Firstly you can earn money in any market,be it the bull or the bear, only "glory days" investors actually wait for the bull market to invest..
Real bitcoin investors take advantage of any market to maximize profits,as buying low and selling high would be some profitable business,woudnt it??

Down to your question,margin trading???
To make it as concise and easy to understand as possible...
Margin trading is simply a sort of loan,borrowed by an investor to increase investing power/stake/capital..

Let's say you lack capital and you wanna invest in some project or in the bitcoin,margin trading allows you to take a sort of loan from a broker to increase your initial capital
And with an increase in your investment capital,would come an increase in your profit
Repayment to the broker most times comes with a little interest though

If you're only enthusiastic about the glory days then it's almost impossible to thrive in this system,its been said a thousand times already that the network is highly unpredictable and volatile.

2017 was a really profitable year for the system with bitcoin reaching a new high,but since the beginning of this year,the price hasn't really been anything to write home about

Losing your cool right now wouldn't be of help to you nor the system,actually this happens to be the time to capitalize on the low price,and purchase coins awaiting a pump

Certain factors propel the rise in the price of the bitcoin,it happens that those very factors are yet to occur

Buy BTC now,instead of losing your cool 

It all depends on your definition of what a normal discussion is,this is a community/forum that is divided into various sections and every section has its particular purpose(why it was created)

The BD section is for Bitcoin matters
AD section for Altcoin matters
B&H section is to help the newbies get up to scratch
And so on and so forth.......

While here is meta we discuss issues related to the forum,such as merits,ban appeal etc
And as the rules states, rule number 25 to be precise a banned account is only allowed to make a thread here is meta about his/her ban, any thread outside meta invariably leads to another ban..

So my point is simple if the ban appeal threads/merit discussions were to be held in BD or AD or any other section other than meta then it is not a normal discussion(let me borrow your words)
But if they are made in here then it is totally/absolutely normal..

We've been getting much of it lately which shows our Mods are cracking down on cheaters
Then the merit issue most times is just about noobs who haven't ranked up whining up in our ears(give it's some time,it will die down)

Most 3rd world countries/African countries haven't even awoken to the new trend of decentralized/Digital currencies,while a large percentage of those that have are still sceptical about the system(scam),while a lot more cannot get access to the internet

Decentralized money looks to be the future curreny,but for now the world is yet to embrace it, at least not with open arms
They aren't ready to take the risk of investing and losing,wallets getting smacked by malwares, exchanges getting hacked, users getting scammed..

The negatives seem to flash all across and make all the headlines
The world at this point only cares about it's economy,jobs,education,military etc

But amidst all this,the growth of the bitcoin is unwavering and if the world fails to accept it now, it'll definitely go ahead of them and wait for them to play catch up

Bitcoin wasn't created in the first place to be the number one global currency,satoshi's idea was simply to create a digital currency severed from our well known fiat currencies,it can be purchased with fiat,but that's were it ends, it's totally in the hands of the users,investors and enthusiast in the system

What could be more user-friendly than putting control in the hands of the users???

Good grief...
This is like the tenth(10th) thread today in meta about people whining they got banned...

I think theymos gotta fix this and tell banned users why they got banned(in the ban message)

Anyways I beat hilariousandco to this one,so I'll steal a line out of his book... "Copy and Pasting"

This is one good reason why your thread is tagged as an attempt to beg for merits,just provide useful Info,we do not really care about Halloween

Satoshi,one of a kind,genius,innovator,creator,invinsible(anonymous)

Thank you satoshi,for enabling thousands live a comfortable life,more others a life of wealth,some others a new home,a new car. Etc
And a million others financial freedom

I definitely would donate half of my BTC in honor of you!!!

You can trade directly with individuals on any platform,be it this forum or on telegram,thats not what matters the most..

What is of utmost importance is that when you're trading directly with an individual,its always pertinent and germane to use an escrow(TRUSTED)service that'll act as a third party in the transactions,so in case anything goes wrong you'll not be losing your money..

But take note that user rank on the forum does not emit trust,the 3rd party must be reputable on the forum and his trust rating must show that as well
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2439910.0
https://www.google.com/amp/s/99bitcoins.com/looking-for-a-bitcoin-escrow-service-consider-this-first/amp/#ampshare=https://99bitcoins.com/looking-for-a-bitcoin-escrow-service-consider-this-first/

Go through those links and you shouldn't have much of a problem completing your transaction

Just like you said exceptional posters earn merits quite quicker than good posters,and good posters quite quicker then just normal posters,and it goes on and on..

I think merits alone are enough to differentiate the quality of a poster
Other than that we have ranks,which is determined based on your merit/activity..

I doubt if we need any other sort of title that will differentiate users in here..
If you feel we do,give us more details about your proposals,for now you didn't quite give much
And probably then it'll be up for discussion

As the old saying goes:Do not judge a book by its cover,your suggestion I'm afraid is not(never)gonna be implemented
Topics of threads do not determine the quality/usefulness of a thread..

A thread can have a terrible topic but entail a worthwhile content
While some could have an attractive topic(that entices one to open them), but with terrible content

And it only takes about a second to open a thread,and another to close the thread if you find it unhelpful

There are about 119 merit sources with about 22000 Smerits generated per 30days
If they definitely do not hand out merits to you, then nobody will(Then it's then down to your own ineptitude)

It's so easy for someone who's failing to blame others for his/her failures

It's only obvious and wise that before going into any dealings whatsoever ever with any member on this forum you ought to go through his/her trust rating

It would only take a second to click on the trust icon on the users profile,whether it's shows visibly or not when the user makes a post or not

It's basically that easy and worth more than being scammed

No one's pitting the both systems against each other,they both perform similar/different purposes, it's just that what the banks are to fiat is exactly in one way or the other what the blockchain technology is to cryptocurrencies(bitcoin)

While banks store our money in their strong room,the blockchain keeps track of every transaction we carry out on this decentralized network,while wallets store our tokens/coins
What the blockchain brings to the party is more transparent and unalterable transactions,and it's one reasons people tend to tip the tech so high

Definitely the blockchain has come a long way in ten years,but no real cryptocurrency enthusiast truly believes it's better than banks or that there is a competition between them both..

The comparisons simply arise because of the seeming similarities between the both of'em,not cos of any competition of any sort

Firstly it's almost impossible to understand what you've for God knows why scribbled down here
Meta has been calm through out today as it seemed the spammers had left the board for other sections,i see you decided to break the duck..

Gambling is mostly for scammers
While bounties are mostly for spammers
So whichever way they both are kinda unhealthy to the forum
Plz fix your English so we wouldn't have to go through hell trying to understand your point(if there is any)

The post was probably trashed,(put in the waste bin) by one of our MODs due to the fact that it's probably unhelpful

Bitcoin is not in any competition with Fiat,noobs get that feeling that there's some sort of battle for supremacy between the both currencies
Bitcoin was called a bubble simply because it has the ability to rise to 200kUSD and fall to --7kUSD that same week, you would be right referring to something as volatile as that a bubble(that could burst)

Fiat is a much more stable currency which holds the economy of a nation,and controlled by the CB of that very country
Fiat is no bubble as it doesn't rise sporadically and fall the very same way it did rise

Scribbling down informations of how I go Into the cryptocurrency sphere wouldn't be contributing anything whatsoever ever to the forum,neither will it be of assistance to anyone or be any bit inspirational,this is not some reality channel..

Please come up with something helpful and something worth commenting on
As for this,its spammy and I wouldn't wanna be involved in that.  

It's basically not about posting,you cant claim you deserve a merit simply by saying you make posts, anyone can come up with a post, even those who asks "when will bitcoin die","are you gonna hodl" kinda post.
It's all down to how well articulated your post is, and how it can effectively contribute to the forum,either you're contributing in real discussions(not spam megathreads, or paid bumping), or you're assisting someone at one point or the other.

But while doing that just simply take your mind off merits and have fun on the forum(through quality discussions),as thats what the forum was created for in the first place

Proofread simply means to crosscheck a written text either for spelling/grammar/punctuation etc errors..This is a recurring problem we're currently facing on this forum and it is simply disrespectful as it disregards the forum and it's members..

This is a public forum represented duly by citizens from almost all countries of the world,when trying to pass across a message that will be read by that much people,it is only proper to scrutinize/crosscheck what you're about to post..

One major reason for this is laziness and negligence,laziness in the fact that one scribbles down points to be posted but doesn't find it necessary to go through it to correct errors made inadvertently or even wrong corrections made by our phone prediction
Negligence is also another reason for this,the feeling
that as long as the forum is anonymous and no user knows the other personally,then there is no need striving for coherence and being totally articulate.

This happens to be one of the reason why noobs do not get merited,no member/merit source will like to merit a "half baked"message or one written incoherently,that others will have to struggle to understand what's being said

Always proofread/go through your post/new thread/comment before posting it, even if you missed some corrections before posting,simply edit the post and correct them before others start viewing them
It'll only help to promote the forum and help one rank up faster

There is no general consensus or agreement as to which is the right path to take while investing/trading,it all has to do with which is convenient for you and likely to yield you profits after you must have studied the marketcap and make your own speculations/predictions

There are investors with a life long investment and wouldn't even sell if the price hits 50kUSD, there are also some who are waiting for a minor pump to sell off, decisions vary so does investments(capital)

Traders aren't much of hodlers and they are in for the short term profits, while investors trade long term (mostly invest with larger capital than the normal trader)and maximize larger profits