News: Virgil Griffith wants charges tossed, MicroStrategy bets big on BTC, Ledger hacked – Amy Castor Primary Menu Amy Castor Independent Journalist About Me Selected Clips Contact Me Blog Follow Blog via Email Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9,412 other followers Email Address: Follow Twitter Updates RT @dgolumbia: isn't it about time women and minorities got to be equal partners in the #cryptocurrency "industry" effort to defraud people… 15 minutes ago RT @Tr0llyTr0llFace: The "Bitcoin economy" is just illegal gambling by people who are under lockdown with nothing else to do, funded by a s… 17 hours ago RT @cushbomb: Ayn Rand is useful because she’s one of the few thinkers who is the completely wrong. You don’t have to spend time separating… 23 hours ago RT @tommorris: Clubhouse is a shitshow. Also, using phone numbers as a unique identifier is terrible for privacy. 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The book covers everything from how Facebook was lured into blockchain in the first place—even that part is crazy—to how its plans for a world cryptocurrency were slammed down by regulators. There’s even a section on central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs. You would think that a company as large as Facebook would be savvy enough to know how to prep for regulators, but sadly, no. Read the book. It is fabulous. (I helped edit an early draft.) Virgil tries to get charges dropped Virgil Griffith, the former Ethereum developer who was arrested last Thanksgiving and charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, is trying to get the charges dropped. Griffith, a U.S. citizen who was living in Singapore at the time, flew to North Korea in 2019 to give a talk at a conference. (The IEEPA prohibits U.S. citizens from exporting goods, services, or technology to North Korea without approval from the Treasury Department.) The motion, filed by attorney Brian Klein, is moving to dismiss based on grounds the indictment was unconstitutional. Essentially the motion claims Griffith didn’t do anything that horrible, like actually teach the DPRK how to evade sanctions. He simply went to a conference there and gave a general speech based on publicly available information, “like he does almost monthly at conferences throughout the world,” Klein wrote. (Coindesk, Cointelegraph, Decrypt) "Here, the government seeks to penalize speech…." Virgil Griffith, the developer indicted for sanctions violations after going to North Korea, is moving to dismiss on First Amendment grounds. This is an important challenge to US sanctions enforcement:https://t.co/hnWAF99D5y — Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) October 26, 2020 I’m no lawyer, but I think trying to get the charges dismissed is a long-shot. Griffith was pretty in-your-face about traveling to the sanctioned country, going so far as posting his visa for North Korea on Twitter and encouraging others to come to the conference with him. The U.S. takes sanctions “very seriously,” Stephen Rutenberg, an attorney at Polsinelli law firm, told Coindesk in January. “It wasn’t like he was going there to play music.” Bitcoin hits $14,000 The price of Bitcoin hit $14,000 (briefly) on October 31—for the first time since January 2018, when it was in free fall from the biggest bitcoin bubble to date. Bitcoiners (people who are invested in the popular virtual currency and want you to invest, too) are convinced we’ll have another bull run like 2017, so buy now before it goes to the moon! It is really, really hard to ignore the correlation between bitcoin’s price and the latest fresh supply of tethers (USDT). Tether issued $500 million worth of tethers in one week and is fast on its way to a total of $17 billion worth of tethers in circulation. Take a look at this graph: ENHANCE pic.twitter.com/Hi9oDYqqb8 — Nomics Crypto (@NomicsFinance) October 27, 2020 Most of those tethers, by the way, go straight to crypto exchanges Bitfinex, Binance, and Huobi, according to Whale Alert. 🚨 15,000,000 #USDT (14,907,916 USD) transferred from Tether Treasury to #Binance Tx: https://t.co/f88gBppigP — Whale Alert (@whale_alert) November 1, 2020 MicroStrategy’s bitcoin bet In its Q3 earnings call, business analytics firm MicroStrategy said it was putting its excess stockpiles of cash into stock buybacks and bitcoin—but mostly bitcoin. Bitcoin is mentioned 52 times in the call by MicroStrategy President Phong Le and CEO Michael Saylor, who spoke to investors. The publicly traded company purchased approximately 38,250 bitcoins for $425 million during the quarter, for an average of around $11,111. Saylor also disclosed in a recent tweet that he personally “hodls” 17,732 BTC, which he bought at $9,882 each on average for a total of $175 million. He claims MicroStrategy knew of his personal investments before the company went ahead and bought BTC on its own. As Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig notes, MicroStrategy stock was hot during the dot-com bubble of the late 90s, but after the SEC accused the firm of accounting fraud in December 2000, its stock never recovered. To settle the charges at the time, Saylor paid $350,000 in civil penalties to the SEC and disgorged $8.3 million. Two other executives also paid $350,000 to the SEC and returned $1.6 million and $1.4 million to shareholders. They did not admit or deny the charges. (SEC litigation release) Now, after complaining to the WSJ about the low returns on cash, Saylor said he is willing to take a risk on bitcoin. But what about the company’s stockholders? Is this why they are buying a publicly traded stock? So they can gamble on bitcoin? “Investors who wish to buy bitcoin could always do so themselves with the proceeds of a dividend or share buybacks,” Zweig writes. “The point of buying a stock is to get a stake in a business, not to take a flier on cryptocurrency.” Keto dietary hazards Bitcoiners are famous for their weird dietary habits. Last week, I mentioned Soylent, the dreadful drink that is a meal replacement substitute, which some bitcoiners were investing in—and drinking. And a lot of bitcoiners follow a strict all-meat diet. But at least one has ended up in the hospital. “After about a month of a 90% strict carnivore diet, and years of a mostly [low carb, high fat] diet before that, I have now been hospitalized since Sunday morning for diverticulitis of the large intestine. I won’t be able to eat anything but soups and mashed things for a while,” bitcoin advocate Knut Svanholm tweeted from his hospital bed. After about a month of a 90% strict carnivore diet, and years of a mostly LCHF diet before that, I have now been hospitalized since Sunday morning for diverticulitis of the large intestine. I won't be able to eat anything but soups and mashed things for a while. Thread 👇 pic.twitter.com/eFZKeXbJRN — Knut Svanholm (@knutsvanholm) October 27, 2020 Ledger hacked You would think a cryptocurrency wallet—meant to help you safely store your bitcoin—would be big on security right? Think again. After a hack resulted in a leak of Ledger’s customer emails (and phone numbers, too, apparently), owners of the hardware crypto wallet are being targeted by a phishing attack. A third-party is sending them emails and text messages that appear to come from Ledger support telling them to download the latest version of the Ledger app. (The Block) One Ledger customer posted on Reddit a confusing email from Ledger explaining the situation. Customers are upset because they say Ledger hasn’t been transparent about the breach and what exactly was stolen. So, if you want to buy bitcoin, but you’re worried about how to safely manage your keys, invest in a hardware wallet—but preferably not one that will lose your emails. ok @ledger, I used an email exclusively for your shop and I got a (very well done) phishing mail today, pointing to ledgersupport_DOT_io download Why didn't I get any info that my email was compromised? What data was compromised from me? Do they know my physical address? 1/2 — Andreas Tasch ⚡ (@ndeet) October 25, 2020 @Ledger, I received two phishing emails the other day but also just received a text 'from you' telling me to update the app via a link. How much of my data was stolen from you? — Leo Montgomery (@leo_montgomery) November 1, 2020 Share this: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Like this: Like Loading... Facebook LibraLedgerMichael SaylorMicroStrategyVirgil griffith Posted on November 1, 2020December 6, 2020 by Amy Castor in Blogging 0 Post navigation Previous postNews: Modern Consensus co-founder arrested, PayPal embraces bitcoin, Peter Schiff in the hot seat Next postQuadriga’s 7th report of the trustee—choosing a currency conversion date Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here... Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: Email (Address never made public) Name Website You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change ) You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change ) You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change ) You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change ) Cancel Connecting to %s Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Create a website or blog at WordPress.com Add your thoughts here... (optional) Post to Cancel %d bloggers like this: