I mean it does not even matter on why would people like Bitcoin. You do you. Do whatever floats your boat.
If you're earning from it from trading then that's completely fine. There might some people bringing down other people because they like Bitcoin due to it being an investment.
This is why there are some newbies that aren't willing to learn anymore. They felt that they were being gatekept by the so-called veterans therefore losing motivation. It does not hurt to learn the other side of the niches, but it shouldn't be obliged.

That really sucks. You were just doing your usual stuffs and some people out there are going their ways just to do this kind of stuff. This is why I do not trust a lot of hotels these days and that is why I never attempt to reside in one. Sure it is your room temporarily, but who knows what is always laying behind the walls, ventilations, etc.

I even recall some people claiming that there are even hotels that have two-way mirrors. My findings might not be crypto-related, but it is a worth taking note of it considering that we're also talking about the common privacy we should have.

Even here, you might not want to talk about all day on how much you earn from crypto or that you are indeed holding this "x" coin right now all day. You're making yourself an easy target for these criminals and no, it is not just the criminals that we're talking about here. We're talking about doxers as well.

Just keep a low profile and you will be just fine. I had some friends that I had cut ties back in the days when they backstabbed me about my crypto-related stuff. I believe I mentioned it to some people in here before, but that was it.

I mean newbies would not be able to still see the red flags of a copied WP just yet since they have not read so much WP that they do not even know if the project is a copypasta of an existing one.
I believe you're wrong with "because projects do the same thing too", since they would not be a so-called "big" if they were crap.
Small projects could copy bigger projects though for obvious reasons though can we blame them if they have little to no idea what they're doing with in crypto.

Try to avoid those projects that have copied WP. It is okay to make inspiration of another projects, but to hell make another copy out of an existing ones drives me nuts.

I was thinking the same. I mean it is not just the research itself if we would look at it. It would include the implementation, hardcoding it and even successfully launch it. I have not even worded the whole software development phase yet.
That's truly a dedication if you would ask me. Each part of how it was launched is already difficult enough.
That research itself was really a huge investment. Imagine if they all just gave up and we would not be here in the forum.

Sure, let's trust a random stranger's friend from a random hedge fund company.
Source: Just trust me bro.

If you've been here since 2017, surely you have been when times where Bitcoin was below 5k after that year and it still managed to get back up to 10k if I can recall correctly. I am sure that you already saw that pattern from that and not just because your friend told you so.
I've been here since 2017 as well (early january) though I registered in this forum late 2017, when I felt lost where all Bitcoiners were really gathering at.

Sometimes it really depends.
You do not really need to know everything in Bitcoin. It can be helpful to learn more especially the techy-side, but you're not really "obliged" to learn those. One could be a trader and could have know a little or two about the technical side and surely that would suffice him already since his niche is primarily trading.

If you're going for software dev though, well of course you need to learn that.

Considering that my ISP is also quite unstable at some point wherein I encounter random disconnection, it could be an issue but good thing that my work time is not really inside of those times that I encounter disconnection.

In any regards, you're right that people should have at least mobile data in their phone and let their colleagues know about the matter. Usually there are common software used by teams these days anyways like Slack or MS Teams and it is even more accessible for them to contact their higher ups without passing it first to their supervisor.

I can even scan my old deleted files in a common recovery software out there even if it was formatted, some were corrupted but some were still.....interactable.
Like BitMaxz mentioned, it is still possible regardless.

This is why you should not store your recovery seed in a digital storage. Write it down as much as possible and hide it in somewhere safe. I hope your phone is safe as you asked though.

Well I would not trust YT for such stuffs. There's always that possibility that they were paid to do such thing. Any small youtubers could do this just for the sake of earning money of course. With crypto, I watch videos in Youtube just for the sake of learning the technical sides of trading back then, but I do not buy everyone's advice to buy this x and y coin for xxx% APY.

Sure podcasts could be a good thing for trading advice, but that does not mean that you are entirely going to risk it because someone told you so. Imagine being asked why you bought this coin and you answered that "because I was told by a certain youtuber to buy one". It's better to DYOR like always.
Best of luck to your investments by the way!

Considering their followers are worshipping them, I am not surprised that many of them fall for this. Remember when Elon Musk was really popular in crypto? Yeah, he was like a news in this forum a lot. Many investors went crazy and went all in to whatever coin he was mentioning into his tweets.
Just because someone rich and made a tweet of him investing into something makes his followers think that they are going to end up like him.

Following these rich dudes won't make you rich. Surely they have that dirty secret of being successful which is "by luck".

I mean surely when you have been holding Bitcoin since 2013, you could have been one of those millionaires already.
Being millionaire in crypto is almost similar being millionaire outside crypto. Pray to the crypto gods that the next thing you hold would lead you to being one of those people.
I never dreamt being millionaire both crypto and outside crypto, since it is kind of giving me desperation to make luck be on my side and that is not really a healthy mentality for me.

If crypto was to make a person millionaire, surely every single people on Earth and other dimensions had bought cryptos since.

Trusted managers are not the 100% indicator that you either get paid or get a good payment. Remember that managers still have the choice to stop the campaign once it was brought to light that the project was a scam. Imagine working for 3 months, but then the BM stopped the campaign due to a lot of scam accusation that were brought by the scam busters here. People should still do the usual "DYOR" before hopping in into something regardless of who is in authority of the whole thing.

I understand you OP reaching out to us, but considering that you already answered your own question and had your doubts of "no use case". You should have stopped right there and moved on to the next.
They seemed to repeat this phrasing a lot:

Connections of the team in LinkedIn were........low. I would not just hop-in and buy this coin if I were you. I might not have researched yet really further, but from my rough observations, I would not invest a single penny and would just look into other projects.
Read what Rikafip mentioned by the way.

It might get overwhelming at first, since the forum has plenty to offer though knowing that OP's friends could have already had their knowledge ready to hop into discussion in here, then that could be okay though it would be great if their knowledge would also stretch out to at least the technicalities of Bitcoin and Altcoin if they wish.

Would be nice if OP's friend would hop into the forum once the new forum software is live.

If you're a long-term hodler, the first photo checks out. It is just easy as it is to be honest if you're not putting your nose right into crypto. Just buy some few Bitcoin and then just forget that in many years to come. You could check out the price weekly, but that's it. You would not sell or you would not buy or both.

When I was a newbie back then, the second figure checks out though. I felt like "HODL" was just simply keep it held for a week or a month, but nah I was wrong. Now I am here, it does not really feel that much of a journey now as you described since it is just my side hobby to trade crypto. Not trying to be successful since I am to be successful "elsewhere" anyway.

Well those question you mentioned are also answerable in different sites like Reddit and other article sites anyway, however I feel like the answers that you would get here are more personalized and not just that usual "slap an article" link and get a few quotes from there just for the sake of calling it "contribution" to the discussion.
I know there are older users here that were also lurking in Reddit especially in Bitcoin sub, but I had never asked any question related to crypto there since I use Reddit for other purposes that are entirely non-crypto.

I hope you have a great time in here though, Gallar.

True. I can quite relate on this back when I mentioned in a long dead thread in here where I was backstabbed by one of my "fake friends" when they knew that I was holding a certain amount of Bitcoin and they realized that its price is waaaay insane when converted to our local currency.

I believe that at least would be the acceptable thing to happen, because I know there are some worse case scenario where they would attempt to steal everything from me for obvious reasons of like hitting the lottery and suddenly everyone becomes your friend.
In social media, it is better to shut up anyway.

Kudos, OP and happy belated Birthday by the way! I have not managed to stumble upon this thread earlier as I was busy, but we really appreciate your hard work on teaching about Bitcoin. I've been looking forward to do it myself one day, but eh whatever.
I hope your teachings would soon be applied be the students and I would be looking forward on your next update either here in the thread or in a new thread on how did it go to those students and how far they had learned more.

That would be really nice! Will you do a separate thread or just do an update in the OP?

True. Your first paragraph was exactly my experience when I started back in early 2017. It is really not "little bit", but it is reaaaaallly scary to dip and get your feet wet in the market. I experienced panic selling mid-2017 before I realized that there are such thing as bearish and bullish season, but good thing I did not just stop there. It is truly scary because you need to mentally prepare yourself to lose your money and considering that I even live in a third world country where $20 is a lot to lose already and not just those that you can earn back easily.

Today, I am almost the same as you although for me I do not really care anymore what is the price. I would just do a quick Google search of the price and regardless of what Google Finance shows me, I do not even do anything anyway although if I have spare, I would buy more Bitcoin if it is in the red side for now.