You are absolutely correct regarding this issue. The long term success of the project depends a lot on the competence and integrity of the team. A lot of the time, it happens that once the ICO is over, the project goes into hibernation mode. And this has happened to a lot of the promising projects, despite reaching the hard cap limit.

Three years ago, I had invested in a little known altcoin, which was outside the top 100 list in coinmarketcap. After 5-6 months, the prices increased by close to 100x and I sold a part of my holdings at a good profit. But the coin is almost worthless now and it has once again fallen outside the top 100 list. But I am not disappointed. I got good returns after investing in this coin.

Now don't ask me to name the coin, which I don't want to do right now. I still own a few coins, but it is no longer actively traded in the major exchanges.

While investing in such coins, keep one thing in mind. Most of these coins will undergo a pump and dump cycle at some point of time. You need to sell your coins during the pump, else you may never get a second chance.

You are right. XRP is one of the most manipulated coins out there, at least among the top 25 coins. Investing in this coin can be extremely risky, as no one is quite sure whether it will undergo a pump or a dump during the next few months. If you can afford to take the risk, then no issues in investing some of your funds. There is a possibility that similar to 2017, XRP can give good returns this year as well.

Binance is one if the biggest exchanges out there and it is definitely a good choice to invest in BNB despite the recent hack. But for the past few weeks, the Bitcoin dominance seems to be increasing, and the market share of the alts seems to be dropping. And this is applicable for BNB as well. Looks like the investors are preferring BTC over the alts.

Bitcoin Cash has a chance only if something negative happens to Bitcoin, such as very high transaction fee or extremely lengthy confirmation durations. Ethereum on the other hand is widely being used as a platform for launching tokens, and has a near monopoly in this sector. So if the current trend continues, Ethereum will solidify its position as the no.2 crypto (in terms of users and market cap) and push the other altcoins (BCH, LTC, XRP.etc) further down. And the recent forking of BCH is not going to help its position as an alternative to BTC.

Actually that represents a major problem. The moment you convert your coins to BTC, the tax authority will keep a watch on you. You are liable to pay taxes (either ordinary income tax or capital gains tax, depending on the duration of your holdings) on any profit that has resulted from the sale of crypto-currency. Are you ready to undergo all this, in case you want to purchase a box of sweets for $10? On the other hand, in case you are purchasing something directly with Bitcoin, these issues don't arise.

Bitcoin is decades away from replacing the banks (if that ever happens). I think that the banks are more worried about being associated with money laundering and contraband sales. Money laundering is a big issue in India, and after the demonetization exercise in 2016 there was a sharp increase in the crypto sales in that market. Another worrying aspect is that last year (2018), there were incidents of cops raiding houses and seizing narcotic substances which originated from dark markets (where BTC is accepted as a mode of payment).

It will be difficult to calculate the total revenue, as the 1.2 million figure is for the world-wide audience and not just for the US market. And if I am not wrong, the fees vary from region to region. That said, I heard that at least in the US the fight was priced below the industry average. Normally the rates would range somewhere between $69 and $99, but DAZN was selling this one for $19.99. So I guess, they earned around $24 million from the PPV, which is less than Canelo's purse ($35 million).

Legality is one thing and ethics is another. It may be legal in your place (although I doubt that). But is it morally correct to harm living beings just for entertainment? I have watched the videos of cock fighting in YouTube, and they are nothing short of barbaric. I don't know what sort of message is being sent out by conducting such tournaments. Ideally, sports is meant for relaxation and peace. Here, all the violence, blood and gore is being used as a tool to attract more viewers and generate revenue.

It is difficult to believe that even in the 21st century, there are people who support such cruel forms of entertainment. I admit that it may be embedded in the local culture and the customs, but this is something that I can't condone. Times have changed and people should also change. Participating in animal cruelty just for entertainment is not compatible with the modern human ethics. If they can't completely ban it, then it should be toned down to reduce the levels of violence.

I would agree. But I think that there was no robbery because the need was not there. An unbiased jury might have given a draw. But still, a win for Canelo could be justified. You can convert a draw to a win for either of the fighters and hardly anyone would complain about it. But what happened during the fight against GGG was that the latter had clearly won the fight and the jury awarded it to Canelo. No sympathies for Jacobs. He knew that he needed a KO. And he was unable to do that.

When you invest in a completely unregulated market, such as ICOs, you need to understand that if something goes wrong, then there will be no one to defend you. If you stay aware and alert, then the chances are that few people may scam you with the cryptos. Yes... you are right when you say that a lot of noobs are getting scammed here. But don't you think that the noobs should first study something and analyse something carefully before investing their hard earned money?

I have just the opposite opinion. IMO, the volatility is quite high, because too many coins are being traded. Look at the exchange volumes. During the past 24 hours, more than $15 billion USD worth of BTC were traded in the exchanges, and it represents close to 15% of the total market cap. Now compare this to gold. The total market cap is close to $7 trillion, and out of that the daily transaction volume is only around $100 billion. I believe that this is one of the reasons why gold is less volatile than BTC.

Not just the Chinese governments. Apart from a few libertarian governments such as the ones we have in Switzerland and Singapore, the vast majority of the governing authorities want to control the personal finances of their citizens. They want to limit the investment options, and they want an absolute monopoly for the national currencies. And this is where Bitcoin causes problem for them. Bitcoin gives an individual more freedom on these aspects and on top of that, it offers anonymity.

During the past 7 years, I spoke to at least 200 people, hoping that at least some of them would get interested in crypto. About 3-4 people showed interest initially and they even started collecting Bitcoins from various giveaways and airdrops. But all of them quit the crypto domain within a few months, after getting bored (all this happened before the 2013 bull run). I was also disappointed, and stopped encouraging my friends to invest in cryptocurrency. Nowadays I don't talk about crypto to anyone... not even to my family members.

Surprising that he is having problems only with crypto-currency and not with physical cash. IMO, no crypto-currency can ever be as anonymous as physical cash. Being a Nobel winner, I expect him to study the facts carefully before he opens up his mouth to deliver his latest round of verbal diarrhea. He needs to understand that the times of monarchy are over. You can't expect the citizens to live in constant surveillance and virtual slavery, like what existed a few centuries ago.

No losses from altcoins? I am tired of these noobs spreading stupidity in this forum. There are close to 10,000 different alts and tokens in existence right now. Out of that more than 90% are not being traded actively. They are effectively dead and those who had invested money in to them have lost their capital. Of the remaining 10%, the vast majority have suffered losses ranging from 80% to 99% during the past 1-2 years. I can give several examples, such as Deep Onion (-99%), BitSend (-98%) and Gbyte (-98%).

The vast majority of violence in the planet is committed in the name of god, be it the Muslims or the Christians. The most ultra-religious nations are where we can find the maximum amount of violence, and for example there are Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Balkans, Caucasus.etc. Regions where non-religious or atheists are a majority, such as China and Japan tend to have lower levels of violence. The concept of god as such is outdated. It was created in prehistoric times by some intelligent people, in order to enslave the not so intelligent people.

No government can survive with an approval rating below 20%. Realistically, I think it is somewhere around 40%. A lot of the poor people benefited from free healthcare and education during the Chavez era, and these people are still loyal to the socialists. On top of that, we should remember that some of the people who are leading the opposition are members of the Venezuelan UHNW community, and they don't enjoy widespread support among the mainstream Venezuelans.

I don't think that a lot of the users here have purchased BCH from the exchanges. I received a significant amount of BCH in 2017 after the hard fork, as I was holding BTC in my Blockchain.info wallet. I haven't sold any of these coins, and they are staying there for the past 2 years. And this is the advantage for BCH. A lot of people own BCH, and this includes those who hate this coin.

And in case BCH becomes worthless suddenly, then all of us will be left heart-broken.