Multi-million USD paychecks are justified only for players such as Pollard, Maxwell, Cummins, Rahul, Dhawan, Archer, Bumrah.etc. These players are capable of winning matches for their team, if all the other players fail. The same can't be said about players such as Steve Smith. Anyway, we have the IPL 2021 auctions in less than two weeks and everyone will get to see how much money is splashed on some of these players.

The impact from this move (from Tesla) may be even more than what we had from the PayPal adoption a few months back. It is not just the purchase and the volume involved that matters. The fact that Tesla moved a part of their cash reserves from US Dollar to BTC and bullion tells a lot about how the corporates feel about the ongoing stimulus measures. Everyone is afraid that the US Dollar is losing its purchasing power, due to the rapidly increasing M1 supply. Tesla has become the first corporation to use BTC as a store of value, and in the coming months we may witness a lot more of the corporations following suit. I won't be even surprised if mega corporations such as Google, MicroSoft and Amazon also do the same.

If you check their statement closely, then it can be seen that they not just invested in Bitcoin. They have also made purchases of gold bullion and gold ETFs. And although they haven't specified it, I suspect that the term "digital assets" include some of the altcoins as well. The logic is very simple. No one want to trust the US Dollar nowadays. It's M1 supply is increasing like crazy and along with that the purchasing power will go down the drain. Everyone want to protect their wealth and as a result they are accumulating more of BTC or gold, and reducing their exposure to USD.

This never ending cycle of stimulus and the unlimited printing of banknotes without any restriction will destroy the purchasing power of fiat currency. Once the politicians indulge in freebies, they can never go back. Because the population will demand better and bigger freebies next time. Tesla management has become the first company to convert a part of their cash reserves to Bitcoin/gold and in the future I expect a lot more companies to do the same. It is very simple. These companies no longer trust the US Dollar.

This was what I was also thinking. But the usual excuses were being given, that the English bowlers were tired and the batsmen don't want to bat on 5th day in a pitch that offers a lot of support for the bowlers. But personally I think they could have enforced the follow on. They had a lead of 241, and there was no way that India could score anything above 300-350 in their second innings. Now they don't have enough time to take the remaining wickets, as the Indian batsmen (especially those in lower order) are very good in defending.

Players such as Steve Smith and Joe Root are legendary players, but they are not that suitable for the shorter format. For the T20 format, it is players such as Pollard, Maxwell and KL Rahul who perform better. The excuse that they need to stay in bio-secure bubbles for many months is to hide the fact that these players can't command a good auction price in the T20 format.

It sounds like a banking ban. I am sure that the cryptocurrency users would be able to find loopholes to get around this law. A few years back, they tried the same in China, but there was absolutely no impact on the trading. People would use peer-to-peer platforms instead of mainstream exchanges and the banks will be unable to flag those accounts that are being used in these platforms.

People don't think about the long-term impact, when they get their welfare cheques. Anyway, most of the stimulus funds are going to end up with the big corporates (similar to what happened after the 2008-09 recession). The only difference is that the entire debt burden is added to the future generations, while the corporates don't have to pay back any of that money. The common people will suffer from the devaluation of their assets as well. As the governments print banknotes like crazy, the value of bank deposits and other assets will go down proportionately.

It is the same case as holding your coins in an exchange. A lot of people do hold their cryptocurrency in various exchange wallets (where they don't have access to the private keys). Then why we should single out PayPal? After all, PayPal has been in operation for more than two decades and they are trusted all around the world. I would say that the risk of PayPal running away with your money is much lower than the risk with some of the cryptocurrency exchanges (especially those small-sized and medium-sized ones).

I have seen a lot of people defending the cryptocurrency interest sites. But I have never seen them explaining how these sites make profits. Bank deposits provide us with an interest, because fiat currency is not protected against inflation. Interest payments make sure that the net purchasing power never decreases. But that is not the case with cryptocurrency, and therefore there is no logic in getting interest payments from these sites.

And even if everything is legit, how these sites are able to keep their operations viable? Either they are making investments with the coins, or they are lending out to others at a higher interest rate. Both the options are highly risky. Investments can fail, with volatile assets such as cryptocurrency. And the chances of default for cryptocurrency loans are much higher than the same with fiat.

Here is the latest development on this topic:

https://news.bitcoin.com/indian-government-crypto-bill-cryptocurrency-law/



I can't vouch for the authenticity of this article and I didn't find the same news published anywhere else (although they are claiming that it was first published in CNBC-TV18). But if this is true, then time is running out for cryptocurrency users in India. The article claims that the government wants to fast-track the bill, and take the ordinance route.

That is inaccurate. If you look at the OP, then the reason being given by the banks is:


So it is very clear that the refusal of the banks have nothing to do with any potential default, and it is clearly politically motivated. In simple terms, the banks closed down his account, because he refused to certify the elections. I am not saying that Trump's refusal to certify the election was a valid move. But who are these banks to decide that? Have they done the same, if a Democrat politician was on the other side? It is not the duty of some private bank to decide what the president should do. There is a reason why they have two houses of the parliament in the United States.

There's a correction here. Mayweather never made any attempt to "protect" his unbeaten record. Whenever someone challenged him, he accepted that challenge and fought against him. But has has always maintained a policy of fighting against any opponent only once. Eventually he decided that enough was enough and retired from boxing. He has earned tons of money from boxing and therefore we can't expect him to be lured back to the boxing ring by offering huge amounts of money.

If the economy is based on a single asset, it will always be vulnerable to price changes and drop in consumer demand. The EU nations have a policy of moving towards renewable sources of energy, so in the long term it is very likely that the import of Russian gas/oil to these countries will taper off. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has cost more than $10 billion till now, and it is not known whether they will be even able to complete it's construction. The Asia-Pacific market was promising, but the Russian government ignored it during the early phases. And it always surprised me that being the largest country by surface area in the world, Russia had to import most of its food requirement. This is what focus on just one commodity can do to you.

The pitch was supposed to support the spinners. The Indian spinners failed to make use of it (they got 5 wickets after conceding 418 runs), but the England spinners and Bess in particular made good use of the ground conditions. Bess is having figures of 23-5-55-4 and I am sure that he will end up with a five wicket haul today. Jack Leach was targeted by Rishabh Pant, and his figures doesn't look too good. But Bess was an exception.

The upcoming IPL auctions are interesting. Players such as Marnus Labuschagne will be up for the first time, and there are rumors that CSK may be interested in him. He performed really well during the BBL season (for Brisbane Heat), although he missed most of the initial phase due to national duty. But then, Steve Smith is an example of a good test player who doesn't always perform at the T20 format. I just hope Labuschagne doesn't end up like him.

In India, we had a similar "banking ban", which was in place from 2018 to 2020, before it was turned down by the supreme court. The ban prohibited bank accounts being used for cryptocurrency trading. The banks suspended a few bank accounts as a result, but the users simply moved to other alternatives and there was no impact on the market. Anyway these days most of the users are relying on P2P platforms to trade their crypto, and as a result the banks won't be able to easily identify the accounts which are linked to traders.

Back in 2019, the supreme court of India asked a clarification on what the government meant by "private" cryptocurrency. The bureaucrats replied that any cryptocurrency that is not issued by the central bank is "private" (there was a banking ban on cryptocurrency that was imposed in 2018, and this ban in turn was invalidated by the supreme court in 2020).

It is true that the rumors and FUD have been going for quite sometime. But these were not without any substance. The government was never comfortable with the idea of cryptocurrencies getting traded in its jurisdiction. The first bill to ban cryptocurrency was drafted in 2018 by Subhash Chandra Garg, but he was kicked out of office before he could table it. This time though, they look to be serious.

England is cruising along nicely and they are just 33 runs away from the psychologically important 600 mark. Once again shows how crucial the toss is. If India had won the toss, then they could have easily piled up 600-700 runs and put England under pressure here. But the luck favored England, and now India need ~400 runs just to avoid the follow on. Right now there are only two possibilities for this match - a boring draw, or a win for England.

Edit: 600 level just got a bit more difficult for England. Dom Bess, who had played so well till now is out LBW to Bumrah.

I don't recommend keeping your coins in exchange wallets and at the same time I extend this advice for interest earning sites as well. it is very simple and straightforward - if you don't own the private keys, then it is not your crypto. I am not familiar with the revenue earning mechanism of these interest earning sites, but they look shady for me and resembles various Ponzi and pyramid schemes. Sooner or later, they will vanish taking all the coins with them.

And keeping your coins in an exchange wallet for the long term can be the worst decision you can make with regards to your cryptocurrency holdings. I am saying this out of my own experience, as I have lost huge amounts of coins by keeping them in exchanges.