Yes, it looks like LBC is ending Cash-by-mail trades.

I only had two of them and I've created replacements, one if you're buying and one if you're selling.

The forums on LocalBitcoins have a thread about their decision, but it doesn't contain much in the way of rationale.  If we assume they are doing what's best for their business, then it follows that Cash By Mail trades recently have cost LBC more than they make, and this would be in terms of Customer Service time doing the research they need to do to make the messages from ADMIN and then finally decide which trader wins when trades go into dispute.

Some other traders and I have suggested to LBC that they restrict the usage of CBM payment method so that those who do it more safely can continue using the platform to trade.  The message I sent in was:

Are you guys open to solving the Cash By Mail (CBM) problems instead of giving up?  The top traders can provide good suggestions that can become requirements of both sides, requirements that are easy for LBC to review.  It is how many of us have been making CBM safe for ourselves and we feel that giving up on that payment method will do LBC and many of its members a great disservice.

Feel free so send in your own message if you feel that cash by mail deserves its own payment method.

 

Crypto Bear Market

It would be nice if the bear market in cryptos was over.  Maybe it is over.  If you want to be sad about a recent price move, you need two plans: 1) If the price recently went up, you can be sad that you didn't buy more (or you sold too much), and 2) if the price recently fell, you can be sad that you bought so much (or that you didn't sell more).  You can switch those around if you want to be happy instead: use "down" where "up" is, "rose" where "fell" is, and "so" where "too" is, and also swap out sad and put in "happy."

Anyway, a low price is a buying opportunity.  It's healthy to be doing things for which people will pay you, and if they pay you with crypto or fiat, then the low prices are an advantage because you can get more crypto than otherwise.  Keep being productive and this kind of thing is just a nice buying opportunity, know what I mean?

I actually didn't buy as much as I wanted to yet, so my reason to be sad if the bear market is over is that I didn't stick to my plans.  But if it dips again, then I can celebrate.

 

This invitation is for the criminals.

Many criminals enjoy the same features of bitcoin that healthy businesses enjoy; low transaction fees, irreversibility, remote payment, and tracking complexity.  But instead of running a business where you're continually increasing the size of the population on which you rely for revenue, you're burning through victims, leaving traces of yourselves that prevent you from continuing "business" with them.  Plus, once you've robbed us, most of us would rather see you suffer than be more successful.  It sucks, doesn't it?

Cat Hoke seems like a graduate of Landmark's work.  She runs a program I heard about on The Tim Ferriss Show called Prison Entrepreneurship Program.  It provides criminals just like you (except they have to be in prison - I already asked) with entrepreneurial training in order to help participants stay out of prison once they get out.  But they have to get in first.  And it's in Texas.  Maybe similar programs will exist here in CA or whatever state happens to be your prison home when you finally run into that wall.  Or maybe you'll pass away before then.  Or maybe you'll change direction soon enough.  That's my real goal here because you can't get that particular kind of help without failing in a major way first - by getting caught, tried, convicted, and imprisoned, again, AT THE EXPENSE OF EVERYONE ELSE!

So I'm kind of pissed off, but I'm in the habit of getting together and discussing things with a bunch of smart people.  If you're not aware of my previous newsletter, it described in as much detail as I could remember the crime that happened to me on August 10th.  You can read it here. You're now more recognizable and so probably will be less successful.  Thanks to me, my stupidity, and your crime, your success is now more difficult.  Why not play a game where smart people are on your side instead of against you?

We are shrinking the field of options for criminals like you.  It will shrink faster and faster until we won't need police or prisons.  You'll simply be cornered into realizing that your skills of deception and brutality will benefit you most when you use them for good. I don't think you have to turn yourselves in to get training in how to run a "business" that constantly increases it's "customer" base instead of one that constantly eliminates it.  Dale Brown of TMC has done a lot of work that you'd be interested in, good at, and which could put you on the path to success.
 

Shrinking the Field

In the interest of shrinking the dark corner in which you skulk for whatever reason, I wanted to point out some other items that have come to me since I published my last newsletter.

1. You were texting me for about a week before we were supposed to meet.  The length of time we were texting caused a decay in my vigilance.  Your original request was for "Tomorrow or Wednesday" so I'm assuming it wasn't intentional - you just got lucky.
2. You most likely would have agreed to meet in a bank, but only because your plan was not to show up anyway and attack me on my way home after puncturing my tire.  Still, requesting to meet in a bank means your recon to identify me would have to brave all the security cameras that banks have.
3. Information asymmetry is useful when you have enemies, and you're my enemies until you return my money, so there is info missing from this newsletter that may protect you from being caught.  Guess how much it's worth to me.
4. You guys stay away from places dense with infrastructure cameras ("Domain awareness" - thanks Satoshi!*) because you know they make it easy to track you down, so it's a good idea for us honest folks to plan meetings in the middle of such places.
5. (Also from Satoshi) When prices are at multi-month lows, honest street sellers tend to be rare, so the likelihood that a street seller's plans are nefarious are higher.
6. (From Simon) It's a good idea to have a partner.
7. My "stupid mistake" of leaving the box in the open trunk may have saved me from physical assault.  Yay stupidity!