PPG Expands Aerospace Research & Tech Center in Burbank, California – Area Development Online

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Related Research PPG completed upgrades at its $15.5 million Aerospace Research and Technology Center in Burbank, California.PPGs global aerospace business offers coatings, sealants, transparencies, packaging and application systems, and transparent armor, as well as chemical management and other services.

Upgrades to the 39,524-square-foot facility include increased laboratory and testing space with climate-control capabilities, updated equipment to enhance PPGs resources for the development of aerospace sealants and coatings, as well as an open floor plan with dedicated areas to promote collaboration. The facility currently accommodates more than 90 employees in various R&T, manufacturing, customer support and related service and administrative positions.

PPG continues to improve its R&T capabilities to provide new, innovative products and services to our customers in commercial, regional, military and general aviation, said Mehran Arbab, PPG global director, aerospace coatings and sealants, R&T. The enhancements to the Burbank facility strengthen PPGs overall position as a reliable and innovative partner for our aerospace customers globally.

At PPG we work every day to develop and deliver the paints, coatings and specialty materials that our customers have trusted for more than 135 years. With headquarters in Pittsburgh, we operate and innovate in more than 70 countries and reported net sales of $15.4 billion in 2018. We serve customers in construction, consumer products, industrial and transportation markets and aftermarkets, company officials said.

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PPG Expands Aerospace Research & Tech Center in Burbank, California - Area Development Online

Government responds to the proposed acquisition of Mettis Aerospace by Aerostar – GOV.UK

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The government has been made aware of the proposed acquisition of Mettis Aerospace by Aerostar, a fund established in China, either directly or through Ligeance Aerospace Technology, a company owned by Aerostar and incorporated in China.

Under the Enterprise Act 2002, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has the power to intervene in certain mergers on public interest grounds relating to national security. This responsibility is discharged in a quasi-judicial capacity, which means that the Secretary of State must act, and be seen to act, in a fair and impartial manner.

On 20 December 2019, acting on official advice, the Secretary of State issued a public interest intervention notice, confirming that she is intervening in the merger on national security grounds. In reaching this decision, she considered the representations received from the Secretary of State for Defence.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will prepare a report on the jurisdictional, competition and national security aspects of the proposed transaction. The CMA has until midnight on 17 March 2020 to complete and submit this report to the Secretary of State.

In addition, an Order was made pursuant to paragraph 2(2) of schedule 7 to the Enterprise Act 2002 to prevent Mettis Aerospace taking any actions that might raise national security concerns. The comprehensive Order prevents the completion of the transaction and the transfer of material or information between the parties. The Secretary of State can amend or allow exemptions to the Order and must act reasonably when considering any requests from Mettis Aerospace to do so.

It was necessary to make and bring this Order into force before it could be laid before Parliament as to do otherwise would have given the parties the opportunity to take actions that might have undermined the purpose and effectiveness of the order. The Secretary of State has written to the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Lord Speaker and the Clerks of both Houses to inform them of her decision. The Order will be laid in Parliament shortly to ensure Parliamentary scrutiny can take place.

Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom said:

The Enterprise Act provides the government with powers to intervene in, and, if necessary, block mergers in order to protect national security.

I will not hesitate to use my powers to protect national security, if it is appropriate to do so.

Following careful consideration, I have issued an intervention notice which orders the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate the national security concerns and competition aspects in this case.

The CMA will now investigate and carry out its review. It must report back to me by 17 March 2020.

Additionally, I have placed an Order on the companies while the transaction is being investigated to prevent them taking actions which might raise national security concerns. Beyond what is needed to protect national security, I will ensure that this does not impede the companies when acting in the normal course of business.

For more information about the intervention powers, see the guidance on mergers and on CMAs jurisdiction and procedure.

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Poppy Northcutt on making room for women in aerospace and beyond – Runway Girl Network

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Frances Poppy Northcutts natural curiosity and determination to solve problems led her to hold a position as the first woman in Mission Control at NASA, to become a leader in the womens rights movement, and even launched her into a second career in law. Her story may have earned her a permanent place on the moon with a crater named in her honor but her views on the advancement of women in society are grounded in harsh realities and practical actions that lead to results.

What is most remarkable about Northcutt is not that she helped men get to the moon and back safely, but that she recognizes women have an imperative to help each other and continue to push the limits of power until the glass ceiling vanishes.

Of her time at NASA, Northcutt tells Runway Girl Network: I stumbled into into it. I had a math degree, which was not that unusual for women at the time, though the general expectation was that you would go into teaching. There were a higher percentage of women in that time who worked on the emerging computer.

I ended up as a computress at a contractor for NASA and they were working on the trajectories for the Apollo program. I just became very interested in the problem. I thought it was interesting and as a result, being engrossed in the problem, I started doing something that wasnt my job. I started taking the programs home and reverse engineering them so I could see how they worked and what exactly they were doing.

Northcutts boldness was rewarded and she was ultimately promoted to work as a member of the technical staff who functioned as engineers for the Apollo program.

Being the first woman in Mission Control came at a price. Northcutt experienced what would be described today as hostile working conditions while in NASA, but she made the best of the circumstances.

She explains:

One thing when I went into Mission Control in an operational role during the Apollo 8 simulations, before the flight, throughout that building they had a lot of cameras. Every one of the rooms in Mission Control had cameras in. We all had these headphones that you had channels on, and you kept listening. I kept hearing chatter about a particular channel. I had no clue what it was, but it was me on that channel. They had positioned a camera in the room just on me. My first reaction to that was being very self-conscious and feeling invaded. Theres different ways that you can take things. The words for sexual harassment and hostile workplace didnt really exist.

I could have gotten mad and complained, but my reaction was to look around and say, Im here, so get used to it. If you are going to be the first, you have to expect that there will be some of that. You have to rise to that occasion. Its not going to be easy, but you are setting the mark for other people and there is a benefit in doing that. The most important thing that you can try to do is to get other women working in there. That will end that situation, if you have more women.

Sometimes it seems as if female representation in STEM takes two steps forward only to take one step back or vice versa. For example, some advances have been made in engineering. The numbers were maybe 1% or less for women. That number is now higher to 8% which is still terribly small, but its a big rise, notes Northcutt. In terms of computer science, it was around 35%-36% of programers were women, and it has dropped to around 18% in computer science. I suspect that the heavy emphasis on gaming has had an effect on it, because a lot of the industry is involved in gaming.

While the Gamergate controversy shows there is a certain hostility to women in the tech sector, and the environment in computer science appears less welcoming to women today than when Northcutt started, there may be another answer for this shift: money. Northcutt grants that this may be the case.

If you look historically, when theres big money involved, the numbers drop in terms of women, she says. A couple of hundred years ago, when almost all the teachers were men, teachers were better paid. I think you can see some of that in medicine as well with surgeons, who are higher paid and mainly men.

Northcutt had to contend with pay discrimination while working for NASA, despite the best efforts of her ally supervisor. In my particular situation, when I was working as a computress, it was an hourly job. At that time we had wage hour laws that were very discriminatory of women. They were considered to be protective of us, but [that wasnt the case]. Women could not be required to work more than eight hours a day or a total of 54 hours a week. They didnt prohibit a woman from having two jobs, or three. It was just the individual employer. What happened with me was that I didnt pay any attention to the law. I would just ignore it. I wasnt paid. To me, the biggest thing that [the law] did is that you werent earning all of the money and the bigger effect of those laws was that you would never be viewed by an employer of being part of the team. You were not working the same way the team is. Part of the reason I got promoted was because I didnt pay attention to that, says Northcutt.

She continues, I was very fortunate that I got promoted, but I had a very progressive operations manager in Houston. He went to bat for me and was really upset when the promotion went through [but not the corresponding rise in pay] because he said it would have been easier to fire me and re-hire me. The differential in salary was such a large amount that he couldnt get it approved. I was promoted at the bottom of the pay scale for a technical staff. I was being underpaid, but it was the best he could do. He tried to remedy it. We would get pay increases twice a year, but there were these barriers about the percentage of raises that you could get.

And you still see that happening to women today. If you have experienced prior discrimination, they will base what they pay you on what you had on the previous job so you can never catch up if you are behind. Some state laws have been passed that prohibit employers from asking about your prior salary, and that is one way to approach that problem and improve. The most optimum thing is to do what has been done in some countries, where they have to make actual reports to the government about wages.

As Northcutt points out, this legal glass ceiling the laws that go on the books which put women at a perpetual disadvantage is one of the reasons why its critical for women to be active in civil life. I firmly believe that women need to become involved in their communities because that is what makes a difference having laws on the books, she tell RGN. I became involved in the womens rights movement because being isolated and alone you are not going to make it. Women need to see that they need to work together.

Your author asked Northcutt whether she believes that things are moving backwards in that respect, especially with some of the laws going on the books in the US which seem designed to repress and inflict harm on women. Northcutt is not shy about tweeting about these issues.

There has been a certain backlash, she says, but these things ebb and flow. We have times of greater activism. Actually, I think that this is the third wave of feminism, and there has been a lot of progress made. Its not like the backlash takes you all of the way back. Its just [reflective of] the representation of women in government.

In terms of progress in aerospace, Northcutt believes there is still plenty of room for women to fight for top positions. I just saw something published about the percentage of women in managerial positions in aerospace, and it was very low. The managerial positions are very low. We still have low representation of women in engineering schools. I do think part of it may be the culture of aerospace. It overlaps with the military and some of that military culture, which was totally exclusive of women [endures], she says.

But she believes the fight to improve female representation in aerospace, STEM and beyond is a fight well worth having. The incentive for women is clear in the sense of opportunity and the economics of these things. The jobs are better paid, with better longevity as well as the fact that they are very interesting careers, she says.

The incentive for industry is that, if you are looking for the best brain power, it doesnt make sense to leave out half of the population. If you make products that will be used by the general public, having more diversity makes their products more appealing to a general population. It makes sense, but we have these cultural stereotypes that still exist out there.

Importantly, Northcutt is hopeful and optimistic about womens ability to overcome todays challenges, as long as they are willing to fight for their place. Im hopeful that this coming generation is going to be more forceful, she says. In some areas there have been tremendous advances. More than half the people graduating with careers are women. In medical schools, a huge percentage are women. Its the same for lawyers.

Having women who care to fight for other women can make all the difference. She shares a recent anecdote that proves it. I still practice law, and I was appointed to be a commissioner in a condemnation case where they are expanding a roadway. Ive done five or six of these cases before. Each time, the civil engineer has always been male, as have been the appraisers. The attorney for the state of Texas [a woman] asked, Why arent I seeing any women? Where are the women engineers? Those women are advocates for other women coming into technical roles. I bet there werent very many men who asked about having only male civil engineers. Even when we have women coming in that are not in a technical role, we have been asking and pressuring about that as well. I think that all of that [pressure makes a difference].

One of the most impressive parts of the conversation with Northcutt was that she is both a formidable fighter and a well-grounded, caring woman who always thinks of the plight of others. She recognizes that she had opportunities that other women did not and even now do not enjoy.

The truth of the matter is that I was in a privileged position compared to other women, she says. I was still experiencing pay discrimination, but I had more pay than the average woman who was working. I was in a better position to speak out. Today, the women who are working a minimum wage job, those are the women who are vulnerable. They may not be able to feed their families. I was a return-to-Earth specialist, and they didnt have that many. If you are in a better position, then you have an obligation to make things better.

It was this realization that drove Northcutt to become an activist in the womens movement and to fight for the rights of those who might not be able to fight for themselves. We still have discrimination, but I am very gratified that I did that. I like having challenges. I like having difficult things. Many women have it far worse than I have. I think about those women. They cant escape what theyre in.

Photo at top: Poppy Northcutt, Captain Heikki Laakkonen, Captain Kay Hire and Princess Cruises President Jan Swartz celebrate the christening of Sky Princess during the naming ceremony in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Credit: Princess Cruises

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Poppy Northcutt on making room for women in aerospace and beyond - Runway Girl Network

GE Is in Focus as Boeing Suspends Production of 737 MAX Jet – Barron’s

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Boeings problems are roiling the aerospace sector. General Electric is a potential victim, even though it does business in lots of other areas.

On Monday, Boeing (ticker: BA) said it would temporarily halt production of its 737 MAX jet, grounded world-wide since mid-March after a second deadly crash in a matter of months. Wall Street, for the most part, has given Boeings suppliers a pass, believing any negative effect from the MAXs troubles were temporary.

But with delays mounting for the MAXs return to commercial service, Wall Street is revisiting its assumptions for 2020. General Electric (GE), a supplier of engines to Boeing, is one firm with a larger than average impact from the MAX jet.

Were working closely with Boeing and our airline customers to ensure the safe return to service of the 737 MAX, a GE spokesperson said. We are partnering with our customers and suppliers to mitigate the impact of the temporary shutdown of the 737 MAX, while protecting the companys ability to accelerate production as needed in the future.

GE makes MAX engines in partnership with Safran (SAF.France). GE management has said the MAX grounding represented a billion-dollar cash headwind in 2019. Of course, the cash is expected to come in the door when MAX jets are finally shipped to customers. Aerospace suppliers get paid at various points in the manufacturing process, but the bulk of the money comes in when Boeing ships planes to customers (and gets its cash).

We think GE has several options available including repurposing equipment, depending on the duration of the 737 MAX production suspension, wrote Credit Suisse analyst John Walsh in a Tuesday research report. He acknowledge the impact on cash flow and adds this does raise the probability of a truncated 737 MAX program which could result in lower future associated aftermarket revenue.

Boeing has orders for more than 4,000 MAX jets in its backlog, to be delivered over many years. Calculating what the impact might be if Boeing loses market share is difficult. Of course, GE supplies Boeings main competitor, Airbus (AIR.France), too.

Walsh rates GE stock the equivalent of Hold. He has a target of $11 for the share price, exactly in line with the stocks level on Friday morning.

Bearish J.P. Morgan analyst Stephen Tusa isnt as sanguine. He rates GE shares the equivalent of Sell and has a $5 target price.

What should not get lost from a big picture perspective, other than peaking market share, is, somewhat related, the fact that Boeing represents 70-plus percent of installed base [and] backlog of commercial engines at GE Aviation, wrote Tusa in a Friday research report.

He still worries that GE Aviation isnt as great a business as others on Wall Street think it is. The businesss dependence on Boeing is one reason he is negative. Dont forget, though, that while 70% exposure is high, there are only two big commercial aircraft makers and they split the market. Having a high share, to some extent, is a sign of a strong product lineup.

Most GE bulls point to the aerospace franchise as the crown jewel of the business portfolio. We may have been too aggressive in our October call for immediate downside at Aviation, added Tusa in his report.

Another bearish analystGordon Hasketts John Inchalso weighed in with a unique take. The grounding can help near-term cash flow, he said.

In the very short run, there may not be much impact on GEs current negative cash drag associated with the MAX, wrote Inch in a Tuesday research report. If the shutdown were to extend beyond a month or so, we believe it should represent a significant future cash benefit for GE as the company wont be producing money losing engines.

In the aerospace business, the original equipment is typically sold with no profit margin, or a minimal one. The real money is made from servicing the equipment over time.

Inch rates shares the equivalent of Sell and has a $7 price target for the stock.

Aerospace stocks are having a good year, despite the MAXs troubles. They have beaten the gains of the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average both over the full year and since the second MAX crash.

Aerospace demand around the globe remains strong. The MAX matters, but aviation stakeholders still expect it to come back sooner than later.

GE stock has had a great year, rising more than 50% as turnaround efforts led by new CEO Larry Culp take root. The stock is just off its 52-week high, in contrast to the broader market, indicating there is still a little concern for investors out there. Its likely related to the MAX.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

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GE Is in Focus as Boeing Suspends Production of 737 MAX Jet - Barron's

We Think Defense Spending Is Going To Boom – But iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF May Miss Out – Seeking Alpha

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DISCLAIMER: This article is not directed at, nor intended to be relied upon by any UK recipients. Any information or analysis in this article is not an offer to sell or buy any securities. Nothing in it is intended to be investment advice and it should not be relied upon to make investment decisions. Cestrian Capital Research Inc. or its employees or the author of this article or related persons may have a position in any investments mentioned in this article. Any opinions or probabilities expressed in this report are those of the author as of the article date of publication and are subject to change without notice.

As we mentioned in a recent note on Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC), we believe US space and defense spending is set to rise. The world has changed course in recent years. From the end of World War II to the middle of the financial crisis, the world economy was characterized by increasing liberalization (reduction in tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade; increasing ease of flows of capital, services, goods and people) - a side benefit of which has been that there are fewer countries liable to fight one another and therefore a relatively peaceful seventy years. (Liberal democracies rarely go to war with one another).

The postwar economic boom and long period of peace in the West are largely behind the stupendous progress achieved by the Boomer generation. More money and less mortality. Hence the "OK Boomer" ire of the young who are facing less money for sure and quite possibly more mortality.

We're now in a more fractious period of history. (This is going to bring its own challenges for the Boomers - we'll write about that in due course). We think a near-term consequence of the rising friction between East and West, the splinters among NATO members, and the relatively unnoticed global acceptance of a new warfighting domain - space - is that defense spending is likely to rise globally. The US in particular will, we believe, see a gradual rise in the coming years, as it normalizes back to at least an average level of post-war spending as a % of GDP (click the link to our NOC note above to see a useful chart on this).

One thing that Boomers have proven very good at is growing asset prices. No more so than in the US equities market. Since WWII, US equities have been the single best asset class as a balance of risk and reward in many folks' eyes (including those of Warren Buffett). And shrugging off a fit of hiccups in 2007-2009, US equities have continued apace. GDP growth has been sluggish in the US since the crisis, but thanks to the Fed - more Boomers in charge - the S&P 500 has positively powered away up and to the right. Check our chart on that topic here.

Now, even if the world is becoming more atavistic, whilst the Boomers hold the reins, one consolation is that defense stocks ought to benefit.

So in the modern idiom, if you have a view on a sector, you should just pick a sensible, low-fee ETF, buy some, and go play golf, right?

Wrong. At least not in defense, not right now. Because there's one huge company in the aerospace & defense sector with some huge problems - Boeing (BA). We expand on the topic in this note. We don't know if BA is going to right itself any time soon, but generally speaking when corporations go through this much pain, it takes a long time for them to regain their footing. There are plenty of BA bulls here on SA and elsewhere who will tell you that it will all be over by next year - and maybe they are right. But that's a big call. Our own view is that there remains trouble ahead at Boeing, because things will continue to crawl out from under the rocks that regulators continue to study. We would be surprised if the current CEO were in situ this time next year; and if there's a new CEO you can bet that s/he will want to clean house with a kitchen-sink full of writedowns, writeoffs, disposals, etc., to level set them for personal success going forward. So we continue to worry about BA stock.

But if you're not careful, that passive ETF you buy into is buying you a whole heap of BA risk.

The most popular ETF in the aerospace & defense sector is (BATS:ITA). It's an iShares product and so it's easy to buy and carries a reassuringly familiar brand.

But this year it has lagged the pack of defense stocks. Here's a brief illustration of that - see ITA below charted against a basket of defense single-name stocks, including Aerojet Rocketdyne (AJRD), BA, L3Harris Technologies (LHX), Lockheed Martin (LMT) and Northrop Grumman.

ITA returned 23% this year so far - none too shabby by historical standards. But it's 7% shy of the worst performing single name in our stocks below.

Source: YCharts.com

Why? Because it has a heavy weighting to BA - 21% at the time of writing. And BA returned just less than 2% this year. Whereas sector winners like Northrop Grumman are up above 30% for the year.

Here's the major components of ITA.

Source: Seeking Alpha

To illustrate the damage that BA has done to the ITA portfolio, take a look at (NYSEARCA:XAR), an equivalent ETF product from S&P. XAR is up 32% this year, as good as any underlying stock in the group. And here's why - look at its holdings:

Source: Seeking Alpha

There are major BA suppliers in there for sure - namely TransDigm Group (TDG) and Spirit AeroSystems (SPR). And we think those companies are going to suffer from BA's problems in 2020. But so far they weren't hit too badly. And so XAR has really delivered this year.

If you think BA will work out just fine, both ITA and XAR can be good products for you. But if, like us, you worry about BA and you worry about its supply chain, then you probably want to think about starting to invest in the underlying stocks.

As we have written elsewhere, we cover most of the top stocks in the sector and there's plenty of our material on those stocks available here on SA.

Stocks in the sector we like right now include NOC (our rating - Buy - Long Term Hold) and AJRD (our rating - Buy - Long Term Hold). We think LHX has a great business but we worry the stock is extended. We think Raytheon (RTN) and United Technologies (UTX) have some rationalization to do, but we could imagine going back to Buy next year once the merger is completed. And we want to avoid BA altogether right now.

To your investing success!

Cestrian Capital Research, Inc. - 16 December 2019.

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Disclosure: I am/we are long AJRD, NOC. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Additional disclosure: We are long AJRD and NOC on a personal account basis.

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We Think Defense Spending Is Going To Boom - But iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF May Miss Out - Seeking Alpha

Aerospace Carbon Fiber Market 2019 Global Trend, Segmentation and Opportunities Forecast to 2027 – Info Street Wire

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In 2018, the market size of Aerospace Carbon Fiber Market is million US$ and it will reach million US$ in 2025, growing at a CAGR of from 2018; while in China, the market size is valued at xx million US$ and will increase to xx million US$ in 2025, with a CAGR of xx% during forecast period.

In this report, 2018 has been considered as the base year and 2018 to 2025 as the forecast period to estimate the market size for Aerospace Carbon Fiber .

This report studies the global market size of Aerospace Carbon Fiber , especially focuses on the key regions like United States, European Union, China, and other regions (Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia).

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This study presents the Aerospace Carbon Fiber Market production, revenue, market share and growth rate for each key company, and also covers the breakdown data (production, consumption, revenue and market share) by regions, type and applications. Aerospace Carbon Fiber history breakdown data from 2014 to 2018, and forecast to 2025.

For top companies in United States, European Union and China, this report investigates and analyzes the production, value, price, market share and growth rate for the top manufacturers, key data from 2014 to 2018.

In global Aerospace Carbon Fiber market, the following companies are covered:

BajajEmamiMaricoUnileverBio Veda Action ResearchDaburHimalayaLOrealVLCC

Segment by RegionsNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndia

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Chapter 2, to profile the top manufacturers of Aerospace Carbon Fiber , with price, sales, revenue and global market share of Aerospace Carbon Fiber in 2017 and 2018.

Chapter 3, the Aerospace Carbon Fiber competitive situation, sales, revenue and global market share of top manufacturers are analyzed emphatically by landscape contrast.

Chapter 4, the Aerospace Carbon Fiber breakdown data are shown at the regional level, to show the sales, revenue and growth by regions, from 2014 to 2018.

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Chapter 10 and 11, to segment the sales by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2014 to 2018.

Chapter 12, Aerospace Carbon Fiber market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2018 to 2024.

Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Aerospace Carbon Fiber sales channel, distributors, customers, research findings and conclusion, appendix and data source.

This post was originally published on Info Street Wire

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Aerospace Carbon Fiber Market 2019 Global Trend, Segmentation and Opportunities Forecast to 2027 - Info Street Wire

Dublin aerospace company wins 5m investment – The Irish Times

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State-backed venture capital firm BGF has invested 5 million to take a significant minority stake in aerospace and industrial engineering company Team Accessories Limited.

Based near Dublin Airport, Team provides overhaul, testing and repair services for the aerospace and industrial sectors. Its primary focus is the overhaul of critical, high value accessories for jet engines.

Established in 1995, Team is owned and led by Pat McEvoy and Tom Gibbons, who acquired the business in a management buyout in 2017. The company, which employs 40 staff, includes Aer Lingus, Lufthansa and Aero Norway amongst its clients.

In addition to the BGF investment, former Ryanair chief operating officer Michael Hickey will join the board as a non-executive director, as will BGF executive Mark Sykes. Nick Sanders, former executive chairman of Gardner Aerospace, a manufacturer of finished aircraft components, will also join the board as non-executive chairman.

Mr McEvoy said the addition of BGF as an investor presents a clear opportunity to grow the business in the coming years, which will see the company increase its headcount.

The investment is the third made by BGF (formerly the Business Growth Fund) in the Republic. It took a stake in Donegal-headquartered nursing home operator Brindley Healthcare in return for a 10 million investment in January.

In March, it invested 5 million in return for a minority stake in residential housebuilder Winterbrook.

The Government-backed Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, AIB, Bank of Ireland and Ulster Bank are all investors in BGF, which targets equity investments of between 1 million and 10 million. BGF only takes minority positions.

The firm has invested in more than 230 companies overall and launched a dedicated fund in the Republic in late 2017 with up to 250 million to invest in small and medium-sized enterprises. It is led by former IBI Corporate Finance executive Leo Casey.

Speaking on the investment in Team, Mr Casey noted that the company has significant growth potential.

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Dublin aerospace company wins 5m investment - The Irish Times

Rick Gates gets 45 days of weekend jail, 3 years of probation – Politico

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"He did not appear to embroider, the judge said. He didn't come across as some kind of bought-and-paid-for puppet.

Just a week after Attorney General Bill Barr declared the Mueller investigation was based on a completely bogus narrative, Jackson used her perch on Tuesday to deliver what sounded like a pointed, public rebuttal, saying there was an ample basis for an aggressive inquiry into the Trump campaign aides connections and actions.

Gates information alone warranted, indeed demanded, further investigation from the standpoint of our national security, the integrity of our elections and the enforcement of our criminal laws, Jackson declared. An appointee of President Barack Obama, she has presided over more of the criminal prosecutions stemming from the Mueller probe than any other judge.

Before handing down Gates sentence, which also included a $20,000 fine and 300 hours of community service, Jackson detailed the crimes hed been charged with alongside Manafort. It included the longtime business partners use and access to $75 million that flowed through unreported offshore bank accounts, as well as extensive tax fraud and years of unregistered lobbying in the U.S. for Ukrainian politicians.

As Jackson recounted the long list of crimes, she paused to take a swipe at rhetoric the White House has used when tangling with Trumps critics.

Those are facts, Jackson Those are not alleged facts. Those are not alternative facts.

The judge also dismissed claims that such behavior is typical on the Washington political scene.

Politics dont corrupt people. People corrupt politics, Jackson said.

As she did at Manaforts sentencing, Jackson also bluntly rejected claims that the pairs unregistered lobbying for Ukrainian interests amounted to a victimless crime.

What Gates and Manafort did was lying to the members of Congress and the American public, the judge said. When people dont have the facts, democracy doesnt work.

Jackson praised Gates for not making arguments aimed at minimizing his culpability or contending that he was somehow duped by Manafort.

Gates is not sitting here telling me Manafort forced him or coerced him across the line, the judge said, although she said the lobbying protg was obviously taken with Mr. Manafort.

However, even while praising Gates for his decision to accept responsibility for his actions, Jackson said she fretted over the public perception and potential lack of deterrence to others if she gave him a complete pass or at least didnt align his sentence in relation to other similar cases.

This is what Ive been struggling with in anticipation of this sentencing for a long time, she said. I have to ask myself, is more needed?

Speaking from the courtroom lectern before hearing his sentence, Gates delivered a very brief apology.

Your honor, I wish to express to this court that I accept complete responsibility for my actions that have led me here, he said, seeming to choke up a bit as he spoke. I greatly regret the mistakes that Ive made and Ive worked hard to honor my commitment to make amends. My family and I appreciate your consideration for leniency. And I hope and pray that you will grant that to me.

In addition to his cooperation with federal investigators, Gates responded to three congressional subpoenas for documents and testimony and plans to testify at any additional trials if prosecutors make the request.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Gaston repeatedly stressed to Jackson that Gates had delivered extraordinary assistance to the government during the high-profile Mueller investigation. His guilty plea also came despite pressure from Manafort to maintain his innocence, as well as an offer relayed by Manafort of financial assistance through a legal defense fund.

Gaston called it a turning point for prosecutors when Gates agreed to assist the government.

He chose to cooperate and wholeheartedly held up his end of the bargain, she said.

Perhaps more important than Gates testimony at any trial was his behind-the-scenes role walking prosecutors through Manaforts complex financial arrangements, which included tens millions of dollars parked in dozens of offshore accounts with exotic names like Leviathan Advisors and Lucicle Consultants.

Gaston called Gates testimony at Manaforts Virginia trial necessary for the government to win its case against the high-flying lobbyist.

The full scope of Gates cooperation remains unclear, since the judge received some details about that under seal.

However, the judge seemed to hint at that when she said he may still testify in future and trials. She also signaled that Gates has been working with prosecutors from coast to coast.

Its not as if its just been a quick foray or dipping your toe into repentance. ... Hes been all over the country, in multiple investigations, she said, without elaborating.

Jacksons sentencing on Tuesday closes out one of the last remaining unfinished chapters of Muellers probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Only former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and Stone still await sentencing. U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan is set to give Flynn his punishment for lying to investigators on Jan. 28. Jackson is set to sentence Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress and intimidating a witness, on Feb. 6.

Gates was a focus in one of Mueller's first official public moves. The former Trump deputy campaign chairman was indicted together with Manafort in October 2017 on charges including money laundering and making false statements.

Initially, Gates stuck by Manafort, pleading not guilty. The two men even discussed the possibility of a Trump pardon, according to the Mueller report. Ultimately, though, Gates turned on Manafort and Trump in February 2018, providing cooperation with federal prosecutors that resulted in the dismissal of some charges against Gates, including the tax and bank fraud crimes.

Gates ended up helping the government during several closely scrutinized moments.

In August 2018, Gates incriminated Manafort from the witness stand in several crimes, including multimillion-dollar tax evasion, bank fraud and hiding offshore accounts. A jury later convicted Manafort, who is now serving a 7 1/2-year prison sentence.

Gates also appeared last month in the trial against Stone, who a jury convicted of lying to Congress about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks in the 2016 presidential race.

Federal prosecutors had Gates explain that the WikiLeaks plotting inside the Trump campaign occured far earlier than had previously been understood, and that the president was also involved in those conversations, despite his previous denials.

Some of the testimony came at significant cost to Gates reputation a fact Jackson alluded to Tuesday. In addition to admitting to a string of financial crimes while testifying at Manaforts trial in Virginia last year, Gates also admitted to extramarital affairs that he had while working with Manafort.

The federal judge at that trial had deemed Gates relationship off-limits, but when a defense attorney asked Gates about how he was funding his secret life, the longtime Manafort aide essentially blurted out that hed had affairs and it was wrong.

There was a period of time, almost 10 years ago, when I had a relationship, yes, Gates conceded.

Not every outing Gates made on the witness stand led inexorably to success for the government.

In August, prosecutors used Gates testimony to support a false-statement charge against former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig about his lobbying work related to Ukraine. But the testimony seemed to be of meager benefit to the governments case, especially after Craig introduced a string of character witnesses saying they considered the defendant unfailingly trustworthy.

After a three-week trial, the jury took less than five hours to acquit Craig.

Prosecutors said Craigs acquittal should not bear on Gates sentence. Gates assistance should be evaluated independent of the jurys decision he should be given no more or less credit for his cooperation in that matter than had Craig been found guilty, they wrote.

Still, Gates two turns on the witness stand in front of Jackson redounded to his benefit as he seemed to go out of his way to appear earnest and contrite while sitting in the witness box just feet from the same judge who would sentence him.

And, at times during those cases, Jackson stepped in to protect Gates when she felt defense attorneys had gone too far in tangling with the government cooperator.

Gates decision to cooperate also had major benefits for his quality of life as the Mueller investigation unfolded. Gates was able to coach a little league baseball team for one of his four children. Jackson also approved numerous out-of-town family trips as Gates sentencing was repeatedly postponed.

Letters submitted to the judge for Gates sentencing revealed that hed also been able to spend time with his family at a particularly challenging time: his wife, Sarah, was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year and has been receiving treatment.

The sentence of 45 days to be served as intermittent confinement appeared to take account of his wifes medical condition and his family obligations.

Gates had been looking at a maximum total sentence of 10 years in prison for the two charges he pleaded guilty to: conspiracy against the U.S. and making false statements to the FBI. Non-binding sentencing guidelines in Gates case called for a prison term of about four or five years, court officials calculated. But Jackson said that range was somewhat inflated because it was based on the total amount of tax losses to the U.S. governmenta sum that primarily benefited Manafort.

The sentencing proceeding drew the largest number of Mueller team veterans spotted at the D.C. federal courthouse since Manaforts sentencing in March. About 20 current and former prosecutors, FBI and IRS agents and support personnel who worked on or closely with the special counsels office sat in two rows in the courtroom gallery.

However, the area for spectators was only about half full. And in a sign of how the once mighty Mueller apparatus has dramatically scaled down, Gaston sat alone at the once-crowded prosecution table, flanked only by a couple of legal manuals and a three-ring binder.

Still, the old players made their presence known.

In a moment that seemed to highlight the importance of Gates assistance, former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann shook hands with Gates and his lawyer Tom Green before the start of Tuesdays sentencing. Later, during a break in the proceedings, another former special counsel prosecutor, Greg Andres, flashed Gates and Green a thumbs-up.

Before closing the morning hearing, Jackson offered Gates one final send off.

Mr. Gates, she said, Im 100 percent certain that this criminal justice system is not going to see you again.

Originally posted here:

Rick Gates gets 45 days of weekend jail, 3 years of probation - Politico

Art Forgery Is Easier Than Ever, and It’s a Great Way to Launder Money – VICE

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

John Myatt felt like his life was in free-fall.

It was the mid-1980s and at 41, he was a working painter who never made a splashor a profitin the London gallery scene. His wife left him, and he struggled to provide for his two young children.

So, he began to forge paintings.

Partnering with art dealer John Drewe, the duo sold more than an estimated 200 fraudulent pieces of art for millions of pounds, ensnaring some of the world's most prestigious collectors, galleries, auction houses, and storied institutions, including London's Tate Gallery.

It was one of the greatest art scandals of all time. Myatt spent countless hours making incredibly detailed "new" works in the style of Marc Chagall, Le Corbusier, Alberto Giacometti, Matisse, and Graham Sutherland, among others. He often scoured flea markets for paints, brushes, and canvases from an artist's time period, in addition to obsessively studying their techniques.

He acknowledges his skill as a forger, but says that much of pulling off the con was "about manipulating the publicity machine or just being in the right place at the right time" in making a sale; promoting the fake story of the creation of the image and how it fit into an artist's body of work; and explaining how the piece had changed hands over the years.

Myatt, who served prison time and is now living and working as a painter in the United Kingdom, is among the handful of art forgers who say the very environment in which their past crimes flourished is, in many respects, just as fertile now. As art prices hit stratospheric highs and Trump-era momentum to regulate anything reaches record lows, the art world continues to be an under-explored haven for illicit activity, that often hangs, literally, in plain sight.

"I think it's just as easy today," Myatt said of forgery in a phone interview.

John Myatt in his studio in London | Photo by Wendy Huynh

What is often dismissed as a largely victimless crime befitting of The Thomas Crown Affair (the one starring Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo, not Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway) may carry far higher stakes. Art forgery typically elicits images of the pearl-clasping super-rich with jaws dropped at fake Picassos, but the crime is also often linked to money laundering, tax evasion, and drug trafficking. Art crime was the third highest-grossing criminal trade in the world over the last 40 years, according to the US Department of Justice and UNESCO, just behind drugs and weapons. Thomas Hoving, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, once estimated that 40 percent of the artwork in circulation was fake.

Driving criminal interest is the amount of cash that has been injected in the art world in the years since Myatt's forgery heyday. In some respects, it mirrors the giant pools of money sloshing around in Manhattan or London real estatefunds that are relatively concentrated in a few hands spending it in a few places. Critics contend there's low incentive to catch criminals and that, in some cases, alleged victims may benefit from being in on the con. (Others are so desperate to be in the art market, they're taking on massive debt to do so.)

The global art market in 2018 totaled some $67.4 billion, according to a joint report from Art Basel and UBS, an increase from $39.5 billion in recession-era 2009. And as the super wealthy look for more places to park money while diversifying their holdings, wealth managers and art dealers have welcomed new dollars, with some going so far to pitch (fee-heavy) hedge fund-like investment vehicles that pool money to acquire art.

That's reaped fortunes for some, but not necessarily motivation to catch art criminals. Generally, artbe it real or fakeis being used to move money more than ever, former forgers, law enforcement agents, and experts suggest. And ironically, the forgers are among the most vocal.

"It was a mistake I made and it was time to come to do good things," Myatt said. "To just face up to it."

"Im trying to do something good out of something bad."

As Russian billionaire and avid art collector Dmitry Rybolovlev faced divorce from his wife, Elena, in 2008, the works that once proudly graced the walls of auction houses and made their way into his own collection were now a financial liability. So Rybolovlev set up an elaborate scheme to park his lofty art collection in an offshore entity, according to the Panama Papers.

Stowing away the works was no easy feat, as during his 23-year marriage, Rybolovlev, whom Forbes ranked as the 224th richest person in the world, had amassed a world-class collection that included works by Picasso, van Gogh, Monet, da Vinci, and Modigliani, among others. But as the marriage buckled, Rybolovlev moved the art to a shell company reportedly set up by the notorious and since-shuttered firm Mossack Fonseca in the British Virgin Islands. That took it out of Switzerland, part of an attempt to shield it from his wife's name or the divorce court there. (Rybolovlev is involved in further litigation with his art dealer.)

While there's no evidence Rybolovlev was dealing in forged works, it's just one of many recent scandals involving the secretive strategies of the art world, and its role in moving money at a time when oligarchs across the world have come under harsh scrutiny. This past May, longtime titan dealer Mary Boone, who was convicted for tax evasion at her gallery, reported for a 30-month prison sentencea rarity in an industry that often sees large amounts of money shifting hands. Art has a recurring role in the use of offshore shell companies, the Panama Papers showed, including allegations that the true buyers and sellers of major works may often be concealed.

The scene in John Myatt's studio | Photo by Wendy Huynh

The same goes for the ongoing saga of Jeffrey Epstein. As speculation mounted about Epstein's actual net worth in the days leading up to his death, so, too, did questions around his art assets and how they may have fit into his alleged crimes. Among his art collection were "Parsing Bill," a painting of Bill Clinton in a blue dress; a portrait of himself in a photorealistic prison scene; and a painting of a nude woman. It's unclear what their market worth is, but Epstein was "amused to have in his house fake art which looked like real art," longtime friend and art dealer Stuart Pivar told Mother Jones.

One reason fakes proliferate is simple: It's relatively easy to forge a painting. And if it's perceived as accurate, it can be hawked as an asset andin some casesget bought and sold with few or no questions asked.

Especially if the art is moving between hands that are trusted. Of the art authenticity frauds investigated by the FBI in the last three decades, an estimated 87 percent were perpetrated by art world "insiders," a sort of Ponzi scheme via canvas. Among the most notable was the downfall of the Knoedler Gallery, a storied enterprise that closed its doors after 165 years in 2011 amid allegations that it had sold fake works of Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, and others, often with little due diligence.

"It's truly shocking," said Peter R. Stern, an art attorney, of the Knoedler scandal. In his line of work, Stern represents galleries, artists and collectors in an array of matters including handling major transactions, aid with estate planning, and conflicts over art authenticity or ownership. "The behavior was awful, but I also think that buyers did little or no homework."

Photo by Wendy Huynh

Among the obvious tasks, Stern said, is tracing a work's provenance, the paper trail that shows how it has changed hands since creation. Today, the internet has made it easier than ever to find out more about a work's origins, but it has also made it easier for skilled forgers to create fake art or documents to match them.

"The internet has opened up whole new marketplaces," Tim Carpenter, FBI supervisory special agent who program manages the Bureau's Art Crime Team, said in an interview. "Day in and day out, it's not just people buying huge pieces of art. The money is at the mid-level stuff, passing off those fake pieces as real. Back before online marketplaces and social media took over, you had galleries and middlemen doing due diligence. Now, there's no middleman. You have freer access to bad art."

After decades of art crime cases being handled on an ad-hoc basis, Carpenter's group was formalized within the FBI in 2004. In addition to casework, the unit also conducts trainings to aid in handling art and cultural artifacts. Carpenter said the FBI does not publicly release data on the number of cases it pursues, but noted "we stay very busy."

High-end art can be hard to move, but criminals looking to monetize quickly may go for lower-profile deals that draw less attention. As prices increase for top-tier art, values across the board pull up, as well. "We have a lot of concerns about the explosion of value in the art market these last 10 years," Carpenter said. "Theres a lot of risk and threat there for us."

On a July afternoon in Jersey City, convicted art forger Alfredo Martinez could be found recounting his claims that he got away with faking the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat for nearly 20 years.

Sitting at his desk in a black T-shirt and matching sweatpants, his long, curly dark hair askance, Martinez, 52, looked at a large flatscreen, clicking through images of his "Basquiats." He discussed his oil stick technique and said he used tea to create an aging effect on paper. Power tools, paint brushes, and papers lay scattered about him in his high-ceiling studio at MANA Contemporary, a lofty workspace for artists.

Alfredo Martinez in his New Jersey lair | Photo by Tuhsayoh

In recent months, recovery from the amputation of five toes on his right foot after an art-related accident had kept Martinez closer to his computer screen than his easel, he said. But it had not dampened his enthusiasm for curating shows for younger artists ("I like the kids"), discussing his time in prison ("looked like Oz, but it felt like Seinfeld"), or sharing anecdotes of being a self-described "street punk" in New York's art scene during Basquiat's heyday ("I would have known him better if I was a big-chested blonde").

The FBI got a tip when Martinez tried to sell $185,000 worth of "Basquiat" art, complete with forged certificates of authenticity, to two dealers in Manhattan. If they had been real, they might be worth millions today. It landed him a 21-month stint in federal prison and a peculiar flavor of infamy in the art world upon his release in 2006. (Martinez said that he was drawn into forgery because of "money. And I was lazy.")

Martinez, for one, talks of auction houses today as "Kabuki theater" and takes a "sarcastic approach" to the art establishment, even as he continues to participate in it. Then, and now, art dealers are eager to take cash from the wealthy, many of whom may not be performing ample due diligence, he said.

"Duh," Martinez said, adding, "Youre literally printing money."

Photo by Tuhsayoh

So lax is the current state of affairs that 73 percent of wealth managers, 74 percent of art professionals and 64 percent of collectors said that the art market "needed to modernize its business practices to meet the expected standards of a transparent, trustworthy and developed marketplace," according to a 2017 Deloitte and Art Basel report. It also found that 83 percent of wealth managers "see authenticity, provenance, and attribution issues as the greatest risks in the art market" and 65 percent "felt that money laundering is a serious threat to the credibility of the art market."

This year, the House Financial Services Committee introduced money-laundering prevention legislation that proposed including "dealers in art and antiquities" among the institutions that would be monitored. In recent years, the European Union has also moved on similar regulations. Among the regulatory kerfuffles are freeports, or warehouses where art may be stashed for years. They have long existed in locales like Switzerland and enjoyed generous tax benefits, as they're technically storing art that's deemed to be in transit.

"Certain market prices are getting out of hand," said David Drake, founder and chairman of LDJ Capital, a multi-family office that includes an art advisory as part of its offerings. Drake's firm does not conduct provenance research for clients, but rather handles insurance and financing after the fact.

The upper crust of the art world appears to be trying to distance itself from the industrys criminal underbelly while also seeking to bolster buyer confidence. Many artist catalogues, including those of Basquiat and Andy Warhol, have refused to admit any new works, concerned that they could be adding their coveted stamp of approval to a work that is inauthentic (while also enjoying control of the supply and demand of the market). Auction houses have tried to fight back by bolstering their forensic efforts, notably Sotheby's with its acquisition of art forensics firm Orion in 2016. A spokesperson for Sotheby's did not respond to requests for comment.

Only a fraction of art that is sold, however, will undergo such robust due diligence. And many works that are being forged are relatively modern, rendering tasks like dating paints and canvas aging effectively moot.

Some forgers, often as part of plea deal negotiations, may turn into informants. Now retired after two decades at the Bureau, Robert Wittman, the FBI agent who investigated Martinez's case in an undercover operation, runs a private art recovery and consultancy firm based in Philadelphia. He estimated that 75 percent of the illegal art marketthat is, art that is involved in money laundering or otherwise connected to crimeis fake.

Still, people keep buying.

"Fraud has followed the art world because of the rise in value," Wittman said. "Bank robbers go there because thats where the money is. Thats the exact same situation in the art market. The growing art values since 1970, they've been through the ceiling. And with paintings selling for $200 million, criminals follow that and decide to get involved."

Ironically, some in the art world mused that Martinez's arrest brought even more attention to Basquiat's work, as his ability to forge and sell the paintings underscored the demand for the artist, who died at the age of 27 in 1988. (In 2017, "Untitled," a 1982 work by Basquiat, fetched $110.5 million, at the time making it the highest sum paid at auction for an American-produced work of art.)

That's all the more reason that Martinez is cynical about the financial froth in the art world today. He noted that in the end, it wasn't the quality of his fake artworks that landed him in prison, but a disagreement with a gallery owner he said hadn't paid him. That owner, Martinez added, tipped off law enforcement. (The FBI agent who busted Martinez has a different recollection of what led to the tip-off. According to Wittman, the buyer had spotted mistakes in the forged certificates. "Usually people who do fake certificates dont mess them up like that," Wittman said.)

Today, Wittman and Martinez are still in touch, this time as friends.

Alfredo Martinez has a complicated relationship with the works of Basquiat. Left photo courtesy of Alfredo. Right photo: Jean-Michel Basquiats Undiscovered Genius Jean-Michel Basquiat 1983

"When you work undercover, you have to create a relationship with someone, and trust. It's befriending not betraying," Wittman said. "Alfredo calls and I'm happy for him. He got down the wrong path and now it seems like he's doing well."

These days, Martinez sells his own workoriginal creations and labeled replicas of Basquaitslargely through his website and Instagram, mostly foregoing the use of agents and galleries. He said he's starting to see things differently as his own original work gains attention, including one painting of a gun that is now part of MOMA's permanent collection.

Moving carefully on his injured foot, he walked across his studio to a table where a series of drawings were laid out: figures of people, scorpions. He said they were reproductions of what he had done and had lost, either taken by prison authorities or simply because they ended up in the hands of dealers beyond.

"I guess Im forging myself," he said.

Correction 12/17/2019: A previous version of this story suggested art forgery in particular, rather than art crime in general, was the third highest-grossing criminal trade in the world, according to the US DOJ and UNESCO. We regret the error.

Follow Mary Pilon on Twitter.

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Art Forgery Is Easier Than Ever, and It's a Great Way to Launder Money - VICE

When the Justice System Tilts Toward Aliens – Immigration Blog

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Media report that Dongyuan Li, the mastermind (or at least the public face) of a massive birth tourism operation that served hundreds of women and garnered millions of dollars in profit, is being released after having served less than a year 10 months to be precise in jail. (See, e.g., here and here.) The time in jail was served waiting for trial; having pleaded guilty and been given credit for time served, she's walking out the door of the U.S. criminal justice system, presumably to be removed from the United States.

The scheme involved advising and counseling women on how to deceive U.S. consular officers in China as to their purpose and length of stay in the United States and whenever possible to conceal any indications of pregnancy so that those officers would not suspect that the sole purpose of the visit was to bear a child who would garner the benefits of U.S. citizenship at birth, despite virtually no familial or any other ties to this country.

The U.S. Attorney's Office pressed for a sentence of at least 33 months and the judge's sentence came as a surprise to one and all. His comments have been limited, but he suggested that if the government had been able to present more evidence of visa fraud, he might have ordered a longer sentence. This is pure sophistry. As multiple accounts make clear, she was living the lifestyle of the elite rich, in a mansion attended by servants, with multiple luxury cars, multiple bank accounts, and a huge stockpile of dough. The government is seizing most, if not all, of thatas fruits of the crime. What's more, there was ample electronic evidence gathered in thousands of text messages, e-mails, attachments, and documents that clearly reflected the extensive reach of the scheme.

One suspects that the presiding judge, James Selna, is one of those who either thinks that it was a victimless crime, or alternately that deportation in lieu of time in jail is adequate. I vigorously disagree.

As to the the "victimless crime" reasoning, society is a victim when the integrity of a system of governance in this case, our immigration and visa-issuance processes is so badly compromised. Do a quick thought experiment here: Imagine that tomorrow Congress passes a massive amnesty. If, a year after that, there is evidence that thousands of aliens defrauded the government to obtain their green cards, will your moral compass and sense of outrage be awakened? Probably. Now transpose that moral outrage to this matter it is, after all, considerably more important because the theft here was so much better than a green card it was of U.S. citizenship, the ultimate prize.

That the immediate beneficiary happens to be an infant is immaterial. Indeed, it is, or should be, of more concern because he or she will grow up in the shadow of the Chinese Communist Party and its organs. Will he or she grow up to be turned against us and used as a weapon or tool of espionage? After all, there will be no intrinsic attachment to a country neither known nor remembered. This isn't far-fetched. Because the Chinese government is monolithic and authoritarian, its reach into everyday society is extensive and, like the North Koreans, Chinese official are not above establishing illicit schemes in other countries when it suits their national interest. That is why I spoke speculatively about whether or not Dongyuan Li orchestrated the fraud scheme, or was simply its public face.

As to whether deportation is an adequate substitute for jail time, it seems to me a fundamental unfairness that aliens can break the criminal laws and simply escape by being repatriated to where they came from. U.S. citizens have no such escape valve, and so become disadvantaged in this regard. Can you imagine a citizen going before a judge and saying, "If you let me, I'll be glad to cross into Mexico and get out of your hair instead of sending me to jail"? It would be a source of endless amusement and outrage. I don't suggest aliens should not be removed for their crimes, but only after serving a sentence commensurate to what any citizen would be obliged to served. To take any other position is to endorse a disparate system of justice.

Finally, it's important to recognize that there aren't just two decision-makers where removal of this woman is concerned (assuming that she acquiesces to being deported because she doesn't want to risk being found out in any other fraud schemes she may have engaged in, or for whatever other reason). There are three players. The ponderous and overburdened immigration court system, which is groaning under the weight of a million-plus removal cases, kicks in when the federal authorities file deportation charges against her. So the U.S. government is player number one. She can, as mentioned, acquiesce or fight the charges tooth and nail in an attempt to remain. Either way, she is player number two. But the third player is China itself. The People's Republic of China must agree to take Dongyuan Li back and issue the necessary repatriation documents, and it's worth noting that the PRC is listed as a "recalcitrant nation" that deliberately slow-walks its issuance of those documents, sometimes for years, thus impeding our government's ability to actually execute a warrant of removal once issued.

Consider this irony: If China chooses to throw a wrench into the machinery of her removal, even if the woman is detained she must be released within six months once it becomes clear that deportation isn't imminent. (You can thank the Supreme Court for that landmark 2001 decision.) In such a scenario, she might very well end up walking the streets of America for years to come despite all of her criminal machinations; at this point there's just no way to know.

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When the Justice System Tilts Toward Aliens - Immigration Blog

Whats the Future of Doctor Manhattan on Watchmen? – The Ringer

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Ahead of the debut of HBOs Watchmen, it wasnt clear what a story set after the events of the iconic 1980s comic book series would look like on TV in 2019. Showrunner Damon Lindelof adamantly referred to the show as a remix rather than a direct adaptation or sequel. When Episode 1 opened with a horrific retelling of the real-life Tulsa Massacre of 1921 and closed with a shot of a black man sitting at the feet of a lynched white police chief, the elusive nature of the showone that on the surface appears to be about superheroesonly intensified.

The subsequent eight episodes were a blend of impeccable writing, acting, and directing that lived up to the tall order of sharing the name of whats considered to be one of the all-time great graphic novels. The season finale, See How They Fly, left a few loose ends (the mysterious Lube Man is still out there sliding through the streets of Tulsa) and rushed a bit to tie everything together (providing more concrete answers than Lindelof typically does), but it otherwise rounded out one of the most thrilling television series of the year.

To wrap up Watchmens first (and potentially only) season, were going to break down the two plans to steal Doctor Manhattans powersone designed by Lady Trieu and the other by the Seventh Kavalryand how they panned out before revisiting the graphic novel one last time.

The finale begins by revealing Lady Trieus parentage with a flashback to the day before 11/2 in 1985 at Adrian Veidts Karnak facility in Antarctica. While the Worlds Smartest Man relishes in the genius of his master plan while recording his address to future president Robert Redford, the original BianLady Trieus mother and the elder version of the clone weve seen for the greater part of the seasonsneaks into Adrians office. Shes a member of Adrians cleaning staff, one of the many Vietnamese refugees whom Veidt has employed. Bian enters Adrians password into his computer to open a refrigerated vault hidden away behind a massive painting of Alexander the Great that contains a catalogued collection of his sperm samples (Adrian later declares that hes never given himself to a woman, but I guess that didnt stop him from finding a twisted way to pass on his legacy). Bian takes a vial to impregnate herself, revealing in the process that Adrian is Trieus father.

Thirty-three years later, in 2008, the Worlds Smartest Woman arrives at Karnak to introduce herself to her father. Without revealing their relationship, Lady Trieu earns herself a trip inside the facility by mentioning the little-known truth behind 11/2 and feeding Veidts ego by praising his unappreciated brilliance. Trieu briefly acts impressed by Adrians squidfall technology before calling it nothing more than a rerun and sharing a world-saving plan of her own: to destroy Doctor Manhattan and absorb his abilities. If I can take his power, I can fix the world, she tells Adrian. Disappear the nukes, end starvation, clean the air. All the things he shouldve done.

Even as Adrian patronizingly jeers and questions her, Trieu backs up her bold claims by explaining her process, from how she tracked down the blue gods location on Europa by sending out space probes that scanned the galaxy for his unique radioactive frequency, to her designs for a quantum centrifuge that could harness Doctor Manhattans abilities and transfer them to her. All she asks of Adrian is a cool $42 billion; in this moment she finally reveals to Adrian that she is his daughter. Outraged by the news of Bians thievery, Trieus existence, and her nerve to ask for money, Adrian adamantly denies her request.

When my parents died, I inherited wealth beyond imagining, and I gave it away, because I wanted to demonstrate that I could achieve anything starting from nothing, Adrian says to Trieu. And that is what I offer you, Sample 2346: nothing. And I will never call you daughter.

Back on Europa, we return to our favorite interplanetary castaway, now eight years into his life in paradise. And at long last, help has finally arrived. A spacecraft lands on the castle grounds, and Adrian exits his cell through an underground tunnel hes dug. He kills the Game Warden, who was trying to prevent his master from deserting their moon one last time, before walking past all his servants to enter his shuttle back to Earth. As he steps into the spacecraft and the ship enters space, the sign Adrian carved out of his servants bodies in Episode 5 is revealed in full: SAVE ME DAUGHTER. In full Star Wars fashion, Adrian is essentially frozen in carbonite for the duration of his space flight, solidified as the gold statue thats been standing in Trieus vivarium all along.

Back in present-day Tulsa, the Millennium Clock is about to be activated. Lady Trieu has completed her lifes work, and just as she told Angela, she has found a way to bring back both of her parents to witness the momentous occasion. With Bians clone and an awakened Adrian Veidt at her side, Lady Trieu starts up the clockthe flying quantum centrifuge Trieu built without the help of her estranged fatherand heads to downtown Tulsa to set up for the final piece of her plan.

Meanwhile, the Seventh Kavalry is also preparing to steal Doctor Manhattans powers, though theyre completely unaware that theyre playing right into Lady Trieus plans. Senator Joseph Keene Jr. has gathered the senior leadership of their white supremacist organization, including his father and Jane Crawford. Agent Laurie Blake is there as well, still held captive as they all await her ex-boyfriends grand entrance, and Wade Tillmanwho had been missing ever since a group of Kavalry members failed to kill him in his homehas managed to sneak into the warehouse wearing one of the Kavalrys trademark Rorschach masks. Doctor Manhattan is teleported into a synthetic lithium cage theyve constructed using old watch batteries (a painstaking task that we witnessed a glimpse of all the way back in the series premiere), catching us up to the moment he disappeared outside of the Abars home at the end of the previous episode. The cage functions similarly to the tachyon particles that limit Doctor Manhattans abilities, confusing his sense of time; inside the cage, he starts repeating lines of dialogue he said decades earlier, in the pages of the graphic novel. With the dazed blue god imprisoned, Keene addresses his audience, outlining the Kavalrys plan.

Thirty-four years ago, Adrian Veidt unleashed his monster on the world. No, not his giant one-eyed octopus, but his puppet president, Keene says as he begins to strip off his clothing in anticipation of his transformation into the new Doctor Manhattan. First, he took our guns. And then he made us say sorry. Sorry for the color of our skin. All we wanted was to get cops in masks, take some power back, start ourselves a little culture war. Keene concedes that their original planto get him into the White Housewas a little half-baked. But then the White Night happened, and changed everything.

When the Kavalry carried out their coordinated attack on the Tulsa police force, all went as planned, except for the raid of the home of Angela and Cal Abar. Cal, accessing his subdued abilities in an act of self-preservation, zapped one of the two Kavalry hitmen to Gila Flats, the site where Jon Osterman died and was reborn as Doctor Manhattan. The Kavalry was able to piece together Cals true identity, and from that point on their mission to make Keene president was punted for the bolder goal of making him into a god.

Just before Keene enters the chamberfrom which he will supposedly reemerge from as the blue prophet who will restore (restore) white power in America, Angela warns the Kavalry that theyre about to fall right into Lady Trieus hands. They proceed anyway, initiating the transference of Doctor Manhattans power. Right on cue, the Kavalry finds themselves suddenly in downtown Tulsa, now serving as an audience to Lady Trieu.

As the two plans converge, the Kavalry proves to be no more than a cog in Lady Trieus elaborate scheme (it turns out both of the Kavalrys plans were a little half-baked). Trieu begins to address the dazed group of white supremacists before opening a chamber that releases the pool of human slush that used to be Senator Keene; hed been reduced during his failed attempt to transfer Doctor Manhattans atomic energy (crucially, Keenes blood seeps underneath the bars of blue Cals cage). Trieu resumes her speech, reading the message that Will Reeves has asked her to deliver to the group hes been hunting down since his days as Hooded Justice in the 1930s: You represent the senior leadership of Cyclops, an organization that has terrorized and victimized men, women, and children of color for a century, including this very place, the site of the Greenwood Massacre of 1921.

Before Trieu finishes reading, Jane Crawford cuts her off to tell her to just kill her and the Kavalry already, and Trieu complies. She retrieves a remote from one of her crewmembers and flicks a switch, obliterating them all with a flash of purple light.

Following the casual massacre, Doctor Manhattantouching the pool of Keenes bloodteleports Adrian, Wade, and Laurie to Karnak, leaving Angela behind as his death approaches. Enraged that Doctor Manhattan shipped off her father before she could properly gloat about her success, Trieu fires up the centrifuge to extract his energy.

In Karnak, Adrian seizes the opportunity to save the world yet again, as he reminds his new companions of his murderous heroism. (Wade, who has lived nearly his entire life traumatized by the events of 11/2, is not too happy about this.) Adrian quickly devises a plan to rain one final squidfall over Tulsa, only this time he wants to significantly lower the temperature to unleash a hailstorm of frozen cephalopods.

Trieu succeeds in destroying Doctor Manhattan, but just then, the frozen squidfall begins, cartoonishly busting a hole through Trieus hand before sending the centrifuge crashing down upon her.

As the frozen squids fall, Bian takes shelter in the Manhattan prayer booth; the Tulsa policewho had arrived just as the squidfall beganscramble for cover; and Angela runs to the Dreamland Theatre to find her children and Will Reeves. Here, in the same theater that young Will watched Trust in the Law moments before the Greenwood Massacre of 1921, Will tells his granddaughter about how he and Jon Osterman made a deal to help each other, as well as what it means to put on the mask. The hood, when I put it onyou felt what I felt? Will asks her, referring to the Nostalgia pills she took that allowed her to experience the moment he became Hooded Justice.

Anger, Angela replies.

Yeah, thats what I thought too, Will says. But it wasntit was fear, hurt. You cant heal under a mask, Angela. Wounds need air. Will tells Angela that it was Jons idea to make a deal with Trieu all along, and that Jon knew he was going to die but said, You cant make an omelette without breaking a couple eggs, a phrase that would supposedly make sense to Angela when the time was right.

Will and Angela wake up the kids and return to Angelas house, passing by all the destruction left in the wake of Trieus failed plans. Just before the credits begin to roll, Angela cleans up the broken eggs scattered across her kitchen floor from her fight with the waffle-making Doctor Manhattan. She finds one egg remaining in the carton, still intact, and remembers the time that Jon told her that he could theoretically pass his abilities to another person through the consumption of organic material thats been exposed to him. Angela walks out to the pool, swallows the raw egg, rolls up her pants, and sets her foot over the water to test out the theory just as the season comes to an end.

Despite an incredible final performance by actress Hong Chau, Lady Trieu went out with little more than a whimper, capable of mustering no more of a reaction to her fathers attack than the utterance of motherfucker in Vietnamese with her final breaths. Wills mesmerism device that he stole from the Cyclops group decades earlier was never used again after seeing its power in manipulating Crawford into hanging himself, and the Kavalrys fate was decided in one quick purple flash. For all the meticulous effort the show put into weaving an intricate web of mystery, the vast and insidious conspiracy ultimately proved to be more hollow as the show rushed toward the finish line. The conclusions saving grace, however, was found in the chaoss calm aftermath in the Dreamland Theatre.

As Victor Luckerson recently wrote in The New Yorker: What Watchmen nails, more than details of Greenwoods history, is the way that history itself is so susceptible to manipulation, distortion, and erasure. A brutal invasion became a victimless crime, then a repressed memory, then a hazy urban legend that few people had even heard about. While bending elements of real historical events like the Greenwood Massacre and the Vietnam War, as well as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbonss original story, HBOs Watchmen remix turned out to be a story about a black family reshaping history. Will Reeves revealed that the first superhero was black, as he fought to eliminate white supremacy in the 1930s as Hooded Justice, and his granddaughter unknowingly carried the mission forward decades later as Sister Night. The two share similar traumatic experiences a century apart, while literally sharing some together through the aid of the psychoactive drug, Nostalgia.

As Will and Angela sit together in the Dreamland Theatre, just as Will did with his mother on the day of the Greenwood Massacre, we see how similar their paths have been, how they both masked their pain caused by racism and senseless violence at the hands of terrorists. And together, after delivering justice to white supremacist descendents of the massacre, the two are finally on the path to healing.

Throughout this entire season of Watchmen, each episode was laden with Easter eggs and callbacks to the original source material. You could compile an exhaustive list for each episode, but for the finale, Ill just point out the three that I appreciated the most.

Adrians Bullet Catch

When watching the Game Warden confront Adrian before his master left for Europa, you mightve thought, Did this guy really just catch a damn bullet with his bare hands?! And yesyes, he did but it also wasnt his first time. Heres Laurie trying kill Adrian on 11/2, only to find out that hes got quicker hands than Michael Thomas:

The Original Archie Ship

After Adrian saves the world from his daughters attempt to become an all-powerful god, he leads Laurie and Wade to the vessel that would bring them back to civilization. The ship is called Archie, as Laurie recalls fondly, and its the original ship that her ex-boyfriend Dan Dreiberg designed and used back in his days masquerading as the second Nite Owl. In the comics, Dan and Rorschach flew to Karnak in Archie on 11/2 to try to stop Adrians attack of New York. The ship has been collecting dust ever since, and now Laurie and Wade will use it to bring Adrian in to finally answer for his crimes.

Rorschachs Omelette Line

Doctor Manhattans hugely important omelette idiom was actually used in the graphic novel as well, only then it was said by Rorschach. After Rorschach interrogates the retired supervillain, Moloch, he swallows a raw egg and says the line on his way out the door:

Though the ending aligned with Lindelofs sensibilities, the ambiguous closing moments also mirrored the final page of Moore and Gibbonss graphic novel. The original Watchmen story ends at the office of the New Frontiersman, just as an editorial assistant, Seymour, discovers Rorschachs journal that contains the truth about 11/2. Rorschach had sent it to the newspapers office just before leaving for Karnak, where hed eventually be killed by Doctor Manhattan. And as the story comes to a close, the reader is left wondering what will happen if the journal is published, and whether or not the truth will undo the supposed utopia that 3 million New Yorkers died for.

HBOs Watchmen supplied answers to these very questions. Rorschachs journal was published, but the greater public didnt believe the words of a violent sociopath, especially while there were squids still periodically raining down from the sky. Only a select few actually knew that the journal was full of the truth, and others unconcerned with the truthlike the Seventh Kavalryused it to fuel their mistrust in the government.

As Angela reaches her foot over the pool in the final frames of the season, viewers are left with the same uncertainty that the journal elicited. Was Doctor Manhattan right about his theory? Has Angela attained all of his powers? If so, what will she do as the new Doctor Manhattan?

The fact that Doctor Manhattan told Angela that it was important for her to see him walk back and forth on the pool in the previous episode suggest he was right, but for now, theres no telling what happened the moment her foot hit the water. If Watchmen moves forward with a second season, we may find that not only does the American Superman exist again, but that she is black and living in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Disclosure: HBO is an initial investor in The Ringer.

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Whats the Future of Doctor Manhattan on Watchmen? - The Ringer

Best books of 2019 – Patheos

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As with previous years lists, these are the best books I read this year. Not the best books published this year, or even the best books Icould have read this year, had I been reading different books.

Fiction

Darkness on Diamondiaby A.E. van Vogt (reviewed here) This is an odd little book that rewards perserverence. Specifically, the thoughts on identity and unity are interesting and ahead of their time.

Radio Free Vermont by Bill McKibben (reviewed here) What happens when a local radio personality leads Vermont out of the union via a grass roots revolution? Awesomeness. Thats what.

Grass by Sheri Tepper (reviewed here) Grass is whatfeminism looks like when set on a planet that looks like Eastern Colorado and acts like a den of telepathic insane badgers. Dont act like you dont want to read it.

Sunshine by Robin McKinley (reviewed here) IfTwilighthas put you off vampires, kindly letSunshine put you back on.

Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip (reviewed here) There was good YA literature beforeHarry Potter. There just wasnt much of it. Patricia McKillips book is in that very small subset of good pre-Harry Potter young adult fiction.

Theology

Transhumanism and the Image of God by Jacob Shatzer (reviewed here) Whats the difference between a tatoo, a prosthetic limb, and having wings with lasers added via plastic surgery? Thats not the set-up for a joke (I mean, its notjust the set-up for a joke), its the very serious question given our struggles these days to even know what somehting as basic as gender is. Which means this book is an important one for Christians to pick up and read.

None Greater: the Undomesticated Attributes of God by Matthew Barrett. I cant stress enough how excellent this book is as a reflection on the nature of God. This should be on every thoughtful Christians to-read list.

Spiritual Desertion by Voetius and Hoornbeeck (reviewed here) Is a wonderful book for anyone who struggles with assurance or who is in a position to counsel those who struggle with assurance.

Politics

Star-Spangled Scandal by Chris DeRose (author interview here) Remember the time that a US Congressmen shot a US Attorney in front of the White House? No? Then you should read this book.

Indispensible Remedy by Gene Healy. Obviously not every presidency involves an impeachment. But impeachment is always in the Constitution, so its worthwhile to know its history and how it might be applied according to the Founders, the US House of Represntatives, and the various others who have thought long and hard about the issue.

Them by Ben Sasse. Why are Americans so lonely and angry? Why do we have deeper relationships with people online than we do with people who live through the wall of our apartment? Is there any hope for a struggling nation? Senator Sasse has a few thoughts on these quesitons

Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen (reviewed here) As Christians, we believe (rightly) that we have the answers to the political problems of the world. But what those problems are is sometimes debated, and Patrick Deneens book gives one of the best analyses of them that Ive read.

Books Not Yet Finished

The years not over yet, so there are a couple of books that might have made the list had I finished them before the day this posted. I figured theyre worth at least an honorable mention.

Common Grace Volume 1by Abraham Kuyper (ongoing review here).

Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom by Gregory Beale.

Happy reading for 2020!

Dr. Coyle Neal is co-host of theCity of Man Podcastand an Associate Professor of Political Science at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO

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Best books of 2019 - Patheos

The 50 best TV shows of 2019: No 4 Years and Years – The Guardian

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In the first episode of Years and Years, a family shindig is interrupted by the whine of air-raid sirens and the news that Donald Trump has fired a nuclear missile at the Chinese a moment of hysteria-inducing horror that doubles as the shows starter pistol. Thats right: impending Armageddon is merely an aperitif when it comes to the devastation the Lyons family faces in Russell T Daviess breathtakingly ambitious dystopian drama. By the time the series ends in 2034, the UK has experienced 80 consecutive days of rainfall, while dirty bombs have made thousands homeless, a fascistic politician in the light-entertainer mould has risen to power and the government has set up a series of secretive concentration camps. Between them, the Lyons have lost their wealth, their health, their freedom and, in some cases, their lives.

The plot of Years and Years felt like the news ticker tape of nightmares brought to life, but it was so much more than a parade of atrocities. Daviess great trick was to meld the wild catastrophising of shows such as Black Mirror with the daily trials of a Mancunian every-family you could really get behind. The result resembled a mashup of soap and sci-fi: Corrie transposed on to a backdrop of staggering political and environmental ruin.

Years and Years dramatised the tipping point at which the news becomes our lives

Opening on the actual date of broadcast, 14 May 2019, Years and Years followed the personal and increasingly political struggles of the Lyons clan: 92-year-old Muriel, her grandchildren Rosie, Stephen, Daniel and Edith, plus their partners and kids. But the Lyons werent just a family they were society under a single surname. They were gay, straight, lesbian, trans, white, black, Asian, disabled and elderly. They were lone parents trying to make ends meet, moneyed middle-class professionals, refugees, never-ending gap year nomads and wealthy retirees rattling around cavernous suburban piles. It wasnt a realistic setup Davies, who has called himself a great believer in quotas, says he was driven by a desire to be representative but it allowed its creator to flesh out a cross-section of society, and create a 3D diagram of varying degrees of privilege.

At its heart, Years and Years was not a show simply about how bad the news could get. It dramatised the tipping point at which the news becomes our lives, and worked at predicting the pain that is largely still to invade our cushy western existences. Characters fell with a shocking abruptness (Daniels descent from a plush flat to the bottom of the freezing sea) or via a piecemeal disintegration (Stephens banking-glitch-prompted slide into the gig economy) that felt frighteningly convincing.

This was realism fit for a world that no longer feels particularly real. That it felt so frighteningly convincing can be credited to its stellar cast, which included Rory Kinnear, Jessica Hynes and Emma Thompson. But it was also down to the fact that many of its atrocious events the ascent of populist leaders, the flooding, the economic crashes, the extinctions have already taken place. Davies, best known for his showrunner stint on the Doctor Who revival, first conceived of Years and Years two decades ago, and began writing after Trumps election victory in 2016. Nobody could blame him for managing to stay only a few steps ahead of the worlds increasingly distorted curve.

The shows embrace of technology is one way that Davies managed to imagine a chilling future. In the first episode, Stephens teenage daughter, Bethany, announces she is transhuman. Initially played for laughs, the idea steadily gains credence until it is revealed to underpin the entire show in a spine-tingling finale that grapples with ideas about what it means to be a human being. In fact, that uncommon optimism about technology runs through the structure of the series. The constant communication made possible by smartphones has long been the scourge of screenwriters its hard to maintain peril when salvation is only a WhatsApp message away but Davies makes it a dramatic asset, using multi-person voice-and-video calls to drive the plot.

There are superficial reasons to admire Years and Years, and there are more profound ones. The show humanises the bad news cycle one that sees the shocking morph into the status quo on a daily basis. Davies attempts to counteract the apathy that can grow out of relentless dismay. He does this not through shock value, but by creating rounded characters that draw empathy, outrage and horror from our increasingly hardened hearts. By no means an easy task, but an indisputably noble one.

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The 50 best TV shows of 2019: No 4 Years and Years - The Guardian

How to make a Bitcoin conversion – Yahoo Finance

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There may come a time when you need to convert your Bitcoin into fiat or another cryptocurrency.

Perhaps you want to realise a profit, simply need the cash, or believe another cryptocurrency offers more potential.

There are several different ways you can sell Bitcoin, and there are also lots of exchanges that enable you to convert Bitcoin into fiat currency such as GBP or another cryptocurrency like Ethereum.

The first step is to ensure the timing is right and thats where a Bitcoin calculator comes into play.

Bitcoin calculators

Bitcoin calculators are an essential tool if youre considering converting Bitcoin to cash because they show you how much currency youll get for your Bitcoin.

Since the price of Bitcoin is extremely volatile, its important to check its conversion rate in real time. This will ensure you dont end up cashing in at the wrong moment for example, when Bitcoins value has just plummeted.

There are a whole host of free Bitcoin calculators available on the web which let you convert Bitcoin to and from a range of world currencies using up-to-date exchange rates.

You can check the live Bitcoin rate with GBP, EUR, USD, JPY, and lots more fiat currencies. Some calculators also show the closing rate of the previous day as well as the highest and lowest rates of the conversion.

If you think the price is worth it, the next step is to make a Bitcoin conversion.

Converting Bitcoin to fiat

The main method of converting Bitcoin to fiat is to sell it on a cryptocurrency exchange. A crypto exchange lets you quickly and easily exchange your Bitcoin for a wide range of world currencies. The exchange essentially acts like a middleman between you and the buyer and will take a cut via trading fees.

To sell your Bitcoin, you will need to set up an account with the exchange of your choice. This will involve going through an identity verification process and connecting your bank account to the exchange.

Once completed, you can then make a sell order by entering the amount and type of coin you wish to sell (in this case BTC) and selecting the fiat currency you wish to receive.

Once the cash funds are in your account you can withdraw them to your connected bank account a process that could take up to a week to complete.

There are other ways to make a Bitcoin conversion for example, through a peer-to-peer platform, via a Bitcoin ATM, or through a direct trade with another person.

The right method for you will depend on factors such as how quickly you want to sell your Bitcoin, whether you want to secure the market rate, and the fees youre willing to pay.

Converting Bitcoin to other crypto

Although most people who make a Bitcoin conversion do so in order to get cash, there might be instances where you want to exchange your Bitcoin for another cryptocurrency such as Ethereum or Litecoin. Again, you will need to head over to a cryptocurrency exchange.

The first step is to find an exchange that supports your chosen Bitcoin trading pair. There are a vast number of exchanges in existence and, together, they let people exchange Bitcoin for hundreds of altcoins, so this step should be relatively straightforward.

Once youve selected an exchange, you can sign up for an account with your personal details and proof of ID.

The next step is to deposit Bitcoin into your exchange account. On most exchanges, you select the deposit button, choose Bitcoin as your deposit currency, and copy the account address shown.

You then need to open up the external wallet youd like to send your Bitcoin from, enter the account address, and press send.

Once the Bitcoin has arrived in your account, you can begin the exchange process. You simply navigate to the currency pair you wish to trade for example BTC to ETH and then enter the amount of BTC you want to convert and click sell.

To avoid the risk of being hacked, its recommended that you transfer your new crypto from the exchange into a secure, external wallet for safe storage.

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How to make a Bitcoin conversion - Yahoo Finance

Bitcoin Hit Its All-Time High in 2017. Here Comes New Competition. – Barron’s

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Illustration by Elias Stein

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Two years ago last week, Bitcoin peaked at $19,783, after starting 2017 at about $1,000. Since then, prices have fluctuated wildly, falling 73% in 2018 and rising 85% this yearbut they have not come close to retesting previous highs. Recently, Bitcoin was trading near $7,000.

An investor who bought early in 2017 would still be up more than 500%. But thats not the whole story. Dan Wiener, chairman of Adviser Investments and founder of the Independent Adviser for Vanguard Investors, analyzed Bitcoin price movements since the start of 2017 and found that the average five-day rolling return was 1.5%. But the range of five-day gains and losses was enormous, with a high of 47% and a low of minus 29%. And investors lost money 45% of the time when they held Bitcoin for 10 days, he calculated.

Beyond the price action, the biggest change since 2017 is Bitcoins rising competition. Two years ago, the market was awash in initial coin offerings for currencies expected to challenge Bitcoins dominance. But Bitcoin still accounts for 67% of the market value of cryptocurrencies, according to Coinmarketcap.com. Bitcoins real competition now comes from companies looking to use blockchain technology to create currencies, and governments that want to produce digital coins backed by their treasuries. Will the dominant coin be decentralized like Bitcoin, corporate-backed, or government-controlled?

Facebooks Libra project has run into regulatory issues, but could launch as soon as next year. China has been working on digital currencies since 2014 and has reportedly accelerated efforts this year.

The Census Bureau reports new-home sales data for November. Consensus estimates are for a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 730,000 new homes sold, roughly even with Octobers figure. That estimate would be about an 11% increase from November 2018s 657,000 rate. In October, the average price for a new house was $383,300 while the median price was $316,700.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago releases its National Activity Index for November. Economists forecast a negative 0.1 reading, similar to the October data. The index has had a negative reading every month this year except for June and August, after having three negative reading in 2018. This indicates that the economy, while still growing, is decelerating.

The Census Bureau releases its Durable Goods report for November. New orders for durable manufactured goods are expected to jump 1.6% after a 0.5% rise in October. Excluding transportation, new orders are seen edging up 0.2%. This compares with a 0.5% gain in October, as well.

Trading ends early, at 1 p.m., on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Composite for Christmas Eve. The bond market closes at 2 p.m.

The Bank of Japan releases minutes from its monetary-policy meeting at the end of October.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond releases its Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing for December. Expectations are for a 3.0 reading, up from Novembers minus 1.

Markets all over the world, including in the U.S., are closed in observance of Christmas Day.

China hosts a trilateral summit with Japan and South Korea in the southern city of Chengdu. The two-day confab convenes on Dec. 24. and concludes on Dec. 25. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are scheduled to attend. The denuclearization of North Korea and ongoing trade war between Japan and South Korea will be among the topics for discussion. In August, Japan removed South Korea from its list of trusted trade partners. Seoul followed suit the next month. The root of the disagreement is over Japans compensation of forced Korean laborers during World War II.

Many bourses, including those in Canada, England, and Hong Kong, are closed in observance of Boxing Day.

The Department of Labor reports initial jobless claims for the week ending on Dec. 21. The four-week moving average of claims is 225,500.

Pivotal Software holds a special shareholder meeting in San Francisco to seek approval for a proposed merger with VMware. In August, VMware announced a cash and stock offer for Pivotal Software valued at $2.7 billion.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration releases its Petroleum Status report for the week ending on Dec. 20.

Write to Avi Salzman at avi.salzman@barrons.com

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Bitcoin Hit Its All-Time High in 2017. Here Comes New Competition. - Barron's

At 8,990,000% Gains, Bitcoin Dwarfs All Other Investments This Decade – Cointelegraph

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Bitcoin (BTC) has beaten gold in terms of returns by such a large amount this decade that investors have firmly dismissed recent price declines.

Data from monitoring resource Blockchain shows that since 2010, Bitcoin has delivered profits of almost 9 million percent.

Put differently, $1 invested in BTC ten years ago was worth around $90,000 as of Dec. 18. By comparison, $1 of gold is now worth $1.34.

Bitcoin average market price 2009-2019. Source: Blockchain

Visibly buoyed by Bitcoins performance, Barry Silbert, CEO of cryptocurrency investment conglomerate Digital Currency Group, deployed the popular Twitter hashtag #dropgold, with his post subsequently receiving over 1,600 retweets.

The statistics underscore Bitcoin as a winning investment for the vast majority of existence. As information portal 99 Bitcoins confirmed on Thursday, since 2009, Bitcoin has only been unprofitable to buy on 434 days at price peaks.

This equates to 89.16% profitability, allowing BTC to put pay to golds record despite the precious metals own recent advances in U.S. dollar terms.

Year-on-year, Bitcoin returns have been similarly impressive. At current price levels around $7,150, Bitcoin investors made 85% profits versus December 2018.

With 2017 as an exception, they remain in the green every year since the beginning.

Bitcoin profits over different time frames. Source: Coin Dance

As Cointelegraph reported, a recent analysis of wallets has shown that Bitcoin hodlers have in fact remained highly disciplined in 2019, despite this year producing a bull-run from lows of $3,100 to almost $14,000.

The phenomenon supports the perception of BTC as an investment tool, suitable for savers with a low time preference who wish to preserve wealth for the long term.

As Saifedean Ammous summarized in his popular book, The Bitcoin Standard, that characteristic will continue to pit Bitcoin directly against easy forms of money, including fiat currency.

Over the New Year period, the U.S. Federal Reserve alone will add an extra $425 billion in fiat value to the economy more than three times Bitcoins market cap that is essentially money created out of thin air.

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At 8,990,000% Gains, Bitcoin Dwarfs All Other Investments This Decade - Cointelegraph

Did Bitcoin Bottom? The Positive Case And The Negative Case. – Forbes

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George Washington wearing sunglasses with Bitcoin signs. Cryptocurrency, digital money concept.

After Bitcoin peaked in July, investors began unloading and its been steadily downward ever since. From 14,000 to 6600, thats quite a drop in a short time for such a widely-followed investment vehicle: more than 50% is not for widows and orphans.

A couple of technical indicators suggest that with this weeks price action, things may have changed, emphasis on the may have, for the highly speculative and quite volatile cryptocurrency.

Heres the daily price chart:

Bitcoin daily price chart, 12 20 19.

The main thing is the big fat bullish engulfing candlestick on Wednesday Ive circled it in red. Price dropped below the November low initially and then buyers came in to take out the high price of the previous session. A bullish engulfing candlestick isnt always perfectly predictive, but its obvious that, at least temporarily, buyers have taken the upper hand.

The reason it may mean something this time is the positive divergence apparent on the technical indicators for relative strength and for the relationship of moving averages. You can see how the RSI, above the price chart, comes in with a slightly higher low from the November low price to the lower mid-December low.

You can also see the similar pattern of the moving average convergence divergence indicator below the price chart. The MACD is trending upward again even with this months lower price.

It would be foolish to take any one of these indicators by themselves to be somehow predictive of future price. That all 3 of them the bullish engulfing candlestick, the RSI and the MACD are lined up favorably suggests the possibility of a reversal for the cryptocurrency.

Heres the problem: the other major cryptos that typically follow Bitcoins basic trading pattern are not reflecting the same kind of strength. This type of price action is a non-confirmation, so far anyway.

Heres the Litecoin daily price chart:

Litecoin daily price chart, 12 20 19.

The bounce off the mid-December low has failed to make it back above the November low at just below 45.. The RSI indicator shows lack of strength. These are significant divergences from the Bitcoin price chart.

Its the same problem with the Ethereum chart:

Ethereum daily price chart, 12 20 19.

Unlike Bitcoin, this one failed to make it back above the November low. Like Litecoin, the relative strength indicator suggests weakening.

Its similar to analyzing precious metals charts. When gold rallies a bit and silver fails to rally with it, youre getting a failure to confirm in the price strength of the overall sector. Same thing going on here (in a way) with the popular cryptocurrencies.

It was a good week for Bitcoin and its unconfirmed by the action in Litecoin and Ethereum.

Stats courtesy of FinViz.com.

I do not hold positions in these investments.No recommendations are made one way or the other.If you're an investor, you'd want to look much deeper into each of these situations. You can lose money trading or investing in stocks and other instruments. Always do your own independent research, due diligence and seek professional advice from a licensed investment advisor.

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Did Bitcoin Bottom? The Positive Case And The Negative Case. - Forbes

VC: New 10-Year Phase in Crypto to Begin in 2020: What it Means For Bitcoin, Ethereum, Blockchain – newsBTC

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Outlier Ventures, a venture capital firm, said that 2020 will be the start to a new phase in crypto, bitcoin, Ethereum, and blockchain following ten years of development and speculation.

The firms head of research Lawrence Lundywhich has invested in major cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, Ethereum, Cosmos, Brave, and Chainlinksaid that the next ten years will be about deployment, if the last decade was primarily about installment.

S-Curve trend of crypto and bitcoin for the past decade and the next ten years (Source: Outlier Ventures)

In an end-of-the-year report entitled 18 Predictions for 2020, Lundy identified key trends in bitcoin, Ethereum, and blockchain that would set the tone for the start of the deployment phase.

For major cryptocurrencies, scalability has always been the biggest issue as the demand for digital assets and blockchain usage increased.

Most blockchain developers generally agree that over the long-term, a second-layer settlement network on top of existing blockchains is crucial for growth.

Beginning 2020, the report suggested that the second-layer usage of bitcoin will see more light. Since its inception in 2009, bitcoin has been recognized as a store-of-value more than a payment settlement network.

With Lightning and other potential layer two solutions, Lundy said that bitcoin will increasingly be seen as an open financial platform.

But the growth of LApps (Lightning Apps) and more broadly data anchoring will be a stronger fundamental signal of the development of a fee market and the long-term viability of Bitcoin, read the report.

It is hardly any surprise but Outlier Ventures expect decentralized finance (DeFi) to continue to be the main narrative around Ethereum in the coming years.

In 2019, DeFi on Ethereum has seen explosive growth. Based on the data from DeFiPulse, the total value locked in DeFi platforms reached $661 million, the overwhelming majority coming from Ethereum.

DeFi on Ethereum grows exponentially throughout 2019 (Source: DefiPulse)

Specifically, Ethereums largest DeFi platform Maker accounts for $329 million of the $661 million, and Ethereum is used as the main collateral for most DeFi applications.

Lundy noted:

With Istanbul now live, we expect EIP-2028 to have a major impact on layer 2 adoption opening up use cases beyond crowdfunding and DeFi. Expect to see games currently using EOS and Tron to migrate over to Ethereum to take advantage of the DeFi lego available.

In the area of blockchain, the report says that central bank-backed digital currencies will see significant progress with the lead of China.

On October 25, Chinese President Xi Jinping formally encouraged the development of blockchain and blockchain-related platforms while distancing from crypto.

Since then, as reported by NewsBTC, major industry executives have said that the reputation of the blockchain industry noticeably improved.

In 2020, we expect this to be how the Chinese Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) launches with licenses given to select exchanges and dominant platforms as distribution platforms to hundreds of millions of users like Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent, suggested the report.

Following China, France and other nations have signaled interest in developing government-owned digital currencies. There are expectations that South Korea is likely to be next with the hiring of a cryptocurrency specialist by the Bank of Korea.

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VC: New 10-Year Phase in Crypto to Begin in 2020: What it Means For Bitcoin, Ethereum, Blockchain - newsBTC

Bitcoin Price Jumps 10%, But Bull Reversal Still $700 Away – Coindesk

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Bitcoin surged by over 10 percent on Wednesday the biggest single-day gain since Oct. 25, according to CoinDesks Bitcoin Price Index.

Notably, prices had slumped to seven-month lows below $6,500 around lunchtime (UTC), but the breakdown was quickly undone and the cryptocurrency was trading above $7,400 before midnight.

The rebound from multi-month lows is a tell-tale sign of seller exhaustion especially, as it erased the losses seen in the preceding eight days.

Wednesdays spike has neutralized the immediate bearish case. That said, a bullish reversal would be confirmed only if and when prices rise above the Nov. 29 high of $7,870. That would invalidate the most basic of all bearish patterns a lower-highs setup.

With bitcoin currently trading at $7,170, the bull reversal is still $770 away.

Bitcoin has charted (price via Bitstamp) a series of lower highs (arrows) and lowers lows over the last five months.

The last lower high at $7,870 was printed on Nov. 29 and is still intact. A UTC close above that level is needed to confirm a short-term bearish-to-bullish trend change, as noted above.

A move above that level shouldn't be ruled out, as the 14-day relative strength index (RSI) has diverged in favor of the bulls. A bullish divergence occurs when an indicator prints higher lows, contradicting lower lows on price, and is considered an early warning of an impending corrective bounce.

Additionally, Wednesdays big bullish engulfing candle is indicating seller exhaustion and would gain credence if prices find acceptance above $7,450 (the candle's high) in the next 24 hours. That would further strengthen the case for a test of resistance at $7,870.

Both patterns would be invalidated if prices drop below $6,428, although that looks unlikely at press time.

The overall outlook would turn bullish if and when the falling channel on the weekly chart is breached to the higher side. Currently, the channel resistance is located at $8,463.

Disclosure: The author currently holds no digital assets.

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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Bitcoin Price Jumps 10%, But Bull Reversal Still $700 Away - Coindesk

MARKETS DAILY: Bullish Bitcoin Dreams and a 2019 to Remember – Coindesk

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With bitcoin first dipping, then spiking up 10% yesterday, we're talking market action, new Federal Reserve comments, the challenges of exchange and taking a look at CoinDesk's annual most influential list...

No time to listen? Scroll down for the full episode transcript with links.

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On Todays episode, its Bitcoins BIg Bounce, DEXs and CEXs, and a look at our Most Influential of 2019 list.

Adam B. Levine: Its December 19, 2019, and youre listening to Markets Daily, Im Adam B. Levine, editor of Podcasts here At Coindesk, along with our senior markets reporter, Brad Keoun, to give you a concise daily briefing on crypto markets and some of the most important news developments in the sector over the past 24 hours.

Adam: We kick things off with Brad, whos been watching the action in the overnights.

(MARKET UPDATE) SEGMENT 1

Brad Keoun: December is often a key month in the bitcoin market - it was Dec 2017 when BTC reached its all-time-high of $20k, and it was in Dec of last year that the market bottomed at $3000.

For the past couple weeks, bitcoins price charts have been sending bearish signals, with the market trending lower

Piling on, Arcane Research of Norway wrote that the market was registering "extreme fear"

But then on Wednesday, the price suddenly jumped more than $600 for a 10% gain, the most seen in two months

Today, the bitcoin price appears to be down just a touch, currently around $7200

CoinDesks Omkar Godbole writes that Wednesdays spike has neutralized the immediate bearish case, in terms of the signals from price charts, but bitcoin would have to jump another $770 to pass $7,780 to confirm the start of a bullish trend

Adam: Turning to the news, there continues to be a stream of negative pronouncements about digital assets emanating from U.S. officials and regulators

U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard warned Wednesday in a speech that the Facebook-led Libra project has a core set of legal and regulatory challenges ahead.

She said more clarity is needed about the basket of currencies underlying the stablecoin and that its model is still unproven.

And Internet startup Blockchain of Things Inc. (BCOT) agreed to pay $250,000 to settle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for launching an initial coin offering without registering the token as a security with the regulator.

Brad: Even so, the traditional financial industry continues to show keen interest in blockchain technology

Accounting multinational EY on Thursday released new code that it claims can reduces the cost of transacting on the ethereum blockchain by as much as 90 percent, by batching multiple transfers into a single transaction

Adam:Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, a key player in Wall Streets clearing of bond trades, predicts digital assets will have a big year in 2020

Mike Bodson, the companys CEO, says next year will be QUOTE dominated by the impact of geopolitical events, digitization and tokenized securities END-QUOTE

And an executive with Fidelity, the money management giant, envisions a future where cryptocurrency custodians will work behind the scenes, whitelabeling services in the way that supermarkets put brands on generic food packaging

Brad: Finally, CoinDesk reports that the privacy coin Moneros lead maintainer is stepping down after five years at the helm

Riccardo Spagni, better known by his alias Fluffypony, plans to continue his association with Monero but will turn the day-to-day leadership over to a longtime contributor to the community

Spagnis other business ventures include no fewer than three crypto startups, and he told CoinDesk more than a year ago that the monero leadership left him feeling exhausted

Spagni says hes making the change now to QUOTE better streamline developments and collaborations END QUOTE

Adam: For todays featured story, were joined again by CoinDesks Markets Reporter Sebestian Sinclair for a look into Centralized, and Decentralized exchange

Sebastian Sinclair: Thanks Adam

For the first time in history, cryptocurrencies allow us to control our assets without having to rely on third parties such as banks or brokers.

This has been achieved through blockchain technology, offering participants a way to tap into decentralized networks via peer to peer connections.

However, despite this new tech, nearly 99 percent of crypto trading takes place on centralized exchanges, which seems at odds with the new era of digital money that should be utilizing blockchains trustless capabilities.

Centralized exchanges have a lot of advantages, they're fast, cheap and in some ways quite private. On the other hand, to get those benefits, traders must give their tokens TO the exchange, and trust that they'll not only be honest, but resistant to the sectors notorious if not ubiquitous exchange thefts.

It's easy to see that even without downplaying the advantages, the disadvantages should give any trader pause.

After all, mistrust in middlemen, ie banks, brokers and centralized exchanges, is essentially what led to the success of blockchain tech in the first place.

History has shown us that placing our faith in these middlemen tends to be unwise and one consistently runs the risk of having funds stolen, such as what occurred this year as CoinDesk previously reported, up to 7 different exchange hacks valued at over $157 million US dollars were siphoned off.

Adam: So whats the solution then?

Sebastian: Well, this is where decentralized exchanges come in.

Decentralized exchanges can circumvent the issues of custody by building its infrastructure on the blockchain with the use of smart contracts to coordinate trades from a users own wallet. These smart contracts must be implemented correctly with appropriate withdrawal controls, but ultimately a decentralized exchange should never require a user to give up control of their assets.

Adam: Decentralized exchanges must have a downside?

Sebastian: Of course, decentralized exchanges face their own inherent problems. Blockchains are generally slow by nature, reducing the number of possible trades per second thereby limiting volume and liquidity. Whats more, decentralized exchanges generally result in unfriendly user interfaces that are based around block explorers such as etherscan making it difficult for new users in the space to pick up and understand right away.

Adam: So whats out there and whats worth using?

Sebastian: Well, Binance for example, opened its decentralized exchange to the public back in April this year while OKEx, another major exchange, announced plans way back in March, but still has plans in the works. From my research, most decentralized exchanges lack the liquidity and volume I previously mentioned. More work needs to be done to attract traders away from the centralized model to a decentralized one in order for them to function optimally and as intended.

While the solutions to custody continue to be hashed out (pun intended) there are still a ways to go before users can begin experiencing the same user-friendly interactions, liquidity and volume they get from a centralized exchange. But we need to start looking into blockchain tech as a solution to these issues of centralized custody, otherwise, what are we all doing here?

Adam: And now, for todays spotlight, were giving you the rundown of what has become an annual CoinDesk tradition - the Most Influential people in the crypto industry of 2019

Brad: Thats right, Adam -- were getting closer to the end of the year and that means its time for the Most Influential list, a project thats led by CoinDesk Features Editor Ben Schiller but features some incredible profiles written by CoinDesk staffers

The list highlights people who have had a big year, made significant contributions to the industry in 2019 or simply even been at the center of a big story. I picked a few of the most fascinating.

Brad: First on the list is JACK DORSEY - Twitter's co-founder, who emerged as bitcoin's biggest ally in Silicon Valley. Dorsey invested heavily in the networks' future, and says he hopes one day that the interent will have a native currency, and he hopes that will be bitcoin

Next is Caitlin Long, a former Morgan Stanley banker who has established Wyoming as the most crypto-friendly jurisdiction in the nation. She's helped pass a series of bills designed to attract crypto startups to her home state.

Andrew Yang, the presidential candidate, came from nowhere to be a top-tier presidential candidate, with his brand of sophisticated tech-bro intelligence and ideas like basic universal income. More to the point, Yang is the only Democratic contender with a fleshed-out crypto policy,

David Marcus - the French-born co-founder of Libra, the Facebook stablecoin project, became the face of the effort as he went to Washington to testify in high-profile hearings, where he experienced backlash from lawmakers and U.S. regulators. With big corporate partners like Mastercard peeling away from the effort earlier this year, the big question is whether he can convince Americans to trust Facebook with the future of money

Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer at CoinShares, testified in Washington in July that while Facebooks Libra was getting all the attention, it was bitcoin that should be getting the attention, with its track record of more than a decade, saying that the worlds largest and oldest cryptocurrency had already been tested

Ted Livingston - founder of the messaging app Kik Interactive, which was accused by the SEC of running an illegal securities offering when it sold digital tokens in 2017. Hes attracted notoriety and attention, along with some support from the crypto industry, for pushing back against the regulator

Gerald Cotten, former CEO of the now-defunct QuadrigaCX exchange, wasnt even alive during 2019, if you believe his death report out of India from December 2018, but he was at the center of controversy from creditors who say he might not have actually died, and theyre now asking for his body to be exhumed

But wait, theres meow. The last on the list is Hodlonaut, who publicly is a cat in an astronaut costume who emerged on Crypto Twitter as a folk hero representing the freedom to speak the truth and maintain ones own privacy, challenging, among others, Bitcoin SV backer Craig Wright, who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of bitcoin. Hodlonaut became one of the biggest memes of the year in the crypto industry. In reality, CoinDesk reports, hes a mild-mannered, middle-aged man from Norway who loves tattoos, ice cream, and tucking his child into bed.

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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MARKETS DAILY: Bullish Bitcoin Dreams and a 2019 to Remember - Coindesk