Sunday’s Premier League games saw Manchester City and Manchester United record victories. If you missed what happened in Saturday’s action here is a recap.

Manchester City hammers the Irons

Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City recorded a comfortable 4-1 win at West Ham on Sunday to record a joint-record 30^th Premier League win of the season. The game also saw the Citizens smash through the 100-point barrier.

The Citizens took the lead on 13 minutes, as Leroy Sane’s effort took a major deflection off Patrice Evra to leave Adrian helpless in the Hammers goal. City doubled their lead on 27 minutes. Youngster Declan Rice’s attempted clearance hit Pablo Zabaleta before beating Adrian.

West Ham were back in the game just before half-time, as full-back Aaron Cresswell produced a good finish from the edge of the area with a free-kick. The visitors extended their lead again on 53 minutes. Raheem Sterling found Gabriel Jesus, who beat Zabaleta before firing home from close-range.

Sterling saw a penalty appeal turned down on 58 minutes, as Cresswell looked to have fouled the winger in the penalty area. Sterling was involved in the fourth goal on 64 minutes producing a pinpoint cross to Fernandinho to fire home.

The win means that the Citizens need just one win to record the most Premier League victories ever recorded in one season. Guardiola’s side now also only need two more goals to surpass Chelsea’s Premier League record of 103 goals.

The defeat leaves West Ham still very much in the fight for survival, as the Hammers are just three points clear of the relegation zone, with just three games remaining this season. The Hammers are still long odds to suffer the drop this season, though.

United leave it late to defeat Arsenal

Manchester United left it late to record a 2-1 win over Arsenal at Old Trafford, despite a spirited display from a much-changed Gunners team. The win ensured that the Red Devils would be playing in the Champions League next season.

It was a case of players coming back to haunt their former employers in Manchester. United took the lead on 16 minutes and former Arsenal star Alexis Sanchez played a big part in the goal. Romelu Lukaku crossed the ball to the far post and Sanchez saw his header on goal deflected on to the post by Hector Bellerin, but midfielder Paul Pogba followed in to volley home past David Ospina.

Arsenal started the second half brightly and it was a familiar face to the Old Trafford crowd that equalised for the Gunners on 51 minutes. Gunners midfielder Granit Xhaka had endured a torrid first half, but the Swiss international nicked the ball in midfield to find Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who advanced on goal and his low effort from the edge of the area rather crawled past David De Gea.

Marcus Rashford saw a goal ruled out late-on before the Red Devils scored the winner a minute into stoppage-time. Ashley Young swung a cross into the Arsenal area and Marouane Fellaini glanced the ball cleverly past the despairing dive of Ospina in the Arsenal game.

Will Manchester City break the record for most Premier League wins?

The Cleveland Cavaliers have made it to the last three Eastern Conference playoffs but were under enormous pressure in Game 7.

The Cavs narrowly qualified for the Eastern Conference semi-finals after beating the Indiana Pacers 105-101.

Prior to Game 7, the media did not hold back and threw questions at LeBron James asking him if he thought about the fact that this could be his final game for the Cavs.

James has not committed to re-signing with Cleveland and rumours continue to float around that he will be leaving the Cavs after this season.

James addressed those questions by saying all he thought about was winning Game 7 and continuing the Cavs quest for another NBA Championship. He put in an epic performance during Game 7 which made the difference and saw the Cavs go through.

King James was more candidate after Game 7 and admitted

You start thinking like, ‘Is this it? Could this be it?’ That’s just human nature. Then, the other side of my brain is like, ‘Let’s make something happen. Let’s go. This is what you’re here for. You’re here to make plays. You’re the leader

He is without doubt the player that the Cavs look up to and he delivered yet again. James scored 45 points, had 9 rebounds and 7 assists in a performance that gave the Cavs a slight edge over the Pacers that made the difference in the end.

MLG Highlights

How Much Does James Have Left In The Tank

LeBron James is a big match player but his efforts against the Pacers took a lot out of him. The Cavs don’t have a lot of time to recover as they prepare for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semi-finals against the Toronto Raptors. Game 1 is scheduled to take place on 02 May and a day after that Game 3 takes place on 04 May.

James battled severe cramps in Game 7 and one wonders if he will recover sufficiently to play at his best on 02 May. The Cavs needs James to fire yet again and secure a 1-0 lead that will help ease the pressure. The question is whether James has enough left in the tank to keep going and putting in epic performances game after game.

Only time will reveal if King James can continue his spectacular performances in the play-offs. Cavs fans will be happy as they get to see their favourite player on court for another four games atleast!

The pre-sale of Petro, the Venezuelan government backed cryptocurrency, has ended, according to an announcement made by the country’s president Nicolas Maduro. Furthermore, Correo del Orinoco, the newspaper which reported the announcement, also stated that the country has raised over $3 billion dollars through the sale of Petro. To facilitate the adoption of Petro, Maduro has also certified 16 crypto exchanges. Maduro hopes that these exchanges will start listing Petro soon. Recently, Venezuela cracked down on crypto exchanges in an operation dubbed Paper Hands.

According to Correo del Orinoco, Maduro made these announcements while participating in Venezuela Power Expo 2018 in Caracas. Maduro is optimistic that the certification of 16 exchanges will lead to an increase in liquidity of Petro in the market. While closing the Petro presale, Maduro sated “To date, the pre-sale of El Petro has obtained 3,338 million dollars.”

Maduro also held a presentation, which shows that the Petro has raised the equivalent of 208.337 billion rubles, 2.744 billion euros, and 21.118 billion yuan. As much as $1 billion raised from the sale of Petro will be spent to revitalize the economy.

The following are the list of cryptocurrency exchanges certified by Venezuela.
• Criptoexchainge
• Criptocapital
• Asesoría Financiaera CA
• Italcambio
• Amberes Coin
• Cave Blockchainge
• Valoratta Casa de Bolsa
• Coinsecure.ve
• Critiaechainge
• Criptolago
• Criptoventraige CA
• Criptoactivo Menets CA
• Criptoactivo Bancar CA
• Criptomundo Casa de Intercambio CA
• Inversiones Financieras 1444 CA
• Criptoactivo Criptoes

None of the exchanges have officially confirmed the list of Petro so far. Notably, Coinsecure, the Indian cryptocurrency exchange, which recently lost about $3.50 million worth 438.318 Bitcoins, is one of the certified cryptocurrency exchanges. Commenting on the certification, Coinsecure CEO Mohit Kalra said

“Venezuela wanted to add Petro as a cryptocurrency on Coinseure, so they can trade Petro against Bitcoin and the rupee.”

Further, Kalra revealed that Venezuela is willing to offer a 30% discount on the purchase of crude oil, if India is willing to pay in Petro. India annually purchases approximately $130 billion worth crude oil. India will find it hard to resist the offer.

The president is also determined to promote the new currency. In addition to the sale of fuel to domestic and international airlines, a paperwork has been signed to create an
“Industrial and Economic Investment Fund in Petro.” Maduro has set aside “$8.50 million Petro equivalent of $510 million for credit loans.”

Earlier in January, IOHK (Input Output Hong Kong) founder Charles Hoskinson had spoken about the possible implementation of smart contract facility in Cardano, roughly in Q4 2018.

In this regard, Gerad Morroney, a project manager at IOHK, provided an update regarding Cardano’s smart contract facility, which will be built as a part of a project named Goguen.

The project has been designed to boost the existing capabilities of Cardano (ADA). The team is planning to create an additional computational layer on which smart contracts will be executed.

The features that will be implemented by Goguen project is as follows:
• Sidechains – would enable moving tokens between blockchains without priority.
• Plutus – General purpose language for writing smart contracts.
• Marlowe – smart contracts language designed for financial transactions
• Multi Currency – facilitate multiple cryptocurrencies on a single ledger
• Accounting – will support UTXO and account-based transactions.
• IELE – a Virtual machine [VM] with universal language framework for smart contract transactions.
• Developers – Tools to develop smart contracts.
• End Users – Allow users to execute smart contracts.

Presently, the Cardano team has finished research in sidechains, multicurrency, and accounting. Work related to Plutus is also completed. Furthermore, the team has released the version 1.2 of Marlowe as well as its academic paper. Solidity to IELE translator is being worked, while the first version of IELE VM has been finished. Notably, Adapt Mantis, the Ethereum Classic client built by IOHK to work with K- EVM, a stack-based machine, and IELE VM is also being developed.

K-EVM will be released when the first testnet goes live on May 28. K-EVM enables developers to understand the practical application of formal semantics by interacting with VM (virtual machine) and executing solidity contracts.

Saturday’s Premier League games saw a number of vital results at the bottom of the Premier League table, with Crystal Palace and Southampton picking up victories, while Swansea suffered a possible crucial home defeat.

Eagles soar against Leicester

Crystal Palace recorded their biggest ever Premier League win by recording a 5-0 victory over Leicester at Selhurst Park.

Palace took the lead on 17 minutes, as James McArthur finding Wilfried Zaha, who opened up his body before finding the top corner of the net. Roy Hodgson’s side doubled their lead on 38 minutes, as McArthur produced a sublime turn and shot that found the far corner.

Foxes winger Marc Albrighton saw red in 56 minutes after bringing down Zaha when the forward was in on goal. The Eagles took full advantage of the extra man. With just nine minutes remaining, Ruben Loftus-Cheek rounded Ben Hamer before tapping home.

Three minutes later, Palace added a fourth as Patrick van Aanholt scored from a rebound after Hamer had parried an effort from Jeffrey Schlupp. Christian Benteke scored the fifth goal in stoppage-time from the penalty spot after a foul by Harry Maguire in the penalty area.

The victory moved the Eagles up to 11^th place in the top-flight, six points clear of the bottom three, although 18thplace Southampton have a game in-hand on the Eagles.

Saints record vital derby win

Southampton recorded a much-needed 2-1 win over Bournemouth at St Marys to keep their survival hopes alive. The Saints took the lead on 25 minutes. Mario Lemina broke at pace and the Saints had two on one, the French midfielder delayed his pass but found Dusan Tadic who fired home. The visitors were back on level terms in first-half stoppage-time, as Josh King fired home at the back post.

The home side was back ahead ten minutes into the second period. Cherries centre-back Steve Cook attempted to chest the ball down, only for Tadic to steal the ball off the defender. The attacking midfielder decided to ignore his teammates in support and fired home a sublime effort with the outside of his boot.

Shane Long and Nathan Redmond had chances to put the game to bed but failed to find the target. The narrow lead led a nervous ending to the game. In fact, Saints goalkeeper Alex McCarthy had to make vital saves from Jermain Defoe and Ryan Fraser late on to preserve the vital victories.

Southampton are now just one point from safety. However, their next two games are away at Everton and Swansea before finishing the campaign with a home game against champions Manchester City at home. The Saints are still considered one of the favourites to suffer relegation this season.

Nervous times for Swans are Blues defeat

Things are getting nervous for Swansea and their fans after a 1-0 home defeat by Chelsea at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday.

The only goal of the game arrived after just four minutes. Eden Hazard showed good feet to beat a couple of defenders before finding Cesc Fabregas who guided an effort past Lukasz Fabianski in the Swans goal.

Olivier Giroud’s header clipped the bar, while in the second half Victor Moses fired just wide of goal. At the other end of the pitch, Andre Ayew and Kyle Naughton both spurned good opportunities to equalise, while midfielder Tom Carroll volleyed wide of Thibaut Courtois’ goal.

The Swans failed to find an equaliser, which leaves the Welsh side in major danger of suffering relegation with just three games remaining.

Who will suffer relegation from the Premier League?

Koinex, a popular P2P cryptocurrency exchange-based in India, announced the launch of Ripple (XRP) based cryptocurrency pairs for trading and investment. So far, no other well-known cryptocurrency exchange has offered XRP token based assets for investing. In all, 15 crypto-to-crypto trading pairs with ZERO trading fee was introduced.

The eight cryptos, which are paired with XRP are: Aeternity (AE), Litecoin (LTC), OmiseGo (OMG), Request Network (REQ), Golem (GNT), Tron (TRX), Nucleus Vision (NCASH), EOS (EOS).

Since the beginning of 2018, the crypto-market has been in disarray due to the hostile stand taken by regulators and Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The central even reprimanded banks from dealing with entities offers cryptocurrency related services. However, Indian cryptocurrency exchanges continue to dodge regulators and do business as usual with enthusiastic investors. Notably, last year, Indian investors contributed to 10% of global Bitcoin trading volume.

Koinex also offers nine BTC based pairs and six ETH based pairs for trading. Both web and mobile based trading facility is provided. The exchange accepts only Indians as their clients. Their revenue model is based on simple trade fee on the Indian rupee value of an order placed on Koinex. While the selling is free, they charge a nominal trade fee, which is levied on the Indian rupee value of the order.

The exchange charges a fee – 0.15%, 0.20%, or 0.25% – depending on an individual’s last 30-day trading volume. It is also called trailing trading volume.

Rahul Raj, Co-Founder and CEO of Koinex said

“Our platform is built with the agility and technical brilliance to adapt to any market requirement. We were deliberating on the possible new offerings on Koinex and many of our traders expressed interest for a crypto-to-crypto trading corridor. Our thoughts matched and we expedited the platform integration and today are set to offer our entire crypto-pair bouquet for seamless trading, and many more such surprises are in the pipeline to enthrall our users.”

Koinex is KYC, AML compliant platform. Therefore, verified users can only use the platform for investing in cryptocurrencies. Once the verification is done, a pre-defined wallet is created. Both buyer and seller on the exchange will need to have a pre-filled wallet in order to commence a transaction.

About Koinex

Koinex is an entrepreneurial venture set up by Rahul Raj, Aditya Naik and Rakesh Yadav. They are alumnus’ of IIT and BITS Pilani, two of India’s prestigious educational institutions. Koinex is a peer-to-peer exchange model, which is run by Discidium Internet Labs Pvt Ltd, incorporated in July 2017. The team has built Koinex with an open ledger format. Reportedly, the platform is manned with Grade A security, user-centric UI/UX and user-demanded features. The team had received funding from global investment firms Beenext and Pantera Capital. The pre-Series A round of funding was led by Daniel Morehead, Founder and CEO, Pantera Capital and Dirk van Quaquebeke, Managing Partner of Beenext.

A majority of people have little idea about how Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency works. In fact, many of the cryptocurrency investors can hardly explain the concept of network, nodes, etc. However, that does not mean the technology is inferior or has no value. Furthermore, a basic idea of the advantages, which cryptocurrency has over fiat currencies, is more or less enough to choose an ideal crypto asset for investment. Still, there are big renowned Wall Street investors who are not willing to accept Bitcoin as an outcome of a path breaking innovation. Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, is one among them.

On May 5, Berkshire Hathaway, the investment firm headed by world renowned investor Warren Buffett, will conduct its annual shareholders meeting. Investors and non-investors can hear the unscripted views of Warren Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger on the economy, company, corporate governance, the markets, etc. In an exclusive interview with Yahoo Finance, which is hosting the event, Buffett gave his latest opinion on cryptocurrencies.

Warren Buffett tried to portray cryptocurrency investors as ignorant people who have no idea about what an investment actually means. Buffett said

“There’s two kinds of items that people buy and think they’re investing. One really is investing and the other isn’t. Bitcoin isn’t. If you buy something like a farm, an apartment house, or an interest in a business… You can do that on a private basis… And it’s a perfectly satisfactory investment. You look at the investment itself to deliver the return to you. Now, if you buy something like bitcoin or some cryptocurrency, you don’t really have anything that has produced anything. You’re just hoping the next guy pays more.”

According to Buffett, the term investment can be used only when the asset is used to produce something of value. Since Bitcoin is not used to produce anything, Buffett believes that it cannot be construed as an investment.

Buffett further said

“You aren’t investing when you do that. You’re speculating. There’s nothing wrong with it. If you wanna gamble somebody else will come along and pay more money tomorrow, that’s one kind of game. That is not investing.”

Buffett believes that Bitcoin and other cryptos are more or less like a pyramid scheme where the early entrant gets all the benefits and the last person is doomed. However, investors would certainly wish that tax authorities consider investment in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as gambling. At least, that could save them a lot of cash.

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) crossed $11 earlier this week after the chip maker exceeded analysts’ estimates for the first-quarter. The stock price reflects a return of 7.5% YTD (year-to-date), compared with S&P 500’s 0.7% decline. In 2016, the stock was trading below $2. At that time, most analysts believed that AMD will disappear into oblivion. However, with successful execution of multi-year strategy, the company’s CEO Lisa Su has successfully turned around the struggling business. While there are many reasons for the success, the demand for GPU cards from Ethereum and other cryptocurrency miners certainly played a major role in the turnaround.

During the first-quarter ended March 2018, AMD posted revenues of $1.65 billion, up 40% from last year. Adjusted earnings for the quarter was $0.11 per share. Analysts had expected earnings of $0.09 per share on revenues of $1.57 billion. AMD also recorded a gross margin of 36%, up 4% from last year. The operating income jumped to $120 million, from just $11 million a year ago. Notably, cryptocurrency miners contributed to 10% of the total revenues. Nobody can brush away $165 million as a small amount. It should be remembered that the first-quarter was unarguably bearish for the cryptocurrency market. However, Lisa Su is not bothered by the slowdown.

Lisa Su said

“We don’t see a significant risk of secondhand GPUs coming into the market. We do see a bit of volatility and that’s why we are putting into our forecast for the second quarter and the second half a little bit lower blockchain demand, but that’s more than made up for by the other new products and the way the new products are ramping in the business.”

The cryptocurrency market is showing signs of a turnaround in the past three weeks. Echoing the trend, AMD has also issued an optimistic guidance for the second quarter. The company expects 2Q18 revenue of $1.725 billion, plus or minus $50 million.

Recently, AMD tried in vain to convince its investors that demand for GPUs from cryptocurrency miners do not constitute a significant portion of their revenue. When Bitmain announced the release of E3 Antminer,
Susquehanna analyst Christopher Rolland wrote “proliferation of Ethereum mining ASICs [application-specific integrated circuits] has the ability to impact ~20% of AMD’s total company revenue.” The stock turned weak despite attempts by AMD’s management to instill confidence in investors.

As cryptocurrency market grows further, undoubtedly, semiconductor manufacturers would certainly become more dependent on cryptocurrency miners and exchanges for their revenue. No longer, big investors in Wall Street can discard cryptocurrency market easily.

With the Premier League title already won and the European spots all-but decided, the main focus for gameweek 36 and the rest of the season is the battle for Premier League survival.

Here are the pick of the fixtures taking place in the Premier League:

Liverpool v Stoke (Saturday, 12:30 PM kick-off)

The early kick-off in the top-flight sees Champions League semi-finalists Liverpool host relegation-threatened Stoke City at Anfield.

Liverpool head into this clash with one eye on Wednesday Champions League semi-final second leg against Roma, a clash the Reds have a 5-2 advantage. Despite the advantage, Reds boss Jurgen Klopp looks set to rotate his squad. The visit may need the home side to rest some key players, as the Reds are unbeaten in 19 home games in the Premier League. Klopp’s side have also been impressive in front of goal of late, scoring at least two goals in 15 of their last 18 top-flight outings.

Stoke head into this clash are major underdogs to record a win. However, the Potters are desperately in need of a shock win to aid their survival bid. Paul Lambert’s visitors are four points from safety, having played a game more than 17^th place Swansea. If results go against the visitors, they could suffer relegation this weekend. One of the Potters main problems of late is that they have struggled for wins on their travels in the top-flight, as the Staffordshire outfit have failed to win in their last 12 league games on the road.

Southampton v Bournemouth (Saturday, kick-off 3 PM)

Southampton are currently 18^th place in the table, four points from safety heading into south coast derby against Bournemouth at St Marys.

The Saints have failed to win in their last eight matches in the top-flight, while winning one of their last 21 league outings. The south coast side have struggled to win at St Marys, having failed to win any of their last nine league games on home soil. In fact, the Saints have lost four of their last five league encounters on home soil. They have at least kept clean in their last four home games against Bournemouth.

Bournemouth heads to their south coast neighbours 11^th in the Premier League. Eddie Howe’s team will still be eying up a top-half finish this season. However, winning just once in their last nine league games has not helped their chances of a top-ten finish. The Cherries have also won just once in their last 11 away outings in the league.

Swansea v Chelsea (Saturday, 5:30 PM)

A home win for Swansea against Chelsea at the Liberty Stadium would be a massive step towards safety for the Swans, who are four points clear of the relegation zone.

However, Carlos Carvalhal’s team have struggled for wins of late in the top-flight, as the Welsh side are winless in their last five outings. The home side have struggled for goals this season and no team has scored fewer goals than the visitors in the top-flight. There is a recent positive for the Swans, as they are unbeaten in five league games at the Liberty Stadium, recording four wins and a draw.

Chelsea head into this clash fifth-place and five points behind Tottenham who occupy the last Champions League spot. The Blues looked to be out of the race for the top-four until recent victories over Southampton and Burnley. The visitors have a good recent record against the Swans, as they have lost one of the last 11 meetings in all competitions.

This weekend’s other Premier League fixtures (Kick-off 3 PM Unless stated)

Saturday

Burnley v Brighton

Crystal Palace v Leicester

Huddersfield v Everton

Newcastle v West Brom

Sunday

West Ham v Manchester United (Kick-off 2:15 PM)

Manchester United v Arsenal (Kick-off 4:30)

Who will pick up crucial Premier League wins this weekend?

Wirex, the issuer of prepaid debit card, announced that its customers will now be able to spend Litecoin using the Wirex payment cards. Currently, Wirex is the only debit card, which allows spending cash by converting cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin and Litecoin) via its Visa-linked debit card. The cards will be available for EEA customers from May onwards. The integration of Litecoin with Wirex is another step forward towards mass adoption of cryptocurrencies in the UK and Europe.

Wirex customers can purchase Litecoin via a debit card, credit card, or bank transfer and store it in the new wallet offered by the company. Furthermore, users will also be able to exchange over 50 altcoins to Litecoin instantly. Wirex has provided this facility for users to cash out profits generated from ICO or cryptotrading. Anyone registering for a new card at wirexapp.com will receive a Wirex LTC card.

Customers can also convert their Bitcoin and Litecoin to GBP, USD, and EUR at any time. Wirex is planning to support more currencies in the future. Furthermore, Wirex is currently accepting registrations for contactless (tap-to-pay) card. The Wirex prepaid debit card is currently accepted by over 40 million merchants in over 200 countries. The instant conversion facility enables spending cryptos in supported countries, while online payments are protected through integrated 3D system.

Customer funds are held in segregated accounts under e-money licence, regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority.

Other features:

• Transfer funds using cryptocurrency instantly to other Wirex account holders anywhere in the world FREE!
• Withdraw crypto to external wallets at the SegWit-enabled blockchain fee (Wirex adds no fee on top).
• Use crypto to send money directly to anyone (at home or abroad) without needing a high-street bank account or expensive money transfer service, anytime night or day.

Pavel Matveev, Wirex CEO said

“Wirex keeps growing as a platform, and it’s natural for us to add new services and currencies. Litecoin has huge potential and a big community, so there is a lot of demand for this service on the market.”