Not all altcoin will rise again and its normal. Just watch the market and keep HODL.

If merit already is for sale, so they will find a way to get merit in a spamming way. Or just have a discussion with themselves, giving merit for nothing.

I could barely dream of obtaining 10 merits to test advanced signatures, but bitcointalk is cruel and only old members have a chance to use all perks.

Another problem is when crypto goes popular there is too many new topics and users. I could understand all this merit system for the best of the forum, but still, have some doubts about its perfection. I'm totally not this kind of user, that will write an academic article and give "very precious advice" to everyone just to earn merit points.

But still how it possible that only legendary members obtain so much merit and don't want to give it away? Why you need soo much? What a genius way to stimulate user activities throughout the greed.

You need to use search and check few tutorials from the bitcointalk users. They give you very detailed examples of how to create and test the signatures.
Just try to create a basic version and then try more advanced level.

Certainly, one source is never enough for getting most relevant news.
Not every project post here, on Bitcointalk.

The most popular sources for me are:
1. https://coinmarketcap.com -  to read the news you need to go to the particular currency profile and click "last updates."
2. https://cointelegraph.com - probably the most popular news site (a lot of paid articles)
3. https://www.coindesk.com - boring news
4. https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/
5. Google News - crypto news

Extra tip: find your fav Telegram channels and enjoy endless notifications.

Why everyone forgot about technology and real working product?

Marketing is only a part of a product.
However, later or sooner you will need a product, which is work according to the "marketing promises".

You need to take care of:
- team: motivated, goal oriented and responsible
- concept
- MVP
- market tests and proof of concept
- UI/UX
- killer features
- optimization
- security of transactions
- why are you going to use the blockchain
- marketing strategy, which supposes to cover PR, promotion, product optimization, and flexibility
- hundreds of working hours, crunches and deadlines
- develop, test, improve, repeat

+ tons of other unpredictable events, which can have an influence(positive or negative).

It depends on a level of investment and profits you want to achieve, as well as the time of your investment. In short-term perspective better to look at the level of market and trend. BTC will give you the best profit in 1-1,5 month;
ETH now in stagnation and you need to search for closest announcements and huge updates. Now ETH price is close to the end of the year.

So you need try and learn.

Look at the trend. The price now a similar to month ago, so it's correction.
At the end of the June, the deep was on 5800 lvl.

The market was waiting for the correction to sell at high and now will wait for deeps to buy at a right price.

Still, BTC price not yet falls to the last year lvl. Will see what will happen during the next several days.

Clearly Bitcoin not a financial pyramid in any way.
It was the first crypto and now it's cost so much because people believe in it and use it + capitalization of BTC is still bigger than any other crypto. Due to the limited quantity (21 million) price become higher every year.
When it became popular and widely accepted as a regular payment method, it will gain more people who will have an impact on the market price(as it was before the January).

Financial pyramids based on extra income/greed and manipulations with the help of new users and their donations.

Bitcoin market price is manipulated buy bears and bulls, which have nothing in common with financial pyramid.

It's so sad to watch how market is going down again.
More and more people are afraid to even buy coins while there are no huge waves of recovery. The second part of August will show is there any support from the bulls.

Seems to believe in the project is an essential part of every airdrop. It's an interactive game, which demands time and some activities. Besides, why here so many signatures and participators?

IMHO variety of factors influence each airdrop, and after all, you will get you tokens/coins. Nobody gives you guarantee how much it will be worth after all.

Seems you also need to add merit points.

Agreed.
They have too many projects rated by "random" investors and its seem strange how many of them from the same bunch of investors(total investors base about 22K people).

icotokennews and icorating look ok, but remember, that every listing has a paid promotion. So better to do your own research.

It seems it really depends on the team the level of the bounties. A lot of people just copy-paste the same info and spread it everywhere they can.
Somehow quantity is much more important than quality for some project. I saw a lot of examples, where low quality comments where on each forum.
So the rules supposed to be clear what do and what not allowed to do.

There are any reasons cryptocurrencies will vanish one day? Bitcoin survives throughout all these years of uncertainty and dips. Now tons of new crypto appears, but it only shows the trend like in any other industry.

Cryptocurrencies just a new form of digital money, which allow concluding that now every currency will be accessible or super valuable, and while will be demand there is always a place for it.

People just bored to use all the things which the government used as to, so a new era of digital economy is coming.

Just wanted to share my observations - some time ago I started to follow some telegram channels and found one guy, who shared his opinion about the crypto. And his prediction was to expect BTC touch 8K and maybe 8100-8450.
So I decided to check his theory and wait. Of course, its strongly depend from the particular exchange, but
Today was a day when BTC trades 8400 and a few hours later 8200.
So basically you need to understand the trends and supporting and resistance level to make any conclusion.

It was a move from 6300 to 8500 almost without any critical correction but still, will it cost more than 8800 during the next few days or we will see the bears acting again. Time will show.

That situation we had on the market an actively manipulated by the big players and corporations and futures on BTC. So someone will make a lot of profit on this waves of panic and stagnation.

What I'm personally thinking about is never too late to invest in something you really believe. But you need precisely to understand the market and the coin or currency you are going to invest.

As Bitcoin was the first crypto, so it has good chances for long life. Its price is still not predictable in any reasonable way; however, you can look up to the historical data and compare the waves and pics.

From my observations - bitcoin is still highly volatility currency, but the period of making a profit become shorter(you need to track the market every day and understand resistance and supporting lines). Some media bombs also will influence the price and big players with futures are also pump and dump the price.

For not professional traders it's not so simple to make profits in daily/weekly basis.

It's most popular sites you can easily google, but not all of them are really trustworthy.

All these sources have pricelist and you can easily buy a place at the top 5-10.

The best option will be monitoring few sources you personally like and then compare ratings and make own research.

Folks, how about to share real case-studies?

Seems all full of theory, but maybe someone will want to share real cases, struggles, cool tactics which really work for them?

Unfortunately, I need to agreed with previous answer.

Most sources would give you 5 stars, publish your press release or just gave you very positive rating for some crypto.
I personally faced with tons of such services and most of them have a price-list. So anyway you need to be really carful choosing the ICO and make you own research.

If we can build up here some kind of "proven and independent sources" would be great.