Rayvin

I can't really remember how it all started with him but he took positions that were contrary to the more apparent truths of the day to start with - can't remember specifics but I'd put my money on some of it being about how great an owner Ashley is. I also recall when Moyes was being offered the West Ham job for the first time he inexplicably went off on one about how terrible the guy is - only "Newcastle fan" I've ever seen get worked up about David Moyes in any sense whatsoever. I mean he occasionally takes swipes at Sunderland in order to persuade us of his loyalties but you can see that he's dying inside whenever he does it. I don't get what he's getting out of any of this.

You would if you were a particularly bizarre Sunderland fan.

That's actually even less surprising.

Has Toonraider finally confessed to being a mackem then? Shocking stuff

Who the fuck gave Steve Bruce manager of the month ffs. This sport can fuck off sometimes, it really can. Manager of the month, fucking hell.

Grim. Makes sense though, does feel like it's suddenly got much worse rather inexplicably.

You have to think at this point that either Israel is going to do exactly what this guys wants them to, or they're going to have to take a great many steps backwards in terms of how they're dealing with the issue. I mean this is already apartheid and it doesn't need to go much further for it to be genocide/ethnic cleansing.

A fair point but I think Pandora's box is open now. I'll declare my earnings through it for the purposes of paying tax but that's because I believe in taxation. Many won't.

So he had that photo on standby at all times in case he bumped into an ex-colleague Fucking hell, can you imagine being that desperate for other people's approval at that stage in your life man...

What the fuck is going on in Israel at the moment - I've been trying to avoid getting caught up in looking at it but I keep seeing videos doing the rounds on reddit of Palestinians being shot, lynched, beaten, thrown out of their homes, etc. I watched this video through, of this Irish MP calling them out too: It feels like it's suddenly gone up a level or two in the chaos and destruction stakes.

I think the basic idea is that it's the same principle, but relies on using crypto assets as collateral against the loan - therefore bypassing credit checks and all the things that can prevent people from getting access to money in the traditional sense. EDIT - Quiff provided the link, I think that one is a good one for explaining it. As for the latter point, I was reading that something like 31% of the global population is 'unbanked' (they don't have access to a bank account). Of this 31%, two thirds use smartphones. So that tells us that 20% of the global population could stand to benefit from this if we assume that smartphones = internet access.

Not sure it's going to take as long as you've just indicated, mind... Here is what it is meant to do: So let’s unpick why there is a need for DEFI in the first place. Many centralised financial systems are antiquated and slow… ever tried to send money to another country or drawn down from a stocks and shares ISA? There is no technological reason that these transactions shouldn’t occur within milliseconds, but they can take anything from 2-5 days. But it isn’t just pace and modernity that can be the justification for DEFI, think about security. Centralised systems (especially antiquated ones) can be vulnerable to a new generation of nefarious hackers. Reputable financial institutions and their centralised systems can be vulnerable to data breaches, fraud and security issues. And it is customers who initially suffer in these security breach situations, by being locked out of their apps, their digital banking and being reissued cards. DEFI aims to address the three pronged problem within crypto finance of Scale, Pace and Security, all whilst remaining completely decentralised. And here is what the advantages are: First and foremost, interacting with a DEFI system isn’t timebound. So they are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Next, they are available wherever there is an internet connection, so they aren’t flexible in terms of both time and location. Next, they aim to be cheap, because they leverage technology to be as fast and as scalable as possible, but also because of the lack of intermediaries, developers can offer drastically lower fees and charges. Finally and arguably most importantly, it offers an avenue to address ‘the unbanked’. A segment of any population that due to isolation, lack of funds, lack of credit history or (in some cases) political or socio-economic oppression cannot participate in the existing financial system. DEFI aims to be fast, secure, cheap, available, connected and egalitarian.

I'm not really sure where you're getting this 'meaningless' bit from, mind you. It's no more meaningless than any of the other pointless shit any of us buy - Bitcoin admittedly is a fairly pointless project at this stage, but there are plenty of other coins that have been set up with superior technological functions that will, in time, revolutionise the global financial industry - it will remove banks for all those people who would prefer not to use them. It takes a large part of economic control out of the hands of governments. It will allow people to trade with/pay each other without needing to go through high cost intermediaries. You may not agree with this aspiration of course, but it is the 'purpose' of cryptocurrency and blockchain.

Just gonna remind everyone that Elon Musk believes himself to be a literal Elven Overlord and wants to pivot humanity towards a technocracy, which would naturally involve himself and the other elves taking control. His son is also named X Æ A-12, something even he struggles to pronounce. He's a narcissistic fruitloop and not the real world Bruce Wayne his personality cult seem to believe him to be.

I've found it an interesting thing to be part of but it does need to go mainstream with a justification for its existence sooner rather than later. I also want to hear more about this: Which DeFi projects are doing that, exactly?

It's a fair point. I'm not invested into BTC though. Not that this saves me from criticism on any of the others... will reflect on it next time I need to feel bad about myself over something

KCG is a fellow Scottish independence voter, I would never do that. More importantly, I didn't even realise that muting was a thing

Sorry, KCG's post was hidden for me because it refreshed weirdly. Seems to happen sometimes when you click the 'see new posts' button.

The turn of phrase? I just mean that you have more experience than me on this, so I'll take your word for it

True enough I suppose. You're longer in the tooth with this stuff than I am, so I'll defer to your experience here.

Unfortunately the whole market moves up and down based on bitcoin. I've not invested in it at any point because I don't think it has particularly strong utility in the long run, but there are plenty of other strong cryptocurrencies that are moving us towards a decentralised financial system, which is something that I think would indeed be desirable. Elon has more or less crashed the lot of them today. You're right about the memecoins and so on, but I think projects like ADA and possibly XRP in some senses, do have legs and reasonable technological underpinnings. ADA is up today despite all the chaos, which is pleasing at least.

So I've just picked up that Vitalik Buterin, one of the lead guys behind Ethereum and 27 year old billionaire, was inexplicably given half of all Shiba tokens (Dogecoin rip off) which the developers considered was effectively 'burning' them. He's just given 5% to India for their COVID relief and crashed the coin. It's the wild fucking west with crypto It needs to get these cowboys out of the picture if it's ever going to get anywhere.

I mean he's definitely set off this latest dip. It's just tedious tbh, the only thing you can do is hold and wait while your screen is flashing red at you. ADA is still holding at least, that's something. Seems relatively impervious. Probably because Musk isn't in on it.

He really fucking does, the utter cunt Crashed the entire fucking market.

Jesus. 99 ETH would be about $400k now... But you've still got what, a whole BTC? People seem to think it'll reach $1m although I think some other coins will outstrip it in terms of gains over the same period, personally.