Bitcointalk Community Awards is a great opportunity for us to express our appreciation to those special people who are doing their best for their community, and for the impact they have on the forum. That's why we're here to sum up 2023 by voting for significant events or users who you think deserve an award! 🏆

       What prizes await the winners?

You have probably heard from us repeatedly that public recognition is the most prestigious award, it really is. However, our sponsor 👻 [banned mixer] made sure that the winners really felt they mattered. In addition, [C]ryptioS is also preparing a surprise (this will be announced later in this thread). Please note that Bitcointalk Awards 2023 is not an official event and is run under the auspices of the community. There will be 27 winners in total!

      How it works?

From the moment of publication, and for 60 days, public voting will be open, in which any active user can take part. Any user has the right to campaign for or against other candidates in a separate thread specially created for this. Who will be among the top three winners in each respective category depends only on your activity. For the voting system to work, any nominated candidate must have the support of at least three users.

• Up to 3 users you can vote in each category ➥ Note.
• You can edit your application until the thread is locked ➥ Note.
• You must have 50 earned merits to vote ➥ Note.
• No merit sending is allowed from nominees to users which nominated them ➥ Note.

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	Custom title	Description of the Nomination
	Absolute Hero of Good	The award is given to the informal leader, (the presence of a cult is encouraged). 🎭 This outstanding man has devoted many years to serving the community and has left an indelible legacy by doing community service without regard for personal gain.
	Golden Feather	The award is presented to the participant whose name symbolizes trust and wisdom. There have always been users on the forum who stand out from the crowd in writing style and objectivity, those whose posts are always pleasant to read, and discussions with them bring satisfaction.
	Bitcointalk Ninja	The award is given for exceptional contribution to the development of Bitcointalk! A person whose activities are extremely useful for the Bitcointalk community, or someone without whom you cannot imagine a forum. In this category, the truly creative people are judged, and now it's time to determine the best!
	Bitcoin Geek	The award is given to the participant who you felt was the most helpful in the Bitcoin-related areas. Tell us which of your acquaintances is passionate about Bitcoin to the extreme, who can easily explain to you such nuances that you did not even know about or who simply chose a ASIC for your grandmother.
	Event of the Year	What event had the biggest impact on you? This nomination is a tribute to the most notable events in the crypto community or the most significant for you personally. This is the third annual award, you can only nominate and vote for all significant events of 2023 .
	Fail of the Year	The most promising event, which brought a lot of disappointment to the community. It is much more pleasant to remember pleasant events, but nevertheless, it will be useful for us to draw conclusions in order to avoid disappointments in the future. What was the most difficult thing for you to come to terms with?
	Discovery of the Year	Perhaps one of the most unexpected but at the same time iconic categories, which shows that the forum is alive. The award is presented not only to novice Bitcoiners, but also to other users who have been actively participating in the life of the forum over the past year ... heck, you can even nominate your best Bitcointalk friend!
	SpamBuster	The award is given to a volunteer user for their invaluable contribution to maintaining order on the forum. We tend to think that this award is best suited to the most important figure among moderators & reporters or who contributes in every possible way to the suppression of fake activity in the threads.
	ScamBuster	The award is given to an outstanding volunteer working exclusively for the benefit of the community. He adheres to a fairly strong moral codex, is a role model and consistently demonstrates an inexhaustible enthusiasm for identifying abusers on Bitcointalk, (here [1] [2] you can get to know such users personally).
	Craft Master	The award is presented to those who sincerely love their craft, whether it is a professional activity or a hobby. We tend to think that this award is best suited to the most significant figure among collectors, managers, escrows, designers or users who are so passionate about sports and p2p that they motivate others to bets solely in BTC.
	Antihero	He never wanted to be a villain, but he had to accept the rules of the game in which he “plays black” [no prizes].
	Miss Bitcointalk	Although girls are now in the minority on Bitcointalk, 5 to 1, they are still wonderful, interesting and important to us. I understand that choosing three winners from among all our beautiful girls is problematic, but still we will try. Who do you think especially deserves to be Miss Bitcointalk?
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Friends, feel free to also participate in the quiz!

What world record?

• Hero of Good: theymos, gmaxwell, Cyrus
• Golden Feather: JayJuanGee, pooya87, LFC_Bitcoin
• Bitcointalk Ninja: LoyceV, TryNinja, joker_josue
• Bitcoin Geek: FP91G, gmaxwell
• Event of the Year:
• Fail of the Year:
• Discovery of the Year:
• Best SpamBuster: holydarkness, GazetaBitcoin, Lafu
• Best ScamBuster: JollyGood, nutildah, Timelord2067
• Craft Master: Hhampuz, icopress, Royse777
• AntiHero: Royse777, JollyGood, Symmetrick
• Miss Bitcointalk: BitcoinGirl.Club

I chose the candidates on my own initiative and I think it's the right one to choose, but there is a possibility that we may change the list once we find a way forward.

Thank you for this contest.

Mircea Popescu was one of the earliest bitcoin adopters.
He had built a securities exchange almost purely based on bitcoin and cryptographic verification. It was so barebones that very few were able to actually use it. He would famously call those that didn't manage to use it idiots.
It's very hard to document his antics because he was ridiculously active online and apparently only a very small but nevertheless dedicated crowd seemed to have been following him around.

MPOE-PR was the account representing Mircea 's security exchange, MPEX. Now defunct.
Mircea sold these securities when BTC was worth peanuts. I can only assume that most people never cared enough to retrieve their bitcoins and that's how he ended up becoming a billionaire. But by the time these bitcoins had any actual value, there was no one left to generate demand for buying back said securities.
One of the securities was of a now also defunct new website, qntra.net. Another was of a bitcoin based economy MMORPG, Euloria I think.

In the end, we have no idea what happened to these coins to be honest.
MPOE-PR was a woman btw. Not sure what her relation with Mircea was. He would post pictures with naked women regularly though. He apparently was very much into BDSM and featured it prominently into his life, posting about it for the whole world to see. Maybe in one of these pictures it was her. Who knows...  
Some of his blog posts remain up on trilema.com

Mircea was considered by many to have tainted bitcoin's early image because of some of these antics. No doubt he was a very eccentric dude.
Ms MPOE's still alive but I don't know if she still cares about bitcoin or this forum in general.

All that absolutely useless information is still stashed deep into my head, thanks for asking and thank me later for the TMI that you didn't exactly ask for.

its not like "this guy" will win any prize. so no point abstaining

Thanks for organizing the voting contest. There are many contributors in the forum and it's going to tough for me pick them.
Here are my votes;

• Hero of Good: theymos?
• Golden Feather: LoyceV, GazetaBitcoin
• Bitcointalk Ninja: TryNinja, LoyceV, suchmoon
• Bitcoin Geek: o_e_l_e_o, LoyceV
• Event of the Year: The bull run is probably going to start!
• Fail of the Year: Ordinals, Mixers bans
• Discovery of the Year:
• Best SpamBuster: 1miau, GazetaBitcoin, Nutildah
• Best ScamBuster: holydarkness
• Craft Master: jayce, Royse777, Little_Mouse
• AntiHero: Symmertrick
• Miss Bitcointalk: lovesmayfamilis,Foxpup

Thank you guys! Much appreciated.

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• Hero of Good: o_e_l_e_o
• Golden Feather: o_e_l_e_o
• Bitcointalk Ninja: LoyceV, TryNinja, suchmoon
• Bitcoin Geek: o_e_l_e_o, BlackHatCoiner, NotATether
• Event of the Year: It's my first year on this forum!
• Fail of the Year: Ordinals
• Discovery of the Year: vjudeu, icopress
• Best SpamBuster: GazetaBitcoin
• Best ScamBuster: Learn Bitcoin, GazetaBitcoin
• Craft Master: icopress
• AntiHero:
• Miss Bitcointalk: Foxpup

• Hero of Good: JayJuanGee, Powerglove, The Sceptical Chymist
• Golden Feather: fillippone, Hhampuz, bitmover
• Bitcointalk Ninja: LoyceV, Powerglove, joker_josue
• Bitcoin Geek: mocacinno, LoyceV, Powerglove
• Event of the Year: Mixers to be banned, Fake BTC ETF spot approval
• Fail of the Year: Mixers to be banned on the forum, Ordinals Spamming
• Discovery of the Year: philipma1957
• Best SpamBuster: lovesmayfamilis, Ratimov
• Best ScamBuster: nutildah, Timelord2067
• Craft Master: Jayce, Hhampuz , Royse777
• AntiHero: theymos
• Miss Bitcointalk: Foxpup, Sarah Azhari, Bitcoingirl.club

credit for pictorial format: crypto library