The prices went all the way up to $28,000 and by now it has recovered to $38,000 in a matter of few days. Those who were waiting for $20,000 to accumulate BTC will be very disappointed. Somehow, this reminds me of what happened in 2017. Back then also, we had a sharp dip sometime in July-August. But the prices stabilized in two months, and from October onwards the bull run stated which took Bitcoin to an ATH. I am quite hopeful of such a bull run occurring by the last quarter of this year as well. The rumors about Amazon are quite encouraging. If it's actually true, then we can expect BTC to break the six-digit level.

LOL.. 11-0? That's brutal. I know that during the 2002 FIFA World Cup, Germany managed to defeat Saudi Arabia 8-0. In two decades a lot of positive changes have occurred in Saudi Arabian football. The Saudi Professional League now features top players from Asia, as well as around the world, and this has improved the overall quality. But then, you can't directly compare Asian teams with those from either Europe or Latin America. It will take many decades before these teams are able to reach that level.

The supply will be there only if there is demand. There are enough number of users available to purchase these coins, and that is the reason why we witness the listing of hundreds of new coins every week. A section of the cryptocurrency users don't have the patience to wait for 3-4 years to get profits. Mostly they are the ones who invest in these coins, hoping for a return of 10x or 20x in a matter of few months. In some cases they may get lucky and may be able to sell their coins when the pump is going on. But in a majority of the cases, it will be the promoters who remain as the sole beneficiaries.

Previously some were arguing that not everyone needs to get vaccinated. With the original strain of COVID 19, the mortality rate for the younger people (those who aged below 35 years) was less than 0.1%. At this point, at least some of the experts were arguing that the younger generation should be exempted from vaccination. But now two things have come to notice, which contradicts this stance - a lot of vulnerable people are getting infected as a result of their interaction with the young people and the new strains of the virus (esp. Delta) is much more lethal now for the young. Also, for attaining the herd immunity, it is necessary to vaccinate as many as possible.

Big spending from the government has now become the norm, because the voters prefer such policies. In the United States, the Republican Party was known as the fiscally conservative force. But during the reign of George W Bush (2000-2008), and then again during the term of Donald Trump (2016-2020), the federal debt increased by record amounts. The same is the case with some of the other countries such as India. The parties in power are those termed as "fiscally conservative", but even they are indulging in big spending as a result of the changed attitude from the voters.

Rahul Dravid has an exceptional record in the coaching domain. He was the coach of the Indian women's team for a short-while and did a good job during that period. And once again, he is lauded for his efforts in the Sri Lankan tour. Personally, I believe that anyone other than Ravi Shastri as the coach would be good for the Indian national team. I still don't know what is his contribution to the team, even after staying as the coach for the last two years. I am yet to see any positive contribution from him.

I can't agree with most of your post. Investing doesn't need a ton of money. You can invest in Bitcoin even with $10 or $100. And someone who had invested $100 in Bitcoin on 2012 will be now witnessing his coins growing in value to $700,000. The trick is to invest in the right asset, at the right time. And now regarding your argument that the system want poor to remain poor, some of the blame should fall on the poor people themselves. Let's take a case where a political party offers free education and skills training to the poor people. At the same time, another political party offers freebies and handouts. In 99% of the cases, the poor people will vote for the latter party, and that is the reason why they will remain poor.

It will be too early to say that the market wasn't affected as a result of the pandemic. Multiple incidents related to the pandemic had its impact on the cryptocurrency prices, over the past 1.5 years. First it was the stimulus cheques. A lot of people received the additional cash at a time when they didn't needed them. They used the stimulus money to purchase assets including Bitcoin, and it resulted a jump in the Bitcoin prices. And the latest crash (when BTC went down from $35,000 to $28,000) was attributed to the fears associated with the spread of the delta variant (the stock market also went down at the same time).

Playing a few county matches in the UK might help him, as in India the players don't get regular opportunities to play in green surfaces that are supportive of pace bowling. But the big question is does Prithvi Shaw has the patience to play test cricket? Some of the younger Indian players (Rishabh Pant is an example) have a habit of batting in test format just like they do in the T20. That may or may not work for them, depending on the opponent. But they will be successful, if they change their strategies for test matches, and I haven't seen any of these younger Indian players doing that.

Time has come to drop Hardik Pandya. In the ODI series, he managed to score just 19 runs, and picked up just two wickets in two matches. Why there should be a regular slot for him, when talented players such as Devdutt Padikkal are not getting an opportunity to represent India? India failed to manage a good total yesterday and won only because of Bhuvneshwar Kumar. It was a surface that was conductive to batting, and still the Sri Lankan batsmen failed to get going. Yuzvendra Chahal was also impressive, as he conceded just 19 runs from his 24 balls (and picked up the wicket of Dhananjaya de Silva).

Regarding rare earth elements (REE), I have heard that they are somewhat abundant in the planet. The main issue is with processing of the mineral deposits, which produces large volumes of toxic byproducts. Right now, China is a leader, because their environmental regulations are not very strong and private players can get away with the toxins they produce. China accounts for 58% of the global REE production, and this in turn has made them a global leader in the production of electronic appliances. Myanmar is another country, which is increasing its production right now. US has enough deposits, but getting the clearance from the government to extract them is quite difficult.

The fault lies with the Bitcoin users. As the OP has rightly pointed out, only 0.117% of the global energy use is devoted to Bitcoin mining. The arguments put forward by the critics don't have any face value, and they themselves know that. But at the same time, Bitcoin users have fallen in to the trap that the critics have set for us. Rather than pointing out that our energy usage is minimal, everyone here has been busy finding excuses such as "green energy" proportion in mining is increasing. Satoshi won't be happy with this. He designed Bitcoin as a decentralized currency, that can't be manipulated. And here we are getting manipulated by those people who hate BTC.

Looking back, I still couldn't believe that earning 1 BTC in a year has become so difficult now. Back in 2014/15, it was possible to earn that much in a month, from doing a bit of freelancing and signature campaigns. There was a Primedice campaign, which had a maximum payment of BTC2.40 per month (that would be around $1000 as per the prevailing exchange rates in 2014, but an unbelievable $82,300 as per current exchange rates). Back then, the number of users were low. Now the competition is too high and the number of businesses willing to conduct signature campaigns haven't gone up significantly.

Shakib to Bangladesh cricket is what Virat Kohli is for Indian cricket, and Steve Smith is for Australia. But how the boards deal with these players is diametrically different. Shakib is always involved in some dispute with the board and the BCB members seems to be having ego issues towards him. On the other hand, the BCCI treats Virat like he is the god. Even the coach bows down to him and the team selection is done as per his preferences. Smith is not in a position as worse as Shakib, but CA didn't supported him when he was banned for ball tampering allegations.

Track and Field will start only from 30th and that is the section which will be completely dominated by the United States. Another sport which is likely to be dominated by the US is swimming, and it starts today. US is dominant in gymnastics as well, and the medal events start from tomorrow. All that said, it can't be denied that China has got a very good start to the Games this time. They are having 3 golds, compared to 2 for Japan and 1 each for the United States and Australia. US is the leader in terms of number of medals (6, compared to 5 for China). 

Can't fully agree with your statement. Obviously some infections were not reported, but there was an under-count with the deaths as well. The real death toll in India from the second wave (April-May 2021) was somewhere around 4-5 million. But the officials reported it at around 1/20th of that number.

There were 4.9 million excess deaths during this period:
https://www.indiatoday.in/coronavirus-outbreak/story/2nd-covid-wave-was-india-worst-tragedy-since-partition-saw-up-to-49-lakh-excess-deaths-1830894-2021-07-21

So it may not be 7%, but 3% or 4%. Still I don't believe that it may be 0.1% or 0.2% as you claim. And Delhi was the worst affected city during the second wave (not Bangalore, where the majority of the case were not from Delta). Almost every family I know in Delhi lost at least one member during this period. Many of them were in their 30s or 40s and didn't had any comorbidity.

The tax loopholes work, only of you have a wide range of investments. If you have invested in only 2-3 assets, and your financial conditions is not that secure, then you may need to sell your assets whenever a need arises and that will increase your tax bill. The super-rich almost never sell their top performing assets, thereby erasing the possibility of capital gains tax. They mostly sell their low performing assets, which after getting adjusted for previous losses result in almost zero tax. The middle class in normal cases don't have this luxury.

Forget about all the variants from India, Brazil.etc. A couple of days back, a new variant has been discovered from Colombia, which is reported to be manytimes more contagious and dangerous compared to the other strains. Now around 10-15 people have tested positive for this strain (B.1.621) in the United Kingdom, which confirms that it is spreading extremely fast. This strain contains a mutation called N501Y, which makes the virus more contagious. And from what I heard, it is even more contagious than the Delta (B.1.617.2). 

Prithvi is not suited for the longer format of the game, IMO. Also, his style of play is not suitable in England (it was more suited to conditions in Sri Lanka). So it surprises me that he is packed off to England, when the T20 series against Sri Lanka is just about to start. Abhimanyu Easwaran and Wriddhiman Saha were included in the squad as reserve batsmen and now they have also rejoined the squad after completing the quarantine requirements. Saha won't be considered, as long as Rishabh Pant is available.

I wouldn't say that Zimbabwe hardly gets chance to play international cricket. They are part of the ODI World Cup Super League, and therefore they are assured of 24 ODI matches this cycle. T20 matches are normally included along with the ODI tours. However, in test cricket they play fewer matches because they are not a part of the first division. On top of that, their players such as Blessing Muzarabani have taken part in county cricket recently.
Brendan Taylor has represented a number of franchises, apart from representing Nottinghamshire in county cricket.