Xi'ism as some might call it. All it is a set of ideas and principles put forward by Xi Jinping, the leader of China. It's kind of like a guidebook for how China should be governed and how its people should live. Imagine if President Biden or Trump told us all to think and live the same way, it’s like that but the people in China don’t really take it that serious. It’s wild how Mr. Jinping stayed a visit while in Muscatine, Iowa in 1985, that’s a small city just south of the Quad Cities. Meaning he must have got to Muscatine through the Moline, Ill airport. Xi first used the phrase "Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" in his speech on the opening day of the 19th Party Congress in October 2017. The Politburo Standing Committee (top decision-making group) then prepended "Xi Jinping" to the phrase, in their review of his speech. Another key idea in Xi Jinping Thought is the "Chinese Dream." This is all about making sure everyone in China can live a good life. It's like saying, "No matter who you are or where you come from, you can chase your dreams and make them come true." Like what we here in America view the American dream. I personally feel Xi Jinping loves America secretly like the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, because naming your dream the same as the American dream shows you love the United States. This idea to have your name in the way you want everyone to think comes again where Mao Zedong & Deng Xiaoping also had their own fundamental doctrines for the CCP.
Last week was my most productive week ever so far learning Chinese. Every week is a new set of learners, and you compete against each other on productivity, and they rank you. The top 3 get a stat on their profile and the top 7 move onto a new batch of people. Well, I am getting better! I am learning that repetition and keeping things retained as much as possible before going forward is best. I pay close attention to what goes on in China, mainly the money part like crypto and stocks, but for the people to, I guess. The people are waking up to their future, it looks like what CIA thought a year ago about China possibly pushing ahead of America in the global power spot; that has ended. The I-S00N data leaks, (their Edward Snowden moment), was just what they all thought. For America, we were shocked “How could our own government keep track and spy on us?” For them, they just looked up at the 400 million cameras and already knew and moved onto the next day. All I am saying is “America! Fuck yeah!”
This week in Crypto
I went back through my 2022 posts online, when Bitcoin continued to fall with FTX case dropping the Bitcoin price further. It was the bottom, but for me, who saw that same drop happen during covid and rocket back up to all time high; that wasn’t even my first cycle in Bitcoin. I was buying satoshis (a single unit of Bitcoin), up at $3k per Bitcoin. The stock market was pumping then too, not like it has these past 6 months but back then it was doing good. But that is the past, I could type essays about the history cycles of Bitcoin and crypto but it’s this week in Crypto. So, this week, yeah, we have done well, it pumped over $60k for Bitcoin, good job holders. I post online about the daily activity of Bitcoin but where we go from here is unknown areas. We have never had a Bitcoin cycle where Blackrock and Fidelity are scooping up billions of dollars in Bitcoin. What is happening is what Bitcoin people have predicted a supply shock, where the big buyers want more than there is. If there are only 4 cookies, and 10 people must eat, we’ll need to break those cookies down into fractional pieces for everyone.
Those pieces in Bitcoin are called “satoshis”, named after the individual or group of people who created Bitcoin and wrote the whitepaper. The whitepaper is a 8 page document that explains why it was created and why there is such a strong need for Bitcoin. Reading that document will ensure that you see that “investing” as early on for the cheapest price of Bitcoin is important.
This week though; Bitcoin pumped through the 50k ranges fast, eventually those DCAs (dollar cost averaging) prices now cost more. Well guess what now it is when you want to see where you start and take inventory or also take profits. If you were buying satoshis all covid and continued as it fell all 2022. Halfway through 2023, you probably thought those profits were nice but now Bitcoin is close to all time high prices. If you haven’t sold any, the dilemma of “sell equals no more Bitcoin” happens. Bitcoin is a personal situation; no other person’s opinion should help you decide if selling is for you.
But selling it just like buying, you DCA back out at prices going further up or down. Bitcoin will most likely have a super cycle this time around because of the ETFs buying more than are even being created. Plus, that new Bitcoin creation amount daily will be cut in half in April. 900 Bitcoins are currently mined each day, in April in one 10-minute block, it drops down to only 450 new Bitcoin each day. Those ETFs are buying thousands of Bitcoins each day, it’s mainly why Bitcoin has gone way up this month and since Mr. Gensler finally approved them.
I don’t even like typing about crypto much anymore, it’s why my blogs went from set two weeks every blog to about once a month. But us in the community of crypto on forums, discord servers, twitter/X; we have been trying to inform as many people as possible that our government doesn’t even control if new money is created! The federal reserve, (with cooperation of the US government), has just made prices go up, and trillions of dollars are being spent. We are funding wars and countries that in my opinion isn’t a waste but damn, how about funding the states first. I know we have it the best here in America but Bitcoin, the set limited supply, is the solution.
Fitness progress
I am not giving up! I was in a pattern of working out hard for weeks at a time but eating hot pockets and crappy food. I finally randomly one day started buying healthy green veggies and now working out at the same time. So, with a combination of working out and keeping a workout routine going, plus eating better and less; I am feeling motivated. My whiteboard for when I was learning Solidity, the coding language for Ethereum, I would write down stuff to remember. I finally just kept the whiteboard on the wall and never used it again. Well I took that down and cleaned it off and now track my workouts daily. I am focused on a two-day routine where I go hard for two days and work out my body and then take a day rest on the 3rd day. Because I have learned from my past attempts that just going until failure will not keep me motivated and going forward. I share on City-data, Boxden, and then this forum called “Something Completely Different” a group of us from the website called Musicbanter. I mod the Boxden discord server and the Musicbanter Discord Server so I am already sharing my progress daily and it helps with motivation. We’ll see how far I keep going but all my plan now is just to keep going!
Be a nice human.
]]>Cryptography is the art and science of securing communication and information using codes and ciphers. It's like creating a secret language that only the intended people can understand. Imagine having a magical lock on your journal that only your friend knows how to open. Let’s say you have a 3-letter shift on the message or code, A becomes D, and B becomes E. Only the people who know the shift can decode the message or code, so it helps keep things secure. The main goal is to protect data from unauthorized access to that code or message, you can encrypt the message anyway or as hard as you need because only people who know how to decrypt the message will have access. Cryptography has what you call hashes.
Cryptographic hashes are algorithms that take input data, such as a message or file, and create a fixed-size string of characters, known as a hash value. One way to think of this is if you made the password “paperclip%150!” into a 50-character hash of just random characters that equal the password. Sort of like a password for a password. Sometimes called a “key”; how cryptocurrencies work when you send 0.001 in Bitcoin to another Bitcoin address, where they have public and private keys to encrypt the cryptocurrency. Cryptographic hashes are also used in many security applications. One way is when you create an account on a website, the system doesn't store your password directly. Instead, it creates the hash of your password and stores that hash. That is so if the website data is compromised, data is still encrypted and just helps with overall security. Cryptographic hashes act like secret fingerprints for digital information used all over the world in things you probably wouldn’t think.
This Week In Crypto
Well, the ETFs or “ETPs” are here, and wow what a prediction I made with the sell-the-news situation. Bitcoin peaked at $49k, then dropped to $47k by the first trading day. ETFs are Exchange Traded Funds, it’s a way to buy Bitcoin as a stock instead of buying Bitcoin, which is wildly stupid, but some people must prefer the stock version. And then since the first day of trading, that Thursday, January 11th, people have been selling Bitcoin. It’s extra smart to take some profits but also extra dumb since Bitcoin halving is two months away. It’s put Bitcoin in a level but slightly downward move since the first ETF trading day. I sold some crypto, all my altcoins, I only hold Bitcoin now and not even any Ethereum. I am trying to break away from following the Elliot wave of my crypto and focus on learning Chinese more. I bought more Bitcoin and am now just in the situation everyone is in where we are all just waiting for Bitcoin to moon up. There has been a new resurgence of meme coins this cycle, Dogecoin & Shiba Inu are dead, and the hype has been Bonk & Coq Inu. I missed out on Bonk and just watched it go up, Bonk is a Solana meme coin and it had its time where some people online made money off its popularity. Coq Inu and Bonk have had their pumps, so who knows if they’ll go up further, timing meme coins is hard. By the time you hear about the meme coin, it’s already pumped 5-10x to build the hype.
The halving is coming for Bitcoin and history shows up goes way up, this drop from the ETF news with Bitcoin going from $49k down to $41k is the dip during a major bull market. I have been correct all 2023 being bullish on Bitcoin and 2024 is the pump year and with Blackrock & Fidelity now buying Bitcoin the bull run could go into 2025. Bitcoin being under $50k is a good price still if it lands way over $100k this cycle, we could just see an ultra-bull run like how the gold ETF did for gold. Where we just slowly trend up, of course with major dips of 20-30%, but overall, a major up trend for years for Bitcoin.
There might be hype for Ethereum Spot ETF now next, but we’ll see, I think the hype will just be Bitcoin and how it’s a limited supply going into a halving in April. George on CryptosRUs keeps mentioning how eventually there won’t be any Bitcoin for the large buyers to buy, the demand will outpace the new Bitcoin being minted. It’s just going to be a few exciting months going forward into 2024. Like I said, I have my Satoshis bought, I’ll see the halving pump when it happens.
Cicada 3301 and “Liber Primus”
Liber Primus translates to “First Book”, which is the book Cicada solvers are trying to solve. Written in runic script and just leaves people giving a bit of effort in solving. I guess the idea is that if a bunch of people try to solve the puzzle, the better chances we have of solving the pages of the book. I first was introduced to Cicada 3301 in 2014, on the wild website named 4chan, I was a big 4chan browser in the military with my barracks mate named Hicks. We would scroll the images saving wallpapers and weapons photos, a big-time filler for infantry dudes when not training. They have made a movie about Cicada 3301 and from the trailer it looks wildly dramatic, I don’t think spending hours surfing the web translates to an action-packed movie. It’s out there though, probably on Netflix or Amazon. I remember some of my friends in the Anonymous IRC brought up Cicada 3301 and I just kept thinking that I really couldn’t put forth any effort towards the puzzle. The puzzles were too hard but sometimes just more brains thinking about something helps.
The Cicada Solvers have a discord server and I have been scrolling through the channels, some of the smartest minds in the world are on that server. I don’t think I’ll be able to think of anything for Liber Primus that hasn’t already been thought of but who knows maybe so. I just feel like trying to solve the pages simply with the runic language has already been tried and I brought up how maybe AI could solve the pages. Cicada 3301 used to leave puzzles with clues in real life that where the puzzles were solved in real life, not in front of a screen. I had someone make me a custom Cicada 3301 wallpaper back in 2014, so I have been a solver for years in the background always. Now with me being sober, helping solve is more like a hobby for me.
Be a nice human.
Bitcoin has seen the flip, where now around 90% of holders are in profit. If you read my last blog post, I mentioned the profit taking when it goes up. Bitcoin has been hovering over $43k per coin and alt-coins have pumped along with the gains. One surprising movement has been Solana, I don’t have a lot but enough. People are fomo’ing into Bitcoin and it’s gone up in price fast, from around $37k to almost $45k. So much that Elizabeth Warren wants to shut it down because criminals use crypto. New flash, criminals are going to use every currency, mostly cash. Cash cannot be tracked as easily as Bitcoin can, Bitcoin is tracked on the blockchain, and law enforcement can track crypto for most of the time. I get it though, it’s a new concept, plus most of the older generations thought it was a fad and would go away. Bitcoin dropped in price all 2022, but all 2023 Bitcoin pumped back up in price. NFTs are the beanie babies of this decade, but Bitcoin isn’t going anywhere.
The big money wants in now and they are banking on a Spot ETF for fancy investors to buy into Bitcoin. They’ll approve an Ethereum plus a crypto ETF where it’s got a bunch of others like Cardano and Solana. I get the need for some regulation because those meme coins are lame. I’m not talking about Pepe or Shiba Inu but the coins with a market cap under a million or a few million dollars. I only assume they are bait coins that will rug, that’s where the creator of crypto slowly withdraws gains as people buy in.
That was the case for so many NFT projects in 2022, people thought NFTs were going to make them rich but had no clue that with an NFT you need to find a buyer. Crypto can be sold anytime 24/7 but an NFT needs to have a buyer, sort of like a sports card. My sports card can be worth $100, but if no one wants to buy it and I only get one offer for the card at $50: then it’s only worth $50.
Halving in 2024
The Bitcoin halving is a major event that occurs about every four years, at every 210,000 blocks. It refers to the reduction in the reward that miners get for validating and adding new transactions to the Bitcoin blockchain. When the National Security Agency developed Bitcoin, they created it to have halvings all through this century into 2100. That’s how far ahead Satoshi Nakamoto was thinking when the Bitcoin white paper was written. None of us will be alive in 2123 to see what the price will be for Bitcoin, but I doubt crypto will be valued in dollars. There have been major pumps in price for Bitcoin for these halvings and this 2024 one is no different. Some people don’t understand it in the news where they think a second after the final block of that cycle is mined that the price goes way up. Sure, it’ll go up but it’s leading up into the halving where the price action goes up, like it has all 2023.
We started 2023 out at a $16k Bitcoin price and now at year end it’s at $44k. Increased attention to Bitcoin normally happens for these 4-year cycles, like currently with Bitcoin. In 2021, remember how more attention crypto was getting with SNL skits, commercials, and celebrities talking about it? 2022 was the final year of that cycle and it starts over, where Bitcoin price pumps back up. Cryptocurrencies are now mainstream so this current cycle with major financial people involved Bitcoin’s price could see record levels.
That’s with everyone conscious of taking profits because we all saw how 2022 is a major price dump. There will be a major drop in Bitcoin’s price after this halving event, but it doesn’t die, there will be a major price pump over 100-200%+ like 2023. It’ll just be higher in price because we will never see Bitcoin’s price under $20k again. Those days of bears thinking Bitcoin will drop to $5k or some weirdos think the price will drop to zero. Zero? That makes you look stupid saying that, Wallee, yes you Wallee from City-data.com.
Going forward
With Bitcoin over $40k each coin, it’s going to be exciting seeing how high this run goes. Last cycle I didn’t have any alt-coins and just had Bitcoin, but this cycle my bags are packed, I accumulated all 2022. Will Bitcoin get to that $100k per coin level? Will people sell off when it gets to $100k? Most likely and probably sell off as we go up. If you look at 2021, Bitcoin had a couple of major drops and then pumps right back up as we hit $60k+.
There will probably be sell offs at all time high of $69k but will the halving coming in 2024 and Spot ETFs, a lot of people will be holding long term still. Ethereum just seems like it can keep going up past all time high and then $5k+ going forward. My blogs aren’t advice but just an observation of crypto, and this cycle I’ll have a major eye on it. My blogs all 2022 were crypto themed and going forward I’ll probably document the crypto market going up and down.
Be a nice human.
check out my YouTube channel, lots of life videos on there throughout the years.
]]>It has been a great year for Bitcoin and most alt-coins going into 2024’s halving in April. Bitcoin bottomed and pumped back up, so January of this year was the bottom. Slowly over the past 11 months of 2023, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have gone up in a major way. I still watch CryptosRUs’s show daily and follow Bitcoin every pump, sharing thoughts along the way on City-data and Boxden. In January Bitcoin was as low as $16k per coin, but all through 2023, Bitcoin went up to now almost $38k per coin. So, a big win for most of the people who have been through a halving cycle before. I was looked at as wild crazy for being bullish this January, but now Blackrock and Fidelity want a Spot ETF.
I missed out on most alt-coin wins because I just went heavy into Bitcoin & Ethereum. Now I own a few alt-coins on Coinbase because I just wanted some but a small amount. They are staked on Coinbase too, so it should snowball with a payout every 5 days. I stopped typing up blogs about cryptocurrencies like I was before but felt like a blog now would be right. The local news did a crypto segment back months ago when Bitcoin was hovering around $27k, Bitcoin is now hovering around $36k per whole coin.
I ended up finishing the Crypto Assets book my sister got me for Christmas last year, it was filled with a bunch of history and overall stuff I knew. Why Bitcoin? What is the urge for new money? I could type why the Federal Reserve sucks and how Bitcoin is better all day, but it boils down to the scarcity of satoshis. There is a limited supply of Bitcoin, satoshis are what you call the individual units of Bitcoin. Some weirdos think since Bitcoin is a limited supply then it can’t be used as legal tender and trust me; that’s where we are headed! A single satoshi can be a whole dollar if need be, Bitcoin can scale and is flexible. Most web3 people I know have a moderate piece of their money in Bitcoin, but some literally keep everything in Bitcoin. It all depends on how much money you want to change, up or down; that is the risk part. People who follow crypto will say “Bitcoin is going over $100K”, or “It’s going over a million per coin”, that’ll probably happen if you hold it for a long time.
As many halving cycles go on, the price of a satoshi will go up. Just as a can of Coke was once 5 cents years ago, and now costs $2. Imagine being able to buy cans of soda for a nickel and sell them for $2 each in 2023. I won’t make any price predictions for Bitcoin, but the facts are Bitcoin was at $16k starting this year and it’s now gone up to $37k for each coin. There are ETFs that are coming out for trillions of dollars to flood into crypto and that is getting priced into Bitcoin recently. There is a halving in 2024, the Fed will hold rates or cut in 2024, plus the ETFs in 2024; holding some Bitcoin wouldn’t hurt. The thing with crypto is you can sell back for cash at any time, Bitcoin isn’t an NFT, where you need to find a buyer. Overall, 2023 was a wild great pump for crypto, people made lots of money holding and most of the Bitcoin supply didn’t move. People are just accumulating as much crypto as they can, and it’s shown over the past year.
Before buying Bitcoin be realistic about the outcome and make a strategy to take profit, because after the 2024 ETF & halving pump; Bitcoin will drop major again probably in 2025. Putting $1000 into Ethereum or Bitcoin, think to yourself, “I’ll sell once it hits this price and my amount is worth this much”, or you’ll lose. Watching it go all the way back down in 2025/2026 will make you hate crypto. To win at crypto, take some profits, sell half, and hold half. It comes down to something like stocks, you want more than you started with, right? So, take profits when you get some, even if it’s a quarter of your total amount. Holding forever can work too if you don’t mind it going down major after the halving. The major drop or dump that comes after this 2024 pump will still be higher than the previous halving pump in 2021. Bitcoin only dropped to $16k, people I know online were wishing it’d drop under $10k per Bitcoin because you’re just buying money, for cheap.
China & Learning Chinese
I have been learning Chinese on Duolingo, it’s a website and phone app that teaches languages. It has leagues where you compete with others learning whatever language they are learning. You get points for learning, and you compete with others each week. It’s a lot of repetitive sayings and numbers so far, but I have been going strong. I went through a Chinese politics course over the past two weeks, it’s a course by Princeton University online and I learned a lot about China. I then started that Chinese politics course over again to do it a second time. China has limits on how old you can be to be in their congress, but the United States doesn’t.
The course started out with some history of China, and they have been around so much longer than America. China has what they call the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and that is where the elite of elite in Chinese politics. The professor of the course predicted how in 2022 Xi Jinping, the president of China, would end term limits for presidents and stay in power. That happened and it looks like Xi Jinping is going to be their leader for a while. I don’t really have any plans to go to China anytime soon so learning the language will be a challenge to keep it fresh in my brain. I might sign up for some Chinese chat websites after I get pretty good. The Duolingo website keeps track of how many days you have been learning with a streak, so far 46 days straight learning sayings and basic Chinese.
China has a problem right now where its people are majority older now since they have had that one-child law in place for so many years. They also want Taiwan to belong back in control of the Chinese government. And everything within the 9-dash line of the South China Sea, and part of me agrees with China. It is called the South “China” Sea for a reason; it has its name in the title. Taiwan belongs to China, imagine if China tried to say America doesn’t own Puerto Rico and China said they would defend Puerto Rico if the United States was going to invade them. It is silly, there are bigger things America can worry about than what China does in its own backyard.
YouTube Shorts
I have been uploading short video clips to YouTube in my “shorts” section on my channel. The max for them is 60 seconds but I was just doing 7-9 second clips and I was getting a couple thousand views on them. Most are between a thousand and two thousand views on them but that is way more than what I get with my normal vlog videos. It has been around 22,000 views in the last 28-day period, but YouTube gives all the analytics about the videos and most people watch a YouTube “short” more than one time. I have plans to do what I do for my TikTok but just 15 seconds on YouTube Shorts now. Just need to go to different places for video clips, because if anyone is paying attention, I haven’t been uploading as many vlogs this year in 2023. I have probably one more planned for 2023 but that’ll be it. A lot of my clips in the vlogs are of the same areas around here in Salem and it’s just different seasons. I had plans to drive into Hartford for clips but haven’t yet. Right now the goal is to just uploading as many shorts as possible, one every day if that’s what it takes to grow my channel.
Iowa Hawkeyes in 2023
It’s been awesome watching the games on Saturdays, and Iowa hasn’t been that bad overall this year. Cooper DeJean is out for the season now, their quarterback got hurt early in the season too which sucks. Other people were out also, but that fill-in quarterback Deacon Hill has done pretty well for being backup. Iowa is 8-2 heading into today’s game against Illinois, ranked number 16 and just overall a good season. I have been using YouTube TV for most games but those ones only on Peacock streaming I bought the one-time stream and cancelled the subscription after the game. I don’t watch any NFL games really or any other college teams, just the Hawkeyes on Saturday. I don’t even have any favorite team like I did as a kid, I used to like the 49ers with Steve Young & Jerry Rice. I don’t bet on the games but would have done well if I did since Iowa is 8-2. I watch the games on my bedroom computer setup, and it’s wild how nice streaming has become over the years. It’s just like cable, remember buffering? No digital blur or buffering, it’s just a clean stream now in 2023.
Brian Ferentz’s last season now, which is crappy because they have done well overall this year. He is the offensive coordinator and sure Iowa’s offense at times was bad, but they all made up with that in defense to win games. They wanted Iowa to average 25 points per game but that’s not going to happen. I just feel like he has done well considering the injuries, what will the next person do better? I think Iowa has had a great season and it’ll be fun watching the rest of the games this season.
Be a nice human.
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