April 2023 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

My name is Dmitry Petrov, and if you read these lines, then most likely I died
by professor rat 29 Apr '23

29 Apr '23

As an anarchist, revolutionary and Russian, I found it necessary to take part in the armed resistance of the Ukrainian people against Putin’s occupiers. I did this for justice, for defense of the Ukrainian society and for liberation of my country, Russia, from oppression. For the sake of all the people who are deprived of their dignity and the opportunity to breathe freely by the vile totalitarian system created in Russia and Belarus. https://anarchistnews.org/comment/53800#comment-53800 Reposts not all dead communists are good ones and Dim an exception to prove this rule

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214 Highlights - Review of the Federal Reserve’s Supervision and Regulation of Silicon Valley Bank
by Gunnar Larson 28 Apr '23

28 Apr '23

xNY.io - Bank.org collates 214 highlights to the "Review of the Federal Reserve’s Supervision and Regulation of Silicon Valley Bank." https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LXZB60lmoAnZiTaC5q6cmfLuOKPzG4AT/view?usp=… --- Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) failed because of a textbook case of mismanagement by the bank. Its senior leadership failed to manage basic interest rate and liquidity risk. Its board of directors failed to oversee senior leadership and hold them accountable. And Federal Reserve supervisors failed to take forceful enough action, as detailed in the report. The four key takeaways of the report are: 1. Silicon Valley Bank’s board of directors and management failed to manage their risks. 2. Supervisors did not fully appreciate the extent of the vulnerabilities as Silicon Valley Bank grew in size and complexity. 3. When supervisors did identify vulnerabilities, they did not take sufficient steps to ensure that Silicon Valley Bank fixed those problems quickly enough. 4. The Board’s tailoring approach in response to the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (EGRRCPA) and a shift in the stance of supervisory policy impeded effective supervision by reducing standards, increasing complexity, and promoting a less assertive supervisory approach.

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Adrienne Harris Is Crypto’s Most Powerful Regulator
by Gunnar Larson 28 Apr '23

28 Apr '23

THE MONEY GAME MAR. 30, 2022 Crypto’s Most Powerful Regulator Is Here Adrienne Harris, New York’s financial watchdog, has enormous sway over the industry’s future. By Kevin T. Dugan, staff writer at Intelligencer, who covers money and business Photo: Victor Llorente Thirteen years after the birth of cryptocurrency, it was supposed to be time for Washington to rein it in. Instead, the White House punted, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is still hashing out how it’s going to oversee the $2 trillion industry. State watchdogs have filled that vacuum, making Adrienne Harris, the head of the New York State Department of Financial Services, by default the most powerful crypto regulator in the country. While states such as Florida and Wyoming have adopted a laissez-faire approach to regulation, attracting a sizable chunk of the booming industry, more money and jobs are still flowing into New York than any other city, making it the de facto crypto capital of the U.S. “There’s a misconception that having rigorous regulation turns off innovative companies,” Harris tells me during an hour-long interview at her office looking out onto the Statue of Liberty last month. “That hasn’t been our experience here.” Sign up for Dinner Party A lively evening newsletter about everything that just happened. SIGN UP Harris was tapped as the first Black woman to lead DFS last year. She came into her position after a turn working in Silicon Valley and representing Wall Street banks, a résumé that critics have used to paint her as too close to the industries she is regulating. She’s eager to dispel any criticism that she’s soft as a regulator, especially when it comes to crypto. Harris says she’s looking to expand the agency’s remit, hire new regulators, and possibly watch over lending and asset management in decentralized finance, a.k.a. DeFi, one of the fastest-growing crypto industries, which has been prone to very large hacks. The agency’s power over the industry lies mostly with the BitLicense, a required if unloved permit for crypto exchanges to operate within state lines. When it was first introduced in 2014, it was meant to be a model for the country, but the crypto industry has attacked the license for being too strict, limiting what people can trade, and requiring expensive anti-money-laundering operations, which, it should be noted, most traditional financial institutions are required to maintain. For Harris, the problem isn’t that it’s too restrictive — it’s that the process of getting one, which has stretched years for some companies, is too slow. “If you think about the companies that are BitLicensees, and even the companies in the queue, having the imprimatur of ‘Have you passed regulatory muster with a stringent regulatory regime?’ — I think the good actors see that as a good thing,” she says. Created in 2011, DFS has been a regulator feared more than any of its counterparts in other states for the power it has over banks, insurance companies, and a host of other financial institutions. It brought ambitious money-laundering cases against banks like BNP Paribas (a settlement that resulted in several bankers losing their jobs), fined Deutsche Bank for its relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and levied a $2.5 million fine on the National Rifle Association for selling its so-called murder insurance in the state. “DFS has a lot of teeth, and the sky’s the limit if the agency is exercised properly,” says state Sen. John Liu of Queens, a member of the state finance committee. “DFS compelled multinational banks to cough up $15 billion. We were able to build a couple bridges with that money. We still have much infrastructure in the state of New York that might benefit from DFS’s vigorous functions.” But part of DFS’s mandate is to keep the state’s economy healthy, a balancing act when it means protecting consumers from predatory, but also lucrative, companies. “For me, it’s an opportunity to bring my lived experience as a woman of color,” Harris says. So far, she has established the agency’s first climate division, frozen fees for check-cashing businesses that target the poor, and looked into non-bank lenders for evidence of redlining. “It’s important to me that those voices are at the table and being heard,” she says. “I bring a sort of pragmatism. It’s one thing to sit in our offices with nice views and make policy, but it’s another thing, in my mind, to really run the water through the pipes.” In 2008, Harris joined Sullivan & Cromwell, a law firm so close with Goldman Sachs that it has long sent its lawyers to work in-house at the investment bank. It was there that she worked for H. Rodgin “Rodge” Cohen, then the law firm’s chairman and the so-called trauma surgeon of Wall Street. Cohen remembers Harris working late into the night writing near-flawless memorandums so they’d be ready on his desk in the morning. “She just brought what I’d call a penetrating intelligence to the problems that were at hand,” Cohen tells me. “Many of the problems we get, you cannot just look up the answer in a book. It’s a question of judgment and trying to apply rules written often for other circumstances.” Still, it was clear that corporate law wasn’t for her. “Her heart was really in public service,” he says. From there, she went on to work for the Treasury Department, then the Obama White House, where she focused on policies around the then-upstart fintech industry. After the administration turned over, Harris took a spin through the revolving door between government and business. Her New York financial-disclosure forms show a superabundance of work with the tech and finance industries: She sat on the boards of six companies and nonprofits, including LendingClub, which had recently settled with the Federal Trade Commission over claims it had misled users on fees. She also advised 11 companies, owned two, and invested in or on behalf of two others. “I just thought, well, if you’re going to make policy about it, you should do the thing — run the company, build the company,” she says. “At the time, I felt very comfortable going to a start-up because I thought, well, coming out of government, you’re not making a ton of money. And if this start-up blows up, I’ll probably be no worse off, financially speaking.” It seems Harris did well enough. One real-estate tech company at which she worked went public last summer, and Harris appears to have cashed out. Since the disclosures were for 2020, they didn’t include her stake in Forethought, a private A.I.-based customer-service company that announced in December that it had attracted such investors as Harris, Ashton Kutcher, and Gwenyth Paltrow. When I asked her about Forethought, Harris said her investment in the company predated her time at DFS, that all her investments are now in a blind trust, and that she would recuse herself from any dealings with companies she has conflicts with. So when Hochul appointed Harris to lead DFS, she was attacked by the left. Zephyr Teachout and Cynthia Nixon both criticized Harris as being insufficiently independent, thanks to her connections in tech and finance. The American Prospect dug up a speech in which she characterized regulators as looking for “no-nos” and “icky things.” Harris has also advised the cash-advance companies Earnin, Brigit, and SmartWage (based in South Africa), according to her disclosures. In 2019, DFS led a multi-state investigation into the cash-advance industry over whether they created debt traps and state banking and anti-usury laws, since equivalent interest rates for the fees they charged would reach as high as 469 percent. A person directly familiar with the investigation told me that Harris’s predecessor was presented with multiple options for furthering the investigation, including reaching a settlement, but ultimately never made a decision. DFS wouldn’t comment. So, of all the companies to work for, why them? “My role, when I was working with those companies, was not to dictate price pricing or business model. It was more to say: Here’s how regulators would view this. Here’s why you should engage with them. Let me help you engage with them and figure out these issues and how you can also serve customers. Less pricing and business model, but, as an adviser who’s not in the day-to-day, helping to sort of guide a culture and mentality,” she says. Did she disagree with those arguing that these companies created debt traps for consumers? “I think it’s hard to paint with a broad brush,” she says. “I think we should always always be careful with any new products and services, that they are affordable and non-predatory, not creating debt traps, and that they’re solving a real problem for consumers. And I think some do that and some don’t.” Last summer, after Andrew Cuomo resigned as governor, many of his appointees went with him, including then-superintendent of DFS, Linda Lacewell. Soon Harris’s old boss, Cohen, had recommended her to Kathryn Wylde, the president and CEO of the Partnership for New York, a business-advocacy group that has advised DFS. “The folks at Sullivan & Cromwell thought that Adrienne would be a terrific candidate to field for that job given her eight years of experience in the Obama administration and the fact that she was somebody who understood industry,” Wylde says. “On the theory that a regulator should know something about the industries they’re regulating — which may be a novel concept but struck me as a valid one — I thought she sounded like a terrific candidate.” Harris sailed through her confirmation, with 63 senators voting for her and nine against. “When the regulated are complaining that the regulator is being too aggressive, that generally means the regulator is doing their job.” said Michael Gianaris, the state senator from Queens who voted against Harris’s nomination and, in 2019, tanked Amazon’s proposed HQ2 in New York. “Cuomo was a prick, and the people he appointed tended to share his bare-knuckles approach to the world. In some cases, that’s actually not a bad thing.” While the crypto industry doesn’t appear to be getting the reprieve it had been hoping for, other industries will surely lobby Harris to make similar gestures toward the business community. For instance, Wylde says that insurance companies are hoping that Harris will lower the reserves they are required to have on hold, which they claim are higher than what’s required by other states. “There are some long-standing issues that the industry has that they feel that they’ve got a fresh start on with Adrienne’s leadership,” she says. Still, crypto is going to play a major part in how Harris’s tenure is defined. “It’s clear that New York is doing well now and the companies that came and started here five to ten years ago are doing well,” says Matt Homer, a former deputy superintendent at DFS and the current executive-in-residence at the venture-capital fund NYCA Partners. “It’s not totally clear what the future will look like five to ten years from now.” New York is the home base for major exchanges such as Coinbase and Gemini, and it’s also home to shady NFT front-running scandals and alleged rapping billionaire money launderers. That such a volatile industry could implode and damage New York’s economy is apparent. “I understand that other states may have gone the opposite way of the BitLicense, but there are things we can do here in New York that will hopefully inform the federal regulators as they continue to think about this space,” Harris said. “It’s a new world with crypto, with DeFi, with NFTs.” SIGN UP FOR THE INTELLIGENCER NEWSLETTER Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world. Email SIGN UP TAGS: THE MONEY GAME CRYPTOCURRENCY LEAVE A COMMENT 12/12/2022 CRIME Sam Bankman-Fried Has Been Arrested in the Bahamas By Kevin T. Dugan The disgraced FTX founder is facing charges from both the Justice Department and the S.E.C. 12/12/2022 POLITICS Twitter’s Former Safety Head Forced From Home After Being Smeared by Elon Musk By Chas Danner Former Twitter executive Yoel Roth and his family have reportedly faced a torrent of harassment and threats after Elon Musk’s false claims. 12/12/2022 WHAT WE KNOW How Big Is the U.S. Fusion Breakthrough? By Chas Danner The Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has reportedly achieved a historic milestone in nuclear fusion. MOST POPULAR The ‘Twitter Files’ Is What It Claims to Expose By ERIC LEVITZ Twitter’s Former Safety Head Forced From Home After Being Smeared by Elon Musk By CHAS DANNER How Big Is the U.S. Fusion Breakthrough? By CHAS DANNER Red-Pilled Elon Musk Still Loves the Chinese Communist Party By JONATHAN CHAIT Elon Musk Gets Loudly Booed at Chappelle Comedy Show By BENJAMIN HART 12/12/2022 EARLY AND OFTEN Here Come the Trump 2024 Alternatives By Ed Kilgore A crop of presidential hopefuls represent Republican fantasies of something better for them than a Trump-Biden rematch. 12/12/2022 POLITICS Scott Stringer Files Defamation Suit Against Harassment Accuser By Nia Prater The former comptroller is suing lobbyist Jean Kim, alleging that her accusations against him were defamatory. 12/12/2022 LOS ANGELES L.A. Councilman Calls Guy He Fought Last Week ‘Hostile Individual’ By Matt Stieb Kevin de León, who was caught making racist remarks on a recording earlier this year, did not apologize after a scuffle with a protester on Friday. 12/12/2022 THE MONEY GAME Now That FTX Is Toast, Is Binance Too Big To Fail? By Kevin T. Dugan The Justice Department is weighing criminal charges against the world’s biggest crypto exchange. 12/12/2022 THE NATIONAL INTEREST Red-Pilled Elon Musk Still Loves the Chinese Communist Party By Jonathan Chait The Twitter owner may hate the left, but he does admire Leninism. 12/12/2022 ELON MUSK Elon Musk Gets Loudly Booed at Chappelle Comedy Show By Benjamin Hart “It sounds like some of the people you fired are in the audience.” 12/12/2022 POLITICS Jay Jacobs Has Few Regrets and No Apologies By Nia Prater Despite a bruising midterm, the Democratic boss isn’t going anywhere, to the frustration of critics. 12/10/2022 THE MEDIA The ‘Twitter Files’ Is What It Claims to Expose By Eric Levitz The purported exposé of Twitter’s political bias is itself an attempt to weaponize control of Twitter for political purposes. 12/9/2022 BRITTNEY GRINER What’s Next for Viktor Bout, According to His Lawyer By Amos Barshad Steve Zissou predicts the notorious arms dealer will now lead a “quiet existence.” 12/9/2022 WORLD CUP The Best Team in the World Is Out of the World Cup By Benjamin Hart Another devastating quarterfinals defeat for Brazil. 12/9/2022 POLITICS What Happens to Paul Whelan Now? By Nia Prater President Biden said his administration is not giving up on securing the former marine’s release from Russia. 12/9/2022 JUST ASKING QUESTIONS A Crisis-PR Veteran on Sam Bankman-Fried’s Odd Media Strategy By Benjamin Hart Eric Dezenhall thinks the explanation for SBF’s behavior is pretty straightforward. 12/9/2022 WORLD CUP Goalkeepers Gone Wild By David Gendelman At the World Cup, netminders are increasingly going on offense. The consequences can be miraculous or disastrous. 12/9/2022 THE NATIONAL INTEREST Kyrsten Sinema Is Playing Chicken By Jonathan Chait Declaring herself an independent is a way to force the Democratic Party into embracing her. 12/9/2022 FINDINGS Why Spending Time With Kids Might Actually Help Protect You From COVID By David Zweig Two studies find an immunological downside for adults who stay away from children. 12/9/2022 FIRST PERSON I Lost My Brother Twice By Alex Brook Lynn First to schizophrenia, then forever to the city. 12/8/2022 SPORTS Brittney Griner Is Coming Home From a Russian Prison By Margaret Hartmann And Nia Prater The WNBA star is headed home after being released in a prisoner swap for the notorious international arms dealer. 12/8/2022 STOP THE PRESSES Just What Did the Times Walkout Change? By Shawn McCreesh Some employees have said they are ready to vote on a strike authorization as soon as tomorrow. Others worry this has all gone too far. 12/8/2022 TREMENDOUS CONTENT Do the Trumps Want to Crop Kimberly Guilfoyle Out of the Family? By Margaret Hartmann Eric Trump felt compelled to announce that, despite the rumors, he doesn’t hate his brother’s fiancée. Ivanka Trump’s silence may say more. 12/8/2022 SAM BANKMAN-FRIED Sam Bankman-Fried’s Parents Are No Longer Teaching Law at Stanford By Kevin T. Dugan His mother says her sudden decision to retire now has “nothing to do with anything else going on.” 12/8/2022 TREMENDOUS CONTENT Donald Trump Cost Lara Trump Her Fox News Gig By Margaret Hartmann Nepotism giveth, and nepotism taketh away. 12/8/2022 And now the House 258-169-1, House passes bill to protect same sex marriages. 39 Rs vote for it. Bill heads to Biden —@mkraju 12/8/2022 BRITTNEY GRINER The 7 Craziest Facts About Arms Trafficker Viktor Bout’s Career By Matt Stieb Getting to know the “merchant of death” the U.S. just sent to Russia in a prisoner swap for basketball star Brittney Griner. SIGN IN TO COMMENT Like Us Follow Us ABOUT INTELLIGENCER ABOUT NEW YORK MAGAZINE NEWSLETTERS HELP CONTACT PRESS MEDIA KIT WE’RE HIRING PRIVACY TERMS AD CHOICES DO NOT SELL MY INFO ACCESSIBILITY INTELLIGENCER IS A VOX MEDIA NETWORK. © 2022 VOX MEDIA, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Holiday Sale: Save up to 70% and get two exclusive gifts with any annual plan. SUBSCRIBE NOW " https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/adrienne-harris-is-cryptos-most-pow…

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Fugitive CEO Ordered to Pay $3.4 Billion in Record Fraud Case Involving Bitcoin
by Gunnar Larson 28 Apr '23

28 Apr '23

This could may in the future read, 'fugitive, failed BitLicense regulator in New York ...' How much money has Coinbase and the Fireblocks 'regulatory board advisor' funneled through the software after leaving as SEC Chair? The BitLicense sounds more and more like a fraud scheme at the sacrifice of international peace and security. ---- A US judge has ordered a South African executive to pay more than $3.4 billion in restitution and fines for a fraud scheme involving Bitcoin — the highest-ever civil monetary penalty in any US Commodity Futures Trading Commission case. Fugitive CEO Ordered to Pay $3.4 Billion in Record Fraud Case Involving Bitcoin https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-27/fugitive-ceo-ordered-to-…

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[crazy] smal thoughts on pressing govcorp targeting boundaries
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 28 Apr '23

28 Apr '23

canceled events, injured therapists, unanswered voicemails generally if i want to add a new formal event to my life, especially if it’s empowering or in-person, i have to jump through hoops and wait long delays. usually during the hoops and delays the people i’m trying to connect with can seem to get targeted as well. the delays can be attributed to missed messages, coincidental medical issues or other tragedies or sudden life changes, rescheduled venue constraints … and depending on the event they can also continue after the engagement, making continued connection hard. sometimes when i’m feeling extra limited regarding adding connections to my life or leaving the town or state or country i’m in, it can seem nice to find some way to establish a norm of something different. this is meaningful even just for my own psychology. what kind of things are reliable, and won’t get rescheduled — maybe big, popular events or gatherings? what kind of people can be easily reached without phone or email? what kind of events can be found without relying on digital and human updates …? what kind of places can i travel to, whether or not there’s an event there? …

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Quantum quack predicts encryption Ragnarok
by professor rat 27 Apr '23

27 Apr '23

Bad ideas cling together - and they'll cling to us if we let them https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=13480#comments Reposts not FUD and BS in high places

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Teixeira is like Amir Taaki in two respects
by professor rat 27 Apr '23

27 Apr '23

Another ISIS & KGB Russia loving fascist imbecile - just like Amir Taaki! https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1651630563525267456/photo/1 Reposts not " I'm leaving Twitter since they stopped ISIS tweeting " Amir bs

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Elon Musk needs killing ( My 2k sats )
by professor rat 27 Apr '23

27 Apr '23

Exhibit A https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1651648815970021381/photo/1 Reposts not graphic footage of govt collaborators getting necklaced

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Grarpamps is one of the most credulous assholes in recent memory.
by professor rat 27 Apr '23

27 Apr '23

But don't just take my word for that emptywheel 3h The boys who ran cover for Elmo's INCREASED cooperating with actual censorship are some of the most credulous assholes in recent memory. Quote Tweet John Scott-Railton @jsrailton 3h NEW: Twitter basically stopped fighting gov demands for censorship & surveillance under Musk. Shameful. Nightmare for freedom of expression. And dangerous to dissidents, opposition parties, human rights defenders etc. By @russellbrandom https://restofworld.org/2023/elon-musk-twitter-government-orders/… Show this thread

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Pending US Supreme Court Decision is a Coinbase Class Action Cliffhange - Litigation Finance Journal
by Gunnar Larson 27 Apr '23

27 Apr '23

Check out my new article: https://litigationfinancejournal.com/pending-us-supreme-court-decision-is-a… Coinbase’s business has been seminal to the legacy of cryptocurrency innovation. As the global digital asset marketplace continues to mature, Coinbase is tiptoeing between a group of class action lawsuits. Now, the United States Supreme Court is deliberating if Coinbase should be protected by mandatory arbitration. Benzinga reports that in March 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court appeared uncertain regarding whether to allow Coinbase to move to arbitration over class actions which had been launched against the firm. Executives at Coinbase argued that private arbitration is a win for business. The June decision by the Supreme Court will spell a new dynamic for cryptocurrency sector litigation. Some digital asset scholars predict that a lack of mandatory arbitration may devastate business dynamics at Coinbase. Allowing class action lawsuits to continue is an expensive proposition that would inevitably impact the pace of cross-border crypto innovation. Meanwhile, U.S. and global regulatory uncertainty is stoking new legislation that could fuel litigation well into the future. The efficient nature of digital asset technology is at a crossroads. The Coinbase decision, commingled with upcoming regulatory requirements worldwide, will shape business dynamics for enterprise crypto software and the entrepreneurs behind future sector innovation.

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