Growing Blackmarket for Merit trading

[Rajs64]

Well!! Merits can be traded in exchange for USD




Or BTC, or other coins depending upon seller demand. I just found this conversation in one of the TG chats.

14$ seems a lucrative deal for anyone, and there is a discount as well when looking for >5 merits.

This business existed and is now gaining good momentum following the recent changes in rank requirement. The buyers usually are newbies or more specifically recently demoted jr. members who are in desperate need of merits to join bounty campaigns.  

No wonder modus operandi might involve a chain of members as merit source, whom few are a well know face here( no offense, but it's a possibility)

Not sure if this has been discussed previously, but this situation will soon widespread merits achievement through $, as opposed where it shall be bestowed in exchange for constructive values provided to forum.


Difficult to crack down this issue, but suggestions are greatly appreciated!!


I thought of some revision(for newbie merit system), which tends to centralize the process





and this may make no sense but, no harm to share with your guys.will appreciate your +ve and -ve   comments.  

[1715492103]

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[mdayonliner]

14$ seems a lucrative deal for anyone, and there is a discount as well when looking for >5 merits.

14$/merit!!!
I would say theymos has now unlimited amount of money   

He can easily creates merit and sell them to the dark-market. All he will need to do is that he is not theymos 

PS: Good finding OP. I would encourage you to find the buyers and sellers too with evidences if possible. DTs will take care of them. It's obvious that there will be merit abusing however as a community if we are active to find those losers then we can at-least bring some justice for those who are earning legitimate merit.

[LoyceV]

14$ seems a lucrative deal for anyone, and there is a discount as well when looking for >5 merits.

Considering there must be about 500.000 airdropped sMerit left amongst accounts, this high price doesn't make sense. Unless this means only a small fraction of users is offering Merit for sale, which is actually a good thing!

[Jet Cash]

Well if this continues, I expect that Theymos will stop the half life generation of sMerits, remove all of therm from existing wallets, and leave it to the merit sources, and possibly create some delegated sources.

[LogitechMouse]

I expected that this will happen since the start of the merit system (around a week or 2 after in exact) and now thay there is a new update regarding the merit system, I know that this will become more popular to those who got many sMerits.

I know theymos will do something to stop this merit selling in the future. I think admins must focus on spam problem first.

[OgNasty]

People are paying more for merit than a Copper Membership costs? That seems a bit insane to me.

[vlad230]

Well!! Merits can be traded in exchange for USD

That's very bad... I don't know why people insist on buying it, when they could easily earn it with a decent post.

PS: Good finding OP. I would encourage you to find the buyers and sellers too with evidences if possible. DTs will take care of them. It's obvious that there will be merit abusing however as a community if we are active to find those losers then we can at-least bring some justice for those who are earning legitimate merit.

I think anyone caught doing this should be immediately banned to ever posting here. They are essentially stealing money from the forum, since you can buy a Copper Membership to be able to keep signatures, as theymos said it here:

[...]
- Some of the same permissions as Member-rank members, such as reduced signature styling restrictions. (But none of the PM-related restrictions are currently lifted, such as the style limit or per-hour PM limit.)
[...]

People are paying more for merit than a Copper Membership costs? That seems a bit insane to me.

Well... Not really, it actually costs almost the same. To be a copper member you need to pay 0.00208333 BTC aka $13.93
More info here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=credit;promote

Maybe this is where the price for 1 merit came from, same as the price of a copper membership

[LeGaulois]

Oh well, I suppose we will soon see a Pump and Dump Smerit Telegram channel. Or Buyer will realize, in the long term, how ridiculous is it is to buy smerits knowing it isn't difficult to be rewarded with. If you are not so dumb and can give substance to a conversation, everyone can be rewarded with a Smerit

poor souls...

[suchmoon]

Maybe this is where the price for 1 merit came from, same as the price of a copper membership

I have a feeling that Copper membership will be perceived with a certain stigma, particularly on accounts with lots of posts and zero merits. I would be like saying "I'm so useless that the only way for me to become a member of this forum was to pay for it". So in that respect having a merit looks better. Although Copper offers other advantages, such as a larger signature. Real ballers will want both.

[Zhagedu]

People are paying more for merit than a Copper Membership costs? That seems a bit insane to me.

Nice talk but those of us who were demoted from Jr. Member to the rank of a Newbie, was a welcome development even though it was a shock on our part's to be given such treatment in the name of SHITPOSTERS, OR forum SPAMMERS; i will get up with my knowledge and contribute my quota to the growth of this forum, believing that one day i will be merited for just only one post to enable me get back my account on Bountyhive as a Jr. Member.

Paying for merit will not solve anything than to inflect more injuries to the forum reputation. I will dust up my English book and get my merit as i have no other ways to get it to myself.

[stompix]

People are paying more for merit than a Copper Membership costs? That seems a bit insane to me.

The recent avalanche of topics in all sections about the recent update proved that maybe half of the forum users are unable to search for a topic and information. How many of them do you think are aware that Copper Membership can be bought?

This is just like newbies buying obsolete overpriced miners on ebay 

i will get up with my knowledge and contribute my quota to the growth of this forum, believing that one day i will be merited for just only one post to enable me get back my account on Bountyhive as a Jr. Member.

I really have no idea what this guy is talking about 

I have a feeling that Copper membership will be perceived with a certain stigma, particularly on accounts with lots of posts and zero merits. I would be like saying "I'm so useless that the only way for me to become a member of this forum was to pay for it". So in that respect having a merit looks better. Although Copper offers other advantages, such as a larger signature. Real ballers will want both.

To be honest, usually when I see "Merit: 1" in the description of a user I'm curious to click and check how one earth did that user get merit. And in most cases....

[hilariousetc]

I'm willing to sell my 300 source merits for one Lambo.

People are paying more for merit than a Copper Membership costs? That seems a bit insane to me.

Don't forget they're still going to need more merit to rise past Junior and above. I think Copper Member should just be some basic whitelisting function and it shouldn't get you a bigger signature. It's far too cheap and most abusers will just cough up for it. If we're going to let people buy the advantages of ranks then we should go with the Silver and Gold options I've suggested and make them sufficiently expensive so most can't afford them on their 200 accounts.

Maybe this is where the price for 1 merit came from, same as the price of a copper membership

I have a feeling that Copper membership will be perceived with a certain stigma, particularly on accounts with lots of posts and zero merits. I would be like saying "I'm so useless that the only way for me to become a member of this forum was to pay for it". So in that respect having a merit looks better. Although Copper offers other advantages, such as a larger signature. Real ballers will want both.

Yeah, it's only a matter of time before it becomes a mark or shame and a 'shitposter' rank. I hope most campaigns won't pay for it, but sadly ICO shitcampaigns won't care and will take whatever they can get.

[k0er]

People are paying more for merit than a Copper Membership costs? That seems a bit insane to me.

I guess the thing is that buying a membership will nt return Junior rank to continue participating in the bounty campaign.
Newbie + Copper=  same Newbie.  I mean about bounty`s stakes for rank. So they are ready to buy more expensive, because the activity hasn`t decreased and they`ll immediately become Juniors.

[Rajs64]

some more facts:



wondered who has +50 merits to sell?? definitely, a high ranked member or may be group of them(+5) who can give 10merits each  

[hilariousetc]

wondered who has +50 merits to sell?? definitely, a high ranked member or may be group of them(+5) who can give 10merits each  

Or they're just a scammer taking their chances. Let me tell you that probably the majority of people selling accounts and merits these days have no accounts or merits to sell at all. They're just praying on the desperate and hope they get a few naive people to send them coins first and they'll then get nothing in return and there's nobody to turn to to get their money back. That's not to say merit and account sales don't happen, because they certainly do, they're just probably not as widespread as you might think and there's probably a lot more scammers looking for an easy scam then actual genuine sellers.

[mdayonliner]

Oh well, I suppose we will soon see a Pump and Dump Smerit Telegram channel. Or Buyer will realize, in the long term...

Should we HODL or sell some (?) since the merit market is having bull run I guess 

I think anyone caught doing this should be immediately banned to ever posting here.

The unofficial rule says...

Can I sell merit?

Selling merit is disallowed.

Meaning there are no clear direction however DTs will tag though.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

wondered who has +50 merits to sell?? definitely, a high ranked member or may be group of them(+5) who can give 10merits each  

Or they're just a scammer taking their chances. Let me tell you that probably the majority of people selling accounts and merits these days have no accounts or merits to sell at all.

This is actually the truth but many will doubt this and due to their ignorant they'll all fall victims to these scammers. Some how I feel they deserve it, I mean why search to buy what you can earn. Just enjoy yourself in the forum, care less about the whole merit thing. be original in your post and don't post because you're force to (bounty) and they will start coming.
Instead of wasting that $14 on merits that can be taken from you at any point in time when forum administrators link you to seller, add some spear dollars to it and get yourself altcoin when it rises, trade them for bitcoin, who knows it might be the beginning of your success story in cryptocurrency.

[Xal0lex]

Well!! Merits can be traded in exchange for USD

14$ seems a lucrative deal for anyone, and there is a discount as well when looking for >5 merits.

In the Russian section prices are lower 

$10
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031057.msg46036459#msg46036459
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5033367.0

And even $8
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5033959.0

[inPRIVACYweBELIEVE]

Well!! Merits can be traded in exchange for USD

14$ seems a lucrative deal for anyone, and there is a discount as well when looking for >5 merits.

In the Russian section prices are lower 

$10
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031057.msg46036459#msg46036459
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5033367.0

And even $8
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5033959.0

Quoted for reference I guess I will wait for the bear market hehe. Which exchange has the most volume? Is this listed on CoinMarketCap? Anybody please inform me. I am having FOMO!
 

[akihiro101117]

yes it is true that there merit sellers and buyers but they will be easily flag down when they have a certain pattern or same recipient.  good-luck! i wish you had a great time in this forum and goodbye also!

[Barcode_]

Well!! Merits can be traded in exchange for USD

14$ seems a lucrative deal for anyone, and there is a discount as well when looking for >5 merits.

In the Russian section prices are lower 

$10
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031057.msg46036459#msg46036459
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5033367.0

And even $8
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5033959.0

There are also user who have started a thread looking to buy Merit and even Jr. Member accounts on the Chinese section too.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5033177.0
https://web.archive.org/web/20180922192449/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5033177.0

And they are using QQ which is an instant messaging software commonly used by the Chinese citizen in China to discuss on deals between the buyers and sellers for selling Merits and Jr. Member accounts.

[vallydelly]

Oh well, I suppose we will soon see a Pump and Dump Smerit Telegram channel. Or Buyer will realize, in the long term...

Should we HODL or sell some (?) since the merit market is having bull run I guess 

haha bull run for merit, Let me HODL my own merit for long term.. IoIz... But on a serious note merit trading is getting more popular on the telegram groups these day, most of them have turn into scamming, But I believe with time, those selling their merit, it will get exhausted and everything will be back to normal. 

[r1s2g3]

But I believe with time, those selling their merit, it will get exhausted and everything will be back to normal. 

Everything will turn into normal when everybody start thinking of the honest route. If users just want shortcuts then scam/selling will always flourish.

I just like to quote a modified version of old saying.

Buy a Merit today, you have solved the problem for today. Learned ,how to earn the Merit, you have solved the problem for lifetime.

[deguzmanwacky]

Primary costumers are the whiners here in the forum who spams a lot complaining about why are they demoted when obviously you can read it because it was posted here. smh.

Simple tip: Dont be too desperate to rank up. It will come eventually.

[Barcode_]

Primary costumers are the whiners here in the forum who spams a lot complaining about why are they demoted when obviously you can read it because it was posted here. smh.

Simple tip: Dont be too desperate to rank up. It will come eventually.

Merit will only come eventually for users who are showing people that he is truly making an effort to change by improving his posts quality over a period of time, I believe it would be hard for some newbie users to get any merit if they still insists to make tons of low quality posts, my advice to them is to embrace the change and start putting in more time and efforts to increase the overall quality of their posts slowly.

[theymos]

As I've said before, I'm not really worried about it. Especially at those high prices (plus the risk of being red-tagged), it's enough of a barrier that it should still serve its intended function of creating a significant cost/barrier for garbage-posters.

BTW, if any merit source goes rogue and sells a ton of merit, then I will probably go through the transaction graph and undo all of the transactions touched by that sold source-merit. Merit ain't no immutable cryptocurrency!

[Xal0lex]

As I've said before, I'm not really worried about it. Especially at those high prices (plus the risk of being red-tagged), it's enough of a barrier that it should still serve its intended function of creating a significant cost/barrier for garbage-posters.

BTW, if any merit source goes rogue and sells a ton of merit, then I will probably go through the transaction graph and undo all of the transactions touched by that sold source-merit. Merit ain't no immutable cryptocurrency!

Merit source only? IMO, it would be nice to go through the transaction graph of simple users who explicitly hand out tons of merits. I understand it's hard enough. But still. Then buyers will think before buying merits.

[cryptovigi]

Merit will only come eventually for users who are showing people that he is truly making an effort to change by improving his posts quality over a period of time, I believe it would be hard for some newbie users to get any merit if they still insists to make tons of low quality posts, my advice to them is to embrace the change and start putting in more time and efforts to increase the overall quality of their posts slowly.

Of course! That was/is the intention of merit. And exactly this way I understand it...
But when people - mostly Newbie are seeing posts like this below, which was merited today, or contests (like this one: LINK) they can be little bit confused is merit really about contriubution in forum society?

I would like to join airdrop which holds VestChain. What are the main conditions? Where can I find a link to airdrop itself? Someone tell me me who else has this information?

This is good project. I will keep an eye on this project.

No one interested in Contrarian Betting? I guess you prefer the Crowd Wisdom  

For me your post was so chaotic and visually confusing that it was too hard to even read it.

i think mine in today is good if you have some money to pay electric bill around 2 month.
cryptomarket in Q4 price will rise you can sell it and take profit

Is that a new game or you guys are cooperating with EOSBet?

Not only personal social movement but also businesses are also taking part in the Social Chains.

I wonder whether a larger exchange ? Personally, I do not like these two exchanges Ibex and Coss. There is very little liquidity on these exchanges

I have not been here for a long time. All the same posters. All the same posts. Long way of endless to beat the air and mill the wind.

Yπάρχει κάπoιoς πoυ θα ενδιαφερόταν να γράψει ένα άρθρo για τo bitcoin site μoυ;
Eίναι καινoύργια η ιστoσελίδα και έχω ήδη πάρει μερικά θετικά reviews από site τoυ εξωτερικoύ.
www.bitfortip.com
Όπoιoς έχει site ή blog με θέμα τo Bitcoin και ενδιαφέρεται, ας μoυ στείλει πρoσωπικό μήνυμα.

last one I've translated with google translator to see how one can get 40 merits for single post from Legendary guy and maybe learn something - that's what i got:

"Is there anyone who would be interested in writing an article on my bitcoin site?
It's new to the site and I've already got some positive reviews from a foreign site.
www.bitfortip.com
Anyone who has a Bitcoin site or blog and is interested, let me send a personal message."

Suming up the concept of merit is great but there is still needed some more control of its distribution because when Newbies read some "guides" about the "rules" how to get merit, than make some unsuccessful try writing posts and then see posts like these... They loose enthusiasm and start to look other ways to get merit for example buying. That's why i'm not suprised at all that merit blackmarket started up...

[hilariousetc]

As I've said before, I'm not really worried about it. Especially at those high prices (plus the risk of being red-tagged), it's enough of a barrier that it should still serve its intended function of creating a significant cost/barrier for garbage-posters.

BTW, if any merit source goes rogue and sells a ton of merit, then I will probably go through the transaction graph and undo all of the transactions touched by that sold source-merit. Merit ain't no immutable cryptocurrency!

I think it would be fairly easy to spot people selling merits en mass. Most merit sources probably won't want to risk their account or reputation being ruined for a little bit of cash and I think most will get busted sooner than later. It would probably be far more profitable to use that account to earn from signature campaigns or whatnot anyway. Why don't you add more donator ranks like Silver & Gold Members? If people are going to the trouble of buying accounts and merit then why not let them legally buy the benefits of the rank from the forum instead? Most people who sell accounts and merit here are just scammers with neither to sell in the first place, so lets cut out the shady middleman and eliminate the shady/scammy market. It might actually cut down on the needless merit begging threads and people creating content with the sole intention of trying to receive merits as well. We already have Copper Member with the benefits of being a Member so why not add Silver and Gold that have the benefits of Full and Heroes respectively? I don't see any negatives to this and the benefits are numerous.  

[aseemhamza]

WooW now theymos must make his own Bounty C.... that is will be a good idea ICO bitcointalk coin and he will pay by sMeit 

[k0er]

WooW now theymos must make his own Bounty C.... that is will be a good idea ICO bitcointalk coin and he will pay by sMeit  

bitcointalk coin has long existed
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=864994.0

But it was interesting to know that he owes you. You don`t really press him, sir, ok?

[myads runner]

Where there is demand there is market without debating is it legal or illegal.

As we known, selling merit is an illegal trading

Theymos will do something for this

[Mostafiz878]

Well!! Merits can be traded in exchange for USD

14$ seems a lucrative deal for anyone, and there is a discount as well when looking for >5 merits.

Really this is true....??
I don't know this before

[Little Mouse]

I just got this one- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4457400.0
Merit for sex 
So, we can get both cash and goods for Merits= A currency, lol.

[mikeywith]

pretty soon we could see a new topic in altcoins  forum with a tittle [ANN][SMRT] The Smerit Token ICO


so jokes aside !

say a newbie needs to buy 100 merits to be a full member . at 14$ it costs 1400$ , how many years till he hit ROI ?  with 1400$ i would just buy some shitcoin and hodl them till 2020 and screw bounty campaigns