Ah hah hah hah hahahaha.....Merry Effin' holidays to all of the banned members who want to come back to the forum so badly that they'd be active whilst not renting out their signature space.  I suppose if someone has been banned for over 2 years, they'll go for it but I'm not sure about others.  

This is quite generous, Cyrus.  Let us hope said generosity doesn't backfire and spray shit all over this fine forum.

Yeah, you got that right.  I've seen a lot of ban appeal threads, and frankly I wouldn't give 99% of them a second chance, as those threads consist of:

1. Lies
2. Excuses
3. Begging
4. Rationalizing
5. Blaming others
6. Raging against the mods
7. Assholes who have zillions of accounts that are already banned.

I heard on some video somewhere about a "skyscraper index" that was partly humorous but partly true, and basically it meant that you can gauge how close to the top of a bull market any given country is by how many enormous buildings are being erected.  I think I heard about it in a reference to Saudi Arabia, though I could be mistaken.

I have a feeling the average Chinese person is going to flock to gold rather than bitcoin if they have a choice.  I'm still not clear on how legal or even popular bitcoin is in China, but I'd imagine the government has the same opinion about it as the US government does, i.e, that it's a threat to their power over their citizens.  Why gold ownership doesn't represent the same threat is beyond me, but whatever.

Interesting blurb, stompix.  Damned if I'd have ever known about China's situation had I not read it here--and the only reason I care just a little bit is that they've become such a super power in the world, and if shit hits the fan in China it could get splattered all over the globe.

OP's probably already got everything he needs as far as an answer, but I don't think it's too far off topic to mention that the above statement (no fault to you, hosseinimr93) proves why mBTC is a stupid unit to express an amount of bitcoin in.  It's worse than Roman numerals IMO as it forces your mind to do unnecessary calculations when it's so much clearer to use either BTC or sats.

And by the way, the network fees!  I'm wondering when all the bitcoin accelerator threads are going to start popping up like they did a few years ago when the network was congested as all hell. 

Now, now digaran.  OP is not one of the swarming mass of shilling shitposters whose only purpose on the forum is to earn a living.  You've been here long enough that you should know that.  He's one of the rare members who chooses to earn some bitcoin for doing what he'd no doubt be doing anyway, making good posts on our fine forum here.

On a related note, I'm as big a whore as anyone else and I'll be free on the first of next year, too, for any suitors willing to fellate my signature space.  Not my avatar, though.  Foxpup owns that outright.

He can't forbid you to discuss anything unless it's in his own self-moderated thread.  

Reading the quote from Theymos regarding the lack of requests from law enforcement (which I assume means any government agency, but who knows), I take it he's telling the truth and thus the question doesn't need to be asked again IMO.  Theymos has always been a stand-up guy in terms of freedom of speech and freedom in general, so this move he made with regard to mixers I interpret as him seeing what's down the road and trying to proactively protect the forum.  He's in a tight spot, you know.  With the US government (and others) cracking down on crypto and scrutinizing mixing services, he probably knows what would happen if mixers were allowed to kick off their businesses here.

It says a lot that he's taken such an extreme action when he's never done anything like this that I know of before--but older members, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Probably for the same reason some are hired as mods, some are made merit sources, and some are on DT.  Trust, time, and dedication to the forum go a long way here.

I don't know about y'all, but when everything is up (including stocks, which weren't mentioned much here) it kind of scares me.  That tells me that there's too much money floating around and people are speculating instead of investing for the long term.  It's great that bitcoin is up a lot, and I would not be shocked to see it head past its ATH, but as I've written a million times I don't want to see it go up too fast. 

And I'm still waiting for a huge stock market crash that never seems to come.  Bull markets can last a long time, but Jesus....it's been what, a decade-and-a-half now?  And on top of that, gold is at or above its ATH and silver is creeping up as well?  I don't know, all of this makes me nervous.  I've got my party hat at the ready, but I'm reluctant to put it on at the moment lest I jinx all the markets.

I didn't know Light_warrior even by username, but I hate hearing that forum members have died, no matter who they are.  TECSHARE and I had a serious disagreement a few years ago, and it's safe to say we couldn't stand each other, but my heart still sunk when I read the thread about his death.

So RIP Light_warrior.  You obviously had a lot of friends here who'll miss you. 

I'm no technical wizard by any stretch of the imagination, but from what I've heard from members here any device with a secure element (including the Bitbox wallets) is subject to the same problems Ledger revealed to the world--and all of you who do understand the machinations of key exfiltration by HW wallet manufacturers please correct me if I'm wrong.  However, I'd trust Bitbox over Ledger any day of the week, and if you've got to use a HW wallet the Bitbox02 isn't a bad one at all.  Whatever you decide, my advice--which you already seem to be leaning toward--is to ditch Ledger ASAP.  I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking they're a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off.

The only two problems I have with Bitbox is their UI (which you don't have to use) and the device itself which is more cumbersome to use than a Ledger, at least for a fat-fingered fumblebum like myself.  If you're not doing a lot of sending/checking balances/etc., it probably won't matter much to you.  Good luck, and fuck Ledger!

I've been here for years, and though I didn't interact with BlackHatCoiner all that much I agree with you that it sucks when a relative old-timer (there's not many true ones left from the early years) leaves, especially when they've had an effect on you.  I felt the same thing when Vod left, and even Lauda too, despite all the controversy surrounding the latter.  They both supported me early on, and it's strange to think about some faceless internet persona being able to evoke any kind of feeling--but I'm a creature born well before the internet was created, so that's probably why it seems strange.

But hey, BlackHatCoiner might return.  Seems like when people say goodbye to the forum, they usually can't stay gone permanently. 

I'm not even sure that's a big positive, even if what OP said is true, which I'm not sure of as monero has been listed on tons of exchanges for years now anyway.

The thing about bitcoin is that its one of the few cryptocurrencies that can actually be used as money to buy stuff from merchants, which I believe was one of the intended purposes from the get-go.  But monero?  I don't know any place you can spend it, and I'd like to see some evidence that it's being used on the dark web.  It makes sense that it would be, but I've never visited any onion sites and so I don't know if it's really being used there.

Aside from that, I've got no problems whatsoever with XMR.  And by the way, most altcoins have much lower fees and much faster confirmation times than bitcoin.  I wish that weren't so, but that's the reality.

I was curious about that statement as well.

Man oh man, I'm just starting to read this thread and I see it's already gone quite a number of pages, so I'll probably add to my post here as I learn more.  And yeah, I think this would be the first case of a merit source account changing hands.  Can you imagine how dangerous that would be if it went undiscovered?  Jesus.  I shall continue reading....

Lol.  I've thus far read as far as your post and I'm seeing more evidence than I've had in the past to justify tagging other members for selling/buying accounts.  The only other possibility is that Ratimov is pretending to be someone else by misusing the Russian language, but does that make any sense?  Not to me.

You know, I never really thought about it but unfortunately you're right.  Rank does as well, as does being on DT.  My gut is telling me it shouldn't be this way for a community based on a shared passion for a form of money that eliminates the need for trust (of a 3rd party) and which ought to be comprised of very skeptical individuals, not ones prone to blindly trusting someone based on their statistics on a discussion forum.

Just thought I'd address this point--it makes total sense that a business would try to remain honest if they face reputational damage should they not do so.  The only problem is that there could be shady shit going on behind the scenes that no one outside the advertiser knows about, and it's not until either they get caught or pull an exit scam that they face the blowback, and by the time that happens they couldn't care less what members of this forum write about them.

Similarly, there are a lot of reasons why corporations should do things, but sometimes they don't.  It could be because of greed, incompetence, or whatever, but in the world of crypto it's damn hard to predict what a project/exchange/business is going to do or why.

I hate the ban on mixers on principle, but I see Theymos's side of it as well.  Try to fight the government and you're guaranteed to lose or go broke trying--and AFAIK mixers aren't illegal yet, but I'm guessing Theymos is anticipating that that's where the US government is going.

Here we go with the bull run FOMO threads!

Back in 2017, there were people selling everything to buy bitcoin--and that might not have been a terrible idea in 2016, but be careful not to buy on impulse and especially when the price of bitcoin (or any investment) is high.  Personally I think it's going higher, but I've been surprised by the market so many times that I don't listen to my instincts any more.

As others have recommended, if it's a computer you don't need and you want to take the plunge, do it.  You might at least have fun partaking in the madness.

Now, now.  There's no official abbreviation for the forum's name, and I've always used BCT whenever I was too lazy to write the whole thing out.  To each his own, no?  I'm still trying to convince people to put the US dollar sign before the amount, not after (like $5 as opposed to 5$) but it's a losing battle.

The whole reason why there are so many members (and very active ones at that) is precisely because sig campaigns and bounties exist.  If they were banned right now, I'm sure there would be a mass exodus and there wouldn't be nearly as much "discussion" going on.  Bitcointalk would still probably be more active than any altcoin forum, but compared to how it's been since the first sig campaign it'd look like a ghost town.

Also, OP made an excellent suggestion about reading very old threads.  Some of the ones from 2009-2011 are fantastic, and I'm sure there's a lot of good stuff from the pre-sig campaign era for anyone who wants to learn a bit of bitcoin history.

My man tread93, you sound like you're in a serious state of euphoria right now--ain't bull markets great? 

I haven't heard anything about a new pandemic, but news tends to make its way very slowly into my realm and I'll have to check that out.  You mentioned silver rising, and as I own some that's always pleasant to see, but I think gold has gone up even more.  I can't remember the high back in 2011, but I think the price it's at now surpasses that.  Crazy, crazy, crazy.

Anyhow, glad to see you in such a good mood.  Let's just hope there's a trend here and bitcoin's rise isn't some sort of fluke.

Man oh man, I figured bitcoin would break out hard, either up or down after being stuck in the $28k area.  I'm pleased to see that it's the former, even if I have no clue what's driving the price up.  I sort of figured bitcoin would start dropping after everyone saw that governments are scrutinizing crypto harder than ever.

The market does tend to surprise me--and that's probably why I never made any money.  If I'd known what bitcoin was going to do back in 2015 I would have erased every doubt I had about it and bought with every cent I had.  I can't help but kick myself at times like these.

OK, I know I missed this reply and am responding late, but thanks for the correction.  For some reason I thought it was 2017 because at some point when I was on my crusade to destroy account sellers, I discovered that there were a lot of accounts that changed hands that year.  I figured some of them had been hacked, but oops on me!

It's not meant to be nice, and I'd suggest getting used to the harshness of tone you're likely to see whilst browsing our beloved but thorny forum.  Don't know the origin of that word as it's being used here, but it's likely an American thing.

How are you defining the word "decentralized"?  I'd argue that any coin that can go from PoW to PoS without anybody having a say in the matter is pretty damn centralized, unless I'm missing something obvious.  Similarly, any altcoin that has a DAO or any kind of governance is centralized, even if mining or staking is decentralized by nature.  Ugh.  The state of altcoins has become atrocious IMO.  I long for the simpler, easier days of 2016--but that's just me being retardedly sentimental about shitcoins.

Come to think of it, I was probably saying there were way too many shitcoins on the market back in 2016.  And now?  There are (too many)^3 if you get my meaning.  It's amazing so many of them are doing well.

I'm not sure if a lot of people boycott brands based on said brands' public stance on political/hot-button issues (though the more vocal people might create youtube videos and such demonstrating their new hatred of their formerly beloved product), but I'm pretty sure if there's a big difference in opinion, people aren't going to "appreciate" a corporation's position. 

And if people are using their brains, they'd realize that crap like the Bud Light thing and the Gilette razor commercials are just performative in nature, designed to increase their ESG scores so that the parent company doesn't lose its financing from whatever banks they rely on.  When I learned about ESG financing, it blew my frigging mind and just made me want to stay at home with the doors locked even more than usual.

What a world.

Oh, man....is that MPOE-PR?  If so, although he hasn't been active in years I always found his posts to be some of the most biting and humorous I've read on this forum yet.  Who exactly was he?  I only know the username from my lurking days, not who he was in the bitcoin world.

And as for the voting goes, I'm just going to groan again this year and see if I can think of anyone who deserves these various titles.  Can anyone convince me to care a little more this time around?