We don't know who made the money, but it is true that XRP is relatively easier to manipulate. There is limited liquidity with this coin, because almost 80% of the circulating supply is either directly or indirectly being held by the promoters. They can influence the prices by timing their dumps. I have always stayed clear of XRP, because it has been under heavy manipulation ever since it was created in 2012. IMO, no cryptocurrency user should invest in a coin that has 100% premine.

Checked some of the mainstream media sites. Now everyone is praising Elon for the recent recovery. They are claiming that Elon softened his stance on Bitcoin, and that helped the coin to recover. Those who are having a basic understanding of cryptocurrency would be able to tell that this is just BS. Elon Musk is overrated and a lot of things that are credited to him have nothing to do with him. From what I have heard, the recent recovery has more to do with the clarification of government action from China, rather than any statement from Elon.

First of all, Elon Musk doesn't directly own any Bitcoin. And secondly, it is up to Tesla to decide whether they want to sell their BTC stash or not. Just because a few people make some noise here, that doesn't mean that Tesla will be forced to sell their coins. Being a decentralized asset, no one has the right to speak on behalf of Bitcoin. If you guys are so adamant about it, then you can make an offer to Tesla, to purchase whatever BTC they have in their wallet, at a rate which is 10% or 20% above the prevailing market rate.

Alcohol consumption, watching porn, gambling.etc are personal preferences. The governments should stay out of this. Gone are the days when the authorities could dictate each and every aspect of our personal lives. If someone wants to gamble, then let him do that. Why the government wants to prevent that, as long as no manipulation or tax evasion is involved? By imposing these stupid bans, the governments are making themselves a laughing stock. Recently India imposed a ban on porn. Can you believe it? Now Indians need to purchase a VPN in order to access porn sites. And from what I have heard, the porn consumption in India went up after the ban was imposed. Same with gambling as well. Issues with gambling addiction are more common in countries where it is officially banned.

Don't get fooled by this loser. He did all that he could to destroy Bitcoin. He stole the hard earned money from tens of thousands of cryptocurrency users, by recommending scam projects. And when these projects failed, he even refused to listen to the victims and mocked them. Now he is trying once more to garner support from the sector by giving out statements such as this one. Let's not make the same mistake that we did 3-4 years ago. He deserves to rot behind the bars for the rest of his life.

Two doses of the vaccine cost the authorities close to $100 per person. And despite the cost involved in procuring the vaccine and logistics (Pfizer vaccines need to be stored at -70 degrees), they are given for free. Now if some people are still reluctant to get the vaccines, then IMO they should not be forced. Around the world a lot of countries are facing shortage of vaccines and if any of the Americans don't want to be vaccinated, then their doses should be distributed to those in need.

I am not sure whether Bitcoin has bottomed out. The SEC investigation against Binance is still hanging like the sword of Damocles. So if you are going for short term or medium term investment, I would advise you to wait for a few more weeks. Any SEC action against Binance has the potential to cause a flash drop in the markets. So if you wait for sometime, there is a chance of being able to purchase coins at much lower rates (<$30K). If that doesn't happen, then $38-$40K is a good range to buy BTC.

I would agree with you on the ratio. If you invest in 100 such projects, only 2-3 will be successful. Earlier (in 2017-18), the ICOs were having much better success ratios. If you invest in 10 new projects, then one or two will be successful and the returns from these successful projects will more than make up for the losses from the remaining projects. That is not the case now. The returns from the 2-3 successful projects may not be enough even to cover half of the losses from the other projects. So for now, I would stick with Bitcoin and the established alts.

In countries where the population is largely law abiding, the incidence of CoVID 19 is really low. I am living in Singapore and here it is very rare to see anyone going out without wearing a mask. But from what I have heard from my friends and relatives in India, the situation there is just the opposite. There the people have a tendency to break laws and even the educated people believe that it is cool and macho not to follow the government instructions. When policemen stop these people then they will record the video and post it in social media claiming that the cops assaulted them. And this is why I am not surprised with the recent surge of infections form India.

First of all, Dogecoin is not an altcoin. Rather, it is a shitocoin. When Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus created this shitcoin in 2013-14, their idea was to mock the entire concept of cryptocurrency and not to create an alternative  crypto. And it is factually incorrect to label Doge as "one of the oldest". Because Doge first came in to existence in December 2013. The first altcoins were created in 2011. Hundreds, if not thousands of altcoins came in to existence before the first Dogecoin came in to circulation.

We all agree with the statement, which was originally made by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. His real inspiration for creating cryptocurrency was to provide financial independence for ordinary people around the world. That said, I am surprised with these words being repeated by John McAfee. I regard McAfee as one of the guys who did the most damage to the reputation of cryptocurrency. He pushed back the adoption and acceptability of Bitcoin by at least a couple of years, by promoting various scam projects. He managed to tarnish the image of cryptocurrency for a long time. Hopefully spending the remainder of his life in jail will result in some sort of repentance and remorse from this criminal.

This is the original post and the posters were talking about the ICC Cricket World Cup Super League. They were not talking about the ICC ODI rankings, which anyway doesn't have any relevance. And they are right. Sri Lanka most probably will finish outside the top-8 and they may be require to play the qualifier tournament if they want to take part in the ICC ODI World Cup in 2023.

The huge market cap is one of the disadvantages now. Many of the noobs are choosing to invest in newer shitcoins with smaller market cap, because they believe that Bitcoin is already having a market cap of close to $1 trillion and therefore any appreciation in the prices will be more muted. The sort of returns that the early investors received from Bitcoin can't be expected by the recent investors. And that is true with any asset, and not just Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

Actually we need to see how much power Ganguly possess within the BCCI. He may be the president of the BCCI, but unless he has support from a majority of the state associations, he won't be able to put forward his ideas into motion. And almost all of the state associations are controlled by various political parties. On top of that, the IPL franchise owners have also now formed a cabal among themselves. I was also excited when Ganguly was elected to the post.. but so far it has been disappointing.

Yup.. these sort of opportunities occur only once in a while. And this time, the correction was mostly due to the altcoins. Most of the altcoins became hyperinflated and that caused the crash. Obviously there were a few triggers, such as the investigation against Binance, tweets from Elon and the governmental action in China. But if the coins were having fair valuation, then the impact of the correction might have been much milder. Anyway.. long term investors should not care much about these corrections..

Is this really finalized? I am really confused because Manny's team has made all sort of announcements during the last two years and in none of the instances the fights got realized. I will be extremely happy if the proposed fight with Errol Spence Jr goes ahead as planned. As far as I know, there is still no official confirmation from the organizers (please correct me in case I am wrong). All we have is a Twitter post from the official account of Pacquaio. We have a post from ESPN here:

https://www.espn.in/boxing/story/_/id/31484970/manny-pacquiao-errol-spence-jr-set-aug-21-fight-las-vegas

Normally they don't post a news article unless they are sure about it. So that makes me believe that this fight will go ahead as planned.

Bitcoin is not a bubble. But the problem is that many of the altcoins suddenly went up by 50x or 100x, which made them very much overpriced. And as a result of this, the entire cryptocurrency market was being talked about as a bubble area. In the end, always it is the Bitcoin holders who suffer because of these shitcoins. But the trick here is to hold for the long term. It may take some time for Bitcoin to recover, but ultimately that will happen. However, there is no such guarantee with the altcoins. For example take the case of TRX. That particular shitcoin was never able to reach the level which it attained in 2017.

The $1.2 trillion looks huge on paper, but in reality it is not that serious. Almost everyone was expecting a major correction, after the almost continuous rise in crypto capitalization from $250 billion to $2.5 trillion in just 12 months. Even at current levels, the total market cap is 6 times what we had in mid-2020. I am actually disappointed with the lack of increase in Bitcoin dominance. I was expecting that at least now the dominance will cross 50% level. But after going up to 47%, it once again started declining.

I purchased by first Bitcoin 9 years ago. I sold some of those coins during the last 3-4 years, but the majority of the original coins are still there in my wallet. And I would say this with 100% certainty - if you hold your coins for 5 years minimum, then there is no chance that you will end up with a loss (irrespective of the purchase price). Forget about selling at spikes and buying at dips, because it is easier to say but never practical.

My advice is this - just purchase your coins and keep them in cold storage. And then forget about them for the next 5 years. When you login to your wallet after 5 years, you will be surprised at how much the coins have appreciated (in terms of fiat currency). And the most important thing - don't check the exchange rates every 5 minutes. It will only make you nervous and vulnerable to panic selling.

That is not the way many of the religious bodies are behaving right now. They want the government to follow whatever orders given by them, without any questions. Being a resident of Singapore, I have immensely benefited from the complete separation of religion from politics. In fact I would say that Singapore would not have become one of the richest countries in Asia, if the religious bodies had too much influence. On the other hand, I am a frequent visitor to India and I can see the negative influence of religion in politics. The politicians are forced to bend down to various religious leaders, else they won't get re-elected next time. And that is not just the case with India, but also with most of the countries in South Asia region - Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka.etc.