March 2023 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

'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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As Senate Banking Committee Convenes Hearing on Exploding Banks, an FDIC Chart Shows the Banking Crisis Is Far from Over
by Gunnar Larson 28 Mar '23

28 Mar '23

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/03/as-senate-banking-committee-convenes… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 28, 2023 ~ Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, will convene a hearing this morning at 10 a.m. to take testimony from federal bank regulators on why the second and third largest bank failures in U.S. history occurred within two days of each other this month. (A number of other regional banks have seen their share prices plunge this month.) Martin Gruenberg, Chair, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Martin Gruenberg, Chair, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) The two banks that failed and were taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) were Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank. Both had experienced bank runs in March and both had extreme exposure to uninsured deposits. One of the witnesses at today’s hearing, Martin Gruenberg, Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), explains as follows in his written testimony for today’s hearing: “A common thread between the failure of SVB and the failure of Signature Bank was the banks’ heavy reliance on uninsured deposits. As of December 31, 2022, Signature Bank reported that approximately 90 percent of its deposits were uninsured, and SVB reported that 88 percent of its deposits were uninsured. The significant proportion of uninsured deposit balances exacerbated deposit run vulnerabilities and made both banks susceptible to contagion effects from the quickly evolving financial developments. One clear takeaway from recent events is that heavy reliance on uninsured deposits creates liquidity risks that are extremely difficult to manage, particularly in today’s environment where money can flow out of institutions with incredible speed in response to news amplified through social media channels.” Gruenberg has included a chart in his written testimony that is nothing short of stunning. (See chart above.) It shows that the unrealized losses on investment securities at federally-insured U.S. banks during the 2008 financial crisis were less than $75 billion while at the end of the fourth quarter of 2022 they were over $600 billion. You are no doubt asking yourself how 2008 could have been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression if banks had less than $75 billion in unrealized losses on their investment securities. That’s because the mega banks on Wall Street were highly interconnected, understood how highly-leveraged each one was, and backed away from extending credit as the panic started to spread. The official report from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) reveals the following about the leadup to the 2008 crash: “…as of 2007, the five major investment banks—Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley—were operating with extraordinarily thin capital. By one measure, their leverage ratios were as high as 40 to 1, meaning for every $40 in assets, there was only $1 in capital to cover losses. Less than a 3% drop in asset values could wipe out a firm.” Also, the chart above does not capture the losses and contagion the Wall Street banks themselves created in the broader financial system through their bundling and selling of hundreds of billions of dollars of toxic subprime mortgage debt and derivatives. The FCIC reports explains as follows: “Most home loans entered the pipeline soon after borrowers signed the documents and picked up their keys. Loans were put into packages and sold off in bulk to securitization firms—including investment banks such as Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers, and commercial banks and thrifts such as Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Washington Mutual. The firms would package the loans into residential mortgage–backed securities that would mostly be stamped with triple-A ratings by the credit rating agencies, and sold to investors. In many cases, the securities were repackaged again into collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)—often composed of the riskier portions of these securities—which would then be sold to other investors. Most of these securities would also receive the coveted triple-A ratings that investors believed attested to their quality and safety. Some investors would buy an invention from the 1990s called a credit default swap (CDS) to protect against the securities’ defaulting. For every buyer of a credit default swap, there was a seller: as these investors made opposing bets, the layers of entanglement in the securities market increased.” In the 2008 crisis, there was also the obscene greed and callous disregard for the well being of the country by Wall Street investment banks actually shorting the toxic drek they had knowingly created and sold off to pension funds and other investors. Goldman Sachs created one of these toxic debt structures called ABACUS, allowing John Paulson’s hedge fund to select debt instruments likely to fail to stuff into ABACUS so the hedge fund could short it, while Goldman Sachs sold it to its own customers as a good investment. See our report: ABACUS, London Whale: Frenchmen Take the Fall for Wall Street’s Crimes. The other two witnesses scheduled for today’s hearing are Michael Barr, Vice Chairman for Supervision at the Federal Reserve; and Nellie Liang, Undersecretary for Domestic Finance at the U.S. Treasury. The same three witnesses will appear before the House Financial Services Committee tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. to further examine the collapse of these banks.

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A link to the Rapists in here
by Revevilgod God 28 Mar '23

28 Mar '23

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape Rape This article is about a form of human sexual assault. For rape among non-human animals, see Sexual coercion among animals. For other uses, see Rape (disambiguation). Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, has an intellectual disability, or is below the legal age of consent.[1][2] The term rape is sometimes used interchangeably with the term sexual assault.[3] A map of the world showing a composite index about rape of women in 2018, data by WomanStats Project. Rape is not a major problem in this society Rape is a problem in this society Rape is a significant problem in this society Rape is a major problem in this society Rape is endemic in this society No data The rate of reporting, prosecuting and convicting for rape varies between jurisdictions. Internationally, the incidence of rapes recorded by the police during 2008 ranged, per 100,000 people, from 0.2 in Azerbaijan to 92.9 in Botswana with 6.3 in Lithuania as the median.[4] Worldwide, sexual violence, including rape, is primarily committed by males against females.[5] Rape by strangers is usually less common than rape by people the victim knows, and male-on-male and female-on-female prison rapes are common and may be the least reported forms of rape.[6][7][8] Widespread and systematic rape (e.g., war rape) and sexual slavery can occur during international conflict. These practices are crimes against humanity and war crimes. Rape is also recognized as an element of the crime of genocide when committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a targeted ethnic group. People who have been raped can be traumatized and develop post-traumatic stress disorder.[9] Serious injuries can result along with the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. A person may face violence or threats from the rapist, and, sometimes, from the victim's family and relatives.[10][11][12]

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