A short answer is, it can't

A long answer is, it can't because it remains a speculative asset, which basically means the only way you can purposefully use Bitcoin en masse is by buying it low and selling it high, i.e. engaging in speculation (or trading if you don't quite like the term I used). But in this case those who have deep pockets have an indisputable advantage before those who have only holes in their pockets. So Bitcoin can actually contribute to greater inequality or, at the very best, to moving wealth from wealthy hands into even wealthier ones

It is impossible to predict because Bitcoin is a purely speculative asset

You can take a look at a commodity like crude oil and you will see how real value backs up its price even despite a huge derivatives market which is mostly speculative in nature. It is not uncommon for crude oil to have price swings in the range of a dozen percent within a single day (though not every day, obviously), but I don't remember even one case in the recent history when oil dropped in price like two times within a couple of weeks (or even a couple of months). Yes, it went down from $140 per barrel down to below $30 but it took a few years

Somehow I missed that part

What is the minimum amount I have to deposit to get this "full base reward" and in which currency is it calculated exactly? To avoid possible misunderstanding, is it the same as "FREE BTC reward", which is now equal to 0.00001064 BTC? And if these are the same, will the full base reward remain the same as long as the minimum balance requirement is satisfied? Won't this reward diminish with the number of FREE BTC rolls increasing?


Established casinos don't need outside money as they have enough dough on their own (a hint, they can even run signature campaigns)

I would say it depends

For example, if Bitcoin's volatility was in the range of 5-10% a day (or every other day) but the price would still stay in the same range for months without either abrupt crashes or as abrupt surges, it would be one thing. And if the price stayed the same with insignificant volatility (say, on the order of 1% daily) for a month and then crashed a couple times within a short week, that would be a completely different thing

People don't easily adapt unless they have to and it is a matter of their own survival. And then you will be surprised how fast this process can go. For example, if a local currency is being massively devalued by the corrupt and incompetent government (like it happened in Zimbabwe and is now happening in Venezuela), people will quickly start using other currencies as well as Bitcoin, provided it is technically available to them (i.e. they have Internet access). They will adopt anything that will help them save their wealth (if they have it, of course)

As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention

But when the time comes?

If you don't know (I don't know either, just in case), how can you actually say that it is yet another instance of wishful thinking? I don't necessarily disagree with you (as I also come to think that low prices are here to stay), I just want to point out that your opinion (as well as mine, for that matter) is only an opinion and not much different from the opposite one in terms of probabilities. In the summer of 2015 people were even less optimistic (or more pessimistic if you please), while in reality they only had to wait till the fall of that year

Well, now I feel a bit confused. If you say that everything runs on the blockchain as well as "there is no database or no register so there is nothing that could go wrong in terms of money", who does the address at the starting page of the casino belong to? Who has the private keys from this address? Apart from that, you say in the OP that "please do not bet over 0.01 BTC, any bets made over 0.01 BTC will be returned". Does it mean that you have the keys and as you decide to return the money, you may as easily decide not to return it?

What am I missing?

No one is refusing you the right to come up with a biased opinion (or draw an incorrect conclusion)

Or give out an input as you call it. Technically, it does look like a school project so far, and not only to your view. I also think so, and thus there's no need to go full defensive. We are on the same page, really. However, we should remember that all big projects started small. For example, the Linux operating system started as a simple terminal, "just for fun" (nothing serious). For those who don't know what Linux is, it is the operating system running on your Android device (provided you have one) and on 99% of the most powerful supercomputers in the world (if this tells you something)

I can't quite agree with you

Well, actually, I agree with you that faucets are not a source of income, but neither are casinos, let's be honest here. If anything, it is casinos which should be used for fun and entertainment purposes only. With that said, though, I read somewhere around here that early faucets had been paying whole bitcoins in 2010-2011, so it in fact remains to be seen whether they can't be used as a source of income provided you are patient enough to wait a few (dozen) years

I think you make incorrect comparisons and draw incorrect conclusions

The scams you mention are only using the term as a buzz word to attract guileless investors. They could use any other word (provided it attracts people as honey attracts bees), I don't know what they were using in the dotcom era, let it be Internet, for example. Does it take anything from the technology itself if these ICO's and startups had never really intended to deliver a working product in the first place, based on the blockchain or whatever else?


This point most of us can safely agree with

Scarcity alone won't suffice

If something is scarce, it doesn't mean that it will have a price tag attached. It should also be useful for something. Really, why would you care about something which is of no help to you? Will you care if it is scarce or not? Bitcoin has a price tag because it is not just scarce but it is also useful at that for a variety of things like a store of value, a means of payment, a device for transferring wealth, and also as a vehicle for speculation (we can't discard such a use)

You definitely won't get much more than you get now

And if Bitcoin flies to the moon, the interest rates are likely to decline. I don't know your reasons for making this investment (I mean the interest accumulated will be small to make a real difference anyway), but have you tried investing in the casino bankroll of the dice sites which allow such investments and pay dividends from their earnings? While it may look riskier, but when you come to think of it, it is still the same systemic risk mostly (of hacks, inside jobs, extremely lucky whales, etc)

Past performance is not indicative of future outcomes

As I already answered in another thread, people in the dotcom era were likely thinking the same about startups which had been only rising since the first day they were created (when everything around these people had already started to fall apart). Anyway, it is not a question of whether to short Bitcoin or not, this topic is about understanding how short-selling, that is, selling borrowed coins, affects prices. Not that it would matter a lot here, but Bitcoin is still inflationary

It is six of one and half a dozen of the other

You can call it as you please (investments, reserves, holdings, possessions, diversifications, etc), it doesn't matter. Gold is just bad for the purposes mentioned simply because your overhead costs involving short-term diversifying will outweigh any potential benefits. And I'm not even sure that actual ordering, processing documents and physical delivery of all these tonnes of gold won't take longer than the timelines you keep in mind ("in the span of less than a year")

All in all, the whole comparison is meaningless since no one buys gold to hold it for less than a year. There are gold derivatives created exactly for that purpose (i.e. options and futures)

I wouldn't equal selling on margin and dumping your own coins

When you sell your own coins, you are basically done as you can't sell what you don't have already. But when you are selling on margin, it is a completely different situation and environment. Essentially, you are selling the coins you don't have. But that's not even the biggest issue here. These coins can in fact be used for driving prices down further because you can sell them numerous times. Indeed, you can say that whoever bought your coins can sell them too but in general it wouldn't be a rational act as in that case they would be better off by not buying them at all in the first place

And it is conceptually different with selling coins on margin since there is a clear financial incentive to go short-selling in a bear market. It is still not the same as selling your own coins and buying back at a lower price as in the latter case you would be minimizing your losses, not maximizing your profits (as with short-selling)

These are likely the owners of other faucets

I remember as a few years ago the owner of coinad.com (if I'm not confusing names here) had been bragging on this forum (and maybe in this very thread) that he was able to "recruit" a few thousand referrals at freebitco.in through his faucet. And I think that he was (is) not the only one capable of such feats. Really, if you can advertise your referral link 24/7 nonstop without running the risk of being banned (as is the case with forum users), you can attract quite a bunch of people as your referrals

That was fun reading

If you can employ all these tactics to earn a few satoshi (a few satoshi more) and actually go through all this mess, perhaps you should think about doing something more useful in life rather than stealing a few coins from a faucet? Yes, I kinda understand (though in no way endorse such actions) when people hack or crack a casino betting engine (just an example) and steal thousands of bitcoins as it may be worth the deal (ethical issues aside) but milking a faucet?

In fact, you said that gold is the superior option short-term

But that's a minor transgression, really. The much bigger one is that gold is not good even for long-term investment or holding (call it what you like) for nation states unless you control the world gold trade (read, can set prices as you see fit). And it is definitely not Russia which controls it. Buying gold is a poor man's choice, only at a national level. Russia is freezing their resources in gold which means losing time and opportunity

If anything, they should invest these resources in their economic development instead. But the latter seems to be beyond their "capacity", and all they can do now is buy gold and a basket of foreign currencies with the dollars they receive from selling mineral resources such as crude oil, metals, natural gas, etc

Actually, it looked even uglier a week or so ago

With that said, if they really live up to their promises, some people may find it interesting as to the essence of it, not the appearances of the site. For example, if they offer some unique playing experience, something which people are looking for (as some folks posted earlier in the thread regarding private rooms). It is poker, not dice, after all, and here such things mean a lot more than sleek interfaces (though the interfaces matter too)

You seem to be relying too much on contrarian indicators

But you shouldn't forget that there's an adage (though not strictly related to trading but still) which says that when going against the crowd you are still going with the crowd. In other words, if you follow this approach, it doesn't at all mean that you necessarily win when the trading crowd loses (which they do). You may or you may just lose money in a different, let's call it contrarian, way