I've had professors of mine in university dodge referrals to lead corporations as CFOs or have careers in politics.
Was it because they hate money and business? No, they study and teach about these subjects every day.
But some people really prefer the study of something from an academic perspective other than being managers themselves. It's more of a political and ideological choice if anything.
Being an academic has its perks, but surely a lot of money isn't one of them. But you can't really do both impartially. For instance, a lot of technological progress is based on academic research released to the public for free and funded by taxpayer money. If all academics were sucked into corporate environments much of today's technology that we enjoy with free access would be closed source and behind paywalls, and that's if it was ever released publicly.

Really academics deserve more recognition in my view. Not everything is or should be about money.

I wonder where the money to pay back for deposits is coming from. I'd sure as hell get my funds away from these platforms.
As of HECO, it's a blockchain based on Binance Smart Chain's principles, just for the Huobi (now HTX) exchange tokens.
It was very popular in 2021's bull run and remains popular with Chinese users, as does the exchange.

All these projects were running without major hacks before Justin Sun purchased HTX and Poloniex. Begs the question if it's oversight or malice at this point.

Source: https://vxtwitter.com/PeckShieldAlert/status/1727286692489679360

It's crazy the frequency with which Justin Sun's owned services are getting hacked these days.

It was only a little more than a week ago that Sun's exchange Poloniex also got hacked.

What's going on here. Do you think this is suspicious from Justin Sun's part?
Definitely another warning to never keep funds in exchanges!

Don't fool yourself thinking you can make an income from gambling. The chances are stacked against you.
Maybe you'll get lucky, but it's not going to last.

See there's this thing called house edge on gambling games. It ranges from sub 1% on blackjack all the way to the high teens on certain games. House edge simply means that the game is literally rigged against the player, although to a small degree. This is necessary to make games sustainable. Otherwise casinos would earn nothing and perhaps even go bankrupt hosting them.

So consider gambling and all luck-based games as a way to have fun and pass time. Nothing more.

So Symmetric (ex. Ratimov) went to the full length of lodging a request with a site administrator just to change his username? AFAIK this is the only way it's possible to be done outside of being a VIP (50 BTC donation).
And it was granted just like that? Uhhh... Weird but ok. 

Here I am posting about the new and upcoming matchday. 


To be honest I don't see anything very interesting in these matches. I expect at least some interesting play in the Aris - Panathinaikos match as it's probably the biggest match up in this particular match day. But the rest of the matches are not between two big teams. So perhaps most people would consider them predictable, unless an upset is to take place. I'm eager to see if anyone has some predictions to make.

For now I'll only say that I'm rooting for my local team, OFI.


OFI had some good wins this season against bigger clubs and is higher in the standings but hasn't been performing that well lately. The odds aren't bad though, I'd take this bet.
Any other predictions before me?

Wow Greece really surpassed expectations by leading France to a tie.
Both teams played well but it's surely a surprise for Greece to not lose to a so far unbeaten France.
Sadly this doesn't mean much for Greece, the country was bound to finish third in the group and therefore be lead to play-offs for a potential qualification.
Who knows, Greece showing some strength now would probably boost confidence in the playoffs. But it's not going to be particularly easy.

Is this anything new though?
I'm pretty sure that we've know for a long time that free services such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube ande ven Google etc. make bank on selling our data to advertisers.

The more successful these corporations are at targeting you with ads right on your interests, the more likely it is they'll be picked by those being advertised.
So keep this in mind next time you sign up to another website.

Thankfully, GDPR kind of helps in this regard. Allowing people to delete their accounts and recall all their data along with any permissions they might have given in the past helps restore some balance in terms of privacy.
But most people will be tempted to actually ask for their account deletion on big platforms, as it would also require an account deletion and these platforms are kind of monopolizing access to their info sadly.

Football is the most famed sport in Europe for the longest time and its presence in the region has been cemented by international tournaments.
Many people have had clubs in their neighborhood that they support since small children.

So there really is no wonder that football is the most famed sport, at least in Europe.
But as you know, each region has its own favorite sport. For some countries it's cricket, for others its rugby, for the USA it balances between Basketball and NFL or sometimes baseball.
But really in Europe Football reigns supreme most of the time.

It really ties back to how most people grew up, with it being the most accessible sport nearby them, and getting to love their local association.

This question comes up frequently, and the answer should be a resounding no from everyone.
It's not healthy to fund with your own money someone else's addiction. Especially if you appreciate this person, you'd be doing them a better service by just saying no.
Better yet, you can offer them some options to get something tangible if they actually quit.  

A history of irresponsible gambling should sound alarm bells. It's not bad to recommend help sometimes. Be it the person itself or someone in their close circle.

Socialization with gambling is one of the few good side-effects actually.
People sitting in their neighborhood cafe or restaurant would play some card games to pass time and do something together.
So it's an old tradition.

But see, the thing is, you can talk and socialize even without playing cards. And also, online gambling doesn't really do much in terms of socializing.
So especially when it comes discussing gambling with crypto, I think the effects of this specific benefit aren't that noteworthy.

For one, Twitter is a platform many users would go into every day, and Elon Musk's acquisition fumbled with it so much that it made it undesirable for many people for so many reasons.

But most importantly, we shouldn't idolize rich people. Elon Musk is rich, so what? Does the fact that he was born wealthy prove much? It only proves that it's easier for an already rich person to become even richer. It's not a fair system that we have out there. And importantly, we have to recognize the certain privileges being rich brings. Idolizing someone because of wealth is the last thing to do when we're as you say ordinary people.

Trading signals are trash.
NEVER pay to join such group.

If you want to trade safely, learn some principles for the very basics.
How much of your balance you should risk, what amounts to use to enter into a position, how and when to close positions or improve your positions.

Finding the perfect entry is never feasible even for the most experienced traders. Repositioning or exiting positions is very common and the best practice to beat the market. Signals are never going to offer that. No matter how basic it is.

All the client seed does is prove that results are pre-determined.
Being able to verify outcomes shows that the casino isn't just changing your results (for example, dice rolls) based on the amount you bet.

Honestly, there's no reason to believe that changing the seed gives higher chances of winning. It'll only give you another chain of pre-determined events.
If you're playing dice, you can change the win-chance and also your bet amount and hi/low pick before each bet. Dice is the most versatile game in terms of betting possibilities. But the house edge is always there.
So in the long run, the odds are always stacked against the player. Otherwise the games wouldn't be sustainable to host for casinos.

This is a fallacy and it's aptly named the gambler's fallacy.

Basically, the chances of each bet are completely independent and are in no way affected by previous bet, loss or win.
It's all luck.

Don't be fooled by fallacies like this, it will only lead to more losses. A healthy gambler will only gamble with what he can afford to lose. Thinking like this will just lead to bigger losses. So stray way from dangerous thought processes like that one OP. It's important to consider that in order for games to remain profitable, the house edge works against the player and you will only be losing in the long term.

Many people keep bringing the results of this poll as a way of saying that the community is divided.

First off, bitcointalk polls receive anonymous responses from any account so don't take them too seriously.

But even as a pointer, I don't think it shows any division. If anything, these results show that the discussion has matured a lot since 2015 and the community has grown a lot:



The environment was very hostile in these years circa the "block size wars" because many had jumped on the opportunity to profit against BTC itself by forking off to their own coins and whatnot.
Long time has passed since then and most of these altcoins are no longer relevant. So to me this vote indicates progress.
If a sound solution to scaling was to be proposed now it would probably receive better level headed discussion.

I want to share some basic statistics and definitions to make this thread more accessible to anyone, even people who haven't taken Econ101.

What is stagflation?
Source: Simle English Wikipedia.

Stagflation is surely a situation no economy would want to be in. Having inflation to keep increasing while the economy is contracting is a sign of collapse and definitely a bad look for investment. This time around we might be getting some early warning signs that the U.S. economy could be at a pivotal point that could make or break its entry into a dire macroeconomic situation.

The Data

Source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE

FED's data shows that in the U.S. unemployment isn't high, but has picked up slightly from the lows it had reached.

Meanwhile, industrial production has remained in levels lower than those of 2022's summer


In spite of the above however, the average billable hours that employees put to work has been increasing constantly


And USD inflation has been persistent above 3% after it peaked at a rate above 9% in 2021.


Do you think that the fears of a potential stagflation creeping through the economy hold any substance? For sure having inflation remain high during a phase of contraction and reduced growth is worrying, especially after it peaked that high. But the FED keeps saying "just a tiny bit more", meaning that the economy needs to contract just a little bit more before we can be done with our money being worth increasingly less due to high inflation.  Perhaps they've lost control already, but is it too early to tell? Or perhaps is inflation the new norm?

On the other hand, there's an increasing amount of people that see the hypocrisy in trying to battle inflation by increasing unemployment, all while people keep working more hours with FIAT money's purchasing power decreasing. An increasing amount of people keep considering bitcoin as a means to defend against inflation. But will it pay off if the economy officially enters into stagflation?

I also had issues with Paymonade.

For one, you need to pass KYC all over again.
Don't get me wrong, it's near instant as it usually was with Binance, but it lags in the final step and you have to do it all over again. I was never able to get through it to be honest and completely gave up in the end.

I don't know what to make of this. Probably Binance in playing whack-a-mole with EU legislators can't manage to find a good solution for depositing EUR. But now we're completely stuck with this.
Given that the rate is also not that good, it's probably more worth it to trade EUR/USDT in another exchange and deposit to Binance if you really need USDT on Binance.

In case you haven't been following, only a few days ago, OpenAI's board fired Sam Altman from the position of CEO. The reason's behind this are unclear to the public, but the board members stated that Altman was withholding information from the board. However this evidence wasn't presented publicly and many of Altman's fans have been very vocal with their disappointment.

I've been following many online discussions on this matter and can't help but feel an overwhelming sense of Deja vu... People praise Altman the same way they praised Sam Bankman Fried.
And it's hard to dismiss how many similarities exist between Altman and Bankman

Both created their own cryptocurrency.
Both claimed to be "effective altruists"...
Both claimed to be leveraging technology for the greater good of humanity...

And in Mr. Bankman's case, people fucking ate it up. The evidence speaks for itself though. The result of Mr bankman's doing was one of the biggest bankruptcies in crypto. His actions affected hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, negatively. Nobody was a winner from his "altruism" except for a few insiders that jumped ship early.

So please, take this precedent as a warning.
Humanity will not find its saviour in the tech industry sector.
Just as Enron failed everyone after a glamorous run, just as Nortel bankrupted so many Canadian pension funds and stole from its own employees after being considered the #1 tech company, it's not a matter of who leads a company.
Because every company's goal is maximizing profits. Solving humanity's problems for good doesn't pay well, and especially when compared to creating a need to people, there's no company that will want to make the world perfect, because then, it'll have no reason to exist. 

Be it Altman leading OpenAI or anyone else, a tech company CEO will not save us.
Only the people can save the people. 

Well the worrying realization is to see how much of the money out there has never actually been printed.
Yes, in theory any bank could send  a request to the mint to print the remaining trillions that have never been printed.

But in reality that has never happened. Which goes to show that banks remain confident in their fractional reserve system. And also, who this system supports most, which is whoever or whatever holds the largest of deposits.