I know I've already lent my support to dkbit98's application, but I'd like to do so again--and I'm wondering why Theymos apparently hasn't added any new merit sources to replace the ones that (I think) have dropped out in the past year or so. 

While it's true that there haven't been anywhere near the number of "how do I get meritz?" threads (or similar ones) in Meta as of late, I still think there ought to be more merit sources, and especially ones who frequent the main section and at least one local board, like dkbit98.  Members aren't bitching about how hard it is to rank up anymore, but that doesn't mean it got any easier.  To the contrary, I think it's harder than ever, and I also think a lot of members have just given up trying to rank up nowadays.  It should be hard to do so, but not that hard.

Ah, that argument has been batted around for the last few years, and I'm not sure if anything has changed.  I know some bitcoin-paying signature campaigns have merit requirements that potential participants have to meet before they get accepted, but I don't think many (if any at all) bounties that pay in tokens even have that little safeguard.  And it's barely an effective one at that, since merit requirements are generally pretty low anyway.

Bounty managers tend to not care who they accept into their bounties, and that's always been the case with few exceptions.  I've had to put Bitcoin/Altcoin Discussion on ignore because of all the nonsense posts in those sections--and it sucks, because Bitcoin Discussion should be one of the best sections on the forum.  Unfortunately Theymos hasn't put any sanctions on bounty managers, so they've been free to employ shitposters galore. 

The good part is that most of the garbage posts tend to be in those sections above which I've put on ignore.  Some threads in Economics and Speculation can get pretty crappy, but at least Meta and Reputation tend to be spam-free.

I seriously doubt that.  Tesla isn't in the business of speculating in cryptocurrency, and if they did indeed do that I'm pretty sure their shareholders might have a problem with what would amount to gambling on a very risky asset.  I think Tesla, along with other companies like MSTR, bought bitcoin for the long-term as an alternative to cash (which any profitable corporation should have on hand). 

So a paper profit is exactly what Tesla made thus far unless they say otherwise.  I would also think that if they had sold their bitcoin investment, it would have adversely affected bitcoin's price--but we haven't seen that happen, just dips.  I'm just hoping that if bitcoin starts to slide that these companies who invested heavily in it stick it out and don't sell.  If they were to do that, it would be carnage on the market and 2017 would seem like a banner year for bitcoin by comparison.

Not for nothing, but you got plenty of merits for those posts you listed.  This thread is for reporting "unmerited good posts" to merit sources.

On a related note, my offer to review anyone's post history for meritable posts always stands, but I had to report a newbie this morning for sending me this PM with the title "Please give me a merit":
That's merit begging.  If you contact me via PM, please just ask me to review your post history and don't do what that noob did, whose name shall remain anonymous.

I've been fascinated by compound interest since I was a little boy with a savings account at my local bank--that's why PoS coins and related ones that pay what amounts to compound interest have always been favorites of mine (even though I don't currently own any). 

And yeah, Buffett is correct about "time in the market".  It's amazing how much can be earned with a dividend reinvestment plan if you just stick with it long enough (I'm talking about the stock market here).  But the same is true with any crypto that pays "interest" and compounds upon that interest.  It's too bad there aren't that many coins doing that.  ETH 2.0 is one of them, and from what I've read it's been quite popular so far.  Anyway, putting your money to work for you is the best thing you can do with it.

The scammy ones do that, but legitimate exchanges like Coinbase, Binance, and others are required to get KYC docs from their customers since they're regulated by the governments of the countries they operate in.  It's not that exchanges have started to require KYC for shady purposes, it's that cryptocurrency has attracted the attention of government agencies over the past few years--and as far as I can tell it's not going to get any better.

If you're trying to buy crypto with fiat, forget about it.  I think pretty much all the exchanges that deal in fiat are going to require a scan of your photo ID, a selfie, and all of that.  If you're looking to just trade bitcoin<-->altcoins, then you've got more options, like Kucoin, SouthXchange, and even Yobit (though I wouldn't recommend them). 

We're almost out of the wild west days of unregulated crypto exchanges, man.  Things definitely were different in 2015, but there's no going back in time and regulations aren't likely to become more lax.

That's extremely risky if you're talking about saving for your future.  Anything related to crypto is, but I wouldn't count on any sort of dividend-paying crypto or PoS coin or anything like that to be a reliable source of income.  You'd be much better off either buying an index fund or some stocks that pay high dividends (and keep them in an IRA or whatever's available in your country).

I wish I had pots of money, but I don't.  I've come to accept the fact that I'm going to be working until they put me in the ground--but that's OK.  Some people retire and have no idea what to do with their free time, and I'm afraid that's how I would end up.  Work is good for the soul I've found.

Those little dips on this year's chart are exactly that, dips in an otherwise extremely strong bull market.  2017's chart shows a bubble popping, plain and simple.  And while it's certainly possible that bitcoin could crash just like it did back then, I don't get the sense that it's going to anytime soon.  A lot of bitcoin was scooped up by corporations that don't intend to just hold it for the short term, so there's been a not-insignificant drop in the market supply of bitcoin which should keep prices afloat as long as demand remains constant (or grows).

And with bitcoin teetering around $60k as I write this, I don't think anyone is panicking by any means--but we're going to keep seeing dips as people cash out and take their profits off the table, and that happens in any bull market.

That quote doesn't indicate to me that he's got anything bad going on in his life.  It just sounds like a hopeful, positive-outlook quote and might be just that and nothing more.

I think it's way too early to be starting a "where's YOSHIE?" thread, because I recall seeing a post of his not too long ago, and it's only been a couple of weeks since he was last active.  I'm more curious as to where TMAN went off to and if he's doing OK--and there are others I haven't seen, like james.lent and Your Point Is Invalid--and others that I probably just can't recall off the top of my head, who used to be quite active but seemed to have abandoned the forum altogether.  So I have a feeling YOSHIE likely isn't gone for good.

You probably didn't notice it because you're not constantly focused on identity politics and race issues like so many people are these days.  It's fine to be anti-racist, but in the end you're not going to change someone's viewpoint and IMO censorship isn't the answer--especially for an ambiguous comment like the one in the OP.

In this particular case I wouldn't even report it, especially since racism isn't moderated on this forum.  Members are generally free to say things that might offend you, and as long as they're not blatantly trolling the moderators aren't going to do anything.

Race wasn't mentioned in that comment, though I can see how you'd think it was made because the guy is black.  I don't understand the second part "Good luck tracking your assholes, yo".  I probably don't know the context, however.

In any case, I seriously doubt that post will get deleted.  This forum is big on free speech, which includes speech that offends you.  If you think someone is a racist and don't care for the comments he's making, you've got the option to use the ignore button.  I'd also advise growing a thicker skin if you plan on sticking around the forum, because there's no telling when someone is going to write something that could be offensive. 

Nowhere is it claimed that bitcointalk is going to keep you free from discomfort.  I'd also add that if you don't like what that user wrote, you can always challenge him in a post of your own.

That's precisely what I was thinking.  This is a thread with no purpose and which does indeed seem to be written like a student--or plagiarized from somewhere.  I don't know what you're thinking, OP.

Thankfully this forum doesn't have a hell of a lot of rules, and some of the "unofficial" ones aren't even enforced (like using profanity).  That's one of the things I love about bitcointalk....except that scamming isn't against the rules.  That's an odd exclusion to any list of rules.

I've no idea who Zhou Tong is, but I do know the danger of using too much leverage when investing.  I've referenced Long Term Capital Management in a number of posts over the years when this subject comes up, so it's not just crypto traders and idiots who get themselves into trouble by over-leveraging their investments.  Professionals can and do make that same mistake.

I don't know about margin calls, but some bitcoin buyers had much the same trouble in 2017 when they were maxing out their credit cards to buy it, and I'm sure if there were exchanges offering margin trading back then that people were doing stupid things that caused them to lose money when December of that year rolled around.

Going to sleep with a short position is probably more of an insomnia-inducer than using margin, but either way I get your point.

They got hacked--at least that's the story, and I don't know if they ever got access to their original site back.  I'm sure someone here who's been following the drama surrounding Livecoin will have the answer to that one.  I have been reading their ANN thread, but there hasn't been much communication from Livecoin in it.

I still don't know what to believe, whether the hack was real or if this is some kind of weird non-traditional exit scam.  Assuming there actually was a hack, it's scary to think that an exchange could lose control of their site like that.  Hopefully other exchanges have better security measures in place than Livecoin did, but it's not like any of them make that information public.

Glad to see customers getting at least some of their funds back, and if everything is what it seems to be, this could have been a hell of a lot worse.  I won't mourn Livecoin going out of business, though.

Yeah, I wish reputable companies like Ledger and others would stop associating themselves with (and promoting) sketchy partners.  I think I tried to use Coinify once and couldn't because of where I live, but it wasn't a big deal as I just wanted to try it out.

I appreciate the warning about this, though it's not one of the worst promotions I've seen, and I'm still a fan of Ledger as a hardware wallet.  No HW wallet should be a sacred cow, and there need to be extreme skeptics who look at stuff like this.

Um, yeah.  The only reason the stock is as high as it is is because it's being heavily manipulated, i.e., pumped.  The only way the company is going to survive is if it seriously revamps its business model, because as far as I can see, gaming is moving away from physical games and everything is moving toward the intangible and what will Game Stop be left with?

And no, I haven't been closely following the drama surrounding GME stock--at least not since it first made the news.  I'd say if you made a profit already, now would be a good time to sell because a company on the decline like Game Stop is can't maintain a high share price for very long.  There might still be some money to be made once people start getting their stimulus checks, because I'm pretty sure some of them will be buying GME, but it's going to be a short-lived rally.

Yeah, that's a lot of merits to have sent out in a month--and I took a look at your history and you tend to give out 2-3 merits per post, just like I do and I only gave out about 1/3 of what you did last month.  Props to you! 

I did do better this time around, but not by much.  This month I have had to tap into my earned sMerits a few times, but overall it seems like my source sMerits are being replenished a lot more quickly than they used to be.  At one time sources received a sMerit drop once a month and you were screwed if you used them all up before the next drop.  Now it seems like they're being replenished in real time, which is outstanding.

I'm happy being in the top 20, and it's not a competition to me.  I'm actually glad others are distributing more merits than I am, because I want the system to keep working.

What about Bakkt and the CME?  Don't they allow bitcoin futures trading?  I fully understand that they cater to people/institutions with very deep pockets, but as long as you meet their requirements for trading I thought you could buy bitcoin options and such.  I haven't heard much about either one of those places lately on the forum.  I remember when the launch of Bakkt was a huge deal, and then it kind of fizzled out.

And yeah, I'm pretty sure Binance offers some of those services.  I'm really not into trading derivatives and prefer to stick to investing in the real thing, whether it's bitcoin, stocks, metals, or whatever.  But to each his own, eh?

Are people actually squirreling away that many GPUs?  I've been watching Youtube videos about the GPU shortage and none of them have mentioned anything like that.  I had assumed the scalpers were just individuals with enough cash to snap up a handful or two of the most popular models and then selling them at jacked up prices on eBay.  If there are large-scale operators hoarding GPUs like that, I'd love to read about it.

This is all the result of having a free market, by the way and I'm not sure anything should be done about it except for manufacturers upping the supply and maybe do a pre-order system or something.  I know gamers are pissed off because of this, but I'm happy I was able to get my gaming computer that I don't use for gaming that has an RTX 3080 in it!  That thing crunches Folding@Home problems like a beast.

Yep, that'll be a serious deal breaker for many potential bitcoin buyers.  As it stands with CoinFlip machines, you can only purchase up to $900 worth of crypto without having to scan your ID if I'm not mistaken.  I just used one recently and made a thread about it.

Funny you quoted the fees from the article, because I was going to do the same thing.  The CoinFlip ATM that I used had fees of less than 7%, which I was fine with.  Other ATMs I've used were just outrageous, plus they required a scan of my driver's license. 

All in all that was a pretty interesting article, and if nothing else it keeps bitcoin in the news.  I'm sure they're still a novelty for most people, and I'm also sure most people who see them in gas stations, liquor stores, or wherever won't actually use them.  But for those people who can't use exchanges like Coinbase (me, for example, because they nuked my account) they're certainly a convenient way to buy crypto.