Asian nation Laos to legalize Bitcoin mining and trading

I am suspicious on the word legalize. It can be used inaccurately and I think we will need more time to see it is really a legalization or just a fake news, a misleading term using on media.

I mean terms like ban, legalize can be used and misled by social media and whales.

Laos has cheap electricity price, you can check the chart: https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/electricity_prices/
Will the nation appears on the World Mining Map and move closely to nations like Kazakhstan or Ukraine? https://cbeci.org/mining_map

Do you know the free transfer of Messi from Barcelona to PSG?

This transfer helps PSG sold millions of jerseys in a few hours and the PSG token rallies very much. Months ago, fan tokens were very hot on the market but they fell down a lot. After months, I believe that they will take the Messi effects to rally.

Pick one of them with lists for fan tokens. Do your own research about those clubs and tokens. Try to stay with big clubs and prioritize tokens from clubs that have good transfers.
https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/fan-token
https://coinmarketcap.com/view/fan-token/

Lionel Messi’s Paris St. Germain Transfer Included Crypto Fan Tokens
PSG price resumes rally to all-time highs as Lionel Messi officially joins Paris Saint-Germain.

From the transfer of Messi, will we see a new trend in transfer market? Will clubs add their fan tokens as part of transfer clauses?

Source: https://twitter.com/BitcoinMagazine/status/1423231303307206656
The transaction cost is very cheap and it was finished by several clicks. It does not take too long to get 3 confirmations.

By the way, you can see how secured the Bitcoin network and its transactions are, if you compare it to altcoin networks & altcoin transactions.

Cost of 51% attack: https://www.crypto51.app/
6 confirmations on Bitcoin network have power of hundred of confirmations on altcoin networks: https://howmanyconfs.com/

Ethereum has rallied and even broke their 2018 all time high and hit a new one in 2021.

If consider the Google Trend search is an indicator for retail investment, the chart shows the retail investments decreased. How about your thoughts? As the chart and fractal, it looks like the retail investment into Ethereum will recover from current price.

In worse movement, I think Ethereum will be bottomed up at $1400 from which it will start a new ride to a new all time high.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=ethereum

The trade war between the USA. and the China is not a new war and the change in Presidency of the USA. might or might not change a current status of the war. The recent drama on XRP, a top 3 cryptocurrency that has terrible drama, lawsuit, and price drops 3 times in very short period is a lesson to learn from.

Circa 2018 or 2019, there are a wave of delisting on cryptocurrencies from China on Poloniex, Bittrex, etc. or trading restrictions that don't allow USA. customers to trade those cryptocurrencies.

I would like to take the XRP drama to remind you that the similar delisting wave on cryptocurrencies from China might occur again under the Presidency of Joe Biden. Active projects won't die as consequence of delisting on USA exchanges but price will drop freely. Delisting on big exchanges often cause terrible drops.

I am surprised to see YAM in the list of top 10 DeFi projects. You can get more information at https://dappradar.com/rankings/category/defi with different protocols. The link is for all protocols.

https://twitter.com/DappRadar/status/1295646620697030656

[Contributions]

Altcoins are mostly shit in crypto. They are copycat, zero-value, were born and die shortly after that.

There are some sort of risks when you decide to invest in newborn altcoins:

• They are pump/ dump coins. You will mostly buy at peaks and sell at bottoms or at worst, can not sell them when price falls to zero.
• You have to take risks by downloading and installing their wallets that potentially contain malwares, and other threats.
• Buying and trading them on newborn exchanges potentially put your fund at risks (when exchanges made scam exits).

Above are some vital risks of newborn altcoins. It is especially true if those projects are born in altcoin seasons, like what we have seen now.

Their wallets are mainly zipped/ compressed to force you downloading and beat AV softwares.
Their account ages (on Github) are young (newborn).
Their ANN threads are written like trash (if you spend time to copy and paste their ANN threads' contents, then search by Google or plagiarism detecting tools, you mostly find plagiarism proof.

It is so easy to make your coin, by cloning source code of the others. It is not too hard as you imagine.

Contributions
Zenon project: https://masternodes.online/currencies/ZNN/
Github: https://github.com/zenonnetwork

See contribution calendar at the overview tab:

Sometimes, you will have links that lead you to page like this one: https://github.com/zenonnetwork/ZNN-Node-deployer
So, you have to click on the link to zenonnetwork overview page, like the image shows.
IMAGE


Repositories page
https://github.com/zenonnetwork?tab=repositories
Insights
https://github.com/zenonnetwork/zenon

Then, you can check some tabs: contributors, code frequency, etc.
The data for Zenon is very little, so I will use the one for DASH to give you an example
https://github.com/dashpay/dash/graphs/contributors

To check more, you should visit their core developers' contributions:
https://github.com/codablock

Join date
Github changed so now you can only see join date at overview page of each account.
Before that change, the join date is display right under username.

Don't invest in coins that have Github accounts were very lately created. I don't judge all of them are scammers or bad developers but if you don't afford to lose your capital, don't invest in such newborn projects with newly-created Github accounts.





https://help.github.com/en/github/visualizing-repository-data-with-graphs/viewing-a-projects-contributors
https://help.github.com/en/github/setting-up-and-managing-your-github-profile/viewing-contributions-on-your-profile#contributions-calendar
https://help.github.com/en/enterprise/2.13/user/articles/viewing-contribution-activity-in-a-repository
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vb9v33/github-bitbucket-repositories-ransomware
https://guides.github.com/activities/forking/#making-a-pull-request

Hi all guys,

I am back with intention to mne altcoins after many months of hypernation.

Which altcoins are the best to mine with AMD GPUs 470 and 570 4GB?
Which mining algorithms are the most common for best minable altcoins?

If your given coins are newborn, please help me with links to their ANN threads on the forum and their sites.

Please help, if you have actively mined altcoins recent weeks and know which ones are the best.

I much appreciated your answers to come for my lazy questions.

I see this negative rating that is inappropriate in my opinion. See it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=2694164

Do not post in French section if you can not speak french

The appropriate trust feedback is neutral, in my opinion.

It is terrible to leave negative trust feedback like that, especially leave it on account that runs their good company (so far) in the forum.

There is a good guide from LoyceV: LoyceV's Beginners guide to correct use of the Trust system


That case closed and as the others proposed to move the thread to Reputation, but I am not going to move it. Personally, this issue is fitted with Meta, and might cause more guides on how to use Trust feedback more correctly (in particular, with disagreement in language or language-related problems).

I planned to open the thread one week, then I am going to lock it. Thank you.

[What is ToS?]

What is ToS?

It is Term of Service, abbreviated as ToS.
On some platforms, there is another term that used for the same purpose, called as a User Agreement.

There are lots of things presented in ToS, but there are some vital parts that you must read them carefully before doing deposits to your accounts. Because if you are not careful, you might lose your money, and those platforms have rights to reject your deposit returns when you fraud them, or violate their rules in ToS.

Don't take risks and waste your time by trying to cheat them with VPS, multiple accounts. Eventually, you will be found, and you will lose your money (original capital or profits from tradings/ gamblings).

Like in the forum, you can not break rules, plagiarise, then ask for forgiveness after being permanent banned. On exchanges/ casinos, you can not cheat/ abuse/ break their rules and ask for supports or forgiveness.

• Restrictions, such as restricted locations
• Number of allowable accounts: allow multi accounts/ linked-accounts or not.
• Restricted activities (discover by yourself)
• Identities verification (discover by yourself)
• More things

Another method to fastly get them (but you might miss some details) is reading FAQs

almost never read them I just read their FAQs and helpdesk section
faqs usually points out the important things from the ToS
and helpdesk Q and A contains further information on specific instance case

Restricted locations
I give some examples from some exchanges and casinos

Bittrex

2.2
You may not use the Services if you are located in, or a citizen or resident of the United States. You may not use the Services if you are located in, or a citizen or resident of any state, country, territory or other jurisdiction that is embargoed by the United States, or if you are on any trade or economic sanctions lists, such as the United Nations Security Council Sanctions List, or if you are restricted or prohibited from engaging in any type of trading by the European Union, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department, Office of Foreign Asset Control or any other administrative law enforcement agencies.
[ ... read more]

Poloniex

37. LEGAL COMPLIANCE
The Services are subject to all applicable export control restrictions, and, by using the Services, you represent that your actions are not in violation of such export control restrictions. Without limiting the foregoing, you may not use the Services if (i) you are a resident, national or agent of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria or any other country to which the United States, the United Kingdom or the European Union embargoes goods or imposes similar sanctions (“Restricted Territories”); (ii) you are a member of any sanctions list or equivalent maintained by the United States government, the United Kingdom government or by the European Union (“Restricted Persons”) or (iii) you intend to transact with any Restricted Territories or Restricted Persons.

Cloudbet

5.1.3. You agree that at all times when using the Website you are not a resident of any of the following countries:

• the United States of America and its territories;
• United Kingdom;
• Hong Kong;
• Singapore;

Sportsbet.io

3.3. You are aware that the right to access and use the website and any products there offered, may be considered illegal in certain countries. We are not able to verify the legality of service in each and every jurisdiction, consequently, you are responsible in determining whether your accessing and using our website is compliant with the applicable laws in your country and you warrant to us that gambling is not illegal in the territory where you reside. For various legal or commercial reasons, we do not permit accounts to be opened or used by customers resident in certain jurisdictions, including the United States of America (and her dependencies, military bases and territories), Australia, United Kingdom, Estonia, or other restricted jurisdictions (“Restricted Jurisdiction”) as communicated by us from time to time. By using the Website you confirm you are not a resident in a Restricted Jurisdiction.
 
3.4 When attempting to open an account or using the Website, it is the responsibility of the player to verify whether gambling is legal in that particular jurisdiction. If you open or use the Website while residing in a Restricted Jurisdiction: your account may be closed by us immediately; any winnings and bonuses will be confiscated and remaining balance returned (subject to reasonable charges), and any returns, winnings or bonuses which you have gained or accrued will be forfeited by you and may be reclaimed by us; and you will return to us on demand any such funds which have been withdrawn.

Identities verification
Bittrex

3.3
You may be required to provide Bittrex with certain personal information, including, but not limited to, your name, address, telephone number, email address, date of birth, taxpayer identification number, government identification number, photograph of your government-issued ID or other photographic proof of your identity, and information regarding your bank account.

Binance

5.b. User Identity Verification
The identity verification information we request may include, but is not limited to, your: Name, Email Address, Contact Information, Telephone Number, Username, Government Issued ID, Date of Birth and other information collected at the time of account registration. In providing this required information, you confirm that it is accurate and authentic. Post-registration, you must guarantee that the information is truthful, complete and updated in a timely manner with any changes.

Number of allowable accounts
There are platforms allows multiple/linked accounts, but there are some platforms don't allow multiple accounts. Please be careful and read ToS.

Cloudbet

5.1.9.2. Only one account per customer/IP/household is allowed. If you attempt and/or successfully open more than one account, all of your accounts may be blocked, suspended or closed and any bitcoin credited to your account frozen.

Sporstbet.io

3.5.      You are allowed to have only one Member Account. If you attempt to open more than one Member Account, all of your accounts may be blocked, suspended or closed and any funds credited to your account/s will be frozen.

That one is a good example (we simply assume that user tells the truth).
SPORTSBET.IO / SPORTS BET IO ... SCAMMED ME FOR $150K USD +
He is a UK citizen, but tried to created and used multi-accounts on Sportsbet.io - that does neither accept UK cititzens nor allow multi-accounts.

FortuneJack

According to our Terms and Conditions, we reserve the right to terminate all the accounts onto the same IP. The rules apply to the accounts, coming from the same family, household, relative or a connected person that might be somehow linked with the acc.

I would also recommend the following site: https://tosdr.org/ - Terms of Service; Didn't Read. It essentially provides easy to read and understand summaries of what you are agreeing to when you sign up to various sites. Unfortunately it doesn't have much crypto cover yet (Coinbase is the only site on there as far as I am aware), but a good resource nonetheless.

My favorite things I usually do when I have intention to join new platforms, in orders of priority, is:
- Reading FAQs
- Reading Term of Service/ Term and Conditions/ User agreements. The exact phrase will depend on each platform.


Pay your attention and keep you updated with changes on KYC requirements

Search on KYC when register account is good but not enough. Companies change their policies and KYC is one of possible changes. I know some people don't log in their accounts or don't revisit company websites when they feel disappointed with loss. It is a bad behavior because risks of freeze on inactive accounts or KYC requirements.

Please see the announcement of Bitmex: Announcing the BitMEX User Verification Programme. This change is applied for international users, globally and not only in the US.

Another information need to be noted is window time of KYC verification, on Bitmex, you will be allowed to finish KYC till 12 Feb. 2021. Furthermore, pay your attention on window time to withdraw your fund if you don't want to do KYC.

The User Verification Programme will go live from 00:00 UTC on 28 August 2020. It will be mandatory for all BitMEX users to have completed identity verification by 12 February 2021 at 00:00 UTC in order to continue trading on our platform.

You can take a glance at the service from Pmalek and do your own double checks on ToS or FAQ pages of the casino you are interested in.

Which casinos have IP blocks in place for restricted countries?

Casino	Restricted Countries	Active IP Ban
_____________________________	_____________________________	_________________
1.Roobet.com 2. Coins777.com 3. Stake.com 4. btb88.com 5. PlayBitcoinGames.com 6. Chips.gg 7. JacksClub.io 8. 7XL.co 9. Sportsbet.io 10. Betcoin.ag	Germany, USA, Netherlands No Info Available France, UK, USA Germany, Switzerland, Turkey No Info Available USA, UK, Netherlands No Info Available No Info Available USA, Germany, Netherlands USA, UK	Germany - NO USA - YES Netherlands - NO - France - YES UK - NO USA - YES Germany - YES Switzerland - YES Turkey - YES - UK - NO Netherlands - NO USA - NO - - USA - YES Germany - YES Netherlands - YES USA - NO UK - NO
_____________________________	_____________________________	_________________

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5278411.msg55269011#msg55269011

[Merit & new rank requirements]

Let's kick off by raising some question directly:

• Which kind of posts deserve merits?
• Do you send your sMerits to users when you simply agree with their posts?
• Do you send your sMerits to users when you diagree with their posts?

There is nothing completely right or wrong in life. What we do believe is right today might turn into wrong one someday later. Nobody knows when current facts turn into wrong ones because all things we cope with are two-sided.

Everyone has rights to present personal opinion, and when people put decent efforts to collect proof (from available statistics), from their own calculation/ estimation, from available high-reputable sources, in order to demonstrate their opinion with good intention (not to make decent works to prove something to scam others), I do believe that their opinion should be respected.

At least, their opinions that reflected via posts (in forum) remind us that there are opposite sides that we should spend our time to reconsider, and recheck our opinion is right or wrong. It's only good, not bad.

Before going to answer three big questions above, I quoted some posts on merit system, how to use merits, from theymos (there are likely more, but I have not found all of them ATM).
In Merit & new rank requirements

I'm hoping that this system will increase post quality by:
 - Forcing people to post high-quality stuff in order to rank up. If you just post garbage, you will never get even 1 merit point, and you will therefore never be able to put links in your signature, etc.
 - Highlighting good posts with the "Merited by" line.

While we will not be directly moderating this, I encourage people to give merit to posts that are objectively high-quality, not just posts that you agree with.

Please try to merit posts that other people might find interesting, since top-merited posts show up on the stats.

In Writing a welcome message

Merit, which is gained by making good posts.

Aside from that, if people complain about whether things deserve merit at all, then that's something to perhaps think about, but if you conclude that they're wrong, then that's that.

Answers:
* It is not a guide on merit usages, just my opinion.

1. Which kind of posts deserve merits?
Answer: Posts that are objectively high-quality or good quality deserve merits. (Please read theymos's opinion above)
- Which posts are good/ high-quality?
They are posts that on-topics, informative, stay on questions of OPs and other good/high-quality posts in threads. They have to partially (at least) answered questions of OPs or answered other questions from high/ good-quality posts in threads, that gradually popped-up when discussions move further.
Posts are informative, answered OPs' questions are still pointless if questions already answered by previous posts.

2. Do you send your sMerits to users when you simply agree with their posts?
Yes, you can.

However, you should do it wisely, based on quality of posts you agree with. If those posts are high-quality, helpful; I totally agree to send smerits to those posts when you agree with.

It means if you agree with low-quality posts, please don't send your smerits to those posts. It is kind of goes against the core purposes of merits.


3. Do you send your sMerits to users when you diagree with their posts?
Yes, you can.

Once again, whenever a post is high-quality, informative, on-topic, and worth-reading, question-breaking, question-opened (or posts that open the door to discussion as @mikeywith expressed), it deserves merits.
It is so easy to identify such posts by yourself. How?
If you see a garbage-post, you will move on in seconds. Do you agree?
So what if you see a post that catches your attention, and keeps you reading it for a while (minutes or longer), it is a worth-reading post. Even after spending minutes to read and think of ideas inside that post, and finally you disagree with, I do believe that post worths a merit, at least.

I recently started focusing on posts that open the door to discussion even if they don't have a direct answer to the problem/question in hand

Some opinions from users

I've personally merited posts which I outright disagree with

I do that sometimes, but it confuses people:

@LoyceV, meriting/agreeing to the OP from trusted device but disagreeing from non-trusted device  

Most people have been conditioned by large corporations to use "Like" and "Upvote", and they're used to it. Merit is different, but it doesn't show when you're meriting a post. Users won't know the difference if they don't read about it on Meta.
I'd say Bitcointalk needs a small explanation on how to use them ("merit good posts") on the "Merit a post"-page.

Merit awarding as an alternative to posting.

As I said before ....many users do not have merits.

What about them?

That will only make them more quiet

Merit isn’t meant for that anyways. An “Agree” would be more about pointing out your opinion without you needing to create a redundant post (not necessarily reward a good post). However, I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen.

Merit is indeed for awarding usefulness, not that you agree or like what the poster wrote.

Please don't use merits as a substitute for "agree" and don't make "+1" posts.

It's a discussion forum so discuss. If you don't have anything else to add other than "+1" then just don't.

I wouldn't do it for posts you "agree with", but for posts that are worth reading. I've done this to posts that stated what I wanted to add to the thread already, so posting it again would be spammy. So I try to highlight the post by Meriting it.
I guess it's caused by actually reading the thread, instead of just responding to the title or OP. I'd say that's a good thing.

I've personally merited posts which I outright disagree with, and have even merited posts which are wrong. However, if there's a good argument or at least some effort was applied then it doesn't matter whether they get their facts a little skewed. Whoever you are you are not going to have all the answers, and especially when discussing technical aspects of Bitcoin. My merit rewarding system is all about effort, and quality rather than being factually correct.

Of course, if they're spewing total nonsense which makes little sense then that's not likely to get a merit, because its likely not constructive, and a quality post to begin with. An example would be discussion of the conspiracy theory that certain people on this earth are lizards. Even though I think that's batshit crazy if they bring some quality discussion, and reason to believe that then I'll likely reward them for that even though I'm totally against the suggestion as long as effort has been applied, and its of high quality regardless of the subject.

This post is what users discussed a few days before merit system released, but it is worth to note that theymos emphasizes he would prefer users using merits not as Like button (see above quotes).

Someone who has time should maintain a list of these phishing sites, and we can encourage all new users to update their hosts file.

Someone already did that: https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts (scroll down a bit to see many different categories hosts files). The one mentioned above isn't on it though, so I've added it by myself.

^ ^  Another post I wish I could simply +1 or "Like"

Please Theymos.....    

I gonna add more quotes.

To end the thread, do you agree with my opinion?  

I am curious on the meaning of bitcoin nodes distribution, as below.

Source: https://bitaps.com/

From the site, and given figures, as of writing, there are 9318 nodes in total, and most of them run and located in the USA. and Germany.
Details:

• USA: 2636 (28.3%)
• DE: 1669 (17.9%)
• FR: 617 (6.6%)
• NL: 462 (5%)
• CN: 390 (4.2%)
• Others: 3544 (38%)
  
• Total: 9318 (100%)

It is abnormal to see there are very little nodes in China, that has the biggest bitcoin mining farms, globally. Nodes in China account for only 4.2% of current bitcoin nodes.

The first position of the USA does not surprise me, but the second position held by Germany does surprise me a lot. Together, those two nations have more than 46% of the total bitcoin nodes globally. That is a very impressive figure.

Among top nations listed, I grouped them into different continents, and found raw results:

• America: 2921 (31.3%)
• Europe: 3551 (38.1%)
• Asia: 911 (9.8%)
• Others: 1935 (20.8%)

They are not exactly representative statistics for continents because there are nations in each continent that are not displayed in the top list. I think the raw data shows that America and Europe continents have nearly the same percent of bitcoin nodes, and Asia continent ranked in the third place but significantly falls behind first two continents.

I am not familiar to that term, so I am wondering myself with some questions:
- Has China lost its leading position in bitcoin ecosystem, that reflected via total bitcoin nodes in that nation?
- Should we use Total Bitcoin Nodes as an indicator for level of powerful contribution of nation on bitcoin global network?

Thank you all for your help. I am still discovering about bitcoin nodes. Keep learning every day.

BTW, have a nice weekend everyone.

Bitcoin Q&A: What is the role of nodes? (Andreas M. Antonopoulos)
https://medium.com/bitstamp-blog/should-i-run-my-own-node-13c3f6a21627
https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#what-is-a-full-node

[Security Engineer]

Began from @humanrightsfoundation, whom are scammer. He/she started a thread for a proven scam foundation, that was deleted all OP contents days ago.
Now, that account has negative trust, and active flag: humanrightsfoundation (Archive)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5179402.0 (created that threat to self-defend not a scammer). Archive

Hours ago, owner of that account, I guess, began to attack admin with more brandnew/ newbie accounts. Here is list of them, please permanent ban or nuke them all.

They tend to create account and threads in Meta and Reputation boards to do their attacks, so if you see them, please leave their usernames and archive their threads here. Thanks.

Security Engineer
Archive
Archive

JesusFuck
Archive

Possible all nuked ?

TheyDrinkFromThermos

ALittleBitRichBitch

MrPhisher

LuadaIsMyFather

Coinsnnotes
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5180924.0
Archive: http://archive.fo/t4TRS

[*]

I became a Senior Member this week, and it is the biggest thing I have in the forum, by now. I think it means a lot of thing for me, appreciation and recognition from the community, and it is worth to note it down.

To save your time, I simply present all my threads which I put decent time and efforts for them. I'm gonna to keep on maintaining my contribution, and wish that I will be a Hero member before the bitcoin halving, around 9 more months to go.

I am thankful to all people whom sent merits to me (my posts and threads, more exactly).

My CV:

• List of Bitcointalk.org Userscripts/ Add-ons
• List of Answered Suggestions. Please don't create topics before read them all!
• IEEE and their restrictions on Huawei to prevent ideas stolen by Huawei & China
• Bitcoin Transaction Fees - Everything in one
• theymosisms on Trust Flags (I'm going to update the thread later this week)
• What to do to avoid phising sites
• Discord & scammers. Check user IDs and user colors of strangers send you PMs[/url
• Warnings! A new wave of attacks on renowned casinos.
• Merit system (infographic) (I'm going to make a better infographic)
• San-Serif or Serif when modifying Font Face for your posts/ threads
• If someone pass away, will their Trust feedback still exist permanently ?
• Clone coins that use Ethereum code base to scam
• BitKrabs - Learn from this case, and be extremely careful with artist scammers
• Since 2018, what did you contribute to prevent signature ads removed globally?
• Cleaning up the house in Bitcoin/ Altcoin/ Gambling Discussion boards
• CopperMembership ~ real Member rank in campaigns - Is it fair ?
• Sendable merit give away contest (Full Member and below ranks)*
• Host-file to deal with phising sites
• @theymos. Can you integrate these userscripts to forum?
• Sendable merit, how to use it? Send it when agree/ disagree with posts?
• ToS, do you read it before using new platforms?
• Altcoin season, scam altcoin projects will appear. Check their Githubs first

God bles you all.
God bless bitcointalk.org

PS:
* Newbies who read this thread, are welcome to join my sendable merit give away contest

[Topic]

Began from that thread: @small improvement request. In merited posts, show your name in red or bold or..
hatshepsut93  made two userscripts for forum users. They are all great, but there are not too many users have technical skills to use userscripts, they are not coders. I think if it does not result in issues for forum, and does not take too much time, it will be great if you spend a little precious time to add them for forum users. Non-coders will be happy if forum integrates those features.
- Displays of total received merits for posts/ threads.
- Displays of username (logged-in account), if they sent already sent merit(s), at 1st position in list of merit senders for posts/ threads.

Topic	Date	written by	Section	Merit
__________________________________________________________________	__________	_____________	______________________________	____
Sum and display total received merits of posts/ threads	25/8/2019	hatshepsut93	sums & displays all mertis of a post	7+
Display username at 1st position in list of merit senders of posts/threads	26/8/2019	hatshepsut93	sums & displays all mertis of a post	1+

Display username at 1st position in list of merit senders of posts/threads

Strange that no one has made it yet, here's a script for this:

Code:

// ==UserScript==
// @name     Bitcointalk Highlight My Name in Merit
// @version  1.0
// @grant    none
// @include        https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=*
// @run-at         document-end
// ==/UserScript==
;[...document.querySelectorAll(".td_headerandpost")].forEach(post => {
    let myName = document.querySelector("#hellomember b").textContent
    let allMerits = [...post.querySelectorAll(".smalltext i > a")]
    let myMerit = allMerits.find(e => e.textContent === myName)
    if (myMerit) {
        myMerit.style["font-weight"] = 1000
        if (allMerits.indexOf(myMerit) !== 0) {
            let myScore = myMerit.nextSibling
            post.querySelector(".smalltext i").removeChild(myMerit)
            post.querySelector(".smalltext i").removeChild(myScore)
            allMerits[0].before(myScore)
            myScore.before(myMerit)
        }
    }
})

Screenshot:



Also check my related userscript that sums all merits of a post -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5148488.msg52264117#msg52264117

Sum and display total received merits of posts/ threads

I don't know if it was done before, couldn't find anything like that, so I made a tiny script that sums all mertis of a post and displays it before individual merits

Like this:

Code:

// ==UserScript==
// @name     Bitcointalk Post Merit Sum
// @version  1.0
// @grant    none
// @include        https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=*
// @run-at         document-end
// ==/UserScript==

;[...document.querySelectorAll(".td_headerandpost")].forEach(post => {
    try {
        let sum = [...post.querySelectorAll(".smalltext i > a")]
            .map(e => {
                return parseInt(e.nextSibling.textContent.match(/\((.*)\)/)[1])
            })
            .reduce((acc, e) => acc + e, 0)
        if (sum > 0) {
            let sumElement = document.createElement("span")
            sumElement.textContent = `Total merit: ${sum} | `
            post.querySelector(".smalltext i").prepend(sumElement)
        }
    } catch (e) {
        console.error(e)
    }
})

[SteveBlack's hosts]

Phishing sites are one of the worst things, the you never want to be trapped, because you will lose your identities and money too in case you use same emails and same passwords over different platforms, includes phishing sites.

Rules to fight against phishing sites:
- Never click on links in emails or any groups sent by strangers.
- Never create accounts on newborn, strange sites/ forums if you do not make your own research about those sites.
- For already known phishing sites, there are steps to add them into host-files to avoid probability that your browsers will open those sites, by you, your wife/husband, children, whoever.
BTW, I appreciated the post of o_e_l_e_o.

Another one to be added to your hosts files then.

On Windows, navigate to "C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\", and open the hosts file in a text editor.
On Mac, navigate to "/private/etc/", and open the host file in a text editor.
On Linux, open terminal and write "sudo nano /etc/hosts"

Add the following two lines to the bottom of the hosts file:

Code:

0.0.0.0 bitcointalk.to
0.0.0.0 fonstavka.com

Your browser will now be unable to open those two phishing sites.

Read more: https://support.rackspace.com/how-to/modify-your-hosts-file/


So, what is new in this thread?
Steps to add phishing sites, and turn them off are above, what we need is list of phishing site.

So, if you know any phishing sites, please leave them here, I will add them to the list. I hope that we all will make a long list of phishing sites.

Code:

0.0.0.0 bitcointalk.to
0.0.0.0 fonstavka.com
0.0.0.0 thebitcointalk.net
0.0.0.0 fonstavka.com
0.0.0.0 lawcommonentrance.com
0.0.0.0 electrum.org.uk
0.0.0.0 electrumclient.org
0.0.0.0 downloadelectrum.org
0.0.0.0 electrumsite.com
0.0.0.0 electrumweb.net
0.0.0.0 electrumupdate.com
0.0.0.0 electrumproject.org
0.0.0.0 mercatox.org
0.0.0.0 bitplace.org
0.0.0.0 coinpalace.org
0.0.0.0 exmo.space
0.0.0.0 poficrypt.com
0.0.0.0 coinsweet.org
0.0.0.0 cryptexcurrency.com
0.0.0.0 crypton-bnb.com
0.0.0.0 cryptexplatform.com
0.0.0.0 crypto-trader24.com
0.0.0.0 24xfast.com
0.0.0.0 24xtransfer.com
0.0.0.0 24xtrade.com
0.0.0.0 24burntrade.com
0.0.0.0 bitusual.com
0.0.0.0 24fastcoin.com
0.0.0.0 social-info.ru
0.0.0.0 margo-event.com
0.0.0.0 www.social-analysis.ru
0.0.0.0 24spacetrade.com
0.0.0.0 24xholding.com
0.0.0.0 ancebit.com
0.0.0.0 24xcointrade.com
0.0.0.0 24bestchanger.com
0.0.0.0 24xhold.com
0.0.0.0 cryptextrade.com
0.0.0.0 tradexblue.com
0.0.0.0 bitmate24.com
0.0.0.0 poficrypt.com
0.0.0.0 evrostyle.net
0.0.0.0 24excoin.com
0.0.0.0 fastchange24.com
0.0.0.0 cryptonplatform.io
0.0.0.0 best-xtrades.com
0.0.0.0 tradexmate.com
0.0.0.0 fixtradecorp.com
0.0.0.0 bitbeaxy.com
0.0.0.0 24bitstamp.com
0.0.0.0 mercatox.org
0.0.0.0 crypto-change24.com
0.0.0.0 bitspace24.com
0.0.0.0 bitbns.org
0.0.0.0 24coindesk.com
0.0.0.0 coinsbank.store
0.0.0.0 xcryptoplatform.com
0.0.0.0 bitshumb.com
0.0.0.0 https://brave-browser.info
0.0.0.0 https://bitblender.eu/
0.0.0.0 https://bounty-brave.info/
0.0.0.0 https://litecoln.org/
0.0.0.0 https://biockcheln.info/
0.0.0.0 http://iocaibitcoins.com/
0.0.0.0 https://iocaibitcoins.com/
0.0.0.0 https://lolibitcoins.net/
0.0.0.0 http://privatemgrgg.pw/vcruntime140.dll
0.0.0.0 https://localbicolns.org/
0.0.0.0 http://localbicolns.org/
0.0.0.0 http://mgsocl.su/api/check.get
0.0.0.0 http://mgsocl.su/api/gate.get
0.0.0.0 http://dress-x.ru/freebl3.dll
0.0.0.0 https://brave-drop.info
0.0.0.0 https://electrum.cash/#home
0.0.0.0 smatmixer.io

Someone did it, but you still can contribute to my list.
SteveBlack's hosts
Report phishing site through the page

Disable punny coded phishing sites

Source: https://winaero.com/blog/enable-idn-punycode-firefox-address-bar/
What is punny code?
Punycode is a special encoding used to convert Unicode characters to ASCII, which is a smaller, more restricted character set than Unicode. Punycode is used to encode internationalized domain names (IDNs) as a defense against address spoofing. Firefox allows enabling IDN punycode instead of non-Latin letters and Unicode symbols. This can be very useful, as you can find out if the currently opened web page is a phishing site or just a non-official mirror of some web site which you would like to avoid.
Ex: A phishing site of Binance that use punny code

At first glance, the addresses look very similar. Some users may not pay attention to the small dots below the "n" letter, which are there because it is a unicode symbol 'n with a dot below it' (U+1E47). This way, phishing web sites may trick you and make you believe that you are visiting the official genuine site.

For advanced protection, you can enable IDN Punycode protection in Firefox. With the option enabled, the address becomes like this:

Obviously, it doesn't look like the right web address any more.

If you find this feature useful and would like to enable it, here is how.

To enable IDN Punycode in Firefox Address Bar, do the following.
Read more here

Punnycode attacks

1. Be cautious if the site presses you to do something quickly. This is a classic strategy by hackers to rush their potential victims so that they are less likely to notice anything suspicious. Often they will offer a ‘limited time only’ deal, and make it difficult to exit the page with ‘are you sure you want to exit’ pop ups: these are all tactics to make you stay on their site longer and give them your details.
2. If you are being offered a deal, go to the original company site and check if it’s available there as well, if not it’s mostly likely a scam doing it’s best to mimic the established brand and trick visitors into handing over their details.
3. If some of the letters in the address bar look weird, or the website design looks different, rewrite it or visit the original company URL in a new tab to compare. The letters in the address bar looking strange is a key indicator that punycode is being used to trick you into thinking you are visiting a well-established brand site when in fact you are being taken to a malicious site.
4. Use a password manager; this reduces the risk of pasting passwords into dodgy sites.
5. Force your browser to display Punycode names, this option is available in Firefox.
6. Click on the padlock to view and inspect the HTTPS certificate.

IDN homograph attack

Should-read threads:
What to do to avoid phishing sites
[LEARN] Phishing Quizzes - Beginners & Experts

[Since 2018, what did you contribute to prevent signature ads removed globally?]

I sent some merits from what I earned (217 so far), and I want to give rest of my sendable merits away (31 sendable merits left so far). Today, I announce the sendable merit-give-away contest, for Full Member rank and below.
I wish that the contest will give you motivation to keep doing good posts, as one of your minor contributions to make better forum, by reducing trash posts.
Since 2018, what did you contribute to prevent signature ads removed globally?

Criteria:
- Eligible ranks: Full Member and below (I don't include higher rank because it is logically to have that limit due to my current rank, Full Member)
- Applicants have to be good posters to win contest.
- Good posters mean: having good posts in history, and post quality should have average good level. You can not make 100 shit posts and try to make one to five fake good posts and apply here.
- Applied posts must be made within the last 2 weeks.
- I will look at your applied posts and your post history before sending you my sendable merits.
- You should be a English poster to join the contest (because I don't know your local languages).
- Please re-apply after 30-days.
- Exclusive boards: Please don't apply posts made in those boards: Bitcoin/ Altcoin/ Gambling Discussion

• Cleaning up the house in Bitcoin/ Altcoin/ Gambling Discussion boards

- Don't apply if your posts are Copy/Paste & Reference Link.

- Reward: Only 1 sendable merits for one qualifying applicant / 30 days.

Sendable merit fund: 36.


This thread created as non-self-moderated one, but if spammers join, I will lock it and create a new one, self-moderated!

• Please don't complain that why your application failed.
• You are welcome to reapply with your better posts, but if you complain why I don't give you merits, your later applications will be ignored.
• Your odds to win depends on applied post and post history.
• You will not get benefits for your post quota when I move this thread to Off-topic board.

Apply now!

Good luck.

Forum has Paid Memberships, by now we have only one type: Copper Membership.
Details:

You can pay a one-time fee in order to increase the capabilities of your account. Be warned that:

• You can still be banned if you break the rules. You will not get any special treatment.
• These memberships are not guaranteed to last forever, or to offer the same benefits forever.
• No refunds will be given.

Available paid memberships:

Copper - 0.00240385 BTC: Allows you to post images even if you are a newbie, reduces the time-between-actions limit, and provides some of the same benefits as being of natural Member rank.

In some campaigns, there are local rules that users who can wear same signature codes (for Copper Members and Members) will be eligible to join, and will be treated equally (same payment rates)

At current rate above, people simply have to pay around 0.0025 BTC to get that CopperMembership, and have rights to post images, and have benefits in signature limitations, they can wear signature for Member rank; at this point I hink it is fair!

However, it is somehow unfair if they have rights to join campaign and treated as Members who have to earn 10 merits to reach that rank.
They have to pay ~ 0.0025 BTC, at the current price of BTC at ~ $10300, the Copper Membership costs around $26.

There are some campaigns have pay rates ~ $5 - $6 per week; or even higher if they luckily get more with bounties.

Member- $.25 cents per post

Copper Members can get their capital back after ~ 2 months; they won't lose nothing, and they can keep spamming.

If there are restrictions on Copper Membership, to better prevent them spend small funds to be eligible for campaigns, bounties; and get money by spamming; I support it.

I suggest an additional rule:
Copper Membership: are restricted to join campaigns if don't reach Member rank from earned merits (10 merits in minimum).

[Limit signature campaigns]

I don't know exactly where they come from, but likely due to long-lasting complaints on terrible spamming and garbag posting in those following boards:

• Bitcoin Discussion
• Altcoin Discussion
• Gambling Discussion

People usually visit threads in those boards, and instantly start writing, without few seconds to read last post(s) before they write. They probably only read thread title, and jump directly to make posts.

With supports from recently re-raised questions by those threads:
Limit signature campaigns
Spam sections
There is likely a cleaning-up wave in those boards. Heavens for spammers have been narrowed down dramatically.

Questions:
- Are there people manually report and help to clean up those boards?
- Are there bots recently activated to find spam- / garbage-posts, and help bot owners to report more productively (like what we saw with plagiarism)?


Requests:
- If someone can retrieve data on how many posts /threads deleted in those boards last week, and figure for a few previous weeks, please help
- I have an assumption on the same cleaning-up wave happens in Politics & Society / Trading Discussion / Economics boards, so if you can get same figures for those boards, please help.
List of other requested boards:

• Politics & Society
• Trading Discussion
• Economics
• Speculation

Posters can do it by avoid pyramid quotes or nested quotes. They can say making good on-topic posts is difficult, I don't know what I should say about that but spending a very few seconds to delete unused parts in quotes is not difficult. Posters should do that, at least.

By the way, please read my thread, if you are spammers/ garbage-posters.
Since 2018, what did you contribute to prevent signature ads removed globally?
CopperMembership ~ real Member rank in campaigns - Is it fair ? (this one, likely reduce positive net-effects of merit system)

[- Removing signatures or sig ads globally.]

This thread plays as a reminder for all forum members, especially shit posters, whom have kept continuously to post their shitpost daily.
This thread is for old-era members, and for new-era members whom joined here after merit system kicked-off.

What are everyone's ideas for improving post quality?

I have mostly ruled out:

- Removing signatures or sig ads globally.
 - Requiring payment to wear sig ads.
 - Banning account sales.

Nearly a month later, merit system released
Merit & new rank requirements

I'm hoping that this system will increase post quality by:
 - Forcing people to post high-quality stuff in order to rank up. If you just post garbage, you will never get even 1 merit point, and you will therefore never be able to put links in your signature, etc.

Around 2 weeks later, theymos wrote

It's too early to get a clear picture, but my thoughts so far:

First, most people complaining about merit are constantly posting garbage, and should not rank-up. The forum is not a welfare system; you don't run through a few hoops and then get paid for doing something that nobody actually wants. I like that good forum members can make money, especially when said forum members are in poorer countries and this is a major opportunity for them. I very much do not want to destroy the sig-ad/airdrop/bounty "industry". But I am not going to tolerate people posting garbage upon garbage. If the merit system completely fails and I can't think of anything else to replace it, then my next step will probably be to completely remove all ways for forum users to make money from posting (eg. removing signatures entirely).

Maybe there are ways for people who were making money by posting garbage on the forum to make money on other sites with easy bounties, etc. (For example, I don't know if they're actually any good, but https://bountyhive.io is currently advertising on the forum.) But people should use the forum to talk about these money-making ideas, not as a way of making money itself. Once you spend a lot of time here, you may be able to make some money here (which is great!), but you should consider this a far-off hope, not your primary objective.

BTW, if anyone has any ideas for simple things that these ex-nonsense-posters could usefully do to make money, I think that this'd be a good project right now. There are apparently quite a few people who were making money on the forum and could use guidance. Even though their past activities were not good for this forum, I doubt that they are useless in general.

Above is reminded section on theymos' standpoints on post quality, forum situation, plans and expectation to clean up the forum by merit system.
The system born as main tool to fight against spammers; keep them unable to rank up, and reduce spam posts.

Did it help as expected? Not.

Merit system failed at somewhat extents, spammers stucked on low ranks, but they kept spamming, globally.
That is why around 8 months later, in September last year, theymos moved further by derank Junior Members whom did not earn 1 merit (at least) by that day.

Due to excessive garbage-posting, you now need 1 merit to be a Jr Member. All existing Jr Members who didn't meet the requirement were demoted. Also, newbies can no longer set any signature or personal text.

One reason that I was hesitant to do this before is that there are an awful lot of newbie restrictions, and I don't want the forum to be unwelcoming to good newbies.

After that, it seems merit system and that demotion on old-era Junior Members have significant impacts on spamming here.
Newbies stopped spamming because they can not rank up to Junior Members. It is truly right with farm accounts, but there are 'companies' that run bumping services still use their Newbie accounts to spam globally.
In Welcome message (draft), admin wrote

A lot of people come here primarily looking to make money. The forum administration is very happy that people are able to use the forum in order to better themselves; indeed, one of the reasons for Bitcoin's creation was to break the artificial barriers which prevent so many people around the world from attaining prosperity. However, if your attempts to make money conflict with the forum's primary goal of enabling discussion, then you are swimming upstream, and you will not be sucessful in the end.

If you view the forum as some sort of "job" where you complete some basic tasks and get paid, then you will almost certainly be disappointed, and the forum administration will not be sympathetic. If you do make money using the forum, then it will be through innovation and entrepreneurship, not any sort of mindless busywork.

Question
My question stated in thread title: Since 2018, what did you contribute to prevent signature ads removed globally?


Solutions
Please stop or reduce considerably your spam posts. Admin actually want to keep signature and signature industry, for good users, to have extra income.
You should support admin's standpoints on post-quality and help the forum as less shitposts as possible.
Be good, be constructive, help the forum, and help yourself!