January 2022 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Cryptocurrency: CBDC's or Crypto or Gold... Happening?
by grarpamp 30 Jan '22

30 Jan '22

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=occeZ-rCIMo Brussels Member Of Parliament To Take Full 2022 Salary In Bitcoin https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/brussels-member-of-parliament-to-take-… https://www.christophedebeukelaer.be/post/en-2022-le-d%C3%A9put%C3%A9-chris… The game-theoretic aspect of Bitcoin adoption is shown as politicians around the world race to establish the most welcoming place for the industry. “I think it's not too late for Brussels and Belgium to be at the forefront of the cryptocurrency industry. We already have some great companies in the field but it's time to position ourselves clearly and create a real ecosystem.” Macleod: Bitcoin, Bullion, & Why 'FedCoin' May Never Happen https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/why-dollar-cbdcs-may-… The Fed has just released its first public consultation paper on a dollar-based central bank digital currency. For many, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are a means of heading off private sector cryptos, but coincidentally the prices of bitcoin and others have collapsed, losing half their value since early November. The CBDC proposition is being sold to us by the central banks as keeping up with the times and taking advantage of the opportunities presented by new technologies to evolve payment systems. The Bank for International Settlements has been coordinating research into CBDCs, and this article gives a brief description of how the BIS and its committee members sees them evolving. It is early days, and there are several important issues yet to be tackled, such as will CBDCs pay interest, and what will be the likely reaction of commercial banks to seeing central banks muscle in on their territory. There are also two separate CBDC functions to consider. There is retail, whereby individuals have direct access to their central bank as counterparty, and a wholesale function for financial intermediaries for international settlement. Whether CBDCs will come into existence is doubtful. To have credibility, their introduction will have to be coordinated at G20 level, and they are unlikely to be widely issued before the end of the decade. That will probably be too late to save the world from a developing financial and monetary crisis which threatens to change everything. Furthermore, the Americans will need to be convinced that their dollar hegemony will not be compromised. And what will almost certainly stop it is the powerful US banking lobby, likely to remind politicians presented with the necessary legislation, that a political survivor is one who once bought, stays bought. Introduction This month, the credibility of cryptocurrencies came into question as the price of bitcoin and those of its imitators continued to fall heavily. Bitcoin has halved from its peak, which was only two months ago. It leaves everyone involved with headaches. As the private sector replacement for failing fiat currencies, the credibility of bitcoin may have suffered a mortal blow, with many observers now comparing it not in the context of rapidly expanding quantities of fiat, but with the wilder tech stocks which coincidentally have taken a battering as well. But a few state actors on the fringes have become strong supporters, notably El Salvador. As El Salvador hoovers up bitcoin, there are other governments seeking to ban or to restrict them. While appearing to be keen to develop its own digital currency, the Russian central bank recently proposed restrictions on crypto trading — admittedly this is an ongoing debate. China, being the ultimate authoritarian state, banned crypto exchanges long ago, and is already testing its own state-sponsored digital currency. Other governments are treading more carefully, aware that the formally $3 trillion (now $2 trillion) market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies reflects considerable private sector wealth in their own jurisdictions. Surely, major central banks would love to follow the Russians and Chinese in banning bitcoin and its imitators. But instead of a full-frontal attack on distributed ledgers and the threat they mount to their fiat currencies, major governments everywhere appear to be deploying a strategy of gradual strangulation, hoping the crypto phenomenon will subside. After all, currency is the preserve of the state and other than mavericks like El Salvador, who wants a private sector alternative? This is the statist’s view. But just in case, research is being conducted into central bank digital currencies — CBDCs. Cynics can anticipate how the relationship between private sector distributed ledgers and a centralised state version will evolve. As the development of national CBDCs progresses, increasing restrictions on bitcoin and other rivals will be introduced. There is one thing that governments and central banks cannot abide, and that is private sector rivals to their currency monopolies. Research into the development of CBDCs is being coordinated by a committee at the Bank for International Settlements, led by the major central banks (with the notable exception of the Peoples Bank of China) and the BIS itself. All other central banks can expect to benefit from the project and follow its recommendations. Only last week, the US Fed issued the first in what promises to be a series of consultation papers on a US CBDC. The importance of the Fed’s strategic approach is paramount, since the dollar is the big daddy of all currencies through which America controls the world. A CBDC replacement must not threaten the dollar’s hegemony. If it does, then we can assume the whole CBDC concept will end up being stillborn. What is a CBDC? A CBDC is a digital form of central bank money that is different from balances in traditional reserve or settlement accounts. It is a digital payment instrument, denominated in the national unit of account and is a direct liability of the central bank. Two separate functions have been identified. There is a general purpose, or retail function, whereby a CBDC is an alternative to currency cash and commercial bank deposit money. And there is a wholesale function for use between financial intermediaries, incorporating cross-border settlements. Figure 1 above illustrates the flows of these two different functions. The adoption of a CBDC requires a central bank to upgrade their banking systems to deal with tens or even hundreds of millions of depositors and businesses — a task whose sheer scale and technological challenges should not be underestimated. Figure 2 illustrates the relationship between a retail CBDC and existing currency liabilities. CBDCs are intended to be an addition to current settlement systems and currency quantities. Declining use of banknotes and coins, which are a bearer form of central bank liability and a direct claim on it, is being claimed as a justification for a new electronic settlement medium with the same currency standing in the form of a retail CBDC. The widespread use of debit cards has blurred the distinction between the cash notes and coins issued by a central bank, and deposit money which is a liability of commercial banks. Users of currency in retail transactions are generally unaware of the distinction, and bank regulators believe that their oversight provides justification for the seamless operation between these different risk categories. Nevertheless, central banks are aware of the potential disruption a CBDC might cause to existing settlement systems, and for this reason amongst others are certain to proceed cautiously. The wholesale function of a CBDC is a different one to being purely an alternative to bank notes, being more attuned to reserves on a central bank’s balance sheet. If a wholesale CBDC is introduced it will be with the objective of extending a central bank’s function into cross-border settlements, with the intention of making them more efficient with lower transaction fees. That will require the same operational and legal standards between different CBDCs, necessitating international cooperation in the way they are set up — hence the likely future role for the BIS, which already sets out the global regulatory framework under the Basel Committee to which commercial banks must adhere. Undoubtedly, cross-border cooperation in CBDCs is a multiyear project. All that the BIS committee can do for now is come up with guidelines to which individual central banks can make long term plans, so that different CBDCs might eventually be integrated into a global settlement system. This is also behind an initial phase of designing CBDCs for retail, or domestic use with a view to them being compatible with wholesale use. The benefit of a retail CBDC for the state Augustin Carstens, General Manager at the Bank for International Settlements made the following comments in an IMF sponsored video about central bank digital currencies: “We intend to establish the equivalence with cash, but there is a huge difference there. For example, with cash we don’t know who is using a $100 bill today, we don’t know who is using a MX$1,000 bill today. A key difference with a CBDC is that a central bank will have absolute control under the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and we will have the technology to enforce that. Those two issues are extremely important and make a huge difference with respect to what cash is.” Clearly, the attraction to Carstens is that CBDCs offer the potential for central banks to increase their controls over how currency is used, control not only over markets and economies, but over individuals and businesses. Carstens seems completely unfazed by the issues for personal liberty. However, Figure 1 above suggests there is an option of token based CBDCs to provide anonymity. But given all central banks’ desire for control to minimise criminal transactions and tax evasion, it is unlikely that anonymity will be preserved. And for any jurisdiction where personal freedom might be regarded as important, there’s always the pull of international conformity to ensure that in the name of preventing international fraud and tax evasion personal freedom cannot be protected. The issue of individual freedom to buy and sell goods and services with the state being automatically informed of every transaction is a huge departure from using banknotes and coin. This could become an impediment to the widespread adoption and success of a retail CBDC in some countries. But for individuals there may be no option if retail CBDCs become the pretext to do away with cash entirely. Furthermore, while some central banks will be wary of a CBDC interfering with the implementation of monetary policy, other central banks have expressed the desire to use them to extend control over economic outcomes. For example, by deploying CBDCs with an expiry date beyond which they become worthless, it would enable a central bank to accelerate capital spending, employment expansion, or consumer demand in favoured industries, such as green energy, or other sectors deemed worthy of state promotion and protection. The application of positive and negative interest rates selectively on retail CBDCs might be seen as a further tool for enhancing monetary policies by directing capital investment and economic management. This, surely, is one of several possibilities that will excite the planners as CBDC concepts develop. That is in the future. For now, the CBDC concept needs to be consistent with promoting improved settlement options. Through commercial bank reserves, central banks supply the ultimate backstop for the banking system, and in respect of settlements generally, they offer guarantees of safety, integrity and access to currency and deposits. Central banks are also tasked with providing sufficient liquidity to ensure the smooth workings of the payments system, ultimately as the lender of last resort. Through their banking regulation, central banks oversee the integrity and efficiency of their national settlement systems. The introduction of a CBDC must not undermine these functions but be seen to enhance them. The consequences for commercial banks One of the problems that is yet to be addressed is the effect of an introduction of retail CBDCs on bank deposits. The origin of bank deposits is always loan creation, acting as the double-entry bookkeeping liability counterpart of bank credit recorded on bank balance sheets as assets. As borrowers draw down their loans to make payments, deposits received by their payees are distributed throughout the banking network, and rebalancing is achieved through wholesale interbank markets. A new class of central bank liability to be used for electronic settlements risks draining the commercial banking network of deposit money that would otherwise be recycled between them. And while it is tempting to think that deposits at the larger banks are likely to be safe, there will be many smaller ones around the world that could face deposit runs into the relative safety of a CBDC. The effect of deposit flight into central banks from highly leveraged commercial banking systems, particularly the euro system and the Japanese sector, could be catastrophic. Both sport asset to equity ratios of over twenty times on average with some banks even more highly geared, so a shift of less than 5% of their deposits could tip them into crisis. Furthermore, for bank depositors the convenience of transferring deposits electronically and immediately for a CBDC without the hassle of queuing up for cash which a bank refuses to release in quantity could turn a bank liquidity crisis into an intraday or overnight event. For this reason alone, a CBDC giving access to the public without hinderance seems unlikely. Furthermore, when commercial bankers are presented with a CBDC scheme, they are likely to oppose it strongly because of the threat to their customer deposits. This is even likely to be more important to commercial banks than the risk that a CBDC will represent unfair competition with commercial banking, a possibility upon which views are likely to be divided. In authoritarian regimes, the competition argument might not matter. But in the US, banks are powerful lobbyists paying for politicians’ election spending. It seems likely that their antipathy will become an insurmountable obstacle to the introduction of a dollar CBDC, if proposals get that far. Practical and political considerations While some central banks might find there is minimal political opposition, most jurisdictions will require enabling legislation to be passed without which a global CBDC regime cannot proceed. The course of action is probably as follows: With the agreement of the major central banks, the BIS finalises draft proposals for CBDCs to present to finance ministers at a G20 meeting. At the earliest, this initial step will be put before the G20 Summit in 2023 in India. More likely, it will be 2024 or 2025. Bear in mind that Basel 3, which was the response to the 2008—2009 financial crisis, is still not fully implemented more than a decade later. Central banks will want to reassure their legislators that their proposed systems are thoroughly tested, secure and robust before framing the necessary legislation. Testing by pilot schemes could start as early as next year in some cases but given the seriousness of this issue and the bureaucratic nature of the introduction and implementation of government IT systems, and the sheer scale of opening accounts for the entire population and its businesses, it is likely to take some time. The earliest an international agreement for CBDCs on common standards and the necessary legislation passed in the G20 nations and their implementation is unlikely to be before the end of this decade at the earliest, if not well into the 2030s. To complicate matters, objections could arise from Russia and China. As a G20 member, Russia ploughs its own furrow, with the West periodically threatening to cut it off from SWIFT and imposing other penalties — hardly conducive to international cooperation. China is already testing her version of a CBDC, so is unlikely to conform to a BIS template which does not yet exist. But by far the most serious problem is likely to be with the US. >From remarks on the subject by Jay Powell, the Fed is taking a very cautious line. Earlier this month the Fed issued what promises to be only the first in a series of public consultation papers, and from reading it there emerges an impression of a reluctance to engage with the real issues. A suggested list of twenty questions to be answered makes the point, so that this CBDC plan is likely to be kicked into the long grass. That the Fed is dragging its heels is obviously a matter of opinion. A crucial issue behind this opinion is the effect of CBDCs on the dollar’s existing hegemony. While the Fed might engage with a retail dollar CBDC, arguing it will offer the prospects of an improved settlement system, we can be reasonably sure that the Treasury will balk at the BIS setting the agenda for a wholesale version of the American currency. For international settlements, the dollar is already under attack from the renminbi and the euro, a rot which the Treasury will be keen to contain. We cannot guess the outcome of this issue. And there are also the spanners to be thrown into the works by powerful commercial banking interests, which will not want to see their credit creation monopoly threatened because of the drain on their deposits. The threat to state fiat currencies from bitcoin That central banks are banding together to provide a viable alternative to bitcoin and its imitators before banning them from being used as media of exchange is a supposition supported by the interests and actions of the central banks. If this is indeed the case, we should not be surprised, given that the monetary authorities have demonstrated that they do not admit to the relationships between money, currency, and credit. They are therefore unable to decide on whether bitcoin fits into any of these categories, and therefore the seriousness of the threat. To act as the principal media of exchange as a replacement for government fiat, bitcoin must fulfil all these functions. Through millennia, gold has been money without counterparty risk, more recently as the backing for currency substitutes with only small quantities of physical gold actually circulating. In theory, bitcoin in a wallet could fulfil that role of traditional money, backing a currency system based upon it. This backing would also be fundamental to its backing for a new currency, perhaps in the form of an obligation to deliver bitcoin held in custody by a trusted counterparty. Where it will fail is as the medium of credit due to its inflexibility compared with gold. Besides its physical qualities, gold’s success as money is because the quantity of above ground stocks used as money is flexible and demand for the money function is set by its users (not the state, which is the important distinction from fiat currencies). The quantity of gold circulating as money draws upon reserves used mainly for ornamentation. Consequently, over the centuries there has been remarkable price stability for commodities and products exchanged by those dividing their labour measured in gold. This is not possible with bitcoin, whose quantity is finite, and if it was to be adopted as money its purchasing power measured in goods would rise inexorably as billions of people build their cash reserves. This would continue after the shock of the collapse of the fiat regime because of the hard limit on bitcoin’s quantity, while the purchasing power of gold and its substitutes can be expected to stabilise. A borrower of bitcoin investing in production would be faced with repayments of uncertain value measured against his final output, making it impossible to conduct the economic calculations necessary for the investment. Besides this hurdle the promoters of bitcoin would have to convince most of the inhabitants of this planet that it is the only replacement for fiat currencies when they fail. Unlike the promoters, people dividing their labour are not speculators, only seeking a stable means of exchange. Indeed, the speculators’ motives are to encourage as high a price for bitcoin as possible, which is not the function of money. It should therefore be obvious that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are incapable of providing a monetary role because of their unsuitability as media of exchange. This being so we can only surmise that cryptocurrencies are little more than a concept which has succeeded in attracting speculation on a scale seen only when currency and credit to inflate it are available in unlimited quantities. In short, the phenomenon is a bubble that eclipses most of those seen hitherto. As such, cryptocurrencies do not pose a threat to fiat currencies. It is gold the authorities should look out for, and there is no sign of them doing so. The economic and monetary consequences of CBDCs It is clear from Augustin Carsten’s comments quoted above that the objective is to use CBDCs to increase state control over how currencies are used. That being the case, personal freedom and free markets will be further suppressed through their introduction. All the evidence is that state-determined economic outcomes are failures. We can explain this simply by pointing out that only acting individuals can take the decisions that lead to economic progress, while government plans always lack the basis of economic calculation. Instead of providing solutions for failing economic and monetary policies, CBDCs are a continuing move in the same direction. Nowhere in all the literature emanating from the BIS, or in the Fed’s consultation paper, is there any suggestion that an expansion of the quantity of CBDCs will be offset by a contraction in central bank balance sheets or in the quantity of bank credit. The only offset is the declining use of banknotes and coins, which is a minor portion of the circulating currency. Therefore, CBDCs represent an additional source of inflationary finance, reminding us of the fate of mandats territoriaux in revolutionary France in 1796, when they replaced the assignat which had become virtually worthless. The mandats lasted barely six months. The only material difference is that CBDCs are planned to be issued contemporaneously with existing fiat currencies while they still retain public credibility. There can be no doubt that the expansion of currency and bank credit since the Lehman crisis in 2008 has instilled in all major states an enhanced dependency on inflationary financing of government spending. Rather than raising taxes or cutting spending, it is far easier to cover their deficits by expanding the media of exchange, and while notionally independent from the political class, central bankers have fully embraced this use of inflation. But inflation is an invidious tax, eventually realised by those who suffer under it. A lethal combination of the monetary arithmetic that an expansion of currency invokes, together with a loss of all confidence in the integrity of the issuer is always the death knell for fiat currencies. The only question remaining is the time taken for the public to realise that far from its government providing free lunches ad infinitum, they are not only paid for through their taxes but also through currency debasement. There comes a point where this realisation leads to a widespread revulsion and rejection of the currency, when it then becomes worthless. The best that might be said of CBDCs is that by adding a layer of confusion, the final rejection of government fiat by the public might be delayed briefly. But as the experience of revolutionary France showed, the replacement of one fiat currency with it in another form changes nothing. Existing currency problems are more immediate than plans for the adoption of CBDCs can possibly allow. In the coming months, a fatal destabilisation of fiat currencies is in prospect as central banks are forced to choose between submitting to the inevitability of interest rates rising to reflect the loss of their currencies’ purchasing power or continuing to provide inflationary finance for their governments. Without doubt, the problem is becoming urgent. Only this week, we have seen the hold fire in the face of rising interest rates, leaving US Treasuries on negative yields of over six per cent, according to official CPI figures.[iv] On an independent estimate of price inflation, negative bond yields for US Treasury debt exceed double that. Clearly, a consequence of monetary policies is that markets now fail to function. The Eurozone and Japan face the additional difficulty of surmounting negative interest rates as well as negative nominal yields on government bonds. We can only surmise that these extraordinary conditions persist due to the success of central bank propaganda backed by false and misleading statistics, while the financial world is in thrall to the false gods of Keynesianism. As pointed out above, a further falsity is the belief that cryptocurrencies could become a viable medium of exchange. It is those dividing their labour who decide their medium of exchange, and not a shadow issuer comprised of technology enthusiasts who have achieved no more than create a bubble to end all bubbles. Bitcoin is simply another form of fiat, and as fiat dies, we can expect bitcoin and its imitators to do so as well. And given the time taken to introduce CBDCs, not only will we be writing a further chapter on extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds over the entire cryptocurrency phenomenon, but we will have found CBDCs to be stillborn.

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Cryptocurrency: Big Media's Privacy Coin Analysts Are Anti-Privacy, Frauds
by grarpamp 29 Jan '22

29 Jan '22

https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/privacyweek/2022/01/28/4-reasons-privacy-co… Lots of weasel phrases and indoctrination bashing privacy in there. Protip: If a cryptocurrency does not have at least the same privacy as Fiat cash, gold, barter... it is an abject loss of privacy features and Freedom compared to those. Plenty of privacy options out there, including... BCH+CashFusion Zcash Monero Dero Arrr Onion ... With more and better coming... The evolution to privacy, and true DEX... seek, develop, adopt it.

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Cryptocurrency: Crowdfund and Paypro's Block Freedom, Funds, and Protests
by grarpamp 29 Jan '22

29 Jan '22

Time after time after time Banks, Card and Payment Processors, "Social" Crowdfund and all manner of centralized Fiat services arbitrarily block people's funds, lock and cancel accounts, etc. Same with centralized crypto services. And CBDC's are an extreme and present dire threat to Freedom. Globalist plans are crystal clear and are being deployed against Freedom. The only way out to personal, financial, and Human Freedom is to adopt fully distributed cryptocurrency, gold, bartergoods and services, etc even cash. Faster, harder, more private, and fight back, now! Get your people set up with and using these distributed methods. " The internet was in an uproar yesterday when GoFundMe blocked access to the funds that would help support the convoy of at least 50,000 truckers headed to Ottawa, Canada's capital, on Saturday. The donations are expected to be dished out to truckers who participated in the rally, paying for their fuel, food, and hotel. "

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Kiva.org: Chief Technology Officer
by Gunnar Larson 29 Jan '22

29 Jan '22

The World's largest micro-credit lending fraud is looking for a CTO. Let's give them an idea ... Ditch Wells Fargo, and go to Wyoming <https://wyomingbankingdivision.wyo.gov/banks-and-trust-companies/special-pu…> . You will be less of a fraud there. ------- Kiva (kiva.org) is an international nonprofit with a mission to expand financial access to help underserved communities thrive. We run a global marketplace platform to crowdfund microloans for financially excluded entrepreneurs, farmers and students around the world. Through Kiva Capital, we serve as a bridge between large scale impact first investors and underserved populations. Our digital identity platform enables borrowers who don’t have a track record with traditional financial institutions to record and verify their financial history and gain access to less costly mainstream financial markets. *Role Overview*Technology has been the foundational enabler of Kiva’s mission since our founding. The Kiva.org internet marketplace spans the globe, and our underlying technology platform facilitates loans and loan repayments in nearly every country in the world, making it the world’s largest crowdlending platform for micro-entrepreneurs. Kiva’s technology stack has been undergoing massive transformation. Within the past few years, we have migrated to the cloud, launched native mobile applications, built an open source technology platform for the unbanked and underbanked population, rewritten our frontend leveraging single-page application and server-side rendering frameworks, and began refactoring our monolith into microservices. The Chief Technology Officer is the chief internal and external evangelist for Kiva’s technology. The ideal candidate will be a force multiplier and scale Kiva’s trajectory of growing its impact around the world. At this time, we can only consider applicants with authorization to work in the United States on a permanent, full-time basis; unfortunately we cannot provide visa sponsorship. *Key Responsibilities Include* - Lead and participate in long-term strategic and operational planning to achieve business goals and prioritize development initiatives. - Oversee engineering, data science, IT departments across all of Kiva’s business units (Kiva Marketplace, Kiva Capital, and Kiva Protocol). - Instill an engineering culture focused on delivering and maximizing our impact in the world through technology-based solutions. - Provide the vision for the technology platform, drive the development of the technology roadmap, evaluate new and promising technologies, and incubate MVP and foundational initiatives that can significantly unlock business scale and impact opportunities. - Create an environment that promotes engineering excellence by attracting and retaining high-performing talent from diverse backgrounds and designing effective organizational structure, processes, systems, and tools. - Work closely with product and other teams to build products and features that allow Kiva to achieve its goals - Foster a team-first attitude by building strong partnerships, collaboration, and alignment across functions and stewarding a culture of diversity, inclusiveness, ownership, boldness, and innovation. - Champion an experimental and data-driven mindset and promote practices that reward risk taking and afford rapid response to market feedback. - Represent Kiva's technology strategy and promote Kiva’s technology brand to external and internal stakeholders. - Establish, define and track metrics and monitor progress to ensure that objectives are achieved, particularly in software development and technical operations. -- *Gunnar Larson - xNY.io <http://www.xNY.io> | Bank.org <http://Bank.org>* MSc <https://www.unic.ac.cy/blockchain/msc-digital-currency/?utm_source=Google&u…> - Digital Currency MBA <https://www.unic.ac.cy/business-administration-entrepreneurship-and-innovat…> - Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ip) G(a)xNY.io +1-646-454-9107 New York, New York 10001

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Why its " Crypto-anarchy ' ( not " Crypto-privacy " )
by professor rat 29 Jan '22

29 Jan '22

Also helps explain why Black-Box APster gets all the corpse-media interest and not Soft-Drill. https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/privacyweek/2022/01/28/4-reasons-privacy-co…

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[ot][personal][wrong][wrong] making my way outdoors on saturday
by Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, Victim & Survivor of 29 Jan '22

29 Jan '22

it's building in me to go outdoors :) i'm wearing cotton pajamas and having trouble directing my body. i'd like to wear many layers of wool. cotton is no good when damp. wool is good when damp. synthetics good too. I generally put all my warm clothes on at once on very cold days, and then take layers off that are unneeded. "comfortably cool." the extra warmth from all the layers helps trick part of me to still think it's indoors. when i'm outdoors, i've had a lot of trouble doing things that develop my body's ability to stay warm. ideally, i'm exercising all day, constantly (not to exhaustion: to sustain). ... anyway first step is garments

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[ot|[spam][personal] Cheap Permanent Storage
by Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, Victim & Survivor of 29 Jan '22

29 Jan '22

- arweave/ardrive advertises permanent storage, looks like maybe $8/GB - web3.storage appears to provide filecoin storage up to 1TB/user with a button to request more I'd like to message web3.storage explaining e.g. that I have psychological disorders where I destroy my own data, and would like to upload hard drive images to preserve them for eventual recovery before reusing them, and ask for more space. I'd also like to use the two services to backup my files in some way, maybe with a little git repository containing data identifiers. note: I think git provides for newhash now, so you can migrate past sha1, not sure.

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Cryptocurrency: Govts Accepting Crypto Defrauding You, NatSec Executive Order
by grarpamp 29 Jan '22

29 Jan '22

BTC surges 5% on Biden NatSec EO news. https://usdebtclock.org/ "Bob wants to send Alice 1.5 Bitcoins. Bob has a Bitcoin wallet, as does Alice. Alice uses her wallet to generate a receive address, then sends it to Bob. Bob copies and pastes Alice's address into his wallet (and checks it). He enters 1.5 BTC, then clicks "Send". Alice sees the unconfirmed transaction. After several minutes she sees her transaction's first confirmation. The Bitcoins are hers. No online exchange was used. No government was involved." "El Salvador" "A bill introduced in Arizona to make Bitcoin legal tender!" "One of the governor candidates for Texas said he would do the same thing Arizona is proposing here if he wins, making Bitcoin legal tender in Texas that is. This stuff is going to become our legal currency the same way alcohol and weed prohibition ended, State by State" "Bidens executive order, America competes and a history lesson about AmericaExecutive Order 6102" "National Security = Terrorism Against You" "UK is going crypto. If you can't beat it join them" "It's suggested you crush these fucks by beating them to adoption first." "3 years ago, A former CIA covert intelligence officer did an AMA, on being asked what is the biggest national threat to United States,The answer was Blockchain technology!" "US Gov't is about to invest in bitcoin. Putin just "directed the Central Bank of Russia not to neglect the advantages of Bitcoin mining." Biden's executive order of national security is not to regulate bitcoin. It's to buy bitcoin in the name of national security. My source is my ass." "Govts around world moving to accept Bitcoin are fraud. They're taking it in, and on the backend they're keeping some stuffing their coffers with it, printing money and taking debt against you to pay some of what they claim to be accepting it for, and selling whatever's left. After enough cycles through that wash, they end up owning all 21M coins. He who owns the most gold wins. Don't fall for that scam, don't feed them your sovereign wealth, let them eat their own worthless Fiat, and keep that fine Bitcoin Filet for among yourselves." The Dementia Patient is preparing for The Fed’s crypto shitcoin that will be one of the key pieces of the upcoming Social Credit Score “Climate Change” Passport en route to full-blown hell on earth in a perpetual Big Brother Post Human Technofascism. Biden can’t even spell Bitcoin, let alone explain to anyone exactly what the blockchain tech is. Most importantly, there is no real way to stop Bitcoin or any other of the cryptocurrencies, and that’s why this executive action is laughable. Sure, cryptos will sell off briefly, many will yet again celebrate the demise of Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. The are ignoramus clowns. Let them honk away. People will simply avoid centralized exchanges (i.e. IRS spies) which they should anyway, unless converting fiat into crypto (not the other way round), and the decentralized exchanges will just grow in ever more marketshare, as will the various legit decentralized DeFi coins. The real showdown comes circa 2025 when The Fed finally attempts to launch their spycoin and further rob We the People of what’s left of their dwindling freedoms. We need to see how that develops over the next 3 years, but for now this is a drooling idiot fake POTUS working for his Cult masters. Buy the BTC, ETH, etc. dips. Comply and YOU Die. https://2ndsmartestguyintheworld.substack.com/ Bidens executive order, America competes and a history lesson about AmericaExecutive Order 6102 https://www.barrons.com/articles/white-house-executive-action-regulate-cryp… https://twitter.com/BitcoinMagazine/status/1486805542618251271 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-21/white-house-is-set-to-pu… https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0454 https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/money-and-payments-202201… I see a lot of folks talking about Biden's Executive or next month, America Competes Act and the CBDC's being provisioned. If crypto wasn't seen as an issue it wouldn't need an executive order. TLDR The US has a network of Federal Reserves that when in other countries is called World Banks and the IMF. They are losing control of the money supply, they are getting ready to fight back. The Government is whack and President Blunder is about to use an executive order to come after crypto. History tells us that this can be pretty extreme if we reference what Roosevelt did with Executive order 6102; to confiscate gold. With out question this is being sold as a matter of national security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102 ****To be clear I am not saying they are coming to confiscate crypto, I am saying they are coming to regulate the shit out of it. IT compete with banks, it competes with wall street, it competes with the federal reserve, it competes with the IMF*** Here is how screwed up the use economy is (each with definitions and explanations for those who want to learn): Let's be very clear the American and world economy is on the brink of complete collapse. The synthetic CDO's of 2008 were never fixed, they gave banks money https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEXTqtH-Oo4 The student loan crisis cant be fixed because of an investment tool like the above called SLABS https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/081815/student-loan-assetba… Covid is causing massive supply chain issues so sales and manufacturing cant recover * if we can sell stuff and there are shortages the price will rise and wages will drop.** https://www.supplychainbrain.com/articles/34435-global-supply-chains-near-m… Inflation is recking the world economy Covid is going to endemic status but may evolve to get worse. Wall street is using the Federal Reserve as a piggy bank and the fed is using the Plunge Team to stop the financial collapse. Repos and reverse repos are at a record high as hedge funds are over-leveraged and in the extreme Red. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9UIumKX7Mw What is the plunge team https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/plunge-protection-team.asp _______________________ Empires don't invade other countries to control people they do it to control economies and resources This includes pillaging their own: Its imperative to remember that the USA gave US citizens 1200 bucks and small businesses a fractured 2-time ppp system that was highly flawed but bailed out major corporations and banks at 120 billion per month. Most relevant (Previous executive orders) Executive Order 6102 ......is an executive order) signed on April 5, 1933, by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt "forbidding the hoarding) of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States." The executive order was made under the authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, as amended by the Emergency Banking Act in March 1933. The limitation on gold ownership in the United States was repealed after President Gerald Ford signed a bill legalizing private ownership of gold coins, bars, and certificates by an Act of Congress, codified in Pub.L.) 93–373,[1] which went into effect December 31, 1974. Executive Order 6102 required all persons to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, all but a small amount of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve in exchange for $20.67 (equivalent to $413 in 2020)[5] per troy ounce. Under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, as amended by the recently passed Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933, a violation of the order was punishable by fine up to $10,000 (equivalent to $200,000 in 2020),[5] up to ten years in prison, or both. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102#:~:text=Executive%20Orde…. Executive Order 9066 This post-Pearl Harbor order, now infamous, gave the military the ability to mark out areas from which it would be possible to exclude “any and all persons.” The upshot of this move was that more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese immigrants were sent to internment camps. Executive Order 10340 This order directed the Secretary of Commerce to “take possession of” American steel plants. The order put to rest a threatened strike . Steelworkers striking was a "threat" to national security. https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/presidential-inquiries/steel-strike… Executive Order 13228 established the department of homeland security and turned America into a terrorist-fearing hell scape and took tax dollars and gave them to military contractors in mass. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are all being used as threats to roll out this new executive order to preserve the economy. https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/BILLS-117HR45… I will leave on this final note. There are 2 ways to enforce policy in the USA; Legislation and litigation. If you don't have laws for a situation (legislation) you go to litigate ( go to court) and get a precedent using older or other laws. The SEC is currently losing badly against Ripple in court. ( They wont get a precedent) So they are turning to legislation (create new enforceable laws). Ripple is designer really to send VERY LARGE transactions instantly across the planet. This directly competes with the CBDC and the Fednow Instant payment system coming out. https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.htm This is an instant payment service for countries and large businesses (banks, hedge funds, etc) https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.htm The IMF and Federal Reserve is looking to replace the ACH and payment systems Crypto and block chain systems make RTGS and ACH old outdated tech https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2021/03/global-cyber-threat-to-f… (RTGS) are funds transfer systems where the transfer of money or securities takes place from one bank to another on a "real-time" and on "gross" basis. Settlement in "real time" means that payment transaction does not require any waiting period. The transactions are settled as soon as they are processed. "Gross settlement" means the transaction is settled on one to one basis without bunching or netting with any other transaction Comparatively, ACHs are typically used for low-value, non-urgent transactions while RTGS systems are typically used for high-value, urgent transactions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_system Think of all those poor clearing houses and companies getting a % cut that will be wiped out. Get ready for craziness and cheap crypto. I am buying up all privacy coins Monero, Dash etc as an investment Learn how to use a VPN, Linux is your friend ( Microsoft snitches), and encryption doesn't hurt. Edit: TO all those upset about politics, when politics comes after my crypto.... I get upset To those attacking my character: I am not a right wing conspiracy theorist. I do not want to be doomed to repeat history. You using an Ad Hominem attack, this is a misdirection and doesn't talk about the subject matter Ad Hominem (Attacking the person): This fallacy occurs when, instead of addressing someone's argument or position, you irrelevantly attack the person or some aspect of the person who is making the argument. The fallacious attack can also be direct to membership in a group or institution. To those saying the Biden Camp may support crypto. Just like he kept his promise to forgive student loans until the issue of SLABS as an investment vehicle came up, he sided with Wall Street and the banks. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/081815/student-loan-assetba…. Perhaps he wont side with investors and banks again. I say you may be right. Its almost possible they would spend 3 months preparing an emergency executive order to regulate a multi trillion dollar industry they adamantly support. The federal reserve and IMF will just sit back and lose control of the money system and allow the world populace decentralize payment protocols and do nothing. They may just relinquish complete control with out a fight and forgo tariffs and sanctions as a punitive system in Geo politics. Read here https://blogs.imf.org/2021/10/01/crypto-boom-poses-new-challenges-to-financ… https://blogs.imf.org/2021/12/09/global-crypto-regulation-should-be-compreh… https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm924 It seems like they are going to do nothing and will just let control of the worlds system. This is Geo politics and its bigger than John Doe not paying taxes. Its about Russia and North Korea buying weapons, and sanctions not working. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cryptocurrency-helping-russia-avoid-us-18000… Its about the US Dollar not being a reserve currency and the Petro dollar breaking down. The US dollar used to be pegged to gold ( Nixon Changed that) and all other world currency was pegged to the US Dollar. This was established in the Brenton Woods Agreement and System of 1944 https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/brettonwoodsagreement.asp EDIT Final update There is a little hopium here in the at FTX.us donated $5m to Biden's election campaign https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/joe-biden/contributors?i… but more than $74m came from Wallstreet tycoons. These guys wouldnt want blockchain tracking stock assets, naked shorting is dead that way White House Wants Crypto Rules as a Matter of National Security By Daren Fonda Jan. 27, 2022 3:00 pm ET Order Reprints Print Article Text size An executive order would aim to bring order to the government's approach to regulating cryptocurrencies. Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images The Biden administration is preparing to release an executive action that will task federal agencies with regulating digital assets such as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a matter of national security, a person familiar with the White House’s plan tells Barron’s. The national security memorandum, expected to come in the next few weeks, would task parts of the government with analyzing digital assets and assembling a regulatory framework that covers cryptos, stablecoins, and NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, this person said. “This is designed to look holistically at digital assets and develop a set of policies that give coherency to what the government is trying to do in this space,” the person said. The State Department, Treasury Department, National Economic Council, and Council of Economic Advisers would be involved in the initiative. The White House National Security Council would also be involved, the person said, since crypto has economic implications for national security. Along those lines, the administration would instruct agencies to work on harmonizing regulations of digital assets between countries. “Because digital assets don’t stay in one country, it’s necessary to work with other countries on synchronization,” the person said. The White House wouldn’t issue recommendations. Agencies would be given three to six months to come up with proposals, and the White House would act as a policy coordinator. White House officials declined to comment. Bloomberg earlier this month reported on the White House’s plan. The White House aims to bring order to the haphazard approach that the government is now using to regulate crypto, the person said. Various agencies oversee the industry, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. But there’s no consensus on matters such as whether some tokens should be registered as securities, or how to oversee exchanges, stablecoins, and high-yield lending products. Congress has held multiple hearings on cryptos in recent months, exposing partisan divides between Republicans and Democrats on how to regulate the industry. The Biden administration is also urging Congress to draft rules. The White House released a report on stablecoins in November, recommending that Congress act promptly to regulate the industry. The Federal Reserve has also weighed in on digital currencies. The Fed released a report on a central-bank digital currency, or CBDC, earlier in January that laid out the pros and cons of digitizing the dollar. The report said that the Fed could start work on the project with support from the White House and Congress. A Treasury Department spokesman called the report an important step forward in discussions about a CBDC. Other countries are ramping up scrutiny of crypto, seeing it as a matter of national economic security. Russia’s central bank and finance ministry said this week that Bitcoin mining and trading activity should be more tightly regulated. Russian President Vladimir Putin called on regulators to form a unanimous opinion on regulating the space Wednesday.

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Silk encryption
by professor rat 29 Jan '22

29 Jan '22

REG story reminded me of one of the best stories out of WW2 - " Between Silk and Cyanide ". Silk was eventually decided to store codes as it could easily be burned in an emergency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_Silk_and_Cyanide Now isn't it time Semich, Batshit and Dumbell took the Gramps cyanide?

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Cryptocurrency: Seasteading Utopias!?
by grarpamp 29 Jan '22

29 Jan '22

> A group of anti-vaxxers is reportedly building a community off the coast > of southeastern Africa > > https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-loving-anti-vax-group-seeks-like-mind… https://cryptoland.is/ A crypto paradise where the community can surround themselves with other like-minded individuals. A powerful ecosystem by crypto enthusiasts for crypto enthusiasts. Cryptoland is the world's first private crypto island designed to enjoy a first-class crypto lifestyle. An international hub to live, work and relax. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cryptoland

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