Daily Archives: February 7, 2022

Bitcoin has become a lifeline for sex workers, like this former nurse who made $1.3 million last year – CNBC

Posted: February 7, 2022 at 6:35 am

Allie Eve Knox creates adult content.

She makes sexually provocative videos, sells subscription services on platforms like OnlyFans, performs live via webcam, and works as a findomme short for financial dominatrix, a fetish involving dominance-submission dynamics and cash.

The Texas native is also a major advocate of cryptocurrency.

Knox describes herself as "one of the most outspoken sex workers, particularly for crypto." Her interest kicked off in 2014, which is when she says several vendors, including PayPal, Square Cash, and Venmo, shut down her accounts because of red flags related to sex work.

So Knox started accepting cryptocurrencies instead. Her first exchange of bitcoin for content was pretty casual.

It started on a Skype call with a client. "I had a Coinbase account at the time, and he said, 'Hold your QR code right to this camera here,' and he sent it through the camera. And I got it," she explained.

It took 15 minutes, and there were no chargebacks, no website commission fees, and no bank intermediaries to turn down the transaction all major pluses in her industry. But the biggest attraction was having total and irreversible ownership over the money she had earned.

"I could cash it out. I could hold it. I could watch it go up and down," said Knox.

"It was mine."

Knox is one of many adult workers who say that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin give them a sense of security and independence as banks, credit card companies, and payment processors tighten regulations around adult content. With crypto, there is no middleman making a judgment call on which transactions are acceptable.

Sex work is an umbrella term that includes anyone who engages in some form of erotic labor, whether virtual or in person.

"The majority of sex work in the U.S. is legal. It's not dealt with fairly, but it's still legal," explained Kristen DiAngelo, an activist and Sacramento-based sex worker who has spent over four decades in the industry. "Stripping is legalmassage is legalescorting is legal. The only thing that's really illegal in the U.S. is the honest exchange of sexual activity for remuneration, for money."

Some escorts who charge anywhere from $1,700 an hour to $11,000 for a full 24 hours now explicitly say in their ads that they prefer to be paid in bitcoin or ethereum.

The sex work industry also includes performers on the popular subscription video site OnlyFans, many of whom work exclusively online and have never seen their subscribers or fans in person.

Allie Rae is a 37-year-old mother of three boys who says she went from making about $84,000 a year as an ICU nurse in Boston to $1.3 million, thanks to her work on OnlyFans, which has more than 130 million users.

Last August, Rae didn't know a lot about cryptocurrency, nor did she accept it for her work, but she was convinced that bitcoin and other altcoins were "100% the future," because they seemed like a far more secure method of payment.

At the time, OnlyFans was navigating a publicity nightmare. After banks started flagging and rejecting transactions on the site, OnlyFans announced plans to ban sexually explicit content, its core product. The decision was met with such blowback that OnlyFans reversed course within days.

The whole episode gave whiplash to OnlyFans performers, some of whom realized that they were just one company policy change away from financial ruin.

Rae, a star of the OnlyFans ecosystem, was spooked, telling CNBC that she felt "kicked to the curb," and never wanted to be put in that position again.

So she took action.

She started with the basics, teaching herself the fundamentals of crypto, then decided to put real skin in the game by assembling a team of developers to build WetSpace, a cryptocurrency-powered adult entertainment platform, into which she has vowed to invest $1 million of her own money. As Rae describes it, WetSpace will be a place where creators don't have to worry about "big banking restrictions and payouts."

By December, Rae had gone from bitcoin novice and OnlyFans ingnue to an adult content entrepreneur speaking fluent crypto, with terms like "smart contracts" and "ERC-20 tokens" rolling right off her tongue.

Adult content creators have also jumped on the non-fungible token, or NFT, bandwagon. Knox tells CNBC she's sold photos of herself as NFTs on OpenSea and through SpankChain's custom NFT marketplace. Thus far, the most she's gotten from a single sale is $1,200 worth of ethereum.

DiAngelo tells CNBC she will never forget the first time her bank account was closed without warning.

It happened when she was on a trip to Washington, D.C.over a decade ago.

"I had just gone into the bank, made a deposit, and I went to buy lunch in Dupont Circle," said DiAngelo. "I gave him my card, and it was declined. I gave him my card, and it was declined again. And I gave my card again, and it was declined again. And I was like, 'No, no, no, no, that can't be right. There's something wrong.'"

DiAngelo called Citibank and learned that her account had been frozen and she should tear up her credit card. DiAngelo says the customer service rep told her that they weren't "at liberty" to tell her why it had happened, and she would have to write a formal letter to request additional details.

They did, however, say that she was still responsible for any money owed.

"That put fear in my heart, like I thought my world was collapsing. My bank account was frozen. I couldn't access my money," she said.(Citibank did not respond to a request for comment.)

There was particular irony in her situation, as DiAngelo did a stint as a stockbroker at Citibank in the 1980's, always pays her taxes, and has a credit score over 800.

Allie Eve Knox

So DiAngelo did what other sex workers do: She "platform hopped," meaning that she brought her money to another bank. When they also flagged and closed her account, she moved on to the next. After being shut out of a third bank, DiAngelo says she turned exclusively to bitcoin for her online banking needs.

Nearly every sex worker interviewed for this story mentioned platform hopping. The government has a set of anti-traffickingguidelines drawn up by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, and the banks and big payment apps keep an eye out for activity deemed suspicious by those guidelines. Those red flags include making cash deposits frequently a hallmark of the sex work profession.

"We will change, we will pivot, we'll go to other platforms," Knox said. "This is just a constant like jumping through hoops cycle."

In 2014, for example, PayPal booted her because of a payment for her used socks that was large enough to get red-flagged. Knox says neither she nor the buyer were refunded. (PayPal tells CNBC that her account was "closed due to policy violations.")

Later, in 2016, Coinbase closed her account and blocked her from making others. (Coinbase acknowledged to CNBC that its terms of service prohibit the use of its "commerce or retail services connected to adult content.")

"We're the ones being punished not the traffickers, not those that are actually abusing workers," said Alana Evans, who has been an adult performer since the late 90's. Evans is currently president of the Adult Performance Artists Guild, or APAG, a federally recognized union within the adult industry that represents all workers from adult film set actors, to content creators.

"They've attacked our banking; our ability to operate like the rest of the world," explained DiAngelo."You don't exist if you can't use the banking system."

Evans says that once you've been in the industry and labeled as an adult performer, it is virtually impossible to get a job outside the industry even at a fast food restaurant.

"We are stigmatized. We are discriminated against," said Evans, who is actively looking to foment change in her role as the head of APAG. She says she has met directly with Mastercard and other companies to address the issue, and she is advocating with members of Congress to add occupation to the list of protected title practices, which currently includes race, age, and religion.

Mastercard confirmed the meeting with Evans, saying that the company "welcomes dialogue and different perspectives" about its policies and programs.

For many sex workers, bitcoin is more than a way to reclaim financial independence it's an industry standard.

In 2018, the U.S. passed a federal law designed to eliminate online sex trafficking. The Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or FOSTA-SESTA, meant that owners of web sites could face criminal charges for content that promoted trafficking.

"It meant any site online, or any venue that does business online, that could possibly receive profits for prostitution in any way could be indicted and do 25 years in prison," explained DiAngelo, who is currently a researcher and lecturer at the University of California, Davis.

FOSTA-SESTA spelled an end for Backpage once the bastion of online advertisements for sex workers and persuaded Craigslist to discontinue its personal ads.

But critics say the net effect of this law was to drive the trade further underground. Workers lost the ability to pre-screen clients, and many in the industry tell CNBC it led to a spike in street work and violence.

It also turned bitcoin into a necessity for many escorts. Advertising is essential to attract new business, and workers using popular escort directories like Slixa and Eros tell CNBC that these platforms encourage payment in cryptocurrencies within the U.S. One industry vet says typical ads cost $480 worth of bitcoin for two weeks.

Eros did not respond to a request for comment, while Slixa shared in a written statement that it "does not advertise or have as advertisers 'sex workers' as that term is traditionally defined," and that it takes multiple forms of payment.

"I think that in some ways crypto offers a way forward," said Mike Stabile, a spokesman for the Free Speech Coalition, which is an adult video trade group that advocates for the rights of sex workers.

"It means that you can move away from these handful of payment processors, the handful of credit cards that seem to control what content can be sold," continued Stabile.

Mastercard disputes the assertion that it's biased against sex workers. "Let us be clear allegations of bias against adult content creators are demonstrably untrue. Our actions and business practices against trafficking and exploitation clearly show this."

It's just an up-and-down kind of roller coaster. That's the beauty and the pain of crypto.

One hazard of the trade are chargebacks, in which a transaction is reversed when a consumer claims they have been fraudulently charged for a good or service they did not receive. It is a tool designed to protect consumers, but many sex workers say it is a tool that is abused in their industry by clients who dispute a transaction for a product or service they have already received.

Take OnlyFans. There are some customers who will dispute a transaction once they've already received custom video clips, or photos. OnlyFans' official policy on its website says the creator, not the company, foots the bill for a chargeback. (OnlyFans did not respond to requests for comment.)

Many models have taken to forums like Reddit to share their experiences, in which they say these alleged scammers will sometimes put in for a chargeback six months after receiving pictures or videos.

Transactions in cryptocurrencies are final, rendering chargebacks impossible.

Online, the adult industry often leads technology shifts, and that's certainly been the case with crypto.

UK-based escort agency VIP Passion started to accept bitcoin in 2013. Two years later, Backpage made a similar move into bitcoin, litecoin, and dogecoin after Visa and Mastercard refused to process payments for its "adult" section.

Visa said at the time that the company's rules prohibited the network from "being used for illegal activity" and that Visa had a "long history of working with law enforcement to safeguard the integrity of the payment system." Mastercard issued a similar statement, saying that the card company has rules prohibiting its cards from "being used for illegal or brand-damaging activities."

Pornhub one of the world's most highly trafficked websites began accepting a crypto token called verge in 2018. As litecoin creator Charlie Lee noted at the time, the porn industry is often a "leading indicator of technology adoption," so he was "glad to see them opening up to cryptocurrency."

When PayPal decided to stop payouts to over a hundred thousand Pornhub performers, the site added tether (a stablecoin pegged to the price of the U.S. dollar) as an alternative option. In Dec. 2020, Pornhub went full crypto in some countries after Mastercard and Visa cut ties with the platform over claims of illegal content running rampant on the porn site.

In a statement to CNBC, Mastercard said its decision was "based on an internal investigation that confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site." Visa did not respond.

Allie Eve Knox

Nowadays, it's par for the course to see adult websites accept cryptocurrency, and some deal in it exclusively.

Chaturbate and FanCentro accept digital tokens, and live-streaming webcam platform Stripchat tells CNBC that 23% of its active models are now paid in a mix of cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, ethereum, and USDC, which is a stablecoin pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar. Customers can also leave tips, and the company says its largest tip yet was $100,000 deposited in tether.

It helps that recent advancements in payment technology have made it easier than ever to transact in cryptocurrency. The Lightning Network, for example, is a payments platform built on bitcoin's base layer that enables virtually instantaneous transactions.

"An OnlyFans that is Lightning based could easily survive the sort of censorship they faced in August," explained Boaz Sobrado, a London-based fintech data analyst. "Political pressure and stigma can be applied to card companies, which can then make it very difficult for otherwise legal businesses like OnlyFans to operate."

"This entire vector is removed if you have a payment system which doesn't suffer from political pressures. And that's the case with the Lightning Network, which has inexpensive payments, easy transactions, and is not easily censorable," continued Sobrado.

Some adult media companies have even turned to blockchain technology to develop their own digital currencies and platforms.

SpankChain is a cam-site built on ethereum's blockchain that, among other things, tries to make it easier for adult performers to safely get paid online. LiveStars, also built on ethereum, is an adult streaming platform and social network that promises greater privacy and security to users, plus similar payment solutions that intend to make transactions faster and more profitable for the performer which is significant to workers who are accustomed to paying 40% to 50% commission fees on traditional platforms that run on fiat payment rails.

CumRocket which Elon Musk appeared to back in two cryptic tweets last June has its own NFT marketplace and token, which can be used to tip and message content creators.

Stabile warns there are still barriers to mass crypto adoption among sex workers.

For one, there's a steep learning curve for both workers and customers. Sex workers have written and circulated guides online on how to use crypto, but a sizable knowledge gap remains.

It is also difficult to get some customers to spend their bitcoin on adult content.

"They generally use it as a store of value," says Stabile. "It's a speculative currency."

Knox says often clients choose not to pay her in crypto.

"That's the hurdle that we're at right now. We can take it all day long, but until people start using it and start paying us with it, it's not going to really take off for adoption," said Knox.

Sex workers who do accept crypto also have to contend with volatile prices, which can cut into their earnings. For instance, bitcoin is down more than 40% from its November all-time high.

Evans tells CNBC she stuck it out through the multi-year crypto winter that began in late 2017, when prices plunged.

"I literally had a paycheck that was worth one-tenth of what it was, because I held on to it," explained Knox. "It's just an up-and-down kind of roller coaster. That's the beauty and the pain of crypto."

That volatility can create upside, too.

When Knox began accepting cryptocurrency in 2014, it was mainly for convenience, rather than any sense of crypto as a long-term investment. In her early days, Knox tells CNBC she would get two bitcoin in exchange for an hour-long Skype session.A single bitcoin is now worth around $40,000, and has been as high as $69,000.

Kristen DiAngelo

"I just kind of left it on the backburner and would collect it whenever people would pay me in it," said Knox, who tells CNBC she still holds a good portion of her crypto stake. "I collected till about 2017 and then crypto went crazy. It was one of those things where I was like, 'Oh, wow, this was an accidental great investment for me.'"

Beyond price volatility, trading in crypto often incurs extra fees.

"Buying the crypto to pay for [ads] was always fraught with all these hidden fees that these trading sites would be charging," said San Francisco-based Maxine Doogan, who has been working as a prostitute for more than thirty years.

Instead of using a traditional exchange like Coinbase, Doogan instead goes through a convoluted process that involves finding an intermediary via a trading site, and then depositing cash into that person's bank account, trusting that they will then electronically transfer bitcoin into her crypto wallet. Some of these intermediaries will accept gift cards. Others ask sex workers to buy a regular "vanilla" credit card and send them the numbers, in hopes that they'll follow through on the trade.

DiAngelo says that in the early days of crypto, she would use bitcoin ATMs at liquor stores and gas stations to deposit cash to buy bitcoin. These machines charge commissions above and beyond the cost of the transaction.

Another major problem relates to the rules that govern cryptocurrency exchanges. Many platforms like Coinbase require know-your-customer, or KYC compliance. In practice, that means having to connect an ID and bank account to the platform a non-starter for many working in the industry.

Because of this, some workers later find they can't cash out the crypto they have earned for products or services rendered.

While there are tokens designed with privacy and anonymity in mind (zcash and monero, for example), the blockchain technology that underpins cryptocurrencies like bitcoin is transparent by design, leading some in the industry to worry that with the right tools and crypto know-how, friends, family, or the government technically have the ability to track their steps.

But Rae remains convinced that cryptocurrency is the future for the sex work industry.

"Cryptocurrency is our only option. I don't feel like we're going to survive under stricter and stricter rules from the banking industry," said Rae.

"For people like me making millions of dollars, a thirty day notice from OnlyFans would be the end of us. Crypto really feels like it's kinda it, otherwise we're going to be controlled forever and who knows the kind of content they're going to continue to ban. They can turn you off tomorrow."

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The race to net zero by 2050: avoiding unintended consequences – Lexology

Posted: at 6:35 am

Organisations around the world are rallying to show their commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

This race against time requires organisations to undertake a holistic evaluation of their decarbonisation strategies and operations for ESG risks to identify and avoid unintended negative impacts on human rights. Failure to do so may have significant financial consequences, including termination of supply or lending agreements, divestment, litigation and consumer backlash. Australian businesses should take action now.

The issue

Research shows that in the race to net zero, companies may be unintentionally exposing themselves and their stakeholders to adverse human rights risks and impacts.

High emitting companies adopting strategies for transitioning to low carbon operations have collectively been shown they could improve action to identify, prepare for and mitigate social impacts of these strategies.A 2021 study by the World Benchmarking Alliance found that companies need to do better across all of the Alliances just transition metrics,including reskilling workers to mitigate the risk of a stranded workforceand demonstrating a fundamental commitment to respecting human rights by identifying and managing human rights risks as required by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

The renewable energy sector, while rising to the challenge of climate change, has also been shown to be at risk of adverse human rights impacts.Over 200 allegations of serious human rights violations linked to renewable energy projects were recorded by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre in the last ten years, including land and water grabs, violation of the rights of indigenous peoples and the denial of workers rights to decent work and a living wage. Of those allegations, 44% are from the wind and solar sectors.

Green jobs are increasingly being exposed as having attendant human rights risks. This includes the manufacture of solar panels, many of which are made, or have components that are made, in Xinjiang province in China. The US considers the risk of human rights violations in this region to be so great that it has banned the importation of goods from Xinjiang unless importers can prove no forced labour was used.More than 50% of the worlds cobalt reserves, essential for lithium-ion battery manufacture, are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is identified as being at high risk for corruption and labour exploitation, including child labour.Further, the UKs Health and Safety Executive has found that fatalities in the waste and recycling sector are 17 times higher than the average across most other industries.

Drivers for better identification and management of social risks

Transitioning to clean energy at the pace required to achieve net zero by 2050 will require significant capital flows to be directed toward the renewable energy sector. Last year in Australia alone we saw a net shift of approximately A$60 billion of assets under management toward responsible investment strategies.With this shift, we expect Australian investors will increasingly demand that the entities and projects they are funding not only demonstrate the positive environmental and social impacts of their business operations, but also identify and mitigate both environmental and social risks in those operations and their supply chains.

We have already seen a heightened focus by industry participants, including project sponsors, financiers and energy off-takers on these issues with contractual arrangements now more frequently mandating far more stringent and prescriptive obligations on counterparties to ensure appropriate plans and policies are both in place and adhered to so as to mitigate against these risks.

Australian organisations will also face pressure internationally. In 2020, the EU represented Australias seventh largest export destination and second largest source of foreign investment.With the commencement of EU taxonomy directed to promoting sustainable green investment by classifying and reporting on environmentally sustainable activities and the EUs foreshadowed introduction of mandatory environmental and human rights due diligence regime and various mandatory national human rights and/or environmental reporting and due diligence regimes including France,Germany,Norwayand the Netherlands, Australian organisations can expect increased scrutiny of both positive and negative social and environmental impacts in their supply chains from EU based trading partners and investors.

This year, Australian organisations will not only face pressure to extend examination of their supply chains to second and third tier suppliers for modern slavery risks for the purposes of 2022 Modern Slavery reporting requirements, but they are likely to face international pressure to expand that scrutiny to operational social and environmental impacts more broadly.

How can organisations respond? The dos and donts

Do:

Dont:

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Why Metaverse Cryptocurrency Axie Infinity Is Soaring Today – The Motley Fool

Posted: at 6:35 am

What happened

Axie Infinity (CRYPTO:AXS) is a wildly popular metaverse-style blockchain game. One of its primary cryptocurrencies, the AXS token, is soaring higher on Saturday afternoon, up 12.7% over the last 24 hours as of 2:00 p.m. ET.

Image source: Getty Images.

Volatility is a hallmark of the crypto market, and prices can swing wildly without any real provocation. But in this case, many cryptocurrencies appear to be building on the stock market's momentum. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite both finished last week in the green, marking their best weekly performance so far in 2022. And Axie Infinity appears to be riding that wave higher.

Additionally, some of Axie's momentum may be due to certain changes in gameplay announced on Thursday. Specifically, the daily quest and adventure mode will be retired, meaning gamers can only earn the Ethereum-based Smooth Love Potion (CRYPTO:SLP) tokens through arena combat in the Axie Infinity game.

Axie Infinity gamers can collect, train, and battle digital creatures known as Axies, each of which have different attributes that make them more or less valuable. To that end, each Axie -- along with other in-game items like land -- are represented as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain, and gamers can buy and sell those NFTs through the Axie Infinity Marketplace, which itself ranks as the thirdmost popular NFT marketplace in the blockchain industry, according to DappRadar.

By eliminating daily quests and adventures from gameplay, the developer team has effectively reduced the creation of SLP tokens by 56%. That's important because SLP tokens are used to breed Axies, a feature that allows players to combine traits from existing Axies to create new (and potentially more valuable) digital creatures. Put another way, SLP tokens will now be harder to come by, which should make Axies more valuable.

The metaverse is a popular buzzword among investors, both in the stock market and the crypto market. And Axie has been a beneficiary of that trend. While the AXS token is still down 66% from its all-time high, it is up 45,000% since hitting a low in November 2020.

Looking ahead, assuming Axie Infinity continues to gain traction with gamers and crypto enthusiasts, demand for the AXS token -- which is used not only for breeding, but also in staking, governance, and (eventually) marketplacepayments -- could continue to rise, pushing its price higher.

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

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How the Left Lost the Constitution – Jacobin magazine

Posted: at 6:35 am

The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy by Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath (Harvard University Press, 2022)

When nineteenth-century Radical Republicans advocated for the abolition of slavery, they coupled their demands for racial equality with pleas for distributive equality. The political economy of the South, reformers at the time argued, was undergirded by an undying spirit of oligarchy. In order to live up to the ideals of the newly instituted Reconstruction Amendments, concentrations of wealth and power, as one black Union soldier declared, needed to be moved to the bottom rail from the top.

As law professors Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath write in their timely new book, The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy, this period in American history brought together for the first time in the mainstream of American political life three core principles anti-oligarchy, a broad and accessible middle class, and inclusion central to what the authors refer to as the democracy-of-opportunity tradition. This tradition places affirmative distributional duties on government and considers the needs of all Americans in the economic and the political spheres.

Over 150 years after the abolition of slavery, as the nation deals with the repercussions of a second Gilded Age and wrestles with similar questions of wealth, redistribution, equality, and democracy (all in the face of a conservative supermajority on the high court), Fishkin and Forbaths accessible work serves as both history lesson and political playbook, offering the Left an underutilized and perhaps counterintuitive tool in the present-day fight against social and economic injustice: the Constitution.

Of course, the use of the founding document to justify certain goals is nothing new. Both the Left and the Right have drawn on the Constitution as a means to their respective ends for centuries, and Fishkin and Forbaths nearly five-hundred-page work offers a richly detailed account of that history. (And before anyone charges them with originalism, the authors make clear that they revisit history not because they think it is binding but rather because they believe certain principles from the nations past have independent merit and stand in need of reinvention today.)

Since the founding era there has been a broad tradition of framing the Constitution as a document that calls on the government to fend off oligarchy and ensure broadly shared wealth. One need only look to the earliest debates surrounding the nascent republic and how it should be governed for proof. This is where Fishkin and Forbath find some of their richest material.

The basis of a democratic and a republican form of government, Noah Webster, of dictionary fame, proclaimed during Americas revolutionary period, is a fundamental law favoring an equal or rather a general distribution of property. Webster is just one of many in the line of early American thinkers whose pleas for resistance to aristocratic forms of privilege Fishkin and Forbath revisit, tracking their attempts to build and sustain a system of democratic governance. It is a moving and effective message in todays age not of kings and queens but Bezos and Musk.

The question at hand for the founders: how was the preindustrial nation to achieve a system of broadly shared resources? Was it through a Hamiltonian central government or a Jeffersonian small-scale order? The ideological split ended in a compromise known as the Bill of Rights. The first ten amendments acted as a check on Hamiltons plea for a strong central government, and, as the authors write, from then on no mainstream party ever again openly proclaimed itself the party of elite rule. In the century after the founding, lawmakers tied their distributional rhetoric with legislative action, and it is here that todays left can learn a valuable lesson.

For legislators in the early American period, the Constitution was at once a text and a tradition and, at the same time, a system of government whose powers, purposes and precepts one implemented over time, through political and legislative action. Take, for example, the Whigs response to Southern Democrats who argued that the protective tariff violated Congresss power under the Constitution (one of the many primary-sourced debates the authors draw on). Instead of capitulating to a restrictive view of the founding document, the Whigs used it to their advantage. As Fishkin and Forbath write, quoting legislators of the period:

Article Is enumerated powers were not only grants of power but trusts to be executed and duties to be discharged for the common defense and general welfare. The non-use[] of the power was a violation of the trust. [T]he words common defence and general welfare were the expositors of the purpose for which Congress are expressly enjoined TO PROVIDE. And where the general welfare was clearly better served by the exercise of enumerated power than by its non-use, Congress had not only the power but the constitutional duty to act.

This focus on Congresss affirmative constitutional duties has all but been supplanted today by our highly judicialized constitutional culture, to our collective detriment. It was this sense of affirmative duty, as Fishkin and Forbath effectively demonstrate, coupled with elements of racial inclusion, that ultimately ushered in Reconstruction-era reforms (the Freedmens Bureau granting land and other practical aid to formerly enslaved persons, for example), and it was these reforms that underscored the connection between a democratic economic structure and a democratic political structure.

It is in the discussion of the first Gilded Age and the New Deal that followed along with the cast of players involved in this generation-defining battle between capital, labor, and the role of the state where Fishkin and Forbath are at their sharpest and their arguments the most relevant. For it is in this period in which the Left severed the link between politics and the Constitution the effects of which are in play to this very day.

At the end of the nineteenth century, as the nation moved from a patchwork of colonies to an unfurled quilt of cities and vast frontiers, a system of corporate capitalism emerged, and with it a class of propertyless wage earners. As Fishkin and Forbath write, fundamental questions were at stake: Was the wage system of labor compatible with the republican system of government? Were the new giant corporations consistent with the pledge of equal rights? Or did these unprecedented concentrations of wealth and power mean a slide into oligarchy?

One answer came in the form of Lochnerism, a classic economic liberalism defined by its aversion to special privileges and disruptions to the common-law doctrine of freedom of contract. It was a hands-off, laissez-faire response to industrialization that prioritized judicial supremacy in constitutional interpretation. Fishkin and Forbaths revisitation is especially helpful given the Roberts Court resurrection of Lochnerian ideals. The other answer prioritized just the opposite: state interference in the ever more unequal American marketplace, casting legislation and the administrative state, rather than the federal courts, as engines of constitutional political economy.

The latter worldview found a champion in Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. New Dealers, as Fishkin and Forbath write, championed their legislative agenda in terms of implementing their new social-democratic economic constitutional order. . . . There would be new statutes . . . new protections for Americans material security . . . all of it in the name of vindicating the promises of the Constitution and Reconstruction Amendments.

After the Supreme Court struck down a slate of FDRs measures, he introduced a court-packing bill that would eventually spur the famous switch in time to save nine. While the move secured a temporary victory for the president and his party, it also ushered in a one-sided settlement, one in which federal courts deferred to Congress on social and economic measures, shifting their focus instead to the enforcement of individual rights and civil liberties. Liberals became enamored of the idea that the Constitution is autonomous from politics, separate from politics, setting the boundaries of politics. This is a one-sided view, for, as Fishkin and Forbath point out, Opponents of New Deal economic policy never gave up on the courts.

The last two chapters of Fishkin and Forbaths book offer a clear narrative of where the Left went wrong, how the Right filled the void, and what progressives should do to reclaim the lost democracy-of-opportunity tradition.

By the 1960s, as Fishkin and Forbath explain, it became unimaginable to mount a progressive constitutional challenge to the courts, because the liberal Earl Warren was chief justice and the Supreme Court became the . . . first mover on civil rights, the politics of racial inclusion became bound up with a politics of judicial supremacy. Other issues once central to the progressive political project labor, redistribution, etc. lost their constitutional character.

Other factors led to the shift toward a more court-centered constitutionalism. One in particular is worth highlighting, for it often gets too little play in popular discussion surrounding the court: the separation of economics from politics. In the postwar years, economic matters, like constitutional ones, came increasingly to be seen as a domain best governed by those with special expertise. Scientific expertise reigned. Political economy as a discipline was on the outs.

The story of how this occurred, the authors admit, is complex. But Fishkin and Forbath do not shy away from exploring certain causes. The Progressive Eras focus on competent management by apolitical professionals played a role. So did the Cold War. The eras brutal purges of communists, socialists and other radical economic thinkers altered the shape of pressing conversations surrounding public policy where they had long been important participants indispensable ones, as far as the democracy of opportunity is concerned.

Ultimately, this shortsighted view of the courts and the Constitution on the part of the Left jeopardized one pillar in the democracy-of-opportunity tradition the focus on concentrations of economic power and undermined the entire trifecta. And while the Left settled into its postwar judicial lull, the Right was engaged in a concerted effort to refashion the federal bench in its image.

And today, Fishkin and Forbath argue, we face the consequence of a Supreme Court lurching right. The authors discourage moderate court reform measures draped in nonpartisanship (i.e., Joe Bidens executive panel on the judiciary) and instead promote a sort of movement politics bent on making a case against the Courts constitutional politics and the visions that animate the conservative supermajority and their ideological allies. They call on activists to construct a rival constitutional, political, and economic landscape in the vein of Republicans during Reconstruction and Democrats during the New Deal.

And as a testament to the strength of their work as a guide for those engaged in the modern judicial reform movement, the authors offer specific instructions to revive the democracy-of-opportunity tradition, all while curbing the power of the Roberts Court. One call feels particularly relevant: a more direct repudiation of the new First Amendment Lochnerism in cases dealing with campaign finance and labor law. To challenge the courts current jurisprudence, they suggest using the lens of constitutional political economy to strengthen labors bargaining power and disrupt the current status quo connection between financial worth and political clout.

Taken as a whole, Fishkin and Forbaths work amounts to an epic repudiation and refashioning of the core tenets that have guided liberal judicial politics for a generation. It should act as a sort of manifesto for those in the fight to craft new tenets, to create a more just and equitable society where the people realize the full promise of their Constitution.

How the Left Lost the Constitution - Jacobin magazine

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‘Backlash is real’: Yes, your workplace is probably racist but how do you even begin to tackle this problem? – MarketWatch

Posted: at 6:35 am

The Value Gapis a MarketWatch Q&A series with business leaders, academics, authors, policymakers and activists on reducing racial and social inequalities.

Everyone not just executives, managers and HR representatives has some kind of power to start dismantling racism at work, says Y-Vonne Hutchinson. And the journey starts with identifying and leveraging that power, finding coworkers to back you up, and having an effective conversation with your boss, after lots of careful preparation.

While inequitable workplaces have existed for centuries, Hutchinson notes that her new book, How to Talk to Your Boss About Race, out Tuesday, comes during a time of glaring pandemic-exacerbated inequalities that disproportionately impact women and people of color. It comes in the midst of sustained attention to systemic racism and the corresponding backlash, as well as a tight labor market in which many low-wage workers have sought safer and better-paying jobs.

Now is the time to push for change, writes Hutchinson, the CEO and founder of the diversity, equity and inclusion consulting firm ReadySet and a former international labor and human-rights lawyer.

Even a year and a half after outrage over George Floyds murder pushed many companies to make bold DEI commitments; pledge billions of dollars toward racial justice; and endorse the Black Lives Matter movement, plenty of indicators show they still have a lot of work to do in achieving racial equality in the workplace.

Hutchinson mines lessons from the civil and labor rights movements, corporate cautionary tales, the social sciences and her own personal experience often laced with humor to give readers the necessary vocabulary, context and practical advice to confront race and racism at work.

She says she learned how to have these conversations herself through painfully awkward and, at times, traumatic trial and error, including an attempt early in her career to report her colleagues racist behavior. (Her bosses defended the offenders, called her overly sensitive and later declined to renew her contract, she says.)

Hutchinson spoke with MarketWatch about how to tell if your workplace is racist (spoiler: it likely is), find where your influence lies, and recognize when a fight isnt worth fighting. The interview has been edited and condensed for length:

MarketWatch: Your book is called How to Talk to Your Boss About Race, but its really about using that conversation as a springboard and equipping yourself to change the whole system at work. How do you make that more approachable and digestible for somebody who feels overwhelmed by it?

Hutchinson: It is completely understandable that somebody will see these systems of power, these systems of oppression and marginalization and the broader corporate context in which they sit, and also their position relative to that, and feel disempowered. But nobody changes everything all at once, right? Change happens incrementally, and it happens in community.

So I would say for somebody who feels like its a daunting task, first, youre right. Second is, its not just for you to fix. And then the third thing is, when youre going about it, you do it a little bit at a time. And you accept the fact and remind yourself continuously of the fact that this is a process it took a long time to build these systems and its going to take a long time to dismantle them. Theyre actually built quite effectively, so its really, really hard. Its almost as if somebody was trying to protect all of their money and power.

MarketWatch: Now, your book poses the question, Is your workplace racist? up front, then answers it by saying the short answer and also the slightly more nuanced answer is nearly certainly yes. I think a lot of people, particularly those who think their workplaces are pretty progressive, might be surprised to hear that. Can you unpack that for us?

Hutchinson: Racism is written into our Declaration of Independence, into our Constitution. The White House was built by slaves. It is so woven into the fabric of this country. It is embedded in almost every aspect of our lives, and that is by design. And it would be exceptional to work in a place that managed to avoid the influence of what is so pervasive everywhere else. For me, it seems like an obvious answer that yes, your workplace is racist like every workplace is.

[But] one of the reasons racism is even more insidious and more effective now is that it kind of operates where there is doubt. Externally, overt racism is happening more and more, but within the company there is still at least the desire to appear equitable. At least now youre not going to have a workplace that says We dont hire this kind of person or You cant get promoted if youre Black or brown overtly.

We have to get out of our feelings about racism. What we inherited, its here and if we want to dismantle it, we really have to accept that fact.

MarketWatch: Maybe you can talk a little bit about other warning signs that you work at a place thats racist.

Hutchinson: The first thing I look at is: Who holds power in an institution? And usually, thats whos in a leadership position, who is in the C-suite, whos on the board, whos managing people. You see a lot of organizations, especially recently, that place an emphasis on diversity. And they bring in people but usually, those people arent brought in with a lot of power. Theyre brought in at sort of the entry level. And even when theyre brought in as leaders, the formal and informal power that they hold is not necessarily as much as their white counterparts.

I think the second is: Who gets listened to, who gets recognized, who gets amplified, whats normalized? What is considered the default, and is that default associated with whiteness? Are there racist power structures? Is [my organization] having a racist impact? Is it harming people from underrepresented racial groups?

I dont think that because youre vulnerable, youre powerless. I think those are two different things.

MarketWatch: To your point about using the word racist plainly to describe a power structure or a workplace, you reserve some pretty choice words for conversations about unconscious bias, which I think is where a lot of organizations right now are still kind of stuck. What do you think are the natural limitations of focusing on something like that?

Hutchinson: Well, its a fundamentally different concept with different historical roots than racism. The reason why people gravitate to the unconscious-bias conversation is that it is a comfortable conversation, right? Its a conversation without taboo. Its a conversation that doesnt implicate the person having it, because we all have unconscious bias. It doesnt name those things that are socially uncomfortable. And because its a relatively new term, it doesnt have the historical impact, historical baggage, that conversations about racism have.

In some ways, unconscious bias conversations can be useful. They open the door to conversations about bias. But you have to move beyond them really quickly, because anytime you get stuck in unconscious-bias framework, youre not going to get anything done. The solution to solving your unconscious bias because its unconscious is being aware of it. Theres no structural implications or structural approaches. Theres no acknowledgement of overt bias or harms.

For many people, [conversations about race] also implicate present power structures, and theyre harder to have. People get more defensive in conversations about race. People feel more triggered, more targeted, in conversations about race. Racism is responsible for some very real, horrific violence in this country. You can kind of keep unconscious bias and make it a workplace, corporate kind of thing. But when were talking about racism, were talking about redlining. Were talking about lynching. Were talking about slavery. Were talking about genocide. Were talking about the destruction of whole towns and communities.

Thats the legacy that we bring into conversations about race, and the legacy that we have to reconcile if were going to solve the racism inherent in our organizations. And its a reality thats hard for a lot of people to confront, but necessary if they actually want to make progress in doing the work that they say that they want to do.

MarketWatch: You write that in order to leverage your social position at work to push for change, you have to figure out what kind of power you personally have to influence people. If Im an hourly worker making minimum wage and maybe worried about my job security, especially during COVID, or Im a gig worker whos classified as a contractor, I might respond by saying I dont really have all that much power in my position. What would you say to someone like that?

Hutchinson: I think its important to acknowledge that you are more vulnerable. I dont think it behooves anyone to dismiss the reality of precarious, low-wage work, particularly right now. That being said, I dont think that because youre vulnerable, youre powerless. I think those are two different things. And I think your sources of power may look different.

In the book, I talk about collective power and the power of organizing: You alone may not have that power, but you working with other people can have a lot of power a lot of social power, influential power, visible power. Im just thinking about movements like the Fight for 15 and the collective organizing of low-wage workers there showing that when people get together, there are some ways in which we can correct the traditional power balance.

Its easy to delegitimize one person, gaslight one person. Its easy to discourage one person. I think its a lot harder to discredit a movement.

I would also say that there are other sources of power beyond those that are centered around hierarchy or economic power. I talk a lot about social power in my book, because I think theres a lot of movement happening socially when it comes to this recognition of workers rights and the right to be free from discrimination and [racism], etc. And so you may not have power when you think about legitimate power. Thats the power that your boss has over you; its the power that [can come from] traditional power structures, traditional hierarchy. You may not have access to that as much.

But you probably do have some access to influential power, whether its power through social media, power through your relationships at work and the allies that you engage there. I think that its not as simple as just, I dont have power. I wrote that section to really get people to thinking not about if they have power but what types of power they have, and how they can access them.

This work doesnt happen in isolation. Its not just about you as the individual. [Its] so important to understand that. You, any individual, is disempowered when they go up against a system. Its about, how do you think about engaging collectively, and leveraging that collective power to move the system to where you want to go? Unionization, collective action, all of this stuff has been demonized. And not all unions are perfect, Ill totally admit that.But I think weve been tricked into thinking its up to us as individuals to change our workplaces, and social change has never happened like that never, ever, ever, not in any space has one person totally revolutionized the system.

Even when we think of prominent civil-rights activists we think of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, W. E. B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, Ida B. Wells no matter who youre thinking of in terms of civil rights, labor rights and these movements, they happen as part of a collective. They all had a machine behind them, and history erases that machine.

MarketWatch: A common thread throughout your book is the argument to not go it alone when youre trying to engage your boss on race, especially if youre a person of color, and to always enlist backup in the form of allies. Why do you think that is so important?

Hutchinson: Because backlash is real. I think we internalize the myth that and Ive been talking about this more and more with other groups that the Martin Luther King Jr. quote that everybody loves to use, The [arc of the moral] universe is long, but it bends towards progress. I think theres a sort of self-serving idea, particularly on behalf of white people, people in power, that progress is the natural outcome of agitation, and retaliation, while present, is actually an aberration. And I think historically what we see is that no, with major movements, progress is often followed by periods of really intense backlash.

I advise people to work as part of a group because when you work as a singular person, you become a target for that backlash. Its really easy to isolate one person. Its easy to all of a sudden give poor performance reviews to one person. Its easy to delegitimize one person, gaslight one person. Its easy to discourage one person. I think its a lot harder to discredit a movement, discredit a bunch of people who are working in unison.

MarketWatch: In your book, you coach the reader in great detail on understanding their identity and what power they have, practicing arguments and retorts in advance, and finding some carefully considered words to use during this conversation with their boss. Is there a piece of advice in there that youd really want to emphasize and drive home, something you think is absolutely imperative to having these conversations?

Hutchinson: The most important tip that I can give is to know what your objective is in this conversation and to make sure it is realistic and actionable. Everything in your conversation flows from this. What kind of specific changes do you want to see? Are they within your bosss power to effectuate? What would be the impact of these changes? How do they align with your bosss other priorities? What metrics will you use to [assess] the success or failure of your conversation based on that goal?

If youre facing that kind of pushback, youre probably not the person to change them. And sometimes a departure can be just the wake-up call that a company needs.

MarketWatch: We are still in the midst of a tight labor market; were in the middle of what you may have heard is called The Great Resignation. How do you know when to quit, and when a fight is not worth fighting at your workplace?

Hutchinson: First, I think the conversation that you have if you decide to talk to your boss about race, or talk to anyone its going to be very telling. What do they do? Do they immediately have a defensive reaction and shut down the conversation? Thats a sign. Are you seeing surface-level investment, but investment that isnt actually about changing anything? Leadership thats disengaged, disinterested or, at worst, opposed to this? Thats another sign.

Do people ask folks of color to put forward this work, push this work ahead, without actually investing in them? Are extra burdens and extra harms being created without regard for the impact and without compensation or recognition? Are you now facing retaliation? That happens a lot in these conversations. Do you start getting marginalized on your team? Have your performance reviews all of a sudden taken a dive? Are you given less-prestigious assignments? Are your managers no longer giving you feedback? Are you seeing social exclusion? That, to me, is also a really big red flag.

Related: More employees are filing retaliation charges heres what every whistleblower should know

And then finally, I would say think about where HR is in all of this. In all likelihood, HR is probably not your friend. HRs job is to protect the company from liability. And once you start pointing out discrimination and potential violations of federal civil-rights law, you become a liability. And so then the question becomes, do you feel like you have an ally in these structures? Chances are you dont. Do you feel like you have another adversary? If you do, thats probably also when its time to go.

I always recommend: Dont let it hit rock bottom. If you start to get the inclination, particularly in this labor market, that hey, this isnt the right space for you, and you can leave on good terms with some people people who can give you a recommendation, whatever and go to a place thats better for you, dont belabor it. Just do it. Because those institutions, Im not saying theyre not going to change, but if youre facing that kind of pushback, youre probably not the person to change them. And sometimes a departure can be just the wake-up call that a company needs.

So if you have the privilege, the economic privilege, to be able to look for other work and survive a job transition, and youre facing those kinds of hurdles, I would certainly recommend that you consider it.

Do you start getting marginalized on your team? Have your performance reviews all of a sudden taken a dive? Are you given less-prestigious assignments?

MarketWatch: You became a new parent during the writing of this book. You also went through a lot of personal challenges, including the death of your sister. Im so sorry for your loss. You write that working with someone to establish boundaries and self-care routines including therapy, etc., helped you process and cope with that. What advice do you have for folks who are taking on this anti-racism work in their workplace when it comes to taking care of themselves and avoiding burnout, especially if they are also a person of color?

Hutchinson: Yeah, what a time we live in where theres just this sort of cognitive dissonance between the reality and work the expectation that you show up every day and do your job plus a little bit extra while the world is on fire, and sometimes literally. I think its really cruel. Its really hard.

I think its a tall enough order to ask somebody to think about how they make their organizations less racist. I certainly dont expect within this conversation were going to cover the scope of how to dismantle capitalism, but I think that that realization, No. 1, is super important. These are I struggle to say abnormal because racism is a normal aspect of our country, ableism is a normal aspect of our country, work above all else is normal in our country but this just feels like extraordinary times. And we are trying to normalize a situation, a series of events and a social/political reality that is fundamentally not normal. So I would say recognize that; I think thats the first thing. And be realistic about the expectations that you set for yourself.

Putting your mental health first, saying no This extra work is actually personal work for us, and its work that is quite often associated with really deep trauma and history, and our current reality, and current harms that were facing. So I think its OK to say no to these things even though they feel personal. It is really not your responsibility as a traumatized person to change the trauma.

Its great you want to do it. That is a very selfless act that you are doing, and its good for the community. But fundamentally its not your responsibility, and it is going to be really hard for you to do it. So its OK to say no. Its OK to say, Actually, Im not the one who needs to do the work right now. Youre the one that needs to do the work. Its OK to say, OK, Im going to do this, but you need to pay me.

I think Black and brown people really need mental health support as were navigating this time and as we navigate these traumatizing institutions. So making sure you have something in place, and acknowledging that that is a privilege not everybody can afford a therapist is really important, but also thinking through what other free resources you may be able to access.

One thing that is free, though, that we can all do, is build our communities outside of work. I think particularly for us in the U.S., there is a sort of conflation of work with our identity, and were often encouraged to self-actualize through our work and we often talk about excellence in a workplace setting. And often for us as Black and brown children, its drilled into us that the way out of our oppression is through respectability as obtained in the workplace.

And so when this workplace becomes your source of identity but also the source of your trauma, it can be incredibly, incredibly, incredibly disruptive. And so I really encourage people, No. 1, form an identity outside of work, but No. 2, nurture those relationships that have literally nothing to do with how you produce money.

I think where you have healthy family dynamics and your biological family is one thats healthy to engage with, great. But also, if you need to build a chosen family, do that. Figure out what kind of community you need to surround yourself with to feel nurtured and supported. Invest in the friendships. Stop putting work first, because work is not putting you first.

Even if youre not working on racial and cultural issues, work-life balance is really important. If you wake up working and go to bed working, at the end of the day its going to start fing with you. It messes up your sense of reality, and your sense of relationships, and your sense of your place in the world. Your place at work becomes your place in the world. So you really have to intentionally fight against that.

Continued here:

'Backlash is real': Yes, your workplace is probably racist but how do you even begin to tackle this problem? - MarketWatch

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Why Cryptocurrency TFuel Is Up More Than 14% On Saturday – Motley Fool

Posted: at 6:35 am

What happened

Cryptocurrencies TFuel (CRYPTO:TFUEL) and its related Theta (CRYPTO:THETA) are up 14.3% and 8.8%, respectively, as of 3:48 p.m. ET Saturday, mostly in response to this morning's news that Bullit Technology will be making its encryption technology available at the Theta Network.

By blockchain standards, it's one of the more practical and easier-to-understand uses of the idea.

Bullit Technology allows users to upload, encrypt, and then deliver a digital file of any sort and size. The tool also allows authorized users to decrypt that file in a variety of ways, including pay-to-open decryption. The service, however, still requires each of these transmissions to be recorded using a blockchain ledger.

Enter Theta Network.

In simplest terms, Theta Network is a content delivery network with a focus on digital video, and built from the ground up for content creators looking to monetize their work. It relies on two distinct but related components, the first of which is the Theta token, which validates transactions completed via the network. The other half of the solution is provided by the cryptocurrency TFuel, which serves as a means of making and taking payments.

Image source: Getty Images.

Bullit Technology and Theta Network should work particularly well together going forward. As Bullit's CTO Anas Madi commented of the partnership "Connecting to a significant blockchain like Theta is an important step for us as we begin to bring online our forthcoming products related to (blockchain-based) NFT utility functions and compliance solutions."

At least some of today's strength from TFuel and Theta has to be chalked up to how primed it already was for a rebound before Bullit's announcement was made this morning; TFuel was down by more than three-fourths of last June's peak as recently as last month. Would-be buyers should expect plenty of volatility going forward, both bearish and bullish.

As a whole, though, the partnership with Bullit is encouraging. Not only does it demonstrate confidence in the Theta token, but also expands usage of TFuel. It's certainly more bullish than bearish.

Of the two tokens, TFuel's role in collecting transaction fees makes it the more appropriate pick for interested price speculators. The Theta Network token is more of a tool to govern the content delivery system.

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Why Cryptocurrency TFuel Is Up More Than 14% On Saturday - Motley Fool

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Rakeem Jones: Army veteran trading cryptocurrency early, wants to share what hes learned – The Fayetteville Observer

Posted: at 6:35 am

Rakeem Keem Jones| The Fayetteville Observer

Future of money: See how the tech generation invests

Discover why the next generation of investors may be leaning toward NFTs, cryptocurrency and gamification investing.

STAFF VIDEO, USA TODAY

All you need is a laptop, cell phone and a hot spot, raps Crypto Quavo as he drives a Bentley Bentayga around Miami in his video for Crypto Anthem. The song on YouTube features a cameo by Kwame Crypto Kwame Stover.

Crypto Quavo, whose real name is Quavas Hart, hails from Shelby or as he calls it, The Shell.He wants to make cryptocurrency accessible for all. As a father of four, the Army veteran understands the power of sacrifice. He served for 10 years and went on three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq.

More: Rakeem Jones: A survivor of human trafficking shares her story

Before becoming known in the cryptocurrency space,Hart, who is 35, worked asa cinematographer. In 2016, he gained recognition during Hurricane Matthewwhen he used a drone to rescue a man and his dog trapped in theirhome during the flooding. The video was seen by millions, and he was hailed as a hero.

Hart is a graduate of Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida.Although he shoots in any and all genres, he has worked with hip-hop superstars Future, Busta Rhymes and Gorilla Zoe.

He says being behind the camera giveshim an adrenaline rush. The feeling became a must-have, he writes on his blog.

I remember the first time I got my first million views; the attention it created gave me a great feeling, he wrote.

Harts passions are in full displayon his custom red Chevrolet Corvette C8. He mounted a GoPro camera on the roof and has his signature Crypto Quavo logo on the hood and the doors.

Cryptocurrency, a form of digital currency,is a way of life for Quavas. He was an early advocate.

He entered the space in 2017, starting with Litecoin and Bitcoin. Litecoin was $25 a coin and Bitcoin was $1,500 a coin. Currently, Litecoin is worth $147.95 and Bitcoin is worth a whopping $42,241.80.

Cryptocurrency is emerging as the new way to spend money. Recently, Staples Center was renamed Crypto.com Arena.

More: Rakeem Jones: Fayetteville crypto millionaire teaches the 'marathon mentality' when it comes to creating wealth

However, the average citizen lacks the knowledge or has reservations about investing money into an unregulated currency.

Everyone is on the internet daily; its simple to set up a trading app like Coinbase or Crypto.com so you can invest and start trading crypto, Hart says.

He recommends that newcomers research coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum, since they are the most popular. Furthermore, you cant get into non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, and the metaverse a virtual reality space without knowledge of cryptocurrency.

NFTs are pieces of digital content linked to the blockchain, a shared database that helps makethe crypto market possible. Unlike cryptocurrency, NFTs are not interchangeable, which means no two NFTs are the same. Hart describes NFTs as trading cards that may gain value.'

The first-ever NFT was sold by Christies auction house for $69.3 million. Since then, celebrities like sports starsLeBron James, Stephen Curry and Tom Brady have all created and sold NFTs.

Celebrity-endorsed NFTs come with perks in the metaverse and real life. Mark Zuckerbergs decision to change the name of Facebook to Meta was a telling sign of the future.

However, children have already been living in the metaverse with games such as Roblox and Fortnite. Tech publication Wired describes the term metaverse as a broad shift in how we interact with technology or a digital economy where users can create, buyand sell goods.

Due to the fact that cryptocurrency is not fully regulated just yet, there are no scholastic resources to educate those eager to learn. Like many other crypto millionaires, Hart is self-taught and works to pass on the knowledge.

The more you know, the more you make in the crypto space, he says. "All throughout social media, there are accounts taking advantage of people."

Support local journalism with a subscription to The Fayetteville Observer. Click the "subscribe'' link at the top of this article.

But he reminds people that he is not a financial advisor. To combat scammers, Hartoffers one-on-one and group classes in-person and online.

In addition, he teams up with Stover for a free community event, Cars and Crypto. To contact Hart about classes or to join his Discord, follow him on all social media platforms @imsofirst.

Salute to Crypto Quavo and every activist getting active. Peace.

Rakeem Keem Jones is a community advocate and father of three from the Shaw Road/Bonnie Doone area of Fayetteville.He can be reached at keemj45@gmail.com.

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Rakeem Jones: Army veteran trading cryptocurrency early, wants to share what hes learned - The Fayetteville Observer

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LeBron James Leads Initiative Centered On Teaching Youth About Cryptocurrency – NewsOne

Posted: at 6:35 am

As the cryptocurrency wave continues to shape the landscape of tech, athlete and activist LeBron James is putting the focus on making education around the emerging market accessible to youth. According to CBS News, hes teamed up with Crypto.com for the creation of a blockchain technology-centered program for children.

Research shows the global blockchain market is expected to reach $56.7 billion by 2026. As part of the multi-year collaborative projectwhich is being led under the NBA stars philanthropic imprint, the LeBron James Family Foundationeducation programs focused on technology-related advancements will be introduced to inner-city communities. Through the initiative youngsters will explore the concept of Web3; a phrase used to describe digital platforms and apps that were generated on the blockchain, including NFTs. Web3 is built on the foundation of decentralization, giving consumers the ability to own and govern parts of the internet.

James says its imperative to ensure marginalized communities arent left out of the tech revolution and hopes the partnership with Crypto.com helps eliminate socioeconomic barriers standing in the way of accessibility to emerging technological trends. Blockchain technology is revolutionizing our economy, sports and entertainment, the art world, and how we engage with one another, he said in a statement, according to the news outlet. I want to ensure that communities like the one I come from are not left behind.

Several athletes are venturing into the world of NFTs. Last year golf star Tiger Woods unveiled his first non-fungible token collection which featured 10,000 rare images of himself. The NFTs were released through Autograph, a platform that merges sports and tech. The intersection of sports and technology is such an interesting space to me, and Im thrilled to partner with Autograph as they lead the charge by ushering a new era of digital collecting, Woods told ESPN. Its been an honor to join their advisory board among so many iconic athletes, and Im looking forward to bringing fans closer to my memorable sports moments at an accessible price, and to the game I respect so much.

On Zealotry and Cryptocurrency in Government | by Mark Headd | Feb, 2022 | Medium – Medium

Posted: at 6:35 am

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Ten years ago this year, I rode a growing wave of enthusiasm for how governments manage and share data into a position as the first ever Chief Data Officer for the City of Philadelphia.

The open data movement had started a few years prior, and quickly caught the imagination of civic groups and technologists interested in helping make government work better. These groups wrote data scrapers, held hackathons, partnered with other civic groups, and lobbied elected officials to make the goal of publishing valuable data in easy to use formats official government policy.

A wave of new local government executive orders and the adoption of resolutions followed, culminating in the enactment of an Executive Order by the Obama Administration the turned publishing open data into the default for the federal government. This Executive Order took open data mainstream, and now its more likely than not that a city (or county, or state) has an open data program, policy, or platform.

At the time that open data was still catching on in the late aughts and early teens, I remember the feeling I had of being swept up in the growing movement. I advocated for it with what felt like a religious intensity. It became the focus of my professional life regardless of what job I was in at the time, open data ended up being all I wanted to talk about.

I was a true believer. And I still am, to some degree.

So its interesting now to watch another wave of enthusiasm start to sweep city governments and catch the attention of innovators. Like the open data movement before it, this new wave seems to be starting with local governments. Unlike the open data movement, this one seems to be driven not by civic groups and people outside government, but by elected officials themselves.

People that advocate for the use of blockchain technologies or cryptocurrencies in government tend to sound evangelical about it. They are true believers. I can relate to that.

But this new enthusiasm for blockchain in government is misplaced. It is a poor foundation for public policy and government operations.

Recently, the City of Philadelphia became the latest local government to jump on the blockchain bandwagon, joining several other cities in offering a new city-branded cryptocurrency.

The logic of this decision seems to be that it offers a way for people in or from Philadelphia to mine the new city-branded coins, with 30% of the value generated being dedicated to the city coffers. It has the additional theoretical benefit of signaling to crypto and blockchain entrepreneurs that Philadelphia is a friendly environment for their business concerns whatever that means.

A new revenue source to fund city initiatives, and a fresh coat of polish for local business development efforts. Whats not to like?

It turns out, a lot actually.

Full disclaimer Im not an expert in cryptocurrency, but you dont have to take my word that there are serious problems with the idea of a city-branded cryptocurrency. I can say that as an approach to municipal finance, it probably leaves an awful lot to be desired. (I cant imagine a program like this coming up in any serious way in discussions between for example city officials and any one of the bond rating agencies that weigh in on municipal debt issuance. The city would likely get laughed out of the room.)

City-branded coins are likely just a gimmick. An empty gesture meant to (hopefully) convey some level of technology relevance to the business community, and enable elected officials to pay lip service to exporting the tax burden.

Pure nonsense.

But the adoption of a city-branded cryptocurrency in Philadelphia specifically raises several serious problems that are worth considering when we talk about these kinds of programs.

First, the appeal of a city-branded cryptocurrency isnt just that it can generate money for the city. Its also that you yes, you! could get rich. Investors arent wild about crypto because of its stable, predictable, longterm returns. The idea that people can mine their own money and get rich quick has enormous resonance. The volatility of crypto is part of the appeal.

But in a city like Philadelphia that continues to struggle with poverty, and has the highest poverty rate of big cities in the U.S., this is an especially troubling position for a city government to take. You could argue that city-branded cryptocurrency is the moral equivalent to state-sanctioned lotteries, which run ads pushing another way to get rich quick. But this isnt Harrisburg sanctioning a program which disproportionately falls on lower-income citizens, this is the city doing it to its own people.

A key strategy in the fight to lift people out of poverty is giving them tools and resources to strengthen financial literacy. What lessons will the City of Philadelphia convey to its citizens living in poverty with a city-sanctioned cryptocurrency that is unregulated and highly volatile?

Whats more, participation in city-sanctioned cryptocurrency programs requires access to technology. According to the citys own numbers, fully 25% of city residents dont have access to a working desktop or laptop computer. How do we square that with the supposed upsides of the program?

If mining city-branded coins is indeed a good investment, that has benefits for both currency miners and the city, its likely that 1/4 of Philadelphia residents wouldnt be able to participate in the program. The city has suggested that funds generated by the program could be used to help close the technology equity gap:

Kenneys office said Philadelphia is enthusiastic about the potential of donations from a CityCoins program to target pressing problems in the city, including funding for digital-equity initiatives, rental assistance and arts programs.

This statement helps to highlight another connection to state-run lotteries a promise of earmarked funding to muster political support and blunt criticism. The promise of targeting lottery proceeds for education is a tried and true way of insulating such programs from critics who contend that they aggravate problems with compulsive gambling and overwhelming fall on the backs of low-income citizens. But the track record of earmarking funds from morally questionable government programs to those that are politically safe or popular is far from clear.

Its hard not to interpret such statements as taking a page out of the state-run lottery playbook. They seem like a transparent attempt to burnish the appeal of such programs by connecting them to those that have less controversy and wider appeal.

Ten years ago, I became one of the first municipal chief data officers in the country. But that appointment, and my time spent in that position, are less important to my way of thinking about using blockchain or cryptocurrency in government than what came before and after. I have spent almost my entire adult life studying about and working in government. For the last two decades Ive focused specifically on using technology to improve the way government operates.

I want to believe in the power of new technology to change government in radical ways. I really do. Ive proven myself an enthusiastic disciple of this faith. Ive kneeled at the altar before.

But with blockchain and cryptocurrency, there is simply nothing there that can help government do the jobs it needs to, in the ways it needs to.

Our best course of action when dealing with proposals for municipal cryptocurrencies is to heed the warnings of false prophets, and get on with the business of making government work better for the people who need it most.

See the rest here:
On Zealotry and Cryptocurrency in Government | by Mark Headd | Feb, 2022 | Medium - Medium

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Son Almost Kills Father In Attempt To Steal $400,000 In Cryptocurrency | Bitcoinist.com – Bitcoinist

Posted: at 6:35 am

A son has been arrested and sentenced in a crypto crime that almost left his father dead. The son who had wanted to get his hands on his fathers crypto holdings but could not do so without getting access to his phone had turned to drugging his father and taking the phone off him. The series of events that follow is a rollercoaster that saw the father recovering in the hospital for four days and the son being arrested and charged.

The son identified as Liam Ghershony had started investing in the crypto market with his father after he introduced the latter to the market. The father told Washington Post that he had put his son as a partner on an investment account with $100,000 in it. Together, the pair had invested in cryptocurrencies that had yielded a healthy profit for both of them.

Related Reading |Indian Police Officer Arrested Over Kidnapping Crypto Trader For $40 Million

With the investment account now worth a lot more, both father and son were able to cash out some of their holdings and were left with an after-tax profit of $350,000. Problems had begun to arise when Liam had grown more paranoid with the declining market prices after the 2017/2018 bull market had begun to slow down. This paranoia was exacerbated by Liams use of benzodiazepines which he had grown addicted to.

Liam had approached his father about cashing out the rest of the portfolio, telling the older Ghershony that he needed to sell. The father recalls telling his son that he needed to stop doing drugs instead.

Determined to take matters into his own hands, Liam had cooked up a plan to sell the bitcoin holdings. After spending the day with his father helping to move furniture into a loft apartment, the pair had had dinner and then settled down for the night. This is when Liam took the opportunity to present his father with tea spiked with Benzos, assuring him that the tea would give him energy.

Ghershony recalls drinking the tea but does not remember anything after that.

Liam had been able to successfully retrieve his fathers phone and access the account, moving two-thirds of the portfolio into another cryptocurrency, ethereum. He had then left his father in the apartment believing that he would wake up later on his own. This would not be the case as the father would lay in the apartment for two days before being found.

After being taken to the hospital, it was discovered that he had been drugged with a high dose of benzodiazepines which left him severely dehydrated with acute organ dysfunction. The older Ghershony had then spent four days in the hospital recovering.

Related Reading |IRS Will Not Tax Unsold Staked Crypto As Income

Liam Ghershony was charged initially with attempted murder but was reduced to a lesser charge on account of his intentions not being to murder the father. He later pled guilty to the charge of felony assault and was given 125 days in jail, as well as the condition of going through two months of residential drug and mental health treatment.

Liam now lives in a group house with other addicts in recovery and is waiting tables at a restaurant in Rockville.

Link:
Son Almost Kills Father In Attempt To Steal $400,000 In Cryptocurrency | Bitcoinist.com - Bitcoinist

Posted in Cryptocurrency | Comments Off

Daily Archives: February 7, 2022

Bitcoin has become a lifeline for sex workers, like this former nurse who made $1.3 million last year – CNBC

The race to net zero by 2050: avoiding unintended consequences – Lexology

Why Metaverse Cryptocurrency Axie Infinity Is Soaring Today – The Motley Fool

How the Left Lost the Constitution – Jacobin magazine

‘Backlash is real’: Yes, your workplace is probably racist but how do you even begin to tackle this problem? – MarketWatch

Why Cryptocurrency TFuel Is Up More Than 14% On Saturday – Motley Fool

Rakeem Jones: Army veteran trading cryptocurrency early, wants to share what hes learned – The Fayetteville Observer

LeBron James Leads Initiative Centered On Teaching Youth About Cryptocurrency – NewsOne

On Zealotry and Cryptocurrency in Government | by Mark Headd | Feb, 2022 | Medium – Medium

Son Almost Kills Father In Attempt To Steal $400,000 In Cryptocurrency | Bitcoinist.com – Bitcoinist

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