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I am 35 years old, I made $67,665 gross last year (between multiple jobs) and live in Buffalo and work in higher education and retail.

Title: I am 35 years old, I made $67,665 gross last year (between multiple jobs) and live in Buffalo and work in higher education and retail.
This is my 5th MD update. Previous MDs in June 2019, October 2019, February 2020, and July 2020.
Ref29 questions:
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Absolutely. Both of my parents have bachelors degrees, and it wasn’t even a conversation of “if” I was going to college, but “where”. I ended up going to a private 4-year college, with a 75% merit scholarship. I was able to pay for the first semester with savings bonds/general savings, but took out loans for the remaining semesters. I worked 2 on campus jobs (tour guide and TA), plus at a coffee shop - this was more for spending money/gas etc. Looking back, I wish that I had put more of that income aside for paying for school, but I was definitely headlong into the student loan trap of “it’s ok, this is good debt….blah blah.”
I thought that i had the exact idea of what I wanted to do for a career - and that basically required a masters degree - so I went straight to grad school after undergrad. Private - and took out the maximum student loans for both years. I cannot stress what a terrible financial idea this was. The last half of my MA was in DC, so I used the loans for rent/food, as I had a full time unpaid internship. Long story short, what I thought was my career goal wasn’t.
I am FINALLY nearly done paying off my loans. If I had to go back and give my past self advice, it would have been to not go to grad school directly after undergrad. I still might have gotten my masters, but I would have done it in a much more financially responsible way.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
We had conversations growing up - but it was much more of a conversation now that I’m an adult. I’ve noted in past MDs, but my parents have told us that they regret not being able to help us all more as teenagers/college/young adults, so they’ve been extremely supportive of my focus on debt repayment.
Did you worry about money growing up?
Not really. I remember being conscious about it - we didn’t have new cars (EVER - like it’s still a thing), and we used coupons/budgets/bulk freezer meals for shopping, but I think a portion of that was that there were 4 of us kids. We were all involved in a variety of extracurricular activities as well, but I don’t remember even being like, limited or restricted from doing anything.
Do you worry about money now?
Absolutely.
While I am noting that I’m making progress, it is still very overwhelming. It’s really hard for me not to beat myself up when I either buy “treats” or things that aren’t really treats, but are just home comforts. I finally bought myself 2 sets (!) of decent sheets this past month after having 1 set of crappy sheets for the last 2 years lol. I still have so much work to do, on debt repayment, fully funding my emergency fund, and (massive goal here) saving for a down payment on a house.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I would say I was financially responsible for myself when I moved for grad school in the fall of 2008 (so when I was 22/23).
That being said, I definitely have had a financial safety net - my parents always assisted with grocery money if I needed it - when I was married, that definitely was not only a safety net, but also got me in a lot of bad habits.
Since my divorce, my parents have assisted with cell phone, car insurance, and letting me live with them for a few months when I moved back to the US. I know that if something happened, they would absolutely assist with a place to live if I needed it.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
As previous MDs have noted, my parents have assisted with assorted checks when my dad got a bonus, and they have always been extremely generous with holiday $.
Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance (and how you got there): $33,194.67 (up from $23,800 in February 2020)
This is a combo of Stash Retire ($1721.52), 401K from a previous job ($17,330.01), retirement accounts from my current job ($2807.58 in my optional IRA to which I contribute extra; $2947.46 in the basic retirement plan, to which my employer contributes 7%), and TSP from a previous job ($8,388.10).
Savings account balance: $1000
Checking account balance: $1381.07 (at the start of the money diary)
Credit card debt (and how you accumulated it): $7,558.08 (focus has been more on student loans, plus I am a bit guilty of using it at random points) (down from $19,556 in June 2019).
Student loan debt (for what degree): Current remaining balance is $972.57!!!!! This is down from $23,645.37 in June 2019) (combined loans for undergraduate and graduate degrees in International Relations. To give you an idea of how much I’ve paid off - I’ve paid $118,297.81 off up to this point).
*note: December was a PHENOMENAL debt payment month for me (just over $4k).
Section Two: Income
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $2847.53
*after using the IRS refund calculator, it became clear that I was expecting a much higher refund, so I stopped having extra withheld. Eventually I’ll get the hang of it.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: $1442.72 (average monthly take home August-December 2020)
My retail job fully reopened, and I also applied for, and got a promotion, which meant both an hourly raise and more hours)
Any Other Monthly Income Here:
Section Three: Expenses
Rent / Mortgage $980.00/month (+ $3.95 service charge when I pay online) (no change)
Retirement contribution: $115.58/month Roth IRA from work + $80.00/month into Stash Retire (no change)
Savings contribution: $0/month (Debt payments are the priority)
Investment contribution: None
Health/Dental/Vision Insurance: $76.38/month (Through work, it gets taken out biweekly)
FSA contribution: $27.78 biweekly (I set my annual contribution at $750 this year, up from $600)
Debt payments
Student Loan minimums: $55.54 is strictly the minimum for my FINAL (!!!) student loan, but as you all know by now, I have been attacking these with a vengeance and plan on this being gone no later than March.
Credit Card minimums: Avg. Monthly Payment $300. (as mentioned in the debt section, I have slipped slightly on allowing myself to use the credit card, but still have been able to lower my overall amount)
Wifi/Cable/Landline: $64.99/month
Cellphone: Still on the parental plan, but will be transitioning off. I’m shopping around and have started to budget.
Subscriptions: Apple storage - $2.99/month; Netflix- $8.99; (even though I’ve been able to be at home much much more, we still get a monthly barkbox for the toys; Spotify Premium - $9.99/month. Headspace - $14.99/month. Renaissance Periodization - $16.19/month
Laundry (if you pay per load): $40/month. I put aside $10 per paycheck.
Gym membership $75/month - I budget this much for my ROMWOD and Movement Vault monthly subscriptions. This also covers my monthly subscription for my WHOOP band. My retail side gig also provides $225/month to work out. This covers my monthly membership to my crossfit gym, as well as extra megaformer classes. $32.63/month for WHOOP; $13.95/month for ROMWOD; $9.99/month for Movement vault
Pet expenses: $150/month - includes pet insurance. This is what I put into my budget for insurance, food, grooming etc.) Barkbox 31.54/month; Pet insurance $79.24
Car payment / insurance / average gas:$100/month (as my dad plans on retiring within the next year, he will be signing over my car to me, meaning that I will be taking on my insurance. I fully acknowledge that this has been nice to not have to worry about, and that my parents have been absolutely amazing. The current annual insurance for my car looks like it will be around $450. Future money diaries will take this into account.
Renter insurance: $12.50/month
Average groceries / household supply spend; Looking at YNAB, my average spend has been just over $700/month. This seems insanely high for one person, but I do also follow a RP meal plan, meaning that I tend to eat A LOT to fuel my workouts. I also haven’t gone out basically at all ….
Regular therapy: N/A
Charitable Giving: $75/avg. August-Dec 2020 (Much of this was “rage” donating in the run up to the election)
Annual Expenses:
YNAB (You Need A Budget): $83.99/year
NB: Anytime I leave my house, I am masked, including gym visits. It’s honestly not terrible once you find a mask that works for you!
Day 1: Friday
5:45am: Alarm goes off and I get up to put the kettle on to start coffee. Today is a weigh in and weekly review for my meal/training plan, so I enter my numbers and see what my upcoming week will look like as far as my macros. I notice that my chest/shoulder are sore, and hurt when I take a deep breath, but assume that I just slept on my arm wrong. I take out the dog, feed him, and head out to my weightlifting class.
7:30am: Nope, not just sleeping on it wrong. I make it through the lifting portion, but when we start the metcon, I have to stop because it hurts too much to take a really deep breath, instead stretching and cheering everyone else on. Annoyed, but hopefully it’s nothing too crazy. I think it’s just a strain from my muscle up drills the day before. Once I get home, I make breakfast - a savory oatmeal with oats, cheese, chicken sausage, egg whites, and mushrooms, topped with a fried egg and za’atar seasoning from Trader Joe’s. YUM. I log into work and get settled in for a 2 hour (ugh) staff meeting.
11:00am: Finally done with that. Thank goodness for my camera getting to be off. I take a shower and get into “work” clothes - aka lululemon from top to bottom (align leggings, ebb to street crop tank, and a sit in lotus wrap). Back to work until it’s time for lunch, which I have just after noon (rice, sweet potatoes, bell peppers, and ground beef, topped with avocado). Work continues afterwards.
2:00pm: Time for work #2! It’s a fairly uneventful (and slow) afternoon/evening, which is ok after the craziness of the holiday season. And I only have to tell 2 people to put their masks on over their nose and they don’t give me an attitude - woohoo! Around 5 I eat my food on my 10 minute break - another taco-ish bowl, just without the avocado from earlier. I get out from work at 7:30pm.
8:00pm: Home, take the pooch out and feed him and make my casein hot chocolate (casein protein is a slower digesting type vs. whey and it’s my evening “meal” most of the time) plus a couple dark chocolate peanut butter cups. I facetime my Mom briefly and then we each put on our respective Star Wars shows - she and my Dad are watching the Mandolorian (they just got Disney+), and I’m deep into season 4 of the Clone Wars. Bedtime routine starts at 9:30 with a couple of melatonin gummies and I brush my teeth and wash my face (eye makeup remover, then Neutrogena foaming cleanser, and a nighttime moisturizer from Aldi). Snuggle up with the dog and a heating pad with a Headspace night sounds playing.
Daily Total: $0
Day 2: Saturday
5:50am: NO. It’s like 30 minutes before I want to wake up...NO.
6:10am: Uggggggh
6:20am: FINE. Dog outside, then fed. I make coffee and another savory oatmeal (AMAZING - same as yesterday, just no bell peppers). Catch up on podcasts and my YNAB budget. In happiest news, I can take a full big breath without that weird pain from yesterday! Yay!
10:00am: Home from my workout, which went amazingly - I love a good long chipper of a workout! I take the dog out for a little cold weather walk and then make my post-workout meal - Kodiak chocolate chip pancakes with blueberries! (use 1 egg and almond milk to make the pancakes and it fits my post-workout macros: 35P, 10F, 65C). I follow this with a cuddle session with the dog while watching Marple episodes and drinking coffee. I also add items to my lululemon shopping cart and exit out of it before I can spend money. While I get a great discount (especially on markdowns), I know I don’t really NEED anything, so I don’t get anything.
1:00pm: Off to the mall for work. I stop on the way to fill the gas tank ($25). It’s a busy day, but a good one - during my break I eat my taco bowl (rice, sweet potatoes, ground beef, peppers and avocado). I work until 7:30pm.
8:00pm: Home, dog out, casein hot chocolate - the usual. I’m nothing if not a creature of habit. I pull out a Trader Joe’s chocolate croissant to prove overnight in the oven. Bedtime is around 10pm.
Daily Total: $25
Day 3: Sunday
7:50am: Whoooops, I intended to wake up around 7:15, but I didn’t actually set the alarm. Luckily the dog wakes me up with a polite whine - I take him out, make coffee and a bowl of oatmeal (oats, almond milk, egg whites, topped with blueberries), and head to my workout around 9.
11:00am: 2 workout classes later, I’m home - post workout meal is the aforementioned chocolate croissant, and a little egg scramble of egg whites, mushrooms, chicken sausage and broccoli. The afternoon is spent with old Miss Marple episodes on Amazon Prime, combined with laundry and apartment cleaning.
3:00pm: I made a quick loaf of bread (2 hrs of rising, then shaping) and put it in the oven. Happily it turns out pretty damn tasty - I make Trader Joe’s Cippino (seafood soup) and have that with toasted fresh bread around 4/4:30pm. A Clone Wars marathon ensues - the Bills are playing in the AFC championship tonight, so the city is basically a giant ball of nerves. I don’t watch the games (and haven’t all season - mostly because I don’t have all the apps/cable), but I follow the score on my phone while watching many (MANY) episodes of Clone Wars. I facetime my mom and dad around 7 after they finish the Mandolorian and we can all squeal with excitement.
9:00pm: Melatonin gummies, contacts out, teeth brushed, face washed, bedtime.
Daily Total: $0
Day 4: Monday
5:45am: Awake, coffee, take the dog out, head to crossfit.
7:30am: Home, dog out again, then breakfast (homemade toast, everything but the bagel smoked salmon, scrambled egg+egg whites) and more coffee. I login to work at 8am, and get the morning podcasts going (Up First, the Daily, Post Reports, the Intelligence).
10:00am: I place a Target pickup order for the snacks for our break area at the mall (seltzer, peanut butter crackers, cookies, granola bars - all single serving packs). I will be reimbursed for this by the store. ($39.57 - I get a notice that an item isn’t available after I place the order...oh well)
11:00am: I’m traveling out of state for a couple of days - it’s a long awaited tattoo coverup (don’t get a tattoo for a significant other….I knew not to do this...and yet I still did), so I make my list of items to pack and things to remember to do (take out trash, do all my dishes, etc). I will be driving to my destination (Indiana), staying at a hotel by myself, going to the tattoo shop (masked), and back to the hotel. Not telling friends I’m there, not going out anywhere. And I’ve scheduled a test for 4 days after my return, per NYS rules. If I could make the drive nonstop, I would, but your girl isn’t giving herself a UTI lol. I’ll be masked and sanitized anytime I step out of my vehicle. Still super nervous, but getting this tattoo covered up is like….the final FINAL step. I also take a shower (finally, yes I’m gross and have been sitting in my workout clothes since I got home - god help me if I ever live with a human again lol).
2:00pm: Time for head out for work! On the way, I pick up my previously mentioned Target order, and also pick up meals for my trip from a local meal prep place - I get a bunch of great stuff (2 breakfasts, 2 dinners, 1 lunch plus energy bites for the car), plus it means that I can just hermit it up in the hotel room apart from the actual tattoo appointment. ($62.68). I get to the mall early before my shift starts - since I know I’ll have a tub in the hotel room, and I don’t have one in my apartment, I get a couple of bath bombs and lotion from Lush ($25.93) and a whole bunch of sheet masks from Sephora ($25.01). Then time for work - It’s a fairly quick shift, which is nice, not too terribly busy and we get a lot done. And people at the mall are generally not pills today - epic win!
8:15pm: Home from work - take the dog out and have a little evening meal of homemade soup from my co-worker (it’s a kale sausage soup her husband makes and it is AMAZING) and the rest of my homemade bread. I finish packing up and the poor pup definitely knows something is up. Bedtime around 10pm.
Daily Total: $153.19
Day 5: Tuesday
5:45am: Alarm, dog, coffee. Rather than dirtying dishes, I heat up one of the prepped breakfasts I brought (a breakfast sandwich with chicken, which is actually quite tasty - plus some blueberries). I get the car loaded up with my stuff and the dog - he’s staying with my parents while I’m gone - and head out by 7:15am. After I drop him off I top off my gas tank ($14.10), and also get a couple of bubly waters and a can of death wish coffee for the road ($6.25).
12:00pm: Lunch stop at panera - fuji apple chicken salad and a cup of chicken noodle soup - drive thru and eaten in the car ($10.94, but I have a gift card). Road Trip Podcasts: You’re Wrong About and Noble Blood.
3:00pm: Gas stop (there’s also a few bathroom stops, but since I didn’t spend anything, it’s not terribly relevant, right? :) ) ($27.01).
5:30pm: Arrival! Check in to the hotel - masked front desk employee, check. Bring my stuff up to my room, and jackpot - biiiiiiiiig tub. Looks like those bath bombs were a solid choice! Open up the work laptop to see if there is anything urgent - nothing crazy - and decide which meal I want for dinner. Bourbon Chicken with Broccoli and Sweet Potatoes it is. Plus a Sparkling Apple Cider vinegar beverage (ginger and lemon) from Trader Joes. Before I eat, I do a lower body focused stretching routine from ROMWOD since I spent so long in the car.
7:30pm: Bath Bomb, Face Mask, Feet Mask, and finished Night Stalker on Netflix. Since I’ll be quarantining until I get a negative COVID test after my trip, I order 10 meals through the same meal prep company that I got my travel meals from ($88.43 - includes both delivery fee and tip). They will be delivered on Sunday.
Daily Total: $146.73
Day 6: Wednesday
6:00am - I had intended to sleep longer, but my body is like - nope, you’re waking up at the same time no matter what. Coffee (keurig in the hotel room - ick) plus a prepped breakfast (a goat cheese egg white scramble with sweet potatoes - which is delicious). Morning podcasts and I open up the work laptop. Since I’m awake I guess.
7:30am: Hotel room workout - I do yesterday’s workout from my gym, with a few modifications, but it still feels great to move after sitting in the car for so long! Shower afterwards, then food (Mexican Taco Bowl!) and work.
10:30am: Squuuuueeee it’s time for my tattoo. I double mask up, drive through for a Starbucks order ($4.74 - paid for on my Starbucks app with previously loaded funds) and head to the shop! I already paid my deposit and took advantage of a gift card sale before Christmas so I don’t owe anything additional today. We do linework, shading, and partial color. It’s going to take 2 appointments to do the full thing, so we make my next appointment for May (augh, I cannot wait!). My coverup is over black text, so a cover up involves a LOT of layering of color. I’m impressed that I still have stamina after not getting a tattoo for nearly 3 years.This is going to be BEAUTIFUL.
2:30pm: After my tattoo appointment, I make a quick stop at CVS (still double masked!) to pick up aquaphor, orange dial soap, ibuprofen, and toothpaste (cause naturally that’s the one thing I forgot to pack - d’oh) ($22.00). I make a curbside pickup order for Panera - another soup and salad combo ($10.55 - again paid for with gift cards!). I head back to my hotel room, eat, put on more podcasts (Planet Money, Can He Do That, Code Switch) and log onto work. An uneventful afternoon follows.
6:00pm: Facetime call with my mom, then dinner and various true crime documentaries on Netflix and Pinterest browsing because as per usual, now I want allll the tattoos. I also put in an order for a grocery pickup on my way home (coffee, coffee creamer, fruit, etc) ($66.82). I try to make a testing appointment through NYS for my return COVID test on Monday, but the automated system keeps putting me in the first available, which is Friday….I’ll try to schedule again on Friday so that the timing works. Bedtime tattoo routine of wash, aquaphor and ibuprofen, as well as a sheet face mask. Sleep around 10:00pm.
Daily Total: $104.11
Day 7: Thursday
6:00am: Welp, up and at em! I finish packing all my stuff, check out of the hotel and warm up the car. I head out around 7:00am. Top off the gas tank ($12.80) and I also add $15 to my Starbucks card and drive thru a Starbucks (Spinach Feta Wrap + Cafe Misto with almond milk). Then it’s time for podcasts and lots of driving. My mom had suggested a podcast from Serial - S*%*Town. IT’S AMAZING and this drive has never gone so fast!
11:00am: (or sometime around this time) Stop for gas ($27.01) and another Starbucks stop ($15 reload) to get another misto, a bottle of water, and a fruit/cheese/hard boiled egg box.
3:00pm: I was going to try to make it all the way without stopping for anything else, but my stomach is about to eat itself. I stop at a Tim Hortons about 45 minutes away from my parents’ house and get timbits and a hot chocolate (which is gross) ($6.66 - eeep). I get to my parents’ house - my mom and dad stay upstairs and in the basement respectively while I use the bathroom and retrieve a very happy pup. Once I get everything out to the car, my mom and dad come outside (double masked, as am I) and we quickly wave and air hug from a distance. On the way home, I drive through the grocery pickup and get my groceries.
5:30pm: Finally home. The dog is very happy to be home too - my mom said when she would come into the bedroom where he was, he would look at her and be - “oh…..just you…”. Such a momma’s boy :) Dinner is actual food (the rest of the kale sausage soup). I also put together a batch of cranberry almond biscotti (based off the Ina Garten cherry pistachio biscotti) - the apartment smells delicious. Settling in for post-travel isolation lol.
9:30pm: Melatonin gummies, tattoo upkeep, and then bedtime with the dog!
Daily Total: $76.47
Weekly Total: $505.50
Food & Drink: $326.64
Fun & Entertainment: $0
Home & Health: $22.00
Clothes & Beauty: $50.94
Transport: $105.92
Reflections:
First, GODDAMN I AM SO EXCITED TO PAY OFF THIS STUDENT LOAN. Just paid another $200 on it this morning, so we’re under $800!! If you hear an excited scream from the Western New York area next month, don’t worry, it’s just me.
Second, this was a higher spend week than usual, but I’m really proud to have budgeted for all of it. I had basically prepaid for the tattoo (on the gift card) and there’s still leftover for my next appointment. I had also budgeted and saved for the increased amount of gas and food.
Third, hopefully this isn’t too boring. My life pre-pandemic wasn’t terribly interesting, and it certainly isn’t now lol. I’m hoping to continue my debt payoff progress by finishing paying off my credit card debt in 2021, and start saving my 3-6 month emergency fund before starting that house down payment savings! I’m even starting to allow myself to start actually looking at Zillow.
I have been isolating since I got back - just drove through and got my COVID test, so fingers crossed for a quick reply!
Lastly, the coverup tattoo is going to be beautiful. I can’t wait for it to be finished!
Thanks for reading this whole thing!
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[Neopets] The curious case of Charity Corner 2020 and the sticky snowball

Background:
Neopets is a browser-based virtual pet and game site that took over the world in the late 90s and early 2000s. It's known for its Flash games, player-controlled economy, and nostalgia value. It has been sold to many different companies over the years- Viacom in 2005 for $160 million, and most recently JumpStart in 2014 for an undisclosed sum. Each change of company saw a little more removal from the original designers and developers, and a little less care taken in maintaining the site people are familiar with.
When JumpStart acquired the site in 2014, they had to migrate it to their servers, their *smaller* servers, and the site lost a lot of functionality people enjoyed. They closed Key Quest, a virtual board game that linked IRL plushies to player figurines and gave out sought-after prizes, Habitarium, a strategy/base management idle game, and many random site features. People are still discovering features that didn't "make it over", pages that are broken, and avatars (images that you customize your board posts with) that are no longer obtainable because the code is gone.
This frustrated and angered many loyal players as JumpStart gave no word that the migration would result in removal of so many popular and loved site features.
The features were never restored. In 2018 they hinted that Key Quest would return- but then in 2019 they announced the effort was cancelled.
Neopets celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, and has been working on several large projects to enrich the site- a town builder app, a match-3 app, and especially a mobile-friendly HTML5 version of the site due to the approaching Flash decommission.
In parallel with those long-term goals, players expect certain recurring events on the site, like the Altador Cup, an annual "World Cup" like sports event where users join teams from each region of the Neopets planet, Neopia, and compete in flash games to determine which Land wins, and the Advent Calendar, a month-long event in December where users view a new holiday-themed animation and collect related unique items.
It's unknown how many people are working on JumpStart Neopets versus the Viacom Neopets days, but it's rumored to be a smaller crew. The mobile games are being developed by a separate team in Canada. The NC wearables (real-money clothes for your pet) are made in India. But the actual site features are a mystery.
The reason this is relevant is because the events on the site require months of work ahead of time, and there are questions of if JumpStart Neopets can handle it at its current size.
This becomes apparent at every new event they try to host- because the userbase is sure to be loud and clear at things they do not like. Every event has taken a major cut in quality, especially ones that are less recyclable year-to-year.
​
Charity Corner:
A huge part of the Neopian experience is the economy, as its entirely player-controlled. Neopoints are the currency, earned by doing many things, playing Flash games, selling items, winning contests, doing "dailies"- small one-click HTML games that award prizes etc. The Flash games have a fixed Neopoint ratio per point earned in the game, and the NPC shops have an inflation rate that changes periodically. The NPC shops that randomly stock items at set price points, and users fight to be first to buy the "rare" and expensive items first. Then, they can resell the item for a high profit.
Dailies are something every user does every day. They give out a lot of items that are "junk"- worth so little because everyone ends up with 1000 of them kicking around in their Safety Deposit Box (SDB)- a place to hold extra items safely, that they have no value in the economy.
2014: Charity Corner is an event that was first started in 2014. It is centered around clearing out all the junk in Neopia by getting users to donate 5 items of certain rarity values in exchange for another single item of that rarity. This caused a lot of turmoil in the economy, because one could donate 5 Mallard Balloons at 1,200 Neopoints each and receive a Baby Techo Bobblehead worth 7,000,000 NP! So, due to supply and demand all the "cheap" items of the highest rarities quickly ballooned (pun unintended) to huge prices as people gambled for rare returns. Overall, it was seen by most as a good event and a cool way to obtain otherwise unobtainable items. Those who had the rare items to begin with saw it in a negative light for depreciating their worth.
The event returned each year with similar rules and prize mechanics.
2018: A big change was made this year- instead of giving 5 items for 1 item back, you would now redeem items for points. These points could be used at the end of the event to cash in on "perks"- less tangible rewards that modified your user experience. TNT did not list the perks prior to the end of the event, so they were a mystery.
One perk example is "Limited Edition" which would give you the ability to change one of your existing pets into a species that is hard to obtain/expensive. "Bank Bribery" would grant you 3% higher interest on the Neopoints in your bank account. Generally, these perks were extremely sought-after as they lasted the entire year and could allow people to more easily obtain their dream goals.
​
2019: The perks returned- this time allowing users to see the list while still donating.
Certain items in high rarities could be guaranteed from dailies, like an item called a Sticky Snowball that could be purchased from a special, infinitely-stocked healing item shop for 25 NP each. This transaction could be done every 30 minutes.
Because the event structure had not changed in the last few years, Neopians stockpiled these snowballs. People listed in their forum signatures how many they'd purchased- many in the THOUSANDS. Contrary to the event's purpose of getting rid of clutter, people were hoarding junk on purpose, either to give in the event for perks, or to sell during the event when the prices inflated for a tidy profit.
​
The Drama:
Ok guys, all caught up? Here's the drama now. It's 2020, and TNT has just unveiled the new Charity Corner for 2020 yesterday night. The theme for this year ties in to their new town-building app, and brings the world its set in into the broader Neopets game. And surprise! They took away the perks!
This year is still using a point system, but instead of redeeming for perks, points can be redeemed for prizes unique to the event. This ranges from a petpet (a pet... for your pet), to foods, to a stamp (these limited time event stamps are highly sought after due to the stamp-collecting book, once you put in a stamp you can never take it out again). But the most interesting items were "mystery capsules" of 3 different tiers.
These items are similar to the "give 5 get 1" mechanic, but it's more "give 187.5 get 1" to "give 500 get 1". This is because each single capsule costs 1500, 2500, and 4000 points respectively for each tier. And donating one item of a rarity 98-100 (the most points for the least NP), gives only 8 points.
​
Now, a Sticky Snowball is rarity 100, so users who spent every 30 min of the last year buying a snowball should be able to get 8 * 2000+ points, right? Well, no. TNT caught on to this get-rich-quick scheme and dropped a big surprise on everyone: Sticky Snowballs specifically were now only 1 point. 1 point!
To top it all off, if you DO buy one of these boxes after donating hundreds of items, do you at least get something cool like you could in 2014? Not really. TNT posted the chances for these boxes in the FAQ for the event, quoted below:
Tier 1 - Ultra Rare (4000 points)
1-84 : 85%
85-89: 10%
90-94: 4%
95-99: 1%
Tier 2 - Rare (2500 points)
1-74 : 85%
75-84: 10%
85-89: 3%
90-94: 2%
Tier 3 - Common (1500 points)
1-74 : 85%
75-84: 10%
85-89: 5%
​
Notice how each has an 85% chance of giving a junk item (rarity 1-74), and paying 4000 points for the highest tier only gives you a 5% chance of getting anything above rarity 90 (1% for 95-99).
This is heinous compared to the give 5 get 1 method, where if you gave 5 items of rarity 90-100, you were *guaranteed* another item from that rarity level. It means that you could donate 500 1,000 NP items and get a single 500 NP item back. Not just *could*, but it's the most likely outcome!
The community went absolutely rabid yesterday because of these changes. Here are some choice posts on the Site Events board:
"Opened the top tier mystery capsule"
​
"It's really pathetic that they did that with SSB. If anything, they should have raised the point requirements for prizes, not destroyed the value of SSB. They knew most users who planned on participating in CC this year were stocking up on them, it's really disappointing that TNT would do this. It's really petty."
​
"I canceled my Premium subscription. I'm not going to financially support a site that blatantly and maliciously disrespects its userbase with stuff like this." (Premium is an upgraded version of the site with no ads, other perks, that costs real money. About 2 dozen others also replied to say they also cancelled)
​
"Why Hasn't TNT Come Out With A Statement To Address This Tragedy Yet?"
​
"What did you get from your level 1 capsule?
I got a quality r42 Professor Chesterpot worth 1,400.
You've got to laugh or otherwise you'll cry, right?"
​
"let's be honest, even before the event was boring, sluggish, and god awful ugly. i mean the design of the machine is just despicable. I cannot imagine anyone getting a degree in art and then coming up with THAT at a professional job!!! i mean it's absurd.
​
And then they took away the only part of it that made any of it worth it or cool."
​
"Let's maybe not call people bootlickers and trolls for enjoying a thing." ​ "Quote:
I don't think TNT is in the wrong
ahhh, another TNT can do no wrong type of thinking. Keep thinking this way and they will feel entitled to destroy yet another event / part of the site."
​
"Imagine hating your userbase this much lol"
​
"I don't have enough cups for all the tea."
"I'm sorry tnt, but literally just stop trying"
​
"This is the most pathetic excuse of an event I have ever seen in my entire existence."
​
"In my opinion TNT is just active trying to k/ill this website tbh
this was the last straw for me and im not coming back"
​
https://i.imgur.com/lZOHCr2.png
​
Consequences:
The economy is in shambles- Sticky Snowballs went from cheap to expensive and are now right back at cheap again. People with 5000 are crying. The Site Events board is on fire.
Everyone is frothing at the mouth, and the few people that like or try to defend it are promptly dismembered by the mob. People are cancelling their Premium memberships left and right. Others are downright quitting altogether. Many are boycotting the event and the mobile game its themed around. There are several "petitions" to fix the event.
Keep in mind that everyone in this situation are firmly adults, at least in their 20s. A nontrivial amount are over 50. Actually, that might be relevant to this post:
"this site is full of karens who are not happy with anything"
Will their outrage cause TNT to change the shop? Will they add perks? Will they reinstate the Sticky Snowball? Will they adjust the capsule chances?
Surely there is more to come here and I will edit to update.
Update 1:
Prize shop prices have changed! The 3 capsules have been cut to 10% their original price- so T1 is 400, T2 is 250, and T3 is 150. These prices are MUCH more reasonable- requiring only 50-100 items per box instead of 500. Other prices have also changed- for example, the stamp is 1,500 instead of 5,000.
TNT also posted this message in their staff-specific board:
Hi everyone,
As many of you know, Charity Corner was released this year with a few changes. We wanted to take a moment to talk about these changes, as well as address the concerns we've heard from the users since we launched the event yesterday.
The first thing we'd like to talk about is the removal of perks. During last year's Charity Corner, the site encountered some technical difficulties as a result of their implementation. This year, our dev team has been focusing their main efforts on converting the site in preparation for the end of Flash. This dev team is also responsible for working on all site events, including Charity Corner. In the interest of directing efforts towards the site's conversion and to avoid unforeseen site bugs and user difficulties due to perks, they were removed from the event.
We'd also like to address the issue of the sticky snowball items. This adjustment was made as a necessary balance change; the Charity Corner donation items are intended to be worth the same amount that it takes to obtain them, similar to the value of other snowball items on the site. The team never intended to intentionally obstruct the event due to this balance change, and we'd like to apologize for any miscommunication this change may have caused.
We've heard your comments and concerns regarding Charity Corner this year, and we'd like to make this right. Adjustments will be made to the prize shop; prices will be reduced on all prizes, and you'll be able to claim a free gift of 500 points to use in whichever purchase you wish. The price changes will be rolling out immediately, and those 500 points will be coming your way soon.
We know we've let you down this year, but we truly do value the community and want to thank you for keeping an open dialogue with us. Our team is doing its best to ensure the future of Neopets, and we hope you'll stick with us as we work to modernize the site approaching the end of 2020.
-TNT
Reactions:
Wow. I wasn't going to cancel premium. But that response was horrendous. TNT truly does not care about the users.
​
"wow -facepalm emoji- so now what about all the folks who already spent their points?"
​
"lol wonder if I'll get back my 2,500 for the stamp now that its lower. Probably not, oh well. I don't care anymore, this whole thing just sux"
​
"Refunding after people already sold what they bought with the points? umm... no"
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"Changing things without notice, so that it hurts whoever was getting things done early on. Where have we heard that before?"
​
"I SPENT 13000 POINTS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
​
"wow i absolutely love how they not only messed it up AGAIN but messed it up PARTICULARLY for the people who had actually TRIED to play the event and used it even tho it was bad amazing fail tnt 10/10 genuine evil"
Most of these came from a topic that got deleted by the moderators- not because of the whining, but because the first post mentioned a different pet site and encouraged people to go there, which is against the rules.
Of course, people are seeing it instead as censorship of their demands.
Seems TNT can't win with this one guys- they apologized and adjusted things as asked and somehow everyone is MORE angry because they already spent points on something they were already so angry about.
The Karen comment from above is a little more relevant as people are now demanding a refund!
​
Update 2:
New message from TNT:
Hi Everyone,
This is the second part of our charity corner update. If you spent points in the prize shop before we reduced the prices, you will be receiving a refund of the difference. Additionally if you visit the prize shop you can claim 500 free points by clicking on the little gift box in the lower right corner. Lastly please note that the prize shop will stay open during and after the event ends.
-TNT
So, they got their refund!
Reactions:
Total Prize Points Earned: 10,059Prize Points Left: -2,441Prize Points Spent: 5,300
I'm not gifted at math, but something isn't adding up...
​
I work in IT.
Yeah I know this event is a let down. But everything I'm seeing is a sign that they're understaffed, underfunded and the transition away from flash is a massive undertaking.
Can we cut them some slack?
​
what about the people that bought the expensive prizes (stamp) sold them already and still got their points back? that's not fair
​
Update 3:
Hello [username],
You’re receiving this Neomail because you purchased 1 or more Tier 1 Mystery Capsules during this year's Charity Corner event prior to this Sept 18th neomail. Recently, our team uncovered an internal issue that was causing the rarity drop rates of Tier 1 and Tier 3 Mystery Capsules to be switched. The issue has since been fixed; Tier 1 capsules will now properly grant higher rarity items at a higher rate, and Tier 3’s will grant the lowest.
We’d like to sincerely apologize to you for this oversight. Due to those previous balance issues, you have been re-granted the same amount of Tier 1 capsules that you previously purchased. You can now find those capsules, working with the correct drop rates, in your Inventory. Any existing Tier 1 capsules you had unopened will now have the corrected rates.
The Neopets Team
Uh-huh, an internal issue, eh? That's confusing, since the drop rates for Tier 3 when I bought my Tier 1 capsule didn't even include the highest rarities.
The FAQ now has some slightly different rates:
Tier 1 - Ultra Rare
1-84 : 85%
85-89: 10%
90-94: 4%
95-99: 1%
Tier 2 - Rare
1-74 : 85%
75-84: 10%
85-89: 3%
90-94: 2%
Tier 3 - Common
1-74 : 85%
75-84: 10%
85-89: 5%
With R90-04 and R95-99 spit with slightly higher chances on the T1.
I opened the replacement capsule I got and received a Banana Hot Dog- R70 and worth 700 NP.
​
A staff member from the dev team also released a statement in this week's Neopian Times (weekly newspaper released on Friday nights):
Hi all. Gutterfoot here. It's been a tough week for everyone and we know this years' Charity Corner isn't what any of us expected. There were a lot of issues that we should have been more on top of as well as things like server crashes completely outside of our control.
We've heard everyone's concerns on the Neoboards about the need for more open communication. I personally try to be on the Mobile Beta board as much as time permits me (as I am also a member of the dev team, not a full-time community manager), but it just isn't realistic for all of us. The problem is that the TNT you all see on the boards popping in ARE the dev team as well. Having us be constantly available for communication just isn't viable, especially not while that same team is responsible for both the conversion effort and keeping up with content/events.
Now, I know NONE of this is your problem. This is entirely a problem that TNT needs to handle and we promise that we're going to make an effort to communicate more openly. We want and value your feedback. I appreciate every user who participates on the Mobile Beta board, whether they have dedicated entire pet pages of feedback or just pop-in to report a bug they've noticed. It's all so incredibly helpful to our team.
Circling back to Charity Corner, refunds should be processed and the glitch that prevented some users from claiming their free 500 points should be solved. If anyone feels that their point totals aren't accurate, please send a support ticket and we will try to respond as quickly as possible before the event ends on the 28th of September. We have also fixed the issue where tier 1 and tier 3 mystery capsule drop rates were switched. Those who purchased tier 1 capsules have been reimbursed with new ones. And the capsules within your inventory/prize shop are now reflecting correct drop rates. There won't be any penalties at all since this was entirely our mistake, so everyone is safe. We know we can do better than this and we hope to regain your trust one step at a time.
Note: Today is International Talk like a Pirate Day, and Neopets has a forum filter that makes "see"-spy, you- ye, about- 'bout, etc. Any odd wording in these messages is just a result of that filter.
Reactions:
eh, response was bad and didn't address anyone's questions
​
Dunno why people are upset at someone from the dev team doing their best.
Gutterfoot then came to the thread to discuss with users:
i agree that our response doesn't answer a whole lot of questions ye may have had across the boards, but we're planning on making a statement in the next editorial 'bout specific things like the status of the conversion effert and ways to hear more feedback within the community 'bout what the users want.
if anyone wants to send me a neomail, please do so and i will be able to respond better there than monitoring the ferums throughout the work day. i'm only here now because the day is over, haha. but i truly do care 'bout this community and so does the rest of the dev team. thank ye to everyone.
Reactions to Gutterfoot responding:
i'm literally gonna eat me shorts
​
I don't know if the dev team has a say in decision making or ye just execute orders, but plz let yer other "professional colleagues" know that their decision making is highly flawed and this site probably won't be able to survive 2-3 more bad events.
Our opinion of TNT is so low, that even by association, we can't fully trust yer words. You are part of TNT.
​
submitted by SligPants to HobbyDrama [link] [comments]

Weathering the Storm | Investing for FI through the Global Financial Crisis

And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.
Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore
The Global Financial Crisis was the second significant market event I was conscious of. My investing journey began at the same time as the 2000 'Dot com' bubble. I have few distinct memories of that latter event, though I do recall a work supervisor who had a sizeable investment in an actively managed global technology focused fund, ruefully reflecting on market events.
The Global Financial Crisis was different - it emerged in the early phases of my investment journey, around seven years after I started building an investment portfolio by making regular contributions, and after I had already read a number of investment books and researched some financial market history. Indeed, By mid-2006 I had already set an early FI goal of achieving investment returns equal to average expenditure, with an ambitious deadline of December 2008. This shows how far I was from anticipating the shape of events to come.
This post results from reader questions received about my direct experience with the Global Financial Crisis. It focuses on the period of the crisis and initial recovery, from 2007 through the 2010 and aims to cover:
In short, how - or indeed was - this storm weathered?
Answering that question needs to start at the beginning, however, with a description of the context in which the crisis developed.
Before the storm - initial position and first signs
Relevant to the picture is the fact that the Global Financial Crisis occurred just following the purchasing of a house in late 2006. Saving for this purchase had been the focus of the previous several years.
As it was, therefore, the FI portfolio was at an early stage at 2007, less than 10 per cent at least in nominal terms to its value in January 2019. The only investments owned at that point were several Vanguard diversified funds, and some small shareholdings in Insurance Australia Group and Telstra.
As early 2007 arrived, the last of several lump sum mortgage payments were made. With their completion, a major opportunity to refocus cashflow towards building a FI portfolio emerged. Yet this was not without some small foreshadowing events pressing themselves onto my consciousness
In fact, I recall a disquieting sense building through small scraps of information in early to mid-2007 that unusual pressures were building in the banking and monoline insurance sector (which often offered insurance on credit default swaps and other exotic residential mortgage backed securities).
I also remember registering the decision by French bank BNP Paribas to suspend three US mortgage focused funds in August 2007. Similarly, the failure of the UK bank Northern Rock in September 2007 signalled these were not normal times.
Steering the ship - actions through the storm
So, putting aside what was thought, seen or missed - what matters is what actions were actually taken through the period.
During the period 2006 to 2010 my annual investments into the market increased every year. This evolved from final payment of the house mortgage, to increased investment in what were my primary investment vehicles then, the Vanguard retail funds.
During the sharpest phase of the GFC, around September 2008 to March I was investing between $3400 and $4400 per month into the most aggressive of these funds - the Vanguard Diversified High Growth fund.
As an example of the power of regular investing in this time of serious equity market decline, I purchased units of that fund at prices as low as $0.92c per unit - less than half the current unit price in nominal terms, and nearly 45 per cent lower in real terms.
The majority of these new investments - over two-thirds - were made into indexed growth orientated Vanguard funds - the High Growth fund receiving the most. Smaller contributions were also made to the Vanguard Growth and Balanced funds. Additionally, I invested around $24 000 in Vanguard's Diversified Bond fund across 2009-2010 - primarily because I had closed a higher cost actively managed 'Conservative' Colonial First State Managed Fund and wanted to invest the proceeds in a close substitute.
Between May and July in 2009 I also made my first purchases of gold (purchasing the ETF code GOLD.ASX). It is possible this represented some late emerging panic - however, at the time I was also growing more interested in putting together a portfolio of non-correlated assets, and learning more, so this is not the only interpretation to place on that move.
Rather, at the time I believe I considered it a small hedge against even more extreme states of the world than I had been experiencing. This is illustrated by the fact the amount invested was less than 10 per cent than total new contributions in that period.
Complicating the overall picture of savings and investment in the 2008 to 2009 period is the fact that I had changed jobs in early 2008, and then was briefly out of work in the second half of 2009. It also meant some pre-emptive building up and then use of cash reserves as a cushion, which should not be mistaken for pre-cognition. This change in life circumstances introduced an involuntary and early phase of portfolio draw-down for these months, in what felt like delicate market times.
What is difficult to convey is the overall sense of crisis across the media and institutions. One trivial but symbolic example of this was listening to the then new Planet Money podcast, and learning almost on a nightly basis of the significance or unprecedented movements in obscure interbank markets in the US - the 'Ted spread' measure.
In the most dramatic phase of the crisis, September 2008, I even acted to ensure cash holdings were spread around banking institutions in a way that diversified my risk to any one of Australia's big four banks being unable to meet their obligations, as well as maximised coverage of the deposit insurance scheme in place. At the time, to be sure, I considered the risk of a major bank failing and not being supported by the Federal Government to be very low.
Asset allocation through the global financial crisis
In a storm, steering and the set of the sails is one matter, the direction travelled is another matter.
What is perhaps most remarkable through this time is the relative stability in overall portfolio allocation at this time. This is illustrated by the chart below.
[Chart]
Through the period the equity allocation stayed in the range of 65 to 71 per cent, increasing slightly over the first three years. Bond exposure likewise was stable at between 20 to 24 per cent.
The most significant overall changes evident are the elimination of cash holdings through that time, and the gold purchase. Throughout the period, average allocations to shares and bonds remained at exactly their longer-term averages since 2007.
Boxing the compass - tracking directions in the storm
To illustrate what actually happened to the overall value of the portfolio through the Global Financial Crisis the chart below sets out the half-yearly progress from mid-2007 to January 2010.
[Chart]
What can be seen from this is growth until January 2008, and then essentially a near 'levelling off' in the total value for six months, followed by a small increase (of less than $10 000) in the second half of 2008 - the sharpest phase of the crisis.
Superficially, this might look like a relative non-event, especially as upward movement then resumes throughout 2009. Yet, looking only at the total portfolio value obscures the fact that significant contributions were being made during this 'levelling off' period.
To understand this better, examining just the change in market values of assets held, and removing the contributions impact is a better measure.
This makes it clearer that contributions were in fact backfilling continued market falls. For example:
With the regular investments discussed above, the result of this was the portfolio struggling to maintain forward movement.
For around seven months from the third quarter of 2008 to March 2009 the level of the portfolio simply did not rise, despite significant regular investments.
Assessing the stability of distributions through the 2007-2010
Distributions and dividends are often discussed as being inherently more stable in periods of market volatility. The key question to answer here is: compared to what?
The portfolio data I have provides at least one window into this question over the period.
The chart below sets out the 'adjusted' portfolio income over 2007 to 2010 (income such as dividends and bond coupon payments, excluding any distributed capital gains as detailed here). This measure also excludes some cash and at call high interest savings, to focus purely in on the portfolio income of market exposed assets.
Broadly, through this time as mentioned above, the asset allocation was equity dominated, around 68 per cent, with a 22 per cent bond allocation.
[Chart]
From 2007 to 2008, with growing investments, distributions nearly doubled. From 2008 to 2009, however, portfolio distributions in the form of dividends and bond income fell by more than 50 per cent. This is a significant fall, and not easily reconcilable with a view about the reassuring stability of dividend income, for example.
The performance is even starker when considering the income yield of the portfolio - and looking at not the absolute numbers of distributions, but the yield based on the average value of the portfolio over the relevant yields.
This is illustrated in the chart below.
[Chart]
From this it can be seen that in 2008, the adjusted income yield was 5.1 per cent.
In 2009, this fell to just 1.9 per cent, even though no significant shift in the type of assets owned had occurred - equivalent to an over 60 per cent fall in the income produced by the portfolio. This shows the potential risks in planning to directly live off dividend income from a portfolio, with no buffer.
Both the yield and absolute level of distributions bounced back somewhat over the next year. Yet, the average income yield between 2009 and 2016 was still only 2.3 per cent, less than half the pre-GFC yield.
After the storm - the same person who walked in?
So how has this storm affected the rest of the voyage?
My personal learnings from the period are many, but in fact none relate to the timing of unpredictable markets. Rather these lessons are:
So with those learnings, its arguable that the same person did not walk out of the storm. Rather, it has helped prepare for the next storm - which will inevitably come.
The post, links and full charts can be seen here.
submitted by thefiexpl to fiaustralia [link] [comments]

How self-driving star fell off course

https://www.autonews.com/mobility-report/how-self-driving-star-fell-course - Paywall
SAN FRANCISCO — On a rainy December afternoon, Anthony Levandowski sat on a stool near the front of a coffee shop, engrossed in his phone.
He scrolled through pictures on a website that dares users to discern the difference between images of humans generated by artificial intelligence and actual photos of humans. For the uninitiated, it’s a crapshoot. The more time spent staring at the images, the more convincing the fakes appear. Doubt seeps in. The more unnerving the game becomes.
For Levandowski, more skilled in separating what’s real from Silicon Valley creations, spotting the telltale signs of images designed to deceive is an easier task. A small discoloration. A stray hair. He has aced six in a row, and his enthusiasm spills over as he gains momentum.
“Look, look at the freckle on the side,” he exclaims, pointing to an otherwise innocuous blemish.
While he examines images with dermatological care, he’s oblivious to the gawkers and passersby captivated by the presence of the self-driving pioneer whose stints at Google and Uber remain daily news fodder. With his 6-foot-7 frame, thinning hairline and boyish smile, there’s no doubt the real deal sits a few feet from the counter where they await their lattes.
What they make of Levandowski remains a murkier question. In a region known for turning its technology wunderkinds into outsized caricatures of themselves, nobody cuts a longer shadow than the one prosecutors say stole trade secrets from one Big Tech behemoth and brought them to another.
He’s a visionary. As a college student, Levandowski entered a self-driving motorcycle nicknamed GhostRider into a Department of Defense competition designed to stimulate interest in autonomous vehicles. A technical mistake at the start spoiled the undertaking, but the chutzpah necessary to enter a motorcycle in the first place impressed friends and future employers.
He’s an opportunist. In 2011, when he led hardware development for Google’s self-driving car project, he engineered the sale of two companies, 510 Systems and Anthony’s Robots, to Google. Many members of the project were unaware Levandowski owned them.
He’s the personification of Silicon Valley’s more unseemly impulses. He’s flouted regulations in multiple states, allegedly endangered a colleague and a member of the public during self-driving testing, rankled others with an abrasive management style and hopscotched from his job at Google to Uber with at least one confidential document in hand.
Levandowski, now 40, has heard it all.
“There’s a whole narrative about me,” he tells Automotive News. “I got branded as an asshole if I said, ‘Here, how do we build something that succeeds?’ Everything comes down to this: Ideas should be challenged. Conversations about our ideas are healthy. And ultimately, we’re here to make a product.”
Over the past two years, those conversations often occurred inside a courtroom. Waymo, Google’s self-driving car unit, accused Uber of absconding with proprietary knowledge of the company’s essential lidar technology, via Levandowski, and of using those documents to accelerate Uber’s self-driving progress. The dispute was settled in February 2018, with Waymo receiving a stake in Uber worth approximately $245 million at the time.
For Levandowski, legal reverberations continued. The judge presiding over the civil suit recommended him for criminal prosecution. Last summer, Levandowski was indicted on 33 felony counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets. One national magazine called the case “the most prominent federal trade-secret criminal prosecution in Silicon Valley history,” one that pitted a brilliant engineer against a multibillion-dollar company and a government emboldened to use new legal tools to deter corporate espionage.
A case some observers characterized as Big Tech’s turn against innovation itself, the United States of America v. Anthony Scott Levandowski reached its crescendo this month. For all the potential implications and precedents, the outcome underscored one point: In Silicon Valley, things may not always be as they appear.
Early tensions
Following the foundational events sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, known as DARPA, that brought Levandowski and other roboticists together in the Nevada and California deserts during the mid-aughts, Google in 2009 launched Project Chauffeur. That was the first iteration of its foray into self-driving developments.
Ambitions were grandiose. Through the mass deployment of self-driving vehicles, Google promised nothing less than a wholesale transportation revolution, one with potential to eradicate more than a million worldwide traffic deaths every year and end the monotony of driving for everyday commuters.
DARPA alums Sebastian Thrun and Chris Urmson served as early leaders of the project, and Levandowski, who had worked on Google’s Street View project since the DARPA challenges, soon joined them as director of the team’s hardware division.
During his stint at Street View, Levandowski started a side company, 510 Systems, that engineered tools that helped turn camera-based images into data. By 2011, the same underlying technology was needed to boost Google’s self-driving car program. Whether through entrepreneurial cunning or genuine interest in helping, Levandowski engineered the sale of 510 Systems to Google for $20 million.
He sold another company, Anthony’s Robotics, to Google as well. At least initially, most Google employees didn’t understand the connections. Levandowski says he was forthright about his motives.
“I didn’t do that to cash out,” he says. “I did it to scale up.”
The acquisitions nonetheless left uneasy feelings on both sides. Once Google acquired 510 Systems, several employees of the startup were dismissed while others slotted into subordinate roles at Google. Levandowski says he regrets not advocating for the 510 Systems staff in a more aggressive manner. But for the time being, Levandowski retained the backing of Google’s senior leadership, and he and his colleagues coexisted.
That changed in the summer of 2013, following a seminal moment for the self-driving car project. Google entrusted some employees with its fledgling autonomous system for road tests, with the caveat that they understood they were responsible for monitoring the system to ensure safety. Quickly, those employees trusted the system so completely that one fell asleep behind the wheel.
Alarmed, Google scrapped its entire approach to introducing autonomous technology. No longer would the company pursue a path that included interactions between human and machine. Humans, the company concluded, must have no role in the driving process. From Levandowski’s perspective, the company learned the wrong lesson.
Levandowski reached the opposite conclusion. From his perspective, the company learned the wrong lesson from the slumbering driver.
“To me, it was perfect because it showed that we had achieved trust,” he says. “You don’t go from a great product to a hard pivot. You say, ‘Let’s fix that. Let’s detect that.’ But they’re going to take this science project that we’re doing to cure one disease, and saying, ‘No, no, let’s pull that until we cure all diseases.’?”
Tensions mounted. Soon after, he says, another project met a discouraging end.
Spawned from a need to find reliable transportation around its hometown, Mountain View, Calif., Google started its own ride-hailing network on a small scale, Levandowski says. It was called Freebird, and it resembled in spirit a San Francisco startup just beginning to upend transportation.
A new path forward
Had the project been allowed to flourish, Levandowski laments, perhaps Freebird would today be as ubiquitous as Uber. Instead, he says, Google leaders viewed the network as a distraction and shelved the project.
For the first time, Levandowski had doubts about his future at the company. He had disagreed with the self-driving-or-bust pivot, been passed over in favor of Urmson when Thrun departed and now seethed as a novel project was shuttered. Frustrations boiled. The feelings were mutual.
“With his manipulations and lack of enthusiasm and commitment to the [self-driving] project, it became clearer and clearer that this was a lost cause,” Urmson told lawyers during an August 2017 deposition at the outset of Waymo’s civil suit against Uber.
The final straw came in the summer of 2015, when Levandowski approached colleagues about joining him at a new startup dedicated to developing self-driving trucks. Word leaked. Urmson was livid. In an email to his bosses sent Aug. 4, 2015, he was blunt: “We need to fire Anthony Levandowski.”
That didn’t happen. But his departure came soon enough. By that December, Levandowski held discussions with then-Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, who would later tell Bloomberg that self-driving technology was “basically existential” for the ride-hailing network’s long-term survival.
On Dec. 11, 2015, Levandowski downloaded approximately 14,000 documents from a password-protected Google server, according to court documents. A month later, he announced his departure and the creation of autonomous trucking startup Ottomotto, known as Otto. Discussions with Kalanick continued, and in August 2016, Uber acquired Otto for $680 million.
Google was furious.
Meanwhile, Levandowski had charged into his first chance to run his own self-driving program, with little regard for obstacles. In May 2016, Nevada’s top transportation official warned Otto officials they did not have permission to conduct a driverless test on the state’s roads. Levandowski greenlighted a test run anyway.
Over the summer, company documents indicate, Otto tested a “self-driving system” in “self-driving mode” on California public roads. That was problematic because state regulations prohibit the testing of autonomous vehicles with a gross weight of 10,001 pounds or more. In December 2016, a public dispute erupted with California Department of Motor Vehicles officials after Uber, which had placed its entire self-driving program in Levandowski’s hands, began testing AVs on public roads without obtaining the necessary permits. The state ultimately revoked the registrations of Uber’s test vehicles.
“He has a willingness to take risks to advance his cause in near total indifference to what others may think of him and his endeavors,” said Randy Miller, a friend of Levandowski since their days at the University of California, Berkeley and member of the GhostRider team. “He’s a really, really smart guy who’s always been different than everyone else. He’s the hardest worker I know, and he’s completely fearless. That hasn’t served him well all of the time.”
Two months after the spat with California regulators, Waymo filed suit against Uber, alleging patent infringement and violations of the Defend Trade Secrets Act, a law passed in 2016 that allowed corporations to file civil suits against competitors. The long fall of Anthony Levandowski had begun.
Trade secrets take center stage
In June 2018, about 14 months before Levandowski’s personal legal battle would begin, prosecutors from the U.S. District Court of Northern California charged six executives from wearables company Fitbit with stealing trade secrets from a former employer. Between the Waymo settlement with Uber and now these cases, engineers throughout Silicon Valley suddenly felt vulnerable to similar accusations.
But when the first of the Fitbit cases reached trial in January 2020, a federal grand jury took less than two hours of deliberation to acquit the defendant, Katherine Mogal, of all charges, ending what one attorney called “a five-year nightmare.” Charges against the remaining defendants were subsequently dropped.
Evidence in the Mogal case centered on documents on her personal computer. In an era when so many people work remotely and outside traditional business hours, jurors could not determine what constituted stolen documents or ones that employees had merely saved on home devices in the normal course of their work.
“Companies think that if they keep information confidential, that it’s a trade secret, and that’s absolutely not true,” said Sharon Sandeen, director of the Intellectual Property Institute and professor at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minn. “Just because you downloaded these documents, that doesn’t mean they’re trade secrets.”
In the civil case between Waymo and Uber, Levandowski’s lawyers argued the approximately 14,000 documents downloaded in December 2015 were part of automatic and regular transfers to his home computer. Waymo engineer Sasha Zbrozek, who designed the server that held the documents, had told lawyers during the course of the investigation that the files were “low value,” according to court filings.
Separately, Zbrozek would say that conducting a “checkout” of documents was common practice and that “it makes me uncomfortable that lawyers are trying to ascribe suspicion to it.”
Sandeen says there are three distinct requirements for information to be considered a trade secret: It must be a secret, not a generally known bit of knowledge; it must have economic value because of its secrecy; companies must engage in efforts to maintain that secrecy.
Further, provisions in trade-secret law allow employees to bring general knowledge with them to new jobs. Silicon Valley overall has thrived for decades with a culture that promotes such movement.
“The problem is, you have a situation like this, with some new technology or initiative, and all the sudden there’s a switch in culture,” Sandeen said. “People start getting more proprietary, and open-innovation norms that existed don’t exist anymore.”
The government’s defeat in the Fitbit trial and subsequent retreat from further cases served as a backdrop to the conclusion of Levandowski’s case. Levandowski reached a plea agreement with the same Northern California prosecutors on March 19. Headlines in publications across the country noted his guilty plea, but they did not capture the substance of the agreement.
He faced 33 felony counts related to theft and attempted theft of trade secrets. Thirty-two of those counts involved accusations related to Google’s internally developed lidar — receiver schematics, motor designs, circuit boards, calibration instructions, etc.
In the end, he pleaded guilty to a charge that had almost nothing to do with the technology Google described as a business differentiator.
Levandowski confessed to downloading 20 documents, including one called “Chauffeur TL weekly updates – Q4 2015.” Stored on Google Drive, the document was an ongoing status report of Google’s self-driving car program, containing quarterly goals and weekly metrics, according to his plea agreement. It contained his team’s OKRs — objectives and key results — and summaries of technical challenges faced by the overall program.
It was not lidar secrets, but it still carries substantial consequences. He admitted to taking the file to use for his own benefit and that he intended to use the weekly update for “the economic benefit of somebody other than the owner” with the knowledge that it would injure Google’s economic position.
“Mr. Levandowski’s guilty plea in a criminal hearing today brings to an end a seminal case for our company and the self-driving industry,” a Waymo spokesperson said. “We are successfully protecting our intellectual property as we build the world’s most experienced driver.”
In a separate hearing two weeks earlier, an arbitration panel had ordered Levandowski to pay Google $179 million in damages, upholding a ruling that he engaged in deceptive and unfair practices when he siphoned Google employees to his trucking startup. He then filed for bankruptcy.
An uncertain future
At the coffee shop in December, Levandowski declined to discuss the specifics of the charges against him. That was partially tactical; the case was ongoing. But beyond the advice of his lawyers, it seemed Levandowski viewed the wringing over his own particular fate as a distraction from a larger concern — a self-driving industry beset with problems and delayed deployment time frames.
Uber shut down its self-driving trucks division in July 2018. Cruise Automation, the General Motors subsidiary, indefinitely delayed its timeline for launching a robotaxi service in 2019. Waymo runs some autonomous vehicles without human safety drivers aboard in a geofenced area of metro Phoenix, but those are a small part of overall operations, of which the company has not disclosed the scope.
Industry lobbyists have blamed a patchwork of regulations that vary from state to state as a contributing factor to the delayed rollout of self-driving technology. But Levandowski defends the regulators he once circumvented.
“Regulators are a scapegoat,” he says. “The real problem is that it’s not ready.”
In 2008, as part of his efforts at 510 Systems, he conducted the first autonomous pizza delivery, using one of the company’s Toyota Priuses, with a police escort, to travel from the San Francisco waterfront, across the Bay Bridge and to Treasure Island. A dozen years later, he laments that not much has improved.
“I’m disappointed,” he says of the industry he helped create. “We’re far out. There’s a fundamental breakthrough that’s needed. This is not that ‘we built an airplane, and we’re figuring out the wing configuration.’ This is, ‘we built an airplane, and we don’t know how to make it fly.’?”
Such a view may not be widely accepted, but it’s no longer an outlier. This month, Toyota Research Institute CEO Gill Pratt told IEEE Spectrum that the gradient of progress has diminished and that it’s getting more difficult to solve remaining challenges. Along similar lines, Stefan Seltz-Axmacher, outgoing CEO of the now-defunct self-driving truck company Starsky Robotics, says supervised machine learning “doesn’t live up to the hype.”
Billions have been spent. Millions of testing miles have been driven, the value of which is increasingly scrutinized. Thousands of employees have been devoted to readying self-driving technology. Fully autonomous vehicles remain a bold and ambitious project, but in the meantime, there’s an intermediate step with lifesaving potential. Instead of waiting for self-driving cars, traffic deaths can be addressed today with advanced driver-assist systems.
In July 2018, Levandowski co- founded Pronto.ai, a company developing driver-assist systems tailored for the trucking industry. He stepped down as CEO when the trade-secret indictment arrived. But over the past year, his faith in driver-assist systems has only grown more resolute.
Levandowski has been accused of disregarding safety over the years. Most notably, a New Yorker article alleges a 2011 incident in which he was behind the wheel of a Google self-driving test vehicle, which boxed in a Toyota Camry. The Camry subsequently spun out of control along a California roadway, and in swerving to avoid it, the article says, Levandowski injured a colleague who was his passenger.
He bristles at the idea he’s cut safety corners, arguing he’s doing more to save lives today than those focused solely on a fully driverless tomorrow.
“Everyone who says they’re building self-driving cars for safety reasons, they’re whitewashing their efforts,” he says. “If you replace a driver, that’s a moneymaking opportunity. If you think that’s happening next week, go work on that. If you think it’s not happening for another 10 years, look at these incremental systems that are saving lives today.”
No limits
Frustrations with the pace of self-driving developments aside, Levandowski remains bullish on the long-term prospects of artificial intelligence.
When Uber fired him in May 2017, he turned his attention toward that future, diving into his self-appointed role as dean of the self-created Way of the Future, a church devoted to the worship of AI. Outsiders thought it was a prank or perhaps a means to shelter his fortune. But he says his intentions are genuine.
“AI has amazing potential that will surpass humans,” he says. “I don’t think there’s a limit to how good it will be, and I want that to be beneficial for society. The whole reason it’s a church is that it strips away financial motivations. It turns a primary motivation of ‘How can we make money?’ to ‘How can we use this to solve problems and potentially take care of the planet?’?”
If exploring those far-reaching impacts of AI are part of Levandowski’s future, he cannot yet escape the present. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 4. Federal guidelines suggest he will spend 24 to 30 months in prison.
“Mr. Levandowski is a young man with enormous talents and much to contribute to the fast-moving world of AI and AV,” Miles Ehrlich, his attorney, said in a written statement. “We hope this plea will allow him to move on with his life and focus his energies where they matter most.”
Recently divorced, bankrupt and an admitted thief, Levandowski has seen much of the legacy he created now in tatters. One small part remains intact: GhostRider, the self-driving motorcycle that launched his career, resides in the Smithsonian Institution.
Miller, his friend, laments all that has been squandered. But he’s reassured by the beliefs it’s only served to invigorate Levandowski and that a long road ahead remains.
“Certainly, he made a mistake with the files that has cost him a few years of his life already and will probably cost him a few more,” he said. “In a certain way, that’s humbling. At the same time, he is who he is. He’s not going to get out and take a job at a coding desk. Day one, he’s going to be right back at it. Knowing him, I don’t think this is the final chapter at all.”
submitted by jocker12 to SelfDrivingCarsLie [link] [comments]

u/vernazza's unnecessarily long guide to Budapest

Free 30+ page travel guide about Budapest, Hungary and bits of Central Europe. Enjoy!
Information correct as of summer 2020. If you find anything incorrect or would like to make requests, suggestions (or just want to say hi), please do that here! You should also drop by in /budapest to see past questions and to get advice from multiple people.
I would also greatly appreciate your post-trip feedbacks about whether my recommendations worked out for you or not! Restaurants, clubs can undergo radical changes and it's not always possible to keep track of every single one.
The local charity I support is the Hungarian Food Bank Association. For every €1 donated they are able to save €30 worth of perishable food and have it reach underprivileged Hungarian families. If you find this guide useful, please consider donating to them!
Some links use URL-shorteners, so I could track how many of you are using this guide. Nothing fishy waiting for you behind them.
See my suggestions in the comments below about:
===CORONA RESTRICTIONS===
The situation is subject to change momentarily, this information is current as of September 2020. Eastern Europe as a whole has largely been spared from the worst of it, including Hungary, and the risk of transmission is low.
Presently foreigners are banned from entry altogether. Exceptions are in place for people with ties to the country (family members, studies, work, those holding residence permits), and people transiting by car on designated highways.
The situation will be revised monthly, with experts saying the second peak is expected for December-January.
In the country, you need to wear a mask on public transport, inside shops, malls, cinemas, museums. You don't need to wear them inside restaurants, cafes, bars, but they must close by 23.00. Social distancing rules are in place, but largely ignored.
===END OF CORONA RESTRICTIONS===
Hungary has a continental climate with 4 seasons. Summer is the main season, a slightly less busy time to visit is April to mid-June and September to October, but the weather is less predictable. Those uncomfortable with 30+C (>85F) temperatures should visit around then as 35+C (>95F) is not uncommon in the summer. November through March has -5 to 10 (20-50F) and possibly gloomier weather – but fewer tourists.
Currency: the Hungarian Forint (HUF, Ft). Fair exchange rates for Euros is around 330-335Fts, for US Dollars around 300. Only use currency exchanges where the buy/sell spread isn't greater than 5-6Fts for these two currencies!
Citizens of 62 countries do not require a visa to enter the Schengen Area and can stay for maximum 90 days within a rolling 180-day window. See here if you don’t know what that entails. EU member countries that are not members of the Schengen Area are Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Ireland, Romania, and the United Kingdom, visits to these do not count toward your 90 days. Non-EU countries part of the Schengen Area are Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland, visits to these do count toward the cap.
Because we both know you want to do your own research, use:
See the city in 4K, or with Rick Steves.
However nothing beats having a physical guidebook in your hand! Lonely Planet has the best and most recent issue.
Read up on the concept of coconut and peach cultures, as sometimes the reserved and distant behaviour of locals can be misinterpreted by ‘peach’ visitors as rudeness – nope!
This is a comprehensive itinerary, but leaves out the best museum of the city: the House of Terror, a solemn museum of the Nazi and Soviet occupation and crackdowns (get the audio guide or be prepared to peruse dozens of pamphlets). There's an attendance limit, so you might need to wait up to 30-45 minutes to get in when it's the busiest. When you are around Deák Ferenc tér, drop by in the Tourinform office (Sütő utca 2., the small street near the church) to stock up on free maps, printed guides of the city. WeLoveBudapest prints a comprehensive and free one every year around June.
I suggest 4 full days to discover Budapest, or 3 faster paced ones. Make it 5-7 if you'd like to make a few daytrips (Szentendre - open-air ethnographic museum, cobblestoned, quaint center, Esztergom - Central Europe's largest cathedral and religious center, Visegrád - medieval castle, Eger - medieval castle and wine region). Most of Hungary’s highlights can be visited in 2 weeks. For more details on countryside and international trips, see my comment below.
Meal times and habits are typical to central Europe: breakfast is usually done at home, not much of a culture of eating out in the morning. But a large number of new wave breakfast places have popped up in the past years, which offer ample opportunities for visitors, normally from 8am. Lunch is at midday, after 1pm most places are going to be fairly empty and many will stop serving lunch after 2pm. The standard time for dinner is 7pm, bookings for later than 8pm are unusual. Lots of restaurant kitchens close at 10pm (with the restaurant following suit 30-60 minutes later), finding a meal after that hour is challenging for anything other than street food.
Baths
Gellért is the most aesthetic, Széchenyi the largest and most popular among foreigners (Sparty can get crazy with lots of drinking, puking and sex going on in the pools, but it is wildly overpriced and 100% aimed at visitors). Rudas is a Turkish hamam with swimwear optional, single-gender weekdays (women-only on Tuesdays, coed and swimwear-mandatory on the weekend). Lukács is plain and personally I’m not a fan of it – tourists only visit it because it’s included free with the Budapest Card. For more details on the baths, see this.
For off the beaten path sights, ride the D11 or D12 public boat lines for a cheap alternative to paid cruises (travelcards only valid on weekdays, otherwise 700Ft), check out the Pinball Museum, Hospital in the Rock or check out this section for a lot more off the beaten path ideas.
Shopping
Hungary has the world’s highest effective VAT (=sales tax) at 27%. Non-EU/EEA tourists are eligible for VAT refund on their qualifying purchases if they complete the paperwork (min. €175 value per transaction, passport+reclaim form stamped by customs official).
The most popular and best accessible mall of the city is WestEnd on Nyugati tér. Arena Plaza is larger by floor area and carries a couple brands that can’t be found elsewhere, but is less centrally located (10min walk from Keleti train station). Don’t expect to find bargains on clothing or electronics, prices are similar to Western Europe and over North American or Asian ones.
For more information on shopping and VAT refund, see here.
Paprika Market is a decent souvenir shop in the sea of overpriced, terrible quality crap on Váci utca.
Magma Gallery for contemporary and affordable jewelry, ceramics and home decor items by local designers is just one street over on Petőfi Sándor utca.
Check out the antique bookstores alongside Múzeum körút between Astoria and Kálvin tér, some have Socialist-era posters available for sale from 30€ and up, that could be a unique gift/home decor to take home. Ecseri road flea market for more antiques, go early on Saturdays.
Hungarian cuisine is hearty and filling, with a heavy use of meats. Must-try foods are:
For authentic recipes, recommendations for recipe blogs or cookbooks, tips for cooking traditional Hungarian meals, see here
For edible souvenirs to bring home with you:
Grocery stores include Spar, Tesco, Aldi and Lidl. Avoid CBA and Coop, low quality for high prices. Small convenience stores, many 24/7, also dot the city at higher prices.
The most popular and best accessible mall of the city is WestEnd on Nyugati tér.
Alcohol is sold at every one, but some (mostly residential) districts enact a ban on the sale between 22.00-06.00. The central Pest districts don’t have such limitations in place.
Tobacco is sold at tobacconists (‘nemzeti dohánybolt’ ). These shops are also exempt from the evening alcohol sale ban if you find yourself in such a district. Flavored cigarettes are banned in Hungary, so no Black Devils or Sobranies.
Budgets (per person)
For reasonable comforts, I would suggest aiming for at least €50 per day excluding accommodation. Hotel prices significantly vary in and outside high season.
Getting around
Do not buy the Budapest Card, it is not a bargain, even if every travel blogger seems to think otherwise! You would need to visit at least 3-4 museums a day to break even and the free visit to the pretty plain Lukács Baths could mean you’d deny yourself going to the much more interesting mainstream alternatives, such as Gellért or Széchenyi. The discounted museums are second-rate and typically not what most visitors choose to hit up on their own.
Do buy a public transport travelcard, the 1, 3 or 5-day unlimited options require no validation or ID (common reasons for fines). For week-long stays, the 7-day travelcard needs an ID number and that you have the document on you at all times. Please do not try to get around by using single tickets!
The travelcards are economical (from €5/24h to €15/week) and easy to use: no validation, you just show it to the controllers. Validity starts immediately by default, or you can select a later starting date (always from midnight). 7-day and monthly passes require an ID/passport number, and you must have the ID on you whenever you travel, otherwise you risk getting fined! Groups of 4 or more can also buy the even more economical '24h group travelcard', but all persons must travel together using that.
Common reasons for fines
Ticket inspectors (must have an anonymized badge and armband) are notoriously brash, speak subpar English. Paying on the spot lets them give you a discounted fine of 8000 instead of the regular 16000 through postal order or wire transfer, they aren't looking to scam you if they offer you that. Fines are pursued internationally through collection agencies, multiplying the original amount once their fees are added.
Cheapest way to get to the city from the airport is by public transport. I suggest paying the 900Ft supplementary ticket for the 100E bus. The southern portion of the M3 subway is under reconstruction, during that period the 200E buses go beyond their usual terminus, Kőbánya-Kispest and take you to Nagyvárad tér station, where the subway runs from. The purple ticket machines at the airport and all over the city take chipped cards. Shuttle bus is a good compromise between price and comfort and depart when full or close to.
Ignore touts walking up to you offering cabs in the arrival hall, use the official Főtaxi booth immediately outside the building. Rates are centralized: flagfall 700Ft, 300Ft/km, 75Ft/min waiting. The fair price to the centre is around 7-9.000Fts. Rides inside the centre are typically under 3.000. All taxi companies have passable reputations with a few horror stories about each, Főtaxi (+36-1-222-2222), 6x6 Taxi (+36-1-666-6666), City Taxi (+36-1-211-1111) are a few. There are some stories of even company cab drivers trying to rip off naive-looking tourists, especially around train and bus stations, so consider legal Uber-alternative Taxify/Bolt (Android, iOS). Uber is banned.
Most companies have apps, but they have terrible design and might set an unchangeable pick up location 5-10 minutes away from you. It’s much better to order by phone, they have English-speaking operators. If you must use an app, choose Taxify.
Scams
Cabbies are the only ones eclipsing the ticket inspectors in notoriety. I cannot emphasize enough: DO NOT USE THE ONES WITH ‘FREELANCER’ ON THE FRONT DOORS!!! These drivers are nicknamed 'hyenas', work independently, they always have rigged meters and are known to sometimes assault customers who don’t comply with their ridiculous demands. If you hail on the street, be absolutely certain you’re getting into a company cab (logo on the front doors).
A known scam by the hyenas, fraudsters and illegal street exchangers is giving you worthless currencies with similarly high denominations as the Forint – namely the Indonesian Rupiah or the old Belarusian Ruble.
Bag handlers at the airport steal from unsecured luggage. Never put any valuables in your checked luggage!
Overly friendly, attractive women approaching you in broad daylight 'to practice their English' and taking you to scammy cafés where you'll be charged €300 for a bottle of bottom-shelf champagne are also to be avoided. Recently a Redditor reported the same happening to him through Tinder, so be very suspicious of anyone insistent on going to a particular establishment. The scam café was Hajós Café on Hajós utca. Another known scam location is Café Fidelité on Révay utca.
Otherwise general safety cautions should be exercised: watch your valuables in crowded spaces for pickpockets, be wary of overly friendly strangers approaching you and introducing the idea of going to a club or bar by their 5th sentence or of people pretending to be authority.
Policemen typically wear dark blue uniforms and white shirts , sometimes with a visibility vest and can be identified by the numbered metal badges on their chest and their separate police ID card which you can ask to inspect before complying with their orders. Scammers use fake police IDs to part you with your cash under the guise of inspecting the notes for counterfeits. Always ask to see it first: this is real, this is fake – notice where the real one has a serial number, the fake says POLICE. If the issue is anything halfway serious, ask to be escorted to the nearest police station – it will scare away scammers playing dress up.
The emergency number is 112 for police, ambulance or firefighters, there are English-speaking operators (works throughout the EU).
If you get pickpocketed, notify both the police and in case of losing your travel documents, your embassy. Thieves are usually courteous enough to leave papers near trash bins, so walk around in the neighbourhood to see if you can recover them. If you find someone else’s, hand in to the nearest police station.
Getting around
the city is easy, Budapest has one of the best public transport systems of the continent. Use Google Maps for orientation and getting around! Tickets and passes with rates are listed here.
All EU/EEA citizens aged 65+ travel for free on all Hungarian public transport, including trains, distance buses. Picture ID and administrative 0 Ft ticket required. Age 65 is not included.
Student discounts are available to full-time students in EU/EEA countries with a valid student ID. If it doesn’t have it, also carry a picture ID. EU citizenship not required, you only need to study there full-time (not applicable for exchange students unless they get ID issued). The monthly student pass (3450) is cheaper than the 72h travel card (4150) for identical benefits.
The 4 subway lines are coded by numbers and, unofficially, colour (1-yellow, 2-red, 3-blue, 4-green). The busiest, M3, is under renovation until 2021, but remains in partial operation, see details here. The entire line shuts down after 8pm and all day on weekends (replacement buses operate), and one section of the line is always out of service. For 2019 it’s the southern segment, between Kőbánya-Kispest and Nagyvárad tér. During this time the 200E airport bus will take you to the more central Nagyvárad tér stop (from where the subway runs) instead of its regular terminus of Kőbánya.
In Budapest driving is not recommended for the perpetual lack of parking spaces, congestion and because there's really no need to. If you must arrive by car, pick a hotel with parking, use the free parking lot at Kelenföld subway station, street-parking by StarPark at Podmaniczky utca at ~€8/24h, or opt for a more central location (such as one of CarE Park’s garages ) at ~20€/24h, €100/week and do not use it for getting around in the city. Public areas are metered in the entire centre, typically charging 1.5€/h with a cap of 3 hours on a ticket.
The Bubi city bike system is available for anyone’s use. The rates are very favourable (500Ft for 1-day, 1000 for 3 for the pass), but a deposit of €80 will be docked when you register and might take a few weeks to release. First 30 minutes are free, after it's 500Ft/30min on top of the daily pass' price.
Two e-car sharing systems compete in Budapest. I suggest using MOL Limo, as you can complete your licence verification remotely (do it before arrival, they might take a day or three if they are backlogged). Despite the name, the cars are tiny, automatic VW up!s, the majority electric and all automatic. Age limit 18, min. 1-year old national licence, foreign ones accepted, €20 registration fee and €0.25/min rate. Coverage includes basically every area of note to tourists in the centre, except the Castle and underground garages (as well as the airport). Expansion is planned for the future. You cannot park (leave the car) outside the coverage area, but you can drive through.
Sightseeing
The best rated tour bus company is Big Bus, Giraffe (aka. the red Hop On Hop Off ones) tends to get mixed-to-negative reviews. Segway tours also available.
Free thematic walking tours of the city depart in front of the lion fountain on Vörösmarty tér daily. A tip of 2000-2500Ft/person suggested, but they're are chill about it, you can give less if you're on a budget.
River cruises run during the day and the evening, including dinner (usually not great, save for one) or party in the latter case. The most popular is Legenda, partiers choose Boat Party.
One standout cruise is Pannónia Gastro Boat that goes above and beyond the standard quality of service of other operations and often host guest chefs from innovative countryside restaurants.
Public transport alternative is the D11 or D12 boat lines between Boráros tér going up to Népfürdő utca (or getting off at Jászai Mari tér or Margaret island 1 or 2 stops prior). Tram 2 between Jászai Mari tér and Boráros tér hugs the Danube on the Pest side and loops around the Parliament for a similarly nice experience. Seasonal operations, normally from March through October.
Money
The currency of Hungary is the Hungarian Forint (1EUR=330HUF, 1USD=300HUF in November 2019), but I’ve listed prices in Euros (€). Check for current rates here.
Don't exchange Forints at home, bring USD/EUGBP in cash or a chipped card with you – the withdrawal fee is far smaller than what you’d lose by the atrocious rates available to you at home (exception: neighbouring countries).
With cards, Visa, Mastercard are best, Maestro acceptable. Avoid Amex, Diners Club and other uncommon non-European issues.
CAD/AUD/JPY/CNY will be exchanged at slightly worse rates, but still much better than if you’d exchange Forints at home. I don't recommend bringing currencies other than the ones I've mentioned and those from neighboring countries, but if you do, Tichi Change exchanges almost every valid currency in the world at as good of a rate as you could realistically hope for.
When the ATM asks you if you want to be charged in your home currency, say no and opt for Forints or you'll lose up to 30% due to the poor conversion rate! Learn more about the rip-off of dynamic currency conversion here and steer clear of the ATMs operated by Euronet. Besides the dynamic currency conversion ripoff, they will also prompt you to withdraw ridiculously high amounts of money (equivalent of $500 or more) that you will not be able to spend in 3-4 days.
Don't exchange any money with bright orange Interchange they use ripoff rates (>30% spread). They hava e monopoly at the airport and are also present throughout the city in premium locations, such as Váci utca. Street exchange is illegal and a good way to get scammed.
Tons of fine currency exchanges around the city, the best USD and EUR rates are at Gold Change but use your eyes: the buy/sell spread shouldn’t be more than 1-3% apart for these, or 2.5-5% at banks. Exchange offices and banks do not take cards! You may only use them for ATM withdrawals.
Phones
Make sure to bring an unlocked phone, ideally a dual-SIM one.
The 3 main carriers are Vodafone, Telekom (T-Mobile) and Telenor. The best prepaid package is Telekom's Domino Fix with the 1/3/30-day unlimited 4G add-on, costing 990+9900Fts (€32) for the 30-day option. SIM cards need to be activated after purchase, so buy them at brand stores where help is available instead of supermarkets or gas stations.
Roaming fees within the EU have been abolished in 2017, you will be able to use your SIM in any EU member country, but not as if it would be local. I.e. a Vodafone Hungary-issued SIM will be roaming on Vodafone Austria’s network. Some 'reasonable' data caps remain in place, which are determined by the cost of your service.
Outside the EU there are punitive data rates. I once managed to rack up a $90 bill for 5MB by accident.
Sleep
Rates are for high season (late April through September, Christmas, NYE), might be 50+% lower on other dates
Location: if you plan on sleeping, the party district (VII., inside the ring road) should be avoided, as well as VIII. outside of it and around Keleti train station for safety reasons/because you can get nicer digs elsewhere. An under the radar gem of an area is VII. between Múzeum körút and the ring road. Buda is nowhere as dead as tourists collectively imagine it to be (especially around Széll Kálmán tér), don’t shun it if you find someplace nice there.
Eat at
For more detailed restaurant recommendations, see this comment. August visitors, check the restaurants' websites and Facebook to see if they aren't on holiday!
The quality of service is a common source of complaints, don't take it too hard if it happens to you. Tip is 10% most of the time, unless you’re really dissatisfied or find yourself absolutely elated. Many top end restaurants add a ~12% service charge to the bill, tipping on top of that is not expected, though naturally it will be appreciated.
Neither regular, nor ost fast food restaurants do refills. The only exceptions are all KFCs and a few Burger Kings.
Smoking is banned at all restaurants, bars and basically every facility open to the public. Designated smoking areas can be found outside on the street.
Try pálinka (~40% ABV fruit brandy), Unicum (herbal bitteaperitif, like Jäger), bikavér from Eger and Szekszárd (lit. ‘bull’s blood’, a full-bodied red), Tokaji aszú (similar to white Port, made of hand-picked berries with noble rot, named the "wine of kings, king of wines" from the 18th century) or fröccs (spritzer, white or red wine mixed with seltzer – a lifesaver in the summer)!
More details in the shopping section.
Or get really local and ask for ’fény’, carbonated vodka foam over raspberry syrup. You’ll see the fény (=light) at the end of the tunnel in no time!
Eat a freshly fried lángos at market halls (acceptable toppings: sour cream, garlic, cheese, perhaps ham and cabbage - certainly none of that tourist stuff with nutella, Hungarian sausage or kebab...) and fried sausage from a butcher shop such as 1951 establishment Balla Hús in Városház utca or the more contemporary Belvárosi Disznótoros eatery. The gallery of the Hold utca market hall hosts quality street food vendors, Karaván food truck yard right next to Szimpla.
Nightlife
For more detailed recommendations, including strip clubs, casinos and more, see this comment.
A casual evening
Ruin pubs
Mainstream clubs
Techno
Rock and miscellaneous
Gay bars
Get out
See train schedules on Elvira, check for buses on menetrendek.hu (this site combines bus and train schedules, but has no English version, check for the orange or blue icon on the left side to see which is which).
Daytrip options include
For multi-day excursions, including to lake Balaton and detailed information on car rental, countryside and international tourism opportunities, click here
submitted by vernazza to hungary [link] [comments]

Binance Jersey: Everything You Need To Know

Sign-up for Binance Jersey Fiat Exchange
At this time, the digital currency exchange market is filled with a wide variety of choices, therefore choosing the right exchange or trading platform can be quite a headache for both novice and veteran cryptocurrency users.
Binance is a popular cryptocurrency exchange which was started in China but recently moved their headquarters to the crypto-friendly Island of Malta in the EU. Binance is popular for its crypto to crypto exchange services. While the company is still fairly new on the market ( it launched last year ), it has managed to gain a lot of popularity thanks to its impressive number of Initial Coin Offering listings, professional attitude and friendly CEO and also due to its low trading fees.
Binance Website
In our review, we will attempt to outline everything that you must know about Binance, including how it works, the crypto pairs that you can exchange, trading fees/limits, security aspects, and customer support.
Visit Binance »
How the Exchange Works Contents [Show]
Those who visit Binance for the first time will quickly notice that the platform offers two options for digital currency trading- basic and advanced. Neither the basic, nor the advanced versions are bound to be easy to use for complete beginners. However, anyone with a background in digital currencies and with a bit of knowledge into how exchanges work should be able to use the platform and its different services.
The main difference between the basic and the advanced version is that the advanced one offers more-in-depth technical analysis of digital currency value over time. At this time, the dashboard for the basic version offers several graphs and charts for the pairs that you’re trading, order books, and trade history.
3Commas This is what the basic view looks like :
Binance Trading View
The Basic view is nicely designed and well laid out, all the information you need is clearly presented with prices on the left, graphs in the center along with the buy and sell boxes and the trade history is presented on the right so you can quickly see what the latest trade prices were.
And this is what the advanced view looks like:
Advanced View
The advanced view uses a dark theme and makes the trading charts larger and the latest trade prices are displayed on the right with the buy sell boxes underneath.
Which you choose is a matter of preference really, I like the lighter colored basic view and find the layout a little easier to use.
Binance Signup & Login To use the exchange, users will first have to create an account. The process behind this is fairly simple and straight-forward and you don’t have to verify your account for level 1 which is a 2BTC daily withdrawal limit. For level 2 which allows up to 100BTC per day, you need to upload a photo ID and wait till you are approved. There are higher limits still, but you will need to contact them directly to arrange that.
Time for verification can vary depending on how busy the site support staff are, so make sure to plan ahead if you wish to withdraw larger amounts and make sure this step is complete before depositing and trading large sums on the exchange.
ID Verification
Now, that this is out of the way, users can go ahead and fund their Binance account. While you can choose from a multitude of digital currencies, it is recommended that you stick with either BTC or ETH.
To fund your account visit the “Funds” > “Deposits / Withdrawals” link at the top of the site and find the currency you wish to send, then click the “Deposit” button next to it which will then you give you the wallet address. You can then send your funds to this address to begin trading on the platform, depending on which currency you deposit it will take different times to show up as this is reliant on that currencies blockchain. Some currencies like Ethereum are faster than Bitcoin which can take a while.
Binance Wallets
Now that your account is funded, you can simply start trading, exchanging and investing in various digital currency pairs. Binance offers plenty of choices, as they support all major digital currencies, but also numerous ICO listings and their respective tokens.
At this time, the platform can only be used to generate limit and market orders. This has been considered a disadvantage by some, as many expected trading options that would be more advanced. Following the placement of your order, simply wait for it to be fulfilled according to the terms that have been set.
How to Trade on Binance Trading on Binance is fairly straight-forward if you have used any other cryptocurrency exchange before. To get started, make sure you have deposited some funds – there are options for trading pairs in BTC, ETH, BNB and USDT. Once you have your funds, at the top right menu, select “Exchange” > “Basic” or “Advanced” to load the trading screen. We will be using the Basic view.
Binance Trading View
On the right hand side, of the screen select a tab from BTC, ETH, BNB or USDT this is what you will be trading in. Then choose your desired currency from the list. You can also search here and you can create a favorites list by clicking the star next to any currencies.
Choose currency to buy
Once your desired currency has loaded, take note of the left-hand column which shows prices that people are willing to sell at in the top half in red and prices people are willing to buy at in green in the bottom half. The number in the middle shows the last sale price.
Buy and Sell Prices
Now to place a buy order, use the center box underneath the graphs and you will see the buy box is in green on the right. You can manually enter a price you wish to purchase at, but a better way is to click a number on the left-hand column. You can then enter the amount of the currency you wish to buy or click the 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% buttons which will fill it with an amount based on how much of the buying currency you have ( in this case BTC ).
Buy Order
Once your order is placed it will be show underneath in the “Open Orders” section until it is filled. At that point your new currency will be available under the “Deposits / Withdrawals” menu where you can withdraw it to the wallet of your choice.
Supported Crypto Currencies Binance has often been praised for its wide variety of support coins. Traders can use the platform for multiple digital currencies, including, but not limited to Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, EOS, Dash, LiteCoin, NEO, GAS, Zcash, Dash, Ripple and more. As mentioned before, Binance also supports numerous tokens, as part of ICO listings. With this in mind, traders can use the platform to trade these tokens for a profit as well.
Binance is currently very quick to add new coins and tokens after their ICO which usually means you can purchase them cheaply which allows for greater profit down the road.
They currently offer trading pairs in BTC, BNB, ETH and USDT.
Binance Markets
Binance ICO & BNB Coin Another thing to note is the Binance Coin, which was issued during their own ICO. The Binance coin can be used to pay fees and it will also feature in their future plans to create a Decentralized Exchange where it will form one of the key base currencies. Purchasing the Binance coin itself looks like a good investment for the future as the exchange plans to use their profits to buy back a portion of the coins every quarter and destroy them: hence decreasing the supply and making them more valuable for holders.
Every quarter, we will use 20% of our profits to buy back BNB and destroy them, until we buy 50% of all the BNB (100MM) back. All buy-back transactions will be announced on the blockchain. We eventually will destroy 100MM BNB, leaving 100MM BNB remaining.
Binance BNB Coin
If you’d like to read more about the BNB Coin, check out our indepth guide.
Binance Fees & Limits At the time of writing, Binance charges an average fee of 0.1% on each trade that a user makes. Those who choose to pay via the Binance token can get a 50% discount on the trading fee, which is absolutely great news. These are surely some of the lowest fees available at this time.
Withdrawal fees tend to vary for each digital currency. For instance, 0.0005 is charged for Bitcoin withdrawals, and 0.005 is charged for ETH withdrawals. Here are some examples to give you an idea of the fees you will be paying for withdrawals:
COIN CODE Fee Unit Binance Coin BNB 1 BNB Bitcoin BTC 0.001 BTC Ethereum ETH 0.01 ETH Litcoin LTC 0.01 LTC Neo NEO Free NEO Qtum QTUM 0.01 QTUM Status SNT 10 SNT Bancor BNT 1.2 BNT Eos EOS 0.7 EOS Bitcoin Cash BCC 0.0005 BCC Gas GAS Free GAS USDT USDT 50 USDT When it comes down to transfer limits, there is no limit on the number of coins that you can deposit. However, without getting verified, users are limited in terms of how much they can withdraw. Verification will establish you as a level two users, thus lifting these limits and providing a lot more freedom when using the platform. The verification process requires users to provide Binance with their full name, country, gender, a photo of passport/government-issued ID, and even a selfie with the passport.
Binance Competitions A unique feature of Binance you will notice is that they regularly hold competitions with some amazing prizes. Some examples of competitions in the past include Waves and Tron. The waves competition gave away 20,000 Waves to Traders based on how many trades they have made of this currency.
The other competition for Tron (TRX) gave participants the chance to win a Maserati car, Mercedes Benz car, a Macbook Pro or a iPhone X. Again, the winners were the people with the highest trading volume of this currency.
The current rankings show that the person in first place had over 358 BTC volume in trades so you will need to be a whale to be in with a chance of winning first prize. There are other regular competitions though, so keep an eye on the site for your chance to enter.
Is Binance Safe? While Binance is one of the newest cryptocurrency exchanges available on the market, it has quickly managed to attain a high level of trust from its users and the digital currency community. However, the exchange fails to provide users with enough information on how the funds are being secured, yet we like to believe that security is taken seriously. Two-factor authentication is available and is always a nice sight. It is however known that the platform offers a multi-tier and multi-tier system architecture.
Update: In March 2018 Binance suffered a hacking attempt.
The hackers tried to pull off an audacious move which was luckily caught by the automated systems in place at the exchange. For months the hackers had been accumulating people’s logins via a phishing website and secretly installing API access on the affected accounts. They then struck, converting all the victims altcoins to BTC and purchasing Viacoin, pumping the coin to a huge price and then selling their own supply of Viacoin at the high point, before trying to withdraw the BTC to their own wallets. Luckily no one lost funds as the hack was caught and the only people to lose out were the hackers, whose funds will be donated to charity.
As this hack was made possible by people entering their site logins and 2FA details into a fake website, you should always make sure you are on the correct Binance url before logging in. We recommend you bookmark the site and only use that to access it, never click links from emails, Twitter, Telegram etc.
This event has done a lot to instill confidence around Binance, not only did their automated processes catch the attempted hack before anyone lost any funds, they have since offered a $250,000 bounty to anyone who can help catch the hackers. Throughout this event, Binance acted exemplary and have been praised for their swift action in resolving this.
Binance Customer Support For an exchange to be successful, it requires a great customer support team, capable of answering all user questions and requests in a timely manner. While the support area on Binance could use a little work, the team is responsive and capable of offering professional aid to traders in need. Support tickets are submitted via an online form featured on the website, and responses are made via email. There is currently no live chat support, nor a phone number where customers can get in touch with the support team.
Binance Customer Support
Other than the CS team, Binance offers a couple of FAQs and articles meant to help users get accustomed to the exchange and the way it works.
Binance FAQs
It should be noted that customer support on Binance has been known to be slow to respond to customer requests. This is a familiar phenomenon with most of large exchanges and is due simply to the volume of users and amount of support staff. The exchanges have grown at an explosive rate this past year and the companies simply haven’t been able to keep up with demand. Binance grew fast especially, going from launch to the largest exchange on the planet in a few short months. Support staff for exchanges have to be carefully vetted and trained due to the technicalities and security requirements involved – unlike other traditional companies where staff can be trained quicker.
Some things to bare in mind are double-checking wallet addresses, make sure you are sending the correct cryptocurrency to it’s corresponding address on the site. Mixups with wallets are one of the biggest mistakes people make when using exchanges. Other things to note are, try a smaller test payment first if you plan to transfer large sums – it may cost you a little more in fees but will be worth it for peace of mind.
If you do need to contact support, make sure you provide them with enough information to be able to help you first time. Include wallet addresses, times of transactions and any other information you think they might need to help speed up the process.
The Move to Malta In March 2018, Japanese Newspaper Nikkei reported that Binance was trading in Japan and not following their official regulations. This caused some turbulence in the markets until Binance made an official announcement that they were going to be moving operations to the crypto-friendly island of Malta in Europe, stating :
After reviewing several different locations, the company decided to invest in the European nation due to its existing pro-blockchain legislation and the stability that it offers financial technology companies through its regulatory framework.
This is good news for the company and they even received a warm welcome from the Prime Minister of Malta on Twitter. Binance also announced that they were in talks with Maltese banks with the goal of providing Fiat transactions, meaning they can offer an on-ramp for fiat to crypto transactions in future along with fiat trading pairs on the exchange.
More good news for Binance, it seems as their profile and reputation within the industry continues to grow.
Launching a Decentralized Exchange More recent news for Binance and what seems like good news BNB holders is the fact that they are planning to launch their own Decentralized Exchange ( DEX ):
“After extensively researching decentralized exchange frameworks and analyzing existing implementations, we believe significant improvements can be made in providing Binance users with a level of trading experience to which they are already accustomed. Centralized and Decentralized exchanges will co-exist in the near future, complementing each other, while also having interdependence.”
The BNB digital asset, now an ERC-20 token, will migrate as the native token of that network and be used for paying the trading fees on the new exchange.
Launching a Decentralized Stock Exchange More good news recently for Binance is that they are partnering with Neufund to build the world’s first Decentralized Stock Exchange. Alongside the Malta Stock Exchange, they are aiming to create a regulated and decentralized, global stock exchange for listing and trading tokenized securities alongside crypto-assets.
According to CapLinked, the market cap of equity tokens alone is projected to reach $1 trillion by 2020 and thanks to the partnership with MSX, a subsidiary of the Malta Stock Exchange and Binance, Neufund will become the first end-to-end primary issuance platform for security tokens, in particular, equity tokens. It will secure ways for secondary trading of equity tokens and enable companies around the world to fundraise on Blockchain in a legal way while offering much-needed liquidity.
This is more positive news for Binance as they aim to consolidate their position as the world’s number one Crypto Exchange.
Binance Jersey Launch – Now Supports Fiat to Crypto As of 16th January 2019, Binance has announced the launch of a new Fiat to Crypto exchange named “Binance Jersey“. The trading platform is live and active and allows you to trade in fiat currencies such as euros and pound sterling, with Europe being their target market.
We have now carried out a full review of Binance Jersey, so take a look for more indepth details about the new platform.
Binance Jersey
Visit Binance Jersey »
At the time of writing they are only offering four trading pairs with more to follow soon:
BTC / EUR BTC / GBP ETH / EUR ETH / GBP Supported Jurisdictions: Argentina Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) Latvia Romania Armenia Finland Liechtenstein Singapore Australia France Lithuania Slovakia Austria Germany Luxembourg Slovenia Azerbaijan Gibraltar Macau South Africa Belgium Greece Malta South Korea Brazil Hong Kong Mauritius Spain Bulgaria Hungary Mexico Sweden Canada Iceland Monaco Switzerland Chile Ireland Netherlands Turkey Croatia Israel New Zealand United Arab Emirates (UAE) Cyprus Italy Norway United Kingdom (UK) Czech Republic Jamaica Peru Uruguay Denmark Japan Poland Estonia Jersey Portugal Customers who wish to trade in the support fiat currencies will need to carry our KYC procedures by uploading their ID documents such as passport and driving license.
Wei Zhou, Binance’s CFO released this statement about the launch :
“Expanding the cryptocurrency exchange markets with fiat currencies in the European region is opening new economic opportunities for Europeans as well as freedom from looming Brexit uncertainty where the pound and euro are also in concern. Through Binance Jersey, we want to help bridge the crypto-fiat channel for Europe and the U.K. as part of our global expansion to support broader cryptocurrency adoption”.
If you are familiar with trading on Binance, then you will feel at home on their new exchange – it uses the same engine and the trading screen is laid out in the same fashion with the option to choose between Basic and Advanced views:
Binance Jersey Trading Screen
To fund your account in fiat, you will first need to complete the KYC process, once that is done you can then deposit funds directly from your bank account by linking it from the Deposits screen. You can also fund your account with BTC or Ethereum. Once you have your account setup and bank account linked, you can also withdraw funds in fiat currency – this is great news as Binance is now able to offer a way for investors to cash out their cryptocurrencies.
We have upgraded our review scores below and we feel this is a huge improvement to Binance’s Exchange offering, if they manage to roll this out to even more countries ( USA is currently excluded) it could be a game changer as people now have an extra, regulated fiat on and off ramp for their holdings.
Buying Bitcoin with Australian Dollars On March 20, 2019, Binance announced the launch of Binance Lite Australia, the continent’s first fiat gateway to the world of cryptocurrencies which provides a secure, reliable, and easy to use way to buy Bitcoin with cash in Australia.
The cash-to-Bitcoin brokerage service operates via a network of over 1,000 newsagents across Australia, and currently allows anyone to buy Bitcoin using Australian Dollars (AUD), and there are plans to include additional digital currencies and fiat purchasing options in the future.
Users must first undergo account verification on Binance Lite, and after being successfully verified, users can place online orders and deposit cash at their nearest newsagent, in order to receive their pre-ordered Bitcoin.
The Binance Lite brokerage service is operated by InvestbyBit, an independently operated subsidiary of the Binance.com cryptocurrency exchange. The service aims to simplify the process of purchasing cryptocurrencies and make digital assets such as Bitcoin readily accessible across Australia.
Fees A 2.5% transaction fee (50% discount applied) plus GST on the transaction fee for each purchase is currently being charged as an introductory rate. Therefore, for a $50 order, the transaction fee will be $1.22 and the GST will be 10% of the transaction fee, which is $0.12. Limits The system is currently in its Beta phase, and the minimum purchase amount has been lowered to $30 with the maximum purchase amount capped at $1000. These limits may change over time and only multiples of $10 are being accepted, such as orders for $50, $60, $70 etc. Verification First time customers are required to go through a one-time Know Your Customer (KYC) document verification. When using the service, it’s necessary to follow the instruction prompts after the order page and go through the verification.
In order to complete the verification process, it’s necessary to submit 1 or 2 forms of government issued ID documents as a Passport, Driver’s Licence, or Medicare card, in addition to your residential address. Any returning customers, who have already completed KYC verification, will be sent to the order summary page directly after opening a new order.
Each account is linked to a mobile number, and users should ensure to use the mobile number provided when first completing the verification process. Anyone choosing to use a new mobile number will be required to complete the ID verification process once again.
Paying by Debit and Credit Card Binance allows users to make debit and credit card payments for cryptocurrencies via a partnership with Simplex. It’s possible to purchase Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and XRP tokens by Visa and MasterCard and the benefits of using a debit or credit card on Binance include:
Swift Transfers: Average 10-30 mins for cryptocurrency to reach your wallet Low Fees: only 3.5% per transaction or 10 USD, whichever is higher Convenient: Visa and MasterCard accepted In order to purchase the supported cryptocurrencies with a debit or credit card, users can first go through the official instructions page and then visit: https://www.binance.com/en/creditcard.
Binance Launchpad and Initial Coin Offerings (IEOs) Binance Launchpad is the exchange’s token launch platform that aims to connect blockchain projects with the greater cryptocurrency community and enable projects to raise funds while interacting with Binance’s significant user base. In December 2017, the BREAD and GIFTO projects were able to hold successful token sales on Binance Launchpad and projects such as BitTorrent and Fetch.AI have also held successful launches in 2019. The platform makes use of the exchange’s native BNB token and rewards users for holding the token as well as allowing it to be used to participate in token sales.
Read: What is an IEO?
How Token Offerings Work on Binance Launchpad The ability to part in token offerings continues to attract a significant amount of users to Binance and it’s necessary to go through a number of steps in order to get used to the Launchpad platform. Anyone interested in a project should first go to the Binance Launchpad website and click on the project page and thoroughly research any of the projects on offer. If not already done, it’s also necessary to complete your Binance account verification, as token sales are carried out in compliance with the regulatory requirements in supported user jurisdictions.
The Lottery System Binance Launchpad operates a lottery system which sees that the number of lottery tickets you can claim being dependant on the amount of BNB tokens you hold in your Binance account over a 20-day period leading up to the day of the lottery, with a maximum of up to 5 tickets per eligible account.
The 20 days leading up to the lottery draw date is represented by X below, and by example, 100 ≤ X < 200 means that your BNB balance over the entire 20-day period is kept at 100 BNB or more, but does not exceed or reach 200 BNB.
A snapshot at 0:00 AM (UTC) each day records each user’s BNB balance, and should your BNB balance drop below the minimum balance required on any given day during the 20-day period, they will be put into the lower threshold. For example, if User A holds 301 BNB for 19 of the 20 days but their balance drops to 299 BNB on one day. They will move to the lower threshold and only be eligible to claim 2 lottery tickets.
Before the actual lottery date, users are given a 24 hour period to select how many lottery tickets they wish to enter, with the maximum number based upon their BNB holdings over the previous 20 days. Here, if a user submits an entry of 5 tickets and 2 tickets end up winning, they are committed to pay for 2 ticket allocations (in BNB) for the tokens.
Each lottery ticket has a unique number with multiple lottery ticket holders, obtaining tickets with consecutive numbers. For example, when claiming 5 tickets, the tickets may be numbered 100010, 100011, 100012, 100013 and 100014.
Once the 24 hour period ends and all tickets have been fully issued, Binance begins to randomly select multi-digit numbers. These are matched against the tail digits of all issued tickets in order to determine the list of winners. The selection process continues until the maximum number of winners are matched, and the respective BNB is deducted from each winning user’s balance, as soon as they are deemed a winner.
Binance announces the maximum number of potential lottery ticket winners, and the allocation amount corresponding to each winning ticket in advance.
Conclusion Currently, the matching engine of the exchange is capable of processing approximately 1.4 million orders each second, hence making it one of the fastest exchanges available on the market. Additionally, the exchange works on all forms of devices, including web, Android, WeChat, and HTML5. Non-English speakers will be happy to know that Binance offers multiple-language support in Chinese, English, Korean and Japanese.
Based on everything that has been outlined so far, Binance is undoubtedly the leading Cryptocurrency Exchange and offers great fees and awesome digital currency support. As it reportedly has access to abundant resources and partners, chances are that Binance will continue to evolve and offer great digital currency exchange services to its clients. We are happy to recommend Binance and have added it to our list of the Best Cryptocurrency Exchanges.
Update, April 2019: We have continued to update this review since Binance was first launched ( we were one of the first to offer a review of the platform at the time ). And as time has progressed, time and time again Binance have proven to be one of the very best, if not the best, exchanges available. Their CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ for short) has been part of the cryptocurrency community and shown high standards of integrity. Binance the exchange has continued to innovate, bringing new products to market and new options for purchasing and trading cryptocurrencies to all corners of the globe.

Read w/ Proper Formatting & Illustrations
submitted by rulesforrebels to BinanceTrading [link] [comments]

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