I am perfectly neutral in this situation as in I do not have anything to gain from supporting any of you, but I have to say that I think you're wrong. Hhampuz is more than likely not choosing participants purely based on Merits and I think my account proves it: I have tried to participate for the last slot, I have +350 merits received in the last 120 days and yet I haven't been chosen by Hhampuz; someone with less received merits in the past 120 days has been chosen. Why? Well, why does it matter after all? Hhampuz has had a pretty wide experience in campaign management and knows what he wants.

Although I've been the 1st or 2nd when it comes to merits on new campaign spot applicants lately, I haven't really been chosen. There are surely more than just 1 factor you're looking for when choosing someone and it's on a case-by-case basis: a campaign may want participants who are active in certain boards, other campaigns may want participants who write a lot of posts per day etc.

After all, it's the campaign he is managing and choosing a participant could also be subjective. The one you may think had deserved the last spot the most could be the one I, Hhampuz or anyone else thinks deserved it the least.

They were correlated for psychological reasons imo. Fear, panic etc caused by the pandemic and the very strict measures, to be precise. Like I said before, people all act the same way in some events. Example: if mandatory lockdown is imposed, everyone will think about the need of cash for their utilities, food etc => they sell assets they own.

Now, as we've all probably seen, the tensions are way smaller than they were 2-3 weeks ago. People are just now starting to think rationally and not in panic, so I expect them to start buying safe haven assets. I would've expected this to happen way later though. But give the world one more crappy news about the virus, get them back into panic mode and see all assets and stocks go correlated once again..

No offense but this is a pretty stupid question. Gambling can lead to suicide but there's a way to stop it. If you catch the virus and your immunity system is downhill already, good luck stopping it from screwing around.

The virus may be a problem now, but it's not going to last forever. There will be a treatment for it indeed. Even if you lose money through gambling, there are ways to recover. If you're addicted, there are ways to stop it. It's not a health condition and your chances to start contemplating suicide don't increase if you have pre-existing health conditions.

Big, big difference between the two and literally no link between them... One is an addiction leading to suicidal thoughts, the other is a virus ..

Tell this to someone who holds all their money in their bank account. They'd put millions there to get their little percentages yearly without thinking even for one second about the inflation that actually makes your money become less worth than it was when they've deposited it.

Lack of education. It's everywhere around us right now, popping up to the surface like oil in water. If someone considers holding money in a bank or holding their gold in a bank safe is secure, they'll have 0 concerns about holding their money on an online exchange. The saddest thing about it is that a bank can close/legally steal their funds just as easy as the online exchanges do. Nothing sits safer in any pocket other than yours. It just happens so that banks don't do this very often. But when it happens, it's wild.

The false image of Bitcoin being constantly linked to criminals should continue to be preserved, right? Why does it surprise you? Why offer USD for getting back your data when you can "offer the criminal's favorite coin" for it?

They know nothing about privacy and how BTC works. It's all based on assumptions and the false ideas of BTC authorities have successfully shaped in most people's heads. Possibly more of a desperate try to recover their information by trying to bait them with "their favorite candy" (BTC). Maybe this time the lesson will be learned.

Big warning sign to those who are willing to work with this wholesale guy. Even if the guy was to properly deliver the products on your first order, you're buying a high-quantity product which means the package will be large. It's a pretty popular scam to buy a wholesale product in high quantity at a good price and have it all perfectly delivered and then proceeding with a much larger investment which will come in shipping packages/containers half-filled with stones, sand or whatever else. I personally know at least 4 businessmen who've been scammed exactly this way.

Moreover, if you're going to try price gouging masks or any other pandemic-related items and get scammed, be very well prepared to hitting a huge wall in front of you once you cry out loud in the face of authorities. Get ready to not even have your case considered once they read that you've tried to purchase these products in high quantities to profit off a pandemic.

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If you were that good of a businessman, you would have left your social media profiles, link to your website etc here. If you do not trust us because of the "nature of this forum", then how are you going to trust your customers coming from this forum?

OP, I think there are lots of countries desperately looking to buy real masks for the safety of their own citizens and medical personnel. Sell them your products.

Will put a flag negative feedback on your profile right after leaving this reply and will not remove it unless you're proven to be a legit guy. Good luck with your scam and with finding someone to buy your possibly fake masks.

I'm sorry but you are comparing platforms that offer Buyer's Protection to what you are selling and doing.

1. You cannot offer Buyer's Protection.
2. If someone gets scammed by you, be it even through a signed contract, there's a chance you can't even be punished for it IF the customer wants to proceed with the investigation of your scam.
3. You're advertising a "20% upfront" payment when, in fact, it's a 100% upfront payment: 20% from the start and the rest, 80%, after you send the photos of the so-called "ready-to-send packages".
4. If fake particulate respirators are hard to be weeded out, how are you going to ensure that yours aren't fake either?
5. You just digged your own grave - if the KOREAN GOVERNMENT has issued warnings against procuring fake masks from AliExpress and other platforms, then how in the world do we have to trust YOUR masks?

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Price gouging masks could lead to problems with Customs and even to the confiscation of the masks by authorities. AliExpress refunded my money within less than 3 days after my request and it affected the seller's reputation too. I'd rather fight for 3 weeks and get my refund rather than going to the cops and being told there's nothing that can be done.

1. We're talking about Bitcoin payments (I have to assume that since we're on the BitcoinTalk forum), not USD. BTC is non-refundable; a bank transfer still has a possibility of being reversed although a well-experienced scammer has the proper methods not to make this a possibility anymore.
2. Stop comparing yourself with platforms that offer you the assurance that your money WILL be returned to you. I've had hundreds of orders from AliExpress and every single refund has been successfully processed. You're not AliExpress and you could very well actually be one of the sellers they've even banned from their platform for scamming and/or selling fake goods.

I've been scammed before for a sum larger than 10k EUR. By a scammer I've signed a contract with. I tried to recover my money from the scammer and after months the USA has tried helping me, they found the scammer but they couldn't've done anything to them. The law did not allow them to punish the scammer in any way.

AliExpress does not offer Escrow because they are the escrow, so don't you fucking try to mislead me. AliExpress takes the customer's money and keeps it locked until the customer has confirmed the intact arrival of the products. If the customer says the products did not arrive or are damaged, the money is retrieved to the customer and the seller gets nothing in return (or possibly the product, depending on a case-by-case basis).

So in other words, escrow or GTFO this forum.

Is this only a presumption or do you have evidence to back your claims? I've never heard of whales owning news agencies. The "insiders" part is true though - if you're a whale, it means you have a ton of money so you do have contact with some key persons from the crypto world.

I don't think cryptocurrency news are manipulating the markets willingly. Have you ever seen a Trump speech? Next time you do so, pop up some USA charts on your phone/laptop and watch how the markets move based on every single word Trump says. That's trading: you make moves based on the information you get. Once a significant headline hits the news, markets go wild.

I haven't watched a CS:GO tournament in many years, but I do remember lots of people complaining about the difference between LAN and Online play. I won't revive the same reply to repeat myself though - I have a different kind of concern, which is about the possibility of cheating. As far as I know, there have been quite a lot of discussions about the teams allegedly using personal USB mouses with scripts on them or turning on aimbots/wallhacks in the middle of matches.

"Tournaments will be played Online instead of through LAN" means they'll play from their own homes on their own separate computers, doesn't it? Or each team might have their own rented gaming computers set up in line for the tournament..

If that's the case, they better find a team in each city the teams are based that would supervise them during the match. Otherwise, get ready for some "amazing, never-seen-before skills"

Can someone confirm whether this following userscript from 2016 still works: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1451483.0? It apparently does exactly what tranthidung is asking for, but I can't make any use of it because I can't install addons on my browser

Because AliBaba is a PLATFORM. We have absolutely ZERO assurance of 100% receiving the products as you promise.
You know how many sellers scammed by not using escrow on BitcoinTalk? Not ZERO obviously.

What's the issue with someone asking for escrow? It's very simple: You send the products, the buyer sends their funds to the escrow and once they receive their products, you get the money. Simple as that, where's the problem? I'd have no hesitation to use a reputable escrow for a transaction.

Are you seriously thinking someone would pay a MINIMUM of EUR 19000 without having an assurance that their order will arrive for real?

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Escrow only magically makes a scammer's job impossible to succeed, buddy.

If pumping money continuously the entire year is the best solution, then oh man does the future look scary AF.

For how long do you think governments will be able to keep throwing free money everywhere without a very rough consequence to come up and hit us all back like a sledgehammer? It's gonna happen, sooner or later.. and it's gonna hurt +85% of us. The more money they'll pump, the harder the hit will be.

We live in a society where cyber-crimes are on an increasing level. I'm obviously putting the blame on the top-level personnel of the hospitals because they must protect the database. If an exchange gets hacked due to the lack of security, is it the hacker's fault or the exchange's?

The cost of not having a secured database is very high. These could at any point include your own data too. This data includes in many cases even personal addresses, phone numbers and crucial data about your person. If someone ever wants to hurt you one way or another, they could easily get in touch with your personal info by buying it off a black market from someone who's successfully done such a hack..

So yes, it's their blame. You don't blame a thief for stealing stuff from your car if you've left your windows open - the one to blame becomes you for not taking proper precaution.

>10% had $50k or more in their account balance? That's impressive and way more than I've thought! The <$1k percentage is sadly the truth, but it's honestly not their fault. We're being taught all the crap in school except the most essential and important things. I lately started to introduce an "education" paragraph in some posts of mine because right now, in the middle of crisis, it is proved whether what people are taught in their early lives really makes a change or not during hard times. Apparently, it doesn't.

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The $6k -> $7k rise isn't proportionate at all with the trillions of dollars pumped in the US economy and the ~$4T estimated total costs so far for the pandemic. This is likely not related at all with the virus, there are enough factors out there influencing the price of BTC. When the true face of fiat value is gonna be shown, I expect an insane price ride to come for all safe haven assets and possibly (and hopefully) for Bitcoin too. Until then, they'll try to hide the real face of fiat. Until they can't.

I'm supporting your request. Some boards are just overcrowded with the exact same repetitive questions or topics. If I had the option to ignore them, seeing only the threads I'm interested in gets way easier. I often find myself having to read through dozens of topic titles before finally finding one that hasn't been discussed and asked a gazillion times.

I wanted to request this a while ago by asking for a "Megathreads" board where all threads passing 7-10 pages should be moved. After 5 pages the topics are more than likely solved and all possible answers have been given.. I think I've seen at least 30 topics about CSW in the past 3-4 weeks and at least 50 about COVID-19 in the past 2. They're just way too many imo..

Edit: There's a little big flaw in my suggestion about megathreads: If threads exceeding 7-10 pages are moved to the Megathreads board, they'll just starting new topics discussing the exact same thing every time. So it doesn't provide a good solution and might in fact create even more spam.. So yeah, I'm sticking with your suggestion about the "Ignore" option.

Oh well, hackers do not trigger the "stop" button once a crisis begins. That's how they work - they don't give a damn about deaths of others as soon as they profit off them.

Why are we blaming the medical personnel though? If the hospital managers wanted to secure their database and bulletproof it from any kind of hack, they could do it. Medical personnel aren't IT specialists, so why put your trust on their mouses when you can secure your database from attacks?

I have no doubts the hospital managers know how valuable our personal data is on the black markets.. so why do nothing about securing it?

I have busted numerous times on many gambling websites, the one I used the most being PrimeDice. It's very common, welcome to gambling. Had you won 13x in a row, you wouldn't have posted a thread to praise them. I thought it's pretty obvious that casinos are made for their owners to earn money, not to lose it. So you're always going to be half a step behind the casino, but you do have a chance to step ahead if you're lucky enough.

In fact, I have busted after a streak of more than 20x losses. It's gambling. Kinda awkward to be sad that you've lost - it's part of the game, throw a bit of unluckiness dust on a session and there you go..

Returning to the old ways isn't as easy as it sounds. Being able to produce your own food means having the necessary knowledge. Anyone who has never grown their own vegetables and animals at home will struggle and, if you switch from commercial food to your own production, having a field of food destroyed means literally going into starvation mode from 0 to 100 in a matter of days.

We don't have the education to do the switch. We are taught all the crap possible during our life but the basis of survival. "Let's move back to the old ways" - sounds great! But what are you going to do with those ladies with 5in long nails and fake eyelashes? What are you going to do with all these rebels not willing to do a "peasant's" work?

Decades ago this was normal. Today it's considered awkward. Future may change our perspective, but when the pandemic ends most will go right back to their old habits and plans.

The thing is, newcomers lack the knowledge of cryptocurrency which basically means the chances of them earning a Merit decrease substantially. Looking back to my first hundreds of posts on this forum will give you a strong idea of the fact that it takes some time until someone finds out what this forum truly is for and why it's much harder than it is thought for a newcomer to share ideas related to Bitcoin that are worth some Merits.

Hence, ranking up already is difficult imo. If someone has enough knowledge about BTC or does enough work for the community to earn the Merits required to be a Sr/Hero Member in a matter of months, that means they truly deserve it imo. No offense to Gazeta (I truly mean no offense) but if this system can easily be gamed and it's unfair to have users "cheating" it, then it means you've played it too and got hundreds of merits in a relatively short time - why would it be fair for a new user not to have the chances you've had to rank up? Someone will have to work more than you've in order to get the same Merit count.

Now imagine you've had this account without knowing a single thing about the way Bitcoin works, about anything related to cryptocurrencies. Consider yourself a complete newbie in this sphere for a minute. Who'd get the merits? You, or would someone who actively corrects your mistakes and teaches you the right things about BTC? Who deserves them more?

The only "fair" thing imo would be the possibility of only sharing merits with people who write things related to BTC. This way, the merit would be 100% deserved as you cannot get it for some off-topic bullshit replies (later edit: did not mean bullshit, as these are more than likely NOT merited) you write or for saying a little "thanks" to BTCTalk @Meta after ranking up. There's, however, probably no way you can create such filters and make only BTC-related posts qualify for Merits.

Think of all the hours you've spent trying NOT to write nonsense and actively participating in as many topics as possible out here. All the hours you've spent translating other users' threads. You're probably one of the lucky ones who've enough free time and are willingly spending it on this forum. Do you really think it's unfair to receive hundreds of merits?

EDIT: It takes me ~15 minutes to usually write a post. I write posts which take me at least 20 minutes almost every day. Now remember I've received ~350 Merits since mid-January. Do I deserve them or not, considering I pretty often happen to write +80 posts/week which account for +18hrs/week spent ONLY on writing my posts?

What can we do? We can't force him eat his dick. If he wants to keep his promise, then he will. If he won't, that's his own problem. I lost 100% of my respect for him when he started pumping shitcoins to his own advantage. These "predictions" came most likely because he owns BTC and probably thought his prediction would influence the price this year. But guess what - people are sick of his bullshit and P&D schemes and these "crystal ball" kind of predictions almost always end up in missed shots.. which come like a boomerang back straight into the back of your head.