It was good performance from the Indian bowlers, but still they allowed New Zealand to make 249, after restricting them to 162/6. Kyle Jamieson and Tim Southee managed to add valuable runs. And that may prove to be crucial in the outcome of this match. Fortunately for India, New Zealand is being captained by a very incompetent guy. Although Kane Williamson is one of the best test batsmen as of now, his captainship skills are pathetic. As usual, he persisted with bowlers such as Southee and de Grandhomme, who are ineffective against India.

The plunging cryptocurrency prices may pose a danger to various stablecoins. I know that in many cases the reserve funds were invested in BTC and other cryptocurrencies (although they are not supposed to do so). This was OK, when the crypto prices were going up. But now the prices have plunged below the $30K level, and this is going to create a few issues for the exchanges that mint stablecoins. The bearish market also means that more and more users will be converting their stablecoins to actual fiat.

Will be interesting to see whether India will be able to take the lead. Right now New Zealand trail by 52 runs, with 4 wickets remaining. Kane Williamson is still there, but the tail has started with Kyle Jamieson. Colin de Grandhomme was looking good, but just now he got out to Mohammed Shami. Ishant/Shami need to clean up the tail before there is a need to bring in Bumrah or Ashwin (or even Jadeja). I hope those who argued in favor of replacing Ishant with Siraj are silent now. Ishant has proved that he is the best, once again.

Today the world has become more money minded. The importance of money in our daily lives as of now is much more than what it was two or three decades back. And in 99% of the cases, being in a good financial position (i.e having enough money in hand) is synonymous with good mental and physical health. One reason for this is the transformation of society. A few decades back, at least in the developing world a lot of villages used to have a community based lifestyle. But now it has shifted to family-based structure. Even the families have become smaller. Extended families were common previously, but now the average family size is 2 to 4 individuals.

Whales are manipulating the market to make sure that such a situation doesn't arise. Just when everything was looking great for Bitcoin, we have the FUD from China which crashed the prices by 20%. One thing which I have noticed about the FUD from China is that it always occur immediately after some important milestone is achieved by Bitcoin in terms of global adoption. One thing that I don't understand is the panic selling from a certain section of users after each of these FUD episodes. Have they not learnt anything from the past?

There have been some significant developments recently and they explain the hostility from the part of banks. The most important one is what happened in El Salvador, where Bitcoin was made a legal tender. And this put Bitcoin as a direct competitor to fiat currency. If an asset is a competitor to fiat currency, then automatically it becomes a competitor to the banking system as well. Because banks will be made obsolete if fiat currency is not there. You don't need bank accounts to store or transact with cryptocurrencies.

Is it that easy to relocate the mining operations? China is the preferred destination, because they manufacture nearly all of the mining rigs, and also due to the fact that electricity is very cheap there. If the miners relocate to a country such as Mongolia or Russia (where the electricity costs are relatively low), they need to first pay the import duty on mining equipment. And in these countries, the bureaucracy and red tape are big issues. Therefore getting a permit to set up such operations may take a lot of time.

Unfortunately there are a lot of people in this situation. I consider myself fortunate, because I am working in the IT sector and I am receiving regular salary every month although I am working from home. But I have heard about stories of hardship from those who are in the blue collar sector, such as factory workers. But the worst hit group are those who are employed in the unorganized sector, such as roadside vendors. These people are mostly without any work since 2020. And by now the savings have also vanished.

There may be some users who want to hold on to all of their coins for another 10 years, but the vast majority here are not thinking that way. I would also call myself a long term holder. Because I still hold a majority of the coins from my first purchase (in January 2017). But during the last 4 years, I have sold some of my coins and booked profit. What proportion of the stash you need to sell depend on your financial condition. Because it is certain that in the long term Bitcoin will go up by 5x or even 10x. But you need to sell some of your coins, if your financial condition is not good.

Scalability is the most important issue that is hampering the global adoption of Bitcoin. As we know, an average block contains around 2,000 transactions. And we have approx. 6 blocks per hour, which means that the Bitcoin network can handle around 12,000 transactions per hour without delays. The issue here is that it Bitcoin gets more popular, then we can expect 10x or even 100x this many transactions per hour. And unfortunately, Lightning is not being widely used, because of the difficulties associated with it.

Both Croatia and Scotland needs a win today. A draw means that both the teams will fail to qualify to the next phase (as it will leave them with two points each). I am in favor of Scotland, as they performed really well against the England team. In case of Croatia, they are still in rebuilding phase and may struggle against the Scottish attack. But the catch here is that they need a big win today, because their goal difference is not looking good. If there is no surprise, then England and Czech Republic should finish as no.1 and no.2 in the group.

Play resumed a few minutes back... but today's weather is not looking great and in all probability the match will end up as another boring draw. Both the New Zealand batsmen (Ross Taylor and Kane Williamson) are playing defensively right now. There is no chance that India will bat again today. That said, the Indian seamers are looking in good shape (especially Ishant). But India is in backfoot right now and they need to get at least a couple of wickets in the first session to stay alive in this match.

El Salvador was like the trigger. Now it is like a chain reaction which can't be stopped. There are a number of countries, which don't have the capability to maintain their own national currencies. Some, such as El Salvador and Ecuador have resorted to using the US Dollar instead. And they have now realized that Bitcoin is a superior currency when compared to USD. But look at the market. Despite such a significant event occurring, the market hardly reacted to it. On the other hand, it went ballistic over the China FUD.

I don't understand the situation there. Perhaps Russia is a the only country with a surplus stock of vaccines. And despite so many deaths, the people doesn't want to get vaccinated (only 13% of the population has received at least one dose). I heard that the Russians don't trust the Sputnik V vaccine, despite the fact that it is showing 94% to 97% efficacy according to the data from countries where it is used. If that is the case, then they can blame themselves. Here in India, we are struggling to get enough vaccines. And in Russia these retards don't want to get vaccinated despite one of the best vaccines available to them.

When the smartphones first came in to existence (around 2 decades ago), there was a lot of criticism from the "experts". They were saying that mobiles will never be able to replace the laptops and desktops. But in almost no time, smartphones poached in to the share of computers. Nowadays, the majority of users browsing internet use smartphones. Even for watching movies or movie serials, smartphones are being preferred. One reason is that time is scarce now and a lot of things need to be done simultaneously while traveling or working. Laptops are not suitable for this purpose.

If you have some good coding or designing skills, then it is possible to make good money online. On the other hand, if you are expecting to make the same amount of money in tasks such as data entry or manual captcha filling, then I have to say that you will be disappointed. The average salary for these tasks can be $0.25 per hour or lower. If you want to earn good amount of money from various online tasks, then you need to improve your skillset. If you are in your 20s, then learn some coding or mobile application designing.

Upsets occur when everyone think that the outcome is of foregone conclusion. I am talking about the Netherlands vs North Macedonia match. Now a win for North Macedonia may be unimaginable. But I would say that there is a small chance for a draw. And I would say the same about Finland vs Belgium match. Finland already has one upset to their name (against Denmark, although it was aided by the injury to Christian Eriksen). If they could defeat Denmark, then it is very much probable that they could hold Belgium to a draw.

This is going to be very bad for the casinos. The gamblers who lose money can always claim that they got hallucinated on weed and then they may sue the casino for their losses. And in case some conservative judge is hearing the case, then he may side with the gambler and may slap a fine on the casino to the tune of a few million USD. Do the casinos want to take this risk? I have no issues in making cigarettes or alcohol available in the casinos. But going for weed is like stretching it a bit too far.

According to the weather prediction, no play is possible until tomorrow second half. So unless some miracle occurs, this match is going to end in a draw and both the teams would be declared as combined winners. Time has come for the ICC to think about a stadium with retractable roof. I know that it is going to cost them a lot of money, but in the long run they may be able to get good returns. With climate change getting more severe, we can expect more rain interruptions in the future as well. Even the addition of the reserve day hasn't helped here.

If you want to swap your cryptocurrency, then it should be done against some asset that is protected against inflation. Tesla is an asset which depreciates over time and there is no point in making an "investment" with it. You can purchase one if you are in dire need of an automobile (still I would not recommend it, as there are good gasoline driven vehicles available at one-third the price). Or you can buy one to show your support to Tesla. For me, that is out of question ever since Elon tried to fuck the cryptocurrency market.