Running a VPN and portforwarding your router does nothing, traffic is routed through your VPN and not your router. Go to canyouseeme.org and check if your port 8333 is reachable from the outside. Are you running Bitcoin Core with listen=0?

Bitcoin's price trend is not really affected by the expansionary policy that the central banks are adopting. The Bitcoin's price doesn't exactly track the inflation of fiat or the deflation of itself, even though that might still conform to the general trend. The general public isn't really concerned about that, or if fiat is becoming less valuable. It might be worth it to mention that printing money or adopting these policies isn't necessarily bad. From an economist POV, they are necessary to simulate the economy, especially now that we're coming out of a pandemic.

You should re-launch Bitcoin Core. Bitcoin Core should automatically search for and continue synchronization at the previously selected data directory, if it was specified at start-up. If not, then you can point your Core back at the data directory again as well. If it isn't corrupted, then Core will continue to synchronize, otherwise it will prompt you to restart the synchronization.

For all intents and purposes, Pi will synchronize just fine. Just note that while the processor is relatively decent, it is built with passive cooling in mind and the TDP isn't a lot. It won't provide for a blazing fast synchronization but should definitely be better than using something that isn't technically designed to be powered-on 24/7.

I'm not sure whether the dbcache allocation is dynamic or fixed, but IIRC it is fixed. Your Core wouldn't use more than that for synchronization no matter how much ram you have. I could be wrong though. I've found that HDD vs SSD still makes quite a huge difference in synchronization; with similar parameters, the SSD took 5 hours to synchronize while the HDD took more than a day.

It's fine to stay on older versions but I make it a point to be as updated as possible. There are miscellaneous fixes included in every release, and more prominent changes in some of them.

The problem with downloading and verifying from the same site is that you run in the risk of having the website being compromised. Bitcoin.org was just compromised recently, for a short while and more damages could've been done. Digital signing on Windows has been bypassed with signed certificate in the past, for certain phishing campaigns and it is no doubt possible to do so. It is probably the best practice to take sometime to learn how to do so with PGP, and import the appropriate keys after proper verification.

It is not really beyond anyone's capability, it does take a bit more time for the peace of mind.

Money laundering exists with all currencies, not just Bitcoin, not just fiat but anything that is valuable. Problem with Bitcoin is that it is disproportionately easier and cheaper to launder them than fiat which requires several shell companies and different jurisdiction. This makes it suitable for people who are looking for tax evasion or cover up their tracks without having to spend too much, but again privacy coins might be better.

Problem with the scheme is that Bitcoin's market cap is nowhere near enough for it to be conducive. It is far better for money to be laundered through fiat than Bitcoin, at least for the time being. Especially since it is harder to convert it back into fiat as well.

This is not correct. Taproot does not replace ECDSA but it creates a new address type which utilizes Schnorr signatures. The privacy benefit comes from signature aggregation, where there is an aggregated public key and signature for a set of them in the case of Multisig and not all of the recipients have to be revealed.

IIRC, Taproot TXes are bigger than P2PWKH if you're not looking to use it with key aggregation.

It is trivial for any governments to have blanket radio jammers above certain areas. If the government were to be banning the internet, of all things, then I would expect them to also restrict any radio transmissions as well. The benefit of Bitcoin is that the internet is a common tool used world wide. Having to install radios to just use Bitcoin exposes the user, in the sense that it is obvious that they're using Bitcoin, triangulation would be easy as well. If it comes a day that the internet were to be shut down, it is possible for Bitcoin to be shifted to another medium but at that point, it just becomes a cat and mouse game.

It would be synonymous with a completely separate token rather than using Bitcoin. I would either go with precious metal at that point in time, or a physical Bitcoin but even the legitimacy of that is disputable. Transaction finality cannot be guaranteed by any organization, and the trust lies on the company making them which is a central point of failure. The problem with timelock is that there isn't a commitment involved, unless the recipient spends the coin to another address that they control. Trusting someone on signed and unbroadcasted transaction is not safe, and arguably even worse than accepting zero-conf transactions.

If there is no connectivity available then I supposed there is no way to verify the value inside as well? So it'll be my words against yours. Unless I'm missing something?

You can't really divide OpenDimes into smaller denomination other than the amount that you've initially put in. You'll be spending another $20 for a single OpenDime just to transact and be stuck with it. You can only redeem it and use it once.

Anyways, I'm assuming that it is done completely offline. If there is an internet connection, then it makes more sense (and also cheaper) to just settle it on-chain.

Clean energy is out of the equation. Miners will always choose a location which gives them the cheapest operating costs, which might be a place that relies primarily on fossil fuel or renewable energy, depending on which is cheaper. It has nothing to do with miners being forced out of China, because there is always another place that is reliant on fossil fuel and is also competitively priced with China. Bitcoin's environmental degradation situation has nothing to do with them moving out of China. Perhaps there might be minute changes but it is likely that the amount of carbon footprint is still too high.

Bitcoin exists on the internet, or rather on the computers which are connected to the same internet. For Bitcoin to function, then the network has to be interconnected through a medium, which can be in many forms; mesh network, the internet, etc. It is possible for you to trade using physical private keys or signed transactions, but it is only yours when you send the funds to your own wallet.

You cannot completely block Bitcoin without shutting down the internet, because you can encrypt and obfuscate the traffic.

It is certainly not green if you're in a country with some dependency on fossil fuels. There is a net gain in carbon footprint, especially if you are incurring opportunity costs by allocating more renewable energy to Bitcoin mining, which means there would be an increase dependence on fossil fuel. Renewable energy facilities are more expensive to build, and claiming that it is cheaper usually comes with the premise that the general population are subsidizing it to a certain extent.
Mandating businesses to accept Bitcoin does nothing to improve their lives. The recognition of it as a legal tender doesn't do anything for the citizens, because their currency is denominated in USD which is far, far more stable than Bitcoin. The price of it doesn't drop by 10% in a matter of hours.
It doesn't. Legalizing Bitcoin doesn't solve the inherent issues that they're facing. North Korea can do the same, but the country will still be rife with poverty and corruption.
No. Corruption has no place in politics, neither is dictatorship. The fact that someone is able to game the system, by amending the constitution to give themselves more power or installing politicians who are known to be corrupted isn't a common place in politics. Accepting Bitcoin isn't the first step in the right direction, the right thing to do is to solve the domestic issues and not try to create more positive PR for his cause and consolidate even more power.

The fact that any politician in the world can declare that they're a 'dictator' is disgusting. It sets a precedent that should never happen in the society that we have today. Again, Bitcoin does nothing to change that. Accepting Bitcoin as a legal tender DID NOT help his country with their poverty or corruption.

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Point is, no matter how much you support Bitcoin, don't negate the larger issue at hand. It is nothing but a distraction from the larger issue at hand.

No such thing. Most renewable energy are in fact, not green. Most forms of renewable energy produces environmental impacts, either in the form of its byproducts or through ecosystem damage. If you're thinking geothermal energy is completely green, then I'm sorry that is not accurate. Moreover, they are still an importer of electricity.

It is a diversion. Legalizing Bitcoin does not necessarily mean that their community improves. In a similar vein, it would be worth to compare if North Korea would legalize Bitcoin. It does absolutely nothing to improve their standards of living. The country still lives in poverty, and their lives are not improved whatsoever. The president is not doing anything by legalizing Bitcoin, if anything, he wouldn't have consolidated the power and eliminated the rampant corruption in his government.

Last time I checked, most protests doesn't amount to anything in an authoritarian society. Who cares how expensive Bitcoin ATMs are. The country has one of the lowest standards of living, ffs. If the president isn't doing anything to help improve the situation, then they can protest all they want.

I can't remember which VPN I was using but one of the client that I've used didn't do a proper routing and my Core client was still listening on my local port. Might be a good idea to just listen=0 or check if Core is listening on the correct interface.

Anyways, VPN isn't for privacy. It merely obfuscates your traffic from your computer to your ISP, but gives the VPN provider everything that they'd need.

Basically you're saying using renewable energy to mine Bitcoin is a wonderful invention
Do you know the socio-political landscape there? Do you know what a dictatorship is? Why do people think that everything is well just because the country decides to recognize Bitcoin as a legal tender, it doesn't mean that the issues within the country disappears. No one else missed out on anything by not recognizing Bitcoin as a legal tender, people are free to use it to transact and it is certainly not at the capacity to support mass adoption either.
Perhaps you need to do some research about their economy first. Dismissing the protest this way, just because you're a Bitcoin supporter is quite disgusting. Having people saying something like this just means that his distraction worked.

A country is done for if a president openly calls themselves a dictator, nevermind the coolest.

That is correct, but having any identity is better than relying on addresses that can be generated on the fly with no links to anyone whatsoever. It provides a reasonable deterrence against fraud.
The double spend prediction can determine the ease of double spending, as those are the factors that determines if miners are likely to confirm the transaction or not. It doesn't provide an absolute prevention of double spends, as there are many other possible ways to execute one without triggering the heuristics. They are practically useless if the adversary is well-versed in the subject and have a reasonable amount of resources; for example as blockcypher cannot possibly predict the preference of miners, it doesn't provide an accurate depiction of the types of transactions that miners would prefer.

Another scenario I can imagine would be if the mempool surges suddenly, which has actually happened ever so often, certain transactions can get evicted and it makes double spending them quite trivial. Sure, it is something that we've relied on in the past but it doesn't really apply anymore. Casinos or merchants are less willing to suffer losses due to the occasional double spending, especially with something like LN in play. The problem with this is that, we have to assume that the transaction doesn't have opt-in RBF enabled, which isn't great for the user; their transaction can get stuck during bouts of high fees. I would rather users wait for a confirmation than having them to wait for days to get their transaction confirmed.

VPNs do not provide any security, and any VPN in general is not designed for privacy as well, even if Bitcoin Core has code provisions for it. I will not rely on Anti Viruses to determine if a computer is a safe. AntiViruses works on the basis of behavior analysis and heuristics. It may or may not detect any malware present in your machine.

Requiring a certain KYC level would probably be more ideal, if they are an exchange.
Addresses are not linked to identity and each address should ideally only be used once. Implementing a check on the addresses themselves wouldn't really be effective. Double spends are not recorded on the blockchain and many a times, they are a result of poor propagation, for which your nodes may or may not see the double spend at all.

Using the RBF flag as the only metric to determine if a transaction has the potential to be replaced can be quite misleading. Point is, it is not difficult to include a different transaction from the transaction that you're seeing into a block, even if the transaction is still in the mempool and pays a sufficiently high fee. It is even easier if the miner has a good proportion of the hashrate such that they can still profit from an attack like this (Ghash.io). An RBF flag only determines how well propagated a competing transaction would be, if it were to be propagated before that transaction gets confirmed. It is unsafe for people to be accepting zero-conf transactions, even moreso in a climate with volatile fees.

IIRC, there was an incident for which someone leveraged on different policies between the pools for specific transactions to have a higher chance to be confirmed than others. There is also instances where different transactions were included with different forks, but none of which were malicious AFAIK. There is also selfish mining, which doesn't require quite near half of the network hashrate. The whole point with one-conf transactions is that it isn't worth the effort (or likely) for someone to defraud you as long as the transaction has a single confirmation. Confirmations are merely how difficult or expensive for someone to reverse your transactions.

tl;dr: Transaction finality is only guaranteed with confirmations. Any services that you've seen which accepts zero-conf transactions are likely to have done certain risk-reward analysis beforehand for them to implement it.