When prices are falling, everyone panics and fears the end. When prices are rising, people celebrate and think the party will never stop. BTC will recover and likely overtake it's high, but who knows when. I would imagine this year we would see new all time highs.

I see demand for Bitcoin continuing to rise as more people become aware of it and realize how revolutionary it is.

Someone is really pumping a lot of money in it. Not saying that's not the objective but it's an awfully big risk to pour this amount of cash into a coin you plan to dump. Especially considering there may be lots of people who come out of the woodwork down the road if the price were to truly moon. People who had BTC and thought BCH was junk, only to realize they have BCH from old keys.

What do we think about PoW and PoS hybrids like LUX and others?

I think they do a good job of mitigating the risks and downsides of each of the two methods.

I've been listing to the Bad Crypto Podcast for a few weeks. It's very popular and they do a good job laying out the crypto news: http://badcryptopodcast.com

My biggest problems with gold:

1) For many, gold is a hedge against governments and financial systems blowing up the economy. Hyperinflation, devaluation of assets, or even currency default. While governments and banks are extremely leveraged around the world and could be susceptible to a global financial meltdown, I find it unlikely gold will be the protection people expect. The largest owners of gold are governments, who would be forced to liquidate some or all of their holdings in such a case - which would have a massive effect on the price obviously. There is also precedent for governments (even in the US) seizing gold. The populace would likely be more inclined to accept a new currency (i.e. reboot the system) than to revert back to a gold standard.

2) Physical gold is hard to use for trade. It's hard to give someone an exact measurement of gold without using coins - and then you have to trust that the coin is authentic and that it is of a denomination small enough to use for trade. Not to mention many gold proponents do not own or use physical gold, but rely on gold securities or an idea of gold securities in an investment account (which doesn't protect against a lot of the end-of-the-world or financial system meltdown ideas those people like to talk about).

3) Gold is valuable because out ancestors liked it? I just never got why gold is worth anything beyond it's utility as a metal. I don't put weight in "it's just always been valuable". Things change. We already see gold has lost a lot of its luster (pardon the pun) with young people.

4) Gold is "scarce"? Supposedly, a lot of gold's value is that it is scarce. I would argue it's not that scarce at all. But even if we say it is, we don't control that scarcity. What happens if we find a huge supply tomorrow that doubles the available supply?

Bitcoin is a far better option for storing and transacting wealth than gold. And I would argue it's a much better hedge against government/financial system worries.

There is a thin line between what some consider investing vs gambling. Buying a penny stock is gambling to most, but buying Apple stock is investing. Apple can go up or down, and has no guarantees of any sort of return on your investment. The main difference is Apple is considered more stable than a penny stock. Some stocks lose half their value or more, but are still considered investments. Investments can lose money. To me, Bitcoin is an investment. Some buy it to make a quick buck. Some buy it to hedge against global currency uncertainty. Others buy it for real use-case applications and transacting with people around the world.

That is a very decent analogy. I might use that myself.

touche

Nice little game. We need more crypto games!