Delay progress with global unlocks not via adding more bits to hideout upgrades.

IMO it seems like they want it to take longer to progess and upgrade and they use the fastest players as a metric to then add more roadblocks.

Here's the problem, that communicates to everyone TO rush as fast as possible because it gets harder over time, and it also doesn't effectively slow anything in a uniform manner.

Here's the suggestion. Add a global quest for each trader level that must be unlocked before players can individually level that trader. Therapist can want you to heal X in raid, or use Y bandages, Jaeger might be fire X rounds out of a bolt action.

Base the leveling off of a formula of X actions per # of players so that the system can adjust wipe to wipe on how many of those actions need to be completed. So if Prapor said fire 1000 rounds of PS ammo per 50 players to unlock him at level 2 then that would scale to a wipe with 5000 or 50k players. The basic idea is that all of the items would be things that normally happen, kill scavs, kill players, extract, enter a raid, fire some ammo type, buy or use ammo/meds. Playing the game would complete these quests and everyones actions goes towards a community unlock of a trader level.

Something like this also allows for oddball items, ie a double kill or triple kill with a grenade per 10k players means you can add in rarer events happening without pressuring any individual player to perform those actions.

Next up gate Flea behind a Mechanic 2 quest to just extract with ZYX computer hardware so he can "build a fleamarket". Then make it unlock at level 0 for players who join later in a wipe.

Lastly Gate Labs behind a mechanic Level 3 quest to crunch ~1000 hours / GPU's per player for him to "unlock the security system allowing entry into teragroup labs". ( after which you can access labs like you do normally ) ( just running the bitcoin farm would count down the timer, if it were 1k hours per player / #gpus then that's 500 hours @ 2 gpu's and 250@ 4 )

The effects: So right now we have a prisoners dilemma, if you take your time early wipe you will get left behind. Early wipe is the time when there is such a pronounced effect of leveling up traders and getting better gear. If you have good gear against people who can't pen your helmet/faceshield/armor and you can 1-2 tap them it's a different game. On the flipside it's almost a universal truism that everyone says they like early wipe, probably because the game isn't a 1tap facefuckfest for a short period of time before that resumes.

Instead of bolting on more parts to gate progression we need what is effectively a time gate that blocks all players no matter how good you are. Then and only then will the idea of rushing to get XYZ no longer be a thing. Suppose all traders took 1-2 weeks per level, there's no reason to rush and there's more time to enjoy the specific gameplay at that gearset. Roll a pump shotgun and have some fun, you've got plenty of time to grab the things you'll need to upgrade your hideout once the global unlock of trader X happens and you can see the progress on the quest so you know roughly when it will occur. the best part is it's based on a formula, if the community thinks that the traders should be level 1 for a little less time, but level 2 for longer just adjust those variables and that time period can be adjusted.

Thanks for coming to my Vladtalk, in leau of payment please donate tushonkas to scavatemylegs.

Day Three/ Four of using Bitcoin in El Salvador

There is really not much I can say about these past 2 days as I haven't really done much, in terms of using Bitcoin. I spent a good amount of my time relaxing, exploring, and reading about recent news events that had occurred here in El Salvador (I'm under the impression that the people here are mixed on this Bitcoin adoption narrative, but I understand where they're coming from). There's a restaurant on the beach of Atami called 'Boongalo Tiola' that accepts Bitcoin and I have 2 good things to say about this restaurant. They serve really good food (I highly recommend it) and the owner knows how to create his own invoice using his lightning-supported wallet. I would argue that he's ahead of the game compared to most Bitcoin enthusiasts. So all I had to do was scan the invoice using mine and hit send. No need to scan to open a link to create an invoice.

I had just found out that there is a Bitcoin ATM located in El Sunzal at Papaya Lodge where you can convert your sats into actual cash, which is great for vendors who only accept cash. It seems possible to not rely on banks or debit/credit cards out here. I have yet confirm this myself so I'll probably check it out tomorrow.

If you're concerned about transportation around the beaches, Uber is a cheap option if you're not using a rental vehicle.

For phone service, the options I have seen are Tigo and Claro, which can be bought at some shop in El Zonte with Bitcoin. I don't remember seeing phone service providers at the airport, but I would assume they're there. As soon as I arrived at the place that I'm staying at, my main priority was to purchase either one of these sim cards so that I could transact without dollars.

I may post an update tomorrow if I'm not too busy being lazy.

Rollercoin is an online bitcoin mining simulator in which you can mine real bitcoins for free without paying for electricity - get a 1000 satoshi now!

Rollercoin is a game that you compete with your friends, who will have a bigger farm to mine bitcoin, ethereum or dogecoin. Аll you have to do is register and customize your avatar, then you're ready to start the race.

The best part is that this game does not require depositing money to grow your farm, it is enough to play games, raise enough money and buy your first miner.

Once you have collected the sufficient minimum amount (about 4-6$) you can withdraw your money to your personal wallet. You can take 1000 satoshi which will help for the development of your farm. They are equal to 0.00001 BTC.

1000 FREE SATOSHI HERE

It is possible to progress quickly with the new "Event Pass" in the game. If you buy it and take all the prizes you will increase the power of mining by 1.22 Ph/s. Of course, if you do not want to give real money for "Event Pass" there are also free prizes.

ONLY NOW you have the opportunity to get a lot of free miners, RLT and trophy as decor in your mining room!

There is a new option with which you can win free RLT by performing tasks. You can complete all tasks and take hundreds or even thousands of RLT.

At the same time you have the opportunity to buy a Lootbox with which you have a chance to win a miner who runs with power from 10 Gh/s up to 270 Gh/s

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE GAME YOU CAN CRAFT A MINER. If you have 2 or more identical miners, you can combine them and get a brand new one with a higher power than the sum of the combined miners. For this you need parts, you can buy them from the store or win them completely free while playing mini games.

1000 FREE SATOSHI HERE

Also FOR THE FIRST TIME they give a FREE SKIN for your miner's room with a Christmas theme.

The market will be added very soon. In it you will be able to buy miners at lower prices than in the store and you will be able to choose in which currency to pay, from your already dug RLT, BTC, ETH, DOGE, MATIC or BNB.

Hint:

•  There is a new cryptocurrency that you can mine MATIC!

• At Rollercoin you will never mine at a loss because you will not pay for electricity! The game is made you always mine to profit!

• If you decide to invest the money you earn in miners, you will start earning more.

• The cheapest miner costs only 2.6 RLT which is 2.6$.

Notes on using Rollercoin:

• All purchases from the site require RLT, which is Rollercoin's own cryptocurrency.

• You may withdraw your crypto from the site once it reaches the required quota, or deposit them to a different currency.

• You can only split power from mining crypto once every 12 hours.

• You must win at least one game per day to maintain the current level of your "PC", otherwise it will go back to the lowest level.

• The more games you win, the more difficult it is, and the longer the cooldown. On the flipside, you get a bigger score which adds to your mining power.

• You can bring down the difficulty of any game by simply not playing them for awhile. Use this to diversify the games you play and earn as much mining power as possible. 1000 FREE SATOSHI HERE

• The higher your mining power, the more crypto you can get from each completed block.

Man this is my biggest issue with crypto …

The fucking people in control of our governments are old heads that don’t understand what crypto is and how to apply appropriate laws to accommodate this innovation.

These people are the same people that are in Congress who say to a company like Google “Can Google track your phone, like without using Comcast, but Goolgle itself” … like common man.

Reason why I’m ranting is because I have no fucking idea how to do my taxes. In Canada, apparently/technically each transaction is a taxable event.

For example you buy Bitcoin, it goes up 30%, you then exchange to Ethereum and it goes up 45% … you are not taxed as a 75% increase/gain, there is now two taxable events.

Buying Bitcoin it going up 30%, exchanging for Eth, right there that’s a taxable event and now Eth increasing and once sold or traded is now another taxable event.

Even if you exchange to a stable coin, everything technically is a fucking taxable event.

I’ve used 3 exchanges and one wallet, I’m assuming my statements are going to be f’d because I used withdraw instead of exchange …. Fuck.

I have some losses I want to claim and essentially just keep my books clean.

Now, I have no fucking idea on what to do.

Any crypto vets, especially Canadian ones who have any advice, tips, and overall experience on how to properly file your taxes in respects to including crypto is welcomed.

Merry Christmas to you all, I hope all of you and your family have a safe and joyful holidays!

Particl, the future of DeCom & Defi

Today i'd like to introduce this amazing community with a project I really keep close to my heart. I won't lie I invested in it back in 2017, and I am still holding and buying whenever I can because I truly believe in its philosophy and the overall scope of its roadmap.

I chose this particular time because they recently released their flagship product on Mainnet after years of development and are about to release a new private DEX with it. Something unique and without any competition for now. Something with the potential of being a leader in its domain, a leader in DeCom and DeFi based on real economy, period.

But more on that later ( if you don't wan't to read the whole thing, you could skip to the end of this post for a general conclusion that sums up the most important aspects of this project ).

So, what the heck is Particl ?

"To me it's all about freedom." ( CryptoGuard, Head of Communication department at Particl )

Particl is an open source Cyberpunk / Libertarian software project. Its aim is to build tools that protect individual freedom and privacy.

Particl is the successor of the ShadowProject (https://shadowproject.io/en), a privacy-focused cryptocurrency project started back in August 2014. The team behind this project are known for being innovators in the cryptocurrency scene, being the first to produce many feats such as an HTML5 wallet, a staking mobile wallet with encrypted messaging and transactions, as well as having the first ring signature and HD wallet implementation on BTC codebase. Their Angular.js graphical wallet is widely known in the “altcoin” community for being absolutely gorgeous and very user-friendly. Needless to say that it has been forked by many projects. It was not so long after switching from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake that this very capable team started working on a fully anonymous and decentralized marketplace. This has long been seen as the ultimate value proposition of the Shadowcash blockchain.

What's behind the hood of Particl ?

The most recent Bitcoin Code

The main principle components of the Particl Platform on which the privacy-centric dApps can be built is:

Blockchain protocol: It is based on an always up-to-date Bitcoin Core codebase with added privacy features like CT, RingCT, Stealth addresses, Bulletproofs, etc. The privacy implementations are audited by Quarkslab and several academic groups. For consensus rules it uses an improved PoSV3 with enabled cold-staking, allowing it to be quantum resistant.

This component can be used in dApps for privacy-preserving financial transaction, on-chain contracts via Script, settlement layer, voting, digital identities, etc

If you are interested in more technical details, take a look at this article explaining those in detail but in a very comprehensive manner:

https://particl.news/particl-explained-private-transactions-44cb120d9cd/

Note: Particl's team was the first one to modify Monero's RingCT algorithm and make it suitable for any codebase. Here is the Quarkslab audit on that:

https://blog.quarkslab.com/security-audit-of-particl-bulletproof-and-mlsag.html

Their Flagship dApp: Particl Marketplace

The Particl Marketplace V3

Their flagship dApp is a private-by-design fully decentralized Amazon-like e-commerce platform, called Particl Marketplace. After 3+ years of hard work and almost 1+ year of semi-open public beta testing, it was released to the general public. Anyone, anywhere can buy and sell goods and services in total privacy with the added advantage of very low fees. The platform is a mix of P2P and blockchain technologies and it is exclusively run by its worldwide users who are running nodes. The marketplace is private by default with no identifiable data being linked to users. Transactions are hidden on the blockchain, metadata is removed from images and data exchange and communications encrypted. This decentralized marketplace is certainly a huge step forward in countering the predatory behavior of the current big players such as Amazon, eBay and Alibaba.

"Silkroad, Ebay, Amazon on Steroids, without the hassle" ( Humble Me ahah )

So now we hear you ask, in the event of things going pear-shaped and one of the parties to a transaction doesn’t perform, who is going to be the arbiter? Well, in the true spirit of decentralization there isn’t one. There is however, an innovative system of double deposit escrow called MAD which stands for mutually assured destruction. Both parties to a transaction need to match, as a security deposit into an escrow smart-contract, the value of the item being purchased by the buyer plus the shipping costs. Then once the buyer confirms confirm that the transaction has been completed satisfactorily, the security deposits are returned back less only the regular cryptocurrency transaction fees and the seller also gets their payment. If there is a dispute, both buyer and seller are forced to reach a settlement as neither of them will want to lose the deposit. As the marketplace evolves, a new feature will be soon be added to the escrow system. There will be an adjustable escrow rate wherein a sliding scale of the required escrow amount will be available. There will also be an escrow opt-out option in the event that both buyer and seller have absolute trust in each other.

Another key ingredient here is is that the users create by default "invite-only" markets and can choose to make them publicly accessible by paying a tiny fee to broadcast the "invitation" (essentially decryption keys for that market specific data) on the p2p network for a limited period of time (up to 7 days). If one chooses to share manually the "invitation" via some other communication channel e.g some forum, then the market remain "secret" and only accessible by those who have an invitation. Simply put, it is impossible for anyone without an "invitation" to even detect that the specific market exists. While I don't want to make any assumptions on what can / will be traded on those "secret markets", one can imagine the potential of a brand new "Silkroad" , but decentralized this time, and with a clever escrow mechanism to protect both buyers and sellers. ( I won't go into a debate about what is good or bad for you, it's a very personal matter and each of you have their own opinion on this ).

Lastly, Particl Market place is meant to be crypto agnostic in a near future, meaning you can use any crypto token on the marketplace seamlessly thanks to the upcoming Atomic Swap feature.

The Particl Coin

The native token PART has multiple roles and it's essential to all the Particl Platform dApps and their functionalities. Imho the shortest closest to reality description of the PART token is as shares of a decentralized platform cooperative (despite the fact that it is also a top-notch private cryptocurrency).

PART coin functionalities include but not limited to:

- It is a governance token via on-chain and SMSG voting, as it allows every token holder to participate in the platform related decision making via on-chain voting e.g. Treasury funds allocation, and marketplace governance

- It is a utility token as it is used as a settlement layer on the marketplace to protect the privacy of trades, even when transparent coins like BTC are used for purchases.

- Its a staking token with 8% annual staking reward where 4% goes to decentralized Treasury Fund and 4% staking rewards are distributed to people (nodes). (8% of new coins are generated per year). In addition, all the fees generated by the Particl Platform e.g. transaction, listing and promotion fees, are payed to PART holders. So the more traction on the platform the more cashflow towards the stakers!

The PART coin is a good earner of passive income. It uses Particl version of Proof-of- Stake type of algorithm to achieve distributed consensus on the blockchain. Unlike Proof-of Work for coins such as Bitcoin, the creation of the next block is randomly assigned to some lucky staker and that luck depends on the number of coins staked and the period of time passed since the last time those coins staked or moved. Currently passive income is 4% per year however this is only true if 100% of the total coin supply is being staked. So if only 50% of the total network is up for staking then the reward rate for the year would be 8% plus all the network fees included in the staked blocks. Last but not least, even though the (hot) staking can be done on your old laptop one can also cold stake their coins. That is one can delegate the staking rights to some node that is 24/7 online (e.g. Raspberry Pi) while keeping the private keys for those coins in their hardware wallets. The cold-staking node can not spend nor move those coins and can only stake those.

The marketplace supports multiple-cryptocurrencies allowing everyone to use their favorite currencies for purchases but the trades are always settled in its own native token PART, to protect their privacy and allow private escrow smart contracts, etc.

Why such a low Market Cap then ?

I ask myself the same question, considering the scope of this projects, but there are still a few explanations, and for the sake of transparency, it's worth mentioning a few things:

First, during the crazy 2017 bull cycle, PART ATH reached 40$. Then bear market hit hard, price dropped and the foundation ran out of funds at some point in 2019. Particl decided to use the 996k PART it had from a funding round to pay the developers instead of going to VCs. As you can imagine a chunk of that was sold for food and rent. If one combines the natural non-attractiveness of a price bleed with the addiction of crypto-gamblers to chase hypes/pumps, one could potentially explain why a project like Particl could end up running out of funds.Also, a bug in the coin minting part of the Particl code was used by an attacker to continuously mint new coins since July 2019, and dump them on exchanges, putting a freakin load of sell pressure on the coin until the bug was discovered in January 2021. Approximately 1.7 mil extra coins were minted by the attacker and sold. This corresponds to 15% of the total supply.

For more details see:https://particl.news/roadmap-to-post-inflation-hardfork/

BUT both those issues were resolved:

Regarding the funds issue, The Particl foundation proposed a new funding structure to the community threw a vote back in July 2021. The strategy consists of a new decentralized treasury model that gets automatically funded by the protocol using a portion of the network’s staking rewards.

This funding request suggests bootstrapping the Particl team by claiming 35,250 PART, monthly, from the Treasury Fund for the next 6 months. Once this period expires, the proposal will no longer be valid. The team will then need to publish a new, updated funding request and get it approved by Particl stakeholders to claim funds again. Also Anyone with a project or initiative that benefits Particl can then submit proposals (referred to as funding requests) to request funds from the treasury and get them approved by stakeholders through an on-chain vote. This provides the Particl ecosystem with an adequate PART income source intended to support and enhance the Particl project, reaching back the financial stability they had in 2017.

For more details see:https://particl.news/decentralized-treasury-model-proposal-published/

Quick sum up of the funding proposal:

Circulating supply post-hardfork (estimate): ~11,750,000 PARTProposed yearly inflation rate: 8%Proposed treasury block rewards: 50%Proposed total yearly staking rate (APR for stakers): 4%Proposed yearly treasury rewards (estimates): 470,000 PARTMonthly treasury rewards (averaged from estimates): 39,166 PART

learn more about the funding proposal here:https://particl.news/decentralized-treasury-model-proposal/

Regarding the bug, a hardfork was deployed. Learn more here:https://particl.news/particl-hardfork-scheduled-12-07-21/

With both those issues totally resolved, Particl is finally able to function full speed again, with a very exciting roadmap, including an Atomic Swap DEX, Lightning network expansion ( LNP is already supported, see: https://particl.news/particl-lightning-network-now-available-on-testnet-eb87a5ab65cd/ ), a P2P encrypted chat and lot of more features coming ahead.

​

CONCLUSION

I hope it is now obvious to you all that this is not only the first real DeCom project but also the first DeFi project that allows yield farming based on real economy of the "Amazon for crypto" aka Particl Marketplace. To sum it up here a few key element to remember about Particl:

1. An audited blockchain protocol based on the latest up to date Bitcoin code with all the perks like, Taproot, Lightning Network, programmability via Script, etc enhanced with privacy features from Monero like CT, RingCT, Stealth Addresses, etc
2. A platform based on blockchain and E2EE data-exchange protocols were you can build privacy-centric dApps
3. The flagship dApp is a fully decentralized marketplace that preserves 100% its users privacy, it's censorship-resistant, it has near-zero transaction cost (no commissions/service fees) and, finally its crypto agnostic and users can pay in their favorite currency.
4. A state of the art two-way escrow system via smart contracts, aka MAD escrow, that protects the trades from any scamming.
5. Exciting roadmap with a notable item the BasicSwap an atomic swaps based DEX (currently in a closed beta) that is going to be integrated in the Particl Desktop.
6. A powerful, user friendly but also gorgeous wallet module.
7. The PART coin that in addition to its awesome privacy features is also used as governance, utility, staking and settlement layer token.
8. Passive income made easy and very secure thanks to cold staking, either on your own node (a Raspberry Pi 4 more than enough for a full p2p network node) or some cold-staking pool.
9. The Foundation is back full steam with a healthy funding structure, giving it the ability to push the Particl project forward.
10. A team of crazy bright and hardworking devs, that kept pushing the project even in the hardest times.
11. An ultra low cap project considering the scope of the project. Remember ATH was 40$ ! It has the potential of reaching the top 10.

sexy isn't it ?

DYOR and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. You can also join the Particl channels on Element/Discord/Telegram.

Official Particl Website: https://particl.io/

Thanks to u/Bakounin u/csuko and u/Cyberpunk, from whom I borrowed this post.

Let's make some crazy gains now !!

Investing in cryptocurrency was probably one of the best decisions in my life. And the chances aren’t over yet, it’s still a space for everyone to make money.

The end of this year marks my 3rd year in crypto. I’ve been here since 2018, and oh god how quick the days have went. I first got here because of a friend of mine. He was one of the people who kept telling me about the opportunities that the cryptocurrency market offers. Probably, he was the only one to tell me so lol.

I wasn’t very convinced at first, but I just decided to give it a try, and right now, I can definitely tell it’s one of the best, if not the best decision I’ve ever made in my entire life. Listen, when you invest in cryptocurrency, you’re not going to be collecting money off of the trees, but the chances of earning that money are high, simply because this is a market that didn’t fulfill its potential yet, and is still going to grow enormously.

Those three years have taught me a lot, I’ve been investing in countless coins and projects, and I’ve seen a dozen of Ethereum killers and Bitcoin wannabes. But I can surely tell you that don’t believe this kind of marketing, Ethereum and Bitcoin aren’t going to be killed lmfao.

One of the decisions that I’ve made and can tell it had also had a decent impact on my portfolio is investing DeFi. I allocated a share in my portfolio for DeFi a few months back, and that’s instead of future. I know futures are highly profitable, but they’re also highly risky. This is why I’m now preferring DeFi and staking. I mean slow and balanced income is much better than losing all your money on future positions. And DeFi is now giving high APYs. I also got into BitDAO, which is the largest crypto treasury in the market. It allows investor to vote on the top DeFi projects.

In the end, I want to say that this has been a life changing event for me. And I genuinely believe that the potential of growth in this space is so huge, so it’s never too late to invest in. And to all the newbies, I’d say: “cryptocurrency is easy, just don’t trade in futures”.