it actually is a lot harder than it seems specially for someone who has never worked with another operating system other than Windows for example. all the commands that you have to enter is also adding another complication that drives many people away. that is why Windows still has a lot of users even though it is basically a big spy app!

things may have been different a couple of years ago like in 2013  but nowadays whenever someone is giving away something (seemingly) for free there is always a catch. usually they want something in return like what OP says (personal information) but also sometimes they are after the bitcoins you may already have. and to do that there is a lot of malware being spread as "wallets" of the said coin which the user has to download if they want to receive the "free" coins. and as they do their computer is infected and they lose their bitcoins.

i don't know what a "bitcoin maxi" is but they sound wrong. what you refer to is not a problem it is a feature and as long as there is a limit to block size we will see that feature. it is there to prevent spam attacks that could cripple full nodes easily.

it is only because no matter what kind of shit these centralized sites offer their users (such as scamming them, getting hacked, leaking or selling their documents, not implementing a feature that was added years ago) people continue eating that shit up and say nothing.

if there are n unconfirmed transactions in the mempool it doesn't mean there are n users waiting for confirmation. in fact a lot of those transactions are being spammed by the same shit services such as Binance.

well if 140% rise in a 2 week period is not a bull run then i don't know what is!

alpha testing is when the code is not even released. LN is already released and has been used for millions of dollars worth of transactions so far.

then you don't know what Satoshi or Bitcoin is.

these two aren't mutually exclusive. in fact we can't have one without the other. for example if the on chain transaction fees were very high then nobody would even be able to transfer their funds to and from their lightning network channels to want to have fast/cheap(er) transactions.

BIP38 is using a very strong technique to encrypt the private keys and there is no way you can break it without knowing almost the entire password.
all recovery services and tools would require you to know a large part of the password before you can even begin brute forcing it.

did you forget that we already had a gigantic drop a couple of weeks ago? or do you expect huge drops to happen every week?

i think price will either stay below $10k or if it goes above it then there is a very good chance that it won't stop there and can reach something like $15k in a very short time specially during this FOMO wave.

the biggest factor that makes blockchain a terrible thing to use anywhere else (anything other than a decentralized cryptocurrency) is the proof of work that exists on top of it. every time we want to "update" that database we have to perform a defined "hard amount of work". in a normal database you just update it right away without any additional requirement or time wasted.

how do you define "high" because that is a comparative thing. so what are you comparing bitcoin with when you claim its price is "high" and can not increase? keep in mind that you can't just choose an arbitrary number and say it is high because it is close to your arbitrary number.

that is true but also we should not forget another very important factor and that is the price. for the entire history of bitcoin which is around 11 years price has continued rising and each time block reward halves the amount of money the miners make are A LOT higher compared to last time it halved.
for example when reward was cut from 25 to 12.5 they were only making $14500 for 25 bitcoin. and now they are making $110000 for 12.5 bitcoin!
and in 4 years from now they will be making about $2000000 (2 million) for 6.25 bitcoin.
so in so many ways the fees don't even mater.

in many ways it actually can be compared with what you are paid. and mining reward is literary paid for the work a miner does not their contribution. that is where the name "proof of work" comes from. the miner does a hard work and when they find the resulting hash, they publish it as a proof that they have done a certain amount of work to find it.

what many people don't realize or maybe they have forgotten is that price was already on the rise and price was above $10k before the world economy started falling apart and caused a lot of fear that led to bitcoin also dropping.
so all those who say they are surprised about this current price should really take another look at the charts before COVID-19 and see where we were. it is not even that long ago.

someone who is really a "whale" is never going to give any kind of indication of being an actual whale unless they are braindead in which case they won't remain a whale for long or the most possible scenario is that they are scamming others which seems to be the case here.
that is no to mention that a whale doesn't waste their time on social media...

what kind of startup is a beginner who by definition knows nothing and has no experience is going to run?! a beginner has to first learn what the hell a cryptocurrency is then think about running a startup and ask for funding.

i think the bears have been out for a couple of weeks now. essentially ever since price recovery began from the very low price that was reached a while back there were no bears to be seen anywhere only their screams of pain since they have been losing money ever since.
this recent jump was only the last nail in their coffin!

in any case i have to add that it is a very common thing that whenever there is a price drop and then a  recovery we see a lot of people who "wish" for more drop in form of "prediction".

why would it be the same thing? it is like saying if you put 2 bolts on your door it would be the same as putting one!
and not everything is about brute forcing. there are other attack vectors. for example the collisions and preimage attacks. they become a lot more impossible with 2 hash algorithms.

maybe start a thread and ask how you can learn how to search...

there is also a security risk involved which is highly unlikely but it is still there. and that is solving ECDLP, which is basically to find a private key from public key. it is impossible now and it may not happen in the next 50 years but we should still know about it.
if you only use each key once all the world would ever know is the hash of your public key until you spend coins by that time there wouldn't be enough time to do anything.
this doesn't necessarily need quantum computing. it's all math, maybe someone could come up with a method to solve this problem faster.

knowing programming is only like 10% of the things you need in order to actually start making profit while trading with a bot.
the most important thing you need is experience in trading and ability to be able to speculate with high accuracy. and also know what to do in difference situations.

see that is the problem, it looks good on paper but in reality you will face a volatile and unpredictable market. there is a lot of times when they start to pump and altcoin for example but fail that means a very sudden dump right after a small rise. no bot can act that quick (there is delays in executing order, getting the updated price,...)

it could work but in my opinion there are a lot of other easier ways to make more money trading cryptos.

so far the aftermath of the current ongoing FOMO has been a $1800 rise (which is nearly 24%) in 24 hours. i'd say it is a good start with the day traders shock (selling too soon during the rise) putting a pause on the FOMO rise we are now seeing some slowing down.
if the FOMO picks up again and $9k is broken once again i can see prices above $10k in the next 24 hours.

the biggest problem is people themselves. it was not government who forced them to like KYC and go to centralized places to acquire bitcoin such as Coinbase, Binance, Bitpay,... it was not the government who forced them to forget that bitcoin is a currency not an investment. ... they did that all by themselves.
my perspective about bitcoin has not changed at all but my perspective about "bitcoiners" has changed or maybe my eyes are open now.

something interesting to know is that the term "whale" is a relative term. which means there is no real amount of money involved as the threshold for someone to become a whale. a whale is usually someone who has enough money to be able to influence the market. with that definition in different markets the amount becomes different. for example you can become a super whale with as low as $50 in a lot of the altcoins!
but the same thing in bitcoin would require millions of dollars.