“Mining for Power,” an anti-Bitcoin report by Greenpeace USA that explains the links between the bitcoin mining industry and fossil fuel companies, has faced a backlash in social media due to its inaccurate portraits of the mining activity. Using community notes, social network users detailed the report contained “many factual errors,” including outdated information. Greenpeace […]
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Security Agency Detains Nigeria’s Suspended Anti-Bitcoin Central Bank Governor
The Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Godwin Emefiele, was suspended by Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on June 9 and was subsequently arrested by a domestic security agency. Several reports have linked Emefiele’s suspension to the central bank’s controversial naira demonetization exercise.
Emefiele’s Presidential Aspirations
The Nigerian central bank governor, Godwin Emefiele, was on June 9 suspended by the West African nation’s new president Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The suspension is expected to pave the way for further investigations into Emefiele’s conduct throughout his tenure as head of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
JUST IN: The Department of State Services (DSS) have confirmed that Mr Godwin Emefiele, the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is now in its custody for some investigative reasons. pic.twitter.com/tJJtcEduzZ
— Eons Intelligence (@eonsintelligenc) June 10, 2023
Immediately after his suspension, several local media reports said Emefiele was arrested by a domestic security agency known as the Department of State Services (DSS). As reported by Bitcoin.com News on Dec. 28, 2022, the CBN’s anti-bitcoin governor is accused of funding terrorists and of failing to properly manage the central bank.
At the time when the charges were initially leveled against him, the country’s domestic security agency sought to arrest Emefiele but the move was blocked by a Nigerian High Court. However, the departure of Emefiele’s ally, former president Muhammadu Buhari, appears to have allowed the DSS to finally act against the CBN governor.
Meanwhile, in addition to the allegations leveled against him by the DSS, supporters of Tinubu have repeatedly claimed that Emefiele had attempted to block Tinubu’s ascendancy via the CBN’s controversial naira demonetization exercise. A few days after Tinubu’s electoral victory, the CBN was forced to issue a statement which denied claims that Emefiele had initiated another plot against the then president-elect.
New President Attacks Central Bank’s Policies
However, in his inaugural speech as president, Tinubu appeared to take a cue from his backers when he blasted the CBN’s handling of currency and monetary policies. The new president also called for the replacement of Nigeria’s multiple exchange rate regime with one unified exchange rate. A few days after Tinubu’s admonishment, a local report on June 1 suggested that the CBN had taken heed of the president’s call by devaluing the naira to N631:USD1 from around N460:USD1. However, the central bank has since branded the report “fake news.”
Meanwhile, a Nigerian corporate lawyer who did not wish to be identified told Bitcoin.com News that Emefiele’s past presidential aspirations may partly explain why Tinubu chose to remove him.
“Long before this suspension, some prominent Nigerians and Nigerians in the street have been calling for Emefiele’s outright sack for several reasons. [One of these reasons is] Emefiele’s membership of the ruling party All People’s Congress (APC) with indication to contest the 2023 presidential election,” the lawyer said.
According to the lawyer, the central bank’s failed naira demonetization exercise proved to be the “straw that broke the camel’s back.”
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Greenpeace Unveils ‘Skull of Satoshi’ to Spark Debate Over Bitcoin’s Environmental Impact; Creator Clarifies It ‘Wasn’t Meant to Be Anti-Bitcoin’
Greenpeace, the well known environmental NGO, has unveiled the “Skull of Satoshi,” an art installation intended to spark debate about the impact of Bitcoin on the environment. The 11-foot skull was constructed with electronic waste materials and features smokestacks and Bitcoin logos. However, its creator, Benjamin Von Wong, explained it was not meant to be an anti-Bitcoin symbol.
Greenpeace Unveils ‘Skull of Satoshi’ Art Installation
Greenpeace, the international environmental NGO, unveiled the “Skull of Satoshi” on March 23, an 11-foot art installation destined to criticize Bitcoin’s effect on the environment. The structure, which was created by Benjamin Von Wong, has distinctive elements included to spark a debate on how destructive bitcoin mining can supposedly be.
One of these is the presence of smokestacks, which symbolize the use of fossil fuels to produce the energy that serves to operate the Bitcoin network via mining. Also, the skull has hundreds of protruding cables and bitcoin logos in its eyes. According to Greenpeace, it was created with e-waste material, to symbolize the computers used to validate Bitcoin transactions.
Greenpeace’s objective is to raise awareness of the energy consumption of Bitcoin, and how this could change via a change in the code of the cryptocurrency. Greenpeace’s Rolf Skar explained:
Our skull design serves as a powerful symbol, urging financial institutions to use their influence to advocate for a code change that could reduce Bitcoin’s electricity usage by a whopping 99%. We cannot afford to expand our reliance on fossil fuels any further.
The Skull of Satoshi will next travel to New York to be part of an “accountability tour,” in which Greenpeace will try to encourage financial institutions using Bitcoin to call for a change in the code of the currency to lessen its effects on climate change.
Benjamin Von Wong Clarifies His Intention
Benjamin Von Wong, the maker of the Skull of Satoshi, took his opinions to Twitter, clarifying his true intentions with the construction of the installation. The installation, which was commissioned by Greenpeace, was created with a simplistic idea of Bitcoin, Von Wong explained in a Twitter thread on March 25. He stated:
I made the Skull believing that Bitcoin Mining was a simple black-and-white issue. I’ve spent my entire career trying to reduce real-world physical waste, and PoW felt intuitively wasteful. Of course, I was wrong.
Furthermore, Von Wong declared that the sculpture was never meant to be anti-Bitcoin, but part of his “optimistic hope that Bitcoin could shift away from the needless burning of fossil fuels without losing all the other features that make Bitcoin safe, secure, and decentralized.”
What do you think about the Skull of Satoshi and Greenpeace’s campaign to change Bitcoin’s code? Tell us in the comments section below.
Keiser: $100,000 BTC as Trump’s Anti-Bitcoin Tweet to Drive US-Skeptic Nations to Crypto
Popular cryptocurrency proponent and news presenter Max Keiser has responded to President Trump’s anti-Bitcoin outburst yesterday. The long-term Bitcoin bull believes that a United States opposed to Bitcoin is an advertisement to nations wanting to distance themselves economically from the nation to adopt the digital asset.
Keiser equates the move by Trump to a “giant ‘Kick Me’ sign” on the US’s back. He also states that such an adoption by nations will take the bitcoin price past 0,000.
Keiser: Trump is Encouraging US-Sceptic Nations to De-Dollarise With Bitcoin
In case you somehow missed it, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, took to Twitter to voice his distaste for Bitcoin and the rest of cryptocurrency yesterday. Trump stated that crypto assets were “not money” based on their lack of backing, their illicit use, and volatility.
I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air. Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2019
As you would expect, there have been many rebuttals to Trump’s Twitter outburst yesterday. One of the more interesting comes from long-time Bitcoin proponent and host of RT News’s Keiser Report, Max Keiser.
Keiser argues that the president’s rant may have done more harm than good to his own interests. As implied below, the presenter that has been advocating buying Bitcoin as a hedge against global instability since 2011 believes that Trump has sent a global message to nations wanting to stop relying so heavily on the US dollar for international trade.
Trump just put a giant ‘Kick Me’ sign on his back. He’s signaled to the world, the way to crush the $USD is to take #Bitcoin up to 0,000.
Bullish AF
— Max Keiser, tweet poet. (@maxkeiser) July 12, 2019
There is strong evidence to suggest that certain governments around the world are hungry for a means of settlement that is entirely independent from US politics. Central banks are known to be stockpiling gold. For Keiser, and other prominent analysts, such a need for safe haven assets will eventually translate into Bitcoin being adopted at the state level.
The RT News presenter once again stated that a price of 0,000 was incoming at a future non-specified date. However, this seems an incredibly low price given how huge such a news event would be. If a group of nations were to start hoarding Bitcoin as a way to hedge against the dollar, it is likely that the buying frenzy that would break out would take the price many times higher than Keiser’s figure, perhaps even topping McAfee’s million Bitcoin.
Likewise, the Prime Minister of Malaysia has recently called for the creation of a gold-backed digital currency that would serve as a settlement asset for nations in the region. When proposing the new currency, Dr Mahathir Mohamad referenced the US dollar when he argued that it was disadvantageous for nations to use the currency of another country for national settlement.
Similarly, the likes of Iran and North Korea, both victims are crippling economic sanctions at the behest of the US, would surely benefit from adopting Bitcoin as a means of international settlement. Indeed, there is evidence that the latter is behind high-profile ransomware attacks and exchange hacks. The shadowy nation is thought to be building up crypto reserves and exploring how the technology stands to benefit its unique global position.
Related Reading: Donald Trump Not a Fan of Bitcoin And Crypto? Too Volatile, He Says
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Responding to The Motley Fool’s Anti-Bitcoin Article
Mainstream media bashes bitcoin when it falls vigorously. And it bashes bitcoin when it rises powerfully. It even bashes bitcoin when the coin goes stable. In the end, they bash.
The latest bitcoin price jump gave the mainstream media plenty of room to discredit the asset’s inorganic market moves. Joining the bash club latest was The Motley Fool. The US media firm on Sunday published an article – or more sort of a 500-word question, titled “Is Bitcoin just a big April Fool joke?“. Author Alan Oscroft questioned the reason behind bitcoin’s April 2 spike, in which the asset attracted about billion worth of fiat money in just an hour.
“Why would the price suddenly jump on 2 April, from around ,000 the previous day, and then hover around the ,000 level for the rest of the week?” – wrote Oscroft.
Insulting Bitcoin Community
Despite the article’s straightforward approach in raising a legitimate question, its attempt to abuse the entire bitcoin community – as if it was a devil’s cult – was disappointing. Oscroft called bitcoin traders “weirdos” by not calling them weirdos. At the same time, he treated stock traders as a rational hoard of investors. The comparison followed years of criticism discussing bitcoin investors’ moth-like nature to get themselves burned at the hand of an asset that has “no intrinsic value,” and no credible use-case.
Then again, the Motley Fool forgot to mention that if bitcoin was as worthless as Tulip bulbs then why the global banks, governments, and every other financial giant was trying to extract its underlying technology, the blockchain. If it had no relevance in tomorrow’s business world, then why Nasdaq, Fidelity, VanEck, and NYSE were working days and nights to build an infrastructure around it.
Nasdaq confirms it will list Bitcoin Futures#Blockchain #Bitcoin #Trading #CryptoCurrencieshttps://t.co/mThCDlPiob
— Crypto Rand (@crypto_rand) December 3, 2018
True, traders are speculators. But they are as much as investors as a venture capitalist who decides to put a large sum into a startup with a nominally-working test model. The only difference is distributed ownership. Traders are long on a technology that, as they believe, would change the course of finance. These investors could gain as much as they could lose. But that doesn’t take away their right to speculate. It’s the same everywhere – that’s the core nature of speculation.
Volatility is Natural in a Distributed Network
So there is an investor who is holding 0 in multi-billion bitcoin network. And then, there is an investor who is keeping his million in the same distributed technology. The fun part is that everyone is welcomed to run or support this network – poor or rich alike, without permission. Bitcoin, perhaps, is the first historical evidence of distributed ownership of a big financial/recordkeeping company.
That pretty much explains the wild fluctuations. Unlike a company, bitcoin is a network of many minds, with many agendas – just like a democratic country. The reason why bitcoin investors are so used to bitcoin jumping/dropping 20-30 percent in a day is the same. They understand that such swings do not hamper the running of the network itself, which transfers ownership of value across a decentralized network and maintains its information on a public ledger. The product works no matter its value goes up or down.
#Apple stock drops >5% after comp cuts 1Q revenue guidance due to unforeseen slowdown in #China. pic.twitter.com/uMVxUrmoyO
— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) January 2, 2019
Distributed ownership also keeps working in the background. It doesn’t happen in a centrally-operated company. So there is no point of comparing one with the other. Those who love stability have no place in the bitcoin network. The bitcoin network is chaotic, but it’s surging anyway. It’s a startup that knows no boundaries. Its so-called test model is working without breaking a sweat in the past ten years – and being an open-source project, it would keep developing.
The Motley Fool’s latest piece chose to or unintentionally ignore the prospects behind people’s investments. I don’t blame them. Every new technology deserves skeptics as much as it deserves supporters. Criticism allows technologists to find flaws and work on them. As a result, the technology itself come back better and more valuable.
But “weirdos,” seriously?
Featured Image by André François McKenzie on Unsplash
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Anti-Bitcoin Narrative Flawed: Fortnite’s V-Bucks Use in Money Laundering
Since Bitcoin burst onto the global stage in 2009, amid the breathtaking Great Recession, the crypto has been lambasted for supposedly being a medium for money laundering, illicit activities, and the like. In fact, zealous skeptics, including the likes of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and heavy-handed governments, have crucified Bitcoin for rapidly becoming the backbone of international crime.
Yet, a piece of investigative journalism has revealed that even the effective epitome of human innocence — video game currencies and items — aren’t safe from the money laundering narrative. And with that, I say the anti-crypto narrative of money laundering is flawed, sensationalized, and simple, utter drivel. Who’s laughing now, eh?
Related Reading: China Banned Everything Bitcoin, Video Games Seem To Be Next
Fortnite V-Bucks — Not As Innocent As Meets The Eye
Fortnite’s V-Bucks, the preeminent “Battle Royale” video game’s in-house currency, are innocuous, right? To many, including myself, that would seem to be the case. Save for the whole premise of microtransactions and “pay to play” gaming experiences (Epic Games essentially sells lines of codes to generate millions, if not billions in revenue), V-Bucks are (almost) as innocent as things get.
Step one: purchase a Fortnite gift card, or use digital Mediums of Exchange (MoE) to deposit fiat. Step two: buy V-Bucks, watch your account balance skyrocket. Step three: buy items and have fun… I guess?
As I am a devout advocate for practicing forced Fortnite abstinence (unlike many of my fellow millennials), I’m not too sure how much pleasure is derived from spending cold, hard cash on V-Bucks. (Maybe I should hop on the train, but I’m not getting the Fear of Missing Out.)
But, considering Epic Games’ purported well, epic, profits, some are evidently enamored with the system. To them, it must be money well spent. Rumor has it, certain Fortnite diehards have spent dozens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands to watch their on-screen stats skyrocket. As the adage goes, “to each their own.” And with all that in mind, I’ve effectively come to the conclusion that yes, V-Bucks are purity in a digital form.
Related Reading: Fortnite Founder Big Fan Of “Decentralized Tech” Underlying Crypto
Yet, per a deep-dive report from The Independent, U.K.’s premier media outlet, this isn’t the case. Far from, in fact.
Per the news portal, the digital asset has made its way into the realm of organized crime. In fact, after sleuthing through online black markets, only accessible via Tor, The Independent determined that these shadowed marketplaces are filled to the brim with V-Bucks. No, this isn’t your average “GET FREE V-Bucks, ACT FAST” swindle, these V-Bucks are the real deal. As bonafide lines of code can get, anyway.
In collaboration with Sixgill, a leading cybersecurity firm, the Brit-run outlet revealed that V-Bucks obtained via stolen credit cards, an accessory associated with money laundering schemes, were being liquidated en-masse. Corroborating Fortnite’s newfound, still growing presence on the dark web, Sixgill also determined that mentions of “Fortnite” have skyrocketed in correlation with the game’s swelling profit figures.
No estimates have been made as to how much has been generated from this innovative scheme. But considering Fortnite’s popularity, I wouldn’t be surprised if these ingenious, yet shady entrepreneurs are visiting their local Lamborghini dealerships.
But will they get a Huracán or Aventador? How about a Veneno?
Where Does Bitcoin Fit Into This Imbroglio?
You may be left asking, what’s role does Bitcoin play in all this? Well, let me explain.
As I hinted at earlier, this accentuates that the narrative that cryptocurrencies are inherently a criminal’s sole tool doesn’t hold its water. Over the years, pundits and incumbents have called for a blanket ban on Bitcoin, specifically due to the blockchain network’s supposed ability to single-handedly enable global crime. Yet, with this new Fortnite information in mind, shouldn’t regulators call to ban Fortnite?
The fact of the matter is, they aren’t. This shouldn’t come as any surprise either, as global governments have infamously been oblivious to much of the dark web’s happenings, save for when it involves Bitcoin (look at the Silk Road).
In my eyes, governments see Bitcoin as a growing threat to their continued survival. So said entities may just be using cases of crypto-related money laundering to justify stringent regulatory action (or a lack thereof).
Weiss’ Cryptocurrency Ratings arm touched on this subject matter. Weiss explained that if 5% (a quite liberal estimate) of all Bitcoin transactions aren’t “clean,” .2 billion in BTC was used in illicit activities in 2017. Although this figure may seem nebulous, likely incomprehensible for effectively every human alive, the .2 billion sum pales in comparison to fiat’s purported role in criminal activity.
In fact, in 2009, the United Nations estimated that criminal activity accounted for 3.7% of worldwide GDP at the time. If this figure has held up over time, that would mean crime is an industry that generates .5 trillion each and every year.
So, shouldn’t governments ban money?
They aren’t going too, of course. So I say it again, this time with more conviction — the anti-crypto narrative of money laundering is flawed, sensationalized, and simple, utter drivel.
Leigh Cuen, a leading crypto reporter, encapsulated the dichotomy between anti-crypto regulators and pro-crypto rationalists best. In a scathing Twitter quip centered around the V-Bucks debacle, Cuen wrote:
“Literally everything can be used illicitly, cryptocurrency is not unique in this.”
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