I don't necessarily agree that abuse is the only flaw in the current financial system, but I'll comment under the assumption that it is.

Why can't it be based on deterministic algorithm? Let's consider the Bitcoin network for a second: it records the flow of coins within its system, every single transaction that has taken or is taking place, the balance of each address, etc. If, somehow, it had access to more variables that let it determine the overall health of the (internal) economy and let it estimate how much coins need to be released into the system to keep it in optimum condition, among other factors, wouldn't that be the closest we could come to a flawless system? It is, after all, never arbitrary, and if we assume that it's smart enough to do always come up with the correct numbers, then human intervention should be completely unnecessary.

The challenge, of course, is developing such a system, or if it's even possible. If bias is a problem though, then algorithms would be one of, if not the only way, we could eliminate that factor completely.

Yeah, I get what you're saying. Prices keep rising while wages can't keep up (though they do adjust slowly), so it could be said that their pay is being docked. As for your point that this is being done by design i.e. using inflation to hide the fact that they're being purposefully "docked" pay, I don't necessarily agree with but I'll leave it at that.


Why would you need to hide it though? In Bitcoin's case specifically, it's priced in USD so you could always use the USD value, keeping it the same while the Bitcoin equivalent decreases. It's very messy and inelegant, as I have said, but it's really the only prospective solution I personally see to make deflationary currencies viable for wages. If that isn't possible, then I don't see a way to make it work.

I've already said that I disagree with your position that the people at the top purposefully uses inflation to dock workers' pay, so if you're saying it won't work solely because they won't let it, you may ignore my comments.

It's acceptable because newbies can participate just as well as any other member.

This certain case could be construed as merit abuse via merit trading though. You can try reporting them here. Make sure you follow the format on the first post. I don't know if this is enough for negative trust though, as theymos seems to prefer giving people the benefit of the doubt.

No. The advertising ban on certain platforms is internal. You can try to advertise with no consequence other than wasting your effort. I'm assuming you're talking about advertising on Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. in this case. They will either not accept your advertisement, or remove it if it somehow falls under the cracks.

It may be illegal on countries that have actually banned cryptocurrencies and/or exchanges outright like China though, because you would essentially be advertising an illegal business.

You could read the article too:

https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@supercrypto1/4th-dimension-bitcoin-manipulation-cartel-price-suppression-is-the-goal

I've read this and I don't really buy it. His entire argument hinges on his Why not Simply Ban Bitcoin (& Gold) and get over with it? point, and he even went as far as to compare a prospective Bitcoin ban to gold confiscation. They're very different, in that pretty much everyone knows and acknowledges that gold is valuable, and that it plays a very vital role in the economy, while Bitcoin hasn't gotten anywhere near that level yet. It's been banned in some countries and clamped upon hard in others, and governments barely faced anger. Remember how China crippled it with relative ease?

That's just my take on the matter though, of course. I just find it far more plausible that the bear market is being caused by natural market movement, considering how hot it was towards the end of the year, rather than invisible entities who want to keep the price at a certain level just because. I have no problems with his advice towards the end though.

By load I assume you meant how to top up or put Bitcoin in it?

Most people buy Bitcoin from exchanges like Coinbase using real money, then send it to their Electrum wallet via one of its addresses. You could buy from different sources as well, and tell your seller to send it to one of your Electrum addresses if possible/applicable.

If you don't know how to send/receive Bitcoin transactions, it's probably best to consult Google for in-depth guides. It's very easy for Electrum because you have Send and Receive tabs enabled by default. You have to tweak a setting to view your addresses if I'm not mistaken though.

You should be able to write a general guide on how to use the darknet, but if you write a guide specifically on buying illegal substances or to access markets with illegal content, your post will likely be nuked, and you may even be banned and reported to authorities. Theymos, this forum's admin, complies with US laws if you must know.

If you really want to write a guide on the subject, it may as well be on how to browse the darknet safely, and to provide a faq of sorts, as people often believe everything in it is illegal. Best of luck!

Interesting perspective, but there are plenty of reasons why people would want to cash out anyway. Let's not forget that Bitcoin only reached the $5k level around September a year ago, so chances are majority of people in Bitcoin bought below that level. They break even at different points, so you never really know when they spill their milk, and you never really know when they'd want to dump. I totally get your point though.

It would do everyone good to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. The reality is that Bitcoin is speculative, and could therefore dip anywhere.

Yeah I agree. The Google and Facebook bans barely moved the markets at all, actually. Bitcoin dropped quite a bit when Twitter announced its ban though, which doesn't make sense because it's smaller than Google and Facebook. It follows, then, that the logical conclusion would be that the dip doesn't have anything to do with the Twitter ban, and likely means that the Google and Facebook ban actually had a very marginal effect on the market. Bitcoin doesn't have anything to do with ads anyway.

But yeah, massive rises are typically followed by massive dips, and here we are in the aftermath of December.

I wouldn't go as far as to say as we're fighting. It has negative connotations after all, and all of this us vs. them narratives goes against inclusion, which is one of crypto's strengths. I'd rather say that we're working towards a common goal, and these "enemies" are simply hurdles that need to be overcome.

That's just me nitpicking though. I guess it doesn't really matter what you call it in the bigger picture.

How exactly would you define failing though? ICOs are pretty much dead in China, and their crypto trading volume have plummeted severely from their pre-exchange ban levels. Maybe they failed in controlling them completely, but I'd say they're pretty successful in suppressing it.

It's sad, but most people wouldn't dare risk breaking the law by going against bans, so they would more or less be successful, even with some few enthusiasts being able to crawl through the cracks. They can't stop crypto fully, but they can make you work for it a lot harder than you reasonably should.

It would certainly be a challenge. The move away from the gold standard was meant to address that issue, after all, as deflation was a contributing factor in the Great Depression.

This is going to sound like a very simplistic solution, but can't employers simply adjust wages by taking deflation into account? They already do this now with inflation anyway, so the reverse should work somewhat similarly in principle. We've seen a small example of Bitcoin in this situation when it suddenly surged to $19k and some managers were forced to dock participants' pay in Bitcoin, with some even setting a USD standard. It's very messy, but it seems to have worked, at least on the surface.

Either way, I don't think Bitcoin will ever kill off fiat anyway, but rather become a global alternative, so I don't think its deflationary nature is a problem.

Have you taken a look at Urdubit? I saw it mentioned here:

https://news.bitcoin.com/pakistan-set-to-become-a-major-bitcoin-hub/

It's apparently a Pakistani Bitcoin exchange. I can't vouch for its legitimacy though, so your safest bet might be on localbitcoins, as others have mentioned. Bitcoin isn't illegal in Pakistan anyway, so you should be able to buy safely for as long as the seller is legitimate.

Well I can tell you one thing for sure -- the creator of the video certainly doesn't want to help Bitcoin.

But yeah, you have to let people air out their opinions, or farm their youtube views, or whatever. Anything less than that is censorship, which Bitcoin has come to stand against. Bitcoin is obviously divisive, but you can't just make critics shut up or simply roll over; that sort of bullshit is for oppressive governments. That being said, we should also call them out for their misinformation if there are any, and dispel any FUD.


Well to be fair, the video is about reasons why Bitcoin isn't working. It's completely one-sided from the get-go, so you really shouldn't be expecting anything else.

Well to be fair, he didn't actually mention that he preferred private ledgers. He specifically said that he prefers the privacy properties of Zcash, though he did say Bitcoin's public ledger is its biggest flaw. Some people just automatically attribute privacy to private ledgers, I guess.

Either way, if Bitcoin is facing a crackdown for criminal activity, I can only imagine the firestorm that fully anonymous cryptos would have to brave once they become popular enough.

I kind of disagree. This would be true if we were to assume that every third party desktop wallet has a backdoor installed, but that's not true, and is verifiable on open-source projects. It's different for online wallets because you're using their servers to store your data, and you don't even have access to your private keys on most of them.

The best desktop wallets will always be safer than the best web wallets as a rule of thumb.

There certainly seems to be a correlation, but one thing we know about statistics is that correlation does not imply causation.

We could say that high fees make prices drop by turning off prospective buyers and even believers, but we could just as easily say that mass dumping, which drives the price down, also causes mining fees to swell -- effectively making high fees a byproduct of a price slide. It becomes a chicken or egg scenario.

Recent price movements kind of buck the trend though. Fees have been consistently low since January while prices surge every few weeks. Sharp drops don't seem to increase fees either. I would personally chalk up the correlation to mere coincidence, but that's just me.

I'd like to believe that the point was to go in a different direction as far as scaling is concerned. As you know, Bitcoin Cash is spurning sidechains, and instead went to the big block route. I'm fairly sure there are different motivations at play though, with some probably even outweighing the scaling reasoning. It's an interesting project, but I don't like how they market it.

I believe Bitcoin will be the last coin standing simply because I believe in sidechains' potential, but I guess we'll never really know until we could get to the point where we could say for certain that a scaling solution is better than the other.

If you think about it, it's not that complex. All you need to do in most situations is copy + paste. It's certainly a little more inconvenient than the technology we're used to, but I wouldn't say it's complex. Even a grandma who could operate a computer should be able to get the hang of sending and receiving transactions in just a few hours.

But yeah, that being said, the current generation and the succeeding ones should fare far better, and is more likely to be attracted to Bitcoin. Maybe all it really takes is time.

Around 200 gigs if I'm not mistaken. It's probably the best desktop wallet available if size and download time aren't primary considerations. You get to run your own full node too, so that's a plus.

Otherwise, you can't go wrong with Electrum or the more popular hardware wallets.