Bitcoin is the first of such cryptocurrency and we just need to wait and see where it heads. Many of the prediction regarding bitcoin have turned out to be false. Bitcoin is dead a dozen of times and people did argued it would never reach 50K considering the fees. And here we are using bitcoin above 50K. With less incentive, people were supposed to leave mining bitcoin but it's an ever increasing business. Time would answer the questions.

When you are doing your research, you need references. There are no better place than this forum to get individual and conflicting opinions about projects and coins. Most of the coin's individual pages and even their reddit subforum is biased towards the particular coin. Get things from news and rating sites, most of the posts talking about or rating a coin are paid entry. There are no such neutral venue for crypto discussion than bitcointalk forum.

If we look at the current trends, mining is being more decentralized as US/Canada, Russia and EU are also coming into spotlight. With tightening of transactions and operation of mining plants in China, Russian Siberia and colder parts of North America and Europe are gaining more hash rate. There's even an organization in US that focuses on decreasing the power China may hold over bitcoin. These competition would surely make bitcoin network more secure even though not as profitable for the miners.

Most of the government are hostile to bitcoin anyway and they'll try different ways to prevent people from using bitcoin.
But just by creating and using a government owned blockchain and crypto won't affect bitcoin. Rather it would garnish more interest towards real cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

Defi hype maybe fading but Defi surely are here to stay. They were not just a very new concept but they took the decentralized economy to the next level. One of the reason why DeFi are still not getting the attention they need is the complexity of using it and higher gas fees on Ethereum blockchain which is the base layer for most DeFi and where most volume transacts. We'd need better alternatives or an improved ETH platform and more security both and the end of the contract as well as towards the user for DeFi to get mainstream.

Yes, and I prefer the current launchpool that offers new coins just for staking your coins. 70% of the coins are being distributed to BNB stakers, that was the reason for sudden spike on BNB price. 20% of the coins are in BUSD staking, which is another nice promotion for it's stable coin. I'm going to participate on BUSD staking and tell my experience a month later.

It's already been 5 days since the OP and it doesn't look like a bull trap. A bull trap mostly is a sudden spike in price that last for a few days before ultimately crashing. But the prices has gradually increased over the 5 days and it shows that there are enough people and funds to buy for all the people wanting to sell. It doesn't necessarily suggest any price movement but in my experience, such sideways movement doesn't lead to a sudden crash.

Bitcoin is a financial revolution in favor of Privacy and ownership. That certainly makes it easier for every person.
It might not be the ultimate answer, but it surely is the pioneer that raised the question about the financial system that we are used to which itself is established as a service industry and we are paying a lot more just to be a part of it. This attack on centralized finance industry would resonate towards every centralized power holdings. All of this would make individual person more powerful.

It's the nature of bitcoin that we can't control how and who owns it. Everything has its advantage and disadvantage including the fact that more of the bitcoin is getting in the hands of the rich. They and the institutional investors are the reason for the impressive price growth.
Bitcoin has became the ultimate tool for money laundering and tax evasion and government can't fully ban it.

I think the reason for the drop is we have developed herd immunity.
Seems like virus was not as serious as the initial response our media and government gave.
The reported death also included death with any other disease as every people with low immunity easily contracted and tested positive for the virus.
And that population is already down and the remaining people could easily resist the virus or have antibodies already developed.

Vaccination surely helps but most of the countries presented a decrease in cases and death even before the first dose.

The real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is a risk factor for the price and status of bitcoin. During the absence of satoshi, we have idolized him/her/it. Satoshi did tried to keep the neutrality and flawlessness till it were active but finding the real identity of Satoshi would make many people sad.
Satoshi could be a good person but every human has its flaws. And as we follow someone too closely, words by words, they ought to make mistakes or hurt feelings of others. I'd love satoshi to be a mystery than a mortal.

The difference is we don't really own the bank issued digital currency and could be confiscated. It is kept a track of and there's a middle man involved that takes the benefits. Digital currency too have miners or node owners but they don't have a direct relation with the sending and receiving party. Crypto is freedom.

To add one more, what they are doing more effectively is freezing almost all of the popular coins and creating their pegged tokens on the BSC network. Which enables us to trade those coins as a BEP tokens with cheaper fees and quicker transactions while maintaining the exact price as real token.

Elon Musk surely is using his influence to manipulate the market. Whether he's doing it for fun or is doing for a profit is another thing. A single man should not have the power to influence the stocks or crypto market to this extent. I'm a fan of Elon Musk and everything he does is not only for profit for him but is in good faith for humanity but that doesn't mean everything he writes or signals in twitter should be considered an investment advice.

US is leading the fight against money laundering and tax evasion and most the countries in the world comply with its AML policies either by choice or forcefully. There used to be some tax heavens and secret bank accounts that required no details like the swiss banks but with the pressure from EU and US, they signed a number of deals that essentially rendered their client secrecy useless. The same thing happens to the exchanges. A small one can remain under the radar of IRS for quite some time but if it gets US involved in any way, they can shut you wherever you are.

Buying BNB3S was my worst decision during the bull run this time. Bought some when the price reached over $150. Was my first try with the short token but it ended up badly losing 4/5th of my investment overnight. Shorting is the worst idea in an ongoing bull run.

Fees do matter specially if you are an utility token. Transferring $10 of eth based stablecoin like USDC is not possible at the moment. And looking at the shift on people preference on USDT, all of them are moving towards alternative with cheaper fees. Binance on the other hand is doing everything including freezing popular coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum to issue their pegged tokens on the Binance chain.

With the availability of USDT on TRON network, everyone seems to be moving towards it as they have no fees even on inter exchange transfer. This shows how far the Ethereum's network is going from the need of an utility network. Some of the earlier bounties have already halted their distributions citing the network fees which would have several disadvantage for the bounty participants, prime of it not being able to sell the token when the price is high.

I just checked it and it's still 0 for me. Maybe some glitch or a short time thing. (Or maybe that was a new address)
They are surely trying to promote BUSD but going so different from other exchanges and taking fees on withdrawals that don't require one would bring backslash for the exchange.

Its another milestone for crypto as another crypto has won over the marketcap of gold which held its position as the most prominent investment assets to hold and trade. People who generally used gold for making their value independent of the local currency are now also investing in crypto. With no borders and boundaries and easy way to carry and transfer, it is the new favorite for people who don't trust their local currency or government.