The only way to tell if something is truly, truly timeless is to let a very long period of time pass and then see if that something has anything close to the relevance or popularity it did over that length of time.  I'm not so certain discussion forums have had enough time pass to tell, and I'd wager that they're not going to be a thing 10+ years from now.  Sure, bitcointalk is raging but we all know why that is--signature campaigns.  A lot of other discussion forums, crypto or not, are dead or dying.

Oh man, you got that bolded part on the nose.  I'm not sure how many of you remember how search engines and the internet in general used to be circa 1996-2000 or so, but I do.  Back then if you searched for something, you could end up with hours of interesting reading on some obscure website somebody owned.  Now it's just like you said: big tech has shit all over the internet.  It was inevitable, I guess, when there's money to be made.

On a related note, that's why all of these young and popular Youtubers have very similar vibes, almost like they're carnival barkers.  All the video content that draws eyeballs is being pushed and all the little video creators have no chance of having anyone see what they're making.

As to the problem at hand with AI and our beloved forum....I'm going to light some candles and pray to the gods of fire that we remain unscorched.  That's all I can think of to do.

I've heard of these fuckers before, always in the context of being a scam and no doubt they are.  However, I don't understand why a petition is necessary for a government agency to investigate crimes.

Just speaking for myself, I hope for the best in prosecuting Freewallet, but there are a couple of reasons I'm not going to sign a petition.  The first is that for as long as online petitions have existed, they've been as close to meaningless as you can get no matter what the issue, because they're just not taken seriously.  Second is that I wouldn't sign my name to anything related to crypto if it's going to a government agency.  And third, this is a UK-based agency and my guess is that they probably don't give much weight to foreign signatures since they're not accountable to those people.

If Freewallet has been at this for so long, it makes me wonder why no law enforcement agency has gone after them.  Surely their victims have filed complaints with LE agencies....or perhaps not, because it's crypto.

Thank you for that info!  I don't watch the news, and even if I did I don't trust the media, and I don't know anyone from Ukraine (or Russia for that matter).  I'm glad this forum is global so people like me can read what members thousands of miles away have to say about what they're going through and what their version of events is.

Oh wow, what exactly do I have on my hands, a second printing?  I got it as a gift from someone who bought it on eBay, but I'm pretty sure it was sent straight from Ukraine.  I also got that gray-colored card.  PM me if you can, as this isn't the right place to be chatting about stamps.

If the question is whether you should hold cash in the form of a stablecoin or some arbitrary amount in a bank, I'm not sure where the above statement comes into play--if you've got bitcoin and it's increasing in value, you might not want to convert it into any form of fiat currency (or a representation of same, like a stablecoin); you should probably hang on for the ride, no?

Also, if "owning" your money is of any concern to you, then neither choice is a good one IMO.  Anyone who truly wants total control over their money would probably be a permabull of precious metals, because you hear that kind of talk all the time on gold & silver discussion boards--or on this forum, too (lol).

And neither choice is going to beat inflation unless you're using some sort of bank product, like a money market account, a CD, or bonds, and those things don't qualify as "keeping money in the bank".  They're basically investments.  And bleh.  Stablecoins turn me off, man.  I just think they're shady as hell.

I'm reading the replies here and I get the feeling that I'm missing something fundamental--and it's really only Chipmixer that I'm referring to.

Those two ideas above: Wouldn't anything Chipmixer gave DarkStar_ that hasn't been paid out consider kind of tainted by any of those agencies I mentioned in my previous post?  In other words, if DarkStar_ donated leftover campaign funds (and that's what I think I'm confused about) to bitcointalk, would that not potentially pose a legal problem down the line?

Pfft.  I just remember "Chipmixer website seized"-->end of campaign-->I'm outta here.   I can't remember what was last paid as far as campaign weeks go, but personally I don't want any payout from DarkStar_ if it turns out I was owed one.  If other Chipmixer participants want the scraps, take 'em.

Somehow I never really expected there to be anything forthcoming as far as CM is concerned, and DarkStar_ must be in a tight spot.  He's holding onto money that might be watched by the FBI and who knows who else, and unless I'm wrong he's in a "damned if I do, damned if I don't" position.

Whirlwind I've got sweet fuck all to say about, as I never followed their doings.  Interesting thread, OP.

Like a moron, I once again put the Collectibles section on ignore (simply because of the way I browse the forum, not because I'm not interested in it) and missed the last two replies to my thread here.  Doh!

That does explain why they sold so quickly--and the referral was much appreciated, by the way--but unless I'm missing something obvious, it doesn't explain how the buyer was so close to my pen pal.  You're not the pen pal, nor was the second buyer who lives only a few miles away.  I'm obviously not going to name names, but I wonder if they know each other.

The Coldkey wasn't sold on eBay but to a member here who was very generous with the offer he made.  I know the card represents a line around the block of black eyes, but the history behind them will be something that'll be looked back on and pondered at some point in the future.  I wish I wasn't forced to sell mine, but alas I need a roof over my head.

Toxic fumes from my lab have nothing to do with this; it's been a lifelong confusion, and that's all there is to it.  Actually I blame Foxpup and the Club's clandestine cavorting--but hey, keep those insults coming.  I'll take a whole bukkake session and keep giving it back if none of you mind.

Like, seriously.  Seriously, you are the intellectual godhead of bitcointalk and I am the tard to be spat upon.  Seriously I hope you're joking.

Not to stray off-topic but you're not in this campaign and yet you found my question....how?  

I swear, sometimes I feel like people are following me around in masks, peeping around corners and such on this forum.

All right, so to be crystal clear: we're still in week 17 as I write this, correct?  I know it sounds like I'm a stupid noob, but the part of my brain that tries to deal with any time format other than EST acts like a stupid noob 24/7.  Can somebody just verify that for a poor old pharmacist chymist?

Lol.  I could probably look back at my posts in this thread and find a handful in which I wrote much the same sentiment--and this past month I was really slacking off.  And yet even though I just recently picked up the pace, it took a hell of a lot of merit-giving just to surpass you on the "most generous recent merit senders" list, so I'd say you're not doing too badly even with your lack of motivation.  I'm sure you'll blow right past me in no time.

OP, thanks once again for updating the data!  I always say this isn't a competition, yet I do like to check my standing just to make sure I don't start heading into 'lazy, degenerate merit source' territory.  So far, so good.

Can I axe a stupid question, stupid because the times given in campaigns always screw me up?

As of right now, when I'm writing this, with the forum time being September 03, 2023, 01:04:20 AM, is the campaign in a new week or are we still in the present week?

Don't laugh.  I can tell right from left, but I can only read a clock that has 12 digits and even if they're in Roman numerals I get a bit shaky.

Just thinking out loud here, but if you're planning on trying to make money because of something somebody tweeted, and assuming it's 100% accurate, it's more likely than not already priced into whatever asset you'd have to buy or short already.  I have no idea who that Twitter member is, but I do know that these days way too much emphasis is put on the loudmouths on that platform--even the mainstream news outlets tend to give too much credibility to whoever says the most outrageous or inflammatory statement.

And by the way, Canada's in trouble?  No surprise I hadn't heard anything, but it would be a surprise if it turned out they're in for a crisis that'd take them more than a year to get out of.  Their government and way of life seems to be at least twice as stable as the US, and I'm not sure about their monetary policies but they can't be as bad as what the last 4 or so US presidents have put our country through.

I'm as bullish on bitcoin as anyone else, but I'm also a realist and it hasn't yet achieved safe-haven asset status.  In a crisis I wouldn't bet on bitcoin being any less volatile than it traditionally has been.  If I had cash, I'd be sitting on a pile of it off to the sides just waiting to see what exactly is going to happen and where the opportunities are when it does happen.  When in doubt, ask yourself: "What would Warren Buffett do?".

Thank you for actually dropping a link for reference, which is something OP should have done when making a claim like he did.  Not everyone reads the same news, and some idiots like me don't read or watch any news whatsoever and are shivering in a dark corner waiting for the end to come.

If Blackrock did start investing in Ukrainian 'stuff' then it makes me think they know something the general public doesn't.  Then again, might they not have also invested in Russian 'stuff' as well and perhaps kept it out of the news?  I mean Jesus, they're the major shareholder in pretty much everything right now.

Agreed, and I'm actually surprised the war has lasted this long; I thought for sure that Russia would take Ukraine in the snap of a finger (note: that's not what I ever hoped for, but based on size alone and also my ignorance of military affairs it's an assumption I made).  No doubt Ukraine has gotten a lot of help coming in through the back door, but they've availed themselves with honor in the face of a very powerful enemy.  I never understood the politics behind the war, and I've got nothing against either the people of Russia or Ukraine; Putin's responsible for this, and in the back of my mind is always the knowledge that his military has nuclear capability.  What he was thinking I couldn't tell ya, and I'm not sure most people could either.

Going way, waaay off topic for a second here, but I got these stamps as a gift and I love 'em:



Their issuance might have been a bit premature, but goddamn....can you get any bolder than that?  Does anyone know if these are still in circulation in Ukraine, i.e., being used as postage?

You probably didn't have me in mind when writing the above, but I related to that particular situation more so than the others.  Personally, I'm not on this forum to make money and I don't like switching campaigns frequently because I don't want to burn bridges; when you leave a campaign, the manager then has a slot to fill and it's more work for him.  So although in the past I probably could have gotten into higher-paying campaigns, I chose to stay where I was for the reason I gave (and I don't want to get the reputation of being a campaign-hopper).

Everyone is different, though, and if you think about it, it's a good thing people are jumping to campaigns that pay more.  That in theory should drive up pay rates across the board, because if you're renting signature space, to get good posters you need to pay a competitive rate....just like in the real world, you know?

This forum is basically about money and if people are honest most of them would identify as capitalists.  And what do capitalists do in the labor market?  They go where the money is.  It's not that tough to figure out.

Yes!  I don't want to name names, but I've had an experience like that and it was annoying as hell (but it was years ago).  Imagine if you were working a real job in the real world and for some arbitrary reason your paycheck didn't show up on time, maybe a day late.  That would cause chaos in a real workplace.  There's a lot of flexibility with sig campaigns and a lot of leeway given to campaign managers, but they should still try their best to be consistent with the payouts, i.e., everything correct and payments made to participants on time.

Oh, I think this thread ought to go in Meta or Service Discussion.  It's an interesting topic to me, OP.  Even the idea of sig campaigns has fascinated me ever since I figured out what they were (and that took months for my pea brain to compute).

Good eyes and good catch on this one, OP.  This crap has been a problem for so long that it seems like the level of honesty is never going to equilibrate.  In any case, A-holes like this one should be banned and banned until they get the message that they're not wanted.  It's a hard one to swallow, yet so necessary to do so.

I also noticed some old names tagged him a couple of years back, members who aren't active anymore or are much less active--but it just shows that it's important to throw some red paint on deserving idiots, because you never know when your feedback might become important:


TMAN, where'd ya go, bro?

I don't know about anyone else, but I've seen AI do some amazing things with music, such as create cover songs with singers who've been dead for a long time--and the stuff on Youtube that I've listened to is pretty damn amazing (like this video).

But then I think about not how blown away I am that this could be done, but to what evil purposes AI-driven shit is, has, or will be put to and what effect it's going to have on society.  Right now it seems like the sky--or your imagination--is the limit, and that's effin' frightening.  And no matter who calls for a pause on AI development....I think the horses are all out of the barn with that already.  Unless lawmakers start legally restricting it, it's not going to be stopped. 

And even if laws were written, what do you think the chances are that hackers, anarchists, people with good or bad intentions, anyone, is going to abide by them?  My guess would be about 2%, and that's not enough to stem whatever disaster awaits (and I'm nearly certain there will in fact be an AI disaster at some point).

OP, you might find a local board more suitable for you to write in, because your English is too incoherent for you to continue posting in the main English sections.  Rarely do I say that these days, but in your case I think it's advice you need to hear.

I don't know what you're trying to say, and I'm pretty sure you don't have a good grasp of how bad it was back in the 1930s during the Great Depression (nor do I for that matter, but I'm also guessing you're younger than I am).  This, for instance, is just a bloated load of nonsense:


Consider what your native tongue is and see if there's a section dedicated to that language--and then go there at least until you learn how to write in English such that you can make yourself understood.  K?

Also try reading, as this has got to be like the 1000th time a thread has been created asking this exact question since the merit system began in 2018.  And then after you've gotten your answer, do the community a favor and lock your thread by clicking "lock thread" at the bottom left hand corner of the page, lest it become infested with shitposters trying to give answers when they've never earned a single merit in their time on the forum.

But yeah, skill at writing and/or writing things that are important; that's the basic formula for earning merits, and even then they don't come easily to most members.

I'm having a hard time understanding what you two wrote, simply because of legibility of English, but I think I'm getting that there's some confusion as to who's holding what under whose name.

Robinhood might have $X million in bitcoin under its control, but that's not to say it's theirs--and that goes for any investment firm.  That's their clients' bitcoin, not Robinhood's or any exchange's for that matter.  In other words, none of those exchanges could sink the price of bitcoin by dumping a huge amount of it on the market all at once, so I don't think there's really anything to worry about here.

If we were talking about a whale like Michael Saylor or the Winklevoss twins, then there would be legit concerns about centralization and danger of market manipulation (though I don't think any of them own enough to manipulate it to a great degree or for that long).  Know what I mean?

Is OP even still applying to be a merit source?  This thread is obviously pretty old and he hasn't replied since it was bumped.  He very well may still want to be a source, but as I don't frequent the Turkish section I don't have sense of how active he is these days.

By the way, I don't remember seeing those pics of that BTC-related shop or shops when this was originally posted, even though I wrote a comment shortly thereafter.  Those are cool! 

Also, this is why I usually write something like this in merit source application threads:

Looks like this thread just got ignored with all the others, and I find that unfortunate.  Nobody knows what's going on with the current merit sources, and Theymos isn't dropping any data or thoughts on the community either. 

Good luck again, OP?