So I am not the best or most technical post writer, so I don't earn very many merits, however I do READ these forums constantly. I am very invested in cutting through the spam to quality posts.

Looking at rank is one way to quickly filter posts, but that can leave you missing out on good information by someone new... So I think this forum should implement a "Featured Users" system. The Featured Users system would highlight or in some way promote users who regularly earn merit for their posts. This could be a ratio, like if the user gets merited 1/10 posts they would be considered a Featured User. Another idea would be if they have been merited recently, or if they get merited consistently in certain board like "Legal" or "Meta".

I think this would help out the merit sources as well, since it would be easier for them to find jr members who are creating quality posts, follow them, and continue to award merits for their posts.   

So because of the recent downward volatility I have been reading a lot of threads and posts about how bitcoin is a bubble and could crash to zero. I have a different theory: bitcoin will one day become a reserve currency!

Right now countries typically hold US Dollars, Gold and Oil in reserves. The amount of these reserves is critical for smaller countries. Bitcoin is not on that list...yet.

According to the World Gold Council, the total value of all gold ever mined is about $7.8 trillion. The oil market is worth $1.7 billion/per year. There are also 1.56 Trillion USD in circulation.  At the moment, bitcoin is worth around $145.9 billion.

If bitcoin were to become part of the reserve mix for even small countries, its value would skyrocket. I can easily see it having a market cap in the trillions.

My idea is that merit should have more of a purpose than merely being required for ranking up. Merit could also function as a post moderating system where posts that earn merit can be viewed first. So spam and useless comments fall to the bottom and the best comments rise to the top.

You could switch between the "merit" mode and "normal" mode if you wanted to see all comments in the order they were written.

As a result of new ICOs requiring KYC information, tens of thousands of investors are staying on the sidelines. This is having a strong negative effect on the cryptocurrency markets. Anecdotally, for the past couple years I invested in dozens of ICOs. I have no problem with trusting them with a BTC or more, but I will not trust them with my personal info. If Experian can't be trusted to keep our most important data safe, how can I trust a bunch of inexperienced ICOs?

KYC is supposed to help prevent money laundering, but does it really? Even if you have my name and address, how do you know the source of my funds? Furthermore, are blockchain companies based in Columbia required to report a suspected money launderer from Spain? It is clear that the point of KYC is to slow-down or prevent investment in blockchain projects and has no real purpose. 

We are seeing the results of this new trend right now. The growth rate of investment in ICOs is slowing and this is affecting the markets (don't get me wrong, there is still an uptrend).

We need a trusted way to verify KYC information that is safe and secure or maybe some of the more successful ICOs could lobby governments, especially the US government. To stop these KYC requirements that really don't stop money laundering. The US government is incredibly corrupt, if you do enough "lobbying" on yachts filled with strippers and you pass out a few paper wallets with some coins as a "sample", this KYC problem will be over in a matter of months.