theymos knows there will be dark markets for merit but he does not feel big problems with merit sales.
It is not good but not like a thing will destroy Bitcointalk and abuse can be handled by demerit or take the merit source position back. Merit transactions are public and merit sales, merit abuse can be seen by everyone with Bitcointalk Merit Ledger.
So the abuse is still not handled right since we don't have demerit and stoppage of merit source?
To be honest I don't think merit source is the problem because they have a lot merit and it's fair for them to support their local boards etc. The problem is non merit sources, they easily abuse it after they get many merit from merit sources.
There's no proof if merit abuse is always merit selling and if you tag someone because they only abusing merit system, you will not become a DT member anymore which mean such action is destroy yourself.
If a DT member tags you for something stupid involving merit (ie. probably anything less than selling merit), then they're not going to be a DT member for much longer.