I think you're selling W.B. short there, because he's not only a legendary investor, he's an incredibly smart man as well.  He probably understands more about bitcoin than you think--and while he might not understand all of the technicalities, he really doesn't have to in order to form an opinion of it.

And yes, he's of another age but I'd suggest we not bash the man for not liking bitcoin.  To each his own, I say, and Buffett's track record speaks for itself (unlike most crypto investors about which we know very little in terms of their investing success).

Hear, hear (and to the other part of your post I snipped out).  Buffett has already made his opinion of bitcoin known, so I'm not sure either why people keep nagging him about it.  He's a guy who invests in businesses first and foremost, not currencies.  I wouldn't dismiss his view of crypto, but if I held it as gospel truth I wouldn't be on this forum--nor would any of the rest of us either.

Not so clever, but I always remembered fartbags' name and it was the first that came to mind when I saw this thread.  I didn't realize the account was so old until I looked it up just now.

Then there's Huge Black Woman if you like some very non-PC comedy relief.  Heh heh.

So you're not telling me anything new.  Your opinion is duly noted, so please don't keep ranting about whatever it is these things are if you don't know exactly what they are, because that's what I'm trying to find out.  Naim027 is looking into it, so we'll see what he comes up with.  You might be absolutely right, but you're not adding anything to this thread.

It's definitely not customary, but it was smart of OP to do it and it'd be nice if more members who are going to take a planned break from the forum would create threads like this and sign messages when they come back.  Lauda and Vod both announced they were leaving, so that left no doubt as to why they aren't here, but I still wonder about members like TMAN and several others.  This might not be the closest-knit of internet forums, but if you're a regular here and suddenly you're gone, there are people who are going to wonder where you went.

Welcome back, OP.  I also hope you got everything squared away in life that you needed to--I won't go any further than that and pry, as I know this is a crazy time for all of us. 

Why even include bitcoin in that short list, since it doesn't even have half the privacy functionality of Monero?

If you were to look through my post history, I was saying years ago that 99.99% of altcoins are destined for extinction (eventually), and while I still think that's true, it's taking a lot longer than I thought it would.  Not only that, there seem to be more coins than ever coming into the market, and for the life of me I can't see what advantages they have over what's already available.

OP is right; most coins are only good for gambling--and by "gambling" I mean "speculating", because I don't think online casinos even let you place bets with some of the more obscure altcoins.  It's been that way since the first altcoins were introduced, and it doesn't look like anything's changing or ever will.  Instead of railing against how much crap there is on CMC, vote with your wallet and don't support shitty altcoins.  The only reason they exist is because people are willing to speculate on them, right?

I know I already responded to your post, but if you look at what's been posted here other than by naim027 you can see why this section sucks as a place to post a legitimate question.  People might not have heard about these mining sticks, but they're so busy posting for bounties that nobody (except naim027) cared to help someone out.

Example:
I assume you've missed Monero altogether here.

Example:
USB miners mining bitcoin or GPU-minable algos, yes, but this is a CPU-mining algo we're talking about.

Fuck me.  Thank you to naim023 for your research.  I'm not interested in buying one of these sticks, just wanted to learn more about them and figured that the altcoin mining community might have some info on them.  I guess nobody's actually tried them to see if they perform as advertised, so I'm locking the thread.

Edit:  I'm unlocking this thread by request.  Maybe we'll all figure out if these are legitimate or not. 

Please don't shitpost in this thread, else I'll be reporting it.  If you've got nothing to add of value, find another thread to earn money in.

I think that's what happened, and JollyGood has been known to be quite harsh with the negative feedback--that's why I took him off my trust list.  OP's trust actually doesn't show up red on my end because of that, but if he's still on DT2 or even DT1 then yeah, it's going to be a problem for OP getting into anything other than a bounty that doesn't care about feedback.

Personally, I think JollyGood ought to rethink some of his feedbacks but I suspect he's not going to.  There have been threads just like this one before, and he's not inclined to reverse any of the ones he's given.  Tagging applicants to a campaign is stepping over the line IMO, but we've all got differing opinions on that. 

And this is an issue for you now because....?

You had to have known your negative feedback would preclude you from getting accepted into most of the reputable signature campaigns, no?  It's not as if JG just left you that feedback, either--it's been nearly a year.

What is it about that one feedback that's preventing you from doing whatever it is you described above?  I don't know what "art service" you want to provide, but a single neg due to you being linked with 1xbit probably shouldn't interfere. 

I'd no idea 1xbit was still active here, since I have signatures ignored.  But the forum doesn't ban scammers, so that's why they're allowed to remain on bitcointalk.

Agree, it is extreme.  I also can't imagine Binance would have appointed someone with that title had it not been for some governmental influence being exerted.  And just so no one misunderstands where I'm coming from, I'm not anti-Ukraine by any means.  I just think politics should be left out of places where it doesn't belong, and the world of cryptocurrency is one of them.

Again, I can't argue with that one bit--but we all know how important crypto exchanges are, whether you're leaving your coins on there or not.  If they don't care at all about what cryptocurrency originally stood for, then I'd say that's a major problem.

Whew, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who caught that contradiction.  I'm not sure if that member is just writing nonsense to boost his post count or doesn't understand English well enough to convey his opinion correctly.  Very weird.

In any case, I was thinking about this some more, and I wonder how people would feel if Theymos suddenly decided to ban all accounts from Russian IPs or a similar action.  I'm guessing opinions would be very much mixed, but my point is that sanctions against Russia as a country or even specific individuals who had no say in Putin's war end up hurting innocent people.  Maybe not all of them are, but certainly there are some who are innocent.  That's unfair, akin to holding hostages IMO.

Yep, that's a dead giveaway.  Maybe this moron has a very limited English vocabulary or something (lol).

Actually, looking at the usernames, a couple of them look familiar to me.  I haven't checked their post history, but the owner is probably a spammer who quit the forum after the ICO boom went bust.  Why he's returned is anyone's guess, though I'm assuming he's trying to rank up the accounts (or at least gain activity points; there's no way in hell he's going to earn merits).

It's not plagiarism, plain and simple.  This has been discussed in Meta before if I'm not mistaken.  Whether anyone thinks otherwise or not, I very much doubt the mods would do anything if someone reported this--although since there are multiple accounts involved, that complicates the issue.  Obviously there's one person behind these posts, but if the mods really wanted to ban a few of the accounts they'd technically be justified in doing so.

That's true, but that saying usually only applies to what's happening in the military, not relatively small financial institutions, which is what I think Binance qualifies as.

Agreed.  I can't imagine that they'd do this on their own, although I don't really know much about Binance, who's in charge, and what their political leanings are (if any). 

And no, I don't think this is right at all.  Just look at this:


Global head of sanctions. 

Are any of us still concerned about privacy and centralization?  Or does any of that apply only when a crypto exchange is fucking someone else over?  What happens when an exchange suddenly finds a reason to target you for whatever reason they make up on the spot?  No matter what your opinion is about Russia, those people who got blocked probably weren't involved in any of the political decision making in Putin's circle when the war started.  This doesn't help anything, and frankly I've lost a ton of respect for Binance and whatever trust I had in them as an exchange is gone.

*Whew*  That's a lot of neat statistics, OP.  

One thing that popped into my head is that bitcoin has been declared dead a number of times in the past because it, and more importantly, crypto in general, is a relatively new thing.  Netflix might not be that old of a company, but the stock market itself isn't.  In addition to that, Netflix is a business whose fundamentals can be analyzed and its prospects of survival predicted to some extent.  With bitcoin, it's a complete crapshoot since the price depends solely on demand and not on profitability.

I'd also say that Netflix tracks the tech stock sector to some extent, so those wild swings it's had were probably experienced by some other speculative stocks as well (though I haven't checked; I'm just making an assumption).

Finally, who the fuck cares what these pundits declare about bitcoin's viability?  People listen to hype unfortunately, so there are always going to be idiots trying to make a name for themselves by meeting that demand for hype, inflammatory statements, and outrageous predictions.  Just look at Jim Cramer, Robert Kiyosaki, Peter Schiff, and all of those other talking heads who made tons of money early on in their life and now have a flock of sheep making trades based on whatever they're hyping up or hammering down.  It's unreal.

You know, you might be right about that--and to think that they were so hot back in 2011 or so, when they had their DVD-by-mail business thriving.  Now I look at what they have on their site and I can't believe people subscribe to see any of their offerings.  You used to be able to watch pretty much any movie from any era (on DVD).  Now a lot of other companies have jumped on the streaming video bandwagon and provided Netflix with so much competition that they could indeed become irrelevant.

Eh, I wouldn't hesitate to do so.  That thread is in the B&H section (which I have on ignore) and I'm too lazy to go through the steps to quote it properly, but this is a snippet from Cosmic Beyonder's post:


If you ask me, he went about things in the exact opposite order you're supposed to here, which is to know the rules before embarking on a career in spamming.  On top of that, this joker recruited family members to spam and evaded a ban.  It sounds like he's just a young kid who needs to learn a thing or two about the world (and by kid I mean someone up to his/her mid-twenties). 

Poker Player, you've been around long enough to know this crap just never stops.  Some people are idiots more so than others, and yes it's extremely easy to just make a new account after getting banned and continue participating in bounty hunting.  Hilariousandco was pretty much suggesting that a couple of years back, which I took issue with, because it galled me to hear a moderator say anything of the sort.  He was fed up with the ban appeal threads I would imagine, and I don't blame him...but yeah, I'm sure the majority of banned members just come right back under an alt account and continue where they left off.  It's no wonder there are so many registered members but only a fraction of which are active.

There's some guy on the radio I always hear talking about just what you mentioned, and he advises younger people to work as much as possible for at least a year and cut out everything that's not an absolute necessity, and to save every penny.  And I swear I wish I'd worked harder when I was in my late teens and twenties instead of being the stereotypical slacker that I was.  I also wish I'd started investing in the stock market much earlier than I did--and it's not like I didn't know about it or how to get started.

I might have posted earlier in this thread, but saving money is one thing, but investing is another thing entirely.  Investing is planning for the distant future, whereas saving might be for a car, a house, whatever. 

I'd also point out that it's a good idea to have some free cash sitting in a brokerage at a time like this when sock valuations are extremely high.  When there's a crash, there's a buying opportunity that many people miss, either because they don't have enough money put aside to jump in or they just don't know there's a bargain to be had.  The same goes for the crypto market as well.

Man, don't make me regret I unlocked this thread--I think I've explained the scenario that's been playing out in my head in enough detail such that anyone who can read would be able to understand what I'm talking about. 

Five members.  Each member earns $300/week in the Chipmixer campaign (best case scenario).  Use advanced calculus and integrate all of that info, and you get $1500 total--but that's for all five members.  In addition to that, there could be some GPU or ASIC mining happening as a side hustle (but not in the basement where my crib will be located), and there's also whatever money we bring with us to our paradise.

Got it?

One reason would be that I'd be moving to a foreign country with no friends or family, and having at least a few people with a shared interest would make the move much easier.  Plus I'm talking about living in a Big Effing House and that's something too expensive for me all by myself.  Otherwise, you're right:  I'd much prefer to live by myself.

Fuck-you status is a state of mind IMO, not a number representing how many dollars or crypto you have.  Even people locked up in prison with no money whatsoever can have enough balls to tell the guards to go fuck themselves, consequences be what they may.  If you're looking at life through the lens of a 9-5 worker bee, sure, you can't jump on your boss's desk and piss in his trash bin.  But if you're a psychotic nihilist with a pseudo-Buddhist mindset like me, there's nothing standing in my way of yelling FUCK YOU to the world atop the Empire State building.

Thanks for that link, it helped me understand what AOPP is a little better.  What I don't understand is what it has to do with BitBox being a decent HW wallet or not.  Are they (or Shift Crypto) keeping records of who's purchased them or something?  Even if they are, that doesn't even sound like what the AOPP thing is all about.  I'm still a bit confused (but that's a normal state for me anyhow).

Now that's an interesting saying, one I've never heard before.  I'll confess I don't know exactly what it means, but perhaps there's some language barrier preventing me from understanding.  However, I think I get the general gist of what you mean.

I have no idea, and I seriously doubt any of the western countries imposing these sanctions know either.  I'm guessing that they think it's their best course of action, because what else can they do?  Start a war with Russia?  Germany in the WWII era didn't have nuclear capability, so after WWI everyone felt free to fuck with them at will.  That isn't the case with Russia in 2022; if the US, UK, or any other nation who wants to help Ukraine flexed their military might, what do you think Putin would do?  

And that's the question Ukraine's allies are asking themselves, too.  I've been hearing innuendo about Putin's mental state, but frankly I never know what to believe with news outlets from any country--there's so much propaganda it's ridiculous.  I do know that no country wants to pick a fight with a country that has the power to obliterate half the globe or more.  That's why everyone is starting with sanctions.

That's a question I've been asking myself lately, although I know the answer--the media in the US is basically controlled by the government, and they don't want to present this issue with opposing viewpoints, only anti-Russian ones.  On the other hand, I haven't been seeing anything negative about Russian citizens, only Putin and the military.  But yeah, I have no idea what, if anything, Ukraine is doing wrong in this conflict because that's all censored. 

Huh.  I had (and still have) no idea what that's all about, and I'll have to look into it--unless someone cares to explain it to me here as if I'm a 5-year old.  

Unless there's some factor I'm unaware of, I don't think the fact that a manufacturer is discontinuing one of their hardware wallets should count as a strike against them, and I thought the BitBox02 was one of the better HW wallets on the market--or at least better than the Ledger.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that point as well, because I'm in the same boat as OP.  Ledger's data leak soured me on them completely.

I'm not sure how that works, as I've never gone through a KYC procedure successfully in the past few years.  I've tried, but the pics I've submitted were never good enough, but that's another story.

It's already interesting, but I'm afraid that this situation will turn from "interesting" to horrifying if it turns into WWIII when the West gets involved with their own military forces--and I'm talking potential nuclear conflict.  As someone who lives in North America, the Russia/Ukraine conflict seems very distant, but I'm sure that's the way it felt here when Germany was trying to take over Europe in the 1930s.  There comes a point where the western powers won't sit on the sidelines anymore and watch a dictator expand his empire through force.  Granted, it took Pearl Harbor before the US entered WWII, but this is a different time and the US has a different president, so who knows.

I have yet to see Putin making any statements.  Is that because he's being silent on the media or is it just that everything he says is being censored in the West?  I'd like to hear what he has to say, and not filtered through someone else's mouth.