Something similar happened in the EU relatively recently - ESMA’s vice chairman Erik Thedéen has released an official statement calling out for measures to be taken on crypto mining energy usage. Bitcoin mining, especially, has become a national issue for Sweden, Erik’s native nation. The Swede has asserted that crypto mining effectively intensifies climate change.
I wonder if the two events are connected or not. Thoughts?

The situation is not rosy, but Bitcoin does not really need Elon Musk to save it. It has crashed before and it has rallied again before. I am not so sure about Dogecoin, but Dogecoin started out as a joke, if it returns to being a joke then that's how things are.

Which Call of Duty exactly? There has been so many entries in that series. My favourite parts are Modern Warfare ones.

I enjoyed that one too, I really cannot wait for the sequel. Hopefully it will be even better - and a little less rushed.

Well, someone created Bitcoin. Maybe it was multiple someones. They could be Japanese, they could be from some other ethnicity and country, we don't know. As to why they didn't create Bitcoin in Japanese if they are Japanese, the idea was obviously to reach as many people as possible, and English is the most widely used language in the world. Of course they'd do it in English.

To adopt any kind of new currency you need to educate your population very widely and to reach out to those who are most vulnerable. Countries in the EU that are yet to adopt the Euro are dragging their feet for that very reason and are extremely careful about it, and the Euro is a fiat currency that much more stable than Bitcoin. With Bitcoin has to be even more careful and I don't think El Salvador was.

There have been some serious outflows of Bitcoin out of the US - up to 97 million US dollars,  as investors try to adjust to the impact of the expected Fed rate hikes and overall monetary tightening in the wake of a four decade high inflation figures in the US and the disruption of the global trade caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That may have had some effect.

I think people making such predictions are not very serious. Bitcoin is incredibly volatile. The political situation in Europe is a hot mess right now. Who knows what things will be like next year, what is left for 2025. No one knows where Bitcoin will be in 2025. I take such predictions with a pretty large grain of salt.

I, personally, do not shop clothes or shoes online. I am never fully sure that they would fit me. I do shop pretty much everything else online though.

I have had both a dogs and cats, and I confess I am more inclined toward cats, mostly because I am a couch potato and walking a dog several times a day is not something I particularly enjoy. That said, I don't mind doggie personality, they're very sweet creatures.

My favourite sport is biathlon. I love it for many reasons - watching it is usually very aesthetically fulfilling because the competitions take place in beautiful snowscapes, and the athleticism of the competitors is amazing - they spend so long skiing and then they have to have a steady enough hand to shoot at the target properly.

"Always" is a very long time. We have no idea what the situation will be like in a few years, what is left for in a few decades. Even now the popularity of cryptocurrencies is increasing immensely. According to recent data, some 40% of 18 to 35 year olds are currently planning to use crypto assets as a payment method for both services and goods. The trend has increased by 10% since 2021. By 2024, the research states, 23% of all online businesses will be adopting crypto payment methods. That is huge. If the trend continues like that, we'll see even more adoption.

It makes sense they would do this. In the current situation they'd want all donations to be completely transparent, hence this ban. It's unfortunate that cryptos are getting this bad rap, but hopefully once the war ends things will normalize.

No, I have never used a Bitcoin ATM. I am not even sure there are any in my country.That said, I am certainly curious to use one and I hope that some will pop up sooner or later, they seem to be popping up in plenty of places already. With Bitcoin's growing popularity that seems inevitable, I believe.

Self-education has a lot of pitfalls and trials and errors, unfortunately. In this business, in particular, the errors can be very costly, and people aren't always willing to take that risk. Being risk-averse, they don't want to deal with an industry they don't fully understand fear it would cost them too much to understand.

So far it has been Dune I believe. I have always been a huge fan of the book series but I greatly disdained Lynch's adaptation, which had all sorts of problems from not really understanding the themes of the source material, to terrible casting to horrendous special effects even for the time it was made. The new movie fixed those mistakes and then some. The sequel should be even better, I hope.

The EU is keenly looking into creating their own CBDC and are actively working on the matter. While they are no China and aren't nearly as heavy handed as China, I imagine they too would not be too happy with a competitor they cannot fully control, so while I doubt there would be an all-out ban of Bitcoin (and crypto in general), I imagine we will be seeing some pretty strict regulation of cryptocurrencies in the region in the future. I don't think regulation is necessarily a bad thing, as it will prevent at least some of the scams, but who knows what other effects it will have.

That is true. Unscrupulous individuals take advantage of Bitcoin and other cryptos to conduct their schemes, just like they do with fiat currency. That is human nature, unfortunately, to take something good and made to help people and twist its nature for their own nefarious purposes. It has happened time and again with any new technologies.

One should, of course, learn its rules and learn them very well, but to actually learn to use a foreign language - be it English or any other language - it's important to use it. Use it as often as possible. Speak in it, write in it, think in it. Try to communicate with native speakers when possible. Watch and read media in that language and pay attention to the way it is used.

I do not have a lot of free time and what with the pandemic my hobbies became mainly things one can do online -watch movies or play video games, or listen to music. I read a lot too. Now that the pandemic seems to be ebbing I hope to be able to do more things outside as well, especially more exercise, which I have been missing a lot.