A country at war cannot join NATO. Also, NATO is interested in deescalating the situation so it would rather not accept Ukraine, but it doesn't change anything here. Putin is a delusional megalomaniac and he drives this war.

It's easy to blame it all on NATO expansion, forgetting that there was a pact between Ukraine and Russian that Ukraine would hand over its nuclear weapons to Russia and in return Russia would treat it as a separate country and resign from all claims towards its territories. Putin broke this agreement because he wants this war. He may say all he wants about NATO expansion but it's in fact his expansionism and his lies that are responsible for more than 100k dead people.

I'm not the kind of a law abiding citizen. I'm more of a rebel and I do what I feel makes sense and rather follow ethics than law. I don't break the law often and I don't do anything that could endanger other people but I tend to ignore stupid bans. Like if they said I have to tell them how much crypto I have, I'd ignore it. If they told me I have to get rid if it, I'd also ignore it. It's the same with drinking, bitcoin and so on. I used to drink alcohol before the legal age, drive a car before i legally could and I'd gamble if they said it's no longer allowed.

What a sad thing for the child because one day he will understand that his mother is a lowlife, a worthless human being with no maternal instinct.

It may sound harsh but all animals have this natural instinct to protect children, which is why a mother cat will take care of abandoned litter of a dog, a fox, a hedgehog. It;s the same with dogs, who will take care of little cats and so on. People also have this instinct that most of us wouldn't walk past a crying child and this lowlife left her own child.

I have no words. It's not about gambling, she's just a bad mother. If she got drunk or wanted to date someone she'd do the same. You either are normal or messed up, it's that simple.

I'd argue that holding cash is the real risk. As others have pointed out there's no common sense and people are acting opposite to what they should be doing.

USD is being pumped without any fundamentals backing it up because the industry is not expanding, DOW is actually dropping by a lot and people, against any reason, are buying and holding USD, which pumps it even more against what really has value like top stocks, gold and IMO bitcoin. To be honest, I'd rather hold yuan right now than dollar simply because of how much it was pumped in the recent months.

BJ is completely random. You can see online guides that show the best percentage chance of winning at each number that you and the dealer have. These are called hit or stand charts, but they're just a guideline like the ones in poker where they tell you what you should do, but I've seen plenty of rounds where I had 19 or 20 and the dealer got 21. I've also played games of BJ where the dealer got above 19 multiple times in a row. It's still a game of chance that gives you a greater feeling of control than slots roulette, but not as much control as poker.

1.   I'll never have to cut any losses because I've been in profit since 2016. I bought my coins at various prices between 500 and 1k USD and I sold a little bit in the 2017 and 2021 bull markets.
In total, I've invested less than 10k USD before 2021, withdrew more than 50k in cash and still have more bitcoins today than I had in 2015 when I started buying.
No low price is ever going to make me sell these, but I'll consider high prices. I have some levels in mind but they're well above 50k USD.

2.  U guess I've already answered that. If I haven't sold at 30k, 20k, 18k, I'm not going to sell at 10k. If you think we'll ever fall to 1k, you're delusional. People who are waiting for a million per coin are more sane than people who think we'll hit 1k.

3.  Yes, because the night is darkest right before the dawn.
When you feel like it's the end because it fell to 10k is exactly the moment when you should be buying.
I depend on fundamentals and those were the same in 2018, 2021 and now. Just a reminder: bitcoin was sub 10k in 2020, but it was over 60k in 2021. The price doesn't way anything about the state of bitcoin.

You're laughing because there's no control in Russia or China, people basically do what they want there, right? How come people can protest in the US, but if they do the same in Russia they get beaten to a pulp and put in jail? Maybe read about old ladies who were arrested by walking around with sheets of paper saying "no to war", or about a guy who got taken to jail for wearing yellow and blue shoes because you apparently cannot wear certain colors in Russia.

I don't have to visit Russia to know how they deal with things. I've lived in a number former socialist states like East Germany, Poland and Slovakia. I've also visited Lithuania and Russia is one of the last places I'd go to, especially now.

You just have to read some headlines about Bitcoin in Russia in the last 10 years to know they haven't got a clue. They were ok with it at first, then wanted to ban it, then allowed it to be exchanged but not if it's used as a payment for goods and services, then they wanted to launch their own cbdc, then they wanted to ban mining, then again wanted to ban bitcoin, then when the sanctions struck them they wanted to allow it to be exchanged for resources instead of the dollar, then banned it again because Russians were dumping the ruble and now they actually are planning to unban it again...
The US legislators have some bad ideas, especially Biden who IMO is dumb and does what his advisors tell him to do, but they're still on another level compared to Putin and his goons.

Also, in the US you don't often see tanks protecting banks who suddenly got insolvent and are refusing to give people what they owe them.
It's enough to say that China is not a democracy. It poses as one but it's pretty much the same democracy that people in Ukraine have under Russian occupation.

Ledger nano user here.
I bought it a few years back to try it out as it was at a 50% discount. I think it was in 2020, so I have it for a little over 2 years. I don't keep all my money on it because I don't trust it 100%. Wouldn't want to get an issue with it that takes weeks or months to resolve and lose access to all my coins.
I think it's built pretty good, although the plastics are much thinner than what an average mobile phone has to offer. It reminds me of an early 2000 mobile phone.
I had no issues with it, but I feel like an air gapped system offers a comparable level of safety with a faster access and even easier recovery.

Main pro IMO is that it's easy to hide and transport and offers more protection than your phone or a thumb drive. Top choice if you travel a lot and want to take your coins with you.

Where I live it wouldn't be a big deal if a, let's say, a student saw me in a casino. Professional groups like teachers, doctors, or lawyers don't make a big deal out of it since it's legal. If they saw me in a brothel it would be pretty much the same. Maybe if they saw me in a brothel and I had a wife it would become an popular rumor, but they wouldn't fire me because of it.

In modern societies gambling is seen more like smoking. Many people don't smoke and don't like smokers but you don't fire people because they're heavy smokers.

CBDCs are going to be launched as an alternative option. I don't see how they'd force everyone to stop using cash. It's possible there will be countries that say "you can't do this from now on" like China or Russia like to do, but in most countries this isn't how things are done or you'll get protests and the party that tries it won't get elected for another term.
All they can do is put CBDCs out there and advertise them to make more and more people choose this type of payment over cash (first) and then traditional bank transfers.

In the old days, like the times of monarchies, it was common for wealthy and powerful people to be advisors to the king. It was the same before in the roman senate and it was like that later, mostly up to the early 20th century. Why is being rich and powerful important? Because such people already have all they need and can dedicate their time to the state.
Communism tried put it all backwards giving important positions to lower classes and you can observe a similar situation in Africa and South America where poor people get their votes through revolutionary slogans. When you allow people who had nothing all their lives to rule you can be sure they'll try to use their position to finally feel what it's like to have some money.

Dimon lost his credibility long time ago when he was attacking bitcoin and publicly said that he'd fire any employee caught trading bitcoin. Then a year later the news came out that blockchain activity pointed to JP actively trading bitcoin for months and Jamie said in an interview that although he doesn't like Bitcoin his daughter has some of it and is trading. Than, later when bitcoin was in a bull market he said it's not a scam and he was wrong.

If you look at the timing of his tweets he always attacks it during the bear market like he's kicking a dead horse. I bet you he or some of his rich friends are buying right now and he wants to help them by making these accusations, but the market doesn't care about his opinions anymore.

That doesn't make it any better. It's like saying "I did kill my wife, but that shit happens all the time, Just look at Pistorius and Simpson!"
The US did its share of war crimes, like Germany in the 1940s and Great Britain in the 19th century, but the difference is Russia is committing them now and it's all well documented.
We shouldn't be happy that they're avoiding sanctions.


You Spaniards were making decent cars but then you sold them to Germans, but so did the Czechs so you're not alone in this

There are 2 reasons people buy accounts here.
One is they want to earn money posting, which is why he wants Sr+ because full members are rarely picked by signature managers.
The other reason is they want to look more legit to run their own thread, usually scams. Like when they launch an altcoin or an NFT, they want a high rank account backing them.

It really doesn't matter if the account is being bought for the first or the second reason. If we say that it's ok if they want to buy an account to make money from signatures who's to stop people from buying 4 accounts and shitposting all over the forum with them, because he won't consistently make 100 good posts a week. At least half of them will be complete garbage.

I'd say that I'd have my limit and would be able to say that's enough. I know the feeling of having more money than you need and I know the feeling of having less than you need. I've never been really rich though, so maybe if I had 100 million USD my attitude would change and I'd become completely spoiled, who knows?

At this moment if I had a business that would generate around 3k USD a month for me without any expenses, I'd say that's more than enough. It would allow me to pay all my bills, feed me and my family, give me a lot of free time to do what I like and save up on top of it. If I ever decided to work, all that money would go towards pleasure because all the basics would get covered by that constant monthly income. It would give me and my family a feeling of safety.

If we're talking in money in the bank terms, since my family's monthly expenses at this point are around 2k USD, having 300k on the side would probably set us up for 10 years (100k added to account for inflation). We'd start spending more if we had that lying around, I know, but It's not like we'd be sitting on our asses all the time. We'd simply get part time jobs. It would lift some of the pressure from our shoulders.

I'm not worried at all, although I have a small worry, which is that it will take so long for bitcoin to reach another ATH that I'll run out of money to buy more. I have enough to keep me going for another year, but if we keep going into a recession still in 2024 I might feel how it is to be really poor because I'm not selling my bitcoins for 20k USD, that I'm sure of.
It's interesting that every time people go through a full bitcoin cycle they become stronger and more confident hodlers. There were times where -50% had an impact on me and made me feel down. Now It's just another day, like when you wake up and it's raining you say fuck it and find something to do inside.

Like Putin having a heart attack. Death is no joke but this bastard deserves it.


Really? Are you saying that NATO made Russian savages murder people and put them in mass graves?
There are no NATO forces in Ukraine. Did NATO destroy a single house in Russia?

I know cases like that. My friend went to a casino and I was just sitting there with him watching his games and drinking. At first he doubled his starting money at which point I told him to leave because for me it was a round sum exactly twice what he came in with and he didn't want to. He said he's on a streak and you don't leave when that hits, so I stayed there for another hour and watched him go to 0 at which point we had an argument because I told him to go home and he wanted to go to the ATM. Things like that happen every day.

It's a common feeling of using "free money". It's not really free but when you are given something unexpected you tend to be careless with it, thinking what's the worst that can happen?

It's a really bad way of thinking about anything of value because when you win something or get a lot of money from your investment, it's yours, just like it would be if you worked for every dollar. Being careless with it is plain stupid. If you ever get carried by emotion take a step back, sleep on it. After a few days you'll learn the true value of the money you're betting and will go back to your normal $20 bets. If they gave you 4k chances are it will happen again without you going crazy betting 1k.

We don't know how long it will take to develop, but metaverse brings a unique experience to almost any type of online activity. It works for the porn industry, gambling, gaming, you name it.
I wouldn't focus on the Chinese, other Asian countries are just as interested in this, although they might not be as big gamblers as the Chinese.

That said, I'd like to see everything move forward because people made bets on blockchain, meta and so on and due to fiat currency manipulations they're now scared of investing more and without investments it's not going to move past beta phase.