I do not trust her as a representative of the established power and the fiat system of infinite debt, regardless of the claims she may make about Bitcoin.

In this case, like others we have seen, it is one more of "if you can't beat them join them". The only thing they are trying to do from the public authorities is to tolerate Bitcoin but trying to control it as much as possible with KYC/AML regulations and the collaboration of centralized exchanges.

Hi LoyceV, I have a question to ask you and anyone else who wants to comment on the thread.

I have seen that you and two other forum members have left a neutral tag for merit abuse to naim027.

The comment from lovesmayfamilis is the harshest:


I would say it is a neutral tag of negative spirit.

So, the doubt I have is that I included naim027 in my trust list because I saw that he had included me in his and when I checked both his trust list and his distrust list I saw that they were very similar to mine. Besides I read the feedbacks that he had left, which if I remember correctly were 4 and I saw them correct. So the decision was easy to include him in my trust list.

So, I understand that these neutral tags should not affect that inclusion, especially because it seems that it was a one-time thing in the past that does not happen today and the tags are neutral.

What do you think about this?

And going further, let's imagine that in the future I find a similar case but in this case is someone that I have in my trust list but has bought merits to rank up faster, so he gets negative tags.

If his trust list is still similar to mine and his feedback is correct, should I reconsider removing him from my trust list? Part of me says yes, because if you don't trust someone you don't trust them in general, and another part of me says they are two separate things.

I would also like to know your opinion on this second, more hypothetical aspect.

One problem with gold and silver, apart from what has already been said about them being difficult to store and transport, is that especially if you buy modest amounts, if you plan to sell in a few years you will probably not even cover the buying and selling commissions. They have traditionally been hedges against inflation but without giving spectacular returns in the long term, and in an environment with high inflation it does not seem that they will beat it. Investing in Bitcoin is much more likely to not only protect you from inflation but to be profitable on a net basis. We can't be so sure of this, however, when it comes to precious metals.

I would say the clear winner is because of the ease of investment style and not so much because of the profitability, since in one case it is $29 per dollar invested and in the other $26.

I have seen similar analyses regarding the stock market and the result is similar, doing DCA every month is approximately as profitable as investing in the low points of the market, but one strategy is extremely easy and in the other you have to know how to get it right, which is something that even experts often fail to get.

Well, they will have to adapt, period. I am not a big fan of regulations and prohibitions, but as far as the gambling industry is concerned, I do not trust that without strict regulations they would have a positive impact on society.

If the obligation to implement responsible gambling measures and measures like this one to limit the exposure of advertising to minors has to come from the public authorities, they are welcome.

I've been looking at their profiles and it doesn't seem so clear to me that Lantind is alt of the other two. Then, it is true that Republikcoin, bestcoins1 and Davian144 have given some merits to each other but the rest of the merits have been spread a lot among other members. So I don't see any merit abuse, and there is from theymos saying that the only relevant thing you should red tag regarding this would be for having bought or sold merit, which is hard to prove. Or something like that, I don't remember exactly but I can't find the quote just by googling.

I'm in DT and it doesn't seem worth even a neutral tag to me, unless they admit it. Davian144 and Lantind already have a relevant neutral tag for spammers.

Even if they were alts, they are part of different signature campaings, so they don't break the rules either.

In fact, in historical terms, food is cheaper than ever around the world thanks to mass production. But here the issue is that many people live paycheck to paycheck, and let's assume that a family that spends 400 euros on food, if food becomes 550 euros, they won't be able to make ends meet. They are going to have to buy cheaper things or cut back elsewhere if they can. This also means that people who spend a small amount of money on savings will not be able to continue saving. And let's remember that the rise in prices does not only affect food, it is generalized.


Yes, I think you are right. The missiles falling in ukraine have been paid for at least in good part with European money buying gas. Looking at it in perspective, giving up nuclear and coal to become overly dependent on Russian gas was insane. Which Trump warned about, by the way, and was laughed at and called crazy. Not that I agree with everything Trump said, but he got this one right.

And are there any conclusions you would like to draw after telling us about this?

I don't know too much about the technical aspect, but I know that in the beginning individuals mined from home with a simple pc or laptop. As the hasrate and difficulty increased, they had to start investing in mining equipment and it started to make more sense to mine in pools or large teams. I see it as a simple evolution of the system, that although it is more centralized in terms of mining compared to the beginnings, it serves as a guarantee for a decentralized system of custody and transmission of value.

Lol, in my particular case, I see it as far away the 10K merits mark. How long have you been on the forum on average? theymos since 2010, LoyceV since 2015, maybe the "youngest" in that list is fillipone? He registered in 2018.

Although the merit system went into effect in January 2018 but many on this list receive merits for posts written earlier.

Well, now I see that mark far but maybe with a few more years on the forum I can reach it. Although I guess by then LoyceV and others will be going for 20K at least.

In any case it is the other way around, you are the one who has to give examples of what you are saying.

If you know of posts that deserve merit but have not received any, you can comment on them in the thread Charles-Tim has linked to.

Regarding posts that receive merits without deserving them, one thing is that there is a clear abuse and another thing is that giving merits is somewhat subjective, and many times they are given not so much because the writer has made a great effort, but for saying something funny, or something simple and brief but that hits the central point of what is being discussed, etc.

But in general, if you make good contributions to the forum, you will receive merits.

I am surprised by so many responses saying that it is neither stable nor will it stabilize. Yes it will stabilize as its price and market cap continue to rise and if companies heavily exposed to Bitcoin, such as MSTR, become part of the S&P it will stabilize even more. The other day I heard Kevin O'leary saying that he believes the crypto space will be the 9th sector of the S&P, and that, with that, volatility will be reduced.

After reading the responses I have to clarify one thing that I feel was not made clear enough in the OP:



No, actually that's not what happened to me. What has happened to me after reaching 1000 merits is that I keep earning merits faster than ever, and yet I notice that I find it harder than ever to climb above position 200, that's why I created this thread.

I see very interesting opinions in the thread, and rather than commenting on some of the aspects that you have mentioned, I wanted to share my personal experience with something that I see a parallel with and that has been going through my head a lot lately.

If I remember correctly I started playing poker online in 2009. At that time poker houses, and I understand that online gambling houses in general, either had a license to operate from a tax haven or operated without a license. No one sees a parallel with crypto gambling houses today?

If someone asked about taxation of poker profits in a poker forum, everyone said that there was a legal obligation to declare, and that they declared everything they earned, even though it was practically impossible for the states to know anything about their earnings unless the deposits and withdrawals were made by international transfer, which would take a long time and would probably be blocked by the bank because they were transfers to and from tax havens.

We were in the midst of the crisis that began in 2007/08 and until then the states had not paid much attention to online gambling, because before the bubble burst, the economy was doing very well (or rather we can say, it was super-inflated).

When the bubble burst, states started looking for money everywhere and one of the things that were targeted were online gambling houses.

Long story short, the result was quite disastrous. In part I understand that it is logical that the states ended up regulating the game and charging taxes for it, the problem is that in some cases they did it in the worst possible way, compartmentalizing a market that was once global.

We could say is good that today the states charge taxes for online gambling, which is logical, the bad part was killing the goose that lays the golden eggs: there are fewer and fewer players, houses give less and less rakeback, the tables are getting harder and harder. This has been an inexorable trend with the exception of 2020 when lockdowns made a lot of people decide playing online poker while having a few beers.

I suppose that it is partly because I have lived through this experience that I am pessimistic regading the possible EU crypto payments regulation, although something similar does not have to be repeated, but it makes me think that in the end legislation will be implemented that will allow the states to continue collecting taxes and will greatly attack privacy, and it is not that the states of the EU are characterized precisely by having a great libertarian movement that can oppose this type of regulations.

Since I signed up in the forum, and started to earn merit, I had been steadily climbing positions in terms of earned merit, but lately I see that I have a hard time advancing, being around the 200th position, despite the fact that today I earn merit faster than ever, almost twice as many merits as activity, which I think is not bad at all.

I wonder if you have noticed anything similar, although I suppose that not in all cases people will have noticed that around the 200th position. I am sure that n0nce, for example, did not notice anything at that position and will certainly do so later, when he gets to the first 25 or so. But his is an exceptional case, which we should not consider the norm.

I would also like to clarify that those in the top 10 of most earned merit (or those in the top 25 if you want) I would not call them just quality posters, I don't know exactly what I would call them, but it would have to be something else, like exceptional posters or something like that.

I don't know if we could consider that there are about 200 (or 150 or 250) high quality posters in the forum. Not only because of my perception, which could be subjective, but also taking into account the following:

There are 54 participants in the CM campaign, 25 in the Best Change campaign and 22 in the [banned mixer] campaign. Maybe someone may have a member of these campaigns in mind who does not consider a quality poster, but the vast majority of them are. That would make about 100 members and we have to take into account that there are people who write with quality who are not part of those campaigns, either because they are part of other campaigns or because they don't wear a paid signature.

I believe that taking this into account, we would get roughly a minimum of 150 high quality posters, which coincides with my perception.

What do you think about it?

Yes, we agree. There is a lot of guru selling to the general public to use debt to get rich, which is not going to work for the 99%, not only because of volatility, but because many start spending significantly more than they would have if they were operating without debt. This is what I call in these cases a liquidity binge.

Mallers strikes me as a bright guy, Bitcoin enthusiast, and one who is contributing a lot to the Bitcoin ecosystem, so to speak. He has played an essential role in El Salvador. But it doesn't seem to excite people on the forum very much. At the time I opened a thread about their app and got almost no responses.

Do you think Strike will help mass adoption?


I am sure he will continue to bring us a lot of news like this in the future.

It looks like they are trying to seduce the unwary into putting money in to buy this supposed SSVP shitcoin.

In this case they have a White Paper, have you read it?


Where did you see that?

Lol. I was expecting someone to ask. I imagine that either icopress doesn't have an answer yet or that he prefers to announce what is going to happen on payday (next Monday).

If you continue reading what I said before, you will see that I am talking about the fact that you have the money to pay the house in cash, that is, you can pay off the mortgage at any time:


If you get a mortgage at 2% and inflation is higher, it is profitable and risk free because you can pay off the mortgage at any time, and it is extremely profitable if we count compound inflation during all the years of the mortgage.

Do you think Mark Zuckerberg doesn't know what he's doing?

Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg Has a 1% Mortgage.

But for the general public it's usually not a good idea, I've said it several times, it's better Dave Ramsey than Robert Kiyosaki, although there are exceptions to this rule.

No, it's not always a bad idea. Taking a mortgage at 1 or 2% interest and more in an inflationary environment like the current one when you could pay the house in cash is a very good idea, for example, but I agree that in most cases it is usually not a good idea.


In this case I am more inclined to sell ETH, mostly because of the volatility. If it were a more stable asset it would be a different matter. Also, if you want to go full Bitcoin maxi you better do it in a practical way and get rid of the shitcoin.