[Interviews] with Bitcointalk members

[Raflesia]

I have received PM from zasad@ so I am happy in this interview,

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?
In early 2016 I went to my friend's house for the sole purpose of playing and he was trading bitcoin at that time I did not know what bitcoin could be cashed in for real and is this really true. Will this be successful in the future? I kept asking my friends and I didn't just believe it. Then my friend directed me to the group on Facebook to discuss bitcoin and that's where I started to understand little by little because of the discussions of these friends.

I still remember at that time it was only $50 in capital if I'm not mistaken to start trading with bitcoin and I was instructed by my friends how to trade and buy and sell when the price was high a little time passed, finally I could benefit from that capital even though it wasn't big for me It's been amazing because I was able to make money on the internet for the first time, and that's where I started getting interested in cryptocurrency until now.

When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?
Maybe 2 months ago after visiting my friend's house at that time in 2016 and for the first time buying bitcoin on the Poloniex exchange, my friend suggested that I start buying bitcoin for the first time with minimal capital to make a little
For me that is the fondest memory because at that time the price of bitcoin was cheaper than now and I did not know that the price of bitcoin could soar as fast as that maybe I would buy more. 

3. How did you get on the forum?
Initially I entered the Bitcointalk forum when on Facebook social media because in the past I was a Facebook activist almost every day opening Facebook and joining several groups and one of them was the reward hunter group someone sent a bitcointalk link and they said that this forum was only for discussing and looking for information about bitcoin then I signed up for it in July.
That was the first time I got to know this forum.

4.1. What prevents mass adoption of cryptocurrencies?
Because there is still a lack of knowledge in the community how the use of digital currency is actually a minimum factor of not knowing cryptocurrency and also the government has not been able to adopt this en masse so this is still in their respective dependencies.

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?
Of course for me, this is very effective for the team for the gambling industry to carry out mass promotion in this forum as long as the gambling is fair and honest, then this does not matter, even many enthusiasts in this forum appeal to others.

If fraud will definitely occur, but here, if you find something like this, then the gambling will not develop and will be marked as cheating in gambling.

4.3. How do you consider whether 2-3 years of experience in cryptocurrency is enough to successfully invest or does an investor need to receive special education?
For me this has worked quite well within 2-3 years of investing in cryptocurrency and no other investment like cryptocurrency in significant time can produce more depending on the market situation.

An investor does not need education, I am sure that educated people are not necessarily able to make this investment, so the important thing is to learn from where we take lessons and the internet provides many services like this easily as long as you are diligent in reading every good article about investing.

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?
Oh no!!
It is precisely with the implementation of the merit system in the forum that there are many quality posters where they compete to make relevant comments and provide ideas to other users that will greatly help this forum to continue to contribute.

With the signature campaign it is a good promotion where this forum is very useful not only for users but other platforms that promote through signature campaigns and I see many of them use signatures with success on that platform.

Of course this does not break the forum

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?
There are so many useful topics on this forum and it is educational to other users I cannot list here because for me there are so many useful for all of us in this forum, I saw it all.

Those users who are most helpful are those who provide the best topics and that provide important insightful suggestions for all of us.

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?
This forum has no problem at all and everything is running normally, but I am sure this forum will continue to grow in the future.

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?
I'm better off trading on an exchange and looking for potential coins than investing in a project at the end it would be a scam too if I didn't do some research. That's a very high risk.

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?
If the loss in trading, the worst thing for me is when buying NXT there I lost about $1600 and the price fell until it can't get back up that is the worst and the biggest loss for me.

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?
Maybe a lot of people are attracted to DeFi because there is a lot of hype there but for me it's not interested at all, maybe it's just a trend for a while and won't be as popular as it will be.

 Many of the hype tokens were created from the DeFi project.

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?
Well it will become a necessity for me someday, but still needed in KYC which is needed.

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?
I've never read any book on cryptocurrency or bought. I always read posts on this forum and Google.

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?
Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tron are cryptocurrencies that I invested in within 1-2 years.

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?
Because there are many predictions at the end of this year, I predict the price of bitcoin at the end of the year is $16k

15. P.S. (Optional)

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[VGryboedov]

Good read. Who is next?

Are the questions fixed for all or you intend to mixed it up depending on who you interview?

How do you plan to maintain this thread by the way? I'm guessing members will be giving feedback on answers given by LoyceV and future interviewees but I'm not sure if that's your intention.

Edit: I'd nominate members who regularly posts on mining and technical boards.

I will select questions depending on the user's preferences. If the user is a miner, trader or investor, etc., then I will try to ask more professional questions. The topic will develop based on the interests and desire of users to participate in it.

I like the idea, but I think you should keep the same set of questions for everybody. The only one that seems to be personalised is question 4. The rest could be answered by everyone. If people know what questions are in advance you will probably get more interest as people know what to expect and whether they'd be OK answering them. It will also be interesting to see everybody's answers to the same questions. Maybe people could propose another one or two questions that can be asked.

Agree, as well, I think it will be better to keep the same set of questions for everyone

[LoyceV]

You might be overthinking it, or maybe I'm "underthinking".

Vod asked for the most referenced post, that would mean searching for all links and not just his post.

It looks to me that if you search for this fragment:

Code:

<a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=577765.msg6317571

Thanks, adding the "a href" is a good way to exclude the link description. The link above occurs 8 times in the first 53M posts.

[Vod]

The link above occurs 8 times in the first 53M posts.

That's fake news.  Made up.  That number is much, much higher!  When the real number comes out, after the election, you'll all see!

I think it would be better to search for just

Code:

<a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=577765

since many people would reference that and say "Vod's post" or "second post".

Then I can use that dataset as a test for my micro earnings feature.  Have people mark the posts that contain a link to my post so we I get get an actual number and people can earn. 

[btcltcdigger]

When a gentleman so kindly asks, it's my pleasure to answer


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

Some time during 2013, i was casually playing World of Tanks with one of my friends, when he casually just brought a question into the conversation: "Hey, have you heard about bitcoin mining".
My first reaction was "stfu and play the game, we're losing..." but after churning it in my head a couple of days, i started looking around and basically we begun our crypto journey.

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

Believe it or not, my 1st and only bitcoin purchase was at the beginning of 2017, and it was in the amount of 30 euro.

3. How did you get on the forum?

Me and aforementioned friend started looking into bitcoin mining, and sure enough, SEO gods brought us here. Mind you it was a MUCH different story back then. Back then it was a race between miners, every new coin had a "release" date and you were waiting to wee hours of the night just so you can mine those first few blocks before the difficulty was too hard, and sell them on the 1st altcoin graveyard that would list them.

4.1. What prevents mass adoption of cryptocurrencies?

IMHO 2 simple things, education and trust. People trust in the all mighty green, to them, crypto is intangible, risky and just "too high tech" to grasp. Well most of the people anyway. There's just too much news about "hackers this, and hackers that" that many will just not risk it. Then there's scams, for which many of the newcomers are likely to fall for, and cross crypto out for good.

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?

In one way it finances the forum (paid ads, raises interest, etc..), in other way it creates mass spam. But this is from campaign to campaign, from user to user, it's wrong to generalize. Signature campaigns, for example, can be structured to be less spammy with higher outreach, but not every manager is capable or willing to do it. Clear separation can be seem between BTC paid campaigns, and altcoin paid campaigns.
For some reason, many people don't see crypto as money, and will be easily persuaded to gamble it. I'm not immune to this, i've lost hundreds of dollars on games and similar things in crypto, yet if someone offers me to go to a real mortar&brick casino, i'll refuse. Why? Because i don't wanna lose money

4.3. How do you consider whether 2-3 years of experience in cryptocurrency is enough to successfully invest or does an investor need to receive special education?

Honestly, no. Even 10 might not be enough for some people. Experience and education will only help you do some reasoning and deduction, but it will not guarantee anything. Then again, it all depends on your definition of "succesfully invest". Does it mean you make profit, or the project is a success? Because you can make a profit without project being a success, and vice versa. Most of the successfull investors are people with years upon years of experience, and even then they make mistakes.

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

Ah merits... Honestly, i don't think there is a perfect system with or without them. Did it stop spam? No. Did it stop account farming? Somewhat. Did it stop bounty abuse? No.
I've seen amazing posts not receiving a single merit just because it was in a wrong board, and then again i've seen some at best mediocre posts getting merits just because of who posted it.
I know meriting isn't monitored or anything like that (basically you can give it to anyone you want, for no reason whatsover), but on the other hand, it's an unwritten rule that the more merit you have/have earned, better your chances of being recognized or accepted in some signature campaigns. Do merits harm the forum? Not really, but it has sparked many people to open topics which i personally don't find at all interesting, and bump them almost daily in hopes of getting merit for them.

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

If i had to choose just one, that would have to be (for historical reasons mentioned above) "Claymore's Dual Ethereum AMD+NVIDIA GPU Miner". I've recently sold my rig due to limited amount of space in the house, but up until then, i would read that topic day and night, spent countless hours tweaking my GPU's and what not.
As for the most helpful user... that would have to be Cyrus. I know this sounds like brown-nosing, but he helped me recover my account in 2017 when it was somehow "hacked". As for other users, many out there.

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

1.Email validation on registration.

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

As a matter of fact I do. Both of these things. I'm part of a small private telegram group where we discuss trades and projects. Some are good at TA, some are good at scam busing, some have access to VC's to get private deals. All in all good synergy. For now, outcome has been very positive financially.

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

Gentleman doesn't kiss and tell, haha. But in short, there have been several projects that paid off bigtime after 1-2 years. As for loses, yeah there were some, but those were long shots and it was small amounts of money, few hundred bucks.

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

I love defi, and i love the idea of defi. To think you can leverage your digital asset to gain some instant liquidity, without having some bank clerk anal probing you. It's awesome. However, i think we're a long way from fully being there. As i expect all these food-tokens might implode soon.

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

It's a necessity. Money makes people do stupid things. That's why people with the most crypto are quiet, in shadows. I have a friend who had a lapse of judgement, and bought a lambo in 2018. His neighbors noticed that from an old dingy dodge he went straight to a yellow lambo, and "things" started to happen. 5 attempts on his life later, he had to move to a guarded compound.

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

The Book of Satoshi

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

I'm bullish on ZIL, ADA and DOT. Especially DOT.
TBH i'm more into passive income than one-time investments. But that's a different story.

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

I expect it to go as high as 15k. There's no TA behind this answer, just my hopes and expectations.

15. P.S. (Optional)
What's up doc?

[Timelord2067]

Archive [1a], [1b] / [2a], [2b]

Let's start

Almost cleaver getting merits with your first post.

[$crypto$]

After I sent a PM to zasad that I wanted to be in this interview and thank you for everything.

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?
Knowing my bitcoin for a long time, I have been in the cryptocurrency world for 5 years when I was familiar with the faucet to generate bitcoin as additional money with it so I became more interested in cryptocurrency and at the end I worked on it until now.

For me cryptocurrency is a virtual tool that is very useful transactions that are so fast that it does not make it difficult for me to buy anything so for me cryptocurrency is a very sophisticated technology.

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?
Buying bitcoin was my first time in 2017 when the pumping happened and bitcoin reached ATH even though I bought at an already high price but I still got a profit because buying was under $ 20k so that's why I bought bitcoin for the first time because I already had capital before the results of the airdrop, bounty etc.
So for me I do not have capital with money but I can save the proceeds and buy bitcoins at the right time.

Well maybe at that time I was lucky but in the future in 2018 there are many unlucky losses ...

3. How did you get on the forum?
Facebook is what made me know about the bitcointalk forum because at that time I often used Facebook to find information about bitcoin and finally referred to this forum from someone who shared the link.
At first I thought this forum would be useless because the service and buying and selling there could be done at that time I didn't know anything because of my innocence still not understanding about this forum

But I see that now this forum is very useful in doing many things including promotional advertising of a platform, legitimate donations managed by honest people, and many more. I open this forum almost every day and discuss because for me the greatest knowledge is found here about cryptocurrency.

4.1. What prevents mass adoption of cryptocurrencies?
Due to the many scams we face in cryptocurrency this could lead to deterrence but people will continue to use bitcoin in the value of their assets.

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?
There is nothing detrimental except that the scamers who come. in gambling promotion advertising are now in great demand, even we know that on this board gambling forum everyone is constantly talking about the gambling they want so this is good for the community and positive for the forum which continues to be active and many known.

4.3. How do you consider whether 2-3 years of experience in cryptocurrency is enough to successfully invest or does an investor need to receive special education?
I think that these considerations should be taken into account before committing to any action on your investment as this will all be a risk if you are careless in doing the wrong thing. So the urge from this community is very strong for me to consider in my decision.

Educated or not for me remains the same as long as we receive good references in doing the things we need.

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?
Nothing breaks forums in the merit system in place and many signature campaigns are running today.
This actually encourages the forum to be of the highest quality for many users with quality posters so for me this forum will still be a forum for many successful promotions.

I will try to tell a lot of people about this forum so they know a lot of success going on here.

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?
Many topics are useful to me and provide great insight into the manners of using this forum and many other things so I thought if there was a topic that helped then I would keep it in borkmark.

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?
-I will post according to my ability
-Looking for hot topics that are discussed
-Continue to contribute to the forum

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?
I will not invest in a new project. I am afraid there have been many failures and losses that I have experienced so as far as possible I will avoid investing in the project.

The daily trading that I will be doing is a common thing as well as my ability to process traded tokens.

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

My biggest profit was when bitcoins hit 20k many altcoins flew I continued to trade to earn but for me it was enough.
The very grievous disadvantage in 2018 when investing in projects and tokens is worthless or even not high volume.

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?
A lot of tokens were created for hype so I think a lot of it is being misused with the appearance of DeFi, ah never mind I don't want to be swayed by what's happening with deFi now.

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?
No, anonymity is a precaution for me in my personal data so it is not a vital need for me to keep what happens to my data secret.

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?
I have never read a book but I have studied and read from an article

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

• BTC
• ETH
• LINK

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?
There is still time until the end of 2020, my prediction is that bitcoin could reach 19k if there is still a lot of pump and demand

15. P.S. (Optional)
I will continue to learn where it came from and never take myself high.

[mole0815]

I haven't had the thread open for a while now and was really surprised by the amount of interviews that have been done.
You have invested a lot of time and work there zasad@.
Find the thread including the background information about each user really refreshing to read.
And also thanks to all users who took the time to answer the questions.

[LoyceV]

The link above occurs 8 times in the first 53M posts.

That's fake news.

Sorry

I think it would be better to search for just

Code:

<a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=577765

No problem: in the first 53M posts, this link occurs 275 times.

since many people would reference that and say "Vod's post" or "second post".

Let's see how often "Vod's post" and "second post" occur: respectively 0^* and 4633 times. This search was case insensitive, and I didn't check if these occurrences have anything to do with the link above (example).

^* This is incorrect, I'll run the search again for "Vod's post" (but searching 42 million files in 15 GB compressed data takes a while).

Then I can use that dataset as a test for my micro earnings feature.  Have people mark the posts that contain a link to my post so we I get get an actual number and people can earn. 

How would that work, considering this unofficial forum rule:

5. No link shorteners that require users to view an ad.

[suchmoon]

Thanks, adding the "a href" is a good way to exclude the link description. The link above occurs 8 times in the first 53M posts.

Sorry, the correct link is https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=577765.msg6311902#msg6311902

Not sure how I got the wrong one, probably clicked on some random post in the thread. I think you'll find this a couple of orders of magnitude more popular.

[LoyceV]

Sorry, the correct link is https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=577765.msg6311902#msg6311902

Thanks, I didn't check the link myself either.
So here's the real data for the first 53M posts:
"Vod's post" occurs 45 times
"second post" occurs 4633 times
"<a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=577765" occurs 275 times
"<a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=577765.msg6311902#msg6311902" occurs 168 times

That's fake news.

Fake news confirmed indeed
However:

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?
The topic would have to be my loan collateral post.  I think it was the most referenced post ever, but LoyceV would have to confirm.

It's not the most referenced post on the forum, it doesn't even reach the top 100.

[Charles-Tim]

It is my pleasure to be interviewed
1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?
I know about cryptocurrencies in late last year, 2019. Seemed too late but nobody knows what the future holds. I am a university graduate since 2016 but no job and underemployed, the rate of employment in my country is very high and leaving us to be so underemployed and suffering. The first money I earned in my life with ease was bitcoin, that was how bitcoin really helped and attracted me. I was able to participate in some bounties and earn (although we need to be careful of bounties because some can be scam while many can lead to scam), that really encouraged me to even join this forum in March, 2020. And now I am earning from this forum. The fact is, the money I have earned in crypto in less than a year is for more than the money I have earned in fiat for five years. The reason I was interested in cryptocurrencies is because I want to earn money and make life easy for myself. And it is fulfilling.


2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?
God so helped me to be a fast learner. Cryptocurrencies have much opportunities in ways you can work for it and earn it. All the bitcoin I have today, I did not buy it, I earned it. I prefer the earning part. But, if I am employed today, I am ready to have some of my savings in bitcoin which will be the first time I will be buying bitcoin.

3. How did you get on the forum?
It was a long story, but let me make it short. A scammer messaged me on facebook messenger posing as a prostitute, sending me nude pictures, depicting herself to be studying one course (forgotten the course) in University of Mississippi, two days after we met, she told me to send her $200 worth of bitcoin or google play gift card that she wants to use the money to buy tools for her school assignment. I believed it is a scam, and I did not send her anything. With that, I noticed bitcoin can serve as money purpose (I have known bitcoin since 2013 but not knowing it serves money purpose, what a novice). I later browsed about bitcoin and started to know what bitcoin is, and from there, I know about cryptocurrencies in general. I later browsed how to earn bitcoin online. I saw faucets, pay to click sites, trading, hodling and bitcointalk signature campaigns. I tried all, and that got me into this forum.

4.1. What prevents mass adoption of cryptocurrencies?
Normally, cryptocurrencies  have mass adoption already, but it supposed to have been more adopted if not for certain reasons, the reason are many but I will only talk about the most important ones. They are:

Ignorance
Permit me to make use of this scenario, assuming people can have their fiat with them, and they can be able to use the fiat the way they like, send it to families and friends abroad and nearby, make use of it for transaction purposes, having it with them without any thief coming by, and all without any third party. I believe with this, people will not even think of bank which has later become so centralized. But, all these benefits, cryptocurrencies can give. Which means, cryptocurrencies can serve the initial purposes of money.

Let us take bitcoin as an example, you can have your own wallet that nobody can control it but you, having privacy and not depending on any third party. But, people do not know about this, people are ignorant about bitcoin while some are thinking it is a scam, while some are thinking it is a ponzi scheme, while some even do not know that bitcoin has intrinsic value and can be regarded as money. If people can truly really know what bitcoin and legit cryptocurrencies are, there will be more increase in adoption rate of bitcoin and altcoins.

Governmental laws and restrictions
Also, governmental rules and regulation are another reasons, countries in the world have not yet legalized cryptocurrencies to be taught in schools, while some countries strictly ban cryptocurrencies. In such countries, some people can still find a way to buy and store cryptocurrencies but the adoption rate in such countries are not as high as in the countries that legalize it. If governments of such countries can legalize cryptocurrencies, the rate of adoption will increase, also, if cryptocurrencies are taught in schools, people will not be ignorant about it and know how important they are as a means of decentralization leading to increase in crypto adoption.

Unemployment, poverty and lack of investment capital
Other reasons which I will not go deeper into which are connected to the reasons cryptocurrencies have not been adopted to its fullest are unemployment, poverty and lack of funds. Some people even know about cryptocurrencies but they lack investment capital, this is common in countries that are underdeveloped, and that is why countries that are rich are more investing and trading cryptocurrencies than countries that are less rich or poor.

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?
If betting company bring their campaigns here, I do not see anything bad, some members of the forum will benefit from the campaign they offer. I play most of my bets on bet365 before which do not support bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but this forum changed that, fiats transaction fee is too high, and there are too much regulation in a way the governments are controlling our funds and restricting us to pay for many international transactions due to inflation and money declination, unlike bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. With this, many people like me have diverted away from betting with fiats but now betting with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies which is a way best, many of the companies have campaigns here which helps the forum to moving forward. Although, I bet, but I should still say people should be careful while betting, they should not use the money they can not afford to lose to bet, so that betting will be fun.

4.3. How do you consider whether 2-3 years of experience in cryptocurrency is enough to successfully invest or does an investor need to receive special education?
People are different, our assimilation rate are also not the same. I was able to know about what to do and how to successfully invest on some cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ether, litecoin and dash earlier. I also know how they can be risky and what to do to make to gain from my investment plans. But, there are some people that will still need to be taught about this, while some even need long term experience, but 2-3 years is too long for such experience, at list 3-6 months is okay which I even still consider too long. Checking the prices of this coins technically using charts will really help than waiting too long, in my opinion.

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns? Do they harm the forum?
I do not think anyone that did not contribute to an organization should earn from such organization, the merit system has helped us to easily know people that are contributing quality posts to Bitcointalk forum, the quality post is the determinant of the forum quality. Bitcointalk is a quality forum today than what I heard has happened in the past when a single person will have more than 5 accounts. I think it will even be a norm before to have many accounts as it is tempting, but the merit system makes it difficult for a single person to build two accounts. Merit system discourage one person to use two or more accounts to join a signature campaign, merit system makes this hard. I consider the merit system to be a decentralized non-kyc means of solving what kyc is needed for.

About signature campaigns, they are helping the forum very well, it is one of the reasons people are getting to know this forum, if you checked how I know this forum, it was through search engine about how to earn bitcoin, it was the signature campaign that was referred to on this forum, not this forum itself, I so much remembered. So, many people are here to earn but ready to contribute by helping people to know about cryptocurrencies and contributing to knowledge and solving people's questions that are asked on the forum.

Quality post is a prequisite to merit which is a prequisite to joining signature campaign which is a requisite to making more people joining the forum which is a requisite to the wellness of the forum. This is a win to win called positive feedback mechanism which indicate how merit system and signature campaigns play good roles in the progress of this forum.

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?
I can not say a topic is most useful because there are many useful topics, there are some I can not forget like 'how to consolisldate your total inputs' and some technical questions that I might not find answers to if not of the forum. Also, topics about scam, ways to avoid scam is so much useful for me, the forum makes me realize that not all should the government handle, we have our own parts to play to secure ourselves from scammers. About users that I have gained from, they are many, it will be biased to mention some and leave some not mentioned.

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?
I will not say these are implementations, but they are what can make the forum move forward, if I achieve in life, and I have any business I want to advertize, I can bring my campaign here, and also looked for means to make the forum more attractive for people. I will like free giveaways on the forum like contests and likes. We have to attract people to join this forum to let them know about decentralization, how it is important and how to avoid scam which are the main aims of this forum.


8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?
There have been over 90 exchange hacked since 2011, the hacking rates was higher in 2017 till now, even some people do not know the binance exchange was hacked in 2019, there have been many people that have lost money to centralized exchanges which makes trading easy and flexible and mostly used by people. I traded on exchange when I was learning how to trade, day trading was a great loss for me, but I use a very low amount of money, in a way if the exchange I am using is hacked, I will not have nothing to lose than $50. I do not invest on any project, I can lose while many of the project can results to loss, although many people have been lucky, but I am not the type, I like to invest in what I know about like bitcoin. The only thing I am doing now is swing trading (hodling in a range of 2 weeks to 6 months), and I hodl bitcoin as well. I have my seed phrase which means I have my private keys to my bitcoins, rather than using centralized exchanges the are often hacked.

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?
This should be a long story but I will make it short, my biggest profits and losses are in gambling, trading (day trading to be specific) and on shady things on exchanges.

There was a time I converted bitcoin into a shitcoin, but all I noticed was that it resulted into a loss for me immediately, instead, I should have used low value coin in price like doge for the conversion or use tether which assumes the worth of $1, but I used bitcoin directly for the trade. I traded $50 but the result after the trade was less than $0.005. It was a big loss for me.

I remember when I fomo, I bought doge at a price of $0.0048 but less than a day, the coin dropped less than $0.0035 and still dropped further.

I included gambling not because I really had losses, actually it was not much, I am disciplined to use the amount I can afford to lose and not think about it, but I have not gained from betting before and it has been what I do not like. Although, my discipline makes it fun for me as well.

The last I can remember for now was when I bought a coin, I invested the coin with 10% daily profit, I was so happy to buy the coin but I later lose a lot. I bought $50 worth of the coin and within 30 days, the coin dumped more than I expected, with the 10% daily profit I have gained, I cashed out $18. Which means I still lost $32.

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?
I have seen DeFi like the 2017 ICO but a little bit different, and it is not surprising that many of the projects that were white listed pulled an exit scam. The CEO of Myetherwallet even says DeFi is too noisy saying many investors have gained while many have lost investment capital in 2020. How about the exit scam that tron legitimized, tron community was blaming just foundation for whitlisting the token that pulled and exit scam pocketing about $2 million in TRX tokens, there have been many DeFi projects that significantly increased in price in just few days but deceased back abruptly, the last I heard of now is a token called 'strong'. As some decreased in price, it can take time for them to rise back, or even maybe not rise back to the price expected by some investors in years, thereby the investors losing. I like to embrace what I have known about, I am not a fan of DeFi, I prefer bitcoin and other strong cryptocurrencies, rather than a projects that seemed more like ICOs in term of making profit or loss.

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?
I wish I can be anonymous but truly it is very difficult for me, but I still maintain some privacies which is now my alternative, there are some part of me people really know while there should be some parts they do not have to know.

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?
I read using search engines but not through google search engine that are promoting scam activities by advertising scam ads, I remember when I started knowing about bitcoin, I make use of 99bitcoins and investopedia, but I read a lot more using DuckDuckGo search engine. But, there are times I make use of mastering bitcoin which really helped me especially to truly know what bitcoin wallet actually is and also to know a lot more about bitcoin.

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?
There are over 5000 cryptocurrencies on coinmarketcap, even there are over 7000 on coingecko, there could be over 10000 cryptocurrencies in the world in which some are not yet listed on such sites but only certain exchanges. Most of the coins are subjected to manipulates, pumps and dumps (wolves of wall streets). There are many you will invest today and lose tomorrow, I have only seen top listed coin according to their marketcap to be the best to invest on because the higher the marketcap the lesser will be the manipulations. Bitcoin have been the first always which people can invest on, while I will take ether and litecoin as the second and third respectively.

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020
Nobody knows what the price can be, anything can happen that can let the price to decrease, but if nothing of such happen, let us still expect $15000, I guess. I like the support the price is showing at $10000, which is an strong evidence that it is likely bitcoin price will not drop for now, even if it decreases further below $10000, after the storm will be the calm, the price will still likely increase back above $10000. Imo, at the end of this year, I am expecting bitcoin to be within a range of $10000 to $15000 or to have increase above $15000.

15. P.S. (Optional)
I will like to let us be encouraging people about what bitcoin is, how it is decentralized, how it serves the initial purpose of money and how has been great alternative time centralized money. Let us also be educating people around us about scam, what we tell people about scam today and what they know through us can save millions from being scammed.

[Hhampuz]

Good thread, I like reading all of these stories before going to bed. All the power to each and every one of you who actually care about this community and are driven by passion and belief in what we're all ultimately fighting for here. Great work @zasad, keep it up and keep 'em coming

[fillippone]

Good thread, I like reading all of these stories before going to bed. All the power to each and every one of you who actually care about this community and are driven by passion and belief in what we're all ultimately fighting for here. Great work @zasad, keep it up and keep 'em coming

Hey, it's time to give back to the thread, then! I would be very interested in reading your interview! Come on! You are one of the few "big guys" left out!

[BlackHatCoiner]

-snip-

He caught me up!

@Hhampuz, we want your interview. All these years on signature campaigns... You must have some great experience on cryptocurrency and on forum business generally to write us.

@zasad, you have many questions to ask if he accepts the interview.


(Also, @theymos for the win. He must do it...)

[Furious 7]

Good thread, I like reading all of these stories before going to bed. All the power to each and every one of you who actually care about this community and are driven by passion and belief in what we're all ultimately fighting for here. Great work @zasad, keep it up and keep 'em coming

Well every time I always spend reading this interview from the start and want to know how their initial journey to know cryptocurrency and this forum and very impressive to encourage my passion.

Hey, it's time to give back to the thread, then! I would be very interested in reading your interview! Come on! You are one of the few "big guys" left out!

I wanted to know the Hhampuz interview from the start. Is he willing to interview here? haha he's an important person in this forum and so successful in managing the best managers.

@Hhampuz, we want your interview. All these years on signature campaigns... You must have some great experience on cryptocurrency and on forum business generally to write us.

Let's encourage him to do an interview here hopefully.

[MainIbem]

There is a notable name I could not find in your list. Jetcash . I will like you to add him in your interview list.

[Vod]

Let's encourage him to do an interview here hopefully.

@Hhampuz - do an interview or get negative trust!  

Done!

[cryptofrka]

Hey fellas, I was asked to do the interview so here goes. I didn't even know about this thread, hopefully you'll find some answers interesting. Seems like a great idea from the OP

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?
During the altcoin bubble in 2017. I heard about BTC way before but ignored it and have never even heard of altcoins before. When my friend started to show me his Blockfolio portfolio gaining 10-20% daily of course I was instantly interested, but since I'm a cautious person by nature it took me some time to jump aboard. Since then I've been following the crypto markets daily and it's become a 2nd job.

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?
Ughh, January 2018. It was ~10k$, I thought I did great by buying then. A month later it dropped to 5k$, so it wasn't really my best call.
I've been steadily buying since, little by little, taking advantage of the dips while playing the long-term game.

3. How did you get on the forum?
Pure chance. At the time when we entered the crypto space, airdrops were a thing and I was applying to basically everything. Some had a 'BTT username' field required, I did not even know what it was at the time. So I googled, registered and slept on the account for a while. The forum looked too overwhelming, a million of threads and topics, so I just ignored it. Then, for 1 project I was about to do the translation and I needed to post it in BTT local board, which I did - but pictures could not be uploaded because my account was still a Newbie. Our Local is small and connected, the guys helped me out and I've been writing there since.

4.1. What prevents mass adoption of cryptocurrencies?
A lot of bad press. When I was a kid, I heard of Bitcoin a few times but always as 'money for druglords and kidnappers'. If someone explained it to me then in a different way, I'd maybe have bought my first BTC for way less than 10k$
Crypto space is also too unregulated for institutional investors, and the platforms that do offer investment in crypto offer it with insanely high fees so it automatically turns new investors down. Investing in crypto and using crypto still requires a lot of time and effort and we know that people tend to choose more convenient and safe payment options.

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?
It is good that we have gambling projects because a lot of crypto is being used there. It means gambling without trackers, without taxes and a fairer experience. Casinos and betting providers are the leaders of crypto adoption and they are doing a great job with promoting crypto.
Regarding the forum - it's a bit different. There's a lot of merit hunting and shitposting going around, a lot of people are writing basically anything to fulfill quotas and the forum experience would be a bit better if there was a way to reduce sig campaign spams. I'm all for campaigns though - after all, I'm in one and am trying to be a good poster to remain in it - it's a way for people to get their first BTC so the campaigns are definitely a benefit for us all.

4.3. How do you consider whether 2-3 years of experience in cryptocurrency is enough to successfully invest or does an investor need to receive special education?
Time is irrelevant. If you do something 15 minutes per day, it will take much longer than if you commit 3-4 hours daily. In crypto it's especially hard to put a time frame because it all changes so quickly. Even if you took 3 years to learn everything, when DeFi comes you have to learn everything again, so I'd say no - 2-3 years help but it's a constant thing - you simply need to dedicate time every day to be really successful as a crypto investor.
Special education is helpful, I did a lot of trading TA tutorials from great traders such as CryptoCred, Luke Martin, Rand and others.

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?
I do not really care much about merits and think they are easy enough to get if you want to progress. I'm more of a person that will write in his way and collect merits slowly as they come.
Merit system is flawed though, some local boards have 10x merits to pass around than we do, we are a really active board with 1 merit source so it would take ages (years) to get to Legendary by writing only there. Posts are rewarded with merits, but the difference is that a great post gets 1 merit (2 max) from each user, where instead on other boards it is getting 5+, somewhere even 10 or 20.
I think campaigns are great because they give people a way to get their crypto 'for free' and are a broad representation of someone's posting quality. If you're in a good campaign, I'd probably track you more because I will think 'hmm, this guy's in CM, he's probably deserved that'. It would be good to reduce some of the spam though, there are some campaigns that go for quantity and are not my favorite ones.

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?
Hard to say, I'm spending 80% of my time in Local. There are a lot of users that are really helpful and I don't want to write specific names - for every question there's always someone knowledgeable ready to help.

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?
For one, definitely more transparency regarding the bans/requests. We had a 10 page thread fighting to get a member from our Local unbanned, the thread went without a reply from staff for a year or so. We asked for moderator - no reply. Now we're asking for a merit source - no reply. Such behavior is really rude and counterproductive - I'd really like it if somebody just said 'not now', 'no way', 'fuck off', whatever. What hapens now is that we are told 'just be patient' - and why should we have to wait for months for simple things? So, going forward, I'd really like to receive answers to community requests much, much faster and with a lot more transparency.

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?
I do a bit of both. I trade daily, so most of the time I'm looking at charts looking for good entries. I trade both BTC and altcoins (with both BTC and USD pairs). I also have some long-term bags, tokens from projects I invested in where I don't follow the daily price movement but instead wait for the token to do my expected 2x, 3x, 5x in a longer time period.

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?
Ooof, not hard at all since it's so recent. I missed most of the DeFi train, I still find it highly unregulated and it does not give me any confidence. But hey, people were making huge money so I decided to invest something as well. I decided to buy SUSHI, and then I saw they will be listed on Binance. Since Uniswap fees were high, I decided to wait and bought it on Binance.
Of course, 2 things happened in parallel - first, SUSHI had an exit scam and price fell drastically and I bought it on Binance so was not eligible for the huge Uniswap airdrop.
That was probably the most painful one, because it's hard to miss that kind of airdrop - especially after losing a good amount of money on a coin flip such as a new DeFi project.

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?
Well, the idea in itself is really interesting. The problem is the same as anywhere else - the crypto 'elite' will paint it as a fair system for all and will get in early, take huge rewards and just jump ship to another project and continue doing the same. It is currently not a good ecosystem due to infinite number of pump&dump projects, a true DeFi system would be one in which you could lend money and collect fees without having to look every 7 minutes whether you lost it all or not. So, interesting as a concept but still a long road ahead of us for it to be safe and fair to all.

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?
I don't really believe in anonymity nowadays. I will not write my name and address here, of course, and we should do all we can to limit the amount of data we transmit. But ultimately, the people who want will find a way to collect that info and I will not waste half of my day by using TOR, multiple VPN tools and whatnot to be able to watch some porn without leaving a trail.

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?
A Complete Guide to Volume Price Analysis by Anna Coulling. It was recommended on EmperorBTC Telegram channel, that guy is a really good tutor so I tend to read things he suggests. It's basically a book that explains correlations between price and volume and is a really helpful method during trading. After reading it' I'm more aware of fakeout moves and can find the right setups before price explodes to the upside. A good book and a great TG channel - I recommend both. 130 pages long though, just so you know what you're getting into.

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?
Always a hard question because crypto moves so fast. I'll stick with some easy ones, BTC is always at least 30-50% of my portfolio so it's a must. ETH looks good long-term, it started this bull wave with DeFi projects and I'm bullish on it long-term. BNB would be my 3rd one - Binance is a key player in crypto and has a way of always knowing what the community wants. They are constantly adding value to BNB tokens so I feel comfortable holding some for long-term.

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?
No matter the fact we are reluctant to accept it, crypto is more and more trending in line with the stock market. Long-term I really don't feel that correlation will last, but currently in uncertain times it does and we have to acknowledge it. I believe stocks are in a sort of a bubble and will fall, especially if Biden wins the US elections. Crypto might go with it and crypto market cap will probably fall, but I expect BTC to hold its own and act more in line with gold - so a 15k$ BTC would be something I'd be happy to see.

15. P.S. (Optional)
Stay well, invest safely and be patient - we're still early here. Don't expect to get rich tomorrow, learn every day and grow and it will all come together eventually.

Oh yeah, unban RegulusHR and give us a moderator please

Cheers!

[Daniel91]

OK, thank you for questions, below are my answers.

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?
I became interested in cryptocurrencies sometime in late 2013. A friend mentioned cryptocurrencies to me as a very interesting thing and future and although I was skeptical at first I eventually became a ''believer''.

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?
If I remember correctly it was the beginning of 2014 and I bought them simply to see how the whole thing works and as a collateral for the future. At that time, I was involved in a lot of projects on the Internet, so it seemed to me that it was not bad to increase my portfolio a little more.

3. How did you get on the forum?
The same friend who recommended bitcoin mentioned this forum to me and suggested I register-

4.1. What prevents mass adoption of cryptocurrencies?
It is very difficult to give a short answer to this question because there are a lot of answers.
I believe that the main reason is the possibility of practical application in everyday life.
As long as people believe that bitcoin is used by criminals to buy drugs or that it is too risky and that on the other hand you can't use it practically in everyday life, bitcoin will not become mainstream.
That is why I was recently very pleased with the news that a Croatian company Electrocoin managed to reach an agreement with Croatian Post, a state-owned company, on the sale of certain cryptocurrencies in post offices.

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?
It seems to me that their advertising has a positive effect on members of their signature campaigns but a bad effect on the forum itself because it encourages spam and lowers the quality of forum content.

4.3. How do you consider whether 2-3 years of experience in cryptocurrency is enough to successfully invest or does an investor need to receive special education?
I think it depends on the person to person and how much everyone is willing to personally invest their time and effort in analyzing the market and learning.

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?
It seems to me that the merits have achieved the main goal and that is to force members who want to progress on this forum to work harder and write better quality posts. Signature campaigns are probably the main reason for the popularity of this forum and probably a ''necessary evil'' that we can't avoid but we can try to regulate.

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?
I believe the introductory topics in the beginners section of the forum are the most useful for new members and for me personally the most useful topics are crypto analyzes from cryptofrka and numerous useful posts from LoyceV in Meta.

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?
The requests of the members in Meta are being resolved very slowly. We need better communication with admins.
I think we need to change the criteria for permaban on the forum and unban.
Local communities should have more influence and the opportunity to change things within their local sections.

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?
Until 2017 I was quite active in trade but after the ''great flood'' of altcoins that year in recent years I trade a lot less and I'm more focused on bitcoin now.

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?
Do I really have to? I don't like to be reminded of that, but in 2017 I invested a lot in altcoins, which lost a lot of value after the great flood of btc and all altcoins at the end of that year. I wanted to be smart and invest in more places according to the "not all eggs in the same basket" system, but it didn't turn out to be the best decision.

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?
The idea is very interesting but I haven’t dealt with it much and I don’t have enough information for a final answer.

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?
Actually, I'm not that anonymous on this forum. I know some people personally, I have met them, I work with some of them...
In fact, it’s a matter of trust, who and why you trust. Clearly, I will never share my personal information with anyone for reasons of personal safety.

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?
I’m actually too busy and don’t have time to read books, I don’t know when I last time read a book. I mostly get information on professional portals.

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?
BTC will always be my number one and I trust btc the most.
After that, ETH, and since I use Binance a lot, I also believe in the BNB.

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?
A very difficult question and my predictions are usually very bad.
Still, I have some positive feelings about btc. It seems to me that the current corona crisis, political turmoil in America and the world and other problems could attract more large investors in bitcoin which could result in an increase in the value of bitcoin.
I predict a price of about $ 14,000.

15. P.S. (Optional)
Folks, bitcoin is not a "get rich overnight" scheme.
It’s more of an investment in your future and so be patient and smart and don’t rush.
Just think how much regret now those people who had a lot of bitcoins 7, 8 or 9 years ago but got rid of them too easily.
Don’t let the same situation happen to you.