Crypto Basic Podcast: Teaching You The Basics of Bitcoin and the World of Cryptocurrency. CryptoBasic

Welcome to the CryptoBasic Podcast! This time around we don't go over a lot of things - we just focus on the basics, the important info, the headlines. Kung Fu, private militias, corporate coups, you know, the good stuff. If this sounds weird to you, tune in to find out what the heck has been going on with Bitmain and how the crypto space can sometimes offer stories and incidents that are truly hollywood-worthy. What is Bitmain exactly?Bitmain produces ASIC miners for the Bitcoin Blockchain. The Antminer. Basically the gold standard in mining gear.They also run Antpool, which is a big mining firm that has a lot of hashpower - but they aren't the biggest.Remember when we covered this in a flagship? Lets go back over.This was back in October 2019.Jihan Wu sent an e-mail to the entire Bitmain team that said that Ketuan Zhan was dismissed from the company.Wu was then given the roles of executive director and legal representative.Then is, Zhan still had 36% of the company in shares, and it wasn't clear what was happing with them.Zhan then filed a lawsuit in the Cayman islands to try and stop this from happening.They also filed to go public in the US with the SEC right before all of this.Zhan wins a victory in April.So the Bejing District Bureau if Justice actually went ahead and blocked Bitmain's attempt at replacing the legal representative with their current CFO. Even though Jihan Wu was the representative, Bitmain wanted to switch.This has been in courts since Jan 2.He was then granted the right to return to his post as legal representative.When he tried to attend the beaureau to collect his registration, he was surrounded by those loyal to Wu, and his license was grabbed from his hands.Then shit got physical, details are sparse.There's now TWO official seals somehow. Zhan wasn't in possession of the real one because it was physically taken from him. I guess in Chinese law the physical seal is pretty important. So there are now two serial numbers and there's dispute as to which one is accurate.Getting more interestingSo most of the staff was working from home because of the PandemicOn June 4 Zhan actually sent all employees a notification via wechat that he was back in the office starting the day before, and that they needed to return to the office to work.There's literally a video out there of Zhan marchingg on the Bitmain offices with armed guardsSo he used his private guard force to enter the office and has apparently seized control.He was handing out $10,000 worth of Yuan for anyone that showed up to the office to work with him.He made a public decree to finish the IPO and have a market cap of over $50M in 5 years.It looks like Zhan has taken control of the company's Wechat account, and has been posting saying that the "new" seal is the official seal.Karim's video suggestion

Today the gang's all here, gathered around the fireplace, eating metaphorical marshmallows as papa Karim, our resident economist, busts out the spit facts. We're going over the current economic state of the US, monetary strategies, how they affect economies and trade between them, and much, much more. So, grab a stick, poke a marshmallow and relax while Karim gets them FACTS into your brain.The U.S. Treasury Will Borrow A Record $3 Trillion This Quarter As Stimulus Spending SoarsOver last two months Congress has authorized more than $3 Trillion in emergency stimulusIn order to come up with that cash the Treasury will have to issue record breaking amount of debtLast quarter, the Treasury borrowed about $500 billion, and it plans to borrow another $677 billion in the third quarter.relatively cheap to borrow with record low interest rates (10 year note yielding about 0.6%)The Treasury’s numbers only account for legislation that has been passed to date. Another stimulus package is in the worksUS Debt big picture$25 Trillion threshold crossed, $7 trillion in the last 5 yearsAccording to data from the US Treasury growth is$1.2 million per minute$1.7+ billion per dayNational Debt ClockEvery 15 secs our tax revenue is falling by like 100kDebt per citizen $75,600Per Tax payer though that’s $200,000Currency Creation (M2 Money supply) +$100,000 every few secondsWho owns that debt?Majority of US debt owned by Americans (investors, fed, banks).30% owned by foreign entitiesChina and Japan more than 1 Trillion eachDebt to GDP2019 -publicly held federal debt was almost 80% percent, $17 trillionAccording to CBO estimates then, debt was already rising faster than the economy and was projected to reach 98% by 2030now at 107% and projected to 108% by 2021, our record was 106% year after WWIIAnother chart shows Gross debt to GDP after WWII at around 118%Checked again this morning on Nat debt clock, looks like we broke this barrier as of 5/21 119.08%Saw this back of envelope simplifications 35m to 1 reductionUS as householdIncome - 100k p/yrDebt - $714kUnfunded liabilities (medicare,SS,VA) - $4.2mInternational perspective06-18FWIW Trump said if he gets re-elected he’ll wipe the debt =) he said that last time too and it was +5Trillion going into this (last time we cleared the debt was Andrew Jackson 1835)Interesting quote though to keep this in perspective -“If the Fed didn’t take these and other emergency measures, “the system already would have blown up,The markets would have crashed 10 times over.” - Tim Duy University of Oregon (Economist, US Treasury)Modern Monetary Theory, Is there a limit?MTT points out a government that controls its own currency can't default on debtBut defecit + interest rates increase outstanding debt, is there a limit?Sustainability does not require the government deficit to be zero, or surplusesit requires that the debt increase at the same rate, or more slowly than, GDP growthParts of MMT rely on the President and Congress to fight, at some point, the inflation created by money printingby either tax increases or reducing government spending.But this ignores the political realities that easy for fed to print, but hard for politicians to tax more or cut spendingMMT also "ignores distributional effects of paying for borrowing"Essentially MMT tends to consider debt payment as occruing between two players within the economyAs we mentioned before, irl USA has 30% of debt owned by foreign entitiesInterest payments to those investors reduce the income flowing to U.S. residents, making Americans less well off.This would be justifiable if today’s spending raised income and living standards in the futureSo this is not just a problem of scale, but of allocationHere is the catch 22If we keep creating money, there is going to be inflation unless we raise interest rates (which makes borrowing /spending more expensive)“too much money chasing too few goods”If we raise interest rates, we exacerbate the debt problemDevaluing the currency?strong currency is not necessarily in a nation's best interests.Weak Domestic currencymakes exports more competitive, while making imports more expensiveHaving more exports spurs economic growth,pricey imports can stimulate local consumptionwealth effect also takes hold here as widely held assets prices rise, making ppl feal wealthyDangersDevaluation hurts citizens purchasing power overseasCan lower productivity by making capital equipment and machinery more expensive to importStrategic devaluation doesn't always work though, and here we can get currency warsStrategic reasons to devalue currencyTo boost eports (as explained)To shirnk trade defecitsIf your country was importing too much and exporting too little this can be used to achieve a better balancewhile Many countries run persistent imbalances, Economic theory says this isnt sustainableThe important one here, to reduce Sovereign Debt BurdensIf debt payments are fixed, a weaker currency makes these payments effectively less expensive over time.Say you had to pay $1m each month in interest on outstanding debt… if that same $1m becomes less valuable its easier to pay it offIf we devalue currency by half we effectively owe only 500k value wise“The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that,” former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said on NBC in 2011. “So there is zero probability of default.”But most goverments are doing very similar things, central banking is the world standard. so as grim as this looks for the US, and arguably the dollar, the fact that it looks so much worse in other fiats creates flight to the dollarCentral Bank Foreign Currency Reserves are 61% Dollars, next best is Euro at 21%Also remember that our discussion on devaluing local currencies applies to tons of countries that do business with the US, like China and Japan (the largest debt holders)Not UnfathomableAccording to Juan Zarate's "Treasur Wars", Russia approached China in 2008 with a plan for a coordinated sale of government-sponsored debt to exacerbate America's financial crisis. China thankfully declined.Still Over a trillion USD countries and companies need to make interest payment on dollar-baseed debt

Welcome to another episode of the Crypto Basic Podcast, where today we’ll be talking about -surprise surprise- the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s not a random commentary episode though, no general rambling, but a discussion on what we think might be a possible solution for the coronavirus crisis: Contact Tracing. Decentralized, blockchain based, anonymous and, as far as the data predicts, VERY effective. Tune in now to learn the ins and outs of it, and how it would revolutionize pandemic management.Relevant LinksNCase.me Website that has the covid playable simulatorsSource Code for DP-3T LabsA website we've referenced on the show before - ncase.me. This is a great website and it takes you step by step through the process of epidemiology. Why is the virus acting like it does, what ways could it act if things were different?You can play with the simulations to see how even one little thing about the virus changes, and it brings everything into or out of balance.After going on and on down the line, they come to this conclusion - the lockdown doesn't do anything but flatten, and then inevitably reset the curve. Testing doesn't solve the problem, and neither does herd immunity.Enter contact tracing.So what is google building with contact tracing? Well Google isn't exactly building it, but they are funding it.This is being created by a company called DP-3T. Which is a cute short name for Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing.It is being worked on by cytologists, but it isn't using blockchain.Phones will broadcast via bluetooth what looks like a wallet key every few minutes.If you're close to another phone, your phones will exchange strings.Both phones store those strings for 14 days.If someone gets covid, they're marked as being in a hospital / doctor. The doctor can put in a one time passcode that confirms that the phone holder has been diagnosed with covid.Positive strings get stored in a database, and phones check the database every 5 minutes for any strings that they've heard recently.It's compatible with anyone's app that uses the source code, and the code is public.I see an interesting future, where if this were implemented properly with a public database and zero knowledge proofs, it would solve the problem and keep liberties in tact. The Nuance of the argument.Why it's hard to know where to stand.Fuck Plandemic

_Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of late capitalism, where the labor theory of value is VIOLENTLY becoming obsolete, because now you might be able to get paid in cryptocurrency to perform tasks such as walk, talk, cook (for yourself), throw a tennis ball against the wall, or even just exist. Wow. Tune in to hear the guys talk about sMiles, the weird yet intriguing project that promises all of the above, and find out a couple more unconventional ways to earn crypto on top of that._sMiles app will let you earn Bitcoin for simple everyday activities such as walking or playing games.The app is based on the Lightning Network, Bitcoin's second-level scaling solution.“sMiles stands for sats&miles.What is some sort of activity that could really benefit from this type of incentivizing? Cooking?The startup, StandApp, will soon launch SMiles, an app that allows users to earn crypto for performing simple everyday activities. CEO of Shape Igor Berezovsky says he wants to make people healthier, wealthier, and happier.Shape was started in 1999 and appears to be a company that makes apps. "SHAPE is one of a few startups worldwide that managed to develop more than one bestselling app." Started an app called IM+ that aggregates all your messages from all the different apps.According to Berezovsky, users will get satoshis even for driving, although not as much as for walking since the app wants to promote a healthy lifestyle.This got me thinking about the future. Is this one of the standards we are going to see over the coming years ? Brave was the first one to do this. Is this going to make users lazier or healthier? Like getting paid for Beta testing a video game? What's the incentive for getting paid for driving? Or running? Gamifying life seems dangerous but also kinda cool. Having sex?What is the incentive for an app to pay for running? Is this the new model?

Welcome to the Crypto Basic Podcast! Today the gang is in a talkative mood and goes on tangents on several issues, but we're focusing on some stuff like Brent's BIG crypto mistake (tune in to find out) and what similar mistakes you should look out for, Adam's dating life, post-covid bailouts, cruise ships and more. Press play! It's a good one.

Welcome to the show people! Today the gang assesses a hot topic - a user claimed on reddit that Binance "took" money from him and it blew up. Even CZ commented and got blasted. Also, we take a look at an admittedly cringy article listing the "7 deadly sins of CZ". What a day. Tune in now!Relevant Links:Reddit user calls out Binance for "accidentally" taking 12061.48 and won't give it back.CZ Responds to the reddit userThe user posts some so called proof proofSome more so called proofAnother user piggy backs off of the hype and posts "7 Deadly Sins of Changpeng Zhao"Wayback machine of CZ calling out OKcoinSo What happened?Text of the Postbackground on the 28th of January I happend to be trading on the futures platform. Due to a mistake by binance my orders weren’t executed and I was liquidated.Well I opened a ticket demanding back my funds. After a couple months of mails every 2 or 3 days. Binance denied everything and weren’t giving back the money, so I opened another ticket. This time I didn’t ask for a refund up front. Binance straight up told me it was their mistake and that they would compensate me 3bnb. Well I didn’t take that well, so I asked for my full amount back.Binance went in to a defensive mode and decided mixing up different cases would settle the issue. (Binance had messed up again and I lost 3600 USDT, so they compensated me 1018 USDT) they told me they had already compensated me and that I shouldn’t ask for more. When I called them out on the fact that the cases weren’t related, they told me they weren’t going to give me the 12061.48 USDT back anyway.I pointed out that by admitting their mistake in this ticket they broke their own policy. It states that Binance has to execute a trade. After I mentioned this they went silent, I have bugged support every 2 days, but I have not received anything as of yet and it has been almost a month.I wanted more people to know as Binance is the biggest in the industry, and they bury the negative very easily. I need your help in demanding an answer for Binance her mistakes.He explained more a little further downIn response to if he got liquidatedI did, but it is more complicated than that. I was trading on the futures platform. My positions weren’t doing well so I made the decision to close them.I have a screenshot of the positions before they were closed and after they were closed. Anyways I closed the positions market bought them. (I was shorting) well you’d think that was it. I screenshotted the fact that I had just 12k left. And it showed no open positions. After 4 hours however I get notifications from my phone that I were about to be liquidated, I opened my phone and my positions were still open. And were almost all liquidated.Binance told me that I experienced the “app disconnection issue” I don’t know what this means. They however told me it is only common on the app and that is my responsibility for not trading on pc.Support shows up to respondhttps://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/ga027j/binance_accidentally_took_1206148_and_wont_give/foxrfbp/CZ Actually shows up to respond.https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/ga027j/binance_accidentally_took_1206148_and_wont_give/foyfpeh/The guy posts a couple of screenshots that really don't say much, tells me he posted proof.Binance support ends their conversation back and forth few hours later.We've already given you the verdict multiple times. You have not provided any more solid evidence that there was a mistake on Binance's side, nor that this error directly caused you to lose any money. Sorry, you can't pressure us into giving you money, be it through misleading social media threads or threatening self-harm as was done in the first ticket. We're happy to approach this legally.So what's this article about CZ?The article starts out with the picture of CZ in shorts and a suit jacket with a giant red circle around it. Remember he was respecting the shit out of the Bermuda culture while he was there, that's where the picture from. So I'm sure this article is good.EnvyI dunno this is pretty loose, but they say this is a sin because OKCoin had fake trading volume, and CZ was their CTO. The article he references was published in 2013, and CS started working there in 2014. CZ left after only 9 months and cited "differences" rather than your normal bullshit nice guy thing.LustThey're really stretching here, but they link to an old post by CZ where he actually goes off on OK Coin. I didn't know this.I dunno what happened with OK coin and Roger Ver, but that is the crux. Some of the key points from this - CZ wasn't paid when he left, his signature was forged after he left, and he was urging them to stop their shady shit by not honoring a deal with Roger and Bitcoin.com.He then goes on to confirm how they are faking volume, how they areusing botsthey were playing with their reserve and might not have itThey encouraged employees to tradehad bad security.This guy's angle is "CZ knew about this and went along with it" somehow.GreedSo now they say he is misleading by calling Binance "the leading cryptocurrency exchange" and then post a screenshot of Coin market cap showing that binance is number 23. I have no idea how he got this number, as they're not below 7 on any of the ways to slice the data.He finally makes his first good point - Binance has ridiculous withdrawal fees.Then he posts all of the shitty ICOs that Binance helped launch and how they tanked.PrideAlright finally he starts making some points that I can get behind. CZ said on twitter that when you raise funds for a project you need to set aside funds to battle fud. He's 100% right. Then Justin sun said he'd donate 100 BTC to fight fud, so CZ matched it?Binance is apparently a part of a PR firm's client list called Cryptoken.So this guy emailed them I guess to hit his gotcha moment. Lol. Spoiler - he didn't gotcha.SlothThis one he puts a bunch of dots together that show CZ and Justin sun know each other, and then posits that that means they're friends. Obviously the easiest way to know someone isn't justin's friend is to find multiple points of social contact.GluttonyHere apparently the bad thing that CZ did was put a tweet that would donate $1 for every retweet to fight covid 19. Well they only got 10k retweets so CZ donated $2M. Wow what a dick. Then he links a video with a thumbnail of CZ with Devil horns that is deleted to nosequitur attack their charity org.WrathThesis here - no one seems to know where they are located. Uhhh you're fuckin kiddingThen he shouts out chico crypto in the comments.Oh god I realized it's on the steem fork.So what do we think of CZ boys?

Today Adam is joined by Nathan Sexer and Sebastien Borget from The Sandbox, a community-driven platform where creators can monetize voxel ASSETS and gaming experiences on the blockchain. Tune in to learn what their goals are, what amazing partnerships they've managed to secure and how they're planning to bring blockchain gaming to the forefront.Check them out over at sandbox.game!

Welcome to the show! Today the gang goes over a very interesting scenario found on twitter - what would the world look like during this pandemic, but with blockchain? Would we be better or worse off? We've got a few thoughts on that. Tune in to find out!Notes: Some of the interesting points from the thread:Here's the post from Ownejj and some quotesI'm a huge advocate for crypto and have always defended it when discussing with other people. I am struggling to find an answer to the question on why a world using crypto would be better than the current cash system we are using today to handle the pandemic. For example Aus has just announced a 130b package to support workers who have lost their jobs. I'm assuming they are printing money daily to handle this crisis. Also America's plan to inject trillions into the economy. Can someone smarter than me explain how this situation would have been handled with crypto or why crypto would be the better choice. Thanks heaps for the replies!User Ketifus saidDLT is the key to an open honest world and crypto is the natural vehicle for value exchange when this shit show goes pop. My guess is that this virus will take the blame this time but the QE coming off the printer now will store up the final collapse of fiat. In the mean time we can look forward to another 10 years of global austerity, 4-5 years of a phoney asset based recovery. Then inflation and rising interest rates causing the global debt load to make the world insolvent Hopefully crypto is ready, if it isnt we’re fucked. I’m setting my life up to deal with the latterUser dontlikecomputers saidUnder the current system the government has 100% credibility to repay if it borrows in the currency it controls, under a crypto standard, everyone is on a level playing field because we all have the same fundamental ability to repay.User Karma_z saysIf the world was purely crypto based we’d be in a crippling economic depression right now and most of the world would not survive the coming six months. This isn’t even remotely hyperbole.User BitsAndBobs304I think all speculations are void on both sides simply because humanity has never existed under such a system and it would have so many unforeseen consequences that the whole economy and production and world of jobs would be radically different in so many unpredictable ways.Brent example 1Is Bitcoin the global currency? No, but it's still the largest network. Another more versatile coin could be the global currencyWhat role does fiat play in this society, if any at all? Fiat is a thing of the past, and there was all kinds of weird things that happened with stablecoinsWhat other things are we assuming for your example? Governments have accepted the crypto, there wasn't a revolution or anything.How would it be different?Governments will still be accepting taxes, they just won't have the ability to print new money. Taxes will be accepted in a couple of different currencies, but stored in national transparent reserves.There will be a privacy currency, but most business will be done on a public ledger that's traceable.The government could announce that any and all obligations are halted, and they'd have a full accounting of what those obligations are. They all get pushed back, and smart contracts could be updated to increase the back end obligations.Governments could instantly distribute funds to any confirmed citizens on chain to solve for necessities. If they didn't have the funds they could appeal to DAOs by issuing bonds to them.Liquid democracy could show the true public reaction to the opening of the government, rather than astroturfing and vocal minorities.Brent example 2Is Bitcoin the global currency? It's the world's most used currency, but governments still cling to their fiatWhat role does fiat play in this society, if any at all? Citizen have a weird mix of cash and cryptoWhat other things are we assuming for your example?How would it be different?In a world where there was a balance between Fiat and Crypto, and the government was printing money - I think it would actually move people away from crypto. People won't turn down free money, and in this situation it would be more of a competitive market. Could the communities of the cryptocurrencies step up and match a government bailout? Or do we just throw citizens to the wolves?How to talk about your world, and what would be different:Is Bitcoin the global currency?What role does fiat play in this society, if any at all?What other things are we assuming for your example?

Welcome to the Crypto Basic Podcast! This time around we're going over a truly unexpected turn of events which baffled even the most economically savvy of us (Karim. That's just Karim.) Oil went negative! A never before seen event, we try to make sense of it and pose the important questions: 1. What the hell? 2. What's the reason? 3. What will the repercussions be? All of this and more on today's show, so tune in now!Interesting topic to learn about and extrapolate fromWe have just witnessed an oil price crash like never before taking prices of West Texas Intermediate into deeply negative territory.WTI Crude Oil Spot Price is the price for immediate delivery of West Texas Intermediate grade oilreached minus US$40.32 a barrelHow can a price turn negative?industry has not been able to slow production fast enough to counter the drop in demand.global demand for oil has reduced by 29 million barrels a day (100 to 71)Storage can stabilize prices, but its nearing capacityWT mainly stored at Cushing Facility in OK, now almost full62m Barrel capacity - Can fill half tanks in the USWorlwide, current rates of supply/demand have estimates of inventories increasing by 1.6B barrels in first half of 2020, but only 1.6B barrel capacity still availableContext - Amount of production that could be stored if exports dry upUS - 30 days, SA - 18, Russia - 8Nigeria, largest producer in Africa....1.5 daysTraders with contracts to take delivery of oil in May fear they won't be able to store it. They are willing to pay not to have to take it and have nowhere to put it.June contracts and later are still positive, so supply demand imbalance may be correctedFun Trivia - Guess what the name of the other price benchmark for oilIt stayed around $25, they can be put on ships and taken to storage anywhereResponsesHalliburton (oilfield engineering) said that the pandemic has created so much turmoil in the industry that it "cannot reasonably estimate" how long the hit will last.OPEC-Plus - Responded by cutting output by 9.7m barrels per day, which ends the duel between Russia and SABut note still significantly less than the drop in demandOil importing countries taking advantage and filled up what they could in storageInvestors using Giant oil tankers for storageRecord 160m barrels stored this way, each can hold up to 2m barrels.Of course this is bidding up charter rates, more than doubling to $350,000 a dayLast time we saw something close was 2009, about 100m barrelsShiff Quote on GoldThe oil price is now negative $3 per barrel. What is happening now in the #Oil market will soon happen in reverse in the #gold market. In oil the shorts are trying to deliver, but the longs don't want it. In gold the longs will try to take delivery, but the shorts won't have it!SourcesUnderstanding what just happened with oil pricesOil crash explained: How are negative oil prices even possible?The world's on the brink of running out of places to put oilSupertankers drafted in to store glut of crude oilWhy TikTok is Now the No. 1 Social Media App

Welcome to the Crypto Basic Podcast! This time around we're going over one of the hottest topics of today, given the obvious circumstances: what's the safest way to handle assets during the coronavirus economic crash? What assets provide the most security, and could Bitcoin, as the flagship of the cryptoverse, be one of them? All of the above and more on today's episode. Tune in now!Report in the Economic Bulletin from the Kansa City Fed"In recent years, some have questioned whether Bitcoin could also serve as a safe haven. We compare the behavior of government bonds, gold, and Bitcoin from January 1995 through February 2020"They point out that historically during times of financial stress people tend to shift towards safer assetsSafe Haven defined - an asset which is uncorrelated or negatively correlated with riskier assets during times of stressUS Gov securities considered "quintessential safe haven against stock market." but they point out some studies have found Gold behaves this way as well"In theory, Bitcoin’s fixed supply and algorithm-based issuance allow it to be independent from traditional markets, which could make it a desirable asset in times of economic stress."They examine 10-year Treasury note & Gold by looking at correlations of daily returns compared to SP 5001995 to 2020, and they chose this spread to have an equal pre and post bitcoin periodComparisonBunch more charts, essentially showing that10 year Treasury negative and statistically significant correlation across all stress periodsgold has only behaved like a safe haven in certain periods of financial stressBitcoins correlations with the S&P 500 are not statistically significant in any period and positive in all but oneExtra tidbit on current downturn, Bitcoin again has a positive, statistically significant correlation, suggesting it performed like a risk asset in March rather than a safe haven."Overall, our results suggest that the 10-year Treasury has generally exhibited safe-haven behavior, gold has occasionally exhibited safe-haven behavior, and Bitcoin has never exhibited safe-haven behavior since its introduction"Note: We are not financial advisors.

Stablecoins are a part of the crytpocurreny space for better or for worse. What happens in a future where more people are using digital assets? What does the stablecoin environment do to the US Dollar? Are stablecoins like Tether and Libra a systemic threat to fiat currency? These questions are investigated by the Crypto Basic Podcast team - what place do stablecoins have in a future, and what can Tether do to get more users? Does the podcast agree with the G20’s assessment of Stablecoins in general? Where can you go to learn more about the study that was released? Well the podcast has answers for you.Pertinant Links - Are Stablecoins a systemic threat? Published Study by FSBG20 WebsiteFinancial Security BoardThe FSB is inviting comments on this consultative document and the questions set out below. Responses should be sent to fsb@fsb.org by 15 July 2020. Responses will be published on the FSB’s website unless respondents expressly request otherwise. HELP SUPPORT THE PODCAST!Patreon- $1 an episode would be the best thing ever and keeps us afloat.Join our Discord right hereSubscribe Via iTunesLedger Nano S or Ledger Nano X- This is where you buy the hardware wallet that we're always talking about on the show - we all use a Ledger Nano S.Cash App has Bitcoin- If you sign up through that link the show gets $5 and so do you! Stop the presses. The easiest to use money transfer application (yes it's easier than Venmo) now as a built in way to buy and sell Bitcoin. They even have a no - fee debit card you can use.CryptoBasic Podcast Email

Welcome to this week's Crypto Basic News episode! Tune in to listen to the gang talk about the progress of blockchain adoption, Cryptopia's big win in court, new lawsuits against 11 crypto companies in new York and much more! Rapid FireReddit may be devising a point system on the blockchainRedditor MagoCrypto posted the video, which is a walkthrough of a new build of the Reddit app that shows a feature with mention of community points. When delving into the FAQs of the wallet feature there appear to be pages on distribution, wallet, backup and recovery, and on the blockchainCrypto Funding Dropped Considerably in March Due To COVIDVC funding for crypto projects was reduced to March 2019 levels after COVID swept the nation.Aside from a Bakkt $300 Million deal with Microsoft, the total VC funding was $117 millionFormer UFC fighter Ben Askren shows support for Bitcoin Halving.He was sponsored by Litecoin back in January 2020 for a fight and changed his Twitter handle to "Bitcoin Halving May 13th". Ya love to see it. Also of note, UFC partnered with Dapper Labs in February, a company that builds digital collectibles on the blockchain.It appears Bank of America is partnering with RippleQuestion: "What do you see as the things sort of coming down in the next sort of five to 10 years that our clients should maybe start thinking about or even getting ready for?"Answer: "So not just the capability but the actual experience and ability to get things done anytime, anywhere because we are an around the clock society. And the second one is the ability to integrate. And Derrick touched on this a lot, it's not about our platform and our capabilities, it's about you as a client and the infrastructure you have and the ability for us to integrate, whether that's with platforms and capabilities that we built or partnerships that we have with the likes of Ripple or Swift. These are Fintechs that we're partnering with. They've come through all of our rigor of legal and compliance and we're able to leverage our banking as a platform to deliver that to you. So I really think the future is all about client experience and integrated platforms versus siloed products and capabilities. And then of course we've for Bank of America talk a lot about intelligent treasury, which brings all of that together. And you touched on this, Jonathon, as being an advocate for our clients and helping them navigate this changing environment. So I'm really excited and looking forward to see what the next few years bring."April Rent Stats Are In And They Aren't Looking So GoodMarch logged 81% of renters paying by the 5thReal-life Examples of Blockchain-Based Digital TransformationsWe know that blockchain architecture is a great way to collect, store, and share dataArticle from Security Blvd looks to give real life examples of blockchain implementationUS Air Force & Data SecurityMajority of military networks are centralized systems with thousands of connected devices, so vulnerable to cyber-attacks.They contracted Cyber-security firm Xage Security - uses a blcockhain-based system to regulate the terms of nodes joining the system & tracking their activityNon-profits & transparencyOne of the primary concerns with charities is corruption, trust, allocation of fundsBlockchain powered charity platform GiveTrack allows donors to track their specific donations to see how/what impact is being madeBlockchain also makes crossborder transfers easyVisaLaunched B2B payment netowrk, using blockchain to process payments without an intermediaryInformation also stored using blockchain record-keeping, everything is transparent and secure. in 60 countries alreadySpotify & RoyaltiesIndustry shifted from download to streaming, making royalties very complicatedMedichain uses smar contracts to improve attribution, uses end-to-end protocols for registering, identifying, and tracking creative works onlineUsed to be an open media library to virtually sign & timestamp content, then spotify bought itMetlife & Medical InsuranceCompany in Singapore created an app (Vitana) to help women with Gestational Diabetes20% of women there develop this during pregnancy, so how to get payment without filing paperworkPractitioner enters positive test results into medical data, app automatically triggers smart contract that deposits a payment into patients bank accountCrytopia Exchange Users Score Big Win In CourtCrypto Exchange Users Get Big Win in CourtOf course we all remember May 2019 the exchange went into liquidation after a May 2019 "hack" of NZD $30 million (equivalent of $17.85 Mill USD)Because the exchange operated as a trust by handling the cryptocurrencies on behalf of the account holders and holding these in separate trust accounts, Justice Gendall took the view that the digital assets should be classed as property.Justice Gendall said, "I reach the conclusion that the cryptocurrencies here situated in Cryptopia’s exchange are a species of intangible personal property and clearly an identifiable thing of value. Without question they are capable of being the subject matter of a trust."Account holders will be reimbursed of their balances.Apparently the founder of Cryptopia, Adam Clark, suspects it was an inside job. "A hacker somehow knew where everything was. Someone walked in with all the keys and deleted the logs on the way out," Adam told Stuff, adding "They didn't take the untraceable currency. It wasn't about spending the money, it was about fucking the company. They had direct access."New York: 11 cryptocurrency companies suedEleven cryptocurrency companies were sued in a New York court due to violating cryptocurrency laws.Including Binance, Fundacion Tron, BitMEX, KuCoingroup of investors filed multiple lawsuits against 11 cryptocurrency companies alleging that they were tricked into buying unregistered securities in the United States.Lawsuit include 42 defendants in 16 countriesAmong the names that would appear in the documents are Brendan Blumer (Block.one), Dan Larimer (Block.one), Vinny Lingham (Civic), Justin Sun (Tron), Changpeng Zhao (Binance) and Arthur Hayes (BitMEX),Part of the suit is that they were told they were utility tokens, no need to register as securities with the SEC"One fact to note is that the law firm that is the cause is the same one that sued Bitfinex in October 2019 for alleged manipulation of the cryptocurrency market and the renowned Kleiman case against Craig Wright in which a lawsuit for a billion dollars was introduced."This would take years and has multiple jurisdictions (China, Singapore, Switzerland, Israel, Japan, Canada, & Estonia)THAT'S A SCAMDecentralized exchange Bisq Is Hacked For $250k+"A Critical security vulnerability" was found and tradin was halted on Tuesday. 4000 XMR and 3 BTC were stolen from 7 different victims."In plain words, this exploit was the result of a flaw in the way Bisq trades are carried out, not in the way funds are stored (i.e., there is no honeypot since Bisq is P2P)," Bisq stated.The attacker was able to intercept cryptos coming to users' default fallback address, which is the address where cryptos are sent to upon a failed trader/CryptoCurrency - I have created a list of cryptocurrency scams happening right now. I ended up losing some money last week and I don't want anyone to lose as well. So I researched on various scams taking place. If I have missed any please comment below..I will add it.ExitPlease join the conversation in the Discord. We're in there all the time.Rate us on iTunes.Follow CryptoBasicBrent on Reddit.We are not Financial advisers.

Hi all! Welcome to this week's edition of Crypto Basic News. This time around we're going over Microsoft's new crypto mining patent, an April fools guessing game, celebrating Banano's 2 year anniversary, and more. Tune in!Rapid FireRobert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad tweeted something regarding the current state of the economyEthereum-based game The Sandbox sells out third presaleThey recently contacted us. It seems similar to a blockchain-based Minecraft. And not gonna lie, the trailer looked pretty cool.Much like Decentraland you can buy virtual plots of land. Sold out faster than it's February presale. 3,330 ETH, equivalent to 440k. 12,384 LAND parcels to be exact.A total of 166,464 LANDS will ever be available in the map that will form The Sandbox metaverse. LAND is the basic sandbox unit on the platform’s map and each LAND comprises 96x96 meters in the game world.Fourth LAND presale will be announced later this year as well as the game release.Bitcoin outperformed Dow & S&P in Q1BTC started at $7,182 at the beginning of the year. Pushed up to $10.4k and dipped below $5k for a moment a few weeks ago. It's currently at...Karim? Bitcoin is actually only down 10% in Q1. S&P lost 20% and the Dow 23%.Folding@Home is now the world's fastest supercomputerCoinMarketCap gets bought out by Binance. Annnd speaking of CoinMarketCap...Also, CMC had a decent April Fool's joke. And they responded to my tweet about it with a decent joke as well. -AApril Fools or Not April Fools? - BrentBItcoin Creator also founded Monero, research suggests.Github has decided to bury Bitcoin's code inside an arctic mountain to preserve it for at least 1,000 years.Craig Wright Victorious in Kleiman Case After Signing with Satoshi's KeysFDIC has warned you not to withdraw cash from your bank account - No depositor has lost money from FDIC insured banks since 1933.Dead ICO Sub r/gemsprotocol has been repurposed to sell rare gemsLeading cryptocurrency exchange Binance has decided to delist all leveraged tokens from its platform amidst claims of lack of understanding from its users.Microsoft Files Patent for New Crypto Mining System - KPatent filed last week titled Cryptocurrency System Using Body Activity DataAccording to the patent, Microsoft’s cryptocurrency would make use of body activity data"a brain wave or body heat emitted from the user when the user performs the task provided by an information or service provider, such as viewing an advertisement or using certain internet services, can be used in the mining process."They argue this could replace massive computation work because the data that is gathered from the body activity can be regarded as proof of work, "a user can solve the computationally difficult problem unconsciously"It also says that the system could be coupled to the users device, and let it know if the right conditions were met and award cryptocurrency to the user (whose body activity data is verified)Anyway, black mirror y'all2 Year Anniversary of BananoBanano was originally launched on April 1st and forked from Nano.Some platinum hits:Made monKeys - you can generate a monkey avatar from a public key lol.They have functioning Wallets, Gambling Dapps, and everything you'd expect from developers.Remember folding at home last week? Actually Banano has been involved for over a year.They even introduced plans for CamoBanano - a privacy layer lol.their yellow paper was the best ever.Definitely my favorite meme coin. Maybe someday they're gonna crack the top 1000 on coin maket cap.Corona Virus Update, The Fed and Unemployment - KEconomists at the Fed's St. Louis district project 47 million employment reductionsThat would be a 32.1% unemployment rateWe already had a record 3.3m Americans file initial jobless claims, then that just doubled to 6.6m (previous number/record was like 330k)Two complications leading to this spike are66.8 million workers in “occupations with high risk of layoff.” They are sales, production, food preparation and services.Other research also identified 27.3 million people working in “high contact-intensive” jobs such as barbers and stylists, airline attendants, and food and beverage service.Great depression peak was 24.9%Speaking of the Fed, they're printing about $1 million every secondbalance sheet has increased by $586 billion—to $5.25 trillion—in the week of March 18–25This means that on average, the Fed has been printing roughly $970,000 every second during that time periodFed has been printing the equivalent of Bitcoin’s market cap every 35 hoursExitPlease join the conversation in the Discord. We're in there all the time.Rate us on iTunes.Follow CryptoBasicBrent on Reddit.We are not Financial advisers.

Welcome to another edition of Crypto Basic News! Our editor is SO busy in quarantine that he forgot to post this episode so you're getting it with a few days of delay. We still love him though. He may or may not be the one writing this description. Anyway, today we're talking about shady senators dumping stocks after a private coronavirus briefing, Steemit developers forking into a new platform called Hive due to Justin Sun's shenanigans, and much more. Oh, and coronavirus. Surprise surprise. Tune in now!Rapid FireGlobal cryptocurrency wallet usage has tripled in the last three years.10 mill in 2016 to 40mil end of 2019.Devs Plot Launch of Telegram’s Blockchain Without Company’s InvolvementSo says the TON Community Foundation, a group of more than two dozen software developers and investors, who are now discussing possible ways to launch the Telegram Open Network (TON) without the messaging platform's participation.Coinbase Wallet integrates DeFi directly into app. Users will be able to borrow and lend crypto with interest thru the app now.Which US cities own the most crypto? Let's hear your guesses.Congress Bill Looks to create a digital dollar (B?)ANNNNND ITS GONEhttps://www.coindesk.com/digital-dollar-stripped-from-latest-us-coronavirus-relief-billFed Pledges asset purchases with no limits, Bitcoin and Gold Spike - KFederal Reserve said Monday it will launch a barrage of programs to help stimulate the economyUnlike previous crisis where there was a commitment to a set amount of balance sheet expansion, this time they are indicating no limitsThe Fed also will be moving for the first time into corporate bondsAlso a lending program for Main Street businesses ($300 Billion) to support flow of credit“The central bank is shifting from being not just the lender of last resort, but now it is the buyer of last resort. Don’t ask how much they will buy, this is truly QE infinity.”-Chris Rupkey, chief finacial economist at MUFG Union Bankwill lower the interest rate on its repo operations to 0% from 0.1%. (The operations are conducted daily to provide banks short-term funding)All this backed by Treasury department so Fed doesnt lose moneybitcoin jumped from $5,860 to $6,628 in an hour, Gold went from from $1,494 to $1,524 over the same time frame.Four US Senators caught dumping stocks after a private briefing on Corona Virus - BThere was a Senate Intelligence Committee briefing on the Corona Virus, and right after that meeting there were 4 Senators that immediately started to sell off positions.The names of the senators: Richard Burr, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. , Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga. , James Inhofe, R-OklaRichard Burr even had a meeting with some fellow rich people (membership to join this group that he had the meeting with is $500, up to $10k) and said this "There's one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history," he said, according to a secret recording of the remarks obtained by NPR. "It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic."Burr's private comments were dire, his public comments made it sound like this was under control.So I saw a mention of one of the Senators being married to the Chairman of the NYSE. I was trying to remember where I heard that before. Kelly Loeffler! Holy shit she was the CEO that was in charge of BAKKT.Then, Karim remember this bitch wasn't even elected.Coronavirus crisis may highlight the overlap between the surveillance state and the cryptocurrency industry. - KIsraeli tech company NSO Group is working on new product to monitor spread of Corona, with nearly a dozen companies testing the productNSO, is best known for selling spyware to Saudi Arabia and other governmentsNSO Group’s surveillance technology has attracted widespread criticism for covertly accessing phones, activating cameras and collecting location data.NSO Groups to pranks seem to have significant ties to the crypto industryco-founders Omri Lavie and Shalev Hulio have invested in the bitcoin startup SimplexEddy Shalev (investor) has invested in the non-custodial wallet startup Portis, the exchange platform eToro and the privacy startup QEDIT.Coinbase famously sparked industrywide backlash in 2019it acquired Neutrino, founded by three former members of a controversial Italian surveillance vendor called Hacking Team.Coinbase said those people would transition out of the company, but no update and they refused to comment when asked.So just a reminder that cryptocurrency is just a tech, a tool, not innately a tool of liberation/freedom/etc, could be the opposite too, a tool of surveillance, or controlUpdate on some Justin Sun / Steemit Drama - BSo we talked about Justin trying to take over the Steem blockchain a few weeks ago. It looks like he was actually completely successful.Steemit developers quit because of the takeover.Justin has been hiding any posts on Steem critical of the new Steem ownership, and downvoting them as, well.The Steem community essentially capitulated, and forked into a new platform called Hive.Hive is going to be airdropped at 1:1 on Steem accounts.However, they bricked the Steemit Inc. coins to the tune of 60M, which is what Justin was able to get control of.They are proposing that anyone that switches to Hive and moves their coins loses their stake on Steemit lolol.Which is of course what Hive is doing.From Crypto Mining to Coronavirus Research - KCoreWeave is the largest U.S. miner on the Ethereum blockchain,redirecting the processing power of 6,000 specialized computer chips toward research to find a therapy for the coronavirus.GPUs will be pointed toward Stanford University's Folding@home program.Long standing, use donated processing power to simulate protein folds to try to cure different disieasesRecently announced specific project to boost coronavirus research"Their protein simulations attempt to find potential 'pockets' where existing [U.S. federal agency Food and Drug Administration (FDA)] approved drugs or other known compounds could help inhibit or treat the virus,"This addition has essentially double the power of the entire network, GPUs designed to handle repetitive calculationsAccording to Venturo, those 6,000 GPUs made up about 0.2 percent of Ethereum's total hashrate, earning roughly 28 ETH per day, worth about $3,600 at press time.Tulip.tools founder Johann Tanzer put out a call to action to Tezos bakers (miners) and offered a modest 15 XTZ ($20ish) to the leading contributor to Folding@home20 groups of Tezos miners are now contributing a slice of their hashing power to the cause. (and the pot grew to $600ish with other people donating as well)GPUs are flexible, but ASICs really cant participate. More powerful than GPUs, but only at one thing (so we probably wont see a lot of btc mining groups helping)FOLDING@HOME UPDATE ON SARS-COV-2Shots Fired!Wikipedia and Cardano having some issuesCharles Hoskinson, CEO of Cardano, is the latest figure in crypto to assert that Wikipedia is censoring his platform. He made a nearly 10 min video regarding the situation. Accusing Wikipedia to be a community-run free encyclopedia, hostile towards crypto.David Gerard, a crypto-hater and Wikipedia editor, says that Cardano is self promoting, and needs to be covered by the mainstream media, not the crypto press.Hoskinson said coins like Spankchain can have an article on Wikipedia. Spankchain does not have a Wikipedia page.Some Cardano members tried to include a blurb on Ourobouros, the algorithm that powers Cardano.Please join the conversation in the Discord. We're in there all the time.Rate us on iTunes.Follow CryptoBasicBrent on Reddit.We are not Financial advisers.

Hello and welcome to Crypto Basic News! This week we're cozying up in quarantine, staying calm and collected, and we're talking about all kinds of stuff like Tezos getting into digital card games, millions of dollars being usurped through the MakerDAO smart contract mechanism, and of course, we talk COVID-19, from its health risks to its massive possible socioeconomic effects. Wash your hands and then click play to tune in!Rapid FireApparently it's alt season according to that index we talked about a few weeks ago????50 Days Out From Bitcoin HalveningIRS Deadline has been extended by 90 days (July 15th)Coinbase CLO Resigns to Oversee US National Banking SystemWHO impersonators are trying to steal your bitcoinThe fake email claims funds will be used to “enable all countries to track and detect the disease...send personal protective equipment to frontline health workers...enable communities to prevent infection and care for those in need...and accelerate efforts to fast-track the development of lifesaving vaccines.”Tezos gets in the digital card game space (Adam)Coase, a company launched by Tezos aims to solve with its new game, EmergentsCoase’s innovation: Let people easily acquire and swap the cards they actually wantAlpha will be available in AprilFor Coase co-founder Zvi Mowshowitz – who is also a 2007 inductee to Magic Hall of Fame – both distribution approaches leave a lot to be desired.Emergents will take a radically simple approach: Let people buy the cards they want.Brian David-Marshall, a third co-founder, said Coase has "an economic model for doing a collectible card game on the blockchain that captures a lot of what makes physical card games great."Coase will be the primary and secondary marketplace all in one. Like bitcoin on Square’s Cash App, Coase will be the seller and the buyer for Emergents cards, essentially acting as a market maker.The company is using bonding curves, much like Ethereum's token-swapping platform Uniswap, to distribute the cards. Cards will have a fixed supply and their prices will swing with demand, determined by an algorithm. New cards will come out and be sold on the site at a low price.Vitalik tweeted out a pic of what he thought the next 5-10 years of eth2 would look likeMillions of Dollars of value was usurped from the MakerDAO smart contract. (TOP STORY)I didn't want to use the word stolen, but this is an exceptionally rough spot. This happened right around this time last week.Apparently for a full 3.5 hours someone had a monopoly on the liquidation market of the MakerDAO.So lets do a recap of how the maker DAO creates liquidity. RECAP QUICK - REFERENCE 101With multiple people, there will automatically be a bidding war because the price of ETH exists in the world.With only one person, they were able to bid on the ETH being liquidated at $0 worth of DAI. How did only one person get to be the only bidder? Well people ran out of liquidity. There wasn't enough DAI sitting there to buy the ETH. ETH fell so fast that people couldn't liquidate their holdings and were forced to sell. The network was too congested to let keepers work fast enough, leaving this group in the only position to buy.They're using the term "Steal" $4M worth of ETH from the contract, but honestly this isn't really stealing. The contract functions this way.Since no one else could bid, normally the liquidation penalty on ETH contracts was 13%, but this raised it an liquidated all kinds of positions with a 50% penalty. People woke up to their collateral gone with no recourse.The Maker DAO is now creating a fund that would be the last resort in these scenarios that anyone can participate in, and they're making being a "keeper" easier for the general public. They've also programmed Coinbase's USDC as an emergency collateral device.CoronaVirus & The economy (everyone)Brent theory on how to solve this - discuss - because I can.Monopoly Rules - Top on R/CCBill Ackman calls for Trump, CEO to temporarily shut the country downSUB-STORY - Federal Reserve cuts rates to zero and launches massive $700 billion quantitative easing program - (K)In an emergency move Sunday, the Federal Reserve announced it is dropping its benchmark interest rate to zero and launching a new round of quantitative easing.Fed also slashed the rate of emergency lending at the discount window for banks by 125 basis points to 0.25%, and lengthened the term of loans to 90 days.The Fed also cut reserve requirements for thousands of banks to zero.Actions by the Fed appeared to be the largest single day set of moves the bank had ever takenBefore action took place over months like in 08, this was multiple programs, QE, and rate cuts, all in one dayFiscal vs Monetary policyEARN IT Act could be an attack on Encryption - KCommunications Decency Act Section 230 - Historically given tech companies minimal liability for how people use their platformsEARN IT Act would force companies to "Earn" protection from liability by showing they are following recommendations for combating child sexual exploitationBi-Partisan Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal (Dont expect anything good from these two)Would create a panel of law enforcement officials, attorneys general, online child sexual exploitation survivors and advocates, constitutional law scholars, consumer protection and privacy specialists, cryptographers, and other tech experts to collectively decide what digital companies should do to identify and reduce child predation on their platformsCould include things like scanning content to identify abusive photos/videosBut could also include things like communication surveillanceSo if this was law, companies couldn't offer end-to-end encryption and be protected from liabilityEither A) accept liability for anything that happens, B) put in a backdoor for law enforcement, C) just avoid end to end encryption all togetherA note about LIbretarian anti government views (Panel picking) and Legal Creep (Patriot act, RICO and asset forfeiture)ExitPlease join the conversation in the Discord. We're in there all the time.Rate us on iTunes.Follow CryptoBasicBrent on Reddit.We are not Financial advisers.