one of those hard to say questions; thats only 5 years away. I think lots of places will definitely take crypto by then, and moreso depending on your country. However, i find it unlikely that you'd run the risk of being laughed at for paying with cash... not in the next 5 years for sure.

I learn a lot from these forums, then quite a bit from YT videos

Not sure that's an easy question to answer; do you mean what country has the most companies incorporated in it and then ICO?

Probably somewhere like Switzerland or Signapore.. but I'm not sure if you mean what country do the ICOs most commonly actually operate in (some our global, some our region specific)

i think this is another case where people can't really speculate with any degree of certainty.. but hopefully we see a rally

I'm looking into a local one in my country; this is only the 3rd ICO that's been regulation/legalized within Canada so far so will be investing in that. I've met the CEO and some of the dev team and feel its worthwhile.

It's not official, so no link, but I'll edit and add when it does in the coming days.

Definitely the most promising aspect for me, it's already got some heavy utilization. I'm holding as well

I think still BTC, it's got enough momentum to keep it higher overall.

but, I think ethereum may be more widespread as more projects continue to base themselves off it's blockchain

always nice to stay optimistic, all we can hope for is that things continue in this positive direction

I voted for commodity; I did this based on the active definitions of a currency vs the definition of a commodity.

Ultimate, since BTC is technically finite, I think it has to be looked at as a commodity since its value is very much defined by market operations, and if not now, then eventually, by supply and demand.

I think it's intent is certainly as a currency, but it's current characteristics, to me, really do not align with that of a currency (not backed by a Government FIAT, not a slowly decreasing inherit value if held.

Ultimately, in it's current state, BTC almost acts a currency that is backed by a commodity, although strangely it's almost itself as the commodity too.

Bottom line though, I think that because BTC, by definition, has a finite value, it ought to always be considered a commodity (keeping in mind that commodities can easily be used as currencies).

I agree, i think there's still lots of room for growth - maybe not as explosive - but there are more people each day who are getting up to speed and investing. Apparently, here in Canada, there is a "record number" of people buying BTC day over day.

Yea don't get me wrong, I get privacy concerns and specify exactly the risk of having more ad spams as a direct result of a patent/tech like this. Was just curious / making discussion, but I certainly don't use VPNs or public IPs when making all my purchases - although I certainly do use cash over credit card whenever possible.

And totally agree that this is borderline nefarious for Amazon to be reverse engineering anyone's spending habits as a means for their own gains, by no means do I support something like this.

Again, just open discussion as I'm trying to better understand the philosophy of people with different opinions.

Feel free not to answer, but out of curiosity, why do you feel the need to go to such great lengths about covering your tracks?

I have to assume it's not necessarily related to illegal activities, but what difference does it make if (hypothetically), there is 'visibility' over you using Crypto X, y or Z to purchase a Steam game?

I posted this the other day, but here in Canada, we started getting Coinsquare commercials during the NHL playoffs (https://www.facebook.com/coinsquare.io/videos/1900372693320004/). Super interesting to see something so mainstream.

While it does seemingly paint the community in a shifty light, I'm not opposed to a mainstream advertised way to get the 'regular Joe' into Cryptos; also... a pretty hilarious commercial when you compare the characters to some of the users of this forum 

Hey

Did a quick search and didn't see this posted yet. Found this interesting overview of a patent that Amazon filed in 2014, a few years before they bought those domains (amazonethereum.com, amazoncryptocurrency.com, amazoncryptocurrencies.com.)

http://darkcitycrypto.com/index.php/2018/04/19/amazon-filed-a-patent-to-de-anonymize-bitcoin-transactions-and-sell-the-data-to-law-enforcement/

The article states a few use-case scenarios for why Amazon might do this, which basically summarize to being able to determine physical addresses behind crypto transactions:

Personally, I'm not sure I see a negative here (as a crypto user), other than the potential of *more* targeted ads; however, I certainly don't see how this might benefit me (or the community) in any way.

What are your thoughts? any potential red flags I'm not seeing?

Any potential positive outcomes?

Atta boy, taking one for the team. Pass some my way too when you have more

go for it! if you have confidence in the team, product and solution, then may as well invest!

i think this is key; although there are faster alternatives to BTC, as well a cheaper-per-transaction offerings, BTC is the crypto that people have heard about. I think, eventually, we'll see a few mainstream cryptos, similar to how we have a few mainstream credit card companies.

Businesses will accept 3-5 crypto's, but probably not more than that. ICOs will need to find ways that people will use their coin in pretty specific industry ways (like Enjin, as an example). But ultimately, just like how your mom calls every gaming platform that will ever exist a "nintendo", some people will always ONLY associated "bitcoin" with cryptocurrencies as a whole.

I actually finally just saw a crypto commercial this weekend too, while watching NHL Playoffs. It was for Coinsquare: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iipb_DvFv4

Really interesting though as I was with my family and immediately everyone starting talking about it again - which hadn't happened at a family event of mine since the Holiday season. Good to see some casual traction!

I don't necessarily agree with that; there are a TON of well organized, thoughtful ICOs being funded, in full, each day.

To OP; if you want some advice on choosing an ICO to invest in, I'd personally check out a few ICO rating sites like https://icorating.com/ or https://icobench.com/ . But, ICO's are not a get rich quick scheme, and if that's your philosophy, then investing in ICO's isn't the way to do it. Personally, I try to focus on determining what the Problem is, that the ICO/developers are trying to solve.

If that's a problem that I can understand, then the product/solution of the ICO might be a good investment. But if you don't understand what it is that the ICO is even trying to do, then it's certainly not a good investment for you.

Existing/coins tokens should see some growth in the future, at least everyone on this forum is hoping so; but that's a different type of investment strategy then researching ICOs.

If you search my post history, I have a few threads regarding how to choose ICOs and one of which got a lot of great replies from the community, I encourage you to read that over to help develop your own strategy for investing in potential ICOs.

Basically, this. It's interesting news, but futile to sort of try to discredit or prove the merit of this report. Either way, if people are talking about a move towards legalization of ICOs, then it's positive.