Whether or not the evidence is strong enough or not--which it seems to be, and I would definitely believe these are alt accounts--the main question in my mind is whether any DT members would act on this information or not.  Merit abusers generally don't get tagged anymore unless the abuse is extremely blatant, though I can't speak for what Vod would do.  My point is that most of these threads that purport to catch alt accounts sending merits to one another are just wasted time & energy, because the outcome is usually that the accounts don't end up with any tagging whatsoever.

I think threads should only get started when there's extreme abuse going on and when the evidence that accounts are linked is very strong.     Neither of those things are the case here, but I would certainly be interested in what others have to say.

Because most businesses exist to make money and aren't just idealistic crypto supporters.  That's just the reality, and maybe I'm too cynical, but I suspect that most companies that accept bitcoin as payment are only doing so in order to expand their customer base.  Sure, there are some that genuinely are bitcoin supporters (like this guy with his espresso bar, and perhaps places like Veldt Gold and some others) but most are doing it only as a gimmick.  They know bitcoiners are hardcore and will seek out places to spend their crypto, so those businesses want to attract such customers.  The bottom line is that they want to maximize their profit, which is denominated in whatever their local fiat is.

I can tell by reading a lot of comments like the above that members here must be young and/or without any business experience, and that they don't know a lot about how the real world works in terms of businesses and how they operate.  You guys will learn eventually, just as I did.

As I said, I genuinely would like to see the espresso bar succeed and I'm not knocking him in any way for accepting bitcoin.  I think it's a great idea, and if he was close enough to me I'd be more than willing to be a bitcoin-paying patron of his establishment.  It's good for the bitcoin economy, regardless of whether he converts to fiat immediately.

And it's ironic that you negged him for abusing the trust system.  I thought we were moving away from giving people red trust for petty shit like that.  Was it your intention to further weaken your credibility?  Either way, congrats on doing so.

I still would like to see the evidence that Rambotnic PM'ed this guy with threats and won't believe it 100% until I do, but it's not something I find terribly hard to believe.  I think I recall him posting some borderline threatening posts when he got his panties in a twist over something not too long ago.  Nothing that rose to the level of getting himself banned, but it was aggressive trolling.  It's not that far of a stretch to think that he'd actually threaten someone via PM.  But as I said, proof is needed. 

And Rambotnic is another one who's misusing the trust system, negging IdiotCoder for scamming without providing any proof.  He and Thule are becoming a running joke here, but not one that's very humorous.

Some of that article is Greek to me, since I don't use social media and don't really know what Whatsapp is, which they said was critical in the FB coin's success--but I tend to agree with you.  It seems to have a whiff of desperation about it, and that's not surprising since Facebook's stock took a serious beating a few months ago.  Whatever transactions they're doing with Whatsapp or Google Play could probably be done just as easily with fiat (or bitcoin or any of the hundreds of other cryptos in existence), and a FB coin just seems redundant to me. 

I can't stand them anyway, and not an insignificant part of me hopes this coin falls flat on its face and that their stock price drops even further as a result of its failure.  It's gotten to the point where I don't know which company is more evil, FB or Google.  Anyway, they appear to be jumping on the crypto bandwagon in name only, and far too late IMO.

I realize you're just shitposting, but an espresso bar doesn't exist to gamble its revenue on currency fluctuations, and ultimately it doesn't make a difference to the bitcoin economy if a business converts to fiat immediately (which they pretty much all do).  Bitcoin still gets bought and sold and is circulated as a currency every step of the transaction.  Do you seriously expect this guy to just hodl all the bitcoin he makes from serving coffee?  What you wrote makes no sense. 

Plus, he said this loud and clear:

Grrr. 

Well, it hasn't been 24 hours yet since he wrote his last response, and I don't know if he's located in a different time zone than you, so it's quite possible that it's still "today" in his eyes.  I'm hoping for your sake that that's the case, because I know how much it sucks to get scammed.  Next time, you ought to insist on collateral regardless of a member's trust score.  I only had a brief foray into the world of lending, and I stopped doing it altogether after getting scammed.  It's very risky, which I'm sure you're well aware of.

Jet Cash, nobody here is perfect or would make a perfect moderator.  The truth as I see it is that you'd likely do a good job, because your interest in the forum's well-being has been demonstrated many times, and you certainly know the difference between a good post and a shitpost--and that's probably one of the most important things.  Then again, I don't know what the job description entails.  However, I'm fully confident that you're intelligent and motivated enough to do whatever it is that would be required of you and that you'd take the job seriously.

Nope, leave me out of this.  Why would I want to be a moderator of a section that I never visit?  Plus I wouldn't want to spoil the fun of being a member by working as a mod.  Once you take that job, you basically become the face of the section you're moderating and a representative of the forum itself.  Thus, I would have to exercise a level of restraint that I'm not comfortable with and Theymos would probably take that nuke button away from me within a week.  You'd have to lock me in a basement to keep me from overusing it.

Lately I've been thinking about ways to spend any bitcoin that I get my hands on, and I'd really like to see an updated (and maintained) list of online merchants that accept bitcoin as payment.  Yes, I've done google searches on this, but some of the lists aren't kept up and merchants on them sometimes no longer take bitcoin.  In particular, I'd like to know of sites that sell a wide variety of goods like Amazon, but I'd be interested in pretty much anything.  I haven't seen such a list in quite a while on bitcointalk, and it seems like it'd be important to have such a thing and to have some sort of discussion around it.

I'd also like to know about some of the more well-known members personally, but I don't suspect that many of them are willing to share any details.  Sometimes I feel like most of the people here are just bots with no personality whatsoever.  Most shitposts are written so generically that they don't say anything about the person who's writing them--and with the vast majority of posts here being shitposts, I am getting very tired of empty platitudes and statements that say nothing.  I was very happy to learn a little about Jet Cash and that some members I'm familiar with actually live within a day's drive from me.  That's the stuff I'm interested in.

I haven't visited B&H in quite some time and have it on ignore, but I think moderating that section would be one hell of a job.  That's probably why the mod hasn't been active since last year (lol).

Don't know if Theymos is even looking for a new moderator for B&H, but the first person who comes to mind for the job is Jet Cash.  I know he at least visits it and reads posts there, since he's commented quite frequently about it and I know he likes to help new members.  He's got my vote, but whether he's interested or not is another story.

Nobody here is going to be able to help you if you don't elaborate on what the specific problem is, OP.  And just from past experience with their wallet, I bet that they're not scamming and that someone here will be able to figure out how you can withdraw your bitcoin.

I haven't used blockchain.info's wallet in a few years, but I never had a problem with them and as I said I doubt they're pulling some sort of exit scam now--but I've moved on from online wallets for just this reason.  The paranoid little guy that lives in my head just isn't comfortable with someone else having access to my private keys.  You might want to consider storing your bitcoin in a wallet where only you have access to those private keys. 

Good luck.  Even if you describe the exact problem I don't know enough about this to help you, but you're basically in the right place.  Also, there's a specific section for wallets on this forum and you might want to check it out and ask for help there.

This would seem like a better solution, though not a perfect one by any means.  It's certainly better than requiring a fee, because if that was the case scammers would just increase the amount of the deals they're trying to do in order to cover the fee--and that would probably work, too.

However, if I'm not mistaken we've talked about this a number of times and Theymos has kept silent on the matter.  I don't think he wants to inhibit trade here in the name of increased security.  Ultimately it's the responsibility of each member to keep themselves safe and not the forum's job to play nanny--and I sort of agree with that.  I also don't think any of these proposed solutions are going to fix the problem or even alleviate it to any appreciable extent.  The only thing they would do is make it more inconvenient for everyone to do business here, and I don't think that's what Theymos wants.

Right on the money.  Should have read the entire thread before posting, but I would not have thought of the word libertarian had I not seen your post.

That's a big one.  I'd say if you want to be rich (and it would be nice to have a definition of that, BTW), stay far away from high-interest credit cards and don't buy anything that you can't pay cash for.  I've seen a lot of people fall into the trap of maxing out their credit cards, and then they're stuck with monthly payments that they can't ever seem to get ahead of.

Not having children is also a good idea in general, especially if you're young and trying to establish a career.  I think fewer people ought to be having kids, based on the lousy parenting I see from so many people, but they're also a cash sink that prevents people from ever climbing out of poverty.  If being wealthy is your goal, probably skip reproducing until you achieve that goal.

And yeah, start investing early.  That's one of the things I wished I'd done years ago.  I would also suggest investing in good dividend-paying stocks or index funds, but I'm by no means a financial guru.  Having an income stream from somewhere is very important, though.  I'm damn sure of that.

The last, and probably the most important thing I can think of for the average person is to invest in an education that's going to provide you with a solid career, i.e., going to college and majoring in one of the health fields, engineering, etc.  Computer science is a good choice, too.  Unless you're born with a head for business and have a serious entrepreneurial drive, you'll need a career that pays good money and it's very hard to get that without an education.  Oh, and pick a school that doesn't charge an insane tuition, else you'll be paying it off for decades.

Nice topic.  Disclaimer:  I'm not rich.

This is my impression of this whole situation as well.  Asking for KYC documents after a big win just seems like a ridiculous attempt on the part of the casino to not pay out, and I seriously doubt that this is a legit casino that is known to or complies with any regulatory agency.  I also wouldn't trust some fly-by-night business like this with any sensitive personal data, though I might take my chances if I didn't have to provide my SS# or any other info that could end up on the dark web and if my winnings were great enough. 

If a picture of me standing there with my drivers license is what was needed, I might do it for 6M doge, but even that is pretty risky in a case like this.  It's a tough call for OP, but this place is definitely not doing itself any favors by making the kinds of replies that they are.  They seem very unprofessional, as I've said.  You guys are shooting yourselves in the foot. 

Come to think of it, it's probably just one person with some casino software, trying to scam whatever suckers find the site.

OP, I have the lending section on ignore and thus would have missed a thread if you started one, and in which you lent marcotheminer bitcoin.  So my question is: did you get any collateral from him?

I've no idea whether or not he's going to repay or not, but it's at least somewhat reassuring that he's posting here.  On the other hand, sometimes people who have no intention of repaying a loan have been known to screw with the lenders like that, always saying they're going to pay the lender back and stringing them along before finally defaulting and going away for good.  That happened to me with TimSweat when I got scammed.  So hopefully he'll give you a hard date when he's going to pay you back--and stick to it.

Agree, and for the same reason.  I guess we're trying to move away from leaving negs for what anyone posts that isn't a scam or is truly untrustworthy, and in this case whatever was said sounds like trolling.  That shouldn't rise to the level of deserving a neg, IMO. 

OP, do what you like but Theymos wants people to bury the hatchet in situations such as this.  You're probably really pissed off right now, but in a month or so you'll probably have forgotten all about Rambotnic and/or his alt accounts, and even what piqued your ire here.  Retaliatory negs are pretty much frowned upon, so maybe just think it over.

I don't even know what EY is, but from reading the article I'm assuming they're some sort of huge accounting firm...?  Anyway, the guy from EY does state that

And I agree with this, which is why I've always said that bitcoin works much better as an investment than it does as a currency, and that's not going to change unless people start getting their paychecks in bitcoin and items at the grocery store start getting priced in bitcoin.  He also said bitcoin is a currency without a country--that's true, and it's one of the best things about it.  You could send bitcoin from any country to a family starving in Venezuela, and chances are they could figure out a way to use it to eat.  Then again, you could also use PayPal to do the same thing since they can convert currencies on the spot.

Anyway, none of what is said here downplays the popularity of bitcoin.  Even if it never gets adopted as a currency, it'll probably always have a use for people who don't want to use banks (or can't) and want at least some anonymity when buying something online. 

Bro, you can do whatever you like with your money, but my advice to you is to grow a thicker skin instead.  If you don't like retaliatory negs, you'd be better off reporting threads like his to other DT members.

Rambotnic is an idiot, and he was also caught trying to squeeze money out of someone who thought he was being scammed, and in addition he borderline-plagiarized some content but didn't get banned.  You can safely ignore his feedback, because that's pretty much what everyone else is going to do.

By the way, if you're going to start tagging people like V-Power for what I see as an iffy reason (maybe you can explain, but I don't see how he was trying to scam), expect to get retaliatory negs and negs from other people as well.  I've found that when you give someone a neg and they don't agree with it, sometimes they'll give you negative feedback from every single one of their alt accounts.  Not saying this is what happened in the case of V-Power/Rambotnic, but that's kinda how it looks. 

None of that feedback is trusted, so again you don't really have to worry about it.  Some of the most prolific scam-taggers have mountains of retaliatory feedback, which might be considered a badge of honor.

IdiotCoder's feedback is showing up as trusted for me, so it might be similar for him--don't know if OP has a custom trust list or not.

I looked at OP's currency exchange thread, and I'm honestly not sure why he got negs from Vod and IdiotCoder.  He wasn't exactly trying to buy bitcoin with PayPal as a noob, which IMO might be worthy of a negative.  He was trying to buy bitcoin while using an on-forum escrow, so I just can't see where the scam attempt is.  Anyone see anything that I'm missing?

Eh, I've thought a lot about bitcoin and its utility as a currency, and while it certainly works (I've used it to buy things a number of times with little trouble), the general public really has no need for a cash substitute as long as that cash has value.  In addition, everyone gets paid in fiat; goods & services are priced in fiat; and unless you somehow end up with bitcoin in your lap, you have to go out of your way to buy it with fiat.  It therefore makes no sense for the average person to spend it.

I'd say for most bitcoin/crypto enthusiasts, bitcoin has more value as an investment due to its volatility, and you'll see that most members on this forum are always hoping it'll shoot to the moon, and less often you'll hear about how its used as money--though people here definitely do use it for buying things.

If and when we get a hyperinflation situation, it might be useful as money but more likely we'd just use another currency that wasn't devalued.  Venezuela is going through that right now, and I don't think the typical Venezuelan is using bitcoin for their grocery shopping.  I have heard stories about crypto being used there, but my impression is that it's not particularly prevalent.

But hey, keep at it trying to get people to use it.  The more people who do, the better it is for all of us.