The Lakers Cavs game today would be a fun one to watch. Unfortunately, it isn’t televised on any channels I am able to watch. The Bulls vs Raptors game will be nationally televised, but I’m not sure I’m willing to sit through that one. It seems like a lot of Bulls games are being nationally televised this year. I guess the networks expected big thigg by s from the Bulls after their great regular season last year.

I always thought Bitcoin would move towards a ton of small exchanges run by lots of different types of businesses. It seems like instead there has been a lot of consolidation in the industry and large players emerging. This isn’t ideal, but hopefully at some point we see more distributed exchanges (DEX) as they are the on-ramps to crypto and probably most at risk for being shut down and hindering the market.

*their FTT tokens

This can’t be good news. I’m hearing rumors that the market cap of FTT is about 5 billion dollars higher than makes any sense. No doubt Binance selling so much over an extended period of time is going to have a negative effect on FTT’s value. I just hope we won’t be seeing another Luna situation, which the smoke is starting to appear on the horizon. Watch out for the fire and steer clear…

If you were paid something like 1 satoshi per merit distributed, it wouldn’t be much of an income to consider it a job. It would be more of an educational incentive to fire up a lightning node while further incentivizing users to make good posts. I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t bother setting up a node (maybe custodial wallets could be excluded somehow) and the tiny income of 1 sat per merit wouldn’t be enough to impact the forum’s finances in any way. This forum doesn’t really support the lightning network though (I don’t blame it) so this idea seems unlikely.

As someone who has been harassed at levels that crossed the line of legality while the user remained active here with no action from this site, I am always curious what actually gets people banned here. It’s funny what awful behavior gets defended as free speech (spoiler alert: free speech doesn’t cover illegal behavior) while others get banned for the silliest things. Makes no sense but I enjoy the hypocrisy.

I engraved some tiny metal discs with private keys that were going to go inside carved wooden round “coins” in a cooperative project with WoodCollector several years ago. WoodCollector ended up stealing the prototype and disappearing, but it was a pretty sweet attempt at something new and the engraved metal discs were damn small. No idea what ended up happening to them. Most likely they will remain a myth.

The news that Google will be running a Solana validator is pretty big news. I hope they’re able to help Solana stay running. There’s been a lot of times over the last year where Solana has gone down, hindering all of the projects that rely on it. Some have recently even moved to other chains as a result. As far as centralized blockchains go, Solana is one of the best and it sounds like this is a step forward for them.

I think the most obvious future for web3 is gaming so it’s fascinating to me how gamers hate web3 so much. Being able to resell skins as NFTs would allow kids to start learning about finance at a young age and I for one would love to know there are some 8 year old millionaires out there because they were good at Fortnite.

Another obvious use would be tickets for events, which I think NFTs are perfect for.

Did I see that he was tweeting the other day? I for one didn’t think he would really go in the run like this. Is he the new John McAfee? I can’t think of another example of someone running from authorities and keeping up public posts. Maybe Snowden but that seems a little far from what Do Kwon is doing. Do people think he will be caught? If so, what time frame?

One of your links appears to be broken and the other behind a paywall so I’m not sure what exactly you are trying to say about Ray Epps. The video seems to paint a clear picture to me. He was inciting an attack on the Capitol building even while people were actively telling him not to do so. Do you think if Donald Trump was doing what Ray Epps did that liberals wouldn’t be crying to have him jailed?

I’ve never won any amount that was worthy of bragging about. I mostly make small bets for the entertainment factor. I couldn’t imagine anyone entering the gambling space because they heard I won a few dollars on a parlay. I could make the argument that longtime Bitcoin holders have lured others into investing in shitcoins as a way to try and make large returns gambling in the crypto space.

Thank you for always being so prompt with the payments.  If I could make a suggestion (doesn't really matter but who doesn't like armchair quarterbacks), I'm never aware of who wins the $35 payment bonus for being a quality poster.  I know this is my fault for not keeping up with the spreadsheet or in the Telegram chat.  It would be great if the quality posters of the week were given a shoutout on this thread with your payments sent messages too.    Not the end of the world if it's not seen as necessary.  Just might be nice to toss some recognition to our quality posters on here. 

As others have stated, I think online casinos are doing pretty good business.  Their user base is growing and regulations are softening around the world.  Not to mention that most of the sites currently operating were operating when Bitcoin was at much lower prices, so many of them made an absolute fortune on the exchange rate.  Then there's things they do to make extra money like staking user funds or collecting on airdrops...  Don't feel bad for the casino operators.  The successful ones are absolutely rolling in dough.  I've seen more staffing up and previous employees getting raises then I've seen cost cutting...

You state that he has been accusing you of things.  Can you share these accusations with us?  It seems like you're playing the victim without giving the information about WHY your host Steve is behaving this way.  Is it a simple misunderstanding on his part?  Are you doing something shady that he says is breaking the rules?  Why not just close your account and start a new one selecting a different host?  I feel like there's more to this story and if you provide specifics along with screenshots to prove you are speaking the truth, you may find more success in getting the help you need.  Good luck!

How could it not?  There is so much investment behind it at this point, I think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The bets have been made, the players have taken their positions...  I think this is going to be the first 4-year cycle that wall street traders may shape instead of crypto industry insiders.  So I think the 4 year peaks are going to become a little less pronounced and people will likely take profits earlier and earlier causing more volatility during the peaks and valleys, but the ultimate effect will be stabilization.  In any event, if we aren't above $100K by 2029, I would say that something big must have happened to stop it.  My more bullish belief is that we'll hit six figures sometime in late 2024.

Fanduel and DraftKings are the way that a majority of my friends choose to gamble online.  I believe that some of the large Vegas casinos also offer some forms of online gambling.  As you said though, none of these platforms are too accepting of crypto.  I do believe that DraftKings is a Polygon/MATIC Validator, so they're clearly stacking MATIC and believe in integrating it into their platform.  I'm not sure what the holdup is, or if it's already been done and I'm just out of the loop.  I think either way it's coming and I'm sure there are plenty of people chatting in back rooms with regulators about what it's going to take to make things like this legal for American citizens.

No doubt DOGE is pumping and I'm sure that Elon has plans to integrate it into Twitter in a way that will get a lot more users to begin holding and spending it.  The thing is, I believe that a lot of the holders now are already in it to dump for profits.  That's why even on this news the price of DOGE is still struggling to break it's last high of $0.20.  Until that happens, I just assume we're seeing more pumps with lower highs, which is the way that most people lose money on these sorts of things.  I think it's very possible for DOGE to break out above a dollar if Twitter implements it well.  I also see a chance that it's best days are behind it and it struggles to hold it's value from here forward, as we have been seeing since Saturday Night Live.

I thought it was a good easter egg and I watched the movie before hearing about it.  I also thought it was a good movie that displays how mistrust can hurt everyone.  I recommend watching it if anyone is looking for a good movie to see.  I was a bit shocked when I heard Bitcoin mentioned and when I originally heard it I didn't think anything of it, as I didn't catch the price part.  I was just happy to see Bitcoin found it's way into another mainstream media production.  It does show that there are a lot of folks who still believe in Bitcoin though, even in a bear market.  That can only be a good thing.

I stopped watching the treasury after I got shit canned by theymos.  One of or possibly the last comment I made about it was that I felt myself and others were significantly overpaid and suggested we take an 80% reduction in treasurer payouts in order to keep the forum's cash flow responsible.  What do I know though...  I was the guy who thought the forum wanted a few million extra dollars by claiming airdrops and was then vilified for it.  I assume that the financial situation is still fine, but it seems rather obvious that the whole 1 BTC equals 1 BTC standard that is being attempted here is at the detriment of the forum's savings.

I think reducing the treasurer payouts and using some of those funds to distribute to those sending merit (not just merit sources) via the lightning network would be a positive advancement for the site, would give a use case for the lightning network, and would spur lightning adoption among forum users.  I think the payouts should be so small and widespread that it would be considered hobby income or donations to avoid having to collect personal information on everyone while also not giving much incentive to try and cheat the system.  Maybe more merit sources would want to step forward and the merits currently being distributed to merit sources could be reduced and spread out to more longtime trustworthy members as well.  Would be fun.

I think if you're comparing potential coins to mine with your GPU then there's one site that stands out amongst the rest.

www.whattomine.com

While they might not have the newest coins, I think you're probably best off stacking Bitcoin and letting your GPU help you do this.  With whattomine.com you can see what will be most profitable for your GPU to mine.  Then, you can use a site like nicehash.com to mine that coin with your GPU, but receive payouts in Bitcoin.  I've long thought this is the best use of a graphics card, but it's a bit less risky than mining shitcoins directly and holding them hoping for a moon.  I think all you need is BTC though, and stacking here would be a good idea, even if not the most profitable option currently.