March 2023 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

FDIC Faces $23 Billion in Costs From Bank Failures. It Wants Big Lenders to Pay
by Gunnar Larson 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

FDIC Faces $23 Billion in Costs From Bank Failures. It Wants Big Lenders to Pay https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-29/fdic-mulls-squeezing-big…

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Strong AI for assassination, " targeted killing ", includes rationale
by professor rat 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

Liron Shapira @liron · 15h Wow, great insider account of what GPT-4 was really like before they aligned it https://youtube.com/watch?v=oLiheMQayNE… Reposts not plans to kill Elon Musk and all his spawn

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'Degenerate Gambling' in Zero-Day Options Thrills Retail Traders
by Gunnar Larson 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

'Degenerate Gambling' in Zero-Day Options Thrills Retail Traders https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-29/0dte-options-retail-trad…

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Weird Things Are Happening at Silvergate Bank and First Republic Bank
by Gunnar Larson 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/03/weird-things-are-happening-at-silver… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 29, 2023 ~ Silvergate Capital, the parent of Silvergate Bank – which has lost 90 percent of its share price year-to-date and announced it is winding down and liquidating — is still running a website that is putting a rosy glow on the bank’s operations. For example, under the heading of “Banking for the future,” the Silvergate website shares this: “Silvergate Bank has served entrepreneurs in unique and niche industries for over 20 years. Recognizing digital currency’s potential during the sector’s infancy, we built strong relationships with pioneers who were turned away by traditional banks. This solidified our position as industry-leading partners and innovators which remains true today.” Wait. What? (What ever happened to the Federal Trade Commission’s Truth in Advertising Law? Those so-called “strong relationships” with digital currency firms turned into highly-fickle hot money once markets learned that Silvergate had been doing highly questionable banking for Sam Bankman-Fried’s house of frauds, the FTX crypto exchange and his hedge fund, Alameda Research. On January 5, Silvergate reported in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that its “total deposits from digital asset customers declined to $3.8 billion” as of December 31, 2022 (down from the previously reported $11.9 billion on September 30, 2022.) That’s a 68 percent drop in deposits in one quarter. So much for those “strong relationships.” The Silvergate website further offers this assessment to website visitors: “Based in La Jolla, California, Silvergate is a Federal Reserve member bank and the leading provider of innovative financial infrastructure solutions and services for the digital asset industry. “We leverage our technology platform and management team’s expertise to develop solutions for many of the largest fintech and digital asset companies and investors around the world. Our solutions are built on our deep-rooted commitment and proprietary approach to regulatory compliance.” “Regulatory compliance.” Seriously? On January 30, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), John Kennedy (R-LA), and Roger Marshall (R-KS) released a letter to the bank’s CEO, Alan Lane. The letter revealed that the bank had been stonewalling the Senators on their inquiries about the bank’s dealings with crypto firms majority-owned by Sam Bankman-Fried. Federal prosecutors have charged that executives at FTX and Alameda Research, including Bankman-Fried, looted more than $8 billion from FTX customer accounts and the money is missing. Three of those executives have pleaded guilty to criminal charges. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty. The letter from the three Senators to Silvergate CEO Lane described the stonewalling as follows: “We are disappointed by your evasive and incomplete response to our December 5, 2022 letter regarding Silvergate Bank’s role in the improper transfer of FTX customer funds to cryptocurrency hedge fund Alameda Research (Alameda). We wrote to you seeking information on what appeared to be an egregious failure of your bank’s responsibilities to monitor and report suspicious financial activity. Your response confirms the extent of this failure – but then neglects to provide key information needed by Congress to understand why and how these failures occurred. Moreover, in the month since you provided your inadequate reply to our request for information, new reports have emerged detailing the run Silvergate Bank (Silvergate) faced in the wake of the FTX collapse, and the funding sources the bank turned to as its coffers ran low, further underscoring the need for full transparency from you and your bank.” Silvergate’s March 1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicated that record-keeping at the bank is so suspect that it can’t even file its annual report for the full year of 2022 (Form 10-K) on time and it needs more time to “record journal entries.” Equally troubling was the phrase that “its independent registered public accounting firm” will require more time “to complete certain audit procedures, including review of adjustments not yet recorded and the evaluation of the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting.” That stands in rather stark contrast to Silvergate’s website lauding how the company is “…built on our deep-rooted commitment and proprietary approach to regulatory compliance.” The same SEC filing indicated that Silvergate is under multiple investigations from regulators, Congress, and the folks with criminal prosecution powers – the U.S. Department of Justice. Despite all of this, Silvergate’s stock (ticker SI) is still trading on the New York Stock Exchange – sometimes in a very weird fashion. Things are equally weird at First Republic Bank, another troubled federally-insured bank whose share price has also lost 90 percent year-to-date. (The ticker is FRC.) According to First Republic’s regulatory filings, as of December 31, 2022 it had total deposits of $176.25 billion, of which $119.47 billion (or 68 percent) were uninsured. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) caps federal deposit insurance at $250,000 per depositor, per bank. But banks such as First Republic, that cater to the very wealthy, have tended to have customer accounts that far exceed the amount of the FDIC insurance cap. And that can produce a fast bank run on those uninsured deposits when this elite clientele gets anxious as a result of negative news. In a public relations stunt that backfired, with Jamie Dimon’s fingerprints all over it, on March 16 came the news that 11 banks on Wall Street were going to deposit a cumulative $30 billion of their own money – as uninsured deposits – into First Republic Bank as a show of confidence. JPMorgan Chase, along with Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, each ponied up $5 billion of the $30 billion total. The stock market sized up this move as follows: apart from potentially creating a shareholders’ lawsuit against the Wall Street banks that recklessly placed $5 billion as uninsured deposits into a sinking institution, that $30 billion accomplished very little. First Republic Bank’s stock closed on March 16 – after the news about the $30 billion hit the wires – at $34.27. It closed yesterday at $13.50 – a decline of 60.6 percent since the p.r. stunt. On March 21, the Wall Street Journal reported that First Republic had hired Lazard to conduct “a review of strategic options that could include a sale, a capital infusion or asset trimming.” The consulting firm, McKinsey & Co., was also hired to “map out a post crisis structure for the bank,” according to the Wall Street Journal report. Time would appear to be of the essence. On Sunday, March 19, S&P Global announced it had downgraded the credit rating of First Republic three notches deeper into junk territory.

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A link to the Rapists in here
by professor rat 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

>> i need a therapist. (remove space from word paira in subject) iimagine you do too. <<< Its good you recognize your need for psychological help. Especially with your imagination by the look of it. The first step in solving any problem is acknowledging a problem exists. Now this is a big space - practically infinite netspace, newly minted to accompany our practically infinite universe and collective imaginations. I'm 98% sure that there must be a list similar to this where people like you can actually get therapy ' over the phone ' so to speak. Clearly this list is not such a public good since its devoted to discussing pros and cons of ubiquitous crypto. Some of those ' cons ' disturb many authoritarians and since list members have suffered prison repression in the past you can understand a certain amount of paranoia here. " Where they lock-up cypherpunks there they might morning-spam-ddos cypherpunks " Hasta luego Karl Its been real.

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Assassination Politics for ME but not for THEE is simply gross hypocrisy
by professor rat 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

Assassination Politics for ME but not for THEE is simply gross hypocrisy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hsn2z3gZzg Reposts not flight plans for Air-Force One

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Cryptocurrency: Your Country Is As Stupid As You Are For Asking and Letting Them Fuck You
by grarpamp 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

https://usdebtclock.org/ Globally liquid self-custodied Crypto and Gold are the only non-bail-in-able safe havens. And only one of those are transportable across borders, if you can get out... Not just the US... "France is now covered with protests and strikes because Macron said there's no money to allow workers to retire at 62."

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Secure Phones: Not Secure, Baseband Hacked, Manufacturers Provide TOP-SECRET Backdoors For Govt
by grarpamp 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/16/23644013/samsung-exynos-modem-security-i… "Why #OpenSource phones are needed: Modern phones can be hacked via the #closed baseband cpu, which is separate from the app cpu where mobile apps run. "@Google @ProjectZero says hackers could silently own your phone until @SamsungMobile fixes its modems" Google says hackers could silently own your phone until Samsung fixes its modems You may need to turn off Wi-Fi calling and VoLTE for a bit."

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Criminals with journalistic powers at large
by professor rat 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

Very Assange “The evidence I have seen shows that Associated’s journalists are criminals with journalistic powers which should concern every single one of us. . . ." https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/prince-harry-cr… Reposts not guillotined publishers and heads-of-church-and-state

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A link to the Rapists in here
by professor rat 28 Mar '23

28 Mar '23

Karl Semich and Gramps act like nasty rapists here year after year when they keep coming back to dump their loads of slime. I suggest anyone remotely interested in consensual communications between equals here join my two deadpools on these rotten creepy rapist trolls. Together we can pledge and pay enough to hire some kind soul(s) to find these two, cut their balls off and stuff them down their throats. Free at last - free at last - thank fuck almighty - free at last. The arc of the black-flag anarchist's mighty pole is long - but it bends towards justice.

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