I always said that I would stop gambling if I have to chase my losses and when it stops being fun and entertainment. I love to play good slot games and some poker, because I like the entertainment and adrenalin rush it gives you.

People with gambling problems, often have other problems too and it just escalates their problems if they start to lose more and more money on their gambling habit. If you have to gamble to help you cope with other problems, then I would really urge you to stop, it will just end badly. 

I think it is time for Freebitco.in to put something up on the homepage to advice people on what the best browser would be to view this site, because I still have the same problem with Microsoft browsers, where it is not showing the amount of tickets I bought for the Lambo.

I do not know if it is a cache problem or something else, but when I switch to Firefox and Google Chrome it shows the correct amount of tickets that I bought. Just put something up there, like "This site is best experienced, if you use the ……………….. browser."  

They are blaming the algorithm change from Google for this, but it was only the trigger for something that was bound to happen. You can only operate a FUD show like that for a little while, until people start to question your platforms integrity and the agenda behind it.

Coindesk is starting to fall into the same trap and a algorithm change will not be needed for people to see right through their hidden agendas. I hope they learnt something from CCN's mistakes and start posting unbiased articles in the future. 

Ah, Thank you OP. I am a collector of coins and stamps and everything that has something to do with Crypto currencies, so this is a perfect fit for me. I like the QR code idea and I would like to get hold of this as soon as possible. <Already doing some more research and phoning around for this>

It is a pity that email basically replaced letters and stamps these days, because there is just something about receiving a physical letter with a pretty stamp on the envelope that cannot be substituted by electronic documents.    < I must say, the stamp is pretty expensive. >

Governments all over the world are trying to slowly but surely tighten the knot on all forms of privacy, including everyone's financial privacy. Why do you think most of them are trying to establish a cashless society? They want to eliminate cash, because it is too difficult for them to track and trace it.

They are pushing for debit and credit cards to be used and for people to use regulated/centralized financial institutions like PayPal and also the new Facebook coins, because it is easier to track all transactions if it is stored on a centralized and accessible databases.  {We know these centralized organizations are feeding the private information to these 3 letter agencies.}  

They will do the same with Bitcoin. 

Things will become very interesting when things like this starts to take off, because governments has been open to Crypto currencies, because there are some degree of control, when people trade and convert fiat currencies via regulated centralized exchanges. The moment when they realize that the new atomic swap will reduce the control, it might become a problem for them.

It remains to be seen if people would be willing to adopt LN on a large scale for that to happen and if the problems with the LN can be solved before that happens. 

Exactly, and it is more relevant to 3rd world countries where there are higher unemployment figures. There are lots of jobs/gigs in 1st world countries that are not very desirable and normally these tasks are "outsourced" if it can be done in other countries with cheaper labour. 

Work like translation services and scanning and archiving services and also sorting of large amounts of data can be done in other countries and Bitcoin payment is ideal for that, because you can do micro payments for these micro tasks. <Payment per pay or per word is possible> 

This is a situation that would just get worst as time goes by, because Fiat currencies in 3rd world countries are failing at a rapid rate and they are trying to print them out of trouble to keep the local economy from collapsing. 

Hyperinflation is also a real problem and the next global financial collapse will trigger a global currency crisis. People will soon realize why Bitcoin is a safe haven against Hyperinflation and toilet paper currencies.    <Examples : Zimbabwe & Venezuela> 

I am not sure if they actually broke the mixing process, they might have found mixer services with exploitable code or mixer services that did not implement mixing technology correctly. 

I think the shift is more to finding where these services are hosted and stopping people from accessing these services on the hosting side.  We desperately need other alternative ways in decentralising these services and running this on a Peer2Peer basis. 

If I understand the concept correctly the technology allows for someone to monitor and identify "scam" transactions, while you are not there to identify them? The drawback for me about the LN is that you have to constantly over see the whole process and that it needs to be online 24/7. <Most of us sleep for 7 to 8 hours in a day> 

The on-chain Blockchain transactions does not need 24/7 babysitting, so I would much rather opt for a system that can run on it's own. 

It is one of three things :

1. The machine got hacked - Someone managed to find a way to hack the ATM and was just showing off.
2. The ATM malfunctioned - The hardware or software malfunctioned and it pumped out money like crazy!
3. It was a publicity stunt - Something like this will draw a lot of attention, so the company who owns this machine did this on purpose to draw attention to the machine. 

In any way, it did draw a lot of attention and I think a lot of people are sleeping next to that machine in the hope that it would do this again. 

One of the major drivers of the demand for coins are the Crypto currency based online gambling platforms. <Legal & illegal> Just browse on over to the gambling section on this forum and see how much daily activity is there in that section of the forum. Go to https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=56.0   

The fact that Bitcoin is a pseudo anonymous currency, gives gamblers some kind of anonymity and they can gamble from countries where it is not necessarily allowed for whatever reason. 

I am not sure if I agree with you on this, because we have not seen any huge shifts in the market or any major retailer accepting Bitcoin. The approval for institutional capital has been stalled since last year, so there is nothing to get excited about so far.  

We have seen much better years before 2019, so something big should happen before the end of the year to make this one of the best years we ever had. Let's hope we can see a repeat of 2017 and a price explosion towards the end of 2019.  

The hope for this experiment is that the Bitcoin price would increase over time and that the miners fees would supplement or replace the Block reward over time. The price history since the start of Bitcoin has shown us that it is working at the moment, but there are no guarantees that it will continue into the future. 

Miner will also start to exit mining when it becomes unprofitable for them to mine at a high difficulty and this will result in a drop in the difficulty during that time. So checks and balances are built into the protocol to automatically adjust when things like this happens. 

Ok, this must be the first for this forum, because the member has the site in his/her signature and Avatar, but he/she tell people in the post not to use this service, because it is too addictive.  

In any way, I did try the game and I found it to be a bit boring. I think it boils down to a matter of taste, because I loved the Rugby sport management version of this game.    <I thought this would give me the same joy, but I do not like Soccer that much>  

You cannot judge it, before you tried it... right.  

I am curious to know if forensic analysis tools, used by Surveillance companies can put Humpty Dumpty together again, after it has exited a CoinJoin process like this? Blockchain analysis companies like "Chainalysis" might have the capability to dissect this transaction and to find the source of the input addresses. 

Companies like Neutrino says it can even follow the flow of coins through some Mixer services, but I do not know if this is true or not. I think the first court case where data from these companies are used to trace the origin of illegal Bitcoin, would clear that up for us. 

Ok, ask yourself this question : What will happen to the traditional Banking system when a massive electromagnetic pulses hits earth and knock out all communication and electronic devices? The Stock markets will collapse for a while and the ATMs and Banks will not be accessible until spare parts can be sourced to repair them.

Emergency procedures are already in place to restore basic communication, when things like this happens. Some data storage are done on non-magnetic storage media. Some tinfoil hats out there also use a faraday cage to protect their devices from such an event. 

Yes, there are manipulation and FUD in every market and investment class, the difference is that Bitcoin is not linked to any government influence or centralized financial authority like Banks and traditional investment firms.

The water becomes murky when centralized entities get control over these markets and they determine the outcome of the game. It is like playing sport with the match officials being paid by the opposing team. 

I hope he makes this money work for him and he builds something to generate passive income for him. Yes, he was lucky and smart to buy in at a low price and fortunate enough that the price skyrocketed, but it is not to say that it might happen again.

The thing about money is this, once you get a taste of it, you can never get enough. <greed> The other thing is, if you work hard for it, you tend to appreciate it, but when you get it with very little effort, you waste it. 

The Bitcoin price is determined by Supply and Demand on a public accessible market. <Open source is mainly associated with software.  >

Bitcoin are being created by a process called mining and this is done by 1000s of miners from different countries, but most people know this, so it's not a centralized creation process, like the printing of fiat currencies.

People want to mine these coins, because they get Bitcoin as a reward for their hashing power <electricity> 

Lastly, "big money" or institutional money has not even entered this scene from most countries, and when this happens a price explosion will take place.