Bitcoin burns so much energy because it’s developers are stubborn. It’s really that simple. Ethereum transitioned to a different algorithm that uses a fraction of that energy and only a few dorks care.

He managed to keep it up until all of a sudden he couldn’t. Madoff was undone when he had to produce 440 million that he didn’t have.

Meanwhile, Tether was able to meet billions on withdrawals, several times. After Terra collapsed, I seem to recall they saw $15B in redemptions, but I can’t find any reputable links on that. If Tether was a scam, shouldn’t it have failed a long time ago?

People outside of crypto don’t realize how massive Tether is, and how much money it has under management. As much as the crypto bros dislike Central Banks, Tether has turned into one. If Tether were to ever implode, it would take most Crypto businesses with it.

I didn’t have any problem on my Android phone

Tether is an interesting experiment here. They are traded as smart contract tokens on top of various blockchains. They don’t really have any intrinsic value, other than Tether LTD saying “every Tether is 100% backed by currency reserves”, and releasing unsatisfactory “audits” now and then. It’s main utility is that it provides foreign exchanges with a way to trade in something that is like Dollars without opening them up to the regulation that comes with trading actual dollars. It’s market cap is currently in excess of $180 B.

But, USDT has been around, in one form or another, since 2015. And while other “innovative” crypto products have crashed and burned, Tether has been able to keep its peg and has never failed to meet redemptions. Furthermore, it doesn’t need to be a scam. It’s whole point is to always be worth one currency unit, so all they have to do is invest that currency in safe conventional investments and they can literally make billions of dollars with very little overhead. The most obvious answer is that they are not a scam.

I still don’t really trust them, but I have used them on exchanges, always making sure to trade through Tether to something I can redeem on a US exchange for actual dollars. But, I have to acknowledge they have lasted longer than most crypto entities. I wish they would get a complete audit together, but at some point their reputation for having lasted so long needs to be worth something?

You’re not wrong, but why is not having the backing of a government a bad thing?

I found crypto earlier than some. (not everyone – if I had more I wouldnt have to work anymore, haha!)

IMHO, the main value proposition of crypto is permissionless peer-to-peer payments. If we both have crypto wallets, and you send me an address to make a payment to, I can send that without needing anyone’s approval first. I don’t need any bank to agree to have me as a customer first, or any government to approve why the transaction is taking place. All I need is a functioning payment network, and the original Bitcoin white paper solved how to provide that and preserve anonymity. (Really Pseudo-anonymity, but only the nerds care about the difference)

As an academic experiment regarding permissionless payments, it is a resounding success. But, it turns out, Governments have laws regarding who can pay who, and about scamming people, regardless of the medium. So, just because Bitcoin enables permissionless payments doesn’t mean you can pay whomever you want, or makes scams somehow permissible.

Furthermore, the rapid increase in crypto prices really doomed any chance at all for useful adoption. Because people don’t want to spend crypto anymore. They view it as a Store of Value, and who can blame them, given how it has risen from nothing to a > $2T market cap, even after the recent downturn? You used to be able to use crypto in regular transactions, but not anymore.

During the private conference call with House Republicans, Johnson’s own members criticized the speaker’s plan, according to the source on the line who was granted anonymity to share the private discussions.

That’s a real Profile in Courage right there.

“We’re doing the wrong thing, but I will go along with it because I’m afraid to speak out publicly. I mean, you’ve seen the crazies who vote for me, right? One of them might pop me…”

Stephen Miller, who yelled at Lyons during morning phone calls with administration officials

No, you have it all wrong, it’s that two have the wrong color. Get out of here with those extra letters, you Euro weenie!

Normally, I am all for Techdirt’s takes. But I think this one is off the mark a bit, because I legitimately think that infinite scroll and auto play are insidious, and actually harmful enough to be treated as a dangerous design decision.

The whole point of Section 230 is that communications companies can’t be held responsible for harmful things that people transmit on their networks, because it’s the people transmitting those harmful things that are actually at fault. And that would be reasonable in the initial stages of the Internet, when people posted on bulletin boards (or even early social media) and the harmful content had a much smaller reach. People had to “opt in”, essentially, to be exposed to this content, and if they stumble on something they find objectionable they can easily change their focus

But the purpose of the infinite scroll and auto play is to get people hooked on content. The algorithms exist to maximize engagement, regardless of the value of that engagement. I think the comparison to cigarettes is particularly apt. They are looking to hook people into actively harmful behaviors, for profit. And the algorithms don’t really differentiate between good engagement and harmful engagement. Anything that attracts the users attention is fair game.

The author’s points regarding how these rulings can be abused are correct, but that doesn’t negate how fundamentally harmful these addictive practices are. It will be up to lawmakers to make sure that the laws are drafted in such a way that they can be applied equitably… (So maybe we’re screwed after all…)

16, and that’s just the things I’ve said this week

That joke is a gas.

It doesn’t matter. He has all the approval he needs to stay in power until Jan 2029, and if he sticks around later he won’t need anyone’s approval to do it.

But to make sure all the notes are at the right pitch, you need a tuna fish.

And it would be exceedingly strange if the justices take this claim seriously. The Constitution’s language is clear. The issue was settled in Wong Kim Ark. And Trump’s lawyers want to implement a 145-year-old idea that was deemed unworkable even by one of its preeminent original champions.

What the author fails to take into account is that this Court is bought and paid for. Once the justices rule in favor of their benefactors, they will be awash in gratuities…

But not before! That would be a bribe, and the Court is above bribery! They do have morals, after all.

I zoomed in a bit for you…