I do not think there is a big correlation in this. It is true that some people may run to Bitcoin when they see economy falling, but many (big) investors do not know about Bitcoin or simply do not trust it. It might have some influence, but not such a strong cause-effect.

Yes, it has been a profitable year to buy and hold Bitcoin, and as fellow poster said, it will likely break 500 (if the tendency goes on) and sustain it. Go Bitcoin!

Let's see how 2016 profitability will be...

Resgister at coinbase, then verify your ID and make a transfer (SEPA) to coinbase account (follow the instructions in the site, it is quite simple). Then, inside your account you can exchange your $$ for Bitcoin.

Once you have your Bitcoins in your coinbase account, you can install a local wallet and send the Bitcoins to it for more security. For example you can try multibit hd (just google it, download and install it). Encrypt your wallet (I think you can do it in your installation proccess) and send your bitcoins from coinbase to multibit HD.

Setup the backups in multibit hd and store your passphrase in a safe place.

I think that is quite safe, but you can also make paper wallets and all (which I have no idea how to do)

Maybe this topic should be in the "speculation" section. At least this is the kind of topic I use to see in that place.

Although I do not think it is likely, I think it is still possible. Perphaps when we are close the halving BTC may go up and then hype /media attention will take it to much higher levels. But I do not think it is sustainable.

The success of coins is based a lot on adoption, and for a coin to be adopted by more people it is good to keep it simple and easy to begin using it. I feel NXT (and also Ethereum) are too complicated to get working. Of course not for techy guys, but go try to explain your regular pc user friend how to put NXT to work (not to mention to explain its features).

Even with Bitcoin, which has lots of online wallets and services to make things easier, it is hard for regular people to use it.

Sounds innovative, but no blockchain does not necessarily mean better. For a coin to be suscessful, it needs to be used. That is what really makes a coin succeed. Innovation (I think) should be more focused in the easiness of adoption. Come to think of it, a light wallet will be good for that as newcomers would not need to download the blockchain and all, but is it enough?

It seems to me that most people want bigger blocks, but they do not agree in size. As for me, I do not understand much about the tech stuff and I am happy with just Bitcoin going on and keep working lol.

Not bad to do a list however.

A "special" method I use is to put banners for bitcoin in my site. I know that this is a regular earning method for fiat too, but most advertising networks in $ pay only per click. I have found more than three Bitcoin advertising networks that pay per impression, which suits me best.

Very san story indeed. If we accept satoshi's words as true, that means a good value distributed to the rest of us. Who knows how many BTC from the 15 million we have are lost forever... perhaps 1 million lost?

In the first times of Bitcoin loses should be higher than now.

Great question (I did not know myself) and great answers too. I once thought that the wallet.dat held the blocks downloaded from the blockchain and it would be too costly to make a backup (lol). Although the wallet.dat is not that difficult to backup, It is even better to know you can memorize the passphrase and have a backup of your wallet in your head.

It is always good to have another earning site. For me, it shows just two offers and seem quite long to complete, but maybe a good option when there is nothing else to do.

Which is the minimum payout and how can it be claimed?

Praying works. I had a similar experience once in a chat that allows Bitcoins and other currencies tips. I remembered "give and it shall be given to you" and decided to make a tip to active users. Then that unleashed kind of a tip war among users in chat, it was just crazy... and I ended having a lot more coins than I gave in the first place. 

My current plan is keep earning some Btc by blogging and some faucets. Some I hold, some I invest in POS coins. The idea is keep growing both and when the amount of POS is high enough, begin selling the stake for BTC and holding together with the other BTC I earn, while I await for price raises.

I am not expecting to retire, but to have an steady income stream that at least helps me to pay my bills.

Perhaps you could try to put blockadz banners (pay per impression) and a banner for blockadz affiliate link. I have a blog (not about Bitcoin) and earn around 200k-300k satoshis daily from impressions.

Also articles about faucets and faucets rotators (with its affiliate links) may end summing a nice ammount.

I am the only one for who the claim button is not working? What do I need to do for it to work? It is as if did not was a button at all, just an image.

Faucet seems nice, but I (at least) cannot make any claim.

Just wanted to post to the new thread!. Expecting my second stake of fly in 2-3 days keep with the good work!

I am not against altcoins by anymeans. I hold two or three... specially one (NETcoin) I like, and I am hoping for it to get high and mainstream. But buying altcoins just for the sake of them going up does not sound like a very good strategy to me. True, you can get one that raises very high, but you'll have to buy too many coins that will just dissappear with no value.

I buy a lot of NETcoin. This one has been working for more than 2 years, and offers a nice interest rate on deposit coins everyday to your wallet (in fact they call it "Personal Interest Rate" or PIR). Value for the coin goes up and down, around 100 satoshis each, and the dev team is still working to further develop new wallets and all. It is pretty alive!

Just check http://netcoin.io/

Yes, money invested in bitcoin mainly come from mining. Money invested in something is a quite accurate measure of the price of that something.

I think if bitcoin has more money invested not coming from mining, then the hashrate would not mimic Bitcoin value as exactly as now.

Looks like a good and clean faucet. Payment is quite generous too, not so easy to see 800 satoshi faucets nowadays.

However I could not claim as I use proxy. I do not use it to cheat, but out of neccesity (need to connect to google through other different country). Thanks anyway.