I'll make a prediction. Events of the next 6 to 12+ months will shine a new light on this. In a way that puts events into perspective and is intuitive for everyone.

At the moment, people are surprised by this and don't understand why this happened. But there is a reason for it. Which will become obvious later. It can be deduced from recent events and proposals that have been put on the table.

Isn't it odd that people promote savings in banks and investment fiat in an era where events like this are occurring in henan and around the world. Bitcoin maximalist. Or bank / fiat maximalist. Most of the discussion is defined by extreme polar opposites. Where we appear to lack a middle ground between the two.

The US dollar is pegged to the US economy. Negative news of the US economy, generates a negative outlook of the US dollar.

Which in turn makes inflation protected assets like commodities, precious metals and bitcoin more attractive investments.

This is the price trend and history of bitcoin. Up until it became an instrument of speculation by mega trading whales. At which point the price trend of bitcoin shifted and became correlated to US stocks. An anomaly which has become somewhat normalized with all of the new faces in crypto who don't know the past history.

Long story short. Inflation protected assets are in greater demand during times of recession. It is mainly rampant speculation in BTC which has recently shifted that trend.

Iranian Hulk Sajad Gharibi made more than £1 million in this exhibition.

We know this as his previous opponent reported the number.


Sajad was paid more than £100,000 pounds for each blow to the head he received. Which is an excellent deal by most peoples standards.

Others like Mariusz Pudzianowski of world's strongest man fame, have made a similar transition in the past.

I don't mind people doing this. Although I hope they do it in a way that isn't harmful or embarrassing to them.

Whatever points totals were during the regular season.

I usually look for lower point totals during playoffs.

Playoff games receive more attention, more viewers and greater pressure. Teams play more conservatively and tactically to avoid making errors. All of which contribute to lower point totals. This trend could apply to NFL, MLB, NBA and european football.

Another strategy is watch for polarization between home and road games. Some teams do better on the road. They have less distractions and less pressure not playing in front of their family and friends in a home game. Which translates to better performance.

Some sports gambling strategy derives from observation and perception. There are patterns that emerge. Which can be consistent over time.

A high percentage of products americans use in their daily lives carry past histories of association with sweat shops, slavery and child labor.

Cat and dog food had connections to fishing slavery in asia. The sea salt industry had connections to slavery in south korea. Foxconn worker concentration camps were known to use child labor in the past. Beverage corporations were linked to assassinations to prevent workers in south america from unionizing. Exploitation and abuse are widespread and seldom acknowledged.

The conventional chemistry of lithium batteries uses cobalt. But its not so much the battery industry that is corrupt. So much as it is every industry in africa being linked to exploitation of some type. Whether its mining diamonds and gold. Shipbreaking. Cobalt and rare earth mineral extraction. Africa has terrible conditions for workers as a norm.

I think the universe grants wishes. People receive what they ask for. Not many ask to be rich. And that is ok.

What is important that we be honest and truthful with ourselves. There are many polls in social media that take the format. Would you rather be rich, or be poor and have love. People lie to themselves and say they would rather be poor and have love in their life. But why can't they have both. Love isn't the reason for them being poor. That is due to other factors. People tend to be dishonest with themselves about the reasons for things. And the dishonesty is worse than being poor.

Question.

Does bitcoin's status as an inflation protected asset conflict with it being an asset of speculation for hedge funds and investment banks?

Satoshi did an incredible job developing bitcoin. But I wonder if there were some conflicts of interest, which he himself did not anticipate. In which case, it is possible that there is room for improvement as far as BTC design and development go.

....


Tesla's new electric semi is scheduled to begin production in 2023.

It utilizes the new 4680 battery cells, which do not use cobalt mined in africa with child labor. Has a drag coefficient lower than a bugatti and can do 0-60 miles per hour in 5 seconds. They claim it can add 400 miles of range in only 30 minutes of charge time.

Food prices are climbing. Partially due to the cost of shipping and transportation rising on fossil fuel overhead.

Electric based shipping carries a potential to reduce shipping costs, and stabilize prices to a relative degree. It also carries a potential to reduce consumption of fossil fuels, and perhaps help stabilize prices.

It is interesting how many nations are rapidly embracing crypto regulation. While the claim to fame for nation's like china is a deregulated economic environment.

Singapore has a better and more developed tech sector, in contrast to el salvador. They could do a better job with crypto mass adoption and bitcoin incentives if the state were inclined to take that path. I would be interested to see what happens if a country like singapore forked dash or another token and adopted it as their CBDC under centralized control. In a way that implemented significant technical obstacles to prevent their CBDC crypto token from being devalued or hyperinflated. That type of arrangement could engender trust and widespread adoption. As it would combine the best elements of fiat with the best elements of crypto. Hybridization.

Europeans could swap out gas heaters for electric ones. Energy consumption on the electrical grid would rise. And the infrastructure base could be upgraded to support the greater load.

Europe's issue could be that it lacks commodities and raw materials. It has no big production or manufacturing sectors. All of which contribute to make it dependent on outside regions to provide these imports.

Can NATO invade africa? America's war in the middle east costed more than $12 trillion. Can war be waged if governments lack funding to finance them.

I wonder how chronic complainers would fare in a zombie apocalypse. If they were being bit by a zombie. Would they only complain about it. Or would they actually. Take steps to fix the problem. Run. Escape. Or fight back.

If we see storm clouds brewing on the horizon. And know that difficult times could lie ahead. How much value does every minute, hour and day spent preparing have. Complaining may not be a good investment of time and energy. Negative returns.

I think a legitimate case could be made for economies of the world being in a recession since 2020, when the COVID pandemic hit.

Drug overdoses, suicide, violence and crime all increase significantly during recessions. And I think everyone around the world is witnessing an uptick in these trends. Federal reserve (QE) quantitative easing and global monetary helicopter drops can mitigate the negative effects, over the short term. But eventually the shoe will drop and the harsh reality will be felt by everyone. If they haven't already noticed effects in their food and gas bills.

Hardcore doom and gloomers would say the US economy has been in a recession since the financial crisis of 2008, and never truly recovered. The US stock market did trend upwards since 2008. Which many view as an indication of a recovery. But I think that many are noticing stock market numbers can be influenced. Pfizer was delisted from the NASDAQ index. Exxon was delisted from the DOW. Considering pfizer and exxon both reaped high profits from COVID vaccines and rising cost of oil, respectively. The turn of events surrounding those delistings becomes an interesting topic.

2022 is an election year in the united states. Gas prices are falling. Markets and bitcoin are rising. Voters will feel better about the state of the economy and their investments when casting votes. Its what happens after the election season is over, that will matter the most. If stability in markets and commodity prices can be maintained, that would be great. But there is a possibility that circumstances will degrade and deteriorate beyond what we have witnessed so far.

After Trump assumed the Presidency in 2016, the federal reserve recommended raising rates to prevent the economy from overheating. This raised a few eyebrows. The trend has only widened and deepened since then. Until we have reached a point where former fed chairman Janet Yellen is claiming the united states economy shows no indications of a recession. The federal reserve and its narratives on the US economy are becoming a type of arcane ritual. Its not easy to see where they're coming from.

There is a 4 billion unbanked demographic who cannot qualify for a bank account. They lack digital payment options aside from bitcoin. No matter what happens, a large segment of the population will always HODL BTC due to them lacking any other option.

I don't think anyone is HODL'ing fiat. Everyone is in crypto, commodities, real estate or precious metals. US stock and bond markets are having their worst year in 50 years. The US dollar isn't doing well versus inflation, even if FOREX exchange rates are good.

Loans are another good option. As long as the inflation rate remains higher than the loan APR. Financial and economic circumstances make loans a more attractive option versus inflation.

Open a hedge fund office in a country with tax shelters. Depositors can transfer their withdrawal funds directly into a tax shelter of their choice, while going through a minimum of financial networks and middle men.

Another good location could be an area where dark pools and HFT trading is coupled with unusually high internet speed. Algorithmic trades are executed at high speed. A split second advantage in high speed broadband can translate to an advantage and greater profits over competition.

Another good thing to check with hedge funds is insurance options. Investors like their funds being protected by a solid insurance policy against theft, etc. Some countries are better for this, than others.

ThePirateBay and crypto both popularized locations in international waters to escape regulatory guidelines and set their own rules. If it were possible to locate a hedge fund in space, on mars or the moon. To escape regulation and rules. That could be an attractive option for some.

You forgot the meta virtual world. And that's not even their final form. 

I think facebook (meta) is failing to align their business model with their strengths. Search engines have spiders and crawlers which visit most websites and index the data accordingly to make it searchable for end users. I think this is where their focus of search engines should be. Capitalizing on that capability. To deliver better targeted content to users. Rather than give them what they're searching. Serve up content they didn't know they wanted. In that the crawling and spider capability of search engines is underutilized.

1% loss on revenue is better than expected performance from facebook. Mark Zuckenberg may be better at his job than he's been given credit for being. There have been past years when AMD and other tech laid off a good percentage of their engineering force. Its a recoverable trend. Hopefully, it will pass and be replaced by more positive trends in the future.

Many corporations have billions in capital. Maybe they can re-allocate to growing food and becoming farmers if the price of food continues to rise. There would have to be expanding profit margins in the industry, they could leverage.

IEO. Initial exchange offering?

The concept and guidelines remind me of ICOs. Which used to be available to everyone. And were regulated as being available only to accredited investors. It is possible IEOs will follow a similar course and become restricted assets in the future.

It is claimed developers of crypto tokens and coins paid out large sums to become listed and supported by exchanges. This is a power exchanges have long had to legitimize existing projects through their listing process. The natural development of IEOs is intended to leverage this power further by exchanges developing their own projects to list in house.

As with most things their success or failure will all come down to the implementation. If IEOs fail to amount to more than a thin cash grab, they will likely fail to have long term success in the way that NFTs are likely to do so. If they can implement a solid design with good fundamentals, that solves actual problems and is a good tool. It is likely to succeed over the long term.

If anyone intends to make plays with IEOs it could be good to act quickly. Before they become regulated to accredited investors only, the way ICOs did.

El salvador didn't make the cut despite them structuring a high percentage of their future economic plans around BTC.

United states is #2? Big surprise.

The philippines, nigeria and other emerging nations who do not tax crypto under capital gains are not listed as high as they should be. Disappointing.

Hong kong made the top 10, when it may soon be integrated into china who outright banned crypto.

Australia, canada and france in the top 10. I think canada outright banned purchase of crypto in the country. Australia and france may not be far behind with their AML regulation.

Interesting list to say the least.

I hope no one follows this list if they plan to move to a foreign country.

This poll is an excellent step in the right direction.

There are so many myths and urban legends about gambling. Any attempt to quantify and define trends in a real world setting are greatly appreciated and serve an important need.

It is common for many to believe that its impossible to make profits investing in stocks, bonds or crypto. Many believe its impossible and that every claimed success case is a scam.

This trend definitely carries over to sports gambling, where many believe it is impossible to consistently profit. I would guess some of the amateur football leagues might be easier to profit from, in contrast to professional leagues. Simply as there is less effort invested by bookies to set misleading lines and less attention there.

Information and knowledge are important to help people make good decisions. I think many would be shocked to know there are gamblers who consistently profit from sports gambling.

For years we've heard faint rumblings of hive collapse in bee colonies. Disappearing monarch butterflies. Plastic littering the oceans. There is a legitimate concern for global species collapse. We depend on insects and nature for food. If that relationship were threatened with major collapse. There would be no alternatives. Nature has a monopoly over our food, water and air.

There are many hollywood films claiming aliens or a zombie apocalypse are the biggest threats to civilization. A case could be made for mismanagement of land, ocean and resources being the biggest threat to our future.

We're lucky that survival on the planet has become easier in ways. We have many opportunities and advantages over those who lived in previous eras. We tend to forget that those of past times recognized the need for balance in ecosystems. Like the train in snowpiercer, they would allow hunting during some times. And ban it during others. Depending on animal populations. Waging warfare was often done on a basis of wiping out the land and nature of the opposition. Where they would salt the earth to prevent them from growing crops. And kill their livestock to prevent them from having food to eat.

People have become disconnected from their survival being reliant upon nature. And it has not been a good thing.

Some might expect year round temperatures to follow a linear path, where a hotter average summer is naturally followed by a hotter than average winter.

I hope everyone remembers global warming is complimented by another climate change process known as global dimming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming

Global dimming creates the potential for hotter summers in conjunction with colder winters through air pollution blocking or reflecting warming sunlight.

Climate change itself is defined by a two part process where summer becomes hotter (global warming) and winter becomes colder (global dimming).

As long as people remember that, and don't expect a warm winter, I guess everything will be cool (no pun intended).