Bitcoin Forum

Joining the forum in early March of this year was one of the most significant accomplishments I believe I've accomplished in my life. Prior to then, I knew very little about cryptocurrencies and couldn't tell the difference between bitcoin and cryptocurrency. I look for other coins online and on exchanges, and I register with them and purchase different coins in the hopes that my earnings would increase quickly.

However, after joining this forum, I've been able to tell them apart. I've learned a lot about security and privacy, and I can confidently explain the concepts of private and public keys, centralised and decentralised exchanges, online and offline wallets, and so on.

The forum has been a valuable tool in expanding my knowledge of cryptocurrency, something I will always be grateful for. I was able to learn more about the forum when I first joined it and have continued to do so to this day. I learned a lot about the forum, including the ranks, activity, and do's and don'ts. But because no one knows everything, it is sometimes necessary to ask questions in order to gain more clarity. According to my understanding, the merit can be offered to you by anyone who has Smerits.

Smerits are obtained when a user merits you and you receive half of that merit as Smerit, which you can also send out.  If that is how merit and Smerit function, what happens when everyone in the forum distributes all of their Smerits? Because, as a result of this process, the Smerits will one day be exhausted by everyone. But the merit distribution system continues to function; how is this possible?

We have merit sources that have smerit that are generated automatically which means smerit will never get exhausted. Before the merit system was introduced all these must have been thought of and as long as users continue to make posts that are meritable they'll keep receiving merits and so also will their smerit keep increasing the only time your theory of no smerit will work is if everyone decide not to make any post again and move on to other things but from what I can see I don't think that will be happening anytime soon.

There are some members called Merit Sources who can generate merits every month given by theymos. Right now, there are 109 merit sources and they can generate 33940 smerits each month. So, it's not going to be ended. Don't forget to calculate how many more smerits is going to be generated from 33940 when distributed.

Check merit stats here- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources

That is nearly impossible, as already explained by the above members. Aside from the merits generated a month from merit sources, the Smerit gotten from other members who receive merits still generates a lot of smerit when they are being distributed. Just as you have also explained, if everyone is distributing their merit and not holding back, I believe that alone can go a long way compared to the amount that is being distributed by merit sources every now and then. It's nearly impossible, as all this possibility has been calculated in the past before the merit system was introduced.

If there are no merit resources then this could be possible in the long end of forum but thats gonna be impossible when a lot of merits can be distributed by merit sources in each day, week and months. I could run out of smerits but Im sure one day someone would give me back merits again to gain it. If its work like a token and coin with limited supply and with that burning ratio of 50% deducted per 1 merit then a shortage is possible and merits will be hard to earn and to give due to that.

I think without merit source being refilled with smerits, there is certainly a possibility of it been exhausted. Let take for example that only 100 smerits is available without any thing like merit source getting refilled then when this smerits is shared out only 50% of it will begets another Smerits  (just like what cryptoadditchie said), in this case 50 left. If the circle continues like that just like halving we would eventually exhaust everything. So the merit from merit sources are actually what is keeping the whole thing from not getting any exhausted

Thank you for telling me how Smerit perform. Wow, that is very big amount of Smerits been distributed to the merit sources every month, and if they distribute all, that means they will be enough Smerit to share around the forum, but what will happen if they don't share all the Smerit within the one month, will the Smerit collected back or it will get exhausted? what will happen to the Smerit?

I feel like the posts above are enough to answer your question.

anyway, just so you know members of the forum can apply to become merit sources themselves, and if you are curious what the requirements are, check this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0). just a note that just because you applied and are an established member of the forum, does not mean that you'll be chosen to become a merit source.

If any merit sources get failed to distribute all the smerits they was assigned to, after the 30 days interval, their source merit will be reset and will be given allocation for new months. Theymos can assign merit source any time and can replace them if someone is inactive.
You should use the search option more frequently as this answers can be found easily, there are many discussions regarding this.

AFAIK, talking about the merit sources sMerits they will not be carried forward for next cycle. Whenever the new cycle begin they will get the amount filled with what they are allocated for. sMerits are just numbers it can be increased or decreased by one tap if theymos wants too and since being a merit source is a voluntary job don't expect them to spent their hours to spend their allocated quota.

This is a non-issue, Smerits isn't like Bitcoin that has a capped supply, :P Smerits can be generated by the admin anytime he wants to do it and he can distribute it anyhow he decides to. When the merit system was introduced, it was even airdropped to users based on just their activity, thus the forum can't run out of Smerits because it is easy for Theymos to create them. That aside anyway, there are merit sources whom Theymos allocates Smerits to per 30 days, and there is no dearth of quality posts in the forum, as such the merit system is still functioning as it should and it is going to continue in that way.

You made a suitable analogy with bitcoin. I would even say that Smerits has an endless emission, like fiat money or CBDC.

OP and other newcomers should not worry about the lack or shortage of Smerits. There will be enough for everyone, so try to make a feasible contribution to the forum and you will definitely be rewarded by the bitcointalk community, which will always have Smerits in stock.

@OP, Have you not been surprised that ever since the merit system was introduced in 2018, users of the forum have never ceased receiving merit? If Smerit had been limited, then It probably would have gotten exhausted earlier than now. but it just keeps going. I believe the reason why the Smerit never gets exhausted is because of some merit sources in the forum that have been appointed by Theymos, and He (Theymos) always allocates some amount of Smerit to Those merit sources almost every month.

When it comes to smerits, think of them like a tomato 🍅  in the fridge with a limited shelf life ,if these tomatoes are done(finished) then they need to be replenished for the next shelf life and be distributed and can't be gotten again before the next trip to the food store, market, farm wherever you get tomatoes from...

Otherwise, not possible for merit sources to be all done, so let's work on being reward with these for great contributions towards the forum.

Didn't know this existed, thanks for sharing this.

I knew there were people who get new merit every month and by the data on this link, this is what it comes to be:
- 109 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 33940 sMerit per 30 days

So there are 100+ people who get almost 33,000+ Merit every month which is almost 311 sMerit per person.
That assures that merit will never be exhausted on this forum unless these 109 people stop accessing the forum and the sMerit(s) for others get's exhausted.

Merit sources do not get equal allocation of Smerits per 30 days, it differs per merit source, some get more whilst others get less, thus your calculation of Smerit allocation per person is not accurate.
Exactly, and if hypothetically this happens Theymos will basically just appoint new merit sources and allocate them Smerits for the system to continue, the point is that Smerits can't run out because it is easy for the admin to generate it how they like.

You have asked the most common question which all newbies came to know think about. And the answer is always the same that. When at some point the merits will be no more to send anyone. Means you might not have any smerits to send then how this mechanism of giving merits will work. The answer is straight forward which is new Smerits will be given to Merit Source to distribute among the members according to there rules.

Means merit sources will distribute merit to anyone who's post they will found good. IMHO, there are almost 1 merit source in each local community and other than those. Other merit source are also exist who give merit occasionally like when you need few merits to complete your ranks etc.

Merit sources aside, remember that Bitcointalk is a 100% centralized platform and sMerits can be printed out of thin air at will by Theymos(Bitcointalk's owner/admin) anytime he wants to. There's literally no scarcity.

The forum has more than 3.5M users, from which more than 100.000 are active. Even without taking merit sources into consideration, the chance for all the forum users to run out of sMerits is extremely low. You'd probably have more chances to win the lottery than to see all forum users remaining without sMerits. Each time you will post a quality material, be sure you will receive merits. So if you will keep being a good forum contributor, don't worry, your sMerits stash will not get to 0 or, even if it gets to 0, it won't keep that value for a long time.

At same time, the current 100+ merit sources have a distribution of 30.000 merits each month. This means from start a creation of at least 15.000 sMerits each month. And this amount, combined with all the other existent sMerits makes the situation asked by OP to be highly unrealistic.

There are these so-called "merit sources" that are granted by theymos a specific number of merits (no specific timeframe on when) to be distributed among the users. They are called sources because they have established their credibility on the forum in creating multiple helpful threads and other relevant topics/discussions.

From what I remember, every local board has at least 1-2 merit sources that distributes these merits to the users. They are also tasked to exhaust these merits in order to help and give incentive those people who are contributing greatly to the forum.

In conclusion, if all forum users exhausted their sMerits, then merit sources would be granted an additional set of sMerits which would be distributed again on the forum users.

So that's how many sMerits each Merit source has or is that their combined generation for one month?

Kind of weird though, no one has answered the question and just outright explained that sMerits won't run out as if the question wasn't obviously a hypothetical question. I guess it's a dumb question for some and so they didn't humor the stupidity of the question and go on a tirade and mindless drivel that digressed from the question.

Dude, you're description of joining this forum has some depressing undertone, don't overinflate the fact that you've joined this forum and then calling it a significant accomplishment in your life, joining this forum is a part of your lifelong journey, plus don't say that joining this forum is a significant accomplishment, a significant accomplishment is something that only a few people can do like being the first man in Space (Yuri Gagarin) or creating Bitcoin (satoshi).

It's weird that you didn't bother to click the link and get yourself informed more. Everything has been clearly stated there. 33940 is the total sMerits Merit sources can generate each month. The individual amount of sMerits for each Merit source is not same for all, it's based on their activity as far as I know.

I think before making this post he was not aware of merit sources and based on his understanding about how the merits system works, he thought at some point users are going to run out of merits.

I just want to buttress that if there are no merit sources, the sMerits generated by members would not be enough to keep the merit system running, it's certainly going to be exhausted. For example, when A merits B post with 10 merits, B also receives 5 sMerits, B give out 5 merits to C and who receives 5 merits and 2 sMerits in that order as shown below.

A (10 sMerits) ==> B (10 merits, 5 sMerits)
B (5 sMerits) ==> C (5 merits, 2 sMerits)
C (2 sMerits) ==> D (2 merits, 1 sMerit)
E (1 sMerit) ==> F (1 merit, 0.5 sMerit)

But the 33940 sMerits from 109 merit sources each month ensure that users don't run out of merits and sMerits.

If you need chronological stats for merit sources: total merit sources, total monthly sourced merit, I have Merit source observations (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5180975.0).

1 merit source removed.
Total source merit drops from 33989 to 33940.

From your examples, after three rounds of distribition, if no more new earned merit and sendable merit, the cycle will stop.

Correction: F will have 1 merit, 0.5 smerit.

Thanks. Yes, the merit cycle is going to stop and I just want to let him understand how it's going to stop with the absence of merit sources.

It is for your example with the internal merit cycle from some users, without new earned merit, without new sourced merit.

The cycle continues if they continue to earn more merit, get more smerit by exchanging merit, buying merit from dark markets or whatever ways.

Absence of merit source is not the nly condition, merit sources might exist but just don't distribute smerit from their sourced allocation.

S'merit can't practically get exhausted in the forum this is because when Mr X sends Mr Z any amount of merits it's creates a halve of the total number of merits sent and this circulation it's more like a rebirth of other merits between members. To make it more realistic we have merits source's delegated with merits monthly to distribute to members with quality posts which these members in turn merit other members with quality posts in their discretion.

What could make it seem like merits are exhausted in the forum is when either merit sources or members with merits do not distribute merits to other users but that scenario is not possible

Don't worry about that and merits will not get exhausted since every 2 merits you receive you get 1 where you can send it to any user you want and that's how the cycle works so even if you are not a merit source you can still send merit to anyone if you continue to receive more merits coming from multiple forum users.

So became a best poster so that you can contribute not only with good post but also with the merit since sharing it to other people can continue the whole cycle.

I think you shouldn't need to worry about that because more and more I see there are many newbies ranked up to full member ranks, some users also have higher merits than the activities. So the sMerit distribution in this forum is still working, but we can't predict the future, maybe we will see evil sMerit or theymos start to decay someone sMerit from some period of time.

Why it's not possible? it's technically possible similar like people who say Bitcoin could dump to $1 due to almost no demand.

Smerit will never run out, because you need to know, in this forum there is such a thing as a source of merit. The source of the merit will be in charge of continuing to distribute the merit to all users in this forum, provided that these members must have a quality post/reply. So, as long as there is a source of merit assigned to this forum, you don't need to worry or be confused that the Merit/Smerit will run out.
Because every month the btt account of the members who are assigned to be the source of the merit, will continue to be filled with Smerit which is ready to be shared with all members in this forum, which have good (constructive) quality posts.

Apart from that, the merit rotation of all members in this forum will definitely continue to run well. That way, members who have Smerit will always be there.
So apart from the reason for the existence of a source of merit, the rotation of merit that is carried out by all members in this forum will also continue to make the merit/Smerit system continue to exist.

So in essence, the merit system or Smerit will never be lacking or exhausted in this forum. As long as there is still a source of merit that is always active in distributing merit to every eligible user and the circulation of merit among all users of this forum, it is still going well (not hoarding Smerit).

There’s still a lot of merit source that continuously get their merit regularly. I think the only way for  smerit exhaustion crisis to happened is when merit sources doesn’t receive their supply merit since the circulating smerit will surely stop circulating at some point since it decreases by 50% when it sent to differ user.

I'm looking forward that we didn't come to this point since it means that there's no constructive post being created for merit source stop sending merits to user.

1. Nothing happens
2. Smerits cannot be exhausted at the same time for all members
3. We have Merits sources, that's their function, to distribute merits to quality post
4. The more you post and give your best the expected way for a quality post the more you're liable for receiving merits.
 

Smerits will not finish as long as Theymos continue with the monthly allocation to meirts sources, yours can finish if you did not work hard to earn more and I don't think Theymos is going to cancel the whole system because there's a need why it was introduced, he will always reimburse merits sources every month and the merits sources merits quality posts and it all continues like that.

The answer to your question is very simple, the numerous merit source the forum has are the reason why the merit distribution remains functional till date, due to the fact that each of these "merit source" all have a certain amount of merit he/she is been allocated monthly, whereby he/she distributes it to post/thread considered to be worthy of being merited, due to either how it was able to offer solutions to a problem asked or contribute meaningfully to forum members.

This is very simple for the OP to understand, and now with these, I think the OP will understand more that there is no way that merits will be scarce in the forum as long as the merits sources still exist, even if all the 100+ merits sources have distributed the merits that were given to them all. There are still other forum members that have merits that merit sources gave, so they will be the ones to continue giving out merits, and the merits system will continue like that. 

However OP, remember that one of the reasons why merits will not be scarce is that the Smerits you see do not get used if we keep them instead we should give them out so that other low rank people will rank up to higher ranks, and you can see that some people coming to the forum now have more merits than even their activity, so if these people will still use the Smerits they have to other people again  But I can say that if the number of merits source we have reduces, then from there the number of merits on the forum will reduce, but we cannot say it will be scarce at all; instead, it will be low.

Smerit can't be exhausted in the forum because I know that the reason why their is merit source is because theymos and Co don't want merit distribution to lack in the forum, so i believe that it's quite understood, another thing we supposed to seriously discuss in the forum is of the merit source, i think that we need more merit source because it seems that merit is not into circulation and it's very hard before you a post that being merited, i wanted to create a thread on these but i remembered that I have created such merit thread before in the meta board, this is my point of view in merit circulation

Thats one of the benefits of the forum for newcomers. When you join the forum without any knowledge about cryptocurrency you will be entitled to know so much about it in just a few months if you are really serious and determined to learn. Alot of people join the forum just like you without any knowledge about crypto but in a few years they have known so much about bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Being here in the forum have helped me and many others both crypto wise and life in general.

You did the right thing by asking because knowledge is gained by asking questions, and we were all once at that level where we asked questions, and until now we still do. There is no crime in asking questions here or anywhere when you don't understand something. To surprise you higher rank members always encourage questions by newbies when don't seem to understand a thing. They are always ready and happy to answer questions asked.
Sometimes, before posting a question, thoroughly search the topic to see whether a similar post already exists. This will allow you to quickly read through the post and find the answers you need while also preventing you from spamming the community with identical numerous threads.

More merits will be generated in accordance with how the merit system was initially implemented, ensuring that no member of the forum will ever run out of merit. In order to provide smerit to other users who make significant contributions to the forum, Theymos appointed some members as "merit sources" who get some for free each month. The merit circulation won't likely stop in this way.

While the distribution chain keeps going the smerits won't be exausted so easily if you understand the whole concept.As above said the merit sources gets smertis each month and with their stacked one's they have more of it and with each 2 smerits they give other member also get one smerit so it keep on going.

If you check out the list on BPIP (https://bpip.org/) for top merit senders you will find out how many smeirts they alone have send out within these years so it won't be exhausted ever.

While bitcoin is limited, merits and emerita are of the forum and can be generated at will by Theymos. This makes it almost in possible of exhaustion. On a monthly bases, new merits are pumped into the system by Theymos through merit sources to continue a diminishing circle as described in OP. You could tell, we don’t have a definite amount of merit in the forum for any two consecutive months.

If as little as joining the forum would count for a significant accomplishment, I think the word would seize to have a lot of meaning. I think the real accomplishment here is in what you’ve gained since you joined up, both in knowledge, coins and the many scams you must have accumulated over the time spent on the forum. On these, I can say your doing just fine.

Merits keeps the forum activities lively and I believe that all these was considered before adopting the merit system. This is the main reason why there are various merit source that are given smerits monthly to make sure that the forum doesn't lack of merits on quality posts. Another reason why merit will never lack in the forum is because without merit one will never rank up as merits and activities are the criteria to the next rank. sMerits are as important to the forum just like the way food is important in our lives for us to grow and survive. So it is impossible for all merits to be exhausted without any forum member with one sMerit

sMerits get through getting two merits received, also merits is not have a value reason why don't need to hold this, the reason why we have merit sources that distribute a number amount of merits to those who deserve quality posts or contents of other members. Many people want to have merits as possible because its part of the requirement to rank up. Other members given the information needed to check your merit history you can use the Bitcointalk Merit Dashboard by DdmrDdmr (https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/ddmrddmr/viz/BitcointalkMeritDashboard/CorrelationMatrix) or the BPIP (https://bpip.org/)

But it is very sad that out of 109 merit sources there is no merit source in our local thread Bangladesh language. We look forward to when we get such a merit source.

Our local board has developed a lot. We are getting a lot of quality posts these days but in my opinion, it's not substantial amount to get a merit source. I would apply for being a merit source but waiting for more consistent quality post in our local board. Feel free to post your or others quality post which you think deserve merit in this thread- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0

At some point I was having same thinking but I discovered that there's no way it could be exhausted at the same time. While having Theymos and those merit sources I don't think it can happen, imagine a merit source having more than a 100+ merit, I don't see that happening because someone must drop a catchy topic that deceive a merit.
Is only if Theymos run out of merit which is not going to be. The question should be, can Theymos run out of merit?
Just asking...

theymos give Merit to different members who are appointed as Merit Source with different amounts each period, so if you think sMerit will run out, obviously it's impossible. Distribution of merit will continue or never run out as long as Merit Source gets Merit distribution from theymos. Never think sMerit will run out, because it will never happen.