Lol, that's definitely not a link to the account in question.  In either case, there are plenty of members who've gotten merits (from mods or otherwise) and subsequently been banned.  The merit thing doesn't have anything to do with the ban.  Anyway, provide a proper link to the account and somebody will check for plagiarism, which is the most likely reason for the ban.

Edit:  That is indeed odd.  All your posts got deleted, and you can't even see what post you got merit for.  Maybe achow101 will stop by to explain, but my guess (and it's only a guess) is that he gave you merits for what he thought was a good post, and subsequently someone found out it was copy/pasted.  Did you copy/paste anything from anywhere without citing the source?

It makes me shake my head when I read things like that, too.  1BTC=1BTC is unarguably true, but it's a pretty meaningless statement for a currency.  Everyone with a brain knows that bitcoin gains and loses value by the minute.  Sure, you can say that you still have the same amount of bitcoin, but since everything is priced in terms of your local fiat currency, the purchasing power of bitcoin drops when the price of bitcoin drops.  The Zimbabwe dollar analogy was a good one to get that point across.

OP, is that gigantic photo really necessary for this thread?  It's starting to get really annoying when members keep inserting pictures that don't add anything to the discussion, and they're usually the kind of generic pics you see in mainstream media news articles.  Please stop doing that, I'm begging you.

Hate to agree with this, but I do.  That's why I miss idiot trolls like mixan, codishmumu, fwdxlsh, and even digaran was amusing when you could understand what he was trying to say.  Too much trolling gets very annoying very quickly, but Dig Bicks is in that "sweet spot" zone where he's trolling just enough and just right to be amusing.  Those aren't meant to be words of encouragement to him, because I don't think leaving unwarranted feedback is cool and he's done that.

I'm wondering about this myself, but Dig Bicks seems to have a lot better grammar than digaran did, and I have a feeling they're not the same person.

I do too, but I find it a bit easier than you obviously do to ignore the bears/trolls/FUDsters.  That kind of stuff happens in every bear market--people start getting even more pessimistic and start losing faith in bitcoin.  Don't let them get to you.  In fact, try not to let anyone on this forum get to you.  It's just a discussion forum with a bunch of anonymous people behind keyboards writing a variety of stuff.  Some of it is good, but on bitcointalk in particular most of it is complete nonsense.

I'd be interested to know who you're talking about specifically, or at least which sections they're posting in.  If it's a section like Speculation, it might not be a bad idea to just stay away from there for a while, at least until bitcoin rebounds.

Obviously you didn't know Roboabhishek, and I'm not just talking about getting his rank wrong.  Look at his feedback and you'll see he was a pretty trustworthy and stand-up guy--and a person who made a big mistake by letting someone else use his account and thereby letting the idiot who controlled it to get Robo banned for plagiarism. 

What I'm trying to get across is that Robo isn't the typical bounty spammer that gets caught copy/pasting.  Nevertheless, I'm not arguing that an exception that should be made for him, nor do I think he'll get a pass on this one.  Rules are rules and the lesson to be learned here is to be very careful with your account because shit like this can happen.  It's unfortunate.  Robo's the kind of member who'll be missed, whereas the forum is better off without the usual plagiarists who get caught.

As far as that goes, he needn't have worried, because I don't give retaliatory feedback like that.  He could have left me a wall of negs and I still wouldn't have left any feedback whatsoever.  In fact, I rarely check my own trust so I wasn't even aware that he left me a neutral.

No, it's not wrong.  And as far as the feedback you got from Dick Brains, you can just ignore it like any other feedback from untrusted members unless they provide a valid reference link and have a valid point.  The guy is just a troll and his feedback is meaningless.  Also, when you embark upon a career as a scam buster, be prepared for retaliatory negative trust because you're going to get it.  Lots of it.  My suggestion would be to look at it as a badge of honor, proof that you're doing the right thing.

Forget about it.  I created a thread in Reputation asking him to come have a chat about the thread he created in which he insulted me and then locked it.  He never came to my thread to back up his words.  Don't expect a response from him--he's just trying to get a rise out of you, just like he was trying to get a rise out of me and I made the error of taking the bait.  Should have known better.  Just keep up the good work and don't let the trolls get to you.

Ah yes--I was wondering where digaran went off to.  He was making it his mission to stir the pot around here, and then suddenly he disappeared.  And then Dig Bicks appeared.  Interesting.

There's kind of the same theory in the stock market as the one OP mentioned, except it's that people tend to sell at the very end of the year for tax purposes.  I'm not sure how predictable it is, but for the most part it does seem to have some merit.

We had a thread just like this one last year around this time, and there was probably at least one like this the year before.  OP could be right that people need fiat during the holidays, or it could be for tax purposes (probably not, though), or it could very well be that bitcoin is just getting slammed because of unknown reasons.  If I'm not mistaken, the price was a lot higher last December and bitcoin has been taking a hit all throughout 2018, so this really isn't an end-of-the-year phenomenon--it's a genuine downward trend we're in.

2018 sucked, so let's let it go with a blown kiss and a wave goodbye.  Let us clink our glasses together in a toast to a better year in 2019.  Cheers.

I agree with what you're saying about the younger generation--that's always going to be true, which is why society and the world keep changing.  The younger generation always wants to improve what they see going on around them and they have the passion to do so.

I'm not so sure about what you said about "the older generation".  We don't even know how old Satoshi is for one thing, and for another I'm not sure which age groups you're talking about.  If you mean the geriatric population in their 60s and up, you might be correct--a lot of older folks are set in their ways and see no need for bitcoin or blockchain tech.  If you mean people 40-60 year olds, I would disagree.  If they understand what bitcoin is all about, they have the knowledge and experience to make their own decision about it.

In any case, the younger generation, i.e., individuals in their 20s and younger, they are going to be the ones to move the world forward, or whichever way it goes.  They're far more tech-savvy than older people and will find uses for both bitcoin and for blockchain tech.  I'm hoping they also find a cure for cancer as well, but we'll see.

Love the term "nocoiners".  I fully understand the concept of that.

I don't recognize any of the names in the above list except Peter Schiff, and I only know of him because he'd been telling people to buy precious metals back around 2011-12 right when they were peaking.  Since then I've sort of lost respect for him because of that terrible advice, and the fact of the matter is that he was probably only telling people that in order to sell his own metals via pump & dump.

The fact is that nobody knows where the bottom is, or whether a recovery is just that or a dead-cat bounce.  It all comes down to whether you have the balls to act on your beliefs.  Me?  I have the balls but not the money.  I would have bought bitcoin at any point in the past 2 weeks because I think it's been beaten down too much--I just don't have the money, and not only that but I owe about $600 worth of bitcoin to someone, which is going to wipe out my sig campaign earnings for quite a while.  It sucks, but whatever.

You're going to let that drive you away from bitcointalk?  There's shitposters in every section on this forum, and my suggestion would be to make the ignore button your best friend and report zero-value posts when you find them.  Serious Discussion & Ivory Tower are supposed to be more heavily moderated if I'm not mistaken, i.e., there's much less tolerance for bullshit posts.  I don't post in either section very often, but I have noticed some one-line garbage posts that didn't seem like they belonged in those elite sections.

Theymos is aware of the problem, but he's making changes slowly yet decisively.  I have a feeling more "adjustments" are in the works as far as the merit system goes, and I've got my fingers crossed that he'll eventually wise up and put some restrictions on ICO devs/bounty managers/bounty hunters.  There are solutions to the shitposting problem, but they haven't been implemented yet and I feel your frustration, believe me.  I'd advise you not to abandon the forum, but if you do, best of luck to you.

Indeed, not just for bitcoin but for the stock market as well.  I'm reading a whole bunch of bearish sentiment whilst browsing the world wide webbers lately.  I'm not sure if this is all due to political uncertainty or if the economy is actually in trouble. 

As far as bitcoin goes, I've come to expect the unexpected and learned that pretty much anything can happen as far as the price goes.  Once upon a time I thought that if bitcoin hit $10k that the USD would be worthless and the global economy would be in crisis--and then bitcoin did hit that price and kept climbing and I was wrong about the USD and the economy. 

Since very few people really use bitcoin in commerce, it's main function is essentially speculation.  Not a store of value, not a safe-haven asset, not a currency to buy things with, but an almost pure speculative asset.  Thus, the price can go any which way the wind blows, and that wind depends on investor sentiment, news, and rumor.  I've not read any news that was so discouraging that it would account for the drop we've seen, so I'm assuming that a lot of investors who bought bitcoin below $3000 are taking their profit off the table.  I'm sure some weak-handed individuals are getting frustrated and/or anxious and are selling at a loss.  But as far as bitcoin hitting triple digits at some point in 2019....I'm leaning toward no.  But I'm not 100% confident it's not going to fall that much; it certainly could.

That ETF decision being made in February should be interesting.  I have a feeling that whichever way it goes, the price of bitcoin is going to move.  I never thought it was a huge deal either way or that having a bitcoin ETF was critical, but that doesn't mean other investors agree with me.  Can't wait to see the outcome of that.

Agreed.

I spent about 20 minutes trawling the Economics section, looking for low-ranked members to give merits to.  I ended up reporting more posts as being spam or shitposts than I gave merits to.  I would absolutely love to help Jr. Members, Members, Newbies, etc., rank up but I just can't find any of them making posts that make sense or that add anything to the discussion at hand.  It's very frustrating.

Also, as a merit source and one of the most generous merit-givers on the forum, I'd love to know who my "friends" are and who I'm circle-jerking around with.  If such people exist, I'm unaware of them.  I have high standards for handing out merits, and it just so happens that some (maybe even most)of the most interesting posts, the ones I've merited, have been made by senior members.  It's not because I'm in some leather-chair, cigar-smoking, mustache-twirling, brandy-swilling good 'ol boys' club where we've made an agreement to circulate merits only amongst ourselves.  Christ, look at who I've given merits to.  There's a lot of lower-ranked members and there's a wide variety of members overall.

Stop being a scunt.

I wouldn't be so sure about that, but it'll at least be interesting once February comes and they have to make a decision one way or another.  Part of me thinks you're right, but this is the US government we're talking about and they're not globally famous for being consistent, fair, or even smart.

Not to stray off-topic, but OP can you please not insert those completely unnecessary pictures into your posts?  This is a discussion forum and you're not writing articles for news sites when you post here.  The picture above adds absolutely nothing to your post and there's always the risk that idiots will reply to the OP and quote the whole thing, including the picture.  Just stop doing that, please.

People threaten to sue all the time, and it's hard to give you any real advice without knowing exactly what they told you, i.e., how they threatened to sue you.  They could just be barking as loud as they can and it could be empty, or they really could do it.  Who knows?  I'd say until you get a letter from a lawyer--a cease-and-desist letter--you can probably breathe easy in the meantime.

If you already have a lawyer or know one, it wouldn't be a bad idea to consult him/her if you can do it for free.  I'm not trying to give you legal advice here, but I wouldn't pay for a lawyer's services just yet.  The best strategy would be to see what the other party is going to do first.

That's basically what I wrote in my previous post, and I'm glad someone sees it this way and doesn't just think "crypto payments, YAY!". 

If this is true:
...then it sounds like a great opportunity for the local folks to earn some money doing worthwhile work, but I just can't bring myself to think that paying them in ETH is a good idea, especially when the market is very unstable.  I do also agree that some of the people who may know something about crypto may "gamble" and hold onto their ETH to see if it rises in value.  It's not a horrible thing, but yeah, it'd be much better if they could buy something to eat with their wages after getting paid.  Unless there's a market nearby that takes ETH, that's going to be mighty difficult to accomplish.

Nice find.  I just reported one of his posts, because it's obvious he's including that link to Vegascasino in each post, and though I'm not sure if it's a referral link, it's clearly spam.  I think this idiot ought to be banned.  He also probably got that merit through some unsavory means, like an alt account.  The member (TimeTeller) who gave him the merit is a Hero member, but you never know who's an alt of who.  The merit could also have been bought, but who knows.  There's no way of determining that, but the post in question was long but shitty and IMO did not deserve to be merited.

Hopefully the mods will agree with the above assessment and of Patatas's and at least give him a temp ban for spamming advertising.

I totally agree.  It's an unfortunate fact that most online articles these days do the exact same thing--they put unnecessary pictures right in the middle of an article--not even advertisements--and it's annoying.

I don't think you need to bump this thread.  Even if Theymos was going to hire new moderators, the decision likely wouldn't come down to a poll like this, and bumping the thread isn't putting any pressure on him to do anything.  If Theymos decides more mods are necessary (and I happen to think they are), he'll act.

Overbought when the price has already crashed from $20,000 to $3200?  Dude, you seriously need to reevaluate your definitions of financial terms.  At this point I'd consider bitcoin oversold, and if you sell it short now you might be in for a hell of a lot of pain and anxiety.  You might make money doing so if it were to fall to something like $2000 and you shorted a significant amount of it, but I would suggest doing the exact opposite.  Now is the time to buy in my opinion.  Smart traders generally don't begin their short-selling when an asset has already taken an extreme beating unless they're fairly confident that what they're shorting is doomed. 

Sears stock would have been smart to short when it was at $10, because it was clear to everyone that the company was headed for bankruptcy, and when it was at that price it had already fallen by a huge amount.  But bitcoin?  Nah, now's not the time to sell it short.  It's not headed for zero like most of the shitcoins--and remember, when you sell something short, your losses are limited only by how high the price can go.  If bitcoin suddenly rebounded and headed toward a new ATH, you'd be totally screwed and would have to cover your short position as soon as you could and you'd be doing it at an enormous loss.  Just don't do it.

I guess that's true, and bitcoin did drop a little since I checked the price yesterday.  Never heard it called bitcoin-SV, though, and I don't particularly care for that name unless I'm misunderstanding something.

I don't think BCH is ever going to be worth much of anything.  There are already way too many altcoins (and bitcoin clones) on the market for anyone to stay interested in them for long.  They'll get pumped and dumped from time to time, but I've predicted many times before that most are headed towards zero.  Bitcoin has a huge community and merchants who actually accept it for payment, and that's why it'll stay alive.  The rest of the shitcoins and clones don't stand a chance, which is why they tend to drop while bitcoin itself maintains value.

Anyone who tells you that it's a good idea to buy anything at any price point is out of their fucking minds.  I see this constantly with goldbugs.  Gold crashes?  Good time to buy.  Gold is at its all-time high?  Great time to buy, because it's going to go higher.  Gold is trading sideways for 5 years?  Buy, buy, buy. 

Funny that those same people never tell you when it's a good time to sell.  So no, I don't trust this guy Draper's advice.  He could be the richest man in the world, but it's almost irresponsible to tell the public that crypto should be bought with no regard to what its trading at.  That's like Investment 101.  Warren Buffett made his fortune looking for stocks and businesses that could be bought cheaply, and he did his own research to determine that.  He didn't listen to stock market bulls/bears and didn't take tips. 

I happen to think bitcoin is at or near its bottom, but there's no way I can say that with any confidence, and public figures should be very careful about giving investment advice.  There are a lot of suckers out there who'll swallow anything, even if it's a baited hook.