You're not missing anything--I remember this question being asked years ago, but we still haven't evolved to the point of being able to deposit bitcoin into your stock brokerage account and buying stocks with it.  I thought Robinhood might have made progress in that area, except that when you buy crypto there, you're not actually in control of the private keys and Robinhood is the custodian of whatever crypto you own with them.  You can't deposit bitcoin, which would obviously be the key to buying stocks with it.

Nevertheless, I haven't been able to understand why anyone would want to do this, since bitcoin in itself is an investment and is usually bought with fiat.  If you've got fiat and a choice of how to spend it, there's no barrier to buying stocks.  My guess is that stock brokers probably don't want to have to deal with accepting crypto from people and not knowing how that bitcoin was obtained (though it shouldn't matter, just like fiat).  A decade later and bitcoin is still associated with illegal business. 

Things might change in the future, OP, but as far as I know converting bitcoin into fiat and then buying stocks with that is the only way I know to go about doing what you want to do.

I seem to recall it happening quite a few times in the past, though I would agree that bitcoin usually leads the way.

The thing with the altcoin market is that (IMO) it was due for some recovery this year, but the coronavirus outbreak just kind of messed a lot of markets up and that recovery didn't come as quickly as I figured it would.  The real question in my mind is whether this is going to be the start of a long-term trend, or if it's just a small rally that's going to be followed by more losses.  It's not as though the economy has even started to bounce back yet, and I don't think a lot of investors want to be putting their money in super-risky assets like altcoins (or even bitcoin for that matter).

I'll confess that I don't really watch the whole altcoin market, just a few alts that I'm interested in.  The ones I have been watching do seem to be bouncing back from where they were before March of this year.  They're not making incredible gains, but modest ones--and that's fine by me.  I expected the coronavirus epidemic to decimate the altcoin market, but I guess that didn't happen.

Well, I'm still wondering personally--I don't know what to think at this point.  

TECSHARE said he called the funeral home and verified that Bruno had died.  Regardless of your opinions about TECSHARE, I believe he did as he said and unless there was a lie embedded on the funeral home's part, I have no reason to doubt Bruno is really dead.

What a strange situation.  I thought asking for burial donations was kind of weird when Bruno did that, but I wasn't thinking that there was a scam or any kind of shenanigans in his mind.  Most people have family to take care of that sort of thing, and if they don't then they probably wouldn't care what became of their remains anyway.  Then again, I've always had a strange view of what should be done with human remains after death.  Cremation seems like the most efficient way to go, or donation to a medical school.  Anyway.

Edit:
Ah, sorry I missed your post before I made mine, because I linked to the same post.  I didn't think it was going too far.  Who really got hurt by TECSHARE calling the funeral home to verify that it was Bruno?  There was a legitimate reason to do it, and it isn't as though it was done as a prank.

Lol, I can imagine--and it's not only Brazil where it would be a problem either. 

I did see the clothing offering a few days back and I wasn't impressed at all with the design.  It's just kind of plain white text on a black background, like you're wearing a computer screen on your chest.  If they'd jazzed it up with colors and whatnot, I might be interested in wearing something Ledger-related, but what they've produced is just flat-out boring to me.

As long as they stick to doing hardware wallets the right way, Ledger will be fine.  They've got no problems in that area so far.

TECSHARE, I told you I'm reconsidering my position on your exclusion from my trust list; if this conversation continues with your tone of aggravation, I'm afraid my current position is only going to be reinforced--and yes, there is a personal aspect to this because of that interaction we had years ago.  That got my attention very quickly, whereas I might easily miss a thread or a feedback left for someone else.  That shouldn't be surprising.

I'd actually like to hear the community's opinion on this if it can be done in a level-headed manner--and believe me, I understand why you made this thread self-moderated and made that local rule, but I'd genuinely like to hear some feedback on whether I should keep excluding you or not. 

I'm on the fence.  I already told you the main two reasons why I've excluded you, which have to do with your judgement when leaving trust feedback (and nothing else).  I don't have a "global" distrust for you, because you have a very long track record of not screwing people over in deals or scamming anyone.  If I thought you were a scammer, I'd have left a red trust.  The problem I have with you, TECSHARE, is that your judgement often seems extremely clouded by anger, defensiveness, and a touch of paranoia--though that doesn't mean you're always wrong on some points.  And as I said before, you've got a history of this when it comes to leaving feedback. 

I think I've seen some improvement in the time I've been a member here, and I'm inclined to follow Theymos's edict that hatchets ought to be buried.  If you ask me for evidence of that, I wouldn't be able to produce it without doing some serious research; it's just a feeling that I've gotten over the course of time, sort of like my feelings toward cryptodevil. 

You've already got this thread self-modded, so might I suggest you rescind your local rule of only allowing me to post here?

I didn't mean that quote as a jab to you.  Quite the contrary, it was meant to suggest that I might change my mind about your status on my trust list (if that matters to you at all, which it probably doesn't). 

I don't want to get into a battle with you about my exclusion of you from my trust list, because I'm well aware that such a discussion could go on forever with no progress ever being made.  Instead, the two main factors that have influenced me are 1) The reason you got booted from DT a number of years back, which was for abusing the trust system (and I don't have a link to the thread where that was decided, but I do remember reading it), and 2) Our first "fight" which was basically just a disagreement over something, which led to you PMing me multiple times until I blocked you, and after which you wrote a fairly aggressive comment as a neutral trust on my trust page--which you apparently deleted, because I tried to find it just now and couldn't. 

Props to you for doing that.

For some reason I thought he was as well, but then again I haven't even attempted to keep track of who the merit sources are, nor do I care as long as there are enough of them and as long as there's enough merit being circulated by them--and in a fair manner, too.

And I have to say, I don't have a clue as to whether the current stable of merit sources are sufficient; there haven't been a whole lot of threads in Meta bitching about merits or not being able to rank up, so that sort of makes me think that we're doing OK--but I'm far from certain about that.  Something tells me that new members have kind of given up on trying to rank up their own accounts from scratch, and if rank is important to them (likely for campaigns), they're probably going to start their "career" on bitcointalk with a purchased account.

Anyhow, I fully support OP's application and hopefully he'll get tapped by Theymos to be a source.

I'm not saying what you're proposing is impossible; I'm just giving my opinion that I think it's very unlikely Bruno's account was hijacked by a healthcare worker.  Certainly stranger things have happened.

Ah well, that does suck even though it's what the community thought had happened anyway.  And I also thank you for verifying this; even though I have you ~'ed in my trust list, it's not because I don't trust you in matters like this.  It's because I don't really trust your feedback-leaving history, and that's something I may review in the near future.  [/off-topic stuff]

Personally I wouldn't be too hard on Timelord2067, as he was trying to do a good thing for someone and he didn't get scammed because he got greedy (which is how a lot of people get scammed).  On the other hand, I never would have donated bitcoin to a dying person for burial costs, as that's something I think is a scam in itself.  What becomes of someone's mortal remains is a trivial matter to me, and science can have my body when I'm done with it for all I care.

But what a nuckin' frightmare this is turning out to be in any case.

Absolutely agree with this sentiment.  Even given how popular Bruno was, the donation idea was not a good one.

I seriously doubt this is what happened--starting back up with a post like the one that was made is a lot different than some random person finding a phone and, say, stealing bitcoin from a wallet or using the phone to pay for things via an app or something similar.

I don't know, man.  This is definitely another high-popcorn-usage event, so just watch your sodium intake if this and/or the Lauda thing is giving you high blood pressure.

Did suchmoon get control of his account(s)?

I have to tell you, I'm not surprised in the least that this happened.  I figured Bruno would give someone access to his accounts before he died--and I'm assuming that there wasn't a hoax as far as that's concerned.  It's obviously one or the other, and I'm going with the former scenario and we'll probably find out soon enough.

Edit:
A'ight, I'll take you at your word on that.  I didn't read that final farewell thread in full (it depressed me), so I don't know or recall if Bruno said he was going to do anything specific with his accounts after his death.  I don't remember reading anything about that before he died, but that doesn't mean he didn't write anything about bequeathing his bitcointalk accounts to anyone.

Wow, I guess I haven't been following crypto news as closely as I should, because I didn't know that.  Then again, stablecoins have always seemed superfluous to me.  I get that they're supposed to be a stand-in for a fiat currency; I just question their necessity.  And if any stablecoin is not being fully backed by the currency it's supposed to be backed by....yikes.  I wouldn't want any part of that.

Is there a mechanism by which you can short Tether?  I wouldn't think of doing this myself, but I bet you that there could be a situation just like in the Big Short where only a few people are acknowledging that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. 

Just one thing, marlboroza.  This:


....might be better written if it were as specific as possible as to whom you don't want posting in your thread.  The "other trolls" part I get, but if you say something like "CH and alts" those alts can always argue that they've never been proven to be alts. 

Anyway, since you can create self-moderated threads in Reptuation you've got the power to nuke posts from whoever you like--and given that there already are mods for the Reputation board (as mentioned above), I don't think anything more is needed.

OP, are you talking about the forum sections in general or Meta in particular--you said "here" and I don't know exactly what you mean by that. 

I'm not sure if I completely agree with these classifications, but I'd say most members fall into the first category anyway since most members are wearing a paid signature.  And yeah, it's been a problem for years that people make replies with almost zero thought just to boost their post count.  On the other hand, just because someone is in a campaign doesn't automatically mean their post was made for money (and I'd argue that whether that's true or not depends a lot on which section you're in).

I definitely support this.  One thing newbies should learn early on is to grow a relatively thick skin and know that relations can get....prickly....at times, and I wouldn't be afraid of speaking up if you're reading BS, nor get offended if someone calls you out on it.

Alani123, it's good you bumped your application thread and I have to say I think it's been quite a while since I've seen anyone apply to be a merit source.

I can't read Theymos's mind, so I have no idea what his plans are for the future of the merit system, part of which would obviously be the addition and deletion (for a variety of reasons) of merit sources.  I'd really like to know if he thinks there's enough merits being given out and that sort of thing.  And as I've said before, I think the forum could probably use some more sources--but I don't know if any merit sources dropped out, got lazy, gave up, or anything along those lines.  It'd be nice if we had some data.

Anyway OP, good luck with your application and I hope you get picked.

Edit:
Huh.  Guess I missed that thread entirely.

OP's English isn't that bad.  He's basically writing what I figured members would start doing once this thing was uncovered, though I suspect there are some alt accounts involved here just trying to accelerate the drama. 

Yeah, that's definitely part of it.  It's one thing to remove a member like Lauda from DT, but it's another thing entirely to ban one like him/her.  I don't know what, if anything, is going on behind the scenes (and by that I mean in Theymos's head), but popcorn is about to become harder to get than hand sanitizer.

I don't know about the socks, minions, or how much theoretical power they wield if they do exist, but I am very curious as to what the outcome of this is going to be, and I've expressed some of my thoughts about it in the report plagiarism thread. 

If nothing is done and Lauda suffers no consequences, can you imagine how many banned members are going to start crawling out of the porous, rotten woodwork to complain that they weren't given the same chance to rectify what a lot of them claimed to be mistakes?  True, some of them are just serial plagiarists doing it in the name of earning money through sig campaigns (and Lauda does not fit in that category), but there might be a small but significant number of them who would have a valid argument.

Regardless of what the motives were in discovering these posts by Lauda, they still exist and were found--and there have been tons of members who've been banned for plagiarism they've committed years in the past.  My question is: should those members have been allowed to edit their old posts with references and/or explanations in lieu of a ban?  While Lauda claims that what he/she wrote must have been from memory, somehow I don't think Lauda would accept that as a valid reason for many of the plagiarists who've gotten caught--nor would a lot of the rest of us, for that matter.

If Lauda doesn't get a ban, it would certainly appear (to my eyes, at least) he/she's getting a pass on this whereas other members have been banned mercilessly with no chance to retroactively correct omissions of citations.  I'll definitely be watching this one.

Hey man, I'm all for the Fox Team Cyclers.

Call me a peabrain, but how do you demonetize something that isn't money anymore?  Nobody can just declare that gold doesn't have any value anymore, so I'm not sure what he means by that statement.

Also, if this guy Odey really thinks gold ownership is going to be made illegal (which I don't think is demonetization, btw), why would he be increasing his position in gold?  Seems to me like if he really believed his own words, he'd be selling gold and filling his portfolio with other investments that seem to have a less uncertain future. 

I'm surprised this article was from Bloomberg and not Zerohedge.  I've been hearing about pending gold confiscation for years by goldbugs and the like.  I can't see a logical reason for it to happen, but who knows.  These are crazy-ass times we're living in.

I've heard this accusation leveled against Lauda before, and it never altered my respect for him/her.  Though facts might not change, people's perception and/or acceptance of the validity of those facts may change over time--and thus people's opinions may change over time as well.  I don't think Lauda's stance on any of the instamine stuff is grounds for a flag, a tag, or anything else.

And yes, Lauda, even though I've ~'ed you on my trust list I still do respect you.  I just think you've gone way overboard with some of the feedbacks you've left.  Not that it probably matters to you, but that could be a temporary situation depending on what you continue to base some of your negative feedbacks on.