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A little earlier today there was a Virtual Blockchain Meet-Up “WorldWide” ..... could have written any word of course, because it is all ....... Virtual ! ! !

Jeff and Chip – On the Chain, hosted the first meet-up and it was fun. They were assisted by Crypto Eri, always a pleasure and JamesRuleXRP, our own Pizza Man .....

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Around 30-40 people attended and besides the Introduction, I ran a little late, there were round table sessions, with like 3, 4, 5 people around, being able to talk Digital Currency that everybody understands, without asking the whole time, eh ..... What or, eh but isn't Bitcoin used for bad, BAD stuff?

Topics going around were of course “the familiar” ones:

SEC

John Deaton

WSB

Flare

Ripple sending SEC some questions

(De)Centralized exchanges/ brokers

Robinhood

GameStop

February 2nd

It was wild, and good vibes were running around. The hosts were going around the tables and listening to the high level of interaction. Fun to see fellow Coil Blogger Srdan joining, or eh .... I joined him; like I wrote earlier, I ran a little late.

I really liked it, Evening for me, Night for Eri, and her cat, earlier for Chip and Jeff and all the countries that were represented in the meet-up ! ! ! Had a good session going around about Robinhood and the decentralisation of Brokers/ Exchanges and this may change the world after this past week. I thought the SEC was busy with the Ripple Case, but they have much more work to do, going after some hedgefunds, brokers, market makers and many many more.

The final words by Chip, Jeff, Crypto Eri, JamesRuleXRP, always nice to meet ..... and if you missed out on this one, there will be many many more ..... they are actually thinking about a next one, next month.... I think one after tomorrow, legendary February 1st, may be a possibility, but it may take a little longer. I will keep you guys up to date.

I really liked this meet-up, little break-out sessions, talking about whatever you want to talk about ..... why does so much happen in crypto land ! ! ! Talk, listen, learn .... everything was there, really nice.

Thanks Chip and Jeff, for doing the Lion part of the meet-up. Let's not wait to long and see the second meet-up. I will make sure I am there. Let's have more tables next time, let's have more people attend. Thanks ! ! !

And about tomorrow, February 1st, 2021:

The day may go in the history books, who knows but:

People, be safe. Invest money that you can afford to lose (for a couple years). Don't get caught at the top ..... can always go higher, but be cautious.

I am not a financial advisor, this blog is for entertainment purposes only. I do not tell people to sell or buy any financial vehicle; I am not in a position to tell you what to do ! ! !

Stay Safe ! ! !

Today is going to be a short blog, because everything has been said. Incredible what is happening at the moment.

Everybody knows (by now) GameStop, at least when you live in the United States, but when you ask for GME, nobody knew before this week. It is really interesting what has happened. Whether it is good, or it is bad, depends of course what side you are on, but the Wall Street Bets Group inspired many, many people.

Of course it is the industry I am following, but you cannot see anything else anymore on every financial platform, social media. It even made the news here in the Netherlands:

Hectic times on the International Stock Markets ! ! !

Well, this GameStop movement made it to Crypto Currency. Via DogeCoin, XRP has been eyed ......

Telegram has a channel called: BUY & HOLD XRP FEB 1st

February 1st it is going to happen. That should be the day that everybody buys XRP. Not sure if it works like that, what do you think:

1. It will start adoption.
2. This short term vision is needed for a long term vision
3. It is crazy
4. Nothing will happen, the SEC is the winner

You tell me, what you think happens ! ! !

It is going to be an interesting week. I mean, Wall Street Bets is not ready with GameStop yet, “the XRPCommunity” may raise on February First and well, there is still an SEC lawsuit.

Once again a very short blog, as you probably have read everything regarding:

Wall Streets Bets

XRP

SEC

Feb 1

589

etc,

Good luck, next week we are rich ....... eh .....

I am not a financial advisor, this blog is for entertainment purposes only. I do not tell people to sell or buy any financial vehicle; I am not in a position to tell you what to do ! ! !

STAY SAFE ! ! !

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Once again, how interesting has this week been, and it is only Friday. The stock market has been heavily manipulated, well, tell me something new, but this time not by Wall street.

Today of course the big story, the rise of Bitcoin. Tough to break 33.000 dollars again and today we saw a massive increase, almost breaking 38.000 dollars again; Close to 20% gain ...... and only because Elon and Jack posted Bitcoin in their Twitter Bio ......... eh NO ! ! !

Yes, it helps, both have tremendous influence; Elon having close to 44 million followers, this makes a difference, but no, this, IMO, has nothing to do with adding Bitcoin in their info. Today Bitcoin Options are expiring and that is more important than the biggest influencers in the world. This once again is shorters vs. longers and the longers seem to win it. In the options industry there is a lot of money; hedge funds are shorting, word in the streets, so let's long to make them lose ...... Let's see who has the longest breath ! ! !

So Hedge Funds, let's look at them:

Hedge Funds are alternative investments using pooled funds that employ different strategies to earn active returns, or alpha, for their investors. Hedge funds may be aggressively managed or make use of derivatives and leverage in both domestic and international markets with the goal of generating high returns

It is important to note that hedge funds are generally only accessible to accredited investors as they require less SEC regulations than other funds.

A hedge fund's investment universe is only limited by its mandate. A hedge fund can basically invest in anything—land, real estate, stocks, derivatives, and currencies. Mutual funds, by contrast, have to basically stick to stocks or bonds and are usually long-only.

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In the last sentence we see a big difference, mutual funds usually only go long , so ..... Hedge Funds can go short ..... ! ! !

Well we heard about that phenomenon .... especially Melvin Capital:

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Let's go back to what has been happening this week.

So Melvin Capital wanted the price of Gamestop to go DOWN, shorting is borrowing, selling, followed by buying back. Once again if you go long, you can only lose what the product is worth, not more. If it goes to zero, you just lost 100%. Shorting different story, you borrow and sell for the price of 10 dollars, as as example. If the product goes to 100 dollars, you lose 90 dollars, which is WAY MORE than what you started with .......... starting to see the picture why Melvin C. is not happy at the moment. Not happy with the fact that retail investors on WallStreetBets online forum are massively going long ! ! !

Wait wait wait, let's go back to Melvin C. ..... They were shorting the market, shorting Gameshop, GME ...... actually they have done that for a while now, but now they have gone really all in. They actually went so deep, they were “borrowing” more stock than there actually are ! ! ! These are called Naked Shorts and well, the SEC should have stepped in right there, because .. that is not allowed ! !

Melvin C. knows they have to buy back and because so many people, WallStreetBets investors, are buying the shares, interest to sell is definitely there; these people are making big time cash. With buying these shares, Melvin C. is losing money, A LOT OF MONEY, but in a way have to because they don't want to hold those shorts, buying these shares though, will drive up the price ...... Once again, you see what is happening ! ! !

Short Selling is one of the ways Hedge Funds make the biggest profits and unless the SEC steps in, this may be a new target to large group of retail investors.

So what happened with Robinhood, why are people not happy with Vladimir Tenev .... Well, Robinhood stopped trades of Gamestop due to significant market volatility. The Conspiracy Theories started and this one is NOT mine, I “kinda” buy it, but maybe Robinhood was “told” to stop the buying, in order to manipulate the price going upwards .... hence only selling was allowed ! ! ! So, to call it by its name: a Hedgefund/ Hedgefunds were calling around to see how to stop the buying of Gamestop, and only stopping buying ...... not selling ....... what is your opinion. I leave mine aside .......

This Tweet claims differently, but well, the truth may come out later, who knows ! ! !

Don't forget though, Robinhood has over 13 million users (Source) they can make a difference. This will hurt them tho, not a good thing ! ! !

This was Part II in my little analyses of the market today. Be very careful what you do, make money, but be careful.

I am not a financial advisor, this blog is for entertainment purposes only. I do not tell people to sell or buy any financial vehicle; I am not in a position to tell you what to do ! ! !

STAY SAFE ! ! !

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Part I: Shorting the Market, the Stock Market ! ! !

WoW, we have seen an intense week, looking at the Crypto ..... eh I mean the Stock Market .....

I would like to give my little view on it. Buying stock is an easy trade. You give your bank, broker or whoever is going to buy the stock, the money and you own stock. You want it to go up and you are a happy camper. Well, the world does not spin like that anymore. Throughout the years many different financial vehicles have been introduced and you can go long, go short, hedge...... wait wait wait, hedge:

THAT IS THE 10 DOLLAR WORD ! ! !

So what is my take on what has happened with hedge funds and stock in the last couple days.

First I want to mention a key sentence:

Big Money shouts the hardest ! ! !

Meaning, we are talking about the big hands that are shuffling the cards, well, ....... this week we have seen some different card game

The last couple of years hedge funds, no names and no opinions here, have made a lot of money by shorting the market, selling shares they don't own. Shorting the Market basically means borrowing shares (cough cough GameStop cough cough), sell these immediately, to buy them back later.

So, as an example: I buy something for 10 dollars, in the know I have to sell it back, the price has to drop, so I can make a profit.
If you do this with stocks, large amounts of stock / money, it involves a lot of risk. When the price goes up ...... for “shorters”, oh boy; the rising price needs to be covered.

Let's talk GameStop .... I have looked into it and this was the stock aimed by a HedgeFund. No names, you can find it. Once again, no opinions here, just facts ......

GameStop is not doing well. The Gaming Industry is having a rough couple years. Streaming games is the new “kid in town” and this cuts in the Gaming Industry's Profits .... The Pandemic is not helping, so 2020 was NOT a good year for GameStop. So, maybe a smart move to short it ......

BUT,

what if there is a website, let's just call it Reddit, that has a page where they are looking at “organising” a short squeeze .....

A WHAT ????

We talk about “A short squeeze” when a BIG group of investors wants to cover short positions; in other words, starts buying at the same time when others are shorting the market. Read between the lines: you need a lot of money ! ! ! The buying of these stocks pushes the stock price up again, making “the shorters” pump money to cover their ...... shorts ! ! ! This is what we have seen with GameStop, the price went spiralling higher. This is a dangerous game as the person with the biggest pot of gold is winning, UNLESS you don't want to win and you just want to make money (in case of longing) and jump ship when profits are enough.

This last sentence should alarm you in a big way ..... if you are too late, you may end up with some big red numbers. You have to be in the know what “the group” is doing. This of course is not a weird tool in the Crypto Industry, everybody has heard of the pump and dump telegram groups / discord investment clubs and whales that are manipulating your favourite coin/ token and / or currency what ever it is ...

So, GameStop is a very unusual situation:

All the GameStop stock available for trading has been shorted. Every share has been borrowed and sold. This normally does NOT happen with shorting a stock, but this went big ! ! ! A Squeeze is highly effective in this situation as there is not too much stock to borrow.

Let's look at the price of GameStop:

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Look at these prices. I tell you, these prices gave us BIG winners and BIG losers .... and who should win, well I am not to say .... depends on what side you are standing, are you a shorter or a longer .....

This is not new to the investment industry, short squeezing, but the way this short squeeze has been put in place, all in the open, well, call it interesting and I bet ..... it won't be over yet. Maybe this has started a whole new “game” as we have seen it with a couple stocks in the last couple days: AMC, BBBY NOK and maybe I should write DogeCoin here, but I am not going to do that ...... eh, oh well ! ! !

Be careful people, on what side you are going to chose, more than likely it is going to be the long side, as you are not allowed to short as big and if you are too late ..... it is going to hurt. This is a show you need to wear your big boy pants, a picture to lighten the reading a bit:

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Everybody is a winner in this game, everybody is a loser in this game but do KNOW:

If you are not IN THE KNOW, you are NOT in the know ! ! !

Tomorrow, maybe PART II

I am not a financial advisor, this blog is for entertainment purposes only. I do not tell people to sell or buy any financial vehicle; I am not in a position to tell you what to do ! ! !

STAY SAFE ! ! !

Wow, ...... I have been invested in XRP since 2017 and moving from Riddlers to Bearable Guy to what is the future after the SEC .... You read a lot of stories what is happening, will happen after this lawsuit; it is amazing ! ! !

So, what is the future of XRP:

GAME OVER

The SEC is going to go after Ripple and XRP and gets them on their knees .... they will pay big time, billions, and XRP is going to be declared a security, no more On Demand Liquidity, XRP is done ! ! !

Okay, okay, if you believe this version, it needs to be shared: XRP, Blockchain is Global, the United States may be the financial capital of the world, still many countries have declared the token to NOT be a security .... just a small detail ! ! !

SHAKE-OUT

Final Shake out, dumping the price, halting trading XRP and suddenly increasing the price. The news, SEC lawsuit, sounded horrible and maybe many people sold because they got wet feet

At the moment 1.000 XRP will cost you around 260 dollars. If the price jumps to 100 dollars an XRP {when XRP is declared NOT to be a security ........}, the price just went up from 260 dollars to 100.000 dollars.

Well, that would be definitely a missing out for some people. I don't see it going so fast, but when the lawsuit turns out to be okay, brace yourself ! ! !

ELITE

This may be a little bit the same as shake out, but XRP was never really a retail token. It was designed to be for banks, financial institutionals and other businesses ..... AND the most wealthy people of the world. I don't want to spent too many words on this, as I understand the bank part of it and the institutionals, but elite, no, I do not think so ! ! !

WORLD CURRENCY

XRP is about to take over the position of all important currencies: dollar, pound, yen, euro, you name it ...... XRP is going to take the top position ..... let's not go there.

Whether you hate XRP, what it stands for, or you like it, and hope what it brings you, it is all possible ! ! ! Well, maybe not everything but throw up a coin, you tell me what it is going to be. How it is going to look like in three months, that is the question. I will just hold my XRP and see where it goes.

If you ask me what is happening, I do not think all the things above are applicable. The fact that XRP, is a global token, the SEC cannot halt it. Maybe for America, but that would be painful, imo. Really interesting times are coming, I will make sure not to FOMO, I am already in ! ! !

Although you know the ending, I love sports movies. Yes, the underdog team you are watching, they have the season of a lifetime, but still,

I LOVE SPORTS MOVIES ! ! !

Safety is no different. As you may have read in my blog yesterday, I watched Green Bay Packers, and oh boy, I needed something good and I found it in Safety.

I knew the story, I knew Disney+ had it, so last night I had to tune in into this channel and watch Safety. Safety, the 2020 movie featuring Jay Reeves playing Clemson University Safety Ray McElrathbey. I do not know Jay Reeves from previous movies, but I like him in this role.

**The movie in a couple lines:
**
The story of Ray-Ray McElrathbey, a freshman football player for Clemson University, who secretly raised his younger brother on campus after his home life became too unsteady.
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Besides Jay, we see Matthew Glave playing head coach and I am a fan of this actor. He has played in movies like Get Smart, The Wedding Singer and I call him the 1 Episode man. He played in 1 episode of the following series:

NCIS
Kingdom
Rosewood
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Mad Men
Hawai Five-0
Suits
Touch
CSI – Miami
Nikita
The Glades
Criminal Minds
Without a Trace
Will & Grace
The X-Files

And there are many more. Title Worthy: **The 1 Episode Guy ! ! !

**But ..... let's go back to the movie. Although I knew the story already, I love the music. Had my tear moment again, yes, sorry I am a sucker for these movies. Studied in the U.S. and felt being back. I was an athlete, had a scholarship and absolutely felt the movie. From the start till the end I was grabbed. It was in the middle of the night I was watching but I was still drawn to the screen.

The director of the movie: Reginald Hudlin is also a well known person. He has been nominated for Best Motion Picture of the Year:

Django Unchained, but he is also known for the movies: House Party, Marshall and The Black Godfather.

The movie was definitely a feel good movie and after the Green Bay Packers L, I felt much better. If you like movies like Raging Bull, Remember the Titans, The Big Lebowski, Kingpin, Any Given Sunday, Rudy, Space Jam, The Blind Side, Rocky, Happy Gilmore, Rush, Field of Dreams, The Basketball Diaries, Talladega Nights, Major League and Cool Runnings you definitely want to watch this movie. I know that I miss a lot of movies in this list, but wanted to at least list a bunch of movies to give me a good feeling. Hope it does this to you

STAY SAFE ! ! !

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Wow, what a day today .... it is really cold, at the moment, which fits very well, because I am watching Greenbay Packers playing Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Battle of the Bays, Rogers and Brady both from California, Tom being strong, this is going to be a difficult game ..... just want to see a nice game. Tampa is up 7-0 at the moment.

Congrats to Gord, it is his birthday today, and his wife wrote him a great blog, congrats to you also Lee. I hope you guys are enjoying this Covid Birthday ! ! !

Yesterday was the first Evening Clock we have in the Netherlands. At nine everybody needs to be at home. This is tough on some people and we have seen some striking today. Too bad they turned ugly and police was needed in a couple big cities. This Pandemic is just demanding the most of us and well, some people are done with it and well, it takes more to bring me in the streets, but yeah, it is tough from time to time. Let's continue taking care of each other. This is a marathon, we are almost there, or getting closer and closer ! ! !

The score is 14-7 for the Buccaneers, by the way

So Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, what is all going on. The first two have seen an ATH pretty recently, let's hope we are going to see some price action for the third one. SEC lawsuit is a bit of a deal breaker at the moment, without it we would have seen a higher price, I am pretty sure. Let's get this show going, ready for some results. Lets get some regulations in.

Today is another mile stone on blogging figures. Today I hit my 365th blog. I have had a couple days with multiple blogs, so it is not 365 consecutive days, that is still to come. It is a lot of blogs though, I did not expect that number. Working on a big one, let's see when that is going to launch.

Next week I hope we are able to work on the new “Mario Lego” we got ..... we haven't found all the time for it. Noah is a lot into soccer at the moment and it was a big moment this week: Noah was allowed to walk to his school all by himself, to play soccer on the school yard. They have a special little soccer field and around 3 they are playing down there. He has to cross one street, but we can see it from our house. We were going to try it for 30 minutes and we would check the school ground. So, when he left, we, my wife and I, were both standing outside and he was waving all the way going to “the street crossing”. He did very well and without any problem, I went down the school ground, 30 minutes after he left, to see him play with more than 10 other boys, having fun, just kicking the ball. First timer, I guess, this is going to be something that is going to happen a lot in the coming weeks.

Well, I hope all you guys had a great weekend and are fired up for the new week. I cannot believe we are seeing the final week of January already. Went by pretty fast. Have a great final January week and see you in the next Blog

STAY SAFE

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I have written a story about Hachiko before, as Crypto Eri has done; well we have a new one and this story happened in Turkey, last week.

68 year old Cemal Senturk had to go to hospital to get brain treatment .... sounds pretty severe to me, but when the ambulance drove to the hospital Boncuk, followed the Ambulance all the way and sat in front of the entry doors till the evening fell. Went back home and returned the following morning around 9 AM.

This process repeated for 6 days and the dog just did not go home. Cemals daughter took the dog home during the day one day, but the dog got away and went straight to the hospital again.

Cemals was released after a week and the dog was over the moon. Cemal was very happy too, but the two were reunited.

Some images of Boncuk:

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Love the story, it is so sweet. Short story today ..... Put a little music on it and you have an excellent tear jerker.

https://youtu.be/O7zKI5tqsVg

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STAY SAFE ! ! !

Today is a special day. For my blog, it needed to be darker outside to get some pics that will accompany this blog ! ! !

There is a phenomenon that is called:

Lunar Halo Effect

**It appears more in the sky, but it is not always as visible.

Lunar Halo Effect: Are seen when the clouds are thin enough that each single corona light ray reaching the eye is scattered or diffracted by only one droplet. Of course, the whole corona is made by a great many droplets individually scattering the moonlight.**

Sometimes as clouds pass over the moon the corona shrinks and swells as different sized droplets mould it. Small droplets make the largest coronae with aureoles a few moon diameters across.

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It is very difficult to predict, as the weather conditions have to be perfect, for the most perfect Lunar Halo Effect. The best picture a neighbour took, let me call him V. , is this one:

In this picture you see the moon in the middle, the big round circe around it and the dot on the right, well, the word beside it gives it away ..... it is MARS ! ! !

Does this look fake, YES , especially with the Contrails (Vapour Trails) an airplane left behind (the trail above the rooftop).

BUT

is it fake ? ? ?

ABSOLUTELY NOT ! ! !

Some more pictures that I took myself:

Yes, my neighbour took it from a nice position with a nicer camera, but the “HALO” is absolutely visible. The first thing I had to think about when I saw this picture, the hit series:

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Probably many Lunar Halo Effect happened in your life, but you did not see this. It is not always as clear and as the ring in the picture is very wide, not close to the moon, it is easy to miss ! ! !

Some more pictures I took:

Not all as clear, but when I was looking at the moon, Mars and the Halo Effect ! ! !

V. offered me to get the picture by mail, it would be clearer, you can find below:

If you have time, look outside and you may be able to see this phenomenon.

STAY SAFE ! ! !