NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html
NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1.
https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html
NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%)
NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar.
https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866
NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below
https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
!!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should.
In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase.
Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below:
https://www.playboy.com/
https://www.playboytv.com/
https://www.playboyplus.com/
https://www.iplayboy.com/
Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success.
“Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.”
https://www.scientificgames.com/
https://www.microgaming.co.uk/
“This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.”
https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/
As per their SEC filing:
“Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1
They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon.
https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era
Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea
“Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.”
“According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently:
https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae
Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress.
Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait.
https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/
Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video:
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html
Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05
Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing:
“For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.”
“In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.”
They are profitable across all three of their current business segments.
“Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm
This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world.
"Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.”
Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame:
“As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn.
The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :(
He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :)
Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw.
I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003
Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this:
“Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy.
“Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative.
https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html
Y’all like that China money?
“Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.”
Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose.
I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing
“Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.”
“Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.”
Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong.
Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will.
Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way.
Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains.
TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here:
WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though
https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf
Or here:
https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx
Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.”
STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon.
Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.

Why we like Peak Fintech @PEAK_Fintech $PKK $PKKFF @Stockfamgroup

January 3rd, 2021 - - /r/Chess: 23...Qg3!!!

/Chess

281,179 1400-rated Grandmasters for 12 years!

2020 was a wild year for chess, to say the least. First, it absolutely exploded on Twitch. Then it absolutely exploded on Twitch a second time. Then Netflix dropped their hit show "The Queen's Gambit", a chess drama in which the main character is a Sicilian Defence player and not a Queen's Gambit player. As I type this, the 2 main online chess sites, Chess.com and Lichess.org, are reporting 206,000 & 26,000 concurrent players respectively, which is just an absurd number of people. The popularity of chess always seems to wax and wane over time: it boomed in popularity in the nineties with the chess computer Deep Blue beating the world champion at the time; it had a boom in the late 60's and 70's with Bobby Fischer just destroying every opponent he came up against.
As a game, Chess is perhaps one of, if not the greatest ever created. It's complex enough that it can be enjoyed by beginners playing casual games, as well as at the highest level, that requires unimaginable amount of study and practice. You don't need to be a master to play a good game, you just have to remember how the horsey moves and you're set.
I've been playing chess all my life, but only got any good at it about 2 years ago or so. I saw this video of the legend himself, Eric Rosen, being some random Norwegian guy at a game of chess, and it enlightened me to the amount of stuff I didn't know about the game. Like, who knew that thinking about what a move does will actually, like, make you play better? That realisation led me to want to learn more. Now reading is for nerds and dorks, so I neglected to buy/"""buy""" a textbook, instead finding my way to /Chess.
/Chess is a sub about everything chess (well, almost everything, memes go to /anarchychess). Chess news, learning resources, fun tactical exercises, game analyses. It's filled with people who know way more about the game that you or I probably do, and the wealth of knowledge there is enough to aid in any new player's journey into the wonderful world of high level chess. With an extremely knowledgeable and helpful community, it's the best place on Reddit for all chess players, newcomers and masters alike!

1: How and why did you get involved in the subreddit?

2015_BCS_ORANGE_BOWL There was a massive amount of drama that resulted in the top moderator stepping down, which I'm sure you can find recapped on SRD. The former second moderator (MrLegilimens) decided to hold mod elections for all the slots, including his own seat. I had been posting here for a long time so I stood in the moderator elections.
city-of-stars I started participating in /chess several years ago, specifically during our coverage of the Anand-Carlsen World Championship match in 2014. Back then the subreddit was much more bare-bones than it is today; I started designing rudimentary banner graphics to highlight different events as the popularity of the subreddit increased. During the summer, a conflict of interest was exposed within the moderator team that led to an explosion of drama; ultimately, the head moderator stepped down and new elections were held. I threw my hat into the ring and ended up getting elected as part of a new eight-member team.

2: What's moderating the sub like?

2015_BCS_ORANGE_BOWL I just participate in the subreddit like I always have, but now I also remove off-topic posts and offensive comments while I see them. Chess is an international game, so there are some common geopolitical slapfights that crop up. For example, there are a lot of top players from Armenia, and a lot from Azerbaijan. Iran doesn't let their players play Israelis. So both of those conflicts are sometimes litigated on /chess. Other than that, it's just the usual cracking down on trolls and spammers.
city-of-stars A lot of the work is janitorial drudgery - removing memes, low-effort content, off-topic political squabbles and the like. With the sudden uptick in new users we've made efforts to become more active as a moderator team, including implementing a major CSS overhaul, an expanded wiki for beginners and increased promotion of top-level tournaments. But beyond that, I contribute to the community just like I used to do.

3: What are some of your favourite posts from the sub?

2015_BCS_ORANGE_BOWL I like to give advice, so I like participating in any threads where players are asking for advice. Tournament live threads are also fun.
city-of-stars The "Best of /chess" section in the FAQ contains many of my favourite posts from the subreddit's history. Feel free to check it out!

4: What advice do you have for new/newer players who wish to get more involved with chess?

2015_BCS_ORANGE_BOWL I strongly recommend that they get involved in some kind of chess community. Ideally an over-the-board club, but these days more likely a discord server or a subreddit. Chess can be a very lonely activity if you don't have chess friends. Chess clubs get beginners all the time, so don't feel like you have to improve before you visit one. People are almost always happy to teach new players.
city-of-stars Dive right in! Don't be afraid to lose, especially as a beginner. Try to play with a community, whether it's a group of friends at your local chess club, or online. Learn algebraic notation and make a habit of writing down the moves from all your games; it might seem like tedious busywork at first, but those notes will come in handy when you're reviewing your games for mistakes afterwards. Also, resist the temptation to immediately throw your moves into an engine - try and work out the moves and lines for yourself. Chess puzzles are great for developing this sort of tactical aptitude; you can find many chess puzzles on places like Chess.com, Chesstempo, and Lichess.

5: Chess has seen a substantial boom in popularity in recent weeks and months, and has certainly been thrust into the limelight. Where do you see it going from here?

2015_BCS_ORANGE_BOWL Chess often goes through periods of sudden popularity- the Fischer boom in the 70s, the twitch boom over the last summer, the new players from the Queen's Gambit show. It's always good to get more new players. But because of the staying power of chess- it has been played at a high level since the early 1800s- I don't worry too much about the fluctuations. I have no doubt that chess will not be nearly as popular on twitch.tv in one year, as streamers move on to new games. I also have no doubt that chess will still be played in 100 years. High level online rapid tournaments are a new development, and they are here to stay, but classical OTB chess isn't going anywhere either.
city-of-stars The COVID pandemic, the rise of popularity of Twitch, and the massive success of the Netflix TV series The Queen's Gambit have all brought new people to the game. But this is nothing new - chess has always seen waves of global popularity. Bobby Fischer's reign as world champion in the 1970s led to an explosion of chess popularity in America, and Viswanathan Anand's reign thirty years later did the same for India. Chess was once strictly a royal pasttime of shahs and rajahs in medieval India and Persia, and even through the 1800s was primarily played as an amusement for rich men in coffeehouses scattered across Europe. So it's very heartening to see more and more people of different backgrounds picking up the game! /chess always welcomes beginners, and our sister subreddit /chessbeginners serves as a forum for those wishing to ask questions and pick up the basics of the game.

6: What are your plans for the sub in the future?

2015_BCS_ORANGE_BOWL There are definitely some projects I want to work on when I have more time. I would like to expand the FAQ to cover more of the most frequently reposted beginner questions. We also want to add a system to verify people's titles that they've earned in OTB play. Having a master title carries a lot of respect in the chess world, and traditionally they would get a little (GM) or (NM) next to their name. Right now anyone can put (GM) in their flair, but we'd like to have a special flair for people who can verify their title.
city-of-stars We're hoping to legitimize /chess as a major online platform for discussing, learning about, and following chess. To this end, we've been working on a major overhaul of our subreddit's appearance over the last few months and establishing a consistent tournament promotion schedule. While we are not formally affiliated with any of the major online chess platforms, we do hope to expand our event coverage and establish more of an online presence as a community on places like Twitter, although those are long-term goals and might necessitate expanding the moderator team.

7: Anything else you want to add?

2015_BCS_ORANGE_BOWL I made a couple of posts on /hobbydrama about some drama that happened in the chess community in the past. People might find those interesting to read even if they don't play chess.
https://www.reddit.com/HobbyDrama/comments/iylibo/chess_that_time_a_chessplayer_was_accused_of/
https://www.reddit.com/HobbyDrama/comments/f9uv4d/chess_sponsor_of_major_online_chess_events_turns/
city-of-stars "The Game of Kings", as chess has traditionally been known as, can be a rigorous and demanding sport. But it's also loads of fun, and after a while, strangely addictive! We welcome players of all skill levels at /chess, and we hope you guys find our community engaging and enjoyable. For those of you interested in memes/chess humour, we encourage you to check out our sister subreddit /AnarchyChess, a community as chaotic as the name implies :-) Good luck!

^{Written by ConalFisher, writer, London System best d4 opening don't @ me}

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Dec. 2, 2002

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
PREVIOUSLY:


1-7-2002	1-14-2002	1-21-2002	1-28-2002
2-4-2002	2-11-2002	2-18-2002	2-25-2002
3-4-2002	3-11-2002	3-18-2002	3-25-2002
4-1-2002	4-8-2002	4-15-2002	4-22-2002
4-29-2002	5-6-2002	5-13-2002	5-20-2002
5-27-2002	6-3-2002	6-10-2002	6-17-2002
6-24-2002	7-1-2002	7-8-2002	7-15-2002
7-22-2002	7-29-2002	8-5-2002	8-12-2002
8-26-2002	9-2-2002	9-9-2002	9-16-2002
9-23-2002	9-30-2002	10-07-2002	10-14-2002
10-21-2002	10-28-2002	11-4-2002	11-11-2002
11-18-2002	11-25-2002

PROGRAMMING NOTE: I tried to post this earlier this morning but I guess it didn't work. I just noticed. Said it had to be approved by the mods first. So I deleted that one and re-posting now. We'll see how this goes.

EDIT: Looks like it was the Road Dogg story that got this post flagged and kept it from posting earlier. Dammit Road Dogg, do you ever stop sucking?

I usually try to avoid too much MMA, but the top story this week is a looooooong recap of the Ken Shamrock vs. Tito Ortiz UFC PPV so we gotta run with it, if for no other reason than the fact it's one of the most significant fights in UFC history. Besides, half of this is just Dave talking about how UFC did such a better job with this show than WWE has done with anything in ages. The build-up, promotion, and video packages for this fight blew away anything WWE has done in years and exposed all their problems when it comes to an inability to make people care about matches. WWE has a crew of writers whose job is to book enticing storylines and they can't come close to how UFC promoted this real-life story. Fear Factor host Joe Rogan, as UFC's resident color commentator, did a better job of building excitement than Tazz or Jerry Lawler have ever done. Big name celebrities were in attendance. The gate was the largest MMA gate in the U.S. and bigger than all but a handful of Wrestlemania gates. All without TV and without much mainstream media coverage. In WWE, Shamrock was considered a "bad promo" because he didn't cut promos like they wanted. But his interviews going into this fight were the best in UFC history and went a long way towards this show's huge success.
That being said, Shamrock was totally blown out in what Dave feels was a one-sided fight. Shamrock looked good but he's 38 and simply was outclassed by the younger, faster Ortiz. It went 3 rounds of mostly ground and pound, with Ortiz making hamburger out of Shamrock's face. Even when Shamrock was able to escape, he was too gassed to do much else. After 3 rounds, Shamrock's corner stopped the fight. Ortiz put on a shirt that said "I killed Kenny...you bastard!" but the crowd immediately turned on him when he did and his own trainer demanded he take it off. Afterward, Shamrock was respectful and hugged Ortiz and did an interview making no excuses. When they asked Ortiz about a fight with Chuck Liddell, he responded that UFC better pay them more money for it, or they'll take that fight to Japan (presumably PRIDE, though he didn't explicitly say so). Needless to say, UFC officials weren't thrilled about that. Otherwise, it was a great show. They announced the return of Tank Abbott, which was a surprise since rumors had him going to PRIDE. Bradshaw was there in the front row going nuts the whole show but was never identified on camera. And that's as much as we're dwelling on this show.
Linda McMahon had to face the investors this week and try to put a positive spin on the fact that WWE just suffered its first true money-losing quarter since 1997. WWE lost over $1.6 million this past quarter, due mostly to the money they were forced to pay the William Morris Agency for a lawsuit they lost as well as losses from The World complex in Time Square. Linda said that WWE still considers TV ratings to be the key driver of business and blamed falling ratings on males 17-34 allegedly watching less television these days. Sure, why not? She said they expected business to go down with the brand split and predicted it would take 12-18 months for things to get back to where they should be. Well, we're 8 months in and numbers continue to fall and other than Brock Lesnar, not any other new star has been made by it. In regards to The World complex, Linda admitted there've been mistakes and said they plan to rebrand it again soon as "The World of WWE" after previously deciding to remove the WWE name. They're going to rename the restaurant part JR's Bar & Grill. One investor in particular called Linda out on the declining ratings, blaming it on Triple H being the primary focus (who he noted was Linda's daughter's boyfriend) and mentioning the necrophilia storyline and argued that WWE's problems stem from terrible creative. It was the most critical question Linda has ever faced in one of these calls. Linda defended Triple H, first claiming that Triple H and Stephanie's relationship is new and thus can't be credited for his main event push (no one knows the exact timeline, but given that he was cheating on Chyna with her, this relationship goes back at least 2 years, so you can't exactly call it new). Linda listed Triple H, along with Lesnar, Shawn Michaels, and Scott Steiner as their big four stars. The investor responded saying Michaels "is done" (lol) and that Steiner is just another washed up WCW guy (ok, fair) and that WWE still isn't creating new stars. He said that while WWE was better off financially than WCW was at the end, creatively, they're just as bad. Linda responded, "We are not WCW" and talked about efforts to create new stars out of Edge and Test. This was clearly not the conversation Linda wanted to have with all these other big money investors listening.
Linda was also asked about Steve Austin and said they've talked several times and they're "good friends" but that she didn't know if he was ever coming back. Austin made a public appearance later the same day and was asked the same thing by everyone. He said WWE has been trying to get him to come back in January to build for a Wrestlemania match, but he hasn't decided whether to do it or not yet. He talked about wanting to get his home life in order first before he focuses on a wrestling comeback. Jim Ross also did an interview saying he talks to Austin all the time and expects him back eventually. So it sounds like things are maybe warming up between the two sides finally.
And finally, Linda spent a good chunk of the conference call talking about their issues with the World Wildlife Fund. She said that when she and Vince purchased the company from Vince Sr. in 1982, they trademarked the WWF name and logo. At the time, Wake Forest University had an issue with it because the logo was similar, and in exchange for getting the college to drop their claim, Vince made an agreement to never sell WWF merch on the Wake Forest campus. Easy enough. In 1994, the Wildlife people said, "Hey, that's our letters" and a bunch of legal shit happened and they reached an agreement where WWF wouldn't market itself as "WWF" outside of North America. They would have to use the full name "World Wrestling Federation." Of course, they immediately and constantly began violating that agreement, but the Wildlife people ignored it until Vince snatched up the wwf.com domain name, which is in use worldwide, and obviously could create confusion among any web users trying to find one or the other. Thus the lawsuit, which Vince lost handily and they were forced to rename themselves WWE. Then they had until Nov. 10th of this year to stop selling "WWF" branded merchandise, which resulted in them having to stop and reprint a bunch of stuff as well as take all old WWF footage off some WWF Classics TV show that I guess airs in Europe (they're currently airing WCW footage instead).
Well now, the Wildlife Fund is seeking damages, to the tune of $360 million. Linda claimed the Wildlife people offered to drop all further legal action in exchange for a $90 million settlement and they would extend the deadline until next year. WWE refused. As a result, the Fund is now going to court to try to stop sales of a WWF-branded video game that is due out this month, which is expected to be a big Christmas seller. WWE put out a statement calling it a "Grinch-like move to deny wrestling fans around the world the opportunity to receive these products as Christmas gifts." And in typical WWE fashion, they put out another statement attacking the Fund personally, specifically their lawyer who they claim lives in Switzerland but has no Swiss law license. They conveniently leave out the part that he does have a license to practice law in the UK, and that's where this case was decided, which renders WWE's entire "point" meaningless. They also accused him of having involvement with some financial scandals in the UK and even tried to tie his Islamic charity to the 9/11 tragedies, accusing his charity of funneling money to Al-Qaeda. Just the usual Jerry McDevitt bullshit. Anyway, video game maker THQ said all games with the WWF logo were shipped prior to the original Nov. 10 deadline and therefore, they won't recall them. But a British court has said THQ will be ruled in contempt if any WWF-branded games are sold and recommended THQ should—for their sake—recall the games and bill WWE for the damages because, as the judge said, "THQ must look at WWE for the losses which have been caused because it was the WWE that got them into this mess." One final note to all this: Linda McMahon admitted that they did consider doing an angle at the recent UK Rebellion PPV where Vince McMahon would have faced a wrestler in a panda suit on the show and beat him up and pinned him. Dave says, considering the damages part of the lawsuit is still ongoing, that would have been monumentally stupid and luckily, it seems WWE agreed because they didn't do it. Not even sure why they'd admit thinking about it.
PRIDE had a sold out show at the Tokyo Dome that aired on PPV in Japan and the U.S. but were edited to be completely different shows. The Japan version was based around the retirement of Nobuhiko Takada, facing his former understudy Kiyoshi Tamura and was heavily built around their old 90s UWFI rivalry. It was the rivalry that everything was building to back in the 90s, but it never happened because the company closed. Symbolically, this was seen as the true death of UWFI, 6 years after it actually shut down and closed that incomplete chapter. It was an emotional angle that packed the 3rd largest MMA crowd in history into the Tokyo Dome. But in the U.S., that meant nothing to American fans and the Takada match and retirement ceremony didn't even air as part of the show. Instead the American version of the PPV was edited to showcase Fedor Emeliankenko beating the brakes off Heath Herring and setting himself up to challenge for the heavyweight title in the match that made him a star. Takada got knocked out in his retirement match and they had a big emotional ceremony after. And some other MMA stuff.
Long obituary for Japanese wrestler Thunder Sugiyama, who died at age 62 this week. Big star in the 60s and early-70s, was one of the first recruits by Giant Baba when he started AJPW and later had a brief run in NJPW. After retirement, he became a millionaire in other businesses. But in 1999, due to diabetes complications, he ended up having both of his arms and both of his legs amputated, which led to a lot of media coverage since he was quasi-famous and lost all 4 limbs. Well then.
Another obituary for Billy Joe Travis, who died of a heart attack at 41. He went tanning, drove back to his mother's house, walked through the front door, and dropped dead of a heart attack. He was best known for his years in Memphis, and was regarded as one of the most promising stars in the business in the late-80s. But he had a nasty drug problem and, well, it never really happened. Most people remember him best for being the guy who legitimately got arrested on live TV during one of the Saturday morning Memphis shows, due to failure to pay child support. Cops showed up to the show to get him, they asked if they could film the arrest, cops said sure, and they did, but pretended it was for something else and made an angle out of it.

WATCH: Billy Joe Travis gets legitimately arrested during live USWA broadcast

Fuji Network in Japan had Bob Sapp Day on their channel. From 5:30am until 7pm that night, Sapp repeatedly cut into shows, appeared in live interview segments, did talk shows, game shows, etc. All damn day. It's been said that American fans can't comprehend just how big a star Sapp is in Japan right now. Even people who don't follow wrestling or MMA know who he is because he's become something of a sensation throughout the country.
As further proof that anything can happen, this week's issue of Tokyo Sports featured a front page photo of Antonio Inoki shaking hands with Hisashi Shinma. For the unfamiliar, this is the equivalent of Bret Hart and Vince McMahon shaking hands on the front page of the USA Today. Inoki and Shinma were the minds behind NJPW's success in the 70s and 80s, with Shinma being the primary booker when Inoki was the top star. But an embezzlement scandal in NJPW in the mid-80s led to Shinma being fired. He and Inoki remained friends and they even worked together in 1989 when Shinma acted as Inoki's campaign manager for his successful Senate campaign. However, the 2 later had a major falling out, resulting in Shinma publicly revealing Inoki's participation in the embezzlement scandal as well as even reporting Inoki for cheating on his taxes, which led to a lot of legal headaches for Inoki. So it was a pretty serious beef. However, they have squashed it and, with NJPW struggling right now, word is Shinma will be returning to the company to help dig them out of their hole. It's also worth noting that during the 80s, Shinma was close friends with Vince McMahon and acted as the NJPW liaison to WWF during that time. In fact, he was the on-screen figurehead "President" of WWE prior to Jack Tunney, though he rarely did much of note. The relationship is still good and Shinma noted that one of the first things he wants to do when he starts working for NJPW again is send rookie Shinsuke Nakamura to WWE for him to gain more experience (took, like, 15 years but it happened).
Former UFC heavyweight champ Josh Barnett, currently serving a worldwide 6-month MMA suspension for failing steroid tests, is making his pro wrestling debut for NJPW at the Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show. Barnett has been a wrestling fan for years, particularly NJPW and the old UWFI in the 90s, and has been trying to get involved in wrestling for awhile. He's friends with Bob Sapp and that opened the door for him, though in Japan, most people know him as Sapp's coach/cornerman rather than being a former UFC champ in his own right, because "UFC" doesn't mean much in Japan (not only does Barnett work this show, he ends up main eventing it, losing to IWGP champ Yuji Nagata).
Chyna is scheduled to return to NJPW next week, this time teaming with Masahiro Chono to face Tadao Yasuda and Kazunari Murakami. I only mention this because it ends up being Chyna's last match for almost a decade. She quietly retired afterward, only returning for one final match in 2011 in TNA. But for all intents and purposes, this is the end of the road for Chyna's pro wrestling career.
Hulk Hogan is doing his book tour and it kinda shows the differences between Vince and Hogan. Privately, Vince has been telling anyone who will listen that he's done with Hogan, doesn't want him back in WWE, and is running him down to anyone who will listen. Hogan, knowing it's inevitable that he'll be back some day, has been much more diplomatic in interviews, praising Vince and calling WWE his home. Hogan admitted in one interview that he was supposed to return at Survivor Series, but the deal fell apart due to creative differences, but that's all he would say (creative differences = he didn't want to put over Brock Lesnar again). Hogan talked about how wrestling is predetermined, but argued against it being choreographed. He says guys like himself and Rock can go out there and call a match on the fly. Dave thinks that's a pretty poor example to use, since Hogan, Rock, and Pat Patterson all flew to Florida prior to Wrestlemania last year and spent 2 days rehearsing every step of that match beforehand. Anyway, Dave promises to have reviews of Hogan's and Piper's books in the next week or two. He's read Piper's already and enjoyed it but hints that there's some inaccuracies. He's heard Hogan's is pretty full of bullshit too, but also says we all expected that going in.
Bret Hart's condition post-stroke has improved significantly, and this week, he even got his driver's license back and is allowed to drive again, which is seen as a major step in his improvement.
Vince Russo returned to TNA this week as an on-screen character, appearing under a mask as Mr. Wrestling III and hitting Ron Killings with a guitar and allowing Jeff Jarrett to win the NWA title. The backstage fallout from this resulted in Sean Waltman quitting the company. Waltman doesn't like Russo and even though he was promised Russo doesn't have any hand in creative, Waltman didn't believe it and quit in protest of Russo's return. Waltman had no-showed TNA's previous PPV at the last moment due to injury and TNA was upset, but decided to bring him back anyway because he was extremely apologetic and because, well, they need stars. Also, Waltman being there is pretty much the only reason Scott Hall decided to come back as well. So with Waltman quitting, this leads to questions about whether Hall will be back either. TNA was also hoping having Waltman on the roster would lead to Chyna coming in, but that's probably not happening now either. Waltman has a deep hatred for Russo's booking and also felt having a company work its wrestlers the way WCW used to do isn't healthy for the company, and he felt he was being misled by TNA about Russo's involvement.
In fact, despite management denials, almost nobody in the company believes that Russo is only a talent. Pretty much everyone figures that if he's not involved in creative yet, he will be soon. During the negotiations with Panda Energy, Waltman himself went to bat for Jerry Jarrett, saying he wanted Jarrett in charge and that he wouldn't stay with the company if Russo was in charge. True to his word, Russo showed up and Waltman quit. TNA tried to pacify him, even discussing doing a match that night where Waltman and Curt Hennig would win the TNA tag team titles. Waltman refused, saying he was only staying and working that night's show because he felt he owed it to the company after no-showing the previous week, but he didn't want to win any titles because he insisted he was quitting after the show. And, sure enough, he did (he stuck to his word too. Waltman didn't return to TNA until after Russo left in 2005. At some point though, they squashed their beef and they appear to be on good terms now. But this is the end of the road for Waltman in TNA for awhile. It was also the end of Scott Hall. He also didn't return again until after Russo left. Also worth noting: Waltman was right. Despite TNA's denials, Russo was indeed involved in creative again during this time).
Other notes from Russo's return: aside from the backstage drama, the Jarrett/Killings NWA title match was actually a strong bout, with the crowd more into it, and Jarrett, than anything in the company's short history so far. Most in the locker room were against the Russo angle to end the match, but otherwise, it went over great. Almost nobody in the locker room knew Russo was returning, which led to the familiar WCW-style "working the boys" complaints but Russo and Jarrett were celebrating it backstage like they pulled off the angle of the year. There was thought that Mike Tenay might quit over it as well, because those 2 have heat going back to WCW (Russo once tried to book Tenay to wrestle a match in WCW with Scott Steiner's valet Midajah, but Tenay refused, saying his contract was to be an announcer, not a wrestler, and Russo was furious about it and the 2 haven't gotten along since).
In case you're wondering whether or not Russo has any involvement in creative, Brian Christopher's valet April dumped him for Goldylocks, with the two of them leaving together in what was played up as an "OMG, they're lesbians!" type of angle. This ain't Jerry Jarrett booking, let's just say that. Dave can't confirm it was Russo, but in all the various WWF lawsuits over the years (Sable, Nicole Bass, etc.) it appears Russo asked just about every woman in WWF to participate in a lesbian angle. So having a lesbian angle in TNA the week he returns obviously leads one to assume.
There's also controversy over BG James (Road Dogg) calling Lenny Lane a "faggot" during a promo and also some other homophobic comments towards the Bruce character (who's entire gimmick is predicated on getting heel heat for being gay). TNA is claiming the line wasn't scripted and is saying James used it on his own. Jerry Jarrett apologized online for it the next day on the wrestlingclassics.com message board he posts on. (In case Road Dogg's 2020 social media posts haven't shown exactly what kind of person he still is, here's the full quote he said about Lenny Lane: "This goes for all of you who are politically correct. This won't be a gay bashing, I'm just about to beat the hell out a faggot." Even though I'm quoting someone else, I still feel gross just typing that) There was similar heat a few weeks ago when Brian Christopher called April a "cunt" during the show.
Steve Austin pled no contest to domestic assault charges in San Antonio court this week. Under the plea bargain, he was given 1 year of probation, a $1000 fine, 80 hours of community service, and must undergo counseling and complete a 24-week domestic violence class. Austin also agreed that any further physical or verbal abuse towards Debra would be considered a probation violation. Under the terms of the probation, he's also not allowed to drink alcohol for 1 year. Dave says that one might be tricky, especially if he returns to wrestling. This was brought up in court and the attorney noted that Austin's usual post-match celebrations would technically be considered a violation. But they also said that it likely wouldn't be enforced since it would be considered acting (yeah, when he returned to WWE in 2003, I think he spent most of that year using non-alcoholic beers for his gimmick. Better safe than sorry). Once Austin completes his probation, the charges will be expunged from his record.
After weeks of Hot Lesbian Action, gay weddings, and corpse fucking, Vince McMahon stood up at a booking meeting this week and loudly declared "shock TV is dead!" and insisted it doesn't work anymore and they will no longer be doing it. So maybe that's the end of Russo-style desperate ratings grabs for now. Keep in mind, literally 4 weeks ago, he sent out a memo to the creative team mocking their critics and insisting that more shock TV was the answer. This man is insane.
WWE had a recent tour in India and nobody had fun. It was considered the trip from hell, and had nothing to do with the plane ride this time. The trip was long and uncomfortable and when they got there, the wrestlers were shocked at the living conditions in the country. WWE's stars were staying at a nice hotel, but just outside the front door, they saw multiple people literally drop their pants to shit in the streets and people living in gutters and filth. Several wrestlers also got sick from drinking the water and eating the food, with Lance Storm and William Regal so sick they couldn't work some of the shows. Booker T got so sick as they were leaving that he had to be hooked up to an IV and rushed to the hospital for dehydration as soon as they got back to the U.S., which caused them to have to rewrite some of that week's TV. The shows were a big success, drawing large crowds, but most of the wrestlers said afterwards that they never want to go back.
Notes from Raw: the newly reunited Dudleys challenged for the tag titles. This wasn't planned, since most people feel it's too soon for them to be going for the titles already, but it was a last-minute re-write due to Booker T not being available. The first hour of the show was written around that match and a bunch of backstage skits featuring Booker T & Goldust which had to be scrapped. Match was an overbooked mess, with multiple re-starts due to Eric Bischoff's new rule enforcer, Val Venis (now using his real name Sean Morley). Dudleys stole Christian and Chris Jericho's clothes backstage and threw them out to the crowd and also revealed a jar of "ass cream" in one of their bags. Dave says he flipped over to Monday Night Football during this to see how that game was going because otherwise, he would have split his gut laughing at this masterful attempt at humor (sarcastic, Raw-reviewing Dave is the best. This used to be how he reviewed Nitro near the end and I've missed it). There were also a bunch of jokes about Jericho and Christian experiencing "shrinkage." Christ, Vince McMahon has the sense of humor of a 12-year-old. Elsewhere in the show, Hurricane hit a shining wizard on somebody and Jim Ross actually called the move by name. This has been a running joke throughout the 2002 Observers about how WWE wrestlers have started using that move (stolen from Great Muta) and none of the announcers ever called it by name or even seemed to know what it was. So with JR finally calling it by name, Dave says, "so that storyline has concluded." Batista (no longer Dave) is being managed by Ric Flair now. Rico is no longer an effeminate hair dresser and is now being booked as a tough guy, which the crowd is not buying. And first thing they did after giving him this gimmick change was have him lose clean as a sheet to Goldust in 3 minutes. And main event was Shawn Michaels vs. RVD in what was regarded as something of a dream match by a lot of fans. When ECW was around, "Shawn Michaels vs. RVD" was always the WWF/ECW interpromotional match fans wanted. Well, we got it and....it was a disappointment. It was Michaels' first match on Raw in almost 5 years. It was good, but nowhere near what people were hoping for.
Notes from Smackdown tapings for next week: Bull Buchanan is now known as B-Squared and is teaming with John Cena. Tazz had a family emergency and had to pull out of the show at the last minute, leading WWE to put Ernest "The Cat" Miller in his place doing commentary. This show hasn't aired yet as of press time, but those who heard the live feed say Miller was horrendous, didn't know any of the characters or storylines, and Michael Cole had to prep him on everything during each commercial break. Stephanie McMahon suspended Brock Lesnar for his actions last week, even using the "I didn't screw Lesnar. Lesnar screwed Lesnar" line. Keep that in mind next time WWE claims Bret Hart is the one who won't move on from the Screwjob. Stephanie also made a bunch of period references at some point in the show, claiming it was that time of the month and she was being visited by her Aunt Flo, who visits her monthly. Kurt Angle, playing his goofy dork role, acted like he didn't know what she was talking about. Dave is already dreading watching this show. This, yet again, reeks of Vince McMahon 12-year-old "humor." Scott Steiner pinched Nidia's ass, because sexual assault is hilarious, and this led to Jamie Noble getting obliterated by Steiner. Guerreros vs. Angle/Benoit was good but otherwise, this sounds like a dreadful show.
Notes from this week's Smackdown: this one was a good show. Mysterio/Noble was short but awesome finish. Guerreros complained about an unsafe working environment, leading Dave to talk about the Shawn Michaels/Bret Hart backstage fight in 1997 that led to Shawn briefly claiming he was quitting because WWF was an unsafe work environment. Paul Heyman cut a great promo about Lesnar. They had a backstage segment where you could see Raw announcer JR in the background and Dave says this never would have happened a year ago, but quality control and attention to detail went out the window when WCW died. Edge vs. Big Show in the main event for the title felt like Edge being a sacrificial lamb in the Lesnar feud and exposed Edge as not quite being ready for main events.
Various WWE notes: American Dragon, Paul London, and Michael Shane are all working dark matches at TV tapings next week. In regards to DDP's recent release, he was planning on returning to the ring against doctor's orders, but Vince McMahon made the call to listen to the doctors, who said DDP could be risking paralysis if he wrestles again. So Vince won't let him wrestle anymore and they mutually agreed on his contract release afterward. Undertaker's wife gave birth to a baby girl this week.
Dave reviews the recent episode of Tough Enough and there's something pretty interesting here in retrospect. One of the contestants, Nick, had a bicep injury and went to the doctor for it. The doctor told him he had a partially torn bicep and to take a couple of weeks off to rest the injury and Nick followed the doctor's advice and did just that. As a result, the WWE trainers felt he could never make it in pro wrestling because he refused to work through the injury. They all pretty much treated him like a pussy and he ended up getting cut from the show because of it. Gee, maybe he should just take a handful of pain pills like everyone else and end up dead at 40. This fucking company, I swear.... anyway, Bill DeMott, who is on record saying he's had so many concussions that doctors have told him he's risking permanent brain damage, was one of the most appalled at Nick refusing to wrestle with the injury because Bill DeMott is an asshole.
Jim Ross in his Ross Report on WWE.com talked openly about wanting Steve Austin to return but said he needs to get his marriage issues straightened out first. In regards to Chyna returning, JR said it would be challenging because of Triple H's relationship with Stephanie, which makes him the first person in WWE management to openly admit that Chyna is basically blackballed from the company so long as those 2 are together. He also said he wants Goldberg to come in, but said he's making too much money in Japan and they won't match those offers. He also point blank said Hogan was supposed to return at Survivor Series but it fell apart because he refused to job to Lesnar. He also said WWE doesn't need a 49-year-old guy who's about to qualify for AARP membership to be their top guy and Hogan basically needs to get over his ego and know his place in the business at this point in his career. He also said they would love to have Ken Shamrock back, but only if he's committed to WWE full time, which has always been the hold-up.

NEXT WEDNESDAY: Mr. Wrestling" Tim Woods passes away, Roddy Piper autobiography review, Hiroshi Tanahashi gets stabbed, and more. Only 4 Rewinds left...

AMA with Verasity Founder, R J Mark

Read full story: medium.com/verasity
On the 4th of February, we hosted an AMA with Verasity Founder R J Mark. Thank you to everyone who joined, we answered a lot of community questions in depth (39 in total!). If you missed it, below is the complete transcript. Exciting information in this, make sure to read it all. 👀
Hello Verasians. I am Bhav, the marketing manager at Verasity and I’m joined by R J Mark, the founder of Verasity. Thank you for joining us for this AMA! :smile:
Mark: Hello everyone.
We will be answering all of the pertinent questions that the community have sent in throughout the week. Once these questions have been answered, I will open up the chat so you can ask further (non-repetitive please) questions, the chat will then close once more for Mark to answer. The transcript of this AMA will then be posted on our Medium.
Let’s get straight into it!
Q1) There will be no deadline on the swap so there is no rush and no fear of losing your tokens. They can be swapped at any time. Is that right?
Absolutely right. There is no deadline on the swap For more details read:
VRA Token & PoV update
Q2) Regarding the ERC777 Token Swap, you don’t need to withdraw to VeraWallet on the day of swap? Can I do it later?
Correct, take your time, there is no rush. You can do it at any time. There is no deadline or end date for the swap. We are making this as seamless and easy as possible for everyone.
Seamless and easy. That’s the way forward ✅Q3) Will we see more movements from the Foundation wallet. What is this about? The Swap?
That is correct. In anticipation of the swap company wallets’ tokens are being swapped via VeraWallet. See the article about this:
VRA Token & PoV update
New Foundation wallets will be created to replace the old ones.
Q4) Any plans to keep staking beyond the 31/12/2021 deadline?
We have not made a decision yet but liquidity mining is very much in play and could replace staking after Dec 2021. We will announce mid-year.
Q5) All the tournaments are free to join. How does that help the company to generate revenue? Is there a place or example where users/players are actually using the VRA token to get a product/service?
_Great question!_The tournaments are free to join since we are focusing on adoption and scaling the number of users we have globally. Bringing as many people to the platform is our priority right now. As we expand and offer user-generated prize pools we will take a commission on the total jackpots as a revenue stream. In addition, other revenue flows will become available to us as we build our user base and launch our video player this Q1.
We will monetize our esports content through our video player within Esports Fight Club by serving ads from our ad partners:
Advertiser Partnership Update
Esports Fight Club will require players to use VRA to purchase subscriptions via several payment systems: VeraWallet, PayPal and Credit Cards (although some tournaments are free for promotional purposes). Winners receive VRA for winning tournaments. Soon players will also be rewarded VRA for watching ads. Verasity profits from the purchase of game credits, subscriptions, tournament prize pools and ads. This is an entire ecosystem all within Verasity.
See our revenue forecast here:
Tokenomics , Forecast, News Update
Adoption and scale are key to the success of Esports Fight Club. We’ve made a lot of progress on the platform and are confident we will continue to see further growth in terms of users and a ton more exposure to the platform, and our token $VRA.Talking about adoption and scale… the next question will answer that!~Q6) What is the current Marketing Strategy? How do we differ from other tournament websites?
After creating mass-scale events around the world, we are focusing on adoption and community this year. Spending $10,000 on a big one-time prize pool to attract 1000 teams sounds good in theory. But, after careful planning, forecasting and testing, the results show that the best way is to spread the tournaments out so we reach a larger number of audiences. This consistency and large reach will attract much more than just 1000 teams over a period of time. The best place to do this is by sponsoring streamers and influencers, who each have thousands or even hundreds of thousands of fans.
For the past week, for example, we’ve been running a Valorant Community Tournament with Esports Fight Club’s first partnered streamer, Mika Daime. The turnout has been massive! Qualifier 1 was filled up with the max slots so quickly, that we had to create a Qualifier 2 just to fit all the teams in.

Most streamers we aim to partner with can easily bring in 64 or 256 teams to a community tournament hosted by Esports Fight Club, for a fraction of the price
With the same budget as a big tournament, of the $10,000 we would have spent on a single tournament, we can obtain approximately 540% more users by repurposing that budget for the influencer and streamer tournaments.

For a full list of upcoming features such as the Marketplace and VoD section read our full Marketing and Adoption post:
Marketing, Adoption, Tournaments 2021 (Updated)
It’s key for people to understand what we aim to do with the tournaments in terms of marketing. We read a lot of comments about the “low prize pool” when we announced the Mika Daime tournament, hopefully the answer Mark provided sheds light on that!Everything we do at Verasity is calculated. 😊Do check this out if you wanted a full read on our Marketing and Adoption post for 2021. 👍🏼If you think you’re good at some of the games we have available on Esports Fight Club, join in! The partnered streamers we have will be hosting a lot of community tournaments, such as Mika Daime!Q7) How often shall the revenue estimates (status update) be updated and is there any new estimation?
We will update the community every six months on revenue forecasts. There are no updates from our last announcement which can be found here
Tokenomics , Forecast, News Update
Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter with notifications turned on, so you can get all the updates as they come through!https://twitter.com/verasitytech
Q8) Have you changed your business model? Because at the beginning it was mainly about publishers.
Our fundamental model has not changed: Video publishers attract audiences to watch video content and ads. Users are rewarded for it, thereby increasing engagement and monetization.
This model has not changed. What has changed is the type of video publisher we are pursuing. Prior to COVID-19, we pursued traditional publishers. With COVID-19, we saw the opportunity to pursue gaming publishers and more specifically esports publishers. More importantly, we created our own tournament platform: esportsfightclub.com. This allows us to control our own environment, launch our own proprietary video player, own our video content, run ads on our player, and charge subscription fees as well as take tournament fees.
But actually publishers and content are publishers and content whether it’s gaming or news.
It’s great to see how Esports Fight Club will have it’s own video content up on the website so that users will be able to watch the content to earn $VRA by using our own video technology, then use the $VRA to join tournaments, or buy hardware from trusted partners 👀Exciting stuff!Q9) Where can I find info about the Founders token unlock schedule?
Tokenomics and Founders token unlock schedule can be found here:
Tokenomics , Forecast, News Update
Q10) Does VeraWallet speed handling withdraws scale up painlessly when user amounts boom? And shall there be enhancements to user experience if we for example have tens or hundreds of small reward withdraws daily?
We are adding automated withdrawals for small amounts to the roadmap but first have to complete the swap and add the security protocols. We won’t risk our users’ investments.
We simply don't want to risk our secure environment.
Q11) Are there any plans for compounding rewards for the VeraWallet staking?
No, absolutely not. The simple interest we are paying now is already high.
Q12) Bit confused about the VeraWallet staking rate after March. Can you clarify?
The staking reward rate is 0.1% per day (36.5% per annum) until 31 March 2021 when it becomes 0.07% daily (25.55% pa) until 31 December 2021.
Q13) When can I instant stake with BTC?
Good news, BTC is already available in VeraWallet for Instant Stake together with ETH, BNB and USDT.
Try Instant Buy and Stake out for yourself here:
VeraWallet - Official VRA Wallet
Instant Buy and Stake has been a really popular update to VeraWallet. Great to see the community loving it. 👍🏼Q14) With the recent developments on Cardano, and the ease in which ERC-20 tokens can migrate to this superior to Ehereum platform, are you considering following suit of great projects like Celsius to move VRA over to Cardano? I know we are still a bit hurt with Binance VRAB. I understand it is not an easy decision. Just interested in what you think about the future on Ethereum.
We gave this a lot of thought and investigation and as the community knows we have experience with token migrations :)
Please see our latest update on the VRA token swap to ERC777 and Proof of View:
VRA Token & PoV update
As to Cardano — the liquidity is really small compared to ETH alts. For example on Kucoin it’s volume is less than $2m per day. Even on OKEX it’s only $3m. 50% of Celsius’ volume is on Uniswap which is the majority of the liquidity and is not on any Tier 1 exchanges. Aside from the lack of features that we need for PoV, after our last experience, we are very reluctant to join with mainnets that are generally illiquid. Celsius’s solution is to provide the liquidity themselves through Uniswap which is limiting in our view. We believe sticking with Ethereum is the right way to go and the market seems to agree with this as well.
Q15) The new VOD platform, when is it going to be finished and in use?
We are working on it now and expect it to meet the roadmap target of Q1: see verasity.io for the roadmap.
Can’t wait for it to be released! 🚀> Yes, this is a huge milestone for us and opens us up to so many possibilities.Q16) Is liquidity mining still in play? Will this replace the staking rewards after December 2021?
Good question. Yes, liquidity mining is very much in play and could replace staking after Dec 2021. We have not made that decision yet but will announce as soon as we do.
Q17) Are there new partners/publishers in the trend of gaming for the ad stack?
Yes, FB, Google and others. Please see:
Advertiser Partnership Update
In total 17, many specializing in gaming.
I don’t think today there are many ad networks that are not into gaming. It's such a huge audience sitting at home during Covid.
Q18) Micro tournaments: could you arrange tournaments yourself, like a national tournament for example?
The Esports Fight Club platform is fully self-managed, so yes, you could set up large tournaments and be the admin and sponsor. We would definitely like to see this happen by our community members. This quarter, our admins and developers are focused on A/B testing different tournaments with multiple communities to see if we are missing any critical features demanded by gamers. An article will be coming next week about micro and partnered tournaments. We will explain how these increase platform adoption which benefits both influencers and Esports Fight Club.
If anyone does host some tournaments, message me! I’d be happy to join a few… dust off my skills. I heard Rob (Our Finance Director) was a bit of Counterstrike wizard in his day… 😂Q19) Why are the tokens bought via the instant buy taken from a pool which dilutes the total supply? This is like raising new capital for $VRA at every buy instead of us token holders getting a price increase.
These are not purchased from a pool. If you mean that Foundation tokens have been transferred to VeraWallet, see the article:
Tokenomics , Forecast, News Update
In the Total VRA Supply, line 9, this VRA is already taken into account as part of both total supply and circulating supply. It does not increase either. I think this is really clear.
Q20) Asking about the “Instant buy and stake feature”. If someone buys $VRA using this system, there is no transaction on the blockchain. You say you buy directly on exchanges but no proof.
Buy backs of VRA do not happen instantly and we don’t announce buy backs in advance to avoid speculation. We don’t share our VeraWallet addresses as we have stated before. We are not going to provide speculators with tools to make a margin on each purchase.
Q21) Do we stay on the Ethereum network?
Yes, see the article:
VRA Token & PoV update
We are swapping our current ERC20 tokens to ERC777 which is essentially an upgrade to a more modern and fuller feature set Ethereum token.
For anyone just joining the chat, make sure you read the article above! Tons of important and exciting information.Q22) From the Foundation wallet tokens have been unlocked in the last 50 days and added to the circulating supply. How is our token deflationary?
If you mean that Foundation tokens have been transferred to VeraWallet, see the article:
Tokenomics , Forecast, News Update
Foundation tokens are not locked and the article clearly states they are unlocked. In the Total VRA Supply, line 9, this VRA is already taken into account as part of both total supply and circulating supply. It does not increase either. We specifically provide for ALL Foundation tokens, allocated and unallocated, as part of the current circulating supply so this is NOT adding to the circulating supply.
Q23) Asking about adoption figures. You claim to have had 8M people looking at your gaming videos (mostly fakes views as the counter earned millions in hours).
The adoption figures were not fake or exaggerated, it is important to understand that this number is a combination of different metrics, all of which ensure one thing: People viewed our live tournament page. This number includes:

Unique gaming viewers landing on our page to be able to find the stream in their native language (English, Korean, Hindi, Mandarin and Nepali)
Social media followers and curious gamers who landed on our page after subscribing to our contests, looking for airdrops or just by following our different marketing campaigns. These account for the steady and regular growth of our landing page as we ran these campaigns all-around the globe and 24/7 at the end of the tournament. The livestream was embedded onto the homepage of the website, so everyone who visited our website was also able to watch the tournament
Lastly, the contestants, productions and influencer’s traffic from sharing our streams was what mostly caused big traffic, especially during the play-off and later stages of the tournament.

Although it was difficult to collate all the viewer statistics we believe them to be accurate and fair.
To see the full statistics of Ultimate Warrior Showdown 1, read here:
Ultimate Warrior Showdown Tournament Round-Up and Adoption
Hope that clears up some FUD! 👍🏼Q24) Asking about partnerships. You say you have partnerships with
Stripe, Tencent Games, PayPal. The truth is any website can integrate these payment/connexion modules without partnership. You just need to read their website and implement it on your website.
Of course, you can add Stripe and PayPal to any website, but try adding them to a crypto-based website and see how far you get. There are no crypto products websites or related services (other than specific financial services) that are supported by Stripe and PayPal because they are not allowed. To obtain these payment services, you need to have special permission and follow a rigid protocol. And Stripe expressed interest in working with Esports Fight Club to reach out to video publishers with EFC to give us access to video publishers worldwide.
As to TencentGames, you need to get their specific permission for certain tournament events and follow their rules. We would be unable to use their logo and name in our marketing material without this. It’s not simply signing up for them. So yes we consider this a partnership because they plan on additional events with us which they now support.
Working with major brands including PUBGM, Tencent, Athena Gaming and Warmania gave us the clout to include major esport teams in our tournaments who will participate in future tournaments as well: FaZe Clan, Orange, T1, Elementrix, Nova, Onic and others. And now because of the history, Blizzard is prepared to provide licenses for all their major games.
We are also in discussion with peripheral manufacturers to support our marketplace launch later this year. As soon as agreements are reached, we will jointly announce sponsored product peripherals that will be rewarded in our tournaments.
Q25) Some things on your roadmap get pushed forward. Why did do you do this?
Our development team has been together doing projects for over ten years. This is normal in large scale development projects. For example, we decided after the large Esports Fight Club tournaments we put on that we needed to finalize and launch the Video sharing platform prior to some other features on the roadmap because without it we would not be able to take advantage of many opportunities including monetization opportunities of the exclusive VOD content that only we could re-publish and add ads to. This pushed certain product features into Q2. Another example is PoV. Initially we thought we would go with proprietary blockchain because there was no other solution that would allow us to support PoV. That changed with the release by Ethereum of ERC777. As a result PoV timeline targets changed so that it corresponds to the release of ERC777 as well as the ability to use it for the Video sharing platform. So in effect, the video-sharing platform came in _much earlier than expected_which pushed out other features/products to accommodate this change. Business decisions and external events impact on the roadmap and it would do Verasity and the community an injustice if we just blindly followed a roadmap that becomes slightly outdated every quarter and greatly outdated every year. It is this flexibility that allows Verasity to take advantage of new information and technologies in real-time. And to push out new products earlier in the roadmap such as the video-sharing platform.
Q26) Proof-of-View™️ so nice!
When will it be a Patented POV?
The average time for a patent to be granted is 3 years. We’ve just started our third year as a pending application so we hope it will be in 2021, however our patent lawyers have told us to expect further delays due to covid. Fortunately this won’t stop the release of Proof of View which can go ahead with ‘patent pending’ protection.
Update: The patent was granted a few minutes after the AMA ended!
— @verasitytech
Q27) Will there be an app for download on your phone soon? For Staking. Feeling a little insecure have it online on your website
Actually, our mweb and web applications are much more secure than a mobile app. Mobile apps are much easier to hack. Although we have not been hacked, some users have been hacked via their mobile phones but because we have a manual delay, we were able to stop the loss of tokens. The good news is that now with the swap to ERC777 we can disable any wallets that have stolen VRA and return the VRA to the original user. We do have mobile apps on the roadmap but won’t likely support staking because of the security issue and it is not a priority for us.
Q28) Not try to fud here, but would like to get an answer in AMA to suppress all fud in the future 😁
Financial status company. There have been coins sold for listing on an exchange (still to come?). Was this something that was not planned (like extra opportunity to get listed) or are funds becoming empty?
Current resources held by Verasity fund the project roadmap for the next 12 months. We forecast reaching profitability in 2021 which will finance the continuing runway thereafter. As you point out not all listing opportunities were included in the forecast and we stated that: “In the future, additional listings and expenses may require sales of VRA from the Foundation Reserve”. See the funding update here:
Tokenomics , Forecast, News Update
Q29) The VoD update is a little bit unclear for me. Maybe you can tell some more about it. To the looks of it, it is a mix between YouTube and twitch but with PoV to earn $VRA.
PoV on VODs is a key feature for us and for our large ad-stack network. While we are growing our partnerships with community tournaments and adding more games and influencers on EsportsFightClub: we want our reruns to be monetized, available at all times on our proprietary platform and browsing page. Think of it the way Twitch highlights previous streamer’s lives automatically but on a larger and customizable library for viewers to earn VRA and for Verasity to monetize via its ad stack.
And we own several terabytes of gaming and esports video content which will launch with the new video platform in Q1. This is actually massive, because on launch we will have a ton of video content to monetize!
Q30) You seem to have many products but I don’t understand how they work together?

The Esports Fight Club platform — lots of features already available including global and tournament chats, user created tournaments, detailed tournament customization options
Proprietary video player — in internal beta for launch Q1
Proprietary ad stack — in internal beta for launch Q1
Our own esports content — all the content rights from the tournaments and other gaming content owned by EFC &Verasity — this VOD will be monetized on launch of the video platform in Q1
Our belief that we can drive large streaming numbers via esports tournaments
Rewarded Video for these users to watch our content and ads on Esports Fight Club and not on YouTube or other platforms by utilizing VRA to engage and monetize
A large number of ad networksthat include Google AdMob — Signed on
Proof of View smart contract view verification (on-chain) — now a reality with the swap of ERC777 to fully build out PoV with all its features on the network.
VeraWallet as a payment system (together with Stripe &PayPal) throughout the Verasity network.
In Q1’2021, we will put many of these parts together to start scaling our own video player with our ad stack, producing ad revenues in addition to our other revenue streams.

Q31) What games does Esports Fight Club support now?
PUBG mobile, Free Fire, Counter-Strike GO, Valorant, PUBG and Ludo is about to be launched.
🚀🚀🚀 Great game selection, so far.Q32) Any near-future plans to expand your marketing?
At Verasity, we have a large marketing team that devotes itself behind the scenes to increase our awareness in the cryptocurrency community and reach as many people as possible.
Although we have community groups in more than 10 languages, our local group managers translate all the news, updates into their own languages and publish them in local forums and groups in real time. Thus, we significantly increase our chances of reaching communities that do not speak English. Verasity Spanish, Verasity Korea & Verasity India are already large groups and growing.
We will continue to use media sites, influencers, and all other advertising sources to spread our news in the future as in the past. Gamification marketing opportunities are very important to us as can be seen in LunarCrush.
In return for these efforts, we have gained a great community support that grew slowly but surely. Our marketing efforts will continue to scale. Our goal in this regard is to continue without stopping until every individual in the cryptocurrency community speaks about Verasity.
Our social media metrics have seen a consistent and phenomenal increase over the past year due to our marketing efforts, read here to find out more in detail:
Verasity Social and Adoption Metrics
For us the most important metrics to see how we are doing in socials is LunarCrush:
VRA - VERAsity Insights | LunarCRUSH
LunarCrush Altrank is the best stats measure of Alts social marketing success out of 2100 popular Alts. We tested many marketing ploys to rank highly. When something works, it’s clear in LunarCrush. Competitions like AltWars simply work. This is the meaning of crypto exposure when the Altrank increases in LunarCrush which measures all social volume, % change per 24 hours, and social score. Even with our volume which only ranks 550 out of 2100 Alts, our Social Volume pushes us in front of much bigger tokens such as OMG, DOT, LINK, CHSB and others. Clearly our marketing is working.
The community support has been phenomenal. It’s been great to see how supportive the Verasians have been. We wouldn’t be anywhere without you guys! So thank you from the team.Especially during the AltWars contest recently… we owned! 👍🏼 Power of the Verasians. 🤝Q33)Have you heard about gaming projects Exeedme and Crowns and how can you compare them to Verasity?
We did! Exeedme is an exciting project revolving around gamers personal skill and players betting against themselves (user-centric) that is just at its very inception. They are not competitors as our model (Community, content and tournament centered) has broader purpose and we dont and wont support betting because it will be rejected by many of our partners.
Crowns Token, from Seascape, is a DeFi economy blockchain made for developers building their own online games but who cannot/don’t want to focus on the technical transactional side. Although they are very promising for simple browser and other types of games, they are just not targeting the Esports market and offer, at best, support for upcoming indie-browser games studios.
We would not be able to partner with Exeedme because of betting restrictions but Crowns could be interesting if the games developed are popular with our viewers.
Q34) Are there any plans in the near future (next several months) to list on an exchange that allows full KYC trading for US citizens (e.g. Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, Binance US, etc.)?
This is hard for us. The regulatory environment in the US is not friendly. Since we are not regulated in the US, the risk of listing on a US exchange and the SEC bringing a claim is quite high. At this time we are avoiding this. Lets see what happens with the new SEC Chair who is quite familiar with blockchain. Should he articulate straight forward rules that can be followed and which will not be changed every couple of months, we will consider it then.
Q35) What is:
1. Business structure
2. Marketing plan for next year
3. Customer acquisition costs
4. Execution plan on tech side to deliver
Business structure of Verasity:
Development team structure is flat with these functions:
Blockchain developers, Backend developers, highload & security developers, Full stack Developers, web/mobile frontend developers, mobile only devs, Testing & QA, Finance.
For more about the Verasity business model and forecast see:
Tokenomics , Forecast, News Update
Marketing plan for next year can be found here:
Marketing, Adoption, Tournaments 2021 (Updated)
Customer acquisition costs
We will provide CAC when we are profitable.
Execution plan
See the roadmap on verasity.io
And finally. the last question on the list…🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁Q36) Do you have an update on exchanges? The one that was hinted end of last year and more to come?
Very important issue for us and the community. We fully appreciate the necessity for additional volume and liquidity. After the last exchange hack and issues with OKEX, we were thrown off balance but had expected to list on a new exchange by now. Mistakenly we announced prematurely and then ran into the necessity of completing the VRA token swap before we list on a new exchange. Obviously, we want to now avoid having to swap tokens on a new exchange. So right after the majority of the current exchanges we are listed on complete the swap (this month), we will continue with our listing plans. We are well on the way with 2 exchanges but don’t think it’s prudent to provide more information until they announce the listing themselves. The expectation is still for at least one exchange in Q1. Please bear with us on this. We will get there.
Been a great AMA so far. Cleared up a lot of questions and hopefully made you all as excited for the future as we are. Tons of great new updates to Esports Fight Club coming this year and a prosperous year for Verasity is definitely ahead.Thank you Mark!Will be now opening the chat for the Verasians to ask some additional questions.Will be closing the chat shortly after and we can get some more answers out. The gates are opening! 😁
Additional questions
Q37) When the Verasity Game Jackpot price will be held again? We are waiting for so long.
New jackpots are coming onto the platform but for upcoming games like Ludo which will be announced later this month.
Q38) Is it possible to create something like a create your own tournament where I can play a 1vs1(or 2v2 5vs5) against another player(s) in any game anytime (like in 30 minutes) and where I can set for example a winning price of 100k VRA. and both players have to send 50k before the game to a smart contract and afterward it automatically gets sent to the winner?
Esports Fight Club allows users to create their own tournaments choosing from the available games list. We are constantly working on expanding the list of available games and are open for suggestions. The players deposit VRA to the Esports Fight Club account and use these funds to send money to the prize pool. It's quite simple to set up and you can do it for any amount and any number of players and as admin, you have complete control of the size of the pot, how it is shared in % for winners when to start, etc. Its a fully self managed platform that works now. Just go in and set it up today!
Q39) Hi Mark, regarding the plans for in-game advertising and in-game rewards this year, could you describe your vision on this? Is Verasity currently discussing this topic with certain game companies, and how exactly would it work in practice once achieved? Any details you can share with us would be highly appreciated!
The way we view in-game ads is our ability to provide our logo or some other image that would be part of the game interface, such as the floor or walls. This already exists and is popular. We are in discussions now with game developers to add Verasity/VRA. This is a high powered marketing tool that will get our name into many gamers’ faces. These are native images in effect. For advertisers that want to use native images inside our broadcasts or VOD, they get stitched into the ad server in parallel to the stream and we get paid for the ad inventory. In-game rewards are still in development but the vision is for users to be able to click on an object in the game and get rewarded for doing so, not dissimilar to clicking on an add and getting a higher CPM.
About Verasity.tv
REWARDS BASED PLATFORM FOR ESPORTS, GAMING AND VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT
Verasity provides proprietary technology uniquely rewarding gamers, viewers and publishers. Verasity is a crypto-based platform with the VRA token that aims to revolutionise the online advertising business. With its innovative Proof of View system, advertisers are able to guarantee their video ads are seen and not ignored thanks to smart contracts on the Ethereum chain, while viewers are able to earn VRA simply by watching the content they already consume. Verasity has a focus on gaming publishers and esports.

The first platform to provide user-generated esports and prize pool tournaments supported by both Fiat &Digital Tokens.
Video gaming content monetized by Verasity Ad Stackand Proof of View (PoV)
Enables tokenized rewards(VRA) as well as loyalty schemes within the video player VeraWallet
Supports over 2 million video publishers with our SDK products(overlay on video players) to increase engagement and revenues by 35%. See example publishersand videos here.

Verasity revenue streams include:
Game subscriptions, prize pool commissions and video ad revenues. Read about the tokenomics, forecast, buy back and burn here.
📖 Read our latest adoption metrics and one page overview
📈 Find where VRA (ticker) is trading onCoinMarketCap
VRA can be staked for 36.5% annual interest at https://verawallet.tv.
Follow Us:
Medium: https://medium.com/verasity
Twitter: https://twitter.com/verasitytech
Website: https://verasity.io
Telegram Token Discussion: https://t.me/Verasity_Official
Telegram Token Announcements: https://t.me/verasity
Verasity Gaming: https://t.me/verasity_gaming
Facebook: https://facebook.com/verasitytech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/verasity
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/verasity
Blockfolio Signals: Follow VRA to receive updates straight from the team
Join our local groups, we have support in the following languages
Brazilian chat 🇧🇷 — https://t.me/Verasity_BR
Indonesian chat 🇮🇩 — https://t.me/verasityindonesia
Japanese chat 🇯🇵 — https://t.me/verasityjapanese
Korean chat 🇰🇷 — https://t.me/Verasity_Korea
Persian chat 🇮🇷 — https://t.me/verasity_irn
Russian chat 🇷🇺 — https://t.me/VerasityRU
Spanish chat 🇪🇸 — https://t.me/verasity_spanish
Turkish chat 🇹🇷 — https://t.me/VerasityTR
Vietnamese chat 🇻🇳 — https://t.me/Verasity_Vietnam
Philippines chat 🇵🇭 — https://t.me/verasity_philippines
Indian chat 🇮🇳 — https://t.me/VerasityIndia
WeChat — PM @cryptomeo on Telegram
If you are a Game Developer or Video Publisher and want to grow your audience and revenue by 500% click thelinkto talk to the team
AMA with Verasity Founder, R J Mark was originally published in Verasity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
-- Integrate with Verasity:
👩‍💻verasity.tv
👊esportfightclub.com
🎮games.verasity.tv
🕊twitter.com/verasitytech

List of discounts and working promo codes in Dubai

Hello everyone, here's a list of discounts, promo codes and tips I found for myself, I thought to share it with you all - hope you can save yourself a few dirhams or get some free karaks!

✈️ Travel / Hotels / Transport

Klook - 15% off activities in the UAE with code KLOOKUAE
Etihad Guest - hack: when booking flights, always try to use or buy miles, you can buy up to 100,000 miles per year per person (if you have family members you can pool your miles) = e.g. 50k miles = 1return flights to the UK. There are often campaigns to buy miles with discounts (between 20-50%).
- Etihad Guest credit cards are good also to earn miles (see finance section below)
Emirates Skywards use 6700 miles to have a buy 1 get 1 app powered by Entertainer.
Jumeirah One / for Jumeirah Hotels
- Earn 2points for every 1 USD = 1.835 point per AED
- Spend 817 aed = 1500 points = 100 aed voucher (12% cashback)
- Complimentary one-night stay voucher after your first stay with Jumeirah
Uber - 50% off up to AED30 with code VISA50UAE
Careem - MC1RIDE first ride free (to be paid with Mastercard) / code MASTERCARD for 20% off up to 40 AED & 3 rides per month
Udrive - 30 minute free drive for first registration
Google Travel - hack: when booking for hotels or flights, search first on Google Travel to quickly find the cheapest travel dates.
Agoda - I always seem to find great hotel prices there + combine with a promo code, 12% off with code WR17JHD
Tajawal - good flight prices (search cheap dates first in Google Travel), 150 AED off with code NEW150 (first time use), 100 off with code NEXT, 15% off with a FAB card code FAB15.
Bonvoy - the loyalty program for all Mariott properties (including St Regis, Sheraton etc), good with the Emirates NBD bonvoy credit card (see finances section below).
Booking.com - 10% discount with the Genius loyalty program, discounts with ADIB booking card (see finances section below),
Relhat - book flights and hotels, around 200 AED off with bank cards, check latest deals
CAFU - 40 AED off petrol for 2 orders with code AIW8M4L, free delivery for 1 month with code AIW8M4L.
Cleartrip - Up to 30% off with Mastercard - code MASTERCARD
zdegree - Up to 65% off on tires

🥡 Food / Drinks & Groceries

Careem - 50% off first-time offer with code NOW. Good loyalty program.
Zomato - 50% off first 3 orders with code EAT50
Deliveroo - 10 AED off first 2 orders with code DCMNEW1
Let's DXB (Mr & Mrs Brunch) - hundreds of deals for dining, drinking or brunches in Dubai
Buy1 Get 1 Mastercard app (Entertainer Based)
Visa Offers (Entertainer Based)
The Entertainer App - 10% off with code EDS2020
Smiles - 2 for 1 deals, Carrefour cashback
Repeat - dine out discounts (Nandos, Burger Fuel, Din Tai Fung, Hard rock cafe, German Doner..)
Ubyemaar
- Dubai Aquarium & Zoo, Roves, Kidzania, Arabian Ranches Golf, Armani Restaurants, Atmosphere at Burj Khalifa, Reel Cinemas…
- 10-30% off / Roughly 5% cashback by earning/redeeming points
Paul
- Welcome offer + good loyalty program
- Flat 25% off all orders (pickup and delivery)
McDonalds
Share (Majid Al Futtaim brands, Carrefour etc)
Meraas Rewards (2 for 1 offers at Meraas places, CityWalk, Boxpark, Bluewaters, Last Exit, La Mer)
Ladies Night Dubai - discounts on drinks
Talabat - 15% off with code WELCOME15
NowNow - 20% off with ENBD card and code ENBD20 up to 20AED, 15% off up to 15 AED with code NO2 (all orders) / Waitrose, Spinneys, Choithram etc
Munch (by entertainer)
Carrefour - 25 AED Off first order (min 100 AED) with code New25
Casinetto - 20% off with code TASTE

🎥 Entertainment / Activities / Gaming

Motiongate / Dubai Parks - 2 for 1 (offer also with Entertainer)
IMG World - Free entry (instead of 20AED) with any Emirates NBD card, then 25 AED per ride or 135 AED unlimited rides.
CTC tourism - pretty good discounts on activities in the UAE (Theme parks, water parks, museums etc)
Klook - 15% off activities in the UAE with code KLOOKUAE
Meraas Rewards (2 for 1 offers at Meraas places, CityWalk, Boxpark, Bluewaters, Last Exit, La Mer)
Share (Majid Al Futtaim brands, Carrefour etc)
Cinemas - 2 for 1 discounts with pretty much any Visa credit card
Idle Heroes - video game - code IH777 to get forty free draws

🛍️ Shopping

Noon
- 5% off with code NOW
- 15% off with Mashreq card up to 75 AED off (min order AED 100)
- 20% off with Sharjah Islamic Bank card up to 50 AED off
- 15% off ADCB card up to 100 AED
- Noon VIP credit card (launch soon) 3.5% cashback + 500 AED joining bonus
- Try also these codes: Extra300 Extra200 Extra150 Extra50 Noon50 Get1
Amazon
- 15% off first order max AED 75 with code AMAZON15
Smiles App
- Powered by Etisalat, 2 for 1 offers + vouchers
- Noon cashback (buy a voucher and get cashback in Smiles points)
- Carrefour cashback (buy a voucher and get cashback in Smiles points)
Dubai Mall app
- Earn Emirates Skywards points for purchases at Dubai Mall shops
Blue rewards (2 for 1 offers at Al Futtaim brands)
- IKEA, ACE, ToysRus, Hertz, Ted Baker, Sandro, Orient, Maje, The Watch House, Guess, Marks & Spencer, BCBGMAXAZRIA, Kate Spade, Claude Pierlot, Aape, Jones, Al Futtaim Travel, Kiabi, Robinsons, Toyota, Lutétia, Lexus, Ba&sh, Healthub.
Meraas Rewards (2 for 1 offers at Meraas places, CityWalk, Boxpark, Bluewaters, Last Exit, La Mer)
Share (Majid Al Futtaim brands, Carrefour etc)
Festival Rewards (Entertainer based - discounts for outlets at Festival City Mall)
Honey - one of the best browser extension that picks up automatically the best promo code when shopping online (mostly for US/UK online shops)
Quidco - similar to Honey for UK websites, gives you cashback on online purchases
PriceRunner - super useful price comparison site
Sprii - 30% with code WOW30, otherwise pretty much 25% off discounts continuously, code WOW25
Mumzworld - 10% up to 50 AED with code AS33
Desertcart - 10% up to 50 AED with code DC34
Groupon - 15% off up to 70 AED with code WELCOME15
Next - find what you like in Next stores, then shop on their online store. Their prices are roughly 20-30% cheaper than in stores for the exact same product and delivery is generally quite fast.
ClickFlyer - browse different brochures from famous malls and shopping centres.
Pricena - compare prices of items from various e-shops (Noon/amazon/etc)
Cartlow - Pre-owned / Open-box / Refurbished and Clearance stock products.
Kanbkam noon vs Amazon price tracker - On amazon you find deals just by switching to US up to 65% less than amazon global through UAE setting.
Faces.com - FACES10 for 10% off first order (beauty: perfume - makeup - skincare), get additinionnal cashbback with FAB Smart Shop Smart (see finance section).

💡 Essential

Virgin Mobile - No contract, flexible plans) 79 AED cashback, 50% discount when buying monthly plans.
Smiles App - earn points on your Etisalat spends
Dubai Now app - to pay your utility bills

🍿 Streaming

Poolside FM - Free cool radio to listen to whilst you are making a good deal
Netflix - 50% off first 2months
Spotify - Free first month
Apple Music - Free for 3 months
Apple TV+- 1 year free when buying an Apple device

💸 Finances

Marriott Bonvoy Emirates NBD card- 200,000 joining miles (= 10 free nights in category 3/4 hotels, 4/5 nights in categories 5-7) + Gold status (free upgrades) - cost of
ADIB Etihad Guest - 50,000 joining miles (= free return flight to Europe)
- Comes with Smartdeals app (powered by Travelerpass – buy 1 get 1 + discounts at 1000+ places)
HSBC credit cards - free entertainer
Standard Chartered X (up to 10% discount on digital payments)
CBD One - Up to AED 500 per month cashback
New noon card- 3.5% cashback at Noon
CBD Digital current account – comes with offer section powered by Travelerpass – buy 1 get 1 discounts at around 200 places.
Liv account - 1.5% interest per year on your balance.
CBD eSaver account (Savings)
- 1 % interest on your balance (per year) for amounts above 100,000 aed (= 1,000 aed earned per year). 1.5% interest for 1,000,000 aed (=15k AED earned per year).
CBD Gold account
- Super easy way to buy and sell gold in their app
Revolut - best banking app for European expats
Payit - UAE wallet (by FAB) - various cashback offers
Tabby (buy now, pay later)
Pointpay - pay with your miles at Ecommerce websites
Citi- 1% cashback on all AED spends - up to 3% on non-AED spends
Transferwise - send money home - great for Europe / America
Denarii Cash - send money home - great for Philippines, India, Pakistan.
Finimize - good financial guides and info easy to understand by all.
Shop Smart by FAB to get cashback on top of some mentioned discounts (e.g. Sprii 5.25%) or Amazon (up to 6.75%). Only for FAB debit/credit cards. Quite a lot of UAE and international retailers.
eWallet - AED 50 cashback per month on utility bills / Salik. AED 50 minimum transaction value to get AED 5 cashback, so for AED 500 bill, just pay 10x AED 50.

💯 Discount sites & apps

Buy1 Get 1 Mastercard app (Entertainer Based)
Visa Offers (Entertainer Based) + Visa offers website
The Entertainer App - 10% off with code EDS2020
Smiles App
- Powered by Etisalat, 2 for 1 offers + vouchers
- Noon cashback (buy a voucher and get cashback in Smiles points)
- Carrefour cashback (buy a voucher and get cashback in Smiles points)
Groupon - 15% off up to 70 AED with code WELCOME15
Peody - cool discount app in the UAE
The point Habibi - a great blog about miles and discounts in the UAE.
- List of loyalty programs in the UAE: https://thepointshabibi.com/2020/10/19/dubai-6-loyalty-programs-that-you-must-sign-up-for-to-save-automatically/
- List of all promo Codes in Dubai and UAE: https://thepointshabibi.com/2020/10/25/careem-promo-codes-dubai-uae/
Points of Arabia - another good travel blog with tips and discounts.
Cobone - activity deals in the UAE
VoucherSkout - 50% off deals
Rezeem - discount codes for UAE websites
Vouchercodes UAE - discount codes for UAE websites
Picodi - discount codes for UAE websites

Disclaimer:
I am not sponsored nor paid/affiliated by any of the listed places, nor using any personal referral codes. It’s just my own findings that I use for myself that I want to share with you all. Thanks to the dubai community for sharing additional codes and tips in the comments 🤩
Note, the discounts are working as of 23 October 2020, they will most likely expire within a few weeks.

The Storming of the Capitol and the New War on Terror

The recent mob action the Capitol has been described by some of the most powerful news and media organizations in the U.S. as a coup and an insurrection. Many liberals have been quick to take up similar articulations, and have generally been receptive to the idea that what seems to have been mostly a ragtag bunch of conspiracy theorists and hooligans that broke into the Capitol building (with assistance from the Capitol Police) are a real threat to Biden’s confirmation as President and to “our democracy.” This raises questions about the actual threat that these forces posed to the political system of presidential and congressional elections in the U.S., and the nature of this system itself; is it really a democracy for the people?
These questions are all the more important because a broad consensus is emerging among many of the U.S. elite that there is a need to roll out more “counter-terrorism” laws in the wake of this incident, with these laws specifically focused on “domestic terrorism.” A broad section of liberal and self-identified progressive people are supportive of this, with some even going so far as to help the FBI and other law enforcement identify those who marched into the Capitol building. However, much like with the Patriot Act—which was hurriedly passed in the wake of 9/11 and nominally aimed at fighting terrorism—it is clear that these laws will be aimed at broadly suppressing dissent. While politicians are quick to promise that these proposed laws would target “violent extremists” and white supremacist forces, the reality is that many of these measure are indistinguishable from the “anti-rioting” bills that were proposed in states throughout the country during the George Floyd uprisings.
All of this requires that we look closely at the events that occurred as well as the larger political situation in this country. This is all the more important as many of the those now calling for new counter-terrorism laws, who decry the use of violence for political ends, have in fact built their careers on systematic violence and slaughter which dwarfs the scuffles and scraps that occurred at the Capitol. These include people like Joe Biden (who supported the 1994 Crime Bill, the invasion of Iraq, and many other such measures) and Jon Brennan (Obama’s head of the CIA who ran the drone-strike assassination program), as well as many Bush-Era officials who pioneered the Patriot Act, supported the use of torture, and oversaw the genocidal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. When politicians and officials like these—in conjunction with the billionaires who run the Big Tech companies—are presenting themselves as heroic defenders of democracy, and urging us to support new laws and policies which further restrict our rights and civil liberties, it should have us very worried.
Hooliganism by Any Other Name is Still Just Hooliganism
The hysterical and over-the-top reactions to the events at the Capitol show that many Americans are unfamiliar with the nature of coups, despite the fact that the U.S. government has been the architect of some of the most brutal and bloody in modern history. For example, from 1965-1967 the CIA-orchestrated an anti-communist genocide in Indonesia which left several million dead and replaced former anti-colonial leader and bourgeois democratic President Sukarno with the dictator Suharto, who would go on to rule the country for three decades, presiding over the massacre of at least 100,000 people in East Timor in the late 1970s, among other atrocities. Or take the coup in Chile after Salvador Allende won the 1970 presidential election. The U.S. worked with right-wing members of the Chilean military to lead a coup in 1973, which included bombing the Presidential Palace, the execution of Allende, the murder of thousands, and the imprisonment of tens of thousands in the first days of the coup alone.
When compared to these and other coups throughout modern history, the recent events in the Capitol come into better focus. Instead of being a coup or an insurrection—both of which generally involve barricades, armed combat, and a coordinated plan to overthrow the government—the mob at the Capitol more closely resembled the drunken riots that sometime follow after a local sports team losses a major game. A bit of drunken and disorderly conduct, some civil disobedience, a few people hurting themselves or trampling others, some relatively minor property damage, etc. One of the main differences in this case is that this riot occurred in the Capitol building with the tacit blessing of a relatively weak and disorganized president, instead of in the neighborhood around a sports arena.
In a piece written the day after the riot, independent journalist Glenn Greenwald put it well:

One need not dismiss the lamentable actions of yesterday to simultaneously reject efforts to apply terms that are plainly inapplicable: attempted coup, insurrection, sedition. There was zero chance that the few hundred people who breached the Capitol could overthrow the U.S. Government — the most powerful, armed and militarized entity in the world — nor did they try. […] There is a huge difference between, on the one hand, thousands of people shooting their way into the Capitol after a long-planned, coordinated plot with the goal of seizing permanent power, and, on the other, an impulsive and grievance-driven crowd more or less waltzing into the Capitol as the result of strength in numbers and then leaving a few hours later. That the only person shot was a protester killed by an armed agent of the state by itself makes clear how irresponsible these terms are. There are more adjectives besides “fascist treason” and “harmless protest,” enormous space between those two poles. One should not be forced to choose between the two.

While a section of Trump supporters are sympathetic to fascist politics and there were some outright fascists at the riot, it is far from the case that this romp through the Capitol building was an attempt to lead a fascist coup. What’s more it should give many pause many critics of the riot are using the same language to describe the Capitol building as the rioters themselves. Both are calling it the “people’s house.”
This term raises further questions, question about the very nature of the U.S. government itself. If one is willing to accept the idea that the Capitol building is the people’s house—and again, both the rioters and their critics have promoted this idea—then it follows that the present form of society, government, and the overall status-quo is basically just, and that the key thing is to prevent a corrupt and dangerous group from seizing control of this supposed “house of the people.” In the view of the riotous Trump supporters, this danger was Biden and his allies stealing the election and establishing an authoritarian form of government—which they often refer to as “Left wing” fascism—that would steal the power from the people. In the view of the liberals who are now eagerly pushing for the roll-out of new repressive laws, this danger was Trump and his supporters stealing the election and establishing a fascist dictatorship.
The parallel between these two narratives is more than incidental, it reflects an underlying misconception of U.S. society common to the two. It’s helpful to step back and reflect on the nature of the U.S. government and the status quo.
Democracy in the U.S.?
Over the past four years liberal and progressive media have peddled the narrative that Trump and his lackies constitute an existential threat to U.S. democracy. Everyone from major companies like Coca-Cola and Twitter, to George W. Bush himself have lined up behind this idea. Numerous Neocons, Billionaires, and members of the “Intelligence Community,” long reviled by the U.S. left and even liberals, have taken this opportunity to rehabilitate and rebrand themselves as courageous members of the #Resistance, standing up against the supposedly imminent threat of fascism.
However, these supposed freedom fighters are often the same people who have made billions of dollars off of the backs of the poor and working people of this country. They are the architects of the War on Terror, mass surveillance, CIA black sites for torture, the militarization of the police, the system of mass incarceration, and so much more. They are the one who have led the charge of capitalist accumulation in the face of unprecedented ecological destruction and have been more than happy to initiate genocidal foreign wars and sponsor far-right dictators around the world.
These narratives about Trump being an existential threat to “our democracy” have served to distract Americans from the basic fact that this country is not run by the people or for the people. Democracy in the U.S. has never meant the people having real democratic control of society. The so-called “Founding Fathers” envisioned as their model the Roman Republic, which was a slave society in which the vast majority of people were denied basic rights and participation in the political system. While there is no longer slavery in the U.S., and things have changed a bit since the founding of this country, the system of control by a wealthy elite is how the country is run to this very day. With the rise of immense corporate wealth and power combined with a continuous assault on organized resistance and genuine workers unions for decades, democratic privileges and rights are arguably at a low point in America at present.
Of course, it is true that things could always get worse, and we are not yet living in a fascist country or a police state in which the people are stripped of even their most basic rights and civil liberties. However, over the past few decades we have seen one administration after another strip away right after right, and impose new and draconian measures on the people of this country in the name of protecting “our freedom.” The government now spies on all of our phone calls, records every click we make and letter we type on the internet, forces us to be x-rayed every time we get on a plane, tracks our every movement via our cellphones, and more.
These curtailments of rights and civil liberties have been a consistent feature of both Democratic and Republican administration, they are nothing new with Trump. He just continued the decades-long trend in a somewhat more blatant and ham-handed fashion. And looking at the broader picture, in a country where around 80% of people are living paycheck-to-paycheck, we have no real democratic say on the major economic issues of the day. We don’t have the option to vote for better pay and fewer hours, for lower rent and better housing, or for an end to corporate tax breaks—since most major corporations pay nearly no taxes, while working Americans pay around one third of their income in taxes. Working-class workplaces are generally very oppressive, where people have nearly no say in how anything is run, and workers are often forced to endure racism and sexual harassment as part of their daily experiences on the job. Generally, speaking up about these things results in retaliation and a prompt firing, and all the things that come with this (loss of income, risk of homelessness, etc.). So much for democracy.
The situation in the U.S., far from being a democracy by the people and for the people, instead resembles Karl Marx’s famous statement that “The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.” The political system provides us with little say on much else besides this.
In contrast to the common people, the wealthy and the big corporations have immense influence on policy and politicians. They spend billions of dollars lobbying—a legalized form of bribery—and make massive campaign donations—another legalized form of bribery—to ensure that their interests are looked after from one administration to the next. The standard policy for most big companies is to “hedge their bets” by donating to the campaigns of both parties, and doing so is one way in which they protect their interests regardless of who ends up in office.
The Research Unit on Political Economy—based in India—offered a succinct summary of how decisions are really made in the U.S. political system:

The US ruling classes generally adopt a drawn-out process in the course of which they reconcile and resolve the often conflicting demands of their own various sections. Typically, apart from legislators and the press, a proliferation of research institutes, semi-governmental bodies, and academic forums circulate proposals voicing the case of one or the other lobby (leaving the administration free to deny that they constitute official policy). These proposals elicit objections from other sections, through similar media; other powerful countries too press their interests, directly or indirectly; and the entire discussion, in the light of the strength of the respective interests, helps shape the course of action finally adopted, and helps coalesce the various ruling class sections around it. (This process of course has nothing to do with democratic debate, since the people are excluded as participants, and are included only as a factor to be taken into account.)

In one sense, this system is no democracy at all. The interests and wishes of the vast majority are ignored, or even trampled, by a wealthy and powerful elite, as they debate among themselves on how best to preserve and expand their wealth and power. In another sense, the U.S. can be described as a democracy, but a democracy in which only the rich and powerful have any real say. Sure, the common people have the right to vote, but we only get to vote for one representative or another of the elite.
And in fact, the politicians, these elected officials and supposed lawmakers do very little to actually craft the legislation themselves. For example, the $900 billion coronavirus stimulus bill which was passed this past December was part of a 5,600 page document called the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. The final text of the bill was released at 2pm on December 21, 2020, and voted on two hours later. Even with any army of aides, there is no way that Congresspeople would have been able to read even a tenth of the bill in that time. And yet it was passed into law by a wide margin. This example is not exceptional, in fact it is quite typical of how legislation is written and passed into law in the U.S.
It’s important to be clear about the nature of the U.S. political system if we are to understand the riot at the Capitol, and figure out how to respond to it. Narratives about Trump’s band of hooligans posing an imminent threat to U.S. democracy are doubly misleading. First, the riot that sprawled into the Capitol building was nothing close to a coup attempt or an insurrection. Second, and more importantly, these narratives serve to obscure the true nature of U.S. society, they cover over the fact that this is a country run by and for the rich, in which the poor and oppressed seen both as a source of cheap labor and a potential threat to the powerful.
Over-simplified narratives that have portrayed Trump as an existential threat to the status-quo cover over just how bad the status-quo really is. They also paint numerous oppressors and members of the ruling elite—many of whom have a long history of repressive actions at home and abroad—as courageous heroes, bravely standing up to the threat of fascism. All of this is quite disorienting for activists and movements seeking to bring about positive social change.
Of course, despite the difficult situation in this country things could always get worse. In fact, at present there is a major danger of a significant crackdown on protests, a further erosion of civil liberties, and the continued development of the police state. However, this threat is not primarily due to Trump; instead, cracking down on Trump supporters is being used to justify this new “War on Domestic Terror.” This is worth examining in more detail.
A New War on Terror, This Time at Home
Anyone familiar with the impact of the U.S. war on terror abroad should be terrified by the prospect of the government launching a new “War on Domestic Terror.” While the official target of the War on Terror was those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, nearly two-decades later it is clear this policy had a far wider impact. The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan destabilized the countries, left millions dead, and U.S. troops remain in both countries to this day. The U.S. also launched a massive drone-strike program which has impacted dozens of countries, created a system of electronic surveillance aimed at spying on everything everyone in the world does online, and has poured trillions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money into expanding the military’s capability to slaughter human beings across the globe.
Given this history, it is particularly important to keep in mind one lesson: it was the common people in places like Iraqi and Afghanistan who suffered the most as a result of the War on Terror. Instead of primarily targeting the architects of 9/11 and their allies, the U.S. government used the War on Terror as a justification to invade and plunder these countries, and to launch a series of devastating military operations around the world to secure the political and economic interests of the U.S. elite and associated multinational corporations. For example, during the U.S. invasion and occupation a huge number of Iraqi civilians were kidnapped off the streets, tortured, and in many cases killed. This was revealed in Seymour Hersh’s reporting on the disgusting and degrading forms of sexual torture done by the U.S. military and intelligence in the Abu Ghraib prison. Whole cities in Iraq were destroyed, reduced to rubble in the name of fighting terrorism and bringing freedom to the people of the country. While the War on Domestic Terror will almost certainly not involve the bombing of cities in the U.S., the brutality with which the original War on Terror was waged is quite concerning, as it shows the ways in which the government has been willing to oppress, arrest, torture, and even slaughter civilians in the name of fighting terrorism. It is woefully naive to assume that the government will hesitate to treat American citizens as enemy combatants, especially given the long-record of domestic repression in this country.
It is particularly striking that many of those who were so critical of the War on Terror are now calling for a new one to be launched within the domestic U.S. The specifics of this new policy are somewhat unclear, as terrorism is already illegal, and there is already domestic surveillance of everyone in the country. However, a look at some of the laws now being proposed across the country can give us a sense of who will be the real target of this policy.
Take for example, the anti-rioting bill proposed by Florida governor Ron DeSantis. This law was original proposed by DeSantis during the George Floyd protests and includes a series of new repressive measures, including preventing people who are arrested during protests deemed to be riots from being released from jail before their first court appearance, and creating new felonies for organizing or participating in a protest that turned violent, potentially even if one did not participate in the violence oneself. What’s more, we saw during the George Floyd protests how police repeatedly instigated violence and then portrayed protesters as violent when they took basic measures to protect themselves. The fact that this bill was first introduced over the summer makes it clear that the main target of such laws is not white supremacist and fascist groups (who the police are generally happy to collaborate with), but rather the masses of people in this country, especially those protesting for progressive social change.
Beyond this one bill in Florida, there series of efforts around the country, including to expand the scope of the federal Anti Riot Act which was created in 1968 in response to mass demonstrations in Washington D.C. against the war in Vietnam. What’s more, Biden has promised to make passing a new law against domestic terrorism a priority in the first 100 days of his presidency. In January, 2020 he sponsored an anti-terrorism bill, which while nominally focused on white supremacist groups, also cited the dangers of “masked Antifa supporters” as well attacks on police officers. During the George Floyd Protests, Biden repeatedly emphasized that he opposed left wing protests that were not peaceful, and stated that he thought “arsonists and anarchists should be prosecuted”.
All of this helps to clarify that even if the Proud Boys and members of other fringe groups are targeted by these new laws in large numbers, the U.S. elite will also use these new laws to go after other groups it sees as a threat to its power and existence. Biden and others' responses to the George Floyd protests showed how concerned the elite are about mass movements against police brutality, white supremacy, and related inequalities. The FBI has already labeled anarchists and “Black Identity Extremists” as major existential threats to the existing U.S. political system, and has devoted significant counter-terrorism resources to monitoring and disrupting the activities of these groups. Much like with the original War on Terror, the actual policy of the new “War on Domestic Terror” will differ significantly from the stated aim.
Biden, his allies, and the U.S. elite are happy to use the riot at the Capitol as a pretext for rolling out a series of new repressive laws. Unfortunately four years of corporate media fear-mongering about Trump’s supposedly imminent plans to establish fascism in the U.S. have left many blind to other dangers. While Trump and his hooligans are dangerous, most the U.S. elite has now lined up behind Joe Biden and they are eager to use this opportunity to push for a massive expansion of their repressive powers to quell an increasingly rebellious population. The liberal left’s fixation on the danger posed by Trump seems to have left them paralyzed, unable to understand or effectively oppose the New War on Terror. Some signs indicate that, at least initially, many are unfortunately eager to support it.
About us: We're the Revolutionary United Front, a revolutionary organization in the U.S. organizing in the Greater Boston, New York, and San Francisco areas. We're working to support and advance various people’s struggles ranging from anti-war, immigrant, and international solidarity.

best online gaming sites in india video

Best Online Rummy Sites in India. There are many Indian rummy websites that can offer you the best gaming experience.The Indian game development companies compete and offer the best rummy gaming experience to the online rummy players.The reputed online rummy websites in India provided praiseworthy services where the players could comfortably enjoy the game. Find the best online casinos in India only at Lucky Raja. Select your favorite slot and start playing the most exciting online casino games with your friends. Top Online Casinos in India - We bring you the best casino sites . Casino.org के 2021 में रिकमंडेड भारतीय ऑनलाइन कैसीनो ... LeoVegas Casino. Leovegas is a world-class casino serving people globally and now has a top online casino site for India as well. It is regulated by the Malta Gaming Authority, one of the leading licensing bodies in the world. This SSL encrypted website is created for Indians to use both on computers and smartphones. Download Games for (Platforms): One of the best PC gaming websites. GOG.com; GOG.com is an online gaming platform providing popular old games in new format. As one of the best gaming websites for PC, GOG.com is a digital distribution platform for highly customised and up-to-date games. It provides a curated collection of DRM-free games, modern hits and classics. Online Casinos in India and Their Currencies . Based in India or merely hoping to play in rupees, you’re probably looking to play at an online casino in Indian rupees.On that note, no matter which AskGamblers’s Indian online casino review you open, you will be able to see which currencies are accepted. If the casino accepts and allows you to play in Indian rupees, you’ll have it clearly ... The simple interface and simple to play approach make this website one of the best gaming platform in India. 4. Zapak. Zapak is one of the oldest and in fact finest gaming website in India which has a lot of games available. The best thing about this website is they have updated their categories with respect to the demand and craze of gamers. Presently, there are around 100 games which you can play on Zapak and all the games are simply the best.

best online gaming sites in india top

[HINDI] Building Custom Gaming PC in INDIA ! - YouTube

Hi Everyone this is Bhavya and in this video,I have shown you Best Websites for Pc Games (Officialy) Topics Covered :-- Best Pc Games Sites- Top Pc Games Sit... Website : https://www.themvp.in/Hello doston aj hum is video me baat karne wale hai custom PC building ke baare me or apko bataenge ki ap apne lie kis tarah ... Hey friends: today I am going to tell you about Top 10 best free chatting sites in the world 2017. So I wants to introduce of chatting Before online chatting... #DOwnloadPcgames #latestPcgames #FreeDownloadTop Best Sites For Latest Pc Games Download In Hindi 1000% workinglink chaheye to video dekhni pdegi :p tags b... Top 10 OPEN WORLD GAMES by Rockstar and Gameloft for Android - High Graphics 2020 :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V74fVSjVdFc --~-- GTA 5 FUNNY MULTIPLAYER ... WIN BIG Prize: https://bit.ly/2Y8d88uGet 100% More Cash : TIBGHello doston aj hum is video me baat karne wale hai used PC parts ke bare me or apko bataenge k... Enter Giveaway from here : https://youtu.be/ElxiUonadzwHello doston aj hum is video me apko btaenge ki kon kon si websites se ap free me games dowsnloads kar... Top 5 Survey Websites in India PTC Websites Earn Money Online Praveen DilliwalaIn this video we will discuss top 5 survey websites in India in which yo... Hello Friends: Maine Is Video Me Aap Sabhi Ko Best Online Casino Site Ke Bare Me Bataya Hai Jahan Aap Sabhi Jackpot Game Khel Kar Paise Win Kar Sakte Hai.Vid... Thanks for 62.1k SUbscribers.Link - https://androidhackers.io/pubg-mobile/Check out the top best battle royale games for both android and iOS devices. Join M...

Top 10 Indian Online Casinos - Best Online Casino Sites in ...

best online gaming sites in india

best online gaming sites in india - win

Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis