Update: Biden released a proposal which would make the tax increase retroactive to sales made on or after April 28 of this year. However, I consider the chance of this actually making it into the final bill to be very small: probably less than a 5% probability. It's still a risk, though. If this goes through, there are probably several newly-minted crypto millionaires who will go from millionaire to ~broke due to realizing a lot of gains, not planning for an absolutely huge tax bill which isn't even law yet, and spending or recklessly-investing all of their gains... Some people (eg. Cathie Wood) seem to think that the capital gains tax increase is no longer likely, but I don't agree at all. I still think that some increase is quite likely, with the same probabilities as I listed in my original post. I guess the first test will be paying the bill of the X$ a month given to people during COVID. And let us have no doubt, this bill has not been paid yet and will not appear evident until the money starts circulating full speed and creating the inflation that CB just cannot afford given the debt of most countries. Who wants to bet on when and how intense the bill shall be and how will affect the average joe with a mortgage larger than life?
I don't think that the spending so far is beyond what the economy can endure, so I think that the "bill" will more likely be paid as stagnation and low growth over many years rather than continuing inflation. The deflationary forces (technology, the reduction of labor's value/importance/leverage, demographics, government drag, etc.) are very strong, so while lasting inflation is definitely possible, and government action can definitely cause it if they keep pursuing ultra-inflationary policies, 3%+ inflation lasting many months is not my base case, and if it did happen, it'd probably point toward some sort of more catastrophic economic breakdown. Later this year, I expect (but not with very high confidence) CPI to surprise the market to the downside, and the US may even enter a recession. (Economic stagnation is probably a good environment for the BTC price, BTW. Though there are other downside risks that could certainly offset this.) You would abolish government and stay in place as dictator emperor like Caesar?
No: I'm an ancap, so I'd work toward ending the state entirely. Exactly how this would be done would depend on which ridiculous hypothetical is under consideration. In any hypothetical scenario with even a dash of reality thrown into it, I'd be very likely to at least mostly fail to end the state; if for example there was a military coup and they named me emperor from out of nowhere, I'd almost certainly be assassinated within a week, and in any case I'd probably largely fail to effectively take advantage of the situation due to lack of the relevant skills on my part. Anarcho-capitalism probably can't be achieved unless/until at least 20% of the population has some understanding of it and believes that it could work and be an improvement. So it's not happening anytime soon. Two of the biggest problems with modern politics are: 1. Government interference in everyday life has been relatively less in the last couple of generations than in the past, and so people have forgotten how much government sucks. People have also spent the majorities of their lives in government-run institutions. As a result, people believe that the obvious solution to any problem is for the government to solve it. While the government can solve many problems, it always does it extremely inefficiently, so too many government "solutions" drag down the entire economy. And if solving the problem requires deciding between trade-offs or competing interests, as is often the case, then the government "solves" the problem in an arbitrary and usually very unfair, unethical, and irrational way. People want to solve every problem with the government, but the more this actually happens, the worse things get. 2. People believe in democracy as a goal unto itself, but too much democracy gives poor results. Making things more and more democratic, as many people want to do, usually makes things worse and worse. The average person makes very poor policy decisions, in large part because it's rational for them to be ignorant of policy. (Who actually thinks that Joe Biden or Donald Trump are anywhere close to being the most rationally effective heads of the executive branch, for example?) There's also nothing about democracy which makes it inherently more ethical than any other form of state: it's still one group of people using violent aggression on another group to get what they want. Societies/states would be more effective if they had a more reasonable end goal in mind (eg. "increasing our citizens' wealth, freedom, and happiness"), and then they viewed any democratic elements of the state as merely a tool to get to this end goal. If "maximize democracy" is your end goal, then you're headed for dystopia. If a state is to exist at all, I think the most effective situation would be for the entire culture to have intense skepticism of government, for the state to be run by a fairly entrenched "aristocracy", but for a democratic "safety valve" to be able to shake up the aristocracy when they get too comfortable and ineffective. You want to avoid the current situation in many Western countries where politicians can't feel secure for even a minute and so they always think politically rather than rationally. But you also want to avoid the situation in autocratic regimes where the leadership feels completely free to do absolutely anything they want on a whim. |
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The forum sells ad space in the area beneath the first post of every topic page. This income is used primarily to cover hosting costs and to pay moderators for their work (there are many moderators, so each moderator gets only a small amount -- moderators should be seen as volunteers, not employees). Any leftover amount is typically either saved for future expenses or otherwise reinvested into the forum or the ecosystem. There are 10 total ad slots which are randomly rotated. So one ad slot has a one in ten chance of appearing. Nine of the slots are for sale here. Ads appear only on topic pages with more than one post. Hero/Legendary members, Donators, VIPs, and moderators have the ability to disable ads; these people don't increase the impression stats for your ads. Design & ad restrictionsAd text may not contain lies, misrepresentation, or inappropriate language. Ads may not link directly to any NSFW page. No ICOs [1], loggable mixers [2], banks, funds, or anything that a person can be said to "invest" in; I may very rarely make exceptions if you convince me that you are ultra legit, but don't count on it. Ads may be rejected for other reasons, and I may remove ads even after they are accepted. See the ad design rules for info on designing forum ads. When advertising a new service, you should always check with me in advance whether your service is OK. I will sometimes accept bids of people who don't do this, but such people are taking the risk of being rejected at the last minute. It's also a good idea for you to have me check your ad's HTML+CSS in advance, especially if this is your first time advertising. Duration/timing - Ad slots won in this auction will run from noon July 8 (US Eastern time) to noon August 10. (33 days.) - This auction will end sometime between June 29 and July 2, but July 1 is most likely. - You must pay within 48 hours of the auction ending. Only Bitcoin is accepted. If you fail to pay in time, your ad slots may be resold, and in cases where I feel that you're acting in bad faith, I may even give you a negative trust rating. - You must send me a valid ad (ie. one not breaking any of the styling or other rules) before noon July 7. If you fail to send a valid ad in time, then the ad round will start without you, and you will be "burning time". You can still send an ad after the deadline, and usually this ad will be put up fairly quickly, but no particular timeline is guaranteed after the deadline. - If extended downtime or similar issues cause your ad not to be displayed for a long time, we generally give prorated refunds (USD-denominated) for the lost time, but this is not guaranteed. StatsExact historical impression counts per slot: https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstatsInfo about the current ad slots: https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adinfoAuction rulesNew members are likely to have their bids rejected unless they PM me first, telling me what they're going to advertise. New members might also be required to pay some amount in advance. Additionally, if you have never purchased forum ad space before, and it is not blatantly obvious what you're going to advertise, say what you're going to advertise in your first bid, or tell me in a PM. Post your bids in this thread. Prices must be stated in mBTC per slot. (10 mBTC = 0.01 BTC.) You must state the maximum number of slots you want. When the auction ends, the highest bidders will have their slots filled until all nine slots are filled. So if someone bids for 9 slots @ 50 mBTC and this is the highest bid, then he'll get all 9 slots. If the two highest bids are 9 slots @ 40 mBTC and 1 slot @ 50 mBTC, then the first person will get 8 slots and the second person will get 1 slot. The notation "2 @ 50" means 2 slots for 50 mBTC each. Not 2 slots for 50 mBTC total.- When you post a bid, the bids in your previous posts are considered to be automatically canceled. You can put multiple bids in one post, however, like "5 @ 10 and 1 @ 50". - All bid prices must be evenly divisible by 2 mBTC. - The bidding starts at 2 mBTC. - The auction ends at an arbitrary time between June 29 and July 2. Times closer to 8:00AM July 1 (US Eastern time) are more likely. - If two people bid at the same price, the person who bid first will have his slots filled first. If these rules are confusing, look at some of the past forum ad auctions to see how it's done. I reserve the right to reject bids, even days after the bid is made. Price flatteningAt the end of the auction, after the winning bids are all determined, I will do a "price flattening" operation. This has no effect on which bids actually win, but is instead just meant to make the prices actually paid by bidders more equal. For each bid, in order of lowest to greatest price/slot, I will reduce each bid's price/slot to the highest value which is equal to or only the minimum increment greater than the next-lower bid. This allows you to bid higher prices without worrying so much, but you still mustn't bid more than you're willing to pay. Example: This:
Slots mBTC/Slot Person
6 200 A
1 160 B
1 80 C
1 80 D
Becomes:
Slots mBTC/Slot Person
6 84 A [step 4: reduced to 82+2=84]
1 82 B [step 3: reduced to 80+2=82]
1 80 C [step 2: same as the next-lowest, unchanged]
1 80 D [step 1: the lowest bid is always unchanged] You must pay for your slots within 48 hours of receiving the payment address. Otherwise your slots may be sold to someone else, and I might even give you a negative trust rating. I will send you the payment information via forum PM from this account ("theymos", user ID 35) after announcing the auction results in this thread. You might receive false payment information from scammers pretending to be me. They might even have somewhat similar usernames. Be careful.
[1]: For the purposes of forum ads, an ICO is any token, altcoin, or other altcoin-like thing which meets any of the following criteria: it is primarily run/backed by a company; it is substantially, fundamentally centralized in either operation or coin distribution; or it is not yet possible for two unprivileged users of the system to send coins directly to each other in a P2P way. The intention here is to allow community efforts to advertise things like Litecoin, but not to allow ICO funding, even when the ICO is disguised in various ways.[2]: A loggable mixer is a service marketed primarily for improving transaction privacy which accepts full custody of cryptocurrency for a time and has the technical ability to log where the cryptocurrency comes from and goes to (even if they promise not to log). |
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Auction ended, final result:
Slots mBTC/Slot Person
1 8 zepherius
1 6 tokyohd
6 6 DogecoinMachine
1 4 lightlord
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This month 135 users were eligible. Old: gmaxwell
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bullrun2020bro |
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As the economy progresses more things become free or at least widely affordable. My thinking about the future is that, if we do things right, we may as humanity reach a point in which our basic needs, even some of the advanced needs, will be covered by bot and AI workings.
We may someday... But it's a common problem for people to incorrectly act as though we live in a post-scarcity world right now, and thereby make disastrous plans. Even the Soviet Union often had this mindset, even though in hindisight we were much farther from post-scarcity in the time of the Soviet Union. Our economy may be efficient enough nowadays that it might be able to survive giving everyone $xxxx/month, for example, though that would definitely reduce economic growth. And if this "free money" grows beyond the point where the economy can bear it, you'd see price inflation and shortages. How can you pay capital gains taxes on something where you have not received any gains?
In the US, you don't have capital gains if the coins are just sitting around. But if you trade BTC for some other coin, or somehow trade BTC for stocks, or buy goods with BTC, then these are all taxable transactions, even if there was no fiat currency: you've earned capital gains equal to the fair market value of the non-BTC side of the trade. (This is not tax advice. Talk to a tax professional.)A tax on unrealized gains and/or total wealth (which have been proposed in the US but aren't likely IMO) would be difficult, and would force you to sell. BTC is actually comparatively easy here, since many people have unrealized capital gains on things that they can't easily sell, like restricted shares, land, ownership in a private business, etc. They should not be increasing the capital gains tax, taxes are already too high as it is.
If I was emperor, I'd abolish government entirely (or as close as possible)... But if I was instead required to design an income tax system which would collect a specific amount of money each year, I think that I would make the capital gains rate the same as the earned income rate. I'd also eliminate step-up-basis with the estate tax, if I couldn't eliminate the estate tax entirely. Both of these things just seem unfair to me, and they distort the market. Why should people be incentivized to sit on assets for a year? How does it make any sense for bond interest to be taxed more than stock dividends? Why should stock researchers who spend 8 hours per day picking the right stocks pay less in tax than welders? However, I would also make these three substantial tax-lowering changes: - Every year, you should be able to optionally report that your net worth (assets minus liabilities) was at least $X, and then you should get a credit depending on the inflation that year. For example, if the inflation rate was 2%, then you should be able to reduce your investment income (interest, dividends, and capital gains/losses) by 2% of $X. Inflation is basically a tax, and not having this credit discourages people from investing in safer investments; you need to at least beat inflation, and any gains are reduced by taxes, so you need at least ~4%/yr gain to just break even, which requires taking substantial risk.
- If you receive any dividends from a company that pays taxes, you should get a credit for your share of those taxes. For example, if you receive a $1/share dividend from AAPL, and AAPL paid $0.05/share in taxes, then only $0.95/share of your dividend should be taxable. Otherwise you're taxed twice: once at the corporate-tax level and once at the dividend tax level. Alternatively, just get rid of the corporate tax.
- Capital losses should carry forward with unlimited time and amount.
Correct me if I am wrong, but accepting any of the options will suspend a long-standing provision in the US tax code, according to which, according to which, the tax on income on investments should be lower than on wages.
There have been periods of time where there was no favorable tax treatment for capital gains. It's never been nearly as high as 43.4%, but that's because the top marginal tax rate was much lower at the times when all income had the same tax rate. In addition, the Biden administration's claims that the tax code update will ultimately bring trillions of dollars into the budget ... are wrong
True, in large part because people will use strategies like those I talked about in this topic. As Theymos pointed out, the tax increases can't be implemented retroactively. So for sales being made up to March 31, 2022 the new taxes are not applicable. If you were having plans to sell some of your coins in the next 2-3 years, then it won't be a bad idea to do it before the date that I mentioned earlier.
They legally probably can be implemented retroactively, but I don't think they will be. It will probably take effect on sales starting Jan 1, 2022. |
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ContextIn the US, President Biden is proposing to roughly double the top marginal long-term capital gains tax rate. The exact details have not been published, but at this point the rumors I'm hearing make it sound as though it would work like this: If you have capital gains (long-term plus short-term) higher than $1 million in a year, then each dollar over $1 million would be taxed at 43.4%. This is more similar to the Net Investment Income Tax rather than creating a new CG tax bracket; normally, your ordinary income basically shifts down the capital gains tax brackets for you so that more ordinary income causes you to pay higher CG tax rates, but from what I'm hearing, this will not be the case with this extra tax. The top marginal short-term capital gains tax rate would also increase from 40.8% to 43.4% on income above about $400k. What actually gets passed into law may be different from what Biden proposed. All Republicans will vote against any tax increase, so each and every Democrat would have to agree to any tax increase. I watch politics very closely, and here's how I'd rate the chances: - 30% probability: There is no LT capital gains tax increase at all. In the Senate, every Democrat up for reelection would prefer not to vote to increase taxes, since it will be used against them. Moderates like Manchin will be opposed to it because it hurts their moderate image. Even many deep-blue Democrats may be opposed to it in private because they represent places like Silicon Valley; I'd guess that the majority of unrealized capital gains are in deep blue states.
- 20% probability: Biden's proposal goes through basically intact. You may be surpised that I consider this so likely, since the moderate Democrats have a reputation for blocking big stuff like this, but the fact is that increasing taxes on people making more than $1 million is extremely popular, especially among the Democratic base, and if Biden and his allies choose to push hard on this particular issue, I'm pretty sure that they can get all Democrats, even Manchin, onboard. The question is whether Biden cares about this enough to grant the moderates a lot of concessions and spend a lot of political capital in order to force this through.
- 50% probability: Biden's proposal goes through, but with the rate reduced from 43.4% to 28-30%. This will help to appease the Democratic senators who would otherwise be opposed to it.
In any case, I expect the change to apply to sales made in 2022, not retroactively to sales made in 2021. Spacing out gainsThe proposed increase is only on capital gains above $1 million. If you have less than $1 million in unrealized gains, then maybe someday it will affect you, but probably no action is required now. If you have a few million dollars in unrealized gains, then you should consider whether you could spread these gains out over a few years to stay below the $1 million limit. Spreading gains out is harder than it sounds. If you have $10 million in unrealized gains which you plan to spread out over 10 years to stay below the limit, you may run into problems like: - Unexpected expenses may occur, such as unexpected medical bills. Or unanticipated expenses may be desired, such as deciding to move.
- The BTC price may go up, so now you're sitting on $100 million in unrealized gains. (A good problem to have in many ways, but a risk to consider.)
- The BTC price may go down, and this may cause you to lose faith in BTC and want to sell. If your $10 million in unrealized gains shrinks to $5 million because the BTC price got cut in half, are you going to be tempted to sell more, even at a higher tax rate? Relatedly, you might decide that other investments look more attractive than BTC, especially if you have a huge portion of your net worth in BTC. You won't be able to buy stocks with your BTC without realizing the capital gains, for example. Maybe now you don't think that this will ever be an issue, but trying to anticipate your mindset years in the future is very difficult.
- Tax laws may change. There was just a tax cut in 2017, for example.
Note that some services will give you a low-interest loan using your BTC (or other property) as collateral, similar to a home equity line of credit. This is a strategy commonly used by people like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk who have most of their wealth in unrealized capital gains to avoid realizing the gains all at once. It's not a free lunch, though: you'll still be paying interest and fees. You don't have to just sell all of your BTC and be rid of it forever. You can sell it to realize the gains, set aside the appropriate amount for taxes, and then immediately use the remaining dollars to buy back BTC. This is called tax gain harvesting, and it is a common tax strategy. The value of waitingFor ease of calculation, in this section I will assume that the capital gains tax rate is increasing from 23.8% to 43.4% on all capital gains, not merely on amounts above $1 million, and ignoring tax brackets. Also, when I say that you are "realizing gains", I mean that you are doing tax gain harvesting: selling BTC and then immediately using the cash minus taxes to buy back BTC. Let's say that you have some BTC with zero cost basis, now worth $1 million. So $1 million in unrealized capital gains. If you realize it now, you'll have $762,000 leftover. If you realize it this time next year and the BTC price is the same, you'll have only $566,000 leftover. Not great: you should've realized it this year. However: If you realize your gains now and the BTC price quadruples, you'll have $3,048,000. Realize the remaining gains on that and you're left with $2,055,876. If the BTC price quadruples, and then you realize the gains, you'll have $2,264,000. It was better to wait to realize the gains in this example, though here we're assuming a pretty incredible quadrupling of the BTC price in 1 year. If the BTC price ends up rising faster than the rate of inflation on average, then it may be worthwhile to wait to realize your gains. However, especially if the tax increase is as significant as Biden proposes, you might have to hold onto your BTC for decades in order to break even, depending on how much/quickly BTC rises. And if BTC rises slower than the rate of inflation, then all else being equal, it'd be better to realize your gains sooner. Nobody can predict with much accuracy where you, your mindset, Bitcoin, the tax system, the dollar, etc. will be in 10 years, so I caution against cavalierly making plans stretching decades into the future... In the previous example where the BTC price quadruples, I'll say that the "holistic tax rate" is 1-(2055876/4000000) = 48.6% for the strategy of realizing gains now, and 1-(2264000/4000000) = 43.4% for the strategy of waiting until the BTC price rises 400%. This holistic tax rate takes into account both the actual taxes paid and the gains lost-out-on by selling sooner rather than later. Note that the holistic rate for the waiting strategy is the same as the 43.4% nominal tax rate. I calculated the "realize now strategy" holistic tax rates for certain potential future tax rates and after-inflation BTC price increases: After-inflation BTC price rise
New tax| 100% 110% 150% 200% 400% 800% 1600% 2000% 4000%
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
23.80% | 23.800% 25.449% 29.845% 32.868% 37.402% 39.669% 40.802% 41.029% 41.482%
25.00% | 23.800% 25.532% 30.150% 33.325% 38.088% 40.469% 41.659% 41.898% 42.374%
28.00% | 23.800% 25.740% 30.912% 34.468% 39.802% 42.469% 43.803% 44.069% 44.603%
30.00% | 23.800% 25.878% 31.420% 35.230% 40.945% 43.803% 45.231% 45.517% 46.089%
35.00% | 23.800% 26.225% 32.690% 37.135% 43.803% 47.136% 48.803% 49.137% 49.803%
40.00% | 23.800% 26.571% 33.960% 39.040% 46.660% 50.470% 52.375% 52.756% 53.518%
43.40% | 23.800% 26.806% 34.824% 40.335% 48.603% 52.737% 54.804% 55.217% 56.044%
H=1-(0.762-T*0.762+(T*0.762)/G)
Ignoring tax brackets/limits and ignoring/assuming many things about the future, your circumstances, etc.: It'd make more sense to realize gains now rather than wait if the holistic tax rate in the table above is lower than the nominal tax rate on the left. For example, it'd be better to realize gains now if you think that the tax rate will rise to 43.4% and you think that BTC will increase by 150% by the time you want to sell, because 34.8% is less than 43.4%. But it'd be better to wait if you think that the tax rate will rise to 30% and you think that BTC will increase by 400% by the time you want to sell, because 40.9% is greater than 30%. Use the table/formula above only as a very rough guide. I totally ignored brackets, limits, cost bases, etc. in the above calculations, but these are very significant and should definitely be accounted for. You should do your own calculations taking these into account, as well as your personal circumstances. You may have state capital gains taxes, for example, and some states are even considering increasing these on top of the possible federal increase. Also, importantly, the BTC price increases above are after inflation. If BTC increases to $1 million in 10 years, then that's a 2000% increase from $50k pre-inflation, but a 1562% increase after inflation if inflation averages 2.5%/yr over those 10 years. I am not a tax professional or financial planner. This is not tax or legal advice.
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My ability to predict the price isn't great at the best of times, but I've been especially uncertain lately. There are strong bearish forces: - Institutional money cares a lot about ESG virtue signalling, and I think that the "Bitcoin is not ESG" meme will grow, though I'm not sure to what extent. - Any regulatory news is much more likely to be bad than good, and could be very bad. Even just pressure on eg. Robinhood to reduce the "gamification" of investing could hurt BTC to some extent. - BTC tends to be correlated with high-risk things (eg. TSLA shares), and these have been falling for a variety of reasons. - Interest rates may rise, which makes BTC less attractive because there's less easy money floating around, the far-future prospect of "BTC takes over the world" gets discounted to a lower present value, safer returns are possible elsewhere, etc. - A lot of the recent FOMO in all markets may have been due to people being stuck inside, going a bit crazy, with more time and money than usual. This is ending. - There's a ton of money held by old hodlers. A lot of these will be tempted to at least incrementally sell as the price goes higher, and they may especially be tempted to panic sell if one day they're a multi-millionaire and the next they're worried that they're going to lose everything due to a sharp price drop (ie. panic selling could cause a small correction to turn into a bloodbath). On top of that, there is an absolutely huge amount of unrealized capital gains held by US Bitcoiners who will want to realize these gains before any significant capital gains tax increases. In fact, Bitcoin is probably the single traded asset that you'd expect to be most affected by Biden's proposed capital gains tax increase. (I predict that the capital gains tax will increase to 30% for $1M+, non-retroactive: less than Biden's proposal, but still enough of an increase to make realizing your gains this year very attractive.) - A lot of the money in BTC is pure speculation: the kind of people who see absolutely no difference between DOGE and BTC, for example, and would be happy to pile onto anything that will get them to the moon ASAP. This money is easy-come, easy-go. But there are also strong bullish forces: - Institutional money really wants to get into BTC, viewing it as a unique new asset class. This is only one small bullet point in my list, but the interest from large piles of money to shift some of it into BTC is immense. - Huge companies are now holding BTC and even accepting it for goods/services. If companies actually started trading in BTC instead of USD, that'd be extremely bullish. - Crypto trading is a large, integral component of retail trading now, to an extent that I think has not been fully realized by the market. Many people would rather give up stock trading than crypto trading, if they had to choose. Paypal, Robinhood, and even traditional brokerage firms will expand their BTC offerings. The more accessible BTC buying gets, the higher the price is likely to go. - The "interest rates" offered by eg. BlockFi are extremely attractive, and I think that more companies such as Robinhood will soon offer similar things. - There's clearly strong "buy the dip" support from somewhere, since it's seemed several times that the price wanted to crash, but it was stopped. - Even though I listed it as a possible bearish factor, I don't actually think that interest rates will move substantially higher. In fact, I could see the US entering something of a recession in fall due to a "hangover" from the ridiculous fiscal and monetary stimulus. Low growth = low rates and a search for growth in more speculative areas like BTC. And there's still an unbelievable amount of fiat floating around, looking for somewhere to go. - In addition to being viewed as an aggressive speculative asset, BTC can also be viewed as defensive: similar to gold, it's a hedge against the fiat world falling apart. The money-printing over the last year has made it plain to more and more people that fiat is a joke, and it's likely IMO that before the year is over there will be some serious problems with the fiat economy. By the end of the year, both $25k and $100k are about equally believable IMO...
BTC has seemed pretty comfy in the $50k-$60k range. It tends to get pushed up rapidly whenever there are big drops. However, over the next few months I'm a little more fundamentally bearish than bullish, and technically I also get the sense that there's more downward pressure than upward pressure. IMO, until ~fall we're most likely to be going up and down in a wide range with a slight negative slope. Something like this (I realize that this is not proper technical analysis: I'm drawing the lines where they feel right to me, not based on proven support/resistance or any math):  For now there is upward pressure whenever it goes below $50k, but this could be fully broken by Jun 21. I guess $48,777. |
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The forum sells ad space in the area beneath the first post of every topic page. This income is used primarily to cover hosting costs and to pay moderators for their work (there are many moderators, so each moderator gets only a small amount -- moderators should be seen as volunteers, not employees). Any leftover amount is typically either saved for future expenses or otherwise reinvested into the forum or the ecosystem. There are 10 total ad slots which are randomly rotated. So one ad slot has a one in ten chance of appearing. Nine of the slots are for sale here. Ads appear only on topic pages with more than one post. Hero/Legendary members, Donators, VIPs, and moderators have the ability to disable ads; these people don't increase the impression stats for your ads. Design & ad restrictionsAd text may not contain lies, misrepresentation, or inappropriate language. Ads may not link directly to any NSFW page. No ICOs [1], loggable mixers [2], banks, funds, or anything that a person can be said to "invest" in; I may very rarely make exceptions if you convince me that you are ultra legit, but don't count on it. Ads may be rejected for other reasons, and I may remove ads even after they are accepted. See the ad design rules for info on designing forum ads. When advertising a new service, you should always check with me in advance whether your service is OK. I will sometimes accept bids of people who don't do this, but such people are taking the risk of being rejected at the last minute. It's also a good idea for you to have me check your ad's HTML+CSS in advance, especially if this is your first time advertising. Duration/timing - Ad slots won in this auction will run from noon June 9 (US Eastern time) to noon July 8. (29 days.) - This auction will end sometime between June 1 and June 4, but June 3 is most likely. - You must pay within 48 hours of the auction ending. Only Bitcoin is accepted. If you fail to pay in time, your ad slots may be resold, and in cases where I feel that you're acting in bad faith, I may even give you a negative trust rating. - You must send me a valid ad (ie. one not breaking any of the styling or other rules) before noon June 8. If you fail to send a valid ad in time, then the ad round will start without you, and you will be "burning time". You can still send an ad after the deadline, and usually this ad will be put up fairly quickly, but no particular timeline is guaranteed after the deadline. - If extended downtime or similar issues cause your ad not to be displayed for a long time, we generally give prorated refunds (USD-denominated) for the lost time, but this is not guaranteed. StatsExact historical impression counts per slot: https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstatsInfo about the current ad slots: https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adinfoAuction rulesNew members are likely to have their bids rejected unless they PM me first, telling me what they're going to advertise. New members might also be required to pay some amount in advance. Additionally, if you have never purchased forum ad space before, and it is not blatantly obvious what you're going to advertise, say what you're going to advertise in your first bid, or tell me in a PM. Post your bids in this thread. Prices must be stated in mBTC per slot. (10 mBTC = 0.01 BTC.) You must state the maximum number of slots you want. When the auction ends, the highest bidders will have their slots filled until all nine slots are filled. So if someone bids for 9 slots @ 50 mBTC and this is the highest bid, then he'll get all 9 slots. If the two highest bids are 9 slots @ 40 mBTC and 1 slot @ 50 mBTC, then the first person will get 8 slots and the second person will get 1 slot. The notation "2 @ 50" means 2 slots for 50 mBTC each. Not 2 slots for 50 mBTC total.- When you post a bid, the bids in your previous posts are considered to be automatically canceled. You can put multiple bids in one post, however, like "5 @ 10 and 1 @ 50". - All bid prices must be evenly divisible by 2 mBTC. - The bidding starts at 2 mBTC. - The auction ends at an arbitrary time between June 1 and June 4. Times closer to 8:00AM June 3 (US Eastern time) are more likely. - If two people bid at the same price, the person who bid first will have his slots filled first. If these rules are confusing, look at some of the past forum ad auctions to see how it's done. I reserve the right to reject bids, even days after the bid is made. Price flatteningAt the end of the auction, after the winning bids are all determined, I will do a "price flattening" operation. This has no effect on which bids actually win, but is instead just meant to make the prices actually paid by bidders more equal. For each bid, in order of lowest to greatest price/slot, I will reduce each bid's price/slot to the highest value which is equal to or only the minimum increment greater than the next-lower bid. This allows you to bid higher prices without worrying so much, but you still mustn't bid more than you're willing to pay. Example: This:
Slots mBTC/Slot Person
6 200 A
1 160 B
1 80 C
1 80 D
Becomes:
Slots mBTC/Slot Person
6 84 A [step 4: reduced to 82+2=84]
1 82 B [step 3: reduced to 80+2=82]
1 80 C [step 2: same as the next-lowest, unchanged]
1 80 D [step 1: the lowest bid is always unchanged] You must pay for your slots within 48 hours of receiving the payment address. Otherwise your slots may be sold to someone else, and I might even give you a negative trust rating. I will send you the payment information via forum PM from this account ("theymos", user ID 35) after announcing the auction results in this thread. You might receive false payment information from scammers pretending to be me. They might even have somewhat similar usernames. Be careful.
[1]: For the purposes of forum ads, an ICO is any token, altcoin, or other altcoin-like thing which meets any of the following criteria: it is primarily run/backed by a company; it is substantially, fundamentally centralized in either operation or coin distribution; or it is not yet possible for two unprivileged users of the system to send coins directly to each other in a P2P way. The intention here is to allow community efforts to advertise things like Litecoin, but not to allow ICO funding, even when the ICO is disguised in various ways.[2]: A loggable mixer is a service marketed primarily for improving transaction privacy which accepts full custody of cryptocurrency for a time and has the technical ability to log where the cryptocurrency comes from and goes to (even if they promise not to log). |
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Auction ended, final result:
Slots mBTC/Slot Person
4 20 BTCsquare.net
5 18 DogecoinMachine
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3 @ 17mBTC
6 @ 15
The minimum increment is 2 mBTC: - All bid prices must be evenly divisible by 2 mBTC.
When people bid an invalid amount, I always round down to the next valid bid. So I take these bids as 3 @ 16 and 6 @ 14, respectively. In DogecoinMachine's case, this would result in no slots won because Stunna bid at 14 mBTC first. Current auction status: Slots mBTC/Slot Person
4 16 BTCsquare.net
3 16 lightlord
2 14 StunnaThe auction continues. |
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This month 140 users were eligible. Old: theymos
dooglus
OgNasty
malevolent
qwk
fronti
Foxpup
Carlton Banks
philipma1957
babo
Cyrus
peloso
Welsh
TookDk
vizique
Ticked
Timelord2067
jeremypwr
EFS
yogg
dbshck
greenplastic
hilariousandco
Avirunes
Lydian
mindrust
buckrogers
Buchi-88
Lesbian Cow
willi9974
suchmoon
JayJuanGee
achow101
DaveF
nutildah
minerjones
irfan_pak10
BitcoinPenny
Royse777
zazarb
o_solo_miner
ezeminer
sandy-is-fine
SyGambler
klarki
The Pharmacist
DarkStar_
TwitchySeal
phishead
TryNinja
ekiller
Jet Cash
condoras
Lafu
polymerbit
Yatsan
crwth
webtricks
Ale88
bobita
nullius
Baofeng
imhoneer
JollyGood
RaltcoinsB
xenon131
CryptopreneurBrainboss
El duderino_
KTChampions
Steamtyme
Coin-1
icopress
bavicrypto
GreatArkansas
sheenshane
o_e_l_e_o
logfiles
joniboini
Agrawas
TheBeardedBaby
tvplus006
dkbit98
mole0815
witcher_sense
asche
DdmrDdmr
anonymousminer
morvillz7z
Husna QA
fillippone
taikuri13
abhiseshakana
madnessteat
lovesmayfamilis
Corrosive
TalkStar
efialtis
Ratimov
zasad@
Rikafip
New: gmaxwell
OgNasty
CanaryInTheMine
SebastianJu
malevolent
yxt
qwk
fronti
mprep
Dabs
Foxpup
babo
peloso
TookDk
Mitchell
Ticked
Timelord2067
jeremypwr
EFS
by rallier
dbshck
stompix
arulbero
Avirunes
mindrust
Buchi-88
Lesbian Cow
willi9974
JayJuanGee
DaveF
teeGUMES
examplens
nutildah
dazedfool
minerjones
irfan_pak10
BitcoinPenny
yahoo62278
Royse777
LFC_Bitcoin
o_solo_miner
ezeminer
sandy-is-fine
muslol67
LeGaulois
DarkStar_
TwitchySeal
phishead
TryNinja
bob123
eddie13
johhnyUA
ekiller
condoras
Lafu
Coin_trader
polymerbit
Yatsan
HCP
finaleshot2016
crwth
webtricks
Ale88
duesoldi
bobita
nullius
Vispilio
Baofeng
JollyGood
xenon131
CryptopreneurBrainboss
El duderino_
Steamtyme
icopress
GreatArkansas
Veleor
sheenshane
o_e_l_e_o
3meek
logfiles
joniboini
Agrawas
dkbit98
witcher_sense
DdmrDdmr
anonymousminer
morvillz7z
Husna QA
Bthd
fillippone
taikuri13
abhiseshakana
madnessteat
Coolcryptovator
DireWolfM14
1miau
YOSHIE
zasad@
Rikafip
bullrun2020bro |
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Bids from BETOP.GG, Betcrypt.io, and Unicc.LA will not be accepted. AliceMoore is cleared to bid, but hasn't bid high enough to win any slots.
The minimum increment is 2 mBTC. If your bid has an invalid increment, I always round down to a valid increment.
Current auction status:
Slots mBTC/Slot Person
6 6 DogecoinMachine
3 6 BTCsquare.net
The auction continues.
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The forum sells ad space in the area beneath the first post of every topic page. This income is used primarily to cover hosting costs and to pay moderators for their work (there are many moderators, so each moderator gets only a small amount -- moderators should be seen as volunteers, not employees). Any leftover amount is typically either saved for future expenses or otherwise reinvested into the forum or the ecosystem. There are 10 total ad slots which are randomly rotated. So one ad slot has a one in ten chance of appearing. Nine of the slots are for sale here. Ads appear only on topic pages with more than one post. Hero/Legendary members, Donators, VIPs, and moderators have the ability to disable ads; these people don't increase the impression stats for your ads. Design & ad restrictionsAd text may not contain lies, misrepresentation, or inappropriate language. Ads may not link directly to any NSFW page. No ICOs [1], loggable mixers [2], banks, funds, or anything that a person can be said to "invest" in; I may very rarely make exceptions if you convince me that you are ultra legit, but don't count on it. Ads may be rejected for other reasons, and I may remove ads even after they are accepted. See the ad design rules for info on designing forum ads. When advertising a new service, you should always check with me in advance whether your service is OK. I will sometimes accept bids of people who don't do this, but such people are taking the risk of being rejected at the last minute. It's also a good idea for you to have me check your ad's HTML+CSS in advance, especially if this is your first time advertising. Duration/timing - Ad slots won in this auction will run from noon May 10 (US Eastern time) to noon June 9. (30 days.) - This auction will end sometime between April 30 and May 5, but May 3 is most likely. - You must pay within 48 hours of the auction ending. Only Bitcoin is accepted. If you fail to pay in time, your ad slots may be resold, and in cases where I feel that you're acting in bad faith, I may even give you a negative trust rating. - You must send me a valid ad (ie. one not breaking any of the styling or other rules) before noon May 9. If you fail to send a valid ad in time, then the ad round will start without you, and you will be "burning time". You can still send an ad after the deadline, and usually this ad will be put up fairly quickly, but no particular timeline is guaranteed after the deadline. - If extended downtime or similar issues cause your ad not to be displayed for a long time, we generally give prorated refunds (USD-denominated) for the lost time, but this is not guaranteed. StatsExact historical impression counts per slot: https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstatsInfo about the current ad slots: https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adinfoAuction rulesNew members are likely to have their bids rejected unless they PM me first, telling me what they're going to advertise. New members might also be required to pay some amount in advance. Additionally, if you have never purchased forum ad space before, and it is not blatantly obvious what you're going to advertise, say what you're going to advertise in your first bid, or tell me in a PM. Post your bids in this thread. Prices must be stated in mBTC per slot. (10 mBTC = 0.01 BTC.) You must state the maximum number of slots you want. When the auction ends, the highest bidders will have their slots filled until all nine slots are filled. So if someone bids for 9 slots @ 50 mBTC and this is the highest bid, then he'll get all 9 slots. If the two highest bids are 9 slots @ 40 mBTC and 1 slot @ 50 mBTC, then the first person will get 8 slots and the second person will get 1 slot. The notation "2 @ 50" means 2 slots for 50 mBTC each. Not 2 slots for 50 mBTC total.- When you post a bid, the bids in your previous posts are considered to be automatically canceled. You can put multiple bids in one post, however, like "5 @ 10 and 1 @ 50". - All bid prices must be evenly divisible by 2 mBTC. - The bidding starts at 2 mBTC. - The auction ends at an arbitrary time between April 30 and May 5. Times closer to 8:00AM May 3 (US Eastern time) are more likely. - If two people bid at the same price, the person who bid first will have his slots filled first. If these rules are confusing, look at some of the past forum ad auctions to see how it's done. I reserve the right to reject bids, even days after the bid is made. Price flatteningAt the end of the auction, after the winning bids are all determined, I will do a "price flattening" operation. This has no effect on which bids actually win, but is instead just meant to make the prices actually paid by bidders more equal. For each bid, in order of lowest to greatest price/slot, I will reduce each bid's price/slot to the highest value which is equal to or only the minimum increment greater than the next-lower bid. This allows you to bid higher prices without worrying so much, but you still mustn't bid more than you're willing to pay. Example: This:
Slots mBTC/Slot Person
6 200 A
1 160 B
1 80 C
1 80 D
Becomes:
Slots mBTC/Slot Person
6 84 A [step 4: reduced to 82+2=84]
1 82 B [step 3: reduced to 80+2=82]
1 80 C [step 2: same as the next-lowest, unchanged]
1 80 D [step 1: the lowest bid is always unchanged] You must pay for your slots within 48 hours of receiving the payment address. Otherwise your slots may be sold to someone else, and I might even give you a negative trust rating. I will send you the payment information via forum PM from this account ("theymos", user ID 35) after announcing the auction results in this thread. You might receive false payment information from scammers pretending to be me. They might even have somewhat similar usernames. Be careful.
[1]: For the purposes of forum ads, an ICO is any token, altcoin, or other altcoin-like thing which meets any of the following criteria: it is primarily run/backed by a company; it is substantially, fundamentally centralized in either operation or coin distribution; or it is not yet possible for two unprivileged users of the system to send coins directly to each other in a P2P way. The intention here is to allow community efforts to advertise things like Litecoin, but not to allow ICO funding, even when the ICO is disguised in various ways.[2]: A loggable mixer is a service marketed primarily for improving transaction privacy which accepts full custody of cryptocurrency for a time and has the technical ability to log where the cryptocurrency comes from and goes to (even if they promise not to log). |
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Auction ended, final result:
Slots mBTC/Slot Person
4 10 Coinzilla.io
2 10 Thiago22
1 8 Bitcoin Gambling
2 8 Stunna
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Coinzilla.io's bids are no longer tentative. Note that Thiago22 has been approved, but he has bid too low to win any slots.
Current auction status:
Slots mBTC/Slot Person
1 8 Bitcoin Gambling
5 8 Stunna
3 6 Coinzilla.io
The auction continues.
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dionis8888's bids will not be accepted.
Auction status:
Slots mBTC/Slot Person
1 8 Bitcoin Gambling
5 8 Stunna
2 6 Coinzilla.io [tentative - awaiting more info]
3 2 lightlord
The auction continues.
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This month 145 users were eligible. Old: theymos
dooglus
OgNasty
CanaryInTheMine
SebastianJu
malevolent
yxt
Vod
A-Bolt
fronti
Foxpup
philipma1957
Cyrus
peloso
ibminer
Mitchell
vizique
Ticked
yogg
by rallier
dbshck
greenplastic
hilariousandco
EcuaMobi
arulbero
Avirunes
Lydian
mindrust
buckrogers
willi9974
suchmoon
JayJuanGee
achow101
DaveF
teeGUMES
examplens
nutildah
minerjones
irfan_pak10
BitcoinPenny
Royse777
zazarb
LFC_Bitcoin
o_solo_miner
ezeminer
sandy-is-fine
muslol67
actmyname
The Pharmacist
LeGaulois
DarkStar_
SFR10
phishead
eddie13
condoras
bL4nkcode
Lafu
HCP
duesoldi
Kryptowerk
bobita
Vispilio
Baofeng
krogothmanhattan
wolwoo
JollyGood
RaltcoinsB
roycilik
CryptopreneurBrainboss
El duderino_
Steamtyme
Coin-1
icopress
GreatArkansas
Veleor
sheenshane
o_e_l_e_o
3meek
logfiles
Maus0728
TheBeardedBaby
tvplus006
MoxnatyShmel
dkbit98
MoparMiningLLC
DdmrDdmr
morvillz7z
Husna QA
Bthd
abhiseshakana
madnessteat
Coolcryptovator
lovesmayfamilis
DireWolfM14
1miau
YOSHIE
efialtis
Ratimov
zasad@
Rikafip
New: theymos
dooglus
OgNasty
malevolent
qwk
fronti
Foxpup
Carlton Banks
philipma1957
babo
Cyrus
peloso
Welsh
TookDk
vizique
Ticked
Timelord2067
jeremypwr
EFS
yogg
dbshck
greenplastic
hilariousandco
Avirunes
Lydian
mindrust
buckrogers
Buchi-88
Lesbian Cow
willi9974
suchmoon
JayJuanGee
achow101
DaveF
nutildah
minerjones
irfan_pak10
BitcoinPenny
Royse777
zazarb
o_solo_miner
ezeminer
sandy-is-fine
SyGambler
klarki
The Pharmacist
DarkStar_
TwitchySeal
phishead
TryNinja
ekiller
Jet Cash
condoras
Lafu
polymerbit
Yatsan
crwth
webtricks
Ale88
bobita
nullius
Baofeng
imhoneer
JollyGood
RaltcoinsB
xenon131
CryptopreneurBrainboss
El duderino_
KTChampions
Steamtyme
Coin-1
icopress
bavicrypto
GreatArkansas
sheenshane
o_e_l_e_o
logfiles
joniboini
Agrawas
TheBeardedBaby
tvplus006
dkbit98
mole0815
witcher_sense
asche
DdmrDdmr
anonymousminer
morvillz7z
Husna QA
fillippone
taikuri13
abhiseshakana
madnessteat
lovesmayfamilis
Corrosive
TalkStar
efialtis
Ratimov
zasad@
Rikafip |
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 This was to some degree inspired by ibminer's forum trading cards. How I envisioned it was basically like MTG ox cards of different rarities. For every 365 activity (= "1 forum-activity-year") a user had, the system "designed" 1 distinct "card" for that user. Multiple copies of one card design could exist, just as there are multiple copies of the Black Lotus MTG card design in existence. The more activity a user had, the more distinct card designs would exist for them, each at a higher rarity. So if you had 2000 activity, there would be 5 distinct card designs of rarities I to V, each of which could have multiple copies in existence. A special exception was made for satoshi, who had 3 card designs at rarities IX, X, and XI even though he has 364 activity and would therefore normally have no card designs. When you rolled for a random card, 99% of the time you would get a copy of a card design chosen randomly from all 30670 distinct card designs. But the vast majority of those are low-rarity, so to improve your chances a bit, 1% of the time you would instead get a random card design from all designs with rarity IV or above. Unlike "real" NFTs, two copies of the same card design were in fact totally fungible, though in terms of scarcity I don't think that there's actually much real difference between how this works and how eg. NBA Top Shot or MTG work -- the issuer can still create as many copies of a card as they want. I'm glad people enjoyed the game, and thanks to everyone who spent some time on it! It would've been pretty disappointing and boring if everyone had just gotten 20 random drops and then forgotten about it, but I was happy to see a lot of trading and collecting. I have zero interest in creating this myself, but I think that some people might actually enjoy a fully-fleshed-out, real NFT collectible system similar to how this worked. IMO any decent collectible system should incorporate some sort of art, though, even if the art is automatically-generated. Hey, Theymos-- can we get some more stats? Users with most trades, users with most V+ grade NFT's, users by sum total paid, and users by sum total sold would be amusing.
Trades weren't logged, unfortunately. Here's a dump of the final balances and fNFT ownership: https://bitcointalk.org/af2021.txt.xz |
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theymos-XI
kano-IX
Dabs-VII
DooMAD-VII
JayJuanGee-VII
cr1776-VI
Dabs-VI
Daniel91-VI
Hyena-V
tbearhere-V
examplens-V
Wow, nice collection! That lucky guy is me. Thanks!  I'm happy that someone got a satoshi fNFT! The probability was so low I was worried that nobody would see him. |
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The only logical choice is to continually roll for random user fNFTs until you get a satoshi one
It is possible to get satoshi, but the probability is only about 0.03% per roll, so someone will have to get awfully lucky. |
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