As the world's 2 biggest economies tackle each other in a trade war that could lead to what may become the biggest shakeup and re-alignments in global trade order, are we likely to see new funds flow into the cryptocurrency market from the commerce and trade sectors?

The Merit System was introduced into Bitcointalk this year, with the intent and purpose of promoting sanity and good values in the forum. Right from its inception in late January 2018 till date the Merit System has become one of the highly debated subjects on Bitcointalk.org. Forum members who are already at the upper echelon of the forum and who may have little or no need for Merits seems to generally favour the system on the grounds of spamming and junk posts by desperate lower cadre members, while most lower cadre members who need to progress on the forum are not very supportive of a Merit system which ties a member's progression on the forum to the amount of Merits earned by a member. And earning Merits isn't so easy.

Now, it is somewhat difficult to tell whose voice is louder in the debate, and even more difficult to tell who has the more valid point of view. And how about a little statistics? A nice way to evaluate the performance so far of the Merit system towards achieving the set objectives would be a measurement of the impact of the Merit system on the forum, and forum traffic is one important parameter.
An overview/analysis  by Similarweb.com of total visits to  Bitcointalk.org on desktop and mobile web in the last 6 months shows a steady and gentle increase from a little over 20m in Sept., 2017 to over 60m in January, 2018, and then to a sharp and continuing decline to 34.5m in Feb., 2018. This decline is not just happenstance. It perfectly coincided with the introduction of the Merit System.
See stats https://www.similarweb.com/website/bitcointalk.org.

The likely implication is that the Merit system is demoralizing low cadre members who needs to attain higher levels of membership. However, some here may argue that a few meaningful member activities is worth more to the forum than much activities of little or no value. Be that as it may, we should acknowledge the fact that traffic is equally important in the web  ranking and worth of the bitcointalk forum. So, I think BCT Administrators should have a  reappraisal of the Merit System – carefully weighing anticipated benefits against perceived costs – and come up with a more effective, yet forum friendly solution to the problems. What do you think?

If you have to search for bitcointalk bounty campaign threads through Google or other search engines please do so with caution and look before you login. Hackers of BCT accounts could be using phishing websites to target bounty hunters who use search engines to find bounty campaigns. I stumbled across this particular website while searching for bounty threads and decided to double check the link when I noticed that certain params did not fall in place despite the striking semblance of the site to bitcointalk.org. I then found out that the site goes by the name thebitcointalk.net instead. You may check it out.
This website looks every inch a clone of bitcointalk.org and therefore, suspicious. I think admin should investigate the reported website and escalate this warning if necessary.

Most of us in the cryptocurrency business anticipated and even predicted that 2018 could be the golden dawn of cryptocurrency. But things seems not to be going in the expected direction following series of unfavorable winds currently blowing against the industry. First, it was the aborted move by some authorities in Seoul to ban cryptocurrency trading in South Korea, followed by some pessimists remarks on cryptocurrency made by some high influence figures in the financial sphere. And then the record breaking hack of a Japanese exchange with about 530 mln dollars reported stolen. These incidences have shaken up the cryptocurrency market and significantly shrinking the total market cap from over $799bn in the first week of January 2018 to under $600bn at present. Now, the winds against cryptocurrency continues to rage as social media giant Facebook bans all cryptocurrency Ads and ICOs. Bombshell!

The trillion dollar question now is, how would these developments and particularly the ban on crxptocurrency Ads by Facebook impact our beloved industry, considering the fact that the industry and ICO promoters rely on Facebook to reach over 2.7 bn people?

As we arrive 2018 analysts say this is likely the year the bitcoin bubble will burst, reason being that if it continues to push up the ceilling above the 20k dollar mark governments might impose strict controls or even outright ban in order to protect government issued fiat currencies. My question to us all is: How would an eventual ban on bitcoin effect Altcoins and the global crypto market? Please be constructive in your views.BTC

In most developing economies raising funds for SME start-ups comes with the double burdens of a crunching high interest rates on business loans and the crippling beaurucratic proccesses involved in accessing such loans or fundings where they exist. This is owing to the fact that most developing countries – particularly in Africa – lacks strong financial institutions and responsive governance needed to create an enabling financial ecosystem that promotes ease of access to affordable business loans for SMEs. However, one important factor that is being overlooked but can be harnessed into a sustainable funding source is the collective resource of the people – the shere power of numbers, crowdpower or what ever one may choose to call it.

It is simple knowledge that when we leverage on numbers enormous or intricate tasks becomes simplified. This is why the blockchain is such a  tremendeous force in the financial services world today– helping businesses raise millions of dollars through ICOs for start-ups by connecting people and colating their individual micro funds into a mega fund. It is therefore reasonable to say that blockchain technology can provide a sustainable and practical solution for SME financing in developing economies by powering platforms where entrepreneurs can leverage on crowdpower to raise start-up funds under flexible arrangements governed by immutable smart contracts. And this is where WISHFINANCE comes in.

WISHFINANCE is a smart contract project which aims to be a global lending platform targeting SMEs mainly. The project which can be found at  https://wishfinance.com will not only provide fast, efficient, and convinient lending services to small businesses around the globe but also provides a rewarding investment opportunity to investors who will profit over time by lending their WISH tokens to entrepreneurs. Businesses the world over, particularly SMEs can now have easy access to affordable loans whether for start-ups or business financing. WISHFINANCE is by my estimation one of the most important projects in the history of ICOs because of the huge impact it have on the global economy. It will certainly stimulate economic activities to create more jobs and raise global living standards.

This project is definitely a game changer and will turn nut a huge success in the very near future. Business loan opportunities for start-ups and small businesses are hard to come by particularly in developing countries. WISHFINANCE opens a new world of possibilities to entrepreneurs around the globe and it could be the panacea to poverty reduction globally.

One of the unique qualities of the WISHFINANCE project is that the WISH token has both utility and investment features. WISH will be the access token for portfolio managers and as well an investment instrument for holders of the coin as the exchange value is expected to appreciate reasonably over time.

Presently the WISHFINANCE project is in the ICO pre-sale stage and the willing investors can buy the WISH tokens at a discounted price. To learn more about the WISHFINANCE project simply visit the ICO ANN thread at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2233216.0 or the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/wishfinance/

There is always a new page for a new age. The invention of bitcoin and  blockchain technology by Satoshi marked the beginning of a gradual  and eventual flip over of the era of fiat currencies and traditional payment systems, just as the emergence of Ethereum signaled the bowing out of traditional financial institutions.  The crypto world is currently experiencing the awesome power of the blockchain technology in the numerous tokenized smart contracts being rolled out almost on a daily bases into he crypto and digital currency market, and made possible by Ethereum and other blockchain platforms.

The beauty of blockchain based transactions is the fact that it eliminates third parties, and that makes transactions easier, faster and more private. For these reasons crypto currency is fast gaining acceptance as means of exchange and has so far claimed a significant portion of the global capital market. Despite these gains crypto currency is still not yet a generally preferred means of exchange particularly in formal sectors, and the challenge facing the cryptocurrency community is the issue of high volatility which hinders the  formal adoption of cryptocurrencies by institutions and authorities.

It is widely believed that adoption and general acceptability of cryptocurrencies and by extension the blockchain technology will address the issue of volatility and I would like to briefly discuss a few blockchain projects which I think have the potential of making cryptocurrency become the proffered means of exchange in both formal and informal sectors. These projects  are:

1. ELECTRONEUM. This project aims to provide a digital coin ETN on the Electroneum blockchain and which could be used for normal transactions including retail payments. The high point of this project is the fact that the ETN coin will be  minable on mobile devices and this will attract new crypto users who would love to make extra coins through the mobile miner.

2. BANKERA. A gap obviously exists in conversions and exchanges between cryptos and fiat currencies, and that is what exactly the Bankera project aims to fix. Bankera is a decentralized banking service that will provide a multi channel payment solution through its SpectraCoin wallet, thereby bridging digital curriencies and fiat payment instruments. Hopefully, this project will remove exchange barriers and make cryptocurrencies more flexible and usable in real world transactions.

3. BANKEX. This is another decentralized banking service on the Blockchain. Similar to Bankera above, this project focuses on linking tangible assets to tokens and this will mean the direct  intermingling of real world economy with the Blockchain.

4. OPEN MONEY. In my estimation, this project is the most innovative and probably the most penetrative approach to opening the real world to the blockchain. This is because today's world runs on Apps and Softwares and we all make use of them in one way or the other, and  the Open Money project is taking the development and distribution of Apps and Softwares to the blockchain. The project which can be found at http://openmoney.acemlnc.com/lt.php?s=3d2432c58d224797570ad727f28e9b5b&i=68A73A2A450 will also remove usual  bottlenecks and difficulties  in software project funding and eliminate third party costs and make projects more profitable for developers.

With the wave of bans and restrictions of ICOs and cryptocurrency some governments accross wnrld, do you think the future of cryptocurrency lies in the hands of the authorities or the crypto community?

Just thinking... the exponential growth in  ICOs recently is a trend that could have diminshing effects on the value of tokenized investments. I so think based on the following assumptions: 1. Investment fund is scarce resource 2. Every potential investor is rational with resources 3. More ICOs = more investment alternatives for would be investors in the market, which also implies increased substitution for existing coins. Based on the assumptions above, the likely scenerio in a multiplicty of ICOs would be that fewer investor funds would chase more supply of  ICO products in the market and naturally push down the demand for already existing coins. And of course, lower demand translates to lower token prices.

What do you think, guys?