Charles-Tim merit source application + Nigerian local board

[Charles-Tim]

Application for local board: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5360200.msg62595307#msg62595307

I have been thinking maybe to apply for merit source or not, but I think I should because I visit this forum daily and frequently. All I noticed was/is that there are more posts I needed to merit but I do not have the privilege to merit such posts because each 2 merit received will only generate only one smerit, this makes the forum to have quality posts as it can not be 1:1. The only way I can be able to do this is to be one of the merit sources on this forum. I may not be the best, but I can be one of the best merit sources as merit sources are always best, not to use it to cheat but to use it to help quality posters on this forum.

I registered a year ago, I started reporting bad posts effectively at the beginning of this year or ending of last year IIRC, I may not have the best report but I do not hesitate to report bad post when seen.



These are my ten posts:

1

I thought I would post some details of my system for storing, securing and protecting
my valuables primarily in the event of fire.

I use a product from Master Lock > https://www.masterlock.eu  its a Fire and Flood security chest,
they have a number of products in the range at very reasonable prices, some priced
less than a Ledger or Trezor hardware wallet. This gives another layer of protection
from fire and flood damage.

For example here is a link to one on Amazon.co.uk > https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Lock-LCHW20101-LCHW20101-Electronics/dp/B0158OFGPQ/ref=asc_df_B0158OFGPQ/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=223170773229&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4529055444014000040&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=20480&hvtargid=pla-423058341115&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

For security against theft it is not suitable as they are portable, heavy but portable.
The model I use is the https://www.masterlock.eu/home-personal/product/LCHW20101



What do I store in it?

Well up to 7.8 Litres in volume of items such as:
Important Documents: Insurance documents, Birth certificates, Copies of Drivers License, Bank account details
Electronics: Hardware wallets, Encrypted USB drives
Edit - Valuables: Jewellery, Gold, Silver, Cash, Etc.






More of Master Lock's products > https://www.masterlock.eu/home-personal/product-search/storage-security/Fire+%26+Water+Resistant+Security+Chests?environment=Indoors&keyed=Keyed

2

If Electrum stops working, I can just use Electrum offline to build the wallet and sign the transaction. Then I can broadcast it with another wallet. Am I correct?

if electrum servers stop working then you won't be able to craft a transaction to sign with electrum. in order to craft a transaction electrum needs to be online so that it can learn about unspent outputs relevant to your wallet.

There's a workaround but it's not newbie friendly.

@AndresAA90 Yes, but you have to load the RAW transactions manually to Electrum so that you can use them as inputs to create a transaction while offline.
The tiring part is finding your wallet's unspent outputs (if you have many) and the troublesome part is getting their "RAW transaction" data.

He's an example workflow (some steps can be done in variety of ways):

• Let's say Electrum is offline, so when you restored your wallets the transaction history is empty.
• Now, enable "Address" and "Console" tab, you need to generate more addresses to a quantity based from your past transaction history.
  So, in the 'console' tab, type [wallet.create_new_address(False) for i in range(100)] and [wallet.create_new_address(True) for i in range(50)]
  The former is for your "receiving addresses" and the later is for the "change addresses", change 100 and 50 depending on how many addresses you think you've used.
• Go to Address tab and find a way to check the addresses' balances (eg. a blockexplorer), then take note of the TXIDs that contain your addresses as output that's still unspent.
• Find a way to get the "RAW Transaction" of the TXIDs that you've noted, (one example is to use a service like https://chainquery.com/bitcoin-cli/getrawtransaction)
• Back to Electrum, use the menu: "Tools->Load Transaction from text", paste one RAW transaction, click "Load" and then "Save"
  Note: "Save" wont be available if the transaction isn't related to the wallet or the address isn't generated yet; if it's the latter: generate more addresses.
  Do that to all of the RAW Transactions in your note one by one.
• Lastly you can now create an offline transaction and broadcast it using other wallets/service.
  If it's rejected when broadcast, you must have likely included a "spent output" in the mix (remove it/those from the history and create a transaction again).

3

Nigerians, our mumu never too much?

First, it was MMM, the frauds company that made many cried, they vowed never to look into an online investment again, many lost homes, students dropped out of school due to financial instability and being unable to meet the school fees deadline, some lost jobs, and some were arrested due to loan defaults. We all assumed it was the end, but we had no idea it was the start of a Ponzi investment in our beloved country. MMM fraud techniques gave birth to a plethora of types of online investing, including the popular 10k and earn back 40k in 24 hours scams, which have never ceased despite several warnings from central banks and financial authorities.

Is it really fair to criticize celebrities for using their celebrity to mislead their fans into believing they can make a fortune overnight? Celebrities have a lot of power and play a lot of roles, but their personalities don't impact me in any way; they're just like regular people like me; the only difference is the part we all play in society, and because they're more valued than me, they'll always receive the attention. I'm sure the smart ones here would rather have Satoshi as a role model than any other influencer if he or she could be seen or touched.
Nigerians have evolved to prefer investments that originate from the mouths of celebrities. This is why they always have a lot of attention from the public since they don't have enough stuff to keep their followers on track, which raised the question of whether the central bank would interfere or continue to observe. Last year was the year of wazobia investment and Raskerly, I tried everything in my power to convince some of my scumbags friends well known for gambling to let go of this scheme but everything I did in my power to bring them to the limelight of crypto was futile until the company closed down, they were doomed for life because of mere celebrities.

Yesterday, I came across a discussion on Naija's largest forum, Nairaland, and a topic sparked my curiosity about how Twitter was trending with Eatrich on how they failed to remit billions to investors, and I attempted to investigate where it all originated, and lo and behold, celebs, I wasn't disappointed.
The SEC is monitoring and doing nothing to arrest these fraudsters, but they won't wait a second when they hear crypto in their ears, they don't want to securely invest in cryptocurrency, and they won't let the young use cryptocurrency freely. It's out of control, and the central bank is more concerned about the E-Naira.



Only an idiot would guarantee a % ROI in a short length of time; Nigerians are intelligent, but I'm not sure about this one.



Source: Eatrich-investment-fails-pay-billions


Make I yarn una something weh happen to my cousin sister  

Last week, my cousin sister's Facebook account was compromised; I'm not quite certain how they did it, but her friend account was first hacked, and then they chatted her to invest on investment normally the doubling schemes, thinking it was her friend who was trying to help her out with a sweet investment, and I was disappointed that she transferred 20k X5 and 5k a single time making a total of #105k and I was highly disappointed how they cheaply sweep her account. She contacted me to ask for my assistance in recovering her money from the fraudsters. Then I called my pals, who advised me to go to the scammer bank, Access Bank but that was another story, you know how we dy do things na  

When I arrived at the bank, I filed a complaint with customer service, and she informed me that the owner of the account must file a complaint with proof of transaction, and after that, we must go to court to obtain an official letter to be presented to the bank before they can freeze the scammer's account. When she heard that, she gave up, knowing that the anguish she would experience would cost her money.
This scammer did not stop with her; he utilized her account to contact other of her Facebook friends in order to trap other naive Nigerians, and it tears my heart that nothing was done.  

With the way things are going, I believe the scammers are aware that banks will not do anything to them even if they find out, except when a scammer wants to swindle another scammer, and I grieve for our beautiful nation.
I advise her that the next time she should invest in crypto rather than do quick money, and for Nigerians, I hope we realize that Bitcoin is the only thing you need, not some celebrity's counsel who is suffering on show business check.

Nigerians must wake up because mumu don too much.

4

What Happened: This website is looking like fake Binance exchange and they are sending messages to people to register and get free bitcoins.
They say that they are located in Australia but this is not a real exchange so don't register and don't send any coins there if you don't want to get scammed.

Code:

website: https://achillescoins.com/

Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20210908081146/https://achillescoins.com/

Domain Name: achillescoins.com
Registry Domain ID: 2639320237_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Updated Date: 2021-09-07T09:46:21Z
Creation Date: 2021-09-07T11:43:44Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2022-09-07T11:43:44Z
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC

I did some digging and found other "fake" websites that were using that exact same template and content:

• Cryptohabs.com ^{[archived - (Creation Date: 2020-10-28)]}
• Bitundex.com ^{[archived - (Creation Date: 2021-01-14)]}
• Lutcoins.com ^{[archived - (Creation Date: 2015-02-19)]}
• Bitalcoins.com ^{[archived - (Creation Date: 2021-09-01)]}
• theBitit.org ^{[archived - (Creation Date: 2021-01-11)]}

Not sure if this has been shared here,

OpenSea users are being targeted in an ongoing and aggressive Discord phishing attack to steal cryptocurrency funds and NFTs.

Over the past week, threat actors have been lurking in OpenSea's Discord server, pretending to be official support representatives for the site.

These fake support reps provide private "support" to OpenSea users needing help, which invariably leads to the loss of cryptocurrency and NFT collectibles stored in the victim's MetaMask wallets.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fake-opensea-support-staff-are-stealing-cryptowallets-and-nfts/

Actually one user has already fallen for this trick a total of 4.5 ETH and more.



https://twitter.com/_jeffnicholas_/status/1430046727843717125

Just not NFT's, but everything that involves crypto and you need help, don't panic and take a deep breath. Because once you don't think logically, you will fall for the scammers trip, like giving you sense of security that they will help you.

It's no wonder that many will infiltrate Discord if users need support but surely scamers will offer themselves normally via PM and here we don't need to panic and never ask for help referring to PM first, cases like this do happen a lot.

It's a shame for someone who has lost his assets at Opensea maybe this is because of his carelessness.

Here I found a familiar opensea phishing site with the same script.

See below.

Phishing OpenSea

Website:

Code:

https://xn--openea-ljb.com/wallets/

Archived: https://archive.ph/6WeUC

Created on 2021-09-06
Expires on 2022-09-06
Updated on 0000-12-31

Hello there.
I have invest in this platform 600usd but im afraid if this platform is tottaly scam?
How i can know this?
If anyone can help i will be very obligated.
The platform is www.iexwls.com
Best regards.

To be honest, I wouldn't believe them and I wouldn’t send money there.
they do not offer much information, about the platform, about the team... There is almost no information about who is behind. The possibility to contact them is only through email (iexicpro01@gmail.com). Using Gmail, a free service and not from its own domain seems a little unprofessional.
The domain is only 57 days old, therefore a relatively new service and there is still not much feedbacks. https://whois.domaintools.com/iexwls.com

Code:

Whois Record for IExwls.com
How does this work?

 Domain Profile
Registrant	Registration Private
Registrant Org	Domains By Proxy, LLC
Registrant Country	us
Registrar	GoDaddy.com, LLC
IANA ID: 146
URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com

(p)
Registrar Status	clientDeleteProhibited, clientRenewProhibited, clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited
Dates	57 days old
Created on 2021-07-05
Expires on 2022-07-05
Updated on 2021-07-05

the first short search on the web about this site offered me this result https://www.forexbrokerz.com/brokers/iexs-review

Is IEXS a legitimate broker?
No – because IEXS doesn’t hold any license to provide financial services. It is simply registered in an offshore zone (SVG) where forex brokers aren’t licensed even formally. Why go with an unregulated broker when you have plenty of decent options to choose from?

so here there is always a serious possibility that they will close the business overnight or be closed by the authorities. I wouldn't risk money here for sure.

edit: Now I look a little bit more carefully, it is very possible that iexwls.com trying to clone iexs.com, there are a lot of similarities, logo etc ...
it’s even worse because they take the business model from an extremely dubious platform.

Description:
The following project claims to be an officially registered company in the UK and trying to tempt people by offering hype investment plans from 1.17 percent hourly to 1600 percent profits after 15 days. Also, they offer 2 to 7 percent referral commissions to the people who invite other users into this trap.







Reference Link:
Hourbolt.com

WhoIs info:
https://whois.domaintools.com/Hourbolt.com
Created on 2021-08-18
Expires on 2022-08-18
Updated on 0000-12-31

Payment Method:
Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum...

Archive:
https://archive.is/YxJoM

Additional Notes:
In order to take down this project please report the website to their registrar (In this case NameCheap). Here is a little guide about how to report the scammers to their registrar: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5281378

5

I think every one of us knows about the trading signal group. But are we aware of the trap of signal groups? How do they scam us? Although they aren't scamming you directly like a Ponzi scheme. But self-consciously we are handover our funds to them. Let's explain it shortly.

First of all, each paid signals group has a free signal group where they will share a few free signals and post a few news updates. Most paid signals channels are just a group of candidates. Before they share a free signal on the free signal group they post it in the paid signal group. As a result, the signaled coin pump for a few minutes. Once they share that signal in the free group the free subscriber thinks they could gain if they join in paid signal groups. Actually due to sharing the same signal in many paid groups a coin pump for a few minutes since they are a group of candidates. That's how signal providers always motivate their free subscribers to buy paid signals. But eventually, the signal buyer realizes that they just scammed.

So guys don't fall into the trading signal trap. I would like just to encourage you to get updates from their free signal groups. Don't trade just based on their signals. I know a few signals sometimes gain, but you wouldn't be lucky enough to enter at the right time. Don't lose your fund with the signal trap.

For any other purpose, I will discourage to use updates for trading. It's quite dangerous for newbies traders.

Better, black should be called black and not not black-ish, initially when I read your post on you saying 'you encourage update to be taken form free group' without second thought the message any newbie reading this will be getting is that, free signal groups are ok to join which isn't true. It doesn't matter what the statue of the group is be it paid or not, they're all basically doing the same thing.

The only advantage the paid groups get is that, they get the updates beforw the free groups gets it, which might giive them better advantage to profit from the pumps and dumps the groups engaging themselves in with disguise of actually trading. If you what update on development and news regarding the industry, we have news outlets that those that and you can follow without having to join signals groups. They'll just decieve you and sooner or later you'll be tempted to give them your money to join their so called paid groups due to the false testimony you'll be seeing.

Prevention is better than cure, avoiding all groups is the best method. Even the so called trading groups where initially was just meant to be a common ground for traders has now been highjacked by shillers, shilling worthless crabs for their selfish benefits.

6

The young president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele are taking on the giants with this decision, because the money transmitters and the Banks are furious about this decision. (They are losing millions of Dollars in money transfer fees)

Now the IMF loans to his country might be in jeopardy, because all these Banks work together to force 3rd world countries to bend the knee before them.  https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/el-salvador-leads-world-into-cryptocurrency-bitcoin-legal-tender-2021-09-07/

"The World Bank reiterated on Tuesday it could not help El Salvador in adopting bitcoin "given environmental and transparency shortcomings," a bank spokesperson said....

But when I read news today, I later knew that Bitcoin payment is mandatory but yet optional, the payment can be in Bitcoin but customers can decide to either accept Bitcoin or fiat, the transaction will be processed automatically in accordance to what chooses by the recipient.

You probably meant merchants, not customer as those have already made their choice.

In my opinion, I think this is a welcome development, it can be said that El Salvadorian government are not making Bitcoin payment mandatory (although mandatory)

Yes, it's mandatory and all the receive/keep is just mumbo jumbo trying to paint an excuse on forcing somebody to do a thing while claiming they have the liberty of choice.

You have to accept bitcoin payments, that's the end of it, a business that was before only cash, no cc, no cheques nothing suddenly is forced to accept payment and deal with both crypto and digital fiat, as they will have to go through the government rules to withdraw the converted fiat, even if they stay don't choose the bitcoin option. This unless this magical conversion tool somehow prints paper money out of your phone.

 

I think it can be easily solved with a sticker... "we accept Bitcoin or just dollars here"!

Some people can complain as long as they want, but the reality is clear, more options is always better! Open-minded people understand this, and I believe that nobody is forcing El Salvadorians to use Bitcoin, but the ones who have it and use it will now have a chance to pay directly with BTC in many stores, shops, or for whatever!
So if some shop, store, or anything doesn't wish to accept Bitcoins will probably lose customers, the ones who are ready to adapt will attract people from both worlds and they will have higher traffic, meaning higher profits!

Bad luck in the start, as I read they have problems with Chivo wallet, the explanation is due to server capacity increase... they promised it will be fixed quickly! An interesting thing, even their prime minister was giving tutorials to people who wanted to learn about it!

There is no explicit mention of companies but the country's finance minister, Alejandro Zelaya, has also said that there are no sanctions to businesses that do not accept Bitcoin.^[2]

From the article you've quoted:

Bukele did not refer to Article 7 of the Bitcoin Law, which stipulates that all economic agents must accept bitcoin as a form of payment when offered by the person acquiring goods or services.
Ernesto Sanabria, a spokesman for Bukele, told CoinDesk that “the president has been clear in saying that the use of bitcoin is not mandatory.”
Asked about a possible change to Article 7, Sanabria said he had already addressed the issue in his response. He did not specify whether the article will be eliminated or otherwise modified.

Besides, that was August.
The news from Salvador now is:

One day after Bitcoin is legal tender in El Salvador, the legal adviser to the presidency, Javier Argueta, confirmed in the morning interview of Frente a Frente, that it will be an obligation for businesses to receive Bitcoin as a form of payment and It will also be an obligation to have the virtual wallet to carry it out. Otherwise, businesses are exposed to referrals of infractions to the Consumer Protection Law.

Now that's pretty interesting!  I wonder how much real estate costs in the lower-crime sections of El Salvador and how well one could live if, let's say, they had multiple accounts participating in bounties or signature campaigns.  That would be an interesting way to live if you wanted to live on the edge, don't you think?

Definitely interesting,but no, thank you!
$130k for an apartment of 90mp2 in what googles tells me is a safe zone in El Salvador doesn't sound like a bargain to me.

According to the Latin American classifieds portal Encuentra 24, the median price in San Salvador reached $113 a square foot in June — a 28 percent increase from March 2020, when the median hit a low of $88 a square foot.

Sounds on par with the medium zones from Eastern Europe.

For the life of me, I couldn't remember whether El Salvador's fiat currency was in trouble (like Venezuela's), so I checked the Wikipedia page on the country before posting.  I had no idea that they used the US Dollar as their own currency.  

They were using USD as the major currency for all the trades and was accepted in the country or in other words we can say that US dollar was dominating the country when it opted for it's usage and due to all the trade restrictions and hinderances the El Salvador government took the visionary decision to legalize the bitcoin in country.

Another interesting tidbit from the article was this:

As part of the law foreigners can gain permanent residence in El Salvador if they invest 3 Bitcoin into the country.

This was given as options to people to just lock the 3 bitcoins with the government and they become eligible for the residents status in El Salvador as move to promote crypto entrepreneurs and boost the economy and this was tweeted by the President Nayib Bukele:

Sure, but people who own small businesses in El Salvador didn't start them to speculate in a currency like bitcoin, and I can see why there's a lot of resistance to this.  You're thinking like someone who loves bitcoin already, whereas these merchants are basically being forced to accept a form of money they probably don't want any part of.

There are some who doesn't want to be part of this legal enforcement of bitcoin and that's why we see some protest against them in the country but later on they would be the one appraising the government policy but at this time many small merchant have the issue of bitcoin like fees which is most probably solved by LN wallets and they find it easy to have fiat payment over maintenance of wallets and keeping up the btc but as the government is giving them options to hold bitcoin or fiat is good decision as well.But the customers are free and they have to accept Bitcoin if they want it or not and later on convert them to USD as it's the legal fiat of the country.Soon they will not feel agitated with all this and might find btc as best option.

7

I don't agree with this. They are amongst the oldest hardware wallet companies that I know and thus get kind of a 'tried & tested' status, but I wouldn't recommend any Ledger products anymore especially after we saw how they handle customer data. (link, link 2)

They handled it terribly. They tried to play it down and didn't know what to do. They failed their customers because they couldn't protect their data.

But Trezor isn't innocent either. All hardware wallets have flaws. Trezor wallets have a seed extraction vulnerability that can't be fixed. It's a design flaw. It can only be mitigated with a strong passphrase or saving a code on a SD card. When those vulnerabilities became known, Trezor didn't to the right thing either. The right thing would have been to admit the design flaw, instruct their users to add an additional layer of security (passphrase), and explain the issues of the seed extraction problem in their instructions manual that comes with their devices.

All companies in all spheres of life are interested in protecting their business first and foremost. Trezor and Ledger are no different. Even if it means taking a piss at their customers. It's time people understand that.

Despite the way Ledger handled privacy concerns, the security of their wallets isn't affected. The privacy of their users is.
And despite Trezor's design flaw, they remain one of the best wallets in this niche. Both are still recommended purchases, although I would personally go for the Nano S over the Nano X for several reasons. dkbit98 mentioned the battery problems, so there is one.

If I personally had to select between a Ledger and Trezor right now, knowing everything I know today, I would pick the Trezor T. Hopefully with a discount code.    

8

You can get tables for Bitcoin, Ethereum

Bitcoin: https://cryptorank.io/price/bitcoin
Ethereum: https://cryptorank.io/price/ethereum

You can get more table for other altcoins. Cryptorank.io announcement tweet: https://twitter.com/CryptoRank_io/status/1423363809545265159

We're glad to announce that we have released new Monthly Returns (%) stats feature for any crypto assets, like #Bitcoin, #Ethereum, #BNB, etc.

The new table is available on any cryptocurrency overview page:

Monthly Return Tables are great because they give you good overview about cryptocurrency changes with months. However, you should not obsess with tables and make your investment decisions only based on those tables. From overview, you must do your own research and look for more details.

Cryptorank.io provide Quarterly Return Tables as well.

9

Corruption is the answer to that. Countries which are more controlling and didactic would definitely not support a free currency like Bitcoin.

That is the whole truth, or at least the most important thing if we want to give an answer to the question asked. We just need to look at examples of other countries where either there is high corruption, or where the level of human rights is very low or practically non-existent. I am thinking here first of all of China, India, and Russia as obvious examples of a total or partial ban on anything related to cryptocurrencies - and Nigeria is clearly not lagging behind them when it comes to anti-crypto attitudes and laws.

One of the most effective ways to control people is through money, because we all depend on it in everyday life - so although it is less pronounced in rich countries, people in poor countries are looking for a way to live better, and Bitcoin allows them to do so.

Nigerian is one of the poorest nation in the world if the country's wealth is divided by the average population of the same year. I was surprised the EFCC chairman, Abdulraheed Bawacould make this obvious wrong false statement about bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies just to be misleading the Nigerian citizens...

I live within the EU in a small country that is also highly corrupt (former prime minister in prison), and 80% of all ministers from the last government convocation had to resign due to corruption scandals. Our central bank also issues very negative warnings about cryptocurrencies, and with the help of some other government agencies is trying to influence people not to invest in cryptocurrencies - but it is unbelievable that the turnover in local crypto exchanges equated with the turnover of stock trading, which was certainly a sign of alarm for them.

I mean, politicians and various interest groups can try to stop people from investing in something - but in the long run it doesn't work, people will always find a way to do what they want.

Why will people holding public office would not just make appropriate research before taking anything to media, all to just mislead Nigerians for their upcoming e-naira next month.

What do you expect from a country that care less about its citizens and try to suppress them especially the leader of the tomorrow which are the youth. The Nigerian government sees Bitcoin as a threat to their selfish ambition. They want the masses to remain in poverty so they can be easily controlled and anything that'll be posing as a threat to that goals of their will try to be eliminated and that's exactly what they're trying to do with bitcoin but they have failed so far.

Connect the dots, you think the banning of twitter in Nigeria has nothing to do with it's support for Bitcoin and Nigerian youths especially during the EndSARs movement some months back, they had this all planned out but the fact is the conspiracy they're trying to accomplish on 1st October won't work.

Firstly the citizens aren't that uninformed as they were few years back, I'm pretty sure we'll have very strong activist that'll opposed this initiative of theirs and enlightened the public on what the government secret plans are.

10

New trends often give rise to new scams, and with the introduction of Defi, fraudsters have utilized a plethora of tricks to entice people into trapping and stealing their money. NFTs are not new to us, but the desire for them and how valuable they are has lately gained the attention of many media outlets, which, as you know, is always a signal and new employment for fraudsters to start a new method of exploiting the uninformed ones.

NFT are one of the most in-demand Defi applications since they are scarce, unique, and because only one entity of them exists, those who value it will pay any amount to acquire it before anybody else. The values that come with them have enticed fraudsters to go to any length to get your money.

These are some of the more prevalent methods fraudsters have used to defraud users of their NFT arts.

Cloning of NFT markets: Because of the nature of NFT, they cannot be listed on exchanges in the same way that other coins and tokens are, therefore NFT are usually auctioned on prominent NFT marketplaces such as Opensea and Rarible. Some Defi projects make their own marketplace available to their investors and token holder but scammers always find their way out to clone these websites just like the conventional ways hackers do to online banking where they copy every feature of the bank and ask you to input your sensitive information and also credits, these are no way different in NFTs markets too, NFT markets script can be purchase online and they can clone them and make you purchase a fake NFTs in exchange for your ETH and BNB which are the popular networks that support NFTs.

Online Telegram support: You should be aware that Opensea does not offer telegram group chat assistance since it is difficult to maintain owing to the numerous impersonators and frauds that occur on the platform on a regular basis. Rarible used to have a Telegram group, however, it was later announced that they had migrated to Discord due to difficulties in controlling fraudsters and the amount of reported scams. If you are dealing with NFTs on those two largest NFT marketplaces, stay away from Telegram, if you have any problems, you may check the online support on their website, but you should also be wary about the website. Don't make complain on open social networks. it's no different from Telegram, except that Telegram has become a haven for fraudsters due to the rise of cryptocurrency.

As you can see from their official Twitter handle, you can only get support via their website or Discord, avoid telegram like you avoid a plague.



Regarding the rest of the projects that have their own NFT markets place, you should be aware that most admin will never send you a private message asking for private keys or any other sensitive information. Instead, tailor your problem to the appropriately tagged admin in the official group, and he/she may direct you on how to resolve the issues.

NFT giveaways: This never gets old, and I despise anything free. Airdrops were given out during the previous bull run where everyone received free tokens and coins from new projects, but that has changed recently. The only available airdrops you see around are mostly for promotion and for loyal investors, particularly those who stayed with projects during their early stages and those who invested in them. In some projects, the only method to obtain NFT is to hold their token and stake them in exchange, you get randomly picked for this NFTs airdrop. Don't lose your wallet for free stuff that doesn't worth it.

Avoid been associated with NFT projects because of Artists and celebrities: Artistes and celebrities, in general, are just regular people like you; this isn't the first time they've taken on new projects for the sake of a few checks, similar situations have occurred in the past, and they were later fined for getting followers invested in new projects, according to some reports from SEC website. This is not an exception, they will sell them to you and return to their way of life in the entertainment industry. Buy NFT from trustworthy organizations and projects that will provide you with security; don't buy items you will later regret; and even if you are following an artiste for NFT, you may make the mistake of purchasing the wrong NFT due to impersonators.

Fake Projects: Defi is a new place, and no regulations have been put in place to protect investors, so your chances of being scammed are quite high. Do your study and due diligence before transferring all of your funds in the name of an image that may end up in the hospital, scammers do not deserve your attention.

I may not be the best, but I can be a good merit source.

[1715263694]

1715263694

[1715263694]

1715263694

[_BlackStar]

Hi Charles-Tim, I must appreciate your desire to be a good source of merit for the bitcoin community on this forum. Your desire to be a merit contributor is a sign that you care enough about this community. I hope you are selected.

Since you are a merit contributor (not a merit source), you have send 757 merit and that is about 95% of the total you receive. But there's something less fun here if I review where your sMerit went. Based on the data found from the merit dashboard, ±54% of your sMerit goes to Legendary rank, 26% to Hero, 14% to Senior, 0.7% to full member, 3.7% to member and the rest to Jr. and newbie members.

From the data above I assume that if you want to contribute to the community, then you should not continue to accumulate your sMerit at high rankings like Legendary or Hero. That won't help the merit system work well even though by nature high rankers are better able to post with better quality than low ranked users. But because the merit system is not moderated, you are free to do whatever you want with it.

Apart from that from other data I can also say that you have sent back almost 100% of the sMerit you got from some users who sent you merit. I don't think it really helps the community with the merit system because generally you send sMerit to users who give you merit. here's the image.



Charles-Tim, I'm sorry and I hope you understand what I mean by saying this and don't take this as a personal attack. If you want to contribute to the community by being a source of merit, then you should also consider that all ranking members in the forum are possible to earn sMerit from you based on the quality of the posts they have. You have to be neutral for all forum rankings and I think that is an absolute requirement to run this merit system properly. I also believe you will be a good source of merit in the future if you are selected. Good luck, Charles-Tim. Only two cen from me. Thanks you.

[Charles-Tim]

Since you are a merit contributor (not a merit source), you have send 757 merit and that is about 95% of the total you receive. But there's something less fun here if I review where your sMerit went. Based on the data found from the merit dashboard, ±54% of your sMerit goes to Legendary rank, 26% to Hero, 14% to Senior, 0.7% to full member, 3.7% to member and the rest to Jr. and newbie members.

I learn a lot from ranked members, especially the legendary members as well as hero members, I could not deniel that, that would be the reason I sent most of my smerits to them. You can check the posts I sent the smerits to, they are all quality posts that even deserve more.

Also, about not really sending merits to low ranked members, I do not know if your analysis include the rank when I sent them merit, because some members would have ranked up from low ranks, possibly some that were low rank before that I sent merit would got ranked up. But I will look into this and focus generally on all quality posters irrespective of their rank if possible I become a merit source.

Apart from that from other data I can also say that you have sent back almost 100% of the sMerit you got from some users who sent you merit. I don't think it really helps the community with the merit system because generally you send sMerit to users who give you merit. here's the image.

If you check the people I am sending merits, we post mostly on the same threads, frequently posting on the same boards. Also, I am a kind of person that recognized people that saw my benefit too and smerit is scarce, but I only go for quality posts and nothing more.

Charles-Tim, I'm sorry and I hope you understand what I mean by saying this and don't take this as a personal attack.

I understand, merit source ways of giving merit to users is completely different from how other forum members will make use of their smerits. If possible I become a merit source, I will really also focus on low ranked members but those with quality posts. I am applying for this because I can be a good merit source, ways I will merit will definitely change more to the one that will benefit more Bitcointalk users so that good posters can be able to share smerit to other good posters irrespective of the rank.

[bitmover]

Since you are a merit contributor (not a merit source), you have send 757 merit and that is about 95% of the total you receive. But there's something less fun here if I review where your sMerit went. Based on the data found from the merit dashboard, ±54% of your sMerit goes to Legendary rank, 26% to Hero, 14% to Senior, 0.7% to full member, 3.7% to member and the rest to Jr. and newbie members.

You can see the members who top merited newbies here. Although I was try to merit legit newbies, the ones who come here asking for information, most of my merits also go to high members. Do you know why? Because high rank members are the members who make most of the best contributions to the forum (there are exceptions of course)

From the data above I assume that if you want to contribute to the community, then you should not continue to accumulate your sMerit at high rankings like Legendary or Hero. That won't help the merit system work well even though by nature high rankers are better able to post with better quality than low ranked users. But because the merit system is not moderated, you are free to do whatever you want with it.

Merit system works well when good posts are merited, not when low rank members get to another rank.

A low rank member who make good contributions to the forum will naturally receive a lot of merits and will rank up easily.


I believe Charles-Tim will be a great merit source, as he is already a great forum contributor.

[Lafu]

I believe Charles-Tim will be a great merit source, as he is already a great forum contributor.

Same here , i think Charles-Tim has been and are a good forum contributor on diffrent boards !
He helps new users and also others if its possible , and i guess if he become a merit source it will helps to spread the Merits on more boards.

@Charles-Tim
How you give your merits to Users is always in your hand , but i guess you know what you doing.
Would be nice to see you getting a Merit Source , good luck for it .

[Poker Player]

All I noticed was/is that there are more posts I needed to merit but I do not have the privilege to merit such posts because each 2 merit received will only generate only one smerit...

Lol, does this happen to you with all the merit you earn?

It used to happen to me before and it still happens to me but less frequently because I earn merits more often, but I have seen that you spend a lot of time in the forum and you write much more than the post requirements of the signature campaign, so I support your application.

Since you are a merit contributor (not a merit source), you have send 757 merit and that is about 95% of the total you receive. But there's something less fun here if I review where your sMerit went. Based on the data found from the merit dashboard, ±54% of your sMerit goes to Legendary rank, 26% to Hero, 14% to Senior, 0.7% to full member, 3.7% to member and the rest to Jr. and newbie members.

From the data above I assume that if you want to contribute to the community, then you should not continue to accumulate your sMerit at high rankings like Legendary or Hero.

I don't see why. The same thing happens to me, I end up giving 90% of the merits or more to high-ranked members, but there are already a few merit sources that are dedicated to help lower-ranked members so I don't see the problem and I'm sure Charles-Tim will give more merits to lower-ranked members if he is appointed a merit source.

Also, a while ago I thought about looking for a lower-ranked member to give him merits, because I felt that I was giving most of them to higher ranked and I found this:

A likely case of merit purchased.

And since then I decided to keep giving merits as I found the posts.

[Little Mouse]

From the data above I assume that if you want to contribute to the community, then you should not continue to accumulate your sMerit at high rankings like Legendary or Hero. That won't help the merit system work well even though by nature high rankers are better able to post with better quality than low ranked users. But because the merit system is not moderated, you are free to do whatever you want with it.

The purpose of the merit system is to appreciate the high quality post, it's not tied to spend on member who needs it. Regardless of what rank an user is, you should focus more on the quality of a post while meriting them. I barely look at the rank of an user while sending merit. I read the post, if I find it worthy to send a merit, I do that without having second thought whether the account is a high rank or not and that's the purpose. Well, you may have some strict rules when sending merit to high rank, while less strict criteria while sending to lower rank, that's your perspective but that doesn’t actually the merit system is for. You are free and you should be free to send your smerits to member who post high quality, not to member who needs it.
A friendly mention to the theymos post-

While we will not be directly moderating this, I encourage people to give merit to posts that are objectively high-quality, not just posts that you agree with.

This has no mention to profile rank. Only a mention to high quality post.

Regarding the application, I wish theymos have him in the merit source list as this will more help the communities, as Charles-Tim is actively spending merits on good post.

Edit- A side note to _Blackstar
If you think any newbie/low rank (in fact any high quality post) aren’t getting enough merit on their post, feel free to report them here- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0

[acroman08]

All I noticed was/is that there are more posts I needed to merit but I do not have the privilege to merit such posts because each 2 merit received will only generate only one smerit...

Lol, does this happen to you with all the merit you earn?

It used to happen to me before and it still happens to me but less frequently because I earn merits more often, but I have seen that you spend a lot of time in the forum and you write much more than the post requirements of the signature campaign, so I support your application.

it all based on how often he merits a post. even merit sources sometimes complain about not having enough merit to give to a deserving post. that being said, if I remember correctly theymos recently increased the amount of sMerit merit sources gets. so, right now I am not sure if there are still merit sources running out of merits to give.

in the future, if you think you are always running out of sMerit to give, you can also try applying to become a merit source.

@Charles-Tim, I've read some of your posts and it is quite informative and I think you'd be good at distinguishing posts that deserve to be recognized. Good luck!

[KingsDen]

Good move sir!
One thing is to apply, the other is to get accepted. To apply is your duty which you have done well. I long expected you to apply for a merit source because you adviced me when I was a newbie to try and rank up and apply in order to have enough smerit to distribute.  You also stated that you wish to be a merit sources.

All I can still prefer is to be a merit source so I will be able to have enough smerits all month long that I can send to the posts that are worth it. You too can try to become an established member on this forum and request for merit source.

Good to know that your desire to be a merit source is still alive. I read a thread started by a global moderator stating the criteria to become a merit source. One and the most important criteria is to be able to identify a quality post. To this end I have no doubt that you can identify quality posts because; it takes quality to identify quality. You are undeniably a quality poster in this forum, therefore you will be able to identify quality posts. Success in your application.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

Just to note that the Merit Dashboard is indeed working with current ranks, and not the ranks at the time of awarding/receiving Merits. One way to reduce this effect is to use the "Sent Merit tab" where we can use the Date Range slider to reduce the timeframe from overall to say the last three months or so. Not that numbers per rank vary much though necessarily.

As a side note, it’s not really that easy to come across that many lower-ranked posts that should be merited and that go unmerited. Try as one may, and even lowering the bar on some boards, chances are that you’ll find a few every now and then that are not repeating the things said in prior posts, talking about generic or pseudo-philosophical things, and such. I doubt that any decent low-ranking poster stays unnoticed for long, especially if they are persistent and constant in content interest/quality creation.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

Well I believe you must be running out of merit of recent which is why you applied. I wasn't active on the meta board to know about the last upgrade and sadly I wasn't upgraded which make it quite difficult to award merits to qualify posts as I'm now more selective on what I merit. I would had sent you sum of merit to help you with your meriting but that I don't have, so take my 1merit as a support to your application.

I see you're usually active in the economy board, well I posted more there last week than I have done in a very long time and I must say the board need some serious attention from meriter as some excellent reply are there and I believe you'll do quite well as a source not minding the board you'll be focusing on.

In regards to appointment of new sources, don't think that'll be happening anytime soon but when it does happen I hope to see your name on the unofficial list as a merit source.

[Igebotz]

The most important criteria for a good merit source is how frequently they rotate their source merits across the forum boards and sub boards, and looking at Charles-Tim merit distribution, you can see that he has merited 1 or more to nearly 70% of the entire boards with very little for himself. On that note, I believe he would do more with renewable source. Charles, best of luck!!

Since you are a merit contributor (not a merit source), you have send 757 merit and that is about 95% of the total you receive. But there's something less fun here if I review where your sMerit went. Based on the data found from the merit dashboard, ±54% of your sMerit goes to Legendary rank, 26% to Hero, 14% to Senior, 0.7% to full member, 3.7% to member and the rest to Jr. and newbie members.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

The most important criteria for a good merit source is how frequently they rotate their source merits across the forum boards and sub boards,

That's not the main criteria buddy, theymos don't mind you been focused just on one board but provided you can assure him of meriting (only) quality posts when you encounter them, you'll be given a slot.  That's why you're required to provide 10 posts that haven't received enough merit that'll be used to judge you in what you deem fit to be called quality and meritable.

If you want to be a merit source:

 1. Be a somewhat established member.
 2. Collect TEN posts written in the last couple of months by other people that have not received nearly enough merit for how good they are, and post quotes for them all in a new Meta thread. The point of this is to demonstrate your ability to give out merit usefully.

Again he didn't specify that those posts should be taken from all angles of the forum, meaning it can be a specific board. Infact when I applied to be a source I focused on just one board, took all my ten post from that board and it was enough to give me a slot.

Ps: You must have a good meriting record, meaning if you have interest in been a source, you have to pay attention to the type of post you merit and not just meriting  because byou have smerits.

3. We will take a look at your history and maybe make you a source.

[Pmalek]

Good luck with your application Charles-Tim!
Maybe the timing isn't the best because new merit sources were appointed about a month ago. But we never know what theymos has up his sleeves and hopefully he will put you on the list the next time he decides to make some changes in the number of merit sources.   

That's not the main criteria buddy, theymos don't mind you been focused just on one board but provided you can assure him of meriting (only) quality posts when you encounter them, you'll be given a slot.

It never hurts to ask. When I got appointed as a merit source, I actually sent a PM to theymos asking him in which board/boards he expects me to find merit-worthy posts. He replied by saying that he didn't have any particular boards in mind. Generally, I don't think merit sources are appointed to merit posts in a specific sub. I just merit what I like as I am browsing and posting on the forum.  

[Lucius]

Any member who contributes to the forum and is active on a daily basis is a good choice for a merit source - especially if it is active on multiple boards as is the case with @Charles-Tim. A little more statistics from BPIP

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I fully support your application to be a merit source, Charles-Tim.  You're a good member of the forum, and the fact that you want to be able to hand out more merits than you're currently able to should be pretty much all the qualification you, personally, need.  Don't know why there's even a requirement to quote all of those posts you found merit-worthy, because it just seems like a superfluous pain in the ass.  Theymos is probably familiar with you as a member since he reads posts in Meta, so he ought to know you're a good candidate.

Theymos, please add this man to the list of merit sources!  This forum needs more of them.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I'll support this. I know Charles-Tim since we were both forum newbies and wanted to grow and reach higher targets. I find Charles a contributor in this forum as he dedicates lots of hours and tries to help newcomers. We both do it anyways and haven't stopped being satisfied by the knowledge we acquire in our stay; it's nice seeing him wanting to distinguish himself by obtaining a prestigious position.

This isn't the reason, though. I've noticed he chooses to merit properly. He accomplished receiving lots of merits this year and I can say he distributed them as they should have been by a source.

[NeuroticFish]

I also support the merit source application. You are still somewhat new, but you are helpful and very active. And you use your sMerit well.

The most important criteria for a good merit source is how frequently they rotate their source merits across the forum boards and sub boards

Actually the number of boards and sub boards doesn't matter. Imho what matters is how active he is (so he can spend the merit), and trusted (so he won't do strange things with the merit) and knows to find/appreciate the good/worthy posts.

Imho Charles-Tim has all that's needed. The only problem I see is, indeed,

Maybe the timing isn't the best because new merit sources were appointed about a month ago

Good luck though!

[Smartvirus]

I strongly doubt there is any user whom is some worth regular on the forum that will not have encountered the user Charles-Tim. His been active from day one as far as I can tell and you can tell the user contributes good too. A simple scroll on the users profile and you can tell that, Charles-Tim frequents the boards, not excluding the technical discussion boards for which, many users in this forum can't even comment or comprehend a discussion. I have gotten quite a few merits from the user too and the user has earned a lot more for a Hero Member in less time which proves Charles-Tim's activeness and contributions to the forum.

On the note of Charles-Tim being a frequent user of the forum (which implies more post and replies on posts are most likely not to escape the user), versatile enough to participate in various discussions (which imples the user's comprehension and judgment is of good quality), the user has got a good trust rating and now, the burning desire to reward quality posts and promote original content which is cherished by the forum and in turn discourages plagiarism, I think the user is a good applicant for a merit source.

I support this applicant for a merit source.

[Coyster]

First and foremost, you definitely have my support in your desire to be a merit source, I mean, you make very high quality posts and you've earned a pretty large number of merits in the short time you've been on the forum, thus since you post quality, you'll definitely not fumble in handing out merits to good/quality posts; I know it takes Theymos quite a lot of time to select new merit sources, but I hope your case is different, and you get considered sooner rather than later.

Having said that, I think that good users' applications for merit sources should be considered by the admins more often, I believe many users are quite discouraged by how long it takes for new merit sources to be selected, I know the admin is trying to be very careful so as not to select users who have ulterior motives as merit sources, but if a good user that can somewhat be trusted makes an application, I feel it should be considered, and if selected, the user would definitely be under the radar and his merit source privileges can be withdrawn if there are too many incidences of suspicious merit transactions.