South Africa require another 384 for a win and India needs 9 wickets. India was playing psychological tricks on South Africa. Note that they declared with a lead of 395. Most of the teams would have declared after achieving targets such as 400 or 450. Now the target looks less than 400 on paper, and this can give a sense of false confidence for the South Africans.

But South Africans are not falling in to this trap. Yesterday, they scored at a rate of 1.2 runs per over, meaning that they are no longer interested in chasing the target. They are only trying to survive the 5th day and take this match to a draw. A draw against India, and that too in a flat track like the one we had in Visakhapatnam is as good as a win for the Proteas.

You don't need to sell them any coins. They can easily purchase coins from the numerous exchanges around the globe. As far as I know, there are no sanctions which bar the purchase of BTC by the Venezuelan government. But the big question is whether they can afford the purchase or not. How can a regime that can't afford toilet paper afford cryptocurrency? As I said earlier, they are likely to use Bitcoin for the purpose of using it to circumvent the sanctions, or to do something illegal (I have heard that some of the Venezuelan government officials are involved in the smuggling of cocaine from Venezuela to Belize).

You definitely didn't made a mistake when you decided to invest in Bitcoin. But that said, you would be making a very big mistake, if you listen to all the FUD that is going around and do panic selling. If you are new to the cryptocurrency market, then it will be better to study the past price movements and bouts of panic selling that has occurred. Managing your assets is even more important than choosing the right asset to invest in.

Since you have made the investment, you need to finalize your target now. If you are planning cashing out in installments, then you can make targets for that also. More importantly, you need to have a stop loss price as well. This will prevent you from suffering very heavy losses. And give some attention to the coin storage also. Keep the backups if you are going for a hardware wallet.

Who told you that if you purchase USDT or TUSD, you don't have anything to worry? As far as I know, there is no stablecoins out there, which can be trusted. The recent Bitfinex scandal proved that USDT is no longer backed up with real assets (at least not 100% backed up). None of the stablecoins that are currently circulating in the market has completed an independent third party audit of their assets.

Now the Binance USD coin is going to be even more risky. Because it is associated with an exchange. If there is a major hack (Binance was a target of several minor hacks in the past) and the exchange incurs a loss, then this coin can lose its value very rapidly. I am not going to trust any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin, be it stablecoins such as USDT or altcoins such as ETH.

There is 50/50 chance or a win by India or a draw. 90 overs remains tomorrow (if there is no rain), and India needs to get 9 wickets for a win. South Africa survived for 131 overs in their first innings, but doing the same on the 5th day may prove much more difficult. That said a lot will depend on whether any of the other bowlers are able to give support for Ashwin. South Africa has some very experienced batsmen and in the past they have managed to survive against very adverse conditions.

Alipay and Wepay are payment processors, while Bitcoin is a currency. That is the difference. Both Alipay and Wepay use the same currency (Chinese Yuan). So your arguments are self-defeating. Even with Bitcoin, we have multiple third party payment processors. Either you can make the payments directly with Bitcoin, or using these payment processors.

We need altcoins for some niche domains, but that has nothing to do with the arguments put forward by the OP. For example, Bitcoin doesn't offer complete anonymity, and therefore we need to use anonymous cryptocurrencies such as Zcash, Monero and Verge. For smart contract platforms, currencies such as Ethereum, Stellar Lumens and Omni are being used. Then we have stablecoins such as USDT and USDC to protect the users from volatility.

Russia is a country where the economy is very heavily dependent on crude oil and natural gas exports. Almost 75% of the government revenue comes from these sectors. And back in 2014, the crude oil prices dropped by 60% and the government revenue from crude oil exports declined by 80%. This had a very bad impact on the Russian economy, resulting in a recession. And this was what caused the economic collapse and currency depreciation in Russia, rather than the international sanctions. The sanctions had only a limited impact, and without the decline in crude prices they would have become teethless.

Bitcoin trading and Bitcoin mining is already legal in Venezuela and the government has even come up with its own cryptocurrency. But it hasn't helped the local economy though. And I am not very surprised. Cryptocurrency is not designed to help socialist nations such as Venezuela, where the economy was destroyed as a result of corruption, freebies and subsidies. And when people don't have any money to spend, how they can make profit for themselves by indulging in cryptocurrency trading? There is no magic pill to resolve the economic woes there. It will take a lot of time and some concrete actions by the regime. But they don't want to take those steps.

But withdrawing to Tether is of no use, right? If I want to purchase something, and I need fiat currency for that, then obviously I need to cash out these Tether tokens using any of the exchanges or peer2peer platforms. And once again, this process is going to cause unwanted delays. The conversion to Tether will be adding another unnecessary layer and the delay associated with it.

One advantage of Tether that I could think of is for usage in countries where crypto to fiat trade is prohibited. And this is one of the reason why the majority of the trade volumes originate from China. And another advantage is that in some of the countries capital gains are not computed when you convert one cryptocurrency to another. You can avoid paying the capital gains tax, as long as you don't sell your crypto for fiat cash.

LOL... the OP should have rather rephrased his statement as "gold has been used as an asset by the humans for 1,000+ years" rather than saying that "gold has existed for 1,000 years". Because gold has existed ever since the formation of our planet (4.54 billion years ago). So you can compare them like this: gold has been used as currency for the past 2,700 years (first records in BC 700), fiat currency has been in use since BC 600 (2,600 years ago in Lydia), and Bitcoin is in existence for the last 10 years.

No no no.... 250 would be very much achievable for South Africa, with Elgar, de Kock and du Plessis in the squad. I would be looking at a lead of 350, which would give India a 90% chance of win (provided that it doesn't rain). Anyway the lead has crossed 250 already and India is leading by 283 right now. Some 25-30 overs remains for today. If India could get another 80 runs within the next 15 overs, then it would give them 10-15 overs today, and another 90 overs tomorrow. I still don't know why they are not going all out at the South African bowlers, as they have 8 wickets in hand. Pujara scored runs quickly during the 2nd session, but not before wasting a lot of balls earlier.

I am 99% sure that this guys is just trolling or just trying to increase his post count. Or this may be a desperate attempt to get some merit points. That apart, this is not the fist time I am seeing crazy threads like this one here in Bitcointalk. You can check this thread which is 5 years old:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=508254.0

This was slightly more believable and back then the OP claimed that he received BTC648 from the sale (didn't specified whether this was the amount before or after the taxes were deducted). Now let's assume that he received BTC648 after the deduction of the taxes. Back then one Bitcoin was worth around $460 and now the exchange rates stand at $8,200.

So in short this guy received coins worth $300,000 six years ago and the net worth of those coins stands at $5,300,000 now. His last update was in 2016, when he claimed that he is still holding on to all of those coins.

The opposite argument can be true as well. Rather than blaming the investors, I think you should first ask some questions to the ICO team and the promoters. Why do they always go for the listing even before the initial phase of development is complete? The most common excuse is that they need the funds for the development. But in my opinion, if someone wants to create the project, then he should be ready to invest his own savings, at least for the first phase of the development work. Most of the promoters don't want to do that and would like to transfer 100% of the burden to the investors. And the second question is why they always refrain from using the escrow to store their funds. If they use a trusted escrow, then it can give a lot of confidence to the investors, as they know that these guys are not going to run away after taking all the money.

I have a feeling that India is not trying to win this match. The current run rate is just 2.3 runs per over and I am not sure what they are trying to achieve here. Ideally they could have tried to score at 4-5 runs per over and given the bowlers entire day tomorrow to bowl the South African side out. Mayank Agarwal got out after scoring 7 runs from 31 balls, and Pujara is out there with just 4 runs from 37 balls. They have a lead of 100+ runs, so I thought that it may be good idea to add another 200 runs in 40-50 overs and then declare the innings.

And surprisingly while Maharaj (who seems to be their best bowler) has conceded 31 runs from his 7 overs (4.4 runs per over), the other three bowlers (Philander/Rabada/Piedt) have conceded just 10 runs from their 12 overs (0.8 runs per over). The Indian batsmen seems to be attacking Maharaj, while taking a defensive stance against the other bowlers.

Well.... this is interesting. After reading your post, I checked the stats of all the Sri Lankan players who took part in the 3rd ODI. Majority of the players (6 out of 11) had previously represented Sri Lanka in the test format and even more had ODI experience. And the playing XI consisted of players such as Lahiru Thirimanne (35 tests, 127 ODIs) and Nuwan Pradeep (28 tests and 42 ODIs). So it is not entirely accurate if you say that the team sent by Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is a B side. I would put it like this - they sent their regular side, in which a few players were missing.

The Oman Pentangular T20I Series has started today, and the first match between the hosts and Hong Kong is currently underway at the Al Amerat cricket ground. The Oman cricket board is streaming all the matches live (first match can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcBz15uXAaU). This series can be crucial for many of the participating teams, as it gives an opportunity for them to improve their T20 ranking.

Ireland will be taking on Netherlands later today, and Nepal will be in action tomorrow against Hong Kong. A few of the familiar names (Kevin O'Brien, Boyd Rankin, Paul Stirling, Sandeep Lamichhane, Colin Ackermann, Ben Cooper, Timm van der Gugten, Roelof van der Merwe, Paul van Meekeren.etc) are participating in this series, and the main aim seems to be to give these teams some practice before the T20 World Cup Qualifiers.

Well.. I had always considered Jadeja as a batsman who can bowl a bit (well, quite a bit). Sometimes statistics can be misleading. For example, he bowled 37 overs yesterday. But I have seen matches in which he was used for just 4-5 overs per day. Anyway, in subcontinent matches, in which pacers are rarely used, it is not that uncommon to see spinners taking 10-15 wickets per match, and bowling 35-40 overs per day.

Now coming back to the match, I feel that this is going to end in a draw. The last wicket partnership put in 35 runs and more importantly batted out 8 overs. This may turn out to be crucial later. Some 175 overs remaining in this match as of now, but needs to see whether there is rain interruption or not. If there is no interruption, then there is a good chance of getting a result (and trust me, it can go either way).

Even if it fails to breach the $10,000 per coin level, this year was exceptionally good for Bitcoin. The exchange rates rose from $3,100 per coin to $8,200 per coin, which represents a gain of +165%. Obviously it looks insignificant when compared to the gains that we had back in 2013 (+12,000%) and 2017 (+2,200%), but we need to remember that back then the base was very low. We can no longer expect Bitcoin to give 10x or 100x returns per year, as the market cap has already grown to more than $100 billion. Considering these facts, I would say that the returns so far this year has been really good for the investors.

This is a very interesting point. And I agree with you. Bitcoin needs to preserve its value before it is being used as a currency. I would say that Bitcoin is very much under-valued and under-used right now. I have seen figures like 200 million and 250 million for the estimates of Bitcoin users. However, IMO the number of active users may be in a few million.

If Bitcoin becomes a widely used currency, then we can assume it to have the same market cap as that of the fiat currency. The total value of all the banknotes and coins circulating in the world amounts to around $10 trillion. But this is not the total market cap of the fiat currency. It includes bank deposits and bonds, on top of the circulating cash.

The total M1/M2 money supply for US was estimated at $18.2 trillion in 2019, and for the world we can assume a conservative figure of $50 trillion. Imagine what will happen if Bitcoin grows to equal this figure. For 20 million circulating coins (which we'll attain sometime during late 2020s), the exchange rate will be around $2,500,000 per coin.

It is very obvious. If the people decide to use a decentralized currency which is minted out by the Bitcoin miners rather than the one that is minted by the central bank, then the government will lose its control over its citizens. And this is not the only consequence. The government will not be able to take loans easily from the creditors, and it will be on back foot to fund various infrastructure and social projects. I would say that fiat currency is one of the most elaborate ponzi schemes ever invented by the humans. It keeps the individuals enslaved through a complex system of loans, debt, mortgage and taxation. And it has grown too big, that now a collapse of the fiat currency system will completely destroy the global economy.