[Whether you are in USA, Asia, Europe, Arabia, India, Africa, etc. which digital payment processor do you prefer, and why?]

Right after a huge increase in BTC price, some daily traders are tempted to convert BTC to local FIAT currency to make a profit.
There are many ways to do this, depending on your country of residence.

You can use either a Bitcoin debit card or a direct Bitcoin transfer to your local bank account. If you are in Europe you can use BITWALA
or Cashila for example, to convert from BTC to EUR and withdraw from your local bank account with your bank debit card.

You can also use the e-coin (or wirex) web terminal to convert from BTC to EUR and withdraw EUR with your e-coin or Xapo Bitcoin debit
card at any local ATM.

Whether you are in USA, Asia, Europe, Arabia, India, Africa, etc. which digital payment processor do you prefer, and why?

[Another bonus point for Ethereum? share your comments]

Voting on the blockchain sounds like a good idea, promising to eliminate fraud while providing complete transparency.
In practice, blockchain voting is difficult to implement in a way that both keeps the votes private and doesn’t require a third party.

There are a few voting apps already out there, like the Blockchain Voting Machine, Follow My Vote and TIVI, that use the blockchain
as a ballot box. But each of these, in some way or another, relies on a third party to achieve voter privacy.

Recently, the research scientist Patrick McCorry has proposed a secure voting scheme that involves no third party for privacy –
or for tallying votes. Patrick McCorry's Open Vote Network is a smart contract written in Solidity, where ethereum takes over
the work of the trusted third party.

McCorry has said that the project – the code for which is now available on Github – also demonstrates that ethereum can support
cryptography, as the Open Vote Network uses both ElGamal and zero-knowledge proofs.

He concluded by saying that he and his team are moving on to research use of the blockchain for larger-scale elections.

Another bonus point for Ethereum? share your comments

[Do you agree crowdsourcing is good for Steemit?]

Decentralized social media platform Steemit has announced a new marketing direction and the launch of a “crowdsourced growth” initiative.
The plan is taking Steemit from a crypto-centric project to a household name.

By leveraging the wisdom of the crowd to amplify and multiply the impact of marketing efforts, Steemit will build out countless sub-communities,
each incentivized to grow until Steemit joins the ranks of the social media giants.

Therefore, crowdsourcing will play a significantly larger part in determining the Steemit platform’s future.

Do you agree crowdsourcing is good for Steemit?

[Would you use a Bitcoin trading bot instead of you?]

Cryptocurrency trading isn’t easy, but there are many people who have honed the art of trading bitcoins and altcoins on a daily basis.
Interestingly enough, most people don’t realize that many cryptocurrency traders use trading bots to execute trades faster and more
efficiently, and sometimes even in their sleep.

They are called bots because the programs execute trades like humans do, but they do it autonomously and can operate continuously
without having to rest. Trading bots or algorithmic trading is a technique that uses pre-programmed software that analyzes market
actions, such as time, price, orders, and volume.

There are bots that are free of charge and can be downloaded online. Some people have also designed their own bitcoin trading bot
software. Then, there are trading bot services you have to pay for, offered by various trading engine and programming companies.

Would you use a Bitcoin trading bot instead of you?

This past weekend on April 1-2 in Berlin, Germany, a group of various bitcoin developers met to discuss industry-wide wallet standards.
The “Bitcoin Wallet Standards Initiative” had some of the most popular and leading wallet representatives within the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Bitcoin wallets developers share a mutual interest when building the cryptocurrency wallets we all use today.
Lots of companies use similar industry standards within the bitcoin wallet environment like deterministic wallet infrastructure, security features and more.

This weekend a large group of bitcoin wallet developers met at the popular bitcoin-accepting bar in Berlin, Room 77.
The Bitcoin Wallet Standards Initiative (S3ND) had wallet representatives from fifteen different platforms attend among other industry developers.

What do you think about the Bitcoin Wallet Standards Initiative?

[Do you agree SibCoin could outperform DASH?]

SibCoin is a DASH fork, employing additional encryption algorithms devised by Russian cryptographers. The coin’s adoption has been growing rapidly ever since the first block was mined in May 2015.
SibCoin’s masternode network volume continues to outgrow that of its parent coin (DASH).

In January 2017, SibCoin’s masternode network volume exceeded that of its parent coin (DASH), and the gap continues to widen.
SibCoin is striving to become the driving force behind the consolidation of Russian blockchain community. A Chinese language implementation on its website opens the gate for China’s crypto-enthusiasts and professional traders alike.

Do you agree SibCoin could outperform DASH?

[Are you riding the waves?]

Waves’ decentralized exchange (DEX) has been deployed on mainnet and Matcher transactions are live.
You can currently access it via a full node. In due course, it will be integrated with the GUI in the lite client,
allowing anyone to use it without any technical knowledge or blockchain downloads.

Are you riding the waves?

Cryptocurrency has reached a new all-time high market capitalization, building on previous highs set earlier this year.
According to data from Coinmarketcap.com, the combined cap of Bitcoin and altcoins reached $27.85 bln on April 2nd.

24 hour trading volumes across the exchanges registered by the site came in at $856.3 mln. While this was not a new
record in itself, figures rose throughout Sunday to challenge previous highs set in 2017. This year has seen bigger
trading volumes than any other.

is the right time to invest in cryptocurrency?

Two new scaling solutions, SegWit2MB and extension blocks, are getting praise and scorn from Bitcoin’s best-known names.
Segregated Witness implementation with 2-megabyte blocks, itself not a new concept, is gathering prominence now after Bitcoin security engineer Sergio Lerner introduced it to the Core mailing list.
While not a “perfect” solution either technically or politically, Lerner notes, it goes some way towards being a compromise in an increasingly stagnant scaling debate deadlock.

What is your comment on this?

[Do you think confidentiality is important for blockchain technology adoption?]

Bitcoin startup Blockstream has unveiled new technology for shielding data on a blockchain.
Expanding on an old technique used to hide transaction amounts, the company has developed a new scheme dubbed 'confidential assets'
to conceal the types of assets in a transaction. Revealing just how the tech works, the startup has released a new paper yesterday,
co-authored by Blockstream developers Andrew Poelstra, Adam Back, Mark Friedenbach, Greg Maxwell and Pieter Wuille.

Using confidential assets, viewers of a blockchain would be able to see a transaction's senders and receivers, but not what kind of asset
is traded – whether bitcoin, stocks, gold, or something else.

Do you think confidentiality is important for blockchain technology adoption?

[Do you think every merchant will want to use LN?]

Located in Germany’s ‘Bitcoin city’ of Kreuzberg, Room77 is the first bar/restaurant in Berlin to accept bitcoin for payments.
The popular hangout for Bitcoiners has been taking the digital currency directly, with zero confirmations, for several years.

On Saturday 1st of April, Room77’s owner Joerg Platzer announced on Reddit: Today we have deployed a testnet Lightning node and accept
testnet coins via the Lightning Network (LN) from a few customers to get a glimpse into the future. And that future looks shining bright!

With Lightning, he explained that transactions arrive in milliseconds instead of the usual seconds.

Do you think every merchant will want to use LN?

[Sending remittances with Bitcoin: which one do you prefer?]

Sending remittances with Bitcoin: which one do you prefer?

There are several options nowadays for expatriates workers, migrants, businesses and just anybody to send money abroad. They even use the Bitcoin blockchain, without you as a customer having to deal with any Bitcoin at all. They offer low prices and you could also use them from your smartphone or tablet. Some of these options are ABRA, Veem (no app yet), Circle and Volabit.

Have you used any of those lately? which one do you prefer?

[Any news about Mycelium SWISHCOIN ICO?]

Any news about Mycelium SWISHCOIN ICO?

Swish is a clever twist on an old idea: menus. Swish turns paper menus into electronic ones. The target market for Swish is small to medium sized shops; Swish will provide cheap and efficient PoS services to small businesses. To access this service, business owners need to register on the Swish site, create a menu and enter all their business details. When the system is setup, clients can access the menus via a mobile phone and an internet connection. Customers can find these pages by scanning QR codes posted in various parts of the restaurant or shop, clients will be able to order and pay directly using a credit card or a mobile phone for their purchases through the Swish pages.

https://swish.mycelium.com/

However, after raising 11 BTC in 15 January this year, their webpage and wallets do not work properly; it is not even possible to access them. There is no social media update about the SWISHCOIN ICO, nor do they reply emails.

Does anybody know updates about this ICO, were they hacked, perhaps?

[Digital Asset Management Platforms: Would you invest in ICONOMI?]

Digital Asset Management Platforms: Would you invest in ICONOMI?

Besides the projects ICONOMI and Melonport, there are several other projects that are working on future products and platforms for digital assets management such as: Equibit, Coindash, i2 and Etherplan. However, the only project starting soon is ICONOMI. It is noted that this project includes the Iconomi Open Fund Management (OFM) platform. In the Iconomi OFM, users can choose between two investment types with different risk and profit levels, Coin Traded Funds (CTFs) and Coin Managed Funds (CMFs).

Iconomi (ICN) tokens allow users to vote regarding the platform's development and they pay out dividends from the profits generated by the Iconomi OFM platform.

Would you invest in ICONOMI? Do you think this is good for the popularization of digital currencies?

[can break above $1,100 again?]

What do you think about Bitcoin’s markets at the moment? Do you think bitcoin can break above $1,100 again?  Or is the price going below the $1,000 range once again? What are your thoughts on the altcoin markets? Let us know your price predictions and outlook in the comments below.

[Maidsafe, Sia or Storj, which one do you like the most?]

Maidsafe, Sia or Storj, which one do you like the most?

Decentralized storage solutions are a great way to address centralized server issues. Various cryptocurrency projects are working towards achieving this goal. They are Maidsafe, Sia and Storj, which one do you like the most?

Maidsafe not only look to improve decentralized storage, but they are also big fans of improved efficiency. Maidsafe aims to become a crowd-sourced internet, removing any threats related to data theft and surveillance. Moreover, everyone who provides unused computing resources to SAFE will allow users to get paid in the native safecoin token.

Sia is all about providing decentralized and incentivized storage competitive with centralized alternatives such as Amazon S3. Sia has a strong focus on the enterprise sector and providing a fast, reliable, and cost-efficient service. Sia supports on-blockchain smart contracts incentivizing hosts to store files if they want to get paid.

Storj shares a lot of similarities with how Sia developers are going about their decentralized storage model, yet it does not offer on-chain smart contracts in its current iteration. Automating agreements between hosters and uploaders is well worth exploring moving forward, although their pay-as-you-go model has a lot of potential as well.

Do you have experience using/testing Maidsafe, Sia or Storj, which one do you like the most?

Litecoin prices surged nearly 70% yesterday, ending months of stagnant market activity. According to the data, most of the trading has taken place on Poloniex, OKCoin and Huobi. As of today, Litecoin 24 hour volume is greater than Ethereum by nearly 20%.
 
Some say this is due to the efforts to integrate segregated witness (segwit) with Litecoin. Others say that traders are simply chasing possible gains in the altcoin markets.

What is your opinion on this? Do you think both Bitcoin and Litecoin will get segwit integration? How will this affect their prices? Which one will get segwit integration first: Bitcoin or Litecoin?