Salut!

Posteaza o poza (sau un link cu poza, daca ai un rang sub Junior Member) care sa ilustreze cum sarbatoresti Craciunul sau in care sa apara ca ai facut o fapta buna (cu descriere) si poti castiga 1 merit!

Concursul este valabil de astazi si pana pe 31 decembrie (ora 23:59) pentru primii 25 de participanti!

Gazeta Bitcoin va ureaza tuturor La Multi Ani! si sarbatori fericite alaturi de cei dragi!!!

I thought about OP's idea for a long time... And I embrace it somehow, meaning that I think it would be nice to have a Legendary / Legend rank for the true legendary users from here, such as Satoshi, Hal, Laszlo, or GameKyuubi.

These guys became parts of Bitcoin history!

Of course, there are others as well  but they are the first who came in my mind.

And this proposal would mean either to offer only to them the Legendary rank (and have a different name for the highest "regular" rank - the one after Hero) or to create a special rank for them (such as Legend).

It would be nice to have a distinction for those who wrote history, especially for those who are not active anymore or passed away.

I think he meant that no govern would want a decentralized digital currency issued by the state and there is no chance for this to happen, therefore any such tentative should be avoided.

Hehe! So the party goes on
Thank you for this, Hhampuz, this is a very nice surprise indeed! I have the lucky number 50
Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Let's use this occasion to be better persons, more kind with those in need and closer to our loved ones.

Let's also raise a prayer for the souls of those who were among us and passed away, like Hal, Paraipan, or Tim May. May our prayers bring them peace, wherever they are. You will never be forgotten!

Meaning that since January 25th, 2018, when the merit system was launched, no sMerit decayed so far. However, if theymos would come to the thought that too many sMerits are hoarded, he might (or might not) reduce their number.

Per se, there is no such policy to state an expiration date of sMerits.

This reminded me of the war between NSA and the cypherpunk John Gilmore over the writings of William Friedman, the father of American cryptography: NSA wanted to ban all Friedman's work, while Gilmore did his best to reveal these papers; in the end, the outcome was a trial in a Court of Law and Gilmore almost faced 10 years of prison. I will write soon a topic about this, as the subject is very interesting.

Fortunately, now the information is available on Internet, although some times it has to be searched deep inside the Deep Web.

A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy - Tim May

I'm starting this topic as a "part two" of another topic of mine - Governs are coming for the traders!, being, in part, influenced by reading (the title of) this thread: Why are the world’s governments not using cryptocurrencies?.

Governments don't want to use cryptocurrencies; at least not decentralized ones. Because they need to control everything - from personal information to data and money. You can not do anything without a government issued ID - you can not go to school, you can not drive a car, you can not get marry and so on. Governs needs all their citizen's data, including their financial information. For this reason governs try as much as possible to eradicate cash money and switch them with credit / debit cards. Cash money are hard to be tracked, while digital transactions are always stored by the banks, which act as government arms, providing the authorities all the data they ask about people.

Realizing all the hype about crypto, understanding that people are heading towards using digital currencies, governs started, with bigger or smaller steps, to think about offering such money to their citizens. But not decentralized cryptocurrencies, which are anonymous or pseudonymous -- they want to offer centralized cryptocurrencies, a kind of money which can be tracked, associated with real names and which has a value determined by the govern instead of the free market. Take for example Venezuela's Petro, Russia's CryptoRuble, Japan's J-coin, China and so on.

Of course, state-issued digital currencies are totally opposed to cryptocurrencies and the differences between them are so many, that is difficult to count all of them:
- cryptocurrencies are meant to liberate people from the slavery imposed by banks and governments, eliminating the middle man and facilitating peer to peer transfers; digital currencies issued by governs are based on trusted third parties (banks), they are designed to continue to enslave people, to give them the illusion of freedom, while in fact they are oppressed;
- cryptocurrencies are providing anonymity / pseudonymity and the users are their true owners, as they hold their private keys; digital money invented by governs won't offer private keys to people, will be trackable and, most likely, won't be mineable (instead, it will be held by the banks);
- (most of) cryptocurrencies have a fixed number of coins, in order to avoid inflation; digital money issued by governs won't have a fixed number, as the governs are seeking inflation and not deflation, because inflation is an indirect tax supported by many people even without being aware of. It is harder to force people to accept a direct tax, compared with imposing them an indirect tax; in case the indirect tax is not even realized, governs' work is way easier;
- cryptocurrencies' value is determined by the free market (or, at least, it should be; let's not think now about whales); governs' money has a value established by the State.

And the list can go on.

As a matter of fact, the only thing in common for cryptocurrencies and the digital currencies issued by State is that both want to get rid of fiat money. But, obviously, for totally different reasons: cryptocurrencies want to change the actual system, which is corrupt to the roots, while the governs want to keep the system, but with a different financial instrument, which would give people the false perception of using cryptocurrencies.

This future was forseen a long time ago by the Cypherpunks, the Founding Fathers of crypto anarchy. If you are among those who started to refuse governs' corrupt fiat money, don't let yourself tricked into using a digital currency issued by the State!

Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences! (Tim May, The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, 1988)

[To be continued]

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Translations (in chronological order):

• Română: Criptomonede vs bani digitali emiși de Stat, translation by GazetaBitcoin
• Filipino: [Translation] Kripto vs Pera na nailimbag ng bansa, translation by Peanutswar
• Indonesian: [Translation] Mata Uang Kripto Vs Uang digital yang dikeluarkan oleh Negara, translation by dansus021
• Polish: Kryptowaluta kontra cyfrowy pieniądz emitowany przez państwo, translation by cygan
• Pidgin: Cryptocurrency nd digital money Palava by di state, translation by Agbe
• French: Cryptomonnaies vs monnaies numériques émises par l'État, translation by iwantmyhomepaidwithbtc2
• Bengali: ক্রিপ্টো vs সরকারের বানানো ডিজটাল মুদ্রা, translation by Learn Bitcoin
• Russian: Кpиптoвaлютa vs цифpoвыe дeньги гocyдapcт, translation by FP91G
• Urdu: کرپٹو کرنسی بمقابلہ ڈیجیٹل پیسہ ریاست, translation by JunaidAzizi
• German: Kryptowährung kontra staatlich ausgegebenes digitales Geld, translation by cygan

I want to thank DdmrDdmr and Nullius for sharing their wisdom on this forum. I never encountered Nullius, as he was long gone when I became active here, but I read all his posts. He is an example for many.

DdmrDdmr is a great statistician who also helped (and still helps) a lot. Not just the forum but also many members, part of them being complete strangers to him.

Besides, what I found extraordinary about them, is that they are the only members I observed so far to have a merit vs activity ratio of over 4:1. Having more than 4 merits for each activity proves their outstanding knowledge and help brought to BitcoinTalk!

Merry Christmas!

All good, so far we are two already If nobody else is interested, we'll do it together

It seems this section of the forum isn't visited by many members. I posted this topic 1 week ago, but it has only 16 views so far, therefore I'm thinking that Meetups section may not be the best choice for posting this. But let's see what happens...we still have 4 years and 11 months ahead

About the weather, I don't think there are reasons to worry. Weather is soft in Holland during the entire year - not too hot during summer and not too cold during winter. Today, for example, temperature in Arnhem is 9 Celsius degrees.

Besides, I think many did not read one of the most important statements from OP

Did anyone watch the latest documentary about Ross Ulbricht? It can be found on Youtube (or at this secondary link) and it was created by the Free Ross organization.

I'm asking because I noticed some interesting allegations, besides all the injustice made during the trial. The injustice made towards Ross is well known (I think) by most of the people knowing details about the case; many of them were detailed also by xtraelv in his very interesting topic.

However, some unknown (at least for me) details were exposed in this documentary. Some are very unrealistic (such as the suspicion about Mark Karpelès being Satoshi, which I find as being actually a delusion, but nobody knows the truth), but some raise questions though... Besides, the film details the idea of Karpelès being also DPR, not just Satoshi.

• For example, at the beginning of the documentary (between 0:04 and 09:22), is stated that first mention of SR was made here, by the user silkroad, inside the topic Silk Road: anonymous marketplace. Feedback requested (which is correct). Jared Der-Yeghiayan, the first investigator of SR (who never mentioned how he found out abour SR's existence), found out that the site mentioned in the topic (silkroadmarket.org) was only a surface web platform which was informing the users about how to use Tor and how to access the real SR on Deep Web. Der-Yeghiayan found that silkroadmarket.org was registered with XTA.net, a domain server owned by a company of Mark Karpelès named Mutum Sigillum. As you already know, Karpelès is the ex-owner of the defunct Mt. Gox. At this point started the suspicion that DPR (the new owner of SR, after Ross handed him the site) is the same person with the owner of Mt. Gox.
• By that time, according to Ross' statements, he was no longer the owner of SR. He declared that he was overwhelmed and, after finding a guy who helped him a lot with the site, he agreed to pass him the ownership. This guy's nickname was DPR (Dread Pirate Roberts) and he is (was) suspected to be Karpelès.
• From here, things become even more interesting: Karpelès bought Mt. Gox about same time when SR was launched. In the documentary is raised the suspicion that Karpelès may be Satoshi (which I doubt) and that he would have all the reasons in the world for opening SR, as he would place there the BTC earned through Mt. Gox and vice-versa. Besides the interesting coincidences, there is also an absurd allegation - that Karpelès was also the owner of BitcoinTalk, information given to Der-Yeghiayan by a secret informant, who previously was hired by Karpelès. This idea appeared after another coincidence noted in the film, as it follows: the SMF platform, used for BitcoinTalk site, was used also for the discussions forum hosted on SR. Besides, due to the rarity of SMF being used in forums, the fact that it was used on both BitcoinTalk and SR raised investigator's suspicion, determining him to consider even more that there is a same owner for both, meaning that Karpelès could be Satoshi.

Example of similarities UI-wise between the sites:

• Coming back to Ross and to how the investigation started (32:00 - 34:46): it is stated that the govern used a "parallel construction" in order to frame him and to make him look like the real DPR. To be more specific, an IRS agent (Gary Alford) found on BitcoinTalk a post containing Ross's email, which was written before the thread found by Der-Yeghiayan (mentioned above). Practically, Der-Yeghiayan found the topic Silk Road: anonymous marketplace. Feedback requested , which was posted on March 1st, 2011 by the username silkroad, while Alford stated he found a post made by the user altoid on January 29th, 2011 (without specifying the name of the topic). The documentary says that Der-Yeghiayan couldn't have found this post during his investigation because it didn't exist. Alford claimed he found the respective post being quoted by another forum user in a discussion about SR (I could not find this post, although I searched it). Afterwards, Alford mentioned a real post of altoid, from October 11th, 2011 (which I found to be IT pro needed for venture backed bitcoin startup), where an email was stated: "rossulbricht at gmail dot com". And from here, the govern was led to suspect Ross being behind SR.

However, claims the documentary, this information could be planted by Karpelès (the alleged owner of BitcoinTalk) or by any other user with high level of access. Besides, the way that Alford found the respective email is compared with "finding a needle in a haystack the size of the Internet" (which I totally agree). With other words, from all the people trying to find information about SR owner, Alford only managed to find this email address. From here started the idea that the information was planted. Because if someone with high access would have made the respective post in the name of Ross then handed the information to Alford, everything looks more realistic.

The entire documentary is very interesting, but, however, its first 35 minutes are the ones raising the questions detailed in current topic. Could Karpelès be Satoshi and also DPR? Another aspect, not mentioned in the documentary, but known inside the forum, is that Karpelès also performed an audit over BitcoinTalk. Maybe this aspect would have raised even more suspicion in the documentary.


In the end, I want to mention that I found very interesting the entire film, which brings new details about Ross's case, about the unbelievable way the judge treated him or about the sabotages that some secret agencies / agents performed towards other agencies / agents. I recommend everybody to watch it, it's a must see documentary!

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Translations (in chronological order):

• Română: Cazul Silk Road: povestea adevărată nespusă. Este Karpelès Satoshi sau DPR?, translation by GazetaBitcoin
• Polish: Sprawa Silk Road: Prawdziwa, nieopowiedziana historia. Czy Karpelès to ..., translation by cygan
• Filipino: Kaso sa SilkRoad: Totoo, Hindi Masabing Kwento. Si Karpelès ba ay Satoshi o DPR?, translation by jeraldskie11
• Pidgin: Silk Road Case: De Real, Untold Story. Na Karpelès be Satoshi or DPR?, translation by sokani
• Indonesian: Kasus Silk Road:Kisah Nyata yang blm terungkap.Apakah Karpelès Satoshi atau DPR?, translation by dansus021
• Bengali: সিল্ক রোড কেস: কারপেলেস সাতোশি নাকি ডিপিআর?, translation by DYING_S0UL
• French: L'affaire Silk Road : la véritable histoire. Karpelès est-il Satoshi ou DPR ?, translation by iwantmyhomepaidwithbtc2
• Urdu: سلک روڈ کیس: دی اصلی، ان کہی کہانی۔ کارپیلس س, translation by JunaidAzizi
• German: Der Fall Silk Road: Die wahre, unerzählte Geschichte. Ist MK Satoshi oder DPR?, translation by cygan
• Russian: Дeлo «Silk Road»: peaльнaя, нeизвecтнaя иcтopия. Ктo &#, translation by DrBeer

I'm confident I'll win this contest

Besides of being busy, Hhampuz is also very strict as far as I see. I had a merit vs ratio of almost 1, now I have 1.01 and I'm still not accepted, this being my third application. Most likely, Hhampuz has very high standards for users applications (which is not bad at all). I'll keep trying

Hello, I'd like to re-apply for this campaign!

User: GazetaBitcoin
Position to Aply: Full Member
Posts Start: 177
Address: 1EwSVNB64jPad2Epp7scoZHX2mfkUHQQ2x

Thank you.

OP is first newbie AFAIK who started a merit giveaway. Let's congratulate him, his idea is .unique

I think you posted the wrong post...this one isn't the one merited. You have to post a merited post for this contest

Governs are coming for the traders!
Merry Christmas

You can also try to ping the site, to see if it responds to ping or not; if it responds, you can also see the latency: Start - Run - cmd - Enter; ping www.bitcointalk.org.

Thank you, fillippone. I have to say that I thought a lot (writing, deleting and re-writing words / sentences) until I finally chose my words, both when I first PMed theymos (who suggested to create this topic) and also when I wrote the thread. Without his suggestion, however, I wouldn't have dared to start such a delicate discussion, as when you talk about a sensible subject, if you don't choose the right words and if you don't explain clearly, you might get misunderstood and the whole subject may go in a wrong direction. I'm glad it didn't happen though.