Plus interest rates are at or near zero, so that certainly doesn't deter people from trading any of those assets on margin--and the more margin buying there is, the more inflated the prices get.  Just wait until governments decide to increase interest rates; I'd expect everything to plummet, and quick.  Even rumors of an interest rate hike could cause a massive selloff. 

Although OP didn't provide a link to back up what he's claiming, Darker45 did (though I haven't read it yet) and let's assume it's true that Australia is following in the footsteps of the US Federal Reserve and is printing money all day and night.  That would indeed be a good thing for bitcoin, but overall it isn't good for a lot of other things and I hope Australia doesn't go haywire like the US did and continues to do. 

By the way, this is why a lot of people consider bitcoin (and gold/silver) to be real money: you can't just create it out of thin air, at will, forever.  There's a limit to how much bitcoin will ever exist, and it isn't under the control of idiotic governments with shit-for-brains economists running the money system.  I watched a pretty good Youtube video recently that kind of sums it up.  It's worth a watch.

Maybe it's just my tech ignorance, but I find that statement to be less comforting than perhaps I should have.

OP, I liked that graphic you included in your post, as I'd never seen anything of the sort before.  I'm pretty sure my password is strong enough, and I don't use it on any other websites so I hope I'm secure as far as that's concerned.  Members of bitcointalk should be extra careful about protecting their accounts.  There probably aren't many hackers trying to access members' accounts on other forums like this one, but it's a completely different situation here.  I think it's especially important for newbies to realize this.

Agreed, and I don't lose any sleep at night because I'm worried any of my online accounts are going to get hacked.  I do what I can to be secure, and I hope for the best.  What else can you do?

Yep, and it didn't take long for OP to convince me that he's an alt of CH/TOAA, so he's going on ignore.

And OP, I have no doubt you were expecting some negative feedback so I don't know why you're bitching about it.  I agree with you that the hacking allegation needs some evidence to back it, else that part of the feedback shouldn't be there.  Maybe JollyGood will provide that evidence, maybe he won't, but this crusade you've been on for almost 2 years now has gotten very, very stale.  Nobody is listening to your complaints and you've garnered no support aside from your alt accounts.  Why not just give it up already?  If you don't like bitcointalk, find another forum that has a trust system you can live with.

Yeah and they have the same gripes and the same deaf ears when it comes to listening to other members who disagree with them. 

Eh, the interest rate isn't astronomical, but I'm not sure how much lending business Coinbase is going to get, as people who own crypto presumably have cash as well--unless they overinvested in crypto, which bitcoin investors have been known to do. 

Borrowers are going to seriously have to worry about margin calls to put up more collateral for their loans if bitcoin drops, and that's a serious concern.  But in any case, I don't have a problem with Coinbase breaking out into the lending biz.  At least they're regulated and relatively reputable, and it's better than trying to get a loan on the forum (lol). 

It is high, but not that high, and I'm sure some US citizens would prefer to use a service like Coinbase than one they're not as familiar with.  Anyway, it'll be interesting to see if this catches on and whether Coinbase will still be offering this service in 1-2 years.

Where did that accusation come from?  His account just popped up here on the forum in the past day or so, and I haven't read anything about him hacking anything.

That much I'll agree with, though I'm going to defer adding him to my ignore list for the moment.  I've got a feeling he's an alt account of CH or some related member, and if he keeps spouting this tired anti-DT nonsense he'll be added to my ignore list lickety-split.

Frankly, if you knew who he really was you probably wouldn't have given him even this much attention.  lol

That whole thread should be reported as being spam.  I don't think you need to do anything except to report the OP's post and the mods should take care of it.  I wouldn't bother reporting all of those spammy responses individually, because I think a mod will likely nuke the whole thread after reading your report.  Nice catch, that's a true spam thread right there.

Edit:  And in general if you see a thread like that, just note in your report's comment section that it's a spam thread and hopefully a mod will take the time to look at the thread and decide to take action as far as deleting spam posts or getting rid of the thread entirely.

This guy is not a noob, and I'd bet the house on it if I owned a house.  

Suchmoon is right about the shit-stirring part, however.  If for some reason OP is not an alt account of cryptohunter, I would suggest he read Meta and Reputation from about December 2018 on, which is when I started this thread as a plea for help from my fellow members during the time when the level of trolling in those sections was rampant.  I would also suggest that OP pay attention to the fact that jack shit was done about any of the complaints and Theymos remained silent throughout (for the most part).  

In other words, just stop this nonsense right now; it's not going to get you anywhere.

Seriously.  It also makes me wonder where Lauda has gone off to.  TMAN as well.

DT polices itself, and I'm familiar with the issue you're referring to.  Last I checked, there wasn't strong evidence that the above actually happened the way you described it.  If more facts come to light about it and there's some shenanigans uncovered, that member will likely be voted out of DT.

If DT had standards of inclusion like that, you'd probably wind up with a list of members who aren't active anymore, and the net result would be a useless system.  The trust system is very far from perfect, but unless Theymos does a major overhaul we've all just got to deal with it the way it is.  My guess is that he's probably made all the changes he's going to make for a while.

Kind of does, doesn't it?  And I thought we'd seen the last of him--I'd hoped that, anyway.  It was so nice and peaceful for at least two months, and now here we are again with a disgruntled member bitching about the default trust system.

Similarly, I'm starting to wonder whether HW wallets are really necessary for long-term storage, because as you mentioned you can do that by storing your private key(s) without using a device.  I have to say I do find it convenient to be able to store a large number of altcoins in addition to bitcoin on something like a Ledger.  No doubt there are other ways to do this that don't require you to purchase a device, but I've become a fan of the Ledger.

You think?  You guys probably know I'm not a tech-savvy person, but I don't see a reason anywhere in this thread which would lead me to believe that the above statement is true.  Am I missing something, or could someone possibly dumb it down to my level?

Yeah, I don't know what OP is dancing all around on the bar stool for, because someone is going to have to pay for all of this free money eventually, and I don't get the sensation that we're at a huge party where $100 bills are being tossed to the crowd.  This crap actually frightens me.

But OP might be correct.  If you have enough capital to plunk down into your crypto exchange account or your stock brokerage, you might have a good chance at making some quick money--the markets look like they're starting to catch fire again, but I'm not sure how long that's going to last.  If interest rates start to rise, watch out.  Markets will start to calm down in a hurry, and we might even see a panic.

Exactly.  I know in the US everyone is excited about these stimulus checks and unemployment benefits, but those things are not free.  The politicians are just kicking that damn can down the road as energetically as if they were playing professional soccer.

That's an interesting find.  And yeah, it's a smart U-turn and it's kind of cool that he's had his eyes on bitcoin for that long.  That makes me think he probably knows what he's doing.

MSTR's stock is up 1.26% as I write this, so it doesn't look like this huge bitcoin purchase triggered a shareholder revolt or anything of the like. 

Well, companies usually keep some sort of cash reserve if they're able to.  I don't see any problem with a corporation deciding to keep that reserve in the form of bitcoin instead of USD or some other cash equivalent.  Nor do I see any threat to bitcoin's future as a currency by MSTR's actions.

OMG, are you talking about MPOE-PR?  I remember that member from my early days of lurking on the forum, and I found his posts to be some of the most biting and entertaining ones I've read thus far. 

I don't think this thread needed a bump, since there hasn't been much drama surrounding the Turkish community for at least a week that I'm aware of.  And as far as I know all of it revolves around members not getting into the Chipmixer campaign, but it's been explained a number of times how competitive that campaign is and that members from all over the world have been rejected.  I don't think most people have a problem with the Turkish community in general, just some of their more vocal, more arrogant members who stick out like a priapismic dickeroony, if you know what I mean.

Good job, bitmover--especially considering you registered at what was probably one of the worst times as far as hoping to have a chance to rank up on the forum.  I don't know how many members who registered in late 2017 who are still Jr. Members but I'd imagine it's a pretty big pool.

Does that "DT2" badge show up on your profile?  I've never seen it before, though I have avatars and signatures on ignore so I don't know if that's the reason.  I don't recall anything like that being announced.

Yeah, I agree--but Theymos apparently doesn't since he appears to not be inclined to add any more ranks.  But as I've said before, there are probably going to be fewer and fewer active Legendary members as time goes on.  Older members will drop off by attrition and the creation of new ones is proceeding at such a slow rate that there's going to be a huge imbalance eventually.

I think I understand that game you're talking about, but I'd never heard of anyone playing it in order to rank high on the list here.  Is anyone actually doing that?

And hey, 3rd place is not too shabby at all, my man.  If you consider how many members there are (not even including merit sources), 3rd place is amazing.  And hell, I'm happy to see myself at 25th place this time around.  I've really been trying to spread out the merits far and wide--and I don't aspire to anything higher on the list.  I'd be happy to stay right where I'm at, because it means there are 24 members above me who are taking their job even more seriously than I am, which is a great thing for the merit system. 

Why should they pay so much in taxes just because they're rich?  If you had to pay a 99.9% income tax because you were super wealthy, who would aspire to be successful?  Besides, I'm sure the buyer pays taxes and I'm sure there's a sales tax, plus the business pays taxes every step of the way. 

I detect jealousy, which is an ugly thing.  I find it to be a bit ostentatious to be buying and wearing a mask like that, but this kind of thing was bound to get made eventually.  They make jewel-encrusted cell phone cases, fountain pens, and watches that the super-rich buy, and if you've got the money to blow on stuff like that, why not?  At least when you're paying the enormous sum of money for a trinket like this face mask you're pumping money into the economy, and that's not a bad thing.

Well said.  I don't begrudge the buyer(s) of masks like this one iota.  The uber-wealthy give the rest of us plebeians something to work toward.

I agree.  MicroStrategy isn't a huge company in terms of market cap ($1.3 billion), but the fact that they'd buy a huge amount of bitcoin to hold as its "treasury reserve asset" (I don't know exactly what that means) is indeed big news for bitcoin.  What I'm wondering is what their shareholders are going to think about it, and I'm putting MSTR on my stock watchlist.  I'd never heard of them before, but it looks like they've been around for years and their stock has done pretty well over the past decade.

And lol, reading the summary of what the company does, I can barely understand a word of it:
**Quote from TD Ameritrade**

Maybe.  It would be far more bullish had the company been Microsoft or Amazon.  And I'm not sure how big a story this is overall.  You and I certainly find it to be incredible, but that doesn't mean the market is going to react to it at all.  We'll see.

The article says they bought a specific number of bitcoin, so I'd infer that it's actual bitcoin and not a derivative.

OP, thanks for posting the link to this article--I definitely would have missed this story had you not started this thread.  I found this quote interesting:


I've never used Venmo, and I'll have to look into it.  And honestly I thought PayPal was going to remain unfriendly to cryptocurrency in perpetuity, but I guess I was wrong. 

The other interesting tidbits were the history of Wavecrest and Wirecard, neither of which I'd ever heard of.  Having a bitcoin debit card never interested me all that much, but after reading this article I might reconsider it.  Maybe.  I'm still not a big fan of spending bitcoin when I can use fiat instead.  But regardless of what I do personally, I think this is all good stuff for bitcoin as a whole.

IEOs aren't anything new, and they were quite popular last year if I'm not mistaken--I stay away from new investment types like those until they've been proven not to be a scam.  So much of everything is in the world of crypto, and I'd rather miss out on potentially massive profits than risk what little capital I have on something unproven.  In any case, I'm not sure how popular IEOs are going to be in 2020.  Haven't they at least started to fizzle out?

Lol, I'm not familiar with any of them, really.  But I agree with you about Defi, because I've been hearing so much about it as of late that I'm betting it's going to be huge....whatever the hell it really is.  PoS coins aren't anything new, either, but I've been kind of surprised that they haven't caught on more so than they have.  I used to hear so much about people wanting to earn passive income, and PoS coins offer one of the best options in crypto to do that. 

ETH is going to become PoS, but I haven't read anything about when that's going to happen.  I did see a Youtube video in which someone pointed out that there are a lot of wallets filling up with exactly 32 ETH, the minimum amount you need to stake it.  Maybe PoS coins will start to boom once people are able to stake ETH.

A hedge against what?  There's a lot of economic turmoil in S. America last I checked, and it doesn't seem like the people there would be turning to bitcoin as a safe-haven asset.  As a currency, perhaps, but from everything I've read about the hyperinflation situation in Venezuela and other countries, the use of bitcoin and altcoins hasn't really caught on.  That does make me a bit curious as to why the price of btc has apparently exploded in Argentina and Brazil.  Are their citizens getting a lot of relief money from the government?

All this talk of Defi got me curious enough to read a little about it, though I can't say I completely understand what it's all about.  Part of me thinks it's getting the hype that ICOs/IEOs got in the past couple of years, which is making me skeptical.  Anyway.  Thanks for posting the article, OP.

I'm pretty sure you're right.  I've deleted old posts before, though I can't remember which sections they were in.

That might be so, but my guess is that a lot of members don't realize it and don't want to delete any of their posts if they don't have to.  The posts might not count toward a campaign, but they do count toward your rank if you're below Legendary.  If you have enough deleted posts, you could get busted back down to Newbie rank.  But again, I don't know if many members are aware of that, either. 

That'd be my conclusion.  I'd bet on any other forum a member would delete a post with no problem, but since post count is so important on bitcointalk we end up with "deleted" or "del" instead.  Crazy, isn't it?