We should take individual strategic decision. HODL is best approach but who knows wheres the bottom? Just buy bites along the way at prices you like and sell even with small profits. It's always good to HODL some and sell partially so that you can reenter again at the bottom of bear market.This will also average out your BTC losses.  

It's similar to gold. People buy gold and lock it in a safe because they believe the demand for gold will rise, increasing its value, and thus the gold is stored value.
The Bitcoin currency is not managed by any government agency, nor is it backed by any government.  Bitcoin values are purely dependent upon holders having faith they will continue to have value.

Manipulation is here, there are clearly heavy hitters in the market that control the direction one way or the other.The big exchanges are giving investors an unrealistic picture of the market. The average traders tend to assume that the majority of trading happens on exchanges. In reality, the very large investors trade OTC, so a significant amount of volume and pricing data is absent from exchanges. I recommend spend in small amounts and replenish as you go. This is the best thing for bitcoin. Try to Avoid centralized exchanges.

News announcements frequently coincide with price movements in the market.  Hype in the media about Bitcoins can lead to spike in prices, while negative news can cause the price to drop. In some cases, the negative publicity actually helps to popularize the cryptocurrency, which contributes to its success.
News related to hacking the exchanges or bankruptcy can create bear rumors among users causing the price to plunge. News about the currency being used for selling drugs, laundering money, and other illegal activities can also impact the value of Bitcoins.

A currency needs to grow with the people, not past them. To get real mass adoption for bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, we need better currency conversion, remittance, ATM withdrawals and other financial services with lower fees than fiat systems. In other words, it can be used as intended — as money. This is what will ultimately attract a mainstream audience and will actually incentivize them to make the switch to bitcoin or cryptocurrency.

As per my analysis block size and time limits create a bottleneck for the amount of bitcoin transactions that can be made at a given time. Nowadays, with increasing popularity and demand for bitcoins, there are transactions being created at a much faster speed than the network can process.Thousands of transactions waiting for an opportunity to enter into a block to be considered official or confirmed.

Miners are then free to choose which transactions they will include on the block. So they choose the transactions that pay higher fees. i.e. if you want your transaction to be processed quickly, you need to pay a fee that puts you in the top positions of that ranking. Transactions are competing against each other to see who can get there first.
And that’s why the fees are so high.

Possibly. It will happen anytime soon. The only way it could crash the US dollar would be if most Americans adopted Bit Coin and stopped using the Dollar.  Very few people understand what Bit Coin is or what it does. Even fewer are willing to buy it or use it for transactions. Also, if global trades start using bitcoin then that will big hit to dollar.
I hope that someday a decentralized BitCoin takes out the dollar. The “common man” will certainly benefit from that. But don't get too excited we are a long way from taking out the government’s filthy mammon.

In principle there could be various benefits: the simple efficiency of instant global electronic transactions, preventing counterfeiting, better record-keeping and monitoring of transactions, no printing press, etc But government managed bitcoin could herald a new era of centralization, posing serious questions about privacy and the viability of true cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

The “true” value of Bitcoin depends on its future use case. If users would, en masse, lose interest, then it could end at zero. On the other hand, in the unlikely scenario that Bitcoin takes over all worldwide payments, its value could rise beyond $1mln.
If Bitcoin is failing as a payment system, and is now primarily used as an asset to hold, the only remaining justification for investing in Bitcoin is the assumption that others are willing to buy Bitcoin at higher prices in the future.

Money launderers historically have far outstripped the efforts of regulators, law-enforcement officials and anti-money laundering (AML) professionals who try to stop them from circumventing the law. Fraud examiners should seriously consider what the future of money laundering involving bitcoin might look like so they can close the gap between the good guys and the bad guys.

Most people can only acquire Bitcoin with fiat. i.e. People rely on fiat currencies. Bitcoin does not. And when Bitcoin goes mainstream, people will rely less and less on fiat currencies. But currently, for bitcoin to achieve mainstream success, or much success in general as a currency, it relies heavily on the USD and other fiat currencies.

Bitcoin dominance is on the rise. As long as Bitcoin has a majority of the cryptocurrency market share, it will have an effect on the value of any altcoin. i.e. Relationship between Bitcoin and altcoins are difficult to decouple. In short words bitcoin leads the way and until then, the rest of the markets must sit in limbo, unable to take control of their own destiny.

In my view, Blockchain technology can change the banking system and make it far more efficient by making transactions faster, safer, and cheaper. Thanks to bitcoin which was first successful implementation of blockchain.
Also, Banks will be able to avoid any fraudulent transactions and secure the system.
Transactions will not be completed with just the knowledge of one person, the whole organization will know about it.
Other uses for bank-backed blockchain projects would include secured global currency exchange rate speeds and increased transaction security, among other benefits, eventually allowing for an overhaul of the banking industry, replacing traditional back-office clearinghouses and other outdated mediums that exist between asset sellers and buyers.

 

Bitcoin caught mainstream attention when it grew from below $1,000 to nearly $20,000 in 2017. It not only gave tremendous profits to its investors but also opened the gates for numerous other cryptocurrencies.
Many of these cryptocurrencies have also performed extremely well in the past and perhaps provide a good Bitcoin alternative. In fact, some currencies like Litecoin and Ethereum have given returns of more than 12000% in 2017!
Undoubtedly, Bitcoin is still the king of cryptocurrencies but there are many Bitcoin competitors out there which are worth exploring as Bitcoin alternative.

By now it is evident that the prophesied mass adoption has not yet come. But Bitcoin isn’t going to die any time soon either, despite what some of the detractors would have you believe. The question then becomes, when is global recognition realistically possible and what has been preventing it so far?
Both the number of daily transactions and the price of Bitcoin have steadily grown to quite substantial levels, despite all the setbacks and crashes on the way. It is clear that there is enough determination and enthusiasm in the Bitcoin community to maintain the current positive dynamics into the future. Rather, the continuation of the current steady organic growth could be what Bitcoin needs. It is quite likely that five or 10 years half the world will know what Bitcoin is.

This IBM product is still not fully decentralize as both side centralized banks are involved. It's  just payment settlement framework within two banks. They are using blockchain to store transactions. But it's good move considering other benefits like Reduced capital requirements for cross-border transactions,Simultaneous clearing and settlement,Lower clearing costs, it will be running 24 /7 etc. I am looking for first real implementation of this framework.

I agree few of you mentioned that transaction slowness is really slow. It's my frustration also.
While the actual disruption was likely minimal, the slowdown may indicate that some developers' worst fears were coming true about the virtual currency's usability. If you're trying to buy a coffee with bitcoin, after all, you can't very well stand around for 10 minutes to an hour in the shop.
Transactions are completed once they've been verified by other users and uploaded to the central ledger, or blockchain. Our transaction happens in batches of transactions, called blocks. The current bitcoin protocol says blocks must be smaller than 1 megabyte, a hard-coded restriction that was recently the topic of heated debate in the bitcoin community. The plodding pace of transactions appears to be due to blocks reaching their upper size limit of 1 megabyte with more frequency, and unconfirmed transactions clogging up the "memory pool," a distributed database that lives on every computer running bitcoin software. I have great hope from lightening network which reduce our slowness frustration.

Since the bitcoin technology is very complicated and many don’t fully understand it, they will look for other cues that help them make a decision. One of those cues is to see how many others are invested in a certain project. This need for social proof helps us make daily decisions. But when you are about to put your money in a cryptocurrency, try to look past the herd mentality. Also, we humans tend to put more weight on losses than equal gains. So gaining $10 is not as satisfying as losing $10 is dissatisfying. We are wired to prefer avoiding losses than we are driven to seek gains.

If Bitcoin can be compared to cash transactions, the Lightning Network is analogous to an online system of decentralized credit: traders exchange IOUs, keep running tabs on their expenses, and only use the blockchain when their interaction concludes. That’s a big difference from the sign-and-send procedure for an ordinary, on-chain transaction. More to the point, the Lightning Network requires active involvement from all involved. Each party needs to be online at the same time; you can’t just post a QR code on your website to ask for tips. A successful Lightning transaction requires choosing an optimal payment path from among thousands of intermediaries, and—since nodes are constantly flickering on and off—that path needs to be recalculated each time.

Even with the negative stories that seem to flood the news at times, Bitcoin is actually more secure than most other financial systems. Taking the time to learn about how Bitcoin works and investing in a secure wallet is essential in keeping your Bitcoin safe. The biggest threat to your Bitcoin investment is not with the network itself, but with the volatility of the price. As more people begin to use Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies, though, the price should stabilize.
With proper education and correct storage practices to keep your Bitcoin safe, your funds are as secure as when using other financial channels.