It was never banned. The Chinese government has just prevented exchanges from operating with bitcoin payouts or buys ins. Localbitcoins is NOT an exchange, it's a decentralized trading platform. You can't ban people from meeting and trading digital currency, how would that be even physically possible? Even if that was made illegal, I'm sure the Chinese wealthy looking to move their riches out of the country would find other trading site to obtain btc and move out of the country and then cash out.

eBay owns Paypal, as you know Paypal does not play well with bitcoins. If you try and sell bitcoins on eBay and get defrauded, Paypal will NOT help you in the slightest. Personally I wouldn't try and deal btc on eBay by any means because of the high risk of fraud that is associated with Paypal chargebacks. People engage in chargeback scams every day and eBay literally has no SELLLER protection. If the buyer claims a SNAD, you are screwed no matter how much evidence you provide to the contrary.

I've always followed the "never invest more than you can afford to lose" mantra so I will be holding. I would like to see what 2014 holds for us. All these news surrounding bitcoin will have an impact and it will be extremely interesting to see how the mainstream crowd reacts to bitcoin. I just like the ride if you ask me. Not really ingrained in these "to the moon" prophecies, just biding my time patiently looking at bitcoinwisdom tickers. It's fun!

I'm aware that the people who bought in when Bitcoin was only $1 or so were definitely early adopters. But statistically, do the majority of bitcoins belong to only a few small hands. Because if it did, that would suggest there are already a few very very rich individuals and less room for adopters to hitch a ride on the train.

I've been doing some reading and apparently the top 200,000 keys, that is keys containing at least 1 BTC are spread out across 99% of all bitcoins in existence. What does this mean exactly? Does it mean that the majority of users DO NOT have at least 1 BTC? What do you guys think?

Can't stop people from using it? Isn't that exactly what China did? They basically crashed btc value by more than 40% by doing that! And let's face it, China might seem like the evil communist regime that is backwards and ruthless but I live in the U.S. and our government isn't that far off from theirs. Ever since 9/11, America has been a police state. Oh you need to send money to someone? ID PLEASE. "Oh your bank account is showing that you're receiving cash deposits from all over the States. Guess I need to file a Suspicious Activity Report on you now". I can't even sell bitcoin without raising red flags, it's pathetic how paranoid the U.S. has become and continues to become. Land of the free baby.

If bitcoin wins, monetization will occur and people will begin switching from fiat currency (USD for example) to bitcoin. This will increase bitcoin's purchasing power and increase it's value I believe. This would put the early adopters in a very good position to get richer. I hope we are still in the early adopter's market at the current price of around $750 - $800. As bitcoin grows and is successful and "wins", it will have many more mercantile adopters. I think having bitcoin as a head to head battle with fiat currency gives power back to the people in the long term. Many of those who are incapable of dealing with banking institutions such as the inpoverished or Nations who do not have the necessary infrastructure such as several African countries will benefit. It will be like introducing the INTERNET to an entire civilization that has never seen it before. As long as data transfer is available online, bitcoin will prevail. The success of bitcoin will spur innovation because it will free people from the tyranny of money laws such as the ones brought on by the PATRIOT Act in the U.S.---one of my least favorite laws by far.

BTC-E, Coinbase has been good to me, try those out and see if it works for you.

I am new as well, welcome