How To Profit From MASSIVE InflationThis video will explore 3 ways to invest if you want to profit from the inflation we've been seeing over the past year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPQ0pttjinIRecommendations on real estate and commodities as good business models to pursue in eras of high inflation. He contends real estate will appreciate in value at a pace rivaling inflation, allowing for profits over both short and long term. Commodities is his other recommendation. Interesting whiteboard analysis and good breakdown.
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Russia is not going to war. I don't think the Chinese who invested more of the lands in the US will like it. Some big businesses in US are now owned by the Chinese, they'd rather stand along by playing a long game here by improving their economy since Germany is on thier side now with thier joint project like the oil pipeline. While on the other side of the world oil prices will double, on thier side, it could be cheaper. All of them are interested in the Chinese Belt and Road too, so that might just be the strategy. I read this only a few weeks ago: Russia ‘very likely’ to invade Ukraine without ‘enormous sanctions’ – SchiffRussia is “very likely” to invade Ukraine and might only be deterred by “enormous sanctions”, the chair of the US House intelligence committee said on Sunday. Adam Schiff also said an invasion could backfire on Moscow, by drawing more countries into the Nato military alliance. “I also think that a powerful deterrent is the understanding that if they do invade, it is going to bring Nato closer to Russia, not push it farther away,” he said. After the California Democrat spoke, the White House said Joe Biden had spoken to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said in a statement: “President Biden made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine.” On Twitter, Zelenskiy said: “The first international talk of the year with [Biden] proves the special nature of our relations.” He also said the joint actions of Ukraine, the US “and partners in keeping peace in Europe, preventing further escalation, reforms, deoligarchisation were discussed. We appreciate the unwavering support of Ukraine.” Russia has amassed around 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine. Earlier this week, Biden told Vladimir Putin the US would impose serious sanctions if Russia attacked. Talks are scheduled for Geneva on 9 and 10 January. But amid tensions heightened by both sides’ possession of nuclear weapons, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that if “the west continues its aggressive line, Russia will be forced to take all necessary measures to ensure strategic balance and eliminate unacceptable threats to our security”. Russia has for years complained about Nato encroachment. Ukraine is not a member of the alliance, which guarantees collective defence, but Nato has expanded eastwards since the fall of the Soviet Union and Kiev urgently seeks admission. Russia invaded Ukrainian territory in 2014, annexing Crimea. The US has supplied “small” arms to Ukraine. On CBS’s Face the Nation, Schiff was asked what would stop Putin ordering an invasion. “I think that it would require enormous sanctions on Russia to deter what appears to be a very likely Russian invasion of Ukraine again,” Schiff said. “And I think our allies need to be solidly on board with it. Russia needs to understand we are united in this.” An invasion, Schiff said, would see “more Nato assets closer to Russia. [It] will have the opposite impact of what Putin is trying to achieve”. Schiff said he had “no problem” with “going after Putin personally”, but thought “sector-sized sanctions will be the most important”. Asked if he thought scheduled talks had any chance of averting an invasion, he said: “I fear that Putin is very likely to invade. I still frankly don’t understand the full motivation for why now he’s doing this, but he certainly appears intent on it unless we can persuade him otherwise. “And I think nothing other than a level of sanctions that Russia has never seen will deter him, and that’s exactly what we need to do with our allies.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/02/russia-invade-ukraine-enormous-sanctions-schiff Here we have a head of US intelligence suggesting harsher economic sanctions on russia to deter invasion of ukraine. They go on to threaten russia with NATO suggesting that invasion will give NATO incentive to crackdown harder. I'm not certain what the numbers or statistics of these circumstances look like. It is known that the united states provides most of NATO's funding and the economic situation of many NATO members isn't good at the moment. I can't say whether NATO members have surplus funds to support greater military action on russia. Without introducing additional economic strain which could potentially bankrupt members of NATO. Its anyone's guess as to how things look in real time. As to whether NATO has the funding needed to follow through on action needed to deter or contain a russian invasion. |
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Essentially the main focus was on the sparring session both fighters had and each of them stating they knocked down the other.
The main thing to take away from this press conference were the antics between Moreno and Figueiredo.
With one calling their opponent the bad guy and the other the hero of the match. Guess which one is which.
Ciryl Gane's manager released old sparring footage of Gane and Ngannou when they both trained together in france. Ngannou said: why didn't you show the part of the sparring where I accidentally knocked you out with a left high kick. Ngannou later apologized saying he should not be proud of it, since it was an accident. ... Brandon Moreno was on the ultimate fighter, the year Henry Cejudo and Joseph Benavidez were coaches. Later Moreno trained with Henry Cejudo. Figueiredo says Moreno betrayed Henry Cejudo when Moreno helped Joseph Benavidez prepare for his fight with Henry Cejudo. Figueiredo says this while training at arizona combat sports which is Henry Cejudo and his brothers MMA gym. ... PredictionsFrancis Ngannou defeats Ciryl Gane via knockout/TKO If Deiveson Figueiredo can get his weight cutting issues solved, I think he will beat Brandon Moreno. Brandon Moreno has very good cardio, that is his strength which aligns with Figueiredo's weakness which is cutting weight and endurance. But it is hard to say who has the advantage there since Figueiredo's weight cut was very bad for the 2nd fight. |
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My question: - What did you think made Satoshi keep the block at 1mb and did not consider to change it?
Many 1 megabyte blocks were filled to only 25% or less capacity. Partially filled blocks was the real culprit behind lag in transaction volume. |
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Its been the same story with russia for many years now. The united states, EU, UN and NATO seek to keep russia contained. Strict economic sanctions are imposed on russia to make them dependant on china as an economic trading partner. China pretends to be russia's friend so they can get close to russia and steal all of russia's advanced military technology.
Russia rattles its saber and makes threats. Whether its russia threatening to invade sweden, russian bombers flying near to alaska, russian military ships sailing to within 30 miles of hawaii or troop build ups on ukraine's border, its all the same. So far they have all been empty threats for near to 10 years.
Whether or not that will change in the future, remains to be seen.
The EU and most european nations have weak militaries and rely primarily on the united states for safety. If american inflation rises, it could diminish the united states ability to function as global police. Which could leave many parts of the world undefended if an economic crisis occurs. If russia does attack, the best time to do so, could be in the event of an american economic crisis.
There are many pieces of the puzzle and they are all moving at the same time. Which makes it hard to say what the future will look like.
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Whoever succeeds and becomes the dominant meta-platform (call it Roblox, Meta or however is there) is very likely to use crypto, NFT and some form of governance. My question to the forum is what do members think that will be the regulations inside the Metaverse? Who set the law (government, the company, both, the users,...)? Who and how decides the "punishment" or penalties for missuse? How do they deal with privacy?
The cynic in me thinks facebook and the metaverse movement could be social media attempts to recreate crypto platforms like LBRY. Mark Zuckenberg probably used LBRY and other crypto earning social media platforms at some point and decided he wanted to steal their ideas. Only he had to pretend he wasn't borrowing their concepts, which could be where the VR angle comes in. Plausible deniability. Zuckenberg can fool many into thinking he isn't borrowing LBRY's concepts and platform structure if he incorporates VR into it, due to LBRY lacking VR support. Mentioning roblox is an interesting example btw. I think their platform does seem like a strange world where copyright laws no longer exist. But in their case, I think a lot of copyrighted content used on their platform is not directly monetized and doesn't receive much in the way of public exposure. And if it does, the earnings and views are practically non-existent which is what allows a blind eye turned to it. If metaverse tried something similar, I doubt they could get away with it. |
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The year 2021 has passed but it has left a mark that will never be erased in people’s minds. One of these is the pandemic that until now has not been ended and is being cured. Many of the entrepreneurs went bankrupt and closed their businesses. And many employees in various industries have lost their jobs. But even though the past year has been difficult for everyone, the people are still positive and resilient and will not lose hope of recovering. The demise of skilled labor in global economies, is somewhat being replaced by innovation and job creation in the digital internet space. For america in the 1950s I think the highest average paying employer was general motors(skilled labor). While manufacturing sectors in the western world have significantly declined(demise of skilled labor). The slack has been taken up to some degree by the rise of the internet. Ecommerce and internet entrepreneurship have greatly lowered the bar to entry for many seeking to found and build their own business. It has also made investment and finance more accessible thanks to the innovation of desktop computers and smartphones. Cryptocurrencies can definitely build upon the foundation laid by silicon valley. It is possible that in the future we will see cryptocurrencies rise to become the amazon, microsoft and googles of the world. Being an early adopter in a successful crypto start up is a great place to be. An observation which could be more accessible and obvious to the general public in the present, than in previous eras of past history. |
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Notice a trend forming?  ... New york has decriminalized prostitution and gambling in an attempt to entice residents to remain in state. Rather than moving to florida or texas as has become increasingly common of late. New York being a high taxation environment will likely make its native apps and gambling books less competitive than establishments in other states and countries with lower tax laws. That's what I would expect. But it is also possible new york's gambling industry could operate at a loss to be more competitive. We'll have to wait and see how things go. |
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Having been around the crypto gambling scene since around 2012.
There were crypto based casino sites I saw that ran roulette wheels with an RNG that didn't use a unique seed for every spin of the wheel. For those who know the backend side of things, I think they know what I'm referring to.
I think there was also a post in this section where someone was selling casino and gambling websites that looked like they ran on scripts as well.
There likely are sites that run on scripts although I would guess they're less common today than they were back in 2012.
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a monkey used his mind to play a video ping pong game
That's literally a demo from the 1980s btw. Pong game with EEG1,196 viewsNov 23, 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WlNA28jtuk(People made EEG controlled pong games ^ 10 years ago on youtube for fun.) I would give you a better source for it, but search engines don't work anymore for whatever reason. I just saw this video and when I searched with the same title without clicking on the link you provided but the video didn't exist  By referring to the video you gave and the argument you said. does that mean Neuralink is just an exaggerated fantasy. or did they just make politics a counterpoint to the Metaverse? Implanting a chip could allow for GPS tracking and surveillance. They could tag humans the way whales and sharks are tagged to track their movements. This is already done with smartphones to a degree. But there are people who are conscious of it, who carry their smartphone inside a EM shielded case to deter tracking which occurs even when phones are turned off. Metaverse I'm not certain on. It seems like a poorly conceived attempt to reinvent the internet. Like flying cars, I don't think the promises and expectations will hold up to their ability to deliver. |
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Walmart appears to be venturing into the metaverse with plans to create its own cryptocurrency and collection of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. The big-box retailer filed several new trademarks late last month that indicate its intent to make and sell virtual goods, including electronics, home decorations, toys, sporting goods and personal care products. In a separate filing, the company said it would offer users a virtual currency, as well as NFTs. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Walmart filed the applications on Dec. 30. In total, seven separate applications have been submitted. In a statement, Walmart said it is “continuously exploring how emerging technologies may shape future shopping experiences.” It declined to comment on the specific trademark filings. “We are testing new ideas all the time,” the company said. “Some ideas become products or services that make it to customers. And some we test, iterate, and learn from.” “They’re super intense,” said Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney. “There’s a lot of language in these, which shows that there’s a lot of planning going on behind the scenes about how they’re going to address cryptocurrency, how they’re going to address the metaverse and the virtual world that appears to be coming or that’s already here.” Gerben said that ever since Facebook announced it was changing its company name to Meta, signaling its ambitions beyond social media, businesses have been rushing to figure out how they will fit into a virtual world. Nike filed a slew of trademark applications in early November that previewed its plans to sell virtual branded sneakers and apparel. Later that month, it said it was teaming up with Roblox to create an online world called Nikeland. In December, it bought the virtual sneaker company RTFKT (pronounced “artifact”) for an undisclosed amount. “All of a sudden, everyone is like, ‘This is becoming super real and we need to make sure our IP is protected in the space,’” said Gerben. Gap has also started selling NFTs of its iconic logo sweatshirts. The apparel maker said its NFTs will be priced in tiers ranging from roughly $8.30 to $415, and come with a physical hoodie. Meantime, both Under Armour’s and Adidas’ NFT debuts sold out last month. They’re now fetching sky-high prices on the NFT marketplace OpenSea. Gerben said that apparel retailers Urban Outfitters, Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie & Fitch have also filed trademarks in recent weeks detailing their intent to open some sort of virtual store. A report from CB Insights outlined some of the reasons why retailers and brands might want to make such ventures, which can potentially offer new revenue streams. Launching NFTs allows for businesses to tokenize physical products and services to help reduce online transaction costs, it said. And for luxury brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton, NFTs can serve as a form of authentication for tangible and more expensive goods, CB Insights noted. Gerben said that as more consumers familiarize themselves with the metaverse and items stored on the blockchain, more retailers will want to create their own ecosystem around it. According to Frank Chaparro, director at crypto information services firm The Block, many retailers are still reeling from being late to e-commerce, so they don’t want to miss out on any opportunities in the metaverse. “I think it’s a win-win for any company in retail,” Chaparro said. “And even if it just turns out to be a fad there’s not a lot of reputation damage in just trying something weird out like giving some customers an NFT in a sweepstake, for instance.” https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/16/walmart-is-quietly-preparing-to-enter-the-metaverse.html.... The great thing about this is it could trigger a domino effect in large retailers who will follow in walmarts footsteps to remain competitive in global markets. Crypto and NFT adoption being relatively trivial and unexpensive to implement. Is there a legitimate motive for any large business not to get in on what could be the next big thing? Amazon has definitely lost ground recently due to supply chain and shipping issues degrading its reliability and quality of service. Perhaps this move to crypto/NFTs can provide walmart with an advantage it needs to dethrone amazon and takeover? |
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Many hospitals across the country are in crisis as cases surge and staffing is at critical lows.Hospitals nationwide are once again buckling under the strain of COVID-19 cases as the ultratransmissible omicron wave crashes into health care systems that are already critically short-staffed and exhausted from previous waves of the pandemic. The current situation is forcing states and hospitals to declare emergencies, deploy the National Guard, delay or cancel elective procedures, institute crisis standards of care, and allow health providers to stay at work even if they themselves are positive for COVID-19 because there is no one available to take their place. Together, the situation has some doctors openly worrying that the omicron wave will cause some systems to collapse in the coming weeks. "The comforting news that this variant generally causes milder disease overlooks the unfolding tragedy happening on the front lines," Craig Spencer, an emergency medicine physician and director of global health in emergency medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, wrote in a New York Times opinion piece Monday. Spencer noted that, unlike this time last year, there are effective COVID-19 treatment plans, therapeutics, and vaccines. "Yet these tools are still not enough to slow the rapid influx of patients we’re now seeing from omicron, and the situation is bleak for health workers and hospitals." Numbers and projectionsCurrently, the seven-day average of daily COVID-19 cases is nearing 700,000—an all-time high in the pandemic. Meanwhile, daily hospitalizations are averaging over 132,000, up 83 percent in the course of two weeks. The number of hospitalizations is quickly nearing the all-time record of around 137,000 hospitalizations per day in the pandemic, which was set in mid-January last year. According to data reported by the Department of Health and Human Services, 77 percent of hospital beds in the country are occupied and 78 percent of beds in intensive care units are full. But the department's data can have lags, reflecting hospital usages that may be one to two weeks behind. For instance, physicians and researchers tracking hospital capacity suggest Maryland's hospitals may now be hitting capacity, based on a projection of lagging HHS hospital data that suggests hospital beds are only 79 percent full. In his online bulletin, Inside Medicine, Harvard emergency physician Jeremy Faust on Monday quoted a Maryland physician colleague as backing up the projection, saying: I can attest the situation in Maryland is [expletive] horrendous. The state has been maxed out for about 2 weeks. Multiple hospitals are operating under crisis standard of care. EMS [i.e. ambulances] is now so taxed that Baltimore county started transporting people in fire trucks last week. This is absolutely unheard of and absurd. Reports of people waiting over 1-2 hours on scene with fire fighters before an EMS unit gets there. Then when they get to the hospital they wait literally hours for a bed. Transfer centers now just laugh when you call the system is so back logged. It’s mind boggling to me how none of this has been national news. Strained systemsThough a smaller proportion of people infected with omicron appears to develop severe COVID-19, there's still a crush of patients, and some of them are suffering the worst of the disease. Last Friday, for instance, a hospital in Kansas ran out of ventilators amid a surge in COVID-19 cases, spurring the county board to issue a local emergency bulletin. In addition, omicron is reaching vulnerable populations that end up needing hospital care after omicron exacerbates a previous condition, such as diabetes. Meanwhile, seasonal flu and other conditions bringing people to hospitals are also at high levels. The surge of patients is coming at a time when overstretched hospitals are already critically understaffed and providers are facing extreme burnout. On Monday, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam issued a limited 30-day state of emergency to try to ease the strain on overburdened hospitals after the state saw record numbers of hospitalizations last week. The order allows hospitals to increase their bed capacity and increase staffing through a number of technical changes, such as adding flexibility for active out-of-state providers to practice in the state and expanding the ability of physician assistants to provide care. "Health care workers and hospitals are exhausted, and they are again facing increasing numbers of patients, affecting their ability to provide care," Gov. Northam said in a statement. "These steps will help ease the strain, giving medical professionals more flexibility to care for people. Ultimately, the best thing everyone can do for our hospitals and their staff is to get vaccinated." Easing the strainNeighboring Maryland issued a similar 30-day state of emergency last week to buttress the state's health care facilities amid record-high COVID-19 hospitalizations. "The truth is that the next four to six weeks will be the most challenging of the entire pandemic," Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said in a statement last week. "All of the emergency actions we are taking today are to keep our hospitals from overflowing, to keep our kids in school, and to keep Maryland open for business, and we will continue to take whatever actions are necessary in the very difficult days and weeks ahead." Gov. Hogan's order mobilized 1,000 members of the Maryland National Guard to assist state and local health officials. At least 10 states have called up National Guard members, spanning Oregon to New York, to help respond to the tidal wave of omicron cases and hospitalizations. For instance, Massachusetts deployed National Guard members in late December to hospitals deluged by COVID-19 patients. One of those facilities is UMass Memorial Medical Center, the main hospital in central Massachusetts, which is currently operating at 115 percent, according to a January 9 report by CNN. "It's just the perfect storm for a nightmare here in the emergency department," Dr. Eric Dickson, CEO of the hospital and an emergency physician, told the outlet. The staffing crisis also has led some hospitals, such as some in Rhode Island and Arizona, to allow medical providers to stay at work, even if they themselves are infected with COVID-19. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/01/hospitals-nationwide-are-buckling-under-omicron-as-cases-continue-to-spike/ .... A greater quantity of COVID driven healthcare demand coupled with higher strain on existing healthcare. Could result in scarcity which will inevitably drive healthcare prices even higher. If the united states thought healthcare was expensive pre COVID crisis. I can't imagine how much worse conditions could potentially deteriorate post COVID crisis. While certainly the worst case scenario is bad enough. It could also trigger a resurgence of home remedies and snake oil medical treatments. Due to people not being able to afford medical care. Faith healers, alternative health movements and holistic remedies could all make a strong resurgence. Cryptocurrencies, I think could be developed to improve healthcare in the united states and worldwide. There are many obvious steps to improve healthcare. People taking steps to exercise more and be healthier would go a long way towards making healthcare more affordable for all. As would people refraining from drug and substance abuse. These are not necessarily issues for government to solve. But has more to do with choices made on an individual level. High numbers of americans drive across the border to mexico every year to receive healthcare treatments at greatly discounted prices. That is probably the best option many have to receive affordable heatlhcare. But surely we can do better than that? |
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Who knows, though? It's not like there's reliable data for that--or if there is, I'm unaware of it. If that was the case, I'd expect bitcoin to be soaring higher than it currently is, though I guess that assumes big investors are buying it on exchanges, which they might not be. In fact, they could be buying derivatives or what not, which wouldn't be reflected in the reported price we see.
More likely, I think, is that investors are probably holding cash or cash equivalents, waiting to buy back into the stock market once things get a little bit cheaper. That's usually what they do.
We have data for residents of turkey purchasing bitcoin and tether in elevated volumes as a hedge versus inflation: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5381282.msg58981968#msg58981968Something similar could be occurring in the united states and other nations of the world. Although as of yet, I have not seen published info on it. |
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Underneath the surface, the tech stock heavy Nasdaq Composite is being shredded as traders fret about higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve this year. Nearly 40% of the stocks on the exchange have been cut in half, according to new research from Sundial Capital Research's Jason Goepfert. The research firm notes this kind of trading action on the Nasdaq (^IXIC) hasn't been seen since at least 1999. "Bulls will suggest that most of the damage has been done, and the indexes should be able to soar from here. Bears will say this is just like the internet bubble, and the index is about to "catch down" to the average stock," says Goepfert. Some of the largest tech sell-offs have been seen in momentum favorites among traders. Streaming media player Roku has seen its stock crash 40% in the past three months, according to Yahoo Finance Plus data. Biotech Moderna is down about 30% during that same stretch.  The trading action doesn't bode well for the Nasdaq this year, Goepfert's research shows. When at least 35% of stocks are down by half on the Nasdaq, the index has been down by an average of 47%. Top investing minds suggest the sell-off in buzzy tech names shouldn't be a surprise given the changing dynamics of Fed policy and elevated valuations. "That's what investors should worry about is the valuation of stocks is also worrisome. In the United States, if you look at the CAPE ratio that is very elevated nearly around 35 times or so. If you look at the rest of the world, it's half of that. So the U.S. has been very, very strong. And we're at the point of kind of extremes where the valuation has been before, but it usually hasn't ended real well. And with the Fed in the reverse gear that they've been in for nearly two years now, that's going to cause headwinds for investors," bond king Jeffrey Gundlach told Yahoo Finance Live in an exclusive interview. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-nasdaq-is-quietly-being-shredded-new-data-130747360.html.... Possible bear indicators for the US stock market. There is another possibility present. Investors could be pulling their capital out of US stocks to invest in cryptocurrencies instead. It has often been claimed that bitcoin and crypto can rival the banking industry. Is it possible that crypto could be a rival investment to stock markets as well. If global concern relating to inflation is real. Perhaps investors are seeking assets not denominated in fiat currencies which might be susceptible to inflation. In which case, it may not simply be bull versus bear markets. But rather a question of demand relating to inflation protected assets, in eras where inflation is becoming a concern. |
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a monkey used his mind to play a video ping pong game
That's literally a demo from the 1980s btw. Pong game with EEG1,196 viewsNov 23, 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WlNA28jtuk(People made EEG controlled pong games ^ 10 years ago on youtube for fun.) I would give you a better source for it, but search engines don't work anymore for whatever reason. |
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Indirectly with this Neuralink we can connect to Smart Devices that we use everyday such as laptops, televisions, smartphones, game consoles and others just by using our minds and without the need for a touch of the hand. And indirectly with this Neuralink, it also allows paralyzed people to do anything like normal people in general, such as using smartphones, communicating with friends, surfing websites and even playing games just by utilizing the power of brain waves. Devices which measure brainwaves allowing a person to move a cursor on a computer screen have been around for a very long time. Its technology from the 1980s or earlier. There is no doubt brainwaves can be electronically measured and used as input for a computer GUI or prosthetics. Its near to 50 year old technology. What will matter most with neuralink is how much they have progressed and improved over past implementations of the technology. If at all. There is a chance that they have made zero advancement and the technology is being hyped for other reasons. Similar to how metaverse is being hyped enough though, as far as I know, it sucks. Elon Musk seems to distance himself from involvement with neuralink. He never mentions it on social media. There is no swagger like was with Elon Musk's involvement with dogecoin and other projects. I think its fair to say neuralink could disappoint expectations. |
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IMO, graphics cards for PC should have their mining capabilities sealed or locked, with no vulnerabilities to exploit it whatsoever so that miners wouldn't even think of buying them at all.
Some might find the following interesting: Ford Combats F-150 Lightning Scalping With No-Sale ProvisionScalpers have made it almost impossible to find next-gen consoles, graphics cards, or even novelty products like the Razer Zephyr face mask at their normal price. Ford is reportedly trying to avoid its upcoming F-150 Lightning from suffering a similar fate by allowing dealerships to use a No-Sale provision that would prevent buyers from reselling the vehicle for at least a year. https://www.pcmag.com/news/ford-combats-f-150-lightning-scalping-with-no-sale-provision Even automakers like ford appear to have the same issues as AMD and Nvidia. They're limiting sales of their upcoming electric truck, the F-150 Lightning to 1 year without resale to prevent scalpers from buying and reselling it en masse. |
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The regime had a “banner year,” thanks to skyrocketing cryptocurrency values and a new generation of vulnerable startups.THE PAST YEAR saw a breathtaking rise in the value of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, with Bitcoin gaining 60 percent in value in 2021 and Ethereum spiking 80 percent. So perhaps it's no surprise that the relentless North Korean hackers who feed off that booming crypto economy had a very good year as well. North Korean hackers stole a total of $395 million worth of crypto coins last year across seven intrusions into cryptocurrency exchanges and investment firms, according to blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis. The nine-figure sum represents a nearly $100 million increase over the previous year's thefts by North Korean hacker groups, and it brings their total haul over the past five years to $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency alone—not including the uncounted hundreds of millions more the country has stolen from the traditional financial system. That hoard of stolen cryptocurrency now contributes significantly to the coffers of Kim Jong-un's totalitarian regime as it seeks to fund itself—and its weapons programs—despite the country's heavily sanctioned, isolated, and ailing economy. "They've been very successful," says Erin Plante, a senior director of investigations at Chainalysis, whose report calls 2021 a "banner year" for North Korean cryptocurrency thefts. The findings show that North Korea's global, serial robberies have accelerated even in the midst of an attempted law enforcement crackdown; the US Justice Department, for instance, indicted three North Koreans in absentia in February of last year, accusing them of stealing at least $121 million from cryptocurrency businesses along with a slew of other financial crimes. Charges were also brought against a Canadian man who had allegedly helped to launder the funds. But those efforts haven't stopped the hemorrhaging of crypto wealth. "We were excited to see actions against North Korea from law enforcement agencies," Plante says, "yet the threat persists and is growing." The Chainalysis numbers, based on exchange rates at the time the money was stolen, don't merely point to an appreciation of cryptocurrency's value. The growth in stolen funds also tracks with the number of thefts last year; the seven breaches Chainalysis tracked in 2021 amount to three more than in 2020, though fewer than the 10 successful attacks that North Korean hackers carried out in 2018, when they stole a record $522 million. For the first time since Chainalysis began tracking North Korean cryptocurrency thefts, Bitcoin no longer represents anywhere near the majority of the country's take, accounting for only around 20 percent of the stolen funds. Fully 58 percent of the groups' cryptocurrency gains came instead in the form of stolen ether, the Ethereum network's currency unit. Another 11 percent, around $40 million, came from stolen ERC-20 tokens, a form of crypto asset used to create smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. Chainalysis's Plante attributes that increased focus on Ethereum-based cryptocurrencies—$272 million in total thefts last year versus $161 million in 2020—to the skyrocketing price of assets in the Ethereum economy, combined with the nascent companies that growth has fostered. "Some of these exchanges and trading platforms are just newer and potentially more vulnerable to these types of intrusions," she says, "They're trading heavily in ether and ERC-20 tokens, and they're just easier targets." While Chainalysis declined to identify most of the victims of the hacker thefts it tracked last year, its report does blame North Korean hackers for the theft of around $97 million in crypto assets from the Japanese exchange Liquid.com in August, including $45 million in Ethereum tokens. (Liquid.com didn't respond to WIRED's request for comment on its August hacker breach.) Chainalysis says it linked all seven 2021 cryptocurrency hacks to North Korea based on malware samples, hacking infrastructure, and following the stolen money into clusters of blockchain addresses it has identified as controlled by the North Korean hackers. Chainalysis says the thefts were all carried out by Lazarus, a loose grouping of hackers all widely believed to be working in the service of the North Korean government. But other hacker-tracking firms have pointed out that Lazarus comprises many distinct groups. Security firm Mandiant nonetheless echoes Chainalysis' findings that stealing cryptocurrency has become a priority for virtually all of the North Korean groups it tracks, in addition to whatever other missions they may pursue. Last year, for instance, two North Korean groups Mandiant calls TEMP.Hermit and Kimsuky both seemed tasked with targeting biomedical and pharmaceutical organizations, likely to steal information related to Covid-19, says Fred Plan, a senior analyst at Mandiant. Yet both groups continued to target cryptocurrency holders throughout the year. "That consistency of financially motivated operations and campaigns continues to be the undercurrent of all these other activities that they had to do in the past year," says Plan. Even the group Mandiant calls APT38—which has previously focused on more traditional financial intrusions, such as the theft of $110 million from the Mexican financial firm Bancomext and $81 million from Bangladesh's Central Bank—now appears to have turned its sights on cryptocurrency targets. "Almost all of the North Korean groups we track have a finger in the pie of cryptocurrency in some way," Plan says. One reason the hackers have focused on cryptocurrency over other forms of financial crime is no doubt the relative ease of laundering digital cash. After APT38's Bangladeshi bank heist, for instance, the North Koreans had to enlist Chinese money launderers to gamble its tens of millions at a casino in Manila to prevent investigators from tracking the stolen funds. By contrast, Chainalysis found that the groups have plenty of options to launder its stolen cryptocurrency. They've cashed out their gains through exchanges—largely exploiting ones based in Asia and trading their cryptocurrency for Chinese renminbi—that have less-than-stringent compliance with "know-your-customer" regulations. The groups have often used "mixing" services to obscure the money's origins. And in many cases they've used decentralized exchanges designed to directly connect cryptocurrency traders with no intermediary, often with little in the way of anti-money-laundering rules. Chainalysis found that the North Koreans have been remarkably patient in cashing out their stolen crypto, often holding onto the funds for years before beginning the laundering process. The hackers, in fact, appear to still be holding on to $170 million in unlaundered cryptocurrency from previous years' thefts, which they'll undoubtedly cash out over time. All of those hundreds of millions, says Mandiant's Fred Plan, will end up in the accounts of a highly militarized rogue nation that has spent years under severe sanctions. "The North Korean regime has figured out they don't have any other options. They don't have any other real way of engaging with the world or with the economy. But they do have this pretty awesome cyber capability," says Plan. "And they're able to leverage it to bring money into the country." Until the cryptocurrency industry figures out how to secure itself against those hackers—or to prevent their coins from being laundered and converted into clean bills—the Kim regime's illicit, ethereal revenue stream will only continue to grow. https://www.wired.com/story/north-korea-cryptocurrency-theft-ethereum/ .... It appears ethereum and erc-20 tokens are Kim Jong's favorite crypto: For the first time since Chainalysis began tracking North Korean cryptocurrency thefts, Bitcoin no longer represents anywhere near the majority of the country's take, accounting for only around 20 percent of the stolen funds. Fully 58 percent of the groups' cryptocurrency gains came instead in the form of stolen ether, the Ethereum network's currency unit. Another 11 percent, around $40 million, came from stolen ERC-20 tokens, a form of crypto asset used to create smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. Bitcoin accounting for only 20% of the funds stolen by north korean hackers sounds like progress is being made. |
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AMD will begin selling its latest budget GPU, the Radeon RX 6500 XT, on January 19th. Its retail price is $199. But the ongoing GPU shortage, caused in part by cryptocurrency miners and scalpers who are snapping up every card they can get, has made it mostly impossible to get any graphics card at its list price over the past year. Whether the 6500 XT will be any different depends partly on supply, but AMD has also apparently designed the card to make it deliberately less appealing to miners while retaining its usefulness as an entry-level graphics card. Speaking to journalists in a press roundtable earlier this week, AMD Radeon VP Laura Smith talked about how the 6500 XT had been “optimized” for games (a transcript from a now-apparently-deleted PCWorld article is preserved here). "We have really optimized this one to be gaming-first at that target market," Smith said. "And you can see that with the way that we configured the part. Even with the four gigs of frame buffer. That’s a really nice frame buffer size for the majority of AAA games, but it’s not particularly attractive if you’re doing blockchain-type activities or mining activities.” Indeed, if you look at the spec sheet of the 6500 XT, you’ll notice a few things that stick out compared to the last-gen RX 5500 XT. For starters, there isn’t an 8GB version of the 6500 XT. The 6500 XT also uses a 64-bit memory interface, which is exceedingly rare in modern GPUs—you’ll sometimes see it in low-end dedicated laptop GPUs like the GeForce MX 450, but discrete GPUs released within the last couple of generations have mostly stuck to 128-bit memory interfaces at a minimum. Both of these decisions make the 6500 XT bad for Ethereum mining in particular, since it needs more than 4GB of video RAM and really likes memory bandwidth. To make up for the slower memory interface and help the card compete with the RX 570-class cards that AMD wants it to replace, AMD has boosted the clock speed of the RX 6500 XT way up. Its maximum boost frequency is 2815 MHz, up from 1845 MHz in the RX 5500 XT. Even the top-tier 6900 XT only boosts up to 2250 MHz—it just has a lot more GPU hardware and much more memory bandwidth to work with in the first place. Nvidia has also taken steps to limit its GPUs’ mining capabilities, most notably when it re-issued “LHR” (or Low Hash Rate) versions of the RTX 3000-series cards in mid-2021. But the underlying hardware remains capable of better hash rates, and determined miners have used everything from alternative BIOSes to special software to buggy drivers to restore all or part of those cards’ mining performance. The 6500 XT shouldn’t have those problems—it’s generally not possible to hack more video RAM onto a graphics card. What remains to be seen is whether the design decisions that make the 6500 XT sub-optimal for mining also make it sub-optimal for gaming. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/amd-says-rx-6500-xt-is-optimized-to-be-good-for-gaming-and-bad-for-mining/.... It appears new GPUs are designed to restrict features which make them good options for crypto mining. I think it won't necessarily impair production of GPU hardware. Other semiconductor producers could seize an opportunity by producing GPUs specifically for crypto mining markets spurned by AMD and nvidia. Its been said that nature abhors a vacuum. Free markets also tend to abhor neglected niches where profits can be made. It is also possible hardware modders could buy GPUs designed to be poorly equipped for crypto mining. Remove limiting restrictive components while soldering in new modchips which make them better options for mining. Similar to hardware modders altering gaming consoles to remove regional game restrictions. How does everyone envision the future of the crypto mining industry panning out? |
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Sports gambling is more scientific and deterministic. It has more layers to it which can be analyzed and studied in an effort to identify patterns and trends, which increase chances of success. Sports gamblers can observe the body language and psychology of an athlete. They can observe trends in sports which remain consistent over time. There are various tells which can be used in an effort to make accurate bets on sports. With higher percentage payouts than a hedge fund manager or wallstreet investor might regularly have access to. This is the world of sports gambling.
Casinos are more for personality oriented gamblers who enjoy the element of risk and wagering on the unknown future. While there are a few personalities who can be successful and win gambling in casinos. Its not something the average person is likely to experience. Whatever skills it takes to be a consistently profitable casino gambler. They are less mathematical than skills present in sports gambling where statistics and metrics can sometimes be crunched to find an answer.
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