I don't think that Biden will remain president for more than a year. Most probably by 2022 or 2023, Kamala Harris is going to take over and implement her ultra-leftist policies. Biden was elected as the Democrat nominee in 2020 only because he was deemed to be a "Moderate" and could fool the suburban residents to vote for him. The default Democrat choice was Kamala, but she wasn't made the nominee because she was simply unelectable (obviously the Democrat wanted to avoid the mistake they made in 2016, when they nominated an unelectable candidate).

We have three matches today, and IMO the most exciting one is going to be the third one (i.e Spain vs Sweden). Spain are one of the tournament favorites, while Sweden will be hoping for an upset. A lot of Swedish supporters talk highly about Alexander Isak and today we will get to know how good he is. As expected, odds are overwhelmingly in Spain's favor. The spread is +360 for a draw, -285 for Spain and +950 for Sweden (may vary slightly across the sportsbooks. Personally I feel that Spain is in for a big win today.

If the doctors tell him that it is safe enough for him to play football, then I don't think that he should retire. From what I heard, he has no previous history of any cardiac issues and he is too young to have further complications. But I understand that proper diagnostics may take a few months time. The most important thing is that he should decide on the future course of action after a lot of careful thinking and planning. He should take the decision that suits him the most. He is at his peak form, and in case he decides to retire, then it will be a great loss to the Danish football.

It will be interesting to see the selection of Indian pacers. Ideally they should go for the most experienced players - Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami. However, there maybe a temptation to opt for bowlers such as Shardul Thakur and Mohammed Siraj, since they can also bat a bit. I would warn against this. Against a strong batting side such as New Zealand, India needs the best and the most experienced bowlers. I don't think that Shardul and Siraj has the temperament to perform against such a strong side.

The most interesting match in this group is going to be England vs Scotland. There is too much bad blood between the two countries and they are facing each other after a gap of 4 years (back in 2017, the world cup qualifier match between the two ended in a 2-2 draw, with Harry Kane equalizing for England in the last minute of injury time). It would be great to have a win by Scotland this time, although I know that it is unrealistic given the current form of the England team. Anyway, I have already marked my calendar for this match on 18th June (this Friday).

Latest stats from 13th June 2021.

Total market cap: $1,512,460,203,738 (-8.13%)

Bitcoin: $672,261,334,639 (44.448%)
Bitcoin forks: $15,144,231,844 (1.001%)
Stablecoins: $106,088,987,188 (7.014%)
Altcoins: $712,183,635,015 (47.088%)
WBTC: $6,782,015,052 (0.448%)

This is the change compared to my last post:

Bitcoin: +3.280%
Bitcoin forks: -0.043%
Stablecoins: +0.644%
Altcoins: -3.916%
WBTC: +0.035%

England leading by 1-0. It was expected that they will win the match, but I could see Croatia putting up a very strong fight. Raheem Sterling puts England ahead and BBC says that he has scored a total of 13 goals in his last 17 international matches. Croatia is still trying hard, but it will be near impossible to overcome such strong opponents. At the best, they should try to keep the margin down to 1-0, and it will help them to climb to the second spot in Group D ahead of Czechia and Scotland. It is a tough group.

In the initial 20 minutes or so, the Croatian players looked totally clueless. But after that they managed to put up some sort of defense and even managed to attack a few times. The possession was 64% in favor of England for the first 20-25 minutes, but then it changed to 52%. It shows how strongly Croatia came back to the match. The advantage is still with England, but I won't be surprised if Croatia puts up a strong display during the second half of the match. The latter has managed to overcome the initial hiccups.

That is obvious. If you are staying in a capitalist country such as the United States, then you can't demand that the country should implement socialist policies (politicians such as Bernie Sanders want to do that, but I really doubt whether he will be allowed, even if he gets elected as the president of the United States). Similarly, if you are residing in a country such as North Korea, then you need to put up with the Socialist system. Most likely you will end up in abject poverty, and may only be able to have food once a day. On the other hand, Kim Jong Un and the ruling elites will be munching on imported Beluga caviar and parmesan cheese. You can't demand that a capitalist system should be implemented there. If you do that, most probably you will end up dead along with your family members.

The chances are very very low... The national currency (Iranian Rial) is looking extremely weak after all the sanctions and embargoes. Any sort of official recognition to Bitcoin would mean that more and more ordinary Iranians would be rushing to convert their Rial to BTC and the exchange rates will collapse. At the most, I expect the status quo to continue. Hoping for any sort of official recognition from the Iranian authorities doesn't make sense now. But as long as they are tolerating the use of BTC, I am fine with the situation there.

You need to plan everything right from the beginning. A lot of people are forced to sell, when they need cash to cover their expenses such as rent, utility bills or even medical expenses. This situation has occurred to me as well. Back in 2014-15 I was without a full time job, and had to sell some of my coins to survive. And unfortunately for me, BTC exchange rates were at rock bottom during that time. I sold my coins for $200-250, and two years later the the exchange rate had gone up to $20,000. I could have sold some of my other assets, but back then BTC was like 80% of my portfolio, so selling the coins looked like the most logical thing to do.

Your post is self-contradictory. Currencies can't be taxed. If Bitcoin is classified as a currency, then it can be taxed only at the source (i.e income tax). Only assets comes under capital gains tax. In a way, you earn no real profits from a currency, irrespective of whether it is a fiat currency that is not protected against inflation, or a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin that is protected from inflation. Do you pay tax on your savings bank accounts? Suppose you are having $10,000 in your bank account, do you need to pay a monthly or yearly tax on this amount?

Don't be overconfident. Croatia has a reputation of giant killers, and on their day they can beat any other team. And England already knows what they can do in football. On paper England is all set for a big win. The squad looks extremely strong, the recent form has been impressive, and above all the match is taking place in Wembley. Memories from 2018 will be haunting the England team and they are unlikely to take their opponents lightly. BTW, anyone watching the match on TV? Very disappointing to see the England fans booing the Croatian national anthem. Very disrespectful.

I am afraid that President Nayib Bukele is walking on a very thin line here. By awarding the status of legal tender, he has set Bitcoin and US Dollar on a collision course. The Americans are going to be really pissed. And remember that the CIA has overthrown regimes in Latin America for far less serious "offences". If everything goes well in El Salvador, then it creates an existential threat for the US Dollar. There are 7 countries apart from the US where USD is used a legal tender. But the real danger comes from the 14 countries that peg their currency to the USD. Unlike the first group, the second group consists of economic power houses such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. I would like to see for how long Bukele manages to remain as the president.

The market reaction has been disappointing, to say the least. When PayPal announced that they are integrating Bitcoin to their platform, the BTC prices jumped by almost 400% (from $8,000 to $41,000). Now this news is much more important. For the first time in the history of Bitcoin, a country has accorded official status. But the prices went up by only around 10%. I am perplexed by this. Because this news is a hundred times more significant than the ones we had with either PayPal or Tesla.

There will be a total of 5 winners (one every week) and 3 have been announced so far. Two more weeks remain and therefore we will get another two millionaires from this lottery. You can't generalize the lottery winners by giving a few examples. In a majority of the cases, the winners spend their money in a responsible manner. But in some cases, when undeserving people get the windfall, they are unable to manage it and end up broke within a few years. And the media will highlight such cases, to suit their own agenda.

Time has come to cut down the Dhaka Premier League (DPL) to size. I don't know why the BCB is giving so much importance to a club competition in just one city. Instead they should focus their resources to improve the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL). I agree that DPL was the premier competition when Bangladesh was an associate nation. But now they have got test status and therefore need to move to a regional domestic competition, where all the major regions are represented and not just Dhaka.

Same here as well. When the tournament gets disrupted in between, the interest gets lost. I don't even remember the points table for IPL, and don't know which team is on top and which ones are at the bottom. Also, many of the players who took part in the initial stage of the IPL is going to be unavailable for the second phase. The franchises have made the replacement, but the quality will go down without a doubt. Some of the Australian and New Zealand players may still participate, but I am doubtful about the England players. They have already stated that apart from a few exceptions the England players are going to skip the remainder of the tournament.

The current bunch of Indian players (with the exception of Kohli) have performed poorly in conditions that are more suitable to swing and seam bowling. And New Zealand has some of the best pace bowlers in the world right now, with Trent Boult, Tim Southee, Kyle Jamieson and Neil Wagner. Even their reserve strength looks impressive with bowlers such as Matt Henry. I won't be surprised if they go ahead with an all-pace attack. And remember that the New Zealand batsmen have confidently took on the most experienced pace bowling pair in the history of test cricket this month (Jimmy Anderson - Stuart Broad). It is going to be an uphill task for India.

^^^ Need to see whether these players will remain for ever as the net bowlers, or will they get an opportunity to represent India. As far as the pace bowling department is concerned, there is going to be hardly any vacancy until the regulars like Ishant, Shami and Bumrah retires. Even talented bowlers such as Umesh Yadav and Natarajan are struggling to find a slot nowadays. And to make matters worse, the RCB quota (Saini, Siraj.etc) comes in to play. In the spin department, there may be a few openings available.