December 28, 2020 Press Release - Marathon Patent Group Purchases 70,000 S-19 ASIC Miners from Bitmain for $170 Million

Source: Marathon Patent Group, Inc.
December 28, 2020 08:15 ET

Marathon Patent Group Purchases 70,000 S-19 ASIC Miners from Bitmain for $170 Million

Upon Delivery and Full Deployment, the Company’s Mining Operations Will Consist of More than 103,000 Miners Producing 10.36 EH/s

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LAS VEGAS, Dec. 28, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Marathon Patent Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MARA) ("Marathon" or the "Company"), one of the largest enterprise Bitcoin self-mining companies in North America, has entered into a contract with Bitmain to purchase 70,000 Antminer S-19 ASIC miners.

Under the terms of the agreement, Marathon anticipates receiving an initial batch of 7,000 S-19 miners in July 2021 and the final shipment in December 2021. Once all miners are fully deployed, the Company’s mining fleet will consist of more than 103,000 miners capable of producing 10.36 EH/s.   This landscape changing purchase of these miners more than triples the size of Marathon’s existing fleet of 33,000 miners.

Marathon’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Merrick Okamoto, stated, “This purchase is the largest order in dollar terms as well as the single largest order for S-19 ASIC miners that Bitmain has ever received. We appreciate the hard work their team is putting in to fulfil this order as well as the 30,000 S-19 miners we have purchased since August 2020. Our relationship with Bitmain is an important component of our potential for future success, and we look forward to continuing working with them to scale our business.”

Antminer Sales Director of North, Central, and South America (NCSA) at Bitmain Irene Gao commented, "We are excited that Bitmain has won this record-breaking purchase contract from Marathon. Marathon has quickly become our largest customer, and our partnership continues to mutually benefit both of our companies.”

Investor Notice

Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. Before making an investment decision, you should carefully consider the risks, uncertainties and forward-looking statements described under "Risk Factors" in Item 1A of our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019. If any of these risks were to occur, our business, financial condition or results of operations would likely suffer. In that event, the value of our securities could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment. The risks and uncertainties we describe are not the only ones facing us. Additional risks not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also impair our business operations. In addition, our past financial performance may not be a reliable indicator of future performance, and historical trends should not be used to anticipate results in the future. Future changes in the network-wide mining difficulty rate or Bitcoin hashrate may also materially affect the future performance of Marathon's production of Bitcoin. See "Safe Harbor" below.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements made in this press release include forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as “may,” “will,” “plan,” “should,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “continue,” or comparable terminology. Such forward-looking statements are inherently subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties, many of which the Company cannot predict with accuracy and some of which the Company might not even anticipate and involve factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or suggested. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements and are advised to consider the factors listed above together with the additional factors under the heading “Risk Factors” in the Company's Annual Reports on Form 10-K, as may be supplemented or amended by the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. The Company assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events, new information or otherwise.

About Marathon Patent Group

Marathon is a digital asset technology company that mines cryptocurrencies, with a focus on the blockchain ecosystem and the generation of digital assets.

Bitcoin price risks collapse on real world vaccines

Some people just dont get what it's all about...

"The risk for today’s bitcoin buyers, now the price has regularly topped $US50,000 in 2021 and more than quadrupled since March 1 when the printing presses were turned on, is that the price retreats when this crisis passes and fiscal tightening returns.

Modern fiat or central bank money largely serves three purposes; of liquidity, as a store of value, and as a stable unit of account.

Bitcoin cannot replace the need for liquidity in the event of a crisis like a war that requires a government-backed response, and the price volatility rules it out as a unit of account."

https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/bitcoin-price-risks-collapse-on-real-world-vaccines-20210301-p576to?utm_content=AROUND_THE_WORLD&list_name=EBE726C6-38DF-4725-9BE4-5091999D8384&promote_channel=edmail&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=2021-03-02&mbnr=MTM1NTA2ODU&instance=2021-03-02-12-37-AEDT&jobid=29293447

Crypto Insides. Everything you need to know in order to start investing.

Hello Im making this post for people that are interested in investing in crypto but have no idea were to start. First of all for people that tried researching coins, alt coins and tokens and don't know were to beging scroll to the seccond part of the post. For people that have been hearing about cryptocoins and have been meaning to invest this isnfor you. For starters before you even beging re-searching about different types of curencies you have to figure out what type of investor you will be. In crypto there are mainly 2 types of investors. Long term investor and Short term. A long term investor is a type of person that invests in alt-coins(alternative coins) to the mainstream coins that are Bitcoin, Ether , Litecoin and many others. Most of the times a long term investor finds pottential in small coins (meaning they have low-market value ). Investing in small coins could come with the risk of losing small anounts of money overtime due to most coins being startups or just simply not popular(usually long term investing is for people that do not want to invest a lot of money at once). A short term investor is someone that invests in fast growing coins for quick investments. For example someone that owns 3000 dollars(1.2k per ether) could invest in Etherium which means he will own 2.5 Etherium coins. Then after a few months etherium could gain 5x its passed value making the investor 12k dollars richer!Short term investing is usually for people that are willing to risk are well researched and have a lot of money to invest in big coins that their value changes rapidly( Bitcoin 16k-55k in 3 months).

Now that you figured what type of investor you will be we have to figure out what wallet you will be using. Wallets are apps or programs that allow you to store your coins safely. Wallets for investing in small coins are less secure and often times offer trading within the app. Some of the most famous wallets are Robinhoodx Binance ,Crypto.com. Wallets for specific coins for example etherium are far more secure and even offer you the option to save your crypto offline in a drive. Some of those wallets are MEW wallet for Etherium , Litewallet and Litecoin wallet for Litecoin, Bitcoin wallet from Bitcoin.com ,Exodus (A new wallet but very good) for bitcoin. A wallet that is both very secure and offers in app trades is Coinbase.

Lastly we will take a look at proper investing. There are a few terms that you will learn in order to describe the course of a coin but for now we wont get into that. In order to explain how to invest properly I should start with an example. You decided you want to invest in an alt-coin(ex. XCoin) but don't know for sure if you will gain anything from it. One XCoin is worth 0.005 and for the past 2 months it gain just +40% of its prices 2 months ago. For us to understand wether is a good investment or not we need to first look at the company purpose. This company offers a blockchain that their coin "lives" on that is faster and more secure meaning people will be able to trade coins and exhange them faster. We decide that we like the company's cause and move forward into investing. When you invest you have to see for big spike lines. If there is one than that means its not a good time to invest. The price will drop eventually due to a proccess we call correction and then the coin's price value will stablelize. Stablelizing means that the price of the coin will remain that high for a long period of time unless something happens within the company. If there are no spikes just a long like of the coin staying between 0.003 and 0.005 then we need to start re-searching. We have to understand the companys future plans or current events. If the company is ready to close a deal. That means the price of the coin will rise significally and would be a good time to invest. If the company got hacked or has bad reviews than you will be probably losing money. For coins that are not company based is the same process is just a lot harder to keep track the events.

Before closing I want to leave some personal notes that might help. I have made that much money my self from cyprto but I expirienced a lot of losses aswell as wins. If you Invest in small coins you should probably hold and no give more though come back to the app 3 years later and you will relise that you either lost 20 bucks or made 2000.

I hope some people find this useful if you have anything to correct me on or add your self please leave it in the comments

Good day!

Market Commentary (Rates soar, growth stocks selloff, and how to position yourself in this environment) - 2/28/2021

Hello investors,

​

Today, I wanted to talk about the recent market actions.

I think it's imperative to assess the current market environment given not only the magnitude of the changes in the rates markets but also the speed at which it happened.

If this were the sort of correction that occurred in September 2020, I wouldn't reassess at all because that was simply a large whale in the market coming in and driving up the prices and eventually the market corrected itself. Not much movement in yields or other markets.

This time is a bit different as yields have moved significantly, which has a significant impact on not only risk assets (stocks particularly) but also fiscal and monetary policies.

If you recall from the recent market commentaries (see below), I mentioned that in the short to intermediate-term, risk assets are driven by fiscal and monetary policies.

Dramatic changes in interest rates can impact the policies so it is time to reassess where we are.

I typically take four steps to pick out the securities I want to trade and these steps include macroeconomics, technicals, and fundamental analyses. As I've repeatedly said before, the name of the game is piecing together different pieces of puzzles to create a whole picture. You can't just ignore what's happening at the White House when picking out securities.

That leads me to make one additional comment, the memos in this subreddit are only for those "actively buying and selling securities", not for those buy and hold ("BH") group.

Don't get me wrong, I am a huge believer in BH strategy. In fact, I suggest you read Warren Buffett's annual letters which went out this past week.

Yes you get to spend less time on markets, pay little taxes, and grow your wealth with discipline.

I have a friend who is an ardent BH person and he keeps trying to convince people "just buy and hold Disney and Amazon for 20 years!" Everyone knows that BH is a good path to wealth creation. Don't need to reiterate that or even try to convince people to do that.

I actually do BH on half of my portfolio and actively trade on the other half.

My point is if you are a huge BH believer and don't want to actively trade, please stop trying to convince me or others to do it. We all know it is a good strategy and this is a game against yourself.

Enough with the intro, here are the main topics for today's memo.

4 steps I take to determine what to trade.

1. Determine where we are in the market cycle
2. Decide how we should position ourselves
3. Select which securities will give you the highest return for a unit of risk
4. Allocate appropriate weights

These steps are not mine but a mixture of what I was recommended to do by my mentors, bosses, and other resources.

This accomplishes a few things:- It forces you to step back and see the bigger picture.

- It allows you to be more objective.

- It allows you to assess your performance.

1) Determine where we are in the market cycle

How is the current market environment? Bullish or bearish? Euphoric or panicky? What changed?

Well, let's look at a few charts to see what's changed.

Equity markets

S&P futures

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Nasdaq futures

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We are just starting to test the 50D MA for the S&P and have already broken 50D MA for the Nasdaq. It's hard to make any conclusions from these so we move on.

Bond markets

10-year yield

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10-year rose almost 100 bps from the lows in August 2020. This is attributable to economic recovery, inflation expectations, and Georgia run-offs.

What's more fascinating is how much the yield curve bear steepened since the peak of the pandemic.

This was what the majority of the market participants were expecting throughout 2020 and post-election but I was very off on the timing of the events. The majority of the steepening happened towards late 2020 and early 2021.

This is an expected development as the economy recovers, inflation expectations soar and treasury market is flooded with new issues.

Below is what's making me more concerned.

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The MOVE index is basically the VIX for bond markets. The higher the index the higher the expected volatility in rates. It's still at relatively low levels but the rate at which it is skyrocketing is certainly disturbing.

Why is this all happening?

From what I have gathered, it's the Janet Yellen bomb.

On 2/16, Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary, announced her plans to drawdown on TGA (treasury general account, a sort of checking account for the federal government).

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What this means is that the Treasury will offload its enormous amount of cash ($1.6 trillion) into the banking system for the banks to be able to perform PPP lending and do all sorts of fiscal policy-related activities in the next 3 months.

The magnitude of this balance is simply enormous. Take a look at the chart below.

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We have never ever had TGA balance running above $500 billion and now we have close to 3x that flooding into the banking system.

From another perspective, we have about $3T reserves in the banking system. So that $1.6 trillion adds about 66% over the next few months to the banking system.

This video nicely summarizes what happens in the next few months.

​

This provides so much liquidity to the banking system that banks will be buying tons of treasuries, which may push short term rates to the negative territory and experts like the guy in the video anticipate that the Fed may have to actually raise IOER (interest on excess reserves) to prevent rates from falling below zero.

Now, what does all of this mean for the equity markets?

I mentioned before that majority of the bear markets must have some sort of liquidity problems, whether that be short term borrowing rates rising, bid-ask spread widening, or short term rates spread widening.

Right now, there are some signs that the bond markets are volatile but the short term funding rates are so low and so liquid due to the expected TGA drawdown and Fed purchases.

In conclusion, the way I see it, we are likely still in the recovery phase of the market cycle but we are experiencing intermittent corrections on the way. The Fed has not changed its policy stance, the gov't is continuing to push its stimulus plans, and the markets are flooded with liquidity.

Yes, higher long-end rates will inevitably bring down the valuations because by definition, higher rates result in higher discount rates and thus lower present value of future cash flows.

Yet, take a look at the chart below published by Bloomberg.

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During most of the periods when the 10-year treasury yields rose, S&P rose together. And this makes sense because yields rising indicates that the economy is growing, which translates to bullish equity markets.

2) Decide how we should position ourselves

My mentor once told me that you can never guess where the rates or stock price will move, but you can probabilistically bet on those movements.

Let's say you are betting on 10yr treasury futures. Do you think it's more likely to go from 1.4% to 2% by the end of 2021 or 1.4% to 0.8%?

We can never guess where it's going to go but I think we can all agree that it is more likely to move up than down.

Same for stocks. You can never guess where NVDA will go but in the next 2-3 years, it will likely be higher than it is now.

My point is that we should position ourselves to benefit from a probabilistic standpoint, not predicting rates movement or stock price movements.

This brings us back to the idea of convexity. As long as we make bets that yield asymmetrical returns, you just need to win half of your bets because on average, you will be up ahead.

Theoretically, out of ten stocks, you only need to win five and those five will asymmetrically outperform your losers. If your losers lose 10% on avg, your winners will win 20% on avg and you end up winning on net.

Given that it is more likely that we are still in the recovery phase of the market cycle, I believe that we should position ourselves cautiously aggressive.

I don't believe we are headed for a bear market, yet. We will likely see an intense correction (5-10% drawdown on S&P) but we won't see anything like 25-30% for a bear market period of 8 months.

Therefore, however deep this correction may go (and it may go further), it is a buy-the-dip opportunity.

With that said, don't underestimate how long this potential correction may last. It may last for 1 month, 3 months, or even 10 months. Buy the dip is not as simple as buying when the markets go down but you have to think about your carrying costs if you use options (theta decay) or margin calls.

Remember, Nasdaq had five +15% corrections on its way to the 2000 top.

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Therefore, I am buying the dips in small amounts. I would spend 5-10% of your capital on every dip that happens on a daily basis. This way, you get at least 2 weeks worth of time to deploy your capital.

3) Select which securities will give you the highest return for a unit of risk

This really depends on your risk appetite and your views. I will simply share mine in hopes to provide a guide for everyone but it is up to you to do your due diligence and make sure you are comfortable with what you are holding.

At the moment, below are my plays.

Stocks

- Short-term, leveraged longs (options, margins, etc.): OZON, FUTU, FVRR, FRHC, ENVA, TIGR, OPEN, SKLZ, PDD

- Long-term, BH longs: TTD, ETSY, NTES, JD, TWLO

Bonds

- Long 5/30 spread

Commodities

- Long gold

Currency

- Bitcoin

4) Allocate appropriate weights

Weight allocation is just as important as security selection, as it expresses your conviction and magnitude of expected price moves. Below are my allocations (rough percentages because it's hard to compare futures and shorts in percentage terms).

Stocks (80%)

- Short-term, leveraged longs (options, margins, etc.): OZON, FUTU, FVRR, FRHC, ENVA, TIGR, OPEN, SKLZ

- Long-term, BH longs: TTD, PDD, ETSY, NTES, JD, TWLO

Bonds (10%)

- Long 5/30 spread

Commodities (5%)

- Long gold

Currency (5%)

- Bitcoin

Summary

Look at the bigger picture, see what's happening across not just equities but other asset classes, and determine where we are in the market cycle.

Be very careful with security selection and do not put all eggs in one.

I am also constantly learning. I had no idea the yield would take this long to break 1.5%. I had no idea gold would underperform. It's a game where you learn constantly and I would also appreciate any critiques on any topic I discuss.

Thank you for reading and happy investing!

Coinbase Takes Crypto to Wall Street

Coinbase has built its business on the idea of transforming the financial system. It believes bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can turn into legitimate alternatives to traditional money. And the company thinks its platform can turn into a sort of alternative to traditional stock markets, where the assets bought and sold in huge quantities are shares of digital tokens, rather than shares of companies.

Nine years after Coinbase was founded, it's all still a bit revolutionary. But there's a rather rich irony at play: To make the dream a reality, Coinbase first has to thrive in that old world of traditional money and the traditional stock market. Before it can create a new future, the company might have to beat the past at its own game. 

So far, so good. 

Coinbase filed for a direct listing this week on the Nasdaq, an enormous crossover event between the crypto market and the stock market that could value the company at more than $100 billion...

1. Coin of the realm

Excuse me for the dorm-room philosophy on a Sunday morning, but money is a social construct. In a slightly different reality, no reasonable person would exchange a tasty hamburger and fries for a piece of strangely decorated paper with Alexander Hamilton's face on it. Fiat currency isn't intrinsically valuable. But because our society has agreed that strangely decorated piece of paper has a certain value, the trade works. Ever since the abandonment of the gold standard, that's been the bargain on which our whole economy rests. 

On the one hand, it seems kind of ridiculous to try to create that same grand bargain again from scratch, completely digitally, a whole system of payment and trade based on nothing but lines of ones and zeros on a screen. But on the other hand, why not? 

I can't sit here and explain the nitty-gritty details of cryptocurrencies and blockchains, just like I can't give a detailed breakdown of the many minute processes going on inside my laptop that allow me to push buttons on a keyboard and see these words appear on a screen. I'm not a technologist. But as with other technological breakthroughs, I can certainly see the appeal. The ideal vision of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could provide people around the world with a safe way to operate financially without regard to national borders or financial institutions, cutting out middlemen and bankers to create a new sort of economic freedom. 

When Coinbase was founded in 2012, that idea was still in its infancy. The overall market cap of all cryptocurrencies was less than $500 million. Slowly but surely, though, it caught on. The first real boom came in 2017 and 2018, when the price of a bitcoin, by far the most popular cryptocurrency, soared from less than $1,000 to more than $19,000. But the boom ended, and for the next two years or so, cryptocurrencies receded from mainstream consciousness.

Then, last year, during the first months of the pandemic, a new, bigger boom began. The price of a bitcoin crept up again past $10,000, past $20,000, past $30,000. The prices of other cryptocurrencies also skyrocketed. By the end of last year, the overall crypto market cap topped three-quarters of a trillion dollars. 

And by the time bitcoin rose above $50,000 for the first time earlier this month, a growing chorus of major institutional investors were thinking about cryptocurrencies as a legitimate asset class worthy of their long-term attention.

All of which has been very good for business at Coinbase, which has emerged as the most popular portal for those looking to cash in on the crypto gold rush. Between 2016 and 2018, the company's valuation grew from $500 million to $8 billion, according to PitchBook data. And earlier this month, Axios reported that private investors recently valued the company at more than $100 billion. That staggering sum could be a rough target valuation for the company's coming direct listing, which would make the move one of the largest stock-market debuts of all time by a VC-backed company. 

There are plenty of other metrics from Coinbase's new S-1 filing that demonstrate just how swift the company's recent growth has been. Median quarterly trading volume on its platform increased from $17 billion worth of assets in 2018 to $38 billion in 2020. The value of the assets stored on its platform, meanwhile, has grown from $7 billion to $90 billion over that same span. Total revenue in 2020 was nearly $1.3 billion, up nearly 140% year-over-year. 

After that banner year in 2020, the company was sitting on $1.1 billion in cash and equivalents at the end of December, likely a factor in its choice to go public through a direct listing that won't raise any new capital, rather than opting for an IPO. 

But the company's filing also suggests reasons for wariness. Coinbase readily acknowledges that another cryptocurrency crash could be bad for business, reducing both the value of the assets on its platform and trading volume among its users. And that volume is the key to Coinbase's model. In 2020, more than 96% of its net revenue came from transaction fees. 

In the prospectus, CEO Brian Armstrong says the current good times likely won't last. "We may earn a profit when revenues are high," he wrote, "and we may lose money when revenues are low, but our goal is to roughly operate the company at break even, smoothed out over time, for the time being." Even in an era when profitability is optional for massive startup IPOs, "break even" probably isn't what most investors are looking for in a $100 billion company. 

But then again, Coinbase is not most companies, and the crypto market is not most industries. The segment has its skeptics, to be sure. But it also has a significant population of true believers, people for whom investing in cryptocurrencies is nothing more or less than a bet on trying to create a new, more equitable financial system. It also has a significant population of pure speculators trying to make a quick buck on a highly risky investment with the potential for huge returns.

...And the timing for the listing couldn't be better. Another operator of a cryptocurrency exchange, Kraken, is raising new funding that could come at a valuation of more than $10 billion, Bloomberg reported this week, another sign of surging investor interest in the space. 

For the past nine years, Coinbase's value has been determined solely by a relatively small group of venture capitalists. What will happen when the company's shares are at last available to a much broader base? We're about to find out.

https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/coinbase-direct-listing-bitcoin-wall-street

[Event] ₿🍻 Bitcoin Munich Stammtisch VR Edition 📺 — Mittwoch 3. März 19 Uhr in Jitsi + Mozilla Hubs

https://www.meetup.com/Bitcoin-Munich/events/276163073/

There will factually be no need for any CEX or any L1/L2 DEX to exist once the stakenet DEX is launched. After almost 3 years of development the most disruptive project is set to launch soon. Will this be THE 2021 black swan event in crypto? Let’s discuss!

Let’s be real, once the Stakenet DEX is released there is factually no need for any other L1 DEXs or CEXs to exist. So realistically how large of a disruption to the crypto space can we expect? Is this THE black swan event if 2020?

I’m posting this here for reference but it was originally posted in r/satoshistreetbets. However, I have been doing my research on this project for almost a year now. I honestly can’t find anything else that rivals this projects potential for global disruption. I’m finally being more vocal about the project as it seems the Prometheus stage of its public launch is set to occur within the next couple months. I’d love to get everyones thoughts on my personal opinions and your own opinions about the project. Here is the post.

“Stakenet - First 2nd layer DEX with instant BTC<->ETH<->ERC-20<->EVM chain token (BSC, Thorchain, etc.) swaps with the capability to add other chains as demand appears. 34M Marketcap. Puts and end to wrapped assets for good. Trade REAL assets Instantly, Privately with tor integration, Securely, no on-chain fees, no KYC, globally available for trades, and obviously 100% decentralized.

Preface

Full disclosure here; I am heavily invested in this. I have picked up some real gems from here and was only in the position to buy so much of this because of you guys so I thought it was time to give back. I only invest in Utility Coins. These are coins that actually DO something, and provide new/build upon the crypto infrastructure to work towards the end goal that Bitcoin itself set out to achieve(financial independence from the fiat banking system). This way, I avoid 99% of the scams in crypto that are functionless vaporware, and if you only invest in things that have strong fundamentals in the long term you are much more likely to make money.

Introduction

Stakenet is a Lightning Network-ready open-source platform for decentralized applications with its native cryptocurrency – XSN. It is powered by a Proof of Stake blockchain with trustless cold staking and Masternodes. Its use case is to provide a highly secure cross-chain infrastructure for these decentralized applications, where individuals can easily operate with any blockchain simply by using Stakenet and its native currency XSN.

Ok... but what does it actually do and solve?

The moonshot here is the DEX (Decentralised Exchange) that they are building. This is a lightning-network/connext network DEX with interchain capabilities. That means you could trade BTC directly for ETH; securely, instantly, cheaply and privately.

Right now, most crypto is traded to and from centralized exchanges like Binance. To buy and sell on these exchanges, you have to send your crypto to wallets on that exchange. That means the exchanges have your private keys, and they have control over your funds. When you use a centralised exchange, you are no longer in control of your assets, and depend on the trustworthiness of a 3rd party, which in this case are CEX centralized systems. We have in the past, of course, seen infamous exit scams by centralised exchanges like Mt. Gox and other hack like Bitgrail.

The alternative? Decentralised exchanges. DEX's have no central authority and most importantly, your private keys(your crypto) never leaves YOUR possession and are never in anyone else's possession. So you can trade peer-to-peer without any of the drawbacks of centralized exchanges.

The problem is that this technology has not been perfected yet, and the DEX's that we have available to us now are not providing cheap, private, quick trading on a decentralised medium because of their technological inadequacies. Take Uniswap for example. This DEX accounts for over 60% of all DEX volume and facilitates trading of ERC-20 tokens, over the Ethereum blockchain. The problem? Because of the huge amount of transaction that are occurring over the Ethereum network, this has lead to congestion(too many transaction for the network to handle at one time) so the fees have increased dramatically. Another big problem? It's only for Ethereum. You cant for example, Buy LINK with BTC. You must use ETH.

The solution? Layer 2 protocols. These are layers built ON TOP of existing blockchains, that are designed to solve the transaction and scaling difficulties that crypto as a whole is facing today (and ultimately stopping mass adoption) The developers at Stakenet have seen the big picture, and have decided to implement the lightning network (a layer 2 protocol) into its DEX from the ground up. This will facilitate the functionalities of a DEX without any of the drawbacks of CEX's. The DEX's we have today don’t allow BTC to be traded seamlessly with other tokens as they aren’t truly chain-agnostic and rely on wrapped assets. Stakenet has already accomplished this for the first time in crypto history with real native assets.

Heres someone much more qualified than me, Andreas Antonopoulos, to explain this. Also included a clip of one of the largest whales in crypto sharing the same sentiment about industry standard true DEXs such as Stakenet.

https://streamable.com/kzpimj

'Once we have efficient, well designed DEX's on layer 2, there wont even be any DEX's on layer 1'

Progress

The Stakenet team were the first to envision this grand solution and have been working on it since its inception in ~2018. They have been making steady progress ever since and right now, the DEX is in an closed beta stage where rigorous testing is constant by themselves and select public members. For a project of this scale, stress testing is paramount. If the product were to launch with any bugs/errors that would result in the loss of a users funds, this would obviously be very damaging to Stakenet's reputation. By the looks of it the X9 developers are playing this extremely conservatively and it seems like a wise approach.

As of now you can trade BTC, USDT, ETH, XSN, LTC, and select ERC-20 in the closed beta. Ethereum is being traded using the Connext Network which is built to facilitate 2nd layer swaps on the Ethereum network. As development moves forward more lightning network and atomic swap compatible coins will be added to the DEX, and of course, the team are hard at work on Connext - this will allow ETH and tokens on the Ethereum blockchain to be traded on the DEX between separate blockchains (instantly, cheaply, privately) This is where Stakenet enters top 50 territory on CMC if successful and is the true value here. Connext is well underway in being tested in a closed public group.

The full public DEX with Connext is expected to release by Q2-Q3 this year. Given the state of development so far and the rate of progress, this seems realistic.

The larger target base for the team seems to be HFTs (high frequency traders,) and as we know they can easily make upwards of 90% of some of the larger CEXs volume. The team has been working with a team if HFTs and have already fully develop an API to allow these traders to connect their bots to the Stakenet DEX. By being the first DEX to allow bot trading on such a large scale its easy to get carried away when estimating the amount of potential volume being brought to the DEX. Especially with masternode reward calculators such as https://stakenetmasternodecalculator.web.app

Tokenomics

2.6 Metrics overview (from whitepaper)

• Name: Stakenet.
• Ticker: XSN. Currency type: Coin.
• Consensus: Minting Proof of Stake, Trustless Proof of Stake.
• Coinage: Enabled, 24 hours.
• Encryption Algorithm: X11.
• Block generation time: 60 seconds.
• Block size: 1-4 MB.
• Final block reward: 20 XSN.
• Block reward distribution: 45% Masternodes, 45% staking, 10% treasury.
• Masternode collateral: 15 000 XSN.
• Governance: Decentralized democracy.
• Funding: Decentralized treasury, no initial coin offering, no premine.
• Lightning Network: Activated on mainnet.
• On-chain scalability: 240 tx/s. On-chain transaction costs: ~0.00001 XSN/kB.
• Off-chain scalability: Theoretically infinite tx/s.
• Off-chain transaction costs: Virtually zero.
• Cross-chain interface: Lightning Swaps, Tokenization Swaps.

XSN is slightly inflationary, much like ETH as this is necessary for the economy to be adopted and work in the long term. There is however a deflationary mechanism in place - all trading fees on the DEX get converted to XSN and 10% of these fees are burned. This puts constant buying pressure on XSN and acts as a deflationary mechanism. XSN has inherent value because it makes up the infrastructure that the DEX will run off and as such Masternode operators and Stakers will see the fee's from the DEX.

Conclusion

We can clearly see that a layer 2 DEX is the future of crypto currency trading. It will facilitate secure, cheap, instant and private trading across all coins with lightning capabilities, thus solving the scaling and transaction issues that are holding back crypto today. I dont need to tell you the implications of this, and what it means for crypto as a whole. If Stakenet can launch a layer 2 DEX with Raiden Integration, It will become the primary DEX in terms of volume.

Stakenet DEX will most likely be the first layer 2 DEX (first mover advantage) and its blockchain is the infrastructure that will host this DEX and subsequently receive it's trading fee's. It is not difficult to envision a time in the next year when Stakenet DEX is functional and hosting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of trading every single day.

At $34 million market cap, I cant see any other potential investment right now with this much potential upside.

This post has merely served as in introduction and a heads up for this project, there is MUCH more to cover like vortex liquidity, masternodes, TOR integration... for now, here is some additional reading. Resources

This is a report generated by the official team as what the daily revenue for this amount of masternodes online. This masternode count won't ever surpass 4000 as there are mechanism in place to prevent such a thing and by the time the DEX releases most normies will be priced out.

• Breakdown of rewards for stakers and masternode owners https://medium.com/stakenet/hydra-dex-network-upgrade-proposal-4b00a3a3fb8
• Whitepaper https://stakenet.io/Stakenet_Whitepaper.pdf
• Quick rundown https://medium.com/stakenet/multi-currency-wallet-and-lightning-swaps-stakenet-solution-7d0dafe99105
• X9's contributions to LTC https://medium.com/stakenet/litecoin-foundation-and-x9-developers-announce-collaboration-510ca985b6
• Exertive Proof of Stake https://medium.com/stakenet/exertive-proof-of-stake-epos-4a999807f9e4
• Great write-up of Cross Chain Proof of Stake (i.e. stake XSN, receive BTC) https://medium.com/stakenet/posw-weekly-ccpos-cross-chain-proof-of-stake-de1ac87055cd
• The Cypherpunk Standard of Banking https://medium.com/altcoin-magazine/the-cypherpunk-standard-of-banking-88f84a834180
• Further reads https://medium.com/stakenet

TLDR; Just read the whole thing I promise its worth it.”

Market Commentary (Rates soar, growth stocks selloff, and how to position yourself in this environment) - 2/28/2021

Hello investors,

Thank you very much to those who participated in the poll! I really don't have a good way to gain a sense of what's on everyone's minds so this sort of poll is a good data point for me. I will continue to focus on leveraging options strategy on individual companies.

Today, I wanted to talk about the recent market actions.

I think it's imperative to assess the current market environment given not only the magnitude of the changes in the rates markets but also the speed at which it happened.

If this were the sort of correction that occurred in September 2020, I wouldn't reassess at all because that was simply a large whale in the market coming in and driving up the prices and eventually the market corrected itself. Not much movement in yields or other markets.

This time is a bit different as yields have moved significantly, which has a significant impact on not only risk assets (stocks particularly) but also fiscal and monetary policies.

If you recall from the recent market commentaries (see below), I mentioned that in the short to intermediate-term, risk assets are driven by fiscal and monetary policies.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Midasinvestors/comments/l3ugu7/market_commentary_how_about_that_gme_and_bb_craze/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Midasinvestors/comments/knxgex/market_commentary_2021_outlook_12312020/

Dramatic changes in interest rates can impact the policies so it is time to reassess where we are.

I typically take four steps to pick out the securities I want to trade and these steps include macroeconomics, technicals, and fundamental analyses. As I've repeatedly said before, the name of the game is piecing together different pieces of puzzles to create a whole picture. You can't just ignore what's happening at the White House when picking out securities.

That leads me to make one additional comment, the memos in this subreddit are only for those "actively buying and selling securities", not for those buy and hold ("BH") group.

Don't get me wrong, I am a huge believer in BH strategy. In fact, I suggest you read Warren Buffett's annual letters which went out this past week.

Yes you get to spend less time on markets, pay little taxes, and grow your wealth with discipline.

I have a friend who is an ardent BH person and he keeps trying to convince people "just buy and hold Disney and Amazon for 20 years!" Everyone knows that BH is a good path to wealth creation. Don't need to reiterate that or even try to convince people to do that.

I actually do BH on half of my portfolio and actively trade on the other half.

My point is if you are a huge BH believer and don't want to actively trade, please stop trying to convince me or others to do it. We all know it is a good strategy and this is a game against yourself.

Enough with the intro, here are the main topics for today's memo.

4 steps I take to determine what to trade.

1. Determine where we are in the market cycle
2. Decide how we should position ourselves
3. Select which securities will give you the highest return for a unit of risk
4. Allocate appropriate weights

These steps are not mine but a mixture of what I was recommended to do by my mentors, bosses, and other resources.

This accomplishes a few things:- It forces you to step back and see the bigger picture.

- It allows you to be more objective.

- It allows you to assess your performance.

1) Determine where we are in the market cycle

How is the current market environment? Bullish or bearish? Euphoric or panicky? What changed?

Well, let's look at a few charts to see what's changed.

Equity markets

S&P futures

📷

Nasdaq futures

📷

We are just starting to test the 50D MA for the S&P and have already broken 50D MA for the Nasdaq. It's hard to make any conclusions from these so we move on.

Bond markets

10-year yield

📷

10-year rose almost 100 bps from the lows in August 2020. This is attributable to economic recovery, inflation expectations, and Georgia run-offs.

What's more fascinating is how much the yield curve bear steepened since the peak of the pandemic.

This was what the majority of the market participants were expecting throughout 2020 and post-election but I was very off on the timing of the events. The majority of the steepening happened towards late 2020 and early 2021.

This is an expected development as the economy recovers, inflation expectations soar and treasury market is flooded with new issues.

Below is what's making me more concerned.

📷

The MOVE index is basically the VIX for bond markets. The higher the index the higher the expected volatility in rates. It's still at relatively low levels but the rate at which it is skyrocketing is certainly disturbing.

Why is this all happening?

From what I have gathered, it's the Janet Yellen bomb.

On 2/16, Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary, announced her plans to drawdown on TGA (treasury general account, a sort of checking account for the federal government).

📷

What this means is that the Treasury will offload its enormous amount of cash ($1.6 trillion) into the banking system for the banks to be able to perform PPP lending and do all sorts of fiscal policy-related activities in the next 3 months.

The magnitude of this balance is simply enormous. Take a look at the chart below.

📷

We have never ever had TGA balance running above $500 billion and now we have close to 3x that flooding into the banking system.

From another perspective, we have about $3T reserves in the banking system. So that $1.6 trillion adds about 66% over the next few months to the banking system.

This video nicely summarizes what happens in the next few months.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLR0jSNByGA

This provides so much liquidity to the banking system that banks will be buying tons of treasuries, which may push short term rates to the negative territory and experts like the guy in the video anticipate that the Fed may have to actually raise IOER (interest on excess reserves) to prevent rates from falling below zero.

Now, what does all of this mean for the equity markets?

I mentioned before that majority of the bear markets must have some sort of liquidity problems, whether that be short term borrowing rates rising, bid-ask spread widening, or short term rates spread widening.

Right now, there are some signs that the bond markets are volatile but the short term funding rates are so low and so liquid due to the expected TGA drawdown and Fed purchases.

In conclusion, the way I see it, we are likely still in the recovery phase of the market cycle but we are experiencing intermittent corrections on the way. The Fed has not changed its policy stance, the gov't is continuing to push its stimulus plans, and the markets are flooded with liquidity.

Yes, higher long-end rates will inevitably bring down the valuations because by definition, higher rates result in higher discount rates and thus lower present value of future cash flows.

Yet, take a look at the chart below published by Bloomberg.

📷

During most of the periods when the 10-year treasury yields rose, S&P rose together. And this makes sense because yields rising indicates that the economy is growing, which translates to bullish equity markets.

2) Decide how we should position ourselves

My mentor once told me that you can never guess where the rates or stock price will move, but you can probabilistically bet on those movements.

Let's say you are betting on 10yr treasury futures. Do you think it's more likely to go from 1.4% to 2% by the end of 2021 or 1.4% to 0.8%?

We can never guess where it's going to go but I think we can all agree that it is more likely to move up than down.

Same for stocks. You can never guess where NVDA will go but in the next 2-3 years, it will likely be higher than it is now.

My point is that we should position ourselves to benefit from a probabilistic standpoint, not predicting rates movement or stock price movements.

This brings us back to the idea of convexity. As long as we make bets that yield asymmetrical returns, you just need to win half of your bets because on average, you will be up ahead.

Theoretically, out of ten stocks, you only need to win five and those five will asymmetrically outperform your losers. If your losers lose 10% on avg, your winners will win 20% on avg and you end up winning on net.

Given that it is more likely that we are still in the recovery phase of the market cycle, I believe that we should position ourselves cautiously aggressive.

I don't believe we are headed for a bear market, yet. We will likely see an intense correction (5-10% drawdown on S&P) but we won't see anything like 25-30% for a bear market period of 8 months.

Therefore, however deep this correction may go (and it may go further), it is a buy-the-dip opportunity.

With that said, don't underestimate how long this potential correction may last. It may last for 1 month, 3 months, or even 10 months. Buy the dip is not as simple as buying when the markets go down but you have to think about your carrying costs if you use options (theta decay) or margin calls.

Remember, Nasdaq had five +15% corrections on its way to the 2000 top.

📷

📷

Therefore, I am buying the dips in small amounts. I would spend 5-10% of your capital on every dip that happens on a daily basis. This way, you get at least 2 weeks worth of time to deploy your capital.

3) Select which securities will give you the highest return for a unit of risk

This really depends on your risk appetite and your views. I will simply share mine in hopes to provide a guide for everyone but it is up to you to do your due diligence and make sure you are comfortable with what you are holding.

At the moment, below are my plays.

Stocks

- Short-term, leveraged longs (options, margins, etc.): OZON, FUTU, FVRR, FRHC, ENVA, TIGR, OPEN, SKLZ, PDD

- Long-term, BH longs: TTD, ETSY, NTES, JD, TWLO

Bonds

- Long 5/30 spread

Commodities

- Long gold

Currency

- Bitcoin

4) Allocate appropriate weights

Weight allocation is just as important as security selection, as it expresses your conviction and magnitude of expected price moves. Below are my allocations (rough percentages because it's hard to compare futures and shorts in percentage terms).

Stocks (80%)

- Short-term, leveraged longs (options, margins, etc.): OZON, FUTU, FVRR, FRHC, ENVA, TIGR, OPEN, SKLZ

- Long-term, BH longs: TTD, PDD, ETSY, NTES, JD, TWLO

Bonds (10%)

- Long 5/30 spread

Commodities (5%)

- Long gold

Currency (5%)

- Bitcoin

Summary

Look at the bigger picture, see what's happening across not just equities but other asset classes, and determine where we are in the market cycle.

Be very careful with security selection and do not put all eggs in one.

I am also constantly learning. I had no idea the yield would take this long to break 1.5%. I had no idea gold would underperform. It's a game where you learn constantly and I would also appreciate any critiques on any topic I discuss.

Thank you for reading and happy investing!

Feb 22 - Mar 1 Good Crypto Weekly Market Summary

Quick weekly news:

• One of Switzerland’s leading banks now offers crypto trading: Read more here.
• Bitcoin Tops $51,000 As Coinbase Releases S-1: Read more here.
• Coinbase says the entire crypto market could be destabilized if Bitcoin's anonymous creator is ever revealed or sells their $30 billion stake: Read more here.

Other notable events include:

- Investment into Oxygen

-The development of a U.S. digital currency

Oxygen

Alameda Research is leading a $40 million investment into Oxygen, a Solana-based platform that aims to become a Robinhood for decentralized finance (DeFi). Multicoin, CoinDesk sister company Genesis Capital and CMS joined the round. The platform will be integrated into the Google Maps alternative Maps.me, in which Alameda has previously invested. CoinDesk’s Ian Allison dives in.

Digital dollar preconditions

With U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell saying 2021 is a crucial year for the development of a U.S. digital currency, the Fed issued a working paper outlining key requirements. Privacy issues, ease of use, security access and delivery mechanisms should all be on the table as Fed officials work to “sharpen” a digital dollar with the public’s help, the paper said.

Also, be sure to check out top altcoin gainers and losers of the week:

https://preview.redd.it/ck6rpq4z7gk61.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e15c5c0ad4129a5abee823fa000b1ecca12c27a0

Fidelity’s Global Macro Head Recommends Bitcoin Investment

The Director of Fidelity’s Global Macro Jurrien Timmer says that Bitcoin has evolved as a form of digital gold. 

Fidelity Endorses Bitcoin

Timmer wrote a report titled, “Understanding Bitcoin,” weighing the pros and cons of investing in Bitcoin. He believes Bitcoin may make “one component of the bond side of a 60/40 stock/bond portfolio.”

The 60-to-40 ratio allocation in stocks and bonds, respectively, is a general rule followed by many asset managers.  

Ever since the COVID-19 induced crash last September, the bond yields have slowed and despite the recent surge, there is little hope for better yields in the future. Currently, there is $18 trillion of negative-yielding debt floating around the world. Timmer sees Bitcoin and gold as alternatives to the bonds in a low yield environment.

Comparing the $160 trillion in stock markets and the $11 trillion-dollar valuation of gold’s market capitalization, Fidelity’s asset manager predicted a continued uptrend in Bitcoin.

Moreover, he also found on-chain demand based on Metcalfe’s Law in the increasing number of addresses and reduced supply after each halving event citing the Stock-to-flow model. In conclusion, Timmer found that the “bitcoin growth curve may still be in its early, exponential phase”

According to him, Bitcoin will become scarcer than gold, becoming a “more convex form of gold.” Still, the road won’t be straight up and investors may feel “dismaying at times” as well.

Fidelity Investments has a digital assets wing that provides custodial services to institutions and also allows trading of crypto shares on its brokerage platform.

https://cryptobriefing.com/fidelitys-global-macro-head-recommends-bitcoin-investment/

​

Read Jurrien Timmer's 11-page report here: https://institutional.fidelity.com/app/literature/item/9901337.html?pos=T

Bitcoin SV is going to have a repricing event. My price target is $4,000. You can see the Macd cross on weekly chart vs BTC #BitcoinSV $BSV

https://www.reddit.com/gallery/lvfmvk

FaucetCrypto Experience tips: Free Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Dogecoin & More W/ FaucetCrypto

Hey, just wanted to provide some leveling up tips. There is a list of achievements you can work towards each day/week that will give out a good amount of experience points. PTC ads and shortlinks are the way to go for unlocking achievements.

FaucetCrypto Tips:

• Look out for double coin or double XP events
• Power through the Ptc Ads & Shorttlinks to grab XP to get to level 20
• Everything can be done on mobile, but some tasks work better on the desktop
• Withdraw your daily limit. Pay attention to the server clock, achievements and withdraw limits reset at 4:00.
• Once you hit level 20, come back here and I can recommend my top offers that have been netting me 10,000 coin payouts per task.
• You can withdraw hard to find crypto like Reddcoin (RDD). Currently my favorite on this site since you can stake.

With FaucetCrypto, I've been able to get daily withdrawls of my favorite coins straight to my wallets. Unlike typical faucets where you just click a button and go, the FaucetCrypto leveling up system is nice and there are random item drops to help you acquire more coins. There is an open market to buy and sell these items. The chat community is engaging and very helpful. Build your network to stack rewards.

Feel free to ask me any questions!

Current Coins: Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Sv, Bitcoin, Bittorrent, Dash, Digibyte, Dogecoin, Ethereum Classic, Ethereum, Komodo, Litecoin, Piratecash, Pivx, Reddcoin, Ravencoin, Syscoin, Tron, Verge, Zcash, Horizen

Here's my referall link throughout the post to help us both out!

https://faucetcrypto.com/ref/696448

https://preview.redd.it/x12jenwahgk61.png?width=1218&format=png&auto=webp&s=f8a6654b194290e0ad6e13b3f965ac55e32b5515

Актуальное интервью Д. Дёмушкина

Рекомендую и прошу репост.

Д. ДЁМУШКИН: «СМЕНА ВЛАСТИ – НЕ СНОС СИСТЕМЫ!»

https://vimeo.com/518150123

https://youtu.be/WGTIbO7Hotc

Политик Дмитрий Дёмушкин считает, что Россия движется в сторону раскола элит, которые и обеспечат смену «первого лица». В то же время смена власти отодвинет снос системы, и история снова может пойти по замкнутому порочному кругу…

Смотрите интервью на канале Sotnik-TV.

Журналист – Александр Сотник

Монтаж – Андрей Васильев

Патреон: https://www.patreon.com/sotnikTV

Поддержать Sotnik-TV:

SK1375000000004028030154 (SOTNIK TV, Словакия)

Карта: 5475153400734788 (Aleksandr Sotnik) перевод можно сделать даже из Сбербанка через мобильное приложение (в нижнем меню «Платежи» → «За рубеж» → «По номеру карты»)

PayPal – [sotniktvinfo@gmail.com](mailto:sotniktvinfo@gmail.com)

Bitcoin - 3PdyHqZ7hiywP7u8FBDX2NyyLmmdRVp5dn

Clash of the node paradigms for the BTC 'community'! - Taproot activation options bringing this matter to a head again.

One of the fascinating things about how the block size debate played out was that one of the first 'forks' we had was a diverging of opinions of 'who is in charge' of Bitcoin.

For Satoshi, when every wallet was a mining node, CPU power was the means of 'voting' for or against changes. There was then a period when mining got separated physically but where miners were still considered to be an integral part of the the community. Developers took a lead (e.g. for an emergency hard fork) but everyone was assumed to be on the same side. It was, however, acknowledged that minors could theoretically go against 'users' and u/RustyReddit pretty much sums up how I always saw it and still do: "...miners are most directly vulnerable to the economic majority of users: in a fork they have to pick sides continuously knowing that if they are wrong, they will immediately suffer economically through missed opportunity cost. Of course, economic users are ultimately in control.".

Then with the block size debate, one of the many small-blocker narratives that was pushed was that of miners being evil and the enemy of bitcoin which morphed into the idea that miners are merely the servants or workers of the noble Bitcoin user who en-masse with their Raspberry-nodes are the 'true bitcoiners' who ought (and do) say what goes^1.

Long story short, this is how it played out: by playing chicken with the miners, led by u/luke-jr, the BIP148 army, by implementing a UASF node implementation that would, in the event of the miners not conceding, cause a fork without replay protection and with serious risks of re-orgs, 'forced' the miners to signal for and to implement Segwit. Ever since then, the accepted BTC-maxi narrative² is that these 'champions' stopped the evil miners from blocking Segwit which, proof-of-hat told us is what the 'community' wanted (and nobody wanted big blocks either because apparently there was never an argument).

Roll on to today and we're seeing it happen again. No-nuance Luke, whilst still maintaining that developers have no power, is pushing a proposal that allows him (and his maxi devotees) to maintain their belief that the 'true, node-running bitcoiners' ultimately have the power. (From what I understand, LOT=TRUE basically says if the miners don't agree to what 'is ethical and has sufficient community support'^3, the 'noble node users' will threaten to throw the toys out of the pram again unless the miners concede). The irony is that nobody is really objecting to Taproot! But the combination of having soft-fork-whatever-the-cost-AND-NEVER-A-HARD-FORK as a red line and with the challenge of trying to find workarounds to that inflexibility was inevitably going to lead them to this dilemma again.

At least I'm watching from the side lines this time :)**

¹ See the comments in this thread to see the latter-day prevelance of this attitude

² This re-writing of history is repeated adnauseum by twitter trolls

³ I guess his Jesus back-channel gives him this info because he doesn't certainly doesn't approve of voting or signaling (unless, of course, everyone is signaling for what according to luke-jr 'is ethical and has community support').

US Mephisto Mondays Mega Thread March 1st

Use this thread for questions, comments, issues, shit posts, and anything else drop related. Please read the FAQ if you are new here. Be civilized you filthy animals.

All low effort posts on r/MephHeads will be removed.

​

​

We are still working on last weeks orders so don't fret if you are still "processing". We are keeping things simple this week with the bundle packs to help speed up processing. This week is bundle packs ONLY. Next week we will return with a general restock. When the bundles sale out the store will close.

​

Please read the Terms and Conditions completely before ordering. We still constantly get emails asking where is my order, or can I add something onto my order. Responding to these emails slows down the process for everyone!!! READ THE TAC

​

Time: 10:00 AM Mountain Time

US Store Only

Mephisto Starter Pack – 96$

The Mephisto Starter Pack is your Fast Pass to get on the Mephisto train. We put together a variety pack to simplify your order experience. Feeling indecisive? Let the Mephisto staff curate the perfect mix of strains for you.

The Mephisto Starter Pack Contains

· 1x Artisnal 3-Pack

· 1x Reserva 3-Pack

· 1x Original 1-Pack

· 7 Freebies

· Bonus Mephisto Swag Stickers

​

Mephisto Restock Bundle – 122$

The Restock Bundle is a simple and easy way to grab all the newest restock items that you have been waiting for.

This week’s Restock Bundle Contains

· 1x HubbaBubbaHaze 3-Pack

· 1x Super Orange Haze 3-Pack

· 1x Ripley’s OG 3-Pack

· 7 Freebies

· Bonus Stickers

​

Terms and ConditionsMephisto Mondays US Store

Please be aware that postal services are still  is experiencing  shipping delays.  For this reason, we have decided to limit the amount of orders we take through the store.

Our hope is that this will allow us to process orders in a timely manner, but also have the bandwidth to follow up with customer service issues that could result from extended shipping delays.

The store will close when we hit our order limit, this does not mean all items are sold out. We expect to hit this limit in the first few hours of store opening, so be sure to place your order as quickly as possible.

1. The payment methods available for this event are limited to Debit/CC and Bitcoin. Info about payment methods - https://www.mephistogenetics.com/info/payments
2. Please allow 10 BUSINESS days for your order to process and ship. An order status of processing means your payment has been approved and is awaiting shipment. You will receive a tracking email once your order has shipped.
3. Orders are processed on a first come, first served basis, first paid first shipped basis.
4. Please take care when placing your order, we are not able to add on/remove items or make other changes to your order. All sales are FINAL.

Queens Gambit - The Endgame or why today 3/1/2021 is MOASS

https://preview.redd.it/cb9oszgtudk61.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8734182cacee00b54a2927611ea7c4e1ff60e291

Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today.

So first of all i apologise for a lack of detail here, if people are interested I will go back and find all the things I remember and reference them. We have always imagined there are good guys and bad guys, we are course are the good guys but the bad guys have all the brains and the money.

Pixel has been talking about an Unknown Institution riding to our aid, and i think he is right. But i don't think that thinking about it as and calling it UI is helpful.

I prefer to think as it as Beth Harmon from Queens Gambit riding to our aid, the a utist's a utist, someone who has an intrinsic knowledge of how the game works and can instinctively anticipate what her opponent is going to do, ooh and also has 1/2 a billion dollars to play with.

Now Beth in reality may well be a sweaty guy in his 40s with a comb over, and of course Queens Gambit is an opening and we are moving to the endgame, but lets have some poetry it helps.

Beth is working for someone of course, probably Elon and RC or maybe Goldman it doesn't really matter who, they want to squeeze so they are our friends.

Beth started this plan about 3 weeks ago, she put the money in place and let the share price drop down to the base, about 50. Meanwhile RC got rid of the CFO, i think the tweet of the ice cream/frog was the signal because that was when it all kicked off.

Beth doesn't mess around, there is no room for chance in Chess. She fought hard at 50 on Wednesday but knew that the other side, Citidelvin doesn't have much left. Also unlike in Queens Gambit she has the Russian Chess masters on her side, they have gamed this to death.

She pushes the price up to nearly 100, this then triggers lots of options to come near ITM and MMs to have to go shopping.

The price zooms up, so far so conventional, but then Beth sells down back to 100 on Thursday and Friday also triggering SSP with a deliberate 10% drop particularly on Friday. In she ends at 100.24 just putting 100 dollar options ITM. She isn't shorting she is selling real shares, no one can short down on Friday that is what everyone hasn't noticed but Beth can she is holding (well selling but has shares not shorts).

Why 100 dollars, well Beth owns most of the 100 dollar options already, but other people own 101 up.

This gives her alot more shares, at 100 dollars, paying back the cost of everything so far.

Then Beth buys 2 million share options at $250 for Friday 5th March.

Again not so unconventional but now we are at today Monday. First of all very early in the day there will be a10% drop to trigger SSP.

Then we go directly to $250, now a normal person would wait until Friday to trigger but Beth won't she triggers straight away.

Why, Money Makers delta hedge, they will have bought maybe 100,000 worth of shares to cover to 250 options because it isn't going to happen, right. But now they are maybe 1.9 million short, they have two days to find them.

EDIT: Getting alot of negative for lack of info, so moving this extra bit here

I have so many facts, but if only 10 people read the post i am not spending all day putting it together. Just wanted to publish so i had it off my chest.

The core thing though that no one had considered is why did the price on Friday finish at exactly $100, well actually 100.24 and where could the push back on the price rise come from.

If the shares were on SSP which i think they were, Citidelvin couldn't short down the price and who in their right mind would sell shares that are as rare as hen's teeth.

Particularly someone who is smart and rich enough to triple the GME price over a 8 hour period. That is someone who is patient and doesn't make mistakes.

I am assuming very much that this is true

https://twitter.com/QuantData/status/1365403475266441219

We have identified an unusual $GME block that expires on March 5, 2021 with a strike price of $250.00. 2,000 CALL contracts with a price of $12.00 were purchased at a $2,400,000 premium.

Beth, (we will call the Whale that) bought that call, and a load at $100 last week (but that would require someone to do some research). The working theory i can't remember where is that the hedgies bought alot of the options last week from 101-150. Remember Beth is draining the HFs, this is a war of attrition, we are in very long mid to endgame transition here. (https://www.reddit.com/r/GME/comments/lt7rts/gme_closed_exactly_600_above_the_100_option/)

She doesn't want to let them off the hook she is very cruel Kasparov style it is not just about winning it is not just about winning she want them to feel real pain (that is why i think Elon is behind this).

She will push hard to $250 today, after the 10% early drop which she will cause (to trigger SSP for tomorrow).

The MMs need to find nearly 2 million shares in two days because she will trigger the options straight away. That is 2 million shares that they have to buy in a market with no sellers. Delta hedging means that that they only hold an amount proportional to the risk of the event happening, plus they normally get some warning, i.e. the new numbers are approached gradually.

I think WSB users own all the free shares and they aren't selling until 1000 at least. So that gets us to $800 by Friday and that lets lose hells delight because lots of options are stacked there which aren't hedged by the Market Makers, because who ever heard of a stock going up 800% in two days!

Citedelvin are pwned, All your Bases belong to us (https://youtu.be/jQE66WA2s-A). Currently they are buying bottled water and T-bills, well actually Bitcoin and flights to countries with no extradition agreement with the US. There won't be any push back from them today. They can't anyhow because of SSP.

She probably holds enough shares to control the stock up or down she showed that on Friday. I hope/imagine it goes like a hot knife through butter.

Anyhow we will know in a day or two or i am an idiot, and if it doesn't happen no worries we are holding shares in the most shorted stock of the last 20 years with a great management team.

What do i know anyhow, i am an idiot ape and this is my first post on Reddit so double idiot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKsDQaTkkxo

I am either Nostradamus or an idiot ape, or Nostradamus was an idiot ape, and we will know if i am right in 12 hours or so.

But maybe tomorrow we while look out the window and see the snow.

Donate Bitcoin Tax free to my kids savings (NL)

Hi all,

With the Stock to Flow model from PlanB (S2FX), institutions now buying bitcoin and initiatives like Strike from Jack Mallers, I firmly believe the purchasing power of bitcoin will grow against fiat money as USD/EUR etc for the next decade.

As I am a parent of 3 kids and living in the Netherlands, I have an option to donate Tax Free a gift to my kids of around 5,000 EUR annually. I want to give my kids BTC for their own savings. It should be their ownerships. Hopefully BTC will increase in value over the next 15 years and by the time my kids need to study or want to buy a house, they can use their small amount of BTC for this purpose. If I would keep the BTC for myself for the next 15 years and give the BTC (or fiat money equivalent) when my kids are adults it would most likely be more than the tax free amount, making it a taxable event which I want to prevent.

I am very curious if more people have this idea and how to document this Tax Free gift in such a way that future (in ~15 years) Taxable events/payments can be prevented.

My current thinking is that I buy three ledgers, donate the BTC with a (todays) value below 5,000EUR and write and sign a statement that this donation was done on a specific date to my kids on a specific address (which would be traceable in 15 years).

Looking forward to your ideas!

GET protocol puts an end to ticket scalping and more - a real problem solving project

Website: https://get-protocol.io
Artists who use GET
GET explainer video
Tradeable on: https://uniswap.info/token/0x8a854288a5976036a725879164ca3e91d30c6a1b

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In my humble opinion GET protocol is the deserves more recognition in the crypto space as it's very strong when it comes to fundamentals, adoption, tokenomics and potential. Let me explain why:

GET protocol solves an enormous problem: ticket scalping

I think we're all tired of the practices in the ticketing space: bots buy up tickets instantly and then resell them 2x, 5x, 10x or even more the original ticket price. Fans lose, artists lose, venues lose, ... while the money ends up in the pocket of scalpers who don't add any value to the process.

The secondary ticketing market is worth $15 billion. How long will fans have to pay?

GET protocol elminates ticket scalping by linking the ticket to your mobile phone. This means that at entry to a concert, sports game, ... you are only permitted entry with your mobile phone.

They have sold over 600k tickets and not one was "scalped"

An example is famous Dutch artist Jochem Myjer who uses GET protocol integrator GUTS tickets:

https://twitter.com/jochemmyjer/status/1118589335060848641

“Weird how some venues still don’t get how great GUTS is. And are afraid of change. It’s easier for the audience. For artists there is no more reselling. And maaaany other advantages. #GoWithTheTimes”

The ticketing space is one where no one trusts another in terms of how many tickets were issued, what the original price was, ... It has been proven that even Ticketmaster themselves are involved in the scalping business. That's why blockchain is vital in all of this. The tickets are all registered on the blockchain as a mean of transparency and accountability. This means that fans can check ticket authenticity whenever they want and make sure that they aren't being taken for a ride.

Besides scalping it offers many more advantages to integrators:

• Interaction with the ticket holders
• Extra marketing tools
• Data collection
• Dynamic price setting
• Merging of the primary and secondary market
• ...

GET protocol has a lot of adoption

As stated above, GUTS has sold 600k tickets using GET protocol. In the meanwhile more ticketing companies have started using it:

GUTS

Runs fully on the GET protocol and has sold over 600.000 tickets. Has grown into the biggest ticketeer in the Netherlands.
https://guts.tickets

ITIX

Established in 2009 and sells 2 million tickets/year. Is fully integrated in the GET protocol and will start selling GET-fueled tickets soon.
https://www.itix.nl

getTicket

A new ticketing company in South Korea that will run fully on the GET protocol. They already have deals with kpop stars to sell tickets for.
http://getticket.kr

TecTix

A Germany based ticketing company that will sell GET fueled tickets with a focus on the sports industry.
https://tec-tix.com

Wicket

The last to join is an Italian ticketing company. Despite being new they have already ticketed the Milano Wine festival in 2020 and will do so in 2021 as well. In 2019 this festival atracted more than 300.000 visitors.
https://www.wicketevents.com

Integrating an existing ticketing company is a low investment move (only the GET token is needed) that offers traditional ticketing companies several benefits. With the whitelabel that has just been released, which makes it easy for any ticketing company to start using GET, I expect many ticketing companies to integrate and GET to scale quickly.

Here are the requests they had received by end of 2019:

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https://preview.redd.it/gkx6qqfqydk61.jpg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ffa7accbfcdc962a84beb96eaf8930d993ed490e

GET tokenomics

The GET tokenomics are built so that for every ticket issued 0,28€ (or 0,34$) worth of GET is needed by the ticketeers. They buy most of this from exchanges and a minority they get subsidized from the User Grotwh Fund. In 2020 around 70% was bought directly from exchanges.

In 2020 ticketing volume in general was down like 90–99% due to corona. Yet GET managed to sell over 236k tickets. Or an increase of 27% compared to 2019.

This is a major indicator of their usecase being needed: despite covid19 they grew a lot and conquered a lot of marketshare from traditional ticketeers.

Tokenomics to push the price

If GUTS was able to sell 236k tickets in a year where ticketing volume is down at least 90% then I think it’s safe to assume that they’ll sell over 3 million tickets/year once everything is allowed again.

Add the new ticketing companies that integrated GET recently (getticket in Korea, Wicket Events in Italy and Tectix in Germany) and you’ll understand that we’ll be seeing millions of tickets processed by the GET protocol.

I’m willing to bet that we’ll see at least 5 million tickets in 2022:

5 million \ 0,28 * 0,7 = €980.000 in buybacks or around 1,2 million $*

You can imagine what buybacks of 100k $ each month will do to such a smallcap, especialy considering that all this bought GET is burned after usage.

If the price would remain stable we’d see 5 million GET burned, or 25% of the entire supply (SF of 13 million will be burned soon anyway as it isn’t used so I don’t consider that as supply).

Of course the price will not remain stable as with such an increase in buybacks & burns, GET will be recognised as truely deflationary through real world usage.

NFT tickets that will revolutionise ticketing

As of this month all tickets issued by the GET protocol will become NFT’s

Over 60.000 sold tickets (that haven’t ben scanned yet for the event) will be minted as NFT’s this month. This means that tickets, after scanning can become collectables. But so much more:

Here's my take on why GET protocol's smart and blockchain registered tickets becoming NFT's will revolutionize the ticketing industry.

After the DeFi hype we’ve witnessed last year, the next hype in crypto that seems to be developing are NFT’s. In this case it isn’t about riding the hype. Tickets being NFT’s on the blockchain really makes sense and it will change ticketing as we know it. Let me explain…

So what’s a NFT exactly? NFT stands for non fungible token. This is a token that’s unique on the blockchain and not mutually interchangeable. This in contrast to for example Bitcoin where it doesn’t matter which Bitcoin you have (1 BTC = 1 BTC). Every ticket issued by the GET protocol will become a getNFT.

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https://preview.redd.it/n795rkfrydk61.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=a51e5e6f77bfce72ba1d8028c9c221452f7b9747

getNFTs are indivisible, meaning that a getNFT can only be held by 1 address at the same time. This ensures that whoever owns a certain NFT will be the only one to decrypt the QR code.

Eventhough GET’s NFT’s will be the most used, bought & traded NFT’s in the crypto space the goal isn’t to ride the hype. Ticketing + NFT = a match made in heaven. And here’s why:

As every ticket on the blockchain will become a NFT and thus unqiue, it will allow non custodial ownership of the ticket asset. This gives many interesting advantages but 2 stand out for me personally: P2P ticket trading & DeFi event financing.

P2P ticket trading
NFT’s will allow P2P ticket trading and GET’s almost done building it! Peer to peer ticket trading means that everyone who owns a getNFT ticket will be able to trade it with another “peer”. This will happen in a closed and regulated ecosystem. This means that certain rules can be set by the event organizer. For example:

• The ticket can be sold for only x% profit
• x% of the trade profit goes to the event organizer
• a certain trading fee goes to the event organizer
• …

This will be the first and only ticketing system that will allow ticket trading while at the same time making scalping impossible. Regulators have been struggling for a long time to solve this problem and what seemed impossible to achieve will be made possible by smart contracts! The impact of this will be huge and will change the ticketing space for the better.Additionally and not unimportantly it will give the event organizer an extra revenue stream. The money that right now for a large part goes to scalpers (the secondary ticket market is worth $15B) will be tapped into by the event organizers.

Why this is important

The advantage for GET holders is twofold:

1. The P2P market will atract more users (artists, venues, ticketing companies) of the GET protocol (= more GET needed in the primary market)
2. every ticket exchanged in the secondary market is an additional statechange (= more GET needed)

Event financing
Without a doubt one of the most promising and exciting things to look forward to in 2021 is the introduction of decentralized event financing to GET Protocol.Event organizers often struggle to get financing for their events. This doesn’t only apply to starting artists, but even to famous stars. The artists need to have a lot of capital in advance as they have to pay for the venues, organisation, … upfront while only receiving the money after the show is over. Enter GET’s DeFi solution!

The pre-financing of events for event-organizers is not a solution looking for a problem; it’s a widely known and used tool that enables event organizers to make the investments needed to get their shows or festivals off the ground.In the past we have encountered Event Organizers who select their ticketing partner solely based on the amount of money and loan conditions that they are offered up front.

Thanks to getNFT tickets you’ll be able to pre-finance events of your choice. You can choose to finance new artists (more risk/more APY) or established kpop stars (less risk/less APY).

This is how it will work:

​

https://preview.redd.it/r8rjxaisydk61.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=6b5ea7b53f4ba96c3742b9fae34ebfe570e256b4

If the concept seems complicated, here’s what you need to understand about GET’s decentralized financing solution:1.) Event organizers will be able to easily pre-finance their events. (Something they desperately crave.)2.) Investors will be able to invest in events of their choice, at a risk & reward level that they feel comfortable with.3.) The $GET token is an integral part of the financing process, as it is required for ‘skin in the game’ from

The advantage event financing for GET token holders will bring is again twofold:

1. As a GET holder you’ll be able to finance events and share in the profit of the ticket sales. This means that GET will allow you to profit without selling = passive income. An important note is that this is profit without inflation. While other DeFi projects give you returns by increasing the supply (and thus decreasing the value of the token) the returns here will not increase the GET supply, as the returns come from real profit(ticket sales).
2. As the GET token will be an integral part of this process, it will:- increase the buy pressure of the GET token (everyone who wants to participate will need GET)- decrease the supply (everyone who participates will have to locks his GET tokens).

For a deeper insight I recommend the blog below:

https://medium.com/get-protocol/decentralizing-event-financing-liquidity-x-defi-x-nfts-975f028135f5

GET protocol will be decentralised

The endgoal of the GET protocol is to become open source and decentralised. There will be a governance model where changes to the protocol will be determined by GET token holders. That’s why I expect ticketing companies to acquire a lot of GET in time as their revenue relies on the direction of the protocol.