Theymos is an evil monster for gouging those starving, jobless people of the world who desperately need a copper membership, I agree.  The cruelty is almost unparalleled and he probably should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.  I'll leave it to OP to make the phone call.

Yeah, that's never a good sign when there's an outstanding loan.  I supported the flag and tagged him subject to revision if he makes good on his loan to your satisfaction.  There's not much else you or anyone can do, unfortunately, and it's a situation that sucks.  I got scammed for a very similar amount of BTC a few years ago when the price was much lower, and I know the feeling--but it's got to sting even more since the fiat amount of the loan was much higher than mine was.

Master-P seemed like a good guy as well as far as I know, but look at the massive scam he pulled off a while back.  You just never know who you're really dealing with on the internet.

I have two transactions currently stuck in the network, one going into an Electrum wallet and one going out.  I sent bitcoin from that wallet using a 75sats/byte fee about a half hour ago, and it's still sitting there.

OP, this has nothing to do with Electrum and I don't know if you're aware of that or not.  The network has been pretty congested for at least a few days now.

Yep, good advice.  It's weird, we usually see bitcoin acceleration services popping up at times like this but I haven't seen any lately.  I know lots of them are scams, but last time it was really bad there was at least one miner who was helping people out (IIRC).

That might be true, but it's still going to be months until one hits the market even if a successful vaccine gets developed.  And having a vaccine won't instantly eliminate all this fear and hysteria that's crippling markets--and I wish I could confidently estimate how long it's going to take for bitcoin, stocks, metals, and everything else to bounce back, but I don't have a clue.

With respect to the topic of this thread, I would say the recent slump in bitcoin's price represents a great buying opportunity for anyone who wants to own it.  Plus I'd say that there seems to be some support that's keeping bitcoin from falling ever further than it already has.  It's above $5k as I write this, which isn't all that bad if you think about how bad it could be.

Then again, the worst may be yet to come.  I'd like to think that won't be the case, but it certainly could.

Assuming you knew who those merit sources were--and you wouldn't necessarily, since that info isn't public. 

Glad you're being honest about that, because people rarely admit that they're hoping for merits when they create a thread.  There's nothing wrong with that IMO.  It's perfectly natural to want some recognition for a post or thread that's well-done, and there's also the practical aspect of needing merits to rank up.  Obviously this thread was of interest to a few members, because you've earned quite a few merits for it already--and they're well-earned IMO.  The only stats I've seen on Chipmixer participants are earned merits, which is (or was) a part of DarkStar_'s spreadsheet.  There may have been another thread with some data, but if there was it's been buried.

I doubt anyone is giving you charity merits, but since you're a Sr. Member I'd take all you can get and not worry about the intent of the member who gives them to you.

Agreed, and OP is being a scuntmuffin in my bicycle thread, too.  I'm looking for helpful suggestions, and I'm already aware that not many retailers accept bitcoin but he keeps on with this anti-bitcoin stuff.  Makes me wonder if he got burned in the market at some point.

Especially on a forum about bitcoin.  If you're going to be an anti-bitcoin drum-beater, at least be amusing like kwuckduck was (and I wonder where he went to, btw).

It's not a safe-haven asset, and one would be silly in thinking it is one.  I would also add that if you had any such thoughts prior to this coronavirus outbreak, the market volatility has just proven that it is not.

You know, I hate to do that but I think I'm going to have to--although I haven't yet talked to either bike shop I'd be interested in buying a bike from.  I just have a feeling that neither one would be amenable to accepting bitcoin unless it was very easy to get set up with a payment processor--and that would be essentially the same thing as me selling bitcoin for fiat and then buying the bike.

The other thread I created about this issue (which I can't seem to find) had some good suggestions for bike shops accepting bitcoin internationally, but I want to buy locally.  And there are retailers like overstock.com that sell a select few e-bikes, but they don't have what I want.

I agree with that, but you're being a dick.

It might have been a little bit of temporary good news, but I'm looking at the US stock market right now and everything is down significantly--the Dow is below 20k, down 6.72% so far this morning.  Yikes.

I think it's way too early to be seeing light at the end of the tunnel.  There are going to be good days and bad days in the market, but right now everything is pretty much bad.  My personal opinion is that it might be months to a year or more before things start recovering.  The global economy is taking a huge hit, and none of it is reflected in any company's quarterly or annual reports yet.  I would imagine that profits are going to be down a lot for 2020, and there's probably going to be more pain in store for stock markets around the world.

I wasn't offended or otherwise inconvenienced by your PM, and I'm actually glad you pointed me to this thread as I probably would have missed it.  No worries on my end for that.

The OP here made me chuckle a little, because it's like taking a time machine back 20+ years to when I took introductory statistics in college.  I remember making charts just like these for homework, though that's just about all I remember from that course (lol).  Good job with the data crunching, dragonvslinux.  Being a member of the campaign (and I consider it an honor still), I do find it interesting to see all of this.  

He might have been hoping for some merits, because I have no doubt he knows the campaign has at least a few merit sources in it.  Personally I think he deserves some, because he obviously put some work into this analysis and the topic is relevant.  A lot of members apply to Chipmixer every time there's a spot open, so it's useful to have a sense of what your chances are based on the performance of members already in it.

Yeah, I agree.  I get spam PMs which I report and other unsolicited ones that I don't--because they're not spam.  And I would imagine most PMs are not solicited and if there was a hard rule against sending a PM if the recipient wasn't expecting one....that would just be a bizarre rule.

If you haven't seen the movie Contagion from 2011, I would recommend checking it out, because it deals with a scenario very much like what we're dealing with now and it also has that profit motive as part of its plot.  

There's money in vaccine development and potential antiviral treatments, but those take a lot of money up-front on the part of pharmaceutical companies and the profit only comes later--but I have no doubt that big pharma is looking at this crisis as a potential money-making opportunity.  I don't really have a problem with that, as it drives them to develop new products and they'd actually be helping a very bad situation in the process.

Wish I knew what companies were developing new antivirals and/or vaccines, because if I had money I'd be buying their stock right now.

Gilead has been a good investment for quite a while, and I know they make some HIV meds.  I've heard of Regeneron, but I'll have to check them out.

That's an interesting theory, not one I'd considered, though I'm not sure if it's true.  I'm also not sure what kind of tech bubble there is, because I vividly recall the internet stock bubble that popped in 2000 and this bull market that we've been in for stocks for the past 11 years doesn't seem to be centered around tech companies in particular. 

I remember thinking that we might have been in for version 2.0 when social media stocks started heating up, but I don't think those have been driving the market for years either.

Besides, as NeuroticFish has pointed out bitcoin hasn't been correlated strongly with the stock market for any significant length of time anyway.  It's had booms and busts several times since 2009 whereas the stock market hadn't had even so much as a big correction until recently--at least none that I can recall.

Any Legendary member (which OP referred to specifically) can make way more than $20/week, and I don't see them as being the problem with shitposts--maybe the drama threads, but members who've been around a few years tend to make interesting posts, if not always substantial ones.  It's usually the people who come here for the sole purpose of earning money through bounties that are the problem.

But anyway, I haven't seen any major decline in bitcointalk in the past few years.  It seemed to be waaay worse before the merit system was implemented, and that was over two years ago.  I'm also pretty sure the real decline started when signature campaigns took off, but that was around 2012 or so if I'm not mistaken.  It was certainly already bad when I registered in 2015.

How long was your break?

It might be whales, but I have a feeling it's everybody who's selling right now.  Smart money would be buying when others are panicking, and it's times like this that makes the smart money people ecstatic.  Wish I had some dough.

Yeah, I saw that yesterday and was afraid of what bitcoin would be at when I woke up this morning.  Thankfully it's holding steady around $5k, but we'll see what happens.  This epidemic probably isn't even close to being over.

If businesses keep closing and the stock market keeps sinking, I'm pretty sure bitcoin (and the entire altcoin market) is in for more pain, and it's not going to end until this viral outbreak gets under control.  These things tend to burn themselves out naturally, just like seasonal flu and other respiratory infections, but who knows when that's going to be--and right now everybody is panicked and cash is king.

But another panic?  I'd say the drop from $10k to $5k was the main panic drop, though I'm not confident that bitcoin couldn't fall even more.  It sucks to see the markets like this, but there's not much anyone can do except to take advantage of the lower prices.

It's because people don't use them as currency and fiat isn't in trouble, and people have been selling everything for the past week or so because of the outbreak.

But I totally agree, it's a great buying opportunity--but only if you think we're at least near the bottom.  It certainly isn't clear to me whether that's the case or not and I would probably guess that bitcoin could fall even further, even though it's lost almost 50% this year already.  Everything depends on when this virus and panic burn themselves out, and the longer they both go on, the worse it's going to be for all asset classes.

Yeah, it would definitely be a different situation if bitcoin was soaring and people were stuck indoors.  There might be more current members posting because of that, but I'm pretty sure the forum can handle that.

I can't stand television shows, but I do love movies.  Unfortunately most are mediocre at best, and I think I've watched all the good ones on Amazon.  I probably should check out what Netflix has to offer, but I just can't bring myself to subscribe to an additional service. 

That's my understanding as well--and I'm pretty sure Italy tops the list as far as the countries that have been hit hardest.

I've sent bitcoin a few times recently, and it seems like the network is pretty congested.  Not sure if everyone else is having that issue, but I've had to up the network fees significantly just to get a confirmation within a few hours.  While the transactions will go through eventually, it would be kind of a pain in the ass for the Red Cross to have to wait for funds coming in via bitcoin donations.  Still, I think it's great and I might actually donate a few bucks' worth to them. 

Yeah, that's the only issue that gives me pause.  I don't have anything against the Red Cross, because no institution is pristine, but you never know how your money is going to get used.

That's interesting, as I wasn't aware of rhodium's use in those.  I can't remember if any coins are made out of rhodium or not, but that might be a cool investment if so.

As to whether bitcoin is going to sink into the $3-4k range, I hate to say it but I have a feeling that it might.  I don't think coronavirus is anywhere near under control, and things seem to be getting worse by the day--businesses shutting down is the main thing that's going to affect the economy IMO, and that seems to be accelerating.  It's actually getting kind of scary.

And people are preparing for the worst, obviously.  They're selling bitcoin in crazy amounts, which is why the price keeps dropping.  I'm scared to see where the bottom is going to be, but I'm hoping for the best.

Five days after OP wrote his post here, I'd say it's a good bet that pretty much anything in the financial world is going to be linked to it--and I think for good reason, too.  The stock market is getting pounded, metals are getting pounded, everything is going down the tubes.

But hey, I think it's a great buying opportunity for those who have balls of steel and some cash.  I have the former but definitely not the latter, which is unfortunate.  In any case, bitcoin will survive this but yes, the coronavirus is certainly going to be affecting crypto trading.  That should be obvious at this point since bitcoin is teetering at the $5k level and all of the altcoins I follow are getting slammed.  Right now people shouldn't be selling; they should be buying, because that's how you make money.

No, and I doubt this year's joke will deal with merit, but we'll have to see.

I got off to a horrible start this month distributing merits, but I'm trying to catch up.  The good thing is that I'm not running out anymore, because that was a problem for a while.  I don't like when my sMerits start to pile up, because it makes me feel like I'm doing a lousy job as a merit source, but it's even worse when I see an excellent post and don't have any sMerits left to give.

But face it, OP.  Some members really don't care about the merit system and don't feel the need to use it.  That's their prerogative, and I don't have a problem with that at all.  Just like on Facebook or Reddit, you're not obligated to like or upvote posts.