If you've been exposed to scammers at any point in time or have had your details and personal information shared with untrusted third parties, it is safe to consider that you have been compromised and can be accessed by random scammers who could get your information over the dark web.
You friend should have taken some precautions after their previous scam and should consider doing it now, if they failed to do it then.

Your friend is likely going to get more scam attempts with increasingly more clever techniques. They should consider doing more research on how stuffs work and how best to protect their online identity.

This problem would not exist if people simply stored their assets on non custodian platforms and kept backups in secure locations. Suffering from account lockouts means one is using a centralized exchange or platform, which does not give control over the assets stored on them.

I believe there has been such a service offered by a forum user, where you can share as much information as you know about your account and they try to decipher the other information. Never paid much attention to it, but there's a market for it and it's possible in some situations.

Never invite or convince someone to invest in Bitcoin; you rather give them enough information with which they can reach their decision for themselves.

I have had friends and family ask me about the potential of Bitcoin and everytime I send them data they can use to do their own research, if they cannot focus enough to go through the not so extensive stuffs, then they probably shouldn't be acting as their own bank and I don't pressure them at all.

Always allow people to reach the decision to be use a decentralized asset on their own and based on their knowledge of using it.

I am a much older Bitcoin holder in relation (not that old, in reality, as there are those that have been here since the early 2010s), and I still get excited a bit when here is a market pump, even though I have no plan of selling.

About your emotion, you would never actually become immune to the market changes, or at least, I haven't. But you would develop a lot of insensitivity to it and would not react in anyway.

You don't need to educate critics, that are aware of how it works and the flaws in their comments but spread fud regardless to attempt to limit the growth of Bitcoin either cause they don't hold any or want it to get cheaper so they can buy more.

Rather than trying to educate them, point out their misinformation to the public so they are not swayed by misleading articles and publications. Ignore them and don't give them more publicity if their posts is not malicious, but if it is then be aggressive with pointing out their contradictions.

I am not most people who have lost money, but we cannot call this a bull run yet. We are at a similar value we were at 3 months ago and that's indicative of a market recovery, but it's not yet a bull market.

You should also try to separate your emotions from the market actions if you intend to be a long term holder. The market could change anytime and if you react to any movement on the chart you would be reacting a lot and maybe sell at a loss or sell too early.

You are not making money, you still have the same exact amount of BTC. You onuy profit when you sell.

As long as there are those who are looking for some mythical prediction to decide whether or not to buy, there would always be self acclaimed experts who would give random predictions in the hope that it turns out well.

There are also those who try to predict within the ambits of what is feasible and would always put a disclaimer that their prediction can go wrong if the market doesn't react as anticipated.

Not to sound like those experts  , but I don't think we're there yet

And there's a huge amount of money being traded daily in the crypto market, not necessarily by a specific group of holders, but a cumulative of the total demand and supply.

• Where institutional holders store their crypto? Possibly in multiple hardware wallets with secure backups in vaults of banks. They could also use multi sig to secure their assets.
• Over The Counter traded are the most ideal for them as it does not reflect on the price.
• Benefits and disadvantage of using centralized exchanges? Pretty much what risks and be efits everyone else gets. Binance and other too CEX have a select option for those trading very high amounts, but they are still exposed to risks of data theft et al.
• OTC as mentioned above.

2-3 years is still a decent time frame and you would be able to forsee any possible damage to the paper or visibility issues. Paper is more durable than most think and can last quite a long time if kept in a suitable location.

The chances of the other outcomes (fire, water etc) leading to losses are much lower considering that OP has dual backups in different locations. The possibility of both backups simultaneously getting damaged is infinitesimal.
With the risk of theft; paper is far more inconspicuous than a metal backup.

You would check up on your backed up seed phrases more frequently than a couple of decades and would identify any wear in the ink or paper before it becomes unreadable.

Welcome to The forum, hope you do enjoy your stay here. Consider moving this thread as suggested above to a more appropriate board. I could report it, but I prefer newer members going about the process themselves than just discovering their thread has been moved and not understanding why.

The forum does not have an inbuilt scam regulation system for this exact reason; you are not safe here on the forum or anywhere on the internet.

I doubt Bitcoin has had any significant effect on the rate of crimea or fraud in Nigeria. It's a great technology, but it has limits to its effects.

I am from Nigeria and I believe I have also received similar messages containing some sort of file for download from unknown numbers. They were of course promptly ignored and I blocked the number IIRC. I don't think I ever got a repeat of the message.

Your friend's loss is unfortunate and I hope he can recover from it. He should consider moving any left over assets on the device to a new one and wipe the device clean to prevent a reoccurrence.
Also advice him on having a separate device specifically for holding assets to prevent falling victims to malwares or phishing links.

I actually assumed it was an email to know if you can whitelist their account and lift some of the newbie member rank restrictions.

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OP, you'll have to find some other way to contact the user in question, maybe go through their profile for any additional contact which is still active now.

This doesn't count as credible evidence an no proof was suggested in the little part I watched on both videos.
This of course doesn't mean I am dismissing the possibility or the threat that such could happen, and the journalist is believed by some to be one that shares credible information.

I guess there would need to be more evidence, which I don't think would exist even if the story is true. We just don't have to mux Bitcoin up in all the conspiracies.

Sounds like some iRobot scene or out of some other sort of fictional movie.
Mind sharing a source?

I also believe Bitcoin would play a major role in the future, but not for this reason. Fiat is already digital and can function in such a system easily, but Bitcoin would likely have achieved lots of adoption by then to serve as a viable alternative.

I cringe at the idea of a national Bitcoin office to coordinate initiatives. Bitcoin has survived do far without any centralized or indeed physical space, it doesn't need one now.
I understand that this is part of adoption and countries would need something more tangible if they are going to invest in it, to make it more real to them, but it's still cringe regardless. And they could just adopt it for what it is.

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The outfit from the representative of El Salvador did what it was designed to be - attract attention.
This could either be a desperate attempt to get some traffic going on their now, not so sensational move to adopt Bitcoin or a sign of actual adoption. I'll go for the former.

AFAIK, this is a different type of scam where anyone who imports the keys would see a balance in the wallet, but would need to make a deposit before they can send it out to cover the feea. This seems more believable as no one is directly prompting them to do anything and it looks like free money.

The scammers has already used a sort of script which sends out any asset deposited into the address, so once they make a transaction,bit is instantly sent out from the wallet.

Saving money in fiat is definitely terrible. It's highly susceptible to inflation and can be very unstable dependent on who's at the helm of the fiscal policy decisions.
Bitcoin on the other hand is not prone to inflation and retains its value well overtime, but it's downside to some is that it's very volatile.
If you're planning to invest in Bitcoin, learn a bit about the basics and how it works, you don't need to bother with the more technical details early on, just what you need to know to have a grasp of the fundamentals. This would guide your decisions.

• Small price changes does not matter long term.
You are investing spare money as you said and should not be bothered about short term price effects.
Think longer term.

• Your decision is yours to make. This is a Bitcoin forum and majority here are holders, so they personally see it as a good idea, it's up to you to decide for yourself.

Accepting Bitcoin as a means of payment is one way to bring publicity to the network and attract people to using it. You can also explore other options to make it more attractive to your customers like;

• Selling Bitcoin collectibles,
• Having Bitcoin themes designs in your store and possibly exploring NFTs (it has bad rep around here and has hit some downtime, but it's still an attractive option),
• Running Bitcoin quizzes and games.

All these are cost effective means if bringing attention to Bitcoin.

That's a rookie mistake that should not be made by someone who is holding life changing amount in crypto. But if the last few weeks has been anything to go by, anyone can make mistakes and fall for cheap scam attempts.

He should have shared more details about that software he downloaded and how he thinks the rip off happened.

Besides avoiding ads, one should not hold assets on a device they use to browse the internet often.
If he had his crypto in a hardware wallet or an airgapped device, the software would have nothing to steal on his regular device.