Just get like .1 Bitcoin, costs about USD$20 or something.  Almost everyone here could do that if they wanted.  Mow a lawn for someone, shovel some snow.  Whatever it takes.  That's how you start from almost nothing.  Keep doing that.  Ten years from now you've got an excellent stash and will be glad you did.

I agree, it is never wise to put all your eggs in one basket.  Try a number of different ways of preserving wealth.  AG and AU are tried and true, for example.  Get some and forget about the market ups and downs.  Its for a measure of safety (at least you have something other than paper money) so you can sleep at night.

Some people may have thousands of coins now, but that never lasts.

People die or spend coins on cars and houses and trips, give them to their kids and grand kids.  Just sitting in a wallet the bitcoins are useless.  So they will be spent or traded eventually - putting the bitcoins into circulation where you too can obtain them for yourself!

I don't know about you, but if I were middle aged (and we all get there eventually) and had a pile of bitcoins, I would be out there enjoying life, traveling, having the time of my life and putting those bitcoins to good use.  Afterall, the most valuable commodity of all is the short LIFE we have.  Not bitcoins.

Create something of value and people will hand over bitcoins and money for your goods or services.  Yes, it's true - you too can thrive, even become wealthy, through honest effort and work!

If bitcoin survives, the general trend will likely be up as people and businesses come on board.  The whole concept is very new to the vast majority of people, also known as the "herd".  The herd is skittish because they are unsure.  They bolt at the slightest provocation.  Over time the wild swings will likely smooth out much as most stable currencies.

IMHO, if bitcoin lasts then even buying at this most recent top will eventually pay off.

One strategy is to set aside X-number of dollars every week (an amount you can afford to loose, NOT your lunch money) and exchange it for whatever bitcoin the going rate allows.  This averages everything out.  In the long run good returns result while greatly simplifying efforts.

By "long run" I don't mean a week or a month or two.  Several years and more.  One day you may be quite pleased with the results.

Spot on.  Not worth anything until you actually exchange it for something.  Until then, just some numbers on your screen.

Yep.  Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

It's 51% of people telling the other 49% what to do.

Once the herd discover they can vote themselves other peoples money, it is all down hill from there. 

In America and many other places they have discovered they can vote themselves other peoples money.  And if the producers don't hand over their hard earned money, the violence of Government will be unleashed upon them.  The ill-gotten gains are spent on social welfare programs and (most of it) on management of the corrupt system - breeding dependance and lifestyle choices of sloth vs becoming productive members of society.

The economy swirls down the toilet bowl.  We have seen this happen time and time again throughout history.  People never learn.

What makes you think the opportunity is lost?  As bitcoin gains popularity 100x as many people as now may be using it.  This is still the beginning.

Why be jealous of people who took the risks before you even knew about bitcoin?  The pioneers.  They got there first and found alot of the gold that on the surface of the ground and easy pickings.  Great for them.  They put in the time and took the risks before it was anything like established.  It all could have evaporated.

Now that these people have blazed a trail, find a way to get some of that good stuff for yourself.  You have a great advantage they didn't have: you KNOW bitcoins are valuable and likely to be viable for some time to come!

Create a business that accepts bitcoins.  Or work to get money to purchase bitcoins with.

Or you can cry in your milk and do nothing.

Your call.

Well, there is a bit of a difference.  I haven't seen any gold ATM's (maybe they exist) and I have not ever witnessed someone making a purchase at a restaurant using gold.

Bicoin, yes on both counts.

And when nearly every cafe, bar, grocery store, and online website is accepting bitcoin what will happen to the value of bitcoin?

Will they be accepting gold too?  Maybe.

I dunno.  Just putting it out there for consideration.

One good thing about the run-up, and very important, is that it puts Bitcoin into the mainstream media spotlight once again.

Whether it rises or falls, if you are still holding your coins you have lost or gained nothing.  Just numbers on a screen you are looking at.  It is only when you exchange them for goods or services or another currency that any real profit or loss takes place.

Certainly has good potential.  Reminds me of the Internet in 1995.  Nobody I knew at that time could foresee the full extent of change that was at hand.  Maybe this time it is the same in currency?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Only time will tell but it certainly is an interesting ride - and what makes life living more than an interesting ride?

Some people have learned they do not have to pay for anything - simply do chargebacks.  The sky is the limit: order televisions, computers, or bitcoins.  Either "I didn't get it", "parts are missing", or "the box was empty".

+1 for Bitcoin to prevent Customer Fraud which has become rampant (as long as you use it correctly)

One good method is to simply put in X amount of money every week at the same day (say, every Friday), plugging away week after week.  Never put in money that you cannot afford to loose.

For example, budget $20 a week no matter what.  If the price of bitcoin goes up you get less bitcoin and if it goes down you get more.  It averages out.

Someone who started doing that a year ago would now have a good stash of bitcoins.  Well, start doing it now.

If you believe as many here do that the long-term trend is in the thousands of dollars per bitcoin, you will be very happy in the long term even though some days it appears you had big losses and some days you had big gains.

In reality, your bitcoins are just about worthless as bitcoins until you actually buy something with them.  In other words "don't count your chickens until they hatch".

IMHO, at this relatively early stage anything that gets the word out is good.  The more people hear about this bitcoin thing, the more people will actually give it a try and tell their friends and family.  The network effect is very powerful, more powerful than any one business and any one country.

It appears many new faces have entered the market and are entering the market.  My feeling is there will likely be corrections perhaps near the $200 mark (which is arbitrary after all) but the general longer-term trend will be upward.  Once $200 is well broken in then the next psychological barrier may be much higher.

Many people I know budget a certain amount every week for the purchase of foodstuffs at their local mart. They also do most of their shopping at the same stores over and over throughout the years.  For a family of four or more, the amount they spend on food and other necessities is not trivial.  Hundreds of dollars per week, many thousands of dollars per year.

In effect, this makes your alt-coins only useful locally for the things you buy in the normal course of your life, such as food.  Once you spend your coins as you deemed fit, those coins are now available for the new owner to flag - note that they do not have to flag their coins as spendable only at a certain store, just that the can if they want to in order to make confiscation by the powers that be problematic for the confiscators (or the people that may steal your coins).

Just one example of thinking outside the box and exploring the possibilities.

Take back your money!

Ha, very interesting idea.  How about making honeypots, so they think there must be something good inside.  They keep hammering away at your server and pay small fees every try.  Once they get in they find...nothing!  Or even better yet something that gives them the idea that if they keep trying even more there is a massive profit for them once they break through that final hurdle.

Eventually, Bitcoin will not be so subject to wild swings in purchasing power.  We will think in terms of bitcoin not dollars.  In fact bitcoin has the potential to be more stable in perceived value than do government currencies based on debt.

Every day the value of the dollar goes up or down, yet in our daily lives we rarely think about that.  Behind the scenes though, the value of the dollar changing from day to day as it does is a very important consideration in trade between countries and the purchases of large amounts.  You just don't see it if your personal financial world is confined to your own narrow space of buying the weeks groceries or purchasing clothes, etc, though you likely know that, in the long run, the purchasing value of your dollars is falling down down down.

Don't count on bitcoin being tied to some sort of dollar value in the minds of its users forever.  Eventually it will stand on its own.  Who knows, maybe one day people will be talking about dollars being worth X-number of bitcoins!  The way the US dollar is heading, we may be buying paper dollars with our bitcoins for pulp scrap to be remade into useful paper products.

Possibly due to concerns about the 17 Trillion Dollar US Debt, possible lower US credit ratings, a possible devaluation of money in several countries, as well as recent news about new capital controls at some US banks.  None a good sign for certain currencies.

So the price goes up, the price goes down.  If you start with 5 bitcoins and haven't spent them you have lost or gained nothing.  You still have your 5 bitcoins :-)