Stats are very clear. Bitcoin dominance is at historic highs and this means that the altcoins are not doing good. Against fiat currency, there has been some improvement, but their exchange rates against Bitcoin is down by a lot. In a matter of just 3 months, Bitcoin market share has increased by 10%, and the altcoin share has gone down by the same amount. 2021 is going to be even worse for the alts.

I still remember committing a big blunder in this election. Before the COVID 19 pandemic hit the US, Trump was the favorite and Biden's odds were very attractive. I thought about placing a bet on Biden, but wanted to wait for a few more weeks so that the odds would get even better. But the odds tilted to Biden and in the end I decided not to place a bet rather than making one with lower odds.

There are certain players such as Ravichandran Ashwin, who perform very impressively in home test matches. There is nothing wrong in preparing pitches that favor you when playing at home, and almost all the teams do that. But the problem is that when you get habituated to playing in these surfaces, your performance while playing abroad gets less than satisfactory. And this is why there is a request to prepare bowler-friendly tracks for the domestic matches.

Bitcoin is the future. I am sure about that. But I am not sure about whether it is the future of the monetary system, or whether it is the future of investment. Satoshi Nakamoto initially designed Bitcoin as a mode of payment. But nowadays it is mostly being used as an investment asset. Unless we resolve the scalability issue, Bitcoin will never gain traction as a payment mode.

Now we have clear leaders for this edition of the IPL. Both Mumbai City FC and ATK Mohun Bagan are having 16 points from 7 matches each. The third placed Bengaluru FC is far behind with just 12 points from 7 matches. Although the initial phase is going on, it looks to me that either of these two teams are going to win the trophy this time. ATK Mohun Bagan in particular looks to be in excellent form.

He may not be having any issue in holding for 5 years or even 30 years. But what about the other stakeholders/investors? Are they going to remain silent, in case the price dips by 80% (similar to the situation we had in 2015)? And looking at the way the Congress is going after Libra/Diem, I am not feeling very comfortable right now. I have a feeling that the authorities may target Bitcoin very soon.

This is true and one of the reasons for the poor performance of the sub-continental teams is the nepotism and bias in selection. Even Indian team is not free from this. Earlier, there were two camps within the national team - each led by Dhoni and Kohli respectively. Now the divisions are not that visible, but there are accusations that some of the players are being favored for selection.

I don't know why you guys continue to hold your wealth in the form of stablecoins. USDC is not safer than USDT. All the stablecoins are risky and holding them may result in huge losses for you. If you want to store your wealth, then store it in the form of Bitcoin. Obviously the risk of volatile exchange rate is there, but IMO this risk is lower than keeping the wealth in the form of stablecoins.

Bubbles don't last for more than a few months. Even the dot-com bubble of 1999-2000 lasted for only around 2 years. Here in the case of Bitcoin, despite overwhelming adversities, the innovation has survived for 13 years. And chances are that it will survive for at least a few more decades. Now you don't call something that is around for many decades as a bubble. If that is the case, then every single investment asset will be termed as a bubble by David Rosenberg.

There is no guarantee that Floyd Mayweather will win this match. Perhaps he is having a 99% probability, but then we need to remember that 99% is not always equal to 100%. Similar upsets have happened in the past. Let's not forget the fact that Mayweather is no longer in his prime. He is one of the best boxers in the recorded history, but he is almost 44 years of age and there is a small chance that he may commit some mistake on 20th February.

The problem is that when Bitcoin prices are going up, most of the investors think that it will be the case forever. They don't even want to consider the possibility of a price crash occurring at some point in the near future. And looking at the history of Bitcoin, it has undergone major crashes multiple times in the past, starting with the one in 2014 February, when Mt Gox went down.

Concerns are being raised about the possibility of mass dumping by institutional investors, in case there is a crash in the exchange rates. IMO, these fears are just unfounded. Institutional investors are more susceptible to regulatory moves from the government. However, they are less likely to indulge in panic selling, when compared to individual cryptocurrency investors. Therefore I would claim that more investment by the institutional investors will bring stability to the cryptocurrency market and will cause a decrease in volatility.

Ethereum is still far behind its ATH levels of 2017 and during the last 2-3 months, it's exchange rate versus Bitcoin has also gone down by a lot. Ethereum gave almost 100x returns to those who invested in it during 2017. But it has underperformed since then. The DeFi and ETH 2.0 hypes have failed to take Ethereum back to the previous peak levels. But it's position as the no.2 cryptocurrency seems to be secure for now. Because the other altcoins are in even more bad shape when compared to Ethereum.

Most of the current rally can be attributed to the mainstream adoption of Bitcoin, especially by various payment processors such as PayPal. Back in March, no one had the slightest idea that this is going to happen. PayPal had always adopted a hostile stance towards cryptocurrency and no one really expected them to change their attitude towards Bitcoin. So you don't need to worry much about it. If you want to make an investment in Bitcoin, even now I would say that BTC is underpriced.

The only way to completely destroy Bitcoin is to ban internet. Even if all the countries in the world try to ban Bitcoin, it will exist as you need just a smartphone and internet connection to transact with BTC. Banning a decentralized asset is never going to work. If the authorities are that adamant, then I would recommend a 51% attack. But that is going to take billions of USD in funds and lots of manpower.

Normally I don't bet on any match, where the odds are lower than 1.10. Here it is in the 1.02-1.03 range. That means that even if I make a bet of $100 in favor of Floyd and he wins, I may get $2 as profit. And now I need to pay for the deposit and withdrawal fee, which may amount to anywhere from $5 to $10. In the end, I may end up with a loss of $3 to $8, despite winning the bet.

I would argue that any altcoin or token, without real life usage is a shitcoin. If we go by that definition, then it can be seen that anywhere from 90% to 95% of the altcoins come under that category. Now the question is whether they are extinct or not. The answer is no. Some of them (perhaps accounting for a majority) are dead, but thousands of shitcoins are still listed in various exchanges and they are being actively traded.

New Zealand is now a world class side with world class players. In terms of revenue generation, cricket is still dominated by the big 3 (India, Australia and England). But in terms of performance, now it has become big 4 (big 3 + New Zealand). A huge gap exists between these four countries and the remaining 8 test playing nations. And this actually surprises me, because New Zealand has a population of only 4 million.

The COVID 19 pandemic presented an unique opportunity for cryptocurrency in 2020. In some areas, it has made significant progress. But in some other sectors, it has remained stagnant. The usage of Bitcoin as a payment medium has witnessed hardly any improvement during this period. On the other hand, it's use as an investment asset has received a massive boost, thanks to mainstream investment firms and corporations such as PayPal and Square.

Super-computers are getting more and more efficient and at some point in the future they will be able to crack the Bitcoin private keys. This may not happen immediately, but once the private keys become obsolete, Bitcoin (and most of the other cryptocurrencies) will die a natural death. Therefore I don't believe that cryptocurrency will last forever. Like most of the other technological innovations, cryptocurrency also has a limited lifespan.