A question and comments:

1)  Now that blockchain.info uses HD wallets, does that allow importing Private Keys (the way to transfer BTC from an Opendime)?

2)  I once had ALL of my BTC taken from a blockchain.info wallet (I worked with them, and eventually (two days or so) got it all back.  To this day I do not if it was a HACK of some sort, or some kind of operational issue with blockchain.info.

3)  blockchain.info used to offer a mixing service, which I liked, but apparently it is not secure, and no longer offered.

4)  I do not do micro-transactions, all I really want is a sturdy system that WORKS dependably.  I am willing to pay for that.  I don't care if the fees are BTC0.0002 or even higher, as all of my transactions are "important".

5)  As many here at the forum have advised, I only keep a "working amount" of BTC in my web wallet, the rest on hardware wallets.

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I have a fair amount of experience with blockchain.info, and I too have had delayed emails to my gmail account.  However, I have not had one take more than 5 minutes, usually the email comes in 30 - 45 seconds.

I believe that you can change the settings of a blockchain.info wallet so that you do NOT have to have the email sent to your gmail account.  But, you will have to get to your wallet first..., then look around the site to see how you can login without the email.  Note that I have not tries that yet though, I prefer the security of the email, a light-duty 2FA, if you will.

I think that LuanX3 probably has it about right.  And I doubt that it is even close to 1%, even in the West (or China), probably more like 0.1% (one in a thousand people).

Bitcoin could maybe be accepted by the banks when the time arrives.

Or it could be suppressed (banned) by the authorities.

Or "They" could also ban CA$H and impose a State Coin.

It's really hard to say...

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I have always been an advocate of steady buying, at approximately equal dollar amounts (and its very close cousin: dollar cost averaging).  I bought a small amount (in BTC) just this week.

So even if BTC price keeps going up, you would buy LESS BTC for about the same $ as last time.  Price goes down, you would be more BTC.  Slow but steady buying also means that you ARE buying, and that you will not lose out big-time (nor, of course, would you have made massive profits by buying at the bottom).  But, NO ONE can adequately predict the future, so slow but steady buying of Bitcoin (as an investment/speculation) makes sense to me.

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The new version 2 looks very nice, I will order some in due course.  It really looks great!

But, I have an observation: Opendime is already more than half way there to being a hardware wallet.  Yes, I understand the "bearer bond" nature of the Opendime, but perhaps the time should come soon for an Opendime Hardware Wallet.  I like the idea very much of simplicity and a cheap device.

The only issue I have with the devices (and I have some Opendimes) is that once you get the Private Key by breaking the seal, you have to import the keys into another real wallet, and apparently some wallets (HD?) will not allow importing Private Keys...  Am I wrong on this? 

Perhaps a +/- $20 Opendime Wallet that is is simple and cheap would be a great seller.  Even if the device would only be used once or just a few times, a real wallet would likely be of interest to me.

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I have no idea what will happen to Bitcoin price as we go into 2017.

But I would note that Bitcoin has very majestic price cycles, it goes WAY UP and then comes WAY DOWN.  Yet the general tendency has been for it to keep going up, on the average.  In my three or so years playing with BTC, I have noted that the system has not failed yet, nor apparently even come close, despite all the drama.

Buy and HODL seems to be a reasonable strategy.  There does seem to be a good chance that BTC will move beyond its ATH, then crater again.

Whee!      

All the better to have bought both BTC and gold before, as well as buying more if you can afford it.  If the day comes when APMEX (or Provident) will not sell precious metals, you would be glad that you bought when everything "looked OK".  Slow and steady buying is a very similar strategy to "dollar cost averaging".  And it builds the stack.

(Provident takes Bitcoin as payment, I have bought gold from them a few times)

Same idea with buying Bitcoin, if you HODL it, buy some from time-to-time.

True that the USA is not the only pebble on the beach, but for most Americans, moving overseas would be difficult, even for me with a Peruvian wife and an auto parts import company already there in Lima...

Yes, I too think that $1000 will be the magic number that will get some coverage by the media, even the MainStream Media.  To its credit, Zero Hedge had two or three articles in recent days re BTC's price rise (and claiming it was Chinese buying mostly responsible).

$1000..., and especially if it keeps going up at a good clip, there will be more coverage.

Yes, the above two comments seem the most realistic.  There are too many variables (re the future) that we cannot know, including many variables that we cannot predict (similar to those trying to predict Black Swan events).

While my guess is that BTC will do great in the medium-term (say 3 - 5 years, maybe reach $10,000 or even $25,000), I would be reluctant to predict much further out than that.  There is always the possibility of a better coin, even with Bitcoin's first mover advantage.

$1,000,000 per BTC, would that value be in hyper-inflated dollars?

Yeah, I think deisik and lumeire have it right.

It's probably better if there is little or no BTC hype until the Bitcoin system starts is able to handle more ttransactions and is easier to use by the general public.  The system needs improvement for the average person to use effectively.

OK, having been through two or three of Bitcoin's majestic price cycles myself (with FUD and elation present each time), I guess the only thing I can offer up re the future would be:

If you can HODL BTC, and withstand the hard ups & downs, then the UP years will more than make-up for the DOWN ones.  [Probably]

May you all have blessed holidays, it looks like we will need whatever of the Good to help us through the likely to be interesting 2017.

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There are so many variables and things out there going on, I hesitate on offering any predictions (my track record is mostly one of bad predictions about the future).

So, I will just offer up the below, purported to be a quotation of J. P. Morgan when someone asked him what stock market would do:

"It will fluctuate."


Also attributed to Morgan:

"Gold is money, nothing else."     <--- clearly a man from the pre-Bitcoin era   

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Risto (and the rest o' ya), I wish you a wonderful Holiday, may Hope and Love be with us all in these unusual and precarious times.

I am happy to be here among you all to observe this year to come: 2017.  It WILL be an "interesting" year no doubt.

We watch together, yes?

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Investment decisions are based on many parameters, including (especially) in my case.  Timing, predictions, observations of past & present and many other things swirl around me as I try my best to preserve my family's capital.

I cannot complain, much has been given to me, I cannot CLAIM to have earned my my way here...

The Elite(s) really DO seem to be broken into factions which DO fight each other, but of course their MAIN JOB is keep them all on top, despite any spats.

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Health is No. One (maybe No. Two depending on who you talk to), so get better iamnotback!  A mind is a terrible thing to waste!

And, I wish the very best to all o' ya motherfuckerz in this holiday season.  May our lives better, with more of the Good and less of the Bad in this coming year.

It IS going to be an interesting year.  I am proud to be sharing it with all of ya sumzabitchez. 

We will watch together, no?

I did notice LOTS of "twin" transactions, both in Chinese Yuan and US$ (a guess: probably roughly the same proportion).  "Trades", that makes sense, I had always wondered about so many twin transactions.  Good info!

 

So, even with "trades", it looks like CHINA still dominates big time.



EDIT: Some of those trades are very large though: I saw one for about BTC300 and another for about BTC160...

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RodeoX, franky1, others

Your explanations match my general understanding as well.  Some types of 'math' problems are not amenable to quantum computing attack.

And the latest I read on quantum computers themselves (my info may be out of date, but probably NOT by orders of magnitude) are that they can only manipulate 8 bits at a time (ah, sorry no reference handy).

AGREE with above comments that we have a nice long time to play w/ BTC until it breaks.  And by then, future developers will (probably!) have beefed-up the Bitcoin Ecosystem to make it more resilient.  Else, there may be other Alts that become popular, also complicating the task.

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Occasionally I run fiatleak.com when I want to see another angle on what's happening in the World of Bitcoinistan™.  As of 45 minutes of running, here are some results:

Yes, YUUGE movement of Bitcoin tonight.  Current price bouncing around $830 - $840.  

ounce.me

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I had fiatleak.com running this evening.  As of 45 minutes running, here are the BTC bought (via exchanges) around the world and by countries monitored:

Total worldwide: +/- 29170 BTC

bought w/ US$: 1079 BTC
bought w/ Chinese Yuan: 27080 BTC (92% !!)
bought w/ ZAR (S Afr): 5.4
bought w/ Brazilian Reais: 5.0
bought w/ ILS (Israeli Shekels): 0.5
bought w/ Euro: 0.3
bought w/ Russian Rubles: 0.1

The arithmetic works out to being over $700,000,000 per day (run rate as above), just from exchanges alone.

Note how China dominates...  I ran this in the daytime a couple of weeks ago, similar numbers, China always over 90%.  The two big exchanges there are okcoin and btcchina.

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There are also more players showing up and winning blocks.

I remember a few years ago G-Hash.io was winning approximately 50% of the blocks, many were worried about that.  Now it is four Chinese pools among them that have a little over 50% of the hash-rate.  And lots of smaller players:

https://blockchain.info/pools

shawnp0wers.  Ol' Shawn has about 1%, smile.

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deisik

An Option 3 is possible too.  Strauss-Kahn may have embarrassed himself (or worse: other Elite members) and gotten the boot just for that.  IIRC, he was hanging around and molesting women in gross ways for years.

The Elite is a little bit flexible.  They can kick-out members, and of course induct new ones.

Also, there are probably hierarchies.  If you are a Rothschild or Soros, you can pretty much get away with almost anything as long as it is not widely known.  The Clintons, after all, are still in The Elite.  Yet, Huma and Weiner are probably on the way OUT because they are no longer useful to the rest of 'em...

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The photo that shows that The Elite are never held accountable.  Why should they be?  When they control all the levers.

Ms. Lagarde (head of the IMF, and will keep her position) was found guilty, but will receive no penalty.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/corruption/the-photo-that-shows-the-elite-are-never-accountable/

https://armstrongmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Lagarde-Judges.jpg