There are rumors that the Lakers and Nets are working to finalize a deal. Supposedly it will be KD and Kyrie for AD and Westbrook plus a few picks and some $$$. This seems like an insane rumor but there are reports that they are close to a deal. KD and LeBron together would be something else. If that happens I’ll definitely be seeing a few Lakers games live next year. It would be the greatest pairing since Shaq and Kobe.

According to twitter KD has officially requested a trade from the Nets. They are saying this brings new life to the Kyrie to the Lakers rumors. I’ve gotta say, as far as drama goes the Nets have had things on lock. Hard to believe that Ben Simmons has been the drama free guy this off-season for them. People are saying KD to the Suns and Kyrie to the Lakers, but I sort of doubt either. I can’t imagine KD doing more ring chasing at this point in his career, but you never know…

According to the analyzer by Naypalm (https://analyzer.nastyfans.org/) it appears that there are only 16 of these "hockey pucks" left.  I'd love to see them sell out and start hitting the secondary market.  These are the largest coins I've done that were capable of having a proof-like finish so if you are a fan of shiny silver, the 2oz and 5oz minted seats are the ones you should have your eye on.  While these are too large to be graded by companies that have done grading in the past, I'm sure if it were possible you'd find that these receive some of the highest grades available.  Absolutely beautiful coins.

Feels an awful lot like we're headed for a retest of the recent lows.  I'm looking for that massive volume spike and drop before I fomo in with a buy.  It looks to be coming though...  My guess, around 2am on Saturday or Sunday (PST) we'll see it as whoever is trying to liquidate people takes another shot.  The question is if we'll break the recent lows or not.  For me, I don't care if we do or not, but I would really like to see a 3 month high on volume when it happens.  That would signal that we've hit bottom in my opinion.  I don't think the market will move up in the short term until we see volume surpass that from May 11-12.  Even then, we're still on borrowed time until the gox coins hit the market.

It looks like the shipping notifications have started going out as of last week.  The first batch of orders are required to pay a $700 white glove delivery service fee, which is said to be discounted.  That means the rest of us will likely have to pay $1,000 or thereabouts.  With these vehicles on the way to customers now, it will only be a matter of time before we can see what they are actually capable of.  So far they've proven to be a good Bitcoin investment.  The day I made my order and posted this thread, BTC was trading at $59,000.  Today it is trading at $19K and the cost of the Metacycle has increased by $1000.  That means if you followed my purchase, you bought your Metacycle for 0.08474576 BTC and today it costs 0.31578947 BTC.  This is why I said it, "might even be an attractive speculative investment for resale."  If you're one of those people who does accounting on the Bitcoin Standard, that's a nearly 273% gain in BTC (or a 20% gain in USD).  This doesn't even take into consideration the tax rebates for an electric vehicle (still not 100% on that).  It will be interesting to see what the final numbers are when I receive it.

In today's wacky Lakers trade rumors...  This almost seems realistic until you include the Nets...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/the-los-angeles-lakers-could-acquire-kyrie-irving-and-gordon-hayward-in-huge-3-team-trade-with-charlotte-hornets-and-brooklyn-nets/ar-AAZ1bD6?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d684b3d7f66643fa88d6f7b5f0b24a4b

It also looks like Dwayne Wade is playing with the idea of making a comeback.  Maybe his staying fit with his wife has paid some dividends to his body and he feels like he could make another run...  Sort of doubtful, but if we're talking unrealistic moves, it would be fun to think about Wade joining LeBron with the Lakers (the Cavs test didn't work out so well) along with Love leaving Cleveland for LA.  Honestly though, I wouldn't be surprised if the Lakers have to run it back with what they have.  That Westbrook contract is just something they might have to let run it's course.

If I were to give you guidance on mining it would be to avoid the trap of looking at profitability day to day.  Instead, make a prediction about where you think the Bitcoin price is going and when.  Watch the fundamentals to make sure nothing changes, but keep mining BTC.  When you do your profit calculations, use the value that you're going to sell at and stick with your plan.  The biggest mistake I've seen people make over the years is to overpay for GPU hardware because they used some mining calculator that said they would make a ton of money per day, then the market drops and they are no longer profitable so they shut down their GPU and call crypto a scam.

I've said this many times before... but...  The most profitable Bitcoin I ever mined, was the Bitcoin I mined when it was unprofitable to do so.

I'm not sure I even believe this story.  There is so much evidence against Craig at this point, it's beyond clear that he is not satoshi.  In my opinion, there are only 3 reasons why someone would even make that claim.  1)  They are a troll.  2)  They purchased BSV before realizing it was a scam and would rather deny the truth than admit they were scammed.  3)  They think BSV could be manipulated upwards and they could make money from the lie.

The only thing you need to explain to people who think Craig is satoshi is this...  satoshi has a lot of coins.  People thought they could access those coins if they could convince others that Craig was satoshi and then get them to go along with a fork to unlock satoshi's coins and give them to Craig.  It is a grift as clear as day.

Not just in gambling, but I think it's a good idea to avoid KYC whenever possible.  This is because you can't always trust the entity you're providing your info to keep it safe.  Just yesterday OpenSea had a leak of data and compromised the email addresses of their users.  Credit card companies are often hacked and lose your data, which can include social security and credit card numbers.  Sure, sometimes you have to provide KYC, but if you don't have to, avoiding it is probably the safest thing you can do.  Earlier this month I had my credit card information stolen from a vendor (I use virtual credit card numbers so I know who gave out my info) and there's really no recourse except to go through the steps to get your money back.  Even the thieves know if they spend less than $500 per transaction then the cops won't even follow up.

I think by Kyrie opting in, that pretty much means they're going to run it back with KD, Kyrie, and Ben Simmons.  That's going to be one awkward preseason...  I don't think they have any chance at making it work though.  Between stories of Kyrie insulting Nash in his own house, "can I see Kobe's MVP trophies?" and rumors of a rift between KD and Kyrie, not to mention that nobody seems to like Ben Simmons, and them making the Finals seems impossible.  We'll see...  Aging world class talent and disfunction didn't work too well for the Lakers...

I'd like to consider that I only mine BTC.  I do have some GPUs mining Ethereum on Nicehash, but it pays out with Bitcoin so to me it is the same as when I used to mine Bitcoin with GPUs back in the day.  I do have some ETH staking in the 2.0 contract earning interest, so that's sort of like mining Ethereum I guess...  For the most part though, it's all about stacking BTC.  Sometimes I might make investments with that BTC, like metaverse land or coins I need to use for something, but the vast majority of crypto assets I have are in Bitcoin.

^ I’m glad you didn’t end up losing any money. Any clue as to how your account became compromised by the attempted scammer in the first place? In my experience, every single time someone has mentioned telegram they have turned out to be a scammer. At this point I try and avoid anyone who ever uses the platform. It’s for the best. Stay away from telegram. There’s literally not a single good thing that will ever come out of using it.

Man, they’re really moving on this. I don’t know what Roger was thinking with this arrangement, but apparently it isn’t as cut and dry as him being liquidated. He had some sort of a handshake deal from what I’ve read where he has historically been adding liquidity as needed when requested. This time instead of adding liquidity, he asked for the remainder of his funds. That’s where the problem lies. Roger thinks they should have returned his balance and they think he should give them more funds. My guess is that the funds are already gone and Roger knows it, so instead of tossing more money their way, he’s going to dispute this and then recoup what losses he can when they file for bankruptcy. They’re trying to shame Roger into giving them more money and he’s playing chicken with them being able to stay solvent. Both parties are huge losers here. An 8-figure loss hurts. I don’t care who you are.

Your question is one that someone who wasn't here for 2016-2017 would ask.  A lot of people poured thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars into building businesses on Bitcoin when it was younger and relatively unknown.  These people took insane chances that nobody else was willing to take to help build Bitcoin into something.  Then, suddenly the rules changed and Bitcoin was pushed as a store of value where users were urged to hodl instead of transact.  Many of these businesses found themselves asking users to pay $50 transaction fees to buy a 'cup of coffee' as they say.  Developers drew the line saying 1mb was the limit (look up all the shady stuff that surrounded the NY Agreement) and basically forced these businesses to fork the network or lose their entire investment of time and money, which they did to grow Bitcoin and was wildly appreciated at the time.  The world was watching and they didn't want to risk a rogue developer with an inferiority complex destroying their future businesses, so they eliminated that risk by issuing their own altcoins.  It was a perfectly reasonable response that was met with extreme hate, as Bitcoiners wanted their coin to be the only game in town, and for them to have to do nothing but hold it to get rich.

Any recognition or regulation of Bitcoin at this point is probably a positive development.  It will lead to more institutional investment and make 'price go up' which everyone loves.  I think this is a good path that we're on, which will eventually lead to us not having to give up our social security number to buy a burrito.  I've seen proposals already to recognize Bitcoin as a form of payment and make transactions under $500 tax free.  I think this is the sort of advancement Bitcoin needs before the masses can truly accept it.  Nobody wants to have to calculate their lunches into their tax return.

TNT is reporting that John Wall is going to sign a new deal with the Clippers. I hope this means we’ll actually get to see him play. I must admit, the idea of him alongside Paul George and Kawhi Leonard is pretty intriguing. The Clippers have underperformed expectations  pretty wildly since picking up Kawhi. Maybe this will end up being the piece they need to take it to the next level.

Kyrie has opted into his contract with the Nets. He’s secured his bag, now he needs to find a team to trade for him. By opting in, he ends the Lakers speculation that LeBron will get him to sign for the minimum and then get him his Nike deal back.

DeAndre Ayton is now being speculated as a trading piece for the Nets. This is sparking talk that Kevin Durant might join the Suns… That would be interesting. I don’t think it’ll happen, but there’s talks happening…

I think there are 3 major hurdles remaining for Bitcoin in order to decouple from traditional markets for the next leg up.

1) Mtgox coins:  These coins have been hanging over the market's head for quite some time.  Until they've been distributed and we can get a good idea of how many of them will be dumped, many market participants will be on the sidelines.

2) ETH 2.0:  ETH?  Who cares?  Well, with such a massive supply of crypto frozen out of the market that has risen in value so much from the time it was locked away, there will undoubtedly be a lot of profit taking.  Can the overall crypto market survive another massive amount of coins hitting the market?  We'll see.

3) Spot ETF:  With no spot ETF available in the US markets, lots of fund money is sitting on the sidelines waiting to enter.  When they have a secure route to do so, it will likely lead to a lot of fresh money hitting the market.

So basically, we have 2 downside events and 1 upside event likely occurring in the near future that will effect the price of Bitcoin.  If we can survive the first 2, the third one will carry us to the promised land.

Bitcoin has never disappointed me.  It's always worked as it should.  The community has been a bit of a disappointment, but when there's money involved you can always expect people will take shortcuts or try to gain an oversized influence.  For me, Bitcoin was an awesome discovery and the community seemed like a utopia up until the blocksize wars.  The hate and trolling during those battles brought in a new crowd of Bitcoiner.  One who didn't care about Bitcoin, but cared about how they could use their vile behavior to make money.  This led to spamming, trolling, paid attacks, trust manipulation, forks, shitcoins, ICO scams...  We are still recovering from this mess, and now we have the blowup of CeFi.  However, all of these are problems with people interacting in the community and not shortcomings of Bitcoin.  Bitcoin is great.  People, not so much.

It's not always so simple.  There are plenty of bad actors in DT and many of the DT members don't even interact with members of this forum outside of spamming on their threads for signature earnings so it's really about who agrees with whatever nonsense they are spouting here.  As someone who has been left negative trust by DT members attempting extortion or just bad actors acting out of jealousy with ridiculous claims, I can tell you that DT still has a long way to go before it's back to being respectable.  Right now, some of the most included members of DT are repeated liars and trust network manipulators who have chased much of the talent from these forums as a result of their quest for power.  It's gotten a little better recently with the departure of trolls like Lauda, Vod, TMAN, Last of the V8s, and a few others (owlcatz hopefully being next), but they still need to be cleansed from the DT network.  However, their supporters in the DT network are hell bent on keeping these trolls there as they put a lot of work into supporting their trolling to punish those that they have petty disagreements with via manipulation of the network.  It is nice to see things moving in the right direction though.  Most of the heavy lifting seems to have carried itself out.