Lending will never die, and if that happens, it will not be because of some random ponzi scheme in the cryptosphere.
What bitconnect was trying to do was to offer decentralized lending, which makes no sense, since you need a middleman for that kind of service.

It's hard to take McAfee seriously when he is pumping so many shitcoins. However, looking at fundamentals of Bitcoin, it's entirely possible that Bitcoin could reach a few hundred k in 2020.

I think it is the future. But at the current conditions, you can't expect something like this to happen. Despite the fact that it is a great store of value, Bitcoin is not yet ready for thousands of microtransactions per second.

The good news is that we are getting closer and closer to having Lightning Network. Weeks ago we had the first LN transaction in the mainet. That's right, mainet, not testnet.

It's basically what others have said: supply and demand. But if you're asking about the factors that influence the increases and decreases in demand, the list is really long, and depending on the time, some factors are more decisive than others.
The rises we are seeing recently, for example, are what I could call institutional money coming in, like wall street money, investments from management funds and companies related to options and futures, like the CME group.

People might find it useful, I had hard time looking for price alert services in the past.

I don't think everyone lost money. Coins with solid fundamentals are holding strong in the market.

Unless you're investing in a pump and dump, you just need to be patient to see you investment rise in value.

Interesting reading. I personally think it would be a disaster, and I also think it is very unlikely to happen. The world economy evolved based on cash, and almost every business that exists around the world depends on it.

I don't think so. Even if every exchange around the world becomes illegal, people would start using exchanges that don't require identification.
If somehow governments shut down these exchanges, people will use p2p trading.

I speculate that demand is more than enough to prevent Bitcoin from going below $ 3000.

Also, keep in mind that people are still to realize how segwit can make the ecosystem much better.
If you sell before we have things like LN and MimbleWimble, you will be at a high risk of losing the boat. Some would say it's an opportunity that occurs once in a lifetime.

This might become infeasible long before... People are doing more than 10% over their holdings doing absolutely nothing, this kind of movement can not last long.

If you are forced to pay it, it's theft. Period.

It depends on your living costs. In some countries this might be possible, especially in the underdeveloped ones.

I thought jihan had 15% of the total hashrate, and even if other miners followed the lead, the chain split could lead to big financial losses, especially for holders.
If rationality takes place, I don't think they would go that far, since it would lead to loss of confidence.

You could start by creating some kind of service that accepts Bitcoin, that way you use your programing skills, and at the same time learn to integrate Bitcoin to your website. But for this you will also need experience in web development.

For sure.
Steady performance is what I want to see.

Why so fast? I hope it does not crash hard.

A few years ago there was the doubt in the minds of many people if Bitcoin would really be recognized worldwide, and that was one of the reasons why Bitcoin was so cheap. But now, it's easy to see that there are people who find strong use cases for it, especially in countries like India and Venezuela.

I suspected that this day would come earlier for Ripple, since it was pumped hard first. I wonder if Ethereum will be the next.

This is something we will see for the next few weeks. I hope it does not affect Bitcoin, but even if the alts bubble burst, Bitcoin could benefit if all the capital goes back to BTC.

If Bitcoin is in a bubble, surely this is just the beginning. Regarding altcoins, it's complete madness.