As such, it is not losses that herald the destruction of your financial well-being (or just well-being)

It is losses that come after a win, probably a big win on its own, which make the lives of so many gamblers miserable. In this manner of reasoning, it is not so much about controlling your losses, like no more than 10% of your daily income (though it is indeed about losses too) as about controlling your wins, however ironic it may sound. It is actually wins that make gamblers reckless and careless, so wins should be of our primary concern. To summarize, you should take utmost care of your wins lest you should lose control over your losses

I can't say that I truly disagree with the point established

With that said, however, I don't think it is quite correct to say that the gambling industry doesn't profit from people's addictions because it profits from the house edge. Technically, casinos profit from the house edge as it all eventually comes down to it as luck gets completely removed in the process (even if you don't agree with the latter)

But would you agree if I started to claim that fraudulent scheme operators profit not from their guileless victims but rather from selling their "tokens" even if it does in fact technically come down to selling some coupons allegedly representing value? I don't think you would. But how is that different from casinos profiting off their players, addicted or otherwise?

Hardly makes any sense

It would make sense if what you could ultimately win, i.e. the prize money, exceeded the amount spent. However, it is not possible with most lotteries as there is also the "house edge", i.e. the amount which organizers take from the tickets sold and put into their pockets as their profits

In other words, if you bought all the tickets, you would win nothing, only lose to the organizers and their premiums. In this way, buying more tickets doesn't really increase your chances of winning as it is in fact quite the other way around (yeah, I know it sounds somewhat counterintuitive but still)

The law of large numbers is set to kick in if there are enough gamblers, with the implication being that someone can be winning what can be loosely thought of as "all the time" (provided the total number of rolls stays relatively low)


Unless you run martingale with safe settings on

Well, it is not about getting lucky (quite the opposite in fact), but I believe it can still be safely considered something to the effect of "trying to find things that do affect" luck. Basically, a properly managed martingale strategy offsets luck in the same way the house edge cancels it out. But it does that with a vengeance, so the house edge gets offset too in the process (enough to book small profits "all the time")

I think you should first explain what you mean by mass adoption

That is, what fields should Bitcoin be used in to count as "mass-adopted"? If it is about using it as a currency in its own right (like the dollar), it doesn't seem very likely because it lacks properties required for any such currency in the world today. Most importantly, its supply should be adjustable and variable according to the needs of the economy as it shrinks and expands. But Bitcoin will never be like that since its supply is algorithmic and kinda set in stone (read, it can't be changed beyond that)

That's probably true with respect to any addiction

Since if you realize how harmful your habit is before your reach the "rock bottom" and can stop there, you are certainly not addicted to the hilt. However, if you are, and you eventually reach that bottom, it may be too late already. Too late is definitely true in case of drugs and alcohol, but even with gambling you may have already ruined your finances as well as your family by that time beyond the point of no return

Объяснял уже неоднократно

Доги нашли свою нишу в онлайн-казино, типа фишек. Нравится это кому или нет, но это реальное применение и, соответственно, реальная ценность, которая слабо зависит от всего остального спекулятивного рынка. Именно поэтому ценник догов в фиате (в долларе) практически прибит гвоздями - из игроманов никто крипту на доги не тратит, но зато тратят фиат, что понятно, логично и предсказуемо

I'm more inclined to think it is the other way around

That is, it is those who are in for the fun of it that are more likely to get addicted. Those who are gambling solely for monetary gains will be disappointed by their results (if they are not extremely lucky) and leave as soon as they realize they won't be able to make any money with this activity. As other addictions prove (e.g. gaming addiction), you are addicted to a process (drugs, sex, rock'n'roll, to name but a few) rather than the end result, while gambling exclusively for money is certainly about the outcome (read, financial gain), not the process

So you think people are dumb?

Most of us are not only fully aware that gambling is about losing money, not winning it, but we have also tried it out for ourselves and know it from our personal experiences. To continue gambling with the hope of winning back what has been lost during so many years is bordering on outright insane

Personally, I don't think that the majority of the gamblers are insane. This leads us to the logical conclusion that gambling for most players is more about the process rather than the outcome. It is the thrill and excitement of the game that drives people roll again and again. Money lost or won is only an inducement

This reasoning is self-defeating. If you think thoroughly about it, you will see that the goal of making profits cannot possibly be the primary driver behind people gambling years on end. Barring a few extremely lucky guys who are able to win continually and those practicing a fail-safe variety of martingale, which actually allows them to earn profits (however small those might be), people are losing as otherwise casinos wouldn't even be able to make it. But if you are losing and you are well aware of the fact (which is almost always the case), the only plausible reason why you are continuing to gamble is enjoying the process, not the outcome. Simple logic, isn't it?

Anyone willing to challenge it?

I can't really say that I disagree with you

However, the fact you draw a distinction between betting 0.001 BTC and 0.1 BTC (assuming it makes a difference) is telling that positive attitude and gut feeling get canceled out by the fear of losing. But by maintaining this, you are essentially reversing the situation as it is assumed that feeling lucky overrides fear. If it doesn't, then you don't feel or are no longer feeling lucky, so there's nothing to discuss. Other than that, I agree that feeling lucky and fearless doesn't change your odds and will likely bust you

Потому любая крипта имеет ценность только как инструмент спекуляций

Если убрать спекуляции, то ценник упадет в ноль. Фактически даже в область отрицательных чисел, поскольку многие еще останутся должны. Но если мы условно считаем, что Биткоин - это инвестиционный актив, то для поддержания штанов (зачеркнуто) баланса вся остальная крипта должна стать еще большей спекуляцией, где лайт освещает нам путь. Только у догов есть существенная реальная составляющая в цене

This is definitely not about pleasing anyone

Since risks, or rather risk assessment, is more or less objective. To make a long story short, you can't reduce risk by choosing something which is more risky and highly correlated with what you already have. You will only be adding more exposure, and thus your overall risk level will go up

Diversification for the sake of reducing risks is about minimizing total risk by adding negatively correlated assets to your portfolio (e.g. gold and stocks). But this has a nasty side effect of reducing your profit potential since the assets are negatively correlated (i.e. when one rises the other necessarily goes down)

Here we go again!

Now I ran 7 tests with 50k bets each. Long story short, luck received heavy beating by the house edge. The best it could get is -0.00000068, which is still a loss. But a loss is a loss under any name:



The worst result is -0.00000920, which is not as bad as the baddest of 100k rolls (or even the second worst) but still more than enough to kill you and wipe out your balance in the process:



The table of all 50k tests:

Result	Snapshot link
-0.00000405	link
-0.00000555	link
-0.00000688	link
-0.00000233	link
-0.00000068	link
-0.00000920	link
-0.00000593	link

The bottom line is that with 50k rolls, there's not much you can hope for in terms of luck, which gets massively run over and trampled on by the house edge (1% in all these cases)


Tested under Opera VPN, everything should be fine

Are you sure about that?

Because I'm not at all. As I see it and as all my trading experience tells me, adding more altcoins actually increases your risks, not reduces them. If Bitcoin is the top cryptocurrency in terms of reliability, adding anything to your portfolio less reliable than Bitcoin would only make it weaker, less resilient, robust and stable

You will be opening yourself up to more risks, which are inherent to altcoins. If anything, altcoins should be used as a profit generating device (if you are able to time the market), not as a hedge

This explanation leaves a gaping void in your reasoning

If what you say is true indeed, how are cryptocurrencies using blockchain ever possible? They are real money (well, at least top cryptos), but if they required too much power to support them (read, money), it would absolutely defeat the purpose. Elections are typically not something which you run continuously 24/7 (unlike cryptocurrencies), so such reasoning doesn't make a lot of sense and is decidedly out of tune with existing realities

Cryptocurrency trading is not particularly different from gambling

It can even be considered a form of gambling in its own right. How so? Because cryptocurrencies are a zero-sum game mostly, which means that someone has to lose so that someone else could profit (think of it as musical chairs). And what adds insult to injury is the fact that there is something which can be loosely construed as house edge

These are the parties to the trade which never make a losing trade (exchanges, arbitrageurs, insiders, and their likes). In other words, if they ever trade they always win, and that leaves us, simple folks, with less trading chance since their profits are our losses, as simple as it gets

Ну а какая у битка ценность?

Точно такая же, то есть исключительно спекулятивная, а разница всего лишь количественная - от количества нулей в ценнике. В этом смысле даже между эфиром и битком разница более качественная, чем между битком и недобитком. Единственная реальная полезность у топовой крипты - это транзакционная, которая обусловлена возможностью использовать ее в качестве внебанковской платежной системы. Ну еще можно добавить смарт-контракты, у кого они есть, и доги, которые фишки в онлайн-казино

Fully support this view

People are talking about things they have no clue about, with FRB likely being the most recent example here (no offense intended). As always, the devil is in paying precious attention to detail. If I remember correctly, we had already discussed this issue in the past. It turned out that only a tiny fraction of gold futures are actually deliverable, with yet a smaller fraction surviving through expiration (read, not cash-settled)

Your whole point is technically not quite correct

Bitcoin removes third party risks, that's true indeed, but it doesn't remove intermediaries. Someone still has to confirm your transaction, and these are miners. Of course they are not like banks. However, in a more general sense, what miners do is essentially the same what banks do. If your fiat transaction could be confirmed by any independent bank out there, the difference would be negligible