OP's post:


....is plagiarized from here.  Reported, welcome to bitcointalk.

That concept isn't anything new as far as I remember.  I seem to recall something like it being discussed a few years ago at least, and either nothing has been created or it hasn't been successful--nor do I think a gold-backed crypto would be successful.  If you want to own gold, you can buy gold.  If you want crypto, you can buy crypto.  If you want to speculate in gold without actually owning it, there's a market for that in derivatives/futures/ETFs/mining stocks.  There's absolutely no need to combine crypto with gold or anything else IMO.

I'm pretty sure every country in the world is off the gold standard at this point, and I know the US has been off of it since the 70s.  It would be a step backward at best for a currency to try to get back to the point of being backed by a metal.  You can create a crypto with a limited supply such that you avoid the unlimited inflation inherent in currencies like the USD, which is the main problem nowadays. 

Did I miss the standard definition of "wealth"?  I know a lot of people define their wealth in terms of how much they have in the stock market/bitcoin/whatever other investment.  If Berkshire Hathaway crashed to $1 today, you don't think there would be reports all over the place that Warren Buffett had lost most of his "wealth"?  Sure they would.

I'm with you all the way on that one.  Not that I don't enjoy the stock market or bitcoin as a hobby, but I don't chase material possessions to make me happy.  I don't even own a car, just a bicycle.

Yeah, sounds like pure speculation then, just like if everyone in the world bought just one ounce of silver, the price would skyrocket to $50,000.  I used to read crap like that on sites like ZH back in 2012 or so.  Meanwhile gold is still under $1300 where it's been for a long time now, and that's evidently after Russia did this buying, correct?  So I would definitely take anything written on ZH with more than a few grains of salt--I learned that a long time ago after reading nonstop gold & silver hyping on that website.  If you wonder why they have a bad reputation, it's basically because they reinforce the constant shilling of precious metals dealers--how many times can I read that hyperinflation is coming to the US and the dollar is going to crash and that gold & silver will be the new reigning currency before I get jaded?

Meanwhile, Venezuela is actually experiencing hyperinflation and I don't recall anyone predicting that on ZH 7 years ago, nor have I read much about Venezuelans turning to gold, silver, or crypto en masse.  Some of them are using crypto, but I think most are using the revalued currency or a foreign one.

Anyway, thanks for posting the article, Hydrogen.  Even if it's from ZeroHedge it still has at least entertainment value.

Oh I'm sure there a lot of doubt.  I have no control over who gives me merits, though.  Foxpup in particular seems to have a hard-on for my posts, but I didn't ask for them, I don't know him, and I don't think I've had so much as a single PM from him.

I wasn't trying to do that, but I'm exercising my own right to not merit OP's post and I'm just giving my opinion.  I'm opinionated for sure, but OP is free to do as he pleases with his sMerits and I couldn't stop him if I wanted to.  I tried to get across that I have no beef with him, but obviously I'm not communicating it well.

I have said almost the exact same thing recently, that I do my best to favor the lower-ranked members who 'need' the merit to rank up, and if you look at my merit-giving history you ought to be able to see that I try to spread the love around as far and wide as I can.  I don't think what you'll see is me constantly meriting the same members over and over.  There's nothing I'd like more than to have a bunch of great posts by Newbie to Sr. Member accounts, but those are scarce in the sections I frequent.  

When I try to find good posts in sections like Bitcoin Discussion or Economics, it's really tough.  The sad fact is that most people just write one line responses to the thread's title, usually in terrible English, and often it's the more senior members who write the thoughtful posts--I see it again and again.  But hey, glad you came by to voice your opinion which I considered thoughtful and thus (in my eyes) worthy of some merit.  Everyone has their own standards.

Edit:
Sometimes it is, which is why I read a lot of threads there.  Hydrogen starts quite a few threads with interesting news article quotes and sparks the discussion with his input on the article.  Sometimes I give him merits (he's a Hero member, BTW), sometimes not, but I'm always looking for relative newcomers who make good posts in threads like his--and those are kind of rare.  The Economics section is one of the ones where a lot of garbage posters go to unload their one liners for whatever bounty they're in, just like BD but not quite as bad.

What can I say, I'm picky when it comes to giving out merits but I think I should be.  That was the whole point behind the inception of the merit system.  I'm pretty sure Theymos didn't create it just for shits & giggles.

Well in my particular case, I would not have merited those posts, so I don't feel the need to give my sMerits to OP.  He either needs to wait for his source supply to get replenished or ask Theymos for some more, like I did.  Know what I'm saying?  As I said, I'm not yelling at OP for meriting shitposts--but I'm also not going to offer help in this case other than with my words.

My thoughts exactly, but I'm sure OP still wants Theymos to see this.  I think.

OP, unless you present some proof of a scam, this thread is pretty much useless.  I get that you're angry, but this section is for "officially" reporting scams, and that means including some proof with your accusation, i.e., it's not just a section to bitch about the scamminess of a particular exchange.  My suggestion is to either fill out the proper scam accusation form, which can be found in the stickies on the first page of the section or lock the thread. 

I've never heard of this one either.  I guess we're really in the Wild West stage of crypto, where anyone can create their own exchange in countries where the laws are lax about such things.

I agree with you, but there's limits.  If we have a merit source who's giving merits to shitposts, then the system becomes a little more useless.  If all merit sources did this, the system would be completely useless.  The whole reason we have the merit system is to suppress shitposters from ranking up, so if sources just give them out with no consideration to how good the post is....what's the point?

Maybe that's the reason.  I haven't looked at his meriting history, but he got selected to be a merit source and therefore I have to assume he earned that position and doesn't make this a habit.  Hopefully.

Edit:
It's not unless it's a pattern of rewarding shitposters, which I don't see here.  If I thought OP was abusing the merit system, my posts would be quite different.  In my mind I picture him as a hooka pipe-smoking hippie spreading free love around as if it were the 1960s.  As I said, if he got made a merit source in the first place he's probably not a serial merit mis-user.  True, we've had a couple of those but Theymos picks them pretty well.

Well I did the same thing in Meta, but it was directed to Theymos--and it was sMerits I wanted, not merits (though some members were kind enough to merit my OP).  This OP looks to be asking the same here, or at least that's how I saw it initially.

Edit:
I tend to agree with you there, because if shitposters see merits being given out so freely in a certain thread, guess what happens?  Yeah, they flock there to scoop them up.  I think there were some people following QuestionAuthority around due to his generosity in the sections and threads he frequented.  But whatever, it's Theymos's call on this one.

Wow, I guess you've got that Speculation section covered.  And that prediction thread in particular, but a lot of those posts are kinda garbage IMO.  What's the deal with that thread and you giving all your sMerits out there?

Edit:
LOL.  There are many strange birds in the forest, and there is room for all of them.  Didn't know you were a merit source, but pleasure to meet you, sir/madam.

See, I would agree with this but how the hell do you prove that?  It also wouldn't make sense unless FJ really thought OP was going to lose everything.  Otherwise it would make more sense for the casino to step in and put a stop to it before a problem like this arose.  The only thing the casino would have to gain would be OP's original deposit, right?  I mean in the case that FJ knew it would eventually deny his claim to his winnings and let him play anyway.  

I don't know if FJ would do that; if it would be worth the hassle for them; and how anyone could show their intent to do that.  Again, I'm not really taking FJ's side, but I'm looking at OP's assertion with a skeptical eye.

Edit:
You got that right.  And what DarkStar_ said basically what I said, the whole thing rests on whether they knew about the bug and chose not to fix it and let OP continue to play in the hopes that he'd lose his original deposit.  I'm not sure a reputational smear is worth that for a casino, but who knows. 

I'm not a gambler and never used FortuneJack, but that sounds like something a casino would do--especially a crypto one.

My question is whether OP was gambling with funds he obtained via the bug when he hit the jackpot, and whether that's acceptable or not.  I honestly don't have a hard and fast opinion on that, but it would seem to be that if this was the case (that he didn't legitimately win the money he used to win the jackpot), FJ is in the right.  And that's what their argument is, too. 

What would happen if you were in a real casino and knew a slot machine was broken in such a way that the casino no longer had the edge, and the casino didn't happen to know that.  You use the broken machine to win some money that you later bet on the blackjack table--and you win big there.  Should the casino honor any of your bets?  I really don't know the rules, but it seems sketchy on the gambler's part in that case, because he knows he's playing a broken machine.  Sure you could say, "Well, that's not my problem, it's the casino's" but that doesn't sound right to me.

With what was presented here, I think it's at best way too early to start calling FJ sig campaigners as scam promoters, especially when there are long-standing grudges obviously coming out and the typical mudslinging as a result.  If OP broke FJ's rules, he shouldn't keep the money.  If FJ doesn't have any rules covering such a situation, they should pay out.  I'm just going to see how this goes down.

That's what all new DT2 members need to know, and they need to be prepared to defend every feedback they leave.  It's an almost certainty that if you leave a neg on someone, it'll get challenged either by PM or in a thread, so all the new DT2 members should be prepared for that.  I'm pretty sure DT1 knows this stuff already.

Leave appropriate feedback with a valid reference link if it's a neg, and be careful who you give positives to.  I've already said that, but it's the best advice IMO.  Nobody is forcing any new DT2 members to start leaving feedbacks, so hopefully none of you feel pressured to do so.

I did study your post history and concluded that you're not the original owner of the account.  That means you either bought it or hacked it, and all of the early trusts are thus invalid.  You have an older account with a lot of positive trust that you didn't earn, and that's dishonest.  People who check your trust wall think they're dealing with the member who owned the account in 2014, but that clearly isn't the case.

This is an excellent example of why I don't trust account sellers and sold accounts.  Can you imagine the havoc it would wreak here if someone got their hands on a DT account and started to leverage that trust in order to scam?  That's not the case with you, but do the thought experiment yourself.  That's just one of the problems with account sales.  You most definitely deserve the red trust.

Um.  I don't think Theymos is making a one day anti-sale on copper memberships.  Pretty sure it's going to be the new price after Friday.

Given how easy it is for Newbies to start wearing a signature just by buying a copper membership, I think it's a good move for the forum to do this, regardless of where the funds go (forum finances are none of my concern).  I don't think it'll keep Newbies from buying them all that much, but at least it gives them more incentive not to screw things up by copy/pasting or whatever.

Agree 100%, and I would also add that OP's hierarchy seems to be aimed directly at cryptohunter, as it seems to be on the money (don't know about Theymos responding to him, however).  So I don't think trolling starts off as ignorance--it starts off as trying to get a rise out of people, which is exactly why you should not give them the response they're looking for.  

Yes, I think self-moderated threads ought to be an option everywhere that makes sense for them to be.  In Auctions, obviously you don't want that, but in Meta I think it's reasonable.  As far as 'freedom of speech' goes, I'm all for it but this is a forum and not a government imposing limits.  It always amazes me that people think the 1st Amendment to the US constitution means that one private citizen can't censor another.  That's not it at all.  It's a protection from the government itself doing the censorship, and not even under all circumstances.

I will say that one of the things I really like about bitcointalk is the lack of censorship as far as language and ideas go.  However, when you've got someone derailing threads as much as cryptoscunter has been lately--AND with all the shitposts being flung about--self-moderated threads are extremely useful.  

There was a consensus a while back that one of the ways to fight spam was to make new threads self-modded, but it never really caught on as a widespread thing.  I think it should have, and I've made most of my recent threads self-moderated.  Guess what?  I haven't actually had to delete more than 1-2 posts out of all of them.  Bounty hunters, even if they're interested in the thread, probably won't post in it because they know there's a strong chance of that post getting deleted (and thus they won't get paid for it).  If there was anything on bitcointalk resembling a spammer-spray, that would be it.

Edit:
For a solid example of trolling, please see whatever it is that's written in the post below this one.  I don't even have to read it to know.

Oh yeah, I think that account has definitely changed hands.  He used to post in perfect English in 2014 with stuff like this:


And then this in Oct. 2014:

....followed by a huge posting gap that ended in Dec. 2016 with this post:

After that, English is broken as all hell, as demonstrated by this post:

Will tag the account now.

Then I would think that TMAN's feedback ought to say something different instead of how it reads now.  Hell, if he's using a hacked account I'll tag him myself, but that's not the reason TMAN gave.

I would suggest not handing out positive feedbacks very liberally when you're on DT2.  That's something I learned, because by doing so you're going to be turning that member's trust green and you don't want to do that unless you're sure that person isn't going to use the trust to scam someone or otherwise misuse it.  That's something all of us know happens here, especially with all the account sales going on.

Other than that, just try to use good judgement when leaving any feedback, and be prepared for a barrage of PMs when you tag anyone.  Try to be thick-skinned if you aren't already, and don't misuse your position.  Those are the best words of advice I can think of for you or any of the new DT members.  

These are some crazy-ass changes, but I think they'll work out eventually.

I would just shrug shit like that off, because it's going to happen.  Also, leave reference links to your feedbacks as much as you can--without a valid reference link (or explanation in the feedback itself), the feedback is kind of iffy.

I haven't read this whole thread yet and never used them, but they're out of New Zealand, right?  That would seemingly be a good thing, since I'm pretty sure NZ has laws governing how exchanges have to conduct themselves.  What I'm thinking about is some kind of insurance policy that an exchange would have to buy in order to handle people's money or some sort of plan in place in case of a hacking.  
Am I way off base here?  I'm not sure what would happen if an exchange like Coinbase got hacked like this, but I'm fairly certain the US government wouldn't let them just not pay people their money.  Having said that, I don't know what the laws are exactly for this kind of situation, either in the US or in NZ.

Yikes.  So this is either an exit scam or a real hacking.  Something tells me it's the latter, but we'll see.  As far as this event's effect on bitcoin (or ETH), I doubt it'll be anything that lasts.  It's not like this is a unique incident in the history of crypto.

Oh, so you're saying I shouldn't store all of my bitcoin on the NYSE?  OK, I'll think about your great advice.