We're simply following a long term growth trend of BTC price that closely follows adoption both on the grassroots and institutional level.

I don't think that it is necessarily guaranteed that $20k will become some sort of impenetrable support level - that is simply not how market dynamics work. The same has been said about the $10k support after the 2017 bull run, but as we've seen with the flash crash during the pandemic, short term markets are simply unpredictable and even previously thought support levels of $4k and $6k had been breached simply due to irrational actors.

I'm a long term BTC bull and the recent influx of institutional assets certainly furthers BTC's case as a global reserve currency and anchor between financial institutions for settlement purposes and storing value, but I would bet that $20k is not some concrete support and will be breached in a market downturn - rational or not.

Been coming for a while now as a matter of time.

The world will have to realign to China as the dominant economic force for years to come. Although the US is still superior in terms of defence capabilities, China is catching up fast in that department as well. Whilst I hope that this is not the case, I do fear that geopolitical tensions will continue to rise as they currently are.

Even the likes of Ray Dalio have made predictions that the CNY will replace the USD as the reserve currency - and if that's the case, a lot of investors who see US denominated assets as safe havens will be in for a rude shock.

I would definitely avoid it if you are merely going for the bonus free plays.

There is a reason why they are free - it is because the casino derives much more value than any player does from these promotions. They are carefully calculated to ensure that you get very minimal benefits due to the wagering requirements on high house edge games.

Play at a casino because you like the layout/atmosphere/community etc., but I would never do it for the deposit bonuses alone.

No, I completely appreciate that - but why not have it as 1:1000 as opposed to 1:1500? I think it just adds to the confusion unless there is some sort of ulterior marketing motive going on that I'm unaware of...

And yes, I guess VISA and Mastercard do incur a high fee themselves.

But would there be providers with potentially lower fees? I mean, when I deposit with fiat I'm essentially getting double fee'd by both my bank for foreign currency conversion to RUR and the payment processor's own fees

With institutional money (especially pension funds), the amount of panic selloffs will only become rarer and rarer. This should come as no surprise to anyone.

This is probably better news than the price rising alone - a major criticism of BTC not being able to function as a store of value was that it was too volatile in the short term. While that argument is in itself fallacious, I think that the decrease in the inherent volatility of BTC in recent years will finally kill this sentiment.

And it's really a positive feedback loop. As BTC becomes less and less volatile, it will incentivise even more institutional investors to increase their BTC stake.

This is a completely invalid way to predict future price movements/evaluate fundamentals/analyse the soundness of each investment.

IMHO, Bitcoin should not even be viewed in the same category as these other assets such as equities. Bitcoin should be seen as a store of value, and its fundamentals should be evaluated by adoption rates, network use, and its ability to hold up against inflation. Company valuations are completely different - the general accepted standard is to evaluate it based on projected future cash flows.

To compare them based on price gains is utterly ridiculous and you go nowhere with it. "Mr. Market" is unpredictable and short term gains (as BTC has experienced over the past few months) can skew results significantly.

I doubt that they'd be able to cover it all upfront if people pulled out their money all at once. That is just my speculation though and may not reflect reality.

These semi-regulated/unregulated exchanges have virtually no capital requirements and are subject to no audits, which is the scary part.

Sure, if they keep operating and the fees keep rolling in they could eventually break even and get themselves out of a position of insolvency. But even then, 5% is no small amount - as you said, it is 1/3 of the daily turnover and I'd assume there is a lot of staff to pay too.

The prize pool is by no means small and if it was given away for each round, I doubt they'd be able to sustain the promo.

And ultimately, this is Adkinsbet's promo. It's not up to us to decide its rules. Rather, it should be completely left up to the discretion of Adkinsbet.

If they can attract players with the current setup, I don't see why they should loosen rules just to pay out more people. It makes perfect business sense to try to minimise costs in advertising, and this is essentially one form of paid advertising.

@adkinsbet, I signed up for the promos myself and your UI is great. Keep it up.

I've played on Gamdom a bunch of times before, never had any problems.

My only problem with it is that it is insanely expensive to get funds in from a debit card, and that the conversion from dollars to Gamdom credits (1:1500 I believe?) is always trippy. I end up thinking that I have more balance than I actually do half the time.

Is this something deliberate that Gamdom has done for a particular reason? I would like to hear why.

All the public ones are pretty bad. All the private ones with actual big players you can't access.

So unless you've got a close group of people who want to chat on TG, there is no point of trying to seek out quality discussion there. All of the channels are filled with pests that try to promote their scam ICOs, pump and dumps or TG HYIP bots.


I think OP is looking for a place to discuss broader crypto topics, hence why he doesn't want DeFi recommendations.

The Pharmacist is legit. I've dealt with him for Paypal on numerous occasions for higher amounts and never had any trouble.

It is your responsibility to confirm whether or not the person you're talking to on TG is real or not. Anyone can imitate a forum member on that platform.

But it will exist? As long as there are bitcoin nodes running and preserving the ledger, your assets will completely safe.

And do you think that it is plausible that the internet will just disappear for an extended period of time while billions of people have already come to rely on it, and hundreds of millions make a living off of it? Please.


I'm still confused as what exactly you mean by the "fake rich". Are the Winklevoss twins a part of the "fake rich" because they weren't as elite before BTC rallied? No, they are still two very high net worth individuals.

And even old wealth is flocking towards BTC right now, just look at the amount of institutional demand.

Definitely. And IIRC there was actually a change in their T&Cs just a few years back that allowed them to essentially do fractional reserve and count non-cash assets as reserves even though their initial mantra is that USDT should be backed 1:1 by physical cash.

It is essentially a bank without a banking license, if you think about it. And I think that will be liable to falter for sure come some sort of liquidation crisis/bank run.

I would not use USDT for any more than day-to-day transactions, as the market's high turnover of the token seem to suggest. Do NOT use it as a store of value. But even then, there is a risk at any instant that the fractional reserve is going to collapse.

Theoretically it doesn't hurt to have this, although Lolli could track your purchases if you are privacy centric as others have mentioned.

At the end of the day I highly doubt that it's going to give you insane cashbacks. And with the current high BTC price + withdrawal fees it is very unlikely that you'll be able to retain a large portion of your earnings anyhow. Both things to consider.

So you would probably find that you get a lot more back with fiat extensions that have no withdrawal fees, if you are truly into this stuff. And I think before that you need to ask yourself whether the rewards justify the info you're giving to some random third party.

Thanks for the response!

I was also wondering - since CLAM volumes & orderbook depths are somewhat low, would it make sense for "whales" to use the swap function?

How exactly does it work? Does it give convert your coins based on a flat fee + market rates for any amount, or is it simply automating market orders and thus subject to the same orderbook limitations as the spot CLAM market?

RIP though, I remember the days of CLAM on polo where there seemed to be infinite liquidity

Hey BAC, I've been away from the JD scene for a while now so kind of out of the loop.

Is XChange now the only legitimate market of CLAM apart from yobit which I think had been under maintenance since eternity? Or are there still operational markets that aren't listed on CMC run by CLAM enthusiasts?

Sorry for the q and thanks in advance

The main issue with any betting exchange is that it can lack liquidity.

It's a bit like P2P/OTC conversion vs using an exchange to convert your altcoins. Clearly, the exchange will likely give you better rates since it is reflective of the spot market. But the concern here is that it may not have the liquidity to fulfill that big of an order.

The same thing applies to betting exchanges/prediction platforms. If there isn't sufficient user interest in backing a certain outcome, then the market can dry up. Even though last matched odds are public, there is no real way for individual bettors to take on extra positions. This is probably not a huge concern with presidential races since it is such a big event, but when it comes to smaller markets it certainly matters.

I'd treat this list as a warning list as to which sites to avoid, or at least be very wary of.

If they don't have the resources and effort to advertise on the forum, then that in itself may be a sign of a subpar team. Also, the forum allows for open discussion about any potential fraud directly on the ANN thread and ensures that you can do your research on the reputation of the site effectively as a player.

Of course, there will be circumstances where there is a valid reason why they don't have announcements on Bitcointalk (if BTC is a secondary payment processor, for instance). But would you take that risk when there are much more reputable, forum-based sites around? I wouldn't.

What skill level are you targeting for poker coaching? Is it a p2p system whereby coaches can connect with their students, or is there a central provider of a course by your organisation?

If it's primarily targeted to beginner - intermediate and prices are reasonable I'd definitely be interested. I'm a novice at poker but I've been trying to learn over this holiday season.

Coinbase, Xapo and Coinjar come to mind for same-platform fee free transfers, with Coinjar being an Australian firm so I'm not sure whether that would benefit you at all.

Pretty much, if a company offers a hosted wallet service whereby you do not control your own private keys, then it is very likely that they will offer off-chain transfers that incur no fees if done to another client.

But you'd have to balance the costs with the benefits. You forgo a degree of control over your own coins by doing this as you do not have control over your private key, and wallet-exchanges generally present less favourable exchange rates compared to actual exchanges themselves.

I'm not aware of any cross-platform services like this though (e.g. going from Polo to Bittrex without fees, or Kucoin to Binance). You could possibly negotiate on P2P channels if the exchange that you deal with have an off-chain transfer option, but that comes with an even higher counterparty risk.