Bitcoin Forum

I have noticed that several marketplace subs have become less active than in the past, especially considering that we are in the middle of a bull market.

For example:
*The bottom of the 1st page of currency exchange has a thread last posted in 9 days ago.
*Lending has threads last posted in almost a month and a half ago on the 1st page
*Long term offers has threads last posted in over a year ago
*Auctions have threads last posted in 33 days ago on the 1st page
*Goods have threads last posted in 11 days ago on the 1st page

The above lack of trading activity is concerning to me. In the past, all of the above subs have had much more activity. I would expect more activity given the current bull market.

Does anyone have ideas as to what is causing the above? Does anyone have ideas as to what might attract more trading activity on the various marketplace subs?

I have also noticed that advertising revenue is down about 70% (in USD terms) since January 2019 (prices were similar to January 2019 in January 2020).

Should changes be made to the merit system? Should changes be made to the trust system? Is either system being implemented in ways that are less than ideal?

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edit:
I think one solution might be for the forum to take steps to encourage LN use. A common theme I have noticed is high transaction fees when priced in USD for on-chain transactions.

CEX exist for those who prefer convenience, DEX exist for those who prefer privacy or control over their coin and even P2P/OTC have dedicated website such as HodlHold. Currency exchange section is left at awkward position.


Isn't it because people prefer convenience or place which have better reputation such as BitRefill for digital goods or other company such as Newegg which accept Bitcoin?

Most people probably don't want to spend their bitcoins on stuff especially in a bull market, hence few listings. Most people are probably too wary of scams to do much trading here also, especially since it's pretty much a free for all and scams aren't moderated. Selling physical stuff here requires you to give out personal information as well which many people won't want to do.


Well the price has gone up significantly since the start of 2019 so it's inevitable that people won't spend more in bitcoin. I doubt theymos cares too much but I still think he should consider adding more more donator ranks. They'd run themselves like Copper Memberships do so it's not like it will take any input from him once live and would probably generate more income than adverts do.


Why would merit be a factor? And what could or should be changed about trust? I don't think it matters whether people are trading here or not, especially from an admin point of view.


I thought you were talking about Computer Exchange aka CEX then: https://uk.webuy.com/

Funnily enough they were a website that started accepting bitcoin few years ago but I think they then removed the option probably because nobody was using it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1841929.0

I agree that posting frequency would drop significantly if signatures are removed, but niche boards like Goods, Lending or Currency Exchange are not the best reflections of that. These sub boards are only for users who have a specific purpose and not simply for general discussion, contributing to why posts there are not accepted by some managers.
If signatures were removed from Bitcoin discussion or development and technical support, there would still be topics for enthusiasts to discuss.

These boards faces the issue of what topics fit in there. Most of the topics posted there could easily fit into some other boards and users would likely pick the other board for better interaction.

If by easily you mean asking for ridiculously high loans using a newbie account, with no collateral, then Yes.
Usually, only users with wrong intentions get tagged when offering or requesting a loan.

I took a look at the currency exchange sub, and besides the points hilariousetc raised, another reason is that many members prefer to buy or sell with PayPal. Because of previous scams and chargebacks with PayPal, users probably have a hard time trusting these dealers.

I looked at the first 10 threads involving PayPal where the OP wants to either buy or sell by using PayPal, and this is how it looks:

- Users with negative feedback and/or active flags: 2
- Newbies: 2
- Users with no trusted feedback: 1
- Users with positive feedback: 4

Being a newbie and not having trusted feedback doesn't mean that you are a scammer, but it also doesn't make you trustworthy. I guess when members weigh up their options they arrive to a conclusion that there is almost a 50/50 chance to run into a scammer. If the forum moderated scams, I think the activity in the trading sections would increase. People would feel a bit more protected at least by knowing if someone scams them and they have proof, the scammers would be banned.

I don't think the chance is 50/50 because you're not randomly picking whom to deal with... that's the whole purpose of having trust feedback, isn't it?

Moderating scams wouldn't be much better - banned users would create new accounts. It might make it worse if users start relying on it (not banned == trustworthy) and moderators don't keep up.

People mostly come to the forum to signature spam and make a few bucks out of it. And yes, I do get the irony of saying that while being on a signature campaign....

Merit system works fine, it prevents most bottom feeders from being a problem as they can barely rank up and helps make it easier to see what members are actually contributing in some ways to the forum. There are of course false positives (or negatives) on this one, and each case is to be examined individually, but it's usually a sign to see a Hero/Legendary with less than 10 merits earnt since the introduction of the system...

And apart from the sig spammers, a lot of users just come to the altcoin or gambling boards; which kind of reinforces the vision a huge majority of users have regarding both crypto and the forum

Trust works fine too; if you are using a personal trust list that is

Steady declining trading activity has been a thing since about 2013.  A big reason for it is the rising Bitcoin price and another would be the atmosphere that has been created due to the trust network's failure to act as a honest decentralized network.  Take a look at Rmcdermott927 for example.  He received negative DT1 trust (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=289011) just for offering to purchase a Nintendo Switch using a trusted escrow and was accused of being an alt and harassed until he decided to just leave the forum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5298464.0).  If you haven't been paying attention to how certain DT1 members have been hijacking the trust network and supporting harassment and exclusion of others they are threatened by but have no reason to distrust, you might not understand why this forum is turning into a one stop spam shop instead of a hub of Bitcoin blockchain activity.  I've tried to be the canary in the coal mine, but I think many more people will have to suffer from and eventually leave this forum due to the abuse that is so frequently occurring and supported by DT1 members before action is taken from the Administration.  Likely not even then unless advertising dollars stop coming in and expenditures rise.

So I saw this post and since I am buried in snow I decided to do this:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5313804

It's been over an hour and no takers. In the old days (like a few months ago) it would have been filled in about 8 minutes.

EDIT: I LOCKED IT AFTER 12 HOURS WITH NO TAKERS. So yeah, a lot has changed.

No minimum, if you don't want to pay BTC TX fees I listed Doge / LTC and others.
Not a bite. So yeah, even for fun stuff the marketplace has gone to shit.

That or everyone is outside shoveling the white stuff.

-Dave

How did you determine that?  Is there a site that gives that information?  I'm an ignoramus when it comes to stuff like that, so it's probably common knowledge that I never learned.  But whatever, that's a huge drop.

I think the merit system is functioning just fine, and you don't see many complaint threads in Meta anymore.  The trust system on the other hand....we could debate that until 2022 and probably beyond.  Suggestions have been made and ignored by Theymos, so I don't think anything is going to change in the near future.

I don't know what's responsible for the drop in activity on the other boards, but I do know that traffic to bitcointalk has dropped significantly over the course of the last year and suspect that may have at least something to do with it.

Fair points that some companies have created efficiencies in selling things that used to be traded on some of these subs. These companies have also (mostly) ironed out problems related to scammers.

We have had bull markets in the past that has caused bitcoin to go up further than it has in the past several months. All of your other concerns have always been a problem with trading on this forum.


Well the price has gone up significantly since the start of 2019 so it's inevitable that people won't spend more in bitcoin. [/quote]In terms of USD, revenue is down by ~70%. It is down by more in terms of BTC. I think this is an indication that advertising on bitcointalk may be less profitable. The fact that bid increments are so high when compared to the selling price may also push the final price down.

I am trying to start a conversation.

Merit could be a factor if people responding to offers/threads have difficulty communicating, and don't want to pay $35 (for a copper membership) just to talk about a trade. If threads are not getting a lot of responses/sales, additional sellers will not want to create additional threads.

If it appears that traders do not have accurate trust ratings, it may make people uncomfortable to risk their money to a stranger.

I think the administration should care about how much trading goes on around the forum. I believe it is an indicator of the forum's influence, and an indicator of how many 'real' people are using bitcoin because of the forum.

It appears that buyers (and people that respond to marketplace threads) have also declined.

The last round (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5308556.msg56151983#msg56151983) for the ad slots brought in a total of 0.02 BTC, which is worth around $620. There was a round (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5092259.msg49184058#msg49184058) for the ad slots that ended on January 12, 2019, which bitcoin was trading at ~$3653, that brought in a total of 1.44 BTC, or around $5,200. I may have actually looked at other auctions when I made my statement because the difference between these rates is more than 70%.

There might be an argument to either lower the threshold to become a full member, or to add an additional rank with a lower merit requirement.

Well the computer/mining goods section no longer has much action for a lot of reasons.

Gpus are unobtainable everywhere unless you over pay by a lot.

So when I listed a new sealed quality gpu at a 100 usd markup.
600 vs 500 no one wanted it.

Why is that. Must people left here  that would buy gear want bargains. So marking a new sealed 500 card for 600 is not a bargain.

So I am mining with it clearing 4 dollars a day.  Which means in 150 days it is free.

So sellers like myself say fuck it I will just mine with it.
This is true in many ways.
I spent two weeks talking to a new guy with 100-200 k to invest.

I found three decent deals for him and he did not purchase any. why he wants a bargain. Guess what many will simply mine the gear and not care about his need or desire to get a deal.

I also stopped most escrow on many deals as making ten dollars on a two hundred dollar escrow is just not worth it. So I do minimum escrow fee of 20 usd . and at a thousand I switch to 2%.

What this does is discourage small sales as no one wants to use paypal and get a charge back.

and no one wants to pay 20 dollars for a 200 dollar escrow.

I could list more reasons why things are slow.

in mining section the mod deletes and alters posts a lot.
so i post les their many said fuck it I wont post there.

I wont discuss the boost your points by your trust list as I now don’t give and new feedback with this account.
I use my cellphone account.

But frankly most people post on btc to do a signature.
I used to do that. And then give the funds away in my give away but btc was 100 a coin back then it was a different world.

This could be a sign of a larger issue with the availability of GPU equipment versus demand.

The USD cost of transaction fees is currently very high, primarily due to the high bitcoin cost. Even without an escrow fee, the cost to send coin to an escrow, and for the escrow to the seller can be high. It may be beneficial if steps were taken to encourage people to use LN, where fees are a small fraction of on-chain transactions.

I am not sure if you are referring to my trust rating or my merit score. I very rarely trade on here, and my only negative rating is from someone unwilling to discuss said rating. I don't make posts with the intention of receiving a trust review. I put a lot of effort into my posts, which is reflected in the merit I receive, and I send merit to posts I believe that also have a lot of effort put into them.

generic you. not you specifically.

I offer to take ltc and or doge to save on fees. I get some takers now and then.
Basically small miners don’t exist. There were far more back in the day.

Other sections benefit from first-mover's advantage, I'd also prefer to post in a dedicated section since more people peruse them, but I also wonder how much would activity decline if signatures were to disappear overnight.


They do, they use nicehash with the GPU(s) they bought when the prices were lower, or with the overpriced GPU(s) to offset the cost of high prices they paid for them.

I'm not sure about other subforums, but I've been noticing this activity drop in the lending section for a long time now.

I feel like a huge reason is because people are simply no longer able to make microloans feasibly with BTC being this high - average tx fees would eat into the loans pretty steeply (think lending 0.01 BTC @ $400/BTC v.s. 0.0001 BTC @ $40,000/BTC).

Another reason is that forum trust has been diluted to a great extent. Previously, hero members could get no collateral loans easily, but now, even the highest ranking accounts will struggle to get any sizable loan without collateral. Perhaps lenders have matured and tightened their lending standards, but I think the abundance of high-ranking but not necessarily reputable users is to blame as well.

This could be an argument to add additional ranks. Over time, there will obviously be more hero members as members gain additional merit and activity.

This is another reason to encourage people to use LN. The costs to use an existing LN channel is near zero and would reduce the costs associated with micro-transactions.

I have edited the OP to suggest adding incentives for increased LN usage.

Telegram and Discord didn't exist back when this forum was created, I would bet a lot of crypto activity has moved towards those platforms. The vast majority of new crypto users simply don't care about Bitcoin, they care about making a buck, which means they aren't going to check these forums out and if they are, they likely won't be contributing.

Towards DaveF's point (how I saw this thread) -  I was going to participate until I saw BTC TX fees. All my LTC is tied up in long term storage and I wasn't about to pay Coinbase $2.99 to get some more. That essentially free raffle would have cost users over $150 in Bitcoin TX fees for a $30 silver piece.

yep I myself I encourage LTC and Doge as fees are good.
Although Doge went nuts in price and frozen transactions are now common on the doge blockchains (trezor)
As my signature shows I am more of a multi coin believer as long as the coin is well backed by gear.






I saw Dave's raffle.
I can have some of those pieces I got them from him.
I simply don't do raffles.

I offered BTC, LTC, DOGE, Lightning & BCH
Even if I am just playing around or even if I was a serious vendor doing much more then that just becomes a management nightmare. How many coins can your really take without going through a payment processor and taking a hit on their commission? Yeah I can have a separate coinomi wallet but listing all the payment options and tracking all the coins and then figuring out what to do with them can very quickly become a lot of work. Do you really want to have $18 of peercoin just sitting there because that;s what someone paid you with?

This is something as a group we should probably spend a lot more time discussing and figuring out before it all comes crashing down around us.

-Dave

That would be nice to think. But the card is listing from 829 to 1129 on ebay.

A new sealed one with an invoice for six hundred should be jumped on. It was not.
Basically the buyers don’t come to the site like they used to do.

I actually thought I was being generous with the offer I made.

As I said I just mined with it for the last 20 days and have earned back 4 a day.

It will be paid off in around 105 days. Maybe I will sell it then.

It isn't about high prices or low availability or tight pocketed buyers.  We all likely have more money than ever and eBay is selling GPUs plenty fast at insane prices.  It is a very simple issue of atmosphere.  A very straightforward and simple example of this was given here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5313658.msg56243800#msg56243800

You can choose to ignore the problem and continue thinking everything is fine with this sort of behavior, or you can do something about it and watch as your reputation is destroyed, hence the problem.  Currently those who seek influence instead of honesty are succeeding in accelerating this place towards irrelevance and I fear it will be years before those engaging in the destructive behavior even realize they are the bad guys...

As for the honest traders trying to make a few bucks offering great deals for crypto, I'm sorry.  I guess you should have gotten here sooner.

Still don't believe me?  Silver demand is at insane levels globally and you'd be lucky to sell it at spot price here over the last year.  It isn't demand.  It isn't price.  It isn't cheap buyers.  It is atmosphere.

There's less new people coming into the forum, older members, if they like, probably have all the collectibles they want.

And, again, some people been leaving the forum since a good bunch of years. I found nicer crypto communities for example.

The value of bitcoin is higher now - doubly so - than it was back then so people are probably even more reluctant to spend their bitcoins.


It's a discussion forum primarily not a marketplace, but either way there's nothing the forum can do about it or promote it. What would you suggest? Offer to cover escrow fees or offer free shipping or something? There's nothing you can do if people don't want to trade here and the forum shouldn't get involved in that just like it doesn't get involved with many other things like scams and such. It's a niche market and always will be for numerous reasons.


There should be another rank as many people got to Hero before the merit change. The new rank should require a large amount of merit to distinguish it from others and so it's hard to achieve, or maybe just make Legendary require it and fix the activity to 780.

I had suggested the forum do more to encourage LN use. It is good you are accepting LN (and other altcoins), but if few people have LNbtc to spend, few people will be able to pay you via LN. The same is also true with regards to the other altcoins you were offering -- some offer lower fees to use, but my guess is that very few people have dogecoin for reasons other than financial speculation.

What policies do you think should be changed to fix this problem? I know that theymos is very much opposed to implementing regulations, probably to a fault (moderate regulations can be a good thing, and can help ensure you don't have quazi-government like entities from doing bad things to the free market).

Interesting. Your experience seems to validate the point I was making in the OP. Do you have any suggestions that you believe may attract more buyers to the forum?

When the price is high is exactly the best time to spend coin you have. The price being at ~$35k versus ~$14k a few months ago should make people with coin be able to afford more/expensive goods/services with their increased wealth.

The purpose of this thread was to solicit suggestions from forum members. I am stumped for suggestions.

Covering escrow fees or shipping is probably something that would end up getting abused. I don't think theymos wants to be involved in individual transactions.

Trades are simply moving to other platforms.  Theymos did an incredibly insane job of making so much out of this old forum software, but it doesn't have the infrastructure or stability for hundreds/thousands of trades per day.   As much as scammers will try to convince you that spreadsheets are just as safe as the blockchain, these spreadsheets tend to vanish when the scam is revealed.


Trading with your alt, leaving your alt a DT1 vote, escrow scamming and exchanging merit with your alt are the reason you are off DT again.  But hopefully this time your trust cannot be saved by returning 500btc.  Trading BTC is increasing (I'll have the data to prove this in about a week or so) and I have never been off DT.    :)


And you resealed it and tried to sell it as new?
(Edited to stroke out incorrect info)

No .

There were No takers so I am mining with it . It is now day 23 I earned over 102 and since I held the coin it went up 🆙 to about 125 back against my cost of 500.

Please correct your mistake.

As long as the electricity and pollution have no cost.


I apologize for misreading.   I hope apologizing doesn't make you trust me less...   :-[

At vod thanks for the apology.

As per your signature, I cannot officially accept your thanks.   ;)

Since the time of forum, nothing has changed except the rules and regulations which were mostly focused on how a user will get upgraded to the next level.
We needed the merit system, trust feedbacks etc. so that one can understand how a user is performing or more or less his/her generosity was calculated with it.
What we missed is, we did not add any fun to it. The forum became far more stricter (it should be) but it has started to give out feeling of corporate world with bossy managers around.

There has to be more fun ways to work around here. People should consider this as escape room from the real world to crypto space.

All I see here people going after merits, trying to upgrade themselves. Nothing different than what we do at our jobs. LOLZ. ;D

Is this the reason we see less activity? (Less discussion, more spurious ways of earning  ??? )

I guess yes. Most of the users are drifting from the proper agenda of the forum. There should be learning with the fun stuff around here. There needs to miraculous debates on technology, modesty of crypto workflow, blockchain and much more.

With the use of Merit system (which is surely a success) we saw quality posters emerging out of the forum and downfall of the spammers! But what after that? Just because all the knowledgable people came one under one roof does not mean we will contribute to this forum.

They need proper direction, agenda's which will make them think in one direction and give coolest outputs for the forum and other people's who are exploring this forum for specific knowledge.

How this will help Marketplace activity/ trading? (More discussion, publicity of forum, quality projects  :P)

Well, such quality thinkers can create new projects for the forums. Make continuous changes in the forum UI, it's outlook. Attract new investors and developing projects who will advertise here.

Forum has no way of outward marketing. I mean there could be hundreds of projects around the globe which are quality one and do not know about the BitcoinTalk itself. We are missing out them.

If they don't get registered on the forum, then we don't get the business. Marketplace has "Mega-Moves" based on the advertisers.

There should be Forum Stats section easily accessible to the outside companies which will show them to how many people they could reach easily? This would add confidence to the people who could be new investors of the forum. 

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Yet another strong everyone is talking is the following quote: Agree on this as well. If projects find it easier to publish on the other platforms as compared to the forum then we surely gonna loose the clients. They will just publish their social platforms here and flee once they get enough followers. Isn't it?


Of course encouraging LN is not the way but it's an alternative.

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   We are not using BTC Million Dollar Space!BTC   

We can easily publish the precious data in the space as shown in the SS. It is the first thing you see every-time you visit the Home / log in / Any Section or Board of the forum.

It could be literally used for anything from the Advertising of Projects to the Auctions or New releases. This will help direct the users to the specific target in no time. The space is completely useless at this point. One can publish hell lot of things here.

It could generate decent income for the forum and can also help advertisers to reach new level of audience.

https://i.ibb.co/0rg2Qgg/Screenshot-2021-02-05-09-47-36.png


For example, an auctioneer can decide to publish his Service Link in this space with the images to attract new buyers easily. They could share x% to the forum for using that space. Tell me if this won't help? It could be amazing way of publication and revenue generation.

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Many ways are there to increase the activity and income on this forum. The only thing is we need an agenda, explorer team and developers for the same.  :D

In my observation incentive for spending bitcoin is very similar to incentive for selling bitcoin. It doesn't matter what the price is at any moment, how it got there is the important part. For example if the price were $100k now but it was reached by falling down from $400k then nobody would spend their bitcoin. Similarly if price was stuck at $100k and fluctuating wildly around that level. But if it was reached by jumping from $50k then everyone would be more than willing to spend their bitcoin.

We had that in 2017 when price shot up to $10k and it was 10x rise compared to the start of the year and people were spending their bitcoin 100x more. Then in 2018 when price fell spending stopped too.

Right now for once more price seems to be getting ready for a launch ergo people are hopeful for more profit so they hold on to their coins instead of spending/selling them.

Well I know this is Bitcointalk not cryptocoin talk.

But other coins 🪙 have purpose and value.

This forum has shown a lot of anger an disrespect toward  other coins.

Myself included.

This hurts the forum as a person into Eth may simply see the forum’s title and not look at it all.

99% of altcoins only have a price, they have neither purpose nor value. Unless you count being pumped and dumped as a purpose.

Respect is earned not given.

Nobody is "into ETH" they are all interested in making bets on the newest scam token and see if they can win some money.

To be honest I'd rather just use other such platforms. They have more of an audience unless it's some niche bitcoin thing, but if you want to sell regular goods there's many better sites and apps that you're likely going to have better success with.


I've suggested things like this in the past with people being able to buy banners at the top of certain sub boards so they can target their audience better ie a gambling site would advertise in the gambling section and so on, but theymos doesn't seem to care about it. In fact, he seems to be against more advertising or doesn't want banners everywhere, but I think they'd be better than sigs and even if people find them unsightly it can't be more unsightly that sig ads especially when they come along with spam. If he did want to generate more money - and that's not something he seems to be that bothered about right now - you could easily implement more donator ranks like I mentioned above and that would be a great source of passive income and one that doesn't involve unsightly banners or sigs.

Maybe you didnt notice the entire board is nearly dead? Even at a new ATH and what looks the start of a bullrun for alts?

So many contributing factors

 Merit was the sledgehammer that removed opportunity for new members.
Especially on the alt boards where all the traffic and volume was increasingly headed.
When you have a tiny tiny subs

Actually read these excellent and valuable posts lacking the swathes of merit they deserve to gain an understanding of how the forum operates and did operate before

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5276911.msg55248847#msg55248847

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5276911.msg55260532#msg55260532

I mean also when the trust system places proven scammers in DT and paints proven and tested scam hunters and those free of any peoven financially motivated wrongdoing who whilstblow on DT scammers as the bad guys..

Even the forum treasurer marked as a scammer and booted off DT by noob trash greedy proven scammer protecting and supporting scum?

Lol at people not trading or coming here anymore.

Actually for all the hate on alts they are the only future the forum has.
The forum works well as a hub. That is it's only future now that bitcoin has outgrown the place.

Bitcoin does not need bitcointalk. There will be some loyal enthusiasts that will stick around.
Bitcoin is now mainstream and everyone knows about it. They will all end up with some in their investment funds , pensions pots etc.

Bitcoin now has numerous outlets paypal, cards etc that be used to purchase stuff anywhere. Ebay amazon anywhere you can use visa or PayPal. No need to sell or buy here.

The forum works fantastic as a hub for alts. Much easier to use than reddit or twitter or any of that. Also has a huge advantage over them for allowing noobs to make a few bucks or it DID. Once that was removed the forum died.

You need newbies with the 50 bucks a week, their energy boasting to their pals about bct and making money, spamming their social media with links to bct from new projects that are launched here on the basis of them having that exact audience and launch energy.

The problem is the power was handed to a bunch of greedy self serving scumbags who simply want to milk the forum and cut off any competition via broken metrics they control. They are also either newbies who dont know shit or the most unsuccessful dreg loser elder members that still need to grovel around for btc dust due to being dumb fucks who could compete on a fair playing field for years with the successful members who are now multi millionaires and not going to put up with toeing the line to these turds.

Read. Understand. Agree.

Or debunk any of the points I've made.

This argument we dont want junior boards because it cuts of opportunity for new members is almost as dumb and bogus as merit and trust and sitting there wondering why nobody wants to join anymore lol.

Who wants to play monopoly when most of the property and land is sold already and then you're not even allowed to roll the dice unless we say so but we just keep passing the dice to each other whilst you get a slap for complaining it doesnt sound fair.

Lol you dumb shits. Hahah


Look it is simple

You bring new people in with opportunity to earn, they spread the word via WOM and social media spam, even their blabbering brings google traffic. They must be given fair and equal treatment immediately or wont stick around they have zero deference of gratification. They want to see instant opportunity.

All these people entice projects to launch here.

This all creates a synergy where it becomes a thriving hub.

Bitcoin and bitcoin investors have zero need to bct any more.

The forum did its job, it created a community around the project and took it mainstream.
It provided a place for people to buy and sell with this weird nerd money
Now these are not applicable.

Bitcointalk is altcoinhub or dead.

Bitcoin still gains because eventually most still want out to fait or bitcoin because as we know most alts have a short life cycle.  

Reddit Twitter all these can not compete with this forum if it plays to its strengths.. financial incentives.


Let's fixing it before it dies.

Transparent objective standards that ensure every member has a fair and equal chance at opportunity is the only way forward.

Strange how all the bitcoin maximalists mouthing off about shitcoins have no bitcoins either lol. Except a tiny handful.

Yet another of the most valuable posts made here ever that will receive zero merit.
Why because it demonstrates the status quo here is self destructive and only benefits a handful of people in meta who are afraid to compete on a fair transparent playing field.

Follow the gemz I provide and turn this place around. It almost looks like a deliberate attempt to kill the forum to me.
If so just get it over and turn the servers off, this spiral slow death with mini bumps of hope on bull runs on the way down to the eventual death rattle where all sponsorship leave then even the DT scum abandon it will just be too sad to watch.

Thank you for proving my point.


And for enforcing my point.

bitcoin maximalists  are the problem but I can see why they exist and of course stay here.

My signature has been there for years as it is what I believe in.

I don't have hatred towards BTC maxer's but they hurt the forum.

My thread  chains 1-9 in alts

 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5144362.0

have many views.

I get grief from BTC maxers  the deal is alts are not   leaving accept the good ones.

Make a rating system whatever but "99% of alts are shit coins" turns off people.

Although, I do agree with your observation I do  tend to think a little differently. I don't think the current price matters much at all, its the mindset of the people who are buying into Bitcoin. Most of the things you can buy with Bitcoin, you can buy with fiat. Fiat doesn't really have the potential to skyrocket like Bitcoin does. Evidence as suggested that many people have spent what was considered low value at the  time, but then given enough years, it would have been a better investment to purchase with fiat. Not everyone is exclusively into Bitcoin, and I would estimate that most people in Bitcoin treat it as a long term investment, that they set aside a certain amount of money each week/month, and invest based on that. They use their fiat currency to purchase goods.

The only difference would be the collectible section, as this tends to house things which aren't typically available for fiat.

Well if the bull market has any connection into the forum's marketplace activity I think it affected the users in a sense that they are more inclined on hodling their Bitcoin rather than spending it at the moment that is why you will see a lower activity in this areas. People who may have recently joined the forum will most likely go in the speculation or trading discussion sections since the price of Bitcoin is what drive them to join and this new members will most likely buy their Bitcoin on an exchange rather than in the forum and maybe some of our older members here also have done that. So for me this might not be a forum related issue but maybe it has something to do with the price of Bitcoin.

I've been around for nearly 7 years and have been searching for a "good" altcoin for at least half of that time. Suffice it to say that I remain disappointed 99% of the time...
However, I would love to be proven wrong, obviously I haven't gone through tens of thousands of coins!
In order to not go off-topic any more than this here is a topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5315116.0

my 2c is literally no one talks about bitcointalk, outside of bitcointalk

no one references ANN threads anymore

Bitcointalk does nothing to grow/improve/innovate + the censorship on here, it's no mystery why bitcointalk is "dying"

Phil made a great point in another thread, ETH is literally BOOMING lol, the VoskCoin YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/voskcoin - is hitting all-time high metrics along with any other successful crypto anything -- so if bitcointalk is not doing well statistically they only have themselves to blame, if they even care, which they don't seem to.

While you make some good points, Internet trends have changed, etc., but this is bitcointalk, not altcointalk. At one point in time there were even discussions whether altcoins should be allowed on the forum in the first place.


Can you elaborate on the censorship? Many other venues will outright ban you if you start criticizing their pet project too much.

Thank you for proving and enforcing my point!

Let's start a rating system.  I would not be a good candidate as I have not traded much - but you could lay out a starting blueprint.  Then we could say with 100% certainty that 99.85% (or whatever the number is) of alt coins are shit.

I think the thresholds to rank up may be on the high side for merit. In the past, someone could make an average of one post per day and become a 'full member' after about 4 and a half months. Today, many members take much longer to become a full member due to the lack of merit. Granted, a large part of this is due to there being many spammers, and people that post very low quality posts, but I believe there are likely to be people that make good posts that are unable to rank up, or that after a few months of posting will give up on trying to rank up because the amount they are receiving is tracking to take a very long time for them to rank up.
The forum has very good search engine rankings. Any link posted on the forum will have their search engine rankings be improved. This is why so many spammers try to spam their links on the forum, even if the links appear for only a few minutes.

I would think it would be the opposite on both points. If someone has a recently appreciated asset, they can sell part of that asset and still have the same amount of money. I would say that previous bull runs saw an increase in forum trading activity when I would read threads without registering. I would also think a bull run would encourage people to buy some bitcoin and do things to try to make money with their bitcoin.

I don't think it's limited just to altcoins.  My Bitcoin projects receive just as much grief and disrespect in spite of generating insane returns for investors that blow away any traditional investments and innovating new use cases for crypto that remain far ahead of their time nearly a decade later. 

The issue is a social one with the structure of this forum.  The attempt at a decentralized trust network has empowered those who want to spread lies and create alt accounts, while leaving honest members with a choice that they can look the other way at this behavior or have their trust negatively effected.  This crab in a bucket approach to trying to establish a trust network is one of the worst decisions I've seen a leader make and has directly impacted trading activity here as well as establishing a downward spiral in positive atmosphere.  If you speak out about these issues, you are ganged up on by the usual suspects, cast out of the DT network, and left with negative feedback from whatever made up story they push as the truth.  Until this horrible decision to empower trolls and scammers is rectified, this place can only trend in one direction...

OgNasty - do you mean the pirate passthrough that you ran (https://web.archive.org/web/20160212042638/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75843.0)?  You received the grief and disrespect for stealing everyone's coins - how can you not understand that?  Too much cocaine?

Fuck off with your pity, Mr. Trump.

Look who's talking. 3 flags, countless neg feedback but talking like he has anything to say here. Like all the other 20000 posts of this brainless tool.

OgNasty actually has 5 red flags, and I have one from his pal.  I was just pointing out how the ponzi scammer is complaining how he got negative trust for running a ponzi.

Is this what you meant in your PM threat?  You'll let everyone know how many red flags you think I have? 

Look vod and Og we are know you two fight over and over.

But it is not for this thread.

How to encourage people is simple show alt coin section more favor.

look at how much this section sees.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=160.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=160.40
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=160.80
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=160.120
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=160.160

four pages of threads for this month


Why is that?

Simple Alt coins are cheap and you can still get lucky.
Also they allow gpu mining which is quiet and can be done in your home.

Look philipma1957 - 1) Og announced he ran a ponzi.   2) Og announced he lost everything.  3) Og is now claiming his ponzi "received just as much grief and disrespect in spite of generating insane returns for investors that blow away any traditional investments and innovating new use cases for crypto that remain far ahead of their time nearly a decade later. "  He is hinting it was he, and not pirate that brought braindead ponzis into the crypto world.  What an ego.

Yes - he lost thousands of bitcoins, and he's trying to act the victim, and you are defending him.  Do you believe that bullshit, or do you trust him for financial gain?  As long as you trust him, and use hypocrisy as the reason you don't trust me, don't type our names as if we are equal. 

Stop deflecting from his theft.  Until he makes everyone he stole from whole, he cannot post as a regular member here without reaction. Do you expect me to say nothing while he lies?

I apologize for bumping this thread, but I came across it when I searched for "Voskcoin sucks", thinking that I couldn't be the only one who thinks he's one of the worst shills for whoever pays the bills I've ever seen.  Apparently I'd missed this thread or forgotten all about it, but since I was also thinking about bitcointalk's Youtube channel I thought I'd reply.

That might be true, but since nobody has any idea of what forums/social media sites/real-life conversations you're basing the conclusion of "no one" on, I think you're just pulling stuff out of your ass.  But hey, glib answers are your specialty.

Literally booming.  Yet another problem with the popular crypto Youtubers: they don't seem to understand how to speak or write, their vocabulary is limited to pre-high school levels, and given that most of them are whitey-white Americans there's just no excuse for that.

Nice job plugging your channel, btw.  I avoid it every time I see it, and I'd advise others to do the same.  It's unfortunate that a lot of people get their information on crypto from YT instead of, say, bitcointalk or some other source where the ratio of useful stuff to fluff/self-promotion/product shilling is greater than 1:10. 

Regarding the subject of this particular thread, I'd be curious as to whether things have changed or not--plus the argument between Vod and OgNasty likely derailed the discussion completely.  The forum is far from dead, but since I don't generally keep an eye on the marketplace I don't have a sense of how active members are in trading with one another.  It's even been at least a year (maybe) since I visited the Currency Exchange section, but last time I was there it seemed like things were humming along.

And if things aren't still humming along, maybe getting the official Youtube channel in high gear would help....a little at least?  Granted, it doesn't seem like it turned out to be as popular as a lot of us thought it might be, but things could change with time and enough videos.

It appears that marketplace activity has continued to decline since I opened this thread last February. All of the examples I cited in the OP have continued to decline. I am not sure about how ad revenue has been trending.

I haven't looked at specific metrics, but it does feel like the forum is generally slower than it has been in years past.

That's because all the cross-talk and forcefully close(2)'d pipes have left, so there is naturally much less arguments than in previous years.

I get the feeling that Bitcointalk's high "activity" was largely due to first the ICOs (which we kicked out) and the flame war fanners (most of whom left by themselves) and the scamsters in Digital Goods (exiled but far from gone). It seems mostly quiet here like maybe 2014-2015 levels, and I don't think that it's going to decline further.

Lol, I can’t even remember the last time we had a flame war. I think that is probably a good thing, even if they were sometimes entertaining.

I’d probably agree that the lack of flame wars and the associated drama has at least partially contributed to the decline of activity in the forum overall. I don’t think flamewars contributed to marketplace activity though. Flame wars tended to be limited to a fairly small number of threads. I have also noticed that the number of scam attempts in the lending section has all but disappeared. There is/was a sticky in lending that says that scammers will try to scam as little as a dollar in the lending sub. I don’t think scammers have been trying to do that recently.

If a somewhat new account here posts anything for sale or any service deal the first thing that will happen is someone who has no interest in the deal whatsoever will demand that they use a paid escrow service..

This person is not going to want to pay a tax (escrow fee), or may not trust just sending some random escrow their money (no matter how much YOU trust this escrow, they may not), and this user is going to resist..

Gonna get slapped with red trust for refusing escrow..
He never comes back..

A newer user/project can't even start a signature campaign without being harped on about using some escrow unknown to them and may well get red tagged just for refusing escrow..

Anything with a slight scam risk their is going to be 1,000 posts about it trying to force a padded room..

Even old timers find it hard to trade here. when there are other sites with way higher liquidity and turnaround time, and not being bound to 1000's terms and conditions.

Look at this..

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2207664

Almost 600 posts and only 7 merit..

I know this guy, kinda..
Got his old IMZ account hacked a long time ago..
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=330540

This is as legit of a bitcointalk user/poster as it gets..

7 merit!!
7!

I've wondered this too myself but then I remembered how I got on this forum. It was through a search online that led me to CMC and then I clicked on a link that brought me to this forum. I think there's no much visibility for BTT on YouTube, that's why.

True. Sadly true and this I believe hasn't helped advance this forum in a better light. These aggrieved users will then exit the forum with a negative opinion of it.

This is why I've continued to maintain that meriting posts is subjective. Users don't always merit posts because they find them that constructive. Most times, it's from bias towards particular users they're familiar with. Thanks for finding that user and meriting them.

I think what you have described before has happened in the past, but I don't think that often happens today. While I don't think that any (new) user should have to use any particular escrow service on the forum, or even an escrow service on the forum in general, however, if someone is attempting to do business and cannot articulate a plan in which his trading partner is unlikely to lose money from the perspective of a neutral person, I think it is reasonable to say that it is not safe to trade with said person.

I would point back to the decline of flame wars on the forum as being similar to the lack of 1000 posts being made when there is a slight scam risk.

It’s not just newbies that are forced out in this way. Even after more than a decade of protecting user funds with having handled more than 20,000 BTC of escrows and paid out over 700 BTC to community members through my mining operations, as well as safeguarding more than 500 BTC for this website, people still attack me and use the trust system to get extortionists in DT as a way to punish me for my efforts. Just look at who still has Vod in their trust networks after it’s been proven as factual that he lied about me and tried to extort me for millions. It’s a joke that these same people claim to be for the good of this site. Until this is addressed, as I said before… Trading activity will only continue to trend in one direction.

The main reason why I hate using the marketplace of forum is because of trust issue on the sellers and buyers, You will need to use escrow are gamble your money to sellers to save for escrow fees. Actually product on marketplace are very good and cheap. The only problem was the escrow fee or the transaction fee sometimes greater than the value of items being bought.

Someone is using external merchant website but I'm not comfortable using it since it's outside forum, Maybe a built in forum escrow such as smart contract will make this solve the problem.

Bitcointalk has been more on the advertising side than a place to trade now, knowing that you can get scammed. I remember my first time trading here, in which I sold a World of Warcraft code, and I didn't know how to use the marketplace yet; in turn, I was scammed. It's risky to use the market if you don't know any of the rules or steps for you not to get scammed.

I can't think of a reason for how it can be fixed. As long as there is movement in the marketplace, it's hard to measure how active it is. Most people turn to Telegram or something.

Yeah, they just want the sales now. Lately I received some unsolicited PMs on signature campaigns when I didn't even ask for them.

Advertising is obviously in the tanks these days too by looking at theymoses ad auction revenue..

If all you have is spammers spamming adds they themselves aren’t a good target to advertise to..
Other than them you have the old school BTCT users still sticking around, who probably aren’t much good to advertise to either (not me)..

Lost most of the average users, who are good advertising targets..


At least gambling is still doing well, I think..
They like to post their gambling conversations, real conversations, and they are good targets for gambling advertisement..

I think we need to start thinking about getting merits flowing in the altcoins boards..
They are real users and good users, they throw coin around, make coin flow, and are likely good advertising targets..

The lending section as pretty much been monopolised, but certain users. They offer low rate loans, and therefore you don't get as many threads as we used to asking, since they just go to the multiple services offering these low rate loans.

Lending a few years ago used to be crazy at times.

Probably. There's an absolute massive stigma of the Altcoin section though. I can't necessarily blame users for that, it is quite crazy at times. Definitely a lot of low quality content, but I think we're making a dent into things slowly. Also, a lot of scam projects which unfortunately put the users that post in that section under question at times, which probably shouldn't be the case.

I'd be interested to hear users opinions on what could be improved, to sort of remove that stigma.

That is a fair point. This has probably also cut down on the obvious scam loan requests involving sob stories, empty promises, and/or worthless collateral.

I think this is more of a cultural issue than a moderation issue. There are a lot of people here that can reasonably be described as 'bitcoin maximalists'. There are a lot of people who will describe any altcoin as a 'shitcoin' without knowing anything about the altcoin -- to be fair, this is an accurate description for most altcoins. The only thing I can think of that the administration can do, would be to encourage people to have an open mind regarding altcoins.

Yes, that is one thing I noted in my OP.

Yeah, and to a certain point I can understand it. The majority are either outright scams, money grabs or just meme coins at this point. It doesn't really help that certain meme coins have been somewhat successful at reaching mainstream crypto users.

Personally, I'm not invested in any other cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin. However, there's been a few interesting ideas out there, and while they may have failed, there's definitely potential that altcoins can be useful, even if its not for everyone.

The way that I look at altcoins is that they can try out various different ideas/features/technology/etc that can be tested in the "real world", and if an altcoin is successful, there can be a consideration to upgrading bitcoin in a way that somewhat mimics said altcoin if the feature is useful (similarly, if something is not successful, it would create a strong argument against upgrading bitcoin to implement said technology/feature).

Unfortunately, many who are behind altcoins are taking advantage of various hypes as a means to enrich themselves. I think the coins in the later category both far outnumber the former category and will make people hesitant to give merit to those posting in the altcoin subs.

Make altcoin posters that think from the different “culture” sources..

This is understandable as well.  I used to offer cheaper escrows (in dollar terms) but then trolls would constantly setup fake escrows to waste my time or attempt to scam the escrow with crazy stories.  It became quite a drain on my time, so I had to let costs float up with Bitcoin to make it no longer worth the cost to play games.  For a while I was trying to push a "bonding" setup to save buyers money, where sellers could put funds into escrow and buyers would know that it was safe to purchase from those vendors because they had funds being held by an escrow on behalf of their buyers.  That way the seller could pay one escrow fee and his buyers would know their items were safe, saving them from escrow costs.  It was an idea that never took off though.