Just like you could easily pump your coin back in 2017 by announcing a whitepaper and a smart-contract, these days DeFi has become the new buzzword. The time is ripe for every one to jump onto the bandwagon and announce a DEX listing, a wrapped token, a smart contract and voila, if you catch the right one, you are in for a pump and dump. I would suggest everyone to not fall for these overnight operators.

DeFi may not have much real world usage but all the work behind takes time and competence. That means projects that have been slogging it out to get their oracles, APIs and development tools right since the ICO boom are most likely to be successful. All these newcomers joining the bandwagon with no history of actual development are just going to be another one of scam dev cash grabs. Stay away from them.

I just don't get this lending and borrowing business on Defi. Who does this help? Are there real people taking loan and doing things in real world or this is another market of lenders and borrowers looking to earn through arbitrage. I think its the latter. Just like listing a coin on an exchange leads to a semblance of "value" to every ICO-coin, similarly, listing on a lending-borrowing platform is the rage now.

You "lock-up" your BTC on a wallet from a website that is a front for BCH. Then you wait for a low 4-5% per annum return. While this can work for HODLers looking to become banks, this is the worst thing that can happen to a newbie. Even the HODLers would be wary of providing all that KYC information. If someone has enough cash to invest in this way, they'll be better off investing it in some other service rather than turning it into crypto and locking it up to earn alt-coins. Personally, i wouldn't go through the hassle with my fractions of a BTC.

I think there cannot be a bigger folly than directing all of this angst against the wealthy. This is a very political stance and the people that benefit from political stances are only those who call themselves leaders. Its a failure of leadership and politics that the common people are on their knees today despite the fact that the people on this list have worked their asses off to create products and services leading to such wealth.

Its not the businessman's problem that he has to navigate a world of greedy politicians and political parties that need unabated flow of funds to advertise themselves. The problem is not the money that businessmen make. The problem is that part of this money is sucked up by political parties and the businesses are manipulated by lawmakers to do the bidding for their party rather than for their ideology.

Not having proper stratification of wealth or the specter of homelessness and poverty in a country like USA is a political issue, not an economic one.

I am not self-employed and i have one of those relatively secure jobs. The situation didn't affect me as much as a lot of others. There has been a little cut in the take-home but that because our organization just used COVID as an excuse to shore up their cash reserve.
Its a gud thing though to have bitcoin. Its a relief to know that despite the uncertainties, i am saving a little bit in bitcoin other than normal saving instruments. Apart from this, the pandemic has made the work place a bit slow and less busy. This has given sometime to re-orient my priorities as well as give up the "i don't have enough time" excuse.
I have also invested some money in stocks and they have been up for a while now. I am positive about 2021. There is no other way to plan for it i guess. I cannot imagine the next year continuing to be abnormal with all the restrictions and general negativity. The way the pandemics go, we cannot be sure that this is over yet. A lot of countries are seeing re-emergence of cases with lifting of lockdowns. We will have to see if this is going to be accepted as the new normal and we can all go on with normal lives or not.

There is no need for a long debate as long as you can learn that China does not stand for "Socialism". It is "Communism". Socialism can exist in even a democratic country. For example, India, the largest democracy in the world declares itself as a socialist republic. The defining difference between socialism and communism is that under the latter, you DO NOT have an elected government. Chinese CCP has no system by which citizens can vote for a party with a different ideology.

So, yeah, the fight is between China (Communism and Deception) vs Rest of the World (Naivete)

Not just to any Govt, but the BJP, and in particular to the Gujarati Duo of Narendrabhai and Amit Bhai. They have ensured that Gujarati businessmen get 5-star treatment in all their businesses. BSNL was cannabalized by private telcos since long. What BJP did was loosen the grip of TRAI's regulation so Ambani could easily launch Jio. In the name of MNP, they made it compuslory to share network too. This really was the boon which helped Jio to catapult above the rest.
 
Well, we like it or not, the man deserves praise to have built and kept together his empire. Look at that other Ambani kid who lost investor money and took down credit condition of several banks with his NPAs. Of course, Ambani bends the politicians to his will to gain more money and power just like his father. Yet, you cannot blame the man for knowing how to play best. The millions working for Reliance industries and Jio are not complaining. Of course the working conditions and remunerations for the lowest rung of workers would hardly be anything to write about. This is one of the biggest reason to be thankful that we still have the Tatas.

I am pretty sure this is not such an innocent mistake buddy. The experience of being unrecognizable to the "main-landers" is echoed by people in India's North-Eastern states too. Just as in your case, internet and social media has bridged the gap a lot better.

And this is what is so insidious about China and CCP. They have become extremely adept at playing along the fault lines of other countries and societies. For example, India's eastern most state is called Arunachal Pradesh and China has long staked claim on the whole territory. So they keep doing subtle activities to stake their claim in the most innocuous of ways and wait for a reaction. For example, when a minister from that State had to go on an official visit to China, the chinese refused to give him a normal tourist visa saying, very innocently, that he didn't need one as he belongs to a state which already belongs to them. They continue to issue "stapled visas" to people hailing from the state of Arunachal Pradesh. They do this, despite bilateral talks at the highest level and their officials agreeing to take care of this.

They then go back and continue behaving in their typical deceitful and greedy manner to stake their claim innocently. As a lot of people in this thread are expressing, never ever trust the Chinese. To them, laying low to deceive the enemy is just a war tactic. There is nothing dishonorable or deceitful in their dictionary about it. Lot of westerners, particularly Australians who have seen greedy Chinese emptying supermarket shelves to sell stuff later will also stand testament to this. The Chinese people outside China are there to fill their pockets at any cost. Inside China, the CCP ensures full support as to its corporations by providing state support in dealing with private corporations in rest of the world.

Beware of the Chinese. They have plans far beyond COVID-19.

There isn't a more insidious entity that knows better methods of psychological and social welfare than the beast of CCP. They have let the border dispute with India linger on for over 60 years now while continuing to show aggression and agreement alternatively. The Indian politicians were either too occupied domestically or too pussy-footed till now to respond properly. The Chinese have a policy of making inroads through utilizing the enemies weaknesses. To them, an enemy agreeing to hold talks is also an act of buying time and a weakness to be exploited. Its an expansionist and revisionist power that only settles on its own terms.

They never made such noises when they were seen as a over-populated developing country. Soon as they saw weakness in the world order, they have started doing these antics. People throughout Asia should unite against this uncalled aggression. Most of us are democracies and want nothing to have with the CCP policy of having a hierarchy of controlled and under-surveillance minions. I hope the Filipino politicians will take their stand and not allow such slow poisoning.

I just sent the transaction: 065abaf0c7e924477ccd2e6ccd15a4aa270f892bee6e13c4710f8b573cb334f5.Its awaiting confirmation. You can PM me the link. My Superbru username is hector. Need to find some IPL enthusiast who can make a page at the local India sub for the event.

0.001 for a chance to win 0.0256, while watching the IPL is a great deal, indeed.

Thanks for your reply. I fudged up your registrant information and have edited that post based on @webtricks reply. Here are a few questions:

1.) What kind of user info will you need for legal compliance, if any?
2.) Is saffroncoin your old venture? How was the experience?

The nomenclature "City" makes most people feel skeptical about this. At 2000 Acres, this is equivalent to a square plot of 2.8 x 2.8 Km. Smaller than any modern-day city, this is essentially a small Special Economic Zone. SEZ's have been instrumental in development in countries like India and China. Most of the time, SEZs require massive investment in connectivity and other infrastructure by the local governments so that corporations can setup their factory units at their own cost and benefit from the infrastructure as well as tax breaks. Doing something like this in Africa is difficult due to the scale involved, massive public corruption and general lack of funds. A smaller scale experiment like this one is a perfect choice.

Here's a useful article and it seems that the construction contract has already been awarded to an American company. If the involved stakeholders can ensure corruption-free handling of the contracts and actual delivery on the ground, this can well become a model of development supported by NGOs and philanthropists throughout Africa. I have spent sometime working in a war-torn country in Africa. I can say that the people are really good but time and gain they have been manipulated and betrayed by the rulers as well as foreign establishments interested in keeping them backward so they don't start staking claims on their resources. Africa's modern history is a story of betrayals and failed promises. Yet, people like Akon give hope.

The best comparison in this regard has to be between the USA and China. USA is capitalist country with a significant welfare state. Yet, the kind of push to innovation that the US has provided over the last century couldn't have been possible anywhere else. USSR and Nazi Germany gained significant technological progress in the name of chauvinism but look at where they ended up. There is only so much that you can push citizens to in the name of false nationalism.

USA, on the other hand, has been a country of well paid patriots. Just read about the aersopace race and the kind of people who worked at places like Lockheed Martin under lengends like Kelly Johnson and Ben Rich. Those people were well-paid and utterly patriotic while they worked on some of the most secret technology during the cold war.

An economic structure like Socialism where the spark of individual brilliance and innovation is supposed to be controlled by the state in some sort of common ownership can never lead to the progress that US has achieved. China has been stealing for innovation for quite sometime. They have cleverly built a class of wealthy elites calling it the CCP politburo rather than Capitalism. US could of course do better in terms of social cohesion, yet a lot of it is the result of clever external machinations and lack of leadership rather than the people or the system itself.

It was less than a dollar on 23/07 and is now at ~3.4 USD from a high of 5 USD. Quite a significant jump but if you see the overall chart, it had once been around 40-50 USD. Whether this historical high is of any significance considering that that was back in 2016 and the cryptocurrency landscape has changed a lot since then.

The company has a mixed history. They were a patent acquistion and monetization company that have filed patent infrignment lawsuits against the likes of Samsung and Apple. It was only in 2018 that they pivoted to blockchain by acquiring Global bit ventures. Since then, they have been completely focussed on buying miners and setting up the facilites. The patent acquisition part isn't really visible anymore. They are an experienced bunch and this new agreement just goes to show that they are committed to this for the long term.

I only just read about this and i think this is one of those long awaited good things for Africa. African-Americans have a struggle of their own but some of them have been fortunate enough that they can use their money and influence to do something constructive. Like in this case, it was Akon's influence that he could get the land gifted to him.

What is of importance is the geographical location of Dakar, the capital of Senegal where the city is planned. Dakar is almost the western-most port city of Africa. That puts it in an enviable position to develop as a connecting port with the West, including South America and North America. It is evident that the development of countries is strongly linked to such well-connected destinations that over centuries, became important centres of trade and business. There are plenty of examples. Dubai was a small fishing outpost where people used to dive for pearls before the UAE sultans decided to pour money and build the best infrastructure in Middle-East. I feel its a well planned development with a potential for returns for Senegal and African continent over the next few decades.

The integration of crypto-economy is obvious because the benefits of having a money source independent from the Govt can only be a good idea considering Africa's record of fickle governance.

The website doesnt't speak of any promoter or developer. Seems like they are looking for anonymity. The domain registrant is some "Internet computer bureau limited" which is of course a made-up name. The registration address belongs to something called Sure Limited of Diego Gracia. Diego Gracia is famous to most Indians for the US base in the Indian ocean. It was recently in news during the China standoff.

There isn;t much information on Sure Ltd except the name of a board member who is supposedly in Bahrain Telecom and goes by the name Ihab Anwar.
Do you guys think that a website or service of this kind should have so many layers of obfuscation?? For reference, compare this with the open mention of the Purse.io team.

Thanks for the correction @ webtricks. I clicked on the first link for "whois gosats.io". It showed me this page which is actually just information for the .io domain. The original company is as you pointed out Saffron Technologies, which is anonymous too. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.
At their telegram, they say they will offer cashbacks when you buy from partner merchants. There isn't much information about how they will manage the user info. That will be the main thing to ask before deciding on whether its a good thing for devs to be completely anonymous.

Great news Royse. Congrats and thanks for all your work. I am excited about this. I do have a few ideas about the prize distribution.
1. We should start an Ann thread complete with banners and colors on the Indian board mentioning the prize amount in INR. Depending on the participation, we can then spread out the rewards.
2. Ask the main sponsor for a logo as well as a text. Those of us who don't have to put any of these can include the text on our profiles. Something like this:
We can change the link to the announcement on Indian board. Presently it links to your post above.
3. Is it possible to have some sort of free pool there too?? The prize money can be contributed by voluntary donations from those of us who would like to chip in. Those who participate in the free pool can wear a logo and a text similar to the one above. We need a logo for IPL@bitcointalk. I will ask a few people here who i feel would be interested like @Heisenberg_Uncertainty @pawanjain @TheUltraElite.

I'll update my TxID soon in this post only. Thanks again for your work. Lets make this bigger and better..

An N99 mask made out of gold and studded with black diamonds. Made in Israel. Ordered from China..

While you all debate about how this "guy" is just a rich asshole, you miss the real deal. The Chinese will be taking it to their copying department, replace the diamonds with other shiny stuff and start advertising about 100$ mask made of artificial diamonds available for sale by 100s at Alibaba. The consumers in the capitalist countries would soon be ordering these to catch in on the latest trends.

I feel sorry for that Israeli guy talking about " We hope more people order it and we can make an even more expensive mask". No my friend, you just did the design for the Chinese team. Now just sit-back and watch for the "Manufactured in China, Designed in Israel" tag.

Great points. I think whether we like it or not, Bitcoin will follow the same trajectory of adoption and popularity that everything else related to technology and culture in our country does. We will wait for bitcoin to play out in the international arena and once it gains enough popularity, we will provide a market for it. It will still always remain an "investment" to the common public. DeFi is the latest trends and quite a few India-based developers and startups are finding foothold in this market. They will continue to contribute at the back-end and if and when these things actually turn out to be useful, you'll start to see scammy-Indian spinoffs.

We in India are pretty far away from needing/ asking for freedom from banks or the government. We do not have an innovation culture where people with such ideas also have the dough. We are a traditionalist society that gives power in the hands of its "elders", be they politicians or business. This restricts us to conforming to existing institutions and playing by the rules.

Again, comparing gold and bitcoin for common public is not useful. Gold is god around here. Every family has some sort of stash that only the elders will probably know about. It is devotedly kept as a sort of family legacy and keeps growing with marriages and family functions. We have a profound, almost mythical relation with Gold. The news about the Royal family of Travancore and their fight for the Padmanabhaswamy temple is a great example of this. Bitcoin will never match that level of devotion. Yet, if people realize that it is even "remotely similar" to Gold, you can imagine the demand.

Nice clickbait, OP. Yet, this can be a very interesting conversation. Unfortunately, I am yet to find any "secrets" like you promised. None of the subsequent posters are millionaires themselves so no secrets there either. There are still ways to be a millionaire depending on the society you are from. Being an entrepreneur, taking risk and working is the forumla that everyone knows. There is NO secret about it.

The real secret is that you don't become a millionaire by yourself. Its people and your network that make you a millionaire. A sincere, able-bodies, intelligent, skillful young man with a decent heart can easily become a millionaire if he realizes a few things in time and takes a few right decisions. Yet, most of us are happy, go-lucky idiots at that stage who think that our idealism and hard work is the answer. The answer is making and nurturing connections. Every relation, every connection, every friendship that you make should be made with the view of increasing your net worth. If you connect with the better-off, rich people, you will end up being better.

Yet, most of us spend our times clubbing, drinking and smoking with losers of our own backgrounds. We end up as a bunch of losers self-satisfied in our condition. That, my friend, is the only trap that is stops every young man from becoming a millionaire. That is the real secret. If you are a young, intelligent person in his 20s, make this your mantra. Thank me later. Better still, send me some bitcoin when you are a millionaire.

I have no idea of TA to know how exactly those "traders" make money in the market. Though, from my experience of investing into stocks based on market news about companies, it all depends on the sentiment in the short run and on the actual performance of the company in the long run. In crypto, there is no way of knowing that because 90% of those listed "projects" are scams or a copy/ repetition of each other.

The only way to make money is to either know enough programming to be part of their bug bounties etc to earn tokens or learn to stake on AWS nodes and make your money while the demand from newbies is there. That is what most of these "traders" do. They have enough capital to invest in masternodes themselves. They shill and keep shilling long enough to earn back their invested amounts. Anything on top of that is profit. There are old people here who have ran such nodes and "invested" into Alts for several years now. Newbies just contribute to their income stream by buying up every new project that has budget for shilling itself.

For most people, the best idea is to actually explore a handful of projects, DYOR and then hold with the hope that the team will deliver. You must follow the development and the ideas to see that they are actually doing something and not just spending their marketing budget from the ICO bags.