Bitcoin is and it isn't red hot--that probably doesn't make sense, but at the moment bitcoin is down from where it was in 2017 when there was a true mania for bit, and there were threads here in which members talked about how they were selling their house and even their kids' toys to buy bitcoin.  It was crazy, crazy, crazy.

But bitcoin (and crypto in general) is still very popular, and it isn't like investors abandoned it.  The price is just stuck in a rut, which will probably reverse itself eventually.  In that respect, bitcoin is still red hot for the long term.

Anyone (not just millenials) should watch out if they're putting all of their money into bitcoin.  Even though millenials are young, bitcoin is still a very risky investment and nobody knows how it's going to perform in years to come.  If I had a choice between buying bitcoin or real estate, honestly I'd have to go with the latter--and I'm not even sure how real estate is going to perform marketwise, but owning a house or land is generally a very good investment that has a clear practical use. 

You can live in a house.  You can rent out your property and earn income.  Bitcoin doesn't do much except sit in a wallet while you're hoping the price goes up.  That's kind of how Warren Buffett feels about gold, that it doesn't generate income or perform a useful function like stocks do.  Bitcoin is in the same boat IMO, and I say that even though I'm a huge supporter of it.  Millenials would do well at least owning their own homes, even if it's a tiny house.  lol

Note that I wasn't proposing that a rule be made against this.  I really just wanted to get some opinions on the matter, to see if it was just me blowing my stack or if members agree with me.  I'm not even sure if anyone else even noticed it going on, but I sure as hell did.

Yeah, I've got that section on ignore so I never even realized that--but I'm not shocked, of course.  I knew there was always a link to an external new site in the examples I gave, but I wasn't exactly sure that they were trying to advertise for those sites.  Makes sense if they are, but a lot of members post links to news items (like Hydrogen, who often picks some good ones in the Economics section) and there is some value to that.  Those huge images, though.  They suck in mainstream media, they suck in crypto news sites, and they suck triple hard on bitcointalk.  

In my humble opinion.

Edit:

Yes, yes, yes.  I see that so much in news articles and it drives me nuts.

This has been something that's been bugging me for a while now, and instead of making the title of this thread "A call for members to stop using huge, gaudy, unnecessary graphics in their threads" I thought I would solicit the community's opinion about this and see if they agree with me.

There are a few members who consistently use gigantic images in threads they create, usually right at the beginning of the OP.  This drives me nuts, because it causes more scrolling than there needs to be and those images are completely unnecessary.  They add nothing to the topic being discussed.  You see this same nonsense in articles from the media, the most common being a picture of physical golden bitcoins when it's an article about bitcoin in the mainstream press.  I don't think members here ought to include that kind of crap in their threads, as it wastes the time of every single person who has to scroll past the image to get to the text, and it probably wastes bandwidth and who knows what else.

Edit:  This practice reminds me of Youtube videos that all seem to start off with extremely loud music that just shouldn't be there, because it's often louder than the content that follows and adds nothing to the video.  It also reminds me of the late 90s where amateur Geocities websites often had gifs that took forever to load and froze the page.  This isn't a critical forum issue by any means, but goddamn....it annoys me to no end.

I'd like to know what everyone thinks about this.  Below are some examples by members who are doing it.

cheezcarls:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5202796.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5202659
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5202536
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5202426
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5202397
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5201229
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5200828
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5200516
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5199712
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5199583
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5199496
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5199432

Debonaire217:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5199202
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5198588
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5197994
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5197984
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5197808

CryptoBry:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5195491
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5193728
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5193608
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5193471
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5193035
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5192587
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5192467
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5191238
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5151758
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5150934
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5149952
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5149417
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5147417
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5146138
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5145625
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5145151
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5144825
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5143835
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5143306
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5142952
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5142447
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5141796

No and no. 

Youtube censors a shit ton of content that's controversial, especially if it has to do with right wing politics.  If you oppose modern feminism or anything about the new 52 genders or stuff like that, forget about it--they're going to remove your video.  That isn't the case here in the P&S section where you can discuss all of that without fear that you'll get your post or thread deleted.

As far as other forums go, bitcointalk has waaaay more freedom of speech than other ones I've been a part of.  There are forums that censor profanity and ideas and generally try to keep a Disney-like atmosphere.  That is NOT the case here, and it's one of the things that attracted me to the forum in the first place.  You can generally say what you want.

All of that aside, there still needs to be rules.  OP, have you noticed how many generic, low-value, low-thought shitposts there are?  If moderators didn't delete posts like that, bitcointalk would be wall-to-wall garbage--and it's bad enough as it is, even with mods doing their best.  As others have pointed out, bitcoinTALK is not bitcoin the cryptocurrency.  A forum needs to have at least some rules, and I think this forum has a good mix of rules and enforcement thereof.

And that's why I think "support levels" are complete bullshit, as well as TA in general.  I've seen so-called support levels broken through so many times in crypto and in the stock market that I just cringe when I hear that phrase.

Gotta love the journalistic weasel words in an attempt to explain what amounts to a paltry percentage drop for bitcoin.  It's not something that needs to be explained in the first place, nor do I think that Google had anything to do with it. 

Oh, by the way:  This article brought to you by Google.

I was a little surprised to see bitcoin drop as much as it did, but I know I shouldn't be.  This is basically a normal fluctuation, but I was hoping and half expecting the next semi-big movement to be to the upside.  Bitcoin surprises me yet again. 

Yes, and it's funny you should start a thread like this.  One of my first wallets when I got into bitcoin was a blockchain.info one--this was before I learned not to use web wallets.  I was a complete noob at the time and I wrote down the password and some other thing they gave me, and I lost the paper in the notebook in which I'd written it and I don't have a clue how to regain access to that wallet.

Luckily I think I only had about 10k sats in the wallet, so it's not a big deal but I did try to log into the wallet a few times in the past year but couldn't.  Oh well.  And the only reason I had that dust in there was because at the time I was using blockchain.info the network fee was higher than 10k sats or whatever I had in there.  No biggie, thank goodness.

I couldn't care less about the US regulating ICOs to death, since most of them are scams anyway and nearly all of them are just worthless at best.  However I would very much care if the government started to regulate bitcoin to the point where people wouldn't want to own it.  That could be devastating, even if the US is only one country.

As far as Trump is concerned, he'll probably get impeached before he gets to slap bans on anything--but he's one president in a four-year period of time.  Nobody knows what the next president will do or who that'll even be yet.  It's quite probably the US won't get another complete psychopath like Trump, but that doesn't mean that prez won't take a disliking to crypto.

Yeah, but good for Theymos for spending that many merits.  I've often thought that people who merit his posts are kind of wasting their own merits, since Theymos doesn't normally distribute that many of his own--and I say that because I don't see a lot of posts getting merited by him but haven't ever checked his merit-sending history.  This is a good move on his part, and he obviously thinks that the members making contributions to a thread that's basically celebrating the forum are doing a good job.  I'm all for his merit spree.

If it helps some members to rank up, I'm even more all for it.  I think it's gotten too hard for the lower ranks since the introduction of the merit system, and I think Theymos probably knows this as well.  I haven't looked at the ranks of the members he's meriting, but I will after this post and I hope a lot of them are lower ranked.

Edit:

Holy crap, I haven't really been following that thread but there are a ton of pages to it.  I checked the first couple ones and it does look like Theymos distributed a lot of merits to Jr. Member-Member ranks, which is great.  He certainly earned enough of his own merits for that OP, so it's good he's giving it back.

If you have a fear of missing out on profiting from a shitcoin, you're being really, really stupid--and greedy.  I can understand that emotion when you're talking about bitcoin when it's booming like it did in 2017, but for one of these typical pump & dump shitcoins?  Come on.  You'd have to be a complete noob to fear missing out on one of those.

I agree that everyone should avoid altcoins that suddenly start rising unless it's because bitcoin is rising concurrently and only if you're talking about one of the better altcoins, and there aren't too many of those.  When I think of pump & dump coins, I think of those shitcoins on Yobit that go for 1 satoshi and occasionally you see them jump to 2 or 3 satoshis and you know someone is doing that on purpose.  It's easy to pump a coin like that because it doesn't really cost that much and there are usually tons of sell orders and no buy orders in sight.  Those are the coins every trader should avoid at all costs.

I need my bank account as well, but I live in an area where there are quite a few options and I could switch banks easily if I wanted to.  Having said that, I have no clue what my bank thinks about bitcoin because they're not one of the "big banks" that make public statements about crypto.  I think if my bank made it known that they were against cryptocurrencies (whatever that means), I might consider moving to another bank, but who really knows what the next bank thinks or even how significant it is.  The only thing I use my checking account for in terms of crypto is to occasionally buy bitcoin with PayPal by funding my PP account via my bank.  There haven't been any problems with that so far.

OP, do you have any links about that Australia situation?  I haven't read anything about that, and now it's making me curious as to what happened.  I'll google it, but it would be nice if you could provide a link to reference what you're talking about.

I'm curious about that myself--does it mean its market cap on coinmarketcap.com?  Does it mean its fiat value?  What does "taking over" mean with respect to ETH and bitcoin?  And I get that this is a Meta topic, but I just want to say that ETH is not even close to being what bitcoin is.  The only thing it's done so far as I can see is to provide a platform for people to create scam tokens or tokens that don't fix any real problems.  I don't hate it as an altcoin, but come on.  It's not going to dethrone bitcoin anytime soon.

And no, OP, this isn't going to become a forum to discuss ETH.  You can't be serious with this thread, right?  I think I remember reading that Theymos made a concession when he created the altcoin sections and that there was a lot of discussion that they shouldn't even exist on the forum, since it's supposed to be all about bitcoin.  I might have some memories mistaken about that, but my impression is that Theymos isn't too keen on those altcoin boards to begin with. 

Not to mention that it would be basically spitting on satoshi's grave (so to speak) to change the focus of the forum to an altcoin discussion board.

Be that as it may, Coinbase is regulated by the US government and won't get away with keeping OP's coins if OP can prove what happened.  They're not some shady, unregulated exchange with an unknown address like Yobit or one of those.  So even though their customer support might suck ass, I have a feeling that OP can and will get his bitcoins back as long as he aggressively pursues this, which he definitely should.

Aren't there any lawyers on this forum?  I don't know who OP could go to with this problem, but if Coinbase is stonewalling him I'm sure he's got options as far as help goes.  I just don't know who.  

Whoops, I missed this followup post.  OP, did you get your coins back yet or what?

I would love this, and there was an idea floating around last year or earlier this year that never got traction--which is sort of the same situation with the bitcointalk commemorative coin which has been suggested.  I think a physical set of trading cards or playing cards featuring some of the most notable members of the forum would be an incredible snapshot of what the forum is like ten years on.  You could look back on such a set years later and wonder what happened to those members or recollect fondly on a piece of history.  It's a great idea IMO.

It's probably a good way to make money for whoever makes such a set, too.  I'd sure as hell buy one, probably two.  There are some very talented designers and manufacturers in the Collectibles section, and I'm sure some of them would have no trouble making a set.  Webtricks did a great job with his design here, and I'd be happy with a card of his design (though he'd have to make a backside).

I hope not, because one time I logged into that site with my .org password by accident--and it was stupid, I admit, but for a second I thought the new forum software had been launched (I'd just woken up, that's my excuse).  Right after realizing my mistake I quickly logged on to the right forum and changed my password, but it scared the crap out of me for a few minutes.

That .com site has been around for quite a while if I'm not mistaken, and I'm not sure what the deal is with it.  Is someone squatting on the domain?

That would be nice, because I'm sure I'm not the first one who's made a bone-headed move like logging in to the other forum instead of this one.  Plus even if it currently isn't a phishing site, who's to say that someone with malicious intentions couldn't buy it and turn it into one?

OP, are you talking about anyone in particular or just mentioning people in vague generalities that make it almost impossible to make an informed comment in your thread?

Also, don't bump your thread like you did in less than 24 hours.  That's against the rules.

What are "legacy markets"?  I've never heard that term before. 

I'm assuming you're saying this because those so-called old school traders are trading large amounts of bitcoin, because they aren't the only ones with access to margin trading, but they're likely the ones who would make a TON of money on just a 1-2% movement as you said--and I mean the actual number of dollars of profit. 

Anyway, there are still some old school bitcoiners who still post on the forum and I always wonder how much bitcoin they actually own.  I have to think that for most of them, it's a hell of a lot unless they sold out too early.  I don't suspect I'll ever know, since nobody talks about that kind of thing but I do think about that often.

Ha ha ha!  Hey man, we all have different views on what bitcoin means to us, right?  I have to tell you that every freakin' time I've gotten rid of my bitcoin I've regretted it.  I'm no old school bitcoin guy by any means, but I've been into it long enough to remember when it was going for less than $200 and I wish I still had all of that bitcoin I'd bought below $1k.  

I don't own enough bitcoin to really be considered a hoarder, but I'm definitely not a big spender of it.  

Huh.  I didn't even know they had a bitcoin debit card.  That's actually interesting and I thank you for mentioning it, even though I wouldn't be interested in having one myself.  I thought no one had figured out how to get Visa/MC to cooperate with using bitcoin to load funds onto a card.  Guess that's not the case.

Edit:

It isn't just a wallet, but this thread is basically about the BitPay wallet that they offer--not their payment processing system in general, which I've used quite a few times but their wallet only once.

Yeah, I didn't think so because for the few purchases I've made with bitcoin BitPay was the payment processor and I didn't have to download their wallet. 

But there was one time I actually was required to use it, and I downloaded the BitPay wallet for Android--this was some months ago and I don't remember what it was for.  I do recall that the wallet sucked and that I wouldn't be using it in order to make a payment in the future.

And that was probably the last time I ever spent bitcoin on anything.  Since BitPay was never my primary wallet on my smartphone, I didn't see any good reason why I should have to use it to pay for anything.  That would require me to transfer bitcoin to it, which would incur unnecessary costs and I found that to be completely stupid.

I think when a whole thread gets nuked, you don't get a PM about it as opposed to having a single post deleted.  I've had the same thing happen to me.

I did see that thread in my unread threads list and thought just looking at the title that it was more appropriate for Altcoin Discussion (though I didn't read what you wrote in your post).  The thread didn't get moved, did it?  Anyway, just be careful about what you post in Ivory Tower, because moderation there is very strict and if a thread or post looks like it doesn't belong there, it'll either get moved or nuked.

And as I always say, just take post/thread deletion in stride.  It happens to most members here and there's not always a PM that gets sent.  You can always start the same thread up in the proper section.

There's a bitcoin ATM right near me and I would have used it if it were functional, but it wasn't.  I probably would have tried it out but wouldn't have used it more than once since the asking price for bitcoin was waaay above the market price and to me it was kind of a rip-off.

There might be bitcoin-friendly cities, but there ought to be a larger measure of crypto-friendly cities.  I'm watching a youtube video right now that shows how Dash is being adopted in Venezuela, and there's even a Dash-themed coffee shop there.  I don't really know how much adoption Venezuela has seen, but it does look like Dash and probably other cryptos are actually being used to purchase things.  I'd call that pretty crypto-friendly, though I don't know about the friendliest city in that country, probably Caracas.

Anyway, it's a good list but probably doesn't accurately reflect popularity around the world.

You're right about the reason--in order for bitcoin to hit a ridiculously low price of $5, there would have to be some massive selling with very little buying.  I would also say that if that ever were the case, every cryptocurrency would be in trouble and there would probably have to have been a major issue either with bitcoin itself or in the world economy or a nuclear bomb would have had to have destroyed a few countries or something outrageous like that.

There's just too much support for bitcoin to tank so badly just due to normal market forces.  Even though it's down from its ATH, it's still quite valuable and I don't think the bull market is over yet.  It's possible for bitcoin to fall to something like $5k or even below that, but $5?  Come on.  That isn't going to happen without some major disaster prompting it to drop that far.  It's a black swan event, as they say.