Free Republic

Hailey Welch has gone MIA. The "Hawk Tuah" girl has not released a new episode of her popular weekly podcast, Talk Tuah, in two weeks. There was no previously announced hiatus of the show. Welch also has not posted on her social media channels in weeks either. Welch became a viral sensation over the summer after dropping what would go on to become her catchphrase "Hawk Tuah" in a video clip that spread across the internet like wildfire. Welch capitalized on her internet fame by selling merchandise like t-shirts and then eventually launching a weekly podcast called Talk Tuah, which...

What does the uber-powerful Quantum supercomputer Willow mean for bitcoin and crypto security.-Quantum computing does indeed pose significant threats to current security systems. -Bitcoin uses algorithms like SHA-256 for mining and ECDSA for signatures, which might be vulnerable to quantum decryption. -But don't sell your coins just yet. Google’s new quantum computing chip could mean bitcoin (BTC) is finished. That was the sentiment for some on Monday as the internet giant unveiled Willow, a quantum supercomputer that can perform certain computational tasks in just five minutes that would take classical supercomputers an astronomical amount of time—specifically, 10 septillion years...

Valley investor David Sacks will serve as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s new artificial intelligence (AI) and crypto czar, advising the White House on the two critical emergent technologies. Sacks was an early backer of Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) during the 2024 Republican presidential primary but later jumped ship as the campaign struggled, eventually backing Trump’s bid to retake the White House.A close ally of technology and space exploration mogul Elon Musk, Sacks, too, hails from South Africa. He was born in Cape Town before his parents emigrated to Tennessee. In 1999, Sacks—then a business consultant with McKinsey & Company—joined the...

One of the benefits of being a Washington insider, from the president of the United States to the lowliest bureaucrat, is never having to admit your policies are wrong. In the case of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) - the nation's 10th largest - the financial policy chickens of this, and previous administrations, have predictably come home to roost. Record debt, massive new spending, and the failure of regulators to see what was coming contributed to the run on SVB. It didn't help that in 2018 President Donald Trump signed the biggest rollback of Dodd-Frank bank regulations since the global financial...

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I just had to write in to say thank you for explaining that Bitcoin was just a trading asset, not some new currency that would replace the dollar. I understand that money must be elastic to grow with society in economic booms and population. I just read a quote reported by Bloomberg: “After four years of political purgatory, Bitcoin and the entire digital-asset ecosystem are on the brink of entering the financial mainstream.” I know a programmer who said you were correct that the Deep State created blockchain. Has this recent rise been orchestrated to get us...

President-elect Donald Trump, keeping with his promise for a crypto-friendly administration, plans to nominate former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins to head the agency, according to his Truth Social post. Currently the CEO at Patomak Global Partners, Atkins is a well-known veteran of the financial world and Republican political circles specifically. He had been widely expected to get the position as the nation’s top financial market regulator. If confirmed, Atkins would succeed Gary Gensler, a widely reviled figure in the digital currency community for his many efforts to clamp down on the $3.5 trillion crypto market. Trump has promised a easier...

BREAKING: President-elect Trump will nominate Scott Bessent for Treasury Secretary - Epoch Times

At 17:01 in the video, a historic moment is approaching on this late afternoon Veteran's Day in the world of finance. Bitcoin (BTC) has a sort of trading desk or OVER THE COUNTER desk (OTC) where it bought and sold. There is approximatley 70,000 BTC left on the exchanges. In the next few weeks the SUCKING SOUND YOU'VE BEEN HEARING was not the collective cry of the DNC but rather it is acquisition scramble by the ETFs and Banks. Once the OTC desk BTC is gone these companies will need to find it buy it. They will be scouring the...

A Manhattan judge ripped Sam Bankman-Fried as a “remorseless” scammer obsessed with political power as he sentenced the fallen crypto mogul to 25 years in prison Thursday — five months after he was found guilty of stealing more than $8 billion of funds from customers of his now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Judge Lewis Kaplan said the 32-year-old convicted fraudster “presented himself as the good guy” all in favor of “appropriate regulation of the crypto industry” — but it was just an “act.” “He did it because he wanted to be a hugely, hugely political influential person in this country,” Kaplan...

Many of you may remember my reporting around "Operation Choke Point 2.0" from the spring of 2023; TLDR, Biden's financial regulators, namely the Fed, FDIC, and OCC, launched a crackdown on banks covering the crypto space. The first casualty was Silvergate Bank, which voluntarily liquidated. The standard reporting around Silvergate was that the bank lent to crypto depositors and those depositors were flighty; when rates rose, Silvergate suffered M2M losses on bond portfolios and ended up insolvent. Except that's not true. Silvergate weathered the storm, even though short sellers and members of Congress like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) encouraged a...

Donald Trump took another step into the crypto world during a two-hour event on September 16, when he revealed key details about his DeFi project World Liberty Financial and its upcoming WLFI token. https://t.co/ws1YSdE7WD — Farokh (@farokh) September 16, 2024 According to reports by The Block and CNBC, while the token has not been launched, its structure and distribution plans were outlined to the public. The WLFI token, described as a non-transferable governance token, will give holders a role in shaping decisions on the platform but will not be freely traded. Zak Folkman, co-founder of Dough Finance, confirmed that 63%...

I just learned of the existence of this betting platform. The current election odds there are Trump 52% Harris 47%. Per Wikipedia: Polymarket is a decentralized prediction market platform that allows users to place bets on world events. Users buy and sell shares using cryptocurrency to bet on the likelihood of future events taking place. Founded in 2020 by Shayne Coplan, Polymarket is an online prediction market platform that would allow users to trade on the outcome of world events. In June 2023, Mother Jones reported that interest around the company had increased after a tweet about the outcome of...

A cryptocurrency executive found it 'hilariously funny' that the Democratic Party of Oregon reported his donation under another name, nearly leading to federal criminal charges. While Nishad Singh was working as an engineer for the now-disgraced FTX at its Bahamas headquarters, he was told by a colleague he hardly knew to send $500,000 to the Party to make Singh and the company look good, according to Oregon Live. Singh signed off on sending the half-million dollars via his account with Nevada-based Prime Trust, which specializes in wiring cryptocurrency to ordinary bank accounts. The Oregon Democrats scrambled to figure out how...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Saturday laid out his plans to wholeheartedly embrace cryptocurrency if elected for a second term, telling hundreds of cheering supporters of the digital tokens that he wants the U.S. to be a “bitcoin superpower” under his leadership. In his keynote address at a bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, the Republican presidential nominee promised to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and create a bitcoin “strategic reserve” using the currency that the government currently holds. He also promised to remove Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler if...

As I write this, Bitcoin is trading at $69,140. Today's high - $69,400. All time closing high is around $73,000. All time intraday high is around $74,000. Bitcoin trades on many different exchanges. CNBC quotes the Coin Metrics price, which reports the trading at many of those exchanges.

The former National Security Agency contractor did not name any particular US or international lawmakers but warned many didn’t belong to the “tribe” of Bitcoiners. Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who has been in exile in Russia since 2013, warned attendees at the Bitcoin 2024 conference about politicians trying to woo them over crypto. In a July 26 speech held virtually at the crypto conference, Snowden said many lawmakers were trying to earn the “love” of Bitcoiners, hinting at those attending the Nashville event. He did not explicitly refer to United States or international politicians, though US...

As Americans head to the polls this fall, their decision regarding who will lead our country will also determine the fate of crypto here in the United States, and our security, prosperity, and freedom are at stake.This week, I will join President Trump and thousands of crypto market participants in Nashville for Bitcoin 2024, the world's largest Bitcoin conference. This year, the conference is held in my home state at a time that is clearly the tipping point for the future of crypto technology in the U.S. This fall, the future of crypto in America is on the ballot as...

Crypto currencies plunged on Friday as investors focused on the payout of nearly $9 billion to users of collapsed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox...[Mt. Gox was hacked ten years ago and lost almost 1 million Bitcoins - at that time, one Bitcoin was worth just $600 - Traders expect former Gox customers to cash out many of their remaining Coins, which are now worth close to 100X times their 2014 value - huge selling pressure is expected to tank the crypto market]

KEY POINTS: * For customers, fintech promised the best of both worlds: The innovation, ease of use and fun of the newest apps combined with the safety of government-backed accounts held at real banks. * The collapse of middleman Synapse has revealed fintech’s promise of safety as a mirage. More than 100,000 Americans with $265 million in deposits have been locked out of their accounts. * The implications of this disaster may be far-reaching. The most popular banking apps in the country, including Block’s Cash App, PayPal and Chime, partner with banks instead of owning them. * CNBC reached out...

Few states or countries were more welcoming to cryptocurrency miners than Texas. Now, lawmakers are expressing more skepticism. ... "Why is it that the cryptocurrency miners get such a sweetheart deal when we were here first?" asked energy economist Ed Hirs. "The cryptocurrency miners operate as a parasitic load," Hirs continued. "They're the tapeworms of the ERCOT grid." ... "I'm not sure how the legislature is going to deal with it," Hirs said. "Can you put the genie back in the bottle?" ... (Lee) Bratcher argues people who do not believe in Bitcoin can still appreciate the mining operations because...