Depends on the type of transaction and whether the buyer and the seller are located in the same jurisdiction.
People have been paying cash (of different forms) since the dawn of civilisation. Just like bitcoin payments, cash transactions are also irreversible and it's down to the seller if they decide to give you a refund or not. This was never a major problem as we have customer protection laws that force sellers to refund the money in specific situations, and bitcoin payments are no exception here.

I don't have a high-set bar for a definition of financial stability. If you have a stable source of income, don't struggle with your bills and everyday expenses + if you have enough savings to keep you going for at least a few months (in case you lose your current source of income) - then you can call yourself financially stable (not to confuse with being rich).

The perception of being successful usually is not a permanent feeling. The way we're wired is we keep setting ourselves new goals as we go through life. i.e. if you became a multimillionaire overnight say by trading bitcoin a few years ago, but you had nothing special going on since then, other than spending money that you earnt - probably you wouldn't be feeling very successful at all (despite having enough money to secure your and your childrens' future).

Good question. His fight with Adesanya was on 8th April, so it's closer to 4 months, but still. I vaguely recall some fighter or expert saying the recovery takes long months. Of course it depends on how bad the knockout was and on the fighter's age among other factors.
UFC often brag about providing high-level medical care for all the fighters, so it's possible that he went through some brain scans and they concluded that the damage was minimal.
I wouldn't be surprised if Pereira (or his agent) was the one pushing to make another fight quickly. He's not getting any younger and fans are quick to forget inactive fighters. Money-wise it makes more sense to do it now than to wait for another few months.

A little follow-up on the story of Nigel Farage being barred by Coutts bank.
Apparently the feud between Farage and the Natwest group (owner of the Coutts) caused Natwest CEO (Alison Rose) to resign.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/26/world/europe/natwest-nigel-farage-coutts-bank.html

The reason was not unfairly denying him a service though, but rather the fact that the CEO improperly discussed his bank account details with the media (BBC).
The article linked also suggests that the previous claims that the reason for closing his account was insufficient balance was not true.

I'd love to see McGregor Vs Mayweather 2, said nobody ever. You can't pull the same trick twice.
But like him or not, he still has a big name, look at this very thread, we keep talking about him despite him not fighting anytime soon. But I think after his next loss the hype will die out massively. And I don't see him winning against Chandler, or anyone from the top 10 to be honest.
Technically he's not that old yet and could potentially have ~3 years of a peak form, but he let himself go and is starting to look like a washed-up celebrity. Maybe moving up to welterweight would be a good move.
I wish him all the best though.

How are people wearing signatures stopping you from having discussion on the tech & possibilities? If anything, you'll get more engagement as people are incentivised to post (and more spam, which would be a valid criticism).

ps. welcome to the forum

Low inflation is not a good indicator (or any at all) of the potential income or the standard of living. As evidenced even by the ranking you posted, most of this countries are not attractive targets for immigration.
The usual "healthy" inflation target is considered to be in range of 2% or 2.5%. The negative rate (deflation) indicates that something might have went wrong and could be a sign of recession.

I wouldn't even be looking at this metric when making a decision of moving abroad. As long as the inflation is not out of control and is in somewhat acceptable range, I wouldn't be concerned about it. There are way more important factors to consider.

Yesterday's press hit from the Market Insider, with a bold prediction of BTC hitting $140k-$180k range at the next cycle's peak.
#IwantToBelieve

Bitcoin could soar to $180,000 before the April 2024 halving as potential BlackRock ETF helps drive demand, Fundstrat says

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/bitcoin-price-outlook-blackrock-etf-filing-demand-180000-crypto-halving-2023-7


Many bitcoiners are hoping for much more than that, but I'd be content if we hit the $100k mark.

Sure, but how often do you connect with complete strangers from the internet and dedicate a big chunk of your time to them? Especially if you're talking about people with high level of expertise, who tend to highly value their time.
It'd be much easier to connect to them if you build some reputation first, i.e. by showing your knowledge on public forums.

I know, but I wasn't talking only about outcomes of those fights, but more of how well each fighter was prepared, his mentality etc. And in my opinion Poirier looked really sharp in his last fight, while Gaethje seemed to lost his flare a little bit. Maybe I got this impression from his post fight conference when he said something about "countless reasons to not go longer than you should in this sport" which hinted that he might be slowly thinking about retirement. And frankly, with his fighting style and the amount of hard punches that he absorbed, he probably should be picking his next fights carefully and focus his health.


Altitude of 1,300m is probably not high enough to make a significant difference, but good point, it might be a slight advantage to Gaethje.

Very short-sighted and you can already witness this approach is kicking the rich countries hard in the ass. Mass immigration always means drifting into a low-trust society, and for some strange reasons, the "poor immigrants" after some time are no longer satisfied in cleaning toilets and wiping asses in elderly care homes and want more than that. Not to mention that a large part of what meant to be a cheap labour (aka waves of "Syrian" refugees from Iraq and Afganistan) is not even interested in working at all or in learning the language. They prefer handouts.
Every single country that accepted mass immigration failed to assimilate them, so now they have no choice but to declare themselves post-national and multicultural and launch hard censorship to prevent people from calling things as they are. We can see the results of that in crime-stats, racial tensions and identity politics or in events like the recent riots in France.
It's almost like the money should not be the most important thing in the world and GDP is not a great metric for happiness.


If you became a slave of a wealthy gentleman who would provide you safety, good food and expensive cloths - would it be bad for you?
It's a question of priorities.
To me a country is to a nation what home is to family. I'd much rather be poorer but sovereign. There are always some ways to acquire wealth, but once your country/nation is decomposed, there's simply no going back.

Moving abroad for economical reasons, leaving your family behind to just send them money should be done when you absolutely have no other options, or if it's only on a short-term basis (working on a project etc).
Being a provider is one of man's primary responsibilities, but it's easy to get carried away being focussed only on the money. The reality is, your kids need an active father figure way more than they need any extra money or comfort. If you're not there for your children when they need you and your guidance, then the damage is done, you can't buy back the lost time and you can't push back the father-child bonding.

Sorry, but you're not coming across as a very serious person when trying to create a group this way.
If you were any sort of knowledgeable expert, would you even bother to consider joining a team of a complete stranger (and dedicate your precious time to him)?

If you just want to discuss things, why do you want to do it in a closed group? Why not discuss any subject you're interested in publicly, either or this forum or on other ones? This way you could meet similar-minded people naturally, gain some reputation and then build a team (if you need one at all), rather than expect anyone to commit without having a clue who are they even talking to.
Just a thought.

I think the most platforms, if they have any T&S regarding arbitrage betting at all, would probably limit them to betting on the same event within the platform. Sure, they could restrict any form of arbitrage, but there's no way for them to know what bets have you placed on different platforms, so they could not enforce it anyway. And even if different platforms colluded and shared such information between themselves - it would be trivial to bypass by just teaming up with a friend etc.
So, to my best knowledge, what happens when you attempt to arbitrage is that you'll get banned but based on your unusual activity (betting large money on unpopular or unlikely events etc).

Molly is an average at best, she got some recognition by gluing herself to Paddy Pimblett and had one impressive knock-out but she was never exceptional. Marketing wise, she's doing pretty well. She's not even in the top 15 but is hyped-up better than most of the top 10 in her weight category, so her and her team must be doing something right.


Poirier. 100%. He did not disappoint in the fight against Chandler, while Gaethje had a hard time against Fiziev and I think his will is not as strong as it was.

Europe =/= EU. And not all EU countries are in the Eurozone. The EU started of as a free trade agreement between sovereign countries but is evolving into some strange, totalitarian monstrosity where, little by little, more competences are taking away from each country and ceded to the EU. It's like creating a super-state (United states of Europe) but without asking people for opinion. I don't think they even pretend to care about democracy anymore, plus there are full of double standards.
Because of overregulation and implementing weird laws (that benefit the strongest countries, mainly Germany), the Eurozone was one of the worst performing regions in terms of economical growth in the last decade.

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I'm interested in sports betting in particular because the house doesn't have a strictly defined mathematical edge, so it's possible for players to actually have an advantage if the odds are misplaced.
I agree, it would be a hard task to collate reliable data. I would definitely not rely on players' self-reported profitability, as they're often deluded about it, with most being at loss but thinking they're in a "break-even" position.

We could get 100% reliable data from the betting platforms themselves, but obviously they won't share it unless forced by the governments, i.e. in a similar fashion to CFD trading platforms in Europe having to clearly display the percentage of retail investors losing money.

I don't think that's a likely match-up. Tybura just got run over by Aspinall, so I don't think he'll be rewarded with fighting someone from the top 3.
But setting up Aspinall Vs Gane would make much more sense, and I think Gane would have his ass kicked if that happened.
Alternatively we might see Aspinall Vs. Pavlovich (currently ranked No. 1 contender) and whoever wins gets the title shot, assuming winner of Jones/Miocic doesn't retire after that fight.

Yeah, it seems like the decisions already have been made and they're dosing the news slowly so everyone can ease into the thought that it'll happen eventually.
What I wonder is if we'll see each individual country (with sovereign currency) being responsible for running and maintaining the CBDC systems, or will we see some central, global institution running the 'core' of it, with each country having some admin privileges to issue/burn its own coins.
We also know that anything centrally planned, which is not subject to free market scrutiny, tends to not function very well or even fail miserably, so we might experience some turbulent times in the not-so-far future.