My bad, I was thinking of that, but as I rarely eat out, I do not quite know their privacy policy and I assumed they do not store the data they receive such as customer address but a transaction cannot be deleted as it's needed for accountability.

The refund would have nothing to do with cryptocurrency from what I understand; you send them Bitcoin, they convert it instantly using a payment processor and receive fiat. If an order is cancelled later, they'll be paying from their euro account into the customer's account, the bank would not be involved in the initial cryptocurrency transaction.

According to their website they do not charge any hidden fees besides the 1% and they take their conversion rate from exchanges for U.S and Eurozone purchases, while other regions is done indirectly

According to this article the service cuts across 15,000 restaurants in France, not 1,500.
Overall, It's a good step forward for publicity and adoption as people would struggle less to find ways to spend bitcoins. They firm also plans to make inroads into other countries like the U.S, leading to more adoption.
But, this part of the article caught my eye;

...Payments using Bitcoin will be calculated based on the current price charged by Bitpay. However, if a Bitcoin payment is cancelled, the customer will be refunded in Euros, with payment being sent to a customer’s traditional bank account.

“When you make your initial payment, Bitcoin is already converted into Euros. The rate applicable at the time of your payment will therefore be the rate applied for reimbursement,” the website says.

If I use Bitcoin there is a likelihood that I wish to remain private, compelling users to divulge their bank details for a refund when an order is cancelled doesn't quite sit right with me. Understandably, they are using a payment processor, so all transactions made in bitcoins are immediately converted to fiat, they could however still hold some bitcoins in reserve precisely for this sort of situations.

The list is ranked primarily by the generosity score as you can see users with less sent merits above those with more because they have a higher score.

My hypothesis would be that users not on the list with possibly higher sent merits have an equally high received number of merits which reduced their generosity based on OPs calculation.
Note that; the list was originally created to check users who give out more merits than they earn.
The all-time list would also be skewed as some users on the list have earned zero merits but awarded smerits, which would mean that they got airdropped smerits along with merits. This discrepancy between sent and received merits would give them a much higher score than someone who gets smerits as a result of merits they earn.

• I sent 225 smerits and earned 450. My score would be; 225 - 450/2 = 0
• Someone else sends 120 smerits and earned 0. Their score would be 220 - 0/2 = 120
The user with a lower sent merit would be ranked higher.

Yes - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources

It's possibly a means of recognizing other top generous merit awarders. The identified merit sources are easily distinguished on the list, as their usernames are boldened.

Not sure which method the OP uses, but there is a weekly updated merit data dump from theymos, DdmrDdmr also runs the merit dashboard. Both of these tools would be very useful in making such a list.

Are you looking at the generosity score? It is not the actual sent merit figure, according to the OP, it is calculated using;

Inflation is basically an increase in the price of goods and cost of living, devaluing of a currency is an aftermath of inflation; Goods are overpriced, so automatically the value of what you could buy with the equivalent of $1 (for example) would increase leading to a change in the conversion rate.
This ideally should be an isolated crisis for the impact to be more felt, i.e; there are little or no changes in the value of similar products in other economies.

Fixed exchange rate is a policy governments use to try and ensure stability, but it also has its downsides. You should also note that bank exchange rate usually differs from black market rates due to regulation.


During an inflation, the central banks would be implementing policies to encourage spending, so I would assume it would not be too easy to convert to some other currency as a regular individual (I could be wrong), the other option then would be the black market which would reflect the overblown changes in rate.  Also, interests on loans would make this quite unprofitable and risky.
It would be a good idea though to switch to hedge funds to protect assets you hold.

This would result in spammers finding a new convenient board to spam, clogging up the rest of the forum, and putting more work load on mods/staffs.
Imo, it's better confined to the off topic section, every board already has its fair share of spam.

Steering a bit from the discussion; I never mentioned that there was a connection between ads and visits, I was discussing what goes into results which are returned by search engines after a request, and visits is one of the factors. There are two parts to search results;
• Indexing: For a site to appear on a search page, they need to have been indexed, and this is done when such a site is picked up by web crawlers or "spiders", these are bots used by search engines to scan the web looking for pages which would be relevant to seachers. The site has to be visible to the bots in order to be indexed.

• After a site has been indexed by an engine, the next target (of the site owner) would be to appear on search results, preferably on the first page. This is where factors such as activity or traffic, back links or mentions on other websites, bid amount, SEO~Search Engine Optimization; which includes use of specific key words relevant to the website's services is very useful. This is done so an engine returns the most accurate and relevant result to a particular search query.

The search engine should also have a system to filter the indexed websites and check for suspicious or fake activity, inorder to protect its users, and this is a reason why Google is a bad option to use as a search engine, as they have a poor filter system and do the bare minimum to protect its users.

'Bias' is necessarily not a bad thing. if I have been actively interested in a network like bitcoin for a good number of years as the Winklevoss twins have, I would likely pick up a bit of positive bias along the way, possibly to the level of maximalism. This is a personal opinion, as people gravitate towards what interests them.
When bias turns to prejudice, it is then a problem. Anyone can have positive or negative opinions about various ventures, but it would only be FUDing or shilling when one uses baseless statements to support of discredit a project.

Fluidity and convenience usually comes at a price, reason why lots of crypto users patronize custodial wallets to avoid taking responsibility. As you said, you trade your data for this convenience, but data is a broad space and ranges from browsing history to really sensitive information which you would not want a third party storing.
Using an ad blocker is very good practice, you could also use Searx to anonymously visit other search engines like Google, and it returns the result to you.

Search results are ranked based on activity score as well as bid amount. So basically; organic activity (including visits and mentions on other sites) as well as a substantial bid (amount paid to appear higher on search results) determine what website is returned to a user after a search. Google has a poor filter system, so a phishing website can show up on their result page with a substantial bid and activity, which can be faked.
At this point, you shouldn't use Google search engine at all, more so, if you are looking up delicate queries, like wallet websites or exchanges.

As an enthusiast, you would want to learn more about the assets you are interested in;
Check out this articles for information on basics of Bitcoin as well as best security practices;
- https://www.coindesk.com/learn/
- https://cryptosec.info/wallets/

As an investor you would need;
• A tool with which to monitor the changes in the market. For this you could check out https://tradingview.com/ or regular cryptocurrency market trackers like, coingecko or CMC

• Optimum security practice; this begins with a secure wallet to store your assets in. I recommend a hardware wallet like ledger or trezor, ensure you get it from the official website. You should begin to practice safe browsing and be more alert when using the internet, if you chose to be your own bank, you also have to take responsibility.
Recommendation from a forum member;

• You would also need an investment plan, to avoid panic selling or bag holding. Check out this thread - (SSS) - A Sane and Simple bitcoin Savings plan
.
Note: Your plan should be customized to you, take ideas of other as just suggestions.

• It would help to stay ahead of the market, explore changes and updates and decide what should and should not be in your portfolio, this forum can be a very useful tool for that. Good luck!

The ability of the government to carry out corrupt practices is not an indicator of socialism.
Using my country as a case study; social amenities such as electricity, tourism/hospitality has been privatized, with major sellouts still happening in various sectors indicating a shift from socialism. Corruption however is still widespread as they still have influence over financial structures like; budget allocation, contract awarding etc, so corrupt gov'ts can still effectively embezzle public funds.

The time the hype was at its highest was not when those projects were launched, but rather when it became popular; this popularity leads to FOMO, attracting investors and scammers who would want to rip off the new investors. ICOs were a product of the blockchain hype with devs leveraging on the technology to sell half baked projects which were only feasible on paper

We had hype around blockchain when it first became popular and the internet got lots of interest when it became available publicly. This two inventions had lots of hype, but were very essential in the advancement of technology, undergoing more developments along the way to get to its present stage.

I would assume they lacked enough activity to keep up with the number of boards on bitcointalk, or else they would have entirely duplicated the layout on their forum.

All the threads I skimmed through there were started by one profile, so there are very little users visiting the site. Any plagiarism would likely be copied from here and pasted there, and there's nothing that can be done to stop them, right?

I don't think so, I would expect a resistance level around $9000-9500. But as you said, predicting the price movements of cryptocurrencies is very difficult as so many factors influence the price.

The hype would certainly have influenced the crypto market to an extent, but I wouldn't say it was the sole reason for the mini-pump. Bitcoin halving happened some months ago and there has been lots of interest from institutional investors to cause a  bullish sentiment.

If your country uses a floating currency rate i.e, one which is dictated by changes in the economy, (as opposed to a fixed rate; which is pegged to another currency) then it would be influenced by changes such as inflation and the exchange value would be affected.
Sudan currently uses a regulated floating policy, which means it is still controlled to an extent by the government/banks.

Exchange rates are quite tricky to understand and calculate, bank rates are based on mid market rates, which is the average of buy and sell rates. You should also note that when converting a currency as an individual, you are technically buying money from an agency, so a commission is placed on it, all these factors can influence the exchange value.
Banks also implement fiscal policies to affect the economy, such as OMO ~ open market operations, QE ~ quantitative easing etcetera, so the inter bank rate is regulated.

Black market rates are usually more accurate and reflect changes in the economy more.
This is an excerpt from an article posted in July;

They've been around for quite a while - what is swiftcoin
The developers and administrators, who may be the same person, seem to be trying to affiliate both the forum and the coin to Bitcoin and are probably scrapping posts from this forum. Going through the most recent posts on the forum, there are so many of them with 'bitcoin' in its title or text (SEO marketing), which were likely plagiarized from here.

I could not find a logo of the project, but there is one of Bitcoin on the forum;

They're probably looking for cheap publicity by associating themselves with bitcoin, nothing to really discuss.

I may disagree with some of your opinions on health issues but I have also gotten lots of helpful information; for one, I got connected to Dr. John Campbell's YouTube channel through your threads, and it has been a great resource for useful content related to global health situations.
Congrats on your merit achievement. Your contributions would be valuable whichever board you stick to.

Uncertainty could have several connotations to it, Bitcoin could be seen as an alternative to the uncertainty in supply of cash, credit crisis and other fiscal policies the banking sectors implement which affects the nation's economy. Bitcoin has the qualities of immutability, decentralization and a fixed supply which makes it a good hedge against centralization.

That really is not that crazy. There are people who are investing in Bitcoin which would be accessed by their kids in 10-20 years, 2050 from then is not far off.

So, your friend does not know the exchange on which they bought bitcoins, and they have not visited it since 2010?
You can post the address publicly and the community would look into it and try and decipher the exchange
P.S; if he doesn't remember the exchange, he/she would likely not know the email address that was used to register it nor the password of the account, proving ownership of the account would be a struggle.