I joined before the merit system was introduced and have got all merit points from members. It feels really nice that I achieved this in short time. I gained the merit points earlier only and was stuck mainly because of activity. I really that all the senior members who noticed my posts and gave me the merits. I also encourage new members not to give up. Reaching the member level is not that hard. If you make those 60 posts with more effort, you will get more than 10 merits for sure.
nullius could only accumulate those 10 merits in a single post maybe in a half post.
Try to look at this user you might learn something in terms of constructing statement, just ignore flaming for a while but I guess that's where he become so phenomenal.
P.S Giving up is only for person who does not know how to become successful. Just get away from thread that will likely turn out to be scam and you're good to go. Congrats.