Yeah, crypto is not the answer. Crypto cannot counter most of the sanctions imposed on Russia. The Russian economy is grounded on fiat. Its deals with the rest of the world are based on fiat.

And also, a lot of the sanctions are not financial. They may be directed at the Russian economy but they're not necessarily financial sanctions unlike the freezing of bank accounts, SWIFT ban, and others.

It is in this regard that crypto is helpless. How could it address, for example, the ban on the sale of mining equipment? How could crypto be of help if nobody is buying potatoes from Russia anymore?

It is safe to store your funds in Binance or Huobi or KuCoin if your only other option is to store it in exchanges like YoBit and HitBTC and other shady exchanges. But you have more than just these options. You can actually withdraw your funds from these centralized exchanges into non-custodial and open source and hardware wallets where the private keys are under your sole control. So don't settle for relatively safer options when you could actually keep them in much much safer storage. You actually don't own your funds stored in centralized exchanges.

But don't you think it is quite easy to go around this new policy? If somebody wanted to donate cryptocurrency to a particular candidate or party but cannot because it is prohibited, then he/she could just easily convert his/her crypto first before donating it. And then it's all good. Or if somebody from Russia is instructed to make huge donations to a candidate they are supporting, isn't it easy to channel such fund through another person from Ireland?

What kind of nation is this? This is North Korea, baby. This is where the absurd is the rule and not the exception. This is where the unreasonable and unimaginable are happening all the time, more often than the reasonable and imaginable.

But what is more interesting about this is that these expert hackers could hardly be supported and trained in their impoverished hermit country. These hackers couldn't become who they are without the backing of China. So the more interesting question would be, what kind of nation helps another nation to become expert robbers?

Overall, that doesn't sound interesting to me. However, I would be asking, how much or what is the jackpot prize? How many lottery tickets would usually be raffled per month? Of course, the fairness of the raffle draw should also be provable.

Also, how much is the price per ticket and how many tickets would be given to participants? I guess that would also help interested participants to make a decision whether it is worth participating or not.

While, in general, I'm not that interested in this kind of arrangement, the details could convince me otherwise.

I agree. It seems that kind of standard is not going to work well anymore. That has always been the vetting process of old and yet the history of altcoin has proven time and again that what seems to be a good project could end up the way a scam/shitcoin does. On the other hand, a coin which doesn't seem to have a proper real-life use case, a reasonable tokenomics, a reliable team, and so on ends up getting the hype. It seems the battle nowadays is how to hype a token and cause FOMO among crypto fanatics. That's regardless of the project itself.

It's as if these exchanges are acting all by themselves. They're probably not. They're probably under pressure. They're probably just following orders. What is at stake is perhaps their license.

It's as if those exchanges that decided not to impose restrictions on Russian users are good Samaritans and are thinking of protecting the rights and welfare of ordinary Russians. They're probably just after the profit. Or perhaps they, too, are under pressure.

It's as if KuCoin and Binance are not complying with legal demands to sanction Russian individuals. They are.

Yes, for as long as that 10% to 20% is extra savings. That means, it could be left dormant for years. But if that 10% to 20% is intentionally taken out from your monthly income despite belt-tightening measures simply so that you could set aside an amount for investment, I don't think I would. There's risk in investment so always invest only what you can afford to lose.

But if you have extra savings, it would always be best to invest it rather than keep it in fiat which is constantly losing value.


I don't have much problem because I am not supporting a huge family. But it is always best not to rely on a single source of income. And as always live a modest life.

Information are supposed to be facts or factual. If they aren't, then they are the opposite of information. What you can mostly find online are not information; they're mostly opinions and misinformation and disinformation.

Regarding Bitcoin, how much about it is really information in the online universe? Most of the time, I am seeing misinformation about Bitcoin, mostly labeling it as an investment opportunity that would make you rich quickly. So there's actually less information about Bitcoin.

What is your standard for investment? You better follow that standard of yours whether it means investing in Bitcoin is good or bad. At least you won't be having regrets in the end. Or perhaps get to know Bitcoin more and reconsider your standard.

I'm afraid much of Bitcoin's price right now is speculative, so decide for yourself if this means Bitcoin is a good or bad investment. Everything could potentially lose its value. Nobody is assuring anybody that something will remain valuable throughout eternity. But it seems to me the potential of Bitcoin is bright. I don't know if you share the same view.

Of course, it was funded by YoBit exchange because Cryptotalk was owned by YoBit exchange. That is why it was a controversial signature campaign because everybody knew that the owner of Cryptotalk was YoBit, which was known to be a scammer exchange. Of course, the campaign did not promote YoBit itself but knowing that it is another project of YoBit even if it is separate from the exchange, there was a dilemma of whether it is totally excused from being branded as a scam as well.

I don't know how much they spent on it but I know that YoBit is still earning more than enough to be able to fund a huge campaign here.

Trading and investing are not the same. But they have similarities. In the first place, both start with buying. However, there's the difference in terms of time-frame in that trading involves shorter periods of time while investing involves a longer period. There's also the difference of activity because trading requires that you constantly make orders while investing is more or less passive. There's also the difference in terms of the goal because in trading you are after the small movements of the prices while in investing you are oftentimes just setting months, years, or decades for growth of value.

Why not? I've made Bitcoin deposits to crypto casinos and betting sites in the past even without the Lightning Network. They're much more expensive, so why would I not take the opportunity to be able to send Bitcoin in a much cheaper way nowadays with the use of LN?

On the other hand, however, I also have a few altcoins in my wallet. I had a realization not so long ago that I should gamble with my altcoins more than with my Bitcoin. Bitcoin is for HODLing. But to those who are gambling with Bitcoin, the use of LN is definitely a better option.

No, Bitcoin was already more or less popular even before Russia started to invade Ukraine. So the invasion didn't introduce Bitcoin to the world. As a matter of fact, Bitcoin's popularity is the reason why it became an option to the people of both countries in keeping their wealth, to those who wish to cross borders and carry with them all their life savings, to those who wish to donate to Ukraine's fight for freedom, to Russia to somehow evade sanctions, and so on.

Bad is economy is bad economy. So it is bad to both rich and poor. But bad economy to the poor means there's no food on the table while bad economy for the rich means a huge property in Paris could be sold. And even in the worst economy, there's a rich man taking advantage and getting richer.

Anyway, forget about governments using USDT or USDC or any other stablecoin. First, these are privately-owned coins; the governments won't like it because they are not under their sole control. Second, these are pegged on the value of USD. A bad economy could mean a weakened USD and, therefore, a weakened USDT or USDC.

55- Darker45

Please and thank you!

I think privacy is sacred. I wouldn't trade it for a green light on crypto. To hell with crypto, let the government respect privacy because it is a right, a fundamental right. Without privacy, we are not free human individuals; we are simply government subjects. Freedom is so closely associated with privacy that if privacy is completely taken away, so is freedom. Crypto is not a right. I wouldn't die for crypto. But I think I would for freedom.

When you said you would rather have zero privacy, it chilled me to the bone. It made me remember Orwell's dystopian novel, 1984.

Forget about creating another token for every single thing that you would want to happen with your Bitcoin. Forget about your HodlCoin as well. There's already a number of HODL tokens in the vast world of shitcoins. There's already HodlCoin, HODL Token, and many more HODLs. Your idea is not something new.

Let people get more familiar with Bitcoin instead and be convinced that it's for keeps. There are abundant proofs that HODLers are rewarded over time. And then there's the arithmetic of only 21 million Bitcoin ever and more than 7 billion people and counting. There's not enough Bitcoin for everybody.

I cannot give a name of a single crypto project, but during the time when doing bounty is attractive I used to hunt for good projects with good teams and good objectives. I needed to do this because I didn't want to spend more or less 3 months promoting a certain project only to get paid with worthless tokens in the end. It might simply be me who failed with my erroneous standard in finding the best project or it could be that the projects themselves failed despite their best efforts, but the point is that there are a lot of them.

The truth of the matter is that you could get merit in a hundred ways. Merit spending is unregulated here. Everybody could send merit the way they like it. You don't need to educate to get merit. You could have it by simply asking a question, responding with wit, even responding with sarcasm or an insult, and so on. If you explored the forum, you would know that merit could be earned in various ways in different sections. A meme could be enough to gain merit. An auction or a sale or a new campaign could also gain you merit.