Looking at the chart alone, it seemed extremely obvious that we would be retesting the $20K level as it was a textbook head and shoulders pattern that was forming. I thought with insane inflation that this pattern might have difficulty completing, but today it definitely seems to be moving in that direction. If we do see a drop to $20K, I’ll be a buyer.

I snatched this list off of Twitter but I thought it was cool so I’m posting it here. It shows the prominent players that are expected to be moved this off-season and the teams that have the best odds of getting them. Not so sure the Lakers would let LeBron leave and then sign Kyrie…

LeBron James: Mavericks
Damian Lillard: Heat
James Harden: Rockets
Kyrie Irving: Lakers
Russell Westbrook: Knicks
Trae Young: Lakers
Chris Paul: Spurs
Draymond Green: Jazz
Fred VanVleet: Suns
Khris Middleton: Thunder
Nikola Vucevic: Celtics
Brook Lopez: Rockets
Al Horford: Hawks
D’Angelo Russell: Suns
Dillon Brooks: Heat
DeAndre Ayton: Mavericks

I'm not a big KCP fan but I will say that picking him up was the final piece they needed to get over the top.  I think he's the weak spot in their starting rotation but does his job well enough for them to win at the highest level.  I'd be looking to upgrade him or continue developing Bruce Brown to take his spot.  The Lakers on the other hand could have used him on their roster and I think losing players like KCP and Dwight Howard are the reason the Lakers struggled after their bubble win.  I'm a little curious what actions the Nuggets are going to take with their roster this offseason.  As long as they keep Jokic, Gordon, Porter, & Murray though, they'll be just fine.

With the Fed set to make an announcement today on the future of their overnight rate, investors are all watching and waiting to see how the market will react.  What do you think the Fed should do?  Should they continue raising rates until inflation is completely squashed and the job market sees an increase in unemployment to above desired levels? or should they stop raising rates out of fear of sending the economy into a recession and causing another real estate crash?  Maybe you think they should get ahead of a recession and lower rates to keep the economy booming?  What do you think?

The news today is that Nate Diaz was pushing hard for a 10 round fight and finally Jake said OK.  Then Nate reversed his position and says he's fine with a shorter fight.  Not sure what the point of this was, but it seems to me like they rushed into the announcement a little bit and they're still trying to get the details worked out.  I haven't changed my mind though after seeing more footage of Nate boxing.  I think Jake will win and Nate will end the night covered in blood.  If they met outside of a boxing ring though, Nate would choke Jake out in less than a minute and I'd put money on that.

Pretty sure I've commented on this before but gambling and money are not necessarily a hand in hand marriage.  For example, we can bet on an outcome and instead of money, maybe we bet our time on a chore or some other favor.  Going farther, you can even ask what is money?  Is gambling Bitcoin gambling money?  Is gambling gold gambling money?  I think that in itself is enough to consider this question as answered.  Yes, you can gamble anything, not just money.  You can even gamble things that aren't physical, like time and effort. 

Are the regulators really going to allow this to happen?  Given that they're currently attacking Binance and Coinbase, it seems odd that the bad actor in the space (FTX) is their darling that they can't wait to get operating again.  This after costing investors billions of dollars and leaving many people who thought they were rich struggling to make basic life payments to maintain a home.  I don't even know how the SEC can pretend to be looking out for investors.  At this point they're basically openly attacking the crypto industry and trying to get their scams put in place to control the markets.  Shameful.

I know I've commented on this thread before but another thread on this board seems to have displayed perfectly what happens when someone tries to make a constant income in a game of chance.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5451287.0

That user started out with $500 and bet on the NBA playoff games hoping to make a ton of money.  They eventually closed the thread when they gambled away all their money leaving them with a $0 balance.  This is a pretty common experience for gamblers, but it's interesting to see it play out live to see all the bets and how their wallet was emptied.  In short, gambling isn't a job and those who try to make it such will be reminded of this fact in short order.

I love Bitcoin too and think it's important to separate money from state.  However, the rest of your comment doesn't really ring true anymore.  Bitcoin can't scale to help everyone be their own bank and fees are so high that the people who need it the most are priced out of using it.  Sure, you have terrible solutions with no chance of becoming a long term fix like Lightning that think they will be able to solve this problem, but that has been shown to be bullshit with the recent Ordinals "attack" on the network.  Bitcoin is no longer about being your own bank, it's about being one of the haves instead of the have nots.  It has lost it's way, but hopefully we can all get rich enough not to care about selling out our fight to change the world for the better.

I agree with your thoughts here.  MATIC is an awesome coin that is able to assist in a lot of use cases where Ethereum is too expensive.  My concern is also one you mentioned, that there are many large MATIC whales sitting on enormous profits that could dump at any time.  I don't think a country wants to make individuals insanely wealthy only to get dumped on in the end, and this is sort of why Bitcoin is the most attractive coin for large entities like countries.  MATIC also is growing extremely quickly and experiencing growing pains at times, so I don't think it's ready for widespread use yet.  I do see it currently being the most likely metaverse currency though.

I think that is probably the best solution even if it isn't the one I voted for.  Mostly, I don't want to download any software and I don't think it makes sense for end users to do anything. The amount of man hours that would be wasted by so many people each having to individually solve this issue would be a shocking waste of time.  Sure, having the images just transferred to talkimg would be the best solution for end users, but it would require trusting another service not to do the same thing as imgur.  Replacing with links seems to be the least time consuming solution that would also not add additional points of failure.  I'll be glad when it's done.

All things considered I think the final game of the NBA season went as it should have and gamblers should be happy.  You had to think the Nuggets would win at home and if you bet on that then you were a winner.  The spread and the Heat having their backs against the wall also made the Heat + 7.5 a good bet to make and the one that I would have chosen.  Both bets were winners and I imagine those were the two most popular bets made by basketball watchers, so all is well that ends well.  Now when can we start betting on Stake about where players will end up once the trades start kicking off.

I'm not so sure about that.  Liberals have shown they would rather drain the strategic oil reserves than drill for any oil here.  I never thought that oil independence would be possible in this country, and Trump did it in a single term.  Democrats then quickly reversed that and drained all our oil stockpiles to try and make themselves look good politically.  This level of stupidity can't be understated and I suspect that no liberal will ever be on board with fracking.  Maybe Trump can get elected and perform another miracle, but if not, I think the Saudis will continue being our pimps and getting rich from our oil thirst while aiding our enemies and making a mockery of our attempts to sanction them.

This is why I don't especially like when people are overly categorized by opinions.  Everyone is different and although some temperaments might be considered more aligned with certain outcomes, there are always those who buck the trend.  For example, Steve Jobs was often remembered as a guy with a bad temperament and many would likely think that sort of thing would keep you from being the CEO of a major company, and it did for a while when he was kicked out of Apple, but his skills brought him back to breathe life into the company.  This displays that while attitude is important, you need the ability to perform in order to be successful.

As someone who was raised in California I can tell you that I'm no stranger to wildfire smoke.  Plenty of summers were filled with disgusting days on the lake that led to fleeing the area for cleaner air.  Most of us when living in a wildfire prone area have become accustomed to having friends within driving distance that are willing to host us when things get bad.  Now that I live in Arizona, I've even become a spot where some of my California friends will come to escape the smoke from wildfires.  I'd advise you to not stick around and deal with air filters, but just leave and take a vacation.  Turn a negative into a positive.

If you've ever taken a look at shops in crazy expensive places like the beaches in California and you'll notice something strange.  The real estate prices are so high that many large businesses can't afford to operate their.  However, you also see a lot of Mom and Pop type of shops that have been there forever.  The difference in the ones that got rich vs the shops that failed are whether or not they owned their building.  Shops that purchased their real estate ended up getting rich from valuations, while shops that rented all met the same fate of being priced out of the market.  I could see Bitcoin being the next wave of this phenomenon, where shop owners that held onto some Bitcoin over the years ended up wealthy, while those who didn't were eventually forced to close.

With the hangover from ETH still holding down the market, most of the people I know who were GPU mining during the last bubble in 2021 have given up mining.  Even those in areas with insanely cheap power that could still be mining profitably are no longer interested and don't see it as their opportunity to easily get rich anymore.  This fatigue is usually when I see the market changing.  I will admit I've also shut down my miners that were barely profitable due to heat in the summer not making it worth the cooling effort.  In my experience, times like now when mining seems like a lost cause is when it's the most profitable looking back.

That chart does do a good job of displaying just how early we still are.  If Bitcoin does continue it's rise, I think the largest increases are still in our future.  Many people still consider Bitcoin a speculative investment, myself included and I don't think that will change until iOS has a BTC wallet and people are using it to buy products from Walmart.  I suspect that won't happen for several more years, maybe 5+, but if and when it does, it wouldn't surprise me to see a 7 figure Bitcoin price.  The world is going to be a strange place when content creators and speculative investors are the ones making big bucks while doctors and lawyers are asking them for advice.

I would agree that Bitcoin is nearing the next leg up.  I think a little bit of concern around the mtgox situation still remains, but once that is behind us I think we'll end the year in the $40K range.  The real fireworks will begin at the end of next year though.  I think if you're holding Bitcoin here, you have to commit to holding until the 2025 top plays out just to see what you could get if the market does repeat itself again for the 4th time.  I have my concerns whether the Bitcoin economy can survive another massive price increase, but I do suspect we'll get our answer shortly after the next Presidential election in the US.

I think most people believed that the Miami Heat wouldn't win this series.  I don't think they could have beaten the Lakers either.  Boston might have had a chance, but couldn't get over the hump.

Congrats to the Denver Nuggets.  They have a great young roster and I have no doubt they'll be one of the 4 teams left standing towards the end of next season.

Now all eyes are on free agency.  It looks like the Suns are going to be the first ones to make a splash as they are desperately trying to get anything they can for Chris Paul and are also looking at trading DeAndre Ayton for someone like Terry Rozier, which I think will be a mistake.