Cryptocurrency
In OneZero. More on Medium.
Gamblers flock to a new kind of online casino that’s open 24 hours a day
“I’ve kind of developed a problem,” J.J. tells me over Discord voice chat.
In his early teens, his dad won $50,000 on a scratch-off lotto ticket, dramatically improving the family’s living situation almost overnight. “That helped us not be poor,” he said. But the windfall also colored his views of gambling in ways that didn’t become evident until recently. …
Pattern Matching
Blockchain takes a substantial toll on the environment that experts are beginning to reckon with
The price of one bitcoin, as I write this, is $57,383 — more than 10 times what it cost just a year ago. That price is volatile, so it will be different by the time you read this. But rest assured it will remain expensive.
There’s another toll, though, for every bitcoin created: the toll it takes on the environment. It’s one that is not paid in full by either the miner or the buyer. As bitcoin reaches new heights, fueled by advocates such as Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey, it’s a cost that’s becoming impossible to ignore.
The Pattern
Crypto faces…
The tokens are non-fungible, and the artwork is untouchable
Are physical goods worth more than digital ones? Is a physical painting worth more than a radical idea?
As I started investigating the non-fungible token—or NFT—craze, I wondered how and why people would pay thousands of dollars for a digital piece of art, trading card, meme, or virtual creature. According to EconClips, a YouTube channel about economics, “There are no goods of fixed value. They are valuable as long as people value them and only to that extent.”
EconClips’ video (which is also embedded at the bottom of this story) explains that people value, for instance, diamonds over water because…
The New York Times on Friday published a report that details allegations of a racist culture at the cryptocurrency startup Coinbase.
One particularly striking passage:
One Black employee said her manager suggested in front of colleagues that she was dealing drugs and carrying a gun, trading on racist stereotypes. Another said a co-worker at a recruiting meeting broadly described Black employees as less capable. Still another said managers spoke down to her and her Black colleagues, adding that they were passed over for promotions in favor of less experienced white employees. …
A perfect demonstration of why mass adoption is a while away
On what appeared to be an otherwise regular quarantine Friday night with a few Old-Fashioneds, J.K. Rowling opened the floodgates to Crypto Twitter with a single tweet:
Rowling was quickly engulfed with the full force of Crypto Twitter — literally thousands of replies, including every significant person in the cryptocurrency space. Seemingly everyone even vaguely interested in crypto chipped in, from Elon Musk to the @Bitcoin Twitter account. The result was predictable:
It only took a few hours for Rowling to conclude that bitcoin and cryptocurrency were too confusing for her to understand. The responses were so intense…
Complex interplays are pushing up the price of cryptocurrencies — including the potential for criminals to profit
Flagstaff, Arizona. Wakulla County, Florida. Virginia, New York, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. All have been hit by crippling ransomware attacks recently — and U.S. senators last month called on the Department of Homeland Security to step in to help state and local governments survive the aftermath.
Ransomware attacks may represent a problem beyond shutting down local and state services, though. Cybersecurity company Emisoft believes that the value of bitcoin — which was used in 98% of all ransomware payments in the first three months of 2019 — is being bolstered by such attacks.
The fate of Facebook’s cryptocurrency hangs in the balance, and with it, the fate of nations
“A simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people.” This is how Facebook unveiled its cryptocurrency, Libra, in June. It was a lofty promise, particularly for those who immediately questioned the so-called blockchain technology that Facebook explained it planned to use. Nevertheless, it seemed like a worthwhile pledge, particularly since it had backing from legitimate, viable, and recognizable financial players like PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard.
Now, all three have left — along with other early backers. PayPal was first, exiting last week. On Friday, Visa and Mastercard followed, along with Stripe and eBay. The mass exodus was…
Donations of digital currency like bitcoin can get money, and power, to people suffering under authoritarian governments
A video from San Cristóbal, Venezuela, dated March 2019 shows a never-ending line of people waiting on the street. They are all waiting, the narrator tells us, for their turn at the bank, hoping to withdraw money to buy food and goods before hyperinflation drives the value of Venezuela’s currency further into the dirt.
Venezuela’s political and economic crisis has been escalating since 2010. President Nicolas Maduro’s refusal to declare a state of national emergency means aid groups can’t intervene on the people’s behalf, and in February 2019 the government began to block shipments of supplies donated by U.S.-backed aid…
Is it a bank? Is it anonymous? Is it an investment? The questions are unending
Last week, Facebook faced a grilling before both the House and Senate over its Libra cryptocurrency project. The committees did not seem to be fans of Facebook’s plans to create a global currency. Some of their concerns were due to a general distrust of Facebook, but also because it’s hard even for members of Congress to understand what Libra is.
That might be an obstacle to crafting the regulation that Facebook is inviting.
In the company’s opening statements to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Facebook promised that it would not offer the Libra cryptocurrency until “we…
The social media company’s move into cryptocurrency takes advantage of regulatory loopholes
Facebook is very knowingly exploiting a very specific gap in regulations and technology made possible by the cryptocurrency industry that will allow their planned “Libra” cryptocurrency to flow into the black market economy while still being compliant with traditional financial entities’ compliance policies.
(I don’t use “black market economy” as a bad word here. The right to financial services should be universal, since leaving the control to gatekeepers creates a tool that is much more likely to be successful at oppressing people than at keeping the bad guys out. The problem with the Libra is that it’s a part of…
