...and the real winner is...

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/0000000000000000000240094ef8b9d962d905cfee42552c599097875fd7defc

C

Looks like Rmcdermott927 got himself an ounce of silver.  Congrats Rmcdermott927 and thanks to everyone who participated.  I hope some fun was had by all.

Rmcdermott927 go ahead and PM me your shipping information and I'll get your coin in the mail.  Thanks again to everyone.

TO THE MOON!

PS - No actual bitcoins were sent to the moon on this thread.

Oh shit, you are right. I forgot I switched it from last time. I should probably read what I just wrote eh. Thanks for being understanding and catching me with my foot in my mouth, or maybe on my keyboard…

I stand corrected. It’s been too long since I’ve done auctions. I’ll have to do better.

Looks like the winning block hash is: 00000000000000000007be782df5a7a3aacc74e38f94846f44d0f213b278f27d so congrats to d- Cryptogreatdane for being the big loser!  Send BTC to the address in the OP when you’re ready. Thanks!

This can be viewed here: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/00000000000000000007be782df5a7a3aacc74e38f94846f44d0f213b278f27d

We'll have to wait a little bit longer to see who the biggest winner is.  Not too much longer though.  

Edited to correct my mistake.

I have no idea who the "biggest" is or what metric would be used to determine such a thing...  Revenue, profits, players, amount gambled, who knows? 

What I do know is that I have yet to see a celebrity endorsement for an online gambling platform that was bigger than Drake.  He's even giving bitcoins away to friends who he wants to see have success going forward.  Just those giveaways are bringing attention to crypto, let alone the fact that he's now actively promoting Stake.  I think a lot of Drake fans are fans of his moneymaking skills, and are likely to follow his money making ventures, even if they're gambling on Stake.  I'd be curious what the actual impact of users has been since the Super Bowl and if Stake considers it a success or not.  Might be useful to other companies looking at celebrity endorsements.

As today is a day to celebrate the fairer sex (International Women's Day) and their social, economic, cultural and political achievements...  I have to wonder if there are any females in our community selling crypto collectibles?  Maybe today would be a good day to show them some support and pick up some of their goods.  I personally know of a few women in this community that collect goods, but I don't believe I'm aware of any that are having goods manufactured for their brands here.  I'd love to be enlightened and do my part to support their inclusion in the community.

I also understand that women in crypto deal with a lot of crap (I definitely understand that) and may not want to be "outed" as female, so please do not share anyone's sex without their approval first.  Thank you!

The highest price I was able to sell anything at was $57K as we started heading downward.  I sure hope that wasn't the best sale I'll ever get.  I'd like to at least sell a little over $100K (but it would be nice to sell a lot at $200K).  Here's hoping all the financial wizards on Wall Street are able to take over where genuine innovation and engagement left off.  I think many of us would like to see a massive bubble, just so we can move on to other things without feeling like we left a bag on the table.  It seems clear at least from the community level, that Bitcoin has been losing supporters that helped carry the project here, while coveting support from people like Michael Saylor.  It's sad, but so long as we see new highs in the next year, I'll send Michael Saylor a thank you card myself.

What's everyone's take on the Russell Westbrook "Westbrick" controversy?  Even Magic Johnson has weighed in today saying that Lakers fans need to be better.  It's pretty crazy to think that the fans of an organization might seriously effect future players' decisions whether or not they want to join the team.  Lakers fans have been pretty rough on Russ this year.  As if his athletic decline hasn't been bad enough, hearing about it every time he steps on the floor must be horrible for him and his family. 

Do you think future free agents will think twice about joining the Lakers after this? 

Do you think Magic Johnson is a hypocrite for saying over the weekend that the Westbrook trade might go down in history as the worst Lakers trade ever, and then today telling fans to take it easy on him?

Westbrook really does need to focus on his shooting.  As athletic a player as he is, as he gets older he's going to have to develop into more of a Carmelo Anthony rebounding and set shooter type of player if he wants to get another contract.

Considering it's the LHR model, I wouldn't worry too much about heat or the single fan.  That thing will never hash fast enough to overheat anyway in normal circumstances.  I also think you'll probably regret paying $500 for that GPU right now.  It will likely take you several years to make that back with a LHR model even if you have cheap electricity.  If you're in someplace like California, you have absolutely no chance of ever paying that off.  Maybe consider buying the crypto you want now instead of a GPU?  Waiting until this reseller madness is over might be the smart move.  Especially when the next generation of GPUs is right around the corner and I'd think eventually the politicians will get the supply chain nonsense figured out...  Seems like a bad time to purchase a GPU unless you need the heat, in which case a LHR model isn't a good choice.

From what I'm reading the politicians don't even know what's going on with those fighter planes.  I don't know if they're acting stupid as to throw off their enemies, or if our government is really this much of a clueless shit show, but I'd prefer to think it's the former.  Unfortunately, decades of watching politicians be clueless leads me to believe that may our government (United States) is really so out of touch and disorganized that they really have no clue what deals they're making and for what...  I wish I had more confidence, but it's almost like the people in charge are purposely doing stupid things to increase prices and put a fire to the feet of the middle class.  I guess too many entrepreneurs are finding success these days and the government needs to put some pain on it's citizens with inflation to bring them back in line of needing to be taken care of.  The next couple of years are going to be a government induced shit show.  Please don't refinance your homes or take on unnecessary debt right now.  Your future self with thank you. 

As for how long Ukraine can survive...  As long as Russia allows them to.  They are clearly outmatched.  It's just a question of how far Russia is willing to go.

Betting against the Lakers has been pretty good this year...  Now with Westbrook complaining about the fans disrespecting him, you can bet that they'll be hearing chants of Westbrick at away games for the rest of the season.  I imagine this is going to be more bad news for a team that has been stockpiling it this year.  This is the sort of thing that causes massive rifts in the clubhouse and will likely doom their chances at making a title run.  Not to mention Westbrook is as good as out of LA as soon as the season ends.  Sad, because he was a great player but players that rely on their athleticism have the darkest endings to their careers.  I hope Russell can get it figured out and tune out the naysayers, but at this point I think he's probably making it worse on himself.  Betting the Lakers to lose away games might be a good play for a while...

I saw a statistic that the Bulls haven't beaten a top ranked team all year long.  I was shocked by that because they've been having a great season.  It is extremely concerning though that this team can't beat good teams.  Sure, they've had some injury issues lately, but that shouldn't keep them from beating a single good team one time.  I'd hate to see this team make a first round playoff exit, but that is a damning statistic.  Hopefully everyone comes back healthy and strong, ready to make a push higher in the rankings.  They were my favorites to reach the eastern finals a few weeks ago, but I'll admit after seeing that statistic I have my doubts as to whether they'll make it out of the first round. 

Cool.  Let's use block# 726490 to select the loser and block# 726492 to select the winner.  I think that will be most fair.  That should wrap things up in a couple hours.

Nobody wants to double down and try their luck?  You can't lose twice. 

This is crazy news. Drake x Stake… Every time I see it I just can’t believe how far crypto has come. I can only imagine all of the partnerships and advertising opportunities that are being planned for the future. With sports stadiums being named after companies in the space now, I have to wonder how long it will be before professional sports teams in the NBA, NFL, NHL, or MLB start being purchased by crypto companies. The only concern is how much bigger of an endorsement can you get than Drake? Where do you grow from there?

I tend to think that when you get the urge to brag about your investments to people, it's probably time to cash them out.  This is true with many things, but especially with crypto.  You can even look to influencers.  When you see them talking about how rich they are and how easy it is to make money doing something, the cat is out of the bag and it's time to run screaming.

I can't think of any coins I regret not selling.  I can think of a few I do regret selling.  I owned some BNB early on and sold it for a tiny gain.  Had I held and staked it then I probably would have made a fortune.  Same with ETH.  I was mining it early on but selling it immediately for Bitcoin.  This surely cost me a great deal of missed gains.  The coins I'm holding I don't regret holding though.  I bought them for a reason and am receiving interest on nearly all of them coins I've purchased, so to me they're doing their job and when I'm ready to sell if the price has fallen to the point where I'm in the red, maybe I'll wish I didn't lose money.  Patience usually solves that problem though.

Whenever I get an order that includes one of these 2oz silver coins and get to bust them out to do some engraving, I realize just how awesome these 2oz rounds are.  They really are my favorite coin that I've made.  The design and size are perfect for this application.  If you don't own one, I'd consider scooping one up to see for yourself.  There's a reason why this was the design that was chosen for the 4oz platinum and 4oz gold rounds (and the fact that the size made it a perfect fit).  While not everyone wants to drop down the $ for the 4oz platinum version, it is nearly indistinguishable from this 2oz silver version, so if you squint you can't even really tell the difference other than the weight.  Just tell yourself it's platinum. 

I think if Russia were to go full Bitcoin we would see regulation step up in ways we had only toyed with being reality.  The freezing of accounts would become normal around the world (more than it already has become).  You never know how regulators would step up to combat this type of thing, but you can bet it would hurt Bitcoiners around the world.  Sure, maybe Bitcoin would end up winning and show it's resilience, but I'm betting many innocent people would be jailed, have their lives ruined, and their life savings confiscated as a result.  Rather than provoke regulators and the legacy financial system, we should hope to keep growing without aiding war efforts.  

satoshi once said that donating to wikileaks was kicking the hornets nest...  Russia adopting it to avoid sanctions and commit acts of war would be like pissing on the hornets nest naked and covered in honey while a bear had it's paw in the nest.

Mimblewimble has been the targeted privacy protocol since it was brought to the community's attention back in 2013.  I can't even imagine the amount of work that has gone into it since that time.  Other coins have taken advantage of this technology in the past with success, so I think it could be a huge step forward for Bitcoin progress and maybe even the biggest update we've had in 5 years as far as increasing value of the network.  I'm excited about this advancement and have been waiting for it for quite some time.  In 2016 it became clear that this was coming, but I'm always shocked at the amount of work that goes into these sorts of things before Bitcoin assimilates the tech. 

Bitcoin is an absolutely horrible mechanic for pricing things over time.  This is due to it's extremely limited supply and constant price volatility.  Outside of crashing currencies destroyed by hyperinflation, Bitcoin is the worst "currency" you could use to measure the price of an object over time.  The chart of seemingly every item in the world looks the exact same when denominated in Bitcoin over the last 10 years.  This is because the value is more effected by the price movement of Bitcoin then anything happening to the price of the underlying object being priced. 

I don't think there are methods that could make this useful or that it should be something we should even attempt.  Many Bitcoiners think the price will continue rising against the dollar forever, and if that's the case then Bitcoin will be a bad metric for valuing price over the long term, forever.

I agree with your analysis.  There is also the summer approaching and nobody wants extra heat when they're already having to cool their home down (for home miners).  Waiting until after summer could mean a newer generation graphics card for cheaper, without it being used, and instead of paying to cool the cards for the summer you'll be enjoying their heat for the winter.  With graphics card prices plummeting and the supply chain issues still being worked through as a new generation of cards is about to hit the market, now would seemingly be the obvious time to wait.  If that will end up being the smart thing, we'll have to wait and see.  Crypto is always full of surprises.