If the largest companies in the world switch to Bitcoin and by their actions pull other organizations along with them, then it makes sense to fear banks. When will it happen and will it ... Will the paper go away? How to take a loan to people? Bitcoin banks will appear. Let us return to what they left.

I see a lot of comments about what “whales” did or did not do regarding bitcoin.

People making plans and decisions counting on the time that “whales pump the price”, or justifying price crash due to “whales decisions”.

 Bitcoin is very volatile, and could be hard to finding a reason of all prices fluctuations, so are we to believe that all ( or the majority ) of things that happen are because whales wanted so ? Some weeks ago btc price crashed considerable, now we in all-time highs, is that all according to their plans?

Who the hell are those people. I mean manipulating betting sites prices, altcoins, even stock prices of companies, I could understand. But bitcoin ? I certain that there are millionaires ( or billionaires ) scattered  in dozens and dozens of different countries that have knowledge and invest in bitcoins. So are these guys like in perfect sync around the globe, just dictating what happens next, while we are simple passengers completely at their will? Am I being naive ?

After signing up to this forum only today i have a few comments to make regarding the ranking system. I have been using crypto for a long period of time and have often used bitcointalk and read links from here but just never bothered to make an account because i didn't see any reason to as i could already read anything i wanted on here without having one. Bitcointalk is the most well known,active and best source of information regarding a variety of crypto currencies and the crypto scene in general but as ranks go, as the title suggests is it possible for people to rank up on here still? If i was to have signed up to here a couple of years ago i could easily have progressed through the ranks but with the strict rules imposed by the regime in charge i think it is virtually impossible to pass the rank of jr member. To gain enough merit without being a well known or already established user of the forum would take such a considerable effort that any user would also need a stroke a pure luck to even reach member rank now. The chances of being merited even a few times are very small let alone gaining hundreds of merits. Luckily i do not need a high rank for what i chose to use Bitcointalk for so it would mean nothing other than being a status symbol. If you are already of a high ranked position then most likely you like the recent stricter rules as you don't need to jump through the hoops yourself to claim merit and be able to rank up anymore, but when i look through the profiles of most of the higher ranked members i doubt more than a handful of them would be able to progress past the rank of Jr member themselves with the current framework were they not already ranked up. I think Bitcointalk has a responsibility as the largest forum of it's kind to the crypto-users of the world to provide a fair, open, informative and balanced platform for everyone. Although the user base has grown at an incredible speed, hopefully bitcointalk can be adapted to the new climate and continue being there for the community as it was originally intended. Hopefully there will be some loosening of these rules or an entirely new system implemented sometime in the near future so new users are able to participate in all that this great forum has to offer. Well that's my 5 cents worth, thanks for reading.