Camp Atterbury, the place where thousands of Afghan evacuees seek refuge, once held Nazi POWs – WTHR

Camp Atterbury is set to host thousands of evacuees who assisted U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and now face retribution from the Taliban in the coming days.

CAMP ATTERBURY, Ind. When Afghan evacuees fleeing the Taliban arrive on the grounds of Camp Atterbury in the coming days, they will be living inside a facility that once prepared U.S. military personnel for battle, housed Nazi and Italian prisoners of war, and healed soldiers recovering from warfronts across the world.

Camp Atterbury has a long military history dating back to World War II.

Facilities there, located near Edinburgh in southern Indiana, rose up from what used to be farmland for 500 Hoosiers just nine months after the shock of Pearl Harbor.

By August 1942, thousands of soldiers were being trained in the particulars of warfare, learning specialties like artillery, tank battalions, and more.

It wasn't just troops bound for the European or Japanese theaters that checked in through Camp Atterbury's front gates, though.

The United States would see nearly half a million Axis fighters through it's gates to be kept as prisoners of war, in facilities across the country, between 1943 and 1946.

Camp Atterbury was just one of nine internment camps set up to hold enemy POWs across Indiana.

Thousands of soldiers, mostly Italian and German, made their way into the camp from 1943 to 1946.

Over the course of three years, Camp Atterbury would earn a reputation for hospitality towards those captured enemy fighters. The largely Roman Catholic contingent of Axis prisoners of war were even permitted to built a chapel there, which still stands today.

One of those Italian soldiers, Libbero Puccini, carved the camp's "Camp Atterbury" rock.

He fell in love with an American, and eventually became a citizen of the United States. His son, Lt. Colonel Marcus Puccini, would go on to serve the United States in both Iraq and Afghanistan as a C-130 pilot with the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

The hospital there, Wakeman Army Hospital, became a place where soldiers fresh from fighting were treated and could try to recover before rejoining society.

As World War II drew to a close in 1946, Camp Atterbury was discontinued as a military base.

In 1968, it was again discontinued as a military base after providing support throughout the Korean War, though the Indiana National Guard was based there.

For the next thirty years, throughout the 1970s and 1990s, it largely functioned as a base for the Indiana National Guard and to provide support for conflicts in Vietnam and the Middle East, including Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

Following the September 11 attacks, Camp Atterbury once again became a site where reserve and regular troops prepared for overseas combat.

Throughout the duration of the Afghan War, Camp Atterbury often marked the last stop for thousands of U.S. soldiers who were headed to conflict in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo. For family members of servicemen, it was sometimes the place of a final goodbye.

Today, it serves as the training ground for the Indiana National Guard and other branches of the U.S. military.

Now, for not the first time in it's history, Camp Atterbury is preparing for a new role.

The site will provide temporary housing for Afghan special immigration applicants, their families and other at-risk individuals.

Some 5,000 evacuees from Afghanistan will arrive in the United States on special immigrant visas, which they obtained by helping the United States during the decades-long war in Afghanistan.

Active duty and National Guard service members at Camp Atterbury will provide housing, medical, logistics, and transportation.

Representative Greg Pence said Camp Atterbury will start building support over the next week to house approximately 5,000 Afghan evacuees fleeing from the Taliban.

It is not yet clear when the first evacuees will arrive, but authorities expect that it could be as soon as the next few days.

Continued here:

Camp Atterbury, the place where thousands of Afghan evacuees seek refuge, once held Nazi POWs - WTHR

Montero signs the activist who called Vox Nazi to give lessons in feminist democracy&#… – Market Research Telecast

The Ministry of Equality that directs Irene Montero has included as a speaker for an official conference in Santander, in collaboration with the Menndez Pelayo International University, the controversial feminist activist, Pamela Palenciano, who has starred in monologues stating in relation to Vox that there should not be a party full of Nazis in the Congress of Deputies.

Specifically, this signing from the department of Montero will participate in the seminar which will take place this Monday and Tuesday at the Palacio de La Magdalena de Santander under the title Towards a feminist radicalization of democracy. It is organized by the Institute for Women, under the Ministry of Equality. In fact, Irene Montero will participate in the inauguration of these days with the seal of the Social Communist Government, together with the rector of the Menndez Pelayo International University, Mara Luz Morn.

In his case, Palenciano will intervene in the last presentation, called New violence against women in public space: digital violence and will share a table with the gathering Cristina Fallars. Among the objectives of this seminar, according to the Womens Institute, is to examine how feminism can become an authentic realization of the democratic ideal if it is capable of confronting the various axes of domination that are operating and that prevent the achievement of true social justice, says the Ministry of Equality.

The activist Pamela Palenciano. (Photo: EP)

However, the controversial monologues that Palenciano has produced clash squarely with this democratic ideal. For example, calling those dissenting from their gender ideology Nazis, on this occasion, Vox, the countrys third largest force. Furthermore, in those monologues, titled Not only do the blows hurt, also assured that Vox voters are rabble, that the conquest of America was a Authentic genocide and that the patriarchy began twenty-one centuries ago, in reference to Christianity.

Alleged crime

Recently, Palenciano has been in the news in the same way when it was known that the Court of Instruction No. 15 of Madrid has admitted to processing the complaint presented by the Association of Abused Men against her for an alleged crime of degrading treatment of men in such monologues. Thus, both Palenciano and its producer were summoned to testify on September 15.

The Association of Abused Men filed a complaint against Palenciano for attacking those actions against the male gender, even causing some students to leave the room in the middle of the session, as in a show offered in Linares (Jan), organized by the City Councils Department of Equality (PSOE).

The activist defines her show as a monologue that starts from the personal to the political as a way of transforming the macho romantic love models . Now, next Tuesday, he will exercise this activism again in a seminar paid for by the Ministry of Equality, with money from all taxpayers.

Link:

Montero signs the activist who called Vox Nazi to give lessons in feminist democracy&#... - Market Research Telecast

Great Art Heists of History: The Nazis’ War Against Modern Art – MutualArt.com

While some of the greatest artworks had been looted by the Nazis and were recovered after the war, thousands are missing to this day.

Rome, 1944. German soldiers stand outside of the Palazzo Venezia with Giovanni Paolo Paninis Carlo III di Borbone che visita il papa Benedetto XIV nella coffee-house del Quirinale a Roma. The 1746 oil on canvas painting was taken from the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, but now safely rests in the citys Museo di Capodimonte

Starting in 1933 with the seizure of property belonging to German Jews and continuing until the curtains closed on the European theatre of the Second World War in 1945, the Nazis plundered roughly 650,000 pieces of art from across the continent. While many of these pieces were retrieved, in large part by the efforts of the famed Monuments Men, around 30,000 of the looted artworks remain missing to this day.

Adolf Hitler was no stranger to the world of art. He himself was an avid painter and in his youth planned to pursue the passion as a career but abandoned the idea after being rejected from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna twice. As much as he was a lover of the brush and canvas, he reserved a special kind of dislike for modern art, referring to it as degenerate in his autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf, and condemning such movements as Dadaism, Cubism, and Futurism as being a product of a decadent twentieth-century society.

In 1933 Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and wasted no time incorporating his so strongly felt distaste for modern art into the political system. Drawings, sculptures and classical paintings, such as portraits and landscapes by Old Masters, could stay in Germanys state museums. All else was to be sold or destroyed. And hence, the great Nazi art heist began.

Missing, presumed destroyed. Jean Metzingers En Canot, 1913, oil on canvas, was exhibited at The Degenerate Art Exhibition in 1937

But the removal of what Hitler deemed distasteful artworks from the nations galleries and museums for profit or destruction was not enough for the Nazis. Much like penitent public drunkards, 650 pieces of the confiscated art were first to be exhibited to the public for their mirthful derision. In July of 1937 Die Ausstellung "Entartete Kunst" (The Degenerate Art Exhibition) opened in Munich. The day before to the exhibitions opening, Hitler conducted a speech that declared merciless war on cultural disintegration and went so far as to say that the German art world was afflicted with a great and fatal illness.

Though, the Nazis struggled significantly in the sale of the seized artworks. Putting so much emphasis on the inferior quality of the pieces had backfired. On March 20, 1939, in the courtyard of the Berlin Fire Department, close to 5,000 paintings, sculptures, watercolors, drawings and prints were set alight in an act of propaganda similar to the Nazis infamous book burnings. As utterly tragic as the event was, the desired result was achieved. Suddenly there was no shortage of buyers for the so-called degenerate art. But it wasnt solely the eradication, or profit from such art that fueled the great Nazi art heist Hitler also had plans for a great art museum. The Fhrermuseum, which was to be located in the city of Linz, Austria, never reached realization, which is ironically unfortunate, because if most of the pieces that had been earmarked for the large museum had been housed there when Nazi Germany fell, it would have made a sizable part of the process of recovery and subsequent return much easier.

Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907, oil, silver, and gold on canvas, Neue Galerie, New York

Over the Nazis twelve-year reign many famed paintings fell into their clutches, including Klimts Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. The painting, also known as The Woman in Gold, was commissioned by Jewish banker and sugar producer Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, the sitters husband. The piece was abandoned when Ferdinand was forced to flee the city of Vienna following the Anschluss of Austria the annexation of the country into Nazi Germany in 1938. It was subsequently stolen in 1941 from the large art collection left behind. After a lengthy legal battle, the painting was sold by Ferdinands niece Maria Altmann to Ronald Lauder, art collector and co-founder of New Yorks Neue Galerie.

Leonardo da Vinci, Lady with an Ermine, 1489-90, oil on walnut panel, Czartoryski Museum, Krakw

Leonardo da Vincis famed Lady with an Ermine suffered a similar fate. In an anticipatory move made as a result from the imminent German occupation of Poland, the painting was relocated from the city of Krakw to the much smaller town of Sieniawa, in hope that it would be safer there, as it had been during the November Uprising (the Russian-Polish war) of 1830-1. Unfortunately, the Nazis still discovered the painting, and it was sent to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin. Nazi Governor General of Poland, Hans Frank (also known as the Butcher of Poland), noticed the painting housed in the museum in 1940, and requested that it be returned to Krakw.

Consistent with the masterpieces history of transiency, it was relocated to Wawel Castle, where Franks suite of offices was housed, before being transferred to a warehouse deposit of plundered art in Breslau in 1941. It was then brought back to Wawel Castle and exhibited. But that wasnt the Ladys final wartime resting place; it was discovered by Allied troops at Franks countryside villa in the small town of Schliersee, Bavaria, near the conflicts end. It was returned to Poland in 1946.

Monuments Men and a Polish liaison officer pose with the Lady with an Ermine upon its return to Poland in 1946

The Nazis went on to plunder artwork from every country that they occupied, particularly targeting Jewish property, with many pieces ending up in the private collections of high-ranking Nazi officers. In order to help protect precious European art from the Nazis hands, the Allies created special commissions, such as the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives (MFAA) organization, whose members would become known to the world as the Monuments Men. Over 1,050 repositories for looted artwork in Germany and Austria were discovered in such places as salt mines, tunnels, and secluded castles. Although many of stolen artworks have been returned to their rightful owners, a high number still remain missing, and every now and again come to light in an unexpected manner.

In 2012, a trove of over one thousand paintings, drawings, and prints were discovered in the Munich apartment of a reclusive octogenarian after he was investigated for suspected tax evasion. Of these pieces, around two to three hundred were believed to have originated from Nazi looting. The large stash, which likely contained pieces exhibited in 1937s Degenerate Art Exhibition, belonged to Cornelius Gurlitt, son of Hildebrand Gurlitt a Nazi-associate art dealer. The collection, which contained works from revered artists such as Renoir, Chagall, Czanne, and Matisse, was confiscated by the German government and subsequently investigated by a large team of international researchers. Fourteen pieces proven to have been looted under Nazi rule have now been returned to their original owners, although surprisingly Gurlitt named the Museum of Fine Arts Bern in Switzerland as the sole heir to the trove shortly before his death in 2014, leading to the remainder of the dubious collection being housed there today.

Even though countless paintings that the Nazis seized during their truly horrifying reign were completely destroyed, it is still quite possible that many that werent will someday resurface.

For more onauctions, exhibitions, and current trends, visit ourMagazine Page

Continue reading here:

Great Art Heists of History: The Nazis' War Against Modern Art - MutualArt.com

Following the paper trail: How neo-Nazis make their money – SBS News

Since the white supremacist rallies in the US city of Charlottesville in 2017, the financing of far-right movements and figures has increasingly come under the microscope.

Experts told The Feed that in the past five years, neo-Nazis and members of the far-right have become more evasive and sophisticated at hiding their finances.

In May, Australian neo-Nazi and leader of the National Socialist Network Thomas Sewell was arrested by counter-terrorism police following an alleged assault in a Victorian national park.

Police claim Sewell, along with a group of Caucasian men, swarmed a car after noticing a man had been filming them.

Its alleged Sewell, who was denied bail in June, punched the passenger side window.

Shortly after Sewell was arrested, one of his supporters took over his messaging channel on Telegram.

The Feed has seen Telegram messages, sent by an associate of Sewell, asking supporters to donate cryptocurrency to Sewells legal and prison fund.

The Feed has observed the removal of several fundraisers for Sewell on the crowdfunding site BuyMeACoffee. On Telegram, one of Sewells associates also regularly pleads for donations in the cryptocurrency Monero.

The commies took down my previous fundraiser, Ill just keep remaking them, a message in Sewells Telegram read.

The legal process is not cheap and every dollar donated towards it is a dollar saved from our movement funds.

They are better spent on gym equipment, tech equipment and expanding our operations.

Stacked cryptocurrency coins (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin)

iStock Editorial

Any leftover funds will be spent on increasing the racism capability of the Australian Klan, a message in Telegram read.

Sewell was charged with assaulting a black Channel 9 security guard in March. In video footage seen by The Feed, Sewell appeared to punch the security guard several times in the head, while an unknown associate filmed the assault.

In the video, the guard was knocked to the ground and racially abused, with the associate telling him: "dance monkey, dance"

A spokesperson from the Australian Federal Police confirmed they had observed individuals attempting to raise funds for Sewell for legal fees and other legitimate expenses.

Provided the solicitation and application of funds are clearly for the purpose of legal expenses or welfare issues, there is no illegality, the spokesperson said.

The AFP continues to examine whether groups and individuals breach Commonwealth laws, they added.

Our primary concern is when extremist views develop into planning or facilitation of violent activities, which constitutes a terrorist act.

The use of cryptocurrency among the far-right and neo-Nazis is pervasive, according to US extremism researcher Professor Megan Squire.

You cant really be on the far-right without using, and being familiar with, cryptocurrencies at this point, Professor Squire told The Feed.

Four or five years ago that wasnt true. But today, it certainly is.

Professor Squire said the switch to cryptocurrency was largely sparked by members of the far-right being cut off from traditional financing methods like online banking and PayPal.

A spokesperson at the AFP told The Feed, Ideologically motivated individuals and groups are more organised, sophisticated and security-conscious than in the past.

John Bambenek, an American cybersecurity expert who built a neo-Nazi bitcoin transactions tracker, said the use of cryptocurrency is also tied to ideology.

For neo-Nazi groups, if you truly believe this whole antisemitic nonsense, which includes the kind of Jewish world banking conspiracy, what else are you going to use?

The Australian Federal Police says financing of far-right groups is becoming more sophisticated.

http://www.afp.gov.au

In 2017, a Melbourne court convicted Cottrell of inciting hatred, contempt and ridicule of Muslims after making a video in 2015 in which he beheaded a dummy in protest of a Bendigo mosque. His attempt to appeal against this conviction was lost in 2019.

I had my bank account my personal bank account, I was using to try to raise funds to keep paying my barrister, they closed it, Cottrell said in the YouTube video seen by The Feed.

So I just had to end up accepting the conviction because I couldnt afford to keep paying the court fees.

In the video, Cottrell also complained that hed been censored from social media, lost jobs due to his political ideology, and had his PayPal account closed.

Sewells associate, who has been fundraising for his legal costs, also had his bank account shut down in July.

In messages seen by The Feed, the man shares a screenshot of a letter from his bank. He complains his bank advised him they will no longer provide me with any services and are shutting down all my business accounts.

From fundraising for legal costs to buying exercise equipment for community gyms, there is a range of ways the far-right spends its cryptocurrency.

Professor Squire said those on the far-right are often tight-lipped about their earnings and how they spend donations.

They don't tend to be very flashy with their wealth, she said.

Even the guys that have tons of Bitcoin or got really big donations and stuff, they don't tend to flash it around.

Crypto Cryptocurrency Bitcoin Processor Mining

maxpixel CC0

A lot of the guys that are involved in these movements are pretty working-class, hand to mouth kind of thing, but they're not wealthy people, she said.

I think they would be really turned off if their leaders were doing that.

Professor Squires research for the Southern Poverty Law Center showed a handful of leaders of the global white nationalist movement have raised significant sums of money through streaming platform DLive.

DLive was initially created as a video game streaming platform. It attracted many far-right supporters due to its loose enforcement of prohibited speech, which essentially allowed streamers who were using the site to say whatever they wanted.

In January, rioters used the site to broadcast themselves storming the US Capitol, with some earning significant donations for their live streams.

Streamers who use the site can make thousands of dollars thanks to donations from online viewers using a currency called lemons. The highest content creator using DLive netted USD $62,250.75 in donations from April to October 2020.

I think it was a shock to a lot of people how much money they were actually pulling in because it was just the numbers were so high, Professor Squire said.

For the first time, we were able to uncover the transaction logs and show how much money these guys were making, she said.

It wasnt really obvious to the outside world that they were absolutely just dripping in cash.

Supporters of former Preisdent Donald Trump climbing the west wall of the US Capitol in Washington during the 6 January riot.

AP

Bitcoin is much easier to track than some other cryptocurrencies, according to Mr Bambenek. He told The Feed while Bitcoin is anonymous, it is not private.

So you can enter in a wallet [address], see all the transactions in and out and whether it's balanced, he said.

Following the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Mr Bambenek developed a Twitter bot to track the Bitcoin transactions of the far-right.

What we noticed is because of the way I was providing transparency to what they were doing, their behaviour started changing, Mr Bambenek said.

Daily Stormer, for instance, very explicitly references an article I worked on CNN with as to why they switched to [cryptocurrency] Monero, which obscures the transactions.

White nationalist demonstrators walk into Lee park surrounded by counter demonstrators in Charlottesville, 2017.

AP

The data is still there, everybody kind of sees that there is a transaction. But you don't get any detail [about addresses] unless you have the encryption key, he said.

As the far-right become smarter at making its financing clandestine, there are tell-tale signs in their transactions of anti-semitic and white supremacist beliefs.

Professor Squire said Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi website, Daily Stormer, received two donations in the lead up to the Charlottesville rallies.

The unknown donor gave the amount 0.88USD once and then 14.88USD five days later.

88 and 1488 are both, you know, tweaks on 14 words, which is one of the little slogans that they use to represent what they believe in as far as racism, Professor Squire said.

The 88 is for H,H, the letters of the alphabet. It stands for Heil Hitler.

Professor Squire said she searched over 300 known wallets for Bitcoin and other coin addresses and found several 100 different transactions in those amounts.

People fly into the air as a vehicle is driven into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.

AAP

It isnt feasible to ask cryptocurrencies like Monero to ban neo-Nazis from using digital currencies, Professor Squire said. She explained that often the people behind developing these currencies are unknown.

But it may be possible to put pressure on what Professor Squire calls the two ends of the pipeline.

Monero, Bitcoin, whatever the currency is, at some point, it has to come out, she said.

You got to buy groceries, you got to put food on the table, pay your rent and your landlord might not take Bitcoin

Professor Squire said eventually people will withdraw cryptocurrencies and transfer them into real money.

The places where that happens, those exchanges, are places where pressure can be applied, she said.

Mr Bambenek said laws should be strengthened to regulate Coinbase exchanges. He said governments can legislate to force customers to provide their identity.

That's the only real place of enforcement and some of those are willing to act and some try to stay under the radar.

But every time that we poke them and try to expose them and kick them off, they get a little bit better. And eventually, they're going to get good.

See the rest here:

Following the paper trail: How neo-Nazis make their money - SBS News

Where are Nazi Germanys uranium cubes? New tracking method could reveal its missing trail – ThePrint

Text Size:A- A+

Bengaluru: Scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Washington, USA, have developed new forensic tracking techniques that could locate lost uranium from the Nazi Germany atomic weapons program. Over 600 cubes of Uranium, that were parts of plans for a nuclear reactor and an atomic bomb, went missing from a secret underground laboratory at the end of World War 2 and were taken to the US. Until today, only a handful have been located while the others were likely trafficked.

The new technique was developed when researchers received access to three of the purported uranium cubes. Their findings were presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society last week.

Also read: 5 ways 1945 nuclear attack on Hiroshima-Nagasaki continues to impact the world

The technique used to test the cubes origins is radiochronometry, or dating samples using natural radioactive isotopes (chemical elements with the same number of protons but different number of neutrons). Radiochronometry is regularly used by geologists to date ancient rocks and minerals, and the researchers hope that using the technique will reveal the age of the uranium. This in turn would potentially reveal where the original uranium was mined, giving more information about the origins of a cube.

The researchers also used other simpler techniques to track a cubes journey and origins.These cubes were called Heisenberg cubes after the German physicist Werner Heisenberg, one of the creators of the cubes. Heisenberg headed the Berlin group of German nuclear scientists, and as Allied forces made progress in 1944, moved his entire team and equipment to a secret underground cave below a castle in a small town in Germany.

Heisenbergs group built a nuclear reactor here, composed of 664 uranium cubes that were submerged in a tank of heavy water and covered with graphite to protect from radiation exposure.

The experiment was not successful as the amount of uranium within these cubes was not enough to trigger a nuclear reaction. Heisenberg set out to increase the size of the cubes, working in collaboration with the two other groups of the German nuclear program one at Leipzig and another at Gottow, the latter of which was headed by physicist Kurt Diebner.

In 1945, a mission associated with the Manhattan Project (the American mission to build an atomic weapon during WW2) tracked down the cave, leading Heisenberg to dismantle the reactor and bury the uranium, which was confiscated by the Americans. The cubes were never recorded to have entered the US, and went unaccounted.

German physicists during the Nazi regime are thought to have built over 1,200 cubes of uranium. Over 400 cubes from a different research site were smuggled into the Soviet Unions black market and disappeared.

Some of the cubes that entered America have been identified and have been preserved as artefacts, including the one at PNNL. The PNNL cube has been identified as a Heisenberg cube, but the researchers note that it has a styrene-coating which was originally found in cubes from Diebners lab. The researchers think that the cube was one of the few that Diebner sent to Heisenberg when he was trying to increase his uranium cube sizes.

Because each of the labs used different chemical coatings on their cubes to reduce oxidation, the team thinks the technique of analysing the coating for the source lab could also help potentially track down illegal uranium.

(Edited by Manasa Mohan)

Also read: Pokhran anniversary: How we built the nuclear bomb

Subscribe to our channels on YouTube & Telegram

Why news media is in crisis & How you can fix it

India needs free, fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism even more as it faces multiple crises.

But the news media is in a crisis of its own. There have been brutal layoffs and pay-cuts. The best of journalism is shrinking, yielding to crude prime-time spectacle.

ThePrint has the finest young reporters, columnists and editors working for it. Sustaining journalism of this quality needs smart and thinking people like you to pay for it. Whether you live in India or overseas, you can do it here.

Support Our Journalism

Link:

Where are Nazi Germanys uranium cubes? New tracking method could reveal its missing trail - ThePrint

GoDaddy, Digital Ocean ban Texas Right to Life’s abortion reporting site – Mashable

GoDaddy has informed Texas Right to Life that they're being evicted.

The domain host let the anti-abortion group know that their site, which allows citizens to report anyone who performs or assists an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, violated GoDaddy's terms of service and would therefore be removed within 24 hours. The site sprang up in an effort to enforce the Texas Heartbeat Law.

"We have informed prolifewhistleblower.com they have 24 hours to move to another provider for violating our terms of service," said GoDaddy spokesperson Dan C. Rice in an email to Gizmodo.

The terms that were violated probably included reporting personal information without the subject's consent, as the Texas Right to Life site's submission form allowed anyone to do.

When Mashable attempted to visit the site, a location-based WordPress security plugin prevented any access. It's unclear if this block was initiated by the site owners or as a result of GoDaddy's eviction, but it's likely the former given the nature of the plugin along with recent reports of attempts to overload the website with spam submissions.

What displays when you try to access the Right to Life website from the NYC area.Credit: Screenshot: google Chrome/Wordpress

A Texas Right to Life representative has said that this move doesn't deter them from their goals.

"Our IT team is already in process of transferring our assets to another provider and we'll have the site restored within 24-48 hours," said spokesperson Kimberly Schwartz to NPR.

Later on Friday, the Right To Life website went offline a second time after Digital Ocean, its next hosting provider which has terms of service similar to GoDaddy's, also dropped the account (h/t Ars Technica). It reappeared a few hours later with a new host, the rather infamous Epik, meaning the anti-abortion whistleblower website now joins a community that includes a neo-Nazi homepage, an imageboard that's been a favorite of mass shooters, and a social media platform that served as a gathering place for alleged perpetrators of the Jan. 6 riot in Washington, D.C.

Before the site went down, internet "hacktivists" were working overtime to bomb the submission form with fictional reports, hoping to make the site useless. Sean Black, a TikTok user and coder, created a bot to submit a false report about every 10 seconds. His IP address was eventually blocked, but he went on to create an iOS shortcut that continued to fill out false reports. According to Vice, almost 5,000 people have accessed the shortcut.

Texas Right to Life claims that the attempts to sabotage the site have failed, and that they were prepared for such a situation. Still, its incredible to think about anti-abortion groups having to sift through thousands of submissions, trying to figure out if one of Marvel's Avengers really tried to have an abortion.

UPDATE: Sept. 4, 2021, 8:11 p.m. EDT Added info on the website's move from GoDaddy to Digital Ocean to Parler.

Read the original:

GoDaddy, Digital Ocean ban Texas Right to Life's abortion reporting site - Mashable

Once Upon A Time In Nazi Occupied Tunisia REVIEW: A brave attempt to awaken history – Express

Josh Azouzs play walks a perilous line between dramatic humour and the outright offensive, occasionally stumbling too far across into the wrong territory.

Set in Tunisia in 1943 shortly after the Nazis have taken over from the ruling Vichy government, it is the story of two young couples one Jewish, one Muslim who have been friends for years until the arrival of the invaders alters their social geography.

It opens like Becketts Happy Days, with Victor, a Jew (Pierro Niel-Mee) buried up to his neck in the desert, guarded by his best friend Youssef (Ethan Kai) who has thrown in his lot with the Nazis.

As the play unfolds, revealing the domestic as well as the political tensions, it becomes clear that Azouz is using betrayal and infidelity as an echo chamber for the bigger issues of collaboration and the search for identity and homeland.

If the argument occasionally takes a turn for the arid, it is saved from total desiccation by the performance of Adrian Edmondson as the Nazi commandant, nicknamed Grandma by his men due to his fondness for knitting.

Tottering around with a walking stick owing to a knee injury, Edmondson is both absurd and sinister, a leering psychopath who has designs on Victors spirited wife Loys (Yasmin Paige) and gleefully exploits his fascistic power of life and death for his own lecherous ends.

The set is a kind of Cubist desert made of plywood boxes that open up to reveal beautifully tiled interiors while an electric sun beats down from above.

Skirmishing with Absurdist theatre, the play is not entirely successful there are awkward plot points that make little sense and some lacunae in the dialogue, and Azouz struggles to weld several disparate ideas together.But it's a bold attempt to address a universal problem within the framework of a little known aspect of history.

Flawed but fascinating.

Almeida Theatre until September 18, tickets: 020 7359 440

See the original post here:

Once Upon A Time In Nazi Occupied Tunisia REVIEW: A brave attempt to awaken history - Express

A preeminent scholar on Nazism explains whether it makes sense to refer to Trump-loving populists as fascists – Raw Story

Historian Richard J. Evans is a preeminent scholar on Hitler and Nazi Germany, most pointedly through his trilogy on the history of the Third Reich. His most recent work, "The Hitler Conspiracies: The Stab in the Back - The Reichstag Fire - Rudolf Hess - The Escape from the Bunker," takes on the key conspiracy theories generated out of the Hitler era. Aaron J. Leonard recently conducted an interview with him via email to discuss his work, the current invoking of fascism in some quarters, and the contrast between solid historiography and work amplifying and propagating conspiracy theories.

________________

Why do you think Hitler and his murderous regime which ought to be repellent loom so large in the popular imagination?

They loom so large in the public imagination precisely because they are so repellent. Hitler has come to stand as a kind of substitute for Satan in an increasingly secular world: he is the epitome of evil. When we think of Hitler, we think of dictatorship, war and genocide, of cultural repression, racism and the looting of art on an unprecedented scale. The more the Holocaust has become part of mainstream public memory, the more it has brought Hitler into the center of public attention as its originator.

Your chapter detailing the "Stab in the Back" myth, which claims the German army was sabotaged from victory in World War I by various anti-patriotic left-wing forces, made me think of a Vietnam veteran I encountered a few years back who was adamant that in that war, the US was forced to fight with 'one hand tied behind its back.' It seems one of the features of many of these conspiracy theories or 'alternative histories' is to take a loss or weakness, and turn it into something less. Is that accurate, or is there something else going on?

The idea that a war or an election wasn't really lost, but betrayed by a backstairs conspiracy, is an easy and perennially attractive way (to some people at least) of explaining defeat: defeat, after all, is very difficult and painful to admit. It also disqualifies a whole section of society as not really part of it, whether that's the Jews or the socialists in Germany in 1918, or the Democrats in America in 2020.

In your book Lying About Hitler which recounts the libel suit brought by David Irving against historian Deborah Lipstadt, a trial in which you testified you literally had to chase down footnotes to show how he manipulated evidence to minimize and deny the Holocaust. Irving is arguably more insidious than some of those you challenge in your current work because he was seen as a scholar, rather than a crackpot and yet, his methodology is not far removed from the crassest of conspiracists. How would you contrast the two methods employed between conspiracy-based ones which are not wholly devoid of evidence versus those based on the method of honest historians?

Conspiracy theorists very frequently imitate the methods of honest historians: You will find their works weighed down with footnotes and crammed with elaborate, solid-looking detail. Only when you subject them to detailed scrutiny does it become clear that the detail isn't solid at all it's full of deliberate errors, falsifications, manipulations, misquotations, mistranslations, calculated omissions and manufactured connections, speculation, innuendo and supposition. Irving's Holocaust denial work was full of mistakes, as the judge in the libel action he brought against Deborah Lipstadt in 2000 noted, but they were not honest mistakes, since they all went to support his arguments. Honest mistakes are random in their effect; his were not. Honest historians know they have to abandon their arguments when the evidence turns out to disprove them; dishonest historians and conspiracy theorists bend the evidence to fit the argument.

Quite a few people, particularly on the left, have taken to invoking the word 'fascism' or otherwise draw parallels to the National Socialists of the 1930s & 40s, to describe various current phenomena. What do you see as the limits and benefits if any of such historical analogies?

Fascism is one of those concepts that can seem almost infinitely elastic; it's just too tempting for polemical purposes to accuse any authoritarian politician of being like Hitler, or any populist movement of being fascist. But we have to remember that fascism was a militaristic movement, aiming at war and conflict, territorial expansion and empire. Fascists put every citizen into uniform, drilled the people into uniformity and obedience in training camps, and subordinated private life, business companies, and institutions of all kinds to the state. Fascists were ultimately genocidal, whether it was the Nazis exterminating the Jews, or the Italian Fascists exterminating the Ethiopians (among other things, by using poison gas). Nazism and Fascism also put science at the center of their belief systems, in particular, racial and eugenic 'science', and regarded religion as a leftover from medieval times that would soon disappear. In all these respects it differed from 21st-century populism, which is hostile to the state, anti-scientific, and opposed to militarism both within the country and outside it. The classic fascist mass consisted of endless marching columns of identically uniformed men; today's populist mass, as in the storming of the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021, consist of thousands of informally and in some cases eccentrically attired individuals heaving about in a chaotic heap, violent and aggressive but not organized in any military way. The problem with calling today's right populism 'fascist' is that it's fighting today's battles with the weapons of the 1920s and 1930s. Time has moved on since then.

I am constantly astonished, and not a little frustrated, that so much taken for 'common knowledge' has already been countered by professional historians and yet it seems we live in a world where too often "alternative history" operates as actual history in the popular imagination. How can that ever change, or at least not command such power?

The Internet and social media are largely though not exclusively responsible for undermining belief in truth and objectivity. Society has become increasingly polarized through the rise of 'identity politics' my truth is not the same as your truth (though in fact there can never be two opposing truths; only one of them can ever be the real truth). The spread of hyper-relativism through the dominance in universities of postmodernist culture has also played its part. The mass media, above all television and the movie, have blurred the boundaries between truth and fiction. Holding social media companies to account for the lies they allow to be spread is a beginning. But more needs to be done.

This article was originally published at History News Network

Original post:

A preeminent scholar on Nazism explains whether it makes sense to refer to Trump-loving populists as fascists - Raw Story

How Ethereum’s Next Big Upgrade Could Boost Its Value – The Motley Fool

Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH)- the world's second-largest cryptocurrency, and the most popular smart contract and decentralized application network -- just changed the way it pays the people who maintain its network, in ways that could make it an even more appealing investment. When the next major evolution in its upgrade roadmap occurs, this change could reduce its supply and increase its value. That might be great news for investors seeking to hedge against inflation.

Since Aug. 5, a portion of the fees paid by users of Ethereum's network, which used to go toward making new coins with which to pay miners, has instead been burnt or destroyed. A total of 177,424 ETH, worth around $672 million at the time of writing, has been taken out of circulation since the upgrade, leaving 117.3 million tokens in circulation according to CoinMarketCap. By taking coins out of circulation, this change could make each existing coin more valuable.

Ethereum is currently produced by miners under a proof-of-work consensus mechanism that consumes a lot of energy, just like Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) production. It has a variable annual inflation rate of around 2.8% at the moment -- but it'll issue fewer new coins when it upgrades its network to a staking-based consensus.

Image source: Getty Images.

Instead of solving tough math problems to keep the network running smoothly -- and getting rewarded for it -- Ethereum holders will be able to do the same things by storing away, or staking, some or all of their tokens. Around 6.2% of the circulating supply, or 7.4 million ETH tokens worth an estimated $28 billion, have already been staked. That staked ETH is currently earning an annual percentage yield of 5.8%, way more than any bank.

Once Ethereum's major upgrade occurs sometime in late 2021 or early 2022, one simulation estimates that the circulating supply of Ethereum could shrink by around 1.4% each year at current rates of fee burning. In theory, that might reduce the value of each token by an equal proportion. This means that the circulating supply of the asset will shrink.

Bitcoin is currently viewed as a store of value, or a safe haven asset to hedge against inflationary fiat currencies. But Ethereum is more of an economy -- a fledgling financial landscape for the internet.

Aside from staking, Ethereum is also the foundation for decentralized finance protocols, many of which are based on Ethereum and its smart contracts. These smart contracts, which run on the blockchain and execute when predetermined conditions are met, are also used to build decentralized applications (dApps).

Investors currently have 7.7 million ETH, or $29 billion, locked up in DeFi protocols for token swapping, yield farming, or liquidity mining. This is where token holders can provide collateral in crypto assets to earn more crypto assets.

Ethereum is also the standard for the majority of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, which have been booming in sales this year. NFTs are unique tokens on the blockchain that prove ownership; they can represent art, music, gaming items, avatars, and even real estate.

Additionally, Ethereum is the base layer for stablecoins -- digital assets pegged to a fiat currency. Around half of the world's most popular stablecoin, Tether (CRYPTO:USDT), is based on the Ethereum standard, with $34 billion worth residing on the network.

There's just one drawback to Ethereum's current popularity: Rising demand has inflated network fees, with the average transaction now costing $40. The currency's upcoming upgrade includes other improvements designed to lower those fees and speed up transactions, but for now, the higher fees make it harder for people and other apps to actually use Ethereum.

Ethereum's strengths compared to Bitcoin have driven Ethereum prices 400% higher since the beginning of 2021, compared to just 70% for Bitcoin.

Major institutions such as Grayscale have taken notice, and they're loading up on ETH. Institutional funds offer wealthy clients exposure to the asset without requiring them to hold it, and Grayscale currently holds $10 billion worth of ETH in its Ethereum Trust (OTC:ETHE).

Even some of the big Wall Street banks have leaned bullish on Ethereum. In July, analysts at investment bank Goldman Sachs said that Ethereum's real use cases give it the potential to become the dominant digital store of value in the coming years.

The network may also be viewed as a more environmentally friendly investment when it moves away from mining, which looks good to eco-conscious corporations.

Coupled with the prospect of supply deflation, these factors could drive an uptick in demand and prices. That trend might only grow stronger if the COVID-19 pandemic spurs inflation and currency devaluations on a global scale.

Increased regulation in the U.S., such as the controversial crypto tax reporting bill, could stifle innovation and mainstream Ethereum adoption in the short term. There is also the threat of faster rival blockchains such as Cardano or Polkadot becoming the de facto standard for smart contracts, DeFi, and dApps.

These networks have gained traction recently as the crypto ecosystem expands, but Ethereum has already cemented itself as the industry standard, just as IBM did with computing in the early 1980s. With so many platforms already running on Ethereum, and it having the largest support and developer community, it will be no mean feat to knock the network off its perch.

With this in mind, now might not be a bad time to buy and hold Ethereum for at least couple of years.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

Read the rest here:

How Ethereum's Next Big Upgrade Could Boost Its Value - The Motley Fool

Bitcoin vs. Ethereum: Which One Is the Right Investment …

Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH) have had a rollercoaster of a year so far. Over the past 12 months, Bitcoin's price has surged by nearly 300%, and Ethereum is up by more than 900% -- and that's despite the massive downturn they've both experienced over the past few weeks.

Now that cryptocurrency prices are falling, it can be a smart opportunity to "buy the dip" and invest in Bitcoin or Ethereum while they're more affordable. But if you have limited funds available to invest, which cryptocurrency will give you more for your money? Here's what you need to know.

Image source: Getty Images.

Bitcoin is one of the original cryptocurrencies, and it has, by far, the most name recognition among the public.

If any cryptocurrency is going to succeed, it's going to need to earn widespread adoption among sellers. Because Bitcoin is the most recognized cryptocurrency, it already has an advantage in that department. More than 15,000 companies worldwide accept Bitcoin as a form of payment, according to Fundera, and the more merchants adopt Bitcoin, the better chance it has at becoming a mainstream form of payment.

In addition, Bitcoin is known as a deflationary currency, meaning it should only increase in value over time. This could give it a leg up over fiat currencies -- such as the U.S. dollar -- that are subject to inflation.

The biggest risk involved in any cryptocurrency is that it's highly speculative at this point. While thousands of businesses do accept Bitcoin, the vast majority of sellers are not on board with cryptocurrency yet. Right now, it's anyone's guess whether Bitcoin will eventually become widely accepted. And if it doesn't become mainstream, it could eventually become worthless.

Another downside to Bitcoin is its energy consumption. The Bitcoin mining process uses an incredible amount of computing power, which is an energy-intensive process. In fact, Bitcoin transactions currently consume more energy than the entire country of Venezuela, according to a study from the University of Cambridge.

That energy usage is already causing concern among regulators and investors, and Tesla recently announced it was suspending Bitcoin as a form of payment because of its energy consumption.

Image source: Getty Images.

Ethereum is a blockchain technology that hosts a native coin called Ether. Ethereum is one of the biggest names in the blockchain space, and there is a wide variety of projects hosted on the Ethereum blockchain.

Decentralized finance, for example, uses the Ethereum blockchain, and so do non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Ethereum is an open-source technology that allows developers from all over the world to create new applications on the blockchain, and if any of those new projects succeed, Ethereum (and Ether) will benefit from it as well.

Developers can also create "smart contracts" on the network, which allow users to perform safe and credible transactions without help from a third party, such as a lawyer. Smart contracts could revolutionize a variety of industries, giving Ethereum an advantage over its competitors.

Finally, developers are working on an update to the Ethereum blockchain to make it far more energy-efficient. The new technology, Ethereum 2.0, will be released later this year and is expected to use 99.95% less energy than the current technology.

Again, cryptocurrencies are highly speculative, so there's no guarantee that Ethereum or Ether will become widely adopted. Ethereum also doesn't have as much name recognition as Bitcoin, so if merchants only accept one form of cryptocurrency, they may be more likely to accept Bitcoin than Ether.

Similarly, there are no promises that blockchain will be as revolutionary as some people may believe. Because Ethereum's biggest advantages lie in its blockchain technology, if blockchain itself doesn't pan out, Ethereum could suffer for it.

Cryptocurrency in general is a high-risk investment, so before you invest at all, make sure you're willing to tolerate the high levels of risk and volatility.

While neither of these cryptocurrencies is necessarily a "safe" investment, Bitcoin may carry less risk than Ethereum because it has a longer track record and greater name recognition. However, Ethereum may have more opportunities for growth over time.

Whichever option you choose, make sure you've done your research and are comfortable with risk. Cryptocurrency isn't right for everyone, but choosing the right investment can help you make the most of your money.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

The rest is here:

Bitcoin vs. Ethereum: Which One Is the Right Investment ...

What Is Ethereum And How Does It Work? Forbes Advisor

Editorial Note: Forbes Advisor may earn a commission on sales made from partner links on this page, but that doesn't affect our editors' opinions or evaluations.

Ethereum is often referred to as the second most popular cryptocurrency, after Bitcoin. But unlike Bitcoinand most other virtual currenciesEthereum is intended to be much more than simply a medium of exchange or a store of value. Instead, Ethereum calls itself a decentralized computing network built on blockchain technology. Lets unpack what that means.

Like all cryptocurrencies, Ethereum works on the basis of a blockchain network. A blockchain is a decentralized, distributed public ledger where all transactions are verified and recorded.

Its distributed in the sense that everyone participating in the Ethereum network holds an identical copy of this ledger, letting them see all past transactions. Its decentralized in that the network isnt operated or managed by any centralized entityinstead, its managed by all of the distributed ledger holders.

Blockchain transactions use cryptography to keep the network secure and verify transactions. People use computers to mine, or solve complex mathematical equations that confirm each transaction on the network and add new blocks to the blockchain that is at the heart of the system. Participants are rewarded with cryptocurrency tokens. For the Ethereum system, these tokens are called Ether (ETH).

Ether can be used to buy and sell goods and services, like Bitcoin. Its also seen rapid gains in price over recent years, making it a de-facto speculative investment. But whats unique about Ethereum is that users can build applications that run on the blockchain like software runs on a computer. These applications can store and transfer personal data or handle complex financial transactions.

Ethereum is different from Bitcoin in that the network can perform computations as part of the mining process, says Ken Fromm, director of education and development at the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. This basic computational capability turns a store of value and medium of exchange into a decentralized global computing engine and openly verifiable data store.

You can use Ether as a digital currency in financial transactions, as an investment or as a store of value. Ethereum is the blockchain network on which Ether is held and exchanged. As mentioned above, however, this network offers a variety of other functions outside of ETH.

These can be simple movements of funds, but they may also be complex transactions that do anything from exchanging assets to taking out loans to acquiring a piece of digital art, says Boaz Avital, head of product at Anchorage. The transactions are processed and stored on the Ethereum network.

The Ethereum network can also be used to store data and run decentralized applications. Rather than hosting software on a server owned and operated by Google or Amazon, where the one company controls the data, people can host applications on the Ethereum blockchain. This gives users control over their data and they have open use of the app as theres no central authority managing everything.

Perhaps one of the most intriguing use cases involving Ether and Ethereum are self-executing contracts, or so-called smart contracts. Like any other contract, two parties make an agreement about the delivery of goods or services in the future. Unlike conventional contracts, lawyers arent necessary: The parties code the contract on the Ethereum blockchain, and once the conditions of the contract are met, it self-executes and delivers Ether to the appropriate party.

Bitcoins primary use is as a virtual currency and store of value. Ether also works as a virtual currency and store of value, but the decentralized Ethereum network makes it possible to create and run applications, smart contracts and other transactions on the network. Bitcoin doesnt offer these functions. Its only used as a currency and store of value.

Ethereum also processes transactions more quickly. New blocks are validated on the Bitcoin network once every 10 minutes while new blocks are validated on the Ethereum network once every 12 seconds, says Gary DeWaal, chair of Kattens Financial Markets and Regulation group. And future developments could speed up Ethereum transactions even more, he notes.

Last, there is no limit on the number of potential Ether tokens while Bitcoin will release no more than 21 million coins.

Its a common misconception to people who are new to the Ethereum network. You dont buy Ethereum itselfthats the network. Instead, you buy Ether and then use it on the Ethereum network. Given Ethereums popularity, its very easy to buy Ether:

You might consider investing in the Ethereum network for a few reasons, according to DeWaal. First, it has value and use as a virtual currency; second, the Ethereum blockchain could become more attractive when it migrates to the new protocol; and third as more people utilize Ethereum distributed apps, demand for ETH may increase, he says.

Besides buying Ether directly, you could also try investing in companies that are building applications using the Ethereum network. If youd like help managing your investment, you could also buy into a professional investment fund like the Bitwise Ethereum Fund or Grayscale Ethereum Trust, though these are currently only open to accredited investors.

Before making any significant investment in Ether or other cryptocurrencies, consider speaking with a financial advisor first about the potential risks. Given the high risk and volatility in this market, make sure its money you can afford to lose, even if you believe in Ethereums potential.

Visit link:

What Is Ethereum And How Does It Work? Forbes Advisor

TA: Ethereum Bulls Keeps Pushing, Why Rally Isnt Over Yet – NewsBTC

Ethereum started a steady increase and it cleared $3,400 against the US Dollar. ETH price is showing positive signs and it might accelerate further above $3,500.

Ethereum formed a base above the $3,250 level and started a steady increase. ETH price was able to clear the $3,350 and $3,380 resistance levels.

It even surged above the $3,400 zone and settled well above the 100 hourly simple moving average. A high was formed near $3,477 before there was a downside correction. The price corrected lower below $3,400, but the bulls were active near $3,350.

It formed a low near $3,340 and started a fresh increase. Ether traded above the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent decline from the $3,477 swing high to $3,340 low.

It is now trading above $3,400 and the 100 hourly simple moving average. There is also a key bullish trend line forming with support near $3,425 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. The pair is attempting a break above the 76.4% Fib retracement level of the recent decline from the $3,477 swing high to $3,340 low.

If the bulls succeed, there could be more gains above the $3,480 resistance. The next main resistance is near the $3,500 level. A clear break above the $3,500 resistance might open the doors for another increase. In the stated case, ether may possibly rise towards the $3,600 level.

If ethereum fails to continue higher above the $3,480 and $3,500 resistance levels, it could start a downside correction. An immediate support on the downside is near the $3,435 level.

The next major support is now forming near the $3,425 zone and the trend line. A downside break below the trend line could spark a sharp decline. In the stated scenario, ether price could revisit the $3,350 support region.

Technical Indicators

Hourly MACD The MACD for ETH/USD is now gaining pace in the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI The RSI for ETH/USD is now above the 50 level.

Major Support Level $3,350

Major Resistance Level $3,500

See the rest here:

TA: Ethereum Bulls Keeps Pushing, Why Rally Isnt Over Yet - NewsBTC

Bitcoin price dips to around $47,800 while Ethereum on the rise – Fox Business

Check out what's clicking on FoxBusiness.com.

Bitcoin was trading 0.78% lower Tuesday morning.

The price was around $47,789 per coin, while rivals Ethereum and Dogecoin were trading around $3,350 (+4.74%) and 27.5 cents (-2.30%) per coin, respectively, according to Coindesk.

PAULSON SAYS CRYPTOCURRENCIES WILL EVENTUALLY BE WORTHLESS

Hackers reportedly are using the non-custodial, privacy-focused Wasabi wallet to protect around $97 million in cryptocurrency which was stolen from the Liquid exchange, sleuthing firm Crystal Blockchain reported.

Bitcoin was trading 0.78% lower Tuesday morning, while Ethereum was up 4.74% and Dogecoin was down 2.30%. (iStock)

Bitcoin from Liquid belonging to the hackers has been shuffled around over the past two weeks, public blockchain data shows. For example, on Aug. 29, 100 BTC (worth more than $4.8 million) from one hacker-linked address was split up and sent to two separate addresses, then spilt up again into smaller pieces before moving to other addresses.

In other cryptocurrency news, lending startup Parallel Finance raised $22 million in a Series A funding round valuing the polkadot- and kusama-focused decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol at $150 million, Coindesk reported.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS

The round, one of the single-largest hauls for a project building on Polkadots multi-chain network, comes only months after Parallels $2 million pre-seed round of funding. Polychain Capital led the round with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Slow Ventures, Blockchain Capital and Alameda Research.

Continue reading here:

Bitcoin price dips to around $47,800 while Ethereum on the rise - Fox Business

Everything you wanted to know about ethereum but were too afraid to ask – MoneyWeek

Ive lost count of the number of times people have asked me to explain what bitcoin is over the years, but I dont think anyone has ever asked me to explain ethereum.

Probably because, by the time Ive finished with bitcoin, their eyes have glazed over and they want to save themselves another earful.

But today we ask what is ethereum?

If you thought explaining bitcoin was hard...

Ethereum has been, by market cap, the second-largest cryptocurrency since 2018. Its the brainchild of Russian-Canadian programming prodigy, Vitalik Buterin, who first proposed the idea in a white paper in 2013.

Buterin had already been into bitcoin for several years by this point. He first found out about bitcoin from his dad, a computer scientist, in 2011, at the age of just 17, while he was at university (he would soon drop out). He went on to found Bitcoin Magazine that same year.

Just to make you feel inadequate, Buterin is still only 27 and is a billionaire many times over so many times over that hes already given away over $2bn in philanthropy.

Philosophically, Buterin is pretty hardcore techno-libertarian. In 2018 he authored a paper with economist Glen Weyl called Liberation Through Radical Decentralisation, in which he proposed ways to harness markets and technology to radically decentralise power of all sorts and shift our reliance from authority and to formal rules.

In 2019 his paper, A Flexible Design for Funding Public Goods, written with Harvard PhD student Zoe Hitzig, sets out a new method for the optimal provision of public goods and services, using quadratic voting a more nuanced system of voting that allows for a much more direct system of democracy than current representative systems.

Buterin published his ethereum white paper in 2013. He chose the name after browsing a list of elements on Wikipedia. It sounded nice, he said, and had the word ether, referring to the hypothetical invisible medium that permeates the universe and allows light to travel.

He announced the project in 2014 at the North American Bitcoin Conference and development began with an all-star founding team that included Anthony Di Iorio, Charles Hoskinson (founder of Cardano), Mihai Alisie and Amir Chetrit, and soon after Joseph Lubin, Gavin Wood, and Jeffrey Wilcke.

They raised money to found the project via crowdfunding in the summer of that year. By that point, Buterin was already regarded in crypto coding circles as a prodigy.

I remember being invited to participate in that funding, but got annoyed by how badly the project was explained that I didnt go ahead. Duh!

The project eventually went live in 2015 and, despite numerous setbacks, including a $50m hack after a $150m crowdsale and numerous forks, the project must be deemed to have been a huge success.

The ethereum market cap is some $400bn. Ether, the currency that changes hands over the ethereum network, has gone from below a dollar in late 2015 to $3,500 today.

The founding principle of the project was to use blockchain technology for purposes beyond an alternative system of digital money. Bitcoin has its blockchain, so does ethereum a separate network altogether, using similar distributed ledger technology (aka blockchain) to verify and record transactions.

Like most crypto currencies, ethereum is an open source platform. Ether is used and accepted as a means of payment, but that is not really the purpose of ethereum.

Charlie Morris of Byte Tree likens it to a decentralised App Store. Developers can use the platform to build and publish smart contracts and distributed applications (dApps), and it is a kind of marketplace for financial services (Defi), NFTs (non-fungible tokens), games, and apps, all of which can be paid for in ether.

Hence why it is known as the worlds programmable blockchain. It can be used, it claims, to codify, decentralise, secure, and trade just about anything.

So coders can deploy decentralised applications onto the ethereum blockchain. These become immutable and permanent, and users can interact with them.

Decentralised finance (DeFi) applications allow for all sorts of financial services decentralised exchanges, for example, or borrowing and lending systems without the need for typical financial intermediaries such as banks or brokerages.

Ethereum allows for the creation and trade of NFTs tokens which are connected to digital works of art and other forms of digital property.

Many use the platform for initial coin offerings, and many cryptocurrencies actually operate on the ethereum blockchain (as what are known as ERC-20 tokens). DAOs digital autonomous organisations are taking shape on the platform.

So, all in all, ethereum has found plenty of use, and it has been a fantastic means to play the incredible innovation taking place in this sector.

One of my close bitcoin original gangster mates, who in this instance Im sure would rather not be named, is forever saying to me, ethereum should fail and its a mystery to me why it doesnt.

Many feel the same way. The blockchain is not nearly as robust as bitcoins; ethereum is not properly decentralised, and the numerous forks that have taken place in reaction to hacks prove this, say critics they would not be possible with a properly decentralised platform. Too many coins were pre-mined and handed out to founders. Ethereum 2.0 has met with delay after delay. Transaction costs, known as gas fees, are exorbitant (I can vouch for this). At times they cost several hundred dollars, when they should cost pennies. Its a ticking time bomb, say critics.

Maybe. Ethereum has numerous competitors Binance Smart Chain, Polkadot, Cardano, Terra, and Solana, for example. Cardano and Solana have both had extraordinary runs, the latter just in recent weeks. Many of these are technologically superior, say critics faster, more robust. Certainly they dont have exorbitant gas fees.

But the one thing they dont have is the network of users. Ethereum has that. It is the first coin the general public thinks of after bitcoin, even if they cant pronounce it properly. That is what first-mover advantage often gives you.

But that is the market. Everyone submits their offering, makes their argument and price is the outcome. The best man doesnt always win.

Ethereum is second only to bitcoin. Its had a great year, on the back of several great years. Its like silver to bitcoins gold as well as having many more uses, it is more volatile. It often moves later in the cycle but by more, but when the correction comes it gets hit by more too.

In late 2015 it traded as low as $0.42. It went all the way to $1,400 by early 2017. It then lost 95% of its value and plummeted to $80. In the correction of this year, it lost over 60%. But the bottom line is that it began 2021 below $800 and now its over four times higher at $3,500.

The direction is up. But for how much longer?

Daylight Robbery How Tax Shaped The Past And Will Change The Future is now out in paperback at Amazon and all good bookstores with the audiobook, read by Dominic, on Audible and elsewhere.

See original here:

Everything you wanted to know about ethereum but were too afraid to ask - MoneyWeek

Ethereum Is Dragging Other Crypto Assets Higher, According to Chainalysis CEO Heres Why – The Daily Hodl

Chainalysis CEO Michael Gronager says that fundamental changes in Ethereum are contributing to the growth of other crypto assets, particularly in one subsector.

In an interview on Bloomberg Technology, the head of the blockchain data platform explains that Ethereum (ETH) has seen large price appreciation over the past few weeks largely due to protocol changes and growth in the network, as well as decentralized finance (DeFi).

Basically we see Bitcoinweve seen Ethereum grow a lot over the last couple of weeks, and then about a month ago we saw bigger platform changes to Ethereum. The network got stabilized [and] got better in various ways. So I think that facilitated more trust in Ethereum as a whole.

On top of that, weve seen the trend of DeFi thats been growing and growingthats been pumping the interest in Ethereum, and Ethereum is then dragging along a lot of the other cryptocurrencies with it.

According to DeFi Pulse, 120 of the largest DeFi platforms reside on Ethereum, highlighting the correlation between the emerging crypto subsector and the leading smart contract protocol. DeFi Pulse also shows that the total value locked in the decentralized finance space is currently at an all-time high, closing in on $100 billion.

Along with Chainalysis, Gronager is also co-founder of the crypto exchange platform Kraken. The interviewer notes how Kraken CEO Jesse Powell sees a bullish future ahead for Bitcoin, predicting a breach past $100,000 before the end of the year.

When asked if Gronager shares Powells same bullish sentiment about Bitcoin and the overall crypto market, he agrees and adds that $100,000 could just be a pit stop before pushing to even higher prices.

I would say that for most of the cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, the more stable ones, were definitely seeing a trend where they grow year over year, and sometimes they grow faster than others. Sometimes its a bull market. Sometimes its a bear market. In the bear market, a lot of interesting things are being built and that basically facilitates a new bull market.

So yes, I think we are still in the bull market. I think that we can see above $100,000 by the end of the year. So I would be bullish on that as well. Long term, yeah, I would probably usually say Moon is the limit. We can go beyond [$100,000] as well so that we can see way higher prices for all of those assets.

Currently, Bitcoin is trying to push beyond the $50,000 level, trading at $49,780.

I

Featured Image: Shutterstock/jamesteohart

See the article here:

Ethereum Is Dragging Other Crypto Assets Higher, According to Chainalysis CEO Heres Why - The Daily Hodl

After Ethereum, it was Ethereum Classics turn to survive the Geth exploit – AMBCrypto News

Ethereum Classic has become the latest victim of the Geth exploit which had also afflicted Ethereum about a week ago. The exploit certainly managed to create trouble for the network. How badly was ETC affected by this exploit?

On September 3, the ETC mainnet split due to the exploit which had previously affected the Ethereum mainnet on August 27. This was the result of an attacker discovering an exploit on the Go Ethereum client which impacted the older versions of the client. This led the blockchain to undergo an unplanned hard fork.

As per data, soon after the split occurred, over 20% of the mainnets hash rate witnessed a drop.

This declinelikely came from miners or pools which had been using the unpatched version of Coregeth. In the while that it took for the patch to arrive, the network had already taken a hit. NVT ratio showed that the network value went down, following the exploit.

But more than that, the effect on miners also disturbed the issuance rate of ETC. Issuance saw a fall to its single-day lowest in 2 months to 20.3k ETC.

Investors were not affected much by this bug since nodes were updated soon after. For the most part, they did not witness any major negative impact. Active addresses rose to 37.7k. Daily volumes were intact too, jumping to $228 million.

Overall, the Geth exploit does not seem like a major concern. Taking a cue from Ethereums experience with the Geth exploit, the Ethereum Classic network will likely remain unimpacted. Ethereum Classics future looks safe from an investment point of view

View post:

After Ethereum, it was Ethereum Classics turn to survive the Geth exploit - AMBCrypto News

Ethereum Bull Cycle Long Way From Over, According to Crypto Analyst Benjamin Cowen Heres His Price T… – The Daily Hodl

Cryptocurrency analyst Benjamin Cowen believes Ethereums bull cycle is just getting started.

Cowen tells his 522,000 YouTube subscribers that the current trajectory of the second-largest cryptocurrency looks similar to early 2016 and 2017, which ended up being periods of consolidation preceding large moves to the upside.

Ethereums market cap is approximately $417 billion at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko, and Cohen says hes looking for it to rise above the $1 trillion mark.

During this market cycle I expect Ethereum to be able to get to the $10,000 mark, plus or minus a few [thousand]. Ideally, itd be nice if we could overshoot the 10k mark, but we always have to be prepared for anything.

According to Cowen, Ethereum may be entering a new normal that sees the crypto asset rising steadily.

And whats going on over here [around the $3,500 price], where we currently are, in my even perhaps naive interpretation is I feel like were getting accustomed to the new normal. My thoughts are that Ethereum is having to get accustomed to the new normal and it can take a while to get accustomed to the new normal.

You might look at this and say well, Ben I mean its up from $1,700 to $3,400 is that not a 2X move? It is and thats great and we want to see it and we need to spend time at these levels and prove to the market that this is the new normal before we can decisively move to a $5,000 ETH, the $6,000 ETH and higher.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/Ongky Ady Widyanto

Read more here:

Ethereum Bull Cycle Long Way From Over, According to Crypto Analyst Benjamin Cowen Heres His Price T... - The Daily Hodl

Ethereum Classic Is On The Verge Of A Breakout: Could This One Be Bigger Than The Last? – Benzinga – Benzinga

Ethereum Classic (CRYPTO: ETC) is trading higher Friday, moving higher alongside the rest of a bullish crypto market.

Ethereum Classic looks to be on the verge of a breakout. The last time the crypto broke out it ran to a high of $175. Theres a chanceif the crypto sees another breakout the sameresult could happen.

Ethereum Classic was up 5.01% at $70.97 at last check.

Bullish traders want to see Ethereum Classic break above resistance and push higher. Ethereum Classic has run to over $175 in the past so it isnt impossible for it to do it again. Bulls would like to see some consolidation after a breakout for possible further moves.

Bearish traders would like to see Ethereum Classic fall below the cup pattern and start to fall further. Bears would like to see the crypto start heading down toward the possible $40 support level. Eventually, bulls would like to see the crypto fall below the $40 level.

Join ZINGERNATION and earn ZING, a new cryptocurrency we launched aimed to reward members as we build a community to find and share great trading and investing opportunities. Download the mobile app now, available on iOS and Android.

Click here, or sign up for our newsletter to explore more of Benzinga's Cryptocurrency market coverage, in-depth coin analysis, data, and reporting.

Read the rest here:

Ethereum Classic Is On The Verge Of A Breakout: Could This One Be Bigger Than The Last? - Benzinga - Benzinga

Powerbridge Technologies Announces Availability of Ethereum Mining Operating System Named FXOS to Enhance Mining Efficiency – Yahoo Finance

ZHUHAI, China, Sept. 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Powerbridge Technologies Co., Ltd. (Nasdaq: PBTS) ("Powerbridge" or the "Company"), a SaaS solutions and Blockchain applications provider, announced the availability of FXOS, a proprietary AI integrated operating system designed for the mining of Ethereum (ETH) and other GPU based cryptocurrencies. FXOS is an automated and intelligent OS that can increase Ethereum mining efficiency by an estimated 15%.

As a Linus based OS, FXOS can be deployed for large-sized mining operations of 100,000 level of mining machines with highly automated and intelligent functionalities for system operations and maintenance. It is also available with a convenient App capable of running on iOS, Android, Applet and Web.

FXOS integrates AI algorithms with sensors and controllers with smart, user-friendly tools, capable of monitoring operating status, managing GPU overclocking, adjusting mining parameters, adapting to maximized power consumption, and remote controlling on/off function, among other features and benefits.

"I am pleased that FXOS is available. As we are deploying our crypto mining machines, having our own mining OS is equally important in our efforts to develop a network of mining operations with higher-than-market ETH mining efficiency," said Stewart Lor, the President of Powerbridge Technologies.

About Powerbridge Technologies

Powerbridge Technologies Co., Ltd., a growth-driven technology company is primarily engaged in SaaS solutions and Blockchain applications. Powerbridge SaaS integrates AI, big data, and IoT offering SaaS platforms for cross-border eCommerce, supply chain, data intelligence, and IoT applications and devices. Powerbridge Blockchain consists of BTC and ETH mining and digital assets, IPFS distributed network services, and industry-specific Blockchain applications. For more information, visit http://www.powerbridge.com/ir.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements that are other than statements of historical facts. When the Company uses words such as "may, "will, "intend," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "project," "estimate" or similar expressions that do not relate solely to historical matters, it is making forward-looking statements; specifically, the Company's statements regarding listing on the NASDAQ Capital Market and the IPO are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations discussed in the forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to uncertainties and risks including, but not limited to, the following: the Company's goals and strategies; the Company's future business development; product and service demand and acceptance; changes in technology; economic conditions; reputation and brand; the impact of competition and pricing; government regulations; fluctuations in general economic and business conditions in China and assumptions underlying or related to any of the foregoing and other risks contained in reports filed by the Company with the SEC. For these reasons, among others, investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements in this press release. Additional factors are discussed in the Company's filings with the SEC, which are available for review at http://www.sec.gov. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that arise after the date hereof.

Story continues

Cision

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/powerbridge-technologies-announces-availability-of-ethereum-mining-operating-system-named-fxos-to-enhance-mining-efficiency-301367140.html

SOURCE Powerbridge Technologies

Read more here:

Powerbridge Technologies Announces Availability of Ethereum Mining Operating System Named FXOS to Enhance Mining Efficiency - Yahoo Finance

Hot crypto investments: Ethereum is on the rise – Cyprus Mail

With the recent rebound across cryptocurrencies of various types, its time to take a hard look at the ones most likely to return on investment.

The rebound started back in mid-August, when the total value of cryptocurrencies market capitalisation surpassed $2 trillion again, the first time they have done so since crashing almost three months prior, according toForbes.

Markets hitting the threshold marks a bullish recovery, according to most analysts. Bitcoin hit a three-month high on August 22, jumping past $50,000. It has fallen back slightly since on profit-taking. Ether and Binance coin, the next two largest cryptocurrencies, both were up greater than 20 per cent, hitting their own three-month respective highs around that time.

One factor driving this rebound is that the bitcoin whales are moving money into crypto markets again. The whales are those who hold a very large amount of bitcoin, but they often invest in other cryptocurrencies as well.

Accounts holding roughly $50 million or more worth of bitcoin have steadily increased their buying since the end of June, according to new data from blockchain firm Chainalysis. Bitcoin whale activity has been tightly correlated to price action this year, with larger investors often acting as a driving force in the market, says Philip Gradwell, chief economist at Chainalysis.

Ethereums cryptocurrency ether has gotten great advantage from this trend. The smart contracts crypto is up to $3,810 at this writing, a three-month high. Trading intensity is low, meaning that holders of ether are keeping it close and acquiring more.

And analysts are bullish. Ether is on track to potentially breach the $4,000 resistance level, provided the obvious stack up continues, Nick Agar, founder and CEO of cryptocurrency firm AXIA Coin, wrote in an email to MarketWatch.

A number of metrics indicate positive sentiment, including the volume of large transactions of ether, which reached $16.2 billion, the highest since June 22, crypto analytics firm IntoTheBlock wrote in a series of tweets.

IntoTheBlocks Hodlers indicator shows that addresses with holdings in $ETH for over 1 year is reaching all time high levels. The chart shows how the number of Hodlers has been increasing non-stop over the past 12-months. And the social media narrative about Ethereum has been extremely positive in recent months, the group adds.

An important part of the Ethereum narrative is the consequences of its London Hard Fork, in particular the doubling of block size and the EIP-1559 operations which manage gas fees better.

These took place in early August, and have had the effect of decreasing supply for ether as demand to use Ethereum increases.

The increasing demand is coming from the world of decentralised finance. A decentralised finance (DeFi) system allows people to create financial products or smart contracts that execute actions automatically on the blockchain without any bank, brokerage, exchange, or corporation acting as an intermediary. This freedom has unleashed great experimentation in creating novel uses for the Ethereum blockchain, such as auctioning off non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in what is today a billion dollar market.

At the end of July 2021, the market capital for DeFi products was hovering near $80 billion, but it is expected to triple in size in the coming year. All of this creates demand for ether, and while Ethereum is not the only platform on which DeFi systems operate, it is the main one.

The recent spike inNFT(non-fungible token) activity has prompted a rise in transaction volume and active addresses on the Ethereum network, as well as a deflationary supply, writes Alexandra Clark, a trader at UK-based digital asset brokerGlobalBlock, in an email to Coindesk.

For the longer term, the sentiment around Ethereum is extremely strong. A panel at Forbes forecast that in the longer-term, ether could hit$17,810 by the end of 2025and $71,763 by the end of 2030 while 68 per cent of the panel say ether will surpass bitcoin eventually.

The advantage for Ethereum is that is has business applications and so can grow and expand. The supply will be controlled, but probably increased gradually as demand continues to increase this is made possible by the London Hard Fork which has restructured the Ethereum blockchain from its initial model which was closely based on that of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin, as a system, on the other hand, has remained quite conservative, although there have been some structural changes. The problem of block size, which is limited to 1mb in bitcoin, has drastically limited scalability on that platform, but the decision-makers have refused to make changes up until now. Ethereum, on the contrary, has forged ahead.

Still another positive for cryptocurrencies in general is Googlesrecently revised US policies regarding crypto advertisements.

Back in March, Google imposed an overarching ban on almost every crypto product initial coin offerings, exchanges and wallets.

But as of this week, starting August 3, companies offering cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets targeting the United States market are now permitted to advertise crypto products and services on Google providing they apply for Google certification.

Googles new policy still comes with much stricter requirements on firms hoping to participate, such as being registered with FinCEN as a money services business or a federal or state banking entity.

But allowing crypto providers to reach customers via Google allowing crypto companies to advertise on their site can only be seen as a win for the cryptocurrency sector, analysts say.

Read more here:

Hot crypto investments: Ethereum is on the rise - Cyprus Mail