I do hope for the best for the people that's now in Afghanistan, since probably the tough days are far from over for them  

"In Nauburg, the capital of Badghis Province, the Taliban have sent new traffic police. Unlike other countries, the traffic police in Afghanistan are fully armed."

What has bitcoin done to me? A whole new way of thinking and developing. Blockchain. No one controls it. Neither you are a government's man neither you are a simple family guy, you just can't.

Also, as @mk4 said, the ability to hold your money without having them physically or stored on a bank is liberate. And fascinating too.

One of the undeniable features of BTC is price Volatility. When the market is green, a trader can run into massive profits. However, on a bad day ones Portfolio can varnish within hours. My question, is the price volatility of BTC more of an advantage than disadvantage to traders?

OP, where did you get such knowledge about the best managers of bounty programs without being a member of these companies?
CryptopreneurBrainboss is a good and competent manager, but whoever participates in him usually confesses his love to him. So, based on my suspicion, this is not your last account? Lately, I've seen a lot of newbies popping up with very similar actions. I want to remind you of the rule, which is not so popular among newbies, that transferring merit to your account carries a negative tag. Connecting accounts will open sooner or later, so don't be stupid.
And yes, still, well, you shouldn't shout at the forum about your every step. Be humble and people will be drawn to you.

I did that once, but it was a garbage e-mail account.  I'm not sure what the big deal is about posting a pic of his profile.

In any case, this post seems to be an attempt to earn merits.  Looking at his post history, OP has made some decent ones but I'm not sure why he'd create a thread summarizing his experience of less than a year on the forum.  It could be strictly ego-driven, but I suspect he's trying to emulate threads created by other members when they achieve Hero or Legendary status, which tend to be highly-merited ones.

Glad your experience has been a positive one so far, OP, but honestly there's no need for a thread like this.  You're tooting your own horn as a Jr. Member, and it just has an icky feeling about it.

We get it @HaleyOccam. The excitement of earning merits in a short time and stuff like that, but it's actually nothing special. They are just merits. Look, I am not trying to discourage you from contributing in the forum, but my point is, get used to it. Normalize it.

Imagine if each one of us here had to post about our "colorful personality charm in the Bitcoin forum" each time we earned some 30-50 merits.

Bitcoin is "invention" and "civilization"

There is no doubt that Bitcoin is a great invention of mankind, and such an invention can be compared with a steam engine. However, unlike steam engines, Bitcoin relies more on human cooperation to operate freely. People are still the mainstay of this transformation. That is to say, people are not weakened by the emergence of bitcoin - the most unstable element (such as the industrial era, the machine replaces people). In a sense, if the steam engine is more of a power substitute, it is a great invention; and bitcoin is more of an institutional optimization, a great civilization evolution.

The contribution of Bitcoin to human civilization is reflected in the breakthrough solution to the "double spend" problem. "Double spend" is the core problem of encrypting digital currency. The so-called "double spend", the popular analogy is "piracy" - you can copy a number of copies of your data, music, video and other data files to anyone. For Bitcoin, if "piracy" exists, you can spend the same amount of money several times.

Bitcoin solves the "double spend" problem through multiple mechanisms such as global ledger and miner verification.

The blockchain is actually a global book. The existence of this book shows the fact that how much money is in one of your accounts, and everyone on Earth knows that you can't spend money that doesn't belong to you. You sign the private key to prove that a certain amount of money is yours.

Miner verification, including two parts, the first part is to verify that you are spending your money; the second part is the miner who gets the bookkeeping right, record your expenses to the blockchain - this global book, let Everyone can check, so you can't spend the second time.

Verification is a veritable invention. Signature data and script execution form the core of the verification mechanism. "Lock-unlock" is an algorithmic expression of "income-expenditure". The private key is signed to unlock the function, which proves that the money is my income, I can spend it on it, who pays it, who will provide a new lock, and so on.

Of course, you can continue to spend money that has already been spent. Perhaps, your second cost is recorded in the blockchain earlier than the first cost, so that the first cost cannot be verified and it is impossible to record it in the blockchain. The way to solve this problem is time. If you are a seller, even if the buyer has found payment and has been recorded in the blockchain. You'd better wait another 60 minutes, because the Bitcoin blockchain will generate a block every 10 minutes, and after 60 minutes there will be 6 blocks. If you find that your payment still exists in the blockchain. You can safely ship the goods. Of course, this is an inconvenience, and some cryptocurrency wallets have developed multi-signature payments, through the wallet as a third-party guarantee - this money will not be spent a second time - to ensure that users will receive every wallet paid A sum of money.

Or, you can use your miner to record the money you spend again. This involves blockchain attacks. When you find that the X+1 block has successfully recorded your first cost. You are so mourning that you want to spend this money again. Of course you know that other miners will no longer record your spending again on the blockchain. So you do the miners yourself, mine yourself, and regenerate the X+1 block. At this time, you are competing with all the miners on the whole network, and the chances of success are very small, unless you have 51% of the total network. However, if you have such a computing power, you are not bothered to do this kind of "stealing the dog and touching the dog", because relying on such powerful computing power, you can get more bitcoin in a brighter way. If you insist on a mining attack, once successful, everyone will lose trust in Bitcoin, and the collapse of the network may become a reality in an instant. At that time, you will also suffer losses. Obviously, this is a game without a winner.

Reason has become the last line of defense for human greed. From a realistic point of view, such a line of defense is still strong, and there have been no reports of mining attacks on Bitcoin.

Maybe you have already discovered. Bitcoin, the contribution to the progress of human civilization is not achieved through moral advocacy and legal regulation. Bitcoin, calmly face the "double spend", using mathematical methods, technical means to solve it. Of course, such a plan may not be perfect, but at least it tells us a possibility: social civilization can be promoted through invention, and the effect is not bad. Perhaps, civilization and invention are in common and mutually reinforcing.

The great philosopher Mr. Nietzsche said:
If there are only 21 million women in this world,
Then the right side of this dialog box may be Bitcoin.

Musk said that the essence of currency is a commodity that can serve as a general equivalent.

Really?  I have never heard that before.  Do you know which countries have laws against people using their electricity at home for "commercial purpose(s)"?  I'm assuming this isn't against the law in the US given how many American Youtubers make videos about mining at home, and I've certainly never heard that you can't do what you want with your electricity.  That sounds insane.

I've never mined btc, but I've read a lot about it and watched tons of videos relating to it.  If I had way more money than I do and if I had a bigger place to live, I'd probably jump right in.  I read most of that article OP linked to, and it sounds reasonable.  The way he wrote about bitcoin reminds me of satoshi's vision of it, free from governments and banks.  It's truly sad that governments are starting to strangle bitcoiners with regulations lately after so many years of tacit approval of crypto.

I get a 1.75 liter bottle of Tito's vodka. Fifty sticks of vanilla beans. Spilt the beans drop them in the Tito's for two months.

Spectacular vanilla vodka.

Use it straight up.
Use it in whipping cream with a bit of maple syrup
Use it in coffee warm or iced.
Use it in tea warm or iced.

Does not have carbs if you drink it straight up or in black coffee.

I know several personal examples of people who I invited to join bitcointalk forum and they couldn't registered because they got evil fee notification and asked to pay with Bitcoin.
Keep in mind that they never before heard about bitcointalk forum, they never registered in this forum, and they don't own any Bitcoin for paying this evil fee :/
I even tested and confirmed this myself from different location, using different device, maybe because some networks are using shared IP addresses.
In the process of punishing spammers and banned users we are also punishing innocent newbies and that is a fact.

This forum isn't what it used to be.
Back in the good old days of 2013-2014 it was the IT place for crypto. Now, not so much.
I'm noticing that most good projects, and by good i mean ones that actually do well (50x) in the last 2-3 years have no mention on this forum
Apart from strong bitcoin info, most altcoin info is just scams and moneygrabs.

Cool post Alice. I've never seen those pictures.

I am not against all altcoins.
They represent a different role and technology than bitcoin as a global finance vehicle.
Altcoins, even bitcoin with different block sizes or other features, are necessary for additional technologies (like decentralised DNS), or for regional transactions and small, fast, less-important transaction scaling.

You can join me in my castle. Remind me, and I'll buy you a silly hat to wear, if you'd like.

On June 7, according to foreign media reports, the day before yesterday, at the 2021 Bitcoin Conference in Miami, Twitter CEO Dorsey stated that if he does not work on Square and Twitter, he will engage in Bitcoin-related things. He called Bitcoin The currency "changed everything" is what attracts him the most.

He said at the conference: "Bitcoin will definitely change everything. I think in my lifetime, nothing is more important than this. In fact, if I'm not in Square and Twitter, I will study Bitcoin. If Bitcoin I need me more than Square or Twitter, and I will dedicate myself to Bitcoin. But I believe that both companies have their own roles."

Not true at all. If you are generating quality post, you will get merit. No matter it’s a reply or a thread itself. Without quality, no matter what you create, you are unlikely to get merit.
Regarding creating thread, I see no problem with that if the topic is something to discuss about, if the topic isn’t discussed hundreds of times. Then there's nothing wrong to create a thread.