Ratimov (Sr. Member)

His projects:

Ratimov - 1 year on Bitcointalk
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/5255365

Let's start

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

"It was 2017. One friend constantly talked about Bitcoin and Ripple, I got interested and bought these coins, it was a profitable investment. Bitcoin at $3700 and Ripple at $0.15"

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"As I wrote above, I bought Bitcoin in 2017, while I was just studying trading and preparing to trade in the stock market, but having bought Bitcoin, I decided to launch it into crypto trading."

3. How did you get on the forum?

"This was the first time in 2018, I started looking for information about crypto exchanges, reviews and other information related to trading, and Google kindly provided this forum in the top. Since then, since the spring of 2018, the forum has been in my bookmarks, I read it every day. I don't know why I didn't register then. "

4. You are the most successful participant on the forum (in 1 year you have earned more than 1000 merit, status DT1 and status merit source, more than 20,000 reports, etc.). What caused these achievements? What are your plans for the future?

"Thanks . Yes, during the year on this forum I did a lot of things and this was due precisely to the craving for knowledge about cryptocurrencies.

- I received many merits because I always shared the information I found, I read English articles that I was interested in and translated them for the Russian community.
- I got DT1 status rather thanks to the fight against account sellers and other scams (I don't like purchased privileges).
- For merit sourse I have all the necessary resources (time and desire) Thank you theymos for approving my application for 2 weeks. I was very lucky, some have been waiting for years.
- A lot of reports is a thank you to the forum. The forum gives me knowledge, and I make it cleaner. Most often I send reports on topics that I read or interested in for general development.

Plans for the future:
Wait until I finally get rank Legendary Wait a long time.  To earn a minimum of 2000 merits. Within the Russian locale I'm already cramped, I'd like to try creating crypto topics in the English section."

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"Merit system is a good system. It is a stimulant for good forum posting. And it's nice to see that your topics and posts are appreciated by other participants. So it doesn't hurt the forum. Those who say that it has caused many newcomers to leave, it is only for the benefit of this forum, less trash messages will be. In terms of usefulness, the forum will not lose anything from the departure of those who are dissatisfied. Now the forum provides the whole conditions for obtaining a merite, the main thing is to write useful posts and you will be sprinkled with merites. But many people are just lazy.

Signature campaigns also do not harm the forum, but rather encourage participants to share their knowledge and get bonuses for it. Yes, there is a downside in the form of signature shitposters. Well, what can we do, there are no ideal systems."

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

"There is no specific topic for me. For me, all topics are useful if they contain useful information and I learn something new for myself.
The most helpful users are those who benefit the forum and its inhabitants. These include creators of original content (OP), translators, merit sources, those who make statistics on participants, hunters for cheaters and scams, reporters, moderators, managers, etc. These are the most helpful users on this forum."

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"1- This is a notice that the text for one post is oversized before it is published. This may be a rare problem in the English section, but for the Russian locale it is a frequent case. It often happens that you write a large text, press the Preview button and everything is displayed there in full. You press the Save button and part of the text, if it exceeds the size, disappears. It's good if you notice it right away, but I've had it happen the next day and I had to type it all over again. It's uncomfortable.

2- The Banned plate in the account profile would save a lot of time. I very often turned to the moderator with a request whether this or that user was banned, because BPIP or Loyce.club do not always correctly show the status of this or that participant. It happens that someone is banned, but there is nothing like that on these resources. This feature would save a lot of time for those who identifying  ban evaders. Or it will save merit source his merit, because there is no point in handing merit out to a banned participant.

3- This is the setting of the tolerance to the ranks that can write in your topic. Sometimes the influx of nubs-shitposter and have to either report on their masterpieces or open a self-moderated theme for deletions."

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

"Only margin trading. In general, I was initially preparing to trade on the stock market, but on crypto exchanges the conditions are much more pleasant for beginners. That is why for 3 years I have been developing this very direction in the crypto."

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

"It was 2018. July is a month. In one day I managed to earn almost 2 BTC with a balance of 0.6 BTC, but the joy was not long, after a few days the loss for the day was ~3 BTC, margin call"

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"This is a good stage in the development of cryptocurrencies. A whole decentralized ecosystem. But, at the moment, the system is still damp. Frequent hacks, plus token hype. So far, everyone is interested in watching this, but I would not invest yet. The risks are too big, and some operations require technical knowledge, such as the ability to write a smart contract in the same flash credits."

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"No, I don't feel the need for anonymity. I even registered on forum under my last name "

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"In particular, I have not read books on cryptocurrencies, I get all the information from Bitcointalk, as well as resources such as Medium, Hackernoon, Reddit and many others."

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

"Only Bitcoin. For me, 99% of altcoins are garbage that's not worth the attention."

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"Hmm, I don't really like to predict prices, but something tells me it's no more than $10,000. I think all these funny stories about updating Bitcoin ATH this year will remain the stories."

Thanks to Ratimov for the interview!

The end.

webtricks (Legendary)

Let's start

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

"I first heard the term 'Bitcoin' in a local newspaper back in 2014. There was an article on a person who lost millions of money because he lost his private keys. My second encounter with the term 'Bitcoin' came in 2015 when I was participating in the final round of National Finance Quiz hosted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI Quiz). We were asked a question whose answer was 'Bitcoin'. Up till this point, I had no clue about what Bitcoin exactly is. Then after few months, maybe around September or October 2015, I got the first-hand experience in bitcoins when I received a freelancing income in bitcoins. Then I read materials (lots of articles) on Bitcoin and even started my own Twitter channel: @Bitcoin_Bullet which gained over 30,000 followers in last 5 years."

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"You maybe surprised to know but I never bought a single satoshi for fiat money. Almost every bitcoin I ever owned or currently holding is earned from one source or the other. Actually, my first real investment was Ethereum when I bought 50 (I don't remember the exact count) ether from a local Indian Exchange for $8 each. Someone advised me that the price of ETH will surge shortly and it was really a profitable trade for me."

3. How did you get on the forum?

"I was a regular user on a money-related forum which had a chatbox. I used to visit chatbox daily and made many friends there. I met and talked with LeGaulois there and we became good friends. One fine day in November 2016, he told me about Bitcointalk forum. I joined the forum and loved it right away."

4. How do you think mass advertising of gambling projects has a positive effect on the development of the forum or harms the community?

"Love it or hate it but we all have to agree that gambling industry is the biggest utility sector of bitcoin as a currency. Due to pseudo-anonymous nature of Bitcoin, it is loved by many gamblers (including me). Sometimes I do feel that extensive promotion of gambling projects may be somewhat distracting for a newbie who genuinely comes here to learn solely about Bitcoin because 90% of the forum ads and signature campaigns are gambling related. But I am a person who considers gambling as a normal economic activity so it doesn't bother me much."

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"Merit System is a love! If not for merit system, with all this rise in bitcoin's price and ICO/bounty hype of 2017-18, we would be having thousands of Legendaries submitting bounty reports or shit posting all over the forum. Merit System is a well-thought and nicely implemented idea. Only difference I would have liked if pre-merit era Legendaries were given 500 merits instead of 1000. As far as signature campaigns are concerned, they contribute to spam no second thought on that. But we have capable managers on forum who do their jobs perfectly. Also, sig campaigns open up an advertising niche with potential of thousands of the audience. Being a finance guy, I love every activity which has economical (monetary) value and Bitcointalk Signature Campaigns together worth around $1.5-2M per annum which is sweet mini-industry in its own."

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

"Most Useful Topics according to me (highly subjective):
 

• Everything you wanted to know about BTC futures but were afraid to ask! by fillippone  - This is one of the best and most detailed finance related topic I have seen on the forum
• How to sign a message?! by shorena - Easily the topic with the highest utility on forum
• Bitcoin and me (Hal Finney) by Hal - Mind Freshener! If you ever feeling low, just read this thread and you will be ignited to get up again.

There are many more topics that I love on forum but can't recall right now.

Most useful users? Umm,.. LoyceV, gmaxwell, pooya87 (my personal fav),  Heisenberg_Hunter (the most important Indian forum member right now), Vod, achow101, o_e_l_e_o (pronounced liked oreo), yahoo62278, efialtis, there are several others. Again can't recall them all right now."

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"Number 1, Revamping Altcoin Section. Altcoin Discussion and Speculation boards are junk. If revamping is not possible then just remove those sections.
Number 2, Mobile responsive design. Many users access forum via mobile devices. Current design doesn't show signatures properly on mobile.
Number 3, Feature to favorite certain members. For example, suppose I favorite 'LoyceV' then if LoyceV has posted in a thread I open, his post should be visible either on top or as highlighted."

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

"I am not an active trader anymore. I have tried the day trading, futures and other leverage trading back in 2017-19 period. Made some profits, suffered some losses. But don't do those stuffs anymore. Now I am a long term investor and holding few coins in my portfolio. As far as investing in projects is concerned, I have invested in few ICOs during ICO hype period. But haven't invested in any new projects since last 32 months."

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

"Big profit is something I don't wanna disclose. Big Loss I can tell. It was a dumb move and I bought 500 Truckcoin from an ICO investor a day before ICO ended in Jan 2018. It wasn't wholly my mistake because project was scam and misrepresented its position. It had an ICO structure where coins were sold for a period (I guess for 60 days) and price of the coin was increasing every day. So on the first day of ICO, coin was selling at $0.02 then $0.05 so on.. and on the last day the price was $30. Truckcoin twitter handle posted that the team had successfully sold 100% coins on the last day. The tweet made me optimistic that I could easily sell coins for $20-25 after listing so I bought 500 truckcoin from an early Truckcoin investor @ $5 each. After a week, coin was listed on some shit exchange (BTC-Alpha I guess) @ $0.001. My $2500 investment then worth $5. Hey don't judge me, that was ICO Hype period so such mistakes were acceptable in those days. "

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"It's too soon to comment. I personally believe the model is non-sustainable but commenting anything on it will be mistake right now.
You are here, I am here.
Let's talk about DeFi after a year.  "

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"More of a precaution than a necessity. I pay taxes on my bitcoin earnings, not holding very high amount of bitcoins, bitcoin is legal in my country, haven't earned any bitcoin illegally. So even if my identity comes forward, it won't effect me much. But still remaining anonymous online is better and I found 'webtricks' a really cool identity."

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"The only cryptocurrency book I ever read is 'Mastering Bitcoin' by Andreas Antonopoulos. The book is real asset and every Bitcoin Beginner should read it at least once. Other than that book, I rely on articles and videos to learn new things more than the books."

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

"History is evident. Every altcoin which was looking fancy couple of years ago has never recovered from the dump of 2018-19. Ether which surged to $1200 is struggling around $200-250 (shrank by 80%). So it is better to keep money in bitcoin, the only proven cryptocurrency. It has recovered much of the fall and currently trading with the shrink of 40-50%. I am holding few altcoins other than bitcoin but that's sort of gambling and I won't recommend anyone else to buy those coins."

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"$14,200. Don't ask me how I calculated because even I don't know."


Thanks to webtricks for the interview!

The end.

Very nice idea with the interviews. Find it quite exciting and very interesting to read some background information.
Thanks for the engagement zasad@. Continue with the good work
By now it is already a proper collection of interviews.

I received your questions, but they don't make much sense for my history here.  Are you aware of my history on this forum?

lol.  I got into bitcoin early, spent too early, and now I am set for major expenses but hurting for daily funds.  :/

I spent a decade here trying to educate people about bitcoin, and the danger of scammers;  I didn't use this forum to make money.

Would you consider writing some different questions for me?

well you just answered the two questions i was going to ask

This thing is addictive. Would love to hear from veteran members of the forum. How they started and what motivated them to be here.
Hope, we will get to know about some moderators as well, how they got to know about the forum.

philipma1957 (Legendary)
 
Let's start

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

"  In Dec 2011 I had a Mac Pro with a decent gpu and tried to get mining going. Failed at it. Then in 2012 July I joined here found the now closed Pool bitminter and started to mine there."

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"I purchased a few from  a member of the forum anandTech in 2012"

3. How did you get on the forum?

"I found it by being a member of anandtech. I liked building pc's and selling them on ebay. I noticed a BTC section there. It lead me here."

4.1.When did you start mining? Is this a hobby or your main job?

"  My First successful mining was July 2012
I make a few bucks monthly I never really made a living on it other then 2017 which was a good year."

4.2.What is the power consumption of all your devices?  How much does 1 kilowatt of electricity cost?

"   We mine with 1.7ph at a warehouse it pulls around 85kwatts hourly.
 Our deal with the warehouse owner is a 50-50 coin split"

4.3.What is better for mining: ASICs, video cards, FPGA?

" Asics are more consistent earners.
But gpus have had great years.
At the moment Cpus gen 3 threadrippers from amd are pretty good with monero
I have never been able to make money with FPGA gear as every builder I worked with was not particularly good to me."

4.4.How to properly dispose of the mined cryptocurrency (how much to hold, how much to sell)?

"  It is Hard work to move gear out when the time comes. I always try to undersell gear at a good price. I must have sold 500 to 750 pieces of gear. Before I found the warehouse deal we have. The ware house deal allows for storage of good gear that does not make sense to mine with unless a bull market starts again. we know have 15 s9's and
22 l3+ stored in ware house."

4.5.They say that mining is a constant sense of risk (the rate will fall, the lights will be turned off, the equipment will burn out), is it so?

"  yes and no.
   A guy in his home most likely has poor rates and 1 or 2 pieces of gear. He or she may have paid a lot for the most efficient gear and has no margin of error.
Myself and forum member buysolar  along with the ware house owner have a lot of spare gear. So a 1200 usd unit dying is not as painful when you have 25 other ones.  To the guy mining in his home with 2 pieces of gear he will lose 1/2 his mining power so it is a constant threat to him. To the four of us 1 piece of gear dying is not a threat. But I live in the USA and we had riots all over the country this summer. We were afraid the warehouse could be looted for the food inside as the ware is primarily a food distribution center. Losing 1.7ph in asic btc gear. 10gh in LTC gear and 12 1080ti gpus was not a pleasant thing to worry about."

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"  The merit system is okay better to have it than to not have it. Signature campaigns I would love to see the forum have a vacation  month  no signatures for a month. I would love to see Loyce do a stats look at it. Mostly to see what would happen."

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

"  The beginner board is good for new people.
Mikeywith is good for mining help. He also speaks another language and is on that board a lot.
Loyce is good for stats.
Lots of other good people here. DdmrDdmr is good."

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"  A signature vacation 2 to 4 weeks every year.

  theymos knows better how to manage forum then me so I have just the one idea."

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

"   Very little trading I have been converting my LTC into Doge and now I hodl 2 million Doge not much in the grand scheme of things. I used to push BCI but it died."
 
9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

"    I never made a lot as I mine and sell 2017 was the one good year.
As for a loss I purchased a lot of USB sticks for mining. Red bitfury  they arrived late I paid 17 btc for them Bitmain came out with a better cheaper stick while I waited for the red ones to show up."

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"   Can some one in this thread please write what this is as I do not know what it is.
So I won't google it to just give a flip answer here."

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"   This is the one thing I would do over. I am well known and many people know my name and home address.
So I sometimes feel vulnerable. I made to decision to be transparent back in 2012 to help promote BTC and coins. I never thought coins would become as big as they have. Had I known that I would have been more discrete with my id. "

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"  A lot of hype in a lot of books and in a lot of articles. I have done research on Taxes in the USA Using tax programs.   https://bitcoin.tax/ I have read all info here."

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

"  Doge, LTC ,BTC. I am a big Doge believer"

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"  15k to 19k "

15. P.S.

"It has been a heck of a ride and I never expected it to be where it is now. Hopefully it will stay interesting as it has been."

Thanks to philipma1957 for the interview!

The end.

Vispilio (Legendary)

His projects:

Vispilio's Fully Independent Campaign Management Services
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/5225711  


Let's start

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?

"I first heard about Bitcoin while I was trading for a hedge fund in Switzerland, back in 2012. At the time we were obsessed with algorithmic trading and automating fiat money strategies, so I missed that initial opportunity of acquiring some while it was trading between 10-100 USD… "

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?

"I got into Ethereum mining in 2017,  when ETH gained huge momentum shortly after we started mining it, my first BTC trades were actually done to diversify the crypto currency portfolio as it was getting too concentrated in ETH… "

3. How did you get on the forum?

"Around that time, I initially came to Bitcointalk to inquire about GPU mining and found the forum to be a huge font of knowledge in many technical fields."

4.1. Do crypto traders need special education?

"In my experience trading as a profession is one of the most difficult pursuits out there, so anyone who wants to generate income through trading needs a very rigorous education."

4.2. Tell us about your hedge fund management strategy?

"I focus on exchange traded derivatives. Very broadly I can say looking for price inefficiencies and volatility mismatches in options across multiple asset classes and creating a balanced portfolio that’s long gamma and or receiving time value."

4.3. I do not trust stablecoins. How to hedge correctly if there is no way to exchange cryptocurrency for fiat?

"There are many ways to hedge, and all imply some assumptions, there is always going to be counterparty risk. If you don’t like stable coins you can go for shorting BTC or ETH on an exchange like Bitmex to receive some interest at the 3x daily swaps, you can look for inexpensive put options on a reliable exchange like Deribit or via smart contracts, or you can join a DeFi pool that diversifies into multiple stable coins, while also earning some juicy DeFi tokens, just to list 3 examples… "

4.4. If I gave you $ 100,000 now, where would you invest it?

"70-80% options, and 20-30% divided between Bitmex, Dexes and DeFi probably, the weights may vary depending on investor’s risk appetite… "

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?

"The merit system is pretty good with multiple merit sources adjusted periodically is a pretty good idea, all good political systems should strive for meritocracy.
Signature campaigns can incentivize people to come up with higher quality posts, so in philosophy they are a net positive to the forum if managed correctly. One recommendation I would give to all campaigns  and managers is to disregard the Trust System in making their decisions, as it’s currently broken. "

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?

"I think the beauty of the forum is there is a very broad spectrum of useful topics, for my part I learnt a lot from some technical discussions on launching a crypto currency as well as the latest developments in altcoin mining."

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"i)   Give the option to users to make their trust lists private, so they won’t be coerced or manipulated by any gang for political reasons.
ii)   Form a committee from staff members or appoint a new staff to prevent trust abuse, so that the nepotism in the trust system don’t end up as a deterrent against new independent members from participating in the forum
iii)   Under the current Merit source leaders, Default Trust leaders, and most prolific posters as incentivized by sig. campaigns, the forum’s hits, engagements and membership have seen a steady decline. I believe the admin needs to take some strategic decisions to give new members room to be motivated while keeping the nepotist tendencies of the old guard in check. "

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?

"Both, although investing in a project often requires more in depth and case-specific analysis, like networking with project owners directly, so trading is the more frequent activity for me."

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?

"I have a story which serves as an example to both. Back when we were mining Zcash before it was dominated by ASIC’s, there was quite low liquidity on most exchanges and sometimes you saw wild swings to either side. On Bitrex I sold some Zcash at over 0.1 BTC (when our breakeven mining price was about 0.01 per ZEC). Never has ZEC brushed such high levels ever since, and looking for a few more spikes like that I got stuck with loads of mined ZEC which to this day hasn’t recovered, when I could have easily sold every one of them at around 300-400 …  "

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"It’s the way of the future, but deserves its own interview I think. Watch out for Andre Cronje, that guy has a lot of talent. "

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"Just a precaution, although it would be a different story if one is residing in a regime where law enforcement and surveillance are hyperactive like China or the United States… "

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"The Phenomenology of Mind by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
In a very fast evolving space, I usually look for what the founders of groundbreaking crypto projects are currently writing or streaming, etc."

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?

"Next to Bitcoin, ETH, TRX and
The token I’m building for our own hedge fund, which should be ready in about 1-2 months I hope, it’s called FRX (Ferox)"

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?

"(Maybe ) Above 12,000 USD"

Thanks to Vispilio for the interview!

The end.