The increasing inflation is currently soaring across the globe, leading to excessive price increases in most goods, in fuel and energy. To make matters worse fuel and energy costs are not included in inflation's index, thus, a 5-6 or 7% increase, is actually a lot worse than anticipated.
In particular, Greece is now facing a 6.2% rise in inflation, compared to January 2021, the largest ever recorded since 1997, compared to 5.1% in December. Increases are now spreading across the spectrum of the economy and not just energy, as it was a while ago, thus reducing disposable income and reducing inflation not to an economic issue but to a wider social issue.
According to ELSTAT data, the goods with the largest increase compared to January 2021 are:
Natural gas with an increase of 154.8%
Heating Oil with an increase of 36%,
Electricity with 56.7%,
Fuels with 21.6%,
Lamb and goat with 17.6%,
Olive oil with 15.4% and
potatoes with 12.3%.
Fresh vegetables 14.4%
The situation is about to get worse, with depressing predictions of it surpassing 7%-8% in the upcoming March. How are we dealing with such a situation? It feels like a battle against an invisible enemy. Our available income is shrinking, what is the best way to tackle inflation? The most common answer I've seen is to invest, rather than save, but how exactly do you invest? Since when is buying cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, tackling inflation, since it can also face periods that it's losing value.
Is it going to get any better, and how soon is that going to be, if prices ever recover. Personally, I highly doubt it that the situation is going to get any better within 2022.
Unless supply chains start to unwind this inflation mess and get back to stability in a couple years, this is going to create a spiral affect that governments all around the world will struggle to control. People are going to start asking for higher wage increases to keep up, which pushes costs up further throughout the supply chain and causes further rises. Eventually central banks, who have avoided taking a responsible approach for many years, will be forced to put up interest rates substantially, which will cause mortgage costs to rise and eventually people will not be able to afford to remortgage and some may lose their homes. This might be caused by a bit of a spending spree after Covid but unless it calms down it could cause the next economic bust. |
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Hi fellow gamblers,
I live in a country where gambling is actually legal, but due to some religions that consider gambling is illegal... gambling is pretty strict in my country but it's still allowed if you play on licensed casino, that's just my story.
Well, I've seen so many online casino in this forum and it's really attract me to play. But I don't know why I can't access the casino, while I can access the other casinos. My internet connection is good and my country doesn't got blacklisted by the casino, what's the problem then? Does this because my internet service provider, what should I do to solve this?
I wouldn't play with VPN since it's breaking their rules, I'm really looking to solve this. It's really sad when you want to play on specific casino but there's a barrier obstructing your desire. I know there's an alternative casinos, but I have some personal reason to play in specific casino...
If the casino is wise and responsible, it is very possible they are doing this to protect any potential customers. However there can be all sorts of reasons, maybe the owners of the casino don't want to put themselves at risk by accepting customers from a location where it is clearly frowned upon. Are you sure about the rules around gambling, because it's possible that it may be legal to run a physical casino (where they can enforce and have real oversight) but online gambling might be too restrictive or only allowed for certain games. It might simply be more hassle than it's worth to support the certain types of gambling that is permitted within your country. You should try to avoid using VPN's in such a situation because it might cause all sorts of trouble down the line and is likely prohibited via the terms & conditions (although they are sometimes rarely enforced). |
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Ukraine's parliament has supposed a new law that legalises cryptocurrency. The bill was adopted in a near-unanimous vote on Wednesday and needed to be signed by President of Ukraine 'Volodymyr Zelensky'. From today, trading or vendoring in crypto in Ukraine has existed in a legal grey area. Local peoples are now permitted to buy, sell and exchange cryptocurrencies, but law enforcement will often see companies and exchanges dealing in crypto. Ukraine's crypto law does not promote bitcoin as a form of payment or legal tender or does not put Bitcoin on an equal floor with the hryvnia (Ukraine's national currency). Sources: https://www.thestreet.com/investing/bitcoin-goes-to-war-ukraine-legalizes-cryptos-as-russia-pressures-buildEconomically it makes sense to allow it, as Bitcoin/crypto is driving a lot of new online businesses and it allows them to relocate to this countries under a regulatory framework. We see it in places like Estonia, which is a techhub creating some great tools on the blockchain and creating a lot of innovation, but more importantly these things create jobs and tax income for the government. Their citizens are going to do these things anyway, so it's better off that they can monitor certain flows and citizens feel less incentive to try hiding them. In the end, all but the most extreme authoritarian governments will eventually take this route, unless they start creating their own country based version and want to block out the competition. |
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Is it just me or people are out of liquidity ( money ) ?
From what i see : market , malls etc no people,or if they buy something...they buy basic stuff... in my area ...slow biz ...same in your country ?
It's just you. There will always be people with money, there will always be periods of time of boom and bust. Covid caused a lot of problems for the whole world in the last two years and strong shocks to the system will naturally cause people to be more conservative in your spending - if you think the future will be tough then you will be careful with your money. After a couple years of hell for most countries, people are out and spending again from what I see, there are some who lost their jobs in the crisis who may be without the financial reserves but others were working all the way through it and want to start using those accrued savings now. |
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However, improving the quality of services of those gambling casinos are essential to their business like providing their gamblers a quality of services even like operating online though it's quite true that casino businesses are having trouble following the requests of their community but if they can provide it in near future or atleast giving their community the assurance that they will research or study about adopting changes in their gambling experience inside their establishments or sites then this will atleast maintain their loyal customers stay to them.
If we proceed from the fact that the development of the casino should make it as easy as possible for users to freely play, deposit and, of course, withdraw money to their account, then I think that it would be ideal if the casino consists of "three buttons".  1. By pressing a button or an icon in a mobile phone, wrote the amount - that's it, the money is on deposit. 2. I chose a game, placed a bet, won ... well, or lost  . 3. Pressed the button - once, the winnings are on your account.... And no extra troubles. Here, in my opinion, where it should be striving, developing gambling services. But this is still, of course, just an ideal dream. Casinos are engineered to make it simple to deposit, that is absolutely the first thing they need to capture a user - which is why many just starting out use a really basic interface where they can fly under the radar without asking for KYC. As they grow, they become a target for law enforcement and are required to demand this information (otherwise they may have staff/servers/domains/etc seized) which creates extra barriers. The people paying money into these places also love the illusion of choice, most games follow a similar setup but might have extra hidden games that customers think are providing extra value but it's all pre-calculated. Casinos also don't want people to withdraw so might make this part of the process a little trickier or try to entice you to stay at this point. |
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Hello bitcointalk am a new member here which site can you recommend for best poker games?
To be honest the best thing you can do if you want to play poker and earn a reasonable amount with it, is to stick with fiat currency platforms. There are several platforms out there in the fiat currency world with several thousand, even tens of thousands, of concurrent players at any one time. The wider the pool of players, the more likely you are to be higher in the skill ranking and be able to make some sort of profit from this game. If you go to SWC, probably the most well known crypto site, you might be playing against 150 people at times - they might each have years of experience and you are literally playing in a pool of sharks who do this full time and are ready to grind away your money. Unless you are absolutely top tier, you will eventually leak it all to them. |
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We all know that bitcoin is the king and father of all digital assets. Bitcoin was created for 2 purposes.
1. To be an alternative to fiat currency.
2. Stay free from govt control.
At present some big online marketplaces accept bitcoin but from being an alternative payment to fiat currency I think we are still behind. We also saw many countries are hostile towards bitcoin and china baned everything related to bitcoin. So china's ban on bitcoin shows that it's free from govt control or its the opposite? Bitcoin can really be the alternative to fiat in spite of this extreme volatility?
I think this is more a case of people assigning it's "purpose" long after the fact without understanding the history behind it. A purpose of Bitcoin was to showcase the blockchain technology - a transparent and open ledger, which displays a chain of transactions that anyone across the world can view which can rival the closed source database driven technology behind big banks. For that purpose it has been a staggering success, which is evident by the continued high price it holds and the amount of people who have faith in it as a store of value, that can be later traded into any fiat currency at a moments notice if required. It is an excellent example of a decentralized model that can take resources from many locations to benefit the majority. |
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It is being reported that the upcoming 94th Academy Awards will be having a new addition. One of which is the Top Fan-Voted Film. "Beginning this Monday, Twitter users will get to vote on their favorite films that were released in 2021 — regardless of if the film was nominated for an Oscar — using the hashtag #OscarsFanFavorite. The film that receives the most fan votes by March 3 will be recognized during the awards broadcast on March 27."[1]Furthermore, "for both the fan-favorite film and cheer moment campaigns, Twitter users will be able to tweet out their submissions up to 20 times a day."[Ibid.]I was thinking of the gambling implication of this. What if somebody places a huge bet, say, a million or two, on a particular film and then activates all kinds of bots and thousands of fake Twitter accounts that could spam the platform of votes 20 times a day every single day from the beginning of voting until the end? In other words, is this open for manipulation?
[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/oscars-twitter-2022-1235092124/Anything is possible, but I'm pretty sure the overwhelming input that achieves a win at these sort of events is a select group of judges aka "critics" who decide based on their own experiences. While they might be influenced by such methods in a tiny way, it's going to be almost insignificant and if the film is more garbage than talent - it would be a huge waste of money for a highly uncertain outcome. I'm not sure what the going odds are on these sort of indie film inclusions, but you'd probably need a huge and sustained advertising budget to get the reach that you're trying to achieve. It's a nice idea and people can be influenced in such ways (aka Donald Trump), the price to do it would be much higher than the returns. |
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This is about Russian ministry to legalize Bitcoin mining in some specific areas in Russia. Russian Ministry wants to legalize Bitcoin mining in specific areasWith this I think even electricity from other businesses including households can be segregated from the energy bitcoin miners are using. This is not what I am concerned about, what I am concerned about is this: The proposal aims to recognize crypto mining as a commercial activity and introduce taxes on its realized profits. Normally, Bitcoin mining is censorship resistant, I do not know how this will be taxed in a way the government of Russia will not make Bitcoin to becoming a centralized asset like making miners addresses compulsorily mandatory for submission for the government to track in a way the government can be able to tax Bitcoin miners in Russia. Or how is this done in countries like US, is Bitcoin mining taxed? The Russian economy is in tatters at present and they have few outlets besides selling resources. Through corruption and crime their businesses are crippled, because nobody can succeed to a large scale independent of government, they either get bullied to relinquish control or worm their way into the existing establishment spiderweb to survive - always having to watch out they don't get undermined. It is a highly inefficient setup and there are currently sanctions layered on top of it. The Russian people themselves are just as competent as any other country and could flourish, but they are stunted by the crony government system they fall under. The Russian government is basically seeing mining as a money making investment, they can convert their energy resources into hard cash instead of selling it as a raw commodity. All these areas will be strictly controlled with the majority of revenues going to the government now they see a money making opportunity in it. |
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The evidence is piling up and it should be criminal to do this sort of subversive advertising - he has a highly impressionable audience which is most likely why Stake.com went to partner with him in the first place. Chances are he never even placed a bet at all and these amounts he claims to walk away with could be carefully orchestrated payments to buy his endorsement. I don't even know or hear of any actions taken by a gambling regulator in America, does one even exist? Because this is prime material that needs investigating and these celebrities are stooping to new depths when they hide their affiliations like this. These people are already super rich but it seems they never have enough. |
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https://www.pymnts.com/cbdc/2022/cbdc-weekly-european-union-says-stablecoin-bill-coEuropean Union Commissioner for Financial Services Mairead McGuinness announced Feb. 9 plans to introduce a bill creating a digital euro next year, according to Politico.
Based on current experiments, that means an EU CBDC could launch as soon as 2025. The EU has been largely bullish on a CBDC for several years. Notably, European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde announced on Twitter in July that the bank had “decided to move up a gear and start the investigation phase of the digital euro project.” The project is slowly moving ahead - this is not an ICO, but a project with potential to change and disrupt many existing business that are based on third party intervention in payments. Lagarde stated in twitter that: We have decided to move up a gear and start the investigation phase of the digital euro project. In the digital age people and firms should continue to have access to the safest form of money – central bank money. While it is a funny way to put it and most of us in crypto may be laughing our asses off on that declaration, essentially this is going ahead. The fintech sector and the banking sector may feel the pressure, although I do not see the EU trying to crash the banks. If you consider a digital, blockchain backed stable coin as the equivalent of cash you have in your wallet - it can be very useful to create a savings system for people who never have the security of carrying cash around (e.g. if you're homeless) while still giving a reasonable control to central banks. Inflation can be integrated and should not be demonized as much as it sometimes is here - the money supply needs to be able to expand and contract. It's nice to hear more countries talking about it, and it's clear they are probably looking at the research that China claims to be doing in this area and does not want to be left behind - although it could have much more sinister undertones in countries that are highly oppressive to their citizens. |
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Live games are really entertaining, is like watching TV while we pace bets. But they are not probably fair, and there are a lot of videos on youtube that show how the rolls are manipulated. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu7400hUA3A) I know they run under a gambling license, but we don't know how rigged the machines are, even the Dice rolls for the Monopoly board could be a replay of a video and not a live roll. That's why I start this topic, I want to know if the people of the community trust in those games. It's best if you consider these as somewhat similar to a roulette board, they will be carefully engineered to mathematically give the house an advantage and probably build in a pretty solid margin of safety for the casino. Nobody can really tell what is going on behind the scenes even though the selling point is the fact it is a "live" game, that gives an illusion of safety - but as you say there are many ways that they can and most likely are rigged. There could be weights placed or activated strategically if the house is not winning and it could all be automated, even the person attending the wheel may have no idea - they are only there to act as entertainment and talk. |
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investors focus on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that has the potential for a Third World War. In addition, there is speculation that the Fed will be hawkish in making the transition to tightening monetary policy, thereby reducing liquidity to the crypto market.
"That was before PBS reported that the United States believed that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had decided to attack Ukraine and had communicated the plan to the Russian military," Ibrahim said in a written statement on Monday, February 14, 2022.
is this the main problem with bitcoin's current decline?
Or is it just FUD about this war?
Source: my country's local news
A few weeks ago Bitcoin was priced at sub-$35k, it is fluctuating constantly and trying to associate it with specific events is rather pointless nowadays. In times of crisis gold was a traditional "flight to safety" and Bitcoin rivals it in functionality, so we should expect the price to go up if anything. A small retracement on it's way back up is a way for certain holders to take small chunks of profit, it's a pullback if we compare to stock market terminology and is often even manipulated by the whales to shake out people if they had plans to buy up more. If you're using leverage then small swings back like that can easily wipe you out, so it's better to have these small corrections occasionally so people don't get too greedy, or at least their greed is fairly contained. |
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https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-makes-first-seizure-nfts-tax-crackdown-2022-02-14/UK makes first seizure of NFTs in tax crackdown
British tax authorities said on Monday they had made their first seizure of non-fungible tokens in a crackdown on suspected criminal activity to hide money.
Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs seized three NFTs after investigating an attempt to defraud the public coffers of 1.4 million pounds ($1.9 million).
Around 5,000 pounds worth of other crypto assets were also seized.
The probe also led to the arrest of three people for alleged value added tax repayment fraud involving 250 fake companies. Now we can see people using NFT for tax evasion and money laundry. We are about to see a lot of new laws and regulations related to bitcoin, cryptocurrency and NFT. I hope they sell this NFT off quick, as you never know how long the "value" will last and it's not government or police business to be in the NFT market. It sounds like whatever the NFT was is a relatively low value asset among many, a small success against fraud in the ocean that exists right now. Ironically they're probably only investing it and getting a prosecution because it is the "taxman" being defrauded in this case - they'll throw everything at the investigation if they figure that out and 250 companies is bound to set off alarm bells, but I bet we only see the tip of the iceberg with the amount of money they really got to spend. If only they investigated every fraud case which such precision. |
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It just depends on how much risk you are willing to take as a player. There are players who prefer to bet around 1.30 odds so that they are favorites. I also know people who do that through a multibet, and then they take 5-6 games around 1.05 odds. You are then a strong favorite to win every match, but the problem is that you can't have anything wrong. It has its pros and cons. With a single bet you can focus on 1 game.
From what was said at the beginning of the thread, the lower the odds the worse the multiplier is for you. If you're stringing together lots of 1.05 bets that are almost guaranteed to win, you're likely walking away with the equivalent of 1.03 instead and you would be better off placing all those bets individually. These parlay bets are magic money makers to sports books, which is why you'll often see special offers like "if one leg of your 4-5 multi-bet lets you down, you'll get a free bet instead" - which is still highly profitable to them that they can run the offer constantly. They also love them because it is hard to lay a bet directly against them most of the time which stops arbitrage. |
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I'm from the states and have been using a betting website to do some light sports betting. They do not allow US citizens and so I used a VPN to gain access. They only require an email address to create an account, and no KYC unless you want to buy crypto directly from them. I will not name the site for various reasons.
Anyways, sometimes I try to login to the site before setting my VPN and it simply tells me I'm in a restricted area. Never had any issues though, I just flip on the VPN and all good. I've been using this site for about 2 months now. Today I logged in and and it was requesting I input my phone number to proceed. It said I can withdraw funds but services were restricted until I enter my phone number. So I created a fake number from Hong Kong, and entered it in. It sent me a code and I entered it. Little did I know Hong Kong is also banned from this site (I know I know, I was just in a hurry to place a bet). Now my account is locked and they will not allow me access to even withdraw until I go through full KYC.
I have about $1,200 of BTC in there, nothing crazy. If I KYC myself they will simply say I broke their TOS and lock me out forever (I did the research on this already). KYC consists of ID, recent bills, and photo of yourself holding ID. The only piece of information this site has on me is an email address.
I have friends who have friends in other countries. Some of those friends of friends live in impoverished countries. What's stopping me from using them to KYC my account and then giving them a piece of the stuck funds? I would only need to gain access to retrieve the funds and would not continue to use the account or website.
Is this a good idea and do you think it will work? Worth the $1,200? My only hesitation at this point is asking the friend and they go through the hassle but then it goes sideways and still do not gain access to my account.
If what you're saying is all genuine, it may be worth naming the site here if you're not making any progress through the direct support channels. There is a small chance that a representative here, if they have one, will be willing to assist you. That being said, you should understand that you almost 100% broke the terms and conditions of usage for the site and they could potentially be within their rights to keep your money. KYC is a legal requirement for many different reasons and is hard for big operations to avoid, you're putting their licensing at risk. It will be gracious of them to allow you to withdraw the money, but you have made so many mistakes and doing things like submitting a Hong Kong phone number for verification just complicated the situation even further. Stop trying to skirt around the rules even more as it sounds like you're thinking of causing even more problems by introducing a "friend" to the situation. |
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As of this writing there is no play-to-earn games exist in the market. You must be saying Axie Infinity is one play to earn game and there are many more, but i will tell you that they are not play-to-earn games, they are infact play-to-earn jobs.  Taking the example of Axie Infinity, you get game token SLPs when you do certain tasks in adventure mode and also complete daily tasks. This is like a job that you do daily and the maximum earning limited on daily is also fixed. You are allowed to take 20 turns and after that even if you play more, there is no reward. You are in fact doing job to collect the tokens. Real games are like you play unlimited times daily and there should be no limit on the earnings or turns. The more you play and win, the more you should get the tokens. This realistic model of earning is missing in all the famous P2E games like Axie infinity or star sharks etc. I wouldn't necessarily say that these games are "a job", they do have an entertainment factor that may not be present when you're working and it is optional which games you want to play. You can look at it in a different way as well, as some games allow you to play and unlock rewards (look at World of Tanks) for example - you might choose to pay $50 upfront to unlock a tank but most of the time you are able to "grind" your way up through the levels to unlock them. This is a sort of useful hybrid model that should be adopted for every game and is probably highly profitable for the gaming studio that runs it. They retain free players and allow people who have lots of money to jump as high up as they want instantly. |
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For the first time the Super Bowl which is the biggest game of the year will feature ads from crytocurrency companies. Multiple 30-second ads would cost a whopping 7 million Dollars per slot. Companies like FXT, Crypto.com, Etoro and BitBuy have joined in the multimillion dollar ads spending spree. The fact is that this spending is not in vain.
Advert in Super Bowl gives companies a unique opportunity to express the unseen side of its brand. 80% of Americans have heard about cryptocurrencies but only 16% have used them. The Super Bowl is a great opportunity to earn new customer and build awareness.
The Super Bowl is a vital medium for over 111.9 million viewers to see the profitability and viability of cryptocurrencies. It would also show the world that crytocompanies can be followed and trusted.
A good advert can earn crytofirms a social media share and increase its social media influence when it goes viral.
Super Bowl ads can spur large revenue and volume like in the case of Budweiser that earned $96 million after advertising on the Super Bowl. Wix revenue increased from $200 million to $204 million in 2015 after its ads in Super Bowl. A research by Fluent, Inc. last year showed that new brands that advertised in the game saw an increase in brand awareness by 36.5% and the lowest was 8.7%
But Stanford Research warned that these Super Bowl ads are not effective when two brands of the same product or service are both advertised during the game. They started that although Super Bowl ads can lead to large increase in revenue and volume, but when two major competing brands advertise, most gains are lost.
It's very interesting to see so many advertisers in one sector at the Super Bowl, you can only come to one conclusion - they are absolutely rolling in money. That money is primarily coming from one place - a small cut of every transaction, either paid in fiat or crypto. It's surprising to see that fees are still so high at some places like Coinbase when they could be much lower and I wonder if there is any sort of collusion on setting minimum fees to help keep the market up. I know at places like localbitcoins.com that there are hardly any intermediary fees, so it's definitely possible to drop them a lot more. It's comforting to know that with so many competing ads in the same sector they are making the adverts less impactful according to your last point - you learn something new every day. |
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Recently the US Secretary of State zoomed to Fiji Island to have discussion with Pacific Island Leaders. The last time such visit happened was 37 years ago. His sole aim is to counter China's influence in that region.
America and the "Quad" are scared that China's aggressive business partnership, infrastructural loans and politically interference in the Pacific will make them loose a strategic partner.
The leaders of the Pacific should cease this opportunity and get the best economic deal. Since both China and US wants their partnership, these leader should consider the offers from both parties and secure the best deal. I am sure the Chinese would visit immediately after the American Secretary leaves the Pacific.
So.. the US is scared because they're visiting Fiji, and you're saying the Chinese should visit after.. because they're scared of losing Fiji? Not much sense to your ramblings. We live in an ever changing world where every country is trying to buy and trade influence, it is only relatively recently that China has turned into the world's factory and earned enough money to be able to offer other countries much in return. For many years they were solely focused inwards and had many troublesome policies that caused their own people immeasurable harm. China was doing much better before Xi Jinping came along and seems to be closing back up in some respects, they're getting more repressive and certainly don't look like a healthy partner if you like freedom, they also struggle to take criticism very well. |
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Yeah, it does tend to pay out once in a while. That's what gets people hooked.
It was that one time I was able to win a multi having 8 selections. Other than this I think I have lost so many bets (including multi) that if I try to find the profit and loss then the loss part will be massive. The frustration with multi you feel most of the time when you miss a long list by only one or two wrong selections. If I remember correctly then I lost a 20 selection for 1 wrong pick and another time it was a 15 selection for 1 wrong pick. The numbers (losing slip) for 7 to 8 selections are used to happened every week. For the record I am not gambling from over 6 months or more now. I don't feel like gambling anymore to be honest. Congrats on staying away from it, many people grow out of it over time or begin to see the futility in it - casinos are not built on money paid out to winners after all. There is a company called "PaddyPower" that offers a promotion called "Beat The Drop" and they will give you a chance to win 250k if you can predict 20 results correctly. Even when I pick the clear favorites, it can be hard to progress past 3-4 wins on a row which just shows how difficult it can be to accurately predict a multi-leg outcome. For anyone doing betting long term, trying to make a return off of it, they would be much wiser to stick with single bets all the time if their picking skills are solid. |
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