Nothing new here tbh, hell I think most people actually acknowledge this in the bottom of their hearts as a pretty normal occurrence. The only thing I don't really understand is their bias upon Bitcoin, or crypto in general, that whenever they get scammed, someone gets scammed, money laundering happens, they bloody blame Bitcoin like excuse me? They're clearly putting Crypto in a too high of a pedestal, when clearly those who use them are the bad ones. And if compared to Fiat/Banks? Hell, banks have done more than enough criminal activity involved to actually be imprisoned for a few decades, but they aren't' in one now are they.

I doubt you could consider luck in coding? That is unless you're just fiddling around the codes and somehow managed to make it work, then that is indeed luck but it shouldn't be normally applied since coding requires knowledge and that can't really betray you, or for any other knowledge-based work out there. Sports betting has knowledge used as well, yes, but the difference is you're basically judging others instead of yourself, which makes it a lot more difficult to actually achieve a result. It's like the difference between knowing how to create your own house vs asking someone who knows how to create a house, the former being you know what to do, the latter being you can only leave it up to someone you "THINK" can do it.

Long story short is people should avoid clicking direct links from any place, or at least, open them in a pc that doesn't really contain any personal information to make sure that nothing gets leaked, even if the said links came from your family or friends. Simply look up the links yourselves in search engines, which may take more time, yes, but at least it guarantees safety. I would've said that most wouldn't even click said link since it's full of numbers and letters, but a lot of people out there are either ignorant or just plainly don't care which are honestly odd, so for those who at least don't want their safety compromised, take the necessary steps even if it makes your search take more time.

Based on what I know, they had a prior agreement based on the attributes a trading partner must have, plus, there was already a warning made back then in 2017 about EU removing their GSP rights, so it isn't really that odd that they removed it now after 3 years, seeing as there's no improvement on the attitude of President Duterte. You can see this in the links provided by OP.

This is basically a fight between the humanitarian side (EU) and Duterte with the realistic side, with the former holding the economic privileges of the latter as a hostage, which is, in one way or another, pretty stupid. I can't agree with how Duterte did the Drug war, a lot of casualties were made yes, but you can't' disagree that his actions did indeed help remove drugs from the country.

Duterte would inevitably be damaged by this no matter what, it is the economic privilege of the country his reign is in after all. EU does account for the 4th biggest trading partner the PH has, but as for the numbers I'm not particularly sure. If China would support PH with trading at this point and possibly fill the void, then Duterte can basically skim over this issue and possibly live on with his unyielding attitude regarding the issue.

I wouldn't even persuade you. Though we can't deny that BTC being a high-risk asset, or an investment right now is a part of what made it quite famous and a part of what made a lot of people get in on the crypto world, It does hinder it's adoption towards its original goal, as a medium or a currency. Still, it isn't completely to be blamed, especially since Bitcoin in of itself isn't really prepared for such an adoption, and as such, made more sense for people to actually see it as an investment.

You could say that it's actually a development most agree on, since later on at the end of the road, it's volatility would be highly reduced, making it a lot more suitable for adoption, as well as a lot of developments then would fix problems with Bitcoin today (fees, speed, etc.).
Most would probably sell, but the same could be said for those who are just waiting and would buy the second they see an opportunity. There would always be demand for Bitcoin imo, and recovery may take a long time, as long as there is supply and demand for it, it would naturally retain its position in the long run.

True enough. Most people are ignorant and require the weirdest ideas from developers, they take a look at the best programming language out there and ask to use that to create their system, yet they completely do not understand that what they want is most often not really needed or just makes making it a lot more complicated. It's almost pretty similar to how the artist's side goes on, artists go unpaid mostly because those that hire them to think that they just need a few hours to work on it, so why they should pay them more than $100 per work? It's pretty stupid.

Though I do think that Freelancing websites are actually helpful instead, not killing them. It's probably those that hire freelancers that are making life difficult for most, mostly due to ignorance. Though I do still think and agree that underpaid services are a thing, I don't really know if it regulated the price in the US, but it didn't really help in actually regulating in the Asian side, since most are rather ignorant and just accept businesses as is, and they basically let themselves get taken advantage of.

Even if the number of BTC atms keep on increasing, as long as most of them are concentrated on the western side, I doubt there's a sense or there's even a reason for celebration since if the distribution isn't really evenly made, there's no sense to even call it "Worldwide". Just call it on the US or western part of the world, since really, that's almost the entirety of the ATMs out there. Still, I know there are difficulties in distributing them across the globe, mostly because of regulations, which basically shows that there's still a long way in terms of ATMs being placed over the globe.

Welp, no use in crying over spilled milk. We all have those what-if moments, not just in gambling, in fact, every day in our lives we often think about what if moments, intentionally or not. Though mostly in you're case, it's actually just a what-if situation that was reliant on others, not on yourself, which probably makes it a lot more painful than normal. It'd probably be best if you actually moved on from it, or make it a laughing matter at that since remembering would only be detrimental for your mental health. Or, you can just remember the actual good days you know, since most people tend to forget those and instead remember the painful ones.

I highly doubt it. Ban exchanges sure, but people would, one way or another, find ways to actually trade using Bitcoin, not to mention that anyone can basically create their own site, and as long as enough trust was made, could potentially be an exchange that one would go to, but the government wouldn't be able to even do anything about it. Plus, with Bitcoin being decentralized, would the government really be able to even ban it? Very unlikely, unless they commit to terrorism and the like, threatening to kill anyone who engages in BTC, which is again unlikely, we aren't in the old age anymore where wars were adamant.

That may be true, but let's be real here. They can't do anything stupid blatantly in public, otherwise, they would've never gotten their positions in the government. They would either work behind the scenes, or just accept it's existence, the former being unlikely mostly because they've tried, and they're reasons are pretty stupid, such as scams happening and money laundering, all of which are honestly their fault, not Bitcoin.

I'm actually glad that there's a no-impact option since seeing the thread title, I initially thought it would only help or hurt options which would be pretty stupid. There's honestly no impact at all imo, and even if there was, it would be a helpful one, but at a rather minimal level. Mostly because I doubt they would even clash with each other? It's not like Bitcoin is threatening fiat, heck, I'm more concerned about Gold here since the two have been compared as safe assets from so long now, as for fiat? As long as the government doesn't agree with it, I really doubt it would go nor would Bitcoin actually be more important than it. At most an equal level importance between the two, but a hierarchy of Bitcoin being superior? I doubt that.

CBDC aims to help people become more automated, improve QoL in other words. Cryptos, on the other hand, want you to take hold of your funds and be directly responsible for them, while having no risk at all of someone actually doing something wrong with it when storing it, since technically, only you can access it. Most would probably prefer the former, but that doesn't mean that they would hate the latter, since it doesn't really affect their lives.

That's the thing, they can't take full responsibility for it, either in terms of security or in terms of applying Bitcoin as a payment model currently. Can't really force them to put something out when they themselves don't really see any advantages in doing so.

Additionally, afaik Ebay fees are mostly on them being a third party middleman between the seller and buyer plus the fees from delivering items from place to place, add that to the additional fees they get for profit, fees would naturally be quite insane, especially if you're buying from someone overseas. I highly doubt crypto could even do something about it, since it isn't the issue of transferring money, but rather the issue of the fees of transferring the items.

Let's be real, most improvements in terms of financial management or in other words, money, was in terms of making it EASIER for most, if not all people. We all started with bartering stuff, trading item x for item y in the past, but not all items could be valued properly, so coins were made. From there, countless changes were made to arrive at what we call fiat right now. The decentralized system is actually the same as what we have now, BUT, it makes us move more specifically. Unlike in fiat/centralized systems, the difference is for centralized, it's like asking for someone to walk to a place for you, while decentralized is asking for YOU yourself to walk to said place.

I like Bitcoin and all, yes, but let's be real. The entire world liking Bitcoin, sure possible, but using it? I doubt it. There are a lot of benefits that people see in fiat or in the future CBDC, and I doubt Bitcoin being decentralized is enough of a factor to actually influence that, most especially since a lot of people don't really know the value of decentralization, or even if they did, they don't really care since they want easier lives.

Well, the best you can probably do is introduce a new hobby, one that would take up most of his time, so as to make him avoid gambling. Though without the will to actually stop and change, nothing much can be helped with it. Nonetheless, you can't really change addicts with irl experience, believe me. They'd need to actually WANT to change, and that''s a hard thing to do for an addict. Still, a big help though to those people who are on the verge of going addict, since really, the only thing that separates addicts form normal gamblers is probably fear. Fear of various things, from fear of losing money, fear of having nothing left, fear of being shunned, etc.

True enough. Gambling casinos have a lot, and by a lot I mean A LOT of competition, and if they can't get customers in and make them stay? Closing down is only a matter of time. I'd rather close a gambling casino early if I see that there's no possibility of actually profiting off of it since customers aren't staying. There'd be more instance of the casino actually losing funds by trying to stay alive just to hope that customers would stay. It's either they didn't really plan on staying open for long, or they failed in marketing for the long run and instead actually just spent their time rushing to open their casino. Online casinos are a lot more easier to open than physical ones after all, hence the carelessness of some owners.

This actually is the best quote imo. I've always considered investments as the same thing as a gamble, but it's more on the business side. Probably the main and most considerable difference between the two is that gambling is a form of an "entertainment" while investments are "businesses". Same reason why most people see gambling in a bad side, since you're technically spending for "entertainment" (and could go up to huge amounts at that), while investment on the other hand, is a legitimate "business".

Not that I can blame them, the concept of gambling is bad has been instilled literally everywhere, even when I was a kid at that. Though they do forget that most of our decisions are actually just the same as gambles and having a biased judgement on it is pretty stupid.

It's nothing weird tbh, most of the time only those who actually fell at the bottom could actually know how to reach the top. Though they often take the hard way, especially since they actually went the opposite of what they should do, hence the event of them being depressed/suicidal etc. For anyone that actually takes gambling as something outside of entertainment, better pay attention and take it as something similar to investing, or business minded as OP said. Though in this case, your confidence levels just come from past records, unlike investments, where there's a sort of solid evidence backed up by current events, but nonetheless, they only change confidence levels, not the actual ratio of win/loss which is always at 50:50

Hardly doubt that only a few actually know of it. Anyone who actually played CS:GO would be plenty knowledgable about this game, especially since the developers of this game were oldies in terms of gaming and developing CS:GO itself, plus, it has already made quite a scene in the e-sports world, so you can actually be rest assured that betting would actually grow with it side by side. As for how long, I doubt it'd take that much tbh.

Well it is somehow fantasy like since characters have special abilities, unlike battlefield type games such as cs:go and the ones you said where every throwable can be bought by anyone, which gives it more strategic aspects, not that Valorant has none ofc, just that it's more specialized since each player can only choose one unique type of character per game.

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It always has been, but it has shown pretty positive growth, for the past year, plus, it isn't like the banks are actually in a good situation right now, so it's probably a better risk for them to actually invest in Bitcoin instead of letting it sit as a fiat. Besides, if this investment of theirs were to show growth, that's a big thing for them, but the same could be said vice versa.

Also it seems like they also did invest in the past? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5268180.0 Looked around since the name MicroStrategy was quite familiar with me. So is it this, plus the amount said in the article OP said, or is the one from the OPs article a total of the Bitcoin they bought? Since if it was added, then it'd obviously exceed their cash reserves of $500m but if it was total, then it seems to add up properly.