.... The taliban seem interested in forging a future business relationship with china. Which would seem to indicate they will not be opening their doors to crypto/bitcoin support at this time. |
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Game related NFTs need some type of intrinsic value and functional utility IMO. They need to be integrated into the game mechanics to carry value.
Game issued tokens also suffer from devaluation over time. Creating a race to the bottom where players dump tokens ASAP. The opposite of HODL and building long term value.
A lot of people are hopping on blockchain, NFT and play to earn (P2E) bandwagons. Unfortunately, many are not well structured, designed or built. Their long term longevity is definitely in question.
There are a few good P2E games out there. While the remainder of the market could be getting out of control the way ICOs did.
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This reminds me of the UFC reebok uniform deal. Except much much worse.
With all the problems and conflict in the world today. Do we really not have anything better to do than wage a war on gambling and sports?
Spain being known for having very high youth unemployment (ages 19-24) in the 50% range. I'm surprised there isn't more emphasis and fact checking on real issues that people face.
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I wish mcdonald's and assorted fast food franchises would give out more food vouchers to those willing to stream themselves eating in their restaurants. It seems like a natural progression. With the advent of the internet and live streaming the trend may be inevitable. I think the novelty factor will eventually wear thin as people become desensitized to the advertising and hype.
If a streamer can gamble with $100,000+ and fail to profit. That could make for a good crash test dummy system.
I still think sports gambling is the best chance many would have for consistently being profitable in gambling. Gaming and dice aspects are too non-deterministic.
If they gave me $100,000 to gamble on sports & stream it. There's a chance I'll be walking away with more than $100,000. And that's how it should be.
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I mentioned in a previous article: Neither "Dutch disease" nor "abnormal trade" can explain Venezuela's current economic recession and hyperinflation.
.... Venezuela's President Threatens Toyota, GMDec. 27, 2009 Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, beset by a recession that is hurting his popularity, has turned his sights on international car companies, threatening them with nationalization and pledging to ramp up government intervention in their local businesses. The populist leader has threatened to expropriate Toyota Motor Corp.'s local assembly plant if the Japanese car maker doesn't produce more vehicles designed for rural areas and transfer new technologies and manufacturing methods to its local unit. He said other car companies were also guilty of not transferring enough technology, mentioning Fiat SpA of Italy, which controls Chrysler Group LLC, and General Motors Co. The president ordered his trade minister, Eduardo Saman, to inspect the Toyota plant. He said if the inspection shows Toyota isn't producing what he thinks it should and isn't transferring technology, the government may consider taking over its plant and have a Chinese company operate it. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704039704574615990386867578 The above is what led to venezuela's current economic downturn. Venezuela's government used intimidation and harassment tactics on corporations making up the backbone of venzeuela's economy. With disastrous results. Discussing oil is a smokescreen. Many in the united states today dream of a post corporate economy but none would look so far as venezuela to see what it looks like. |
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 Frisco residents Aanya Thakur, 9, and her brother Ishaan, 14, discuss the computer equipment they use to mine cryptocurrency out of their garage.(Stewart F. House / Special Contributor)Ishaan Thakur, 14, and his little sister, Aanya, 9, typically ran a lemonade stand each summer that netted them about $100 for their college fund. But in February, after their dad told them a bedtime story about bitcoin prices spiking to over $50,000, the Frisco duo dreamed up a new money-making idea: mining Ethereum. “We wanted to invest in it, but we didn’t have the money to buy bitcoin,” Ishaan said. “So instead, we bought the equipment to mine for it instead.” They started mining in March with an old gaming computer, making $1,000 in their first month. For the past month, they made more than $32,000. They use their earnings to buy more mining equipment for their company, Flifer Technologies, which they created on April 30. “I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it because it’s too high-level, but we watched YouTube videos and my dad and sister helped,” said Ishaan, a ninth-grader at Frisco High School.  Frisco resident Ishaan Thakur, 14, expains how he is mining cryptocurrency with computers in his garage to make money for college.(Stewart F. House / Special Contributor)Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency in the world with a value of around $44,455 per coin and a market value of $835 billion, according to Coindesk.com. Ethereum is the second-largest with a value of around $3,055 and a $357 billion market value. They decided bitcoin had become too competitive so they chose to mine Ethereum. Building a cryptomining rig came with one major COVID-19-era complication: a chip shortage. Ishaan and Aanya, a fourth-grader at Spears Elementary, signed up for supply updates from Best Buy and Micro Center. When they got an evening email alerting them to parts, they’d line up hours before the store opened the next morning. “There’s usually hundreds lined up but most are looking to resell the parts online for a higher price,” Ishaan said. Other times, they’ve been able to find deals on eBay. Their dad, Manish Raj, a former Wall Street investment banker, took out a loan to help them purchase supplies to start. The main equipment needed is graphics cards, which use software to guess the right code to get a bitcoin. They have 94 processors mining and mainly use Nvidia RTX 3090 graphics cards. When the computers guess the right code, they get a bitcoin. It’s a guessing game, and their current setup makes about 9 billion guesses per second. “Crypto mining is just like mining for gold or diamond,” Ishaan said. “Instead of using shovels, you mine with computers. Instead of finding a piece of gold or diamond in the mine, you find a piece of cryptocurrency.” While YouTube videos showed them step-by-step directions, they estimate it takes about 10 hours per rig to set up. But once the rigs are set up, it becomes a passive income maker. They have 14 rigs comprising 82 processors mining for Ethereum and five small rigs with 12 processors mining for Raven Coin (because those processors weren’t optimized for Ethereum). They’ve ordered four additional rigs from China with built-in processors. “We want to grow this into a big thing,” Ishaan said. A whirring sound is constant in their garage, where some of their rigs are kept for building and testing. Ishaan estimates they have about 30 cards in their garage setup, costing about $90,000 total, or $3,000 per card. Their main operations are now in an air-conditioned data center in downtown Dallas because the heat and noise were too great to keep confined to a garage. Ishaan and Aanya said it was important for them to use renewable energy, which costs about 12 cents per kilowatt-hour versus traditional energy that costs about 10 cents. The difference in cost is insignificant compared to what they make, especially because mining for Ethereum is more efficient than bitcoin. Last month’s electric bill, including their home and the data center, was $2,500. A typical home electric bill in the summer is $500 for them; with mining, it increased to $850. The downtown data center electric bill was $1,650. This isn’t Ishaan’s first entrepreneurial pursuit. He also created a hat with a solar-powered mini fan on it to help keep people like construction workers cool in the heat. He and his dad applied for a U.S. patent for the product and plan to sell it. Outside of his business pursuits, he plays the saxophone. The Thakurs are hoping their profits will help them pay for college. Ishaan hopes to go to the University of Pennsylvania and become a doctor. Aanya wants to go to New York and become a doctor as well. They’re equal partners in the company. Some investors are wary of cryptocurrencies because of their volatility. But the brother-sister duo said they don’t have concerns about finding a buyer for their Ethereum when the time comes to pay for college because the market is very good. It has a larger market value than the largest companies, like Irving-based Exxon Mobil, which has a market value of $243 billion, they said. So far, they’ve sold small amounts to pay for expenses such as the electric bill, graphic cards, software and the data center. Cryptocurrency has grown in popularity this year, leading lawmakers to think more seriously about how to regulate it. Recently, Texas enacted HB 4474, the Virtual Currency Bill, which allows the 216 Texas state-chartered banks to provide safekeeping services for virtual currencies. This week, the U.S. Senate passed the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that requires more tax reporting for cryptocurrency transactions. Ishaan said he tries to keep up with news on the cryptocurrency world. But neither he nor Aanya have told their friends about their latest venture. “Most kids like to play games on their computer,” he said. “We like to build them, I guess.” https://www.dallasnews.com/business/entrepreneurs/2021/08/16/what-were-you-doing-in-grade-school-these-frisco-kids-are-making-32000-a-month-mining-ethereum/.... Summary: texas kids are mining ethereum to fund future plans to go to college and become doctors. I like this plan better than the usual one of increasing US student loan debt.  There are so many positives crypto brings to the world. We need more stories in the news like this one. If kids can use cryptocurrency mining to put themselves through college and become doctors, then why would anyone want to shut down the crypto mining industry? I think this is a topic many could benefit from taking a 2nd look at. And wish people would do a better job educating and informing themselves rather than simply repeating media headlines. |
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It seems that in the early part of a bull market, Bitcoin goes up faster than altcoins (ie Bitcoin dominance goes up.) In the late part of a bull market, Bitcoin still goes up but altcoins go up even better (ie Bitcoin dominance goes down.)
In a bear market, altcoins fall faster than Bitcoin (ie Bitcoin dominance recovers somewhat but has to wait for the next bull market to go really high.)
So, it would seem the correct play is to buy altcoins at this point, and then convert them into Bitcoin (or sell) when you see the bull market ending?
Any thoughts? Astute observation. Much has been writ about bitcoin's alleged price volatility. Alt markets being low(er) volume traded assets, opens the door to them trading with higher volatility imo. There is often an uptrending price correction in alts after a bitcoin uptrend. But sometimes the upswing has to be sustained for weeks or months, which can make the timing to enter into alts iffy. If bitcoin being defined by 4 year boom and bust cycles, incentivized by its rewards pool halving roughly every 4 years holds true. A decent strategy could be to buy bitcoin. Ride it to new highs. Sell. Then buy alts in the hope of catching their eventual price correction in bitcoin's wake. To be honest, there are always so many opportunities everywhere in crypto, I don't know how likely or unlikely an investment scenario that is. Gains from bitcoin's 4 year cycle alone can be so large. And opportunities presented by emerging alts can be so tempting. That really there might be zero need for any type of special timing play. [I used to post as BobK71, and am using a new account after some logistical mixup.]
I remember BobK71 as an author of many gold and precious metals topics in this section. Welcome, if you are him. |
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I don't know about helping terrorists.
But I imagine afghans fleeing the taliban will have trouble buying a plane ticket, bus ticket or fuel to escape the taliban with their funds frozen. Americans as well, who may have sought to leave the country. Could have a hard time doing so with afghan government funds frozen. If anything the move is likely crippling efforts of the kabul administration being overrun. Than it is doing anything to hamper the taliban.
Withdrawing US troops abandoning afghanistan left behind so much free equipment, weapons and vehicles for the taliban to acquire for free. I don't know if anyone will take the "fighting terrorism" narrative seriously any longer.
Ownership and sovereignty of money could become hot topics in the future. Is it your money, do you truly own it, if foreign nations can remotely freeze your assets? There could be a good discussion to be had there.
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The advertising ban meanwhile will be before 9pm, and will run from five minutes before the live sporting event until five minutes after, but will not include horse racing or greyhound racing. This is strange to me. Horse and greyhound racing have to be two of the hardest sports to gamble consistently. Also probably two of the biggest money losers for gamblers. If the goal were to protect gamblers from losses, I would expect horse and greyhound racing to be at the top of an advertising ban. Many things do not make sense about this latest "war on gambling" which state authorities have taken upon themselves to pursue. For whatever reason? I hope credit card bans here push crypto mass adoption in ireland. Perhaps the irish can find value in NFTs, DEFI and blockchain gaming. With all the problems the world has at the moment, it seems strange that anti gambling measures would be so highly prioritized. |
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ESPN has reportedly been losing subscribers and revenue. They need a to secure new sources of income if they're to stay relevant. It would seem they've chosen to tap the gambling industry as the logical source.
The gambling industry already has many unofficial spokesman to promote their business. (ex - all those mybookieAG promos Colby Covington and others in MMA cut) Youtubers, social media influencers and personalities with a large follower base may be a more effective method of reaching the public. Than large networks like ESPN.
ESPN's coverage of the Jake Paul vs Tyron Woodley fight last night was so terrible. I wouldn't mind if they never covered another boxing event.
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It is possible to make money playing blockchain/NFT games. Especially as an early adopter. Definitely one of the funnest methods atm.
I would recommend splinterlands as an example of how blockchain/NFT games can be profitable. NFT cards on splinterlands are a bit overpriced and I wouldn't recommend buying them at current prices.
But there are still many other blockchain games that are in the early adopter stage which could be worth something.
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Aging wrestlers like Ben Askren and Tyron Woodley have accumulated many injuries and serious surgeries over the course of their long competitive careers.
While Jake Paul is a very young 24 year old who as far as I know has never dealt with a serious injury/surgery.
Jake Paul has around a 20 pound weight advantage. 190 pounds isn't where Ben Askren or Tyron Woodley competed in MMA. But it is the weight they'll be facing Jake Paul at.
Jake Paul said he wants to fight Canelo but Jake Paul fights at 190 lbs while Canelo fights at 160-168 lbs. So I wonder how that's supposed to happen.
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Cubans who escaped cuba, have used crypto to send money to their families in cuba, for many years. About 10,000 Cubans have turned to bitcoin and altcoins, including ethereum and dogecoin, to skirt around U.S. sanctions, according to a report from Deutsche Welle’s Spanish-language service, reported CryptoNews. Cubans overseas use BitRemesas, a crypto exchange, to essentially transfer money to family in Cuba through a middleman, CryptoNews explained. They convert their fiat currency into cryptocurrency, which middlemen in Cuba then bid on and pay for in cash to the sellers’ family members in Cuba. The middleman gets a commission fee from the exchange, and BitRemesas takes a percentage as well. https://www.businessfast.co.uk/bitcoin-daily-cubans-use-cryptocurrencies-for-remittances-in-wake-of-us-sanctions-swiss-national-bank-bis-test-cbdc-integration-pymnts-com/Sending money to cuba via wire transfer can have (I think) 40% in taxes and fees. Cubans used bitcoin/crypto to circumvent high taxes and fees. "Accept cryptocurrencies" means cuba's government wants to tax and collect significant portions of crypto payments entering the country. |
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The good news about this is it would allow american's access to leveraged bitcoin trading. Americans have always been banned from trading on bitmex and platforms offering leveraged trading. It would be nice not to feel like we're stuck in the stone age in the USA.
If this signals, things to come, perhaps we might get crypto ETFs in the future as well.
Maybe of the bigger american crypto traders are renouncing US citizenship and moving out of the country for the greater crypto options and freedom offered by other parts of the world. I would guess cutting back on capital flight and hemorrhaging citizens could be goals worth pursuing.
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The day we "get" quantum computers, is the day we "get" quantum ASIC miners to balance the equation.
Tech firms seeking to develop quantum computers need funding and resources. That's where "5 to 10 years" comes from. They exaggerate and make overambitious and overzealous promises to attract investors. The technology will likely never become a reality. It shows in the 5-10 year estimate that they have no real blueprint or roadmap.
Anyone who looks into the specifics of claims made by "quantum computer developers" will see many different forms of sketchy and shady behavior. That are not found in legit peer reviewed research.
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There are so many earning opportunities in crypto.
Its ok if you miss out on some opportunities to expand your holdings. More will definitely be on the way.
It could be worthwhile to think about and research what led to making the undesirable trade. And not repeating the same result in the future. Being a successful trader is as much not making bad trades, as it is making good ones.
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Our currently prevailing monetary system has no solid value support, leaving countless potential crises, which will inevitably lead to the outbreak of economic and financial crises, and then the system breaks down. Bitcoin will be chosen since it's similar to gold in some degree and has advantages that gold has not.
Central banks expand the money supply. To bailout failing industry, investment firms, hedge funds, banks. Also to bailout failing and underfunded government programs. The question is whether adopting a gold standard or cryptocurrency gold standard can prevent this vicious cycle of cause and effect. The gold standard is often held up as a silver bullet, plug and play, solution to fixing every economic and financial issue society will ever face. Consider the following. How would the 2008 economic crisis have gone with a gold standard in place. Would it have prevented the economic crisis which followed? The simple answer may be: no. A gold standard is great for strengthening the purchasing power of consumers to offset rising taxes and cost of living. But it wouldn't prevent investment banks from gambling with leverage on subprime mortgage CDOs which is where our real economic problems usually stem from. |
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Under the taliban, we could see afghanistan abolish democracy and free market capitalism.
Replacing them with a totalitarian dictatorship that technically owns and controls everything.
It could cause an economic contraction, which could pull pakistan's economy down with it. Depending on how close of trading partners they are.
America's withdrawal wiping out last vestiges of democracy in afghanistan is one of many unreported angles that could use more attention.
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Communities who communicate and discuss paths to accomplish shared goals, often come up with better and more affordable solutions than had they relied on governments or corporations to do the same job. One example of this is the slew of locally run internet ISPs and cellphone services which are known to provide better service, speed and cost to consumers in contrast to big telcos or state sponsored ISPs. How a group of neighbors created their own Internet serviceFaced with a local ISP that couldn’t provide modern broadband, Orcas Island residents designed their own network and built it themselves. The nonprofit Doe Bay Internet Users Association (DBIUA), founded by Sutton, Brems, and a few friends, now provide Internet service to a portion of the island. Though DBIUA's Internet service is a rarity, there are similar projects elsewhere. Brooklyn Fiber in New York was founded by two brothers to sell Internet access to the community. A volunteer project called the Red Hook Initiative buys Internet service from Brooklyn Fiber in order to provide free Wi-Fi. In Germany, residents of a small town called Löwenstedt built their own Internet service. One Ars reader who lives in Norway personally installed fiber lines to his own property. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/11/how-a-group-of-neighbors-created-their-own-internet-service/ Its really great to see people uncover the power to overcome obstacles that they never knew they possessed. I think this is perhaps one thing cryptocurrency demographics have to offer the world. We've seen the value of how a single idea can change the world. |
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Venezuela's government waged war against capitalism and the private sector in the country. That's what caused the demise of their economy. They harassed and threatened to nationalize factories in the country run by toyota, kelloggs and other big name brands. Then after toyota, kelloggs and other corporations fled the country, state officials went in and looted everything like common thieves.
State regulators overprinted the native currency, the bolivar, in an effort to compensate for the destruction of jobs and business their heavy handed authoritarian approach had caused.
Socialism? Communism? Whatever you call them, they floated the idea they could give people free things (free healthcare, free education). And promoted the idea that attacking and destroying capitalism would improve qualify of life. If you attack your local economy and kill off most of big business people rely upon to support themselves, your economy dies. Who would have guessed.
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