Thats a giant area of land and also the amount of teams seems massive.  [Weather could be quite different in these places surely]  My first thought is it will allow more African  teams to progress because their level of play is so commonly high across the continent.  Does FIFA intend for the qualifying to be less stringent and the final event more of the decider increasing fairness perhaps.

Another 3 years of war and killing their own and other people is probably more important a problem then sending a team to kick a ball.    Closer then that I doubt Russia is allowed back to any normal play while continuing on, there is really no context for a fair game against that backdrop of death;  doesnt make much sense to me.

I'd say that whole question is best considered  relative to defence budgets and as part of NATO.  That question is if Ukraine is vital to containing the ongoing threat that Russia is to the free world.  Where is the money best placed with people willing and able to fight that threat or outside of conflict in the more theoretical defence spending.    As a percentage of fairly large defence spending the Ukraine money is not large, imo the money is well placed there though it cannot be without constant consideration.

Money is a label not the quality itself, by that I mean the price to anything can be inaccurate and not actually correct.   So saying money is the motivator I will say is incorrect, its one of many factors.  A large thing thats changed in recent years is people are rejecting the sometimes hours per day commute as part of their job, its a waste of time and effort. Ultimately time is money far more then many other things can be said to reliably be, so wasting time every day when its not required to do a job has been reconsidered by many workers and avoided where possible.  Obviously not everyone can change these details but certainly I see time, money, work and motivation has shifted some in recent years.

Lots of sideways within a range is how its going to go.  The speculation valid will be with what range does BTC travel, are we in a tight range under 20k or can we revive BTC price action all the way to 30k this year.   Even if we turn back from 30k and fall to the inverse side of the range bounds, I guess 30k isnt so negative as others will think BTC heads.    
  In short I believe both, positive and negative this year and we do not do too much more then consolidate prior action in order to build volume.  Especially lacking is volume in the teens but all of this is guess work till we become more established.

Just my own take but it is going to take a year to turn this momentum around in BTC.   The quite surprising thing about BTC and crypto generally is it has the inertia of a supertanker, we aint about to zoom back up.    A 3 point turn will take from now till next summer and imo to get full speed is multi year.   Somehow even measures like 200 week average are relevant in judgement, thats really massive.   Even when I look at oil or gold commodities I dont go past monthly bars, so BTC has a lead core lots of weight to its movements.  It makes me quite certain even a full 360 day lock for FUN is probably not going to be an inconvenience, it'll still leave time to sell at a higher price if you wish.    
   I do like lots of 180 and 90 day locks but also 360 as this is an old site.  I get people require capital on shorter term time frames,  I have avoided dealing short term since BTC home mining was a thing. I wish I'd kept that BTC multi year but its hard to do & who was to know, now we have a decade of history these wild swings but also continual positive very long term gains so I focus on that if I can.

Excellent idea for a topic but I'd have to be somewhat logical and say 50 for luck as I think luck is what you make of it.  I wasnt especially lucky this year so not 100 but I cant say I was somehow denied any great share of luck, so average and 50 is my honest answer I was as lucky as I deserve and no more :p    Opportunity wise I feel I could have made more of possible bets I could have placed so I'll stick to 50 and not be too negative on not winning big at anything I've lucky in prior years I cannot complain.

The cascade gif is impressive, I would still not tie every news story directly and precisely to price not of BTC anyway.   Some of the BTC sales will occur no matter what just from a lack of momentum, some holders are only interested when the price goes up so reversing that leads to an opposite tidal flow in price just the same as we gain that way too.
   Also the idea people lost capital is only true if they are required to later pay Dollars for certain, if people dont borrow dollars they do no owe that balance and can keep Bitcoin as long as they like.  Of course I understand the idea people want to sell at some point but BTC by itself has never had a yield and people knew this when buying it; there was no change in this situation or loss as such in BTC.
  The market price does not determine value only a reflection of demand vs supply on those order books it is some estimation and utility in providing an agreed market for those who must sell in 2022 of course it has a use but its not an absolute determination of success imo

The first reaction most would have is to say no but I reckon the vast majority of players do exactly as you did.    I've betted on that basis but the big adjustment I would suggest is that a person should only run a set budget to spend on that particular day and week.    If you vary your spending within a budget it cant get too out of control plus it also will stop the impulse to chase losses on any particular day.   I would say go with the good luck streak but also calculate to keep back some capital for the next day and day after.  Be regular in your luck and aspiration to win, avoid trying to get just one big win; this is why Im against Martingale as it stacks bets up hoping for that final win to justify all prior bets.

Direct benefits are hard to justify the cost but to change the context and how people view Qatar could be something that pays dividends for twenty or more years afterwards.  The tourism trade changing would be the most obvious 'echo' to the influx of people this year and I think its easily arguable that tourism figures rise far more then they would have done without all the publicity.    Qatar arguing their right to maintain their own laws and religion within their country is quite different to western countries, thats a conversation worth having and tries to raise common ground despite fairly large differences in culture.   
   Ultimately I consider these large events, Olympics also as a kind of QE program for a country to spend money on infrastructure and probably superior to QE as it at least gives usable assets afterwards where as QE is just a subsidy to finance sectors really.

Vietnam has a cost of production below China, they also have gigantic inflation as I understand it which brings into question the quality of any measured growth as it might just be a nominal gain.   If China was in lock down or various stages of that then it likely would bring more business to Vietnam perhaps a greater contrast then seen for a generation I could believe that.
  Ultimately China has a falling working population so there is a general gain quite possible for Vietnam to realize but its not a country without problems of its own.

So many people were complaining about MtGox long before I avoided going there as something did appear to be incorrect with its operation.  The price there was different to the price traded elsewhere and its reserves were illiquid with people having problem with withdrawals. Obviously we know for sure now it was fractional and unable to service the demand of deposit holders.  Its only because BTC rose so much from those days that people got their money back I guess.    Pretty sure we had some threads calling out Mtgox like a year before it closed, I wasnt using this forum much then but thankfully it was enough of a warning that I heeded the signs it was going to fail.
   Cryptsy was another exchange that fell, compromised and failed & again some did mention problems with its last days a few tokens only were allowing withdrawals.  That small avenue was enough I got out but some maybe got something years after not sure.

Plinko is an interesting one, I think it resembles normal distribution and probability theory.   Its probably the case there are books literally written all about the maths behind this problem or game because the outcomes should be quite linear.  Obviously the central outcomes are most probable of all and the very outliers should only rarely happen comparatively.  Its also a common fairground game, I can remember it being an old game decades ago.

Only reason not to lock is if you need to sell isnt it.  I guess there are some ace traders out there but Im not at the level of confidence I think I'll beat these returns.   All I do is sell a bit when I think its at the higher end price and I bought some when it was at the tail end of its low price which was around the teens I think.  My take was it was overplayed at that point, at some point it snowballs and people sell just because others have sold so it ends up just being incorrect.  Pretty much this is the same deal as people getting too hyped on BTC highs or whichever asset, I think almost every market tends to do this people always carry it a little too far; there is worth in recognizing the bargain  & where it pays.

Gold was a negative market more recently from 2011 onwards it didnt break its series of falls till I'd say about a few years ago.  I've been bullish on that asset in a macro way since then and for obvious reasons I dont believe DXY rising reflects loss of value from inflation etc.    So too BTC has periods it will fall for years but once it has outrun that pattern its far more valid to be looking for periods it will gain.
   So far this year BTC is positive only because of its in contrast to its continual fall last year, right now its just about above weekly and monthly averages, most widely watched will be 50 day moving average I think which is attempting to turn positive.
   Finally if we consider 2023 in full breadth we must consider 200 day or 50 week averages even for their inertia; simple take is more time required imo.   Look for a flat 200 day MA, we are not even at that starter line to this race, dont jump the gun  

Next few hours or day or so could determine this question as we're at top of the range we've kept since Dec 16th and even back to end of Nov we held a similar pricing.  If we can trade above 17k and maintain momentum such as the 2, 7, 50 day moving average it could be viewed positively for a trend of gains.
   We had traded closer to 20k and challenged that area before slipping and reaching this lower ledge, it would definitely constitute a small recovery to make this break to a higher level.  DXY had been building this week but fell today so that too continuing would help a trend.

The free spin is given for reading the daily email from the site, thats why it expires after only after a short leeway of a day or so.    You might want to click refresh in case its an error for a moment, I get that occasionally and it works after.    The other thing I do because I get so many emails is I use a filter on gmail to catch this particular email, star it and then forward it back to myself so it definitely arrives 1pm every day and I will see it.   I imagine the site layers their email sending so the time of arrival for some will vary and of course globally everyone's time is different, in short you could easily miss and lose this deadline opportunity to claim.
  Just a single spin isnt massive but collectively over a year 365 spins definitely amounts to something worth having, also I like the technical price analysis they send out sometimes etc.

Prices serve a purpose to justify investment, the damage is most often in a spike of prices unforeseen but its clear we need to invest in food production long term and the global GDP and world population require greater resources and supply security.
   I'm aware of a few fertilizer projects costing billions, a massive amount of faith must be expressed in these future markets and the profitability to justify money spent now and borrowed in hope of returns a decade or more from today.   One persons view of higher prices as a negative is another's hope rock for the stability of their project vision.   If we are requiring so much more food in future I'd rather this was apparent as soon as possible so we can build for that certainty, so long as the prices are correct long term its a good thing to enable growth in supply which can take years to ensure.

50 day average is almost completely flat at present, its really a coin flip decision to say bullish or not at the beginning of the year.  We will face a future challenge to even this current price imo.   News wise speculators are overly optimistic for 2023 with some seeing the Federal reserve dropping rates during this year despite no encouragement to this outcome.   Long term the most likely reason for currency weakness will be continual overspending by government in fiscal budgets; if all debt were repaid we'd have hard money and BTC would imo resolve below 10k with inflation near zero perhaps.   This wont happen, long term debts will only nominal repay via inflationary losses meaning all asset alternatives to Dollar resolve upwards year to year; saying that I think 2023 is not a big up year we might revise part of the 2022 losses long term this means we are attempting to stablize before afterwards being able to gain.

China is just coming out of its lockdown attempts, the opposite can happen is a story today I have also seen a warning about.   Despite the best attempts of many western governments to restrict the circulation of excess money printed in prior years, there has been little quantitative tightening actually done just these rate rises which is something else.  The longer term picture still contains excessive currency, if China is back to its full use and production it will raise many commodity markets and in turn we are less likely to see a lull in demand within markets.


I agree thats likely but what % of those cases are serious life threatening is going to be quite low, though it might be callous to say perhaps as any deaths are serious it should not be enough vs a working population to be restrictive to the economy or economic productivity.  Whereas a lockdown situation done in a blanket way for years now has been excessive in its effects.

2016 was when I last sold at totally the wrong time not because of any judgement call just I wanted to use BTC for something computer related so felt it was justified.  People will sell at every price potentially just because they need the capital, the price isnt always about BTC it can be about the wider demands for capital when Dollar is strong I expect that.  BTC can be swapped for Dollar and so it will be sold regardless of anything local, thats probably the largest thing that moves the price as a tide in and tide out.   We got a very high price due to excessive Dollar availability almost on purpose, dont take credit for that high price and you dont really have to completely believe this low is all on crypto its basically relative to the weather externally.