How is it going my homies
I made this post on investing a few days ago explaining all of the QAnon fantasies and why the top could already be behind us. Some people listened, processed information and asked questions. Some called me a person working for Melvin and hedge funds.
It’s all in the past, but if you got burned on GME or other meme stocks, here are few things you should learn about the markets and trading these bubbles.

Set a price at which you will exit and take profit. Don’t look at what happens next, and never rebuy if the price continues growing. Likewise, set a stop loss at which you will exit no matter what.
Never, and I mean never put in more than you can afford to lose, or even lose sleep over. I have a pretty decent portfolio, and I only put in 0.5% of it in the play. I don’t give a shit about that money, but I still took profit and got a 250% ROI. Easiest cash I’ve ever made, easier than blowing a fat dude in the back alley behind a strip bar. Anyway.
If you hear about shit on the news. It’s probably not a good time to enter. There is a reason why some early people made money on the play. They understood mechanics of what was driving the increase in price. Many of them didn’t even expect a short squeeze, they just like the fundamentals. Likewise, if your 80 year old grannie (say hi to her from me) calls you and asks you about this magical company called GameStonk, sell that shit right away.
Always double and triple check information posted on forums and don’t take it for a truth even if it has a lot of upvotes. The amount of misinformation I saw on WSB over the past week with 100 thousand upvotes makes me want to vomit.
Stock trading is not a team activity. It’s not us vs them. It’s a fucking free for all, and people will drop their bags on you if they see their unrealized gain turn into an unrealized loss. You want to make money? Do your research, and be the first one on the train. Don’t jump on the train when it is speeding and going off the rails.
If you don’t understand how something works, learn about it. Again, the amount of conspiracy theories that I read about ladder attacks and this grand illuminati conspiracy is driving me nuts. Always use the Occam’s razor, meaning if there is a simple explanation to the situation, it is probably right. There is no need to build out this conspiracy theory for something you don’t understand, it does not help anyone.
You will get FOMO and you will get confirmation bias. Everybody does, but learning how to battle it is crucial. Look, my dad was a fucking casino gambler in his 30s playing blackjack and losing money, and I have the same traits. Does it mean I need to be the same? No, and I always remember my genes when trading. It is not an excuse to use when you lose money.
Realize that situations like this are extremely rare, and if you expect to make 300% gain in 3 days, I have some bad fucking news for you, markets don’t work like this.
Finance gets complicated real fast. Yes, on the surface it’s just buying and selling. I have been studying this shit for 5 years, and I still don’t know a lot of things. There are reasons why even some of the smartest people still lose money. Shit, Newton was burned on a South Sea bubble. Yes, that guy who discovered gravity lost money just any of us.
One bad trade does not define you. As long as you learn, and don’t repeat the same shit again, you are golden. There are plenty of ways to make money on the markets, be it value investing, selling options or setting up butterfly spreads.

TL;DR: Be smart, not dumb.

Watchlist 2-8-21 👀
HOT SECTORS:

Uranium ^UUUU ^NXE ^UEC ^CCJ
Marine ^NM
Household Electronic ^KOSS ^SONO ^KODK ^ZAGG
Investment Banking & Brokerage Services ^GHL ^ LPHA ^COWN ^ CCJ
Casino & Gaming ^PENN ^WYNN ^MGM ^BYD ^RRR

China Stocks:
"Cash is king during Chinese New Year, with gift-giving in the form of ‘red packets’ a major driver. Given that companies and stock markets are closed over the festivals, swathes of profit-taking take place to take vast sums of cash out of the system – causing fluctuations in stocks."
$TANH – found resistance at $2.01, but the bullish trend of the RSI and MACD could have break resistance to my PT $2.72
$CAAS - Double bottom measured move to $8.36.
$WEI - being backed by several social media influencers with PTs ranging $3-5+
Sympathy/Related: #QTT # CTK #WIMI #TIGR #AIHS #CMCM #UXIN #LAIX #TAL #DQ #LU #SEED #SXTC #BEST #TC #GSX #CCNC #PETZ #TKAT #PLAG #NCTY #MOXC #TANH #EVK #JRJC #AIH #HGSH #CCM #PLIN #BABA #TAOP #TEDU #LXEH #KXIN #OCG #YGMZ #ATIF #JFIN #CLEU #BHAT
BTC/BLOCKCHAIN:
Bitcoin hit 40K this weekend and Doge $0.07
$MARA $RIOT $BRQS – with bitcoin hitting 40K these are something to keep watch on Monday
Sympathy/Related: #SOS #RIOT #MOGO #NXTD #IDEX #MGI #IZEA #EQOS #IPDN #EBON #DPW #MARA #PHUN
MARIJUANA:
$SNDL - Pullback to $0.85ish, buy the pullback for an inverse head and shoulders with a price target of $2.61
$HUGE - Daily trend about to turn bullish with massive volume spike.
$CRBP – Huge gap to filled back up on the daily chart. PT $3.33
$KERN – Swing alert (weeks) growing nicely on the daily chart, but I wait for a pullback before making an entry. Long term PT $18.58
Sympathy/Related: #ACB, #TLRY #OGI #CGC #HEXO #CRON #APHA $ICG
Energy Sector:
$OPTT - Weekly trend about to change from bearish to bullish with significant volume increases week by week. PT: $8 short term, $18-20 longer term.
$SPI - weekly chart bullish harami. Bullish pennant price action pattern. EMA200 $19.55 MACD crossed bullish. Daily chart hammebull pin bar impulse pullback
Sympathy/Related:: #WWR #CBAT #PECK #PLUG #CLSK #FCEL #SUNW #AMTX #PEIX
#TRCH $#ENG #SPI #WATT #ALAC #TRCH #OPTT #OEG
BLM STOCKS: BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Sympathy/Related #LMFA #IMTE #SALM #UONEK #CARV #BYFC $UNONE
Biotechs:
$OCGN – Swing alert (Weeks) huge volume coming in after the split. Base on my daily fibo chart $10.73.
Sympathy/Related:: #ANVS #VXRT #AEZS #MBRX #SLS #CRMD #PRTA #VTVT #ALVR #PLRX #ARTL #GMDA #GRCL #TLSA #ATOS #IMNM #NKTX #AZRX #OCGN #SAVA #ADMS #SBBP #CNSP #AKER #SAVA #TTOO #AGEN
TECHNICALS:
$CNSL $RVPH – Both have double bottom with a hammer candle on Friday.
$VISL – Huge volume on Friday. Continuation play PT $5
$BDR - this low float stock is weekly play. Typically spikes over $2 at least once a week and usually on Monday or Tuesday. 10-50%.
$NAKD - Trend change and golden cross on the daily. Look for pullback to $.80 or so, then a push back to $2+
$CTRM - Over 25 million shares shorted on 1/15 that need to cover by tomorrow. Could be more powerful than the GME squeeze. Massive volume spike the past few weeks. First target $1, next target $2.69.
$LMNL looks like it's time has come to start really retracing back to the teens. Bullish harami on weekly. 3 white soldier on the daily. Bull flag broke down for a DBR set up. 4hr set up for PM gapper. PT $5.96 then $6.99 for a break above $6.07 ~10-30%+ gainer Fib retracement levels 23.6% $11.19 / 38.2% $15.06 / 50.0% $18.19 / 61.8% $21.33
$ADMP - weekly chart showing extreme bullish confluence. bullish hammebull pin bar EMA6 bounce pattern/backtest old resistance as new support to maintain $1+ compliance. EMA200 $2.144
Daily chart fish hook pattern gap to 1.40 and 1.64 great chart set up for possible rockets.
Backburners: ^WPRT ^PPBT ^MBII ^LAIX ^CLNE ^ELVT ^VRTV ^NAVB ^AAME ^VOR ^IMCR ^WHLR ^BOLT ^HTBX ^CLOV ^ABUS ^MRNA ^HGEN

Hello everyone! I have only been on Reddit for a few months but I learned so much from it that I figured I should try and give back to the community. English is my second language and this is the first time I ever write a full-length article, I hope you will enjoy reading it and I would be very thankful if you could provide some feedback about my writing, about the topic, or about anything else really… So here goes!
Why you should learn poker and game theory:
My story is similar to that of many: I learned about the game 10 years ago (during the golden age of online poker) when some friends of mine invited me to play a home game. Although I initially thought of poker as just another game of chance akin to playing slots or roulette in a casino, I quickly came to realize that there is a lot more to it as my more experienced friends would repeatedly get the best of me during these home games, which led me to start watching videos and reading strategy books to improve my skill… Little did I know it’d be the start of a journey that would impact many different aspects of my life way beyond the game itself, as most of the fundamental principles learned through poker can be applied to your decision-making outside of the game, especially when it comes to money management and investing. Now, let’s dive into a few of these principles:

- Risk management (i.e. Bankroll management)
When learning about how to be successful playing poker, the first big piece of advice most people come across is bankroll management or BRM. To understand BRM, you must first realize that poker has a lot of variance: you might be vastly ahead in a given hand but there is almost always a slim chance that you will lose in the end if one specific card hits. This implies that you will sometimes lose even though you were a 99% favorite, and that you will sometimes get unlucky and lose 2, 5 or maybe even 20 such encounters in a row. THIS is variance. It doesn’t mean that you played bad or that you made bad decisions, but rather that you got unlucky. Over time you will have lucky streaks and unlucky streaks, and these will average out in the long term… It’s just the way the game goes.
Now that we understand variance, let’s get back to BRM. What is it exactly? Let’s say you are the best poker player in the world but you only have 1000$ that you can EVER use to play with. Taking your whole 1000$ on one table and multiplying your stack at an exponential rate might seem like a good idea. Surely nothing can go wrong since you’re the best player in the world right? But variance can be a bitch ;) Even if you’re the best you will lose regularly and you will sometimes get unlucky, it’s just part of the game. The correct move here is to apply BRM, which means only using a small % of your available capital for each game you play in order to reduce the risk of going broke. Using only 100$ per game would already be a lot safer, but you still run the risk of going under on a streak of bad luck. If you only allocate 10$ per game you play, then it becomes virtually impossible for you to ever go broke, even on a huge streak of bad luck. Sure it’s not as exciting and you won’t be making money quite as fast as you could, but this is the way to go to make sure you don’t go broke…
This approach to risk management translates very well to investing:
- Only invest what you can afford to lose. Once the money is on the table it’s as good as gone, which is why you should only use your “spare” cash and never invest with your living expenses or worse, borrow money to invest.
- Diversify your investments. There is always a chance, however slim it might be, that you will lose most of your investment. This is why going all-in on a specific investment is generally a bad idea (this applies particularly well in the crypto space).
Proper BRM allows you to make sure that you will come out ahead in the long run if you play well, which basically comes down to making more good decisions than bad ones. But that’s assuming you don’t let emotions come in the way of your decision-making, which brings us to our next point…

- Emotional management (i.e. Handling tilt/Positive mindset)
Nobody likes losing… In the same way we enjoy winning because of the dopamine rush, we feel bad when we lose which is totally natural. Overcoming this and avoiding tilt (irrational decisions made out of angefrustration) is an essential skill for any successful poker player. You might play a sound game of poker and apply good BRM, but you will still lose if you let your emotions get the best of you.
After a loss, rather than being angry and frustrated, you should evaluate your decision-making. If your decision-making was good, you just got unlucky and you shouldn’t worry about it since you are playing for the long run (remember that variance teaches us that anything can happen in the short-term). If your decision-making was bad, you need to learn from your mistakes and move on. The key here is to always have a positive mindset: making mistakes is part of the learning process and should be seen as an occasion to improve. Being angry and ranting, on the other hand, rarely result in anything positive.
Again, this translates very well to investing:
- Don’t be impulsive, don’t let your emotions cloud your judgment. You should not FOMO because the price is pumping, nor should you sell because of FUD or price corrections. If you believe in a project, short-term price changes (did I hear someone say “variance”?) shouldn’t bother you.
- Don’t get stuck up on losses. You bought the top and it crashed immediately after? You sold the bottom right before a huge rally? Don’t let this bother you: what’s done is done and you just need to move on and make the best of your current situation.
- Have a positive mindset. Anger and frustration lead to nothing. Yes you could have bought in 2009 when you first heard about it, hindsight is always 20/20. Stay positive and keep learning/improving yourself.
The good thing about all this is that it goes way beyond poker or investing. Being aware of your emotions and how they affect you, learning how to handle losing even when you were “supposed” to win, etc… All this can tremendously help you in all aspects of life by making you less impulsive and more rational in your decision-making. Now, this leaves us with our last fundamental principle of a sound poker strategy:

- Basic stats and probabilities (i.e. Expected value/Odds)
To become an accomplished player, you will inevitably have to learn about these simple mathematical tools that poker players use all the time in their decision-making process, such as odds and expected value. To make it very simple, the expected value (EV) of any bet is (REWARD \ WinRate - RISK), meaning that if you can bet 1000$ with a chance to win 10k$ half of the time, your EV is *(10000\0.5)-1000 = +4000$**. Obviously these are great odds to take as long as you have enough capital to overcome variance. But things would be very different if the odds of winning were only 5% as your EV would then be negative *(10000\0.05)-1000 = -500$.*** Now this is clearly a bet you should not take…
Now that you know probabilities, statistics and game theory are useful decision-making tools in poker, guess what? They are also extremely useful in investing! Even better, the study of game theory with problems such as the “Byzantine generals” or the “Three prisoners” has been, along with cryptography, the foundation on which blockchain technology was built, enabling the trustless and decentralized services that are about to revolutionize our world…
Assuming this was enough to pique your interest and make you want to dig deeper, I’ll just add that just like the other topics we discussed and as you might have guessed, this translates very well to investing and also to pretty much anything in your life:
- Learn how to break down complex situations. Logical thinking paired with a statistical approach will help you break down any complex problem into several easier problems, making the whole thing a lot easier to approach/comprehend.
- Base your decisions on a methodical and rational approach. List every possible outcome along with its associated upside/downside, estimate the probability of each outcome to occur and make the best decision based on the information available.
My point here is that risk management, emotional management and statistics/game theory are all awesome tools that you should definitely add to your arsenal. Not only will it improve your money-management and investing, it will also be beneficial to your decision-making and to your life in general. Of course poker is not the only way to learn about these, but I personally found it to be the best practice ground to refine and improve them, which is why I strongly encourage you all to try it out and study the game.
I hope you enjoyed the article, and I wish you all a happy 2021 bull run! May we all come closer to retirement and financial independence!

TL;DR: more than a game, poker is a school of thought. It teaches you to be reasonable, to assess the risk of every single choice you make, to overcome you emotions, to play the long game rather than the short game, to make informed decisions, etc… This has made me a lot wiser in every aspect of my life, which is why I strongly encourage to try it out and read about poker strategy.

At a discord room I visit, people often state while Brosnan's movies obviously were box office successes in Britain esp GoldenEye, he isn't as in-grained with Bond as he is in the rest of the world. That in the UK no single actor is ubiquitous with the role.
It does make me wonder because even outside the core Bond community, I notice with Brits I met online and irl including not just casual fans but even people who don't remotely care about 007 or even just spy movies period................... Much of them are aware that not only has there been 007 actors before Brosnan but they seem to know the names of several generations of the character. Enugh that its quite common to hear from random Brits including non-fans state "Oh Connery is the best!" and "I miss the Roger Moore days", etc. Even Milleneals UK people I know who grew up with Brosnan at least are aware of Connery and Moore (including those who never seen the pre-90s movies and openly state either Brosnan or Craig is their fav if only because they are the only ones they are exposed to).
As an American who was born in the 90s I will state before Craig's run Brosnan was not only the BOND for the American mainstream but he's the only one that most Americans even know about (even with the Craig era replacing him). So much that even people who don't know Pierce is the name of the 90s Bond actor like elder men who grew up in the Great Depression and preppy school girls I had as classmates who don't care about action flicks immediately picture Brosnan's image (ot at least his general basic features like dark hair and blue eyes) with Bond. Hell despite Craig being Bond for a whole generation, I met plenty of people born in the 2000s who associate Bond looking like Pierce Brosnan than Craig! Pretty much what I wrote above also applies to Canadian fans from my experience visiting the country to meet relatives and chatting online in gaming message boards and on Steam.
In addition despite the popular belief that Dalton's movies were flopped, they actually made profits worldwide. A hardcore fan told me its a misconception that was created by the fact Dalton's run underperformed in America but not only did it make cash world wide but they actually made around equal gross profits to Roger Moore's last 3 007 movies before he stepped down. That Dalton's movies was certainly popular in the UK during their original run.
I will also point out talking with non-English folks such as people from El Salvador, France, UAE, Japan, and elsewhere across the world online, they seem to only associate Bond with Brosnan and Craig and are ignorant of earlier iterations (excepting obviously older people who remembered when Connery and others were front page news in local non-English newspapers and magazines of their countries).
So i am very curious if Brosnan is not as popular in Britain as he is elsewhere throughout the world where people still associate Bond with his image including those who don't know his name is Pierce Brosnan and young people who grew up with Craig? I will also add I notice Pierce Brosnan even in the UK is so ubiquitous among video gamers too!
What exactly made Brosnan so ubiquitous with Bond outside the UK esp North America? In addition what exactly makes Brosnan so associated with video games and so known among hardcore gamers who don't watch movies and TV? Why does it seem Dalton isn't looked down upon in the UK and had some following in his native country while TLD and LTK are seen as corny failed attempts to successfully do what Casino Royale managed to execute decades among audiences outside of Britain esp North America (and Dalton so forgotten internationally so many people don't know a more realistic brutal Bond was already attempted before Casino Royale)?

PLCGDXM

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PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE AFTER A SUCCESSFUL TRANSACTION, PLEASE TAG ME & BOT TO GET CREDIT FOR THE TRANSACTION! :)

SNY BUFF MOVIE = $5 EACH (HAVE 4)

Disney+ 6-Month Subscription Card Code (NEW CUSTOMERS ONLY) = $25

4K MOVIES/COLLECTION

MOVIES:

TV SHOWS:

DISNEY ANIMATED & LIVE

PIXAR

DC COLLECTION

AQUAMAN | MA/HD | $5

MARVEL

STAR WARS

I'm level 218 and have been playing for years, but I took a break from the game, so now I'm trying to get back into it. My friends don't really play anymore, and I'm looking for some chill people to grind with. Just as long as you're down to vibe while we make money, and aren't toxic. If that sounds like you, and you need some help or just want to play, I'm so down.
I can help out with heists, businesses, or whatever. I have all the properties & pretty much everything else I need, so I'm cool with whatever % I get. Don't care about your level, or if you know what you're doing or not. I got you, just be chill.
I've done the criminal mastermind challenge, and have some experience with the Doomsday & Casino heists, just haven't done Cayo Perico yet.
But lmk if you're interested, or add my GT, and let's go!!
GT: GoldenHourBoy

I take Venmo, Paypal, ApplePay, GPay, CashApp -- If you use CashApp for the first time if you use my referral then you will get $10 as well https://cash.app/app/PLCGDXM

WILL MAKE DEALS IF YOU ARE BUYING MORE THEN 2 ITEMS! I WILL GET BACK TO EACH PERSON

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE AFTER A SUCCESSFUL TRANSACTION, PLEASE TAG ME & BOT TO GET CREDIT FOR THE TRANSACTION! :)

SNY BUFF MOVIE = $5 EACH (HAVE 4)

4K MOVIES/COLLECTION

MOVIES:

TV SHOWS:

DISNEY ANIMATED & LIVE

PIXAR

DC COLLECTION

MARVEL

STAR WARS

This is my opinion on every gamemode. Obviously it is just my opinion so keep that in mine, but I have played enough of every gamemode to give a pretty honest feedback on every one. I am a player of 6 years, have 4 golden heroes, 5000 MMR Battleground, 12 wins in arena and been rank 1 many times in diamond. So I do have experience on alot of these gamemodes:

Standard:
Pros:
1: It has alot of different decks constantly changing the Meta: I feel like standard feels really fresh compared to some of the other gamemodes. Most classes are playable and each expansion and rotation has an impact on the meta game (unless the expansion is really bad). In year of the phoenix I think most classes have had a chance to shine at least once which means it has been good to play around with different decks and climb the ladder with different heroes.
2: It has balances patches frequently: Another positive is compared to most gamemodes it does have frequent balance patches. It a card or a class gets too overpowered they do balance it within a week or two which is reasonable quick.
3: You do not have to play around everything: Even if cards are generated randomly, it feels like there is less to play around than lets say wild. It is nice to have an idea of what kind of things your opponent could discover or get randomly, even if sometimes it can be hard.
Cons:
1: It only takes one card to warp the meta game: Just look at Bogspine knuckles as an example, That one cards wrapped the meta and now cheese paladin with High Abbess Alura has taken it's place. Having one card more powerful than the other's can lead to one class dominating for large periods of time.
2: It can get stale: Even with the balance patches, Standard has periods which do feel pretty dull half way through expansion cycles as there is less to play around with.

Wild:
Pro:
1: You can play with ALL Your cards: You are not limited to only playing with the newest cards and can enjoy your full collection. If you play wild you may even choose not to craft whole new expansions and only focus on a few cards to slot into your already wild decks, which means you can save gold for other things!
2: A lot more decks to play and try: You can explore more in wild as you have more decks to try out. Wild allows you to try all kinds of decks and combinations with new and old cards for each class.
3: The Combo and Meme potential: Just look at all the different combos and memes you can try in wild! turning your opponent into Ragnaros to kill them, Shooting infinitive fireballs, Using shutterwock with Armor vendor to hold your opponent hostage. Alot of cool and crazy interactions to try.
4: More Hero cards: I am a bit bias, but I like hero cards. It is nice to have more of them in wild like the Death knights to try. I do think they do warp meta games a bit and would probs not work as well in standard, but fun to try them all in wild.
Cons:
1: The Mana cheat is unreal! The Mana cheat in wild Can be brutal. Cheating our huge minions in big priest, Zero mana secrets in mage, Having 5/5 worth of stats on turn 1 in aggro decks and zero mana spells. Wild can be a scary place if you do not know how to counter them.
2: Broken classes stay broken: Getting a balance change in wild is very rare. So the top classes like Darkglare warlock, Secret Mage and Raza priest will ALWAYS be the best classes.
3: You can't play your favorite old decks and win: I think iksar's tweet about "Wild being the place you can play your favorite old decks" is simple not really true. Yes you can play them, but your chance to winning is significantly lower.
4: You can't play around everything: With over twice the amount of cards in wild, It makes is much harder to play around everything, decks like casino mage can lead to games where you are playing against 20 random mage spells which can feel a bit crazy (in a bad way)!

Battlegrounds:
Pros:
1: It is super fun and each game feels different: It feels like a fun gamemode to play as most games do end up playing out different depending on which hero you choose! I enjoy all the different play styles and builds you can make.
2: Has many mini expansions throughout the year: Battlegrounds have many mini expansion and new minions and heroes being added, which does help keep it really fresh.
3: Your decisions can matter: I think battleground has very interesting decision making opportunities like which minions you want to attack first and what minions to buy. This helps make the game feel fresh as each game is a bit different.
Cons:
1: No rewards/cosmetics: One of the biggest cons is the game mode feels like you don't really achieve anything. You do not get card backs or golden battleground heroes which feels like after playing all you can get to really show is either an achievement you have to work for or MMR. I think adding a card back or something could be a good idea in a future update.

Duels:
Pros:
1: It is a dungeon run: Another bias point, but I love dungeon runs and having a gamemode where you can play a dungeon run against other people is pretty cool.
2: Lots of treasures to play around with: I enjoy the fact you can build a starting deck around a treasure and hero power. It seems a bit more personalized than a normal dungeon run as you can build it instead of having a starting deck made by blizzard.
3: A free mode to enjoy: The casual mode is a good touch. Being able to test out decks and treasures before committing any gold or tavern tickets is a good thing.
Cons:
1: It is behind a paywall: If you want the actual crazy treasures and hero powers you have to buy tons of packs to get cards which I feel is a bit rubbish for a gamemode.
2: Some heroes, Passives and treasures feel oppressive: The zombie passive is an example of how mental some passives can be. I think some classes just shine more in the gamemode than others.
Arena:
I forgot this was a mode and have not played it in 2 years so can't say anything apart from IT NEEDS A HUGE CHANGE as it feels like playing curvestone.
What do you think of my review?

Hey guys, it’s Coolin ! I’m back!
Hope everyone has had an amazing week , and Friday!! It’s almost the weekend! Valentine’s Day Weekend .. and long weekend!! .. any big plans for it?! Let me know, down below!!
Before I carry on into my posts, I’ll say this - You’re not obligated to read all of my post(s). Read til your heart desires, find what you need, and be happy!
Thank you for all the feedback, comments, support you’ve given me.
Here’s the new cards and event for today!! Thanks EA!
— Syn Abbreviation Guide —

Silver Master Icons

Jari Kurri - 91 OVR - EDM / RW - BAR² , HOW²
Peter Statsny - 91 OVR - NOR / C - H and S² , PP²
Steve Yzerman - 92 OVR - DET / C - SWA² , GLA²
Uses 9 Icon Collectables
—-

BLOCKBUSTERS

Available for 1 week. MSPs are Pullable throughout Event Time of 2 weeks.
Chris Didomenico - 94 OVR - RW - SPE² , BAR¹ , SWA¹ or SPA² , HOW¹ , MAG¹
Mike Fisher - 94 OVR - C - SWA² , PP¹ , SPE¹ or HOW² , DIS¹ , H and S¹
Marc Andre Fleury - 94 OVR - G - SWA² , BAR¹ , BAL¹ **or H and S² , SPA¹ , DIS¹
Jack Johnson - 94 OVR - LD - SPA² , MAG¹ , SH¹ or WM² , DIS¹ , SWA¹
Phil Kessel - 94 OVR - LW - BAL² , SH¹ , GLA¹ or LTL² , H and S¹ , SPA¹
Eric Lindros - 94 OVR - C - DIS² , WM¹ , T¹ or WH² , BAR¹ , SWA¹
Shea Weber - 94 OVR - RD - SH² , SWA¹ , BAL¹
——-
Chris Didomenico - 93 OVR - SPA¹ , HOW¹ , MAG¹
Mike Fisher - 93 OVR - SWA¹ , PP¹ , SPE¹
Marc Andre Fleury - 93 OVR - H and S¹ , SPA¹ , DIS¹
Jack Johnson - 93 OVR - SPA¹ , MAG¹ , SH¹
Phil Kessel - 93 OVR - BAL¹ , SH¹ , GLA¹
Eric Lindros - 93 OVR - DIS¹ , WM¹ , T¹
Shea Weber - 93 OVR - DIS¹ , PP¹ , LTL¹
——
Taylor Hall - 92 OVR - NJD / LW - BAR¹ , PP²
Jay Bouwmeester - 91 OVR - CGY / LD - SPA¹ , WH²
Chris Didomenico - 91 OVR - FRI / RW - HOW¹ , MAG¹
Mike Fisher - 91 OVR - NAS / C - PP¹ , SPE¹
Marc Andre Fleury - 91 OVR - LVK / G - SPA¹ , DIS¹
Jack Johnson - 91 OVR - NYR / LD - MAG¹ , SH¹
Phil Kessel - 91 OVR - BOS / RW - SH¹ , GLA¹
Eric Lindros - 91 OVR - PHI / C - WM¹ , T¹
Shea Weber - 91 OVR - MTL / RD - PP¹ , LTL¹
Pierre-Luc Dubois - 90 OVR - WPJ / C - SPA¹ , WM²
Seth Jones - 90 OVR - CBJ / RD - DIS¹ , GLA²
Chris Didomenico - 90 OVR - SCL / RW - HOW¹ , MAG¹
Mike Fisher - 89 OVR - OTT / C - PP¹ , SPE¹ ... happy he got a card!!!
Marc Andre Fleury - 89 OVR - PEN / G - SPA¹ , DIS¹
Jean Sebastian Gigure - 89 OVR - COL / G - BAR¹ , SPA²
Jack Johnson - 89 OVR - PEN / LD - MAG¹ , SH¹
Phil Kessel - 89 OVR - TOR / RW - SH¹ , GLA¹
Eric Lindros - 89 OVR - NYR / C - WM¹ , T¹
Petr Mrazek - 89 OVR - PHI / G - SWA¹ , SPE¹
Shea Weber - 89 OVR - NAS / RD - PP¹ , LTL¹
Keith Yandle - 89 OVR - NYR / LD - BAR¹ , SH²
Bryan Berard - 88 OVR - TOR / LD - SPA¹ , HOW²
Todd Bertuzzi - 88 OVR - FLA / RW - DIS¹ , WM²
Milan Lucic - 88 OVR - EDM / LW - BAL¹ , WH²
Jimmy Carson - 87 OVR - DET / C - H and S¹ , SPE²
Chris Didomenico - 87 OVR - OTT / RW - MAG¹ , HOW¹
Mike Fisher - 87 OVR - EVZ / C - PP¹ , SPE¹
Marc ANdre Fleury - 87 OVR - (A)PEN / G - SPA¹ , DIS¹
Jack Johnson - 87 OVR - CBJ / LD - MAG¹ , SH¹
Phil Kessel - 87 OVR - PEN / RW - SH¹ , GLA¹
Eric Lindros - 87 OVR - TOR / C - WM¹ , T¹
Gustav Nyquist - 87 OVR - SJS / RW - DIS¹ , LTL²
Gary Roberts - 87 OVR - CAR / LW - DIS¹ , GLA²
Alexander Steen - 87 OVR - STL / LW - H and S¹ , WH²
Shea Weber - 87 OVR - ADM / RD - PP¹ , LTL¹
Matthew Barnaby - 87 OVR - PEN / RW - SWA¹ , GLA²
Joel Otto - 86 OVR - PHI / C - DIS¹ , WM²
Jean Gabriel Pageau - 86 OVR - NYI / C - SPA¹ , MAG¹
Chris Didomenico - 85 OVR - ICE / RW - MAG¹
Mike Fisher - 85 OVR - WOL / C - SPE¹
Marc Andre Fleury - 85 OVR - EAG / G - DIS¹
Jack Johnson - 85 OVR - LAK / LD - SH¹
Phil Kessel - 85 OVR - PHI / RW - GLA¹
Eric Lindros - 85 OVR - (A)DAL - C - T¹
Luke Schenn - 85 OVR - LAK / RD - BAR¹ , SPE²
Shea Weber - 85 OVR - ROC / RD - LTL¹
Nikita Zadorov - 85 OVR - CHI / LD - SWA¹ , SH²
Devan Dubnyk - 83 OVR - MIN / G - DIS¹ , H and S²

Primetimes

Available for 24 HR Cards / Til Monday at 5PM (on weekends)

NHL

Mark Giordano - 90 OVR - CGY / LD - LTL¹ , SH¹
John Gibson - 89 OVR - ANA / G - H and S¹
Drew Doughty - 88 OVR - LAK / RD - WM¹ , WH¹
Sebastian Aho - 88 OVR - CAR / C - PP¹ , LTL¹
Connor Hellebuyck - 87 OVR - WPJ / G - DIS¹ , SWA¹
Brian Rust - 86 OVR - PEN / RD - SPE¹ , MAG¹
Cam Atkinson - 85 OVR - CBJ / RW - GLA¹ , WM¹
Aaron Ekblad - 85 OVR - FLA / RD - HOW¹ , SH¹
Jacob Markstrom - 85 OVR - CGY / G - BAL¹ , BAR¹
Alexander Wenneberg - 84 OVR - FLA / C - T¹ , WM¹
Michael Del Zotto - 83 OVR - CBJ / LD - HOW¹ , PP¹
Jujhar Khaira - 81 OVR - EDM / C - SPE¹ , MAG¹
——-

End Note - For Those Just Viewing Cards

If you wish to opt out of reading

Hope you have an amazing day / night!! Take Care!!

• • • • • • • • • • - - - - - - - - - • • • • • • • • • • • •

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Availlable until Monday at 5pm EST
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Hockey News

• Vegas Golden Knights — Gold Chrome Helmets?
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Stock Market News

• What Warren Buffett would do
• Near Peak “Panic Levels”

Other News

• Ottawa to Host National Skating Champs - 2022
• What happened to Bruce Springsteen?
——————

What’s to Come?

• LONG WEEKEND !!!
• Valentine’s Day - February 14
• Family Day - February 15
—————
———— —— ———

IMPORTANT NOTICE

Sometimes you just need to get off the grid to let your soul right.
Social Media chews up a lot of our time.. — the average person stares at their phone for 3 and half hours per day. You might think “oh , thats not so bad” .... but to put that into perspective, that is 24.5 hours in a singular week. Now times that by 4, to get how much you would spend in a month. 98 hours. — 4 days essentially.
If we times those 4 days, by 12 we get a shocking 48 days. Quick Maths
48 days out of 365 days doesn’t seem like a lot, no? It turns out to 13% of the entire year.
The reasoning on why I mention this is to show you that all that “little” time adds up...
Life is too short to stare at a screen - try and put a timer on your Social Medias / Phone in general if you’re worried that your phone usage is being or becoming an addiction!
——

Interested in Stocks?

EA’s Stock Price, after hours - Feb 12
$ 147.76 (usd) —- Currency Converter
we looked at the stock at $137.54 usd
—— That is a difference of ( $10.22 / 7.43% ) —
Disclaimer - I am not a financial advisor. It is your money, please do your own due diligence. I am not responsible for your money. This is *not** advice. I added this section for an added educational purposes only. Thanks*
—— —— —— —-

NEED A SOUNDTRACK TO LISTEN TO?

I made this for everyone. I’ll update it whenever I feel like it, but its been often!

WE’RE AT 1400+ SONGS! WOW! How are you not listening to this playlist already!?
Comment songs to add, and please give feedback! It’s much appreciated!!
I currently have “Glad You Exist” by “Dan + Shay” stuck in my head.... which you can play, recently added to the playlist!
———-

Sites To Bookmark!

Best Streaming Service - According to the Internet
Stream Sport Games - Reddit Verified
Build Your Dream Team. Look at New Cards.
Contents of Each Pack
HUT Market
What attributes on a card means
When is your favourite Team Playing? - Schedule
——- —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —- —— —-

Fighting a Gambling Addiction?

Don’t feel scared to click here. Winning is SO much louder than losing. Know that you are NEVER alone. We are all here for eachother, and it is never too late to get help. I am here for you.
This is a VERY important thread, especially if you are new to HUT. Here!
——-
43 / 365
—— —— —— —- —- ——- —- —— ——
Thanks for reading.
I’m always welcome to feedback, please let me know what I can improve on.
If there’s anything missing, please let me know!
Take care, happy gaming! HAPPY NATIONAL NO ONE EATS ALONE DAY
• Coolin Killin It
(Life is like a puzzle, you just have to find the right piece.)

Watchlist 2-8-21 👀
HOT SECTORS:

Uranium ^UUUU ^NXE ^UEC ^CCJ
Marine ^NM
Household Electronic ^KOSS ^SONO ^KODK ^ZAGG
Investment Banking & Brokerage Services ^GHL ^ LPHA ^COWN ^ CCJ
Casino & Gaming ^PENN ^WYNN ^MGM ^BYD ^RRR

China Stocks:
"Cash is king during Chinese New Year, with gift-giving in the form of ‘red packets’ a major driver. Given that companies and stock markets are closed over the festivals, swathes of profit-taking take place to take vast sums of cash out of the system – causing fluctuations in stocks."
$TANH – found resistance at $2.01, but the bullish trend of the RSI and MACD could have break resistance to my PT $2.72
$CAAS - Double bottom measured move to $8.36.
$WEI - being backed by several social media influencers with PTs ranging $3-5+
Sympathy/Related: #QTT # CTK #WIMI #TIGR #AIHS #CMCM #UXIN #LAIX #TAL #DQ #LU #SEED #SXTC #BEST #TC #GSX #CCNC #PETZ #TKAT #PLAG #NCTY #MOXC #TANH #EVK #JRJC #AIH #HGSH #CCM #PLIN #BABA #TAOP #TEDU #LXEH #KXIN #OCG #YGMZ #ATIF #JFIN #CLEU #BHAT
BTC/BLOCKCHAIN:
Bitcoin hit 40K this weekend and Doge $0.07
$MARA $RIOT $BRQS – with bitcoin hitting 40K these are something to keep watch on Monday
Sympathy/Related: #SOS #RIOT #MOGO #NXTD #IDEX #MGI #IZEA #EQOS #IPDN #EBON #DPW #MARA #PHUN
MARIJUANA:
$SNDL - Pullback to $0.85ish, buy the pullback for an inverse head and shoulders with a price target of $2.61
$HUGE - Daily trend about to turn bullish with massive volume spike.
$CRBP – Huge gap to filled back up on the daily chart. PT $3.33
$KERN – Swing alert (weeks) growing nicely on the daily chart, but I wait for a pullback before making an entry. Long term PT $18.58
Sympathy/Related: #ACB, #TLRY #OGI #CGC #HEXO #CRON #APHA $ICG
Energy Sector:
$OPTT - Weekly trend about to change from bearish to bullish with significant volume increases week by week. PT: $8 short term, $18-20 longer term.
$SPI - weekly chart bullish harami. Bullish pennant price action pattern. EMA200 $19.55 MACD crossed bullish. Daily chart hammebull pin bar impulse pullback
Sympathy/Related:: #WWR #CBAT #PECK #PLUG #CLSK #FCEL #SUNW #AMTX #PEIX
#TRCH $#ENG #SPI #WATT #ALAC #TRCH #OPTT #OEG
BLM STOCKS: BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Sympathy/Related #LMFA #IMTE #SALM #UONEK #CARV #BYFC $UNONE
Biotechs:
$OCGN – Swing alert (Weeks) huge volume coming in after the split. Base on my daily fibo chart $10.73.
Sympathy/Related:: #ANVS #VXRT #AEZS #MBRX #SLS #CRMD #PRTA #VTVT #ALVR #PLRX #ARTL #GMDA #GRCL #TLSA #ATOS #IMNM #NKTX #AZRX #OCGN #SAVA #ADMS #SBBP #CNSP #AKER #SAVA #TTOO #AGEN
TECHNICALS:
$CNSL $RVPH – Both have double bottom with a hammer candle on Friday.
$VISL – Huge volume on Friday. Continuation play PT $5
$BDR - this low float stock is weekly play. Typically spikes over $2 at least once a week and usually on Monday or Tuesday. 10-50%.
$NAKD - Trend change and golden cross on the daily. Look for pullback to $.80 or so, then a push back to $2+
$CTRM - Over 25 million shares shorted on 1/15 that need to cover by tomorrow. Could be more powerful than the GME squeeze. Massive volume spike the past few weeks. First target $1, next target $2.69.
$LMNL looks like it's time has come to start really retracing back to the teens. Bullish harami on weekly. 3 white soldier on the daily. Bull flag broke down for a DBR set up. 4hr set up for PM gapper. PT $5.96 then $6.99 for a break above $6.07 ~10-30%+ gainer Fib retracement levels 23.6% $11.19 / 38.2% $15.06 / 50.0% $18.19 / 61.8% $21.33
$ADMP - weekly chart showing extreme bullish confluence. bullish hammebull pin bar EMA6 bounce pattern/backtest old resistance as new support to maintain $1+ compliance. EMA200 $2.144
Daily chart fish hook pattern gap to 1.40 and 1.64 great chart set up for possible rockets.
Backburners: ^WPRT ^PPBT ^MBII ^LAIX ^CLNE ^ELVT ^VRTV ^NAVB ^AAME ^VOR ^IMCR ^WHLR ^BOLT ^HTBX ^CLOV ^ABUS ^MRNA ^HGEN

It was a shitty, gray afternoon in Manhattan. The smell of rain and hot dog vendors perforated my nose as I adjusted my tie and walked up to the restaurant.
I was a little surprised to hear that Gabe had wanted to meet, I was one of the early investors in GUHStop after all, and I had made a killing selling it near its peak. I thought he’d hate me, and I was sure he was going to ream my ass so hard it would make 🌈 🐻 say “u r fuk” but as I entered the lavish establishment, something felt off.
I grabbed a Macallan neat to steel my nerves for the expected fuckening, but as the bartender set the drink in front of me I heard him behind me. “Paper hands! It is so good to see you my friend.” The voice sent a shiver down my spine, but I picked my drink up and turned to meet him, and found Gabe Plotkin, founder of Melvin Capital with his arms outstretched, ready to embrace me.
“Melvi- Er Gabe. I gotta say I’m surprised about this whole thing.”
“I think I can clear things up. Why don’t we have a seat at our table and start our meal.”
And with that he ushered me off to a nice table in the corner of the restaurant, a perfect window view of the muggy streets of Manhattan, the rain starting to fall on the pavement outside, hitting the window with a constant stream of tap tap tap tap. It was a nice table and the first course was placed as soon as we sat down, and our water glasses and champagne flutes were already filled.
“Look, paper hands, I got to say -“ he started before taking a pause to sip his golden bubbly. Here it is, the anger of a Wall Street man who lost it all. “- You are the most amazing thing to happen!”
“I’m sorry, amazing? Didn’t I cost you billions? Didn’t your wife divorce you?”
“Yes! But since I had technically gone bankrupt, I immediately filed the papers letting my wife take almost nothing because of my financial position. Then I rode that meme stonk wave with you guys! By the time it hit 420.69 a share I had already made back billions.”
“Okay, I guess that’s something to celebrate. Cheers.”
“But that’s not even the best part. You see, when you started that ‘short ladder attack’ nonsense, you gave the apes something to latch onto. You helped drive their minds to believe anything was manipulation. So as long as they’re fighting, I’m making money hand over fist playing these suckers.”
“I see...”
“Your golden ticket turned into my golden goose. And I’m the one gathering the eggs.”
The conversation was nothing like I expected. Gabe and I had a long dinner, discussing investment strategies, mocking dumb apes, and just enjoying our food and time together.
But I had to ask. “Gabe... why did you short more than 100% of it anyways? Surely you knew the risks involved there.”
He set his fork down and had a somber look on his face, and his appeared far off, like he was choosing his words very carefully.
“Gabe?”
The mention of his name caused him to look at me and smile. “You see, I had no idea. At first. We didn’t realize it until they pointed it out on reddit in 2020. But we didn’t care once we did find out. But we shorted it because... well because it was easy. And it still is.”
“So you’re continuing to short it?”
He smiled, nodded and returned to his dessert and happily ate his chocolate cake. Turns out you can have your cake and eat it too.
In the cab ride back home, I had a little time to reflect on our conversation. It wasn’t what I expected, but I felt... justified. Knowing that he had made out like a bandit, and is contuing to profit off of the situation, it just remimded me that there’s only one goal for those entering the Wall Street Casino: To make money. And one things for certain, I would never forget My Dinner With Melvin..... Capital’s founder, Gabe Plotkin.

RoyalRoad
First
Next
Jen and Sarah spent the next week doing research. The Internet was filled with contradictory information about monetary theory and economics, and neither of them really had the background to evaluate the arguments that everyone was having.
However, Sarah reminded them both, they didn't need to look at a perfect system, just one that worked. So, they started digging through Wikipedia articles and online textbooks on the history of money and how they came to be.
"Hey, did you know they used to use salt as currency?" Sarah asked as she skimmed through a particularly fascinating documentary about Middle Age East African economies.
"Is this some kind of joke about mining salt?"
"No, it's real, look. And apparently the word salary is from the Latin word salarium for money used to buy salt," Sarah continued fascinated.
Of course, they couldn't use something as simple as salt to represent money. In fact, they couldn't use any commodity either.
Over the last week, one of the alien traders caught wind that gold was extremely valuable on Earth, so they'd brought them in by the ton load. Gold was still useful for electronics and some dentistry, but the price of gold, mostly propped up by its value in rarity, crashed hard.
The problem with currency in galactic trading, as Sarah discovered, was that there wasn't a single commodity that was equally rare in every system.
No, whatever alternative they come up to the laughably outdated barter system had to be built on something far more rare and valuable than gold.
Something that even the most powerful human empires in history have struggled to collect.
It had to be built on trust.
"That's the system most modern currencies are based on," Sarah claimed, "you only accept dollars for work because you trust that you're going to be able to wake up tomorrow and spend it on… everything you need."
"Hmm well, we can't just ask them to take US dollars," Jen giggled. This would be so much easier if that weren't true.
"Why not?" Sarah asked, playing the devil's advocate.
"Well… well, like you said, they won't trust it! I certainly wouldn't if I were a trader! Furthermore, who knows? Maybe they have a printer in their ship that can duplicate money! Maybe we should ask them for that next time we bring Zarko some pears," Jen said, thinking out loud.
"I doubt it. The government keeps a lot of secrets about how they make Dollars , and I don't want the Secret Service knocking on my door," Sarah said. Until this week, she hadn't known that this was one of the lesser known duties of the USSS. Now that she knew it, it made the thought of attracting their attention even less palatable, "you're right. What about digital casino tokens? We can produce something that translates to Dollars and have our own system that tracks it all."
"Sure, that's not too hard to make. We would have a centralized money supply, where we don't trust each end point…" Jen continued on the brainstorm, thinking in terms of the technical system, "ok, so say we make SarahBucks, and peg its value to the US Dollar. One pound of pears would be worth 1.5 SarahBucks, one pound of sirloin steak is 6.99 SarahBucks at Safeway. That still doesn't explain how we'll get people to use it."
"I'm not sure. I need to think about this more," Sarah yawned, tired. "And I hate that name."
They agreed that they were stuck, and that SarahBucks was absolutely a terrible name.
Livermore Spaceport, Earth
A month after the spaceport opening, Sarah noticed that it had become less of a tourist attraction. There were far fewer people standing around gawking at the aliens, and a lot more companies trucking their best-selling products into the spaceport for trade.
After their abuse of Jen's cousin's employee pass got discovered by the spaceport authorities, Sarah and Jen had started placing their own bids on getting into the spaceport through the official channels. Thanks to their existing connections with the managers at the spaceport and a growing bank account of value, they could still get in to continue their lucrative trade for magical alien goods.
A bit of a rich-get-richer type of situation.
The flavor of the month were these Bohor magical air filter machines that aggressively scrubbed the air of… anything you want them to.
The Bohor planet is basically the planetary equivalent of a toxic dump.
Sure, it had biomes; it wasn't a Star Wars sci-fi planet where the entire planet is either a desert or an ice-cold tundra or a forest. But the entire planet had been polluted so heavily by its occupants that it lowered the life expectancy by half before the Bohors found a solution:
They simply filtered their entire atmosphere through air filter machines and then buried the toxins and garbage they got out of it in a very deep landfill, somewhere where very few people lived. Pretty much the kind of solution you'd expect out of a species that created the original problem in the first place.
Zikzik, the alien that was the same species as Zarko, overheard a human asking about their rocket fuel and climate change, and brought in a cargo hold of them.
It was a massive hit.
Earth's climate change problem wasn't nearly as bad as Bohor, but it was relatively simple to program these machines to suck carbon out of its atmosphere and… bury them in a landfill.
At first, few of the human traders bought them, thinking that it was going to be at least a while before the problem became big enough that big governments were going to come to them to try to address the issue, but they had it all wrong.
Soon as word got out this was an option, big companies and philanthropists started lining up at their doors. As it turned out, literally sucking the carbon dioxide out of the air was easier and cheaper than modifying many of their industrial practices to actually be environmentally green. They didn't need to run more efficient factories to claim to be carbon-neutral; just pump as much carbon into the air in exchange for undoing that by sucking it out of the atmosphere after!
Some bean counters at a think tank in DC predicted that a few more shipments of these air filters will fix Earth's climate problems by themselves in about a decade, so every trader had a waiting list of corporations with PR problems willing to buy them.
Sarah and Jen had a couple vehicle manufacturing companies on their list who were trying to get Bohor air filters to use in lobbying for looser emission standards for their dirty gasoline cars.
Today, there were traders on all the landing pads, and they were all carrying air filters. Zarko's ship was there, and he was loading fruits into his spaceship with an alien looking forklift. Sarah and Jen approached his ship and noticed the truck driver standing there.
"Hey Benny, tempting the poor aliens with cherries this time?" Sarah waved good, grinning and looking at his cargo.
Technically, Benny is a competitor, or at least he drives for a competitor. The massive fruit conglomeration he worked for, Chuckita, had not neglected to notice the massive business opportunity sitting right here as many others have, and are now delivering straight to the aliens in exchange for massive profit margins.
But Benny was a good guy. One time Jen and Sarah were having some trouble finding a buyer for a bunch of legally dubious alien psychedelics. Benny was in his late 50s, not that great with the Internet either, so he'd introduced them to whom he referred to as "my money launderer". Aka, his 22-year-old son, Benny Jr, who had a habit of buying weed and other less than legal items off the deep web. Benny Jr had found a buyer for them within minutes and even generously offered to handle the deal for them to spare them the risk of meeting some psycho hopped up on an alien high in a dark alley somewhere.
"Heh! One of the bat aliens loves sweets but has a low tolerance for sour, so they treat cherries as some kind of an odd challenge fad. They eat a random cherry, and it's either so incredibly sweet they start drooling out of the mouths, or it's a sour one, and they freak out," Benny replied, in a low voice as if he were trying to keep it a big secret. "Zarko showed me a video, and it's the most hilarious thing I've ever seen".
"I think I've seen that one, have you seen the one where they drink wine?" Sarah chuckled at the memory. Alien videos have been a big hit on YouTube. Some human merchants were trading fruit for aliens to take videos of the galaxy. Which they monetized, of course.
"No," Benny's ears perked up. Chuckita doesn't make wine, but if selling wine to aliens was going to be a thing, they were a big supplier of grapes… "Is it gonna be a thing?"
"Well guess what we brought today?" Jen also grinning from ear to ear, and holding up a big carton of low-quality box wine.
"Awww seems like I'm always one step behind you guys," Benny moaned in exaggeration, "I tried to get my money launderer to tell me what aliens would want but all he does is play video games on the Internet, kids these days."
Luckily, Zarko chose this moment to step out to spare them from more good-humored ribbing from the boomer. "Ah Sarah and Jen, you brought the grape wine this time!"
"Yup," Sarah beamed, "and I see you've run out of air filters to trade again!"
"Sadly yes," Zarko tilted his head in shame, "my ship is overdue for a cargo space upgrade, but I haven't found a port that would do it for fruit yet. Next time?"
"Alright! Alright! We'll leave our special wine with you, but you better get us some extra good filters next time!" Jen scolded mockingly. Zarko has gotten a lot more comfortable doling out IOUs since the first time.
"Of course. Only the best for you two," Zarko said with a greasy human smile imitation that almost made Sarah laugh out loud. It reminded her of a ridiculous cartoon sloth.
"By the way," Sarah asked casually, "how much is a spaceship worth on your planet?"
Zarko sobered up his expression and looked at her curiously. It was a question that other humans had asked before. To him, it was a good sign. This meant that they all dreamt of the stars. But he didn't expect such a question from someone as seemingly practical as Sarah. She had a lot of fruit, sure, but fruit doesn't build spaceships.
After thinking for a while, he replied honestly, "ships aren't traded for one single item. My family traded for the parts to build mine for generations."
He pointed at his spaceship.
Zarko proudly explained, "this is the work of eighteen generations of trading. My family was one of the richest on Zeep-zep. For thirteen generations, they traded for each of the parts on this beauty. Then, for the last five, my ancestors traded excess food from the tenant farmers on their land to expert craftsbeings that could put it together."
"Wait, eighteen generations?" Jen gasped. Eighteen generations ago, her family were probably peasants on a farm in Korea or something…
"Yes," Zarko said, looking at them with a little of pity. "After getting the spaceship, my family has traded in it for twelve generations, through civil wars and disasters."
He did some math on his hands, and said, "that's about four hundred of your years. That's why it's very unlikely that you will never go to space."
Looking at the stunned expression on their faces, he tried to lighten the mood. Zarko said mischievously, "unless you're willing to part with some more of your fruit, in which case I'll let you sit in the back seat for a whole route!"
"Hold on, back up, I'm still stuck on the multiple generations part," Sarah said seriously. "You're saying you're flying on a spaceship that started to be built thirty generations ago? That's… about a millennia for us."
"Yes," Zarko answered, "and that's why only thirteen families on my planet have had the privilege of owning one in our long history. No offense, but that's why I think no human will ever own their own spacecraft for at least fifteen more generations."
Something is wrong here, Sarah thought. The budget for NASA's FTL spacecraft was in the hundreds of millions. Yes, for a fruit farmer, that would be many generations of work if all their descendants worked in the same industry. But there were over three thousand billionaires on Earth, not including the tens of thousands of corporations that had assets or market value over a billion. And the prices for the spacecraft would surely go down as time went on…
For a planet like Zarko's to only have thirteen spaceships over generations of their development…
As they were walking away, Benny asked, "have you guys noticed something weird about the way these aliens do business?"
"Yes." "God yes." They said in unison.
"We've been thinking about it for a while, but these guys not having money is a major problemo," Sarah said, looking around surreptitiously, "Zarko and Zikzik keep talking about not being able to find someone who can upgrade their hulls for fruit. And sometimes they come with nothing good, and we're supposed to just drive our fruits all the way back!"
"And if you think about it, if they were human ships, think about truckers who don't own their trucks. We'd have loans or something to deal with the cargo space problems, and they'd be paid for by profits in a few trips," Jen added.
"The numbers he gave us for spacecraft ownership seem insane," Sarah agreed. "Your company could probably afford to order one right now, not to mention hundreds of others. They must all be dirt poor!"
Benny seemed relieved that he wasn't the only one who was thinking this, "exactly! I'm thinking we just introduce them to the concept of Benjamins and solve all their problems and ours. Would certainly make the return trip a lot easier for me if I didn't have to drive all the way to Berkeley for junior to launder all this crap!"
"We thought of that too," Sarah said as Benny pretended to groan again, "but we couldn't figure out how to get them to take money with no intrinsic value."
"Oh that shouldn't be too hard," Benny said, who's clearly already thought through this problem in his head, "we play a little game called good cop, bad cop."
"Good cop bad cop?"
"Sure, it's a mind game the cops play, where they put you in a room-"
"Yeah we know what it is, but how does that help us?" Sarah said impatiently, an idea tugging on her subconscious.
"Well you see," Benny clearly smugly enjoying this moment where he's thought of something that the duo did not, "you two come with an empty truck next time, and you tell Zarko that you'll give him a wad of clean crisp cash, fresh from the bank, for some of his air filters. And when he asks you why he'd take the cash, you just tell him that he can give it to me in exchange for some of my fruits."
"What does that have anything to do with good cop bad cop?!" Jen asked.
"That has nothing to do with good cop bad cop," Sarah chimed in, but the idea was beginning to form in her head, "but it's a good start. We don't want to deal in cash. It's too risky. It could get the feds onto us and there's a bunch of laws around it that I'm not sure about."
"But what we can do is have an internal money system for traders pegged to the US Dollar!" Jen completed.
"Yup, so when Zarko comes back next time, we tell him he has an account with the Bank of Benny, we give him a fancy looking card that has his bank account number and give him a pin code, and we deposit a certain amount of BennyBucks into his account for giving us air filters. Then when you come around, Zarko gives you his card and pin, and gives you BennyBucks for your fruit," Sarah finished.
"Aha. And then I come to you two, say, I would like to convert BennyBucks in my Bank of Benny account to good old American dollars," Benny extrapolated, completing that final step.
"Yeah! We'll just wire you the money and everyone gets theirs," Sarah exclaimed, happy they've finally thought through the loop and gotten someone on board.
"BennyBucks is a terrible name though," Jen said, calming everyone down a little, "and why are we getting so excited over the basic concept of currency? And why haven't aliens figured this out? Maybe it's against some kind of space trading code."
"Who knows? Maybe we just try it on Zarko and see if it works out," Benny said, a glint in his eyes, "and then we expand, galaxy-tically."
"Galactic credits!" Sarah exclaimed, "that's what we'll call it."
They agreed that it was the least worst name that they'd come up with so far. It was boring, but when it came to finances, maybe boring and cliché was a good choice after all.
"Explain again. I am trying to understand," Zarko said two days later as he offloads the air filters he'd promised.
"C'mon dude, for the fifth time," Sarah exasperated, "it's not that hard. We give you a bank account card and have you set up a secret number…"
Jen had spent the last two days coding up a storm. Technically, a simple debit system wasn't that hard, but she had to make a website interface that Benny could go up to and enter his account, Zarko's card information and amount, then let Zarko type in his code…etc. She'd mused that it would have been easier to just do this all in a cloud-based spreadsheet, but that wouldn't scale up if they had more customers.
Sarah had the account cards laminated and designed a logo: the letters GC, for Galactic Credit, and a stylized version of a Milky Way in the background. Part of the value in a trustworthy system is to look official, and you can't get much more official than laminated cards.
"Yes, I understand that part," Zarko said, clearly displaying his frustration on his facial expression as well, "but I don't understand why Benny would give me his fruit for just entering a number."
"Because we have an agreement with him that he'll take it in exchange for fruit!" Sarah was sure this was the umpteenth time she had to explain this, but clearly Zarko was not getting it.
"Is it similar to a debt?" Zarko said suspiciously, as if debt was this dark magic that the humans were performing on him, "I have never heard of this kind of debt before."
"Yes, it's a debt, of sorts," Jen cut in. The last time he had asked this exact question, they'd said no, and that led to fifty other questions and explanations that went nowhere, so nothing could go worse if they said yes-
"Ok. I don't understand," Zarko did his sloth version of a sigh, it was cute, but at the same time frustrating for Sarah and Jen, "But I can try it. I know you two are not trying to trick me. Do I get my fruits before I take off?"
"Yes! You go to Benny-" Sarah started.
"Yes! And that's it. Benny gives you his fruit," Jen cut her off, knowing that this was about to launch into yet another long, long line of questions they just can't deal with right now.
Sarah set up a new account for Zarko, asked him for a 6 digit base ten pin code (thank god Zarko was a ten digit species) which he promptly memorized, and hoping that Jen's prototype website wouldn't fail, showed him how they were "giving" Zarko 40,000 Galactic Credits for 8 Bohor air filter machines into his account ("No, you can't have my iPad. It's on your account card now. Show this to Benny later.")
"Well that worked out great," Benny said as he watched them wire him the $25,000 for his truck shipment of fruit. Though his costs were in the low thousands, he could have easily fleeced Zarko for his full 40k. But they all agreed that wasn't the point, which was to get Zarko to see the benefits of using a currency system abstracted from goods and services.
"Dude, you weren't there," Sarah complained, "I don't understand why he had such a hard time understanding money. Money equals goods. Bing bang boom. It's like these guys don't have the capability for abstract thinking."
"No they definitely do. You can't build spaceships without abstract math and science," Jen said, "but he clearly had a deathly aversion to using money. I think it's tied to some taboo to debt somehow. All the other species must have it because none of the aliens we've met have even mentioned anything close to a real economy."
"Whatever it is," Benny sighed happily, "I'm just happy I didn't have to go home with my truck full of weird alien toys."
"Yup. The next step is to get all the human traders to take credits. At least they'll have no problems understanding the benefits."
Sarah made some calls to the trader licensing office at the spaceport. There she found a manager willing to part with phone numbers and contact information for the other human traders, for an "information fee" of course, and started making calls to the other human traders.
It wasn't easy. Some traders were representatives of bigger food companies, and didn't have all the flexibility to make these kinds of decisions. And others no doubt were thinking of copying their system for their own profit. But they all saw the benefits of a unified network of currency debiting because they've been suffering the same problems that Sarah, Jen, and Benny had been.
Over the next few days, all the human traders agreed to take galactic credit from the aliens, which they knew they could exchange for cash with Sarah and Jen.
"We are officially in business."
In economics, there's a distinction made between different kinds of money. There's commodity money, usually gold or silver. There's representative money, which is currency backed by commodities like gold or silver. And then there's fiat money, which is not backed by any intrinsic value, but rather by government decree, hence fiat.
Galactic Credits fall into some kind of weird hybrid category between representative and fiat money. They're backed by the Dollar, which is fiat money, but also which makes them representative money. This means that the people issuing them, in this case Jen and Sarah, are not supposed to create them without also having a corresponding US Dollar in their bank account.
Of course, Sarah and Jen hadn't signed an ironclad contract with the other human traders that they're always guaranteed to take their galactic credits and exchange for money, so technically that meant that one day Sarah could simply "deposit" a large number of credits in her account and buy all the goods she wanted from Zarko, or potentially the other traders.
That would, however, be slaughtering the golden goose for the meat.
After all, they didn't want to sell fruit or Bohor air filters.
They wanted to sell the concept of money.
"Why would I take this over fruit?" Zikzik sniffed. He was known as a sharp one by all the human traders. If there's any new alien fad coming down the pipeline, chances are Zikzik is the first one to touchdown with a cargo hold full of it.
Unlike many of the other traders, he was fairly consistent in his dealings. This much fruit is for this much air filters. He knows his price, and he lets you know it too. Everyone suspected he kept careful records of all his selling and buying somewhere in his ship, but he's never brought them out. Maybe he just had a sharp memory.
"It's very consistent," Sarah insisted, trying to appeal to his affinity for a stable and predictable exchange, "one pound of fruit today is the same as one pound of fruit tomorrow, and you can deal in fractions."
Completely ignoring that most fruits are seasonal, and price changes, and inflation, she thought, let's start here.
"Fractions, you say?" Zikzik seemed thoughtful, or maybe he's just scratching an itch on his snout, Sarah could never tell with these aliens.
"Yes, fractions," said Jen detecting the slightest bit of opening, "you can trade your air filters for credit. Then you can trade maybe three quarters of your credits to fill your cargo with fruit. The next time you come down here to Earth, you would only need to bring half the amount of air filters as the first trip, combined with the credits you have left, you can leave with a full cargo load anyway!"
Is that how that math goes, Sarah thought, but didn't cut in, as Zikzik seems to be nodding, an oddly universal gesture for affirmation.
"Five eighths of the credits," Zikzik argued, "The air filters are harder to get now because the Bohor are running low, and they need time to make more."
Bargaining! There we go! That's what we're talking about! Sarah almost pumped her fists in the air and gave him a high five, not a great idea given how sharp his claws are as she found out when trying to shake his hands a couple of weeks ago.
"Ok, you would still have to negotiate that amount with each human trader," Sarah replied adding, "but they all deal in Galactic Credits."
They signed him up for an account, gave him a card, and set up his pin code. It had only taken half an hour to get Zikzik on board, which was significantly faster than the hours they'd taken to explain this to Zarko, despite them being the same species. Was it xenocist that she'd assume it was going to take just as long, Sarah wondered.
Looking at the line of traders, she sighed. This was going to be a long day.
Luckily, Zikzik accepting the credits made for great advertising. He was known for being a sharp trader, so if he doesn't think it's a scam, it must not be, right?
Sarah and Jen managed to get two other traders that day onto credits, and one more who was dipping his proverbial toes into the water.
It was a good day.
Jen had been working hard. The Galactic Credits website was now on its 16th major iteration. She'd beefed up the security on it, to make sure none of the other human traders got any funny ideas. Backups became more automatic and frequent, and there was now a rollback and dispute mechanism, not that it was being used yet.
Sarah had also been working hard. She'd been sitting in meetings all day with legal, finances, and now they had a small army of people who were ready to help out if they got into trouble there. Galactic Credits is now officially a tax paying LLC incorporated in the great state of Delaware.
Benny Jr, who had just finished college, had come in as well. He was no good at talking to clients, but he's what the duo would refer to as "street smart". Occasionally, the alien traders would bring in some exotic or ahem, dubiously sourced items, and he would know exactly where to convert that into cold hard cash. On the spreadsheets, his dealings were adding up to a nice fat padding on the margins for Galactic Credits, which to this point, hasn't been making any money other than in the fruit and air filters exchange business.
They were now working out of a rented office in downtown Livermore, with a very nice view of a brick-lined pub that offers numerous craft beers and the old railroad that runs through the heart of town.
Ironically, there's a Bank of America branch across the street, not far from the office itself, the company that had invented the BankAmericard and started the credit card revolution, seemingly oblivious to this new competitor moving into town, literally and figuratively.
They had many brilliant finance experts who were working on something, surely, but established financial institutions are not always great at moving fast and adapting to changing technology. There were many regulations to worry about, and the stakes were a lot higher.
There's something very quaint about the town itself. Some people didn't consider it part of the Bay Area metro area itself, but with the latest BART expansion station they recently built, that's been less and less true.
Now, it was literally the town where the train tracks ended. And where the final frontier began.
For the people in the office, it's also where they dreamt about a new financial revolution in the galaxy.
Some people have critiqued this chapter on the grounds that established financial institutions would have thought of this idea on day one. I appreciate the feedback, but that is a rosy view of the velocity at corporations in my opinion. I've personally worked in some of these companies, and if someone brought up this idea, it would probably have taken at least a month to get the idea through various risk audits and legal reviews.
In terms of technology, much of banking still operates on software that predates the modern Internet. This is one of the reasons why fin-tech startups have been able to beat them on time-to-market, despite massive institutional or financial disadvantages. It's why companies like PayPal, Square, Stripe, Venmo… etc could compete with the incumbents with the development of the Internet.
Sure, an intern in engineering or tools would have a semi-working prototype by week three, but the first line of code would be pushed to production by… month three. A much more likely scenario: some startup beats them to the punch, exactly as it happens here, and the large company offers their founders or investors an obscene amount of money to buy them out.
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