Listing businesses that are "adopting" bitcoin is so 2013ish-2014ish as far as the forum is concerned.
Those finance nutheads with swanky offices in London calling themselves, rather humbly, bankers and traders are amongst the first buyers of Bitcoin.

Back wehn the craze swept in 2014-15, these same people would have been the first one to lap up cheap bitcoins. It is an irony now that they get to spend them in royal vacations, that too in the name of "corporate travelling"..😊😊

Well, any usage is good usage. Good for them..

Here is an outline for your thesis:

Short term prospect: Raise billions by attaching the word "blockchain". Read about how Kodak did it and now facebook is doing it.

Medium term prospect: Realize that the tech won't work so well if you want to keep it centralized and private so start proposing Consensus mechanisms that can "sound" decentralized.

Long term Prospect: Realize that you cannot beat PoW or Bitcoin and then adopt Bitcoin leaving the stupid ideas behind.

I must not be so presumptuous as to outline your thesis so easily, yet blockchain and crypto is about decentralization. Most "corporates" are trying desperately to do it their way and that is the reason for this love-hate relationship with crypto and particularly bitcoin.

Whats really mad about this is that Facebook has planned to "raise" a billion dollars towards developing something that already exists in a much better format. What are they going to use that billion dollars for? Buy mining hardware, marketing, influence exchange prices..??

As leonair pointed out, Facebook has been gobbling everything in order to keep the social media space monopolized. Do they have the capacity and the gall to try that with bitcoin?? Definitely no. So what are they going to do raising this cryptocurrency thing.

To me it seems like another one of Zuckerberg's semi-philanthrophic ventures. Remember the time when they proposed free internet to poor indians but surprise, it'll only run facebook and certain other limited apps free. More than free internet, it was free advertising for them. It didn't work out that well. I think an "airdrop" of a few cents worth of centralized tokens to world's poor is his idea of "acquisition costs" now.

Nobody to stop him in the name of net neutralityn once they use those "billion dollars for development" to prop up their shitcoin on a few exchanges.

You are right about the political machinations that lead Jinnah losing prominence in INC. It was differences of political methods between Jinnah and Gandhi-followers. Jinnah's approach was the sophisticated, anglophile one of securing "political concessions" within the fold of British and gradual independence. Gandhi on the other hand proved to be politically much more cunning and in touch with the Indian masses as he touched a cord with his "going back to roots" philosophy. This is what truly made it a mass movement as the faithful, poor masses submitted themselves to the bhajan singing Mahatma.

We cannot blame anyone particularly for the religious polarization though. It was fanned by the British and both Hindu and Muslim leaders played in their hands. As history would have it, Jinnah himself became the catalyst as he put up his demand for a separate nation and choosing to use faith as the motivation to rally Muslims (probably taking a leaf from Gandhi's book).

Sure Pre-nehru era had its fault .Yet, i am talking about the way that not just politics but more importantly, bureaucracy and general public life fell to sycophancy and opportunism once the prodigious daughter came into her own. She was the one who committed the original sins in Judiciary (Appointment of A N Ray as CJI bypassing the senior most bench judges), declared Emergency. This solidified the thought process that you can have your own way if you have enough political power or know the right people.

Politics maybe a cesspool of corruption but this constant refrain against politics has not helped us so I just wish to point out the positives.  The majority will always be corrupt and suffer from moral degradation but it is always that one man or that small group of person chipping against oppression and injustice that deliver change. Gandhi, MLK Jr, Nelso Mandela, were all drops in the ocean.. So we should also focus on them rather than the collective..

 In the immortal words of the Mater Elf Gimli, Son of Gloin:
"Certainty of Death, Small chance of success.. What are we waiting for...??"

Fierce competition as always but its exciting days when chipmixer opens up.. Last time I managed to be in the "list of participants being considered".. The competition seems to have only gotten tougher. Applying:

User Name: amishmanish
Post Count: 715 + 1
BTC Address: bc1q58fyah8t0k3qz8u66g33ryl3x6d4n809p8hckf

Will change Sig upon acceptance, like, obviously!!

Not everyone does that. It is a common refrain for the middle class that "All politicians are corrupt" because we know that we don't have it in ourselves to believe an ideal to an extent that you commit your whole life to it.
Look at politicians like the Late Mr. Manohar Parikkar, Vajpayee, even those hated for thier ideologies like Advani and Yogi Aditynath. These people atleast believe in something and actually spent their lives in pursuit of those ideals. Its too bad that I am taking exclusively BJP names. Other parties have had their fair share of non-corrupt ideologues like Pranab Mukherjee, Jairam Ramesh etc.

These are people who had much better things to do as technocrats and engineers but instead chose to devote life to politics. That does mean something i think.

How does this work for some place where the bitcoin regulations aren't yet defined? My country doesn't have such retailers so the only option is to buy using bitcoin from an overseas business. This leads to custom issues as it is seen as an import.
Another headache is the duty that has to be paid. If the item cost is limited to a certain amount and is marked as a gift, then it is allowed without duty. I am currently trying to put this into practice for my first bitcoin purchase.

It'd be really good if OP can include links to the businesses/ websites mentioned in your list.

I don't think they care about flight of capital. It is just one of the made up reasons to rally against crypto. What they actually want to avoid is to allow a "type of money" that does not need the backing of political power.
In a world where Bitcoin gets adopted widely as a currency, groups like Bitmain can potentially have enough power to be an alternate political system by themselves. Chinese are particularly fond of concentrating political power (Politburo, the party and all that communist compulsions) and they are unable to make up their mind about bitcoin.

Concentration of mining in China is kindda a double-edged sword for them. They let the miners use all that free energy and monopolize mining, probably in the hope that they can takeover and call shots from behind the curtain.
To spoil their plans, miners probably see bitcoin and mining as the one thing that their communist overlords are finding hard to control. The Chinese govt is wary that miners and bitcoin may get too powerful to control (considering that they have already started to diversify in terms of location).

This maybe the reason that China has this love-hate relationship with Bitcoin..(Ban it! No wait, Rate it!..But Rate it below EOS!!)

This could be interesting. Tether is basically the Fiat onboarding method for most Bitcoin exchanges from Bitfinex to Bittrex. If banks were to provide such a backed crypto, it'd be equivalent to providing a fiat onboarding service to Bitcoin. It can be their way to bring customers into the crypto fold by saying things like "Our safe and secure ramp to the world of cryptocurrencies gives you complete peace of mind".

This means the banks holding crypto in the name of their customers and may give a spur to custodial services being touted by Coinbase etc. The problem with such a scenario is that banks wouldn't ever want to endorse to cryptocurrencies in this way. They may play the Divide and Rule card by allowing the more centralized currencies into their fold while keeping away from BTC.

I think Julian Assange did a big service to the world by showing factual proof of how corporations and Govts manipulate narratives. It resulted in shaking up of the "Too big to fail" mentality to quite a large extent.

Now that he has been given up by Ecuador, he'll be up for trial. I do wonder that if the US Courts decide that his whole operation in the form of wikileaks was against national security and a criminal act, would the bitcoin donators be considered as enablers for the crime?  It would take a lot of convoluted logic to do that but you never know, the authorities could try it as a "two birds with one stone" thing.

This is just one of the potential scenarios when anonymity becomes very important and KYC becomes extremely dangerous.

Its not just the electricity cost of running the miner. That could have been managed but most of the regions have a hot, humid climate. That adds to the ventilation/ air-conditioning requirement. Yet, i don't think its impossible.
Sourcing the hardware is one of the major issues. There are lot of scams in GPU/ Mining hardware. If you want to buy single unit as a hobbyist, most sites like Cannan etc. won't allow this. They only take bulk orders. The custom duty is also an issue as the suppliers want you to handle it yourself.

If @rohitdhaka here or anybody else has experience with sourcing miners then it'd be great if you can share your experience about this.

You're right bones that it could be quite a load. That is why responsibility should be cycled between those people. 10-15 members every week would be enough to merit ongoing good posts. Considering there are 200+ people with 250 earned merits, the responsibility would cycle to you approximately every 28 weeks. That should be doable imo. As far as allegations are concerned, they will crop up no matter how fair everyone tries to be. This shouldn't be a reason for policy paralysis.

By anonymous, i meant it should appear in the merit history but the name shouldn't. Like you said, it could be something like "Verified Merit Source" or some cool acronym with an LOTR reference maybe. Maybe it could appear as "Wizard Council finds you worthy" or something..


Ranking systems are generally meant to be hierarchical so that there is an objective way to decide how much importance you give to people's opinions here. Merit was an evolution in this and it is now part of that ranking system and hierarchy. You can be sure that "activity" alone doesn't count for anything much now.


This is sort of an ideological issue. You say that "I'm not special nor anyone here". In reality, there are subject-experts and then there are noobs. The subject-experts ARE special, whether we like it or not. All men are born equal only when it comes to Liberty and Justice. This cannot be the case when it is a particular subject matter. For example, I don't think my physics teacher was an equal of Stephen Hawking just because they were both physicists. If you strongly feel that merit is about equality/ equal opportunity, I request that you please do read this once:

Harrison Bergeron

I ranked up to senior member pretty quickly back in the initial days. The starting times were a bit disappointing till I got to the thread by QuestionAuthority where he gave me 20 merits. Things started to feel much better after that. I was a regular at the forum back when nullius was breaking the records for merits and demonstrating to everyone what a great new user should be like. (The forum sure misses him i guess).

I ranked up just when the coinpayments campaign was coming to an end. While trying to fulfill the 30 weekly requirements for coinpayments, I often found myself saying the same thing over and over again. I also realized that most of my posts were only in the "Bitcoin Discussion" and "Economics" section..The main hunting ground for shitposters and Sig spammers..lol..

I felt embarrassed and felt like i had nothing to add without some real technical information. I used to frequent r/bitcoin and twitter accounts of all the devs to stay abreast of whats new. This used to help in adding to discussions. Yet, It gradually became clear to me that based on pure "discussions", A Sr. Member rank is the most that you can get to now AND the most that you should get to.

If you want to be a Hero, you must have enough technical know-how to contribute frequently to the Dev & Technical discussion. (I presently have to remain content with lurking). If you want to be a legendary, you must be a big contributor in at least one of the sections like Mining or Services or Market. That i feel is the only way now to get to Hero/ Legendary. I agree that its a lot of work but then it'll really be worth it. Of course, its quite a source of heartburn to see a lot of braindead people from the old days who get have the Hero/ Legendary status     but that is something we cannot help. Its like all those drug suppliers and arms-dealers that must have gotten wealthy with bitcoin. It is just part of the unfair dichotomies of Bitcoin.

In short, No the merit requirements are not excessive. Increasing them for Jr. Member could be taken into consideration too. Most people who really engage eventually do get to member status. The problem with the low requirement is that it has resulted in merit-trading and alt accounts.

I think one solution could be that some percentage of merit required for ranking upto Jr. Member and Member should come from a Verified Merit Source. Verified Merit source should fulfill the following requirements:
1.) Belong to the set of people comprising DT1 member and people who have shown enough commitment towards the forum by earning, say, 250 merits.
1.) Be randomly selected from this group
2.) Anonymous in Merit History
3.) Change cyclically
A thread could be started where these members simply grant merit to new accounts. That source shouldn't show up in the merit history to ensure that people don't get bugged or start getting bribe offers.

Its fairly complicated but so is the problem. Maybe i should think of a more elegant solution..Hmm..Thinking Hat on..

It really is hard to define in an easy to understand and exciting enough manner. I think the problem is that you cannot define it in the same way for everyone.

There are different facets to bitcoin that a person will find interesting depending on his/ her background, education and intention. I'll attempt a few examples:

1. If its a tech-savvy person, you can just tell them that it is  "Money generated by a combination of mathematics, cryptography and internet".
2. If its a financially-literate, business-minded guy, you can say its "Border less and regulation-free method for raising and storing capital"
3. If its a professional from a different field (Lawyer, doctor, teacher), you can tell them its "The limited edition version of new money that only the most tech-savvy, internet people can access and that they shouldn't miss out".
4. If its your grandmother, maybe then "It is the one investment to recession-proof your pension and legacy (show her the physical coins)".

What more can you add?

The death of Shastriji is what led to INC getting split, the Kamaraj faction losing out==>South Indians losing their intellectual role in INC (One of the biggest losses to our country if you ask me, just see the kind of visionaries South India could have given Congress), Indira Gandhi coming to power and establishing the "Congress High-command" system (Read about how she used to change CMs in Congree ruled states at her whims).

When the K. Kamaraj faction was kicked out; politics, bureaucracy and whole Indian polity was left open to the scourge of sycophancy and corruption. Indian bureaucrats in Pre-Independence and up unitl Nehru era used to be men of honor with a firm belief in the Indian identity and the need to take all people together for socio-economic reform. This was replaced by an the opportunistic/ despotic approach of Indira Gandhi who just tried too hard to fill her father's shoes. (Read about how even international media thought that "Who after Nehru?". Indira was nowhere in the running. All her blunders can be ascribed to her desperation to measure up to the expectations of a renowned father). It was Shastriji's death and Indira's taking over that led to the complete degradation of moral fiber in our politics. (Lets not even talk about how her favorite son Sanjay Gandhi was a bully and anarchist and how she declared emergency and corrupted the soul of India).

Don't believe what I say because its just a perspective. Read what the sycophant-in-chief Ramchandra Guha says about Indira's times in his book (India after Gandhi). You may have to read a bit between the lines while keeping yourself open to the idea that not all right-wing revolutionaries of India were religious fanatics (The way it has been portrayed in front of the common Indian in media for decades).

It is easy to say that it "didn't effect the common man". These are in fact the events that led our country into the divisive state that we are in today. We were made to doubt our own society and history.

I completely agree that demonetization was a fiasco, though i don't believe any conspiracy theories behind it. It was the typical Modi-style of sudden, spectacular moves. Agree about Jio but I don't see BSNL as the victim here. Airtel/ Vodafone/ Idea are what suffered the most.


BSNL being in the dilapidated state it is in today is not because of Jio. They have mismanaged their affairs for decades now because of the limitations of being a PSU (Sarkari workforce). You only need to see the CAG report on BSNL for that.

CAG RAPS BSNL. MTNL. This is in 2013, not because of DeMo..
BSNL gave undue favors to vendors.


I am more than happy to discuss this here. At least it won't go down to the level of whatsapp university and Facebook debate..LOL (from both sides, left-liberal and conservatives). I am all for an unbiased probe into such allegations of scam. It should be done to clear the intentions and history.

Avikz, I don't think the intention of the post was to diss BJP but just to emphasize that Govts (All Govts, whether Congress or BJP) have enough resources to manipulate things in a way that your money loses its value instantly.

As far as the politics is concerned, it is not possible to establish the credibility of such reports. You continue the conspiracy mindset about Pulwama attack. For conspiracy theorists, everything is a hoax. If this finds credibility with you then what about the disappearance act of Netaji Subhash? What about the mysterious death of Prime Minister Shastri? What about Indira Gandhi having a relationship with her yoga teacher. (Khushwant Singh wrote a book about these conspiracy events in Nehru and Indira's life "Burial at Sea").

You see, if you start fanning conspiracy theories for politics sake, then its open to both sides and pure anarchy.

The forces have been fighting tough battles in Kashmir. Pulwama was an extreme, retaliatory attack that we should never allow a repeat of.

It is hard to believe that these ICOs are still able to gain some traction. It has become too easy I guess. If you go to the altcoin section, there is a hundred new ANN threads everyday. Who exactly still invests in these stupid ideas is hard to fathom?
The situation is such that no credible entrepreneur would think about going the ICO route because it has scam written all over it. Only the malicious ones out to fool ignorant noobs are using the ICO route now.

IEO seems to be the in thing. Bittrex had their first IEO for something called RAID which was cancelled owing to a partnership cancellation. This basically seemed like a setup for confidence building. (Look we cancel it if we find something wrong..so you can obviously trust us..LOL). Next they had an IEO for Veriblock. Don't know how that went though.

This is a good question. The right people to answer would be the Early adopters and Original inhabitants of the forum. Those are the only people who can actually make a difference because they have enough BTC to make a difference. The rest of us can post away all we want, it won't change the fact that majority of BTC is being hoarded due to lack of avenues to spend or to avoid taxation.

Even on our forum, not enough of these people can be found. Maybe due to privacy reasons and the very real risks that early adopters have if they are known to be big hodlers. This is the major impediment in adoption. No matter how many free tutorials spring up, without a spending spree, BTC isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Imagine if the Federal Reserve had decided to hoard all its USD bills and opened a million free tuitions to tell people about the "advantages" of Fiat currency. Would we ever see adoption on the global scale we have now?? No.  Fiat gets adopted because those who produce it and hold it, spread it out in form of wages and as public investments.

Unfortunately, those who produce BTC (Miners), sell it off to maintain operations and earn Fiat. Those who hold it (Early adopters, 1000+ purse-holders), JUST HODL IT. I believe that maybe a jolly few amongst them open Sig campaigns and run Gambling dens here at the forum. That is what maintains the trickle down effect. Where are all the others from the forgotten tombs of BCT?? Fuck knows..

This could be a good discussion if a few old people came forward anonymously to actually tell their stories.

#Proof of Authentication
Bitcointalk Username:amishmanish
Rank: Senior Member
Bitcoin Wallet Address: bc1q58fyah8t0k3qz8u66g33ryl3x6d4n809p8hckf

Thanks for sharing the art Baraded. I am not yet rich enough to be a collector so i am looking for something that is of utility or related to a hobby of mine. I wish you find the right buyer.

How can the ledger nano be verified cestmoi?? I heard of a story where some guy lost his BTC after using a tampered one bought from ebay. What is the trust factor with buying a ledger nano like this. Anybody else reading this is welcome to answer if you know of this or have purchased hardware wallets off the forum.

Offering from Techshare are really cool..Do you have any of the Spawn series comics by Todd Mcfarlane? Sent you a PM too..