The terrorist organization Hamas, has recently launched hundreds of missiles targeting Israeli citizens. Some of the missiles exploded while still in Gaza (where Hamas is based), and Israel was able to use its missile defense system, the Iron Dome, to shot down the majority of the missiles before hitting their civilian targets. Unfortunately, not all missiles were destroyed, and some Israeli civilians were killed, and Israeli citizens were forced to go into bomb shelters for safety.

In response, the IDF, Israeli Defense Force, launched airstrikes against 130 terrorist targets. Hamas prefers to use citizens of Gaze as human shields, however the IDF will contact civilians before conducting air strikes, giving them the opportunity to move to safety before the targets are taken out.

What do you think? Is Hamas right to target Israeli civilians, who are innocent? Is Hamas right to use citizens of Gaza as human shields in order to protect their military assets from air strikes by Israel?

I am glad to see the forum return some of it's bitcoin to forum members as part of the annual April Fool's prank.

I am having trouble finding a way to request a withdrawal of the BTC I received while selling some of my NFTs.

While I am still having trouble with my BTC balance, I would like to request a withdrawal of my displayed balance in my wallet to the address in my profile.

I would also like to inquire if I can withdraw my NFTs to my personal wallet on some blockchain?

Thank you (increasing my politeness score).

I wanted to apologize to anyone whose trust I may have broken over the years, including but not limited to one particular incident. I got the idea from another forum member who was in very good standing, and was well trusted at the time throughout the community -- I entered into a transaction with what turned out to be one of his sockpuppets, and he suggested that we use his 'main' account as a middle man. When I got caught, I lied about being banned in order to cover it up, which was wrong, is something I should not have done, and is something I regret doing.

I also wanted to apologize to anyone who I may have otherwise harmed over the years in any other way (I have never stolen from anyone here, or IRL). I am a very principled person, but sometimes did not get other perspectives, or try to be able to see things from the other person's shoes before starting a topic. I should have done better.

I have always cared about my reputation here. Even when I was someone who was well trusted, I did not like it when people opened fake scam accusations because they were upset at me. My intentions were always good, even if my actions were not.  

Thank you.

In the past, many forum users have reached out to me for help getting 'stuck' transactions confirmed, and I was often happy and able to help. Moving forward, please stop PM'ing me for help with these transactions. I don't review my PMs frequently enough to be of timely help, and when I do respond, most people messaging me about these transactions never reply back to me.

I am not even sure my access code to the pool I previously had access to still works. I have not tried to use it in a very long time.

If I know you, I don't mind if you ask me for help with these transactions, although I probably will still not see your message in a timely manner. It would probably be best if you either double spend your 'stuck' transaction, or execute a Child Pays for Parent (CPFP) transaction.

Thank you.
edit: You can send me a PM, but you should expect to pay for this service in advance

Self Moderated

Hello, I am BSV representative. Please help us against the trolls, we needs a merits for reaching full member and have ability to wearing official BSV avatar. In the future, we promise you full support and to returning a half of the merits you sent. Let's make these trolls shit with bricks (nutildah, BitcoinFX, Piston Honda & others)

I received the above message from a "BSV representative", unsolicited. I won't be sending this person any merit.

I am not sure how wearing a BSV avatar will make anyone "shit with bricks".

This is being posted for transparency and to request that "BSV representative" stop sending stupid PMs, or PMs that you think are not stupid. 

Today I found over 60 posts in my inbox that were all messages saying I had posts deleted.

It appears that the moderator was incorrectly applying the rule “double posting” isn’t allowed.

The majority (if not all) the posts in question were from 2015, which is before the rule was implemented and I believe the forum generally has a policy against ex-post-facto laws/rules/regulations. Theymos has also said that occasionally posting successive posts when the posts are substantial and the person is not participating in a paid sig campaign is allowed. I am not currently participating in a paid sig deal and don’t believe I was when most of the posts in question were posted.

Some of the posts were made in threads such as this one, in which the person who I was responding to had deleted their posts and as such the posts the posts did not violate the rule in question, even if applied retroactively as the rule is posting multiple posts in a row are not allowed, and multiple posts were not posted in a row. This is clear because the posts were quoting other posts that were removed.

It appears that someone was implementing a script that uses flawed logic. Even without access to all deleted posts, you could easily see the posts were not posted in violation of the rule.

Also, most of the threads in question are very old and are not active (they are 5 years old). I really don’t see a good reason to be going back this far to remove posts you believe violate this rule (using flawed logic).

Trump just became the 1st sitting president to visit North Korea, as he stepped with NK supreme leader Kim Jun Un over the concrete boundary into North Korea. Kim appeared winded from the walk across the border.

Some will (and should) compare this to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the defeat of Nazi Germany -- American victories. 

What do you think? Will this lead to a nuclear deal with North Korea? Will the US sign a peace treaty to officially end the Korean war? 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5153678.msg51454349#msg51454349

Continued from above because Suchmoon censored the thread.

Most recently the Cookie Monster (o_e_l_e_o) complained that he didn’t receive a PM from theymos asking him to remove lauda from his trust list and exclude him.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5153678.msg51452774#msg51452774

I hypothesized this was because some of his logged IP addresses match another forum user.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5153678.msg51453907#msg51453907

Suchmoon did not like me saying this and called me a troll.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5153678.msg51454132#msg51454132

She subsequently locked the thread preventing further discussion about the matter.

Substantially all of the original OP of the other thread.

Since the "Lauda PM" is now public knowledge let me just state that this sort of thing - forum owner/admin sending a PM demanding "recommending" to exclude a certain user from my trust network - is deeply unwelcome. Theymos can blacklist anyone he wants, there is no need for him to coerce others into doing this. At the very least this call for action should have been done publicly. I want to put this out in case anyone wants to exclude (or blacklist  Wink) me for this opinion.

Reopening since suchmoon continues to censor her thread.

at no point will both threads be open

As it is known by a decent number of people, the Stake.com signature campaign is causing some problems with the amount of spam and junk posts it is generating.

I had a little bit of free time today, and decided to put this into numbers.

As some have complained about, there is no public spreadsheet with stake signature campaign participants, so it is difficult to know for sure who is in the campaign. For the purposes of this thread, I am assuming anyone who submitted an application, and is currently wearing a signature that contains "stake.com" they are in the campaign. There were only a small number of participants who it is apparent were not immidiately accepted into the campaign, and this mostly appears to be because of missed applications.  

To obtain the number of posts have been deleted written by each forum member, I used bpip.org, and the data is starting from whenever they started keeping track of the number of deleted posts, presumably approximately a year ago.

Based on the above, there are 173 participants in the stake signature campaign.

In regards to merit, the stake signature campaign has not attracted very high merit posters:
Of Stake.com signature campaign participants:
Average Merit: 9.74566474
Median Merit: 3
Number of participants with:
Above 20 Merit: 22 12.17%
Above 30 Merit: 15 8.09%
Above 50 Merit: 5 2.89%
Under 5 merit: 106 61.27%
1 or less merit: 69 39.88%

The stake.com signature campaign participants have had a lot of posts deleted:
Of Stake.com signature campaign participants:
Average number of deleted posts: 11.9017341
Median number of deleted posts: 6
Number of participants with:
Above 5 deleted posts: 87 50.28%
>10 deleted posts: 52 30.05%
> 50 Delete posts: 10 5.78%

I am not sure what the circumstances were in regards to why these people had their posts deleted. For example, if they had an active sales thread open for a long time and forgot to delete some old bumps, it might not be a huge deal to have some posts deleted.

I did not run the names of who applied for their signature campaign up against users who are currently banned, however while looking through their signature campaign thread, I saw many users who had their signature blanked out, which is an indication the person may be permabanned. I did not keep track of the number of these people, but I would estimate a solid 20-30 users had their signature blanked out who had applied to participate in the stake.com signature campaign. (I would estimate this would make up about 15% of the number of participants).

I also have many anecdotal examples of people wearing stake.com signatures either posting nonsense, or posting something that clearly indicates they have not read the thread, and their posts have not been removed as of when I read their posts.  

Based on the above, I think some, or all of the below should happen:
*Stake.com signatures should be banned/disallowed/blacklisted for a period of time -- this is based on both the high number of deleted posts spread among many wearing the stake.com signature, and the high number of people who applied for the stake.com campaign who are apparently permabanned now.
*Those who are currently wearing stake.com signatures should be cross referenced against those who are currently banned to check for ban evasion -- this is based on the high percentage of participants who have earned zero or a single merit, which I believe to be an indication of farmers.
*The merit history of the below people should be reviewed for possible abuse, based on the below numbers.
*The below people should be considered for a temp/perma ban, if they have not previously been banned for low quality posts + paid signature AND have not subsequently had a large number of their posts deleted

Needs to be reviewed for merit abuse:
Bitinity merit received: 56 | Posts deleted: 29
LUCKMCFLY merit received: 40 | Posts deleted: 51
Haunebu merit received: 34 | Posts deleted: 30
cryptjh merit received: 23 | Posts deleted: 35
alisafidel58 merit received: 26 | Posts deleted: 32
r1a2y3m4 merit received: 19 | Posts deleted: 22
CryptoBry merit received: 39 | Posts deleted: 29
jake zyrus merit received: 21 | Posts deleted: 26
Yatsan merit received: 40 | Posts deleted: 94
Adriano2010 merit received 40 | Posts deleted: 94

Needs to be reviewed for a temp/perma ban:
blockman Posts Deleted: 42
mrdeposit Posts Deleted: 45
Bitinity Posts Deleted: 29
steampunkz Posts Deleted: 54
LUCKMCFLY Posts Deleted: 51 (should be in below list if there is merit abuse)
xvids Posts Deleted: 42
Haunebu Posts Deleted: 30
Adriano2010 Posts Deleted: 56
lyks15 Posts Deleted: 93 (should be in below list if there is merit abuse)
cryptjh Posts Deleted: 35
alisafidel58 Posts Deleted: 32
Ximoandali Posts Deleted: 28
CryptoBry Posts Deleted: 29
Yatsan Posts Deleted: 94 (should be in below list if there is merit abuse)

The following people should be reviewed for a permaban, and should be permabanned unless there are some kind of special circumstances (such as many of their deleted posts are old bumps, or other posts that are not "spam"):
Catmurs Posts Deleted: 127
Akshat21 Posts Deleted: 110
okala Posts Deleted: 64
furylmz Posts Deleted: 58
Carrelmae10 Posts Deleted: 56

Deleted posts are deleted by moderators.

corrected above lists to match information from my spreadsheet

Edit: June 14// removed request to have Stake signatures blacklisted. I do think checking for ban evasion, merit abuse, and ban review for those who had many posts removed is still appropriate.

[Remove the ability to exclude a person from your trust network]

I believe it has been established the current implementation of the trust system is not working. This in large part can be attributed to the Default Trust changes implemented this past January, but the underlying root cause of the problem is a very small number of people leaving a very large number of controversial ratings.

I believe a lot of these people have proven themselves to be untrustworthy, and should be labeled as such. The most appropriate solution, IMO is to blacklist most of these people from being able to ever be in anyone's trust network, unless they are explicitly added to a user's trust list, but I do not believe this will happen.

If memory serves me correctly, the trust score algorithm was changed not long after AMHash stopped honoring their obligations. The algorithm was changed so that negative ratings had much greater weight, and positive ratings had much less weight. The instance of a single negative rating would further lower the weight of positive ratings. I believe this goes too far, and is not appropriate if the administration is unwilling to mediate trust disputes, as appears to be the case for many years now.

To resolve the problems with the trust system, I would propose the following:

Remove the ability to exclude a person from your trust network:
This feature sounds good on its face, but is actually harmful to the trust system and the community.

As an example, SaltySpitoon has BayAreaCoins on his trust list. if BAC leaves controversial ratings, he is unwilling to remove after a public discussion, if the rating is controversial, SaltySpitoon should remove BAC from his trust list. If BAC is unwilling to do this, a decision should be made to either accept the controversial rating, or to remove SaltySpitoon from your trust list. This will force people to be accountable for who they have on their trust lists.

Ability to include someone in your trust list as "Ratings Only":
If someone has left many good ratings, but is not good at maintaining a trust list, it should be possible to only trust the person's ratings, but ignore their trust list. In the above example, if SaltySpitoon refused to remove BAC from his trust list, but has left many good ratings over the years, someone may decide to include him in their trust list as "Ratings only" so that his trust network would see his trust ratings but would completely ignore his trust list. This will mitigate some of the problems and controversy caused by the above.

Removal of Trust Scores:
This is the most drastic, and probably the most controversial change. Forum members will be free to leave comments with their various types of ratings, but this will remove the harm associated with the controversial ratings. If someone leaves a negative rating you do not believe makes the person a scammer, you are free to ignore it. Ratings will be able to be filtered by if they are left by those in your trust network, and further by if the rating is positive, negative or neutral. This will force users to draw their own conclusions as to how trustworthy someone is. Further, this will also mitigate the "this person has good judgment" and "this person helps out" type positive ratings that some people have who lack any real trading history, but show Dark Green trust currently inappropriately.

Modification of when the "Trade with Extreme Caution" warning will be displayed:
Even if trust scores are not displayed, it is still appropriate to give a warning displayed in marketplace posts and in PMs by/from people who are reasonably scammers. The Algorithm to determined if this warning is displayed should be changed. Additional warnings should also be introduced.

No ratings:
If a person does not have any ratings, positive or negative (ignoring neutral), a warning should be displayed saying the person does not have any reported trust ratings within your trust network. 

Ratings, but no "Trade with Extreme Caution" Warning:
If a person will not have a "Trade with Extreme Caution" warning, a message should be displayed encouraging people to review trust ratings, and attempt to evaluate the person's trustworthiness prior to trusting the person.

"Trade with Extreme Caution" warning:
This determination if this warning is displayed should depend on if they have any previous positive ratings, and if they receive any positive ratings after their first negative rating.

If the person does not have any previous negative ratings, nor do they receive any positive ratings subsequent to receiving their first negative rating, they will display the "Trade with Extreme Caution" warning. This is simple and should not be controversial, if a single person believes a person to be a scammer, and no one contests this, the person should display this warning.

If the person has between 1 and 3 positive positive ratings, and no positive ratings after they receive their first negative rating, they need at least 2 negative ratings from unique people to display this warning.

If the person has more than 4 positive ratings, and no positive ratings after they receive their first negative rating, they need at least 3 negative ratings from unique people to display this warning.

If someone leaves a negative rating, subsequently removes the rating, and adds a negative rating back on within a month, the date the original rating was left shall be used to calculate when a person received their first negative rating.

If someone receives at least one positive rating after the first negative rating, their status as a scammer is disputed.

If a person's status as a scammer is disputed, the number of negative ratings (in addition to the numbers listed above) need to be left for a member in order for the warning to be displayed:
y = [(n^2)/3], round up
n = number of unique ratings received after the first negative rating received, unless the member has received at least 4 positive ratings subsequent to their first negative rating, and if this is the case, it will be: the number of positive ratings received subsequent to their first negative rating, plus 20% of positive ratings received after their first negative rating

The above formula will make it difficult to label someone as a scammer if many people disagree with this conclusion. The specifics can be tinkered with around the edges if necessary/deemed appropriate.

The selection process for how DT is determined should also be reformed, but that is another topic of discussion.

What do you think? Should the above be implemented? Vote above, select "yes" or "no" for each proposal.

[What happened::]

What happened:: Hhampuz appears to have stolen ~0.54BTC (~$4,300 at the time) from the BestMixer campaign after he ended it.

Scammers Profile Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=881377

Reference Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5125389.0;all
Amount Scammed: 0.54BTC

Proof of Payment: c5c716e779653795aaa03c950199cfcc73fef855b290153f421886d3d572fae1

Additional Notes:

On May 22, 2019, it appears the BestMixer domain was seized by European government authorities. At the time Hhampuz was running their signature campaign. Once Hhampuz learned of the domain seizure, he announced the signature campaign was ending immidiately, and shortly thereafter he paid out what was due to each participant, presumably at the time. (The early cutoff for posts, and early payment appears to have violated the terms of the campaign, but that is not the topic of contention).

The txid for the payment to participants was b27574cee6516ce29ff84dca1fad3e04e799cabcb801a102360e5e437c7147d9, which has a change address of bc1q9dzph9s96gsawqzcyj63j37e8nx8438pne296c, which is also the address the payment came from, and where all previous payments for this campaign came from. About 30 minutes later, the balance of what remained from the signature campaign was sent to 3GNadBucAV7kU3V5M5BrusFesQ4wfRsrtv via txid c5c716e779653795aaa03c950199cfcc73fef855b290153f421886d3d572fae1.

After the above transaction, the money was sent via txid f1d0b755a53da5d17312a9df7304d3f08ecd264b5704d80e708e74dfae9bd388 to 1JnE9A72rBNbNRCN6FSdrRqcG1msTxki8x, which I believe may belong to ChipMixer.

Later that day, Hhampuz posted that he never communicated with BestMixer outside of the forum:

I've never had any contact with BestMixer outside of this forum, the account that messaged me never even gave me a name at the bottom of their message. I once asked if we could talk outside of bitcointalk since it would be easier and due to them not being online here that much. They declined and said this will be the only form of communication.

As of when the signature campaign ended, the bestmixer account that created the ANN thread referenced in the OP of the signature campaign was last active three days before the campaign ended.

The outputs to the transaction that 1JnE9A72rBNbNRCN6FSdrRqcG1msTxki8x spent are:
1M1o8TUAUunxD2rS4tnWFe8T3FSwQp8633
18FjF4nhU3m6MELjrpGyw175Hj1cMG8jXf
17EociKcomb7bXrN5uXFJS1WD989SoiCHB
17j1WYxgetC9JEmzNLCVF7iX63wEWvmHSi
1Lwu7dAUdidJtcsaYjwMNTJVK5dWAQTK64
All of which are 0.064BTC, and according to the tool, http://chipstatdethbuwk.onion/ (tor link) BestMixer posted, all are "chips" belonging to ChipMixer and/or its customers.

Additionally, BestMixer was critical of ChipMixer, and as such is unlikely to use their service.

I asked Hhampuz in his campaign thread about why the bitcoin was moved when he could not have possibly received instructions on how to return the excess money, but have not received a response after a day.

Based on the above, I believe that Hhampuz has stolen the excess money from the BestMixer campaign for his own personal use.

Vod is giving multiple people 50 merit for very low effort posts (they are on topic and not necessarily wrong) in a thread discussing something that reflects on him poorly. He is giving away merit to people supporting him.

I am referring to this thread. Although he is also giving 50 merit to others who have recently supported him.

His status as a merit source should be revoked and reversing the merit transactions should be considered.

As it stands now, forum account sales are explicitly allowed, but many people on DT are giving negative trust to those who either have attempted (successfully or otherwise) to buy or sell forum accounts, sometimes many months or years after the fact. To make matters worse, certain forum members are doing this in the open without consequence.

The above two facts are in conflict, and the existence of both are harming many forum members. I have seen countless forum members have their reputations ruined after they reviewed the forum rules, and possibly the recent activity of prominent forum members who show up as having high trust/merit stats, try to engage in transaction consistent with what is reasonably based on their above observations, and end up with their reputations destroyed without a warning to amend their behavior.

The above two facts are harming countless forum members who I believe are acting in good faith, for no reason, and has the same effect as excluding these forum members from the community for no reason.

As a result of the above, one of the two below rule changes needs to be implemented:
*Forum account sales are banned, effective x date in the near future. If it is determined ownership of an account transferred after x date, the account will be permanently locked, and all people involved in the transaction (buyer seller) will be considered for a ban
*Leaving (DT) negative trust for engaging in a forum account sale transaction is prohibited, which will be applied retroactively. If this rule is implemented, forum members should remove these ratings on their own, however if they do not, the ratings should be removed by the administration (which will include ratings left after the rule is effective), and if someone leaves ratings for this reason (or closely related enough to reasonably conclude the root cause is a forum account transaction), they will be considered for a ban.

Whichever of the above is implemented, the rule needs to be actually enforced by the administration.

In either case, some freedoms will be infringed upon, however this is superior to the alternative of many people being harmed by the above referenced conflict. The current implementation of both above facts arguably infringes on a greater amount of freedoms.

I have no financial stake in the outcome of the above, current or anticipated. However I do have an opinion as to which option would be less intrusive, but I will not state it. There are arguments for and against both of the above rule changes.

I have added a poll for forum members to voice an opinion.

edit:

for those that say "scamming is allowed" I would respond by saying it is not explicitly allowed per forum rules. The forum will not moderate scams, while forum account sales are explicitly allowed per forum rules. The administration has previously tagged alt accounts of scammers when the evidence was clear they are a scammer.

I am interested to see the opinions of certain forum members.

I received the following email from bitfinex, and would like to share it with the crypto community:

Dear Bitfinex trader,

By now, you may be aware of the events of the last 48 hours, but I want to personally give you an update on what has happened and how we are proceeding as a business.

On Wednesday, April 24th, the New York Attorney General’s office filed a petition and related documents in the NY State Supreme Court in Manhattan concerning Bitfinex and Tether. We believe the petition was based on understandings and materials received by the New York Attorney General’s office both from us and from other sources. Indeed, we had, until just yesterday, been co-operating fully with the New York authorities in their inquiries into and about our business. The petition and other materials were filed without notice to us or a chance to respond to them.

The materials, which do not constitute a civil or criminal complaint are, in our view, filled with inaccuracies and false assertions. In particular, we want to assure you that the allegation that we have “lost” $850 million is categorically false. We have been advised that these amounts – whether in whole or in substantial part – are, in fact, seized and safeguarded in several jurisdictions, including Poland, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We are actively working to exercise our rights and remedies to cause those funds to be released. We are confident in our ability to make clear, coherent, and convincing arguments to recover those funds. And rest assured that we will vigorously challenge the false assertions made by the New York Attorney General’s office in their filing.

I am here to tell you that we are good actors in the digital token space, and we always act with you, the customer, as our first priority. We have always taken our legal obligations very seriously, and will continue to do so. We continue to co-operate with regulators worldwide as they seek to learn more about our business. But we will not allow that spirit of co-operation and goodwill to be used to threaten our customers.

In the days ahead, you may have questions that arise, and we encourage you to share them with me or other members of the senior management team. We will update you as and when we can and we will address as many of your concerns and questions as we can.

We have been humbled and encouraged by the support we have seen from our customers and wider community in the face of these allegations. We are here to assure you we’re as strong as ever, we are not going anywhere, and we’re unwaveringly committed to you.

Thanks and best regards,
Jean Louis van der Velde
CEO

There is a report that North Korea recently filed a "new tactical guided weapons firing test" today. This is according to North Korea's state run media.

North Korea has previously not conducted any ballistic weapons tests since late 2017, as Trump had successfully deescalated US-NK relations that appeared to be heading to war.

Talks to fully denuclearize North Korea broke down during the last summit between North Korea and US President Trump, when NK wanted sanctions removed in exchange for something less than a full, verifiable denuclearization.

The US military had not detected any kind of missile launch recently, however this alleged test is likely meant to send a message to the US of NK's capabilities.

What will this lead to? Will the US ease on economic sanctions, while getting less than a full denuclearization? Or will the US pursue a regime change, covert or otherwise?

There has not been a war between two counties that both have nuclear weapons, and if NK is able to develop a working missile that a nuclear bomb can be attached to, going to war with NK will become very complicated.

Paywall: https://www.wsj.com/articles/kim-jong-un-sends-message-to-trump-with-military-visit-11555497814?mod=hp_lead_pos4

Update:
May 3, 2019
North Korea just fired a short range missile according to the South Korea defense ministry

[What is an Over-The-Counter Market]

I have been running my merit giveaway thread for some time, but have unfortunately run out of sMerit, and have not earned enough merit to keep up with being able to process all the "applications" to receive merit. As such, I would like to apply to become a merit source.

I do have concerns about the merit system, primarily that I believe it will cause groupthink, and if made a merit source, I promise to do my best to stop that by awarding merit for objectively high quality posts of others, that a lot of effort was put into, is the 1st (or one of the 1st) correct answer to an inquiry (especially when there are multiple incorrect answers/nonsense posts preceding it, and/or demonstrate interest and/or knowledge in topics I believe those who are interested in Bitcoin are often interested in. I will do my best to make bitcointalk great again by awarding merit to those who put effort into posts, and who wish to contribute to the forum ecosystem, or are otherwise helpful. I have always put in a lot of effort into my work here, and although mistakes have been made, I have always done my best to provide good work product.

As of now, I believe I have sent merit to 130 profiles, and on average have given ~3 merit to each profile. Despite not being in a position of power, I have received the 98th most merit out of every forum profile.

Each of the below posts has at most 1 merit as of ~10 minutes before creating this thread (note that I may have sent merit on my thread in response to people submitting these posts to me in order to demonstrate their knowledge of one of various topics). Some quotes have been shortened.

Over the Counter (OTC) cryptocurrency trading is becoming increasingly popular across the globe. Here’s how it works, who the major players are, and its general pros and cons.

What is an Over-The-Counter Market
A decentralized market, without a central physical location, where market participants trade with one another through various communication modes such as the telephone, email and proprietary electronic trading systems. An over-the-counter (OTC) market and an exchange market are the two basic ways of organizing financial markets. In an OTC market, dealers act as market-makers by quoting prices at which they will buy and sell a security, currency, or other financial products. A trade can be executed between two participants in an OTC market without others being aware of the price at which the transaction was completed. In general, OTC markets are typically less transparent than exchanges and are also subject to fewer regulations.

BREAKING DOWN Over-The-Counter Market
[...]

OTC market size
In April 2018, Bloomberg reported that the daily OTC market was anywhere between $250 million and $30 billion per day. This is compared to around $15 billion per day on crypto exchanges.

[...]

Why use an OTC broker (and not a crypto exchange)?
• Lack of liquidity - Crypto exchanges have low liquidity in their order books. OTC desks are good for pushing through large trade orders searching for market liquidity.
• Price protection, Anonymity - OTC is good for moving large orders which avoids impacting the price, e.g. 1,000 BTC. Order depth will not show up like it does on an exchange.
• No fiat onramp - few crypto exchanges have a fiat onramp (though Binance is working on it and already have some solutions in place in Asia).
• Avoid price ‘slippage’ - price slippage occurs on exchanges when the executed price is different to the expected price.
• Avoid prohibitive crypto exchange limits - The majority of crypto exchanges have prohibitive trading limits. For example, Coinbase limits purchases to $25,000 per day. Kraken only lets you withdraw $2,500 per day and $20,000 per month. Circle imposes a withdrawal limit of $3,000 per week.


Who are the main buyers and sellers?
[...]

The main participants trading crypto OTC are:
[...]


Which geographies are driving the majority of OTC trading?
[...]




OTC trading types explained
[...]


How are the buyers and sellers finding each other?
[...]


How is the off-exchange market executing?
[...]

 
What are the problems with OTC?
[...]


KYC regulations can be a deal breaker
[...]
Is emerging software solving these problems?
[...]
 
Case study: Enigma Securities
[...]



https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5124817
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-counter_(finance)
https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/16628/otc-crypto-market---at-a-glance
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/over-the-countermarket.asp

While reading and scrolling through some topics and some replies here I just notice that there are so many Jr. Members or the ones who enter the Third Circle of Hell (well that's just a site that I read "The Nine Circles of Hell" that I think is made by satanslave that I saw from a thread of Fittotalk) going back I also see the struggle of the Jr. Members to get the 10 merits required to get out and to be promoted to a new rank I know that you already read some guides on how to have some merits this is the same just the same but this shit topic of mine is more like a psychology guide and tips and tricks something like that so lets go to the first one

1. STOP THE BOUNTY HUNT AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE FORUM
-Well, one that I notice that some of the Jr. Members that have 0 merits and 200+ activities is that they are only doing bounty reports basically you cannot get merits from that 13 pages of posting of facebook and twitter shits just go out to the Bounties(Altcoins) thread and explore the forum more there are some people that need your help or maybe some information that you might know just help the others.

2. STOP PUTTING YOUR CAT OVER THE KEYBOARD
-I also notice that some of us cannot construct a good English sentence or paragraph properly[...] if you don't know the difference between your/you're, there/their, these/this fuck you need to go to school.

3. DON'T BEG FOR MERITS EARN THEM
[...]
That's all well I experienced all of that but it will help you though I think I will update it if I think of another reason don't be mad at me just sayin'.

First, you need to choose what kind of indicators you need to develop your own Strategy
What type of indicator a trader uses to develop a strategy depends on what type of strategy he or she intends on the building. This relates to trading style and risk tolerance. A trader who seeks long-term moves with large profits might focus on a trend-following strategy, and, therefore, utilize a trend-following indicator such as a moving average. A trader interested in small moves with frequent small gains might be more interested in a strategy based on volatility. Again, different types of indicators may be used for confirmation.

WHAT IS TRADING INDICATORS?

• An indicator simply manipulates price data using a mathematical formula. The indicator shows a visual representation of the mathematical formula and price inputs. To a skilled chart reader or trader an indicator often won't reveal more than what is visible just by analyzing the price chart (or volume) without any indicators.
• That said since there is so much to be analyzed on a price chart an indicator helps simplify it. This is why indicators are so alluring to new traders. Instead of learning to how to identify a trend on the price chart, they try to find an indicator that will identify the trend and trend reversals for them.
• Indicator based trading is relying on indicators to analyze the price and provide trade signals. Many indicators provide a specific trade signal which alerts the trade that now is the time to take a trade.

TYPES OF TECHNICAL INDICATORS

TREND

• Moving Averages
• MACD
• Parabolic SAR

MOMENTUM

• CCI
• Stochastics
• Relative Strength Index

VOLATILITY

• Bollinger Bands
• Average True Range
• Standard Deviation

VOLUME

• Chaikin Oscillator
• OBV
• Rate of Change(ROCV)

TREND INDICATORS

MOVING AVERAGES

• A moving average (MA) is a widely used indicator in technical analysis that helps smooth out price action by filtering out the “noise” from random price fluctuations. It is a trend-following or lagging, indicator because it is based on past prices.
• Moving averages lag current price action because they are based on past prices; the longer the time period for the moving average, the greater the lag. Thus, a 200-day MA will have a much greater degree of lag than a 20-day MA because it contains prices for the past 200 days. The length of the moving average to use depends on the trading objectives, with shorter moving averages used for short-term trading and longer-term moving averages more suited for long-term investors. The 50-day and 200-day MAs are widely followed by investors and traders, with breaks above and below this moving average considered to be important trading signals.
• Moving averages also impart important trading signals on their own, or when two averages cross over. A rising moving average indicates that the security is in an uptrend, while a declining moving average indicates that it is in a downtrend. Similarly, upward momentum is confirmed with a bullish crossover, which occurs when a short-term moving average crosses above a longer-term moving average. Downward momentum is confirmed with a bearish crossover, which occurs when a short-term moving average crosses below a longer-term moving average.

[...lots of information...]
SOURCES:
[...]

First:I want you to come with ideas what a newbie can do to help and popularize bitcoin.Use your imagination and don't copy the suggestions before your post.

Not sure why do you use "Newbie" in this question. Do you mean that those ideas only applicable within this forum?
For me, in my hometown, bitcoin are widely known but under a form of multi level scam. There's fact that a lot of people were scammed to poverty here. When I hear people talking about bitcoin, I usually drop by for a couple of minutes and join their talk. There were a lot of amateur talks of amateur people and I'm so glad I enlightened them by my knowledge range: explaining that bitcoin was not borned a scam, it's just people use it to take advantages of others; telling them what's the real revolution behind bitcoin and how can it be mass adopted. Not all of the talks that I've joined are lack of knowledge, some of them included real experts. I learned a lot from them.  

Second:  In addition I want to know what is your mission here in the forum. Just a few words, but let them be honest.
That's all. Good luck.                                                                                  

I am not sure if I can call it "mission" but I remember saying it somewhere:

There were some times, I was against the merit system like you are right now. But now I see things differently: merit is the measure of how other people pay respect to you.

I'll try to earn merit in order to win people's respect.

Hello, I'd like to share what I know and I think this might help to lessen the chance of you from phishing, virus or even malware in telegram app. This is not proven but I think it might help and there will be no more groups that you didn't joined in once you open your telegram app. Best choice is to leave the channel/group as soon as possible if you don't know what it is or you don't know if it is safe or not.

How to change or how to block? Just refer to the instruction below:

1.) Go to settings.

[img width=400 height=500 ]https://i.imgur.com/slNffnM.jpg[/img]

2.) Press Privacy and Security.

[img width=400 height=500 ]https://i.imgur.com/Nteee82.jpg[/img]

3.) Look for group in the Privacy Tab.

[img width=400 height=500 ]https://i.imgur.com/GAVcRnx.jpg[/img]

4.) Change the settings from "Everybody" to "My Contacts".

[img width=400 height=500 ]https://i.imgur.com/3AVvywn.jpg[/img]

In that way it will lessen the chance of you getting virus, phishing or malware in telegram from other users.

Exchange name: crex24
Website link: https://crex24.com
Bitcointalk ANN thread link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2101721.0
Profile link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1113444

Today I am going share some information about a crypto currency exchange which name is crex24. I can't take my decision what to call them "Scammer" or "Shelter house of scammer". This exchange have listed lots of scam ICO projects and their listing process still going on. They don't care about fake team, plagiarized whitepaper or other scam evidence of any projects. Just for letting everyone know i am going to share information about 2 ICO projects which are proven scam but get listed on this exchange.

EJOB/BTC, EJOB/ETH markets added!
#ERC20

https://crex24.com/exchange/EJOB-BTC
https://crex24.com/exchange/EJOB-ETH

https://www.e-job.io
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5028620
https://t.me/Officialejob
https://etherscan.io/address/0x4ca811010053a3d1bc643eadbf5c91c4f896b06b

ALCUP-BTC market added!

https://crex24.com/exchange/ALCUP-BTC

https://alphacup.io
https://twitter.com/Alphacup_proj
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5122932
https://discord.gg/KAd98Jz
https://t.me/alcup

Those 2 ICO have already proven as scam and got valid proof against them on bitcointalk scam accusation section about their fake team and plagiarized whitepaper. please take a look on below accusation links,

EJOB scam accusation: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5045327.msg46645882#msg46645882
ALCUP scam accusation: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5122859.0

It is to notify all that our forum member made report on their ANN thread about the scam accusation against these scam ICO but they don't feel it necessary to give appropriate answer.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2101721.msg50364300#msg50364300

I can't believe how could a exchange do something like this. Its really concerning that they don't care about investors safety. Those listed scam ICOs volume is so negligible on their exchanges. Its completely a clear example of encouraging scam IMO. I hope our community user will stay far from this exchange and whereas they have ANN on bitcointalk so proper actions should be taken against them.

In general, IEOs might be a little bit safer than ICOs.
Especially IEOs come from well-known, reliable exchanges, like those one you listed in the OP.
In contrast, for IEOs come from un-known, young, new-born, small volume exchanges, they are more risky and it is difficult to judge that invest into such IEOs is safer than invest into ICOs.
Exchanges can make scam exits, can get hacked and go into dead/ bankcrupted, so it is obviously risky too.

Additionally, it is hard to say IEO invesment is safer, because even exchanges don't got hack, or scam exit, investors can get losses too.
Buying at highs, selling at lows, and eventually get losses as ICO's invesments.

everyone please guide me, how can I understand which will be the legit and profitable project. Leave your comments here to help.

Cryptocurrency is a venture capital area, so no one is sure that you will make a profit from the projects you join and the profits earned from projects that you choose bitterly are also difficult to say, because it depends on many different factors. I have a little experience in evaluating projects and hopes that can help you!

I often evaluate projects based on the following principles:

1. Basic things like: development team, project concept, white paper, long-term development strategy must be clear
2. Evaluate project potential based on ability to apply and solve problems in real life.  What does it solve for life, how does it apply blockchain technology?
3. How to build community, organize events, meet, conferences. A good project must have a strong community and a large ecosystem
4. How to protect investors: it is best not to have bounty, airdrop, gleam programs.
5. The most important thing of a project according to me is the technology and the financial potential behind the project.

You can see a lot of good projects like Steemit, NEM are in top 50 CMC projects but they have a lot of difficulties when the market goes down. Therefore, a project that wants to develop in the long term in the bear market conditions must have a lot of funding.

Bakkt just announced a physical delivery bitcoin futures contracts on their platform and investors knows when this goes live, institutional investors will create a huge demand for bitcoins, so they are stocking up on bitcoins now, before the price goes up when the institutional investors jump in.  

I do not know if this will be the trigger for a Bull market, but it is a nice change from the boring bear market that we had for months now.    <Just a pity that I sold some coins yesterday>  

Why do you call him the president interim? I thought his 30 days had expired.

Is there anybody who could run for president? Guaido has said he will sell off everything to Washington, and that can't be good for Venezuela. I would have thought that the assets should be used to rebuild your country, and not to feed the globalist war machine.

Perhaps "someone" hasn't allowed that part of the constitution to go on? Perhaps someone usurping the power? What do you think? This "someone" and the other guy prosecuted abroad for his relation with a drug cartel must go away and this mechanism activates the exact same way. Guaidó is the President of the National Assembly, elected by popular vote, unlike the usurper in the executive who refuses to leave office and keeps an entire country hostage at gunpoint.

But that time will come, sooner than later.

The roadmap is:

• Cease usurpation
• Transitional government
• Free elections

Those points are nonnegotiable, and must be accomplished in that exact order.

PS: Just had another 20 min blackout...

edit: I have a long history of finding those who make "objectively high quality posts" that extend well before the merit system as I advertised my own business via a signature campaign that I ran personally, and those that participated generally ended up making objectively good posts during the specific duration the campaign was running.

[/list]

As you can see below, next to my name is the text "Verified as the real Satoshi"


I hope this can finally put to rest the claim by CSW that he invented Bitcoin and/or that he is Satoshi.

I can unequivocally say that I have never met CSW, nor have I worked with him at any time. 

If you want to say anything to Satoshi, you can do so in this thread.

On Monday, Democratic speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who is the leader of the Democratic party, said:

(on health care)We have never taken our focus away....I hope it focuses the press on these issues

You can see a video of her saying this here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB86nP-jPDU&feature=youtu.be&t=105

On Tuesday, CNN discussed healthcare every hour during their primetime shows, from 7 PM until midnight. On Wednesday (tonight), CNN discussed healthcare every hour (on each of their shows), starting their morning lineup. 

In light of the above, one would have to ask why CNN would suddenly focus on healthcare so soon after the leader of the Democratic party says she wants the media to focus on healthcare if they were not acting on behalf of the Democratic party.

In fairness, there is a court case in which several states are suing, alleging Obama Care is unconstitutional because the penalty is not being enforced, meaning the individual mandate compelling people to purchase something, however this case is currently in the Appellate court, who is far from issuing a decision, and a Supreme Court ruling Obama Care potentially unconstitutional is many months, if not a year+ away.

Is there any way to reconcile the above that does not involve CNN being propaganda and/or what is essentially state run media similar to what is broadcast in North Korea or China?

[hard rules]

I am giving away up to 3 merit per person who shows an understanding (or genuine interest) of any or a combination of the following:

• Bitcoin
• Major altcoin (top 100 per CoinMarketCap.com)
• blockchain technology
• cryptography
• encryption
• free markets
• importance and value of small amounts of regulations
• affects of arbitrary regulations

In order to receive merit from me please post the following:
At least two posts demonstrating solid knowledge of one or more of the above concepts/topics. The posts must be posted at least 28 days apart. You also must have made at least 12 constructive posts between your referenced posts. The time difference between referenced posts is not a hard requirement, although my standard will be higher for posts with shorter time between posts.

If you need 6 or less merit AND have 20 activity above the activity required to rank to the next rank, I will give you enough merit to rank up to the next rank.

I prefer you request merit yourself, however I will review submissions on behalf of other users.

Self moderated.

Current merit available: in flux

All languages are accepted, I can use google translate when necessary, however please only link original content and not translated content from elsewhere.

If you have received merit from me via this thread, you may resubmit another application one month after I send merit on this thread. If you are close to having enough to rank up and need merit to do so, and have already received merit from me via this thread, you may PM me and I’ll review your post history and will help you rank up if you have a strong post history.

If you have concerns or suggestions about my thread, please PM me instead of posting here, I want this thread to be mostly applications.

Please don’t submit “guide” threads you created, but responses in guide threads are okay.

None of the above are hard rules, although it is what I desire. As long as your posts are ‘objectively high quality’ and the type of posts we want more of, and you show a genuine interest in crypto, you will generally receive merit. 

Multiple news outlets are reporting that Mueller has sent his report to the Attorney General and that the Judiciary Committee of Congress should expect notification of this. It is also being reported that a messenger from the DOJ is currently in route to Capital Hill, presumably to give notification of the above as required by the special council regulations.

President Trump has previously indicated he wants the report made public and the House of Representatives this week voted 420-0 on a non-binding resolution asking for the report to be made public.

The Mueller probe started with the intention of determining if the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to win the 2016 election. To date zero evidence has been presented that supports this claim, despite many Democrats claiming to have seen such evidence.

Earlier this week the Ukraine government has opened an investigation into government officials helping the Clinton campaign in 2016 after allegedly finding evidence of this.

The start of the investigation into the Trump campaign can be traced back to propaganda by the Russian government given to a former British spy and forwarded to the FBI. Neither the former British spy, nor the FBI have articulated why the propaganda had any reason to be believed. Those in the FBI investigating the Trump campaign and the British spy all largely did not want Trump elected. Clinton, during her tenure as Secretary of State in the Obama administration helped broker a deal to sell Uranium to the Russian government and her policies were generally friendly to the Russian government.

The Mueller report will be posted here once it is made public.

Update March 24: AG Barr has sent a letter to congress, who should be receiving it within the hour. The letter will likely include the principal conclusions and findings of the Mueller investigation.  

Updare2 March 24: The letter from Barr regarding the Mueller report, says the Russian government attempted multiple times to partner with the Trump campaign, however all of these offers were either not accepted or rejected. The Mueller report also did not specifically opine if Trump obstructed justice and deferred to the AG in regards to this question.  

The letter to Congress from AG Barr can be found here