I can't agree with this. So currently the Bitcoin exchange rate is $50,000 per coin and the average transaction fee is around $20. You are saying that if the Bitcoin exchange rate climbs to $250,000, then we can expect a fee of $100 per transaction. And if by some miracle the price hits $1 million per coin, then the fee will be $400 per transaction. Are you really fine with this? Because I'm not. If the fee climbs to such levels, then I am afraid that I need to look towards other alternatives.

There seems to be some disagreement between the ICC and the BCCI regarding the T20 World Cup. The ICC wants to move the event to Dubai as soon as possible, but the BCCI want them to wait for a few more weeks at least, saying that the tournament is many months away. On this, I would side with the ICC. It has been proven now that the BCCI cares only about money and not a bit about the well being of the players. So ICC is absolutely right in their demand to move the tournament outside India.

There are three types of investors. The first type comprises high-risk investors and this is the demographic group which is most inclined towards Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies. This group is mostly comprised of younger investors, who are tech savvy. Then there is the second group of investors who are mostly comprised of middle-aged people. They are not very fond of cryptocurrency, and are mostly in to stocks and real estate. And then we have the third group, which comprises of people like Warren Buffet. This group doesn't want to take much risk, and limit their investment to low-risk stocks and treasury bonds.

They have around $2 trillion in foreign assets and the Emirati population is just around 1 million. This means that every Emirati citizen holds around $2 million in foreign assets (stocks, bonds.etc). So why do they need income from tourism? And tourism can have negative impact as well. Look at Brazil and Thailand. These countries are popular tourist destinations, but tourism has lead to a lot of social issues in these countries. And despite what others say, IMO the revenues from petroleum will last for another 2 decades at least.

Well.. since DrBeer is from the former USSR, he will be more knowledgeable about how the socialist system works. And for Hispo, I agree. At this point there is not much that you can do about it, other than fleeing to some other country where your skills can be better utilized. Now everyone may not be able to migrate to the United States or Canada. So why don't you try your luck in Colombia or Guyana?

And for DrBeer, I have one question. Are you happy with what happened after the disintegration of the USSR in 1992? I don't know much about Ukraine, but in Russia they had the drunkard Boris Yeltsin in power. He destroyed the Russian people and allowed oligarchs to loot the natural resources. In just 7 years, Russia became one of the poorest countries in the world from the superpower status it held before 1992. On the other hand, communist Alexander Lukashenko remained in power in Belarus, and that country fared much better when compared to Russia.

So Amit Mishra has also tested positive? It looks like they are still testing some of the players and more positive results may come out later today or tomorrow. One thing is sure. The bio-secure bubble was breached at least 2-3 days back. It is not possible for multiple people from different franchises to get infected in just one day. The BCCI should investigate about how the virus managed to enter the bubble, rather than blaming Varun Chakravarthy for the fiasco.

From what I have seen, the problem lies with the African voters. They always elect politicians based on their ethnicity and religion, without caring about their skills. As a result, a lot of undeserving people become the presidents. And when someone who is highly qualified is elected to that post, within a short time he is either ousted in a military coup, or killed by his own people. Check what happened to Thomas Sankara, Patrice Lumumba and Haile Selassie.

Talking about these three teams, what happened to the Asia Cup? The last time we had that tournament was way back in 2018, in the United Arab Emirates. Another edition was scheduled to be held in 2020, but it was postponed due to COVID 19. Initially it was scheduled for June 2021, but from what I am hearing, it is again postponed and may not happen this year. Even the qualifier tournament hasn't completed as of yet. 10-15 years back, it used to be one of the most popular cricket tournaments. 

Everything depends on the interpretation of the Islamic laws. When the Sharia law was written down, there were no casinos around. The modern scholars claim that Islam prohibits gambling, by interpreting the laws as per their own liking. If UAE can permit gambling and alcohol, then it makes no sense for other Islamic nations to prohibit it. Because Arab countries are regarded as the birth place of Islam. And personally, my opinion is that the religious laws need to change according to the changing times.

^^^ Foreign players are in a tricky situation. They may be forced to stay in India for another month or so, if their countries don't want them back. Since the numbers are large, I hope that the Australian government will implement some sort of an exemption and will allow them back. There is already one loophole in the US travel ban. Those who are traveling to the US from India can quarantine themselves in a "safe" country such as Mexico or Turkey for 14-days before entering the States. I hope there are similar loopholes with Australia as well.

^^^^ Guys.... it is confirmed now. IPL 2021 has been suspended indefinitely. Members of three franchises have tested positive for the virus as of now, and as JSRAW posted earlier results came positive for Wriddhiman Saha of Sunrisers Hyderabad. The most worrying aspect was that there seems to be enough evidence to confirm the spread of infection inside the bio-bubble. A very big blow for the BCCI, as they will be losing hundreds of millions of USD in revenue. Their mistake of refusing the hosting offer from UAE was a big blunder.

Making ownership of US Dollar 100% legal is a good step. At least this will protect the ordinary people from corrupt cops. But as long as it is not de jure legal, people will face some difficulty in exchanging it to other currencies or to store the money in a bank account (I don't think that storing large amounts in the physical form is safe, especially in a country that is going through economic devastation). For storing larger amounts, I guess cryptocurrency may be a better option.

From what I have heard, China has reported no deaths from COVID for the past 2-3 months. If China (with a population of 1.4 billion) can do this, then what prevents the other countries from containing the spread of this virus? Vaccination may take at least another 1 year to contain the pandemic. We need some other measure, such as another round of lockdown. A combination of mass vaccination and lockdown measures should do the trick.

A meme coin with no real usage managing to get a market capitalization of $50 billion. The only question now is when the bubble is going to burst. It can happen tomorrow, it can happen after one month, or it may not happen this year. Among my friends, I haven't tried to discourage anyone from investing in Dogecoin, because if it can move from $0.5 billion to $50 billion in market cap, then it is definitely possible that it may go up to $100 billion in the future.

I have to disagree with you here. The competitors need a bunch of dedicated developers, and not huge numbers of them. Ethereum has thousands of active developers working for them. And still they haven't found a way to reduce the insane transaction fees, which have been plaguing the ERC-20 chain for the last 6-7 months. Quantity doesn't matter. It is quality which matters. Even with a small number of dedicated developers, Cardano is proving to be much superior when compared to Ethereum in a lot of parameters.

All the cryptocurrencies are volatile, so I am not going to hold that against Dogecoin. But my issue with this coin is that it is overhyped, and thereby overpriced. Do you guys think that it deserves a market cap in excess of $50 billion? Anyone who thinks so hasn't gone through the history of Dogecoin. The technology used in Dogecoin is at least a decade behind that of newer cryptocurrencies such as Cardano and Polkadot. In terms of adoption and acceptability, it is far behind Ethereum and Bitcoin. So why is it still ranking among the top-10 cryptocurrencies?

You can never compare middle east with Venezuela. In Saudi Arabia and the other Arab nations, the cost of producing crude oil can be as low as $2 per barrel. But in Venezuela, most of the crude is stuck in reserves that are difficult to exploit and it costs around $40-$50 per barrel to extract crude oil. Saudi Arabia can still spend billions of USD in luxuries, because they are still having surplus cash in hand. But that is not the case with Venezuela, as they don't have much revenue left after counting the production cost.

Thanks for the confirmation Royse777. The BCCI is claiming that they don't need to postpone the tournament and the other players are fine. But I have my own doubts. The double-mutant strain of COVID 19, which is prevalent in India nowadays is highly contagious and airborne. If some of the players came in to contact with either Chakravarthy or Warrier, then they need to wait for a few days before confirming that they are not infected. This is going to be real bad news for the BCCI. They will be regretting the decision to turn down UAE's offer to host the tournament.

Well.. this is the problem. For both the teams, the players are not able to convert the individual performances to team victories. On multiple occasions during this series, we saw some of the batsmen scoring too slowly, when they had to declare the innings after scoring quick runs. These people care more about their own stats, rather than attaining a victory for the team. Overall, this series left me in bad taste. I guess I need to stick with watching test matches between the big 3 teams only.

IMO, it is not a good idea to place a bet in 2021 for the 2024 elections. In politics, the fortunes can change in a matter of months. You will never know when someone emerges all of a sudden as the frontrunner for the Democrat nomination. Even in 2016, no one really gave much of a chance to Donald Trump. Initially Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were the favorites. And take the case of 2020 Democrat primaries. In the early phase, Bernie Sanders was the clear favorite, along with Michael Bloomberg.