Media reports from Western channels such as CNBC, CNN and BBC can be biased. What I have observed is that although the protesters remain very vocal and aggressive, there is a large section of the Hong Kong population that wants to maintain good relations with China. And another point to be noted here is that despite all the provocations by the protesters and damage to the public property, till now the cops have not acted in a harsh manner, which is very uncommon for an authoritarian state such as China. That said, I don't think that this ongoing crisis will have a large impact on the cryptocurrency prices. Hong Kong trade volumes are low, when compared to countries such as Japan and South Korea.

Funny that you mentioned about the vehicle tax. My country previously had very lax rules regarding traffic violations and vehicle taxation. But last month, they increased the penalties by almost 10x and despite widespread protests from the people the government is refusing to back down. I can't blame the government as well. Recently there was a sharp rise in the number of accidents and the deaths and injuries resulting from them. Also, here it is not unusual to find people who drive without having the driving license.

But taxation is a different topic, which is separate from traffic violations. Here they have combined both. The vehicle tax is very high, at least when compared to the neighboring nations. And now everyone is forced to pay this high tax after the new amendment. Tax evasion is not very rare in my country. But it depends on your luck. You commit one mistake, and your free run is over. The penalties can be 300% or more of the defaulted amount, and it can leave you high and dry.

I don't think that it is irrelevant. The total market cap of cryptocurrency is around $220 billion (the net worth of coins in free-float would be much lower), and the amount mentioned here represents almost 1.5% of that amount. And this is from a single scam. The real extent of the PLUS Token scam is still unknown. I have read reports claiming more than 10 million individuals scammed (most of them in China and South Korea). Last month, CipherTrace released a statement claiming that the real losses from this scam may be much higher than $3 billion. They also claimed that a lot of this stolen money is being dumped on various crypto-exchanges (which explains the recent bearish price movement).

I don't think that you watched the entire match. Sri Lanka got a respectable total because Shehan Jayasuriya and Dasun Shanaka batted extremely well under testing conditions. It is quite demeaning towards the Lankans if you argue that Pakistan allowed them to build a good total. At one stage, Sri Lanka was struggling at 28/5. But then, Usman Shinwari finished his spell and he was replaced by the spinners (Imad Wasim and Shadab Khan). These bowlers were not able to apply the pressure and the Lankan batsmen could build a partnership.

It may not be a bad strategy to bet in favor of Sri Lanka for the third ODI match. The gambling sites are giving them very low odds (most of them at 9/2). Looking at their spirited performance during the 2nd match, I would say that there is a chance of upset.

It is surprising that all these NBA stars want to participate in the Olympic games, after preferring the NBA games over the recently concluded FIBA World Cup. I don't have the opinion that the Olympic Basketball is not an important tournament. But should it be given more importance when compared to the World Cup? A total of 32 nations participated in the FIBA World Cup, while only a dozen may qualify for the Olympic tournament. Also, basketball is just one of the dozens of disciplines within the Olympic games. Anyway, it is good to see players such as Lebron, Durant and Curry representing the United States in an international competition. But I really missed them during the World Cup.

This time their efforts may succeed. Ukraine is no longer being led by the establishment politicians. The people have kicked out career politicians, both from the pro-Russia and the pro-NATO camps. And once these establishment politicians are gone, the government's resistance towards Bitcoin decreases a lot. Volodymyr Zelensky and his party (Servant of the People) are not linked to the bankers and therefore they don't have any reason to hate cryptocurrency. My only regret is that this decision didn't came earlier. BTC-e was based in Kiev, before being forced to shift the operations to Sofia as a result of the hostile government action. Ordinary Ukrainians would have benefited a lot had they continued their operations in Ukraine.

It was an amazing fightback, as Shehan Jayasuriya and Dasun Shanaka took Sri Lanka from 28/5 to 205/5. But just when it looked like they'll pull an upset, Usman Shinwari got Jayasuriya out. And Shanaka got out two balls later. Sri Lanka may lose this match to Pakistan, but they can be proud about the performance from these two young players.

Now they need 96 runs from 46 balls, which looks very difficult. Wanindu Hasaranga and Isuru Udana are at the crease, and I don't expect much from these tail end batsmen. Despite the possible win today, Pakistan needs to look in to the spin department. Imad Wasim and Shadab Khan leaked a lot of runs and at no point they looked threatening to the Lankan batsmen.

Usman Shinwari destroyed the Sri Lankans and out of the seven batsmen who has come out to bat so far, none has managed double digits. This is going to be a very humiliating defeat for Sri Lanka. Given the presence of less experienced players, no one expected them to stage an upset. But most of their fans would have hoped for a honorable performance. Pakistani fans may be feeling ecstatic right now. They are getting to watch an ODI match after a wait for many years... and what a performance by their team... I just hope that the match gets completed and does not get interrupted by rain. Just five more wickets... and I don't think that SL will get to three digits.

It will be interesting to see the odds for Sri Lanka, for the third ODI. Looks risky to bet for them, but Sri Lanka is a team that has made so many comebacks in the past.

A few countries account for the vast majority of Bitcoin trade volume. Countries such as US, EU, Japan, China, South Korea and Canada adds up for more than 90% of the daily cryptocurrency volume. And Bitcoin is already legal in all these nations. However, change in legal status can make a difference. For example, in China it is forbidden to trade Bitcoin against fiat currency (but trading against USDT is legal). If China lifts this ban, then for sure Bitcoin may undergo a major bull run. From what we have seen in the past, the decisions taken by the Chinese central bank and the government do have a big impact on the exchange rates of Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies.

A comparison with fiat currency may not be suitable here. The fiat currency market capitalization is more than $15 trillion, while the same for cryptocurrency is only around 1/100th of that amount. If the South Korean government data is accurate, the stolen amount represents 1% of all the cryptocurrency in circulation. That is equivalent of criminals stealing $150 billion in a single year in just one country, and I am sure that the amount for fiat cash is much lower. But then, why we need to compare with fiat?

I am not aware of how the thieves laundered the coins stolen from Binance. But from what I heard, the vast majority (90% or more) of this $2.3 billion came from scam ICOs. Scam projects such as M token scammed tens of millions of USD from Korean citizens. But the heaviest losses came from the Plus Token scam (which resulted in losses in excess of $2 billion, and probably much higher).

The Zimbabwe squad is comprised of players with very little international experience (apart from a few players such as Sean Williams and Ryan Burl). Even the standard of their domestic competition (Logan Cup) has gone down during the recent few years, as most of the white players have moved to countries such as England and Australia.

For comparison, Singapore is a country which mostly relies on expats for playing cricket (more than 90% of the population is either Chinese or Malay, and these groups are not represented in the cricket team. But their advantage is that the cricket board is very rich and can afford to offer good facilities, quality equipment and the best trainers and coaches.

India going with 3 pacers? And that too on a spin friendly surface such as Vizag? I don't think so. They might include 2 pacers (my prediction would be Mohammad Shammi and Ishant Sharma, with Umesh Yadav sitting out for the match), and 2 full time spinners (Ravichandran Ashwin and Kuldeep Yadav), with Ravindra Jadeja finding a slot in the playing XI as an allrounder.

Also, don't expect them to prepare a turning track every time. In the past, some of the curators had refused orders from the captains to prepare sub-standard tracks. During 1997, there was a well known incident involving Narendra Menon (father of the international umpire Nitin Menon), who refused to prepare a track as per the specification given by the captain. Finally he agreed to prepare another track after much persuasion (one day before the match), but the opposing team members (Sri Lankans) raised objection and the match was abandoned.

Have to agree with you that ultimately it is up to the player to decide whether he want to earn more and chose IPL, or to earn less and represent his nation. Another point that may give justification to what you posted is the fact that IPL is not the only big T20 league around the globe, and tournaments such as the GT20 of Canada and BBL of Australia have also "poached" players from the smaller nations. Also, IPL is far from the first tournament of that kind. Many years before the IPL was even thought of, players from South Africa and Zimbabwe were moving to England using the Kolpak rule. Now they are also losing a lot of players to Australia and New Zealand as well.

Perhaps you are right. Rather than blaming the IPL, we should be blaming the cricket boards (WICB, ZCB, CSA.etc).

IPL is generating a lot of revenue for the BCCI, but I don't think that it is being beneficial for the game of cricket. On the other hand, it is negatively affecting the smaller nations (especially teams such as West Indies) by making their best players unavailable for the national duty. Individual players are benefitting a lot from IPL. For example, players such as Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell make from IPL more than 10 times the salary they receive from the WICB. This is good for them. But at the same time, it requires them to put the IPL duty at a higher preference when compared to the national duty. 

You consider Bitcoin and Ethereum as junk? I am asking this, because most of the time we exchange our shitcoins, it is done against BTC or ETH. USDT has also emerged as a third major option. For example, if I am having Bitsend or GBYTE in my exchange wallet, and I am looking forward to dump it, then the chances are that I will exchange it for BTC or USDT. Why should I sell by BSD and purchase shitcoins such as DOGE or DNR? Here the junk is being exchanged for coins with value and not against similar junk.

Apart from Sean Williams, I couldn't find any usual names in the Zimbabwe playing XI. I don't know where players such as Graeme Cremer, Peter Moor, Sikandar Raza and Chamu Chibhabha have vanished into... At least they could have persuaded Brendan Taylor to participate in the Singapore tri-series. And I don't know anything about Kyle Jarvis, Craig Ervine and Sean Ervine. Have they retired from cricket, or still playing? I heard that Hamilton Masakadza retired a few days back. But what about the others?

Investors should hold back on greed and invest wisely. Whenever a project boasts of 10x or 100x returns, they should realize that such guaranteed returns are not possible. They should ask themselves whether it is an intelligent move to invest their BTC or ETH in some other asset. My opinion is that Bitcoin itself is a great investment asset and we don't need to invest it anywhere else.

South Africa restricted India to just 134, which is 4 runs less than Afghanistan scored yesterday against Bangladesh. It was surprising to see the overhyped Indian batsmen struggling against inexperienced bowlers such as Bjorn Fortuin and Beuran Hendricks. It should be easy for the South African batsmen, as India don't have their first choice bowlers such as Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami in the playing XI.

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Prostitution, Weed, Gambling.etc can never be banned. They have been around for thousands of years (or probably since the beginning of humanity). Semitic religions such as Christianity and Islam imposed a moral code on us, which is not very compatible with the basic human character. This is one of the reasons why we hear about so many sex abuse scandals from the Islamic and Christian clerics. I am not saying that Buddhist and Hindu clerics are immune, but the incidence is very low.

And the problem with banning prostitution is that, since sex is one of the basic human necessities, the demand will always persist. And this will result in the business going underground, where there is more scope for exploitation and forced sex trafficking. Legalization can eradicate this issue.