Quickseller (Legendary)

His projects:
Trust System Upgrade
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5149330

Let's start

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

"I first read about bitcoin in 2011/2012 when reading about Silk Road, and subsequently reading their forum. I never traded on SR, and regrettably did not buy any bitcoin back then. I started getting more interested in bitcoin in early-mid 2014 when it was making headlines due to MtGox failing, and the price having just gone from ~a hundred dollars to a thousand dollars."

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"I bought my first bitcoin in early 2014 after I read about signature campaigns on this forum, and the ability for people to be able to make a lot of money by chatting on the internet. I used the bitcoin I bough to but a forum account, started posting and was able to earn my money back fairly quickly, even with the price falling at the time."

3. How did you get on the forum?

"At the time, I was searching for articles about bitcoin and found an article about signature campaigns. If I remember correctly, it was an article about how you could earn bitcoin with the new bitmixer campaign. I believe at the time, the campaign was a few months old."

4. You have been on the forum for a long time and spend a lot of effort fighting other old members. Give advice to young members of the forum how to avoid mistakes and conflicts on the forum?

"I would say that it is important to pick your battles. Before engaging in a conflict with someone, you should ask yourself if the outcome of the dispute is important enough for you to spend time fighting with someone on the internet."

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"The merit system is imperfect, but is superior to the previous status quo where you only needed to post in order to rank up. I often see people trying to play the system in various ways to get more merit, so they can rank up. I also see a lot of merit being given out because of a side someone is taking in a dispute, which I think is unfortunate because it effectively gives more weight to the opinion of those with lots of merit to give out — I see this less as of recently, but I also don’t follow forum drama very closely so I don’t know if this is still happening.

Signature campaigns are a great way to get people interested in and to learn about bitcoin. If it were not for signature campaigns, I probably wouldn’t have learned as much about bitcoin as I have. They do create bad incentives, such as to post garbage. Some people also tend to pull wool over their eyes when a company that is paying for their signature does something less than above board. Overall I would consider signature campaigns to be a net positive."

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

"I would consider the most important topic to be the unofficial forum rules because it gives people guidance on how to act in the forum.

There are many useful forum members and most of those who are useful are useful to a subset of people. Tomatocage for example was very useful to anyone who traded in the marketplace, while achow101 is useful to anyone looking for technical information."

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"My trust system upgrade was somewhat implemented with the flag system.

I would suggest rolling out the new forum software. If necessary, theymos should offer a bounty for security weaknesses, employ pen testers and eventually roll it out.

I would also offer more paid ranks. The copper membership allows someone to be a‘member’ and users should have the ability to buy a paid membership that gives the features of a full member, and maybe a senior member (such as the signature privileges, posting frequently privileges and being able to post in the ivory tower)."

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

"Not anymore. I had traded on Bitfinex in the past before they banned US customers, Poloniex long before they were sold, and coinbase."

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

"I would refer you to my response to this thread. Looking back, I responded poorly and ended up loosing my reputation that was valuable to me personally."

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"Never heard of it"

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"A precaution. I am a private person."

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"I don’t read those kinds of books."

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

"Any crypto investment is highly speculative. Investing in anything except bitcoin is similar to rolling the dice IMO, and it is far from certain that bitcoin will be successful over the long run."

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"The way 2020 is going so far, who knows."

Thanks to Quickseller for the interview!

The end.

Кто  может подумать? Матчасть наша основа.
Сегодня много платил, быстрый перевод эфира стоил 62-70 центов, токенов дороже, до 1 доллара.

Экосистема DeFi состоит из множества смартконтрактов, и комиссии могут быть разными от 10 до нескольких тысяч долларов.
https://etherscan.io/tx/0xc3d42f4a0a3556ed141e0aa17d527fcc58f223fef2175a57cdeea8ce22dd6742
https://etherscan.io/tx/0x18ca30658082ae31e2a32d20d3da8e97a1ef0def824035bebfe5debe25123112
https://etherscan.io/tx/0x2b97fff829a7d9b7837f8f447b7256fce3dec4428c1d07a8985da3cbce8f8259

Чтобы все смартконтракты были выполнены быстро, пока арбитражная возможность не убежала, надо платить майнерам.
Это большой недостаток DeFi, и с ее ростом на ETH 1.0 жить сложно.ETH 2.0 эту проблему должен решить.

продал по 325 эфир, Дефи отвалились, транзакции с комиссией 20 долларов не проходят, бинанс по 15 минут депозит принимает.
Может зря, сижу в кеше для входа в сделку.

Vispilio (Legendary)

His projects:

Vispilio's Fully Independent Campaign Management Services
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5225711  


Let's start

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

"I first heard about Bitcoin while I was trading for a hedge fund in Switzerland, back in 2012. At the time we were obsessed with algorithmic trading and automating fiat money strategies, so I missed that initial opportunity of acquiring some while it was trading between 10-100 USD… "

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"I got into Ethereum mining in 2017,  when ETH gained huge momentum shortly after we started mining it, my first BTC trades were actually done to diversify the crypto currency portfolio as it was getting too concentrated in ETH… "

3. How did you get on the forum?

"Around that time, I initially came to Bitcointalk to inquire about GPU mining and found the forum to be a huge font of knowledge in many technical fields."

4.1. Do crypto traders need special education?

"In my experience trading as a profession is one of the most difficult pursuits out there, so anyone who wants to generate income through trading needs a very rigorous education."

4.2. Tell us about your hedge fund management strategy?

"I focus on exchange traded derivatives. Very broadly I can say looking for price inefficiencies and volatility mismatches in options across multiple asset classes and creating a balanced portfolio that’s long gamma and / or receiving time value."

4.3. I do not trust stablecoins. How to hedge correctly if there is no way to exchange cryptocurrency for fiat?

"There are many ways to hedge, and all imply some assumptions, there is always going to be counterparty risk. If you don’t like stable coins you can go for shorting BTC or ETH on an exchange like Bitmex to receive some interest at the 3x daily swaps, you can look for inexpensive put options on a reliable exchange like Deribit or via smart contracts, or you can join a DeFi pool that diversifies into multiple stable coins, while also earning some juicy DeFi tokens, just to list 3 examples… "

4.4. If I gave you $ 100,000 now, where would you invest it?

"70-80% options, and 20-30% divided between Bitmex, Dexes and DeFi probably, the weights may vary depending on investor’s risk appetite… "

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"The merit system is pretty good with multiple merit sources adjusted periodically is a pretty good idea, all good political systems should strive for meritocracy.
Signature campaigns can incentivize people to come up with higher quality posts, so in philosophy they are a net positive to the forum if managed correctly. One recommendation I would give to all campaigns  and managers is to disregard the Trust System in making their decisions, as it’s currently broken. "

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

"I think the beauty of the forum is there is a very broad spectrum of useful topics, for my part I learnt a lot from some technical discussions on launching a crypto currency as well as the latest developments in altcoin mining."

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"i)   Give the option to users to make their trust lists private, so they won’t be coerced or manipulated by any gang for political reasons.
ii)   Form a committee from staff members or appoint a new staff to prevent trust abuse, so that the nepotism in the trust system don’t end up as a deterrent against new independent members from participating in the forum
iii)   Under the current Merit source leaders, Default Trust leaders, and most prolific posters as incentivized by sig. campaigns, the forum’s hits, engagements and membership have seen a steady decline. I believe the admin needs to take some strategic decisions to give new members room to be motivated while keeping the nepotist tendencies of the old guard in check. "

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

"Both, although investing in a project often requires more in depth and case-specific analysis, like networking with project owners directly, so trading is the more frequent activity for me."

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

"I have a story which serves as an example to both. Back when we were mining Zcash before it was dominated by ASIC’s, there was quite low liquidity on most exchanges and sometimes you saw wild swings to either side. On Bitrex I sold some Zcash at over 0.1 BTC (when our breakeven mining price was about 0.01 per ZEC). Never has ZEC brushed such high levels ever since, and looking for a few more spikes like that I got stuck with loads of mined ZEC which to this day hasn’t recovered, when I could have easily sold every one of them at around 300-400 …  "

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"It’s the way of the future, but deserves its own interview I think. Watch out for Andre Cronje, that guy has a lot of talent. "

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"Just a precaution, although it would be a different story if one is residing in a regime where law enforcement and surveillance are hyperactive like China or the United States… "

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"The Phenomenology of Mind by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
In a very fast evolving space, I usually look for what the founders of groundbreaking crypto projects are currently writing or streaming, etc."

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

"Next to Bitcoin, ETH, TRX and
The token I’m building for our own hedge fund, which should be ready in about 1-2 months I hope, it’s called FRX (Ferox)"

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"(Maybe ) Above 12,000 USD"

Thanks to Vispilio for the interview!

The end.

Это не биржа, а обменный пул. Стаканов в нем нет.
почитай начало
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5227888.msg54268595#msg54268595

Плюсы
Коннектишь леджер к метамаску и меняешь. Полная автономность, безопасность, без КУС и прочего дерьма от централизованных бирж.
Твои токены не конфискуют( только смотри что могут заблокировать авторы контракта а что не могут)

Минусы:
Мало направлений, малая ликвидность по непрофитным направлениям, комиссии выше

У DeFi огромный потенциал, хейтят безграмотные, которые даже не разобрались.
Дерьма там хватает, фермерство, плечи, перезаймы меня не интересуют, но свободная торговля перекрывает для меня все минусы.
Есть отличные проекты где можно торговать децентрализованно с приятным интерфейсом
https://app.nuo.network/trade

Через 2 года вы увидите эту систему в действии, и эфир будет расти, потому что он нужен для этой системы, а все проекты смотрят в сторону эфира, потому что его экосистема работает.

Эфир у меня в холде всегда.  Я выходил потом перезакупился капиталом для спекуляций несколько раз. Писал что неудачно, с профитом ~10%,недодержал.
В 1000 верю после запуска ЕТН 2.0  фазы 2, когда заработает дефляционная модель.

Смотри статистику
https://etherscan.io/chart/ethersupplygrowth
https://etherscan.io/chart/tx

Транзакций на эфире как во времена хайпа, а основные действия еще не начались.
Стоимость быстрых транзакций выросла до 100 gwei (1-2$), но в конце 2017 на биткоине платил по 35$, это не проблема.

моя цель 400 долларов  к осени.  На этих уровнях я ожидал сопротивления и откатов, но не сильных.

Задание на 6 меритов:
Перевести
https://ethresear.ch/t/the-scope-of-eth1-eth2-merger/7362

Разместить в https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=996518.0

Если вы не можете перевести в ближайшие 4 дня, не берите на перевод.

Вы можете позиционировать себя как угодно, но воровать текст из чужой WP запрещено! Это называется плагиатом.
Это противоречит принципам развития криптосообщества.
Порядочные проекты ставят ссылки в WP, если они используют чужие ресурсы.

"Форк это модификация первоначального кода и изменение консенсуса функционирования внутри системы, в результате чего появляется чем-то похожая, но совершенно новая монета."
https://prostocoin.com/blog/fork

philipma1957 (Legendary)
 
Let's start

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

"  In Dec 2011 I had a Mac Pro with a decent gpu and tried to get mining going. Failed at it. Then in 2012 July I joined here found the now closed Pool bitminter and started to mine there."

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"I purchased a few from  a member of the forum anandTech in 2012"

3. How did you get on the forum?

"I found it by being a member of anandtech. I liked building pc's and selling them on ebay. I noticed a BTC section there. It lead me here."

4.1.When did you start mining? Is this a hobby or your main job?

"  My First successful mining was July 2012
I make a few bucks monthly I never really made a living on it other then 2017 which was a good year."

4.2.What is the power consumption of all your devices?  How much does 1 kilowatt of electricity cost?

"   We mine with 1.7ph at a warehouse it pulls around 85kwatts hourly.
 Our deal with the warehouse owner is a 50-50 coin split"

4.3.What is better for mining: ASICs, video cards, FPGA?

" Asics are more consistent earners.
But gpus have had great years.
At the moment Cpus gen 3 threadrippers from amd are pretty good with monero
I have never been able to make money with FPGA gear as every builder I worked with was not particularly good to me."

4.4.How to properly dispose of the mined cryptocurrency (how much to hold, how much to sell)?

"  It is Hard work to move gear out when the time comes. I always try to undersell gear at a good price. I must have sold 500 to 750 pieces of gear. Before I found the warehouse deal we have. The ware house deal allows for storage of good gear that does not make sense to mine with unless a bull market starts again. we know have 15 s9's and
22 l3+ stored in ware house."

4.5.They say that mining is a constant sense of risk (the rate will fall, the lights will be turned off, the equipment will burn out), is it so?

"  yes and no.
   A guy in his home most likely has poor rates and 1 or 2 pieces of gear. He or she may have paid a lot for the most efficient gear and has no margin of error.
Myself and forum member buysolar  along with the ware house owner have a lot of spare gear. So a 1200 usd unit dying is not as painful when you have 25 other ones.  To the guy mining in his home with 2 pieces of gear he will lose 1/2 his mining power so it is a constant threat to him. To the four of us 1 piece of gear dying is not a threat. But I live in the USA and we had riots all over the country this summer. We were afraid the warehouse could be looted for the food inside as the ware is primarily a food distribution center. Losing 1.7ph in asic btc gear. 10gh in LTC gear and 12 1080ti gpus was not a pleasant thing to worry about."

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"  The merit system is okay better to have it than to not have it. Signature campaigns I would love to see the forum have a vacation  month  no signatures for a month. I would love to see Loyce do a stats look at it. Mostly to see what would happen."

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

"  The beginner board is good for new people.
Mikeywith is good for mining help. He also speaks another language and is on that board a lot.
Loyce is good for stats.
Lots of other good people here. DdmrDdmr is good."

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"  A signature vacation 2 to 4 weeks every year.

  theymos knows better how to manage forum then me so I have just the one idea."

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

"   Very little trading I have been converting my LTC into Doge and now I hodl 2 million Doge not much in the grand scheme of things. I used to push BCI but it died."
 
9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

"    I never made a lot as I mine and sell 2017 was the one good year.
As for a loss I purchased a lot of USB sticks for mining. Red bitfury  they arrived late I paid 17 btc for them Bitmain came out with a better cheaper stick while I waited for the red ones to show up."

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"   Can some one in this thread please write what this is as I do not know what it is.
So I won't google it to just give a flip answer here."

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"   This is the one thing I would do over. I am well known and many people know my name and home address.
So I sometimes feel vulnerable. I made to decision to be transparent back in 2012 to help promote BTC and coins. I never thought coins would become as big as they have. Had I known that I would have been more discrete with my id. "

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"  A lot of hype in a lot of books and in a lot of articles. I have done research on Taxes in the USA Using tax programs.   https://bitcoin.tax/ I have read all info here."

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

"  Doge, LTC ,BTC. I am a big Doge believer"

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"  15k to 19k "

15. P.S.

"It has been a heck of a ride and I never expected it to be where it is now. Hopefully it will stay interesting as it has been."

Thanks to philipma1957 for the interview!

The end.

Плагиат Monolith Whitepaper
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5264296

Очень классная идея скопировать WP топового DEFI проекта поменяв название и единицы расчета.
Унисвапу передам привет
Одним скамом меньше.

PLAGIARIZED WHITEPAPER
https://monolith.money/en/white-paper
http://archive.md/09Ba2

ANN:   https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5264044  ( RU)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5263945     (EN)

Original  WHITEPAPER
https://makerdao.com/en/whitepaper/#maker-vaults

They changed the name of the project and tokens

Website
https://www.nic.ru/whois/?searchWord=makerdao.com



https://www.nic.ru/whois/?searchWord=monolith.money









https://www.copyscape.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmonolith.money%2Fen%2Fwhite-paper

andy_pelevin, опередил. Поздно зашел

https://etherscan.io/token/0x4Dfd148B532e934a2a26eA65689cf6268753e130#readContract
Блокировок не наблюдаю, а как же все нормы регуляторов?

1 MCR = 1 RUB
https://monolith.money/white-paper

Total Supply: 1,000,000 MDT
Идея делать рублевый стейбл такое себе..



https://makerdao.com/en/whitepaper#dai-as-a-medium-of-exchange
"Dai as a Unit of Account
A unit of account is a standardized measurement of value used to price goods and services (e.g., USD, EUR, YEN). Currently, Dai has a target price of 1USD (1 Dai = 1 USD). While Dai is not used as a standard measurement of value in the off-chain world, it functions as a unit of account within the Maker Protocol and some blockchain dapps, whereby Maker Protocol accounting or pricing of dapp services is in Dai rather than a fiat currency like USD."

https://monolith.money/white-paper
"MCR как мера стоимостиМера стоимости — это стандартизированная стоимостная единица, используемая для выражения цены товаров и услуг (например, доллар США, евро, иена). На данный момент целевой курс MCR равен 1 российскому рублю (1 MCR = 1 RUB) Хотя валюта MCR не используется в качестве стандартной стоимостной единицы вне блокчейна, она выполняет функцию меры стоимости в рамках платформы MonolithosDAO и в некоторых децентрализованных блокчейн-приложениях. Учет операций в платформе MonolithosDAO и установление цен в децентрализованных приложениях ведутся в MCR, а не в фиатной валюте вроде российского рубля."

WP содрана с моего любимого Maker  дальше не буду  цитировать..

The purpose of the interview is not to limit the participants to questions.
You can write any thoughts after the interview. It will be posted.
This will help me to do my job better and any forum members can ask you interesting questions.

webtricks (Legendary)

Let's start

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

"I first heard the term 'Bitcoin' in a local newspaper back in 2014. There was an article on a person who lost millions of money because he lost his private keys. My second encounter with the term 'Bitcoin' came in 2015 when I was participating in the final round of National Finance Quiz hosted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI Quiz). We were asked a question whose answer was 'Bitcoin'. Up till this point, I had no clue about what Bitcoin exactly is. Then after few months, maybe around September or October 2015, I got the first-hand experience in bitcoins when I received a freelancing income in bitcoins. Then I read materials (lots of articles) on Bitcoin and even started my own Twitter channel: @Bitcoin_Bullet which gained over 30,000 followers in last 5 years."

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"You maybe surprised to know but I never bought a single satoshi for fiat money. Almost every bitcoin I ever owned or currently holding is earned from one source or the other. Actually, my first real investment was Ethereum when I bought 50 (I don't remember the exact count) ether from a local Indian Exchange for $8 each. Someone advised me that the price of ETH will surge shortly and it was really a profitable trade for me."

3. How did you get on the forum?

"I was a regular user on a money-related forum which had a chatbox. I used to visit chatbox daily and made many friends there. I met and talked with LeGaulois there and we became good friends. One fine day in November 2016, he told me about Bitcointalk forum. I joined the forum and loved it right away."

4. How do you think mass advertising of gambling projects has a positive effect on the development of the forum or harms the community?

"Love it or hate it but we all have to agree that gambling industry is the biggest utility sector of bitcoin as a currency. Due to pseudo-anonymous nature of Bitcoin, it is loved by many gamblers (including me). Sometimes I do feel that extensive promotion of gambling projects may be somewhat distracting for a newbie who genuinely comes here to learn solely about Bitcoin because 90% of the forum ads and signature campaigns are gambling related. But I am a person who considers gambling as a normal economic activity so it doesn't bother me much."

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"Merit System is a love! If not for merit system, with all this rise in bitcoin's price and ICO/bounty hype of 2017-18, we would be having thousands of Legendaries submitting bounty reports or shit posting all over the forum. Merit System is a well-thought and nicely implemented idea. Only difference I would have liked if pre-merit era Legendaries were given 500 merits instead of 1000. As far as signature campaigns are concerned, they contribute to spam no second thought on that. But we have capable managers on forum who do their jobs perfectly. Also, sig campaigns open up an advertising niche with potential of thousands of the audience. Being a finance guy, I love every activity which has economical (monetary) value and Bitcointalk Signature Campaigns together worth around $1.5-2M per annum which is sweet mini-industry in its own."

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

"Most Useful Topics according to me (highly subjective):
 

• Everything you wanted to know about BTC futures but were afraid to ask! by fillippone  - This is one of the best and most detailed finance related topic I have seen on the forum
• How to sign a message?! by shorena - Easily the topic with the highest utility on forum
• Bitcoin and me (Hal Finney) by Hal - Mind Freshener! If you ever feeling low, just read this thread and you will be ignited to get up again.

There are many more topics that I love on forum but can't recall right now.

Most useful users? Umm,.. LoyceV, gmaxwell, pooya87 (my personal fav),  Heisenberg_Hunter (the most important Indian forum member right now), Vod, achow101, o_e_l_e_o (pronounced liked oreo), yahoo62278, efialtis, there are several others. Again can't recall them all right now."

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"Number 1, Revamping Altcoin Section. Altcoin Discussion and Speculation boards are junk. If revamping is not possible then just remove those sections.
Number 2, Mobile responsive design. Many users access forum via mobile devices. Current design doesn't show signatures properly on mobile.
Number 3, Feature to favorite certain members. For example, suppose I favorite 'LoyceV' then if LoyceV has posted in a thread I open, his post should be visible either on top or as highlighted."

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

"I am not an active trader anymore. I have tried the day trading, futures and other leverage trading back in 2017-19 period. Made some profits, suffered some losses. But don't do those stuffs anymore. Now I am a long term investor and holding few coins in my portfolio. As far as investing in projects is concerned, I have invested in few ICOs during ICO hype period. But haven't invested in any new projects since last 32 months."

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

"Big profit is something I don't wanna disclose. Big Loss I can tell. It was a dumb move and I bought 500 Truckcoin from an ICO investor a day before ICO ended in Jan 2018. It wasn't wholly my mistake because project was scam and misrepresented its position. It had an ICO structure where coins were sold for a period (I guess for 60 days) and price of the coin was increasing every day. So on the first day of ICO, coin was selling at $0.02 then $0.05 so on.. and on the last day the price was $30. Truckcoin twitter handle posted that the team had successfully sold 100% coins on the last day. The tweet made me optimistic that I could easily sell coins for $20-25 after listing so I bought 500 truckcoin from an early Truckcoin investor @ $5 each. After a week, coin was listed on some shit exchange (BTC-Alpha I guess) @ $0.001. My $2500 investment then worth $5. Hey don't judge me, that was ICO Hype period so such mistakes were acceptable in those days. "

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"It's too soon to comment. I personally believe the model is non-sustainable but commenting anything on it will be mistake right now.
You are here, I am here.
Let's talk about DeFi after a year.  "

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"More of a precaution than a necessity. I pay taxes on my bitcoin earnings, not holding very high amount of bitcoins, bitcoin is legal in my country, haven't earned any bitcoin illegally. So even if my identity comes forward, it won't effect me much. But still remaining anonymous online is better and I found 'webtricks' a really cool identity."

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"The only cryptocurrency book I ever read is 'Mastering Bitcoin' by Andreas Antonopoulos. The book is real asset and every Bitcoin Beginner should read it at least once. Other than that book, I rely on articles and videos to learn new things more than the books."

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

"History is evident. Every altcoin which was looking fancy couple of years ago has never recovered from the dump of 2018-19. Ether which surged to $1200 is struggling around $200-250 (shrank by 80%). So it is better to keep money in bitcoin, the only proven cryptocurrency. It has recovered much of the fall and currently trading with the shrink of 40-50%. I am holding few altcoins other than bitcoin but that's sort of gambling and I won't recommend anyone else to buy those coins."

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"$14,200. Don't ask me how I calculated because even I don't know."


Thanks to webtricks for the interview!

The end.

Peanutswar (Full Member)

His projects:

Bitcointalk game
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5251833

Let's start

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

"Before I was like the other people ignoring the use of the cryptocurrency likes to be specific the bitcoin and I have a friend focusing the use of the bitcoin and now he bought a car and paying bills at his own so I got curious and ask to help with him if I'm not mistaken the last year 2019 month of November I explore what do I need to learn in bitcoin how to earn and what kind of investment I need to do it takes time,  lot of articles, and videos needed to watch just to understand the crypto. By that, I got a small amount of earning and until now I continue learning more with the crypto."

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"I bought my first bitcoin in November 2019 too just for fun investment just to learn. I remember it's only 0.001. After I saw that I make a profit because of the market movement I bought more to get more profit."

3. How did you get on the forum?

"A friend recommends me that I can learn more with this forum and yes he is right."

4. I've seen your Bitcointalk game project, do you plan on adding new useful things to the forum?

"I'm planning to add different features on the game like an animation too, and also it's hard to find some of the questions for the game, data gathering is the hardest part for me."

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"*skip "

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

"I cannot give it one by one but it's a lot because we have different things want to learn so it depends on you too. For me one of the most helpful users on our forum is DdmrDdmr"

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"For me, just one, and this is the real status of the member like a degree holder like that so we know if the person is reliable."

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

"Absolutely yes, in binance."

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

"One of my big profits is on trading and this is my first week of trading most of those trades are successful ( I'm a daily trader ) and every week I need to meet my quota just to maintain my income to pay the bills.

One of the biggest losses is in trading too, because of getting greedy I already have profit but because of the market signal and the movement I still hold the position and after an hour it's liquified."

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"*skip "

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"It's better to be lowkey than getting much attention came from different people also you can move freely without any eyes watching on your steps."

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"Right now I haven't read any book related to crypto because I don't have enough budget right now but I'm planning to buy the book of Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor's Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond."

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrency/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

"Still, ill go for the bitcoin, ripple, and monero those are the coins still has the potential to make the biggest market profit."

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"Just the other people hoping it will reach the 20k dollar market price but I think it's not quite possible because right now the number of people supporting bitcoin is increasing."

Thanks to Peanutswar for the interview!

The end.

Ratimov (Sr. Member)

His projects:

Ratimov - 1 year on Bitcointalk
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5255365

Let's start

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

"It was 2017. One friend constantly talked about Bitcoin and Ripple, I got interested and bought these coins, it was a profitable investment. Bitcoin at $3700 and Ripple at $0.15"

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"As I wrote above, I bought Bitcoin in 2017, while I was just studying trading and preparing to trade in the stock market, but having bought Bitcoin, I decided to launch it into crypto trading."

3. How did you get on the forum?

"This was the first time in 2018, I started looking for information about crypto exchanges, reviews and other information related to trading, and Google kindly provided this forum in the top. Since then, since the spring of 2018, the forum has been in my bookmarks, I read it every day. I don't know why I didn't register then. "

4. You are the most successful participant on the forum (in 1 year you have earned more than 1000 merit, status DT1 and status merit source, more than 20,000 reports, etc.). What caused these achievements? What are your plans for the future?

"Thanks . Yes, during the year on this forum I did a lot of things and this was due precisely to the craving for knowledge about cryptocurrencies.

- I received many merits because I always shared the information I found, I read English articles that I was interested in and translated them for the Russian community.
- I got DT1 status rather thanks to the fight against account sellers and other scams (I don't like purchased privileges).
- For merit sourse I have all the necessary resources (time and desire) Thank you theymos for approving my application for 2 weeks. I was very lucky, some have been waiting for years.
- A lot of reports is a thank you to the forum. The forum gives me knowledge, and I make it cleaner. Most often I send reports on topics that I read or interested in for general development.

Plans for the future:
Wait until I finally get rank Legendary Wait a long time.  To earn a minimum of 2000 merits. Within the Russian locale I'm already cramped, I'd like to try creating crypto topics in the English section."

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"Merit system is a good system. It is a stimulant for good forum posting. And it's nice to see that your topics and posts are appreciated by other participants. So it doesn't hurt the forum. Those who say that it has caused many newcomers to leave, it is only for the benefit of this forum, less trash messages will be. In terms of usefulness, the forum will not lose anything from the departure of those who are dissatisfied. Now the forum provides the whole conditions for obtaining a merite, the main thing is to write useful posts and you will be sprinkled with merites. But many people are just lazy.

Signature campaigns also do not harm the forum, but rather encourage participants to share their knowledge and get bonuses for it. Yes, there is a downside in the form of signature shitposters. Well, what can we do, there are no ideal systems."

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

"There is no specific topic for me. For me, all topics are useful if they contain useful information and I learn something new for myself.
The most helpful users are those who benefit the forum and its inhabitants. These include creators of original content (OP), translators, merit sources, those who make statistics on participants, hunters for cheaters and scams, reporters, moderators, managers, etc. These are the most helpful users on this forum."

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"1- This is a notice that the text for one post is oversized before it is published. This may be a rare problem in the English section, but for the Russian locale it is a frequent case. It often happens that you write a large text, press the Preview button and everything is displayed there in full. You press the Save button and part of the text, if it exceeds the size, disappears. It's good if you notice it right away, but I've had it happen the next day and I had to type it all over again. It's uncomfortable.

2- The Banned plate in the account profile would save a lot of time. I very often turned to the moderator with a request whether this or that user was banned, because BPIP or Loyce.club do not always correctly show the status of this or that participant. It happens that someone is banned, but there is nothing like that on these resources. This feature would save a lot of time for those who identifying  ban evaders. Or it will save merit source his merit, because there is no point in handing merit out to a banned participant.

3- This is the setting of the tolerance to the ranks that can write in your topic. Sometimes the influx of nubs-shitposter and have to either report on their masterpieces or open a self-moderated theme for deletions."

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

"Only margin trading. In general, I was initially preparing to trade on the stock market, but on crypto exchanges the conditions are much more pleasant for beginners. That is why for 3 years I have been developing this very direction in the crypto."

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

"It was 2018. July is a month. In one day I managed to earn almost 2 BTC with a balance of 0.6 BTC, but the joy was not long, after a few days the loss for the day was ~3 BTC, margin call"

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"This is a good stage in the development of cryptocurrencies. A whole decentralized ecosystem. But, at the moment, the system is still damp. Frequent hacks, plus token hype. So far, everyone is interested in watching this, but I would not invest yet. The risks are too big, and some operations require technical knowledge, such as the ability to write a smart contract in the same flash credits."

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"No, I don't feel the need for anonymity. I even registered on forum under my last name "

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"In particular, I have not read books on cryptocurrencies, I get all the information from Bitcointalk, as well as resources such as Medium, Hackernoon, Reddit and many others."

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

"Only Bitcoin. For me, 99% of altcoins are garbage that's not worth the attention."

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"Hmm, I don't really like to predict prices, but something tells me it's no more than $10,000. I think all these funny stories about updating Bitcoin ATH this year will remain the stories."

Thanks to Ratimov for the interview!

The end.

The Pharmacist (Legendary)

Member of the Merit Cycling Club

Let's start

1.When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

"     I think I’ve written this in a few of my older posts, but bitcoin first came onto my radar right around the time the Mt. Gox debacle was happening.  The price was going haywire, and of course as a result it made the news.  I had no idea what a cryptocurrency was and thought bitcoin was akin to Flooz from the late 90s/early 2000s.  That was some weird form of money that was to be used solely on the internet—and since there was no need for such a thing, it quickly fizzled out.  So in 2013/14 I just figured bitcoin would follow the same trajectory and that anyone who bought it would lose everything.
     I kept following bitcoin’s progress throughout the Mt. Gox episode, and I remember being surprised that it hadn’t gone to zero.  So I did a little research into what makes bitcoin different from something like Flooz and realized there was something a bit special about it."

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"     When I finally came to terms with the fact that bitcoin was not some kind of scam, I started seeing its potential as an investment (though I didn’t think then and don’t now think that it’s a great currency).  The technical aspects of it still perplexed me, since I don’t have a background in computers or cryptography, but I finally figured out how to send and receive bitcoin by playing around with faucets.  I fondly remember one called Land of Bitcoin which I don’t think still exists.
     My first actual purchase of bitcoin was a small amount on Coinbase in 2015, probably March or so, and I think the price of bitcoin was around $350.  And man, I wish I still had all the bitcoin I bought at those low prices."

3. How did you get on the forum?

"I discovered bitcointalk when I was following the progress of bitcoin, back in 2013 or ’14 when I was still very much skeptical of crypto’s legitimacy.  A lot of Google searches turned up results linking to forum posts, so I spent a lot of time reading stuff here.  One of the first things I noticed was that there was a lot of drama going on, and a lot of scams.  Another thing was that the forum was extremely lenient as to what you’re allowed to post.  Other discussion forums I’ve been members of barely tolerate disagreements, much less full-on rage fests laced with profanity.  That appealed to me greatly, the freedom to essentially say what you want without having your posts moderated into oblivion.
     I lurked on the forum for at least a year before I finally created an account, and since my technical knowledge of bitcoin wasn’t anywhere near that possessed by the majority of members here, I did a bit of mild trolling at first and I don’t think a lot of my early posts had much to do with bitcoin (lol).  Though I didn’t know what a signature campaign actually was when I registered, I could easily see the result of their existence—a lot of what I read sounded like it was written by a robot or a complete moron, and it was clear that there wasn’t much back-and-forth discussion going on, just members making near-incomprehensible statements….you know what I’m talking about, because we still have that going on in 2020."
  

4. You actively participate in the discussion of reputation issues on the forum. In your opinion, is the DT system fair or has flaws?

"     Bitcointalk’s trust system is unlike anything I’ve seen on other forums, and yes it’s got plenty of flaws.  One of the biggest flaws IMO is that nobody is held accountable for the feedback they leave, since trust isn’t moderated and members are allowed to leave feedbacks regardless of whether what they’re writing is the truth or not.  I’ve never liked the trust system, but it’s become apparent to me over the years that Theymos isn’t too keen on making huge changes to it.
   As far as the DT system goes, I tend to think it worked better before it became a rotating list—but even then, there have been abuses and all sorts of shenanigans that have gone on, involving DT members (not to mention all the drama).  Frankly, I’d be completely fine if Theymos scrapped the DT system altogether."

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"   Those are two separate questions.  As far as the merit system goes, I’m a strong supporter of it and was relieved when it was introduced in 2018.  The problems of spam, account farming, sales, and whatnot had gotten completely out of control by January of that year, and while there was a lot of discussion about how to combat all that crap, there weren’t any good tools to use in that fight.  Actmyname and I were tagging shitposters in the months before the introduction of the merit system, but it wasn’t a good use of the trust system and was frowned upon by Theymos.  The merit system has done a fantastic job of making it extremely hard for accounts to be farmed, since climbing the rank ladder is now dependent on earned merits—and for the average bitcointalk member it’s very hard to earn merits unless their posts are above average.
   Regarding signature campaigns:  I used to be staunchly against them, but after a while I did join one as I figured I might as well earn a few satoshis by doing what I was going to be dong anyway.  Unfortunately, that isn’t the mindset of the average bitcointalk member.  I’ve long had the impression that the majority of members are here for the sole purpose of earning through campaigns/bounties.  That might not be such a problem if all campaign managers had high standards regarding the quality of their participants’ posts, but that most certainly is not the case.  And the net result of that is you’ll see tons of posts that don’t really say anything and are stretched out to 75-100 characters just so the post will count for the campaign.
Campaigns are also significantly responsible for the plagiarism problem we have on the forum.  Many campaigns only pay for posts in English, and a lot of the “professional campaigners” hail from countries where English isn’t spoken, and there they have a dilemma—and often how they solve it is to copy content from the internet verbatim or use a word-spinning script or whatever, and it’s a plague nowadays.
     Despite all the negatives surrounding campaigns and bounties, I do think they help people gain some interest in crypto, and they also contribute to the bitcoin economy even if it’s in a small way.  In addition, there are some very poor people who can earn far more money in a campaign than they could anywhere else.  That’s an excellent thing (though I wish they didn’t contribute to the shitposting problem as much as I estimate they do).  I have no idea how long campaigns are going to exist for, but I’m not hoping they disappear anytime soon. "

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

"  Topic?  I don’t have a good answer for that.  But there are a number of members who are extremely helpful.  Jet Cash is the first person who comes to mind, and I base that on all the work he was trying to do to help new members improve their English.  Some of his ideas fizzled out pretty quickly, but he put a lot of effort into helping newbies without asking anything in return.
   As I said, there are a ton of helpful members, and I don’t want to list names in case I inadvertently forget some and give the impression that I don’t appreciate them. "
  

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"1.   Ban known scammers like all other forums do.
2.   Restructure the ranking system to perhaps increase the number of ranks and create some higher than Legendary.
3.   Impose more restrictions on newbies, and there have been a lot of good suggestions made over the last few years that apparently fell on deaf ears at the top.  It’s an unfortunate truth that most of the garbage posts originate from members who’ve been referred to bitcointalk by friends/relatives/coworkers as a place to earn easy money just by writing posts.  The merit system was a fantastic idea, but I think there’s still a few things that could be done to make it harder for newbies to use the forum as shitposting gig. "

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

" Invest in projects?  Hell no!  I assume you mean ICOs and the like, and I have a very dim view of that entire space.
As far as trading goes, I’ve dabbled in it here and there, but I’ve found the markets to be way to unpredictable and volatile to seriously engage in trading. "

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

" Sadly, I don’t have any stories to relate about either.  I never made real profits with bitcoin or altcoins, nor did I lose much.  I don’t day trade crypto, which I know is a very popular activity amongst forumites and assorted cryptocurrency enthusiasts.  If there’s a gambling gene, I’m pretty sure it’s missing from my chromosomes. "

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

" Nothing, since I don’t even know what that is (though I’ve heard the terms mentioned on the forum). "

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

" Since I don’t think I could remain completely anonymous even if I tried my hardest, it’s definitely not a vital necessity.  It’s not even all that important to me as far as bitcoin goes, but it is one of the features of crypto that I do like. "

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"  The one and only book about crypto that I’ve read was Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper, and it was fascinating. "

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

"  Eh.  Off the top of my head:  NEO, Neblio, and Tezos.  There are so many, though, and I’m not confident any of them are going to perform any better than bitcoin.  Nor do I think altcoins/tokens are ever going to find a real-world use that would cause the average Joe on the street to want to buy any of them—and if no one buys them, they’re probably not going to be good investments. "

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"  $9750.  My guess is as good as anyone else’s."

Thanks to The Pharmacist for the interview!

The end.

Foxpup (Legendary)

Founder of the Merit Cycling Club


Let's start

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

" Late 2011. I think it was an article about the Silk Road that first drew my attention to Bitcoin, and I realised that it could potentially solve a lot of problems in e-commerce, if it became more widely used outside the criminal world."

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"Early 2012, when the price was just a few bucks. Naturally I didn't jump on Bitcoin immediately after I heard of it; I did a little research first (including on how to buy it in the first place, since this was before there were any true exchanges in Australia)."

3. How did you get on the forum?

"Google, though I mostly use DuckDuckGo now."

4. You rent an avatar from LoyceV. An interesting way to spend bitcoins. Why are you doing this? How much would you pay to rent my avatar   ?

"I rented LoyceV's avatar mainly to prevent anyone else from renting it, while also playing into the conspiracy theory that the merit system is controlled by a handful of "merit cyclers" who only give merit to each other instead of people less deserving. It was originally meant as just a little joke but it ended up getting way out of hand.

The Merit Cycling Club is not currently accepting new members. Sorry.  "

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"I was on the forum since before signature campaigns existed, so I can say from first-hand experience that they have caused massive harm to the forum from which I doubt it will ever fully recover. The merit system has helped, but not as much as one would hope."

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

"I think the unofficial list of rules is pretty useful, or at least it would useful for more people to read it. More seriously, there's still some useful topics in Development & Technical Discussion and Bitcoin Technical Support, though even those sections have not totally escaped the signature spamming that has rendered most of the rest of the forum all but useless for serious discussion.

The most helpful users would be gmaxwell, achow101, o_e_l_e_o, LoyceV, suchmoon, Vod, The Pharmacist, and of course Lauda.   "

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"1. Bring back Ignore button highlighting. The Ignore button used to be highlighted on users who were frequently ignored, which made trolls easier to identify.
2. Introduce a "Banned" rank. This is standard on most other forums, and I don't really understand the reasons for not doing it here.
3. Ban all signature and avatar campaigns (yes, including mine). This is probably the only forum in existence where being paid to post is permitted. The result, I feel, only serves to demonstrate just why all other forums prohibit it.  "

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

"I mostly just buy and sell Bitcoin."

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

" I'm embarrassed to admit that I did lose a fair bit to the Playtin casino exit scam way back in 2014. There were a lot of shady operators back then, but this one appeared on the surface to be one of the least shady among them. There were no real indications at all it was a scam except for being based in an African country I had never heard of before (which, in hindsight, was a pretty major red flag). As is often the case with exit scams, it was actually a fairly decent casino until they halted all withdrawals, went offline, and absconded with everyone's money. No matter; I can afford to write off a few "educational expenses".  "

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"Is that an Ethereum thing? Because my antipathy for all things Ethereum-based is well known:
 "

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"Yeah, about that... As a gender-nonconforming furry pornographer with controversial opinions on a forum with a large right-wing nutjob userbase known for doxxing anyone who gains sufficient notoriety, I expect my life insurance underwriter would say "yes". Also I'm wealthy enough to be a target of all manner of thieves, scammers, and extortionists, but it's mostly just the first one, since I'm inclined to agree with the Red Cross when they say I can't put a monetary price on my blood.  "

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"I honestly forget. It was one of the ones about Bitcoin that was full of elementary information being presented as revolutionary even though it was long obsolete by the time it was published (which probably doesn't narrow it down much). This is why I tend not to read books on recent trends. "

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

" Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin. Accept no substitutes. "

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"Just over US$10,000, assuming the Novikov self-consistency principle holds and I'm not changing the future by talking about it.  "

Thanks to Foxpup for the interview!

The end.