Phunware to hold Initial Exchange Offering for its cryptocurrency Phun tokens – Proactive Investors USA & Canada

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Companies that use Phunware will be able to rebrand Phun for their users, who can spend it on goods, services and offers

PhunwareInc () is launching an Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) for its own new currency called Phun tokens.

The coin is designed to power the companys Blockchain-Enabled Data Exchange and Mobile Loyalty Ecosystem which launched in June, allowing customers to unlock improved functionality and be rewarded for their engagement.

Companies that use Phunwares Multiscreen-as-a-Service offerings will be able to rebrand Phun within their own mobile apps for their users. In turn, users will be able to earn Phun tokens for completing surveys, watching videos, or sharing content.

Once theyve received Phun tokens, people will be able to spend it on goods, services and offers in a branded marketplace.

Blockchain enables us to extend our MaaS platform by deploying an ecosystem to reward consumers for meaningful engagement that fiat currency just cant replicate due to its inherently high transaction costs, CEO Matt Aune said in a statement.

The coin will Launch on the cryptocurrency trading platform Liquid Global, and only members of the exchange are able to participate.

Kai Kono, Head of Asia Pacific, business development and sales at Liquid, is excited about what Phun brings to the table.

Phun represents one of the more professional and promising cryptocurrencies weve encountered since launching in 2014, Kono said in a statement. Were excited to offer our members a chance to buy into a cryptocurrency that can help drive mainstream adoption because it is backed by a publicly-traded US company with a proven track record that has raised more than $100 million from well known investors including Samsung, and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

The company's stock increased 4.6% Thursday to $1.84.

Updated to include closing price

Contact Andrew Kessel at [emailprotected]

Follow him on Twitter @andrew_kessel

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Phunware to hold Initial Exchange Offering for its cryptocurrency Phun tokens - Proactive Investors USA & Canada

CookieMiner malware targets Macs, steals passwords and SMS messages, mines for cryptocurrency – Security Boulevard

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Security researchers at Palo Alto Networks have discovered a new malware threat that targets Macs in what appears to be a sophisticated attempt to raid cryptocurrency wallets. The malware, which researchers have dubbed CookieMiner, has a variety of weapons in its armory that could make it particularly worrisome for cryptocurrency investors.

According to security analysts Yue Chen, Cong Zheng, Wenjun Hu and Zhi Xu, the macOS-based malware can steal browser cookies from users Google Chrome and Apple Safari browsers. Specifically, cookies associated with the following cryptocurrency exchanges are targeted:

The cookies are grabbed from the infected users browser, zipped up and then uploaded to a remote server under the control of the criminals.

The researchers explain that these details are most likely being stolen to assist them in their attempts to breach accounts:

Web cookies are widely used for authentication. Once a user logs into a website, its cookies are stored for the web server to know the login status. If the cookies are stolen, the attacker could potentially sign into the website to use the victims account. Stealing cookies is an important step to bypass login anomaly detection. If only the username and password are stolen and used by a bad actor, the website may issue an alert or request additional authentication for a new login. However, if an authentication cookie is also provided along with the username and password, the website might believe the session is associated with a previously authenticated system host and not issue an alert or request additional authentication methods.

In addition to stealing cookies, CookieMiner had no qualms about raiding the Chrome browser to extract saved passwords and credit card details.

But Cookie Miner doesnt stop (Read more...)

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CookieMiner malware targets Macs, steals passwords and SMS messages, mines for cryptocurrency - Security Boulevard

High Performance Cryptocurrency Mining Rigs Released by BitHarp – AiThority

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A distinguished manufacturer of cryptocurrencies, BitHarp Group Limited is delighted to announce the launch of two new high-performance liquid mining rigs capable of delivering excellent usage capabilities and unprecedented profit making potential. With high hash rate and low power consumption, the two rigs named Lyre Miner and Harp Miner are designed to provide ROI within just one month.

BitHarp products are a new revolution in the cryptocurrency market because it gives the opportunity to any kind of investor to be on profit after a month.

A powerful and compact mining rig, Lyre Miner can fit in a limited space and offers useful features such as a touch screen interface for easy operation and monitoring. On the other hand, Harp Miner is a direct liquid Cooling (DLC) rig that prioritizes security and fault tolerance. It eliminates all risks associated with liquid cooling, and provides a safe, secure and budget friendly ecosystem for crypto mining. The power consumptions of these two rigs are 600W and 2400 W, respectively.

Read More: Koreas Union Mobile Launches ELYNET Blockchain Project

Lyre Miner and Harp Miner are capable of mining Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Dash with the hash rates as mentioned below.

Read More: ConsenSys Joins Hyperledger as a Premier Member

BitHarp mentions that its two new mining rigs are designed and configured to bring the benefits of crypto mining to common investors without much mining experience or knowledge. With easy-to-operate user interfaces and powerful functionality, anyone can start making profits with these rigs simply by plugging them in.

BitHarp products are a new revolution in the cryptocurrency market because it gives the opportunity to any kind of investor to be on profit after a month. said Daniel Cox, the Engineering Director of BitHarp.

Read More: TrueProfile.io Announces New Integration With uPort to Enable Its Members to Unify Their Digital Identities

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InnfiRAT malware lurks in your machine to steal cryptocurrency wallet data – ZDNet

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Researchers have documented the emergence of a new Trojan that specializes in the theft of cryptocurrency-related data.

Dubbed InnfiRAT, the malware includes many standard Trojan capabilities but will specifically lurk on infected systems in the quest for cryptocurrency wallet credentials.

In a blog post, cybersecurity firm zScaler said on Thursday that InnfiRAT, written in .NET, is likely spread through phishing emails containing malicious attachments or drive-by downloads.

See also:DanaBot banking Trojan jumps from Australia to Germany in quest for new targets

Once it lands on a vulnerable machine, the malware will make a copy of itself and hide it in the AppData directory before writing a Base64 encoded PE file in memory to execute the main functionality of the Trojan.

InnfiRAT will first look for indicators of a sandbox environment, a common setup used by cybersecurity researchers when reverse-engineering malware samples. If found, the malware will terminate; if not, then the payload continues to execute.

System data, including the country of the machine, processor type, PC vendor, name, and cache size is scraped. InnfiRAT will then contact its command-and-control (C2) server, transfer the stolen machine information, and await further instructions.

Among these instructions is the command to obtain a list of all running processes in an infected system, including those with the strings "chrome," "browser," "firefox," and "opera." The malware will terminate any that match.

CNET:Spotify wants to know where you live and will be checking in

InnfiRAT can deploy additional malicious payloads, steal files, and grab browser cookies to harvest stored username and password credentials for online services. In addition, the Trojan can screenshot open sessions and shut down traditional antivirus processes.

In the quest for cryptocurrency, InnfiRAT will scan for information relating to cryptocurrency including Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC) wallets by checking for %AppData%Litecoinwallet.dat and %AppData%Bitcoinwallet.dat. If they are present, the malware will siphon existing data that can be used to compromise these wallets and potentially steal virtual funds.

Cryptocurrency remains a lucrative channel for cybercriminals to generate illicit profit and InnfiRAT is only one of many forms of malware that now include cryptocurrency-related theft or exploit modules.

TechRepublic:How data breaches are hurting small businesses

PsiXBot has recently been upgraded to include Google's DNS over HTTPS service, and once on a target machine, will monitor the clipboard for wallet credentials used to store Bitcoin, Etherium, Monero, and Ripple.

Another interesting form of cryptojacking malware, dubbed Bird Miner, emulates Linux on Mac machines while running XMRig. The malware harnesses the CPU power of victims to covertly mine Monero (XMR) and sends the proceeds to wallets controlled by its operators.

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Cryptocurrency Tax Software To Keep the IRS From Your Door – Crypto Briefing

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If youve traded cryptocurrency, chances are that youve lost a fair amount of hairnot to mention sleeptrying to calculate your obligations. Some hodlers only need to report a few trades per year, but if youre moving large amounts of cryptocurrency, it might take some professional-level software to keep track of all those gainz.

The cryptocurrency tax software solutions on the market today come in different flavors, depending on your needs. Some are pure tax reporting tools, whereas others offer accounting services or portfolio tracking. Some also provide additional features such as support for small businesses or individuals who earn a living from trading.

When choosing a provider, some things to consider are:

If youre making less than around 1,000 transactions annually, you can opt for one of the lower cost plans. The same applies for portfolio value the higher the value of your portfolio, the more youll pay.

Lower-cost plans tend to offer integration with fewer exchanges and wallets. If youve been transacting over multiple exchanges and wallets, youll need to go for a higher cost plan. Furthermore, not all exchanges and wallets are integrated by all providers.

Some providers will allow you to connect to the exchange or wallet API, whereas others will require you to extract a CSV file for upload to the cryptocurrency tax software.

The most basic plans will simply produce the necessary IRS-compatible reports. Some of the more comprehensive offerings will track your asset portfolio, or offer enterprise-grade support for businesses accepting or making payments in cryptocurrencies.

With all this in mind, which providers offer the best package to suit your needs? This list covers a number of the major providers but isnt intended to be exhaustive:

BearTax is a simple and inexpensive cryptocurrency tax software, ideal for newcomers or the most casual investors. It offers a basic plan for only $0.99 which provides a tax report covering up to 20 transactions across any number of exchanges. Even the next plan, for up to 200 transactions, is only $29.99.

The software connects via API to a broad range of exchanges. It doesnt calculate taxes for margin or derivative trading, and it doesnt offer any portfolio tracking, so it may not be suitable for more frequent or advanced traders.

TokenTax is a decent all-rounder but the most basic plan at $65 per year only integrates with Coinbase and Binance. For power traders taking the highest package, it also offers services including assistance with IRS audits.

Unlike many other cryptocurrency tax software providers, TokenTax offers a premium service that can produce a full tax filing, including your crypto taxes. It also offers a planning service to help tax-optimize your portfolio, and can handle calculations on derivatives trades. Furthermore, TokenTax offers support if youre an employee earning in crypto, or for special situation such as if youve been the victim of a hack.

ZenLedger also offers additional features beyond pure tax reporting, such as support for ICOs and airdrops. However, it comes at an even higher price point the starter package is $149 per year for up to 500 transactions with up to $50k asset value. Unlike many others on this list, features on ZenLedger are standard across all packages, so youll only pay more for a bigger portfolio value and/or transaction volume.

Cointracker isnt just a tax reporting solution. It actively tracks your entire digital asset portfolio. This is likely to be very helpful if youve diversified across many wallets and exchanges, as it means you dont need to collect all of your holdings into one place come tax season.

Prices start from $49 for up to 100 transactions annually and go up to $999 for 15,000 transactions. In contrast with many other cryptocurrency tax software providers, Cointracker is international, offering reporting for UK, Canada, and Australia.

Bittax is the only cryptocurrency tax software weve seen thats based on blockchain technology. According to the website, it can trace an entire history of user cryptocurrency transactions from the moment the trader entered the markets, and even flag where transaction history appears to be incomplete.

Forward tax planning enables you to optimize your positions for maximum potential savings. Theres no pricing currently available on the website, but you can submit a request via their contact form for a free estimate of your tax obligations. This may be useful if youve received an IRS letter but believe youve paid your taxes correctly.

CryptoTrader.Tax provides many similar features as others mentioned on this list. The company emphasizes a user-experience first approach and uses an intuitive 5-step process for completing a tax report.

CryptoTrader.Tax supports more than 25 of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges and has partnered up with TurboTax to allow their users to import their cryptocurrency tax data into the TurboTax platform. Prices start at $49 and increase depending on the volume of trades you made during any given year.

Users can sign up and import all their data for free. Payment is only required once you want to download your tax report. David Kemmerer, the co-founder of the company, has also contributed some interesting articles on crypto taxes to Crypto Briefing.

Node40 started life as a service offering master node hosting but once they started accepting payment in cryptos, the founders realized they had no software to easily calculate their crypto tax obligations, so they designed their own.

Now, Node40 offers perhaps one of the best plans for new or novice traders using a single exchange or wallet, as you can import up to 1500 transactions completely free of charge. The next level up starts from $75. The company also offers a package for tax professionals. Given that many tax accountants still arent familiar with the tax rules on crypto assets, this service is useful for helping to bridge the gap between the existing tax world and crypto-assets.

HappyTax is providing a similar service. The company also operates Cryptotaxacademy to educate tax professionals in the game. It isnt a software provider but a full-service crypto tax preparation company. This may be a preferable option for those with more complex portfolios, as it allows you to be completely hands-off. The company can support crypto taxes as a standalone offering or as part of a full tax return service, which covers your other obligations as well.

If youve been unlucky enough to receive one of the recent IRS letters, then any of these services will also help you in retroactively calculating your tax obligations for previous years. Although its true that the IRS has created a cloud of uncertainty through a lack of clear guidance around the taxation of digital assets, using a cryptocurrency tax software solution can at least take some of the reporting burden off your shoulders.

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The cryptocurrency market update: Bitcoin drifts lower within the current range – FXStreet

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Bitcoin and all major altcoins have been a mixed picture during European hours on Tuesday. The total market capitalization stays edged towards to $265 billion, average daily trading increased to $57 billion, while Bitcoin's market dominance retreated to 69.1%.

A bug experienced by the US-based crypto exchange Kraken during production tests allowed users to buy Bitcoin at $8,000 and sell at $12,000. The bug did not affect liquidity and other market conditions.

Bitcoin volatility hit the lowest level since May. This lull in the market forced traders to practice the wait-and-see approach and refrain from active trading as long as the market is directionless.

At the time of writing, BTC/USD is changing hands at $10,150, down 1% on a day-on-day basis and since the beginning of the day. The has been trading below $10.300 since the end of Monday.

Ethereum, the second-largest digital asset with the current market capitalization of $21.4 billion has gained over 2.5% in recent 24 hours to trade at $199.47. ETH/USD grew strongly during early Asian hours, however, the further upside may be limited by a critical $200.00.

Ripple's XRP experienced a strong but short-lived growth. The third-largest cryptocurrency asset with the market value of $11.4 billion came close ti=o critical $0.2700; however the price quiclkly retreated to $0.2660 amid technical correction.

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The cryptocurrency market update: Bitcoin drifts lower within the current range - FXStreet

Custody startup GK8 raises $4M to offer cryptocurrency transactions without an internet connection – Yahoo Finance

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Israeli cryptocurrency custody startup GK8 has announced a $4 million seed round to provide a patented technology system for sending cryptocurrency transactions without an internet connection.

According to GK8, the firm uses a proprietary cryptographic algorithm to provide a cold wallet solution for its clients while also offering hot wallet functionalities. This solution does not require an inbound network connection, which Gk8 claims will eliminate cyber-attack vulnerabilities.

GK8 develops a high security custodian wallet solution, using an exciting and unique approach to cold wallet security, said Eran Tromer, a Zcash founding scientist and member of GK8s advisory board. Inspired by high assurance critical infrastructure systems, it uses state-of-the-art cryptographic techniques to minimize the wallets attack surface and block the influence of a potential attacker on security-critical components.

GK8's custody technology is already used to secure and manage over $1 billion in cryptocurrencies for clients like eToro. The company was founded in July 2018 by the CEO Lior Lamesh and the CTO Shahar Shamai, who previously worked in cybersecurity for the State of Israel.

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Custody startup GK8 raises $4M to offer cryptocurrency transactions without an internet connection - Yahoo Finance

Skidmap malware buries into the kernel to hide illicit cryptocurrency mining – ZDNet

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A form of malware stumbled upon by researchers makes use of rootkits to bury itself undetected in Linux systems for the purpose of cryptocurrency mining.

On Monday, threat analysts Augusto Remillano and Jakub Urbanec from Trend Micro said the Linux malware, dubbed Skidmap, is loaded with kernel-mode rootkits designed to obfuscate its presence on an infected system as well as provide attackers with limitless access to the machine's resources.

Once a vulnerable Linux system has been sourced, Skidmap installs itself via crontab, a time-based job scheduler.

An installation script will download the main Trojan payload, which will proceed to turn Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) modules to a 'permissive' state to reduce the overall security level of a machine.

See also:US government demands data on thousands of gun scope app users

"If the system has the /etc/selinux/config file, it will write these commands into the file: SELINUX=disabled and SELINUXTYPE=targeted commands," Trend Micro says. "The former disables the SELinux policy (or disallows one to be loaded), while the latter sets selected processes to run in confined domains."

A backdoor is then created by adding its operator's public key to the authorized_keys file on a Linux system.

Another module used for Unix authentication is replaced with a malicious version that permits a specific, 'master' password to be accepted for any user registered with the compromised machine. Attackers are then able to masquerade as any user -- with any level of privilege -- they choose.

The cryptocurrency mining component of Skidmap will drop either as standalone software or as an encrypted .tar.gz file depending on whether the target machine is Debian or RHEL/CentOS.

CNET:The pivot to privacy could come with a $100 million grant

One of the most interesting features of this malware is its handling of the kernel. Many of Skidmap's routines ask for root access, and so kernel-mode rootkits are used to provide the access required -- as well as to make sure infections and mining activity are more difficult to detect.

A file installed as /usr/bin/kaudited will drop and install loadable kernel modules (LKMs), and different modules are used depending on the kernel to make sure an infected machine won't crash when tampered with.

In particular, one rootkit will fake network traffic and CPU-related statistics to make it appear that the machine is clean. This will include the creation of sham traffic involving particular ports, IP addresses, CPU loads and processes.

TechRepublic:Companies still unprepared for GDPR rule changes and potential EU data breaches

A CPU with a heavy load is a well-known indicator of cryptocurrency mining as the power used to work out the mathematical puzzles required to secure digital coins is generally high. In Skidmap's case, traffic information is faked to make CPU usage always appear low.

In addition, the malware is equipped with modules able to monitor cryptocurrency mining processes, hide specific files, and set up malicious cron jobs for executing other malicious files.

The use of rootkits is an interesting development in the world of Linux-based cryptocurrency mining. Another recently-discovered Trojan sample, called InnfiRAT, was found to contain functionality specifically designed for the theft of cryptocurrency-related wallet credentials on infected machines.

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Wells Fargo makes it official: Big banks are getting in on cryptocurrency – The Hustle

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Wells Fargo just announced it will launch a US dollar-linked stablecoin, making it the latest financial titan to get in on cryptocurrency.

Wells Fargo Digital Cash the very creative name for Old Man Fargos tokenized dollars will launch next year. Wells Fargos proprietary digital ledger tech (DLT) will allow users to move money internally across the firms global network in near real-time.

Wells Fargo isnt the only big bank digging the digidollar. JPMorgan launched JPM Coin earlier this year and its likely other banks will follow suit with tokens and networks of their own.

In its early days, the unregulated nature of cryptocurrency networks created concerns that it would enable tax evasion, money laundering, and other darknet activities (talk about naughty bits).

But banks are discovering that blockchain-based technologies allow instantaneous payment transfers.

And in an increasingly global economy, this is especially attractive because businesses can move funds outside of normal operating hours while cutting the time and costs associated with such transactions and eliminating the need for middlemen.

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New Zealand’s progressive approach is a boost for cryptocurrency – American Banker

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Payments made in cryptocurrency are already a reality and will soon be commonplace. With the advent of emerging technologies impacting a large range of sectors and aspects of our lives, progressive approaches to payments are crucial.

Governments around the world, from New Zealand to the U.K., Australia to Portugal, and several others besides, have taken proactive steps toward introducing laws or rulings around the potential for cryptocurrency payments, rather than in fiat currency alone. New Zealand is emerging as a player in the blockchain and crypto space, with key announcements in 2019 proving it is a forward-looking jurisdiction.

Susan Price, director of public rulings for New Zealands Inland Revenue Department, on June 27 announced a new ruling determining how taxation on cryptocurrency earnings will be calculated. This ruling provides clarification on how the legislation will give both employees and companies guidance in handling taxes on permanent employees salaries when and if they are paid in crypto. The ruling took effect Sept. 1 and will be in effect for three years.

This ruling is a very positive step for New Zealand, particularly as the government is already taking a progressive approach toward digital government services. Moreover, the jurisdiction is showing its willingness to approach the wider tax and payments systems with a similar pragmatic understanding of the evolving needs of an increasingly digital and decentralized economy.

New Zealands ruling states that payments in cryptocurrencies must be pegged to at least one cryptocurrency, and discusses the tax implications should cryptocurrencies be used to pay salaries or wages. This is similar to guidance put forth by countries such as Australia and the U.K., though stronger in form. It is a move that will hopefully nudge the remaining Digital 9 countries to take a similar approach.

As the global economy responds to a multitude of shifts in work patterns and scenarios, attitudes to traditional institutions, and perception of value in various forms, it is the early movers in digital currencies that will reap the most benefits.

This ruling by the New Zealand government shows the jurisdictions versatility in addressing cryptocurrencies and the implementation of regulations around their use in payments. New Zealand is already showing its commitment to encouraging the development of tech companies and startups, and the country is swiftly implementing means to attract the best talent in this sphere.

As it continues to show its openness to developing systems that will allow for the use of emerging technologies, New Zealand displays its understanding that the reality of regular cryptocurrency use in our daily lives is quickly approaching.

Dave Hodgson is director and co-founder of NEM Ventures.

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Seed CX Partners With Itiviti to Offer NYFIX Connectivity for Cryptocurrency Customers – Yahoo Finance

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CHICAGO, Sept. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Itiviti, a leading technology and service provider to financial institutions worldwide, today announced a partnership with Seed CX, an institutional exchange and settlement platform for digital assets. This partnership ensures that traditional institutional firms currently utilizing Itiviti's NYFIX network, now can access Seed CX's digital asset exchange and settlement ecosystem.

"Now that the NYFIX network is connected to our digital asset exchange, Itiviti's client base, which includes over 800 institutional firms, can easily access Seed's crypto market," said Adam Leaman, VP of Client Services, Seed CX. "Itiviti's NYFIX suite of services is well known for stability and a strong support team, which is why their client base is a natural fit for our exchange."

Seed CX joins Itiviti's Global Alliance Program (GAP), the umbrella under which the company manages all partner relationships globally, enabling clients to leverage a highly integrated network of technology providers. This strategic partnership will provide NYFIX customers, who already rely on advanced analytics, monitoring and post-trade processing through the NYFIX portal, with the same tools in the digital asset space.

"We're very excited about our latest partnership with Seed CX," said Jason Landauer, Head of Network Sales, Itiviti. "Growth in the crypto space shows no sign of slowing, and we are thrilled to be the connectivity partner for Seed CX and their clients."

NYFIX, Itiviti's broker independent, vendor agnostic FIX community, connects buy-side, sell-side and trading venues in the industry's most stable and flexible order routing network delivered as a managed service.

For further information, please contact:

ItivitiMegan Geldman, Head of Marketing and Communications, AmericasTel: +1-312-541-4181megan.geldman@itiviti.com

Seed CXHunter Stuart, Media Contacthunter@propllr.com

About Itiviti

Itiviti enables financial institutions worldwide to transform their trading and capture tomorrow. With innovative technology, deep expertise and a dedication to service, we help customers seize market opportunities and guide them through regulatory change.

Top-tier banks, brokers, trading firms and institutional investors rely on Itiviti's solutions to service their clients, connect to markets, trade smarter in all asset classes by consolidating trading platforms and leverage automation to move faster.

A global technology and service provider, we offer the most innovative, consistent and reliable connectivity and trading solutions available.

With presence in all major financial centers and serving around 2,000 clients in over 50 countries, Itiviti delivers on a global scale.

For more information, please visit http://www.itiviti.com.

Itiviti is owned by Nordic Capital.

Follow Itiviti on social media on Twitter @Itiviti_AB, on Facebook @ItivitiAB, and on LinkedIn

About Seed CX

Chicago-based Seed CX operates a digital asset exchange built expressly for institutional investors. Through its subsidiaries, Seed CXoffers a market for institutional trading and settlement of spot digital assets, and plans to offer a separate market for CFTC-regulated derivatives. Seed CX is backed by Bain Capital Ventures. Seed CX wholly owns a number of subsidiaries:

Seed Digital Commodities Marketis a spot exchange for digital asset commodities.

Zero Hash is a FinCen-registered Money Service Business and FX Dealer as well as a Money Transmitter in more than 30 states. Zero Hash custodies both fiat and digital assets, with on-chain settlement.

Seed SEF is a CFTC-regulated Swap Execution Facility (SEF) that plans to offer a market for CFTC-regulated digital asset derivatives.

Seed Digital Securities Market is pending registration as a Broker Dealer with FINRA and an ATS with the SEC.

For further information, please visit https://seedcx.com/

Follow Seed CX on LinkedIn

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

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The Strange Saga of Jeffrey Epsteins Link With Brock Pierce – Hollywood Reporter

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Even before Jeffrey Epsteins mysterious death Aug. 10, many people who knew him were hoping the world would forget or, better yet, never learn that they had any association at all with the notorious predator.

One such person may be serially self-reinventing entrepreneur Brock Pierce, who as a teenager co-founded the eventually infamous Digital Entertainment Network and who, in the mid- to late 90s, was associated with an alleged sex-abuse ring this one involving young men. Several later contended in court filings that Pierce and two associates had drugged and assaulted them at parties in their Encino mansion. Pierce was never charged with any crime and has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. He settled with one plaintiff, and two others dismissed their cases against him.

In early 2011, about a decade after the Digital Entertainment Network imploded, Pierce visited the Virgin Islands to attend "Mindshift," a conference of top scientists hosted by Epstein. A representative for Pierce says he didnt even know who Epstein was when he flew (commercial) to the event, which the financier had arranged as part of his elaborate effort to launder his lurid reputation. It was not even 18 months after Epstein had completed his slap-on-the-wrist solicitation sentence in Florida and registered as a sex offender.

The rep for Pierce says he saw Epstein after that meeting "a few times over the intervening years at industry events, where many other prominent people were present." He adds that "the few communications that Mr. Pierce had with Epstein related to cryptocurrency" an area in which Pierce established himself as a crypto centimillionaire, or maybe a billionaire, in the years following the conference.

Nothing suggests that anything of a sexual nature or anything untoward at all occurred at Mindshift. Pierce is only one of dozens of figures in Epsteins dizzyingly vast network, and the link between the two may be nothing but a curiosity. But it is a strange tale: how a former child actor who never went to college ended up as an Epstein guest a seemingly unlikely addition to a group that included a NASA computer engineer, an MIT professor of electrical engineering and a Nobel laureate in theoretical physics. I dont know what he had to do with science [or] why he was there, says one person who attended.

Cryptocurrency was very much in its nascent stages when Epstein invited Pierce to Mindshift. His bio on a list of attendees reads "entrepreneur, creator of virtual currencies and goods." His rep says he accepted the invitation for the opportunity to interact with major scientific thinkers and participated in a panel discussion on cryptocurrency with prominent scientists (none of whom appeared to have any expertise in the area, based on their bios from the same document).

It's unclear what, if anything, Epstein expected to get from Pierce, who was unlikely to add to the prestige of the conference. Epsteins activities in the area of cryptocurrency remain mysterious. In 2017, he gave an interview to website The Next Web in which he expressed a vague interest in the area, and The Wall Street Journal has reported that Epstein claimed that he worked for the U.S. Treasury Department on cryptocurrency.

Another strand may connect Epstein to cryptocurrency and indirectly to Pierce: In 2015, Joi Ito then director of the MIT Media Lab announced a Digital Currency Initiative. This came during a financially challenging time for the Bitcoin Foundation the industry's first trade group, founded in September 2012 and Ito hired cryptocurrency developers previously supported by the foundation. Just days after Itos announcement, Pierce was named the foundations chairman. (Ito recently resigned from MIT Media Lab following reports that he had accepted major donations from Epstein and attempted to conceal the relationship.)

Pierce was also in business starting in the mid-2000s with former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, who had his own ties to Epstein. Bannon did not respond to requests for comment but he apparently remains a fan of Pierce, who has popped up lately as an unlikely presence in Trump world.

Pierces name is familiar to people in Hollywood who remember the short-lived DEN, an ahead-of-its-time attempt to create online programming around the turn of the millennium, and the scandal surrounding it. Pierces childhood career blossomed when he appeared in Disneys 1992 film The Mighty Ducks. But by the time he was 17, he had given up acting. According to extensive media reports when DEN imploded, Pierce had been making $250,000 a year at the company. He shared a 12,600-square-foot house with two other DEN co-founders, the then-40-something entrepreneur Marc Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley, a Michigan man then in his mid-20s.

Shackley had lived with Collins-Rector since dropping out of high school at 16. Pierce had also been 16 when he met Collins-Rector, and although Collins-Rector already was in a relationship with Shackley, Pierce later told Rolling Stone: He was definitely in love with me. Theres no question about that.

Pierce has said he gave Collins-Rector the idea of starting a company to create online entertainment. At the time, the technology wasnt in place to efficiently deliver digital content to consumers, but the company attracted investors including David Geffen and former congressman Michael Huffington, as well as Microsoft and Dell. The Encino mansion where the DEN trio lived became known for parties that drew A-list guests, among them alleged predators Bryan Singer and producer Gary Goddard (though neither has faced legal charges and both have denied claims against them).

But before DEN's founders could cash in on a planned IPO, things fell apart. A young man sued, claiming Collins-Rector had started molesting him when he was 13. More litigation followed regarding alleged goings-on at the DEN mansion. One alleged victim, Alexander Burton, claimed that Collins-Rector, Pierce and Shackley had supplied him with alcohol and drugs even though he was under 21 and that all three men subsequently assaulted him. Another accuser was said to have written a suicide note reading in part: "I can't go on. I let them use me as a sex tool." (The note was discovered before a suicide attempt could be made.) There were also accusations that Collins-Rector would intimidate his victims by brandishing a gun.

Pierce later said in a statement, The allegations against me are not true, and I have never had intimate or sexual contact with any of the people who made those allegations. His rep says the allegations in the lawsuit were false.

In August 2000, Collins-Rector was indicted for transporting minors across state lines for sex, and the DEN trio took off for Spain. The sojourn there ended in May 2002 when Interpol showed up, finding weapons and thousands of child-porn images in their house. (Pierce has said he was unaware of the images.) While Pierce and Shackley were quickly released, Collins-Rector was was held in a Spanish jail until October 2003 when he was extradited to the U.S. In June 2004 he pleaded guilty to five counts of transporting minors for sex. After serving out his sentence which, after credit for time served, only amounted to a few months he left the country and renounced his citizenship. (BuzzFeed tracked him down in Europe in 2014.)

While the DEN trio was still in Europe, the young men who had sued over alleged sexual assault at the Encino house were awarded $4.5 million by default because the defendants could not be located. Pierce later returned to the U.S. and settled the claims against him. The settlements do not address any payment to the accusers and Pierces rep says none was made.

Even before returning to the country, Pierce already had a new line of work: In 2001, while living with Collins-Rector in Spain, he had created Internet Gaming Entertainment, a company that enabled devotees of online role-playing games to use virtual currency to buy virtual goods (such as weapons). Eventually the business branched into a practice prohibited by many gaming platforms: real-money trading, in which players offered real cash for virtual goods. In an online bio, Collins-Rector declared himself to be a shadow founder of IGE, but a rep for Pierce says Collins-Rector was never involved in any way with IGE.

Whats unclear is when Collins-Rector stopped being a part of Pierces life. In a lawsuit against Pierce, a former partner in IGE claimed that Pierce had told him in 2005 that Collins-Rector then living overseas and, according to the feds, still consorting with teenage boys had been blackmailing him, threatening to damage IGE in the eyes of investors. Pierces rep says Collins-Rector never threatened blackmail and denies that Pierce ever made such a statement.

Pierces rep suggests the split with Collins-Rector happened in stages: Mr. Pierce separated any business relationship when DEN failed and the internet bubble burst in 2000. Pierce's personal relationship with Collins-Rector lasted until 2003, the rep says thats after Collins-Rectors indictment in 2000 and after Interpol showed up at the house in Spain in 2002. But Pierces rep says at the time of his arrest, Collins-Rector asserted his innocence." It wasn't until Pierce "received additional information concerning Collins-Rector's improper actions" that he separated entirely.

A couple years after Collins-Rector apparently left Pierce's world, Bannon entered it. IGE had started minting money in part through gold-farming operations in China, with low-wage shift workers accumulating in-game currency and virtual goods to sell by playing around the clock. In 2005 Bannon visited the companys offices in Hong Kong and arranged for private-equity firms including his former employer, Goldman Sachs to invest $60 million. Bannon became vice chairman of the business with the idea that he would figure a way to make real-money trading legit.

In 2017, The Washington Post published an expos of IGEs dubious practices such as using the identities of unwitting U.S. residents to create gaming accounts which were in place before Bannon came on board. It was unclear whether Bannon was aware of such activities when he joined the firm, but they continued after his arrival.

Pierce would later describe Bannon as my right-hand man for, like, seven years, but the math on that is hard to figure. Bannon failed in his mission of legitimizing the business, and just a couple of years after he joined the company, IGE was facing declining revenues, growing blowback from online gaming companies, an investigation by Florida authorities and a class-action lawsuit. In 2007 not even two years after Bannon joined the company he forced Pierce out as CEO and took the job himself, according to reports. Eventually the company got out of the virtual-goods business and Bannon sold his stake. (Pierces rep says he remained chairman of IGE until 2015 or 2016, but theres no mention of that in the press release announcing Bannons appointment.)

At some point, Bannon developed his own connection to Epstein, although its unknown when or how the relationship began. In August 2018, he was spotted paying an early-morning visit to Epsteins New York townhouse, and New York Times columnist James B. Stewart reported that Epstein invited him to a dinner with Bannon that month. (Stewart turned down the invitation and Bannon told the Times he did not attend.)

It was not long after Pierces ejection from IGE that he emerged as a player in the world of cryptocurrency. (Bannon also became involved in cryptocurrency.) Pierce founded a number of companies including Blockchain Capital, where his bio identified him as a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. (Bill Clinton, of course, also had a relationship with Epstein, though he has denied knowledge of Epsteins wrongdoing.)

Pierce still seems to have been getting his footing in the still-new world of cryptocurrency when he turned up at Epsteins 2011 conference. Al Seckel, the person who arranged the conference, was a gregarious and litigious poser who had convinced many people that he was a Cornell alum and a cognitive neuroscientist with ties to Cal Tech. (The Mindshift conference featured several scientists from Cal Tech.)

In fact, like Epstein, Seckel never graduated from college, but that hardly held him back. For example, Seckel gave a 2007 TED talk on his particular passion: visual illusions. (His TED bio, since corrected, described him as a cognitive neuroscientist.) He also spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos. (Session title: Art and Illusion: Is Seeing Believing?).

He was definitely what they called a connector, says producer Lawrence Bender, who recalls meeting Seckel at the TED talk. He went out of his way to introduce me to different people.

Seckel also threw splashy parties in Malibu, bringing together high-level people from various backgrounds. (Though Seckel has many detractors, none has ever suggested that he was involved in any kind of sexual predation.)

Presumably Seckel met Epstein through his sort-of wife, Isabel Maxwell the sister ofalleged Epstein enabler Ghislaine Maxwell whom he had married in 2007, while apparently still married to someone else. Whether Epstein was convinced by Seckels phony credentials is not known, but sources say he did turn to Seckel to set up the Mindshift conference.

Pierces rep says he had met Seckel through a networking gathering in Los Angeles and saw him at a few other events after that, which led to the Mindshift invitation. Among the star talent there was physicist and Nobel-laureate Murray Gell-Mann and MIT professor Gerald Sussman. An online announcement of the event was vague about its purpose: "To try to push the frontiers of substantive topics.

By the time of the conference, Seckel and Isabel Maxwell had relocated to France. Bender, who after meeting Seckel at the TED Talk had gotten to know him well enough to be invited to his wedding party and to visit him and his wife at their new home, says he had also started hearing rumors about Seckel's sketchy business dealings. "It started to make me feel like, am I hanging out with the wrong person? he says. Then he disappeared. I thought, 'That's weird.'"

Indeed, in July 2015 Seckels body supposedly was found at the bottom of a cliff in France. He was 56. (The echoes of the fate of Isabel Maxwells father Robert, found floating in the sea near his yacht in 1991, are hard to miss.) Seckel died, it seems, just as Tablet magazine was preparing an article that alleged a litany of dubious business dealings as well as exposed Seckels phony academic credentials and double marriage.

Though the article appeared shortly after Seckels supposed death, it was never updated to reflect Seckels passing. Asked why, author Mark Oppenheimer told THR in an email: "I was never able to establish to my satisfaction that Seckel had died. Though he didnt devote a lot of time to the question, he continued, I always had my suspicions that maybe he faked his own death; it would have been in character. Others who knew Seckel also have their doubts that he's dead and, in fact, it's difficult to verify; authorities in France did not respond to inquiries. And, after all, the man had a passion for illusions.

By February 2018, Pierce was listed ninth on Forbes first list of cryptocurrencys richest with a net worth estimated at $1 billion. Neil Strauss, the reporter who spent 10 days with him for the Rolling Stone profile, described the then-married 37-year-old as a person who rarely ate a full meal or slept in a bed: He crashed on random couches, in the back seats of cars, on tables at bars. The article also noted that Pierce carried a satchel filled with small containers of various plant medicines, such as the Peruvian psychedelic San Pedro and the Amazonian tobacco rap, which he often snorts midmeeting. Pierce was operating from and extolling the virtues of Puerto Rico, and pledging that he would use his wealth to rebuild the island.

But escaping the shadow of Collins-Rector and his notorious past still proved challenging. In March 2018, HBOs Last Week Tonight With John Oliver aired a segment about the speculative mania around the cryptocurrency market and focused on a startup called Block.One. Oliver played tape of Pierce in a straw hat and jeans in what appears to be a promotional video, extolling a company that had already raised $1.5 billion. Everything that exists is no longer going to exist in the way that it does today, Pierce says in the video. Everything in this world is about to be better.

Calling Pierce a sleepy, creepy cowboy from the future, Oliver noted that Pierce had been involved with some very unsavory figures and urged viewers to google Brock Pierce scandal. Then he played another clip in which Pierce rambled about intentionality before showing photos of his entirely unicorn wedding at Burning Man the previous year. (The bridesmaids and groomsmen wore the colors of the rainbow plus pink while the best man was a woman dressed in black, cracking a whip, he said.)

In the immediate aftermath of Olivers takedown, Pierce was ejected from Block.One. Anything I accomplish in my life, Pierce told Rolling Stone, ends up being discredited because of this [old] narrative.

But Pierce is still mixing and mingling with the rich and powerful. In July, he attended a gala for the South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton, New York, that also attracted high-profile Trump world denizens including Kimberly Guilfoyle and hedge-fund billionaire John Paulsen. More recently he was on the guestlist for Equinox and SoulCycle owner Stephen Ross recent, controversial Trump fundraiser, also held in the Hamptons.

Despite their less than idyllic history at IGE, Bannon told The New York Times last year that he would have gotten involved with Pierce and cryptocurrencies in 2016 if the Trump campaign hadnt intervened.

Asked about the mockery that John Oliver had heaped on Pierce, Bannon shrugged, saying he had seen others triumph despite low expectations. These guys," he said, "are visionaries.

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Iranian Government Proposes Annual License for Bitcoin and Crypto Miners – CoinDesk

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CoinDesk has acquired documents detailing a draft proposal for new cryptocurrency mining regulations in Iran, which sources in Tehran say is well on its way toward official approval.

Based on the translated proposal from the Cabinet of Iran, licensed and registered cryptocurrency miners will be required to submit information such as their list of business activities, the predicted value of their investments, current employment status, rental agreements for the space itself, the value of their mining equipment and the duration of the mining project. The license will need to be renewed every year.

Stepping back, the Iranian mining industry has grown dramatically over the past two years, thanks in part to state-subsidized electricity. For example, just one Persian Telegram group for local miners has 3,424 members. Based on a survey of more than 1,600 Iranian crypto users by the market analytics firm Gate Trade, 35 percent of respondents earned income through mining and 70 percent were interested in learning more about local mining businesses. One anonymous source in Tehran told CoinDesk that most miners he knows are under the radar and import equipment through the black market, without paying taxes.

As such, the Central Bank of Iran finally recognized the grassroots industry and promised a lawful licensing procedure in July 2019. This pending proposal was approved by Reza Rahmani, Irans Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade. The Iranian mining licenses would only apply to miners with equipment that requires 30 kilowatts, which might exclude homemade mining equipment or small operations.

However, another source in Tehran, an avid bitcoiner, told CoinDesk he supports this move because it could create the foundations for a sustainable mining industry in the country. For example, if too many miners in a single district apply, the authorities could encourage miners to distribute their operations across the region.

Its obvious that the power industry here in Iran, its not a private business, its from the government, the second anonymous source said. They need to figure out how to balance mining [operations] so that they wouldnt harm the power grid. If theres a constant, a continuous consumption of electricity you can also make new power plants or assign power plants to this.

On the other hand, he still doesnt believe this legislation will completely curtail the flood of hobbyist miners joining the bitcoin community.

There will be a lot of underground mining operations, he said. I predict that this will happen, that the power grid will take a hit from the abundance of people who will do mining in their homes.

A third source in Tehran told CoinDesk he expects Iran to become one of the worlds biggest players in the bitcoin mining sector over the next year.

Bitcoin miner image viaShutterstock

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Andrew Coyne: How do you tell a Conservative from a Liberal? Ask an economist – National Post

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I believe I was the first to propose the creation of an Economists Party, a political movement that would advocate for the sorts of policies favoured by people who study economics for a living, based on the principles at its core.

It could not happen, of course, any more than the existing parties are likely to suddenly embrace the teachings of economists they have so cheerfully ignored until now, and for the same reason: because politics is, at its core, the opposite of economics.

The basic principle of economics is that everything is scarce. The basic principle of politics is that nothing is scarce. Economics teaches that more of one thing can only be had at the expense of less of another. Politics teaches that we can have more of both things, and of everything else besides.

Since more of one thing means less of another, economics tells us there is no point in favouring one part of the economy over another: the resources diverted to one firm, industry or region are simply resources denied to all the rest. Whereas politics is all about such transfers: a perpetual merry-go-round of redistribution, not from rich to poor, which is appropriate, but from everybody to everybody, which is impossible.

One has to suppose that the current generation of Conservatives feels at least some discomfort at the dogs breakfast they are asked to endorse

And if, for some reason, a politician were to resist this impulse, he would shortly find himself out of work. For whereas the benefits of a given intervention are typically concentrated on this or that group, the costs are spread widely; its beneficiaries, accordingly, have every incentive to organize and agitate on its behalf, while those footing the bill consumers, taxpayers, or both have comparatively little at stake as individuals. They may not even know who they are.

Thus it is that politics inclines, more or less inevitably, to prefer the narrow interest over the broad; producers over consumers; the present over the future. The only difference between the parties is whether this bias to the expedient is dressed up as a philosophy and celebrated as a positive good, or merely yielded to.

In practice this is only really an issue for the Conservative party. If you genuinely believe that scarcity is a myth that deficits, far from a vice, are a virtue; that only cruelty and superstition, and not observation and analysis, prevents governments from substituting their own beliefs for how resources should be allocated for those of people with actual skin in the game then your conscience is clear: muck about all you like.

But Conservatives have occasionally affected some familiarity with economics. For brief periods in the recent past within living memory, at any rate Conservatives have professed to believe in such ideas as balanced budgets, free trade and private ownership; to favour a neutral tax system and broad-based tax cuts over narrowly targeted deductions and credits; to understand how price signals are superior to regulatory edicts as spurs to efficient resource use.

So one has to suppose that the current generation of Conservatives, under first Stephen Harper and now Andrew Scheer, feels at least some discomfort at the dogs breakfast they are asked to endorse as party economic policy.

Where once the party stood for bold, broad tax reform, it now confines itself to a clutch of micro-targeted boutique tax credits, such as for childrens fitness or transit passes: spending programs by another name, of precisely the sort of busy-bodying, social-engineering bent that Conservatives used to disdain, and not very effective even at that. Harper could be faulted for taking the party down this road, but Scheer now proposes to revive the same credits even after their abolition by the Liberals.

Or where the party does get around to proposing more broad-based cuts, it does so in a way calculated to produce the least bang for the buck. It was the GST cuts under Harper; it is the cut to the 15 per cent base rate of personal income tax now. As before, the proposal will cost billions, at the expense, not of spending the party is no longer meaningfully committed to balanced budgets but of the deeper cuts in the middle and top marginal rates that the same money would have bought: the kind of cuts that would actually do the economy some good.

(Wait, cut taxes at the top? Heresy! But much of the benefit of the Tory cut would go to those higher up the income scale they pay the 15 per cent rate, too, on the first $47,630 of their income. Only it would take the form of a windfall, rather than an incentive to higher productivity, inasmuch as it would apply to income they had already earned, rather than to income they were thinking of earning to the next investment, or the next hour worked. Want to help the working poor? Enrich the federal Working Income Tax Benefit, which doesnt go to rich people.)

The news is a little better when it comes to business subsidies. But even as Scheer was announcing he would cut such corporate welfare payments by $1.5 billion annually a fraction of the total he was insisting he would preserve those distributed by the sordid pork-barrel rackets known as the regional development agencies. As for supply management, the state-organized price-fixing rings into which much of Canadian agriculture has been organized, we know where Scheer stands on that.

Which rather makes a mockery of his professed concern to make life more affordable for ordinary Canadians, as in his mulish opposition to the federal carbon tax a tax that, unlike the costs of his own, more regulatory-heavy climate change plan, is refunded to consumers. Once, not so long ago, we might have expected the Conservatives to offer a more market-oriented alternative to the Liberals. But now I guess it will have to fall to the Economists Party.

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Christian Conservative Politics Are Driving Liberals Out of the Pews – New York Magazine

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Many liberals think loving Jesus means loving you-know-who. Photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Next door to the parsonage of the small Christian church (Disciples of Christ) congregation, of which I am a member, live a militantly progressive couple who are estranged from their conservative religious upbringing. For years they exchanged pleasantries with the pastor, before stumbling into a political discussion in which they discovered he was not, to their surprise, a right-winger. Oh, I get it: Youre not those Christians, the husband exclaimed. The couple soon became regulars at our church.

I mention this anecdote in connection with new research showing that the political views of conservative Christians notably the militant Christian right composed mostly of white Evangelicals though with some Catholic traditionalists in harness with them are pushing people who strongly disagree with them away from Christianity (or any other religious faith). Amelia Thomson-Deveaux and Daniel Cox explain:

Researchers havent found a comprehensive explanation for why the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans has increased over the past few years the shift is too large and too complex. But a recent swell of social science research suggests that even if politics wasnt the sole culprit, it was an important contributor. Politics can drive whether you identify with a faith, how strongly you identify with that faith, and how religious you are, saidMichele Margolis, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania And some people on the left are falling away from religion because they see it as so wrapped up with Republican politics.

This isnt just a hunch, by the way. The data on who is falling away from religion and why is becoming pretty compelling:

[W]hen two sociologists,Michael HoutandClaude Fischer, began to look at possible explanations for why so many Americans were suddenly becoming secular conventional reasons couldnt explain why religious affiliation started to fall in the mid-1990s. Demographic and generational shifts also couldnt fully account for why liberals and moderates were leaving in larger numbers than conservatives.In a paper published in 2002, they offered a new theory: Distaste for the Christian rights involvement with politics was prompting some left-leaning Americans to walk away from religion.

It hasnt helped, of course, that politically active conservative Christians get enormous attention from secular media. It often seems they are the only real Christians, as they so often profess. To the extent that Christianity is identified with hostility to equality for women or LGBTQ folk, it has a particularly lethal effect on younger Americans an effect that snowballs when their parents are secular liberals as well:

Its no coincidence then that the youngest liberals who never lived in a political world before the Christian right are also the most secular. Its very, very unlikely that a kid raised in a nonreligious liberal household would suddenly consider going to church, Margolis said.

A majority of self-identified Democrats, to be sure, are still religiously affiliated (particularly among African-American and Latino Democrats), but the trend toward non-affiliation is strong and unmistakable enough so that the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution this summer proclaiming the partys welcoming attitude toward the nonreligious (a stance Republicans are not about to emulate). The polarizing force of politicized religion got a little bit stronger when the very prominent Trump-loving Baptist minister Robert Jeffress went on Lou Dobbss show on Fox to declare the Democratic Party godless.

This dynamic is obviously troubling to religious folk who are politically progressive, and/or who would like to see religious leaders speak a bit less confidently about what God wants to do. As the New York Times reported recently in a piece on Rutgers Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, some mainline (i.e., non-Evangelical) Protestant churches are trying to get ahead of the curve by appealing to the religiously unaffiliated on the basis of a common commitment to progressive causes:

Sharing a belief in God any God at all isnt necessary. Instead, the community there has been cobbled together by a different code of convictions, pulled in by social justice efforts, activism against climate change, meal programs for the homeless and atask force to help refugee families.

Houses of worship including Christian churches from a range of denominations, as well as synagogues have positioned themselves as potent forces on progressive issues, promoting activism on social justice causes and inviting in the L.G.B.T.Q. community. But religious scholars said that Rutgers was reaching a new frontier where its social agenda in some ways overshadowed its religious one.

You could argue that such pioneers are simply engaged in the time-honored practice of missionary outreach or you might fear they are following their conservative cousins in focusing so much on secular political goals that religion does become secondary. But at least they are helping to challenge the stereotypical Christian right and secular view that if you love Jesus, you must hate gays and legalized abortion and environmental paganism and those sneaky and sinister Muslims. The more non-religiously-affiliated Americans think Robert Jeffress or Mike Pence or (shudder) Donald Trump speak for God in this country, the less likely they will ever darken the door of a church, where it is assumed those Christians are stewing in their cultural pathologies.

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Liberal pundit tweets daydream of destroying president’s property with car after Trump Plaza incident – Fox News

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A liberal commentator admitted on Wednesday that he often thinks about driving his car into Trump Plaza following an incident that took place at a Trump-branded property.

The bizarre admission was made after a car reportedly lost control and plowed through the lobby of a Trump Plaza condominium complex just outside New YorkCityon Tuesday night.

Videos of the crash posted to social media shortly after 9 p.m. show a damaged black Mercedes-Benz inside the marble lobby of the 40-story luxury residential building inNew Rochelle, N.Y., about 18 miles north of Manhattan.

Police told Fox Newsthe driver and two pedestrians suffered non-life-threatening injuries. An investigation is ongoing. Authorities said it is too early to tellif drugs or alcohol were involved. The crash is believed to have been an accident.

MSNBC GUEST SAYS HE WANTS'PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES' OUTSIDE PRO-TRUMP EQUINOX CHAIRMAN'S HOUSE

On the heels of the report, Above the Law executive editor and occasionalMSNBC guest Elie Mystal took to Twitter and saidhe sometimes thinks about doing the same --except it wouldn't have been an accident.

"Real talk: When you come out of the parking lot of this mall/movie theater, you have to sit a red light staring right into this lobby. Ive thought about driving my car through it EVERY TIME. Basic humanity keeps me from doing it, but JUST," Mystal wrote in a Twitter thread flagged by Mediaite. "The view in this picture is exactly the view you have from the stop light. Its a long light. You have a lot of time to ... think."

Mystal went on to speculate that the incident wasn't an "accident," and said that he shouldn't be selected as a juror in the case.

"Anyway, innocent until proven guilty but ... 'accident'doesnt seem likely to me. Maybe thats my own bias. Defense counsel should NOT put me on this guys jury, I know too much," Mystal said, adding a smiley face emoticon.

Last month, Mystal appeared on MSNBC and called for "pitchforks and torches" outside the Hamptons residence of Equinox and SoulCycle chairman Stephen Ross after it became known that he was hosting a fundraiser forPresident Trump.

"I want pitchforks and torches outside this man's house in the Hamptons," Mystal said. "I've been to the Hamptons, it's very nice. There's no reason it has to be. There's no reason he should be able to have a nice little party. There's no reason why people shouldn't be able to be outside of his house and making their voices peacefully understood."

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Mystal has also said Trump supporters should be "destroyed" at the ballot box.

"You don't communicate it to them -- you beat them. Beat them. They are not the majority of this country. The majority of white people in this country are not a majority of the country," Mystal said while appearing onMSNBC's "AM Joy."

"And all the people who are not fooled by this need to come together, go to the polls, go to the protests, do whatever you have to do.You do not negotiate with these people -- you destroy them."

Fox News' Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

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Liberal pundit tweets daydream of destroying president's property with car after Trump Plaza incident - Fox News

Both the Left and the Right Are Attacking Liberal Democracy – Patheos

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Freedom. Rights. Equality. Democracy. Rule of Law. Free Enterprise. These are the tenets of liberal democracy (the word liberal referring not to left-leaning progressivism but to the Latin word for freedom). Most Americans across the political spectrum take these principles for granted. But today liberal democracy is being attacked from both the left and the right.

Despite the alleged polarization of our politics, some conservatives and some liberals are agreeing with each other that our constitutional liberties and system of government (and their equivalent in other parts of the world) are to blame. But, of course, they criticize it for different reasons.

To generalize, the Left is currently frustrated with such constitutional rights as religious liberty, the right to keep and bear arms, and freedom of speech, believing that they give the individual too much latitude and prevent the government from taking collective action to ensure justice for all, including preventing discrimination. Politically, the Left would like to change the Supreme Court, the Electoral College, and tenets of democratic federalism that helped elect Donald Trump. Liberal democracy empowers individuals at the expense of groups and makes for smaller, weaker governments that cannot take effective action against social injustice.

But the Lefts problems with liberal democracy go deeper. Accompanying personal and political freedom is economic freedom, a.k.a., capitalism, which has enabled some individuals to become extremely wealthy and politically influential. This is held to contradict the democratic principle of equality and to allow the wealthy and members of other privileged groups to exercise power over workers, minorities, women, the poor, and other marginalized groups.

Continuing the generalizations, the Right believes that the freedom made possible by liberal democracy undermines the family, destroys communities, and weakens the church and other moral authorities. This side, like the Left, also criticizes free market economics for pursuing profit over the needs of local communities and replacing national interests with economic globalism.

We have blogged about the religious rejection of liberal democracy in the Catholic movement known as integralism, but some political conservatives are also raising doubts about some traditional American principles, suggesting that democracy is too individualistic to promote the common good.

The left-leaning online magazine Voxgives the reasoning from both sides. ReadZack Beauchamp, The anti-liberal moment, with the deck Critics on the left and right are waging war on liberalism. And liberals dont seem to have a good defense. Here are some excerpts:

[From the Left]

Liberalisms core error, in this view, comes from a mistake in its vision of democracy. Liberals support democracy as a matter of principle, believing that individuals have a right to shape decisions that affect their lives in deep and important ways. But liberals curiously excludes parts of economic life from this zone of collective self-determination, seeing the market as a place where people have individual but not collective rights. Liberalism sees nothing wrong with the heads of Amazon and Facebook making decisions that have implications for the entire economy.

So long as capitalists are free from democratic constraint, leftists argue, liberal democracy is on dangerous footing. The super-rich use the power their accumulated wealth provides to influence political life, rearranging policy to protect and expand their fortunes. The rise of neoliberalism is, per thesocialist writer Peter Frase, this process in action: proof that capitalism will invariably corrupt liberalisms promise of freedom and equality.

The rights attack on liberalism is even more sweeping than the lefts.

Conservative anti-liberals question not only freedom in the economic sphere, but the value of pluralistic democracy itself arguing that core liberal ideals about tolerance and equality actually produce an insidious form of tyranny that destroys communities and deadens the human spirit. . . .

Liberalisms foundational premise is that the government must defend liberty: that people should be free to choose their paths in life, and that the states role should first and foremost be protecting and enabling the exercise of this freedom. Conservative critics believe this basic liberal picture is rooted in a false, impoverished view of human life there is not, and never has been, such a thing as freely choosing, autonomous individuals.

Actual people are embedded inside social relations and identities most notably, family, faith, and community without which they lack meaning and purpose. Liberalism elevates the will of the individual at the expense of these pre-political bonds. . . .

For decades now our politics and culture have been dominated by a particular philosophy of freedom, [Missouri Senator Josh] Hawley writes in an essay published byChristianity Today. It is a philosophy of liberation from family and tradition, of escape from God and community, a philosophy of self-creation and unrestricted, unfettered free choice.

The pursuit of profit erodes social ties, creating incentives for people to pursue their self-interest rather than build families or embed themselves in communities. Young people leave their small towns in search of career and meaning in anonymous big cities, destroying the communal ethos that allowed people to feel happy and secure. Rising inequality chips away at the bonds of social solidarity, hollowing out the middle class and placing deep barriers between citizens. . . .

The political project of liberalism is shaping us intoincreasingly separate, autonomous, non-relational selves replete with rights and defined by our liberty, but insecure, powerless, afraid, and alone, [Notre Dame political theorist Patrick] Deneen, probably the sharpest of these conservative anti-liberals, writes in his bookWhy Liberalism Failed.

What do you think about all of this? Have you, for reasons either of the Right or the Left, given up on freedom and democracy? If not, how would you defend these principles against their critics? If so, what alternatives to our current constitutional order do you envision?

Illustration: Democracy Chronicles, Public Domain via Flickr.

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Both the Left and the Right Are Attacking Liberal Democracy - Patheos

Challenge to Liberals’ Chinese election signs to go to trial in federal court – The Guardian

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Challenges to the election of embattled Liberal MP Gladys Liu and the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, over allegedly misleading signs at polling booths will go to trial in the federal court.

Justice Michelle Gordon made the direction on Wednesday in the high court, sitting as the court of disputed returns, to move the matter down so it could be dealt with more efficiently.

She said the lower court would be better placed to handle issues over access to information.

Liu and Frydenberg, who hold federal seats in Victoria, are being challenged over controversial signs authorised by the Liberal party that were displayed at polling booths in their electorates of Chisholm and Kooyong on the day of Mays federal election.

They were in the Australian Electoral Commissions official colours of purple and white, had no Liberal branding, did not refer to the Liberal candidates or policies, and were in Chinese.

The translation of the words was: The right way to vote: On the green ballot paper fill in 1 next to the candidate of Liberal Party and fill in the numbers from smallest to largest in the rest of the boxes.

The matter has been taken to court by Oliver Yates, one of the former candidates for Frydenbergs seat for Kooyong, and retired social worker and climate campaigner, Leslie Hall.

At a directions hearing on Wednesday, Lisa De Ferrari SC, acting for Yates and Hall said her side had hoped lawyers for the MPs would agree to hand over information.

But she said it hadnt happened, making it necessary for the court to issue orders to help them get it.

Gordon said the court of disputed returns would not ordinarily deal with such an order, deciding instead it should go to a trial judge at the federal court.

De Ferrari said she believed the other side would be withholding either way.

Theyre going to be combative. Theyre going to be combative in this court, theyre going to be combative in the federal court, she said.

Philip Solomon QC, for Frydenberg and Liu, said his side would make substantial admissions.

It may be that those admissions have the consequences that many of the documentary requests fall away, he told the court.

But he acknowledged that knowledge remained an issue.

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Challenge to Liberals' Chinese election signs to go to trial in federal court - The Guardian

Liberals delay release of PBO platform costings, say only big ticket pledges will get independent review – The Globe and Mail

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Liberal Party leader and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Sept. 11, 2019.

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Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is delaying the release of independent reports on the cost of his promises and will not be submitting all of his election pledges for review by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

It is the first election campaign in which political parties have the option of submitting potential campaign promises to the PBO in confidence for an analysis of the estimated cost. If the party decides to go ahead with the idea, it can then authorize the PBO to post its analysis online.

The Liberals legislated the new rules after promising the change in their 2015 platform, which said it would help Canadians make informed decisions during elections.

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However, the Liberal campaign team said the party is only submitting big ticket proposals to the PBO for costing. The party is also delaying the release of related PBO reports until the full platform is released because some promises are connected and releasing costing reports individually wouldnt tell the whole story.

By contrast, the Conservative Party is submitting all of their campaign promises for costing by the PBO.

So far, the PBO has posted reports on six Conservative Party campaign announcements and two NDP announcements. The reports summarize each promise and provide an estimate by fiscal year of how the measure would affect Ottawas bottom line. The estimates provide significantly more detail than is commonly found in political party platforms and the figures are regularly quoted by journalists covering the specific announcements.

The PBO has not posted any analysis of Liberal announcements, even though Mr. Trudeau has been touring the country making election promises.

On Tuesday in St. Johns, Mr. Trudeau promised that a re-elected Liberal government would make maternity and parental benefits tax-exempt. When Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer made a similar promise earlier in the campaign, the Conservatives approved the release of the PBOs costing document, which said the measure would reduce federal revenues by more than $1-billion a year once fully implemented.

A Liberal Party news release said the cost of its Tuesday announcement would rise to $1.2-billion by 2023-24. Yet no PBO document was released in relation to the Liberal version of the promise.

We have made use of the Parliamentary Budget Officers new powers to cost political parties platforms. We have used them on a number of our platform announcements that will be forthcoming, Mr. Trudeau said when asked why the Liberals have not released a related costing document by the PBO.

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We know its important for Canadians to have an objective review of the cost of various platforms and I can assure you that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has been very much engaged by the Liberal Party on a number of elements within our platform costing and when our full platform costing comes out in the coming weeks, that will be abundantly clear.

The PBO is an independent office staffed by researchers and economists that reports to Parliament on a wide range of issues related to government spending and economic trends.

The Liberals changes to the Parliament of Canada Act that gave the PBO these new powers clearly states that once a costed-promise has been made public, the PBO should release its costing document as soon as possible. In practice, the PBO has released other costing documents on the same day they were announced.

In an e-mail to The Globe and Mail, Yves Giroux, the PBO, said that for a costing report to be posted to the PBO website, two requirements must be met. Firstly, the party must submit its request for costing, and secondly, the party must notify the PBO that the policy has been announced and the costing can be released.

Until both conditions are satisfied, we cannot post, he said. Given the confidentiality rules under our electoral proposal costing mandate, I can unfortunately not say anything further.

The PBOs website also states that its mandate is to cost individual policy promises and not entire party platforms.

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The PBO will prepare each estimate independently, so the PBO will not consider the consequences that a partys proposal may have for the financial cost of its other proposals, the office states in its written guidelines.

Conservative Party spokesman Simon Jefferies said all of Mr. Scheers campaign promises will be costed by the PBO.

Justin Trudeau and the Liberals should be up front and honest with Canadians and release their costing as they make their platform commitments, he said in an e-mail. Its starting to look they have something to hide and are preparing a document dump days before election day."

Mr. Jefferies also accused Mr. Trudeau of being cagey as to whether or not all of the Liberal Partys promises will be vetted by the PBO.

"This begs the question, why? Did they not get an answer they were looking for from the PBO? he asked.

The Conservative Party had initially expressed reservations about participating in the PBO process out of concern that promises could potentially be leaked. However, the party decided to submit its promises to the PBO after receiving personal assurances from Mr. Giroux about the measures the office would take to keep information secret until it is released.

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NDP spokeswoman Mlanie Richer noted in an e-mail that her party was the first to approve the release of a PBO costing report. She said the NDP is working with the PBO on many of its commitments, but declined to say whether all NDP promises were costed.

What we are concerned about is that Mr. Trudeau has not been clear about where he is going to get the funds to pay for his promises," she said.

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Liberals delay release of PBO platform costings, say only big ticket pledges will get independent review - The Globe and Mail

Can the Liberal Democrats turn momentum into votes? – The Independent

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It seemsthe sky is the limit for the Liberal Democrats at the moment, as unbridled optimism sweeps overthe partys annual gathering.

After years in the wilderness, the Lib Dems are on the up and they are clearly feelingjubilant.

Chuka Umunna, one of the partys recent converts, claimed itcould win 200 seats in the next election, while Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat leader, said she was aiming for a slightlymore moderate100 seats.

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Thepartys ranks were bolstered by former Tory MP Sam Gyimah on Saturday, who became the sixth MP to defect to the Liberal Democrats in recent months.

He joins ex-Conservatives Sarah Wollaston and Phillip Lee, as well as former Labour MPs Luciana Berger, Umunna and Angela Smith in moving over to Jo Swinsonsnewly energisedparty.

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But it remains to be seen whether this momentum can be turned into votes at an early general election.

Recent opinion polls tend to put the Lib Dems in third place behind the Tories and Labour, with the latest survey by Opinium putting the party on 16 per cent.

If the party wants to make serious gainsit will need to consolidate the Remain vote, which has been fragmented since the referendum.

The Lib Dems unashamed support for Remain has contrasted positively with Labours equivocation. ButJeremy Corbyns party is nowshifting towards a more pro-EU position.

So Swinson has gone even harder, telling the party faithful in Bournemouth that the Lib Dems would revoke Article 50 without a referendum if she was inDowning Street.

The move has caused fury amongBrexiteers, who deem it undemocratic, as well as ripples of concern among advocates for a Final Say referendum.

But Swinson is gamblingthis will play well for her Europhile base. The Opinium poll found55 per cent of Remain voters supported cancelling Brexit, and only 26 per cent support extending the Brexit negotiations and putting a revised deal to a public vote.

The pledge is designed to offer a distinctive message from Labour,in advance of its annual conference in Brighton this weekend.

Labour has already shifted towards supporting a referendum on any deal and pro-EU activists will be piling the pressure on Corbyn to commit to campaigning for Remain.

The problem for the Lib Dems will be transforming the energy and optimism into Westminster seats.

Veteran pollster Sir John Curtice said there wereonly 22 constituencies where the Lib Dems came within 25 points of the winning candidate in 2017, which he himself describes as a generous definition ofa marginal seat.

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Of these seats, plenty were in Leave areas and would involve taking on the Tories, who are starting to hoover up the Brexit Party vote.

The Lib Dems and Labour could end up scrabbling over the same voters in pro-EU areas leaving the way clear for the Conservatives.

An upcoming election will undoubtedly be a Brexit election, but the Lib Dems will want to think carefully about what else they stand for, if they want to win big.

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Can the Liberal Democrats turn momentum into votes? - The Independent