22 minutes ago, mattmcginley7 said:

Bitcoin is not gambling. Ethereum is not gambling. These are world changing ideas that experience significant network effects that have a faster adoption rate than the internet or anything else in history.

You can hold them for a very long time and make life changing gains. But everyone would rather play with fire and gamble

I'm up over 10,000% on my first BTC buy. Over 18,000% on my first ETH buy. Over 240,000% on my HEX buy. Why the hell would I ever consider trading when these are the returns I'm offered for simply waiting and risk losing this?

I've been in this for a very long time and this is where I spend most of my efforts at this point. I'm going to make a fortune because I understand crypto and risk adjusted probability and math.

If you want to attempt to become a trader and risk losing it all, that's on you at this point. I think it's beyond greed and flies in the face of logic 

Yes, you have those gains because you got in early and picked the right coins.   I'm not doubting that to you, it doesn't seem like gambling because of the success you've had.  You know the market and have made a ton of money off it.   But this is like a card counter telling the general Joe Q public that playing Blackjack isn't gambling.   Yes, you've had success in it because you have a very unique understanding of the market.  Yes, it seems that Bitcoin and Ethereum are here to stay and are good growth investments, and I hope that's the case.  But nothing is guaranteed.  They'd wouldn't be the first invention that everyone thought was destined to provide eternal growth that ended up crashing.  

It's more like speculative asset pricing than gambling. 

1 hour ago, Phillyterp85 said:

Yes, you have those gains because you got in early and picked the right coins.   I'm not doubting that to you, it doesn't seem like gambling because of the success you've had.  You know the market and have made a ton of money off it.   But this is like a card counter telling the general Joe Q public that playing Blackjack isn't gambling.   Yes, you've had success in it because you have a very unique understanding of the market.  Yes, it seems that Bitcoin and Ethereum are here to stay and are good growth investments, and I hope that's the case.  But nothing is guaranteed.  They'd wouldn't be the first invention that everyone thought was destined to provide eternal growth that ended up crashing.  

I'm telling you the best strategy that wins and I'll be following this same advice. Trading Bitcoin when it'll eventually be worth 10x instead of holding is a horrible idea

33 minutes ago, mattmcginley7 said:

I'm telling you the best strategy that wins and I'll be following this same advice. Trading Bitcoin when it'll eventually be worth 10x instead of holding is a horrible idea

I agree.  Id buy and hold Bitcoin, not trade it.

3 hours ago, Phillyterp85 said:

Many people said the same thing about the housing market in the early 2000s.   

And don't get me wrong, while at one my point I may have been "anti crypto", I have bought into the idea that assets like Bitcoin and Etherum have a positive outlook.  But they are still very volatile.   Someone who bought Bitcoin in 2018 at $20k would have had to wait almost 3 years for the value to break even after it crashed in 2018.  Many people don't have the ability to let their capital sit for 3 years in a single asset in hopes that it's going to climb back up.  Because there's no guarantee that it was going to. 

But there's also what, like 6,000 cyrptocurrencies out there? So that's where it again gets a bit like gambling in picking the right one.  Those that know the game are going to succeed, and many won't.  Then there's the speculation game with the "meme" coins.  I've heard a lot of people refer to them as "sh-t" coins, which I'm not doubting (I don't know enough either way).  But those "sh-t" coins have also made some people a lot of money.   Someone who would have put $1,000 into Dogecoin in May of 2020 at $.0025 and then sold in May of 2021 at $0.50 would have made over $200,000.   So there's the gambling aspect again, of people trying to pick the right cheap coin that's going to have an explosion of growth and then be able to cash out.  

It's why people play a 16-team parlay. Sure the odds of hitting it are low, but the payout is HUGE.  

I missed my 16 teamer this weekend by 2 games

12 hours ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

It's more like speculative asset pricing than gambling. 

Not sure I see the difference in terminology here?  If someone is betting on the eagles winning 8 games this year, are they not speculative asset pricing?  

17 minutes ago, Phillyterp85 said:

Not sure I see the difference in terminology here?  If someone is betting on the eagles winning 8 games this year, are they not speculative asset pricing?  

In one scenario you hold an asset. In the other you don't. Big difference.

As an example, there is a finite supply of antique works of art. If I buy an original Van Gogh, is that gambling? It's a potentially risky investment, but not gambling. It may appreciate or depreciate in value, but even if I lose money I still possess something with some inherent value.

Same is true of Bitcoin. It's a monetary instrument with finite supply. Like precious metals or works if art, it has value because people believe it does. And it's likewise volatile. 

22 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

In one scenario you hold an asset. In the other you don't. Big difference.

As an example, there is a finite supply of antique works of art. If I buy an original Van Gogh, is that gambling? It's a potentially risky investment, but not gambling. It may appreciate or depreciate in value, but even if I lose money I still possess something with some inherent value.

Same is true of Bitcoin. It's a monetary instrument with finite supply. Like precious metals or works if art, it has value because people believe it does. And it's likewise volatile. 

If the value of the Van Gogh piece drops to 0, then it holds no more inherent value than the betting slip you purchased. (Yes I realize I’m being a bit tongue in cheek here).  
 

 

3 hours ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

In one scenario you hold an asset. In the other you don't. Big difference.

As an example, there is a finite supply of antique works of art. If I buy an original Van Gogh, is that gambling? It's a potentially risky investment, but not gambling. It may appreciate or depreciate in value, but even if I lose money I still possess something with some inherent value.

Same is true of Bitcoin. It's a monetary instrument with finite supply. Like precious metals or works if art, it has value because people believe it does. And it's likewise volatile. 

 

3 hours ago, Phillyterp85 said:

If the value of the Van Gogh piece drops to 0, then it holds no more inherent value than the betting slip you purchased. (Yes I realize I’m being a bit tongue in cheek here).  
 

 

Oversimplifying, but you are basically discussing the difference between an asset and a derivative. Investing in an asset is owning a thing of value -- a share of stock, a piece of real estate, currency, etc. Bitcoin is an asset, albeit a highly volatile and speculative one. A derivative derives its value from an underlying asset -- stock options are the best example. A betting slip on a game is a derivative whose value is based on the outcome of the game, which you don't own. 

Both can go to zero.

21 hours ago, mattmcginley7 said:

Bitcoin is not gambling. Ethereum is not gambling. These are world changing ideas that experience significant network effects that have a faster adoption rate than the internet or anything else in history.

You can hold them for a very long time and make life changing gains. But everyone would rather play with fire and gamble

I'm up over 10,000% on my first BTC buy. Over 18,000% on my first ETH buy. Over 240,000% on my HEX buy. Why the hell would I ever consider trading when these are the returns I'm offered for simply waiting and risk losing this?

I've been in this for a very long time and this is where I spend most of my efforts at this point. I'm going to make a fortune because I understand crypto and risk adjusted probability and math.

If you want to attempt to become a trader and risk losing it all, that's on you at this point. I think it's beyond greed and flies in the face of logic 

They’re all speculation. Nothing wrong with that, but stop acting like these things are preordained to rule the world.

8 hours ago, Phillyterp85 said:

Not sure I see the difference in terminology here?  If someone is betting on the eagles winning 8 games this year, are they not speculative asset pricing?  

Vikas had it right. Betting on sports is a derivative of the underlying match or whatever.

He mentioned options as an example, which funny enough is exactly how I priced sports betting in some sports betting models I’ve built. You can basically price sports bets as binary options, derive the implied odds from their price, and then if your model gives you better odds than the implied odds, the difference is your edge. If your model is accurate and you use proper bet sizing (also based on option pricing) you will win in the long run. 

As an aside, sports betting as a business is way more difficult than trading in financial markets or poker IMO. Not because finding an edge is that much more difficult but because almost every sports book will limit your position size until the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Basically only pinnacle and betfair allow you to win consistently without banning you or limiting you. Pinny is the sharpest book in the world and uses the bets from sharps to adjust their odds in real time so it’s very difficult to find an edge while betfair is an exchange like a stock market so liquidity on bets is very hit or miss and dependent on the popularity of the underlying. Getting a big edge in a popular sport is very difficult; you want to be betting things like obscure soccer leagues and D2 baseball to really have a powerful edge.

47 minutes ago, TEW said:

Vikas had it right. Betting on sports is a derivative of the underlying match or whatever.

He mentioned options as an example, which funny enough is exactly how I priced sports betting in some sports betting models I’ve built. You can basically price sports bets as binary options, derive the implied odds from their price, and then if your model gives you better odds than the implied odds, the difference is your edge. If your model is accurate and you use proper bet sizing (also based on option pricing) you will win in the long run. 

As an aside, sports betting as a business is way more difficult than trading in financial markets or poker IMO. Not because finding an edge is that much more difficult but because almost every sports book will limit your position size until the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Basically only pinnacle and betfair allow you to win consistently without banning you or limiting you. Pinny is the sharpest book in the world and uses the bets from sharps to adjust their odds in real time so it’s very difficult to find an edge while betfair is an exchange like a stock market so liquidity on bets is very hit or miss and dependent on the popularity of the underlying. Getting a big edge in a popular sport is very difficult; you want to be betting things like obscure soccer leagues and D2 baseball to really have a powerful edge.

You can find ways around caps and limits, especially now that we have access to domestic books. The more significant limiting factor in the long run is the vig. Even pinny, with -105 lines, still puts you at a relatively massive disadvantage compared to conventional markets. Imagine a 5-9% commission being charged on all profits from any of your trades, it'd be insanity. Taking that kind of haircut off the top throws the risk/reward profile out of balance. You can mitigate this to a degree with arbing and shopping, but those can be highly variable.

1 hour ago, TEW said:

They’re all speculation. Nothing wrong with that, but stop acting like these things are preordained to rule the world.

Everything is speculation then lol 

And they are going to take over the world. The whole space is going to 100x eventually 

You seem to be here now for some short term gains and that's about the depth of it. You won't realize the same gains or get use out of these technologies that are already beginning to take over the world and make it better as I will because you still are too skeptical of this space. And it's all going to be because you are constantly afraid of a hammer coming down. You actually are treating this like gambling, I never have 

 

2 minutes ago, mattmcginley7 said:

Everything is speculation then lol 

And they are going to take over the world. The whole space is going to 100x eventually 

You seem to be here now for some short term gains and that's about the depth of it. You won't realize the same gains or get use out of these technologies that are already beginning to take over the world and make it better as I will because you still are too skeptical of this space. And it's all going to be because you are constantly afraid of a hammer coming down. You actually are treating this like gambling, I never have 

 

Shades of gray. Going long on FAANG stocks is not nearly the same level of "speculation" as hodling BTC. Cryptocurrencies are more analogous to commodities like precious metals. Intrinsic value is always in the collective eye of the beholder, yes, but we shouldn't muddy the waters when the characteristics have stark differences.

9 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Shades of gray. Going long on FAANG stocks is not nearly the same level of "speculation" as hodling BTC. Cryptocurrencies are more analogous to commodities like precious metals. Intrinsic value is always in the collective eye of the beholder, yes, but we shouldn't muddy the waters when the characteristics have stark differences.

Ethereum is essentially a decentralized apple ios platform 

Bitcoin is a currency with significantly better attributes than any government currency ever created 

The future of apple and its potential imo is much more bleak than the future of Ethereum. DAOs are going to rule the world. Apple on a long enough time frame gets eaten by Ethereum

People inevitably will keep choosing Bitcoin for its superior attributes 

And both are growing at a faster pace than the internet did. It's not speculative to say they're taking over the world right now

30 minutes ago, mattmcginley7 said:

Ethereum is essentially a decentralized apple ios platform 

Yea no, it's not. Words have meaning, dude. 

Quote

Bitcoin is a currency with significantly better attributes than any government currency ever created 

 

Mostly true but not really relevant to my post which took issue with conflation. Adoption, naturally, is the most important attribute and yes, I fully expect it to grow, but that still has nothing to do with you lumping everything together equally under a large umbrella of speculation.

Quote

The future of apple and its potential imo is much more bleak than the future of Ethereum. DAOs are going to rule the world. Apple on a long enough time frame gets eaten by Ethereum

Time frames are subjective, but yes, naturally the upside of ETH is higher, but it can also be more plausibly replaced than apple's products within any given time frame. You're just reiterating the basic reason why something might have higher volatility than something else.

Quote

People inevitably will keep choosing Bitcoin for its superior attributes 

And both are growing at a faster pace than the internet did. It's not speculative to say they're taking over the world right now

I've said many times now that there is no longer a future where cryptocurrencies don't exist. Blockchain and other similarly based technologies (e.g. DAGs) are not just critical to the future of fintech, but also critical to the future of distributed computing networks in general. The use cases are endless, but likewise, improvements are inevitable. The internet didn't really become the "internet" as we know it today until Berners-Lee came up with the proposals for HTTP 20 years after the first bytes of data were transmitted under the then DARPA-funded computer networking project at UCLA. Is ETH the HTTP to BTC's Internet? Maybe, maybe not. That's not to say you don't have the right mindset when it comes to just how important these technological advancements are, but you also seem to ignore the very real risk associated with putting large chunks of your portfolio into this basket of extremely volatile commodities. Nobody should have all their eggs in this basket regardless of how lucrative the gains have been to date.

2 hours ago, we_gotta_believe said:

You can find ways around caps and limits, especially now that we have access to domestic books. The more significant limiting factor in the long run is the vig. Even pinny, with -105 lines, still puts you at a relatively massive disadvantage compared to conventional markets. Imagine a 5-9% commission being charged on all profits from any of your trades, it'd be insanity. Taking that kind of haircut off the top throws the risk/reward profile out of balance. You can mitigate this to a degree with arbing and shopping, but those can be highly variable.

The vig is built into the implied odds of the bet. It doesn’t really make a difference. Sure, you’d be way more profitable without it, but sports are inefficient enough to still find an edge even with the vig. The problem is size. It doesn’t matter if you can beat the house if you can only bet $20 a pop.

27 minutes ago, TEW said:

The vig is built into the implied odds of the bet. It doesn’t really make a difference. Sure, you’d be way more profitable without it, but sports are inefficient enough to still find an edge even with the vig. The problem is size. It doesn’t matter if you can beat the house if you can only bet $20 a pop.

The vig doesn't make a difference? lolwut

And what book is limiting you to $20 bets? 

1 hour ago, we_gotta_believe said:

The vig doesn't make a difference? lolwut

And what book is limiting you to $20 bets? 

From the model’s perspective, the vig is priced into the implied odds. It’s not as if a profitable model suddenly becomes a loser because of the existence of a vig. It’s already accounted for. 

Raise the vig and your model will take fewer bets because you will lose an edge on some games, and you will bet smaller proportions of capital because your edge will decrease, but you’ll still be profitable. Lower the vig and you will have an edge on more games, and the games you already had an edge on you will increase your position size.

Finding an edge is only step one. The real battle begins when you try to scale. Even betfair exchange only has a few million on each side by the start of a major regular season match.

Look at, for instance, ManU vs Leicester for a Saturday match right now. About $42K matched, meaning $7K on each side of the win/lose/draw. You can’t make a living with that kind of liquidity. Any time you try to scale you’ll move the market. By kickoff you’re probably looking at around a million matched. Call it $1.2 for easy math. That’s $200K on each side of those bets. Again, even if you have an edge you can’t scale because you’ll soak up all of the liquidity and move the market.

So now you go to Pinny, and every time you click max bet they’re looking at your account and if you’ve got an edge they’re moving the odds against you to limit your position. Scaling just doesn’t work.

It’s why betting rings exist where pros will get 20-30 mules with no gambling record to place their bets for them spread out over multiple books. That way you don’t move the odds quickly and get around limits. But now you’re constantly recruiting new proxy bettors, have a staff to pay, have to worry about people running off with your money, etc.

The juice isn’t worth the squeeze. If you’re good enough at math to get an edge, there’s plenty of work that pays as well with less hassle.

Yup. It is official. Crypto acolytes are the new vegans. 
 

We get it. You’re long. Hope it works. Now please STFU already. 

39 minutes ago, TEW said:

From the model’s perspective, the vig is priced into the implied odds. It’s not as if a profitable model suddenly becomes a loser because of the existence of a vig. It’s already accounted for. 

Raise the vig and your model will take fewer bets because you will lose an edge on some games, and you will bet smaller proportions of capital because your edge will decrease, but you’ll still be profitable. Lower the vig and you will have an edge on more games, and the games you already had an edge on you will increase your position size.

Finding an edge is only step one. The real battle begins when you try to scale. Even betfair exchange only has a few million on each side by the start of a major regular season match.

Look at, for instance, ManU vs Leicester for a Saturday match right now. About $42K matched, meaning $7K on each side of the win/lose/draw. You can’t make a living with that kind of liquidity. Any time you try to scale you’ll move the market. By kickoff you’re probably looking at around a million matched. Call it $1.2 for easy math. That’s $200K on each side of those bets. Again, even if you have an edge you can’t scale because you’ll soak up all of the liquidity and move the market.

So now you go to Pinny, and every time you click max bet they’re looking at your account and if you’ve got an edge they’re moving the odds against you to limit your position. Scaling just doesn’t work.

It’s why betting rings exist where pros will get 20-30 mules with no gambling record to place their bets for them spread out over multiple books. That way you don’t move the odds quickly and get around limits. But now you’re constantly recruiting new proxy bettors, have a staff to pay, have to worry about people running off with your money, etc.

The juice isn’t worth the squeeze. If you’re good enough at math to get an edge, there’s plenty of work that pays as well with less hassle.

Uh yeah, exactly, hence why the vig makes a huge difference. It's a critical factor when your long term hit percentages teeter on the margin of barely breaking even if you're not hitting on over 53% of your plays (normalized units.)

As for running this as a "business", yeah as I said, there are work-arounds when it comes to hard caps or temp limits. You've likely already have access to at least 8-10 domestic books now, in addition to all the existing offshores you can fund with bitcoin and the like. Then there's out of state domestics accessible via VPNs, GPS spoofing is trivial, etc, and if you know a few guys you can convince to join you, those caps all but disappear. 

You won't get banned outright from any of them unless you start arbing props, abusing promos, or hammering obscure leagues. Maybe a book or two will gimp you down to $100 bets but that's fairly uncommon from what I've seen if you're just making straight plays, but I've never ever heard of $20 bet limits though. If you've actually had this happen to you, I'd be interested to hear more details. 

1 hour ago, vikas83 said:

Yup. It is official. Crypto acolytes are the new vegans. 
 

We get it. You’re long. Hope it works. Now please STFU already. 

This is my thread and it's about crypto ****. Why are you here? Go cry somewhere else

Also that's quite the compliment. Veganism is superior

5 hours ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Yea no, it's not. Words have meaning, dude. 

Mostly true but not really relevant to my post which took issue with conflation. Adoption, naturally, is the most important attribute and yes, I fully expect it to grow, but that still has nothing to do with you lumping everything together equally under a large umbrella of speculation.

Time frames are subjective, but yes, naturally the upside of ETH is higher, but it can also be more plausibly replaced than apple's products within any given time frame. You're just reiterating the basic reason why something might have higher volatility than something else.

I've said many times now that there is no longer a future where cryptocurrencies don't exist. Blockchain and other similarly based technologies (e.g. DAGs) are not just critical to the future of fintech, but also critical to the future of distributed computing networks in general. The use cases are endless, but likewise, improvements are inevitable. The internet didn't really become the "internet" as we know it today until Berners-Lee came up with the proposals for HTTP 20 years after the first bytes of data were transmitted under the then DARPA-funded computer networking project at UCLA. Is ETH the HTTP to BTC's Internet? Maybe, maybe not. That's not to say you don't have the right mindset when it comes to just how important these technological advancements are, but you also seem to ignore the very real risk associated with putting large chunks of your portfolio into this basket of extremely volatile commodities. Nobody should have all their eggs in this basket regardless of how lucrative the gains have been to date.

I'm going to address your last sentence. To me it's the complete opposite 

If you learn about Bitcoin and genuinely believe it's better than gold as an asset, which I think it's much more useful, you're implying the valuation of it should be at least 10 times higher 

Let's just say for argument's sake the probability of Bitcoin reaching 0 or 500k are exactly 50%. (I think the chances it reaches 500k are more like 95%)

Your risk adjusted returns are so heavily skewed on the upside that not participating is a serious gamble. If you treated it like flipping a coin with $1000 and every time you land on tails, you lose $1000, every time you get heads you win $10,000. Your average return per coin toss is $4500. To participate in a small way is also a mistake. You should participate in as big as a way that you are comfortable.

27 minutes ago, mattmcginley7 said:

I'm going to address your last sentence. To me it's the complete opposite 

If you learn about Bitcoin and genuinely believe it's better than gold as an asset, which I think it's much more useful, you're implying the valuation of it should be at least 10 times higher 

Let's just say for argument's sake the probability of Bitcoin reaching 0 or 500k are exactly 50%. (I think the chances it reaches 500k are more like 95%)

Your risk adjusted returns are so heavily skewed on the upside that not participating is a serious gamble. If you treated it like flipping a coin with $1000 and every time you land on tails, you lose $1000, every time you get heads you win $10,000. Your average return per coin toss is $4500. To participate in a small way is also a mistake. You should participate in as big as a way that you are comfortable.

The complete opposite? That every dime you have should be all in on cryptocurrencies? Hope you truly understand the risk involved there  Best of luck, dude. 

Just now, we_gotta_believe said:

The complete opposite? That every dime you have should be all in on cryptocurrencies? Hope you truly understand the risk involved there  Best of luck, dude. 

"You should participate in as big a way as you are comfortable" or said another way "invest what you're okay with losing"

1% is crap for most people

The risks are short term volatility with long term price appreciation. It's been the way since the beginning

I've been in crypto for 8 years. EIGHT. You really think I don't understand the risks?