That's it and there are at least 2 reasons for that.
1. The West hit Russian citizens by banning certain goods and services so that these citizens put pressure on Putin, so he decided to do the same thing and put pressure on Zelensky by killing his people.
He thinks that civilian casualties may break the fighting spirit of the defenders.
2. Ukrainian soldiers are hiding in basements, they need to house wounded, store ammunition, missile launchers. More people killed in night bombings means less equipment lost the next day.

The question for you all: How many of you would really donate bitcoin to Ukraine?

Personally I don't support any government and we can't deny that the government of Ukraine was also corrupt to a certain degree. There are 2 strong camps in Ukraine. One supports the West and the EU, while the other Russia. For decades the country was ruled by a Russian puppet president, but that doesn't mean the current government is completely independent.
Therefore, I wouldn't give money to the government of any country, as I don't support their actions of taxing citizens and then sacrificing them like pawns in a game when the need comes.

I would donate to the red cross or buy products the people need most, but I wouldn't give the money to the government so they can do with it as they please.

I got introduced by a friend who really didn't care much for Bitcoin just treated it like a novelty worth discussing. I went home and started doing research and at first wanted to mine, then I wanted to invest in cloud mining, we all know how that went... Later I started trading, altcoins first, then Bitcoin, then after some time I came to understand how it all works and saw the benefits of holding.

We are all thrown into this space and try to make sense of it, but it takes time. If your first thought after joining the space was to buy and hold bitcoin, you are among the lucky ones who used a shortcut while the rest of us had to run a whole marathon.

For China it's better if Russia is weak. With the way China operates they want weak everyone, but they are also facing their own problems like tensions with Japan, Taiwan and the US. They also don't have enough natural resources to run their industry. They need a lot of oil and are trying to strike deals with various countries to get it. Recently they've been talking with the UAE.
Belarus doesn't want to help Russia anymore. There were articles that they are closing their airports to Russian military aircraft. I guess nobody likes the fact that Russians are bombing civilian targets and lying that they aren't. Even Lukashenko, who is an expert liar himself, had enough.

Russia lost this war because no outcome can be a win for them. Even if the government would gave them unconditional surrender the people wouldn't accept occupants who murder women and children and Russia doesn't have the manpower to hold Ukraine under a boot. Also, the world doesn't recognize Donbas as an independent country. Even if they manage to take it away from Ukraine somehow, this wasn't worth the lives of so many people and so much lost equipment. If they seize properties of companies, it's game over for them. They'll show the world that it's too risky to invest in Russia.

At this point if there was a conventional war Russia vs Nato, Russia would lose 100%.
It's because Russia always had a big army with lots of equipment, but Putin was cutting army expenses for many years and it lead to what we're seeing now. All that Russia has left is manpower and nukes. If they use nukes it's a death sentence for most of Europe, and that includes the part of Russia that is in Europe. Manpower alone can work wonders when you're defending and people hit enemies from every window, but it doesn't do much when you try to attack. We're not in 1944 anymore. Nowadays wars are won by aircraft that can hit targets while being out of their line of sight. The EU alone can match Russia in the number of planes (it could before the war, now Russia is probably outmatched).


Special operation with no civilians targeted.

This is very similar to what Serbs were doing and Japs before them and then there were Germans... Murderers and psychopaths thrive during wars, but let's call things as they are. Russians are murdering unarmed people, people who don't even try to fight and then they get caught by Ukrainian forces and cry on camera that they didn't know where they were going, that it was their commanders.

He's emotional and likes when community praises him. Doge community would kiss his feet if they had a chance so Musk has this strange guru and his cult relationship with them. Remember how he got angry when Bitcoin community criticized him for pumping and dumping Bitcoin in a matter of weeks?

I think that Musk is doing a lot of great things, but he is also autistic and you can see it in the way he runs his social media.

I'll tell you guys a secret that can help you make future trading decisions. Think about the best and the worst thing that can happen with the price based on bitcoin's history and compare the risk.
For instance, at this point we are already -45% from the top, how much room to the downside there is and how much to the upside. You can expect Bitcoin to at least touch the ATH once again at the next halving. If it gets rejected it will be the first time in history, but you will have a chance to sell at 2x from this price. If it goes down it's maybe another -30% and that's it.
So you have a chance of earning over 2x from here, possibly even 2,5x if we go to a new ATH in a year. On the downside we can drop to 25k. I like this odds but if you're scared wait a bit and start buying when we hit 35k again.

Bitcoin is of course not affected by altcoins but altcoins are affected by bitcoin, there's no doubt about it.

To answer youur second question, if there were no altcoins bitcoin would be more valuable.
Of course not all crypto market cap would go to bitcoin's market cap because many people buy altcoins because they want a cheap and possibly very profitable investment with more risk than bitcoin. Some just see something they like in altcoins like they want more privacy so they buy privacy coins and they wouldn't invest as much if there was only bitcoin, but they would invest. I'd expect that at least 50% of the total altcoin market would go to bitcoin.

We can compare it to cars. Some people like coupes and some like SUVs. If suddenly all brands disappeared leaving only a brand that doesn't produce coupes some people would not buy a car at all and rather choose a motorcycle or public transport instead of getting an SUV, but most would make a switch and drive something less fun but something that serves a purpose of getting you from place to place.

I haven't played there, but if you feel something is off, try switching to another casino for a while and see what win rate per 100 games you'll have there.
You won't get back the money you've lost. Maybe it was an unlucky streak (100 games is not enough to fully see a pattern, as it was proven many times by people playing dice with martingale strategy), but after 100 games you should be at at least 40% win rate. I'd play somewhere else first to see how I do before drawing conclusions. Of course it doesn't mean the casino isn't cheating, but you need more data to be sure.

All right, you have a point, but who's there to say that metaverse will not end like so many failed projects starting with NFTs and ending with Facebook's Libra.
Bitcoin managed to survive, but many altcoins did not. Metaverse is one of those new hypes that often fail community's expectations. The idea is good, much better than NFTs or many shitcoins, but it's a complete gamble because it can even take another 20 years before it becomes popylar. By that time many companies that are investing in the space now can already be bankrupt.

NFTs are popular because people think it's easy to make money trading them that's all. NFTs have no real use and most of them are there to scam you. People trade among themselves to artificially boost the price and hope that someone will buy for more seeing that someone somewhere paid this much then it must be worth something.
As far as the metaverse gambling goes I think it has future especially since second life became somewhat popular. Investing in it now might be too early though it's still in the stage bitcoin was in 2010.

All that text and I was laughing already at "freezing my tiny putin".

They don't sleep in their tanks because it's below 0 inside and outside (no fuel to waste on heating), but it smells better outside. Imagine sleeping with 2 other guys in a tiny enclosed space. All three of you haven't taken a shower or changed the underwear for a week, all of you just ate a military ration that expired in 2017 and Boris likes to sleep with his boots off.

There is no scam here that I see based on the evidence provided in the screenshots.
OP deposited and withdrawn without placing a bet so it got blocked. The support allowed him to withdraw provided that he promises not to do it again, or bets the money. I guess he chose to bet the money and lost it, then he started this defamatory thread.

Next time make sure there's enough evidence to support your claim because posting a conversation where they tell you that they blocked the withdrawal but will allow it to go through but only this one time proves nothing. They played fair if you ask me, you did not.

Mmmm I love pierogi.

I also have good news:
I've read some transcripts of communication between Russian troops and their command and it looks as bad as it could be. They're starting to joke about shooting their commanders, ask what to do because they lost almost all tanks in the company, and asking what letter to sign to be moved back home. You guys are wining, Russians came in hungry with expired rations, so make sure they don't leave with empty stomachs. Those idiots apparently had a new communication system but it required functioning cellular towers, but they destroyed too many of them and can't use it. Now they have to use old systems that Ukrainians can tap into.

At least you have a not so tiny speaker in the back
You can drive around blasting "bayraktar song"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk3IbKsNVpw

Good luck to you and your family. Keep telling us how the days go by!
Great idea with food, keep resisting, they won't break you. Share photos of the gun if you obtain it, although I hope you won't have to use it.
Still, get it and teach your wife how to use it, you'll both feel better knowing that you have the means to repel looters and rapists.

This made me laugh today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxNu0UlasjI

Stay safe!

This is the important part, as pointed by OP. The headline screams "bitcoin money laundering" and in reality they're using loopholes in the fiat system and traditional banking.
If they are able to create shell accounts that regularly transfer relatively large sumps of money split into <$7500 transactions it's the bank's job to identify them. Then from the list of possible shell accounts the bank should be able to separate accounts with regular transfers to bitcoin exchanges and then trace the money back to the source. It's the bank's fault that shell accounts exist and that they are allowing people to open accounts using fake credentials. Somebody has to keep coming to the bank to deposit cash, because that's how dealers get paid and this cash is then converted to balance and transferred to bitcoin exchanges. Here you have your weak point and this is where the real laundering is happening, not when they pay somebody with Bitcoin.

Suppliers pay mules in cash to smuggle drugs, then drugs are distributed by dealers who also get paid in cash and share profits with the cartel, the cartel deposits that cash in the bank, but all these deals and transfers are not important. Smearing bitcoin is.

Nobody in their right mind would choose Bitcoin to launder money where there's plenty of privacy coins that actually offer some degree of anonymity.
Also, if these people can create shell accounts and have resources to keep them below the bank's radar, they're all set to keep laundering without the need to use a public blockchain.

I used to feel sorry in the beginning but after seeing people who support the war on social media and write Z on their cars I no longer do. Russians are being brainwashed and they even say that they're planning to endure this like they always do. They will never rebel, they blame the West. It's a tragedy for both countries but Russians are to blame for everything that is going on.
I'm actually happy they were disqualified, especially after the following:

The behavior of an unhealthy person was very well demonstrated by Marina Ulyankina, coach of the Russian national gymnastics team. She commented on the sanctions on the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in competitions.

Instead of influencing her regime, the coach resorted to intimidation. This time she turned to Japan.
We must remind Watanabe – Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
– Ulyankina wrote on social networks.
Morinari Watanabe is a Japanese businessman who is the president of the International Gymnastics Federation.

https://thetimeshub.in/we-must-remind-watanabe-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-the-russian-coach-scares-japan-with-nuclear-weapons

Phone apps? I've never seen them demand to unlock a phone for them. This is an invasion of privacy. Anyway, spotting a crypto wallet is close to impossible because you can have a thumb drive or a memory card with you and they'd have to spend hours searching through it all to find if you have a wallet installed or not. You could also have a simple text file with your private key with a changed extension, so that it looks like a system library or something.

The only way for people to start losing their stuff is if the border guards would start simply stealing all electronics: phones, memory cards, cameras, smart watches... Then there's always a way to smuggle files on a sim card, put it inside your shoe or something. In extreme situations you can always send a password protected file to someone you know in the country to which you're trying to flee, or put it in the cloud. If you know they're going to strip search you and take everything, cloud actually looks safer.

I've seen some of you talk about currency exchange. You won't even be able to exchange anything. I've heard that Ukrainians who moved to Poland have trouble exchanging their fiat because local exchanges don't want to accept it anymore in fear of the government collapse in Ukraine. They don't want to be stuck with extremely volatile UAH or RUB.

I thought that having cash is pretty safe, but it appears that you need to have "safe" cash like USD, GBP, CHF, or similar. If you hold on to your Lebanese or Sudanese pounds, you may end up holding a bunch of paper one day.

"We have not attacked Ukraine and we are not planning to attack other countries" said Lavrov today after another round of negotiations.
They did not come to terms and are not going to as long as Russians keep living in their bubble.

When a Russian talks about having sex he means rape, when he talks about visiting you he means breaking in, when he talks about helping you he really wants to kill you.

When evacuation started you could pay the border guards to go first and those who had no money had to wait in lines. Ukrainians aren't saints but what point is there to make? Does anybody believe that there's less corruption in Russia? My father, who visited Russia a few times in the 90s, told me that when the police stopped a foreign car they asked for smokes and food if you had any. They'd be nice to you if offered chocolate, coca cola, cigarettes and alcohol.
Corruption is a normal thing in poor countries. It's present in Mexico, all throughout South America and in many parts of Africa. All the drug cartels wouldn't be able to thrive without politicians and military on their payrolls.

Bottom line is, we have a lot of corrupt countries, we have far right groups, we have countries that are small and weak and countries that are young, but nothing justifies what Russians are doing right now.
They are literally murdering unarmed people in broad daylight. A few days ago they shot a whole family on their way to a train station to leave the war zone. Parents and 2 children shot in the street. I saw a small child being resuscitated after a gunshot wound. Doctors were crying because they couldn't do anything. Russians targeted schools, hospitals, trucks of the red cross that carried aid, they shot and robbed a Swiss reporter, raped and killed a teenage girl. They're fucking animals.
There's a story told by a young Russian soldier who saw civilians being shot at and rushed with to help them take cover. He and the woman he was trying to protect were shot. He got wounded but survived, she did not. The woman's daughter saw it and got him help. He's now a POW, but at least will be able to look his family in the eye.

Not all of these people are bad, but this war isn't much different from the Balkans. Maybe some of you remember how the Serbs were singing songs about war criminals and murder. You can find those songs on youtube. How was that different from all those Russians with Z (zoophiles?) in their social profiles?