My only concern is about the domestic players. Only a few dozen out of the hundreds of domestic players have IPL contracts. So in case the Ranji Trophy is cancelled, will the BCCI pay full salaries to them? As far as I know, the salaries are paid according to the number of matches played, as there is no contract system in the domestic sector. So obviously if the tournament is cancelled, then the players will be left high and dry. And in case the BCCI is making some sort of payment, how it is going to distribute the same between the players?

The difference is not that large. Tesla market capitalization as of now is around $827 billion, compared to the Bitcoin market cap of $675 billion (the total cryptocurrency market cap stands at $1.086 trillion). However, if you check the ROI, then Tesla is performing better than Bitcoin. During the past 12 months, the Tesla stock went up by a massive 460%. The same figure for Bitcoin is 269%. But then, I feel that it is not right to compare an EV manufacturer with a cryptocurrency. Both of them have very good future potential, but apart from that there are few similarities.  

BTW, 12 months ago BTC had a higher market cap compared to Tesla ($183 billion vs $147 billion).

It is not just the West Indian players. A total of 60 balls are available to the 11 players, which works out to 5-6 balls per player. What are they supposed to do, other than hitting sixes? As the duration of the game reduces, the importance of the bowlers also goes down. In T10, the bowlers have hardly any contribution in the matches. It is completely dominated by the batsmen. IMO, we should not reduce the limit to less than 20 overs. For me, 20 overs is the limit and if you reduce it any further it is simply not cricket. For me, T10 resembles like baseball.

During the initial phase (around 2014-15), there was a lot of misinformation related to Bitcoin and that was when a lot of the countries tried to ban cryptocurrency. But that changed once it was known to all that only a minuscule fraction of the Bitcoin transactions are linked to illegal transactions. A lot of the countries which previously tried to ban them reversed their decision and made Bitcoin legal in their jurisdiction. But India seems to be moving in the opposite direction. They are trying to ban Bitcoin, although it was legal earlier.

We don't need acceptance or endorsement of any kind. But I would like the governments to leave cryptocurrency on its own, without much external interference. Almost all the users are willing to pay whatever taxes that are due on trading with cryptocurrency and a majority of them are willing to undergo the KYC process as well. For the honest governments, there is nothing to worry from cryptocurrency. However, the case may be different for those countries with highly manipulated markets and economy. In such cases, the citizens may use cryptocurrency as a store of value, and the government authorities may not be comfortable with such usage.

Tax on capital gains can be reduced by adding in capital losses. I am not sure whether this can be done in all the jurisdictions. So if you have $30,000 gain from one trade, and a $15,000 loss from another, then you need to pay tax on $15,000 only. Then also, there is something called FIFO (first-in first-out). Let's say that you have purchased Bitcoin multiple times. The first purchase was made when BTC was trading at $1,000. Then you made multiple purchases until the exchange rate went up to $35,000. And you sold a few of your coins for $35,000. Here you can't claim that the purchase price was $35K. Under the FIFO principle, you need to take the price of the first purchase for capital gains calculation.

Under current circumstances, I don't favor allowing spectators in to the stadiums. The justification being given is that movie theatres are open in India. But my opinion on this is that "two wrongs make a right". After all, cricket is a sport that is more suitable to watching on TV, rather than watching it live at the stadium. And if the BCCI is so adamant, I would request them to limit the seating to 20% or 25% of the capacity rather than the proposed 50%.

And regarding the IPL and T20 World Cup, I hope by that time the situation will improve considerably as the vaccination drive is going on at full pace. But first the BCCI need to sort out issues with ICC related to the tax liability for the T20 World Cup.

Well.. this time they have a number of star players, including Pollard, Narine, Gayle, Shinwari, Stirling, Hafeez, Fletcher, Wiese, Ingram, Tahir, Afridi, Salt, Jordan, Banton, Tanvir, Hasan Ali, Dunk, Bravo, Lyth, Pooran and Russell. Obviously you are not going to find any Indian player, but I would say that the presence of international heavyweights is even better than BBL or CPL. 


In that case, why can't we restrict the 10 over format to just 6 players? 11 players for 10 overs doesn't make any sense. It means that most of the players will never get a chance to showcase their skills. The number of players need to be reduced and that will make sure that everyone gets their chance.

This is surprising, because Thailand is one of the countries where the infection rate is very much under control. The number of new daily cases is in three digits and till now the death rate per million is 1.1 (compared to 1378 in the United States). Thailand is a prime destination for international tourists and I don't think that a majority of them are averse to gambling. When many of the neighboring nations (Cambodia, Laos.etc) are taking steps towards popularizing gambling, Thailand seems to be moving in the opposite direction. This can harm their tourist inflow in the long term.

The logic being given is that BTC has already went up by 1000% between 2018 and 2020. But if that is the case, the same logic should apply everywhere else. The US stock markets have gone up by around 70% during the same period. Tesla stock increased by almost 2000% during the same period, but a lot of people are still investing in it. The reason being given is that the market for electric vehicles are growing at an astounding rate. Then the same reasoning can be applied to the cryptocurrency market as well, where the user base is growing at a rate of 5% to 10% per year.

The budget session is divided in to two parts, and if I am not wrong the bill may be introduced during the second part. The first part is scheduled to run from 1st February to 13th February and during this session the priority will be taken up by discussion related to the current budget and the implementation of the farm laws. After that there is a recess from 14th February to 7th March.

The parliament will meet again on 8th March. The second phase of the budget session will run from 8th March to 8th April, and during this time most of the bills that are on queue will be taken up and tabled before the parliament.

I agree that $60 million is a huge amount. If you have just 1% of that amount, you can live like a king here in India for the remainder of your life. But the question is not whether $60 million is a large amount or not. The question is whether if you win $180 million, is it OK for the government to take away $120 million from it in the name of tax, and leave just $60 million with you. No one needs to think that lottery winnings are like charity and the government is providing you the prize for free. The winners are receiving the prize because they spent their money to purchase the tickets and were ready to take the risk despite extremely low odds.

I had to edit the title. The last time when I edited it, Bitcoin dominance was 69%. Now it stands at 62.5%. Not very surprised, as XRP had a big recovery during this period. Also some of the new coins such as WallStreetBets are now listed in CMC.


I never give much attention to trade volumes given in the CMC website. There are thousands of mainstream exchanges out there and it is impossible to accurately measure the volume from each of them. Then there are DEX sites and P2P platforms, which never reveal their volumes. On top of that, there are marketplaces in various forums (including Bitcointalk), where people regularly trade with their cryptocurrency.

As far as I am concerned, the only parameter which I can trust is the transaction volume that is provided by Blockchain.com

https://www.blockchain.com/charts/estimated-transaction-volume

I first invested in cryptocurrency more than 4 years ago (January 2017), when I purchased BTC at a rate of $900 per coin (if I remember correctly, I paid around 3% markup for the purchase). I sold small amount of BTC in 2018 and the succeeding years, but I still have most of my original coins remaining in my wallet (>50%). My target price is $250,000 per coin and I don't want to sell my coins before the target is achieved. If I had posted this a few months back, then people would have laughed at me. But now that target seems not too far away. BTC is trading at above $35,000 per coin, and I believe that I will be able to achieve my target within the next few years.

But just when everything seems to be moving in the right direction, I am facing a serious issue. The Indian government announced a few days back that they will be banning Bitcoin in India. Even the ownership of cryptocurrency will be made a criminal offense. Now I don't have any choice other than selling my coins immediately.

No matter how much the rate is, I don't think that double taxation is fair. If they want to tax the winners, then they should not tax the ticket sales. Now what happens is that first they tax the lottery ticket sales. Then they impose tax on the winners. And finally, if the winner gifts a part of his reward to some of his close relatives or friends, then they have to pay tax on that amount as well. This is absolute lunacy and I hope the governments would look in to it. But with left-leaning governments coming up in many countries around the world, I don't have much hope.

Very irresponsible move. Australia did the same during the India tour, and there was an increase in the number of new infections. Right now, the COVID 19 situation in India is very much under control (less than 50,000 active cases outside Kerala and Maharashtra), and they should not take any additional risk. After all, what is the logic in allowing the spectators when the vast majority of the revenue is coming from TV broadcast? The Indian government also should take note of this. Many of the European and North American countries are going through the second wave right now, after many months of stability. The same can happen with India as well. We should prevent the second wave by any means possible.

The higher the investment price, higher will be the risk. Back in 2015, for an investment of $100,000 you would have got 500 BTC in your wallet. If you invest the same amount now, you will only receive 3 BTC. Bitcoin exchange rates have risen almost continuously for more than a decade. But with that rise, come additional risks. I only want to say one thing. The journey from a market cap of $600 billion to $1,200 billion is going to be much more difficult than the one we had in 2015-21, when the same rose from $4 billion to $600 billion.

The rate of vaccination is approx. 500,000 per day now and it is not easy to increase it all of a sudden. In order to vaccinate the Indian citizens, first they need to set up vaccination centers and train the staff. All this is being done, and within the next few weeks more than a million will undergo vaccination per day. At this moment, it is not desirable to hold back exports of the vaccine (contracts for which was signed many months back). Right now India do have enough vaccines for the priority population and the main challenge lies with logistics.

From what I have heard, the bill is essentially the same one which they tried to table in 2018/19. There are only some minor changes, such as "exceptions" for "underlying technology and others". In the summary that was posted to the parliament website, it is clear that there will be a complete ban on "private" cryptocurrencies (i.e those cryptocurrencies that are decentralized and not controlled by the central bank).

Everyone knows what the "exceptions" mean. Under the "Make in India" program, Ambani and Adani will be provided with exceptions, so that they can come up with Jiocoin or Adanicoin. The government is full of retards, if they think that everyone would flock to purchase their shitcoin if they remove the competition. Crypto industry doesn't work like that. I tried to post a few comments clarifying that there is no evidence to link cryptocurrency to terrorist funding or tax evasion in mainstream news websites such as TOI and HT. But the BJP bots immediately flagged my comments as offensive and got them deleted.