You can say whatever you want about the US Dollar. But the truth is that it is the strongest fiat currency out there. It is the reserve currency of the world and the main currency for international trade. You can argue that Swiss Franc or the Japanese Yen have lower inflation compared to the USD, but even then none of these currencies can replace the USD. And talking about Chinese, their currency (CNY) is a joke. It is the most manipulated currency in the world.

The media played a very negative role this time with the COVID 19 pandemic. Coronavirus is highly contagious, but that doesn't mean that it is as dangerous as Anthrax, bubonic plague or Ebola. The fatality rate is very low. However, the media painted it as something very dangerous and untreatable. As a result there were even incidents when those who tested positive for the virus attempted suicide. People must be educated about this virus.

Kieron Pollard had 15 consecutive wins as the captain, and he may have to deal with a loss today. Pathetic bowling by the Mumbai Indians. After setting up such a good score in Abu Dhabi, they are unable to defend it. RR just need another 52 runs from 6 overs. Almost all the Mumbai bowlers have gone for more than 10 runs per over. Bumrah is having two overs remaining. Only he can do any miracle for MI.

PayPal is making Bitcoins available only for those users who has undergone the KYC process previously. Obviously there is always a chance that your account will get locked up. But that is one of the risks which will always be there if you want to use PayPal. If you ask me, I would say PayPal is good if we want to attract new users. A lot of these users may shift to other exchanges such as KuCoin and Binance later.

Luckily for the Rajasthan Royals, it looks as if Ben Stokes has regained his form. He has scored 30 from 16 so far. Unfortunately Steve Smith has failed once again. Now it is up to Stokes, Sanju Samson and Jos Buttler. If these three fail, then it won't be practical to expect Rahul Tewatia to rescue them this time as well. The required run rate is more than 10 runs per over, and scoring at that rate in Abu Dhabi is going to be a tough challenge.

Earlier Russia used to support Armenia and Turkey used to support Azerbaijan. This made sure that the status quo is maintained. But now the situation has changed. Russia has entered in to a lot of economic deals with Turkey and they are ready to sacrifice Armenia in return for $$$ from Turkey. On top of that, we have Donald Trump as the president in the United States and he is not much interested in listening to the pro-Democrat Armenian Americans.

Sri Lankan cricketers have been out of action for so long, with only Isuru Udana having match experience from the IPL. However, they have the Lankan Premier League 2020 scheduled to start from next month. There is still a lot of uncertainty about the schedule, but I hope it will go ahead as planned. The last time they did something similar was in 2012 (Sri Lanka Premier League). But it was a disaster.

If the United States Dollar is getting devalued, then the exchange rates of other commodities should increase. As far as I can see, the prices of crude oil and gold have remained stable. Bitcoin prices are going up as a result of PayPal allowing the purchase and storage of cryptocurrency in its platform. It has nothing to do with the value or purchasing power of US Dollar.

Well.. this is one of the best responses I could find in this thread. There has been a lot of criticism directed towards PayPal, and I have to say that much of it is unwarranted. I have been at the receiving end of account freezing by PayPal many years back. After that I never used PayPal. But that said, I can't ignore the fact that hundreds of millions of users around the world are using PayPal right now. Making cryptocurrency available to all these people is a big boost to the adoption. I would still keep my coins in my paper wallet and doesn't plan to reopen an account with PayPal. But there may be a lot of people, who will find the acceptance of BTC by PayPal very useful.

This edition of the IPL is getting more and more unpredictable. CSK performed in such a pathetic manner till now, and now they are going to win against RCB in such a convincing manner. RCB's hero of the last match (Mohammed Siraj) was thrashed around the park, while relatively unknown Ruturaj Gaikwad has scored a half-century for the CSK.

Do you remember what happened in 2017? Back then also the exchange rates moved in a similar pattern. It will be clear if you check the coinmarketcap charts from October 2017 to December 2017. There was a gradual increase from $4,290 during the first week of October to $19,750 in the third week of December. There were temporary spikes and dips. And you can see that it is not a straight line.

I am a regular visitor to India and I have family connections there.

India treats its Muslim minority better than any of the 50 plus Muslim nations treat their non-Muslim minorities. Muslim population in India has increased from 9% in 1951 to 15% in 2011. Almost all the religion-based violence in India has been directed towards Hindus, either by Muslims (Kashmir, Bengal) or by Christians (Mizoram, Nagaland.etc). There are regions in India, where Hindus have been completely exterminated, such as Kashmir, Mewat and Mizoram.

Despite all this, Muslims play an important role in Indian politics and bureaucracy. Muslims have been at the top-most posts in India, including that of the president and the CJI.

Now let's compare the condition of Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, the Hindu population has gone down from 28% to 8% in two generations. Hardly any Hindus remain in Pakistan. Cities such as Karachi and Lahore, which had Hindu majorities in 1947, no longer have any significant Hindu population.

It would be very helpful, if someone from Bangladesh could answer my questions:

1. Is USDT vs cryptocurrency trading banned in Bangladesh, or is it just the fiat vs crypto trading?
2. A few years back, I heard that a few cryptocurrency traders were arrested in Bangladesh. What happened to them? Were they released immediately, or were they sentenced to jail or made to pay financial penalties?

I myself hate PayPal and don't have an account with them now. That doesn't mean that PayPal's acceptance of Bitcoin is a bad thing, and we should petition them to revoke it. No one is forcing you to use PayPal. We have far better options available and people like me haven't used PayPal for many years now. But there exists a large group of people, for whom purchasing and storing Bitcoins is easier if it is done through the PayPal platform. Obviously if you opt for them, then you need to compromise with privacy and other aspects. But then once again, no one is forcing you. If you want to use PayPal, then you can.

It was a tough season for them. The absence of Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh destroyed the team balance and they didn't had experienced replacements for these players. The performance of Sam Curran was the sole positive CSK could take away from this edition of the IPL. The management needs to have a rethink on their policy, on maintaining a squad that is mostly in the 35-40 age group.

10-15 runs could have made the difference. 160 is a par score in Dubai and 170 could have given them the advantage. They were 110 after 15 overs and in normal circumstances they could have made another 60 runs in the next 5 overs. But then Smith could not score runs as fast as he could have liked, and Buttler was a complete failure in this match. I still believe they could have sent in Parag or Tewatia after Stokes got out.

This is just the spike that we badly needed for the last 3 years. Paypal allowing its users to purchase and store Bitcoin in its platform is huge. PayPal is one of the largest payment processors right now and their acceptance means a lot for Bitcoin. I would rather say that this is the biggest trigger received so far in the adoption of Bitcoin, ever since the first coins were mined in 2009.

I had bad experiences with PayPal in the past, and I am not using their services for the past few years. But still I would say that this is a very encouraging piece of news. Although I hate PayPal, there is no doubt that Bitcoin's acceptability and adoption will get a big boost. The biggest challenge facing elderly and other inexperienced users is in storing their coins. You can store Bitcoins in an online wallet, but adequate precautions need to be taken. Now PayPal eliminates this hassle for the less experienced users, by allowing purchase and storage of Bitcoins on its platform.

PayPal regularly suspends user accounts for silly reasons. When they are doing this for fiat accounts, you can just imagine what will happen if we add Bitcoins to our PayPal account. In case someone still intends to store Bitcoins in his PayPal account, then he should be ready to give details of all his Bitcoin transactions since 2009 (even after that there is a chance that they'll suspend your account). For noobs who want to purchase $10 or $20 worth of BTC for fun, this is going to be a great option. But not for the experienced cryptocurrency users.

As of 22nd October 2020:

Total market cap: $387,029,947,213 (+10.85%)

Bitcoin: $236,640,215,802 (61.143%)
Bitcoin forks: $8,239,336,509 (2.129%)
Stablecoins: $20,268,519,372 (4.983%)
Altcoins: $121,881,875,530 (31.745%)

This is the change compared to my last post:

Bitcoin: +3.393%
Bitcoin forks: -0.061%
Stablecoins: -0.391%
Altcoins: -2.940%