The reality of today's world is people have to give up a huge chunk of the other aspects of their life in the pursuit of wealth most times to only break even. This is true for counties with higher and lower standards of living;

• In some countries you are burdened with thousands of dollars worth of loans before you even get your first job and have to spend the next 30-40 years paying that back while trying to stay afloat wit right sing cost of living.
• In poorer countries education, health and other amenities are cheaper but of lower standards and opportunities are very few, so you still have to work 30-40 years to make a modest living.

It is almost impossible to ask people not to chase wealth aggressively. Addictive behaviours like gambling and high risk investments should be avoided at all cost, but other aspects of daily living is enough to take a toll on one's health.

Merit sources and members with available smerits frequent technical boards over trading discussion board. This is why there are lesser merits circulating in the altcoin section, gambling section etc.

Well, people can do with their merits as they wish, they can't be partial with what the can spend at discretion. Merit sources allocated to that board will be the only ones obligated to send merits there. I feel a couple more boards should have designated sources.

The admin cannot do anything directly to improve activity on the forum. All through the years theymos has made little interference with the purpose of improving traffic, most of the actions has actually been to stop span which reduces activity on the forum. The community has built itself, going through adjustments in this ever evolving space.

Merits also don't increase activity, there are tons of good posts now that go unmerited. It might encourage some current members to stay on the forum, but will not bring in new users, or keep those top 2% members that pay no mind to merit.

There's something for everyone in the forum today, find your niche and ignore the boards/users which annoy you.

I don't use coin base so I am not certain now their fees are calculated, but I always recommend people concert through P2P, it's better for your privacy if you're using a decentralized exchange and you get much better fees.

For someone who is using Bitcoin to avoid paying higher fees for international transaction it is better to send them through an exchange as the receiver will be trading to their local currency on receipt of the bitcoins. It should not however be used to store funds for an extended period of time, only amounts that are being sent back and forth.

Yes. It's major function was to alert all concerned of any critical situation on a particular version of the network, same way people are sent warning triggers when a natural disasters is expected to hit.

That was possible. It was also becoming difficult to manage due to emergence of different types of wallets.

It's a private key which was given to Bitcoin core developers at the time - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Alert_system
This is another reason it was stopped, cause they could give it, but not take it away. Past developers who were no longer actively working on the network still had access to it and could send a alert message at anytime without anyone knowing who exactly sent it.

No you do not need sats to send a Bitcoin signed message, but a Bitcoin signed message is not meant for communication, but for verification that someone is in ownership of a particular private key. Signed messages are not part of the blockchain, you have to send the message, address and signature to the other party and they verify it to be genuine.

If you want to include a text (OP_RETURN) to a transaction which will be added to the blockchain and be immutable, you'll pay fees like with all transactions.

As humans the past tends to hold a deep sentimental value to us, so things will always look better in retrospect than when we were living in that reality. This is not saying that those who feel the forum has lost its spark are wrong, no not at all. It's just an observation of how we naturally cherish memories.

We have lost many members down the road, we've gained some great ones too, but we seem to be losing faster than we get.

As P2P electronic cash which is precisely what it is and has always been. Meme coins and other altcoins are products of bitcoin's existence and doesn't change how Bitcoin functions. Financial institutions existed before Bitcoin but also doesn't affect how Bitcoin functions.

You probably have your head deep into the meme coin market that you think that's the reality everywhere else.

This is only possible in some boards due to changes theymos made some years back; Bumping changes on some boards.

On those boards you'll need to have some reputation for your posts to actually bump the thread up to the first page. This is not exactly what you're asking of but it helps to stop trolls and spammers from bumping up threads.

The report button is the best tool to remove spam and the trust feedback will help warn of scammers.

I dare say the news of an ETF approval will normally have had a positive effect on the price before it begins trading officially. Trader sentiments goes a long way in determining how the market acts, if that's positive the charts will follow same line.
Could be that the expectations around ETF has work off a bit, regular traders don't really know how it works or plan to use it, but see the topics everywhere so assume it's useful.

Significant amount of money has already moved into Bitcoin ETFs that were approved previously, subsequent approvals will not have the same effect on price.

Yeah, this is true for users who are honestly interested in learning about bitcoin and by extension the forum. What halving and an increase in price does is attract those who are only curious cause Bitcoin has again come into the spotlight and are hoping there's a way they can make some money from what they assume should be quick profits. This buzz usually dies down after a short while.

Telegram is a haven for scammers looking to get access to your wallet, having your wallet on the app just exposes you to even more risk.

This is also a centralized wallet and per their terms, they are allowed to restrict your access at any time and for any reason without being obligated to reveal the reason to you. Telegram also has indemnity should you incur any loss, so you can't take legal action against them.

I highly DO NOT recommend.

A fixed supply doesn't translate to scarcity. Bitcoin is divisible so you will be able to get some when you want, but there can only be so much that will ever be available in circulation. Precious metals do not have a fixed supply.
Bitcoin's value is also derived from many features it possesses, a capped supply is just one of them.

If you buy at a high price it can drop below that amount, but remember that you do not lose unless you sell.

Innovation is a constant in today's world.

Will increasing banking restrictions lead to a rise in P2P transactions?

Definitely. This same situation played out in Nigeria sometime 2 years ago, IIRC. The government baned banks from directly getting involved with Crypto transactions, so you could not fund your exchange wallet directly from the bank of withdraw directly to it as you could do before. After banks were restricted there was a sharp rise in P2P transactions and the Nigerian market quickly became one of the largest for P2P services.

Same scenario will play out anywhere else that has ardent Bitcoin users. Only the threat of government intervention in many places already grows the P2P market.

For the sake of other newbies that may be reading this thread;

You cannot determine how much an investment will give you before you start. You do your research and projections based on your analysis and decide how long you plan to hold for.

The price is on the way up, so it's not the best time to buy now, but when you're DCAing the entry price does not matter as it will be spread over several amounts, the goal is to keep acquiring more no mater how little at a consistent basis.

Never invest your entire income. How much exactly to put into Bitcoin depends on your financial situation and other accessible means of investments to you. Diversification can be a good protective blanket.

Precisely, and you adjust to the rules of the forum you're in and hoping to get some bucks from.

And in general passing off content as yours is unethical and frowned upon.

Probably general decline of discussions here, so close to the halving I will have expected discussions to be on the rise as Bitcoin climbs up the search engines as one of the most talked about topics, that's not happening just yet.

Could it be that discussions peaked during the last bull run and has been gradually going back to normal since then? I understand we've reached an ATH since then, but maybe people are waiting for us to go closer to $100k before they start getting excited.

Issues in the Middle East, if it were to affect Bitcoin, will first have a significant effect on the price, dropping it lower than 15% and a panic sell off can lead to network congestion and then increased feerate, same effect if the price went up 15%. Even that will not be enough to push the feerate to its current range. My best guess will be BRC-20 spamming going on in relation to the coming halving.

The network isn't jammed, technically it's a congestion which increases the feerate that you're seeing. Transactions are still being confirmed at the average time expected.

Whatever the use of ordinals, I do not believe it's worth the fees people are willing to pay for it and the ripple effect it has on other holders is very high. They have to use competitive fees if they want their transaction confirmed in priority time, or try accelerators.