Of course, it was worth a lot less than it is today, but I still didn't feel safe with this way of storing my private keys - and no matter how careful I was, I was always aware of the possibility that one day I would open a wallet and the balance would be 0. Although I slept much more peacefully after buying the hardware wallet, after the Ledger fiasco I began to have big doubts about that company and their devices (although the devices are not compromised), but the reputation was literally lost overnight.

It is not easy to be your own bank even for those who have experience, and I can only imagine what it is like for those who have no experience and are quite confused about everything. For them, the best advice is to invest in knowledge first, and then in Bitcoin.

The explanation is in OP, you just need to click on the link and everything becomes much clearer. In short, the OP thought that by changing the name it would achieve something about those who imitate it on the Telegram - and the admin accepted this as a justifiable reason. In addition, this name change is almost imperceptible to most users, the name actually remained identical.

Electrum or Ledger is as safe as you are sure of all their advantages and disadvantages. A person who keeps 1 BTC in the Electrum wallet on his personal computer (hot wallet), and who at the same time knows where the danger comes from, certainly has greater security than a person who has a hardware wallet and has saved his backup (seed) to e-mail or cloud or something like that.

I kept more than that amount on Electrum before I bought the hardware wallet, although I would never do that again, regardless of all the experience I have - of course, I primarily mean Electrum as a hot wallet.

It is clear to me which campaign is in question, but you must know that scam as such is not moderated on this forum - which means that forum members can act in accordance with their beliefs through trust and flags system and thus warn others of something bad. It is up to each individual to assess the situation and do what they think is right - of course some people do everything for money in real life, hiding behind an online identity makes things even easier for them.


You have users who have 50+ positive trusts, and 5+ negative ones - whether someone calls them saints or devils is completely irrelevant. If you personally trust someone, then it doesn't matter how many negative trusts there are, does it?


Maybe from the source you mention, and maybe most of those who participate in the said campaign are not actually unique users but alt accounts of that same company. In other words, perhaps the company pays most of the money to itself - because the pay rate definitely raises the suspicion that there are some strange things besides the obvious ones.


As far as I know the answer is no, no one will be completely banned just because they get a certain number of negative feedbacks.


Feedback can be removed instantly from the one who left it at any time, and it happens every day - people change their minds, delete or change feedbacks - it's not something permanent like merit, although admin has the ability to intervene in case of merit abuse.

This is the question of all questions when we talk about the common currency in the EU (EUR), compared to the US and the US dollar. The stakes, in this case, are incomparably higher than in the US in every sense, because you yourself well conclude that the eventual collapse of the US dollar will probably not affect the collapse of the US as it exists today, but the collapse of the euro would have terrible consequences for the EU.

You probably remember the Greek crisis that started around 2010 (depending on the source), which resulted in the largest attempt to save a country in the eurozone so far, and estimates say that it cost around 320 billion EUR, which puts Greece in the position of a certain debt slavery at least until 2060. Everyone may wonder if it was justified to save Greece or let it sink, but there was no doubt from Germany at the time - I think they would pay much more to save Greece (and thus the eurozone and the euro), just to save the idea of how the EU can actually function in the form in which it now stands. You can read a much better and more detailed explanation that can give you some answers to your question in this article.

While the EU may seem compact from afar, for those of us who live here it is far from it - there are several large states whose influence actually controls all important decisions, and the UK did not like it, as some other members do not like it - especially Hungary, which is trying to pursue some kind of sovereign policy within the EU, so it has been called a rogue member state for some time.

The UK had big problems with leaving the EU despite not being part of the eurozone (luckily for them), but any other country that would try to leave would face a big problem in that case - the exit ticket has a lot of zeros, for many states hard to reach amount. The most important task that EU bureaucrats are currently focused on is not to allow some new Brexit, because regardless of some new countries waiting to become members, another exit of an important member state would be the beginning of the end.

It's nice to see people who are fascinated with technology and who don't just see profit in everything around them - but want to change the world for the better with technology. This forum can certainly help you a lot to learn some new things and maybe find people who think similarly, although you shouldn't expect too much - it's always good to be realistic no matter how enthusiastic you are about something.

A little advice regarding personal data, it is not wise to present it publicly because there are a lot of bad people who could use it in some way - you can edit your post and remove some parts if you want - bitcointalk members (at least some) highly value their private information.

Why would I be? Well CBDC is nothing but a digital fiat whose only advantages I see is that there would no longer be a need to produce banknotes and coins, transport and insure physical money. It remains a centralized and even more controlled means of complete control over one's finances.


I put China in this context only because of the link to their CBDC and the fact that its launch coincided with the banning of crypto mining - it is logical to ask whether the EU might be able to introduce some similar measures (though perhaps not so drastic) before introducing the digital euro. China is not a dictatorship in the sense that it is ruled by one man, but by the Communist Party - that one man at its head is only formally the strongest figure.

We can discuss the fact that every country within the EU is independent, but you should know that 70% of all laws are passed in the EU Parliament and are only confirmed at the level of member states - small states have almost no influence - I say this from the experience of my country which accepts everything (even laws that harm national interests) because it has no mechanisms or responsible political leaders who want the best for their people.


That's true, many EU countries have very good laws when it comes to cryptocurrencies, but that doesn't mean there won't be changes - they are on the way and coming for sure, it's just a matter of time.

Europe is Considering Crypto Regulation

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Of course, it has nothing to do with what they cite as the main problems, because as you wrote, the EUR is on the same path as the USD, and over time it will lose its value - these pandemic measures will only further accelerate the process. The fear of losing control of the financial system has always been the biggest problem of the governing structures that govern the people through it. A man who is his own bank and absolutely controls his finances is the nightmare of every banker and politician.

The biggest blame for that is, of course, on those who paid attention to this news - mostly on the OP that posted this on the forum, because I personally and probably 99% of all forum users have never heard of this expert. Today anyone can speculate on the price - we’ve seen this through the past, but only a few were somewhat right - besides, there is no great wisdom in such a statement “Bitcoin price will reach $ 80k” when it’s just a matter of time when that will happen...

I guess those whose trust in Bitcoin has been shaken appreciate this kind of news as an encouragement, which means that every artist has their audience, no matter how meaningless and bad they were in their performance - it is important that the show is not charged.

With other countries seriously considering this direction, the EU has finally start its Digital Euro (CBDC) project. It will take them 2 years to explore the potential of such a currency, and if they decide to actually apply it, they say it would take them at least 5 years to officially launch it. As an EU resident, I am not particularly excited about this, because I know that it will take them much more than 5 years to do anything, and all that time will come in handy for Bitcoin to become more mainstream in EU.

What interests me more is whether the EU will at some point start making some bad moves when it comes to Bitcoin or stablecoins, which they obviously consider competition (although they don't explicitly mention Bitcoin). Of course, this reasoning stems from the assumption that China decided to conduct a final battle with Bitcoin precisely because of its CBDC, which is already being tested on a large sample of people.

I haven't checked how many followers this character has (some say 400 000), and I believe you will agree that this is a real trifle compared to Mr. Mars's 58+ million. I dare say that its impact is quite insignificant regardless of all followers (I bet he has at least 10-20% bots/fake accounts), and it is clear to everyone that he uses Bitcoin only as bait for what he actually promotes - just read the OP and everything will be clear to you.

I remember one user from Cuba who maybe 2 years ago (I can't remember exactly), was looking for some way to earn something in crypto, so he mentioned that the price of the internet is quite expensive in Cuba. I don't know how much prices have changed in the last 3 years, but $30 for only 4 GB of data is drastically expensive (mobile data).


However, some things are changing for the better, so the legalization of private wi-fi, which allows more and more Cubans to share the Internet and costs. The more freedom and affordable internet available to them, the more they will use BTC - and the good news is that BTC has helped them improve their standard of living at least a little.

I agree with the suggestion that the service should start using only TOR, because if privacy is important to us, then we should not make any compromises in that regard. I believe that most users who use CM are very familiar with what TOR provides, and that they will have no problem using it as the only way to access the service.

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The only thing I enjoy these days is the fact that they can't bring down the price, no matter how hard they try. I have already written somewhere that their prospects are getting worse every day, because at some point the trend will turn in favor of the bulls.

I personally don’t consider this kind of news generally good or bad, because although futures imply a lot of speculation by investors, I guess a little good publicity won’t hurt given that the bank (BOA) was extremely hostile to any form of the cryptocurrency business. Unfortunately, I agree that the situation in that part will get worse - because there will be more and more banks that will want their share of crypto cakes - and we all know that banks just want to make a profit, without choosing how to achieve it.

This is advice that most will agree with given that we are well aware of the reputation of this crypto exchange - but there is always a small chance that something positive will happen and that this story will end happily for the OP. By this, I mean the possibility that the exchange may get a new owner or that the authorities may in some way force them to start working more honestly and transparently.

It may not be big money for someone, but I wouldn’t give up on the $20 000 so easily right now - and I’m glad to see people struggling for years for some goal, no matter how impossible something seemed.

Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to import small packages in the EU up to, I think, 20 EUR worth without paying customs duties and VAT, which in most cases makes such a purchase unprofitable. My packages came with a big delay at the beginning of the pandemic and I haven't ordered anything since then because of that, and as things stand now, I think ordering from China will become a thing of the past for me.

Obviously, this is about sending a message to those who are doing something illegally, and while some may find this method of destruction a little strange, it seems to be the method used in that part of the world. I recently read an article about how they deal with a similar problem in the Philippines, except that they did not destroy mining devices, but luxury cars.

It seems completely unnecessary to me, because the seized goods can be put up for auction and sold, and the money can be used for humanitarian purposes.

I’ll just say that some people are very easy on the trigger when it comes to leaving feedbacks, and sometimes that really doesn’t make sense. I never paid too much attention to the fact that @Timelord2067 also uses my trust wall to leave personal notes, but in his eyes, everyone is suspicious until they prove otherwise - he doesn't seem to have found my alt account yet (although I still claim it doesn't exist).

You can be sure that this thread means nothing to them, their reputation on this forum is so bad that they could not fix it in the next 100 years, even if they intend to do so. I don't think they really know how to help you, even if they want to - because it's not a procedure anyone can do, and it always seemed to me that there was only one person pulling the strings when it came to that exchange. I'm sure he doesn't even think about it, because you're probably just one of the thousands of others who have a similar problem.

Still, maybe a miracle happens and one day you get your 10 ETH back.

In this sentence of yours, the answer to your question is actually hidden, because if you participate in 100 bounty campaigns, and you are paid for only 15 - it tells you what percentage of those who will not pay you anything, or will pay with a big delay (usually when tokens lose in value). So if you want to be at least somewhat successful in such campaigns, ask yourself if you can choose 10% or maybe 15% of those that won’t fool you, and is it all worth your time?

Anyone in your position should think carefully about whether this all makes any sense at all, what these tokens are for, and how most of these projects end up. As you struggle to promote the project, the owners travel the world and drink champagne on yachts - the result is always the same, nothing or dust for you, a luxurious life for them.

I think that all the posts above have detected very well the possible reasons why the number of new and active users is decreasing. There are many reasons, from the fact that some old users are no longer with us for their personal reasons or have unfortunately passed away, to the fact that the merit system has fundamentally changed the way forum members can progress (in terms of ranks), and thus reduced the interest of all those who saw the forum as a place to make money in a very easy and simple way.

Another important thing that no one mentioned is perhaps very important in the context of less interest in the forum - and that is the price of Bitcoin. When the average Joe looked at the price during 2015 or 2017 and read a forum full of posts speculating on a price that would one day go over $10k, it seemed very appealing to him from the perspective of his purchasing power, while today the uncertainty caused by the pandemic and high BTC price many simply refuse the new users to be active participants in the forum.

I have previously expressed doubts that the new forum would bring results in terms of better post quality, and I sincerely doubt that it would attract new users, at least not in a significant number. In addition, it is necessary to look at how many users actually remained active from the initial years of the forum, and that the database has already decreased considerably at least once, which may indicate a natural process that may now be at its peak.