Bitriver appears to be a cloud mining service, headquartered in switzerland.

I think this will affect russia far less than other anti russia steps taken during the early days of the ukraine invasion.

The article seems to imply that some significant volume of crypto mining hardware is being restricted. But russia has already had these restrictions against import of high tech components for many years. Which is a big part of the reason russian drones captured by ukrainian forces are using old cameras and technology. Due to them not being able to import newly minted electronic components or bitcoin miners.

Switzerland isn't far from germany and germany isn't far from ukraine's border. Geographically, russia's invasion front isn't far from bitrivers crypto mining resources.

In the year 2022, it seems many believe a person who works very hard and makes good financial decisions.

Should enjoy the same level of success as someone who doesn't work and makes poor financial decisions.

This appears to be the definition of "equality" most believe in.

They believe Elon Musk should enjoy the same degree of wealth and success as a homeless drug addict living on the streets. And that people should not be rewarded for working harder, making better decisions and taking bigger risks.

I don't understand how that is supposed to work in the real world but people can think whatever they like

If it is true to say more than 80% of new businesses fail after 5 years. (An often cited statistic) It could be better for startups to focus on survival and durability than ROI.

There are startups that pay their CEO $300,000 yearly salary whose gross income is less than $100,000. Many of these start ups fail, can anyone guess why? Partly it is due to CEOs being paid a flat rate and not being incentivized or motivated to ensure their business thrives.

The format with better survival rates is the one Elon Musk has where he earns a salary of $0 and is paid in stock options. HODLing the company results in salary CEO being determined by their own success or failure. Which could be a great source of motivation.

As far as ROI goes, it can be a misleading figure. A startup with $5,000 in capital could have a higher ROI than a startup with $5 million in liquidity but smaller profits.

Personally, I think its better to focus on aspects of the business aside from money as the psychological impact money has can be detrimental on logic and human impulse.

Americans renouncing US citizenship in record numbers to move to puerto rico and pay 5% income taxes, is one method of attempting to force utility on the SEC.


I would have to imagine capital flight could become a legitimate issue for the united states in the future.

The SEC is only a symptom of larger trends which exist at the highest levels of american leadership and regulation. While many disagree with the direction america has taken, these types of disagreements are seldom resolved quickly or cleanly, I think. It will take time. At worst it could take decades or centuries.

Someone should found a nigerian crypto exchange or p2p network called "Nigerian Princes". That would be the greatest thing ever.

Its great that p2p remains functional. What would be even better is if better methods than the "show ID" method were devised to authenticate identity and crackdown on scams prevalent in p2p. Some form of crypto credit check or background check. Along with a method of collateral. Similar to what banks have when they calculate terms for loans. Those steps could make p2p more reliable and less prone to fraud.

Ebay does well with user feedback ratings, that could be another good system for crypto p2p to adopt. To make it easier to trade and do business with reliable partners.

....


A quick keyword search reveals there are approximately 36,000 food and beverage processing plants in the united states. I'm not certain if the loss of less than 1% of them as reported by the media will make a significant difference. Loss of food processing plants to fire and boiler explosions would be a relatively routine event which is not commonly reported on.

With food shortages, and higher food prices in stores, people are definitely looking for something or someone to hold accountable. Could accidental loss of food processing plants be responsible. I was thinking if some of the bigger processing plants were destroyed while also being uninsured and opted to not reconstruct, it could make a dent in food production. Although I'm not certain what percentage of total production output the largest plants can account for.

Also if food shortages do become a crisis situation, what is everyones plan for mitigating these issues. What is a good plan for coping with food shortages. Will we revert to traditional hunter gatherer societal tactics and engage in more recreational fishing and hunting. With collection of wild growing crops. Can we grow our own harvest using guerilla gardening and other tactics suited to urban settings.

How does everyone feel about this.

Most esports broadcasts I've watched, were not the most watchable content. They don't deliver well on the spectator side of things.

I think they would do better upgrading broadcast and in game camera systems for current games. Or developing games designed to capture good content, play by play breakdown and highlight reel analysis that will appeal more to viewers.

Focusing more on 1 vs 1 platforms. Or team platforms where all of the team members are in the camera frame at the same time. Could be good approaches to follow.

With current multiplayer its too difficult and disjointed to follow what every team member is doing. The camera doesn't know which player perspective to follow as it doesn't know where the main action will be. Its difficult to follow everything that is happening in a perspective that makes sense and is watchable.

Have you seen a recent chart for the russian ruble? Its not that bad.



As long as the russian ruble remains relatively stable, there is little motive to search for alternative options.

A good example for USDT being useful as a hedge versus inflation is the lira of turkey.



Regions of high inflation create a dire need for alternatives that are more stable and reliable. Which stablecoins like USDT might fill.

What can north korea do with $600 million? They lack the infrastructure and free markets to make effective use of capital.

In 2003 there was a story published claiming north korea trained 100 hackers to wage electronic warfare on the internet every year.


If NK claims to train 100 cybersoldiers every year, the real number might be closer to 3 cybersoldiers. But they have been at it for a long time, so they must have at least 10 hackers working for them by now.

It would be interesting to know how many global electronic intrusions and attacks NK is responsible for.

ETFs are superior to mutual funds in terms of their tax saving benefits.

ETF tax savings are the main reason the winklevoss twins petitioned the SEC to legalize a crypto based ETF in the united states for many years.

It is surprising to see australia legalize a crypto ETF as politically they lean in the direction opposite from most crypto friendly states. I would guess this is a strategic move by australia to attract whales and capital inside their borders. But the spirit and personality of australia's government is more anti crypto, than the opposite.

Some coffee plant seeds have restrictions on united states imports due to the pulp being deemed an exotic fruit fly risk. I think it takes 3-5 years for a coffee plant to go from a seed to a mature coffee bean producing tree. There is a lag time of years involved. Unless people have the connections to purchase coffee trees near to maturity at low prices.

I've thought about growing tobacco, rice, cotton, wheat. In the USA tobacco has restrictions where its ok to grow and harvest for personal use but special permits are needed for commercial production.

Almonds, macadamias and tropical fruits like lychee, rambutan, dragonfruit.

I've seen almonds in stores for around $10/pound. Macadamias $20/pound. Fresh lychee fruit I've seen for sale on amazon for around $20 to $40 a pound. Some of these items are not that difficult to produce in quantity. It only takes time for them to reach maturity.

Farming could be a good market to invest in, food prices should appreciate faster than inflation with announced shortages.

I guess I should have put this at the top, rather than the bottom:


Personally, I saved every aluminum beverage can for the last 3 or so years. Use them for cosplay, heatsinks, metal embossing and engraving, windmill blades. Things that have absolutely nothing to do with commodities HODLing.

With 2022 aluminum prices doubling year over year, I see now they have other uses.  

AFAIK the most common causes of high blood pressure are diets high in sodium (salt) or sugar.

Salt and sugar are absorbed into the bloodstream causing the blood to become a thicker and more viscous liquid. This results in greater blood pressure being necessary to move blood through veins and arteries.

Reducing salt and sugar from diets is the best method for reducing blood pressure. Greater exercise also helps, although for best results it should be a form of exercise which elevates the heart rate. Rather than a passive form of exercise like walking.

Some foods also have natural blood thinning properties which can reduce blood pressure and inflammation.

I feel other peoples stress over bitcoins current price though. My solution to it, is simply to never look at the price.   

"Professor at cornell unviersity."

It is extremely common for university professors to have connections to banks and big tech corporations. I would expect avalanche's long term roadmap to resemble ethereums on the basis of ETH policy being influenced by its partnerships with microsoft and JP morgan.

The high speed low transaction fee market appears to be hotly contested at the moment. Similar to the stablecoin market blowing up after news of tether destroying 500 million coins of its own supply hit.

Financial markets in 2022 are often plagued with politics and conflicts of interest. My personal preference is independent development by Satoshi Nakamoto over start ups with ties to university professors, big tech and banks.

Many trust the government more than they do their neighbors and those they meet in daily life.

They have a stronger sense of loyalty and affection for the government than their own peer group and community.

A shift will have to occur where people feel greater loyalty to their town, country and community than they do towards the government. For some strange reason many seem to dislike each other. And so when these type of tax plans are passed by the government, people are happy that those in their neighborhood and community who they do not like, suffer under them.

That makes it very difficult for people to have nice things.

Why are markets rising and falling? And where will the go next?

That is a great puzzle of finance and economics to piece together events and fundamental market mechanics into a cohesive vision of future prices.

There are many obsessive gamers who spend 14 hours a day playing call of duty and counterstrike. Imagine how successful they might be if they obsessively spent 14 hours a day playing a game of investment market trading instead. Point and click is all there is to it. That's all people need to get ahead in life.

When most think of commodities markets, they envision multi million dollar operations accepting delivery of large shipments of bushels of wheat or barrels of oil.

HODLing commodities are recommended for inflation protection. With commodities markets being somewhat impregnable to entry level investors.

If inflation becomes a greater concern, people will become more incentivized to find methods of storing wealth in commodities which could appreciate in value at a rate greater than inflation.

One potential entry level method of HODLing commodities could be to HODL aluminum beverage cans.



With the value of aluminum more than doubling over the last year, it may become more attractive to HODL.



The value of plastic has also risen to a lesser degree.



It is interesting that aluminum is appreciating at a greater pace than plastic, due to crude oil being a principal ingredient of plastic production.

Could HODLing aluminum cans and plastic bottles become an entry level commodities play in the future?

Aluminum, copper and other metals can be purchased from scrap metal markets and held as a commodities play for those seeking to store their wealth in commodities in an entry level setting.

(Aluminum has one advantage over other metals in that it doesn't rust or tarnish as easily.)

What are other good commodity investment strategies that are accessible to non accredited traders?

LeMartin is good for NFL picks (and not good for MMA, can't comment on her NBA game)

https://twitter.com/LeMartinSports

MMA Mania's free picks offer a decent perspective on upcoming UFC fights:

https://www.mmamania.com/ufc-predictions

Their win / loss record is good but it does seem as if they deliberately throw bad picks into their predictions at times.

Colby Covington's MMA picks did well for awhile. With good comedic and entertainment value in addition to his calls.

https://www.instagram.com/colbycovmma/

Imagine this scenario, let's say I had a small amount of gold and melted it into molded weights of the most likely $ denominations that would be useful in an emergency.

I'm not minting, mass production or distributing a currency. This falls under personal use and each piece could be considered an individual work of art/jewelry. Which would be useful exclusively as a token of barter exchange if war breaks out or something crazy happens. Would that be acceptable and legal?

There are metal detectors which do a decent job distinguishing gold from iron and other metals. To help validate the authenticity of individually made gold items in custom weights. Tungsten being near the density of gold, having a metal detector which can detect tungsten would help to identify counterfeit and fraudulent gold bars which sometimes have tungsten inserts embedded in them.

Loans were recommended as one method of attempting financial stability during inflation. Inflation can rise at a faster rate than loan interest, which could result in smaller payments over time.

Investment banks are the biggest HODLers and largest transaction volume of stocks, crypto and precious metals. This essentially gives them good influence over all global markets. Even real estate markets are typically bought and sold with bank loans, giving banks good influence over the market. In times of inflation, everyone is searching for assets that are independent and reliable. Its not the easiest quest to undertake.

Monthly payment plans can also be a good arrangement for eras of inflation. If inflation is 8% and loan APR is 3% payments decrease over time.

10%-20% of monthly income can be invested in an infinite number of ways. It could be inaccurate to think of investment only in terms of assets like stocks or crypto. Proper exercise and a healthy diet are investments. Improving life habits can be an investment. Its good if a person can see improvement over time. As long as circumstances are improving in some way, then investments could be paying off.