And why not give Bernie Madoff a second chance (assuming he was still alive)?  Why not Ted fucking Bundy for that matter?

Yeah, whether a person should get some leniency granted depends on the magnitude of their fuckup or how much leniency or how many 2nd/3rd/etc. chances they've already gotten and blown.  In Jamaljizz's case here, he wanted me to remove my negative on him from a long time ago, so I know damn well he's got something going for which he wants to look squeaky clean.  Well, he's nothing of the sort, and the community ought to be warned of that.

Yeah, good luck with that--and I don't know when this general insanity is going to end, but I keep telling myself that it has to one day.

Digitizing gold has been done before, more than a decade ago if I'm not mistaken, and there was a company that got busted for not having enough physical gold to back the digital version....I wish I could remember the details, but I think it was right after the internet boom that went bust in April of 2000.

I couldn't care less what Russia or Iran do as far as making a coin backed by gold; what's concerning to me is how a lot of countries seem to be co-opting the cryptocurrency revolution and in the process stray so fucking far from what crypto was supposed to be about in the first place.  Hopefully people will understand that a CBDC is a much different beast than something like bitcoin.  People here on the forum sure do, but I have my doubts about average folks who only know about crypto from what the media tells them.

Ugh.  The future has a dark, dark cloud hanging over its head.

That may well be true, but from what I saw there were a lot of voters who probably don't frequent the sections nc50lc does, and his name probably didn't come to their mind immediately--and that's if they knew his name at all.  I honestly can't remember the last time I saw one of his posts.

Props on the graphs, PowerGlove.  I always like to see pretty pictures when I'm lookin' at data, know what I mean?

And I swear, I still don't know what all those categories are supposed to represent.  I'm not even sure if "antihero" is a concept that most members could figure out someone appropriate to stick in it.  Royse777 was certainly controversial this year, but I would not consider him an antihero.  I can't even think of someone I'd vote for in that one.  Maybe it should be changed to Blackest Sheep or something like that.

Ahhh.....that's a different thing entirely, and if that's what he's doing--which I've no reason to doubt after the clarification--then that's just wrong.  For one thing, it causes more drama with members trying to get neutral feedback removed, and for another it's squeezing free advertisement out of members who likely will never have a shot at getting paid because they won't be able to get feedback removed.

I'd prefer it if Royse777 just didn't accept members with neutral feedback attesting to those members' lack of post quality instead of letting them in contingent on them getting whoever left the feedback to reverse themselves.  The chances of that happening are usually small.  There can't be that much of a shortage of applicants, can there?

A'ight, all this Italian gangster shit aside, yo asses better include me in any gang where'st a thick skin is a criterion for admission.  I'm not offended by the omission of my name, now, but I'm just sayin'.  Don't make me have to go to work on you clowns with a pair of pliers, a blowtorch, and my gang of pipe-hittin' brothers.

Again, just sayin'.

I don't know what that means, but personally I wouldn't lump Munger and Buffett into the same group as all the other people you mentioned--at least not Buffett, who seems to have had a decent sense of morality about him all through his long business life.

Bitcoin isn't going to topple whatever it is you think they built their businesses on, either.  If it was going to do that, surely there would have been some signs that progress was being made after 13 years, no?  I don't see Wall Street cowering in their wingtips because of crypto.  And everyone is free to have an opinion about bitcoin; a lot of people don't like it or don't understand it, but I wouldn't blast anyone for that.  Bitcoin will survive no matter what any CEO or banker says.  It's the government and their proclamations that ought to be listened to, and very carefully at that.

PowerGlove, I don't know how old you are but I'm assuming you're a young man--probably younger than I was when I registered here, though that's just an assumption based on another assumption that most members here are in their 20s (or even younger) to their early 30s.  If that is indeed true, you've got plenty of time and ought not feel pressured to do anything, achieve anything....you get my point.

And on top of all that, you're working your way up faster than probably 99% of members and I think you'll probably have a great shot at getting into Chipmixer whenever it is you're eligible to.

So what's the controvery here, exactly?  Is it that Royse777 isn't accepting people into his campaign based on neutral feedbacks from DT members?  I just want to make sure I'm following correctly. 

If that is indeed the case, I don't see anything wrong with what he's doing, and in fact I think it's a good thing that he's checking applicants' trust pages and noticing neutrals instead of just looking for red trust.  Actmyname and I tagged an enormous number of shitposters back in 2017-18, and we had to change all of them to neutral based on the community standards in the wake of the merit system being created.  That's one thing.  The spammers blacklist that he's got going shouldn't be dismissed so lightly, because he's a good judge of who's a shitposter and who's not.

If this is about something different and I'm reading things wrong (always possible), somebody please school me on what the problem is here.

The bitcoin halvenings don't reduce supply or increase scarcity--admittedly I've been awake for 38 hours straight, and my logic might have grown some fuzz around the edges, but I don't see any relationship between that and what AMD is doing.

There's no scarcity of graphics cards in general, just the overpriced new ones that are being doled out at a rate that gives the impression of scarcity--but it's artificial of course.  And Jesus, I'm not a gamer but how much do you need out of a GPU anyway if you're not mining altcoins?  You can check eBay and see a whole bunch of very powerful GPUs that were selling for outrageous prices prior to September of last year, when ETH moved to PoS, but are now pretty much bargains.  I don't know how much of an improvement a 4080 or 7900 XT really is or why anyone would buy one at MSRP.  It's astonishing how the manufacturers are trying to hold onto the GPU boom that was due solely to ETH mining.

Those days are long gone and aren't coming back as far as I can tell.  AMD and NVIDIA better wake up and realize that.

Oh fucking hell no, this is no place for an innocent child to be wandering blindly into--especially if that child has intentions to do deals or any of the myriad activities that can get you scammed faster than Reverse Flash.  Or the Flash.  Or Quicksilver.  Or even Superman.

But even if we all agree that kids shouldn't be here, how the hell would an age restriction be enforced?  Last I checked, Theymos is all about privacy and this forum was created in the spirit of bitcoin anyway, so I highly doubt there's ever going to be the internet equivalent of a big fat dude checking drivers licenses at the front door of Studio 54 (disco never died either, you break dancing crackheads). 

Just like you're responsible for your bitcoin's security, I think you're going to have to be the one responsible for making the decision as to whether your toe-headed booger eater visits bitcointalk.  And even then, if that saintly minor has a smartphone there's not much you can do anyway. 

*Sigh*

I miss this thread and don't keep up with it anymore now that I've got members PMing me left and right for post history reviews.  Wish I could help some of these people out, but I blew through hundreds of sMerits within a week and only have 13 left.

Jesus, those numbers seem so low, don't they?  Considering how many active members there are on the forum, only a small fraction of them are close to their next rank--it's probably been that way for a long time, but I guess I haven't looked at this data in a long time.  Yeesh.  DdmrDdmr, you're the man for keeping this thread updated.

I respect both Munger and Buffett's opinions and their intelligence, even though I disagree with them about crypto.  Even hardcore bitcoiners probably shouldn't discount what they say or dismiss it out of hand. 

What I don't understand about Munger's statement here is the part where he says the house always has a 100% edge with respect to crypto.  Anyone understand what he means by that?  And his argument that bitcoin is used by criminals....well, that's been discussed so many times here over the years and it's been demolished every time by comparing it to fiat.

I think the media is just seeking Munger's opinion on crypto to make salacious headlines and stir up the shit, because they know what his position on them is quite well.  But bash away.  Bitcoin will still be here after he's dead.

Huh, that is weird, because he doesn't have any referral link or anything, and MEXC is (as far as I know) a legitimate exchange, not some fly-by-night thing.  They've been around for a while and I haven't seen many complaints about them on the forum.  Damn newbies, ya know?

And I guess I missed this thread when it was started, but what I'll tell OP is that Coinbase did exactly what they did to him back in 2015/16 (can't remember exactly when).  It was because of a stupid error I made with a checking account I had linked that I closed but never unlinked from Coinbase.  They didn't contact me, didn't try to figure out a way to keep me as a customer, just closed my account. 

I can't stand them, even if they are one of the most legitimate exchanges out there.

LOL.  That brings me back big time.  And hey, this is kind of like poker; three 2nd place wins is better than one 1st place win--and certainly better than my hand (though I'm still grateful for the votes that were dealt to me). 

That's funny, because I didn't realize there was a bitcoin prize.  Maybe there should be a category next year along the lines of "shortest attention span" or "details ignoramus", in which case I would have to come in first place with little competition. 

Hear, hear.  You might think my enthusiasm for the contest was muted at best based on what I posted in this thread, but things like this and other contests on the forum are great morale boosters and motivators for members who perhaps haven't been here that long or who don't participate that much.  If you consider the forum as a whole to be one big community, it's an honor just to get some votes in any of the categories, you know?

Ehhh....OK, since I've gotten like 20 PMs in the past 24 hours asking for reviews and I'm not exactly willing to go back on my word as far as restarting this offer, I just want to tell those of you who've contacted me to be patient.  Right now I think I've got about 150 sMerits, so I probably don't even have enough to give away even if I was willing and able to do everyone's requests today. 

If I haven't reviewed your post history within a week (or more), or if I haven't PMed you back telling you your posts suck, please don't send a reminder PM.  I'm not deleting any messages until after I've done reviews, so they aren't going anywhere.

And with that, I'm locking this bitch up and hoping it disappears to page 30 of Meta within minutes.

LOL.  I didn't even realize the bitcointalk Youtube channel got any votes for Failure of the Year.  Ouch.

A'ight I didn't want votes or to win anything, but I'm no sucker and will gratefully accept my 3rd place win:

bc1qhaxv7dathsjwfpyntfep5rl475cfuygatmu0z4

Congrats to all the winners!  It was a shitty year overall, but at least this contest was some fun.

Y'all got that right, and it doesn't help that Bitcoin Discussion is still a spam filled cesspool when it ought to be where some of the best discussions are being had.  Meta and most of the sections I haunt have definitely been boring-ish ever since Lauda, Vod, TMAN, and a few others packed up and left the forum.

You're right, though.  This is the kind of thread that's going to attract shitposters, whether they're in a campaign, bounty, or are just trying to earn merits and rank up.  IMO nobody really needs to toot their own horn about forum accomplishments, and there's already at least one thread like this one that's still active.

On the other hand, at least OP is trying to pump a little life into Meta.  Gotta give him at least a teeny-weenie dollop of props for that.

Oooooh, 2 bucks a share! 

Seriously, I didn't know Buzzfeed was publicly traded.  Now that I know, I'm going to put them on my watchlist--and before I even look at any of the data I'm going to guess that they don't have any earnings and likely never have.  It doesn't matter if they use AI or the leftest-leaning, sorriest excuses for real-life human beings, their content is crap and their stock will forever be on the dollar menu.  They might save money by replacing the idiots they have on staff, but they've always been a lousy business even in a time when tech and internet stocks were/are booming.

Done.  I'm going to lock this thread in a few minutes so as not to boost the chance of me getting PM-bombed.  Not that it completely helps; even when I said the offer was on hold, I'd still get so many requests from members who obviously hadn't read the updates.

If I blocked your PMs, I did it intentionally and for a good reason.  I don't remember blocking you specifically, but if you're blocked you're going to remain blocked.  Sorry.

I audibly chuckled at that with no one else in my house, that's how funny I found your metaphor. 

I am calm, and in fact I've gotten caught up on all the requests I needed to do and have about 160 sMerits left.  So I'm going to relax that last rule about people needing to have consistently requested post history reviews since September.  If you're under Legendary rank and/or have fewer than 1000 merits and would like me to take a look at your posts, drop me a PM and try your luck.

Should I get overwhelmed with requests and run out of sMerits within a day or two, I'll have to tighten up the requirements again of course.  Thanks for bumping this thread, else I probably wouldn't have posted any updates about my offer.