That's funny--I just watched a documentary about the LHC and the search for the Higgs particle, and it was fascinating.  Sadly, around these parts people are far more interested in whether Lauda is on DT or not.  The latter is also a question whose answer can get toggled back and forth depending on the whims of DT1 members, and I wouldn't go so far as to say it's not useful information.

Where's Lauda been lately, anyway?  I haven't seen the grumpy old cat around in a while, but it could be that I'm just missing his/her posts.

Did I miss this or something?  Theymos blacklisted Lauda from what, DT1?  I do remember the PM Theymos sent out to a bunch of DT1 members, but I don't recall that anything came of it.

That's alright, I don't mind the extra input and I don't fault jackg for missing my comment about not wanting to go through the hassle of returning the thing.  I don't even consider this a problem anymore, since I've become resigned to the fact that I'll never use the Keepkey as long as I have to go through ShapeShift--and, like I said, the Ledger I have is just fine.

Since I got the Keepkey along with the pen and case through Amazon, I probably had 30 days to return it and I certainly could have done so.  They're known for their fairly liberal return policy.

Going to lock the thread now.  Thanks to everyone who gave me input on this, I do appreciate it.

OP, how many posts have you had deleted so far?  I suspect it isn't that many, since you haven't made that many so far.  A lot of members get some of their posts nuked for various reasons, and it's just something you have to accept--along with the fact that you won't get a more detailed explanation than what you received for the post you quoted here. 

There's been a lot of post reporting lately, and I bet Off-Topic has been one of the sections targeted simply because there's so much garbage being posted in it.  Somebody probably read your post and thought it was very low-value and reported it--and a moderator probably agreed with the assessment.  Just shrug it off and try to put a little more thought into your posts.  This isn't a forum where crappy posts are tolerated (although paradoxically there's no shortage of them), though I would think that Off-Topic might be a little more forgiving than some other sections.

The above is what caught my eye--that's a lot to withdraw bitcoin, but I think Yobit's fee is something like 0.0012BTC, which is even worse.  It would be nice if, instead of the exchanges charging you to withdraw your coins, they'd let you just choose the fee like you'd do with any other wallet.  I understand that's part of most exchanges' business model, but man....when bitcoin goes up, it gets really expensive to move it.  And you don't really want to leave any coins on an exchange for a prolonged period of time, either.

Yeah, by far.  50k satoshi isn't a ton of money, but it's still more than is actually needed to send bitcoin within a reasonable amount of time.  Bitstamp seems to be gouging its customers here.

Edit:

I'm sure you're right about that, and it shows my ignorance about how exchanges do these things.  And at least Bitstamp's bitcoin withdrawal fee isn't as high as Yobit's, which is outrageous.

I'm pretty sure that's why Yobit has such a high fee and that's probably the strategy of at least a few other exchanges as well--and I'm sure it works most of the time, too.

OP, I don't know exactly what you're doing here, but good luck trying to rectify any of Yobit's issues with their customers.  They obviously can't be bothered themselves, which has always had me perplexed.  They've got to be making a ton of money running their exchange, and I can't imagine there are lots of people behind the scenes sharing the wealth--they really ought to hire some dedicated customer service reps, which would go a long way in improving their reputation. 

They have a decent exchange and they've been in business for quite a while, but the problem is obviously that they've driven a lot of customers away by not taking care of them when issues arise.  Now it's to the point where the Yobit name is synonymous with "shady".  I'm not sure how or why they've let it get so out of hand.

I agree with the first sentence, but they really don't have any customer support.  As I said, that's their main issue. 

Missed this thread when it was made, but OP deserves some merit for the list.  I know very well that eBay is a scammer's paradise since eBay favors the buyers to the point where it's not even profitable for the average person to sell things there.  I've never had issues myself, but I never was a big seller--I've heard horror stories about scams perpetrated by buyers claiming they never received items and all that. 

While this list is a good thing to have, I've no doubt that even if you could keep track of all the scammers it would grow exponentially.  There's no barrier to creating as many eBay accounts as you want.  Stay safe and don't use eBay as a seller unless you have no other options.  They're not on your side.

Ah, that might be why I haven't seen such threads in a long time--I have B&H on ignore.

Whether this thread gets moved there or not, props to OP for trying to help people rank up.  I'll keep an eye on this and try to lend assistance if I see any good posts and/or members deserving of merit who need it to rank up.  

I support this 100%:


I used up all of my source sMerits, but I have over 200 earned sMerits that I need to hand out.  It's so damn hard to find lower-ranked members making solid posts, so threads like this are awesome.

Props also to you for recommending other members, and I know you're a good poster so I've given you some merits.  You're so damn close to Hero, bro.  You'll get there.

Never?  Given the bullish sentiment bitcoin has had lately, that's kind of an outlandish non-prediction on Schiff's part. 

As I've always said, people like him only say these things to keep their names in the news, which OP is helping to facilitate.  I won't argue that he's not a successful investor, but his permabull stance on metals is just silly IMO.  Let him say whatever he wants about crypto, his previous predictions about metals and/or the housing crisis don't lend him any credibility when it comes to bitcoin.

Someone please bump this thread when bitcoin hits $50k, eh?  I think a lot of us tend to forget about prognostications like this over time, and I'll be happy to see Schiff proven incorrect.

That's my understanding of how one's trust list should be created as well.  If I've had transactions with someone which went well, I might leave them a positive feedback but won't necessarily add them to my trust list.  The latter is reserved for people who've shown good judgement in leaving feedback and/or other forum matters.  I mostly have scam/spam busters on my trust list and not members with whom I've bought or sold anything.

DaveF, you can do whatever you like with your trust list, but if you're on DT it becomes far more important to maintain the list responsibly.  Nowadays I have no clue who's on DT from minute to minute and you could end up on it if you aren't already (I haven't checked).  And if you're a DT member with a questionable trust list, you'll hear about it from other DT members pretty quickly.  My advice is to just be conservative when creating your list.  It doesn't have to be extensive and should reflect members' solid judgement in matters related to the forum.

Eh, it could have happened to any exchange.  Hell, even big corporations like Target have gotten hacked and have had their customers' information leaked all over the place.  As far as trusting Binance, I'd say they're one of the more trustworthy exchanges out there, regardless of them getting hacked.  Yes, it would be nice if they'd beef up their security so such a thing wouldn't happen....but we all know it does happen and will continue to happen.

I'm not a fan of KYC either, but if an exchange wants to be legitimate they have to conform their practices to government regulations.  I don't think any exchange wants to require KYC procedures.  They have to if they want to be able to offer fiat services to their customers.  Can't blame Binance for that.

Agreed.  Hackers are gonna hack, and they're getting better at doing it.

I'm reading this thread with great interest--I've never mined bitcoin and don't plan to, but from everything I've read I was led to believe that it's no longer profitable, even with free electricity.  If what you wrote is true, it looks like I'm wrong--I had no idea it was still possible to make that much money mining these days.

Maybe it's GPU mining that I've heard isn't profitable anymore, but I've seen videos on Youtube of miners giving up on ASICs as well.  Could be that their electricity isn't free, however. 

OP, whatever you decide to do, it'd be good if you updated this thread and let us know how you're making out.  I know I'm curious as to whether you're going to turn a profit.  Good luck, bro.

Yeah, right now bitcoin dropped below $10k and personally I don't expect it to stay there.  If I had money I'd probably be buying right now, because I think you're correct: it's an excellent opportunity to make a short-term profit.  On the other hand, I'm not looking to make short-term trades anyway--but I'm sure there are thousands of traders who could make money from this little dip.

Probably cowering in fear that bitcoin would break out of that range in a downward direction.  It was stuck there for many months, and nobody knew it was headed toward $10k.  It could easily have gone the other way.  It's hard to buy something when the price has crashed, and that's why most investors don't make money.  They buy high and sell low.

The situation in the US is pretty good right now--I don't know about the rest of the world, though.  What worries me is that the stock market has been on a bull run for over a decade now, and we all know that can't last forever.  The market is a mirror of the economy, however, and until the economy starts showing concrete signs of trouble, I'd feel comfortable investing in stocks as long as they're not overvalued.  

Big tech firms?  I wouldn't touch those, but that's just me.  Nor would I invest in any social media stocks, regardless of how hot they are.

Eh, yeah.  That's only a temporary shot of adrenaline.  What happens when interest rates rise (which they will eventually)?  No more cheap money means fewer investors trading with extreme leverage.  That could be a shock to the system.

I think I'd be too paranoid to use a bitcointalk extension for just that reason.  I don't have enough technical knowledge to judge whether something like that is malicious or not, though I'm pretty sure I'd hear about it if it were.  In any case, even aside from security issues I'm not really enthusiastic about any extension for the forum.  Firefox already has a dark mode extension, which I use, and I kind of like the forum just the way it is--it doesn't need any enhancements IMO except maybe to make it mobile-friendly.

Although I myself am not interested, I'm sure many other members would be--so good luck on your project here.  Maybe you'll have a hit on your hands.

While I agree with you that bitcoin's price is determined by investor sentiment, there's no telling what that sentiment is going to be in 2022, or even next month for that matter.  What happens if something comes along that blows bitcoin away?  I seriously doubt that's going to happen, but anything's possible in 3 years. 

And think about it.  Any asset that grows 10X in three years is ripe for a crash--so I'm actually hoping bitcoin doesn't get near $100k that soon.  Hell, I'd be fine if it was at $25k by 2022.  Ever see what invariably happens to investments that get into an exponential growth phase?  Eventually they tank, just like the NASDAQ did in April 2000. 

You got that right, bro.  I don't think the bitcoin market is anywhere near a bubble, but if it gets to the point where we start seeing threads about people selling their houses and cars and kids' toys to buy bitcoin, it's time to run for the hills.

<done>

Bro, it's not just you.  My guess is that you're posting in spam sections like Bitcoin Discussion, and there's a LOT of reporting going on lately.  If anything is off-topic or even has the appearance of spam, it's likely to get deleted.

I'm not sure what OP's point is with this thread.  All of these things have been talked about ad nauseum, and they belong in the Beginners & Help section in my opinion.

But yeah, campaigns are a great way to earn bitcoin and it's too bad that there aren't many of them left.  Seems like a new one was popping up every day in 2016-2017, but now they've all sort of dried up.

Faucets are a waste of time, but they are cool if you're just getting into bitcoin.  That's how I acquired my first tiny bit of btc, before I really knew how to get any.  After a while, though, you (hopefully) start to realize that the amount you get is trivial and isn't worth the effort.

Staking altcoins is a great way to earn passive income.  I'm a fan of NEO, and I love it because you don't even need to have the wallet running all the time.  I think all the PoS coins require that--but it's still worth it, IMO.

Man, that's the whole reason why bitcoin hasn't been adopted more widely than it has--people are generally fine with using their debit cards, cash, or phone to pay for things, plus the places where you buy everything generally don't accept bitcoin anyway.  It's a legitimate point. 

My family knows about my interest in bitcoin, but they have no interest in it themselves--probably for the above reason, i.e., they see no reason to go out of their way to buy a form of money that's hard to spend.  They think of it as my little eccentric hobby I guess, and that's totally fine with me.  Hell, I tend to think of crypto more as an investment than a currency anyway. 

On a related note, the few friends I have also feel the same way.  I think I've met about three human beings in the real world who've actually owned any bitcoin.  A lot of them have heard about it, but in my experience most people have never played around with it themselves.

Hm, I never heard of that one and I'll have to look it up.

I did watch a couple of the films OP listed, as they're included with Amazon Prime.  I wasn't particularly impressed by any of them, though I did find them interesting.  Of course, I watched them maybe a month ago--after I've been into bitcoin for almost 5 years.  They would be great for newbies to watch.  The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin was probably the best, but I'm having a hard time even thinking about what I saw in it.  There wasn't anything new that I hadn't heard before, but it was cool to see some of the personalities speak and to put a face to them.  I hadn't watched any other videos and don't really follow crypto news, and thus that caught my attention.

I'd really like to see a documentary dealing with not just the positive aspects of bitcoin, but some of the darker aspects of it as well.  Bitcoin and scamming have kind of gone hand in hand, and I'd like to see the Trendon Shavers thing mentioned, and Mt. Gox, Cryptsy, and a few other big scams mentioned.  Not to mention Silk Road and all the other related things.

I don't know if that's true or not, but in reality we're so far away from pricing things in terms of bitcoin that it's a moot point.  However, for the sake of this discussion I completely agree with OP's suggestion--I much prefer "sat" than other denominations like mBTC.  The only units I can quickly compute in my head are sats or BTC, and if a common idiot like myself can understand those easily enough, then anyone else can too.

It would be so nice if bitcoin were so widely adopted that this actually became an issue, but we're not there yet.  Not by a long shot.

Yep, I've got no problem with that whatsoever.  It's totally logical IMO.