You have taken one step to be more productive by reducing your bounty application posts and trying to be a part of discussions. Next step would be to do more of reading, you can only be as useful to the forum as the forum has been to you.

You do not need to try too hard to contribute, just be yourself and view this as a discussion platform. Zone out from the merits and ranks and activities and build your knowledge, learn from others and ask questions when you get confused. This is a discussion platform for talking about bitcoin, that should be the first priority here, when you have learnt, you can then give back to the community by helping to answer the questions of others.

- Jay -

Bitcoin functions well as an alternative to fiat, not so much as a replacement. As an alternative, I switch between bitcoin transactions and fiat using Bitcoin more for savings, investments as well as international transactions and fiat for cash payment.

As a stand alone currency, Bitcoin is hugely limited by scalability issues, if this is solved it could start to become more popular for regular transactions.

- Jay -

Much of the bitcoin mechanics is encoded into the protocol and would function without any action, this means we would be able to send and receive bitcoins, generate private keys and mine without developers. That means it is a Yes, from my perspective, Bitcoin can function without developers, hopefully there is no vulnerability to be discovered.

There would be stagnancy however, with not improvement proposal getting implemented or new commits being voted into the network. Changes like SegWit, vBytes, Tap root... would not be a part of the network.
But there should be off chain advancements.

- Jay -

Not entirely certain that Blockchair^[1] would give you the information you need, but it is a tool I use when I want to get some information about the current or next block^[2].

[1] https://blockchair.com/
[2] https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/block/785043

- Jay -

If you never use a KYC compliant exchange, you never need to submit your personal details and never comply with KYC in every way. There are alternatives to those centralized exchanges so it is possible for anyone who wants to to protect their privacy.

When you comply with even one KYC process, your privacy is already exposed, this cannot be undone, but the more random platforms with your details the higher risk of it being used for malicious activities.

- Jay -

That is not a direct influence of Bitcoin but from the use of 3rd party services. Bitcoin keeps you pseudo-anonymous, if you use an exchange and submit your private details, you break that anonymity yourself.

Addresses have no identity linked to them. Transparency does not break your pseudo-anonymity.

- Jay -

All exchanges link people to the crypto market
Your wallet being controlled by  3rd party means it is very possible that you are blocked out of it when you want to access it.

These are cons of using an exchange and are not peculiar to decentralized ones. Bisq system helps to protect you from getting scammed. Any bitcoin sent to a wrong address is lost, whether done on a Cex or Dex.
Always have a backup of your seedphrase.

I made a thread on exchanges some time ago^[1].

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5399185.msg60163677#msg60163677

- Jay -

Op you should not be sharing the site here on the forum, it would increase the chances of it being discovered by search engines and even of a user mistakenly clicking on it from this forum post.

Anyone who would submit their personal details on forms like that have possibly already lost their privacy to other platforms.

- Jay -

Go to any website that tracks the value of cryptocurrencies, hover at the top options, you should see an option to change the pairing fiat currency to any suggested option like EUR, GBP, CNY, etc. Dollar is the default, but the price of bitcoin is not paired to it.

If the dollar devalues, the amount of Bitcoin you can buy with $1 reduces, this does not affect the number of bitcoins you can buy with £1 or ₤1. A devaluation in bitcoin could have a sentimental effect making people lose more faith in fiat and look for alternatives like bitcoin.

- Jay -

Bitcoin users can best give you advice on staying pseudo-anonymous with bitcoin, you can achieve this by:

• Avoiding KYC/AML compliant exchanges
• Running your own node over Tor
• Keeping your cold storage wallet off the internet
• Not linking your offline identity with your bitcoin addresses
• Using change addresses.

Bitcoin helps with financial privacy. For the others, research on throwaway phone numbers and emails, also check up privacy email services.

- Jay -

The user might not be trying to get merits at all. Some join here with the sole purpose of joining bounties and getting some pay from that, and there are bounties that do not require one to get any merits.

If many of such users joined the community, did more reading and learning, I am confident they could be as good as any member we have on the forum.

- Jay -

Having a way of transacting through the internet seamlessly and without any regulations at a time where horses, donkeys and carts were the only means of transportation would definitely have impacted that economy. Today it does not have much effect on the economy at all.

There is no benchmark to measure the most advanced planet or species in the universe, but if there was I doubt we would be high on the rating. As Neil deGrasse Tyson talks on: since we know so little about the universe and are not aware of any other specie we are surely not the most advanced in the universe.

- Jay -

That is an assumption from you. The fact that others are not vocal about their involvement or lack of in bitcoin does not mean you are the only one into it in your local community. Others may be keeping a low profile cause of the tendency of people to associate bitcoin and assets in general to wealth, making them a target.

As a newbie why not introduce anyone interested to where you learn from, which is the forum in this case?
They would do more independent learning and you are not responsible for anyone's investment.

- Jay -

Rating from Blockchair Bitcoin Block Explorer 9 points?
I voted for the above option to up the rating point for blockchair explorer to 9. It is one of the best explorers I have used and I have frankly had absolutely no issues with it.
Should give it a 10, but that is not an available option and it is best to leave out some room to allow for imorovement.

Provide updates for our old table layout, to keep it updated?
Definitely do. Mobile users may be less than desktop users but they would still be interested in following the discussion and reading some of the additional comments. It would also cost little to update it along with the newer thread.

Can I suggest that the hover option be made a bit more obvious, maybe with a * mark above ratings that has additional comments. Many members may miss it in this current format.

- Jay -

Bitcoin has the protocol rules which regulates it. It is as certain as any system in the world and does not need any human interference to operate.

• Every ~10 minutes a block would be confirmed,
• every 2,016 blocks there would be a difficulty adjustments,
• Every 210,000 blocks there would be a reward halving.

We does not rely on flawed means of regulation, bitcoin has its own system which is supported by consensus rule to ensure there are no bad actors and maintain the security. You do not need to trust anyone, just verify.

- Jay -

No great mistakes so far in my journey on bitcointalk, only minor ones . I am just taking notes from other members and from threads which were made to serve as guides to newer users.
I am still in the learning phase, no one completely leaves this phase.

If there is something I would like to do more of, it would be to help out moderators in their job by reporting posts which need their attention. I never seem to be able to find enough time to do as much as I would want to and hope to find the perfect balance between the forum and other engagements one has.

- Jay -

Bitcoin is a real asset cause it has real utility. It was as much as asset 13 years ago as it is now, all that has changed is how much people are aware of it. There are shitcoins that have existed for five years or longer, anchored on by the desire for quick wealth and amount of new investors who only care about profits with little research on the product.

When choosing an investment, you consider more factors than years in existence or rank by market cap, like decentralization, freedom/custody, supply system, utility, liquidity...

- Jay -

If you are looking for all the latest news, it is only normal to be recommended to a news site. Besides the one you got from the search engine results, there are many others of such platforms, but they all tend to post the same content. Once a website drops a breaking article, the rest would reword that and post on their page or use the same words with reference to the original.

Social media can also be a good resource to find crypto content fast. You just need to know how to configure your feed.

The forum has a press board^[1] you can visit.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=77.0

- Jay -

It is a curious circumstance. Businesses which are worth billions and trillions of dollars would not be willing to take any losses when inflation kicks in and would either push a price increase on the customers, drop the quality of their product to reduce the cost of production and some overhead cost (like laying off workers and overworking the rest).

The way I see it, a multi-billion dollar company can more easily cushion a drop in profits than the majority of the customers. Greedflation is a fitting word to describe the incessant craving for more profit.

There are a few companies that made little to no adjustments to prices to accommodate inflation, but they are very few in comparison with those that did.

- Jay -

Bitcoin was described in the whitepaper as "a peer to peer electronic cash system."
If it is not used in transactions a part of its utility is dormant. If everyone chooses not to spend, it is not a currency at all.

Investing is not a bad idea, the value is volatile, historically it has been on the rise and you are at good odds to predict it would be at a higher price in a couple of years than it is now. This makes investing and hodling very attractive. But if you have a need and an opportunity to spend Bitcoin, it is wise to.

One can hodl in cold wallets and use a bit in hot wallets for some purchases.

- Jay -