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The alleged catalyst for the change has been the looming Fed rate hikes... A few of the bubbles bursting: Crypto: Crypto assets are suffering crashes the likes of which would be considered cataclysmic in general markets. Bitcoin is down nearly 40% from its highs; Ethereum is down 34%. More colorful (yet less commanding) names like Polkadot are down 50%. Crypto has seen such crashes before and may well rise from the ashes in a nanosecond. But as I wrote recently, you can’t value crypto so there’s no logical basis to own it. It is a classic speculative gamble. And such...

A seemingly run-of-the-mill trial is playing out in Florida: The family of a deceased man is suing his former business partner over control of their partnership’s assets. In this case, the assets in question are a cache of about one million bitcoins, equivalent to around $64 billion today, belonging to bitcoin’s creator, the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. The family of the dead man says he and his business partner together were Nakamoto, and thus the family is entitled to half of the fortune. For bitcoiners, there is only one piece of evidence that could conclusively prove the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto:...

This link also works: https://outline.com/JJt8uT “Cryptocurrencies, regardless of where they’re trading today, will eventually prove to be worthless. Once the exuberance wears off, or liquidity dries up, they will go to zero. I wouldn’t recommend anyone invest in cryptocurrencies,” John Paulson, president and portfolio manager of U.S. investment firm Paulson & Co., told Bloomberg Wealth in an interview that published on Monday. Paulson said it wasn’t even worth shorting bitcoin given its extreme volatility, and instead suggested investors sock money into bullion, due to “a very limited amount of investible gold.” Paulson sees investors pulling money out of fixed income...

Cybercrime group DarkSide said it has lost control of its web servers and some of the money it’s made off ransom payments after the FBI confirmed that the gang was behind the $5 million ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline last week that spurred gas shortages and panic buying across the Southeast.Analysts at security research firm FireEye said that messages are circulating in multiple cybercriminal forums that say DarkSide has shut down amid pressure from the US and law enforcement.“A few hours ago, we lost access to the public part of our infrastructure, namely: Blog. Payment server. DOS servers,” read a...

S&P Dow Jones Indices, one of the world’s largest index providers, launched a new series of digital asset benchmarks. Dubbed the S&P Digital Market Indices, the series includes the S&P Bitcoin Index, Ethereum Index, and Cryptocurrency MegaCap Index. Each of these indices will track the performance of Bitcoin and Ethereum, with the latter tracking a combination of both. The pricing data is sourced from crypto data provider Lukka. Despite choosing to only include the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, S&P stated that it will include other cryptocurrencies through large-cap and broad market indices. According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin and Ethereum...

The Ethereum market cap briefly topped $500 billion for a new all-time high. This officially made the network more valuable than Visa. While the Ethereum market cap has dropped back slightly to $496 billion at the time of press, it’s still $2 billion ahead of Visa. Ethereum also managed to jump the market caps of both Walmart and the Wall Street banking giant JP Morgan Chase earlier this week. Ethereum is currently up 9% on the day and is trading at $4,310. Bullish trends for Ethereum and altcoins This past Monday morning Ethereum soared to a new all-time high, surpassing...

According to the latest just released report on the State of the Crypto Market from Gemini, 2020 which polled 3,000 U.S. adults, ages 18 to 65 with $40,000 or more in household income (survey respondents were polled from October 19-November 16, 2020, and included 921 self-identifying current cryptocurrency owners and 1,697 consumers who were interested in learning more about cryptocurrency), the exchange estimates that roughly 14% of the U.S. population owns cryptocurrency. This translates to 21.2 million U.S. adults who own cryptocurrency, and other studies estimate this number to be even higher. This number is expected to double in 2021.Gemini...

Bitcoin is down sharply in overnite trading. Current Price is $50036. Down $7771 or 13,4%. After the equity markets took a big hit today, this is another signal the markets are not happy.

Link only: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-04/sam-zell-buys-gold-with-inflation-reminiscent-of-the-1970s

Dear Chuck,I read your new book on economic threats. What do you think of China’s new digital currency? Isn’t it a threat that should be on your list of Gray Swans? Economic ObserverDear Economic Observer, I wrote a book about Seven Gray Swans—trends that threaten our financial future which are low probability occurrences that we tend to ignore. As I mentioned in the book, my list is not exhaustive. Thank you for reading the book; unfortunately, many of the events I described are rapidly developing. While I did not mention a specific threat of China, I did reference their social...

Thodex, a crypto platform based in Turkey, said its platform has been “temporarily closed” to address an “abnormal fluctuation in the company accounts.” Local media reports say that Faruk Fatih Ozer, Thodex’s founder, has flown to Albania, taking $2 billion of investors’ funds with him. According to the state-run Anadolu Agency, Turkish authorities have now issued an international warrant seeking Ozer’s arrest. ...In 2019, Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX went bankrupt after its CEO died, resulting in millions of dollars’ worth of digital assets being trapped in a digital wallet.

Satoshi Nakamoto and the Civil-War Within Bitcoin |

By using energy to validate transactions in a way that is independent of any existing grid or source, Bitcoin mining will save the climate. It’s in vogue to think that Bitcoin is accelerating the climate crisis. The common argument is that Bitcoin uses lots of energy, which must mean more carbon emissions, so as a result, it’s ruining the climate. Of course, critics also seem enraged at Bitcoin itself, believing it doesn’t do anything useful beyond facilitating a casino for Reddit memelords and “libertarian nerds” to get rich in. To these critics, Bitcoin is a totally useless, degenerate system that...

Programmer Laszlo Hanyecz has become well-known in crypto circles after making headlines for trading 10,000 bitcoin for two Papa John's pizzas on May 22, 2010. The day is now referred to as "Bitcoin Pizza Day" and is the most celebrated date in the crypto calendar, as Insider previously reported. Thanks to Saturday's record-breaking price of $60,000, Hanyecz's stash would now be worth $613 million (or £440 million, per Sky News.) The cryptocurrency, which has a market capitalization of more than $1.1 trillion, has been buoyed by investor optimism. Earlier this week, President Joe Biden signed a $1.9 trillion relief bill...

Powerful computers 'mining' for the cryptocurrency Bitcoin are driving global warming as data shows they use vastly more electricity than all the internet tech giants combined. Bitcoin passed the $60,000 mark for the first time on Saturday, but its rocketing value again raises questions over the vast energy resources required to run machines that mine for the cryptocurrency, that some - including billionaire Warren Buffet - even consider to be worthless. On March 2, Bitcoin's estimated energy consumption reached its highest ever rate, hitting a staggering 130.90 terawatt hours (TWh) annualised. The following week... ...March 3 was at a rate...

Tesla's momentum and back-to-back record highs have divided some of the world's most famous investors. Billionaire venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya praised the stock's gains in a Thursday appearance on CNBC, telling investors the stock could be worth three times its already lofty valuation. "Don't sell a share," he added. Hedge fund manager Michael Burry - whose bet against the housing market was depicted in the novel and 2015 film "The Big Short" - aired his contrasting opinion Thursday night. The investor tweeted that, like his famous 2008 gambit, his short position in Tesla stands to print huge gains. "Well, my...

WO2020060606 - CRYPTOCURRENCY SYSTEM USING BODY ACTIVITY DATA Applicants MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC [US/US]; One Microsoft Way Redmond, Washington 98052-6399, US Inventors ABRAMSON, Dustin; USFU, Derrick; USJOHNSON, Joseph Edwin, JR.; USTitle (EN) CRYPTOCURRENCY SYSTEM USING BODY ACTIVITY DATA (FR) SYSTÈME DE CRYPTOMONNAIE UTILISANT DES DONNÉES D'ACTIVITÉ CORPORELLE Abstract (EN) Human body activity associated with a task provided to a user may be used in a mining process of a cryptocurrency system. A server may provide a task to a device of a user which is communicatively coupled to the server. A sensor communicatively coupled to or comprised in the device...

Fileless attacks allow sophisticated hackers to evade antivirus programs and hide inside legitimate applications and operating systems. According to 2019 Endpoint Security Survey, fileless attacks on endpoints are the biggest concern of security experts. In addition, about 53% of organization experience an increase in endpoint security risks. Endpoints are the access point into your data, credentials, environment, and probably your entire organization. Vulnerable endpoints allow attackers to steal data, access your network, and execute ransomware attacks. This article explains how attackers have improved their strategies to bypass traditional antivirus, putting your system at risk. 1. Cryptomining Malware Cryptomining tools convert...

The price of bitcoin tumbled Monday after President Trump Opens a New Window. tweeted Thursday that he was “not a fan” of cryptocurrencies and criticized Facebook’s Opens a New Window. Libra digital currency that’s set to launch next year. Bitcoin price briefly hit below $10,000 just after midnight Monday, a two-week low for the leading digital coin, Coindesk’s data Opens a New Window. showed. The cryptocurrency appeared to rebound slightly to bring it past $10,000 as of Monday morning. It’s unclear what caused the sudden price drop, but it comes just days after Trump took to Twitter to slam cryptocurrencies....

In tapping Judy Shelton to become one of two Federal Reserve Board governors, President Donald Trump selected one of the minority of mainstream economists supportive of a return to the gold standard and critical of central bank activity. Shelton, who serves as the U.S. executive director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, wrote as recently as last year in support of pegging the dollar to gold prices. Trump announced his intention to nominate both Shelton and St. Louis Fed economist Christopher Waller via tweet on Tuesday. Shelton’s unorthodox monetary beliefs will likely draw questions from Senate lawmakers, who...