In my experience these strategies mostly fail. I played blackjack once, started with $100 and wanted to get at least 20% before I call it a day, and after the first hour I was down to $90, then back at $100 and again down to $85 and so on. Anyway, in over 2 hours of gambling I still had less than $100, so telling yourself that you'll quit at a certain level will get you nowhere, unless you get lucky somewhere in the process.

Most people don't get lucky and keep slowly bleeding out until they're at 0, which is why I feel better betting on sports. At least it's a all or nothing type of game where I don't have to call it quits or spend hours trying to get my money back.  

It's hard to say in general, but they do what other online services do with your accounts. You don't use a service and it's going to delete your account after a while, but as long as you have money on it they shouldn't do it. It all depends on the ToS, so check if there's a line referring to inactive accounts because each casino will approach it in a different way.
 
I had a Netflix account and they deleted it after more than a year of inactivity. After about 2 years I had to make a new one, but I had no money there, all my subscriptions were not renewed, so make sure your account is not empty, leave maybe $1 in there and chances are they will not delete it.

Let's say you win a lot of money and the casino obeying the US rules reports it to the IRS. Are you going to share the money with the guy that passed KYC for you? That person is going to have to pay the tax on your win.

The way I see it, that person will never even know that they have to pay the tax and if asked by the IRS can face additional fees and fines, not to mention money laundering accusations. We all know how feisty and meticulous the US tax man can be, so don't do KYC for anyone. Better, don't do KYC at all, but if you have to, do ift for legit reasons. I wouldn't do it if they paid me $1k and he's paying $25 cheap mofo

I've never used bitcoin for small transactions, but what is small depends on your definition.

The way I see it, small transactions would be buying groceries, drinks, things of that nature and I never did that because when I used bitcoin for the first time it was an investment, so I didn't want to spend it. Now I could buy some stuff but fees are too high to pay for each transaction. Thankfully, you can buy in bulk. For instance, you can get a gift code to a store for $1k or more and use that for all your future purchases.

My advise would be to get someone trusted to manage funds for him. The safest way would be to divide the inheritance into 3 parts (or more) where 1 part would go to a manager who invests it for you. Not a single trusted person, but a well known company that does it for millionaires. They'll take their fee, but won't scam you. There are firms like that with decades of experience. They'll put it in real estate, gold, ETFs and it will be their job to pull out in case of problems, he won't have to do anything. I had some money invested in fund that followed the bonds and it was making me 6-7% last year, which isn't bad when banks pay you 4% on your savings.

Second part should go towards education and all the basic needs. With that kind of money he can get to a private school, finish whatever studies he wants, get a driving license and a car, maybe learn to fly and get a pilot's license. There's nothing that he can't go for at this point.

As for the third part, I'd tell him to buy bitcoin. It's probably the best investment in the world right now if you're ready to wait 5-10 years.

Sure, it wasn't the idea of any of these countries, but when it came to life someone had to make the first step and IMO that country was Russia. Do you know how treaties are usually signed? When a country capitulates it signs it on the territory of the country it capitulates to. When you throw a party, you usually invite people to your house. The first BRICS summit took place in Russia.

It might be a coincidence, but 2009 was the year in which Obama started his term and also the fist bitcoin block was mined

I could argue that it mainly depends on the type of games that you play.

Let's imagine for a moment that you bet on matches that you watch, like me. I watch maybe 2 or 3 a month, mainly on the weekends, but sometimes less. Betting on them provides more fun, makes the experience more entertaining, while being so rare that you can't call me an addict.

Bottom line, it depends on how frequently you play, what type of a person you are. Someone who's easily addicted will lose all money on scratch cards, while a strong gambler will play poker for years without any signs of addiction.

I'm 99% sure it wasn't the final ATH. The bull run before the halving was mainly ETFs and they aren't done. I'm sure they will have more inflows than outflows in the next year

The way I see it, cycles are still in play, but they're going to be influenced by the fact that people know they're there. In 2013 it was a new thing, nobody knew what was going to happen. In 2017 there were already 2 fractions, one that knew it will pump and the other one that thought something might go wrong within the protocol, miners could be in trouble due to increased cost of mining and all that FUD. Now we have enough data from the previous cycles to know it's going to decrease inflationary supply coming from miners without putting them at risk in any way, which in the long run will make the price go higher. The only unknown is how long we'll have to wait for that, but something tells me it's going to happen sooner than the last time. Most likely not in mid 2025, like the last time but at least 6 months earlier.

So, I own a lot of bitcoin, held it for over 8 years. I've never had any meme coin, no NFTs, only a bit of ETH, but the top 10 altcoins was as far as I ever went with my side purchases. How dos a meme coin take over if there are people who don't buy them and never will, but they hold bitcoin. I don't see ETFs launch for all these meme coins.

So if I use my bitcoin to pay someone, tell me how it isn't digital cash anymore. What people do with their coins is their choice. If someone wants to gamble, fine, buy altcoins, fine, prefers ETF than real bitcoin, fine. A proxy exposure is still better than no exposure.

For me it's not a tragic story because I didn't even know about bitcoin in 2013, so he found out about it, forgot it, came back to it and in the end still was a market participant long before me and many other people.

He was before Michaels Saylor, before SBF, before China banned BTC exchanges and before Karpeles caused one of the biggest crashes in the history of bitcoin. I wish I was a bitcoiner back then.

My biggest regret is exactly that. Not being a very early adopter. Not even knowing the name. Imagine that before 2014 I've never even heard the word bitcoin.

I see a lot of this fear mongering in Europe too, where US generals say in interviews that they expect Russia to attack NATO, even though Putin said it many times that Russia will not attack NATO unless attacked first. Also, Russians know they'd lose this. There's no scenario where they can defeat NATO because they have less forces, too much area to cover and, unlike in Ukraine, would face a nuclear war.

Even if Iran attacks Israel it will not be a world war. Such escalation is possible, but it's again puts a nuclear option on the table.

IMO they see that bitcoin is a superior form of money, but at the same time don't want to openly say they were wrong to ban it, so they're doing all of this by proxy, through their special economic zone in Hong Kong. Don't be fooled though, everything that happens there has to be approved by the government. It's not like Hong Kong suddenly decided to go against the CCP and accept bitcoin. This is the official stance of China, just done slowly, starting in one area, but if nothing bad happens they will lift bans in the mainland.

Bitcoin will go as high as people want it to go, and IMO it's towards $1m. That's the goal for most people and the highest number they can think of. With full acceptance in China it should be easy, but first $100k

Pure speculation, but for the sake of arguing:
Iran has roughly 3 times more active soldiers than Israel, over 5 times more artillery systems, but half as many tanks. The biggest difference is in population, where Iran has 10 times more people than Israel, which means a lot more conscripts. In case of a conventional warfare Iran wins. Its equipment is older and soldiers are not trained as well as the Israelis, but they have such large numbers of them that it doesn't matter. You can have a well trained army, but when it faces a 4 to 1 situation every time, it no longer matters. Israel would have to beg for help from USA and, sadly, it would probably get it

In WW2 they weren't overlooked. Do you remember what Hitler was doing in occupied countries? There even was a special division of the military that was supposed to gather art, gold and jewels from all around the world and bring it to Germany. Recently it was mentioned in a very well made series All the Light We Cannot See. The jewel the Germans were looking for in France never existed, but the way they searched through museums and packed everything on trains was.

The thing is, some of you think of a nuclear war when someone asks you about WW3, but it doesn't have to be a nuclear conflict. In a nuclear war we'll probably face extinction, but in a conventional one you can expect normal trading to continue. You will still have Internet access, be able to watch the news on TV, just like people in WW2 had newspapers and radios. The media kept functioning throughout the war.

I don't see any advantage of holding gold at this point. Bitcoin has proven to be a quality asset that people and even states gravitate towards, so the chances of it being banned worldwide are very small.
Isn't that what people were mostly afraid of, that they won't let it exist because it goes against centralization and gives people too much freedom and anonymity?

So, why would I want to hold physical gold?
Hard to store
Hard to check its purity, unless you buy from a well known supplier and trust the engravings.
Hard to hide in case of a burglary or search
Hard to carry around (heavy)
Difficult to divide, so pretty much useless as currency in a SHTF scenario.
If you manage to divide it, you'll destroy the engraving, which means the whole bar will lose some of its value.

Most people do it because it's illegal to gamble in public. Where I'm from it's illegal to do a lot of things in public, everything has to be done in designated areas. You can't drink in front of a store or church, and you can't gamble in the middle of a street.

All public spaces are off limits for things like that, which is why people do all the stuff you can think of in hiding. For instance, we used to drink and gamble in basements of apartment buildings. Some people even organized undergroud fights in there. My friend used to make illegal alcohol in such place. I fully understand gamblers who hide what they do.

I'd say bitcoin is the best in the long run. They call it a volatile asset because it has these 50% and more drawbacks, but that only affects traditional investors. Bitcoiners in time become immune to it and don't care that there was a 60% correction because in a period of 5 years they're up 100% anyway, so what does it matter if they're 100 or 200% up? They can take it, while for a normal, traditional investor this is a catastrophe.

This is one of the things that got me interested in bitcoin. No traditional trader can withstand a 70% correction in a bull market, but a bitcoiner can and this is what separates the wheat from the chaff.

My question to you is what is terrorism. Why are Palestinians called terrorists if their land was taken by enemies?

Let's imagine your country is attacked and defeated and the enemy decides it now belongs to another country. You don't agree and continue to fight them, but they call you a terrorist. Are you a terrorist in such situation or are you not?

Hamas does commit acts of terror but inherently it's not a terrorist organizations. It's more of a guerilla group that adapted to this style of fighting.

I think that Israel is committing genocide because it's not killing members of Hamas, but mostly civilians. If it was only between them and Hamas it could be called war, but it's not.

How to draw a line? The best way to do it is not to get drunk. You talk a lot about drinks and how much they cost. Don't drink when you gamble. Order drinks with no alcohol, like juice or cola.

Bet money that don't mean a lot to you. Players who don't have much and bet high are the first to get addicted and fall into those traps where they try to get even and lose even more.

I've never found it hard to hold and I have more than 10 times your $20k in bitcoin. To me it was an obvious choice after the first bull market that I've been through. Before the 2017 bull market I was unsure of bitcoin's future, ready to sell if anything goes wrong, but in 2017 I saw my investment go up by more than 20x and this gave me confidence. Even when it went down in 2018 and 2019 it was nothing to me because the lowest it got was at least 5x more than I paid for my coins, so I said to myself that I'll keep holding for as long as I'm in profit. Currently I'm over 100x in profit. I don't think it's ever going down below $1k, so I'm a hodler 4 life. That doesn't mean I won't sell anything. I even sold a bit this year when it went over $70k for the first time, but I'm never going to sell all of it.