Drone metal legends sunn O))) have signed to Sub Pop. Today’s announcement is accompanied by the release of a maxi 12″ featuring the tracks ‘Eternity’s Pillars’, ‘Raise the Chalice’, ‘Reverential’. Out now digitially, it will also be available in two limited vinyl variants: gold vinyl via Sub Pop and clear vinyl on their website and current European tour. Take a listen below.
In a rare statement, sunn O))) said:
Eternity’s Pillars b/w Raise the Chalice & Reverential is sunn O)))’s premier work on the maxi 12” medium for Sub Pop.
It consists of three brand new tracks created and performed by the iconic duo of Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson and co-produced by sunn O))) and Brad Wood. Brad Wood recorded the material at Bear Creek Studios in Woodinville and Sea Grass in Los Angeles in 2025. The tracks on this maxi 12” are the first official sunn O))) studio recordings to feature only the original core duo on heavily saturated electric guitars and synthesis.
sunn O))) gave extreme focus and care to each step and aspect of the recording, each tone and level of saturation, each gain stage and speaker, each arrangement and harmonic. The Pacific Northwest forest is our guide.
‘Eternity’s Pillars’ is named for the mid-1980s television program created and hosted by jazz visionary and spiritual guru Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, focusing on her incessant belief in music’s capacity to attain spiritual transcendence. ‘Raise the Chalice’ is named for a rallying cry often uttered by Northwest legend Ron Guardipee throughout the mid-1990s. ‘Reverential’ equally pays respect and sends loud praise to those who came before us with the heaviest burdens, expressions with music and art being the materials of an antiphon.
The front cover of the maxi 12” depicts the duo in the woods northeast of Seattle, through the lens of Charles Peterson.
Back in 2021, sunn O))) released Metta, Benevolence, a recording of their session for Mary Anne Hobbs’ BBC Radio 6 Music show at BBC’s historic Maida Vale Studios. The gig took place at the end long tour supporting the band’s Life Metal and Pyroclasts albums.
Peaches has announced her first album in over a decade. The follow-up to 2015’s Rub is titled No Lube So Rude, and it’s set to arrive early next year. It’s led by by the pulsating and anthemic ‘Not In Your Mouth None Of Your Business’, which was recorded with producer the Squirt Deluxe. Check it out below, along with Peaches’ upcoming tour dates.
“When the world is friction, lube isn’t a luxury,” Peaches said in a press release. “It’s a necessity. It’s how you turn that friction into pleasure, into power, into pride. I want people to understand that they can still have a voice no matter who they are or what the world says about them. Now more than ever, there are so many forces that just want you to give up and be quiet. If this album can help you resist that, then that’s what it’s for.”
Feb 20 – Miami, FL – ZeyZey *
Feb 21 – Orlando, FL – Beacham Theater *
Feb 24 – Atlanta, GA – Buckhead Theatre *
Feb 25 – Norfolk, VA – NorVa *
Feb 27 – Washington D.C. – 9:30 Club
Feb 28 – NYC, NY – Knockdown Center *
Mar 01 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer *
Mar 03 – Montreal, QC – Rialto Theatre *
Mar 04 – Toronto, ON – Danforth Music Hall *
Mar 06 – Detroit, MI – Lincoln Factory ~
Mar 07 – Chicago, IL – The Vic Theatre ~
Mar 08 – Minneapolis, MN – Varsity Theater ~
Mar 10 – Denver, CO – Summit ~
Mar 11 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Grand at The Complex ~
Mar 13 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom
Mar 14 – Seattle, WA – The Showbox
Mar 15 – Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom
Mar 17 – Eugene, OR – Wow Hall
Mar 19 – San Francisco, CA – Midway SF
Mar 20 – Los Angeles, CA – The Bellwether
Mar 21 – Los Angeles, CA – The Bellwether
Mar 23 – San Diego, CA – The Sound
Mar 24 – Phoenix, AZ – Walter Studios
Mar 25 – Tucson, AZ – La Rosa
Mar 27 – Austin, TX – Central Machine Works
Mar 28 – Dallas, TX – The Studio at The Factory
Mar 29 – New Orleans, LA – Republic NOLA
Jenn Wasner is painstakingly aware of the ways we ensconce ourselves in difficult positions. Cycles of shame and hurt can feel strangely homely because of how familiar they are even as we move forward in our lives. The most uncomfortable part is often not the hurt but the sudden recognition of our role in them; for Wasner, that was over 10 years ago, when she came to identify with the Enneagram type known as the Helper, who center themselves around empathy, kindness, and a strong desire to nurture others – coupled, of course, with an equally strong fear of being unloved and uneasiness to accept help. These patterns bear out on The Life You Save, her radiant new album under the Flock of Dimes moniker, which creates a warmly inviting, deceptively straightforward environment to accommodate its complex ideas around addiction and co-dependency. Two decades into her career – with several solo records under her belt aside from her work in Wye Oak and collaborations with Bon Iver, Sylvan Esso, and many others – the simplicity of its songs can feel subversive, and, more importantly, the only way to really sit with and wrench the truth out of them, paradoxical as it may seem. As she reminds herself on ‘Defeat’, “I’m inside it, after all.”
We caught up with Flock of Dimes to talk about the Yamaha FG75, Björk’s Vespertine, Altadena, and other inspirations behind her new album The Life You Save.
Yamaha FG75 acoustic guitar
I feel like I’ve really shied away from acoustic guitar specifically, and there’s a couple reasons for that. Coming of age in the music industry as a woman who sings songs, I was very fearful of being boxed into the female singer-songwriter trope, and I felt this deep desire to sort of prove to the world all the ways in which I was more than that. And also, purely from a sensory perspective, I never found an acoustic guitar that I enjoyed playing. Just the feel always was off for me. With acoustic guitars specifically, it’s either the most beautiful instrument you’ve ever played, or it’s kind of garbage. For me, there’s very little middle ground. I find the experience of playing electric guitar is so much smoother, and there are so many more sonic possibilities there.
I was on tour, and my partner, who’s a guitar player and is much more knowledgeable about guitars than I am, found this guitar at Maine Drag Music in Brooklyn. He was like, “These Yamahas are actually really great, and they’re relatively affordable. I feel like you might like it.” I picked it up, and instantly I connected with it in a way that I had not connected with an acoustic guitar before. There’s just this ramshackle charm. They’re very small-scale, more of a parlor guitar, and there’s a lot of character – I love the way it looks, the way it feels, the way it sounds. It was one of those moments where I was like, “There are a lot of songs here.” Since then, I’ve acquired a second guitar, a similar ‘70s Yamaha acoustic that I also love.
In parallel to that experience, I’m 20 years into my career – I’ve made a lot of music, I’ve made a lot of records, and I feel like I’m at this place where I have less to prove about who I am and what I’m about and what I’m capable of. And for that reason, it felt like a door was opened to this other world that I had consciously or unconsciously avoided. I fixated on acoustic instruments in the context of a world that is very of the moment. There’s a lot of humanity and imperfection in an acoustic instrument, it’s so temperamental. And of course, the context is shifting, right? When I was starting out, I was very pulled to these different technologies, but now I feel like my relationship to technology is more one of fear and trepidation, and in many ways, especially with things like AI beginning to take over the world, I intuitively felt that it was the most radical thing that I could do right now at this moment, to lean into things that are very human. In general, but also in the context of this record and what it’s about. There’s a ton of acoustic guitar on the record, mandolin, tenor guitar, cello – a lot of stringed instruments that have that warmth and humanity to them.
When did your shifting feelings around the instrument begin to overlap with what this record was shaping up to be thematically?
I think it was all sort of happening simultaneously. It’s interesting because my experience of making records is that while it’s happening. I’m working from a very intuitive place. All of this sort of theorizing about the context and the choices made is something that I’m able to do after the fact, and it all feels very true, but I don’t really necessarily go into it with all of those pieces in place. It’s more like I’m following an intuitive thread, and I’m also sort of following where the songs are coming from. I really struggle to not think too hard or apply too much theory or concept too early, because I think that can kind of shape the direction of the record in a way that’s not entirely authentic, or that it’s not quite ready to hold. I think it was more subconscious, and then after the record starts to shape up and you start to see the thing as a whole, it’s easier to figure out those conceptual threads.
You’re able to achieve a lot of atmospheric effects with the pedals that you use on the album, but a lot of the dynamic range comes from just the way you play the acoustic, like the urgent strumming of ‘The Enemy’ juxtaposed with the patient finger-picking of ‘Not Yet Free’. How often were you changing your approach to certain chord patterns as you were feeling out a song?
Here’s a great example of electroacoustic tactics in a way that might not necessarily be obvious to the listener: the song ‘Defeat’ took a lot of different forms before it turned into what it is on the record. It almost had a Fleetwood Mac ‘Dreams’ kind of strummy acoustic guitar pattern – it’s still in the track, but it is actually audible as a percussive, almost shakery thing. If you listen to this song from the beginning, that’s an acoustic guitar — it’s actually run through a vocoder that doesn’t have a carrier signal on it, so it turns into this brushy thing. There’s a repeating note, and it’s very clipped – that’s a ukulele note, but we used Ableton to clip it really hard on the attack, so it just sounds very abrupt. There’s all these little moments of acoustic instruments being used in unexpected, sort of non-traditional ways. I think it can be tempting when you’re using these instruments that have so much history and context around them, to use them in really traditional ways, and I was more excited to apply the same possibility for experimentation that I’ve always had within my music to these new instruments.
Björk’s Vespertine
I’m jumping to this inspiration because I feel it has the most direct influence on ‘Defeat’. I saw it in a list of your all-time favorite records, but are there any specific ways it came up on this record?
You’re quite correct to jump to that one, because ‘Defeat’ is really the song that’s the most indicative of my obsession with that record. I had talked a lot with Nick, who produced that song with me, about what makes that record so special, and for ‘Defeat’ in particular, we were very intentionally using Vespertine as a reference. Obviously, the drum programming that he did that enters in the chorus is heavily inspired and beautifully executed by Nick, who is a brilliant genius. There’s the idea of drums that are very fragile but still hit hard – there’s this tininess, this thin fragility to those drums. There’s no big, booming kick drum, there’s nothing that’s taking up a lot of space in the low end. It’s almost like the complexity and the fragility is the thing that drives it. Vespertine is a great example of a record where there’s tiny drums that slap. That was what we were going for with the production of that song.
Did toying with the production end up illuminating the lyrics in a way that is clearer now?
Yeah. I almost cut that song, honestly. That song was about to be on the cutting room floor before Nick and I were able to find a version of it that made sense. The really straightforward way in which I wrote it almost made the lyrics feel a little bit too trite, whereas the context that we found with the track as it exists on the record I think creates a space in which the directness of the lyrics makes sense and doesn’t feel too on the nose. I do think thematically it’s a really important track for the record to have, so I’m really grateful that we were able to find a way to make it work.
The Enneagram
Some people really have a hard time with personality frameworks, and I get that. Also, I think people get really caught up and fixated on this idea of, is it real or is it not real? For me, I just don’t really care as much as I feel like it’s very helpful for me to use have a framework, use a framework, and observe my reaction to it. That’s really useful as far as understanding more about myself. But the Enneagram is essentially – this is a gross oversimplification, but there’s nine personality types, and each type basically has certain motivations and tendencies, and it also exists on a spectrum. I’m a type 2, which is commonly kind of referred to as the Helper.
I discovered the Enneagram back when I was still living in Baltimore, which was over 10 years ago at this point. I was going around creative circles in Baltimore and reading about it, just being struck, in not necessarily a good way, by some of the descriptions in my type. Sort of an undeniable feeling of recognition, but in a way that I wouldn’t necessarily have even wanted to admit to myself – uncomfortable. And since then, it’s become a really useful framework for me to become aware of my patterns. I don’t think I would have been able to make this record and progress in my life, personally and in my relationships, without this particular framework. It laid the groundwork in many ways for the things that I needed to discover and uncover about myself and the decisions I was making in all of my relationships . It was a really integral part of the growth and self-exploration that needed to happen before I would have ever been able to make a record like this.
The song ‘Pride’ is a really direct reference to my type, because pride is the passion of the two, and the passion is essentially your primary vice. Something that’s really holding you back, something that needs to be confronted. And that song is an exploration of what that means. The duality of that word is really interesting, too, because it’s one thing to be like, “I’m very proud of what I’ve done, I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished.” But the definition of pride that I’m speaking from in that song is from the place of being too proud – too proud to ask for help, too proud to admit that you don’t have it all under control, to show that you’re hurting.
There’s a certain amount of pride involved in believing that you have what it takes to solve other people’s problems for them, or that you know better, or that you don’t need others to help you. ‘Pride’ and ‘I Think I’m God’, the last track, are basically about confronting that shadow side of the Helper archetype. There’s an ugliness to thinking that you are somehow good enough and strong enough and smart enough to fix everyone’s life. That was a key for me to understand how to let some of that go.
Altadena, California
You wrote a bit about Altadena in your newsletter back in January. How did living in Altadena intersect with the process of making The Life You Save?
My partner and I were living in Altadena a couple separate times while we were exploring the possibility of making a more permanent move. This record is very much equally a product of my previous home in North Carolina, and my community there at a recording studio called Betty’s, and everyone that surrounds that place, and being here in LA, working with my friend Adrian Olsen at his studio, Montrose. The first time we tried to finish the record, which didn’t quite stick, we were living in Altadena, and I actually wrote, just before we were about to go into the studio, very rapidly, two of what I would say are the most important songs on this record. I wrote ‘Long After Midnight’, and then two days later, I wrote ‘River in My Arms’. I can’t imagine the record without those songs.
Sometimes when you leave, you arrive at a new place, and something gets sort of shaken loose. All of a sudden, you’re in touch with some part of your creativity that was missing or harder to access in the older place. I really associate this record and this process very heavily with living in Altadena. Ultimately, we did decide to move here, and sadly, as soon as we got here, the Eden Fire happened – the week we moved. We’re in Pasadena now, so we’re very close, but we still go almost every day to the businesses that have survived. It’s been truly heartbreaking, because that was a place that I think we both felt, for the first time, like we could live here, we could do this. We fell in love with the place. Obviously, our hearts are broken for the people who had homes that they lost and lived there for much longer than we did. It’s been a strange experience, but I’m so grateful to have had the time that we had. I really treasure that time, and there’s something about the magic of that place that absolutely unlocked the remaining pieces of the record.
You’ve said it’s the first place in LA that felt like home, which is an idea you turn over on the album. One of my favorite lines is, “I keep going till I’m slowing/ ‘Cause the going feels like home.”
Yeah, the going is one of the only homes I feel like I have, honestly. It’s a strange feeling, but it’s true – it really does feel familiar. There’s a familiarity to it, even as it exhausts you. I’m still drawn to that tactic. Having left my home in Baltimore and then found a new home in North Carolina, and now I’ve left that place – not entirely, obviously I’ll still be there – but there’s a built-in sort of itinerant feeling when so much of my work has to do with travel. There’s a part of me that really loves it, and there’s a part of me that feels very adrift.
Live vocal takes
This is a kind of a classic thing people say, where they’re like, “I really want my vocals to feel really real and flawed and live.” It’s a very easy thing to say, very difficult thing to actually do. I have a really good ear, so I know when something is off, I experience it as a mistake. I also know that if I’m going to allow myself to do the thing I set out to do, I’m going to have to almost trick myself into letting it happen by creating a set of rules for myself to inhabit. I don’t believe that mistakes are bad and to be avoided. I’m certainly guilty of over-perfecting some of my music, or attempting to over-perfect it, and losing something in the process. It’s something I’m really learning, still, how not to do. Because when I listen to other people’s music, many of the imperfections and the flaws are the things that I’m the most connected to and feel really moved by. It’s just that when it comes from you, it’s almost impossible for your brain not to internalize it as a mistake.
Not all takes are live, but a good portion of the record, they are fully live. I think setting that rule in place kind of subverts my natural inclination to want to over-fix, because it happens so quickly – you fix one little thing, you redo one little thing, and next thing you know you’ve completely railroaded it into something else entirely. When I listen to the record, I still hear things that part of me wants to fix, but I’m glad I didn’t. I think one of the things I’ve gotten better at as a producer of my own music is learning how to subvert myself and learning how to trick myself into not wanting to over-perfect.
Were there any moments of recording vocals that stick out in your memory?
Absolutely. ‘Long After Midnight’, for sure. That’s a full live vocal take. ‘Not Yet Free’. ‘I Think I’m God’ was maybe the craziest recording experience of my life. That song is fully live, and it’s me and Alan [Good Parker]. Alan’s playing cello; the bass in that song is actually cello. This was in North Carolina at Betty’s. My friend Ali [Rogers] was engineering. We set everything up, and I wanted to get in a headspace, so I’d brought along this letter. It’s a letter from someone I love who has struggled, something that every time I read it, it just hit me right in the heart. I read this letter, and as I took it out, out of nowhere, one of those North Carolina summer rainstorms just came through. The skies just opened up, it started pouring. I’m close to tears, there’s this crazy rainstorm, we sit down, and we do the take. And then the rain stopped, and that was the take. [laughs] It was wild. It felt spooky. I had turned all the lights off and lit all these candles, and the whole thing almost felt like a weird spell. I’ve never had a recording experience like that before. I almost couldn’t believe it worked. Magic is real, I guess.
Playing house shows
You’ve been doing these tours where you play in people’s living rooms. How has that experience affected you or your perspective on songwriting?
Honestly, it has been such a gift to discover this method of performing and moving through the world. I love it so much. I’ve been hearing about it for years, but I sort of resisted trying, because there’s so much in this industry on the business side that nobody sees. There’s all these weird gatekeepers to success, and there’s all these rules about what you do and don’t do if you’re trying to grow and build. I’ve always been a little bit of a weirdo with that stuff. I’m ambivalent at best about attention. I don’t have the kind of ambition that I feel like a lot of my peers have. I’ve experienced what it feels like to grow a band and enjoy performing less and less and less, so I’ve learned over the years the extent to which the one-size-fits-all proposition of the music industry really doesn’t feel comfortable. I’ve made a lot of choices to try to stay afloat in this world without compromising too much.
I think there’s this idea that if you start doing these house shows, you’re washed up, your career’s over, and it’s just what you do on your way out the door. But I honestly couldn’t feel less like that’s true. For me, for my personality, I feel like I feel the best when I’m able to interact directly with people. I’m a very social, relational person, so it just means so much to me – these small, intimate spaces that always sound really good. You get to talk to people, you get to hear their stories about how your music has affected them and touched their lives. You get to feel like a normal human being moving through the world. It just feels safe and connective and authentic. It’s all of the things I love about making and performing music, and very few of the things I hate. It just feels very aligned with who I am and how I like to do this.
Feeling as impacted by this experience as I have, I feel like it’s going to be the primary way that I tour moving forward. Knowing that does influence the kind of songs that you write, because of course you want to be able to perform, and I feel like it’s naturally trickled down to the way that I’m writing. This record is very much a representation of how I am in this world, where it’s assured and ambitious in some ways, but it’s not super flashy. I think it’s probably a grower, and it takes time and attention to unlock. That’s very much an embodiment of where I’m at with my career and how I want to play music for others.
Cass McCombs’ Catacombs
This record is one of my all-time favorite records. It’s had so much growth and staying power in my life. The first time I heard it, my reaction was that this is beautiful, but it’s also what I was saying about what I hope is true about my record, where the songs are so thematically and lyrically complex. There’s so many wild and thorny ideas and concepts, yet it all exists in this very warm and straightforward space. It’s a record that I’ve come back to many times because it feels good to listen to, and I feel like Cass and his band on that record really succeeded in creating a space in which some of these ideas could really thrive in this way that I am amazed by. It was very much an inspiration from the beginning. It’s rare that I do this, but there was a part of me, before I even really had the songs for this record, that was like, “I think the most radical thing that I could do in my career right now would be to make my version of this record.”
I think it’s such a flex. It shows such confidence in your words. I think Cass, like me, is a very lyric-based songwriter, for the heads. I’ve always admired his lyricism, and that was really where I wanted the focus of my record to be. I like the idea, given the subject matter of my record, of intentionally creating a space that was warm and inviting and not alienating. For me and for the listener, because I feel like a lot of this stuff is heavy and difficult to hold, to stay with, and there’s a part of me that just wanted to make sure it was as sonically accessible as possible. Also, there’s a lot of pedal steel on that Cass record, and I love the pedal steel. My partner, Alan, who plays all over this record, is a great pedal steel player, so that instrument has become such a part of my daily life, even just casually hearing it in the house.
I think there’s an assuredness in not being like, “Look what I can do.” I feel like there’s so much music like that out there now, and I have no issue with it – it just feels like it’s coming from a very different space. I certainly had my phase of my career where I was way more in a look-what-I-can-do kind of moment. But I’m not really there at this moment. I’m thinking more about how I want to feel when I’m having to engage with some of these uncomfortable, painful truths.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Square Enix has officially announced that it is finally reviving the Dissidia Final Fantasy series. It is adding another spin-off entry after not launching anything for eight years. This installment follows the 2017 Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omina. The developers made the reveal on the game’s official X account. It also came with a teaser website. While most details remain unknown, it is clear that the upcoming title is for mobile gaming.
Dissidia Final Fantasy
The Dissidia Final Fantasy series is a set of spin-off titles of the main Final Fantasy franchise. In particular, it brings together popular characters from various Final Fantasy entries. Players can also fight in one-on-one battles. Each match features heroes and villains from the franchise. Some of the characters in the series include Cloud, Squall, and Zidane.
The Dissidia Legacy: Mixed Fan Reactions
According to Screen Rant, the first two entries in the series were a big hit. Also, both the 2011 and 2012 versions received praise from fans for their engaging offerings. However, the installment that followed in 2015 failed to meet the company’s target in sales. It even suffered from mixed reviews outside Japan. Meanwhile, Opera Omnia in 2017 was able to build a loyal following. However, it eventually saw limited success.
Since then, Square Enix has had a bad track record in handling mobile games, said Techedt. Specifically, it is now known for discontinuing games after just a few years. As a result, the feedback on the recent announcement was largely negative. Some are wary of the new game’s future, while others want the franchise to return to consoles. On the other hand, there is a fraction of players who hope the game will be good.
What the Teaser Reveals
On the teaser website, an image hints at the possible playable roster in the game. The teaser photo suggests that there will be 10 characters. The shown roster is a bit hard to break down, since it is in silhouette. However, Techedt reported that fans were able to identify some of them.
Auron from Final Fantasy X
Cloud from Final Fantasy VII
Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII
Prompto from Final Fantasy XV
Rinoa from Final Fantasy VIII
Zidane from Final Fantasy IX
Looking Ahead
Specific details about the new Dissidia Final Fantasy are still a mystery. However, Square Enix is expected to share more in a livestream later today. Final Fantasy fans can look forward to the title reveal, gameplay trailer, character roster, and other details.
The fate of the upcoming title is uncertain. But it will surely spark conversations in the gaming scene.
Pokémon GO has officially unveiled its new leveling journey update. This patch brings big changes to the game’s leveling system. At the same time, the latest update adds several offerings for its fans. In particular, there will be new cosmetics, Daily Adventure Egg, rewards, and many more. All of these changes make in-game progression faster and more fulfilling.
Increased Trainer Level Cap
According to Niantic, one of the key changes in the update is the increased level cap for trainers. Specifically, the maximum level a player can reach goes from 50 to 80. At the same time, the developers will rebalance the overall leveling system. It enables trainers to earn levels and rewards more often. XP already earned by players will also be applied to this new curve. Plus, no one will drop in level. Trainers at level 23 and above can even go up by at least one level. Similarly, only levels 71-80 will have level-up research tasks instead of levels 41-50.
Note: The changes in level cap do not affect Pokémon.
New Daily Adventure Egg
Another highlight of the patch is the arrival of the Daily Adventure Egg, said the Pokémon GO team. Particularly, it will be available to trainers at level 14 and higher. All they have to do is log in every day. Then, the Egg will automatically be placed in an incubator. To hatch it, players need to walk a distance of 1 km. Doing this will also get them 10,000 XP as a reward. The Daily Adventure Egg does not count toward regular Egg storage. However, trainers can only incubate one at a time.
Fresh Avatar Rewards
Niantic shared that new avatar rewards are waiting for players. They can also unlock them by reaching level 25. The list below shows every reward that lets trainers customize their look.
Level 25: Poké Ball Cap
Level 30: Poké Ball Shoes
Level 35: Poké Ball Jacket
Level 40: Great Ball Cap
Level 45: Great Ball Shoes
Level 50: Great Ball Jacket
Level 55: Ultra Ball Cap
Level 60: Ultra Ball Shoes
Level 65: Ultra Ball Jacket
Level 71: Level 71 Shoes
Level 73: Level 73 Shades
Level 75: Level 75 Pants
Level 77: Level 77 Pose
Level 79: Level 79 Hairstyle (Short and Long)
Level 80: Level 80 Jacket
At the same time, the developers added expanded storage rewards. It enables players to go beyond their storage limits for various items.
Additional Changes in Pokémon GO
As part of the update, there will be an increased chance of Lucky Friends at level 70. On the other hand, the XP needed to level up has also been changed.
Check out the required XP for leveling:
Level 10: 48,000 total XP
Level 20: 258,000 total XP
Level 30: 1,083,000 total XP
Level 40: 3,953,000 total XP
Level 50: 12,753,000 total XP
Level 60: 34,353,000 total XP
Level 70: 85,853,000 total XP
Level 80: 203,353,000 total XP
Availability
Pokémon Go’s new leveling journey update comes out on October 15.
Language does not die in the work of Xinyue Liang; it deteriorates. It diminishes, slowly, like a hill after rain. The works, seen recently in exhibitions in London, Paris and Milan, are not statements but sediments: for objects that seem to conserve something that speech has long since abandoned. The surfaces of her sculptural fragments are at the first glance, phallic, raw, and weary, like things from the strata of a long utterance; but under that quiescence something quivers.
Liang was born in Henan in 1998, and her evolution began with Chinese calligraphy, a discipline which brings trend, reiteration and veneration. From her undergraduate instruction in the calligraphic traditions of China at Qiongtai Normal University, she gained an early vocabulary of gesture, not measurable only in printed word and line, but by breath and silence. Afterwards, and at Camberwell College of Arts in London, that vocabulary ferments. Calligraphy is no longer writing, it is substance. The brush is used by her no longer to write meaning, but to explain it.
Liang’s work to-day vibrates between drawing, collage, installation, and pottery, but all her pieces of work suffer from that fundamental interrogation, how is it possible for tradition to exist when the medium, one of which traditionally is so much to give its life, begins to decay, she pursues to-day the problem in her opening work Fragility of mud by Porcelain and Paper Versions, this question being put by her in the logic of material of mud and of Dai paper and establishing in the confusion its experiment with the earthly nature and with the textural.
In the centre of this project is another of her uses of Dai paper, an eight-hundred-year-old Yunnanese tradition in the manufacture of paper from the bark of native trees. The paper, which was formerly used in the production of sacred books, is here torn, pulped and mixed with clay, so that its fibrous structure forms a unique tactile field of decay. Liang mixes this pulp with mud of different natures and dries it in sheets and fragments which buckle and crack. Immediately before they set, in the other, she writes on them with the colours of the ancient scripts, such as oracle-bone symbols, pictography and symbols in cuneiform, the result of her appearance being less recognisable texts than fossilised appearances. What remains is not the speech of language, but its evocation.
The use of writing is in these pieces neither mere consumption nor decoration; it is entropy : the clay absorbs the colour, the colour decays and again the once-holy link becomes a gesture. Liang translates the language of condensing into sediment and sediment into language. In this slow alchemical she is rendering a particular contemporary fear, the loss of continuance produced by the quick slavering enumeration of cultures, which is produced quicker than it can be received.
The installation of Fragility of Mud accentuates this temporal uncertainty. Fragments are splattered among masses, where the forms re-echo both archaeological relics and geological samples. Each piece is without hierarchy, there is no, or no especially apparent, centre, merely a constellation of gestures. The eye of the spectator wanders over the field and is ever again coming to the collapse of one or another fragment, and never to the end. The installation reads less like an object of art than like an after-thought.
What is remarkable in Liang’s work is what is one of her duals of appearance, and what might perhaps be in a sense called her refusal of repair. The cracks and niches of it are not metaphorically but really cases of frailty in the very essence, they are the way. She permits the matter to collapse, dry unevenly, break, crumble. This conscious state of behaving gives her works a paradoxically evidentiary virtue. By permitting decay to partake frequently in creation, Liang succeeds in exploding the ordinary idea of the word “Removed,” which she inherits equally from pottery and lettering.
The later series of Plantation, begins to treat the language-ment circumstances in a broad capsule. Here the light and the Dai paper are attained to merge by contact into Vessellite forms, objects which nevertheless are curiously inherited ideas of the word “Utensil.” The syntax of the skeleton is utility, yet there is no utility in their utilitarian guise. The surfaces are marked by white blots — pauses of feeling, moments of unhymned form that interrupt the stage of order. The Dubium is not continent in voice, but there are no vessels but continuities, areas wherein is fluidity, potentiality and air. Called “relations” they are performed culpably by archipelagic architecture, openly, porous, incomplete.
To engage with these vessels is to grapple with the idea of waiting. Each is suspended in an indeterminate space between utility and meaning, its smooth paleness evoking both bone and skin. They seem to anticipate a destiny of inscription which is elusive. The blank spaces of Liang’s work are temporal voids, instances where an ancient tradition pauses to inhale and exhale. The incompleteness so fundamental to her aesthetic is resistant to the Western fetish for the finished object. And it is this conditioning that she insists upon, situating her work in a liminal field of becoming.
Liang’s engagement with the “failure” of the verbal is most apparent in the tubes of porcelain form. These porous, organic shapes speak of coral skeletons and wind-instruments, hollow things. Every tube carries small perforations, suggestive of breath residue. The writing in these works becomes hearing, or more accurately, the moment preceding hearing. Voices may have once been carried in these forms, but it is silence they now echo.
The dialectic of calligraphy and clay, gesture and gravity, runs through the works of Liang. Calligraphy lives traditionally in the two-dimensional configuration of surface, bestowing on the trace of hand and flow of meaning its priority. Clay, on the contrary, refuses the planar, coursing as mass, as resistance. By forcing into conflict these two material logics, Liang creates a surface pregnant with tension which requires thought to adapt to tactility. Her works thus occupy a philosophical category analogous to Derrida’s notion of différance: meaning is deferred, displaced, always inchoate.
Culturally considered, Liang’s oeuvre can be framed as an investigation into the ethics of inheritance. The problem presented, namely, how to sustain tradition without mummifying it, recapitulates the problem of many contemporary Chinese artists walking the line between heritage and modernity. In contrast to those artists who monumentalize history by repetition, Liang confronts history through disintegration. Her works do not translate Chinese sculpture into modern terms; they allow it to erode, to collapse with alien materials to the point that it is unrecognizable though still living.
There is a tendency to describe Liang’s art as post-traditional, but such a description would miss the point. Her works are not “after” tradition, they are in it, trapped in its process of evolution. The Dai paper, ancient but also frail, is the embodiment of this paradox. It functions in effect as medium and metaphor, being at once an archive of handwork and a witness to decay. Bulking the Dai paper is mud, a medium equivalent to both origin and decay, and the result is a conversation between survival and dissolution.
In formal terms Liang’s surfaces have the feel of geological time rather than artistic gesture. Their cracks and fissures recall earthquakes; their pigments mineral oxidations. Underlying the earthy associations, however, is an intense conceptual discipline. Every mark is calculated to appear accidental, every imperfection choreographed to resist polish. It is this fine balance between mastery and the relinquishing of mastery, that places her work in the same relationship as that of Anselm Kiefer’s material melancholia and Yeesookyung’s fractured porcelain assemblages, but Liang is left by the way side with her finely wrought sensitivity, in that it is less monumental; more meditative.
It seems that she must possess an unnerving confidence in the nature of uncertainty as an artist with reference to such exhibitions as: Bound & Beyond, Fluid Horizons, Everything Then is Now. But the installation of these is not with a view to a contending with weighty dimension, but a friendly invitation for duration in the pursuit of, what? Tracing surfaces, reading textures, feeling the unsensible. Liang subverts the privileged viewer mentality into that of. Now unlearn those wonderful habits of interpreting that you possess and settle down into a position of observing.
This requires patience. This practice does not exhaust itself in divulging, but in a process of sedimentation. The more one observes the more is perceived the delicate manipulation between writing and weathering. The lines scored into her clay resemble language, but open themselves in such a way that, before sense can take root, unknowing arrives instead, quietly, almost joyfully. The viewer is left not with comprehension, but with a fine dust of recognition suspended in thought.
In this way Liang’s work re-defines fragility not as weakness but as continuity. The fissures are not wounds, but orifices. The decayed surface becomes the one condition of permanence. The past is not preserved but enabled to modify, to breathe, to produce its peculiar grace of decay. In a world of worship and servility, an altar to permanence, Liang’s work throws by its function of the things past into a state of anachronism, the absence is a measure of its evil.
As the mud dries and the inscriptions fade is a reminder on the transitory nature of culture. Which survives by forgetting. What is of the essence, is not the piece so much as the echo of it, not so much the vessel, as the atmosphere in which dwelt that which it contained. Liang’s practice teaches us as is appropriate, to read the silence between ourselves and materials, the void in which meaning slackens its hold and matter is the entity that evangelises its own intelligence.
Fashion moves in cycles, and few revivals have been as vibrant as the return of Y2K style. What began as a nostalgic tribute to the early 2000s has evolved into a powerful cultural movement — one that blends streetwear, pop culture, and the digital age into something entirely new.
The Origins of Y2K Aesthetics
The Y2K look was born at the crossroads of optimism and technology. The late ’90s and early 2000s were a time when the future felt excitingly uncertain — metallic tones, futuristic silhouettes, and glossy textures dominated both runways and streets. Think Paris Hilton in low-rise jeans, Destiny’s Child in matching metallic sets, and early MTV icons who defined an era obsessed with self-expression and excess.
Today’s reinterpretation of Y2K fashion is less about imitation and more about evolution. It borrows the boldness of the original era while adapting it to a contemporary mindset — more inclusive, more sustainable, and more diverse in expression.
How Y2K Blends With Modern Streetwear
At its core, streetwear has always been about authenticity — a reflection of youth culture and personal identity. The fusion of Y2K aesthetics with streetwear takes that concept further, introducing playful chaos into the minimalism that once dominated fashion.
Low-rise denim meets oversized hoodies, rhinestone-embellished tops pair effortlessly with cargo pants, and pastel colors collide with techwear tones. This eclectic mix has created a new visual language that feels both nostalgic and futuristic — a digital-age rebellion dressed in glossy vinyl and mesh.
Brands like Mauv Studio embody the essence of this movement, offering collections that celebrate the early-2000s aesthetic through a fresh, modern lens. Discover Mauv Studio’s Y2K-inspired collections — bold, playful, and unmistakably current.
Why We’re Still Obsessed With Y2K Fashion
The fascination with Y2K fashion isn’t just aesthetic — it’s emotional. For many, it represents the last era before the internet became fully commercialized, when creativity thrived in chaos and style was a statement, not a hashtag. In a world driven by algorithms and microtrends, the Y2K revival feels like a collective desire to reclaim that unfiltered energy.
Fashion, at its best, reflects the spirit of its time. The resurgence of Y2K streetwear is more than a trend — it’s a cultural mirror showing how far we’ve come, and how much we still crave individuality.
How to Embrace the Look
Start small: metallic accents, baby tees, and statement accessories can instantly give a modern outfit that early-2000s sparkle. Mix and match textures — denim with silk, mesh with faux leather — and don’t shy away from color. Most importantly, wear it with attitude. Y2K isn’t about perfection; it’s about confidence, playfulness, and being unapologetically extra.
The return of Y2K style proves that the future of fashion might just be found in its past — reimagined, redefined, and reborn for a generation that refuses to blend in.
Ultimately, the Y2K resurgence isn’t nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake; it’s a toolkit for self-styling in an age of infinite feeds. Curate what sparks joy—metallic mini bags, pastel knits, playful hardware—and remix it with everyday essentials. That friction between polish and play is where the look feels alive, personal, and distinctly now.
The world of online gaming has been turned on its head by the rise ofcrypto casinos, giving players in the US and beyond a faster, more secure and more private way to play. What was once a niche interest is now mainstream with hundreds of bitcoin casinos, just like our top pick Coin Casino, vying for attention. This guide is an expert review of the top crypto gambling sites available today.
Official Ranking of 10 Best Bitcoin Casinos for 2025
1. Coin Casino: The Ultimate Crypto Gaming Destination
Coin Casino is the #1 crypto casino. It’s a modern and sleek platform for the serious player, especially high rollers who want high limits and big rewards. For players who love bitcoin gambling and want a powerful, private and rewarding environment, Coin Casino is one of the best crypto casinos out there.
Pros
High Betting and Withdrawal Limits, perfect for high rollers
No Fees for all deposits and withdrawals
Massive Game Library with over 4,000 games from top providers
Cons
Only for cryptocurrency users, no fiat options
Welcome Bonus
New players at Coin Casino get a 200% first deposit match bonus up to $30,000. The bonus is available with a minimum deposit of just $20, so it’s perfect for casual players and high rollers who want the best from bitcoin casinos.
Games
Coin Casino has an impressive and curated selection of over 4,000 games. The library is filled with award winning games from top software providers like Microgaming and NetEnt, so you know you’re in for a top notch gaming experience. The casino also has exclusive games that can’t be found at other crypto casinos.
Deposits & Withdrawals
As a bitcoin casino, Coin Casino is a cryptocurrency expert. It accepts a wide range of digital coins including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Tether, Dogecoin, and Shiba Inu. A big plus is the fully automated withdrawal system that processes most withdrawal requests in minutes.
Security & Licensing
Player safety is top priority for Coin Casino. The platform is fully licensed and regulated by the Government of the Autonomous Island of Anjouan and operates under a valid gaming license that ensures it adheres to international cryptocasino standards. It uses state of the art SSL encryption to protect all user data and financial transactions.
2. Lucky Block: The Pioneers of Web3 Integration and Token Rewards
Lucky Block is leading the new crypto casino charge, with a sophisticated online gaming platform deeply embedded in the Web3 world.
Pros
Biggest Welcome Bonus in the industry
20+ Cryptocurrencies to play with
High Profile Sports Partnerships to increase brand credibility and trust
Cons
As a new crypto casino, it’s still building its long term brand history
Welcome Bonus
New players at Lucky Block get a massive 200% up to €25,000 + 50 free spins welcome bonus. This is one of the biggest welcome bonuses from any of the top crypto casinos, so you’ll have a ton of bonus funds to play with.
Deposits & Withdrawals
Lucky Block is a crypto-first platform that accepts deposits and withdrawals in over 20 different digital currencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and $LBLOCK token.
Security & Licensing
Licensed by Curacao, Lucky Block is a secure platform. It has built its trust through high profile partnerships with big sports teams and international athletes, so it’s a great choice for bitcoin gambling.
3. WSM Casino: Best for its VIP Program & Meme Culture Vibe
WSM Casino embodies the fun and silly spirit of modern meme culture and turns it into an excellent crypto gaming platform. This new crypto casino, born from the global Wall Street Memes movement, is a unique and entertaining experience for the modern player.
Pros
Massive Welcome Bonus and ongoing promotions
Huge Game Library over 5,000 games
Strong Community Vibe rooted in meme culture
Cons
Meme-heavy branding and tone may not be for everyone
Welcome Bonus
WSM Casino gives new players the royal treatment with a massive 200% welcome bonus up to $25,000. That’s a lot of extra cash to get you started.
Games
With over 5,000 games, WSM Casino has one of the biggest and best game libraries out there. They have thousands of slots, innovative Megaways games and life-changing progressive jackpots available to play. The bitcoin live casinos section is massive with all the classic table games and popular game shows.
Deposits & Withdrawals
WSM Casino is a crypto only platform that accepts many digital currencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum and its own $WSM token. You can also buy crypto directly on the site with a credit or debit card, making it one of the most accessible crypto casinos.
Security & Licensing
WSM Casino is fully licensed by the government of Curacao, which ensures that it adheres to strict international bitcoin casinos standards of fair play and security. Its commitment to responsible gambling and transparent operations makes it a safe and reliable choice among the best bitcoin casinos.
4. Mega Dice: The Leader in Daily Missions & Gamified Rewards
Mega Dice brings a fresh and interactive approach to the crypto casino and bitcoin casinos scene by gamifying its loyalty program. Mega Dice offers a great bitcoin gambling app experience via Telegram and welcomes new players with a big bonus.
Pros
Gamified Loyalty Program with daily missions and challenges
Seamless Telegram Integration for fast and anonymous play
Huge Game Library with over 4,000 games
Great bitcoin gambling app
Cons
Gamified elements may not appeal to traditional casino players
Main focus is on casino product over other verticals
Welcome Bonus
New players at Mega Dice can get a 200% welcome bonus up to 1 BTC + 50 Free Spins. This crypto bonus is massive and will give you a huge head start as you explore the thousands of games on one of the best bitcoin casinos out there.
Games
Mega Dice has over 4,000 games. They also have a curated selection of provably fair crash games for modern players at this top crypto casino.
Deposits & Withdrawals
Mega Dice supports many cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Solana. They offer fast, private and low cost bitcoin casinos transactions. Payouts are super fast, most withdrawals will be in your digital wallet in under an hour. That’s what the best crypto casinos are all about.
Security & Licensing
Licensed by Curacao, Mega Dice provides a safe and fully regulated crypto casinos gaming environment. They use the latest security protocols and advanced SSL encryption to protect all player funds and data.
TG.Casino is a true pioneer in the bitcoin casinos space, offering a fully featured casino that runs entirely within the popular Telegram bitcoin gambling app. Players can register, deposit, play thousands of games and withdraw with complete anonymity, making it one of the best bitcoin casinos and crypto casinos for those who value security and a seamless mobile experience.
Pros
100% Anonymity no KYC required
Play Directly Within Telegram, no separate bitcoin gambling app needed
25% Weekly Cashback for players using the native $TGC token
Cons
Requires users to have and be comfortable with Telegram app
Welcome Bonus
TG.Casino offers a unique welcome promotion of 200% rakeback up to 10 ETH, with 50 Free Spins. Plus players who use the casino’s native $TGC token for their bets are eligible for 25% cashback on their weekly net losses.
Games
Despite the unusual platform, this is still one of the best bitcoin casinos. TG.Casino has over 5,000 games available to their players. The huge selection includes thousands of top slots from leading providers, classic table games and an extensive bitcoin live casinos section with real dealers.
Deposits & Withdrawals
As a crypto native platform, TG.Casino offers instant and secure transactions, accepting popular cryptocurrencies such as BTC, ETH and $TGC token. The whole banking process is managed within the Telegram chat, which is super private and efficient.
Security & Licensing
TG.Casino is another one of the crypto casinos licensed in Curacao, so it operates under strict regulations for fairness and security.
Instant Casino was built to solve one of the biggest problems for players that many crypto casinos are trying to eradicate: delayed withdrawals. This platform has made speed its entire brand identity and has a fully automated system that pays out instantly after a win.
Pros
Instant, Fully Automated Withdrawals in minutes
10% Weekly Cashback paid in real cash with no wagering
High Betting and Withdrawal Limits for all types of players
Cons
The game library is slightly smaller than some of the competition
Welcome Bonus
Instead of a crypto casinos welcome bonus, Instant Casino has a continuous and simple reward system. All players get 10% weekly cashback on their net losses. What makes this offer really special is that the cashback is paid in real, withdrawable money with no wagering. This simple, high value offer is a safety net and is a standout feature among the best bitcoin gambling sites.
Games
The game lobby has over 3,000 games with a focus on high quality slots and live dealer games. The Bitcoin live casinos suite is particularly strong with HD streams of premium games and fun game shows.
Deposits & Withdrawals
Speed is the name of the game at Instant Casino. It offers a wide range of instant withdrawal methods including Bitcoin, Litecoin and TRC-20 USDT which often arrive in your wallet in under 5 minutes. Uniquely stanced for a modern crypto casino, it also accepts traditional payments via Visa and Mastercard so all players are covered at one of the best bitcoin casinos.
Security & Licensing
Instant Casino is a fully licensed and regulated platform, licensed by Curacao eGaming. This means it meets international crypto casinos standards for game fairness, player security and responsible gambling.
7. Golden Panda: Best for User Friendly Design & Crypto Accessibility
Golden Panda is a friendly and accessible platform for both new and experienced players in the crypto casinos space. Its design is clean and simple, with no barriers to entry for newbies, ensuring the best bitcoin gambling experience.
Pros
Super User-Friendly, perfect for beginners
Over 4,000 Casino Games
Mobile Friendly for any device
Cons
Welcome bonus has higher wagering requirement than some others
Welcome Bonus
New players at Golden Panda can claim a big welcome package of 200% up to $5,000 and 50 Free Spins. This is a great start! Plus Golden Panda offers a 10% weekly cashback every Monday with no wagering requirements. No wonder it’s considered one of the best bitcoin casinos out there.
Games
Golden Panda has over 4,000 games to choose from, so there’s something for everyone at this bitcoin casino. The slot selection is massive with games from PGSoft, Fugaso and Novomatic, making it one of the top crypto casinos on the market.
Deposits & Withdrawals
The casino accepts many easy and secure payment options, so it’s a versatile choice. You can deposit with credit cards or go for the speed and privacy of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Security & Licensing
Golden Panda is a fully licensed and regulated online casino, providing a safe and fair bitcoin casinos gaming environment for all players. The platform uses SSL encryption to protect all data and all games are from reputable providers that are audited for fairness.
8. Discasino: The Leader in Unique Discord Community Integration
As one of the best crypto casinos, Discasino offers a truly unique and innovative concept by seamlessly blending a high-quality online casino with the vibrant, interactive community of Discord. It is the perfect crypto casino for players who view gaming as a social activity.
Pros
Seamless Integration with Discord for a unique social gaming experience
Community-Driven Rewards System and an exclusive VIP “Nitro Lounge”
Strong Focus on Esports Betting alongside traditional casino games
Cons
Requires users to have and use Discord in order to get the full experience
Welcome Bonus
Discasino focuses on providing consistent, long-term rewards, over a one-time welcome bonus. Its main offer is a 10% weekly cashback on net losses, which is paid out to players every Monday with no wagering requirements attached.
Game Selection
Discasino provides a comprehensive selection of casino games, including a wide variety of slots, classic table games like blackjack and roulette, and an immersive live casino.
Deposits & Withdrawals
The bitcoin casinos platform fully embraces the speed and security of cryptocurrency, accepting a wide range of digital coins, including BTC, ETH, LTC, and even popular meme coins like BONK and PEPE. All transactions are fast and secure, with instant deposits and rapid withdrawals. This dedicated focus on crypto ensures a smooth and private banking experience for all users.
Security & Licensing
Discasino is operated by a company incorporated under the laws of Curaçao and holds a Certificate of Operation, while its full license is in progress. This ensures that it follows all necessary regulatory guidelines for player safety.
9. Samba Slots: Best for an Energetic Theme & Mobile Crypto Experience
Samba Slots brings the vibrant energy of a Brazilian Carnival to the world of crypto casinos. Its excellent mobile optimization and support of crypto payments ensure that the party never has to stop, allowing players to enjoy a seamless crypto gambling experience on any device.
Pros
Vibrant and Engaging Carnival Theme
Excellent Mobile-Optimized Platform for gaming on the go
Accepts Crypto and Fiat Payments, offering flexibility
Cons
Customer support options could be expanded
Welcome Bonus
New players at Samba Slots are welcomed with a fantastic 200% match bonus up to €7,500 on their first deposit. This generous offer gives players a massive boost to their starting funds. In addition to the welcome bonus, the casino also offers a 10% weekly cashback up to €10,000, providing a continuous reward for loyal players. This is a sign of one of the best bitcoin casinos.
Game Selection
With over 3,000 games, Samba Slots offers a carnival of choices for bitcoin gambling online. The platform’s strength lies in its collection of online slots, featuring lively titles like Carnival Cash and Samba Carnival.
Deposits & Withdrawals
Samba Slots is one of those bitcoin casinos that provides a variety of secure and convenient payment methods. Players can make deposits using traditional options like Visa and Mastercard, e-wallets, and modern cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Deposits are processed instantly, and crypto withdrawals are handled swiftly.
Security & Licensing
Samba Slots falls into the category of one of the best bitcoin casinosthat operates under a license from Curacao, guaranteeing a secure and fair gaming environment. The platform uses advanced SSL encryption technology to protect all personal and financial data.
10. Fast Slots: Go to Platform for Speed & Efficient Crypto Transactions
Fast Slots is a crypto currency casino and one of those bitcoin casinos built on a simple yet powerful premise: speed. Every aspect of the user experience has been optimized for maximum efficiency, making it one of the best crypto casinos for players who value their time.
Pros
Instant Game Access and fast loading times as one of the best bitcoin casinos
Quick and Secure deposit and withdrawal process, especially with crypto
Supports a Wide Range of Currencies, including crypto
Cons
Fewer ongoing crypto currency casino promotions compared to some competitors
Welcome Bonus
Fast Slots offers a generous welcome package to new players, including a 200% bonus up to €5,000 plus 50 Free Spins. This combination of bonus funds and free spins provides excellent value. Additionally, all players benefit from a 10% weekly cashbackprogram, making it one of the best crypto casinos.
Game Selection
The game selection at Fast Slots is vast, with over 4,000 titles from leading developers. Bitcoin casinos slot enthusiasts will find a huge variety, from classic 3-reel slots to modern video slots with complex bonus features and progressive jackpots.
Deposits & Withdrawals
True to its name, Fast Slots offers a quick and easy banking process. Players can deposit using credit/debit cards, bank transfers, and a variety of cryptocurrencies, making it perfect for bitcoin gambling online. Withdrawals are processed efficiently, with crypto payouts often completed in under an hour, showcasing its strength as a modern crypto casinoand one of thebest crypto casinos overall.
Security & Licensing
Fast Slots is one of those bitcoin casinos that operates under a legitimate gaming license and employs industry-standard SSL encryption to protect all player data. This is one of the best crypto casinos that is committed to fair play, partnering only with reputable game providers whose games are certified for random and fair outcomes.
A Beginner’s Guide to the World of Crypto Gambling
The rise of bitcoin casinos and crypto casinos represents one of the most significant shifts in the online gaming industry. For newcomers, this world can seem complex, but understanding the basics is simple.
What Are Crypto Casinos?
Crypto casinos are online gambling platforms that use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others as a primary method for deposits and withdrawals. Unlike traditional online casinos that rely on fiat currencies and conventional banking systems, bitcoin casinos operate on decentralized blockchain networks. This fundamental difference allows them to offer a range of advantages, including enhanced privacy, faster transaction speeds, lower fees, and greater accessibility for players around the world. The best crypto casinos also feature provably fair games, where players can independently verify the fairness of game outcomes. Let’s look at all of this in a bit more detail.
The Advantages of Bitcoin Gambling Online
Why are so many players making the switch to bitcoin casinos? The benefits are clear and compelling. The best bitcoin gambling platforms in this list of trusted crypto casinos offer:
Enhanced Anonymity: Crypto currency casinoplayers can often sign up with just an email address at the best crypto casinos, without needing to provide sensitive personal information.
Lightning-Fast Transactions: Crypto withdrawals are typically processed in minutes, not days, allowing players instant access to their winnings.
Lower Fees: Blockchain transactions often have much lower fees compared to traditional banking methods like wire transfers.
Global Accessibility: Crypto casinos are not bound by the same geographical restrictions as fiat casinos, making them accessible to a wider audience.
Provably Fair Gaming: Many crypto gambling sites offer games where the fairness of each outcome can be mathematically verified by the player.
Final Verdict: The Best Crypto Casino for US Players
The world of crypto casinos has matured into a vibrant and highly competitive market, offering players a superior alternative to traditional online gaming. The best crypto casinos reviewed in this guide represent the pinnacle of the industry, each delivering a unique and high-quality experience. From the community-driven fun of Discasino to the innovative Telegram integration of TG.Casino, there is a perfect crypto platform for every type of player.
However, after a comprehensive and objective analysis, Coin Casino stands alone at the top crypto casino. It delivers a fun, secure, and incredibly rewarding experience, solidifying its status as the definitive choice among the best crypto casinos for players in 2025.
Frequently Asked Questions About Bitcoin Casinos
Are crypto casinos safe and legitimate?
Yes, the reputable crypto casinos reviewed in this guide are safe and legitimate. We only list the best bitcoin casinos.
What cryptocurrencies can I use at bitcoin casinos?
The best bitcoin casinos support a wide range of cryptocurrencies. While Bitcoin (BTC) is the most common, most of the best crypto casinos also accept other popular coins like Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Tether (USDT), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Solana (SOL).
How fast are withdrawals at crypto casinos?
Unlike traditional casinos where payouts can take several business days, crypto transactions are typically processed in minutes.
Do I need to own crypto to play at these casinos?
Not necessarily. While these are crypto casinos, many of the best platforms, like Coin Casino and Lucky Block, have integrated services that allow you to purchase cryptocurrency directly on their site using a standard credit or debit card.
What is a “provably fair” game?
Provably fair is a system used by many bitcoin casinos that allows players to independently verify the fairness of a game’s outcome.
bloodsports is a New York-based four-piece made up of vocalist/guitarist Sam Murphy, guitarist Jeremy Mock, bassist/vocalist Liv Eriksen, and drummer Scott Hale. The first iteration of the band came together while Murphy and Mock were going to college in Denver, releasing their self-titled EP in January 2023 and playing around the city before relocating to New York. Hale, offering up his practice space to audition, soon joined the band, followed by Eriksen, who had been playing music with Mock back in high school. From their first rehearsal together, it took less than a year for bloodsports to record their blistering debut LP, Anything Can Be a Hammer, which arives this Friday. Produced by Hayden Ticehurst, the album innervates the band’s slowcore foundations, its volatile songs often beginning with spare, somber guitar parts before bursting with noise, though never exactly in the direction you expect them to. Murphy’s lyrics teeter between sweet stream-of-consciousness and nightmarish dejection, blurring the line between fragility and confidence. “It forces an odd reaction/ Coarse and affirmed/ Cuts like a razor,” he sings almost self-consciously on the closing title track, which might leave you feeling the same way: no less alone, but strangely moved by the ever-evolving chaos.
We caught up with bloodsports for the latest edition of our Artist Spotlight series to talk about their earliest musical influences, moving to New York, making Anything Can Be a Hammer, and more.
Your upcoming release show is presented by Stereogum. What does that collaboration mean to you? Did you grow up reading music blogs or magazines?
Liv Eriksen: I’ve been reading Stereogum since I was little. They do really great work. Me and my mom would go to Randall’s, which is the grocery store in Texas – the really fancy ones with the thick paper were $25, so we would never buy them, but when my mom would go around the store, I would just sit and read through all the different music prints. I think we’re all excited.
Sam Murphy: Yeah, it’s really cool. I don’t think any of us really expected that to happen. It makes me feel pretty good about the songs we’re writing.
Jeremy Mock: Whenever we’ve gotten written up, I’ve sent it to my parents, like, “Not a failure. [laughs] Here’s proof.” I’m just kidding, but it does feel pretty good. The writing, too, that they did about us is very flattering. It just feels good to feel like someone out there is listening, because I think a lot of times, even if people really like something, they generally don’t say anything.
LE: I think sending my dad the Stereogum link was the first time he said anything other than, “Cool.” Every time I send him a song, he’s like, “Sounds great,” but I sent him that, and I finally got a real response. Like Jeremy’s saying, this is something they can quantify.
Scott Hale: To echo Sam, did not expect it or see it coming. But I grew up reading about music online, figuring out what I liked, what I didn’t, kind of based on music publications. I remember when I was in eighth grade, I found the KEXP Song of the Day podcast, so you could download a song as a podcast for free. That was when I got really into Merge Records and Superchunk and stuff like that. But we’re stoked that people care. A lot of times, it feels like screaming into the void, being a musician, especially doing indie rock.
What else do you remember shaping your musical tastes and interests early on?
SH: All of the first music I listened to was definitely from my dad. He showed me the Rolling Stones and Peter Gabriel and Pat Metheny. From there, I used the internet to find my own taste – I made some friends through, I think it was Tumblr, and they were like, “Come to a show.” Because I grew up in Nashville, and the DIY scene was really big then, and I just started going to house shows when I was in high school. That was how I found my community with music. I think the first step definitely was just grinding on Spotify or music blogs to try to find new stuff.
SM: For me, it was definitely my dad and my sister who showed me music when I was a kid. When I was like 5 years old, my dad would be driving us around and playing Radiohead or My Bloody Valentine or the Melvins. And then my sister always was sending me music that is just way cooler than anything I would ever find on my own.
JM: I remember finding that Ween album, Chocolate and Cheese, Spiderland, and Loveless. Those are the three indie rock albums that I SM: The Strokes.
JM: I actually didn’t get into the Strokes until way later. I was pretty late to that.
SM: I feel like the Strokes were my first love.
LE: My mom is European, so she only listened to super crazy Europop music, so I didn’t really love music as a kid. I guess I realized later that’s just not my thing. [laughs] And then, on weekends, when I’d see my dad, similar to Sam, we would just drive around and he’d be playing different classic rock bands. It piqued my interest. And then in high school, I met a friend named Reed, and we went to Austin City Limits Music Festival. I just wanted to be cool and hang out, but then it turned out that Strokes were playing. That’s the show that he took me to, and these guys know I’m always yapping about the first-love-Strokes-syndrome, but it was actually probably the most life-changing experience I’ve ever had. We’re still friends to this day, so it was super sweet. From then on, I delved into all the albums everyone else has already mentioned.
Sam and Jeremy, being back in Denver, did your friendship revolve around music around the time that you formed bloodsports?
SM: Jeremy and I initially became friends through our both liking indie rock music, basically. Jeremy was in a band in Denver called Antibroth – sickest band ever – and I just started going to their shows a lot, mostly because I didn’t really know there was a scene. I wasn’t really a part of it. I thought Jeremy’s band was cool, so I just started going to shows, and we started hanging out more. I showed Jeremy a song I’d been working on, and he was like, “We should record it.” It was ‘Sustain’. I feel like that’s how it started. We would just talk about music a lot, and we found out we had similar tastes in a lot of ways.
JM: I mean, we were the only two people into slowcore, I feel like, in the entire city. [laughs] There were some others, but felt like it, so I guess we came together because of that. bloodsports very much started out as a fairly straight-ahead slowcore indie rock thing. It’s shifted a little bit more into kind of post-punk territory, or more noise rock, but I do still think of us as a slowcore band. For me, a lot of the music from growing up that I think still holds up is a lot of the slowcore stuff, bands like Bedhead, Slint, Low.
I feel like your song ‘Rot’ is an interesting encapsulation of that, in that it has that slowcore foundation but expands in a way that speaks to your growing interests. What prompted you to move to Brooklyn, and what were the biggest shifts you felt when you did?
SM: We moved in October 2023 – actually two years ago, almost to the day. It’s obviously a pretty different city to Denver in almost every way. But the thing for me is that the sheer quantity of things in New York is kind of overwhelming sometimes, especially in music. There’s so many bands, so many shows every night, and trying to keep up with it, and also trying to find time to write the stuff you want to write and have it stand out when there’s a hundred good bands that are also trying to do the same thing – it’s such a different type of thing from Denver.
JM: It’s really competitive, and not in a direct way, I think, but I at least feel like I only started writing good music when I moved here, honestly. Because there are just so many good bands to look up to. And even just bands that we’ve played with – you watch them, and it’s like, “Oh, we gotta step up a little bit.” [laughs] There are really great bands in Denver, but I never experienced that to the same degree as here, where I was just like, “Holy shit, people are actually really good.” And I have really enjoyed that, because I am just a genuine fan of a lot of the music that our peers make.
SM: As you’re saying, it pushes you to want to be better and doing something more interesting. It feels like there’s some urgency to it, which is really cool.
JM: I see that in New York bands a lot. Of course, generalizations are never really the way, but I do think that there’s an urgency to bands that come out of New York. That’s not always true, but I think it is probably because it’s also just because it’s so expensive to live here these days, and you can’t really just hang out and play music in the same way that maybe you can in other cities. It’s just more difficult, so I think that comes through in the music in some ways.
SM: I agree.
LE: It’s like a little pressure cooker.
It’s interesting to hear the restlessness in your music as a response to that New York environment. I’m thinking of a contemporary slowcore band like Teethe, who are from Texas and their music retains that lethargic pace. Liv, did you also move to Brooklyn around the same time?
LE: I moved to Brooklyn in the summer of 2022. My best friend was moving up here, and I followed him. I lived in Bushwick for a while, and now I’m in Queens. That’s where me and Jeremy reconnected, and then he introduced me to Sam. That’s where the full circle thing came in. I was here a year or two before Jeremy and Sam. Scott was first, but of course Sam grew up in New York. I didn’t come to New York specifically to do music. I mean, I’ve been playing music my whole life, but I kind of just came to do something new. I was bored of Austin, and when your best friend’s moving somewhere and you don’t really have anything holding you down, you might as well go on an adventure. Which very clearly worked out in my favor, couldn’t be happier. But I didn’t have some major plan or anything like that by any means.
Liv and Scott, what were your impressions of the band when you were about to join?
SH: I was already listening to bloodsports before I joined the band, just because Jeremy and I have a mutual friend who I met when I lived in Memphis during college, and he had shared the bloodsports EP on Instagram. I was lke, “This rocks.” I had followed them on Instagram, and they were looking for a drummer, and I had been here for a little over three years by that point. I moved up here with my kit during COVID, so I wasn’t using it. Then I got a practice space when I moved to Brooklyn, and I was ready to move out of that practice space and save some money, just because I didn’t have a band at the time. And then I just DM’d them and was like, “Hey, come to my practice space, I’ll do an audition.” And then we just played the EP start to finish, the three of us. This was before Liv was in the band. We got along really well right off the bat. I was like, “Maybe these are also people I could be friends with.” That was the big thing for me: enjoying the music and being with people that I enjoy.
LE: I just got roped in because Jeremy and I went to high school together. We hadn’t talked the whole time he and Sam were in Denver – we just lost contact, and then I get a text from Jeremy Mock that said, “Hey, I just moved to New York.” We hung out a while, I met Sam – of course, they were roommates – and I got requested to play some bass.
JM: We used to play open mics together growing up.
LE: Yeah, in high school.
JM: So we would play music for a long time.
LE: We played at a place called Monkey’s Nest on Burnett, right next to our high school. But I really didn’t play bass before this, and I think Jeremy didn’t understand the extent of what I meant when I said I didn’t really play bass. [laughs] So these lovely fellows had quite a lot of patience and tips as I joined their musical prowess, and I figured out the bass. They stuck with me. But I really didn’t know what kind of band I was getting into. Obviously I’d heard the songs, because I was learning them. But I didn’t have that foresight of what it all would entail and all that, but I think that made it all the more fun. Like Scott said, these are my best friends ever, so to just have a reason to hang out with them a bunch of times a week – it’s super great. It was a really large learning curve of going from that to recording the album.
JM: It all took place in less than a year.
SM: Everything happened really fast.
SM: We played our first New York show in January 2024, and then we recorded the record November 2024. Now here we are a year later, and the record’s coming out.
LE: We even had our first practice December of 2023.
During those months when you were fleshing out the songs for the album, how much of the collaboration or discussion around them concerned when to simplify or embellish things? Was that part of the tension of getting a song right?
JM: For me at least, what I was into at the time is I just wanted to pile on as much as we possibly could. I love a big orchestral arrangement, so with the limited time and tools we had, I just tried to do as much as I could.
SM: I think I generally lean towards writing more minimal or simpler things. Combining that with what Jeremy was saying, these more orchestral, composed arrangements, I think works really well. And then Scott just nails the drum parts every time we write anything. It just always works.
LE: First try.
SM: It’s really annoying, actually. [laughs] We’ll just be writing a riff, and Scott will just play on it, and we’ll be like, “That’s good, actually.” I think we found a really good workflow of writing in terms of, we all have our own things that we like, but I think they all play off each other really well. It makes the writing process pretty fun now. Especially the new songs, the ones that are on LP2, especially, are gonna be even more more collaborative. There’s just more, I think. More maximal, more dynamic in whatever way we can.
JM: I think with this record, we were trying a lot of stuff out for the first time and just seeing how it went. This next record, I think, is gonna be a full 25% split, creatively, between the four of us. That’s what it feels like at the moment, where most things have come together when we were in the room. It’s a little bit more sprawling, and Liv, I feel like you have a lot more of a direct presence in what we’ve been writing. It feels a lot more Beatles-esque.
SM: We’re basically the Beatles.
JM: [laughs] Jesus Christ.
SM: Yep, print it.
JM: End it right there.
I can’t wait for the Get Back documentary, where it’s nine hours of you making bloodsports LP2.
JM: Just stick a camera in our practice space, and you can hear the deathcore bands right next to us.
SM: Yeah, you can hear the metal bands next door.
LE: We get to hear a lot of crazy tunes in there. I guess they do, too. They probably hear us do some weird shit in there.
Scott and Jeremy, your playing on ‘Rot’ is really textural on those quieter moments, even when it’s just drums and vocals. You both have some really fiery parts throughout the record, but I’m curious if it’s a different kind of challenge leaning into minimalism.
JM: Something I’ve noticed over the years is that when you get really quiet, people get really uncomfortable sometimes, and tend to get really quiet too. It’s a really cool thing to play with in a rock context, where you really can just strip it back to just the vocals, and it’ll silence the room, usually. For no other reason, maybe, than people are just like, “What’s going on?” And that’s been really fun for us to play with, the extreme dynamics. It’s just the strength of the rock band format. It’s definitely something we’ve leaned into quite a bit as a band.
SH: ‘Rot’ shows some of how I approach playing drums,, especially when I’m playing something so simple – I think that makes that whole beginning part of the song, because everything is really so scaled back and simplified. Whenever I’m kind of in that zone, I’m trying to be as textural as possible. I want to throw a bunch of cymbal work, I’m playing off of everything I’m hearing, whether it’s Sam’s vocals or a couple of little notes that Jeremy or Sam are playing. And then it’s just me locking in with Liv.
JM: What I’ve been really chasing recently – a few years back, I heard this Glenn Branca album, Indeterminate Activity of Resultant Masses. That’s my favorite Glenn Bronc album, and it blew my mind the first time I heard it. I just never heard those kinds of sounds come out of guitars. And on that record, there’s also this interview accompanying it of John Cage just hating it and talking about how it represents fascism. I think that came through in little ways on this album, where in certain parts of the recording maybe I was a little out of tune and just kept it. And then you put overdubs on top of that, and it creates these weird tone contradictions. Not to stray from ‘Rot’, but with ‘Trio 1’ and ‘Trio 2’, it was coming from that place of just trying to see how many notes I can just throw into one place. It just creates this really uncomfortable, but also cathartic environment. That’s something I was chasing on this whole album.
‘Trio 2’ serves as an interesting bridge between ‘Calvin’, a relatively straightforward rock song, and ‘Rot’. You talked about dynamics in the context of a song, but that’s also an example of utilizing them in the sequencing. What was the thinking behind it?
SM: For me at least, ‘Trio 2’ is what separates both literally and figuratively the two halves of the albums, because I feel like the second half is a lot darker. It sort of descends into a much darker place, lyrically. ‘Trio 2’ is a jarring track in a lot of ways, especially coming after ‘Calvin’, which is as you said pretty straightforward. I think it’s cool to have that break where you can readjust your listening ears to something else.
Vocally, is it tricky to tap into that darker headspace of the second half?
SM: I don’t know if the headspace part was difficult, but certainly those songs, like ‘Rot’, are cathartic to perform, because I feel like I’m inhabiting this role of the narrator in the song. It can be kind of exhausting to do that song, maybe, but for the other ones, I enjoy it. It kind of fuels me a lot of the time, getting into those heavier screaming sections. It honestly gives me more energy than it takes away. In terms of tracking, I think we did vocals pretty much in one day with Hayden. Lyrically, I don’t know if it was really purposeful that the second half of the record had more of the darker themes on it than the first half. But it sort of ended up that way, which maybe is kismet.
Liv, when it came to singing on songs like ‘Themes’, which also has a sweet melodic bass line, or ‘A River Runs Through’, how intuitive did it feel?
LE: When we had the idea to have me sing along with Sam on ‘River’, I think it made a lot of sense. It has a very sweet undertone to it, very stripped-back, and it’s in this louder place on the album. Like I mentioned earlier, I didn’t play bass my whole life or anything, but singing I’ve always loved to do, so ‘River’ definitely felt the most intuitive for me to sing. I love the words that Sam wrote. It was just a really pretty song. And then ‘Themes’, also one of my favorite songs. I like that singing on these with Sam gives it some dimension, and we use it sparingly. We don’t do the full duet every song or put our vocals the same place in the mix. Separating it, you really have to listen to it. My vocal harmonies or secondary stuff vocal harmonies aren’t right up there with him, and I think it makes you listen all that more closely, because there’s just something happening in the background. I was really excited that they wanted to toss me in the singing mix with them, so it was really fun to record. Although learning how to do it live was very nerve-wracking, because playing bass and singing at the same time has not come naturally to me, so all the guys have been really good with tips, being patient, and making me not chicken out on things I commit to in terms of singing live.
Jeremy, you handled the engineering on the previous releases. Do you feel like you were able to look at and play through the songs in a different way with Hayden producing Anything Can Be a Hammer?
JM: It made the process way better. I felt like I was a part of the band. We would play a song, and then we’d come in and listen, and then I would just listen. I wouldn’t have to do anything, I wouldn’t have to double-check that everything’s okay. It really allowed me to immerse myself in making the record and think about the arrangement more. Like, “Oh, there’s an organ here, maybe I could play it.” I guess it always comes back to the organ. But it freed me up a lot to just be a little bit more creative.
LE: Jeremy was like a kid in a candy shop. He was having a great time.
JM: Yeah, there’s a lot of cool stuff in there. I set up four different amps, and we used a different amp on every song, pretty much. It all had purpose and thought, but I felt like I had the space to do that. We’re not a pedal band – I use two pedals, and one of them is literally just to make my amp feedback. And being able to use all those vintage amps really led us be not a pedal band. Because those vintage amps just break up in such a crazy-sounding way that you can really get the full spectrum of a guitar out of just the amp in a way that it’s a little harder to with modern equipment.
Going into a recording space is one of the things that can re-energize you when you’ve spent a lot of time on a song, just like playing it live. I was thinking about this in the context of something you said, Sam, about ‘Rosary’ – how you can still connect to the song despite having rekindled the relationship that it’s about. Whether it’s due to the passage of time or the amount of times you’ve played it, how do you all tune into the feeling of a song when it’s not so immediate?
SM: For me, playing the songs live keeps me connected to them. I feel like it’s a whole different feeling when you’re playing it in the practice space, or when you’re playing it for your bandmates, or even recording it, versus playing it to actual people who have paid money to watch you perform. Even if you’re bored of a song or something, you get up there and you’re like, “This is my song, and I’m gonna perform it.” I think enjoying the songs that you play keeps it fresh, honestly. And playing it live, where there’s just more chaos in some ways, keeps it fresh.
SH: I think when we’re writing a song, I usually just make it a goal to play something, even if I don’t like it. An example is the newest song we’re working on – I was feeling very lackluster about what I was doing, and then we didn’t practice for a while, and then we came back and I forgot how the song went completely, because I never record any of the stuff we’re doing in practice. But as Sam and Jeremy started playing, I sort of remembered it, and then I approached it very differently. It unlocked some sort of subconscious memory of the song, but it felt like I was approaching it freshly. When we’re playing live, I’m listening to whatever’s coming through my monitor, and I will take liberties at times if I just feel something in the moment. Kind of embrace the chaos, as Sam said.
LE: I guess I really like the songs, so it’s hard for me to get tired of them. But I think in practice, I do often struggle with not feeling in it, because I’m just focusing on getting it right. I do find my mind wandering a lot when we’re playing live, or on a good day in practice – I often think about other band members’ perspectives on the song. I think about, when Sam wrote that line, I wonder what specific thing it’s about, or I wonder what Scott hears. I’m a very lyrical person. I’ve talked to the band about this, that’s what I listen for first in music. I feel like I’m almost watching the song like a movie through Sam or Scott or Jeremy’s eyes, and then it keeps me re-interested in it if I feel like I’ve exhausted listening to it a bunch. I just really like to think about how people are perceiving it, what it causes them to experience in their mind. But I do that with these fellows sometimes, and it’s a fun game whenever I’m feeling not great at practice – it kind of snaps me right back into it.
JM: I’ve noticed that whenever we start writing a song, we’ll start with a riff, and we’re like, “Oh, this is really cool,” and then it’ll lead to something else, and then we just ditch the original riff that it started with.
LE: [laughs] For sure, yes. Every now and then, someone will play the original riff from eight months ago.
SM: We just have a graveyard of riffs.
LE: Riffyard.
JM: All of our songs start from another song and then become the song that they are, which is usually something completely different, at least these days.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Alex Cameron is back with a new single called ‘Short King’. “Somebody come get her, she’s in love with a short king,” goes the pretty infectious chorus. Check out the track, which Cameron wrote and produced himself, below.
Cameron released his most recent album, Oxy Music, in 2022.
