(12-06-2017, 08:12 PM)imtheblkranger Wrote: It's still interesting to speculate the future of Bitcoin. Some are projecting $40k next December and others are projecting the whole thing falling down to next to nothing. Others have it rising to $1mil by 2020.

It's so volatile. If never put it in say my IRA yet, but if you have a couple Grand you're willing to potentially lose, they payoff could be huge

Keep the specter of regulation in mind. I think one of three things could bring down Bitcoin in a hurry:

1. The market value inflating so quickly that the real-world currency isn't there to accommodate those who want to cash out
2. The US government stepping in and attempting to regulate and tax Bitcoin out of existence, or just straight-up outlawing it
3. The end of net neutrality

Had you asked me before a couple of weeks ago, I'd have said that the first was inevitable. Now that I've done the research, I'm not so sure that it's a definite. I think the second option is a very real possibility. The more mainstream Bitcoin becomes, the more the government is going to become interested in getting its cut on the coin generation (or purchase) and especially on the back end when it's cashed out. There are plenty of ways to hide cryptocurrency activity from taxation now, but the more the Fed starts seeing average families invest in Bitcoin instead of in their precious stock exchange, you'll see the hammer come down fast. It doesn't help that there are paid-for industry shills running their mouth on prominent banking, finance and payments industry sites that stand on the rooftop of the building Bank of America bought them and scream about how Bitcoin is designed to fund drugs, terrorism and prostitution and must be killed off.

The third one is interesting, and of immediate concern to me. When that phallus-faced Verizon lobbyist-turned-regulator kills net neutrality, what's to keep the Comcasts of the world from throttling mining traffic to a standstill, as they're expected to do with major torrent servers? Or, more likely, creating a package that adds to your monthly bill, but unlocks full speed for mining traffic? I admittedly haven't read enough yet to fully understand this, but it seems to me that paid prioritization could be used by ISPs to milk a little more money out of dedicated miners--and price the guys who are doing it for fun (me) out of the market entirely.

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