Of course, it's hard for me as a Ukrainian to hear that the world is tired and bored with the war from which my country's suffering every day, and not that since it's a big country, the scale of this war is much-much bigger than the war of Israel against Palestine. In any case, I don't think the escalation happened 'cause the world got bored. If anything, I believe Hamas is controlled by Iran, and Iran is militarily friendly with Russia, so perhaps they've made some sort of deal to distract the world from Russia's activities by making people focus on how cruel Hamas can be.
The financial side of the op's post is reasonable, it's true that there's often a disproportionate interaction where a drone can take out something much more expensive, but also, looking at the Russian side here, a relatively cheap drone can trigger a much more expensive spending on an air defence missile on it. These things can make drones much more popular in the military in the future, but, to be honest, I don't think that has any impact on the crypto market or on the global economy in general.

I'm happy for Germany reaching the top-3, it's truly amazing. I hope they'll be able to fully stop their trading with Russia, now that they're officially super rich, though, as they're still transitioning from their dependence on Russian resources. Of course, as a Ukrainian, I never bought into the Russian propaganda of how the sanctions would kill Europe (starve, freeze, devastate economically), but it's nice to see objective proof that this didn't happen and that Germany actually had significant gains in 2023.

As was pointed out, Satoshi left the project a long time ago, and it's been going on without the inventor for more than a decade now. So yeah, there's no reason to believe that a creator's presence is needed for Bitcoin to function properly. There are other people working on its development, and if/when some of them leave/die, others can get involved, and it's totally fine. If we arrive at a point when nobody's doing any maintenance or development, I suppose it can eventually become a problem, but where there's demand, there will be a supply.

While many people pointed out that measuring halving up to the exact day is tricky, I want to address another thing.
I don't buy into this kind of chart analysis, to be honest, primarily because I believe it's very easy to manipulate charts to make all sorts of points by playing with the scope and the scale. What I do believe in is that Bitcoin will rise eventually, probably during next year, but I don't think it's relater to halving or to 200 days before halving in any way.
It can look fancy and sound legit, but that doesn't mean it's true.

I've come to accept it years ago that Bitcoin moves through fast bull markets and long bear markets, or at least periods of stagnation. I was hard in 2018-2019, but I was ready for it this time. Perhaps the fact that I don't focus too much on the price and view Bitcoin more as a currency (or something like a safeguard against fiat inflation) also helps me with it. I guess I'm not tired of waiting because I'm not really waiting. I'm okay with the price, and seeing a nice growth is more of a bonus that a key feature to me.

I think investing in gold and expecting to make profit only makes sense if a person already has tons of money, so even a small amount of growth can lead to a lot in terms of profits. But in that case, you should probably stop focusing on profits and start thinking about making an impact with the wealth you already have. Or a person might also simply keep some wealth in gold because of believing that it's safer than fiat (which it is because fiat is losing value over time).
As for Bitcoin, it's an easier thing to buy, a safer thing to buy (no need to worry about overpaying or about falsifications), but it can be way less stable than gold, and a bear market might catch a person off-guard.

I love the idea of a teaching career because I understand this one a lot. To make it into a business, you could start your own school and hire other teachers over time, build an online brand over it. I don't mean an official school, with the licensing and tons of kids. I mean more like those English language schools, you know, where some people have group lessons, some have private lessons, but it's all a matter of private additional education rather than a substitute for proper official education. Depending on where you live, you might even simplify this by making your school 100% online, so you don't need to worry about accommodation and can reach more people who live in different cities.
If it's your own business, you can decide how much time and effort you put into it and how much is left for cryptos. And eventually, you can also try making a course on blockchain, perhaps, who knows.

I trust Bitcoin in a sense that I trust that it's a secure decentralized psedonymous currency that can be stored and used without intermediaries.
As for the price, I expect Bitcoin to have more bull and bear marker in the future and expect it to recover from every bear market, even though I realize there's no guarantee that it will keep happening.
I didn't invest at $60k, and I think doing that would be somewhat unwise, but I do think that even those who bought at $60k will enjoy profits from their investments in the long run.
The price of Bitcoin can go below $20k, but I think it's unlikely to happen.

That's not exactly right. When people are hodling, they can easily use non-custodial wallets because they don't need to move their coins much anyway, but when they are trading, a centralized crypto exchange might be much more convenient for fast and regular buy/sell orders/ As for the minimum amount, I think many exchanges have very small deposit/withdrawal limits and something below that wouldn't make much sense with hodling either due to transaction fees.
But securing the funds is truly important in both cases. I'd also say that there's a risk of financial losses in both cases as well, if we're talking about the similarities.

I guess the answer depends on where you are and how far the war spreads. If you're in a country that's directly involved in the war, it's likely that your local fiat will suffer greatly, so Bitcoin might be useful, but only if you're sure you'll be able to exchange it for fiat (or use it directly) when needed. In practice, you might not have stable electricity and/or Internet connection, and in some cases, the only things of value will be food, meds, and weapons.
If you're in a country outside the war, just watching, then I guess not much changes in comparison with what's already going on right now.
If we entered a WW3 nuclear kind of situation, neither Bitcoin nor fiat is likely to be useful, and essentials would become the currency and grow in value.

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The article is based on a podcast with Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan is a libertarian-leaning guy, so, naturally, any form of governmental oversight over anything but the basic security of the citizens is interpreted as an attempt to control. That's just the way this political stance treats the state and the government. So 'trying to control Bitcoin' might simply 'trying to impose any sort of legislation to regulate Bitcoin'. I realize that Sam Altman is his own person, but when being a guest on a podcast, you can lean closer to the host's position because that's where the conversation's going.
But what's interesting is that it seems that many in the US are actually frustrated that the US does not want to regulate Bitcoin (which we can see in the reluctance of the SEC to take Bitcoin under its oversight).
As for CBDCs, they just often come up in talks about cryptos and governments because it's sort of a centralized crypto-like thing. It doesn't have anything to do with regulating Bitcoin directly.

El Salvador is a small country with a very modest carbon footprint, so they don't even have to focus on being more environmentally friendly, but it's wonderful that they're doing it anyway. Of course, a lot of countries don't have geothermal energy, but El Salvador is showing how focusing on efficient usage of available resources can have a positive impact.
I hope this mining project will be successful and that it will truly be beneficial to the citizens of El Salvador. I suppose that also largely depends on BTC price.

There's an article about what the US could do about its debt on Investopedia, I think it's pretty interesting. Aside from setting high taxes, it discusses various over ideas, such as opening borders ('cause immigrants start businesses at twice the rate of US citizens + it would create new demand for various goods, thus stimulating their production) and raising the age of retirement (to cut the spending and to ensure people pay for their social security longer). But most ideas revolve around changing something with taxation.

Selling that much BTC at $300 per coin means getting 9 million dollars out of that deal. While it's a low price per coin, it's still a huge ton of money, a lot more than the vast majority will ever get their hands on. And I'm happy for those who purchased BTC from that deal, of course.
There's always this or that uncertainty, but what's one person's panic selling is another person's great opportunity. As for not falling victims to FUD, I think it's important to be patient and to make financial decisions in a calm state of mind, not based on emotions.

Bitcoin has changed a lot of lives, and it has grown immensely. But not all change was positive. Some people invested in Bitcoin but locked themselves out of their wallets by accident; some held their BTC on centralized platforms that performed exit scams; but sold at a low price during bear markets.
Bitcoin isn't a guarantee that things will be great, and some simply think that it's too late to join the ride, as Bitcoin has already grown so much in the past and must be reaching the peak of its potential.

Op, it's a wonderful story. I suppose it's a very specific experience that may not work in other cases, though. Even in poorly developed countries, people often rely on their local fiat currencies, and if a person works officially, payments are done directly via a transfer to a bank account (though working for a foreign company is a whole other thing). Fiat currencies are also fairly stable in many countries, making the choice of Bitcoin less appealing.
From reading the thread more, I understood that the situation's like that because it's international transfers, and yeah, that's a situation in which Bitcoin can really shine.

I wouldn't convince others what they should do with their money, how they spend it and how much they invest. It's a nasty business because if anything goes wrong, that person will likely blame you and will regret listening to you, and for people unfamiliar with the Bitcoin market, seeing the price drop, like, 25% (which is totally realistic) can already lead to panic.
I do agree that buying Bitcoin is better than buying an iPhone. However, Bitcoin is an investment (or a currency), while an iPhone is something people buy because they like having it or like seeing how other people react to them having it. Nobody buys an iPhone as an investment (in a sense of hoping to resell it later at a higher price). iPhone is bought to be used and to enjoy some prestige, perhaps, but everyone's aware that it's a short-lived thing.

That's a good question op's asking. I consider gambling a form of entertainment, but it's a fair point that it's different from other forms of entertainment because I'd definitely do those for free, whereas the financial part is important for gambling. I mean, not for everything, of course. I've played poker with friends with no financial stakes involved and still enjoyed it, and I've done the same with a home-version of roulette.
But something like betting makes more sense when there's a chance of winning money for it. Then again, some people believe that betting and gambling are two different things, so in that case, it doesn't count as a counterpoint.