Please tell me you didn't read OP's post and thought he was being serious.  The above quote suggests that you would not be able to assure me of that, and I find that disheartening.


If you don't have a lot of money invested in stocks, don't have a credit card, aren't borrowing money for a car, an education, or a mortgage, and don't have money in any savings or money market accounts, then you wouldn't see the importance of trying to figure out what the Fed is going to do next regarding interest rates.  However, even when they tweak those rates just a little bit, markets react massively.  Often they react when the Fed simply makes an announcement about what they might be considering, e.g., the rate increase scheduled for this September. 

I honestly don't know how much that affects the crypto markets, but the things the Fed does--like it or not--are not trivial.

"Adoption" means something entirely different today than it did a few years ago--people are buying it because line-always-goes-up or are using it as a day-trading instrument.  That word used to mean that merchants were accepting it as payment for goods & services, and I haven't heard much about that in a long time. 

That's not to say that bitcoin isn't a good investment asset or that I'm disappointed that most online merchants don't accept it.  I've always thought it was a lousy form of money. 

As to OP's question, I'd have to say that I'm less enthusiastic about bitcoin than I was maybe two years ago, but honestly I might be conflating bitcoin and bitcointalk.  The latter used to be almost addictive to me, but nowadays I can't even tell if AI programs are cranking out all of these insipid thread topics....but I digress.


That's iffy.  As I've said, I wouldn't trust anything a politician says when they're in the process of running for election.  And when that person happens to be Donald Trump, well.  But if he does win, maybe those government alphabet agencies might become more bitcoin-friendly, who knows?  All I know is that this is going to be one hell of an election cycle; the country is probably going to end up being even more divided than it already is.  Again, I digress!

Now that's a good one, especially the last sentence.  Hopefully most members know that Satoshi used to be active here, and man if you spend an hour or two browsing through ancient threads, e.g., from the 2010 era, you'll see how a lot of things evolved (like signature campaigns).  There's a tremendous archive of great stuff here.


Most of that incredible material was fueled by one foolhardy substance or another, and I probably should participate in that thread more than I do.  Nevertheless, I absolutely agree with you on that recommendation.


Oh, now that's a pretty neat idea!  Except I haven't used screen savers since I was a teenager I think.

I assume the rest of your post was as sarcastic as the above, but when it comes to Ledger it's hard to tell.  After the Recover debacle, there were still so many people who just shrugged their shoulders and kept using their wallets.

If that waiting list is to be believed, then my point is proved.  I can't imagine people are buying this new piece of Ledger crap as a collectible, which is about the only thing it'd be good for.  And damn, that's a lot of money for a closed-source wallet produced by a company that (in the eyes of thinking people) destroyed their reputation.

I'd like to point out the fact that politicians are notorious liars, especially when they're campaigning.  Just keep that in mind when evaluating Trump's statement here.  Even if he laid out a fully detailed plan and timeline, there would be absolutely no consequences for him if he got elected and simply went back on his word.  Politicians are very well known for breaking promises.

When you think about it, it's sad that everyone knows those two facts about our leaders and it's just accepted, usually with absolute indifference.

Also, this announcement was couched with some vague terms like "could announce", "widely expected", and "credible sources".  In other words, when I read this I think to myself that I'll believe it when I see it.

What the hell are you talking about, and what does it have to do with the topic at hand?


You must be young and probably don't own any other asset class other than crypto.  Even if you own a lot of bitcoin at present, you'll be headed for the poorhouse more likely than not.  Not diversifying is absolutely stupid.  Doing it the right way (with assets that don't correlate with each other) is smart.


So one coin in a sea of cryptocurrencies--and excluding stocks, bonds, precious metals, etc., is your idea of diversification?  Don't lead others astray and just please put the keyboard down.

LOL.  Do you seriously expect Trump to say anything of substance, much less about a vague topic like decentralization (and I'm not sure what you'd expect him to say about that anyway)?  It's all rah-rah with him, and neither he nor anyone in the audience is going to learn anything.  That could be generalized to just about any political speech during an election cycle, by the way.


Not sure OP gave this a lot of thought.

Do you always follow what other do?

OP:

1) This thread should either not be a poll, or you ought to include more than two options in it, because what you have as choices don't fit my thoughts and might not fit others' either.

2) If we're speaking strictly of investments, 'diversification' is meaningless if all you own are cryptocurrencies.  In fact, as much as I'm a fan and supporter of them, I'd never recommend that anyone invest in them and nothing else.  They don't have a long track record, and looking at their history they're probably the most volatile asset class ever, aside from tulips perhaps.  Owning 50 different coins might seem like a diversified portfolio to a lot of people, but that's still the same basket that all your eggs are in--and these are some seriously fragile eggs.

Nice job, BlackHatCoiner!  I haven't clicked through all of the quotes, but I absolutely like this.  I don't know how much work you put into this, but it was an imaginative site to put together and I hope you keep it going and add many more quotes.  There have been some really good zingers over the years, though I'd have no idea how to find them again.  There was a member whose name escapes me who was in the Chipmixer campaign, and he was famous for dropping witty and insightful one-liners.  His name is on the tip of my tongue....and I hate that feeling.

Props to you, my man.

Yeah, sorry for bringing all that negativity into my post--but after all these years, it's what I tend to see the most.  And all of that relates to the forum and not to bitcoin itself.

Distrust/mistrust should come with the territory when you're talking about crypto, since you can't appeal to a 3rd party for a refund once you've sent your coins.  And I don't know how frequently you've visited sections like Currency Exchange or Lending, but scammers are everywhere.  That's been true since before I registered, and it's also true in a lot of places outside of bitcointalk.  I've seen plenty of members get scammed because they thought a member with green trust could actually be trusted, no questions asked.  Unfortunately since there's a market for bitcointalk accounts, you might not be dealing with who you think you're dealing with.  That goes along with what I said about things not always being what they appear to be.

Ah, I forgot to mention that I really liked the numismatic aspect of the first sketches in the OP, e.g., the guy inspecting a coin with what might be some kind of loupe, and the table filled with collectibles.  Nicely done.

Three replies to the OP so far in this thread, and they're so poorly reasoned and written that my heart weeps for this forum


Those people aren't wrong, and if you think saving money for the long-term in a relatively new asset that governments around the world seem to view as a threat to fiat and is as volatile as bitcoin is a good plan, you've either got bitcoin love-blinders on or have no investing experience.


So?  That's one sentence from one guy's book, and frankly it doesn't make a lick of sense to me.  I haven't read what must be a fascinating argument as to why "volatile things are not necessarily risky" but I'd say that most investments with very high market volatility are quite risky.  OP, do you know what volatility means? 

Some folks might be taking advantage of the relatively high risk-free rate of return right now when interest rates are high, and to them bitcoin might not be as good a way to save money for their individual time frames.  When it comes to things like that, one size definitely does not fit all.

I read Black Swan by Nassim Taleb, btw.  Didn't care for it much as I recall, but it was a long time ago and the only thing I remember was that it seemed like there was a lot of fluff to it.

Oh, man....I should have known this, but that's one of bitcoin's (extremely important) historical facts that never stuck in my brain.  I know what year bitcoin was unleashed upon the world along with the forum, but for some reason it just doesn't seem like it's been that long.  Members here who are in their 20s probably only knew a reality in which bitcoin and bitcointalk existed, and I don't think I've ever considered that--and to me it's mind-blowing.


Strong skepticism combined with a mild curiosity as to what all the hoopla was all about, as I'd keep reading about this crazy digital form of money, the value of which was more volatile than any other asset being traded.  Every time I'd do a search for bitcoin, inevitably some bitcointalk thread would be at the top of the search results.  When I read some of the threads, I saw that this forum was jam-packed with drama.  Not only that, but I could clearly see that members were allowed to express themselves however they wanted to.  My previous experience with discussion forums was that profanity, rudeness, and everything up to and including having your friggin' Windsor knot tied sloppily would be grounds for a ban.  I always hated that.

So I lurked in 2014 and kept waiting for bitcoin to be revealed as a huge scam.  Whoops!  As to why I stuck around, I'm going to confess with a beet-red face that it was to troll all of the awful, idiotic members who'd make posts that were incoherent, repetitive, or just baffled me as to why someone would write them (this was well before I found out what signature campaigns were).  The trolling did not last long, because I soon started learning what bitcoin really is and how different it was from prior digital forms of money like Flooz, which I remembered from the crazy late 90s Everything Bubble.  My outspokenness apparently caught people's attention, for better or worse, and I kinda-sorta became an oddball forum personality.  Wheee!!


If I'm honest?  The drama, the crazy news stories, battling shitposters, the lack of censorchip, and the consistency of the UI.  Oh wait, was I only supposed to pick one thing?  Eh.


Specific to the forum: things often aren't what they appear to be.  I'm thinking of members like master-P who'd been a very trusted member and pulled off a massive scam, and exchanges like Cryptsy and a few others (Mt. Gox was just a wee bit before my time) that so many people used without a second thought but ended their existence by absconding with their customers' funds.

A corollary to the above was: trust no one.  And yet through the years I've disregarded that pearl of wisdom over and over because I always hope for the best in people despite my knowledge that the crypto space is floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall scamming, scammers, attempted scams, and a whole bunch of disgusting larva in the cracks which would represent scammers to be.


Oh you know, there's a nice site called BPIP, and if my arthritic fingers type in my username I get a nice visualization:



Eighth most recognized  Lol, that's why I posted the above.  I don't see myself as any kind of popular member, and I sure as hell don't know 1/1000th of what most people here know about bitcoin.  I feel like a dribbling, drooling moron half the time--so much so that when I'm reading a thread that has anything remotely technical in it that might pique my curiosity or that I might have a question about, I just keep my fingers still and my mouth shut for fear of revealing my staggering ignorance to the millions of users here.  Heh.

Anyway, these days I try my best to be a decent merit source (always falling short, unfortunately) and I continue to give shitposters the flamethrower when I see them.  I hate to say it, but it feels like we're headed back to 2016 or so in terms of overall post quality.  Anyway.


High school, only if it consisted of faceless personalities and students from around the globe.  Sir, I am kidding you not.


Hmm, that's plural.  THE most meaningful fact would probably be that this is where everything kicked off and where Satoshi was a member.  I read Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper, and I do recall that in his recounting of bitcoin's inception, our beloved forum was mentioned several times (though not by name if I recall correctly).

Maybe I'm answering a different question; I'm not sure.  I guess I could say that scammers are everywhere; many of the best and most memorable members have disappeared; most members post only to get paid....ah, but that's all negative stuff.  True, nevertheless.


Let's see.  Oh yes, the fact that incentivized shitposters and these days members who are just people using AI to write nonsense outnumber solid, knowledgeable members who know how to turn a sophisticated phrase or two (often with a sprinkle of humor and some genuine personality are outnumbered at a ratio I estimate to be at least 50:1.  That doesn't make for a great discussion forum sometimes.


It's a compound question.  How many genders do guinea pigs have, and is that number equal to that of human beings?

Or if you find that offensive: how many holes does a bowling ball have?
_______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________

OP, I absolutely love your artwork!

Everyone is disposable, no matter how important anyone thinks they or anyone else is to a company; that, coupled with (mainly public) companies' laser focus on the bottom line leaves me with no doubt that if an employee that needs vacation days, sick time, bonuses, or even a friggin' lunch break and can be replaced by AI, they will be.

I don't know if AI is going to make corporations run better, but if it eventually displaces enough workers, those people are still going to have to eat.  That could lead to anything from an increase in crime to a massive increase in taxes (hopefully imposed on the corporations themselves) to subsidize assistance programs.  At this point, it's all just guesswork.  Fifty of us can predict 51 different outcomes, and it'll be the 52nd that actually happens.

Nevertheless, fuck AI.

Oh wow, I hadn't seen that particular issue mentioned before--I missed it, obviously--and I thought I was the only one who'd pulled most of his hair out for having lost numerous posts that took some time to write because of whatever glitch or 'misbehavior' caused it.  It hasn't happened to me in a while, because over time I started copying my post drafts to my clipboard just in case, but an autosave function sure would be nice.

But I'm not sure how prevalent that problem is, and there are obviously a lot more important issues the forum's brainiac techies need to deal with.

And triple props to PowerGlove for all his hard work.  Great member of the community and a straight-shooter as well, which is much appreciated when 90% of members here are brainless saps who wouldn't give an honest opinion if they had a gun to their head.

Is this a discussion of anything? 

Yet another thread where I could swear the OP was written by an AI program, but after checking JamesNZ's post history this is consistent with the rest of his jargo-babbling.  What I see is a bunch of buzzwords and nonsense.  Please just lock this thread and don't pollute bitcointalk any more than it already has been.

Maybe, but one never knows what's what when you're talking about politics with extremely incomplete information, e.g., what's being said and done behind the scenes.  On the other hand, this isn't bad news by any means when it comes to bitcoin and could be much worse.

My question is whether Trump has a chance in November; I expected him to be a two-term president, but got quite a shock when Biden won it.  And if Trump's got a shot at winning, that would depend on who he's running against--I don't follow politics, as it makes my blood boil, but is Biden still insisting on running for a second term?  If so, any sane person would vote against him (as opposed to voting for his opponent).  I've got very mixed feelings about this upcoming election, since I was very much anti-Trump when he ran the first time but came to see that his presidency wasn't nearly as bad as I'd figured it'd be.  My prediction was that there would be a nuclear holocaust, but that didn't come to pass.  Do I like him?  Nope.  But man oh man, I really think we need a Republican in the White House.  It'd be good for bitcoin, but more importantly I think it'd be far better for the economy and our national debt.

As November gets closer I'll likely start paying more attention to what's happening in the race.  Until then, for my own sanity I'm just tuning all of it out.

Nutildah, I know I'm not strictly following your rules for reporting AI-generated posts, but I came across a thread in which the OP admitted using AI as a tool to either translate from French to English or to smooth out (very well, I might add) his English.  I replied to and quoted his admission of using AI.

I haven't a clue as to romor's proficiency in English, but if he hadn't told on himself I would have mistaken him for a native English speaker.  We've all seen the results of translation programs and perhaps they've improved in the past few years, but I got a whiff of foolhardiness as soon as I saw a newbie writing a post as coherent as romor did.  Normally translator tools make some glaring mistakes, and that's why I didn't suspect it was just one of those.

Anyway, this shit is crazy.  I'm seeing a lot more newbies starting up threads, and a marked improvement in their writing skills.  For this forum, that's unheard of.

Should romor be reported for that or is there enough evidence aside from his admission?

Mmm.  I suspected there was some sort of AI being used here, and that being said I have no idea to what extent you relied on such a program to write your post.  Perhaps others can chime in.

Aside from that, I did comment on the entropy theme but there's no way I or anyone else is going to read a book before making a relevant post.

If you find it condescending, then you're not familiar with bitcointalk and all the problems we've had over the years with members who make incoherent posts in order to get paid.  And let me tell you, it is rare that a newbie writes in excellent English--so much so that it's a red flag.  So aside from the fact that you used AI, don't take offense.

When I studied chemistry in college, my professor said in no uncertain terms that the way the average person uses the word entropy has little to do with how it was originally defined by Rudolph J.C.E. Clausius.  In other words, entropy doesn't just mean disorder, and all the calculus used to calculate entropy in the thermodynamic sense wouldn't apply when it comes to economics or anything to do with human behavior.

I haven't read the article, and it'd be nice if the AI program you used to write your post elaborated on it a little, because it's damn hard to have a discussion about a topic like this without reading what you claim to have read.

All these newbies writing posts in perfect English lately.  Makes me four steps beyond suspicious.

I'm assuming you have a job related to the technical aspects of bitcoin....?  Well, I sure as hell can't say that's true for me, nor was it the tech that drew me to bitcoin years ago.  Frankly I wish I'd studied something computer science-related in college and maybe taken a course in cryptography, but that's all in the rear-view mirror.

But yeah, 50% of the fun (at least) is watching what the price of bitcoin does, and I absolutely love it when there are major spikes in either direction.  If I had more skin in the game I'd probably be on vomiting sprees at least a couple times a year; since I don't, I have to get the biggest dose of vicarious panic/anxiety/euphoria/whatever I can from my fellow forumites.

And um, I'd like to mention that bitcoin can be used to buy things.  There's not a lot of discussion about that anymore, but I like to see how the retail space is moving toward or away from accepting bitcoin (and yeah, I know there's a payment processor involved, but still).  So there.