46 home runs

Since it's about NFTs, I think you, op, should move the thread to altcoin discussion. NFTs have value of what they represent and of how people perceive it, plus the copyright, I suppose. I don't think they're completely useless, but I think they're risky and overrated. They can be a nice way to support creators and to spread digital art, so to me, it's not about financial innovation and is more about fundraising. And while NFTs are often compared to ICOs, I think the difference is that with NFTs you know exactly what you're getting, whereas with ICOs people were often unsure, confused, trying to understand what the project was actually promising, etc.

I believe it's very unfortunate that Africa was not allowed to naturally grow and develop as a continent. It got divided by the European empires and became a source of people (slaves) and natural resources, and then when they left, they abruptly drew borders of new states that just didn't match the loyalties, cultural and ethnic rough borders that existed there. So now it's a place of a lot of failed states, a lot of violence and poverty. I believe that high-income countries which are directly responsible for colonization have an obligation to help Africa become prosperous. It's not a charity, it's more like reparations to me. I hope we'll get to see Africa really being put on the map, really getting noticed in all of its diversity.

On halving, we should expect the miners' reward to be reduced by a half. That's what this event is about. We can also expect more media attention on Bitcoin than usual, maybe a few articles about halving. There's no direct correlation between halvings and bull markets because counting whatever happens over the next 1 year or so and attributing that to halving is stretching it. During 2016 halving, the price stayed roughly the same as pre-halving, and the bull market properly hit only at the end of 2017. The 2020 halving was also largely uneventful, with the price really starting to grow in October of the same year. So this time, it will probably also be pretty uneventful.

Gold has been around for a very long time. It's a naturally occurring element, and humans have been working with it for thousands of years. It's physically present, nice and shiny. Gold has been considered valuable for a long time and is known as a safe investment. All of these traits give it an advantage over Bitcoin.
Digital stuff is generally relatively new, and to multiple generations of current adults there's still a sharp divide between the physical world as reality and the digital world as something very different, kind of not real. So, of course, it's hard for Bitcoin to compete against gold, as it's not something you can perceive with your senses, it's not a bright and shiny thing. But if digitalization continues and becomes an integral part of life for many future generations, I think Bitcoin's perception can change and it might catch up with gold or even surpass it eventually.

Sometimes people believe that Bitcoin is a scam simply out of ignorance, because of confusing it with something else or listening to some misinformation. That can hypothetically be fixed pretty easily by sharing knowledge. But I also think that sometimes people are mistaken like that because they lack skills of analytic thinking. They hear something about crypto scams and associate cryptos with Bitcoin, reaching a conclusion that Bitcoin is a scam. Or they hear about scams, in which victims lost their BTC, so they associate those scams with a conclusion that Bitcoin is a scam. This is just lack of proper analysis or how stealing Bitcoin is different from Bitcoin itself, how cryptos don't equal Bitcoin, etc.

As for the op's words about decentralization and a fixed supply of Bitcoin, I agree with that, although I wouldn't go as far as to say that the traditional fiat and taxing systems are the real scam.

Well, the price not falling more than 30-50% below the ATH sounds very nice, but I don't get why it's supposed to happen now. I mean, sure, the bull market came a little early, but I don't think it's such a major change. I'm also wondering whether smaller drops will be accompanied by smaller gains in the bull markets.
As for things that have to change, hodling for 4+ years and using Bitcoin more as a currency sound like two very different and perhaps incompatible points.

Bitcoin can have both positive and negative impact on climate change, depending on existing policies, and on the sources of energy. If a country's already very eco-friendly, Bitcoin miners there are using clean energy, so there's nothing bad going on. If a country's relying heavily on fossil fuels, then miners are probably using such sources of energy and are contributing negatively to climate change. But influence can be positive because Bitcoin miners can be big buyers of clean energy, creating a demand for it and boosting further growth of that industry.

Is this a personal story or does it come from some online source? Calling the police on your child without even trying to talk to them first and figure out what's going on is just a messed up thing to do. I'm happy that the police actually found him not being guilty, but that was a risky thing, the guy didn't deserve it, and I think that kind of action can really hurt family relationships later on.
Assuming your son is a criminal simply because you don't understand what cryptos are and don't even bother to google before giving this person up to the police is a very wrong thing to do.

Op has a good point. I live in a region that went through a major crisis in the 90s, and a lot of people lost tons of money they've been saving up for a very long time almost overnight. The problem was that they kept saving up and didn't cash out because they didn't think anything would happen, and they didn't have an end goal. While I don't think Bitcoin will collapse like that, I believe that hodling indefinitely without a goal of what to do with that wealth and without even enjoying the profits is as good as having zero BTC because then it's just useless numbers on the screen.
I think it's healthy to sell some BTC from time to time, or at least to have an idea of what one wants to be able to afford with Bitcoin eventually.

I know some people who make tons of screenshots, including screenshots of financial operations. To be honest, I don't get it, because both with Bitcoin and with online banking you can usually prove that you've made a transaction if you need to prove it at some point. So there's no need for taking a screenshot in advance.
I believe that it's important, in this case, to store screenshots safely (for example, on a device that always stays home or under a special password if possible). Simply having them on the phone can be somewhat unsafe, although if there's no info with passwords there, I don't think much can be done with that info if the phone is stolen.

Cryptos are legal in my country, and police don't just stop random people on the street and ask to see their phone apps, even though we literally have martial law, and they can do a lot of stuff. Phones are checked only if there's a reasonable suspicion that this person's working for the enemy and that there's proof of that on the phone. If someone just looks weird to police, they check ID and might ask a couple of questions, but that's it. Overall, there are no questions, no checks, and of course something like a Binance app wouldn't lead to any additional questions because nobody cares about that.
That being said, I have zero crypto apps on my phone, simply because I take my phone will me and I feel like it's safer to keep crypto stuff on PC which always stays home.

I think it's more about financial management than accountability, unless we're talking about accountability of, say, someone responsible for using taxpayers' money to the public. It's important to have an understanding of how much one's earning and how much one's spending on which activities. It's not necessary to keep track of everything, and good planning, to me, involves planning a little extra funds to cover some unexpected expenses.
If we're talking about investments, one can set small goals and make small tasks for oneself, and then analyse how it went.

When I sell Bitcoin, I sell it for my local fiat. Our fiat went through very harsh (26.6%) inflation in 2022, a fairly normal (5%) inflation in 2023, and so far there's pretty much no inflation. So I guess the local fiat doesn't have any impact on my BTC deals any more, and at times when it does, it's usually a positive impact because I can get more local fiat when I sell it. It's good for selling, bad for accumulation (if accumulation is done through buying). However, as to me, accumulation means keeping for of my signature rewards in Bitcoin without selling (rather than buying Bitcoin for fiat), I'm okay with it.

Hm... I think I'd choose a mix, actually. During the regular or bear market time, I think regular DCA is totally fine. It's simple, it saves time and nerves because you don't actually have to worry when you're buying your coins, and it allows to effectively accumulate BTC. But perhaps during the rapid bull market, this Smart DCA can be more helpful. Maybe it's not worth it, but it kind of makes sense. When I say 'rapid bull market', I'm trying to make a distinction between, say, all of 2023 and February-March of 2024. In 2023, the price was growing consistently but gradually, and I think regular DCA is okay for such times. But in times of fast growth, like in 2024, perhaps smart DCA is worth looking at.

We can't know for sure that Bitcoin will continue to grow, but we can reasonably expect that to happen and believe that it will happen. I think that completely ignoring negative things isn't the best strategy because it's important to be realistic and to respond to risks when they occur. For now, the situation is pretty good, but at some point something serious enough to doubt Bitcoin's future might happen, so being realistic will come in handy. Instead of ignoring the bad stuff, I believe that we should learn to accept it and be calm about it.

9 goals

Ooh, that's a pretty low blow there, with info that they got paid by Ripple. Well, it's great that it was figured out, and there's an obvious conflict of interest there. The only thing I'd mention is that this news is almost 2 years old, the articles date back to the end of March 2022. So I'm not sure how, where, and why it's breaking news.
Ripple is trying to compete against Bitcoin, but the thing with Ripple is that no matter how hard they try to get the favour of traditional players like banks, they just aren't getting enough attention and aren't valuable enough to them. Bitcoin stays true to itself and successfully beats Ripple.

I think it's a wonderful answer to a hypothetical question. To me, I'd first google the map of my own country (because we're currently, unfortunately, at war for our existence, so I'd need to know how it went), but sure, I guess the second thing would be to check BTC price because that's something that can truly change drastically over 10 years. The interviewer clearly didn't know what she was talking about because assuming that Bitcoin would be worth the same in a decade as it's worth now doesn't make much sense.

I've missed the news that the ruling on whether Craig Wright is Satoshi was already made, so I thank op for bringing that to attention. Of course, I never believed that Wright was Satoshi, but the burden of proof was on COPA's side this time, so I was a bit worried about them.
I agree with the op that Satoshi deserves anonymity, and it's great that Craig won't be able to hinder Bitcoin development in the future by claiming that it's his creation, and he's the one who gets a get where it should be going.