For certain. All of my kids are familiar with crypto. My 2-year-old daughter can recognize BTC, ETH, and Monero. My oldest son doesn't understand why everyone doesn't use it now. (He's 21). I was programming since I was 8, but normal people didn't have computers until they were in college. That's how old I am. The young are going to adopt crypto much faster.
Here's an article about the younger generation investing in crypto.

https://blokt.com/news/only-8-of-americans-invest-in-cryptocurrencies-but-younger-generation-more-open-to-the-idea

Basically, it says that only 8% of Americans invest in crypto, and the younger generations invest more proportionally in crypto. I thought that was interesting.

44% of all Millenials say that crypto will be "somewhat" or "very" accepted in the next 10 years.

Ref here: https://www.finder.com.au/half-of-millennials-say-cryptocurrency-will-soon-be-widely-used

Regardless of where the market is now, it's pretty damn exciting.
 

Ah yes, forgot about that. When I first bought Ethereum it already forked from the "classic". Personally, I disagree with the forking to restore ETH (DOA?). There goes censorship-resistance for ETH.


I agree BTC is king. I'm 100% down with that. At the same time, pretty much everyone agrees that there have been forks of BTC.



True, but that's the beauty of ETH a store of value + smart contract. Wasn't Satoshi's original scope of bitcoin include smart-contract like features as well? I looked for the article I once read that refers to that, but I could not find it.


Sure, look at bitcoin.com . Major articles and interviews all over the place when BCH forked. My 80 year old neighbor who has a lot of BTC even started to migrate towards BCH.

I was in total love with bitcoin and the blockchain. Not for money, but a real understanding of how disruptive BTC could potentially be. Then I found Ethereum. ETH opened up new ideas of what money could do. Then the BTC hard fork came along all of a sudden bitcoin Cash was going to "replace" BTC. My reaction was .. wtf! Remember, I was a die-hard BTC lover. My confidence was shaken and got me thinking about how the hard fork will dilute the perception of value between BTC and BTH. I think that was the beginning of the current downturn IMO.

Then BTC Diamond, XT, Classic, unlimited, Gold, Private, ABC.

Here's a list of all of them so far.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bitcoin_forks

I realize changing the existing BTC blockchain is slow, and needs to adapt. What's a solution? Maybe Ethereum has a better shot at solving the scaling issue.

All of these hard forks somehow dilute the confidence in BTC. I can't quite explain it, but that's what it feels like.

That was hysterical and totally on topic. Notice that was 8 years ago. Even more relevant now.

Good question. First, we did our own internal testing. Then hired a security team to help bulletproof our system. Both of those tests helped us upgrade the security. You always miss something. These hackers (No offense to them) found them. They exploited the system. We then found the exploits and made some patches for each instance.

We always were able to find the exploits. Well, at least we think we found the exploits. We have never paid for any ransom or info from the hackers.

About the wager spamming. The "null bet" feature was on our end. Most software providers have separate data connection points (sockets) to shuttle info back in forth to reduce latency. They spammed the bets and then used our "clear bets" feature. It was very interesting to see. The first 50k was scary. When we saw he had a 140% payout on roulette with a large number of bets, we knew something was up.

Yesterday, I watched a brief, curb-side youtube interview of Chris Kattan. In this video, he was asked about how comedy has changed. His response was something like " I couldn't get away with a lot of skits today what I did on SNL". It occurred to me he was right. Seems like we have become too sensitive. I remember Eddie Murphy, Richard Prior, and the most misogynistic Andrew Dice Clay for God's sake. I thought he was sort of funny, but even I cringed sometimes at his jokes. I don't cringe too easily.

I find it hard to imagine these comedians having the same success in this #Metoo movement. If the goofy cleanish Kattan thinks he could not do the same today, then I'm sure that 90% couldn't do it either. What does that say about us? Does that make us snowflakes or have we progressed? I think the most likely answer is somewhere in between.

These are the changes I have seen the most.

(1) Less misogyny: (I've used that term about 3 times in my life). I've seen that very few comedians make jokes about abuse towards women. I've got to be honest about this. I think that's a good thing. I never thought it was funny.

(2) More political: Most of the comedians and actors have a are hardcore democrats. There's a huge bias in pretty much all of the media.

(3) Racism. Less race-based jokes. Weird that no one had a problem with Robert Downy doing blackface in Tropic Thunder. I don't think it would fly today. There is, however, an increase in jokes about Florida. Maybe targetting cultures is still ok.

Not a blockbuster thread, but I thought I'd throw this out there.

Yes, I agree about not trusting media. Here is a perfect example:
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/bitcoin-no-longer-boring-price-194000222.html

Goldman Sacks just released predictions of BTC dropping to 1.5k. The only reason they would do that is to buy BTC on the way down. Again, buying unpopular coins for profit. Warren Buffet said, "Be greedy when others are fearful and afraid when others are greedy". I think it was him at least.

Buying a coin now because it's unpopular is not enough. They will ultimately have to have an actual utility, either as a value transferor or some other utility (smart contracts, oracles etc).

Yes, I agree with you.

A "normal" exchange is difficult to pull off now. You probably missed the party on that one. However, might work if you have a unique selling point.

Here are some ideas. I like to make lists so bear with me.

(1) Geotargeted: How about an exchange that targets a specific region that is underserved? Central or South America.

(2) Industry-specific: Exchange that focuses on a specific industry. That's a tough one. You would have to come up with an API that would allow automatic exchanges. Like coinpayments.net .

(3) Specific demographics: Older or less tech savvy people. Make it simple to use so anyone can use it.

I'm sure there are more USP's but those came off the hip. .Best of luck to you.

I like your pro-active initiative. IMO, it's the search engines that need to combat this. Your list will only help them. It will give them links to their articles. Also, take into consideration that they will be able to post new content and new sites faster than you can make a list that will not have any impact on them. There are ways to game the Google SERPs. Google has caught on to most link spamming, duplicate content, link bombing as well as artificial links.

There will be a cat and mouse game between online spammers and google until AI can distinguish spun content and spam. That is until spammers have their own AI.. Sounds like a war. My bet is on Google.

This reminds me of a video I saw on youtube about AI learning to walk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn4nRCC9TwQ

It will not be long until AI will combat spam. There are so many implications of using AI in search result results. The scariest are the political implications, but that's off topic.

Slow down cowboy! I'm 47 and I hope you are not right about this. I've gone to 2 conferences so far. The one in Miami last year opened my eyes to the money grabs of the altcoins/tokens. Out of all of the one's I would consider sh@t coins about half were older gentlemen and the other really young guys. I don't think age has anything to do with greed.

I agree that younger minds have certain advantages. Experience also counts for quite a great deal as well. In this market, you need a multi-disciplined team with a broad range of expertise. The first few tech companies have the advantage of being the first movers. Don't discount us older guys. Experience means more leadership and problem-solving skills. They also have more access to funding.


Here is an article on CNBC about how us older guys can also be successful. They have also argued that older guys/gals can be more successful in starting a company.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/26/research-shows-older-entrepreneurs-more-successful.html

They mention a study that showed the greatest growth of the two you mentioned (Apple and Microsoft) occured when Jobs and Gates were in middle age. Interesting right?

Hello SyGambler, Good question. I understand the confusion. When I started on this forum 2 years ago, I didn't choose the Betbit.com account name because I was more interested in crypto than promoting our fledgling brand. We were still in beta and not field tested.

I'll represent the brand but the intent of the account is to learn and contribute in the forum. If you look at my post history you will see I don't talk about our brand outside of those two threads. I will take advantage of the signature though.

We are a very small team with more than 10 years in the regulated online casino space. We decided to build our own platform 4 years ago. After a long and arduous process, we completed it two years ago and launched our first bitcoin casino brand Betbit.com.

We also run the affiliate program at bogap.com (formally LiveCasinoPartners.com) Other brands we release more than 10 years ago are CelticCasino.com and FairwayCasino.com (not primarily BTC) to our credits.

If anyone wants to know more about the inside of the business please PM me. If I don't know the answer to your question I can most likely point you in the right direction.

Thank you. I'll have to wait until I'm a more established member to apply for "merit source" status.


Thank you OgNasty, much appreciated. I originally thought that merits would trickle down, but it seems like they are also trickling back up! lol. Honestly, the most helpful are those that contribute with either real insights, or value in another form to the forum user (feedback, insights, or valuable information. etc).

I was brought up to believe that appreciation is the most important currency. Seems like the merit system gives a threshold that spammers will have a hard time getting over to be worth their effort. I wish I was a part of this forum since 2010. That would have been life-changing.

Thanks again.

I've looked at the threads about Merits and sMerits. After spending a few merits (4 of them) to worthy members, which were mostly legendaries and Hero members. I've found that the members went to my site and gave me quality feedback. Real actionable advice, which I appreciated with my meager merits. Are merits ever replenished?

Most good developers can make a casino platform and games. The difficulty is the security in the system. Everything from user authentication, session management, , cross-browser usability, responsive design as well as every other possible scenario you could never imagine. Trust me on this. I spent 2 years developing ours, and we still find issues on occasion. Forum members here helped us find one just yesterday. It is a never-ending process that requires constant tweaking and upgrades through time. Here are a few of the issues we uncovered while developing our platform and game integrations.

Our biggest "Oh Sh$$T moments".

(1) Session IDs. In the beginning (4 years ago). We had sequential session IDs, and not random ideas. One player figured this out and started playing with funds of other users who were online at the same time. This did not cost us anything but time and explaining to the affected players what happened.

(2) Wager spamming. About the same time, another player ( or the same one) developed a spam bot that made 1000's of bets per second. Each bet placed was nulled immediately. This was like a DDOS to the system, forcing the system to accept bets after the result was seen on the screen. This caused the result to be available before the bet was placed. SO, the system gave the result, and then the bot finally placed the bet that was correct. The player won 300k in 3 days. We actually paid out 20k before we found out what this guy was doing. He had consistently about 150% payout ratio for live roulette. The scary thing is, that if the player was not greedy, he could have milked us for years. Thankfully, he was greedy.

(3) Bonus abuse. I'll save this for another time, but bonus abuse is a real issue.

ok, so my list was not long. The underlining truth is that there are way smarter people out there who could crush you. It's simple as that. God forbid you cheat a player. That brings me to #4.

(4) Ethics: I can not stress this one enough. If you cheat anyone you will be shut down by the geniuses in #2. I've seen it. Actually, it doesn't take a genius to shut someone down. It only takes a blackhater who has access to DDOS attack. Even if there is DDOS protection, you can still shut them down and/or casue them to have so much latency that they can not function normally. I've seen this scenario play out with other brands a number of times. It doesn't take much.

If I had to build another system today, I wouldn't. I would spend time marketing and less on dev.

This is one of those ideas where you say "It's crazy enough it just might work". I had a similar idea before using rats. It was just an idea and never developed. I will admit it is cool to see that someone has done it. The biggest drawback for me is the perceived animal abuse. You will have to make the mice retire in comfort, and treat them well. I would expand on that on your site.

Also, name the mice. Give each one a profile. Make players have favorites. Also, give options for the players to give the mice treats (for btc).

Best of luck on this.

Hey Jet Cash. Next year I'd say you are 100% correct.  At this moment, the merit system is still too new. There are still a lot of members like myself, who have a high post count to merit ratio due to the recent start of the merit system. Here is what my story is. I was an active forum member up until a few months ago. I logged in last month and noticed that my post count was good, but I was a newbie. I had about 80 posts and no merit. So, I think there are a lot who are in the same boat.

Overall, the merit system is better. My post quality is higher now. The only downside, is that in the back of my mind I am wondering if I am going to get validated or not. I guess that is the cost for quality right?

That was good. That's exactly what a few of the members in my family think as well.

Most everyone knows about crypto in my family. No one, not even myself was into it early. About 2 out of 8 neighbors know about crypto, the rest don't care.
 
Here's my recap:

Father - "Whaaaat .. Is it legal? Where is it actually? It can't be legal right?"
Mother - "Super cool son, I'll try too!" She then goes out and buys 3k in Tron and Ripple! (geesh)
Wife - "I like Ethereum better." She's super cool.
2 year Old daughter - "BITCOIN BITCOIN BITCOIN" She recognizes bitcoin, Monero, and Ethereum on my T-shirts. Adorable.
21 year Old son - Why isn't everyone using it?
Sister in Law - It's ferry money, don't be stupid.
Sister in Law's Father - Yup, very stupid, buy stocks
85 year old neighbor - I've got more than 200 BTC and he does.. impressive right?
 

You guys make some valid points. I live in a rural area here in Florida. Our internet goes out sometimes after a light to a medium thunderstorm. Bitcoin, in theory, is awesome as we all know. The biggest flaw is the practicality. We need to be hyperconnected in order to transfer that value. A massive third world war would involve tech wars as well. Bitcoin miners would be affected. DDos attacks etc..

This is kind of weird, but I found this list of things to do in WW3.
https://www.financialsamurai.com/how-to-prepare-for-world-war-iii-survival-and-money-advice/

Most of it is stupid, but I liked the idea of "hoarding real assets". I think that would be the way to go. BTC will not do too much for you in a major war. BTC is a peacetime store of value. That sours in my mouth a bit, but I think it's accurate.

I've lived in Costa Rica before and have seen a lot of children who are forced to work. The first few years I was shocked, but after a time you tend to become numb to it. Child labor, no matter what type it is robs children of so much. They miss out on being mentally stimulated at school, social interactions with other children, and playing. Children who play learn so many things, group interactions, friendship, dependence etc. 

Here's a case study on how child labor affects children: https://www.worldvision.com.au/docs/default-source/school-resources/how-does-child-labour-affect-children---india-case-study-worksheet.pdf?sfvrsn=2

I just read it, and wow. Not only the educational negligence but the health and perpetuating poverty were also pretty high on the list of how children are affected.

You could argue that working in crypto as a child is not as bad as a sweatshop in India, but there are still consequences.

Here is an article on CNBC on how to minimize your chance of getting audited here in the US.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/02/got-crypto-heres-how-to-avoid-an-audit-from-the-irs.html

Also, here's a notice from the IRS warnign filers to claim crypto currencies on 2017 tax year. I don't know if letters when out to tax payers. The CNC report said they did send letters. My question is how did they get the list? From the John Doe vs. US (Coinbase?) If I got a letter I would most certainly declare everything knowing that my name was on their list. Here's the notice:
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-reminds-taxpayers-to-report-virtual-currency-transactions

Also, this is scary. By not claiming up to 250k could result in jail time. With the value of BTC it's easy to imagine a lot of bitcointalk.org members could be in that category.

Here's another website that's a blog for bitcoin and tax issues: https://bitcoin.tax/


I don't know. I think the IRS will first take the low hanging fruit. They want the biggest fish first. They will most likely get a list of all account holders at the major US exchanges (fiat to crypto) and then get a list of the transactions above a certain threshold. Then confirm the tax filings.

yes, I agree with you there. I would like BTC to be tax free, but such are the laws.