Big Draws, Second Leg Draws, and Bitcoin

As I mentioned last week, backing the Draw in "Big 6" matches this season has been rather rewarding, and the Liverpool v Manchester City game on Sunday boosted the bank even further, with the biggest surprise perhaps that the starting price was around 4.0 on Betfair, although I could 'only' get matched at 3.95. Pinnacle's Closing Odds had the Draw at 3.9. 

In the "Big 4/6" era, the league matches between these two clubs are the best of the 15 combinations for the Draw historically with an ROI of 50% from the 30 games played. Chelsea against Manchester United is second at 43% with Arsenal - Liverpool games next at 27%. With an ROI of -51%, the Manchester Derby is the worst bet. 

Of the 30 Home / Away combinations, the single best fixture is Manchester City v Liverpool at 58%, closely followed by Chelsea v Manchester United at 56%.

As most readers will be aware, the European Club tournaments next season will use a Swiss system format in place of the traditional Group stage. In a cosmetic change, the UEFA Europa Conference League will drop the 'Europa' from its name, but the knockout stages will remain in place almost unchanged. I say almost, because the Champions League will have an extra knockout round for a place in the Round of 16.

All this is good news as my data goes back to the 2003-04 season, and as I only get interested once the knockout rounds begin, the changes should mean that the data should continue to be valid. It would be a shame if 21 years of data (1,968 matches) were to become worthless due to a format change, but this shouldn't be the case.

The Champions League Round of 16 closes this week with four second leg matches remaining, and to date, fewer than 17% of these matches end as draws, an implied price of 6.07. In matches where both clubs are from one of the Big 5 Leagues, the numbers are fewer than 15% and 6.69.

It's been a good year for Bitcoin and this month it's up another ~15% so far and setting new highs. Unfortunately my purchase timing - almost two years ago -  wasn't great, but my patience has been rewarded and I have no plans to sell. 

The approval of the Bitcoin spot ETFs appears to be the main driver of this current run up, but there's a second event coming up that is also likely having an impact.

Inflows to the ETFs hit an all-time high last week, seeing nearly $680 million of inflows in one day. This means that the funds are buying more Bitcoin every day, which is eating away at the liquidity provided by sellers.

The second event is the imminent 4th Bitcoin halving (expected date is April 19th) which doesn't refer to a halving of the amount of Bitcoin in circulation and therefore has no effect on the balance on any wallet but refers to the reduction of mining rewards for adding a new block to the blockchain.

At this point in time, there are about 19.5 million Bitcoins that have already been mined, while the maximum supply is fixed at 21 million Bitcoins. Considering all upcoming halvings every 210,000 blocks (~ 4 years), the last Bitcoins will be mined around the year 2140. Consequently, in the next 16 years only 1.5 million Bitcoins will be created, which underlines that the remaining inflation is very marginal from a technical standpoint.

Hopefully I'll still be around in 2140. although this blog likely won't be!