It's funny but some circles and groups in our locality have been facilitating the buying and selling of Pi Coins. They are really great in deceiving a lot of people and making them believe that what they're buying is actually worth something, without realizing that they cannot dump Pi in the event that everyone wanted to throw the project overboard. It's been like 2 or 3 years since they announced this project and up to now, no mainnet can be seen and not even a testnet.

It's crazy how people still believe that the promises of the Pi Network will ever come to fruition. Come to think of it, how would exchanges and other entities make money facilitating the trades and exchange of this coin that doesn't even have its mainnet up yet? How can these entities move funds from wallets A to B with certainty that they aren't going to lose something in the process?

Right. Why go the obvious shaky path when you can always travel the already-paved road anyway? But I guess it also has something to do with the earning opportunities that bitcoin and crypto presents to the African people. There's not much opportunity for Africans to earn money due to a lot of corrupt leaders and public officials that hinder the economic growth of their countries. With bitcoin, you can easily buy those or work for those and keep it, and hope for the best—at least that's the way I see it.


Much, much less for sure. Most of these transactions don't even include payments too, as it's just traders and speculators, big exchanges, and other entities moving funds around trying to keep up with the market or just trying to get their money somewhere else.


But if micropayments is what the Africans want, they can use their own currencies for that, or even USD if the value of their currency is really low. The state of bitcoin right now isn't really great for micropayments unfortunately, and obviously Africans know this. Given how bitcoin boomed a lot in the past years, I think the line of thinking is to be able to get as much bitcoin as possible before it booms again and make a fortune for these merchants. It's as if they're banking heavily on the possibility of bitcoin going off again in terms of its price.

For dice, a weekly tiered cashback promotion would be nice, even though I know that I'll only ever get so far considering the amount that I'm spending per session. This year, I would try to reach more of these bonuses that I have ignored in the past few years just to add some more thrill to my gambling experience. I purposely ignore bonuses back then because I believed it will only stray me away from the enjoyment as I will be a lot more focused in reaching the goal to unlock said bonus before actually enjoying.

For sports betting, some free bets every now and then would be very welcome. Not a lot of bookies offer free bets anymore, and it wouldn't hurt if a bet or two would be given to their patrons just to keep them engaged, or just to help new players build confidence on their bets before putting in a lot more money for the casino.

Celtics would be a good pick. They are the ones on the road and their recent home performances were very poor compared to their away performances. Tatum and Brown have been putting in the work and effort to come out on top very recently, putting 29 points each for their match against Clippers with a close 116-110 win. On paper, the Celtics wins against Nuggets, but this is even furthered with the Celtics' on the road record compared to Nuggets' recent performances.


Bucks is the play. Antetokounmpo without Holiday and Middleton has been feeling a little confident, although the defense of the team is still rather shaky without these two guys on the court. Compared to the Wizards' record recently, Bucks look a little more solid and a little more composed. The Wizards started the season strong, but is slowly falling off without much answer as to why that is the case. It's hard to get heated early and lose steam as the season progresses.

I remember stumbling upon a mahogany coffee table in an auction that is worth more than $20,000 albeit being the most basic coffee table I have ever seen. Compared to today's standards, the design of that coffee table is pretty simple, but the carvings are very intricate. A few drinks and some random chatters after, I found out that this mahogany table is crafted in the 30s and has been very well-kept by its previous owners and is just decided to be sold because they needed the money. Furnitures can be extremely expensive, especially those made with hardwoods with excellent condition. Pianos are also expensive depending on the age and the condition of the instrument. Heck, even old unplayable pianos can be valuable to the right buyer that knows their stuff around these things.


I agree, you have to create the demand in order to reap the profits. Sometimes all you need is a few tools, some spare money to do some work, and your smartphone in order to take cool pictures and post it in social media then bam, you now have a new business that's waiting for you.


Hasn't Google retracted that decision and crypto-related websites now have ads with them? Upon reading here, you just have to meet certain conditions in order to have ads on your cryptocurrency-related website.


So you just have to bend over and do as Google says in order to keep their ads running on your content. Yikes.

Pretty sure a lot families who previously bought everything in bulk are now just opting to buy in retail in order to "save" or not spend too much on one thing and still have the budget to spend on the other. Luckily for us it hasn't come to that point yet, but boy it's ridiculous how much every single item costs nowadays compared to its previous prices.


OP is surely from the Philippines. It's crazy how onion is much, much more expensive than that of the main ingredients for a basic meal. We in the upper middle class even skipped meals that require onions in order to complete the recipe. That's how things are currently here, and the government is adamant that there isn't some kind of hoarding that's going on nor the onion sellers are banding together to create an artificial shortage of a commodity that can easily be farmed even at the comfort of our homes.

We just planted our own onions in our garden hoping to be self-sufficient when it comes to these simple spices that can heavily be controlled by traders at will.

Hereis an article from CNN Philippines outlining how bad the current situation is. Prices of onions per kilo doubled almost overnight just because of the holiday season.


That's the crazy part. The country is known to have very fertile soil apt for growing onions all year round, except during hurricane seasons but still, there are loads of farmlands wherein you can grow onions without a problem. A lot of crops, vegetables, spices, and literally anything that a farmer can produce here in the Philippines, we now import. According to official reports from the government, the country didn't produce enough onions approaching the holiday season. Imports are also not that good hence the limited supply. Onion is a very important commodity in here, especially during the holidays, and so a lot of people are speculating that this is an orchestrated attempt to gouge the prices in order to make a huge profit off of the situation.


I heard electronic components became a lot cheaper and readily available in 2022 compared to 2021. If they were really cheaper, PC parts should also be included but unfortunately that's not the case, although the prices of GPUs and RAMs were relatively cheaper compared to 2020 and 2021 that's for sure.

Never knew about this myth, though I always have the impression that Japanese boxers are good because most of them seem to have mostly perfect/clean records if you just watch their match history. And also, I thought the Japanese are only biased in judging when it comes to wrestling and nothing more. Turns out, even professional boxing is rigged if they want it to be rigged. On Japanese boxers, Inoue is the one I always watch, which is why I didn't have this impression that the Japanese can also be unfair in judging boxing. I just thought that they're really, really good.

Might also be the reason why not a lot of Japanese professional boxers can be named in the international scene.


It's hard to take things as fact as it will slowly plague the sport and it will lose its credibility over time. People will soon start to unfollow the sport resulting to its downfall if things such as this will only be accepted as a normal occurrence. Fans can always complain about the result, and the players' corner can always file a complaint if they think the decision is unfair. Pretty sure with enough publicity and enough negative public opinion, these things will diminish.


True, this is why a lot of boxers nowadays aren't really focusing for longevity inside the ring. Most of their training regiments often involve stances and positions that the boxers can utilize to deliver knockout punches. That's why a lot of the newer generations that we see right now have those killer punches that can easily end the round. No one wants to be in that ring for a long time, they all want to get things over with in a jiffy and finish things in a convincing manner.

Poole needs to make work of handling the ball around and not just relying heavily on passes and assists to make a play. Currently, all eyes are on him and Thompson as they're the ones putting in the points and getting the gears going for GSW while Curry is away. The good thing with GSW is most of them know how to score points from the three-point area, so it's not really that hard to rotate the ball around whenever the defense is tight. But going back to Poole, I think he's a great talent, obviously not just a substitute and can complement his playing style with Curry. The guy knows how to play with the team when he doesn't need to do the scoring, it's just that when he's the one tasked to do so, he kind forgets that it's not a 1v9 game.


I think Klay can carry Poole in terms of mental fortitude and conditioning the mind of the rookie on the road. Plus you have Wiggins nearing his return to the game. The rookie's got the best support that he can get on the team, all the while proving to people that he's the real deal and his talent is not only for his home court. They just need a little more wiggle to find their groove, and even though they've lost a lot recently on the road, I still believe that they'll be able to bounce back and get a good record before Curry joins the team after resting from his injury.

It's dumb, and people who do this really need help because they themselves wouldn't really recognize that what they're doing is way out of line until it's too late and they have lost quite a significant amount in what they're doing. People need to control their urges and there's really no better way to do it than recognizing early on that something is wrong if they're doing just this.


Desperation sometimes force people to look into gambling as a way to get some money to pay debt, or to gain quick money for other purposes. Apart from that, there really isn't any reason for a person to chase losses. Perhaps if that person really is struggling financially they shouldn't have gambled in the first place but hey, regrets always come last for a reason.

Another thing is perhaps that person really is deep into their gambling addiction that they feel the need to always chase losses even if it cost them a lot more than what they can lose. If your brain is wired to react the same way on something that continuously happens to you, you won't realize that you're having the same response to address the same scenario over and over again, all the while expecting a different outcome in your mind.


There aren't any straightforward measures to combat chasing a loss. You wouldn't really consider preventing it from happening up until you address that it's a problem that needs fixing. One way to prevent doing this is just setting a limited budget for gambling each month, and sticking with that strict budget no matter what happens. Mix with it your money for your needs and you'll have a hard time thinking of gambling more than what you have allotted for yourself because your next meal is on the line. Sure you may always borrow to your friends, but you'll have to really think before doing so because you will pile up your debt in no time.

I use EV in my investments but totally not in gambling. I just assess whether the investment is good or not by using expected value, but I will not have any time doing this mathematical calculation just for a single roll in dice. Besides, I'm here to enjoy the games, not try to win with every chance that I can get. If I am going for the money, I'd turn to my investments and my full-time job, not gambling—especially not dice. I can do EV in sports betting and get some good returns by choosing which events to play on and which events to pass (even if it's an inviting one due to it being highly probable to be a win) but there's a lot of work that needs to be done and I'm mainly there to watch the games and have fun.


Well, there are people who know in-depth math but chose to gamble, although the games that they are playing are not probability/luck-based but more on those that can be mathematically beaten (poker, blackjack, etc.) so there's that.


It only becomes worth it if you are big enough to cause some trouble on the casino's bankroll. Until then would they be making their moves in order to get you out or for you to quit playing on their casino and move on. I've seen some guys screw casinos with huge winnings on sports bets, and whether or not it's due to the help of math (which we know there will be some math involved in there), they still drained the casinos funds and moved happily with what they win, regardless if they get banned on that casino or not. So yes, it's possible to win against the casinos using math on your bets—only if you're a big baller.

Not surprised about these numbers anymore, but what I'm surprised is how people managed to get from billions to 0 in just a single year (with the exception of SBF, of course). Once bitcoin surges, these names will top the list of billionaires once more and people will wonder how they get to there. Not everyone is trained to trade like these guys do, and not everyone has the heart to take all of the loses like these big guys do. Pretty sure at the onset of the reds, most people will find it easier to just sell at a loss than to bear seeing their losses materialize right before their very eyes.

Even in stocks, a lot of losers have emerged too. Everything you can invest on performed relatively bad in 2022, and there's really no performing asset that you can hold onto on the previous year save for precious metals that retained their value pretty well. No one was safe from the harsh reality of 2022 that we have just experienced.

You're not wrong when you say that each passing year is worse than the previous one, but you're not wholly correct either.

It depends on which metrics and standards you're comparing from the passing year and the previous year. While it's a given that the economic conditions will continue to worsen as we enter a new year, there are also some aspects that may get better, such as technology, our knowledge in a lot of things, etc.

But yeah, generally each passing year beats the previous one in a pretty negative way. 2022 was worse than 2021, especially the prices of a lot of food and necessity. Heck, a lot of middle-class families I know opted to just do a drive thru and ordered some food instead of cooking their own in New Year's Eve, which is pretty telling of how expensive it is to cook your own food as of the moment when you're trying to celebrate for an occasion. Hopefully 2023 turns this around, although with what 2022 left behind, I doubt we're in a position to really overcome what we've just went through that easily. Russia-Ukraine war is still raging, prices keep on soaring, and a lot of uncertainty in the public regarding their futures is looming.

Anyway, here's to hoping for a better 2023. Happy New Year everyone!

At this point I don't think people will miss out on projects that will introduce stablecoins. Pretty sure we've all had our fill with the recent FTX issue, and we will avoid anything similar like the plague. Heck, we're still having doubts with USDT and BNB up to now even though these two are already established and belongs to companies that have already proven their worth in the scene (except USDT of course).

There will be a lot of people that will still be greedy for profits, and those people will surely buy in to these projects that offer to bring out a new stablecoin, and I guess it's just right of them to invest on those because for sure, after a lot of warnings, if they don't read the signs, they deserve to get burned.

Just checked it on my phone and it's still unavailable for me (APAC region). Any move that opens cryptocurrencies to a wider public is a welcome one, also considering that these two companies used to block anything related to cryptocurrencies. Now they are enabling their services to open an avenue for people to get in on the crypto train. I'd never thought Apple and Google will give in to cryptocurrencies, but they just did and it's even their payment gateways that they opened. Also mad props to Binance for making this happen, as they are the only exchange that will have this enabled currently. CZ may not be the most likeable person in the crypto industry, but you can see how he's trying to push the limits and break barriers in order for crypto to be accessible to a wider audience.



For us who has been around the cryptospace for quite some time, we may not really trust centralized services to handle things on our behalf. But what Binance is doing is helping those who wanted to try crypto for themselves. For sure people are aware how their data is being handled nowadays, and they still don't care. A lot are still succumbing to social media which farms a lot of your information, so what difference will it make if they decided to not use this and go the hard route just to try cryptocurrencies?

Not that I'm advocating centralization. It's just that the ease of use and access to cryptocurrencies is far greater when you opt to go the centralized route.

It was pretty bad from the get go, and to think that the bulk of the reason why this downward trend is continuing is because of two events that are not really related to bitcoin: Luna (TERRA) and FTX. We were showing signs of stability and a possible push back to at least $20k in November, but all of it fell down because of the uncertainties brought forth by FTX's downfall. We were so close into seeing a stable $20k pricing, but SBF and Alameda Research really has to go bonkers and bring with them the whole cryptomarket.



At least people now try to learn at the expense of others. A lot of hacks have happened in the past but people are still not that keen on taking their funds outside of exchanges. They literally waited for one of the biggest exchange to have this scandal before they learn and get their funds to the safety of their own devices/machines. That adage rings true after a lot of people lost their money in FTX due to SBF and Alameda's great money management skills: not your keys, not your bitcoin.

When in doubt, just single it out

If you have some money to spare, I guess going for singles instead of a parlay is better than just placing one bet in a single parlay. Seeing that those odds are also high, expect that a lot of those games you have picked will have a different outcome than you have imagined. While in soccer, it's not really that uncommon to see these odds given how hard it is for teams to score against another, those odds are optimized by odds providers, hence those are the most probable outcome that can happen with a huge margin of error of course, which explains why favorites might get a 2.5 odds against a 3.5 on the opposing team.

Personally I'm up for chasing huge multipliers, but not every huge number has some value in it. I've learned that the hard way when betting with teams that I think were on the greener side of the playing field just because of their recent results against other teams. It pays to know every aspect of the bet and not get attracted by the seemingly juicy odds that the bookmaker is providing you.

You're in for a treat if you think lottery numbers can be predicted and follow certain patterns and use historical data to produce future draws. There were a number of studies trying to use Mathematics in order to predict future draws—or at least get close to what the actual numbers are. Most of them, in paper and in theory, seem sound and would have likely worked. However, when they're applied in the real world they're not even close to what the actual numbers are. Sure, computers can try and exhaust all the possible numbers that are most probable to appear in the draws, but the number of these combinations would surely be high still, and if you want to hit one big win you will have to invest in a number of combinations and of course, some substantial amount of $$$ without any guarantee that those numbers presented to you will hit.

Perhaps if you're one of those people behind the scenes during a lottery draw, you would know the outcomes. Results can be rigged, and it's as easy changing some balls with lighter ones and tada! You just have won a few million dollars thanks to cheating and your access to those magic balls of destiny.


True, no matter how exhaustive your analysis is, and no matter how much processing power you have put in to come up with a pattern, or even with a system of predicting future draws, you will always lose your money to the lottery no matter what.

If lottery is that easy to crack, and if there is a system to it, then why aren't mathematicians and computer scientists band together and get the prize every single time?

I gamble for fun, and believe it or not even after I make a profit on my account, I will just leave it there in the casino and use it for next week once I play again. People like us exist, and every time Saturday comes, I already look forward to losing $20 in the casino because I know I won't win anything. It's not like I hate winning or that I don't care about winning, it's just that I already accepted the fact that the small wins here and there will never be a permanent streak, and that's what I'm chasing - the small wins.

But of course if I win big on the casino, I'd probably think twice in leaving that amount or cashing it out. The most I've won with dice is $100+, and I still leave it there and thought that it will be 5 weeks worth of gambling budget for me. I enjoy playing dice, especially if I see my balance slowly going up after a series of bad beats. Then again, I'm just after the thrill, the excitement - basically the emotions that one can get when playing with something that involves luck and chance in the same sentence.

You're looking at a lot of problems if you're a registered business and you're not declaring your profits and your proceeds. Normally I'd say "fuck the governments" when it comes to bitcoin and crypto, but this one you have a lot of things on your plate—your business and its legality—so you really should just go ahead and be safe than sorry.

Question is, would the amount of bitcoins you have received as payment enough for you to not give a fuck about the future problems it may cause to you and your business? If the answer is yes, then go ahead and don't declare it as part of your profits; launder it as much as you can. If the answer is no, then just go to your tax department and ask for consultation on what needs to be done in order for you to continue receiving bitcoin payments and not cause a hassle to yourself in the future.

It all just boils down on the amount of bitcoins received (at least for me), and I'm pretty sure the same goes to you as well.

Can't see anything wrong with this. At the end of the day you are gaining something passively. People are already getting their information used by a lot of companies, and those information are the same as this one, so what difference does it do if I sold these information to another company? At least this one asked for my consent, and is constantly paying me monthly with beer money so long as I keep providing the same information that they need.

With how our information is handled, I'd rather sell mine than give it away for free without me knowing how they obtain these and how they are using it.