First Mass Walmart Closure

Arkansas based retailer Walmart is closing 269 stores including 154 locations in the United States. The move is expected to result in a reduction of at least 11,000 10,000 jobs in the United States (archived). Walmart has never before engaged in a mass closing of stores in its home territory inside the United States. Of all the indicators pointing to a dire 2016 for fiat enterprises this might be the most dire so far.

US Political Crisis May Impoverish Homeland Security Department

The New York Times reports that a legislative impasse in the United States Congress might leave the Department of Homeland Security without funds. If this comes to pass, roughly 30,000 employees in mostly administrative positions will be furloughed while the remaining 200,000 employees deemed "critical" would be compelled to report for work as normal. The "critical" employees would be working without the expectation of receiving a pay check.

Seals With Clubs Shutters

On an announcement replacing their normal front page one of Bitcoin's longest tenured poker sites, Seals with Clubs, has decided to close their doors citing "Operational Security" concerns. They cite without specifics several events which occurred around February 11th, 2015 as being the catalyst for the decision, offering that if Seals with Clubs continued as presently structured it would be "in a perpetual state of jeopardy." They are advising users to withdraw their funds as soon as possible. Continue reading

War of Life Closing

Parimutuel wagering game War of Life operating as S.WOL published their closing statement today. War of Life offered wagering based on the outcome of cellular automaton simulations. A distinguishing feature of War of Life was that it offered a more nuanced system of bet weighting than simple time weighting could offer. Shareholders will be issued a one time payment of 2978 satoshis per share which reflects the present book value of the venture. The clean closure of War of Life follows the example set last year when Satoshi Dice ended their public security and went private.