The downside of starting in altcoins is obviously that altcoin markets are easier to manipulate than bitcoin. IMHO BTC's bigger volume markets are easier to navigate.

anyone know of any alternatives to btcforkmonitor?

Site still down for me. Strangely, http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/btcforkmonitor.info thinks it is online.

If you're implying that the following will be true in the immediate future after August 1:    price(new BTC) + price(BCC) <= price(old BTC) . One implication of this inequality is that the rate at which BCC should fall should be theoretically equal to the rate of rise in BTC. If this was the only reason for market movements, one could say yeah this is possible, but there are many other factors at play which may invalidate the inequality.

There is just one short-term certainty: volatility.

Buy and hold with the intention of selling after a certain period is just another type of trading strategy. As said above, one is better off trading with the loaned capital (which can be paid off with a collateral in case of default). But then again, some people are better off not trading than otherwise 

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

I personally do not think BCC is going anywhere but down.

But there's surely money to be made trading against the (very) few people who are in favor of BCC.

Most people on the forum are of the view that BCC is just another altcoin and it is likely to just die off in sometime after August 1. It will or won't, this remains to be seen. In the meantime, are there any exchanges willing to offer BCC-BTC trading after the fork?

I am not referring to BCC futures. More along the lines of "BCC-BTC trading begins on xyz exchange on August 1 12:21 UTC".

Talked about at length here, though not conclusively: https://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/6pgso7/why_on_earth_would_you_use_bcc_if_you_have/

I'm just trying to understand why all the talk around the split topic is just FUD, as is claimed by many on the forum. People claim its all FUD, but never bother explaining why.

The posts above seem to suggest that Bitcoin Cash has no chance against BTC in the long term, in the sense that BTC will continue to rise after the fork. How different is this case from what happened with ethereum, that is if BCC is the new ETH and BTC is the ETC equivalent?

AFAIK, there is currently no law that makes it illegal for the lawyer to "steal" those coins, before or after the testator's death (this has been discussed on the forum again and again, "stealing" bitcoins has not been defined legally yet). Unless OP lives in an area where mystic wills are allowed (the will would contain the private keys), even those require three witnesses ready to testify the authenticity of that will which may be a risky proposition as those witnesses may or may not be alive/available at the time of the testator's death.

This problem can be solved by using smart contracts if there is a foolproof, non-tamperable way to digitally record one's death. I can't think of any such way other than, lets say, you not signing into your email account for more than 3 months or whatever you set it at.

I thought I should update here. They did not charge me the fee like they had mentioned in the automated email, and Zebpay support clarified to me that they have the system in place to curb abuse.

Anyway, if they do charge this fee to anyone else, they should have it mentioned clearly at the time of giving bank details inside the app.

I've used Localbitcoins mostly in the past and it sufficed for the most part. I don't trade INR-BTC too often. Hence I had not tried Zebpay or any other bigger Indian bitcoin portals earlier.

I started with Zebpay by putting some INR in the wallet. Apparently they accept only NEFT, RTGS and IMPS. Sure, understood. This is their order confirmation page which tells you where you should send your money to:
http://i.imgur.com/1pglcSc.png

Not a single mention of any fees they will charge if the payment is not acceptable to them.

Now, they send an email almost half an hour later (probably by when most people would have sent their payments) saying "Do not send funds from non verified bank accounts or from wallets like PayTM, Mobikwik.
These payments will not be accepted and the order will be canceled. We shall refund such payments to your bank account after 7 working days and with a refund charge of Rs 250."

1) Paytm uses IMPS for transferring funds.

How is the end user supposed to know that you have problems with WHERE that IMPS is coming from? Isn't it your ethical responsibility to let users know AT the time of placing the order that any such fees apply?

2) Paytm is not an "non unverified" source. Zebpay has my authenticated mobile number and I don't see a problem if I use that very number for making INR payments to them.

It's not about Rs. 250 that was lost. Right off the bat, the website has already lost my trust as to what all hidden fees they will have in the future. That is not how you run successful startups.

This seems more of a systematic way of milking money out of people.

EDIT: I should clarify: I am not against them charging people "refund fees". It's their policy and they can decide on those things. But TELL people IN ADVANCE that you're going to charge them for something, not AFTER.

The rest of the site works mostly alright for me, it just won't let me upload my documents though. The OTP is valid for 3 minutes and that duration elapses while waiting for anything to upload.

Not very excited about the idea of emailing my docs to support. They're probably very overwhelmed with KYC stuff.