Coinbase is looking to support two Bitcoin core developers with fund grants to support their projects;

I'm not a huge fan of centralized exchanges and Coinbase has been involved in some shady situations over the past years, but this is a good move and could increase interest in development, although I doubt Bitcoin devs are short of inspiration to work with.
Asides the selected projects getting fund grants, this could also be a good way to increase publicity for projects aimed at improving the network.

The grants covers some niche areas;
Source
However, in the Google form for applications, there is a space for More, so if a project doesn't fit the above descriptions it could still be submitted with details and has a chance of getting accepted.

Is there any other aspect of project development you would like to see on the list?
Are there devs you have in mind to nominate? Here is the Google form - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSetlLv4Il7GiX0gwzWPk1-j-8jXQPKBn-MZXZ-ThtjHcxS3Lg/viewform

Constructive criticism is not always 'nice', a user can call the reply of another member a shit post for example, it sounds rude and upsetting, but it can be applied in certain situations and still be constructive based on the post being referenced. I personally prefer to reply as nicely as possible (although sometimes it's not always the case), but one cannot expect civility on the internet and should be prepared for negative comments, newbies would need to develop a tougher skin if they're going to join discussions on a public platform.
Gravitate towards posts and users who encourage you and filter through crude replies to pick out advise which could be useful.

I also know how much encouragement can go in making a newbie better, when I was still in that rank, I cherished virtual thump ups from other members, DdmrDdmr was one of the first members to merit me here and also to commend on the little progress I was making then, this spurred me on to try and contribute better and view the forum as a community which I was a part of.

Do you mean Huawei is the only Chinese company in top 100 global ranking and it sits at the 96th spot? If yes, then you should drop a source. Browsing through various websites which uses different metrics to rank companies, they all had Chinese firms in their lists occupying high positions;
Check • https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue
• Forbes Global 2000

There is an obvious currency war going on between the top ranked fiats, and with China leading the charge into digital block chain currency (CBDCs) this would give them an edge (in the digital curve) over other nations yet to embrace digital assets, I however do not think it would make the Yuan the global reserve currency.
The system of government in China makes it unfavourable for businesses and with such a heavily controlled financial market, firms would be less willing to hold their funds in a blockchain Yuan, which would function exactly as the traditional fiat.

Such a stimulus bill would be useful for businesses and individuals as it help to keep them afloat, but is a band aid solution which does not tackle the recurring problem.
Lockdown due to the virus has weakened the economy adversely, leading to decrease in production and loss of jobs, pumping trillions of dollars into the economy would stimulate spending, but would not improve production or increase employment except the Corona virus issue is tackled directly through a vaccine or herd immunity. Brookings institute is proposing a V-shaped recovery pattern as a result of cash injections, which I do not think is possible, especially with recurring waves of the pandemic spread.

It also begs the question of, where this funds are coming from. Most of this loans would be defaulted or forfeited by the banks, putting more strain on the money flow and further tipping the economy towards inflation. So even if there is an instant rebound in the economy, it would likely be a W-shaped pattern as the effects of excessive government interference in the market begins to reflect later on.

It's not really much of a debate. Grayscale has cryptocurrencies under its AUM ~ Assets Under Management, this refers to the sum of an asset which a company manages on behalf of her clients, so Grayscale is sort of like a channel through which investors access cryptocurrencies.

Assets in holding would refer to total assets which the company invested in, using company's funds and this would be reflected in their balance sheets. So microstrategy is risking about $425 million in Bitcoin, while Grayscale is not really risking anything, so we can not classify those assets in their AUM as holdings of the company.

This is a very 'out of the box' idea, a lot of investors gets influenced by social media hype, so having a tool which effectively tracks engagements on social platforms would be very useful. I also think it would be beneficial to track the buzz a project generates on different platforms, this would include discussions about that project using specific key words peculiar to it.

While browsing through, there seems to be a bug in the search feature, I'm currently using mobile and when I enter a keyword, the related project flashes below the search bar and dissapears, clicking on next on the keyboard or on the search icon does not do anything.

Isn't this information visible by looking at the origin of the graph on the chart, since it starts from the day the website was first tracked and not from zero? It could however still be useful for reference.

Volatility in Bitcoin, along with scalability issues limits its utility as a payment option. This does not however mean that Bitcoin can not be used for transactions, there are payment channels as well as BIPs aimed at improving how transactions work on the network, there are also outlets which already accepts Bitcoin as a payment option, so it is not only for investors or investing.

Bitcoin has various utilities, all of which interacts with each other. It can be used as a speculative asset, as well as a peer to peer payment currency, and the more speculative value it gains, the less people would be willing to use it in transactions. For example Bitcoin has been gaining bullish traction over the months since the halving and before that, with a lot of people expecting a bull run in the coming months, this anticipation reduces its use in daily transaction, as holders would rather hoard them for use at a later time.

I believe the evolution of Bitcoin would start of (as it has) as a speculative asset and a means of attaining financial freedom, it would then adapt to become more of a hedge fund and gain adoption as a daily medium of exchange.

This is a good point and no one has monopoly to a name, but unethical practices, like dubiously looking to make your name and account look like that of another as well as sending messages which imply such impersonation can create a very strong case to get a user restricted.

I have also been waiting for a reply to my message for about 24 hours now, could have been that the account is currently inactive, but the message was delivered already, so maybe not.
You could try the second option, emailing them with all relevant details. Refer to my previous reply for some of the requirements you would need to make a comprehensive complaint.

This is the best safety practice regardless of where the communication was initiated, unfortunately many new members are not aware of how to sign a message, and also to verify one.

The first question has been answered already, and I agree with the other suggestions, legally it is possible to seize assets owned by a company, in such cases the company directors cannot hide behind plausible deniability, but can deny being in control of the bitcoins at that point, although this would need a lot of covering up as I guess the cold storage address would be recorded in their books even though they're not public.

On the second question, it would depend on the adoption of Bitcoin and the countries those companies are registered in. Although, the decentralized nature of Bitcoin gives such companies a lot of wiggle room.

I assume a lot of foreign observers would be wondering why protests are still going even though the IGP as well as the president have expressed interest at dissolving the agency, besides what the OP said about there being numerous such announcements in the past with no real action taken, the protest is not only about ending SARS, although that's the hashtag being trended. Nigerians are demanding the government;

• Release all detained protesters, unconditionally. The police assault protesters on ground and sometimes on camera, so we can only imagine what goes on behind a cell confinement,
• Justice for protesters who have been victims of police brutality and lost their lives in the process as well as compensation for their families. A lot of oil e brutality cases have been swept under the carpets over the years and in some cases, officers involved gets promoted,
• Complete Reformation of the police system which would include efficient training and evaluation of the officers charged with protecting the citizens as well as a body to check their excesses.
• We also want a raise in salaries of the police officers to create an enabling environment which would enable them better discharge their duties.
You can find the infographic of this demands using #5for5 on social media

Well, you can;
• Bookmark those replies you wish to merit and revisit them at a later time when you have more smerits,
• You can also use this thread - [self-moderated] Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source and a source or other members could find them.

While your motive seems good and I have come across replies of members asking others to consider a post for merits, I think starting a separate thread for it is not really necessary and could pass the wrong idea to newbies who regularly visit this board, leading to a possible abuse where users start a thread, replies with alt accounts and requests they be considered for merits.

This is a quote from your thread on gambling discussion, and in my opinion, using merits as an incentive to promote engagements on a thread is not the best use of the system. As I said earlier, your motive could have been good, but not just executed as well.

Bitcoin can serve as an alternative to fiat, not necessarily cause it can serve as a medium of payment, but due to the unique qualities it has which makes it attractive to holders as an escape from the current system;
• Bitcoin is fully decentralized and gives holders financial freedom,
• Bitcoin uses PoW algorithm to create a very secure network,
• Bitcoin has a fixed supply.
Same cannot be said about Ethereum.

Ethereum may have lots of hype projects run on its chain, like DeFi, ICOs and stable coins, most of which does not really serve a long term utility and is also used by scammers to create fake projects for investors to buy into the hype. Bitcoin has more utility as a financial asset, reason why we have public companies buying more into Bitcoin than altcoins.

Grayscale investments announced recently that their Ethereum Trust is now officially a SEC reporting company. It is only their second trust fund to be classified as such after that of Bitcoin. As a trust fund Grayscale is mostly linked with Bitcoin as it tops on the list of their AUM~Assets under management, it however still holds a number of other digital currencies, such as Ethereum which is their second highest ranking asset in their AUM

Key highlights;

This means investors would not have to wait for 1 year to liquidate their assets, as the lockup period has been reduced to 6 months.
Note: This would only go into effect 90 days into the trust being classified as a reporting company.

The end note;
Source - https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/10/12/2106846/0/en/Grayscale-Ethereum-Trust-Becomes-SEC-Reporting-Company.html

What do you think of this move, and how would it benefit investors and increase the exposure of Ethereum to institutional funds?

Technically, we already had Bitcoin going low, the correction happened almost immediately after the all time high. What we have now is the steady building phase as the market value rises slowly and builds momentum for a spike.

Make bitcoin act more like the USD? That's not a solution, that is the problem Bitcoin is trying to solve. Legal tenders are highly regulated markets which are prone to devaluation resulting from economic crisis and bad policies, Bitcoin is a decentralized one which is highly resistant to inflation.

A long term investor does not really bother about intermittent changes in value, especially when they devised an investment strategy. Some people get stuck because they FOMO in due to hype as the value approaches a crest, and usually would lose out when the market corrects.
An investor who bought at $5k (the bottom), watched the market rise to $15k and decided to take some profit would not mind the value dropping back to $5k, so they can repeat.

Bitcoin and gold are very different assets, gold has been discovered for centuries while Bitcoin is barely a decade old. Investors are trying to capitalize on the speculative value of bitocin now, I doubt it would be as volatile in years to come.

The pandemic has lasted for a number of months now and has already greatly influenced the financial markets, so in a way we have seen how the market reacts to economic changes based on reactions of investors. The situation can change overtime due to newer events and factors, such as cancellation of new stimulus checks, loss of jobs, increase in fiat inflation, etc, and all these gets prices in by investors and traders leading to a regular change in the charts. The market rarely remains static overtime and investors always have to anticipate changes.

To answer your topic title, Pandemic: good for the bitcoin market or bad?
I would say, it is a little bit of both. The pandemic has led to the shrinking of economies globally and lowering the money in circulation meaning people have less money for investments. It has however also shown how Bitcoin is resistant to inflation and could serve as a sort of hedge especially in nations where their legal tender has taken a huge but due to economic crisi, hence driving them to Bitcoin.

The stock market comprises a lot of firms and companies which I do not follow closely, but I assume you should analyse them individually rather than a a a broad market as they react differently to changes, similar to how you identified Bitcoin out of the entire crypto market.

I assume that people who did not get into Bitcoin even though they heard about it early would have not held on long enough to realize the gains they regret missing out on.
I often hear people discuss the rise from about $1 to $20k, very few however discuss the time frame and fewer would be able to hold onto their bitcoins now for 5-7 years even though there is a chart history of price appreciation, much less then when the network was still at infancy.
Reason why a lot of very early adopters sold at a loss, buying back during FOMO and selling at a loss again, so while it made a lot of people rich, it rekt some others.

On the issue of what attracts investors more between value and utility;
Bitcoin is a paradigm shift in the financial system and would definitely take time to go mainstream and for regular users to catch on fully. I personally do not mind if users are primarily attracted by price speculation or product utility, they are both integral aspects of the network and are not mutually exclusive. It's almost impossible to have one without a bit of the other.

While a lot of newbies register on here with wrong intentions and idea of what the purpose of the forum is, I still believe we can make the forum a bit more receptive to new members.
Accessing bitcointalk for the first time would put a lot of people off, as it is very different from many other social websites, a new member would have to lurk on the forum for days or weeks to be able to make sense of what's being discussed here along with the do's and dont's. A newbie welcome message, which has been discussed extensively would go a long way in pointing new members to the right direction, without them having to go through so many pages of stickie threads with repetitive information.

Understandably most of the spam on the forum comes from newbies as they make up the bulk of the forum members and are just trying to understand how it works so the learning curve would be a little flat;
• Some are fast learners and get a hang of things pretty quickly,
• Some others are much slower and would try a few approaches before getting that Eureka moment, we have a couple of members start of as ICO shills but are now assets to the forum,
• While some are simply here to spam and view the forum as a means of making money.

The first class would prove to be beneficial members, the second would do well with guidance and perhaps encouragement (this is likely the sub set which makes all the 'how to get merit threads', as they think that is what other members want to read), while the last set is the reason the merit system was created, so as to prevent them from ranking up and actually profiting from the forum while clogging it up with spam.

I would say; Yes, it is safe enough to use.
The Android version works a bit differently, on it you can only use a 6-digit PIN to secure your keys and sign transactions (*only applies to versions before v4). But if one maintains high level of security consciousness by filtering the apps they download, the permissions they allow those apps to access on their device and the networks they connect to, then, your wallet files should be secure.
There is however the risk of carrying your device around making it inconvenient for cold storage.

Thanks for the info. I last accessed it on version 3.3.8, great security update.
I couldn't get the accurate character limit for the password, but seems to be a very high number.

Someone who is new to the forum would naturally not need to use the PM option as regularly because, they are just learning how to navigate the forum. The PM restriction comes from the standpoint that newbies are new to the forum and would need sometime to adjust, if they are not new to the forum, then they should have a higher ranked alt account they can use for PMs. Anyone who is sending unsolicited PMs is likely spamming or trying to scam.
Cases like yours is an outlier and does not reflect a failure of the system, it's sort of a necessary evil to protect other members from spam PMs.

Buying a copper membership gets your account automatically whitelisted and reduces the PM restriction to an extent, refer to this thread - New PM Limits

[A bit off topic]
Just for clarity, Trust feedback is a bit different from trust list.
• Feedbacks act as trust ratings and are used to score a user's general behavior;
I highlighted one word there to show it can be used for a variety of reasons, such as someone being ahead of schedule during a trade, this does not explicitly indicate trustworthiness, but points to positive behavior which a potential trader may want to consider. Il
I have also seen feedbacks left for events that does not directly affect trades, which I consider to be wrong use of the system.

• Trust ratings are used to indicate that a user explicitly trusts the judgement of another user, a Vote of Confidence. Sort of like saying; 'I second whatever ratings this guy gives on the forum'

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[back to topic]
I have mostly received and left ratings from users I have engaged in some sort of trade with, although sometimes I have left feedbacks based on trustworthy behavior which a user displays.