And you must have missed my post, then. 

I will reiterate my point that you've been a member since August 2017 and have made only 631 posts.  What are you expecting?  It isn't supposed to be easy to earn merits; that's the whole point of the merit system, to suppress shitposters and reward members who put in a decent amount of thought and effort into what they're writing.  I'd say you have a pretty good merit/post ratio.  I've certainly seen members with ones that are a lot less.

Maybe, unless we see a correction before it gets there--but I have a feeling that any such correction will happen after $50k is hit, not before.  But I've been wrong with my predictions so many times that I don't know why I even bother to type any of them out--it just seems like if bitcoin actually hits $50k, that might trigger some traders to start selling.  Who knows?  Bitcoin isn't even there yet, so we'll have to see.

Bitcoin's rise this year has been mind-blowing.  I remember thinking at this time last year that it'd be cool if $15k were reached--and that was before COVID hit the US.  After COVID, I was almost certain bitcoin wouldn't be seeing $10k for a long time.  So once again I'm stymied by the market.  Too bad I'm pretty much a bystander.

Do they usually give out detailed info like that on earnings calls?  I seriously have no idea since I never listen to them.

But you still can't buy actual bitcoin through PayPal if I'm not mistaken, is that right?  I thought they were going with some kind of Robinhood model, where you can buy bitcoin in name only but not have access to your private keys.  Did PayPal end up buying a bunch of bitcoin?  That would certainly help explain the price bump as of late, along with all the other institutional buying.

Agreed, and this is yet another feedback of JollyGood's that I don't agree with, no matter how much he's right about Yobit being a scam exchange.  I wouldn't tag anyone for being in a previous Yobit campaign, and the evidence of OP's account changing hands is just....meh, as far as I can see--but I didn't delve too deep into it.

Gotta go easy on those negs, JG.

So do I, but I'm a merit source and it's kind of my voluntary job.

I do agree with OP that the average member with very few sMerits to give isn't going to be motivated to get rid of them unless they're feeling generous, but that's why Theymos has merit sources patrolling for good posts.  The whole system would probably not work without sources for the reasons you've given.

Why is this now a problem for you, OP?  You've been here for a few years and likely could have ranked up faster had you just posted more and perhaps put in a little more effort into your posts (though I haven't checked your post history).  Very few posts get merited, period.  Therefore you kind of have to be a prolific poster in order to earn a lot of merits (or an outstanding one, which is rare).  Good luck.

You got all that right.  Anyone check OP's post history?  I think I'll do that after writing this, see if there's anything worth meriting.  I've often encouraged people to PM me with requests to look at their posts, but only one or two members have ever done so.

Edit:  I gave OP a few merits for some of his previous posts, which were pretty good/informative.  I'd encourage him and anyone else to contact me as described above, and I'll review your posts--just don't beg for merits.

It used to be much worse back in the ICO-craziness days, and I thought that shit had burned itself out.  This looks and sounds just like any number of those awfully-conceived ICO projects, offering nothing of value to anyone except the token developers.

And yeah, no surprise there's some plagiarism here.  This seems to be just a quick money-grabbing scheme, and there's no way the people behind it are going to put in any more effort than they absolutely need to.  Hopefully nobody falls for this scam token.  Ugh.

Nicely spotted, OP.

For Teslas?  I thought they already did, no?

That's interesting about them buying all that bitcoin--I don't know exactly what's up with these companies snapping up bitcoin like it's going out of style, but it certainly has helped the price.  And obviously the shareholders of Tesla and the other companies that bought bitcoin don't seem to mind very much.  But that's because we're in a raging bull market.  I suspect that if bitcoin's price was languishing or even dropping, there would be more resistance to these kinds of buys. 

For their sake, I hope bitcoin doesn't take a massive hit such that they need to sell; that could be disastrous for everyone holding bitcoin for the long-term.  Can you imagine?

I have taken university-level economics courses, and I'll be damned if I could tell you for sure whether it's impossible for bitcoin to reach $X, whatever X is.  With all the money that's now in circulation, I'd say pretty much anything could happen.

It's not just bitcoin that's on fire.  The stock market is and has been soaring for over a decade now, and I have this gut feeling that we're in for a reckoning--a crash or at least a serious correction in a few markets, bitcoin being one of them.  There's been a lot of institutional buying going on, and that's helped to bump bitcoin up to where it is now, but there's no telling when those corporate whales are going to start selling.  Believe me, if they sense danger in bitcoin they'll jump ship with no regard for anyone but themselves.  That could turn out to be a scary situation for anyone holding BTC for the long-term.

I doubt it.  I sure as hell didn't expect bitcoin to be this high this soon.

Wow, this is indeed crazy.  The only thing I'm wondering is, who's doing the buying right now to drive the price up so far--in particular, I'm wondering if there's more institutional money flowing into bitcoin (like MicroStrategy) as opposed to small retail investors.  Either way, bitcoin's getting closer to that much-awaited milestone, $50k.

No way in hell would I have thought it'd be possible to even hit $20k this year, seeing as how the economy took an enormous hit last year, but here we are.  I can't tell if this is a bubble or what's going to happen, but it sure is interesting to track.

So that's why, OP.  Even if he shouldn't have probably left you that negative, that's the reason for it.  But if the mods agree with the report(s) on your plagiarism, the feedback is a moot point.  That's a serious offense around these parts, partner. 

Do you have anything to say about the accusation of plagiarism?

Assuming they are alt accounts, there's no wrongdoing here unless he's using the alts to cheat in bounties or whatnot.  If he's using his alt account to "reinforce" his opinions in his own threads, that's a fucked up thing to do but I'm not sure what kind of punishment it deserves, if any.

And as far as whether these two accounts are linked, I'd have to say I wouldn't be confident enough to tag them even if they were abusing bounties based on the evidence presented here.  It certainly is possible they're alt accounts, but I'm not convinced one way or another.

Probably.  And I have no doubt whatsoever that such a feature wouldn't be available in my state.  Well, I have a little bit of doubt, but it seems like I live in one of the most regulated states in the country when it comes to buying bitcoin, and I'm sure a BTC debit card would not be popular with our lawmakers.  But we'll see.

Yeah, you mentioned you had a bitcoin debit card if I remember correctly.  I wouldn't use one even if I could, but I'm guessing that my state is even harsher than yours is when it comes to this sort of thing. 

A bunch of investors buying a bunch of stock--on margin--in a company that doesn't have an enormous amount of stock floating would inflate the price quite nicely, and I don't doubt that's what happened.  I seriously doubt the government would have any interest in pumping Gamestop stock, nor do I think Gates and Buffett feel threatened by cryptocurrency.

This stuff is really interesting, though.  It'd be nice if those Reddit peeps would pump something I owned.  Too bad I'm not holding any doge right now.

Hate to say it, but doge is more useful in a lot of ways than bitcoin is.  That's why it's a darling crypto for gamblers--low fees, quick confirmation time.  It might have begun its life as a silly little meme coin, but it's hung in there over the years and it's still popular.

Gamestop stock is shit, plain and simple--it's a company that's in a downward spiral, and the only reason the stock is on fire is because it's being targeted by the Reddit crowd and probably a lot of others who buy stocks based on trends.  It'll eventually go to zero, just like Sears, JC Penny, and all of the other businesses that don't/didn't have plans to adjust their business models to the changing times.

I'd much rather own bitcoin than a single share of Gamestop--at least for the long-term.  In the short-term, there's probably still some profit to be made with the Gamestop play.  I'm not a stock market gambler, however, and that stock isn't for me.

Then there's that aspect of this whole thing.  Apparently you can still buy Gamestop stock, but the amount is limited if you're buying on margin.  That's what TD Ameritrade said, anyway.  I haven't been following what Robinhood has been doing all that closely, but they suck and don't deserve any attention.

You know, I figured that when big companies like MSTR and/or hedge funds started getting into bitcoin, they'd be doing it through derivatives on Bakkt or the like.  I was really surprised that MicroStrategy straight out bought all that bitcoin, and yes, all of that institutional money has driven the price of bitcoin to its new ATH. 

It sure as hell wasn't the little investors this time, because there have been so many people out of work that buying crypto is a luxury many can't afford.  Now let's just keep our fingers crossed that these institutional whales don't decide to dump all their bitcoin all at once.

Listening to the interview right now--I'm always a little slow on the uptake of news like this, but I'm starting to get a good idea of what happened with Robinhood and Gamestop stock and Elon Musk's stance on bitcoin.

Dunno.  I don't really care one way or another what anyone thinks about bitcoin, no matter how influential they are.  I respect Warren Buffett more than Musk, but Buffett's bashing of BTC doesn't affect my own opinion--nor did it diminish anyone's interest in it, apparently.

Screw Robinhood, by the way.  I get that they're regulated, but they offer some seriously shitty customer service.

This sounds like foolish advice given for emotional reasons (if you consider greed an emotion). 

Doge got pumped up like a hot air balloon by that Reddit crowd (I think), but that doesn't mean its price is going to remain high.  My guess is that it'll fall back to about 20 sats eventually, though I can't say how long that'll take.  Doge just isn't a coin worth holding for the long term, which is why it hasn't seen any long-term growth.  What we've seen in the past few days is just manipulation, and who knows when the P&D group that's responsible is going to start selling like crazy.

I wouldn't chase either doge or Ripple--or Gamestop stock for that matter.  Their prices have been inflated artificially and, IMO, temporarily.  Gamestop, for example, is a dying company.  As games start becoming non-physical, they're going to have a hell of a hard time selling games unless they completely restructure their business model, and I haven't read anything that indicates they're doing that.

I'll quote Chuck D, the baddest-ass rapper ever to live:  "Don't believe the hype!".

You could be correct, you might be wrong--time will tell. 

Hate to say this, but I think even some of the best members here are motivated to post (or at least post more) because of signature campaigns.  That's a feature that's unique to bitcointalk as far as I know and it's a major driver of traffic here. 

In that link you sent me, you can see that forum traffic has dropped significantly in the past couple of years.  I happen to think that's at least partially the result of the merit system.  It used to be that someone could create his own farm of accounts and rank them up to Legendary status simply by posting enough and the passage of time--and then they could either sell the account(s) or earn the max in sig campaigns with the highest rank. 

Nowadays that isn't possible, and I think a lot of people have given up trying to make a living on bitcointalk.  Notice that you don't see many threads in Meta anymore bitching about how hard it is to earn merits.  Meta used to be full of them.  Part of me says good riddance, but I'd hate to see signature campaigns disappear entirely.  That would almost certainly happen if traffic to bitcointalk dropped so low that it no longer made sense for anyone to use members' signature space for advertising.

How did you determine that?  Is there a site that gives that information?  I'm an ignoramus when it comes to stuff like that, so it's probably common knowledge that I never learned.  But whatever, that's a huge drop.

I think the merit system is functioning just fine, and you don't see many complaint threads in Meta anymore.  The trust system on the other hand....we could debate that until 2022 and probably beyond.  Suggestions have been made and ignored by Theymos, so I don't think anything is going to change in the near future.

I don't know what's responsible for the drop in activity on the other boards, but I do know that traffic to bitcointalk has dropped significantly over the course of the last year and suspect that may have at least something to do with it.

Dude, the admins will do their job as long as you use the report button.  That PM is clearly against the rules, so there's not much else anyone can do for you.  There's nothing that's going to prevent people from sending messages like that completely; there's only consequences for doing so, and hopefully that jackass will get the ban he deserves.