Thank you, I was going to point that out myself.  I'm not sure if OP understands the difference or just wrote the wrong term (repeatedly).  Oh, and I'm a believer in the efficient market hypothesis myself, to an extent.  There are times when the market can be very, very irrational and valuations can either be inflated or less than the true value.  That's what makes Warren Buffett such a good investor.

If you take a look at most stocks right now, you'll see that they're trading at P/Es that are extremely high.  That indicates to me that they're not good investments right now.  Some of them may represent great companies, but you have to buy their stock at the right time, when it's close to its real value (or undervalued).

And with crypto, who the hell knows what the real valuation should be for any of them?  Your guess is as good as anyone else's.  I think the crypto market is probably the best example of an efficient market, because a coin is worth exactly what the market says it's worth at any given point.

That topic should definitely be discussed, because it's of great importance to cryptocurrency, but I'm not sure it should be in P&S.  That thread is in Bitcoin Discussion, and I think it's appropriate there and is probably the best section for it, as more members will likely see it there.  I'm pretty sure more members visit Bitcoin Discussion than P&S (and man, I hope that's the case).

I disagree that dehumanizing speech is a call to violence or that it would necessarily lead to violence--at least not on an internet forum like this one.  If I said something like "You shitposters are just monkeys", that's dehumanizing, right?  But that isn't going to lead to violence.  How about "The white man is the devil"?  I've heard that so many times, I've lost track.

I do agree with you about actual calls for, or threats of, actual violence.  The law has a very definite opinion on that as well.

Since OP didn't explain how he was going to convert crypto to fiat, it's hard to say whether converting his TRX to a coin with a lower withdrawal fee would have helped him, but I certainly see your point.  We'd kind of have to know which exchange he was using to withdraw fiat and whether a LTC-->fiat conversion is possible on it.

But yeah, 0.0009BTC is a pretty high fee, and personally I think it's excessive.  Obviously whatever exchange that was is making a profit from that, because it doesn't take that much to send bitcoin right now with a reasonably high network fee.  OP might have tried exchanging that TRX on the altcoin marketplace section.  I don't know how many trades happen there, but I'm pretty sure that he would have saved money had he found someone to trade with.

I thought about doing that recently, and perhaps I should.  I haven't seen a merit giveaway thread in a long, long time, and the last one was by actmyname if I'm not mistaken.  The only issue I have is that the members who post in them don't read the requirements, don't understand that I wouldn't just be giving merit away for shitposts, and that if I created such a thread it would just die off like the other ones have.  I suppose I could keep bumping it, but I think I've made the offer enough times that anyone who thinks their posts would hold up to my standards would have PMed me by now.

But I'll consider it.

Edit:

Right, and I think those merit giveaway threads were all in Meta, where you can't create self moderated threads.  I can't think of another section where a thread like that would be appropriate, but if any of the mods have suggestions I'd be happy to listen, because I agree that a merit giveaway should be in a self-modded thread.

I'm not so sure a new ATH depends on that, though I would say that if an ETF were approved it definitely wouldn't hurt.  I think the importance of bitcoin ETFs is overblown, though I could be wrong--and the only way I'm ever going to know that for sure is if one gets approved.  We'll see.

As I write this, bitcoin is moving toward $49k, which isn't bad, and I certainly wouldn't underestimate its volatility and rule out the possibility of surpassing its ATH by the end of the year.  But do I think that's actually going to happen?  I don't.  I'm also not sure a $20k+ rise in value over the course of three months would be sustainable, and I've written similar sentiments before.  I'd be much happier if the price rose slowly, hitting $64k by June 2022 or thereabouts. 

And that's a big part of the problem--I don't have the time to go scanning a wide array of sections searching for good posts.  I just don't have the time or even the interest to read threads in certain sections--and since I don't speak more than one language, all the local boards are ruled out. 

I'm glad I'm able to distribute as many merits as I do, and I wish more members would hit me up when I offer to do post history reviews, because I encourage that.

Giving more merits per post isn't a bad strategy at all, IMO.  That's something I couldn't do before my sMerit allocation got upped, because I'd easily run out if I gave more than 3 merits for a decent post.

And I don't think I'll get above #6 unless some merit sources above me drop out.  I'm not even sure I can maintain #6 on a monthly basis, as it's not easy to distribute that many merits consistently.  I'm glad some members have taken me up on my offer of monthly post history reviews and that the "Ranking up" thread exists in Meta.  If I had to rely on finding good posts all by myself, I don't think I could give out 600-800 merits monthly.

Thanks again for posting the results, OP!

I think this discussion belongs in Economics, and I'm glad OP posted this here, as I have Bitcoin Discussion on ignore.

None of this is surprising, even with names named--tax evasion among the ultra-wealthy and politically powerful has been going on for longer than any of us has been alive.  I think there are simply better ways of detecting that evasion these days (and probably more laws as well).

I see a lot of Asian names, and European ones as well.  I'd love to see some American ones, because I know damn well my country isn't exempt from this.

Look at these posts:


Now tell me if you think any of these are alt accounts or not.  OP started this thread on September 3rd, a month ago, and he's only posted once and it's a question about how to increase his rank.  You'd think that a person concerned with that would, oh, I don't know, start posting regularly?  Especially since that was suggested to him. 

This is an alt account farm in the making; that's the way I see it.

I don't know about anyone else, but the above post makes very little sense (especially the bolded part).

OP, you should do a lot more research, not only into DeFi but into cryptocurrencies in general, as it seems you're very new to the space--and if that's true, then welcome!  Crypto is fascinating and very profitable if you know what you're doing.  As far as loans and banks, I don't think banks want anything to do with crypto or the loaning of it.  Why would someone want to take out a bitcoin loan, for instance?  Probably to gamble or to speculate in risky investments, and banks aren't in the business of making those kinds of loans.

In addition, there's the issue of collateral.  On this forum there's a lending section, and the last time I checked there were members constantly looking for no-collateral loans and very few members taking out loans with real collateral (altcoins are basically the only good form of collateral for crypto loans).  I don't know much about DeFi myself, but I have a feeling it's not going to be a threat to the banking system like some people say it is.  Time will tell.

Ah yes, members of the 1000+ post/0 merit club.  Gotta love 'em.  At least what they post is mostly just bounty reports and not shitposts (though some of them do that as well).

It's not that the members who've posted don't really care, it's that there's not a hell of a lot any of us can do about the problem--and it's been discussed previously in many threads over a period of years.  Unless bounty managers become more selective in who they admit into those bounties, or if Theymos puts the smackdown on shitposting (which he won't), the only thing the community can do is complain about it--and that's a pointless exercise in futility.  That's why you're seeing so much apathy here.

And....the slump has reversed itself, and bitcoin is climbing back toward $50k as I write this.

The China news was pretty big, but I figured it wouldn't affect the price long-term.  Bitcoin has survived and thrived through pretty bad news events in the past, from exchange hacks to EFT rejection to strong governmental regulation changes.  I never expect it to move upward in a straight line, but I've come to expect that bad news doesn't keep it down for long.

The forum isn't dying as far as I can tell.  I'm curious as to what makes you say that.

Yep, that definitely looks like retaliatory exclusion to me.  I'm not exactly sure why he hasn't excluded me from his trust list, but it could be because he knows I don't have anything against him aside from the fact that he's overzealous with the negs he leaves--and I've communicated that to him before.  I believe I even told him I would reconsider my exclusion of him if he modified his feedback-giving habits, which he hasn't.

JollyGood, if you're reading this thread (which you probably are), you should weigh in on this.  Otherwise it's just going to be a discussion about you without hearing your thoughts, and that's kind of lopsided. 

If I'm not mistaken (and I'm by no means an accountant), most corporations don't have to use mark-to-market accounting.  Financial companies do, or often do, but I'm not sure if MSTR is required to.

The reason I'm chiming in about this is because I remember reading a history of Enron, and Jeff Skilling was lobbying the company to use mark-to-market because it would allow Enron to value its assets however it wanted to (and they often overvalued the ones that were hard to value in order to inflate their balance sheet).

In any case, if a company is using that method of accounting, there's nothing really bizarre about having to report a profit/loss on a quarterly basis.  That's the whole point of m-2-m.

Man, it must be time for me to get new glasses.  I swear I didn't see my username on that list, but I just checked it again and it was there.  Maybe I should get my head checked, too. 

And I don't know how I wound up that high on the list, but I'm flattered.  It sort of reminds me of how grateful I was to be added to DT2 a few years ago, back when it was a really big deal to be on the DT list.  Newer members might not have a sense of how hard it used to be to get two DT1 inclusions now that we have a rotating system, but I remember that I was beyond flattered that I was being considered by hilariousandco, Lauda, Vod, and Blazed.  How times have changed.

Wow, that's ballsy.  I respect that, though there's no way I could keep all of my assets in crypto--it's just far too risky, and at my age I'm more risk-averse than I used to be.  But I bet you that the people who do keep all or most of their wealth in bitcoin (I'm not sure about most altcoins) are going to see it pay off big time within a few years.  My one big regret in crypto is that I didn't buy and hold bitcoin when I had a chance to buy it at around $200 back in 2015 or so.

Do you know what the rate of inflation is in your country?  Every country has at least some inflation, but right now it's hitting certain regions harder than others.  In the US it's climbing, though I'm not sure what the exact official rate is (not that I trust it completely).  In any case, holding onto cash is a bad idea.  I don't know if crypto is a great hedge against inflation, but it's far better than keeping your money in the bank.

It's more like saying if you have the choice between throwing water on a flaming pile of shit or your house that's on fire, you should choose wisely.

It's not much of a stretch.  People are so caught up in making shitloads of money from frivolous ventures like NFTs that they've lost sight of why such things have become popular: tons of "free" money that isn't free at all--there's a cost to it that we haven't seen yet--and markets that are booming because of rampant speculation.  Everyone is drunk at a party that they think is never going to end, and to use your analogy of a burning house, there's a fire at the party that's starting to block the escape routes....but everyone is so plastered that they're not even aware of the smoke.

As far as the staring at smartphones, well, I see it every day.  We're growing into a world where people prefer staring at screens rather than talk to the person who's next to them.  Nobody is living in the moment, communication skills are being lost, and it's no wonder society has become so fragmented.

Every young generation has been poo-poo'ed by older generations; that's not unique to millenials or gen Zs, believe me.  The youth today are going to be the leaders of the world when they get older, and I'm just hoping they know how to run it.  They're also going to have one hell of a mess to clean up, courtesy of those "older counterparts".

I've got nothing against Neopets; I'm just not aware of it, and it seems trivial from my perspective.  No offense to the young folks here.  I'm an old fart who's discontent with the way things are run and the way I see the world headed.  Take everything I say with a mountain of salt.

It should go without saying that when people sell bitcoin they usually have need for the cash they get from it--unless they're just traders who're taking their profit off the table because they think bitcoin has hit a peak.  I've always had the feeling that a lot of smaller bitcoin owners are speculators who bought it with cash they're probably going to need in a month or two, and I think that's especially true during extended bull markets.

Regarding your story about the developers who bought land from people and did a lousy job with what they built: whoever sold them that land probably had to let go of it at some point.  Real estate very rarely stays in one family for more than a generation or two anymore, so I wouldn't fault them for selling it.  Unless you know the reason why they did, I don't see how they could be criticized for it.  I doubt they knew what the developers were going to do after they bought it.

It's amazing how much outrage and cohesion amongst people that can be created by some barely-known game trying to pull off some sort of NFT scam.  Yet when our governments are screwing us all in the ass with economic policies that are surely going to wreck the countries in which we live, most people shrug and continue staring at their smartphones.

To all the millenials and young folks from the newer generation: if you don't start paying attention to what's really important, you're in for a fucking catastrophe, which is probably coming sooner rather than later.  I wouldn't give a second thought to Neopets, NFTs, or any of those sideshow distractions.  Support real cryptocurrency (like bitcoin) and either get involved in politics directly or make your voice heard to the politicians now in power.  If you don't, you'll regret it, believe me.

As far as this Neopets thing goes, what do you expect?  OP summed up what the conversation probably was like at their headquarters, and the bottom line is that they thought they could exploit people's mania for NFTs, which I think are absolutely ridiculous.  If you paid 1 satoshi for an NFT, you've paid too much.

But freedom of speech should mean something to everyone if they believe it to be a human right, regardless of governmental guarantees.  No? 

In this case, we're talking about whether an internet forum should filter information based on whether or not it's true.  The discussion is also extending to governments and corporations, too, though that's kind of off-topic in this thread.  It ultimately boils down to whether a post that says "2+2=5" should be allowed, and I think that it should be.  I think that kind of statement should always be allowed, whether you extend it to flat-earthers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, or anti-vaxxers.  The minute you have someone filtering speech based on what that someone believes is the truth, we're in 1984.

Yep, it's all about you.