A reminder (mostly for myself) how this game works.  We're now filled up with participants and ready to select 'Mr. Deep-pockets' who will so kindly donate some BTC for another forum member to take home a sweet sweet silvery prize. 

We're currently working on block #736249, so to be funny let's use block #736269 to select the loser and block #736272 as the winner (to create some suspense). 

You can view the current blocks here: https://www.blockchain.com/explorer (I'm sure there's a better place but this works)

Good luck to everyone on this Friday the 13th (Ch ch ch, ah ah ah)...

A couple of teams facing elimination game 6's today.  The Bucks have the Celtics with their backs against the wall at 3-2 and the Warriors have the Grizzlies fighting to stay alive at 3-2.  Both games will be on ESPN tonight for easy watching.   

I'm honestly surprised that the Celtics and the Grizzlies have been able to stay alive this long.  Maybe more surprised that the Grizzlies managed to win without Ja Morant in the lineup.  That's insane considering how well the Warriors have been playing.  The Celtics I think are a better matchup for the Bucks, especially the way Taytum has been playing, but I still think that Giannis is too much for them (When Middleton?).  I do think the Miami Heat defense will be difficult on Giannis it the Bucks do get to the next round.  The way they were triple teaming Embiid is going to be a problem for Giannis I think.

Dallas came through for sure. The Suns have to be terrified now. The Mavericks have momentum and Chris Paul has to be thinking this is his last chance at a ring. At this point I think the Suns might be the underdogs after the last two games. Booker is going to have to step it up a notch and prove he’s a superstar by carrying his team to the next round. He’s gotta be more efficient than he was tonight if the Suns want to win. After that clip of him taking the ball from Luka went viral, it’s been all bad for Book.

Capitulation happened and it was the result of one dumb idea to try and back an algorithmic stablecoin with a cryptocurrency.  What we're seeing is the manufactured decline as a result of banks taking advantage of an opportunity to make money.  A lot of people made a fortune this week shorting Luna.  While it sucks that the damage they caused has probably eaten the life savings of many and gotten many more to swear off crypto for their life, you don't hear about the fact that a couple of banks did all of this to make millions. 

Blackrock and Citadel, which Gemini's help caused this.  That's the rumor going around.  Blackrock and Citadel have responded saying they never traded UST and therefore couldn't have crashed it.  More lawyer speak for they crashed it by shorting the hell out of Luna all the way down 98%.  That's the rumor anyway and there's plenty of evidence to back it up. 

That being said, this was clearly a short term opportunity.  I don't see Bitcoin hitting $25K again before the mtgox distribution, but I'm sure there will be more fallout to this crash and it's possible that fallout could take us down to $10K.  Don't think that's impossible.

I have never done a real life payment.  Mostly because 1) I don't have a mobile wallet with Bitcoin in it & 2) nobody actually accepts Bitcoin in real life that I've seen.

I have attempted to do a real life payment.  I once was in Vegas and tried to go to a bar that advertised they accept Bitcoin to get a beer and a burger.  However, their payment system was apparently "down" (funny) so they weren't accepting Bitcoin at the time.  I've also tried to get a pizza from a Bitcoin pizza place, but ironically they did not accept Bitcoin for payment.  There have been a few other times I tried to use Bitcoin for real life payments, but they never worked out.  My real life Bitcoin interactions have thus been limited to me giving Bitcoin to friends or the one time an undercover cop tried to set me up to sell him Bitcoin for a cocaine purchase, which I wisely told him to go fuck himself.

In short, magic internet money makes really shitty IRL money.

From reading the comments about the situation and people's takes on it, I would venture to say that you have 3 choices moving forward.

1) You could repost your post in the appropriate section like should have been done in the first place (as it is my understanding this is the reason for the removal of your post).

2) You could continue this thread and demand an explanation from the moderator that removed your post, hoping that it was due to some sort of oversight or quick judgement and that they're willing to restore the post to satisfy you.

3) You could not care and go about your day.

#3 is by far the best option unless you feel your post was content that needs to be seen by this community, at which point #1 seems to be a good option.  #2 seems like a complete waste of time, as I think your question has been answered already in this thread.

Take care!

Thank god for that as well.  I'm guilty of posting from my phone quite a bit (what else are you going to do on the toilet) and autocorrect is definitely a thing.  There have been more than a few times where I've said something like "don't" and it's changed to "do" leading my post to be the exact opposite of the intent.  Luckily, because of this grace period I can usually go back and correct the mistake.  Sure, I could proofread before hitting the send button, but that's no fun.  Using the transcription feature to talk your posts usually leads to hilarious posts as well, but if it's somewhat understandable I'll usually just let it go.  Newfangled technology for us old folks tends to lead to degradation of content.

It does appear that the market has capitulated.  This week's trading volume was the highest it's been in about 1 year (strange that volume spikes happened almost exactly a year apart).  That to me is a pretty good capitulation signal and a good sign that the market will be rebounding a bit from here.  I was trying to jump in around $26K, but am still waiting for fiat to move...  I'm sure I'll miss the dead cat bounce but maybe we'll get a revisit of the lows before breaking out again.  In any event, I'd feel a little safer now that the volume spike is behind us.  I've been telling people to look out for selling opportunities for 7 months now.  I think I'm ready to switch my analyst opinion from SELL to HOLD.  If we see another new low below $20K with a similar volume spike, or an ETF approval, and I'll be switching to a full BUY opinion.  

As the Suns try to finish off the Mavericks with their backs against the wall, you have to hope we don't see another Warriors/Grizzlies situation.  You can expect the Mavericks to throw everything they've got at the Suns tonight as they try to stay alive and force a game 7 to see who goes to the Western Conference Finals.  I think Luka has his eye on that new Western Conference MVP trophy that's been named after Magic Johnson. 

That being said, I don't see any reason why Phoenix doesn't finish Dallas off tonight.  I am expecting Luka to work some magic, but to be quite honest I'm surprised they were able to sneak out 2 victories in this series.

No. It may bounce around and give people opportunity for profit, but I don’t see it actually growing organically. It was basically proven to be a Ponzi-like instrument to make people rich and then catastrophically fail. Many predicted it. I didn’t even know or care what Luna or UST was until Do Kwon started pumping the market. It was clear he was paying too much and being taken advantage of by the market. If Luma does rise again, it will be similar to the wool on a sheep growing longer. At some point they’re going to be sheered and end up naked again. Don’t be a naked sheep. Invest in real assets or if you’re going to go digital, stick to the “safer” investments, like BTC or ETH. They may fall 80% in a year or two, but at least they won’t fall 95% in 3 days…

I’ve been looking to buy back the BTC I sold earlier in the year but fiat funds are stuck in cyberspace trying to find their way to my exchange account. Gotta love how fast the fiat banking system works. My mouth was watering last night watching the drop to $25K. Unfortunately it will probably be another few days and I’m stuck watching the price recovery while waiting for funds. Ironically, that’s why people get into crypto. I always forget how awful it is to move money around using bank transfers until I’m forced to do one. I think the only thing capable of dropping prices to new lows is the mtgox coin distribution. Feels like that’s the final boss to conquer.

Ya, if I lose it's no problem.  It's if I win that would create a weird situation.  I'd basically be taking other people's money through some crypto wizardry, but it's really no different then anyone else winning as far as odds go, so I don't think there's a real issue.  I like to keep these moving, so if we don't fill the last two spots tomorrow I'll come up with some sort of magic to fill them.  Hopefully I wake up to the last 2 spots being taken.  

With the price of our beloved cryptos plummeting to middle earth levels, it's nice to have a little fun around here.  

EDIT: I can't post on this thread again until someone else does or this post hits 24 hours.  So maybe my "tomorrow" comment is more of a guideline than an actual rule. 

That was a pretty amazing play against him that resulted in his being blocked and then having the ball thrown off of him.  Holiday showed that he's an elite defender down the stretch, also coming up with a steal to end the game.  That play where he blocked Smart though, dribbled, then threw it off of him out of bounds to get the ball back was in my opinion the best play of the game.  It's also likely the game could've gone the other way if that play turned out differently.  I don't think you can blame Smart for that though, just give Holiday his props for being an amazing defender.  Gotta give it to Al Horford though, he definitely has been playing his ass off the last two games.

There are a lot of metrics that show buyers of the current situation will be well rewarded in the future. I think all these metrics leave out the mtgox coin distribution event. It may be that there’s money on the sidelines waiting for those coins to buy, but it’s also possible the market is exhausted and those coins will send Bitcoin plummeting again. It’s not quite as riskless as the technical analysis show. It’s also possible that talk of mtgox coins coming soon is just rumors and the distribution drags on for years while an ETF gets approved. The only thing that seems certain is that there will be lots of volatility coming down the pipeline.

I’m not sure what happened. That was the Warriors 5th largest playoff loss in their organization’s history. They’ll be trying to forget this game. You can chalk it up to the Grizzlies having their back to the wall and not being willing to lay down. You have to respect the effort they gave tonight. I wouldn’t bet they could do that again, but I never thought they could beat the Warriors that badly in the first place. The third quarter was the worst basketball I’ve ever seen the Warriors play. It will be interesting to see if things return to normal for the next game. This one seemed like some strange fluke.

People chase trends.  When Bitcoin was at $60K, of course everyone was saying how they wished they could have $30K back so they could buy.  That's because most of these people have no clue about valuations and no interested in a decentralized economy.  They just want to make money.  There was a time when idealists stacked BTC to try and change the world, but those days are long in the rearview.  Listening to Michael Saylor for a few minutes makes that clear.  The big boys have spotted an opportunity to make money and that's what they're trying to do.  They don't give a damn if it's Bitcoin or Luna that makes them money, they just want the dollars.  Expect chaos to ensue. 

I don't know...  So long as there are people willing to buy Luna, there's hope that UST can be shored up again.  I'm just shocked there are people willing to buy Luna.  I mean, it's probably a great opportunity for a quick flip (or will be at some point when it hits bottom) but it's been shown that they'll dump as much of it as there are buy orders for in order to try and save UST and bring it back to $1.  The price has fallen so much though, I'm sure the people in control will be able to exploit it to make a small fortune on the way back up once they've decided they fleeced enough of their holders.  So glad that I stayed far away from this situation.  It seemed clear that backing a stablecoin with Bitcoin was a bad idea, especially since the Bitcoin was being purchased at elevated rates due to the public nature of the purchase.  At least Do Kwon learned why the big boys buy quietly OTC.  He thought he was too big to fail.  Now he'll probably be looking over his shoulder the rest of his life.

I literally have multiple threads where I give away merits to those who do very simple processes to show they are real and capable of using crypto for things other than asking for it.

Here they are since you don't seem to want to ask around in the beginner section or use the search function.  You're welcome for doing the work for you.  If you had some merit to send (sorry, I had to poke fun), this would be a great opportunity to use it.  LOL

[Merit] Hey Newbies! Can You Sign A Message?
[Merit] Hey Bitcoiners! Can You Send Encrypted Messages?

I don't check them as frequently as I used to, but if you do what you're supposed to you will eventually get a merit when I get around to it.  I hope that helps you feel a little better.

Price lowered.  I'd point out that these are sold out on their site, so this is the fastest way to get your hands on one of these silent 'built for home use' miners.  If you're looking to dump your Bitcoin in this latest crash and want to start mining, this is a great opportunity to do so.  Also willing to listen to offers if you think this price is too high, but I'm definitely not interested in selling for a discount below the retail price, given that these miners sell out every batch so there is clearly demand.  Shoot me a message if you're interested and we can try to work out a deal.  Good luck!

They definitely have lofty goals and high expectations.  It scares me a little bit since expectation is the seed of disappointment, but I have faith they're going to build something great, so long as the Bitcoin market keeps afloat long enough for them to achieve it.

I think the city looks great and it's awesome to know that lots of high paid government employees are putting a ton of work into creating this city.  I wish them the best of luck and I know they'll need it.  This has to be the biggest and most ambitious project in Bitcoin's short history.  Sort of makes the old days of wanting to buy an oil platform seem a bit ridiculous in hindsight, but I don't think anyone expected nation state adoption so quickly.