The interface of the website seems fine and everything looks alright, but the addition of a FAQ and even a simple tutorial would help out. It's pretty unclear what the site's about if you're just coming onto it for the first time.

As for the animation of the coin, I don't see anything wrong with it, but I do see where the animation might be a bit hesitant- the coin lingers for a bit before continuing its animation loop. I guess that's to show the detail on the coin, but I'd rather prefer a slower-moving, constant coin over what's shown here.

Extremely reputable users such as OgNasty or Monbux could be used, for example- they've all got extremely large resumes in escrowing large amounts of funds, and any sort of proof of funds will definitely raise more interest in this site. From what I can tell there's at least some visitors to the site that have deposited money, but it's not a whole lot and these users could be fake.

I don't have a whole lot of confidence that this site's legitimate as the entire design seems rather cheap compared to other crypto lottery sites like lottoland, especially when the prize pool's supposedly 100 BTC, but we'll see how this turns out.

At this point in time, I've stopped mining on less profitable cards (pre-Polaris cards) completely, as electrical costs have climbed higher than mining revenue or I'm just breaking even, and I suggest everyone who hasn't already sold to do so.

The way things are right now, it's easy to buy Bitcoin, even without verification, and there's no reason to mine at a loss at all. Most older cards are still selling for a decent price as of right now, and it really isn't a bad time to sell at all. Older-generation cards can only really fall in prices right now.

I absolutely agree that 100BTC's an enormous amount of crypto for one site, and without an escrow the site's a joke, especially when this site's new. I hardly ever see anyone hit a prize that high even on more established casinos, and I find it extremely unlikely that enough tickets will be sold to raise 100BTC. I fail to see how this site would run without incurring a net loss, and not a lot adds up here.

At the least, a signed message proving this site own a wallet containing the purported 100BTC would help reassure customers that the site holds enough funds to pay a potential winner in the future.

I'm also personally only investing in altcoins now, and I've stopped putting more money into mining rigs and parts as profitability's gone down the drain, and it'll likely continue going downwards. You don't need to be an experienced trader or anything of the sort to buy and sell coins; it is always possible to just buy low and sell high, which is what I've been primarily doing. Coin prices haven't been this low in a while, and it isn't a bad idea at the moment to put at least a bit for money into buying alts and BTC.

The site is legitimate AFAIK, but I still prefer to use escrow through a forum member that I trust over any semi-automated website. I like working with real humans, and I am willing to pay extra just for that, but it's all just up to your preference in the end. The site seems pretty decent with its small 1% fee, though, and I may actually try it out in the future just to see how well it works.

Second day's here, and it looks like everything has been going almost as expected today, though not all matches have been played out yet.

TyLoo 7-16 BI
Winstrike 7-16 Fnatic
Vega Squadron 4-16 Astralis

I forsee BIG going 3-0 in their group with their strong performance so far- the fact that they managed to 16-5 Faze was pretty incredible. I'm also personally going medium on Hellraisers in their match versus Cloud9 as the American team has been struggling recently, and Hellraisers managed to put up a good fight against G2. I'm also going for a medium bet on CompLexity in their match versus G2. Odds are decent for both sides on this match, and I think the North American team has good enough teamwork and individual aim to win out against G2.

I absolutely am, and it's great watching the major and seeing individual player strategies as well as team strategies. I play on an ESEA League team, and although I'm not an IGL, I gain a lot gameplay-wise just watching the players and analyzing what they do in certain situations; I can apply a lot of the things these teams do to my own gameplay, and I feel it improves me as a player. Besides that, it's just very entertaining to watch, especially with a comeback like the one between MIBR and TyLoo- their CT side was incredibly solid and they had the mental willpower to come back from an 11:4 half. I've always been a TyLoo fan, and that was one of the most intense games I've watched in a while. Came out today barely positive in winnings.

There's still even more to come as well, as today's only been the first group stages of the tournament. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. These are the matches tomorrow as detailed by HLTV.org (I highly suggest using this site if you don't already for tracking matches):

1-0 pool
BIG vs. TYLOO
compLexity vs. G2
Vega Squadron vs. Astralis
NiP vs. Liquid

0-1 pool
Natus Vincere vs.  FaZe
mousesports vs.  MIBR
Cloud9 vs.  HellRaisers
Winstrike vs.  fnatic

I've had no problems using Namecheap in the past, and I haven't really heard of any issues from others in regards to paying with Bitcoin for hosting from them. I haven't hosted a site in quite some time, but from what I've seen even on this thread, it seems not much has changed about them.

If you're having problems with paying anyone directly with BTC or any crypto, it is always possible to transfer funds to PayPal and pay through PayPal. You'll need to deal with verification on PayPal to use the service fully if you don't already have a verified account, but I have been converting crypto to PayPal for online purchases for quite some time with little issue. Just make sure you're transacting with someone reputable if you choose to trade with PayPal, as there is a 180-day timeframe where a transaction can be reversed on PayPal.

I’d take a look at this after someone manages to virus scan the file from multiple pages- you never know if one site just happens to not detect a virus. More is always better, and I’ve never heard of the file scanning site OP linked.

I don’t currently have access to a program like Sandboxie to quarantine any possible viruses or RATs that might be found in the file, and I highly suggest to anyone possibly downloading this to use software like Sandboxie to test anything you get off the web. I haven’t been infected in years due to taking such precautions.

There’s nearly no way to guarantee a return while trading, and what you just described to us for number one is a pretty blatant Ponzi scheme, disguised as a cloud mining operation. Just go into the Service Discussion section, and you’ll see plenty of people getting burned from cloud mining.
If you’re willing to take the risk and have decent electrical rates, consider mining alts with physical hardware you own, or try hosted hardware. Even though profitability has dropped off pretty significantly in the last few months.

If anything, either store your coins away on a hardware wallet, or try other options like lending some coins to an exchange or people on this forum. Less risk involved doing these activities, though some risk is always present if you’re trying to invest.

I typically use the Nicehash calculator or CryptoCompare’s calculators, and I have found that most calculators display results very close to each other with some variation, likely due to the algorithm that they use to predict future profitability. Nicehash’s calculator is good if you’re mining on their platform, as they take the current bid price for whatever you’re trying to mine, and they use that data to create a prediction of mining profitability.

One thing to note is that the current price of ETH is the lowest Ethereum has been at since around July of 2017, and this is also the lowest ETH has been as of this year (YTD), as the title of this thread suggests.

As for buying in or not, I don't like to catch a falling knife, and it appears that ETH could still continue to fall in price to me as of right now. I wouldn't buy in yet. If you're trying to hold coins, it can't hurt to continue to hold. You're suffering pretty big losses if you bought in at the peak prices in January and you decide to sell now, though I expect ETH will continue down or stabilize in the near future.

The Services section is where you'll find thread designers, if you'd like to do your own research on thread designers. There's plenty of them out in that section the last time I checked.

Some other users that design ANN threads in that section are hkdfgkdf, and bubbalex. If you find a new user that's offering such a service, or you feel uncomfortable going first in a deal, it's always possible to use an escrow so you're protected from getting scammed.

Unless the house edge of a casino or game happens to be massively higher than other games, you're better off just playing whatever games you enjoy playing. Whatever advantage in edge you find in a game will usually be miniscule, and it's really not worth playing a game that's not enjoyable IMO. When gambling, you should be aware that gambling isn't a viable way of making money either way.

I've also found luck in dice in the past, but an edge is still present in that game and all other games you might find in a casino, even in skill-based games like poker.

I may grab one of these devices just for the reduction in noise as a result of the liquid cooling (45-58dB according to the site listing), and the thing just looks interesting to work with overall. This is obviously a bit of a novelty device like the C1 was due to the radiator and all, and it’s likely an attempt from Bitmain to offload existing S9 stock or chips, but it’s been a while since Bitmain has officially released any watercooled equipment, and I’m excited to see how these things actually turn out.

I wonder if it’ll be possible to use an aftermarket radiator and pump on one of these things. $130 seems like a somewhat hefty price to pay for their radiator.

The site also doesn’t have any proof that they own the funds at the address they list on the Payouts page, and it’s very possible that address could just be an exchange address, and they’re simply listing all the transactions coming off of it. The 100% affiliate rate is also pretty suspicious to me; I don’t know any other site with such a high affiliate rate.

As others have already mentioned, if something appears too good to be true, it likely is. This rule applies to this website.

You fell for a phishing site like FlamingFingers mentioned. I've seen this a lot recently, and I feel that there should be a more noticeable warning that Bitblender's only available on Tor (besides the informational .io site, which is a bit confusing), but I cannot see any way you're going to get your funds back, unfortunately. It sucks, but Bitblender's not completely at fault in this situation. You should've done more reading or checked the Bitcointalk thread before mixing such a high amount of funds.

For reference, the following is the Tor link to the legitimate Bitblender site: http://bitblendervrfkzr.onion/

I would suggest that after you have done enough research on trading that you either invest a small sum of money into trading or try trading on a simulated trading platform while still imitating that you're trading with real money. It's especially important that you remove any thoughts of "It's only a small amount to lose" in your mind while doing either of these activities, as this helps prepare you for real trading with a larger sum of money.

 I also often see people putting huge amounts of money into trading initially, and I try to tell those people to stop whenever I can- most inexperienced traders don't manage their funds correctly and come out with a net loss, or blow a lot of money in one trade with incorrect risk management. I feel it's better to do small-to-medium trades often over larger trades less often if you have the time.

The Nicehash Profitability Calculator is a decent resource I use to look at the most profitable devices on the market. I'm aware it doesn't list each and every ASIC out there, but it covers most of the common ones, and you can manually input data into it as well.

I'd also suggest going for a BTC/SHA256 miner at the moment. They're going for extremely cheap ATM (check the Computer Hardware section), and with your electrical costs there's definitely room for profit if you can get a good enough deal. Remember, there's usually some room to negotiate unless the seller states outright they're fixed on a price.