Monthly Archives: April 2021

How matters hidden complexity unleashed the power of nuclear physics – Science News Magazine

Posted: April 15, 2021 at 6:36 am

Matter is a lush tapestry, woven from a complex assortment of threads. Diverse subatomic particles weave together to fabricate the universe we inhabit. But a century ago, people believed that matter was so simple that it could be constructed with just two types of subatomic fibers electrons and protons. That vision of matter was a no-nonsense plaid instead of an ornate brocade.

Physicists of the 1920s thought they had a solid grasp on what made up matter. They knew that atoms contained electrons surrounding a positively charged nucleus. And they knew that each nucleus contained a number of protons, positively charged particles identified in 1919. Combinations of those two particles made up all of the matter in the universe, it was thought. That went for everything that ever was or might be, across the vast, unexplored cosmos and at home on Earth.

The scheme was appealingly tidy, but it swept under the rug a variety of hints that all was not well in physics. Two discoveries in one revolutionary year, 1932, forced physicists to peek underneath the carpet. First, the discovery of the neutron unlocked new ways to peer into the hearts of atoms and even split them in two. Then came news of the positron, identical to the electron but with the opposite charge. Its discovery foreshadowed many more surprises to come. Additional particle discoveries ushered in a new framework for the fundamental bits of matter, now known as the standard model.

That annus mirabilis miraculous year also set physicists sights firmly on the workings of atoms hearts, how they decay, transform and react. Discoveries there would send scientists careening toward a most devastating technology: nuclear weapons. The atomic bomb cemented the importance of science and science journalism in the public eye, says nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein of the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. The atomic bomb becomes the ultimate proof that indeed this is world-changing stuff.

Physicists of the 1920s embraced a particular type of conservatism. Embedded deep in their psyches was a reluctance to declare the existence of new particles. Researchers stuck to the status quo of matter composed solely of electrons and protons an idea dubbed the two-particle paradigm that held until about 1930. In that time period, says historian of science Helge Kragh of the University of Copenhagen, Im quite sure that not a single mainstream physicist came up with the idea that there might exist more than two particles. The utter simplicity of two particles explaining everything in natures bounty was so appealing to physicists sensibilities that they found the idea difficult to let go of.

The paradigm held back theoretical descriptions of the neutron and the positron. To propose the existence of other particles was widely regarded as reckless and contrary to the spirit of Occams razor, science biographer Graham Farmelo wrote in Contemporary Physics in 2010.

Still, during the early 20th century, physicists were investigating a few puzzles of matter that would, after some hesitation, inevitably lead to new particles. These included unanswered questions about the identities and origins of energetic particles called cosmic rays, and why chemical elements occur in different varieties called isotopes, which have similar chemical properties but varying masses.

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New Zealandborn British physicist Ernest Rutherford stopped just short of positing a fundamentally new particle in 1920. He realized that neutral particles in the nucleus could explain the existence of isotopes. Such particles came to be known as neutrons. But rather than proposing that neutrons were fundamentally new, he thought they were composed of protons combined in close proximity with electrons to make neutral particles. He was correct about the role of the neutron, but wrong about its identity.

Rutherfords idea was convincing, British physicist James Chadwick recounted in a 1969 interview: The only question was how the devil could one get evidence for it. The neutrons lack of electric charge made it a particularly wily target. In between work on other projects, Chadwick began hunting for the particles at the University of Cambridges Cavendish Laboratory, then led by Rutherford.

Chadwick found his evidence in 1932. He reported that mysterious radiation emitted when beryllium was bombarded with the nuclei of helium atoms could be explained by a particle with no charge and with a mass similar to the protons. In other words, a neutron. Chadwick didnt foresee the important role his discovery would play. I am afraid neutrons will not be of any use to anyone, he told the New York Times shortly after his discovery.

Physicists grappled with the neutrons identity over the following years before accepting it as an entirely new particle, rather than the amalgamation that Rutherford had suggested. For one, a proton-electron mash-up conflicted with the young theory of quantum mechanics, which characterizes physics on small scales. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle which states that if the location of an object is well-known, its momentum cannot be suggests that an electron confined within a nucleus would have an unreasonably large energy.

And certain nucleis spins, a quantum mechanical measure of angular momentum, likewise suggested that the neutron was a full-fledged particle, as did improved measurements of the particles mass.

Physicists also resisted the positron, until it became difficult to ignore.

The positrons 1932 detection had been foreshadowed by the work of British theoretical physicist Paul Dirac. But it took some floundering about before physicists realized the meaning of his work. In 1928, Dirac formulated an equation that combined quantum mechanics with Albert Einsteins 1905 special theory of relativity, which describes physics close to the speed of light. Now known simply as the Dirac equation, the expression explained the behavior of electrons in a way that satisfied both theories.

But the equation suggested something odd: the existence of another type of particle, one with the opposite electric charge. At first, Dirac and other physicists clung to the idea that this charged particle might be the proton. But this other particle should have the same mass as the electron, and protons are almost 2,000 times as heavy as electrons. In 1931, Dirac proposed a new particle, with the same mass as the electron but with opposite charge.

Meanwhile, American physicist Carl Anderson of Caltech, independent of Diracs work, was using a device called a cloud chamber to study cosmic rays, energetic particles originating in space. Cosmic rays, discovered in 1912, fascinated scientists, who didnt fully understand what the particles were or how they were produced.

Within Andersons chamber, liquid droplets condensed along the paths of energetic charged particles, a result of the particles ionizing gas molecules as they zipped along. In 1932, the experiments revealed positively charged particles with masses equal to an electrons. Soon, the connection to Diracs theory became clear.

Science News Letter, the predecessor of Science News, had a hand in naming the newfound particle. Editor Watson Davis proposed positron in a telegram to Anderson, who had independently considered the moniker, according to a 1933 Science News Letter article (SN: 2/25/33, p. 115). In a 1966 interview, Anderson recounted considering Davis idea during a game of bridge, and finally going along with it. He later regretted the choice, saying in the interview, I think thats a very poor name.

The discovery of the positron, the antimatter partner of the electron, marked the advent of antimatter research. Antimatters existence still seems baffling today. Every object we can see and touch is made of matter, making antimatter seem downright extraneous. Antimatters lack of relevance to daily life and the terms liberal use in Star Trek means that many nonscientists still envision it as the stuff of science fiction. But even a banana sitting on a counter emits antimatter, periodically spitting out positrons in radioactive decays of the potassium within.

Physicists would go on to discover many other antiparticles all of which are identical to their matter partners except for an opposite electric charge including the antiproton in 1955. The subject still keeps physicists up at night. The Big Bang should have produced equal amounts matter and antimatter, so researchers today are studying how antimatter became rare.

In the 1930s, antimatter was such a leap that Diracs hesitation to propose the positron was understandable. Not only would the positron break the two-particle paradigm, but it would also suggest that electrons had mirror images with no apparent role in making up atoms. When asked, decades later, why he had not predicted the positron after he first formulated his equation, Dirac replied, pure cowardice.

But by the mid-1930s, the two-particle paradigm was out. Physicists understanding had advanced, and their austere vision of matter had to be jettisoned.

Radioactive decay hints that atoms hold stores of energy locked within, ripe for the taking. Although radioactivity was discovered in 1896, that energy long remained an untapped resource. The neutrons discovery in the 1930s would be key to unlocking that energy for better and for worse.

The neutrons discovery opened up scientists understanding of the nucleus, giving them new abilities to split atoms into two or transform them into other elements. Developing that nuclear know-how led to useful technologies, like nuclear power, but also devastating nuclear weapons.

Just a year after the neutron was found, Hungarian-born physicist Leo Szilard envisioned using neutrons to split atoms and create a bomb. [I]t suddenly occurred to me that if we could find an element which is split by neutrons and which would emit two neutrons when it absorbed one neutron, such an element, if assembled in sufficiently large mass, could sustain a nuclear chain reaction, liberate energy on an industrial scale, and construct atomic bombs, he later recalled. It was a fledgling idea, but prescient.

Because neutrons lack electric charge, they can penetrate atoms hearts. In 1934, Italian physicist Enrico Fermi and colleagues started bombarding dozens of different elements with neutrons, producing a variety of new, radioactive isotopes. Each isotope of a particular element contains a different number of neutrons in its nucleus, with the result that some isotopes may be radioactive while others are stable. Fermi had been inspired by another striking discovery of the time. In 1934, French chemists Frdric and Irne Joliot-Curie reported the first artificially created radioactive isotopes, produced by bombarding elements with helium nuclei, called alpha particles. Now, Fermi was doing something similar, but with a more penetrating probe.

There were a few scientific missteps on the way to understanding the results of such experiments. A major goal was to produce brand-new elements, those beyond the last known element on the periodic table at that time: uranium. After blasting uranium with neutrons, Fermi and colleagues reported evidence of success. But that conclusion would turn out to be incorrect.

German chemist Ida Noddack had an inkling that all was not right with Fermis interpretation. She came close to the correct explanation for his experiments in a 1934 paper, writing: When heavy nuclei are bombarded by neutrons, it is conceivable that the nucleus breaks up into several large fragments. But Noddack didnt follow up on the idea. She didnt provide any kind of supporting calculation and nobody took it with much seriousness, says physicist Bruce Cameron Reed of Alma College in Michigan.

In Germany, physicist Lise Meitner and chemist Otto Hahn had also begun bombarding uranium with neutrons. But Meitner, an Austrian of Jewish heritage in increasingly hostile Nazi Germany, was forced to flee in July 1938. She had an hour and a half to pack her suitcases. Hahn and a third member of the team, chemist Fritz Strassmann, continued the work, corresponding from afar with Meitner, who had landed in Sweden. The results of the experiments were puzzling at first, but when Hahn and Strassmann reported to Meitner that barium, a much lighter element than uranium, was a product of the reaction, it became clear what was happening. The nucleus was splitting.

Meitner and her nephew, physicist Otto Frisch, collaborated to explain the phenomenon, a process the pair would call fission. Hahn received the 1944 Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery of fission, but Meitner never won a Nobel, in a decision now widely considered unjust. Meitner was nominated for the prize sometimes in physics, other times in chemistry a whopping 48 times, most after the discovery of fission.

Her peers in the physics community recognized that she was part of the discovery, says chemist Ruth Lewin Sime of Sacramento City College in California, who has written extensively about Meitner. That included just about anyone who was anyone.

Word of the discovery soon spread, and on January 26, 1939, renowned Danish physicist Niels Bohr publicly announced at a scientific meeting that fission had been achieved. The potential implications were immediately apparent: Fission could unleash the energy stored in atomic nuclei, potentially resulting in a bomb. A Science News Letter story describing the announcement attempted to dispel any concerns the discovery might raise. The article, titled Atomic energy released, reported that scientists are fearful lest the public become worried about a revolution in civilization as a result of their researches, such as the suggested possibility that the atomic energy may be used as some super-explosive, or as a military weapon (SN: 2/11/39, p. 86). But downplaying the catastrophic implications didnt prevent them from coming to pass.

The question of whether a bomb could be created rested, once again, on neutrons. For fission to ignite an explosion, it would be necessary to set off a chain reaction. That means each fission would release additional neutrons, which could then go on to induce more fissions, and so on. Experiments quickly revealed that enough neutrons were released to make such a chain reaction feasible.

In October 1939, soon after Germany invaded Poland at the start of World War II, an ominous letter from Albert Einstein reached President Franklin Roosevelt. Composed at the urging of Szilard, by then at Columbia University, the letter warned, it is conceivable that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. American researchers were not alone in their interest in the topic: German scientists, the letter noted, were also on the case.

Roosevelt responded by setting up a committee to investigate. That step would be the first toward the U.S. effort to build an atomic bomb, the Manhattan Project.

On December 2, 1942, Fermi, who by then had immigrated to the United States, and 48 colleagues achieved the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in an experiment with a pile of uranium and graphite at the University of Chicago. Science News Letter would later call it an event ranking with mans first prehistoric lighting of a fire. While the physicists celebrated their success, the possibility of an atomic bomb was closer than ever. I thought this day would go down as a black day in the history of mankind, Szilard recalled telling Fermi.

The experiment was a key step in the Manhattan Project. And on July 16, 1945, at about 5:30 a.m., scientists led by J. Robert Oppenheimer detonated the first atomic bomb, in the New Mexico desert the Trinity test.

It was a striking sight, as physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi recalled in his 1970 book, Science: The Center of Culture. Suddenly, there was an enormous flash of light, the brightest light I have ever seen or that I think anyone has ever seen. It blasted; it pounced; it bored its way right through you. It was a vision which was seen with more than the eye. It was seen to last forever. You would wish it would stop; although it lasted about two seconds. Finally it was over, diminishing, and we looked toward the place where the bomb had been; there was an enormous ball of fire which grew and grew and it rolled as it grew; it went up into the air, in yellow flashes and into scarlet and green. It looked menacing. It seemed to come toward one. A new thing had just been born; a new control; a new understanding of man, which man had acquired over nature.

Physicist Kenneth Bainbridge put it more succinctly: Now we are all sons of bitches, he said to Oppenheimer in the moments after the test.

The bombs construction was motivated by the fear that Germany would obtain it first. But the Germans werent even close to producing a bomb when they surrendered in May 1945. Instead, the United States bombs would be used on Japan. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, followed by another on August 9 on Nagasaki. In response, Japan surrendered. More than 100,000 people died as a result of the two attacks, and perhaps as many as 210,000.

I saw a blinding bluish-white flash from the window. I remember having the sensation of floating in the air, survivor Setsuko Thurlow recalled in a speech given upon the awarding of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. She was 13 years old when the bomb hit Hiroshima. Thus, with one bomb my beloved city was obliterated. Most of its residents were civilians who were incinerated, vaporized, carbonized.

Humankind entered a new era, with new dangers to the survival of civilization. With nuclear physics, you have something that within 10 years goes from being this arcane academic research area to something that bursts on the world stage and completely changes the relationship between science and society, Reed says.

In 1949, the Soviet Union set off its first nuclear weapon, kicking off the decades-long nuclear rivalry with the United States that would define the Cold War. And then came a bigger, more dangerous weapon: the hydrogen bomb. Whereas atomic bombs are based on nuclear fission, H-bombs harness nuclear fusion, the melding of atomic nuclei, in conjunction with fission, resulting in much larger blasts. The first H-bomb, detonated by the United States in 1952, was 1,000 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Within less than a year, the Soviet Union also tested an H-bomb. The H-bomb had been called a weapon of genocide by scientists serving on an advisory committee for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, which had previously recommended against developing the technology.

Fears of the devastation that would result from an all-out nuclear war have fed repeated attempts to rein in nuclear weapons stockpiles and tests. Since the signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996, the United States, Russia and many other countries have maintained a testing moratorium. However, North Korea tested a nuclear weapon as recently as 2017.

Still, the dangers of nuclear weapons were accompanied by a promising new technology: nuclear power.

In 1948, scientists first demonstrated that a nuclear reactor could harness fission to produce electricity. The X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee generated steam that powered an engine that lit up a small Christmas lightbulb. In 1951, Experimental Breeder Reactor-I at Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls produced the first usable amount of electricity from a nuclear reactor. The worlds first commercial nuclear power plants began to switch on in the mid- and late 1950s.

But nuclear disasters dampened enthusiasm for the technology, including the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. In 2011, the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan rekindled societys smoldering nuclear anxieties. But today, in an era when the effects of climate change are becoming alarming, nuclear power is appealing because it emits no greenhouse gases directly.

And humankinds mastery over matter is not yet complete. For decades, scientists have been dreaming of another type of nuclear power, based on fusion, the process that powers the sun. Unlike fission, fusion power wouldnt produce long-lived nuclear waste. But progress has been slow. The ITER experiment has been in planning since the 1980s. Once constructed in southern France, ITER aims to, for the first time, produce more energy from fusion than is put in. Whether it is successful may help determine the energy outlook for future centuries.

From todays perspective, the breakneck pace of progress in nuclear and particle physics in less than a century can seem unbelievable. The neutron and positron were both found in laboratories that are small in comparison with todays, and each discovery was attributed to a single physicist, relatively soon after the particles had been proposed. Those discoveries kicked off frantic developments that seemed to roll in one after another.

Now, finding a new element, discovering a new elementary particle or creating a new type of nuclear reactor can take decades, international collaborations of thousands of scientists, and huge, costly experiments.

As physicists uncover the tricks to understanding and controlling nature, it seems, the next level of secrets becomes increasingly difficult to expose.

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Scientists Perform First-ever Ultracold Atom Interferometry in Space, Leading to Possible Physics Breakthroughs – Science Times

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Highly accurate measurements are possible utilizing atom interferometers that use the atom's wave character. As such, atom interferometers can be used to measure the Earth's gravitational field or spot gravitational waves.

For the first time, scientists were able to perform atom interferometry onboard a sounding rocket.

"We have established the technological basis for atom interferometry on board of a sounding rocket and demonstrated that such experiments are not only possible on Earth, but also in space," said study author Professor Patrick Windpassinger of the Institute of Physics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU).

Windpassinger leads a group of German researchers in the study, "Ultracold atom interferometry in space," with findings published in Nature Communications.

Leibniz University Hannover collaborated with a group of researchers from different universities and research centers to launch the MAUS-1 mission in January 2017. This was the first rocket mission wherein a Bose-Einstein condensate was generated in space. This state of matter happens when atoms are cooled to minus 273 degrees Celsius or the temperature close to absolute zero.

(Photo: NIST/Wikimedia Commons)Atoms interfering with themselves. After ultracold atoms are maneuvered into superpositions--each one located in two places simultaneously--they are released to allow interference of each atom's two "selves." They are then illuminated with light, which casts a shadow, revealing a characteristic interference pattern, with red representing higher atom density. The variations in density are caused by the alternating constructive and destructive interference between the two "parts" of each atom, magnified by thousands of atoms acting in unison.

ALSO READ: New Physics Discovered by Scientists May Help Explain Mysteries of the Universe

The ultracold ensemble, the researchers said, showed a promising starting pointfor atom interferometry. Temperature is among the determining factors since measurements can be done more precisely and for longer periods at lower temperatures.

In the experiments, rubidium atom gas was broken up using laser light irradiation and then superpositioned. As forces act on the atoms on their different paths, various interference patterns can be made, and these can be used to gauge the forces that are influencing them, such as gravity.

The study first showed the coherence or interference capability of the Bose-Einstein condensate as an essentially needed property of the atomic ensemble. Here, the atoms in the interferometer were only partly superimposed as the light sequence was varied, leading to a spatial intensity modulation generation.

Researchers thus showed the viability of the concept that could lead to groundbreaking experiments focused on the Earth's gravitational field, spotting gravitational waves, and challenging Einstein's equivalence principle, which is considered breakthroughs in physics.

The team plans to study further the feasibility of high-precision atom interferometry to challenge Einstein's theory of equivalence. Two more rocket launches slated for 2022 and 2023 will have the mission use potassium atoms and rubidium atoms to create interference patterns.

With the freefall acceleration of the two types of atoms compared, the challenge on the equivalence principle with a precision that has not been earlier achieved can be done.

The experiment is an example of continuing research work on quantum technologies, including developments in quantum communication, quantum sensors, and quantum computing.

RELATED ARTICLE: Scientists Develop Atomic-Scale Imaging Technique To Measure The Age Of Planetary Samples Accurately

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Where is Donald Trump? – TRT World

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The former president's existence is mediated mainly through press releases, but is anyone listening?

If the internet cancels you, do you still exist? That's a question that must be playing in the mind of former US President Donald Trump.

For most people, the answer to that question seems to be no, as searches for Trump on Google have plummeted to the lowest levels since 2015.

Since losing the Presidential election in November, Trump set about discrediting the results, calling them fraudulent. But it was the ransacking of Capitol Hill on January 6 of this year that turned much of the Big Tech giants that had unwittingly facilitated his rise to power against him.

Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook flexed their muscle and banned Trump for life on their platforms, silencing a powerful voice on the American political right.

A plethora of other companies also ended up banning Trump, including YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit and Pinterest. But also payment platforms like PayPal and Shopify in a bid to throttle Trump's revenues.

The almost airtight silencing of Trump has revealed an uncomfortable truth about the power of Big Tech and its ability to muzzle and mediate voices on its sites.

In an example of how far Facebook is willing to ensure that Trump is not given any air time, it took down a video of him giving an interview in late March.

How is Trump communicating with the outside world?

The most-watched late-night show host Stephen Colbert shortly after the November elections, stopped saying or printing the former Presidents name in full but only expressing it as an expletive "T****."

Without much fanfare, the move was meant to deprive Trump of the oxygen he derives from becoming such an infamous household name.

Like a monarch deposed from power, Trump is now holed up in his $160 million Mar-a-Lago estate planning and plotting his return to the political frontline and would-be kingmaker in the Republican party.

His online megaphone-like presence has been reduced to a whimper. The former president now relies on press releases being fired into the inboxes of journalists he spent his presidency abusing.

In a recent interview on NewsMax, one of the most influential TV channels amongst conservative circles, Trump swore that he didn't miss Twitter and press releases are the future.

"Frankly, they're more elegant than tweeting, as the expression goes. They're really much more elegant. And the word is getting out," he said, adding, "the tweeting gets you in trouble."

In a bid to remain relevant, the former president has taken to sending out pithy press releases resembling the language he would often use in his tweets. However, lacking access to Twitter and, by extension, directly communicating with voters, Trump is now at the mercy of his old nemesis, journalists.

But even Trump realises that press releases fired into the void are sticking plaster for his wider need to garner more attention and, by extension, power.

Rumours that he could start his own social media site have become increasingly louder. Trump's pulling power amongst conservatives would undoubtedly generate the necessary millions of followers to get it off the ground.

Trump would also have to contend with one hurdle that has consistently befuddled his tenure as president, and that's his legendary ability to be distracted and lose focus or even get bored. A prospect that could afflict a social media startup if it's ever to be a successful venture.

Even as Trump's media presence has become low energy, the psychological hold he maintains over the Republican party shows no sign of receding.

As midterm elections in 2022 draw closer, Republicans seek to curry favour, money and the necessary baptism by Trump to carry conservative voters.

While the broader American public continues to deal with the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump's spectre flickers over the politician scene biding its time.

Source: TRT World

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Meet the Woman Who Could Send Donald Trump to Prison – Vanity Fair

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As the Manhattan District Attorneys criminal investigation into potential bank, tax, and insurance fraud by Donald Trump ramps up, there are a number of key figures whose names likely sends shivers down the ex-presidents spine (or would if his handlers had actually explained the seriousness of the situation to him, rather than keeping him in a hermetically sealed bubble wherein hes only told the election was stolen from him and some day soon hell be crowned President for Life). Obviously, one of those people is Cyrus Vance Jr., the veteran D.A. running the investigation who obtained Trumps tax returns in February. Another is Mark Pomerantz, the prosecutor brought onto the case who helped put John Gotti behind bars. Additionally, theres Morgan Magionos, who helped bring down former Trump aide Paul Manafort. Yet perhaps the most worrisome figure is an individual who hits closer to home, whom Trump has known for yearsJennifer Weisselberg, the former daughter-in-law of longtime Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.

As The Washington Post reported last month, Vances office has been delving deeply into the personal and financial affairs of the senior Weisselberg, with the goal of getting him to flip and become a witness against Trump. The D.A. is said to be focused on two of Weisselbergs adult sons, a tactic that could be an effort to increase pressure on the elder Weisselberg. One of those sons is Jack Weisselberg, who works at Ladder Capital Finance, which, according to The Washington Post, happened to loan the Trump Organization more than $270 million. Another is Barry Weisselberg, a Trump Organization employee who managed the Wollman ice rink for the company before the city ended its contract. On Thursday, Barrys ex-wife, Jennifer Weisselberg, reportedly turned over a trove of financial documents to Vances office, which, according to Jennifer, contain information for her ex-husbands bank accounts and credit cards, as well as his statements of net worth and tax filings. My knowledge of the documents and my voice connect the flow of money from various banks and from personal finances that bleed directly into the Trump Organization, Jennifer said last week. And according to a new report, those documents contain some extremely interesting information with regard to laws that may have been broken.

Per the Post:

Those records were entered into the couples divorce proceedings, which began in 2017, and some were obtained by The Washington Post this week along with a transcript of the deposition Barry Weisselberg gave as a part of that legal process. The documents show an array of payments and perks that BarryWeisselberg and his family received as a result of his employment for Trumps company over 18 years, likely raising key questions for investigatorsanalyzing the financesof the cash-only skating rink and working to ascertain whether the proper taxes were paid. In the deposition, Weisselberg acknowledged making errors in explaining information about his finances. He said, for instance, that he had forgotten that he shared an investment account with his father and he misstated his salary, prompting interjections from his attorneys when repeatedly confronted with contradictory information, the transcript shows.

He could not answer some questions about his taxes, the transcript shows. When asked whether taxes had been paid on the corporate apartment where his family previously lived, he said he wasnt sure. Asked how the company determined the size of his bonuses, which tallied about $40,000 annually from 2015 to 2017, he said he had no idea. When pressed in the deposition to explain discrepancies between what he said he earned and what he reported on tax forms for the Internal Revenue Service, he said: Im not an accountant. I know what I make. Im not too sure of certain things.

Despite earning $200,000 a year for as long as he could remember, Weisselberg said in the deposition, according to the Post, that he and Jennifer lived rent-free in Trump-owned apartments, adding that he did not know how taxes on the property were handled. (In addition, his father paid most of his living expenses, including $7,900 in monthly rent for a non-Trump-owned apartment where the couple later lived, $49,000 a year for each of his kids to attend private school, $25,000 each for overnight camp, $2,200 for his daughters Hebrew school, and $546 a month for a leased Range Rover.) Speaking of Barry Weisselbergs financial situation, the documents Vances office got a hold of last week have raised a number of questions, according to Air Mail:

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Heres Everything We Know About Donald Trumps Personal Finances – Yahoo Finance

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Well before he became president of the United States, Donald Trumps money and business savviness were the most interesting things about him at least from a global perspective. The public fascination was in part owed to the fact that hes always presented himself in the way that one might imagine a billionaire tycoon in a cartoon about billionaire tycoons, living in a penthouse tower surrounded by easy symbols of wealth: pure gold, rare marble and dazzling chandeliers hanging from impossibly high ceilings.

Read: 65 Splurges of the Filthy Rich

But then there was the mysterious side of Trump. He knew how to master money in a way that we pedestrians couldnt help but ogle. By 2011, hed filed for corporate bankruptcy no less than four times. Hed been cornered into selling some of his most spectacular assets, including his Trump Princess yacht. He rolled out business ventures that would eventually fail like Trump Steaks and Trump Mortgage. Yet no matter how much he bombed in the financial sense, he still remained filthy rich. It appeared he could trick the system in ways that the average person heck, even the average wealthy person seemingly could not.

Then he achieved the greatest feat one that money ostensibly could not buy: He became president of the United States. And thats when the previously smooth-looking money maneuvers started to look very, very rocky. Blasted by critics, Trump was revealed to the public as someone whod been spoon-fed his wealth by his father. There was a debacle about his tax returns and why he wouldnt release them. Speculation mounted that Americas most infamous rich guy wasnt as rich as he claimed.

See: How Rich Are Joe Biden, Donald Trump and All the Other Living US Presidents?

Now that his presidency has ended, theres even more information surfacing on Trumps financial standings. Trumps not exactly smooth sailing (or yachting?); in fact, hes up against some serious problems that could have serious repercussions. For instance:

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In July 2020, Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist and the niece of Donald Trump, published a nonfiction book about the most dangerous man in America, aka her uncle Donald. In September, Mary filed a lawsuit alleging that Donald and his siblings committed fraud in a ruse to strip her of her interests in the Trump real estate empire. Trump is urging for the case to be dismissed, but if it is not and it goes to trial, Trump could have to cough up compensatory and punitive damages were talking millions of dollars.

Check Out: Trumps Tax Tricks and 12 Loopholes Only the Rich Know

For billionaires, there are legal loopholes to dodge paying tons in federal taxes. Trump is the best example of this, paying just $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017. But you cant get cagey with the IRS when it comes to audits. For more than 10 years, Trump has been warring with the IRS over the viability of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed after declaring colossal losses. If he doesnt win the battle, hes out somewhere in the ballpark of $100 million.

Inheritance money only lasts so long at some point, the well runs dry. Trump received the final multimillion-dollar share of his lucrative family inheritance in or around 2018. Income that Trump had streaming in his entire life has been bluntly severed. Its much harder to launch a business venture or settle a debt when you dont have old money pumping new life into your bank account.

More: 16 Money Rules That Millionaires Swear By

MAGA is alive and well but historically, thats not the brand that has pulled in vast riches for Donald Trump. Its his eponymous Trump brand that has long been the cash cow. In his pre-presidency times, when bankruptcies were shadowing his finances, Trump could always resort to the money-making brand he launched with his fathers multimillion-dollar endowments or cash in on his TV and real estate celebrity status. But two impeachments, criticized management of a pandemic that claimed hundreds of thousands of American lives and erasure from social media following a MAGA-inspired insurrection at the Capitol might have made the once-impervious Trump brand a pariah that few, if any, investors want to touch. Only time will tell if he can find the financial support he might want.

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Donald Trump Caused The Techlash – Techdirt

Posted: at 6:35 am

from the 2016-election-was-the-tipping-point dept

InOctober 2016, I pitched USC a research proposal about the techcoverages non-investigative nature and the influence ofcorporate PR. I thought that at the end of this project, Idhave indictive documentation of how the tech media is too promotionaland not tough enough. When I sat down to analyze a full year of techcoverage, the data presented quite the opposite. 2017 wassuddenlyfull of tech scandals and mounting scrutiny. The flatteringstories about consumer products evolved into investigative pieces onbusiness practices, which caught the tech companies and theircommunications teams off guard.

Likeany good startup, I needed to pivot. I changed my research entirelyand focused on this new type of backlash against Big Tech. Theresearch was based on an AI-media monitoring tool (by MIT andHarvard), content analysis, and in-depth interviews. I had amazinginterviewees: senior tech PR executives and leading tech journalistsfrom BuzzFeedNews,CNET,Recode,ReutersNews,TechCrunch,Techdirt,TheAtlantic,TheInformation,TheNew York Times,TheVerge,and Wiredmagazine. Together, they illuminated the powerdynamics between the media and the tech giants it covers. Hereare some ofthe conclusions regarding the roots of the shift in coverage and thetech companies crisis responses.

Theelection of Donald Trump

Afterthe U.K.s Brexit referendum in June 2016, and specifically,after Donald Trump became the president at the end of 2016, the mediablamed the tech platforms for widespread misinformation anddisinformation. The most influential article, from November 2016, wasBuzzFeedspiece entitled, Thisanalysis shows how viral fake election news stories outperformed realnews on Facebook.It was the firstdomino to topple.

WhenI asked what was the story that formed the Techlash, allthe interviewees answered, in one way or the other, that it was theelection of Donald Trump. Even though it wasnt thestory that people wrote about the most, it was the underlying theme.Then, new revelations regarding the Russian interference with theU.S. election evolved into a bigger story. On November 1, 2017,Facebook, Google, and Twitter, testified in front of the U.S.Congress. Thealarming effect was from combining the threetestimonies together.

Inthe tech sector, theres a sentence that you hear a lot:change happens gradually then suddenly. There wereyears and years of build-up for the flip, but the flipitself was in the pivotal moment of Donald Trumps victory andthe post-presidential election reckoning that followed it. The maindiscussion was the role of social media in helping him win theelection.

IfHillary Clinton had been elected in November 2016, the Techlash mighthave been much smaller. We would not have seen the amount ofnegative coverage. It is not just because almost every techjournalist is reflectively anti-Donald Trump; it is that almost everytech person is anti-Donald Trump. As a result, Silicon Valleybegan to regret the foundational elements of its own success. Themost dire warnings started to come from inside the industry asmore sources spoke up and exposed misdeeds.

Then,in 2018, the Cambridge Analytica scandal unlockedlarger concerns about social medias influence and the carelessapproach toward user privacy.It also shed light on the fact that technology is progressing fasterthan consumers ability to process it and faster than thegovernments ability to regulate it.

Thecompanies bigness and scandals around fake news, databreaches, and sexual harassment

Therewere more factors at play here. It was also the tech companiesscale and bigness, being too big to fail. All the tech giants are ata place where they are getting scrutiny, if nothing else, because ofhow big and powerful they are. On the one hand, growth-at-all-cost isa mandate. On the other, there are unforeseen consequences of thatsame growth.

Accordingto the tech journalists, those unintended consequences are due to thecompanies profound lack of foresight. They were blind, andthis blindness came back to bite them. Thus, its thecompanies fault for not listening to the journalistsconcerns.

However,the big data analytics and content analysis showed that focusing onlyon the post-election reckoning or the tech platforms growingpower wont fully explain the Techlash. A large number ofevents in a variety of issues shaped it. Their combination led to theIts enough feeling, the mounting calls fortougher regulation, and the #BreakUpBigTech proposition.

Wehad cases of extremist content and hate speech, andmisinformation/disinformation, like the fake news after the Las Vegasshooting; privacyand data security issues, following major cyber-attacks, likeWannaCry or data breaches, like Equifax, but also atFacebook, Uber, and Yahoo, which raised the alarm about data privacyand data protection challenges; and also allegations of ananti-diversity, sexual harassment, and discrimination culture. It wasin February 2017 that Susan Fowler published her revelations againstUber (prior to the #MeToo movement). It symbolized the toxicity inSilicon Valley. All of those time-bombs started to detonate at once.

Thetech companies responses didnt help

WhenI analyzed the tech companies crisis responses, I haddifferent companies and a variety of negative stories, and yet theresponses were very much alike. It created what I call TheTech PR Template for Crises. The companies rolled out the sameplaybook, over and over again. It was clear; bigtech got used to resting on their laurels and was not ready to givereal answers to tough questions. Instead, they published theresponses they kept under open in case of emergency.

Onestrategy was The Victim-Villain framing: Wevebuilt something good, with good intentions/ previous good deeds andgreat policies -but- our product/ platform was manipulated/ misusedby bad/malicious actors.

Thesecond was pseudo-apologies: Many responses included messages of weapologize, deeply regret, and ask forforgiveness. They were usually intertwined with we needto do better. This message typically comes in this order:Whileweve made steady progress we have much more work todo, and we know we need to do better. Every techreporter heard this specific combination a million times by now.

Theysaid, sorry, so why pseudo-apologies? Well, becausethey repeatedly tried to reduce their responsibility, with all theelements identified in number one: reminder strategy (past goodwork), excuse strategy (good intention), victimization (basicallysaying, We are the victim of the crisis), scapegoating(blamingothers). They emphasized their suffering since they were anunfair victim of some malicious, outside entity.

Thethird thing was to state that they are proactive: We arecurrently working on those immediate actions to fix this. Lookingforward, we are working on those steps for improvements, minimizingthe chances that it will happen again. Its CrisisCommunication 101. But then, they added, But our work willnever be done. I think those seven words encapsulateeverything. Istheworknever done because, by now, the problems are too big to fix?

Itis the art of avoiding responsibility

Oneway to look at the companies PR template is to say: Well,of course, that this is their messaging. They are being asked to stopbig, difficult societal problems, and that is animpossiblerequest.

Inreality, all of those Techlash responses backlashed. Tech companiesshould know (as Spider-Man fans already know) that with greatpower comes great responsibility. Since they tried to reducetheir responsibility, the critics claimed that tech companies need tostop taking the role of the victim and stop blaming others. Theapology tours received comments such as dont ask forforgiveness, ask for permission. The critics also said thatactions should follow words. Even after the companiesspecified their corrective actions, the critics claimed the companiesignore the system because they have no incentive fordramatic changes, like their business models. In such cases, wherethe media push for fundamental changes, PR cant fix it.

TheTechlash coverage is deterministic

Onthe one hand, theres the theme of: We are at a pointwhere the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater. There was aperhaps ridiculous utopianism. But it has become just as ridiculous -if not more so - on the flip side now, of being dystopian. Thependulum has swung too far (EvilListarticles, for example). On the other hand, theres the theme ofJournalisms role is to hold power to account. We arejust doing our job, speak truth to power, revealwrongdoing, and put a stop to it.Whoever is saying that the media is over-correcting doesntunderstand journalism at all.

WhileI articulated both themes in the book, one of the concepts thathelped me organize my thoughts was technological determinism.In a nutshell, some argue that technology is deterministic: the stateof technological advancement is the determining factor of society.Others dispute that view, claiming the opposite: social forces shapeand design technology, and thus, it is the society that affectstechnology. I realized that we could describe the Techlash coverageas deterministic: technology drives society in bad directions.Period.

Then,perhaps what the few tech advocates are pointing out is that thisnarrative doesnt consider the social context or human agency.A good example was the SocialDilemma.The tech critics targeted the scare tactics used to enrage people ina documentary filled with scare tactics used to enrage people. Andthey didnt even notice the irony. Sadly, since theyexaggerated and the arguments were too simplistic, they made iteasier to dismiss the claims, even though they were extremelyimportant. My fear here is that the exaggerations overshadow the realconcerns, and the companies become even more tone-deaf. So, perhaps,we deserve a more nuanced discussion.

Itscool -- its evil saviors -- threats

Fromthe glorious days and the dot-com bubble to todays Techlash,there were two pendulum swings; the first between Itscool and Its evil, the second betweensaviors and threats. Moving forward, Iwould suggest dropping them altogether. Tech is not an evil threat,nor our ultimate savior. The reality is not those extremes, butsomewhere in the middle.

Dr. Nirit Weiss-Blatt is the author of The Techlash and Tech Crisis Communication

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyones attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

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Filed Under: donald trump, journalism, narrative, techlash

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Pastor Johnny Enlow Says People Will Understand Donald Trump’s Bravery When They Get to Heaven – Newsweek

Posted: at 6:35 am

Pastor Johnny Enlow, a conservative Christian who has been described by some as a "prophetic leader," said that people will understand and "respect" former President Donald Trump more once they get to Heaven.

Enlow and his wife Elizabeth Enlow are the founders of Restore 7 ministry based in Tennessee. Johnny Enlow appeared on a recent episode of The Elijah List program, discussing Trump and how people view the former president. Right Wing Watch first reported the pastor's remarks.

"The weaker, more imperfect that a vessel isthe more glory God gets from using him to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish. Having said that, we are going to respect and honor President Trump a whole lot more in Heaven once we understood the courage and bravery of what he's had to do and put up with," Enlow said.

The pastor went on to compare Trump to the biblical king of Israel, David, who defeated the Philistine giant warrior Goliath, according to the narrative recorded in the Book of Samuel. "There is that same caliber of steeliness, of resolve and of knowing that he is put there by God that is in President Trump," Enlow said.

Newsweek reached out to Enlow's Restore 7 ministry for further comment.

American Christiansand particularly white evangelical Christianshave been a key base of support for Trump and Republicans. In 2016 and again in 2020, exit polls showed that approximately eight in 10 white evangelical Christians voted for the former president. Evangelicals have been largely politically animated by their opposition to women's reproductive rights, as well as further legal protections for the LGBTQ community. They see Trump, and other Republicans, as championing their conservative concerns.

A number of self-described evangelical "prophets" and religious leaders have repeatedly praised the former president. Many continue to promote baseless conspiracy theories that Democrats and President Joe Biden "rigged" or "stole" the 2020 election, a claim that has been thoroughly debunked by many Republican leaders, among others. Dozens of election challenges brought by the former president and his supporters have been rejected or dismissed in state and federal courtsincluding by judges appointed by Trump or other Republicans.

Earlier this spring, Enlow claimed that Trump "won the election in numbers by far," suggesting the truth will be revealed "very soon." The pastor went on to claim that military intelligence had allowed the alleged rigging to proceed as "a sting operation," saying that he had "inside military intelligence information." He said that even the state of California had actually gone for Trumpa claim that defies common sense, considering a Republican presidential candidate has not won in the deep-blue state since 1988. In the 2020 election, Biden carried the western state by nearly 30 percent.

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How Rich Are Joe Biden, Donald Trump and All the Other Living US Presidents? – Yahoo Finance

Posted: at 6:35 am

Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.com

Although the current presidential salary is not too shabby at $400,000 a year, many former presidents make the bulk of their money after leaving the White House through speaking engagements, book deals and other business deals. Of course, this is not always the case Donald Trump was already a very rich man when he entered the Oval Office and was the first billionaire to become president, Forbes reported.

Read More: All the Ways the Biden Family Has Made Money Over the Past 20 Years

But, is he the richest president still alive? See how Trumps wealth stacks up to all of the other living U.S. presidents.

Last updated: April 6, 2021

Joe Biden, democratic party, presidential candidate

President Joe Biden has had a decades-long career in politics but it didnt make him super-rich until he landed in the White House as vice president. His net worth skyrocketed after he finished his term thanks to lucrative book deals and speaking engagements, Forbes reported. That includes a 2017 book deal worth a reported $8 million, according to Publishers Weekly.

Click through to see how much Biden is worth now.

Find Out: What a Biden Presidency Means for Your Wallet

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Alex Brandon/AP/Shutterstock (10338009d)President Donald Trump smiles during a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, in WashingtonTrump, Washington, USA - 16 Jul 2019.

Before he became president, Donald Trump had made a name for himself as a businessman. The majority of Trumps current fortune comes from his real estate holdings across New York City, Forbes reported.

Click through to see just how rich his prime real estate and other business ventures have made Trump.

Read: Trumps Tax Tricks and 12 Loopholes Only the Rich Know

President Barack Obama

Post-presidential life has been lucrative for Barack Obama. Hes commanded $400,000 speaking fees and signed book deals worth $65 million, Newsweek reported. Obama, along with his wife Michelle, also signed a production deal with Netflix in 2018 for an undisclosed amount, Variety reported though based on previous deals the streaming giant had made, its likely worth north of $100 million.

Click through to see just how rich all of these deals have made Obama.

Story continues

George W. Bush

Like Trump, George W. Bush was already wealthy when he took office. He earned millions as the founder and CEO of an oil and gas exploration firm and as part-owner of Major League Baseballs Texas Rangers, Fox Business reported. He continued to add to his wealth after his presidency was over through book deals and speaking fees.

Click through to see how much Bush is worth now.

Find Out: How the Stock Market Performed Under Each President

Bill-Clinton net worth

Bill Clinton left the White House poorer than when he went into it. Because of defense attorneys fees for scandal investigations, impeachment proceedings and an action to suspend his Arkansas law license, Clinton ended his term as president with $16 million in debt, CNBC reported. However, he was able to turn things around with income from speeches and book deals. In his first year out of the Oval Office, Clinton earned $13.7 million from his speaking and writing business, according to his tax return. And by 2016, Clinton and his wife, Hillary, had racked up $153 million in speaking fees, CNN reported.

Click through to find out how much Clinton is worth today.

Read More: The Average Social Security Check the Year You Were Born

Jimmy Carter net worth

Unlike many other former presidents, Jimmy Carter eschewed the big-money speeches and corporate board invitations after leaving the White House, choosing instead to return to his simple life in Plains, Georgia, The Washington Post reported. According to The Post, Carter is the only president in the modern era to return full-time to the house he lived in before he entered politics a two-bedroom rancher assessed at $167,000, less than the value of the armored Secret Service vehicles parked outside. Still, he has added to his post-presidency wealth with book deals, plus the over-$200,000 annual pension all ex-presidents receive.

Click through to see how much this modest former president is worth.

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Donald Trump will again be inaugurated as president – The Albany Herald

Posted: at 6:35 am

Now with light dawning on the border crisis and on the delusion in the White House, it is time to expose the truth of this policy and this administration.

Given his cognitive ability, no one expects Biden to understand, but surely the media and Congress can recognize the mindlessness of allowing immigrants endlessly streaming through an open border, while granting full benefits of a welfare state, a formula for disaster any person with common sense recognizes as reckless and unsustainable. Democrats are moving swiftly -- through vaccination passports, voting changes, establishing a "military uniformity," approving censorship, eliminating any opposition to their views -- to establishing their socialist takeover of America. But they need to hear once more it isn't going to happen.

God is in control of His world, and the United States is His nation, established by Him, by people who loved and cherished and love Him still -- and we will not be moved or silenced -- and our faithfulness in having elected President Trump will be recognized and rewarded. Donald Trump will yet be inaugurated into the presidency, which is his. These United States of America will be preserved -- with all the freedoms, liberties, justice and equality, harmony and brotherly love intended and given by our Divine Creator from the beginning. May God bless the USA.

Stacker used the most recent U.S. Census Bureau Five-Year American Community Survey data, last updated in December 2020, to pull crucial information about each town, including the unemployment rate and median household income. The locations are ranked by the median household income, and ties Click for more.

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Just How Rich Are Donald Trump, President Biden and These Other Big Names? – Yahoo Finance

Posted: at 6:35 am

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc. soared above a $112 billion valuation in its trading debut Wednesday, then slipped back below its opening price as Bitcoin fell from record highs and tech stocks fell across the board.The massive valuation, which dwarfs more traditional financial companies including Intercontinental Exchange Group Inc. and Nasdaq Inc. itself, is a landmark moment for the crypto industry and for Coinbase, which was started almost a decade ago when few people had even heard of Bitcoin, and many exchanges were run by amateurs from their garages and homes.Coinbase shares traded at $332.99 apiece on Nasdaq at 2:56 p.m., after earlier climbing as high as $429.54. Bitcoin, which along with Ethereum made up 56% of Coinbases 2020 trading revenue, dipped below $62,000 after earlier hitting a record price.The early rally isnt just a mark of success for Coinbase, which was valued at just $8 billion in its most recent funding round in 2018. Its also a win for Nasdaq, which hosted its first direct listing after beating out the New York Stock Exchange for Coinbases debut. Coinbase is the biggest company to take the direct listing route to market.Coinbase Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas said in an interview Wednesday morning that one of the reasons that the company picked Nasdaq was because the bourse offered the ticker symbol COIN, which wasnt part of the New York Stock Exchanges pitch.Ultimately that they had the ticker COIN, and that was a really great ticker for us to get, Haas said.Nasdaq on Tuesday set a reference price of $250 a share for Coinbases direct listing, a number thats a requirement for the stock to begin trading, but not a direct indicator of the companys potential market capitalization. Every major direct listing has so far opened significantly above its reference price, with Roblox shares debuting at $64 each - 42% higher than the number set by the exchange.Coinbase shares changed hands at a roughly $90 billion valuation in early March, Bloomberg News reported at the time, in what was one of the last chances for investors to trade its private stock before the company went public.Digital Currency Group founder Barry Silbert, whos built an empire that spans the crypto world, tweeted Tuesday that his shares would definitely not be changing hands at the reference price, in an early sign that the stock was set for a pop at the open.Direct listings are an alternative to a traditional initial public offering that has only been deployed a handful of times. Until Wednesday, every company to pursue one -- including Slack Technologies Inc., Palantir Technologies Inc. and most recently Roblox Corp. -- listed on the New York Stock Exchange.As well as the ticker, Nasdaqs ability to provide a private market for the shares, as well as services it offers such as investor relations work, were among its selling points to Coinbase, according to a person familiar with the matter.Appropriately for a company that in May said it was committing to a remote-first work culture and doesnt list a headquarters on its filing, Coinbases pitch meetings with Nasdaq happened virtually, the person added.We evaluated both NYSE and Nasdaq and ultimately felt that the Nasdaq platform was aligned with our value as a tech company, Haas said.In a direct listing, a companys shares begin trading without it issuing new shares to raise capital. That avoids diluting the shares and also, unlike a traditional IPO, often allows the companys existing investors to put their shares on the market without waiting for lockup period -- typically six months -- to expire.Luring Coinbase was a win for Nasdaq, whose years-long fight for a larger share of mega listings gained traction in the past year. Half of the 10 largest U.S. IPOs, excluding blank-check companies, were on on Nasdaq, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That included the third largest, Airbnb Inc.s $3.8 billion IPO in December, which was the biggest listing on Nasdaq since Facebook Inc.s $16 billion monolith in 2012.Crypto UpstartsPutting his trust in the stock exchange is Coinbase Chief Executive Officer Brian Armstrong, who started the company with Fred Ehrsam in 2012. Unlike most rivals, Coinbases founders always envisioned strict regulatory compliance as a cornerstone of the operation, which has helped the exchange to grow in the U.S., where many early Bitcoin traders and investors were located.Ehrsam left the company in 2017, and is now investing in crypto startups. Both Armstrong and Ehrsam own huge swaths of Coinbase.Coinbase last week said it expects to report a first-quarter profit of $730 million to $800 million, more than double what it earned in all of 2020.They are going to build out a full financial services company, said Barry Schuler, a co-founder of Coinbase investor DFJ Growth who until last year sat on the companys board. Like a crypto version of a Goldman Sachs or a Morgan Stanley.Skeptics, RegulationThe companys rapid growth hasnt been without controversy, ranging from frequent outages during periods of heavy trading to new restrictions Armstrong placed on employee discussions of politics last fall. In March, Coinbase also settled with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for $6.5 million, after the agency said the company reported inaccurate data about transactions and that a former employee engaged in improper trades.Then there are the crypto skeptics, as well as the regulators around the world who are stepping up oversight and casting doubt on Bitcoins usefulness as a currency.European Central Bank executive board member Isabel Schnabel, in an interview this month with Der Spiegel, called Bitcoin a speculative asset without any recognizable fundamental value.A publicly traded Coinbase was unimaginable several years back when Wall Street was full of crypto bears including JPMorgan Chase & Co.s Jamie Dimon, who once called Bitcoin a fraud.Dimon later said he regretted saying that. His bank as well as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. advised on Coinbases direct listing.I dont think we sought Wall Streets approval but we did seek to bring more transparency to crypto and to introduce crypto to more and more users, Coinbases Hass said.Crypto PartnersWall Street can become trader of crypto. They are going to be partners of us going forward, she said.Coinbases early investors are celebrating.I think Coinbase is this decades Microsoft, Netscape, Google or Facebook, Garry Tan, founder and managing partner at Initialized Capital and an early-stage Coinbase investor, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television Tuesday.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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