On a long enough timeline, I think investments centered around profit motives will hold less value and importance.

People's standard of living is going to be significantly raised once AI and virtual become normal parts of everyday life, and more finances won't necessarily buy you a better existence. The future of investment will be centered around all things digital in nature designed to contribute to the world's well-being, as we won't really have another choice considering the state of the world.

A significant barrier to universal acceptance of cryptocurrency is its susceptibility and attractiveness to hackers, which also cause price drops.

https://thenextweb.com/cryptocurrency/2018/06/29/this-company-wants-to-stop-hackers-from-stealing-your-cryptocurrency/

"Since the founding of the first cryptocurrency exchange in 2010, hackers have walked away with billions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrencies and digital tokens stolen from exchanges, and they continue to eye the cryptocurrency landscape as an attractive arena to make money."

The blockchain-based threat intelligence platform "Sentinel Protocol" has one solution to preventing such nightmares:

"At the heart of Sentinel Protocol is a decentralized threat reputation database (TRDB), which contains blockchain addresses associated with theft, fraud and ransomware, IP addresses, malware signatures, file hashes and other relevant information. Sentinel Protocol relies on a crowdsourced community of cybersecurity experts, which it calls Sentinels, to maintain its TRDB.
By integrating Sentinel Protocol into their platforms, cryptocurrency exchanges will be able to detect and block of fraudulent and malicious transactions by comparing source and destination addresses against Sentinel’s TRDB. This is especially useful to DEXs, where hackers are flocking to launder and cash their ill-gained fortunes."

They're apparently already working with quite a few exchanges.

Any hypotheses as to future methods of hack prevention? Machine Learning?

If retailers want to stay in business, they have to find a way to compete with Amazon, and AI might be their last chance for retail businesses in countries where Amazon dominates multiple markets.

http://www.businessinsider.fr/us/ai-ecommerce-report-2017-8

"One of retailers' top priorities is to figure out how to gain an edge over Amazon. To do this, many retailers are attempting to differentiate themselves by creating highly curated experiences that combine the personal feel of in-store shopping with the convenience of online portals.

Using AI to personalize the customer journey could be a huge value-add to retailers. Retailers that have implemented personalization strategies see sales gains of 6-10%, a rate two to three times faster than other retailers, according to a report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG). It could also boost profitability rates 59% in the wholesale and retail industries by 2035, according to Accenture.

For many retailers, successfully leveraging AI will require partnering with third parties. Because of the barriers involved, employing an in-house strategy can be extremely costly and difficult. This has led to the rise of AI commerce startups, which can provide a more cost-effective approach to overhauling the customer experience."

Thoughts as to if AI commerce startups will save the retail industry?

This will greatly enhance human evolution and even just well-being in general. People want to know where they come from and future generations will finally be able to live out certain parts of their ancestors' lives. Current scientists and researchers will be able to collaborate with their predecessors. 

Blockchain enables continuous data storage and unchangeable information that cannot be falsified, which also make it possible to create a genuine digital reality jointly shared by everyone.

Anything that can happen will happen.

Cryptocurrency scares governments because it implies that citizens do not need to rely on governments to function in society, and it's easier to find loopholes in the taxing system.

But, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. They'll likely be issuing their own cryptocurrencies.

This is why the UK's rich are currently moving abroad to tax havens.

Britain's wealthiest man, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, just moved to Monaco to save tax on a £21 bn fortune. 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/09/britains-richest-man-to-leave-uk-for-tax-free-monaco

"About 2,700 more millionaires are expected to call the principality home by 2026."

Time to get out of Dodge if you make good money in the UK.

Thanks for doing some research. Do you actually speak Arabic? The English version you linked to does specifically refer to the legality of it:
You seem to be right though. I used Google Translate on the Arabic article and it doesn't seem to say that it's illegal. It says:
Later, the only time it mentions legality is here:
Maybe the translators confused something. Of course, it's illegal to make illegal financial transactions with Bitcoin. It doesn't looks like it actually banned or illegal though. Their just warning citizens that it can be risky. I had it when news companies are lazy and spread lies due to mistranslations.

It's so hard to read your posts with no punctuation. I take it that you just listed headlines from the past week with Bitcoin in the title. The title of the thread is about the ban in Saudi Arabia, but you're mostly talking about scams.

I'm still confused by countries banning cryptocurrencies. How do they expect to enforces these laws? Even if they somehow do a huge crackdown on crypto, Saudi's could just go to the UAE to do their transactions. They have freedom of movement. I don't see what would stop them.

The threat of exposing viewing porn sites is a pretty funny one. Why are people so scared about that?

Are you implying that you've narrowed it down to two options? It's either love or money? I think that the answer for me would probably be gratitude. If you're ungrateful, you will always feel like you're lacking something. You won't appreciate what you already have. If you are grateful, you'll be positive and optimistic. You'll see they best in everything even when you have challenges. Love definitely adds to happiness too. Money can increase your happiness, if you use it correctly, but it can only do that to a certain extent, then it stops increasing happiness.

I've notice that a few times too. I've had a couple posts deleted. I got the message in my inbox. Even then I felt like those posts were useful and relevant, but you don't really get the chance to argue about it. Then the other day I started a new thread. I thought it was an interesting topic. I was looking forward to seeing what people had writing about it. When I logged in next though, it was nowhere to be seen. There was nothing in my inbox either. Weird.

I just remembered what the payment system is called and found the Wikipedia article. It's called M-Pesa. Pesa means money in Swahili. It was created by Vodophone in Kenya originally. In 2012 they already had about 17 million members in Kenya, with a population of about 49 million. I'm sure they have even more members now, so they're well over one third of the population with this system. I think it's probably closer to half. You can use it to get microfinance loans, you can pall bills, transfer money to others, and now you can even buy things in the Google Play store via their service. The service is also working in Tanzania, South Africa, Mozambique, Egypt and Lesotho. If this can work in these African countries, I'm sure crypto can work too.

There is most certainly Internet all over Africa. Of course, not all people have the internet in Africa, but the numbers are increasing every day. Maybe you should visit Africa before you start saying thing like that. When I was in Kenya everybody was already using an electronic payment system. I can't remember the name of it, but you could pay with it anywhere. The money was just attached to your phone number. This way people could go out and not worry that somebody would steal their cash. This isn't a cryptocurrency, of course, but it's electronic, and that shows that it's possible in Africa too.

It's easiest for me when I have commitments I need to fulfill, especially commitments to other people. If I decide it would be a good idea to work 4 hours/day, I might have a hard time actually getting the time in. If I promise somebody else that I'll do 4 hours of work for them everyday and send them the results each day, I'll get it done. It's much easier to be productive, when you're accountable to somebody else. Getting into a routine really helps too. Try to block out a regular time each day, when you will work.

What makes in more complex in the US? If it was legalized in both, wouldn't it be able the same? I guess the labor costs would be far lower in Mexico. I'd love to hear what else I'm missing though. What specific drugs are you talking about? I don't think that components being missing ever stopped anybody in the US. You could just import them. What components do you mean, though?

It seems like you contradict yourself here. You say that everyone deserves a second chance. Then you go on to say that, in this matter, a second chance must be reasonable deserved. Everybody deserving a second chance sounds lovely, but not so much if you think about it more. There are many things that don't deserve a second chance. If a man molests one of your children, for example, will you just say, "That was bad, but you get one more chance"? If somebody kills one of your family members, will you give him another chance? There are certain things that it's better not to give a second chance on.

It's sad that this sounds like such a negative thing. I have the same feeling that you express. It shouldn't be that way though. The government "making more money" should be equal to the people making more money. Ideally, rather than cartels making billions of dollars, those billions would be spread out among the people. Sadly, we can't trust our governments to get much of that money into the hands of the people. The governments are always so eager to get more taxes from somewhere, but they never seem to be in a hurry to give back to the people at least some of what they take.

You may be right about the lull in the prices. It's almost impossible to tell though if the prices may continue to go down or they will go up in the future. The point in the OP was not to put all your eggs in one basket. You should never invest all your money in any one thing. Diversity is very important. The best thing to do would be to just invest money that you would be okay losing. Make sure you always have enough to live on. Some people just get too carried away when they hear something that sounds like a good idea.

Well, in many places I think they already got in on it. I know that many regions of the US and Canada have had legal medicinal marijuana for quite some time. I know that in some places like California just about anybody can pay for a prescription, but some regions actually take it seriously and treat some illnesses with marijuana. It can be very effective, as you say. I'm sure the the pharmaceutical industry has been in on that and I'm sure they'll continue to get more into it as marijuana becomes accepted in more places. If they've already got farms going for medical marijuana, when marijuana is legalized they can just expand their operations.

I feel like this is just a general response. You didn't actually address anything I said. I don't think I mentioned anything about the US being a democracy. I probably agree with you for the most part. I think it's a good thing that many states are decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana. It's ridiculous that so many people are in jail for marijuana related charges. At the same times, for some reason, it's fine to smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol. I'm pretty sure both those things are more dangerous than marijuana. Canada is also legalizing marijuana. This will probably be like gay marriage. It was illegal everywhere and now it will quickly spread across the world.

This is the best explanation I have read in this thread. Thank you! Am I right that if most of the drug demand is from the US, legalizing drugs in Mexico wouldn't help the situation that much would it? It may just make it easier for people to produce drugs and send more to the US. This would probably be pretty bad for US-Mexico relations. If the US were to legalize drugs though, then people could produce drugs in the US, which would bring the prices was down and perhaps cause less problems in Mexico. I think a big thing people are missing though is that "legalizing" drugs doesn't usually mean you can mass produce and sell them legally. What seems to have more often is decriminalization, which is a completely different thing.