I'm not exactly sure if what OP presented is the same as this example:

Because I've definitely seen shit like the link jokers10 pointed out, but not the AI-generated post with that code OP described (that I know of anyway).  Have we got a new form of link spam here or what?  I ask this as someone who is not a coder and is basically an idiot amongst geniuses when it comes to this kind of stuff.

I do agree that bitcointalk has been the stomping ground for all sorts of spammers for years, though.  I've seen all kinds of it, and a few years ago there was some group (or an ambitious individual) that was posting advertisements for mens' products and other garbage, and I recall doing a lot of reporting back then.  I'd support anything to cut down on this shit, because the quality of most discussions is lousy to begin with and we definitely don't need SEO spam being inserted into posts and going undetected, thereby encouraging spammers to keep doing it.

I think I've stated numerous times that I'm so hermetic that I'm close to being a shut-in, i.e., social interactions mean less to me than other, normal people.  So I might have been a good husband had things turned out differently....but thanks.

Thanks to the rest of you who offered words of support.  Now I'm going to lock this thread, try to wake up, and later on I'll get to work on meriting the members who need merits.

I don't agree with disabling anyone from the WO thread, just as I didn't support disabling merit-giving in there.  I think it's good you sparked this discussion and named names, OP.  Hopefully the problem can be worked out without resorting to appeals to Theymos to lay down new restrictions (which he probably wouldn't do anyhow).

Didn't realize there was a prime offender, either, however I don't suspect JJG is colluding with shitposters in order to rank them up.  He hands out a ton of merits, and I just think he's generous in that respect (though I could be completely wrong; I've been fooled before).  However, I don't doubt that the idiots who are posting all of that Twitter shit have caught on to what gets merited and are taking full advantage of the WO thread.

On a related note, I've gotten criticism for my offer to review post histories--not much, and it's been via PM, but nevertheless I'm aware that I'm being watched.  And that's good.  But what outsiders don't see is how many PMs I send to members saying that their posts don't meet my standards for merit, and believe me there have been many--especially after I received some honest feedback from a member I respect.  Maybe that's what JJG needs, and maybe this thread and the comments in it will serve the same function.  Maybe, perhaps?

I don't have a grasp on the magnitude of the problem, though I have seen that JJG usually gives 1 merit when a post is mediocre, but I disagree that he shouldn't be called out if he's a big part of the problem (and if it's a big problem to begin with).  He could hand out 1 merit/post, but that thread has how many posts in it?  It's a lot last I checked, so those merits could add up quickly.

And just saying, if I was doing something the community thought was inappropriate I'd hope I'd be called out on it either in a thread or, as already happened, by PM.  Then again, that's just me.  Some folks would react to a thread like this with extreme defensiveness and it could end up being counterproductive.  At least it gives everyone a chance to voice their opinion, though.

I would agree with the member you quoted (I didn't feel like including all that text in my reply) if he'd written "problem gambler" instead of making a statement about gamblers in general.  It's the same thing as a problem drinker possibly being a true alcoholic--it all depends on how prone a person is to addictive behaviors and how far he/she continues the problematic behavior.

Not all gamblers are addicts or even have a problem with gambling.  But man, I've met alcoholics and serious gambling addicts and they are very similar in how they think when they're in their active addiction--and the devastation a gambling problem can wreak is no joke.  People can and do lose everything.

G'dammit, I missed your reply until just this minute when I was doing a post history review.  OP is probably being humorous, but even if he wasn't and was really and truly pissed at Theymos you're right; it's refreshing that the big boss of the forum you're a member of doesn't have a hair trigger as far as banning members who say the wrong thing (whatever that might be).

The funny thing IMO is that I'm pretty sure Theymos reads a lot of these comments even if he doesn't respond.  It's like he's beyond all of this petty drama going on in the war zone the rest of us are in.

Ah, he can let harsh words roll right off him.  A hands-off approach to running a discussion forum even in the face of criticism or even abuse being hurled is an excellent one IMO.

To the people who've been PMing me for post history reviews and have not had them done yet, I give you a sincere apology as I've offered something that's pretty important to members who take this forum and their standing on it seriously but seemingly have slacked off since at least my last post here. 

I'm not going to go into the details behind my merit-giving torpor, but I'm just posting this to say that I haven't forgotten any of you and I've still got everyone's PM if you sent me one since July.  Today is a new day, and I'm making it my goal to whittle down the list a bit. 

My offer isn't paused, so anyone can still feel free to message me with a request--but be prepared to wait, because I could go flat-out Rambo and run out of sMerits or simply just not catch up enough with all the requests I've already received.

Ugh.  Life is kicking me in the nuts, hard.

OP's basic question has me slapping my head for a number of reasons, and any thought of bitcoin pricing anyone out of the market such that they can't buy any amount is ludicrous for the very reason you're alluding to above, i.e., 1BTC is sub-dividable down to 8 decimal places, and I find it very hard to believe its price is going to soar so high that 1 satoshi is going to be too expensive for even the poorest person.  And by the way, why would dirt poor folks want to invest anything in crypto?  Eating comes first.

OP, everyone is going to start saying the same thing in this thread.  If you've got your answer (or even something approximating a statement that makes sense to you), please lock this thread.

That's one way of putting it.  Another would be that it's way overproduced and very much reminds me of something like a linus tech tips video.  Multiple camera angles in YT videos are always jarring to me when the video is just someone speaking to the camera, and it doesn't add anything to the quality IMO.

Another thing a ton of Youtubers do even in videos that are supposed to be strictly informational is to shoehorn comedy into it at every opportunity--and more often than not it just makes it more tedious to watch the video.  I saw a lot of that in the latest bitcointalk video, and I have to say that although the tone shouldn't have been deadly serious, unless you've got proper comedic chops....just don't do what all those other Youtubers do.  Instead our bearded, t-shirted host ought to focus on speaking more clearly.  That would have improved the video immensely.

I was already aware of who the winners were of the awards, so the rest of the vid seemed like just a bunch of plugs/shout-outs.  It'll be interesting to see how many views/likes this gets compared to the previous ones.

I didn't want to dredge up all of those past allegations against OgNasty--mainly because I never quite looked into their validity--but that's the first thing that came to mind when I saw that he's railing against the supposed immorality of mixers. 

There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to keep your financial business private, and that includes obscuring your coins.  Sure, money laundering can and surely has been perpetrated using mixers, but is there any data showing the relative magnitude of laundering via mixers vs. the traditional way, through fiat-based businesses?  I get the sense that the latter is much, much more of a problem and that people/organizations with huge sums of money to launder aren't doing it through crypto, and if they are, there's probably fewer of them employing mixers, if only because of the enormous trust issue involved.

I've visited that thread a few times and had sort of noticed that the merit distribution was like the booze at a billionaire's cocktail party, free-flowing and copious.  All the shitposters who figured out where that party was are like filthy vagrant gatecrashers dressed up in tuxedos they don't actually own.

While I agree wholeheartedly with all of those points, I'm of the opinion that there should be less "government" on bitcointalk and thus I don't think there should be restrictions set by fiat from Theymos.  I think the names of the biggest offenders from the WO thread (the ones who are handing out merits to posts that don't deserve it) should be compiled into a list and then someone should PM them with a request to visit and comment in this thread.  That way if they didn't realize this was a problem that's being noticed by the community, they'll have no excuse in the future.

And after that, if the behavior isn't stopped perhaps DT members can come up with a plan of action--or not.  I don't actually know how bad the problem is in the WO thread.

Yep, therein lies the rub.  With any suggestion regarding the forum or any merit source application there's always a question in my mind as to whether Theymos is even seeing whatever the community is saying.  One rarely knows because he so rarely descends from wherever it is he hangs out to opine on others' opinions, and even rarer still I think is any action taken on his part based on the wishes of the community.

There have been a few merit source applications in the past month or two, and they'd gotten pretty much unanimous support but unless I missed an announcement, Theymos hasn't accepted any new sources.

And by the way, you've got my support 100% Igebotz.  The Nigerian board is going strong, and I bet it could use a member like you to help it's sub-community rank up faster than a snail's pace.  Good luck!

Yeah, I kind of alluded to Scottrade probably being what people used if they were transitioned to TD Ameritrade:


It's definitely a crap website--glaringly, obviously so when you've got TD Ameritrade and Scottrade to compare it to.  And that surprises me, because Schwab is a big name on Wall Street.  That's pretty bad when startup brokerages like Scottrade, E-Trade, and the like have better UI than one of the old stalwarts.

Thank you!  I think I saw that somewhere else but paid it no mind and should have.  That's another surprise, that we've basically got to resort to googling things on the forum instead of using its native search function.  Jesus, Theymos.

I find it absolutely bizarre, but we all know there are people with more money than brains who wouldn't think twice about paying someone else to hold bitcoin for you.  That you don't actually own, too.

Ah!  I did not know that fact, and that would make sense then.  I do think they hold bitcoin, though I'm sure they have to deal mostly in fiat for their day-to-day business needs just like everyone else.  But there's no way Overstock is on par with a company like Microstrategy, whose stock has basically become a proxy for owning bitcoin, i.e., a way to bet on bitcoin's price action using the stock market.

First off, I apologize if any of what I'm mentioning here is old news or has been discussed in other threads.  The search function on bitcointalk is fucked beyond belief.

For no other reason than I'm awake early with nothing to do, I was looking through my brokerage account's various investment strategies, and I came across a category for crypto--my broker is Schwab as I mentioned in the title, and compared with TD Ameritrade or even Scottrade before the buyouts happened, they blow monkey balls in terms of site navigation and UI.  Anyway, on the one hand I'm damn happy bitcoin (and crypto more generally) is getting serious recognition from institutions as starchy as ol' Schabby.

There's no straight-up bitcoin ETF, of course, but Schwab offers these:



After looking at the Schwab Crypto Thematic ETF, it's clear that if you bought in you wouldn't be buying any coins, any fund with coins, but probably a business or two that might own some crypto.  Meh.  I didn't look at the other one, which is likely even weaker tea.

Next we have the "Crypto Trusts"":



Now these I think I might have heard of before, and this is where I'm thinking that I could be treading on old ground.  But I never actually realized that these "trusts" are traded as OTC stocks.  Of course when I clicked on a couple to see the details, there's pretty much NO information on any of them provided by Schwab.  The only thing I gleaned about the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust shares is this:



This is apparently a fund that holds bitcoin, and I'm not really sure what the difference is between it and a bitcoin ETF.  But in any case, you've gotta laugh sardonically at the
statement, because how many expenses can there be for just being a fund that holds/tracks bitcoin and bitcoin only?  It's not as though it needs to be actively managed, but the net expense ratio is 2%!

And finally, there's Schwab's recommendation for people who really, really don't want to get their hands dirty with crypto but might want to dangle their toes in the muck.  These are regular ol' plain-Jane stocks that presumably have a tangential relationship at least with crypto:



Coinbase, Microstrategy, and Riot definitely make sense. 

PayPal, maybe.  They're just getting started with whatever it is they're eventually going to fuck up. 

Overstock?  I know they accept crypto and I don't think they use a payment processor like many other businesses do that accept bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, but I'm not sure how much they hold at any given time or that it'd be a good play on bitcoin in any case.  They're a retailer after all, and I'd assume that any profits or losses made by holding their stock would be due to their core business and very little to do with their relationship with bitcoin. 

Visa?  Guess I missed something important, because I would never have thought to buy their stock if I wanted exposure to crypto.

So that's Schwib-Schwab's crypto page in a nutshell.  Thought I'd share some of it for those who don't use them or perhaps have never even had an account with a stock broker.  I know there are a lot of young people on the forum who might not have had the chance yet--and let me suggest that if and when you do decide to open an account to make stock trades, steer clear of Schwab.  There are much better brokerages out there (I remember E-Trade circa 2002 and it was kick-ass even then).  And pssst: stay away from Robinhood as well.  They just flat-out suck.

What abuse are you referring to?  If I recall correctly there were a lot of people using bots to claim from faucets, but I didn't think that was still an issue as late as 2017 when you had to jump through all sorts of captcha hoops in order to claim anything.  That's the only abuse I can think of aside from people using multiple accounts on the same faucet site.

And the fact that there was abuse like that ought to tell you something about how popular these things were and how much people valued even a small amount of bitcoin--and they were right to do so, as I've already said.

Not for nothing, but if you're really, really into shitcoins and want to instantly get very small amounts of them, there's always this not-very-well-publicized faucet.  Note: I've got no financial interest in linking to that site, just sharing it for those who might be interested. 

Interesting topic, OP, because although I have a few names that come to mind as mentors, it's not something I would expect many members would have even considered. 

Again, I have several:
Vod: Gave me my first positive feedback which turned my trust green.
Lauda: Supported me getting onto DT2 way back when that actually meant something.
Blazed: One of the DT1 members who added me to his trust list.
hilariousandco: Supported me getting onto DT2 and was the second DT1 member to add me to his trust list.

But if you're asking what my first interaction was with any of them, I couldn't tell you.  But those members above were influential to me, and though I wouldn't have used mentor to describe them necessarily, it's close enough.

Amen to both of those statements.  I've heard of Robert Kiyosaki and I know he's got some very devoted followers, but I don't think his prediction of bitcoin's price at any point in the future is as good as anyone else's (until we know how it all turns out, of course).  And it sure doesn't look as though bitcoin is headed to $1 million, does it?

I think there is a crash coming, but I'm expecting the stock market to take the worst hit, as it's been in a long-ass bull market and by the laws of financial gravity it's got to come back down to earth eventually.  Whether the crypto market also gets whacked....I haven't a clue, but if there's a panic where everyone is selling assets to get cash, ChiBitCTy's first sentence above is spot-on.  Seems like we're getting a little taste of it already, because this past week a lot of markets went down, including crypto and precious metals.  Definitely not a crash, but it might be a slow trend, or the start of something speedier, or could be nothing at all.  Time will tell, not me or you or Robert K.

Yep.  The forum was different 13 years ago, even if it's only in subtle ways like this. 

But man, can you imagine if you were allowed to make anonymous posts these days?  This forum would be an absolute flood basin of spam and shitposts--and I'm talking more so than it was prior to the merit system.

Props to OP for reading through old threads; that's something I think people should do more of, because it's almost as good as reading a book on the history of bitcoin.  I've done a lot of reading of threads from the early days, and I accidentally stumbled across the first thread where the concept of a signature campaign was introduced.  Wish I saved the link to it!

Oh but man, if only you were able to claim a little bitcoin like you used to back in the day....I should be a millionaire for all the time I spent on faucets and buying cheap bitcoin (seriously) but instead I'm a fucking loser with nothing.

Coin_trader is probably right, though I'm guessing that it just became unprofitable for faucet owners, not because there weren't enough users.  I have no idea what the profits were ever like, but they had to have been minimal.  Faucets would come and go like the wind, so that should tell you something.

Props to you if you saved whatever you claimed from those faucets.  If you did, you were a true believer where I was a doubting Thomas.

I'm not sure a selloff of $373 million worth of bitcoin would tip the market to the downside, especially if Musk was shrewd enough to sell the btc holdings off in smaller pieces as opposed to dumping it all on the market at once.  Keep in mind that the stock market took a huge whack this week as well, and Musk and/or Space X had nothing to do with that as far as I'm aware.

And dammit, I was hoping bitcoin would break out to the upside after stagnating, but I guess it's back down to $26k for now (and hopefully not much lower).

Nope, and newbies shouldn't be blocked from making scam accusations IMO, because sometimes that's the only reason a person registers here, to drop some evidence that they got scammed and to warn everyone. 

As far as mumu68 goes, I haven't read both threads in full yet but if his claims weren't valid there's no way in hell a casino would be pressured into paying him anything.  If they did that simply because a random member of bitcointalk opened a scam accusation thread, every scammer out there would be targeting that casino with the same method.  In addition, if the accusation is unfounded the casino's official account usually posts some kind of defense, and I've seen that a few times.

But I don't know, man.  These days it's hard to tell who's scamming who.  There's so much of it going on, and when you throw gamblers and casinos into the mix....it's goddamn difficult.  I wouldn't pounce on mumu68 just yet; if his evidence of getting scammed is legit it'll stand up to scrutiny.  If not, there's not much anyone can do about it anyway since scams aren't moderated.  He could get tagged by DT members, but since he's not exactly an active member I doubt that would cause him much of a problem.