In a perfect world, I'd have access to an RSS feed that publishes the following... In my case $CAD/BTC, though the same idea might be valuable to others in different currency pairs.
One update a day stating the current BTC exchange rate. And one update for every (X)($25CAD) the price moves during the day.
This would let me keep up with the Bitcoin price without having to load bitcoinity constantly, by just including the RSS feed into all the other RSS feeds I keep up with on a daily basis.
Is anyone aware of any such thing?

Bitcoin's economic model is the foundation for a whole new internet architecture, the Bitcoin network model, but many people dislike the idea of replacing the current TCP model with a 'pay to view' or 'pay per click' model in which the entire internet is run on top of an economic model.
In the Bitcoin model, a mouse click costs 1/10000th of a penny, a google search might cost 1/100th of a penny, a webpage might cost 1/10th of a penny and a Netflix video might cost a penny per minute.
Why is this important? It opens up a whole new realm of possibilities in terms of how you get paid for creating content, and it opens up huge new opportunities for entrepreneurs to open businesses based on micropayments.
In simple terms, an internet based on Bitcoin allows users to set the price at which others can open a connection to them. In other words, if you want to call me, I can choose how much you have to pay to talk to me. If you're my best friend, I can charge you less than a penny per minute. If you're my ex-girlfriend, I can charge you $5 per minute. It's high enough that if you have to talk to me, you can call me, but you won't waste my time... and if you do, I can always raise the price again.
It sounds like a frivolous example, but take the model and apply it to advertisers. How many adverts do you get bombarded with every day that you don't want to see? In your youtube videos for example? Or on your facebook feed. Well, in the bitcoin model, where the internet itself is built on bitcoin, you can charge advertisers to open a connection to you. So that Grammarly advert you hate? You can charge them $100 to watch their advert. Or, you can set a low rate, like $1 and if they think you're worth it, they can set a budget as to how many advertising dollars they're willing to waste on trying to acquire your custom. But crucially, YOU GET THEIR CASH.
It's a much better model. If you don't want to see any Grammarly adverts you just set the rate at which Grammarly can connect to you to $10,000 per second and never hear from them again.
In Dimely, you can set the rate at which others connect to you. So let's say you're an English teacher, or an online Psychotherapist, or a Legal Consultant. You can charge customers for your time. You set your rate per minute, and they connect to you for as long as they can afford to. You can even negotiate the price in the call, and adjust your price for different clients and the blockchain acts as a permanent record of the exchange which is useful for contractual purposes.
Once you get your head round this fundamental idea, then you start to realize the possibilities. You can charge people to open a connection to you, and your content.
In an enterprise situation, you might be a Hollywood movie studio, publishing a movie to the blockchain. It might cost you $100,000 to upload a single movie at today's prices, but you could stream the movie direct to people's wallets, and they'd pay $1 a time (for example). If you have a million views, you've just made $900,000 revenue. That's a good peer-to-peer distribution model for Hollywood movies, but you can do the same for music, self produced or mass produced, as well as art and literature, blogs, websites, and any other kind of data you can think of.
That's Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is BSV.

Michael Novogratz is a veteran Wall Street fund manager and cryptocurrency maven who readily acknowledges when he earns a “black eye,” while Dave Portnoy is the brash founder of a media empire who only recently began touting stocks and has disparaged Warren Buffett.
Their backgrounds and personalities may be vastly different, but both are now offering the same investment recommendation: Bitcoin is a better long-term bet than gold.
In an appearance on Bloomberg Television, Novogratz — founder of Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd. — said that although he sees gold climbing above its record highs, Bitcoin is still the more worthy investment because it’s “harder to buy” than the traditional haven. He said about 25% of his net worth is tied up in the cryptocurrency.
“It’s only got a $20 billion market cap, while gold is over $10 trillion,” Novogratz said of Bitcoin. “So it’s got a long way to go to catch gold in terms of just adoption.” Still, he doesn’t recommend beginners put in more than 1-2% of their money into the digital currency.
Novogratz said Bitcoin had “crossed the Rubicon” on the question of whether it’s a good store of value. Now, more institutions and banks are considering how to get into the cryptocurrency, compared with a few years earlier when they viewed it more skeptically, he said.
Barstool Sports founder Portnoy, meanwhile, was sold on the cryptocurrency after being pitched by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. In a video posted on Portnoy’s Twitter feed, the twin brothers — who founded crypto exchange Gemini Trust — say Bitcoin has the potential to replace gold as a store of value. Their reasoning? They claim that Elon Musk has plans to mine gold from asteroids.
​
In a tweet after his interview with the Winklevoss twins, Portnoy suggested he has bought $1 million worth of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, has been on a roller coaster in 2020. After sliding below $4,000, it’s zoomed up and is around $11,800. It’s seen further acceptance in the mainstream investment community, experienced a “halving” where the rate of Bitcoin created dropped by 50% as of May, and seen correlations with gold rise to records.
In the case of bullion, prices have been on a tear this year as central banks worldwide took steps to shore up ailing economies in the wake of the coronavirus crisis and investors sought a haven from the turmoil. The precious metal is up 28% this year to about $1,945, with Credit Suisse Group raising its bullion forecast for next year to $2,500 due to a “perfect storm” of factors.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-14/buy-bitcoin-or-gold-novogratz-and-portnoy-prefer-the-cryptocurrency?sref=xTkgnLSf

We would rather be ruined than changed.
-W H Auden, The Age of Anxiety
This is my forty-third portfolio update. I complete this update monthly to check my progress against my goal.
Portfolio goal
My objective is to reach a portfolio of $2 180 000 by 1 July 2021. This would produce a real annual income of about $87 000 (in 2020 dollars).
This portfolio objective is based on an expected average real return of 3.99 per cent, or a nominal return of 6.49 per cent.
Portfolio summary
Vanguard Lifestrategy High Growth Fund – $726 306
Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund – $42 118
Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund – $78 730
Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund – $111 691
Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) – $201 745
Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS) – $39 357
Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200) – $231 269
Telstra shares (TLS) – $1 668
Insurance Australia Group shares (IAG) – $7 310
NIB Holdings shares (NHF) – $5 532
Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX) – $117 757
Secured physical gold – $18 913
Ratesetter (P2P lending) – $10 479
Bitcoin – $148 990
Raiz app (Aggressive portfolio) – $16 841
Spaceship Voyager app (Index portfolio) – $2 553
BrickX (P2P rental real estate) – $4 484
Total portfolio value: $1 765 743 (+$8 485 or 0.5%)
Asset allocation
Australian shares – 42.2% (2.8% under)
Global shares – 22.0%
Emerging markets shares – 2.3%
International small companies – 3.0%
Total international shares – 27.3% (2.7% under)
Total shares – 69.5% (5.5% under)
Total property securities – 0.3% (0.3% over)
Australian bonds – 4.7%
International bonds – 9.4%
Total bonds – 14.0% (1.0% under)
Gold – 7.7%
Bitcoin – 8.4%
Gold and alternatives – 16.2% (6.2% over)
Presented visually, below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the portfolio.
[Chart]
Comments
The overall portfolio increased slightly over the month. This has continued to move the portfolio beyond the lows seen in late March.
The modest portfolio growth of $8 000, or 0.5 per cent, maintains its value at around that achieved at the beginning of the year.
[Chart]
The limited growth this month largely reflects an increase in the value of my current equity holdings, in VAS and A200 and the Vanguard retail funds. This has outweighed a small decline in the value of Bitcoin and global shares. The value of the bond holdings also increased modestly, pushing them to their highest value since around early 2017.
[Chart]
There still appears to be an air of unreality around recent asset price increases and the broader economic context. Britain's Bank of England has on some indicators shown that the aftermath of the pandemic and lockdown represent the most challenging financial crisis in around 300 years. What is clear is that investor perceptions and fear around the coronavirus pandemic are a substantial ongoing force driving volatility in equity markets (pdf).
A somewhat optimistic view is provided here that the recovery could look more like the recovery from a natural disaster, rather than a traditional recession. Yet there are few certainties on offer. Negative oil prices, and effective offers by US equity investors to bail out Hertz creditors at no cost appear to be signs of a financial system under significant strains.
As this Reserve Bank article highlights, while some Australian households are well-placed to weather the storm ahead, the timing and severity of what lays ahead is an important unknown that will itself feed into changes in household wealth from here.
Investments this month have been exclusively in the Australian shares exchange-traded fund (VAS) using Selfwealth.* This has been to bring my actual asset allocation more closely in line with the target split between Australian and global shares.
A moving azimuth: falling spending continues
Monthly expenses on the credit card have continued their downward trajectory across the past month.
[Chart]
The rolling average of monthly credit card spending is now at its lowest point over the period of the journey. This is despite the end of lockdown, and a slow resumption of some more normal aspects of spending.
This has continued the brief period since April of the achievement of a notional and contingent kind of financial independence.
The below chart illustrates this temporary state, setting out the degree to which portfolio distributions cover estimated total expenses, measured month to month.
[Chart]
There are two sources of volatility underlying its movement. The first is the level of expenses, which can vary, and the second is the fact that it is based on financial year distributions, which are themselves volatile.
Importantly, the distributions over the last twelve months of this chart is only an estimate - and hence the next few weeks will affect the precision of this analysis across its last 12 observations.
Estimating 2019-20 financial year portfolio distributions
Since the beginning of the journey, this time of year usually has sense of waiting for events to unfold - in particular, finding out the level of half-year distributions to June.
These represent the bulk of distributions, usually averaging 60-65 per cent of total distributions received. They are an important and tangible signpost of progress on the financial independence journey.
This is no simple task, as distributions have varied in size considerably.
A part of this variation has been the important role of sometimes large and lumpy capital distributions - which have made up between 30 to 48 per cent of total distributions in recent years, and an average of around 15 per cent across the last two decades.
I have experimented with many different approaches, most of which have relied on averaging over multi-year periods to even out the 'peaks and troughs' of how market movements may have affected distributions. The main approaches have been:

• An 'adjusted income' approach - stripping out the capital gains components of Vanguard funds to reach an estimate of underlying income generation, both across the entire investment period, and during the sharpest low of the Global Financial Crisis
  
• A long-term asset class approach - relying on long-term historical data on averages of the income produced by various asset classes
  
• A 'tax method' approach - this derives an income estimate as a percentage of the portfolio by drawing on taxable investment income totals from tax return records
  
• Simple historical rolling average - this is a rolling three-year measure, based on the actual distributions record of the portfolio
  
• Average distribution rate approach - this method uses a long-term average of annual distributions received as a percentage of the total portfolio since 1999
  

Each of these have their particular simplifications, advantages and drawbacks.
Developing new navigation tools
Over the past month I have also developed more fully an alternate 'model' for estimating returns.
This simply derives a median value across a set of historical 'cents per unit' distribution data for June and December payouts for the Vanguard funds and exchange traded funds. These make up over 96 per cent of income producing portfolio assets.
In other words, this model essentially assumes that each Vanguard fund and ETF owned pays out the 'average' level of distributions this half-year, with the average being based on distribution records that typically go back between 5 to 10 years.
Mapping the distribution estimates
The chart below sets out the estimate produced by each approach for the June distributions that are to come.
[Chart]
Some observations on these findings can be made.
The lowest estimate is the 'adjusted GFC income' observation, which essentially assumes that the income for this period is as low as experienced by the equity and bond portfolio during the Global Financial Crisis. Just due to timing differences of the period observed, this seems to be a 'worst case' lower bound estimate, which I do not currently place significant weight on.
Similarly, at the highest end, the 'average distribution rate' approach simply assumes June distributions deliver a distribution equal to the median that the entire portfolio has delivered since 1999. With higher interest rates, and larger fixed income holdings across much of that time, this seems an objectively unlikely outcome.
Similarly, the delivery of exactly the income suggested by long-term averages measured across decades and even centuries would be a matter of chance, rather than the basis for rational expectations.
Central estimates of the line of position
This leaves the estimates towards the centre of the chart - estimates of between around $28 000 to $43 000 as representing the more likely range.
I attach less weight to the historical three-year average due to the high contribution of distributed capital gains over that period of growth, where at least across equities some capital losses are likely to be in greater presence.
My preferred central estimate is the model estimate (green) , as it is based in historical data directly from the investment vehicles rather than my own evolving portfolio. The data it is based on in some cases goes back to the Global Financial Crisis. This estimate is also quite close to the raw average of all the alternative approaches (red). It sits a little above the 'adjusted income' measure.
None of these estimates, it should be noted, contain any explicit adjustment for the earnings and dividend reductions or delays arising from COVID-19. They may, therefore represent a modest over-estimate for likely June distributions, to the extent that these effects are more negative than those experienced on average across the period of the underlying data.
These are difficult to estimate, but dividend reductions could easily be in the order of 20-30 per cent, plausibly lowering distributions to the $23 000 to $27 000 range. The recently announced forecast dividend for the Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) is, for example, the lowest in four years.
As seen from chart above, there is a wide band of estimates, which grow wider still should capital gains be unexpectedly distributed from the Vanguard retail funds. These have represented a source of considerable volatility. Given this, it may seem fruitless to seek to estimate these forthcoming distributions, compared to just waiting for them to arrive.
Yet this exercise helps by setting out reasoning and positions, before hindsight bias urgently arrives to inform me that I knew the right answer all along. It also potentially helps clearly 'reject' some models over time, if the predictions they make prove to be systematically incorrect.
Progress
Progress against the objective, and the additional measures I have reached is set out below.
Measure Portfolio All Assets
Portfolio objective – $2 180 000 (or $87 000 pa) 81.0% 109.4%
Credit card purchases – $71 000 pa 98.8% 133.5%
Total expenses – $89 000 pa 79.2% 106.9%
Summary
The current coronavirus conditions are affecting all aspects of the journey to financial independence - changing spending habits, leading to volatility in equity markets and sequencing risks, and perhaps dramatically altering the expected pattern of portfolio distributions.
Although history can provide some guidance, there is simply no definitive way to know whether any or all of these changes will be fundamental and permanent alterations, or simply data points on a post-natural disaster path to a different post-pandemic set of conditions. There is the temptation to fit past crises imperfectly into the modern picture, as this Of Dollars and Data post illustrates well.
Taking a longer 100 year view, this piece 'The Allegory of the Hawk and Serpent' is a reminder that our entire set of received truths about constructing a portfolio to survive for the long-term can be a product of a sample size of one - actual past history - and subject to recency bias.
This month has felt like one of quiet routines, muted events compared to the past few months, and waiting to understand more fully the shape of the new. Nonetheless, with each new investment, or week of lower expenditure than implied in my FI target, the nature of the journey is incrementally changing - beneath the surface.
Small milestones are being passed - such as over 40 per cent of my equity holdings being outside of the the Vanguard retail funds. Or these these retail funds - which once formed over 95 per cent of the portfolio - now making up less than half.
With a significant part of the financial independence journey being about repeated small actions producing outsized results with time, the issue of maintaining good routines while exploring beneficial changes is real.
Adding to the complexity is that embarking on the financial journey itself is likely to change who one is. This idea, of the difficulty or impossibility of knowing the preferences of a future self, is explored in a fascinating way in this Econtalk podcast episode with a philosophical thought experiment about vampires. It poses the question: perhaps we can never know ourselves at the destination? And yet, who would rationally choose ruin over any change?
The post, links and full charts can be seen here.

UPDATE: This article is now available as a printable PDF with embedded hyperlinks for navigation through sources. This link will be valid thru July 9: https://ufile.io/4mpkg4x6

PLEASE NOTE: This article may be updated periodically with new information and links as they become available. All referenced information and a whole lot more is indexed and linked in the related appendix posts. Please feel free to crosspost, share, and take from my ideas to build your own. Namaste.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Appendix A | Appendix B
​
Hello. My name is Chris. I am nobody, really. An average citizen. I am an overweight 42 year old white male from the Midwestern suburbs of the US who has been fortunate enough to live a pretty comfortable life. I used to be a freelance graphic designer with a focus on small businesses, but I'm coming to terms with the fact that that career and part of my life is more than likely over in light of current events. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
I've always been concerned about social injustice and tried to stay politically informed, even dabbling in some activism here and there. At times I've stepped away from paying attention for my own mental health, or due to laziness, defeatism, whatever. But I've never stopped caring, or trying, to fight the good fight and do the right thing.
The news recently has of course swept us all up, and touched all our lives in some way or another. The world has never seen anything like the "Coronavirus Pandemic," and it's clear that our society will be changed forever when we finally come out the other end of this mess. But I've had the luxury of time recently, and in reading the news about things that were going on, I couldn't help but notice the patterns, and that a lot of stuff didn't exactly make sense.
So, here we go, with the "conspiracy theory."
I hate that term, because although it's technically accurate, it's been demonized and weaponized by the media and society at large to take on a bad connotation. Tinfoil hats, alien abductions, crazy people muttering to themselves, etc. You've no doubt got a lot of images in your mind of a conspiracy theorist.
And make no mistake, what I'm going to tell you here is all currently very popular conspiracy theory. However, I think that by removing opinions and conjecture from it, and focusing on facts and things that have already happened, I can present this huge amount of overwhelming, disparate information in a way that makes it less a "theory" and more a "research project." And so that is how I have approached this.
I have spent the last week doing little else besides reading every news and opinion article I could find, saving and organizing hundreds of links, and assembling a coherent, logical outline to organize and present these theories, and more importantly, facts. There are a lot of less-than-reputable sites and publications out there, and I have tried when at all possible to provide sources from verifiable news sites, with a wide range of slants and focuses, to illustrate that what is happening is not part of any one particular political agenda.
I hope that you take the time to check the links, really look into the information presented here, and form your own opinions. Please do not just take my word for it. To that end, there are also a few links mixed in that are labeled as having come from conspiracy. These are well-written and well-reasoned posts from other concerned citizens that I think are worth reading, and relevant to the discussion here.
One last thing - If you are new to most of these ideas, the information presented here is more than likely going to seem overwhelming at first. I encourage you now, and always, to take mental health breaks for yourself, and put down your phone or turn off your computer. The information will be here when you come back. And as you'll soon understand, what is happening is an unstoppable tide, truly a force of nature at this point, and there is nothing you can do to fight it, so try your hardest to relax, put on some chill music, hug your dog, and most of all...
BREATHE.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If you start researching conspiracy theory, you're going to find a lot of information. Some much better or worse presented than others, and some much more plausible or unbelievable than others. Despite the seeming ridiculousness of some things you might read, I encourage you to always approach new information with an open mind.
That said though, I have one main principle that guides all my beliefs about conspiracy theories, and that is the "Filter of Likelihood." Essentially, you have to ask yourself how possible, how likely, and how feasible a piece of information is. Furthermore, you need to ask yourself what the motivation would be. In many cases, it's quite easy to see how something makes a lot of sense based on other known info, whereas some theories seem rather implausible no matter how you look at it.
I am interested only in the plausible, and where possible, the already actualized. Additionally, there's a lot to be said, and a lot that has already been written on many of these topics, so I will focus on current events and simple concepts.
I will also ask you to open your mind to possibility. Please consider this as you evaluate new information:

1. Do you believe there are things going on in the world that you don't know about yet?
2. Do you believe that there is technology and science you've never heard of?
3. Do you believe that society is progressing at an increasing rate?
4. Do you believe that as populations grow, we require new societal strategies?
5. Do you believe that those with power and money want to retain their power and money?

Of course you believe all these things, and none of these are wild or unusual concepts. Rather, these are very basic concepts that apply to everyone, and always have. They are all part of our shared human experience, and undeniable facts of life. Populations grow, societies evolve, technology advances, and the world changes. And most important to our discussion here, people, families, and empires constantly jockey for power and control, while fighting for resources, power, fame, and...
MONEY.
We all hate TicketMaster, right? Who do they think they are, what the hell is this bullshit "service fee," etc. It's something everyone can get behind. But did you know that TicketMaster willingly cultivates that image? That venues, teams, and artists, in their pursuit of more money, raise fees and then let TicketMaster be the bad guy and take the heat so their reputations remain intact?
There are many more people, organizations, and other entities in the world playing that same role for those who really have the money, who really call the shots. And those who call the shots work very hard and spend absolutely unfathomable amounts of money, time, and blood, to make sure that you don't ever realize who's actually taking your money.
They do this in the simplest, easiest way. If you simply control information from the top down, and disseminate it when and where you see fit, you can effect great societal change without lifting a finger.
Please imagine... really, try to imagine... You just read an article, saw a video, whatever, from a very, very reputable source. And it just informed you that an asteroid was 83% likely to impact the Earth next month. What would you do? What would happen in the world?
Hopefully an asteroid will not hit next month, but it's important to really imagine what would happen and why, and how. Because a huge amount of information would be generated and published, people would panic, society would crumble, and the world as you know it would change forever in an instant, the moment you read that headline.
Control of information is one of the most powerful tools known to mankind today. A person living in 2020 can easily encounter as much information in a day as someone in Medieval times might have encountered in a lifetime. And it comes at you from all angles, in all forms, non-stop, 24/7. Much like the water in the pipe, the information is always there, and one needs but turn it on.
Disseminating the information then becomes a practice all its own, and to be sure, information processing accounts for more than half of the US GDP. And the rate at which it's spread, and way it is handled makes a huge difference in the societal repercussions. So a few different techniques are used:

• The "Slow Walk" - If a large, unexpected piece of information is given suddenly, people tend to react poorly and irrationally. Also known as "letting them down easily," this technique restricts the flow of information to prevent the audience from balking or being overwhelmed
• The "Steady Drip" - This technique involves keeping your audience subjected to a constant stream of the desired information, so that they become accustomed to it and it becomes "normalized"
• The "Firehose" - A deluge of information flying out at full blast, designed to overwhelm the audience so that they cannot focus on anything else

It might be the greatest understatement of all time to say that there has been a lot of information passed around about COVID-19, the "Coronavirus," recently. In fact, there has never been anything like what we are currently experiencing in all of human history, and not by a long shot. And this unprecedented turn of events has caused a lot of people to react in a lot of ways, and say and do a lot of things, for better or for worse.
Full disclosure: In particular, if you look up conspiracy theory, you'll see a lot of stuff suggesting that the "Coronavirus is a hoax." (You'll also find a lot of poorly-written rambling) I want to be clear that I DO NOT believe that. I am 100% sure that there is a Coronavirus, that it is making people sick, that a lot of people are dying, and that our medical professionals and many other undervalued workers are overwhelmed, and breaking their backs every day to do their best to keep their friends, families, and loved ones safe. I am extraordinarily grateful for them and admire the resolve and bravery that so many have shown in the face of this disaster. I do not think it is a hoax at all.
However, I think that literally everything else that is happening surrounding the "pandemic" is.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Pandemic
In the first week of January this year, I got sick. Really sick. I know when I got it and who I got it from, and honestly the exact moment I got it (I only was in proximity of the dude for a few minutes). He had warned me that he was really sick, and I blew it off. I started feeling sick a day or two later, and a day or two after that I felt like I was dying. Fever, chills, aches, extraordinary fatigue. And literal, nonstop, 24/7 coughing. I had every single symptom of what we now know as COVID-19. I commented to anyone who would listen that I didn't recall ever feeling that sick before in my entire life. The most memorable part of it though was that after a couple days, I completely lost my sense of smell and taste. Joked a lot about how you could feed me onions and soap cause I'd have no idea. I try to have a good attitude about being sick.
I spent a week sleeping on the couch before I finally went to the doctor. She gave me a Prednisolone steroid pack (which has worked well for me in the past), some Trazodone to knock me out, and Benzonatotate for my cough. As soon as I took the first dose of steroids I started to feel pretty fucking great, and it was more or less a non-issue after that.
I spoke to a lot of people about it then and after, and man, I can't tell you how many stories I personally heard from people I know that said the exact same thing. Then I started reading the same story over and over again on Reddit:

• Please leave your experience from November-January if you were Extremely Ill
• An Illness swept through Utah back in DecembeEarly January, was it Covid-19? Did this happen elsewhere?
• How long do you really think covid19 has been in the US?

We didn't start really hearing about the Coronavirus in the media until the beginning of March, and we didn't hear about the "Pandemic" until just a couple weeks ago. And what a couple weeks it's been since then. But I am quite certain that it's been around for a lot longer and that I, and a lot of other people I know, had it - and DID NOT DIE FROM IT - way back in January.
We now know that the first documented case in the US was on January 19th, but that word "documented" is so, so important here. That means that we had identified the virus, developed a test, and tested a person with the symptoms that day. It does NOT mean that was when the virus reached the United States. How sick do you have to be before you take a day off work? Before you go to the doctor? With America's healthcare system or lack thereof, it's almost certain that many people had this virus before we determined what it was, and how infectious it really was.
There is also the matter of the statistics of severity vs the regular flu. This is a highly contentious topic and I am no medical expert, and do not wish to make any assertions. However, what I can tell you from my personal experience is this: I had a horrible "flu" in January, got basic medicine, got better. So, either I had the flu, or perhaps I did indeed have the Coronavirus.
We will never know because I was never tested. But the important thing is that it doesn't matter. Either I (and many others) had the Coronavirus and it did not kill us (calling into question the severity of the infection) or we just had a bad cold or flu, but it had the exact same symptoms as COVID-19 (calling into question the extent of Coronavirus diagnoses). But logically, one of those two statements is true.
Furthermore, the data keeps changing, and I don't mean increasing on a daily basis. I mean up and down, back and forth, it is deadly or maybe it isn't, etc. On January 14 the WHO told you it couldn't spread from human to human. But then on Jan 19 we saw the first case of Coronavirus in the United States. Then it turns out that the Wuhan market outbreak began earlier in December. And then it's an "epidemic," but most people will only get mild symptoms. What are you supposed to believe? And it sure does seem to come at you as a firehose, and it's hard to even think about anything because OHMYGODTHECORONAVIRUS!
But let's stop and look a couple basic facts. As a matter of fact, I'm going to let Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi explain this one to you. This is a very informative 10 minute video, watch it:
Sucharit Bhakdi - Very clear math showing that the COVID statistics are being manipulated
So 80% of people only experience mild symptoms, and we're crashing the economy for this? The statistics aren't any more extreme than many other illnesses we've had over time, and we're crashing the economy for this? It doesn't make sense until you consider that there are other factors besides just the virus at play.
Wolfgang Wodard - Explaining how the statistics are being manipulated to cause panic
The media, and society at large is inundating you with terrifying information about the Coronavirus. But if it's not as bad as we originally thought, then why? We don't freak out about every illness that comes along, and we've certainly never in the history of civilization had over 1/3 of the global population locked down under mandatory quarantine.
And then there's the debate about where the virus came from. We believe it came from a meat market in China, under unsanitary conditions. The science behind a coronavirus making the leap from one species to another is well-established and researched, and it is a very likely scenario. There are also conspiracy theories that state that China released it on its people intentionally, or even that the US military released it in China. Again, we will never know exactly where this Coronavirus came from. It may be natural, it may be man made, and there are very plausible paths for both. I don't know what to believe myself. So here I ask you to make your own judgement based on likelihood.
What we do know though is that the state of the world this virus has been unleashed on has played a major factor in its spread. In 1950 the global population was 2.5 billion, and that has exploded to almost 8 billion people in 2020. As a matter of fact, population growth has been exponential since about the time of the Industrial Revolution.
With all these people on the planet there are sure to be many disagreements and conflicts, and there indeed have been. As a matter of fact, 2019 saw global protests on an unprecedented scale, in Hong Kong, France, Syria, and many other countries. Citizens have literally been fighting police and military with rocks, clubs, arrows, and molotov cocktails.
Did you know that? Despite my seeing headlines and pictures every day of the riots in Hong Kong, I have been shocked to learn that multiple of my close friends, intelligent and aware people, had no knowledge whatsoever of the protests even existing. But that is far from a coincidence; rather, it is quite by design.
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Billionaires and Coincidences
Another major talking point over the last 5 to 10 years has been the "1%" - the handful of super-rich individuals who posess and control the vast majority of the Earth's wealth and resources. Where it used to just be a numerical term, "Billionaire" is now a dirty word, and one of the nastiest. We all hate billionaires. They are evil, and profit off the exploitation of the rest of the world.
The "Illuminati" we call them, in pursuit of a "New World Order." Crazy stuff, right? Mysterious symbols and people in black robes doing nefarious things in secret meetings, and running the world from behind the scenes. We love the Illuminati, it's a huge pop culture thing now. The subject of endless speculation, they are made fun of in the media, movies, and now Taco Bell commercials. It's so far fetched it could never really be true. And the fact that you think that is by design as well.
So, we don't know where the Coronavirus came from, but it's certainly here, and there are lot of other things unfolding in the world around it. Many different current events from all different places and fields of study. Some of it seems a little too coincidental. It is certainly very coincidental that this economically destructive Coronavirus entered the world right as there were global uprisings, protests in the street, and a growing public hatred for billionaires.
Well, here are a few other coincidences: Hundreds of CEOs of major companies stepped down from their positions in recent months. Multiple US Senators sold stock right before the market crashed. Even the boss of the New York Stock Exchange sold his own stock right before the crash. Did they know something they weren't telling us?
Here's another coincidence. In 2010, The Rockefeller Foundation published a selection of future-predicting scenarios in the name of "exploring the ways that technology and development could co-evolve." One of these four scenarios, entitled "Lock Step," eerily predicts a global viral pandemic and the resulting hypothetical consequences, which almost exactly mirrors the COVID-19 pandemic we are in the midst of today.
Also coincidental: The first case of COVID-19 was diagnosed in China on November 17th, 2019. Literally one month earlier, The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise on October 18, 2019, in New York, NY. In this exercise, they discuss the potential implications and consequences of a novel Coronavirus, including an economic crash, martial law, and of particular interest, the control of information. (You can view some published highlights here)
The World Economic Forum is comprised of the richest of the rich. The 1%. The Billionaires. CEO's, politicians, business owners, and many other powerful and influential figures. They meet regularly to discuss topics of global concern, and strongly control the dissemination of information. And of primary concern to many of them is maintaining their wealth and power in a rapidly-changing world.
And finally, here's one more coincidence: At the exact same time as the Event 201 exercise, The World Military Games was held in Wuhan, China, Oct 18-27, 2019. It was the largest military sports event ever to be held in China, with nearly 10,000 athletes from over 100 countries competing in 27 sports. Wuhan China was, as we now believe, the source of our current global COVID-19 outbreak.
Whether you think it is a "conspiracy" or not, that is all certainly coincidental, to say the least.
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"Why didn't I hear about any of this?"
That's an excellent question, and one that likely has multiple answers. For starters, how much do you really pay attention? Where do you get your news from? Do you research things you hear or just accept them on hearsay? Critical thinking skills are paramount in making sense of the chaos unfolding all around us.
As I mentioned before, I can tell you that I personally know multiple people who had no clue whatsoever about the riots in Hong Kong last year. As you read this, you may be one of them. And it may seem like something that is happening far away, and "could never happen here." Or you may have been aware of it but just that it was happening. But please, consider for a moment: millions of average citizens risked their lives and safety in the streets of Hong Kong for months on end, fighting police and military, and transforming the city they lived in into a warzone. WHY? Why would people do something like that? Regardless of their motivations, that many people were banding together to fight for something they believed in. And that is worth considering.
It's not really your fault though that you may not catch wind of all this news. The "mainstream media" that you hear about all the time deliberately controls information - downplaying threats and overreacting to silly things - in order to make sure that you hear the version of the news that they want you to hear.
Did you know that only 6 corporations control 90% of the media In America? That number is reduced from 50 companies in the 80's. And literally all the news you see on TV, at the very least, is 100% owned and controlled by these companies. Lately, distrust is growing for cable news networks, and many people turn to their local hometown station for trusted news. The problem with that though is that your hometown station is probably owned by Sinclair Media, one of the most powerful broadcast networks in the country that you've never heard of.
Please watch this very brief video, illustrating the chokehold that Sinclair Media maintains over your nightly local news broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI
Of course, not every piece of news is pre-programmed but a lot is. The real news is out there, but sometimes you have to look a little deeper than the infographics on TV news. Even if information is being directed from the top down, the boots on the ground tend to be passionate people with a variety of interests and agendas, and they are still doing their best to do real journalism despite corporate oversight.
Think of those who are directing the information as steering an impossibly massive ship with a rudder. You can slowly adjust the course of direction, however it is slow to react. If you want to stop, you have to start thinking about stopping wayyy ahead of time. And similarly, once it gets underway, it is then influenced by an inertia all its own. Micro controls and adjustments aren't really possible.
Our society is this giant ship. There are 8 billion people on this earth - that is 8000 million. An incomprehensible number that grows rapidly every day. As civilization grows and advances, so does our medicine, our technology, our cultural norms. These are all natural processes that are necessary to manage an increasing number of societies all around the globe. And many of the advances we're making have exciting potential benefits for humanity, although as with all tools, they also inherently possess the potential for abuse.
Here are some other things happening in society right now, some you may be aware of and many you may not:

• RealID - The Real ID law requires people to show security-enhanced IDs to pass through airport security checkpoints or to enter certain federal facilities.
• Traffic Cameras - Most people know that there are traffic cameras in an increasing number of areas, some of which can assess your speed and issue you a ticket automatically.
• Automation Everywhere - Beyond assembly lines, robots are continually performing more types of tasks from ever more companies, replacing human employees at an increasing rate.
• Automated Trucks - Autonomous trucks are coming soon that can see forward over a half mile, farther than any other autonomous system in the world, and run during the day, the night and even in the rain.
• Global Satellite Internet - Elon Musk's SpaceX recently launched its fourth batch of internet-beaming satellites, as the company builds a broadband internet business by deploying thousands of satellites into orbit
• Digital Rights Management - Technologies for restricting the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works, DRM technologies affect copyrighted works, digital media, and even John Deere Tractors
• Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency - As digital payments become more and more prevalent, digital currency uses cryptography to secure and verify transactions as well as to control the creation of new units of a particular cryptocurrency.
• Voluntary Nanochipping - People are having microchips implanted into their bodies so that they don't need to carry key cards, IDs, and even train tickets.
• Programmable Viruses - As antibiotic-resistant bacteria becomes a greater problem, viruses are being engineered to fight the bacteria in targeted ways
• Facial Recognition Technology - Airports are using facial-recognition cameras to confirm passenger identity. Mobile phone makers are using face recognition for biometric security. Retailers are using it to prevent violence and crime, and for advertising.
• Thermal Scanners - Airports, casinos, and grocery stores are screening passengers for sickness. In China, this data is being used to control traffic.
• ID2020 - Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is developing human-implantable capsules that have ‘digital certificates’ which can contain financial data, medical records, tracking tech, and more.

There is an interesting chicken or egg relationship between science fiction and real world science. Sci-fi writers are inspired by the real science of the day, then they apply their creativity to imagine what might be in the future. Young scientists encounter these fantastical ideas and think they are worth pursuing, and then set about to make them a reality, and the cycle continues.
Futuristic concepts are then preempted and introduced through the media to the conscious mind, as we include them in books, movies, TV, video games, and more. Eventually we start seeing headlines of these new technologies and developments happening in other places, usually Japan and China first due to their prevalence in the industrial and technological sectors of our global economy.
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Continue to Part 2

Everyone is stocking up on Bitcoin right now, and many analysts say it will grow to $15,000 or more by December. So if you're thinking about buying BTC, it's better to do it right now! But how?
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2) Unregulated exchange services. There are hundreds of those, mostly unofficial and unregistered. They don't require verification, but your money isn't protected and you can receive 'dirty' Bitcoins. Many such services are simply scams.
3) P2P services. Local Bitcoins is the most famous. However, it now requires verification and you still deal with unofficial sellers, so it's not that safe.
If you want to be 100% secure, you should buy BTC with Visa or MasterCard at a regulated exchange like Free2ex. We offer some of the best rates on the market – check them out here: https://bestchange.free2ex.com/en
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AMA AT DETECTIVE ID (25/06/2020)
Before welcoming any questions, I would like to briefly introduce STATERA PROJECT. Statera is a smart contract deflationary token pegged to a cryptocurrency index fund. By including STA in an index fund with Link, BTC, ETH, and SNX you can buy one token and access the price action of four of the leading cryptocurrencies. You can also invest directly in the index fund (balancer pool) and receive the benefits of fees and BAL tokens paid to you while also having an automatically balanced fund. Lastly the deflationary mechanics of STA increases the chance for positive price action while decreasing beta (volatility). This is all found in a smart contract that is fully decentralized, the founders can no longer augment the contract in any way and this has been confirmed by a third party code audit through Hacken.
Q1 : please explain in more detail about Statera, what is the background of this project? and when was it established?
The dev of this project had previously created another deflationary token BURN. When the Balancer Labs released the Balancer Protocol, he had an idea to combine the two, deflationary token and a pool of tokens, making the first deflationary index fund. It started in the end of May and on the 3rd iteration, May 29th - a trustless version was launched that we see today. As briefly explained earlier, STATERA or STA is an Index Deflationary Token built on Ethereum blockchain; Index: Contains a token suite of world class leading crypto assests BTC, ETH, LINK, SNX with STA. Deflationary: On every transaction of STA 1% of the transacted amount is sent to 0x address on ethereum, burned forever, thus reducing the circulating supply of STA Index+Deflationary: STA is mixed with BTC, ETH, LINK SNX in a portfolio, backed by liquidity on a protocol known as balancer (balancer.finance) This platform serves as a market maker for the token suit. The Index suite is of equal rate of 20%, that is 20% of BTC, ETH, SNX LINK and STA, Thus, anytime there is an increase in value of any of those coins or tokens, balancer automatically trade them for STA in order to keep the token suit ratio balanced. And anytime there is an increase in the value of STA, the same process applies. while doing this trade, it enables further burning on every transaction, thus facilitating more token scarcity. In addition to this, Statera was deployed with contract finalised, that is, the index suite can not be altered, It is completely out of Dev's control.
Q2 : What are the achievements that have been obtained by Statera in 2020? And what goals do you want to achieve in 2020?
By this we assume the questionnaire is asking for a roadmap! First, the project is barely a month old, and within just a month, our liquidity has grown from $50,000 to over $400,000 currently above $300,000. Among the things we have accomplished so far is the creation of market value for STA's Balancer liquidity pool token BPT, which is currently over $1000 per one BPT. Regarding what we set to achieve: The future is filled with many opportunities and potentials, currently, we are working on a massive campaign to introduce our product to the outside world. We have already made contact with different and reputable forums and channels regarding marketing and advertisement offers, some which we are currently negotiating, some which we are awaiting response. All we can say for now is that the Team is working hard to make this the Investment opportunity every crypto enthusiast has been waiting for. Statera has the goal of putting cryptocurrency into every portfolio. We believe we have a product that increases the returns of investing in cryptocurrencies and makes it easier to diversify in this space. We have done so much in June: articles, how to videos, completed the audit, tech upgrades like one token liquidity additions, and beginning our many social communities. We have been hard at work behind the scenes but things like sponsorships, features, and media take time, content makers need days if not weeks to develop content, especially the best of the best. We are working tirelessly, we will not disappoint. We have plans for 2020-2025 and will release those in the next month. They are big and bold, you’re going to be impressed by the scale of our vision, when we say “Cryptocurrency in every portfolio” we mean it. In 2020 more specifically we are focused on more media, videos, product offerings, and exchanges.
Q3 : What is the purpose of STA token? How can we get STA? The purpose of STA is an investment in the first deflationary index fund. The whole index's value rises from these aspects: 1. The index funds (WBTC,WETH,SNX,LINK) appreciate in value 2. When the index tokens are traded, the pool receives transaction fees - 1% 3. STA burns on transactions, so it's deflationary nature increases its value as the total supply drops 4. Balancer rewards Index holders with BAL token airdrops every week You can invest via the 'Trade' links in stateraproject.com website. Easiest way is to do it using ETH. The monetary policy of our token is set in stone and constantly deflationary. This negative supply pressure is a powerful mechanism in economics and price discovery. Through the lowering of supply we can decrease your beta (volatility) and increase your alpha (gains). Our token is currently only top 40 in liquidity on Balancer, however our volume is top 10! You want to know why? Because Statera works. Statera increases arbitrage, volume, fees, BAL rewards, and liquidity. Our liquidity miners in our Balancer pool are already making some of the highest BAL rewards on the platform, one user we spoke with made 18% in June, that’s over 150% APY! Our product is working, 100% (or you could say 150%), and when people start to see that, and realize the value, the sky's the limit.
Q4 : can we as a user do STA mining? The supply of STA doesn't increase anymore, it only decreases due to the burn feature. So there is no way to mine anymore STA. Only way to acquire the tokens is via an exchange. The monetary policy of our token is set in stone and constantly deflationary. This negative supply pressure is a powerful mechanism in economics and price discovery. Through the lowering of supply we can decrease your beta (volatility) and increase your alpha (gains). Our token is currently only top 40 in liquidity on Balancer, however our volume is top 10! You want to know why? Because Statera works. Statera increases arbitrage, volume, fees, BAL rewards, and liquidity. Our liquidity miners in our Balancer pool are already making some of the highest BAL rewards on the platform, one user we spoke with made 18% in June, that’s over 150% APY! Our product is working, 100% (or you could say 150%), and when people start to see that, and realize the value, the sky's the limit.
Q5 : The ecosystem of a public chain has a lot to do with the level of engagement and participation of third-party developers. How does Statera support the developers?
Not really. Our project is focusing on investment opportunities for the cryptocurrencies. The cryptocurrency tokens that are not used and are just sitting in a wallet can work for you by being added to an index fund and appreciate in value over time. First off, what we have created is a new asset class, I’ll repeat that, a new asset class. This asset has never existed: “Deflationary Index Fund,” what does that mean for finance? What will developers do with this? It’s hard to give a finite answer. We hope there are future economic papers on our token and what it means to be a deflationary index fund. With the addition of synthetic assets and oracles you can put any asset into the DeFi space: Gold, Nikkei 225, USD, etc. STA can be combined with any assets and bring the benefits of it’s ecosystem and deflationary mechanism to that asset. STA, the token itself, also gives you access to the price action of any asset it is paired with. Put simply STA’s balancer pool(s) give you a benefit in holding them, and STA’s price will reflect it’s inclusion in Balancer Pool(s) (and possibly future financial instruments), so STA is a bet on DeFi as a whole. When we say as whole, we mean as whole: what happens if you include STA in a crypto loan, or package it with a synthetic S&P 500 token, or use it as fee payment in a DeFi platform? Being fully decentralized it is up to our community to make this happen, social engagement and community are key. We are constantly bringing community members onto our team and rewarding those that benefit the ecosystem. in addition, Statera is a fully community project now. Paul who is the current team leader was an ordinary member of the community weeks ago, due to his interest and support for the project, he started dedicating his time to the project. Quite a number of community members are also in the same position, while Statera was developed by an individual, it is being built by the entire Statera community
Community Questions (Twitter):
Q1 From: @KazimKara35 The project tells us that the acquisition and sale of data between participants is protected by code of conduct and how safe is deployed on the blockchain, but how do you handle regulations while operating on a global scale?
Statera is decentralized token, similar to other utility crypto tokens and same regulations apply to it as others. his is actually a benefit of our decentralized nature. This isn’t legal advice, however in the past regulating bodies have ruled that the more decentralized a project is, especially from launch, the less likely they are to be deemed a security (see: Ethereum). This means they can be traded more freely and be available on more platforms. We are as decentralized as you can be. The data itself is all secured through the blockchain which has been shown to be a highly secure medium. We do not store any of your data and as long as you follow best practices in blockchain security there are no added security risks of using Statera. We don’t, and literally can’t, hold anymore personal information than is made available in any blockchain transaction. and that "personal information" is more likely than not just your ethereum wallet address, no "real world" data is included in transactions
Q2 from: @Michael_NGT353 What is Mechanism you use On your Project sir? Are you Use PoS,PoW or other Mechanism Can you explain why you use it and what is Make it Different?
Our token is an ERC-20 token and it's running on the Ethereum blockchain. The Ethereum's POW mechanism is currently supporting the Statera token We run on Ethereum, so we are currently PoW. With ETH 2.0 we will hopefully be PoS this year (hopefully). We use it because ETH has over 100 million addresses and around a million daily transactions. We are currently at about 1,900 token holders, we are just touching the edge of what is possible in this market. We chose the biggest and the best network available right now to launch our product. We think the upside is huge because of this choice. Being the biggest network it is also one of the most secure, no high risk vulnerabilities have been found in Ethereum or in our code (we've had our code audited by a third party, Hacken, and you can read their audit on our Medium page), so we also have security on our side
Q3 From : @Ryaaan_Nguyen Can you list some of Statera outstanding features for everyone here to know about? What are the products that Statera is focusing on developing?
As mentioned earlier by GC, First off, what we have created is a new asset class, I’ll repeat that, a new asset class. This asset has never existed: “Deflationary Index Fund,” what does that mean for finance? What will developers do with this? It’s hard to give a finite answer. We hope there are future economic papers on our token and what it means to be a deflationary index fund. With the addition of synthetic assets and oracles you can put any asset into the DeFi space: Gold, Nikkei 225, USD, etc. STA can be combined with any assets and bring the benefits of it’s ecosystem and deflationary mechanism to that asset. STA, the token itself, also gives you access to the price action of any asset it is paired with. Put simply STA’s balancer pool(s) give you a benefit in holding them, and STA’s price will reflect it’s inclusion in Balancer Pool(s) (and possibly future financial instruments), so STA is a bet on DeFi as a whole. When we say as whole, we mean as whole: what happens if you include STA in a crypto loan, or package it with a synthetic S&P 500 token, or use it as fee payment in a DeFi platform? We touched on this a bit in the question on what makes us special compared to other exchanges. We have created a product that synergizes with Balancer Pools creating a symbiotic relationship that improves the outcomes for users (our product can also synergize with future DeFi products). By including STA in an index fund with Link, BTC, ETH, and SNX you can buy one token and access the price action of four of the leading cryptocurrencies. You can also invest directly in the index fund (balancer pool) and receive the benefits of fees and BAL tokens paid to you while also having an automatically balanced portfolio (like an index fund with dividends). Lastly, the deflationary mechanics of STA increases the chance for positive price action while decreasing beta. We want to package Statera with assets across the whole cryptocurrency space, with an emphasis on DeFi. We also want everyday people to be able to invest quickly in crypto while also feeling reassured their investment is set up to succeed. We are focused on developing a name brand that people go to first and foremost when investing in crypto: cryptocurrency in every portfolio. This is all found in a smart contract that is fully decentralized, the founders can no longer augment the contract in any way and this has been confirmed by the third party code audit. This is a feature in and of itself, some argue that Bitcoin’s true value is in it’s network effect, first mover advantage, and immutability. Statera is modeled on all three of those and has those features in spades. The community now owns our token, the power in that, giving finance and power to the people, is why we are here.
Q4 From : @futcek What do you think about the possibility of creating new use cases in DeFi space for existing real world assets by using crypto technology? What role do you see in this creation for Statera?
I think my answer above actually answers this perfectly, Statera in and of itself is a “new use case”, a “deflationary index fund” has never existed, I’ll copy and paste the other relevant part: “With the addition of synthetic assets and oracles you can put any asset into the DeFi space: Gold, Nikkei 225, USD, etc. STA can be combined with any assets and bring the benefits of it’s ecosystem and deflationary mechanism to that asset. STA, the token itself, also gives you access to the price action of any asset it is paired with. Put simply STA’s balancer pool(s) give you a benefit in holding them, and STA’s price will reflect it’s inclusion in Balancer Pool(s) (and possibly future financial instruments), so STA is a bet on DeFi as a whole. When we say as whole, we mean as whole: what happens if you include STA in a crypto loan, or package it with a synthetic S&P 500 token, or use it as fee payment in a DeFi platform? Being fully decentralized it is up to our community to make this happen, social engagement and community are key. We are constantly bringing community members onto our team and rewarding those that benefit the ecosystem.” Statera is a way to make your investment more successful, and owning Statera let's you benefit from other people using it to make their investments more successful (a self feeding cycle).
Q5 From : @Carmenzamorag Statera's deflationary system is based in that with every transaction 1% of the amount is destroyed, would this lead to lack of supply and liquidity in the long term future? How would that be fixed?
The curve of supply is asymptote, meaning that it will never reach zero. The idea is that the deflationary process will slowly decrease the supply of STA, which – combined with a fixed or increaseing demand – will result in STA appreciating in value. Evidently, as the STA token increases in value, the amounts of STA being traded will slowly decrease: The typical investor might buy 10.000 STA at the current rate, but in the future (proportional to an increase in the valueation of STA) this number will tend to decrease, hence the future investor might only buy 1000 STA. This of course results in less STA being burned. Additionally, STA is divisible to the 18th decimal, why – even if the supply was to reach 1 STA – there would be a sufficient supply. Well this would be a question for a Mathematician, and luckily we’re loaded with them (as seen above)! I’ll try to illustrate with an example. 1% of 100 million is 1 million, 1% of 10 million is 100,000. As we go down in supply the burn is less by volume. What also happens at lower supply is higher prices (supply and demand economics). So those 1 million tokens burned may be worth $20,000, but by the time overall supply is at 10 million those 100,000 tokens may also be worth $20,000 or even more. This means you transact “less”, if you want to buy 1 Ether now with Statera you need 8,900 STA which would burn 89 tokens. If Statera is worth $100 you only need 2.32 statera (.023 tokens burned). Along with this proportional and relative burn decrease, tokens are 18 decimals long, so even when we get to 1 token left (which mathematically would take decades if not centuries, but that is wholly dependent on usage), you are still left with 10 to the 18th power, or one quintillion “tokens”. So it’s going to take us a while to have supply issues :)
Nuked Phase (3rd Part)
Q) What is your VISION and Mission?
Our working mission and vision: Mission: Provide every investor with simple and effective ways to invest in cryptocurrency. Decrease volatility and increase positive price pressure in cryptocurrency investments. Lower the barrier to entry for more advanced investment tools. Be a community focused and community driven cryptocurrency, fully decentralized by every meaning of the word. Vision: We aspire to put “cryptocurrency in every portfolio”. We envision a world where finance is given back to the people and wealth building strategies withheld only for affluent individuals are given to all. We also strive to create an investment environment based on sound monetary policy and all the power that comes with a sound asset.
Q) What are the benefits of STA for its investors in long term? Does STA have Afrika as an important area for its expansion?
We have ties to Africa and see Statera as a way for anyone and everyone to invest in cryptocurrency. The small marketcap of statera makes it's price low and it's upside massive. Right now if you wanted to be exposed to the price action of four cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, Link, SNX) Statera is a way to gain that exposure in a way that has a huge upside, compared to the other four assets, there are risks in investing in any small cap but with those risk come outsized rewards (not investment advice and all answers are solely my opinions 😊)
Q) In the long run, why should we trust and follow STATERA? How do you raise awareness and elimination of the doubts of investors / partners / customers?.
You're really asking "How do I trust myself and other crypto investors" The project is FULLY decentralized, it is now in the hands of the community. We would venture a guess that the community wants their investment to succeed and be worth more in the future, so you are betting on people. wanting to make themselves money on their own investment. This is a pretty sure bet. The community being active and engaged is key, and we have short term and long term plans to ensure this happens
Q) No one can doubt the strength of #Statera. But can you tell us some of the challenges and difficulties you're presently facing? How can you possibly overcome them?
We're swinging outside our weightclass, we don't see litecoin or SNX, or any other crypto product as our competition. Our competition is NASDAQ, Fidelity, etc. We want to provide world class financial instruments that only the wealthy have access to in the traditional world to everyone. Providing liquidity, risk parity, being paid to provide liquidity, unique value propositions, are all things we want to bring to everyone. However we are coming up in a hectic space, everyday their is fud and defamation on the web, but that is the sandbox we chose to play in and we aren't grabbing our ball and going home. We can tell you that we will not disappoint and fighting all the fud that comes along with being a small and upstart project only fuel our fire. Building legitimacy is our largest challenge and looking at our audit, financial report, and some things you will see in the coming weeks, we hope you see we are facing those challenges head on.
Q) What is the actual uniqueness of #Statera.??? Can you guys please explain tha advantages of #Statera over other projects.??
When we launched there were no other products like ours. There are now copies, and we wish them the best, but we have the best product, hands down. Over the next couple weeks this will become apparent, if it hasn't already, also a lot of the AMA answers dug deeper into our unique value proposition, especially the benefits we provide to Balancer Pools which shows the benefits we would provide for any index fund. We are a tool to improve cryptocurrency investing
Q) Fragmentation, layering and cross-chain are three future solutions for high-performance blockchains. Where is Statera currently? What are the main reasons for taking this direction?
We operate on the Ethereum chain, as it upgrades our services and usability will upgrade. We are working on UI and more user friendly systems to onboard people into our ecosystem
Q) How STATERA plan to make room and make this project known in the world of crypto, full of technology and full of new projects very good in today's market?
We think we have a truly innovative product, which - when first understood - appeals to most investors. Whether you want a high-volatility/medium-risk token like STA or whether you are more conservative and simply just plan on adding to the Statera pool BPT (which is not nearly as volatile but still offers great returns). We plan on making Statera known to the crypto world through a marketing campaign which slowly will be unravelled in the comming days and weeks. If interested, you can check out an analysis of the different investment options in the Statera ecosystem in our first financial report: https://medium.com/@stateraproject/statera-financial-reports-b47defb58a18
Q) Hello, cryptocurrencies are very volatile and follow bitcoin ... and does this apply to Statera? or is there some other logic present in some way? is statera token different from a current token? Are you working on listings on other exchanges?
Currently uniswap is somewhat uncomfortable for fees. We are also on bamboo relay, saturn network, and mesa. Statera will be volatile like all cryptocurrency, this is a small and nascent space. But with the deflationary mechanic and balancer pool, over time, as marketcap grows it will become less volatile and more positively reactive to price.
Q) Security is one of the most essential characteristics for a project to get reputation. How can #Statera Team assure to their community that users assets and investments will stay safe from unwanted agents?
We have been third party audited by the same company that worked with VeChain to audit their code. Our code has been shown to be bulletproof. Unless Ethereum comes up with a fatal security flaw there is nothing that can happen to our contract (there is no backdoor, no way for anyone to edit or adjust the smart contract).
Q) Many investors see the project from the price of the coin. Can you give us advantages why Statera is so suitable for long-term investment? and what makes Statera different from other similar projects?
Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most effective. A question you can ask is “What if this fails”? But you can also ask, “What if this succeeds”? Cryptocurrency is filled with asymmetric risks, we think if you look into the value proposition you will find that there is a huge asymmetric risk/reward in Statera, and we will make that even clearer in our soon to be released litepaper. You are on the ground floor of a simple but highly effective solution to onboarding people into defi, cryptocurrencies, and investing. Our product reduces volatility and increases gains (decreases beta and increases alpha in investor terms), which is highly attractive in any investment. The down side is there but the upside outweighs it exponentially (asymmetric risk)
Q) What your plans in place for global expansion, are Statera focusing on only market at this time? Or focus on building and developing or getting customers and users, or partnerships? Can you explain this?
We have reached out to influencers in other countries and things are in the works. We have also translated documents and are working on having them in at least 4 languages by the end of July. We were founded globally, our team is global, and we are focused on reaching all 7 billion people.
Q) Now in the cryptofield everyday there are new projects joining in the Blockchain space. They are upgraded, Well-established and coming up with innovative technology. How Statera going to compete with them? What do you think, one day Statera will become useless And will be lost into the abyss of time for not bringing any new technology?
We are the first of our kind, no one had a deflationary index fund before us. Index funds will be the future of crypto (look at the popularity of etfs and indexes in the traditional markets). We are a tool to make your index function better and pay you more. As long as people care about crypto index funds they will care about the value STA brings to that. We have an involved and long term plan to reach dominance over a 5 year span, this is not a flash in the pan, big things coming
Q1. You say that the weight and proportions of your tokens are constant. So how have you managed to prevent market price speculation from generating hypervolability in your token price? Do you consider yourselves a kind of stablecoin? Q2. How many jurisdictions allow the use of Stratera products and services? Are they available for Latin America? @joloroeowo The balancer ensures an equal ratio of 20% amongst the five tokens included in our fund. This, however, does not imply that the tokens are stable. Rather, the Balancer protocol helps mitigating price fluctuations.
Q) How can I as a Statera participant participate in liquidity mining, and receive BAL as reward? What are the use cases of $STA token, and how are users motivated to buy and hold long term?
The easiest way is to go to stateratoken.com and click trade then BPT. You can also buy all five tokens and click on portfolio then add liquidity. Balancer is working on a simpler interface to add liquidity with one token, we are waiting on them. I think we explained the use cases above
Q) What do you plan have for global expansion, is Statera currently focused solely on the market? Or is it focused on building and developing or acquiring customer and user or partnership relationships? Can you explain it?
We are currently working on promoting the project and further develope our product, making it lucrative for more new investors to join our pool and invest in the STA token.
Q1) Statera have 2 types of tokens, so can you tell me the differences between STA and STAC ? What are their uses cases? Is possible Swap between them? Q2) Currently the only possible Swap or "exchange" possible is Uniswap, so you do have plans to list the STA token into a more Exchanges?
STAC is obsolete, we only have STA and BPT (go to our website and click on trade) stateratoken.com BPT gives you more diversification and less risk, STA gives you more volatility and more chance for big gains. Q2 we are on multiple exchanges (4), bamboo relay, saturn, and mesa we do have plans for future exchanges but the big ones have processes and hoops to jump through that can't be done so quickly
Q) What business scenarios can STATERA support now? In which industries can we see the mass adoption of STATERA technology in the near future?
Statera increases the effectiveness of your cryptocurrency investments. Specifically it makes cryptocurrency index funds function better, netting you higher returns, which we have already seen in just one month of implementation. Right now, today, you can buy our BPT token and increase the functionality of holding a crypto index fund. In the future we want every single web user to see and use our product
Q) Do you plan to migrate to other platforms like Tron, BinanceChain, EOS, etc. if it is feasible??
Migrating our current contract is not. Starting new offerings on those other chains could be possible, they aren't on our radar currently but if the community requests them we are driven by our community
Q) ETH Blockchain is a Blockchain have many token based in it, i have used ETH blockchain long time and i see it have big fee and need much time to make a transcation so Why you choose to based STA in ETH blockchain not other like Bep2 or Trc20 ?
Simply: 100 million addresses, 1 million transactions a day. The more users we have the more we will benefit our community. We hope ETH 2.0 scaling will fix the problems you mention.
Q) No one achieve anything of value on its own, please can you share about Statera present and future partnerships that will drive you to success in this highly congested crypto space?
We have a unique product that no one else has (there are people who have copied us). We can't announce our current and future partnerships yet, but they will be released soon. Our future hopes of partnerships are big and will be key to our future, know we are focused on making big partnerships, some you may not even be thinking about.
Q) According to the fact that your algorithm causes 1% of each transaction to be destroyed, I would like to know, then, how you plan to finance yourself as a project in the long term?
The project is now in the hands of the community and we are a team of passionate people volunteering to help promote and develope the Statera ecosystem. But then, how do we afford running a promo campaign? We have lots of great community members donating funds that goes to promoting the project. In other words, the community helps financing the project. And so far, we have created a fantastic community consisting of passionate and well-educated people!
Q) There are many cryptocurrency startups were established by talent teams, but they got problem in raising capital via token sales due to many factors as bear market, bankrupt etc. This leaded their potential startups fail. So how will Statera break these barriers and attract more funds from outside crypto space?
We are community focused and community ran. When you look at centralized cryptocurrencies you can see the negative of them (Tron, ADA, etc.) We believe being fully decentralized is the true power position. You the owner of statera can affect our future and must affect our future. This direct ownership means people need to mobilize and organize to push us forward, and it is in their best self interest to do so. It's a bet on our community, we're excited about that bet
Q) What business scenarios can STATERA support now? In which industries can we see the mass adoption of STATERA technology in the near future?
Statera increases the effectiveness of your cryptocurrency investments. Specifically it makes cryptocurrency index funds function better, netting you higher returns, which we have already seen in just one month of implementation. Right now, today, you can buy our BPT token and increase the functionality of holding a crypto index fund. In the future we want every single web user to see and use our product
Q) Why being a hybrid of a liquidity pool and an index fund? What are the main benefits about this?
By being a liquidity pool the exchange side of the pool (balancer also functions as an exchange) gives you added liquidity for more effortless, effective, and cheaper rebalancing. You also benefit from getting paid the fee when people use the exchange AND getting paid BAL tokens that are worth $15-20 USD. These are not benefits you get with an index fund, meanwhile the liquidity pool rebalances just like an index fund would
Q) Which specific about technology and strategy of #STA that make you believe it will be successful and what does #STA plan do to attract more users in the upcoming time?
I think the idea behind Statera is truly ingenious. We have made an index fund, which investors are highly(!) incentivised to invest in, namely because the ROI, so far, has been huge. An increase in the pool liquidity (index fund) indirectly translates into an increase in the price of STA, why we think the STA token - combined with its deflationary nature - will increase in the long run. The mechanism behind this is somewhat complex, but to better get an understanding of it, I suggest you visit our medium page and read more about the project: https://medium.com/@stateraproject

Announcements and Integrations 🎉

• @Paraswap Integrates with Chainlink: DEX aggregator Paraswap is using Chainlink’s Price Reference Contracts to provide more accurate and timely price feeds for ETH and ERC-20 tokens. Chainlink's price feeds will serve as the basis for comparing asset prices across 15 different exchanges. Read Announcement
• @MonteCarloDEX Integrates with Chainlink: Decentralized derivatives trading platform MonteCarloDEX is using Chainlink's ETH/USD Reference Contract as the index oracle for its ETH/PERP Perpetual Contract. Chainlink's ETH/USD price feed provides key data for calculating funding rates. Read Announcement

Featured Videos 🎥

• Ampleforth and Chainlink Virtual Meetup: This virtual meetup features the founders of Ampleforth, Evan Kuo and Brandon Iles, who speak about the limitations presented by the abnormally high correlations seen in today’s decentralized collateral assets, Ampleforth's solutions and protocols, their use of Chainlink to minimize the risk of an oracle attack and manipulation.
• Off-Chain Labs and Chainlink Q&A: A live Stream Q&A with Ed Felten Co-Founder of Off-Chain Labs discussing Arbitrum, scalability solutions, and the ability to use the Chainlink Network for off-chain computation.

Mentions in the Press ✅

• <13 April> [PRESS] CoinTelegraph: Gemini Adds Support for Dai, Chainlink and Orchid Trading This Month
• <13 April> [PRESS] CryptoCurrencyNews: ChainLink (LINK) Oracle Targets Reliability of Blockchain Data in Interoperability and Influence Factor
• <13 April> [PRESS] 8BTC: 巴比特专访 | 海外知名团队亲述：疫情下的加密货币社区长啥样？ (Overseas Famous Team: How is the cryptocurrency community under the epidemic?)
• <13 April> [PRESS] Blockbeats: Chainlink 周报| 根据 Synthetix 等用户的要求，已重新部署 ETH-USD 合约 (Chainlink Weekly Report | ETH-USD contracts have been redeployed as requested by users like Synthetix)

“[Redacted (Chainlink)] I think it is a fantastic project that demonstrates one of the many great promises of crypto.. I really appreciate the passion of the $LINK Marines. Their fervor and dedication reminds me of the early Bitcoin and Ethereum communities. Unlike many other crypto armies, they are dedicated to a project that has real promise and technical merit.” -Tyler Winklevoss, Co-Founder and CEO of Gemini
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Community Content & Celebrations 👏

• VulcanLink: A Chainlink Node Operator created a fully decentralized and opensource Chainlink Feeds frontend with user-added feeds. Read More
• VulcanLink: Also created a how-to post for running Chainlink on Raspberry Pi is the perfect DIY at-home blockchain project. Read More
• Chainlink Advisor, Tom Gonser, speaks out about the progress of Smart Contracts at Docusign: Read More
• MakerDAO community votes to add LINK tokens as collateral: Read More

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• Developer Evangelist, Global
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View all open roles at https://careers.chain.link
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​
The emotions in the crypto community are in the range from mild boredom on the positive side to apathy and depression on the other extreme. Despite the gloomy background, I believe 2020 will be one of the best years in the history of crypto assets bringing record highs.
Here are the reasons why…
The broader economy
We live in extraordinary times. Central banks are determined to avoid a recession at all costs by providing liquidity and cutting rates which creates a speculative investment environment. The low interest rate are pumping the valuations of almost any asset class and are also making money managers climb up the risk ladder in search of a meaningful return. Since government bonds don’t yield anything, investors need to buy corporate debt, the ones who previously bought corporate bonds are now into stocks, the stocks loving investors have moved capital to private equity and venture capital etc.
The FED balance sheet jumped $370 billion since September in a new program which is “not QE”. They also cut the rates 3 times this year fighting against a falling stock market and a “potential global slowdown” due to the trade wars and Brexit. As a result we have fresh all time highs in all major US stock indices.
Germany is hovering around a recession, avoiding it technically with a dismal 0.1% growth in the 3rd quarter of 2019. At the same time the DAX index was only 1.3% short of making a new all time high this month.
Even Greece that was on the verge of dropping out of the eurozone four years ago, managed to issue government debt at a negative rate this year.
The cost for avoiding a recession creates a distortion in the valuation of all assets. How do you value anything when interest rates are negative? For great insights on the topic read Howard Marks’ memo on the “mysterious” negative interest rates.
This search for return will drive more people towards riskier asset classes like growth stocks, venture capital and eventually the luring asymmetric bet of crypto assets. "Risk on" state of mind is what crypto needs as the whole asset class (even bitcoin) is perceived as very risky.
US election year
Trump will do anything to keep the stock market and the economy going in 2020. The argument is short but compelling.
He has been very vocal about the new highs and didn’t miss the chance to praise himself for the huge 2019 stock returns. He will likely not do anything that will blow the positive investor sentiment.
This is another tail wind for risk prone investor behaviour in 2020 which will favour crypto assets.
The halving narrative
Bitcoin’s block reward halving is scheduled to occur in mid May 2020. It will bring the daily production from 1800 down to 900 coins per day. This will also cut its annual inflation in half to less than 1.8%. While being twice less powerful than the previous having in 2016, this production cut is still going to influence the price. As a self fulfilling prophecy or a supply-demand result, both previous halvings were followed by an upward price spiral that resulted in a bubble and a blow off top. This is relationship is difficult to ignore and if there is a favourable "risk on” environment in 2020 there is a good chance it will happen again. It may also come faster as investors will try to front run it.
Also, this time we have halving events in the two major forks of bitcoin which did not exist back in 2016 - BCH and BSV. Despite being controversial, they are still among the top 10 largest crypto asset. Their supply cut and potential price rise may help feed the whole “bitcoin halving” narrative and create an upward price spiral for the whole sector.
The latest example of a halving was in litecoin this year and it had a very distinct price effect.
It’s been a while since the last bubble
It’s been exactly 2 years after the top of the previous bubble. Most alts are over 90% down from their all time highs. That is a lot of damage for the speculative investor who came in 2017 and 2018.
Also the lows in most coins were set one year ago and have not been broken down despite prevalent pessimism. This has been a painful environment for anybody looking for a quick buck.
There is also a widespread apathy and pessimism among the crypto community with even hardcore believers changing their forecasts to mediocre 2020.
After 2 years and lots of assets down more than 90% from ATH it seems that most of the coins are held by very strong hands. Therefore downward pressure is limited and if it occurs it would be mainly driven by short term speculators.
Tech development
The hot word of 2016 was “blockchain”. The whole world got excited about it in 2017. 2019 is the year of DeFi.
In case bitcoin gets close to $20 000 again the “late" money will flood once again to smaller crypto assets seeking higher returns. If/when bitcoin’s blocks get full and transactions become expensive the old narrative of “bitcoin doesn’t scale” would become valid again and this would spread money to BCH, BSV, ETH and others.
Another potential narrative that exists today is the “decentralised finance” - exchanges, derivatives, stablecoins, borrowing, lending all that infrastructure got far more sophisticated since the last bubble. Apart from DeFi projects tokens, Ethereum is also poised to be one of the top beneficiaries of this trend as it hosts most of the DeFI activities. However the "Ethereum doesn’t scale" narrative is also valid so a lot of money could spill over to the competition in the smart contract space.
It’s been more than 2 years since the scaling problems became obvious and a lot of projects that specialised in that domain are up and running. Others are at the final stages of being launched. What would be a better test than a real world influx of new users and apps that will try to fill the capacity. The process of finding a proper scaling pathway will be pushed forward in case of another bubble.
Conclusion
That scenario will change in case of a global recession that brings the “risk off” attitude. Then assets will fall into a negative price spiral and investors will be looking to preserve their capital by fleeing to “safer” assets. Although such a recession is inevitable at some point, it seems that central banks have been very good at avoiding it by kicking the can down the road. If they succeed again in 2020, get ready for an explosive crypto year. However, do not assume this run will be the same as 2017. It depends much on the global economy and investors’ risk appetite and it may be cut off earlier and not result in a full blown bubble like the one from 2017. The sensible investor needs to be cautious and plan for the short run in this environment.

What is this post about?

Bitcoin brought to light the power of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. I wanted to share some other projects to show the world that blockchain technology is a viable solution to real world problems. I had a look into some of the projects that are disrupting industries like advertising, communication, energy, finance, gambling, video games, privacy, and social media - here’s what I found:

Advertising

Personal data is gathered and sold to third parties, but the money never makes it to the user whose data has generated the value for the company using it.

• Basic Attention Token (BAT)
  BAT is a product of Firefox co-founder Brendan Eich, raising over $20million in less than a minute during the ICO craze of 2017. BAT is a feature of the Brave browser, enabling users to be rewarded in $BAT for their attention. As of March 2020, Brave has amassed an impressive 4 million daily active users.
  
• DAD (DAD)
  DAD, short for Decentralized Advertising, is making advertising data more transparent without infringing on users’ privacy. DAD uses the Lightning Network to facilitate high frequency microtransactions.
  

Communication

Edward Snowden (among others) revealed the extent of surveillance technology collecting civilian communication data and expressed the need for a safe, secure and surveillance free method for individuals and businesses to communicate over the internet.

• Status (SNT)
  Status is an Ethereum based encrypted messaging app, web3 browser and $ETH/$SNT wallet. Status was one of the most funded ICOs in 2017 and have achieved +10k downloads on Android phones. Recently, Status upgraded their communication protocol to allow 10x more users, however this only raised their limit to 10k simultaneous users.
  
• Orchid (OXT)
  The Orchid network is an incentivized bandwidth proxying protocol for a decentralized VPN that allows users to buy bandwidth from a global pool of service providers using $OXT.
  

Privacy

With the shift away from physical cash and the move towards online payments, user privacy is at risk. Digitalization often means more surveillance, privacy is more important than ever.

• Monero (XMR)
  With Monero you can spend safely, knowing that others cannot see your balances or track your transaction activity - by default. Using a combination of ring signatures, ringCT and stealth addresses, Monero provides all the benefits of an open-source and decentralized cryptocurrency, without any privacy concessions.
  
• Loki Network (LOKI)
  Loki is a Monero fork modified to facilitate instant anonymous transactions and communication. The Loki Network consists of Lokinet, an onion routing protocol similar to Tor, and Session, a cross-platform end-to-end encrypted messaging application with anonymous registration that has been downloaded +100k times. Both applications use Loki’s masternode network to anonymously route data.
  

Energy

Energy markets are inefficient and act in the interest of the middlemen, not the generator or consumer. With the continual transition to cleaner energy, the energy sector is looking to leverage new and existing technologies.

• Power Ledger (POWR)
  Power Ledger has developed a world-first blockchain enabled energy trading platform to make energy markets more efficient. Currently used in Australia, Thailand, India, Japan and the United States, The Power Ledger platform enables the trade of electricity in real time with all transactions recorded on the blockchain.
  
• WePower (WPR)
  WePower marketplace connects companies directly with green energy generators so that all companies, no matter the size, can make a tangible environmental impact whilst buying green energy at competitive rates with full transparency.
  

Financial Sector

The financial system is out of date and in serious need of an update. Traditional banking only runs during business hours and cross border payments are exceptionally slow, inefficient and costly. As we continue transitioning to a more digital world, money is making the same change.

• Synthetix (SNX)
  Synthetix is a decentralized synthetic asset issuance protocol that enables minting of synthetic assets when $SNX tokens are locked in the contract. Assets are assigned exchange rates via price feeds supplied by an oracle and can be traded on the Synthetix Exchange DApp.
  
• COTI (COTI)
  COTI’s DAG-based protocol combines infrastructure, services and application layers to create a holistic payments solution which is modular and fully customizable. At the core lies the Trustchain, which assigns trust scores using machine learning to increase transaction speeds and reduce transaction costs.
  

Gambling

Gambling usually takes place in a physical or virtual casino, where the house always wins. Blockchain based gambling platforms will provide more transparency on how odds are formed, fees are charged and how payouts are scheduled.

• WINk (WIN)
  WINk was the first DApp launched on Tron and boasts the largest library of casino games on the blockchain. WINk’s platform provides a set of tools and resources for developers that allow them to easily create unique gaming DApps. The scaling solutions implemented in WINk’s games have completely eliminated transaction costs.
  
• Casino Coin (CSC)
  CasinoCoin is an open source, peer-to-peer, cryptocurrency specifically designed for the regulated online gambling industry. CasinoCoin uses a modified version of the Ripple code, optimised to work within the regulated gaming industry, but also with an eye to work within the banking system long term.
  

IoT

With the introduction of IoT technology, the amount of data points being collected need to be managed and secured to avoid massive data breaches and leaks. The use of Blockchain technology can increase transparency and virtual incorruptibility.

• Walton Chain (WTC)
  Waltonchain combines RFID, Blockchain and IoT technologies to help business merchants monitor their production, logistics, warehousing and retail aspects of the supply chain. This ensures all data is authentic and reliable and increases transparency and reduces human error - which would have been useful for their infamous Twitter giveaway...
  
• IoTeX (IOTX)
  Backed by a global team of research scientists and engineers, IoTeX combines blockchain, secure hardware, and data services innovations to empower intelligent IoT networks and machine economies; an ecosystem where information and value can be exchanged by physical and virtual participants on a global scale.
  

Video Games

The video game industry is an ever evolving space which often adopted technological advancements before many others. The use of Blockchain is being explored for things such as in-game Microtransactions and digital collectables.

• Enjin Coin (ENJ)
  Enjin is an ERC20 token built on the Ethereum network which aims to allow the gaming industry to create and manage their own virtual goods. Game developers could create their own in-game digital assets for their gaming community to use which would all be backed by the parent coin, $ENJ. Enjin soard to popularity on announcement of their partnership with Samsung.
  
• Decentraland (MANA)
  Decentraland is a fully decentralized and open market where you can discover, buy, sell, and manage parcels of virtual land. Using Decentraland’s editor, you can design your own pieces of land in the virtual world. Decentraland’s world is built around MANA, an ERC20 token used for trading goods and services provided by users.
  

Social

Typical social platforms are run by centralized companies and depending on their jurisdiction, they may not be able to serve certain people. Censorship resistance is critical to allow for freedom of speech.

• Steem (STEEM)
  Steemit is a blockchain-based blogging and social media website, which rewards its users with $STEEM for publishing and curating content. All text content is stored on the Blockchain for eternity, although images still require a hosting platform such as Imgur.
  
• Hive (HIVE)
  Hive, a new fork of Steem, recently launched in an attempt to limit exchanges from using customer holdings to participate in governance attacks, as witnessed on the Steem blockchain earlier this year. This comes with a move towards providing a remedy for distribution issues and reliance on a central entity for code and infrastructure.
  

Looking forward

There are literally thousands of projects out there, these are just some of the projects I've found to be doing interesting things. If I’ve missed something super important, let me know. I might look into blockchain projects next that have the most current active user bases if you guys like these kinds of posts.

The creator of the game, "Plague Inc" was interviewed for a CDC blog post from 2013.

How did you ensure it was a realistic game?
Without a medical background, I did a lot of online research in order to make sure it felt realistic to players. Luckily, I have always been very interested in biology as well as economics and current affairs. This helped a lot when I was building the algorithms and models inside the game. A critical stage in the game is the ‘Infection Cycle’ that dictates how people become infected with a disease and how they infect others. The game revolves around this stage, and I spent months making sure that it worked properly. The core design is based on the concept of ‘basic reproduction rate’ and I found lots of great papers online which taught me more about it.
What kind of audience does Plague Inc. reach and what do they get from it?
Plague Inc. has been downloaded over 10 million times worldwide and over 200 million games have been played to date. As an intelligent and sophisticated strategy game, I think Plague Inc. appeals to people looking for something more meaningful and substantial than the majority of mobile games. It makes people think about infectious disease in a new light – helping them realize the threats that we face every day.
Were players of Plague Inc. interested to know you had been invited to the CDC?
Yes, the reaction to the news has been extremely positive and people are keen to know more! In the first 24 hours after I announced my visit to the CDC almost 1 million people had seen tweets about it! I think people were excited to see that a prestigious organization like the CDC was interested in the game. A lot of people also hoped that visiting the CDC would give me ideas for future updates of the game (which it did!)
What did you learn at CDC?
It was fascinating to meet the people who are working hard every day to keep us safe from the type of threats that Plague Inc. features. I got a tour of the Emergency Operations Center and Broadcast Center, as well as a trip to the CDC museum. This gave me a lot of contextual information about how the CDC works, which will help me add a greater level of realism to the game in the future – especially in terms of how humanity reacts to outbreaks.
What are you working on now and what do you have coming out next?
Plague Inc. is still proving to be an incredibly popular game, so my main focus must be to keep improving the game and adding new content for players. Recently, I released an update that added a zombie-themed plague, as well as translating the game into four other languages. In the next update, I will be adding a new game mode for players, translating it into Japanese/Korean and hopefully adding some CDC content!

From this, we see that even before He went to the CDC over 200 million games had been played, and in the last 7 years, who knows how many more. Since 2013 he has taken highly detailed actual infectious disease data and implemented it into the game.
So at this point, we can assume that Plague Inc. It is a REALISTIC simulation, at least to a certain degree. Adding to this we know that hundreds of millions of simulations have been run. These simulations feature real-world decisions being made, realistic public events, and real sociological changes and variables. Even assuming the worst possible accuracy of the data(remember, companies like Twitter, Google, Facebook have no less than Ten Thousand data points on every US Citizen.), given enough time, a sufficiently robust deep learning AI can optimize this data to an extreme degree.
Let’s also assume that in addition to these PLAYER driven simulations, several AI-controlled simulations have been run as well. Not necessarily with Plague Inc.’s engine, but with Pandemic researchers. With this much data, it just makes sense that at some point this game would be able to not only model the “perfect virus” in order to infect a specific amount of people and cause a specific amount of symptoms. In addition, if the game uses actual virus genomics data, it could even, given enough time, develop the recipe to create this virus for us.
This isn’t even the extent of this AI possibility. Narrow, data-driven AIs are capable of crunching an obscene amount of data. And if you feed in the right data (GPS movements, Spending Habits, public reactions to public events and news stories, hell, I’m even sure memes could be effectively factored into these algorithms) these systems could very easily be linked together into a massive simulation that factors in and predicts all sorts of “likely eventualities”.
Brexit, Trump, Sanders, China, are all great examples of events that have an almost limitless amount of data points on the internet, all categorized by companies like Cambridge Analytica. Not only your reaction to the specific stimulus, but what you do after you've reacted to the stimulus, and how you react to that next stimulus, and so on and so on Ad Infinitum. Not to mention all the quizzes you’ve been filling out on Facebook, your Instagram account, your Spotify, your Tinder likes and dislikes and matches, YouTube and Pornhub browsing data all get fed into these systems. Ever wonder why Facebook and Amazon are making so much money? We can CLEARLY see that Billionaires run the world and can do ANYTHING they want right in front of us and they face ZERO consequences. Epstein didn't kill himself proved this. And Panama paper before that.
Hell Reddit accounts are the worst of the worst. Every time we upvote a meme, we are running calculations for these algorithms. We have become processing power for these AI Overlords. We willingly provide these companies with all of the data they need, they give us free smartphones and we welcome and integrate them into our daily lives. They listen to our conversations, and we are told that it is just for the mass aggregate data and that nobody actually listens to them. Humans don't listen to them, but Deep Learning Neural Nets certainly do. but forget about all the AI systems for a second. Collectively, the entire internet-connected totality of the human race is an actual computer.
If you think about how we all interact with each other in a single day, we can assume that most interactions function almost exactly like a math problem, just with a seemingly infinite amount of variables. Impossible to know that you said an innocuous thing that triggered the lady sitting next to you in some way that she was in a shitty mood for the rest of the day and ended up impulse buying $30 in lottery tickets. She was extremely rude to several people that day and acted like a typical "Karen" about it. All of this made a total of twenty-six people post funny statuses on Facebook or tweeted about her, which all were, to some varying degree of engagement, responded to and liked and emojied about. not to mention all the other interactions that took place in all that. Even if these AI algorithms miss seventy-five percent of all that sensory data and causal reasoning, we still make computations on that based on our own actions. The next time that lady sees that man in the coffee shop, she might remember the time she had a shitty day because of him. Then she iterates the loop again, adding more data to the pile... This process will inevitably guide not only each individual person to their own predictable outcomes, but humanity as a whole will eventually lead to some almost unavoidable outcome. We are a Neural Net running constantly. Our entire human race is working out calculations, and the interconnectedness of the world wide web has increased our processing power to effectively infinite levels. You know in "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" where they make a computer that is as big as a planet, well, we ARE that computer. (a better example, in my opinion, is found in the book "Children of Time" where spoiler alert: A semi-sentient hivemind race of ants get turned into an actual computer that an uploaded human mind that became part of a possible already conscious AI system eventually gets transferred to where it becomes a sentient human/AI Hybrid spaceship made of ants piloted by a semi-symbiotic sentient Spider Human Alliance)
When asked how much data is on the internet, Google says:

"One way to answer this question is to consider the sum total of data held by all the big online storage and service companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook. Estimates are that the big four store at least 1,200 petabytes between them. That is 1.2 million terabytes (one terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes)."

That is 1.2 billion gigabytes. Just to put this into perspective, let's say your phone has 512GB, for every Gig of data you have on your phone, these companies have 2,343,750GB... or put another way... for every megabyte you have, these companies have 2,343.75 Gigs of data. We all create all the data they need to do pretty much anything conceivable given enough computing power.
Speaking of us collectively being a massive computing system... Do you know what else does an unfathomable amount of calculations per second? You, you guessed it, Bitcoin. Across all of the Bitcoin network, mining could easily be doing billions of calculations every second.

from bitcoinmining.com ”With Bitcoin, miners use special software to solve math problems and are issued a certain number of bitcoins in exchange. This provides a smart way to issue the currency and also creates an incentive for more people to mine.”

What math problems could these be working on? Without being able to look at the entirety of the math problems being worked out, it would be impossible to tell what they are working on. But imagine if these AI systems could distribute these ENORMOUSLY massive simulations on every single computer that is mining bitcoins, I think there would be enough data processing power do run something massive. Add in all the other Crypto mining and, well that's a lot of math. They aren't just doing your standard Multiplication tables either.
In conclusion, we absolutely are living in a simulation, just not how you think. There very well could be an extremely large number of simulations running, using REAL WORLD data to create predictive algorithms to not only predict outcomes but MANAGE them. i.e. what Cambridge Analytica did with Brexit and Trump. We know that this happened, and if that is possible, imagine what else could be possible to manufacture? One man can build a log cabin in ten days, ten men can build a log cabin in one day. And one computer can do a lot more math than ten people can...
TL;DR: Billionaires control the world using AI, and we are the operating system. We already live in the matrix, and it is too late to change anything about that.
GG no RE