64000 unconfirmed transactions in any given time, is not normal. The usual number of unconfirmed transaction is around 10k - 12k. However, sometimes we see a dip and sometimes we see an increase in numbers on unconfirmed transactions. But 64k is quite high. If you have initiated a transaction and still showing as unconfirmed, please try some free bitcoin transaction accelerator found via Google search. I don't know how much helpful will it be, but there's no harm in trying at least!

Yuval Noah Harari have spoken very sensibly here. He had mentioned 4 points on how the government will achieve mass surveillance. They are,

1. Under-the-skin surveillance:
Very much possible! I microchip installation can be made mandatory for all citizens of small countries which can be connected to the government server to track every single move of that citizen. But achieving such kind of technical things for mass, will require huge money and time for densely populated countries like India or China. Small and wealthy countries like Switzerland or Liechtenstein can afford such things.

2. About the photography:
CC camera and hidden camera everywhere! Countries have already started implementing such things on every street possible in a phased manned. It won't take long before majority of the areas are covered. But again, it's a very very very costly affair when it comes to implementing for mass.

3. The emergency pudding:
Linked with the first one. But it is a very interesting read. achievable at high cost!

4. The soap police:
It talks about forceful compliance of laws through the technical arrangements mentioned above. Again achievable! 

These things may sound like a distant dream right at this moment but with the technical achievements world is making everyday, it may not sound like a distant dream 5 years down the line. While we won't see anything immediately. But there is a possibility that we will see such things happening in near future.

But the entire article is a very interesting read, I must say!

Printing of free money will definitely not go well with US economy and it will also endanger the economy of many other countries dependent on US donations. While the purchasing power of USD will go down due to this reason, the global businesses will be hit, especially in production sector and import-export related sector. Because the main currency of these businesses is USD. So a global recession will be seen post this Covid-19 situation.

There are two way outs - either Gold or Bitcoin! I expect both of these assets to sky rocket soon after this current situation.

How come? How are you expecting blockchain companies will help in finding a solution global pandemic? Can you please explain?

Blockchain companies can only help in managing medical data and verifying the authenticity of the data. I am not sure how a medical solution can be find by blockchain companies!

Gold in existence - since ages
Bitcoin in existence - 11 years running

If you still want to compare gold with bitcoin, it's upto you! Gold has been used by the banks worldwide to keep as a cash equivalent for unforeseen times. Bitcoin is not yet adooted by banks for any such reasons.

Looking at the current situation, Gold stays way ahead than bitcoin or any other cryptos to be considered as a safe heaven. Hope you have got your answer.

First you need to understand why India had to do this. India is a densely populated country with 455 inhabitants per square kilometer. If Covid-19 starts spreading like Italy in India, it would kill millions of people in no time! India doesn't have the health care facilities like other first world countries so this is the best we can do at this moment, keep social distance to ensure the virus stays at bay!

Once the situation is controlled, government will have to declare stimulus packages to strengthen the economy. There are several areas that can be recovered from financial crisis through such stimulus packages.

Right now, we can just follow what government orders us to do. Save your life first. You will earn money later once everything normalizes.

I don't think that during this tough time, the bitcoin adoption has increased. Because in majority of the nations, you can't buy anything using bitcoin. You can only unlock its power after converting it to your local currency. So I see no reason why the adoption would increase. It would have increased if we had good options to use it to buy regular supplies. Otherwise, people will prefer cash and that's exactly what is happening! That's one of the many reasons why bitcoin's price is down!

Here we need to blames the hackers and scammers and not the network participants. We have witnessed similar type of bank heists as well but did that put the credibility of banks in shock? No! Then why bitcoin?

The current crash in market is not because of the Binance hack that happened way back in time. But also we can link it to the plus token as well as MtGox frauds. It is impossible for us to fathom what exactly has happened!

Obviously whales have played a big role in it. But we don't really know if these whales have a connection with these frauds or not. They have the ability to manipulate the market and they probably execute such things to make even more money. But we can't really do anything in this decentralized market, apart from riding the wave!

Canada government is doing great job on such issues. They have declared a great financial package to support the service class people as well as business class people. Read their entire plan below,

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2020/03/canadas-covid-19-economic-response-plan-support-for-canadians-and-businesses.html

But it's not same for many other countries. Especially in my country which is run by highly corrupt politicians and police force. Prices of regular commodities have gone up already and our government is doing nothing.

To reply to the subject of this thread - No! Under the current government run by a religious party, I don't see India is moving towards development. It is indeed going back in time under this current regressive government and it will continue for few more years till the time this current government stays in power. This government is more interested in building statues and temples, instead of building schools and hospitals.

The verdict of Supreme Court is definitely a plus. But did we see any positive movement from government after that - No. Official documentation has been released by Central Bank. No direction is given by the Finance Ministry so far. So I don't see much hope under this current government. 

to reach to mass, you have to include mass! There's no other way! And that's the main reason why bounty is needed, big time! However, like any other system, bounty model comes with its own flaws, but that is controllable! But the fund raising models are indeed being questioned. ICO is already dead because of the lack of its credibility and IEOs are slowly taking over. The transition will take some more time but eventually it would happen. The scammers will be filtered out from IEOs because they would require extensive government permissions to conduct such crowdfunding activities. But bounty would remain as it is.

But I really don't like the KYC requirement associated with the bounties. People who are willing to share their KYC details to the unknown group of people, they are still participating in these and will continue to do so! But there will always be place for promoters in this field in order to reach the masses.

The world is not just moving towards a health crisis but it is also moving towards a major financial crisis. The entire fiat market is resetting itself. If you look at any major stock market around the world, you will see only red everywhere. Cryptos should have provided a safe heaven during this time, but it also seems to follow the same trend more or less. So at this moment, nothing is really safe. Crypto can't really print on its own to support the crypto families during this testing times. Stay safe and stay at home! Our first priority is to save our own life. Money can come later!

Russia is a communist country which runs on dictatorship. Their situation is somewhat similar to China where everything is government controlled. So I personally wouldn't be surprised if Russia suddenly decides to impose ban on cryptos.

The current legal status of cryptos is very confusing in Russia where mining is considered as entrepreneurial activity but banks are not allowed to serve crypto related businesses. So the incoming blanket ban wouldn't worsen the situation further.

A short while ago? I was under impression that US placed sanctions on Iran in 2019. The article also cited the same old tweet. I don't think anything new has been added to that. Please check.

Iran is now taking a big step in order to save their economic position, it's a gamble too! Because no one know how it will work in this case. We have an example of Petro in front of us which didn't work as envisaged for Venezuela. Let's just hope that Iran get it right this time. Instead of creating a new national crypto, they must rely on the market listed cryptoa if they want to make something useful out of it. It will be interesting to see how things unfold here!

I am not sure about bitcoin fork, but if you create an ERC-20 token on ETH blockchain, it is possible to check total supply of the coin and the list of addresses holding those coins.
Read the below link,

https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/13776/how-do-you-track-total-supply-of-a-currency-smart-contract-on-the-ethereum-blo

In bitcoin blockchain, it is not possible right at this moment, but I believe some coder may be able to help you with this.

Let me compare these approaches to the real world examples.

Stack sats and chill - It's known as SIP in real world. A certain amount of money goes into buying bitcoin at a certain interval. You don't need to worry at the price level because with this approach, you will average out your buying price. Real world example - Mutual fund.

HODL - literally means Holding as you have said. Buy lump-sum whenever possible and hold it for a long time so that you can maximize the profit. Very similar to the time deposits of banks. Just the return is not guaranteed.

Hope this makes sense!

2% daily or 14% weekly return is reasonable and fair?? I really don't know that any such businesses exist which can offer such high return. So I would rather say, such kind of scams are happening not because of their interest rates, but because of the lack of awareness among the common mass. They probably don't know what ponzi scam is and just trust on the scammers. Also banking inclusion is a big problem in Nigeria due to which people easily fall for such scams. You need to remember, that any program which is not a bank, offering such kind of return is a scam!

Yes. That's true! I usually offer few seats in my car through a car pooling app while going to office everyday. For few days, I tried to strike a conversation with them regarding cryptocurrecnies. To my surprise, 90% of them are unaware of it. Remaining 10% have heard of bitcoin but they think it is banned in India. I had to mention to them that SC had lifted the ban but they had a very little interest on it. Remember, these people are the educated class of India and have a white collar job in some MNCs or big corporates. If this is the situation of awareness, then think what is the situation of the mass! More awareness is needed about cryptos!

Today I have finally accessed my account in Hive.blog. It seems like a carbon copy of my steemit account. As per the proposal, I should be receiving similar number of HIVE tokens as I have in steemit account. But I am not able to access my account as it is showing some XML error.

Can someone please help on how can I see my Hive token balance?

Well, it's a matter of speculation and no one is really sure what's gonna happen! However, with the current lockdown situation in many countries, I expect the activities around bitcoin and other major cryptos to increase. But not certainly sure what way it would go. But it seems like $5000 is a strong resistance point for bitcoin and it is highly unlikely to go below that point. But if by chance, it brakes the $5000 point, it may go way down till $3000 level.

But as I said, this just speculation and no one really knows what's gonna happen! Stay safe amigos!