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All of the round data referenced below can be downloaded from here. The data is part of a project that downloads round data periodically and uploads the csv.
Get your money off exchanges
Last week we spoke about using crypto to evade arbitrary restrictions on your money. For instance, if I want to send $100 to a relative in Russia, it might be difficult. However crypto currency does not have these restrictions.
Well, it appears the exchanges have gotten the notice that crypto outside of the reach of the state is a bug not a feature, and some have even restricted funds of people that happen to be from Russia. Binance said it is "working to take action against those who have been sanctioned by Western countries following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine."
I don't expect them to evade the law, but at least put up a little bit of a fight. Are the sanctions "Russian people can't have money"? Because that seems like a pretty broad "safe" interpretation for an exchange and since "Russia bad" this month, no one would stick up for them. But it's insane that you can just be a regular person living in a country, and all of a sudden due to no fault of your own your money becomes inaccessible.
You can say, "sure bsc, but (bad country) is bad and I'm not affiliated with (bad country)". And you would be correct. But when you have the precedent of exchanges confiscating your money, how are you so certain they would stop there. Maybe your country has a policy that is (group)-phobic, and the "public community" get together and want to impose sanctions to fight (group)-phobia. Or maybe its your state or municipality. Or maybe you just posted a meme that a little too spicy.
I lost faith in exchanges. We need to have on and off ramps, and overall they're good on net as they'll fight the most austere measures against crypto. But they're in it for themselves. And if its easier (and legal) to confiscate your funds due to geography / politics / wrong-think, they will.
Although this is a possibility and potentially terrifying:
CRYPTO & SANCTIONS
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) March 3, 2022
To simplify, if governments declare that a certain #BTC address is tainted (that is put on a sanction list), any additional transaction flowing from it become tainted as well, as in a polluted chain. #BTC is not fungible.
Controlling the on/off ramp is pretty much the easiest way state actors can affect the usability of crypto. They could theoretically create a "do not transact" list, but it would have to be maintained and adhered to by all parties. I just don't know how reasonable it is.
Also, I don't think it would work with many individual accounts. For instance, even if we had a sanction on all Russians, and we somehow knew every single one of their addresses, that would only prevent them from getting money they have out. They can always create new addresses that are not tied to anything. It just seems unreasonable to maintain. It's different if there was a large hack, and that money has to be laundered. That's easier to track since there are so few. But that's targeting certain funds, as opposed to preventing individuals as would be required by sanctions.
Anyway, all that's to say get your money off exchanges.
Action
We had a nice rally early in the week but come down since then. I want to say its related to Ukraine, but who knows. I just know it felt good being above 400 again, if only briefly.
24-hour trailing prediction volume was very high early in the week but has come down since then, but spending most of the week above 30 BNB which is solid. Here are the last two weeks:
We had some big rounds, although none topping 100 BNB. Most of the volume was 2022-03-01 and 2022-03-04.
Winners and Losers
| Place | account | games played | won | won USD | Winnings Even Money | Average bet size |
| 1 | 0x72cb0107c72e879fe3594b18168d80d2fdccc4cd | 105 | 47.62 | 18,096 | 7.07 | 3.26 |
| 2 | 0x39b35d67dceb86ee4fe22f465993c9e4e121c48b | 139 | 39.86 | 15,147 | 10.46 | 3.8 |
| 3 | 0xe95d71efa8bdb1091f0766b303748b55db17477e | 171 | 39.17 | 14,884 | 6.55 | 1.04 |
| 4 | 0x0ecf927927734931403c80600b72132514ab51e6 | 89 | 31.02 | 11,788 | 12.94 | 2.11 |
| 5 | 0x5ff8f4da8e21d815bf73c518eb0ed9a30864eafb | 374 | 29.72 | 11,292 | 30.87 | 1.53 |
| 6 | 0x44cd6b50a6d62ee42323488bd319e2726ec1683d | 215 | 27.29 | 10,370 | 4.88 | 1.82 |
| 7 | 0x0b4509bd1a5c5b1c93174bbbad2db55b96b0d862 | 248 | 27.0 | 10,260 | 34.47 | 0.55 |
| 8 | 0x0ae7ee4d656598682b095308a2db8d57a135d855 | 52 | 26.62 | 10,117 | 0.58 | 1.28 |
| 9 | 0x513b716f9cd5ea4b1c98892f9e6cb0aab64014d1 | 51 | 26.52 | 10,078 | 1.93 | 2.54 |
| 10 | 0x2563e690da0b98d1d3e4d03a99d8b2a75c2a7e32 | 404 | 24.14 | 9,175 | 6.63 | 1.98 |
No crazy winners this week, and the winners appear to be whales for the most part. Our top winner made about 47 BNB. His current balance is around 0 now so he cashed out. But if you look at his history, you'll see he cashed out to a binance hot wallet periodically. He just happened to him a really bad streak towards the end and lost all his money. But since he was cashing out regularly, he was still up a lot. You can see below his last 55 rounds he actually lost 31 BNB.
This is smart. I can respect that. Although I would advise against withdrawing to binance as that may trigger a taxable event and keeping your crypto on exchanges long term is a bad idea. The only benefit is that it obfuscates the paper trail. He could cash out to a separate account and I wouldn't be able to track him.
An ongoing theme of the market reports is that its becoming a lot harder to make money, especially algorithmically. Some people still win big, but they are increasingly just lottery winners. That or the best players are using multiple accounts that are hard to track. That's certainly true but they often allow an individual account to make some decent amount of money before transitioning to another account, in which case it would show up here. But maybe I'm wrong.
Let's look at the losers
| Place | from | games played | won | won USD | Winnings Even Money | Average bet size |
| 1 | 0x5915b3bde351bc873566c868786eb4d5699d6f95 | 327 | -51.18 | -19,448.0 | -16.1 | 2.57 |
| 2 | 0xe62a72c3e73f00bfb427cab9e439aa0ebd6752c3 | 28 | -51.14 | -19,433.0 | -6.72 | 4.29 |
| 3 | 0x41d0fd0112b038494a4e4cfdd48afef776f47214 | 962 | -43.58 | -16,562.0 | -52.26 | 0.95 |
| 4 | 0x4ac07d9325b91ed1fa0bb7e26b4f56f4124c2e60 | 215 | -43.57 | -16,556.0 | -26.86 | 1.66 |
| 5 | 0x24cd43872b34b1d5229c80b835be33b8ecdcdd8e | 397 | -40.88 | -15,536.0 | -25.22 | 2.43 |
| 6 | 0xef69f8da6d878c0a17213f69ade66130562838c1 | 285 | -39.15 | -14,877.0 | -9.34 | 0.95 |
| 7 | 0x7bd1d9eb15d9a050b5e7b8d96a44ed30937e3930 | 248 | -38.65 | -14,687.0 | -28.52 | 1.11 |
| 8 | 0xf3448525c89bc37bb66c7d596dcfdefec891c935 | 212 | -36.65 | -13,927.0 | 8.54 1 | 17 |
| 9 | 0x32a7ca42d196289518b03fbb5ecfc4f5f3505bb9 | 396 | -36.29 | -13,792.0 | -7.53 | 2.04 |
| 10 | 0x5c4226178babcd43ac3a2d913ef4862b72e4949a | 281 | -35.99 | -13,677.0 | -35.78 | 1.61 |
Our losers are pretty tame as well. I was expecting a lot more losers given the crazy round sizes earlier this week. I figured some banker got his bonus and wanted to let it ride, but maybe something else is going on.
Most of the losers are first timers, none of the real regulars. Our top dog is down 144 BNB over his life but that's over ~10k games, so we'll give him a pass. We do love our losers after all. Remember to stay safe and bet responsibly!
As always, feel free to reach out with questions or comments or want my to highlight anything different on my weekly market recaps. If you like what you read and want to subscribe to receive an email when a new post is published, click here.
Good luck and bet responsibly!