If the COVID-19 situation hadn't hit the US so hard, that recovery from 5K levels to 9K may have continued past 10K. The ground situation around the world is still so uncertain with US going through the civil unrest and China flexing muscles. It is kind of oxymoronic to hope for a bull run at present. The way stocks are rallying, it seems that traders are banking on the recovery after the fog of unrest has lifted. Bitcoin has behaved differently when things fell all around it. Will it behave differently when the markets rally?

Also, by the time christmas arrives (the traditional bull-run times), there is a chance that we may have Dems back. There is that to consider that what will happen to the price once Trumpism has susided.

There are plenty of people who will find ways to mod the old hardware and sell it to individuals looking for a small start into mining as a hobbyist or for academic purposes. You can follow posts from Philipma1957 to know more about this.

Fee market. It will be several decades from now and if all goes well, bitcoin will have become the reserve currency for all others. Micropayments on second layer and on-chain transactions for their settlement + high-value transactions will provide the Fee.

The day bitcoin stops having enough hashpower will mean that the experiment has failed. Provided that the whole crypto-economy doesn't pivot to something worthy enough in the meanwhile.

This is very similar to the things that happen with the "pool manager" thing in the case of mhanbostanci. With actions like using a ledger to manage addresses for different people, you are handicapping those people instead of teaching them to actually use bitcoin. It is trivial for anyone to use a wallet of their own if they have an android phone and they are capable of posting on the forum. To avoid the kind of situation that has presented itself here, we must educate ourselves and community about bitcoin and not just spread information about the Alt-coins for the next pump and dump.

I have nothing against the Alts per se but this has been the case with lot of locals in the beginning. Even the merited posts are often about the next Alt-coin with multiple people hoping for a pump. Unfortunately, this only leads to the newbies losing money while the traders, exchanges and telegram pump groups benefit. They must learn to identify scams from non-scams. The best thing would be for the community to grow and put its trust on Bitcoin first. Play with Alts if you like but do not make bounty hunting and Alts your endgame. All of these problems will disappear. Everyone would love to see Turkish local be another bastion of bitcoin, not a battleground of people hurt by scammy alts.

I am worried more about catching it and spreading it than dying from it. I have worked away from home for most of my time after finishing studies. I have parents above 60 who have just about started to have a good life. I want them to be near me and have some joy and happiness for all the efforts they have had to put to get their children a decent education and all. I would hate it and would feel like i failed if they get in contact. There are cases of old people passing away in major metro cities already as hospitals were unable to take patients in.

So even though i have a better chance of coming alive out of this, i totally understand the paranoia. I don't think we should have a full lockdown or complete shutting of public places and businesses. Yet, it is important that we religiously follow personal habit modifications needed to cope with this so the spread can remain low and we don't have preventable deaths like the 100,000+ in USA right now. Cluster approach with tracking of travel outside designated zones may sound draconian but is necessary. Of course, rapid and reliable testing facility is the other main requirement. This last part is hard as you cannot have a BSL-3 lab everywhere. Or maybe it is time.

On a tangent, its funny how blind people can become in their political indoctrination. I thought life was this cheap only in third-world countries. Frankly, the 100,000+ US toll is a shame but Trump continues to pompously strut around like a duck saying shitty things, blaming other people and so many keep supporting him like he is Jesus incarnate. Infact, i never thought there were people cuckoo enough in the west to believe such shit. US has given so much to the rest of the world in the 20th century. Its kindda sad that it feels like the worst shithole country in the world right now.

Everyone knows we are surrounded by micro-organisms. The thing about a pandemic is that they are new viruses against which humans don't have immunity. When such a virus becomes highly contagious, it can wreck havoc and cause several deaths like this one has. You cannot close your eyes to history or to the death tolls in Italy, USA etc. Such hyperbole is just stupid.
It does feel unsafe to be outside because in countries like mine with huge population, low levels of awareness and tendency of people to panic, a spread can spell disaster. For now, it has become endemic in major metro cities and hasn't reached smaller towns owing to quarantine procedures and people following guidelines. You just have to be smart now. Travel has resumed and there still isn't widespread testing available. You could be safe in your community but people tend to do stupid things like hide travel histories. That apprehension is a little unnerving but the show must goes on.

All these so called entrepreneurs really need to experiment with some other ideas rather than the same old cash grabs in the name of adding new tokens and the constant milking from the trading fees. It has been sometime that the ban has been lifted and the space is wide open for something different.
I like the initiative by CoinDCX with their hashtag of #trycrypto. They are also taking some initiative about making people learn about crypto. Although there is already a lot of free material available, i feel this may be more in line with coinbase earn which pays you some pennies to go through introductions on various cryptocurrencies.

Hello bingbinglee. I like your name. We'd like to know more about you. The best way to introduce yourself in the forum is to be a bit active or post about stuff that you are familiar with. Or maybe start a topic on the Indian sub about some experience of yours that can benefit others, since you've been in this for a long time.

Yes we are all good. If you are from India, I'd suggest you not to go down the sticky path of only doing bounties or having "bounty" in your username. There are plenty of better ways to earn BTC at the forum. You can go and check the thread about earning bitcoins. Good luck.

This discussion has given multiple pointers to @vycl87 to explain what happened. He can simply explain how that transaction happened where funds from both addresses belonging to two different persons have been transferred to a common address. If vycl87 had explained the technical details behind it, that alone would make him technically worthy enough to be a merit source. The most likely scenario is that they generated two addresses from the same HD wallet. @vycl87 gave it to @koincik to use. (paying off a loan or whatever).

Though in that case, there is no reliable wa for them to prove that they are different people. There have been such cases in the past when people just post same addresses and find nothing wrong in it when they do it. Is there any bounty rule in the Altcoin sections that every user should use their own wallet and not share addresses? Catching alt-accounts is going to get harder still because these people are just gonna learn from these mistakes. They probably feel that it is only fair if they can operate multiple accounts without getting caught. Like Polar91 said in his parting message. This truly feels like a problem with no solution. Vinny Lingham was going to do something about this identity thing with Civic, yet like so much else, it is just another WIP.

That transaction between vycl87 and koincik would be fun to explore for the resident scam-hunters who just joined this thread. Here's some novice interpretation from me. In this single transaction: 55ef0fcbfb5f9c513a58b22639b3157c13b7a6254cf23a1b9830ee94149c8320, both koincik and vycl transferred all their deposits from the Bitvest and 777 campaign to a common address 19BX2tyEkUgcCL1mU8KtipgV6rbwSzb4C2

This is an interesting address as it also received vycl87's transfers from his signature earnings in this transaction.


From what we have heard in the past, I am waiting for the information that how this address with some 5+ BTC transferred is a "Cooperative trust" that all professors, students and cousins are using to avoid fees. Because you see, they are all so very poor that they cannot have their own wallets. They need to lend addresses from their professor uncle to "work hard" on the forum. /s


So much for all these "trustworthy and helpful" members giving each other positive feedbacks without references. I really do want to hear the story involving telegram groups, common addresses, bountyhive etc etc all using the same address to avoid fees. If they tell the truth, it may still be believable. Yet, I am pretty sure they will start crying about "You don't want us to earn". There is enough evidence of some hanky-panky here. Lets for once, hear the truth like Polar91 did.

Big thanks to @YOSHIE and @Coolcryptovator. @marlboroza has been alone on his Mission to Istanbul for sometime. Glad to have you guys.  With the pros in town, i rest assured that you will find the connections sooner or later. Watch out for deletion of posts and decrease in post count from amongst the Turkish clique as well as all the multiple newbie accounts they have been used and abandoned over years by these "trustworthy circle" of "helpful people".

EDIT: I didn't see the post from LoyceV earlier. So could this mean that vycl87 is just the receiver of all these transactions?? Still, the connection between koincik and vycl87 is hard to miss. The one linking earnings from 777 and BitVest campaigns. Waiting for vycl87 to explain the real story.

Good advice to not over-invest. Newbies also often buy with the mindset to sell it when it doubles or triples. So, another important thing is to see your BTC holdings as a fiat generating asset. One time fiat profit should not be the end goal. You just monetize the asset in parts at your target price to cater to your needs or whatever while ensuring that you keep a significant portion purely as "BTC wealth"

In order to not fall in the same trap of servitude and consumerism, whatever level of BTC you hold, is your ticket out in the face of long term uncertainty of fiat economics.The wealthy of the world don't wrap up and sell off properties so that they can have billions as cash. They keep their wealth as long term assets that have been serving them for generations now. For people with non-fractional quantities of BTC, It has potential to serve as foundation of long-term wealth while giving fiat benefits as price increases.

The new members are scared to come forward because of the very jingoistic tone used about "Turk vs Non-Turk" in any argument.
See how they ostracized @mindrust when he called out untrustworthy behavior there. I went to the local section to have a conversation but the same clique joined in there chorus about "Global Gang". I think a lot of confusion also arose due to Vispilio selectively deleting my replies to some members like @Bthd i was talking to. I just got tired of explaining myself. Maybe I'll try again by opening an unmoderated topic there. The language barrier is also an issue.

The stakes involved are pretty huge and the old members don't want to let go off the way they are running things there. I think there needs to be an introspection amongst the Turkish members themselves. Deep down they know that they have colluded negatively and there is enough evidence from the past. Over time, some members may evolve who can stand for ideals and fairness of opportunity to everyone. Right now, it seems like they are just trying to gain as much control as possible over merit-farming and Trust circles.
They need introspection and a fair set of ideals to follow within the community. The Indonesian and Fillipino locals are great examples. While not perfect, they evolved there own mechanism and common understanding to not support spamming or account farming just for the money. It is simply unfair when a group colludes to take away opportunities from so many others. Cheaters like Polar91 ended up being despised. Theymos has said once that he is happy that the forum allows people to earn. Yet, it is against this basic spirit when "oversmart" individuals or groups steal opportunities from others. Only the Turks themselves can make things right. People like us can only do so much in expressing our disbelief, anger and trying to communicate using Google translate.

There is so much wrong in this thread. First, Facebook and other multinationals buyin stake in Reliance Jio is anything but a desperate step from Reliance (Due to oil prices or whatever). These companies are recognizing the strong market base that Jio has captured with its aggressive pricing and a healthy dose of crony capitalism from the existing govt.
Remember Facebook wanted to give free internet to Indian, only that it'd be decided by Facebook what the people could access. That was stopped in track thanks to the storm over net neutrality. Now, Jio with its user base is the best platform for these international players to have a stake in this billion strong market of content consumers, and potentially, creators. Its the latter that will determine if this will be a good thing or a bad thing.

Also, i don't know why this discussion veered to privacy. We should be discussing about what exactly is the game plan of Jio with its aggressive forays into media, communication and technology. Its a battle for eyeballs and minds. The one who controls these , controls political outcomes and power. This is why so much centralization can never be a good thing. In the last 6 years, this govt policies have ensured that one by one, major telecom players are bowing out and the Ambani juggernaut is rolling on occupying their user base.

It is also funny how media never complaints about Jio's shameless switch from the "Lifetime free" to "chargeable" model.

He is actually so full of shit. Look at him turning into the ethical preacher at his convenience.
Such a glaring hypocrite. LOL@ attempt to show ethics. Stuff like "Trust system is to serve the community" doesn't suit him after abusing it to no end with his mutual inclusions AND being a tool in perpetuating conspiracy theories about everything from DT, this forum and to even bitcoin.

Wow. Has the official Chinese media decided to spread propaganda on bitcointalk? That is very good. Actually, I think we do want to hear what the Chinese have to say to the world in terms of their plans for the world. On the face of it, Chinese really do not appear to be very trustworthy. You only have to look at the how hypocritical they are:
1. Have been known for coordinating cyber attack to steal IP for US universities and companies.
2. Begin their imperialistic actions as soon as they think that the world is not looking or is too weak to question. Like in the sea boundaries with SE countries.
3. Has a policy of using state power as well as state-controlled manpower to take over emerging markets like Africa. This isn't talked about much but the stratification of Chinese society ensures that they have an unending supply of labor at every level of skill with a very special property. They know their place in the scheme of things and will never say a word about "work conditions", "minimum wages" etc. like those in other democratic countries.
4. Bag of lies in relation to the Coronavirus.

The Chinese are a very effective machine. Yet, they show no remorse in using the worst of the times to further their interests. They have no self-correction mechanism to weed out unethical activities sponsored by the Govt like bribing, human right abuses, forced incarceration etc. As long as these activities contribute to maintaining some form of business advantage, the Chinese govt will continue to do it. In a country like US or UK, their own citizens will raise questions if the government activities get too exploitative in foreign lands.

The Chinese are quite clearly a cold-blooded, ruthless, untrustworthy lot.

Thanks! I am trying not to be so nice anymore in the face of constant suggestions about the practical world but hey, completely personal issue that..

I completely understand. The sword cuts both ways though. For example, if i was not wearing a signature, such a post would be considered completely normal in a "reddit" kind of way.  Back when wearing signature hadn't become such a "privilege", people were free to talk all kind of random shit. Lately though it has become very political. There is so much drama and accusations about signature spam. It sadly is a reflection of where we are going as a community. Maybe too many of the new accounts join after hearing "you can earn here" rather than the old "you can find cool information and opportunities about bitcoin here". Well, in the present scenario, we cannot blame anyone for trying to earn extra. I hope we can have enough commerce at the forum to benefit everyone. 

Jack Dorsey decided to risk it and be the guy who tells the big bully that he is an indecent asshole. Its just that the method he used turned out to be a self-goal. Trump's hurt ego wouldn't let this go.

The intent of the order per se doesn't seem all that bad considering the fact that a lot of people have been claiming censorship. The problem as usual is deciding what is right to be censored and what is wrong to be censored. This is where this should be an interaction between Twitter and the person/ organization being censored, with costs to both sides. These corporation shouldn't have unlimited powers to censor depending on their own viewpoints. The main thing in the executive order seems to be the definition of

I think it is duty of the platform to provide opportunity for explanation if they feel (or their algorithm decides) that some political opinion can be censored in good faith. Or whether some information is fake. Unilateral censorship is far easier to them as a company than actually trying to have a fair argument with these people with "differing opinions".It will take a lot of work, time and money to conclude what is right or what is wrong on a case-wise basis. Yet, Haven't these "Social Media" platforms (FB/Google/ Twitter) making millions by giving every idiot a megaphone to spout bullshit? If this "regulation" leads them to put more effort in actually verifying "fake news", well then, its oughtta be done.

Trump is a narcissistic asshole who has only shown the world that America isn't all that great indeed. America has long enjoyed a cultural hegemony through its widely prevalent media houses. Media houses like BBC, CNN highlight to not end that "Indians practice caste system, Women are treated unequally" but they do nothing to actually explore the biases and prejudices that lead a police officer to press a knee on to a man's neck for five minutes, choking him to death. To its credit, liberal media seems to stand for "humanist" values. Yet, it seems more like a propagation of consumerism with a focus on sexualizing everything. Encouraging a whole generation of young people that they must flaunt their bodies in the name of "liberation", Women should be "careerists" because male patriarchy etc. The liberal media can easily be blamed for raking up non-issues to boost consumerism. They aren't without blame completely and if this regulation leads to a little bit of self-correction, it wouldn't be all that bad.

In my opinion, lets just get rid of post 2000's social media so people can go back to talking confidently only about the shit they actually practice rather than saying the most wild-ass thing to cater to the prejudices and biases of society.

Hey @squatz1, I am the first guy i guess. In my defense, nope, this was no grave digging for post count. (shrug) I consciously avoid that though I am no idealist..(shrug again) I was just skimming through OPs post history after he started a topic complaining about people's responses.. Just wanted to see where he was coming from about people's responses. Saw this post. I identify with the situation because the location OP claimed in one of his earliest posts is in North India. I was wondering if we could do something about people in similar situation and sent a PM to him.

And dude, stop making up rules about "staying within the month". Even the official forum warning is 120 days, you know.. ..Hope you found my explanation satisfactory. Now, you don't need to respond and can just merit my explanation if you find my story inline. Otherwise, I'll assume you are just increasing your post count..LOL..I prefer editing my own post in such cases as a way out. Also, now that i read my post out of context, it totally seems the way you see it.

This is still a very evolving scenario and the question of taxes arises only when it is converted to Fiat. If you want to realize fiat profits like @LFC_Bitcoin and marry a hot woman from some exotic locale, you are taking stake out of bitcoin to put it into the Fiat system. It is only fair that you follow the applicable rules and pay taxes.

On the other hand, if you use your stash to start a business that uses bitcoin and you successfully generate economic activity out of it in terms of BTC as well as Fiat, then the BTC part should not be taxable. If people participating in a small P2P economy choose to use bitcoin, those products and services should not be taxable, having already been taxed when these were taken out of circulation from Fiat. This is a perfectly valid argument for Bitcoiners to deny taxes from their purely P2P economy. This may seem a little far-fetched now but if enough people have this same vision, it could someday become a possibility.

 Ironically, we need to take a leaf out of the communist manifesto but its apt to say, "Bitcoiners of the world, Unite!"

After repeatedly trying to engage, i have come to the same conclusion. These are the kind of people who can never accept that they are wrong as ends justify the means to them.

These people are trying to pull off a BCH and BSV on the forum now. The people tec adds in the name of "diversity" are propagating conspiracy theories about DT-1,Businesses on this forum and Bitcoin in general.
They do this because they are not getting enough business (lucrative bounties) out of it. Tec likes being a tool so he cannot see this and continues his lies.

Actually the idea isn't all that bad if the implementation had been possible. It'd probably become an interested ML project. You take the sample of first 100 posts of say 100 of the normal users on the forum who deserve to rank up. You'd need to prepare text analysis based model defining what "Good posting history" looks like. Compare that with the posts of new posters with the requisite activity and then drop them the requisite merit. It would be a lot of work as well as a project worthy of a thesis.

The current system however seems to be working fine. If a newbie posts non-nonsense posts and gets actually involved in the forum, you know, exploring trading options, wallet options, the raffles, collectibles, history etc, sooner or later they emerge out of the woods into the garden of merit heaven. Diversification and making actual connections is the key. P2P works.