It's been 2 months since the Russian invasion, despite Ukraine's resistance, war maps show that Putin is actually gaining ground, especially after the fall of Mariupol, and the military advances in the Donbas region, while they are extremely close to Kharkiv. On top of that, Odesa is certainly their next target, since its prime location, which would block Ukraine's access to the sea.

Certainly, Putin didn't win the war within a few days, just like he expected, however, things have taken a turn for the worse, mourning thousands of casualties.

I've seen a few atms as well, mostly abroad, which do not ask for KYC, in Poland specifically, those we have in Greece however, do require you, at least that's what I've heard. Anyway, Bisq is a great alternative, it's a decentralised exchange, not a P2P one, I'd prefer the first one honestly.

Two more alternatives would be AgoraDesk and Localcryptos, the latter was recommended to me by another poster here, on a thread I made a few days ago. You could also trade through here, if you find a trusted member.

A few weeks ago, I put a decent sum of money on UST-BUSD, it had 30-40% APY back then, now it has fallen to 5-10% and I'll possibly switch to another vault. However, Beefy now has a BUSD vault on Binance Smart Chain, featuring 13.39% (or 0.0319% daily), it was around 35% a few days ago, but it seems to have lowered now.

There are plenty of other options as well, if you check other networks too.

I have money allocated both in staking and in bank deposit, I'm not using the latter to take advantage of the interest, it's no use. Funds are certainly assured in a bank, however, if you're careful enough, staking stablecoins  is just as safe, while achieving a far greater yield, 10-20% in the worst case scenario. Deposits on the other hand, will yield less than 1-2% on a yearly basis. The reason I'm using them is solely for convenience and to receive salary.

Great job, I never remembered providing such a service, the past few months I've been bombarded by emails. I don't see any reason to use their services anymore, they've completely changed their business plan. On top of that, I don't like their trading fee policy, the maker (the person who places the order) is charged 0.20% and the taker (the one who accepts your order), is charged 0.40%. Most exchanges, such as Binance don't charge that much, while their interface isn't the best I've seen (compared to those I've used, Binanxey, Bitstamp and Kraken).

I see, I wouldn't use their trading platform either, there are much better options, safer, more established and trusted ones. There are so many exchanges nowadays, that I can't find a single reason to use their service, to be honest, I didn't even know that they operated as an exchange. I'd appreciate if someone could answer if they also offered it in the past, since I've only used their wallet.

A lot of people mention PTC sites, and various of scams that had popped up during that era. I'd also like to add, possibly one of the first experiences with cryptocurrencies, a cloud mining Ponzi, named Coinintellect, if I'm not mistaken. It supposedly a free plan, but required you to upgrade after one or two payouts.

I actually received both payments, the second one was almost lost, because they went bankrupt, so instead of BTC or PayPal payment, they paid via Dogecoin. The payout was valued a mere $5 payment, which back then, was 30.000 Doge. Stupid me sold them, I'd have a decent amount of money if I hadn't.

That's interesting, I never faced any issues with Blockchain.com, but that belongs to the past, since a lot of things have changed since then. Although, we can't be 100% sure about the legitimacy of these reviews, let me elaborate. Blockchain.com does provide you with your private keys and the seed phrase, at least they used in the past, how can someone block your wallet if you actually have your keys, can't you import them into Electrum for instance?

Well, it did work up until the Delta variant, China had very few cases till the Omicron variant appeared. It was kind of expected, since after so many mutations, the virus becomes more contagious, but less deadly at the same time, thus, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I don't get all this fuss about China's government policy of zero cases, eventually, we'll have to live with the virus, it's not that big of a deal.

China was the first country to come up with lockdown measures, however, I don't recall them being so harsh. This situation has gone out of control, the measures weren't so absurdly strict, they're dragging people out of their homes and euthanizing pets, that's ridiculous.

Certainly, it was the first country to lie about Covid-19, if it wasn't for their cover-up during the early stages of the pandemic, we would have avoided many deaths in Italy and other European countries, who were severely affected.

If I'm not mistaken, as you've also mentioned, Blockchain.com does provide you with your seed phrase and private key. Although, I've also faced similar issues with what you've claimed. Not on the same platform, it was BitGo, was my fault though and not the service's.

I had lost access to my 2FA device, resetting it requires 48 hours, for security purposes of course. As a result, I lost a great trading opportunity, and that's one of the reasons I turned to Electrum, even though it was purely my fault.

Certainly, they did have strict policies since the beginning, but I don't recall seeing such action taken against their citizens. They've literally locked them up, with no access to anywhere, while the government is distributing food that to me, doesn't look enough for a household.

Certainly, they didn't have as many infections as Europe and USA, but it looks incredibly cruel to see such practices.
A new mutation could possibly be more transmitting, but it certainly won't be as deadly, no point in taking such measures. If this situation continues, we'll face serious logistic and supply chain issues. There aren't any advantages with this policy.

I'm not implying that there aren't any decentralised services that could potentially substitute for exchange usage, but it's all I've used for the past years. I'm not underestimating the platforms you're mentioning, nor the need for decentralisation, personally, I'm storing my funds on Metamask, instead of an exchange or a custodial wallet.

My opinion is simply stands that our actions are easily monitored, unless you're avoiding Google, Facebook and banking services, your data is out there, providing your details on an exchange isn't something new, nor unusual.

Now that you've said that, I receive newsletter emails from them on a daily basis, they've certainly changed how they used to function, a few years ago, they were nothing but a simple online wallet, you couldn't even recover your account if you lost the walletID.

Our data is being monitored on a daily basis, in a variety of ways, one of the most major ones, our mobile phones. Providing identification on an online exchange is only the tip of the iceberg, it's not like they're using them for marketing purposes. If I'm not mistaken (correct me if I'm wrong), exchanges only have to provide such information if requested by law enforcement, such as tax services, I might be wrong though.

I remember LocalBitcoins, a site I had accessed a few years ago, but asked for identification in order to trade. The services you've mentioned are not that well-known here, and not as direct as exchanges. Bisq on the other hand, is similar to DeFi exchanges, which certainly come in handy and could be used as an alternative indeed.

Most of my funds are in BSC, via the metamask wallet, thus, I certainly get your point, nor am I planning to move them anytime soon. However, when withdrawing to fiat, the most convenient is exchanges, and probably the most direct.

Aren't you using exchanges, such as Binance or Bitstamp? All exchanges now ask for identity verification, whether we like it or not, we'll have to face it. I highly doubt that it's feasible to avoid such identification for long. All major exchanges ask for it, unless you're up to decentralised finance and use exchanges such as Pancakeswap.

I don't have much to hide, nor am I hiding huge amounts of Bitcoin that I'd rather not declare, it's an inevitable process.

Vaccines aren't supposed to prevent inflections, still, their effectiveness could be worse than the ones we have in Europe and US, but still doesn't make sense. When the pandemic started, China wasn't that paranoid about new infections, what changed now?

This situation will have serious effects in the supply chain, we were f*cked with Covid the past two years, the war hasn't stopped, and now China is implementing policies like these.

New mutation or not, it's not sensible to have such strict measures, when the rest of the Western world is easing measures.

That's not the point though, is it? As you've mentioned yourself, the technology has vastly improved, which would lead to a greater number of casualties. Putin is recruiting soldiers as young as 18-20 years old, nobody deserves such fate, irregardless of what side you're on.

The point is to avoid evolving the war into a larger scale one, because soon enough, it would expand throughout the whole Europe, with huge casualties. Someone needs to pull Putin's plug.

Okay, for anyone who might be interested, I did actually fill up my details, in an attempt to receive the bonus they were offering. After approximately 2 weeks, the $5 bonus was credited into my account. Was it worth it? Meh, if you're planning to use the service, I don't see why not. They didn't ask for too many details, all the exchanges I'm using already have them, so it's not that big of a deal.

Hello there,
Didn't see any topics referring to this matter, have you seen what's happening in China? The government has locked people inside their homes, forcing them to have daily testing, police is separating them into quarantine camps (more like concentration camps) if test comes out positive or if experiencing symptoms, even mild. It's astonishing, that all countries are easing measures, since it's yet to be proven whether lockdowns were actually effective, China on the other hand is adopting zero case policies.

This type of lockdown didn't even occur at the start of the pandemic, where the virus was way more deadlier than it is now, after going through numerous mutations, without having medication and vaccines, which enable us to have very limited casualties, compared to 2 years ago.

Not only is it saddening, but also suspicious, is China hiding something else, or is it just being paranoid, imposing tyranny over its citizens? Let me also point out that China has a history of lying to organizations such as WHO about the severity of such infectious diseases (same thing happened with both Covid and SARS).

What are your thoughts regarding this matter?