Tuesday, February 16, 2021

WEDNESDAY - Weekly World Events Discussion Day

It's time for this sub's weekly world event discussion routine. I have compiled the following list of international news titles that came in the news last week. Please feel free to discuss on any other international news in the comments, including those that haven't been listed here.

30 Taliban fighters killed in disastrous bomb-making class (Source)
Bitcoin hits new record of $50,000 (Source)
Mars, Nestlé and Hershey to face child slavery lawsuit in US (Source)
Tokyo Olympics organizing committee chief (also ex-Japanese PM) has resigned from his post following allegations of him saying that women talk too much and so their speaking time in the board should be restricted (Source)
Fully vaccinated people can skip Covid quarantines, CDC says (Source)

Dumb question...but where is the 2nd sun? I looked up at the sky and realized it wasn’t there?!? And other insanely sane ramblings...

Call me “insane” or whatever you may, but I’m being 100% foreal right now...

I looked up at the gray skies again today and noticed the sun 🌞 barley peeking through the white darkness, but then I noticed something else... a second light that looked just like the sun right beside it! ☀️ I am facing south with my body and looked west at “the suns.”

I thought my eyes were fu*king with me, but no...there was something there. I look at the sky every day, from the same spot and never noticed it before today.

The only problem is, the thick clouds are in the way and would not move. The clouds would only “subliminally” uncover certain spots for split seconds of time. It’s getting dark outside now, so it’s not there anymore. But I swear it looked like two suns...

I know some will probably try to be sarcastic about what is stated above and claim, “I’m looking at the sky right now and there is only one sun.” I assure you, I believe you, and also know this to be a true fact. I want to put heavy emphasis on the fact I actually seen two suns earlier.

It has been absolutely bothering me ever since, for some reason...

• Are there actually two suns, but one is “hiding”? (Not sure whose thought this is, but definitely coming from someone in the Asian region...), you know, I wonder that too... I have for months now...but who the fuck do you ask? Everyone will look at you sideways, like wtf!?

• Has there ever been 2 suns at any point in history?

• Are there currently 2, but only aware of 1 for whatever reason?

• Will there be a “2nd sun” in the future for any reason? I keep thinking of a massive “weather balloon”? 🎈 Maybe a way to get rid of the extra billions of tons of carbon/methyl we have on Earth and turning it into a “2nd hydrogen-fuzing-into-helium sun”

Idk 😐 something just “isn’t right” something feels off? I honestly know nothing about this... but inside of my “imaginary world” I wonder...

...wouldn’t the 2nd “balloon” sun, have to be the “magnetic opposite” of the original sun to fit into the whole entire “universal atom cycle” aka our universe? So, instead of the original suns Hydrogen-Fuzing Helium reaction, shouldn’t it really be the Helium-Fusing into Hydrogen counterpart?

You know...how you make a black hole 🕳 And then, successfully channeling the “lost energy” of this universe into the new cusp of the “new universe”? Imagine everything from the universe to life having levels and layers, like part of a single cake or even pizza 🍕

Kinda like mining the bitcoin ⛏ except in the whole universe and creating “black-hole cave systems” of tubules/veins/roots/stem cells/wires/pluming...whatever you choose to represent the black tunnels full of light that can take you from one universe or Dimension to the next, connected to the next, and so on.

I keep getting a massive feeling of true doom...it’s like in the beginning of time, we can watch the “Different Endings” of the single movie storyline...

Some have gotten it right, but others not so much.. Right now Earth is heading into the not so much category, which includes our own personal destruction. How? Through a massive explosion 💥 caused by the 2nd falsely created ballon sun. Some might recognize this as “the Big Bang” at least where it went wrong before, before, and before...and a not so happily ever after. I assure you there is a Right way to go Left and a Left way to go right so you get the “inbtween sun” your so desperately looking for.

It’s almost like back in 2012, a black hole was created to do exactly this, once, twice, or trice, B4 it was “on the right time” “in the right place” and “around the right energy.”

Let’s get it right this time around...whatever that may mean.

It’s not like back in 2013, i seen the egg and sperm conjoin and split not from the outside-in, but the inside-in... the literal moment, it created a truly new beautiful star-lit ⭐️ universe that shines today. Now tunning in from data line DSL 66.6...

🎩🐰🕰🎩🐰⌚️🎩🐰🕰🎩🐰⌚️🎩🐰🕰

The Sane Universal Insanity talking here...like wtf does that even mean? Ha! Don’t think I’m not aware of how “crazy” all this sounds. I emphasize I am also equally “not crazy.” I’m serious, even if I know the majority won’t take a single word I say sanely anyways.

So here is me talking insanely, maybe someone will understand...and if you don’t understand my below ramblings, know it was simply specific planetary events that happened in 2020...

You know what it reminds me off? When the moon stood in the way of mars, remember when the cows 🐄 ask, “Where’s my money? To which it merely got a blank deathly stare back, and so the cow said... ”Moooove Over” and so the cow jumped right over the “Cheesy Mooon” and met up with Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Mooo knows 🤷‍♀️

Venus watched all this happen, and realized, V was not invited to the party...Meow not? And so I remember Venus shining so brightly as if it were the “evening starlight”... notice me! Venus said.

I noticed Venus who loved to gossip about the others and told me all about “the ring of fire” I didn’t see...

Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars seemed to have quite the opposition, at one point or another, but Jupiter and Saturn made up and conjoined for a single moment. Mars and Venus was the result. They were considered the Gemini ♊️ one boiling hot 🥵and the other too cold 🥶....that only leaves somewhere on Earth, which is where I was watching the space movie from. I wasn’t always aware I was part of an interactive quantum game, until death knocked at my door and shook me and my black cat awake on my half moon birthday of last year... 🌹🥀

😸😸👍🙀😿💀👌😿☠️👻✌️👽😽🌗🤝

My ultimate question is, what does one “do” with this type of mindset honestly? It seems to be useless in today’s world and only gets you sent into a metal institution or you constantly get told by the “hive mind” to take more meds.

Ewww...those nasty meds only making me feel artificially empty. I like being this way (openly creative) and thinking this way, even if it’s not “normal” to the majority of others.

I choose to post it here, bc I guess, hidden within the insane ramblings are technically “conspiracies” and or out of the box thinking. I figured someone might like reading it or even add something to it...answer a question or two.. Idk where else to put it...🤯

Blockchain Awareness Campaign 2/2021 BV@M

Blockchain Awareness Campaign 2/2021

Addressing Fake Halal meat cartel scandal

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/blockchain-awareness-campaign-22021-meat-cartel-scandal-tickets-141644036125

IIB Ventures the custodian of Blockchain Village@ Medini Program will conduct a Blockchain Awareness Program to address the issue of fake halal meat cartel scandal in Malaysia with the details as below:

Date: 25th February 2021 | Thursday

Time: 10am – 12pm

Platform: Microsoft Teams

BV@M Awareness Programme is designed to educate and spread awareness on the Blockchain technology and its potential to mitigate the ongoing issue. The key objective and major outcomes of the program are:

• Creation of awareness on the Blockchain Technology and its potential applications to the agri-food industry

• The program is also to raise the awareness on the development of the Blockchain Technology in Malaysia

Hosted by Jason, Bitcoin Malaysia Events (BME)

#events

71 Buildings of E Corp blew up in an episode of Mr Robot S3 E7. After that Few people are partying in an luxurious yacht and eliott finds out he is being played. Is it a reference to people dancing in Manhattan after 9/11 and was Osama played by US Government to set up chain of events?

Elliott finds out he is played by the same people he wants to take down. His revolution was bought and paid for by the same elites he hated and it happened because those elites wanted to happen. ( Philip price CEO of Evil corp knew about Eliott, but let it happen to introduce E coin a crypotcurrency)

CIA had reports of attackers and tips.

Osama bin Laden's jihad against US was successful because government and elites let it happen?

Just in MR robot it created chain of events like-

1.Before attack, origin of FSociety was put on Iranian soil.

2.71 Buildings blew up and F society took responsibility.

3.2 members of F society were framed who committed suicide and they were planning to hack flight of america.

4.In the series, Trump Won the election and went agianst Iran.

China annexed Congo and people lost faith in Ecoin and thus making bitcoin more popular.

After 9/11

US invades Afghanistan.
Boom in gun, oil and other industries.
End goal is mass surveillance and invasion of Iraq.
Dick Cheney has ties with halburton oil company and then US invades Iraq.

Lots of gold, oil is looted and then hands over the government to Shia muslims. Civil war breaks out and Sunni ISIS take over Iraq.

USA sells arms and provide aid to "take over of Mosul".

A chain of events which in turn causes more deaths, but in the PROFIT and PROFITs!

Crypto can go BRRRR too. Ampleforth DD

Before I start, DYOR.

Okay, now sit your ass down and prepare to absorb everything I’ve researched over hundreds of hours digging into the AMPLEFORTH protocol and religiously watching its graphs. You can thank me later after you've experienced a span of massive positive rebases

I first learned of AMPL back in July 2020, and it’s absolutely genius. From its use case to how it interacts with the wider cryptosphere, it’s unlike any financial opportunity that I’ve seen in years. I am very confident it is about to experience another huge marketcap expansion like it did 6-7 months ago (mcap 7.5 mil to 700 mil in 30 days). Some of you might remember the tail end of that expansion when it was a top 40 coin.

Ampleforth is a cryptocurrency which translates price volatility to supply volatility through a global “rebasing” algorithm. The price target is the 2019 US dollar, which is currently $1.024, and if the price deviates from a stability range around that price (~$0.97 to ~$1.07) it will proportionally contract or increase the supply of AMPL to all hodlers. That means if you hold 1% of the total supply, then after an expansion or contraction you will still hold 1% of the total supply. If the price increases, then the value of your holdings have increased, and if the supply of AMPL has increased due to positive rebasing but the price stays relatively stable, then you will likewise also have a greater value in holdings expressed in USD. If AMPL goes below $0.97, then the supply contracts and wallet amounts decrease. To go below $0.97 there has to be significant sell pressure, which there currently isn’t, AMPL has been steadily positive rebasing for weeks now.

There are A TON of reasons why I am super BULLISH on AMPLFORTH, and I’ll list them all here. Consider this the ultimate AMPL DD thread. I am not a member of the team or connected to them in any way, just a bullish investor who wants to help the hive mind community print their own crypto tendies. Buckle up.

Protocol Upgrades/What’s on the Horizon

The biggest reason to be bullish on AMPL right now is it is soon to become the most decentralized cryptocurrency in existence. What I mean by decentralized is the number of validators and nodes securing its protocol.

Currently Ampleforth is an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain, but the token contract is not limited to running just on Ethereum. Its rebasing mechanism can be referenced by any decentralized network that supports smart contracts. The dev team have stated that they will be launching AMPL on NEAR, Polkadot, and Tron blockchains by the end of Q1 2021. Cross-chain bridges will be setup, and once live, the global AMPL rebasing mechanism will apply to AMPL on any of the four chains it will live on (Ethereum, Near, Polkadot, Tron). If the work is done, Ampleforth could also sit on top of other decentralized networks like ADA, Cosmos, Vechain as a financial primitive for stable contracts. As a result, the Ampleforth protocol will be exposed to less risk than other tokens that only run on a single network. Trust me, there are plenty of bad actors constantly looking at ways to exploit and destroy Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others. 51% attacks are more common that the DeFi community would like. In the finance world, less risk is a very attractive quality, and this ability of Ampleforth to run in-sync on multiple blockchains trustlessly is massively undervalued currently. Buy the rumor sell the news.

https://www.ampltalk.org/app/forum/announcements-22/topic/multichain-ampleforth-231/

Amplefroth is also more fairly distributed across its HODLers, unlike BTC or ETH. AMPL whales exist, but since it was created more recently, there hasn’t been as much time for network value congregation to occur like it has with BTC, ETH, and DOGE. Ampleforth has no miners so it's doesn't congregate in the hands of the miners or the rich investors who purchase from them.

Token Distribution/Liquidity Mining

Another very bullish feather in the cap for Ampleforth is the protocols token distribution and liquidity mining programs.

81% of the supply is already circulating, and the majority of the remaining supply is set aside for ongoing liquidity mining programs that they call “geysers”. Geysers typically have a APR starting at 250%, which then reduced to 50-80% by the end of the 3 months each geyser is live for. Geysers add liquidity for decentralized AMPL trading on Uniswap, Balancer, or Sushiswap, so as long as you pay the trading fees, you can’t be stopped from trading like with RobinHood. You’d have to be doing huge trades (100k+ AMPL) to experience any price slippage. Four new geysers launch on Feb 22nd, an event which is usually associated with a price/supply bump as people flock in for the early high percentage APY. After 30 days of being in a geyser you get 3x rewards, which encourages people to stay in the geyser and helps to remove sell pressure.

Also for sell pressure, seed investors have been fully unlocked for 2 months now (6.5% of the supply), the team’s supply is fully locked for at least another year and advisors are still mostly locked up (10.8%, team + investors). Watching the network daily, I saw when seed investor AMPL was unlocked from investors and added to the circulating supply, and I believe most sell pressure is gone at current levels.

https://www.ampltalk.org/app/forum/announcements-22/topic/state-of-the-network-august-4th-2020-90/

If you want something you can sit on to generate money on as a LP provider after it undergoes a massive pump, there has never been a better time to buy AMPL.

Technical Analysis

When trading AMPL, looking price is important, but more important is to made trading decisions based on total MCAP, supply, and % to bitcoin. Since Ampleforth is a DeFi primitive like BTC and Ethereum, it trades differently. Back in July 2020, one of the reasons AMPL exploded is because it leeched a bunch of money off BTC. Learn more about why Ampleforth is unique economically by reading the Redbook.

https://www.ampleforth.org/redbook/

Its unique algorithm and the teams understanding of economics attracted BTC investors to invest into it instead. The same dynamics are at play with ETH also. MCAP has recently broken upwards out of a 4 month massive bullflag that formed from the July to October 2020 rise and fall of AMPL. The supply I am expecting to break ATH soon as it has formed a bullish W-pattern, and as a percentage of BTC, AMPL has now risen above the BTC growth trendline that goes back to its creation. The whole protocol is worth ~10,000 BTC currently, and I expect that to 10x soon as it begins its next expansion into the top set of coins.

Non-Correlation

Because of the unique way Ampleforth behaves, with the supply dynamically increasing or decreasing (or staying stable) based on its current price relative to its price target ($1.024), most people still don’t know how to trade AMPL. Heck, most people in crypto still don’t even know what it is. As of right now there is a huge information asymmetry. Additionally, because of its unique financial design, it has very low correlations with existing cyrpto assets like BTC, ETH, etc on all the different timescales.

https://www.ampleforth.org/dashboard/correlations

Ray Dalio is famous for bringing attention to holding non-correlated assets for financial stability and success, and HODLing and/or staking AMPL is a way to easily stay in the crypto sphere while diversifying your portfolio and removing correlation risk. An easy way to put it is, expect AMPL to behave differently than BTC, ETH, or the others, but if it still appreciates against the USD, then you’ve removed risk from your portfolio. The worst thing that could happen is when all your assets go down at once (like March 2020, stocks, crypto, etc).

Stable Contracts

The Ampleforth foundation has released a really good video explaining why creating financial contracts denominated in AMPL is superior to other cryptocurrencies like BTC or ETH, but to put it simply, if you borrow 1 BTC and then have to pay it back over the next year, but the price of BTC explodes, your risk of defaulting on your loan is now way high. Meanwhile if you had borrowed 10000 AMPL, then you need to pay back 10000 AMPL (plus interest). Go to the AMPL dashboard and click the all-time price graph. Average AMPL value, $1.02, and the current price target is $1.024. What this means is that will regular loan payments the borrower will pay back the same amount lent out, and therefore risk of contract default is now lower, which strengthens the underbelly of DeFi. Very nifty, and over the long term, AMPL will disrupt and replace BTC and other cryptocurrencies which experience massive price volatility for contractual obligations.

https://www.ampleforth.org/dashboard

TLDR

Collectively if we all work together and keep the price of AMPL above $1.07, then the supply of AMPL can expand every 24 hours, rebasing and increasing token balances equally to all HODLers until sell pressure increases and the fun is over. The more that join in, the longer this can continue for, but like what happened in July 2020, once rebases start to hit the double digits, and wallet balances are increasing by 10+% daily compounded with price increases, the general FOMO will be insane. The Ampleforth protocol will dramatically inflate when this happens, and if you get in early I think there is a real good shot that you can 10x your bag. Eventually the protocol will find a new stabilization point off the new ATH. As the team builds out more use cases and others begin to adopt using AMPL for smart contracts, or for other purposes (KeeperDAO perhaps?), then the usage of the protocol will increase and it can continue to grow. I expect Ampleforth to grow against BTC for years to come, and in a non-correlated way.

The fundamentals are there, the use cases are there, and the liquidity is there. Now is the time to buy your golden ticket.

If you are looking for the next GME or DOGE, this is it. DYOR you degenerates, and lets print some AMPL tendies.

Using bitcoin.tax. Is withdrawing counted as a sell or a taxable event?

So I’ve started to use bitcoin.tax this year and a majority of my crypto were sent to cold storage. My question is, is bitcoin.tax counting the withdrawals as a sell? Thus making me pay short term capital gains on each withdrawal?

Hedge Funds pumping Bitcoin, when is the dump?

Okay, so I was thinking, wouldn't it make sense for hedge funds to take massive positions on bitcoin, advertise it to drive the price up and then take massive short positions and dump all their bitcoin on the market at once to create a massive dump event which would make them profit a lot on their short positions. If BTC was a stock it would be considered stock manipulation, but with bitcoin aren't they pretty much allowed to do anything they want?

What's stopping hedge funds from doing this?

Tell me if there's a flaw in my thinking.

For new people: The simplest reason why Bitcoin and some cryptos continue to rise in value - Consensus & Smart Money.

This is not financial advice. I am not a financial advisor. As always, do your own research.

I want to put things in to perspective for newer people on how this takes place since I got on board in October 2017 and rode out a 3 year bear market until this point. When the crashes started coming, people put the crashes in to perspective. 20k bitcoin to 5.6k bitcoin in under a month? that 75% loss is nothing! We then swiftly bounced back to 14k. After MT Gox shut down we plummeted from 1500 USD to 130 USD apiece! an over 90% drop!

So, why did we go from 20k at the December 2017 top to only 3.1k at the December 2018 bottom? BTW, percentage-wise that wasn't even the most volatile drop in bitcoin's history. Simply put, Consensus and Smart Money. If you bought bitcoin at any time in 2016 your YoY profits are very high now. If you bought bitcoin at any time in 2012, you're in astronomic profit territory.

However - Smart money will never sell their entire stack. Consensus, in my book, means the subconscious majority of new people to the bitcoin space are willing to sell a percentage of their stack, but never the whole stack because of the potential it has to become later. For example, during this cycle I am hoping to time things correctly so that I sell a percentage of my portfolio for a house that will have a 10 year roof over my head while I wait for the rest of my portfolio to appreciate in value and then I can buy another bigger and newer house later on.

And finally, this is my opinion: when bear markets come, that's the time for the new people to get in to crypto. I don't know if we'll see a black swan event similar to what happened in March ~~2017~~ 2020, but if it does, you better believe I'm gonna buy more on that day.

EDIT: If you haven't seen this already then you need to now, and then figure out a time to get in for yourself - https://digitalik.net/btc/

Oh, and this is an extremely critical part I have left out: Smart money typically enters and exits the market at a time when the idea of them losing all of their crypto holdings puts them slightly above their losses.

What's your approach to building a cryptocurrency portfolio?

I was lucky and randomly bought a few thousand dollars worth of bitcoin over the summer. I'm now sitting on what feels like a ridiculous, short term gain to me, and I wonder if I should re-allocate some of my BTC to other coins to diversify.

How do you folks treat cryptocurrencies as an investment? I figure that at the end of the day, they're all speculative currencies. It seems to me that the current value is derived either as a perceived hedge, some kind of gold replacement, or as a bet on future advancements to allow crypto to be used more commonly in transactions, or as a possible tool for developing nations?

This is my first entry into more speculative investments, and I'm curious to hear how you all have approached investing in cryptocurrency. I went on Coinbase today and setup recurring investments on the top 5 most common cryptocurrencies to diversify. I don't know anything about any of them, but I figured that at least one of the top 5 most common coins will have some long term success. I'm a fan of dollar cost averaging. I personally believe timing any investment is almost impossible. I take it this is the strategy that you folks use too? Also, do you all typically diversify across different currencies? Do you build a structured portfolio, where you overweight certain currencies (say BTC at 30% ETH at 30% LTC at 20%, and 20% for other alt coins), and then use modern portfolio theory to structure your buy and sell events when one of the assets becomes overweight or underweight? My only concern with this more classical approach, is it seems the price action on coins moves so frequently, and I could inadvertently be overweighting some really shitty coins.

TLDR: Do you treat cryptocurrency investments with a normal approach? Passive investing, dollar cost averaging, and rebalancing?

Also, how do you evaluate different cryptocurrencies? Do you track inflows of institutional money? The volume of transactions used by each currency? How do you measure long term viability of a coin?

28, finally thinking seriously about FIRE

TLDR:
1. Is getting an auto loan for the Cybertruck worth the investment?

2. Is 401k (matching) and IRA investment worth it as opposed to investing in Bitcoin?

3. How can starting a business help me save money on taxes?

Buckle up, this is gonna be a long post. I've tried to format it as nicely as possible to make reading it easier.

Assumptions

Before I begin, I want to make some bold assumptions about the future of Bitcoin, specifically.
1. 20% annual returns from Bitcoin investments. Historically, Bitcoin has yielded an average of 891% annual return. While whether or not this trend continues can be up to debate, that's not the point of this point. I've done my research and I'm confident in the fundamentals of Bitcoin enough to plan my retirement around. I'm not really asking for advice regarding Bitcoin, but more so for advice on the other aspects of FIRE. For the sake of argument, let's assume a very conservative 20% average annual return on my Bitcoin investments.
2. No taxes on Bitcoin. Currently, Bitcoin is taxed on capital gains. This implies being taxed when you sell Bitcoin, in other words, convert it into USD. Let's assume that by the time I retire (say in 35 years), I won't need to convert my BTC to USD because I can just pay for what I want using Bitcoin directly. Hence, no tax on capital gains. Which leads me to my final assumption:
3. Live off Bitcoin. Let's assume in the future, by the time I retire, I will be able to purchase all my needs directly in Bitcoin, including rent and living expenses.

Background

I will be 28 years old next month. So far, I've had kind of a rough start to life but I'm finally at a place where I've begun to seriously consider how I'm going to retire.

I grew up poor and have never been able to rely on my parents financially. I've been working since I was 16, first at summer camp as a counselor and then with internships throughout college. Unfortunately, it took me 8 years to finish my CS degree due to mental health issues setting me back; multiple medical withdraws and then having to apply to return to school. It was rough, but I finished with about $58k in student debt and a strong resume due to all my work experience; I managed two internships and a full time job for about 2 years in this time. Despite this, I had next to nothing in savings or investments to show for it.

When I graduated in 2019 and started working full time at my internship, I finally started looking into investing. I downloaded Robinhood and started building my portfolio with crypto assets compromising the bulk of it.

At the start of 2020, I started a new job with slightly better pay. At the same time, I did more research into Bitcoin, specifically, and realized it's value as an alternative to fiat based currency. Basically digital gold. I converted my RH portfolio into real Bitcoin that I moved into my own wallet.

I was then approached by a "financial advisor" (read: life insurance salesman) that opened my eyes to my retirement funds I had unknowingly been accruing. I realized these were my retirement funds that some other company was choosing how to invest (conservatively) with. I decided to pull my funds from my 401k to invest into Bitcoin, despite the 10% early withdraw penalty.

Once again, however, disaster struck as I was hospitalized again in March. In my vulnerable state-of-mind, I used the retirement funds I recently in my bank account to buy a car, which, thru a series of unfortunate events, I ended up losing. At the same time, I lost my job. This was right at the start of the pandemic and I ended up having to spend most of my savings to get by while I was unemployed. If not for all of these incidents, I would have had over 2 bitcoin or about ~$100k in savings by now.

Currently, I've found a stable job and have been consistently saving about $1200 a month in Bitcoin. I have about $10k in savings now. For the first time in my life, I have a budget and have been sticking to it very well. All of my cars I've purchased so far have been used and paid in full so my only expense is rent really. I haven't had to pay back my student loans yet due to Covid and deferments.

Cybertruck

Since it was announced, I've been enamored with the Tesla Cybertruck. It's quite literally my dream car and I don't think it would depreciate in value like a traditional car would. I have a reservation for it and realized I should probably start saving money towards making a down payment on it. I'm hoping by the time production begins by the end of this year/early 2022, I will have improved my credit score enough to get an auto loan to cover the rest of it.

I started doing some calculations and realized if I saved enough money this year, I could probably put 20-30k down on the Cybertruck and then get a 60-50k loan for the rest of it. This would make my car payments around $1200 a month. I also calculated that I would need to save about $1200 a month for the rest of my life to retire comfortably with, which I've been doing luckily. This made me realize that in total, I can afford to save around $2400 a month.

That's a lot of money.

Now, I'm having doubts about the Cybertruck. On one hand, my 2011 Ford Fiesta might last me a few more years before it reaches the end of it's lifespan, I think. (Currently, it has about 130,000 miles on it.)

So, I can keep buying cheap and used cars every few years, OR I can make payments for a new car for the first time in my life, potentially missing out on huge Bitcoin returns I could be making. This is considering that I believe the Cybertruck is an appreciating asset, as the hardware is fully capable of self-driving and that the software will only improve over time. Plus, I hope that once it's paid off, I'll be saving money gas and that I'll never have to buy another car again in my life.

However, since I expect Bitcoin to keep going up, potentially as high as $500,000 per BTC, these next few years are probably my best chance at acquiring the most BTC as I can. I'm worried I might regret spending a big chunk of it on a Cybertruck, making it a very expensive dream car down the road.

All things considered, question number 1: Do you think getting an auto loan for a Cybertruck would be worth it, if I consider it to be an investment into my dream car that I expect might even last me into retirement? (Kinda have a feeling as to what the answer might be for this one.)

Retirement

As I mentioned, according to my calculations, if I invest $1200 a month into Bitcoin with a reasonable annual growth of 20% (if not more), I should be set to retire with it.

Here's what I haven't really done the math on: is it worth investing into my 401k and IRA?

Based on my assumption of 20% returns with Bitcoin, is it worth it to reduce the amount of money I'm putting into it in order to divert enough funds to meet the minimum 401k matching my employer provides?

Here's what my employer matches:

60% of your contribution up to the first 6%
For example:
• My monthly salary is $2,000 and I contribute 6% to 401k
• My monthly contribution is $120 (2,000 x .06)
• Employer will contribute $72 to my plan (120 x .6)
**Note –if you contribute over 6%, you would see the same match amount as above**

I can choose to contribute between an "Employee Deferral" and a "Roth Deferral", of which it says:

“Employee Deferral” is a pre-tax deferral, while “Roth Deferral” is post-tax deferral

To be honest, I don't really how the pre/post-tax thing works for these 401k accounts. If I understand IRA's correctly, your Roth IRA is post-tax money so you want to max your contribution to it because it's capped, I think. You also want to contribute to your 401k up to your employer's match because that's just free money from them.

I think I get that much, but is all the tax advantages and employer contributions worth it if I can just put it in bitcoin and make 20%? How much am I really saving in taxes and is that more valuable than bitcoin, assuming that I won't have to pay taxes on the bitcoin I spend (again, not converting to USD)?

Hopefully my question makes sense and someone can help walk me through the math of it.

Self-Directed IRA's, Creating A Business and Avoiding Taxes Like A Rich Person

Finally, in regards to my third question: how do I minimize taxes like a ~~BOSS~~ respectable, wealthy entrepreneur?

Basically, I saw this TikTok that seemed to make sense to me: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeLswPwu/ Hopefully, it's not an overly simplified understanding of how taxes work, but if it is, let me know!

When I withdrew money from my 401k to invest into Bitcoin, I also looked a bit into Self-Directed IRA's, which would allow me to rollover my 401k money into it, then use it to buy Bitcoin instead of stocks/ETFs. The way that works (if I understand/remember it correctly) is something akin to: Start a business > Roll 401k into Self-Directed IRA > Use Self-Directed IRA to invest into your new company > Use that money to buy Bitcoin.

This would let you avoid being penalized for withdrawing from your 401k. I didn't go with this option at the time, though, because I didn't really understand it and thought it would take too much time. Time in which I would more than recover the 10% penalty. (Looking back at the price of Bitcoin in February of 2020, it turns out I was right.)

Anyway, does anyone have experience with Self-Directed IRA's? Do I need a company to do so? And if it is worth the investment, would that then make contributing to my 401k for the employer contribution worth it if I can direct it into Bitcoin in the end? Or not because now it would be taxable when I try to withdraw funds from it?

Also, is there any other ways having a business can save me money in the long run (as described in that TikTok)? Any answers or resources that could point me in the right direction would be helpful. I recently made a big purchase for a domain that I plan to use for a game I'm want to make. While I don't plan on monetizing the game (it will be free and open-source), I would like to write off that purchase as a business expense if I can. Also, I talk to my brother a lot about investing and he'd be down to be an employee of my company we could get tax benefits from it (I know hiring family members is common among rich people, although I don't know why, specifically).

That's about where I'm at right now as far as planning my FIRE. If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading my story and taking the time to answer. I'm incredibly grateful to this community and the resources it provides.

Bitcoin and TurboTax

Hi I purchased Bitcoin in 2020 but never sold any or transferred other than from the exchange to a wallet, never received btc as payment or anything else, just hodl. As far as I understand I have created no taxable events. However as I am completing my tax return, TurboTax now has this new, separate screen that comes up HAVE YOU PURCHASED ETC ANY CRYPTO?

just looking for some advice if I can answer yes or no on this so I can complete my return

Thanks in advance

Blockfi VS Celcius - risk

So another one of these threads! I've been googling and gathering information about this but haven't found a detailed write-up about the risk of celcius vs blockfi, especially in regards to an event where say bitcoin goes extremely fast up or down. I have however read some comments here and there on reddit and elsewhere, and the consensus seems to be leaning the tiniest bit towards Blockfi being the less riskier place to keep your funds. Primarily this is based on the fact that Celcius has very high rates, e.g. 12.5% vs 8.6% for stablecoins on Blockfi, and the fact that the Celcius token itself almost never dips or corrects. Although it is a bit of a shame that Blockfi has lower rates, people extrapolate this in the direction that they also have less riskier lending strategies, but I haven't seen any sources to back up this claim. Another aspect Blockfi has going for it is that it has credible backers in the industry and Celcius are weaker in this regard.

Anyone done extensive research on the subject? Feel free to chime in. Fwiw I think both platforms seem equally safe security-wise, but in regards to a black swan event I really cannot decide.

Also, what is your go-to strategy of gaining interest on your crypto assets? Divide it between the platforms?

Celcius VS Blockfi- risk

Anyone done extensive research on the subject? Feel free to chime in. Fwiw I think both platforms seem equally safe security-wise, but in regards to a black swan event I really cannot decide.

Also, what is your go-to strategy of gaining interest on your crypto assets? Divide it between the platforms?

100k Bitcoin much sooner than we expect!

Bitcoin broke above $50,000 for the first time ever. And then it retracted. Most likely a lot of people had take-profits set on $50k mark. But I don't care about that technicality. $50k was a big psychological barrier, and we broke it. I think we should be seeing huge upside soon. Not only because of $50k but, there are a lot of other bullish news coming in to, read below:

https://mosttraded.com/2021/02/16/bitcoin-breaches-50k-whats-next/

Tesla! MicroStrategy to raise 600 million more to buy BTC. Banks such as BNY Mellon , Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank entering the crypto space. Other companies to buy BTC soon as well.

And The largest event happening soon: Stimulus! 1.5 trillion will be injected to Biggest Economy in the world when everyone is talking only about Bitcoin. Guess what happens to BTC ?

BTC to the 100k very soon 🚀 🚀 🚀

213 days ago I posted that my credit score went above 700 for the first time. What’s happened since

When I first made that post, I had no idea I’d watch a video and that video would lead me to more research, and that research would lead me to planning the 2-3 years of my credit life in a few months. I then BLEW DOWN my credit score all in a calculated move —absolutely no one should mimic—. And I may be broke again. But I’m going for prosperity, if I end up broke again, been there, it sucks. I don’t want to face it again, but I can.

Shortly after my post, in the comments actually, I was approved by Amex for a credit line. A month after that I was approved by discover. I now had 20,000 in a credit limit with no intention to use it. Then one morning I was scrolling Twitter, and came across a video of the winklevoss twins talking to Dave portnoy about bitcoin. I’ve heard of it, but never really looked into it. He bought a million dollars on the spot.

So I started looking into bitcoin. YouTube, news etc, turns out there’s a cycle that follows every halving event. We’d just had a halving. Then fidelity said “bitcoin would be $1,000,000 per coin by 2029” thats 100x on returns. So I figured out how to start buying some. I started working more. Literally. I was working 50 hours a week at jimmy johns. And driving Uber 25 hours on the weekends. I had thanksgiving day off, and Christmas. Couldn’t even visit family due to covid.

So how does credit factor in, well I made the decision to start living off of credit cards. And that the cards would sustain me until March. But my car had 190,000 miles and my credit score was still great at this point. So I bought a new used car.

It should be noted I also have an eBay store that depending on effort can generate $4-5000 a month. The effort isn’t great but it’s a solid 15 hours a week of packing and listing research etc on top of all the work, and it’s kind of my last ditch money.

I then used the cash advances from the credit cards to buy btc. And put every tip from deliveries and uber ride into crypto. For five months I had 2 days off. 70-85 hours a week.

Last week I quit my Jimmy Johns job. It no longer made sense to earn $400 a week for 50 hours when I make (or lose) $10,000 in a day.

I bet huge. And currently I’m in waaaaaauyyyyyyy more debt than ever. And I can pay off every penny and still be up more money than I’ve ever had or could conceive of having. But why would I pay off the debt at 20% apy when I’m making 30% apm?

I could still lose huge any day. I’m playing a very risky game, and if I lose, fuck it, I tried. I still have my two cars, and I still owe everything. But my housing is secure. And my future transportation is secure.

Oh and thru all this, I’ve made 1 purchase over $100. AirPods. I’m still sleeping on a old bed, and have almost all free furniture from people moving.

I don’t care about nice things. I have two goals. Buy my mom a house. And then buy myself a house. In that order.

100k Bitcoin much sooner than you think !

https://mosttraded.com/2021/02/16/bitcoin-breaches-50k-whats-next/

Tesla! MicroStrategy to raise 600 million more to buy BTC. Banks such as BNY Mellon , Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank entering the crypto space. Other companies to buy BTC soon as well.

And The largest event happening soon: Stimulus! 1.5 trillion will be injected to Biggest Economy in the world when everyone is talking only about Bitcoin. Guess what happens to BTC ?

BTC to the 100k very soon 🚀 🚀 🚀

The fundamentals are so good that Bitcoin breaks through $50,000

In the afternoon of the 14th, Bitcoin started to increase in volume from 47,500 USD, quickly broke through the previous high of 48974, and then began to fall back.

On the 15th, Bitcoin once again rushed higher, failed again, and then plummeted to $45,688. For example, the DeFi concept currency flashed, and the market was worried, and the market would take a sharp turn.

On the 16th, the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, the God of Wealth Festival, Chinese people usually "welcome the God of Wealth", and then set off firecrackers, hang lanterns, burn incense, and send paper money to pray for the coming year. As a result, the market sentiment in the morning was more optimistic, but Bitcoin fell again to around $57,000 in the morning. Near noon, Bitcoin began to violently rush higher. After a slight rounding around 49500, the 50,000 mark was successfully won.

But as of press time, the highest Bitcoin spot on OK Exchange is $50,000, Huobi Exchange is $4,9999.99, and Binance Exchange is $49,998. Obviously, $50,000 is a significant pressure.

Why can Bitcoin break 50,000? If you look at it from a macro perspective, this is almost a certainty. Compared with 2017, Bitcoin's fundamentals are already overwhelmingly good. The continuous breakthroughs are not unexpected by the market. What is unexpected is that Bitcoin runs blindfolded without a callback.

In 2019, a Bitcoin ETF made the entire market excited, but today, only 2 years later, who can believe that ETF has not come, Grayscale, Paypal, Tesla...all have come.

Bitcoin's global attention today, placed 2 years ago, who can imagine it?

Fundamentals are so good that European and American capital markets continue to be "good"

Many people must have seen the fundamentals of Bitcoin. Let's briefly review these recent hot news events. Looking at the leopard in the tube, a leaf knows autumn, can you see the "flavor of change"?

On February 14th, Counterpoint Global, the investment arm of Morgan Stanley, is discussing whether to bet on Bitcoin. This means that the true leader-level Wall Street financial institutions and the main players in global finance have shifted their perspective to Bitcoin, and the concept of Bitcoin as a digital asset has successfully entered the mainstream financial world. Compared with how much dollars Morgan Stanley will spend to deploy Bitcoin, its social impact is far more significant.

In January, Miami, the second largest city in Florida, USA, uploaded the Bitcoin white paper to the municipal website. In February, the Mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez, revealed on Twitter that he was studying to allocate a portion of his municipal financial reserves to Bitcoin. At the same time, the founder of Bitcoin Advisory tweeted that the U.S. Treasury Department already holds 70,000 Bitcoins. Perhaps, starting from municipal funds, then to national sovereign funds, and then to the central bank, this path will be much faster than the public imagined.

At the "Investor Day 2021" event, PayPal Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer Jonathan Auerbach stated that PayPal will increase support for more customers around the world to access cryptocurrencies and digital currencies during the year, making cryptocurrencies a global digital currency. A financing tool for millions of corporate transactions. In other words, it is no longer far away for the public to purchase cryptocurrencies through the "international version of Alipay" PayPal.

American compliance exchange Coinbase announced its listing on NASDAQ. Olaf Carlson-Wee, CEO of crypto investment company Polychain Capital, said that Coinbase is valued at more than US$100 billion. As a result, the leaders of multiple cryptocurrency tracks such as mining machines, exchanges, and investment have begun to land in the U.S. stock capital market. At the same time, non-cryptocurrency-listed companies are madly entering.

On February 9, Tether issued a total of 1 billion USDT on the TRON network. In this regard, Tether Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino said that this is an authorized but not issued transaction, which means that the amount will be used as inventory for the next issuance request. As of February 14, the total market value of USDT exceeded US$32 billion, which is approximately US$32.01 billion. Tether continues to "print money", which may be the vane of funds entering the market.

Looking at the entire cryptocurrency market, since the beginning of the Chinese New Year, almost every track, including DeFi coins, exchange platform coins, Chinese public chain coins, etc., has ushered in a round of skyrocketing, which has been jokingly called by Weibo big V , The cryptocurrency market is giving Chinese investors a new year red envelope.

Looking back in history, Bitcoin is trading sideways and other cryptocurrencies are skyrocketing. Then, the final result will either collapse or return to Bitcoin with smart funds, which will further raise Bitcoin's historical high and complete the real bull market evolution.

Wan Hui: Institutions are out of the bull market

We know that, before this, Tesla announced that it has invested 1.5 billion US dollars to configure Bitcoin and plans to accept cryptocurrency as a payment method. Elon Musk left a message on Twitter: One coin rules everything.

Many people cannot understand the meaning of this matter. We take Wanhui’s latest interpretation as follows:

"Putting Bitcoin into the balance sheet of Tesla's size and influential companies, and Musk's use of his own money to buy Bitcoin for this kind of asset endorsement significance is not an order of magnitude. So what to see Gou Zhuang pulls, narrow cognition such as cutting leek or weird conspiracy theories are really nothing to say.

Tesla, as a constituent stock of S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100, carries the idol-level company that the "next Apple" is looking forward to, and has close to 10% of its cash reserves (it should be more than 10% now, bought It is 7% at the time) to allocate an alternative asset in the traditional sense of alternative assets. For Tesla, which is close to the brink of bankruptcy, it is a nuclear bomb level decision.

This kind of decision involves a series of preparations such as board decision-making, corporate governance, finance, auditing, legal affairs, taxation, etc., and the time and energy required before and after cannot be done by Musk alone. When MicroStrategy did this operation in the past, in order to unify the consistency of the shareholders, it also provided a repurchase plan, that is, if there are shareholders who do not approve the asset allocation decision, the company will provide a repurchase. "

In fact, when Tesla announced the deployment of Bitcoin, some practitioners commented: Since then, the two worlds have been integrated and will no longer be separated.

In the cryptocurrency investment circle, practitioners, especially investors, often use "zhuang" to imply some people's extreme control over the market. Obviously, this is widespread. However, if the underlying asset of Bitcoin is still used to understand and invest in this way, it may be completely out of date. The result is likely to be the air.

Bitcoin, before 2020, most practitioners claim that it is digital gold, and there may not be many people who truly believe that it is digital gold. After 2020, when it becomes digital gold, many people are actually afraid. I don't believe it anymore.

As an asset, it is an indisputable fact that Bitcoin is entering the mainstream view, but does this mean that Bitcoin will really enter the eternal bull market? Obviously, in a longer period of time, even a large price fluctuation may become a smooth arc, but in a short period of time, even a 20% fluctuation may kill many people.

What would you do with a private key to an account with 94 k BTC?

I explored lately some theory behind the Bitcoin and found more than 4000 abandoned Bitcoin addresses having over 450 BTC balance (the first one has 94 000+ BTC). So I got an idea for a website that could deliver you daily 100 random BTC addresses directly to your inbox (everyone checks the email daily anyway, so why don't include this small thrill into your daily routine?) with information if one of them matches one of the 4 k abandoned accounts addresses.

The chances for that event to happen are of course infinitely small, but why wouldn't we allow the universe to make something stupid one day? :D

Feel free to check it out here:

https://crackers.ninja

Is this idea stupid enough to succeed?

Frequently Asked Questions! Please read or link our new friends to this post!

Due to a recent uptick in interest and price of bitcoin, many former users of MtGox who never participated in its bankruptcy proceedings have heard about the recent draft rehabilitation plan and suddenly have been seeking information at the prospect that they are entitled to some form of compensation.

While somewhat annoying to those of us who have been jumping through all the hoops necessary for the last decade, let's not forget that this reddit serves the same purpose which all the new comers are after for us many years ago. Suggestions of outright banning users and deleting posts is perhaps the least helpful thing we could do. This is a community that exists to help people make sense of the legalese and answer questions about the cryptic nature of bankruptcy proceedings. It's not a members only club.

For that reason, kindly refer any new posts along the tune of "I have done nothing, what do I get?" to this FAQ. Whether or not the moderators sticky a post is irrelevant if we can at least point people in the right direction.

1. I had an account on Gox many years ago. Do I get some kind of a refund?

Hello new friend! Unfortunately, unless you registered a civil rehabilitation claim before the deadline (October 22 2018) you are not entitled to any disbursement.

2. That seems unfair! I never got an e-mail or anything.

While it does seem unfair, the onus of proactively making a claim against a bankrupt entity is on the claimant, not on the trustee responsible for its bankruptcy proceedings.

3. I still think I am entitled to a refund. What do I do?

You are more than welcome to contact the support lines associated with the trustee and the bankruptcy process.

Response times to [support@mtgox.com](mailto:support@mtgox.com) vary wildly, but this is an active support line and may connect you to the trustee directly.

For English speakers, ‪+81 3-4588-3922‬ Monday through Friday (excluding Japanese holidays) 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. (Japan time) is a tolled phone support line. This line may ring indefinitely even when called during its operational hours, but it is active and an arguably a quicker way to contact support.

Please remember that this reddit is a community of people simply sharing information, and complaining about about how unfair something is serves no purpose.

4. I registered for something but I can't log in to the website.

It's possible you registered during the bankruptcy proceedings, but not the civil rehabilitation proceedings. These were different registration events and both were necessary for proof of claim and entitlement toward disbursements. If you only have a creditor number beginning with A for example, then you missed the most recent registration event.

5. I registered for everything but I still cannot log in to the system.

If you have a creditor number beginning with Y, then you registered through the "supplemental method" for creditors. This method existed for creditors who made bankruptcy claims and for whatever reason were missing specific registration credentials. As a consequence of using this method, you intentionally cannot log in to the system. Check your contact e-mail for instructions toward a new registration event specific for Y creditors.

If you are party to a claim that has been transferred, you may not be able to log-in to the system. I have read about people transferring claims, but not applying for a change of contact e-mail which is necessary for the new creditor if they want to receive updates and be able to log in to the system through their own volition.

If you have a creditor number beginning with Z, then you are a self-approved claimant who intentionally as a function of their claim, neither has access to the system, or can register with the new function for offline claimants. Check your contact e-mail regularly as this function may be made available for self-approved claimants pending whether or not they are deemed entitled to disbursements.

6. I am fully registered and confused if I need to do anything.

You're good! The trustee released a draft of the rehabilitation plan. That is what is causing all this chatter, but at the moment you still don't have to do anything.

If this FAQ gains enough traction and the community would find it fitting to change or add something, just post a comment below.

A Dogecoin History of a famous whale: Wolong and The Game of Deception

If you are new to cryptocurrencies, chances are, you have never heard of Wolong, or had an encounter with him or his pumps and dumps, although this can not be confirmed as a fact, as no one knows if Wolong ever exited the pump and dump scene. Whether he actually quit, or still lurks in the background nobody knows. But he left us with his manifesto, " The Game of Deception " a true account of his work on the famous Dogecoin pump and dump. Remove the name dogecoin from this manifesto and replace with many other coins to find out Wolong is not one but many, and his legacy in crypto never died, but went on to prosper. I present you an unedited version of Wolong's Manifesto to educate yourselves about the risks of altcoin investing. Please note this account is about the early days of doge, it mentions qualities of the coin like the halvening. Doge does not have one anymore. Also when he mentions "sats" thats the price of Doge in btc. 20 sats is .00000020 BTC, 260 sats is .00000260 BTC. Here is his manifesto:

Majority believes that markets move randomly and reflect the collective wisdom of investors, the truth is quite the opposite. The invisible hand is a myth. Market prices has always been manipulated by the government's visible hands through influencing laws and regulation. Insiders control markets and manipulate them up or down for profit. Manipulation is everywhere, undeniable and unavoidable. It happens on a very large scale throughout every single financial markets out there, stock, bonds, commodities, currencies and so forth. There are other types of manipulation, such as social and news manipulation, hence I called it: The Game of Deception.

"Whale watching" is a trading strategy of monitoring the trades of the most influential or wealthy investors, known as "whales". "Whales" refers to traders with significant bankrolls that their actions impact heavily on the markets. The purpose of this book is to trade in the shadow of the smart money, understanding how market manipulation works, and become profitable by understanding.

Most traders do not understand volume implications and how vital it is in their analysis of any of the markets. Given at any point of time, traders are constantly long, short, holding, some waiting to get into the market, some already in profitable positions. "Long" means when a trader buys, in this example: DOGE/BTC hoping that the value of Doge will go up against BTC, the "Short" means the opposite. Whenever a trade is entered, the exchange will register this as volume on a continuous ongoing basis. Volume represents activity and it relates to the price bar on your chart. Chart reflects clearly and is the reason why it is behaving the way it is. "Whales" contributes 70-80% of the volume you see, which is why it is large enough to alter the direction of a market. I will not go into identifying the traces of a whale activity in book one, but rather my primary focus would be explaining how manipulation works, and the thoughts of a market manipulator.

"If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles" - Sun Tzu

Individuals trade the market for a purpose, and that is to profit. Many of you are meticulous in entering a trade, cracking your head whether the price you are about to buy or sell is too high or low, although some might possess knowledge of technical analysis, you are still at a loss in the end. This is quite common, for you have not understand the characteristic of a "whale". They are ruthless, swift, cunning, very very patient and most importantly, they do not obey the rules of the game. A price will never be too high or low for them. Prices might have soar 100%, 200% and it will never be too late for them to enter. Buy high? Sell higher! Sell low? Buy lower!

To almost everyone, it is simply just pump and dump. However, the truth is, there are many stages to make a pump and dump successful. The stages includes:

Position Building Suppressing prices Test Pump Actual Pump Shakeouts Re-allocation and distribution Exiting - The Dump Position Building

There are multiple ways to build a position. This is the stage where we will require a significant amount of market share to do pumps. The most common method will be micro buys. Through placing of buy order in relatively small amounts, it avoids driving up prices and also masked our existence. Some alternate coins, however, has really low amount of volume, and it will take ages to build up our position through micro buys. In such cases, we will be force to do a pump up, to encourage sellers. Pump waves will be gradually decreasing, smaller and smaller, forcing out all sellers so that we can have what we want - market share. This has happened many times infact to date, such as Doge/BTC, UNO/BTC, Dev/BTC and GLC/BTC.

Suppressing prices

Contradicting isn't it? That we are willing to pump altcoins up a few times of it's value worth before driving down it prices. And yes, like I have stated earlier on, prices does not matter to us as long we can sell higher. However, like every other business on the industry, everyone would want their costs to be as low as possible. In this very stage, we will pile up whatever we have bought, to suppress prices as much as possible through sell walls so that we are able to do our buying cheap. Our sell walls are usually just enough to appear as though as it's the invisble hands of the market, minor supply over demand.

Test Pump

Before a real pump happens, whales like us tends to test the market. Why? Reason is simple. It is to ensure that we have absolute control of the market. Test pump, like shakeouts, actual pumps, re-allocation and distribution, happens many time throughout the pump and dump process. By doing a test pump, we will roughly get an idea on where our next resistance will be and how much floating chips are around ( Floating chips refers to weak hands). Whales hate weak hands, they do not act as any form of support for us during a pump, and we will are always determine to get rid of them in the early stages, no matter how long it takes.

Actual Pump

The term pretty much explains everything. When weak hands are being forced out, and we have gain the market share that we expect, we are ready to move.

Shakeouts

deliberately forced price reaction, whose purpose is that of stimulating public selling in order to facilitate the accumulation of speculative positions. This is the most aggressive part in wiping out weak hands of their positions. Sometimes during a shakeout, we can be so aggressive that we drive prices so low that's it's way below our cost price. Losses does not matter to us, it is only on paper, and we have enough bankroll to pump prices back up. Individuals who have no experienced or unable to withstand such psychological torture will usually exit the market at this stage.

Re-allocation and distribution

Re-allocation and distribution usually serves the purpose for us to re-balance our portfolio. In a test pump, we might distribute you some of our shares (coins). The logic is quite simple, sometimes during a pump, buying into our own walls and others, we bought more than expected. We will have to release a few back to the individual traders. At times, it serves as a support, and reduce our risk exposure or being a "safe trap". What do I mean by that? For example if you were to distribute you at $5 and then we were to drive prices back down to $4.50, we will know that the total amount of shares being distributed at $5 will not be selling at $5. Traders tends to exit when in profit and are unlikely to exit with breakeven costs. I used the word "safe" is because, this is not the part where we will be dumping. There are alot of re-allocation and distribution, like shuffling a pack of cards throughout the entire process, and prices tend to go much higher than the price that you are "trapped" at.

Exiting - The Dump

This is usually the last stage. The part where we take our profits and completely exiting the market. There are many exit strategies available to us. I will be revealing some of it and explain. The most common mindset everyone had is that we either micro sell or massively dump into buy walls during a dump. Theses are just the basic. Usually by exiting via this method, gives us really a bad price to sell at.

One of the exotic methods we used : "Exit during a pump". This works by having sell walls in place, and buying into our own walls again and again aggressively until the crowd follows. Once they follow, they will be biting into our walls. Hence we are able to exit portions of it, bits by bits, rinse and repeat a few times, we will be able to exit the market completely. Another method is known as "Exit by putting a sell wall". Well, many of you who follows my trades on #dogecoin-market, knows that I like having sell walls up to suppress prices and buy doges cheap. However, I am able to imply this strategy by deceiving everyone into thinking that I am merely capping prices but the fact is, I am micro selling my way out.

Exposing and unraveling the secrets behind my pumps and dumps. By now, everyone should be very curious and if not dying to find out how I orchestrated my pumps and dumps, especially with dogecoin. I will give a very detailed account on what actually happened and how I played the Game of Deception using the art of war to my advantage.

I must admit that I got into Dogecoin few weeks late, that was when prices were trading about 120-140 satoshis. I started out with only a few MH/s as gpus were really hard to get. Prices fell to 90-80 satoshis, it appears to be normal to me at first, but something caught my attention. Things were not right. Based on years of trading experience I had, it seems to me that someone is intentionally suppressing the prices to buy in doges. There are whales playing around with dogecoin!

Well, like many others, I siezed the opportunity by contacting by ultra rich friends to be involved in this pump and dump process. Doge was dead cheap, everything was right. The increasing growth in subscribers on reddit, the tipping community, were a perfect condition to manipulate doge prices effectively. The fundamental factors and elements determine the outcome of a military engagement. A battle is won before it is even fought. All the conditions were met. Pricing, volume, the community backing it and the growth that is gradually increasing.

I heavily bought into dogecoin 26-50 satoshis. I shared my trades on

dogecoin at first. Why? Simple! I am a nobody there. I have expected and

predicted that no one will listen to a trade recommendation by someone new in there. It will not affect any of my position building but rather gain me some sort of fame and reputation for future use.

While dogecoin hits 50-70 satoshis, the truth is, I did not owned 10 billion doge, but rather a mere total of 4 billion. The amount of holdings I had were overstated so as to aid me and mask by exit strategy in the near future. Now, came the part of Jamaican bobsled team. It was a perfect time for other whales and myself. We signal through buy/sell walls that we are ready to move. It was a test pump. We wanted to see if the dogecoin community were gullible enough to think that it was the Jamaican bobsled publicity that have drove dogecoin prices up. The bobsled team brought value and publicity to dogecoin, but people are always confuse with prices and value. Having value does not mean having a price, and having a high price does not mean it has value. In the world of manipulation, we used the news, the social network as our advantage. We were right, by droving prices up, the community gave credit to the bobsled team for moving dogecoin prices up, which is what I wanted.

Over a course of a week, I begin appearing frequently on #dogecoin and

dogecoin-market giving trade calls and announcing pumps. To cut the story

short, I turned aggressive, driving prices up to 280 satoshis where the crowd bought into my sell walls. I was able to exit near 270 a portion of my dogecoins. I wasn't done with it. Driving prices higher will put me into a risk of buying dogecoin high and unable to exit safely.

This is the part where I gave everyone on #dogecoin-market a floor, 160 satoshis. A precise floor that I will support, and 230 as resistance. I moved prices up and down within this range to gain confidence and support from the community that I am backing it and able to control doge prices at will. Then came the part of which I need more faithful followers, who will ride the waves with me, gurantee a few profits, and act with me. Why? Reason is simple. I sold most of my doges high and I have lost a significant amount of market share. I need to regain the market share, without physically possessing it.

The most memorable event that happened during this phase was that 4chan and reddit laughed and mocked "TheMollyMachine", one of the guys in my private channel. Logs leaked on the internet showed how "TheMollyMachine" was bleeding at that time when someone big dumped doges into his btc buy walls. I had to change a course of actions, to move doge down to 170 satoshis , and with a target price of 130 satoshis in mind. I forecasted that not everyone will act accordingly as they have no idea of what a short sell is ( To sell low and buy back lower). One example in this case which is freenode user "hinv". The purpose of me initating this without giving a clear explaination on what we are doing to followers of mine which holds no knowledge in trading, is pretty clear. I knew and had reports from OPs in my channel that freenode channel is not secured. Anyone would be able to spoof a nick that is on the invite list to freely enter that channel when the nick is not in used. I took advantage of that again, to create chaos and leak logs that I failed in the dump, of which after the dump failed to 170, I drove prices back up to 190. The purpose of this is crystal clear. I need someone to buy into my dumps high, while slowly driving prices to 130. To those who are in the private channel especially ops such as randomclown, Tuxedage, Sir_Knee_Grows, SuchWow and taner, would have clearly known that 130 will be the bottom price. Taner appeared to be more excited. He had a bet with me earlier on that prices will hit 80 satoshis, which I told him 130 satoshis will definitely be a rock bottom.

Now, remember the part that I have told everyone that I had no access to investors funds during the holidays of Chinese New Year for the traders that listens to my order to buy or sell are away. And the part that I stated dogecoin will be trading above 200 once Chinese New Year ends? Yep, you now you recalled. Well, I orchestrated another plan. Which is to move my people inside my private channel to UNO/BTC for I saw value in UNO and were at a good price to buy at. This serves two purposes. If they are out at 160 and bought in UNO heavily, it will be less selling pressure for me to exit my investors funds. At this point of time, investors holding of doge are not yet fully sold. To others, it might have appeared that I used my members into selling DOGE/BTC and UNO/BTC but apparently, it is not the case. I gave them the chance of buying UNO/BTC at a lower price, having sufficient time to build up their position for UNO/BTC has much greater potential and without having worrying that they will be affecting my dumps on DOGE on a later date. Killing two birds with one stone.

Now, halving date for DOGE is now nearer and nearer. People are gullible and naive thinking that during halving their doge prices will be worth double of the 280's initial tops. They forgotten that it is us the whales, that drives prices up. Again, they fell for the deception that I long for. Near halving day, what a perfect day for my dumps. I will have a lot of people that will actively and happily buying out whatever I dumped to them. On Feb 12, I dropped the nuclear warhead. It was what I expected and I managed to exit my position entirely on DOGE.

Sad, but true, I used all bad news on me as an advantage to maneuver and engage the opposing force. And to those who loses out in the end are usually my haters because they are the ones that are arrogant and acted late. People in my private channel knows how I trade and usually holds even though prices are being suppressed or shakeouts by me. It is usually the people without patience that lost in the end game.

https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@joseph/wolong-the-game-of-deception-unedited-version

RESULTS of the State of the Game Survey: Beginning of Year 5

Hi all,

It’s time for the results!

This survey had just over 1,850 responses, which is excellent! These insights wouldn’t be possible without your time and support, so thank you to everyone who took the time to respond!

As always, neither myself nor this survey are associated with Intelligent Systems or Nintendo in any way. Please direct feedback about the game itself to the official channels.

Now let’s get into it!

^{^Previous} ^{^Survey} ^{^Results:}

^{^{Dec_2020_State_of_the_Game_Survey}}

~ Demographics ~

51.6% of respondents began playing FE:H in February 2017, with 20.9% more joining during the first year of the game. 11.5% of respondents joined during the second year, 8.2% joined during the third, and 6.6% joined during the fourth year.

The age range breakdown of respondents is as follows:

(2.4%) 12 – 15 years old
(15.2%) 16 – 18 years old
(23.1%) 19 – 21 years old
(22.3%) 22 – 24 years old
(25.0%) 25 – 30 years old
(9.0%) 31 – 40 years old
(0.7%) 40+ years old

74.6% of respondents identified as Male, 18.2% as Female, and 4.6% as Non-binary.

33.0% report being F2P, while 27.8% have spent less than $100, 18.4% spent between $100 - $499, 6.8% spent between $500 - $999, 8.6% spent between $1000 - $5000, and 2.0% have spent over $5000.

50.4% last spent money on FE:H during the fourth year of the game, while 5.3% last spent money during the third year of the game, 4.1% last spent during the second year of the game, and 4.5% last spent money during the first year of the game.

384.2 is the current average Catalog of Heroes number for all respondents. 401 is the median. This is almost perfectly in line with the predicted ~385 based on the 2019 trend line.

For F2P players who started playing the month of release, the current average Catalog of Heroes number is 388.8, and the median is 403.5.

~ Summoning ~

“Which of the following banners have you used orbs on at least once?”

(66.1%) A Festival Miracle
(65.5%) Mythic Heroes: Seiros
(60.4%) New Year’s Omega Special Heroes
(53.4%) Dark Desert Rituals
(52.6%) Love of a King
(52.3%) Hero Fest 2021
(46.1%) Legendary Heroes: Lilina
(43.3%) Book V Begins: Reginn and More
(25.6%) Shared Purpose

“Which of the following banners did you use the most orbs on?”

(19.8%) A Festival Miracle
(16.4%) Mythic Heroes: Seiros
(15.5%) New Year’s Omega Special Heroes
(10.3%) Hero Fest 2021
(9.0%) Dark Desert Rituals
(8.6%) Legendary Heroes: Lilina
(7.2%) Love of a King
(6.2%) Book V Begins: Reginn and More
(3.8%) Shared Purpose

“What was your favorite banner?”

(17.1%) A Festival Miracle
(13.4%) Love of a King
(12.3%) Mythic Heroes: Seiros
(11.6%) New Year’s Omega Special Heroes
(10.9%) Hero Fest 2021
(10.8%) Dark Desert Rituals
(7.3%) Book V Begins: Reginn and More
(6.1%) Legendary Heroes: Lilina
(6.0%) Shared Purpose

“Did you spend money specifically to summon on any of the banners below?”

(9.9%) New Year’s Omega Special Heroes
(8.6%) A Festival Miracle
(8.2%) Mythic Heroes: Seiros
(7.6%) Dark Desert Rituals
(6.0%) Love of a King
(4.9%) Legendary Heroes: Lilina
(4.4%) Hero Fest 2021
(3.4%) Book V Begins: Reginn and More
(2.3%) Shared Purpose

36.3% of respondents said that they would like to see more banners like the New Year’s Omega Special Heroes banner, which included the previous year's seasonal heroes on the banner as focus units, with a 6% focus rate and a 2% non-focus rate. 43.3% of respondents said that they would not like to see this banner type again.

4.7/5.0 is the average rating on how respondents feel about the recent changes to the summoning mechanics (The first change is that the pity rate does not reset when pulling a non-focus 5* , instead dropping by at most 2% total. The second change is the introduction of a new 4* Special Rate, which is a separate pool on all banners for old 5* heroes that does not reduce your pity rate). 75.4% rated these changes at a 5/5, and 20.3% rated the changes at a 4/5.

63.6% prefer the Legendary Hero Remix banner type (8 focus heroes with a 6% focus rate and a 0% non-focus rate) over the regular Legendary Heroes banner type (12 focus heroes (not all of which are legendary/mythic heroes) with a 8% focus rate and 0% non-focus rate). 7.4% of respondents prefer the regular Legendary Heroes banners.

“Which color did you pick on the 5* Special Hero Summon (Year 4) banner?”

(42.1%) Colorless
(26.3%) Green
(21.9%) Red
(8.0%) Blue

“Which color did you WANT to pick on the 5* Special Hero Summon (Year 4) banner, regardless of whether you received that color as an option?”

(54.7%) Colorless
(19.5%) Green
(16.1%) Red
(5.6%) Blue

“Are you satisfied with the hero you received from the 5* Special Hero Summon (Year 4) banner?”

(51.7%) Yes
(40.8%) No

~ New Content and Updates ~

“Who is your favorite original character introduced in Book 5 so far?”

(47.0%) Reginn
(16.1%) Fafnir
(7.6%) Eitri
(6.0%) Otr

3.3/5.0 is the average rating for Book 5 so far, with 50.8% of respondents neutral, 39.0% rating a 4/5 or above, and 10.1% rating a 2/5 or below.

3.1/5.0 is the average rating for the addition of the Vault of Heaven to Aether Raids, with 64.5% of respondents neutral, 24.2% rating a 4/5 or above, and 11.3% rating a 2/5 or below.

2.9/5.0 is the average rating for the Aether Raids change that adds another team slot when using one of the season’s Mythic heroes, with 42.5% of respondents neutral, 26.0% rating a 4/5 or above, and 31.5% rating a 2/5 or below.

4.4/5.0 is the average rating for this year’s Anniversary Celebration, with 7.2% of respondents neutral, 90.8% rating a 4/5 or above, and 2.1% rating a 2/5 or below.

3.6/5.0 is the average rating for the updates to the Mjolnir’s Strike game mode, with 37.6% of respondents neutral, 55.9% rating a 4/5 or above, and 6.6% rating a 2/5 or below.

3.9/5.0 is the average rating for the new MySummoner feature, with 19.0% of respondents neutral, 74.0% rating a 4/5 or above, and 6.9% rating a 2/5 or below.

17.9% of respondents agreed with the statement “There is a MySummoner option that looks like me”, compared to 74.3% who agree with the statement “There is no MySummoner option that looks like me.”

43.5% say that they chose a MySummoner option based on what looks closest to them, while 49.9% say that they chose a MySummoner option without any consideration for what looks like them.

“Which of the following best describes the build for your MySummoner unit?”

(53.2%) Offensive / Player Phase
(14.1%) Mixed Phase
(9.3%) Support
(9.1%) Defensive / Enemy Phase
(6.9%) Meme Build (not even a joke, that’s the actual percentage)

36.4% believe the new Savior skill effect is overpowered, compared to 39.4% who do not.

29.8% believe the new Fatal Smoke skill is overpowered, compared to 49.2% who do not.

51.0% believe that the upgraded skills make older legendary heroes sufficiently strong, while 36.5% believe they do not make them strong enough and 0.2% believe they make them too strong.

~ Recurring Content and Updates ~

“Which of the following Resplendent Heroes added since the last survey has your favorite art?”

(63.7%) Eldigan
(9.3%) Ike (Brave)
(8.5%) Tiki (Young)
(8.3%) Delthea

For each hero since the last survey to get a resplendent, the art preferences are:

Eldigan: (93.3% Resplendent, 6.6% Original)
Tiki (Young): (73.0% Resplendent, 26.9% Original)
Delthea: (66.0% Resplendent, 33.9% Original)
Ike (Brave): (34.4% Resplendent, 65.5% Original)

“Have you spent Divine Dew to get any of the Refines added since the last survey?”

(18.5%) Lewyn
(14.4%) Nino (SF)
(14.3%) Hinoka (WF)
(10.3%) Genny
(7.4%) Reinhardt (WoT)
(5.2%) Joshua
(4.7%) Arden
(2.8%) Nina

“Have you spent a Forma Soul to get any of the Forma available in Hall of Forms since the last survey?”

(9.7%) Fjorm (Bridal)
(4.6%) Kiria
(4.5%) Eleonora
(3.8%) Tsubasa
(2.6%) Laegjarn
(2.3%) Veronica (Spring)
(1.4%) Mamori
(1.1%) Ylgr

“Have you spent Heroic Grails to get any of the heroes added to the Grails Shop since the last survey?”

(14.9%) Hana (Ninja)
(8.4%) Felix (Winter)
(4.6%) Nemesis
(3.6%) Ena (Halloween)
(3.3%) Keaton (New Year’s)
(1.6%) Caellach
(1.5%) Galle

“Which of the following Limited Time Combat Manuals added since the last survey is/was most desirable to you?”

(28.5%) Ryoma (Hot Springs)
(20.7%) Myrrh
(13.6%) Laevatein (New Year’s)
(8.3%) Soren (Valentines)
(6.1%) Lyn (Valentines)
(4.9%) Takumi (New Year’s)

~ Choose Your Legends 5 ~

55.0% are happy with the results of the Men’s Side of CYL5, compared to 36.1% who are not.

68.7% are happy with the results of the Women’s Side of CYL5, compared to 20.5% who are not.

24.9% voted for Gatekeeper at least once, 23.0% voted for Marth at least once, 17.5% voted for Marianne at least once, and 14.9% voted for Eirika at least once. 41.2% did not vote for any of the winners.

“If you had to choose only one of the CYL5 winner's Brave alts to receive (without knowing any details yet), which would you choose?”

(29.3%) Marianne
(28.5%) Gatekeeper
(20.4%) Marth
(16.5%) Eirika

~ Miscellaneous Questions ~

“Which Fire Emblem games have you played?”

(97.0%) Fire Emblem Heroes
(81.1%) Fire Emblem: Three Houses
(74.9%) Fire Emblem: Awakening
(70.8%) Fire Emblem: Fates
(58.7%) Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
(54.4%) Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade
(53.0%) Fire Emblem Gaiden / Shadows of Valentia
(42.6%) Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
(41.0%) Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light
(37.7%) Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade
(35.5%) Fire Emblem Warriors
(35.5%) Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
(22.6%) Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
(20.1%) Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem / New Mystery
(19.6%) TMS#FE
(14.0%) Fire Emblem: Thracia 776

“Which of the Divine Code pathways is most desirable to you?”

(25.2%) Holy War
(22.1%) Awakening/Fates
(18.4%) Blades/Sacred Stones
(8.2%) Mystery/Shadows
(6.8%) Radiance
(4.2%) Heroes

“If none of the Event game modes gave any rewards, which ones would you still play?”

(53.4%) Forging Bonds
(51.2%) Pawns of Loki
(28.8%) Voting Gauntlet
(24.7%) Mjolnir’s Strike
(17.5%) Grand Conquests
(16.6%) Tempest Trials
(15.8%) Rokkr Sieges

“If none of the Event game modes gave any rewards, which ones would you never play again?”

(54.2%) Rokkr Sieges
(53.7%) Tempest Trials
(53.0%) Grand Conquests
(45.7%) Mjolnir’s Strike
(45.1%) Voting Gauntlet
(30.0%) Pawns of Loki
(26.8%) Forging Bonds

57.9% believe Three Houses receives an appropriate amount of representation in banners, while 26.6% believes it is overrepresented and 8.2% believes it is underrepresented.

92.4% watched the Anniversary Feh Channel, compared to 7.4% who did not.

“What kind of heroes do you typically use Trait Fruits on?”

(31.4%) Grail Heroes
(19.7%) 5*
(5.4%) Legendaries/Mythics
(5.1%) Seasonals
(0.5%) 3* or 4*

69.5% believes TMS#FE will have a second banner eventually, compared to 12.7% who do not.

74.2% believe Fire Emblem spinoffs such as FE Warriors and FE Cipher should receive FEH banners, compared to 13.2% who do not.

29.1% watch all Aether Raids Defense replays, while 23.9% only watch victories and 4.4% only watch defeats. 42.6% never watch any replays.

85.2% like refines like Oliver’s and Nina’s that play into their character traits/memes, compared to 3.6% who dislike these types of refines.

78.9% are holding their Forma Soul for a future set of Forma units, while 11.9% plan to use it on the current Forma units (Fjorm (Bridal), Ylgr, Veronica (Spring), Laegjarn) and 4.0% plan to use it on the next set of Forma units (Est (Spring), Palla (Spring), Catria (Spring), Minerva (Young)).

3.3/5.0 is the average rating for the A Hero Rises event, with 31.5% of respondents neutral, 45.7% rating a 4/5 or above, and 22.7% rating a 2/5 or below.

33.7% believe CYL heroes should be eligible for Resplendents, compared to 52.0% who do not.

41.2% would use two different languages for the voice lines and for the text if it were an option, compared to 47.3% who would not. Note: I overlooked the fact that this is possible in some combinations but not all.

~ Recurring Questions ~

“Which game do you want a New Heroes banner from the most?”

(19.1%) Three Houses (-6.2%)
(12.0%) Awakening (+4.0%)
(11.0%) Gaiden / Shadows of Valentia (+3.8%)
(9.3%) Radiant Dawn (+0.2%)
(7.7%) TMS #FE (+0.9%)
(7.0%) Genealogy of the Holy War (+0.8%)
(6.7%) Fates (+0.3%)
(5.2%) Blazing Blade (-1.0%)
(4.6%) Sacred Stones (-5.6%)
(2.5%) Path of Radiance (+0.2%)
(2.5%) Thracia 776 (-2.0%)
(2.0%) Fire Emblem Warriors (---%)
(1.8%) Binding Blade (+0.5%)
(1.4%) Mystery of the Emblem / New Mystery of the Emblem (+0.1%)
(1.1%) Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light / Shadow Dragon (-0.5%)

14.2% feel positively about the addition of the Feh Pass, compared to 38.4% who feel negatively and 46.5% who feel neutral. This continues the trend of slow decline of negative feelings towards the Feh Pass, with an 0.8% increase in positive feelings and a 4.2% decrease in negative feelings since the last survey.

45.2% have purchased the Feh Pass at least once, compared to 54.8% who have not. This is an 0.8% increase since the last survey, slowing the previous trend.

27.5% have purchased a Forma Soul at least once, compared to 72.5% who have not. This is a 1.4% increase since the last survey, slowing the previous trend.

“How have recent changes to FE:H changed your opinion on the game as a whole?”

(53.3%) My opinion was positive and has stayed positive
(13.0%) My opinion used to be negative, but has turned positive
(27.9%) Neutral
(2.2%) My opinion used to be positive, but has turned negative
(3.6%) My opinion was negative and has stayed negative

~ Intelligent Systems Approval Ratings ~

4.0/5.0 is the average rating of the extent to which respondents feel that Intelligent Systems has made meaningful improvements to the game since the last survey, with 15.9% of respondents neutral, 79.5% rating a 4/5 or above, and 4.7% rating a 2/5 or below.

“What has Intelligent Systems done since the last survey that you APPROVE of?” Some summaries and selected answers:

The 4-star special rate was cited by a ton of respondents.
Summoning changes in general were widely cited by a huge amount of respondents.
4th Anniversary celebration was generally well received.
Legendary hero improvements and remix were widely mentioned.
MySummoner was also mentioned by quite a few respondents.
“Making Nina an equal-opportunity shipper.”
“Meme MySummoner introductions.”
“Oliver's glorious weapon refine, and added more buff boys.”
“They added Duessel.”

“What has Intelligent Systems done since the last survey that you DISAPPROVE of?”

Brave Ike Resplendent was mentioned by a lot of respondents.
A Hero Rises was mentioned by a lot of respondents as well.
Mixing the New Year's banner was commonly cited.
AR bonus slots and the Vault of Heaven were also mentioned frequently.
And of course, mentions of Feh Pass, powercreep, and some of the new skills.
“No Sharena in Valentines banner.”
“Not put a goddamn Peri alt in yet those mother-”
“They haven't made a resplendent Bartre.”
“For the love of god just let us pick a hero we want in the pool not RNG summoning for the anniversary.”

55.4% believe Intelligent Systems cares about its Free to Play userbase (up 17.5% from the previous survey), while 22.7% do not.

51.3% approve of the way Intelligent Systems is handling Fire Emblem: Heroes as a whole (up 12.2% from the previous survey), while 9.3% disapprove and 39.2% are neutral. The ratio of Approve/Disapprove with Neutral responses excluded is 84.5% (up 15.5% from the previous survey).

The overall approval rating trend going by raw Approval percentage is: 50.6% (Dec) -> 22.9% (Feb) -> 28.1% (Apr) -> 42.9% (Sept) -> 39.1% (Dec) -> 51.3% (Feb’21)

The overall approval rating trend going by proportion of Approve/Disapprove with the Neutrals excluded is: 82.2% (Dec) -> 41.0% (Feb) -> 51.3% (Apr) -> 71.7% (Sept) -> 69.0% (Dec) -> 84.5% (Feb’21)

~ Bonus Questions ~

“Who is your Favorite Hero added since the last survey?”

Seiros (Mythic) is the winner, followed by Altina (Winter, Harmonic), then Reginn.
Full results here: [Graph]

“Who is your Most Wanted Hero added since the last survey?”

Seiros (Mythic) is the winner, followed by Lif (Valentines, Duo), then Peony (New Year’s, Duo).
Full results here: [Graph].

“If you could add ONE character not currently in the game, who would it be?”

Dedue is the winner, followed by Ashe, then Severa, Leonie, and Luthier.
Full results here: [Graph].

41.8% responded to the official Fire Emblem Heroes User Survey released in December by Intelligent Systems, compared to 47.3% who did not. 100% of respondents responded to this survey, so we can clearly see which one the people prefer.

~ Constructive Feedback ~

This is a new section to highlight some good critical and constructive feedback received on the survey itself. A lot of people mistook this section for being about feedback on the official IS survey, which is entirely my fault for putting that question directly before and not thinking about it. Anyways, here’s some of the feedback!

“Add a neutral options on the questions of yes or no, as I struggled on some questions that just want a yes or no answer” – This is intentional in some cases in order to force respondents to make a choice, but there are definitely places where it ought to be there.
“Add some ‘Don't care’ options. There were a few questions where ‘Don't care’ was more appropriate than ‘I don't know.’” – As far as the results are concerned these are generally considered to be the same thing, so I tend to just have one option to abstain from a question in order to not clutter it.
“I don't know if you can put pictures in the survey, but it would be extremely helpful if during the Resplendent section, you could put a picture of the original Hero art and the Resplendent Hero” – Great point! I’m not certain if this will work on mobile, but I can include a disclaimer.
“If Warriors and TMS are options, I think that Cipher should also be an option for the ‘Most wanted game to get a banner’ question” – Good point, that was an oversight on my part.
“Offer a spot for open ended feedback, IE a textbox where we can offer any improvements to the game.” – I intentionally avoid including this since I don’t think it’s very useful for just me to read them. I would instead encourage creating your own discussion post on the topic.
“There's a lot of questions (first half) that assumes you have spent money on the game regardless of F2P status” – Good catch, will try to fix this for next time!

~ Fun Feedback ~

As is tradition, here’s a selection of comments I enjoyed that were submitted with survey responses:

Someone gave me these two drawings of Norne – I absolutely love them, thank you so much!!
This fantastic song parody “Save Your Orbs” by u/juuldude
And this song parody by an anonymous respondent
#DedueWhen #DedueinHeroeswhen #AnnetteforCYL6 #FarinaforFEH2021 #A!TikiAltNextPlzIS #blutGANG #floofmomgang #Justice4Sharena #JusticeForChrom #JusticeforElinciaPlz #JusticeForSharena #KnollWasRobbed #YesImStillMad #Mitama4FEH #saveforB!Marianne #YuriForCYL6
“echoes fans should unionize and/or revolt”
“I want Gilliam with a barbecue party alt, then we will truly have Grilliam”
“IS is telling us to CHILL out with all these chill skills amirite?”
“Shamir more like sham wow”
“The year is 2027. DC weapons and gen 1 healers except Wrys have yet to receive refines. An increase in the price of orb packs has led to an economic crisis around the world as orbs overtake Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and all other crypto-currencies. Elon Musk has publicly tweeted from Mars that he has heavily invested into orb mining, leading to a massive influx of new players who are more opportunistic than feather mercs in a voting gauntlet. Just last week, CYL!Gatekeeper had his fairy resplendent announced, splitting the community in two. Those against him claim that he is undeserving of a resplendent in comparison to Infant!Marth. Nowadays, I pray to Naga every night just to end this suffering and deliver us from this purgatory.”
“FE3H is overrepresented unless it's Dedue. Dedue is good. Give us Dedue.”
“Helo, nino wahnts two saye tank yu four all uv the kuul survys”
“I wish the IS spy/intern recollecting data from these surveys a very delete Legendary Chrom from the game”
“Roses are Red / Violets are Blue / I have no orbs / Please give me more orbs”
"‘Coffee ‘is just bean soup’ - some Kiran on my friend list, 2020”
“Allowing summoners to select their own greetings was a mistake. Someone just had "I just pooped in your castle" as theirs.”
“blessed is the I.S. for not adding a filter to the summoner greetings”
“Greetings ShiningSolarSword! Nothing to comment!”
“Maybe next time your Summoner could bring this survey to Summoners in other castles like a census. Do 3* and 4* Heroes from Book 1 qualify as dependents for tax purposes?”
“That official survey was booty. I hope Nintendo can connect with its user base and give us a real survey. Wait…”
And greetings from Argentina, Australia, Chile, Crimea, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, the UK, New Jersey, and North Carolina

~ Closing Remarks ~

If you missed out on responding to this survey when it was available, consider subscribing to r/FEHSurveys. This subreddit serves as a place to organize FE:H-related surveys, make new releases more visible, and make it easier for users to see when surveys are active.

Thanks again to everyone who participated! I hope you find the results interesting, and if there’s anything else you think can be discovered from the data, let me know and I’ll do my best to oblige!

Weekly/Important Megathreads:

Weekly Discussion Megathread

Hall of Forms Megathread

Love of a King Banner Megathread

Limited Hero Battles Megathread (2/15/21)

Forging Bonds: Enduring Legacy Megathread

Enduring Legacy Banner Megathread