Topic: [Interviews] with Bitcointalk members - page 29. (Read 30820 times)

yahoo62278 (Legendary)


Let's start

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

"Prior to me coming to the forum I was a poker dealer in a number of private cash games around my area. A buddy of mine introduced me to Seals with Clubs poker in 2013/2014, which was a poker site dedicated to bitcoin users. I started playing there on my off days and started to become interested in this bitcoin project."

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

"I personally have never purchased a whole bitcoin. I bought a little here and there to play poker on the Seals with Clubs site. Bitcoin was pretty cheap then, my biggest purchase was somewhere in the .1-.2 range late 2013."

3. How did you get on the forum?

"I had stumbled across a site called Luckyb.it in late 2013 and got into plinko. Users were always talking about bitcointalk in their chat, so I finally took a look mid 2014. In the beginning, I really wasn't too interested in the forum as I was pretty much clueless about bitcoin and the conversations going on here. It's a lot to take in as a 1st time visitor and easy to feel lost when browsing."

4.1. Why did you start working as a bounty manager? Is this a hobby or your main job?

"When I 1st came to the forum I was looking at ways to make a little bitcoin to fund my online poker playing during days I was home. Wife(GF at the time) told me she didn't care what I did as long as I wasn't blowing the money in our bank account.

Carra23 was 1 of the big signature campaign managers at the time and I was always curious as to what a manager might earn in terms of how hard of a job managing might be and how well the pay was.

I had stumbled across updownbot site and had been talking to the owner a lot on private chat when he mentioned he might be looking to promote his site, did I have any ideas? So mid September of 2014 I took a shot at managing his sig campaign on the forum along with a couple giveaways.

At 1st it was definitely a hobby. I was dealing poker 5 days a week and making pretty decent money. Wasn't ready to be a stay at home worker and had no clue if this bitcoin idea was gonna net more or less money if I decided to do it full time.

Took me a couple years to really go full time with managing. At 1 point I was managing 12-14 campaigns at a time and employing well over 700 forum users per week some weeks.

I don't really consider myself as a "bounty manager" as I have only managed 4-5 bounty campaigns. Yes I will manage a bounty campaign for the right people, but overall 90% who have came to me looking for a manager have been rejected."

4.2. How do you pick out the projects you work with? Do you agree to work for payment in project tokens?

"Most signature campaigns that I have ran have been for fairly reputable sites. If a site has any sort of confirmed scam accusation I had usually passed on the offer(yobit and Betnomi being the exceptions).

Choosing a company requires doing some research on the particular company(especially bounty campaigns). Talking to the owner and getting a feel for what kind of person/company they are is pretty big as well. If they act a little shady in our initial conversation I usually pass.

I'm always willing to give new companies a chance, but the second they start holding customer WD or anything like that a manager should stop any and all advertising for them until a valid explanation is given as to why and it is rectified.

Do I accept tokens? I will accept some sort of split in payment x amount of btc/x amount of tokens in some cases but I usually expect a larger amount of tokens to make up for a poor market. I will not accept tokens that are not listed."

4.3. Tell us what parameters of candidates do you look at when recruiting them for a signature campaign?

"Prior to the merit system being introduced, I open every applicants profile and check if they are even active in posting. Then I look at the boards they post on. Will they be helpful to a company? Do they do a lot of posting back to back(Burstposting)? Do they post across multiple boards? It's really useless to hire a bunch of users that only stick to the discussion boards(or as I like to call them, the spam boards).

With the merit system being introduced, I like to look for users who are actually earning merits each week or within the past few weeks when a campaign opens. That helps to gauge a little as to whether or not a persons posts are actually read and gives a company a better chance of their signature being seen IMO."

4.4. What is the risk of a bounty manager and what is his responsibility?

"Any bounty/campaign manager has their reputation at risk at all times. Every move you make is watched.

I remember master-p was my preferred escrow in the early days. Guy ended up stealing something like 30+ btc from users, 6 of which were mine for 3 campaigns that were running. A new account popped up realmasterp or some bs and paid some of us back. I ended up losing around 2btc from the whole deal and paid participants from my pocket. My biggest fear at that time was people wouldn't trust me, which pushed me to make it right with the users.

That is when I decided I would hold funds for campaigns from that point on and companies would pay in advance for any services.

A managers responsibility is 1 to make sure they check out the company before taking a job. Don't just accept any offer that comes your way trying to make a name for yourself. You'll likely find yourself in the shit manager category doing that. If you make rules in a campaign, stick to them 100%. I don't care if it's me in your campaign or some lower ranking unknown Sr member. Treat everyone the same. It's not about being friends with everyone. You have a job to do, do it.

Actually look at users posts each week and determine if they're doing the job you are paying them for. If not, remove them and tell them why they were removed. If you get a message about a particular user, look into it. Some messages are going to be malicious attempts to get someone removed from a campaign so a spot opens, but some are good reports. Always look into a report and act accordingly.

When a company gives you money, make sure you pay participants in a timely manner."

4.5. Does the forum need to set additional rules for signature campaigns?

"I think if a manager is doing their job, then there would be no need for the forum to step in. Companies need to do better research and hire a good manager vs just hiring the lowest rate offered. You get what you pay for in this business.

Companies risk money, reputation, and character by taking a chance on new managers who haven't proved they're even able to do the job."

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

"Trick question right? The merit system has probably made a few users leave the forum( heartbreaking I know). There are a good number of users that could care less. I believe it has done what was intended and filtered out some shit users. Although I also believe some have found ways to manipulate the system by buying merits, but they'll be caught eventually.

As far as signature campaigns, I think they're great for the forum. Let's not get in to the spam they can create. We all know there are users that come here just to earn money. Let's think about the fact that Signature campaigns generate users for the forum. How many users would be here if they didn't come looking to earn a dollar? How many companies would come here to advertise via signatures or forum ads if bitcointalk wasn't the biggest bitcoin forum around?

I think having campaigns has also increased awareness of bitcoin. 3rd world, 2nd world, or 1st world country doesn't matter. Campaigns generate a revenue stream and help in all economies.

You take away campaigns, you lose half the users if not more. You start losing advertisers because they start feeling like it's useless to advertise on a dead forum.

I've seen multiple respected users that would love campaigns to go away, but I think all that would do is kill the forum and eventually there would be 100 users visiting here cause there wouldn't be very much new content being provided. If you guys want a place to hang out alone, make your own forum IMO."

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

"Unofficial rules IMO is the most useful topic. I think anyone who visits the site should be directed to these rules and made to take a test to show they actually read the rules. Randomize the questions so someone cannot make a cheat sheet.

Most helpful users? Where to begin? LoyceV , suchmoon, tranthidung, TECSHARE, Quickseller, Jet Cash, The Pharmacist, Talkstar, Yoshie, and the list goes on and on. Sorry if i don't name everyone. There are so many that step in and try to help, it really just depends on the type of help you need."

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"I'm not sure i have 3 things I would implement, but i'll give it a shot.

1. I would like to see users have the ability to have admins or a board of DT be able to get neg trust removed if it is unwarranted. People tag for some petty stuff on here and it's kinda ridiculous. There are also cases where a person leaves a tag on a user and disappears forever.

2. Managers should have to be mentored for 6 months by a reputable manager before opening their own service. This will never in a million years happen but it would be nice.

3. DT reduced back to theymos handpicked users. Too much drama surrounding the trust system. Probably gonna be too much drama no matter what, but I liked the old system better."

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

"I trade tokens I may be paid by companies on different exchanges, but it is rare since I rarely accept tokens."

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

"Mentioned this in a question above referring to master-p"

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"What? You'd think 1 of us being asked these questions would have researched this by now. I personally do not follow this though."

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"When you start gaining a reputation here, blackmail attempts and other dumb shit start happening. Privacy is important to some of us."

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"Crypto Taxes Made happy by Mario Costanz. Tried educating myself more on taxes to save a buck here and there."

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

"I'm not an advisor on investing, I would not want someone to invest on my advice and lose their ass."

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

"Likely somewhere between 9800-11000."

Thanks to yahoo62278 for the interview!

The end.

I strongly agree with this. The lack of moderation of the trust system has lead to people being able to leave controversial ratings without consequences. When the exclusion feature was first introduced, a very small number of people were held accountable for controversial ratings, but this stopped fairly quickly. This was noticed and those that wanted to leave controversial ratings left ratings of increasing controversy over time as they observed the lack of accountability.

atriz was not the original owner of his account and he was probably a long standing member when he bought his account. I suspect he is still around somewhere, possibly running a campaign business.

I still have ACCTseller, although I don’t remember it’s password don’t think I have an email address associated with the account, so I probably won’t be posing from it again (don’t have any real reason to anyway).  I still have boelens that defaulted on a loan several years ago and has turned into a time waister in sending single messages about it every several months — I don’t see myself ever disposing that one sadly.

I do try to find good posts to merit as I am still a merit source. Sadly, I find myself sending merit to a lot of the same people every month. I wish there were more people who would make good posts that I come across.

It is usually seen as unethical for a journalist to pay for interviews. It is also not uncommon for journalists to publicly disclose they tried to get an interview but were unable to get one after the person asked for payment.

Why didn't I think of that?
For that price, I'll even give up on this for 2 questions:

Seriously though, was that a serious answer or someone just pulling your chain a bit?

Agreed. It sounds like altcoin advertising inside an interview.

He gave me the chance to post it or let him post it. Same as you.

I don’t need merits so let him post it.

This is a nice thread with a lot of good info.

Learning about Defi is an added bonus. (it is not for me )

To op thanks to all that gave an interview thanks.

Lets get theymos to give one.

DeFi stands for Decentralized Finance. "The new way money is distributed".

Although, I don't think that it should be asked to every person.

I offer any conditions:
Publication of the interview by the user
Individual questions
Ability not to answer any questions
P. S. - Any thoughts can be written

50% do not respond or refuse
I cannot post opt-out lists.
I was even asked to pay several hundred thousand dollars for an interview

I am sure that the publication of the interview by hilariousetc will be an example for many members

Not really tbh. Isn't this forum about Bitcoin anyway? I doubt it's a problem not knowing about DeFi (Decentralized Finance, for more Information just check the linked guide), a financial product which is beeing hyped for a year now.

2017 there was the ICO hype. Now it's DeFi, but one thing hasn't changed: It's still Bitcoin, which is by far the leading figure in the crypto space. And I guess that is, where you should have your knowledge first of all.

I've enjoyed reading all the interviews. I don't know if zasad@ does it to everyone but he gave me the option of posting it myself. I think it would be better it users posted their own so you can merit them if you like their answers. If you wanna merit zasad@ for the questions then just toss some in the op.


At least two  , just like me. He's mostly abandoned that account probably because there's no money in it for him but he's happily still posting away from PrimeNumber7.


Well he was last active a little over month ago so he probably pops in from time to time. I think some people won't ever leave this forum no matter how many bans they get or accounts get tarnished. For some people it's just too lucrative to give up and I can't really blame them. PrimeNumber7 has risen through the ranks quite quickly but people like QS know what to do to achieve that efficiently. I'm sure aTriz would too.

Agreed. I always thought of Quickseller as very knowledgeable.
Just to stir the pot a bit, I missed the question: "How many forum accounts do you currently own"?

I'd be interested to see an interview with aTriz. I'm curious if he's still around with another account. Before making questions for him, I recommend reading this topic.

When all you read and talk about is bitcoin development on bitcointalk and perhaps in other platforms, you'll most likely end up not knowing any updates about altcoins.

About DEFI, perhaps zasad should specify if it's Eth or Tron ecosystem. Justin, like the copycat that he is, also launched 3 defi products recently.

It was even interesting read to go through your interview, which show's you to be an interesting person overall, more interesting than I thought.

You getting painted here in dark light is just some effects of most probably unethical people's opinions online, yet you have an reputation and respect here among many, even if you don't think so.

Hope you have an extremely happy life ahead.

Sorry for the delayed response.

---

It was interesting reading through interviews with many “famous” forum members. This would have been a great initiative for the 10 year anniversary of the forum.

Quickseller (Legendary)

His projects:
Trust System Upgrade
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/trust-system-upgrade-5149330

Let's start

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

"I first read about bitcoin in 2011/2012 when reading about Silk Road, and subsequently reading their forum. I never traded on SR, and regrettably did not buy any bitcoin back then. I started getting more interested in bitcoin in early-mid 2014 when it was making headlines due to MtGox failing, and the price having just gone from ~a hundred dollars to a thousand dollars."

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

"I bought my first bitcoin in early 2014 after I read about signature campaigns on this forum, and the ability for people to be able to make a lot of money by chatting on the internet. I used the bitcoin I bough to but a forum account, started posting and was able to earn my money back fairly quickly, even with the price falling at the time."

3. How did you get on the forum?

"At the time, I was searching for articles about bitcoin and found an article about signature campaigns. If I remember correctly, it was an article about how you could earn bitcoin with the new bitmixer campaign. I believe at the time, the campaign was a few months old."

4. You have been on the forum for a long time and spend a lot of effort fighting other old members. Give advice to young members of the forum how to avoid mistakes and conflicts on the forum?

"I would say that it is important to pick your battles. Before engaging in a conflict with someone, you should ask yourself if the outcome of the dispute is important enough for you to spend time fighting with someone on the internet."

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

"The merit system is imperfect, but is superior to the previous status quo where you only needed to post in order to rank up. I often see people trying to play the system in various ways to get more merit, so they can rank up. I also see a lot of merit being given out because of a side someone is taking in a dispute, which I think is unfortunate because it effectively gives more weight to the opinion of those with lots of merit to give out — I see this less as of recently, but I also don’t follow forum drama very closely so I don’t know if this is still happening.

Signature campaigns are a great way to get people interested in and to learn about bitcoin. If it were not for signature campaigns, I probably wouldn’t have learned as much about bitcoin as I have. They do create bad incentives, such as to post garbage. Some people also tend to pull wool over their eyes when a company that is paying for their signature does something less than above board. Overall I would consider signature campaigns to be a net positive."

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

"I would consider the most important topic to be the unofficial forum rules because it gives people guidance on how to act in the forum.

There are many useful forum members and most of those who are useful are useful to a subset of people. Tomatocage for example was very useful to anyone who traded in the marketplace, while achow101 is useful to anyone looking for technical information."

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?

"My trust system upgrade was somewhat implemented with the flag system.

I would suggest rolling out the new forum software. If necessary, theymos should offer a bounty for security weaknesses, employ pen testers and eventually roll it out.

I would also offer more paid ranks. The copper membership allows someone to be a‘member’ and users should have the ability to buy a paid membership that gives the features of a full member, and maybe a senior member (such as the signature privileges, posting frequently privileges and being able to post in the ivory tower)."

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

"Not anymore. I had traded on Bitfinex in the past before they banned US customers, Poloniex long before they were sold, and coinbase."

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

"I would refer you to my response to this thread. Looking back, I responded poorly and ended up loosing my reputation that was valuable to me personally."

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?

"Never heard of it"

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?

"A precaution. I am a private person."

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?

"I don’t read those kinds of books."

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

"Any crypto investment is highly speculative. Investing in anything except bitcoin is similar to rolling the dice IMO, and it is far from certain that bitcoin will be successful over the long run."

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

"The way 2020 is going so far, who knows."

Thanks to Quickseller for the interview!

The end.

I lost Eth coins in a wallet that refuses to synch.  was not much 3 coins.

I could not fix the issue.

It happened when the big eth rollback was done.

I spent time on it when eth went to 200  then 400 then 600. I spent a lot of time when it went from

800 to over 1000 i gave up on it the coins just sit there.

some place i have a copy of the wallet.

I am not the only person this happened to.  So basically I do nothing with eth.

other the sell it for cash or btc when a person wants to pay me in eth.

So i can see why I know zip about defi.

i read the thread and since it is more trading and an area i personally avoid due to a lack of control over the market.

seems ready to pop its bubble if i see it correctly.

It's not that they dont know. Maybe they probably not interested at all. We dont know for sure if defi hype could last long.

It's a trend hype now in crypto space( most likely everyday I heard since it was become a thing on social media). Here is a good post about it. DeFi - ETH Financial Ecosystem (September 2019)

^{OP created that post no wonder he is interested to include that question about the defi ecosystem. To know the perspective of other users about it.}

been here since 2011. never heard of it either.

Q10 is the most interesting question at this interviews.


philipma1957

Loycev

Foxpup

The Pharmacist

OMG. It's really unbelievable. 4 active veteran member of forum said that they doesnt know anything about DeFi. I'm not sure about DeFi platforms can survive or cant. But not knowing anything about DeFi is realy interesting. 

Vispilio (Legendary)

His projects:

Vispilio's Fully Independent Campaign Management Services
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/vispilios-fully-independent-campaign-management-services-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.

I read my answers and realized number 2 was not answered fully.

I purchased coins from an anandTech forum member to buy those bitfury red usb sticks.




for p.s.

The industry truly changed in 2017

coins were about 1000 in jan 2017
coins got close to 20000 in dec 2017

for the most part coins have held above 6000 ever since
now at 9400

It is now more or less a real business and not a hobby.
This goes far beyond mining.
Exchanges and trading are huge now.