Regarding rare earth elements (REE), I have heard that they are somewhat abundant in the planet. The main issue is with processing of the mineral deposits, which produces large volumes of toxic byproducts. Right now, China is a leader, because their environmental regulations are not very strong and private players can get away with the toxins they produce. China accounts for 58% of the global REE production, and this in turn has made them a global leader in the production of electronic appliances. Myanmar is another country, which is increasing its production right now. US has enough deposits, but getting the clearance from the government to extract them is quite difficult.

The fault lies with the Bitcoin users. As the OP has rightly pointed out, only 0.117% of the global energy use is devoted to Bitcoin mining. The arguments put forward by the critics don't have any face value, and they themselves know that. But at the same time, Bitcoin users have fallen in to the trap that the critics have set for us. Rather than pointing out that our energy usage is minimal, everyone here has been busy finding excuses such as "green energy" proportion in mining is increasing. Satoshi won't be happy with this. He designed Bitcoin as a decentralized currency, that can't be manipulated. And here we are getting manipulated by those people who hate BTC.

Looking back, I still couldn't believe that earning 1 BTC in a year has become so difficult now. Back in 2014/15, it was possible to earn that much in a month, from doing a bit of freelancing and signature campaigns. There was a Primedice campaign, which had a maximum payment of BTC2.40 per month (that would be around $1000 as per the prevailing exchange rates in 2014, but an unbelievable $82,300 as per current exchange rates). Back then, the number of users were low. Now the competition is too high and the number of businesses willing to conduct signature campaigns haven't gone up significantly.

Shakib to Bangladesh cricket is what Virat Kohli is for Indian cricket, and Steve Smith is for Australia. But how the boards deal with these players is diametrically different. Shakib is always involved in some dispute with the board and the BCB members seems to be having ego issues towards him. On the other hand, the BCCI treats Virat like he is the god. Even the coach bows down to him and the team selection is done as per his preferences. Smith is not in a position as worse as Shakib, but CA didn't supported him when he was banned for ball tampering allegations.

Track and Field will start only from 30th and that is the section which will be completely dominated by the United States. Another sport which is likely to be dominated by the US is swimming, and it starts today. US is dominant in gymnastics as well, and the medal events start from tomorrow. All that said, it can't be denied that China has got a very good start to the Games this time. They are having 3 golds, compared to 2 for Japan and 1 each for the United States and Australia. US is the leader in terms of number of medals (6, compared to 5 for China). 

Can't fully agree with your statement. Obviously some infections were not reported, but there was an under-count with the deaths as well. The real death toll in India from the second wave (April-May 2021) was somewhere around 4-5 million. But the officials reported it at around 1/20th of that number.

There were 4.9 million excess deaths during this period:
https://www.indiatoday.in/coronavirus-outbreak/story/2nd-covid-wave-was-india-worst-tragedy-since-partition-saw-up-to-49-lakh-excess-deaths-1830894-2021-07-21

So it may not be 7%, but 3% or 4%. Still I don't believe that it may be 0.1% or 0.2% as you claim. And Delhi was the worst affected city during the second wave (not Bangalore, where the majority of the case were not from Delta). Almost every family I know in Delhi lost at least one member during this period. Many of them were in their 30s or 40s and didn't had any comorbidity.

The tax loopholes work, only of you have a wide range of investments. If you have invested in only 2-3 assets, and your financial conditions is not that secure, then you may need to sell your assets whenever a need arises and that will increase your tax bill. The super-rich almost never sell their top performing assets, thereby erasing the possibility of capital gains tax. They mostly sell their low performing assets, which after getting adjusted for previous losses result in almost zero tax. The middle class in normal cases don't have this luxury.

Forget about all the variants from India, Brazil.etc. A couple of days back, a new variant has been discovered from Colombia, which is reported to be manytimes more contagious and dangerous compared to the other strains. Now around 10-15 people have tested positive for this strain (B.1.621) in the United Kingdom, which confirms that it is spreading extremely fast. This strain contains a mutation called N501Y, which makes the virus more contagious. And from what I heard, it is even more contagious than the Delta (B.1.617.2). 

Prithvi is not suited for the longer format of the game, IMO. Also, his style of play is not suitable in England (it was more suited to conditions in Sri Lanka). So it surprises me that he is packed off to England, when the T20 series against Sri Lanka is just about to start. Abhimanyu Easwaran and Wriddhiman Saha were included in the squad as reserve batsmen and now they have also rejoined the squad after completing the quarantine requirements. Saha won't be considered, as long as Rishabh Pant is available.

I wouldn't say that Zimbabwe hardly gets chance to play international cricket. They are part of the ODI World Cup Super League, and therefore they are assured of 24 ODI matches this cycle. T20 matches are normally included along with the ODI tours. However, in test cricket they play fewer matches because they are not a part of the first division. On top of that, their players such as Blessing Muzarabani have taken part in county cricket recently.
Brendan Taylor has represented a number of franchises, apart from representing Nottinghamshire in county cricket.

Most of the opposition may come from two groups - the first group comprised of competitors (other exchanges, although I don't want to name them), and the second group comprised of scammers (promoters of scam ICO projects that were rejected by Binance, or people who use bots to manipulate the trade volume). Now they are such a huge business (with BNB having a market cap of >$50 billion), and it is natural to expect opposition from various sources. And in case they want to become successful in business, then they need to take care of this opposition (which I believe they are dealing well now).

My take on this is different from what the other users have posted. Most of the cryptos rise and fall together, because they have the same userbase. Those who are holding BTC will be having at least some amount of altcoins such as ETH and ADA in their wallets. So in case a large number of Bitcoin users are selling their coins, the impact will be reflected with the altcoins as well. In all probability, if someone is facing a financial crunch and selling his coins, then he will sell all his coins and not just BTC. And similarly, when these users accumulate BTC, it is very likely that they will purchase alts as well.

With Bitcoin the prices have been increasing every year (irrespective of the temporary fluctuations). During the beginning of 2013, the price was around $10 per coin, and by mid-2013 there was the first bull run which took the prices from $10 to $250. And then again, by the end of that year the second bull run occurred, which took the prices to $1,250 per coin. But the first spike occurred in 2011 and not in 2013. When Wikipedia started accepting BTC, the unit price rose from $3 to $30 in a few days (mid-2011).

LOL.. this is funny. Why should the governments do that, when they have their own national currencies? For Bitcoin to retain it's popularity, none of this is needed. Right now we have more than 100 million active users and it was achieved without any sort of support from the governments. Even the move from El Salvador came after Bitcoin was able to increase its user base beyond the 100 million mark. What I am saying is that support from the governments would be good, but in no way it is necessary to retain the userbase and acceptability. 

The first gold goes to China and congratulations to them. Yang Qian won the women's 10m air rifle event, with an Olympic record (251. and Russian shooter Anastasiia Galashina finished at the 2nd place with 251.1 (Russia is not allowed in the Olympics, so the athletes are competing under the banner of ROC). Bronze medal was won by Nina Christen of Switzerland (230.6). Galashina was leading until the last round, but an exceptional performance by the Chinese shooter helped her to overtake the Russian. 

For today (24th July), the only remaining medal event is 10m Air Pistol Men's Final.

I have to disagree with you, because I have seen people dying in front of my own eyes. When the pandemic started, it was widely believed that only the elderly people are at risk. And for the original strain it was true. Until 2021 March or so, the mortality rate in India was only around 1% and it was near zero for those less than 45 years of age. But all the hell broke loose in April. The Delta strain spread to every nook and corner of India and the mortality just sky-rocketed. The 7% figure that I had posted is from a study in the city of Bangalore. Link here: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/covid-19-7-fatality-rate-last-week-is-bengalurus-highest-ever-this-year/articleshow/83296528.cms

And more worryingly, the mortality rate for the younger people went up by around 20x, from 0.1% to around 2%. In my neighborhood, the majority of the COVID deaths during the last 3-4 months were those who aged below 45 years.

Well.. this is strange. You are making this argument, when the number of cases are on the rise once again. Countries such as Indonesia are reporting more than 1,000 deaths per day (1,566 was yesterday's figure in Indonesia). The United Kingdom (which has one of the highest vaccination rates) reported a total of 36,389 cases yesterday. Brazil, despite the progress made in inoculation has reported 1,286 deaths. Even the US reported 428 deaths yesterday. Situation remains critical in most of the other countries such as Russia, Argentina and Colombia. 

The biggest issue facing humanity IMO is uncontrolled population growth. The planet currently has 10x more humans than it can sustain. And the problem is exacerbated by the Semitic religions, which discourage family planning (the motto is "be fruitful and multiply"). The situation is already reaching a breaking point in many of the African nations, where the agricultural land is in short supply. The per capita availability of land is going down with every passing year, and this results in ethnic warfare and civil unrest. 

This time the Zimbabwe batsmen managed to put up a decent score, thanks to the innings from Wessley Madhevere at the top, and then Ryan Burl and Dion Myers towards the end. That gave the bowlers something to defend (for the first time in the series). And Blessing Muzarabani as expected wrecked the Bangladesh top order with two wickets in his very first over. And after that, Wellington Masakadza picked up two wickets in his first over (including the crucial wicket of Shakib al Hasan) and for Bangladesh it was all over at this point.

Indians took the match very lightly, since they already won the series. Also, it looked as if they wanted to make sure that Sri Lanka gets 10 points in the World Cup Super League. Now Sri Lanka has 22 points from 12 matches and they have moved up from the 12th place to the 11th place. Netherlands have been demoted to the 12th place (20 points from 3 matches). It was not a wise decision to make a bet in favor of India, after they won the series. They always take such matches casually and yesterday also it was no different.