization, and decentralization.  It started out being popular with libertarian and anarchist types but has expanded to a more diverse audience as more people get interested in it, and it becomes easier to use.     

I was losing confidence around 6k but no way in hell im selling on a dip.

It helps when you're not over-invested. If I had thrown serious savings in I would've been panicking.

This is very simple, really…
Bitcoin has crashed before and recovered. It is a near certainty that it will do the same multiple times more but with less price volatility.
Bitcoin has undergone incredible crashes in the past, you’re likely well aware of that by now. What you should note is that each time, it managed to recover.

I would look at history for an answer to this question. So my question is this:

Did people use cryptocurrencies before governments officially accepted them or had a stance on them?

The answer is yes. If governments banned them, I believe people would still use them. That’s kinda the whole point of decentralized cryptocurrencies. Government can ban them, but cannot stop the use of them.

Governments that foster free markets won’t over regulate crypto currencies. They’ll regulate enough to protect its citizens from fraud like scammy ICO’s. They might go as far as to trying to eliminate privacy coins for tax purposes and stifle money laundering. But beyond that, they’ll sit on the side lines and let the crypto market grow and evolve. As for bitcoin, it’s up to the market whether it lives or dies.

Investing in Bitcoin, or any cryptocurrency for that matter, is not what I would call a safe investment. If you want a more stable market, look to more traditional stocks and shares.
Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, and as such have a tendency to have massive surges and crashes in price.
Cryptocurrency is a fun pastime, but it is important that you never invest anymore than you are willing to lose. This goes for any investment.

Of course it is a bubble, stupid to argue with obvious.

But what makes bitcoin unique is that each bubble (bull run) increases adoption which in turn generates new bubble which increases adoption and the whole sequence of bubbles is one bigger bubble and that also increases adoption.

Highly unlikely. Bitcoin is currently most popular crypto currency right now.
Although it doesn't have much of real life implementation or usage it's still a crypto contenders for future.
The community is active, it's technology is growing and improving at steady pace. Recent lightning implementation could give a push over its strength against new ico or competiting coins.

Bitcoin is not exactly illegal, but it is very difficult to use in a legal manner, and most utilizations will be questionable, if not actually illegal. However, I think the concern about governments shutting down currency is a red herring, at least regarding the US government, which actually subsidized the Ithaca Hours system of alternative currency, via its Vista program. Governments aren’t nearly as emotional about currency as currency geeks think, and the issues they have are much more situational than philosophical.

All the hype is from lack of knowledge of what bitcoin and how it is used. Talking with people everyday it is clear they have no idea what it is. However we are seeing new users daily added to the exchange sites so the awareness is growing rapidly.