This is legitimate, except it wouldn't be the default view. The default view will still be whatever we have right now. So when you land on a thread, you'll see all the new posts on the last page, etc. However, if you'd like, then you can only show the Merited posts.

New comments shouldn't get ignored, since only a selected few will even bother to show all the Merited posts only. Besides, you cannot have a discussion based only on the Merited posts, so you need to see the default all posts anyway to extend the thread.

The Merited view will have a select function, e.g. if you're new to a thread and want to quickly get a 'gist' of what's going on.


Indeed, that was my experience in that thread too. Made a few suggestions, one or two got Merited, but got drowned out in the new flurry. One of the reasons I decided to start a new thread.

Stop reading 'summaries' and go directly to the source. Here's the hour long video on crypto assets at Davos 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MZv9fLLfa4

Automated tagging doesn't work. All the attacker needs to do is send some NEM to all the richlist addresses. Please be careful trying to implement something like this. There is a reason cryptos need fungibility.

The NEM/Coincheck teams need to try and get in touch with the hacker and see if they can negotiate something. The attacker will find it hard to sell out with the exchanges closing/blocking transfers.

I am shocked they've been operating since 2012 apparently. That's 5+ years of bad security. Unbelievable.

I am afraid all the newbies would think somehow this means 'NEM got hacked'. Seriously, people need to do some homework here.

Reserved

Introduction

The new Merit system was introduced in the forums to try and improve the quality of discussion. Users need both Activity and Merit to reach the next levels on the forum. Merit is earned based on quality of posts, while Activity is earned based on quantity of posts.

Discoverability

The Merit system can function as a really good discoverability mechanism if done right. This is a data point for the forum. Forum posts, unlike say Reddit posts, don't have an upvote/downvote feature. However, now they do have the +Merit feature. This means each post has a 'score' associated with it, which can simply be the sum total of all the Merit received by a post.

This can really help surface good content. This is because the default content today is sorted chronologically. Some of the older posts that may have been really good are lost. There are great threads with 100+ or even 1000+ pages of content. If you're new, it is very hard to wade through all of them. Merit is a great way for you to find good content.

Say there is a price discussion thread. It has tens of thousands of pages. However, a few of the posts with some evergreen content, for example a valuation model or mental models to think through what gives Bitcoin value, are valuable to the community, and likely Merited if they deserve it. New forum members can see these posts more easily.

Suggested Implementation

I would suggest the following -

• For every thread, have a button that says 'Show only Merited Posts', which would only show the posts that have received Merit

From a discoverability standpoint, I see this working as something similar to Reddit Gold. Sometimes, there are hidden gems that get downvoted due to groupthink (think about Greg Maxwell posting on r/btc, for instance). Someone gives a Gold to a really good post and it stands out. But more importantly, I can see all the gilded posts of a subreddit.

We can implement a similar type of discoverability on the forum. For example, in the entire thread discussing Merit right now, it's 50+ pages. It's hard to go through the whole thing. I'd like to see the Merited posts, because it is a filtering mechanism. This should help the forum moderators filter through suggestions as well.

Benefits

• Discoverability
• Easy to Catch Merit Abusers - if everyone can see bad posts getting a 50 Merit, you know something may be off (selling Merit, multiple accounts, etc.)

Of course those features would have reduced the probability of a hack. There is nothing called perfect security. However, what Coincheck was using was quite bad indeed.

Two of the very basic security practices that every single exchange should use for every single crypto that they handle are -

• Multi-sig wallets: If one key is compromised, the attacker cannot steal all the funds
• Cold Storage: Majority of the funds need to be stored on a device that has never been connected to the internet

Then, the exchange needs to create processes around these basic security requirements. For example, how many key holders exist in the multi-sig wallet? Where do they store their keys? How do they communicate if they believe they are compromised, and what steps do every one else take if this happens? Where are the cold storage keys located? Who authorizes transfer of funds from cold storage to hot wallet? How often can this happen?
You get the point.

If you're running an exchange without Multi-sig and Cold Storage, then you're at fault.

This hack isn't a problem with NEM. It is a problem with the exchange practices. The NEM foundation has offered to help, but there is only so much they can do in this situation.

Merit is what you Earn, sMerit is what you give.

If you have 100 Merit, and 10 sMerit, you can give 10 Merit to others. Your 100 Merit is untouched.

Each time you receive 1 Merit from someone else, you also get credited 0.5 sMerit. This sMerit you can send to someone else.

You send sMerits, not Merits. When you receive 1 Merit, you also get 0.5 sMerits. You would have some number of sMerits to start off, and you may have exhausted your supply.

Yes, it's been going on for a while now. So if you still have Bitcoins in non-SegWit addresses, or want to consolidate some of your UTXOs into the same address (so your privacy isn't affected), now would be a good time!

The usual trope about "blockchain technology" generally gets it in reverse. The idea of "blockchain technology" was used by the media and some startups that wanted to 'sanitize' Bitcoin from its association with drugs/dark markets. Therefore, the usual phrasing became "We don't like Bitcoin, but blockchain technology behind Bitcoin is really innovative". It's funny, but I heard the exact same sentiment on the crypto asset panel in Davos earlier today too, so this line of thinking is still with us, unfortunately.

What Bitcoin solved is the Byzantine General's Problem (Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault_tolerance), which, in a nutshell, is a way for untrusting parties to come to a consensus on a shared piece of information. Bitcoin uses the solution to create a global and distributed ledger. This ledger 's state is agreed upon by all participants.

It is remarkable if you think about it - you may be in China, Japan, Russia, Australia, Sweden, Luxembourg, Brazil, etc. and all the people agree to the current state of the ledger. These parties have never even met each other. They may be honest or dishonest. They may be humans or machines. But they all agree to the state of Bitcoin's current ledger. That's a powerful idea.

The blockchain is just a data structure with some desirable properties, that Bitcoin employs. This is definitely clever, but by no means "the innovation behind Bitcoin". It might as well be a block-tree or something else. The data structure is cool but not the core fundamental feature of Bitcoin. Yes, Bitcoin was the first system that made use of the blockchain, but there were similar ideas (hashed linked-list type structures) that pre-date Bitcoin. Don't let "blockchain technology" fool you into not really appreciating what Bitcoin is and what problems it solved.

What's the transaction ID? What wallet did you use to send the transaction? If you post these details, perhaps the community can help.

Very similar to the situation during the tech bubble in '99-'00 when companies would add a dot com to their name and their stock would double. It goes without saying this isn't healthy for the market and the regulators would definitely keep an eye out on such activity. Adding blockchain to their names is a joke - they don't actually do anything different.

I second this request. It would be good for the moderators to try and visualize on a graph the accounts that are abusing the system or worse, trying to sell their Merit scores. It would be good for researchers to see the trends and propose improvements as well. I would be very interested in this data set personally, and provide my findings to the community as well.

This is again not true. The "people" you're talking about aren't investors. No one with money who knows what they are doing ever pay any attention to these ratings. The worst thing you can do is to make your investment decisions based on these types of sell-side research. That's called dumb money on the street.

I think the idea is that the ability to give merit is a privilege, not a right. You earn the ability to give Merit based on the Merit that you've earned from your efforts in helping the community.

Great explanation btw, but the math seems off. In your example, won't the A-C channel have $100 worth of Bitcoins that Alice can still send to Charlie, since Alice started with $200 worth of Bitcoins?

Bancor doesn't have a good reputation of treating security researchers with respect. For example, before the ICO, they diluted their bug bounties just before the promised date, so they could pay out less.

If you think this is the case, you have no understanding of how Wall Street sell side research works. Any guess how they make money? Who is paying them for the research? What's the firm's history in ratings (hint: very ugly)?

These ratings have absolutely nothing to do with either technology or as investment potential. They have everything to do with the firm's, and their clients' current crypto holdings.

Mate, Iconomi is already traded on Binance. It trades the ICN/BTC pair. Here's the direct link: https://www.binance.com/trade.html?symbol=ICN_BTC