[Interviews] with Bitcointalk members

[fillippone]

fillippone (Hero Member)

Let's start

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

"Long time ago. I think that, being an internet addicted nerd, I “always” knew about bitcoin. But I never really looked into that as I considered it “drug dealer money”. Then in 2013, I read about bitcoin somewhere and given the rise in price I discovered the mining: of course I didn’t understand anything, but I distinctly remember cluelessly setting up an excel spreadsheet considering to buy a bitcoin miner by Bitmain. When BTC spiked from 100 USD 120 USD and difficulty consequently exploded, I decided I missed the boat and closed that spreadsheet for years. The idea of actually buying a bitcoin on an exchange never crossed my mind. Worst decision ever. Sliding door moment. Then, the following year in 2014, a friend of mine, who got into the bitcoin rabbit hole, did some kind of “elevator pitch”, explaining to me the basic concepts of the white paper. Understanding what bitcoin was about clicked something in my heart: since then I am in the “bitcoin rabbit hole” too, with a given percentage of my brain constantly allocated to BTC."

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"It was years after that episode. Back then I bought the vast majority of my bitcoins. I bought what I decided was the “right” investment for me. Actually I made an error converting USD and EUR, so I ended up buying something less than I wanted to. I never bought anything more, bar some “pocket money” buying. Again, the worst decision ever. "
As per the "why" part had to do as an hedge against the current fiat system. I do agree with Jameson Lopp: "Bitcoin isn't a get rich quick scheme, it's a don't get poor slowly scheme.". As an European, I was worried about the credibility of the Euro, the fiat currency I was paid with in my daily job, and even if the Euro system were able to survive somehow, I was sure the inflation would get a large chunk of my earnings: if the dollar lost 40% of his value during the last 20 years, I can't see the Euro losing less than that in the next 20. So I decided to take action and protect myself.

3. How did you get on the forum?

"Oh, Oh, here comes the shameful part. I have to admit, I registered here for a shitcoin airdrop. If you research into my first post, you can actually discover which one. Funny thing: I already had a clear idea about shitcoins. I remember knowing about bitcointalk.org, but I never bothered to register and discover what it was about. I was focused on other “things” at the time.
Third and fourth worst decision in three questions. My story looks so sad.
So, when I registered, I remember I struggled to gain my first 10 merits to be eligible for the shitcoin airdrop. Then the love story started."

4.1. What prevents mass adoption of cryptocurrencies?

"Laziness. Bitcoin is a difficult matter itself, in addition to that it requires responsibility taking care of your private keys. People don’t want this responsibility, they want to delegate banks to manage their own money (which ultimately becomes the bank’s money, due to all the KYC/AML rules). Also, thinking about Bitcoin as a MoE, we have to admit user experience with Bitcoin has a great margin of improvement, but as long as paying with bitcoin is worst than paying with a contactless credit card, I can’t see a major mass adoption. LN is a great advancement in the right direction, but it is still technically cumbersome."

4.2. Who do you think will win bitcoin or banks?

"I think there is a bit of misunderstanding here: Bitcoin is not against banks, as commercial banks, it is against banks as central banks. Bitcoin is not against credit: bitcoin is against the unlimited, irresponsible money printing by central banks, who ultimately induces a moral hazard in the whole banking sector. So I think surely banks and bitcoin can coexists. Of course banks will have to radically change the way they are doing business. For sure there is enough space for everyone."


4.3. What is your opinion about the economist PlanB  and his Stock To Flow model?

"I distinctly remember when I first read the seminal article by PlanB. I was already familiar with the Stock to Flow concept, but seeing it so well developed and tested surely was a life-changing moment. I spent the following weeks studying it, desperately trying to find an error or a flaw on it. I submitted that paper to some academic friends of mine, who dismissed the article with an ad-hominem attack on bitcoin, not on the math itself. I opened a threadthread on the forum also, trying to get as much information as possible on it. Still, I am waiting for the first serious flaw. So I do believe it’s going to hold, for the moment, and next halving. The interesting thing is what is going to happen in the following halvings: I can’t see the model to materialise without major disruption in the financial system. Either the model, or the US Dollar is going to break. Interesting times ahead."
 

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"You must be kidding me, aren’t you? I am a firm believer in the merit system, and I am fully committed to the merit system, in a way that could also be considered excessive. I must admit I have no idea on how the forum was before the merit system was introduced, but I think spamming and account farming, two very deleterious activities for every forum has been greatly reduced. But the big positive side of the merit system is the boost in idea and knowledge circulation system it helped to bootstrap. This is the idea I tried to expose in my infamous merit thread.
Regarding merit signatures, I think it is a good way to spread the idea for good projects, but ultimately it is advertising. This is something that it is a responsibility of the owner of the publicised service and of the campaign manager to select the right quality standard of the poster in the campaign, with different targets.  Obviously poters in the campaign will try to keep a good posting standard, but as we saw, it is not always the case."

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

"I came here on the forum late, because i thought I could learn more outside it. But I was wrong (how many times I called myself wrong in this interview?). The level of competence in this forum is incredible. If this was not the case, it would not be the forum used by achow101 or gmaxwell until today. I had very insightful discussions about very different topics on many boards and many users. I think I cannot compile a list: I truly believe every user in this forum has her own competence to bring. Also the most trollish users (bar the minimum “ignore” threshold), has a value, constantly challenging your ideas."

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"I am good with the current forum. I think it has been stable for a long period of time, so “if it works ain’t fix it". The reason to upgrade might come from the competition by other media. A lot of newer users resort to instruments like Telegram/Facebook/Youtube and completely disregard forums. I think each medium has his own prerogatives but the big advantage of forums is the “persistence” of knowledge. You can easily find an answer in the forum: good luck with it with a Telegram channel (where, actually, questions are answered over and over).
I think that new forum features would help to attract more new users.
1.EpochTalk/whatever new platform @theymos deems correct. Giving the forum a 2020 look and functionalities might help in the above mission to attract more “new” users. This should include some more statistics (to say the least include all the bpip.org project).
2. Mobile version. This could be part of point one, but it deserves a specific point. Navigating the forum via mobile is really difficult. I post A LOT through mobile, and I often struggle at it. A dedicated version would help a lot, also, again, to attract new users who usually use their mobile only.
3. As others have suggested: clearly mark a banned user, giving also the possibility to “auto ignore” them. I don’t want to engage in a discussion with/regarding/started-by a banned user, and as a merit source I don’t want to incur the risk of meriting a banned user."

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

"I don’t trade in Bitcoin, I think they are a vital resource to me, and I am not so greedy willing to increase them. Regarding bitcoin I am totally risk averse. All I do is stashing sats, buying a bit here and there when I have some spare funds.
Regarding projects, where with that term I refer to “projects helping the bitcoin ecosystem growth”, I would really like to. But I am not that Bitcoin rich (let alone fiat rich) to afford to invest in them. I have a great respect for all the bitcoin early investors who didn’t just hodl their stash, but spent them in good projects: they now might be richer, but for sure they contributed to help bitcoin become what it is today. Investing in bitcoin projects, not hodling, defines the first class bitcoiners.
Other projects like [ANN] Project! I really don’t care about them."

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

"I am not a trader, I told you. The only time I traded a little bit was back in the fork season in late 2017, 2018. I remember willing to get rid of all thise stupid forks as soon as possible. So I was trying to extract all the scammy forks from my BTC stash and getting rid of them at the first possible time. Bitcoin Pizza, Bitcoin God, SuperBitcoin, all gone. Of course my biggest trading decision was the timing of the sell of BCH. So, I will forever be grateful to Roger Ver who allowed me to increase my BTC stash of over 20% for free."
 
10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"If bitcoin is a Far West, DeFi is a (FarWest)^2. It really reminds, as a general attitude, the ICo frenzy of 2017. No one really understood how an ICO worked, or what was that particular ICO value proposition, or business plan, but nonetheless everyone was ready to throw dollars at them. I think DeFi could be a very interesting ecosystem to develop new services based, or rather pegged to Bitcoin. DeFi could potentially help to bootstrap a new “Gold Standard” based on Bitcoin, where the new Gold is Bitcoin and the new banks are DeFi smart contrat. This is a very futuristic scenario, but I think that the interaction between Bitcoin, DeFi and Banks will be a very interesting one to observe in the future."

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"Both. It is very true what @LoyceV said: privacy is a very underrated feature, and once you give it away, it is not possible to claim it back anymore.
I think there are 10 people in the world who know who I am, and I told them my username on the forum when I was still very junior. I don’t know If I would do the same now, and I have instructed them not to disclose my real identity."

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"I justread again the “Bitcoin Standard” by Saifedean Ammous. It is a very good book and it first applied the stock to flow model to Bitcoin, defining it as a hard money. I've read that book again because I started to re-evaluate Saifedean Ammous assumptions based on some of his opinions, in other fields than bitcoins, namely some of his opinions on the COVID- imposed lockdowns. I just wanted to see if some of those bias were present in his book. Fortunately those didn’t, so I still can trust him (while he speaks about bitcoin stuff). I strongly recommend giving this read to any nocoiner: if he doesn’t fall in love with Bitcoin reading that book, he never will.
Another book I would recommend is “Mastering Bitcoin'' by Andreas Antonoupolos, which has a completely different target, focusing on the technical aspects of bitcoin instead of the monetary ones. With a very subtle analogy: understanding a little bit how the engine works, can help you be a better driver. "

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

"I told you before I landed on the forum because of a specific altcoin. Please don’t be fooled: I am a Bitcoin supremacist. In my third ever post on Bitcointalk.org I made a clear statement I still consider valid. I have no clue about the other cryptos/tokens, so to me it is Bitcoin/Bitcoin/Bitcoin."

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"I wouldn't be a PlanB Zealot, if I didn’t take the Stock to Flow seriously. So I take this answer from digitalik.net: 25,500 USD.
Also be warned I wouldn’t be a PlanB zealot if I take the model as a literal future prediction tool. "

Thanks to fillippone for the interview!

The end.

Thank you @zasad@. It was a fun interview, and also nice memory trip down the road. I do hope reading these line you understood my true love for bitcoin, and also maybe you get curious about something. Bitcoin is so much learning new things. So while I learned a lot of new things being here on the forum, interacting with a lot of different users, I tried my best with my own threads, to give back something I think I knew better, from my personal history, studies and real life.

[TheBeardedBaby]

TheBeardedBaby (Legendary)

1.   When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?
First time I heard of bitcoin was in 2010, when a friend told me about it, and was joking that we must invest, I should have listened to him. I came into the deep in 2017.

2.   When and why did you when you buy your first bitcoin?
I got my first satoshis in 2013, there was a website trybtc.(something) where people got some bitcoin to try it. Later in 2013 we were mining with a friend but when he tried to sell the btc he got scammed. Lesson learned. As many others in the same situation we just left the crypto field until 2017. This is when I bought my first satoshis, in the summer when the price surged to 3K$.

3.   How did you get on the forum?
After I bought my first satoshis I started reading more about bitcoin, in 2013 we just mined them we did not understand much about it. I end up on the forum while looking for a captcha solving service, I don't remember why I needed that captcha thing. But I fall in love with the forum and all that history hidden in the pages. 

4.   Have you ever overstepped your principles in the forum?
In or out of the forum I’m always being myself and following what I feel is right. Sometimes I see things I don’t like, and I try to oppose, I try to rise a voice and make changes which will benefit others, same with the forum. The forum has a very complicated political kind of structure, which creates parties with different interests and businesses, confronting each other, which generates only a negative effect on the forum, and I don’t like that, but I can’t change it. I really don’t want to participate in any party (maybe I'll move to Switzerland).
Sometimes my understanding does differ with those of the mods, so I got some of my posts deleted as being spam or off-topic. The interpretation of the rules is a funny thing.
 
5.    What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?
The merit system was one of the best things that happen to the forum. There were many who had account farms, developing, and selling accounts with bots, which created a ton of spam and the forum was drowning in it. After the merit came in place, those who were worthy posters got a bit ahead of the others. The system did put a break to many newbies coming for “free money”.
This leads to the next question regarding the signature campaigns. As every other thing they also have positive and negative sides. The pros are that many good projects get exposure, the forum traffic is higher and there is some extra income for the regular users.
The cons: Some of the campaign managers don’t do their job properly allowing spammers to join the campaigns and make money for spamming, which drags more of those spammers.
Since there is no better control over the credibility of the projects, sometimes people promote a lot of scam project and many loose their money. Those who get scammed often label the cryptocurrencies as scam, sad story.

6.   The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?
Every section has its own useful topics, I can think of at least 50 now but it is no need to list them. Many people are making lists of those topics, so no one needs another one 😊. It’s exciting when you find them, tho.
Regarding the users, I personally got help from many nice people during those years, the forum is full of nice and helpful people, it’s amazing. I won’t mention particular users because again I have to create a long list, but you can easily recognize them.
 
7.   3 things you would implement on the forum?
That’s a thought task if you don’t want to cross the forum (Satoshi and admin’s) principles. Let’s try:
- New clear Official Rules.
- Migrating to Epochtalk ASAP
- Create a new rank after Legendary

8.   Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?
I trade but not so actively as I do not have enough time for that, I open positions once a month or two depending on the BTC price swings.
I do not invest in projects as this takes way more time to research a project than to trade.
 
9.   Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?
There are no big profits nor losses, I slowly generate some satoshis, that’s all.

10.   What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?
   This is the right way to go, we need to see the current financial system developing, combining it the possibilities of the blockchain will have a very interesting outcome. But what is most important is to keep following the the bitcoin legacy – Be Your Own Bank, have a financial freedom, and control what you actually own.

11.   Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?
It’s more precaution, I’m not whale

12.   The last cryptocurrency book you read?
Don’t have time to read crypto books unfortunately, but I love to listen to some of the work of people like Andreas Antonopoulos, for example. Basically, podcasts and YouTube videos.

13.   Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?
I don’t follow the alt market so I can give only one suggestion - BTC  😊

14.    How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?
1 BTC will cost exactly 1 BTC. Fiat are unstable.

15. P.S.
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” G. Michael Hopf

--- thanks @zasad, it was fun.

[The Cryptovator]

Thanks @zasad for invite me for the interview.
Coolcryptovator - Self Made Hero Member.  

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?
To be honest I noticed bitcoin on 29/05/2016. Are you wondering how recalled the exact date? Then have a small story. At the beginning of 2016, I was looking for "how to earn online", then learn from YouTube about the PTC site. Then first joined was on Paidvert, and from there I noticed payments method bitcoin. Just now I logged in and discover my joining date from there. Although I didn't become interested in there, but I start research from there what is bitcoin. You can say I was stupid at that time, I avoid bitcoin to use on paidvert once I discovered its volatility. Then slowly I start joined a few more similar sites earning dust by using fiat money PM (perfect money). After approx e month, someone invites me to join rev-share, honestly I wasn't aware that time that rev-share just a Ponzi scheme. Believe it or not, I learn the "Ponzi" word after joining this forum. However, I become interested in bitcoin from the rev-share sites, I made deposits using Payza and tried to withdraw in BTC. Because Payza had a dispute option if incase Ponzi run out within 40 days. So if I withdraw in bitcoin then they can't dispute my funds. That's how I become interested in Bitcoin.

2. When and why did you when you buy your first bitcoin?
No, I hadn't bought bitcoin. As I told above, I withdrew bitcoin from rev-share and start using it. Very rarely I buy bitcoin, even can't remember my last buy. You can say bitcoin favor me, once I start using it then I had profited from it. I will describe below since that's related to your other questions. But of course, I won bitcoin in the middle of 2016.

3. How did you get on the forum?
Good question, after the end of rev-share there was a trend of ICO like lending platforms and so on. Since I learned about the rev-share scam, so before buying any ICO token I had to bother to read their social media feedbacks and comments since I wasn't an expert during that time. So you know very well Bitcointalk ANN thread link also attached with social links on the ICO website, so I read also comments from the forum and that's how I found this forum.

4.1. Why did you start working as a bounty manager? Is this a hobby or your main job?
I will be honest about it, some of the forum members inspired me to become a bounty manager. Then I had been trying to get campaigns and got a few small campaigns as well. Most likely some of you may know I have been working abroad (KSA). So I have managed a bounty campaign as a hobby. It's been 14 years since I am working on KSA, and recently I am leaving my jobs due to bad conditions and have a plan to start my own business in my own country. Probably the next week I will be in my home country. So still bounty management will be my hobby or you can say passive income. It was never my main job and it will remain as same. I have some capital which is more than enough to start my own businesses.

4.2. How do you pick out the projects you work with? Do you agree to work for payment in project tokens?
In the beginning, I had contact with the project and convinced to run a campaign on the forum. Few projects contact me as well to run their campaign. If I believe the project is potential at the beginning then I pick the projects to run their campaign. I didn't work for tokens, a brand new token is worthless for me. So, I will not work for worthless token and will work for bitcoin payments.

4.3. Tell us what parameters of candidates do you look at when recruiting them for a signature campaign?
First I notice their posting behavior, earn merits, reputation, and contributions. Spam on the mega thread is an immediate red flag for me because it's just a repeat of other answers. I always try to avoid such as participants who are just made a post to get pay instead of constructive discussions. Usually recruit participants according to projects expectation. For example, gambling sites look for participants who are posting on the gambling section. So I recruit who usually making posts on that appropriate section with the above criteria.

4.4. What is the risk of a bounty manager and what is his responsibility?
Risk is losing reputation if the project turns in to scam. Responsibility is to choose the best project and ensure participant's rewards for the campaign. For the forum, its manager's responsibility to keep the forum spam free, make sure that my participants aren't spamming on the forum and encourage them to make quality discussions.

4.5. Does the forum need to set additional rules for signature campaigns?
I had proposed few guidelines for the bounty campaign/managers although it wasn't only for the Signature campaign.

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?
It was a real-time decision made by the forum admin about implementing the merit system to prevent spam from the forum. Merits are filtering brilliant users from thousands of spammers. For the merits system, good contributors getting advantages from the Signature campaign which is desirable to me. Merit is encouraging to create quality content on the forum, so it wouldn't harmful for the forum in any sense.

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?
The most useful topic to me is, [GUIDES] on Bitcointalk. Index thread . Most useful members? Those help others always.

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?
A) Increase the security system of the user's accounts like 2FA or something similar. B)Add some new moderators where necessary like Beginners & Help boards. C) New ranks who have earned more than 3000 merits.

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?
Did both at a time. But for now, nothing. Holding some shitcoin and waiting to recover.

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?
I have remembered, I had bought some lending ICO token which was approx $100 worth and I sold then after a month for $1800. But lost more on the trading, bought some shitcoin approx 1.4BTC and now become 0.1BTC and that's the reason I am not trading now.

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?  
Just now learned about DEFI ecosystem. So, in short answers, DEFI could rule the future financial ecosystem although I am not sure after how many years it will happen.

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?
For me, you can say vital necessity, because where I am staying (abroad) currently, bitcoin is illegal. In my home country, bitcoin is illegal. So, where anything related bitcoin I have to hide my identity somehow. You can ask, why I have mentioned my current location then? Because I am leaving this country within a week. So I feel there wouldn't be a problem.

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?
Book? Never read.

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?
1. Bitcoin, 2. Bitcoin, 3. Bitcoin

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?
I am not a good predictor, but the price would be between $10K to $14K. I am not expecting more than $14K at all.

15. P.S. (Optional)
"If you want to be the happiest person in the world, lower your aspirations"

[zasad@]

Image source
To everyone who promised to give an interview, remember, I have not forgotten about you and I am waiting for you!

[JayJuanGee]

Image source
To everyone who promised to give an interview, remember, I have not forgotten about you and I am waiting for you!

Initially, I really liked the idea of interviews of various bitcoin talk members, but there is something that it a bit sterile about a written interview format.. so I cannot bring myself to read them, even members who I want to get to know better.  

I am thinking that starting a podcast might be a better format... but at least some kind of audio format... ...audio can be a  bit more spontaneous and a bit more tone based, even better if there were some options for voices to be disguised....

I understand that my comments might be coming off as a bit annoying.. but just saying what I am thinking about the likely difficulties that members (besides yours truly, perhaps?) might be having with written interview dynamics.  #justsaying

[actmyname]

I understand that my comments might be coming off as a bit annoying.. but just saying what I am thinking about the likely difficulties that members (besides yours truly, perhaps?) might be having with written interview dynamics.  #justsaying

I agree. Having no back-and-forth conversation makes this more of an announcement, rather than an interview.

Some members can elaborate their answers and articulate them well, but it doesn't mean they'll exhaust all of the queries that people have.

[Slow death]

I am thinking that starting a podcast might be a better format... but at least some kind of audio format...

this without a doubt is an idea that I believe that hundreds of members will not want to participate, but I wonder what it would be like if we had a video conference interview, it would be something very incredible at least we left anonymity and we would know each other better... I imagine that many members would be desperate just to hear this idea

I'm already imagining the scenario:

OP turns on the camera and sees on the other side a mouse and says oh my god, there is a mouse on the computer of member X and member X says: "man it is me, don't be afraid... can we start the interview?" and OP think: "my god, this mouse typing on bitcointalk all the time and has become a reliable member of DT? oh my god Is a lot to deal with... my head is not managing to deal with it"

Image source
To everyone who promised to give an interview, remember, I have not forgotten about you and I am waiting for you!

maybe now they realized the size of the hole they were in and are scared, I am still waiting to see more interviews

[zasad@]

Initially, I really liked the idea of interviews of various bitcoin talk members, but there is something that it a bit sterile about a written interview format.. so I cannot bring myself to read them, even members who I want to get to know better.  

I am thinking that starting a podcast might be a better format... but at least some kind of audio format... ...audio can be a  bit more spontaneous and a bit more tone based, even better if there were some options for voices to be disguised....

I understand that my comments might be coming off as a bit annoying.. but just saying what I am thinking about the likely difficulties that members (besides yours truly, perhaps?) might be having with written interview dynamics.  #justsaying

I am always for freedom of opinion, so there is no problem.
Most people are not public person and it is very dangerous to give any interview in audio format. Modern voice technology allows you to find any person, so I'm unlikely to find anyone who wants to. There are programs that allow you to change your voice, but this will cause even more problems. I can't ask all the questions in one interview, but I don't need to. You can ask any questions in this topic, or in the user project topics.

[vapourminer]

youve found my spirit animal.. well a glonk would be more accurate but i couldnt find an image in a quick search.

sorry for off topic

[fillippone]

Regarding my interview, I liked it so much I am at your disposal for additional questions. I don’t want to clutter the thread, but we can find a nice format (PM to @zasad@,  or Just post on the thread and delete the message when I answer appending the answer in my interview post).

[UserU]

So many senior members and only 2 Full ones, this thread seems to give off some intimidating aura, eh

[LoyceV]

Regarding my interview, I liked it so much I am at your disposal for additional questions. I don’t want to clutter the thread, but we can find a nice format (PM to @zasad@,  or Just post on the thread and delete the message when I answer appending the answer in my interview post).

A new topic in Archival works well.

[zasad@]

So many senior members and only 2 Full ones, this thread seems to give off some intimidating aura, eh

Do you think this party is only for senior members? NO

If you want to give an interview, write to me in PM. You don't even have to write me a PM. If you notice that all questions are the same except for 4. You can come up with questions for number 4 and publish your interview.

I still don't understand why so many people do not want to express their opinion.
I have plans to interview more people, maybe soon the holiday season will end, and there will be more people willing

[actmyname]

actmyname (Legendary)

(skip past post)

Questions:
1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

"I think it was around late 2014 or early 2015 that I started hearing about Bitcoin, probably due to some loose news from post-Gox FUD. One of the first things that I tried was a faucet (of course) since we all love exchanging electricity for fractions of pennies, and I wouldn't find Bitcointalk until months later. Even after experimenting with it shortly, I had no desire to tinker with it any more since I only had a very rough understanding of the technology: I knew how to spend Bitcoin, and I loosely knew how blocks were handled and mined. It wouldn't be until far later in the summer of 2015 that I actually decided to look into the technical details of Bitcoin's design. After reading the Developer Guide on Bitcoin.org? I was fascinated."

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"It wouldn't be until late 2018 that I actually decided to spend fiat for Bitcoin. Most of the coins that I held up until that time were all from services, contests, or sales and profits. I decided that I wanted to buy some more collectibles. Shiny rocks have aroused the curiosity of mankind for ages, and it won't stop even if we digitize our money."

3. How did you get on the forum?

"Honestly, I can't remember the reason I ever joined. I took a huge break from before I decided to actually start posting anything significant."

4.1. You actively participate in the discussion of reputation issues on the forum. In your opinion, is the DT system fair or has flaws?

"Fairness, justice, it's difficult to define these terms so those pedantic peters will have to excuse the lack of rigor when I say, the DT system is unfair, flawed, and absolutely chaotic.

Imagine you are developing a society and you consider the options. Your previous attempt at a government was a small group - a selected council of members hand-picked by yourself. These members were the absolute measure of trust when it came to your society, and thus those that they trusted directly were deemed to have a holy judgment. Those secondary members too became powerful rulers of the society, and you had a three-layered structure for how the average citizen trusted others.

Now, you have changed the system. Rather than self-appointed rulers, you decided to create a popularity system. This system was designed to create a numerical value for the popularity of individuals, to determine if their opinions were worthy to be appointed a new rank. This was weighted by a factor of 1:2. For each point of popularity you gave to someone, they could only give out half back to someone else. To create a parallel to the previous system, you decide to appoint popularity leaders which can generate popularity points to send to others. However, the generated points cannot be directly sent to themselves.

The second part of this is now to determine your new government: The Tribune of the Hundred. It is difficult to shift members onto a new status quo, but you can do it by forcing participation at the risk of being shunned: to have a chance to be elected to the tribune, you have to take part in the trust experiment, by trusting others and being trusted by popular people. You also force these members to remain active on your main platform to generate more activity, and add in a clause that allows you to exclude members so that you can go back to the old system if necessary. It has been 20 months since the start of this government, and you notice that the number of people that are given absolute trust has grown massively. In fact, the old system which allowed you to view a detailed listing of all members in your government has grown in size to such a degree that you fail to load the list. No problem!"

4.2. How do you think mass advertising of gambling projects has a positive effect on the development of the forum or harms the community?

"Gambling as an industry is a net negative. I think anyone who advocates for gambling without being aware of that is being absolutely willfully ignorant. It's a zero-sum game, and it's favored towards the house: it's an incredible form of wealth redistribution from the poor to the rich. I think, though, gamblers are a sticky bunch. They enjoy losing and they enjoy the culture of gambling, which can serve as some consistent traffic - it also does help that the forum gets a lot of ad money from those sites.

But let's not stop at gambling. What about the fact that the forum has an Investor-based games board? It's like saying, 'yeah, but I had to give my kid a chocolate bar or else he wouldn't stop crying!'

Right..."

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"Merit, no. Signature campaigns, yes. It's obvious, and people can try to equivocate and try to distance themselves from the whole spam front, but if you take a look at most of the forum discussion threads, they are so abhorrent that if you gave a 1.1x return on if a random post was spam or not you would be broke within hours.

The altcoin bounties need to be scrapped. They are a 0-cost way for developers to make a quick dollar and spam up the forum. Seriously."

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

"[EDU] How to spot a scammer (Read this before doing any transactions!)

Why this one in particular? Because the people that need the most help are the ones who don't know how to avoid scams. This covers 90% of cases.

@LoyceV is helpful but his oceans of data threads take up all the space on my screen.
@marlboroza is helpful and meticulous in investigation, but his quote spacing is like that of a child.
@mprep is helpful and one of the most valuable members of Bitcointalk. I think the forum would be significantly worse without their presence. That being said, he banned me once so we clearly have to be arch-enemies for eternity.
@TwitchySeal is helpful but his incredible skill with scam-busting is obviously the development of an obsession which was catalyzed by a childhood event: probably something involving clowns!"

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"You need to maintain privacy standards on the forum, which I respect theymos for doing. Additionally, the security concerns are valid and preventing those features from being problematic makes sense in their disabling. I miss that stats page, though - you could sleuth out some suspected alts with more circumstantial evidence, keeping track of their activity.

I would make the search function better. The current way it works is at a thread-granular level, meaning that it cannot comb through individual messages within a thread that contain your key words. That's absolutely unacceptable.

Better mod and reporter tools would probably help to curb spam more. After all, the 4 second delay has already impacted my efficiency.

And the Bounties section is going to go."

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

"No. Trading is for gamblers or wealthy people and investing in someone else's business means that you're taking the opportunity cost of not doing exactly what they are."

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

"It's hard to come up with a particular situation, since most of my movements are very shallow - I try to play +ev positions without embracing too much volatility. There have been a few times, however, where my team's card counting equity was 8x that of the statistical expectation for the week. I suppose those would be the big profits. No amounts, sorry "

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"Possible to function but you need clever engineering to reduce the cost. Not I nor the 99.9% of people in this forum that don't have deep technical knowledge should be inclined to start appraising it."

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"In a perfect world, anonymity would be no different from reality. In such a world, anonymity would be a vital necessity for society to function. For this world, it is a precaution. However, truly think to yourself whether anonymity being a precaution dictates a situation that is better than it being a necessity."

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"Mastering Monero."

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

"BTC. XMR. The other coins I have deemed either irrelevant or I have insufficient knowledge of their (hopefully) useful protocols to determine their value."

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"I am expecting 12600-13800 levels. Fairly optimistic."

15. P.S. (Optional)

"Read and be forcibly pedantic to yourself, but charitable to others. I may have been quite cynical in this one, so I look forward to corrections."

(back to top)

[Danydee]

It was even interesting read to go through your interview, which show's you to be an interesting person overall, more interesting than I thought.

Agreed. I always thought of Quickseller as very knowledgeable.
Just to stir the pot a bit, I missed the question: "How many forum accounts do you currently own"?

I'd be interested to see an interview with aTriz. I'm curious if he's still around with another account. Before making questions for him, I recommend reading this topic.

Yes, and he still not given me my prize for answering a question about the avatar he was wearing here; http://archive.is/3NE42 


I'm still waiting !   

[UserU]

So many senior members and only 2 Full ones, this thread seems to give off some intimidating aura, eh

Do you think this party is only for senior members? NO

If you want to give an interview, write to me in PM. You don't even have to write me a PM. If you notice that all questions are the same except for 4. You can come up with questions for number 4 and publish your interview.

I still don't understand why so many people do not want to express their opinion.
I have plans to interview more people, maybe soon the holiday season will end, and there will be more people willing

I was just kidding, I'll compile it myself and post once I have some free time

[Timelord2067]

Impressive with something like three million registered UID's you've run out of people to interview after just sixteen users.

[UserU]

Oh well, here goes!

UserU (Full Member)

A normie unlike the big shots here

Let's start

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

"During the 2017 Bitcoin boom. Prior to that, I invested several hundred dollars in some Bitcoins but I didn't really understood the point of like holding them because back then I didn't gamble or see the potential of crypto and thus, didn't really take things seriously. In fact, I started mining them back in 2011 but I didn't bother to even keep a backup of the wallet and yeah, regret till this day.

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"Somewhere in 2014 when I thought hey, why not just buy some Bitcoin? It was from a local exchange service which went bust sometime after (receipt still in my email)"

3. How did you get on the forum?

"I Googled on how to setup an command prompt ETH miner and tada, Bitcointalk appeared first"

4. What was the fastest way you lost your Bitcoins?

"Like most (greedy) gamblers, I started to Martingale on Freebitcoin's Multiplier after losing FOUR 1 Satoshi bets on the Multiplier, starting with the fifth bet of 0.001 BTC. In less than 1 minute and 7 nerve-wracking bets later, I was down by 0.127 BTC. In today's price, that's almost 1.5 grand"

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"Like any other incentives, they're abusable. I've no qualms with the Merit but signature campaigns tend to give off a bad vibe to old-timers because they're often associated with shit posters (the irony when I'm wearing a signature but that's another story ). However I wouldn't say those things harm the forum because Merit is like a stepping stone to sig campaigns and people are free to give them to whoever they please, which I'm fine with.

For sig campaigns, they translate to higher activity on the forum, encourage discussions and also pay a portion of our bills so that's a win-win on both ends. Besides, what's good of a forum if it's dead? Fully capitalize on its potential, like any smart business man would do.

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

Forum ranks/positions/badges (What do those shiny coins under my name mean?)
Very useful since ranking up isn't just about increasing post count.

"There are many users, which I can't list since they are a combination of both newbies and seniors alike, but I'd say the projects of BPIP (Vod) and the Merit thingy (LoyceV) have been sources of useful references all year round. Not to mention those that have supported me to where I am now "

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

1) New software. No more text for ants for us mobile users. Also, notifications when someone quotes you or replies to your topic; the bell.
2) More info on post/ thread removal. Currently it's abusable because some of my legit posts are still removed from time to time without any form of explanation. That person must be very happy hiding behind the keyboard without the need to come forward.
3) Remove the report score. I don't really need to be reminded if my reports are shit or not, it's impossible to score a perfect 100% already

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

"No investment in projects, just for speculation and gambling"

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

"Disregarding #4, I lost quite a sum of my parents' investments during the 2017 Bitcoin boom. Profited well but then re-invested when the crypto winter struck soon after. Waited for over a year before selling them off at a loss, something which I would never forget (again), after informing them and getting rebuked. Loss was close to USD20,000."

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"Just like Bitcoin, the thing still has a long way to go before mainstream adoption. Bitcoin is a prime example. No regulation, no go."

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"Precaution. Our details have already been harvested by Big Brother, aka Google so we have to admit some services are made more convenient by learning from our preferences. But of course we don't just go simply revealing our personal addresses or go stir the hornet's nest if we don't want to be doxxed."

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"Honestly, none. I only read story/ non-fictional books; crypto stuffs are best left on the Internet since things are always evolving. Besides, I buy for the profit "

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

"Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin."

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"I'm pretty certain we won't see any of those eye-watering prices of 200 grand claimed by the likes of John Advertise for A Fee. Most probably below 20K since 2017 was the only time we saw people, including myself joining the bandwagon before it crashed hard.

kthxbye

[zasad@]

Impressive with something like three million registered UID's you've run out of people to interview after just sixteen users.

If you look at statistics, 2,102,093 are Archived profiles (Ban), 641,790 are not active profiles. A total of 92,373 active profiles as of July 2020.
Source of information:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5199053

How much of this amount is Alts?

I have already sent about 100 invitations, so far this is the result. I hope that you will not refuse to give an interview.
__
1 post updated with new links

[UserU]

How much of this amount is Alts?

I have already sent about 100 invitations, so far this is the result. I hope that you will not refuse to give an interview.
__
1 post updated with new links

Cheers, that interview took almost 30 minutes so I guess I can relax now. Phew!