Atari, Kodak and other corporate giants are artificially boosting their stock prices as high as 240% by announcing ridiculous crypto or blockchain projects that will probably never see the light of day. Its nice to see blockchain and bitcoin have that much brand name recognition to where big and established private sector industries can gain massive equity value via alleged association. But the long term net effect is likely to be many of these recent announcements which are claiming blockchain / ICO affiliation are overvalued and will produce an enormous bubble as these assets are overvalued. It is also ironic to note the ridiculous amount of value ordinary and mundane projects like hotels can gain by claiming to be backed by bitcoin's value and brand name recognition. A hotel backed by bitcoin appears to be a safer and better investment by a hotel backed by fiat currency which is interesting.  |
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Let's discuss where to live Interesting topic. As far as I know, states in the USA like arizona offer lowest cost of living. Then there are states like texas and florida which do not implement a state level income tax. There are potential positive points in terms of cost of living comparison shopping. But there could be other unfortunate negatives associated with some of those positives which could outweigh them. Regional comparisons aside, one interesting data point is the average cost of living increasing at a far greater rate than wages which could eventually result in an "unsustainable" scenario where a decent percentage of the population inevitable end up in a dead end scenario where they're unable to sustain themselves financially. There could be a massive bubble in the making where the price of basic necessities like rent and food are inflating at a rate too quick to be sustained and eventually we'll see a massive bust cycle occur when prices are forced to decrease to maintain consistent demand. |
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In years past, the public had more control over how their personal information was shared. If a household their name and address delisted from a phonebook that option was presented to them. With the introduction of the internet, that precedent was abandoned. Today its not difficult to obtain someone's personal information via background check or personal information sharing websites like intelius.com which charge a fee for giving out other peoples key info. This precedent may contribute towards identity theft and other negatives. Facebook is unfortunately only the tip of the iceberg as far as data mining goes. It might do well for the state to intervene and introduce mandatory regulation which guarantees people an "opt out" option as well as introducing stricter and harsher penalties for the abuse of personal information. Data sharing is one area where regulation could have a good potential to bring about some positive change. One might say better regulation of information sharing has the potential to do much more good in the world than bitcoin regulation. |
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Yesterday we exposed the globally contagious spread of funding market distress into the credit risk of major US banks, and today it has accelerated, spreading to Europe's banks as their stocks crashed to the lowest in 11 months... Deutsche Bank is leading European banking's collapse... Image link: https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/styles/inline_image_desktop/public/inline-images/2018-03-22_7-03-25.jpg Image link: https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/styles/inline_image_desktop/public/inline-images/2018-03-22_7-00-26.jpgCredit risk is breaking out... Image link: https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/styles/inline_image_desktop/public/inline-images/2018-03-22_7-07-12.jpgAs Credit diverges extremely bearishly from stocks... Image link: https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/styles/inline_image_desktop/public/inline-images/2018-03-22_7-10-18.jpgAnd it's about to get even worse... Image link: https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/styles/inline_image_desktop/public/inline-images/2018-03-21_7-19-06_0.jpgAs three-month dollar Libor extended its streak to 32 straight increases, though the rise in the setting is the smallest since March 8. The crucial USD Libor-OIS spread rises to 56.8bp, widest level since May 2009 (as 3M Libor at 2.2856% is the highest since November 2008, vs 2.2711% prior session). As we noted yesterday, the key is whether rising Libor rates will fuel a funding crisis - something we have been worrying about all year (as we detailed above with the blowout in the Libor-OIS spread)... “We usually don’t see this kind of divergence in rates without some sort of credit issue,” said Margaret Kerins, head of fixed-income strategy at BMO Capital Markets Corp., referring to Libor’s rise versus OIS.
“At what point does all this become damaging and how far does it go? That is the issue.” It appears to be damaging now.. “There has been sort of the perfect storm of factors tightening financial conditions,” said Russ Certo, head of rates at Brean Capital in New York.
“Banks do have tremendous liquidity still, but it’s at a higher price.” But, but, but... "fortress balance sheets"? https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-22/funding-stress-contagion-spreads-european-banks-collapse-11-month-lows.... The topic of european banks having liquidity issues or "funding contagions" as they prefer to characterize it, has cropped up in this section a few times in 2017. There have been articles posted about european banks proposing to impose limits on withdrawals with proposals to decrease the total sum to which insurance covers individual depositor accounts. In some cases, it appears that negative news stories involving european banks may have been scrubbed from google search results. If you remember reading a news article about something bad happening with a european bank in 2017 and try to find the article, it might be difficult to do so. Anyways I'm certain people are tired of discussing "bitcoin volatility" by now. Thankfully we can now discuss bank volatility instead and perhaps question why institutions like banks which people rely on to provide economic and financial stability may be less stable than we would like them to be. |
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Interesting information. Nice to know. It may be worth mentioning that as the united states cuts corporate tax rates, which could have a side effect of opening it up to broader investment in the business sector... Investments pouring into china could dry up as the USA becomes a more attractive option. It is possible that china's recent "crackdowns" on exchanges and crypto could be part of a widescale attempt to limit the degree to which investments in china's business and economy migrate out of the country. It is nice to know that china's new head banker might have a sentimental attachment to crypto and subscribe to a bitcoin stance. But over the long term china's economic and financial policies may be more pragmatic and revolve more around necessity than adopting bitcoin and deregulating it in order to help it grow. |
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In this post, I’m going to discuss a vulnerability I discovered in Ledger hardware wallets. The vulnerability arose due to Ledger’s use of a custom architecture to work around many of the limitations of their Secure Element. An attacker can exploit this vulnerability to compromise the device before the user receives it, or to steal private keys from the device physically or, in some scenarios, remotely. If you want to miss out on the fun of building an exploit yourself, you can find my proof-of-concept on GitHub. Github link: https://github.com/saleemrashid/ledger-mcu-backdoorIf you follow the instructions there and install it on a Ledger Nano S running firmware 1.3.1 or below, you will be able to reenact the attack in the video above. However, because this is for educational purposes only, I have deliberately made the attack slightly less reliable. https://saleemrashid.com/2018/03/20/breaking-ledger-security-model/.... He offers a complete technical breakdown of the vulnerability. This seems like interesting news which hasn't received much attention. While the exploit has been patched on most machines affected the nano blue remains unpatched. Disseminating this information and giving this issue more publicity could provide incentive for Ledger to issue a patch quicker. It might also help to know the vulnerability isn't inherent in bitcoin or blockchain but rather in the custom built hardware architecture which Ledger utilizes in its products. |
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Why?
Maybe because of killing innocent people in Ukraine, the occupation of the sovereign country and basically killing the closest nationality neighbors they have ?
Maybe because they are constantly expanding their digital war on Europe , trying to split EU ?
Maybe because they are helping one of the cruelest and most barbarous dictators - Assad to kill and cripple innocent civilians in Syria?
Remeber this next time you ask stupid rhetorical or non rhetorical questions about Russian sanctions.
To answer original OP, no it does not matter and there was no election only illusion of it.
History is seldom black-and-white where one side is 100% good and the other is 100% evil. Part of russia's expansionist policy is a reaction to attempts made by the united states and european nations to keep it contained. The united states has proposed missile shields and other policies which would represent a step towards keeping russia contained. In response to this, russia has threatened to invade sweden, sent bombers flying past alaska and taken other steps to show the world that they won't be bullied or pushed around by anyone. Even events like the bombing of pearl harbor were precipitated by economic sanctions or other measures which provoked a violent response. The stance many have where they believe that one side has a moral high ground or is completely innocent often doesn't pan out. I'm certain that if someone researched russia, they would find that the USA and european nations took many steps which provoked the situation in Crimea and that russia isn't necessarily 100% responsible for all of the evil in the world. |
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I believe we all caught at least a glimpse of some of the episodes of the popular series Star Trek. You haven't? Then what are you waiting for?
Kidding aside, all of us that actually watched it have surely noticed the fact that the so-called Federation, originating from Earth, comes from a society that has solved all the poverty issues, there are no wars, you can basically achieve your goals by just pursuing them etc...... Its been said that Gene Roddenberry, the creator of star trek, identifies as a communist in terms of his political leanings. That might explain why the star trek universe is centralized within an organization known as the federation which has abolished poverty, war and other negatives of the human condition. Incidentally, the federation never abolished money. The existence of currency is never acknowledged but it is known that some of the readouts on the sickbay monitors list "medical credits per patient" which would seem to indicate that not even in the 24th century is healthcare free! Anyways I'm not certain if centralization and lack of competition as illustrated by Gene Roddenberry's vision is the best model for advancing civilization or society. Decentralized statehood could be a better model. Competing states appear to be a main impetus behind many of the more progressive and effective laws being passed. |
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Putin's victory in the elections should have a positive effect on the price of bitcoin, if it has any effect at all.
Russia under Putin is a major world power which exists outside the control of central banks. Does anyone remember during the 2017 US elections when Hillary Clinton and other american politicians were calling for a war with russia? Also in 2017, it is possible there was at least one attempt made on Putin's life where his driver was killed in a head on collision. Now, if you remember a little more, you might recall that Putin(see: russia) warned the united states about the Tsarnaev Brothers (Boston Marathon Bombers) being radicalized in advance.
So why are we imposing sanctions against russia, again?
It is possible pressure against russia (as well as anti russian sentiment) comes from central bankers who wish to overthrow Putin and establish their own puppet leader in the country, as they have all over the world. If Putin is re-elected it means that Putin is likely to embrace alternative financial and banking technologies like bitcoin, rather than fiat currencies the way a puppet leader would, which would drive the value and price of bitcoin higher.
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In my opinion, BTC is not a traditional currency like gold and silver because it does not have any use value, so it is not a credit currency. It's basically just one use, money laundering tool.
Nice troll attempt?  The claim of bitcoin being a "money laundering tool" is a fantastical claim, and I'm certain many agree that fantastical claims demand fantastical evidence.  I would be interested to know which money launderers opt in for bitcoin with a public ledger and highly traceable transactions documenting their every move? Wouldn't cash be a superior option with its lack of a paper or electronic trail for investigators and law enforcement to follow? The idea that bitcoin or crypto currencies in general are good options for money laundering could well be a media fabricated perspective. There isn't much evidence to support it. All indications are that banks and other financial institutions have laundered money for drug cartels, terrorists, shady russians and other illicit groups and never been punished or received more than a slap on the wrist for it. |
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President Donald Trump banned U.S. purchases of a cryptocurrency the Venezuelan government is rolling out, as part of a campaign to pressure the government of President Nicolas Maduro. Trump issued an order on Monday prohibiting U.S. citizens from engaging in transactions using the oil-backed currency, called the Petro. He authorized Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to issue any necessary regulations to enforce his order. Maduro created the currency to try to salvage his country’s failing economy, where inflation is estimated to spiral to 13,000 percent this year. The ban complicates the Maduro government’s efforts to boost its foreign reserves through a digital token. Venezuela’s offering accepted transactions in U.S. dollars and euros, meaning that Venezuelan citizens are forbidden from participating given a ban on buying foreign currency. “It’s a pretty big blow,” said Russ Dallen, the managing director at Caracas Capital. “Since most cryptocurrencies are not actually backed by anything real, cryptocurrency speculation is based on the greater fool theory -- I can buy this at $100 because there is someone who is a bigger idiot who is going to buy it at $200. When you take the U.S. out of that equation, you reduce the interest and potential for that speculation.” New Sanctions Mnuchin met with other finance ministers on Monday at the G20 conference in Buenos Aires to discuss the situation in Venezuela. His department also announced sanctions on four more current and former Venezuela government officials, according to a statement posted on Treasury’s website. The sanctioned officials are Willian Antonio Contreras, the vice minister of internal commerce; Nelson Reinaldo Lepaje Salazar, who is acting as head of the office of the national treasury, according to the U.S.; Americo Alex Mata Garcia, an alternate director on the board of the National Bank of Housing and Habitat; and Carlos Alberto Rotondaro Cova, the former president of the board of directors of the Venezuela Institute of Social Security. “President Maduro decimated the Venezuelan economy and spurred a humanitarian crisis. Instead of correcting course to avoid further catastrophe, the Maduro regime is attempting to circumvent sanctions through the Petro digital currency – a ploy that Venezuela’s democratically-elected National Assembly has denounced and Treasury has cautioned U.S. persons to avoid,” Mnuchin said in a statement. In his meeting with his international counterparts, Mnuchin said, “we discussed how to achieve our shared objectives of restoring Venezuelan democracy, combating the kleptocracy of the Maduro regime, and responding to the humanitarian crisis caused by Maduro’s economic policy.” For more on cryptocurrencies, check out the Decrypted podcast: A press official for Venezuela’s Information Ministry declined to comment Pence Speech In August, the Trump administration barred the trading of new debt issued by Venezuela’s government and state-owned oil company in U.S. markets amid deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the oil-rich nation. The U.S. government has been weighing sanctions on Venezuela’s all-important oil sector before the nation’s presidential election on May 20. That would be a potentially crippling blow to the Maduro government, which depends almost exclusively on crude sales to sustain what’s left of the economy. The Treasury Department warned investors in January to steer clear of the digital currency, calling it “another attempt to prop up the Maduro regime, while further looting the resources of the Venezuelan people.” Vice President Mike Pence will pressure Maduro’s government in a speech Wednesday to a session of the Organization of American States, his office said. “The Vice President will call on all members to increase pressure on the Maduro regime to restore the country’s democracy and address the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Venezuela,” Pence’s spokeswoman, Alyssa Farah, said Monday in a statement. Trump plans to attend the Summit of the Americas in Lima next month, where his administration is likely to highlight its efforts to isolate the Venezuelan government. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-19/trump-prohibits-u-s-purchases-of-venezuelan-cryptocurrency.... I had not realized Venezuela's inflation is projected to reach 13,000% this year.  That sounds horrendous. I can't imagine what market and living conditions must be like there. How can Venezuela survive the year with conditions being that terrible? If I'm remembering right, venezuela's crypto was noteworthy in that it was reported to be backed by venezuela's oil reserves. It was backed by a commodity with intrinsic value which is one point the authors of this article appear to have missed in their enthusiasm to brand all crypto as being "printed out of thin air without limit". |
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The 1st I.R. (Industrial Revolution) occured when the Telegram, a new power source called coal, and a new transport system (steam engine/Railroads) merged to forever change society as we know it.
The 2nd I.R. occured when the telephone/radio/TV, Oil, Cars/trucks/buses once again merged into a new platform of society.
There's no real technological paradigm shift separating the "1st industrial revolution" from the "2nd industrial revolution". The telephone is essentially identical to a telegram system, there isn't a quantum leap of difference separating the two. The telephone is telegram 2.0. Coal and oil are both hydrocarbon based forms of energy subject to many similar emissions and greenhouse gas issues. If steam engines and locomotives are version 1.0 then cars/trucks/buses are version 2.0. Again no major upgrade between the two technologies cars and trucks utilize essentially many of the same fundamental engine principles as a locomotive: pistons, gears, valves, etc. The 3rd I.R. will occur once the Internet, renewable energy/smartgrids, new logistics (driverless cars, electric cars) all merge into the Internet of Things I think renewable energy/smartgrids and the other things mentioned do represent a technological paradigm shift. This abstract should be labeled the 2nd industrial revolution and the one mentioned above should be tossed out. Of course, there isn't much if any demand for consistent standards in academia. |
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Good post. I have to say I dislike this new age tendency where some are labeled "conspiracy theorists" for displaying independent thought and voicing their own opinions--attempting to think for themselves while those who blindly believe every untrue thing the media says are labeled "rational" for making zero effort to be skeptical of or question anything. Society is not headed in a good direction when blind faith in a church, religion or the mainstream media becomes a status quo precedent. On a site note, some crypto currency exchanges charge no commission on buy or sell orders. There is speculation this enables price manipulation as it may empower traders to buy and sell their own holdings without the efficiency losses which may normally make this type of practice unfeasible in higher volume trading environments. I think there is accuracy to notions of the media attacking bitcoin in order to drive the price down. The question is why. Do banks want to buy up a controlling interest in bitcoin. Do they end to defame and devalue it in order to indirectly destroy notions of concepts such as decentralization and limited supply? Whatever their end goal is remains unknown as far as I know. |
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Notes. -BJJ Scout posted an interesting and worth watching post fight study of Khabib Nurmagomedov's last fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FrjANY1T40-Joanna Jedrzejczyk directed some of the blame for her last loss against Rose @ her nutrition and weight cutting crew. It will be interesting to see if that change makes a difference in the rematch. -Calvin Kattar's last fight where he finished Shane Burgos via strikes was very impressive. He is a hot prospect atm for sure. -There are some interesting contrasts in these fights. Michael Chiesa doesn't do well if he can't get his takedown. Anthony Pettis often doesn't do well if he is taken down. Evan Dunham has wrestled a lot in his last few fights. UFC matchmakers seem to have given him one of the best wrestlers in the division in a "test your might" mortal kombat type of thing. |
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A hedge fund for the people, by the people could be interesting, if such a thing ever did exist. Most hedge funds cater to those with a little more cash in their wallets and higher balances in their bank accounts, I'm thinking. Of course, there's a question of market saturation. Traders who develop winning strategies in crypto trading might admit the less people utilizing a specific strategy, the more profitable it is. Multiplying potential profits being a factor of capital on hand, focusing on wealthier clients makes sense if profiteering is the motive. It isn't likely that a good trader will accept $5 from 10 people to start a hedge fund. That's usually not how these things work, as far as I know. I applaud the concept of a small, independent, hedge fund not motivated primarily by money or profits. A community project or long term HODL that isn't a get-rich-quick-scheme, in some quasi form of delayed gratification would be cool. Maybe it is rare to see something like that these days though. |
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I recommend SBR's (Sports Book Review) forum. https://www.sportsbookreview.com/forumThere are a lot of people who post there who have good attitudes. They actually do bet and have a lot of experience and interesting information to offer. Some of them profit consistently and a decent amount of money can be earned by tailing their bets and following their plays which they generously offer to the public for free. In addition they offer a good "pro" program where a person can donate $100 to a charity to participate in their free "pick em" competitions with the potential to win cash prizes and they also offer an option to cash out winnings in bitcoin as well as other rewards. |
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Is it because of the large number of altcoins?
If I remember right, the G20 summit is on monday. I think we could have important information on the future of bitcoin regulation announced on tuesday the 20th of march, 2018. Altcoins could have a positive effect on bitcoin's price. They provide additional network transaction bandwidth and a medium for transmitting crypto quickly with low fees. The media could be attacking bitcoin. There was the "tether(USDT) conspiracy" where the media claimed $80 billion in tether was being used to buy bitcoin in an effort to artificially inflate its price(it helps if you know tethers market cap is only around $2 billion). Now the media may be pushing something they're labeling the "bitcoin death cross" you can read about it here: Anyways there a lot to be said about this. A lot of different potential angles. |
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Youtube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_ZPh1OkL-s44 minutes long & well worth a listen. Good content. I recommend. They delve into many good topics here including inflation, wealth redistribution, fractional reserve banking and similar economic topics which are very neglected within this day and age. For anyone looking for independent and (mostly) unbiased coverage of grey areas surrounding finance and economics, this is a good place to start. A different perspective can be invaluable at times, good counterpoints can provide excellent metrics for reference. Also it is nice to see Mike Maloney who is a diehard precious metals advocate say positive things about bitcoin and crypto in general.
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In our world everything works under the patronate of the governments which have anti-monopolistic laws (that sometimes are obviously destructive) and companies have to obey them. Intel shouldn't become a pure monopolist. Many nations like china and japan have no anti-trust laws. There's a question of whether anti-trust laws have a potential to handicap or cripple american businesses while empowering foreign corporations who have no such restrictions. If AMD ever folded, Intel would definitely become a monopoly and the CPU market would become heavily centralized. There would be nothing that would stop that from occurring. Not long ago, microsoft was fined for its monopoly over the operating system market. That's the best the government can do and it is wholly ineffective. Back in 1997 there was a similar case when Apple had some really bad times and Microsoft bought 150 mln $ worth of Apple stocks just in order to save a "competition" and not to become a monopolist.
One might say the reason healthcare in the united states is unaffordable has to do with healthcare being monopolized on a state level. Virtually everything that is expensive or is a result of dysfunctional workmanship in america is typically associated with a centralized monopoly of some type. Of course the same thing happens with universal healthcare in foreign countries. Socialised healthcare is a monopoly and the lack of competition inherent in that arrangement makes things sloppy and unaffordable over the long term. |
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I don't know whether you watch the news but mexico recently granted banks regulatory power over crypto markets. In practice, this gives banks the power to control which altcoins exchanges are allowed to buy or sell, with exchanges being given a 1 year term to comply with whatever standards banks choose to implement. I hate to be negative or a downer but if banks are given regulatory power over crypto mexico's example could be implemented on a larger scale.  Also stellar sounds great! |
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