Ugh, I'm really hoping so because this year was one of the worst I've experienced--for a number of reasons, which I won't bore anyone with.  But I'm sure I'm not alone in that regard, because there seems to be bad news popping up from everywhere on a daily basis.

So happy 2022 to everyone here!  It's hard to believe I've been an active member of this forum for so long, and it seems like it's a completely new group of people I'm wishing that happy new year to.  There have been a lot of members who've come and gone since 2015, and for those who've stuck around longer than that it must seem even more pronounced.

But I'm happy to see that the new forum software has yet to be unveiled, because I kind of like the 2010 look.

I've done that "this is off-topic, but...." thing before, but normally at least part of that post will be on-topic.  And I'd also suggest that some rules have (and should have) different degrees of enforcement.  In the case of off-topic replies, I definitely wouldn't want mods to be so strict that a free discussion is inhibited--because a lot of members stray from a thread's main topic.  I see it all the time.  Compare that rule to the one about doxxing outside of the Investigations section, and you'll get my point.

As far as the other stuff goes, all I have to say is that moderators are human beings.  So sometimes they have bad days, are in bad moods, sometimes aren't thinking straight, whatever.  Nobody is perfect.  But I don't see inconsistencies that stand out so much that I think it's a real problem.  I don't think I've ever complained about mods or the job they do, because I don't really see any of them abusing their power or being blatantly unfair.  They've got a crazy job to do, so they deserve a lot of slack.

Did you ever hear of the story of Jim Clark trying to revolutionize the healthcare industry with a team of engineers right around the time the internet was taking off?  He and his team went to various branches of the healthcare system and offered them their software and gave their pitch about how the internet would streamline all the inefficiencies in the system....and they basically politely refused.

If the insurance industry adopts anything blockchain-related, I can almost guarantee you that it's not going to come in the form of someone creating a DAPP, an ICO, or anything else that comes from outside their fiefdom.  In other words, if they ever use a DAO or what have you, they're going to develop it themselves.

Second, have you noticed that there's seemingly nobody out in the real world who's made use of smart contracts or any other neat little thing that blockchain tech can do?  For huge industries, there either has to be something seriously broken in order for them to fix it, or a change would have to boost their profits massively.  Having said that, I couldn't tell you a thing about how a DAO would work in the insurance industry.  I'm not a big fan of that particular sector.

Lol.  And what you wrote is a great example of why companies haven't adopted crypto or even blockchain related features thus far, and it's been quite a while since bitcoin came out.

Maybe in your mind it faded away, but imagine someone seeing the video who knows nothing about the forum and doesn't care about it or the quality of his/her posts or that of anyone else's.  You know, just like the thousands of members we currently have who heard about bitcointalk through a friend/family member/whatever and decided to make this place a home where there's no distinction between the kitchen and the bathroom, if you know what I mean.

Not that I think that'll happen right away....but it could happen if there's even a hint that there are pay-for-post opportunities available here.  Which there are.  And it was hinted at.  Only thing is that the video has under 400 views, most of which were probably from current members.  I'm just sayin', now.

If all you have to do is drop a dozen or so shitposts to collect a small amount of bitcoin, an asset that has the potential to rise astronomically, wouldn't you jump at the chance?  That was rhetorical; pages fill up with applicants as soon as a new campaign thread is started, and it's been that way for years no matter what the pay rate is.

Eh....that's the kind of veering off topic that I hope the channel doesn't do, because it's more a discussion of bitcoin itself rather than the channel.  It's a slip-and-slide straight to becoming just another bitcoin-hyping Youtube channel with thumbnails of bearded guys showing shocked/sad/confused/disgusted expressions on their faces with some kind of 1000 point font "10 ways you can grow your bitcoin" wording in the background.

No, they're probably not doing that at all, but Wikileaks might not be the kind of organization that would be expected to provide a tally of every dime spent, nor are the donators (IMO) the type of people who would expect that of them.  That said, I don't know a great deal about WikiLeaks except for what's made the news, so take my opinion for what it's worth. 

Questions were raised about Cabalism13 et al's charity because yahoo62278 had some suspicions that there was something shady going on, and either his intuition or his familiarity with their project turned out to be correct.  And, I might add, this forum's members have had a long history of scamming with crypto and what turned out to be a harsh grilling originally started out with some simple questions which were posed very politely.  I think if anyone had suspicions or evidence that Wikileaks was misusing donated funds, it wouldn't go unchallenged.

Is that a donation address you posted or donations you received?  It's probably me, but I don't quite get what you were trying to say by posting that screenshot.

Wow....creating those tax breaks was a damn good move on PR's part if it brought a bunch of hedgies over.  Whether they're into crypto or not, they're most definitely going to be stimulating the local economy--and by extension Puerto Rico's as a whole--with all the money they bring with them.  This is a pretty cool story, and thanks once again for posting something like this, Hydrogen.

Now, it's been a very long time since I took basic history and geography so someone remind me what the exact relationship is between the US and PR.  I was always under the impression that if a mainland US citizen were to fly there or even move there, they wouldn't need a passport or a green card or what have you.  Is that the case or not?  I know they're not a US state (duh), but I thought they were one of the US's territories--and I'm not even sure what that means.  Lol.

I swear, I wish I spoke Spanish.  I've thought about moving to another country before, and considered it seriously, and a couple of my top choices' native tongue is Spanish.  It'd be a no-brainer to just fly on out to PR and just forget to come back to the states.

Hope this isn't too far off topic, but this is a thread about escrowing: Do escrows get a fee or a tip for their services usually?

I've never escrowed any deals before, but if it only involves crypto transferring I'd be willing to do it for anyone who would trust me enough to do it.  I'd definitely want a few sats for my efforts if the amounts involved are sufficient to warrant it, as I have heard what you described about occasionally having to resolve disputes and such--plus it is providing a valuable service.  Anyway, if anyone sees this and is interested, PM me.

And Dave, you didn't mention if there are any members on the forum who escrow deals right now.  I might just be missing them, since I have Currency Exchange on ignore.  I can't remember the name of the members who used to do it on the regular back in 2015-16 or so.

Yeah, I see your point there--I remarked on this topic in the other thread where the inquisition is going on and didn't consider that aspect. 

But I also think I said that the best escrow would have to be one that already has an established record of not being crooked when acting as an escrow, and the longer the track record the better.  I don't even know who does escrowing these days on the forum.  When I first joined, I used to see it mentioned a lot and there were a few members who were completely trusted to handle large sums of bitcoin or altcoins.

What do you have to do to escrow a deal, just hold the funds until the counterparty says it's OK to release them?  Is it that much of a pain in the ass to be one? 

I know this thread is over two months old, but I think this is an appropriate bump.

Somehow I came across Coinex as I was out of my mind looking at altcoin stuff all over the web and noticed that one of the coins I'm interested in is traded on it and that they're a no-KYC exchange, so I decided to give them a shot.  Since I've been burned by smaller exchanges in the past I did find this thread first while researching them and read it in full (and it seems like not a lot of you guys have tried Coinex).

Anyway, I registered and deposited small amounts of two altcoins just to see how the process went.  One coin showed up first, but well after the minimum number of confirmations required by Coinex.  I waited for several hours for the second coin to show up in my wallet, getting more frustrated, and finally I submitted a ticket with the TxID, amount, and a statement of what the problem was.  A true pain in the ass.  When I woke up this morning I had an e-mail from them saying that my coins were credited to my account.  I checked, and they were indeed there. 

I haven't done any trades with them yet or withdrawn any coins, so I can't speak to that, but the above experience was my first day using the exchange, and I told them exactly that and how disappointed I was in my ticket.  When I compare that to my experience with Kucoin, there's absolutely no comparison whatsoever.  I've had minor problems with Kucoin in the past, but they were all solved very quickly and didn't happen often. 

I think Coinex is legit, but I definitely got a bad taste in my mouth from yesterday's ordeal.

I don't think this is an issue that has to do with nationality, and I'm not sure Timelord2067 implied anything of the sort.  However, if there's any fact that might cause more suspicion as to the members involved and where they live, it's that bitcoin can buy a lot more in the Philippines than in a lot of other countries.  That's not to say that someone living in a country with a higher cost of living wouldn't be tempted by having access to a large amount of bitcoin, but I mean come on....first of all, it's easy to pilfer when the available amount is large and maybe a small amount goes unaccounted for (initially at least); and second, it's just straight-up more tempting to run off with an amount of money if it has more purchasing power in your country vs. one where it wouldn't.  I think the second part is common sense.

Having said all that, I don't know exactly how much more a bitcoin will buy you in the Philippines compared to the UK, Germany, or wherever.  I'll also reiterate that the members being Filipino in itself has nothing to do with this situation.  The same actions taken by anyone else in any other country would no doubt be under the same scrutiny, because they speak for themselves.  Hell, I didn't even know where Cabalism13, crwth, and bl4nkcode were from until it was mentioned here (or I forgot). 

You know, that makes me wonder about why exactly the production was so high on the first video (and the teaser, too).  I have to assume that there was some money spent to make it what it was, because that was definitely no crappy camera that was used, and the vid was put together with some effects that must have taken some talent--and unless someone is volunteering to provide their services and equipment, this is going to be an ongoing investment on the part of the forum.

So what I'm wondering now is what the plans are to monetize and expand the channel.  That has to be the eventual goal, because I don't think Ninja-dude and whoever else is involved would keep making high-quality content for a very small, specialized audience (as evidenced so far by the subscriber count, which is 64 as I write this).  And it isn't likely that strictly forum-related topics would attract a broader viewership base.  Am I way off base there or what?

Honestly, I hope the channel does attract more viewers and subscribers and that it draws in more people to the forum.  Hey, with more eyeballs here seeing signatures perhaps campaign rates will go up accordingly.  Lol.

KingsDen, I just want to chime in (late, as I didn't see your reply) and say that JayJuanGee is correct; merit sources are able to see on the screen that pops up when you're sending merits how many source sMerits you have and how many earned ones.

If it wasn't clear--I just got up and my reading comprehension is a little dull--when a merit source sends merits, their source sMerits are used up first and only after those are depleted completely are the earned ones used.  My guess is that a lot of merit sources have a ton of sMerits in reserve as a result of this, and IMO that's how it should be.  I think I've pleaded with Theymos twice for an increase in my allocation, and now it's all good and balanced on my end.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

NO.

Could I put it any clearer?  There's way, way too much emphasis on what random or celebrity Twitter idiots say, whether it's on the news or Youtube videos or wherever.  The fact is that shit is just noise; people write things on Twitter in the hopes that it'll be noticed, so much of what you'll see on those forms of media I mentioned is inflammatory in nature or just straight up stupid--and the worst part is that those tweets are given so much weight.  In reality, everyone has an opinion and I don't want to see Twitter opinions given any attention on this forum by being given their own subsection.

Very bad idea, OP.

Ugh.  That's not nearly enough to gain any sort of influence with politicians when you compare it to how much power and money and lobbyists the banking industry has.  Those crypto firms might as well be sending bitcoin to a burn address.

But maybe--hopefully--I'm wrong.  However, the government has seen cryptocurrency as a threat to the USD since day one (anyone seen the Cryptopia documentary?), and given that the banking system hasn't adopted bitcoin or any other crypto yet, you'd better believe their interests run counter to those of the crypto lobbyists.  I try to see stories like this in an optimistic light, but maybe it's my personal psychological makeup or maybe it's me just seeing things for what they are that makes me think efforts like the ones in this story are futile at worst and marginally effective at best.

I guess what I can say with certainty is that I'm glad people are trying to push back against things like the crypto clause in the infrastructure bill.  Personally I wrote four letters to my state senators and congressmen a while back, after hearing about how that clause was snuck into the bill.  And gee, I wonder who would want to have such a thing tacked on to a bill that on its face has nothing whatsoever to do with cryptocurrency, money laundering, or any of that? 

Probably the banks.

Agreed.  I've created threads in which I've given out a lot of merits to people who've replied, and not necessarily because they liked my post(s), but doing that in a thread where you're selling something has an air of ickiness about it if you're a merit source.  

While it's true that there are source sMerits and personal ones, if you're a source you're always dipping into your source sMerits first.  It might be a small matter, but when you merit posts like these it's questionable whether the source is using good judgement as far as merit-sending:



In krogothmanhattan's defense, though, it isn't a ton of merits we're talking about and he might have a lot of earned sMerits at his disposal to cover all of the posts like that.  And though I don't follow the Collectibles section, I don't think he's in the habit of giving out merits frivolously.  In any case, if Theymos thinks it's a problem it's his call to do something about it (which I don't think it is, and I don't think Theymos will).

Is it TryNinja?

Anyway, I loved the second video so much that I'm not even going to nitpick the aspects of it that I didn't like, because they're outweighed so much by my liking of it that it would kill the buzz.

I had to chuckle that signature campaigns were mentioned, and for a minute there I nearly slapped my head, anticipating that it might draw in a ton of people intrigued by the idea of getting paid to post--despite the fact that it was noted that campaigns are thought to be responsible for the spam problem.  However, I suppose it remains to be seen how many people actually see the video.  At the time I watched it (about 3 minutes ago) it had 120 views.

And dang:



I's internetz famous!!  If only for a millisecond.  And I think that's the first time I've seen the Chipmixer signature as it's displayed to people who don't have sigs ignored.

Edit:
Ah.  Well that would make sense given Cyrus's position with the forum.  Guess I hadn't paid attention to that custom title.

It's not it at all, at least for people who know what cryptocurrencies are all about.  I'd also suggest that investopedia shouldn't be relied on as an authoritative source of information--especially if that's what they (or whoever contributed to it) wrote about altcoins, because they clearly don't understand what they're talking about.

Consider that there's really no fundamental difference between bitcoin and your typical altcoin in terms of their nature.  Sure, there are a lot of little differences, but basically bitcoin is a crypto just like Litecoin is or Dash or you name it.  If you lump all altcoins into the category of "Ponzi scheme" you might as well put bitcoin into that as well--and that would be just as wrong.

Way back in the day I used to think bitcoin was a scam, or at the very least a bad idea that would never catch on (and goddamn was I so painfully wrong on that point), but I never considered it a Ponzi.  A Ponzi is a subset of scams that employs a very specific tactic, with some variations on the theme, which was described in the OP here.  Obviously whoever wrote that altcoin description for investopedia doesn't get it.

Edit: hatshepsut93, I swear I didn't read your post before writing mine.  I basically wrote the same thing you did about Ponzis being a specific type of scam.  Nice to see that others see things logically.

Not for nothing, but we didn't need a mini-essay on what an escrow service is.  If you don't have an opinion on this matter or are unfamiliar with it, just don't bother with bloated shitposts.

That would be ideal, and I wrote much the same thing in the thread dealing with the charity:

Unfortunately, how many of us know the financial situation of any other member on bitcointalk?  Very few of us know each other in real life, and if someone is offering an escrow service, how is anyone able to determine whether that person is in financial trouble?  They might have a bunch of green trust, they might be on DT, but none of that indicates how well-off they are or if they'd be tempted to scam if they had control of a large amount of funds.  Again, I'll give the example of Master-P who was very trusted but wound up scamming for a lot of money.  You just never know.

That wouldn't guarantee the escrow wouldn't be tempted to double his money, though.  Even if the escrow provided proof that he had 10x what he was escrowing, temptation, the irreversible nature of bitcoin, and the history of scammers not being brought to justice might still be temptation enough.  The fact is that trusted members have scammed before, and people have been scammed for relatively small amounts of bitcoin before.  Those things will no doubt happen again no matter what safeguards are in place.

So yes, an escrow--at a minimum--should be financially well-off but I don't even think that guarantees they wouldn't scam.  I honestly don't know what can be done to ensure the safety of someone's funds with an escrow other than if the escrow has a long track record of successful escrowing, and even then....

As they say, it can take years to build a stellar reputation but only seconds to ruin it.  There have been many people throughout history who've done a lot of charity work and other good works for people only to have it sullied by a scandal.  Bernie Madoff is the first example that comes to mind, but I could probably list a dozen others if I thought about it for a few minutes.  

In addition, good intentions count for little if the accompanying behavior isn't good--the road to hell is paved with them, to use another old saying.  So you shouldn't be surprised that this charity, the members behind it, and how the funds donated were spent are all being scrutinized with critical eyes.  You've been a member of the forum long enough that you should know that reputations are destroyed in an instant and it doesn't matter what a person's history was.  Ultimately this is the internet and more importantly this is bitcoin.  It's very easy to scam with due to its pseudo-anonymous nature, and the whole bitcoin space is full of scammers and always has been.

Again with your feelings, just like cabalism13.  I don't know about anyone else, but the feelings of the three of you are irrelevant.  The receipts and how the money was spent are.  And again, you've been a member of bitcointalk long enough that you ought to know how members tend to think when it comes to someone not replying to a scam accusation while still being active on the forum.

What does the holiday season have to do with any of this?  Should anyone care more about the emotional feelings of three members who are being questioned by the community about some very serious matters?  And on top of that, there's been ample time for all of them to respond in this thread.  

I supported both flags thus far.

That's a case of "whataboutism" if I ever saw one, and those examples have nothing to do with this thread.  I hate to say this (and I'm not attacking you, but your argument), but you're being far too lenient on these three members and perhaps a bit naive as well.

Those behaviors don't preclude anything of the sort--it's just what a lot of bitcoin owners choose to do with their coins, and they certainly could use it as a form of money.  It's not like there aren't a ton of merchants who accept it as payment. 

This article reads very much like the typical precious metal permabull propaganda that I've been seeing for over a decade (and it's been written for much longer than that).  It is true that a currency meant to be spent should either be stable or inflationary (to discourage hoarding), but my question is this: Most of us know this, and it isn't something that hasn't been discussed hundreds of times before across the internet.  What's the point of this article, exactly?  And by "point" I mean why even write it in 2021?

Yeah but the problem with altcoins--and even the entire crypto market in general--is that there's absolutely no maximum supply of cryptocurrency.  Anyone can start up a coin based on an old one, slap a new label on it and hope people treat it as the next big thing.  And wouldn't you know, that's exactly what's been done over and over. 

Most altcoins make for better money than bitcoin since they're faster and cheaper to use, and that's fine by me.  Bitcoin can remain digital gold, something that people don't spend and invest in just like you would with gold.