Bitcoin Forum

I have seen that this forum does not consider it inappropriate when some member makes a post or thread about a competing forum. I am a member of other popular forums and they do not allow mention of competing forums as it is free advertising for them.

What is the opinion of members about this? Is it fine allowing members here to promote or mention competing forums without paying this forum owner or taking his permission  ?

I don't see any point in banning any other forum from here as a result of other members promoting it or making references to it here in this forum, and as far as I know, this forum is not in physical competition with any other forum; every forum out there is there for its own sole purpose, and bitcoin talk also stands for its own.
 
The only place any forum or link is supposed to be banned here in this forum is if the link is considered suspicious and dangerous to the user of this forum. Aside from that, I don't see any reason we should move forward with banning any forum.

Banning is not necessary so long you are not promoting a scam project. From my experience on the forum, even when some user are scammers or promote scam projects , they are not banned most times but rather they are given multiple tags by forum members including DT members.
That is why you should check trust feedbacks of members with reference before dealing with them.
Stick to the unofficial official Bitcoin talk rules and I believe you are good to go.

It’s ironic that you are the one asking if promoting other forum should be ban while you are doing one doing it.

It’s normal that competitor shouldn’t be advertised on your own space but other forum doesn’t show any sign of threat that’s why admin here is not that aggressive towards considering it as competitors. You might experience this kind of safety measures ones the competition becomes tough which I doubt will be possible since Bitcointalk is the best forum to discuss Bitcoin staff due to its rich history from the creator of Bitcoin itself to brilliant minds of current reputable members here.

May I know which forum are you talking about? I saw such a limitation at least seven-eight years ago on a local forum where they did not allow us to discuss other online forums. But, I am not a member of too many forums except hack forums, nulled, cracked, Debian, altt, and this one. I don't remember if I have seen such limitations on those forums. I joined Altt very recently and I have mentioned the name of Bitcointalk a couple of times and no one asked me to stop discussing Bitcointalk forum.

Now, if you talk if this would be allowed or not. The answer is yes, it should be allowed. I don't think theymos want to censor the forum anymore. theymos is not afraid of the competitors. I don't consider any forum as a competitor of Bitcointalk.

This is concerning for everyone  >:( as without naming the forum you want us to reply. Please be specific, it would be easy to understand your query if you could name the forum in question and what led you to this topic. I haven't seen any other forum stopping anyone of discussing about Bitcointalk and I have not been in any scenario where our mods decided to stop us naming other forum.

It is not a crypto forum. It is a popular IM forum that has this rule.

Why do People, companies or entities ban a competitor? Because they are in competition with them and the competition lead to them losing members/costumers and in turn lose profits. Now the question you need to ask yourself is; is Bitcointalk in contention or gaining profits through something like advertisements with any other platform that if they allow other platforms they will lose those platforms for advertising here? The answer is No because they do not run a revenue stream here. The forum is just a discussion place where the community talk about bitcoin and cryptocurrency at large. It is not like Twitter (X) fighting with Instagram for members.

Do you know why Bitcointalk will never ban those forums because they are basically also promoting bitcoin or even other cryptocurrencies which is the main reason of this forum just to create that large audience. If someone is not happy with some rules here you can join other forums at the end we are all in for bitcoin global adoption.

Also if you might think that other altcoin forums will create altcoin competitions against bitcoin i will tell you that they can’t because bitcoin is heads and shoulders above any coin. It is the bedrock of cryptocurrency.

What do you meam by IM? Instant messaging? Or something else. I am not that good with shorter form of any big name. Can you please elaborate as being in detailed can help us solve your problem.

IM refers to Internet marketing. Or in other words, make money online. One more thing, it is not my problem. I just gave a suggestion to forum owner. He may see this thread, the responses from members here and take some action if necessary.

So you want the admin to take action against all those users who somehow promote other forums? Can you kindly tell me that which forum members of this forum are promoting? If I'm not wrong then most members of this forum have joined another forum for some reasons but none of those members are trying to promote that forum even that forum or its staff has never ever said anyone to promote their forum. Bitcointalk doesn't stop promotion of any service as far as I know and that's the main reason why most gambling sites promote their services on this forum.

Bitcointalk is not in competition with any other crypto related forum, so it's perfectly fine to discuss other forums.

The one time the admin banned a forum from being advertised here was one some yes back that was paying members to spam posts here on the forum. I can't remember the name now, but the spams we're getting out of hand and needed to be regulated.

If you mean altcoinstalk, don't worry the people there are also from BTT. This is about spreading the word about cryptocurrency, both communities should get along. As much as they promote altcoins, they love BTC the most.

Why do you consider them an IM forum? The discussions are obviously about cryptocurrencies. The new users who will find that forum the first will eventually be able to find their way to bitcointlak as well.

There's no need, simply because traditional forums such as Bitcointalk are mostly a thing of the past already and a traditional forum alternative is very unlikely to overtake Bitcointalk. I'm pretty sure Bitcointalk would have very few active users today if it weren't for bounty campaigns anyway.

I don't think that's necessary. People should be free to promote/wear links of any service as long as it is not illegal or nearly illegal like mixers. If people find the other forum better than this one, they are free to go there.

If the admin bans promotion, more people will wonder what the other forum has to offer over this one and that ban will probably backfire. In my opinion, the other forum has absolutely nothing to offer other than the mixer sig camps.

What do you think Op if Elon decides to block all links that has to do with Facebook and instagram because they are competing social media?

Besides Bitcointalk does not censor posts so it would not be very wise for the admin to start censoring or filtering post that contains a certain forum just because they both have something in common which is they’re both a  discussion forum for crypto, think about Op how does it sound to you?

Although, altcointalks did something like this in the past but recently the admin removed it.

If other forums you are registered with do not allow the mention of Bitcointalk (other forums), it is a strange way to enforce censorship. Forums are a mechanism to have discussion about many topics but to ban a name because it is viewed as a competitor seems strange. What would it achieve by banning the promotion (or general discussion) of other forums? Can you name the forums you refer to as competing forums?

OP, if you must know, there is a difference between promoting something and when you only mention the name of that thing without giving a lot of details about it. 

Let's assume I learnt something very educational on this forum (BTT) and I happen to come across a similar topic on a different forum, I can simply share my idea with them there and tell them that I learnt that idea from Bitcointalk. In any way, that doesn't mean I am promoting Bitcointalk directly, but for curiosity sake, some people can search about Bitcointalk because I mentioned, but that is not a direct promoting of Bitcointalk on another forum.

Promoting a project or a forum means, you need to actually give a more concised information about that forum, the importance of that forum and other good characters of that forum or product, otherwise, it wouldn't count as a promotion. 

When a discussion goes deep, different ideas could be shared and people can mention something, because it was really necessary to mention it at that moment, and you can not classify that as Promotion. 

Perhaps, what other forum are you talking about? If I guess right, the one on your signature? Lol... 

Wait a moment why would they ban any other forum or site? What i know is not allowed to promote here is referral link even as that you can include your ref link to your signature space instead of posting any place in the forum, because ref link might lead to scam and scam isn't moderated here but they try as much eliminate what would result to scam, and also those who promoted such site can either be ban or given a temporary ban as a warning and If they keeps promoting that site they will be permanently be ban. So, in my opinion you can talk about other forum but not directly copying post from that site and post here directly without any reference link or authorship name.

Bitcointalk is overwhelmingly ahead, don't think they'd be worried in terms of competion. In addition, mentioning other communities contributes to a lot of discussions hence such ban would only hinder the discussion value of our threads. Simply put, it's counter-productive.


The restriction is most likely to tone down the possible spam, it's an open secret that affiliate links tend to be spammed.

I have not seen such members in this forum promoting other forums, except you because you admit it that you're actually into it. I guess this forum is not entertaining that kind of case anymore as it's obvious that bitcointalk is not threatened by other forums. And when I think of banning, that only happens if you are doing what is against the forum laws, and promoting another forum might not be included into its rule.

However, that's a matter of initiative and proper thinking already. You don't have to ask the forum but ask yourself if you are actually doing the right thing?

The forum is structured so there is little or no censorship of any sort. AFAIK, the only rule that’s been added to the unofficial forum rules is the ban on sharing of mixer links or promoting a mixer in any way. The forum is not in competition with other forums, I don’t think you will find what you see on btt anywhere else.  

Scams are not moderated on Bitcointalk, that’s why accounts caught in the act do not get banned. The best we can do is to tag the accounts.

Ah well, you can rest assured, then. The forum is quite confident with its position. It is the oldest and biggest forum, the "original" one, they don't mind someone talking about a forum or two. In fact, we even co-exist with some of them. For example, in scam accusations board [where one of the main purpose is to facilitate a dispute], we often refers people to other "forum", an arbitrator or two, when those sites offer a more efficient way to get a resolution for the case.

Majority for sure its  altcointalks. They gained attention here in BitcoinTalk since Theymos started banning Bitcoin Mixers. BitcoinTalk users teleport their accounts to Altcointalk by placing their altcointalk profile in their BitcoinTalk ad space. This wouldn't have happened if Theymos hadn't banned Mixers. But for me allowing other forums to advertise here is a healthy competition, providing users with more choices. This competition often encourages forums to improve but it still need to maintain quality discussion.

Why would we get involved in this? Seems pretty fascist and antithetical to the spirit of the forum.

I just found out that bitcointalk has competitors, who are bitcointalk's competitors? Do you mean altcointalk? I think here many people are talking about altcointalk since mixers were banned in the forum but altcointalk is not a competitor to bitcointalk because its vision is different and I believe the level of altcointalk is still far from bitcointalk. Several times I visited altcointalk, although I have not joined there but the forum seems to be dedicated to money while bitcointalk is not, dedicated only to bitcoin, there is no money interest behind it. I'm sure if theymos want money then they will open an advertising slot on the forum and there will be lots of companies queuing to get that slot.

Altcointalk is not a competitor to bitcointalk, perhaps only some users think so.

OP, the bitcointalk forum admin does not prohibit you from promoting other forum here including altcointalk, so you can do it. You don't even need permission if you just refer someone to join altcointalk or something like that, that's fine as long as you don't post a referral link.

Please reading the forum rules to get the latest updates about what is prohibited and what is not, this will answer your question.

Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0)

I was about to say the same thing.

Is there really a forum that is competing with Bitcointalk for discussion about Bitcoin?

Just because Bitcoin has an altcoin board, it does not mean that altcoin forums become competitors. Just like because there is a politics & society board, it doesn't mean that all discussion forums on this topic as competitors with Bitcointalk.

There are no forums truly competing with Bitcointalk for Bitcoin discussion, and even if so, that competition is healthy. It's not in the values of Bitcoin, the blockchain or cryotocurrency to censor competitors, instead, learn from them and grow accordingly.

Do theymos provide notification that advertising on other forums here is a prohibited act! As long as there is no such ban then in my opinion there is nothing wrong with advertising other forums here as long as the person doesn't do spamming which could disturb other members

Personally, if you are really annoyed by members who advertise other forums here, you can use the ignore button on that member's account so you won't see their posts

I doubt if this forum is in competition with any other forum. If bitcointalk.org is in competition with any other site, the moderators or admin of the forum would have create a new thread and ask people not to mention or promote the competing site.

If any serious issue surface, the admin of this forum usually create a new topic to warn users just like the thread that was created during December 2024, to warn the members of this forum that mixers would be ban and that there should be no kind of mixer promotion again on the forum.

Every forum has its own rules and guidelines I don't think Bitcointalk will be concerned with that, Bitcointalk is just too huge and too popular to even think of competing against other forums, except for Mixers they are not banning any links, both forums should not be competing against each other as they are on the same niche and they are promoting the same technology, Bitcointalk will always remain the best and the number one forum when it comes to everything about Cryptocurrency, it will be forever attached to Bitcoin's creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

That would be some way to put a heavy weight on free speech and by some means promote censorship but, that’s not what Bitcoin is about.

For many, Bitcoin signifies freedom. What would that really mean should discussions and the least things such as freedom of expression be censored in this way just for monetary gains… nope, the forum remains free to air except when it comes to services that tends to bring it in headlocks with the law as we have it with mixers in recent times.

Bu the way, you don’t compete good by placing restrictions on users of a forum against other closely related competitors. It’s an undermining of what you’ve got or is capable of archiving in a highly competitive environment. The focus always should be on what you’re not doing right other than restrictions.
That’s why you can find users on this forum being more expressive and releasing their full potent every time.

The only thing that has been banned is advertising mixing services. In the past, advertising anything illegal was prohibited, so this may happen in the future, but the most important thing is that discussion about anything is allowed, so if that forum turns into scam, it must be banned.

Agree when you're too big in your niche competition is out of your mind as members of other forums I'm just too glad that we have forums that promote Cryptocurrency because in the first place that's what we all want for this technology to grow If I will have a local forum I will promote all forums that deal with Cryptocurrency and let people decide the forum where they want to get active based on their preferences.

I don't really consider altcointalk a competitor because its quality is still very inferior. They do have a kind of parasitic relationship with this forum where they are getting lots of backlinks and traffic from here. They do have their own token and their admins get easily accepted into signature campaigns. They are benefitting economically without giving much back. I hope they are at least investing some of their profits into improvements and maintenance of their forum.

At this moment it doesn't seem like a big enough deal where I think a ban is necessary. They aren't doing anything illegal. They might benefit from having their links here but that was done to accommodate users with established reputations who wanted to migrate their rank.

I think you are wrong my friend, I don't know what kind of forums you think about but in my country there is a very famous one and it is full of young people: forocoches.com.

According to https://www.semrush.com/website/forocoches.com/overview/ it has 130 million views a month it's 605 global rank worldwide and 16 in country rank. Bitcointalk has much worse data by comparison. And I don't know what you mean by 'traditional forums' but that one is for sure, as it was launched even before bitcointalk, in 2003.

But to address the OP's question, I don't think bitcointalk should ban talking about forums either (I haven't seen 'promotion'), and I think it goes against the philosophy of theymos.

Oh I never said forums are totally dead; there will still be decent amounts activity for sure(especially niche stuff, like tech/programming), but if stretch it out in a longer timespan, they've been easily dying to modern equivalents(modern social media sites, Reddit, etc).

I think if those forums are being promoted in a way that is intrusive or using referral links, that's understandable because we all know that it's not that welcome here. But if it's just mentioning, it's a great way to add to conversation or knowledge on the niche of that forum. Maybe someone could add more value to both. If it's okay for them, I think it's okay for this forum as well. It shouldn't really be banned for me.

No, that's the beauty of bitcointalk since theymos is trying to make the forum as free as possible, unlike other sites that tend to restrict or ban someone when they talk about the competitors or something bad on the forum.

Altcoinstalks was the example (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5481514.msg63559572#msg63559572), they don't want other people to criticize their forum. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5481514.msg63567836#msg63567836)

It's related to bad PR or legal risks.

Scam is different, it's not moderated by the forum, so they won't ban the forum.

I don't know if OP was talking about altcoinstalks or not. I have joined that forum for over a month now and I have discussed Bitcointalk a couple of times. Even some moderators and admins were on those threads. They never said that I should not talk about other forums. So, I believe it is not altcoinstalks who tried to limit users from talking about other forums.

I know why people moved to Altcoinstalks. The word "moved" isn't correct. Because nobody left Bitcointalk. It's just like we are here and there as well. A person could be in several forums. There is nothing bad in it.

To add to what I said above, I think someone might have asked this question before a very long time ago and if I remember correctly theymos even commented on it if someone wants to do some digging to see what he said.

Why is it hard to understand that this forum is about freedom? To be as free and independent as possible. Theymos doesn't care about competitors, he cares to have a censorship-free forum where everyone can express their ideas and opinions without fear and being moderated, that's why alt accounts on this forum are allowed. This is a very unique forum and I think that we should appreciate that.
There was an aggressive promotion of cryptotalk via signature campaigns on this forum, then cryptotalk was even paying 0.0003 BTC per post on their website but they failed to become a popular cryptocurrency forum, they gained tons of spammers and their forum is dead. There you have forum.bitcoin.com, their forum is dead too. Now there is altcoinstalks.com promoted but I believe they won't dive the Bitcointalk.org because they don't offer something that will be competitive to this forum. There you have bitcointalk.com and it's nowhere as popular as bitcointalk.org
Simply, there is no need to fear that promotion of another forum will dive bitcointalk.org

Since Bitcointalk didn't ban altcoins, ICOs and all other money-grabbing-schemes after that, I don't think it should ban other promotional activities either. Banning doesn't fit the forum's mission "to be as free as possible".
Banning forums would make it a thin line to banning other websites.
Bitcointalk has tens of millions of spam links to Facebook and Twitter. None of those are banned.

I don't get it: Bitcointalk offers more freedom than any other forum I know. Why would you want to reduce this freedom? People (both online and IRL) seem hell bent on getting more and more regulation, without realizing you'll never get back the freedom you once had.

I'm glad Bitcointalk is far above that level. Let's keep it that way.

it's fine, I mean I think even Theymos is fine about it, he mentioned that he tries to make the forum as free as possible(I assume that includes people advertising other forums). if you've been in the forum long enough you'll know come to find out that a forum called Cryptotalk.org that was owned by Yobit ran a signature campaign here.

I doubt there are many forum or places which do such thing.


It's poor suggestion.


Yes, we already can discuss service on "Service Discussion" and promote service on "Service Announcements". Even social media doesn't forbid you to talk about competing social media. In addition, member occasionally share interesting topic or article from competing forum which create new discussion in this forum.

This proposal is no good.

Ever since mixers were banned, now people are rushing with proposals to censor other stuff that they don't like.

I think the other forum should run a signature campaign here. How is that idea? They probably have the funds to do so.

These forums are profitable projects, and advertising competing forums may lose some profits, but bitcointalk forum already has 1,226 BTC, which I do not know how it will be spent to develop the forum in the future, especially with the increase in the price of Bitcoin.
In short, there is enough money for the forum and it does not need advertisements to continue its growth, as the legal repercussions are the only ones that might force the forum to stop.

better questions maybe how to use this money to develop the forum to give freedom as much as possible, and not more banning.

Yobit and Cryptotalk had their signature campaign to shill Cryptotalk forum in 2019 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5188047.0). Because initially it was a spam campaign, Bitcointalk community reacted to it and yahoo took over the campaign to clean spammers from participant list.

theymos even banned the Yobit account here because of abuse and some spammers from that campaign but eventually, he allowed Cryptotalk forum to advertise here via a signature campaign under yahoo62278.

Bitcointalk to other Cryptocurrency forums is same as "Bitcoin" to other Altcoins "Father Figure" so Bitcointalk doesn't need to ban posting or talking about other forums. and it is not necessary either. Bitcointalk have it's place booked among bitcoin and crypto community. it cannot be replaced or overtake by any other forums.
Besides Bitcointalk is a free place with freedom of speech. everyone can talk and post about anything, promote their projects (if bitcoin and crypto related) freely without any restrictions. Bitcointalk don't even moderate scams. then why would it ban another forum?


that's a pretty dick move. but they have the right to make their own rules. who cares.

Although you were registered here 6+ years ago, I guess you were not active enough during that time, If you did, you would know that there were even paid campaign signatures here that promoted other forums. Until now, quite a lot of attention has been paid here to freedom of speech and Bitcointalk is one of the few places where it is allowed to discuss almost anything. (Some red lines still exist)
Otherwise, Bitcointalk has no competition, and what is the competition in this case at all?

Says a user who has a link to his profile on another forum as his signature on this forum, what an irony.

Anyways, note that my mentioning altcoinstalks  on this comment is for reference purposes only,  not promoting them, altcoinstalks did censored and banned the mention of bitcointalk on their forum for several years, it was after that theymos banned mixers, and many users from bitcointalk started rushing to sign up on altcoinstalks because the campaign managers announced that they were moving mixer signatures to that forum. This was when the admin of altcoinstalks realized that possibly, bitcointalk is not in competition with his forum, so, he lifted the censorship and ban on links to bitcointalk, and also bitcointalk as a word.

Now, the question is, should bitcointalk do same? The Answer is No, allow them, bitcointalk is still and will remain the father of all cryptocurrency forums because, this is the only place where the spirit of Satoshi Nakamoto lives, and good fathers are known to lead their children by examples, and to me, banning the mention or promotion of other forums here won't be a good example bitcointalk is leading other forums with, and besides, this forum is not in competition with any other forum, atleast, until theymos says otherwise.

That statement is more than enough for those who try to promote hatred because Bitcointalk is the father of all crypto-currency forums and it will always be on top no matter if many new forums get traffic or users, they'll still consider Bitcointalk as superior.

The admin of that forum also mentioned in his comment that they won't compete with Bitcointalk and they also believe that Bitcointalk will always be on top as forum for Bitcoin and crypto-currency users. In fact if another forum is getting active because they're allowing advertising of mixers which isn't allowed here anymore then what's wrong with that?

I think those people who try to promote hatred like this should understand that Bitcointalk has always given priority to freedom of speech and it will always give high priority to it. In fact it's the only forum because of which many casinos and other businesses got their first users.

Well, I will say you should leave it to the admin of the forum, they are the boss here, they call the shot and make the rules. So, if they see it as nothing, so be it, after all, everything is not operating in the same manner in every facet of life. But in the wider sense, just like how it is being used on social media where a low-level/unnoticed handle would suddenly rise to prominence because it attacks or talks false or more on the stars/celebrities, it will not be different in this context either.

Such forum(s) will surely rise to more prominence if nothing is done and will surely embolden users more. As it is now, I don't think Bitcointalk is in competition with any forum, only that allowing double standards can't be so good.

Above all, let the admin decide how the forum is being run.

What they have done wrong to Bitcointalk and people to get a ban here, people will question Bitcointalk administrators as if they are threatened by other forums, when the reality is not, so far mixers are the only platform officially banned by Bitcointalk, if Ponzi scheme and questionable platforms are being promoted here that can harm members why not other forums, if they ban the mention of Bitcointalk in their forum, the admins will not go down to that level and do the same.

I don't think that was it. I think someone else directly asked whether it was OK or allowed to advertise a competing forum and thyemos gave his opinion.

Why is it that people like being grossly moderated. As you mention other forums here without being banned, you no longer like it. You will like it when theymos will say don't mention mixers, Altcoinstalks,  casino, facebook, twitter, Reddit and others. This forum is known for freedom of speech. I have seen many people suggest to theymos to directly or indirectly limit this freedom but he understands the importance of freedom, there's no need to fight against what Satoshi endorsed.

When bitcointalk started newly, there was massive promotion of this forum and bitcoin in different social medias like facebook and twitter by sharing links from this forum to those social medias. As noted by LoyceV, the forum was not prevented in that early stage. How do you then expect the forum to prevent smaller forums that want to leverage on the forum for growth.

In bitcointalk, there's altcoins boards and sub boards. What this means is that this forum is very accommodating and as well the mother of all the crypto related forums. So, it will make no sense to prevent them from growing. The fight is against cryptocurrency and not among cryptocurrency.

That's how it should be, a good person must respect those concerned here and even though there is freedom.
It's a good idea for anyone to ask permission first before promoting advertisements or anything else on this forum, so that there is consideration from the party who has the right to make decisions.

Sorry if I am wrong.

Based on the purpose Satoshi created this forum to serve in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. No forum can compete with this forum, if any users of this forum say something about another forum on here they are just pointing out something the Mod ought to consider on this forum and people are free to mention other forums on here because the forum Mods aim is to make this forum decentralized as much as possible.

Then could you please spell stuff like that out instead of having people guess what you're trying to say?  The first thing I thought was intramuscular, which obviously makes no sense in the context of this discussion.  The same goes for the other generalities.  You're wasting people's time by not being explicit.

Even if we all came to a consensus on the question you posed--which we won't--it doesn't matter anyway.  This isn't your forum, mine, or anyone's except Theymos's and whoever else has some kind of ownership in it, so if there was some kind of competition to bitcointalk, the banning of the promotion of said competition would be completely out of our hands.  Ergo, this is a pointless topic.  Lock up the thread and forget it.

Yes, I know about cryptotalk.org. They failed to make any impact even after spending so much money paying users. Personally, I as a forum owner will never allow a competing forum to advertise on my forum though.

Of course, but only if you really believe that there will be thousands of users who will switch to another forum rather than continue using bitcointalk regularly. You don't need to worry about other forums advertised here (if any), people are free to choose any forum and discuss bitcoin.

But if you're worried, I wonder what you're worried about that you don't want to have competitors?

Well, I am not so sure because in the forum I posted before there are a lot of young people, teenagers, who participate. It is especially noticeable when there are school holidays when you see them in the general forum making up stories or asking stupid questions (and they don't get paid for writing). These same young people also have social media, not instead of.

I think everyone gave you the correct answer. The Bitcoin Talk forum is too big to consider one of the forums as a competitor to it. This is the largest and oldest Bitcoin forum ever, so I don't think that members should pay this forum owner or take his permission just to talk about other forums, then Thymos announced several times that the forum is satisfied with money and he does not even care about paid advertisements on the forum.

This falls within the scope of personal freedom. If anyone likes an idea in one forum, he has the right to transfer it to another forum, mentioning the source, so that it is not considered plagiarism. and vice versa. This does not involve competition or offense to anyone.

not only that, they doomed themselves from the get-go, the only reason why people flocked to their platform in the first place was because of the incentive of being paid just by posting. then once they started putting requirements and banning certain countries, the "active" users on their platform started to drop.

that's good, I mean it's your forum and you'll decide what can be advertised or not.

one thing I can think of is OP is afraid of losing active users.

That only proves that bitcointalk does not care about its competitors, or let’s just say are there really competitors that are reputable and incredible like bitcointalk? I believe there’s none so there’s nothing to worry about because at the end of the day, those who have high faith in this forum will stay and those who have not are free to go.

Bitcointalk is clearly promoting freedom to everyone, most particularly when it comes to expressing our opinions and ideas. There’s no wrong here, every opinion and idea is right, and we can always chose to improve our own opinions and ideas from learning to others words of wisdom. That’s the high advantage of bitcointalk from other forums, competition is not a barrier and will not matter at all.

I wouldn’t say they don’t care about their competitor. I’d say they don’t care to spend another second than they have to in order to manage this forum. BTC revenue is drying up as a result of this lack of wanting to put time in and I haven’t looked at the numbers recently but I wouldn’t be surprised if this forum is now operating on a BTC deficit. As it should considering the hands off management approach has resulted in the destruction of a useful trust network and the complete abandonment of talent here. It’s a slow motion train wreck and nobody with the ability to do so has any desire to change it as they’ve already gotten all the BTC they ever will from it.

Competing forums?
For a forum to compete with this one, it has to be a better coin IMO. I don't think this forum is in any competition with anybody and putting restrictions like that is kind of against what Bitcoin stands for. Bitcoin stands for freedom, so people should be allowed to do what they want to do as long as it's not illegal.
I believe a "competing forum" should only be restricted here if they carry out illicit activities on that forum, but if the forum is something like this, I don't see a new.
More forums make it easier for people to get more knowledge.

The way I see it, restrictions like that will further push people to abandon the forum and seek out places within the community where they will be relatively more free to express themselves.

I think that most likely the startpost is referring to Altcoinstalks. This is probably the only alternative to Bitcoin now. All other crypto forums are quite small. AE was the forum that almost died, but it was revived due to the fact that cryptomixers left the BT forum. But they didn’t go into the void, they went to the Altcoinstalks forum. Thanks to the influx of subscribers paying in Bitcoin, AT began to revive. And if you look at his statistics, everything is great there now. Currently there are 8 subscriptions with payment in bitcoins. In addition, there is such a thing as a “teleportation program”. This means that any user from this forum can move there while maintaining their rank. This is good marketing.

Theymos stopped the banner auctions a long time ago, so Bitcointalk really is running on a deficit.

Since theymos didn't take action to completely ban people who promote Yobit or Cryptotalk, I guess there's will be no action too with altcoinstalks or any other forums that offer pay per post campaigns.

I have no proof, but the forum still makes money by offering copper membership and evil IP address.

Their is no comparison or a competition concerning people of bitcointalk, what we are interested of is to ensure that we have make our self to be reliable and reputable, we don't need to comparing our forum with another forum, what we should be asking ourselves is what have we understood through the forum since we have partaken in forum, so I know quite well this forum is something that have to do with knowledge, impacting the knowledge of bitcoin and it technology across, so for bitcointalk we don't have competition within members of the forum.

Well there you have it. The forum is not really bothered about such things because they aren't really in any form of competition. Maybe these other sites get bothered simply because users may get attracted by those sites and may want to move over to those places, thereby causing less traffic for them.
I feel the owner is ok with other forums as long as they don't have anything illegal about them.

would love to know what Theymos said. I wish someone could dig that post up.
but I can assume theymose probably said he's ok with that. I don't see why would he not allow posting about other forums when thousands of other websites of any kind being promoted everyday here.
That's the beautify of this forum to give full freedom of it's users. as long as they stay constructive and use related boards to post their topics.

Which forums have limitations on other forum promotions?  other forums are not as popular as btt so he might do this but I haven't seen it yet as I'm not familiar with the forums much. bitcointalk has always given everyone the freedom to use the forum freely. But it is always countered by scam projects, spreading fake news which is maintained by DT members. If someone is seen cheating or promoting a scam project, he is flagged with a red tag by DT members. actions are taken against plagiarism posts here too. but not for taking or promoting another forum

I honestly don't see a huge problem with it, they are probably cross promoting Btslk anyhow. I have actually been thinking about joining other forums as well but for other purposes. Like I am interested in a hackers forum and maybe some other IT related forums etc just for educational purposes.

Nope. Most Simple Machines Forum sites have a basic cross-platform functionality and if bitcointalk were to ban the usage of other sites/promotion of other forums in here that would be a complete removal of a nifty feature that would’ve helped bitcointalk to reach other sites and potential users all because we don’t want to “promote” other sites.

Plus bitcointalk’s literally referred to as the advertiser forum for people and projects who want to get into advertising and increasing brand audience. The ban on mixers while necessary is already bad enough against its brand presence, barring access to crypto forums that allow promotion of brands that are barred from this site is going to cause even more problems for bitcointalk trust me.

Lastly, there is no real reason for theymos and the folks to ban the usage of crypto forums besides themselves. It’s already the number 1 site to go for when you’re thinking of getting into the crypto world. It has cemented itself in its top spot so there’s no undermining or sabotage that would happen that could change anything.

so lets list these

telegram does miner sales which is competitive to our marketplace
discord teaches you how to mine various coins
meta promotes many miners and companies
x promotes many coins which is competitive to our forum
ebay does miner sales which is competitive to our marketplace
reddit so many ways they compete.
altcoinstalks competes on many levels.


I invite others to add to the list above.

I guess there’s no forum rule that talks about that. Probably because bitcointalk forum is not threaten by other forums and so no matter how often you advertise other forums, that won’t break the rule. However, just for the sake of being a responsible and trustworthy member, know what is good from bad before you insist it doing in the forum. At least, you should know how to respect the forum and its admin staff.

I think there is probably a worry or question from some members (including the OP) about what is potentially allowed to be discussed because of the recent mixers ban. It is possible it has raised concerns because of the number of members that have teleported to a forum that could continue to grow further in terms of influence as well as traffic.

But it is not so much of a problem now, I think, because after a large number of teleported members in December and January, the speed has slowed down a lot and I don't see that at least for the moment that forum can compete with this one in a major way. In a few years, I don't know, but not today, especially considering that those of us who have a teleported account there still write here.

If you only just compare the traffic of both the forums and you will find a huge difference. I think that forum cannot even come close to this one in terms of popularity. Also the user experience of this forum is way better than others.

Also, when it comes to the companies, the first thing that look is that amount of traffic is on the platform, and bitcointalk for sure takes the lead. Also when it comes to promoting, why ban any forum or project ? Many projects start their Ann threads and campaigns here to get some popularity. I wonder if that forum starts its signature campaigns on this forum too  :)

Yes true, actually Altcointalk forum is not created to compete with this forum and if we add something positive contest etc here then nothing wrong with it just like Binance listed FtX, Kucoin listed BNB because they know that listing other exchanges coin will not down their popularity. Other forum in the front of this forum is just like comparison of altcoins with BTC. no other crypto forum become famous and also Google SEO of thia forum is on the top position

I like your ANN and signature point and it is very possible to attract more members admin can start Signature compaign. I also run one contest there and my experience remains good for both forum

This forum prioritizes freedom of speech and the fact that they don't ban promotion of other forum proves the bolded part. Sometimes competitors use that as an advantage to promote their product/service while they disallow others to promote on their forum/space. This sounds like a dumb relationship but that's how freedom of speech works. Does Bitcointalk care about that? Probably not because I have a feeling that this is just a forum that's hosted on server and admin pays money to keep website alive while doing some other job in his life. It's like when you buy Netflix subscription but have 0 time to watch any movie.
Should bitcointalk ban promotion of competitor forums? No, why should it? Does Apple ban Google Chrome, Google maps and other services from appstore? No. But Bitcointalk should definitely get financial benefit from allowing promotion of other forums.

No forum can compete or even come close to what Bitcointalk has achieved when you talk of forums about Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency, Bitcointalk is what Google and all into Bitcoin are recommending, all forums exist because of their niche, Bitcointalk and all the other forums are popular because of the popularity of Bitcointalk.
Their links and presence of other Forums here will not hurt Bitcointalk, they are not going to lose their reputation because of other forums they have built their reputation for so many years to be threatened by other forums.
And besides they have the same goal and that is promoting the adoption of Bitcoin.

I am not aware of how to check the number of forum members that have registered on other forums (or have teleported specifically to the other forum) but if the numbers are slowing down then it means the initial impact of the mixers ban has begun to subside.

One would assume under normal circumstances it would take movement and momentum to get new members to register on any website and clearly the other forum was hardly ever mentioned here but the mixers ban has no doubt given it (and possibly others) an injection of new life. If signature campaigns are active there, traffic will flow there.

There is also the possibility that as long both forums continue to remain accessible, in future members could post in both and even other forums. We still do not know how all of this will unfold in 2-3 years time.

When I was approached by Roger Ver to run a signature campaign on behalf of Bitcoin.com I immediately reached out to theymos to ask his opinion on the matter.  He had no issues whatsoever with it and we all know the censorship involving that which shall not be named...  I think theymos probably saw it as an opportunity to bring more revenue to this forum's members more than a threat to poach members from here.  I can't think of a forum that would have a worse relationship with bitcointalk, so I doubt we'll see any action taken against advertising for outside forums anytime soon.

For now, yes. No one can compete with BitcoinTalk when it comes to cryptocurrency forums (remember everything has an end). But as I've always said in this thread, competition sometimes benefits its users and community. Like what's happening now, before there was very little chance that you could also earn on AltcoinTalk. Look now that they're competing, your chance of earning on AltcoinTalk is higher compared before.

Also if bitcointalk decides to ban the other forum advertisement here, it will give a wrong message to the community, and most will not like this decision. Similar if binance had denied listing FTX token only because it was the competitor exchange coins, then it also shows the weakness in you that you are afraid of competitions etc.

In fact, if we see in the other forum, in order to attract the posters from this forum, they have a teleport feature, so who are already old members here, they enjoy the same level of seniority on that forum too. This clearly shows that bitcointalk lead in the forums and there is no way they face any competition with the other forum.

You have to understand that only earning opportunities can change the forum. Of course, it has a big effect. Even though altcoinstalks has a spike of visitors and users, maximum of them are originally from Bitcointalk. Do you think those users left BitcoinTalk? NO. I have teleported my account there and I write there as well. But, I am here as well.

If people join that forum and leave Bitcointalk, that would be a bad thing for this forum. But, this is not what happening now. I have seen their online counter and the number of daily visits. Unfortunately, it does not look real to me. I don't know the truth! I also agree that everything has an end.

I do not see other forums as a threat to Bitcointalk forum. Bitcointalk forum has made a name for itself over the years and more people are joining the forum without restrictions. One benefit members enjoy from building the forum  is freedom. Freedom to post useful contents from any forum that are free from plagiarism. Bitcoin is not in any form of competition with other forums, infact the teleport feature makes it even more easier for Bitcointalk members to go in and out of other forums without losing their membership in the Bitcointalk forum. If other forums place restrictions on adverts and promotions from other forums, it is them dealing with their insecurities. Other forums are still trying to gather traffic on their platforms therefore, bringing contents from other platforms means diverting the attention of their forum members.

I can't really say that this is an authoritative list, but here on this page (https://cryptolinks.com/cryptocurrency-forum) it lists the top crypto forums but without giving any metrics about them like page views or users:

1. Bitcointalk
2. Bitcoin.com forum
3. XRP Chat forum
4. Litecointalk Forum
5. Solana Forum
6. Top Gold Forum
7. Cardano Forum
8. Polkadot Forum
9. Dash (DASH) Forum
10. Beermoneyforum
11. Bitcoingarden Forum
12. Bitcoinforum
...

Altcoinstalks is not even listed here. Although I do think that's a bit unfair, because it's activity nowadays easily beats those of at least half of the forums on this list.

Thankfully there is freedom of speech here and at the same time there is also a member that comes from a wide array of backgrounds (both geographically and with regards to mindset) and it helps shape the forum threads. Even though there is freedom of speech there are clearly restrictions in place, for example plagiarism and calls for violence are not allowed and those doing it will sanctions because moderators will take action. Strangely enough though, scams are not moderated and in that sense, freedom of speech here allows scams to operate. The latest of course is the promotion of mixer bans including URLs to their websites therefore freedom of speech has limits either in real life or in the forum.

Regarding the forum and those out there running similar websites, I think we all agree Bitcointalk is ahead by a long distance but (and I know some will disagree) in my opinion, other forums will increase in traffic and prominence over time because of the mixer ban. Mentioning those forums should be allowed without prejudice and in those forums they should also allow the mentioning of other forums too.

Yes, you're right it's a little bit unfair with Altcoinstalks as they aren't in that list but trust me I have personally visited most of the forums in that list and only 2-3 of those forums are somewhat good with activity while rest of the forums are just forums and they don't really do much. Activity on most of those forums is very low as compare to Altcoinstalks and the one who created that list hasn't updated it I guess.

I guess Altcoinstalks holds the 2nd place in terms of visitors and activity on the clear net. It's obvious that some of us do not care about the darknet forums which could be more crowded, but I am not aware of any because I am not regular there. Even altcoinstalks admin agrees that Bitcointalk is the top forum website and they don't think they are here to complete with Bitcointalk.

I do not think any of the forum owners think that they would be able to beat Bitcointalk in terms of monthly visits and the activity. But, yeah, all of them try to get some visitors from Bitcointalk because they know how huge the number of users of Bitcointalk.

When bitcointalk sends notification to the email, it is named 'Bitcoin Forum'. Is it different from the bitcoin forum in the list above?

I don't visit the above forums, but I visited the Altcoinstalks since bitcointalk traffic located it. But I think prior to the the mixer ban, Altcoinstalks traffic was so low.

Bitcointalk is the mother of all cryptocurrency forums and not in competition with any of them. So, a mother ensures her siblings grow and not compete with them.

Well it's actually relative because the forum owner hasn't made as official response with regards to that but the outright advertising of other competing forums hasn't been really happening on the forum a d has not called for attention to looking into regulating such, it's only a few times that in comments others forums are been mentioned but I'm sure if the need to regulate how much other forums are been mentioned on this forum arises then they will definitely work on fixing it without hesitation but for now there's yet to be a crucial reason to give much attention to that.

Asides forum other forms of advertisment done on this forum are mostly paid and that's not been a problem because these advertisment are been regulated aswell and are also been paid for.

It could matter if it's another forum and management, but the fact that Bitcointalk is so liberal, it doesn't care about what you do in this regard. This is even worth more kudos and that is why some people are so emboldened with it and still be doing double standards. By the double standard, I do not mean you can't participate in the two forums or more as you like, but the way some will speak of one when they are there and still speak of the other when they are there without the loyalty strictly sticking to one is my plight here.

Besides, I knew that the tension would douse over time. When the issue of teleporting was made known to me, some people even believed that was the end of Bitcointalk, but I smiled because I saw things differently, it will take more than an alternative to pull BTCt down. It's always like that when an issue just happened, but with time, the natural demand and supply will always play out as we see now. If not all of them, those who teleported are still here, also, there is a higher fraction that didn't even bother to waste their time to teleport. You can do the arithmetic.

I don't change the things I say because I'm on one forum or another, and I haven't seen any of the teleported members do so. Perhaps the only specific case in which I have expressed myself differently is that here I have sometimes used the word 'shitcoins' to refer to altcoins, while there I have not done so, which is logical because it is not very appropriate to go to an altcoin forum and insult them. But both here and there I say that I consider myself a bitcoin maximalist who has hardly owned any altcoins and that I consider bitcoin to be much better than other altcoins because it is essentially different.

Oops, this forum is not like other forums and maybe that is why it stands out from the rest of them. The reach cannot be in competition with other forums that are not up to its capacity or standard. If they perceive theirs as competition and not allow their users name other forum, it is okay and it is their rules there. This forum does not even take payment from companies advertising their contents here as far as I know. So I don’t see why they will collect payment for people just by mentioning other forums here. As a member of the forum, the rules here are just perfect and it is what is keeping the forum alive and respected till date.

Why do you feel so ? There can be number of factors causing another forum to become more popular than this forum. Like suppose, the current forum owner makes some bad decisions because of which good members here migrate to another forum, this can be one reason. It does not matter if you are the first forum related to crypto. What matters is who is solving the problem of users in a better way.


Before Google, there was dominance of Yahoo. They also never imagined that one day Google will be become bigger than them. So, never underestimate your competitor.

This is a bad comparison, in terms of references and content Bitcointalk is unique and way ahead, whenever a forum about Bitcoin and Nakamoto is mentioned Bitcointalk will always come out as the source, and we also have to consider many of the best projects that you see in the market started here.
I don't rule out that Altcoinstalk will be bigger I've seen its improvement, and it's unique on its way, just like Bitcointalk's own uniqueness, they should co-exist and it benefits the whole community.

I like this warning, it's such a sensitive one of awareness, but unfortunately doesn't perfectly match with the situation here. Bitcointalk is already established but the altcoin forum is still not so established but just using what happened with the m!xers ban to actualise more relivance. There is nothing bad in it but the forum should be thankful for the liberal nature of Bitcontalk, if a rule is enforced that there is no double standard, I think that would affect a lot of relevance received by the forum lately.

That is what I call Power and Bitcointalk has it more than it. Aside from that, I believe that many will teleport to the altcoin forum and many more will not, which still makes Bitcointalk more valid even as those who move to altcoins still have a presence in Bitcointalk. You can't compare it directly with the case of Google and Yahoo because Bitcointalk is well-established already, unlike Yahoo which was sleeping then when a lot still has to be done.

We've seen the forum's a open debate community we're allowed to say what we want including talking about other forums so why's it discussed. OP why's it matter?