I answered "yes" but I suspect I misinterpreted the true meaning after reading the first 30 posts haha.

1. Any kind of work should get compensation. Deserves is entitlement... what's that saying? You get what you get, you deserve all the rest.

2. I do agree that a true project often starts with people who truly want to fix something, work on it, and share it. The community, having realised the worth or importance of the project, often voluntarily pays or donates. Spoetnik's right to point out the great projects all start out like this -  advocates and believers who pour their lives, money, savings, everything into an idea, and still after a working product is shared, do not feel they deserve to be rich. I myself whenever possible use these "free" projects and always pay what I believe is correct. Voluntarily. A good project will pay for itself.

3. The sad - and as a newbie only several months learning about crypto, I feel VERY sad seeing its state, especially when a newbie's education on bitcoin talks about its foundations and its ideals - truth is that crypto is seen by so many as their chance at a quick buck. Nothing wrong with wanting to make money, I do too! But I think at this rate we're going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

One suggestion is to look for a parts dealer that you can:

1. Buy a used/new GPU from.
2. Can agree to take your GPU as a trade-in for a new or another used GPU.

While initial price for Step 1 might be a bit more than if you scout yourself, you can offset your 2nd GPU buy with a trade-in.

This way you always stay a step ahead with GPU upgrades, with marginal costs outlay for every new buy. Both you and dealer also know you're buying/selling same GPU so it's in dealer's interest and yours to be upfront about the state of the used item.

I won't share my biggest regret as it's already mentioned by someone else here.

Biggest regret is losing my original bct account created many years ago. (tied to an old email on a domain I no longer own)True, it probably only had 2 posts or 3, as I only picked up bitcoin last September, but I'd have a good ranked account otherwise.

Not truly a regret any longer, though, as I would not use that account were I able to recover it now.

Always healthy to have as much scrutiny from as many different sources, independent and otherwise.

Is Ripple the only one who finds the report and its methodology flawed and, therefore, unactionable? I find it unlikely that ALL these would result in false positives and it seems even Ripple concurs.

As much as I like bitcoin, I really don't see why bitcoin should be added to an already bloated school syllabus (I doubt fiat is even part of syllabus).

There can be mention of it if learning about currency and certainly blockchain tech should be a subject in IT studies but it doesn't or shouldn't be taught in schools as a deliberate subject.

I'm sure there were a lot of people somewhat deflated by how quickly bitcoin slid back down the $1000 slope but this will be tempered by the opportunity to buy even more at today's relatively good prices.

I'm still a good three months away from being in a position to purchase my first bitcoin... so a part of me hopes for even lower prices by April.

I know I'm not alone among long-term holders too!

I have seen several posts in local boards (Malaysia) of people trying to sell that brass coin, with very few people registering interest.

If I were you, I would just hold on to it as a souvenir. You do realise it is unfunded, right?

So have the winners been decided yet? Was on the verge if sending an application myself but could not possibly submit one that was ready before the deadline. Nonetheless it would be interesting to see the projects that succeeded in getting the grants... and the follow ups!

Here's a positive: the sigs actually help me read posts in a thread better, if only as a sort of border in between posts.

This isn't to say I'd get lost in a thread without the sigs or that I'd face a difficult time navigating - it just to me seems to better space out and differentiate the text between posts. Even the avatar does the same for me.

Personally, I was always expecting a correction of price not just for btc but for usd. Did not expect the bottom to dall out so quickly while the dollar has managed to maintain its strength.

Shame that the correction in opposite direction didn't happen for Eth or doge haha.

It's really rare for me to fully back what bitcoin can and can not do, even with so much personal interest vested... but I am very certain that if bitcoin can stay its course, it will easily overtake paypal.

PP has been around for so much longer and it took them a while to take hold. Bitcoin all the way!

I still consider myself a newbie despite already being here for 4 months or so. I think one way you can learn is to look at existing senior member ranked users or higher who are on signature campaigns (under each campaign's thread is usually a spreadsheet).

View their profiles and read their posts. It is one way to learn what quality posts can mean. The basic idea is to contribute knowledge and ideas with your posts.

I think if we talk about the fees, fluctuating prices, acceptance and even, to an extent, confirmation times, these are not exactly challenges unique to bitcoin as a form of payment. What compounds access issues in crypto is the need for technology - at least a device is needed and internet.

A bit of a sidetrack here but when you say the bearer of private keys can reverse a transaction, you only really mean that he can send back the amount, right?

On the irreversible nature of bitcoin transaction, is this theoretically impossible?

Forgive the question but I did not see it answered in this thread... how might one earn/gain R2B2? If I can understand, the eventual aim will be to phase out Rubies by burning them, so it would seem there is no longer a way to earn them. Will there be a similar method of "mining" R2B2 as its predecessor?

Some time in the mid-90s when I first went online and started a website on shared servers, I set an automated message to be sent out to my email contact list (address book) in the event I did not log in for over 100 days (perhaps it was 90 days, I can't quite recall). It was a simple email to say that I haven't been able to log in for months and that this was an unlikely event. It also gave the emergency contact of my best friend, along with ALL my passwords/pins/locations of info.

I'd forgotten all about it years later and some time in 2001 or so, I went on extended travel with no net access, triggering that auto-email. A few people responded to my best friend, and word reached my family.

In short, the incident created a lot of relief, some confusion, and a few very angry people! Plus, I had to change all my passwords.

I never replaced that "system" but this article made me realise I ought to rethink how we pass on our digital inheritance.

Hello yahoo! This will be my 2nd sig campaign after a first also managed by you. I'm back from a 2-week Christmas break and am looking to join another campaign - timely as I've also just ranked up. I could not find any indications that positions were full for Full Members, so here is my application:

Name: buwaytress
Rank: Full Member
Current post count: 349
Wear appropriate sig and or avatar: Yes
Joining Avatar Campaign

Thank you in advance.

Never mind the current price right now or even yesterday - you have an important point to take note of. A lot of traders are using incredible leveraging to short and while this sounds attractive, it simply puts you at so much exposure to sudden spikes in opposite directions.

Learn to trade first with small or no leverage, and always with a lot of healthy room for your stop loss to activate.

Despite all the signs telling me to do otherwise, I've gone ahead and reached out to see what this mystery method is. Of course, I'm fully expecting for some sort of upfront payment but maybe 2017 will prove me wrong a few times.

Hope springs eternal in the world of crypto...

I am not rejoicing as I had hoped earlier for the price to stay below 1k so I can buy a bitcoin with income I expect in March but in fact if it stabilises for a while at 1k I would still be happy to enter at this price.

Good horizons on 2017!