Oooooooooh SNAP!!!

I'm a-watchin' the new video (which I hadn't realized came out) and paused it right at the frame where those "old school" collectibles are shown (the Kialara thingamajig, minerjones' copper pennies, and that absolutely beautiful polymerbit note).  Had to post before I continue watching, because I'm jumping around like a kid on a sugar high--I really thought the bitcointalk channel was defunct.

Suggestion:  I see so many YT videos where creators are presenting a ton of information on a certain topic and for whatever reason feel they have to insert humor into the script at every available opportunity, and more often than not it's just distracting and not funny in the least.  Youtubers definitely shouldn't be dead serious, but there's an enormous difference between "light-hearted presentation" and "trying way too hard to be a comedian".  Even though I've only watched a minute of the current BCT video, I'm picking up a sense that Mr. bearded yellow t-shirt is leaning toward the latter.  Don't mean to be unduly harsh, but take my feedback to heart as I'm a subscriber and a fan....and there don't seem to be many of either yet.

And I probably missed it in this thread, but is the presenter Cyrus?

Rock on!

No doubt I should have asked this before applying, but how does a customized trust list come into play when considering applicants?  I'm also not sure about the "do you use a feedback system" thing, i.e., what you mean by that.  Not big concerns, but as always I'm late in reading the fine print of things.

Also....I was going to rage about how that's a blender in the logo gif thing, but I'm looking at it again and I've no idea what I was thinking.  That's a mixer.  It's also a nice touch for the branding of [banned mixer].  Never mind me, I need sleep.

Tread93....I just chuckled audibly in the lonely silence of my dungeon.  The first suggestion that popped into my head within a millisecond of reading your question was "Don't form relationships with potentially risky people from an internet forum".  You know what I'm talking about, and I'm in no way criticizing you.  I just thought that would be an enormous anonymity eraser and nothing you do to protect your privacy in the context of bitcoin/crypto thereafter would be meaningful if one or more people could dox you if they were facing molten lead being poured down their ass(es), you know?

Man, it's late and I haven't slept.  Did any of that make sense?  And how the hell did Satoshi do it?  That's always been the big mystery that seems like it shouldn't be a mystery at all given enough detective work.

OP, I have to ask: How much advertising have you seen on social media for straight-up discussion forums like bitcointalk?  I don't use social media, so it's an honest question--but I would be willing to bet there isn't a hell of a lot.  Those other services you mentioned (Stake, Sportbet.io) have a huge incentive to gain new members, as they're trying to sell people something. 

But bitcointalk?  For one thing, there's no need to actively recruit new members when signature campaigns do that automatically.  And for another, I doubt Theymos would spend money to draw in new members who'd probably degrade the quality of discussions being had, because if someone hasn't found bitcointalk by now, there's probably a very good reason for it (nothing to say about crypto/ignorant about bitcoin/whatever).  An influx of newbies would be a fucking nightmare, way more trouble than whatever the traffic is worth.

And yeah, as has been said....the forum treasury has more than enough funds to keep the lights on, so to speak. 

I'm familiar with you, though I don't think we've interacted much over the years.  I haven't looked at your post history, but I'm assuming that's most likely because we frequent different sections.  It's either that or I'm a totally inattentive idiot with a worsening memory problem the more I spend time here.  Lol.

I can strongly second that; I came to the forum as a bitcoin skeptic to say the least and mainly to take advantage of Theymos's very liberal moderation policy, i.e., I wanted to troll the morons I saw making ridiculous posts in terrible English when I was a lurker.  I have no background in computer science, cryptography, or even that much in technology--most people here are so much more knowledgeable than me in those areas that I'm surprised I ended up with the reputation I have.  I made up for my shortcomings in expertise by being a controversial and outspoken personality (that's my take on it, at least), and I see a lot of new members and even some who've been here for a couple of years who are nearly identical to each other in terms of the boring, generic content of their posts and who infuse none of them with any personality whatsoever.

So to anyone who wants to be rollin' around the bitcointalk hood at 2am like a boss, smoking a blunt, cruising for trouble....you have to make your presence known in one way or another (and without being such a retard that you get banned).  I'm not sure that's what most people are aiming for, though.  This forum is like a place of employment for many, and they don't necessarily care to do much beyond making posts of 160 characters, etc., etc.  Same old story.

The SEC....well, I'd love to go on a fucking tirade about them and similar agencies and their press releases that don't get challenged except on forums like this, but I won't.  Suffice to say, I think they're using probably the worst (and most overused) thing to attribute to bitcoin in an attempt to continue the coordinated assassination attempt by the US government.  If the worst thing you could call something was sexist, they'd go with that.  Christ, if the SEC could go full psychotic and call bitcoin a registered pedophile they probably would, but people would *hopefully* see right through that.

Are they even talking about minorities in the US?  Frankly, if they're saying colored people (oh wait, I mean 'people of color') are over-represented targets of scams, I sure as hell haven't seen the evidence of that and bitcoin gatherings in the US have always seemed to me to be almost like white-boy frat parties--granted, I've only seen pictures, but even if there were a lot of minorities that still doesn't back up their higher-than-normal victimhood (supposedly).

I really wonder who's truly in control of the SEC.  My first guess would be a powerful group of Democrats with that cunt Elizabeth Warren somewhere near the top.  They obviously were taking orders from someone in putting out this hit piece, and I doubt they'd have done it of their own accord.

OP, I'm understanding your hypothetical scenario but what I'm not getting is what you're getting at with your question and with statements like the above.

You could ask an infinite number of "what if...?" questions regarding the market, and you'll get infinity+1 number of answers if you start a thread about them--nobody can tell you what the right thing to do in any trading circumstance, because the definition of "right" can vary from trader to trader based on any number of factors.  It sounds like you don't have a lot of experience with markets and trading, am I right?  Well, you're in for a fun ride, but it's one with a very harsh and unforgiving driving instructor, i.e., learning from mistakes.  And you will make them.  If anybody says they've never screwed up a trade, they're lying.

Good luck.

Oh boy.  I don't follow this section much, so maybe there have been threads like this going on all the time but IMO the better speculative question to be asking is when bitcoin will hit a new ATH and not necessarily one that's many multiples higher than its current one--it's 'only' at $30k after all, and there's no telling if the price is going to continue to appreciate or if we're going to see another crash.

But if I had to play along and answer the question....Jesus, I don't know.  Every other time I've made predictions as to when bitcoin is going to hit $X, I've been way too conservative.  $1k, $10k, $50k, those have all been reached well before I thought they would've been.  So $1 million?  Eh.  Five to ten years, maybe?  But that might heavily depend on whatever future regulations come about and how quickly the wild west days disappear (which has been happening slowly but surely).  Or perhaps not, but that's how I see it. 

And LOL, even if it hit a million tomorrow I still wouldn't have enough to buy a car with the amount of bitcoin I own.  That's pretty damn sad, wouldn't you say?

Not for nothing, but the above sounds like empty rhetoric combined with advice I've heard a zillion times on the forum with the result that it adds nothing to the story about this guy trying to off himself.

$36k is definitely a lot for most people, even in the US as you pointed out.  On the bright side for the guy in question, he's still young, still alive, and has more than enough time to regain his fortune (though I don't know much about him personally other than his mindset).  But I can't help but wonder why this made the news.  Is it because crypto was involved?  I assume that's it, because if he'd lost money in the stock market or had been robbed, I'd be willing to bet we wouldn't be reading about it at all. 

But hey, I'm just a cynical old bastard.

Wow, no emotion whatsoever when btc hit its ATH?  I remember being pretty stoked about it, even though I realized it had risen too high too fast and would likely drop back down to some equilibrium price.  That was a crazy time, though I think the general feeling of euphoria was stronger when it hit the high previous to $69k, which was in late 2017 IIRC.

As for now?  It's great to see bitcoin rebounding from $16k or wherever it was stuck at for months, because I wasn't sure which way it would break.  It seems a little strange that the price is going up when there seems to be so much negative press about regulation and the FTX debacle and so forth.  I betcha there's a lot going on behind the scenes with the big players that we're not privy to.

Me neither, and I wish I had extra dough to buy bitcoin with--but I'm still rooting for it as always, no matter how little skin I have in the game.

There obviously isn't a burning need for it, else blockchain technology would have taken off shortly after bitcoin was invented (or even as soon as the concept of a decentralized blockchain was thought of), but here we are years later and have big corporations adopted decentralized anything to make their businesses better?  Nope.

There's a damn good reason why you wouldn't want an immutable ledger of things, and I always think about the medical field when I'm pondering such matters.  There are security issues up the wazoo, and that's in addition to the fact that perhaps some people don't want their medical records stored indefinitely, even if not everyone gets to see them.  Plus to the average Facebook, social media-addicted person, it doesn't matter who's in charge of their data.  Even when there's a major breach, the outrage only lasts for a week or two and then their minds are glued to some other story.

I can't say I've heard much about Web 2.5 in any case.  Sounds like just another buzz-phrase that won't have any meaning come next year.

I know this thread isn't about chronological age, but daaaamn!  I thought Jet Cash was just a bit younger than that (though it could be that last time I heard his age stated was years ago and quite a few at that).  I've always had respect for him by the way.  He has a way of keeping his brain youthful.

If any of you--particularly newer members--haven't browsed threads from the early days of the forum, I highly suggest doing so.  There are some extremely interesting topics from 2010-11, and the vibe you pick up from them is so much different that you'd get today or even for the past six+ years.  You'll also see a lot of names that you won't recognize, whether they're Legendaries or whatever.  I always wonder what happened to them, if they got filthy rich from bitcoin and just went off-grid or simply lost interest or something in between.  Anyway, for your own educational edification, do some digging into forum history.  It's gnarly!

That's why you see so many bottles filled with piss in garbage cans and such.  Or maybe you don't, but I do.  And yeah, I'm on a semi-holiday until Thursday or thereabouts and then I'll be back in full force giving this forum the hell it deserves. 

By the way, I haven't paused my offer to everyone and meant to lock this topic but didn't.  It's just suspended temporarily to members who've never requested reviews before.  I'm sure that'll be as confusing as any other explanation I've given previously when I've gotten overwhelmed, but it's the best I can do.  I'm trying to chip away at the reviews, but I still haven't had my full sMerit allocation replenished (or I've used up most of it already).

Anyway, carry on!

OP, you can see how long I've been a member of this forum (years) but don't for one minute assume that I'm some rich OG.  Just like you I could have bought bitcoin at a relatively low price, and had I just invested a few thousand dollars back in my early days....well, I wouldn't be among the super-weathly, but I'd be sitting pretty right now.

Which I'm not, because I did nothing of the sort.  On the other hand, I'm hesitant to ever say it's too late because I've told that to myself many times over the years and later found out I was dead wrong.  If you have to learn a lesson from your experience: "Don't be like TSC (that's me!)".  Either you believe in bitcoin or you're against it or you sit there on the fence while all the opportunities pass you by.  If I had the chance to start all over again, I'd be a believer and a buyer from the get-go.

Seriously; people think they're only going to get some kind of kudos or other positive response (and they just may from some members), but you know there are going to be one or two people who start to do a little bit of digging and find out that congratulations & praise are the last thing the person deserves.  I've seen it many times myself....and yet it never ceases to make me chuckle inside.

Maxre, stop blaming other people for what you did wrong.  That advice will serve you well not only on bitcointalk but in life.  Just sayin', now. 

This is one of the positive things that come from signature campaigns, and one of the only results I like to see, i.e., when the proceeds go toward helping those in low-income areas of the world.  People from poor and wealthy countries are basically making the same amount, yet the purchasing power is so much greater where OP lives.  I find that uplifting.

And OP, props to you on getting the phone of your dreams!  I don't care for smartphones much (though I do own one), but I'm not unaware that they're highly-prized objects to many people--not to mention that some of them are ridiculously expensive.  Glad sig campaign earnings helped you get yours.

I just happened to visit an ANN thread for an altcoin yesterday, and as it's a particularly shitty one there were a bunch of posts which were obviously done to either bump the thread or to give the impression that there was a lot of interest in the coin.  The thread was from a year or so ago, and a couple of the posts were so bad that I reported them, even though they were clearly old and probably forgotten about.

Don't know if something similar happened in OP's case or how the mods treat reports for old posts, but it's not a big deal and I imagine there are a number of reasons an old post of yours could get nuked.  Not a big deal, OP.

That's definitely true--and I can envision scenarios where idiots like me would drop a HW wallet in the toilet.  I think at a minimum any HW wallet should be able to survive a toilet; if it fails that test, it's certainly not going to make it through a flood, a swimming pool, or some drunk dickhead pissing on it.

This is a great experiment to do, IMO, although personally I'm not too concerned about heavy damage so much as a device ceasing to work over time.  In fact, I'm way more concerned about ease of use than something being near-indestructable.  Like the Bitbox 02; I like the user interface but it makes my mouse slow down and skip to the extent that I don't even use it anymore.  Anyway, good luck!

OP, there's also that other thread all about MSTR in the Economics section you know.  I have no doubt this news has or will be posted there, and that's kind of the main thread dealing with Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy, and their bitcoin dealings (even though Economics seems like the wrong section for it to be in).

But whatever, I always get into heated debates with the locals there (lol).  I've been saying that it might not be a prudent move on Saylor's part to be buying all of that bitcoin with his company's funds, since it's not entirely his company but a publicly traded one, with shareholders who might not have thought they were buying a stock that's a proxy to bitcoin itself.  All's good when bitcoin's price soars, but what happens to the stock if and when bitcoin tanks?

And what would happen if Saylor were forced to sell all of MSTR's bitcoin all at once?  It might not be probable, but it's possible.  I don't know if it's enough to drive the price down if it were dumped on the market all at once, but it couldn't help.  Eh.  That's just where my mind goes.  I have mixed feelings about this particular topic I guess.

OK, I've taken a longer break than I thought I would from reviewing posts, and I apologize for that.  I just woke up not too long ago, so I need to get some coffee into me and wake up a bit, and then I hope to pick up where I left off in the very long list of members who've requested reviews.  Please note that said list is so long that I've paused the offer to new members for now, so if you've never requested one from me, now isn't the time to start--so please don't.

I'll restart it to new members if and when I get caught up and/or the PMs stop flooding my inbox.

K?  Have a nice day, now.