I couldn't care less about the centralized/decentralized aspect of NFTs, because I think that's a trivial matter in their case.  The most important point about NFTs is exactly what you described--they're worthless, just as all digital art will be judged to be if it can be reproduced by anyone such that the only thing distinguishing the NFT and the copy is the fact that the NFT is on a blockchain.

I also have to say, when a new concept like NFTs comes out and the entire space turns into a scammer's paradise, that's not a good sign.  Those hucksters on Youtube who are hyping these things like crazy are probably being paid to do it, because I don't see how anyone in their right mind would think there's anything worthwhile about owning some ugly pixelated mess for the long term.  The NFT market has turned into a perfect example of the greater fool theory in action, on the internet, for everyone to witness.

Mark my words, it'll last a year and then interest will die off instantly.  Just like ICOs and just like DeFi.

I take back what I said about not posting in this thread, because for whatever reason I feel like I have to respond to comments like yours; you are correct that things don't look good, and the longer this goes on with no reply from any of the members involved, the worse it looks and the worse it probably is. 

It's possible that it could take time to provide a full accounting of funds moved/spent by any one member, but when there's just radio silence that isn't a good sign that anything is being worked on.

I'm pretty sure there's a way to put bitcoin in a wallet with 2FA or something similar, right?  Aren't bitcointalk's funds held in an arrangement like that?  That might have been a good idea with this amateur-hour charity, since if they did that Cabalism13 would have had to ask permission from at least one of the other members before using some of the funds for his own purposes.  Instead, he apparently sought advice from people who had nothing to do with the charity and were in no position to give him permission to do anything with those funds.  At least that's what he claimed.

I bet you they're not, and the only reason I say that is because none of them are your typical fly-by-night scammers, plus I don't believe the charity was started with the intention of scamming anyone.  I think temptation and the availability of a large amount of money got the best of at least one of the members involved.

For some reason I don't always catch this thread every time it's updated, and I probably should bookmark it.  Last week's list was kinda meh, but between that one and this week's I was able to unload a ton of merits--so thanks once again, DdmrDdmr.  This month I've been having the feeling that my merit-sending has been lacking; I've still got over 200 personal sMerits that haven't been touched in quite a while, and it seems like forever since I've run so low on overall sMerits that I've had to ask for more.

Also, for those of you who have taken me up on my offer of a monthly post history review, feel free to keep doing so as long as you haven't hit Legendary.  I'm not guaranteeing any merits, but usually I can find something in a member's post history that's merit-worthy.

An army of memes.  I'm not even sure what "meme" means anymore, because that word has gotten used so much to describe so many things, kind of like "narrative" and "racist".  But you're dead-on about the majority of Youtubers being view whores--and the worst are the ones who get paid from Youtube ad revenue in addition to having product advertisements sneaked into their videos.  Watching most videos on that platform is just like watching a bunch of TV commercials.

Uh, yeah.  And no offense to anyone in their 20s, because I've been there, but I constantly see and hear guys in that age range giving all sorts of financial advice as if they know what they're talking about--and believe me, 99% of them don't.  They might have made money with crypto, but making a profit in a bull market doesn't make you an expert on anything.  A monkey with a brain injury could do it as long as its fingers work, and when I hear someone barely past puberty giving trading/investing advice whilst the video playing is of some FPS game, I just shake my head.  The only human being who could possibly benefit from content like that is the person who made it.

No doubt Youtube influences the younger generation heavily, but when it's influencing them to trade crypto, that could create a bubble.  When lots of money pours into a market from people who don't really know what they're doing--but think they do--then it usually doesn't end well.

But I can't say I blame any of them for not investing in metals.  Young people probably should take a bit more risk than gold and/or silver, especially if they're investing for the future and want capital appreciation.

Doh!  That'll happen when the content of an entire post is just your username, because if I'm not mistaken those tend to get deleted sooner or later, either because a mod is cleaning up a section or thread, if a thread gets deleted entirely after a game like that is over, or if someone reports those posts when it's over.  So counting on low-value posts (even if they're meant to be such) to contribute to your activity when you're below Legendary is risky. 

But you're doing all right, and I'm sure if you keep making decent posts (that aren't for games like the above) you'll get back to where you were before you know it.  If it's any consolation, I've seen people get busted down a rank or two because someone reported a bunch of their crappy posts and a mod deleted a bunch of them all at once, and those were actual discussion posts.

Congrats to everyone who ranked up!  It never fails to amaze me how few members are climbing the ranks every time this thread gets updated, because prior to the merit system a list like this would have had probably a hundred or more names on it.  So the members who rank up these days truly deserve to do so IMO.  Props to all of you.

OMG, I don't usually quote images but I have to comment on this one.  Not only is it true, but the montage of thumbnails perfectly encapsulates what Youtube has become--and as I think I've mentioned in a previous post, you can find idiotic clickbait-y thumbnails like that for videos on a vast array of topics.  Youtube started as a cool, homegrown video site....and now everyone has paid sponsors and/or is paid by Youtube, and everyone is following their ever-changing and always stricter rules on the type of content that can be uploaded.  It's turned into a site where the videos are the equivalent of typing in all caps, with everyone screaming for clicks and attention.

Oh, and by the way don't forget to smash that like button and hit subscribe if you want more content like this.  It really helps out the channel....blah fucking blah blah.

I wanted info on two things today: DeFi projects and the state of ETH 2.0.  I searched Youtube and found results that look like those thumbs above and only one useful video on the latter.  This sort of makes me wonder if bitcointalk's Youtube channel is going to conform to the current standard of carbon copy videos or, if it doesn't, how in the world is it going to attract attention on a site where the worst content is the most heavily promoted.

I suppose if we ever see another video, we'll find out.

I'm amazed you were actually able to decipher what the idea was, because the only part of OP's post that wasn't fluff was this:

And from that statement it isn't really clear what exactly is being suggested.  Are ICO/DeFi/whatever project owners supposed to chip in to an insurance pool so that their bounty hunters don't get scammed?  An escrowed amount of funds covering any bounty or campaign would be better--but I'm still not sure, because there's so little detail included that it could mean anything.

By the way, LoyceV, you're right to slap your head when members want more regulation.  Ben Franklin probably wouldn't be able to comprehend what the US has morphed into since he died.  Security cameras on every street corner, people being forced to wear face masks, and on and on.  Christ, one of the best things about bitcointalk is that Theymos is a hands-off kind of guy.  Sure, I think it'd be nice if known scammers got banned, but I can live with the forum as it is because it's probably one of the few left in existence that allows members to express their thoughts without fear of a ban or having posts deleted if they don't align with the forum administrator.

In other words, I'd rather not have bitcointalk follow the path of Youtube and become a nice, family-oriented theme park where everybody's nice and safe.  Fuck that.

What a joker (or group of jokers, who knows).  

It figures that when something like Fuckerberg's metaverse is all over the news that someone would try to use crypto as a medium with which to scam, and that's exactly what's going on with this "project".  And even if they didn't plagiarize all of those words, what's the point of this scheme anyway?  Right now the metaverse hasn't gone live (has it?), and I don't think there's anything as far as ICOs or any other crypto-related thing that would benefit anyone at this point.

At best, it's a cash-grab for Facemeta.  At worst, it's a scam designed to steal people's money--this isn't 2018, and we all know the sordid history of ICOs.

Good eyes on this one, OP.  I've tagged that fucker.

I'm unbelievably ignorant of computer science and programming, so I don't know what those attack vectors are for PoS coins (and I haven't read anything about that topic).  I don't want to go off-topic, but I'm curious as to what those are and if they've ever compromised a PoS coin before.  I've been a fan of them for a while now--and yeah, you can call me stupid for that if you like--and I haven't heard of a PoS coin that's been hacked or attacked or what have you.

The whole "getting paid for having money" thing isn't necessarily a design flaw, nor is it a new concept.  Investors who own dividend-paying stocks get paid for holding their stock, and it's a perfect example of passive income.

But all of that aside, I'd say you answered OP's question in full.  Bitcoin's code wasn't written to be proof-of-stake, period.  I'd suggest that if OP still isn't aware of the difference, he might want to do some Googling on the subject.  Hell, I'm computer retarded (the second time I'll note that fact) and even I understand why you can't stake bitcoin.

OK guys (those of you who posted recently), this topic was started over a year and a half ago, and it was that long since I posted in it.  Obviously nobody is reading the whole thread, probably just the title, and I should have locked this thing up a long time ago.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to buy an e-bike with bitcoin but did buy one with fiat.  I'm not exactly sure how much bitcoin I had at the time I started this thread (if any), but looking back on this question of mine I think it would have been a really, really bad move to spend bitcoin on a $5000 bicycle when the option to spend rapidly-inflating fiat currency instead. 

Bitcoin was under $10k back in April/May of 2020 if I'm not mistaken, and that was when I was seriously considering the purchase.  The $5000 in bitcoin I would have spent would have gone to over $30k when the new ATH was reached. 

In any case, I did end up enticing a business to accept bitcoin, which I wrote about in this thread, which I'm also going to lock.  Sometimes businesses are willing to be flexible, sometimes not.  Fortunately I didn't spend a lot of bitcoin to get my computer looked at. 

And, I might add, taxes are or will be going up under Biden's reign of senility.  The government has more hands than any alien creature you could imagine, and they're all in our pockets fishing for what little money we have--and on top of the money printing you mentioned, there's the undeclared tax of inflation which is a direct consequence of irresponsible fiscal policies (like handing out money in the form of stimulus/COVID relief as if it were Halloween candy).

Yeah, you better believe bitcoin is a sounder form of money than the USD is.  The dollar might not be hyperinflated and carted around in wheelbarrows yet, but we're getting there.  What's frustrating is that no one I know in real life seems to see this or care much about it if they do.  I don't know what everyone is staring at on their smartphones all the time, but I'm guessing it doesn't have anything to do with economics.

Yeah, that seems to be the case with Yobit.  And what the hell is SQUID2?  Not many people seem to be talking about DeFi outside the altcoin sections (which I have ignored and I'm not sure how hot a topic it still is there), so those trading pairs OP's screenshot shows look totally foreign to me.

Another question: How is Yobit even still around?  They've been in business longer than a lot of exchanges, and that's highly unusual for one as shitty as they are.  It boggles my mind that somehow they can still draw in the suckers and fleece them of their money.  Do people find out about them from bitcointalk primarily?

Anyway, I don't know if this is their biggest scam or even exactly how much of a scam it is, but if anyone winds up trying this DeFi thing on Yobit, I'd encourage them to post their results here or in another thread.  It's all fine and dandy to post a warning like this, but it'd be better if there was evidence of someone actually getting scammed from Yobit's new thing (not that I want anyone to, mind you).

Yep, message received.  Now stop bumping this thread by replying to posts individually and continuously--you'll get in trouble with the mods if you keep doing that.

Generally, I don't worry about any of those things because I know that there's some pretty clear legal recourse for me if non-crypto companies steal from me.  But when it comes to anything in the crypto space, once your coins are gone, they're gone--so that's kind of an unfair comparison.

I'm in the class of people Pmalek referred to, i.e., those who are unable to verify that the code behind hardware/software/whatever wallets doesn't contain anything malicious, and therefore I have to trust that other people who know how to analyze code have done so with whatever wallet we're talking about. 

And yeah, sometimes I do wonder about Ledger's products as I know their code is closed-source.  I don't think it's likely that one day everyone's Ledger coins are going to disappear and that whoever runs the company is going to flee the country....but it's possible.  Not probable, but the chance of it happening isn't zero. 

That's going to happen when computer-illiterate folks like myself get into it, but would we really want bitcoin to be for computer science majors exclusively?

It's definitely a phase, exactly like you described it except the ICO craziness involved a lot of straight-up scams, whereas the NFT mania seems to be a digital version of the tulip bubble (and yes, I know there are scams in the NFT space).  Something like this could only happen in a world where people have too much time and money on their hands.

Sure, NFTs would be a great innovation for that--but wanna bet the music/concert venue industry never adopts it?  All of those ICO projects had ideas about solving real-world problems with blockchain technology.  How many of them do you see around you right now, having been implemented?  I sure as hell don't see a single one, and I'm predicting NFTs won't be used for any useful purpose either.  

Time will tell, and we could all argue endlessly about what the future holds, but in the present NFTs represent digital art primarily and those art pieces are going for crazy prices (not all of them, but more than is justified IMO).  The market is in a bubble, plain and simple.

Edit:

Dang, you wrote pretty much what I did.  Should have read this whole page first, but there's a lot of bickering.  You're on point about the whole solution-in-search-of-a-problem thing.  That phrase has been uttered since at least 2013, because I remember reading it on that forum for skeptics that James Randi owned before I joined bitcointalk.  Back then they were saying it about bitcoin, but it's just as applicable to NFTs.

If you have to sell crypto in order to buy presents or anything else, there's a good chance you're overinvested in crypto to begin with.  Whales sure as hell aren't selling their bitcoin/ETH/etc. to buy stocking stuffers, and as long as you have enough fiat to buy such things with, it makes no sense to use crypto instead--not with inflation starting to get out of control and while bitcoin is still near $50k.

I'm not sure about the "societal pressure" part of your statement, OP.  We all experience that in one form or another and bend to it to some degree whether we like it or not.  If you want to be a grinch during the holiday season, that's your prerogative, but I think it's a nice thing if you can afford to buy friends and family some gifts at least once a year.

Buying them with bitcoin is a mistake, however, unless you have so much of it that your gift budget doesn't even put a dent in your holdings.  And even then I'd still spend fiat rather than bitcoin for the reason that I mentioned.  Why be stupid with your money?

Yeah, the whole "You can check the IP addresses!" argument is a non-starter, since none of us can do that.  And as I wrote in my previous post, it's possible that this is some kind of family bounty farm (though the thought of that chills me to the bone) but the more likely explanation is that these accounts are controlled by a single person.

Unfortunately, there's no way to tell for sure--and that's why I stopped tagging suspected merit abusers a long time ago, in addition to the fact that Theymos doesn't really want them tagged unless the abuse is blatant and extensive.  The argument could be made that there's some bounty cheating going on here, but that's up to individual members to decide as to whether to tag these accounts or not.

They might not be breaking their bounty rules, but I'm certain they're abusing the merit system.  Maybe the bounty manager will care about that, maybe not.  I'm also not sure how prevalent those "bounty farms" really are, though they do exist as far as I know.  It seems more likely that when you have four accounts like this with sorta-similar usernames, all sending merits back and forth among them that it's a single person behind them all.  If they were individuals, I'd think they wouldn't necessarily try to join the same bounty, since there are plenty of them.  Nor would they have similar usernames.

I could be wrong about all of that, of course, and in the end it doesn't really matter.  There's merit abuse going on and possibly cheating in a bounty--and it's all up to the BM to decide what, if any, action to take.  Good catch on this one, OP.

You might try doing it anyway, though it sucks that apparently he's the type who wouldn't care.

Yeah, most likely this isn't some kind of farm with multiple individuals; it's probably one person behind all four accounts.

If that's true, it's nice to know there's a way around that awful facial recognition software--at least the software Binance uses.  That shit scares me.

But as far as your friend goes, OP, it sounds like a ridiculous circumstance he's in if they really can't verify his identity because of some facial hair.  However, I've tried to go through the KYC process on multiple exchanges, and it's never worked.  Not once.  Each time I'd get a message about how my face or some other part of the photo was blurred, and blah blah blah.  I think crypto exchanges are looking for pixel perfect perfection when it comes to those KYC pics. 

Unless your friend absolutely needs to be verified on Binance (or any other exchange), I'd suggest he not do it just for privacy reasons.

Didn't he get what he said he wanted in return?  It sounds like he did.  If what he really wanted was some positive feedback or to lure you into some kind of shenanigans, then I'd say he failed miserably--and props to you for taking the high road and dealing with a messed-up situation like this in a calm and considered manner.

From what you described, it sounds like the member might have been trying to buy some positive trust, but who knows?  I can't imagine him making such a fuss if all he wanted to do was to test out the lightning network, can you?  If it was me, I'd just block the member's PMs and be done with it, and I wouldn't even have refunded him the $5.  I've learned over the years to go with my gut and to not treat sketchy members here with kid gloves.

Yep.  People do it on eBay all the time (or at least they used to, before their feedback system became a complete joke).  I've often gotten requests for reciprocal feedback there even when the other party had nothing at risk.

You're probably right on that, but I'm awaiting the final tally from the other two members.  And I don't think I was being too hard on cabalism13 at all, since he clearly was mismanaging funds.  Even if he thought he wasn't, his response to the community speaks volumes.  This is not a person I'd entrust with my money, hence the negative trust.

Also, this isn't my fight since I wasn't a donator and had nothing to do with the workings of the charity, so I'm going to remain silent henceforth in this thread until or unless crwth and bl4nkcode explain themselves.  However, as a DT member (and for my own trust list) I felt a negative was well-justified in this case.

I don't know how long it took you to do that analysis, but I've no doubt an even more complete one could have been done by the three members in question if they had the inclination to do so, and it could probably have been finished on the 3rd day of this thread at the latest.