I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
 
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to.
Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547
I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can.
I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts.
Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T

Intro

• "The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
  • "I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
• "For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
  • "We're spread way too thin."
• "If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
• RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
  • Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
  • ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
  • Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
  • Widespread match fixing
  • The Pandemic
    • "People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
    • "People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
      • "To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
      • "Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
      • "People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
• "It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
  • RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
    • He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.

CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association

"Who does this union really fucking serve?"

• RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
  
  • He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
    • He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
      • He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
    • Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
    • RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
    • Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
      • "and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
• He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
  
  • "We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
  • He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
  • "They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
• He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
  
  • He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
    • He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
  • He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
    • RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
  • "I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
  • "Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
    • "Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
    • "That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
• He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
  
• He also says their rankings are a joke
  
  • "Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
• He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
  
• "Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
  

ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission

"They have been put in an impossible position."

• RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
• "ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
  • "Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
  • "Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
    • Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
      • Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
  • "They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
    • "They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
• ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
  • He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
    • Also says more coaches being banned are coming
    • He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
• ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
  
  • "I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
  • "So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
    • "Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
• RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
  

Stream Sniping

"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"

• RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
  • On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
    • "Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
      • He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
        • He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
        • The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
        • "ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
• He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
• "All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
  • He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?

Match Fixing

"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."

• RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
  • "Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
• "Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
• Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
  • Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
    • They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
      • "I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
        • "Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
• RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
• "There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
  • "It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
• "It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
  • "I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
• He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
• "That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
  • "All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
• "I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."

North America

"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."

• RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
• There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
• He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
  • RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
  • He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
• He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
  • He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
    • They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
    • When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
    • "was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
    • He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
• He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
  • He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
• He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
  • He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
• He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
• He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
  • Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
• RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
• RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."

Talent

"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."

• RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
• He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
• Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
• He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
  • He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
• He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
• He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
• New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
• He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
• He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
• He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."

Valve

"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"

• Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
  • Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
• In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
• RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
• He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
• RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
  • A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
  • RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
  • RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
• RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
• Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
  • They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
• RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
  • Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
• He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
• Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
  • RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
• "It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
  • Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
• "Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
• "People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."

Closing Statements

"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."

• RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
• "We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
• "There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
• "How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
• "Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
• "The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
  • He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
• He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
  • "If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
    • "They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
• He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
• "Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
• "This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
• "You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
  • "Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
• "Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
  • "You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
• "I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
  • "I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
• "I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."

Also on my blog with better formatting, cute footnotes and inlined images.
Note that not much here is new material, mostly rehashing existing points.

Disclaimer

This article started out as research for my betting against Bitcoin on the stock market. This isn't financial advice. As a matter of fact, I encourage all readers you to not buy or short crypto, through any market or derivative. Use your money for productive uses.
Here's a TL;DR:

1. The current parabolic price increase in Bitcoin is a bubble that has started popping.
   
2. A stablecoin called Tether is either one of the largest frauds or money laundering operation in history, and is providing most of the liquidity in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
   
3. A BTC bubble pop, incoming regulation on stablecoins or the current NYAG investigation into tether will expose tether's insolvency to the crypto market. This is bigger than it sounds.
   
4. (Speculative, but one can hope) Current prices to mine BTC could end up higher than BTC market price, exposing BTC to a 51% attack.
   

A Recap: Bitcoin is useless and should go away

Bitcoin serves no purpose. Let's just rehash that by quickly debunking the major claimed uses over time as seen here

• Proof of concept: No argument here, but now that the market cap of cryptocurrencies is closing in on a $700B, this seems moot.
  
• Cheap Payment Network: Nonsense, since BTC transactions are currently >$10 and this worsens the more people use it.
  
• Anonymous Darknet Currency: I'd have said "no argument here", but apparently it's surprisingly easy to trace BTC nowadays. However, crypto ecosystem as a whole seems to do a decent job at laundering money as we'll see later.
  
• Reserve Currency for Crypto: Since a reserve currency should be useful as a means of exchange, and I wrote several thousand words on how BTC is not that, my position is pretty clear. Also, the fact that a cryptocurrency indexed to the US dollar has trounced BTC as the main means of exchange in the crypto ecosystem speaks for itself.
  
• Programmable Shared Database: You know what's programmable, shared and a database? The database we use at work. Just learn to implement access control lists on your SQL server.
  
• Uncorrelated Financial Asset: Given BTC crashed just like the rest of the market when COVID showed up, this doesn't hold up
  

The stupidest version of the "uncorrelated asset" argument I hear is "Bitcoin is a great hedge for inflation!"
You know what's a good "hedge for inflation"? Literally anything. The definition of inflation is "the price of money". If the price of money goes down (inflation) then everything else has a positive return by comparison.
People who say "bitcoin is a good hedge for inflation" shouldn't be trusted to manage their own money, let alone give financial advice to anyone.

• Censorship Resistant e-Gold: This is a roundabout way of saying "BTC is a store of value"! Which, again, can only be said by people who've never read the definition of "store of value" in a textbook.

I already went into detail into this, but BTC is a terrible store of value because it's volatile. Assets that can lose 20% of value overnight don't "store value". BTC is a "vehicle for speculation".
The only way price is sustained for BTC is that you can find some other idiot to sell it to. Just as a reminder, 50% of Gold is used for things that aren't speculation, like Jewelry, so you'll never have to worry finding a seller there.
Here are some real uses for bitcoin:

• Gambling is fun. You buy BTC, the price might go up! Or down! This is exciting.
  
• Hackers, money launderers and other criminals certainly find cryptocurrencies useful.
  

Reminder: BTC is an ecological scourge
The current cost to mine a BTC is around $8000 in electricity. This electricity mostly comes from subsidized coal in China.
And given the current amount of BTC generated each day, we're using about equivalent to the electricity from all of Belgium, largely in coal, to keep this going.
I don't mind wasting time on intellectual curiosities, but destroying our planet for glorified gambling is not something I'm happy about. I want cryptocurrencies to go away entirely on this basis, philosophically.

Current BTC prices are a bubble

Before we go into tether, reminder that at the time of writing, the plot of BTC price against the S&P500 looks like this
BTC price has increased by ~800% since March. Still, no one uses it for anything useful since the last bubble in 2017, or the other one before that in 2013. This is another bubble however you put it.
BTC is not "new technology"
10 years the internet became popular, Google and Amazon already existed. We're 8 years after the popular emergence of deep learning and it has already revolutionized machine translation, computer vision and natural language processing in general.
You could argue that deep learning and the internet existed before their emergence, but so did cryptocurrencies. Look up b-money and hashcash for instance.
Bitcoin has existed since 2008 and emerged in popularity around the same time as deep learning did, yet we're still to find actual uses for it except speculation and criminal uses. It's a solution waiting for a problem.
Institutional investors are also idiots
The narrative this time is that "institutional investors" are buying into BTC. This doesn't mean it's not a bubble.
Many of the institutions were buying through Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. Rather, many of them were chasing the premium over net asset value that hovered around 20%. Basically, lock money in GBTC for 6 months, cash out and collect the premium as profit. Of course, this little Ponzi couldn't last forever and the premium seems to be evaporating now.
Similarly, totally-not-a-bitcoin-ETF-wearing-a-software-company-skinsuit Microstrategy (MSTR) trades at a massive premium over fundamentals.
There will always be traders chasing bonuses from numbers going up, regardless what is making the number going up. The same "institutional investors" were buying obviously terrible CDOs in the run-up to 2008.

Tether is lunacy

Tether is a cryptocurrency whose exchange rate is supposed to be pegged to the US Dollar. Initially this was done by having 1-to-1 US Dollar reserves for each tether issued. Then they got scammed by their money launderer, losing some $800M, which made them insolvent.
Anyway, now tether maintains their reserves are whatever they want them to be and they haven't gotten audited since 2017.
You know, normal stuff.
There's a problem to backing your USD-pegged security with something that isn't US Dollars. Namely, if the price of the thing you're backing your US Dollars against goes down, you're now insolvent. If you were backing $10B in tether with $10B of bitcoin, then the bitcoin drops by half, you're insolvent by $5B.
And then this spotlessly clean company they somehow added $20B to their balance sheet in the second half of 2020
Reminder: one side of that balance sheet is currently floating around the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Cryptocurrency traders own it as an asset and sell it to others. The other half of the balance sheet is whatever tether wants.
There are only two possibilities that explain tether's growth:

• Massive unbacked issuances, because they're afraid their scam has run its course.
  
• Money laundering. Lots of it.
  

It could also be a happy mix of both.
One particularly interesting date is 30/8/2020, where tether added $3B to its balance sheet overnight. This is interesting because it predates the subsequent movement in bitcoin price and large movements in other cryptocurrencies.
The story from tether and tether's bank's CEO is that this money largely comes from foreign nationals through an OTC desk which implies the transaction goes as following:

1. A foreign national sends money in a foreign currency to an OTC desk. This is exactly as clean as you'd think -- often raw cash transactions in the millions.
   
2. That OTC desk converts the money to USD and sends it to tether's correspondent US bank. The OTC desk gives tether to the foreign national.
   
3. Wait tether has a correspondent US bank?
   

Oh, I forgot to mention, no bank wants tether as a customer because they obviously break KYC/AML compliance. So tether first bought invested in a bank called Noble which then lost its relationship with Wells-Fargo when they realized tether were lying to them about AML. Poor tether lost its legal access to USD.
Tether has been banking in the Bahamas with a bank called Deltec since. First they had a money launderer called Crypto Capital Corp to send funds to customers, who stole the $800M from them and subsequently went to jail.
But worry not! Tether found a way to get banked in USD afterwards. Curious coincidence, an executive at Deltec was randomly blogging about buying small US community banks in 2018. You know, that thing money launderers do.
So tether's story is that in 2020, they took in roughly twenty billion USD of shady foreign money into the small community US bank their deltec bankers bought. These transactions are necessarily breaking KYC/AML. The foreign parties to those transactions wouldn't take such a rickety route to convert billions into cryptocurrencies if they weren't laughed out of the room in serious banks.
But of course, Deltec will say it did KYC on tether. Really solid KYC, clearly, since they're the last bank on earth taking tether's business. Tether says they do KYC on their customers (the large OTC desks). And I'm sure the OTC desks would be shocked, shocked if the cash money they get in Russia and China turns out to be dirty. So everyone can pass the buck of responsibility down the road and claim "We do KYC on our customers".
Sure you do, tether. If you did such great KYC, you wouldn't have such problems finding banking relationships. I mean when even HSBC is not doing business with you you're apparently more obviously moving criminal money than fucking drug cartels.
And, according to tether's people, this money is what's backing tether's reserves. Money that will get frozen the instant a prosecutor even looks at it.
Reminder: the above is the charitable, positive case for tether.
The less charitable case is that they took crayons and added zeros to their balance sheet, and that there's a couple billions waiting to burn a hole in the crypto ecosystem.
Anyway, the $25B garbage fire that is tether will make a great book/netflix series at some point and their hilariously stupid CTO going on podcasts while flinching on questions about how BTC ended up on their balance sheet will be a fun part of it.
But I'm not here to write a book, I'm here to make money by shorting all of this. For my purposes, even in the positive case tether is a ticking time bomb waiting to burn a hole in the crypto ecosystem, because...

KYC and AML are coming for cryptocurrencies

If you listen to "crypto news", all incoming crypto regulation is just great, because that means crypto is becoming legit. However, companies investing in crypto are very angry about them.
This is because crypto transactions break the FinCEN travel rule, where KYC information should "travel" along transactions, to prevent money laundering obfuscation schemes.
Of course, according to the crypto industry this is "stifling innovation". A more reasonable take is that by being leaving the crypto industry outside normal financial regulations, we're enabling a "race to the bottom". As we saw with shadow banks in the 2000-2007 era this leads to "creative banking". I don't want my bankers to be creative, I want them to be solvent.

Tether's effect on the crypto ecosystem

When tether implodes, it's taking most of the crypto industry along for a fun ride. Tether can implode in one of a few ways:

1. A BTC price crash triggers it. If
   
2. Regulators decide they've had enough of AML avoidance and regulate them.
   
3. The NYAG investigation, which is waiting for an update in a few weeks, finds something and shuts them out.
   

Let's assume tether falls to $0 for simplicity. The analysis is the same directionally if tether significantly "breaks the buck".
This doesn't happen instantly, but it happens quickly. The peg breaks, and most people holding tether will try to sell it for other crypto (BTC, ETH, etc.). This puts downward pressure on the price of tether, incentivizing even more people to "pass the buck". Automated inter-exchange arbitrage bots might try to exploit emerging gaps in bid-ask spreads, only to end up with worthless tether instead, as their operators rush to pull the plug.
Then, we have a small village of cryptocurrency enthusiasts being out some $24B. With the trading bots turned off and the trading lubricant (a dollar pegged asset) gone, the bid-ask spreads blow up. You get a predictable flight to safety -- that is, to real money. This puts downward pressure on BTC.
While all of this is happening, there are all sorts of fun second-order effects happen. A lot of DeFi derivative products are priced in cryptocurrencies, so having normally stable prices shuffle around (eg. USDC price moving above $1 in a flight to safety) triggers a tsunami of margin calls. Some exchanges might insolvent (they're the ones redeeming tether for USD after all).

If BTC price drops below $8000, fun things happen

Currently, the price to mine a BTC is roughly $8000. Most of the mining comes from huge mining farms using subsidized coal in China, and mining costs more the more hardware there is to mine it.
Since the price of BTC hasn't substantially dropped below cost to mine we're in for a fun experiment if the price drops below this threshold. Most of these farms should turn off so that the price to mine comes back to breakeven in a case of prisoner's dilemma.
But if too much hardware turns off, this leaves mining hardware idle and the door becomes wide open to a 51% attack. It's not clear at what price below breakeven cost to mine a 51% attack becomes a serious threat, but once this threshold is crossed, we're in the "irreparable harm to BTC" risk zone.
And for a person like me, who just wants to see crypto disappear forever this is very exciting.
Maybe those mining farms could be replaced with nice forests soaking up all the carbon they emitted for posterity. One can hope.

How do I bet against all of this?

Microstrategy (MSTR) is, at this point, a bitcoin ETF wearing the skinsuit of a dying software company.
Michael Saylor, MSTR's CEO, is quite the character. I wrote a lot about his lack understanding of what a currency is, but it's on another level to look at the early stages of a bubble pop and decide this is a good time to buy $10M more of the stuff, as seen here
However, this bubble is tame by Michael's standards. Look at the historical stock of his company
What's happening on the left is that Saylor pumped the numbers with accounting fraud then the SEC took issue with the fake numbers. The stock dropped 90% practically overnight. Their accountants, PWC, paid $51M in fines. Saylor and friends paid fines, partly with company stock.
You could also short GBTC, but when Mr. Saylor provides you with an options market instead, why not use it? Shorting on crypto exchanges that might become insolvent in the very event you want to happen with this bet is a bad idea, on the other hand.

Mike can't cash out

The bitcoin market is illiquid and leveraged when it comes to real money coming in and leaving the ecosystem. Buys in the $10M-$100M seemingly move the price of BTC by upwards of $1000 in the last weeks. This means hundreds of millions of real money means tens of billions in movement in BTC market capitalization.
Now imagine what cashing $1.1B of BTC into real money would mean for the price. And this is purely in market terms, before the PR damage from bitcoin's demigod abandoning ship would have second-order effects.
Saylor has painted himself into a corner. Even if he wanted to cash out, he can't.

MSTR fundamentals: Why it should be valued below $10

In early 2020, MSTR was a slowly dying business. The EBITDA has been rapidly evaporating in the last 5 years
At that point, MSTR a stock price of $115 meaning a market cap of $1.1B. This included some $560M of cash they were sitting on. I presume the remaining $550M was an implicit sales premium for the inevitable private equity firm investors expected was going to relieve them of this stock and make the business profitable again.
Of course, they didn't sell.
Instead, they took the $560m they were sitting on and bought $400m of BTC at prices $11k and $13k in late summer 2020. Then, in early December, they took on $600m of debt to buy BTC with at $23k. They also bought $10m more in January at a price of $30.5k.
At this point, we can mostly value MSTR like a trust.

• Price the underlying software business as being worth $600M, as the market did before the bitcoin nonsense. If BTC went to $0, this is what we'd value it at, and the MSTR stock should be around $65.
  
• But wait! MSTR took on $650M in debt in December. Their actual value with a BTC priced at $0 should be much, much lower than $65 depending on how you value the debt. You could make an argument it should be in the single digits.
  
• They hold 70,784 BTC. At current prices ($32,000) this is worth roughly $2.2B. With the current market cap of MSTR ($577 stock price), this means MSTR is currently priced at an eye watering $3B premium over fundamental value.
  

GBTC's 20% premium-to-NAV is a joke compared to the MSTR premium.

Disclaimer I want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

• Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
  
• Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
  
• Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
  
• Disney+
  
• Britbox
  
• Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
  

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

• Pluto TV
  
• Viki
  
• Roku
  

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is

• Crunchyroll
  
• Funimation
  
• HiDive
  

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

• Humble Bundle
  
• Fanatical
  
• IndieGala
  

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

• Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
  
• Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
  
• GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
  
• Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
  
• Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
  
• Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
  
• Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
  

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

• Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
  
• Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
  
• EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
  
• PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
  

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

• Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
  
• Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
  
• Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.
  

Education

• Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
  
• BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
  

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change

• If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
  
• Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
  
• Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
  
• There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
  
• Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
  
• Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
  

That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish

• Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

• Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
  
• Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
  
• Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
  
• Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
  
• Communal religious worship
  
• Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
  

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

• To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
  
• CoronaVirus Symptoms
  
• CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
  
• Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
  
• Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
  
• World Health Organisation
  

Support

• Samaritans
  
• Mental Health UK forum on reddit
  
• Link to above's stick post for support outlets
  
• Mindful
  
• Mind.org
  

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

• https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/
  
• https://www.goodsamapp.org/
  
• https://vaccinationvolunteers.sja.org.uk/roles/volunteer-vaccinator.html
  
• https://nhsvolunteerresponders.org.uk/getting-you-started-guide-steward-volunteer
  
• https://peoplesmomentum.com/evictionresistance/
  
• https://londonrentersunion.org/
  

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

• Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
  
• Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
  
• Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
  

You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.

• LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
  
• Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
  

Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here

Chapter One: Bozeman or Bust (lots of bust)
I had done it once again, like so many other years before, by traveling north to one of the harshest and coldest states that a hobo could possibly go to during the dead of winter, late-January 2021: Mon-fucking-tana. Or as the locals jokingly say, "Montucky". (edit: Shout-out to Montucky Cold Snacks, the cheap horse-piss watered down beer that is Montana's equivalent of Washington's "Rainier Ale" or Oregon's "Session Lager"). I digress.
If I was a goose, I'd surely be the Jonathan Livingston Seagull of the flock…the black sheep shitshow of a goose flying in the completely wrong direction at the worst time of the year. As forementioned, this was not the first time, nor second time, that I've done this. In fact, it's become a habit, if not straight-up routine.
Laramie, Wyoming circa November 2016. Glendive, Montana circa January 2015 Minot, North Dakota circa January 2014. Yukon, Canada circa November 2013. Bellingham, Washington circa January 2006. The list goes on, and on, and on…
And here I am. Bozeman Fucking Montana, circa January-February 2021. The locals say it's an unusually warm winter, which by Montana's standards might include 5 inches of snow in the afternoon and temperatures dropping below 10F degrees at night. However, according to the high standards of a low-class hobo born and raised on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, this weather is colder than a witches tit.
Now, that's not to say that I ain't prepared though. I assure you that I am. Sixteen years of living on the road and rails has made this black goose a well-seasoned bird, with all the trimmings. I have a military sleeping bag that can keep me alive down to negative 30 temperatures. My military backpack is waterproof, and so are the snowboarding pants that I wear under my insulated Carharrt overalls. I have alpaca wool thermal pants, merino wool socks, thermolite waterproof boots, thinsulated gloves, and several wool and polyster beanie hats. My dual-layer mountaineering tent can withstand hurricane-force winds and all the snow that a blizzard can muster.
Winter? Montana? Bring it bitch. Hit me with your best shot. You know I like it. wink
Sigh. However, DESPITE the freezing temperatures and shit tons of snow, there's a lil secret that I've learned during my many years of traveling, and that secret is certainly DUE to these wintery conditions: Jobs! Lots and lots and lots and lots of jobs! Jobs here, jobs there, jobs every-fucking-where. Hotel jobs, restaurant jobs, retail jobs, construction jobs, maintenance jobs, driving jobs, even jobs just to help other people get more damn jobs!
You want a job during winter? Well they got jobs out northern Californie way, Oregonie way, Montanie way, Washingtonie way, North and South Dakotie way, and every which way can go above above the Mason-Dixon line!
If you can't find a damn job in the Northwestern United States of America during winter, you ain't fucking looking, and that's a fact. If you got one arm and you can swing a hammer, or punch a number on a cash register, then consider yourself hired on the spot and you can start today.
Before this chapter turns into an entire damn book of its own (A Hobo's Guide to Finding Jobs) let's get back to the story here: Bozeman or Bust.
As I begin this chapter, I have a red-wine hangover that is enough to drive me to a bullet in the head. I made a pot of coffee only to puke it back up on my hands and knees in front the porcelain thrown. I think it was good ole Earnest Hemingway that once said "Write Drunk, Edit Sober". Experienced words of wisdom from a fine man that knew everything a man could possibly know about drinking shit tons of wine and writing shit tons of stories. I wouldn't be lying if I was to confess that Mr. Hemingway, along with Mr. Steinbeck and Mr. Twain, are drunken heroes of mine that I could only hope someday to sit alongside in the bookstores of Hell and Hades with a gallon of cheap Merlot. Salut, gentleman.
After puking, rolling cigarettes, drinking coffee, and puking several times more, I was finally able to sit down to try and remember what-the-fuck happened yesterday; a solemn meditation technique that involves tons of coffee and contemplation; a time to worship the asinine achievements that are accompanied in both rejoice and regret.
Yesterday started off sober as a saint. I had a job interview at this place I had found on craigslist, some place looking for fresh warm bodies to fill up their production-assembly line. I took a bus to the address they had given me, which ended up being the adress to the Bozeman City Bank.
"A bank?", I thought, as I wondered around the parking lot dumbfounded and confused for a solid 5 minutes, checking the address several times on my phone, wondering why on earth I've been sent to a state bank. After circling the parking lot, I noticed a door on the side of the bank that said "Job Choices Employment Services: Second Floor".
Godammit. I had been fucking conned. Fucking craigslist. I know what's going on here…this a goddamn employment agency that wants to take 10-15 percent of my paycheck, take away my rights to healthcare and benefits, in the so-called promise of finding me a "great career path of opportunity".
Employment agencies. Just like rats. The only "opportunity" here was them: Creatures of opportunity, parasites hellbent on scavaging peoples money and benefits. "A not-even-close-to-great career path of 9-5 slave-labor bullshit involving years of suckling away your mind, body, and spirit", the sign on the door should have read.
This was definitely a mistake. And anyone that has ever had the unfortunate pleasure of being with me can you tell one thing about me: I fucking love mistakes. I love making them, and I love learning from them. I am a walking-talking connoisseur of mistakes. In fact, I just made a mistake trying to spell connoisseur, so I asked Google "Hey Google, spell connoisseur", and due to lack of interpreting my Alabama accent, Google made the mistake of showing me the word Coitus. I have now learned that the word "coitus" is another word for sex. As a writer and the son of an English teacher, I love learning new words. As a human male, I love sex. So learning a new word for "sex" is a fantastic trade-off for that fortunate mistake!
I digress.
I decided to walk into the bank, up the stairs to the second floor, and down the hall to the employment agency. A well-dressed and very sexy debutant by the name of Tracy stood up and greeted me with a smile that was formal, professional, and admittedly very sexy.
While my dirty mind started playing cheap porn music, along with vivid images of me and Tracy wrecking that office like wild alleycats, I was suddenly snapped back into reality with Tracy's sexy voice, saying:
"Hey, you must be Mr. Huck! Are you here for the 3:00 o'clock interview? Could you please start by filling out this application? You can have a seat over at the desk here"…
Godammit. This employment agency was GOOD. I was Tracy's submissive little slut. I walked right where Tracy told me to walk, sat right in the chair Tracy pulled out for me to sit in, and I started filling out the application with the ballpoint pen that Tracy had somehow put in my hand without me even realizing it. Tracy could have stolen my wallet and the 11 dollars inside of it as well, had she wanted to, and I wouldn't have even noticed. And even if I had noticed, I would have let her do it anyway. Godammit!
As I started to fill out the application, I got to the section I dreaded most: job references. Oh boy…allow me to tell you a little about Huck's references, or lacktherof:
At my last job, I was fired because of a fight that broke-out between my ex-girlfriend and myself, which began with lots of shouting and shoving, and ended with me getting a black-eye from being punched in the face twice. Fun fact: Italian women are fiery as they are fierce, and bold as they are beautiful. And just like their male Italian counterparts, such as Sylvester Stalone or Al Capone, they know how to land a solid right jab. This fight erupted in the worker's dormitory for all employees to hear and see. And although I was the one with the swollen black eye, I was the one they decided to fire. C'est la vie, such is life. Que sera sera, it be what it fucking be.
We can scratch that job off as a reference, without a doubt.
The job before that, I was at a marijuana farm called "Great American Cannabis", in which my managers and co-workers tried to recruit me into a far-right group of sexist and racist baboons called "The Proud Boys".
There was a pre-determining factor in why that farm had hired me, and assumed I would be interested in their idealogical gang. That pre-determing factor was the very same factor that led Google to teaching me the wrong word and definition: my Alabama accent.
Great American Cannabis had hired me based on a phone interview, in which they assumed my southern accent indicated two things, in which case one of their assumptions was right, and one was wrong:
Assumption Numero Uno: Huck has an Alabama accent, which therefore indicates that he has years of experience working on farms, growing plants, and being an honest and hard-worker.
Assumption Numero Dos: Huck has an Alabama accent, therefore he must be idealogically aligned with far-right beliefs including sexism and racism.
Welp, I am proud to say that even that although a 50% winning percentage may be fine and dandy with gambling in Vegas, and can be seen as half full or half empty based on however optimisitic or pessimistic you might be, in the case of Great American Cannabis and The Proud Boys, those odds ended pretty badly.
As it turns out, despite being raised by a racist father and surrounded by bigotry in the not-so-sweet home of Alabama, those very dispositions made this black sheep child rebel from such ass-backward beliefs, and I am staunchly pro-civil rights, which means I am pro-immigration, and a proud supporter of the sufferage movement for womens right.
Obviously, that did not go very well with my co-workers at the farm, and I was fired within the first month. But wait, theres more tragic humor to the story of this farm, which I'll organize in two keypoints:
Keypoint Numero Uno: The farm was owned by Iranian immigrants. I…shit…you…not. That's right. YOU DID READ THAT CORRECTLY. Not only was the farm owned and managed by a minority group of immigrants, those very immigrants came directly from the very country is at the VERY TOP of White-America's shitlist: Iran.
Keypoint Numeros Dos: After I was fired based almost entirely according to my leftist and progressive views on race and gender equality, within just a couple of weeks nearly everybody on the farm was fired and replaced by cheaper immigrant labor in the form of Laotian women. That's right…a white-blooded American-born legal-working male, was replaced by brown-blooded, foreign-born, mostly-illegal-working females, on a farm owned and managed by right-wing racists and sexists that were anti-immigration. Once again, I…shit…you…fucking…not...let THAT shit sink in.
I literally cannot make this shit up, and let it be forever proof that reality, however tragic or ironic it may be, is far greater than fiction. You can write that last sentence in a letter, shove that puppy in an envelope, slap that bitch with a stamp, and mail it to the fucking MOON. Or you can mail it to Iran, or Laos, whichever you prefer.
However, I digress.
So, being that I was fired from Great American Cannabis by a bunch of Iranian Proud Boys, you can scratch that job off of the "reference" list as well. Sigh.
So, how about the job before that? Well, that's a hell of a story too, but I'll make it quick and cut shorter to the chase:
I worked on a fishing boat for a Mormon captain. Although I loved him like a Dad, and he often treated me like a son, my job ended in these words:
"Huck, I really like you. You're one of the hardest working deckhands I've ever had, despite it being a very terrible year for fishing. However, as a man that is a Latter Day Saint of God, as a Mormon, I'm going to have to ask you to leave because of three reasons:
1) You smoke cigarettes, marijuana, and drink alcohol and coffee.
2) You curse worse than a sailor.
3) You are an atheist/agnostic."
And in case you, the reader did not know: Mormons HATE cigarettes, marijuana, alcohol, AND coffee. They are forbidden to curse, and they are not even allowed to tolerate the company of anyone that isn't a believer in God.
Well Godammit. How in the hell am I so goddamn misfortunate and unlucky, to be the must FIRST FUCKING PERSON in the entire HISTORY OF FISHING, that has gotten fired for using curse words and drinking whiskey. I couldn't even absorb the fact that my boss was firing me because I couldn't get over the fact that I was possibly the first sailor or fisherman in all of ocean-faring humanity that had gotten fired for doing what sailors and fisherman are guaranteed and known to do best: drinkin' and cursin'
We can also scratch THAT job off the possible reference list as well.
It was at this point in the office of Job Choices Bozeman that the porn music had long since stopped playing in my head, and that I suddenly and swiftly fell deeply into a full blown existential crisis right there in Tracy's office while simply trying to think of a single reference from my last 3 jobs. The unbelievable amount of misfortune, tragedy, irony, and utter insanity of my last 3 job experiences had truly started to sink in, and I was beginning to legitimately lose my temporary grasp on sanity along with my faith in humanity altogether in one great, big, sloppy sandwich of existential fucking crisis.
Allow me to self-diagnose this existential crisis sandwich by peeling off some of the layers of this enormous stinking onion that is in the middle of it all: Either that curse that was put on me a few years ago by a Mexican trainhopping gypsy from New Orleans is proof that curses are indeed fucking real, or either I am the unluckiest son of a bitch on this entire planet that is so very unlucky that I am slowly (or quickly) coming to the conclusion that this entire life is a simulation that is programmed by some sick comedic asshole that specializes in the tragedies of both irony AND misfortune. And though some people in this world call that programmer God or Allah or Jehovah, I call him Jeff. I call him "Jeff in Programming", with same amount of disdain and hatred that Michael Scott refers to "Toby in Human Resources" in the American version of the show "The Office".
(Sidenote: If you do not understand my last reference because you have not watched The Office, then you need to stop reading this book right now, go sign up for one month of Netflix, and spend that entire month binge-watching one of the greatest sitcoms ever made in the history of television: The Office (US Version). Go. Now!)
I digress.
As I collapsed into a full-blown existential crisis while thinking of job references on the second floor employment services office above Montana State Bank, my fantasy-based relationship with Tracy was also about to crumble into an existential crisis as well, based on two very important qualities:
Quality Numero Uno: Tracy and I had no relationship that actually existed outside of my head and a stupid job application form. We had never knocked over all of the filing cabinets, water-cooler, or broken the copying machine with tantric sex. That scenario never existed period.
Quality Numeros Dos: I was about to not only lie, but also commit non-existent adultery to Tracy, thus putting a very real end to a not-very-real relationship.
I stood up from the desk that me and Tracy had never fucked on, and I told Tracy that I had to use the bathroom. And though I did really have to use the bathroom, it wasn't for the purpose of pissing or taking a shit, it was for the purpose of throwing the application in the toilet and sneaking my way down the hallway and out of the employment agency. In which case, that is precisely what I did.
Upon stepping out of the door and back into the parking lot of Bozeman City Bank, I noticed another hot little woman across the street: A dazzling red-headed freckle-faced damsel by the name of Wendy, who promised in her fertile bosom the birth of two-dollar cheeseburgers and loaded baked potatoes. I went inside Wendy's house, and began to have an oral relationship by penetrating my mouth with nearly everything that was offered on Wendy's dollar-value menu.
Stop here, acquire coffee, booze, and cigarettes until I feel like writing again, which may be later tonight, tomorrow morning, or possibly fucking never

How the Hunt Brothers Cornered the Silver Market and Then Lost it All

TL:DR: yes its long. Grab a beer.

​
Until his dying day in 2014, Nelson Bunker Hunt, who had once been the world’s wealthiest man, denied that he and his brother plotted to corner the global silver market.
Sure, back in 1980, Bunker, his younger brother Herbert, and other members of the Hunt clan owned roughly two-thirds of all the privately held silver on earth. But the historic stockpiling of bullion hadn’t been a ploy to manipulate the market, they and their sizable legal team would insist in the following years. Instead, it was a strategy to hedge against the voracious inflation of the 1970s—a monumental bet against the U.S. dollar.
Whatever the motive, it was a bet that went historically sour. The debt-fueled boom and bust of the global silver market not only decimated the Hunt fortune, but threatened to take down the U.S. financial system.
The panic of “Silver Thursday” took place over 35 years ago, but it still raises questions about the nature of financial manipulation. While many view the Hunt brothers as members of a long succession of white collar crooks, from Charles Ponzi to Bernie Madoff, others see the endearingly eccentric Texans as the victims of overstepping regulators and vindictive insiders who couldn’t stand the thought of being played by a couple of southern yokels.
In either case, the story of the Hunt brothers just goes to show how difficult it can be to distinguish illegal market manipulation from the old fashioned wheeling and dealing that make our markets work.
The Real-Life Ewings
Whatever their foibles, the Hunts make for an interesting cast of characters. Evidently CBS thought so; the family is rumored to be the basis for the Ewings, the fictional Texas oil dynasty of Dallas fame.
Sitting at the top of the family tree was H.L. Hunt, a man who allegedly purchased his first oil field with poker winnings and made a fortune drilling in east Texas. H.L. was a well-known oddball to boot, and his sons inherited many of their father’s quirks.
For one, there was the stinginess. Despite being the richest man on earth in the 1960s, Bunker Hunt (who went by his middle name), along with his younger brothers Herbert (first name William) and Lamar, cultivated an image as unpretentious good old boys. They drove old Cadillacs, flew coach, and when they eventually went to trial in New York City in 1988, they took the subway. As one Texas editor was quoted in the New York Times, Bunker Hunt was “the kind of guy who orders chicken-fried steak and Jello-O, spills some on his tie, and then goes out and buys all the silver in the world.”
Cheap suits aside, the Hunts were not without their ostentation. At the end of the 1970s, Bunker boasted a stable of over 500 horses and his little brother Lamar owned the Kansas City Chiefs. All six children of H.L.’s first marriage (the patriarch of the Hunt family had fifteen children by three women before he died in 1974) lived on estates befitting the scions of a Texas billionaire. These lifestyles were financed by trusts, but also risky investments in oil, real estate, and a host of commodities including sugar beets, soybeans, and, before long, silver.
The Hunt brothers also inherited their father’s political inclinations. A zealous anti-Communist, Bunker Hunt bankrolled conservative causes and was a prominent member of the John Birch Society, a group whose founder once speculated that Dwight Eisenhower was a “dedicated, conscious agent” of Soviet conspiracy. In November of 1963, Hunt sponsored a particularly ill-timed political campaign, which distributed pamphlets around Dallas condemning President Kennedy for alleged slights against the Constitution on the day that he was assassinated. JFK conspiracy theorists have been obsessed with Hunt ever since.
In fact, it was the Hunt brand of politics that partially explains what led Bunker and Herbert to start buying silver in 1973.
Hard Money
The 1970s were not kind to the U.S. dollar.
Years of wartime spending and unresponsive monetary policy pushed inflation upward throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. Then, in October of 1973, war broke out in the Middle East and an oil embargo was declared against the United States. Inflation jumped above 10%. It would stay high throughout the decade, peaking in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution at an annual average of 13.5% in 1980.
Over the same period of time, the global monetary system underwent a historic transformation. Since the first Roosevelt administration, the U.S. dollar had been pegged to the value of gold at a predictable rate of $35 per ounce. But in 1971, President Nixon, responding to inflationary pressures, suspended that relationship. For the first time in modern history, the paper dollar did not represent some fixed amount of tangible, precious metal sitting in a vault somewhere.
For conservative commodity traders like the Hunts, who blamed government spending for inflation and held grave reservations about the viability of fiat currency, the perceived stability of precious metal offered a financial safe harbor. It was illegal to trade gold in the early 1970s, so the Hunts turned to the next best thing.
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Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; chart by Priceonomics

As an investment, there was a lot to like about silver. The Hunts were not alone in fleeing to bullion amid all the inflation and geopolitical turbulence, so the price was ticking up. Plus, light-sensitive silver halide is a key component of photographic film. With the growth of the consumer photography market, new production from mines struggled to keep up with demand.
And so, in 1973, Bunker and Herbert bought over 35 million ounces of silver, most of which they flew to Switzerland in specifically designed airplanes guarded by armed Texas ranch hands. According to one source, the Hunt’s purchases were big enough to move the global market.
But silver was not the Hunts' only speculative venture in the 1970s. Nor was it the only one that got them into trouble with regulators.
Soy Before Silver
In 1977, the price of soybeans was rising fast. Trade restrictions on Brazil and growing demand from China made the legume a hot commodity, and both Bunker and Herbert decided to enter the futures market in April of that year.
A future is an agreement to buy or sell some quantity of a commodity at an agreed upon price at a later date. If someone contracts to buy soybeans in the future (they are said to take the “long” position), they will benefit if the price of soybeans rise, since they have locked in the lower price ahead of time. Likewise, if someone contracts to sell (that’s called the “short” position), they benefit if the price falls, since they have locked in the old, higher price.
While futures contracts can be used by soybean farmers and soy milk producers to guard against price swings, most futures are traded by people who wouldn’t necessarily know tofu from cream cheese. As a de facto insurance contract against market volatility, futures can be used to hedge other investments or simply to gamble on prices going up (by going long) or down (by going short).
When the Hunts decided to go long in the soybean futures market, they went very, very long. Between Bunker, Herbert, and the accounts of five of their children, the Hunts collectively purchased the right to buy one-third of the entire autumn soybean harvest of the United States.
To some, it appeared as if the Hunts were attempting to corner the soybean market.
In its simplest version, a corner occurs when someone buys up all (or at least, most) of the available quantity of a commodity. This creates an artificial shortage, which drives up the price, and allows the market manipulator to sell some of his stockpile at a higher profit.
Futures markets introduce some additional complexity to the cornerer’s scheme. Recall that when a trader takes a short position on a contract, he or she is pledging to sell a certain amount of product to the holder of the long position. But if the holder of the long position just so happens to be sitting on all the readily available supply of the commodity under contract, the short seller faces an unenviable choice: go scrounge up some of the very scarce product in order to “make delivery” or just pay the cornerer a hefty premium and nullify the deal entirely.
In this case, the cornerer is actually counting on the shorts to do the latter, says Craig Pirrong, professor of finance at the University of Houston. If too many short sellers find that it actually costs less to deliver the product, the market manipulator will be stuck with warehouses full of inventory. Finance experts refer to selling the all the excess supply after building a corner as “burying the corpse.”
“That is when the price collapses,” explains Pirrong. “But if the number of deliveries isn’t too high, the loss from selling at the low price after the corner is smaller than the profit from selling contracts at the high price.”
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The Chicago Board of Trade trading floor. Photo credit: Jeremy Kemp

Even so, when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found that a single family from Texas had contracted to buy a sizable portion of the 1977 soybean crop, they did not accuse the Hunts of outright market manipulation. Instead, noting that the Hunts had exceeded the 3 million bushel aggregate limit on soybean holdings by about 20 million, the CFTC noted that the Hunt’s “excessive holdings threaten disruption of the market and could cause serious injury to the American public.” The CFTC ordered the Hunts to sell and to pay a penalty of $500,000.
Though the Hunts made tens of millions of dollars on paper while soybean prices skyrocketed, it’s unclear whether they were able to cash out before the regulatory intervention. In any case, the Hunts were none too pleased with the decision.
“Apparently the CFTC is trying to repeal the law of supply and demand,” Bunker complained to the press.
Silver Thursday
Despite the run in with regulators, the Hunts were not dissuaded. Bunker and Herbert had eased up on silver after their initial big buy in 1973, but in the fall of 1979, they were back with a vengeance. By the end of the year, Bunker and Herbert owned 21 million ounces of physical silver each. They had even larger positions in the silver futures market: Bunker was long on 45 million ounces, while Herbert held contracts for 20 million. Their little brother Lamar also had a more “modest” position.
By the new year, with every dollar increase in the price of silver, the Hunts were making $100 million on paper. But unlike most investors, when their profitable futures contracts expired, they took delivery. As in 1973, they arranged to have the metal flown to Switzerland. Intentional or not, this helped create a shortage of the metal for industrial supply.
Naturally, the industrialists were unhappy. From a spot price of around $6 per ounce in early 1979, the price of silver shot up to $50.42 in January of 1980. In the same week, silver futures contracts were trading at $46.80. Film companies like Kodak saw costs go through the roof, while the British film producer, Ilford, was forced to lay off workers. Traditional bullion dealers, caught in a squeeze, cried foul to the commodity exchanges, and the New York jewelry house Tiffany & Co. took out a full page ad in the New York Times slamming the “unconscionable” Hunt brothers. They were right to single out the Hunts; in mid-January, they controlled 69% of all the silver futures contracts on the Commodity Exchange (COMEX) in New York.
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Source: New York Times

But as the high prices persisted, new silver began to come out of the woodwork.
“In the U.S., people rifled their dresser drawers and sofa cushions to find dimes and quarters with silver content and had them melted down,” says Pirrong, from the University of Houston. “Silver is a classic part of a bride’s trousseau in India, and when prices got high, women sold silver out of their trousseaus.”
According to a Washington Post article published that March, the D.C. police warned residents of a rash of home burglaries targeting silver.
Unfortunately for the Hunts, all this new supply had a predictable effect. Rather than close out their contracts, short sellers suddenly found it was easier to get their hands on new supplies of silver and deliver.
“The main factor that has caused corners to fail [throughout history] is that the manipulator has underestimated how much will be delivered to him if he succeeds [at] raising the price to artificial levels,” says Pirrong. “Eventually, the Hunts ran out of money to pay for all the silver that was thrown at them.”
In financial terms, the brothers had a large corpse on their hands—and no way to bury it.
This proved to be an especially big problem, because it wasn’t just the Hunt fortune that was on the line. Of the $6.6 billion worth of silver the Hunts held at the top of the market, the brothers had “only” spent a little over $1 billion of their own money. The rest was borrowed from over 20 banks and brokerage houses.
At the same time, COMEX decided to crack down. On January 7, 1980, the exchange’s board of governors announced that it would cap the size of silver futures exposure to 3 million ounces. Those in excess of the cap (say, by the tens of millions) were given until the following month to bring themselves into compliance. But that was too long for the Chicago Board of Trade exchange, which suspended the issue of any new silver futures on January 21. Silver futures traders would only be allowed to square up old contracts.
Predictably, silver prices began to slide. As the various banks and other firms that had backed the Hunt bullion binge began to recognize the tenuousness of their financial position, they issued margin calls, asking the brothers to put up more money as collateral for their debts. The Hunts, unable to sell silver lest they trigger a panic, borrowed even more. By early March, futures contracts had fallen to the mid-$30 range.
Matters finally came to a head on March 25, when one of the Hunts’ largest backers, the Bache Group, asked for $100 million more in collateral. The brothers were out of cash, and Bache was unwilling to accept silver in its place, as it had been doing throughout the month. With the Hunts in default, Bache did the only thing it could to start recouping its losses: it start to unload silver.
On March 27, “Silver Thursday,” the silver futures market dropped by a third to $10.80. Just two months earlier, these contracts had been trading at four times that amount.
The Aftermath
After the oil bust of the early 1980s and a series of lawsuits polished off the remainder of the Hunt brothers’ once historic fortune, the two declared bankruptcy in 1988. Bunker, who had been worth an estimated $16 billion in the 1960s, emerged with under $10 million to his name. That’s not exactly chump change, but it wasn’t enough to maintain his 500-plus stable of horses,.
The Hunts almost dragged their lenders into bankruptcy too—and with them, a sizable chunk of the U.S. financial system. Over twenty financial institutions had extended over a billion dollars in credit to the Hunt brothers. The default and resulting collapse of silver prices blew holes in balance sheets across Wall Street. A privately orchestrated bailout loan from a number of banks allowed the brothers to start paying off their debts and keep their creditors afloat, but the markets and regulators were rattled.
Silver Spot Prices Per Ounce (January, 1979 - June, 1980)
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Source: Trading Economics

In the words of then CFTC chief James Stone, the Hunts’ antics had threatened to punch a hole in the “financial fabric of the United States” like nothing had in decades. Writing about the entire episode a year later, Harper’s Magazine described Silver Thursday as “the first great panic since October 1929.”
The trouble was not over for the Hunts. In the following years, the brothers were dragged before Congressional hearings, got into a legal spat with their lenders, and were sued by a Peruvian mineral marketing company, which had suffered big losses in the crash. In 1988, a New York City jury found for the South American firm, levying a penalty of over $130 million against the Hunts and finding that they had deliberately conspired to corner the silver market.
Surprisingly, there is still some disagreement on that point.
Bunker Hunt attributed the whole affair to the political motives of COMEX insiders and regulators. Referring to himself later as “a favorite whipping boy” of an eastern financial establishment riddled with liberals and socialists, Bunker and his brother, Herbert, are still perceived as martyrs by some on the far-right.
“Political and financial insiders repeatedly changed the rules of the game,” wrote the New American. “There is little evidence to support the ‘corner the market’ narrative.”
Though the Hunt brothers clearly amassed a staggering amount of silver and silver derivatives at the end of the 1970s, it is impossible to prove definitively that market manipulation was in their hearts. Maybe, as the Hunts always claimed, they just really believed in the enduring value of silver.
Or maybe, as others have noted, the Hunt brothers had no idea what they were doing. Call it the stupidity defense.
“They’re terribly unsophisticated,” an anonymous associated was quoted as saying of the Hunts in a Chicago Tribune article from 1989. “They make all the mistakes most other people make,” said another.
p.s. credit to Ben Christopher
​

Last night, I (f30) got the text from my little sister (f22) who I was still speaking to which explained that she was done speaking to me. That she was siding with our mom and our other sister (f25).
It really sucks.
My mom grew up under extreme abuse - she was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. She lived in poverty and starved. They moved around a lot so she never got to settle in. So guess what! When it came time to be a parent and raise me, she was wildly unequipped. She psychologically abused and terrorized me growing up. I believe that my mom has BPD based on her behaviors but she has never been diagnosed as such.
I could tell you many things about her. She is a gambling addict who earns 6 figures but will often cry that she doesn't have enough money to pay for gas to drive to work. She is always in a lot of unspecified debt. I have a different dad from my sisters who saved his social security checks when I was growing up into a college fund for me. My mom and he divorced when I was very young. As a teen, when my mom felt too much pressure from her debts, she would scream and cry at me, "I am going to go out and drive my car into the ocean!! You sit on your golden gilded fucking nest egg and you refuse to help your mother!!" ...all because I wouldn't convince my dad to turn over my entire college savings account so she could blow it on her debt (and then immediately accrue new debt as she always does).
That's just one aspect of her personality. Another is constantly stomping on boundaries and then shitting on me when I tell her to stop. "You have a very real problem with BOUNDARIES," she will text me, then tell me that when I tell her no and ask her to stop behaviors that are upsetting, that she gets suicidal ideation. Makes me out to be the bad guy.
My mom always suggested to me that I get a certain kind of ground cover for my back yard. I think the suggestion she made is ugly and have told her no many times and have told her to stop talking about it. But she is the kind of person who - if I hadn't made some extremely hard boundaries - she would have already gone and snuck into my back yard and planted whatever she wanted in there and then gotten angry at me when I wasn't pleased about the "favor" she had done.
Okay? Like, I have tried for my entire 20s to have a relationship with her that preserved my mental health and I found that I could not have it no matter what, so I decided to go NC.
I fucking TRIED!!!! I had her walk me down the aisle at my wedding in 2019 in place of my dad who died, okay? I fucking tried!!!
And then comes my sister Liz yesterday. We have had our own shitty relationship and decided to try to get along because our sister Rachel betrayed both of us last year over relatively simple disagreements and started telling vicious lies about our homes and our partners. Rachel did some extremely bewildering and potentially dangerous lying which could have had police sent to mine and Liz's houses last year.
Rachel lived with me first, betrayed me and moved in with Liz (who took Rachel's side and didn't believe me!). Then - only after Rachel betrayed and lied about Liz to everyone in the same way - Liz came crying to me and apologizing for not listening and taking the wrong side. The lies Rachel told were not trivial I am no fool - I haven't spoken to Rachel since she did that.
But apparently now Liz and Rachel have made up. Liz has taken mom's side. And she sent me a text where she chastised me for not being understanding of everyone's mental health issues and for not having an, "open, honest, and candid" relationship with all of them. Puh-LEASE!!
What about my mental health issues? What about how just because someone has mental health issues doesn't mean you should tolerate abuse from them? What about all my efforts to include and care for everyone?
Also of note in her message, she said she loved our mom and sister twice. But she never said she loves me in these parting words. Not even to say goodbye.
So I feel pretty sad, like a giant stone is inside my chest.
They can all have each other and stew in their intergenerational trauma. I am getting the fuck out.
I really hope this message from my sister means they have all sided against me and cut me out and made me the bad guy - because maybe then they will fuck off and leave me alone!!
It still sucks.
Thanks for listening.

Part 1
Part 2
As I sank down into the darkness below the ball-pit, I began to hyperventilate. I was having trouble breathing, feeling suffocated as if I were drowning. My heart pounded faster as my mind raced. All light evaporated from the space around me and I was cloaked in blackness as I descended further from the surface, feeling increasingly desperate and trapped.
The thing gripping my ankle was tearing strips of flesh from my leg as I struggled and kicked, trying to get away. I could feel its skin, rough like sandpaper, but it was silent and made no noise as it dragged me downwards.
Then it suddenly let go.
I fell down through the air and landed on a tile floor. I looked up and saw the colourful balls floating and dancing above me on the ceiling, defying gravity as there was nothing but air to hold them aloft.
I looked around, terrified, for the thing that had grabbed my leg and brought me below, but saw nothing. I was in a dark space with checkerboard patterns all over the walls, floors, and low ceilings. Another part of the fun house, I guessed. The creature that had dragged me down there probably lived in the ball pit, and I guessed that its purpose was to bring people down here to this disorienting space below.
“Gary?”
No response.
There were several doorways leading different directions and I started walking towards one of them. Looking inside, I saw a space that was exactly the same as the one I was in, like a mirror image.
“GARY!?”
“HOO HOO HOO HOO!”
I spun around as I heard laughter and the sound of feet dropping down to the floor. Somehow I was unsurprised to see the carnival workers and clowns who had been pursuing me had followed me down below. They spotted me instantly and began to race towards me, their large knives held high above their heads, smiles plastered on their red and white painted faces, their crimson eyes glowing in the dim light.
I turned and ran, not knowing where I was going exactly, just ducking through one disorienting doorway and then another and another.
Much to my surprise, the third doorway I went through brought me back face-to-face with a clown holding a butcher’s clever.
The doors didn’t follow the ordinary laws of physics, it would seem, and had brought me back to my would-be-murderers instead of allowing me to escape them. This was despite the fact that I had run very much in the opposite direction away from them.
The jester grinned and laughed, his rotten yellow teeth and blackened gums showing as he chuckled.
“Hellooooo, little bug. You can try to get away but good luck escaping. Those blood and guts aren’t yours, they’re ours for the taking!”
Instead of using the sharp end of the clever as I had imagined he would, he took the backside of it, and whacked me across the forehead, knocking me out cold.
*
As I was unconscious I had another vision, even more vivid and real than the last. I was standing before the great beating heart at the center of the Crimson Carnival. Exactly the same as last time, only this time it was bigger. It was the size of a school bus now, and had grown larger since my last dream. It hung suspended from the ceiling of the great canopy tent at the center of the fair. It was beating loud and heavy like a massive drum, the muscle contractions were enormous and laboured, terrifying and apocalyptic.
Holding it aloft were the veins and arteries which pumped poisonous blood to the inhabitants of the place. The massive heart beat so loudly it pierced my ears, like a jet airliner taking off right next to me, only it was a dull thud that hurt my brain as well.
The heart extended a group of blood vessels towards me and they enveloped me like vines, wrapping around my arms and legs, then my midsection and my face. They went up my nose and into my eyes and dug their poisonous tips into my skin, pumping the toxic waste of the carnival into me, making me into one of its minions forever.
My eyes snapped open as I awoke and looked up to see I was in the center of a ring like in a circus. There were empty benches all around extending up to great dizzying heights above and a spotlight shone down brightly from the ceiling far up in the distance.
I stood and looked around in wonder, realizing I was at the very center of the canopy now. There was no great beating heart as I had imagined in my dreams. But it had felt so real.
There was a man approaching, his soft footsteps echoing in the enormous space. He was dressed like a ringmaster in a circus and was wearing a red military-style shirt with gold epaulettes, embroidery, and buttons down the front, a black top hat and pants. He sauntered forward and I saw that he carried a whip in his hand. It was a cat-o-nine-tails and the tips of it were branched outwards like the capillaries of a vein.
“Welcome,” he said, walking towards me. His eyes were crimson red and flickered like fire, showing no emotion.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I created this place. It’s my home. At least for the last hundred years or so. I always loved carnivals, you see! They might just be the best thing you humans ever came up with! They’re full of games and gambling, drugs and debauchery. Guns and candy, dizzying rides and delicious deep fried fatty foods. All it took was a bit of creative design work to make a symbol that could be used for a purpose. For us demons, this is what you’d call a place of power. That’s why I set up this whole thing. I mean, when you live forever the world can get sort of boring, and it’s tough to find anything interesting to do.”
“So you’re not gonna mention the part about you stealing their blood? What’s the purpose of all that, exactly?”
“Ooooh, you’ve been talking to Gary, haven’t you? That son of a bitch is gonna get it one of these days. Alright, enough questions, this isn’t a Bond movie, I’m not gonna give you all the answers. You’ve gotta at least work for it a little bit. Tammy! Teach him some manners!”
A massive red tiger with black stripes suddenly jumped out from the shadows and pounced on me, landing on my chest and knocking the wind out of me. I couldn’t breathe as it stood on top of me and its face came closer to mine, large fangs exposed with drool dripping from its maw. It roared loudly, its mouth opening wide and for a second I was so terrified I nearly lost bowel control.
The ringmaster cracked his whip and the tiger retreated off of me, doing quick predatory circles nearby and growling at me.
“Tammy! That’s no way to treat our guest. And you are a guest still. It’s not quite sunrise just yet. You’ve still got time to get out, Jordan. You can try to make a run for it, you know. I won’t stop you.”
“Really?”
“Heh-heh, nope.”
I started to back away from him and was about to run away when he finished his thought.
“Tammy might, though.”
I sighed and slumped my shoulders. Looked like I was going to be trapped with the rest of them. Maybe they would put me in a stall close to Sarah, at least.
“What the hell do you want?”
“Oh, I thought that would be obvious by now. Your blood. I want your blood. And your body. And your soul. You’re mine now, just like the rest of them.”
It occurred to me that I hadn’t checked to see if the clowns who had captured me had taken my weapon from my jacket pocket. Not that it would look like much of a weapon to the naked eye – plus I had put it in my secret pocket.
I felt around for it and it was there. Pulling it out, I pointed the little toy water pistol at the demon.
“What you got there, kiddo? A water gun? What did you fill it up with holy water? Guess what, that shit only works in the movies.”
“Nah. I filled it up with gasoline.”
His eyes went wide and he opened his mouth to scream something but was too stunned to speak.
I shot him several times quickly with it and then pulled out my zippo. It lit on the first strike and I shot the gasoline through it, catching it alight and sending a beam of fire towards the ringmaster.
His red coat caught alight and he began to scream and flail his arms. His screeches rose higher and higher until they pierced my ears with their shrillness. He suddenly burst into flames like flash-paper and was gone a second later.
“Holy shit, kid! What did you do!?”
Gary appeared out of nowhere and I saw the tiger had evaporated in a puff of smoke.
“Where the hell did you come from?”
“I hid in that maze when I realized they were gonna capture you and then followed you back here, thinking I was gonna save your ass. Looks like you didn’t need my help after all, though.”
I looked up to see the entire canopy tent was burning up around us, like paper on fire. It started at the peak where the spotlight had been, and instead of that light the night sky appeared instead, and the soft glow of the stars and moon.
As the canopy tent turned to ash around us, the flakes of it drifting up as embers into the night sky above, we saw a couple people standing around, looking confused and anxious.
“Where am I?” a woman nearby asked.
It seemed that none of them remembered what had happened, and when I told them they scoffed at me.
“Is that supposed to be some sort of joke?” she asked, sounding angry.
I realized the place still had some power over them, as we walked away from there towards where Gary suggested Sarah would be. There were a few, but not nearly as many as we had seen in the carnival. Clearly most of the inhabitants of the place had not been saved by our actions. Most of them had disappeared when the place had burnt up, and I hoped that they were at least free now.
I imagined their souls drifting up into the night sky with the burnt-up ashes of the place, the embers that drifted away in the wind.
That was when I saw her. She looked cold in the chill air, hugging herself and warming her arms. Her round glasses were fogging up and her long pink hair blew around her face in the breeze.
“Sarah!”
She saw me and my heart stopped in my chest. I wondered for a moment if she would recognize me, or if this place had stolen her memory like it had the others’.
But she came running towards me and I breathed a sigh of relief at the look of recognition in her eyes.
We collided in an almost painful embrace, hugging and then kissing, before she asked me, “Where the fuck are we? What’s happened to me? I feel so cold.”
I wish I could say that we lived happily ever after, because we did for the most part. But still to this day she seems different at times. Colder.
I wonder how much of her blood was replaced by that poison. And how much it changed her.
Sometimes I wake up in the night and see her standing over me, smiling.
She murmurs in the darkness and I can just make out the words.
“Spin the wheel of chance, sir? Take a spin, and win your heart’s desire…”
In the dim light it’s difficult to make out the colour of her eyes, but I turn on the light just to check.
I shake her awake and yell at her, anything to get rid of that dull look of hate and that showman’s grin from her face.
She tells me she’s sleepwalking, but her eyes tell a different story.
They used to be blue, before she visited the carnival. Now they’ve turned into a dark purple hue.
And they’re not changing back.
Conclusion
JG
TCC

Disclaimer I am posting this here because I got a message from the mods asking me to. I'm not from London so links aren't London centric (but hopefully still of help) and the main post is here so any updates will likely be there (I will try here but it's hard to keep up with the amount of suggestions)
Thanks.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

• Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
  
• Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
  
• Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
  
• Disney+
  
• Britbox
  
• Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
  

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

• Pluto TV
  
• Viki
  
• Roku
  

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is

• Crunchyroll
  
• Funimation
  
• HiDive
  

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

• Humble Bundle
  
• Fanatical
  
• IndieGala
  

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

• Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
  
• Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
  
• GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
  
• Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
  
• Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
  
• Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
  
• Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
  

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

• Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
  
• Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
  
• EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
  
• PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
  

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

• Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
  
• Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
  
• Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.
  

Education

• Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
  
• BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
  

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change

• If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
  
• Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
  
• Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
  
• There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
  
• Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
  
• Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
  

That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish

• Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

• Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
  
• Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
  
• Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
  
• Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
  
• Communal religious worship
  
• Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
  

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

• To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
  
• CoronaVirus Symptoms
  
• CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
  
• Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
  
• Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
  
• World Health Organisation
  

Support

• Samaritans
  
• Mental Health UK forum on reddit
  
• Link to above's stick post for support outlets
  
• Mindful
  
• Mind.org
  

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted this links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

• https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/
  
• https://www.goodsamapp.org/
  
• https://vaccinationvolunteers.sja.org.uk/roles/volunteer-vaccinator.html
  
• https://nhsvolunteerresponders.org.uk/getting-you-started-guide-steward-volunteer
  
• https://peoplesmomentum.com/evictionresistance/
  
• https://londonrentersunion.org/
  

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

• Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
  
• Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
  
• Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
  

You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.

• LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
  
• Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
  

Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here