Actually it's not the devices themselves the problem, it's that they are controlled by mostly one company.

There was a time when Bitcoin was mined with CPUs and then it started being mined with GPUs, but GPU chips are manufactured by 2 companies and the rest of their parts by many other companies. They are also general purpose hardware mainly used for things-that-are-not-mining, so no single company controls their price or can cripple a coin through their hardware.

If Bitmain wanted, they could add hidden fees to their hardware like they've already done with the 12% mining rewards they burn in secret on their BCH pool (source: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/04/24/bitmain-antpool-artificially-boosting-bitcoin-cash-bch-price). There are many public posts in the internet for shady business practices from them.
For that reason XDNA is fighting against ASICs, but in the end it's up to the whole community to decide if they want to support this move or not.

Actually I found this old article: https://blog.ark.io/what-is-the-ark-smartbridge-and-how-does-it-work-1dd7fb1e17a0
From what I understand, SmartBridges are meant to be used when a blockchain has special functions like contracts or maybe a dAPP, but instead of using ETH for a contract you can use ARK. If ARK is SmartBridged with BTC then you can use BTC for an Ethereum smart contract because the connection goes like BTC-ARK-ETH.

What gave him/her away? The fact that the first part of the sentence was in good English and the second part made no sense?

I can answer that!

From the bottom part of the announcement: "rewards will be credited after each campaign period."
From the first part of the announcement: "Stage 1 of the Bounty Campaign lasts two weeks. There will be 14 periods in total."

This is actually the reason I want to take part in the signature campaign, since there'll be payments every 2 weeks as it seems, I don't feel locked up until May!

lol όντως!
Η πραγματικότητα της είδησης πέρα από τον υπερβολικό τίτλο είναι πως ένας Ιάπωνας αθλητής ξεκίνησε ένα "petition" στο change.org και ο κόσμος "υπογράφει" πως επιθυμεί να το δει να συμβαίνει.

https://www.change.org/p/international-olympic-committee-make-xrp-the-official-cryptocurrency-of-the-tokyo-olympics-2020
Για όσους ίσως δεν ξέρουν καλά Αγγλικά, μεταφράζω το petition,
Ενώ η παγκόσμια αυτή εκδήλωση παρουσιάζει μεγάλες πολιτιστικές και οικονομικές ευκαιρίες, οι χώρες υποδοχής αντιμετωπίζουν και πολλές προκλήσεις όσον αφορά τα τις υποδομές τους και τα συστήματα μεταφοράς και πληρωμών τους.

Καθώς οι τουρίστες έρχονται στη χώρα, η ζήτηση του τοπικού νομίσματος εκτινάζεται και προκαλούνται μεγάλες ουρές στους χώρους συναλλάγματος, όπως παρατηρήθηκε και στις προηγούμενες εκδηλώσεις όπως στο Πεκίνο του 2008 και το Ρίο ντε Τζανέιρο το 2016. Η σύγχυση των συναλλαγματικών ισοτιμιών και το γλωσσικό φράγμα περιπλέκει το πρόβλημα.

Πιστεύουμε πως οι γρήγοροι χρόνοι εκτέλεσης συναλλαγών και η ασφάλεια του νομίσματος XRP θα συνιστούσε σημαντική συμβολή στην επίλυση αυτών των προβλημάτων.

The campaign would end next week actually. So 1 week early means that was the last payment.

The signature is looking good! I though I'd wear it from now!
Good luck with your project.

                            From February... really?

But the thing I don't understand about bridges is where does the BTC go after they're traded for XDNA? Who holds them?

Well, I did sign up but I want to take part in the signature campaign. In your post I see that 16% of the allocated bounty is for the Bitcointalk forums, I suppose that means signatures, but I don't see any info about that yet.
Is it coming later?

Hello. I find your bounty setup interesting and serious, I'll apply.
However I'd suggest you to add a link to your ANN thread if there's one, I wanted to check if your project is based on an ERC20 token or it has its own blockchain but I couldn't find your ANN thread from my phone. However I found a field in the registration form asking for an Ethereum wallet, so I got my answer!

Edit: Found the link! It was named "Bitcointalk Community", not what I was looking for! 

... like working on a newer miner version which will make at least some cards profitable again or drinking mojitos in Bahamas?

You're suggesting that the fall in the US stock market is in correlating with the fall on cryptocoin? But in my logic this sell-off should have boosted cryptocoins and gold prices because the money which left the stocks should have gone somewhere. Did everything become cash? Or did the investors who withdrew money from the stocks are waiting to enter the same market?

In any case, I don't think the stock market and the blockchain's prices are correlating.

I was wondering if it'd be possible for another blockchain project to use ARK for the purpose of instant exchange of BTC or other coins.
Actual example: Project XDNA has a page for charity donations where someone can donate cryptocurrencies for a certain cause and then track how the money is used. The only accepted coin is XDNA but on the site there'll be a plugin which will allow users to deposit any coin and it'll be automatically exchanged for XDNA.

I "know" of ARK's bridges but I don't really know how they work! So I was wondering if someone could tell me if the above example is possible.

Yes, thanks for that indeed! I didn't expect Google's stock to fall bellow 1100$ either but here it is.... just what the h*** happened with everything yesterday? Did every investor liquefied their investments of every aspect?
Cryptocoins are down... Stocks are down... Gold is flat... I was expecting a fall in the stock market which is why I was slowly putting my money in cryptocoins since this summer, but I didn't expect Google, Nvidia and all coins to fall that much.

Actually the fact that you can wear more complex signatures is something you'd call it extra feature/benefit.
Newbies can't wear signatures at all
Jr Members (30 activity + 1 merit) can wear a short signature without links, special characters and colorful text.
Members (60 activity + 10 merits) can have longer signatures with links and special characters, but no colors.
Full Member (120 activity + 100 merits) can have even longer signatures and colorful text. They can also add an avatar.

I think the only difference above Full Member rank is the longer text allowed in the signature, nothing else.

Now if you're really a newbie here, you might wonder why people are trying to cheat the system just for a better signature. That's because our beloved ICO scams are distributing 0-value tokens to forums users who are posting (spamming?) in the forums with an advertising signature.

There are also legit projects though, but those few legit ones will filter the users manually and select only those with good history. The merits earned are an important factor for the filtering.

Aaaaand a question: What does "nuke" mean? I noticed the stats are mentioning "bans and nukes".

Very bad distribution of the campaign... 60% (30+30) to social media Facebook and Twitter... So most of the rewards will go to bot users.
I've lost any interest.

There are scams, and there are miserably obvious scams I guess...

Please don't hurry with the development, I'm still building up my investment in your project!
I only wish you could do things easier for new coins to be listed, I noticed that even if a project wins the listing poll they'll still have to pay a high fee.

PS: I intentionally quoted the whole post because it deserves to be on the top of the new page.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2831954.msg29031399#msg29031399
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2840438.msg33970017#msg33970017
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3307884.msg34551562#msg34551562
Does that satisfy your curiosity?

Hello people! I came to apply but then I noticed it's for Sr. Member and up... not even Full Members? That's harsh

PS: I vote for DdmrDdmr!