Liberal government ends 2018-19 fiscal year with $14-billion deficit – The Globe and Mail

Posted on by

The official figure for the year that ended March 31 is a slight improvement over the governments estimated deficit figure of $14.9-billion, which was provided in Finance Minister Bill Morneaus March budget.

Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press

The Finance Department closed the books on the 2018-19 fiscal year Tuesday, reporting that the federal government ran a $14-billion deficit.

The official figure for the year that ended March 31 is a slight improvement over the governments estimated deficit figure of $14.9-billion, which was provided in Finance Minister Bill Morneaus March budget.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau campaigned in 2015 on a plan to run short-term deficits and to balance the books by 2019, but the March budget had previously confirmed that this target will not be met.

Story continues below advertisement

While Mr. Trudeau mentioned 2019 as his target for erasing the deficit, the 2015 Liberal platform specified that a return to surplus would not occur until the 2019-2020 fiscal year, which began April 1.

That is no longer the Liberal plan. Mr. Morneaus March budget estimated that the size of the deficit would be larger this fiscal year and next $19.8-billion and $19.7-billion before declining to $9.8-billion in 2023-2024.

Since then, Mr. Trudeau has made new spending promises on the campaign trail. The Liberal Party has not yet released a fully-costed platform with a revised projection for the federal bottom line to accommodate those promises.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report in June with its latest estimate for the state of Ottawas bottom line. The PBO said the size of the deficit will peak at $23.3-billion in 2020-21 before declining gradually to nearly zero or $200-million by 2028-29.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is promising to erase the deficit within five years. On the campaign trail, he has announced a package of tax cuts that will ultimately reduce federal tax revenues by over $8-billion a year.

Mr. Scheer said this week that his partys platform will show how a Conservative government can cut taxes and balance the books.

Tuesdays Finance Department report also shows that tax revenue as a share of GDP reached 15 per cent for the first time in a decade, up from 14.5 per cent in 2017-18, the previous fiscal year. Federal tax revenues as a share of GDP exceeded 15 per cent for four consecutive decades until 2008-09. After Stephen Harpers Conservative government reduced the GST from 7 per cent to 5 per cent, tax revenues dropped below 15 per cent for the next decade.

Story continues below advertisement

Story continues below advertisement

Government spending also rose, from 14.4 per cent of GDP in 2017-18 to 14.6 per cent in 2018-19.

The report says personal income tax revenues increased by $10.3-billion in 2018-19, or 6.7 per cent, driven by high employment and a strong labour market.

Go here to read the rest:

Liberal government ends 2018-19 fiscal year with $14-billion deficit - The Globe and Mail

Gladys Liu’s fundraising earned her a place in the Liberal elites, but what do they think of her? – ABC News

Posted on by

Updated September 13, 2019 16:51:18

Gladys Liu is a supreme networker. She's positively brilliant at it.

Just ask the treasurer of the Box Hill Chess Club.

"Gladys is more than a change agent," Trevor Stanning wrote in a reference for Ms Liu's Liberal Party nomination in September last year.

"She brought strategic structure to the aims of the club. The club now dominates the Australian chess scene, winning more Australian championships than any other club."

Domination. Change. A more glowing reference you will not read. Ms Liu was a transformative figure who took a suburban chess club to greatness.

Now it is Ms Liu who has been put in check.

Ms Liu's former colleagues in Victorian Liberal politics do indeed remember her as something of a change agent.

When she worked for then premier Ted Baillieu, she had a business card. One side was in English, the other in Mandarin. Her title was the same.

It said "Chinese Chief of Staff". The title might have chafed with the real chief of staff but what it meant was delivered in dollars. And a lot of them.

Ms Liu has long been a prodigious Victorian Liberal fundraiser in Chinese circles.

She's been quite the genius in this enterprise, a veritable Miss Moneybags to the Liberal Party purse.

So much so, that when Denis Napthine replaced Mr Baillieu as Liberal Premier in 2013, and then decided to take a mission to China the year after, it was suggested strongly that he take Ms Liu with him.

Why? Because if he didn't, her status in the Chinese community would be diminished and so would her worth to the Liberal coffers.

Mr Napthine did take Ms Liu to China on that trip. But Liberals say she took a less prominent role than she took on trips to China with Mr Baillieu.

But Ms Liu has been a significant force inside the Victorian Liberal Party for 15 years, whether the old-timers knew it or not.

Indeed, she advertised her importance to the Liberals in her application to become candidate for the electorate of Chisholm at the 2019 federal election.

"I have raised over $1 million for the party by organising events both large and small, centrally for the party as well as locally for MPs and candidates," Ms Liu wrote in her Liberal application for endorsement.

She was the One Million Dollar Woman, and reminding the party of it, after two failed bids to become a state parliamentarian.

"They [Labor] have preselected a Chinese-Australian candidate, Jennifer Yang, who has significant political experience and polled strongly to finish second out of 18 candidates in Melbourne Lord Mayor by-election," Ms Liu told preselectors.

"Backed by Labor funds and pork-barrelling, and taking advantage of the fact that many Chinese-Australians are quite unfamiliar with Australian politics, she represents a serious threat.

"If our Labor opponent is able to take Chisholm and build up a base of support among its Chinese community, I believe it would not only make Chisholm more difficult to win back in the future, but would also affect our prospect in neighbouring seats."

Ms Liu weaponised the fact she was Chinese and the changing nature of the Chisholm electorate. She knew the susceptibilities of the Liberal Party and expertly seized the opportunity.

"Nearly 30 per cent of families in Chisholm speak Mandarin or Cantonese at home. Since I can speak fluent English, Mandarin or Cantonese, I will make the most of my language to be an effective voice for the Liberal Party in the Chinese community in Chisholm," she told preselectors.

What Ms Liu offered was gold dust. If extracted, it was invaluable, especially against a formidable Labor candidate like Jennifer Yang.

Did Ms Liu expect to win? Of course, she did. Gladys always believes in Gladys. It's her gift. It drives her.

But did the Liberals believe Ms Liu might win Chisholm should she contest the 2019 federal election?

Now that's a trickier question.

Opportunity always lies in misfortune. And the Liberals believed fortune lay with Labor last year, after the leadership catastrophe. Preselecting Ms Liu had a big upside. She'd bring in buckets of cash.

But did the Liberals think she'd win Chisholm?

No. The damage done in the Liberals' take-down of Malcolm Turnbull was considerable in Chisholm where Mr Turnbull was popular. The defection of Julia Banks, the Liberal incumbent, had made Chisholm an assumed Labor gain in the federal election.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was going to be the next prime minister, so in defeat why not go down with your pockets full of money, care of Ms Liu's exceptional contacts?

It seemed a no-brainer to some.

But other Liberals believed Ms Liu's company would eventually catch up with her.

When ASIO advised Mr Turnbull not to attend a "meet and greet" function in Box Hill in February 2018, it was because of the folk Ms Liu had invited.

At the time, Ms Liu wasn't even the Liberal candidate, just an enthusiastic party member acting in aid of the sitting member.

Exactly who on the A4 list of 30 names had sparked concern with security agencies is not known.

But the list, supplied by Julia Banks at the request of the Prime Minister's Office, had Ms Liu's name on it.

So is Gladys Liu a spy?

Hell no, say Liberals.

"She's the get-ahead girl. She's intelligent, she networks furiously, she's ambitious. It's all about Gladys," says one.

Another says: "Gladys is no Chinese agent. Does she have the wrong friends? No doubt."

Topics:liberals,government-and-politics,scott-morrison,australia,melbourne-3000

First posted September 13, 2019 14:15:38

Read more:

Gladys Liu's fundraising earned her a place in the Liberal elites, but what do they think of her? - ABC News

And Satoshis True Identity is – CCN.com

Posted on by

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

The identity of the enigmatic person (or people) who created bitcoin remains as mysterious as Jack the Ripper.

Pundits and experts all over the world have put forth their assertions as to who Satoshi truly is. It is the subject of much debate in the bitcoin and cryptocurrencies world.

Satoshi is regarded as a legendary figure, a mystery of such gigantic proportions that one may soon find him enshrined alongside Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.

That is why it will shock readers to know that I know the true identity of Satoshi.

I will reveal his identity at the end of this article!

Yet there is something even more compelling than knowing the true identity of Satoshi. It is the fact that nobody should care who or what Satoshi's true identity is, because it doesn't matter, and never will.

There is an unsurprising correlation between the hype surrounding bitcoin and the hype surrounding the identity of Satoshi. Both are composed entirely of vapor. Just as there is nothing to support the value of bitcoin above zero, the value of knowing Satoshi's identity is also zero.

Ed Butowsky, Managing Partner of Chapwood Capital Investment Management in Dallas, tells CCN:

"Has it ever mattered to anyone who invented paper currency in the United States, or anywhere else for that matter? Has it ever mattered that the Treasury Secretary invented paper currency for United States in 1861? Has it changed, or will it ever change, how people spend their currency? No. The only reason anyone will want to know who his identity is so they can blame someone when bitcoin collapses"

Nor should it matter whether Satoshi is a man living with his mother in her basement, the Abominable Snowman, Donald Trump, Mickey Mouse, or the man behind the counter at the corner 7-11.

None of this changes what bitcoin is, how it is been used in the past, or how it will be used in the future, or how much money will be lost when bitcoin goes to zero.

Bitcoin is based entirely on speculation. Its value is simply determined by what one person thinks he can sell it for, and what another person will pay for it.

There is no asset to back it.

No matter how many bitcoin bull tell me that there is nothing to back other assets either, I will always tell them that they are not only wrong, but that is not an affirmative argument for bitcoin.

That is why I will also tell them that bitcoin is simply one big scam being perpetrated by the very believers in it. It is the closest thing to the Dutch Tulip Craze of the 1600s that we have ever seen.

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that believes in bitcoin and its potential that they should be equally invested in another ghost named Satoshi. The whole thing is so off-the-rails that even impostors are trying to gain notoriety for pretending to be him!

But I promised you I would reveal the true identity of Satoshi, and now I will.

Look in the mirror. He's right there.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this op-ed are solely those of the author and do not represent those of, nor should they be attributed to, CCN Markets.

Last modified (UTC): September 17, 2019 6:37 PM

September 14, 2019 2:00 PM

See the rest here:

And Satoshis True Identity is - CCN.com

Craig Wrights Hidden Treasures: Court Order to Unlock the Tulip Trust – Cointelegraph

Posted on by

Since early 2018, Craig Wright, acontroversial Australian computer scientist and tech entrepreneur, has been the defendant in alawsuit filed on behalf of the estate of Dave Kleiman, Wrights late business partner. The claim alleged that following Kleimans death in 2013, Wright unlawfully appropriated more than a million Bitcoin (BTC) that the duo had mined jointly in the early years of the cryptocurrency, as well as some related intellectual property. After a recent resolution, the case seems to be decided although many important questions remain unanswered.

In late August, after months of litigation, Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart of the Southern District of Florida ruled in favor of the Kleiman estate, which is represented by Daves brother Ira. In his decision, Reinhart reproached Wright, saying that Dr. Wrights demeanor did not impress me as someone who was telling the truth, and also admonished the defendant for engaging in a willful and bad faith pattern of obstructive behavior, including submitting incomplete or deceptive pleadings, filing a false declaration, knowingly producing a fraudulent trust document, and giving perjurious testimony at the evidentiary hearing.

The judge didnt buy Wrights version of the story. The Australian claimed that the partnership between Dave Kleiman and himself, acting under the alias Satoshi Nakamoto, was the entity responsible for inventing Bitcoin. Having realized at some point that digital currency had come to be used predominantly for funding illicit activity, Wright decided to distance himself from the project. Wright maintains that he and Kleiman put some 1 million BTC theyd mined together into what they called the Tulip Trust, a storage unit secured by the two mens cryptographic signatures.

Although Wright lost access to the funds when Kleiman died, the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto says that the missing keys needed to unlock the trust will be somehow delivered to him by a bonded courier. The distrustful judge responded with a literary allusion: Apparently, dead men tell no tales, but they (perhaps) send bonded couriers.

Related: Bitcoin Creator and Superagent: What You Should Know About Craig Wright

Wright and his counsels pledged to challenge the order, although they had torequest a two-week extension of the time afforded to file the motion. At the same time, Wrightargued that, should Ira end up with half of the Tulip Trust, he will need to sell a huge chunk of it in order to be able to pay a 40% estate tax, which would inevitably tank the Bitcoin market.

The markets, however, didnt seem particularly intimidated, as no major price movements occurred in the days following Wrights statement. Ryan Selkis, CEO of crypto research firm Messari, told Bloomberg he was not concerned about Wright transferring BTC to Ira Kleiman because he didnt think Wright had any to transfer. RT host Max Keiser even predicted that the realization of Wright lacking the money he is ordered to pay would drive BTC price steeply upward.

On Sept. 17, both sides filed a joint motion to extend all discovery and case deadlines by 30 more days to facilitate good faith settlement discussions in which they have stated to be engaged. The parties claim in the document that they are currently finalizing all relevant terms, and that pushing back all the deadlines including the trial would help them reach a final, binding settlement agreement.

Some crypto and tech publications were quick toreport that the court ordered Wright to pay over $5 billion worth of Bitcoin to Kelimans estate, which is, in fact, not exactly what Reinhart had ruled. Indeed, Reinhartsorder establishes that all Bitcoin mined by the Kleiman-Wright partnership between 2009 and 2013 as well as whatever Bitcoin-related intellectual property the duo had produced throughout the same period belongs to Wright and Kleimans heirs in equal parts.

However, the judge never produced a definitive determination on how much Bitcoin is to be divvied up or what specific intellectual property the ruling applies to. This does not come across as surprising, given that the court has been unable to establish these details to date.

There are two reasons why the $5 billion language has gained so much traction in the cryptosphere. One is that the originalclaim filed with the U.S. District Court mentioned hundreds of thousands of bitcoin, the ownership of which was contested. When the claim was filed in 2018, the valuation of Kleimans half of the alleged Tulip Trust exceeded $5 billion, which remains its value today. What helped to further engrave the figure in the crypto communitys collective mind is Wrightsinterview to Modern Consensus.

In a conversation with an overly sympathetic interviewer, Wright stated: The judge ordered me to send just under 500,000 BTC over to Ira. Lets see what it does to the market. I wouldnt have tanked the market. Im nice. He mentioned the figure 5 billion several times, even complaining how the newfound knowledge of their familys enormous wealth would ruin his childrens lives.

Granted, it is extremely unlikely that any litigation of this kind would passingly establish the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. The judge in the present case explicitly stated: First, the Court is not required to decide, and does not decide, whether Defendant Dr. Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of the Bitcoin cybercurrency. Yet, Wright seems to be leveraging the case to promote his I am Satoshi narrative.

Related: Kleiman Files Craig Wright Controversy Gets Complicated

It is awidespread belief that the massive pool of Bitcoin that was mined in 2009 and 2010 and has since remained dormant belongs to the founding father of cryptocurrency. The amount of digital currency stored in the Tulip Trust (1.1 million BTC) coupled with Wrights description of the timeline of its emergence loosely correspond with the semi-mythical story of the original whale stash. According to crypto researcher Sergio Lerner, some 980,000 of the first Bitcoins to be mined can be traced back to a single mining entity, and they have never been moved.

The courts success in linking Wrights identity to the original trove of more than a million digital coins would effectively validate him as the inventor of Bitcoin. It would also mean that Wright has to pay some $5 billion to Ira Kleiman who, in turn, would have to flood the market with a significant share of the Bitcoin obtained in order to pay a 40% estate tax.

Wrights alleged, temporary lack of access to the so-called Satoshi funds is his excuse for why he still hasnt shown the world this solid evidence to support his claims and why he has yet been unable to comply with the court order. It is shaky ground indeed, and Wright cant stay there forever.

It looks like the case has been effectively decided on its merits: Wright will owe Dave Kleimans estate half of what they jointly produced. Even though Wrights side has pledged to appeal the latest ruling, it seems all but impossible that any judge would ever overturn it without shocking new evidence. As blockchain lawyer Stephen Palleyshared with the Financial Times: I view this case as being over. When you have two federal judges that have said youre a ducking [sic] liar, youre not going to win, although he added that the case may still linger for six months to a year.

Many intriguing side developments, however, are likely to emerge in the coming months. A lot hinges on how much of Wrights Bitcoin (if any at all) officials will be able to discover. At this point, since the defendant failed to produce any BTC addresses (save for a few unverified ones that were produced under a protective order), the court does not possess much information on his assets.

As the civil process ensues, there will likely be more discovery requests and even if Wrights counsels manage to buy some time appealing the decision, the funds locked up in the Tulip Trust should finally become available in early 2020, according to Wright himself.

Once the Bitcoin jointly mined by Wright and Kleiman is located, the Australian will have to give up half of it to his late business partners estate. If he refuses to honor the court order, Wright may face some tangible consequences, as Layla Tabatabaie, senior consultant at the blockchain PR firm Wachsman, stated to Cointelegraph:

Wright would be found in contempt of court, and the court may impose imprisonment or monetary fines in fiat currency against him. Being held in civil contempt of court could actually be worse than being held in criminal contempt, because you arent afforded the same constitutional rights as a criminal defendant. Barring any egregious actions by Wright, it is far more likely that the punishment would begin with mounting monetary fines.

In other words, failing to produce the Bitcoin addresses in which his and Kleimans funds are stored will, at some point, become costly for Wright.

Another consequential detail that makes this case interesting to follow and could render it a landmark case for the crypto industry is how exactly the court will go about calculating the amount of money to be paid to the plaintiff and whether repayment will be in coin or fiat.

One way to look for directions on what could happen is to examine the comparable cases that involve digital securities. The Securities and Exchange Commission has, on several occasions, ordered rescission to wronged crypto investors as part of a securities settlement. However, according to Dror Futter, a partner at law firm Rimon P.C., the regulator has not addressed this question.

So, as there is no guidance as to how such payouts are to be executed whether in fiat or crypto, and if in crypto, at what exchange rate the next few months should bring more certainty to the many undefined variables in this equation.

The rest is here:

Craig Wrights Hidden Treasures: Court Order to Unlock the Tulip Trust - Cointelegraph

Five Reasons Satoshi Nakamoto Is Smarter than Mark Zuckerberg – CCN.com

Posted on by

At every turn in Facebooks journey toward launching Libra, the social media giant is realizing that governments around the world do not take kindly to attempts to remove some of their power.

The latest setback has emerged from Europe. Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, has declared that Libras development on European soil wont be allowed until concerns over the monetary sovereignty of governments are addressed. Other governments across the globe have expressed similar concerns.

That Mark Zuckerberg, with all his power and wealth, is flailing in his efforts to launch a mere virtual currency is a demonstration of how mightily superior the eponymously named bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto is.

Without Facebook's resources and Mark Zuckerberg's clout and fame, Satoshi Nakamoto birthed bitcoin and it now has a market cap of nearly $200 billion. Libra, on the other hand, faces the prospects of turning out to be a stillbirth.

The difference all comes down to smarts. Here are five takes that demonstrate the Zuck will never be the genius that Satoshi Nakamoto is.

Unlike Zuckerberg, Satoshi didnt engage in a foolhardy exercise. Knowing the fear governments and established institutions have over potential disruptors to the status quo, the Bitcoin creator had a trick up his sleeve.

In Bitcoins early days, Satoshi said:

"Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own."

To solve the problem, Satoshi went for a decentralized system knowing the dangers of the alternative. But here we are more than a decade later and Mark Zuckerberg is trying to create a centralized global virtual currency, thus taking on not just one government but many and hoping to succeed!

Facebooks planned virtual currency, if it is ever realized, will undoubtedly rely on the trust model, and this burden will be placed on the social media giant and partner institutions. But for the trust model to work, especially with regards to financial services, it needs the oversight of governments and the backing of reputable financial institutions.

In the case of Facebook with its damaged reputation, the governments that are placing stumbling blocks now look like the good guys.

Satoshi was, however, too smart to get entangled in such a mess. The workaround? A mineable cryptocurrency that does not require intermediaries.

Proof of success? The many copycats and spinoffs that have followed its launch, including Libra!

Unlike Zuckerberg, Satoshi was fully aware that trying to create a currency for the internet would be fought by the forces it would be threatening be they traditional financial institutions or governments. So what did he do? He devised a mineable cryptocurrency from the ground up that was peer-to-peer-driven and native to the internet.

Meanwhile Zuckerberg, in order to get much-needed approval, has resorted to hiring lobbyists in order to try and convince governments to cede some of their power to him. Your guess is as good as mine as to what works better!

Facebook wants to play with the rules already set, unlike Satoshi who invented a brand new space that caught governments off guard. Thus, the rules and regulations governing cryptocurrencies in some parts of the world came into being long after the fact.

For Satoshi, it was an ambush and look where Bitcoin is now. Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, is walking straight into the line of fire. It is hard to tell whether stupidity outweighs arrogance in this case or vice versa.

While Facebook has tried hard to disguise how it will make money off Libra, the product is ultimately designed with profit in mind.

Satoshis vision, on the other hand, was bigger and for the greater good. This included giving people greater freedom and control over their money while protecting their privacy all in one go. Geniuses change the world; lesser beings just make money from it.

September 13, 2019 4:52 PM

View post:

Five Reasons Satoshi Nakamoto Is Smarter than Mark Zuckerberg - CCN.com

OPINION: Institutional Trading Could Kill Crypto Exchanges – Markets Media

Posted on by

Can crypto exchanges survive the expected deluge of institutional investment? Today, that bet is even money.

Satoshi Nakamoto never intended to graft bitcoin onto the existing international financial markets. It was meant to operate in parallel and be an uncorrelated alternative.

The crypto markets began, like most typical markets, as over-the-counter transactions between individual investors before crypto exchanges began popping up like mushrooms to facilitate easier trading. Once that happened, it began piquing the interest of institutional investors.

However, what it takes to support retail investors and institutional investors regarding services and support is quite different.

Individual investors have shown over the past few years that they are happy to invest without a standard instrument taxonomy, third-party custody, reference data, transaction cost analysis, and smart order routers, which are non-negotiables for institutional investors.

Does it make sense for digital-exchange operators to chase the institutional cryptocurrency market and make the necessary investment to replicate the business model of self-regulatory organizations?

It doesnt. Digital exchanges currently make their money from their sizable trading commissions while giving away their market data, which is a mirror image of the SROs.

Even if exchanges did make the necessary investments to meet the requirements of institutional investors, they might be waiting a long time to cash those institutional trading commissions.

Institutional trading, by its nature, is OTC trading. Buy-side traders want to keep their order flow off the displayed markets as much as possible to avoid moving the market against them.

All buy-side traders need is a reference price and size to use as a benchmark for their trade negotiations, which the digital exchanges already give away for free, before registering their trades in the appropriate distributed ledger.

Trading digital securities, on the other hand, presents its own issues. Regulation D or Regulation A securities are illiquid instruments at best and do not fare well on limit order books.

If digital exchange operators wanted to pursue the digital securities market, they would need to develop matching methodologies that are similar to those in the interdealer markets.

In this case, exchanges could generate revenue from its market data and trading fees as well as a host of tangential services, such as developing and issuing the digital securities.

All the digital exchange operators would be doing is adopting the same business plans of private securities trading but swapping out the middle and back office for a token-based infrastructure.

Read more from the original source:

OPINION: Institutional Trading Could Kill Crypto Exchanges - Markets Media

Social media site Tsu set to return – ZDNet

Posted on by

Social media platform Tsu, which paid its users for sharing original content, has been acquired by private equity real estate group Terracap Group and intellectual property services company Hilco Streambank.

After years of development, the original Tsu launched in October 2014 and aimed to financially reward its content creators with US-denominated cash for sharing engaging content.

It kept 10% of ad revenue, giving the other 90% to its content creators and sharers using the "rule of thirds." Within five weeks it had signed one million users, hitting two million users in two months.

The platform was aimed squarely at content generators. Users who only consumed content did not earn royalties.

It was an innovative way to reward its users. The platform enjoyed 28 million global visitors in year one, with 4.8 million global users downloading 1.8 million pieces of content.

The original Tsu opened up its platform so that users without an account could see items posted. Its open web initiative also aimed to increase clicks for its viral content creators.

The original platform aimed to focus its business on financial products, with its global digital wallet enabling peer-to-peer payments and currency exchange -- remarkably like financial blockchain transactions.

It wanted to give content creators something to spend their money on. Once a user had reached $100, original Tsu would pay that user their earnings via PayPal.

It managed to create a basket of stable currencies "similar to a currency ETF" long before Facebook announced that it was going to launch the Libra cryptocurrency.

Libra is a peer-to-peer digital currency system based on a basket-of-currencies based stable coin. The difference seems to be that, when people use Libra, Facebook will probably retain any monetization of users' content.

In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto wrote his white paper on Bitcoin at about the same time that code to the original Tsu was created by its CEO Sebastian Sobczak.

Bitcoin outlined digital pier-to-pier transfers of value using a database, called a blockchain, which allowed public, anonymous credit verification of any party on the system.

Similarly, the original Tsu enabled digital peer-to-peer transfers of value using a non-relational database.

This enabled instantaneous digital currency transfers replacing the SWIFT money transfer system while anchoring everything to the stable US dollar (or other baskets of currencies) whether the user lived in the UK or Zimbabwe.

Both systems were meant to be an alternative to the perverse financial relationships, which exist between governments or digital platforms vs. people's assets and personal liberties.

Bitcoin was initially valued by the electrical cost to mine a Bitcoin, which is now classified as an asset similar to gold but is one of the only scarce digital assets in existence.

The original Tsu platform was valued by the value of one's intellectual property (content) on digital media platforms, deposited in USD-equivalents to users' accounts on the platform.

The platform also wanted to do social good by enabling its users to donate to charities by the click of a button, achieving a 65% increase in charity donations made over a year.

The platform also introduced groups for community engagement. It wanted to compete with the 850 million users on Facebook who used groups and communities.

Yet, its success also led to its downfall. Facebook prevented Tsu users from posting to the platform and removed all of its historical posts and links that referred to the original Tsu.co. Two months later, citing that "issues with concurrent sharing" had been resolved, Facebook restored 10 million posts from Tsu and permitted direct posts again.

Unfortunately, the writing was on the wall. It finally closed its doors to its online users in September 2016 and its assets were sold.

Good to his word, the original Tsu's CEO Sebastian Sobczak provided tools for its users to download all their posted content, and paid them the cash they earned throughout the time they posted content on the platform.

Commenting on the relaunch, board member of the newly relaunching Tsu (capital T) Larry Krauss, CEO of Terracap said: "With a sustainable revenue model and enhanced technology, we are confident Tsu's value will increase exponentially as we bring it back to market."

John Acunto, CEO of new Tsu said: "We intend to release further information to our large and growing list of influencers that have begun to pre-register and build profiles soon."

This is fabulous news to the die-hard fans who were devastated when the original Tsu finished trading. Many are pre-registering on the new Tsu websitein anticipation of its relaunch.

But some original Tsu aficionados have moved on and are making money on other social sites on the blockchain. I will be interested to see whether the new Tsu has the same heart and soul as the old platform -- or whether they desire to post content purely to make money has overridden the desire to authentically connect with our online friends.

New social network Tsu signs one million users in just five weeks

Tsu has been celebrating passing its one-millionth user. But what is so different about the social media platform that has so many users flocking to sign up?

Tsu introduces "open web" to increase royalty payments for viral content creators

Social network Tsu has opened up its network so that users can now see posts on the platform without creating an account.

Tsu social network beta tests groups for platform community engagement

Tsu, the social network that shares ad revenue with creators of original content is beta testing groups to strengthen community and increase revenue to nominated charities.

Social network Tsu upgrades the platform to increase payments to users

Tsu, a social media platform that pays users for content they create and share, has announced a major platform update designed to increase royalty payments to its users

Read this article:

Social media site Tsu set to return - ZDNet

Craig Wright to Negotiate for Settlement Over 1.1 Million Bitcoin Ownership Trial – CryptoNewsZ

Posted on by

Craig Wright, the wannabe Satoshi Nakamoto, is planning to resolve a case that would possibly incur him a cost in billions in terms of Bitcoins (BTC). Wright is an Australian entrepreneur and computer scientist who has claimed himself, a number of times to be the creator of Bitcoin and has been involved in this controversy for quite some time now. Wright, who is famous or rather infamous for his notoriety in the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, has apparently built a patent empire. He was embroiled in a lawsuit since February, last year with Kleiman estate, after Ira, the brother of Dave Kleiman filed a case in the US District Court of the Southern District of Florida. The lawsuit was filed over the ownership and rights to a major stash of Bitcoin i.e. the hard variant of Bitcoin cash. Ira claimed that Wright had unlawfully got hold of Dave Kleimans Bitcoin, and misappropriated his intellectual property through a fraudulent scheme.

The events go back to Daves death in 2013, after which Wright is claimed to have seized over a million of Bitcoins that were mined together by them earlier when cryptocurrency was still becoming popular. The litigation filed lasted for months until last month when the judge of the Southern District Court of Florida, Bruce E. Reinhart pronounced his judgement in favour of Kleiman estate and said, Dr. Wrights demeanor did not impress me as someone telling the truth and also that Wright had been engaging in a willful and bad faith pattern of obstructive behavior, including submitting incomplete or deceptive pleadings, filing a false declaration, knowingly producing a fraudulent trust document, and giving perjurious testimony at the evidentiary hearing.

Wright had claimed himself to be the inventor of Bitcoin and had entered into a partnership with Kleiman, although he had later alienated himself from the project on discovering that cryptocurrency was being used for illegal activities. According to Wrights version of the story, they had put all the funds (approximately 1 million BTC) into secured storage Tulip Trust, which could be accessed only through the duos cryptographic signature. He had, however, lost all access to the fund post-Kleimans death.

The magistrate had also ruled in August that Wright would be required to hand over 50 percent of his Bitcoin holdings and intellectual property held till 2014 to Kleimans estate. Wrights legal representative had requested on his behalf, for a 30-day extension from the court before a final settlement was reached, claiming that both parties should reach an amicable settlement. The request was supported by Kleiman estate too. The extension would buy some time for Kleiman for witness disclosure and so on, although, negotiation is still on the way. The parties have reached a non-binding agreement to resolve the matter as soon as possible with certain terms and conditions.

More here:

Craig Wright to Negotiate for Settlement Over 1.1 Million Bitcoin Ownership Trial - CryptoNewsZ

Craig Wright Claims He Almost Settled the Case with the Kleiman’s – ihodl.com

Posted on by

The notorious Craig Wright, a self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, has asked the court for a new 30-day extension.

Previously the court ordered Wright to give 50% of the bitcoins he mined between 2009 and 2011 to David Kleiman's relatives.

As for now, Wright claims he almost settled the case and the parties have reached mutual understanding.

According to the document, that was filled by Wrights lawyers, even though the parties are continuing to negotiate, Wright and the Kleiman's representatives "have reached a non-binding agreement in principle to settle this matter."

Earlier iHodl reported that Bruce Reinhart, Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of Florida, has rejected the testimony of the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto stating that he has committed perjury by providing falsified documents.

Subscribe to our Telegram channel to stay up to date on the latest crypto and blockchain news.

Continue reading here:

Craig Wright Claims He Almost Settled the Case with the Kleiman's - ihodl.com

US Arrests One of the First Ethereum Devs – ihodl.com

Posted on by

The U.S. Department of Justice has charged extortion to Steven Nerayoff, one of the first Ethereum developers and a former paid consultant to the tZero security token platform, iHodl Russia reports.

Nerayoff and his partner Michael Hlady are facing up to 20 years in prison. They are accused of creating a scheme that the eastern district of New York prosecutors called the "old-fashioned money-laundering" while the FBI calls it "a time-tested extortion scheme in a new manner."

The prosecutor's office of the Southern District of New York found out that in November 2017, Nerayoff publicly promoted an ICO start-up and was supposed to receive 22.5% of the collected funds and 22.5% of the total issue.

A few days before the start of the campaign, he allegedly demanded an additional 17,000 ethers, threatening to destroy the reputation of the project in case of refusal.

The founders allegedly agreed, and the total amount of the "ransom" reached 30,000 ethers. In March 2018, Nerayoff and Michael Hlady allegedly threatened the same project with complete destruction, demanded 10,000 ethers on credit, and never returned them.

Earlier iHodl reported that the notorious Craig Wright, a self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, asked the court for a new 30-day extension.

Subscribe to our Telegram channel to stay up to date on the latest crypto and blockchain news.

Originally posted here:

US Arrests One of the First Ethereum Devs - ihodl.com

What Is Blockchain Technology? – The Crypto Coin Discovery

Posted on by

If you are familiar with the world of cryptocurrencies and the new economic dynamics that exist today thanks to technology, you will most likely have heard the term Blockchain. Do you want to learn more about this concept? You have come to the right place. Next, we will tell you a little about its origin, what it means and how it works.

To understand the Blockchain, it is first necessary to know the history of cryptocurrencies and how they came to revolutionize the economy as we know it.

For decades there have been attempts to decentralize money and make the economic system a more fluctuating environment. The first known attempts to integrate the science of cryptography with electronic money resulted in Digicash and Ecash, currencies that used cryptography to make money transactions anonymous; however, its issuance and liquidation were still centralized. These first attempts are attributed to the computer scientist David Chaum.

Thanks to this, the concept of cryptocurrency was born, coined by Wei Dai in 1998, the year in which it was officially proposed to create a new type of decentralized money that would use cryptography as a means of control.

However, it was not until 2009 when the first known and used cryptocurrency was created in the technological world: Bitcoin. This first cryptocurrency was created by a developer or group of developers under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto.

Subsequently, other cryptocurrencies such as Namecoin, Litecoin, Peercoin or Freicoin emerged; however, it is the Bitcoin cryptocurrency that has become more popular over the years thanks to its vertiginous rise in April 2013.

Lets see how a common bank transaction works: Laura wants to send a certain amount of money to Alicia. For this, you must access your account, either face-to-face or virtual and perform the operation. Once this is done, you have given the bank the order to debit that amount from your bank account and deposit it in Alicias bank account.

In this case, the bank acts as an intermediary for this operation to succeed and Alicia can receive in her account the money sent by Laura. We know that this process occurs automatically thanks to computer programs that receive the order and carry it out; however, so far neither Laura nor Alicia have known how the process works, much less have control of it.

The absolute control is held by the banks, who have the domain of their accounts and their information, therefore, they, as users of the banks, depend on them. This is how a centralized system works.

This is where Blockchain technology comes into play, whose main objective is to eliminate intermediaries and create a decentralized system.

Blockchain literally means blockchain or articulated chain. This is a distributed database, consisting of blockchains designed to prevent its modification using an encryption system and linking the information with the other blocks.

In this way, users have control over their money and the existence and need of intermediaries in the process is eliminated. They then become part of a huge bank where each one becomes a participant and manager of the bank account books.

In other words, Blockchain technology is a huge account book where records (blocks) are encrypted and linked to each other, with the aim of safeguarding the privacy and security of transactions.

In the case of Laura and Alicia, if Laura wants to send a bitcoin to Alicia, she will first notify all users of the network that she will do so. However, the process is safe because nobody knows that Laura is Laura and Alicia is Alicia, but they are called under keys or hashes, which contain alphanumeric information that only the owner user can know. In this way, they become only digital accounts in a large wallet system.

By sending the Bitcoin, the process starts a complex operating protocol that will aim to transfer the Bitcoin from Lauras portfolio to Alicias portfolio. First, the users of the network will verify that, in effect, Lauras account has the necessary amount to carry out the transaction and that, in addition, said Bitcoin has not been spent before (Double Spending). Once this is verified, the transaction is recorded, which will later become part of the transaction block.

Cryptography: Art and technique of writing with secret procedures or keys or in an enigmatic way, so that the writing is only intelligible for those who know how to decipher it.

Centralized economy: The centralized economy is a way of producing, consuming and distributing wealth where production factors are in the hands of the state. It is the opposite of the market economy.

In the centralized economy, the state is the one who sets the prices. Its objectives are social equity and equal distribution of wealth. One of the main problems of the centralized economy is the excessive bureaucracy it generates.

Decentralized economy: The decentralized economy is the power of decision divided or distributed between the different controls and the different levels of an organization.

Cryptocurrency: A cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency or cryptocurrency is a digital medium of exchange.

Blockchain: A blockchain or articulated chain, known in English as blockchain, is a distributed database, consisting of blockchains designed to prevent modification once a data has been published using a reliable time stamp and linking to a previous block

Protocol: Process that guarantees coherence, consistency, and security of information in any of its movements (transactions). Elements that are part of the Bitcoin protocol: Proof-of-Work, the key of each user, the hash of each block, etc.

Proof of Work: A Work Proof System or POW System (Proof-Of-Work System) is a system that, in order to avoid unwanted behaviors (for example denial of service or spam attacks), requires that The service client performs some type of work that has a certain cost and is easily verified on the server-side.

See original here:

What Is Blockchain Technology? - The Crypto Coin Discovery

Snowden Triumphs Bitcoin While US Govt Tries Book Earnings Seizure – CCN.com

Posted on by

U.S. President Donald Trump has previously spoken out against Bitcoin but he probably would never have imagined that his own justice department would unwittingly get involved in promoting the cryptocurrency. But they are, according to the American whistleblower hiding in Russia, Edward Snowden.

Specifically, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Department of Justices Civil Division has filed a lawsuit against Snowden, an ex-employee of the Central Intelligence Agency and ex-contractor of the National Security Agency seeking to prevent the whistleblower from profiting from the sales of his recently released book, Permanent Record.

Per Snowden, the U.S. governments intentions are a positive development for Bitcoin.

While Snowden did not extrapolate over what he meant, it can be inferred that he was referring to the censorship-resistance qualities of Bitcoin. Unlike money sitting in a bank which can be frozen or seized by governments, Bitcoin is immune from that especially with the use of cryptocurrency mixers as this obfuscates the digital trail making it hypothetically impossible to determine who owns which coins. And because it is decentralized, governments cant take down the network.

This is not an idle concern for Snowden as the U.S. government is specifically targeting the money he will earn from the sales of Permanent Record. While announcing the civil lawsuit the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia G. Zachary Terwilliger stated that this lawsuit will ensure that Edward Snowden receives no monetary benefits from breaching the trust placed in him.

The Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the Department of Justices Civil Division also emphasized this saying "we will not permit individuals to enrich themselves, at the expense of the United States, without complying with their pre-publication review obligations.

These qualities of Bitcoin are not an accident. The pseudonymous named creator of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto pointed out in the early days of the cryptocurrency stating that it would offer a new territory of freedom to its users:

Yes, [we will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography,] but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years. Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own.

As previously reported by CCN, during the Bitcoin 2019 conference Snowden disclosed that he had anonymously acquired servers used to leak government data that made him (in)famous using the cryptocurrency.

During the same conference, Snowden also praised Bitcoin for its decentralized and borderless nature that allowed its users to freely send money all over the world without interference from governments.

September 18, 2019 12:58 PM

See the article here:

Snowden Triumphs Bitcoin While US Govt Tries Book Earnings Seizure - CCN.com

The Top 5 Cryptocurrency Exchanges – Asia Crypto Today

Posted on by

As the global economy continues a slide towards another recession, savvy investors are increasingly looking for alternative ways to make their money work for them.

Day after day, the reputation of banks and financial institutions take a hammering as its revealed just what executives at these banks are quite happy to do with your hard-earned cash.

People are rightly fed up. But the slide of the traditional financial institution has led to a rise in the popularity of a new type of money crypto.

Invented by the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto at the start of 2009, Bitcoin this year celebrated its 10th anniversary.

And what a 10 years.

Bitcoin has spawned countless imitators, and created a completely new asset class that is insulated from the legacy financial system, and offers investors another way to make money.

Exchanges

So, whats the best way to invest with crypto? Well, if youre going to invest and trade you need to start using a cryptocurrency exchange.

Exchanges let you register, verify your identity, and (normally) pretty quickly you can be up and running buying, selling and investing in a huge range of digital assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, dozens of top-tier tokens, and many, many hundreds more of mid-tier to lower tier assets.

All of which for the savvy investor offer an opportunity to profit and get your hard earned money working for you, rather than propping up a dusty old bank vault.

As you would expect theres plenty of exchanges out there, but as with everything theres good, theres bad and theres downright ugly.

To help you navigate this tricky terrain, weve pulled together a guide to the top five cryptocurrency exchanges in operation, their strengths and weaknesses, the assets, and trading options they offer and more.

Depending on the type of exchange you use you might be able to directly invest your fiat currency (for example, the US dollar) directly, others only allow crypto-to-crypto trades, others offer promotions for registering with them.There really is a huge range available.

Online operation

Cryptocurrency was born on the web, and thats where you will find cryptocurrency exchanges.

They operate in a similar way to traditional stock exchange, offering a place for traders to come together and anonymously buy and sell assets.

The exchanges make their money by charging small fees on different transactions, and by trading on that exchange you are helping to provide it with liquidity, which in turn makes it more attractive to other traders.

Risks

As with any type of investment there is always a risk. If you are planning to invest in digital assets and trade them on an exchange you should always be aware of the risk, and have plans in place to minimize your exposure to it.

Firstly, exchanges have been (and will continue to be) hacked. As such you need to take the normal precautions, as you would with an online bank account, and ensure your account is password protected.

Most of this stuff is common sense, but you should ensure you have a long password, preferably held in a secured password manager like Lastpass, and you should ensure upon registering with an exchange to set up two-factor authentication through the Google Authenticator or Authy app (or similar).

This provides an extra layer of security to your account.

Some exchanges, like OKEx for example, also allow you to create a funding password, which you need to enter before any trades are made providing you with even more security.

Theres also a risk that exchanges can go bust. Its happened in the past to smaller exchanges.

However, the exchanges in this top 5 list are all very big, well supported exchanges with a lot of trading volume, and millions of customers.

To reduce your risk, keep any digital assets that you plan to hold on to for the long term off of a cryptocurrency exchange and store them on a hardware wallet, for example a Ledger Nano, or a Trezor.

This type of storage is called cold storage and is the most reliable way to protect your assets.

Only keep cryptocurrencies on an exchange that you expect to use on a day-to-day basis for trading.

Top 5 cryptocurrency exchanges

OKEx

OKEx is recognized globally as the best cryptocurrency exchange in the world. It offers industry-leading products and services, and a first class customer service experience and resource center to aid people new to cryptocurrency trading.

Launched in 2014 in Hong Kong, the exchange is now based out of Malta, and helps millions of customers globally trade cryptocurrencies.

As well as offering simple buy and sell trades, customers who have a bit more trading experience are also well served too. The exchange gives you options to conduct margin trading, futures trading as well as specialized products like perpetual swap trading.

People who have an interest in mining cryptocurrencies can also connect to the exchanges sister company OK Pool, which allows them to quickly and easily set up their mining hardware on OKExs mining pool.

As well as offering a huge variety of trading options across a wide range of older cryptocurrency assets, such as market leader Bitcoin, and Ethereum, customers can also trade newer digital assets as well, for example the exchange recently listed Hedera Hashgraphs HBAR token.

The platform supports new and developing cryptocurrency projects through its OK Jumpstart program, and offers customers the opportunity to trade in its USDK stable coin, while also supporting a huge range of other stable coins too.

On top of this, the exchange is very active in supporting and educating its community. Regularly providing trading guides and strategies to its users on its blog

Binance

Binance is recognized as one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. Its charismatic founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) created the exchange to foster crypto-to-crypto trades across a huge range of digital assets. While it does not offer a fiat on-ramp (that is a simple way to deposit fiat currencies with the exchange) at present, this is something the team is working to add.

CZs mission was to create an exchange that solved the problems he perceived with other exchanges, and their trading infrastructure.

Users of Binance can quickly and easily make crypto-to-crypto exchanges, and the platform has recently undergone a complete redesign to bring its user interface up to the standard offered by other market leading exchanges, like OKEx.

The exchange prides itself in educating investors new to the space and features its dedicated Binance Academy as a place to go to watch and learn all the basics of cryptocurrency trading.

The exchange uses its native Binance Coin (BNB) to pay for fees, and customers that use BNB receive a discount on trading fees.

Unfortunately, earlier this year Binance was hacked by attackers, who stole around 7,000 Bitcoin, valued at about $40 million from the exchange. While the money has not been recovered, users funds were protected through the exchanges Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU).

The exchange also attracted headlines earlier this year, after a large volume of customers personal data, including names, addresses, passport numbers and photos, was leaked online.

Coinbase

Coinbase was set up with the goal of offering its customers a quick and easy fiat on ramp with the aim of getting them trading on the platform as quickly as possible.

While it is probably one of the best known cryptocurrency exchanges, it has faced criticism on multiple fronts for its handling of user privacy and personal data, something that annoys everyone, but especially crypto enthusiasts, wedded to the idea of using crypto to escape the prying eyes of large institutions.

The Coinbase platform allows you to quickly transfer money from your bank account or credit card on to the platform to buy popular cryptocurrencies.

While in the early days of the platform only a limited number of tokens were supported, recently the exchange has taken to offering a wider range of assets to its customers as it works to try and match the offerings of its competitors.

The basic Coinbase platform (and app) are popular with people new to the cryptocurrency investing space, and despite some fiddly user interface issues Coinbase is, on the whole, quite easy to use.

Traders who are used to buying and selling cryptocurrencies can also take advantage of the Coinbase Pro platform. An exchange linked to the main Coinbase platform, but which provides many more advanced features, for example, stop-loss and limit orders.

However, whereas other exchange in this list make their platforms easy to understand, any new user stumbling onto the Coinbase Pro platform is likely to be dismayed by its overly technical approach to trading.

Unfortunately, Coinbase scores a low 1.5 stars out of five on Trustpilot, and recently angered users in the UK after it made changes to the way retail investors could deposit and withdraw from the exchange.

Bitfinex

While one of the oldest exchanges in operation, having been founded in 2012, it is still very widely used by customers across the crypto space. It offers a full range of services to its customers, including a trading platform, and a margin trading platform.

However, the exchange has not been without controversy. The owners of Bitfinex, iFinex, are the creators of the worlds most widely used stable coin, US dollar Tether (USDT). This asset has faced lots of criticism in the past, chief among them the allegation that the currency is not backed by physical dollars, meaning that users money could be at risk.

The three main functions of Bitfinex are offering customers a pure Bitcoin to fiat exchange, a margin trading exchange and a liquidity provider.

Using margin trading you can short Bitcoin to profit on downward volatility as well as upward movements.

The exchange takes security seriously, with users funds stored safely in a cold wallet. Despite its security the exchange has previously been the victim of a couple of high-profile hacks.

In 2015, around $400,000 was stolen from the exchange, while in 2016 hackers stole more than $73 million from customer accounts.

Huobi Global

Huobi Global is a cryptocurrency and digital asset exchange platform, with offices globally. The business operates in Beijing, Chengdu, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shenzhen, Singapore and Tokyo.

The exchange was set up in 2013 and it supports a wide variety of different cryptocurrencies, and stable coins. It features its own stable coin pegged to the US dollar, the HUSD, and the exchange also uses a utility token, HT, which customers can use for fee discounts, voting and more.

While the customer service is not as good as other exchanges in this list, the website is functional and easy to use, and customers with questions can use the exchanges live chat function to speak to customer representatives.

The exchange features a wide range of options for traders, including spot trading, margin trading and futures contracts

In terms of positive points, Huobi offers strong analytics, generally high liquidity and has a solid reputation among the crypto community. On the downside, it is only available to Chinese (and some US) residents, and the only supported fiat currency is the US dollar.

In summary

For people new to trading digital assets and cryptocurrencies the amount of information to take on board can be overwhelming.

Crypto is a nascent industry, which is developing quickly. There are many exchanges out there who treat the cryptocurrency space as the wild west.

Users new to the space should ensure they thoroughly research where they are putting their money before they decide to invest, and make sure whatever they invest in they have a risk management strategy in place that allows them to limit any potential losses they could face.

More:

The Top 5 Cryptocurrency Exchanges - Asia Crypto Today

Are 18 months enough for SpaceChain’s extraterrestrial blockchain network? – Cryptopolitan

Posted on by

SpaceChain, the blockchain startup who came up with this revolutionary idea of setting blockchain nodes into orbit, will be funded by the European Space Agency (ESA).

ESA had been counting on someone to bring this up and had a kick-start activities fund at the disposal of such projects. Nodes in space that are far from anyones reach providing data transfer capabilities around the globe in a far more secure, way with multi-signature smart contracts over the blockchain.

If we consider the fact that Earth as one big node made up of several smaller nodes within itself then all our processing power is centralized. This kills the whole concept of blockchain technology being decentralized as Satoshi Nakamoto had originally envisioned. Not to mention the EOS incident regarding security issues as well.

Perspective does matter when it comes to looking at things from different angles. Luckily, we have people like those working in the SpaceChain program to set things right.

Tests have already been made to confirm is setting having a node in space is feasible or not and theyre good. The transactions carried out on this system will require two of the three signatories to agree. Two signatory bodies reside on land while the third one: the satellite itself will be set into space and would operate from there.

The data protocols would directly upload data to the satellite from the terrestrial network. This is a much safer route to decentralization according to the CEO of SpaceChain, Zee Zheng.

The course of action taken from here on would include three launches in eighteen (18) months. ZeeZheng also added that the crypto market has suffered a loss of one (1) billion dollars in the past months. If hackers can get into systems that are in their reach, they certainly can not go for the ones that arent- is what Zees ideology sums up to be.

Originally posted here:

Are 18 months enough for SpaceChain's extraterrestrial blockchain network? - Cryptopolitan

Bitcoin Will Surge to $20,000, States BitMEX Chief Executive After Fed Prints $53 Bln of QE – U.Today

Posted on by

The other day, the US Federal Reserve Bank (simply known as the Fed) did what many experts in the crypto sphere have spoken about recently took some quantitative easing measures and printed $53 bln.

Now, Arthur Hayes, the CEO of one of the top-line crypto exchanges, BitMEX, says that Bitcoin may soon reach the ATH of 2017 - $20,000.

The Fed has decreased interest rate on some type of loans that had exceeded 10 percent. Now, after an emergency measure of QE has been implemented, over $53 bln of cash has been injected into the global economy.

Commenting on that, the head of the BitMEX crypto trading giant Arthur Hayes has tweeted:

This is the second time the Fed has interfered by switching on its dollar-printing machine since the financial crisis of 2008. Many believe that that particular event directly drove the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto (whether it was a single person or a group of developers) to create Bitcoin in the first place.

Recently, the market has proven that Bitcoin price starts growing when the global economy and politics are showing their actual face of uncertainty and instability.

In particular, this happened when the trade war between the US and China broke out earlier this year.

The Fed was not the only institution that decided to take the path of QE which is believed to be a fast cure when the economy bleeds. The EU central bank has used this measure twice this year, with the recent one happening last week.

Not long ago, Hayes also forecast that BTC would rise to hit $20,000.

Now he seems to be more certain on that. Along with him, the crypto expert and the co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital, Anthony Pompliano, has also been often mentioning a possible QE by the Fed as one of the major reasons for the Bitcoin price soaring.

Read more:

Bitcoin Will Surge to $20,000, States BitMEX Chief Executive After Fed Prints $53 Bln of QE - U.Today

Sharing a storied career of space flight | News | avpress.com – Antelope Valley Press

Posted on by

MOJAVE Virgin Galactic Chief Pilot David Mackay has flown aircraft at opposite ends of the aerospace spectrum, from a 1909 Bleriot to the rocket-powered SpaceShipTwo, and all manner of aircraft in between.

Having added commercial astronaut wings to his tally earlier this year, Mackay will share stories of 110 years of flying machines on Saturday at the Mojave Air and Space Port.

The presentation will begin at 11 a.m. in the Board Room, in the Administration Building at the end of Airport Boulevard.

Mackays piloting career dates to 1977, when he learned to fly while studying aeronautical engineering at the University of Glasgow. Following graduation, he joined the Royal Air Force, flying the Harrier GR3 before being selected as an exchange student to the French Test Pilot School.

His test pilot career with the Royal Air Force included testing the Harrier GR7 and Sea Harrier, among others. He was awarded the Air Force Cross for his work commanding Fast Jet Test Flight in 1992.

For two years before retiring from the Royal Air Force in 1995, Mackay was an instructor at the Empire Test Pilot School. He then joined Virgin Atlantic, piloting Boeing 747s and Airbus 340s.

Having evaluated the SpaceShipOne flight simulator in early 2004, Mackay joined the development team for its successor SpaceShipTwo with Virgin Galactic fill time in 2009 and became chief pilot in 2011.

Mackay has more than 50 flights in the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, and five powered flights in SpaceShipTwo, including the most recent flight to cross into space on Feb. 22.

Mackay, together with pilot Mike Sooch Masucci and Chief Astronaut Instructor Beth Moses, received commercial astronaut wings for that flight, in which they reached 295,007 feet altitude (55.87 miles or 89.9 kilometers), crossing the 50-mile altitude boundary that the FAA uses to define space.

It was a wonderful flight, Mackay said following his first foray to space, adding it flew much better than the simulator. For me, my family, this is kind of the end of a long journey, both literally and metaphorically.

During 22 years as a historic aircraft display pilot in the United Kingdom, Mackay had the opportunity to fly the worlds oldest original flying aircraft, the 1909 Bleriot.

He has logged more than 14,000 hours of flight in some 150 different types of aircraft.

Mackays presentation is part of Plane Crazy Saturday, a monthly gathering of aviation enthusiasts presented by the Mojave Transportation Museum Foundation.

The free, family-friendly educational event features a flight line filled with aircraft of varied types and vintages, available for visitors to see up-close.

The event will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission to the flight line with its displays is through the Voyager restaurant, in the Administration building. The restaurant opens for breakfast at 8 a.m.

Dogs and other animals, other than service animals, are not permitted on the flight line.

Aviation and space art, hats, shirts, books and collectibles will be available for sale.

Read more from the original source:

Sharing a storied career of space flight | News | avpress.com - Antelope Valley Press

Is the Overhead Space Above Your Plane Seat Yours to Claim? – Lifehacker

Posted on by

Earlier this week, we explained why you should never swap seats on a flight to make room for another passengerbut what about overhead space for their carry-on?

Our video producer, Joel, recently shared with me his (unique?) experience on a flight; according to him, during a dispute between two passengers, one flier claimed that they were entitled to the overhead bin above their seat. And the other passenger, faced with this confusing scenario, willingly removed their bag to appease them.

I have long subscribed to the idea that overhead baggage space, like online seating assignments, is allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. If you board late, youre shit out of luck and might be the one forced to check your carry-on at the gate. (This comes with the exception of airlines that restrict overhead baggage space by cabin class or dont allow carry-ons for basic economy fliers, like on Delta.)

Is it a dick move to place your bag above another passengers seat? When youre the first to boardor if you see plenty of space aheadthen perhaps. By stashing your bag above the first row seats, youre likely holding up the line when boarding. (Youd probably want your bag closer to you anyway for the sake of convenience.) When passengers who sit upfront are forced to find another available space, theyll also have to go against the flow of passengers to return to their seat, delaying the boarding process. But when space is limited and passengers are clamoring for a bin as Joel describedfrankly, all bets are off and every available space is game.

So to our readers, we ask: Have you ever encountered someone who claimed the overhead bin above them? And whats your take on carry-on bag etiquette?

View post:

Is the Overhead Space Above Your Plane Seat Yours to Claim? - Lifehacker

Watch SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Fire Its Abort Engines in Amazing Video Compilation – Space.com

Posted on by

A fiery new SpaceX video brings all the "foom" that's been missing from your life.

In just 30 seconds, the space company showed off a selection of 700 tests of the SuperDraco engines designed for the abort system of its commercial crew vehicle, Crew Dragon. The first crewed mission will send NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station in the near future.

Clips in the video show Crew Dragon in many separate uncrewed tests: rocketing off the launch pad, spewing rocket flames while tied down near the launch tower, hovering in mid-air and working tirelessly both day and night. Close-up shots display the spacecraft's eight SuperDraco engines throttling up, flames jetting from their nozzles.

Related: See SpaceX's Crew Dragon Parachutes in ActionVideo: SpaceX Crew Dragon SuperDraco Tests in Multiple Amazing Views

A SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft testing its SuperDraco thrusters.

(Image credit: SpaceX)

"Ahead of our in-flight abort test for @Commercial_Crew which will demonstrate Crew Dragon's ability to safely carry astronauts away from the rocket in the unlikely event of an emergency our team has completed over 700 tests of the spacecraft's SuperDraco engines," SpaceX officials said in a tweet accompanying the video.

"Fired together at full throttle, Crew Dragon's eight SuperDracos can move the spacecraft 0.5 miles [0.8 kilometers] the length of over seven American football fields lined up end to end in 7.5 seconds, reaching a peak velocity of 436 mph [702 km/hr]," SpaceX added.

The company is testing all aspects of the spaceflight system, including the Falcon 9 rocket that will heft Crew Dragon into space. On Aug. 29, the company did a static-fire test of Falcon 9 in McGregor, Texas.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon along with Boeing's CST-100 Starliner are both expected to bring astronauts to the ISS, under agreements signed with NASA in 2014. Russian Soyuz spacecraft have been the only capsules sending crews back and forth since July 2011, after NASA retired its space shuttle program.

The first Crew Dragon mission without astronauts on board visited the ISS successfully in March during a six-day mission called Demo-1. While observers predicted a crewed mission would happen quickly, the same Crew Dragon exploded in April during an abort test of its SuperDraco engines. SpaceX hasn't yet disclosed when Demo-2, carrying Hurley and Behnken, will take place.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Read more from the original source:

Watch SpaceX's Crew Dragon Fire Its Abort Engines in Amazing Video Compilation - Space.com

NASA, SpaceX Coverage of 1st Crew Dragon Test Flight Wins Emmy – Space.com

Posted on by

Update for Sept. 16: NASA won a second Emmy for its coverage of the InSight Mars lander's touchdown on Mars. Read our full story.

NASA, your first Emmy of 2019 has landed.

The NASA team behind the space agency's coverage of SpaceX's historic Crew Dragon test flight to the International Space Station last March nabbed an Emmy for Outstanding Interactive Program late Saturday (Sept. 14) during the Creative Arts Emmys, part of the 71st Emmy Awards, at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles. The award recognizes the outreach by NASA and SpaceX to share the milestone mission with the public through live video, images and social media.

"Just in: We won an Emmy in interactive programming for coverage of the SpaceX Demo-1 flight, which put us one step closer to our goal of launching NASA astronauts from American soil," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said via Twitter after the win. "Congrats to all involved and those who help tell the NASA story every day!"

Watch: NASA's SpaceX Crew Dragon Emmy VideoWatch: NASA's Emmy Video for InSight Mars Landing

Dan Huot, a NASA spokesperson with the Johnson Space Center in Houston, appeared ecstatic.

"Weeeeeee just won an Emmy for DM-1. Thanks to my NASA and SpaceX family. Unreal," Huot wrote on Twitter alongside an image of him holding the award.

Related: SpaceX's Crew Dragon Demo-1 Test Flight in Pictures

SpaceX's Demonstration Mission 1 (also known as Demo-1 or DM-1) was an unpiloted six-day test flight of the company's Crew Dragon, a spacecraft designed to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station. SpaceX is one of two private companies (Boeing is the other) with NASA contracts to fly astronauts to and from the space station on commercial space taxis.

SpaceX launched the first Crew Dragon on March 2, with the spacecraft docking itself at the orbiting laboratory a day later. Crew Dragon returned to Earth on March 8 and was retrieved from the Atlantic Ocean. During the Demo-1 mission, NASA and SpaceX streamed live video of the flight's launch, docking and reentry, as well as test operations inside the Crew Dragon capsule by astronauts on the space station.

"Throughout NASA's coverage, the agency and SpaceX engaged social media users around the world and at local social media influencer gatherings at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida," NASA officials said in a statement.

NASA is also nominated for a second Emmy for the agency's its coverage of the InSight Mars landing in November 2018. The agency is nominated for an Outstanding Original Interactive Program for its InSight Mars mission. The nomination is for all of the agency's Insight coverage, "including news, web, education, television and social media efforts," agency officials said in the statement.

The decision on that award, one way or another, is expected tonight (Sept. 15) during the second night of the Creative Awards Emmys.

NASA officials have said that an edited version of the ceremonies will air Sept. 21 on the cable channel FXX, and will appear in the full 71st Primetime Emmys broadcast on Sept. 22.

Email Tariq Malik attmalik@space.comor follow him@tariqjmalik. Follow us@SpacedotcomandFacebook

Continued here:

NASA, SpaceX Coverage of 1st Crew Dragon Test Flight Wins Emmy - Space.com

China’s Lunar Rover Scopes Out Weird Substance on Far Side of the Moon (Photos) – Space.com

Posted on by

China's Yutu-2 moon rover captured this image from the edge of the small crater where it found a mysterious, gel-like material.

(Image credit: CNSA/CLEP)

China's lunar exploration program has released images that give us a glimpse of the mysterious material discovered on the far side of the moon.

Yutu-2, the lunar rover for China's Chang'e-4 mission, grabbed attention last month after its drive team spotted something unusual while roving close to a small crater. The Chinese-language science outreach publication Our Space, which announced the findings on Aug. 17, used the term "" (jiao zhuang wu), which can be translated as "gel-like." This notion sparked wide interest and speculation among lunar scientists.

Scientists have now gotten a look at that curious material, thanks to a post (Chinese) released over the weekend by Our Space via its WeChat social media account. Along with new images of the stuff on the moon, the post details how the Yutu-2 team carefully approached the crater in order to analyze the specimen, despite risks.

Related: The Greatest Mysteries of the Moon

The clearest image shows two of the rover's six wheels and the contents of an approximately 7-foot-wide (2 meters) crater.

The compressed, black-and-white shot comes from an obstacle-avoidance camera on the rover. The green, rectangular area and red circle within are suspected to be related to the field of view of the Visible and Near-Infrared Spectrometer (VNIS) instrument, rather than the subject matter itself, according to some lunar scientists.

A cropped image showing the highlighted area with the crater.

(Image credit: CNSA/CLEP)

VNIS is one of Yutu-2's four science payloads. It detects light that is scattered or reflected off materials to reveal their chemical makeup. As VNIS has a small field of view, the drive team needed to carefully navigate Yutu-2 to make a detection without falling into the crater.

After obtaining the first set of data that VIRS collected at the crater in July, the Yutu-2 team deemed it to be unsatisfactory due to shadows, so the team members attempted a second approach and measurement during the following lunar day in August. According to Our Space, a satisfactory detection was made but the results were not released.

An image showing Yutu-2's shadow and tracks from when it approached the crater.

(Image credit: CNSA/CLEP)

Clive Neal, a lunar scientist at the University of Notre Dame, told Space.com that while the image is not great, it may still give clues to the nature of the material.

Neal said that the material highlighted in the center of the crater resembles a sample of impact glass found during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Sample 70019 was collected by astronaut Harrison Schmitt, a trained geologist, from a fresh crater 10 feet (3 meters) in diameter, similar to that approached by Yutu-2.

The crater containing sample 70019, with the Apollo 17 lunar module in the background.

(Image credit: NASA)

Neal describes 70019 as being made of dark, coherent microbreccia broken fragments of minerals cemented together and black, shiny glass. "I think we have an example here of what Yutu-2 saw," Neal said.

High-speed impacts on the lunar surface melt and redistribute rock across the craters they make and can create glassy, igneous rocks and crystalline structures.

As for being unusual and "mysterious," as described by the initial Chinese account, "having craters looking like those from Yutu-2 and where 70019 was collected is to be expected," Neal said.

The initial observation that commanded the attention of the drive team was made from an image from Yutu-2's Panoramic Camera (PCAM). The Chang'e-3 mission's Yutu rover, which landed on the near side in 2013, returned impressive, high-resolution color images of the lunar landscape using its PCAM

The Yutu-2 team will have great images to work with, and these may suggest something different. However, images from the Chang'e-4 mission might be released publicly as long as one year after they have been taken.

An image from Mare Imbrium taken by the PCAM on Yutu-1.

(Image credit: CNSA/CLEP)

Dan Moriarty, NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, agrees that it is hard to make a definitive assessment of the substance's chemical composition, given the poor image quality and overlying colored section in the Yutu-2 image.

Moriarty told Space.com that the outlined material appears somewhat brighter than surrounding materials, though the actual brightness is hard to confirm from the photographs. If so, the contrast could be due to the differing origins of the respective materials.

"Chang'e-4 landed in a mare basalt-filled crater, which is typically dark," Moriarty said. "Highlands crustal materials are typically brighter, so that would be a potential candidate."

"It will be very interesting to see what the spectrometer sees, and if any higher-resolution images become available," Moriarty notes.

Chang'e-3's Yutu rover carried an alpha particle X-ray spectrometer for analyzing chemical composition, mounted on a robotic arm, which would be very useful for identifying such specimens. Yutu-2 instead carries the new Advanced Small Analyzer for Neutrals (ASAN), a payload from Sweden for studying how solar winds interact with the lunar surface.

A stitched image from Yutu-2 looking back toward the Chang'e-4 lander during lunar day 7, in late June and early July 2019.

(Image credit: CNSA/CLEP)

The Chang'e-4 lander and Yutu-2 completed the ninth lunar day of their mission on Sept. 5, powering down around 24 hours ahead of local sunset. Lunar day 10 will begin around Sept. 22 for Yutu-2 and Sept. 23 for the lander. (On the moon, a day lasts about two weeks.)

Yutu-2 has been heading west of the Chang'e-4 landing site in the Von Krmn crater since the historic Jan. 2 lunar far side landing, covering 934 feet (285 meters) so far.

Follow Andrew Jones at @AJ_FI. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and onFacebook.

See the original post:

China's Lunar Rover Scopes Out Weird Substance on Far Side of the Moon (Photos) - Space.com