These people should be shot, basically.

Looky here :

mircea_popescu http://bitbet.us/bet/768/bitcoin-difficulty-over-21b-before-june/
assbot BitBet - Bitcoin difficulty over 21B before June :: 0.02 B (7%) on Yes, 0.26 B (93%) on No | closed 2 days 9 hours ago

So, what are we looking at here ? Just another difficulty bet, right ? Not exactly. First off, consider :

1. BitBet - Network Difficulty under 20 million. 48.51(93%) on Yes, 3.73(7%) on No.
2. BitBet - Network Difficulty under 12 million. 284.72(92%) on Yes, 25.36(8%) on No.
3. BitBet - Network Difficulty under 6 million. 25.52(21%) on Yes, 94.44(79%) on No.
4. BitBet - Network Difficulty under 4.5 million. 2.06(10%) on Yes, 18.4(90%) on No.
5. BitBet - Network Difficulty under 3.75 million. 0.64(8%) on Yes, 6.97(92%) on No.
6. BitBet - Network Difficulty above 90M in 2013. 14.99(97%) on Yes, 0.42(3%) on No.
7. BitBet - BTC network difficulty tops 10 million. 89.88(65%) on Yes, 48.42(35%) on No.
8. BitBet - BTC network difficulty tops 20 million. 0.54(8%) on Yes, 6.21(92%) on No.
9. BitBet - BTC network difficulty tops 15 million. 6.11(95%) on Yes, 0.33(5%) on No.
10. BitBet - BTC network difficulty tops 25 million. 43.58(26%) on Yes, 124.78(74%) on No.
11. BitBet - BTC network difficulty tops 42 million. 17.99(13%) on Yes, 125.26(87%) on No.
12. BitBet - BTC network difficulty tops 52 million. 122.72(94%) on Yes, 7.64(6%) on No.
13. BitBet - BTC network difficulty to top 69 million. 46.33(97%) on Yes, 1.58(3%) on No.
14. BitBet - BTC network difficulty to top 500MN . 197.22(98%) on Yes, 3.44(2%) on No.
15. BitBet - BTC network diff to top 210M. 31.93(96%) on Yes, 1.41(4%) on No.
16. BitBet - BTC network difficulty to top 1B. 619.37(89%) on Yes, 74.04(11%) on No.
17. BitBet - Difficulty to continue increasing >20%. 3.27(5%) on Yes, 57.91(95%) on No.
18. BitBet - BTC difficulty to increase by less than 10%. 3.4(8%) on Yes, 38.14(92%) on No.
19. BitBet - Bitcoin difficulty to fall. 6.66(17%) on Yes, 33.04(83%) on No.
20. BitBet - Bitcoin difficulty at or above 2B. 1750.25(93%) on Yes, 136.67(7%) on No.
21. BitBet - Bitcoin difficulty at or above 5B. 1.28(95%) on Yes, 0.07(5%) on No.
22. BitBet - Bitcoin network difficulty > 14Bn. 30.09(74%) on Yes, 10.38(26%) on No.
23. BitBet - Bitcoin difficulty over 3B. 5.24(97%) on Yes, 0.19(3%) on No.
24. BitBet - BTC difficulty to increase by >30%. 1.24(7%) on Yes, 15.63(93%) on No.
25. BitBet - Bitcoin difficulty over 5.6B before April. 9.83(5%) on Yes, 180.55(95%) on No.
26. BitBet - May I suggest 9B difficulty?. 6.44(8%) on Yes, 72.03(92%) on No.
27. BitBet - Bitcoin difficulty over 21B before June. 0.02(7%) on Yes, 0.26(93%) on No.

This is an exhaustive list of BitBet Bitcoin difficulty bets. Now unless math changed since I was going to schoolⁱ, the total bet on the 26 bets preceding the one in question comes to 4456.84 BTC, making the average pool per bet 171.41, or 61`220.32% the pool of the last bet.

Moreover, the only comparable sized pool was bet 645, where the mods accidentally accepted a zeroconfⁱⁱ'd bet that was too low and on the wrong side (which resulted in slight changes on how zeroconf bets are evaluated w/r/t accepting proposed bets). Excluding that one, even the furthest outlier towards the lower bound of the total pool distribution is way, way, way above this piddly 0.28 BTC. 1k% and more above.

Why ? And what happened here ?

Well, BitBet bets have a close date, by which time all bettors must put their wagers in, and a resolve date, by which time the bet is, at the latest, adjudicated. These don't have to match, and it's been common practice to make the difference somewhere towards a week or so.

People, being people, have been clamoring that this is unfair. Like so :

I agree with "#2631 Toni" that the betting window is way too long. The betting window should regularly be 1/3 of the total time. Remember that because it is unfair to the ones betting early because the ones betting late have much more info.

This has been a major point of contention bitching by the forum plebs, and so as an experiment I allowed one bet where that window was significant : about one third of the bet duration. The net result ? Crickets. Why is that ?

Well why do you think! It's the classical socialist mindset at work : fat close buffer means a lot of risk for people betting early, because if something happens they won't be able to cover their risks / adjust their exposure taking into account the new odds.ⁱⁱⁱ Your average two bit web-entrepreneur, the "solving world hunger from my rent controlled studio" sort figures this is great, because he's thinking of it happening to other people only.

Yes, that's right : your average redditard approaches a situation as is, with no counterfactual ability whatsoever. So, if there are fifty Bitcoin on the table, and he would like to use his half a Bitcent to somehow steal all (or if not all then at least most of it), he comes up with a rule : make it so that these people can't cover! Then he can maybe, sometime, somehow, put his half a Bitcent down in such a way as to take the world over! A globe spanning empire built out of two bits of retard string! And a dry bean!

The obvious observation that had the rules been written that way then those 50 BTC wouldn't have been on the table simply does not enter his... mind, let's call it, for lack of a better word. It doesn't enter his partially closed neural tube. I have to go to the trouble of actually making an experiment, and Bitcoins to doughnuts it won't make a difference anyway, because what! What else he got ? Cold math and hard reality can't take a fucktard's "dreams" away, can it now.

It doesn't stop here : the average libtard is the same way about anything and everything, most notably taxes and regulation. He wants high taxes, because he sees people producing wealth, and would like some. Once taxes are raised, the people producing wealth leave, and he gets less than before. Because it's not his damned money, that's why. Because what he does is not useful.^iv

And that's how the story goes : people go to some new place, devoid of regulation and taxation. This environment encourages wealth creation, so they all get rich first (in a pool of their own blood), then fat and tolerant in short order. As a result, instead of raping their children, often and repeatedly, they coddle them. Because who the hell can be bothered to bitchslap the wife across the house if she dares start shrieking about how the "poor darling" is "trying the best he can". Let him fucking try the best he can in a pool of his own blood, that'll teach him.

Those children then grow up to be fucktards, with opinions about "what's fair" and so forth. Should things be changed to accommodate their worldview, as they always are, then and only then the problems become apparent. Then and only then can Joe Q Fucktard, son of a father made out of pressed shitboard, comprehend how the stuff applies to him. And so... he doesn't want to bet anymore. "It's fair", he says, just, no sort of fair he'd want any part of. He's done fixing California and moves to Texas now, to fix that too. To make Texas "more fair", and also unliveable. Ater which he'll move to Mexico or w/e, make that fair too.

These people should be shot.

And remember : if your kid isn't spending his "trying his best" time in a pool of his own blood, you're raising a fucktard that will have to be shot. So please : don't spare the fucking rod, spare me the indignity and inconvenience of having to shoot your fucktarded offspring.

Thank you for thinking of something beside your own convenience!

1. Don't laugh, it's possible, to make it "more fair" or "gender inclusive" or "respectful of faggotry" or whatever the stupid shit. It's happened to everything else, why the hell not change math. Progress, yo! That unstoppable force of dumb which is indistinguishable from sclerosis. [↩]
2. Zeroconf is when the bet proposer sends BTC along with his proposition. These tend to be mostly accepted, depending on the sum involved, as the house is guaranteed a rake. [↩]
3. If this topic is a mystery to you, review the seminal http://trilema.com/2013/how-to-cancel-your-bitbet-bet/ article. [↩]
4. No, sitting on your ass all day long and opining about how things should be run, and "designing" stuff and giving your most valuabe input on things is not useful. Nobody asked you if you think it's fair, nobody gives a shit how you think anything should be run. You don't have a basis upon which to discern if something is fair or not, you don't even have a basis upon which to understand how things work, let alone why they work that way. Shut the fuck up, I'd rather hear the strippers talk. [↩]