tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.comments2024-03-16T18:42:21.178-07:00DSHR's BlogDavid.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comBlogger4905125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-7993524238888849702024-03-15T15:48:21.305-07:002024-03-15T15:48:21.305-07:00The Irrawaddy reports on KK Park, a Chinese enclav...<i>The Irrawaddy</i> reports on KK Park, a Chinese enclave in Myanmar just across the river from Mae Ku in Mae Sot town in Thailand’s Tak District in <a href="https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/investigation/surrounded-by-fighting-a-myanmar-crime-hub-is-oddly-unscathed.html" rel="nofollow"><i>Surrounded by Fighting, a Myanmar Crime Hub Is Oddly Unscathed</i></a>:<br /><br />"Lay Kay Kaw and surrounding villages have been badly damaged by junta air and artillery strikes during the fighting, with many residents forced to flee across the border to Mae Sot. Junta shells have also hit villages in Thailand, prompting the Thai army to tighten border security.<br /><br />However, not a single bullet has ever struck KK Park: hence Saw Htoo Htoo’s observation that it is “impervious to bullets and bombs”.<br /><br />KK Park houses casinos, hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, brothels and online scam centers, according to those working there and some who have escaped.<br /><br />The online scam centers operate various types of criminal enterprises including “romance scams” and fraudulent investment schemes, and are notorious for human trafficking and forced labor."<br /><br />KK Park is very similar to the "Chinatown" on the border between and Cambodia and Thailand Zeke Faux visited for his investigation of pig-butchering in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Number-Go-Up-Cryptos-Staggering-ebook/dp/B0BYV2Y3XT/ref=sr_1_1" rel="nofollow"><i>Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall</i></a>. Clearly its managers pay the same attention to local "authorities" as Wang Yicheng did in Bangkok. I wonder how many other pig-butchering campuses there are apart from KK Park, Faux's "Chinatown" and the one in Dubai featured in Jim Browning's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu-Y1h9rTUs" rel="nofollow">YouTube video</a>.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-81875425072876009962024-03-14T15:11:28.752-07:002024-03-14T15:11:28.752-07:00The Nigerian government has detained two Binance e...The Nigerian government has detained two Binance executives complaining that Binance's pair between the naira and USDT was driving down the value of the naira. Cryptocurrencies are popular in Nigeria because the currency has been devalued. Matt Levine <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-14/apollo-partner-did-the-ok-kind-of-fraud" rel="nofollow">writes about it</a>:<br /><br />"For one thing, it is rude to the government to say “the institutions and currency here are bad so I’m putting my money in Bitcoin.” For another thing, if the government <i>wants</i> to seize your money or whatever, it will be annoyed if you make that difficult: You may see “weak financial and legal institutions,” but the government sees “legitimate enforcement of our laws against improper currency transactions.” Also, though, if <i>everyone</i> decides to get out of the local banks and into Bitcoin, that is going to <i>create</i> problems; it will drive down the local currency and make the banks weaker."<br /><br />And he notes that, in practice, using cryptocurrency involves using exchanges such as Binance:<br /><br />"In some broad philosophical sense, the appeal of crypto is that the government can’t just ask a bank for your account information and then seize your account. But in a practical sense that’s not always entirely true."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-26404837616141658222024-03-14T14:45:03.533-07:002024-03-14T14:45:03.533-07:00Molly White reports that Massachusetts prosecutors...Molly White reports that <a href="https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=massachusetts-crypto-romance-scam" rel="nofollow"><i>Massachusetts prosecutors seek to seize $2.3 million from crypto romance scam</i></a>:<br /><br />"The U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of Massachusetts announced that they had filed a civil forfeiture action to seize cryptocurrency priced at around $2.3 million from two Binance accounts. Those accounts had received cryptocurrency of various kinds from at least 37 American victims, one of whom was based in Massachusetts and who lost $400,000 in crypto assets to the scammers."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-70806688165973685262024-03-14T07:20:27.249-07:002024-03-14T07:20:27.249-07:00Bryce Elder looks at an important off-ramp in Gift...Bryce Elder looks at an important off-ramp in <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5fdef37a-1f5c-4f22-976f-07d9066583db" rel="nofollow"><i>Gift cards: the crypto off-ramp no one is watching</i></a>:<br /><br />"Unlike crypto, an electronic retail voucher can be redeemed near-anonymously, instantly, at face value. Use will usually fall below the purview of financial regulators. Purchases and transfers are largely untraceable. Trust rests in a central counterparty, with a multinational corporation acting both as the custodian and the clearing house. Sales are <a href="https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/vat-finance-manual/vatfin2330" rel="nofollow">VAT-exempt</a> and the reporting of capital gains is a matter of personal conscience.<br /><br />A recently released 2010 email from Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin’s pseudonymous chief architect, <a href="https://mmalmi.github.io/satoshi/#email-141" rel="nofollow">predicted that prepaid cards</a> could be a bridge to tradfi. Crypto was easy to generate and hard to cash out, Nakamoto reasoned, but prepaid debit cards might offer the unbanked a convenient off-ramp."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-86428828558549263942024-03-13T17:01:06.575-07:002024-03-13T17:01:06.575-07:00Ashley Belanger reports that Bitcoin Fog operator ...Ashley Belanger reports that <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/bitcoin-fog-operator-convicted-of-laundering-400m-in-bitcoins-on-darknet/" rel="nofollow"><i>Bitcoin Fog operator convicted of laundering $400M in bitcoins on darknet</i></a>:<br /><br />"Sterlingov faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison each for counts of money laundering conspiracy and sting money laundering. He was also convicted of "operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and money transmission without a license in the District of Columbia, which each carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison," the DOJ said. Sentencing is scheduled for July.<br /><br />Throughout the trial, Sterlingov maintained his innocence, accusing the US of relying on "junk science" to trace bitcoin using faulty blockchain analysis techniques,"<br /><br />He plans to appeal arguing again that the tracing techniques were faulty.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-73839197135431624972024-03-13T10:00:02.074-07:002024-03-13T10:00:02.074-07:00Thanks, Nikolaj! I fixed it.Thanks, Nikolaj! I fixed it.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-14843720081947256382024-03-13T05:04:16.753-07:002024-03-13T05:04:16.753-07:00Interesting post. I think you made a calculation e...Interesting post. I think you made a calculation error, though. Filling a 200TB disk at 5MB/s would take roughly 11000 hours, not 10,5.Nikolajhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02528716015283937434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-4593911943913085342024-03-12T09:36:23.154-07:002024-03-12T09:36:23.154-07:00This morning I received a letter from Harborne'...This morning I received a letter from Harborne's lawyers requesting that I remove the references to the allegations the <i>WSJ</i> had removed. I had already done so, see above.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-66239586513661433882024-03-11T14:23:09.535-07:002024-03-11T14:23:09.535-07:00Jacek Krywko's Shields up: New ideas might mak...Jacek Krywko's <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/03/shields-up-new-ideas-might-make-active-shielding-viable/" rel="nofollow"><i>Shields up: New ideas might make active shielding viable</i></a> looks at techniques for ensuring that a mission to Mars or life at Moonbase doesn't guarantee you cancer.<br /><br />The best magnetic shield so far:<br /><br />"the CREW HaT team estimates its weight at a hair above 24 tons, and power requirements are a bit below 60 kW. “These are promising numbers. Passive shielding cuts roughly 20 percent of the particles hitting the spacecraft up to 500 MeV. CREW HaT adds another 50 percent on top of that. We are in the process of calculating everything precisely, but it is surprising that with such energies, we can achieve such shielding efficiency,” said D’Onghia.<br /><br />Sixty kW, though, is the entire energy budget of the ISS, and it would need to go just into powering the shields."<br /><br />Or electrostatic shields:<br /><br />"electrostatic shield configurations that could shield 50 percent of solar particle events’ radiation and 15 percent of cosmic rays using just 1 million volts, not 60 million. And you no longer needed to haul a full-size power plant with you. “Using grid-like, porous structures we not only brought the weight down, but we also brought the needed power down from megawatts to 100 watts,” said Fry. Power savings that big were possible because plasmas, which normally bleed away volts, did not accumulate on these porous structures—they flew right through them."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-14365866915598020592024-03-09T18:59:58.893-08:002024-03-09T18:59:58.893-08:00Christopher Harborne is suing the WSJ. We link to ...Christopher Harborne is suing the WSJ. We link to the complaint in our latest: https://amycastor.com/2024/03/09/tether-ftx-and-deltec-bank-money-time/Amy Castorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04748013341977257288noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-39617476693317053722024-03-08T14:45:31.541-08:002024-03-08T14:45:31.541-08:00"To put that in context, I estimate that the ..."To put that in context, I estimate that the total global market for synthetic DNA today is no more than about 10 terabases per year, which is the equivalent of about 300,000 bases per second over a year."<br /><br />As a person who works in synthetic biology, the cheaper you make it the more of it we'll buy.<br /><br />There are other bottlenecks that would start hitting once you speed up synthesis (DNA assembly, sequencing, and the downstream assays that the DNA is used for). Though of course work is being put into this as well.<br /><br />It would be possible to synthesize massive random, or stochastically controlled semi-random sequences of DNA in a single tube in far greater throughput, and then isolate these DNA molecules in arrays, and probably also identify their sequences at the same time. I wonder if something like this could be made useful for data storage.<br /><br />"The developed conjugate maintains polymerase activity toward surface-bound substrates with single-base control and detaches from the surface at mild oxidative voltages, leaving an extendable oligonucleotide behind."<br /><br />Enzymes are tiny, but nucleotides are even tinier. When I learn about enzymatic technologies they basically all throw away the enzyme to attach a single nucleotide. It's on the order of throwing away a range after cooking a single meal. But then PCR allows us to amplify that single DNA molecule millions and billions of times.<br /><br />The cost of enzymes is small enough that even throwing them away is pretty cheap (probably less than the cost of the nuclease-free water used to wash them away). Still I do know that there are some enzymes covalently bound to magnetic beads for ease of removal. Such technologies may some day facilitate synthetic enzyme reuse.Tardigradehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08897374407990627879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-8013900474523078062024-03-08T13:08:45.716-08:002024-03-08T13:08:45.716-08:00Jim Browning has video from Inside a Pig Butcherin...Jim Browning has video from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu-Y1h9rTUs" rel="nofollow"><i>Inside a Pig Butchering Scam</i></a> housed in at least half of a campus of 8 8-story office buildings outside Dubai. It is a must-watch. A lighter take comes from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLPpl2ISKTg" rel="nofollow">John Oliver</a>.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-16481126586697631682024-03-08T12:49:36.294-08:002024-03-08T12:49:36.294-08:00A bad week for Boeing's PR reported in United ...A bad week for Boeing's PR reported in <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-08/united-plane-veers-off-runway-in-third-boeing-incident-this-week" rel="nofollow"><i>United Plane Veers Off Runway in Third Boeing Mishap of Week</i></a> by Mary Schlangenstein and Alan Levin:<br /><br />"A United Airlines Holdings Inc. aircraft ran off the taxiway into a grassy area after landing at Houston on Friday, marking the third headline-grabbing incident this week involving the carrier’s Boeing Co. planes.<br />...<br />Friday’s incident involves a 737 Max built four years ago that has been in service for less than a year. It follows the mid-air loss of a tire from a United Boeing 777-200 Thursday, just after the plane took off from San Francisco on a flight to Osaka, Japan, and an engine failure on a United flight from Houston to Fort Myers, Florida, earlier this week. <br /><br />The plane in the Houston-to-Florida flight had to make an emergency landing after one of its engines began belching flames 10 minutes after takeoff. The engine ingested plastic bubble wrap that had been left on the airfield prior to departure, according to United."<br /><br />That's an older 737, a 777 and a 737 MAX. Then there is another 737 MAX in Alan Levin's <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-07/boeing-737-max-under-investigation-over-recent-rudder-failure" rel="nofollow"><i>Boeing 737 Max Recent Rudder Failure Under Investigation</i></a>:<br /><br />"Pilots on a United Airlines Holdings Inc. 737 Max 8 said the pedals that control the rudder, a key device to help maneuver a plane, became stuck as they touched down at Newark Liberty International Airport on Feb. 6, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report Thursday."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-6290620787862192382024-03-06T17:40:56.664-08:002024-03-06T17:40:56.664-08:00David Gerard and Amy Castor examine the recent BTC...David Gerard and Amy Castor examine the recent BTC pump in <a href="https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2024/03/06/bitcoin-hits-a-new-all-time-high-world-reacts-wow-that-things-still-around/" rel="nofollow"><i>Bitcoin hits a new all-time high! World reacts: “Wow, that thing’s still around?”</i></a>:<br /><br />"Bitcoin hit a new all-time high and promptly crashed 15%. This is good news, if you think about it.<br /><br />Surely this is a reasonable, reliable, and sensible financial instrument and not speculative trash whose price discovery happens in an unregulated offshore casino — whoops, turns out it’s precisely that.<br /><br />Bitcoin is so illiquid that as soon as it hits a new high, bagholders rush to the exits and the price crashes. No amount of stablecoin pseudo-dollars can fix this."<br /><br />My take is that the looming halvening meant that unless the price was pumped over $60K the miners would be in trouble. So in the last 3 months Tether printed $10B, and Binance's FDUSD printed $3B. Bitcoin ETFs have grown $8B but much of that was already in BTC - the professionals would rather not hold actual BTC. Lets guess the cash in was say $4B.<br /><br />Since 1st November BTC's "market cap" has grown from $688B to $1.308B, or by $620B. The actual inflow of stablecoins and cash was around $17B, so that inflow was leveraged over 36 times. Since $13B of that was stablecoins backed mostly by loans and BTC, you can figure out that this is a very thin market. About 20% of that "market cap", or about $260B is <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/five-mega-exchanges-hold-10-of-bitcoin-s-entire-supply" rel="nofollow">BTC that have not moved in five years</a> and have likely been irretrievably lost. The vast majority of the rest have not moved in a year. The $17B pump was pointed at the tiny fraction of BTC that actually trade.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-2913123908963006652024-03-04T20:18:14.624-08:002024-03-04T20:18:14.624-08:00Amy Castor and David Gerard's Bitcoin mining: ...Amy Castor and David Gerard's <a href="https://amycastor.com/2024/03/04/bitcoin-mining-riot-platforms-10-k-is-full-of-tentacles/" rel="nofollow"><i>Bitcoin mining: Riot Platforms’ 10-K is full of tentacles</i></a> is a must-read:<br /><br />"As always, Riot made no profit. The company posted a net loss of $49.5 million in 2023. It’s hard to compare this to their net loss of $509.6 million in 2022 — a large part of that number was goodwill write-offs and bitcoin and mining rig value impairment. <br /><br />RIOT reduced its losses on the books by $184.7 million by booking the rise in bitcoin price — that is, capital gains on the bitcoins they are holding, and not any sort of actual income — as “cash on hand, earned.”<br /><br />Their “selling, general and administrative expenses” — mostly payroll — for 2023 totaled $100.3 million. That’s up $32.9 million from 2022.<br /><br />Riot’s entire bitcoin mining revenue in 2023 was $189 million — only 2% higher than in 2021. Of that mining revenue, $71 million is subsidies from Texas for <i>not</i> mining bitcoin. That’s ordinary citizens paying to keep this company afloat."<br /><br />They paid themselves 85% of what they earned by mining BTC for losing $49.5M. Nice work if you can get it!David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-29377735419597434672024-03-01T16:33:44.529-08:002024-03-01T16:33:44.529-08:00Ashley Belanger's Judge mocks X for “vapid” ar...Ashley Belanger's <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/judge-mocks-x-for-vapid-argument-in-musks-hate-speech-lawsuit/" rel="nofollow"><i>Judge mocks X for “vapid” argument in Musk’s hate speech lawsuit</i></a> notes Judge Breyer's acerbic questioning:<br /><br />"X's lawyer, Jon Hawk, argued that when the CCDH joined Twitter in 2019, the group agreed to terms of service that noted those terms could change. So when Musk purchased Twitter and updated rules to reinstate accounts spreading hate speech, the CCDH should have been able to foresee those changes in terms and therefore anticipate that any reporting on spikes in hate speech would cause financial losses.<br /><br />“What you have to tell me is, why is it foreseeable?” Breyer said. “That they should have understood that, at the time they entered the terms of service, that Twitter would then change its policy and allow this type of material to be disseminated?<br /><br />"That, of course, reduces foreseeability to one of the most vapid extensions of law I've ever heard," Breyer added. "‘Oh, what’s foreseeable is that things can change, and therefore, if there’s a change, it’s 'foreseeable.’ I mean, that argument is truly remarkable."<br /><br />According to NPR, Breyer suggested that X was trying to "shoehorn" its legal theory by using language from a breach of contract claim, when what the company actually appeared to be alleging was defamation."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-71691567566413583472024-02-27T17:04:57.017-08:002024-02-27T17:04:57.017-08:00James Porteous' How Illegal Betting and Relate...James Porteous' <a href="https://www.asianracing.org/email/202401qb-how-illegal-betting-and-related-money-laundering-flourished-despite-crypto-winter" rel="nofollow"><i>How Illegal Betting and Related Money Laundering Flourished Despite ‘Crypto Winter’</i></a> has more on the South-East Asia use-case for Tether:<br /><br />"TRM Labs puts the amount of cryptocurrency directly linked to crime at USD 20.6 billion in 2022, but points out that this is only a fraction of the actual total because it does not include proceeds of non-cryptocurrency native crime laundered into cryptocurrency – such as profits from drug trafficking, scams and of course illegal betting.<br /><br />The scale of profits moved in cryptocurrencies from other illegal activity is at least an order of magnitude larger, in the hundreds of billions. For example, Bitrace, a Chinese blockchain analytics firm, tracked the equivalent of USD 115 billion in the cryptocurrency Tether to addresses linked to Southeast Asia-based illegal betting operations of the type highlighted by the ARF Council in its report <a href="https://assets-global.website-files.com/5fbe2bde2b2ef4841cd6639c/651e891f6cca0e3f417cd876_How%20Organised%20Crime%20Operates%20Illegal%20Betting%2C%20Cyber%20Scams%20%26%20Modern%20Slavery%20in%20SEA_FINAL.pdf%22" rel="nofollow">How Organised Crime Operates Illegal Betting, Cyber Scams & Modern Slavery in Southeast Asia</a>. Bitrace found that <a href="https://twitter.com/Bitrace_team/status/1696113006751678820" rel="nofollow">approximately 37 billion of this was illegal betting profits, 70billion money laundering, and 460 million fraud</a>."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-47713028504559637252024-02-27T16:57:49.444-08:002024-02-27T16:57:49.444-08:00David Gerard and Amy Castor tell the tale of anoth...David Gerard and Amy Castor tell the tale of another <a href="https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2024/02/27/crypto-collapse-genesis-vs-dcg-celsius-payouts-failing-terra-luna-extraditions-what-3ac-did-next-craig-wright/" rel="nofollow">pig-butchering victim</a>:<br /><br />"Shan Hanes, the former CEO of the collapsed <a href="https://amycastor.com/2023/08/15/crypto-collapse-sam-bankman-fried-goes-to-jail-sec-appeals-ripple-ruling-prime-trust-bankrupt-the-tangled-tale-of-trueusd-and-tron/" rel="nofollow">Heartland Tri-State Bank</a>, has been charged with embezzlement. Hanes allegedly took $47.1 million from the accounts of a local church and a local investment club and gambled it on a crypto <a href="https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2023/11/02/crypto-collapse-bankman-fried-trial-draws-to-a-close-safemoon-arrested-fourth-us-bank-failure-was-crypto/" rel="nofollow">pig-butchering scam</a>. This is the CEO of a bank falling for a cheap crypto scam."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-48185202876669048662024-02-27T14:52:04.323-08:002024-02-27T14:52:04.323-08:00Samuel Axon reports that After a decade of stops a...Samuel Axon reports that <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/after-a-decade-of-stops-and-starts-apple-kills-its-electric-car-project/" rel="nofollow"><i>After a decade of stops and starts, Apple kills its electric car project</i></a>:<br /><br />"After 10 years of development, multiple changes in direction and leadership, and a plethora of leaks, Apple has reportedly ended work on its electric car project. According to a report in Bloomberg, the company is shifting some of the staff to work on generative AI projects within the company and planning layoffs for some others.<br /><br />Internally dubbed Project Titan, the long-in-development car would have ideally had a luxurious, limo-like interior, robust self-driving capabilities, and at least a $100,000 price tag. However, the ambition of the project was drawn down with time. For example, it was once planned to have Level 4 self-driving capabilities, but that was scaled back to Level 2+.<br /><br />Delays had pushed the car (on which work initially began way back in 2014) to a target release date of 2028. Now it won't be released at all."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-33251630102525814492024-02-27T06:52:05.123-08:002024-02-27T06:52:05.123-08:00Katie Greifeld's Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF Exodu...Katie Greifeld's <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-26/grayscale-s-gbtc-bitcoin-etf-exodus-reaches-7-4-billion-in-30-days?srnd=cryptocurrencies-v2" rel="nofollow"><i>Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF Exodus Reaches $7.4 Billion in First 30 Trading Days</i></a> reveals:<br /><br />"The $24.2 billion Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (ticker GBTC) has seen $7.4 billion exit across 31 trading days as of Monday, Bloomberg data show. GBTC has yet to post a single inflow since it converted into an ETF in mid-January.<br />...<br />To be sure, outflows have slowed in recent days, with just $22 million leaving the fund on Monday versus as much as $640 million in January. But even still, GBTC’s $7.4 billion year-to-date outflow is the second largest among more than 3,400 US-listed ETFs."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-55140144670386689502024-02-26T12:19:57.787-08:002024-02-26T12:19:57.787-08:00Molly White reports that Myanmar-based romance sca...Molly White reports that <a href="https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=myanmar-based-pig-butchering-scam" rel="nofollow"><i>Myanmar-based romance scam operation pulls in $100 million in less than two years</i></a>:<br /><br />"A pig-butchering operation in Myanmar has scammed victims of more than $100 million in Tether in less than two years, according to a report from Chainalysis and the anti-human trafficking organization International Justice Mission.<br /><br />Many of the workers for the romance scam group are themselves victims of human trafficking. The operation is based in a "compound" near Myanmar's border with Thailand, and researchers estimate that thousands of trafficked workers operate the scam from the "self-contained city".<br /><br />The scam may put more pressure on Tether, whose role in human trafficking and high-volume romance scam operations has been scrutinized more heavily in recent months and years. Tether has frozen some assets belonging to romance scammers in the past, but remains the token of choice for many of these groups."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-15511811423195208492024-02-26T11:19:24.718-08:002024-02-26T11:19:24.718-08:00Like Musk's other companies, the Boring Compan...Like Musk's other companies, the Boring Company turns out to be a disaster for workers despite not achieving its goals. Max Chafkin and Sarah McBride's <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-26/elon-musk-las-vegas-loop-tunnel-has-construction-safety-issues" rel="nofollow"><i>Elon Musk’s Vegas Tunnel Project Has Been Racking Up Safety Violations</i></a> has the subhead:<br /><br />"The Boring Company’s tiny Las Vegas Loop is all that’s come of Musk’s promises to build superfast mass-transit “hyperloops.” Workers say its tunnels are packed with chemical sludge."<br /><br />They report the sludge contains accelerants:<br /><br />"The accelerants cure the grout that seals the tunnel’s concrete supports, helping the grout set properly and protecting the work against cracks and other deterioration. They also seriously burn exposed human skin. At the Encore dig site, such burns became almost routine, workers there told Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. An investigation by the state OSHA, which Bloomberg Businessweek has obtained via a freedom of information request, describes workers being scarred permanently on their arms and legs.<br />...<br />The injuries and near misses described in the OSHA documents call into question the company’s claims about its innovative tunneling processes, which Musk has long said would make large-scale industrial projects cheaper and faster. Several former staffers say this is bunk—that what mainly distinguishes the Boring Company’s efforts is a willingness to put workers in danger."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-49212151292238995582024-02-22T12:59:49.793-08:002024-02-22T12:59:49.793-08:00How Do You Profit From Bitcoin ETFs? Investors Fac...<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-22/bitcoin-hodlers-collective-action-problem-comes-to-etf-buyers?srnd=cryptocurrencies-v2" rel="nofollow"><i>How Do You Profit From Bitcoin ETFs? Investors Face Dilemma</i></a> by Olga Kharif reports that "About 70% of Bitcoin supply hasn’t been touched in a year":<br /><br />"buying and holding has major drawbacks: It hinders the development of the blockchain for use cases besides speculation. Ethereum is actually the most commercially used blockchain. And for investors, it becomes a bit of a game of chicken where those who hang on the longest are at risk of being left holding the bag for those who exit the often volatile market.<br /><br />“There is a collective action problem here,” said Hilary Allen, a professor at American University’s Washington College of Law. “All holders will theoretically be better off if no one sells, but then no one can actually realize any profit on their investment.”<br /><br />As <a href="https://amycastor.com/2024/02/21/the-halvening-is-coming-what-this-means-for-bitcoin/" rel="nofollow">Amy Castor and David Gerard write</a>:<br /><br />"Nobody cares about the blockchain<br /><br />The point of cryptocurrency is to create financial instruments that are obscured from regulators. The crypto markets are happy to trade centrally controlled tokens like XRP or most defi tokens on this basis.<br /><br />When the bitcoin blockchain lost a lot of hashpower in the Bitcoin Cash wars in late 2017, the time between blocks could be over an hour. The crypto world barely noticed — because all the action was market traders on the exchanges in a bubble."<br /><br />Kharif also <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-22/bitcoin-hodlers-collective-action-problem-comes-to-etf-buyers?srnd=cryptocurrencies-v2" rel="nofollow">notes</a>:<br /><br />"The January approval of 10 US ETFs has resulted in net investor inflows of more than $5 billion"<br /><br />$5B sounds like a lot but it is only as much as a <a href="https://blog.dshr.org/2024/01/good-news-for-tether.html" rel="nofollow">typical Tether pump</a>.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-74453319980819992392024-02-22T07:44:23.349-08:002024-02-22T07:44:23.349-08:00Amy Castor and David Gerard peer into the future i...Amy Castor and David Gerard peer into the future in <a href="https://amycastor.com/2024/02/21/the-halvening-is-coming-what-this-means-for-bitcoin/" rel="nofollow"><i>The ‘halvening’ is coming — what this means for bitcoin</i></a>:<br /><br />"The cost of the electricity to guess enough random numbers to mine one bitcoin is currently around $26,000. After May, the price of bitcoin will need to be at least double this ($52,000) for mining to break even. There’s also the costs of mining computers (“rigs”), facilities, and <a href="https://amycastor.com/2022/08/04/bitcoin-mining-in-the-crypto-crash-the-mining-companies-creative-accounting/" rel="nofollow">paying executives huge salaries</a>.<br /><br />If the price of bitcoin falls below $50,000, expect miners to just shut down their hardware. Some may keep mining if their electricity is super-cheap — such as the now-illegal bitcoin mines that still exist in China. Miners around the world will <a href="https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2018/11/27/the-bitcoin-hash-rate-for-the-last-year-and-the-squeeze-that-crypto-miners-find-themselves-in/" rel="nofollow">switch off and throw away</a> older inefficient mining rigs."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-9591302502056256522024-02-20T10:27:01.699-08:002024-02-20T10:27:01.699-08:00Tardigrade - thanks for the corrections, which I f...Tardigrade - thanks for the corrections, which I fixed.<br /><br />If Hut 8 goes bankrupt issues of disgorgement would be up to the bankruptcy court. These things take a long time, so the money would likely be long gone.<br /><br />And you're right about "this crap".David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.com