Interesting, and thanks for that clarification.  Pidgin English has always kind of fascinated me, though I probably ought to learn more about its origins.

In any case, I've only seen a small handful of cases where alt accounts were linked because of very specific misspellings or other similar language issues, and while it's certainly good supporting evidence I don't think it's sufficient as proof that two or more accounts are controlled by the same member.  Just my opinion, though.

There's so much misinformation (or just plain wrong information) being circulated as to the state of the economy that you'd be better off just watching prices and noticing how many people you know have jobs.  The financial press are worse than meteorologists trying to predict the weather one week out.

And OP, glad you had a good time in London.  I've never been there, but I've been to NYC and have seen a mix of wealth and absolute poverty occupying the same streets--large cities with stock exchanges tend to have that characteristic, though being homeless in New York has got to suck, given how cold it can get.  Not sure about London.

OK, I did see that link from tyz but I still don't know whether to believe it or not.  I keep hearing mixed stories about the US economy, and yet aside from inflation everything is far better than it was just over 10 years ago.

I don't know what to believe as far as the state of the economy.  I've heard we're in a recession, and yet the stock market is soaring and aside from the tech sector I haven't heard any reports about massive layoffs or the like.  And when the hell is this crash coming?  The stock market has been in the longest bull run ever, and I know damn well that prices just can't keep going up indefinitely.

I read that article, but it isn't clear why he sold all that stock.  It doesn't necessarily mean he's got a negative outlook on Amazon; corporate executives sell their companies' stock all the time, presumably to fund their lavish lifestyles.  On the other hand, Amazon is probably overvalued, and if a crash does come I betcha that stock is going to take a beating.

I don't know about OP's assertion that yachts, cars, and art are going to get sold off in the event of a market crash.  The people who buy that stuff generally have enough dough such that they don't have to resort to selling their luxury goods, you know?

Is that true?  Bitcoin has always seemed quite resilient to news, even if it's pretty damn big news like that was.  I always figured the ATH was reached too quickly, i.e., that bitcoin was in sort of a bubble that was relatively short.  Then again, pretty much any little thing can pop a financial bubble when prices are soaring.

BTW, did bitcoin actually get to $69k?  I looked at the chart on CMC and I don't see when it got there.

Now as far as China getting back into the mining game, I'd say the more decentralization the better (except if they wind up dominating), but Jesus....right before the halving.  I assume it'll still be profitable, but whatever Chinese stopped mining when the government outlawed it couldn't be getting back in at a worse time, and that's if they're getting back in at all.

Pity party?  Appeal for sympathy from any mods who might be reading this?

It doesn't really matter why OP created this thread; it's more important that he lock it now that he's said everything he wants to.  Do the forum one final favor and do that, would you?  This is just going to turn into a magnet for all sorts of shitposts otherwise.  Thanks in advance and bye-bye.

I swear, five years ago I would ask random people I'd come into contact about if they'd even heard of bitcoin, and the majority of them hadn't.  Today I was talking to a friend who doesn't even own a computer about it (this person knows of my interest in it), and I mentioned that it was rising in price but wasn't yet at a new all-time high.  The response I got was "Wasn't it worth $1 million at one point?".

And then I see the BTC-USDT pair shown on Yahoo finance, and in the Wall Street Journal....so it's amazing that in the last few years how much bitcoin has insinuated itself into regular life and financial reporting--so this is all a very long-winded way of saying that hell yes bitcoin's going to reach $1 million!  It might not be because of the upcoming halving, but I don't have any doubt that that price level is coming.  I'd be an idiot to try to predict a time frame in which it's going to get there, so I'll just leave it at that.

No doubt some forum sleuth will post the exact reason you were banned, but as far as I know "self-plagiarism" (which isn't really a thing, just like "self-escrow"; writing your own words more than once doesn't fall under the definition of plagiarism) isn't against the rules, and even if it is I don't think it'd earn you a permaban.

Since you're apparently not even sure why you got banned, it's probably for typical forum plagiarism.  You might qualify for clemency, that's the good news, but all of these apologies and so forth are going to get you nowhere.

Not all money one puts aside is earmarked for emergencies, just saying.  A person might save for a car, a house, a new dildo, whatever.

The word "saving" has at least two meanings, and why you're equating the meaning equivalent to "saving someone from drowning" is beyond me.  If I put money aside to buy something I can't afford right away and don't want to finance, that isn't saving me from anything except acting with financial stupidity, e.g., paying for that something with a high-interest credit card.

By the way I just wanted to mention that now is a pretty good time to save money if you trust banks/brokerages, because you can find money market funds and CDs that are paying interest rates that beat inflation.  I agree that that's not wealth creation, but at the moment the stock market is sky-high and there's no telling what other investments like bitcoin are going to do.  It's kind of nice to have money on the sidelines earning 5%+, just waiting for good buying opportunities.

And as always, I am up for anything that doesn't involve skin contact with strong acids, any living thing with more than four legs, or theft of what little money I have. 

Five years....that's frizzackin' incredible.  We've had the pleasure of being recipients of Foxxx-pup's mizza-fuzzin' magnanimosity for longer than it seems (though I am not in the original set of members).  I bow down before our furry master.

Bingo.  I've always noticed that a lot of people expect bitcointalk to be bitcoin, especially the latter's decentralized nature--but bitcoin isn't under the thumb of the US government or an ISP provider, whereas this forum is.  That's why Theymos banned all the mixer stuff at the beginning of the year, and it's why not everything is allowed here.  Also, if there were no moderators and everyone was free to write whatever they wanted without restriction, bitcointalk would turn into a forum filled with shitty posts, plagiarism, AI-generated you-name-it, and there would be an all-out war between the members who care about this place and those who would defile it.

Kinda sounds like the pre-2018 days, come to think of it.

By the way OP, just take the hit with the deleted post and roll with it.  I've had plenty of posts nuked for various reason, and there's not much you can do about it.  I'm betting that whatever you wrote isn't of such importance that there needs to be a thread complaining about it.

Ah, shit.  I know I just sent out a bunch of merits for posts made in that thread, and I haven't checked but I do think they were made from one or more Nigerian members.  Granted, they weren't bad posts at all (else I wouldn't have merited them), but I really, really don't want to get taken advantage of more so than I probably am when doing post history reviews. 

Of course not, but word spreads through small-ish communities and so when members of it talk you can start seeing certain behaviors originating from one of those communities and nobody else.  On a related note, I've noticed that whenever I do a few reviews, it's almost a guarantee that I get a PM from 2-3 new members asking for reviews, some of which I've helped out before, some not.  I wonder if people are watching my merit-giving activity or if it's something else that's more nefarious.

Yeah, I even made a complaint thread about them a few years ago, but in the end I didn't get scammed.  Changelly has been around for a long time and I thought that they were at least fairly reputable even if there have been some scam accusations against them.  I don't think that's too far off-topic--and yes, I did read SFR10's post.

What I can't stand are these partnerships HW wallet manufacturers enter into (Ledger went way overboard with that), and even some software wallets like Trust have done it as well.  It sort of feels like the evolution of Google, where once upon a time it was a simple search engine and was excellent in carrying out its purpose.  And now?  You search for something and the only thing you get 90% of the time is advertising thrown at you.  If I'm looking to buy a HW wallet, I just want a device to keep my coins safe and I don't want constant reminders that the manufacturer is in cahoots with various services of varying reputation and is pushing me to use those services.

It feels fakkin' icky, you know?

I would say I agree with you 100%, but I think the earning potential of the various campaigns plays a huge part in the pool of potential participants the campaign manager can choose from.  CM was the highest-paying campaign around if I remember correctly, so it got really competitive and wound up with some of the best posters on the forum. 

But hey, I could be missing very important and even obvious factors.  I won't admit to smoking anything funny, but it's two sunrises past my bedtime and my noodle gets a bit loopy whenever I get like this.

You're probably right, and I think airfinex has a history of sparking drama.  Eh.

Yeah, dude I noticed that and was wondering if there was some campaign going on with the initials 'WO' but the first thing I thought of was the Wall Observer thread.  And yeah, airfinex doesn't post much given that he's been a member of the forum for nearly 6 years, but you'd think he'd know what WO is (and more importantly in the context of his thread, what it isn't).

I just glanced at his post history, and it looks to me like there hasn't been a change in English proficiency over the years, which is something that's obviously a dead giveaway of an account changing hands.  So I'd need way more evidence before I'd leave airfinex even a neutral tag--but that's just me.  He definitely doesn't deserve a negative, and I'd say even a neutral with not much to prove an account sale or hack is pushing it.

Hmm.  Above is a bunch of generic statements, most of which are only tangentially related to the topic at hand.  This is what I'd call a shitpost dressed up with so many words in an attempt to make it look like something substantial.  I've got avatars and signatures on ignore (OH, the irony!) so I don't know if Awaklara is in a campaign or not--and I haven't peeked at his profile--but if he is in one, I'd not be shocked if there weren't other members doing the same thing in it.  Just a guess, though.

Here's more of the same thing.

Your post made me giggle with glee.  Let the flamethrower loose, m'boy.

I'm going to be bold and blow myself my own horn by suggesting that the rare avatar displaying a certain cycling club membership is almost always a guarantee that a post made by a member with said avatar is well worth one's time.  It's not just about the orgies in the windowless house of Fox, I'll have you know. 

Don't know how far out of the loop I've been, but what events are you referring to, and who are these 'heavy' merit sources that might have been demoted?  O_e_l_e_o was one if I'm not mistaken, but he left the forum of his own accord and that wouldn't qualify as a demotion (but it would leave an open slot as far as I'm concerned).

Em, again....did I miss something with icopress mixing his campaign management with something he shouldn't have?  Is there any substance to the argument that he'd misuse the source sMerits he'd be allotted were he to be made a merit source? 

As far as that proposed requirement above, a lot of members have some sort of "business-related activities" and if Theymos were to assume that there would automatically be a conflict of interest, that there would be merit abuse because of those business activities, the list of merit sources would likely consist of drooling morons below Full Member rank who couldn't tell what a good post looks like.  In other words, it's not a good suggestion.  No offense.

It's obvious he's an alt of somebody's main account, but I'm not sure whose it is.  It could be one of the members in question or it could be a friend from Nigeria--it's a tight community, so you never know.  I considered just nuking that post as it reads like straight-up trolling, but I decided not to.  It might be useful to have that or any other comments from Boy_chef as evidence (of something) in the future.

Not a problem--yeah, it's waaay off-topic, but I'm curious about people's comments on AI (but I don't want this thread to turn into a huge discussion of it, either). 

Oh, man.  I can't even begin to imagine how high school, college, and even graduate students are going to use it, either to cheat or as a substitute for thinking.  The younger kids start using it as a crutch, the worse off they're going to be.  To say I fear for the future of society, academia, and everything else that's currently doing OK but could be crippled by AI would be an enormous understatement.  Time will tell, and I'm not optimistic.

I don't feel bad for anybody who's gotten banned for plagiarism, whether they've been given a second chance by Cyrus or not.  It used to be that there was zero mercy, zero support, and zero chance to get unbanned (with very few exceptions) prior to that generous gift of clemency by Cyrus.  With the issues we're having (or will have) with AI-generated posts, I'm surprised bitcointalk hasn't wound up like that shitty forum Yobit started a few years ago, where nearly everything was plagiarized from this forum or somewhere on the internet.

I haven't a clue, but frankly I'm glad this thread was started so this can be discussed out in the open.  I'd rather have it that way than just having a PM sent to a moderator or one of the admins.  By the way, LoyceV can read.  Trust me on that one.

So you just locked the thread because JollyGood suggested it?  I don't know how many times I've requested members lock threads that have long outlived their purpose, only to have them remain open for shitposters to squat in.  The issue you brought up wasn't even resolved, so I'm not sure why you thought it was a good idea to lock it while there was still a lot of input being given.

That's a bunch of blather followed by one of two reasons you might have started that thread.  I have a feeling you were trying to give the strong impression that you and Agbamoni aren't alts by calling attention to it before anyone else did.  Do I know that for sure?  No.  But I've seen enough bullshit on this forum and looked at the evidence presented by other members in your thread, and that's the way I'm leaning on this matter.

Yeah, I saw that and was hoping for a response.  Perhaps in this thread we'll get one?

Yep.  I definitely try to weed out alt accounts, and I've refused merits to a lot of members lately (which nobody sees).  I've also stopped giving merits for posts in the gambling section, so I'm definitely aware that people are trying to game me and do my best to swat them like flies--but I've no doubt there are some who still get over on me.  Thanks for the feedback, Lucius.

OK, that's fucking frightening.  How can I even deal with members who do that and request post reviews?  Most of the time I don't even know what country people are from when they send me PMs.  Ugh.

Regarding the above statement, how do you know there's more demand than supply (aside from the fact that bitcoin's price is currently rising)?  And who's to say that demand won't suddenly drop?  There's no guarantee that the halving is going to have an effect on the price of bitcoin at all, regardless of what happened in the past.  Personally I think the halvings have already been priced in--but that doesn't mean there won't be speculators who'll be driving up demand, expecting a jump in price because of the upcoming halving.

Everything I wrote above aside, I do indeed think we could see a new ATH soon.  Don't know if it'll be before or after the halving, but for whatever reason bitcoin is red hot right now.  Effin' white hot.  The only problem I see is that if the price goes up too high, too fast then we're probably going to see a massive crash.  It's happened before.