It's been almost two years since the thread was opened and it didn't get a lot of attention here. The chess boom is still happening. I enjoy playing Blitz chess online and there always people to play against with. Most of my friends also enjoy playing chess from time to time. But none of us play for money, we only play for fun. All the big chess platforms are without betting on it. It seems that there is not so much demand for playing chess for money. The problem for me is that there is a big skill difference in players, it would be very easy for a professional chess player to win all the money. That is why all the chess platforms have Elo rankings in place. It needs to be a fair game for players to actually bet on it.

Both of the coin want to track a stable value of the USD. Like you said one decentralised and the other one not. I don't own any of these two, the only stable coin I invested in the past is USDT. It's the biggest stable coin, for me it gives some additional security for being the market leader. Usually I prefer decentralised systems , but when it comes to stable coins centralisation might be better. So if I had to choose one of the two coins I would probably go with Busd, as it's also regulated by the government.

I agree with you that why new trader or beginner shouldn't jump straight into day trading. There is a lot of risk involved and while there is a chance to make a big returns quicky, it can also mean a lot of money quickly. The biggest risk we face in day trading, is to over trade. Buying and selling without making a return after cost. Transactions cost can eat up a lot of the profits.
Waiting till 2023 for asset prices to hit rock bottom might not be the best strategy. Do we really expect the Russia Ukraine war to continue until 2023? I don't hope so. As soon as there is a ceasefire the world should be relieved and some normality should come back. It's going to take years for the conflict to be solved, but asset prices should rise again when there is light at the end of the tunnel. Being atleast partially invested now will let us profit from it.

I agree with you, a good economy is very important for the people and families living in a country. A stagnant or declining economy is very bad and will likely result in political unrest and protests, demanding change and probably a change in power. The whole capitalism in the west is designed around the idea of growth. The inflation target is around 2%, which means that if the economy is not growing at a similar rate than the people are losing purchasing power. That's also why wages need to rise. It's very similar to the stock market, investors expect a rise in prices or dividends each year. If the price doesn't change for a few months something is wrong, investors lose confidence and prices will eventually fall. A large part of the investor sentiment is a projection of the future growth. It's very important for the government to start investing in the own country if growth is slowing down.

Good to hear that you are ready to go full into crypto currencies. I am not yet ready, because most of my bills are still in fiat money, even a loan I am repaying is also in fiat. Same goes for my salary. That is why for daily life I need to stick with fiat for now, but for my investing I am also full into cryptos. Haven't really bought any stock or other investments since I am back into cryptos. Especially now cryptos are so desirable because they offer much better inflation protection that our Fiat money. It still important what kind of crypto coins we are going to buy. Right now 10 doge coin are worth 1.11 USD, going up to 500k sounds a bit unrealistic to me. Doge is still a meme coin, so if they could go up to $1 and hold that price for a while it would already be amazing. Better not to invest all your money into Doge in my opinion. How about you spread out your money across a lot of different cryptos?

This is exactly my concern, in Russia not everybody is supporting Putin. The official approval rate of Putin was around 70%, which is of course not a correct number. So even in the worst case 30% are not supporting Putin and will still be hit hard by the sanctions. It's easy for us from the West to say that people should stand up to Putin, even if that leads to getting beaten up and worst case spend 10 years in jail.
The billionaires and oligarchs still have most of their money in Russia, they might lose some yachts, international money and properties. But their lifestyle within Russia probably won't charge much. It's the average citizen that is hurting he most. And will the sanctions really help and make them stand up to Putin or will they get angry at the West instead? I think there is a big possibilities that the sanctions backfire and make more people angry against the West. Which will push Russia even further into a corner.
I am against this war and hope that the peace deals will lead to a ceasefire soon.

That's not an easy question to answer. Mining bitcoins sounds nice, but it involves money and work to maintain it. It's not a system that you buy once and then the money flows in. The first thing is the hardware, the prices are still high and it will take time to make your money back. Also there could be problems or damages which require repair and mean downtime for the Miner. The second thing is energy, it depends on in which country you are and how much you have to pay for electricity. Now with he Ukraine Russia war, energy prices are likely to keep rising in the near future. The higher your operating cost the lower your profits.
In the end it comes down to how you look at the future bitcoin price. If you believe that the bitcoin price will rise again than buying bitcoins directly with your 40k, but if you expect falling prices than mining would be a better option. Personally I would invest rather than mine.

Gambling in the metaverse offers a lot of new possibilities and sounds very cool at first. Together with a VR setup this could be a whole new experience when it comes to gambling. Entering a virtual casino, interacting with your friends while playing your favourite games sounds pretty cool. Especially for games like poker where you play against others it would mean a big change. The question is would you be willing to get filmed while sitting on the couch and gambling. And all your friends could see how well or bad you are doing. For people who are big fans of social media that could be pretty cool. I am not so big into social media and it would feel a bit wierd if some friends I rarely talk to would contact me again after I won big one night.

Ohje dass klingt gar nicht so gut. War mir nicht bewusst dass die Front gegen Bitcoins immer noch so stark ist. Warum die Linken, Grünen und Sozialdemokraten zusammen so Druck gegen Cryptos machen verstehe ich nicht wirklich. Regulieren ist doch immer besser als einfach nur verbieten. Ein Verbot ist nie zu 100% und im Endeffekt bleibt die EU dann nur noch weiter zurück in Technologien. Bin froh dass wenigsten die Konservativen und Liberalen gegen ein Verbot sind. Kenne mich im EU Parlament nicht so gut aus, aber Konservative ist die stärkste Partei und Sozialdemokraten, Linke und Grüne haben keine Mehrheit moment. Also wenn jeder Abgeordneter seiner Partei folgt sollte der Verbots-Entwurf nicht durch kommen. Hoffen wir mal das Beste. Danke fürs sammeln und zusammenfassen der News.

I hope it's not the case, because if Western countries see that crypto currencies circumvent all the sanctions than we could face direct bans on cryptos even if we had nothing to do with the Russian sanctions. It would shed a bad light on cryptos again.
Also I think that cryptos are no real alternative for the swift system to save Russian banks. Most of the bank subsidiaries in Europe deal in Euros, so they still would need to aquire large amounts of foreign currencies, just against cryptos and not the ruble. And then there are the large amounts of western companies who are leaving the Russian market. Which is having a big impact, a lot of employees are losing there jobs. I am not sure if cryptos could help here, because if it comes public that one of the major companies circumventes the sanctions it could become a PR debacle and ruin the public image.

There are a few reasons why bitcoins are not at 75,000 USD right now. The biggest are Russia-Ukraine war, threat of nuclear war, ongoing covid pandemic, rising inflation and slowing world economy. All these factors together made it a very bad start into 2022. But even with the short term outlook not looking so great, bitcoins are still above 30,000 USD. As long as we can stay above this important barrier I wouldn't worry to much. All these reasons are not a direct problem of Bitcoins or other crypto currencies, but rather a general problem in the world. Stocks and other investments are hurting as well. Once we can return to normality a rise in the bitcoin price should happen. Without these crisises the price would be much higher today. In my opinion we will see a new ATH later this year.

Yes I believe that sanctions work. Sanctions are put in place to hurt the economy of a country. We could see the effect after USA announced the sanctions on Russia, the Rubel dropped 30% instantly. I am sure that if there were no sanctions on Iran or North Korea than their economy would be much stronger today. Just compare south and north Korea, one a free market capitalist country, the other one a closed of country. Sanctions prohibit companies to do business freely, there will also be a cost for the country that issues the sanctions.
The question is however, if the sanctions are helpful in changing the course of a country, or if they make things worse. In theory international sanctions reduce the economy, which in return should make its population unhappy to create pressure on the politicians to change their course. For some sanctions is this true, but if the sanctions become to severe it will create anger and resentment towards the foreign country. In Russia a few people decide the fate of the country, but with the sanctions all the people are hurting.

Great news, always good to see when another celebrity joins the crypto world. Having such a prominent rapper as brand ambassador and for advertising is good news for the whole crypto community. The more high profile celebrities are willing to link their name to crypto casinos, the more mainstream has the gambling and crypto community become. The social media reach of Drake is huge, that should bring a lot of new business for stake. Personally, I find it better to have some celebrities to do advertising on twitter and Instagram, rather than showing some TV ads. The advertising business changed a lot in the last 20 years. With all these social media platforms it's a much closer interaction with the fans and consumers. I am looking forward to the twitch streams, should be some nice action there and hopefully some giveaways.

I agree with you, losing money in a trade as a beginner is not the end of the world. We shouldn't worry so much about making a big profit from every trade we do, it is all about learning and finding a profitable trading strategy. The thing with losing money is that we should try and find out what went wrong, did we make a mistake or was it a general market movement that we missed? Only with a loss there is a real incentive to investigate how we can avoid making the same mistakes again in the future. When making a profit in trading we don't normally question if we were wrong or right, making money is an indication that we were "right". It can of course be that we were just lucky.

It is is not a sad story as long as your friend is healthy and has a happy life. Money is not everything in life. My grandmother is 91 and I want her to become 100 rather than inherit something. Probably many people would give back their inheritance if they could spend more time with their loved ones. Same goes for having all the money in the world, but not being healthy and can't spend the money. Of course we need some money to treat ourselves and our friends and family from time to time, but having the goal of becoming a billionaire is not good in my opinion. Making billions out of $1000 sounds a bit like a Hollywood movie to me. Decent profits is one thing, but becoming a billionaire is not really realistic. If we look at all the super rich people, they didn't start out poor, they either had help from friends and family or were in one of the top universities and had a good network.

Chelsea FC is major team in Europe that won a lot of championship since Abramovich bought the club. There is international interest in the team, the new owner could be a foreigner again. Trump definitely has the capabilities of pulling such a deal of. He loves public attention and can get the financing done. Only minor problem could be that he doesn't seem as the typical football fan. Not being an expert in the sport is no issue, he will have to listen to the manager and coaches. Also the fans should have no problem I would imagine. Trump seems very similar to the British prime minister Boris Johnson.
Yesterday I read that Nick Candy is biding  2.5bn GBP for the team. This is going to be an interesting takeover battle. I just wonder if Abramovich is really going to donate all the money he makes of the deal. With such prices it will be a big payoff for him.

I wouldn't worry so much about the current bitcoin price. Right now BTC is at 39,000 USD, which seems quite healthy in my opinion given the current state of the world. You are comparing the price to the ATHs from last year, but the world has changed since. We are facing a major conflict with the Russia-Ukraine war, also inflation rates are rising compared to last year. Even before the Ukraine war the bitcoin price was lower than it is today. No reason to panic as long bitcoins manages to withstand all that downward pressure. In Europe for example the Russia sanctions are going to hurt the economies. Already now we see a double of the fuel prices in two weeks. This is going to increase inflation even more. It's just a matter for the world to go back to normality and for bitcoins to rise again.

This would be one solution to avoid being flagged as an arbitrage gambler, but you are still taking risks here. If the outcome you bet on didn't come then you lost your money. Choosing the bookie that offers the best odds for your bet is a good idea and will make you a lot more money in the long run. The thing with arbitrage bets is that they are usually risk free with a much smaller payout. The risk free bet enables you to bet a lot of your money on it as there is no real risk of losing your money. How about you look for a partner to the trades? If your friend bets one leg of the arbitrage and you bet the other than there shouldn't be an issue with the TOS. I tried myself to look for such arbitrage bets in the past but couldn't really find any. Are you looking at not so popular sports and less frequent matches?

We already have a thread about this artible here in the gambling discussion thread. Maybe try and merge the discussion in there?  You are right that the parents should have helped his son. With 24 years the parents don't have any supervision duties anymore, but they should have helped their kid nonetheless. Gambling is similar to other things in life that bring us joy, we shouldn't over do them. Everything should be done with limits, like drinking alcohol, smoking, or eating unhealthy food. The gambling industry is not the villain here.

I fully agree with, blocking access to social media is wrong and hurts the average citizen. Unfortunately this is part of the whole new censorship strategy in Russia. Its not only social media, but also the big news companies and radio stations that are getting censored. Many journalist had to leave Russia because of the new law, that threatened to imprison journalist for up to 15 years.
If using social media for work, things are even more terrible. I don't think that the average person in Russia losing his job is going to make Putin change his mind. From Russia I only knew a few people and they told me that they are using Telegram more than the Meta Services, also tiktok seems more popular than Instagram. Maybe people can switch to other services instead. Blocking and censoring Internet access in China and Russia both is wrong, and I hope that people can use VPNs without getting into trouble.