I know that a lot of people may be thinking that $10,000 per day is a very high limit and they don't need to bother about it. But FinCen will progressively reduce these rates. If you look at the history, they had a similar limit initially for international transactions involving cryptocurrency. But then this limit was progressively brought down to $500 per day. I think that they will do the same with the crypto wallets as well.

Well.. I have to agree here. Another thing to remember here is that although Bitcoin has reached a new ATH, the combined cryptocurrency market cap is much lower than the peak level. The current cryptocurrency market cap is $665 billion, while the figure was $832 billion three years ago. But I agree with pooya87 and JayJuanGee. The 2017 market cap was inflated by a huge number of shitcoins.

It is such an exciting offer, and despite my 8 years of experience in cryptocurrency I am having such a hard time in making a decision. The current exchange rates are $23,500 per coin and the price being offered is more than 4 times the current level. If we strictly follow the investment rules, then this is an option that should not be ignored. But it is quite hard to ignore the emotional attachment, after staying loyal to cryptocurrency for so long.

If that happens, then it will set up a bad precedent. If Aamir can get a multi-million USD contract in the IPL, then what prevents the other Pakistani players such as Babar Azam from doing the same? The BCCI is also going to be happy, as it will weaken the Pakistan national team. And let's not forget the fact that a number of Pakistani players have moved to other countries in the recent past, including Fawad Ahmed, Imran Tahir and Sikandar Raza. A few others, such as Sami Aslam are rumored to be making plans to do so.

Prithvi Shaw should be happy. Before the start of today's play everyone in India were discussing about him and the manner in which he got out yesterday. But now it seems as if everyone has forgotten his performance. People are talking about the manner in which Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane got out. It's just humiliating the way in which they even failed to make a three digit total.

GGG won the match quite convincingly and now the trilogy fight against Canelo Alvarez looks almost certain. Still I am not 100% sure about the Alvarez fight, as I have a feeling that Alvarez don't want to risk his unbeaten record against GGG. A lot depends on the outcome of the Alvarez vs Smith match as well (scheduled for today). If all goes ahead as planned, then we'll be able to bet on GGG vs Alvarez III by mid-2021. 

I don't think that the teams would readily pick him, even if he obtains a British passport. It wasn't easy for Azhar Mahmood either, despite the political situation being a bit more conductive back then. He got the British passport, as his wife was a British citizen. Although he was sold to Kings XI Punjab, Mahmood didn't played a lot many matches for them. Eventually he was dropped after three seasons. 

WTF is going on at Adelaide? India at 26/8, with a lead of 79 runs. Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins have 4 wickets each and India is heading towards an absolute humiliation. If I am not wrong, the lowest total India ever made in a test innings is 42 (vs England at Lords, 1974), and it is very probable that this record will be broken today (unless we witness some miracle from the part of Umesh Yadav and Hanuma Vihari).

He was lucky that the PCB spared him from a permanent ban. However, after his return he could never manage to perform in a consistent manner. But IMO, he should have been a bit more patient. He's just 28 years old and had another 7-8 years of prime cricketing career ahead of him. Anyway, who knows? He may be planning something else. Some of the South African players are trying to migrate to US, so that they could be eligible to represent USA in three years time. Amir may also be thinking the same.

Tim Paine trying desperately to take Australia beyond the 200 mark. I don't think that they will be able to get in to a lead, but if they can keep India's lead below 50 runs, then they have a fighting chance in this match. Surprised with the performance from Ashwin. The track hardly gave any support to the spinners and yet he managed to pick up four very important wickets.

They recovered really well, to end up at 153/9. At one point they were 39/5, and then 79/6. But the lower order contributed a lot of runs and they ended up with a decent score (Shadab Khan and Faheem Ashraf made decent scores). Jacob Duffy picked up four wickets during his debut match. Duffy looks like a good young future prospect for New Zealand. But finding a spot in the test squad may not be easy for him.

The partnership between Smith and Labuschagne is extremely important for Australia, because these two are their best batsmen. If India can get either of them cheaply, then they will be having an advantage in this match. Jasprit Bumrah seems to be in very good form, and therefore I would like to see him bowling another lengthy spell to Smith/Labuschagne immediately after the lunch break.

Once again, the altcoins have gone below 30%.

As of 18th December 2020:

Total market cap: $651,397,390,156 (+14.94%)

Bitcoin: $426,016,106,751 (65.400%)
Bitcoin forks: $9,480,170,364 (1.455%)
Stablecoins: $25,927,811,234 (3.980%)
Altcoins: $189,973,301,807 (29.164%)

This is the change compared to my last post:

Bitcoin: +2.046%
Bitcoin forks: -0.042%
Stablecoins: -0.523%
Altcoins: -1.481%

There is no guarantee that the exchange rates are going to hit $30,000 within the next two weeks. In fact we don't know whether the current level can be maintained or not. During the last few days, Bitcoin went up by almost $4,000. Naturally when an asset goes up by this much, profit booking may occur. But in case of Bitcoin, we haven't seen any profit booking till now. It may occur in the next week or by early January.

It was somewhat decent performance, given that the pitch gave a lot of support for the pace bowlers. But then, some of the Indian batsmen got out to useless shots. And the run-out of Virat Kohli was entirely unnecessary. Anyway, now it is up to the Indian bowlers. All the three pace bowlers are in good form, and key Australian players such as Warner are not playing in this match. IMO, it is still 50/50.

$750 million is a huge amount, and it amounts for more than one month's supply of fresh coins. And remember that this is the investment just from one fund. There is continued demand from other sources such as PayPal and Square. Any additional supply, if that ever existed must have evaporated by now. The prices will go up, until a level is reached where these funds will do their profit booking.

When Jagmohan Dalmiya was the ICC president, he took a number of steps to help associate nations. His efforts were very successful, as teams such as Kenya, Ireland and Afghanistan made a lot of progress and came close to becoming full member nations. But then he was ousted and the combination of Sharad Pawar/N Srinivasan took charge (as the ICC and BCCI presidents respectively). Their term pushed cricket back by at least two decades. All the progress that was achieved during the Dalmiya era was destroyed. Not just the associate nations, but even some of the test playing nations such as Zimbabwe sank without any trace.

And it was during this period that a new law was introduced, which enabled teams such as UAE and Oman to field teams entirely (100%) comprised of foreigners. As a result teams that had native players (such as Kenya, Netherlands, PNG, Namibia.etc) became unable to compete and in turn lost their ICC funding. Some of the teams such as the Netherlands managed to survive, as they had other avenues for funds. But teams such as Kenya got destroyed completely. As long as this law is not repealed, I don't think that cricket can be spread outside the big-3.

Now the ICC claims that cricket is being played in 100 plus nations. But in most of these nations, you can't find a single native player in the playing XI. Most of the teams are entirely made of Indians and Pakistanis.

Anyone purchasing cryptocurrency at this level is taking a huge risk. Remember what happened to those who did the same in 2017. Those who made their investment in 2017 December had to wait for almost three years to get in to positive returns. The same can happen this time as well. The indications are positive, but there is no guarantee with any investment in cryptocurrency. The prices can crash, when you least expect it. 

Still I am not sure whether 25K can be achieved within the next two weeks or not. The prices may hit 25K level, but it will be difficult to maintain it. Ever since the prices started increasing from $10,000 per coin level as a result of PayPal adoption, we never had a major correction. There were some minor correction, but none of them lasted for more than a week. Profit booking can happen at sometime in the next few days, and this can trigger another set of price dips.

Kohli's decision to bat first proving to be another blunder. The pitch is offering a lot of support for the bowlers and if India had opted to field first, then Bumrah, Shami and Yadav would have had Australian batsmen in trouble. Also, let's not forget the fact that David Warner is not playing in this match. Cheteshwar Pujara is still out there, but he is not looking comfortable against the pacers.