In anticipation of the introduction of new restrictions on oil from the country of an international terrorist, the oil (and gas, by the way) market reacted ... with a fall in prices.
I would like to let you know that Russia is not the only oil exporter in the world and it is not the largest oil exporter either. The decline in oil prices was due to a reduction in world consumption due to recession fears, as well as consumer demand not being as strong as in previous years. Falling oil prices will affect all oil exporting countries, not just Russia and one of the people who doesn't like this is probably OPEC+, but the beneficiaries will be the consumers. This topic is only about the price of oil, not about the war between Russia and Ukraine, hope you are awake enough to discuss, do not bring the spirit of terrorism into each comment. I absolutely agree with you - Russia and Russian oil are essentially an empty place in the global economy! They really are trying to prove the opposite, but not very skillfully  The only problem is that in the second half of the 20th century, the Kremlin managed (bribery, blackmail, ...) to plant three key European economies on the oil and gas needle. Germany, France, Italy. And it was after the unleashing of a terrorist war against Ukraine (whether you like this word or not - this is precisely terrorism), Russia received sanctions from the West! Am I saying something wrong in the chronology? In the first years since 2014, the sanctions did not have a particularly strong impact on the economy of this regional hydrocarbon supplier. But after March 2022, when the EU and the whole world were shocked by the actions of Russia, serious and weighty sanctions were already introduced against them. And in 2022, since the summer (although the first steps were taken earlier, read about stopping gas supplies to the EU), Russia also engaged in economic terrorism against the EU, violating agreements, and openly declaring that they will continue to violate their obligations and terrorize economy, especially Germany! Did I say something wrong? Something distorted in terms of meaning? It was these events that triggered the rise in oil and gas prices. Or not so? Whether we like it or not, Russia is one of the largest suppliers of oil and CNG in Europe. It is certainly not a meaningless economy. The sanctions were a mere attempt to hurt Russia, and while it did affect them (a 4% loss in GDP), they weren't as affected as Europe anticipated. I'd also like to point out that barrel prices had started soaring even before the war started, somewhere between August and October. I'm not claiming that oil didn't skyrocket during the war, but the start had already been made. Fortunately, barrel prices have declined in the past few weeks; let's see how long it lasts. |
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I also have quite a few old HDDs ranging from 320gb to 500gb which I don't want to throw in the trash nor am I planning to use them anytime soon. I'd suggest you to wipe them clean and overwrite them with large files or with a utility. The latter is far quicker and easier option. There are quite a few out there you can use for free. All data will be overwritten beyond recovery. If they're perfectly functioning it's a shame to throw them away. https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/free-hard-drive-data-wipe-software-009.html |
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As much as I liked and were used to seeing the previous username "The Pharmacist" in posts, after such a long time period you finally manage to change your username to the one you requested. Thus, congratulations on your achievement, I don't think many users have managed to switch their username. Personally, I like the twist in your name "Sceptical" instead of Skeptical and "Chymist" instead of Chemist.
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Yes, for third country's nations signature campaigns can work greatly as a full time job, but only if you are fine with 1-2 wages monthly. it's possible to survive, but not to thrive and to live with confort, like everyone aims to live, I suppose. Chipmixer is an exception, though.
It's hard to say if someone lives exclusively from signature campaigns' income, because it's totally possible to work in something else and still post on the forum for extra earnings, without difficult or prejudice on your personal results. But I can say to live from trading is more unlike than living from signature campaign, due to the risks involved and long term outcomes.
Wages in third-world countries are generally low; we can't define their exact range, but still, I find it unlikely that they will solely depend on campaigns to survive. The minimum wage here is approximately $700; thus, a signature campaign is approximately 30–40% of our whole salary. Chipmixer is the exception to the rule; you'd live like a king here. Some people think that it is their side job working in this forum, even though they have real jobs out there, but how can they divide their time to work on several campaigns that they participate in, at least not disturbing real work or signature work, if any someone who works all day long on the forum, of course they don't have jobs out there or are said to be unemployed, actually it's legal for them if they can share all that time, return to those who do it, in fact this will be a motivation for new users that not only in the real world to earn income, but in the Crypto world their income is valued more, rather than earning income in the real world.
Correct if my statement is wrong..!!
I don't quite understand what you want to say. This forum isn't meant to make you a living, and even if you're talking about campaigns such as Chipmixer, it's almost impossible to enter, especially if you're lacking the necessary knowledge. Most of its members are extremely knowledgeable and established users of this forum. |
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From what I've understood, the OP is referring to full-time or part-time traders and campaign participants. Unfortunately, as someone who has tried trading in the past, I personally wouldn't do it. Despite having some successful trades, it's stressful, and there are no guarantees regarding income. Signature campaign participants, on the other hand, are a decent side hustle, not a full time job. Most campaigns pay from $100-$300/month depending on your rank, except Chipmixer, which can pay up to $1500/month. In the latter case, in some countries it could possibly be a full-time occupation, since this amount of money is way higher than the average salary.
Personally, it's a great side hustle, but not something that I'd depend my life on.
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First and foremost, there's no way you'd get 3% interest with a bank deposit, not even with term deposits. The most you can get here is approximately 0.10% for considerably large amounts of money. With that being said, it really depends on what type of investor you are. If you're up for a steady source of income, you could opt for stablecoin staking, with which you'd certainly achieve a 5-6% APY. On the other hand, if you're into assets, Bitcoin would be a decent option, especially now that it's practically dirt cheap compared to last year's all-time high.
I think the bank's annual interest depends on the bracket of how much a client deposit but regardless of the increasing interest, I will never trust bank to handle huge amount of funds and let them play with it while having me beg for their mercy if I wanted to get my money. I would rather play it myself via Bitcoin investment than trust my money to a greedy and heartless financial institution. Here at least, most banks offer from 0.01% to 0.10% at most, the latter for large deposits. There's absolutely no way the OP has found a bank offering 3%; it sounds way too much. As far as I know, bank deposits are actually insured by the European Central Bank, at least up to €100,000. I don't feel unsafe using banking services, but they're taking advantage by charging outrageous fees. There are only a few exceptions to this, such as online banks such as Revolut and N26, which are extremely convenient. |
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First and foremost, there's no way you'd get 3% interest with a bank deposit, not even with term deposits. The most you can get here is approximately 0.10% for considerably large amounts of money. With that being said, it really depends on what type of investor you are. If you're up for a steady source of income, you could opt for stablecoin staking, with which you'd certainly achieve a 5-6% APY. On the other hand, if you're into assets, Bitcoin would be a decent option, especially now that it's practically dirt cheap compared to last year's all-time high.
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I had a somewhat similar start with Bitcoin. I was also a teenager when I was first involved in cryptocurrencies and didn't have the ability to purchase because I was under 18. I didn't have any special skills, nor was I participating in a signature campaign. However, I managed to acquire some BTC through faucets, which were quite pointless back in 2014 but worth a decent sum of money in 2017 and were sold for a decent profit then. I slowly acquired more knowledge and entered a signature campaign, from which I was earning a semi-decent sum of money per month.
Unfortunately, I abandoned the forum in 2018 and returned somewhere between late 2020 and early 2021. I can't say that I'm independent because of Bitcoin, but I can certainly claim that it has helped me acquire financial freedom.
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Currencies war will continue to occur and countries that have strength like the USA will be able to become winners, this is what makes many countries depending on USD and easy to control their economy, the best solution to reduce dependence with one currency is to receive cryptocurrencies as an alternative currency.
I don't understand, what you mean by currencies war? US dollar remain as the medium of exchange, although there was an attempt by Russian and Chinese Yuan to be one of the alternatives, I don't think it has enough push especially with the war ongoing and then China also suffering due to Covid-19. Crypto or at least bitcoin has remain to be the next best alternative for fiat, it is censor resistant, borderless with no central authority. So it is slowly getting into mainstream and maybe in the next 5-10 years we will be there. The whole world is trading with the USD, from crude oil to commodities such as coffee or wheat. As long as it's the main means of trading, it'll remain the strongest fiat currency. I always believed that Bitcoin could be an alternative means of payment as well as an asset, but could it actually be used for worldwide trade? Bitcoin is volatile; how would the oil industry, for example, depend on it? Strong fiat currencies such as the Euro, USD, Pound, or Swiss franc, on the other hand, are relatively stable. |
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From my point of view, Bitcoin is quite affordable now, and those who can afford to invest now will see major profits in the upcoming years. However, the market is standing on a thin line, and it's likely to crash even further throughout 2023. The dollar-cost averaging (DCA) technique is useful in reducing any associated risk in such cases. This forum is generally a decent source of information; however, you'll see plenty of prediction threads in which everyone will be simply expressing their own personal opinion, which is usually not based on any statistics or valid sources, and even if it is, there are no guarantees. To sum up, if you can afford to buy bitcoin, do it little by little and try to hold them till the next bull market.
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^^ Maybe, but still a full year ahead of us, full year of still bearish sentiments running around that can create another lowest low or bottom for this bear cycle.
Just hard though to see the price hitting at $13k or worst the $10k that everyone is hoping. Because that is the best chance for them to start accumulating because that could be the bottom price that we all have been waiting for.
Low bottom for the ongoing year won't happen much. Maybe the price can go close to $15k and the same won't drop to $10k or something. Even now it is time to accumulate through DCA and this can make you not miss the opportunity. By the falling year if the market trend continues to be the same as now, there are chances of reaching $12k or down to it. 2022 is over in less than a month, and I also don't believe that we'll see any major price fluctuations in the upcoming days, nor will we see it fall below $15.000. In my opinion, judging by the current market conditions based on inflation, recession, the energy crisis, and the never-ending war, the market is likely to face major crashes in 2023 since the current state is only going from bad to worse. As I already mentioned in my previous post, there are a few analyses claiming that Bitcoin could possibly crash down to $5.000, mimicking 2018. More and more similar articles keep popping up, and while I find it hard to believe, it's a possible scenario. Here's another article I read yesterday: https://www.newmoney.gr/roh/bloomberg/standard-chartered-voutia-70-ke-5-000-gia-to-bitcoin-stis-pithanes-anatropes-gia-to-2023/It's in Greek but Google translate can be used. |
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I am sure that the main reason is distrust, and rather even fear for one's own funds. Those who have not had experience in using this can, quite rightly, be worried.
Not that they didn't trust hardware wallet since this is much recommended to have for people which have huge money entered in cryptocurrency. But the problem for other user is they cannot afford to buy it since they only use small amount of money which they can afford to lose that's why we see so many people not using it because some of them think that its pricey to have and they think cloud wallets or apps is much user friendly wallets to have. It's not only for people with larger amounts of money. Till recently, I also believed (without any prior research) that hardware wallets were expensive and limited to people with large portfolios. However, this couldn't be any further from the truth. They are actually quite affordable for the average investor, even starting at approximately $60 (Ledger and Trezor are the two largest competitors). I almost lost my money due to malware on my computer, and I'm not willing to take any more chances. If you're not able to have an airgapped wallet, hardware ones are the way to go. |
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I don't believe that small businesses are the perfect candidates for accepting cryptocurrencies, at least not now. The market is constantly fluctuating and generally standing on a thin line, especially after FTX went bankrupt. I don't think that small businesses are capable of handling such massive variations. On top of that, I find it hard to believe that cryptocurrencies are as widely adopted as credit cards, and I doubt that the fees are actually considerably cheaper, unless we're talking about Monero or Stellar, which offer relatively low fees.
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I don't know if you noticed, but Binance has just started a new promotion that is mostly addressed to newer members. The first 10.000 users who register and complete the KYC process until 12/15 will receive a share of $45,000 worth of HOOK tokens. Thus, supposing that participants in this promotion number 10.000, each user will receive $4.5 worth of tokens. Is it just me, or is Binance actually promoting some random token by airdropping it to new KYC-approved users? What else will they come up with?  |
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~Snipped~
Thanks again for your detailed responses. I'm only interested in Bitcoin, thus the basic version of Trezor is more than enough, and quite affordable at the same time. I don't think there's any reason to look anywhere else, since Ledger and Trezor are the leading competitors. By the way, is it hard to set them up? It's interesting to notice how much hardware wallets have increased in price since the creation of that thread. Hasn't the price of everything? Lol. It really depends on what I do. If I end up buying a desktop, I'll still need the laptop when I'm away. On the other hand, if I end up buying another laptop, then it could be used as an airgapped device.
Fair enough. A good argument for a hardware wallet instead then. You could always wait another 9 years until your next new computer and then use your old old one as an airgapped wallet.  Of course it has, it just surprised me how cheap they actually were back then. I actually bought my laptop two years ago, but it's a refurbished machine dating back to 2013, bought it dirt cheap during Covid. |
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I believe that it's a world-wide issue, and it's not limited to house purchases but also to renting. Due to Airbnb or other similar applications, a lot of houses and apartments have been withdrawn from the housing business. I'm not entirely sure about the U.S., but European cities, and especially touristy ones, have suffered a lot. On top of that, the new trend of digital nomads is also driving rent prices up due to their ability to afford higher rents. There were even protests in Lisbon, Portugal, a while ago for this very reason. The younger generation is also unable to even purchase a small apartment due to the combination of expensive housing and low wages.
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I never had a large amount of bitcoin to account for in a hardware wallet. However, after being infected once and getting away with it, I'm more positive about investing in one. Honestly, I don't think they're that expensive. Trezor and Ledger start at around €70–€80; it's not a prohibitively expensive amount of money if you're concerned about the security of your funds. Most people usually don't bother and are pretty careless, including myself, and resort to using exchanges, online wallets, or desktop wallets, thinking that nothing unpleasant will come in their way. Unfortunately, this cannot be further from the truth, because if you're not careful enough, it's very likely you'll get burned.
I'm now in the process of either creating an air-gapped wallet on a separate computer or purchasing a hardware wallet. I still haven't made up my mind.
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I believe that it's a fairly common practice among banking services. At least two major banks here in Greece (including one I regularly use) also block such transactions. The only workaround I've found is using Revolut or N26. Both are free to use, and the fees are minimal to nonexistent. The physical card costs only a few euros to order, if I'm not mistaken. You can charge your Revolut account with your debit card without any fees and then proceed to deposit to Binance through Revolut, which is conducted almost instantly. Another alternative, as others have already suggested, would be to use a P2P exchange in order to stay undercover and avoid centralized exchanges.
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I would open my own thread regarding an exaggerated speculation I've read, but we already have an abundance of those. I was having a conversation earlier with a few acquaintances who are also into Bitcoin, and they claimed that Bitcoin could possibly crash way below $10.000, mimicking 2017-2018 movements. I've also seen a few articles making such bold claims, but I never bothered. From my point of view, it sounds unlikely and way too extreme, but on the other hand, the economic and geopolitical situation is going from bad to worse. I honestly doubt that we'll see it crash below $10.000. Somewhere between $11k and $13k is my worst-case scenario.
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As Ddmr already posted, December hasn't been the best month for Bitcoin. Perhaps we're associating the bull market that took place near the end of 2020, that had made Bitcoin to return back to its former glories of 2017. January, February or October have much more positive results, but why does it even matter? I believe that it's often coincidental and doesn't statistically prove something. Maybe, there might be some correlation between time of the year and Bitcoin's price but it shouldn't be taken for granted.
P.S December of 2020 was my reset button, the month I relogged to my wallet and started all over again. It's been two years already.
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