[The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has pegged maximum over the counter (OTC) cash withdrawal per week for individuals at N100,000 and N500,000 for corporate organisations.]

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has pegged maximum over the counter (OTC) cash withdrawal per week for individuals at N100,000 and N500,000 for corporate organisations.

...
The circular read: “Further to the launch of the redesigned Naira notes by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, on Wednesday, November 23, 2022 and in line with the Cashless policy of the CBN, all deposit money banks (DMBs) and other financial institutions (OFls) are hereby directed to note and comply with the following:

"The maximum cash withdrawal over the counter (OTC) by individuals and corporate organizations per week shall henceforth be N100,000 and N500,OOO respectively. Withdrawals above these limits shall attract processing fees of 5% and 10%, respectively.
“Third party cheques above N50,OOO shall not be eligible for payment over the counter, while extant limits of N10,000,000 on clearing cheques still subsist.”

...

The circular further stated that, the maximum cash withdrawal per week via Automated Teller Machine (ATM) shall be N100,000 subject to a maximum of N20,000 cash withdrawal per day.”

Also “only denominations of N200 and below shall be loaded into the ATMs.”

The maximum cash withdrawal via point of sale (POS) terminal shall be N20,000 daily, the circular further stated.

The circular further stated that in “compelling circumstances, not exceeding once a month, where cash withdrawals above the prescribed limits is required for legitimate purposes, such cash withdrawals shall not exceed and for individuals and corporate organisations, respectively, and shall be subject to the referenced processing fees in (I) above, in addition to enhanced due diligence and further information requirements.”

The central bank of Nigeria is changing up the entire system to try to boost the economy and the dwindling naira.
I personally do not fancy the idea of limiting how much cash withdrawals one can make within certain periods of time and putting a low cap on that.
This would adversely affect SMEs around the country and while it would push more people to exchange digitally through cashless means, it would have lots of negative sides

How the policy would impact the economy and more importantly the citizens would be seen next month.

[Let's Upgrade Your Project]

Let's Upgrade Your Project

Are you looking to upgrade your project and announce it to the bitcointalk community? Upgrade00 is at your service.

• I am an active member of the forum with 2000+ activity,
• I have SEO skills which would help get your project to the right audience,
• I offer professional and efficient management,
• I also offer marketing advice for your project.

Services offered;

• Signature/bounty campaign management on the forum,
• Community management on telegram and discord groups or channels,
• ANN thread launch,
• Games and contest management,
• Content creation for your project on; medium, Reddit, steemit etc
• Interested in something else? Let's discuss how we can assist you!

Projects Managed

Ready to hire?
Send me a forum PM
Contact me on Telegram: @Upgrade00
Send an email
Hit me up on discord (upgrade00#4249)

Payments channels; BTC and ETH,
Other cryptocurrencies could be considered depending on the project.

[Some tips which I consider to be helpful;]

The usual theme of discussions we get around here is advice to 'newbies' on what to avoid and what mistakes not to make in crypto; considering you are your own bank. This is in order, as taking responsibility requires one to be responsible for their actions and inactions.

This thread was inspired by an error I made when backing up a seedphrase recently and it is to draw awareness that experienced crypto users or those who have been using it for a longer time period should not get complacent as they are open to mistakes and errors which could cost them.

Some tips which I consider to be helpful;
• Always pay extra attention when backing up a seed phrase,
• Always triple check all information about a transaction before signing, this includes address, amount and fee,
• Avoid clicking on random links and bookmark important websites,
• Your memory is not a reliable backup, for passwords or seed phrase. Have a place you store useful information which you can easily access.

This is a short list as more experienced users usually have things covered, just try not to get comfortable.I'm curious to know, are there any errors you've made as a regular user of cryptocurrencies?
Do you have tips to avoid such?

[Ukraine received over $7 million in crypto donations after the country announced that an airdrop is inbound, according to on-chain data.• Ukraine received $1.1 million in ether, $6 million in DOT, and other cryptos, after the announcement on Wednesday. This would take the country's total crypto donations to over $40 million.]

Earlier today, Ukraine government through their official Twitter account announced that an airdrop has been confirmed and would launch from the 3rd of March to all crypto donors



The exact logistics behind such an event seems unclear at this point, but one thing it was certain to do was to attract attention, lots of it. As well as stimulate more donations as people would want to be a part of whatever the Ukrainians are planning. And according to coindesk, this is seemingly working as there has been a spike in donations since the announcement;

Ukraine received over $7 million in crypto donations after the country announced that an airdrop is inbound, according to on-chain data.
• Ukraine received $1.1 million in ether, $6 million in DOT, and other cryptos, after the announcement on Wednesday. This would take the country's total crypto donations to over $40 million.
• Before the airdrop over $33 million in crypto had been donated to Ukraine’s war efforts.

Would be interesting to see how it all plays out, there are speculations that they could be planning to create a custom token/coin, but running a airdrop on this would be difficult as donations were from multiple crypto networks.

Edit;
Ukraine has canceled the planned airdrop which was announced yesterday and plan to launch NFTs instead, through which people can support their cause. This was announced through the account in charge of crypto donations earlier today;


What do you think about this recent development?
Some people see this as an attempt to incentivize more donations, but some others are of the opinion that if you donate, you should do so without expecting anything in return, even if it was promised. Opinions?

[So, here’s 2021 by the numbers;]

Compliments of the season;
It has been a very eventful year for the world in general and also in the bitcoin community. 2020 as a year was had to beat in activities, but this year gave a run for the money.

This thread is aimed at putting the year into perspective, considering developments which took place in bitcoin and also in bitcointalk.  This would give us a perspective of development taking place in the bitcoin scene and also how the forum is progressing.


So, here’s 2021 by the numbers;

Bitcoin	Block Height	Total Supply	Price	Number of Reachable Nodes	Hashrate
_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________
2020	663,912	18.587m	$28,837.29	10,836   *47,507	137.514m TH/s
_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________
2021	716,269	18.914m	$47,916.40	14,394.  *52,479	179.07m TH/s
_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________
% ±	7%+	1.75%+	66%+	32.8%+   *10%	30%+

*represents total node count (including unreachable nodes)

Lightning Network	Number of Nodes	Number of Channels	Number of Bitcoin
_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________
2020	8,246	33,760	1,061.678
_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________
2021	19,169	80,222	3,308.123
_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________
% ±	132%+	137.6%+	211.5%+

Bitcoin ATMs	Number of ATMs
_________________	_________________
2020	14,040
_________________	_________________
2021	33,850
_________________	_________________
% ±	141%+

Bitcointalk	Number of Users	Number of Topics	Number of Merits
_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________
2020	2,954,659	5,305,537	818,993
_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________
2021	3,412,164	5,379,066	1,067,676
_________________	_________________	_________________	_________________
% ±	15%+	1%+	30%+

• Some of the data posted may not be exactly accurate to the minute due to lack of concise data and timezone differences,
• I am posting this now cause I may not be able to closer to the new year,
• I do not aim to give a to-the-date representation, but rather an estimate of  changes over the year,
• I will update any data corrections and could also add suggestions of data which will be interesting to calculate,
• I am a bit lazy and the data where compiled at the time of writing and may not be exact when posted.


Sources;
www.coingecko.com
https://www.blockchain.com
https://bitnodes.io/
https://luke.dashjr.org/programs/bitcoin/files/charts/historical.html
https://bitcoinvisuals.com/lightning
LoyceV's Merit data analysis

[My List of merit worthy posts;]

Good day everyone and compliments of the season to you wherever you are from;
Merry christmas, Joyeux noél, Buon Natale, Feliz Navidad...

In the spirit of giving, I am officially submitting my application to become a merit source on the forum.
I am regularly always low or completely out of smerits to distribute and having an extra stash to dip into would really be a bonus.
I have delayed this application for so long, for a time when I will have enough time to devote to the (volunteered) task of finding merit worthy posts and distributing, and I am positive now is the right time. Hopefully, whenever theymos considers this application would also be a right time.

I have no specific board in mind, but I regularly visit, Bitcoin discussion, Meta, Beginners' & Help and Economics, so these would be my focus, in addition to some others.


My List of merit worthy posts;

1.

Therefore, I would not recommend using it even as a means of payment, for example, paying them for food or some goods, such as a computer or a VPN-subscription, otherwise FOMO will overtake you. When another 10 years have passed and you will calculate how much your payment for the same computer or VPN-subscription now cost. It will be like that story about pizza. Bitcoin is about accumulation, the more you accumulate, the more profit you get.

I have to disagree with you here. Bitcoin is about being a currency. Yes, everyone wants the price gains and everyone wants to accumulate more, but bitcoin is first and foremost a currency. If no one ever used it as a currency, then we wouldn't be where we are today. Sure, if I had never spent a single satoshi then my bitcoin stack would be bigger than it is now, but I'm happy that every satoshi I've spent has helped to grow the bitcoin ecosystem and lead to further adoption, and I'm happy that I've had several years of financial autonomy, holding my own money securely, and not requiring any approval from any third party to spend my own money where I want and when I want. Even Laszlo Hanyecz has said he has no regrets spending 10,000 bitcoin on two pizzas.

And storing all your funds in bitcoin is not feasible as it is not universally accepted and transactions are not instant.

The only transaction which is instant is physical cash traded face to face. Every other fiat method is slower than bitcoin.

But as they say we should not put all our eggs in one basket. While bitcoin is the best coin we should also explore other projects and hold some potential altcoins.
Diversification is a good strategy and we cannot really be sure if bitcoin can keep growing like this forever.

Diversification means putting money in to different sectors, such as stocks, bonds, commodities, property, etc., that aren't intrinsically linked to one another. It does not mean buying a bunch of shitcoins which if bitcoin dumps, they all dump even harder. That does absolutely nothing to reduce the risk of your portfolio.

2.

Have you ever thought about Bitcoin becoming centralized someday?

Not the way you imagine, but pause for a moment and think, isn't Bitcoin somewhat centralized even today? I do not mean exclusively where most crypto miners are located (which is difficult to determine precisely), but the fact that several globally positioned crypto exchanges hold several million BTC in their possession. Governments can always reach for a measure to seize all that BTC, for some reason they can invent at any given time.

Of course, the only way governments worldwide will be able to control 51% of Bitcoin's hashrate is if they unanimously agree on using Bitcoin is a "One World Currency". This may all sound crazy, but we cannot ignore it from happening in the future.

As others have already said, it is a little too late for anyone to play with these things, because not only about 90% of the BTC is mined, but in less than 10 years that percentage will reach 99%. In addition, it is inconceivable to me that the US, China, UK, India, or Russia will one day declare a common currency - all these countries are very fierce in defending their national interests, and among those interests is the domestic currency.

The EU has a common currency, but some countries that have been members for a long time do not want to give up their currencies (Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic), so even though we are very pro-Bitcoin here, it is more than it is foolish to expect that such a scenario would materialize even in the distant future. I tend to believe that in some 150 to 200 years, money as such will cease to exist - but again, I may be watching too much science fiction (Star Trek)

They can if Chinese government, example takes over all the hashrate from miners in China. I don't think it will happen. They can not do such thing in dark ways and don't let the world know about that. They will slap on their faces by doing this.

But didn’t China ban all crypto miners a few months ago, and most of them left the country? Maybe they just want us to be convinced of it, and at the same time, they are planning a 51% attack?

3.

The first one is how easy it is to create a fake transaction and transmit it to the whole blockchain without it being instantly detected as fake.

There is one widely used scheme but it's not using a fake transaction (can be used in that "every day spending" scenario).
It's done by utilizing "replace-by-fee" flag which makes a transaction replaceable as long as it's not included in the blockchain yet (0 confirmation).
However, such transactions can be easily identified so merchants that accept 0-confirmation txns (eg. some Casinos) don't grant the "instant deposit" benefit if it has an 'rbf' flag.

It goes like this: The transmitted "unconfirmed" rbf flagged transaction will be seen by most clients and the victim,
but when the scammer received what he paid for and wants to "cancel" it, he just have to send another transaction transaction that spends the same input(s) and replace the output with his own address. That essentially boots out the old transaction from most mempools.
Bitcoin Core with default setting are setup to replace the older transaction with rbf flag as long as the new transaction follow some specific rules.

BIP-0125: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0125.mediawiki#Implementation_Details

4.

Understanding US Debt is one of my aspirations.

When you talk about your usual run-of-the-mill, third world country defaulting on its debt, the meaning is pretty much straight-forward. Countries have debt from International institutions or other countries on which they need to make regular interest payments. Failing to pay up amounts to default.

Now, who does the US owe fund to? To its own public, it seems.

This makes it pretty difficult to figure out what exactly does this mean. Some of the biggest creditors are the retirement and social security funds. This is because common people keep funding these by putting apart of their continous savings into it. These "Pension funds" are essentially cash cows. Thus, they buy up bonds from the government in return of the cash.

Now if the US govt defaults, guess who loses? These funds. Because then the debt held by them will lose its value and it'll be a situation of their funds having made a "bad investment" by investing in US Bonds.

Isn't that neat? The Govt gets to fund itself from people's savings. If it defaults, its the people's savings that gets hit.

On further reading, this gets funnier. Apparently the US can only default on its debt, if it breaks its debt ceiling. The Congress votes to increase this ceiling. If it can't do it with bipartisan agreement, that will mean a debt default. This is supposed to spook the markets and lead to a financial crisis. The only threat is the "sentiment". Nothing else. This essentially means that as long as USD is surmount, nothing bad can happen.

The situation this time around is a little bit different with China starting to gain ground. Even then, I don't think any of the major financial institutions, pension funds and banks that hold US debt are ever going to get spooked and move their investments elsewhere. So, these headlines are little more than click-bait; AND a trick to make you learn about this crazy system.

5.

I understand that it might be a bit of a struggle for some people to get up to $100 per week in terms of their investment into bitcoin, and I am glad that you got up to that number for this past month.. even though for sure it might seem like a random target, but it does seem a bit better on the aggressiveness threshold.. and sure it might take you 10 years or more to get to something approaching fuck you status... but you will likely be much better off in terms of having a more aggressive ongoing BTC buying strategy.. so long as you are not over extending your own budget. 

At the initial phase when i started investing through this DCA method i also thought it will be very hard to cross $100 weekly investment limits but later on with time i found it interesting and profitable at the same time.Although my postion is not too good that i can spend enormous amounts only on Bitcoin as you know we need fiat also for our daily life but i have said it earlier also that we need to break our comfort zone if we need to safeguard our future from any other financial catastrophic events like hyperinflation could easily put you from rich to rags so it's better to tighten your expenses and plan for future ahead.

Obviously we can't get same amount of Bitcoin at even higher rates which we could get 10 years back because there is huge price variation but it doesn't mean we still waste time and like others i can't say i was not having sufficient funds to invest at that time.So trying my best to stack as many sats possible with me for long term and will see what my financial situation would be at that time.But one thing is for sure it would be far better than today and those who are spending vaguely will regret later on.This is life circle and we should utilise it in best possible manner.

On your first point regarding growing into higher levels of aggressiveness, that does not seem unusual for people who learn about bitcoin while they are investing and then at some point along the way start to consider that they might need to be a bit more aggressive in their investment approach.  Surely, the learning about the asset does not always resonate in the same way with people, and the subsequent market performance can make a difference too.   Some people feel more confidence when the asset goes up in price, and maybe they might start to feel dejected if the BTC price goes down in price and then they fail to buy at the most important times.. such as during a long period of down or stagnation..

This year has not really been stagnant, even though we had a 56% dip and a 39% dip.. Now if the dip continues from here, then maybe we can reassess, but one thing that I am referring to is something like a 1-2 year period of down and even if there might be some UP that comes after the first year or two, the amount of UP does not put you above the starting point... So those kinds of stagnant or negative periods can challenge the sentiments and even the buying aggressiveness of BTC accumulators.

Regarding your second point about the amount of BTC that you can get. Of course, I believe that it is a NOT too helpful of an exercise to get caught up upon the fact that you cannot get as many BTC as you would have been able to get 4-10 years earlier, even though there can be some fruitfulness in considering  past performance in those kinds of terms.. So, yeah in recent times we had talked about newbies with investment projection values of $10k to $20k having goals to get to 100 BTC and then with the passage of time those newbie goals came down because it became less reasonable for newbies to have those kinds of entry-level goals, so maybe the goal would be 21 BTC or 10 BTC or 5 BTC or 1 BTC, so maybe in recent times we have been talking about newbie entry level goals as 0.21BTC... So the amount of BTC that can be accumulated goes down... and at the same times, we likely have to bring down our projection of likely reasonable terms..  Surely there are ways to see that with a longer projection of BTC values, you can see quite lucrative returns that might easily average around 50% to 100% per year (aka CAGR - Compound Annual Growth Rate). 

So in that regard if you have an investment timeline of 4-10 years, maybe you want to be conservative in your expectations of what bitcoin's CAGR will be during that future time.. because the past CAGR may not exactly end up playing out, and as I already mentioned there is a bit of an expectation that it is going to come down to some extent as bitcoin's market cap continues to grow.. and we have likely come to agree that the projected CAGR of BTC is likely higher than most other assets even if if you might not be able to achieve 50% to 100% per year on a 4 to 10-year time horizon into the future. 

By the way, I had already asserted several times and in several threads (not sure if I did it here) that when I got into bitcoin, I had hoped for at least a 6% CAGR in the long term - but I did not necessarily expect to get such 6% CAGR in the first few years of my investing into BTC.  These days I use the 208-week moving average to project my BTC value (and the 208-week moving average is only at $18,500 currently), and I project an expectation that the 208-week moving average will move up at least 12% per year, and since the 208-week moving average is a lagging indicator, spot price tends to be higher than it, and the 208-week moving average tends to slope up - as well if BTC spot price starts to come close to the 208-week moving average (such as less than 12% distance) then from that information, I may well be able to project that in the future I might end up getting lower than 12% appreciation of that lagging indicator.

While I was typing this post, I did create a spreadsheet for my own information to attempt to project out DCA investing at $100 per week and with a variety of CAGR scenarios in order to attempt to project out values.. and with an anticipated 12% or to be able to customize such CAGR or amount invested.   The overall structure for the spreadsheet with rows in 6-month increments  for 4 years looked like this:

Start $   StartDate          % gain /time       Time                Price/BTC          #BTC
$0            7/1/21               6.00%                  182.6                $40,000.00             0.00000000

DCA-$100/Wk         DCA/wk>>>>      $100.00

   Date                     $Value         DCA-Add         Price/BTC            #BTC
   12/30/21              $2,756           $2,756           $42,400              0.06500000
   7/1/22                 $5,677           $2,756           $44,944              0.12632075
   12/30/22              $8,774           $2,756           $47,641              0.18417052
   7/1/23                 $12,056           $2,756           $50,499              0.23874578
   12/31/23              $15,536           $2,756           $53,529              0.29023186
   6/30/24               $19,224           $2,756           $56,741              0.33880365
   12/30/24              $23,133           $2,756           $60,145              0.38462608
   6/30/25               $27,277           $2,756           $63,754              0.42785479

6.

Q. - Why did the OP put Bitcoin (BTC) as the number 1 option?

A. - Because its the #1 crypto for beginners everybody

It would have been nice maybe if he OP gave some thoughts of their own
as to why they compiled the list in the poll.

To all newbies looking for quick help - stay away from cheap Sh1tcoins in
order to follow that "When Lambo" thinking. Just because Bitcoin isnt priced
at $0.01 doesnt mean you have to try an own 1BTC and doesnt mean its
an unachievable investment.

DYOR on coins like: TRON, IOTA and NEO to name a few, they all were once
part of newbies "TOP 5" lists but they are slipping down the rankings and will
eventually slipout of the top 100 in market cap.

Everything bar Bitcoin is pretty much a flash in the pan

7.

Ok, now I'm more confused than before. 

NeuroticFish, you say you use your address, not your public key,  but cygan says both are the same?
BTW, I haven't started yet, I have downloaded Exodus, and I'm now trying to download EToro, as it's said to be safer. Far as I know, both are non custodian wallets, right?

The bitcoin address is generated from the public key by using an one-way hashing function and by adding a checksum that helps preventing typing errors.
If you have patience, you can read here: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/mastering-bitcoin-2nd/9781491954379/ch04.html
There's an nice image there too:

If you do the reading, keep in mind that it's an older version of the book and Bitcoin has evolved since, for example there are more types of addresses, not only starting with 1.


Exodus is not open source, hence it's better to avoid it.
I use Electrum and I'm very happy with it. It's the most mature light wallet for bitcoin. (just if you use it, make sure you get it from https://electrum.org/ and verify it https://bitcoinelectrum.com/how-to-verify-your-electrum-download/)

8.

It is very convenient to use the QR code, but I don’t know how to check whether the QR code is correct.

There is no easy way to confirm a QR code itself is correct, and indeed, there exists malware which can change QR codes and display malicious ones with different encoded addresses. If you do use a QR code to scan an address (or transaction, or anything else), it is good practice to manually check the address which is then displayed in your wallet as discussed above before hitting sign/broadcast/confirm/whatever.

but most mistake newbies make is trying to type a bitcoin wallet address

I very much doubt any newbies are typing addresses by hand, and especially not "most" newbies. As nc50lc has explained, typing an address by hand is very unlikely to lead to loss of funds due to the checksum built in to bitcoin addresses. Base58Check addresses have a 4 byte checksum, meaning that a typo only has a 1 in 4,294,967,296 chance of creating an incorrect but still valid address. Bech32 checksums are slightly different, since they are designed to identify the errors rather than just throw an invalid address error, but they also guarantee a failure rate of less than 1 in a billion.

9.

There's a friend about Bitcoin last 2 years who have no interest in it but I was surprised when he came to me last week to tell me what he need to know about Bitcoin. I asked him why the sudden change of heart, he told me about the testimony he hear from someone and how he would have made enough profit effortlessly.

He's still a newbie. My question is, is there a way or link for to explain Bitcoin to newbies?

Apart from the forum rules and regulations is there a thread on this forum that explains in detail the whole concept of crypto currency on this forum?

1. Explain the basics.
2. Show them the whitepaper on what Bitcoin is all about (p2p transactions without 3rd party involved)
3. Tell them about the risk (Scam,frauds,human error on losing wallet etc.)
4. Talk about adoption
5. Talk about the con's of it in terms of investment
6. Tell them about security of their assets

Just tell and stick with the basics and it wont really be that much hard for them to understand.

10.

is the formula to calculate tx size still this(for legacy addresses):

in*180 + out*34 + 10 plus or minus 'in'

That seems about right. I don't think that can change, unless you use a compressed address, in that case it's a bit less. Coinb.in is convenient to get a quick estimate.

- This is my personal list of unmerited or undermerited posts,
- I majorly considered post's relevance, to highly technical members (to the extent my technical skills could verify), newbies and all members in between,
- The list is subject to change with time.

[Not your keys, Not your coins!]

Earlier today Binance announced on Twitter that they were disabling Bitcoin withdrawals on their platform due to "backlog", this started a roller coaster ride where it was resumed with a clause that there would be a delay, closed again and finally fully opened back up;


To users of centralized exchanges, this is not major news. Exchanges can limit withdrawals, block accounts etc, for whatever reason they deem fit and one would be prevented from using their funds deposited there.
In the spirit of customer satisfaction exchanges try to avoid doing those often, but it's still a major issue, along with how personal information can be misused or stolen.

Not your keys, Not your coins!
Bitcoin was designed so no third party would have any sort of control over your funds and it operates without an intermediary.
The best solution would be to use actual non KYC exchanges which are decentralized, or if you already use a centralized exchange: do not store funds there, only pass them through (deposits and withdrawals).

I am curious to know if units of evil associated with an account reduces when a decision is reversed;

When an account is banned, a certain level of evil points is linked to that IP to dissuade ban evasions, affecting users using than or similar ip addresses.
Now in some outlier cases, bans have been reversed after a while to less restrictive punishments or none at all; in such situations are the evil points which were added removed automatically, or the have to decay as normal after a longer while?

Also, does signature ban or temporary ban affect the evil points?

[What is Proxyban?]

What is Proxyban?
When a user is proxybanned, it means their IP has some level of evil associated with it from previous use and they need to pay a stipulated fee to enable posting.

Evil IP is a deterrent to prevent banned users from registering new accounts on the forum;

When you register, the IP that you used when you submitted the registration form is used to calculate your evilness. The more frequently this IP or its neighbors were banned, the more evil is associated with your account. The amount of evil associated with an IP decays slowly over time, but the amount of evil associated with an account does not. You must pay or be manually whitelisted to enable posting on one of these "banned" accounts.
...
Currently each unit of evil requires a payment of 4023 satoshi. You only need to pay something if you have 1 or more, though.

This feature however sometimes affects honest new users who may be discouraged from registering on the forum. In this case staffs have the ability to whitelist new users and now some members have been giving that ability as well;

Only abused IP ranges have to pay a fee. The fee is an anti-abuse measure, and it is not meant to be (and isn't) much of a source of revenue.

If any very-veteran members want to volunteer, I can give you the ability to whitelist users. (All Staff can already whitelist users, as well.) Perhaps then someone could create a topic like "List of email addresses for people who can whitelist you for free", which I could link-to on the evil fee page. However, these IPs have evil for a reason. If it was sufficient for them to just solve a captcha or something, I'd have them do that. Before whitelisting someone, you have to do something to be pretty sure that they're not evading a ban and just going to get banned again. You may get the impression from complaints on the forum that everyone hits the fee and it's never warranted, but this is selection bias: the fee is more rare, and the vast majority of accounts that hit it should not be whitelisted.

How do you go about it?
If you're a brand new user to the forum with no previously bannd accounts;
• Send me an email to -

Code:

whitelistby_upgrade00@protonmail.com

• You may need to answer a few questions which I would ask randomly,
• Based on your answers, your request could be accepted or rejected.

You could also get a reputable account to vouch for you on this thread.

Marathon Patent Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MARA) ("Marathon" or "Company"), one of the largest enterprise Bitcoin self-mining companies in North America, today announced that it has purchased 4,812.66 BTC in an aggregate purchase price of $150 million. As a result, the Company has strengthened its position as one of the only Nasdaq-listed, pure-play investment options for individuals and institutions seeking exposure to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is adopted by yet another public company, this time it's a pure-play investment option.
Side note: A pure play stock is one which focuses on a single product or service; there is no diversification and it runs on a single means of revenue. In this case, that source of revenue is Bitcoin as Marathon is a mining service which focuses solely on the blockchain technology.

A quick check shows that they bought each Bitcoin at averagely $31,167.79. This goes to show that institutional investment and interest is growing despite the price increase, so a lot of people expect that there is still huge potential for growth and that Bitcoin is the monetary system of the future.

More details:

To ensure the purchase was conducted effectively, Marathon worked with NYDIG, a leading technology and financial services firm dedicated to Bitcoin. NYDIG’s trading, execution, and asset management expertise enabled Marathon to take advantage of favorable market conditions and execute the transaction as efficiently as possible.

“By purchasing $150 million worth of Bitcoin, we have accelerated the process of building Marathon into what we believe to be the de facto investment choice for individuals and institutions who are seeking exposure to this new asset class. We also believe that holding part of our Treasury reserves in Bitcoin will be a better long-term strategy than holding US Dollars, similar to other forward-thinking companies like MicroStrategy,” said Merrick Okamoto, Marathon’s chairman & CEO. “To date, we have contracted to purchase 103,060 miners, all of which are currently expected to be delivered and fully deployed by the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2022. If all miners were operational today, based on the Bitcoin network’s current difficulty rate, we would produce approximately 55-60 bitcoins per day. However, by leveraging our cash on hand to invest in Bitcoin now, we have transformed our potential to be a pure-play investment into a reality. I would like to thank the entire NYDIG team for offering their unique products and services for public companies, and for working with us to expedite this process and ensure the transaction was made on the best possible terms for our business and our shareholders.”

Source: https://ir.marathonpg.com/press-releases/detail/1224/marathon-invests-150-million-in-bitcoin

Some people would wonder why a mining company would wish to purchase Bitcoin while they get then from mining blocks. Well, despite being a mining company, it still holds fiat in it's balance sheet and as a reserve currency as that is still the common choice, however, with their shift to a bitcoin standard, they are pushing the idea that Bitcoin can function effectively in that regards and there's no reason to sell it or convert it to centralized currencies.

All the interest of Bitcoin is currently on the price which is constantly setting new record heights and most are trying to predict how high it can go or when it would crash. It's however still pertinent to remember events which shaped the history of Bitcoin. Today 12 years ago, the first Bitcoin block was mined in a test transaction between Satoshi and Hal;

When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them.

• The Bitcoins were received by Hal on the 12th of January and were designed to not be spendable - https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1nc13r/comment/cchdhrm

• Here is the address which the Bitcoins were sent to - 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
As can be seen on Blockchair lots of dust transactions has been sent to that address, probably an attempt to de anonymize it, but till date there is not outgoing transaction.

• The transaction carried this text;

Code:

“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”

There have been lots of discussion on the message behind this text, but no definite explanation as yet.

Here's the Raw Hex version

Code:

00000000   01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ................
00000010   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ................
00000020   00 00 00 00 3B A3 ED FD  7A 7B 12 B2 7A C7 2C 3E   ....;£íýz{.²zÇ,>
00000030   67 76 8F 61 7F C8 1B C3  88 8A 51 32 3A 9F B8 AA   gv.a.È.ÈŠQ2:Ÿ¸ª
00000040   4B 1E 5E 4A 29 AB 5F 49  FF FF 00 1D 1D AC 2B 7C   K.^J)«_Iÿÿ...¬+|
00000050   01 01 00 00 00 01 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ................
00000060   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ................
00000070   00 00 00 00 00 00 FF FF  FF FF 4D 04 FF FF 00 1D   ......ÿÿÿÿM.ÿÿ..
00000080   01 04 45 54 68 65 20 54  69 6D 65 73 20 30 33 2F   ..EThe Times 03/
00000090   4A 61 6E 2F 32 30 30 39  20 43 68 61 6E 63 65 6C   Jan/2009 Chancel
000000A0   6C 6F 72 20 6F 6E 20 62  72 69 6E 6B 20 6F 66 20   lor on brink of 
000000B0   73 65 63 6F 6E 64 20 62  61 69 6C 6F 75 74 20 66   second bailout f
000000C0   6F 72 20 62 61 6E 6B 73  FF FF FF FF 01 00 F2 05   or banksÿÿÿÿ..ò.
000000D0   2A 01 00 00 00 43 41 04  67 8A FD B0 FE 55 48 27   *....CA.gŠý°þUH'
000000E0   19 67 F1 A6 71 30 B7 10  5C D6 A8 28 E0 39 09 A6   .gñ¦q0·.\Ö¨(à9.¦
000000F0   79 62 E0 EA 1F 61 DE B6  49 F6 BC 3F 4C EF 38 C4   ybàê.aÞ¶Iö¼?Lï8Ä
00000100   F3 55 04 E5 1E C1 12 DE  5C 38 4D F7 BA 0B 8D 57   óU.å.Á.Þ\8M÷º..W
00000110   8A 4C 70 2B 6B F1 1D 5F  AC 00 00 00 00            ŠLp+kñ._¬....

• SourceForge hosted the first open source Bitcoin client.

• More information - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block

For such a long time the Nigerian government had been on the fence about bitcoin, they urged users not to use it but there was no legal standings or definition for its usage. Despite the government's warnings of the risks around it, Nigerians still traded heavily in Bitcoin over the years.
Some months ago, the government finally declared Bitcoin and other digital assets to be legal, although regulations were put in place to qualify them as securities based on certain criteria - https://lightblocksnews.com/crypotocurrencies-now-legal-in-nigeria-after-sec-landmark-ruling/
This move could have been motivated by the massive usage of the asset by Nigerians as reflected in the fact that the country is the 2nd largest Bitcoin market in the world on Paxful;

In the last five years, Nigeria has traded 60,215 bitcoins, valued at more than $566 million which, apart from the US, is the largest volume worldwide on Paxful, a leading peer-to-peer bitcoin marketplace. The data scraped from Coin Dance  shows from the beginning of May 2015 to the middle of November this year, bitcoin trade in Nigeria have increased yearly at least 19% in volume since 2017, and the highest volume (20,504.50) was traded in 2020.

The pandemic situation which created global uncertainty regarding currency exchange and economic policies also lead to growth in trades involving Bitcoin in Nigeria, with a spike of about 30%;

Bitcoin trade had its highest spike of 30% this year during the national lockdown in the country and the highest volume traded during the peak of the pandemic. Between January and September, Paxful reported a 137% increase in new registrations in Nigeria.

Nigerians are also using Bitcoin the right way, through decentralized and peer-to-peer platforms:

Peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges, which are decentralized platforms that directly connects buyers and sellers without third parties are the most popular way to buy bitcoin in Africa because users do not have to worry about cryptocurrency regulation by the government. Paxful is the largest platform for P2P trade in Africa and overtook LocalBitcoins in June this year to be the Largest P2P bitcoin marketplace in the world, controlling 52% of the market share.

Source
Top ten countries:

[The possible problem:]

Bitcoin is the fastest growing asset class of the last couple of years and has attracted lots of attention, first from retail investors and more recently with the influx of institutional funds. As a Bitcoin discussion forum there are lots of people here who are very enthusiastic about Bitcoin and the potential it has. Following Bitcoin discussions on social media as well, there is a lot of hype around it, influencer accounts are springing up everywhere advising people to, keep stacking and keep holding as we launch to the moon.

The possible problem:
Amidst all the hype and fomo, is it possible we may have abandoned risk management in our acquisition of Bitcoin? We've had reports about individuals literally selling everything to buy Bitcoin and tweets about using loans to purchase as well.
I understand that crypto Twitter is not the best place to get investment advise, but it could be a reflection of general sentiment. People who have identified Bitcoin as the innovation of the future could fear not holding enough and possibly acquire more than they can afford to lose.

Is this really a problem:
Some would argue that Bitcoin has established itself over the years and always recovered value lost, backing it up with the price, as we are at an all time high range and everyone who has ever bought Bitcoin at any price is certainly in profit (except you bought at the quick spike above $23.5k) and if you have lost, it is because you didn't hodl long enough.
There are some who have the idea that it's actually a risk not to hold Bitcoin, as whatever alternative asset you're holding would not give you as much security and ROI.

Follow up:
• What percentage would you consider safe to invest in BTC? (This is regardless of how much you actually hold).
• With your idea of the Bitcoin network would you consider it shrewd for one to aggressively purchase it and possiby risk more than they can afford to lose?
• Which of these assets would you rather have majority of your funds in: Bitcoin, Gold or Fiat?

*The poll above is to have a broad idea of how deep btt users have their feet in the pool as this is the largest Bitcoin discussion forum..

Coinbase is looking to support two Bitcoin core developers with fund grants to support their projects;

As part of our Crypto Community Fund, Coinbase plans to sponsor at least two Bitcoin developers, who contribute directly to the Bitcoin Core codebase or closely associated Bitcoin projects. We are beginning our search for grant recipients starting today.

We believe helping to connect and grow the cryptoeconomy is essential to building an open financial system for the world. Our Crypto Community Fund aims to grow and improve the entire crypto industry, while making it simpler to use and more secure for everyone. If successful, we intend to expand the program to other types of projects and crypto communities.

I'm not a huge fan of centralized exchanges and Coinbase has been involved in some shady situations over the past years, but this is a good move and could increase interest in development, although I doubt Bitcoin devs are short of inspiration to work with.
Asides the selected projects getting fund grants, this could also be a good way to increase publicity for projects aimed at improving the network.

The grants covers some niche areas;

• Direct contributions to Bitcoin Core (e.g., improving testing, fuzzing, bug fixes, improvements)
• Significant code and/or Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) review
• Contributor tooling (e.g., bitcoinacks.com, which is open source)
• Bitcoin Core libraries and tools (e.g., libsecp256k1)
• Improvement to testing (e.g., fuzz testing, functional tests)

Source
However, in the Google form for applications, there is a space for More, so if a project doesn't fit the above descriptions it could still be submitted with details and has a chance of getting accepted.

Is there any other aspect of project development you would like to see on the list?
Are there devs you have in mind to nominate? Here is the Google form - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSetlLv4Il7GiX0gwzWPk1-j-8jXQPKBn-MZXZ-ThtjHcxS3Lg/viewform

Grayscale investments announced recently that their Ethereum Trust is now officially a SEC reporting company. It is only their second trust fund to be classified as such after that of Bitcoin. As a trust fund Grayscale is mostly linked with Bitcoin as it tops on the list of their AUM~Assets under management, it however still holds a number of other digital currencies, such as Ethereum which is their second highest ranking asset in their AUM

Key highlights;

The Trust is solely and passively invested in Ethereum. The shares of the Trust are designed to provide investors with a cost-effective and convenient way to gain investment exposure to ETH.** Now, the Trust is also the second digital currency investment vehicle to become an SEC reporting company, following Grayscale® Bitcoin Trust on January 21, 2020.

Additionally, accredited investors who own or purchase shares from the Trust’s private placement now have an earlier liquidity opportunity, as the statutory holding period of shares purchased through the private placement will be reduced from 12 months to 6 months, provided the other requirements under Rule 144 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), have been satisfied.*** 

This means investors would not have to wait for 1 year to liquidate their assets, as the lockup period has been reduced to 6 months.
Note: This would only go into effect 90 days into the trust being classified as a reporting company.

The end note;

*This voluntary filing should not be confused as an effort to classify Grayscale Ethereum Trust as an exchange traded fund (ETF). The structure of the Trust will not change and it will continue to not operate a redemption program nor trade on a national securities exchange.

Source - https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/10/12/2106846/0/en/Grayscale-Ethereum-Trust-Becomes-SEC-Reporting-Company.html

What do you think of this move, and how would it benefit investors and increase the exposure of Ethereum to institutional funds?

[Decentralization]

The narrative that Bitcoin is used to facilitate scams and illegal activities has been sold by a couple of mainstream medias and used as a reason by government agencies to attempt regulating cryptocurrency transaction and eliminating the pseudo-anonymity factor which it has. This increases the cost of anonymity as Banks and governments struggle to maintain control over financial activities of its citizens.
Contrary to this narrative, due to some of the qualities that the Bitcoin network possesses, it appears to actually be more resistant to fraud and does not facilitate illegal activities;

Decentralization;
Bitcoin is completely decentralized and as such there is no Central body regulating or controlling it, banks on the other hand are closely regulated and controlled, meaning that the system is susceptible to cooperate fraud as well as human error; this year alone, a couple of U.S banks have been involved in fraud resolutions;

• Goldman Sachs pays $3.9bn to settle 1MDB corruption scandal
• Wells Fargo Forced To Pay $3 Billion For The Bank’s Fake Account Scandal
• JPMorgan Chase & Co. Agrees To Pay $920 Million in Connection with Schemes to Defraud Precious Metals and U.S. Treasuries Markets
This only takes into account a few Banks and a limited time frame, according to this UN report;

"The estimated amount of money laundered globally in one year is 2 - 5% of global GDP, or $800 billion - $2 trillion in current US dollars. Though the margin between those figures is huge, even the lower estimate underlines the seriousness of the problem governments have pledged to address."

Bitcoin is decentralized and trustless making it completely resistant to illegal activities on the network level and a much safer store of value than traditional currencies which can be tampered with. Scams or hacks involving Bitcoin happen on third party services like centralized exchanges and is not a direct flaw of the network.

Pseudo-anonymity and transparency;
The anonymity of Bitcoin is one of the reasons it is said to facilitate scams; 'why stay anonymous if you have nothing to hide?'. In reality Bitcoin transactions are not entirely anonymous, unique wallet addressed represent holdings of an individual, and due to the transparency of the blockchain anyone can view how much an address holds and how much transactions has been made overtime.
• A unique UTXO can be traced back to when it was mined and all transactions made with it as an input is publicly available.

Such transparency is not present in the traditional fiat system as there is no unique tag on bank notes, hence no history of transactions that have been made using it, and as such it can easily be put into the money laundering cycle;

• Placement, moving the [illegal]funds from direct association with the crime;
• Layering, disguising the trail to foil pursuit; and,
• Integration, making the money available to the criminal, once again, with its occupational and geographic origins hidden from view.

Seeking privacy is also not illegal. There are valid reasons why a regular individual will not want to make their financial status public.

Security of the Network;
Bitcoin is a unique digital currency which is highly protected and quickly evolving, it's difficulty level has increased by 19.31 trillion since it's inception making it resistant to attacks, and giving hodlers the freedom to control their assets without having to trust third party agencies. So rather than keeping their funds in bank vaults where it is prone to bad fiscal policies and mismanagement leading to inflation and devaluation, they have the alternative to hold it in a more secure and piracy resistant currency.
Centralization offers convenience and faux security to its users as opposed to cryptocurrencies which are unregulated. But, the freedom and privacy that Bitcoin offers comes with responsibilities and users have to maintain their security by applying measures to protect their assets;
• Using non-custodial wallets,
• Not storing funds on exchange wallets,
• Keeping private keys off line and backed up,
• Avoiding unverified links,
• Protecting your online identity and not disclosing bitcoin holdings publicly, to avoid a $5 wrench or similar attacks.

According to a local news report, four members from the Yisrael Beiteinu political party in Israel have submitted a new bill that proposes to recognize Bitcoin (BTC) as a digital currency instead of an asset, at Knesset, the legislative branch of the Israeli government. The reason for this amendment to BTC’s current regulation stemmed from the fact that the party members did not want to subject the sale of the premier crypto to capital gains tax. The report did not mention the names of the politicians who proposed the bill.

Capital gains tax is the tax that it paid on an asset based on its Return On Investment (ROI). So, under this conditions, bitcoin would be taxed whether or not the holder actively trades it, as long as it is held for over a year and there is an increase in price from when the user bought those bitcoins to the point they sold.

So far, BTC has been seen as an asset under Israel’s current regulations and is subjected to a capital gains tax of 25 percent. However, some users like short-term BTC lenders and those who undertake bonds-related activities in Israel pay capital gains tax of 15 percent.

According to the report the unnamed politicians want to make Israel more accommodative for digital assets growth and as a step want to cut down on the taxations of the asset, so as to encourage adoption. If it's considered to be a currency then holders would not be subjected to capital gain taxes but would still be taxed based on income earned through it, like profits withdrew from a trading platform, coins purchased during a Token offering or payment received in bitcoins.

The four politicians envisioned Israel to be one among the leaders of the virtual currency sector, as they believed that cryptos were gaining recognition especially during the current global economic meltdown, the report added.

Furthermore, the Israeli Bitcoin Association had conducted a survey which stated that the number of crypto companies in Israel had increased by 32% from 2018 to 2019 and that there were about 150 active blockchain and crypto companies by December last year, according to a local news report.

Source
This is a good move should it be adopted and would put Isreal ahead of the digitalization curve along with other nations who are receptive of bitcoin. According to this report, there are currently about eight countries who do not subject Bitcoin to capital gains tax;
• Portugal
• Germany
• Singapore
• Malaysia
• Belarus
• Slovenia
• Malta
• Switzerland

I believe that countries who are more accommodative of Bitcoin would experience more growth than those who use regulatory laws to try and control the network.
Do you expect taxes on Bitcoin to become more popular as the community of users grow?
And would this hinder adoption rate?

[Economic recovery]

We are about nine months into the coronavirus outbreak and six months in from when it was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. At this point the economic effect of the virus has spread all over with top global economies like; United States, United kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan in recession, experiencing sharp economic contractions in the last quarter ranging from 20.4% (U.K) to 7.8% (Japan). Developing economies in Asia and Africa have also been hit hard.

Economic recovery is the next phase after a recession, it can range for a period of months to several years, ideally followed by economic expansion, in some cases, a country can slip back into recession.
While the drop in economies may have been global, the rate of recovery would certainly be different for various countries depending on their preemptive response to the situation.
Some economies are yet to begin the recovery process with nations setting stricter lockdown rules due to second waves, but with advancement in medicine, measures to counter a second wave would likely be more productive. If more people would keep to guidelines.

Recovery is represented using a variety of alphabets;

Source

• U-shaped curve: this is the most realistic recovery pattern most countries would take. According to a poll conducted by reuters;

More than 55% or 87 of 155 economists said the global economic recovery would be U-shaped. Thirty-one analysts said it would be V-shaped and 24 said it be more like a check mark. A few respondents expected a W- or L- shape.

In this pattern, the economy would suffer a sharp decline in key indicators, followed by a period of stagnation which would lead up to an expansion. This is similar to what I have noticed in China, after the drop in the first quarter, they are leading the recovery and have started to slowly return to normal, although actually economic metrics are difficult to identify.

• V-shaped curve; this is the second highest pattern from the polll above and is a very optimistic prediction, as it expects the economy to immediately rebound after a drop without any period of stagnation. I think this may be possible depending on the policies (fiscal and health) which were implemented during the decline. Flattening of the pandemic curve, would lead to reopening of businesses and increase in employment, this would stimulate the economy by creating an enabling environment. In an ideal economy, I think this might be possible, however some financial policies such as; massive money printing or zero or negative interest rate could have a recurring effect on the economy, resulting in a possible W-shaped curve. A second or third wave of the virus can also lead to economic crashes.

• W-shaped curve: this is represented by a sharp rebound followed by similar sharp drop in the recovery curve. The first spike upwards could be said to be a false indicator resulting from cut-and-cover policies meant to stimulate the economy without having any lasting effect. This is followed by an organic growth pattern, or could be repeated over again, if effective measures are not used.

• L-shaped curve: In this case, there is a long period of stagnation following the decline. This would lead to a long period of recovery before an economy enters into an expansion phase.

There's also a K-shaped curve: this is the most dynamic recovery curve which is characterised by varying patterns in various economic sectors and could be a result of discriminatory policies. A k-shaped recovery would split the recovery curve into two, one sector slips into stagnation or continues to decline, while the other begins the recovery process or rebounds back up.

What pattern of recovery are you expecting in your country?

The UK prime minister in a recent briefing announced the plan to launch a new project called operation moonshot; the practical objective is testing more people, way more. The operation aims to test the whole of Britain in a week, every week, so everyone is constantly aware of their state - the target is to get to 500,000 per day by the end of next month and then, 10 million tests by the beginning of next year from the current number of about 350,000.
A budget of £100 billion has been earmarked for the operation.
Results for tests would be available within 15 - 90 minutes.

• From what I have read, this operation is not directly aimed at stopping the spread of the virus, but to streamline the journey to normalcy, so rather than encouraging everyone to obey lockdown restrictions, only those infected would need to isolate. The UK has been pushing plans at reopening the economy with schools also back up, this has led to an increase in the rate of spread, but even at a peak of 3,000 new cases per day, that would leave 99,997,000 people with negative results. These are the people the operation targets, a huge number of people would be able to interact and work freely without fear of spreading the disease.

We should also consider that contact tracing in the UK is at an efficiency of about 70% with the current testing capacity of 350,000. This is low and does not allow for efficient control of the pandemic situation. At a rate of 10 million people per day it could get even less efficient, except operation moonshot is a holistic approach.

• There's also the question of the plausibility of the operation, such a scheme is not practical with the current testing capacity and is dependent on emerging tech that is not yet available;

A WHO diagnostics expert told the Independent that the plan was “dependent on different technologies to what are being used now [in the UK]. It’s a massive gamble.” Moreover, the new techniques under consideration were often “untested” or came from companies “without much experience of medical testing at scale.”

It also appears that it would be run by private companies

The leaked documents indicate that the government’s plans are a massive windfall for the private sector, with “communities, institutions and employers” allowed to carry out tests. “Private sector/ business-led testing,” it adds, “plays a key enabling role.” “Letters of comfort” have already been sent to GSK, AstraZeneca, Serco and G4S. Retailers Boots and Sainsbury’s are also named, and Deloitte is reportedly being given a contract for more than half the work.

Source

• If not done properly some of the hazards include; false positives or false negatives spreading a false sense of security or panic. People who are giving inaccurate positive results would need to isolate for no reason, while those giving inaccurate negatives would interact and further spread the virus.

• The operation also has its advantages, it would allow for accurate and up-to-date record keeping of the infection rate in the entire country to allow the health team better manage the situation, but at a budget of £100 billion, would it be worth it?

[Back story]

Tl;dr
• The president of Mali along with members of his parliament were on Tuesday abducted and he was forced to resign and dissolve bus government, this was the cumulation of years of unrest, corruption and insurgency within the country and the region as a whole.
• The military has pledged to return power to the people after they restore stability.
• The coup which is the second in a decade in Mali has been widely condemned by other nations, particularly, other West African countries and France

Updates
• The nation is currently under curfew and all borders are shut. The military announced that the air and land borders would be open from today, Friday
• Neighboring countries have been advised to keep their border with Mali closed by the ECOWAS.
Back story
The president of Mali, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has been overthrown by the military in the nation's second coup in a decade.
On tuesday, 18 August, the president compulsively resigned from his position and dissolved the parliament. This comes after weeks of unrest within the country with opposition calling for his resignation. The opposition have been protesting the mismanagement of the nation, reflected in the current economic and security conditions of the country and neighboring regions following about 8 years of insurgency. There has also been reports of corruptions and electoral misconducts aimed at keeping the reigns of power firmly in the hands of the president.

Brief History:
President Ibrahim Keita was elected president in Mali in 2013, less than a year after a coup which plunged the nation into crisis few months to the 2012 elections overthrowing the then President Amadou Touré. This takeover was countered by foreign interventions, notably coming from France and neighboring West African nations inorder to recover the nation's territory.

The elected president pledged to bring unity to the region, however after years of unrest and insurgency, thousands of lives lost, much more displaced and more foreign troops being sent to the region, a diplomatic intervention was needed in July this year with 5 West African nations; Ghana, Ivory Coast, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal led by the immediate ex-president of Nigeria holding a mediation involving the leaders of all 5 meeting in Mali with the aim of restoring order within the region. This mediation attempt however failed with the key opposition, the Movement of June 5 - Rally of Patriotic Forces, requesting for accountability for the political clash which took place within the 10th and 12th of June, which left 11 dead and 158 injured.
Later in July a virtual meeting between the Economic Community Of West African States was called to mediate within the region after the failed peace trip.

Present situation:
On 18 August 2020, a coup began led by fractions of the Malian Armed Forces. Gunshots were fired in several locations sending the people into panic. This was followed by the arrest of the president along with members of his parliament. He was forced to resign his position on midnight of Tuesday and dissolve his presidential parliament.

The president later on Tuesday spoke during a television broadcast;

"Today, certain parts of the military have decided that intervention was necessary. Do I really have a choice? Because I do not wish blood to be shed," Keita said in a brief statement broadcast on national television.

Keita said that he has decided "to give up my duty from now on."

The military has expressed their interests in restructuring the nation and claimed they did not desire to hold power;

Wednesday, August 19
07:35GMT - Soldiers behind the coup appear on TV
The soldiers behind the coup - calling themselves the National Committee for the Salvation of the People - appeared on state television in military fatigues, pledging to stabilise the country.

"We are not holding on to power but we are holding on to the stability of the country," said Ismail Wague, Mali Air Force's deputy chief of staff.

"With you, standing as one, we can restore this country to its former greatness," said Wague, announcing borders were closed and a curfew was going into effect from 9pm to 5am.

"This will allow us to organise within an agreed reasonable timeframe, general elections to equip Mali with strong institutions, which are able to better manage our everyday lives and restore confidence between the government and the governed."

Source
The coup has been condemned by many countries within the African region and beyond and a couple of security briefings has been held within various political unions. France are former colonizers of Mali and would be the biggest players within the region with thousands of her troops currently deployed there starting with Operation Serval which was launched during the 2012 coup. This ended in 2014 and was almost immediately followed by Operation Barkhane.

• What do you think the implications would be for Mali and neighboring regions?
• Malians took to the streets to celebrate after reports of the president being detained went public, could this situation have a positive effect on the nation?