I have seen this mentioned in a couple of other posts -- that there are actually many bitcoin forks that have been done. However, the only ones I know about are Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold. So where are these other forks? Are their coins tradeable like BTC or BCH? Is there a list of these other forks posted somewhere?

According to what I am reading today, the most recent move upward in BTC toward $6000 is actually coming from Zimbabwe, where another economic crisis is driving more people into bitcoin in an attempt to escape a devaluing local currency:

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-trading-at-nearly-10000-in-zimbabwe-due-to-a-lack-of-cash-in-the-country/

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-20/zimbabwe-panic-sends-bitcoin-soaring-over-6000-now-bigger-goldman-sachs

Yes, that is what I was thinking also...almost 10 years and still growing in popularity/value is getting a bit long for bitcoin to be written off as a simple fad. In other words I think we are past the "pet rock" stage here and well into something that is a real phenomenon worthy of consideration. Bitcoin may not completely replace fiat currencies but over the long term it can still remain as a quick and convenient way of sending money, particularly across international borders or in situations where transacting in "normal" currencies has become difficult.

This seems unlikely...even if the original core developers stopped doing anything with bitcoin others would take their place simply due to bitcoin's popularity and the availability of the source code. Even if the bitcoin popularity and development declined significantly it would not really die because the blockchain and ability to make transactions would still be there as long as we have the Internet. The only thing that would happen in such a case is that there would be fewer transactions taking place and the value of each BTC may decrease as demand decreases.

This is likely due to differences in demand for BTC among different countries and regions, depending on the population of traders using each particular exchange. The differences in BTC value should not be too great, however, or exist for a long time because eventually people will see an arbitrage opportunity developing and take advantage of it, after which the price gaps between exchanges should decrease. Some small differences in BTC prices may remain simply due to normal trading activity and the cost/hassle of moving currencies between exchanges to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities.

Yes, this prediction is a little on the high side. I would be pleasantly surprised if we reached 20k that soon but I suppose it is theoretically possible based in this year's upward trend. It just seems unlikely that such a fast upward trend would continue for two more years without leveling off some, at least in percentage terms.

Hee hee...it looks like Bitcoin Cash still has a nice little fan club. Although I am more into the original Bitcoin than BCH, this is not really a bad thing...as long as BCH retains some loyal users and followers this may keep its price from completely crashing, thus allowing BCH to serve as a nice dividend payment on my BTC holdings.

It is difficult to say whether this is really intentional manipulation of the bitcoin markets or not. When a large country like China puts bans or restrictions on bitcoin trading it follows from natural market forces that the BTC price will fall somewhat due to Chinese traders cashing out to withdraw or move BTC somewhere else, not to mention the FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) effect from the news itself, which tends to affect even non-Chinese traders on a psychological level. This does not necessarily suggest intentional manipulation; it is quite possible that the Chinese government simply wants to introduce regulation to this particular market sector and/or clamp down on fraudulent activity.

This is obviously bad news about Bittrex. I actually have an account there but have not moved any money into it or done any trading with it, which is a good thing because now that this has happened I can add this exchange to my "avoid" list and will not need to worry about being locked out or losing any money.

Meanwhile someone who has more experience with these exchangers than I do needs to compile a list of exchangers that are not into KYC/AML verification stuff (or blocking/limiting accounts). Or alternatively if no such exchangers exist, then list the maximum amounts that they allow to be traded/withdrawn without verification. A list of their available methods and payment processors for cash withdrawals would also be helpful.

As much as I would like to see bitcoin at 27k, this is unlikely to happen in only four months. I also noticed that the article linked to from the original post was quite lacking in actual information; there was no real analysis or any sort of plausible reason given for the 27k figure. The article was also quite poorly written with several apparent grammatical errors, particularly regarding subject-verb agreement. 

Frankly this thread has too many questions in it for a single poster to be able to answer it all fully in a reasonable amount of time...the stuff about lending bitcoin at interest, trust issues, etc. should probably be split off into a separate thread in the Services section.

As far as possible hoarding of bitcoin goes, if a single entity were able to buy up a large amount of BTC this would simply benefit the rest of us BTC holders because it would significantly limit the supply of BTC in circulation, thereby theoretically leading to a further increase in the value of each BTC. Taken to the extreme it would be like the Uncle Scrooge comic book story I read back in 1979 where the Scrooge McDuck cartoon character tried to buy up all of the 1916 quarters in circulation at the time by offering everyone 50 cents per quarter. He was apparently successful at limiting the supply this way and driving the price all the way up to "ten skyrillion dollars" (I am not sure exactly how much a "skyrillion" is but I imagine it is roughly equivalent to the national debt of the USA). The problem with our Uncle Scrooge was that no one could actually afford to pay 10 skyrillion dollars, so in the end he was stuck with a big pile of quarters that he could not sell because his penchant for hoarding had driven the prices too far out of whack.

In the case of our bitcoin economy it is unlikely that things would ever reach this point because there are enough hardcore "hodlers" out there who will not let go of their BTC even as the price rises, such that no one would ever be able to buy up all of the BTC in circulation. If the available supply did become sufficiently limited through hoarding and/or increased demand, then smaller units like satoshi could become valuable enough to necessitate a few more decimal places being added to the displayed balances of bitcoin wallets and transactions. I am not sure how easy or difficult it would be to add more decimal places than the current eight to the underlying code, however; for the answer to this, and the questions about BTC lending issues, we will see if other posters have something more to add.

Apparently this is already happening...just yesterday I saw another thread right here on this forum that mentioned a university in Switzerland now accepting bitcoin for payment of tuition fees: 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2246596.0

https://futurism.com/schools-accepting-bitcoin-tuition/

My understanding is that technically bitcoin could not end as long as something remains of the basic infrastructure (Internet connectivity, electronic file storage, etc.) that allows bitcoin's blockchain and ledger to exist. It is still possible for another cryptocurrency to surpass bitcoin in terms of trading volume should something else become more popular, but the original bitcoin would still exist and be available for normal transactions.

Well that is a sign all right, at least in the literal sense. It does not say whether bitcoin is actually accepted within that building, however, so I suppose it could be someone just looking to increase bitcoin's visibility and stimulate discussion about it. Either way it is nice to see bitcoin popping up in various forms even in places where most people would not likely expect it.

This thread should probably be moved to "Off Topic" since it is not really about bitcoin...

I am a freelance writer who is looking for places where I can be paid in BTC or other major cryptocurrencies in exchange for writing or proofreading articles. I have found a few sites online that are supposed to be bitcoin-friendly freelance sites, but the ones I have seen so far have fairly low activity and very few writing jobs actually available. Perhaps some other posters here know about places that are more active in this field.

Yes, the bitcoin price is getting high enough that it is becoming difficult for some people to think in terms of whole bitcoins. For smaller transactions we may need to start using mBTC or "bit cents" (0.01 BTC). It seems silly for those of us who are accustomed to dealing with mathematics, but the size of numbers can really be a psychological barrier for some people. So having 500 mBTC can seem like a significant amount of money but if it is stated as 0.5 BTC it somehow seems like a much smaller amount even though mathematically it is the same.

I don't know if this is possible, but this thread title should be reworded...as it stands this sounds like that if we generate "Bitcoin Speculation", it will be accepted by Amazon, as if Amazon actually wants us to speculate about bitcoin so that the company can then accept this speculation for some reason.
 
Perhaps a better way to word this would be "Thread for Speculation about Amazon Possibly Accepting Bitcoin" or something to that effect.

Yes, this could use some clarification...as far as I know that only fork from the original bitcoin where we can actually claim the forked coins if we have our private key is Bitcoin Cash (BCH). But if there are other forked coins that are still valid, please let us know.

Thank you for pointing this out. Putin/Russia is currently one of the most vilified and misunderstood entities in the mainstream media, at least here in the USA. The level of anti-Russian propaganda and fearmongering has become truly ridiculous in certain quarters, so it is always a good idea to take media reports about Russian activity with a grain (or more) of salt, at least until proper context and confirmation can be found.