Million Dollar Heater, CryptoCurrency, Weight Loss Bets
I'm looking forward to the Beau Rivage's Million Dollar Heater which begins... tomorrow.
Somewhat fairly well known on the Gulf Coast is Kenny Milam and Charlie Gelvin's annual prop bet decided by the Arkansas-LSU football game. Last year Kenny had to play day one of the re-entry event in a dress. Good sport that he was, he did so. This year the loser (again, Kenny the Arkansas fan) has to shave his entire head. That includes that cigarette and coffee imbued flavor savor of a mustache for Kenny (look at that in all it's glory in the pic) which makes sense as Charlie has, shall we say, a "fuller" head of hair. What will they think of next year? Also, guys, why not throw in the LSU-Arkansas basketball battles for another prop bet?
That's not the only prop bet that will be settled this weekend. Known perhaps only by the participants themselves is a weight loss bet for me. In late October I weighed (a gross!) 232 pounds. I challenged myself to drop 30 lbs by this Saturday. Several people graciously bet against me, to inspire motivation, to see me get healthier, and several also put up personal goals they had to achieve (their own weight loss or playing a set amount of hours of poker). If I don't achieve and they do, I have to pay double, and vice versa. If we all achieve... push. So, obviously I'm rooting for myself, but I'm also rooting for them to make their goals. Of those three in action, pretty sure one is there having played over 200 hours of live poker and another is logging marathon hours (probably as I type this) to get there. I'm unsure of the status of the third a poker/player writer who had to match my weight loss.
So, eating mostly carb free and suffering (with a sweet tooth) through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, multiple weddings and birthday parties I'm almost to my goal and done with the suffering. Bringing a scale to the Beau for the weigh-in Saturday.
I've allowed folks to pay in cryptocurrency (should I win).
Speaking of Crypto: which like most of the poker community (glad there are so many smart earlier adopters here) I've become heavily involved in (at least mentally). Wish I had the kind of capital to be truly "heavily involved" or crypto rich as others have become. That said, even small investments in this have turned into big ones. It's like the Stock Market in the 1920s (except surging with an extra hit or two of crack cocaine) or the Dutch tulip craze. Consequently, everybody is an expert investor these days (and probably clogging up your social media with all this chatter). Hard not to be "an expert" when Bitcoin is stampeding to a bubble burst (unless it already burst and it's a slow pop from its near high of 20k). So too other cryptocurrencies marching upwards with a ton more new money to come. I've done well with a very modest investment or two. But that could change before I hit publish on this post, so I'm getting ready to pull out some and basically freeroll toward the long term.
If you want to get involved my facebook feed has some posts about dipping your toe in the water. I recommend Coinbase: https://www.coinbase.com/join/59146aff2798559a845d3bb3
as a starter platform (Bitcoin, Ethereum (yum), Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash) and using binance https://www.binance.com/?ref=15613859 if you want to play around with alt currencies like Ripple, Iota and everything else. If you click that Coinbase link you'll get an extra $10 of bitcoin when you trade $100 on their site. The $10 I got from them is already worth $100. If you click the binance link I'll get some (micro) commissions on your trade.
If you already have a coinbase account and want Ripple or another alt currency now sign up to https://www.binance.com/?ref=15613859 and you can shortcut the verification process. Feel free to text or email me if you want some pointers.
Currently, I'm very happy with Ripple (3x so far since I got in) and had the fortunate and good timing to move some money to it right before Bitcoin and the big coins went on a December swoon. Ripple is doing so well, despite not quite being a true crypto coin, for two reasons. One, South Koreans love it and, two, the ever stronger rumor that Coinbase is soon going to add it to their platform have driven up the price. Not to get too deep into things but Ripple is a token and privately owned so has a different ethos then what's behind the decentralized currency movement of Bitcoin and closer clones of it. They all have unique flaws but there are some advantages of Ripple for an actual use.
Personally, I'm just trying to ride the pre-Coinbase release wave of excitement as everybody expects it to surge when available to the millions of users on there. It will look like a cheap way to buy a lot of coins. The upside, in my opinion, is limited on Ripple (and that's in comparison to Bitcoin for one reason there is a ton of Ripple tokens out there) but I suspect getting in now people will still be able to make a tidy profit on it.
UPDATE: Coinbase yesterday released a statement they are not planning to add any new coins imminently.
This effects Ripple and also Verge (where a rumor was circling twitter/the Internet that it was soon to be added). Personally, I put more stock into the CEO's video answer to the alt coin question late last year where he said they'd be adding more coins in 2018. Also, I think this is in response to people leaving Coinbase in droves to find cheap alt-coins elsewhere. If Coinbase says no new coins people aren't going to leave as much to preemptively buy them which is my strategy. (Not only that, many left after the insider trading scandal of Bitcoin cash where Coinbase employees pre-bought BCH in anticipation of it exploding once they offered it). If anything, I think Coinbase behind the scenes has to be working furiously to get more options/coins on their site.
The recent Ripple run makes it unlikely with their market cap they won't be in the a future batch, and likely they are the next to be added. Will it be January? Will it be February? Will it be August? I don't know, but Coinbase is losing market share because of a lack of options. I see the statement yesterday as a stopgap and am going to stay with Ripple.
(By no means, am I an expert in this kind of stuff, and as mentioned earlier, in the right Bull conditions even the dumbest of us will make money. And please, only invest money you are able and willing to lose if you do click those links above. This is the definition of a high-risk investment with a lot of dangers that could completely wipe out your investment: government shuts it down, the platforms you trade on getting hacked, you get hacked or some other unknowns, or worse case a digital version of a bank run/panic and you are locked out from getting funds as they dwindle to nothing).
Long term I'm confident there will still be some (maybe even meteoric) growth in cryptocurrency. I think there is still 10x+ more money to come into this. The next coin I want to research a little more is Monero (spelling?) which seems to have more of the anonymity everyday users might crave.
Anyway, that's it for now.
Somewhat fairly well known on the Gulf Coast is Kenny Milam and Charlie Gelvin's annual prop bet decided by the Arkansas-LSU football game. Last year Kenny had to play day one of the re-entry event in a dress. Good sport that he was, he did so. This year the loser (again, Kenny the Arkansas fan) has to shave his entire head. That includes that cigarette and coffee imbued flavor savor of a mustache for Kenny (look at that in all it's glory in the pic) which makes sense as Charlie has, shall we say, a "fuller" head of hair. What will they think of next year? Also, guys, why not throw in the LSU-Arkansas basketball battles for another prop bet?
That's not the only prop bet that will be settled this weekend. Known perhaps only by the participants themselves is a weight loss bet for me. In late October I weighed (a gross!) 232 pounds. I challenged myself to drop 30 lbs by this Saturday. Several people graciously bet against me, to inspire motivation, to see me get healthier, and several also put up personal goals they had to achieve (their own weight loss or playing a set amount of hours of poker). If I don't achieve and they do, I have to pay double, and vice versa. If we all achieve... push. So, obviously I'm rooting for myself, but I'm also rooting for them to make their goals. Of those three in action, pretty sure one is there having played over 200 hours of live poker and another is logging marathon hours (probably as I type this) to get there. I'm unsure of the status of the third a poker/player writer who had to match my weight loss.
So, eating mostly carb free and suffering (with a sweet tooth) through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, multiple weddings and birthday parties I'm almost to my goal and done with the suffering. Bringing a scale to the Beau for the weigh-in Saturday.
I've allowed folks to pay in cryptocurrency (should I win).
Speaking of Crypto: which like most of the poker community (glad there are so many smart earlier adopters here) I've become heavily involved in (at least mentally). Wish I had the kind of capital to be truly "heavily involved" or crypto rich as others have become. That said, even small investments in this have turned into big ones. It's like the Stock Market in the 1920s (except surging with an extra hit or two of crack cocaine) or the Dutch tulip craze. Consequently, everybody is an expert investor these days (and probably clogging up your social media with all this chatter). Hard not to be "an expert" when Bitcoin is stampeding to a bubble burst (unless it already burst and it's a slow pop from its near high of 20k). So too other cryptocurrencies marching upwards with a ton more new money to come. I've done well with a very modest investment or two. But that could change before I hit publish on this post, so I'm getting ready to pull out some and basically freeroll toward the long term.
If you want to get involved my facebook feed has some posts about dipping your toe in the water. I recommend Coinbase: https://www.coinbase.com/join/59146aff2798559a845d3bb3
as a starter platform (Bitcoin, Ethereum (yum), Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash) and using binance https://www.binance.com/?ref=15613859 if you want to play around with alt currencies like Ripple, Iota and everything else. If you click that Coinbase link you'll get an extra $10 of bitcoin when you trade $100 on their site. The $10 I got from them is already worth $100. If you click the binance link I'll get some (micro) commissions on your trade.
If you already have a coinbase account and want Ripple or another alt currency now sign up to https://www.binance.com/?ref=15613859 and you can shortcut the verification process. Feel free to text or email me if you want some pointers.
Currently, I'm very happy with Ripple (3x so far since I got in) and had the fortunate and good timing to move some money to it right before Bitcoin and the big coins went on a December swoon. Ripple is doing so well, despite not quite being a true crypto coin, for two reasons. One, South Koreans love it and, two, the ever stronger rumor that Coinbase is soon going to add it to their platform have driven up the price. Not to get too deep into things but Ripple is a token and privately owned so has a different ethos then what's behind the decentralized currency movement of Bitcoin and closer clones of it. They all have unique flaws but there are some advantages of Ripple for an actual use.
Personally, I'm just trying to ride the pre-Coinbase release wave of excitement as everybody expects it to surge when available to the millions of users on there. It will look like a cheap way to buy a lot of coins. The upside, in my opinion, is limited on Ripple (and that's in comparison to Bitcoin for one reason there is a ton of Ripple tokens out there) but I suspect getting in now people will still be able to make a tidy profit on it.
UPDATE: Coinbase yesterday released a statement they are not planning to add any new coins imminently.
This effects Ripple and also Verge (where a rumor was circling twitter/the Internet that it was soon to be added). Personally, I put more stock into the CEO's video answer to the alt coin question late last year where he said they'd be adding more coins in 2018. Also, I think this is in response to people leaving Coinbase in droves to find cheap alt-coins elsewhere. If Coinbase says no new coins people aren't going to leave as much to preemptively buy them which is my strategy. (Not only that, many left after the insider trading scandal of Bitcoin cash where Coinbase employees pre-bought BCH in anticipation of it exploding once they offered it). If anything, I think Coinbase behind the scenes has to be working furiously to get more options/coins on their site.
The recent Ripple run makes it unlikely with their market cap they won't be in the a future batch, and likely they are the next to be added. Will it be January? Will it be February? Will it be August? I don't know, but Coinbase is losing market share because of a lack of options. I see the statement yesterday as a stopgap and am going to stay with Ripple.
(By no means, am I an expert in this kind of stuff, and as mentioned earlier, in the right Bull conditions even the dumbest of us will make money. And please, only invest money you are able and willing to lose if you do click those links above. This is the definition of a high-risk investment with a lot of dangers that could completely wipe out your investment: government shuts it down, the platforms you trade on getting hacked, you get hacked or some other unknowns, or worse case a digital version of a bank run/panic and you are locked out from getting funds as they dwindle to nothing).
Long term I'm confident there will still be some (maybe even meteoric) growth in cryptocurrency. I think there is still 10x+ more money to come into this. The next coin I want to research a little more is Monero (spelling?) which seems to have more of the anonymity everyday users might crave.
Anyway, that's it for now.
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