#we hit the billion mark twice within the first week for part one and two

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It’s Over!  ( Biblical Update )

By Daymond Duck     Published  on: August 15, 2021

“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come” (II Tim. 3:1).

Be aware that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (II Tim. 3:13).

The right of U.S. citizens to freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to buy and sell, etc., is being challenged by the shadow government’s desire to restrict and/or control American’s freedom of religion, speech, right to buy and sell, etc.

Covid is a global medical crisis that the godless shadow government created to justify the establishment of a world government, world religion, and worldwide tracking system to enslave everyone on earth.

The public is being told that proof of vaccination (passports, I.D. cards, or whatever) is needed to bring Covid-19 under control when the truth of the matter is that Covid-19 and the variants are a tool that the rich and powerful are using to bring all people under their control.

It is possible and perhaps likely that this proof of vaccination will eventually be followed by the lockdown and persecution of Christian groups and institutions based on their support for Bible teaching and lack of support for the globalist agenda (the godless world government, godless world religion, abortion, gay rights, etc.).

Before the persecution reaches its peak, Christians will be removed (Raptured) from this earth, and the door will be thrown wide open for the godless shadow government to select a leader to take dictatorial power on earth.

Following his appearance, their so-called proof of vaccination will probably evolve into a data system that will be used to determine who can buy and sell, who can live or die, etc. (Don’t overlook the fact that some of the leaders that want to force everyone to be vaccinated are the same people that want to reduce the population of the earth from almost 8 billion to about half a billion; many support abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia, etc.).

God will allow these godless globalists to select a leader to rule for seven years, but God will ultimately cause them to regret what they have done for all eternity.

A reader recently sent an e-mail to this writer containing part of a message that Dr. Franklin Graham delivered at a Baptist Church in Florida.

Dr. Graham said, “The American Dream has ended.”

Readers need to understand that the one who said “The American Dream has ended” is one of the most highly respected preachers in the world, not a fanatic and not a prophecy teacher, but America must decline if the globalists are going to meet their goal of a world government and a world religion by 2030 or before.

Here is a repeat from the article I wrote last week: On July 27, 2021, former Sec. of State Mike Pompeo said, “Collapse from within is possible… Immigration without assimilation, illicit drugs, human trafficking, disputed elections, inflationary risks have become the tools to disassemble our republic in what must surely be an attempt at national suicide.”

I want to close my opening remarks this way: We are not seeing the Mark of the Beast yet (people are not being jabbed in their right hand or forehead; people are not taking the name, number, or Mark of the Beast; unvaccinated people can still buy and sell in most places; etc.).

On the other hand, we are seeing the global development and advancement of technology and policies that many excellent Bible prophecy teachers believe will lead to the Mark of the Beast (forced compliance, loss of one’s job, development of passports or passes, a demand for government databases to track people, a demand to prevent the unvaccinated from entering stores to buy or sell, the spread of anti-Christian rhetoric, etc.).

Also, keep in mind the fact that the Church will be Raptured a minimum of 3 ½ years (and perhaps more) before the global development and advancement of the technology and policies goes into effect as the Mark of the Beast (the Gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church).

Here are other reasons to believe that history is approaching end of the age Bible predictions and the American Dream is over.

One, when Jesus was asked about the signs of His coming, He listed famines, pestilences, earthquakes, etc. (notice that the words are plural as in more than one famine, more than one pestilence, etc.; Matt. 24:7).

Today, the world is trying to deal with Covid-19, the Delta (India variant), Lambda (Peru variant), and Epsilon variant (pestilences plural).

Two, on Aug. 6, 2021, California announced that a low water level caused by drought has forced the shutdown of the state’s second largest hydroelectric plant for the first time since the dam was completed in 1977.

The state will be able to get electricity from other systems.

More: On Aug. 4, 2021, the Dixie wildfire destroyed Greenville, Cal., a gold rush town of about 1,200 people (5 days later, Fox News reported that about 600 buildings have burned and about 13,000 are in danger).

More: On Aug. 6, 2021, it was reported that Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border, the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and Lake Mead in Nevada have hit record lows this summer.

FYI: Drought is having a devastating impact on crops, cattle, hog, and sheep production in the U.S. (a very large part of America’s food supply).

FYI: Unprecedented wildfires are also taking place in Greece, Italy, Turkey, Lebanon, and Russia.

Three, during the Tribulation Period, the world will be divided into two groups: those that take the Mark of the Beast and those that refuse to take the Mark of the Beast.

Today, the world is being divided into two groups: those that have been vaccinated and those that have not been vaccinated.

Four, on Aug. 9, 2021, World Net Daily posted an article by Wayne Allen Root that said:

Republicans asked for “papers” from migrants who had broken into our country. Criminals. Democrats said, “No, that’s racism.”

Republicans asked for “papers” once every two years for federal elections to prove you have a right to vote. Democrats said, “No, that’s racism.”

Now Democrats want American citizens, not illegal aliens, not criminals, but patriots born in this country to produce papers 24/7. We’ll need papers to enter restaurants, bars, nightclubs, concerts, casinos, conventions, and hotels and to board a train, plane, or bus. We’ll need papers to enter a supermarket, or we’ll starve to death—all for the crime of being unvaccinated.

Note: U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said the U.S. is at a crossroads, and he is urging U.S. citizens to “resist the mandates, lockdowns, and the harmful policies of the petty tyrants and bureaucrats.”

Five, on Aug. 6, 2021, Natural News reported that the U.K. has admitted that it is building storage areas for bodies in the 32 boroughs of London and the city itself.

These storage areas are being built because the government expects an increase in deaths over the next five years due to their attempts to force people to be vaccinated (some people that are not allowed to buy and sell will go hungry, get sick, etc.).

Writer’s Comment: It is common for some people to ask how bad will God let it get before He Raptures His Church. No one knows the answer to this, but the situation is worsening, and Christians everywhere need to pray about it.

Six, on July 31, 2021, the Carnival Cruise Ship Vista left Galveston, TX with everyone or board vaccinated (every guest, every crew member, every staff member, everyone vaccinated; no unvaccinated people on board).

On Aug. 8, 2021, it was reported that a small number of people on the ship have tested positive for Covid.

Seven, God promised to bless those that bless Israel and to curse those that curse Israel (Gen. 12:3).

On Aug. 4, 2021, the Iranian-backed terrorist group that controls Lebanon, Hezbollah, fired three rockets into Israel.

On Aug. 5, 2021, Israeli jets struck terrorist targets in Lebanon for the first time in 15 years, and Pres. Biden announced that he will give the terrorist government $100 million dollars in economic aid (borrowed money that will add to inflation in the U.S.).

On Aug. 6, 2021, Hezbollah forces fired 19 rockets from Lebanon into Israel, and Israel responded with artillery fire.

On Aug. 8, 2021, new hardline Iranian Pres. Raisi met with leaders of the terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the Houthis, and promised to support their terrorist activities until Israel is defeated.

Writer’s Comment: This could easily get out of hand and lead to the fulfillment of several prophecies (Psa. 83 if that is a war; the Destruction of Damascus as prophesied in Isa. 17; the Battle of Gog and Magog as prophesied in Ezek. 38-39; time will tell.).

Eight, violence is on the increase, and some politicians want to defund the police and take the guns away from law-abiding citizens, but the globalist goal is only partly to prevent citizens from defending themselves against criminals.

The globalist goal is primarily to prevent citizens from defending the U.S. against the shadow government’s takeover of the U.S.

For whatever it is worth, thousands of people have marched in Paris and other French cities four weeks in a row to protest the loss of their freedoms.

On Aug. 6, protests erupted in Turin, Italy.

Nine, on Aug. 6, 2021, a guest on Fox & Friends said the strongest outbreak of the Covid Delta Variant is in Texas and Florida, and those two states are where the Biden administration has taken the largest number of Covid-infected migrants.

Ten, concerning global pandemics and the Mark of the Beast, on July 25, 2021, The Times of Israel reported on a study that found that people vaccinated before Feb. 2021 are twice as likely to get Covid as those vaccinated in June 2021 for two reasons: 1) Their vaccine effectiveness decreases over time and is becoming less effective every day; and 2) The Delta Variant is more contagious than the original Covid-19, and therefore more able to overcome the resistance of their declining vaccination.

The doctor that headed up the study said, “We definitely need to think about a third vaccine.”

It is the opinion of this writer that the globalists will want people to take a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. vaccination until they bring in the Mark of the Beast.

Update: On Aug. 5, 2021, Moderna said data shows a noticeable drop in antibody levels 6-8 months after a vaccinated person’s second jab, so vaccinated people will need to get a booster shot this fall.

Writer’s Comment: Just a reminder to U.S. citizens that Pres. Biden said, “You’re not going to get Covid if you have these vaccines.”

Eleven, concerning world government: it is widely known that the World Economic Forum (WEF) wants to establish a world government and eliminate private property ownership by 2030 or before.

The WEF even produced a video saying, “You will own nothing, and you will be happy.”

My article “Developing Now,” posted two weeks ago, quoted Tony Koretz who said, “A global medical dictatorship is rising.”

I added that “It is hard to deny that the shadow government is using unelected individuals to dictate policies to nations all over the world.”

On Aug. 3, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) extended the U.S. government’s eviction moratorium, a document that allows renters in areas that have a high level of Covid to not pay their rent.

Put another way, property owners that have rented their house, apartment, etc., to someone else must make the mortgage payments (if the property owner has a mortgage payment), pay to keep the house, apartment, etc., repaired, and the property owner cannot evict the renter for not paying their rent (the renter can live in the house free, and the property owner must pay the bills).

The fact that the CDC (a medical group) can force private property owners to make the property payments and let renters live in the property free sure looks like a global medical dictatorship has taken over.

The real owners of the property are not happy with making the payments and receiving no rent.

Twelve, on Aug. 4, 2021, concerning a Mark on the forehead to buy and sell, it was reported that Amazon is now using palm scanners at 53 Amazon-owned stores, and it plans to expand the program to other stores in the U.S.

Customers can use a simple hand scan to pay, enter or I.D. themselves, and Amazon will give them a $10 promotional credit to sign up.

Before my final word, pastor Keith Watts asked me to include this paragraph in my article (something I can’t start doing for ministries all over the world): “I am asking all prayer warriors from around the world to join with us for a day of prayer, fasting, and repentance on August 16, 2021, for the sake of the Philippines and on behalf of over 110,950,213 precious souls. We will be fasting from the time we wake up until we go to bed, interceding on behalf of the lost souls in the Philippines.”

Finally, are you Rapture Ready?

If you want to be rapture ready and go to heaven, you must be born again (John 3:3). God loves you, and if you have not done so, sincerely admit that you are a sinner; believe that Jesus is the virgin-born, sinless Son of God who died for the sins of the world, was buried, and raised from the dead; ask Him to forgive your sins, cleanse you, come into your heart and be your Saviour; then tell someone that you have done this.

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‘We Are All Accumulating Mountains of Things’

By Alana Semuels, The Atlantic, Aug. 21, 2018

It’s easier than ever to buy things online. It’s so easy that Ryan Cassata sometimes does it in his sleep. Cassata, a 24-year-old singer/songwriter and actor from Los Angeles, recently got a notification from Amazon that a package had been shipped to his apartment, but he didn’t remember buying anything. When he logged onto his account and saw that a fanny pack and some socks were on the way, he remembered: A few nights back, he had woken up in the middle of the night to browse--and apparently shop on--Amazon.

He shops when he’s awake, too, buying little gadgets like an onion chopper, discounted staples like a 240-pack of gum, and decorations like a Himalayan salt lamp. The other day, he almost bought a pizza pool float, until he remembered that he doesn’t have a pool. “I don’t really need most of the stuff,” he tells me.

Thanks to a perfect storm of factors, Americans are amassing a lot of stuff. Before the advent of the internet, we had to set aside time to go browse the aisles of a physical store, which was only open a certain number of hours a day. Now, we can shop from anywhere, anytime--while we’re at work, or exercising, or even sleeping. We can tell Alexa we need new underwear, and in a few days, it will arrive on our doorstep. And because of the globalization of manufacturing, that underwear is cheaper than ever before--so cheap that we add it to our online shopping carts without a second thought. “There’s no reason not to shop--because clothing is so cheap, you feel like, ‘why not?’ There’s nothing lost in terms of the hit on your bank account,” Elizabeth Cline, the author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, told me.

Shopping online also feels good. Humans get a dopamine hit from buying stuff, according to research by Ann-Christine Duhaime, a professor of neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School. “As a general rule, your brain tweaks you to want more, more, more--indeed, more than those around you--both of ‘stuff’ and of stimulation and novelty,” Duhaime wrote in a Harvard Business Review essay last year. Online shopping allows us to get that dopamine hit, and then also experience delayed gratification when the order arrives a few days later, which may make it more physiologically rewarding than shopping in stores.

Sites like Amazon have made it especially easy to shop. In 1999, the Seattle retailer patented a one-click buying process, which allows customers to purchase something without entering their shipping address or credit card info. It launched its Prime program in 2005, and now more than 100 million people have signed on to pay $119 a year for “free” two-day shipping. As a result, most other major retailers offer free shipping too. Returning stuff is a little more difficult--shoppers usually have to print a label and then go to the post office or a UPS or FedEx site to return packages. Many wait too long, or decide the hassle isn’t worth it because the stuff was cheap anyway. A recent NPR/Marist poll found that nine in 10 consumers rarely or never return stuff they’ve bought online.

Justine Montoya, a caregiver in Los Angeles, buys all sorts of stuff online--baby formula, clothes, household goods. She estimates that she shops online twice a week. “It’s just so easy--you click a button, and it’s on its way,” she told me.

In the last few months alone, I bought an $18 smart watch from Wish.com that I will probably never use, a second Kindle because it was on sale and I am worried my first Kindle is going to die soon, an electric space heater I no longer need, and a pair of wireless earbuds that I had hoped would allow me to charge my iPhone and listen to music at the same time, but that instead just fall out of my ears whenever I put them on. I also bought, on Amazon, a (used) book about hiking in the Sierras for $1.99, only to find the exact same book in a box of my stuff in my parents’ basement. I didn’t return any of it.

In 2017, Americans spent $240 billion--twice as much as they’d spent in 2002--on goods like jewelry, watches, books, luggage, and telephones and related communication equipment, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which adjusted those numbers for inflation. Over that time, the population grew just 13 percent. Spending on personal care products also doubled over that time period. Americans spent, on average, $971.87 on clothes last year, buying nearly 66 garments, according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association. That’s 20 percent more money than they spent in 2000. The average American bought 7.4 pairs of shoes last year, up from 6.6 pairs in 2000.

All told, “we are all accumulating mountains of things,” said Mark A. Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He sometimes asks his students to count the number of things they have on them in class, and once they start counting up gadgets and cords and accessories, they end up near 50. “Americans have become a society of hoarders,” Cohen said. Montoya said she has more stuff now that she has started shopping online: “It’s easier to accumulate more, and it’s easier to spend more.”

At the same time we are amassing all this stuff, Americans are taking up more space. Last year, the average size of a single-family house in America was 2,426 square feet, a 23 percent increase in size from two decades ago, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. The number of self-storage units is rapidly increasing too: There are around 52,000 such facilities nationally; two decades ago, there were half that number.

Of course, not everyone is a part of this hoarding revolution. There are people who can’t or don’t shop online, because they don’t have credit cards or because they are barely making ends meet. Only about 29 percent of households with incomes under $25,000 are members of Amazon Prime, according to Kantar Consulting. Some people are embracing the zero waste movement, or have followed the example of the author Ann Patchett, who published a widely-circulated op-ed in The New York Times about how she resolved to stop shopping for a year. When she ceased buying things like lip gloss and lotion and hair products, she started finding half-used versions of them under the sink, and realized she hadn’t needed new things after all. “The things we buy and buy and buy are like a thick coat of Vaseline smeared on glass,” she wrote. “We can see some shapes out there, light and dark, but in our constant craving for what we may still want, we miss life’s details.”

But most Americans are not curtailing their shopping habits. And as consumers demand cheaper clothing, electronics, and other goods, manufacturers are spending less to make them, which sometimes means they fall apart more quickly. The share of large household appliances that had to be replaced within five years grew to 13 percent in 2013, up from seven percent in 2004. Cheap clothes might lose their shape after a wash or two, or get holes after a few tumbles in the dryer; electronics become obsolete quickly and need to be replaced. While some of this stuff can be recycled or resold, often, it ends up in landfills. In 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, Americans put 16 million tons of textiles in the municipal waste stream, a 68 percent increased from 2000. We tossed 34.5 million tons of plastics, a 35 percent increase from 2000, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency. Over that same time period, the population grew just 14 percent.

“Sometimes, people sit down and cry when they see the amount of garbage we produce in a day,” said Robert Reed, a spokesman for Recology, which handles recycling for West Coast cities like San Francisco. Centered in America’s tech capital, Recology has seen an increase in discarded electronics, including products with lithium batteries, Reed told me. In 2016, a lithium battery fire burnt down a waste management facility in San Mateo.

The 16,000 students who live in dorms at Michigan State University left behind 147,946 pounds of goods like clothing, towels, and appliances when they moved out this year, a 40 percent increase from 2016, according to Kat Cooper, a spokeswoman. The university packs up these goods and donates to them to its surplus store, so that incoming students can buy used, rather than new, stuff. In recent years, dorm cleaners have been finding so many packages of unopened food and toiletries that the university started a program to get students to donate leftover food and toiletries to local organizations like food banks when they move out. This year, it collected 900 pounds of personal care items and 4,000 pounds of nonperishable food items to donate. Pomona College has seen the volume of packages delivered grow by 325 percent in the last 12 years, according to Patricia Vest, a spokeswoman; it, too, asks students to donate unused goods to a resale program. This year, it diverted 42 tons of clothes, furniture, and office supplies.

The Internet has also made it easier to recycle some of the stuff Americans buy and no longer want. Online consignment shops like thredUP and Poshmark help people buy and sell clothes from their closets. Secondhand stores like Goodwill have moved online, too, selling the growing pile of goods they get on the Internet.

But the ability to easily get rid of stuff may be making people feel a little better about buying things they don’t need, and motivating them to buy even more. On a recent weekday, I stopped by the massive warehouse where workers from Goodwill of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin sort donations to Bay Area stores. Some of the stuff that’s been donated has never been used. Near the front of the warehouse stands a rack of clothes with their original tags on--a $245 blue Nicole Miller cocktail dress, $88 Kit and Ace pants, a pale green J. Jill blouse. “We are seeing items that have been barely used or not used, because when people shop online, it’s a lot of work to return it,” William Rogers, the president of the Goodwill, told me. Rogers himself is guilty--when we met at the warehouse, he dropped off four wall sconces he’d bought a year ago on Amazon. He had tried to put them up, decided they didn’t look good, and brought them to donate.

Secondhand shops can’t resell all of the donations they get. Cline estimates that 85 percent of the clothing that is donated to secondhand stores ends up in landfills every year. Just nine percent of plastic that ends up in the municipal waste stream gets recycled, according to the EPA, and only 15 percent of textiles get recycled. It can be difficult to take apart clothes and re-use the fabrics, Cline said, so lots of clothing in the waste stream gets sent to the developing world, used for rags, or sent to a landfill.

Fifty years ago, the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick coined a phrase for these “useless objects” that accumulate in a house: “kipple.” In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for the movie Blade Runner, he theorized that “the entire universe is moving toward a state of total, absolute kippleization.” Kipple reproduced, Dick wrote, when nobody was around. The ubiquity of mobile devices and the ease of online shopping have made Dick’s prediction come true, with one small tweak: Our kipple does not just multiply on its own, every time we turn away. We grow it ourselves, buying more and more of it, because we can.

[fmm85]

announced in February, and leaves the firm with just over 550 employees. “All key operational aspects of the business are preserved to ensure the development and service of key products and solutions,” the company said in its statement. Here’s the story:

You’re reading blockchain Bites, the daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news, and why they’re significant. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’s newsletters here. 

Top Shelf

DeFi Disaster Decentralized finance protocol dForce is insolvent following a late-night weekend exploit. While the perpetrator is unknown, the hack exploited a known vulnerability of the ERC-777 standard. Due to the way dForce lending program Lendf.Me’s smart contract is set up, the hacker was able to continually withdraw funds without the program’s balance updating, eventually scoring 99 percent of the assets – more than $25 million – locked within. The Multicoin Capital-backed dForce had been accused of cribbing code from competing application Compound. 

The hackers allegedly returned $126,014 back to Lendf.Me with a note saying, “Better luck next time,” according to Chain News.

ConsenSys Cuts Ethereum incubator ConsenSys is laying off “just over 90” staffers, or about 14 percent of the firm’s headcount. “The global COVID-19 pandemic has deeply impacted the world’s health and livelihood,” a company spokesperson told CoinDesk. “ConsenSys has carefully analyzed its business in relation to what is occurring globally. Like most of its peers, the company is seeing extraordinary uncertainty in the market, with businesses rebalancing priorities and reevaluating timelines.”

Bitcoin Futures Renaissance Technologies $10 billion Medallion fund is considering jumping into bitcoin futures, recent regulatory filings show. The firm has “permitted” the Medallion fund to enter the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s (CME) cash-settled bitcoin futures market, a financial instrument widely considered to be a proxy for institutional interest in bitcoin.

Hong Kong’s securities regulator has approved the jurisdiction’s first-ever bitcoin index fund designed for institutional investors. Arrano Capital, the blockchain investment arm of asset management firm Venture Smart Asia, hopes to surpass $100 million in total assets under management through a fund tracking bitcoin prices.

Movers & Shakers  Coinbase has hired former Barclays markets veteran, Brett Tejpaul, to head up institutional coverage at the San Francisco-based crypto exchange. Tejpaul spent 17 years at Barclays in various leadership roles including global head of sales, global head of credit and commodities, and Barclays’ first “head of digital” role, which included managing fintech venture investments.  Calibra, a Facebook subsidiary helping to develop the blockchain-based Libra currency, is looking to hire 50 people in Ireland. (The Irish Times)

20K, 2 Days Topaz, the Ethereum 2.0 testnet, has garnered nearly 20,000 validators two days after its April 18 debut. “One of the key goals for Topaz is to test the Phase 0 proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol implementation on Ethereum 2.0, to which the network will eventually transfer from the current computationally-intensive proof-of-work consensus mechanism,” Decrypt’s Liam Frost reports. 

Cash Doings Crypto exchanges like Coinbase and binance.US are reporting a spike in the number of buys and deposits of $1,200, the amount gifted to some U.S. citizens as part of a Federal government’s financial stimulus during the coronavirus-led downturn. “People do seem to have deposited exactly $1,200 into binance.US in the past couple of days,” a binance.US representative said, adding that the transactions coincided with the date the checks were cut. 

Meanwhile, Russians are stocking up on cash. One trillion rubles ($13.6 billion) were issued from ATMs and banks through March – more than for all of 2019, according to a report by BNN Bloomberg.

Airdrop Regulation From Up High Singapore’s tax authority will not take a cut of airdropped cryptocurrency so long as the recipient gets it for free, according to an income tax treatment guide published Friday.

Bitcoin ATMs Some bitcoin ATM operators are reporting an increase in transactions while others are taking advantage of shelter-in-place rulings to expand their networks. The number of bitcoin ATMs in the United States increased 5.6 percent from March to April, as companies like LibertyX and DigitalMint expanded into new markets. And as interest in Bitcoin soars during COVID-19, other crypto ATMs are experiencing their highest ever amount of transaction volumes.

Asian Expansion Institutional custody startup Curv has expanded into Asia with an office in Hong Kong and a partnership with Japan-based Crypto Garage, the companies announced Friday. The startup will help Asian exchanges self-custody various cryptocurrencies with its multi-party computation (MPC) technology. CEO Itay Malinger said Asia has more exchanges per capita than other parts of the world, and are more likely to self-custody.

Olympic Use Case The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said that its digital currency could be used in the 2022 Winter Olympics event. (The Block)

Opinion: Dai Should Consider Negative Interest Rates On March 12, U.S. equity prices plunged 10 percent, bitcoin and ethereum prices plummeted almost 50 percent, and dai – a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar – skyrocketed as high as $1.50. “This shouldn’t have happened,” CoinDesk columnist J.P. Koning writes in his latest op-ed, which raises the question if MakerDAO should have negative interest rates for dai. “It’s role is to mimic the performance of an underlying national currency, in this case the U.S. dollar. But at $1.50, dai was suddenly worth one-and-a-half U.S. dollars. It didn’t look very stable at all.”

CoinDesk Live

CoinDesk Live: Lockdown Edition continues its popular twice-weekly chats with Consensus speakers via Zoom and Twitter. Here you’ll get a preview of what’s to come in Consensus: Distributed, our first fully virtual – and fully free – big-tent conference May 11-15. 

On the show, we’ll chat with developers from the most exciting crypto projects, unpack the basics – and not so basics – of the industry and hear from entrepreneurs disrupting traditional industries. Then we’ll open the floor for you to ask questions directly to our guests.

Register to join our second session Tuesday, April 21, with Foundations speakers Priyanka Desai and Aaron Wright from The Lao to discuss for-profit DAOs.

Market Intel

Easing Volatility Bitcoin market volatility has hit three-month lows, marking a price squeeze that could soon pave the way for a big move on either side. The spread between bitcoin’s Bollinger bands – volatility indicators that often indicate an impending price swing – narrowed to $895 on Monday, the lowest level since Jan. 6. “When it tightens, it is because we have been consistently trading in a narrower range for a prolonged period and we should see a breakout very soon,” said Chris Thomas, head of digital assets at Swissquote.

Testing, Testing Bitcoin appears on track to test the psychological hurdle of $8,000, having found acceptance above a key hurdle last week. The cryptocurrency closed last week above the horizontal 100-week average resistance, which has consistently capped upside the preceding four weeks, part of an ongoing rally from the March low of $3,856. 

Halving Webinar Join CoinDesk’s Noelle Acheson and Christine Kim for a chat about the upcoming bitcoin halving. They’ll talk about their recent report which explains what it is, why it matters and what its impact on the sector and the bitcoin price could be. We attempt to reconcile the various models and theses around the potential bitcoin price reaction as the adjustment approaches, and look at metrics that will shed light on the technological impact.

CoinDesk Podcasts

Chia’s Cohen CoinDesk reporter Leigh Cuen sits down with Bram Cohen, author of the BitTorrent protocol and CEO of Chia. In this wide-ranging interview, they talk about Cohen’s early interest in “hard problems,” his unexpected ascent from sketchy to celebrity and why getting rich is a terrible metric of success.

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Disclosure strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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The post Blockchain Bites: ConsenSys Cuts, dForce Doomsday and Bitcoin ATMs Boom appeared first on Future Money Matters.

[legit-scam-review]

How We Will Remember the Year of the Dog? ICO Market Decline, Trend Toward Compliance and Other Takeaways

Happy Chinese New Year! As the Year of the Yellow Mountain Dog has drawn to a close, it is time to look back at what happened.

While there was a promising start in January 2018, when most altcoins were enjoying their all-time highs, the bear eventually took over, and the market delved into the so-called “Crypto Winter.” Nevertheless, there was good news, too: The United States regulators expressed their desire to stick to “positive regulation,” while big league investors poured some funds into a number of promising, compliant crypto projects (mostly stablecoins).

Here is what was happening month-by-month, along with the main takeaways.

January 2018

Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck was hacked, overtaking the infamous 2014 Mt.Gox collapse — an industry-record-breaking $532 million worth of NEM tokens was stolen this time.

Despite the amount of damage, Coincheck has managed to steadily rebound from the security breach. Soon after the incident, the platform announced plans of working toward refunding all 260,000 victims. Coincheck also closely followed the orders of Financial Services Agency (FSA), the domestic watchdog, and eventually secured a license to operate, becoming a fully compliant agent.

February 2018

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), America’s two main regulators when it comes to crypto, made positive remarks about the industry before the Senate, making wide adoption and constructive regulation more possible for the market.

On Feb. 6, Jay Clayton and Chris Giancarlo, respective heads of both agencies, held a joint meeting, where they argued that “virtual currencies mark a paradigm shift in how we think about payments,” but remained worried about the uncontrolled nature of ICOs. Giancarlo went as far as to explain the term “HODL” to the Senate.

March 2018

Big tech companies proceeded to prohibit crypto-related advertisements on their platforms. While Facebook had already introduced its ban back in January, social media giants Twitter and Google followed suit in March, introducing similar action.

The blanket bans did some damage to the market. Not only did they deprive industry players of promotional tools, but the also contributed to the stigmatization of cryptocurrencies as a whole.

April 2018

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced that the bank will no longer provide services to any person or business that deals with cryptocurrencies in what seemed like a de-facto ban introduced within a major market. Although there were some signs of recovery since then, the harsh, Chinese-like regulation has stayed.

May 2018

In what seemed like an unexpected twist for a blue chip institution, Goldman Sachs executive Rana Yared told The New York Times that Bitcoin “is not a fraud,” and unveiled plans to trade cryptocurrency. That marked an important step on Wall Street’s path to the crypto market.

June 2018

Jay Clayton, the chair of the SEC, confirmed that Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are not securities since they act as a replacement for sovereign currencies. That comment suggested that the agency won’t investigate into the latter’s initial coin offering (ICO) and deem it as unregistered, which would potentially result in large fines and penalties.  

July 2018

July proved to be an important month for regulation in the crypto industry, as two separate U.S. congressional hearings centering the matter were held: One by the House Agriculture Committee, and the other by the House Financial Services Committee.

The meetings struck completely different tones: While the latter echoed some of the most conservative sentiments regarding the realm of crypto — with the obligatory call for a blanket ban — the former appeared more positive, as the board of experts provided the regulators with collected considerations bothering the industry.

August 2018

Crypto market experienced a major plunge, delving into a full-on bear mode, which still stays as of press time. On Aug. 14, ETH alone shedded as much as 20 percent of its value, while BTC lost its $6,500 support.

September 2018

The SEC requested more comments on its decision about the listing and trading of a BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF) created by New York-based firms VanEck and SolidX, which was regarded as one of the top candidates among the community.

Essentially, the regulator showed it wasn’t going to make any decisions on BTC ETFs in 2018, therefore prolonging the hypothetical arrival of Wall Street’s money.

October 2018

Major U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase launched the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) in collaboration with Goldman Sachs-backed startup Circle, making it the first stablecoin for trade on the platform.

Overall, stablecoins attracted a lot of institutional capital throughout 2018 because of their immunity toward volatility, one of conventional institutions’ main fears regarding the crypto market.

November 2018

A Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network update resulted in a complex battle, and its blockchain was split into two as a result, with BCH ABC and BCH SV being located on opposing corners of the ring.

The latter’s proponents, represented by the likes of Roger Ver and Bitmain’s Jihan Wu, stood for the idea that the basic structure of BCH “does not need any radical change.” BCH SV allies, on the other hand, lead by Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, attempted to restore “the original Satoshi protocol.”

The BCH ABC camp eventually secured the original “BCH” ticker on the majority of digital assets platforms, winning the so-called “hash wars.” Nevertheless, Bitcoin SV lived on as well, and is currently the 11th-largest currency as of press time, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

December 2018

Bloomberg reported on Facebook’s potential expansion into the stablecoins market. More specifically, according to the news agency, the social media giant is developing a stablecoin for WhatsApp users. The cryptocurrency will reportedly be used for money transfers made within the messaging app and will focus on the Indian market.

The move seems somewhat controversial for Facebook, given that the platform has banned cryptocurrency-related ads across its network and then partly backpedaled on it in the past. Nevertheless, if Facebook confirms the news, the crypto market is expected to gain a lot of relevance for the mainstream financial world.

January 2019

The start of 2019 was not optimistic, as the crypto winter continues. On Jan. 28, Bitcoin lost its $3,500 support and stayed mostly below that line for the next week. However, around Feb. 9, it climbed up above the $3,600 mark, while the rest of the market also turned green, showing strong signs of reversal.

Now let’s take a look at the main things that happened in separate parts of the market — from ICOs to mining.

ICO market might have died — or at least went into a coma

The ICO market, which was famously booming throughout 2017, took a serious hit.

Even though ICOs raised the record amount in 2018 — $8.27 billion, which is twice as much as in the previous year — the number of coin offerings has been falling since Q1. Moreover, the majority of gathered funds were secured by just two projects: blockchain protocol EOS ($4.2 billion) and messaging app Telegram ($1.7 billion).

There might be a number reasons for the decline. First, the regulators stepped in and questioned the legitimacy of ICOs as a fundraising model. As a result, there has been a “cascade of uncertainty,” associated with the ICO token classification. According to a December statement from the SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, ICOs are currently operating in a way that grants significantly less investor protection compared to more traditional markets.

Indeed, according to a joint investigation published by Yahoo Finance and Decrypt Media in October 2018, the SEC had expanded its crackdown on ICOs, putting “hundreds” of projects at risk. The watchog reportedly found that a great deal of startups had violated securities laws during the fundraising stage, and pressured them to “quietly agree” to refund investors’ money and pay fines.

Also, ICOs have been somewhat stigmatized by the big tech companies, which chose to ban ICO-related ads on their platforms this year. Facebook was first, having prohibited coin offering ads back in January. Later, social media giants Twitter and Google followed suit.

Moreover, ICOs seem to be heavily cashing out as the year comes to a close. As per data from software development firm Santiment, ICO startups had been transacting ETH at breakneck speed, with over 400,000 ETH moving out of wallets during late November to early December.

In a December interview with Bloomberg, Michael Novogratz declared that “the ICO market is pretty much dead right now.” He added, however, that “the SEC doesn’t want to kill this innovation” and that he expects a market for regulated security tokens in the U.S.

He explained that security tokens “aren’t things that go from $1 to $1,000” but are instead “things that yield 14 percent” that will be sold to qualified buyers. “That sounds a heck of a lot less sexy, but you’re going to see that business grow,” he concluded. Indeed, more regulation-oriented fundraising models, like initial public offerings (IPOs), might be next to carry the torch.

Mining became a big boy’s business

In December, AMD’s popular Radeon RX580 graphics processing unit (GPU), which has been widely used by crypto miners, was reported as being sold for $179.99. In comparison, the same GPU unit cost $550 in February, meaning that it has seen a 67 percent price drop throughout the bearish year. Similarly, Nvidia experienced a massive sell-off of its shares in Q4 2018, cutting the stock price by 54 percent due to the drastic decrease in crypto mining’s profitability.

Indeed, as Cointelegraph previously reported, the year-long bear market has had a significant effect on the crypto mining industry, with dramatic drops in revenue forcing many miners to quit the industry and sell off their equipment. Some miners have even started selling mining devices by the kilogram in an effort to recoup losses as their rigs reach “shutdown prices.”

Mining industry professionals switched over from GPU to custom ASICs (as per December, just two mining rigs remain profitable), and large mining pools akin to the Chinese outfit Bitmain and European mining firm Bitfury have taken over smaller-scale miners. Both of the mining companies are now looking to go public and hence further cement their position within the industry.

Compliance became cool

During the Year of the Dog, the market started its steady shift from the unregulated, Wild West-like era to a regulated ecosystem recognized by large financial institutions.

While most countries are still struggling to roll out definite regulatory frameworks or concrete central bank digital currency (CBDC) projects, the SEC and CFTC came in with an iron fist and started to prosecute bad actors.

Having recognized that the rules have changed, new projects on the crypto market are being designed to comply with the law from the very start. Thus, some of most anticipated announcements in the industry include approval of ETFs, which could push crypto toward broader recognition on Wall Street and arrival of Intercontinental Exchange’s (ICE) virtual currency platform Bakkt.

Similarly, stablecoins, which tackle volatility — one of the cryptocurrencies’ chief dilemmas — without compromising their core values ensured by blockchain, seem to attract a significant portion of investment from big league players such as IBM, Andreessen Horowitz and Peter Thiel. Even Facebook is rumored to be developing its own stablecoin at this point.

“Blockchain over Bitcoin” became the traditional market’s favorite view toward crypto

As the compliance trend is steadily squeezing out the concept of anonymity, with its Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements, the tech has begun to outshine the underlying cryptocurrency. Consequently, “Blockchain before Bitcoin” has become the go-to policy for countries like China and South Korea, which have either applied strict regulations on crypto trading or banned it altogether, but attempted to create blockchain-friendly infrastructure for fintech startups.

Similarly, financial institutions and large corporations have also been hopping on the blockchain wagon for the past year, with primary examples being Amazon and Facebook, which focused on their blockchain arms this year, as well as Santander, a Spain-based bank that experimented with its blockchain-powered payment network for cross-border payments.

However, as the word “blockchain” itself became overhyped, according to a November report published by Forrester Research, some companies are, in fact, ceasing their use of the term “blockchain” in favor of “distributed ledger technology” (DLT). The study also suggested that many firms are overhyping the usefulness of blockchains or using the name of the technology to repackage existing services, a practice the paper describes as “blockchain washing.”

Further, the report made some predictions regarding blockchain, suggesting a slowdown in the its adoption or a so-called “blockchain winter,” noting that while the technology is making headway, it is still a “cautious progress”:

“On the tools and services side, we’ll witness steady but cautious progress. ‘Cautious’ because DLT hasn’t proven to be a significant, reliable revenue stream for software and service providers, and 2019 won’t be any different.”

Power struggles within the market: XRP vs. ETH, BCH vs. itself, EOS vs. the people

While Bitcoin (BTC) is still king when it comes to market dominance, other cryptocurrencies have been fighting for their spots in the top 10. Most noticeably, Ripple (XRP) has managed to knock Ethereum (ETH) out of its second place during the bear market, while Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has split into two assets, both of which are currently featured in the top 10 as well.

In regard to newcomers, the most noticeable player is EOS, which finished its historically expensive ICO and launched its mainnet in June 2018, swiftly building up its market cap and eventually entering the top 5. However, the relatively new project still has to live up to its hype — EOS has been numerously criticized by decentralization pundits.

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[newstfionline]

Still Waiting for FEMA in Texas and Florida After Hurricanes

By Manny Fernandez, Lizette Alvarez and Ron Nixon, NY Times, Oct. 22, 2017

HOUSTON--Outside Rachel Roberts’s house, a skeleton sits on a chair next to the driveway, a skeleton child on its lap, an empty cup in its hand and a sign at its feet that reads “Waiting on FEMA.”

It is a Halloween reminder that, for many, getting help to recover from Hurricane Harvey remains a long, uncertain journey.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Ms. Roberts, 44, who put together the display after waiting three weeks for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to send someone to look at her flood-damaged home in southwest Houston. “I think it’s beautiful how much we’ve all come together, and that’s wonderful, but I think there’s a lot of mess-ups, too.”

Outside the White House this month, President Trump boasted about the federal relief efforts. “In Texas and in Florida, we get an A-plus,” he said. FEMA officials say that they are successfully dealing with enormous challenges posed by an onslaught of closely spaced disasters, unlike anything the agency has seen in years. But on the ground, flooded residents and local officials have a far more critical view.

According to interviews with dozens of storm victims, one of the busiest hurricane seasons in years has overwhelmed federal disaster officials. As a result, the government’s response in the two biggest affected states--Texas and Florida--has been scattershot: effective in dealing with immediate needs, but unreliable and at times inadequate in handling the aftermath, as thousands of people face unusually long delays in getting basic disaster assistance.

FEMA has taken weeks to inspect damaged homes and apartments, delaying flood victims’ attempts to rebuild their lives and properties. People who call the agency’s help line at 1-800-621-FEMA have waited on hold for two, three or four hours before they even speak to a FEMA representative.

Nearly two months after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas on Aug. 25, and six weeks after Hurricane Irma hit Florida on Sept. 10, residents are still waiting for FEMA payments, still fuming after the agency denied their applications for assistance and still trying to resolve glitches and disputes that have slowed and complicated their ability to receive federal aid.

Brian and Monica Smith, whose home in the northern Houston suburb of Kingwood had two feet of water inside after Harvey, said they had received more help from their church, their neighbors and their relatives than from FEMA. A $500 payment from FEMA to help them with their immediate needs was delayed by three weeks. And they waited 34 days for the agency to inspect the damage to their home, pushing back repairs.

“You feel abandoned,” Mr. Smith, 42, said. “You feel like it came and went, and everybody’s focused on the storm in Florida and now in Puerto Rico.”

Ron and Rita Perreault, a retired couple whose South Florida mobile home was damaged by the flooded Imperial River, call FEMA twice a day to check on the status of their application and inspection. Mrs. Perreault said she had spent so many hours on the phone on hold that she learned, as other callers have, to put the phone on speaker and go about her day.

“I thought I was going to get brain cancer,” Mrs. Perreault said. “They give you the runaround.”

Inspection Backlog: One of the most significant problems FEMA has had in Texas and Florida is the backlog in getting damaged properties inspected. Contract inspectors paid by the agency must first inspect and verify the damage in order for residents to be approved for thousands of dollars in aid. FEMA does not have enough inspectors to reduce the backlog, and the average wait for an inspection is 45 days in Texas and about a month in Florida, agency officials said.

The officials, including Brock Long, the FEMA administrator, acknowledged the long waits for both inspections and phone assistance. They said they were in the process of hiring hundreds of people in the next few weeks, including additional contract inspectors. They attribute the delays to “staffing challenges” after three major hurricanes in quick succession struck the Gulf Coast and the Southeast, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, as well as the devastating wildfires in California.

The wait times for the help line and inspections far exceed those during past disasters.

People who called FEMA in the immediate aftermath of Katrina waited an average of 10 minutes before speaking with a representative, and weeks later that wait dropped to five minutes, according to a 2006 report by the inspector general’s office for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA. In addition, the report stated, the agency has historically tried to complete the entire inspection-and-approval process within 10 days after an application is filed. After Hurricane Rita in 2005, many home inspections were completed less than two weeks after homeowners applied.

But given the extraordinary impact of three major storms, many experts say FEMA’s relief efforts deserve high marks.

Strides Since Katrina: In 2005, FEMA became the face of the bungled federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and the agency’s poor handling of the disaster in New Orleans led to the resignation of Michael D. Brown, the director at the time. FEMA has since improved its image, and former federal officials praised its response in recent weeks to a staggering string of hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters. Over all, about 8,200 people in FEMA’s nearly 10,000-person work force are deployed in the field, responding to more than 20 natural disasters around the country.

“The whole response-and-recovery industry is maxed out,” said Michael Coen, the former chief of staff at FEMA in the Obama administration.

The Trump administration has been publicly criticized for its response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. While the problems there with power, gas and water are far worse than those in the continental United States, FEMA’s response to Harvey and Irma has also quietly frustrated flood victims on the mainland, from low-income neighborhoods to trailer parks to wooded suburban enclaves. Some have turned to their elected officials to complain and ask for help navigating the multiagency disaster bureaucracy, including FEMA’s federal insurance arm, which manages the National Flood Insurance Program.

In Kingwood, Tom and Lisa Slagle asked Senator Ted Cruz’s office for help after a $25,000 flood-insurance payment they were counting on was delayed for more than a month. “This has been more a disaster, trying to deal with insurance, than it was when our house flooded,” said Ms. Slagle, 49, a retired Houston firefighter.

In South Florida, officials in Collier County, which includes Naples, are waiting for FEMA R.V.’s known as travel trailers, which flooded residents can use as temporary housing. Only 15 of the trailers have been approved by FEMA statewide since Wednesday. “It’s a process, a long, arduous process,” said William L. McDaniel Jr., a Collier County commissioner. “But it can’t come quick enough.”

In East Texas, a FEMA mobile disaster center was scheduled to assist flooded residents one day last month in a courthouse parking lot in the town of Orange. “FEMA didn’t show up that day,” said Stephen Brint Carlton, a Republican who is the county judge and the top elected official in Orange County. “They don’t show up and we have a bunch of elderly people sitting out in a parking lot, and no one’s there to help them.”

Harvey sent about two feet of water into Jesse Altamirano’s home in northeast Houston near Greens Bayou. On a recent afternoon, as a contractor repaired the walls, he pulled out his phone and scrolled through his call history. One call Mr. Altamirano made to FEMA, on Oct. 6 at 10:27 a.m., lasted 4 hours 54 minutes 20 seconds. For all but about 10 minutes of that time, he said, he was on hold, trying to get the agency to extend his hotel stay. But a FEMA representative eventually told him it was too early to complete his extension. He was told to call back in two days.

Asked how much time he has spent on hold with FEMA since Harvey wrecked his home, Mr. Altamirano replied: “I’ve called them probably like eight, nine times. I’m thinking a good 16 hours maybe.”

Residents Still Uprooted: In some ways, hard-hit areas in Texas and Florida have made progress since Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. In Texas alone, nearly 7.5 million cubic yards of debris has been collected and more than 120,000 people have visited FEMA’s disaster recovery centers. The agency has supplied money, housing and other resources to residents as well as local governments. In Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands, FEMA has provided about $2 billion in individual assistance to residents.

Yet in other ways, the rebuilding seems to have only just started. Three shelters remain open in Texas, and Florida closed its last one on Saturday. As part of a FEMA program, 61,135 people in Texas are staying in hotels. Some residents are living in their moldy, half-repaired or even condemned homes and apartments. Other residents remain uprooted. Shirlene Hryhorchuk, a high school teacher in the East Texas town of Deweyville, sleeps several nights each week on a cot in her home-economics classroom while her house undergoes repairs.

In Houston, Tim Wainright, 47, filed with FEMA on Aug. 28 after floodwaters damaged two bedrooms, but more than 50 days later, he and his wife are still waiting for an inspection.

“My hope is that they’re busy with people that really, really need their assistance,” Mr. Wainright said. “By now our walls are painted. All our drywall is back in place. If they came by, they wouldn’t have anything to inspect.”

Some residents are angry after being turned down by FEMA for assistance, often for reasons that they dispute. Of the 2.9 million applications for individual assistance the agency has received after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, FEMA has denied 23 percent of them--678,160--with the majority of those denials in Florida, where 432,000 applications out of 1.8 million have been rejected after Irma.

FEMA officials say the number of denials in Florida is high because the agency determined that many homes were not significantly damaged by the storm.

Jason Brunemann’s application for FEMA assistance was rejected because the agency concluded that he had adequate insurance. But his homeowners’ insurance does not cover flood damage, Mr. Brunemann said, and his flood-insurance claim remains in limbo. The rebuilding of his small house on the banks of the Imperial River in Bonita Springs has stalled, and he is recovering from a pre-Irma motorcycle accident in which he broke his hand and a bone in his neck. He plans to appeal his denial.

“A lot of people are appealing, but I don’t think I’ll get anything at all,” said Mr. Brunemann, 35, an air-conditioning installer who has been living in his truck and his gutted house. “I’m not optimistic.”