This week a Forbes "contributor" finally gave Ripple's XRP token a look and was shocked to find unbacked pump and dump monopoly money is exactly that with the entire Ripple labs business model hinging on the pump (archived). The same outlet had up through this month been treating Ripple and their XRP token as serious business (archived) despite the Ripple network being dismissed by actual cryptocurrency authorities in 2013 for its severe and inherent defects. Sorry for your loss, but what else were those six years good for anyways?
Category Archives: Fiat/BTC interfaces
USG Baits Child Porn Enthusiast To Plea Out For Money Laundering Over 0.06 BTC
A defendant in a Child Pornoraphy case, Brian James Laprath, has been offered a plea deal which will record a conviction for "money laundering" rather than downloading child pornography. Laprath bought Bitcoin off of a US based "exchange" and sent some 0.06 Bitcoin to a tor-based child pornograpy market where he then downloaded some videos. At some point US "law enforcement" perverts captured control of the site. The US Attorney's filing makes a big deal about Laprath sending "financial instruments" to South Korea, while Laprath and the USG counsel at his side appear to have simply been very happy to sign any papers at all to avoid a child pornography conviction. Nevermind in those same papers the right to resurrect the child porn charges at anytime is reserved by the US Attorney.
The papers are reproduced below not because the derp signing the papers is interesting, but to illustrate the USG's wishes and aspirations for Bitcoin: Continue reading
USG Sanctions Venezuelan State Oil Company – Will Continue Accepting Oil, But Will Withhold Payment
The USG has announced it is sanctioning Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA. Under the sanctions the US is still buying and allowing the purchase of oil produced by PDVSA while further allowing PDVSA to continue operating in the US under its Citgo brand (archived). Per their announcement the criminal organization referring to itself as the United States Government is touting their theft of 7 billion USD and projecting a further 11 billion USD to be captured over the next year. Further the USG is promising to keep the funds in "restricted accounts" payable to their chosen interim president or another interim government of the USG's choosing. This theft dwarfs the current paper fiat value of gold the Bank of England has denied the Venezuelan government.
From the involvement of John Bolton to the brazen nature of this theft cloaked as sanctions, the situation suggests the USG may be pivoting back to imagineering an Iraq style regime change endgame in the Bush/Rice tradition over an Obama type sustained color spring. For his part, Maduro spent his weekend visiting the troops as he oversaw and participated in drills and exercises.
Local TV Personalities Can't Stop Making US National News For Saying "Martin Luther Coon"
Two local television news presenters have said "Martin Luther Coon" within less than two weeks making US national headlines in Pantsuit presses for their acts. The first incident on January 9th involved an upstate New York meteorologist who said "Martin Luther Coon King Jr." after which he was fired. In the most recent incident a Saint Louis, Missouri based morning news anchor mentioned an upcoming tribute to "Martin Luther Coon Jr" (archived). This lead to a conversation with station management and allegedly finding racism was not a part of the employee's "core beliefs" and accordingly no plans for additional discipline.
The frequency of this particular slip of the tongue has not lead to Pantsuits looking inward to ask the big question:
Former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto Accused Of Taking 250 Million USD Bribe By USG Witness As Guzman Trial Continues
The trial of Joaqín 'El Chapo' Guzman continues to deliver drama as a USG witness for the prosecution alleges former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto requested a 250 million USD bribe from Guzman which was paid after Nieto took office (archive). The singing stoolie Alex Cifuentes clarified that he was unsure of the exact amount though US based media outlets appear to have settled on 100 million USD as a consensus figure to use in ther headlines for reasons that remain elusive.
US Treasury Secretary Issued Sunday Night Press Release Assuring No "Clearance Or Margin" Issues
US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin issued a press release Sunday night assuring residents of the US that he called some banks who assured him there were no "liquidity problem" or "clearance and margin issues" (archived). Due to the US Government's ongoing partial shutdown the press release does not appear on the US Treasury department website (archived) apparently as part of their "lapse in appropriations contingency plan" (archived).
The announcement and its odd timing suggests that there actually are problems. Maybe that last 0.25% rate hike by the Fed after free dollars under Hussein Bahamas broke everything? Maybe someone out there put too much faith in the USG's timely payment of bills in spite of goverment shutdowns becoming a common negotiating tactic under the Hussein Bahamas adminstration? Whatever Mnuchin intended to convey with his message of assurance, the sentiment which lead to the press release is not reassuring.
Russia Phasing Out USD In Arms Deals
Russian trade minister Denis Manturov has annouced that Russia will be phasing out the USD for valuing and settling arms contracts in favor of national currencies of the parties, or the euro in situations where national currencies are impractical (archived). This move comes as the USG continues make moves to marginalize its own USD altcoin in international trade.
Stanford Garbage Collects Chinese Professor Investor
Physics professor and Danhua Capital founding partner Shoucheng Zhang appears to have been garbage collected by his side gig employer Stanford University (archived). The 55 year old Zhang was found dead December 1st and his death was attributed to suicide without investigation. Statements circulating claiming origin with Zhang's family are supposing Stanford University was central to Zhang's life and won't you pretty please contribute to Stanford in Zhang's memory while declining to investigate Zhang's suiciding?
USG Issues Sanctions Against Two Bitcoin Addresses
The US Treasury Department's "Office of Foreign Asset Control" has targeted two Bitcoin addresses as a part of of their efforts to sanction Iran (archived). This incident highlights the abject incompatibility of the criminal organization calling itself the United States Government and the honest Bitcoin network. The criminal organzation, which is absurdly claiming it can have an office for the purpose of controlling foreign assets in foreign lands, is trying to say our Bitcoin network far above their criminal reach must change its rules on their say so just the same as any other bum asks your favor with nothing to offer but more asks.
Update: Transactions were sent to the "sanctioned" addresses despite impotent proclamations.
Node.js "event-stream" Library Added Bitcoin Wallet Stealer After New Maintainer Takes Over
The "popular" node.js "event-stream" library was loaded with a module stealing from Bitpay's Copay Bitcoin wallet after creator and longtime maintainer Dominic Tarr handed maintenance over to an unknown identifying itself with the text string "right9ctrl" (archived). Before the handover right9ctrl made a couple of contributions to event-stream building rapport with Tarr. After getting the keys to the repository right9ctrl added a dependency in event-stream on a new "flatmap-stream" library which had been distributed in an encrypted form, which should itself have been a warning if anyone had been bothering to read code they run. Instead it took two months for supicions to emerge.
Bitpay's Copay wallet used the even-stream library, and Bitpay was not involved in raising the alarm over this grave subversion of their product.