With just over 1 more month left behind for the forum's 10th anniversary which is taking place on 22nd of November this year, there were various ideas rolling around my head for past couple of days on how to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this forum in our Indian sub-section. I am aware of the global ideas and thoughts, but celebrating the anniversary in Indian board will give a native feel for everyone of us who are striving to make this section great again!

There were quite a few interesting ideas which I thought of could be implemented :

1. We could have a coin giveaway through raffle for our Indian members. There are 16 slots present in the raffle just like krogoth's raffle and the winner will be rewarded with a free coin. I am also hesitant with the privacy of the users in this idea since they should be able to provide their address to receive the coin or whatsoever. On the other hand, I should be providing my city and state to India Post from where I am shipping this. I am very much concerned with the latter as I am not literally willing to risk my privacy at all. To prevent this I can ship the coin to chronicsky or anyone if they are willing to have a reshipping provided at additional cost.

2. Speculation Games : This could be very much similar to fun and interactive micgoossens's Game of Life topic. Here our Indian members should guess the closest price of BTC on 22nd of November 2019 06:00 PM UTC [the time of first topic announcement by satoshi] and they would be rewarded with 0.0002211BTC to commemorate the 10th anniversary date. [Sorry this is what I can provide with my minimal wallet balance  ] I would be confirming with micg to use their idea sooner.

3. Though our sub-section was created only on 2011 after Benson requested for a separate board to theymos, I am thinking of creating a Interactive discussion topic where the users would share their experience on this forum and how they got to know about the bitcointalk forum etc.

The final point would probably be present in the 10th anniversary topic which I will try to create in our section if I have spare time to write a topic.

- Will this idea work over time? Or are they a bad idea and should we stick with the global anniversary celebration?
- What are your thoughts and inputs regarding this idea?
- Do you guys have any other ideas apart from this?

Self-MOD to prevent trolls from ruining this topic.

When it comes to giveaway coins, I could vouch for Bitcoin Penny for minting those coins. They have done Zepher memorial giveaway coins which was such a good generosity from them by joining with Mantis Prime. I have ordered quite a few coins from them, and we could also suggest them to make some special doodles for these giveaway coins something like a special doodle which will particularly denote each member something like that?  I am not really sure how this will go, but the distribution and handling of coins can be done by Mantis Prime Distribution.

Bitcoin Penny and Polymerbit are indeed great designers themselves so the design for the unique 10^th year anniversary can be done by them instead of relying over someone else. Could they collaborate for the design and coin making process?

If some of the forum members are willing to remain anonymous or not really willing to giveaway their personal address/ PO box addresses to either minerjones/Bitcoin Penny, the can be neglected from joining the giveaway.

The exact giveaway conditions which theymos is talking about could be very much tricky. Each member can never be judged upon any of the criteria like merit, trust, posts etc but one thing which comes to my mind is the "Most Recognized Members" from bpip website. But there does seem to be another problem associated with it such like seasoned collectors would have not received much merits or their name wouldn't be present in "Most Recognized Club" but they should be rewarded with these coins for sure (just my thought).

The 0.0032 interest rate for 1BTC investment in freebitco is for monthly returns. Regarding the annual returns, they are indeed 0.0408BTC and you are true with the annual returns. Edited the post and thanks for pointing out.

Note that they are a kind of passive returns and they are no way related to the shitty pump and dump schemes which you would be experiencing by investing in Altcoins. If you are not in need of having a safe passive investment, you could better move on with your investment in shitty altcoins which would certainly make you lose all your hard earned money. 

There are quite a few things which we need to keep in mind while quoting or replying to topics. The reply which is we post is to make other's read our opinion and not just to quote long replies and to add a one-liner which is very often seen in the Altcoin and Gambling sections of the forum. I prefer to use ^[1] instead of ^[2] since you are certainly replying to that particular post. Adding to that, I would always be using ...snip... for quoting long replies or to quote nested quotes. The latter ^[2] will be used when you are giving an example of other's post from other topic or the same topic itself.

If we need to answer long posts which has quite a handful of questions hammered within themselves, it's required to quote those particular questions and add replies to the same. This will make the reply more readable and will help the user who created the questions. A perfect example for this could be : How do nodes validate blocks, then update their own versions of the blockchain?. Here achow101 replied to the topic immediately after the OP but the post requires the OP to be quoted in parts and without doing the same will be literally very difficult for us to follow or understand the post.

I rarely quote nested quotes but if I meant to do so, I would delete all the older replies and would have the new post for which I am replying to. This is the primary problem with people posting in Altcoin Discussion and Gambling Discussion where they would quote long walls of text and at times it's quite frustrating to read the replies in both these sub-sections. With SMF forums being considered, these quoted posts are displayed right below or above the replies but if you consider other discussion forums the quotes would be either aligned completely to the left or to the right.

This is quite true. I made a similar post on a topic where the OP was to choose his favoring team or the one which would win the game actually. Placing of bets should be quite circumstantial in the sense we have made a decision after intense reading on the various factors which will make us to win the gambling game. If we are not really sure of what is gonna happen or if we are favoring our team which doesn't see the limelight of winning the game, we are running towards a high factored loss for sure. The favorite team would be stronger but they won't never be always even on a game with literally more stronger team than them.

Either if the gambling takes place in the game of politics or either in the game of sports, we should study the various possibilities and ways before placing the bet on the team. If you have a very minimal study if would pave the road for the routine losses which we could encounter over the time. A gambler should always be net positive towards his bet on a team, if the bet is on a dice game it would be a luck based winning game.

This should be taken into concern and must have an impact on the gambling signatures we are currently wearing. I was neither a gambler, but I educated myself on various terms in gambling and even gambled with a very tiny amount to indulge myself in discussions. The majority of the people who are wearing/probably posting only in the gambling section of the forum can be separated by 2 types. One is an absolute shitposter who doesn't even know how the forum works and has reached a Sr-Hero member level before the merit implementation and is significantly wearing a gambling signature and posting shit to earn more btc here. Another is the real gamblers, who are regardless of weather they have a signature or not would be contributing to the Gambling Discussions.

The Gambling Discussion is similar to Altcoin Discussion which is inhabited with spammers and low level shitposters who had never gambled in their life nor do know any of these terms and would be posting here. This is why the newer gambling campaigns provides a warning such that, if the poster has never posted in gambling should never apply for the same. I would quite agree with these terms and they should never be allowed to wear a gambling signature. Posting in gambling sections alone would never be helpful for these companies considering the amount of spam prevailing here.

Though I have been reading through almost all the 4 pages of discussions over people suggesting various casinos which offer bitcoin as an interest, I would like you to point you to freebitco.in as they do offer interest for the coins you have invested in their site. They are very much trustworthy and they have been in gambling for quite a long time. If you have signed up and visit their "Earn BTC" menu, you could get the options for investment. They pay you a compound interest of around 0.0032BTC per month if you have invested 1BTC in their site. Instead of trying out with casino bankroll where the casino is able to lose, you could go for sites like freebitco.

Apart from this I can vouch for YoloDice and Cryptogames for their interest giving rates and the trust they have received from the gamblers over time. Though I have never gambled much nor have invested in these, I can vouch for these sites due to their trust.

There have been various reasons as to why gamblers do prefer both the online casino as well as a real time casino. If they were night gamblers many of them would prefer to stay in home and gamble with their money. This can be simply considered as a way of ordering goods from any online market like eBay or Amazon. Earlier we have been depending upon real time markets where we would be moving from the house and buying things. Similarly, majority of the gamblers have moved onto the online platform for playing casinos and gambling as such.

Though the real time live poker is fun to watch and play, I would personally prefer to play in an online poker. There are various advantages in playing in a online casino like Travelling expenses can be minimized a lot, we could have a range of online games and bonuses which can never be seen in a live casino. Similarly AFAIK, you can verify the bets and code for a blockchain based online casino which could bring out the faster gamplays etc. Some online casinos offer a lower house edge and at times you don't need to deal with a rude drunk opponent which is common at a live casino.  

I should have included more info on how I personally add the trust list.

But this is not the only way of choosing people to be included in my trust list. I have traded with more than the above mentioned users, but haven't included everyone in my trust list and I have also included traders whom I haven't traded with too. You are also quite true with the positive ratings and trust list. Both does differ and I am very much aware of that.

There are 2 reasons to include this criteria in my trust list. One is that, they have proven to be very trustworthy over a larger time period [>3yrs] and another is that, they have a very good judgement in finding out the scammers.

I don't indulge myself with trust based discussions quite often, but this seems to be a little different.

The names in my trust list is based upon 2 options

[1] Someone with whom I can trust my money with.


No, trust doesn't come upon based on their course of judgement [at least I am based on this]. If a person was to judge correctly, and if they prove to be a scammer in future your trust ratings are wasted by trusting a scammer.

Pretty much this. I included Lauda based on their sense of judgement over the time frame, their trades and escrow handling in forum and more importantly to see their trust ratings in a user's profile.

Here are my criteria for selecting members in my trust list

OgNasty - Forum fund holder

hilariousandco - Their sense of judgement and their trades in forum has proven to be trustworthy

suchmoon - Trustworthy behaviour and good sense of judgement

achow101 - Bitcoin Developer and of course you should trust him with your bitcoins.

minerjones,Bitcoin Penny, chronicsky,krogothmanhattan - Traded with them quite a few times and I would trust everyone with my money.

LoyceV - Trustworthy behaviour and has conducted many non signature-campaigns which involves bitcoin.

Thanks for creating this topic and we always wanted good old timers like you to return back to the board and contribute for the betterment. I am very much interested in collectibles and have started collecting small cheaper coins like Bitcoin Pennies initially this year. The major problem I am facing right now with collecting is the shipping fees which I should pay for bringing items to India. If many of us (Indians) are interested in collectibles and would like to buy from the USA or EU, we could sort out the insane shipping fees and have a consolidated shipping to India and later once we receive it we can have a separate cheaper shipping from a common point to other states.

Another added advantage is that if many of us are interested in the collectibles, we could have a cumulative bid on items and the items can be separately shipped upon once we receive it in India. For instance, if someone auctions 10-20 satori coins as one single lot we could speak upon the possibilities of how much coins each Indian forum member requires and based on the input one single member can bid upon and win the auction. Once we receive them in India we can consider the shipping activities which can be further carried out.

Apart from that I can vouch for you based on your expensive trades all over the forum and the expensive crpto-collectibles which you currently hold. Let's see how others react upon this unique topic.

P.S There are lots of possibilities and advantages if we as a team of Indian forum members strive hard to make this board great again.

Neither I am an US citizen. I used my friend's Hulu account and been using it with a paid VPN for may be around a year or less. I do agree that Hulu can bypass your VPN practices and still ban you from not viewing these shows but a paid VPN could help you out. It's kinda messy to set it up in a go, but they are worthy enough to give a try. If you have a friend in US, sign up by instructing him and use a paid VPN to bypass the block. Free live relays are good, but some of them would be taken down quite often and we need to shift between links. 

Why don't you try out a paid VPN service like ExpressVPN?. I am neither vouching them nor contradicting them, but they seem to be good for the money we pay for unblocking sites. $8-9 per month is not really expensive for a gambler who spends thousands of dollars in betting.

As legendster pointed out in kabit9 thread, not everyone (who are contributing to the global boards) are willing to reveal their nationality and indeed are cowards by just blending with the first world people in global boards.

There are varying reasons which I have analysed over an year as to why Indians are not posting in the sub-section dedicated for us :

[1] Some say "They are afraid of the government and if posting in Indian board would land them up in jail" : The IPs are associated only with theymos and it's literally a parallel universe possibility that we would all be caught for using bitcoin and the government would push us in jail.

[2] The topics doesn't generate enough interest and the board is infested with spams : The older topics have worn out and outdated, we should be responsible for creating new topics and reporting them until the topic gets pinned by global mods. IMO the board is 80% free from spam and there is always a decent discussion going through in all the sub-boards.

[3] Eventhough bounties are an absolute waste of time and energy Indian bounty hunters are still hunting for them. They can never be rectified upon, and should be neglected from contributing anything for the betterment of the board.

Note : For past 1 month I have been speaking with Gabru [IndiaBits admin] and there were a few questions put forward by me on why the prominent knowledgable IndiaBits members were not involving themselves in Bitcointalk. The answer was that, the quality of the board was diluted and there doesn't seem to be anyone moderating the board. But on other hand, theymos would never appoint a moderator without much noise and the prominent forums members who left the forum would never return back without the appointment of a moderator.

P.S I am in the verge of creating a topic which will brainstorm various ideas from everyone which could subsequently pave the way for a better board. People like Bitlover10 should start contributing again in the regional language sections and people like legenster should bring back their 2013 sort of topics again which will gain more interest towards a better discussion.

As always a Youtuber says, "People won't watch your videos initially, but at one point of time in future if you don't stop posting videos there would be significant views". This might be the only way which will bring back the Indian section as how it was during the Benson era.

The first and foremost thing is that, if we have a PC we should be going up for a Desktop wallet if we are storing large sums of btc in them. Mobile Wallets are certainly used for immediate payments while we are away from our PC as they don't give us full control over our coins. Regarding the Electrum Mobile Wallet, they have some nasty bugs with them like

• Next button is greyed out for most of the time and even after entering the seed the next button doesn't get displayed
• The wallet crashes for most of the time while I try to import the seed.
• Connecting with a bad server which is offline for almost all the time.
• Has the worst totally outdated GUI for every releases
• Mediocre ratings on playstore as suggested by squatter

These options are more than enough for me to not use/trust the Electrum Mobile Wallet and to go with Mycelium. Right since I received my first satoshis I have been using the Electrum Desktop wallet and expecting the same for Mobile is not advaisable IMO. Mobile Wallets are handy but if they don't serve the purpose of being handy there is no use in using the wallet.

We better should not compare Electrum desktop and mobile wallets (which has issues with them and you can't really deny the fact).

That's quite a good sarcasm man.  I got to know about this the day I merited the post in which the source has themselves accepted they are indeed a source.

There may be certain queries that why I bump my merit source topic even after knowing there is an Indian source : It's because I don't have any merits left behind to merit a very few merit worthy posts which are being posted here. If I was on a posting streak (something like 15-20 posts per week) I would be facing no difficulties in spreading out the merits to every good post here. But the problem arises when I am inactive in posting and visit the forum only to report spams and merit a few posts.

I am awaiting for people to contribute since I have more than 15 smerits left with me to giveaway to everyone and help the Indians in ranking up. But to the contrary there doesn't seem to be not much of them posting anything really good here and subsequently there is far less activity in this board to spread out the smerits. I would be bumping the application only when I am in need of additional smerits and whenever I find some really good quality posts here.

The merit source is from India and they are pretty much active here in spreading out the merits here. 

They made their name public and they are indeed a source of merits.

Not exactly, no one makes stray statements here and there are irrefutable evidences which suggest we have a merit source dedicated to Indian sub forum. Just dig through various topics in Indian sub-forum you will find out who the source is actually.

You need to know that there is no such thing known as bitcoin account. There are only wallets which hold the private keys to spend the bitcoin by signing the transaction. The private keys can be used in various platforms and in various wallets just by importing the keys.

If you are concerned with the control over your coins, you should go with Mycelium present in Google Play. They are one among the most trusted wallets present in the market and they have been considered safe in holding your keys. Another thing is that, if you have higher amount of coins, you should be going with setting up a cold wallet which shouldn't be connected to internet.

I don't or would never trust any other mobile wallets apart from Mycelium. Once you have created the wallet, write down the 12 word passphrase provided by the wallet software and they would be helpful to restore the keys in other platforms.

Other than that, some of the trusted wallets can be found here :Choose your Bitcoin Android Wallet

We need to have a little amount of btc in an online wallet or a mobile wallet to spend as and when we like to spend for transactions.
AFAIK electrum would be good and can be trusted only for Desktop based wallets. Eclair wallet can be used for Lightning Network based transactions.

I will try to be more sideways this time, either not bullish nor bearish since there doesn't seem to be any scheduled futuristic news favoring the price rise in Q4. Neither the BAKKT doesn't seem to be bring any price rise and we are still not exactly having a stabilized volatility like we had from March 2018 ~ November 2018.

More More or More Less?
Probably More Less 


Let me quote my price as $6755 per bitcoin

Yes, that's precisely the statement. But OP_Return are long used by people to make the coins unspendable by removing the UTXO set which will thus reduce the number of spendable coins in existance. Probably I should have been more clear in my above post. 

Yes, I am very much aware of the Reporting unmerited posts topic and if I am right I have suggested over 3-4 posts from the Indian section which could deserve more merits from merit sources. But the problem is actually present with majority of Indian people as many of the quality posters hailing from India are not really willing to share their native/country and would like to remain anonymous among the English boards. If they were to contribute more towards the local, we would be having much more activity than other very inactive local boards. I would like to thank you for the initiave to merit the posts in Indian local, but if Indian forum members were to be notified of having a source I guess they would be contributing much more to the board than they are doing right now. For instance if we take Bitlover10 as an example, they have managed to rank up to Full Member only by contributing in the Indian section and as per the stats around 60% of the merits which were received by them were from Indian board due to their quality posts.

Regarding English being used as a primary language all over the Indian board, we have a lot of languages to be followed but all those languages can never be understood by each and every Indian.

For instance,

• Hindi is spoken by 53% of the whole Indian population
• Bengali and Telugu by 8% of the population
• Tamil by 6% of the population

But if you need to connect all these people English is the primary language provided they have a basic high school education. For example, a North Indian (Hindi speaking) can never live in Southern part of India without knowing English and vice versa.

Indians who use internet would never struggle with English, hence we really don't need to worry about that problem.

Either the problem lies with appointment of moderator or with the merits, all we need is the regular handling of our reports by global mods which is happening right now. The board is very much controllable with our reports and on the other hand the board is more readable than before and we would like that to be continued. AFAIK moderator is needed only for the proper functioning of the sub-board, trash spam, move the topics to exact sub-sections and almost everything is happening with our reports. If that doesn't happen in future we would likely need a dedicated Indian moderator for the board.

P.S Of my ~900 reports,there should be around 700 reports only from Indian section and around 650-675 of them were handled which is quite good for the board on the whole. I started reporting in the Indian sub-board right when I came to know about the "Report to Moderator" function in Feb 2018 and from the 25 unhandled reports which I have right now, 10+ should be during Benson period.

All yours geophphreigh. Good Luck