Source: https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/50006 This week at Bungie, we’re back in action. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Since the last TWAB, you’ve gotten your hands on Hawkmoon. The Dawning has come and gone. Next-generation consoles received some wonderful enhancements. You’ve released a crow from their cage, and Lord Saladin watched as you decimated your foes with Stasis in the Iron Banner. On the Bungie side of things, we took a breather. This last year has been full of challenges that none of us expected. Even through everything 2020 had in store, we were able to get Beyond Light and Season of the Hunt in your hands. This did come at a bit of a cost, though, and we needed some time to recharge our batteries for a new year. We have no doubt that 2021 will have mountains to climb and unexpected surprises, but we’re all excited to get back into the groove for a new year of Destiny development. So, let’s get this party started. We’ve got four TWABs between you and a fresh Season of Destiny 2 content. You’re hungry for what we've got planned, and we’re eager to dish out the goods. First up, we’ll be looking at a few changes to vendors, Dreaming City and Moon rewards, and some sandbox tuning for Hunter Stasis abilities in the Crucible.
Rewards Update: Dreaming City and the Moon
Since the launch of Beyond Light, we’ve been collecting what feels like a metric ton of feedback on various Destiny systems. While we’ve shared some plans related to rewards, DDoS protection on consoles, crossplay and transmog, we have new details on rewards from two of our more recent destinations: The Moon and the Dreaming City. Rewards Area Lead Justin Dazet will be walking us through some changes in response to player feedback.
Justin: Last month, Assistant Game Director Joe Blackburn spoke about some changes we were making to gear in Season 13 in response to some feedback. Today we’re going to briefly chat about what some of these changes are as they relate to our back catalog of expansions, and the reasoning behind them. First let’s review a list of what you’ll see starting in Season 13:
Reissued Dreaming City Reverie Dawn and Moon Dreambane armor.
These will also drop with high stats when earned in Shattered Throne or Pit of Heresy.
The final chest in Pit of Heresy will no longer drop a fully Masterworked Dreambane armor piece.
Instead, the Dreambane armor piece that drops will have 7 armor energy and is guaranteed to drop with at least a +16 in two different stats and higher stats overall.
Dreambane class items will not drop from this chest.
Reissued 4 weapons for Dreaming City with new Perk Pools.
Waking Vigil, Sleepless, Vouchsafe, and Retold Tale.
Dreaming City weapons that drop in the Shattered Throne dungeon can roll with perks that are unavailable from drops from other reward sources.
Reissued 4 weapons for the Moon with new Perk Pools.
Premonition (Pit of Heresy only), Heretic, Blasphemer, and Apostate.
Weapons that drop in the Pit of Heresy dungeon can roll with perks that are unavailable from drops from other reward sources.
Expanding Lost Sector Legend and Master rotation to 4 Moon Sectors.
K1 Logistics, K1 Communication, K1 Crew Quarters, and K1 Revelation.
We are making these changes to help preserve the relevancy of the destinations, specifically some of the pinnacle end-game activities that still exist there. To get more specific around the actual experience, activities where re-issues are acquired will be heavily weighted towards rewarding re-issued gear over capped gear -- though the exact weighting and mechanisms may differ. For example: In the Dreaming City if you have already obtained an infusion capped weapon, it will not drop for you again. Image Link While not every gear source or Legendary reward will be kept up to date for the entire lifetime these destinations are available, we do believe there’s high value in targeting some specific activity drops for continued relevancy to give you more options for where to spend time as you seek to improve your arsenal.
Turn in those Tokens
Since Destiny 2 launched, Guardians have been amassing vendor reputation tokens. These could be turned in for Legendary gear, which would usually be dismantled for Legendary Shards and materials. Looking to the future, the team is excited to update the ways in which you earn reputation with ritual vendors and the rewards that come from them. Dazet, back to you!
Justin: The rewards for continuous ritual playlist completion has been a subject that’s come up several times as we’ve looked over Beyond Light feedback, and we’re happy to announce some changes coming soon to Gambit, Crucible, and strike reward structure. Firstly, we’ll be adding two new unique weapon rewards to each of the three playlist rituals (so six total across all three activities). These weapons are in addition to the ones added in Season of the Hunt, and continue to have a small chance to drop at the end of each activity. Second, starting in Season 13 for Gambit and Crucible (Valor) and in a future Season for strikes, rank rewards will be visible on the ritual vendors. Each Season you’ll be greeted by a row of rewards, progression toward which will be earned automatically as you complete relevant playlist activities. Instead of having rank rewards dropped automatically into your loot stream, they now will be picked up manually from the vendor lists. We feel this gives much better visibility into what you’ll be earning as you progress, and helps you make better choices about where to spend your time. Image Linkimgur Progression is on a per-ritual basis. You can be on Rank 10 for Crucible and Rank 4 for Gambit, for example. You’ll reset your rank right at the vendor by picking up the final reward. Rewards for each individual ritual are as follows:
Rank 4: 3x Upgrade Modules
Rank 7: 3x Enhancement Cores
Rank 10: Seasonal Ritual Shader (changes to 3x Enhancement Cores after resetting your rank)
Rank 13: 2x Enhancement Prisms
Rank 16: Seasonal Ritual Emblem (changes to 2x Enhancement Prisms after resetting your rank)
Reset Reward: Ascendant Shard (changes to Exotic Engram after resetting your rank)
Every rank-up awards a base Ritual Engram just like before. Additionally, each of the above ranks also awards a Prime Ritual Engram. Image Linkimgur Due to this automated progression, Crucible Tokens and Crucible Token Gifts are no longer needed and will be deprecated into junk that will delete as a full stack starting in Season 13. So, cash those tokens in before the end of the Season, and get ready to earn some Masterwork materials!
Taking a pass: Revenant Shatterdive & Fissures
The conversation and feedback on rewards wasn’t the only thing we were tracking over the holiday break. Many of you have been spending time in the Crucible, experimenting with Stasis and all of the ways in which it can change the flow of a PvP match. Prior to the break, we had a round of tuning for Warlocks. Next up, we’re looking at Hunters, but also have some comments on our approach to future Stasis tuning as we head in to the new year. Please welcome Combat Area Lead Tomonori Kinoshita back to the TWAB to talk through our goals for Stasis abilities in PvP.
Tomo: Over the holiday break we saw Trials go live, and with that a wealth of valuable feedback from the community. Along with this feedback, we have been tracking data from Trials and identified some short-term changes, as well as more mid-term goals we are focusing on in the coming weeks and months. Short term goal: Address outlier Stasis abilities to keep subclass decision making interesting.
Reduce the potency of Shatter Dive + Whisper of Fissures against Guardians, going live with Update 3.0.2.
Shatterdive
Now has damage falloff vs. unfrozen targets
Max range damage reduced from 50 to 5
Damage reduction during ability reduced from 50% to 25%
Whisper of Fissures
Reduced max-min damage vs. non-super players from 42-22 to 30-4
Reduced max-min damage vs. super players from 42-22 to 16-2
Reduced detonation radius vs. players from 10m to 9m
Investigate the efficacy of the Stasis Titan Behemoth Super. We want to let the above change settle to see where the Behemoth stands in our PvP hierarchy, but this is next on our radar.
Mid-term goal: Improve PvP subclass usage and win-rate balance.
Addressing Stasis ability outliers will help us lower the ceiling, but we also want to pull up other underperforming Light subclasses.
Mid-term goal: Review our ability-to-gunplay balance in PvP.
Destiny is a game about both explosive space magic moments and intrinsically satisfying gunplay. Especially in our 3v3 playlists, the usage of abilities has climbed as we introduce more and more ways to charge them quickly.
We’re still in very early discussions, but we’re looking into restoring a better balance where proper gunplay is rewarding in these playlists.
A few of you noticed that prior to our holiday break, we were able to get a few sandbox changes delivered faster than expected. Thanks to changes on Destiny 2’s backend and the Destiny Content Vault, our patch pipeline is indeed better than before! That said, some changes won't happen at light speed, as our team wants the appropriate time to collect feedback, check the data, and test proposed changes. Once these changes have been validated, we’ll be eager to get you details via TWABs, blog articles, and more.
Worldwide Community
Sometimes, it can be difficult to think of how large the Destiny community has become since 2014. It seems no matter where you may be in the world, you might bump in to a fellow Hunter, Warlock, or Titan. Last year, we bolstered our efforts with the addition of two international community managers. Join us in welcoming a third to the team! Introducing our new Russian Community Manager, Ivan Yanyushkin.
Ivan: Privet! My name is Ivan and I'm the latest community manager added to the team for Russian speaking Guardians. In Destiny 2 I enjoy making raids more complicated by doing them with fewer than six people and endlessly roaming around Europa on my Warlock, which for me is a meditating experience. Some of you might know me from my past work at Blizzard Entertainment, where I worked as a community manager for different titles. This experience will help me, but I will also be thankful for your guidance. Feel free to reach out to tell me what works, what doesn’t, and how things can be improved for the Destiny community. One day, when real-life gaming events finally become possible again, I will be happy to meet you in person. But for now, let’s stay in touch on Twitter, VKontakte, and on the Russian Bungie Forums. It’s an honor to work with such an amazing community. My job will be to pass the voice of the players to developers, help local content makers grow, manage Russian social media channels, and take care of many other duties. I’ll do my best to be Ivan the Great not the Terrible! P.S. Hopefully one day I’ll even get used to the fact that Hydras explode after death :) Spasibo.
Keeping You Updated
Image Linkimgur Through the holiday break, Destiny Player Support was at the ready, providing vital information to players encountering bugs, seeking workarounds, or just asking for help with their network setup. This week, their eyes turn towards an upcoming Hotfix, preparing you all for the incoming update. This is their report. UPDATE 3.0.2 Today, January 14, background maintenance for Update 3.0.2 will begin. Below is a timeline of events:
January 14, 10 AM PST (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 background maintenance for Update 3.0.2 begins.
January 14, 2 PM PST (2200 UTC): Destiny 2 background maintenance for Update 3.0.2 completes.
January 19, 8 AM PST (1600 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance for Update 3.0.2 begins.
January 19, 8:30 AM PST (1630 UTC): Players are removed from activities and won't be able to log back into Destiny 2 until 9 AM PST when Update 3.0.2 is available.
January 19, 9 AM PST (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 Update 3.0.2 is rolled out across all platforms and regions. Players can log back into Destiny 2 at this time. Ongoing maintenance is expected to conclude at 10 AM PST.
January 19, 10 AM PST (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance is expected to conclude.
UPCOMING RESOLVED ISSUES Below is a list of some issues expected to be resolved with Update 3.0.2:
Hive bosses, In Ananh, Brood Queen and Xillox, were not counting as Hive boss kills in bounties.
Some players couldn't respawn if they died during the boss fight of the Inverted Spire strike.
Players could get out of environment in several Crucible maps.
Some quest items were not dropping in the Moon Freeroam activity. This prevented completion of several "Essence" quests, such as Essence of Rage, Essence of Insanity, and Essence of Servitude.
The Unrelenting perk was not triggering health regeneration.
MIDA Multi-Tool's catalyst wasn't dropping from Competitive Crucible wins.
Taken Psions were replicating too rapidly in some Prophecy dungeon encounters.
Garden of Salvation flawless completions were not awarding the “Inherent Perfection” Triumph.
The High Celebrant sometimes wouldn’t take damage nor go to the Ascendant Plane.
Fixed an exploit where players could have "Shelter From the Storm" permanently applied in the Deep Stone Crypt raid.
Fixed an issue where Cloudstrike hits on the Divinity cage counted as two precision hits.
Fixed an issue where the Grandmaster Nightfall timer was set to 30 minutes.
Fixed an issue on PlayStation 5 preventing clan rosters from loading.
DUST AND ECHOES Almost nine years ago, stats and files from our previous franchise, Halo, stopped getting updated on Bungie.net. Since then, all stats, files, and other data from Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach have lived on in remembrance at halo.bungie.net. On February 9, the halo.bungie.net website will be taken offline permanently. Everyone is welcome to save their stats and files, however they can, if they'd like to save anything. Please keep in mind that our News articles, Forums, and Groups were imported into the current version of Bungie.net back in 2013. KNOWN ISSUES While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:
The Exotic Ship Reward from the High Celebrant mission is not properly showing that it is a “Rare” chance reward in the activity description. Chances for this reward increase with each activity completion.
Portals aren't opening when the High Celebrant leaves because the black orbs take no damage. Players can mitigate this issue by not using Sidearms and not shooting the orb as it immediately spawns.
Enemies in Crucible and PvE aren't colorblind-friendly when highlighted.
The Special Finisher mod no longer unlocks for new players.
Bomber mods don't work when Hunters have the Dragon's Shadow Exotic equipped.
The Overload Shot on Auto Rifles doesn’t proc if you hold down the trigger right after reloading, even though it does the Overload animation.
Some players receive the BIRD error code trying to get to the Wall of Wishes in the Last Wish raid.
Sometimes the Vault encounter in the Last Wish raid won't let you read icons nor spawn enemies after slamming on a plate or finishing a phase.
Sometimes Riven doesn't get stunned on the second level in the final encounter of the Last Wish raid.
The Forfeit Shrine Ascendant Challenge completion doesn't count towards the Ascendant Champion or Honed for Speed Triumphs, blocking the Cursebreaker Seal.
The Run the Gauntlet Triumph doesn't unlock when completing the time trial in the Cimmerian Garrison Ascendant Challenge.
Ahamkara Bones are missing in the Shattered Throne dungeon and multiple Ascendant Challenges.
Players will sometimes go into a Nightfall with 16 people when they try loading into the Tower.
Sometimes dialogue gets cut off at the end of a Wrathborn Hunt.
For Hunters using the Way of the Warrior subclass, Combination Blow sometimes stops working and doesn't give Gambler's Dodge back.
Non-Exo characters are receiving Exo specific dialogue on Europa.
The Light of the Dawning emblem cannot equip stat trackers.
The Coaxial Bonds ornaments for Ophidian Aspect causing the bottom-left of the screen to glitch/flicker.
For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.
Home Streaming Device
Image Linkimgur It’s been a little over nine months since I’ve been to a theater. While I definitely miss the smell of fresh(ish) popcorn and mind-blowing visuals on a massive screen, I’ve been keeping myself busy with Destiny clips, montages, and videos from our amazing community. Let’s see what we’ve got this week: Movie of the Week: Confectionary Ghost Video Link Movie of the Week: Deep Stone Lullaby Cover Video Link Movie of the Week: Goodbye 2020 – A year of Crucible Video Link Movie of the Week: Cloudstruck
Make sure to put a link to your Bungie.net profile in the description of your video. Why? We have a sweet emblem to grant you for your troubles. As always, upload your finished product to the Creations page.
Doodling
Image Linkimgur Since we’ve kicked off the weekly artist features, I’ve found myself doodling more often. Thinking of what my Guardian would look like in the heat of battle, or just chilling on a couch after getting some sweet loot. Thank you to all who continue to inspire members of the community to embrace art! Let’s kick off the year with some fun pieces. Art of the Week: Rogue Hunter
If you’d like to be featured, make sure to tag your art with #Destiny2Art on Twitter, Instagram, or wherever you happen to post it! While we may not be in the office, it feels great to be back in the saddle. Always enjoy diving through feedback, discussing the future of Destiny with the team, and figuring out how to tackle the challenges of a new year. Cheers to all who’ve walked this path with us since 2014. It’s always crazy to think how far we’ve come, and we still have so far yet to go. See you in the wild. Cheers, dmg04
A break down of the bull case for Ethereum and how it relates to Bitcoin
There is a general understanding among ETH investors that the enhancements from ETH 2.0, EIP-1559 and L2 solutions will result in a sustainable monetary policy with near 0% issuance and the potential for Ether to become a deflationary asset. What is even more interesting is that the net return of ETH as a SoV becomes superior to BTC the moment that issuance is lower than the staking yield. In other words, even if BTC had already ceased issuance, it offers no mechanism to provide yield to long term holders with a negligible risk exposure as ETH does. There is an execution risk that Ethereum will not deliver on what is currently planned, but if it does then what I have explained will become a reality. You cannot separate BTC/ETH's payment rails from their respective monetary policies. As you are probably aware, issuance is just a subsidy, and without it the network will need to operate as a profitable business with a cash-flow that is entirely dependent on network fees. We are observing a situation that is causing a degradation of the utility of the Bitcoin network. What I mean by that is that the incentive for users to transact directly on the network is being diminished because of the tokenization into ETH and by the introduction of custodians (like Paypal) and traditional banking services who will soon be entering this space. If these trends continue, I suspect that the only activity that will end-up happening on-chain will be done by whales sporadically transacting to hodle and the occasional settlement from institutions. Bitcoin seems fast and frictionless, but that is because you are comparing it to something in the physical world. In digital terms Bitcoin emulates the friction of operation that is found with gold: it is difficult and expensive to move it, securing it yourself is not trivial, and it does not make for a great medium of exchange. I don't think this will be a good dynamic to generate enough transaction fees. That is of course my subjective interpretation of it, but regarding this particular situation it is nearly impossible to make objective assertions at this point. It is possible to assert that, in the digital world, the expectation of frictionless money would entail near instant transactions with negligible cost and without the relative risk/paranoia of dealing with nuclear waste and having a hacker watching your every move waiting for you to make a mistake to snatch it away. Digital money would also need to interact with other digital assets, preferably defined and operated within the same ecosystem. Ethereum is steaming ahead on all ends. Ethereum is fostering a digital economy (this is a very important part of understanding the value of Ethereum, but I will not be exploring it in this post) with DeFi at its center. It is currently generating about three times as much trx fee revenue as Bitcoin. L2 solutions are going live as we speak, and it appears that they will be much more practical and provide better UX when compared to the Lightning Network. This will help to amplify L1 block space value and push revenue even higher. That will be followed by EIP-1559, which will burn transaction fees. Mining is currently excessively profitable and the hash rate cannot keep up. This means the financial incentive can be reduced and by burning trx fees we achieve the equivalent of an issuance reduction, while stabilizing mining revenue. Eventually the transition to PoS will dramatically cut the operational cost of the network. That means that Ethereum as a business will become more profitable and less reliant on the issuance subsidy. Finally, we will see the introduction of sharding which will scale L1 by up to 1,000 times, compounding the effect of L2 solutions and making it feasible for the network to operate as a platform for new use cases. A solution to the hackenuclear waste security situation is being explored via social recovery wallets. It is still in the early stages of research and design, but it is important to realize that the Ethereum community recognizes it as a problem and is working on a solution. There is a lot more that can be said about the BTC vs ETH debate and I am working on a full write up that explores each individual element in more detail. Regardless, it is important to pay attention to this trend: the smartest people in this space are shifting their point of view and realizing Ethereum's potential. Raoul Pal is a seasoned investor, extremely bright and open minded. He started with Bitcoin, but it did not take him long to understand the value proposition of Ethereum. Lyn Alden is a brilliant investor and mental powerhouse who initially did not think investing in Ethereum could be justified, but she is also starting to shift her view and now understands that it has a justifiable risk/reward ratio to be included in a portfolio (although she is not personally invested in Ethereum). She has plenty of negative things to say about it, however it appears that she recognizes this is not a black and white situation. I have a feeling she will be revising her analysis on Ethereum again in the future with a more optimist view, but maybe that is just wishful thinking. The crypto space has a few analogies that have been used to describe technical/economic mechanisms that are somewhat tricky to understand: mining, Ethereum's gas, and the analogy between ether and oil. Crypto "mining" is not like real world mining. It's purpose is not to extract resources, but it is rather a decentralized mechanism to process transactions. Newly minted BTC tokens are not "mined", they are minted by the protocol and awarded to operators. Furthermore, it is impossible to change the total mining output of the network... adding/removing miners does not affect the mining output. If you are new to crypto, you can read a more detailed explanation of mining here. ETH's "gas" is not like fuel (it cannot even be stored). It is just a computational metric that is more akin to the distance a car must travel, but not what actually makes it move. The fuel is electricity and it must be paid for with ether. When you transact you are also paying for the "car" which is the use of all active mining hardware/validators for a fraction of a second. And ether is just money. If you put too much weight on these simplified analogies, you will not understand the economic actuality behind them. This is a source confusion in the crypto space, and it is used to support false narratives. From an economic perspective, ether is money. Once you understand this, you will know that the narrative that BTC and ETH are not competing because they are different things is analogous to saying fax machines do not compete with the internet. The beautiful thing about ether is that it is actually not "just money". It is a mixture of a scarce monetized commodity, money, bond and tech stock.
Monetized Commodity: Ether is becoming more scarce and will continue to do so with the transition to proof-of-stake and EIP-1559. Ethereum does not have a supply cap, but it does have a roadmap for a sustainable security model and if it achieves a positive cashflow then it will not only eliminate issuance, it can become deflationary. An argument can be made about potential issues with Bitcoin's sustainability in the long run.
Currency: Ether is used as a unit of account and medium of exchange to pay for every activity in Ethereum. It is also used in the same way for venture capital related to ICOs, and Ether is also used as collateral in the DEFI space and new monetary uses will continue to emerge. It is an immature form of money, just like Bitcoin is an immature form of gold. Some people prefer to say that Ether is just a utility token. However, a utility token is just a narrowly scoped form of money. Not only is Ether's scope within its digital economy growing, by next year users will be able to pay millions of merchants with Ether through Paypal. We have never seen the adoption of a new form of money grow organically. New forms of money have always been imposed by authorities. What would the organic growth of money look like? It would look like Ether.
Ethereum's digital economy: Ethereum has limitless use cases and it is already generating economic activity with real world usefulness. Ether's value will benefit from acting as the native monetary asset for Ethereum. As Ethereum's economic activity grows, the velocity and/or value of ether must also increase.
Bond: With proof-of-stake you need to lock up Ether to receive a yield in return. It is similar to how bonds work.
Tech Stock: Ethereum provides a service. That service is paid with ether. The network is controlled by holding ether that is staked. The more valuable the service provided by Ethereum becomes, the more users will be willing to pay for transactions and the more valuable the protocol and the Ether token become. Cloud based services is the entire business model of many companies. The network will be entirely operated by stakers who happen to be the recipients of transaction fees. It is not exactly the same as holding a stock, but there are a lot of parallels.
Full reserve banking model: This is a bit of a stretch, but it is a potential end-game for Ethereum. It can serve as the base infrastructure and reserve asset for a full reserve banking system. In a nutshell: a consortium of banking companies can be formed to standardize a framework to hold and stake Ether under custody in exchange for wrapped Ether. Customers deposit Ether, banks exchange it for wETH and stake the original ETH. Resting balances of wEther on customer accounts can receive a cut of the staking rewards. Banks get their profit model, customers get to spend wrapped Ether with traditional banking services and potentially receive a share of the staking yield. Customers could also have access to a yield curve based on variable reserve requirements. This would allow banks to create money (which is actually good for the economy when it is done with moderation), but for the first time ever customers would have the choice of how much risk exposure they are comfortable with. This dynamic could help to establish a form of democratic check and balances system that discourages moral hazard. Ether could become a godsend to banks in the land of negative yields. It's a pipe dream, but not entirely impossible. Don't forget that the US OCC has essentially given banks the green light to take the first steps in this direction (US banks have been approved to use the Ethereum blockchain for their operations AND they can become validators... yup this happened).
EDIT 1: Adding an analogy to explain why ether is money: Let’s say I have a car with a 14-gallon fuel tank and I want to take it on a road trip. The car is not aware of the price of gasoline, and it would not travel any farther if the price of gas would double the next day. That’s because the intrinsic utility of oil has nothing to do with its monetary value. The car needs gas because of its particular physical properties and how the ICE is designed to utilize it. If I want to drive from point A to point B and it takes a full tank to get there, it will take that full tank no matter what happens to the monetary properties of gas/oil. This is fundamentally different from how Ethereum uses ether. Ethereum (the network) is not trying to be money, but it utilizes ether exclusively for its monetary properties and not because it can be magically burned by an imaginary engine of sorts. It costs money to participate in the network as a miner, and their engagement is financially incentivized with ether. Block space is a scarce resource, therefore participants who wish to transact use ether to bid for it. These interactions are utilizing ether as a monetary medium of exchange. In the long run, as the price of ether goes up, the ether denomination of gas prices goes down. That happens because no one is using ether as gas/oil, and it is actually being used as money. In the short run you may see the opposite occurring because of the dynamic between the portion of block space demand that is inelastic and the demand for ether. EDIT 2: Revisiting key concepts to explain how they will become price catalysts.
Wide adoption of L2 solutions: these will amplify the base layer block space value while encouraging further network adoption by a significant reduction of fees. A successful integration with DeFi protocols will dismiss the "Ethereum killers" theory and consolidate market confidence.
EIP-1559: reduce excessive financial incentives to miners by burning transaction fees. This will also discourage miners from attempting to artificially raise fees via spam.
Sharding: scale L1 bandwidth, compounding the effect of L2 solutions, further consolidating Ethereum's dominance in the DeFi space, making it feasible to introduce new use cases and eventually increase trx fee revenue.
The switch from PoW to PoS: discontinuing PoW will eliminate the operating costs related to mining and will allow for a reduction of issuance. Money that was previously allocated to buying mining equipment will be redirected to the acquisition of Ether. Staking Ether will remove it from circulation for extended periods of time. Operating cost will be negligible, allowing validators to withhold most of the Ether revenue. This will be the greatest bull market catalyst in the history of cryptocurrencies and it will eclipse the effect ofBTC halvenings.
Bitcoin maximalists will be nay-saying all the way through and past a market cap flip. Do not get caught up in their narrative. If you are not sure, then it is better to rebalance your portfolio proportionally to market caps. If none of these things happen and Ethereum turns out to be a failure, then you would only have reduced your gains by 20%. Otherwise, ETH will be making you mountains of money. EDIT 3:Ethereum killers Ethereum killers remind me a lot of Tesla killers, but a lot worse. People need to understand that cryptocurrency platforms targeting financial Dapps are fighting the equivalent force of a black-hole when it comes to Ethereum’s network effect and user retention in this space. Bigger players, with bigger money, are entering this market and they will not settle for anything other than the top dog. This pattern reinforces Ethereum's position as the premium financial system, which ends up attracting even bigger players and resulting in the black-hole effect. To make matters even more complicated, financial apps are more valuable when they are surrounded by a rich and diverse variety of digital assets and other natively defined Dapps. There is not much you can do with your money in a ghost town. It is VERY difficult to build this type of environment up because the platform and dapps must also have established full trust from their user base. This is not to say there is no space for other networks to grow, but just don’t get your hopes high that they will be taking Ethereum’s stronghold as a financial system. There are other use cases that do not require the amount of decentralization and security offered by Ethereum, and the networks that can focus on these are the ones who will be able to coexist with in the long-run. Gaming, ERP interoperability and supply chain are good examples of such use cases. Remember that alternatives with cheap transactions have existed for a while and they have barely touched ETH's dominance (EOS, NEO, VET, QTUM, IOTA, LSK, STRAT, ARK and dare I say... TRON). EDIT 4: Refuting critiques about dynamic monetary policy If an argument can be made that the financial incentives to operators (miners/stakers) are excessive or insufficient then an argument can be for the implementation and execution of a dynamic monetary policy. I don't think an arbitrarily picked issuance schedule determined during the genesis of a new highly complex system is likely to be efficient through its lifecycle. Bitcoin's monetary policy provides the certainty of stability and protection from abuse, but it sacrifices the possibility of efficiency and jeopardizes longevity. It would be like if a captain of a ship would point it in the direction of its final destination, set the throttle, then fall back to his cabin for a nice bottle of chianti and hope that the ship would arrive safely. There would be no one at the helm to navigate the seas, no one to make sure it stayed on route, no one to avoid the storms or to take advantage of currents. In my opinion it is a pretty bad approach to something as critical as monetary policy. With respect to Ethereum's dynamic monetary policy: I don't see any evidence to suggest developers have been enriching their pockets by keeping issuance at the levels they are. Developers are stakeholders and the Ethereum fund holds a lot of ether - debasing ether is against their self interest. There is a great misunderstanding that the one's who are adjusting issuance are the recipients of the new tokens. Is there any documented case of this happening? EDIT 5: Addressing Bitcoin's immutable monetary policy The idea that Bitcoin's monetary policy cannot be changed is a myth. It is a false narrative that takes for granted that the issuance subsidy will no longer be necessary at some point, but there is no way to objectively assert this. There is no divine power preventing the monetary policy from being changed. If the security model for Bitcoin was jeopardized because of insufficient cash flow to miners, then Bitcoin's monetary policy would be the first thing on the chop board to go in order to remedy the situation. EDIT 6: Five years ago naysayers were screaming about how everything that is being done TODAY in the Ethereum network would never work. Now they are calling Ethereum a scam, or that is is a platform for degenerate gamblers, or that the fees are too high and therefore it is useless, or that it can't scale, or that something else better is just around the corner to take its place.... you know... basically all the things that traditional bankers have to say about Bitcoin, maxis are saying about Ethereum. EDIT 7: The greater the impact a new technology can have on society, the more difficult it is to comprehend its potential. Ethereum has the potential to have a dramatic impact on human civilization. It could take decades for it to be fully realized, but it would change the world in ways that we cannot possibly imagine today. If it happens, the moon will be just a pit-stop. EDIT 8: Thank you so much for all the awards! Ethereans understand this stuff, and I could feel the frustration in the air every time someone said that Ethereum is not money, or that ETH and BTC are completely different things, or all the other bs attacks that are in great part founded on a lack of understanding of how BTC and ETH actually work. I would love to hear what guys like Raoul Pal, Pomp, Michael Saylor and Fernando Ulrich (for my Brazilian friends) would have to say about some of the things that have been written here. If you know a way to get their attention, then please do it. EDIT 9: Clarification about Lyn Alden's opinion of Ethereum EDIT 10: I am still working on a much more ambitious write up. It is focused on economic aspects of money, monetary systems and global asset markets. I still have not incorporated any of the information written here, but I eventually will merge it together. One of the main new ideas that I am exploring is challenging the notion that money has no intrinsic value and that scarcity is the most important attribute of money. I think I make a compelling argument to demonstrate that facilitating economic activity is more important, and how Ethereum has a big edge over Bitcoin in this regard. Here is the link to the WIP doc. TLDR: Ethereum is not stopping at the moon... it is not stopping on Mars... it is going straight out of the Milky Way galaxy in search for alien life... but you should own some BTC just in case the spaceship malfunctions during launch.
My thoughts on the current gme situation. I invite all to discuss.
Sharing my humble opinion on the current gme situation. I invite you all to discuss
Stay Fucking Strong
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀💎🙌🦍💪🦍💪🦍💪 If you were faced 70 BILLION in the hole, losing to self proclaimed retards, autists, and degenerate gamblers you’d be doing EVERYTHING in your power to not lose. I read a post that said this is financial warfare, we’re in WWIII right fucking now. It’s the 99% vs the 1%. It wasn’t a joke. We broke the market last Thursday and they want to keep us down. It will not be a big swoop, currently it’s psychological warfare - want confirmation look at any social media or main stream media. They’re either silent or telling you you’re an idiot. The hedge funds want you to sell, they want you to feel like an actual retard. Look at the Melvin citadel tropic thunder meme, look at the “ladder attack” meme. Fuck look at all the shit head memes that are not making any of us feel good.
hold the fucking line because this IS bigger than all of us. Realise your place in history and take part in showing Wall Street that retail investors can say what the price is at.
These fucks are mad that you are not doing what they say and what they want to you to do. The free market was established to let the people (common people) invest in what they want & make bank collectively. With every decision you make comes a form of belief, which is a truth in this world. You believe in love, laughter, family yet it can’t defined by any one word sentence or photograph. The shorts -are- still higher than the float, and what the fuck are people missing here?? WE LIKE THE STOCK BUY THE STOCK STOCK GOES UP HOLD THE STOCK UNTIL WE FUCKING WIN. You’ll know when we’ve won. I’m fucking disgusted by what this sub has become. Infiltrated by bots, shills, provocateurs. The old crowd might never come back unless we grow a pair of balls stop wallowing in self pity and fight together like the wallstreetbets we are. Please think for yourself. Do not yolo your life savings in hopes it will rocket to the moon, do not put yourself at risk of losing the little stability you’re holding onto right now in hopes this will be your light in the glory hole tunnel. But if you can... Do you want to stick it to the people who said “hell is coming” and then made BILLIONS of dollars off the little people??? Do you want to fight for the people who worked 20 years day and night to grow their restaurant, ma and pa retail stores who are locally owned??? Fucking fight for all of those people. The situation seems absolutely ludicrous and ridiculous that THIS RIGHT HERE is our fight, but do not get confused or allow the media to gaslight you. We DID break the market, we did make every single hedge fund shit their pants but this fight isn’t fucking over. You need to dig deep as this is emotional, hope is emotional, making a change and defeating a bully is hard as fuck. LOOK AT EPSTEIN. Guilty as mother fucking sin. We don’t even have a mother fucking answer about that one. You think the people in charge are just going to give up? That they won’t pull every single dirty, manipulative, callous, petty, illegal trick in the book to make sure a bunch of autists and retards lose it all??? Fucking wake up and ask yourself where you want to be next week, a year from now. Do you want to look back 20 years and feel like you got fucked in the ass?? Fuck no. It’s that simple. Hold the fucking line and make sure everyone else does the same (within reason!!) or we deserve the royal ass fucking these elites give you every single day, stroking it to the loses you took in 08. This is not financial advise. I’m not a financial advisor and fuck you to everyone trying to destroy mother fucking retail AGAIN. Seriously when the fuck is it going to be enough for you greedy ass fucks?
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” - Sun Tzu We're in a war with the hedge funds and with wallstreet and basically the root of corruption in America with our GME short squeeze proxy war, and if you autists want to win this war, you need to know the enemy, and know yourself.Firstly, education is KEY, so if you're new, you DEFINITELY need to go learn at least what a short squeeze is and a short ladder attack is. What the enemy is doing:
Make it cheaper for them to cover their more costly short positions.
Price manipulation will fail ultimately because while they are able to drive prices lower with their short attacks, when they eventually have to cover their short positions and buy, they will again drive prices up due to purchases of almost none existing stock (cuz we be holding), sending prices up as high as before they shorted or even higher. All the while hedge funds will continue to eat fees and interest on their short positions, making this cycle not doable indefinitely.https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/la7bhj/gme_mms_have_until_tomorrow_22_to_buy_shares_it/
Media manipulation
Most if not all American main stream media is clearly serving corporate and wallstreet interests, simply by the false narratives they are reporting.https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/la1022/hmmm/They are not to be trusted and if seen, can dishearten and shake the will of those who don't have diamond hands. Best to avoid if you are a paper handed bitch. Some examples of false narratives are:
Reddit is made up of alt-rights, or idiots, or gamblers, etc. -> We're not idiots, because we're the ones who were able to grab wallstreet by the nutsack. We're retards and autists who love the stock and the company. That is all.
Reddit is moving on to silver. -> SILVER CANNOT BE SQUEEZED!!!!! With a market cap of more than $1.5 Trillion, there is NO WAY for retail investors to be able to make a dent in that. The only possible short squeeze play is GME because it's a small cap company with a market cap of only $250 million as of July 2020, so it is definitely doable for a bunch of retards on WSB to affect the price of a small cap company stock. Literally all the posts on reddit promoting SLVR are from bot accounts that have sus creation dates and karma and post counts. Plus, Citadel owns a giant amount of silver so silver prices going up higher is gonna benefit them and give them more fuel to fight this GME war. You're shooting yourself int eh foot if you buy SLVR. https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/la1xhf/guess_who_owns_tonnes_of_slv_options_fuck_citadel/
"XXX IS THE NEXT GME" -> This is also a false narrative. NOTHING can be the next GME, because NOTHING is shorted as much as GME, which is STILL over 100% shorted. GME IS A ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY GAIN FOR US, AND LOSS FOR THEM!
Breaking the law: Some if not all of the things posted above are pretty much border line illegal, but there has been clear signs of breaking the law and market manipulation, IE: freeze buying of select stocks and only allow for selling. They can spin it however they want, but as far as I know, it has been unprecedented for a majority of brokerages to simultaneously alter the way a stock can be traded with cash. And if the situation is desparate enough, they'll break the law again and again if it ends up costing them less than to just let the price get to $69.420. Expect them to fight dirty until the bitter end.
Social Media Manipulation: Hedge Funds now employ bots to spread doubt and misinformation in order to weaken your hands. Some places they target is WSB itself, other stock trading subreddits, facebook, and on sites / apps like Webull and Yahoo Finance. Don't believe in random comments. Always believe in WSB posts with huge amounts of likes (top posts are vetted by the 8 mil users here / by mods too to make sure they're factual)https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/lafh4d/in_case_you_needed_proof_that_there_are_imposters/
Their Current Strategy: Wallstreet calls us "dumb money", because they think we are unsophisticated and just chase after a quick buck, and we have short attention spans. They'll try and continue to manipulate the price so that the stock will trade sideways, or continuous short ladder attacks, trying to scare paper hands into selling, and bore diamond hands into selling as well. They will also try to tempt us with other "NEXT GME" type plays and may even artificially raise prices of a stock or two (IE: SILVER) to try and get people to hop off the GME rocket. They'll use media to continue to push narratives that the GME short squeeze is over, short positions are covered, and redditors have moved onto something else. If this fails, then they may simulate a "SQUEEZE" by suddenly letting the price go up to $700 or $800, then unleash a short ladder attack unlike which we have ever seen, to simulate the sell off, so idiot retards will be scared into thinking they missed the top, so they will all sell. But if people just look at the volume, they'll know it's all a ruse.
What we're doing, our advantage, and why the enemy can't win.
Enemy loses money everyday, we don't: It costs the hedge funds billions to continue to fight this war of attrition becauase they continue to eat insanely high fees and interest on their short positions because the cost of borrowing remains high because the short interest are remaining high. Melvin down over 50% just this month alone. You think they can hold on much longer and keep eating fees?https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/labq1a/this_is_so_satisfying_to_look_at/Meanwhile we don't have to pay anything for holding our stocks. We can literally just hold and not have a short squeeze and just from the cost of borrowing alone the hedge funds will run out of money, so that's why there will come a time where it's cheaper for them to cover their positions rather than just keep on bleeding until they die out. I don't think they can hold out for another month of trading sideways with no progress. I believe in Feb we will see some major action. It could even start as early as tomorrow, because that's the last day shorts have to cover their 1/29 puts that expired.
We're getting smarter: Everyday we get new DD on WSB and more and more people are reading these DD's and understand how to diamond hands, and can now filter out fake news from mainstream media. We've just hit 8 mil subs; our subs are going exponential. We've recovered from the RH fiasco and we're primed and loaded on other brokerages like Fidelity. We are more ready than EVER to continue this war and this fight.
An Ape's Move this week: Again, not financial advice, but hypothetically if there was an autistic ape, the autistic ape would buy the dips, ESPECIALLY at this insane discount price of around $100. The autistic ape knows that basically it is paying $100 for a ticket to ride the GME train past $1k, easily 10x their bananas. Those apes who bought in at $300 will only get to 3x their bananas at the end of the month. The autistic apes will also understand that this is not a 1 day thing, but the events leading up to the squeeze can take weeks. But the autistic ape will ask itself, is it willing to wait a few weeks to at least 3x their bananas? Most apes will answer yes. But the ape knows if they buy it, they should be prepared to see red in their banana tracker for a month. But those red number are just fake numbers generated by HFT short ladder attacks, and not due to other apes actually selling their bananas, because apes together STRONK.
TL;DR = 💎🙌 🐵 = 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🌙PS: You only lose if you sell. Stock stays down for a month, then rockets up in March = no loss, only historical profits for retail investors.
This is going to be a lengthy one, so if you fancy reading, grab a cuppa...or a vodka This passage is partly for myself, hoping that writing it out will work as a form of therapy, God knows I've tried every other form, and partly to help those in a similar circumstance. Background My dad (a very smart gent, who had a real education and sense of life) became a JW in his mid-twenties (after his mother started studying) and went to MTS. During this time, he met my mother, a lady who was home-schooled and followed the traditional route for a JW woman- pioneer and work at either a care home, as a cleaner or in a little shop. They moved to where my dad was posted- a little town that needed a new hall- so my dad set it up, and so began him being super duper famous in the eyes of all the congregation members. They got married and had me- 'the baby of the hall' (given everyone else was like 108) and then a few years later, my brother. For a long time, it was just us 4. Dad was a 'great elder' so we spent most of our time travelling to different halls for him to give talks... a few people referred to him as 'modern day Jesus'. We very quickly became 'that family'. You know, the ones who do *every* demonstration at assemblies and constantly seem perfect. As you can imagine, it was all pretty tiring to keep up when you are being asked, "What would you like to be when you're older?" and you know fine well you cant give an honest answer such as teacher or midwife, you *have* to say pioneer or bethel member. Fast forward 7 years or so and my mum decides she wants more children and needs my dad to help out more. They had my second brother and dad stepped down as an elder to be more on hand. Mum then decided that, given the age gap, my second brother would be really lonely growing up and convinced my dad to have a fourth child- my third brother. A year went by and much to everyone's dismay- she was pregnant again! This would be with my little sister, who thankfully, really was the last child. Now, my mum ( like a lot of Jws) comes from a family who all suffer from mental health problems. This unexpected child made her go bat shit crazy and seriously depressed and she basically lived in her bedroom whilst I (age 14) dropped out of school and raised my 3 youngest siblings. This made me grow up *super* fast and ashamedly, resent my mother for taking away my childhood. My dad turned to drinking to cope and he was removed as a servant. In a matter of years we had gone from 'the perfect family' to one that was barely keeping our heads above water. Skip ahead a few years and I had gotten baptised (after being pressured for years to do so), gone to night school to do my GCSE's and I myself was on anti depressants. I had started working 55 hours a week in a nursery for £2.50 an hour and my siblings went there with me for childcare. Of course, the wage I earnt went to my family as 'money is greed'. I barely had a social life and was desperate to find someone, get married and leave. I should add though, that regardless of all of that, we were a very close family, especially me and the three little ones, and my dad was like my best friend. Where it started to get really shit On one of the rare occasions I could go out, I met who would later be, the biggest mistake of my life. Someone who at the time, made me feel like the most special person in the world... someone who liked me, for me. To cut an incredibly long story short, he was the biggest manipulator I have ever met. He told me that in order for me to be free from my current situation, I needed to marry him, and before he would consider doing that, he needed to sleep with me first to see if I was good enough for commitment. I thought this was normal. I had never been taught about boys, my parents never let me text or really communicate with any, so here started my long line of getting abused by various men. After him sleeping with me whenever he demanded it, (I was too dumb to see that I was actually just being raped) he told me I should go part-time and pioneer so that no one caught on to what we were doing. My congregation absolutely adored him, as did my family, so again, I thought that I had found someone great and this was it. One night I had a call from him saying he had gone on holiday with my best friend and had accidentally kissed her. I was so head over heals for this fucker that I said it was ok, and we could stay together. This completely messed up my head though and I turned to anything that I thought would take away my problems... mainly all the things I had seen my mum doing- popping any kind of pill to sleep, self harm and drinking. I really didn't care about what was happening to me, and it seemed as if no one else did either. Going forward a year (one that consisted of more lows than highs) and we had planned a wedding. Blah blah blah, I got a phone-call from him one day telling me that my best friend had decided she was 'ready to date him now' so things between us were over. I was beyond crushed. What now? He was my scape goat... he was what everyone wanted for me. I knew he was a piece of shit, and yet even he didn't want me. Yay, judicial and disfellowshipping To top all of that that off, 3 weeks later he calls me again to tell me that he drunkenly told his new girlfriend that we had been sleeping together and she had now told his elders. They in turn had then told mine and a judicial was about to be held, so I 'should probably tell my parents before someone else did'...then asked if I wanted to pray with him for everything to be ok. LOL, you read correctly. What a twat. I went downstairs and told my parents. My mum turned it into a Spanish inquisition and my dad didn't say a word, just placed his head in his hands. I couldn't work out which was worse. A few days rolled by and it was my judicial. There sat 6 elders and my ex, in a circle, with a space for me. They asked for every position, for the exact number of sexual encounters, if he had ejaculated in me and even asked if I had been on my period for any of it. FUCKING CREEPS is all I can say about that. I'm pretty sure they were just doing it for their wankbanks. They listened to both of our versions, his worlds apart from mine, and then took us into separate rooms to see if we had anything else to add and then deliver us the end result. My elders immediately decided for me to be disfellowshipped (which, fair one, I had broken the rules) but his elders took 3 hours to decide, and 2 of them believed what he had done didn't warrant a disfellowshipping. *rolls eyes*. Eventually though, we were both disfellowshipped. Life after being disfellowshipped (For some background information, I had just started a teaching course and was being diagnosed with what wold later be discovered as endometriosis stage 4 and a load of other illnesses that basically meant I was in pain 24/7) If I wasn't at work I had to stay in my bedroom...which had a lock on it for when the Saturday ministry group or family members came round, just to reassure everyone that I wasn't going to run out of my room and try and fuck people, as clearly, that's what you do when you've been disfellowshipped for sexual immorality. It had now been 6 months of sitting in the back of a kingdom hall, people shaking their heads at me when they walked by and I was getting pretty done with it. I had told my parents that Wednesdays were staff meeting night- but they were actually pub quiz night at the local Weatherspoons. I would go there every week, neck as many drinks as I could, then go home. I had started to realise that there is actually a really nice world outside of being a JW, not a terrifying one like its made out to be. One Saturday I told my mum I was going for an ice-cream with my friend. She told me that if I do, i would return to packed bags and that would no longer be my home. I went anyway, and upon my arrival, she really had stuck to her word, and i was being kicked out. I cant talk much about the events of that day, and i don't really think i'll ever be strong enough to talk about them to be honest. But just know, it was really, really hard and has truly fucked me up for the rest of my life. *cue emotional breakdown and panic attack having just thought about it* Life in 'The Big Bad World' So I was now officially in the world, all alone, living with a colleague. I made some amazing friends, all of whom have stuck by me ever since, but also got myself into another atrocious relationship. Blah blah blah again, he was a gambler and also someone who again, just had sex with me whenever they wanted to... on one occasion i was screaming and crying so loudly that his own mother came in and pushed him off me. Great times. I got a flat with my best friend, broke up with that utter piece of shit (which took forever as he fully played the suicide card etc) and made him set up a standing order to pay back the £13,000 he had stolen off me. It had been about 2/3 years now since I was kicked out. I had no contact with anyone in my family, other than my Dad messaging me to see if I had been at the Ariana Grande gig when it was blown up. (No, im not a fan of hers, i think he just momentarily cared and wondered if i was dead or alive). After he was reassured that i was very much alive, they went back to crossing the street if they saw me etc. Reinstatement One day I got a call from my dad, my grandma was dying and they would 'allow me' to go and say my goodbyes. So i did, and i took my brother with me. They gave me a set time so that i wasn't around when they were. The car journey was about 2 hours long and my brother spent literally the entire time emotionally blackmailing me to come back. It worked. I called my dad and told him I was going to start coming back to meetings, and ta-da, everyone started talking to me again. Only occasionally mind, i was still a bad influence. He came to pick me up and sat in the second school with me. My little sister ran straight out and turned to my dad to ask if she could hug me. He said yes, and for the first time in 3 years, i held my little girl again. I felt so disgustingly selfish, like how could i have ever left and why on earth did i do this to her. That was my new focus, i was going to come back and then fade away, anything that meant having those kids back in my life. My saving grace however being that i still lived in my flat, so other than a Thursday and Sunday, i lived quite a normal life, and no one speaking to me at meetings meant i could rock up and sit silently, nursing my hangover. I was attending meetings routinely when i got a call from the hospital, saying that i needed an emergency operation and it would be one that would put me out of working, driving and even walking for the best part of 6 weeks. I told the elders and they said they could understand me not attending on the week of my operation, but anything longer than that would hinder my reinstatement. How nice and understanding. Cutting my ridiculously long story short, my mother had a breakdown and they decided to reinstate me sooner than originally planned for fear of my mum killing herself about me not being back to do her jobs again. Everything was good again family wise, but then came along all of the pressures. I had to study with two sisters, go on the ministry and attend all meetings. My health meant i really struggled to do a lot of these, but i was basically told to shut up and get on with it by the elders. Things with my family were so lovely again, even though my mum would say things like, "I know Jehovah has forgiven you, and now hopefully, one day we can too." The emotional blackmail never stops. MY 'WORLDLY' PARTNER... NOW HUSBAND During this time my best friend had downloaded Tinder in a hope for me to find someone to go on a double date with her and her partner of the time. I really wasn't into that idea but would find myself flicking through it when adverts came up on TV... and so one day i swiped right to the love of my life. After a while of talking, we met up and he really, really was everything I had been looking for. I'm not just saying that because he's on here too lol. He took on all of my shit, loved me for who i am and has held me through every breakdown ive had since. As our relationship progressed, I gradually explained the whole JW story. How on earth do you explain that to someone? I used to just say things that gave some context to what was going on, but it was never enough. "Yeah, my family are... uhh... really religious. Like really religious," I'd say - he'd just laugh and say it was okay. He really had no idea! As time went on I realised he's a complete nerd as he went and read everything there is to know about Witnesses. Literally everything he could find. I was still going to my Bible Study (one of the terms of my reinstatement) and would turn up at his house crying that the world was going to end. He'd have to give me a hug and explain that it's a load of crap and why. I was comforted, but didn't particularly listen to the reasons. I'd just get on with it. We reached a point where we were ready to move in together. He was still totally secret to anyone who was a Witness, but we had plenty of friends outside so it didn't matter. I got really upset because I thought I'd never be able to move in with him, and for the briefest of moments thought it'd just be easier if he became a Witness too. He said he'd think of a plan, and a couple of days later he came back with one. My flatmate was reaching a point where she could no longer afford to live in the flat we shared, and my partner had just got a big four bed house to rent. He said that I should tell my parents I was moving in to a house share with a guy and a girl, both of them middle-class working people and not students. I told my parents I'd be renting a room there, and my mum wasn't particularly pleased. Obviously she didn't think it was appropriate I live with worldly people, and was concerned I'd turn into a heroin slut and all that really accurate stuff. I also managed - somehow - convinced the Sisters I did my study with that this was the best idea ever. Nobody really had much of a choice anyway, and we moved in to what would become the first home I'd had since I left the original one. In order to keep up the facade, my boyfriend and I had to set up two additional rooms in the house to belong to me and the other phantom housemate. We borrowed clothes off one of our good friends and filled the room with her stuff. 'My room' also had all my things stored in it, and then the master bedroom (where we actually slept) had all my partner's things in it. He thought it was crazy we had to go to such lengths, and couldn't believe one religion had such power over people, but we went with it nonetheless. My parents visited the house, and really had no idea that anything was awry. My boyfriend played a fantastic flatmate that seemed completely disinterested in me and was focused entirely on work, whilst often being 'away' on business trips. My parents thought he was really nice though (mainly because they didn't think we were together). So, for the best part of a year I played the simultaneous rolls of contrite and repenting JW and regular, normal me all that same time. PIMO, I guess, though I still believe in God - just not the version of him that is written down in JW literature. It turns out, as I'm sure many of you can relate, that this is extremely mentally taxing. It was the biggest burden to bare. Sitting through meetings when I thought most of it (apart from the practical advice and nicer readings) was a load of utter fucking codswallop. It was a nightmare going to studies, going to meetings and dying of boredom, or going to the shitting ministry. I refused to knock on any doors. Eventually, like trying to run with an anvil swinging around my ankles, it became too much. I was perpetually exhausted. I had a condition that made me extremely fatigued and left me in an awful amount of pain. I worked every day, and every day I wasn't asleep or working I was plastering a fake smile on and sitting through another meeting. The mental burden was exhausting. I decided to call it quits. PIMO TO POMO Much to my partner's surprise, I just told my family one day that I was no longer going to attend meetings. They took it in a similar fashion to how I imagine a regular family would if I walked into their home on a Sunday and took a steamy piss all over their freshly-cooked dinner. Much sadness ensued. The normal defensive measures were initiated.
Claims of rampant selfishness and clearly not wanting paradise.
"How could you do this to [insert most emotionally blackmailing option possible]?"
"How can you do this to Jehovah?"
Repeat Step 2.
Inform Elders.
Have other important people in your life repeat Step 2.
Soft Shun
Need I say more? Thankfully, my immediate family made the decision to hang around. They carried on talking to me, and I'm fairly certain that Disfellowship Round 1 was so hard on my Dad that he didn't want to do it again. My extended family, however, took it upon themselves to shun me without formally shunning me. The soft shun. They still do to this day. So I was now relatively free. I couldn't be blatantly obvious with my relationship, but after removing all Witnesses from my social media, I could post the odd picture or two of us together. I think my Dad had seriously caught on to me being with my boyfriend, and he even came for a night out with us. We'd never properly told him, and he was content to accept that he just happened to be home when we went out so invited him along. We had a really good time. MARRYING SAID WORLDLY MAN We had a really good thing going. My family (with the exception of my mum) sort of accepted the status quo. This became slightly more difficult when my boyfriend proposed, despite the fact it was a perfectly natural point to make that step. How the hell would we tell my parents? Then we'd absolutely be living in sin. I'd have to move out, and it would be atrocious. We meant everything to each other, so to go from my home to living somewhere crap just to satisfy someone else's religion didn't sit well with us. We told my family, and said we'd still be living together in the run up to getting married. We were due to get married about 9 months later, and everything was fine until my mum told an Elder's wife the situation. Then it all kicked off. They tried to call me to 'learn the facts' to work out what to do. I was petrified. They called me when I was at dinner, and I almost froze. I started to immediately go into a panic attack, and all the old horrible feelings returned. My husband urged me to end the conversation and said that he'd call back. I was really surprised he said that. WORLDLY MAN VS ELDER That night, he did call them back. I didn't realise how much reading he'd actually done about Witnesses. All our doctrine, history, supposedly supporting scriptures. The lot. He spoke to the elders for about 45 minutes, and I sat at the door browning my pants whilst in tears. He told them exactly what the effects of disfellowshipping people are, how it causes lasting mental trauma and severe abandonment issues. They didn't like hearing this. In fact, they didn't like having a 'worldly' person armed with logic and knowledge having anything to do with them. He knew about the two witness rule, so told them categorically that we weren't intimate in any way and that they had no biblical grounds to take any action and therefore, they should very politely, fuck the fuck off. Also, if they fancied a meeting with me, he'd come along for moral support as there was no scriptural reason he couldn't and we wouldn't want to go beyond what is written, would we? They left me alone, funnily enough. I've not heard from them since. They even left my family alone when it came to anything relating to me. They really, really did not like speaking to my husband. Crazy. I treated him well for that. HAPPY(ER) ENDING So now I'm married. I have all the family I need. It's been a lot of work, we have a child on the way, and our relationship is rock solid. We live in the same city as my family, and we all get on great. My husband is like a police attack dog whenever anything JW related is brought up, which has led to some heated debates and has resulted in us not talking about religion, ever. For anyone who has read this far and has wondered if things ever turn out alright, they really can do. Just hang in there. WHAT DO I THINK OF MY TIME AS A WITNESS NOW? A. Load. Of. Shit. The only positives I can take are the good Christian qualities I was instilled with as a child. They teach you nothing about life, and woefully underprepare you for anything that is not relating to the organisation. You live your life constantly in fear of something that won't ever happen. The evidence that is out there - if you take the two seconds it takes to look - that really exposes the gaping holes in the doctrine. When I first left, my husband would try and explain to me why different parts of the Watchtower's interpretation is plain wrong, but I didn't really listen. I didn't want to listen, or to think about how stupid I'd been. It was just something I grew up with, I was out now, and that was good enough. I didn't want it any more. Gradually, as time has passed and I've spoken about the worst bits with my husband, I've been slightly more open to looking at different views on the religious front. Not that I was closed-minded, I just never studied in any detail what you're required to believe as a Witness. I still felt like I was going to be struck down. The 'apostasy' stuff is so ingrained in us that it's almost life long. You feel that pang of guilt or fear when you think something is saying anything bad about JWs or their beliefs. It turns out, they don't really have the truth. It started with my husband letting my know about the child abuse investigations, which disgusted me. He showed me the scriptures about shunning and how they're misapplied, and we spoke about blood at length. Blood was one of the only things I kept up whilst DF'd, but I can quite clearly see now it's a terrible interpretation of the scripture. We spoke about religion and God and everything at length, and he sat and listened to what I believed. He joined this site and read about other people's experiences online - he's boring like that. After three months of showing me the odd thread, I find myself sat here now typing all this out. It's unbelievably therapeutic. It's great to know though, that there are other people out there who understand what it's like, that I'm not alone. So, there you go... it really can get better. For those of you who got to the end, bloody well done!
Emperor Claudius: was he really a sickly idiot, or did he exaggerate his illnesses and foolishness to protect himself from the dangers of being a candidate for the Roman throne? When he died at 63, was he poisoned by his wife or could he have died of natural causes?
To many in his time, Emperor Claudius was like a cockroach; whatever upheaval Rome faced—and it certainly faced plenty—he would always be there, skating just under the radar, outliving his cleverer, braver, and more powerful contemporaries. A man like Claudius, they said, would die in infancy or outlive them all. It looked like it was going to be the latter—until it didn’t. Overview:(Note: I apologize for the amount of background info here, but I think it’s necessary to set the stage for the various theories. cough\and I’m not good at editing things down*cough. Skippable if you’re just interested in the direct mystery part)* Claudius was born Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus on August 1, 10 BC. Despite his storied pedigree as the nephew of Emperor Tiberius and the step-grandson of Emperor Augustus, Claudius inherited none of the charm or battle prowess of his relatives; instead, he was unattractive, clumsy, coarse, and often in ill-health. His own mother thought him monstrous and considered him the standard for stupidity. According to one story, he was forced to attend a memorial for his deceased father in a heavy cloak so that he would not mar the day with his appearance. Because of his perceived uselessness, he spent much of his life overlooked. But being overlooked gave Claudius time for other pursuits, pursuits that in many ways were just as dangerous: history. One of Claudius’ many faults was his honesty, and Rome was not the place to write honestly about those in power. His family quickly put a stop to his writings, but the damage had been done; now, he was viewed as entirely unsuitable for public office. He was snubbed several times for any sort of position until the reign of Emperor Caligula, when he was appointed co-consul (more because of his deceased father than for his own skills). After the assassination of Caligula by Caligula’s own Praetorian Guard, Claudius was dragged by the Guard from behind a curtain and appointed emperor. Claudius’ strange ascension to the throne followed him for the rest of his life, and made him unpopular in some circles, especially the Senate. But during his reign, he expanded the Roman empire majorly for the first time since Emperor Augustus, settled numerous disputes between provinces, changed the court system, created dozens of public works, and issued numerous edicts and reforms. Claudius faced several attempted coups, but weathered them. His personal life was extraordinarily messy—one historian described his taste in women as “‘nothing short of disastrous”—but, in addition to several female partners, he married four times, each a terrible match. His final wife was Agrippina the Younger, in a mostly political union. She had one son already, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; today, he is better known as Emperor Nero, of fiddling fame. Things were going well for Claudius and Rome. Then, on October 13, AD 54, Claudius died. Afflictions: Before we discuss the mystery of his death, his illnesses are, in some ways, just as mysterious. Several contemporary historians, such as Suetonius (author of The Twelve Caesars, one of the most important contemporary accounts of Roman history), have described Claudius’ litany of physical and mental faults in detail: weak knees, shakes, a stutter, and confused speech, as well as a tendency to foam at the mouth and drool. His laugh was described as ‘indecent,’ and his voice as ‘[belonging] to no land animal.’ Although some disagree on the extent of these issues (as well as the reliability of Suetonius himself), they’re generally accepted. Many diagnoses for Claudius have also been made, ranging from cerebral palsy to Tourette syndrome. Some have also suggested that many of the severest stories of his ill health might have been excuses by his family to keep him away from official functions; one as 'hideous' and 'deformed' as Claudius would not present the desired image of strength and intelligence. Indeed, once Claudius took the throne, many of these symptoms lessened or even vanished, and he seemed to grow far more intelligent and well-spoken. Why? According to Claudius, he had exaggerated his ailments to protect himself. If this was true, it may have saved his life—in Claudius’ time, there was no occupation so hazardous as being a healthy male candidate for the throne. But it’s hard to know how true this was, as it was certainly a habit of those in power, particularly at this time, to edit history to make themselves look better—something no one would know better than the scholarly Claudius who had been so soundly chastised for truthfulness. Contrasting answers to the veracity of Claudius’ claims have emerged; many ancient historians describe Claudius as crude, with a propensity towards gluttony and the pleasures of the flesh, as well as a great lover of games and gladiatorial events, the bloodier the better. He was also a voracious gambler, to the point of addiction, and he "[ate] himself to sleep" often. Even within these depictions, however, there are contradictions; Claudius is painted as trusting, oft-confused, and easily manipulated by women, but also paranoid and cruel. Yet these stand in stark contrast to Claudius’ own writings, which show a dedicated public servant, intelligent and well-read. Now, it seems possible that Claudius' rather stunted social development might be more indicative of an isolated and fearful childhood than a mental deficit. For centuries, the accounts of these historians were believed, but with the rediscovery of some of Claudius’ writings such as his “Letter to the Alexandrians,” which demonstrates his reversal of Caligula’s incendiary policies and belief in the rights of Jews, this perception is changing. but the lack of records from Claudius' reign makes it difficult to obtain an accurate picture; for all we know, perhaps those that survive show his only few good decisions. Death: Now we return to AD 54, and the eve of Claudius’ death. The only directly contemporary account is from Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis, written later that year. Although it is a satiric account, it indicates that the fatal illness happened suddenly, around noon of October 13, with death occurring an hour later (note: Seneca immortalized Claudius’ passing with the poetic lines “This was the last utterance of his to be heard among men, after he let out a sound from that part with which he found it easier to communicate, ‘Oh I think I have sh\t myself” I totally recommend reading all of it, it’s gold).* Alternatively, according to Tacitus, some time—possibly days—passed, as Claudius lay ill and "covered with blankets and poultices." Other accounts, including Suetonius's, suggest two separate illnesses, or a recovery then relapse. Suetonius himself points out the many contradictory accounts. But what killed Claudius? Poison(ed?) Mushrooms - According to almost every ancient historian—including all the hits like Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio—Claudius died from poison (or poisoned) mushrooms, which forms an interesting parallel to the likely apocryphal death of his step-grandfather Emperor Augustus from poisoned figs. The alleged perpetrator was his wife, Agrippina the Elder, who wanted to ensure that her son would succeed the throne instead of Claudius’, and thus fed him poison during a meal, his death thus being "rather than due to her good luck." As Cassius Dio has it, Claudius was drunk (as he claims Claudius often was), making this poisoning quite easy. After Claudius’ death, the new Emperor Nero is confirmed to have also had all of Claudius’ blood-related children killed, and also once said that his step-father perished after eating "the food of the gods," that being mushrooms. If this theory is correct, the oft-repeated suspect is A. phalloides or death cap (even today, it is responsible for 95% or mushroom-related deaths in Europe). As some have pointed out, these mushrooms take about 10-15 hours to act, which is inconsistent with Seneca’s account of the death, as well as Tacitus and Cassius Dio’s, though it would match with Suetonius’, as it results in a period of 'recovery' then relapse. Claudius also died during peak death cap season. Another possible culprit is Coprimus atramentarius, which, when consumed with alcohol, causes vomiting and death. Alternatively, some believe that Claudius did die after consuming poison mushrooms, but that it was an accident rather than murder, as he was famously fond of them. The apparent recovery and relapse suggested by some accounts would have signaled foul play immediately to the Romans, who only connected naturally poisonous mushrooms with death in the case of immediate deaths. However, even if Claudius was killed by poison mushrooms as opposed to poisoned ones, it could still have been murder. Interestingly, Claudius was also known for his love of snacks, and ate often during the day—this could have provided someone other than the usual suspects with the opportunity to poison him. I'm not intimately familiar with how taste-testers worked, so I don't know if someone would have tested all his snacks to make sure they were safe. After Claudius' death, his will was not read; some have pointed to this as an example of Agrippina attempting to ensure the throne was secure for her son. Other Poison - Tacitus and several other historians have referenced other potential methods of poison, such as a poison-dipped feather placed in Claudius’ mouth, possibly after a first dose of poison at mealtime was unsuccessful. According to this theory, Claudius’ doctor, Xenophon, was paid by Agrippina to kill Claudius with the feather while performing a medical check-up. It is more likely, though, that Xenophon used a feather to check the reflexes of the already dying Claudius after he’d already been poisoned or fell ill. Xenophon had been Claudius’ doctor for some time, and was richly rewarded for it; he would have had little reason to murder Claudius. Some historians have also pointed to Roman bias against Greek physicians in the stories of Xenophon's condemnation. Natural causes - Originally dismissed, this theory has gained popularity in recent years. Many modern historians now think that Agrippina was villainized unfairly because of Nero’s disastrous reign, and that she had nothing to do with Claudius’ death. This is supported by several factors. First, at the meal where Claudius was supposedly poisoned, the guests noticed nothing wrong. In addition, as Emperor, Claudius had a food-tester. This food-tester, Halotus, continued working—very publicly—as a tester under Nero; if he had been an accomplice to a poisoning—and a poisoning could not have happened at that meal if he was not an accomplice, as he tested all the Emperor’s food—why was he not hidden away as a witness or accomplice, especially by the notoriously ruthless Nero? Instead, many historians now believe Claudius died of an illness or age. A few years earlier, in 52 AD, he had suffered a serious illness and nearly died. Interestingly, coins issued from this point until his death show that he had changed physically, his body thinning shoulders narrowing. He also led a very unhealthy lifestyle full of drink and rich foods. Before the advent of modern medicine, it’s not a recipe for long life, especially for one as sickly as Claudius. Additionally, some have pointed to the difficulty of poisoning mushrooms; the Roman style was to cook them in olive oil or wine, which would have poisoned all who consumed it unless the poison was carefully administered. Final Thoughts & Questions: I’ve always been interested in Claudius’ death partially because of the near-universal blame cast on Agrippina; it bears a lot of resemblance to the treatment other women of the time received, like Livia, Emperor Augustus’ wife, and Messalina, Claudius’ third wife. The unreliability and general incompleteness of most historical records from the time also presents a fascinating challenge in determining how Claudius died, and really, who Claudius was. Sadly, as with a lot of ancient history, there’s a lot we’ll have to content ourselves with not knowing.
How unwell was Claudius, mentally or physically? To what extent did he conceal his true state? What was his true personality?
How did Claudius die? Did Agrippina have anything to do with it, or was it of natural causes?
How might the political situation in Rome before and after Claudius’ death have affected his reputation and the reputations of his alleged murderers?
Am I (Retail Investor) an Investing Genius or Just Lucky?
Originally published February 5, 2021 on www.TheCannalysts.ca Having sat through a cannabis gold rush before, and the ensuing fallout, we have some thoughts on the sequel to 2017-18. The level of “loud voices” is growing louder. And lord, some of the loudest and most bombastic could not find an MDA if their life depended on it. (And that isn’t a euphemism, that happened yesterday with an argumentative and opinionated loud voice on social media). “Buy this”… because I own it. “Here are the reasons (the company) says I should invest in (the company) ….” “Don’t buy that”… because I don’t own it. “Here are the hot takes that I have decided to parrot from others in social media”. Molly laid out a warning yesterday about the level of noise and bullshit investors are being bombarded with on our subReddit yesterday. Great reading! We are in a hype environment. Fundamentals of companies have not changed dramatically but the perception has. The regulatory landscape is now more welcoming in USA, but still very much unknown as to final state and timing. Interestingly, those chiming in on how a Republican Senate would allow “moat building” are now full-on “legalization is coming, let’s dance in the streets!”. States will be allowed to do their thing within their borders, pretty much as they have been. But if you want your product to cross a border it will have to abide by Federal rules when dropped and operationalized. (Medical has preceded recreational in almost all jurisdictions, and the thinking is it will in US federal too). Should this happen it will impact cultivators and processors more than retail shops. Retail shops may have their own issues. “Social Justice” issues have held up Illinois rollout, and it will be interesting to see what federal views (FDA), legislation and state response are to the Democrat lead initiatives. Do fundamentals matter? Not right now. When the tide goes out, they will. In Canada, we have two money incinerating companies back stopped by strategic cash. Neither has shown much in the way of operating efficiency/competency. Yet, investors are assured that this time Daddy took the keys, or the oversight is better now. Oversight was the same as the day the cheque from the strategic investor cleared and their proxies installed on the board and in the c-suite. Until signs of change manifest in the financial statements it is all words. The HOPE of being profitable in the US of A, and the big cash balance they can deploy, seems to suffocate thoughts of past stumbles and ongoing ineptitude. One of the lone company’s to be showing promise has to buy sales to keep their facilities churning at levels to keep them +EBITDA. You can talk about synergies, Europe, CPG extensions, but the bottom line is they (and many others) built too large of a footprint for Canada and exports. Hindsight is 20-20. The next group of Candian companies have diluted the crap out of investors and have yet to stem the bleeding. This latest stock price surge has allowed a new load of cash to come in. The i-banks have unloaded on retail yet again. And retail fell for it, yet again. Zombies will be staggering around even longer now. Much to my chagrin. It isn’t fun spreading crap and finding bodies under the rug. TheCannalysts believe rec sales are stalling (listen to the next Inside the Ropes, we go through it). The last big “catalyst” was the ramp to 80 stores a month in Ontario. A drop in January (potentially double digits) after a likely reasonable December holiday buying season is a possibility. A 28-day February follows. The media will likely not differentiate that the $ drop is due to three less days than January (which is one of the reasons we run the daily purchases metric). Back-to-back monthly “decreases” could spook investors. We might not see an uptick in Canada until March, which will be reported in late May by StatsCan, but those March quarter ends will tell the story by mid May. (Canopy year end is March 31, so financials will drop by end of June). Aphria Feb 28 Q, due by mid April, will include SweetWater revenue. This might occlude a soft to negative Canadian recreational figure with December sell in compensating for soft mid to end quarter sales. The Ontario covid December through February and counting lockdown ennui, limiting retailers to click and collect and delivery, might provide further headwinds. IF that happens, what will happen with perception on the Canadian names? The US is different, in that the companies’ viability is further along than in Canada. But does the viability support the stock price? What needs to happen that is not within the companies control for them to support the price? Will regulatory meteors strike, like they have in Canada. (Hey, New York state is on its third year of “this year we are legalizing”). Have founders ensconced themselves with long dated warrants and options? (An aside… Molly and I have been discussing the impact of long dated in the money warrants and options. It is interesting to note if a company issues a convertible debenture and the strike is in the money, the company reacts quickly to take the further increases to the debt holder – who has funded the operations – off the board. But when the same c-suite, entrenched by multi voting super shares to ensure matters of control, are deep in the money -off the backs of new shareholders and paid out converts – there’s a lack of the same urgency (I dropped a Q on Molly unannounced on the latest Inside the Ropes – which is in edit – on the subject). But you are saying: “Blue, that’s fundamentals. It doesn’t matter.” Agreed, right now it doesn’t. Not one lick. You know how I can tell? The flotsam and jetsam of Canada and US cannabis are ALL rising. In the USA there are going to be Harvest One, Maricann, RavenQuest, CannTrust, Aleafia Health, WeedMD, Hexo, Organigram, VFF, Supreme, Sundial … type of companies. There are going to be Aphria’s, Aurora’s, Canopy’s and Cronos’. And there will be better ones too. Every flavour you can imagine. Molly’s slog through Tier 3 operators confirms that the US has its share of slugs. And those slugs’ stock prices are also benefiting right now. We harp on fundamentals. This a “fundamental” store. If you are looking for technical analysis, you are in the wrong spot. In the short term the best fundamentals may not equate to the best stock price. Our subReddit Community members hated when we harped on the operating metrics of Aurora and Canopy in 2017-2019. The outcries were loud and often… Wait until rec! Wait until 2.0 formats launch! Wait until Ontario opens more stores! We are in 2021, third year of adult use, they are still trying to get their Canadian operations fixed. (I was chuckling with Molly and Cyto the other day upon reading comment upon comment of “my faith in (insert company here) has paid off” when said company has delivered a Golden Sombrero or even a Platinum Sombrero of negative gross margins.) Others hated that we “favoured” Aphria operationally. (We certainly favour good operators, regardless whose name is on the masthead. Numbers and trends speak to us.) Operationally they have outperformed a very weak peer group. Canada is like Triple AAA sports (Major Junior Hockey for us Canadians or NCAA football and basketball). A great player in Triple AAA might go on to be Hall of Famer, might be average or a flop. Only time will tell. Some, by virtue of being a high draft pick and a big signing bonus (think… those who got strategic money), will get a shot at the majors given they have been invested in. But generally, a dog in Triple AAA becomes a dog in the majors, if they get there. They could be “coached up” but those that need coaching up after being a high draft pick probably have some missing ingredients, or had some blemishes that were apparent yet overlooked when they were younger. Did Aphria and Tilray double their stock price (insert every other Canadian company and their increase) in two months because of fundamentals? Hell no! They are riding a wave. The questions become: how much higher is the wave AND how far out will the water level recede? Big bets. Big risk. Big returns or Big bags? In a hype market, retail investors seem to be oblivious to the difference between fundamentals and hype. You can make a lot of money in a hype market. Thinking you are a genius because you hit the lottery seems to be common theme for retail investors. But when that crazy hype cools, and the tide goes out, we see that folks get very uncomfortable in their positions that they were previously boldly trumpeting their “unrealized gains”. Aphria was three years between $20 stock prices. And if you account for dilution, Aphria is not yet at the 2018 $20. Three years is forever for many. And I can say that I am surprised how quickly it climbed (and that goes for most of the Canadian industry). I have scaled down my Aphria position rather substantially from its peak and still hold an oversized chunk. BUT, when hype overran my comfort zone, I sold in January 2018 and took out my entire initial investment and let the unrealized gains ride. I rebuilt the same number of units just shy of what I sold on de-risking events through 2018-2020, all but one purchase sub C$8.50. I have sold that accumulation and then some. I am three years closer to retirement right now, thus that, coupled with knowledge gleaned since the start of this journey in March 2016, has me more cautious now. I have set stop losses for more units, but I am willing to let a portion ride. That is a benefit of being in at a low price. Would I add here? Not a chance. For those riding the USA wave. Change takes time. Legislation takes time. Sometimes you get stupid regulations (I am looking at you Health Canada and most of the provinces) that hobble progress. In Canada it took from 2015 to October 2018 from Trudeau being elected to first legal gram sold. The USA, at the federal level, will likely take that much time to implement. This is not a “set and forget” industry to invest in. “If you believe in the industry just jump in” is the biggest load of horseshit out there. I hold around 30 Blue Chips, a few in each sector. I have started selectively adding from my cash position after a long hiatus, save for a March 2020 sector rotation. My target right now, solid performers who should do well in the continuing covid environment. I do a hundred times more due diligence on weed stocks than I do on my Blue Chips. But as I always harp… my reality is not yours. My portfolio, age and risk appetite are very likely not yours. And they certainly are not the wallstreetbets gamblers reality. Right now, putting new money at risk comes with a lot of uncertainty. In the cannabis sector or any other overheated sectors. Don’t get me wrong. We want you to be rich and successful. If your “at risk funds” stress you out while the market is going up, they will be a load if it should go south. Cannabis investing can change your life for good as well as for bad. I witnessed in 2018 an entrepreneur who went all in Aphria at $12-14, after selling his business that he built over decades, bailed at a loss, loaded into Cronos and it dropped… I wonder how he is doing. He went from the biggest cheerleader to very very bitter in a very short time. Know what is unknown. There are going to be a ton of opinions on the “unknown”, and in the current environment those opinions are leaning on heavily bullish scenarios. Don’t get in over your head. As I don’t know if I can take three years of pissing and moaning, again. The couch got worn out last time. And, slowly circling back to the title of the post … I was lucky (stock rebounded faster than I thought possible), knowledgeable (I baby sit my cannabis investment like an eagle on a nest. I know what is in the financials and MDA because of the level of analysis we do), I de-risked (when hype overran fundamentals in 2018 I took out my initial investment, and sold again now as the merger, combined debt, need for dilution, slowing of sales has me wickedly thankful for a $20 exit on a portion of my position), I reloaded as events de-risked (as Aphria was stringing “Progress Quarters” together and de-risking events like Diamond license happened), I was patient (but Progress Quarters allowed that to happen), and importantly early. Best of luck to all. The preceding is the opinion of the author and is in no way intended to be a recommendation to buy or sell any security or derivative. The author has a position in Aphria and will not start one or divest (EXCEPT FOR IN PLACE STOP LOSS) in the next five days. The author has no position in any of the other mentioned companies and will not start one or divest in the next five days.
What’s up, u/WSBGamer here… IT’S TIME TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT $NOK! If you want to learn more about this LEGENDARY COMPANY, then get reading! The next few weeks will be OURS, $NOK Bulls. Okay Retards, first of all, yes I know this account is new. I’ve been lurking on WSB since 2019, so don’t come for me. Also, I’m still holding my $GME and have no intention to sell it until Dumb Street COLLAPSES! However, you need to play close attention to $NOK in these coming days and BUY IN as soon as you can. SHARES AND NEAR-OTM CALLS ARE CHEAP AS HELL RIGHT NOW! IMPORTANT: ROBINHOOD IS NOW ALLOWING AUTISTS TO TRADE 2,000 SHARES OF $NOK PLUS 1,000 OPTIONS CONTRACTS… MASSIVE INCREASE INBOUND! AT ONE POINT, WE WERE ONLY ABLE TO HOLD 5 SHARES MAX, WHICH OBVIOUSLY RESULTED IN A DOWNWARD SWING ON FRIDAY. GET IN NOW BEFORE YOU REGRET IT LATER! $NOK CLOSED AT 4.89 TODAY AND IS CURRENTLY DOWN TO $4.86, SO THERE IS NO REASON FOR YOU TO NOT COP SOME SHARES DURING AH. Now, let’s get into my $NOK DD. Because you guys used up all of your Adderall last week, I’m going to organize it into a Top 10 List. Just to get this out of the way, there isn’t going to be a massive Short Squeeze. $NOK is a legitimately good company that will grow in value over time. Sure, there could be a potential Gamma Squeeze, but we are really looking for an increase in price because people realize that $NOK is an extremely great investment. You can hold it for a few weeks or a few years, you are guaranteed to make money when the market wakes up. IF YOU WANT TO GET IN NOW, SNAG AS MANY SHARES AS YOU CAN BELOW $5.75 (IT CLOSED AT $4.56 ON FRIDAY, WHICH IS BASICALLY THE SAME PRICE THAT IT WAS TRADING AT BEFORE THERE WAS HYPE) AND BUY AS MANY CHEAP CALLS AS YOU WANT! My Positions: 300 Shares @ $4.70 (About to Buy 200 More Shares in Momentum) & 15 $5 Strike Calls expiring on 2/5/2021 @ $0.48 * 100. To those of you who still think that $NOK is solely a phone manufacturer, you are living in the past. Though they still sell cell phones, $NOK is primarily a 5G / Telecommunications Stock that has strong growth potential. $NOK’s primary sources of revenue are its Nokia Technologies, Global Services, Ultra Broadband Networks, and IP Networks and Applications segments. $NOK is involved with mobile radio, network planning and optimization, the implementation and integration of 5G network systems, fiber optics, cell phones, networking solutions, SaaS, maintenance services, cybersecurity hosting, and analytics platforms. Its primary innovations and developments are in the 5G network infrastructure and integration space, and they will be able to increase their top-line revenues substantially as 5G becomes more prevalent and they are able to utilize their strategic partnerships to acquire more market share. Investors should value their potential 5G growth the most and I believe that this is how $NOK will be able to transform itself into a more relevant and popular company. $NOK is a serious company with a market cap of nearly $30,000,000,000 and a bright future. You should know that it is listed on both the NYSE and the Helsinki Stock Exchange and usually releases statements based on Finnish Time. Here is my Top 10 List (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER) for why $NOK is a great investment.
Currently Undervalued for the Sector - $NOK currently has a P/E Ratio of 31, an EV/EBITDA of 8-9, a P/BV Ratio of 1.44, P/CF Ratio of 11.62, and a PEG Ratio of about 11. There is obvious room for $NOK to go up in value and it would be fundamentally justified. I have had great success investing in companies that appear to be underpriced for the sector.
Strategic Partnerships, Collaborations, & Developments - Recently, $NOK has been obtaining several key partnerships that will allow them to grow their 5G business. They have established partnerships with major companies like $MSFT and $QCOM and already have substantial 5G market share. I have never seen so many positive articles regarding new developments before, if you just search for $NOK on Google you will find even more articles. If you didn’t already know this, NASA selected $NOK to build the first ever network literally ON THE MOON!
Q4 Earnings Releasing on 2/5/2021 - $NOK should have a nice Q4 Earnings Report and I am expecting a SIGNIFICANT BEAT. After $ERIC jumped after releasing its Q4 Earnings, people are expecting $NOK to shoot up even more. $NOK has a history of performing well in Q4, and the recent contracts and partnerships that it acquired during Q4 should help us out. I think that we will likely see $NOK hit $8.00 for a decent period of time on Thursday or Friday.
Strong Fundamentals & Clean Financials - $NOK has great fundamentals, a clean Balance Sheet, a sound Income Statement, and an above average Cash Flow Statement. You can check everything out here: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NOK/financials?p=NOK
WSB & FinTwit Hype - $NOK has been gaining a lot of traction with gamblers and we even have The President, Dave Portnoy, on our side. As more and more people find out about $NOK and get HYPED for Thursday, our army will grow in size and more and more people will buy in, driving the price up and giving us even more relevance on WSB and Twitter. Let’s keep this momentum going!
Analyst Ratings & Price Targets - The overwhelming majority of analysts believe give $NOK a rating of ‘Buy’ or ‘Hold’ and very few of them actually consider it to be a ‘Sell’ at this time. Also, with the upcoming Q4 Earnings, it has been receiving some favorable price target upgrades. THE ANALYSTS ARE ACTUALLY ON OUR SIDE HERE, SO WHY ARE YOU STILL READING THIS?
Extremely High Volume - Recently, $NOK has had an insane amount of volume. It has an average volume of about 30,000,000 shares, but the recent hype has caused it to skyrocket. Last week, we hit a volume of about 1,200,000,000 shares traded on Wednesday, which is absolutely insane! If a company has high volume, that usually means that there is high demand for the stock and the stock is very liquid. It also means that the price movements are more tangible, sustainable and meaningful since there are a large number of investors trading a large amount of shares and agreeing on the price.
Growth of 5G & Increased Demand - As 5G becomes more prevalent and both corporations and regular people begin to utilize the new technology, $NOK will soar. 5G, though available, is still much less popular than 4G. With more and more people relying on the Internet in their daily lives, companies overhauling their networks and data centers, and 5G being rolled out across the globe, $NOK can only get bigger.
New CEO’s Performance & Potential Dividend Increase - Pekka Lundmark became the CEO of $NOK on 8/1/2020. He has been doing an amazing job with securing the recent partnerships and contracts and has been giving positive guidance. He will continue to grow the company and is going to assert $NOK’s 5G dominance. There is also lots of speculation that they want to bring back the pretty significant dividend that they cut, so be on the lookout for that as well! Dividends are FREE CASH!
Increased Mainstream Media Attention - Because people are associating $NOK with other Meme Stocks ($NOK is not a joke and is a great, investable company), it is getting a lot more coverage. This will build hype for the Q4 Earnings on Thursday and entices investors to buy in because of FOMO. $NOK isn’t normally heavily talked about during its Earnings SZN, but trust me, they’ll be all over this one! 2021 & 2021 will be $NOK’s breakout years, so the Q4 results will be an early indication of potential success. I am expecting there to be a big surge on Wednesday as more and more people realize that they are releasing Q4 Earnings soon.
TLDR: NOK is about to pop off, I’m calling it now. It has great fundamentals, a clean balance sheet, a new CEO, strong growth potential (especially with its recent partnerships), good market share, is currently undervalued, has a lot of justified hype, and is about to release Q4 Earnings on 2/5/2021, after rival $ERIC just had a nice beat. Buy NOK below $5.75 (CURRENTLY $4.88) and get ready for the growth! Recommended Positions: BUY AS MANY SHARES AS YOU CAN BELOW $5.75 BEFORE Q4 EARNINGS ON 2/5/2021. YOU CAN STILL BUY PAST THAT, BUT YOU WILL SEE THE GREATEST RETURN IF YOU GET IN BELOW $5.00 SINCE THE BOTTOM IS APPROXIMATELY $4.50. If you want to buy Calls, the $5.00 Call expiring on Friday is very cheap. I am planning on increasing my position further. Price Targets: We actually broke $10 for a few seconds last week but the SEC instantly halted it and destroyed the momentum. Later, Robinhood and other 0 IQ brokers decided to prevent us from purchasing it and then changed it to just 5 SHARES the next day, successfully dropping the price. This created a great buying opportunity, however, and I snagged even more. I am looking for $NOK to break $8.00 by the end of the week after a strong Q4 report. In the long-term, we could see a price of $17.00+ if they successfully capitalize on their new partnerships in 2021. WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT SELL AT A LOSS. IF YOU DECIDE TO SELL AT A LOSS, YOU ARE JUST AN IDIOT; $NOK HAS MASSIVE GROWTH POTENTIAL, SO JUST WAIT IT OUT! Lastly, I am not a financial advisor! Please send this $NOK DD to everyone you know so that we can spread the word. If $NOK manages to cross $12 by the end of this week, I will eat a Carolina Reaper and post the video to Reddit. $NOK TO THE FUCKING MOON! 🚀 HOLD THE LINE! 💎🙌 Sincerely, u/WSBGamer Edit: I cannot post on wallstreetbets or Wallstreetbetsnew because my account isn’t old enough, so put this on all of your socials! We need eyes!
Feb/4/2021: (1) Armenia will grow weed (2) Colonel charged w/bribery & tampering w/draft during war (3) Education reform: grading, curriculum, preschool (4) Bill: treason, disability ranking, media (5) Diplomacy (6) Rumors & rebuttals (7) Cancer stats & free treatment (8) $750M bond (9) in-out stats
Your 14-minute Thursday report in 3497 words. Part 1.
anti-corruption: Defense Ministry official busted with bribery & tampering with draft during war
NSS report says: a Colonel, who had oversight over subdivisions, received a ֏975K bribe from a conscript to transfer him to another location on Sep-13-2020. Part of the bribe was transferred to his online gambling account. When the war began, a draft was declared and recruits began training at a location in Armenia. The Colonel took a ֏1.2M bribe from a soldier in exchange for not sending him to the front lines. During the winter draft, the Colonel took a ֏5.2M bribe from another conscript and used his connections to send him to the desired service location. A similar ֏1M bribe was requested on January 6th from another recruit. The Colonel took another ֏1.4M bribe to help promote a conscript and allow him to work at a hospital instead of regular service. On October 22nd, during the war, the Colonel decided to help a friend move from bordering Khndzoresk (Syunik) hospital back to Yerevan. As a result, the clinic became understaffed and couldn't fulfill its duties. Moreover, the Colonel then helped the same friend not to be deployed on Syunik borders as a soldier and instead to handle tasks in the rear, on October 26th, in exchange for a ֏300K bribe. On October 13th, during the war, the Colonel and his accomplices wanted to help a soldier to leave Artsakh. When they learned that the latter was already on the "deserted" list, they took steps to remove him from the list. Then, he learned that his friends' sons received a draft notice, and use his connections to remove them from the draft list. After the war, on Dec-13, a friend asked the Colonel to make sure that his son, who was serving in Lusakert, wasn't sent to the front lines. The Colonel contacted the Lusakert facility but learned that the soldier was not among those who were supposed to be sent to the front lines. Nonetheless, the Colonel decided to defraud his friend by claiming that "he took care of it", and received a ֏200K bribe. The colonel and over a dozen others were arrested. Illegal weapons were found under their possession. The investigation continues to expose other possible suspects. https://youtu.be/ifo13WJLpsU https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042334.html
bill: harsher punishment for treason, spying, espionage
BHK MPs drafted a bill to increase punishment for traitors, spies, passing of state secrets. They want to raise the maximum punishment from 15 years to 20-life. The authors explained the move by citing many media reports about alleged "treason" incidents. The bill was discussed at a relevant Parliamentary committee. The chairman QP MP Vladimir said he supports life imprisonment as the minimum punishment. However, during the discussion, they agreed to settle on 15-20 years plus property confiscation, or a life sentence. The committee found the espionage punishment too harsh and asked the bill author to reduce it from 15 to 12 years. The BHK author agreed. The bill was approved unanimously and will be debated/voted on the Parliament floor later. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042354.html
Jalal is back with another position
The wounded ex-Artsakh army commander Jalal Harutyunyan will serve as the Republic of Armenia's Defense Ministry's Head of the Military Control Service. He will replace General Movses Mosi Hakobyan who quit on November 18th. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042353.html
Russian-Turkish ceasefire monitoring group begins operations
ECHR received Armenia's complaint against Azerbaijan regarding 228 POWs / Azeris counter-claim for 13 POWs
Armenian families submitted a petition to ECHR to require Azerbaijan to provide information regarding 228 individuals. Azeris want to know data about 13 people. (From the language it is unclear to me whether the petition is for confirmed POWs, or it also includes families of missing soldiers who want to know whether their relatives are POWs. Likely the former.) https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042406.html
Russia removed tomato import ban on 13 Armenian firms
Russian regulator will allow 13 Armenian sellers to export tomato and pepper to Russia again after earlier finding a food virus in them. A similar ban was implemented against Azeri tomatoes. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042433.html
US Congressman demands an explanation from the US ambassador to Azerbaijan over "congratulatory" statement
Rep. Bred Sherman wants to know why the US ambassador to Azerbaijan Lee Litzenberger congratulated Azerbaijan's Economy Minister with "de-occupying territories and US's willingness to aid Azerbaijan with rebuilding those territories". He reminded the US officials that the US is a member of the Minsk Group and should take steps to ensure Artsakh's safety and prevention of a new war. Bred Sherman praised Biden's appointee Anthony Blinken for stating that the US will review its military assistance to Azerbaijan after the latest war in Artsakh. Artsakh MFA yesterday released a statement urging countries, officials, and organizations to refrain from such "congratulatory" statements. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042370.html
de-occupy Hadrut NGO
... aims to help 13,500 Hadrut residents who lost their homes during the war. It was founded during the war by activists who held protests in front of various embassies. In the early days, they received aid from President Sarkissian's office. The latter gave shelter to 25 families. Today the NGO aims to help refugees with employment, while simultaneously lobbying for Minsk Group to de-occupy Hadrut so residents can return. "I hope that one day our NGO will shut down because Hadrut is no longer occupied," said co-founder Meri Davtyan. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042286.html
govt session: financial aid for Syunik border villagers
The government approved a new aid package for residents of Syunik's Shurnukh and Vorotan villagers. Those who lost their homes will qualify for the same aid package as Artsakh refugees: one-time ֏300K payment plus monthly ֏65K payments for 6 months. There is another pending aid package to build new houses for them. Context: Two dozen houses in Vorotan and Shurnukh went under Azeri control because they were built on the Azeri side of the internationally-recognized borders. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042362.html
bill: disability ranking to be replaced with degrees of functionality impairment
The government approved a bill, yet to be approved by Parliament, to reform the disability system. The disability assessment process will analyze the person's level of functional impairment while taking into account surrounding conditions. "Today, the system is run under a 1993 law that does not do a comprehensive assessment of the surrounding environment, person's ability to function in public life," says the govt. The draft bill will repeal the 1-3 Categories and Disabled Child category. A person's functionality impairment degrees will be light, medium, heavy, or deep. Disability will no longer be considered a permanent health problem. The assessment will be based not only on the factor of health problems but also on the environmental factors of the person's activity and participation in public life. Healthcare and Social Ministries, NGOs, the UN, and the EU worked together to create and test an assessment methodology. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042365.html Tags: #DisabilityLaw #disabled
bill: require unknown Telegram/Facebook media channel owners identified before "linking" by mass media
QP MPs want to require social media channel operators identified before a "mainstream media" can link to them. It doesn't restrict citing "anonymous sources", however. It also requires outlets to disclose sources of revenues for transparency. Read yesterday's news for context and arguments in favor or against it.. The debate continued today. QP MP Arthur: For example, a legitimate news organization with an editorial staff of 30 people generates information, holds interviews, etc., while a Telegram channel that we do not know where it is managed from and by whom, begins to disseminate sensationalized information and over time becomes more "legitimate" than real media outlets because media outlets "advertised" them. This is also a national security risk because it is very possible that such sources are being operated by an adversary country to spread instability and an atmosphere of fear in the country. // The co-author criticized the critics who "claimed that the bill intends to ban anonymous sources. That's not true. This also won't affect the protection of journalists' source secrecy." https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042357.html If you're interested in more debates: https://youtu.be/MTHwRa4YjgY , https://youtu.be/ThDNVwZYEp8 , https://youtu.be/S6C_NocS9N0 , https://youtu.be/3_-i2Z23ubI , https://youtu.be/wiPnmfeLNJ8 Tags: #MediaLaw #TelegramLaw #FreeSpeech
rumors and rebuttals: Artsakh army isn't being dissolved
Serj's won-in-law Mishik earlier circulated rumors that were denied by state officials. Today, Kocharyan-ally Vitali Balasanyan, who serves as Artsakh's Security Council chief, confirmed that the army isn't "disintegrating." After the restructuring process, there will be subdivisions with professional contractors, he said. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042344.html
rumors and rebuttals: Azeri flag won't fly over Artsakh govt buildings
rumors and rebuttals: Azeri families won't resettle in Stenapakert / none are shopping in market
Vitalik Balasanyan said there are false rumors about two districts in Stepanakert being populated by Azeris, and Azeris allegedly freely shopping in Stepanakert market. "Dear citizens of Artsakh, on behalf of the authorities of the Artsakh Republic, I assure you that despite the irreparable losses inflicted on us as a result of the war, the state is always committed to fulfilling its responsibilities to ensure the security and normal life of the population. Accordingly, I urge you not to pay attention to the false news. Everything is being done to create and expand the necessary conditions for a dignified life of the people of Artsakh." https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042344.html
rumors and rebuttals: Artsakh envoy won't stop operating in Russia
The Permanent Representation of the Artsakh Republic in Russia will not be terminated, said the Artsakh govt in response to rumors. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042367.html
rumors and rebuttals: no single currency in EAEU trade bloc
There is a district called Hollywood in Yerevan, Armenia. Gamblers were caught running an underground casino in there. This is the second such bust in the past few months. The police say ֏5.5B in damages was done to the state. https://youtu.be/sp0Sb--e_ms?t=60 https://factor.am/335320.html
anti-corruption: prosecutors charge education officials with ֏1.2B auction shenanigans
Prosecutors said: State Oversight Committee (SOC) audited the "National Center for Educational Technology" government-affiliated agency's finances between 2013-2020. Every year, the agency submitted a report on the work done by them towards servicing the education system. The bill was ֏700M annually. It was revealed that between 2012-2015, they granted an auction-based contract to the same company. It received a combined ֏2.8B in funding. The law requires the auction-holding officials to examine the market and take other steps before the auction. They failed to do so. Later, during 2017-2019, the same company was selected to do the job, but this time it was only paid ֏300-400M annually, far lower than during the previous years. ֏1.2B in damages was done to the state. A felony case is launched. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042389.html
re: Armenia's $750M eurobond sale / lowest % in history / $3B demand by investors / economy news
Read yesterday's news for context. Pashinyan: The issuance of $750M eurobonds is a strong positive signal for the start of the economic year. The issuance was done under the most favorable conditions in the history of our republic, with the lowest 3.8% percentage rate. Our previous record was in 2019 at 4.2%. The demand was for $3B but we decided to issue only $0.750B. First, it provides a guarantee of macroeconomic stability. Second, this is the first serious signal of overcoming the post-war economic shock, which shows that international investors have confidence in the economic future of Armenia and the policy pursued by the government. // Economy Minister Janjughazyan: this was part of our long-term plan and we had planned to do it while drafting the 2021 budget. We planned to issue fewer bonds but decided to add $250M because of favorable terms. We plan to use that extra cash towards the stabilization deposit, as a safety pad, to be used throughout the year if necessary. As long as our budget has a deficit we will have to borrow. But this is only part of the story; the country's overall debt burden is calculated based on various indicators. So far Armenia has been rated as a country with a lower debt burden. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042351.html, https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042352.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042363.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042393.html
how many people did leave and arrive after reopening air traffic with Russia?
The governments of Armenia and Russian worked on an "app" to allow mutual travel after taking a test. By February 15th, there will be 4-route flights in 2 directions. There were several flights in the past few days. 3900 left and 3400 arrived. 1423 Armenian citizens left and 1263 Armenian citizens arrived. "More people were willing to leave in December than today," noted Diaspora Committee chief Sinanyan. "Some people flew to Russia but had to return due to a problem. This wasn't due to the COVID app implemented by us. Preliminary data shows that they went to Russia with a paper QP code which raised the suspicion of Russian authorities. We will work with them to resolve this," said Deputy PM Mher. (say what??) "We need to better inform the public about the existence of this app. Restoring routine flights will help the tourism industry," said PM Pashinyan. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042358.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042383.html
Pashinyan about the suspended Amulsar gold mining project
He repeated his earlier position that "Decisions must be made that take into account Armenia's best interests." "The mining industry plays a very important role in the development of Armenia's economy, including in the security context." "We must make decisions to make investment programs acceptable for the Armenian public while taking into account interests of Republic of Armenia." https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042368.html
COVID stats
1829 tested. 147 infected. 352 healed. 11 deaths. 4637 active. "We're negotiating for vaccines via COVAX global initiative. Separately, we're negotiating with Russia for Sputnik-V. Vaccines should be available in March. It will be targeted at specific groups. It won't be mandatory," said Healthcare Minister Avanesyan. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042341.html , https://youtu.be/vXz3pHx1BlM?t=92
the consumer market price increase in the past 12 months
Armenia's consumer market inflation was +4.5% from January to January. Food +6.4%. Alcohol & tobacco +10.8%. Clothing +2.6%. Utilities +0.6%. Appliances +5.8%. Healthcare +5.6%. Transport +5.7%. Telecom +0.5%. Leisure & culture -0.8%. Education +2%. Dining +1.6%. Misc +3.5%. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042323.html
Parliament MP stops a citizen's suicide attempt
Someone tried to jump from Kievyan bridge. QP MP Gor Gevorgyan was nearby and stopped the attempt. The police took the distressed person to a station. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042329.html
psychological support will be provided to war participants and the public
Emergency Ministry says 15-30% of people have PTSD after the war. Today the government approved a plan to provide psychological aid to war participants and others. The target group includes families of missing people, POWs and their families, those who received disabilities, families of those who died, those who fought in the war, IDPs, civilians who were affected in any way. The program will work in Armenia and Artsakh. The government will purchase services from experienced mental health service agencies. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042403.html
Armenia will grow industrial marijuana on mass industrial scale / incentive to boost land utilization
Hemp is a type of weed that contains less of the substance that makes you feel high. The government wants to grow industrial hemp on a mass scale to boost mood land utilization and revenues. Pashinyan: this is going to open room for many speculations. It's important to present the project in detail so the public will have a full understanding of what is being done. Unfortunately, "hemp" is interpreted as something else, while in reality, it is a very important industrial raw material. The growing process has risks but there are oversight mechanisms that have been tested in many countries. Deputy PM Avinyan: the US, Russia, and China have a great experience with industrial hemp production. The practice was examined by the Economy Ministry. We're talking about industrial production only. It will significantly activate agricultural land utilization. Today, 40% of lands are gone unused. This is part of our plan to boost the production of high-value agricultural products. https://youtu.be/ssZgr2DR3DM?t=7 https://www.healthline.com/health/hemp-vs-marijuana#marijuana https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042372.html
Education Minister says the "controversial" parts of Church/History merger were "resolved"
Education Ministry wants to merge the school subjects "Armenian Church History" and "Armenian History". Critics said it will shrink the church-related materials too much, others called it treason, while others supported the decision, stating that it's all part of our history and having a separate class is inefficient. Education Minister Dumanyan says he met colleagues at the National Academy of Sciences and they resolved the conflicts "that caused a noise earlier." He will reveal details soon. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042379.html , https://youtu.be/V0sC3dx-gzU
Major education reforms: "education alone will not solve all problems, but there is no problem that can be solved without an education"
... said PM Pashinyan during a govt session while discussing education reforms. Kids in 1-5 grades will no longer receive grades; tt will be pass or no pass (still needs Parliamentary approval). "There will be a criticism. How can you not grade? But this is a comprehensive program that emphasizes the student's needs and preferences," said Pashinyan. "We need to pay attention to how the time is spent in schools and what skills are being taught in school hours. It will reflect in our society 15-20 years later. It will define whether we have a technological product or not. What we were doing in 12 years (school length) can be done within 9 years, but a 9-year school isn't the solution. Instead of shortening the school, we're trying to fill the gap in a way to have a 50% higher efficiency by the end of the 12th year. In developed countries, education starts not from school but from preschool. The lower the education entry age the more developed the countries are," said Pashinyan. (the govt has a plan to make sure 70% of kids attend preschools by 2023) https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042394.html
cancer stats in Armenia / annual rate / drops among children / fewer abandon treatment
world 9.6 million people die from cancer annually. 1/3rd is possible to prevent. Another part can be cured with the help of early detection. Armenia Cancer was the 2nd leading cause of death in 2020. It has increased in the past 10 years but at a small rate. Lung cancer is more common among men, and breast cancer among women. First time diagnosis by year: 2018 - 8762, 2019 - 7908, 2020 - 7050. Deaths by year: 2018 - 5199, 2019 - 5434. 2020 - unavailable. (55% men, 45% women) The cancer rate went up by 1.5x compared to 1990. However, it declined by 2x among children under 14yo. Fewer people abandon treatment. 3 years ago 53% of lung patients did so, today it's 40%. Breast cancer treatment abandonment went from 47% to 22%. (I translated the word բարձիթողության as "abandonment". Correct me if it refers to something else.) Artsakh The number of cancer cases has decreased in Artsakh: from 345 to 260 YoY. prevention Oncologist Safaryan says the early detection helps to avoid complications and save lives, even if it's the type of cancer that is known to reappear. There are many patients who defeat cancer. "Smokers should get a lung x-ray twice a year. Those working in chemical plants should get a frequent screening. Do not ignore symptoms and չգցել ականջի հետև. You can defeat it more easily when it's at 1-2 stages. It's a lot harder when it advances to 4." Preventing cancer isn't easy. The causes of this disease are many. Genetics, bad habits, obesity, surrounding environment. A genetic test can reveal the likelihood of suffering from illness. Some women choose to undergo a mastectomy to prevent possible breast cancer in the future. "I decided that if 1-in-100 is destined to be cured, I will be that one," said Ashkhen, a woman who recently defeated cancer. More: https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042291.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042364.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042405.html
cancer diagnosis, surgery, and radiotherapy are free
The treatment was made free recently. The Oncology Center urges the public to get screened as part of an early-detection initiative. The pilot program began in Vanadzor; 307 women were screened. Cancer diagnosis, surgery, and radiotherapy are free, while the medication has a co-payment. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042423.html
Artsakh president Arayik met donor Alec Baghdasaryan and thanked him. "Only with the joint efforts of the Armenian people is it possible to quickly overcome the difficulties and to plan development programs." Alec plans more charity programs relating to education. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042326.html
This type of gambler could be compared to a "golf nut," whose source of relaxation comes from playing golf. Serious social gamblers still maintain control over their gambling activities. 5. Custer's fifth type, relief and escape gamblers, gamble to find relief from feelings of anxiety, depression, anger, boredom or loneliness. They use gambling to escape from crisis or difficulties. Gambling provides an analgesic effect rather than a euphoric response. Relief and escape gamblers ... GamblersArea: Exclusive streaming bets & the latest bonuses at the hottest social gambling site in the universe. This online social gambling hub opened its virtual doors to the public in 2020. Ever since then, GamblersArea has partnered with some of the best casinos and software providers.such as TrueLab ... GamblersArea.com has announced the launch of a new social casino site, offering users the chance to play traditional slots games for free. Featuring gaming content from software providers such as TrueLab, GameArt and BGaming, users will be able to play wide range of slot games. GamblersArea.com has ... Social gamblers. Posted by sportsfeedscore. 0. Kitschy fun and modern technology may attract some younger people to the bingo scene, but the few halls that remain are still the domain of the city’s rapidly growing senior population. BY: TIFFY THOMPSON The balls blustered around the “hopper” like kernels exploding into popcorn on a Saturday afternoon at Delta Bingo Downsview, and frosty ... Social gambling is as much about socializing as it is about actually playing games of chance. Just like online casino gambling, social gambling has grown since the beginning of the pandemic. Unable to go to a land-based casino or even organize a private poker night, players have used social media to socialize and connect with their loved ones. Social gambling came in handy. It is always more fun to play with someone you know than a stranger or the Random Number Generator, especially for an ... Utilize SocialBlade.com to check your Dailymotion Stats and Dailymotion Followers while tracking your progress. SocialBlade is a premiere Dailymotion community where you can chat with other Dailymotion users. On the most commonly used social platform, Facebook, gamblers are almost as likely to be visitors as the rest of the public. But across all social networks you are less likely to find gamblers than you are the rest of the general population. In most cases this difference is small but in the case of Instagram, for example, the variance is larger. So if you’re a gambling marketer without a ... Professional gamblers are the rarest form of gambler and depend on games of skills rather than luck to make money. They have full control over the time, money and energy they spend on gambling. Social gamblers consider gambling to be a valid form of recreational activity and maintain full control over the time, money and energy they expend on gambling. They consider the cost of gambling to be payment for entertainment. Casual Social Gamblers are people who have several other recreational activities. They take all the positive aspects of gambling, and hardly any of the negative ones. Serious Social Gamblers , on the other hand, are people who consider gambling to be a primary source of entertainment, and for this reason they gamble more frequently .
The Social Gambler Show: Halloween Weekend - YouTube
The Social Gambler's John Arnette on a profitable weekend, tonight's MNF matchup, and the surprising Will Grier suspension Welcome to the new Social Gambler YouTube Channel. John Arnette is now streaming his ESPN radio show exclusievly for The Social Gambler Η καλύτερη φρουτοπαρέα! Share your videos with friends, family, and the world John Arnette with his thoughts on a couple of conference championship games and Week 13 in the NFL The Social Gambler's John Arnette provides his best bets for the last weekend in October
