That does sound fishy.  Nitrogen Sports said your VPN IP is close to (or the same as) another bettor's IP, which sounds reasonable from what I know about how VPNs work--but when you showed them your real IP address, that should either prove that you're not the same person as the one they suspected you of being or that you're lying.  If you're not lying, that's messed up and they've taken a lot of money from you.

I'm not sure there's anything anyone can do for you on the forum, and I doubt Nitrogen Sports will even reply here--though it'd be nice if they did.  Is England on their restricted list or anything like that?

I got a PM by you.  Why are you PMing me?  I didn't even tag you and can't do anything about either your negative trust or the accusation against you made in this thread, although I agree that it looks solid.

Christ, you're nothing but a "Plz Sir" bounty hunter, and the forum would be better off without your presence.  Just go away and don't bother me anymore.

Edit:

That's all fine and dandy, but what do I have to do with your little tag?

And that's the kicker--in addition to higher prices, taxes are going up and governments are looking high and low for ways to cut funding to various programs, and it's not just happening in the UK.  It's happening in the US and who knows how many other countries.

That graph doesn't look too bad, considering that it looks like inflation was over 5% in 2012 and is 3.2% now.  But looking at the period after the trough in 2020, it seems as though inflation is going up in a vertical line and that's scary.  There's no telling how far that trend is going to last, but if I had to guess I'd say it'll be a problem for years.

I hate to be pessimistic and I'm not a person wearing a "doomsday is coming" sandwich board, but Jesus....it's going to suck to be poor for a very long time, and even if you're in the middle class it's going to be bad.

I didn't see anything that stuck out to me about that thread, anything that would make me think the mods would need to lock it.  It was about gambling, there wasn't anything spammy or inappropriate about it--so who knows?

OP, it was suggested that you try to unlock it yourself, and that's what I'd do.  If you can't, then that means it was locked by a moderator.  If that's the case, hopefully they'll stop by to explain. 

Huh.  Nobody explained why that thread got locked other than the fact that it ran a bit long.

Nice data presentation, tranthidung.  

And thank you to hilariousandco for the raw data, too.  I'd be interested in seeing something like a "top ten" reporter list to see who those members are who do the most reporting.  Theymos dumped that kind of data a couple of years ago but hasn't done it since.  I think I was on the list at the time, and even though I wouldn't expect to be on it now I'd still like to see who the most active reporters are.  Any chance that could happen?

That's something I'd definitely like to see--and I know it's been suggested before (and rejected--or at least ignored), but it'd be cool if the top reporter(s) got a badge near their username or avatar.

But it'd be so nice if there were a country where bitcoin was the only form of currency and where the government (and there would have to be one) wasn't so big or as intrusive as existing governments. 

Unfortunately, human nature is responsible for the way our governments are now, which is why I seriously doubt there could ever be a utopian society/country.  It would be silly to even try to create one, because I have no doubt that it would eventually wind up being as bad or even worse than anything we have today.  And given how many scammers there are in crypto, can you imagine how much crime there would be?  That would require law enforcement and more government, and.....it just wouldn't work.

It's nice to dream, though.

Yeah, I wonder about that too.  I'm also wondering what the adoption rate for bitcoin is in Cuba, though I doubt there's any reliable data on that. 

If this is true and Cuba is planning on "legalizing" bitcoin (I'm not sure that word is appropriate here), I think that's a fantastic thing as long as the Cuban government doesn't require its citizens to register their BTC addresses or anything like that.  That would be a surveillance nightmare.  Too bad there isn't a Cuban local board on bitcointalk.  I suspect there are reasons why one doesn't exist. 

I fully support your application to be a merit source, Charles-Tim.  You're a good member of the forum, and the fact that you want to be able to hand out more merits than you're currently able to should be pretty much all the qualification you, personally, need.  Don't know why there's even a requirement to quote all of those posts you found merit-worthy, because it just seems like a superfluous pain in the ass.  Theymos is probably familiar with you as a member since he reads posts in Meta, so he ought to know you're a good candidate.

Theymos, please add this man to the list of merit sources!  This forum needs more of them.

I love this quote from the article:


That's what other companies have said when they're in deep shit, although the excuse may vary and the company might blame short sellers for their dire financial position.  Either way, it's usually never the media or anybody else's fault when something like this happens--it's the corporation's.

I'm not on top of what's happening in China's real estate market, but it wouldn't shock me to learn that it's in a bubble.  Asset prices across the board have been inflated past all reasonable valuation methods for the last few years (including the stock market and maybe even crypto).  I'm not sure how this is going to affect the world, but it's probably not going to be good for China.  Can't say I'd be sad about that, because I'm not a fan of their government or their country in general--mostly because they're the source of most of the counterfeit goods in the world.  We'll see what happens.

Right, if you were planning on moving to El Salvador to mine bitcoin (or anything else), then that rate (I assume you mean $0.20/kWh) is quite high--over double what most utility companies charge in the US.  Still, even with a rate that high, don't you think it would still be profitable to mine?  That isn't a completely outrageous electricity cost, just higher than average.  I wouldn't think it'd be a deal-breaker.

That would be my main concern if I were contemplating a move there--and frankly, I do find the idea to be enticing even if I'm not a crypto entrepreneur myself.  El Salvador does have a problem with crime, and that's putting it mildly.  I'm not sure how safe it'd be for a gringo like me to move there and expect to not be hassled when going about my daily business. 

Anyone know if there's a section of the country where the wealthy live?  I'd be curious to know what the houses look like and how much they go for.

Well, keep those glasses on for the time being, because this issue has been raised multiple times over the span of at least a few years, and as far as I know Theymos has no intention to create a mobile-friendly version of the site. 

But as I've written in those other threads, I agree that there should be an official mobile-friendly version of bitcointalk.  Those "workarounds" might be fine, but given how much money this forum has, there doesn't seem to be any reason why there hasn't been an upgrade for smartphones.  Personally, I don't access the forum on my phone but I know a lot of members do, and it's a pain in the ass even for those who have 20/20 vision.

LOL.  Notice the last post in the pizza thread.  Some member quoted a post I made in it, which has apparently been deleted.  How did that happen?  I remember posting there, but it was a long time ago and I'd forgotten all about it.

Another thing about the pizza thread is that it got spammed pretty heavily by newbies toward the end of its life before it got locked.  That's unfortunate, but it's probably for the best that it was locked, else it would keep getting bumped from now until the end of time.  Also interesting is that someone complained about a necrobump back in 2011 (which I don't know how to quote, since the thread is locked) *let's see if this works*.  


Yet another interesting aspect is that mods were obviously not as strict way back in 2010-11, because there are a lot of very low-value posts that didn't add anything to the thread.  This was before signature campaigns, though, so that shouldn't be surprising.


I don't click on Twitter links.  Any chance you could quote it?

Beautiful, thank you!  So it's in the Marketplace section, then.  That wouldn't have been my first guess, as obvious as it seems, because I didn't think that section existed back in 2010 (though I suppose it could have been moved if I'm right, which I'm probably not).  I'm going to read through that thread right now, but it looks like the deal was done off-forum.  And yes, I'm sure many of you know that, but again, I never really paid attention to the pizza thread before.

The book mentions that "They'd finalized the deal over Internet Relay Chat (IRC)" (that's from the book), but I thought they communicated at least somewhat on the forum.  I guess not.  And I'm still wondering how jercos's real name was discovered, though it probably wouldn't be too difficult for a well-known author writing a history of bitcoin's big personalities.

Edit:  Question: how do I quote posts from the pizza thread, since it's locked?  I want to include the members' usernames and dates and so forth, and I'm not sure how to do that.

Didn't know which section this would be most appropriate in, but since it deals with members of the forum I figured Reputation would be best.  If not, mods can feel free to move it or suggest where I can move it to.

I've been reading Ben Mezrich's book Bitcoin Billionaires, and while I've found it to be generally unsatisfactory so far (I'm only 65 pages in, and the first mention of bitcoin was somewhere around page 55), I just came across a mention of bitcointalk in the context of Laszlo buying that 10k BTC pizza delivery.  The book mentions that the person who had the pizzas delivered from Papa John's was a member who went by the username jercos.  I don't know where that thread is located in which the pizza deal was sealed, and I'm not even sure how to go about searching for it (hopefully someone can put a link here), but I did search for "jercos" in the member search page and came up with no results.

Was there a member named jercos here?  The book mentions his real name, too.  Anybody know how Ben Mezrich came across his real identity?  My first thought would be that he interviewed Laszlo Hanyecz, but who knows?  There's no notation of anything like that in the book.  Some authors cite every source of information in each chapter at the end of the book, but not this author. 

This is just to satisfy my curiosity and maybe have a discussion on the members involved.  I wasn't even aware of bitcoin in 2010 (though I was aware of the pizza purchase prior to reading Mezrich's book) and certainly don't know much about what transpired between the two individuals.  I've seen that thread bumped a few times--and linked to in other threads--but I never paid that much attention.

OP, in the picture you provided that shows a post by ETFbitcoin, there's a quote from bitcoin.stackexchange.com and the exact URL the quote came from is linked to below that quote.  Is that what you're talking about?  From what you wrote, it either isn't clear or I'm just not understanding you fully.

The way ETFbitcoin formatted that quote should be sufficient for bitcointalk, because he cited his source.  Members shouldn't have to use something like an academic citation system here, because this isn't academia and we're not citing academic journals for our own publications.  As long as it's clear where the quote was pulled from in someone's post, I don't think mods are going to have a problem with it.

By the way, the plagiarism problem isn't anything new at all, nor has there been excessive or even higher than normal amounts of drama lately.  There may have been a period of quiet, but this has been an issue for years, and the standards have been the same for years as well.  Just make it clear where you copy/pasted from, and you're good.

Word.  This doesn't need to be made more complicated than it should be.

I'll take a look at that video, but I have to say....it's made by Mike Maloney of GoldSilver (external link there), who's trying to sell you gold and silver.  And what do those folks always say?  Well, just look at all the articles linked to on coinflation.com.  They all basically say the same thing, and they're the same articles from 1, 3, 5, 10 years ago, just rewritten over and over.  The economy is in trouble; the dollar is backed by nothing; where's all the gold in the Fed's vault?; silver is going to $100/Oz., etc., etc.

So take that with a mountain of NaCl.

I am no fan of Biden, but he didn't start this mess.  Not that he's doing a damn thing to help it, but the problem was there well before he was even a presidential candidate. 

And yeah, inflation is ramping up and I'm afraid of where it's headed.  Hopefully wages keep pace with it, and hopefully the USD doesn't hyperinflate.  That's a lot of hope there.

I was aware of the first method, but I usually visit Youtube while not logged into anything Google-related, like Gmail, so there's no option to not accept whatever crap Youtube recommends.  I'll have to check out that link.

That thumbnail with the dude holding the phone with the caption reading (Not Clickbait)....just screams clickbait!  And yeah, almost every video that winds up recommended by Youtube has a similar thumbnail, and it doesn't matter if the topic is bitcoin or organic bananas.  I swear to god the world has flipped its lid.

The official bitcointalk channel should focus on bitcointalk, IMO.  I'm waiting with bated breath for the day the channel goes live, and that's the truth.  I can't wait!

OP, for those of us who don't visit P&S or Off-Topic because those sections contain so much garbage, it'd be nice if you included some quotes to back up your position if you're going to accuse someone of being a troll.  It's not like sharing PMs; it's easy enough to just copy/paste samples right into your thread here so the rest of us can judge and form an opinion without having to search his username and go through his post history.

That said, this isn't the first time somebody's complained about BADecker's posting style if I'm not mistaken.  I'm familiar with the name, though I can't say I've seen any of his posts in a long, long time.

It's an attack.  That's like saying, "I'm not calling you fat, but goddamn you're fat, you fat ass!".

What does that mean?  OP, did you translate this from another site, by any chance?  I'm not accusing you of anything, but I swear what you've written looks very much like something that would appear in a blog post or article of some sort, and "earns meet" has got to be a bad translation of some other language into English, because those two words together don't mean anything in English.

That would rule out like 99.9% of us plebeians who can barely afford much of an investment in bitcoin, much less what Elon Musk could afford to buy--and that's assuming he owns bitcoin, which I'm not sure of after those tweets that crashed the market a couple of months back.  The fact is that most members on this forum are very small investors; the whales aren't likely to be posting here (though I suspect there are at least a few old-timers who've got to have a huge stash of BTC).

When people claim they're too busy to provide proof of something when they're accused of wrongdoing always strikes me as suspicious at best.  And clearly Maidak has enough time to argue about this, since he keeps making posts in which he claims he's way too busy to argue or to show proof of being scammed.  I don't know about the rest of y'all, but that combined with his previous trust history makes me inclined to think he's a complete bullshitter.