The Pharmacist (Legendary)Member of the Merit Cycling Club
Let's start1.When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?" I think I’ve written this in a few of my older posts, but bitcoin first came onto my radar right around the time the Mt. Gox debacle was happening. The price was going haywire, and of course as a result it made the news. I had no idea what a cryptocurrency was and thought bitcoin was akin to Flooz from the late 90s/early 2000s. That was some weird form of money that was to be used solely on the internet—and since there was no need for such a thing, it quickly fizzled out. So in 2013/14 I just figured bitcoin would follow the same trajectory and that anyone who bought it would lose everything.
I kept following bitcoin’s progress throughout the Mt. Gox episode, and I remember being surprised that it hadn’t gone to zero. So I did a little research into what makes bitcoin different from something like Flooz and realized there was something a bit special about it."
2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?" When I finally came to terms with the fact that bitcoin was not some kind of scam, I started seeing its potential as an investment (though I didn’t think then and don’t now think that it’s a great currency). The technical aspects of it still perplexed me, since I don’t have a background in computers or cryptography, but I finally figured out how to send and receive bitcoin by playing around with faucets. I fondly remember one called Land of Bitcoin which I don’t think still exists.
My first actual purchase of bitcoin was a small amount on Coinbase in 2015, probably March or so, and I think the price of bitcoin was around $350. And man, I wish I still had all the bitcoin I bought at those low prices."
3. How did you get on the forum?"I discovered bitcointalk when I was following the progress of bitcoin, back in 2013 or ’14 when I was still very much skeptical of crypto’s legitimacy. A lot of Google searches turned up results linking to forum posts, so I spent a lot of time reading stuff here. One of the first things I noticed was that there was a lot of drama going on, and a lot of scams. Another thing was that the forum was extremely lenient as to what you’re allowed to post. Other discussion forums I’ve been members of barely tolerate disagreements, much less full-on rage fests laced with profanity. That appealed to me greatly, the freedom to essentially say what you want without having your posts moderated into oblivion.
I lurked on the forum for at least a year before I finally created an account, and since my technical knowledge of bitcoin wasn’t anywhere near that possessed by the majority of members here, I did a bit of mild trolling at first and I don’t think a lot of my early posts had much to do with bitcoin (lol). Though I didn’t know what a signature campaign actually was when I registered, I could easily see the result of their existence—a lot of what I read sounded like it was written by a robot or a complete moron, and it was clear that there wasn’t much back-and-forth discussion going on, just members making near-incomprehensible statements….you know what I’m talking about, because we still have that going on in 2020."
4. You actively participate in the discussion of reputation issues on the forum. In your opinion, is the DT system fair or has flaws?" Bitcointalk’s trust system is unlike anything I’ve seen on other forums, and yes it’s got plenty of flaws. One of the biggest flaws IMO is that nobody is held accountable for the feedback they leave, since trust isn’t moderated and members are allowed to leave feedbacks regardless of whether what they’re writing is the truth or not. I’ve never liked the trust system, but it’s become apparent to me over the years that Theymos isn’t too keen on making huge changes to it.
As far as the DT system goes, I tend to think it worked better before it became a rotating list—but even then, there have been abuses and all sorts of shenanigans that have gone on, involving DT members (not to mention all the drama). Frankly, I’d be completely fine if Theymos scrapped the DT system altogether."
5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns? Do they harm the forum?" Those are two separate questions. As far as the merit system goes, I’m a strong supporter of it and was relieved when it was introduced in 2018. The problems of spam, account farming, sales, and whatnot had gotten completely out of control by January of that year, and while there was a lot of discussion about how to combat all that crap, there weren’t any good tools to use in that fight. Actmyname and I were tagging shitposters in the months before the introduction of the merit system, but it wasn’t a good use of the trust system and was frowned upon by Theymos. The merit system has done a fantastic job of making it extremely hard for accounts to be farmed, since climbing the rank ladder is now dependent on earned merits—and for the average bitcointalk member it’s very hard to earn merits unless their posts are above average.
Regarding signature campaigns: I used to be staunchly against them, but after a while I did join one as I figured I might as well earn a few satoshis by doing what I was going to be dong anyway. Unfortunately, that isn’t the mindset of the average bitcointalk member. I’ve long had the impression that the majority of members are here for the sole purpose of earning through campaigns/bounties. That might not be such a problem if all campaign managers had high standards regarding the quality of their participants’ posts, but that most certainly is not the case. And the net result of that is you’ll see tons of posts that don’t really say anything and are stretched out to 75-100 characters just so the post will count for the campaign.
Campaigns are also significantly responsible for the plagiarism problem we have on the forum. Many campaigns only pay for posts in English, and a lot of the “professional campaigners” hail from countries where English isn’t spoken, and there they have a dilemma—and often how they solve it is to copy content from the internet verbatim or use a word-spinning script or whatever, and it’s a plague nowadays.
Despite all the negatives surrounding campaigns and bounties, I do think they help people gain some interest in crypto, and they also contribute to the bitcoin economy even if it’s in a small way. In addition, there are some very poor people who can earn far more money in a campaign than they could anywhere else. That’s an excellent thing (though I wish they didn’t contribute to the shitposting problem as much as I estimate they do). I have no idea how long campaigns are going to exist for, but I’m not hoping they disappear anytime soon. "
6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?" Topic? I don’t have a good answer for that. But there are a number of members who are extremely helpful. Jet Cash is the first person who comes to mind, and I base that on all the work he was trying to do to help new members improve their English. Some of his ideas fizzled out pretty quickly, but he put a lot of effort into helping newbies without asking anything in return.
As I said, there are a ton of helpful members, and I don’t want to list names in case I inadvertently forget some and give the impression that I don’t appreciate them. "
7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?"1. Ban known scammers like all other forums do.
2. Restructure the ranking system to perhaps increase the number of ranks and create some higher than Legendary.
3. Impose more restrictions on newbies, and there have been a lot of good suggestions made over the last few years that apparently fell on deaf ears at the top. It’s an unfortunate truth that most of the garbage posts originate from members who’ve been referred to bitcointalk by friends/relatives/coworkers as a place to earn easy money just by writing posts. The merit system was a fantastic idea, but I think there’s still a few things that could be done to make it harder for newbies to use the forum as shitposting gig. "
8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?" Invest in projects? Hell no! I assume you mean ICOs and the like, and I have a very dim view of that entire space.
As far as trading goes, I’ve dabbled in it here and there, but I’ve found the markets to be way to unpredictable and volatile to seriously engage in trading. "
9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?" Sadly, I don’t have any stories to relate about either. I never made real profits with bitcoin or altcoins, nor did I lose much. I don’t day trade crypto, which I know is a very popular activity amongst forumites and assorted cryptocurrency enthusiasts. If there’s a gambling gene, I’m pretty sure it’s missing from my chromosomes. "
10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?" Nothing, since I don’t even know what that is (though I’ve heard the terms mentioned on the forum). "
11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?" Since I don’t think I could remain completely anonymous even if I tried my hardest, it’s definitely not a vital necessity. It’s not even all that important to me as far as bitcoin goes, but it is one of the features of crypto that I do like. "
12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?" The one and only book about crypto that I’ve read was Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper, and it was fascinating. "
13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?" Eh. Off the top of my head: NEO, Neblio, and Tezos. There are so many, though, and I’m not confident any of them are going to perform any better than bitcoin. Nor do I think altcoins/tokens are ever going to find a real-world use that would cause the average Joe on the street to want to buy any of them—and if no one buys them, they’re probably not going to be good investments. "
14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?" $9750. My guess is as good as anyone else’s."
Thanks to
The Pharmacist for the interview!
The end.
