I can see Polkadot is doing well when I look at CMC, the rise is up to 70.32% in the last seven days atm, so that's quite a big pump, I can understand that users who've invested in this coin will be excited, I'm just hoping there'll be no serious dump after this, if the team is really working hard on the polkadot network, then it can achieve a lot, especially in the long run, but we can only watch them now and see how they progress, but investors still need to be careful and research well, not just to invest cause it's doing good on CMC.

It's almost new year, so I really hope we can put away most of the bad things we experienced in 2020 and look forward to the new year, I wish every forum user a happy new '2021' in advance, and hopefully it'll be a year we achieve whatever we set out to, and as for Bitcoin, I hope it'll have a better year than all the previous it's had since inception. Let us all stay safe and enjoy the holidays with our families and friends.

For me I think the reason users get scammed is lack of responsibility and the inability to "be your own bank", if users can address this two issues then there is no way they can be scammed, if you take responsibility by doing proper research before investing in projects, safely storing your coins in wallets with good security, avoiding get rich quick schemes etc, all of this amounts to taking responsibility and being your own bank, cryptocurrency remains decentralized, so if you do not want to get hacked or scammed, it rests on your shoulders to make sure you're not, cause stolen funds can more or less not be recovered.

The title race could be between Athletico Madrid and Real Madrid, excluding Barcelona based on their recent outings, and I expect both Real Madrid and Athletico Madrid to win their games today against Elche and Getafe respectively, it has been a season of upsets, but I don't think there'll be any upsets in both games today. Having said that, Real sociedad are up against Athletic Bilbao tomorrow, R.sociedad have been outstanding this season, but I think that game is going to end in a draw or Athletic Bilbao wins, that's my prediction.

This is not true, of course I know DeFi has it's hype and quite a lot of investors have fallen for this hype, but that doesn't mean most investors are leaving the BTC network to invest in DeFi, AFAIK, DeFi hype is already gone and investors now know it was more of hype than potentials.
No it is not true, mind you that just the way you feel some investors earned a fair ROI from DeFi projects, so did so much more lose their funds due to scam and hacks, DeFi didn't change any perspective imo, it only warned investors that there's more to projects than just hype.

If you mean crypto scammers, then there isn't any organization that offers such services, mind you that cryptocurrencies are decentralized, the more reason why it's not possible for such an organization to function, it's your responsibility to protect your funds, though it's possible to track down addresses and link them to exchanges if they have ever withdrawn from an exchange, but scammers also use mixers and coinjoin to make them impossible to trace, the bottom line of it all is learn all the protection precautions and protocols, then be your own bank and protect yourself.

Having said that, why do you want to know if there's such service, if by any chance you have lost funds and looking for someway to retrieve it, you'll prolly get scammed again, stay away from anyone or user will will advertise to you any sort of crypto recovery or a way to track down scammers who stole from you, treat such people as scammers as well.

That's why there are services such as mixers and coinjoin, and that's one way people can hide their identities and ensure that transactions are untraceable, I'm sure quite a lot of scammers use such services especially when the funds stolen is a large sum that could cause them to be tracked down.
That's somewhat true/not true, cryptocurrecy is decentralized and responsibility rests on it's users, but in cases of large theft, we've heard of governments requesting users information from exchanges to be able to track down the criminals, but mind you that it won't happen for everyday random theft, so we should protect our funds to the best of our ability.

Since it's the ethereum network in question, i don't think we should be talking about a mistake just yet, if you had bought some other alt, then you may prolly have made a mistake, but ethereum is doing very well, and your target isn't unachievable, at least by next year; you should not hold a coin with the thought you made a mistake, as long as you have made a good choice and not invested more than you can afford to lose, then for your mental health, just relax and see how it pans out with the coins you've bought.

What rules do you mean, if you are talking about forum rules on scam/fake projects, take note that scam is unmoderated, it's your responsibility to DYOR and consider the project you'll like to either advertise or Invest in; if you're of the realization that most altcoins are scam & pump and dump/hype coins, then why are you looking for rules to avoid them, just select good alts like eth and invest alongside btc, that's a good strategy imo.
I don't quite understand what you mean, there are quite a lot of projects that come to the forum to advertise their ICO and other whatnots, but it's not a must they all must advertise here and even if they are scam projects, it wouldn't change anything nor will it stop them from scamming users if they advertise here, as the responsibility is still with the users to do their own research.

The need to give/help someone cannot be overstated, especially in this somewhat difficult year, every year of course comes with it's difficulties, but 2020 was a turbulent year for the entire world and I personally hope we have a much better 2021. Where I come from, it's normal for us to be extremely generous during the holiday season and thankfully I was still able to meet up with that this year. Happy holidays to you all, I can only but wish you all good things going forward.

Showing a tiny recovery sign wouldn't stop investors and big XRP hodlers from selling the coins they have in their stash, thing is there will be more dump than pump for Ripple especially in the long run, people wouldn't be willing to take the risk of hanging on with XRP just cause it recovered a little yesterday, the fact still remains there's an existing lawsuit against them, one that could mean a lot before and after the verdict.

Having said that, I would honestly advice XRP holders to make a decision now they still can, if you still believe in the coin, you can buy back after the lawsuit is over and the verdict is good for XRP, but holding now is a folly if you ask me, one that could be costly.

Watching Aston Villa this season and comparing them with the Villa of last season is somewhat surprising, they should count themselves lucky not to have sacked Dean Smith as he's worked on this team and turned them from relegation strugglers to a top 7-8 team, they aren't just winning, but convincingly and with style, if this form continues, then I think Villa could play in the Europa league next season.
I second that. There wasn't too much of a 'sit back-counter attack play' from any of the teams, they both went at it hammer and tongs, the result is good for the both of them, but also for the other chasing pack, lol.

788,879,654
Coyster1

Of course not, Hedera Hashgraph has done nothing on the network for it to be considered better than ethereum, it may have good prospects and the team might have a good road map to develop their network, but until all this is achieved and it starts to attract investors, and you know to attract investors the price has to be something worthy of being invested it, so they definitely have a long way to go, and for now theirs no comparison between it and ethereum. As for if they do have a future, I can't really comment on that, we have in the past seen projects looking good and promising only to end up in the dumps, so we have to wait and see if they have a future in the altcoin network.

This is not true imo. The year has been good for Bitcoin and Ethereum even amidst the pandemic, only traditional institutions were affected by covid-19 pandemic and should be glad that vaccines are on it's way, but as with Bitcoin and Eth, they both weathered the storm of the pandemic and have been on a strategic rise from th beginning of the year, down to this point were Bitcoin has crossed the atm and ethereum would possibly surpass it's own ath by next year.

I don't think there's any token or altcoin I can suggest you to leave the ethereum network for, even diversifying to more altcoins is even risky so you don't end up investing into pump and dump coins, and if you're considering DeFi then forget about that ecosystem cause it's all hype and imo it doesn't have any future. So what do you do, hold your ethereum, the network is doing good things and I don't think it's going to crash, you can also look to invest in Bitcoin, next year will be good for both Bitcoin and ethereum, so stick with them and get ROI sooner or later.

+1, and a good idea, at least for the altcoin sections (alone), most of the spammers post there cause they are in one signature campaign or the other, if signatures are removed from that section, the spam will definitely reduce and activity on that board will go down as well. But having said that, you and I know the spammers aren't going to leave the forum after that, they'll prolly move over to another board, most prolly the Bitcoin discussion section, and that way, imo, we've actually not solved anything, other than moving the spammers from one board to another.

If you ask me, I'll say the best way is to tackle the root cause of the problem which is 'spam', maybe more stringent moderation in the altcoin section, temporary bans for users with multiple cases of blatant spamming, mass removal of spam posts, and users must contribute as well to report those posts to the moderators, the only problem is quite a lot of users either have the altcoin section on ignore or hardly ever go there to see what's up in there. Just my two cents, and btw tk808 you do a good 'job' to encourage good posts in that section by meriting them, well done.

2020 wasn't the best year for many of us I'm sure, but despite that, we must have had a couple of good moments to be happy about, it's Christmas tomorrow, so let's all forget about how gloomy the year was and put on a smiling face and our dancing shoes, merry Christmas to each and every one of us on Bitcointalk and I wish you guys a happy holidays, stay safe and take care of yourselves.

Mind you that it's not possible for Bitcoin to pique the interest of the entire globe and for everyone to all at once to adopt the technology, this will prolly never happen, and even if it will, it'll take so many years to achieve that, and as the years roll on, so will the network keep on developing and if even a time comes when Bitcoin is to be globally used, the network will be sufficient at the time; for now the network is serving it's users without too much of a hassle, as for the future, we'll have to wait and see what it holds for the network and it's then community of users.
The thing is, anyone who's scared of being their own bank ought not to be in the Bitcoin network or else there's a high probability of losing funds, such users are usually careless with seed phrases and private keys as well as end up using web wallets; this has been repeated time and again, if one must be in this Bitcoin community, you ought to come to the realization that responsibility rests on you and the best part of what comes with that responsibility is CONTROL (of your funds, no manipulations, no nothing).

I'm happy Pochettino finally has a job, it's been long overdue. Sorry to Tuchel but it seems PSG wants more and that's the reason for the sack, I thought they'll prolly replace him with someone who has won major trophies, but maybe Pochettino can start winning trophies with PSG. Having said that, I think Poch's style of play suits PSG very well, Pochettino is a very attack minded manager and that style is befitting of a top club like the French giants that PSG is, it'll be great to see Pochettino in the dug out and I hope he brings the success the management so eagerly seeks.