The guy will be betting on football(which isn't considered hardcore gambling), as long as he makes small bets I don't think that he could develop a gambling addiction. However, I don't get the point of making spreadsheets of your bets in luck based games. The results would be partially or completely random and no patterns can be formed. Setting your goals like "I will make this amount of BTC out of betting this amount of BTC" is a wrong approach and shows that the guy considers gambling/sports betting as a way to make consistent money.
Only a small percentage of the sports bettors are making consistent profits, I'm 99% sure that a noob cannot make consistent money out of sports betting. He will have to gain lots of experience beforehand.

Very interesting article. I have a question.
You say that atomic swaps with adaptor signatures are better than centralized BTC mixers. Then what's the point of using BTC mixers anymore?
All the criminals and crypto privacy maniacs should start using atomic swaps with adaptor signatures and coinjoin instead of centralized BTC mixers. Like you've said, having a bigger pool of atomic swap transactions will increase the level of anonymity.
There have always been rumors that the authorities are controlling some of the BTC mixers, I don't know if this is true or not.
I think that BTC mixers have become obsolete, since there are better alternatives, so it doesn't matter if they are going to be banned or not.

The market is volatile, the BTC price could go up and down by 5-10%. I expect a short term bear market during the summer.
Historically speaking, the summer isn't the most bullish season for BTC. Maybe there will be price pump by the end of the year or the first quarter of 2025. All the conditions for a bull market are about to be met. The USA keeps printing money. The conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza might come to end(after Trump becomes president, but who knows?), there isn't any major FUD against Bitcoin right now.
I'm sad that I've missed the opportunity to sell more BTC at a price above sixty thousand dollars. Maybe next week, the BTC price will drop bellow sixty thousand and it will stay there for several months.

This year it was Joselu, two seasons ago it was Rodrigo. Real Madrid always has a "golden substitute" player for the big matches.
Anyway, the goal for Bayern, which was canceled due to offside seems like a scandalous decision by the referee. Was there any offside?
I thought that a Real Madrid's defender(maybe Mendi) played with the ball, before the ball got to the Bayern player.
Congrats to Real Madrid for their 15th Champions League trophy. I think that Dortmund won't stand a chance against Real.

Privacy and anonymity weren't the "first thing Bitcoin was originally designed to accomplish". Bitcoin was supposed to be peer-to-peer electronic cash, which can be used without the need of banks and third parties. Just read the whitepaper again. Does it mention anything about privacy and anonymity?
The BTC blockchain was never designed to be anonymous and private. Actually, the BTC blockchain is pretty transparent and transparency is a good thing, because it creates trust.
BTC mixers weren't a thing when the BTC blockchain was created. Why would the BTC blockchain be dependent on the existence of centralized third party services like BTC mixers?

The US federal budget deficit is more than 1.4 trillion dollars. What else do you expect? I'm surprised that the Federal Reserve had stopped printing money. I wouldn't pray for higher inflation and more money printing to boost the BTC price. Higher inflation simply means that fiat money is becoming less valuable in comparison to Bitcoin/crypto. There's no direct short term correlation between US money printing and the BTC price growth. Back in 2022, the US government was still printing money, but the BTC price dropped from 45K to 17K USD.
Also inflation is being measured in a weird way by the US statistics. When an item becomes 15% more expensive, 14% can be written off as an 'increase of quality' of the item, while the remaining 1% is considered "inflation". This is how a country could artificially lower it's inflation levels.

I was really hoping for a Real vs. PSG final match in the UEFA Champions league. Unfortunately, PSG missed too many goal opportunities and Dortmund scored the winning goal for the second time. Mbappe is going to leave PSG after the end of the season and I think that the French team won't find a better player to replace him. Soon PSG will become a mediocre team, that won't have a big presence in the Champions League. A final match between Bayern and Dortmund would be totally unpredictable, and maybe the curse around Harry Kane will do it's job and Dortmund might win this tournament for the second time in history. A final match between Real Madrid and Dortmund will be very predictable.  I think that Real will have 80% chance to win the trophy.

1.It is technically possible, but the costs are higher than the potential profits.

2.What technical implications? I don't know what you are talking about.

3.I don't think that China taking control over Bitcoin will have any geopolitical implications. Maybe the only consequence would be the USA and the western world Banning Bitcoin.

4.If China takes over Bitcoin, most of the BTC developers, miners and users would fork BTC and move to the forked version of BTC. The version of BTC that was taken over by China would become useless and worthless(which makes the whole process of "taking control over Bitcoin" totally pointless).

3.

Manchester United had a weird lineup for the match against Crystal Palace. Bruno Fernandes was missing in the middle and the defensive duo was Casemiro and Evans, which sounds like a joke to me. I don't think that Crystal Palace was that strong, Manchester United was simply too weak and unorganized in defense and the middle. In the fist goal, the Crystal Palace player managed to outplay 3 United players and nobody stopped from shooting right before the penalty line. Manchester United definitely doesn't deserve to get a spot in the ranking, which will allow them to play in the Conference League.

1.A user bets 100 USD and wins 50K USD, but the casino asks for KYC and other documents, so that the gambler could prove that those 100 USD aren't laundered money and are totally legit and clean money with all taxes being paid. Sounds like a joke to me, but it's true.
Who is going to prove that the 49.9K USD won by the gambler aren't laundered money?

2.Is it money laundering, when the casino blocks the gambler's account and keeps the money? No, it's a scam.

3.I wouldn't mind doing KYC before making a deposit, but the problem for the casinos is this. When a casino demands KYC before making a deposit, this will lead to many gamblers running away and choosing other casinos, where KYC is required before the withdrawal, not before the deposit.

OP, your forum thread title seems misleading and "clickbaity". Please elaborate more on why do you think that decentralization is a false proposition. Just because many people don't know anything Bitcoin, that doesn't mean that decentralization is a false proposition.
BTC could be used by 1000 people and it could be used by tens of millions of people. Even if only 1000 people were actively using BTC, that would mean that they are happy with BTC and Bitcoin has utility for them. A certain concept is still valid, even if the majority of the people refuse to adopt it.

You have to distinguish global inflation from local(national) inflation.
Global inflation is caused by the big central banks(The US Federal Reserve, European central bank, etc.) and the disruption of global supply chains(COVID pandemic lockdowns, the Houthi try to capture Israeli ships in the Red Sea, etc.).
Local inflation is caused by dumb and corrupted governments printing money to cover their budget deficits and to create artificial advantage in foreign trade, for example Turkey, Argentine, other underdeveloped countries, etc.
So the answer your question, NO. Global inflation isn't caused by a "combination of all fiat currencies". It's caused by the big central banks and some geopolitical global events.

So basically this "strategy" is to find a bunch of games, that are playing right now and betting on the team that scored the first goal?
This doesn't seem like a sports betting strategy to me. The belief that the team, that scores the first goal usually wins the game isn't very common in football. Hockey games can't end in a draw, while football games could end in draw very often. This changes the odds.
Football games aren't as predictable as other sports. Maybe you should stick to hockey.
The best football betting strategy I know is matched betting. This isn't even a strategy, it's a method to make some easy money out of sports betting bonuses.

I don't know what exactly are you traying to say in your forum thread.
The idea that the governments/banks want to "take control" over the crypto world is nothing more than a conspiracy theory.
Most government/banks around the world don't want to have anything in common with Bitcoin/crypto. They would rather ban it than trying to take control over it. You have to distinguish the centralized crypto companies, that have to abide by the law, and the people with cold wallets, who aren't using centralized crypto services.
No regulations and bans are working in a perfect way. Illegal drugs are banned in most countries around the world and there are millions of drug addicts. The same applies to every ban that is imposed by the governments. There will always be criminals, who are taking advantage of the ban by selling illegal stuff.

Situation A would be a nightmare for all business owners. Deflation is a predecessor of recession/depression and growing unemployment rates.
Even if you enjoy a growing purchasing power due to falling prices, you might end up losing your job and your monthly income.
I prefer situation B, 2% inflation is really low and I prefer low inflation over deflation. Any inflation above 2% or even above 5% would lead to a bad situation for me and for many employees.

The governments no longer requiring KYC? Is this a joke? I'm sure that the governments will start requiring KYC from the users of cold wallets at some point. Of course that the casinos will go back to non-KYC, if there was a real possibility for this to happen. All gamblers hate KYC.
It's not just the gamblers. All people hate submitting their sensitive data to websites and services, that can be hacked. Maybe some casinos would keep the KYC procedures as an excuse to block the funds of certain gamblers. We've been there and we know about those shady practices. KYC verification is here to stay and soon it might become mandatory to verify your identity in order to use the internet.

There's no "one size fits all" type of answer to this question. Not all BTC HODLers are the same. Some people are HODLing small amounts of BTC, so they most likely wouldn't be able to buy a house/apartment, even if they sell at the next Bitcoin ATH price. Other people are HODLing big amounts of BTC, so they could invest in another business or buy a big real estate property after they sell. I'm a member of the first group of Bitcoin HODLers, so I can't afford a house or apartment with my BTC, even if the price hits 100K. To be honest, I really don't know how to spend the money after I sell and I hate making long term plans. Those BTC in my wallet are my financial "safety net".

Turning Bitcoin into a privacy coin would lead to a mass government ban of BTC around the world.
The BTC price would most likely go back to the levels before 2015. I'm sure that 90% of the Bitcoin investors don't want this to happen.
They prefer big profits over privacy. I kinda understand them. Bitcoin being a speculative financial asset with a potential future price of 100K USD(or even more) is way more exciting than BTC being a privacy coin used only by shady people and criminals, with a price in the range of 100USD-1000USD. Achieving full privacy in the modern day internet is almost impossible.

Why would equal distribution reduce the value of gold to zero? This doesn't make any sense to me.
Gold has utility(some industries use it as a raw material) and gold has been used as a medium of exchange and a store of value for centuries.
The process gold mining comes with mining costs, which also play a role in determining the value of this precious metal.
The global market isn't static. Just because some asset or resource is equally redistributed among all the people, that doesn't mean that it will stay that way forever. Some people will simply sell their gold, while others will do the best they can to buy more of it.

I don't care about the device. All I care about is the User Interface of the casino/sportsbook.
I usually prefer desktop/laptop, but if the casino/sportsbook has a convenient app with great design, I don't mind using my smartphone as well. Having a bigger screen doesn't change anything, unless you have problems with your eyes. A bigger screen won't solve the issues with a bad User Interface or the lack of certain features. I can assume that some people hate gambling on a smartphone, because they might click on the wrong place on the touch screen and make a mistake. Having a big keyboard eliminates that risk.