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Category Archives: Bitcoin

Mark Yusko explains the real problem with Fed policy and why Bitcoin matters – Cointelegraph

Posted: April 13, 2022 at 6:06 pm

Inflation is front-page news again after the Labor Department revealed this week that the United States consumer price index soared to 8.5% year-over-year in March the highest in over four decades. According to crypto industry veteran and Morgan Creek Capital founder Mark Yusko, price increases arent the real problem.

This isnt inflation. This is currency devaluation, Yusko told Cointelegraph business editor Sam Bourgi in an exclusive interview at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami. Currency devaluation directly impacts consumers purchasing power, which refers to how many goods and services a unit of money can buy.

Yusko was also asked about Bitcoins (BTC) lackluster performance over the past six months and whether he expects this phase of price discovery to continue indefinitely. In his view, $100,000 BTC is a strong likelihood eventually, but investors need to be patient as adoption continues to grow.

Yusko and Bourgi also threw shade at traditional portfolio management strategies that teach investors to allocate 60% of their holdings to stocks and 40% to bonds. Who in their right mind is holding bonds right now? Bourgi asked. Only central banks, Yusko replied. You wont want to miss his full explanation.

You can watch the full interview on Cointelegraphs YouTube page. Be sure to hit those like and subscribe buttons for all our future videos and updates. You can also watch our full lineup of interviews from the Bitcoin conference.

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Ubersmith Partners With BitPay To Accept Bitcoin Payments – Bitcoin Magazine

Posted: at 6:06 pm

Ubersmith, a leading service provider in subscription management for cloud-based platforms, announced an integration with BitPay, one of the world's leading providers of bitcoin and other cryptocurrency payment processing.

With the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies, we want to provide our users with this option in addition to other currencies we support, said Kurt Daniel, CEO of Ubersmith, in the announcement. As leaders in delivering a recurring and usage-based billing system, we are pleased to support cryptocurrency for our current and future customers.

Ubersmith brings a hosted or self-hosted software suite to its customers and Bitpay now functions as an add-on to the software that processes customizable billing, taxes, account credits and discounts. More than 100 companies across six continents currently utilize Ubersmith for business transactions, infrastructure, and operations. This partnership with BitPay displays a deviation from its parent company's stance towards the Bitcoin sector in previous years.

On July 1, 2021, Ubersmith was acquired by Lumine Group, which is a division of Volaris Group, a subsidiary of Constellation Software Incorporated. On October 21, 2021, Constellation Network, Inc. acquired Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider Dor to scale blockchain-based products.

In the Dor acquisition announcement, Constellation Network said Bitcoin has scalability issues, which is why they were working with Dor to develop their own blockchain database that they believe is more scalable, which eventually led to them creating their own token.

Ubersmith seems to recognize that Bitcoin is scalable with its most recent innovation in partnering with BitPay, even though its parent company seems to feel differently.

New York-based Ubersmith allows their customers access to over 100 built-in software, hardware and service integrations while also providing an application programming interface (API) enabling a high level of customization for its clients.

Services included with the software contain billing, customer management, quoting, order management, device monitoring, help desk ticketing, and a customer portal. Specific to cloud-based infrastructure, Ubersmith also manages turnkey billing, bandwidth, virtualization, backup, power, support, and other services.

Ubersmith customers include Digital Realty, Namecheap, and Sitey.

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Green Bitcoin mining proof of concept using Tesla solar and battery storage – Energy Storage News

Posted: at 6:06 pm

Tesla Megapacks at Saticoy, a 100MW/400MWh BESS site in California. Image: Arevon Asset Management.

Teslas Megapack battery energy storage system (BESS) solution as well as the companys solar PV will power a Bitcoin mining facility in a proof of concept (POC) project in the US.

Bitcoin mining and services company Blockstream Mining began construction earlier this month on the open-source, solar-powered facility at an undisclosed location.

The project is being built in partnership with financial services and digital payments company Block, Inc, which has Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey as its CEO.

Blockstreams CEO and co-founder Adam Back meanwhile said that the facility will be a step to proving our thesis that Bitcoin mining can fund zero-emission power infrastructure and build economic growth for the future.

The site will pair a 3.8MW solar PV array with 12MWh of Megapacks, enabling a 30 Petahash hash rate a measure of the computational power used by the cryptocurrency minings proof-of-work. A dashboard will be made publicly available as the plant runs, showing real-time metrics of performance, such as power output and the amount of mined Bitcoin.

By collaborating on this full-stack, 100% solar-powered Bitcoin mining project with Blockstream, using solar and storage technology from Tesla, we aim to further accelerate Bitcoins synergy with renewables, Blocks global ESG lead Neil Jorgensen said.

The off-grid site aims to prove 100% renewable energy-powered Bitcoin mining is possible, hopefully providing an example to the industry.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk famously said in the past that his company would row back on its interest in Bitcoin due to the use of fossil fuels in mining, despite other attractive characteristics that crypto has. In May 2021 the company stopped accepting it as payment over those concerns.

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Bitcoin Remains Intact as it Continues to Surge Above US$43,000 – Analytics Insight

Posted: at 6:06 pm

Bitcoin is all-set to rise and become the crypto king again, at least for now

In recent weeks, Bitcoin is marching forward towards redeeming its lost market recognition and value. For Bitcoin, the year 2021, was quite successful given the fact that single crypto drove the value of the entire crypto market to new highs. Since this feat, traders and business leaders have been quite optimistic about the prospects of BTC and its dominance in the economic and financial markets. So much so that El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender! However, BTCs prospects ran their full course, and then came the reality. The prices dropped exponentially. Investor speculation about Ethereum taking Bitcoin grew, making investors and business leaders quite worried about their investments. BTCs price continued to fall in early 2022. Investors turned to assets that performed well in a time of a slowing economy, higher inflation, and rising interest rates, further causing a dive in the Bitcoin price. In late February, BTC prices fell as low as US$36,000, from their November 2021 peak which was US$68,000. Concerns over sustainability and high electricity use associated with Bitcoin mining, and the banning of cryptocurrency transactions in China also caused the Bitcoin price to fall.

Over the past week, Bitcoin has been regaining its value. Analysts believe that the crypto will eventually reach the US$100,000 mark by the end of the year. But as of April 4, 2022, its price has recovered considerably. It finally crossed the US$47,000 mark, reaching as close as possible to US$48,000. The prices consecutively dropped after April 5, 2022, but it continues to soar above US$43,000. This comes off as a positive indication of a possible Bitcoin surge this year.

BTCs upward trend continued through the entire week, nevertheless, investors are hawkish about its market movements. The coin is trending in recent weeks, but the current surge might also be the result of the Biden governments executive order initiating methods to enhance crypto adoption. But as crypto analysts continue to expect a massive Bitcoin price hike in the near future, key indicators have spoken up. They predict that if Bitcoin fails to break the US$47,000, it might again dive back to a crypto slumber and would eventually, and finally, lose its market dominance.

As more companies continue to adopt BTC as a method of payment, its value is expected to stabilise. With this expanded room for Bitcoin trading, the market scope is increasing for investors and traders, and other governments, to explore the crypto domain for investments in the long run.

For now, Bitcoin is set for upcoming surges. But the market is still volatile. A price hike does not bring stability to the market. Hence, before investing in Bitcoin, investors should make sure that they are ready for the volatility and mentally prepared to face losses.

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Russia’s ‘Gold Standard’: What This Means For Gold And Bitcoin – Seeking Alpha

Posted: at 6:06 pm

Huang Evan/iStock via Getty Images

One of the first casualties of the Ukraine-Russia conflict was the ruble. Russia's currency plummeted after the conflict broke out, but has now rallied strongly following numerous moves by Russia to defend it.

Most recently, Russia has enacted a temporary fixed ruble/gold exchange, which has led many to claim that it is back on a gold standard.

In this article, I discuss the effects of this policy on Russia and the world and dive into how this affects Bitcoin (BTC-USD), which is often described as "digital gold"

Between March 28th and June 30th, Russia's Central Bank will be buying gold from banks at a fixed rate of 5000 rubles per gram.

Does this mean that the ruble now has a fixed exchange for gold? Not exactly.

For a gold standard to be in effect, this arrangement would have to work both ways, which it doesn't. The Russian Central bank is buying gold at that fixed rate, but it won't be offering to sell it at that price.

In a "gold standard", the value of the currency is supported because there are arbitrage opportunities when the price deviates from its peg. Let's say the Russian Central Bank offers to buy and sell Rubles for gold at a fixed exchange, and the ruble is trading below this exchange. (It is weak) Demand for Rubles would go up, since countries and banks have a chance to buy gold at cheaper prices, but only with Rubles.

Alternatively, if the ruble became too strong, going above the exchange price, people would sell gold to the Central Bank at the established price, get Rubles, and then use these Rubles to buy more gold on the international market. Rinse and repeat until there is no longer a price disparity. That's how arbitrage works.

As it stands now, 1 gram of gold is worth $63 in the international market, and 5000 rubles are worth close to $58. This means Russia is paying below-market prices for gold, which wouldn't support the ruble.

For there to be an arbitrage opportunity here, the value of gold would have to decrease, so that Russia is paying above-market prices for gold. In that scenario, one could sell gold to the Russians for say $65, and then use the Rubles to buy $70 worth. This would eventually weaken the ruble in terms of gold, taking it back to parity.

What Russia has created, therefore, is not a floor price for the ruble, but rather a ceiling price. Russia is happy to buy all the gold in the world at 5000 ruble/gram, but it won't be selling gold at this price or below it to "defend" the ruble.

With that said, the ruble has rallied in the last month, but this can be tied to other significant moves made by the Russians. All of these have to be put together to understand what's going on behind the scenes.

Firstly, the Russian Central Bank has doubled its interest rate from 10% to 20% on the 28th of February. Secondly, and most importantly, the Russian government is forcing foreign governments to use Rubles to pay for their products, i.e energy, which is propping up demand for the ruble.

We can visualize how these events have affected the ruble/USD exchange on the chart below.

Ruble Price (Author's work)

Russia has therefore created a link between energy, its currency and gold. Its exports are now priced in Rubles, which in turn are partially linked to gold. Ultimately, Russia is saying that it is happy to receive both Rubles and Gold for its exports.

Those that wish to trade with Russia can always obtain Rubles at a fixed price, for gold, but they can't obtain gold at a fixed price for Rubles, which is an important distinction. However, they can obtain energy at a fixed price for Rubles, which means that there is indirectly a link between Russian energy and gold.

If a barrel of oil is worth 5000 RUB, which in turn are worth 1 gram of gold, then the barrel is worth 1 gram of gold. This won't change, because the Russian Central Bank has agreed to buy 1 gram of gold for 5000 Rubles at all times, or at least until June 30th.

So Russia is now selling its energy for rubles/gold and based on how the market has reacted, it is getting away with it.

Russia, by itself, can hardly replace the USD denominated financial system. But with the help of strategic allies, very big steps can be taken to reduce the world's dependency on it, which is very bad news for the USA.

Russia holds 1,688 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, accounting for 24% of the world's reserves. China will soon become the largest economy in the world. Russia, China and India, collectively possess 16% of the Central Bank's gold reserves. India and China also have close to 2.8 billion people combined.

An allegiance between these three countries could replace the world's dollar-based financial system. Each of them has something to add, and a lot to gain from this, and gold would be the ideal vehicle to make this happen.

If something like this were to happen, it could cripple dollar-denominated economies. The west has built a very fragile system based upon increasing amounts of dollar-denominated debt. This has only been possible because this debt is accepted as a reserve. But what happens when it doesn't?

Gold has been the world's money of choice for millennia. The world was actually on a gold standard, of sorts, until as recently as 1971, when Richard Nixon closed the gold window. Since then, governments and central banks have done their best to eliminate gold from world trade, but even they know how useful gold is, which is why Central Banks hold it in their reserves.

The current move in Russia brings gold to the forefront of finance once more. Gold now has a very real utility for a lot of countries, enabling them to buy Russian gas.

Furthermore, a gold-backed currency is perhaps the only way to dethrone the US dollar. Foreign countries don't want to switch from a US-controlled fiat, to a Chinese controlled one. However, gold makes money neutral, and that is something everyone can get on board with.

What does this mean for investors? Owning gold is now more important than ever, and though the yellow metal has underperformed in recent years, now could be its time to shine.

Russia is opening the doors to a new monetary paradigm, which creates a unique opportunity for countries around the world. The US dollar is being challenged as the standard of value. What will replace it?

Gold is the first choice. It has been used as a store of value for millennia, and countries like Russia, China and India have been accumulating it for years. But in the current conflict, we have seen evidence of a new standard of value emerge, one that has even outshone gold, and that is Bitcoin.

Bitcoin was designed, by no accident, to possess very similar characteristics to gold. It is hard to mine, with mining becoming increasingly difficult over time. The supply is finite, and around 80% has already been mined, a similar proportion to gold. And, like gold, it withstands the passage.

However, Bitcoin also has key characteristics that make it superior to gold, and Russia knows this first-hand. The G7 has actively tried to stop Russia from using its gold reserves, banning people and institutions from transacting with the Russian central bank.

What's more, in a geopolitical conflict like this, it wouldn't be unheard of for gold held in foreign banks to be seized, or mining operations to be disrupted.

And this is where Bitcoin makes a difference. For starters, Bitcoin is much harder to track and "sanction". Speculation over how Russia could use Bitcoin to avoid financial repression has been common in the past few weeks.

To top things off, Russia also has a significant competitive advantage when it comes to mining Bitcoin. Russia is the third-largest contributor to Bitcoin's hash mining power. Also, 11.9% of Russia's total population already owns cryptocurrency.

But if Russia already has gold as the base of its monetary system, why would it want Bitcoin?

Beyond the reasons stated above, Bitcoin would provide a diversification element. It would also give Russia access to the flourishing DeFi market that is developing in crypto, of which Bitcoin is the store of value. And finally, the best defence is a good attack. Bitcoin would be a great way for other nations to compete with the gold-based system. So why not get ahead?

What does this mean for Bitcoin investors? The world's reserve currency, the USD, is being put into question, and Bitcoin was created with the purpose of acting as a store of value. This makes cryptocurrency a more attractive investment than ever. Bitcoin can step in to feel this void, as there will be a real necessity for a neutral store of value, free of political agendas and government. control.

In conclusion, as the world becomes less dependent on the US dollar, other standards of value will rise to take its place. Gold and Bitcoin are at the top of this list in my opinion. Together they bridge the gap between the past and the future. The physical and the digital. They complement each other.

While Russia is not operating a gold standard system, it is tying its exports to gold, which marks a very significant move. People should understand that the current conflict in Ukraine is only the tip of the iceberg. Another war is being fought between world superpowers. A world for control of money. And he who controls the money controls the world.

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Grassroots initiatives are bringing Bitcoin education to communities across America – Cointelegraph

Posted: at 6:06 pm

Bitcoin is becoming one of the biggest buzzwords in the world. Data from a July 2021 survey conducted by analysis firm Exploding Topics found that roughly 1,700 American adults, or 89% of participants, had heard of Bitcoin. A recent survey from the cryptocurrency platform Paxful also found that 95% of women out of 1,555 females polled in the United States were familiar with Bitcoin.

While Bitcoins(BTC) presence is notable, there still seems to be a lack of understanding regarding BTC and cryptocurrency. For instance, Paxfuls survey discovered that 43% of women polled in the United States want to learn more about Bitcoin, even though 95% of these individuals know that BTC exists. In addition, underprivileged communities and minorities have expressed interest in learning about Bitcoinand cryptoas digital assets gain popularity.

In order to bring crypto education to those who need it the most, grassroots initiatives are launching throughout the U.S. that target disenfranchised communities.

For example, Najah Roberts, CEO of Crypto Blockchain Plug a Black-owned crypto education center based in Inglewood, California told Cointelegraph that she will soon be traveling to 41 cities across the U.S. to help disenfranchised communities understand Bitcoins importance:

Known as The Digital Financial Revolution Tour, Roberts explained that this will be the second year she will travel across the country with a team of crypto experts to promote Bitcoin education. We previously reached about 2,000 people last year, which was incredible given that the world was still coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Roberts said. Given the projects previous success, Roberts believes this years tour will produce phenomenal results.

Roberts elaborated that the second Digital Financial Revolution Tour will begin in California in cities including Los Angeles and Oakland, and will then head to Las Vegas, Arizona and New Mexico. We plan to go to the poorest places first, like Lake Charles in Baltimore. We picked the most disenfranchised, unbanked and underbanked areas to get folks educated. Rather than hosting corner classes outside neutral locations like a local church, for instance, Roberts explained that groups will congregate in front of beauty shops and neighborhood storefronts. I try to be objective about locations so everyone feels comfortable to come out and learn.

While the idea of traveling across 41 different cities in the U.S. within a 45-day timespan may sound difficult, Roberts shared that the biggest challenge this year is to help people in low-income communities understand why they actually need Bitcoin:

Roberts isnt the only one aiming to bring financial literacy to the masses. Bitcoin analyst Tony Tate told Cointelegraph that no one ever talked about money when he was growing up due to community values. No one ever talked about politics, religion or money where I came from, he said. Yet, Tate stated that education has always been a priority for him, which is why he believes educating disenfranchised communities will make it easier for individuals to understand the potential of cryptocurrency:

In order to accomplish this, Tate recently launched Litchain, a Bitcoin educational initiative expected to spur economic growth in the rural town of Gaffney, South Carolina. We opened the doors of the first Black-owned Bitcoin data center in Gaffney. The 20 modular data centers will house Bitcoin mining computers and create jobs that pay $60,000 or more, he explained. The Litchain Corporations new data center is one of Tates first three mining centers in the U.S. He said that the company aims to open 144 more across the country:

In addition to the Litchain data center, Tate said that he is launching a five-year crypto education initiative on crypto literacy:

According to Tate, this initiative will include a grassroots campaign, digital advertising and online courses provided by LitU, which is Tates online university that will also feature pop-up community classes in Philadelphia, New York, Washington D.C., Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit, Cleveland, Charlotte and Charleston. Tate hopes these initiatives will inspire others to look at Bitcoin as an improved financial inclusion system and a major step in closing the racial wealth gap in the United States. Everyone has to wrap their minds around crypto before the world wraps their arms around it, he remarked.

While both Roberts and Tate are launching large scale initiatives, crypto influencer and YouTuberWendy Otold Cointelegraph during NFT LA that she will soon be launching a local grassroots initiative in Los Angeles to teach youth between the ages of seven and seventeen about Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. Wendy O explained that she will partner with the Los Angeles based Self-Care Lab Boxing and Fitness Club to host monthly meetups to teach children about the blockchain and crypto ecosystem:

Related: NFT LA: Attract the mainstream, focus on Web3 and use cases

Like Roberts and Tate, Wendy O wants to use cryptocurrency education as a way to promote personal finance. Financial literacy isnt taught in schools, unfortunately. But, when individuals learn how money works, they are able to change their spending habits and even break away from generational curses, she said. Wendy O explained that when she initially learned about Bitcoin in 2011 and was able to better understand fiat money and inflation. I think these kids will be able to take this information and retrain their minds to do things differently than previous generations.

While its extremely notable that grassroots initiatives are being launched by members of the crypto community, its also important to recognize the challenges that may arise along the way.

For instance, Roberts pointed out that last years Digital Financial Revolution Tour was entirely self-funded, noting that she hopes to secure sponsors this year. We are in the process of speaking with the hardware wallet provider Ledger, as we aim to give everyone physical wallets and show them how to store their seed phrases. Wendy O also hopes to partner with a cryptocurrency wallet provider or an exchange to ensure that food and drinks for her monthly meetups can be covered. I would like to give $25 worth of BTC to everyone who attends, she said. Regardless of sponsorships, both Roberts and Wendy O are optimistic that their projects will teach those in need about financial literacy simply byexplaining how Bitcoin and cryptocurrency work.

Grassroots initiatives sponsored by crypto companies have proven to be very successful given the added help. For example, GoodDollar a nonprofit protocol for financial education and inclusion in Web3 launched an ambassador program early last year to allow its 350,000 community members to distribute free crypto universal basic income to anybody with access to a cell phone and an internet connection.

Jessica Salama, community lead at GoodDollar, told Cointelegraph that individual GoodDollar ambassadors are making headway in spreading the word about crypto by showing others how to use and access digital currency.

She said that GoodDollar ambassador Etugbo Obokparo Stephen in Nigeria has hosted local meetups at his university to help fellow students open their first digital wallets and begin learning Web3, crypto and blockchain fundamentals. His initial gathering was the first blockchain conference ever held in his locality, Salama said.

Stephen further told Cointelegraph, Ive always communicated with people on social media, but when I joined GoodDollars ambassador program, I was able to bring more people into crypto because they supported my initiative financially and with words of encouragement.

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Inside the Bitcoin Bust That Took Down the Webs Biggest Child Abuse Site – WIRED

Posted: at 6:06 pm

As responses from exchanges with those users identity information began to pour in, the team started the process of assembling more complete profiles of their targets. They began to collect the names, faces, and photos of hundreds of menthey were almost all menfrom all walks of life, everywhere in the world. Their descriptions crossed boundaries of race, age, class, and nationality. All these individuals seemed to have in common was their gender and their financial connection to a worldwide, hidden haven of child abuse.

By this time, the team felt theyd pinned down the sites Korean administrator with confidence. Theyd gotten a search warrant for Son Jong-woos Gmail accounts and many of his exchange records, and they could see that he alone seemed to be receiving the cashed-out proceeds from the sitenot his father, who increasingly seemed to the investigators like an unwitting participant, a man whose son had hijacked his identity to create crypto-currency accounts. In Son Jong-woos emails, they found photos of the younger man for the first timeselfies hed taken to show friends where hed chipped a tooth in a car accident, for instance. He was a thin, unremarkable-looking young Korean man with wide-set eyes and a Beatles-esque mop-top of black hair.

But as their portrait of this administrator took shape, so too did the profiles of the hundreds of other men who had used the site.* A few immediately stuck out to the investigative team: One suspect, to the dismay of Thomas Tamsi and his Homeland Security colleagues, was an HSI agent in Texas. Another, they saw with a different sort of dread, was the assistant principal of a high school in Georgia. The school administrator had posted videos of himself on social media singing duets, karaoke-style, with teenage girls from his school. The videos might otherwise have been seen as innocent. But given what they knew about the mans Bitcoin payments, agents who had more experience with child exploitation warned Janczewski that they might reflect a form of grooming.

These were men in privileged positions of power, with potential access to victims. The investigators could immediately see that, as they suspected, they would need to arrest some of Welcome to Videos users as quickly as possible, even before they could arrange the takedown of the site. Child exploitation experts had cautioned them that some offenders had systems in place to warn others if law enforcement had arrested or compromised themcode words or dead mans switches that sent out alerts if they were absent from their computer for a certain period of time. Still, the Welcome to Video investigation team felt they had little choice but to move quickly and take that risk.

Another suspect, around the same time, came onto their radar for a different reason: He lived in Washington, DC. The mans home, in fact, was just down the street from the US attorneys office, near the capitals Gallery Place neighborhood. He happened to live in the very same apartment building that one of the prosecutors had only recently moved out of.

That location, they realized, might be useful to them. Janczewski and Gambaryan could easily search the mans home and his computers as a test case. If that proved the man was a Welcome to Video customer, they would be able to charge the entire case in DCs judicial district, overcoming a key legal hurdle.

As they dug deeper, though, they found that the man was a former congressional staffer and held a high-level job at a prestigious environmental organization. Would arresting or searching the home of a target with that sort of profile cause him to make a public outcry, sinking their case?

Just as they trained their sights on this suspect in their midst, however, they found that he had gone strangely quiet on social media. Someone on the team had the idea to pull his travel records. They found that he had flown to the Philippines and was about to fly back to DC via Detroit.

There were suitcases still not fully unpacked from the trip. The man had ordered a pizza the night before, and part of it remained uneaten on the table.

This discovery led the agents and prosecutors to two thoughts: First, the Philippines was a notorious destination for sex tourism, often of the kind that preyed on childrenthe HSI office in Manila constantly had its hands full with child exploitation cases. Second, when the man flew back to the US, Customs and Border Protection could legally detain him and demand access to his devices to search for evidencea bizarre and controversial carve-out in Americans constitutional protections that, in this case, might come in handy.

Would their DC-based suspect sound the alarm and tear the lid off their investigation, just as it was getting started?

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Kevin O’Leary Predicts Trillions of Dollars Will Flood Into Crypto Says Bitcoin Mining Will ‘Save the World’ Featured Bitcoin News – Bitcoin News

Posted: at 6:06 pm

Shark Tank star Kevin OLeary, aka Mr. Wonderful, has predicted that trillions of dollars will flow into cryptocurrencies, particularly bitcoin. In addition, he said bitcoin mining will save the world.

Shark Tank star Kevin OLeary gave a keynote speech at the Bitcoin 2022 conference Thursday.

He said that based on his experience in the indexing business, massive pools of capital, these trillion-dollar pools are waiting for policy. They currently own zero or very little crypto. Its the purvey of high net worth individuals, hedge funds, and retail investors, he clarified.

Mr. Wonderful detailed:

What were missing is policy. When we get policy and the regulator regulates, thats not a negative thing. The spigots of capital are going to flood into this sector like youve never seen.

So for those of us that can invest in it now, you are going to get ahead of whats going to be a huge wave of interest when policy occurs, he added.

OLeary continued:

I predict in the next 10 years that crypto, blockchain, bitcoin all of this innovation will be the 12th sector of the S&P.

The Shark Tank star also discussed why bitcoin mining is going to save the world.

He explained: Why is bitcoin mining good for the Earth? Because the next generation of bitcoin miners are starting to work with energy that does not require carbon hydroelectricity and nuclear power, wind and solar.

Mr. Wonderful continued: The drive to produce bitcoin is so economic in value that they will go ahead and fund the next generation of machines and turbines. 90% of dams built in America in the last hundred years contemplated hydroelectricity but never installed the turbines.

He exclaimed: Ill install the turbines. Why? Because its great economics if I can use that and not be hassled by a carbon audit. Noting that It provides for communities, it provides extra power, the Shark Tank star opined:

This is the future of bitcoin mining. We will be developing power for all communities while we mine coin in an ethical and 100% green mandate that we can do with hydroelectricity.

OLeary further said: The beautiful strategy here is when we get policy When we make bitcoin an allocation for institutions, which they do not have yet, what I predict will happen: they will put between 50 basis points to 300 basis points into their portfolios. He concluded:

How much money is that? Trillions of dollars. So if you want to see bitcoin appreciate in value, if you are an advocate like I am You want regulation and you stand back and watch the capital pour into this.

What do you think about Kevin OLearys comments? Let us know in the comments section below.

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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Bitcoin (BTC) Jumps as Much as 5.7% to $41,691 – Bloomberg

Posted: March 17, 2022 at 2:45 am

  1. Bitcoin (BTC) Jumps as Much as 5.7% to $41,691  Bloomberg
  2. Crypto News Today: Bitcoin Breaks $40,000 Ahead of Fed Decision  Newsweek
  3. Market Wrap: Bitcoin and Stocks Stabilize Ahead of Fed Announcement  CoinDesk
  4. FED Announcement Pushes Bitcoin Up, Will BTC Sustain Momentum?  NewsBTC
  5. Bitcoin price responds to the Fed by rallying, a close at $41,250 essential for further upside  FXStreet
  6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Bitcoin (BTC) Jumps as Much as 5.7% to $41,691 - Bloomberg

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3 Unstoppable Cryptos That Have Left Bitcoin in the Dust in March – The Motley Fool

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Bitcoin is down nearly 3% this past week, while these three projects have blazed past it with big double-digit gains.

For a decade, the oldest crypto -- Bitcoin -- has delivered outpaced gains of 220% on a yearly basis to its holders. According to CoinMarketCap as of this writing, Bitcoin is down nearly 3% on the week and about 41% off its all-time high of nearly $69,000 a few months back.

While Bitcoin is my top holding as a percentage of my personal portfolio, there are three cryptos that are outperforming it in the short-term by double digits that may be worth a look.

While writing this, CoinMarketCap shows that THORChain has spiked an impressive 52.45% during the past seven days. THORChain is a decentralized liquidity network that allows users to easily swap and trade digital assets across a range of systems. Its technology allows traders to blockchain hop without losing custody of the coins or tokens being exchanged until the transaction is complete.

The trades are automatically fulfilled with liquidity that's directed by smart contracts and not a centralized market maker. The native utility token of the THORChain platform is RUNE. This is used as the base currency in the THORChain ecosystem. It is also used for platform governance and security.

At the time of writing, The Graph token price had jumped 20.22% over the past week according to CoinMarketCap data. The Graph is an open-sourced software project that gathers, processes, and stores large amounts of information from various blockchain applications for easy access and retrieval later -- almost like a superfast digital librarian on a global scale.

This enables near real-time data transfers in response to a query from any compatible application, of which there are hundreds. The official Graph blog posted that its query volume surged to more than 20 billion by April 2021, and the official Graph Reddit forum posted in December that volume surpassed 1.8 billion queries per day.

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According to CoinMarketCap, Basic Attention Token has popped a healthy 18.18% during the past seven-day stretch. BAT is a unique project within the crypto space because it's a blockchain-based advertising platform. What it does is reward users for their attention who choose to watch and interact with various ads, while providing advertisers with a more robust return on their advertising buy.

What happens is that advertisers pay for their advertising campaigns in BAT tokens and from that BAT budget a small portion is distributed to advertisers, while 70% is distributed to the ad watchers. The BAT platform runs on the Brave Browser so viewer privacy is preserved when users watch ads. This ensures they're not bombarded with similar follow-up advertisements as they would be on Google or Bing.

Keep in mind, these are only observations about the current crypto market and should not serve as financial advice. Every potential investor in any asset class should do their own research and invest only what they can comfortably afford to lose. While Bitcoin is a solid long-term option, there are other projects that may have more potential upside in the short term.

There are hundreds of platforms around the world that are waiting to give you access to thousands of cryptocurrencies. And to find the one that's right for you, you'll need to decide what features that matter most to you.

To help you get started, our independent experts have sifted through the options to bring you some ofour best cryptocurrency exchanges for 2022. Check out the list here and get started on your crypto journey, today.

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3 Unstoppable Cryptos That Have Left Bitcoin in the Dust in March - The Motley Fool

Posted in Bitcoin | Comments Off on 3 Unstoppable Cryptos That Have Left Bitcoin in the Dust in March – The Motley Fool

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