[300% APR claims]

What happened:

ilghan has tried for almost a year to get investors for his mining after that fintech now defi or whatever venture, at every single point lying about numbers, their experience, the license, and the actual project itself.
I can understand when a newbie tries to start a business and he has no clue how to do it but at this point heliosfund has just turned into a scam trying to get some money no matter what.

User profile:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2933399
Archived website:
https://archive.ph/LYOpN
Archived topic:
https://ninjastic.space/topic/5347550


First lie:

we are starting a fintech based on mining, fully regulated with a EU license:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xeu564gK2D2HcODvy-5gihYBiFir4CCe/view?usp=drivesdk

When caught he admitted there was actually no license and as time passes there will be none:

we are in touch with https://alphaumi.com/ in order to submit the application for the license in Estonia.

Claimed there will be no ICO or Token sales:

we're not doing any ico, whoever is willing to invest in us because and believes in our business model is gonna have convertible notes/equities in return, as a  normal company /startup .

Another lie:

Glad to announce the litepaper of our $MiFi token:  
~
We are going to run a private token presale of the $MiFi token

Back to the mining business, when confronted with his own lies in this post,  where basic math showed he was running his miners at least 10 times more efficient than everything on the market he suddenly swifted the whole business from bitcoin mining to altcoin mining

we mainly mine altcoins, not bitcon. that's why we make money.

Company experience:

Don’t worry about experience , our cto has been living off mining for the last 7 years , from early fpga to ASICS through liquid cooled fpga and enhanced bitstreams,  everything .
He’s the cto, highly skilled miner , no mystery of sort : https://twitter.com/luca85ogrumo?s=21

Turns out the expert with 7 years of mining was also present on this forum, probably his alt, who was not only doing bounty hunting for every shitcoins but was also having problems keeping 6 video cards cool.

More fake claims:
On the website, they claimed to have been "seen' on Nasdaq, lies.

300% APR claims

Stock photos:
http://www.heliosfund.io/images/about_us.png
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/shot-young-man-working-on-computer-1041313726

How this is going to work, majik?

We produce a basket of different cryptocurrencies, in the spirit of diversification. Subsequently, those coins go through the Mi.Fi protocol, where a smart swapping strategy at the best market conditions and a DeFi integration are being applied. The final output will be a larger amount of Bitcoin, which we hold indefinitely.

No proof of the former mining equipment, no proof of the claimed datacenter, no proof of a license.

Two small things first before I start making my arguments about this:
- I put the title "pay to play" instead of the "pay to work" I will refer further down not to make it confusing for readers
- I'm a bitcoin maximalist so I'm obviously biased against tokens and altcoins, deal with it!  
LE: Title update to make sure we're talking about blockchain model games


The model:
First I must point out that games that have described themselves as "play to earn" have existed long before the blockchain, it was either by viewing ads through the game or selling resources in-game or on an afar larger scale and for deals outside the game simply farming the shit out of gold or items and selling those to other players. So the idea is not new at all, the only thing special about it is some buzzwords like NFT and Blockchain, as for the games, are still some lame ass copies of more famous games with no actual revolutioanry technology behind them.

The free to pay entry
This is the main problem with all these games since they have to attract users by rewarding them and then need also an entry point, it's all you can eat but with an entry fee so that not only some might lose money on it but you also keep some desperate people motivated to click endlessly each day to recover the loses. So, at this point, it's not as much play to earn but work your ass to not be in red.

The work part
The game I will mention a few times axie infinity considers itself some pokemon clone, of course with nothing other than having some characters fight. Actually quite funny, pokemon go creatures don't breed in the game at all. So while comparing itself to famous games it lacks one thing, innovation, and it has tons of another, called repetition. And this is where the two models completely cut ties, while gamers on the pokemon side play when they want how much they want, walking eggs to hatch for miles if they have the lungs and legs for it,  in play to work models you're restricted, because, well, it would mean too much money printed. And this is where you completely cut the link between a fun game that has millions of users coming out of their houses in the rain to fight gyms or 5-star raids with millions desperate to sell their tokens as high as possible.

The failing revenue model
And this is the part that is most interesting.
Somehow users new to the cryptocurrency scene think that everything that has currency and decentralization and other bling words will gain value out of thin air and stay like that forever. Probably the 100 to 0 Luna fail might have taught some a lesson but I doubt the majority will indeed understand.

Pay to work apps like axie have a simple revenue model for their users, I will play a bit with the numbers to make it easier, not for accuracy reasons. You have 10 guys trying to start work, they have to pay 500$ for a good team in order to work. For them to earn back their money those 5000$ have to come out somewhere! Money doesn't magically get printed and if it does it turn to 1$=1c luna style.
Ona linear scale this would be sustainable, the first 10 guys invite other 10 guys who pay 500 each, and the next invite other 10 so if the model would really work like that it would be sustainable but the problem arises when somebody is making 50 000 and others are desperate for 50$.
The second problem is that after recouping your investment, in order to earn you have to make more than that, so again with the 10 user model, they have to make at least 100$ a month to make it worth it, which means they need 2 more guys for each user each year for that. Every new user regenerates this way the need for 2 paying players, and here it starts looking like the MLM scheme its actually is.

With currently 3 million players in the game for each to make some 100$ a month you would need 300 million influx each month, now assuming you would find 3 new million players willing to pay 100$, oh now you have 6 million players wanting money.The result?

The failed control
Our entire history is filled with examples of how we managed to lose control over currencies and how fixing them lead to more disastrous events. Every time you try to prop a currency without taking a look at the basics you either postpone the catastrophe or make it happen faster.
And here is the perfect example of a failed patch


To stop the failure of the token, they did cut the supply, but cutting the supply while still printing money isn't fixing a thing if you have more outflow than you still print. And of course, the consequences when you print less money is that you have less money to give out, which again, has consequences like the numbers of players dropping, fewer players coming to the game so less money inflow, or in short a spiral of death.

The Con Patch
There is also another way to try to prop out the falling ruin, and this is rebranding. Rebranding has always the advantage of luring some fools into these new schemes because they have learned one less, the first in Ponzi schemes and MLM schemes are the ones with a chance of getting some money for real, so simply print some other jpgs and sell some virtual plot lands to try and balance the money flow. Of course, it helps short term but long term it suffers from the same drawbacks and you end up with two problems instead of one.

The need for a token.
This is the reason why I mentioned bitcoin maximalism.
Why would any game need its own token if it's a play to earn and obvious all the earnings will be converted into either BTC or ETH and then used to pay in $ for things. There is no need for those tokens, every single game out there could simply run with a database or if they would absolutely want to use a blockchain, a blockchain doesn't need to have a currency on it.
The only real need for the specific token is far away from decentralization, it's about initial money-grabbing and absolute control over it.

So, what's your opinion, will the "play to earn' model really work or at least survive?

More sources for both the info I've posted and for further reading, if you're interested in other's opinion
Play-to-earn sells the dream of gaming for cash — so why isn’t everyone playing?
Axie Infinity Daily Active Users Drop 45% Since 2021 Peak
Axie Infinity Making Big Changes to Fix Its Ailing Play-to-Earn NFT Economy

If everything around goes down in flames, at least let's have some barbecue with it

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/146161/coinbase-q1-2022-earnings-revenue

Crypto exchange company Coinbase said it incurred a net loss of $430 million during 2022’s first quarter.
The earnings release follows a rocky period for Coinbase’s stock and the US equities market as a whole.
Coinbase’s report showed a quarterly trade volume of $309 billion, down from $547 billion in Q4 2021.
Retail transaction revenue in Q1 was $966 million, down 56% compared to Q4.
Assets on platform fell to $256 billion.

Not only did Coinbase manage somehow with all their fees to run into a net loss, but they've also lost close to 50% of their trading volume so the magical solution is, as usual, to grab the next trend and bet on it:

In the letter, Coinbase said that "we believe these market conditions are not permanent and we remain focused on the long-term." The firm said future plans include continued investments in its wallet and NFT-related services.

Of course, this is the crypto press, now if we switch to the evil mainstream media we find something a bit different:
https://fortune.com/2022/05/11/coinbase-bankruptcy-crypto-assets-safe-private-key-earnings-stock/
Report linked here and :
https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001679788/89c60d81-41a2-4a3c-86fb-b4067ab1016c.pdf

Our failure to safeguard and manage our customers’ fiat currencies and crypto assets could adversely impact our business, operating
results, and financial condition.

As of March 31, 2022, we held $256 billion in custodial fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies on behalf of customers. Supported crypto assets
are not insured or guaranteed by any government or government agency. We have also entered into partnerships with third parties, such as with
the Centre Consortium, as a reseller of USDC, where we or our partners receive and hold funds for the benefit of our customers. Our and our
partners’ abilities to manage and accurately safeguard these customer assets requires a high level of internal controls. As our business continues to grow and we expand our product and service offerings, we must continue to strengthen our associated internal controls and ensure that our
partners do the same. Our success and the success of our offerings requires significant public confidence in our and our partners’ ability to
properly manage customers’ balances and handle large and growing transaction volumes and amounts of customer funds. In addition, we are
dependent on our partners’ operations, liquidity, and financial condition for the proper maintenance, use, and safekeeping of these customer
assets. Any failure by us or our partners to maintain the necessary controls or to manage customer crypto assets and funds appropriately and in
compliance with applicable regulatory requirements could result in reputational harm, litigation, regulatory enforcement actions, significant
financial losses, lead customers to discontinue or reduce their use of our and our partners’ products, and result in significant penalties and fines
and additional restrictions, which could adversely impact our business, operating results, and financial condition. Moreover, because custodially
held crypto assets may be considered to be the property of a bankruptcy estate, in the event of a bankruptcy, the crypto assets we hold in custody
on behalf of our customers could be subject to bankruptcy proceedings and such customers could be treated as our general unsecured creditors.
This may result in customers finding our custodial services more risky and less attractive and any failure to increase our customer base,
discontinuation or reduction in use of our platform and products by existing customers as a result could adversely impact our business, operating
results, and financial condition.

I think this is the best we will get from an exchange telling its users not your keys, not your coins!

So I just woke up, savoring the smell of coffee, starting a new workday, birds waking up and singing in the garden, and with such a pleasant atmosphere around I had nothing better to do than to look at the price



To be honest, if it were 33017 or 32862 I wouldn't have cared a bit but this 33333 just pissed me to the max, don't know the reason why, probably because I felt it was totally manipulated and some exchanges are simply playing with the price right now! Since I don't believe in any TA or other random line bs, so let's keep those things out of the equation, why are we here, genuinely asking, why are we at this price?

I'm not concerned long term, I don't plan on checking if Subway or KFC have any job openings, but I'm still wondering not only why are we dropping but what's more intriguing for me, if all the good news we had lately wouldn't have happened, the situation would have been far worse, right? I guess.
We had some minor news about Madeira, legal tender in CAR, acceptance in Panama, some altcoin founders or owners or whatever those guys at Terra are buying tons of bitcoins, other investors also buying, Fidelity 401k,  every politician trying to approval or legalize bitcoin, the planting ATM in the Mexican government building, and many more headlines, with little or bigger actual impact, yet we're going down, (although since I'm so bad at predicting stuff by the time I hit post the price might skyrocket back to over 40k).

So the question is, if all the good news stop, and we go full bearish, where do we stop and what do you think will trigger the change in trends?
I simply can't picture the news that will change this, and my bet is that suddenly with no reason we're going to climb back!

Btw,
22222 anyone? 

Ox season

Reading the news I'm starting to think we're not in a bull or bear or crab season anymore but fully entered an ox season, and it's not about the price it's about how some are trying to turn bitcoin from the thing we all knew into their ox cart to the political spotlight.

Why the ox?
Simple, we had a cyber bull at the Miami conference, a cyber bull ..that had no balls. And it wasn't because a cyber bull by default has no balls but because it has been neutered by the company that ordered it.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2022/04/08/miami-crypto-robo-bull-bitcoin-statue/?sh=15c7c3a878e9

The reason? Somebody going again overboard with this equality bullshit

Tradestation neutered the creature to ensure it wasn’t seen as promoting a male-focused financial industry. “Prosperity and wealth shouldn’t have any gender,” says Marco Carrucciu, a vice president at the online brokerage.

But the madness doesn't stop here, if you think this is a woke movement stunt then wait for the opposite side to do its own agenda, here comes Fox with the title:

Peter Thiel: Bitcoin will 'never be' controlled by the government, unlike 'woke companies'

Seriously, what has bitcoin to do with companies, with politics, or with you, you f** piece of. I was shocked when people started praising this guy, you know what companies this guy runs? Palantir for god's sake, Palantir, it couldn't have been worse if we would have been the chief of NSA.

And it's not just bitcoin, it's the users who have become the cart behind the ox, used to pump up scores of politicians that have no attractive program whatsoever. If you want to get some votes, go to Twitter and start claiming you're going to make bitcoin legal tender. But of course, being a politician means you're also pretty close to being a PoS, just how this thing proves:

https://twitter.com/BitcoinMagazine/status/1496527739226140680
https://twitter.com/BitcoinMagazine/status/1514252083670790152

Mexican state Nuevo Léon senator, Indira Kempis, seeks to introduce legislation to make #bitcoin legal tender in Mexico.

vs

JUST IN – Mexico's "Pro-Bitcoin" senator Indira Kempis introduces bill proposing Central Bank Digital Currency.

I'm not going to even go through the history of the individual called Bukele, when a person starts lying on that level not even discovering he is actually Satoshi will manage to save him in my opinion.

Now for the discussion at hand, did you start feeling that the community and the name of bitcoin has started to be used for things that are not related to crypto anymore? That from the puny stock market manipulations a few years ago when companies were rebranding themselves with blockchain names we're in times ten times worse?

I'm getting the feeling there is a split where there is bitcoin the coin, the tool we need for our own finance and own security, and the sudden rise of "influencers" nobody wanted or had a need for who suddenly are having the guts to try to dictate things, to impose views who are one step away of calling themselves leaders of a movement they have nothing to do when looking at the core belief.

Are we starting to pay way too much importance to persons when one of the main advantages of Bitcoin was that it had no leader? Are we giving too much credit to every vote starved politician who will say anything for another mandate? To any investor that brags about millions invested in bitcoins when in fact he is not putting a dime of his own but only other's people money?

/rant over, needed to get this out

This is an article from pravda.ru, as I understand from their description is a tabloid and one of the lowest of the low, but it is still owned by people in the government so I guess they won't publish something that might hurt the reputation of their country without a bit of truth somewhere in this.

https://www.pravda.ru/news/society/1691635-zhricy_berut_bitkoiny/
Google translation as the translation my own local newspaper did is far worse than that, if somebody speaks Russian and there are errors please highlight those.

After the announcement by the West of new anti-Russian sanctions, the life of Russians has changed significantly, changes have affected almost all spheres of life, including sex services.

Russian prostitutes began to take cryptocurrency from clients

Recently, prices for intimate services have shocked even regular customers. A date with a domestic nymph will now cost 40 thousand rubles per hour (!) As the source of the publication explained, this is due to the fact that, along with Western brands, foreign lovers of such leisure have also left Russia, and "models" have left the country behind them. Since the demand has not gone away, we had to increase the cost.
Another significant change in the underground market is associated with the volatility of the ruble. The exchange rate of the Russian currency changes so often that many escorts have decided to switch to bitcoin.
"The world is now so restless that it is safer to keep your hard-earned money in a crypto wallet!" - says the interviewed prostitute.

Now we had dancers getting tips with QR tattoos, we had escorts occasionally taking crypto payments, but now we have (if we believe this) an entire industry that is moving to ditch the ruble for cryptos as probably dollars are now even harder to get, especially with a ban on foreign currency purchase. Tossing aside the fact that probably this still happens at a small scale and most of the escorts there probably are not accustomed to bitcoin nor do they have the means of exchanging those for goods and pay for stuff without rising eyebrows I can see a bit of hope this thing might be catching a bit of momentum.

The country has blocked people from seeking a safe haven in foreign currencies, the trust in their own is down the drain, but on top of that if you want to get stuff that is no longer available for import there you need to seek it on the black market, and what I've learned in 20 years of communism is that nobody there will accept anything but foreign currency, in my case, it was dollars or marks or get the fuck out!  

So, do you see this trend going on and become nothing relevant or not, and at the same time do you think the authorities will try and squash this before it gets any traction and will of course harm their efforts of currency control even more?

I thought of other titles for this topic too

The world is going nuts!
What the hell is wrong with these people?
What the %^$% am I reading
Did my browser got hacked or am I drunk?
and so on

Browsing around I saw a piece of sideline news from Reuters in my feed:
EXCLUSIVE Russians liquidating crypto in the UAE as they seek safe havens

After a few moments of confusion, making sure it's still a Reuters article, not some usually crap tabloid, I've "learned" this:

Crypto firms in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are being deluged with requests to liquidate billions of dollars of virtual currency as Russians seek a safe haven for their fortunes, company executives and financial sources said.
Some clients are using cryptocurrency to invest in real estate in the UAE, while others want to use firms there to turn their virtual money into hard currency and stash it elsewhere, the sources said.

Healy's Sami Fadlallah said a lot of the money coming from Russia has been moving into Dubai's real estate, citing both industry talk and their company's experience.
"People parking their money in dozens of apartments in the Marina, Downtown," Fadlallah said.

Now, before labeling this as total crap and made-up story, which I would do especially because of this one tiny line:

We've had like five or six in the past two weeks. None of them have come off yet – they've sort of fallen over at the last minute, which is not rare - but we've never had this much interest,"

What would be the logic behind such a move?

Ok, I understand that exchanges might seize your coins, that you might get blacklisted, that you might be unable to turn them into fiat but it's not the same thing as owning some real estate in a neutral country?
If your real estate is safe then so would be all your assets, and cryptos would still be far harder to be seized than a mansion or an apartment in a luxury complex, you could still find poeple who would do the exchange for you the same as you have found poeple selling you that real estate. Also, probably UAE is in a solid position neither side wanting to make them angry as they could tip the balance of power pretty easily with their influence in the Gulf states but again if nobody is planning on seizing yachts and villas there, why would they seize bank accounts or crypto?

Starting with the assumption that this article is indeed showing real events, can somebody try to explain the reasoning behind such moves in a way that I actually making sense? Or some "investors" are just acting stupid in a panic? What would you do if you were one of them?

Take the title with a grain or two of salt

Source :
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/03/03/swiss-city-of-lugano-to-make-bitcoin-and-tether-de-facto-legal-tender/
and..
https://cointelegraph.com/news/swiss-city-of-lugano-to-pay-taxes-in-crypto-via-tether-partnership

The title of the original piece of news is a bit worse than mine for a bitcoin maximalist:

Swiss City of Lugano to Make Bitcoin and Tether 'De Facto' Legal Tender
It includes tether and it says "de facto" which means it will work like but without a legal base, which would be "de jure".

The second article claims that is only for tax purposes with further aim at actually becoming full-fledged legal tender:

The city of Lugano, the economic capital of Italian-speaking southern Switzerland, is adopting cryptocurrencies for tax payments as part of a new collaboration with the provider of the Tether (USDT) stable coin.
Lugano aims to scale its efforts to enable citizens and companies to pay their taxes in cryptocurrency in the near future, pending several formal approvals and infrastructure projects. The ultimate goal is to accept crypto for payment of all goods and services, equating it with a fiat currency, the announcement notes.

Of course, it's still one huge step forward but probably we'll have to wait for the enthusiasm to clear and see what's the real deal when it comes to the actual laws that will be signed on paper. As for the impact, I would have thought that this will be the piece of news that will propel us to over 50k but, again, that's why I don't daily trade, we're going down 4%

Last week we had a topic :
China is thinking about unbanning bitcoin mining after price rise

It quoted two articles that  clearly were written by poeple who had no clue what they were doing, like:
https://digesttime.com/2021/10/24/china-is-thinking-about-unbanning-bitcoin-and-started-a-new-research/

I know bbc.reporter clarified the situation,

I created this thread to test everyone. I am very happy to know that everyone has has become skeptical with mainstream news media and cryptonews media. 3 years ago i reckon many people would be larping on that fake news hehehe.

but the avalanche of poeple not bothering to read more than the title and posting pure garbage on it has got me really pissed off.

So, from the Chinese propaganda mouthpiece:
China puts cryptocurrency mining on industrial blacklist in final step to eliminate the activity

China’s top economic planner is seeking to eliminate cryptocurrency mining activity in the country, months after a government crackdown that turned dozens of companies from model energy consumers into pariahs in the world’s second-largest economy.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on Thursday added mining of bitcoin and other digital tokens to a blacklist of industrial activities that must be abandoned, as the country pushes to reach carbon neutrality by 2060.

China is going through an energy crisis, the price of coal has skyrocketed, the government is doing everything it can to keep energy prices as low as possible, opening more coal mines, shutting down non-essential factories and you think they will cave in and allow bitcoin miners to come back in? And for what? No, China is a closed chapter, and that it, from the start it was obvious that bitcoin is not something that is welcomed there, the fact that it took them so many steps to actually come to an all-out ban is the surprising part, not the final outcome.

Do we need them? No! Can bitcoin survive without China? Of course, it does it right now and it's doing great!
What we definitely need to do is actually read more than the title when posting something around here!

[Reference Links:]

Reference Links:

Website:

Code:

asicway.com

Archived:
https://archive.vn/fKxrY

What happened::

I tend to ignore such obvious scams after a reply but this one got a PRNewswire article so I'm opening this so it can be better indexed than my in the mining topic.
Here is the PR:
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/asicway-makes-crypto-mining-profitable-for-all-301399775.html

So, new domain name, 80 days old:
https://whois.domaintools.com/asicway.com

Code:

80 days old
Created on 2021-07-27
Expires on 2022-07-27
Updated on 2021-09-25

They claim to have a magic miner that can mine BTC,LTC,ETH and Monero same time.
Their entry-level miner claims 380TH/s which is more than triple as an S19Pro with just 1/5 of the power consumption while their best miner does 1950TH/s with just  2200W, being 30 times more efficient than the best gear on the market.

The pictures of the miners are obviously bad photoshopped:

The AW1 is a M21 Whatsminer:

The AW3 is not even a miner but a rack with a LCD screen:

Phone number +1 650 741 1299 in the press release is owned also by xompass.com which does seem to be a legit company at first glance.

They are also happy to do something no manufacturer does, cover the customs fees which would be another red flag if one more was needed at this point:

We are pleased to cover the delivery and custom fees for you. As the customer, you will only pay for the product and we will take care of delivery exactly to your doorstep.

I was thinking of opening this is mining but overall it's less about mining and more about some companies and persons

Now, a bit of introduction, and more info in those topics:
Marathon Invests $150 Million In Bitcoin
The new mining pool, Marathon miners censoring Bitcoin transactions;


Marathon Digital Holdings formerly Marathon Patent Group, traded as MARA is a company that had some really interesting plans, from managing to grab a contract for close to 100 000 miners from Bitmain to establishing a pool that would censor "illegal" transactions. All that raised a bit of drama, but everything seems to be back on track with them signaling for taproot and the press release

“Marathon is committed to the core tenets of the Bitcoin community, including decentralization, inclusion, and no censorship,” said Fred Thiel, Marathon’s CEO.

Fast forward, reading the tweets from Salvador's president I stumbled upon this:

I was on the call last night. Congratulations. My company is one of the largest publicly traded US bitcoin miners (NASDAQ:MARA) and founding member of the Bitcoin Mining Council. I am very interested in speaking with your team re mining using geothermal energy in El Salvador.

And from that to this:
Bitcoinminingcouncil.com

The Bitcoin Mining Council is a voluntary and open forum of Bitcoin miners committed to the network and its core principles. We promote transparency, share best practices, and educate the public on the benefits of Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining

The interesting part is that one of the founding members is Michael Saylor, CEO of Microstrategy so why would he join in with Marathon and why this so-called council in the first place, and don't tell me he converted them over a cup of coffee to become pioneers of decentralization.
Did Marathon really turn 180 degrees out of the blue or this just a move to get more influence till they start again with their agenda?

What's your take on this one?
Reading the replies on Twitter makes me feel that if I'm paranoid at least I'm not alone. 

[What happened::]

What happened::
Came across this cloud mining scam while investigating exstock here

Scammers Profile Link:
No profile or ANN on bitcointalk

Reference Link:
https://exchangcloud.com/
Archived:
http://archive.vn/wip/VeJ8J

The website claims it has a business license in the UK, but it's the same number as ExtStock and it's a company started in 2014 with zero activity and 1$ capital
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/09025071

Their website is pretty new :

Dates   147 days old
Created on 2019-12-06
Expires on 2020-12-06
Updated on 0000-12-31

But they claim

851 Running Days

To the scam itself, 20% in 20 days:



Also, the only text on the website looks like it was written by a 8yo...let's say child.

New Era is a Block-chain Industry which is more popular Now and Good Opportunity to Make a Huge Profits under CRYPTO Currency Trades.Our Major work is Trading in Currencies as well as Crypto Currency Like bitcoin.Our Experts Make Huge income by making valuable trades and we share some Part of our profits to our investorsWe provide 100% Money Back Guarantee to our Investor who already acheive and making Big income with our Company.Our payment Methods are Perfect money , payeer ,Advcash , Bitcoin , Litecoin , Ethereum , Dashcoin, Dogecoin.We have High Level of Secuirty by Geotrust EV SSL Certificate and other secuirty seals are mcafee , sitelock ,Symantec to make it more secure.We are provide Upto 10% Referral Com mission to Motivate and invite the other investors to make some Extra Income.We are running our Group of Companies since 2015 and making platform worldwide since 2018.Enjoy and welcome to make a Risk free Profit.

I don't post in the altcoin section because I dislike altcoins or tokens but sometimes there are a few projects that catch the eye.
So, while analyzing a scam (lol) with fake members and a plagiarized whitepaper I came across this article about the future of car sharing:

Ten incredible projects that it's a shame if you didn't throw a few $ at those ICO:
To make things more clear what opportunity you have missed I'll point out after each project the ROI you would have made!

 mixrent.io | HQ: Ireland | Hardcap: $20.0 mln.

Huge advantage of the project is that Mixrent is already working in the beta version and its user audience exceeds 12 000 participants. The project involves over 9500 units of various transport units, and daily reservations take place in different cities of the USA, Russia, Canada, Mexico. Soon the project will enter the markets of Australia and South Korea.
Summary: Mixrent is a working business that distinguishes the startup from other startups in this review. In addition, a feature of the service, is that even those people who do not own transport can earn money on the site through the provision of transportation services from the place where the renter left it.

Status: DEAD


Web: bitcab.io | HQ: Saint Kitts and Nevis | Hardcap: $50.0 mln.

BitCab is Uber 2.0 in the field of carsharing, which introduces the technology of blockchain. An ecosystem, gaming and technological model ensure user loyalty. Cheaper tariffs, security for customers through a rating system are also added to the mix.

Status: DEAD


Web: ico.blocvehicle.com | HQ: Singapore | Hardcap: $2.2 mln.

A database of cars on blockchain. The mission of the project is the creation of a decentralized network based on blockchain technology, which will allow all users to keep the history of using vehicles in the public domain. The possibility of renting and selling cars with a real history of their maintenance. The possibility of using the platform by classic car dealers.
An advantage of the project is that its social network is working and pretty much active. But there is a disadvantage that ICO was postponed several times with no obvious reasons.

Status: DEAD


Web: darenta.io | HQ: Estonia | Hardcap: $3.0 mln.

Darenta is a P2P platform for carsharing with the possibility to send and receive payments for services by cryptocurrency. The platform uses blockchain technology and smart contracts for people who wants to rent or lease cars.
Summary: Relatively small fees. Сurrently this is the most successful project in the field of carsharing that have already made token sale. The token is traded on such exchanges as Zecoex, ForkDelta and EtherDelta and it can indicate that the raised amounts are imitated. Darenta’s token has not been listed on Coinmarketcap.

Status: DEAD


Web: drivero.eu | HQ: Estonia | Hardcap: $30.0 mln.

The platform of carsharing working on GPS-geolocation and using the technology of blockchain. It promises to solve problems with the assortment of machines and their deficit in certain areas.

Status: DEAD


Web: gittoproject.com | HQ: Malaysia | Hardcap: no data

A platform of carsharing, which unites the market of cryptocurrency and the rental market of vehicles. Also offers the opportunity to earn money for those who invest in cryptocurrency and trade it on exchanges.

Status: DEAD


Web: redcab.io/ | HQ: Egypt | Hardcap: $4.7 mln.

RedCab offers a decentralized peer-to-peer transport solution for individuals. The project states, that it has the lowest price for P2P transportation solution that is fare for customers and offers high returns for drivers.

Status: DEAD


Web: cryptobike.co | HQ: USA | Hardcap: $40.0 mln.

A decentralized platform for renting bicycles using blockchain technology. The platform allows users to rent bicycles with hourly pay. Thanks to decentralization, Cryptobike makes use and rent of bicycles safer, faster and more economical.

Status: DEAD


Moral of the story? Rather than invetin in such ICOs, go for this:
Invest in 💰HoweyCoins- the only BitcoinTalk-endorsed ICO💰

DON'T quote the entire message when responding.

Of course, this is not about which of the forum members own bitcoin, as I supposed you all should hodl some coin, even if only a few satoshis.

The idea for the survey comes from the never-ending news that 10-20% of the people in a country are holding coins.
As I truly believe those numbers are at least overhypermega inflated, I tried to picture a survey that would shed some light on a larger base, even if it is a little biased since the starting point is obvious a holder.
Dunno if it will be effective if this topic will even get some traction in the first place, but hey, worth a shot.

So, what I look, simply post what you know of crypto ownership in the friends and relatives circle and if it's not a secret the region you live.

Example:
2 our of my friends hold some bitcoin or altcoin or 6 out of 12 relatives also hold some coins, I live in Bartovia
But put a bit more spirit in it.

I thought about doing it on google sheets but I really can't stop that from getting abused by somebody bored so..this is it.
I'm seriously curious about those numbers and if the mentioned percentage is reached even when centered around a bitcoin community.

Oh, and please be honest about it.

[Not your keys, not your bitcoin.]

First:

Not your keys, not your bitcoin.

This is not about coins you might have stored in 3rd party wallets or exchanges like Mt Gox or Quadriga. 
This is about coins you really own, not about promises you will have some if it's gonna be sunny tomorrow.

So lately I really got bored and growing a bit frustrated of all those articles with 10-20% of some 3rd world country population holding crypto, and one thing was like the last straw and made me start this topic, which some of you will really not like, I know it. 

And the culprit was this :

What can I say...lol?
16% of 57, let's say 45 million adults is 7 million. Let's just note this down. 7!
But there is Turkey, ..20% out of 60 million adults, another 12.
And we have also Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia with a 16% average that would be 250 million adults so 40 million more.

5 countries and we have reached 60 million so-called crypto users and owners
If we cut altcoin since the article clams bitcoin is the most popular we have 40 million at least.
So no EU, no US, no China-Japan-South Korea.
Just by adding China and India we would go close to 150 million.

On the other part, I don't have polls and interviews.
I have something far more reliable than this, something in which we all put out trust, or at least we should.
THE BLOCKCHAIN!

And the blockchain tells us this:


20 million addresses with over 1$, 7 million with over 100$.
Yet based on the article...the polls...the blogs...the...NO!

The chain shows 450 million transactions since the first block to claim that 5% of the population or even 1% uses bitcoin is ridiculous.


BUT!
Somewhat like a conclusion, is it bad?
No, I think it is great that we have reached such awareness levels and such price with so little actual usage.
It might actually be the case of really aiming for the moon once we reach for real those numbers in the articles.

The only bad thing is that people forget the main advantage of cryptos and more and more hold their coins on exchanges in order to be the first to sell high and buy low when there are ups and downs or just because of convenience.
Probably before real mass adoption, I would love to see a real change of trend here.

To moderators, I know this discussion is more alt orientated but in the altcoins section will be buried in a matter of seconds by useless topics and I won't find an answer ever so please let it here for at least a few days.

Now, I had a debate with a friend over this, so it made me really curious how things are in other countries

There are 3 cases:

1) You premine the coin, in this case, you are going to pay tax on revenue when you exchange the coins to fiat based on the value at the selling point. No much debate here I guess.

2) ICOs, in this case, things are getting blurry, do some stupid legislation here, the money you received as investments are free of tax but if you plan to sell some of the coins reserved (if any) you will have to pay tax on the on the profit (if any) based on the ICO price. So you're going to avoid a lot of tax since it costs you zero to issue those coins.

3) Now stable coins.
According to my friend here, if you issue 100 coins with a value of 1$ each it is going to count as selling goods for 100$ and if this is going to be taxed at a standard rate, so when you sell 100 coins you're going to have to pay 14$ in tax even if ...the next fiscal year the guy that you sold the coins sells them back to you as here we have no legal way to write this off.
Now, since we have no real legislation dedicated to this, creating a stable coin here is clearly a NO.

I'm really curious how this is in other countries and especially in the US since everybody is talking about FB issuing a stable coin and we already have a stable coin (USDC) run by Circle.
How are those guys taxed for what it looks like printing money?

Self-moderated for obvious reasons

This is my first try at doing some sort of statistics work and probably the first time this year I've worked that much with charts and tables so bear with me if this looks like an amateur job cause it totally is  

I've always argued that most of the posts here are going to the altcoin sections, that new people have almost lost interest in bitcoin discussions and projects, but I always lacked the numbers. So rather than asking the usual data providers here I went and did it alone. the horror...the horror

All the data comes from the archived first page of bitcointalk and shows were new posts in the selected period go.
And you're not going to like it  

There are a few - values in there and those are not errors, just some mods doing their jobs or sections moved from the board.


Some pie charts:
The first period is from August till December last year




From December and the peak of the bull run till the merit system introduction.




From January till June (a period of declining prices and the effects of the merit system)




June till November (continuous bear market, the hype is dying for ICO and a new merit requirement)




And the last month:




Most of the sections have insignificant percentages so this a full period graph:




Now, unless I've f*** up some numbers, 56.89% of the new posts go in the Altcoin section.
And...of course, there is an and, even the local sections have Altcoin subboards so I assume the number might be close to 60%.

What is pretty interesting is that even in this bear market and with the introduction of the merit system the "#Proof of authentication" bounty section is thriving, and might even hit 50% of the total posts.

Another interesting thing is the Russian section if those are genuine users....Holy ***!


The only thing I'm still curious about it is how many erros I have made in this

Full article:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-20/bitcoin-rigging-criminal-probe-is-said-to-focus-on-tie-to-tether

As Bitcoin plunges, the U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether last year’s epic rally was fueled in part by manipulation, with traders driving it up with Tether -- a popular but controversial digital token.

While federal prosecutors opened a broad criminal probe into cryptocurrencies months ago, they’ve recently homed in on suspicions that a tangled web involving Bitcoin, Tether and crypto exchange Bitfinex might have been used to illegally move prices, said three people familiar with the matter.

A focus of the Justice Department’s investigation is whether the dramatic rise of digital tokens in recent years was purely driven by actual demand, or was partially fanned on by market tricks. Along with the CFTC, prosecutors have been looking into a number of trading strategies, including spoofing -- the illegal practice of flooding the market with fake orders to trick other traders into buying or selling, Bloomberg reported in May.

I knew that sooner or later this whole tether business will give us a coupon for a weekly free colonoscopy  

Not sure how much about this investigation is true since "Spokeswomen for the Justice Department and CFTC declined to comment." but it will sure make an impact on the markets as if yesterday's drop was not enough.

Tether is right now t $0.961406, such a stable coin!

I really hate opening a topic for a single question but I'm really wondering how to deal with guys like this one and how to report them:
Profile: sell100

Almost everything he does on this forum is starting topics (he doesn't bother to participate in discussions)  and his posts are made out of two lines of text and a link to a website that itself is just another gateway to the original source.

I've reported two of his threads as useless and explaining he does the same in all his topics, the topics were trashed but seem no action was done against the user and he keeps doing it as nothing happened.

One fresh example:

South Korean Lawyers Lobby for Cryptocurrency, Investor Protection Laws

The Korean Bar Association has called on the government to establish a legal framework for the cryptocurrency and blockchain sector

Read more:
https://www.trackcoinmarket.com/crypto-news/38230/south-korean-lawyers-lobby-cryptocurrency-investor-protection-laws

Technically I don't think he breaks any rules but this is getting so damn annoying, with 5 fresh topics opened just today  
So is that any hope he or his domain can get banned/ blacklisted?

[The first guy]

This is my first guide (if you can call it that), so be lenient with me:).

It was a pain in the * to constantly search for text, add "site:bitcointalk" to my queries and so, I tried to see if I can do this with a single click.

Surprisingly, it's easy as pie.  

• I've downloaded this extension for chrome:

It's called Context Menu Search, probably there are better ones but it does its job
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/context-menu-search/ocpcmghnefmdhljkoiapafejjohldoga

• Went to "Manage current options"

• Modified the search querry for google:

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:bitcointalk.org "TESTSEARCH"

• Now, to the text phase on the most recent posts page (I don't use patrol because it's full of the bounty section posts).

Believe it or not...The first guy at the top of the page was a copypaster:

• Checking google:

• Going to the page where the original was: (and double check to make sure it is really a copy paste

It's not 100% reliable as Google does not index all and sometimes it shows some half matches first but since it's just a click away to uncover a rule breaker when you're suspicious of something it's pretty nice to have it around.
Of course, it can be configured to search for the "exactly this phrase" on the entire web also, not just on bitcointalk.org.