The only reason we all need to rely on the longest chain to verify which bitcoin ledger is legitimate is because bitcoin is decentralized and trustless. In such a system, the only way an average user can be sure of the veracity of the ledger is to use the one that has consensus. Bitcoin has forked before but every fork that doesn't have consensus has become a separate token, and "bitcoin" continues on under the fork that has consensus about it being the "true bitcoin." This would not be required in a centralized ledger because the central authority is already trusted and isn't competing with people using the the token over which chain is legitimate. So the fact that bitcoin can't be controlled and isn't instantaneous is why banks will never adopt it in my opinion. They'll develop their own system where the only purpose will be speed of transaction because the trusted central authority is a given.

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Bitcoin is definitely not a safe asset. It's a speculative asset, and people who are buying it as a safe haven are taking on far more risk than they're capable of knowing, and that makes it dangerous for those people because the risk-reward of a real safe haven vs. what people are getting with Bitcoin is not comparable. Bitcoin's entire history is one of extreme volatility. Just because it hasn't dropped significantly during the pandemic doesn't render it safe. If that's your stance, you have to be far more worried about the significant drops of this "safe haven" when there was no pandemic. All the wishing and calling it a safe haven in the world won't change the fact that it isn't. Treat it as one at your own risk.

I doubt any banks are seriously interested in crypto as a currency, but integrating blockchain technology into their existing ecosystems to speed up settlement of fiat transactions.  To the extent they are interested in their own crypto, I reckon it's as a surrogate of the dollar (therefore a stablecoin) which they can completely control, to make transfers instantaneous from all market participants in that ecosystem.  In that regard, it is absolutely a competitor to Bitcoin as it will seek to function in one of the areas that bitcoin currently has an advantage over banks (fast, cheap remittances and cross border payments) and it will likely be able to quickly adapt to market needs since it will be centrally controlled.  We all saw what happened when Bitcoin tried to solve the block size problem.  It took months to make any headway in the debate and in the end literally tore the community apart and the BCH splinter group was the result.  Bitcoin's only advantage at this point was being first, but it is not agile and that's its greatest weakness.

The 32.9% drop is actually the annualized rate.  The drop was only 9.5% year over year, and was extrapolated to get the annualized rate, which really doesn't make sense and is a bit of reckless reporting considering the strict shutdown conditions that existed in the second quarter will not exist for the full year and so we are not going to see a full 33% drop in annual GDP.  But the bigger number gets more clicks.  The silver lining is that things aren't actually as bad as was reported.

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/07/30/896714437/3-months-of-hell-u-s-economys-worst-quarter-ever

UBI is the solution to the increasingly automated world we live in. The rich fight it because nobody wants to pay higher taxes, but the alternative is inevitable widespread civil unrest.  The industrial revolution has improved life throughout the last 150 years so much so that people's lives were improving over previous generations through the use of automation.  The gains were spread throughout all the socioeconomic strata of society and so there was no reason for revolt by the lower strata when people's lives were constantly improving.  We are now reaching a point where the gains through increased automation are all going to the top strata of society, and their response to their destruction of jobs is "just work harder, try something new, adapt."  As economic opportunities continue to disappear, people will get poorer and angrier and political violence is inevitable.  UBI is the only hope to head off widespread civil unrest, but the rich are too greedy now to realize it's in their long term benefit as well.

Just be weary n the third and fourth quarter when the economy posts the largest quarterly GDP increase in recorded history.  I imagine such a headline would get considerable touting by the current administration despite the fact that it will completely lack all the context of how bad things were and still are.  There will be no quick recovery from this, and it will take years to get back to where we were economically before the pandemic hit, assuming we can even get back there at all.

That's not what institutional investment is.  Institutional investors are simply people who manage large pools of assets on behalf of a group, like a sovereign wealth fund or pension managers.  When seeking capital, companies like to target institutional investors because of the large pools of capital they have and are looking for investment.  The amount of institutional investment happening in crypto is extremely small.

Again, taking for granted this is what actually happened, seizing deposits isn’t warranted. It creates an incentive for you to come to this conclusion because you’re monetarily incentivized to reach that conclusion. It’s more problematic because you control all the evidence and everyone has to take you at your word for this. So again, it’s a huge reputational risk and a very poor policy in my own opinion to have a policy to seize deposits.

Is there even a TOS clause that says you can seize all funds including external deposits if suspected of cheating? If so, you may be technically in the right and the only risk is to your reputation (again because you’re incentivized to reach that conclusion) but if there’s no TOS clause that states that, I think this is very clearly unjustified.

You’re in a tough spot for sure, I have no doubt people constantly try to scam what they can out of these free faucets. I don’t quite understand the point of paying interest on external deposits anyway. Banks do that because they make money on the funds they loan, but I don’t understand what the site does with funds that allows them to make more money on deposits than they pay out in interest, and because this isn’t clear, it lends more credence to the possibility that something is a miss, and seizing deposits is one way to keep the program afloat.

*edit:  I see now you published some evidence since since my last post of the IP logs of sign up. This definitely helps prove the faucet scam aspect, and I agree with you there. It seems clear there was fraud. My only issue is the TOS at this point. If you’ve had a clause that says fraud forfeits all funds on the site, including external deposits, I think you’re justified in seizing the them. It’s not what I’d like to see, but that’s your call as site operator. Without the clause though, and I don’t know myself whether there has been one or not, I think you should return the deposits and ban all IP addresses involved. And update the TOS immediately in that case.

This is a stupid, trolly response and you’re not contributing anything productive to the situation. Control of money doesn’t equal legal ownership. When you deposit money in a bank, everyone knows you grant the bank control to make loans with it, and everyone also knows you retain The legal ownership of it. This website is operating as a quasi-bank by taking deposits and paying interest on it and the same principles apply. It is very problematic for the website owner to confiscate any deposits for any reason.

I’ve been a loyal site user for years, probably 5 or 6 years at this point, and I used to talk to the site owner in this very thread when he posted here regularly and even made suggestions to the RP program that he runs that he has adopted. I’ve always thought of this site as the gold standard for faucet-based websites. But confiscating external deposits is a huge black mark on the site’s reputation and that of the owner. If there is cause to make a fraud claim, it would be justified to seize any faucet and interest earnings, but not external deposits. The fact that there is such an unsatisfactory explanation for this should concern anyone who has deposited funds on the site.

Hi, I’m a legendary memeber but I’ll accept a lower rank/pay for the purpose of getting in and waiting for an upper spot to open as long as I can move up. I’ll wear the legendary signature or the signature corresponding to the lower rank if that’s what you’d prefer. Will set those if I’m accepted.

I took an extended break from the forums after the last campaign I was in ended, which I was a part of for more than a year. You can expect the same high quality posts from me that I made prior.

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Front running is illegal in the United States.

100% right, crypto has no fundamentals and no inherent value. The value is completely arbitrary. These pot companies at least have inherent value and produce a product the market wants, even if their valuations are out of whack.


I think you're going to see three main industries interested in this space, and that's part of what is fueling the current high valuations: alcohol companies (you're already seeing this, with Constellation investing heavily in Canopy and Diageo said to be actively shopping for an acquisition), pharmaceutical companies because this fits with what they already do, and tobacco companies as cigarette use continues to fall. Even Coca-Cola has said they are "closely monitoring" this space.


You say the same thing with Bitcoin. The search trends track the price trends and reinforce the mania as it all fuels itself. Classic bubble. However, I don't think anyone thinks the purpose of a regulated platform is to reduce volatility. Or at least, if you do you shouldn't. But on a regulated platform you can be certain the volumes and pricing are legitimate, which is not at all the case for crypto markets, especially those based in China.


These earlier leaders will have the advantage of scale, liquidity and operational history by the time any US company gets established. Don't expect some newcomer to be able to catch them when they're starting so far behind. The companies in the US all have to operate in semi-darkness right now for risk of violating federal law, so there's no ability to actively grow or achieve any kind of scale. And most of these companies beat the pants off of every single altcoin and definitely every single ICO. I'd take Canopy stock over Bitcoin every time.

I suppose if we actually had equality of opportunity, that would be a first step in the right direction then. But we don't. Society is highly segregated along socioeconomic lines. Those with the means to leave cities move to the suburbs, and obviously those who can't don't. This creates areas with wealthy tax bases while other areas suffer loss of a tax base that supports schools and social services, and that's a cycle that reinforces itself. The more people flee the crumbling areas, the lower the tax base and the lower the quality of schools and support services. There's absolutely no way you can say everyone has the same opportunities and the people who haven't thrived have failed solely because they chose not to try hard enough. There is, to be blunt, a wide disparity in the access to opportunity across our society.

Bitcoin is a speculative asset with no inherent value and no ability to produce income. In a market meltdown, people flee risky assets for safe assets due to the economic uncertainty of how deep the losses will ultimately be. Therefore, it is idiotic to expect Bitcoin to be the one exception to what always happens every time there is massive economic upheavel and be the one risky asset that people inexplicably buy when all the other risky assets are crashing and burning. Bitcoin, as a more speculative asset than most, will suffer correspondingly higher losses.

This is horribly misguided. Humans want to solve problems, create and innovate, yes. But it is the profit motive directs and focuses that innate drive into the most efficient and productive manner. As long as money has been a concept, it has always driven activity and informed decision-making. It wasn't until money that humankind started advancing as a society. It was trade and economic activity (the pursuit of wealth) that advanced society faster and faster. To maintain we would have achieved the advancement of our society without the concept of money is naive.

That's the nature of investing. If there was such a thing as a guaranteed profit, there wouldn't be poverty. If you're investing in anything, you can't get away from the risk that the investment will lose your money.  Bitcoin is a risky asset. Altcoins are even riskier. All the altcoins more or less trade in the same direction as Bitcoin, so you're taking on additional risk for no real additional upside. Bitcoin is at least the most established of the cyrptos.

If that's the reason it was getting so much buy-side action, it doesn't even make sense to me. It wasn't even the first US-exchange traded pot company, Canopy Growth Corporation was listed on the NYSE before Tilray was listed on Nasdaq. The stock was getting out of control after the CEO made some media appearances, especially Cramer, where he said he sees the global weed industry being worth $150 billion annually. Take it with a grain of salt folks, even if that's true it doesn't all go to one company! Plus the guy is talking his own book.

It's nice to know that the stock has come back to Earth a little bit, although it's still insanely valued.  It's down 53% in the last two days from $263 to $123. I don't feel bad for anyone buying in the $200s, man do those guys deserve it for being so irrational.


I also think it's highly unlikely the home-grown movement will seriously dent corporate pot sales. The real threat though is oversupply of a commodity product that will absolutely hammer margins for these companies. They are all very aggressively increasing growing capacity in what will be a very commoditized product. The margins they are enjoying now are very likely to come under intense pressure in the future years in my opinion.

We don't know Satoshi came from Japan just because he chose a Japanese sounding screen name. From an analysis of his posts on this forum, it is most likely he is a native English speaker, possibly from one of the commonwealth countries based on his spelling of certain words. There's actually no evidence I'm aware of that suggests Satoshi is actually Japanese or of any Asian descent. Further, Satoshi's nationality isn't and shouldn't be a factor about what nationality is "best" for Bitcoin, and the question itself is kind of stupid. Absolute number of owners is at least a question that can be answered, although I'm not sure for what purpose it would matter.