The bans no longer work. The world has become smaller and more interconnected, thanks to internet. If gambling is banned in a certain country, then the user can just use a VPN and join a gambling site which is based in some country where it is completely legal. Or they can just travel to those countries and visit the casinos themselves.

Labuschagne was in good form and he helped the Australians to reach respectable totals in both the innings. On the other hand, the English batsmen were a bit overconfident and got out to rash shots. Teams have chased 350+ before and today is only the third day. So in theory, England still has a chance of winning the test and leveling the series.

I am from India and I can explain what is happening here. The users are quite frustrated with the hostile stance from the government and they have approached the court. The judges on the other hand, looks very reluctant to issue any directive. They have asked the government to come up with a comprehensive policy on cryptocurrencies. The government is sleeping on it for more than a year.

Even for 3rd generation cryptocurrencies, the basic concepts are the same as that of Bitcoin, such as having a controlled supply system, transactions stored in Blockchain, generating new coins through mining (either PoW or PoS).etc. Unless we get a drastically different coin that can challenge the supremacy of Bitcoin, don't even think that BTC will be overtaken or surpassed.

I would never invest in any such projects (even if I get the 40% discount). If the project is worth investing in, then the promoters will never be this desperate. Giving 40% discount means that the promoters are not sure whether the ICO price is fair or not and they want to get at least some amount by any hook or crook. 5% or 10% is OK with me. But definitely not 40%.

Recently I heard another incident from China, where an individual was sentenced to a lengthy prison term, for stealing electricity so that he could mine Bitcoins. I have no sympathy for such people. They tarnish the reputation of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general and on top of that they destroy their future as well. Theft, in any form is a criminal offense.

It is a small market like Zimbabwe and West Indies. Don't expect the hundreds of millions that the boards like England and Australia would get from such deals. And SLPL is never going to succeed. There is no cricketing structure outside Colombo. And if they restrict SLPL to Colombo, then it will be just like club cricket and no international player will be interested. 

Hmmm... another batting collapse now. This time from Australia. They are now struggling at 52/3. If this is the sign of things to come, then I think the match will be over before tomorrow's lunch. Khawaja failed once more and now it is up to Travis Head and Labuschangne to build the innings. I don't expect the Australians to score more than 150. 

Hundreds of IEOs are ongoing right now, but they are not getting that much investment. ICOs of late 2017 gathered billions of USD worth of investment in a few months time. The amounts being directed to the IEOs is a far cry from those levels. There are good IEOs out there are they are still getting good attention from the investors, but a lot many of them are worthless.

The only thing that I don't like about Bitcointalk is that the bounty hunters are treated like beggars. I have seen bounty campaigns never paying their rewards, and the hunters having no option other than to forfeit their earnings and move on. I realized that there is no respect for a bounty hunter here. And this was the main reason why I stopped participating in those campaigns.

I am more worried about Tether rather than Bitfinex, as I never had an account with the latter. In general, the situation looks precarious for the cryptocurrency exchanges, with increasing government surveillance and an uptick in the hacker activity. Tether has grown too big and too rapidly and now even its inventors are unable to control it.

Satoshi Nakamoto designed Bitcoin as a digital asset which can be used for many purposes. Being a currency or a mode of payment is one of the purposes of Bitcoin. And it had made some headway as a currency during 2012-13, before the bull run occurred. After the first bull run, users started regarding it as more of an investment asset, or as a store of value.

For those who don't like the volatility of Bitcoin, there are dozens of stablecoins available to invest with. Volatility is an integral component of the Bitcoin ecosystem and it is not possible to eliminate it. Especially if removing volatility means having a stable exchange rate against a fiat currency such as the United States Dollar, which is not protected against inflation.

I am living in a small town, where hardly anyone is aware of cryptocurrency. But one encouraging thing I have noticed recently. Ever since the demonetization happened in 2016, a lot many of the roadside vendors have started accepting digital payment options such as PayTM and Mobikwik. Hopefully, at least some of them will experiment with cryptocurrency in the future.

If there happens to be some rich guy who is stupid, then he'll not remain rich for very long. Even in order to protect your wealth, you need a certain amount of intelligence. I can give you hundreds of example where stupid people became rich, either through inheritance or just because of their luck. But almost all of them became poor pretty soon. One example here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Whittaker_(lottery_winner)

LOL.. follow on? How that is possible? To force follow on, you need a lead of 200 plus. The latest update is that England have been bowled out of 67, with Hazlewood taking 5 wickets. Australia currently leads by 112 runs and they will be looking to build their lead to 300 plus. Complete humiliation for England in front of the home crowd.  

WTF just happened? I just reached home from office and I am seeing a scoreboard of 56/8 for the England innings. Just when I thought that England had this match under their complete control, something like this happens. Archer and Broad are batting... and Hazlewood seems to be on fire. Anyway I am glad. I had developed a deep aversion to England due to the dramatics during the final of the CWC 2019. Just want to say one thing: "Karma is a bitch".


I don't think that this is a silly reason. Indecent exposure is a criminal offense in India (Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code) and the perpetrator can be jailed for up to 3 months.

The US government can afford such high levels of debt, because there is a lot of demand for United States Treasury Bonds and the current interest rate is just 3% to 4% per year. So unlike the other countries, the Americans are able to take out huge loans, at very low interest. But is this going to continue for ever? The largest holder of US bonds is China. And they are planning to offload most of these bonds.

Back then we had around 2,000 cryptocurrencies. Now we have more than 10,000. So naturally the current Bitcoin dominance should be lower than the figure we had in 2017. The last time I checked Coinmarketcap, the dominance was around 69%. Taking in to account the new coins, a fair valuation should be somewhere in between 70% and 80%.

Accounts registered to this forum are being hacked every now and then. I have heard of 2-3 such incidents, with the first one occurring in 2011. So I won't trust if someone logs in with the Satoshi account and makes a post here. If Theymos personally confirms that the post was made by Satoshi, then it is OK. If not, I will just ignore the post.