Yeah. I'm sticking to my boring guns of "a year after halving" to see a return to ATH. And that's optimistically assuming that that cycle won't be affected by the unravelling of the world economy in the period coming up to that. I'm still certain we haven't seen the worst of things yet, and Bitcoin cycles haven't also gone through this kind of period -- then there's also the uncharted territory of what's going on in Russia/Ukraine.

Surely we can't ignore that backdrop, no?

There is reason to be optimistic though. Bitcoin at 30k now despite desperate situations everywhere says quite a bit about deep strength.

I'll add to the already logical deductions made by Lucius and LTU_btc to: why are mixers advertised here and not on the dark web?

Mixers are a legitimate tool for privacy, so a mixers make a business out of selling privacy. Any marketing agency will tell you: sell to your audience.

Who's the audience for a mixer? Bitcoin users (not Ethereum, not USDT, etc.).

Bitcointalk is the most-viewed forum and first stop for anyone seriously considering using Bitcoin or looking for Bitcoin solutions. You get the most eyes from Bitcoin users here. Also, that means reaching out to a general audience of Bitcoin users who don't already use privacy solutions. This means regular Bitcoiners, not chiefly dark web users, who, presumably, if they're already on the dark web, already know about mixers or are using "privacy coins" that suit their purposes more.

Thanks for the freebets! I don't think I was ever a contender in the first season. I also need to thank arallmuus for the win -- had his picks counted, we'd be 5-4 for a win to him mainly thanks to GG somehow winning the final. Close call for me =D


You're right I don't see him either, but seem to recall reading several outlets saying he's playing Eastbourne as his girlfriend also is. Jarry has indeed replaced him according to this article. Don't really get the explanation there, if he pulled out...

Didn't actually know much about Kent, but I was hearing a lot about Conor Bradley, who swept all the awards while on loan last season at Bolton Wanderers, serenading him on their last game as they want him to stay. Apparently he was the most-played teenager in world football last season (10% more than Bellingham!). He appears to be training with the seniors so I guess Bolton won't be having good news they wanted in the new season.

Also remember Sepp vd Berg? Not sure how he did in Germany, Schalke got relegated but he was injured most of the time... but I didn't really miss him.

Thanks for freebets SB + jeremypwr. Got them today from BSFL. Gonna smash underdogs in future games.

^ Thank you! And a good reminder to us all we need to keep up the quality of our posts so the campaign gets what they're paying for!

a) SPFC
b) 4-2
c) 16'

Denial of service must be getting a new meaning these days, for a poor old 90s child like me to understand...


And then there are also people like you claiming all of this but probably doing nothing of the sort. If you're guilty of spamming the forum then you should be all right with network spammers.

How do you "receive" btc when you're the one making the transaction and paying a higher fee? Explain yourself, show your transaction, and sign the address and I will take back everything I say about you and posters like you. Promise.

I suppose this is slightly different from the typical "KYC" requirement, which is just to know who the customer is (duh) and ensure it's an actual person and same person -- I am against it too, don't get me wrong, but as I noted above, I feel like where you come from, where you operate from, and how connected your country is to other regulations -- definitely something to consider.

As I understand it, my situation is unique and triggers all kinds of flags on systems mainly all due to multiple location, nationality, currency I use.

So instead of asking for my personal identity (as in my name, etc.) I was instead asked:

Proof of Asset (signing from wallets) was to prove the crypto was my own and deposited by me.
Proof of Source of Income: The tax documentation was to prove the source of income if I was salaried, or if I was freelancer, etc. I didn't give tax docs, I substituted with invoicing proving payments to my crypto wallets used as Proof of Asset. To show the money I earned to buy crypto, or the crypto I earned, was earned, rather than stolen or given.

Perhaps none of this will ever apply to you or 90+% of people on this forum since I honestly haven't met someone asked for these. And after your response, I guess my fact-finding continues.

P.S. Well done!

Great discussions on the bracket style of games versus European football style of knockout tournaments and I've done a lot of reading and discussions on both too, so I can agree with the arguments for both, but the idea is to get a mix of both.

Brackets and playoffs styles reduce the randomness and encourage stability. Hence in North American sports the strongest teams with the best talents consistently win the majority of non-league tournaments. But this reduces watchability for those outside the majority. Instead of being fair, I call this system objective. Fairness means putting every team on the same level, capping expenditure to revenue rather than an arbitrary sum, and giving everyone same facilities, etc.

Objective just means giving the best talents and performance the best chances for recognition.

Single KO killer bow styles increases randomness, and therefore, overall watchability.

I feel like leagues like Championship in England (and BSFL haha) mixes this very well with direct promotion, plus playoff. It has a very very long season, not too many playoffs. So 80% of the teams have something to play for all the way to the near end. So yes, if we know the winner of the league early, we still want to watch it because they are playoffs.

Then playoffs themselves are a spectacle at the end of season.

Personally I like Champs League style, I love that City can fall at any time despite being the best team in the world. Or Real. Or whomever. I can imagine the horror of upper/lower bracket format in Champions League if teams decide they can risk experimenting or even hurting the opponent in the first game (they might feel, it's okay to lose, they can beat the winner of the lower bracket easily), to ensure they have an easier final.

Wait, I have been seeing MLS matches pretty much for the past few weeks... Or am I just imagining it? Had no idea they were just starting, or was I looking at friendly or pre seasons?

Really need to pay more attention to that league... Notice the betting markets are more and more prominent now on SB.

Great thread OP! Not so much because of the wealth of experience being documented, but because it can be tied to a known frequent user, as opposed to random reviews online and what I call incidental or anecdotal records, which is wholly unreliable if you come in as a new user wanting a serious dig in to "what to expect".

I want to add that experience probably differs greatly on your nationality. Myself, without revealing too much (I hint many times throughout my forum use as I also want to add my experience and help people who have my not-so-unique challenges), I find that my nationality has had a significant impact on my use of CEXs.

To start off, I actually don't use CEXs so much, and rely heavily on p2p over the years, despite it being more and more difficult, it was helpful that I started on LBC in 2016 and the networks I still use today are built from the trust of these 6/7 years.

Without going into too much detail (yet) -- the biggest reason I don't use CEXs is that they've slowly made it more difficult on the KYC for me. Since 2021, particularly, I've been subject to pretty heavy Proof of Source of Income and Proof of Asset (they use slightly different terms) checks. These range from straightforward tax documents, employment contracts, to pretty serious stuff like signing from depositing addresses (to prove ownership of the wallets I use to deposit). I wrote about it on some of the discussion threads but can't easily find them, but asking others, I actually don't know personally anyone else who's had to do this to keep their accounts.

At the accounts I still keep, they actually request this annually. So this year, my 3rd time doing it on one CEX. And no, it's not even to do with value transacted. I hardly have 5 figure dollar annual volume on each!

I'm surprised you didn't mention it, or is this also because you're not subject to them?

Tennis, yeah. Halle would be a killer tournament for whomever bet on the underdog all the time, think it's already a steady 100/1 if you just laid out the same bet game after game. Don't know if that's it but plenty of hope for those guys who don't have a title under their belt yet.

Re DOTA question does seem clear enough for me that we need to pick the finalists, so everything is still possible now, upper bracket just means losing that game gives you another chance. Lose, but win the next series and you're in the final. Think Trofo or someone mentioned that upper bracket guys generally end up as finalists anyway.

What a great suggestion, but not really, I always thought lost coins was also already thought out in the scheme of supple design.

So instead of a figure that's estimated in lost coins, we'll just constantly revive dormant coins? Apart from the very poor distribution method of next block riches (what's wrong with a democratised resupply?)... Suppose I want to leave an inheritance for 3 or 4 generations after me (I won't have genetic descendants but that's okay, let's call them spiritual descendants), or deliberately want to burn coins, should all my effort be removed after an arbitrary century? Or a nation's 100-year development plan. Do they really have to move coins out just to avoid that?

A latecomer to this thread but other than being in agreement with ONasty on that not everything necessarily has to be decentralized -- I personally like gambling with a trusted entity, someone I trust can do the hard work required to create markets, to settle sports bets fairly (as opposed to objectively as a true smart contract might), even to enjoy some goodwill as I typically do at my favourite sportsbooks. Even to enjoy camaraderie between non-anon freaks.

That all said, a lot of people claim Web3 just the way people claimed decentralised a few years ago.

But they really only mean non-custodial, right OP? Wrapped BTC? Hosted (not distributed nodes) server. Single source developer? Non-diverse oracles for markets?

Aren't those all supposed to be the opposite of Web3 prerequisites? How many 'Web3' projects have all these?

Still find it hard to understand that ETFs still stir up quite a bit of corporate fomo. I won't claim to have the same opinions as the few back in 2017/18 -- but have always held that all the speculation about "institutional interest" being a major driving force behind a sustained bull for Bitcoin is already disproven.

Don't even remember the names anymore but each time something big has finally coughed up, the reaction has been a whimper. Big money, old money, these didn't wait around for ETFs.

And yes, the bigger picture? None of this affects Bitcoin beyond the (temporary) reflection on its (trading) market and derivatives of.

Ah right, yeah I see the tiebreaker scheduled later today now -- doesn't then it seem pointless to have a "goal difference" table there also?

Anyway, enjoy the break guys! I too really appreciate bitcointalk being extra lite and easy to use on phone (well okay, not easy in terms of actually navigating).

Anyway, looks good either way for me, but @arallmuus I have to say we actually are quite close (if we actually count all scores as equal)


Feels good =p

Just my luck. Finally got time to go watch some tennis, and now Sinner appears to have retired from injury. Hope that doesn't mean he'll miss Wimbledon next month...

Interesting picks, casperBGD, and that's been my style for tennis, picking outrights with good value. Haven't done it recently though. I'm really missing out on good bets by staying on the sidelines but I just don't really feel comfortable without watching much tennis recently.

So Zverev looks like he has a clear way now to the final, with Sinner out. More surprises to come?

Women's football is getting some love from Sportsbet, I noticed the usual $100,000 prize has been doubled for Women's World Cup. I put it some really crazy scores for this. https://sportsbet.io/sports/bet-free-6-6


The 4-3-free (https://sportsbet.io/sports/4-3-free) seems "easy" enough too -- England Haiti should be 4+ goals any day -- and picks are happening weeks away so there's plenty of time left, don't forget

PSG's just booked their spot in the top bracket, BetBoom was leading it for a long time until today, now it's just left for GG's game, but I'm not sure how the table works. According to Liquipedia, "GD" is on BetBoom's side even if GG gets a 2-0 and ties for the 5-2. Cro2, how would that work? Is there a game difference score or just H2H?


Hey, looks like you were one of the weirdos picking Belgium not to lose and under 2.5gs, and got today's U21 game right, so it's actually... 2-2 right now, throwing yourself a nice lifeline over there (thank Germany and England for so many wasted chances) I know, I know, huge disadvantage still to climb.

@Igebotz feeling the heat yet? =D

Seems like I need to back myself more often. Had a big bag of freebets from some crazy performances in predictions but only used 2 of them for upsets (Kazakhstan and Georgia). The rest were fanciful accas that had one or two poor legs, too embarrassed to share how idiotic they ended up being. Moldova was a bit too rich for me but man, I need to trust myself more!

@LFC_Bitcoin I should! My Liverpool love affair began with the World Youth Cup (before renamed to U20s WC) -- but I've never actually followed the youth version of Euros. Maybe it's time, after all. Wondering also who's stepping up to challenge Trent for midfield from academy.