1. No
2. Yes
3. No
4. Yes
5. Yes
6. Yes
7. Yes
8. 6
9. 4
10. 3

Tiebreaker: 180 points

Game 1:  18, 15'
Game 2:  18, 45'
Game 3:  18, 20'
Game 4:  18, 24'

I think LoyceV is right that it would have happened by now if they could ban it, but I'd also add 'if they wanted to ban it'. Authoritarian-leaning regimes can have more control over the legislation and introduce very restrictive measures without much backlash. So Bitcoin can be easily banned in a significant part of the world which is not democratic. In democracies, it's much trickier, as there are mechanisms like protests and lobbying to ensure that people have as many freedoms as they can have without it being a major threat to national security or to safety of the population itself. So I don't think that a full ban is possible in a huge democratic chunk of the world. If there's a combo of high crypto interest and strong democracy, it's not going to work.

It's good that cryptos are considered a good or neutral technology here, it's a positive assessment. Cryptos are nowhere near the impact of the Internet yet, and perhaps they never will be, but they do represent a revolutionary reimagining of what money can be and how it can function.
They write in the article that millions lost money, but that's not fully correct. It's true for now, but many, provided that they invested only in top currencies and can afford to hodl through the bear market, are likely to get their money back.
Overall, considering that some companies did manage to survive the dot com bubble, perhaps such comparison is accurate enough.

EUR 16,570
kryptonomous

I believe the issue isn't that scammers are smart and use elaborate schemes (or whatever using too much brain means) but that humans on average don't possess the necessary knowledge to deal with things like this. There used to be a time when the vast majority of the population couldn't write, read or count, and then the time when they knew only the very basic stuff taught within primary school education. Now, children are learning plenty of things, but are learning perhaps too much of some and not enough of others. In my country, economics is not always taught at schools at all, and when it is taught, it's usually very poor. Basic financial management and familiarity with popular scams should be taught at schools, so that everyone gets the basic knowledge about that. Another thing is a skill that should be encouraged way more at schools as well: critical thinking. Schools focus so much on teaching what is right and punishing wrong answers that is numbs the natural tendency to question things which children usually develop at some point. So when people grow up, they often don't question what they are told, just as they were taught at schools, and this leads to many problems, including falling for scams.

If the op is simply referring to using a Bitcoin wallet and Bitcoin transactions instead of the banking system, then I'd say it depends. Within one country, banking transaction are often done in a several seconds. Of course, the money doesn't actually travel that fast, but it's blocked from usage on a person's account, the balance is updated, and you're good to go. Bitcoin, however, almost never arrives as fast, and if it arrives in half an hour, it's considered quite fast. But once it arrives, it's truly there. Also, if we are talking about international transfers, those can take from an hour to a couple of days, and definitely days if it's the weekend. In that case, Bitcoin is faster.

Others have already pointed out that very rich addresses often belong not to individuals but to crypto exchanges, casinos and similar enterprises. And yes, technically, an exchange can perform massive scam, stealing lots of money, but the chance of that happening isn't high and the chance of such funds being poured into attempts of manipulating the market price of Bitcoin seems even lower.
Are there some people who are Bitcoin billionaires? Yeah, most likely. Do they have enough power and motivation to use all that wealth to manipulate the price? I don't think so. So to me, whales don't exist. At least not when it comes to Bitcoin.

It is perfectly possible that the price will never go up. However, it seems unlikely because over the course of almost 14 years, Bitcoin went through various bear markets with always not just recovering but significantly surpassing its previous highest point. So there just doesn't seem to be a good reason to believe that it will be different this time, especially given that nothing truly threatening happened to Bitcoin. If there was something unique about the current crash to suggest that Bitcoin can't come back from it, that would be another thing, but it's just FUD over a big exchange crash, nothing new.

I completely agree that logically, we cannot blame Bitcoin and it's unfair for Bitcoin to suffer reputational and/or financial losses when a centralized exchange failed. Bitcoin is not a company managing exchanges and exchanges aren't managing Bitcoin either. They are causally unrelated. That being said, not everything works out according to logic.
You know how a GPU can be a bit less common and gaming developers won't optimize their code for it? People will still be less motivated to buy that GPU, even though game devs are at fault. Similarly, if people like exchanges and  exchange fails, they'll feel less motivated to use Bitcoin, even though it's not its fault. I know the analogy isn't perfect, but I think it's okay to make a point. Consequently, the price of Bitcoin without centralized platforms or with failing centralized platforms can still decrease significantly.

I believe in Bitcoin as money, so if there were more options available, I'd use it as money in my everyday life whenever I'm low on fiat or when we are, say, no more than 50% below the ATH point, which I'd consider good purchasing power for Bitcoin. In case of the op, buying at $17500 and waiting for profit, I'd be happy with 5x profit, I think, but if the investment amount makes more sense over a longer period of time with higher profit, I don't see why not wait for 15x or, alternatively, for the point Bitcoin investment reaches a value that would enable to significantly improve one's life (buy a flat if renting, start a business if it has been a dream, etc.).

I believe a lot depends on your memory and what sort of person you are. I have an okay memory, but it's not exceptional and worse than many might have, so I know that I won't be able to retain the seed for a long time in my memory. I can memorize it, I can recall it, but I am not confident at all that I will never forget it. So for me, this isn't the right way, as I don't think a chance of me being robbed/hacked is higher than a chance that I'll simply forget the phrase. I also don't fully trust myself to remember where it's physically written down and to not accidentally leave it somewhere or destroy it while cleaning. So this isn't the approach I support either.

Global recession was meant to happen in the early 20s even without the pandemic and without the war. During the pandemic, risky measures were actively introduced to basically postpone a recession. However, you can't cancel it, and the riskier money printing gets, the more chance there is of things getting out of hand. Russia's war against Ukraine certainly didn't help, given its impact on supply lines and energy prices. I do believe that there will eventually be economic recovery and growth, and that we're still far from the sort of global crisis that would push humanity to abandon the fiat model altogether, but IMO it will take several years to overcome what's only starting now (not stabilizing inflation because stompix is right it's already not so bad in many places, but growing global economy), and it will be a difficult period.

I would make an effort to return the money to the owner (my thoughts are writing to a local Facebook group anonymously and saying I found a BTC key which I will return to who can name the book it was in or prove ownership in other ways), but I suspect that isn't going to be possible. At the same time, I wouldn't feel right using the money because it belongs to someone else. I guess giving it to a good charity after making sure I can't find the real owner would be something I do. Normally, though, I don't pick up what I see, so if I saw a paper inside a book, the most likely course of action for me would be to put the paper back where I found it without trying to use it in any way.

If he is truly pro-Bitcoin, it is good news, but that might be the only good news about this guy. He is a far-right politician, supporter of Trump and Bolsonaro, a person who denies climate change and supports an antisemitic conspiracy theory of cultural Marxism (I'm just taking info from Wikipedia here). Honestly, I hope he doesn't win the elections, despite the fact that having a strongly pro-Bitcoin president of a big country would be good. Given his political strategy, what he says about Bitcoin and the Central Bank must simply reflect the opinion of his electorate. It also especially makes sense in Argentina to not trust the bank and fiat, given that their inflation is incredibly bad (6th worst inflation in the world). Hopefully, another person with more reasonable political views will come to power and also be supportive of Bitcoin there.

Game 1:  23, 19'
Game 2:  23, 16'

Oh wow, this is pretty big. As a Ukrainian, I can tell you that it's indeed one of the major pharmacies in Ukraine, available widely in various regions (you can see the regions covered and the sheer number of their pharmacies here: https://anc.ua/map). The info on the website of the pharmacy network says that it's via Binance Pay, and currently from online orders (click and collect ones) but they will gradually start accepting crypto payments in the pharmacies as well. I know it's not ideal that it's via a centralized exchange, but I don't think it's because they want to promote it specifically. Rather, it's because Binance is already popular in Ukraine, it is a reputable service, and it's easy to integrate its payment system, I assume, for purchases. It's a good first step, a very good one. And keep in mind that with the war, pharmacies are especially important.

1.  Davis
2.  Round 11
3.  1

1. IND
2. IND
3. IND
4. Under
5. 4th
6. Odd
7. Even
8. TEX
9. IND
10. TEX

Final Score prediction 21-16

It remains a big and interesting question to me whether we just hit a rough patch of a few years or we are only starting a dark period of humanity's existence that will mark itself with much more suffering to come and possibly with the radical change of the world, and not for the better. I'm generally an optimist, so I hope it's just a rough few years, perhaps a rough decade, which will be followed by a stronger, more progressive, more democratic world. But so far, it's not looking well, I agree. That being said, it's possible to find joy and to value life even under bad circumstances, unless they are severely bad. And learning to be more mindful of spending resources, including electricity, is just a good thing to do in general.