At the moment, most of the pools are consolidated in China (arguably miners too)
But there is a lot at stake, for someone to want to "Control" or "Manipulate" the network.
Expensive cost, game theory mechanics, high risk all makes up the high probabilistic finality of bitcoin transactions for it to be trusted in a decentralized manner.

Block reward for Litecoin will half from 25 LTC down to 12.5 LTC in less than 6 days
Will we see extreme volatility as we get closer or business as usual?
Or chances are it has been priced in, and miners may continue to mine at profit
Countdown timer at https://www.coingecko.com/en/explain/litecoin_halving

We are starting Q3 with around $9500 - $10,000 ; still a higher baseline than where we were last quarter.
And yes Q3 is going to be a battle testing stage to how well this price can sustain.
Interestingly the altcoins did not aggressively surge along with the momentum. On the other hand Ethereum continues to see further development in DeFi.
More new competing platforms are launching soon namely Hedera and Polkadot

The Boglehead 3 fund portfolio has been going around for years - https://twocents.lifehacker.com/simplify-your-investments-with-the-3-fund-portfolio-1831746735
Basic protection would be diversified into 3 sectors + cryptocurrency for fun/speculation

Activity on the bitcoin network is normally measured by the total number of transactions
With higher transactions over time, you may conclude that there is a steady gain in momentum in bitcoin transactions.However, because Bitcoin transactions are affordable and easy to execute, folks may potentially be shuffling coins between different wallets that would end up inflating the number of transactions in the network.

As such Bitcoin Days Destroyed (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_Days_Destroyed) was proposed
The premise is that counting the number of transactions per day does not truly reflect the Bitcoin economy.
Bitcoin Days Destroyed is often used as an alternative view to bitcoin transaction volume.
This metric is a measurement of transactions with an emphasis on bitcoins which have not been spent in a while.

To illustrate that

Alice has 10 bitcoins which she received 100 days ago. Today she decided to spend it all in a transaction.
Bitcoin Days Destroyed = 10 BTC x 100 days = 1000

Bob has 10 bitcoins which he received yesterday. Today he decided to move them into an exchange in a transaction.
Bitcoin Days Destroyed = 10 BTC x 1 day = 10

The longer that the bitcoins have not been spent, the higher the Bitcoin Days Destroyed will be when it gets spend.

The idea of this metric is that by looking at the Bitcoin Days Destroyed, you would be able to weed out transactions where fresh set of bitcoins are merely bouncing around different wallets.
 

By the looks of it, bitcoin is a vital alternative in countries where there isn't any good/stable stock market to invest in, and declining currency purchasing power.
should need a big mac index for bitcoin or the sort to track inflation

Indonesia crypto adoption is probably driven by Indodax, one of the longest running exchange since 2013 or earlier; which is arguably one of the largest crypto volume driver globally too

https://i.imgur.com/0nxRqhu.png summarizes the ROI for most of the IEO's launched by several exchanges.

Bitcoin being the fast brought with it couple of advantages :-
- Well-known, the word "Bitcoin" has been thrown around for almost 10 years now, and it is still alive and one of the most valuable digital asset
- Network effect... most cryptocurrency adopters started with bitcoin and also attracts the most serious audience and holders
- When Bitcoin was launched it influenced a lot in terms of philosophy and economics of a digital asset, spawning new ideas and setting the tone for decentralization

In terms of value, money is very much a function of its network effect.
For a new cryptocurrency to pose a serious contender to Bitcoin, not only the alternative needs to be better but Bitcoin probably would need some defects
Simplicity of Bitcoin purpose also reduces the possibility of defects which makes it less popular than the alternatives

We at CoinGecko have added Bytex exchange integration.

You may see total volume, pairs, and info at https://www.coingecko.com/en/exchanges/bytex

Check out all that has happen in Q2 of 2018
Coverage on market macro data, key event highlights, state of dapps, and sentiment analysis.

Full report for free can be obtained here https://assets.coingecko.com/reports/2018-Q2-Report/CoinGecko-2018-Q2-Report-EN-Large.pdf

You can actually use the compare feature on ICO issued tokens as well
As an example https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/compare?coin_ids=eos,qtum,0x and scroll to the bottom
The ROI row tells you the gains made from the recorded public sale price.

These information however are harder to collect as such we are trying our best to build the database.
We constantly add tokens as we get requests

May I suggest checking out our website at https://www.coingecko.com/
We provide information around market, developer, community, blockchain network, and more to come for any given crypto
Also have an app in both iOS and Android

Would like to hear your thoughts on that and how we can improve

Hi co-founder of CoinGecko here. Thanks for choosing to use our service.
We recently launched a coin comparison feature at https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/compare that i would suggest you try out.
I would definitely like to hear more about how you are using and finding our service.
Looking to further improve to serve your needs.

Try out our service at CoinGecko https://www.coingecko.com/en

For some people, portfolio management can be overkill and cumbersome.
We currently provide watchlist, just sign up at https://www.coingecko.com/account/sign_up?locale=en
and you are well on your way picking favorite coins to be monitored

CoinGecko public API is now ready https://www.coingecko.com/api/docs/v3

You can test making API calls within the documentation page itself or consume directly using curl or code

Our goal is to make your life easier with simple calls but with comprehensive dataset for your usages.

We have published a guide to help you navigate around the cryptocurrency space while avoiding scams
https://www.coingecko.com/buzz/4-lessons-from-biggest-cryptocurrency-scams-2018

TLDR
1. Pay Close Attention to Website Addresses as Phishing Remains Common
2. Beware Promises of Risk Free Guaranteed Returns
3. Lucrative Affiliate Programs are a Red Flag
4. Check the Background of the People Involved; Scammers tend to be Repeat Offenders

ICO Spreadsheet by CoinGecko compiling mentions and ratings from various reviewers & rating sites
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ow9I0rXTQuEDJZfHGd7XHgl_RgrjTZ-LhHdPIsF-nZg/

Not sure about the current state of Bitcoin split? Here is an infographic that we created https://imgur.com/y4D0XEC hopefully able to help clear the air on the difference between Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, and Bitcoin 2X