This sentence:
"Like kids on the playground, Venezuela and Russia think they are fighting a common bully in U.S. sanctions, so they’re going to try and form a united front"
tells you something about it. When the power on the other side of the coin is trying to ridicule you, it means you have probably hit the right spot.

Although unfortunately, the Governments do things like this only as an activity to fight for power and supremacy, this Petro thing is actually something that people in Venezuela can benefit from so I second that. I don't know the situation in Venezuela all that well, so somebody from Venezuela could give you a better analysis.

Finally, the obvious penalizing of those supporting Petro could mean, again, they have hit the right spot. However, I haven't really understood who is penalizing them - Russia, USA, Venezuela?

I wouldn't call that selfish. Egoistic, self-absorbed maybe, with a little bit of vanity inside it. But not selfish.

This is actually very interesting. I wonder if in my country the debtors could do the same, because when bank sits on their accounts they can actually take 2/3 or, in some cases, all of it leaving you with nothing.

The performance of ETH is tied to that of the Bitcoin. On the next surge, we can expect ETH to go more close to Bitcoin in market cap and then we will see what will happen next. Only if somewhere in the future The Flippening occurs, then the situation will become different.

A platform for trading the virtual goods is OK. I never saw much sense in all of that, but a lot of people obviously do.
What I do think would be far more interesting would be a platform for game developers. We need the new Unreal engine? No problem!

It would gain much traction, that is for sure. The rest depends on the quality of the project. In any case, it is not surprising that the big players want to join the wagon, and it would be a fantastic positive marketing for cryptos.

A normal thing. And good too. Scammers must be stopped and crypto has to be regulated. Only that will enhance the trust in the system and bring in institutional investors.

Coins with high supply are always interesting to me. They usually start with a very low value which shifts the decimal place far more easily than the coins with low supply.
None of them made me reach yet, and I don't think they will, but I actually do expect more profit from them.
It all depends on the project too. Universa seems OK.

You can't lose what you didn't have in the first place. It is only the opportunistic loose. It is like with the lottery. If my usual numbers have been drawn, did I lose the jackpot if I hadn't paid for the ticket?
I never track the results when I am not playing. That is the only possible solution. Sometimes you see them by chance, but I don't stress out about it. There is no point.

I think the best solution is to sell around 30% of them at the spike and hence keep the profit. Rest is kept for hodlng, as, if the coin is good, we can expect it to end at a much higher level then it is at the moment... You can choose to buy at the dip, but always try to keep at least a few percents of the profit aside.

Maybe you shouldn't refrain from spending if it makes you happy.
But if it actually doesn't, then try to make a rough list of what you have to buy next month, each month, and also reserve a space for "extra spendings" with only the absolute amount of money you can spend on those indicated.
Now try to stick with the plan. Regulate it in such way that if you breach the budget in one place, try to keep it "under the line" in another. The balance should more or less stay the same.

In the end - we usually spend as much money as we have... it is intrinsic to human behavior.

Yes OP, you described how the banking multiplication works.
The only problem with Bitcoin is that it is not fully decentralized. It cannot be while the minority of the users hold the majority of the shares and can influence it easily.

To the OP - welcome to the world mate 

Don't be a newspaper journalist. Don't invent sensationalist titles.
99% being scam would mean that only 1 in 100 ICO's is legit, and that is simply not the truth.
There are many scams, even more, projects that are not so serious, but there are many legit ones out there.
Try using services that track them and value them, you have them all over the internet, both for airdrops and for ICOs.

If you already hold some NEO's, don' worry about them, just hold them and forget them for the time being. If you don't, you missed a perfect chance to buy them one month ago. Now is a bit tricky, you would have to wait for the right moment, although I believe it won't go much lower then it is today anymore.

In any case, you can also start collecting airdrops on this platform, there is more and more each month, and unlike with Ethereum it is still not flooded with "airy" projects.

The answer is very simple really. Because of the possible Flippening.

Something like LN on its own blockchain? Could work. Let's see.

Security, security, and again - security. We need a better security ASAP, all other technical obstacles will be solved in time.

All major players are speculating about creating their own cryptocurrency or joining in some other way. I think it speaks for itself against the arguments of all those criticizing cryptocurrencies as a passable thing.

I don't know. In my country, they tax the income from those transactions.