Honestly, most people confuse “effort” with “edge”. Just because you study charts doesn’t mean you’re not gambling. Most day traders are under-capitalized gamblers with TradingView open. The real difference is feedback loops. Trading (if done right) offers structured feedback and risk-adjusted outcomes. Gambling rarely does

But be careful. The more you trade emotionally, the closer you’re slipping into gambling without noticing. The more you gamble with awareness, the more strategic it becomes. It’s a thin line. Both are human rituals of hope. One wears a suit. The other wears a hoodie. Doesn’t mean either of them knows anything, unless they can lose and learn at the same time

Quote from: Charles-Tim on Today at 03:42:20 AM

~

@slapper what do you mean by "audit chaos"? Fiat money and gold, those cause audit chaos. How in the world would a state reliably prove that they possess what they claim to possess in terms of any asset other than Bitcoin?

“audit chaos” - it’s less about Bitcoin’s traceability, more about the clash between traditional accounting frameworks (GASB, fiduciary protocols) and self-custody, volatility disclosure, rebalancing strategy, etc. It’s not chaos in the tech, rather chaos in the legacy bureaucracy trying to keep up. Glad you joined in. This is the level of nuance we need

This can be a big move for Arizona and since it is starting its Bitcoin reserve with the seized assets then certainly there is nothing for Arizona to lose here but many things to gain. I am just wondering why the said law was vetoed by the Governor - maybe he does not believe in Bitcoin at all or very much risk-averse! Talking on suicide, maybe we should look at El Salvador and so far nobody is really complaining with their Bitcoin reserve as they are now on the profit mode if they would decide to sell (hope they won't). But anyway, this is the problem when we are dealing with the government...its own mindset is quite different from ordinary guys like you and me. And yeah if Arizona is not sure of what it is doing on Bitcoin then maybe it is not yet the best time to get into it so they should contact a buyer for OTC sale of the Bitcoin they got rather than be a participant in the marketplace but not sure of what to do or why they are doing it. Either stay or just go away, Arizona.

Totally feel you on that. Although the "seized funds = nothing to lose" frame is emotionally intuitive, politically and structurally it gets complex here. From a state’s POV, even seized property is part of public fiduciary responsibility. That means the governor's office burns regardless of where the money came from if BTC declines 70% and local press broadcasts a "Arizona gambled with criminal money" headline. It is about audit trails and optics, not about belief

Also on El Salvador: they are in profit now, yes, but it took two full years of international doubt, IMF warnings, and complete internal political control to ride it out. Try using it on a state in the U.S. with checks, balances, and public reporting obligations. Said another way, Arizona shouldn't enter halfway if it doesn't know its intention. Either create a significant crypto reserve structure or leave till the institutional brain catches up

We're not lacking tools. We’re lacking clarity of intent

Bitcoin was created with the intention of it being used a method of P2P payment, it was not intended to be used by countries (or local states within a country) to buy and hold. If it was vetoed, maybe it will set a precedent for others to follow.

Because what something "was" created for rarely defines what it becomes. Money itself became fiat under central banks, it was not born as fiat. The internet wasn’t made for memes or markets, yet here we are. Indeed, Bitcoin was designed for p2p transactions. But intention doesn’t limit evolution. The veto might set a precedent, but precedent for what? For caution? For institutional delay? For freezing a tool designed to adjust more quickly than legal standards?

The issue is not if Bitcoin fits state behaviour. It's whether states can structurally handle trustless systems at all. And in a society headed towards programmable scarcity and post-nation economic flows, do they become less relevant if they cannot? That is why the "was" matters. But what it is becoming might be even more uncomfortable for institutions to face

I don't know what you are calling a lie, people are in it for different reasons, there are coders who are there for the code and there are investors who are there to make money, etc. This does not mean that people are telling themselves a lie, there are different use cases and people just have to choose what they want.

people enter the space for different reasons. But not all those reasons are all neutrals. Yes, some are here for code. But many so-called “builders” are just chasing tokens, VC checks, and exit liquidity

A lot of coders learn Solidity or Rust not because they care about decentralization or freedom from centralized power, but because they see a high-paying niche. And that's fine, it's human. Not everyone’s building toward the same vision. Some are building apps, some are building bags

Quote from: slapper on May 01, 2025, 07:09:42 AM

Or worse, consciously enabling?

One of the biggest lies is that everyone who invests in cryptocurrency will be rich.

That is a lie because not everyone will be rich from cryptocurrency; there will be investors who be left poorer from investment in cryptocurrency and that may be as a result of the choices they make of what to invest in, security choices as well too.

The myth that “everyone gets rich” from crypto is just that - a myth. Markets are not utopias; they are distribution vehicles. Every advantage has a corresponding drawback - someone leaves while another enters late. Most individuals mistake access for advantage. Simply because everybody can buy does not mean everyone should, or that timing, security hygiene, or cognitive bias don’t matter. Scams, FOMO, overleveraging, those aren't bugs, they're recurring patterns in human behavior

This isn't anti-crypto. It’s anti-delusion. If crypto is going to develop, we need more accountability clarity and less sales presentations

Blockchain will be adopted by banks not because they "believe in it". Under pressure, selectively, and with an eye towards control rather than transformation, they will accept it the same way competition tech is absorbed by legacy empires. Adoption has nothing to do with this. Their approach is integration without compromising their central control systems

Blockchain doesn’t just offer efficiency but it also rewrites the trust layer. Traditional banking has spent centuries making itself the middleman of trust. Should blockchain replace the need for it, banks have two choices: either become fossilised customer-service brands clinging to regulatory leverage or evolve into protocol-level validators

You brought up reducing  operational expenses, which is certainly surface-level appealing. But can an institution built to gatekeep truly embrace a system designed to disintermediate? Technically, banks could implement private ledgers (they already do: JPMorgan’s Onyx, for example). That is not, however, public, decentralized sense of blockchain. It’s blockchain in name only, a way to optimize settlement and clearing while preserving hierarchy. They would make advantage of it. But don’t expect them to surrender power just because the tech exists

Rank: Legendary
BTC Segwit/Bech32 Wallet Address: bc1qwy2k957x0kwz5fsaecd3qgypyctamc328g4w0h

"This is not about the money."

That serves as the default shield, right? Tech, decentralization, community, freedom. But watch behaviour: 98% here for gain rather than code. We stake, farm, flip, ape, pretend to be concerned about values, then FOMO into the next memecoin

Even builders secretly want exit liquidity. Even governance is often just post-sale theatre. We are being human in a system designed to favour curiosity over structure; we are not being bad

So here’s the thing: Can this industry be revolutionary if its core behavior is identical to Wall Street, just faster, more anonymous, and with better memes?

Drop your lie. Say it loud. Make it clear. Then start to rebuild something actual

What lie are you still holding onto? Or worse, consciously enabling?

If everyone keep their Bitcoin and no one sell, the system would fall apart on its own or worse: freeze in time. People love to talk about Bitcoin as currency, yet socially punish anyone who uses it. Bitcoin was born as a tool for decentralization, but it became a symbol of financial identity. People who say "you shouldn't have sold," are projecting psychological regret, loss aversion, and status anxiety. Being seen as someone who "HODL" is now more important than using Bitcoin to purchase pizza

If no one sells:

There is no liquidity

No price discovery

No functioning market

It's merely a piece from a museum with numbers on it. Holding everything forever is a fantasy economics can't support. Still, you are right to sense a loss in something. Store-of- value maximalism has taken over what was intended to empower regular transactions. We silently changed the narrative somewhere in the transition from p2p currency to "digital gold"

Those that sell their Bitcoin are not traitors then. They’re participants. Every transaction pushes the network ahead. And sometimes growth means spending

12 Slapper