That literally never has happened! Just as a comparison, here are some numbers for the recent launchpool for NFP. FDUSD staking income is 11.87% yearly. Over a period of 7 days, and assuming you invest 10k FDUSD you "loose" (opportunity cost) 22 FDUSD. For that, you got about 118 NFP, which could be sold at launch for about 1.1 FDUSD / NFP, so about 6 times as much as the opportunity cost. And this is the norm, not an exception. And btw, in case you use BNB, you can keep them in the earning account and still receive the airdrops, so there is zero opportunity cost there.

What risks are there? Please elaborate! Under the assumption that you are anyway invested in BNB on Binance, there is zero risk in participating in a launchpool. It's literally free money you get. In the case of a launchpad, you have a small risk during the calculation period where your BNB is locked for a few hours, but that's it. The BNB you pay for the new coins in a launchpad event are a fraction of the value of the coins you get, and since there is no lock-up period, you can immediately monetize the difference. So that's as much of a risk-free opportunity as you will ever get!

That seem to me a general issue, not related to Binance or it's launchpools: the more you own (or put it differently, the more you can risk), the higher the potential rewards. Show me one, just one, alternative where you can get a lot of (certain) reward with only a little investment. Sure, you can invest in a coin that suddenly explodes in price, but to find one of those is like winning in lottery. And for every to-the-moon coin, you have hundreds if not thousands similar ones that are scams or go bust.

Would wait. The game is stacked against further rise. It appears overheated due to the two successive launchpools (BNB always jumps up when launchpools / -pads are announced). Furthermore, orderbooks point at an impeding correction. My guess is that in 6 days, when the current launchpool closes, BNB will retrieve back to below 290. Doubt it will be go all the way to 250 though.

It is absolutely worth it, particularly if you already have the relevant assets (i.e. BNB, TUSD, FDUSD etc.) on Binance. If you do, then it's free money, and can amount to quite a bit. Although it's risky when the market is very volatile and upward trending, I did find it profitable to move some other assets into BNB just to participate in the launchpools / launchpads. I tried a range of other well-known launchpads over the last 4 years, but none of them achieved the return as with the Binance launchpools (mostly due to the lock-up period imposed on other launchpads vs. none on Binance)

Like many others, I was away from crypto for a while. Coming back to it again I had to realize to my dismay that all my COSS are gone (actually, they are just "stuck" in the COSS wallet.

I've been part of COSS from the beginning, supporting it and defending it however my limited means allowed, but had to take a break for a few months last year. It is thus absolutely shameful how they have left their investors hanging. 

I really want to understand the rational behind some decisions that does not seem to fulfill any purpose except to line the pockets to COSS:

1. Why is the swap limited in time at all? Since COSS and LALA simply became COS and ceased their existence, and time limit is unecessary

2. Why the hell couldn't the coins automatically become COS? For a LALA / COSS investor, there was no real choice anyhow. Again, it's not that there was a choice between COSS / LALA and COS, but between COS and nothing. The requirement to have to do it manually, again seems to have no purpose except to shut out some investors who, for whatever reason, were not actively following the project. This manually requirement is particularly misleading since I recall another communication from COSS (when I was still activein crypto), stating that as long as one had the COSS coins on the exchange, no specific action would be required.

I know the crypto world is still like the Wild West, and this is just another (high) price for a lesson to be learned. But just as in the Wild West, if an implicit honor code is broken and fairness not restored, companies like COSS will turn supporters into active enemies.

So, I hope somebody from COSS is reading this seriously and reconsiders making long time investors hole and restore fairness. Otherwise, the Wild West rules apply where gun slingers are replaced by social media influencers.

You obviously did some research about chain analysis. Good. But a point you miss is the difficulty behind such analysis in real life, the amount of effort it requires and the low success rate of such analysis. There is NO coin that has perfect anonymity and privacy. There too many practical considerations that make such a theoretical construct impossible. You claim that forced private transactions are more secure than optional ones. I cannot disagree with that. But a) if transacting parties want true privacy, they can choose to get that, and no chain analysis would be possible b) if you want wider adoption of a coin, you need to take into consideration potential business applications where completely private transactions would not be feasible at all. So why not keep the option to choose? If you want to create a privacy coin just used by geeks, without any possibility for wider adoption you are of course free to select one that does not give you any options.

Theoretically and technically you are of course correct. But it would be like shooting in your own foot: you can do it, but why would you hurt yourself. Firstly, at current prices you would need to invest at least 5m to try to aquire over 50% and it would be questionable whether you can even find that many sellers, but let's assume you do. And then what? As soon as it becomes apparent that somebody has over 50% the price would drop to the bottom. And using the 50% to block certain transactions? Somewhat idiotic attempt since, given the privacy and anonymity features all you could do is blocking random transactions, not transactions linked to real accounts / people. So yeah, a wealthy diabolic maniac who wants to destroy the world can theorically attempt to do that. But so far, greed has always trumped pure evil distructive nature.

This just shows how little the price has to do with fundamentals and instead is driven by euphoria and hysteria.

If the crypto market would behave somewhat like normal markets, UTK price would indeed had to make a big upward correction. But nothing in crypto is "normal"

I take comfort, however, that while many coins without a sound basis will disappear over the next 12 months, UTRUST is here to stay and grow.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3346679.msg35029506#msg35029506

Your review would be highly appreciated. Thanks!

I see your point, and yes, perhaps there would be some "migration effect". However, a counter-counterargument is that we already face the challenge of many low quality posts, and for now this is universal across all the sections / threads.



Well, if somebody has "legitimately" earned merits to spend, i.e. has been awarded those merits for their posts, they already have proven themselves in the eyes of their peers, so the spending of merits would not provide any additional measure to ensure quality. Or did I get the wrong end of the stick?


Yes, site wide does not make sense. Perhaps just creating a write-restricted level 1 area (same level as Bitcoin, Economy etc.) would be sufficient, or there could be several level 2 sections, one each under Bitcoin, Economy etc. I would, however, not make this a thread specific option only. Otherwise these (hopefully) high-quality discussions will be intermingled in the index with the open threads, and thus will most likely go unnoticed.

Although I don't see how receiving merits as part of those restricted discussions could  lead to abuse, you actually hit on an interesting idea:

If merits can only be earned in the open areas, but not in the restricted discussion areas, but earned merits are used as an entry requirement for posting in the restricted area it could create on one hand quality discussions in those restricted threads, while not "starve" or "marginalize" the open threads. It seems to me that this would create an ideal balance without introducing an unwanted "run-to-quality" bias and at the same time continue to raise the quality of the overall forum as currently intended.

Yes, there are always two sides to things.

So, how about the idea of write-restricted areas that are accessible (for posting) only by invitation or, as was suggested above by Jet Cash, only for accounts with a certain rank?

I'd like to suggest a third alternative to use the number of merits received, instead of the rank / total number of merits. I've seen posts from hero and legendary members that don't pass muster, and those individuals have actually not received any merits, aside from the initial allocation. Although I have no idea how much effort this would take to implement, I can't imaging it would be too difficult. And since awarded merits are to a large extent (although not completely) reflective of the quality of the contributions, it seems like an appropriate yardstick.

And using the awarded merits as an entry point to the write-restricted areas would not materially affect legitimate users. Since users can still read the forums, they are not loosing out on the content. But only those who have demonstrated in the open areas that they can provide valuable input and have been recognized as doing so by having received merits, can start contributing actively to those write-restricted areas. Whether this applies to sections in the forum, or at the thread level is perhaps a secondary question, but I can't see how this would not lift the quality, while not being too restrictive either.

Any thoughts?

Just FYI, I tried to follow the link, but could not find the replies you mention. Maybe they have been deleted (or they were PM)?

But yes, this is shocking.

And honestly, it puts a damper at least for me, to engage much on bitcointalk.

Anyhow, another thought, and maybe this would be easier to implement:

How about creating an invitation only section of the site? Anyone can read and follow the discussions but posting is closed to the "public". Only those who have proven that they can articulate a cogent argument, have been recognized by existing members as suitable discussion partners and only through invitation by an existing member can join the closed sections and post in the discussions.

Sounds perhaps elitist, but it could help to increase the quality at least in some areas.

I did not mean to replace or adjust the merit systems using votes or likes. These two systems would opperate independently. And I recognize the difference between a discussion forum and a "support" system (which the Stacks are).

As for demerit, I don't favor that either, but included it as it was suggested in other places.

However, I did not consider the issue of alt accounts. This adds of course an interesting twist.

From your comments I take it that you don't think there is anything else that can be considered (aside from the merit system) that would increase the quality of the discussions? It would be disappointing if the quality issue is just a fact of life which simply has to be accepted.

I understand that the merit system was implemented to improve the quality of posts and reduces spamming in forums.

With 4 months in operation, it seems that merits delivered to some extent on the second objective, but, at least from what I have experienced thus far, missed to improve on the first.

It is still very rare to find a discussion which is not highly technical in focus that is of a somewhat decent quality. I would love to have a good debate about, for instance, the economic, social, financial, ecosystem etc. impact of bitcoin and crypto-currencies, but very quickly every topic gets flooded with one liners, empty statements withouth any reasoning, and often not even connected in any way to the topic of the thread.

It appears as if the merit system encourages good posts, but does not discourage bad ones. I find this really a shame.

I would like to see whether there are some means that could augment the merit system and which would more effective in raising the quality of some of the discussions and posts.

For instance, on other occasions, the concept of dismerits (negative merits) was suggested.

What I found even more effective is the system that's implemented by, for instance, Stackoverflow, where questions and answers are up of down voted. Applying a similar approach to individual posts together with perhaps means to visually emphasize higher rated posts, might just do the trick.

This, or any similar system, is not meant to replace the merit system. The merit system would be still relevant for gaining ranks and the benefits that come with them. And merits would still be awarded for particularly relevant and good posts. But such up and down voting of posts would be less restrictive (e.g. no limit like with sMerits) and if giving a vote is a simple click, would likely also be more actively used than merits.

I have not considered how difficult it would be to implement any such measure in the software, so this is just meant to kick off a conceptual discussion for the moment.

I don't know whether you truly think your questions are clear and direct or whether you deliberately remain confusing.

In your questions above you make a large number of assumptions and include innuendos which are misleading. To give you an answer would require to entangle the entire web of the various statements in your sentence, which, at least for me, takes too long to set straight.

Instead, I suggest that since you have such an issue with how WISP is run or appear to have lost any confidence in the dev, simply don't get involved anymore and just focus on XSPEC.

All the arguments you make or ever will make have been made and addressed one way or the other. Time to stop this nonsensical fight and time to move on.

Thanks for the review

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3216817.msg34172813#msg34172813
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3238256.msg34302177#msg34302177

Appreciate your consideration:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3216817.msg34172813#msg34172813
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3238256.msg34302177#msg34302177
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3234005.msg34473550#msg34473550
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3320925.msg34712053#msg34712053
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3063550.msg33769714#msg33769714
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3216817.msg33446994#msg33446994

You are right that it can be bypassed, but not in a scalable, maintainable way. Let's be honest, if we only talk about the occasional transaction, then there is no problem with regulation, but the cryptos will remain an unimportant toy. As soon as you want to run a serious business, or as soon as you want the majority of your income come from cryptos, these alternative channels will quickly become inoperable.

Also, even if you are able to accumulate wealth outside of a regulated system, it would be immensely difficult to use that wealth. The reintegration of the usd you managed to pull out of crypto will be made difficult, as at some point questions about the source of the money would arise inevitably.

Thus, I just don't see a way around it.

Not that hard at all. Regulator just has to make sure that no money flows into or out of cryptocurrencies without the transparency of transactions.

They don't need to track your movements directly. If there is, however, no way to take money out of cryptocurrency without transparency, such transparency will be enforced indirectly.

Assume you are a business. You only sell against bitcoin, but the bills (eg electricity, web hosting, wages, taxes etc) are in USD, so you will need to exchange the btc income for usd and move that usd to your bank account to pay the bills. The regulator can force banks  not to accept any usd tranfers from any cryptoexchange without proof of providence.